What The Hell Is "Doublehit"? - A Hybrid Assault Guide

[Hopeling]

What The Hell Is "Doublehit"? - A Hybrid Assault Guide

 

This guide sets out to answer two questions:

1. What does Doublehit actually do?
2. Should I take Assault Core or Assault Radial?

 

This is a guide that I was planning to write back when i24 and the Hybrid slot were still on the test server in 2012. I shelved the project after the shutdown announcement, but recently dug out my old notes and decided to finish it.

 

There is a lot of incorrect information out there about Hybrid Assault Radial and its Doublehit mechanic. I've seen people say that it deals a percentage of the power's damage, that it deals the power's base damage, that it's affected by slotting, and general confusion over what it does. None of these are correct. It's a strange power which works in a strange way. But based on my old notes, and some testing both then and now, I have a fairly complete picture of what it actually does.

 

1. What Does Doublehit Actually Do?

 

The t4 version of Doublehit, from Radial Assault Embodiment, is a 6 PPM proc on all your attacks. Its damage depends on the power being used. Specifically it depends on two things about the power:

• its base recharge, that is, the recharge before any slotting or buffs. For toggles, I believe the tick frequency should instead be used, which is 2 seconds for most damage auras, but I have not tested this directly.
• its areafactor, which is given by a fancy formula: ((1+(Radius*0.15))-(((Radius/6)*0.011)/5)*(360-Arc)). For single-target powers, this simplifies to 1. For spherical AoEs, it simplifies to (1+(Radius*0.15)).

 

Once you know these two things, here's how you calculate how much damage a doublehit proc will do:

Doublehit Damage = 0.4×0.2×[0.8×(Recharge)+1.8]×107.09/Areafactor

If the power's recharge time is less than 1 second or more than 30 seconds, it gets "clamped" to those values.

 

Where Did That Come From? Are You Making This Up?

 

Nope, that's the real formula. But it's not pulled from thin air: if you hop over to the Design Formulas thread, you'll recognize this as the damage formula, with a base damage of 107.09 damage plugged in, and then a coefficient of 0.4 applied.

 

Since the usual base damage in that formula is (55.61×AT damage scale) instead of 107.09, what Doublehit does when it procs is it deals 77% of what the power's base damage would be, if that power followed the damage formula, and if your archetype had a damage scale of 1.00.

 

What are these "ifs" about? Well, there's two things going on:

• Every AT has a damage scale. You can view them raw here, but most people are more used to the user-friendly interpretation on ParagonWiki. Your AT damage scale determines how much damage your powers do: a Blaster's ranged scale of 1.125 is 50% higher than a Corruptor's ranged scale of 0.75, so Blasters will do 50% more base damage with ranged powers. But Doublehit doesn't care what your AT is. We'll see later that this has implications for Core vs Radial comparisons.
• The damage formula is a guideline for designing powers, but not all powers follow it. For example, Foot Stomp has a 20s base recharge and a 15-foot radius, so according to the damage formula, its base damage for a level 50 Tanker "should" be 0.2×(0.8×20+1.8)×44.488/(1+.15×15) = 48.73 damage. But a quick peek into Pine's will show you that it actually deals 63.17 damage base. Foot Stomp breaks the damage formula, so Doublehit will deal less than 77% of Foot Stomp's base damage, because Foot Stomp's damage is higher than it "should" be.

 

What About Other Tiers of Assault?

 

Man, I have no idea.

 

Ostensibly, lower tiers should have a lower PPM and a reduced coefficient (instead of the 0.4 used above). But I could not tell you what they are. The numbers in my old notes came from a dev post in the old forums. I have no idea which thread it was, and looking for things on the old forums is a pain. If someone wants to do it, or do some in-game testing, I'll be happy to update the guide.

 

2. Should I Take Assault Core or Assault Radial?

 

Now, to answer the question most people are actually interested in: which is better? Unfortunately, the answer is "it's complicated".

 

To compare the two, you have to also know what Core does. The t4 Core Assault Embodiment power gives each of your hits a 65% chance to give you a +15% damage buff, lasting 10 seconds, and stacking up to 5 times. A 10s duration means that to stay at 5 stacks, you'd have to get a stack every 2 seconds. Attacking every 2 seconds is feasible, but there's only a 65% chance on hit to get a stack. This means that, unless you have very fast attacks, you won't be hitting 5 stacks very often on a single target. But AoE powers get a chance to proc on each separate hit, so getting 5 stacks is very feasible when there's more than one enemy around - ie, most of the game.

 

If you have 5 stacks of Core, that's +75% damage. That is, Core adds 75% of the power's base damage, and it does that to every hit. Radial adds 77% of what "should" be the power's base damage, ignoring AT modifiers. But it's a proc; it doesn't go off on every hit. The math for comparing these is tedious, because you have to use the above formula AND do PPM calculations, so I made a spreadsheet. Feel free to download a copy and enter the info for the powers you use. By default I've put the "Stacks of Core Buff" setting at 4 stacks; play with that to see how it performs in ideal or not-ideal situations.

 

Some Cliffs notes that may help you decide, if you don't want to crunch a ton of numbers:

• Doublehit ignores AT modifiers, but Core does not. If your AT has a damage scale below 1.000, lean towards Radial. If it's above 1.000, lean towards Core. If you have a lot of pets (whose attacks usually have low base damage, relative to player attacks), again lean towards Radial.
• Core is generally a better choice for AoE damage. Core is at its strongest in AoE situations since it can build stacks easily. Meanwhile, Doublehit double-dips on recharge and areafactor: a power with longer recharge has a higher proc chance AND deals more damage when it does proc; a power with a larger area has a lower proc chance AND deals less damage when it does proc.
• Core is generally a better choice if most of your attacks have short recharge times, by the same reasoning.
• Doublehit is not subject to the damage cap, because it's not a damage buff, it's a proc. If you're often at the damage cap, Core does nothing for you, so go Radial.
• Radial works at full strength whenever it's toggled on, while Core needs to build stacks. If you spend a lot of time throwing support powers, buffing your pets, etc, then you won't be building stacks very effectively, so go Radial instead.

 

Hopefully this guide left you less confused than you were before reading it, but if not, please feel free to ask questions. Either power is quite strong overall, so if you're getting anxiety over this much math, don't stress a great deal about picking the "right" one.

 

Changelog

• 08/04/19: Fiddled with some phrasing. Fixed proc chance calculations. Update info about Core stacks from AoE powers.
• 06/30/22: New link due to a Google security update; the spreadsheet should be accessible again.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Hopeling

[Bopper]

Great work and fantastic information. Is it possible they implemented the 0.75 dampening effect on the Area Factor mod (like with IO procs), or did they definitely keep the original Area Factor formula?

[Maxzero]

What would you recommend for MMs or pseudo pet users with rapid firing attacks?

 

If the Doublehit works as other PPM mechanics it would basically be a 6 PPM damage proc in each individual pet's attack.

Edited August 3, 2019 by Maxzero

[EggKookoo]

I'm just giggling because my brain auto-corrects doublehit to "doubleshit." And I'm like, yeah, you know, some days...

[Sunsette]

First of all: Really nice job, thanks.

 

Question: Does doublehit benefit from global damage buffs such as from IOs, insps, or other players?

[Hopeling]

5 hours ago, Bopper said:

Great work and fantastic information. Is it possible they implemented the 0.75 dampening effect on the Area Factor mod (like with IO procs), or did they definitely keep the original Area Factor formula?

They kept the original formula. I tested this with a couple AoE powers before posting; the original formula gives precisely the in-game damage values. Of course, the damping factor is applied for the proc rate, since that's a PPM effect like any other.

 

Fun fact, though: during i24 beta, the areafactor in the formula I gave was incorrectly cast to an integer data type, so if it was supposed to be 3.25, damage was calculated using an areafactor of 3. This was deeply confusing to playtest: I had the formula from a dev post, and it was right for ST attacks, but wrong for AoEs by a seemingly random amount.

 

I eventually figured out the issue and told Synapse, and it was fixed in a later build. Didn't get Bug Hunter though. Alas.

4 hours ago, Maxzero said:

What would you recommend for MMs or pseudo pet users with rapid firing attacks?

I'm not sure. I would guess Radial wins out because pets are probably bad at building stacks and some have low base damage?

10 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

Question: Does doublehit benefit from global damage buffs such as from IOs, insps, or other players?

It does not. Think of it like an IO proc

[Zumberge]

If I'm reading this correctly, Assault Core's stacking damage buff is best on ATs with higher damage scales, sets with fast attacks, or both.  Assault Radial, meanwhile, is of greater benefit to ATs with lower damage scales, sets with slow attacks, or both.  So e.g., a Claws Scrapper would want Assault Core, and a Titan Weapons Brute would want Assault Radial.  That it, more or less?

[Hopeling]

More or less, but with the additional wrinkle that Core favors AoE. That TW brute might still want Core for farming; doublehit has only a 30%ish proc chance in a slotted Whirling Smash.

[Bopper]

3 hours ago, Hopeling said:

They kept the original formula. I tested this with a couple AoE powers before posting; the original formula gives precisely the in-game damage values. Of course, the damping factor is applied for the proc rate, since that's a PPM effect like any other.

If I am reading this right, are you saying the proc damage uses the original/actual AreaFactor formula (which you provided here as "((1+(Radius*0.15))-(((Radius/6)*0.011)/5)*(360-Arc))"), but the proc probability uses the dampening factor (New AF = 0.25 + 0.75 x Original AF)?

 

If so, I'm not sure your spreadsheet is doing this in its calculations. It seems to only use the original AF for proc probability.

[Bopper]

Again, great info. I think folks who use ST hold attacks will definitely enjoy the added benefits. For instance, Suppressive Fire in Dual Pistols does almost no base damage (1.086 for defenders), but we slot it with 5 damage procs (4 holds, 1 slow) to make it do some big damage (an extra 354.69 damage on average, if you maintain 0.90 proc probability, so less than 46% recharge). The Assault Radial will now add an additional 137.247 damage. Not bad, 491.9 expected damage from procs for a power that has a 20 second base cooldown and 1.848s arcana time. Of course this will also apply to Dominate, Char, Freeze Ray, and plenty of other attacks.

[Obitus]

14 hours ago, Hopeling said:

Radial works at full strength whenever it's toggled on, while Core needs to build stacks. In fact, unless you have very fast attacks, you probably won't be able to reliably stay at 5 stacks even when you're in the thick of a fight. For this reason, you should play with the 'Stacks of Core Buff' entry to see how the two compare under different conditions; by default I've put it at 4 stacks. 

Yeah, this is the thing that jumped out at me.  If you attack once every 2 seconds, then we can expect an average of 3.25 stacks of the Core buff.  2 seconds per attack is a pretty liberal estimate too, given that even extraordinarily fast attackers will spend a significant portion of their time repositioning and/or casting non-attack powers (buffs, etc).

 

Of course there are a couple of heavy caveats.  The first is that I don't know how Core Assault interacts with AoEs.  If it's possible to proc the buff multiple times in a single AoE cast, then nevermind; five stacks might be consistently achievable.  I suppose it's also possible that all stacks refresh on reapplication, though I doubt it.

 

Great thread.

Edited August 3, 2019 by Obitus

[Bopper]

6 minutes ago, Obitus said:

The first is that I don't know how Core Assault interacts with AoEs.

Great point. I need to go back and check, but I thought whenever I used my Hail of Bullets, my stacks hit the max... but I don't know if that's for the multiple targets hit, the damage over time (12 hits per attack), or if I'm misremembering everything all together.

[Errants]

Where were you a month ago with this? I'm dreadfully afraid my Spines/Ice went the wrong path (Radial) when I should have gone Core....

[Sunsette]

1 minute ago, Eran Rist said:

Where were you a month ago with this? I'm dreadfully afraid my Spines/Ice went the wrong path (Radial) when I should have gone Core....

Remember that if you do any significant grouping at all, it's very possible you're regularly at damage cap without this, at which point the benefits of Core can become more questionable. This is one of the reasons Radial was regularly recommended up 'til now.

[Errants]

13 hours ago, Hopeling said:

More or less, but with the additional wrinkle that Core favors AoE. That TW brute might still want Core for farming; doublehit has only a 30%ish proc chance in a slotted Whirling Smash.

How should we be inputting the Recharge/Activation for Damage Auras?

 

Did my own little rundown for my Spines/Ice, if I did it correctly... I really need to grab Core.

[Hopeling]

12 hours ago, Bopper said:

If so, I'm not sure your spreadsheet is doing this in its calculations. It seems to only use the original AF for proc probability.

You're right, I forgot to update the areafactor calculation in the proc chance formula. I originally made this spreadsheet when the PPM changes were a hypothetical, haha. It should be fixed now.

9 hours ago, Obitus said:

If it's possible to proc the buff multiple times in a single AoE cast, then nevermind; five stacks might be consistently achievable.

I had assumed it was one proc chance per activation, but someone on Reddit tells me that they're getting multiple procs per power from area attacks. Assuming that's correct - my testing focused on Doublehit, and I can't log in right now to confirm - then yes, 5 stacks is extremely achievable in AoE situations. This really cements Core as the better option for AoE performance.

5 hours ago, Sunsette said:

Remember that if you do any significant grouping at all, it's very possible you're regularly at damage cap without this, at which point the benefits of Core can become more questionable. This is one of the reasons Radial was regularly recommended up 'til now.

Yes, while the quantitative performance can be hard to compare, Radial has a clear edge on the qualitative side. If you're at all on the fence between Core and Radial, go Radial because it stacks with everything and works at full strength in every situation.

6 minutes ago, Eran Rist said:

How should we be inputting the Recharge/Activation for Damage Auras?

 

Did my own little rundown for my Spines/Ice, if I did it correctly... I really need to grab Core.

I believe they are calculated using activation time of 0 and recharge time of the aura's tick frequency; I haven't tested this directly though. For damage auras, the tick frequency is 2 seconds.

[Errants]

12 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

I believe they are calculated using activation time of 0 and recharge time of the aura's tick frequency; I haven't tested this directly though. For damage auras, the tick frequency is 2 seconds.

So, set Recharge = 2, Recharge % = 0 (fixed tic interval), and Activation = 0?

[Hopeling]

Yes, exactly.

[Errants]

8 hours ago, Hopeling said:

Yes, exactly.

Whelp, fuck.

 

Time to climb Assault again.

[Ljhalfbreed]

Heya, I'm the dude from Reddit.

 

 

So I did some tests with my Rad/Fire brute, and to be honest, i have no clue what's going on here, other than it's extremely easy to stack and then keep up 5 stacks of Assault Core Embodiment.

 

Most AoEs (except for Irradiated Ground) seem to proc according to targets hit, not attacks landed. Which is pretty damn huge to begin with. But then as I continued testing, more weirdness arose.

 

 

 

Specifically, check out about 2:30 for electric fences, and about 3:30 for ball lightning. 30 seconds before decay? That's crazy. So is it secretly stacking time, but not damage buffs? Some weird interaction somewhere with other procs or something?

 

Let me know if you want me to do other testing, or if you want to see it first hand. I'm on Torchbearer.

[Devolus]

How does this work for powers like Ice Storm / Blizzard. Do I put the base damage as the damage each tick does, or the total for the duration of the power?

[Unknown Magi]

THIS JUST IN!!!!!

 

If you summon pets while Assault Radial Embodiment is running, they inherit the doublehit chance for the remainder of the duration.  This includes Mastermind pets.  

 

Go.  Hunt.  Kill skulls.

 

Edit:  And Gang War.  And the overall numbers seem to double DPS (or possibly more) for T1 and T2 MM pets, based on initial numbers, although numbers are hard since HeroStats isn't registering Doublehit.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Unknown Magi

[Bopper]

3 hours ago, Unknown Magi said:

If you summon pets while Assault Radial Embodiment is running, they inherit the doublehit chance for the remainder of the duration.  This includes Mastermind pets. 

Do they inherit the Assault Radial for the remainder of the Hybrid's duration (up to 2 minutes) or for the duration of the pets?

[Unknown Magi]

What I have observed to far is this:

 

1. Activate Assault Hybrid Embodiment.

2. Summon pets.

3. Pets have Doublehit chance for remainder of two minutes.

4. When my toggle falls off their doublehit seems to go away as well, but 

4a. If I activate it again 2 minutes later, and the doublehit pets from before are still out, they start doublehitting again.

 

The most relevant use case for this is MMs, obviously due to the life of the pets.  

[Hopeling]

22 hours ago, Ljhalfbreed said:

So is it secretly stacking time, but not damage buffs? Some weird interaction somewhere with other procs or something?

Great catch. I have no idea what's going on there, but I'll play around with it.

13 hours ago, Unknown Magi said:

If you summon pets while Assault Radial Embodiment is running, they inherit the doublehit chance for the remainder of the duration.  This includes Mastermind pets. 

I was under the impression that all pets are supposed to inherit Hybrid Assault toggles while toggled on, whether they're summoned during the toggle or not. I don't have any pet classes at 50 (melee 4 lyfe), so I'm going entirely on secondhand accounts here, but are you sure you need to do resummoning tricks at all?