Anybody try Empower+Shock HA+Sergeants+Storm Master on a non- OakenSorc build?

Dagoth_Rac · March 2023

The problem with putting all the Empower/set damage on the final hit of a heavy attack is ... no one likes Bow or Inferno or any kind of attacks with a cast time. They are not "fun". The channeled heavy attacks are simply a more enjoyable play experience. Even if you could get similar DPS, you would see fewer people running Bow or Inferno or 2H heavy attack builds. Sitting around for what seems like forever, waiting for the heavy attack to wind up and finally go off, is dull.

It seems fine to me that weapons with cast time heavy attacks be preferable for LA weaving, while weapons with channeled heavy attacks be better for HA builds. Perfect balance between weapons is a nice goal in theory, but you don't want to balance the fun out of the game. I would prefer a change to give Bow a channeled heavy attack, where holding down the button does a stream of arrows followed by a final big arrow, than buff cast time HA and nerf channeled HA. Basically, give stamina a HA playstyle that is as fun as lightning, rather than nerf the fun heavy attacks and buff the not-fun heavy attacks.

Billium813 · March 2023

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

The problem with putting all the Empower/set damage on the final hit of a heavy attack is ... no one likes Bow or Inferno or any kind of attacks with a cast time. They are not "fun". The channeled heavy attacks are simply a more enjoyable play experience. Even if you could get similar DPS, you would see fewer people running Bow or Inferno or 2H heavy attack builds. Sitting around for what seems like forever, waiting for the heavy attack to wind up and finally go off, is dull.

It seems fine to me that weapons with cast time heavy attacks be preferable for LA weaving, while weapons with channeled heavy attacks be better for HA builds. Perfect balance between weapons is a nice goal in theory, but you don't want to balance the fun out of the game. I would prefer a change to give Bow a channeled heavy attack, where holding down the button does a stream of arrows followed by a final big arrow, than buff cast time HA and nerf channeled HA. Basically, give stamina a HA playstyle that is as fun as lightning, rather than nerf the fun heavy attacks and buff the not-fun heavy attacks.

I like Bow and Inferno Staff and I'm fine with attacks with a cast time as long as I feel the punch was impactful. I think the glowing staff wind up to the twin fireball release is fun, though it could be highlighted more, and the exaggerated Bow pull back creates some anticipatory excitement. They could certainly make Bow HA more visually interesting, maybe add a light beam to the arrow and increase the definition of those supersonic, sound barrier circles around the shot. *shrug*

However, the idea that players use Lightning Staves HA simply because the channel is more "fun" seems highly subjective...

fred4 · March 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the main difference between resto and lightning destro is the lightning destro has the cleave from tri-focus, where as resto is fully single target

And adds a heal. You're forgetting the heal. The attraction of going resto with heavy attack sets is the big heal it generates from one of the resto passives, similarly to lightning staves generating a cleave. Someone else posted a "tank" build on these forums using that idea. I wanted to check it out. Resto damage is a bit weaker than lightning, but not by much. The main thing is it's missing is the cleave, which is actually rather valuable for a DD who wants to spend most of their time in a channel. No one is going to use a resto as a DD for that reason. For a hybrid tank / healer / DD build, though, it's rather interesting.

hrothbern · March 2023

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Wait a moment -- weaving skills between heavy attacks is "free" in terms of time expended?

(Obviously it's affordable in terms of resource expenditure.)

What is canceling what?

Weaving an "instant" skill will cost 0.3 seconds additional time

hrothbern · March 2023

Billium813 wrote: »

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Wait a moment -- weaving skills between heavy attacks is "free" in terms of time expended?

I could be completely wrong. But it feels like HA channeling has a built in animation cancel... or rather, that the animation time doesn't count against the HA channel duration as long as there is only 1 skill queued.

Back when U35 first dropped, I spent some time playing with heavy attack builds. One thing I checked was the number of heavy attacks that registered when I just held down the mouse button vs holding down the mouse button and queuing a skill. What I found then, and just re-verified, is that in a given minute, I get more heavy attacks in if I don't queue a skill.

For example: in 1:01 minutes, I landed* 78 heavy attacks only. Adding elemental blockade by queuing it as the heavy attack channeled I landed 70 heavy attacks in 1:02 minutes. So, it seems to me that the skill does actually add a bit of time between the heavy channels. Check me on this, ofc.

All this to say, that it seems to me that the queued skill isn't free so far as time is concerned. Thus, you have to evaluate whether the minimal additional time to cast the DoT is worth more than the heavy attacks you lose. Throw in some ping, accidentally re-casting because your bar didn't swap, and a mobile boss, and it may not really be worth it to manage all the dots on a back bar. This is especially true because, if you are going to run two bars, you'll likely do more damage running a meta build.

*edit: "landed" means the hits recorded by Bandit's and so includes all hits in the channel
** changed "about more" to "more", ty for pointing that out!

It may be dependent on the specific skill, but perhaps I'm wrong. I haven't really tested this timing before, but I went back over some of my saved combats and 78 HA per minute sounds about right. In all my HA testing, I am seeing ~26 final HAs per minute and ~52 channel hits per minute from Lightning Staff.

Channels:
( 1157 hits / 1343 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 51.69 hits / minute
( 469 hits / 544 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 51.73 hits / minute
( 453 hits / 524 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 51.87 hits / minute

Final Hits:
( 579 hits / 1343 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 25.87 hits / minute
( 235 hits / 544 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 25.92 hits / minute
( 226 hits / 524 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 25.88 hits / minute

I tested a bit weaving Blastbones (I'm not perfect, but I queued Blastbones on every other HA)

Channels:
( 336 hits / 412 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 48.93 hits / minute
( 333 hits / 409 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 48.85 hits / minute

Final Hits:
( 168 hits / 412 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 24.47 hits / minute
( 166 hits / 544 seconds ) * 60 seconds = 24.35 hits / minute

There is a noticeable drop, but I swear that the animation looks sped up for me. After BlastBones is done animating, the damage numbers from both channel hits feel like they are really close together and almost imperceptibly the same as without a skill. But it might just be a GUI thing and not real.

If you look at the time stamp log of CMX, you would see that the vanilla repeated HA Lightning needs for its three ticks (channeled, channeled, final) in total 2.3 seconds.

If you weave in an instant skill, total duration becomes 2.6 seconds, the skill costing 0.3 seconds.
This is valid for almost all abilities

But Blastbones is an exception because of a waiting time of 2.5 seconds exceeding the 2.3 seconds

If you use Blastbones, although in tooltip characterised as instant, you have a waiting time of 2.5 seconds before the Blastbone is summoned from the ground.
You have to wait for that + the time for the Blastbone to run to target, and explodes, killing itself, before you can cast your next Blastbone Spell.
When standing nose to nose with target, no time lost for running Blastbone to target, you can only cast 1 Blastbone per 2 Heavy Attacks.

If you only cast Blastbone as much as possible in HA weaving and look in time log CMX you will see:

2.3 seconds HA, 0.3 seconds Blastbone cast, 2.3 seconds HA, 2.3 seconds HA, 0.3 seconds Blastbone cast, 2.3 sec HA, 2.3 sec HA, 0.3 seconds Blastbone cast...
rinse and repeat

FrancisCrawford · March 2023

hrothbern wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Wait a moment -- weaving skills between heavy attacks is "free" in terms of time expended?

(Obviously it's affordable in terms of resource expenditure.)

What is canceling what?

Weaving an "instant" skill will cost 0.3 seconds additional time

That fits very well with my testing. Thanks!

JJMaxx1980 · March 2023

So I’ve been testing out a HA Sorc without Oakensoul and it’s actually higher DPS. As the OP said, if you use your backbar to dip into dots or buffs, you increase your damage.

Best I’ve gotten on the standard OakenSorc was 102k, with the non-Oaken HA Sorc I’ve been able to get 110k. I’m not the best parser and I’m on console so take that with a grain of salt. Here’s my setup for the build. Yes, there are a few LA weaves on my backbar swap but they’re minimal. (I go through the build at the end of the video.)

https://youtu.be/HX_0wxCbFbo

w002exp · March 2023

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

So I’ve been testing out a HA Sorc without Oakensoul and it’s actually higher DPS. As the OP said, if you use your backbar to dip into dots or buffs, you increase your damage.

Best I’ve gotten on the standard OakenSorc was 102k, with the non-Oaken HA Sorc I’ve been able to get 110k. I’m not the best parser and I’m on console so take that with a grain of salt. Here’s my setup for the build. Yes, there are a few LA weaves on my backbar swap but they’re minimal. (I go through the build at the end of the video.)

https://youtu.be/HX_0wxCbFbo

How fundamentally different is this from LA weaving? In my opinion not much. You are still managing a rotation, DOTs, buffs, etc.... Probably the only key difference is resource management isn't as important. But depending on your LA build, that could be a trivial issue also.

Billium813 · March 2023

w002exp wrote: »

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

So I’ve been testing out a HA Sorc without Oakensoul and it’s actually higher DPS. As the OP said, if you use your backbar to dip into dots or buffs, you increase your damage.

Best I’ve gotten on the standard OakenSorc was 102k, with the non-Oaken HA Sorc I’ve been able to get 110k. I’m not the best parser and I’m on console so take that with a grain of salt. Here’s my setup for the build. Yes, there are a few LA weaves on my backbar swap but they’re minimal. (I go through the build at the end of the video.)

https://youtu.be/HX_0wxCbFbo

How fundamentally different is this from LA weaving? In my opinion not much. You are still managing a rotation, DOTs, buffs, etc.... Probably the only key difference is resource management isn't as important. But depending on your LA build, that could be a trivial issue also.

The difference is the hidden HA skill queue that's tied to the 1 second global skill cooldown. If you activate while channeling a HA, you queue a skill to be cast at the end. It doesn't cancel the Fully Charged HA channel and, after the skill is auto cast, as long as you hold attack constantly, another HA will start automatically.

That's completely different from LA weaving where you have to actually time your button presses and LA by pressing the attack button at the correct time. Both lag and poor timing messes this up and makes LA weaving really skill and computer hardware dependent. Conversely, HA weaving skills is much slower, but critically works because you hold attack constantly rather than having to press a button at the right time.

I personally have a terrible time LA weaving both for connection latency and I just lack the skill to time it correctly. Over the years though, I have gotten really comfortable with medium attack weaving my channeled skills in almost the same way that HA builds weave skills, just the other way around.

w002exp · March 2023

Billium813 wrote: »

w002exp wrote: »

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

So I’ve been testing out a HA Sorc without Oakensoul and it’s actually higher DPS. As the OP said, if you use your backbar to dip into dots or buffs, you increase your damage.

Best I’ve gotten on the standard OakenSorc was 102k, with the non-Oaken HA Sorc I’ve been able to get 110k. I’m not the best parser and I’m on console so take that with a grain of salt. Here’s my setup for the build. Yes, there are a few LA weaves on my backbar swap but they’re minimal. (I go through the build at the end of the video.)

https://youtu.be/HX_0wxCbFbo

How fundamentally different is this from LA weaving? In my opinion not much. You are still managing a rotation, DOTs, buffs, etc.... Probably the only key difference is resource management isn't as important. But depending on your LA build, that could be a trivial issue also.

The difference is the hidden HA skill queue that's tied to the 1 second global skill cooldown. If you activate while channeling a HA, you queue a skill to be cast at the end. It doesn't cancel the Fully Charged HA channel and, after the skill is auto cast, as long as you hold attack constantly, another HA will start automatically.

That's completely different from LA weaving where you have to actually time your button presses and LA by pressing the attack button at the correct time. Both lag and poor timing messes this up and makes LA weaving really skill and computer hardware dependent. Conversely, HA weaving skills is much slower, but critically works because you hold attack constantly rather than having to press a button at the right time.

I personally have a terrible time LA weaving both for connection latency and I just lack the skill to time it correctly. Over the years though, I have gotten really comfortable with medium attack weaving my channeled skills in almost the same way that HA builds weave skills, just the other way around.

I think what I was getting at is the skill ceiling of heavy attack builds was similarly high to the skill ceiling of LA builds when you incorporate full weaving and both bars. It might be just a tad lower for reasons you just mentioned though. The skill floor on HA builds though is significantly lower than LA builds making them generally more accessible.