Soul Strike vs Rapid Fire

Delegator

I am puzzled by a quick comparison of these two ultimates. I'm looking at this from the perspective of my bow-specced Khajit NB with 54 points in stamina and 10 in health (just over 30k buffed stamina ). What mystifies me is why anybody would bother with Rapid Fire compared to Soul Strike.

On these stamina-based bow users, Rapid Fire's tooltip says that it deals about 39820 damage over 4.1 seconds, for a cost of 175 ultimate. Soul Strike deals over 49364 damage over 3.9 seconds for 100 ultimate. Now, I'm no math whiz, but I really can't see why anybody would bother with Rapid Fire. Less damage over a longer channel duration for a higher cost. Yes you can move at full speed with Rapid Fire, but Soul Strike includes a 70% snare so to me that's a wash. Even the battle of the morphs doesn't help Rapid Strike, in my opinion.

Even worse, there seems to be a bug in that Rapid Fire damage is NOT affected by Relentless Focus and the Minor Savagery buff, while Soul Strike is. That brings Soul Strike up to 53416 -- more than 34% higher damage for less cost than Rapid Fire.

So first of all, fix the bug with relentless focus not affecting Rapid Fire (and look at other weapon ultimates and buffs of course). Second...why would I use Rapid Fire anyway for other than Role Playing purposes?

Mashille

Ballista Baby!

Voxicity

Yeah it's a pretty trash skill.

The fact that it can be dodge rolled absolutely negates any potential use of the skill in pvp

Drdeath20

Yeah but it works with poisons.

Origin

Well, this can be a good feedback to ZoS to look again at the ultimates.

psychotic13

You're talking about the morphed version of soul strike, soul assault because that's the morph that lasts 3.9 seconds.

So you're comparing a morphed ability to a non morphed ability, if you're using soul assault as the example then maybe you should consider the morphs of rapid strikes in comparison, toxic barrage gives more damage via poison and then you have ballista which allows you to attack with normal abilities while the ultimate is firing at them? / Thread

WalksonGraves

Have you ever actually used soul strike? The dmg is terrible.

Delegator

I know I'm looking at the unmorphed version, but the damage doesn't go up THAT much per level (It went up maybe 1k from level 1 to 2). As for the morphs, you can argue whether an execute explosion versus a mortar versus the poison DoT versus more direct damage is better. That wasn't my point -- it was the straight-up damage number.

Solariken

You should also consider that the bow passives will boost the efficacy of Rapid Fire by a lot (assuming they work correctly...).

hedna123b14_ESO

Delegator wrote: »

I am puzzled by a quick comparison of these two ultimates. I'm looking at this from the perspective of my bow-specced Khajit NB with 54 points in stamina and 10 in health (just over 30k buffed stamina ). What mystifies me is why anybody would bother with Rapid Fire compared to Soul Strike.

On these stamina-based bow users, Rapid Fire's tooltip says that it deals about 39820 damage over 4.1 seconds, for a cost of 175 ultimate. Soul Strike deals over 49364 damage over 3.9 seconds for 100 ultimate. Now, I'm no math whiz, but I really can't see why anybody would bother with Rapid Fire. Less damage over a longer channel duration for a higher cost. Yes you can move at full speed with Rapid Fire, but Soul Strike includes a 70% snare so to me that's a wash. Even the battle of the morphs doesn't help Rapid Strike, in my opinion.

Even worse, there seems to be a bug in that Rapid Fire damage is NOT affected by Relentless Focus and the Minor Savagery buff, while Soul Strike is. That brings Soul Strike up to 53416 -- more than 34% higher damage for less cost than Rapid Fire.

So first of all, fix the bug with relentless focus not affecting Rapid Fire (and look at other weapon ultimates and buffs of course). Second...why would I use Rapid Fire anyway for other than Role Playing purposes?

for Bow/Bow builds in PvE

cpuScientist

Delegator wrote: »

I know I'm looking at the unmorphed version, but the damage doesn't go up THAT much per level (It went up maybe 1k from level 1 to 2). As for the morphs, you can argue whether an execute explosion versus a mortar versus the poison DoT versus more direct damage is better. That wasn't my point -- it was the straight-up damage number.

Sigh. The morphed poison version adds a huge dps component to it so yes look at it morphed. The other morph allows you to drop a ballista and keep going.

psychotic13

Delegator wrote: »

I know I'm looking at the unmorphed version, but the damage doesn't go up THAT much per level (It went up maybe 1k from level 1 to 2). As for the morphs, you can argue whether an execute explosion versus a mortar versus the poison DoT versus more direct damage is better. That wasn't my point -- it was the straight-up damage number.

The unmorphed version lasts 2.9 seconds I believe, which would equate to around 25% less damage because the channel doesn't last aslong.

You can't just compare the numbers you want to and say one is better without taking into account the other effects an ability may have.

Also relentless focus doesn't give minor savagery it gives minor berserk.

SodanTok

For now, at least the tooltip damage of bow ult (testing the real dmg is pain in the ass for 175 ulti) is not affected by minor berserk or hawk eye bow passive. That doesnt make me feel better about all other things that should affect it (but maybe dont, like +% to bow damage from marksmen/hawkeye or +dmg based by range)

//EDIT:
My tooltip value of toxic barrage (III) is 43080(over 4sec)+34330(over 8sec). Soul assault (IV) is 50334 (over 3.9). Mind my 25% dmg increase from CP for bow ult, 0% for soul ult.