Best Heavy Attack set-up

rauyran

malistorr wrote: »

"Noble duelist has 2 lines of spell damage that hardly affect heavy attack damage and requires you to be in melee range. Sergeant's mail has a useless line of health and health recovery which are superfluous with critical surge."

And both are 100% needed to get the highest possible heavy attack damage in the game. I see ticks in the mid 30ks at least. If you actually play the build the way I described you'll see why it blows everything else out of the water. if you just look at it on a forum maybe you won't understand. This build is for people triggering concussion/off balance by using WOE and heavy attacking only. If you're using another play style this build is not relevant.

Mid 30s is not that high. With Major Berserk from the Charged Lightning synergy, Major Force from Grave Inevitability and Elemental Drain I often see critical hits for 50k+.

Did you look at the build I linked - it's absolutely aimed at exploiting off balance via WOE and shock.

MidniteOwl1913

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

malistorr wrote: »

Speed and AOE damage

In that case, I would run hurricane. Less top speed as its only minor expedition, but its for the duration of the skill, so the speed buff is 20 seconds instead of 4. Its also more damage over a larger area. It shouldn't be an issue from a stamina standpoint to cast hurricane once every 20 seconds, and it does scale of your highest stats.

That said, I feel like their might be better options if I am being honest. That skill is balanced assuming its giving you major resolve, which oakensoul already gives you. From a pure damage standpoint, there are probably better options.

I'm at the moment trying to come up with this just kind of build (Oaklensould magi sorc HA). What better options would you suggest? Open to suggestions. :-)

NoSoup

I've been running:
2 Stormfist - of all the monster sets this seemed to give me the most dps.
5 noble dualist - buff to HA's
2 Willpower - buff to magic
1 Oaken - all the buffs but most importanly empower
1x Perfected maelstrom - Offensive penetration + the MA bonus

CGPsaint

I've been keeping tabs on a couple of threads about 1-bar heavy attack builds because I wanted to set up a build for solo play or for those days when I don't feel like getting sweaty. My final build:

Sergeant's Mail, Order's Wrath, Kra'gh, Oakensoul - Built for damage/survivability.

OakenSorc

It's a pretty simple rotation, but it slaps for sure. Keep Crit Surge up, and refresh WOE and Caltrops as needed. Other than that, do the Maelstrom shuffle while holding down that heavy attack trigger!

Strolled into vVH for the first time in months and 1-banged it.



Thank you to all of those of you who have contributed to this thread and other threads like it!

ShadowKyuubi

Heavy Attack Sorc on PTS

SkaraMinoc

Heavy Attack Sorc easy mode trifecta with Oakensoul, Storm Master, and Sergeant's Mail.

CGPsaint

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Heavy Attack Sorc easy mode trifecta with Oakensoul, Storm Master, and Sergeant's Mail.

Did you use Sharpened on your weapon or a 1-piece with Sharpened in order to bring your Pen up, or did you just run sub 2K Pen on that build? I run Razor Caltrops even with light armor to maximize Pen when rolling solo.

SkaraMinoc

CGPsaint wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Heavy Attack Sorc easy mode trifecta with Oakensoul, Storm Master, and Sergeant's Mail.

Did you use Sharpened on your weapon or a 1-piece with Sharpened in order to bring your Pen up, or did you just run sub 2K Pen on that build? I run Razor Caltrops even with light armor to maximize Pen when rolling solo.

Precise trait. Only 700 penetration. (~1%) 6 medium 1 heavy

Off balance heavy attack crits for almost 60k in arenas.

Sparrachion

I'm a tank main and decided to dip my toe into DPS'ing and felt like a HA build would suit my "tank-brain" and since nobody was asking for my SorcTank I decided to use that toon for my experiments.

I started with Xynode's Easy Sorc build and after lots of asking dumb questions ("what is LA weaving?", "does Max Mag affect damage?", etc.:-) ), tinkering with sets (I started with Infallible Mage body pieces and tried Relequen and Order's Wrath as well), and getting tons of input from my awesome guildmates (they really helped with CP and ability tweaks!), here's where I ended up:



100k parse on the 21m dummy using Kilt/Storm Master/Sergeant's Mail/with Lightning Maelstrom

The single biggest thing that made it all "click" for me was getting my head wrapped around "free" ability casts while heavy attacking. My rotation is:

BB (Lightning Maelstom staff): LA, Degeneration, LA, Unstable Wall, swap
FB (Lightning Sergeant's staff): HA, Prey, HA, Prey or Hurricane (if Hurricane is about to drop), HA, Barbed Trap, swap

During the FB rotation I never lift my left mouse finger - all ability casts are done about half way through the charging of the heavy attack and are cast from queue once the heavy attack finishes.

Like I said, I'm brand new to DPS'ing and this is a dead easy build for me to use - high health (27k), high sustain via heavy attacks, easy to use rotation, etc.

MidniteOwl1913

Sparrachion wrote: »

I'm a tank main and decided to dip my toe into DPS'ing and felt like a HA build would suit my "tank-brain" and since nobody was asking for my SorcTank I decided to use that toon for my experiments.

I started with Xynode's Easy Sorc build and after lots of asking dumb questions ("what is LA weaving?", "does Max Mag affect damage?", etc.:-) ), tinkering with sets (I started with Infallible Mage body pieces and tried Relequen and Order's Wrath as well), and getting tons of input from my awesome guildmates (they really helped with CP and ability tweaks!), here's where I ended up:



100k parse on the 21m dummy using Kilt/Storm Master/Sergeant's Mail/with Lightning Maelstrom

The single biggest thing that made it all "click" for me was getting my head wrapped around "free" ability casts while heavy attacking. My rotation is:

BB (Lightning Maelstom staff): LA, Degeneration, LA, Unstable Wall, swap
FB (Lightning Sergeant's staff): HA, Prey, HA, Prey or Hurricane (if Hurricane is about to drop), HA, Barbed Trap, swap

During the FB rotation I never lift my left mouse finger - all ability casts are done about half way through the charging of the heavy attack and are cast from queue once the heavy attack finishes.

Like I said, I'm brand new to DPS'ing and this is a dead easy build for me to use - high health (27k), high sustain via heavy attacks, easy to use rotation, etc.

Console here can I ask what you mean when you say, you never lift your finger from the mouse? So you keep the HA up the entire time and cast other abilities simultaneously?

Sparrachion

Console here can I ask what you mean when you say, you never lift your finger from the mouse? So you keep the HA up the entire time and cast other abilities simultaneously?

Once I've switched to the FB I click down on the left mouse button (the attack button) and don't release it until after my third HA and Barbed Trap are cast. While the first HA is charging I cast Prey, while the second HA is charging I cast either Prey again or Hurricane if that's about to drop, while the third HA is charging I cast Barbed Trap and then after that has been cast from queue I swap weapons and LA weave Degen and Crushing Wall then swap back to FB and repeat.



Here's what the sequence looks like in terms of logged events. You can see the slight delay/bad timing of about .43s where I still have the left mouse button pressed after the Barbed Trap casts - that's .43s I can try to cut from each rotation to try and get a bit more damage out.

gariondavey

@Sparrachion so infallible aether got outperformed by sergeant?

rauyran

Sparrachion wrote: »

I'm a tank main and decided to dip my toe into DPS'ing and felt like a HA build would suit my "tank-brain" and since nobody was asking for my SorcTank I decided to use that toon for my experiments.

I started with Xynode's Easy Sorc build and after lots of asking dumb questions ("what is LA weaving?", "does Max Mag affect damage?", etc.:-) ), tinkering with sets (I started with Infallible Mage body pieces and tried Relequen and Order's Wrath as well), and getting tons of input from my awesome guildmates (they really helped with CP and ability tweaks!), here's where I ended up:



100k parse on the 21m dummy using Kilt/Storm Master/Sergeant's Mail/with Lightning Maelstrom

The single biggest thing that made it all "click" for me was getting my head wrapped around "free" ability casts while heavy attacking. My rotation is:

BB (Lightning Maelstom staff): LA, Degeneration, LA, Unstable Wall, swap
FB (Lightning Sergeant's staff): HA, Prey, HA, Prey or Hurricane (if Hurricane is about to drop), HA, Barbed Trap, swap

During the FB rotation I never lift my left mouse finger - all ability casts are done about half way through the charging of the heavy attack and are cast from queue once the heavy attack finishes.

Like I said, I'm brand new to DPS'ing and this is a dead easy build for me to use - high health (27k), high sustain via heavy attacks, easy to use rotation, etc.

I notice you aren't using a shock glyph. What was your uptime on concussion and off balance?

Sparrachion

gariondavey wrote: »

@Sparrachion so infallible aether got outperformed by sergeant?

I never tried Infallible Mage on the Back Bar. Sergeant's Mail was so good I only ever tried swapping it with Undaunted Unweaver to see if the "non-stacking" boost to HAs would be better (it wasn't). I suppose Noble Duelist would have been an option too.

I tried all the combinations of:
Front Bar: Storm Master (best), Arms of Relequen (almost as good as SM), Infallible Mage, Order's Wrath
Back Bar: Sergeant's Mail (best), Undaunted Unweaver

I'll probably try a few other sets to see if 110k is remotely possible for me (probably not!) - Grave Inevitabilty and Kinra's Wrath for instance

Sparrachion

rauyran wrote: »

I notice you aren't using a shock glyph. What was your uptime on concussion and off balance?

I did this after U36 and wasn't able to run full logs because of crashes so all I have is the CMX info and can't see those debuffs listed - any suggestions on how I could see that with just the CMX info?

gariondavey

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

@Sparrachion so infallible aether got outperformed by sergeant?

I never tried Infallible Mage on the Back Bar. Sergeant's Mail was so good I only ever tried swapping it with Undaunted Unweaver to see if the "non-stacking" boost to HAs would be better (it wasn't). I suppose Noble Duelist would have been an option too.

I tried all the combinations of:
Front Bar: Storm Master (best), Arms of Relequen (almost as good as SM), Infallible Mage, Order's Wrath
Back Bar: Sergeant's Mail (best), Undaunted Unweaver

I'll probably try a few other sets to see if 110k is remotely possible for me (probably not!) - Grave Inevitabilty and Kinra's Wrath for instance

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Sparrachion

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

gariondavey

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

Thanks for doing the test.
The results confuse me...I'm not sure why sergeant does more than infallible aether. Hopefully someone else can figure that one out and explain it here.

Necrotech_Master

gariondavey wrote: »

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

Thanks for doing the test.
The results confuse me...I'm not sure why sergeant does more than infallible aether. Hopefully someone else can figure that one out and explain it here.

the bonus to the heavy attack is much higher on sergeant (its only like 800-900 for infallible aether but like 2350 for sergeant)

infallible also applies minor vulnerability, which likely may or may not even be showing since concussed status effect is also minor vulnerability (which you should be getting a lot of with a lightning staff and wall of elements)

so just on the 5 pc effect, infallible is both weaker than sergeant, and minor vulnerability is probably not applying because thats what lightning staves already do fairly well

gariondavey

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

Thanks for doing the test.
The results confuse me...I'm not sure why sergeant does more than infallible aether. Hopefully someone else can figure that one out and explain it here.

the bonus to the heavy attack is much higher on sergeant (its only like 800-900 for infallible aether but like 2350 for sergeant)

infallible also applies minor vulnerability, which likely may or may not even be showing since concussed status effect is also minor vulnerability (which you should be getting a lot of with a lightning staff and wall of elements)

so just on the 5 pc effect, infallible is both weaker than sergeant, and minor vulnerability is probably not applying because thats what lightning staves already do fairly well

Infallible aether provides an increase to damage though, not an increase to weapon/spell damage FOR heavy attacks, though, I believe.

Back when the undaunted sets + the maelstrom staff were strong, it was because they increased light attack damage by a set amount.
And lighting heavy is 3 light attack ticks + 1 end tick (or at least it was then) so you'd get 1500 x3 increase on the undaunted set, 1500 x3 on the other, and then 2k x3 or whatever on the staff.

Then they changed those 2 undaunted sets + the sergeant set to give an increase in weapon and spell damage towards heavy attacks.
The maelstrom staff changed to flat increase to each tick of wall.
Storm master and infallible aether are all that remains (to my knowledge) of flat amount increases.
And to my understanding, this increases damage much more than the spell damage increase versions.
Also, infallible aether has minor slayer on top of the minor vulnerability, hence my confusion as to it underperforming sergeant.

Necrotech_Master

gariondavey wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

Thanks for doing the test.
The results confuse me...I'm not sure why sergeant does more than infallible aether. Hopefully someone else can figure that one out and explain it here.

the bonus to the heavy attack is much higher on sergeant (its only like 800-900 for infallible aether but like 2350 for sergeant)

infallible also applies minor vulnerability, which likely may or may not even be showing since concussed status effect is also minor vulnerability (which you should be getting a lot of with a lightning staff and wall of elements)

so just on the 5 pc effect, infallible is both weaker than sergeant, and minor vulnerability is probably not applying because thats what lightning staves already do fairly well

Infallible aether provides an increase to damage though, not an increase to weapon/spell damage FOR heavy attacks, though, I believe.

Back when the undaunted sets + the maelstrom staff were strong, it was because they increased light attack damage by a set amount.
And lighting heavy is 3 light attack ticks + 1 end tick (or at least it was then) so you'd get 1500 x3 increase on the undaunted set, 1500 x3 on the other, and then 2k x3 or whatever on the staff.

Then they changed those 2 undaunted sets + the sergeant set to give an increase in weapon and spell damage towards heavy attacks.
The maelstrom staff changed to flat increase to each tick of wall.
Storm master and infallible aether are all that remains (to my knowledge) of flat amount increases.
And to my understanding, this increases damage much more than the spell damage increase versions.
Also, infallible aether has minor slayer on top of the minor vulnerability, hence my confusion as to it underperforming sergeant.

sergeant, undaunted unweaver and infiltrator were all reverted to grant fixed bonuses again with U35, because one of the changes they were intending to make in U35 was "fixed" dmg light and heavy attacks, but that change itself was never pushed live, just the light and heavy dmg nerfs

gariondavey

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

Thanks for doing the test.
The results confuse me...I'm not sure why sergeant does more than infallible aether. Hopefully someone else can figure that one out and explain it here.

the bonus to the heavy attack is much higher on sergeant (its only like 800-900 for infallible aether but like 2350 for sergeant)

infallible also applies minor vulnerability, which likely may or may not even be showing since concussed status effect is also minor vulnerability (which you should be getting a lot of with a lightning staff and wall of elements)

so just on the 5 pc effect, infallible is both weaker than sergeant, and minor vulnerability is probably not applying because thats what lightning staves already do fairly well

Infallible aether provides an increase to damage though, not an increase to weapon/spell damage FOR heavy attacks, though, I believe.

Back when the undaunted sets + the maelstrom staff were strong, it was because they increased light attack damage by a set amount.
And lighting heavy is 3 light attack ticks + 1 end tick (or at least it was then) so you'd get 1500 x3 increase on the undaunted set, 1500 x3 on the other, and then 2k x3 or whatever on the staff.

Then they changed those 2 undaunted sets + the sergeant set to give an increase in weapon and spell damage towards heavy attacks.
The maelstrom staff changed to flat increase to each tick of wall.
Storm master and infallible aether are all that remains (to my knowledge) of flat amount increases.
And to my understanding, this increases damage much more than the spell damage increase versions.
Also, infallible aether has minor slayer on top of the minor vulnerability, hence my confusion as to it underperforming sergeant.

sergeant, undaunted unweaver and infiltrator were all reverted to grant fixed bonuses again with U35, because one of the changes they were intending to make in U35 was "fixed" dmg light and heavy attacks, but that change itself was never pushed live, just the light and heavy dmg nerfs

I didn't realize they were back to flat. That's wild.
So 2x undaunted set + maelstrom + kilt isn't anywhere near as strong as these other set ups you've been using, eh?

malistorr

I use Noble Duelist's Silks, Sargeant's Mail, and Oakensoul and my lightning staff heavy attack (charged with shock glyph) is stronger than it's been in many patches. No more Maelstrom staff for max lightning staff heavy attacks anymore.

Necrotech_Master

gariondavey wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Sparrachion wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

You have storm master on the body, so it is on at all times. It has a decently long CD so I argue that it could move to be front bar only (maelstrom lightning back bar still). Then you could run infallible aether to be on at all times (body + some jewels).
My question, though was if you kept everything exactly the same as it currently is, but swapped out the sergeant for infallible aether. To my understanding, it, like storm master, are the strongest increase to heavy attack damage (undaunted sets + sergeant are weaker, I believe).

So either storm master fb, maelstrom bb, infallible aether on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

Or

Infallible aether fb, maelstrom bb, storm master on at all times, kilt, 1 pc kragh or slimecraw

I'm game to try that! I reconstructed a set of IM jewels and staff (good thing I have a ton of gold LOL) and for me Sergeant clearly out performed IM:

95k with Storm Master and Infallible Mage:


99k with Storm Master and Sergeant's Mail (even with a slightly scuff rotation):


I did those runs back to back (and also did runs with Backstabber instead of Exploiter where Sergeant outperformed as well but both parses were lower than with Exploiter).

Thanks for doing the test.
The results confuse me...I'm not sure why sergeant does more than infallible aether. Hopefully someone else can figure that one out and explain it here.

the bonus to the heavy attack is much higher on sergeant (its only like 800-900 for infallible aether but like 2350 for sergeant)

infallible also applies minor vulnerability, which likely may or may not even be showing since concussed status effect is also minor vulnerability (which you should be getting a lot of with a lightning staff and wall of elements)

so just on the 5 pc effect, infallible is both weaker than sergeant, and minor vulnerability is probably not applying because thats what lightning staves already do fairly well

Infallible aether provides an increase to damage though, not an increase to weapon/spell damage FOR heavy attacks, though, I believe.

Back when the undaunted sets + the maelstrom staff were strong, it was because they increased light attack damage by a set amount.
And lighting heavy is 3 light attack ticks + 1 end tick (or at least it was then) so you'd get 1500 x3 increase on the undaunted set, 1500 x3 on the other, and then 2k x3 or whatever on the staff.

Then they changed those 2 undaunted sets + the sergeant set to give an increase in weapon and spell damage towards heavy attacks.
The maelstrom staff changed to flat increase to each tick of wall.
Storm master and infallible aether are all that remains (to my knowledge) of flat amount increases.
And to my understanding, this increases damage much more than the spell damage increase versions.
Also, infallible aether has minor slayer on top of the minor vulnerability, hence my confusion as to it underperforming sergeant.

sergeant, undaunted unweaver and infiltrator were all reverted to grant fixed bonuses again with U35, because one of the changes they were intending to make in U35 was "fixed" dmg light and heavy attacks, but that change itself was never pushed live, just the light and heavy dmg nerfs

I didn't realize they were back to flat. That's wild.
So 2x undaunted set + maelstrom + kilt isn't anywhere near as strong as these other set ups you've been using, eh?

i personally dont have any heavy attack setups, but common ones i see are sergeant + storm master + oakensoul (for the buffs and perma empower) + 1 filler item

there are likely other ways you could make it work depending on how you want to play (the 1 bar oaken build generally works best on sorc because very little bar management along with the bonus dmg to shock dmg, which is actually good for lightning staff heavy build)

empower + off balance heavily contribute to your dmg done with a heavy attack build and generally required to go along with the flat dmg increases

gariondavey

So out of these sets, do any/which ones have the flat damage increase apply multiple times?

Ex - undaunted used to apply 3x times per tick

gariondavey

https://youtu.be/-rKgAv1cM8g

This guy uses infallible aether + deadly strikes + maelstrom bb with pale order and 1 kragh.

Is the reason why, in parsing you get buffs but when you run a build like this solo you don't...so you want a minor slayer set?

Would this set up he runs (20 minute vet scalecaller peak trifecta solo) be stronger dropping infallible aether for storm master or noble duelist?

malistorr

From what I can tell they all do. Noble Duelist's Silks provides a better buff than Storm Master and doesn't proc on crit so I have no idea why people aren't using it instead. Maybe people think that they won't be within "melee range" very often but when I run dungeons and trials I don't think that buff ever drops off. You're constantly close to an enemy in those situations.

gariondavey

malistorr wrote: »

From what I can tell they all do. Noble Duelist's Silks provides a better buff than Storm Master and doesn't proc on crit so I have no idea why people aren't using it instead. Maybe people think that they won't be within "melee range" very often but when I run dungeons and trials I don't think that buff ever drops off. You're constantly close to an enemy in those situations.

Thanks. Can you see the above post with the video link and let me know what you think? I mean the guy made a new record so I feel like he really knows his stuff...I guess I'd just really like to understand why infallible aether is used vs noble duelist or another such set.

Necrotech_Master

noble duelist is a little harder to use than storm master because it requires being in melee range, which is not always feasible, and if your running 40-60% crit chance, im pretty sure you would be able to get a crit every 10 sec to keep the buff up (the buff itself lasts like 20 sec, so if your at 50% crit chance and NOT getting a crit every 20 sec something is broken lol)

melee range i believe is considered 5 meters, but that can vary greatly if the enemy is considered within range of that depending on their hitbox, like im pretty sure a dragon in elsweyr has a huge radius in which is considered "melee" range

gariondavey wrote: »

So out of these sets, do any/which ones have the flat damage increase apply multiple times?

Ex - undaunted used to apply 3x times per tick

i dont remember if those sets only apply to the final tick or every tick now (cause i know thats changed several times this year too), but i know something like empower itself applies to every tick of channeled heavies, so those sets might as well (as noted i havent fully tested this, but im pretty sure those sets functionality was changed basically back to what it originally was)

malistorr

I used the IA set back in the day when it was BIS with Undaunted Infiltrator and it was quite strong. As far as just buffing heavy attack damage itself I don't think it would compare because math. 900<2,110 etc. But you have to factor in the Minor Vulnerability and Minor Slayer for IA also so it is probably much closer than it seems. I suppose you either need to be a math whiz or do experiments on trial dummies that allow for accurate representation of vulnerability and slayer damage to know for sure. Or just take both builds out for a spin and compare the damage numbers.

What I can tell you is that I used my setup to run vet Vateshran and after 4-tries I had cut my time to complete the arena down from 3-hours to 55-minutes (without really trying for speed) and I was 13th on the leaderboard without focusing on that or score at all.

So I guess my setup is good enough for me for now and if IA is a tad stronger it's just not worth it to me to farm/improve it for now since I can already do everything I need to, and do it well.