Mechanical Acuity on Mageblade.

Fang_of_Lorkhaj · January 2018

Title says it all. What's your opinion

I'm hearing that it's out parsing BSW.

pod88kk · January 2018

@LZH is the nightblade master, maybe they'd be able to help clarify things

SGT_Wolfe101st · January 2018

@Alcast has a video up and he seems to like it. Its nice to maybe consider something other than Hundings on my NB. I haven't farmed gear in a while.

Wildberryjack · January 2018

Wouldn't Shacklebreaker be better?

Masel · January 2018

DjinnRa wrote: »

Wouldn't Shacklebreaker be better?

Not in PvE, no. Acuity is pretty nice, best on templars and nightblades due to the 10% higher crit damage, both mag and stam. Technically it is best on magplars and stamplars because magblades have higher crit than templars, so the critical rating acuity gives you is lower in general. It is also a very good front bar only set.

In general, the lower your critical rating, the more effective it will be. So try to pair it with a set that doesn't have any critical bonuses in it and don't use thief mundus. On my magplar, it gives me ~15% critical rating at a 26% uptime, which is by far more than mother's sorrow/leviathan gives you. Now you basically lose one regular critical bonus, but you'll still have more than any other set.

Also, it gives you nice burst that you can time with your ultimate.

supaskrub · January 2018

@Masel92

so a magplar/stamplar rocking both Mechanical Acuity and Master Architect/War Machine would be a pretty powerful set up?

Asardes · January 2018

It could also work on pet Sorcerer with Necropotence since it has a low critical rating but I'm not convinced.

Fang_of_Lorkhaj · January 2018

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

@Alcast has a video up and he seems to like it. Its nice to maybe consider something other than Hundings on my NB. I haven't farmed

LiquidPony · January 2018

I see the potential on a magblade but haven't been able to figure out a rotation where it outparses a typical meta setup. I did note that LZH was using it in recent vHoF videos.

I've had the best results with sorcs, both stam and mag, with Mechanical Acuity.

Best stamsorc parse (5 x Mechanical Acuity, 5 x Automaton, 2 x Kra'gh, Warrior): 39k solo parse. https://i.imgur.com/L6msIuR.jpg

Best magsorc parse (5 x Mechanical Acuity, 5 x Necropotence, 1 x Kena, Apprentice): just under 43k solo parse (actually best parse on a magsorc was a hair over 44k, but that was with bugged offbalance and I didn't screenshot CMX).
https://i.imgur.com/uZYCSDG.jpg

It also works pretty well with a stamblade. I've hit 50k solo parses with 5 x Acuity, 5 x War Machine, 2 x Velidreth (with The Lover), which is similar (but a bit less) than I hit with TFS. https://imgur.com/a/HQbF2

I haven't had a chance to raid parse Acuity on the stamblade, but I suspect it'll be strong, right up there with the meta setups. The problem I have with it on the stamblade is that there are some rotational inconsistencies when trying to maximize bow procs and Major Slayer/Incap buffs, so sometimes Acuity procs at a bad time.

With the magsorc and stamsorc, it was trivially easy to always have Acuity proc right as I was switching to my front bar (every other time). For the magsorc, that means all DoTs rolling and I get 2 heavy attacks, a curse explosion, and a Clench direct damage hit with 100% crit. For the stamsorc, that means all DoTs rolling and I get 2 x Shrouded Daggers and 2 x Heavy Attacks with 100% crit, and it also means you can swap out of Ballista and get 100% crit on your Ballista ticks (which is where the real DPS boost comes from).

But back to your actual question ... I suspect there's a way to get really great results on a magblade with 5 x Acuity, 5 x Master Architect, 1 x Kena, I'm just so out of practice on the magblade rotation that I couldn't keep the Acuity proc under control.

Masel · January 2018

LiquidPony wrote: »

I see the potential on a magblade but haven't been able to figure out a rotation where it outparses a typical meta setup. I did note that LZH was using it in recent vHoF videos.

I've had the best results with sorcs, both stam and mag, with Mechanical Acuity.

Best stamsorc parse (5 x Mechanical Acuity, 5 x Automaton, 2 x Kra'gh, Warrior): 39k solo parse. https://i.imgur.com/L6msIuR.jpg

Best magsorc parse (5 x Mechanical Acuity, 5 x Necropotence, 1 x Kena, Apprentice): just under 43k solo parse (actually best parse on a magsorc was a hair over 44k, but that was with bugged offbalance and I didn't screenshot CMX).
https://i.imgur.com/uZYCSDG.jpg

It also works pretty well with a stamblade. I've hit 50k solo parses with 5 x Acuity, 5 x War Machine, 2 x Velidreth (with The Lover), which is similar (but a bit less) than I hit with TFS. https://imgur.com/a/HQbF2

I haven't had a chance to raid parse Acuity on the stamblade, but I suspect it'll be strong, right up there with the meta setups. The problem I have with it on the stamblade is that there are some rotational inconsistencies when trying to maximize bow procs and Major Slayer/Incap buffs, so sometimes Acuity procs at a bad time.

With the magsorc and stamsorc, it was trivially easy to always have Acuity proc right as I was switching to my front bar (every other time). For the magsorc, that means all DoTs rolling and I get 2 heavy attacks, a curse explosion, and a Clench direct damage hit with 100% crit. For the stamsorc, that means all DoTs rolling and I get 2 x Shrouded Daggers and 2 x Heavy Attacks with 100% crit, and it also means you can swap out of Ballista and get 100% crit on your Ballista ticks (which is where the real DPS boost comes from).

But back to your actual question ... I suspect there's a way to get really great results on a magblade with 5 x Acuity, 5 x Master Architect, 1 x Kena, I'm just so out of practice on the magblade rotation that I couldn't keep the Acuity proc under control.

Can you do 6m parses? Problem I have with 3 million parses is that sustain is a basically non-existent variable that you're leaving out... I only test on bigger dummies with at least 6 million to take that into account. On a stamplar for example your rotation has to change when you do a 6 million dummy, same holds for all of your above setups.... The discrepancy between regen and drain is too big. Ideally you'd want it to be almost even.

WrathOfInnos · January 2018

I like Acuity, but haven't tried it on my magblade. @Masel92 is right about pairing it with sets that do not offer crit bonuses. I'm curious to see which sets people are finding combine well with this for nightblade.

I could see 5x Architect, but then you would have to be in melee range for soul harvest. Maybe 4X Moondancer (jewelry and 1 armor, staff could be Acuity) with a monster set like Skoria. I'm not sure if this would beat 5X Julianos, 4X IA, and 2X Skoria though.

You could do 5X Acuity with 5X Scathing or 5X BSW for a spell damage setup (unfortunately can't combine Acuity with Julianos since both are crafted), but both of these sets have crit bonuses. If you end up over 50% crit then the advantages of Acuity quickly start to fade, and nightblades are at 46% without gear (assuming 2 assassination abilities slotted), 49% if grouped with a sorcerer and getting minor prophecy.

5X acuity + 5X necropotence works great on sorc, but would require use of shades on nightblade, which are not great in PVE.

I'm very interested to see what other ideas people come up with.

LiquidPony · January 2018

Masel92 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

I see the potential on a magblade but haven't been able to figure out a rotation where it outparses a typical meta setup. I did note that LZH was using it in recent vHoF videos.

I've had the best results with sorcs, both stam and mag, with Mechanical Acuity.

Best stamsorc parse (5 x Mechanical Acuity, 5 x Automaton, 2 x Kra'gh, Warrior): 39k solo parse. https://i.imgur.com/L6msIuR.jpg

Best magsorc parse (5 x Mechanical Acuity, 5 x Necropotence, 1 x Kena, Apprentice): just under 43k solo parse (actually best parse on a magsorc was a hair over 44k, but that was with bugged offbalance and I didn't screenshot CMX).
https://i.imgur.com/uZYCSDG.jpg

It also works pretty well with a stamblade. I've hit 50k solo parses with 5 x Acuity, 5 x War Machine, 2 x Velidreth (with The Lover), which is similar (but a bit less) than I hit with TFS. https://imgur.com/a/HQbF2

I haven't had a chance to raid parse Acuity on the stamblade, but I suspect it'll be strong, right up there with the meta setups. The problem I have with it on the stamblade is that there are some rotational inconsistencies when trying to maximize bow procs and Major Slayer/Incap buffs, so sometimes Acuity procs at a bad time.

With the magsorc and stamsorc, it was trivially easy to always have Acuity proc right as I was switching to my front bar (every other time). For the magsorc, that means all DoTs rolling and I get 2 heavy attacks, a curse explosion, and a Clench direct damage hit with 100% crit. For the stamsorc, that means all DoTs rolling and I get 2 x Shrouded Daggers and 2 x Heavy Attacks with 100% crit, and it also means you can swap out of Ballista and get 100% crit on your Ballista ticks (which is where the real DPS boost comes from).

But back to your actual question ... I suspect there's a way to get really great results on a magblade with 5 x Acuity, 5 x Master Architect, 1 x Kena, I'm just so out of practice on the magblade rotation that I couldn't keep the Acuity proc under control.

Can you do 6m parses? Problem I have with 3 million parses is that sustain is a basically non-existent variable that you're leaving out... I only test on bigger dummies with at least 6 million to take that into account. On a stamplar for example your rotation has to change when you do a 6 million dummy, same holds for all of your above setups.... The discrepancy between regen and drain is too big. Ideally you'd want it to be almost even.

@Masel92

The magsorc parse is a heavy attack build, never drops below ~70% magicka even without Worm/Ele until execute, the rotation doesn't change regardless of how long the fight is. Literally: LA Liquid Lightning, LA Blockade, swap, LA Curse, HA Clench, HA Pet Pulse, swap, repeat.

The stamblade is using my normal raid rotation (since this is the build I main in raid), it sustains fine. I just wanted to see if I could cheese 50k with Mechanical Acuity instead of a penetration set; I don't know that it's actually a viable setup, haven't done that much testing on that build because my stamblade on live is a Khajiit and I think, at least on paper, that you have to be a Redguard to make that setup work.

In both of those cases the 6m parses will be slightly lower naturally, but not due to sustain, just due to longer execute and ulti timing. The difference between regen/s and drain/s is almost entirely in execute on both the stamblade and the magsorc. I use the same rotations in our 52m raid parses and in raid.

The stamsorc is definitely 3m cheese, though. I doubt I could sustain it on the 6m without swapping out Automaton for VO. But I have never played stamsorc on live, so my rotation may be sub-optimal for DPS or sustain in some way, I just made it up on the fly because someone asked me to test it.

Unfortunately, being primarily a console player, I lost all of my PTS characters when they did the EU transfer this week, so I have to recreate all of those characters and go re-craft about 40 pieces of Mechanical Acuity.

In other words ... yes, I can and will absolutely do 6m tests but it probably won't be for a few days until I have a few hours to make new template characters and craft all the gear again.

I did do some cleave parses with the magsorc setup (6m skeleton with two 3m skeletons stacked beside it) ... someone asked to test the cleave DPS of a Nirnhoned w/poison backbar versus an Infused w/berserker backbar. I just did one of each really quickly but should give a general idea:

https://imgur.com/S8OBXVx

https://imgur.com/P4e25Au

JamieAubrey · January 2018

I'm using it on my StamSorc and can finish people off hella quick

Masel · January 2018

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I like Acuity, but haven't tried it on my magblade. @Masel92 is right about pairing it with sets that do not offer crit bonuses. I'm curious to see which sets people are finding combine well with this for nightblade.

I could see 5x Architect, but then you would have to be in melee range for soul harvest. Maybe 4X Moondancer (jewelry and 1 armor, staff could be Acuity) with a monster set like Skoria. I'm not sure if this would beat 5X Julianos, 4X IA, and 2X Skoria though.

You could do 5X Acuity with 5X Scathing or 5X BSW for a spell damage setup (unfortunately can't combine Acuity with Julianos since both are crafted), but both of these sets have crit bonuses. If you end up over 50% crit then the advantages of Acuity quickly start to fade, and nightblades are at 46% without gear (assuming 2 assassination abilities slotted), 49% if grouped with a sorcerer and getting minor prophecy.

5X acuity + 5X necropotence works great on sorc, but would require use of shades on nightblade, which are not great in PVE.

I'm very interested to see what other ideas people come up with.

In the case where you can go melee or need timed burst (as in vAS+2), I don't see a problem with Master Architect.

You could try a necropotence+summon shades setup for example, that is something I'd be interested in. Acuity and a monster set doesn't really pair well as one doesn't apply to the other.... So I mostly prefer 5/5/1 with one heavy or medium Acuity piece.