Might Water DPS Help

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by King420rganic, Feb 15, 2020.

  1. King420rganic New Player

    So I'm a might Water DPS. I currently have the solar amp,cloak, and grim all around 140ish. I was told that I should go with the solar, strat, and transformation cards instead. Can someone break it down for layman's terms why? And what rotation I should be using. I've heard millions of different things and don't know what to believe. I just want a decent hitting AOE and single target loadout to use. These arts are just confusing which ones are the best for which rotations. Any help would be much appreciated thanks ahead of time.
  2. Black Jaq Devoted Player

    Obsidian Chill recommends adding Trans Card but not Strat. He just recently did a video explaining his choices. Strat works best when you have a bunch of hits occurring in a short time either via multiple DoTs or attacks that do multiple hits in a very short time.
    • Like x 1
  3. AV Loyal Player


    You can find pretty much every Water DPS rotation you'd actually want to use in this thread. With Grim & Solar Amp at 140, your ST should be ok (you'll be missing that hella splash though) but you need both at 160 to do the hardest hitting AoE rotations listed there for water (AoE HV DoT + AoE Grim PI).

    For ST artifacts, you should be using Solar, Grim, and, if no one else is running it, Tetra. If someone with more health is running Tetra, you can swap in La Mort (or Trans or Stone)

    For AoE artifacts, to get access to the best AoE rotations on Water you need Solar and Grim, then the third slot is best held by either Tetra or Strat (you may see comparable or slightly higher numbers if you run a Strat vs large groups of enemies with no Tetra in group, but group DPS will be way down if no one is running Tetra). Keep in mind though that Strat is only really viable at 200.


    The rate of attack doesn't really matter but the number of targets does. For ST DPS, Strat's performance is poor but it's one of the (potentially) most potent AoE DPS artifacts because it will proc on multiple targets simultaneously, which is the only reason it's viable. Eg. Regardless of the power, BiS ST rotations can expect to lose 1-5k ST DPS with Strat but for 8-target AoE it's almost as potent as Tetra (not counting the group buff). The fewer the number of targets though, the less potent it becomes, so it's a bit of a gamble in that unless the tank is super-pulling every hallway every time, you might not actually see those gains in practice and it would be a net loss in most boss fights (but swappable for add phases).

    Eg.
    1 target = Strat loses to pretty much every other hardline DPS artifact
    3 targets = Strat pretty much ties Grim
    8 targets = Strat will just about tie Tetra on a low SP player (not including the group buff consideration) but still loses to Tetra on a high SP player

    So it's good, but only if the player puts in on for the right circumstances and the group pulls 8 mobs at a time. It should also be noted that while it might increases general damage, it proccing on multiple targets does nothing to help ST boss output so it's always pretty terrible in elite boss fights (except maybe solo tank PCe LB). Ie. your damage vs a single intended target mixed in with 7 other targets will be comparable to the output you'd see with strat on vs a single target, it's just the overall general damage that goes up as it procs a little on everything. It's kinda like a simplified version of Orbital Assistance that can hit everything a lil at once.
    • Like x 1
  4. AV Loyal Player


    Minor correction: Will still be "good" at 3-7 enemies, just worst than alternatives at 1-2 targets and reaches peak performance at 8 targets. While clearing hallway trash, you'll pretty much always be fighting enough mobs for it to be BiS-material for the situation but it'll almost always be a detriment in boss fights vs alternatives. For trash clear though, we can expect to see about a 1-1.5k (General Damage) DPS gain per additional target above 3, regardless of power. Example:

    @Op sorry I didn't use Water for this example, as Water kinda needs Grim's PI (see closing para) so I'd have to take Tetra off to do it and the numbers would come out pretty much the same on 8 targets on test (but it'd still be BiS for hallway trash-clear if someone else has a Tetra on)

    Elec AoE on 8 Targets with Solar, Grim, Tetra


    vs

    Elec AoE on 8 Targets with Solar, Tetra, Strat


    Note: Elec's extreme AoE 8-target DMG is an outlier in general but the difference between the two examples is what's important.

    And here's an example on Mental, where we can see the benefit is the same despite the much much lower hit-rate:

    Mental AoE on 8 Targets with Solar, Grim, Tetra

    vs

    Mental AoE on 8 Targets with Solar, Tetra, and Strat


    And we'll see essentially the same DPS increase on every power vs 8 targets whereas pretty much every power will see the two artifact loadouts do comparable damage to 3 targets.

    This also highlights a minor balance issue: Some powers don't need to run Grim to do their best AoE rotations and some do, so some powers can run the group's Tetra and still have room for Strat for trash clear where other powers would have to sacrifice Tetra at a slight loss if they tried to run Strat or they'd have to eat a big loss on a weaker rotation by giving up Grim. As such, powers that don't need Grim for their best AoE rotations should generally be the ones running Tetra for the group.
    • Like x 1
  5. L T Devoted Player

    Here's the thing with artifacts... They've become about specific styles of play.

    If you're using the soul cloak, it really makes sense to pair it with the eye of Gemini and make your rotation all about building supercharge. (Unless you're using Dehydrate)

    The Transformation is a great general purpose artifact especially if you also heal. If you use the strategist you want to do everything possible to increase your chances to crit (which obviously includes using the Transformation) and increase the number of damage ticks via dots and the like.

    If you have the solar amplifier, it makes sense to have heat vision on your load out.

    Grim is most valuable when you're not applying a PI, or not doing so often.

    If you wanted to go with the solar, strat, and transformation you'd probably use drown, bubble, heat vision, depth charge, and a supercharge on your load out.

    Your current artifacts are good also if you're using a supercharge a lot. Grim is especially good if you're using one of the water rotations that doesn't use drown .
    • Like x 2
  6. AV Loyal Player



    Just to reiterate, critting twice as often =/= twice the Strat procs. Running it with Trans doesn't make it particularly better. As you can see in the videos above, the elec rotation hits almost twice as many crits in the same time period (ie. approximately the same crit rate but ~twice as many total hits) as the mental rotation and both see virtually the same amount of damage gained. You get the same results with Fire with as many DoTs stacked as possible. There's a pretty low ceiling on how many crits you need to "max" the arti's proc rate, as otherwise it'd be completely unmarketable for most powers/situations.
    • Like x 2
  7. Pale Rage Dedicated Player

    Go with what AV suggested. I've been taking with him a lot over the past few weeks/month, and have my loadout tweeked to the best I'll be able to do until artifacts are maxed up. And I gotta say, the damage is noticably increased.
    • Like x 2
  8. King420rganic New Player

    Nice thanks AV I've been using your Depth Charge Variant for single Target with Neo Venom Boost SC and it does definitely hit hard. For the AOE loadout Depth Charge + Ebb & Flow Variant what SC do you recommend?
    • Like x 1
  9. AV Loyal Player


    Depends what you're using it for. If you're using it for raid trash, realistically we'd only wanna use either Speed Drain or abstain from popping a higher cost SC unless it was clear we'd have the SC back in time for the boss. I'll generally run Speed Drain and only pop it when I know I'll be back up to full SC before the next boss fight. If for a boss fight, Dehydrate or Neo still works but fights where we'd wanna use an full AoE approach are relatively rare (eg mebbe HIVEe fb, FIe 2b potentially, etc). You can still use Neo or CoD for trash, especially if the tank/healer's spamming green circles, but it's pretty unnecessary and you could also just spam Speed Drain more often in the same situation.

    I'll get the math up on the guide eventually but it's also worth strongly considering Dehydrate over Neo for boss fights, as Neo only surpasses Dehydrate if you're swapping 200 Scrap in/out for activation and if you aren't interrupted during it's duration:

    Neo-Venom Boost (5000SC)

    45% bonus damage for 15s
    - Assume conservative average non-pet/non-artifact 30000 DPS
    Assuming tac swap of 200 Scrap for activation and Supercharged Neo-Venom head mod, effectively reducing cost to 3800 SC:

    0.45x30000x15 = 202500 DMG / 3800 SC = 53.2 DMG/SC

    Assuming no tac swap of 200 Scrap:

    202500 DMG / 4500 SC = 45 DMG/SC

    Dehydrate
    Approx average (non-crit) 97500 DMG at 2501 SC, 195000 DMG at 5001 SC (diminishing returns beyond that)

    Average including crit = [(26 x 2.06 x 97500) + (74 x 97500)] / 100 = 124371 DMG

    124371 DMG / 2501 SC = 49.7 DMG/SC (potentially lower depending on how accurate you are at judging 2500 SC)

    So w
    ith tac swap of 200 Scrap and with head mod, Neo is ~7% better than Dehydrate (assuming you can do your rotation uninterrupted).
    Without tac swap of 200 scrap, Dehydrate is ~10% better than Neo. If you're swapping Scrap in/out for it, Neo wins for tank & spank but Dehydrate will generally do just as well or outperform it in mechanics heavy fights with lots of interrupts, eg Lady Blackhawk.
    • Like x 1
  10. King420rganic New Player


    So just one more question. Because now I've got my Soul Cloak to 160 and my Solar Amp to 160 my grim is still 140. I was looking at the benefits of getting these arts being 200 and didnt really see why I would get Solar to 200 other than the channeling ability. I can see soul cloak and grim being benefits from being 200 but would the amp make me hit harder at 200? And im still struggling with AOE loadout for water as well. ST im right there with most Prec players but as soon as we get to adds they pull away by big margins.
  11. Tangent Line Level 30

    I would only use YouTube as a reference. I am not calling out any YouTuber or player specifically, however some people give out information that isn't ideal and perhaps is outdated. I agree with AV and a couple other players. Artifacts should COMPLIMENT your loadout/build. They were created to give more variety in how you can play.

    I can tell you this. I have a 293/452 Munitions Alt that I spent hours and hours testing with a friend on what the "best" loadout is for AoE/adds and we made one up. All the other munitions I have faced in the newer content are using what they see on YouTube. Not to say it's wrong, but anyone using Robot Sidekick is not optimizing there damage at range because they are losing damage due to the ineffectiveness of the sidekick's rockets (will change with GU 103).

    Last night my league had a fire tank in MachineE which imo still holds a good challenge to groups based on mechanics with 255 gear and 80-110 lvl artifacts and he was a beast. Didn't die once, FLAWLESS for a lack of a better word.

    **It comes down to spending time with your power and actually learning it** - That being said spend sometime with your power. Learn it's advantages and disadvantages. The general rule of thumb is you can't go wrong with setting up a Power Interaction and finding other powers that cause additional damage because you set a Power Interaction.

    One last thing I have learned... Just because you can go through a loadout/rotation in the fastest time possible DOES NOT mean it will net you more damage.

    Good Luck,

    Crispy Oreo
    USPS 293/453
    Rising Legends