AOE vs ST builds

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by Qwantum Abyss, Feb 24, 2021.

  1. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Let me ask a question with an obvious answer........
    Are there any circumstances in actual practice where an AOE build is functionally ideal over a ST build?
    Now i know that AOE is better for clearing adds, and I know that its situationally better for clearing eyes in CoU for example but thats not what im talking about. Those situations make up such a small and/or completely irrelevant part of the raids/alerts i just dont personally see the point.
    I run a loadout that i suppose is geared toward ST but does decent AOE. I have seen ppl swap armories just to fight adds and swap just for bosses an swap just for certain parts of fights when it allows them BUT in the end, other than to pad numbers, i dont see any real utility in this.

    Its a genuine question but is killin adds a tiny bit faster really that important to have multiple armories with multiple builds and multiple artifacts?
    Now i say by all means if you want to then have at it!!!! Im not a damage queen and where i fall on the scoreboard (which is mostly at or toward the top) is inconsequential and the outcome of the raid is what actually matters.

    I ask this because so often ppl ask in game or on here “whats the best ____” weather its artifacts, loadouts, etc and in all cases they are met with similar line of questioning and a wild variety of answers depending if they want AOE, ST, etc.
    Im simply proposing that its generally better to build more toward ST and adds can die however fast or slow because the manority of moments or time periods during fights in this game really boil down to burining a ST boss so the default advice IMO should be geared toward prepping ppl for what matters and not padding their numbers and min/maxing potential. I feel like the fact they are asking and cant simply beat on a target for a few min an fig it out for themselves tells me they dont yet have the knowledge or capacity to attampt multiple builds anyway?

    Perhaps theres function and thinking that im not seeing adn perhaps im wildly off base here so have at it!!!
  2. Original Cryo boy Committed Player

    I got this guys: Scoreboard
    • Like x 3
  3. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    That is the obvious answer i referenced haha
    And that to me is sort of the underlying point and sure, have at it. Im just genuinely questioning weather im vastly misguided here and there is some functional rationale im not seeing or if it really is just vanity as i think it is.
  4. Miike Fury Well-Known Player

    if you want to refer to COUE, first boss, the only real time the tank dies is when the ads are up.
    it becomes hectic gathering them all, it becomes tough to find the boss and be able to see the skull, etc. so killing them faster benefits everyone.
    so i always use a ST focused loudout with an option for AOE that i can use when the ads are up. for example, i take out my robot sidekick and add Freezing Breath and use it when the ads are out instead of using my finisher during the rotation
    Last boss, same principle, nothing else really to worry about except the RNG of the ads. these are a bit different though as these can be pulled off the edge. but if you get donna troy or cyborg, it can cause issues to the group the longer they are alive. so its not JUST about chasing the scoreboard.
  5. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    I do on occasions. Scoreboard. Lol somewhat. On my aoe I run my supercharge generator and boo belt and different artis. 1, keeps me from fat fingering my supercharge and wasting it, 2 I can't run everything I like to for bosses so let's me have some fun. I think my aoe is actually nowhere near as much damage as my normal loadout.

    My fury is aoe, my heat vision is eventually aoe, my vengeance is pure st as is my finisher so I do swap certain things out for aoe things in certain fights. Like 3rd boss of sffe. Need a lot of aoe for most of it then pure st is clutch once the actual boss is out.
  6. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    You may also be seeing more armory changes recently since a lot of people are trying new things in preparation for SM. I know people I run with are changing loadouts every 5min right now, myself included actually.
  7. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Yea thats a good point too, i never considered it as testing purposes
  8. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Rite but in most cases, the tank doesnt even have time to gather them all because some are DOA lol. Thats my point, the situation doesnt require it nor does it justify the investment. If the eyes make up 5% of the raid then i stand by my opinion of building toward the other 95% (obviously made up numbers). But really if CoU lasts say 20 min and a total of 1.5 min is spent on that specific moment (all 3 rounds of them, 30 sec each) then to me its not worth the investment other than scoreboard chasing (which is fine, its just not functional).
    And in the made up example of 30 sec per set of eyes, what does the time become after all the investment? 20 sec per set so u save a grand total for 30 sec off the raid time and the raid is successful in either case. A hypothetical 30 sec time savings with no functionality gained doesnt seem like much of a counter to me?
  9. Miike Fury Well-Known Player

    i agree, and staying in a ST focused loadout is never a wrong thing to do in that case.
    but whats the harm in replacing robot sidekick (who is always in ST loadouts) for Freezing Breath (again just an example, use whatever you want) ...sidekick is always dead, and when the ads come out you change your rotation to include freezing breath over your finisher.. you net better results and help kill things faster. then when they die, just revert back to your original rotation. no armory needed.

    in the same respect that controllers, tanks and healers like to optimize their loadouts and equipment for each particular situation, DPS should do the same. its still a "role"

    me personally, i have like 6 or so DPS armories for different situations in different raids
    • Like x 1
  10. Rejchadar Inquisitor


    I'll ask you a counter question. We have the ability to switch between 4 armory on the fly. PVP has been dead for a long time, and no necromancer will help him anymore. We can use 1 or 2 armory for our main role (healer, tank ... controller), one for DPS on a single target, we have at least 1 armory left (2 if we use a universal "meta" build for the main role) , what else can you use the remaining armory for? for an alternate single target DPS? Just for an alternative DPS build?To change our appearance?
    These are, of course, also options, no better and no worse ... people enjoy different things, some from cosplay, some from min-maxing, some from diversity ...
  11. FlexVibrant Well-Known Player

    I got 4 DPS armories.

    1 for ST with no adds

    1 for ST with adds

    1 for clearing hallways

    1 for dailys lol (use to be a troll armory but I retired from trolling for now until I get one more art for troll build)



    if I'm DPSing my job is to be efficient as possible and also play within the group.
    • Like x 1
  12. Miike Fury Well-Known Player


    100% agreed
  13. AV Loyal Player

    It's very important that DPS understand how to adjust their power's ST/AoE burn rate in different situations. This is actually Munitions' greatest weakest in that its ST rotation also has good AoE damage but if it has to do clean ST, it's gonna have a very bad time. Conversely, the strongest clean ST powers have to make sacrifices if they need more splash. Basically, just as the different tank and healer powers have situations in which they're better/worst and for which specific care is required, each DPS power is best suited for different content. Content is well balanced when it has a healthy variety of different combat situations.
    • Like x 4
  14. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Don't forget too that sometimes when feat chasing, you need a 100% true st loadout like the hawkman metal 2 fight. The feat of don't burn embers. You can't even have a pet out plus it's a burn check anyway so pure st was really always the way to go but having some splash wasn't a biggie unless chasing feats. But there are situations where killing adds is bad so having loadouts ready to go isn't terrible. I only use 2 armories so I used to be st and aoe but now run buff troll and non buff troll loadouts instead. And if I didn't need 2 for my healer side (green spam and no greenies) I'd 100% have aoe versions of both
    • Like x 1
  15. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Agreed, im looking for a functional reason in the game. As stated, no instance or scenario i have encountered requires anything more than a universal and functional build w/3 complimentary arts (i am only speaking to dps as i dont troll). So when ppl ask for the most basic advice, everyone is quick to get them advice on 38 dif loadouts w/38 sets of artifacts depending on what situation they are in (exaggerating of course). The game is much simpler than this and if ppl need to ask about a loadout in this game at all it generally means (its a fair assumption i think) that they need to fig out the game before trying to min/max every scenario. My premiss is show the need to explain it to new ppl this way or
    Perhaps its gonna be better to get them some basic general advice to work from till they are rdy to go crazy if they so choose
  16. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Agreed but my proposition is that no aspect of the game requires this. If u wanna do so then awesome but as a community i watch this given as the default advice and im questioning that. Its unneeded. It may be wanted but uneeded. If true, it means we r offering bad advice an it’d be better to start with helping them get into 1 universal loadout with a single set of arts that work well before the bombardment.
  17. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    I may have found something i disagree with you on (thnx for that). I dps everything with no issue an no changes (not a very large sample size im aware) and i have not seen a scenario in this game where anyone wouod need to change. From an advice to ppl asking perspective i think better advice wouod be guiding them to a single loadout that works universally is all. I see no game evidence to suggest otherwise and am asking for the specific instances as a whole (not a cliff note add that comes out during a single boss fight but an actual raid or something that requires a change).
    If im correct and none exist then i fail to see the functional validity of multiple builds outside of personal preference and that is something only the individual can dictate so would our advice be better served to the community guiding them to universal builds as a start? Except i cases where they are asking for the push to expanding of course
  18. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    I hadnt considered specific feats, good point!
  19. AV Loyal Player


    There are a few factors at play, almost all of which will be concealed by the differences in quality of the different DPS in a group overall and the fact that most groups will have a healthy variety. Smart use of Orbitals also mitigates potential issues in solid enough groups.

    In general, it's unlikely for a group to have a DPS setup that's completely incapable of handling a situation (as long as the tanks/healers can sustain) so the ST/AoE thing doesn't stick out as much as tank/healer quirks do, where with the wrong setup things can go bad quickly. The Muni thing is a good example though because of how crazy dirty its damage is to the point that a group with too much Muni DPS can become almost incapable of doing some fights certain ways, eg. SFFe third boss solo tank can be a lot harder with all or mostly Muni DPS because of how much they'll struggle to cleanly burn Emissary when he spawns (and if they switch to their "clean" rotations it's a big loss for them). Similarly, again with Muni, Muni DPS in ThroneE would frequently feel like they'd done a lot due to the fact they constantly splashed the infinitely spawning, low-threat adds but, because of the split, their actual meaningful boss contributions would be pretty negligible. All-in-all, since groups have more DPSs than any other roll, it's a lot harder for a group to be built such that it'll really feel the effects of having a hyper-AoE build in an ST fight or a hyper-ST build in an AoE fight compared to, say, using a hard tank in a fight better suited for soft tanks and vice versa, as the different DPS and playstyles will compliment one another and balance each other out.

    That said, one of my pet peeves in the game is that too often will groups blame tanks or healers for wipes when it's actually entirely just bad DPS causing it. That's also the most likely case, as there's a pretty significant safety margin built into tanking in this game + tanks get instant feedback in the form of death if they're doing a bad job, where unless they get called out or run with a much better DPS, DPS will have no idea if they're bad. If a group is taking 10min to kill trigon and Eyes are staying up for 2-3min at a time, pretty much any wipe in that case is the DPS' fault. A group with good DPS wouldn't really need to adjust their rotations too much as they'll have everything dead fast enough either way, but a group struggling like that could turn a fail run into a win by having some/all of the DPS switch to AoE rotations to better trivialize the actually dangerous part of the fight.

    Then there's the competitive aspect. This will, again, be heavily masked by the variance in the quality of individual players but some boss fights (eg PCe lb, CTe fb, FIe 2b, multi-pop DMe lb, ZooE, EscapeE* lb, FoAe) are heavily weighted in favour of powers like Atomic, Ice, Rage, Sorcery, and Water since their best ST rotations have a higher weight of AoE potential than the "better" ST powers to the point that they have an advantage if all of the players themselves are on par.

    Long story short, if the DPS players are good enough and the powers are varied enough, it kinda comes out in the wash anyways like you said aside from the competitive aspect and everyone could use their best boss rotation the whole time and things'd be mostly fine. Where the complexity matters is for weaker groups/players where their best output without the best rotation for the task isn't enough but if they adjusted they'd be fine. Lately, content has been designed such that the General Damage category actually means a bit more, thankfully, where for a long time it was kinda pointless fluff and ST was all that actually mattered.

    Edit: And, yeah, when going for specific feats it's important as was mentioned.

    Edit 2: Also, some powers are just rly built for skull****ing larger groups of enemies, so if they don't capitalize on those capabilities when the opportunities present themselves they'll lag behind a bit.
  20. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Good info and yea, i also never really thought about that fact u bring up how powers simply operate very differently and their powers behave very differently.
    For disclosure im quantum, i dont follow the norm or suggested builds at all (no grim, i do a destabilized loadout). Its an exceedingly simple loadout yet seems to be quite effective and its heavy on ST but has a fair mix of AOE. I guess my own experience with my own power aginst any/all content an other dps’s really aint the apples to apples comparison i thought it was.
    I was generalizing on a base assumption that my loadout was subpar even tho im almost always at the top or close to it and thats because i really go aginst the grain vs whats suggested as “best” on videos an such. The assumption was that if i can do that consistently well in any situation using a BS loadout (which i guess is prob a really well thought out loadout after all) then i saw no reason why other powers couldnt do the same.

    Edit: 100% agree on the various “faults” of failed raids. Almost across the board the heal and/or tank is blamed. My default (even tho i am a dps an only a dps) is to blame the dps lol. Makes lots of ppl mad at times like im insulting them but hey, it is what it is and i find that more often than not, replacing 1-2 of them changes everything justifying my belief the tankin an heals were fine lol

    Appreciate it buddy
    • Like x 1