The Go Go Gadget Guide to Everything Gadgets

Emp is not op geez. Wm with a power crit can do the exact same damage.

It might be a good idea to avoid running EMP as your primary attack in Survival Mode after Round 1. Trying to use EMP on the Round 2 boss fight is a good way to get killed a lot. One of the boss's AoE attacks has the exact same range as EMP. Some of the later boss fights are the same way too.

EMP base damage ?

In general, the damage could be said to equal each other.
Whether it's base damage from EMP or WM>A burst power, or the crit side, both methods can be used to equally match each other.

It's actually on the first page in the powers section for both AI burst abilities. Us gadget guys are always prepared

I'm still waiting on the fire guys to come up with their base numbers as well as a short time period in which damage is done with their AM build up.

That is always nice to hear. I dig the am but dislike being closer than I have to be. Damage out usually comes at the cost of survivability. Not every power has the luxury of a viable alternate setup so having a real choice sounds like the revamp was a success to me.

That's another thing I think a few of us understand. Once you look at the base damage, look at the type of damage, where it works, in this case it's also include base damage of the powers to set it up, then you have to look at timing.

It's really disappointing to see folks still don't understand how to properly examine abilities even with a testing thread with formulas in oracles database. There are even posters who they can ask for tips if they don't understand the formulas.

It's like me with health healing equations and base health healing numbers. Im not interested and I don't want to understand that stuff so I don't say anything. If I want to know something I ask a healing numbers guy. There's like 2 that are active on the forums.

Aside from picking up things on my own, I'm definitely grateful Drift Hazard fine tuned my testing methods 2 years ago. The guy is an expert at testing all kinds of offensive powers from multiple powersets. I haven't seen him around the forums in like 6+ months though.

Speaking of drift, he's actually the guy I used to go to for fire base damage info. Are you out there Drift?

Well now it seems I may have to do a base numbers and statistical information on Hardlight since there will be upcoming updates. Kaiser seems to have given up on his "guide" and drstrangeonline seems to be the only one carrying the torch right now for the powerset. Since I've been Hardlight for 6 months now..it seems like I'm kinda calling it my own power now you know? I mean I'm still involved with Gadgets and I have my ps4 alt and pc toon to stay up to date with the power and help anyone with questions but I have argued hard with many others for a consecutive combo chained AM and now we are getting that. Will talk to strange whenever I get the chance to see what he thinks. His guide is great so it's not necessary to add another thread...just add a complete stats information section and DPS breakdown.

Strange is in the same boat. He used to be gadgets for a long time then he switched over to Light.

He used to participate a lot in this thread then he made his own so it's makes sense to focus on it more often. Both you guys basically know what to look for and how to look at powers so it should be a great source for Light info with updated base damage numbers. Hopefully it'll continue to be an "open" guide rather than a "closed" copy my loadout and rotation one.

I'm actually surprised Light steered away from the combo precision chaining. When it first came out that's what everyone did until the obsession with number chasing and power hogging for numbers kicked in. I'm glad it's going back to what was originally designed but I am jealous it's getting 2 bloody AMs. So I'll be curious as to the weaknesses for the both the AM.

To be honest it should have only have one AM and thats should have been combo chaining like they said in the beginning.

When i was reading it over and over, even though they say two, it really looks like its the same thing kinda. Except one seems to support melee more and one support range more. But i could be wrong.

I think they should have one AM too and just precision combo like what was the original intent. But apparently the whole clipping with might power to short precision combo then back to might power which sucks up power became a favorable way to DPS for most, or forum vocal, Light players. Precision combining looked like fun especially since I think you can do it infinitely. What I always wondered was why didn't the damage base increase the deeper you got into the combo? Because I'm told that it stays the same.

gadgets has sort of a might combo system. A strict precision combo system seems a like great way to offer variety between powersets. I seriously hope Light isn't spoiled with 2 completely different AM. despite the amount of time it was screwed it up by private and public feedback in GU 36, that would be real unfair. I'd be real jelly.

It's not unusual that the guides are inactive. It's no point to continue to do any further updates until the devs implement their recently ideas of HL. Until that happens, its too much time wasted on coming up with ways to dps with whats on live now. Because everyone will revert to the new intent of HL dps.

So even if you make a guide now, you will definitely have to rework the whole thing again.

Had to stop using stealth trolling since it was unfortunately unreliable. Now I do [SB | Defib | GG | (Optional CC) | Distract | Drone]. My usual cc is foam for the extra yellow ticks from pi. When I'm more settled into my troll gear I'll move drone off for an 8-mob cc. It's sadly not as mischievous as stealth trolling but it is undeniably solid.

As damager, I've had a lot of success with EMP spamming but I dislike losing dps with certain bosses leaving my mid range or causing me damage. Arena-wise I've absolutely stolen matches with it but with the changes to distract and its already pronounced interruptibility I'm looking to move away from EMP.

Has anyone explored a fully wm burst loadout for the new gads dps? Preferrably long range, since that's something an EMP gad cannot do. I'm tentatively thinking SB or SF, Gauss, NG, (last 3 slots [Intim, Optional and Bunker]. I could see [BD, Distract, PDart] only if wm combos allow). Prec and Might balanced. I know there was a lot of testing done already and I am curious if anyone had pioneered the options here before me.

Yep, seems to be adressing something else. Ah its ok, i'll keep spreading the word .

Using EMP requires alot of attention for sure. Just observing NPC behavior as Controller role definitely helped as well as being aware of the max damage range on EMP. Watching out for tells, like certain emotes the NPCs do and the skull above their head, lets you know of incoming deadly attacks. With the t6 content in mind, I can pretty much stand anywhere in a majority of the content.

It's when dealing with a boss like the Tyrant that it becomes annoying. I dislike Weapon Mastery a great deal so I don't want to go back to it for damage role. Having to rely on PDart for far range isn't that great. I gave feedback on it on test forums because the damage really is weak.

I recently did a base numbers comparison then a base damage in X amount of time comparison for Pdart and another far range burst AM attack from fire. PDart loses to it 1650 to 4100ish in long duration test. I would've preferred it was actually dead even considering they are both far range and that PDart actually requires more work. Fire's MD can be spammed in short time after the initial set up while PDart requires 4 seconds. That's even including with short cut set ups with Distract.



Anyway, because of PDart's performance going WM for far range is a good idea. There's a lot of WM burst loadouts in the previous pages. WM is straight precision burst damage. The finisher ability at the end of the WM combo would ideally be burst. Especially if you're running content where NPCs die fast because of your high stats. A full power burst loadout can work but you're also doing burst with WM. What I did was I just kept 1 or 2 DoTs for bosses (they have more health) and then I just burst with WM and WM combo finisher with might burst and that was enough.

For the content with more NPC health, throwing in SB for a group of NPCs for the WM finisher will net you high damage. That's because each of the 4 ticks has a very high chance to crit. Using Stasis Field is ideal on single targets because it will net you more damage than Sticky Bomb on single.

Because the damage numbers, especially for burst damage, have been standardized, any burst ability will work. Just set up the proper PI and use the attack. For this reason there really isn't a one burst ability is better than the other. It's just looking at the range of the attack, how fast it is, and what if can set up you have to look at.

The player base wants a gadgets NERF hahahaaa idiots. It's clearly balanced but hey I love a great laugh you know?

That's interesting that damage is standard. I guess that means that the differences between powers are mostly dressing for WM users? If that's how it's become I might leave WM to my earth dps and let gadget keep its AM on. Just setting up good pi's will be easy enough; thanks for the feedback. Mostly I needed a change for arena use, but yeah for Tyrant and those like him it would have been a welcome relief. Maybe that'll be one for a third armory.

The damage numbers are standard for all burst attack in the game and some DoTs. All burst attacks have a base around 20 to 27. If they have a PI boost then it's 28 to 41. That allows numerous powers to be used now because they all hit the same as opposed to having 1 or 2 burst powers in every powerset that hit hardest. That's where looking at range and type of damage comes in next to see what powers we'll use and where.

The DoTs are different. It varies depending on the amount of ticks. powers with like 7 or 8 ticks usually have a base damage of 6 to 9. some of those Dots also have the initial burst hit of 20 to 27 but no PI. It's just combining damage types.

It is pretty much just dressing. Weapon damage was always suppose to be the main source of damage and powers were meant to contribute to damage. Number chasing and a different interpretation of damage dealing flipped that over. WM is designed well in regards to damage vs time and has allowed weapons to become the main source of damage again so powers can contribute. There are pros and cons to it.

There are some benefits with powersets for WM damage. Like pets, DoTs, burst, or other perks. Are you really need to follow is a template with WM. WM essentially allows for all the powersets competing to be equal or near equal. But it does that in a way that makes the game less "colorful" in regards to damage and our powers. Kind of like the might burst chat we just had.

Theres things to consider but basically what dark said, weapon mastery has a template.
You have powers with burst, burst with pi, dots with pi, dots, and aoe dots.

Certain powers have similar set up so you tend to see the same pattern.

An example for gadgets is to start with wm to foam, applies a dot. Wm to gg, gg gets the pi it needs to do the high pi burst. While dots are up, they will crit along with gg. Those are things to consider. Having everything possible up at the same time while doing wm burst.