Artifact question

How do you guys think solar amplifier and grimorium verum stack up if you're not using heat vision? I currently have the solar amplifier for the might buff but wondering if I should feed it into grim during the bonus weekend.

As a might based dps they're both go to artifacts, i wouldn't feed either I'd level them both to use.

Heat vision is virtually a required single target move for most might based powers in the game when making a single target loadout.

The pet from grim applies a PI often help with creating better loadout flexibilty and strength as well as doing damage itself. It will also have one of the higher might stats in the game going forward along with solar amplifier.

Every loadout I've tried using heat vision for atomic is a dps loss compared to clipping the 2 range combos.

I don't use HV on my atomic. I use amplifier for the might boost

5% Might is 5% Might - there's nothing else that comes close (other than Tetrahedron) for pure boost. Even if you're not using Heat Vision, it's practically required.

I don't find the Grimoire to be that useful - but that's because Celestial has better options in the loadout, so we get to have a bit more freedom there with artifacts.

Like i said most powers, generally speaking though the might buff alone is enough to retain the artifact over others unless the benefit im swapping and gaining some other innate bonus results in better damage output.

I still wouldn't be feeding these two artifacts into each other at this stage, that's my opinion.

You're right the tetra is another good artifact to have around but bear in mind you only ever need to one in the group, so if someone else has this at a higher level then you're better off switching it off for something else that either gives you an innate benefit or a higher base might stat.

The person running tetra should be a player who has a good ability to stack their health higher, such as a tank power who has health generator mods and the like instead of power.

This is of course if you're trying to drain every little bit out of it.

People often don't run tetra like that though because you know selfish scoreboard chasers don't like running something slightly sub optimal to themselves so that others can gain more than that one dps lost

Team mentality is something often lost on this community like running away from EOG circles.

Thankfully they're changing those to also give might buffs now so the only people running away from orange EOG circles going forward are the idiots... well tbh i think they were always idiots, but hey.

I have a philosophy about feeding things into other things, with some observations to go along with it.

Playing Atlantis Elite content with people that had only JLD Episode Augments was hilarious. They were dropping like flies, and (of course) blaming the Healer, and not the fact that they were taking 25% more damage than they were used to from the Sea Beast and King Shark.

If you still expect to play earlier content, don't feed your old Episode Augments into the new ones. At least not until that Episode hops over to SoMa and not Episode Currency - by which time it should not matter much.

Likewise with Artifacts - many, many, many, many, many people sacced their Might Augs and Might Artifacts to level up Prec, but when the Meta shifts, you're converting back at a nett loss.

I still keep a Starheart Fragment at 160. Why? Because some day there will be a Meta that needs that proc. This game shifts, all the time, and it requires you to keep up - but that doesn't mean you should over-specialise. Because as History teaches us, those that over-specialise will end up dead when the environment changes. And this environment changes a *lot*.

It's actually cheaper in the long run to just keep up, and not go all-out to be ahead of a curve that might turn back on you within a DLC.

I agree

I just wanted to add as well though that although like you say you can just take the safe approach and not feed any augments until they are at least 2 DLCs old what you can do is also just consider what you're losing v gaining.

Obviously if you put on old DLC augments you're going to be losing potential base stats, that's cause even though you might gain say 5% might in specific content the base stat from the newer augment might actually be higher despite losing that bonus, thus resulting in a damage loss or performance loss.

If you're going to not equip previous DLC augments what you lose elsewhere and what the consequence is it might be something like.

Ok it's not a problem but i might need to now make sure I'm blocking at the right time.

It's also important to analyse what you're actually getting if for example the benefit is something like a 25% damage decrease from a certain attack, you could consider what that attack hits for and what the reduction is, if through the DLC progress you've offset that damage decrease with an increase to both your health and defense stats then swapping that augment in isn't really necessary.

So although i agree with your general safe approach it is possible to ditch augments sooner, but only after you've analyzed the situation in whole.

Yes, but that's impossible to know unless we go back to the days of "How much ARTIFACT have you got?" before kicks. Even in my League, nobody compares artifacts before we roll.

If I'm DPSing, I tend to imagine that most DPS (and it's a good guess, a lot of the time) don't want to run a group buff, so I run it, and nobody is ever going to complain. If I'm overwritten, I still get the 3% Might, and that is fine. But I'm the kind of guy who drops Repair Bots mid-combat, pops a Compound at the start of a Raid, and uses Personal Damping consumables to pick people up. I'm not geared to OP DPS, more to Utility.

The EoG... Yes. Well. Exactly my point.

I understand the mindset of Scoreboard chasers. That is what they love about the game - being top. Some artifacts take that away from them, so they don't like them, and they run away. It's fine - let them play their way, we'll play ours.

Yeah, I stopped pursuing my last needed Atlantis feat, Risen Runner, because nobody has the augments. I even ran it as a fill in on a league run with one of the "super-elite" leagues and it still ended with a disband on Corum Rath. And that's not a knock on them at all, the augments just make THAT much of a difference.

I've always kept one augment for each role from past DLC's. The 2% prec and might from the Titans augments was rendered obsolete during the very next DLC Atlantis though but I still use them for Machine E as the alternatives to blocking the Hive Masters Inervator beam are too risky IMO. But the 5% buff from Atlantis augments is still worth equipping over maxed JLD augments (except against seabeast where the buff goes awayfor some reason).

I imagine that SGe will be completable after fully gearing up with Metal I's gear and augments. But doing the feats that involve the madness meter at high levels will probably be damn near impossible.

Haha, yea absolutely, if only people would communicate more right.

But this is why pug runs are always harder than league/ friend runs, theyre effectively a shambles.

The DPS focused players also stray from tetra lest that 3% might buff being given to other players is also the difference between them and others on the scorecard.

You're right there's no harm in being DPS scoreboard focused but when you're actually making it harder on yourself because of it, it's hard to tell who is really laughing right

I'll often inspect the other DPS before the raid starts in the first cutscenes as well.

Yes 100% agreed.

There's two reasons for the wipes in Atlantis, getting rid of augments or where they are getting rid of them a complete and utter lack of awareness that you're going to need to block.

I also would recommend not getting rid of JLD augments until next year at this point. When theyre then 2 DLCs old

To be fair, I only keep my Role Episode Augs from past content, but that's because any player that Heals, Trolls, or Tanks content knows what's coming when a Skull shows, and how to mitigate, or if possible, negate it.

Because you don't have any choice.

It's not acceptable to stop feeding the DPS by dying, so you tend to learn the mechanics. I'm not saying that DPS do not - many Roles do not.

I'm saying that the difference between a wipe and success is not what your "average" DPS thinks it is . Great DPS are spectacular - they don't steal my priority heals, they don't stand on top of the Tank and spam, and they don't run the Troll out of power that the Healer and Tank are going to need later. Which is usually sooner than you think with bad DPS.

Anyway - we've kind of derailed this - Solar is a fine DPS choice because 5% Might. Grim is a Power-dependent choice, and Tetra is hardcore unless you're the 2nd Choice on Health in that group - and even then, it's not even bad.

I'm intrigued that Dead King's Sceptre isn't getting a look-in here? But again, I guess it's strong in the loadouts and powers that can use it?

I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but I'm almost sure they said 200 is going to be the limit, period. Right? No more updates ever? If that's true I think it's a good thing.

Also the Grimorium doesn't give you squat. There's some talk of trying to get them to give it something significant. So keep that in mind and check when they actually do the updates. My suggestion was to give it the ability of a Decoy. Something like "Reduces damage by X% of your health. Can only occur once every 60 second."

It's a second pet with no cooldown - it's useful if your Power Set lacks a PI application that doesn't sit well in your loadout, but it's definitely no use at all to some Power Sets.

It's interesting that we don't yet know what Power the OP is. Maybe we should wait and see, and it might become clear?

DPS don't usually want a taunt-away, or damage mitigation - there's trinkets, Tanks, and Healers that do that. The best upgrade to Grim would be to have it block for you every second .

well if u dont use heat vision and u dont mind scoreboard u should use tetrahedron, u get alot more might with that artifact but by using it u allow every other player in ur group to run 4 artifacts.

Grim is not a power dependent choice, its mandatory if u want to maximise dps performance, it gives 5% might 5% prec a free dot and PI in aoe, this artifact can be used on both spec types and allows for more variety in loadouts... the only power i can see can allow to give up on this artifact is nature, nature needs to reply dots anyway so the pi doesnt matter and the might buff from tetra for example lets the user and the whole group perform better while not having to worry about buffing other players in group due to how good nature overall performs.

other mandatory artifact for maximising dps performance is the gemini artifact, now if animal forms can benefit from that as well nature will be able to over perform other powers even greater.