Core Strength vs. Penetrating Strikes (with pictures)

It depends on whether you encounter adds or bosses with higher defence than the standard. PS is far better vs these over CS. Hence the suggestion to keep both mods in your inventory so you can switch over fast or have 2 chest pieces modded that you can switch. Armoury of something. Finding those high defense adds or bosses are another thing. Do they even exist in the newer content? Some content testing is in order.

So you're saying core strength should be used mainly, and then switch to penetrating strikes for those high defense NPCs? I'm still not understanding why Shiny said this:

If core strength is better with the controller defense debuff, and people don't know exactly which NPCs have higher than average defense, why would someone stick with penetrating strikes the entire time?


To me it looks like this:

"Core strength w/ troller debuff is better than Penetrating Strikes w/ troller debuff"

"Core strength without troller debuff is barely any different than Penetrating Strikes without troller debuff"

"Penetrating Strikes is much better than Core Strength on NPCs that have higher than average defense"

"Use Penetrating Strikes the entire time" <---- Why?

Yes.

Without the controller buff it's less than 1/2 a percent difference. For most that small percentage means nothing so just run whatever. For very good dps's trying to squeeze out every bit of advantage switch mods or chest piece mid run is like when we used to switch weapons for mulitple or single target mid run. The good old days.

Yea, but with the controller debuff, core strength is much better right? Then why would someone use penetrating strikes the entire time?

Might be good for testing/discovering which npcs have the higher defence value. Someone will have to do it if we want to know which npc has the higher defence. My choice is to run cs all the time until someone documents where in the current content ps is better.

I said that about those instances where there might be an important high defense boss. If you don't want to switch to PS in the middle of the instance, then you could just keep PS on the entire time. The difference between a 9.8% and 12.5% boost is relatively small anyway, and maybe PS could offset the difference by doing a lot more damage to those high defense npcs. But outside of these special cases, CS all the way.

and yes, hazel is right. who knows if PS will be good against any bosses in the relevant content? someone will have to test it. you guys will have to test it because I can't. there is potential though. I tried to get to JorEl in FoS2 but quit halfway through cause it was just way too annoying, even at CR 126. so I settled for the Shielded Batmen and OMACs in Inner Sanctum.

On these mobs, I found that PS was quadrupling my damage against them when they had their shield up. that means they have around 90% defense when they're like that. if mobs or bosses like these exist in the most recent content, go test it.

I test it in game using the information given in the mod tooltips, patch notes, developer posts, and the combat log.

Oh ok, thank you for the explanation.

There's no real need for an indepth analysis because the concepts are still the same. But just to put everything in one place:

GU47 notes

PvE

• Penetrating Strikes (most NPCs): 5.88% increase (15% defense -> 10% defense)
• Controller debuff (most NPCs): 5.88% increase
• Core Strength (with Max Damage): 6.25% increase
• CS (if you're Quantum w/ max damage): 11-12% increase with standard rotations (explanation here)

• PS + controller debuff: 9.8% increase (effect is applied sequentially, so this would be 15% def -> 10% def -> 6.67% def)
• CS + controller debuff (w/ max damage): 12.5% increase
• CS + controller debuff (if you're Quantum w/ max damage): 17-19% increase

• PS or Controller debuff (NPC with 90% defense): 300% increase
• CS + Controller debuff (NPC with 90% defense): 325% increase
• PS + Controller debuff (NPC with 90% defense): 500% increase

Use Core Strength in PvE except if you know you're fighting an important NPC with higher than 15% defense.

PvP
Here, PS ignores 3797 toughness which is equivalent to 5% mitigation at level 30. Just fyi, it's ~760 toughness = 1% damage mitigation at lvl 30.

• Penetrating Strikes (vs. 9678 toughness): 5.73% increase
• Penetrating Strikes (vs. 11500 toughness): 5.9% increase
• CS (w/ max damage): 6.25% increase
• PS + controller debuff (vs. 11500 toughness): 11.8% increase
• CS + controller debuff (vs. 11500 toughness): 12.5% increase
• PS (vs. 22000 toughness Ice tank): 7.04% increase

Use Core Strength in PvP if you're able to use Home Turf mods. But there isn't that much of a difference between the two anyway.

Thanks Shiny, that's awesome. Where can I find a list of enemies that do not have 15% defense? At the very least, enemies relative to T6 and higher.

I think the shield armors also activate the defense buff if I remember. They aren't bosses but are most likely considered special type of NPCs.
I'm the designated controller as of late for elite HH but I'll definitely try and get in as dps for some runs. The lower cr thing turns people off. It's difficult finding people that can and are willing to wipe a few times to test everything in 1 run. I'll try to bribe some folks and see if I can get some numbers. If not mine then maybe the dps can record their runs and send it to me. I'll try and help you out with the raid setting bosses.

Anything you want me to isolate? Like excluding max damage mod? Although, I doubt people will be up for giving that up.

There's no list so you'll have to test yourself to find these. Especially in T6+ which I know absolutely nothing about. TheDark said something earlier about "Superman in HH" being able to buff his defense.

Yup, it was shielded armor, shielded batman, and prime omac I think. I saw some of the flying drones had a blue shield as well, but they didn't mitigate as much damage.

The max damage bug might mess with things but they don't need to take it off. Just have them spam some weapon attacks without using any powers and remember the rough damage range. Then whenever the boss buffs its defense, use a controller debuff and have them spam the same weapon attacks and see if the damage is noticeably higher. I don't think you'll need to wipe much to do this. You could actually do this as a controller too. There won't be damage modifiers to interfere and everyone else could just play normally while you check some damage ranges.

I'm always willing to help test anything you need. You know where to find me.

K. I tried doing it tonight with you know who but he wasn't up for it. His league doesn't have the patience for it either. I got an idea though.

The wiping part depends if the burn is too fast. I won't get a good damage range that way. 1 or 2 people may do weapons but with the people I sometimes run with... might as well talk to a wall if it interferes with their damage lol. I actually have a video of me dealing BR to MA with Superman in Controller role, but I'm wearing Core Strength in it. I'll swap it out next run I can get in and record it.

The yellow rays above the consoles trigger off Superman's green defense buff. There are also Parademon Fixers IIRC that also trigger off a green defense buff. They do that so much in HH. You'll see a yellow see through shield on them. Sometimes when they channel a heal to an ally of theirs.


Update
I tested the damage on Superman wearing both mods. There damage ranges were not significant in either test.

When a NPC has a defense buff due to a shield or some mechanic, the green defense buff icon appears. Most often you actually see a defense shield or aura of some kind visually indicating this.

In this case, the defense buff is triggered but there is no defense buff. You'll notice this with Stompa, even other bosses. There are times when they have the icon but it's just the misleading User Interface. Could be due to blocking or some other mechanic (protective or non protective). The developers usually refer to the buff and debuff icons as "check engine lights" because you do not tell you in detail what is going on. Further testing is usually needed by the player base to figure it out.

In Superman's case, he is only buffed in damage by the yellow rays. This triggers off the damage buff icon underneath his name tag but also misleadingly triggers off the defense icon. His damage is only slightly boosted. This was confirmed to me by Loche after I was curious of the numbers I gathered.

For Superman, you can stick with Core Strength. Do note that I tested this in Controller role, no max damage, both chest pieces, and with and without the defense debuff.


Millbarge, also confirmed only damage is buffed by each yellow Ray.
The defense buff icon is misleadingly up as well.

Any update on this?

Check post #148, above. Shiney neatly summarizes the updates. Overall, use CS over PS.

The quantum stuff might be outdated because I think it got fixed awhile ago. Anyways, yeah, check out post #148

I'm not sure the quantum stuff did get fixed. We've done some preliminary scaling samples to see how the Tunso Test Spec compare to a more Live Test Spec. Most powersets scale up about x1.4 stronger. Quantum scales up 1.65. It's basically as if Core Strength applies to the abilities going into Time Bomb and applies to Time Bomb itself. It's like the 110% is applying twice to give an overall boost of 121%. That matches the scaling (1.4 x 121% = ~x1.69). I'm going to see if I can organize someone to do a baseline test and then repeat with only adding Core Strength. That'll illustrate if that theory is true.

Actually if Core Strength still works the same the boost from Core Strength is 6.25% as it bumps the damage modifier from 160 to 170 with the Max Damage mod equipped, and 170/160=1.0625. So, Time Bomb gets a boost of 112.890625% with Core Strength equipped.

Thanks. I forgot about the additive aspect of modifiers.

Nice observation. I thought it was only a hand mod issue, didn't know about CS too. Is there any reason for why the damage modifier isn't being applied at the end, so the compounding of modifiers would stop?

To be fair if they removed the compounding modifiers on Time Bomb right now Quantum's AM would become horrible as Time Bomb would only do about 58.8% of it's current damage.