Test Discussion GU45 Celestial AM DPS Update

Here's a comparison of RcW spam and RcW alternated with ScH. The crit percentage is fairly close, though it does favor RcW spam. I tried a few runs to get the percentages closer, but I was getting tired. With no runs was RcW spam inferior. Note the time difference and the number of hits, rather than just the effective DPS. I was one of those pushing to expand the buff on ScH, since Wither was getting the full buff, further expanding the disparity in damage between the two. The disparity is still there, but nowhere near as bad as it was initially.

You are 100% correct in this, and I don't have any disagreements.

My only hope is to provide Spord and his team a plate of food for thought.

Here we are in the thread that's supposed to address Celestial DPS, and already this list of changes has been reduced to its optimal dps loadout. RcW, CScWotP, PcDL, Anoint, and CI. Anything else is a damage -loss-. So, what's this GU addressing again? You can't even say quality of life improvements, since the new vulnerabilities make that quality of life arguably worse (PvP, I'm looking at you - no one gives a damn if you're interrupted in PvE, really, no one cares).

I even saw you, in another thread, claim that Celestial PvP was barely a thing. Hyperbole, sure, but another poster in this thread claims themself and one other as the only Celestial healers they see regularly. There is a portion of the game that this powerset cannot enjoy... literally target practice... yet, "this GU is about Celestial DPS only".

Please. :/

What a waste of man hours. All these DPS/QoL changes could have been done in a proper Celestial revamp, except, unlike the McB nerf, this is only being done half way.

Spord. You have people who LOVE this powerset, despite its long list of drawbacks (especially in comparison to other powers). This level of faithfulness almost makes Earth players blush. I'm not trying to say you owe anybody anything, however you've received much praise for your previous work. Pardon me for looking at this and wondering, "WTF?"

Go go Gadget alt.... which sucks, because I don't like Gadgets or Quantum nearly as much as I like Celestial and the idea that made this power exist in the first place.

(back to your regularly scheduled, "OMG, these changes are great!" I'm done here, anything else would be rehash. Calling it from now: When McB is looked at, again, some of the changes in this GU will be nerfed to compensate, thus repeating the cycle. Watch.)

I compared a bunch of different rotations tonight using the new league hall sparring targets (group of 3). I just attacked the dummies until they were KOed, then checked the combat log analyser for results. The white mods I'm using are Max Damage, Escalating Might, and Core Strength.

Here's two runs of just RcW spam using prec might mods and mixed prec:





And here's two runs of RcW into ScH with the same mods:





Here is RcW spam with the 3 buffs and the same mods:


Here is RcW into ScH with the 3 buffs and the same mods:



Here is RcW spam with the 3 buffs and all prec mods:


And finally, here is RcW into ScH with the 3 buffs and all prec mods:


In general, RcW-ScH did a bit better than pure RcW spam. It certainly never did worse for me. Also, modding pure prec instead of prec might actually hurt the RcW spam rotation quite a bit for some reason.

I'm not sure why we're getting such different results honestly.

Something doesn't seem right about your very first graph. You and Remander both did the RcW spam rotation yet his took 174 s and only did 835 hits and your took only 5s more but managed over 200 more hits. Something has to be different about your two rotations. I would blame it on the crits being different but 10% crit isn't going to cause you to do 200 more hits in only 5 more secs.

You should be using penetrating strikes, not core strength.

Yeah i think the gap isn't that much, but what i noticed while testing:
- Repeating results can give quit different results. I have a range from about 5k magnitude (sometimes i mess up rotations).
--> The timing of clipping is important. I saw that RcW is clipped to fast and don't get the combo (happened to me sometimes while testing). RcW - ScH is quit easier to hit the combos/good timing.

My runs were in full precision 97 gear, using Anoint and Benediction as buffs (might damage is identical between the two, so DP should affect them equally). Both DPS iconics. Had PS, Max Damage, and Blast Adapter (probably should take that off, in retrospect, as it could potentially confound the data--activated by abilities now). No neck mod (RP isn't activated, base might damage is identical). No other buffs. I'll dig up my base stats tonight. Not sure why we're getting different results either.

Is anyone able to test how this compares to a rotation of quantum damage.

Anyway I don't like having to spam buffs to make yourself compatable with other powers. Can we please consolidate some of the buffs into one power. Mainly give anoint the critical chance buff as well. Or better yet just up the base damage so we don't need all these buffs.

I would agree if malediction and benediction weren't connnected. I'm not sure how you solve that

Wouldn't DP affect a rotation with ScH more, as the faster combo time means the might based part will be fired more often? I would think that losing the Dps iconic would still be a loss for Dps though.

Could give both powers the critical chance buff just make sure they do not stack.

Would not change the relative DPS of the two. The might damage of Smite and Retribution are the same. You might get slightly more might hits in, because ScH is slightly faster, but the might damage (even buffed) is trivial next to the precision damage. I could post some per move damage graphs. Of course, I think we're getting off track here. This is supposed to be a feedback thread for spord. Not a comparison of damage rotations. I'm dropping the subject, at least here.

I would like the following :

If celestial combos are performed uninterrupted for a period of 4 seconds all combos will gain an additional buff for damage. Similar to light.
Make celestial combos more mobile and less rooted.
Add a PI for additional damage for those that do not want to use combos.

Ty.

1. This update includes an 80% damage buff after performing just one multi-input combo. Why would you want to wait until 4?

2. I think we'd all like that.

3. DP was buffed to improve our might damage, mainly for WM users. We aren't getting a PI, per spord. Effectively, this is a PI.

My first graph was just RcW spam whereas he used RcW and 2 buffs. Also, he's using penestrating strikes and blast adapter. I can't access my base vendor or else I'd have switched out my white mods long ago.

That should be fixed or will be in the next test build.

Still seems off knowing that. Had it been like 50 mor hits then I'd say ok but 200? That's weird.

Isn't the 80% damage buff simply the equivalent of WM buff?

Hardly. It's 80% to almost all damage you do with the AM, once active. This AM will put WM Celestial builds to shame.

I'll take a stab at RcW vs. RcW-ScH... I actually found significantly different timings than in your guide Remander so I just re-tested everything. I haven't played celestial in about a year so I don't know... maybe the timings or damages changed?

I found RcW to be clippable at 2.0 seconds. The cooldown is shorter at 1.7 sec though, so as Tilz said, it's really easy to completely miss cWither if you clip too early. Then I found ScH to be clippable at 1.1 sec, with a 1.8 second CD.

I got both Retribution and Smite's multi-input damage to be 34-48 (41),
Cleansed Wither's total multi-input damage to be 8.0 (+/- 10%),
and Cleansed Haunt's total multi-input damage to be 3.8 (+/-10%).

spreadsheet here for the calculations: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18m78roTdgC6OFKMUGRBqc0yBgoHO6hwnyhYfUU7QUTE/edit?pli=1#gid=0
I don't take into account modifiers or crits here, as they should be the same for both rotations. you can dl it to see the differences with your stats or with your own timings

When clipped, ScH beats out RcW in damage/sec for most stat distributions. So I found alternating RcW-ScH was pretty much always better than just spamming RcW, but not by very much. The gains ranged from like 1% to 5%, depending on the prec/might distributions I used. So if you kill a set of test dummies, it's still possible to see RcW alone win but it shouldn't be by a significant amount.

Not sure what could be different, so I'll just suggest making sure that you have around 3 times as many cWither hits as Retribution hits in your log. Same for cHaunt and Smite. Also check that your Retribution and Smite damages are around the same and that your cWither damage is around 2.1 times your cHaunt damage. I remember before that RcW could be clipped as soon as Retribution came off cooldown, so I messed up my RcWs a lot while testing. And then maybe also try reducing randomness by not using max damage and fighting higher defense sparring targets. And maybe removing crit bonuses if you're not using crit buffs in your rotation.