Hardlight dps for Pve: Assistance please

Everyone says that Hardlight is balanced and works fine. However i'm a bit blind and could use some assistance. Could an expert please shed some light on the situation and recommend a loadout/ rotation?
Thanks.

Do they?
I've never heard "everyone" say that.

The devs seem to think that it's balanced and needs no buff. i'm just trying to find a loadout from an expert tester so i can see what the devs see.

The devs......yeah that's a credible source........and what evidence have the devs given that should lead us to believe that they even care about balance, or even have a clue how to achieve it?

Ask someone else. I'm here to find a loadout not go back and forth about the devs.

You could try looking in the right place, that would be a start.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...k-of-oa-parallax-ultimate-light-guide.239647/

I'll check that out.

Basic

Minigun, Snaptrap, Light blast (repeat)

Advanced

Minigun, Snaptrap, Light Blast, Impact, Ram, Fan, Grasping Hand (repeat)

Up Close

Light Blast, Boxing Gloves, Impact (repeat)


Keep the combo going and you'll start seeing higher numbers. Only buff trinket, supply drop etc at the start of a boss fight. You will want to blind your enemies with your Endless stream of Light.

Blast Adapter or Replenishing procs
Relentless Precision
Max Damage
Deadly Block

I consider HardLight more of a sustained damager than a spike damager like Munitions, Gadgets, Mental.

That is great on single targets. Multi targets it should be the following...

Fan -> Impact -> Light Blast -> MiniGuns -> Ram -> repeat

This combo also can add Grasping Hand if needed for some small DOT on bosses, similar to the combo above..

With this combo for melee I use melee from Fan into Light Claws, into Swing, into Boxing Gloves, into Impact, into LightBlast....

I also find that many HL players are not using white or stat mods. HL needs these for improved stats. Period. Without those mods you are hindering yourself as a player. I do not know why players continue to play a power that is most efficient when you have 132+ SP and are fully modded correctly. All powers benefit from this, but HL it is mandatory for you to do some good damage.

So i've been trying this loadout and still feel as if i'm not hitting hard. I have the white mods and the skill points.
My precision is 5419.
I feel as if i'm doing something wrong yet I know I have the rotation down.

I don't think HL will ever be fine ....

How many ticks are you giving Light Blast and MiniGun?

Your precision is a bit higher than mine ATM as I'm not fully modded with VII mods due to the new drop rate with gear.

If you are comparing yourself to Fire, Ice, Mental, Gadgets, Quantum, etc...you have do melee to compare your damage to theirs...

Today I Light Claw for me with Crits was eclipsing the 30K mark a few times. When I get into swing, I cringe seeing my crit drop to 15-20K. WTF is that crap seriously. Swing prior to GU50 was the hardest hitting melee move in my melee rotation, now it is Light Claws and Boxing Gloves, which when crit can hit mid 30's for me. Great duos and not bad in BS. But for HH and some other raids, forget it. Go Troll.

I hope the developers create a true mid range or modify powers that have true point blank range rotations for melee so that the range rotation gets a boost in damage, similar to what Quantum has now.

I was informed prior to seeking help on the forums that I should just rush through the combos and not hold MG or LB. So that's what ive been doing.

Melee is not my first option to get damage in raids. Bosses these days will one shot anything around the tank and dead player= no damage.

Swing is bugged. It's not recieving its AM boost. Shiny posted proof of that in the GU 50 test thread and it never got changed. (Or something else weird is going on there. I've looked at it over and over and the range is just not right. I don't have access to the analyzer though....)

Same thing with IMP/Ram's Melee tick. I reported it but haven't heard anything back. It'll likely be a while. Gloves, CS both hit in the right damage range for Melee. Claws has some low low's but can hit the right damage range. LS need's to probably get adjusted.

Overall our Range is still a little weak. That's likely supposed to be that way. If IMP/Ram start to recieve there AM buff it'll help with range. It'd have to start to apply at 12.5 M to really count as range though...... We likely could still use a small increase from the range side too... Personally though LB/MG hit pretty hard and receive a substantial buff they could still use a higher damage increase to make it more worth staying in the animation. Right now it depends on enemy type/health and distance from target whether its worth letting LB/MG play out.

That's a lot of ifs....... I'm kind of waiting to see what happens with the Tunso test stuff since we could see more potential changes. Bug's should get fixed tho.

Melee is risky period. Even if you don't get one shotted. It's totally possible to get soft CC'd out of your combo's. It's much more likely to happen if your in Melee range. Which will also lower overall DPS.

For MG/LB it really depends on a few factors. IMP/Ram deal a third(initial) tick when within 8.5 M from your target. That tick when in that range can help overcome the added damage of letting LB/MG play out. It is definitely best at 8.5 M to go through your combo's quick as possible.

At full range it depends on enemy health/type. Letting LB/MG play out can deal a small increase over combo'ing quickly(will vary due to damage range's). However, they each have long animations(4.3 sec's each). That's about 8 sec's of animation time to achieve full damage for LB/MG.

If it's low rank NPC's their health will likely be gone by the time you get halfway through the animations. Quickly playing through the animations will be better to take off quick burst chunks of health. (It's got more to do with how the scorecard register's damage).

If it's a boss/high health target staying in your animation can be more beneficial. Mixing in GH can also be helpful due to the DoT.

Keep in mind though that quickly playing through the animations and letting them play out will deal a similar range of damage(slight edge to holding them out). It will vary on which is better but looking at it over time in the right circumstance's letting the animation play out is better.

As for your overall numbers...... I'm not sure. Do you have all of the crit % bonuses. Are you repeatedly ending your combo's to reapply CH or INS? That will lower your overall DPS.

The way that the Light combo AM is designed we're not like the 1234 AM's. We don't take off giant chunks of damage. We deal lower good sustainable damage over time. It's more like an active attacking DoT power. We do have some abilities that can take around 30k damage(or a little more) off but its mostly smaller amounts of damage that will add up over the course of time.

Hope that helps. If you want a rotation check out the link in the sig. Someone already posted it but you can go to Rokyn's AM loadout and it should work just fine for ya!

Yea. I have all my crit% bonuses. I only refresh Ch/INS when at the start of new ads or the beginning of a boss fight or when i get rallied.
Thank you for clarifying the Am of Hardlight. At first I thought the HL Am was the same as the 1234s but I was mistaken. If it's strictly only good sustainable low damage over time then I guess I was worried for no reason and was performing the Am correctly.

However, I'll check out the video to reassure the rotation.

Unless you pop a shield do a few Light Claws and jump out. I do that on all the bosses in BS...When I say jump out I go LW 3x and go into MG.

With all the might dps one shooting ads and burning the boss faster than my dots/Am can set up it doesn't matter what loadout I use it seems. Just ran Bomb again and same results as before. Going to run HH and see if any difference.

HL is the worst and lowest which is sad because it used to be awesome.

Why do you have to give the man attitude? All he was doing was trying to get some help and you have to try to start something out of nothing...beat it.