Test1: intro Hi everybody! I'm building the guide from the ground up so please be patient First thing's first! Read this, it will not take up more than two minutes: http://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/proper-etiquette-for-good-dpses.679/ Quick links: Loadout and powers Combos Math Deep math Precision vs might Raid strategies Special thanks Test Omaar's HL dps guide. http://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/omaars-hl-dps-guide.69/#post-210 Hello fellow HL player. I'd like to congratulate you on choosing one of the more challenging and fast paced powersets in execution. HL damaging relies on your strategizing ( which combo to use I which situation ), power management ( knowing when to throttle down ) and reflexes ( your hands WILL hurt ) HL is a unique powerset in which you can combo from a power, when you activate a power it uses. HL BASICS: - To use a construct you have to put a power point into it, it does NOT have to be on your Loadout - Your activation uses power, your second hit or " construct " does not - Your first hit being a power cannot be clipped ( except for grasping hand ), it is indicated by a YELLOW number - Your second hit ( construct ) CAN be clipped, it is considered a weapon attack and is indicated by a WHITE number - Your power hit ( yellow ) and construct ( white ) is affected by the power buff preceding - You can jump cancel construct Fan - Your constructs ( white ) are DIRECTLY affected by your weapon's dps - Your constructs are affected by the melee 15% crit damage buff if a melee weapon is equipped Damage Role BASICS: - It's not how hard you hit or how fast you hit, it comes down to how much damage you do per second. - One big hit means less chance of criticals than 4 smaller ones - YOU are responsible of how you play. If your constantly dying, out of power or being hit it's your fault no one else's. - Practice, Practice and when you think your good PRACTICE even more. - BEWARE OF BLOCKING TANKS, if you have a blocking tank throttle down for aggro management How you can help the HL community: - Correct ANY spelling and grammar mistakes you see on the guide. Please post without using the letters IZ, U, Y. - Test on your own, don't follow blindly - Evaluate everything including your own suggestions - Critisize Constructively, this is not a guide to make you better it's for everyone. - This guide is written by you FOR YOU. I just happen to have a good timing app and the time to do the calculations. Acronyms: - CD: Cool down ( time it takes for a power to be available again ) - HL: Hard Light - DPS: Damage per second - Ram: Ram - WT: WhipThrash - ST: SnapTrap - Cs: Chainsaw - C: Claw - HC: Hold Claw - LW: Light Weight - SR: Strafing Run - Clip: to cancel a construct usually designated with a forward or backward slash / or \ - Fan: Fan - Godfather of HL: The Tez - Jump: Jump - PT: Phantom Triangle - WD: Whirling Dervish - Crit: critical hit - Proc: Programmed Random OCcurance, or how many times something happens in a certain time frame - GH: grasping hand - Dot: Damage over time. It does damage a preset amount of times over a predetermined time frame - LB: Light Barrier Now for the details
Loadout: Essential: Our highest attacking combos depend on 3 powers. Ram: a powerful, forward facing conic AOE. It is the PRE-cursor to WhipThrash ( WT) and also the standard RSF combo. Should be on every HL damage dealers Loadout. NOTE: Ram hits for 3 times at point blank when the tip of the drill is touching the mob and once when used from very far. Power cost: 250 Damage buff: 35% Claw: the is a lunge attack. It is also a 360 degree AOE and the PRE-cursor to the strongest HL finisher, the HOLD-CLAW ( HC ). This power allows you to get into the thick of the action as HL is a highly close range damaging power set. Power cost: 250 Damage buff: 35% Snaptrap: a ranged single target attack that applies a dot. It is the precursor to FAN, a very powerful finisher for HL. It's 50% damage modifier is also excellent when you want to go the " economy " loop. It's dots occur twice very second for a total of 9 times ( will confirm ). Power cost: 300 Damage buff: 50% Optional: these can be utilities,supercharge dumps or situational damage increasers. Iconic robot: this little fella does around 20 dps when your ranged , and 25 dps when your melee'ing. It follows you around and it even uses a shield when it knows imminent death is closing in. It gives you back rubs and when your hand is cramped it........ No reason why not to use the iconic robot for a lovely 20 dps. Strafing Run: most probably THE BEST supercharge for damage roles. It has a very hard hitting initial hit (12xx to 25xx) followed by a powerful dot ( 250 ) that hits for 5 times. You can also use two of these to melt even the toughest of foes. NOTE: do NOT forget to buff up with a 50 % modifier and the new supply-drop base trinket for even more damage. Super Charger cost: 50% Light Barrier: with the new health-back base mod, this protects and gives you health. It is vital for hardcore PVP’ers. It's damage Absorbance is equal to 50% of your Dominance and Restoration stat cumulative. It also reflects damage back at the attacker. Power cost: 350 Damage buff: 40% ( need to make sure ) Light Weight: Exceptional for destroying objects. It is a 360 degree AOE. Throwing it does high precision damage in a conic fashion. Rapidly tapping triangle to throw it also activates a Phantom Triangle. Power Cost: 300 Damage buff: 40%
Test 3: combos. RSF FFF ( Frankenstein Full Frontal ) AAA ( All Around Assault )CCCSituation 3: SSS ( Single Super Special ) Eco comboNCN WCS
Damage breakdown. Highest to lowest combos: 157 weapon/132x precision/2486 might FFF-WCS-SSS-GGG-CBN-RSF are taken a rifle weapon into account. All others use a melee weapon. Base damage: Everything INCLUDES the 35% damage buff. No core strength. EVERYONE PLEASE CHECK THEN CTSV VALUES OF HC, FAN AND WT. What you do is go to a dummy and combo into wt ( as an example ). Calculate how does it it average for ( 1 hit not the four ) Then apply this equation: Damage= [ weapon dps + ( your precision/10 ) ] x CTSV. Please note if that CTSV is similar to the one on the charts. For fan multiply by 1.35 and divide by 1.5. Here is a basic breakdown of all the powers and constucts. The formula for dps goes as follows: DPS={ [ ( number of hits X damage buffed X 0.84) + ( number of hits X critical damage at same buff rate )]/time seconds} + number of dots per second. Taking into consideration: - cast time is 1.5 second for powers AND power + constructs ( most constructs can be clipped at the second mark - DPS numbers are put for might based players and players who'd rather NOT clip - Standard is used as a measuring tool for might based players - Standard compares AOE powers of 3 mobs vs Clipped combos against 3 mobs and 1 to 1 respectively - Ram is taken point blank, aka 3 hits - dots are taken on a per second basis as we are assuming you are using it over and over A damage breakdown of combos. The time elapsed is from the moment you activate a power till the earliest moment where it can be used again. Taking into consideration: - Minimum time cannot be less than 1.15 seconds ( light weight exceptional )as this is the cooldown of any instant-cast power - Dps is cumulative damage of all powers, constructs and dots in that elapsed time - The designation of melee or ranged indicates the equipping of brawler or rifle respectively - Damage splitting is NOT calculated
Weapons and Phantom triangle. First of all acquiring a high dps weapon must be YOUR FIRST GOAL AS A HL DAMAGE DEALER. It Weapon choice depends on which combo you heavily use. If you find yourself relying on AAA, AAA+ or Infinite looping use a Melee weapon preferably brawling ( more on that later ) For SSS,FFF, RSF and FFF+ users a RIFLE IS A MUST for the phantom triangle. Phantom triangle:The devs have leased us with an opportunity to inject a free tap triangle without hindering the speed or dynamics of our combos. ACTIVATION METHOD: 1-when transitioning from Snaptrap to Fan you press triangle, instead of pressing triangle once press it 2-3 times. 2-as soon as you see your fist pump ( when you see the Fan animation ) press jump Lo and behold! When you do that hop ( from pressing jump ) you will see that have automatically activated a tap triangle. Even better yet since the golden rule in DCUO is the ability to clip weapon attacks ( with no cast bar ) you can immediately start your next combo ( by casting a power ) and the damage of tap triangle will blend in seamlessly to your combo chaining. When used in conjunction with a rifle it provides devastating results. The tap triangle from rifle is a grenade which besides being the highest tap triangle damage in the game,provides a 360 degrees point-blank AOE. Melee weapons: Melee weapons provide a a 20% control resistance and a 15% critical hit damage buff. Since we hit hardest when we are closest to the mob ( due to Ram, WhipThrash, claw...etc ) that extra 20% proves quite useful for preventing you being knocked around like a pinball thus causing lower or no damage. The 15% critical boost HC criticals to phenomenal levels, I have seen crits north of 1600! I have yet to test out 1 hander, but between all the rest of melee weapons BRAWLING is the best for the following reasons: - strongest tap triangle between tested melee - best weapon for regenerating power because of the low power regeneration tier number. Ranged Weapons: There is only one ranged weapon that you should be interested in: Rifle. Rifle's tap triangle unleashes a powerful grenade which that is far ahead in both single and 360degree AOE. This utilized ONLY IF you are using the RSF, FFF, GGG and the new TTT combo. It is utilized is the PHANTOM TRIANGLE. My advice: With the debut of Eco-combo, heavy usage of AAA and the critical damage bonus I'd advise you to use a melee weapon. Brawling makes an excellent choice because it's 1. Melee for crit damage and control resistance 2. It's tap triangle has high if not the highest damage between melee weapons 3. When using the Eco-combo, a single Eco can get you into tier 2 power regeneration
Might vs Precision [center][/CENTER] This is a simple chart showing basically what 140 might does 60 more precision. You can see that they are nearly equal with minimal differences. The fact that SOE has put out a very balanced precision and might armor set proves this. And interestingly it is very close to our old ratio 2.8:1 mightrecision. I can soundly advise this: go precision/might. You might end up switching powersets in the future and precision/might will help any powerset. I'm staying full precision because I'm not switching powersets any time soon.
Effective Raid strategies Here are some of the strategies I use and am comfortable with when I am raiding. Use it if you will: Gates:First section: AAA with brawlingFirst Boss: FFF with brawlingSecond section: AAA with brawlingSecond Boss: SSS with rifleThird section: AAA with brawlingThird boss: SSS with rifleAvatar of Magic: FFF with riflePrime Battleground:Avatar of Meta: FFF with rifleAvatar of Tech: AAA with brawlingAvatar of Magic: FFF with rifleBraniac: AAA with brawlingBlack dawn:first part: FFF with rifleSecond part: AAA with brawlingSecond boss: SSS with rifleThird part ( Gotham ): FFF/AAA with brawlThird boss: SSS with rifleTala: RSF with rifle ( you don't want to beClose here )
Special thanks: Thankfully the HL community is awesome and very helpful. Here are some names from the old guide but I thank anyone here who posts. ALL MY TURKISH BROTHERS IN-GAME ( Nedir bu çektiğiniz power sıkıntısı benden? ) OPTIMO IDIOTSAVANTS LIVING DEATH CRONTITAN PAINGOD SOULBURN32 WARLAN ARVANDOR MISTER JOULES ( for not crashing me) JMONK24 TIQUAVIUS THETEZ ( Godfather of HL ) J10 ORPHANJOHN LUNCHBOXCHEWEY JELOC EVOKASPA THEPLANTER KEEMLYLH LIGHTSDERP REEPER Tsavorrelentless ( PLEASE fix your posting ) Ex-Wife Nur Sore Smoking guns Bishop Savage Tyga Joybird Obsidian chill el chupacabra Cataclysm NEM Dee Pius JEEBIE MAD9/MADK Bedovean Zur-En-Arz means visit the earth in arabic ( Zoor al ard )
good Deal, i finally came over to the Hero side, EnjoiTheLight, I think Lights quit playing Dc all together . When do you think you will be on next?
I reserved this spot in hope that someone could help me. I switched to HL from Gadgets so I had to go through the process of remodding. But halfway through my league asked me to run FOS 2. I had 1600+ might and 600+ precision. We get it done in under 50 minutes which is common but what shocked me was my damage output. Usually I would be 2nd place under my league leader and personal rival Perfect Legend. He would always put out 100-200k damage more than I did as Gadget. But this time he only beat by little over 30k damage. A lot of factors went into it but the point is that I leaped so much farther ahead into with mixed mods. So my question is: Should HL dps invest in PURE precision mods or maybe mainly precision with a little might? I'll do some testing of my own but my theory is that because of clipping and the first hit being might that maybe all precision may stop more potential damage out. Sorry for the EXTREMELY long back story and all but I felt it might help. Thank you in advance
Look forward to this guide growing and evolving, exciting times are upon us. Should be interesting to see how we can collaborate .