Swift Flurry, Lightning strikes and Heartbeat drumming

[indika_tates]

Hello!

Do someone knows the math about how the critical ratio (hits/crit) of a character have to be to decide when Swift Flurry is a better choice than Lightning strikes for a SC monk with fists?

I'm no good at mathematics but this is what I consider:

- Lightning strikes multiply damage x 0.15.

- Flurry strikes is 100% extra damage (with an extra attack roll that can miss/graze/hit/crit)

- One proc of flurry strikes is worth 100/15 =  6.66 lashes of lightning strikes.

- Swift flurry has a 33% chance to proc/crit.

- Heartbeat add a 25% chance but, how is calculated? 33+25? or two separated rolls?

 

I suppose that you have to proc at least one flurry every 6-7 attacks so you need about 3 crits each 6.66 attack rolls which is roughly a 50% crit ratio. The point is that lightning strikes seem way superior than flurry strikes before heartbeat drumming. Did I miss something?

[Waski]

It's two separate rolls,  bit less then 50% chance with swift flurry/heartbeat drumming. And with lighting strikes you are stuck with electric lash (pen vs ar). With swift flurry you can alternate damage.  And SC monk have WotW that comes with massive acc bonus,  with Scordeo edge getting accuracy above 180 with one instance of WotW it's not uncommon. So vote for swift flurry from me( not enough horsepower between ears to pull some math behind it) 

[AndreaColombo]

I always take Swift Flurry.

Lightning Strikes can be worth it if you pack a lot of additive damage bonuses and use a high-base-damage weapon (e.g. Shadowdancer with a two-hander.)

[Enoch]

For what it's worth, Lightning Strikes also has a bit more flexibility, in that it applies to all attacks, where Swift Flurry is melee-only.  It's the choice if your Monk is going to dabble in Scepters or Mortars or whatever, in addition to being all punchy. 

[Gromnir]

or if you are fighting with ranged weapons a significant % o' combat. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps beat by enoch. 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Gromnir

[Boeroer]

Concerning the chances:

Heartbeat Drumming and Swift Flurry can both proc! So the cases are if you crit:

- both proc

- Heartbeat Drumming procs

- Swift Flurry procs

- none procs

This is different from calculating conversion chances. I that case if one source triggers it's over. But in case of Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming if one procs the other can still proc, too, adding two attacks.

Also both (!) can proc Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming again if they crit! And again and again... That's why you can chain a lot of crits with one single strike if your crit chance is very high.

So it's better than most people think. Hard to calculate though. 

[indika_tates]

27 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Concerning the chances:

Also both (!) can proc Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming again if they crit! And again and again... That's why you can chain a lot of crits with one single strike if your crit chance is very high.

So it's better than most people think. Hard to calculate though. 

The chances of a double proc are (25 * 33) / (100 *100) = 8.2%. Is this right? This is without hit to crit bonuses but monk class doesn't have anything to convert hit to crits, like berserkers or fighters. POTD +15 deflection makes the thing worse since to have a 50% hit to crit ratio based on dice rolls you need +45 accuracy over enemy deflection. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attack_Resolution

POE2 enemies have more or less the same deflection as your base attack let be something about  15 points of difference up or down depending on the enemy class and your gear/skills. +45 accuracy in POTD is something difficult.  Maybe a late game monk with +10 acc from wounds + 15 from dire blessing+Devotions + 10 from maxed PER/gear + 22 from unarmed can achieve this.

Since I assume that enemies (POTD) will often have at least equally or better defenses than my base ACC, pumping MIG & DEX instead of PER and relying on aware inspiration + wizard/druid debuffs to land hits, I think that lightning strikes + turning wheel on a 35 MIG monk is superior in terms of damage compared to flurry strikes of a maxed PER one.

At PL 10 I read that monk fists do +80% damage + 22 accuracy. A helwalker with 35 MIG do +75% damage. This is a total bonus of 155%. With a base dmg value of 14-19 it becomes 36 -  48. With an average damage roll of 42 we have:

42 * (0.15 lightning strikes + 0.20 turning wheel + 0.15 aefyllath + 0.15 shared flames) = 70 average dmg/hit at 0.5 - 3sec recovery rate.

This is of course late game stuff but weapons like legendary modwyr + watcher blade with +20% lashes on their own can bring decent results from early on. Heartbeat drumming is going to be a choice for a SC monk anyway so when it procs at full MIG it's going to hurt a lot.

This is getting complicated because with other lashes additive bonuses losing only a 15% from lightning strikes for a flurry proc with the other lashes combined can make the turning point at high levels where you can pump your accuracy + debuffs enough to make flurries profitable.

[Waski]

Tell me that swift flurry doesn't proc reliable

[indika_tates]

29 minutes ago, Waski said:

Tell me that swift flurry doesn't proc reliable

0:35 Scordeo's Edge spotted

I know that certain items that are on the edge of being broken in terms of game balance can turn the tide. But even considering that it's not a fist monk if you see the sequence that starts at 2:30 to the end of the video I can say that flurry doesn't proc reliable for the amount of crits he did.

I've fought enemies in sea encounters with more deflection than Porokoa so it's not the best example because in terms of deflection (level 20 monk) at that level is a training dummy.

Edited June 7, 2019 by indika_tates

[Boeroer]

Generally Swift Flurry is a tool that lets you kill weak foes a lot faster while it doesn't help much against high defense enemies. Lightning Strikes is a lot more consistent.

But also building around Swift Flurry can be more fun.

Do a Berserker/Monk with Brute Force, Enduring Dance, Enervating Blows, Spirit Frenzy, Bloody Slaughter and Barbaric Smash, using both Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming and a Morning Star.

With the first hit drop fortitude by 25-45 via Body Blows, weaken and staggered while your ACC crawls up to +12 and you also get pretty substantial crit conversion from Berserker Frenzy, Barbaric Smash and sometimes Bloody Slaughter. 

With this I can often one shot enemies who don't have stellar fortitude because I pile up 5, 6 or more attacks in a row from one strike.

Also stuff like Saru-Sichr's stacking DoT procs off of Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming.

That is all cool because I attack squishy enemies with that dude mainly - also to abuse Blood Thirst if course (which is also only speeding up things if you're already winning).

[Gromnir]

am not saying X is better than Y, but for frame o' reference, we played a contemplative through near all game content, including dlcs. potd. as some folks is aware, we do not min-max and we use companions for party. no mods. didn't use scordeo's edge or sun and moon-- pretty much marux amanth or summoned flail for 1/2 to 2/3 of game and then ball and chain or magran's favor at end... unless fighting veil touched in which case we would use beza's toothed blade.

were a swift flurry contemplative eventual with heartbeat drumming, but such is a late game powha. if anybody is interested in other powers, we will provide, but for present discussion is unlikely to be relevant.

for the sss and fs dlcs, 'cause we wanted recommended party companions, we we were the main healer and buffer for our party, which is not our design.

anytime we had pallegina in party, we also sent xoti back to the ship... which also increased our heal & buff load. maybe 1/4 of game content, not including dlc, had Gromnir using pallegina. am mentioning 'cause such spells as restore and salvation o' time only count towards hit totals and not crits. 

so, with such qualifiers in mind, relevant endgame numbers looked like this:

total damage: 345488.9

crits: 4614

hits: 10617

is not gonna be optimal swift flurry numbers 'cause as already mentioned, our contemplative, particular for the dlc, were a primary healer and buffer.  nevertheless, is real numbers for a non-optimized full potd game with provided companions. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps shoulda mentioned the contemplative described is a hearth orlan. apologies.

pps our first deadfire character completing the game were actual a lightning strikes contemplative, but honestly, deadfire were near a different game at  release. can post numbers for any interested... which seems doubtful.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Gromnir
le sigh

[Boeroer]

Those numbers also include hits/crits from spells (like Devotions, Iconic Projection etc.) though. Which are not relevant for Swift Flurry. It's not possible to determine which ratio of crits/hits your melee attacks had (unless your only offensive actions were melee attacks - which is unlikely since some buffs or heals also include attack rolls).

But I guess you can see a general tendency nonetheless.

I think if you don't build and play around Swift Flurry it's weaker than Lightning Strikes. But still: the synergy with Heartbeat Drumming is more potent than most people realize. Just because one can proc the other (endlessly in theory) which leads to a lot more procs than with Swift Flurry or Heartbeat Drumming alone.