A rough DPS calculation on some crit-based ranged weapons (single target only)

[yorname]

I wanted to run a SC ranger and while they can shine against mobs, for single target they don't get a lot of tools except for crits. So I wondered how much does crit bring them with various ranged weapons? I suck at dealing with speed inversions, so the speeds are based on a 20 DEX ydwin with no armor penalty and Acina's Tricorn. All weapons are legendary with no other damage modifiers like might, sneak attack etc, only +25% from crits. Also I didn't factor in penetration.

The weapons are:

• Frostseeker. crits cause AOE freeze/slashing damage. Attacking + recovery time = 3.7s on said character.

• Veilpiercer and Saint Omaku's Mercy: 50% chance to ignore recovery when scoring crits. I think there's a slight delay when firing another shot, so I'll use 1s if this triggers, and 3.7s if not.

• Current's Rush which has a 20% chance to trigger an AOE damage which can further trigger itself. It's not ideal when fighting single target but I just wonder how it performs. When dual wielded the total time is 2.5s on said character.

• Eccea's Arcane Blaster. This has nothing to do with crits, but IMO is a baseline for single target. I treat Fractured Bullet as an 1.25x multiplier. When dual wielded with Imbued Ammunition on it has total attack time of 3.8s.

At 100% crit chance, average DPS are:

• 15 for Frostseeker
• 12.6 for warbows
• 11.84 for Current's Rush
• 11.54 for EAB

At 50% crit chance:

• 9.79 for Frostseeker
• 9.1 for warbows
• 9.2 for Current's Rush
• 11.3 for EAB

 

In practice, against bosses it's usually somewhere in between, probably closer to 50%. I think it's safe to say high crit chance itself does less than I expected. Because EAB mostly can't graze, if the character at least doesn't miss, picking SC ranger doesn't offer much compared to basically any class using EAB, if using ranged weapons, in single target scenario. Not considering pets because they tend to face penetration issues by endgame. Maybe they're better with some melee crit weapons.

Edited August 8 by yorname

[yorname]

I forgot to factor in the slower speed and bonus damage on SOM, and raw lash on veilpiercer. But those can be treated as an multiplier ≤10%, so the conclusion is pretty much the same. Frost lash on Frostseeker is even weaker.

Edit: I also got two weapon passive on the character but didn't have 2h passive when resting. That's another <10% effectively. So at 50% crit chance we can say they are all close, I guess.

Edited August 8 by yorname

[thelee]

For non-warbows, I do think penetration is a rather important factor for crits on PotD. Warbows get a modal for PEN so suffer less, but still take an overall dps hit.

but otherwise, yeah, also most of the accuracy stuff can be had by MC anyway and then your accuracy bins can synergies with other stuff. In terms of crits, SC’s main advantage imo is getting the passive that lets you interrupt on a crit, which gives crit non-damage utility in stuff like boss fights.

[yorname]

15 minutes ago, thelee said:

For non-warbows, I do think penetration is a rather important factor for crits on PotD. Warbows get a modal for PEN so suffer less, but still take an overall dps hit.

but otherwise, yeah, also most of the accuracy stuff can be had by MC anyway and then your accuracy bins can synergies with other stuff. In terms of crits, SC’s main advantage imo is getting the passive that lets you interrupt on a crit, which gives crit non-damage utility in stuff like boss fights.

like speed, penetration is just too hard to calculate for me, writing functions and such. I suspect if underpen is a problem for hits, EAB would have a even bigger advantage.

[thelee]

that's pretty true. what also helps is that EAB can do the single-weapon-style + pistol modal trick (really effective with the special bullets thanks to that inversion math on the recovery time bonus) that other ranged weapons would be hard-pressed to compete with.

maybe EAB isn't a good baseline because it's too good . it would even be better on maia than any other player-created SC ranger for the bonus interrupts.

so i guess it's like "ok, for your first ranged attacker, it's hard to do better than EAB with crits. but if you have a second ranged attacker, then crits become better"

[Boeroer]

St. Omaku's Mercy with the enchantment that skips recovery on crit is great imo because it trades higher PEN for slightly slower recovery - which hasn't such a big impact bc. of the skipping.

In combination with Driving Flight and Twinned Shot (=4 attack rolls) and all the accuracy the chance is very high to skip recovery. Imo there's no real delay - except the shooting animation of course. 

The most straightforward way for max single target with a Ranger usually is Essence Interrupter or Amiina's Legacy witj the modal on. That's not about crits so much - but the very high ACC helps to balance out the drawback of the modal. And the upside of the modal (-50% recovery) is just insane for DPS.

 

[yorname]

26 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

St. Omaku's Mercy with the enchantment that skips recovery on crit is great imo because it trades higher PEN for slightly slower recovery - which hasn't such a big impact bc. of the skipping.

In combination with Driving Flight and Twinned Shot (=4 attack rolls) and all the accuracy the chance is very high to skip recovery. Imo there's no real delay - except the shooting animation of course. 

The most straightforward way for max single target with a Ranger usually is Essence Interrupter or Amiina's Legacy witj the modal on. That's not about crits so much - but the very high ACC helps to balance out the drawback of the modal. And the upside of the modal (-50% recovery) is just insane for DPS.

 

Indeed. Hunting bow is better than all of the weapons listed for single target, as long as the extra (effectively) -10 ACC doesn't result in grazes and penetration isn't a problem.

For the warbows if there's a second target to trigger Driving Flight, I guess Frostseeker and Current's Rush also improves drastically, hard to know the exact numbers though.

Edited August 8 by yorname

[Boeroer]

Yes, it's best to actually test these options in the game because theorycrafting and calculating is of limited use with such a complex game. It's great to get an idea - but there's so much to consider which is difficult to put into a formula. 

[NotDumbEnough]

In my experience the Arcane Blaster is best against single targets. Veilpiercer is quite powerful in fights against multiple enemies, with Twinned Shots and Driving Flight you only need one of the four shots to crit to reset your recovery, so you can simply dump all your Bond to quickly alpha strike the enemy.

[Kaylon]

From my experience EAB is the pistol with the worst dps and I only use it as back up weapon against pierce resistant enemies (it's basically what Animancer's Energy Blade is for sabres). The Red Hand is the ranged weapon with the highest dps (but of course best suited for Maia), then come hunting bows with modal and, if you have high critical chance, Frostseeker is also very close. 

[yorname]

1 hour ago, Kaylon said:

From my experience EAB is the pistol with the worst dps and I only use it as back up weapon against pierce resistant enemies (it's basically what Animancer's Energy Blade is for sabres). The Red Hand is the ranged weapon with the highest dps (but of course best suited for Maia), then come hunting bows with modal and, if you have high critical chance, Frostseeker is also very close. 

I did the calculation a while ago, EAB is simply one of the best. Just don't believe when it says 8-12 and look at the log instead. Also for single target in this thread I don't think I could get the numbers terribly wrong.

The red hand is only about the same as EAB, given it doesn't benefit much from crit, with high crit chance it's worse than other listed weapons. Since EAB can be DWed with an attacking shield and has better penetration, the red hand is only useful for double tap.

[yorname]

5 hours ago, thelee said:

so i guess it's like "ok, for your first ranged attacker, it's hard to do better than EAB with crits. but if you have a second ranged attacker, then crits become better"

I didn't think about that, it's so true.

Kind of funny how EAB ended up being BiS because of scaling. I don't even know if it's intended, can't remember if any other weapon's extra attack gets both PL/CL and weapon quality scaling. In a sense it's like spamming those tier 0/1 martial abilities, just not as good, but also free.

Edited August 8 by yorname

[Kaylon]

14 hours ago, yorname said:

I did the calculation a while ago, EAB is simply one of the best. Just don't believe when it says 8-12 and look at the log instead. Also for single target in this thread I don't think I could get the numbers terribly wrong.

The red hand is only about the same as EAB, given it doesn't benefit much from crit, with high crit chance it's worse than other listed weapons. Since EAB can be DWed with an attacking shield and has better penetration, the red hand is only useful for double tap.

I don't know how you did your calculations, but if you compare EAC with Thundercrack it's very easy to see which one has the better dps (they can use the same setup and it's easy to spot the differences). Thundercrack's average base dmg is 17 with 15% lash dmg (ie 19.55 base average dmg), while ECA average base dmg is 6+10 (with Imbued Ammunition) with its 25% dmg proc (ie 20 base average dmg). However ECA has 35% slower recovery because of Imbued Ammunition which will lower its dps under Thundercrack (2.7s vs 2.5s action speed with 20dex).

PS. Anyway, this topic has been already discussed pretty extensively in the past and I thought it was common knowledge...

Edited August 9 by Kaylon

[yorname]

1 hour ago, Kaylon said:

I don't know how you did your calculations, but if you compare EAC with Thundercrack it's very easy to see which one has the better dps (they can use the same setup and it's easy to spot the differences). Thundercrack's average base dmg is 17 with 15% lash dmg (ie 19.55 base average dmg), while ECA average base dmg is 6+10 (with Imbued Ammunition) with its 25% dmg proc (ie 20 base average dmg). However ECA has 35% slower recovery because of Imbued Ammunition which will lower its dps under Thundercrack (2.7s vs 2.5s action speed with 20dex).

PS. Anyway, this topic has been already discussed pretty extensively in the past and I thought it was common knowledge...

This is why I said you shouldn't believe when tooltip, and you clearly never actually used it, or bothered looking at the combat log. If this is "discussed pretty extensively", I simply have no idea how you guys managed it without actually using it at all, good job.

Imbued Ammunition scales with PL/CL, then with might, weapon quality and such, like those tier 0/1 martial abilities like Force of Anguish. Just use it on a lv20 character, you'll see the base roll of IA is roughly between 12-18. (6+15)*1.25 = 26.25 average base damage.

And it doesn't graze. As long as the raw hit isn't a miss, IA will proc a hit without checking accuracy vs defenses. Among pistols only Scordeo's Trophy with high stacks of Opening Barrage has a chance of beating it, if Scordeo's Trophy can actually penetrate anything in the late game.

 

[Kaylon]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

This is why I said you shouldn't believe when tooltip, and you clearly never actually used it, or bothered looking at the combat log. If this is "discussed pretty extensively", I simply have no idea how you guys managed it without actually using it at all, good job.

Imbued Ammunition scales with PL/CL, then with might, weapon quality and such, like those tier 0/1 martial abilities like Force of Anguish. Just use it on a lv20 character, you'll see the base roll of IA is roughly between 12-18. (6+15)*1.25 = 26.25 average base damage.

And it doesn't graze. As long as the raw hit isn't a miss, IA will proc a hit without checking accuracy vs defenses. Among pistols only Scordeo's Trophy with high stacks of Opening Barrage has a chance of beating it, if Scordeo's Trophy can actually penetrate anything in the late game.

 

Oh? Indeed I wasn't aware (or maybe I forgot ) that IA gets the PL bonus. That will increase the dps by quite a bit indeed and put it above the others. 

[Boeroer]

Just for y'all's info I did a few test shootings with some of the weapons for a quick in-game comparison.

I shot at a cre_dummy in fast combat with auto-attacks (disadvantage for the Blaster bc of lacking PL bonuses?). For some weapons that rely on on-hit/crit effects and/or AoE I added some more dummies right behind the actual target. 

SC Ranger at lvl 20 with Marked Prey, Marksman, Gunner, Driving Flight, Prestige and Evasive Roll (for +5 DEX which increases recovery/reload) + Harley and Ring of the Marksman. All weapons legendary and with the supposedly best dps enchantments. 

The seconds are the time it took to take the initial target down. I averaged three tries each, so it's not very accurate but will still give some hints.

• The Red Hand: ~10 sec
• Eccea's Arcane Blaster (One Handed Style + modal + Imbued Ammunition): ~15 secs
• St. Omaku's Mercy: ~20 secs
• St. Omaku's Mercy (second dummy behind the target): ~11 secs
• Essence Interrupter (modal, Metaphysics 20): ~8 secs
• Aamiina's Legacy (): ~8 secs
• Scordeo's Trophy (modal) : ~14 secs
• Scordeo's Trophy (modal, second dummy behind the target) : ~12 secs
• Thundercrack (modal): ~13 secs
• Frostseeker: ~9 secs
• Frostseeker (second dummy behind the target): ~7 secs
• Frostseeker (third dummy behind the target): ~6 secs
• Frostseeker (four dummies behind the target): ~6 secs
• Dragon's Dowry: ~13 secs
• Watershaper's Focus: ~30 secs
• Watershaper's Focus (second dummy behind the target): ~22 secs
• Waterhaper's Focus (third dummy behind the target): ~20 secs
• Watershaper's Focus (four dummies behind the target, Blast modal) : ~6 secs 
• Current's Rush: ~20 secs
• Current's Rush (second dummy behind the target): ~10 secs
• Current's Rush (third dummy behind the target): ~8 secs
• Current's Rush (four dummies behind the target): ~6 secs
• Spearcaster (Arcana 20): ~13 secs
• Fire in the Hole (modal): ~16 secs
• Fire in the Hole (modal, second dummy behind the target) : ~8 secs
• Fire in the Hole (modal, third dummy behind the target): ~6 secs
• Fire in the Hole (modal, four dummies behind the target): ~6 secs
• Xefa's Empirical Explication (modal): ~13 secs
• Kitchen Stove (modal, Frantic Relaod): ~9 secs
• Kitchen Stove (modal, Everything and Anything) : ~11 secs

I guess I could push the reloading weapons a little bit more with something like Acina's Tricorn and Sure-Handed Ila and stuff but I wanted to keep it simple. 

Edited August 11 by Boeroer

[yorname]

Hmm, imbued ammunition should get PL scaling for auto-attack, losing to Thundercrack and Spearcaster is unexpected, especially the latter, since they have similar damage but pistol should be significantly faster. Are the base rolls more like 8-12, or 12-18 when you tested?

I disabled mods then consoled a new one to try, and still got the PL scaling, so I guess it's not because of mod difference.

Hunting bows are so sick!

[Boeroer]

It's not a comprehensive test, just one little setup to get an idea.

Eccea's Arcane Blaster's performance in this case might be a little worse because the dummies have very low defenses, so crits are common. Also the AR is low.
The Blaster doesn't do overpenetration (happens a lot with crits against dummies) so that might explain a good portion of it. I think against "proper" enemies the results would be different.

The base rolls for Imbued Ammunition were more like 12-18. But the raw dm is pretty low. 

And it was very good with Twinned Shot - compared to the Red Hand (which I also tried with Twinned Shot). It then killed the enemies faster than the Red Hand and used less Bond resource for the kill. I guess because Fracured Bullet got triggered way more (which also get Imbued Ammunition for each fracture). 

Spearcaster was with 20 Arcana - so it had very high ACC. I also chose the enchantment for the multi-lash which helps, too. I had to put the enemy in front of a building though to prevent it from getting pushed back. When this happens it will cost you dps at some point because the enemy will get pushed out of range and you have to follow before you can shoot. 

Thundercrack has a good lash and it also paralyzes on crit (which leads to even more crits bc. of the added 25% crit conversion). crits that lead to overpenetration + multiplicative lash dmg bonus is a nasty combo. I guess that explains its good dmg performance in this case - also compared to Scordeo's Trophy that has more speed and higher crit dmg - but no lash (and less crit chance). 

Hunting Bows are indeed very good in this setup - but overall I think Frostseeker has the overall best outcompe here: great against single dummies, great against groups - just overall great.  And it also needs very little enchantment ressources: the unique enchantmant isn't really necessary. You only need to bring up the quality and that's it.  

 

Edited August 11 by Boeroer

[thelee]

i think this is kind of the limits of some types of theorycrafting. i think we're trying to come with "average" cases and coming up with different things, but what that average means really constitutes a lot of wild variance.

for example, when i was thinking of EAB, my main mental model was against bosses and megabosses where penetration is a huge concern and consistent crits out of the realm of possibility. so having steady raw damage (extra raw damage from extra bullets and extra generous damage even on grazes from imbued bullets; i don't know what the pen on the imbued bullets are, but istr that i was doing full damage against dorudugan, so it's clearly generous or at least has generous scaling) is very good.

obviously it seems that depending on the setup EAB doesn't perform as obviously good (even mediocre). maybe we should try to break down into more specific scenarios and talk about that? e.g. low defense/AR situations, high AR situations, 1v1, 1vmany? (in a truly min-max situation, instead of picking one weapon, we'd switch weapons depending on the situation)

Edited August 12 by thelee

[Kaylon]

EAB's dps is greatly affected by its proc. If the proc doesn't trigger then its dps is just average, but if you take in account the proc then it should be above the other pistols. I don't know exactly what's the PL/CL bonus applied to Imbued Ammunition, but I'm curious how it works in the case of MC and if it can be improved with some buffs.

[yorname]

played with my ranger save a bit more, suddenly realized that if the attacker has a huge advantage of accuracy, they can affored to DW and use Rushed Reload at the same time for EAB, since it doesn't lose much on grazes.

Also BPM nerfed hunting bow and pistol modals a little, so my numbers on them might be on the lower end.

[thelee]

On 8/30/2024 at 5:40 PM, yorname said:

played with my ranger save a bit more, suddenly realized that if the attacker has a huge advantage of accuracy, they can affored to DW and use Rushed Reload at the same time for EAB, since it doesn't lose much on grazes.

might need to pay attention to what's actually happening in-game here.

the attack speed penalty for imbued bullets might help the cap here, but from personal testing, there is a minimum reload time for all guns (despite what the attack/recovery tooltip might say) which corresponds to a bare minimum time spent in actual reload animation. it's pretty easy to hit this minimum reload time with DW + rushed reload with cloth/light armor, ignoring dex or other boosts. so, if you're hitting this level of speed or close to hitting this level of speed already with just either DW or rushed reload, then you're hurting your accuracy without any actual gain. but it's possible imbued bullets is enough of a penalty that you still benefit. again, needs some actual timing of in-game shots.

Edited September 4 by thelee

[yorname]

11 hours ago, thelee said:

might need to pay attention to what's actually happening in-game here.

the attack speed penalty for imbued bullets might help the cap here, but from personal testing, there is a minimum reload time for all guns (despite what the attack/recovery tooltip might say) which corresponds to a bare minimum time spent in actual reload animation. it's pretty easy to hit this minimum reload time with DW + rushed reload with cloth/light armor, ignoring dex or other boosts. so, if you're hitting this level of speed or close to hitting this level of speed already with just either DW or rushed reload, then you're hurting your accuracy without any actual gain. but it's possible imbued bullets is enough of a penalty that you still benefit. again, needs some actual timing of in-game shots.

I thought the minimum was around 1s? Really hard to reach with the penalty.

[Bosmer]

Somewhere I read 1.5 or 1.6 seconds Minimum reload animation. It’s definitely reachable 

[thelee]

i tried to double check some notes and my own guide and it's somewhere a bit below 1.5s. below that i had too much difficulty coordinating my clicks and timer to get an accurate measurement, so it's somewhere there.

that might be low enough that you don't normally hit it unless you're also investing in dex and have some other action speed or recovery time bonuses on top of DW + rapid reload so you might be fine with imbued ammo.