Best item to use the Helwax Mold on? (Spoilers probably)

[rheingold]

So taking high dex and two weapon fighting is a waste for a dual wielder? If that's the case, and you took the talent what dex could you get away with? Alternatively if you went high dex, I'm presuming the 2 handed talent is a waste of time?

[Blunderboss]

Dex starts kicking in only after you reached 0 Recovery , it then reduces frames needed for your weapon attack ,

If anything DeX is useless if you dont reach 0 rec as recovery time nulifies any speed you would get from dex , but after you go to 0rec its up to DEX to make you attack even faster , dont get me wrong DEX makes your attacks faster even if you have recovery but , when you need to wait trough recovery bar DEX speed increase of one frame is irrelevant .

 

High DEX is decent with : Casters , Melees with 0 rec , Ranged Characters ( For reload speed , or for attacking a bit faster as they dont reach 0 rec too often , especially with Stormcaller you will have decent chunk of recovery left so high DEX decrease that last Chunk by percentage )

Edited May 2, 2016 by Blunderboss

[rheingold]

Awesome thanks for explanation.... Man I used to think dungeons and dragons was complicated with its rules...

Edited May 2, 2016 by rheingold

[DreamWayfarer]

Dex starts kicking in only after you reached 0 Recovery , it then reduces frames needed for your weapon attack ,

If anything DeX is useless if you dont reach 0 rec as recovery time nulifies any speed you would get from dex , but after you go to 0rec its up to DEX to make you attack even faster , dont get me wrong DEX makes your attacks faster even if you have recovery but , when you need to wait trough recovery bar DEX speed increase of one frame is irrelevant .

Are you sure?

 

From what I remember, if you have non-zero recovery, DEX applies to it. I thoughy DEX was based on dividing the final sum of frames an action takes(action+recovery+reload), so in brute frame number, it had more impact with HIGH recovery times. Not that you shouldn't raise it if you reached zero-recovery, since in the end it still multiplied the number of actions you do in a given time by a very close number.

Edited May 2, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Elric Galad]

Whatever you do except chanting or moving, you'll do + 3xDex % faster.

[Blunderboss]

 

Dex starts kicking in only after you reached 0 Recovery , it then reduces frames needed for your weapon attack ,

If anything DeX is useless if you dont reach 0 rec as recovery time nulifies any speed you would get from dex , but after you go to 0rec its up to DEX to make you attack even faster , dont get me wrong DEX makes your attacks faster even if you have recovery but , when you need to wait trough recovery bar DEX speed increase of one frame is irrelevant .

Are you sure?

 

From what I remember, if you have non-zero recovery, DEX applies to it. I thoughy DEX was based on dividing the final sum of frames an action takes(action+recovery+reload), so in brute frame number, it had more impact with HIGH recovery times. Not that you shouldn't raise it if you reached zero-recovery, since in the end it still multiplied the number of actions you do in a given time by a very close number.

 

Yes it does but it only work on the recovery you have left so the benefit of very high dex is very low before you reach 0 rec (For example if i have 1.9 Speed and only 10% Rec left 21 Dex would only decrease it by 1/3  ) And as long as ultimate goal is to attack as fast as we can priority when increasing attack speed is always Removing recovery .

 

Unless you have no speed modifiers at all then high DEX has huge impact on your recovery, but its again irrelevant because well you dont have any speed anyway , so this probably means attacking fast isnt the goal as any character can access DAoM potion who halve the recovery , and every speed modifier including DAoM make the DEX's impact on recovery less and less .

 

My point is that if you dont plan to remove recovery completely then stacking DEX is not really an option . And im talking about Melee DPS characters here . 

And Difference between 10 Dex and 20 Dex when you are already at 0 recovery is not that big either but still might be worth it for characters whos sole goal is to do melee damage ( aka rogues ) 

Edited May 2, 2016 by Blunderboss

[Braven]

DEX is always good, really. The only characters I leave it low for are super defense tanks (large shield, sit in doorways and around for special abilities, not swinging weapons. Often chanter or paladin is best for this). Attacking super fast is best if you also can reduce DR to nothing most of the time. Particularly if using fast weapons like rapier/dagger. This makes the 3 DR-bypass gloves, devil effigy, DR reduction Mage/chanter spells, fighter sundering blow, and vulnerable attack much more powerful. I like using a shield best when used with the soulbound dagger (since it can't be copied and the main damage is firebug making DR-bypass a little less important) or if you have another plan for the wax. It can also be used to copy per/rest quick slot items which is probably a better deal overall.

 

I like dual wielding for interrupt barbarians, since they can copy one of the interrupt weapons, or just use two different ones. Mosquito rapier is particularly nice with DR-bypass stacking since the bypass applies to carnage and is the only fast weapon with high interrupt. It also provides healing which is good since you will have bad health needing maxed out Int/dex/per.

 

Dual weapons is also always best in the early/mid game since it is the easiest way to increase speed before you have all of the speed hosting items.

[nem0]

Maxquest did testing and Dex applies to recovery and attack speed, the only thing it didn't was the small frame delay for every action.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14NhcTK-yYZNNFdAs8dOPJWHi3_f9afIYqV7MFBIhMjs/edit#gid=0

 

That is the spreadsheet he released in the attack speed 2.0 post page seven I believe.  According to that Dex should a apply the same bonus to attacking regardless of recovery speed(not counting delay frames).  Stacking attack speed items is better until 0 recovery because they stack multiplicatively and Dex suffers from diminishing returns (1 / ( 1 + dex modifier)).

[Boeroer]

However - if you have already reached zero recovery DEX does nothing for your recovery time any more. Then it only shortens your attack animation. That can be a bit of a difference, but it's not so crucial any more. I made a DEX-3-Fighter with dual Gaun's Share and zero recovery. He casts his scrolls really slowly and needs forever to gulp a potion - but his attacks are very fast. Not as fast as if he had 10 or 20 DEX, but DEX hasn't this huge effect on his weapon attacks any more. You gain more dps if you just dump DEX and put it all into PER and MIG (and INT - for longer prones, Constant Recovery and stuff). 

[Elric Galad]

Well, Dexterity is basically a multiplicative DPS factor with everything (except for limited ressource).

I think the bonus it provides is pretty much good whatever your build is.

 

The only question left is when you have to prioritarize dexterity from other factors.

3 Dex is -21% DPS

20 Dex is +30% DPS

[nem0]

However - if you have already reached zero recovery DEX does nothing for your recovery time any more. Then it only shortens your attack animation. That can be a bit of a difference, but it's not so crucial any more. I made a DEX-3-Fighter with dual Gaun's Share and zero recovery. He casts his scrolls really slowly and needs forever to gulp a potion - but his attacks are very fast. Not as fast as if he had 10 or 20 DEX, but DEX hasn't this huge effect on his weapon attacks any more. You gain more dps if you just dump DEX and put it all into PER and MIG (and INT - for longer prones, Constant Recovery and stuff). 

Yes but the percentage and overall dps boost is the same.  

 

60/1.2 = 50  50/60 = 83.3%

30/1.2 = 25  25/30 = 83.3%

 

It has the same overall effect regardless of what it affects.  It is a smaller frame reduction in the second example but the number of extra attacks is perfectly proportional to the first.

[DreamWayfarer]

It has the same overall effect regardless of what it affects. It is a smaller frame reduction in the second example but the number of extra attacks is perfectly proportional to the first.

But what about the delay frames between actions? DEX does not affect them(does it?), and they become more important the faster your actions get.

 

Not that I am saying they would take all value of DEX, just a small amount of it.

[Boeroer]

Wait... what do you mean exactly? Of course it always affects the values with the same percentage. But what counts are the flat numbers. If you have two values that are effected by DEX and take one of them away (by reducing it to zero) - the effects of DEX will be lower overall.

 

What I mean: if you have 100 seconds of recovery and 50 seconds of attack animation (exemplare numbers - with 10 DEX), there's a delay between two attacks of 150 secs. Now - if you reduced recovery by 100% (with dual wielding, durgan steel, frenzy or whatever) then the delay between your attacks will be 50. Now - if you reduce DEX to 3 it will only have an effect on your attack animation, not recovery. It will slow your attack animation down to roughly 60. So you're only 10 seconds slower. If you didn't reduce your recovery at all you would've been at 180 instead of 150. Now you're at 60 instead of 50. raising DEX would give you three times more benefit if you had normals recovery. In reality it's even more drastical because the ratio "recovery:animation" is usually higher than 2:1.

 

If you put the points from DEX into MIG and PER, you will cause more damage per hit (better against any enemy that has DR), will hit/crit more often (=more dps) and also interrupt more. BUT all actions besides attacking will be very slow - which is bad sometimes.

[Elric Galad]

Dex also help to Interrupt more by the way.

[Boeroer]

Only indirectly: speed helps you to interrupt more, not DEX.

 

PER however directly helps you to interrupt more.

 

On the other hand - if you'r planning to go into the fray (like with One Stands Alone and such) your DPS will profit enormously from high RES (also indirectly - it's more concentration that counts). Catching interrupts can slow you down a lot more than low DEX would. THis also depends on the type of enemy you're facing. Here also DEX can help: shorter actions/attacks are more likely to be finished before they get interrupted. A 3-DEX guy with low RES won't ever manage to sip a potion in the middle of a mob with high PER. You can work aroundthis with the Belt of Chimes, Holy Meditation or Spirit Shield - but more RES is always better. So RES can have a huge impact on your DPS.

Edited May 6, 2016 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

Oh my

Guys you do have valid points, and majority are right in a certain way. 

Except that dex is never useless. It keeps increasing your dps. 

But by how much exactly, and is it worthy to stack it, requires a longer explanation.

 

---

 

Look, your dps is defined by how high do you hit, and by how fast are your hits delivered.

Damage values aside, we are interested in the interval between two consecutive hits.

 

This interval is as long as the duration of full action cycle, i.e.: [attack_phase + recovery_phase + reload_phase] plus inter-action delay.

 

Dex reduces the duration of each action phase. And it does so from the very start (i.e. it doesn't "kick-in" once your recovery reaches zero).

 

Example:

Pistol (at 10 dex) has: 45 attack frames, 75 recovery frames and 150 reloading frames.

So your shots will be delivered every 270 frames (+5-8 delay)

At 20 dex it would become: 34.6 + 57.7 + 115.4 = 207.7

 

Now imagine if you had zero recovery:

At 10 dex: 45 att + 150 rec = 195 frames

At 20 dex: 34.6 att + 115.4 rec = 150 frames

Yes, it's still a 30% speed up in action duration. (195 / 150 = 1.3)

 

---

 

So far so good. But there are 3 rough moments.

 

First: linear gain is subject to slight diminishing returns. Example:

Going from 10 dex to 20, brings you from 270.0 frames to 207.7

Going from 20 dex to 30, brings you from 207.7 frames to 168.75

Where 207.7/168.75 = 1.23. 

I.e. you've got less relative gain, for the last 10 DEX points than you did for the first 10.

 

------

 

Second: the inter-action delay. The frapsing tests so fast have been quite controversial. Delay wasn't changing from 10 DEX to 40 DEX. Yet somehow it was going down to 1-2 frames on DEX over 300. But at the moment (and until more tests are performed) I chose to think that it is a static value of 5 + 0-3 overhead frames depending on how busy Unity was in meantime.

 

What does it mean is, that (if delay is not affected by DEX) as more you speed-up the slightly lesser gain you get.

It won't be that perceived in case of a slow reloading weapon, but let's take a dagger.

At zero recovery and 10 DEX it would hit every [6-7 delay + 20 attack] frames.

At zero recovery and 24 DEX it would hit every [6-7 delay + 14 attack] frames.

That's a x1.3 gain instead of x1.42. Of course it's still good, but less than one could expect.

 

------

 

Third: opportunity cost.

Imagine there are 4 characters, all wielding great swords (30 att, 50 rec): Andy, Bob, Charlie and Dave.

Andy has 10 DEX and no speed buffs: 5d + 30 + 50 = 85

Bob has 20 DEX and no speed buffs: 5d + 23 + 38.5 = 66.5

Charlie has 3 DEX and zero recovery: 5d + 38 = 43

Dave has 20 DEX and zero recovery: 5d + 23 = 28

Erick has 10 DEX and zero recovery: 5d + 30 = 35

 

What Boeroer meant by flat numbers: is that even Charlie can be a somewhat decent (auto-attacking) dps'er despite his low DEX. Of course he is not that good as Dave, but he for sure is better than Bob who has ignored all the speed increasing stuff. 

 

And the opportunity cost I meantioned is: 

[28] vs [43] or [x1.50 efficient speed increase] vs [17 attribute points] and

[28] vs [35] or [x1.25 efficient speed increase] vs [10 attribute points]

 

---

 

So to resume:

- Is DEX useless? A: No.

- Can a 3 DEX character be a somewhat decent fighter? A: suddenly Yes. (but he needs zero recovery)

- DEX is especially useful on reloading and hard-hitting ranged weapons.

- Maxing DEX to the roof is of less priority on fast melee weapons, provided there are no high damage modifiers. I.e. non-rogues might want a more balances stat-spread when using daggers, stilettos, clubs, rapiers and alike.

Edited May 6, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

That explains exactly and in great detail what I mean. Thanks! And don't forget that you can put the points you spared into other stats which can raise your dps. Be it higher damage per hit or not being interrupted or doing more crits or keeping up your buffs/rebuffs for a longer duration.

[nem0]

Thanks Maxquest, I linked your dagger test earlier to explain.

[MasterCipher]

Can you get 0% reload on a firearm with swiftaim (50%) + gunner (20%) + 20 DEX (30%) ? This seems like it would be kind of nuts.

[MaxQuest]

No. The formula for reloading duration is completely different.

 

reloading_duration = base_reloading_duration / (1 + b1) / (1 + b2) / .. / (1 + bn) / (1 + bonus_dex)

 

With those talents/dex you would get:

reloading_duration = base_reloading_duration / 1.5 / 1.2 / 1.3 = base_reloading_duration * 0.42

 

In case of pistol that would mean 150 reloading frames => 64.

[Boeroer]

Together with a chanter's Sure Handed Ila you would get from 150 to 53. That's only a third and pretty nuts.
If you have such a short reload phase it also makes sense so lower recovery. With a durganized speedy pistol like Forgiveness, Gauntlets of Swift Action, Swift Aim and Sure-Handed Ila your recovery would be at zero (if I did no misstake - and you could use Penetrating Shot without slowdown). So your reload would be 53 and your recovery 0 - with a DR bypass of 11. Isn't that sweet?

 

I assume it's also nice with any other speedy ranged weapon that has to reload (Hold-Wall and Wendgär). 

 

Edit: just checked: Sure Handed Ila's Reload buff gets suppressed either by Gunner or Swift Aim.

Attack Speed buff works though.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

Sure Handed and Swift aim are active abilities, so they don't stack.

[Kaylon]

Sure Handed and Swift aim are active abilities, so they don't stack.

The recovery part stacks (but Sure Handed is additive with the rest) because they're different kind of speeds (one affects both melee and ranged while the other affects only ranged). However the reload buffs don't stack.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

As I edited above.

They are both active, yes. But Swift Aim's speed boost (reduces recovery) does stack with Sure Handed Ila because the first is a universal speed buff and the second is ranged only. Same reason why Alacrity works with Sure Handed Ila.
However - the reload speed buffs are the same kind and therefore don't stack.

I did a quick test yesterday with an elven ranger and a chanter plus Forgiveness and all the stuff I said above. It is indeed so that your shots have no recovery and the reloading phase is rather short. But the damage output is still not comparable to any bow.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Boeroer

[MasterCipher]

For sheer, straightforward dps, IMHO best item to use mold is to clone purgatory saber after upgrading it to legendary.

 

*IF* vent pick can call additional full FOD (+50% +20 accuracy) attacks back and forth at 15% with it's faster attack speed, this could be very potent on a paladin, barbarian, fighter, and rogue, but would need some testing.

 

Cloning the charm proc bow would just be cruel, if you have 2 characters with high accuracy/crit chance.

 

As for non-weapons, the frenzy proc BP is awesome and frees up a talent since an additional toon can skip outlander's frenzy.

 

DEX is important to a lot of builds, and stats on a feet slot are rare, the 4 DEX boots are solid.

 

Ultimately, it comes down to your party composition.

Edited May 31, 2016 by MasterCipher