Finding "the best" aimed shot weapon

[Chrome]

Hey tiny people,

I've been thinking back and forth whether I want an AS Rifle for PvP on my keeper or not ... still working on it, because I believe it's an interesting "balancing question" IP-wise, if one only has so many IP to spend.

I tried a "mathematical approach" on this and I'd really appreciate if someone could look into the details and provide some feedback.

The graphics is here.

A few comments on the background:

• I took the math from your rooted guide (AS skill/95 -> multiplier on regular/crit damage)
• The "regular damage" is from Attackrating/400 as a multiplier on base weapon damage, calculated with a 1/3 nerf (Keepers) over 1k, addalloff auras taken into account but add dmg items ignored.
• Skills (rifle/AS) from the list are "educated guesses", I need to doublecheck if this is realistic for me, but basically (as both skills are dark blue) this is about the range that I'll be working in
• Calculation is done after applying UA and TTS on the base skills

I used that sheet to balance IP to spend on rifle vs. IP to spend on AS to see how this works out. Surprisingly enough ~QL 175 Zastaba should produce some nice results. I'm aware that 8s equip delay doesn't sound too good, but if I'm able to hotswap the rifle it all boils down to good timing in PvP as I should be able to keep on hitting with the sword during the rifle is about to be equipped. I also believe the AS recharge is going to be a nightmare for every agent, but I look at this from a pure "surprise / finisher" perspective, so I don't really care about the recharge either.


Now that I'm almost done ... err ... I should have halved the damage for PvP, shouldn't I? I'll probably get back to this post later and change this ... along with other correction which I'll most certainly have to do, being the complete ranged noob I am.

[Vipr]

pffft leave AS out ffs, your melee.. aint you got better **** to spend your IP on then using a current flavour of the month special which WILL unfortunately get nerfed in 1 way or another soon enough

[Chrome]

pffft leave AS out ffs, your melee.. aint you got better **** to spend your IP on

Actually ... no.

then using a current flavour of the month special which WILL unfortunately get nerfed in 1 way or another soon enough

You'll never know ... from a non-agent perspective a PvP "instant good bye to 40% of your health no matter what you do" special desperately cries for some major serious nerfage ... but as I said, that's just an outside perspective. And it's not that I eat these AS's from Agents only, so ... I've got the IP ... why not exploit this broken mechanism even further? I mean ... I've seen shades with rifles already, so we Keepers shouldn't fall behind, right?

But then again, non-agents with aimed shot rifles might touch a nerve on the agent forum ...

[Violetta]

how did you get the AS values?
how many test shots did you do?

Saying an AS with a QL XXX Weap and YYY AS skill is gonna be ZZZZ is just plain wrong. Even with 2.4k AS and a Silenced Type 3 i still do the odd 6-7k AS. *Very* rarely but it does happen.

So if you obtained these values by testing, please let us know how many tests you did, or how on earth you got these values.

edit:

I took the math from your rooted guide (AS skill/95 -> multiplier on regular/crit damage)

Ah, i think what you are missing is that higher AS skill gives you the *chance* for higher modifiers but it doesn't guarantee them at all. (At the same time high AS skill lowers the chance of a low modifier)

[Chrome]

how did you get the AS values?
how many test shots did you do?

Not a single one. The idea was to get that sorted theoretically before actually spending IP on rifle/AS.

Ah, i think what you are missing is that higher AS skill gives you the *chance* for higher modifiers but it doesn't guarantee them at all. (At the same time high AS skill lowers the chance of a low modifier)

Oh well ... that's it then ... you're right, I was looking at the "AS/95" as sort of a "constant", completely missed the "chance of" part in "Higher AS skill also increases the chance of hitting a higher multiplier instead of a lower."

So I guess I have to wait for my "Silenced Kyr'Ozch Sword - Type 3"

Thanks for your feedback!

[Kinkstaah]

You also missed the whole recycle thing, not to mention equip time.

8s equip and massive recycle make X-3 a no go.

Generally speaking, you want the highest possible BASE MAX DAMAGE (eg x-300(x)), that you can get down to cap recharge speed.

Doesnt need to be more complex than that.

[Darkbeak]

exactly, choosing an AS weapon is no rocket science.

as a non-agent/non-advie/non-sol, u want a weapon with recharge =< 1.5 sec and base max damage as high as possible.

In the end there are like 4 or 5 possible choices (Zastaba, Re carbine, saph bow, arbalest)...take the one which suits u the most.

[Chrome]

I guess both of you missed this part from my original post:

I'm aware that 8s equip delay doesn't sound too good, but if I'm able to hotswap the rifle it all boils down to good timing in PvP as I should be able to keep on hitting with the sword during the rifle is about to be equipped. I also believe the AS recharge is going to be a nightmare for every agent, but I look at this from a pure "surprise / finisher" perspective, so I don't really care about the recharge either.

As I said ... I'm surely NOT going to walk around with an AS weapon all the time, the only purpose I thought it might be a fun thing to have for was as a finisher in 1:1 PvP ... although most of this is outdated now as the whole consideration has been just plain wrong (chance of multiplier ... )

[Militaryman666]

If you're just going to use it as a suprise finisher, i'd suggest something with higher damage ratios, and would go after the X-3 personally. Sure it's a long equip time but it has the best chance of doing more damage.

If you wanted to chain AS as much as possible, then I would get your AS skill to much higher numbers and use a weapon like Zastaba or somesuch to cap the recharge on it.

[Darkbeak]

hmm, sorry for that, chrome

as far as i remember u dont land normal hits during swapping, but u can use specials and perks. That means that for an opener in a duel just use the weapon with the highest AS damage, prolly the supernova.

actually, i just looked it up and supernova has an equip time of 2 sec....which makes it the optimal weapon for ur purpose.

[Dworkin]

oww leave as alone lol get FA!

[Kinkstaah]

For a soldier, supernova is a nice suprise AS weapon... dont do it as an agent.

However, the equip time of supernova is 2(2.5?) seconds and the SPB is what.. (2-3?) I think?

5 seconds is way, way, way long in a PVP situation for a weapon swap, so it would have to be pretty premeditated to work the way ya want.

[Darkbeak]

well as a soldier it depends who my target is.

Most of the time i run around with a RE carbine, since to me it seems the only targets i run across in pvp are advies, MA, enfo, agent, fixer, keeper and soldier. And only the enfo is worth swapping to spastic, and the supernova is a real finisher, cause its a guaranteed 10k hit and i have the time to swap under tms.

I guess thats what the starter asked for and prolly keeper has the time to swap under cocoon.

However,if hes determined to use an AS weapon - not for steady use, but for opening/finishing - then supernova with the low skill reqs and 950 max damage and 2 sec eqp time is the way to go.

P.S. it was asked for as weapon on a keeper, not agent. Supernova on agent is LOL.

[Chrome]

P.S. it was asked for as weapon on a keeper, not agent. Supernova on agent is LOL.

Thanks! Actually someone mentioned the supernova on the keeper forums just recently, so I'll probably look into this again.

We're talking this one, right?

[Ivort]

Wouldnt it make more sense to go for a melee weapon with sneak attack skill? I mean thats a potential 40% attack in pvp also and infantry symbs support it.. no?

I'm just getting sorta sick of seeing everyone using AS, it had changed for a while when Caterwaul had been nerfed, but then after the special attack not being 100% landing.. AS became the way to go yet again..

I can understand the wantfor a ranged attack on a melee profession.. getting rooted is teh suck. But of course now Ill have nightmares about a keeper chasing me with a rifle with a sword strapped on the front of the damn thing stabbing and shooting me at the same time.

[Onlymeh]

Wouldnt it make more sense to go for a melee weapon with sneak attack skill? I mean thats a potential 40% attack in pvp also and infantry symbs support it.. no?

I'm guessing this whole rifle wielding big-bang is probably for sparring sessions. ie, Pre-Tower combat or Tarasque and whatnot, where there are two distinct 'groups' that shoot at each other before the actual clash. Personally, I'd do this with the way the pvp is working out to be; would you go with a 40% melee or 40% far ranged, I'd go with ranged .

[Ivort]

Personally, I'd do this with the way the pvp is working out to be; would you go with a 40% melee or 40% far ranged, I'd go with ranged .

Yea I agree with ya here. Thats why AS needs to be made agent/soldier only and all other profs can suckit! I mean Backstab is limited to adv and shade only right?! Why cant AS be limited to agent and soldier? k thnx

[Chrome]

Wouldnt it make more sense to go for a melee weapon with sneak attack skill? I mean thats a potential 40% attack in pvp also and infantry symbs support it.. no?

Sure enough! It's just that there are virtually no viable 2he sneak attack options around AT ALL. A 1st Level Ninja Katana is about the best option we have -- and the SA damage from this is usually less than my swords min damage. That's why I reset SA a while ago.

Thats why AS needs to be made agent/soldier only and all other profs can suckit! I mean Backstab is limited to adv and shade only right?! Why cant AS be limited to agent and soldier? k thnx

I guess there are a couple of good ideas around to implement the (IMHO long overdue) AS nerf in a way that those professions that AS was meant for in the first place don't suffer from it too bad.

Limit it to Agents, I'd say. Soldiers already have burst and full auto. And while you're at it ... provide some option to decrease AS damage, make this mysterious AS damage multiplier-chance-divide-by-95-thingy check against dogde or evades (higher def skill --> lower multiplier --> less damage).

This guaranteed 40% off your health every couple of seconds just sucks. No other profession has an instant alpha without any defensive checks even close to that.

[Vipr]

Its not the fact theres no defencisve check thats the prob... how can u defend something you dont know is coming afterall .. its the fact that other specials suck so hard because of overpowered defenses...... but then again at least AS can only take 40% off (and not all the time ..especially if not an agent) unlike Slice and dice...

[Chrome]

but then again at least AS can only take 40% off (and not all the time ..especially if not an agent) unlike Slice and dice...

I have yet to see a keeper landing S&D on every prof (MAs? Fixers? anyone?) --- unlike AS, which hits each and every time, regardless of a profs defenses.

And even *IF* I could perk someone, we're talking 1s attack time (vs insta aimed shot), we're talking 3m range (vs. 10 to 15 times that range with AS) and we're talking 80 seconds recharge (vs. ~1/10 of that with AS).

New even if we're talking 10k PvP damage that's 4 x 2.5k ... close to impossible for S&D -- if achievable at all. I *VERY* (!) rarely have S&D come only close to 10k in PvM on RK. So I'd say S&D is more in the 4-5k PvP damage league than above. Unlike AS, one might want to add.

So you really want to compare guaranteed 10k+ hits (well, 40% capped in most cases) every few seconds across half a playfield with the vague chance of landing half of it (if you're incredibly lucky) from a face-to-face distance every 1 1/2 minutes?