Definitive Research on Best PvM Doc Weapons Thread

[snurre]

Why are nobody considering Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine or Kyr'Ozch Energy Pistol (Ranged Energy)?

Some thoughts about using Ranged Energy as doc:
1) We have Power Up, which (for 8 perk points) is +115 RE skill. It also adds a dmg mod special and 3 DD specials. Maxing this perk line would compensate for the loss of shiny cluster in head.
2) A 220 doc could probably equip weapons up to QL 240-250ish. The only other profession using Ranged Energy is soldiers, and they only use high QL Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbines for PvP.
3) Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine - Type 3 with high AS skill would mean significant damage in PvP
4) Kyr'Ozch Energy Pistol - Type 5 with fling/burst would also be a decent option for PvM
5) Both Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine and Energy Pistol are both Duck-Exp, which is the by far least used evade type in PvP, meaning not everyone have this one maxed.
6) Nobody are using these weapons so getting hold of them will be a piece of cake. Also, no other decent weapon choices uses Type 3 or Type 5 upgrades (atleast not in the QLs a doc would want them), making these easy to obtain also.


In PvM, the difference between weapon options as doc is extremely small. There are no alternatives (besides MBC, perhaps) that is better than others, and most cost a ****load of IP. Choosing weapon is more of a choice of style, the performance is more or less the same no matter what, it's the DoTs that are our main damage anyway.

If I got a full IPR (or decide to lvl my lowbie doc) I will definately go for Ranged Energy unless some other choices pop up until then.

[Heptagram]

If you want to spend perk points on weapon skills, ranged energy could probably work ok. If not I think you could struggle with getting high enough attack rating.

I agree that the differences are small - there are many viable weapon options.

I switched from maw to type 5 SMG. The SMG does more damage, but not by much. In common situations half of it is specials damage. Damage modifiers give more effect on the SMG since more bullets hits. I have replaced 2 symbiants with implants when switching to SMG.

The SMG as I see it is a very good PVM ranged weapon. I want a ranged weapon purely because it fits my playstyle.

If you look at the numbers from bio, melee is teh win for damage in pvm. 1hb is easy to implant, decent specials and you can get a nice buffs from all enfs you meet.

[snurre]

What the table in the beginning of this thread doesn't take into aspect though, is the amount of time spent to cast nanos as a doc. Since the SL DoTs have pretty long cast time, regular hits will stop and weapons with fast and many specials will rise on the damage scale. Also, weapons with multi-hits (SneakAttack, AimedShot, Burst and FullAuto) will get a better benefit of dmg mods, so what's better might also depend on which profs you have in team...

[Biochemyst]

Why are nobody considering Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine or Kyr'Ozch Energy Pistol (Ranged Energy)?

Some thoughts about using Ranged Energy as doc:
1) We have Power Up, which (for 8 perk points) is +115 RE skill. It also adds a dmg mod special and 3 DD specials. Maxing this perk line would compensate for the loss of shiny cluster in head.
2) A 220 doc could probably equip weapons up to QL 240-250ish. The only other profession using Ranged Energy is soldiers, and they only use high QL Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbines for PvP.
3) Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine - Type 3 with high AS skill would mean significant damage in PvP
4) Kyr'Ozch Energy Pistol - Type 5 with fling/burst would also be a decent option for PvM
5) Both Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine and Energy Pistol are both Duck-Exp, which is the by far least used evade type in PvP, meaning not everyone have this one maxed.
6) Nobody are using these weapons so getting hold of them will be a piece of cake. Also, no other decent weapon choices uses Type 3 or Type 5 upgrades (atleast not in the QLs a doc would want them), making these easy to obtain also.

I actually looked very very hard at the RE weapons. Dual-wielding the Kyr Energy Pistol for PvM and the Carbine type 3 for PvP were the main reasons why.

The thing is... RE is among our lowest capping weapon skills, at par with Heavy Weapons. SMG is tier 2, while shotgun, pistol, 1he/1hb are tier1.

As a result, while the +115 from the perkline is attractive, it isn't sufficient to overcome the gap between a tier3 skill like RE and a tier2 or tier1 skill. Add in the fact that you would then have to spend perk points in RE and it becomes even less attractive.

The final nail in the coffin, however, was the Burst recycle. The MBC is so uber because of its very fast Burst recycle. Of all the ranged weapons available to Doctors, only the Kyr SMG even comes close. The numbers are above, but I believe it is 1500 for MBC, 1800 for Kyr SMG, and 5000 for all other Kyr weapons, including the Energy Pistol.

The PvP angle is interesting, to be sure, but frankly, it is so difficult to equip high QL Kyr weapons that I find it highly unlikely that any Doc would be easily swapping back and forth between dual Type 5 Kyr Energy Pistols and a Type 3 Kyr Energy Carbine of sufficient QL. That they use Duck Exp is immaterial since all we care about when doing pvp is AS damage.

If I were to go down that road, I think it would be better to just max AS, twink on a ql200ish rifle of some kind with UA + Wrangle + temp implants, and just rely on the AS + DoT's.

In PvM, the difference between weapon options as doc is extremely small. There are no alternatives (besides MBC, perhaps) that is better than others, and most cost a ****load of IP. Choosing weapon is more of a choice of style, the performance is more or less the same no matter what, it's the DoTs that are our main damage anyway.

If I got a full IPR (or decide to lvl my lowbie doc) I will definately go for Ranged Energy unless some other choices pop up until then.

While it's now beyond obvious that weapon damage is fairly small, I don't know that it's insignificant. Doing 500pts every 2 secs vs. doing 1000pts every 2 secs does make a difference. I mean, just treat weapons as a D DoT -- you wouldn't want to use a lower QL A DoT if you could cast a higher QL A DoT, even if the difference is only about 200 pts of damage. Why think of weapons any differently?

And with casting time taken into account to some degree, what's fairly evident is that Burst is the most important special (unless Docs can get a decent FullAuto hit rate & recharge). That narrows the range down significantly, and the #1 criteria then becomes the Burst Recharge cycle.

Basically, I think what we see is that MBC is king of specials, that the Kyr SMG is the prince, and all melee weapons > ranged options in regular, over-time, steady damage dealing.

Erxi -- what kind of Burst recharge you getting on your Type 5, with what skill?

/bio

[Blondenurse]

Yes i am curious about this too..

*drags out erxi*

[Blondenurse]

could you do a few tests regarding weapons for a lvl 60ish doc?

some cool weappies in TOTW..
2he : stygian and frost scythe
1he : the mini-gelids (wonder if they are as good at this level, scaled down?)
1hb?

[Milaim]

<snip>
frost scythe
<snip>

I used a frostscythe on my doc at lower levels (read 60 - 150) and i was not satisfied at all, 2he are one of the skills docs get a very low AR in (didn't know that back then) and it was very slow too. I actually killled faster with DoTs alone, than with the scythe alone.

[Heptagram]

I havent got aruls made yet to go with the SMG.

I will try to post some damage statistics soon.


The SMG seem to perform better the more time i spend casting nanos. At tiunnisk I dot/heal more or less continuously, same at aliens.

[Blondenurse]

I used a frostscythe on my doc at lower levels (read 60 - 150) and i was not satisfied at all, 2he are one of the skills docs get a very low AR in (didn't know that back then) and it was very slow too. I actually killled faster with DoTs alone, than with the scythe alone.

OK, ill stay clear! thanks for the tip. Hate wasting IPR's..

[Lime]

You can put CDRs on at around 60, the low IP cost, ability to swap one out for a pepper pistol, and the decent damage, make them very viable, imo.

[Blondenurse]

You can put CDRs on at around 60, the low IP cost, ability to swap one out for a pepper pistol, and the decent damage, make them very viable, imo.

Yeah. I was gonna go that route, CDR\51 Pepper. But as i just got my jame i'm gonna stick to it instead. Gonna IP ar/fling/burst for the next levels, second prio after BM MM.

[Blondenurse]

Bump for sticky.

[Qbin]

Didn't notice any discussing on poison damage weapons like the alien crossbow. I would think our Dots poison ac debuff would be to our adavantge. Any thoughts ?

[snurre]

Didn't notice any discussing on poison damage weapons like the alien crossbow. I would think our Dots poison ac debuff would be to our adavantge. Any thoughts ?

Yeah, that would help docs vs Bio Shielding professions (enf, adv, keeper, engie). Dunno if the dmg is adequate compared to non-poison weapons like rifles, energy carbine or MBC tho, since this is a purely PvP issue..

[Heptagram]

DAMAGE DUMP FOR 214 DOC USING QL184 KYR SMG TYPE 5

Self buffed skills:
1027 SMG
1099 fling
1020 burst

4-gem energy bracers, xp/crit shades, ql250 VE, 1k board. No other add damage items.

I sk-ed at 255 inc today, and recorded the damage the last 1-2 hours. I kept all three dots running most of the time and didnt slack much except a little bit of chatting.

This was my damage for when I kept aoparser running:

Damage by origin:
Type	hits	average	minimum	maximum
nanob.	3100	692	591	2914
refl.	53	53	53	53
burst	328	1770	723	3081
fling	339	988	723	1622
reg.	560	870	723	1027
crit	123	1389	1319	1622

Group result:

Top damage dealers:

1. 208 soldier : 4*005*133 hp ( 53*401 hp/min )
2. 213 enf : 3*957*704 hp ( 57*358 hp/min )
3. 215 NT : 3*752*434 hp ( 52*851 hp/min )
4. Erxi : 3*735*489 hp ( 49*806 hp/min )

( Nanobots 57% Burst 15% FlingShot 8% Regular 13% Critical 4% )

5. 211 MA : 3*195*752 hp ( 43*185 hp/min )
6. 212 soldier : 2*875*999 hp ( 38*864 hp/min )


I am very suprised the dots only accounts for 57% of my damage. Fling, crit and burst is in total 32% of the damage. The maw has higher regular hits but given all the special damage I would guess my damage output is atleast 20% higher with the SMG.

Later I ran around in Adonis and killed dynabosses, and got:

Nanobots 64% Burst 14% FlingShot 6% Regular 11% Critical 2%

I self buffed and slacking. The mobs didnt have enough hp for the dots to have full effect.



Added:

New SK session. 255 inc, strong fast team. I was top DD much of the time, but not far ahead of the others. The team had soldier, crat and keeper most of the time I recorded the damage. Idle time in aoparser was set to 5 seconds. There was very little slacking from my side.

( 72*769 hp/min ) ( Nanobots 57% Burst 15% FlingShot 8% Regular 13% Critical 3% )

Damage by origin:
Type	hits	average	minimum	maximum
nanob.	4569	709	591	2914
refl.	222	53	53	57
burst	386	2286	931	3507
fling	457	1098	817	3507
reg.	739	1010	817	1169
crit	125	1642	1427	1784

I <3 my SMG :-)

[Hellaglade]

bump for sticky

its 2am now... im an info junkie, esp when its well presented info. thx for the great post and research Biochemyst (and Erxi! you make that smg look tempting, havent used an smg on a doc since MCS pre-....everything=)

Hellaglade
(185 doc)

[Silq]

I'm kinda curious, how does AR and therefore rate of missing factor into damage calcs? (I'm assuming damage calcs don't factor in misses?).

I've never used a wep (MA dinosaur o.0), and my AR is 1.6k+, so safe to say I very rarely miss, and I'm used to landing punches every second, and critting for around 3k - with weapons at high lvl is AR enough so that these weapons also never miss?

I honestly don't know as I've never tried it, I've only heard a couple ppl comment on docs not being as effective with weps as they can't hit the ARs other profs can and therefore miss regularly, so apologies if this is a noob question, perhaps it doesn't apply to higher lvls?

[Ferret]

Hiya,

Its a roll of you attack ratting Vs their defense rating and some random stuff added in.

With MBC I think I have 1.3k atr, I rarely miss in shadowlands, but Eel etc on RK I miss a lot, luckely the specials tend to land.

[Blondenurse]

Frenzy factor also comes to play.

When a mob is alot higher level than you they tend to enter a frenzy of sorts. This meaning that the mob gains extra evades, hits harder and crit bonus increases.




Saying this as an enforcer, sorry if you find this offensive; 1300 AR sucks. Hell, it sucked before SL. I need to get 1800+ AR on my enforcer to hit each time on the ql300s on RK.

[Silq]

With MBC I think I have 1.3k atr, I rarely miss in shadowlands, but Eel etc on RK I miss a lot, luckely the specials tend to land.

Ah cheers ferret - I'm surprised cos I thought it would be the other way round. My rate of missing is low for SL and RK, especially if I get trader & MA buffs, so I don't really notice any difference on defense ratings and missing rates (only on damage - much much better on RK cos I'm not hitting for min all the time, I just assumed RK mobs were wimpier all round!).

It's a shame though that attack rating isn't factored somehow into damage calcs, as I figure % of misses would be kinda important to get a true comparison?

Bit of a rhetorical question I guess, as it would be mob dependant, but this seems to be an important caveat that should be included with damage calcs perhaps, at least a 'max base AR' at a given level, along with the mbs of the weapon, or err something... ^^