3 Likes
I actually did the math yesterday during a break at work. Ignoring TSS built-in crit and %dmg as well as peripheral stuff like global %dmg, oa, rr, etc, but including mods from gear, fully converted aether ARR (custom with Clair scepter) has slightly higher pure dps than 4-proj fully converted cold TSS (MadLee’s build) on 1.1-1.2 cd.
Difference is small though (about 5600 vs. 5300 iirc), and that built-in crit dmg alone shpuld make up for it. Also, Eternity is not included in the math.
Also, I’m not sure if TSS DoTs stack off the number of projectiles. Like Totems and Devils do stack, Jacks and Mortars don’t afaik, so idk here about TSS. If it does, than no discussion TSS got higher dps, as I only counted DoTs/s once.
2 Likes
If I remember it well, dots are stacked from pseudo-pets (totems, devils as you mentioned), so this is not the case for TSS. Also, even if it stacks, the point is that in spam mode the dot part will be re-applied much faster than deal whole sheet damage. And of course not all your hits will be 4-projectiles (I doubt that even half). That is why TSS can deal huge damage per 1 cast in hit & run mode, but in turret-mode it is not even close to AAR. Since in real in-game experience we face both situations, I am more or less confident that they are nearly equal in general.
Regarding CT, I have just no experience and can’t say anything regarding this skill.
2 Likes
I still think that comparing dps of an isolated cd skill vs a spam channeling skill is probably useless or misleading at best. Correct me if I am wrong, but doing that is basically the same as comparing the sheet dps from both skills. We all know that sheet dps of channeling skills like EoR and AAR are inflated and the opposite can be said about cd skills. If you are deciding your build based on maths like this or sheet dps, then no one would be using TSS or other CD skills as main skills.
Yes, it is true that you usually use other damage skills in both builds, but the opportunity cost of using them on builds focused on a channeling skill like AAR is a lot higher than on a build focused around a cd skill like TSS. Interrupting a channeling skill like AAR nets a considerably higher dps loss of this specific skill than when you rotate between different skills on o cd focused build like TSS. Casting defensive and utility spells also hurt AAR dps a lot more than TSS builds.
I don’t want to dispute or invalidate your arguments. I agree with most of them. There is nothing wrong with your approach if the idea is to estimate the theoretical dps of the isolated skills (which would be similar to a sheet dps). I just don’t think such an analysis should be used to decide which skill has the strongest single-target in practice. A dummy test or boss kill timer (such as mad queen, lokarr or whatever boss you prefer) seems like a lot better approach.
Formally you are right - practice is always better than any paper calculations. However, in practice the proper comparison assumes that someone has several AAR-based and several TSS-based builds of various damage types, each build needs to refresh a dummy 5 times to calculate its average clear time. Or clear a boss-room in SR 5 times with different mutators. Then we could calculate a true average. So, I wonder who will ever do this tremendously time-consuming job to answer on a forum post? Especially when opponents will definitely say “Oh wait, this test is bad since X or Y or Z”. In real world we can dig through the forum to see Crucible/SR clear speeds of existing builds. But I am 101% sure that we will just find an obvious result that their performance is similar. Thus, without any effort we could easily say “All is good with proper building, go and play”. Which is correct of course, but does not explain anything. The provided rough estimations at least describe how good a skill can be and why it is better or worse than other in this or that in-game situation. It is not an ideal approach of course, but I don’t see better realistic options.
1 Like
In terms of single target dps, CT should be inferior to AAR and TSS I think. In fact, TSS and AAR are probably the best damage skills from Arcanist’s tree. You can have great crucible timers with CT though since it is a spammable aoe spell.
Or we could take the best performing build for each skill. You can test extra damage types if you want to observe both skill’s performance at various levels but I don’t think it’s necessary and as you say - would take a lot of additional time to do.
Hence why I suggested dummy kills and campaign fights to eliminate as much RNG (e.g. mutators) as possible. You’re right that tests should be repeated as well to gauge an overall average, did not consider this in my initial proposal. Crucible I do not consider a proper test of a skill’s single target damage as it is more AoE dominant.
2 Likes
CT is an “OK” skill the issue is more so the consolidation of the 3 different damage types into one. While it’s not impossible to get pretty good conversions on 2 of the 3 there is ONLY one set (Harra) that consolidates it all to COLD. It takes a lot of creativity to get the other 2 damages converted well enough to do well. Of course CT by it’s nature lacks the range but again the thread here is discussing overall damage output and of the 3 this is by far the weakest in my experience.
TSS>AAR>CT
Obviously others have experienced otherwise… and that’s is not to say that there are no CT builds that do “well” I have 4 that can all easily farm SR75-76 and to me that is a decent goal for any build to attain.