Blame Robyn for the title!
By: George Argyropoulos
a/k/a Dragon_Bane
It's been an interesting Raid. I'll admit, I have found some annoying things and some disturbing things in testing this raid. It certainly isn't as consistent and relaxing as the previous two were. If I can, I'll try and write up an over-view of the Raid this week should some free time show up.
That said, I'm here to discuss the Buccaneer and the Pac-Man combo. I'm not sure who first noticed the carry-over acronym of the weapon/special combo, but I do know the first person that pointed it out to me was Roo, so blame her.
Brian took a lot of time analyzing the math behind the new special as compared to what we currently have and wrote it all out and explained it all in this article. Thing is, as I was contemplating the article and looking over the results of the ACP vs. Strike Warhead testing (ACP lost hard), I realized that all that we covered was the mathematical analysis. We need to take that analysis and apply some game theory and BP sense to it now. Is the MAN really that bad? Should you skip getting it?
The primary issue we came across when analyzing the new weapon and special is that we kept seeing similar results to this:
As you can see, the AL2 build is absolutely killing it on DPS - and that's before rank! Why in the WORLD would you want to build using the MAN special?!? That DPS on the AL2 build is more than DOUBLE the MAN equipped hull.
Wellllllll... funny you should ask. I mentioned earlier that I had done some testing of the ACP vs. the Strike Warhead special. (Big thanks to THOR-1SP again!) What I found was that, with both builds being identical but for the special, even with the perceptually and numerically small increase in damage, the time to kill the enemy was shorter with the SW special than the ACP. This led to less damage. To the tune of an average 1h 1m to the SW equipped fleet vs. 2h 20m to the ACP fleet on auto.
This got me thinking of the new MAN special and Brian's article, and here's the thing - I think I'm going to heartily advise everyone to get the special - even for your Cannoneers or Ironclads, possibly, especially for them, because given the abhorrent discrepancy between the DPS numbers on those builds, I can only conclude one of two things happening here.
1. It was an oversight and the special will get seriously buffed.
or
2. There is going to be a mechanic in the targets that will mitigate pure DPS making 'cumulative damage' far more important (changing time to kill as seen in this raid with ACP vs SW).
Given that there has been ample discussion about the special and comparisons to the old available tech and the raw numbers produced therein... I'm really leaning towards the latter. I think the special came out just as intended and that there was no error. In which case, I can only conclude that there will be some mechanic in the target that is going to dampen pure DPS builds. The only thing I can conclude at the moment only having seen the PAC2 is either deflection armor for buildings/turrets, or, splash damage reduction equipped buildings next to turrets, or some combination thereof mitigating the 'base' damage of any build and making the critical hit (and it's doubling), well... critical.
Think of it like this- if your weapon did 100 damage but the splash or deflection mechanic cut it down to just 10. You could have a hull that did double the DPS, that would be 10 v. 20. Your crits though, would get you 110 damage 12% of your shots, or you had another hull that was doing more crits (say 12% vs. 22%) at less DPS your actual cumulative damage is likely much higher and thus time to kill the target becomes much shorter likely mitigating your damage in the process. Maybe Brian can do more math...
If that is the case, this special then becomes very much more important than we have made it out to be- especially for the lower level hulls IF the mechanic is present throughout the whole of the targets in the next raid.
The final caveat? Dude, the raid isn't even over. My tinfoil hat could be on too tight and I could be completely off base. It could be a completely worthless special, however... I'm not going to pass on the special. Just food for thought.
Thx George, appreciate the input. How would you fit the special on a Cannoneer? Since it only has 5 specials something else has to come off.
ReplyDeletehmm way to much guess work. also and more importantly, the promise of simplifying tech and decreasing the complexity of blueprints seem to BE A LIE. Please plead with kix to explain in detail the new targets when or if released in vxp.
ReplyDeleteHopefully we'll see them this week and have a better understanding. I just didn't want people to dismiss the special out of hand and then find out it is an absolutely needed item. As to the guess work... yea, it is, but based on understanding their thought process and how they code the targets. I'm still waiting to see how the 'simplified' this pans out. lol
ReplyDeleteOne thing though... You can't compare the MAN to AL2 the same way you compared ACP to SW. The MAN is actually the same, in function, to PBX Payload (except for the splash stat on the MAN). If you were including PBX Payload in the Hunter comparison you may have something here, but...
ReplyDeleteThe comparison is legit- it is comparing Time to Kill. The actual specials/combo for the decrease in time to kill is irrelevant to the theory of shorter time to kill. In both instances, it is the higher overall damage output that is producing the result, not the specials themselves and that is the basis of the comparison, not the function of the specials.
DeleteIn the Hunter comparison you're actually comparing a special which buffs concussive damage (SW) with a special which buffs concussive damage and concussive reload (ACP). In the Buc comparison, you're comparing a special which buffs reload (AL2) with a special which buffs crit chance/crit damage. Perhaps we should be considering adding the MAN along with another special like AL2 or something similar?
DeleteAnd you also don't know the MAN will produce a shorter Time to Kill than AL2 - or have you run them bothin a target already.
Delete1. I'm comparing the time to kill. The reason for that is the damage output. The specials are merely incidental to that.
Delete2. No, that's why I stated this is all theory based on what Brian did and what I saw with the time to kill in these targets and the apparently abhorrent stats with the use of the new special, so I theorized based on the information that I have available to me. Did you miss the last paragraph?
Granted, I only have one built so far, but in testing the bucky is pretty disappointing so far. It takes time to even kill a 75 salv! I'm hoping this is just a case of the ridiculous specialization Kixeye is putting on hulls, meaning it works against it's intended target and nothing else! Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteThat would be due to the fact that salvs are all ships, and the siege targets this hull will be going against are all buildings/turrets. Need to compare apples to apples.
DeleteTrue, but still, it shouldn't struggle this much Vs. a target that is something like 3 years old. The base weapon damage stats are 10k too. I expect it will be better in siege, but it's a shame Kixeye feel they need to play the game for us by making things so ridiculously niche!
DeleteJust a heads up on Huggy's Ship Builder, he has some errors on older tech that I just notified him of this morning and he has been working on changing...Just now advised reloads on Cannon System and Auto Loaders in his ship builder are much higher than what Kixeye shows at R15. So that will change some of the DPS stats you are using.
ReplyDeleteAlso notified him this morning and he has corrected some other stats that he had errors on showing higher stats than inside Kixeye at R15 which included:
[Notified 12/20/17-so should be fixed soon] Ballistic Systems - Cannon Systems, Auto-Loader
[Fixed 12/20/17] Explosive Systems - Cluster Warheads
[Fixed 12/20/17] Concussive System - Concussive Upgrade, Concussive Warhead, Stealth Attack Systems
[Fixed 12/20/17] Missile System - Enhanced Warheads, Missile System, Guided Missile System
[Fixed 12/20/17] Anti Sub - Hydrodynamic Shells, Sonar Pod
[Fixed 12/20/17] Countermeasure Systems - Countermeasure Equipment, Countermeasure Loaders
All below should be fixed now per Huggy at the time of this post! But I would suggest moving forward to check Kixeye R15 blueprint against Huggy R15 for any discrepancies and notifying Huggy of any possible errors.
ReplyDelete[Fixed 12/20/17] Ballistic Systems - Cannon Systems, Auto-Loader
[Fixed 12/20/17] Explosive Systems - Cluster Warheads
[Fixed 12/20/17] Concussive System - Concussive Upgrade, Concussive Warhead, Stealth Attack Systems
[Fixed 12/20/17] Missile System - Enhanced Warheads, Missile System, Guided Missile System
[Fixed 12/20/17] Anti Sub - Hydrodynamic Shells, Sonar Pod
[Fixed 12/20/17] Countermeasure Systems - Countermeasure Equipment, Countermeasure Loaders
[Fixed 12/20/17] Corrosive Modification - Hydroxide Injector, Narrowed Firing Aperture, Compressed Corrosion Canisters
[Fixed 12/20/17] Multi Barrel Systems - Blight Acid Clusters
I have a question:
ReplyDeleteAny ideas for a Buccaneer build for those of us who couldn't get the new über-cannon or the (possibly useless) special in the last raid? I managed to assembe 4 shells, but am uncertain what to put on them--If I can't get these to work, I will be relegated to using my lone Ironclad and my 5 Cannoneers for the next raid (the less said about my Centurions, the better). Needless to say, I don't expect that to go well.