In Mids', go to Options -> Configuration, then check the Arcanatime box at the bottom of the Effects & Maths tab. That should help you out. Powers don't animate as fast as they say they do. Read up on Arcanatime on Paragon Wiki if you feel like understanding why.
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Ah, OK. That makes more sense. But then...wouldn't SB>BB>QS>SB>CS be the better attack chain? (with Hecatomb in SB for the double chance to proc)
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Originally Posted by Syntax42
In Mids', go to Options -> Configuration, then check the Arcanatime box at the bottom of the Effects & Maths tab. That should help you out. Powers don't animate as fast as they say they do. Read up on Arcanatime on Paragon Wiki if you feel like understanding why.
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Forgive the self-quote/bump, but I'm trying to get clarification on this; wouldn't this chain be better than BB>SB>QS>BB>CS?
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Originally Posted by StormDevil
Ah, OK. That makes more sense. But then...wouldn't SB>BB>QS>SB>CS be the better attack chain? (with Hecatomb in SB for the double chance to proc)
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People use that chain? Huh. The one you mentioned feels intuitively better, and sure enough plugging in numbers for BB>SB>QS>BB>CS, it ends up lagging behind (by a mere few units, but then again there isn't that much difference between the KM chains as the DPAs are relatively even).
OK, good deal, thanks Nihilli. I think the double SB chain is a little prohibitive since it requires perma-Hasten.
My plan for my own KM is to use SB>BB>QS>SB>BB>CS while Hasten is up, and add an extra QS while Hasten is down. With that second chain, I'm going to have a 0.4s gap for each repeat (which is roughly ten seconds and a half), but I figure I can live with that during the ~20s Hasten will be down (Mids showing 128s recharge while it's up and 160s while down, and I'm too lazy to do the math). With that gap and all, the DPS of SB>BB>QS>SB>BB>QS>CS is barely ten points lower than gapless SB>BB>QS>SB>BB>CS, before Power Siphon is considered that is - I don't know how to average it properly, but anyway even if the damage buff were perma it can't account for more than 2/5 of the whole damage, so I see the difference in DPS between both chains to be at worse 17 DPS.
Err, rereading my post I'm not super clear. What I was getting at is that since KM DPAs are relatively even, you can downgrade to the lower chain in the food chain while Hasten is down and not lose much damage. On your build it seems like you could run SB>BB>QS>SB>BB>CS while Hasten is down, which for reference ranks only 3 DPS lower than SB>BB>QS>SB>CS on my approximate spreadsheet.
Kinda unrelated but looking at your build (long time I haven't looked at a SR, pretty numbers!), wouldn't a shield wall +3% res work better than, say, the def/end/rech in Maneuvers? You'd lose 0.3% def and 0.03eps, but gain an overall 3% resistance, which I think would do more for your mitigation.
Yeah, the build that I posted up there was kind of a work in progress; I just wanted to have something to show the recharge times of the powers and all, as a baseline for an attack chain comparison. That one should (can't recall off hand, and not on a comp with Mids right now) have perma-Hasten, so running the double SB chain all the time shouldn't be a problem, except in a few cases of large amounts of -rech (BCUs, I believe?). I'll post up an updated one, which does have the +3% SW in it.
Another thing I was considering was swapping the Cardiac Alpha out for Musculature. I haven't really crunched EPS numbers yet, but IIRC, I'm looking at a ~76 second downtime on Conserve Power; I want to say that'll be enough to tide me over, but again, more crunching is needed. I also like the +Res you get from the Cardiac, but I think a 30% boost to all my attacks is more valuable than the +Resist.
As a last bit of theorycrafting, I'm looking at possibly going Paralytic instead of Reactive. I don't think that adding the damage proc is going to let me take down any AVs I wouldn't be able to take down without it, but stacking Paralytic's -Dam with KM's seems like a pretty decent survivability boost (...and probably backing it up with Rebirth; being softcapped, imposing a -20% damage debuff, and regenerating 40 hp/s with peaks of ~75 hp/s sounds tasty).
The Shield Wall IO is probably going to cost up to 3 billion INF and is only worth having on a character that needs it to reach the resistance cap, in my opinion.
Attack chains are easy to calculate their DPS. Add up the damage and divide by the total animation times. Including things like critical strikes and recharging Power Siphon makes it more complex, so I use my intuition on those instead of spending hours longer calculating them.
Achieving perma-Hasten on a Super Reflexes character should be easy, especially with the Spiritual Alpha. I looked at the original build again and I don't see why you have so many purples and PvP sets unless you really want to spend a ton of INF on a character.
I'm one of those jerks for whom spending billions on a build isn't really that big a deal; I level up mostly through Tips and Flashbacks, so turning in AMerits for high-dollar recipes, and the occasional bit of marketeering, pretty much lets me slot whatever I want.
I look at the Alpha slot as a means to achieve global bonus(es) which I wouldn't otherwise be able to achieve. If I can get perma-Hasten via sets, I'd rather do that, then use the Alpha to pick up +Dam or +EndRec.
Quick glance at your numbers (picking Musculature 45% in Mids) says you'd be more than fine without the Cardiac Alpha, taking ~110s to drain your end bar attacking at full speed without CP nor taking into consideration the 3 end procs nor Hasten/PB. Rough calculation obviously, but with CP on a 75s downtime the gap is large enough to be reasonably sure it'd be OK, and yes you do have perma-Hasten. I agree with your reasoning, the +dam seems more interesting than the +res, even with KM's fairly high selfdamage buffing. The good thing with Musculature is it also boosts Lore pets and Judgement significantly.
I'm not big on Paralytic, simply because it's hard to pass up a free ~+30 DPS with Reactive, but it certainly seems like a valid survivability option. Add Void Judgement on top of that and you could probably stack -90% damage debuff at times (4 stacks of KM for ~20%, 4 stacks of Paralytic for another ~20%, and Void for ~50% during 30s), making Void useful as a panic button during tough fights.
Totally forgot that Void had -Dam in it also; I was already leaning that way for character concept reasons, and that just cinched it. Gracias.
I'm leveling up the mentioned combo, and while doing a bit of research here on the boards, I see the consensus is that BB>SB>QS>BB>CS is the optimal attack chain. However, I can't find a way to get CS to recharge in the required time (4.17s)...not even remotely close, actually (my Mids long-range goal build has it at 5.274s). Even with a T4 Spiritual, CS only gets down to the 4.9s range. Here's the data chunk (again, long-range goal build, and could probably be tweaked in places, but I'm just looking at the attack chain for the moment):
EDIT: Oh, PS...er, as in, Post Script as well as Power Siphon. Is there not a way in Mids to flip that power on? I've got it toggled up and have played with the stacks, but none of the damage numbers change.