Vigilance is Additive.
Glass Cannon in Multiplicative.
Spotter is the GC alternative.
I find Vigilance is down too much solo, unless you use a shield, decoy, or play back/slow. Memento made it irrelevant for me outside of my Sawyer's Mantis build. Even then, I'd be tempted to go Unstoppable Force, since that helps more against Named Elites [more likely to hit you, removing Vigi - plus you normally save them for post-Adds, when you'd have UF maxed].
Whoops, another part of my response to earlier stuff that I forgot:
I don't think it depends so much on that. I'm definitely not a run-and-gun guy; I generally like to find some good cover (I have minimum armour!) that's reasonably far back (very far if I'm using a rifle) and yet I still see a lot of enemies in the open at least part of the time, and I tend to focus on those. Also, as I mentioned in a post above, I particularly value damage against rushers since they cause me a lot of pain. Killing them before they get to my side or behind me is a very high priority for me, so extra damage in that case is greatly appreciated.Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
Are you looking at that as just 8% additional weapon damage (which I agree isn't much on a build where the whole weapon multiplier is 220% to 300%) or 8% additional damage to everything you do now? It's the latter that we need to be looking at, as far as I'm aware, because damage to out of cover is a separate multiplier from everything else. Killing a rusher 8% faster seems pretty valuable to me....i don't use [Fox's Prayer] and...i do enough damage and quick enough that the 8% is virtually negated.
From this it sounds as if you're (incorrectly) looking at it as adding to weapon damage, rather than multiplying weapon damage and all other weapon damage modifiers.Also if you already have max CHC and CHD i doubt that 8% will be noticeable.
I too play almost exclusively Heroic. I don't think it makes much difference for this, though, does it?(I play Heroic only)
Vigilance is +25% weapon damage, but Overwatch is not: it's +12% "total weapon damage," which is a separate multiplier. (Overwatch multiplies skill damage, too, though that's not relevant here.)Vigilance +25% damage
Overwatch +12% weapon damage
Glass Cannon is subscribing completely to the old adage: "The best defense is a strong offense". After all, dead enemies deal no damage. It's a different overall approach to the game. Instead of hiding behind cover and playing defensively, you go all out offense, banking on the idea that you can keep the enemy on their back foot constantly.Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
Anyway, Vigilance is a backpack talent, whereas GC is a chest talent. There's no reason not to use both.
Well i rarely take damage without G cannon the enemies are either dead quick enough or are dead before they get within 20 m of me, i just don't subscribe to talents like that, Heroic difficulty isn't hard so talents like G cannon are not needed really, iv'e never used things like revive hive at all in this game from hour 1 to hour 2500 on any difficulty that iv'e played, Armour kits as well haven't used one since before WONY.Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
To me there are plenty of other Talents to play around with other than the boring go to tedium.
My Pestilence build has no contractors or Damage talent on the chest (it has Braced) yet i get upto 900K damage tick and enemies are dead before they get near me so no need for these extra damage talents.
Does it really matter if it takes 10 bullets to kill an NPC or 20 no not really, the same outcome ensues, you just do it slightly quicker, which in itself doesn't mean much in a game. (unless playing Legendary) then yeah for those it means everything just not me.
Now if Legendary is the difficulty people play then i presume talents like that are the go to, me no interest in Legendary never played it never will (i just don't see the point in it) as for the game itself well its just a game to fk around in, can't and will never take it seriously either. hence why i don't speed run or take notice in leaderboards either (pointless drivel to me)
But fair play to those who do like it, not hating on anyone either.
The highlighted part is where I get my enjoyment. If the content starts to become too easy, then I seek ways to further challenge myself. Speed is one of those ways. Added risk of taking more damage is another.Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
As I said, it changes your entire approach to how to play. You have to really tighten up your situational awareness and use of cover/LoS. Or you could just sit a mile away and snipe I guess. But that's pretty boring IMO.
Now...I would never use GC on legendary. The damage NPCs do is already over the top as it is.
But if all you want to do is goof around and have fun, then there's no reason to challenge yourself with self-imposed rules. But personally I got tired of being unkillable.
Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original postWhoops! Yes, you're right: the 10% specific weapon damage will come out slightly better, since it slightly exceeds the 9% expected weapon damage from the 15% CHD given by the Groupo brand. I've fixed the original post.Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
Well, again, we're talking about high-weapon-damage builds, so that 8% is generally the equivalent of 17-25% weapon damage against targets out of cover. So the only real argument is how much damage against OOC targets you get and how much you value that. Even with no CHC at all and 60% of damage to targets out of cover, Fox's prayer comes out ahead (4.8% OOC on 120% weapon damage boost = 1.048 × 2.20 = 2.305, the equivalent of 10.5% more weapon damage).Obviously if you're using a rifle, you're getting 10% rifle damage + 8 DtoC, so there's a clear winning there. But if you're using Fox's Prayer and NOT using a rifle, then there's more of an argument.
Really? I suppose that there's a reasonable argument to be made that not enough targets are armoured really to help with that, but if you're using an LMG anyway, it seems to make sense.Personally I cringe a bit whenever I see someone using an AR with Fox's Prayer AND Contractor's Gloves. It's a holdover from before those two pieces were nerfed, and I have a lot of doubt that they net a damage increase today.
In fact, I'm going to swap my Petrov backpack and Walker gloves to use Contractor's gloves as soon as I can get hold of a Walker pack with decent stats and Composure. (I considered using Memento, but in a build with 220% weapon damage, another 30% falls slightly short of 220% × 15% TWD = 253%, and the latter doesn't require any warm-up and maintenance of the proc.)
It doesn't, really. Glass Cannon is a separate multiplier, so it will magnify the differences between builds, but the one with larger damage in certain circumstances will stay larger.Originally Posted by TxDieselKid Go to original post
The description for Spotter says specifically that it "amplifies total weapon and skill damage by 15% to pulsed enemies," which seems pretty clearly TWD when you compare it with Glass Cannon's "All damage you deal is amplified by 25%." TWD is also consistent with my range experimentation, though I admit that I wasn't looking to check if it was a separate multiplier there.Originally Posted by the_Kettle Go to original post
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Right, because they can bring up non-crit weapon damage, and Pestilence doesn't apply crit (or headshot) damage to ticks. This actually makes Sawyer's a bit more advantageous in this case, but it still fairly soon loses against the alternative of Memento because you don't lose a 15% weapon damage core attribute and, once you've got Memento's 5-minute buff fully proc'd, it's much easier to maintain and thus the +30% weapon damage from that is there all the time.Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
Yeah. Mine is 4.5 seconds right now (with 10% from the watch and 14.5% from a couple of Weapon Handling attributes), which is fine for most things, but still very tight when using Obliterate.Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
With Perfect Spark, on the other hand, any hit from my turret gives me 20 s (refreshed on every hit) of +15% TWD, and that's even a bit longer than my turret cooldown. It's not always possible to have the turret hitting something, but you can even throw it out well away to get an angle and bring it back in after a hit or two, and it will work.
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I find that a Vector with Unwavering, in its 7-8 second burst, puts out far more damage (the better accuracy and stability makes up for the reduction in damage at medium range) than an AR. It won't finish a warhound from full health, but it brings it down enough that I can easily finish it with my primary (usually a rifle) when I switch back. (Though I have to admit, for that special case the high health damage of an AR is certainly handy.)Originally Posted by Riflemania Go to original post
Do your uses (outside of Warhounds) for an AR over SMG hold up when compared to an SMG with Unwavering? Or is the advantage there just that Unwavering isn't so useful on a primary weapon?
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Well, that's by definition true: whether or not it's needed is a value judgement, and nobody can dispute that you value what you say you value.Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
But it's never an answer to, "Does X do more damage than Y?"
This thread seems to be degerating into an "I personally like this better than that" opinion thread, which was not its original intended purpose. Can those of you who want to discuss personal preferences perhaps start another thread for that, so we can get back to numerical comparisons of Fox's Prayer in various highly red loadouts?Originally Posted by Cadillac-Jack Go to original post
Yes! Absolutely! That's precisely the purpose of this thread: whether it takes 10 or 11 bullets to kill an enemy.Does it really matter if it takes 10 bullets to kill an NPC or 20...?
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And let's remember, "highly red" here, folks. Some of the comments make me think that people are forgetting that the 8% damage to out of cover is multiplicative, and thus worth a lot more than a similar amount of weapon damage in a build that already has large weapon damage buffs.
Again, consider two cases where you have a choice of +10% weapon damage (say, because you use an AR and could use Fenris kneepads) or 8% DOOC. Even in a moderately red build you have 15% from the weapon itself, 15% from your specialization, and 4 × 15% from red cores, giving +90% weapon damage:
- Fenris: 1.90 weapon damage + 0.10 AR damage = 2.00 damage
- Fox's: 1.90 weapon damage × 1.08 DOOC = 2.05 damage
That's only a 2.5% difference, but it goes up to 7% for six cores, and that difference is multiplied by other multipliers (e.g., bringing it up past 9% if you use any of the means given here to get +30% total weapon damage).
So remember: Fox's is another 8% on to the total of what you already do, but Vigilence's +25% is more like +11% to what you do without it.
Can you explain the breakdown of that? The extent of my understanding is that multiplicative damage is generally better that additive. But I don't fully understand why, or how an 8% bonus equates to double or triple the final damage output.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Where are you getting 60% DtoC?Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Because you're giving up 2 brand bonus slots in order to use Contractors Gloves and Fox's Prayer if you're not using either an LMG or a Rifle.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Obviously if you're using an LMG it makes sense, since the brand bonus from Contractors Gloves applies. And LMGs native attribute is DtoC, so it stacks with Fox's Prayer. Which makes sense.
But I don't think the opposite applies to Rifle builds. Since DtA on Contractors gloves doesn't seem to be as ubiquitously useful. And you could be using a W&H piece or Groupo or Ceska.
Again, maybe my understanding of the math is wrong, but it seems like losing the brand bonus for DtA on Contractors isn't worth it.
This is a common misunderstanding I see a lot with memento. Or rather, an incomplete assessment of what it provides.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
You don't equip Memento for raw damage, even though it performs well at max stacks. You equip Memento for the damage AND the side benefits of more survivability via armor amd regen, and the additional skill tier(or two tiers in the case of shields).
I think the complete argument in favor of Sawyers is that it provides the 30% damage in addition to allowing a Backpack talent. Which is then compared to Memento added to a knee brand or set bonus.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
I know this wasn't directed at me, but we've had a bit of this discussion before. I just wanted to chime in that, for me, the added condition of the weapon swap makes it a bit annoying to use.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
On that note, can you just equip two SMGs with unwavering and swap back and forth to maintain or trigger the buff more or less constantly? That would be an interesting way to play!
Well, I've shown the math in several examples in previous posts in this thread, but perhaps I was a bit too brief with it.Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
The issue is specific to builds where you already have high weapon damage and you're looking at either adding more weapon damage or increasing a separate multiplier. Say you have +120% weapon damage already (from specialization, weapon itself and six red cores), that giving you 220% of or 2.20 times your base damage.
- If you add 10% weapon damage: 2.20 + 0.10 = 2.30
- If you multiply by 8% DOOC: 2.20 × 1.08 = 2.37
- If you add 17% weapon damage: 2.20 + 0.17 = 2.37
So as you can see, an 8% multiplicative buff on your 120% weapon damage buff gets you more than you get from a 10% addition to the weapon damage buff; it in fact gets you the same amount of damage in the end as adding 17% to your weapon damage buff.
That wasn't 60% OOC damage buff, that was 60% of targets will give you the advantage of that buff. In other words, if you have 8% OOC dmg, you can calculate the expected overall additional damage to all targets (in and out of cover) by assuming 60% will be out of cover when shot: 8% * 60% = 4.8% for all targets, in and out of cover.Where are you getting 60% DtoC?
Well, there's the rub. I'm feeling right now that I spend a lot more time wearing down armour than health (because I play almost always on Heroic), but I don't actually have any good figures on that.But I don't think the opposite applies to Rifle builds. Since DtA on Contractors gloves doesn't seem to be as ubiquitously useful.
Yes, I see that now that I've realized it's providing additive weapon damage, not a separate multiplier. That means, as far as damage output goes, it's not going to give you as much as various other things when used in a high-red build.You don't equip Memento for raw damage, even though it performs well at max stacks. You equip Memento for the damage AND the side benefits....
Yeah, though now that Memento is now a bit worse (in our high-red builds) than regular pack talents as far as damage goes (just ignoring the other benefits for the purposes of assessing damage output), I think we can safely not worry about Sawyer's blocking Memento and just evaluate it against other options for that slot.I think the complete argument in favor of Sawyers is that it provides the 30% damage in addition to allowing a Backpack talent. Which is then compared to Memento added to a knee brand or set bonus.
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Regarding Unwavering:
Well, I think it's much less annoying that waiting for regular length SMG reloads! :-)I just wanted to chime in that, for me, the added condition of the weapon swap makes it a bit annoying to use.
But I do worry a bit about what all the weapon swapping is doing to my overall DPS. Unfortunately I don't have figures for weapon swap time to see if the greatly-shortened reload time fully compensates for this on shorter (say, 7 second) dumps. I'm suspecting it may not, though at least you still get the advantage of the burst DPS. For longer dumps, though, where you're extending the talent's time proc'd to 12-15 seconds or longer (plus whatever you get out of the final mag after unproc), my guess is that it's a big win.
Ha! Of course the developers have thought of this: "Swapping away disables this from all weapons for 5s."On that note, can you just equip two SMGs with unwavering and swap back and forth to maintain or trigger the buff more or less constantly? That would be an interesting way to play!