Hmm....so it really is something you have to calculate on a build to build basis, dependant upon what you're actually gaining of each modifier.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Ahhh. Ok, that makes a lot more sense.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Although I suspect in my case it's probably a lot higher than 60%, based on how aggressive I play. Targets tend to get pushed out of cover by me closing with them.
Well....I look at it this way:Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Redbars, mechanicals, chungas, and most destroyable objectives don't have armor. The only targets that do are purples, elites, and named baddies.
I find dogs and chungas to be high priority threats. And while named guys are higher threats, they're a lot less common, and can almost always be isolated before taking them down.
So while DtA is very useful in those situations, I don't find that the much more common elites and veterans have enough armor to warrant DtA on my builds, especially when Crit or DOoC generally applies more often.
Granted, that's a personal preference, but I'd wager it's fairly accurate.
Again, only a personal preference. But I think the only thing I'd use Sawyers for would be a sniping or pestilence build.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Swapping away triggers that ANY time? Or only during the window while the buff is active?Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Say you're walking around out of combat with your Unwavering weapon equipped for some reason. It's in your hands maybe because you forgot to switch back after the last fight. You swap to a sidearm, then back to the Unwavering SMG. Would it trigger the buff?
Yup. Although it's not tough to estimate. The only multiplier that gets significantly larger than 1.3 or so is weapon damage, so I just multiply the non-weapon-damage stuff by that factor in my head to get a rough idea of how non-weapon-damage buffs compare.Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
Yup. And as I mentioned, even if OOC is only half the guys you shoot at, that half tends to include the ones it's more important to bring down fast (rushers and flankers who successfully got near/behind you), so I don't mind losing a bit of in-cover DPS for a significant increase in OOC DPS.Although I suspect in my case [the fraction of targets receiving OOC damage buff is] probably a lot higher than 60%, based on how aggressive I play. Targets tend to get pushed out of cover by me closing with them.
I'm not quite clear on the chungas. I definitely see blue damage when I'm shooting off their armour pieces; are you saying that that's actually proc'ing the health damage buff and not the armour damage buff even though the damage is showing blue? I wonder if there's an easy way to test that.Redbars, mechanicals, chungas, and most destroyable objectives don't have armor.
Regarding Unwavering:
Any time you swap away it triggers a 5 second cooldown (with an appropriate icon for it in the HUD). If you keep using the weapon after the buff is gone, the cooldown won't be triggered until you swap away. So in your example, you'd not have the buff when you started combat (because you'd been holding the SMG for more than five seconds without a kill) and you'd want to wait for five seconds after switching to the pistol before switching back so that the buff would proc again.Swapping away triggers that ANY time? Or only during the window while the buff is active?
Say you're walking around out of combat with your Unwavering weapon equipped for some reason. It's in your hands maybe because you forgot to switch back after the last fight. You swap to a sidearm, then back to the Unwavering SMG. Would it trigger the buff?
The latter isn't really a big deal at all; you quickly get used to holstering your SMG when you're not using it and bringing it out only when you need it. (Or ideally a fraction of a second before, in order to account for weapon swap time.) A bit tricker is swapping back to your primary weapon at the right time after using the SMG. You can count mags, but (because I'm lame) I often forget in the heat of battle until I'm reminded by a slow load. When that happens I dump the mag I just loaded and swap back immediately, cancelling the next reload. (The reload then happens when I next swap to the weapon, but that's no big deal because it's at +300% reload speed.)
To add to that: I've also found that enemies that tend to cower in cover are generally less of a threat overall. Snipers being the exception. Especially the elite versions. They'll take you out fast. Other troops CAN do damage when they pop up like whack-a-mole, but usually it's pretty telegraphed if you're paying attention.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
AFAIK both dogs and chungas "armor" counts as health. But full disclosure: I've never done an exhaustive test. So it's possible I'm wrong about that. And considering some of the other misconceptions that we've clarified over the past few weeks, it probably couldn't hurt to verify one way or the other.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
I wonder about a setup where you use Gunslinger + Versatile + Unwavering.Originally Posted by CategoryTheory Go to original post
Every 5 seconds or so you swap between an SMG with Unwavering and maybe a shotty or AR.
Probably a pain to maintain high damage levels, but I bet it would result in some pretty insane damage. Seems like GC + Vigilance might be easier to manage tho.
MutantCowboy did a video testing the Health Plates. I've also just done some "feel" testing with Hollowman+Famas [Hollowman rolled WD], vs non-hollow+MP5 [close to same DPS]. The DtH boost was noticably.
I found roughly 70% of my targets were out of cover when I was putting my calculator together, but I also play more aggressively. It's higher vs Black Tusk too. I find the enemies that like cover [controllers + snipers] are the easiest to take down anyway [plus they pop out of cover if I can flank and push them].
The harder one for me to peg is the Health vs Armor split, since enemy mix can vary so greatly.
This reminds me that I never got around to rebuilding my Cowboy build from Gear 1.0 - I might have to jump back in once I finished MGS:V & FarCry5 to pursue that fun [as long as I can move past not having the old High Noon..]Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
Supporting the use of at least Fox's Prayer in high-red builds, badkarmacreepin mentioned in another thread that also seems to have done some experimentation with Fox's and Contractor's and found in his build that they also work better than other options, even for an AR build. In response to someone worried about the "waste" of the +10% rifle and LMG damage brand bonuses and trying something else, he writes:
Originally Posted by badkarmacreepin Go to original post
If that's true (as in if his calculation aren't flawed somehow) then it seems like horrible design for a single general bonus on a secondary attribute that effects ALL weapons to offer better output than a bonus that's limited to a single weapon type.
Then again, it's Massive we're talking about here. And this sort of flawed design seems to be their trademark.
But it doesn't always do so. It only does so in high-red builds. (And only on enemies in certain circumstances.)Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
If you're actually saying that weapon-specific damage buffs from brand attributes should always be better than anything more general (though it's arguable that DOOC is even more general, since it doesn't apply to every enemy to which, e.g.,Overlord's +10% rifle damage buff applies), then you're asking for a less complex game, where the builds are more obvious, rather than having buffs influencing each other. That's a fair preference, but I'd rather see people who prefer simpler builds play a different game than have Division 2 reduced to simpler builds. I suspect many others also enjoy the complexity of the current system.
And carefully consider what you're asking for here, too. It probably involves having no multiplicative damage modifiers at all, but making them all additive. So then you get a situation where Composure either adds 15% to your base weapon damage, even if that takes you only from 250% to 265% weapon damage (because you have other damage buffs as well; this is just a 6% increase over your build without it), or you crank up the 15% to, say, 50% to handle that situation, and now even an all-red build is doing less than twice the weapon damage of someone with the same talent and a no-red-at-all build.
Well, it's a flawed design from the point of view of your (or someone's) personal preferences, sure. But I consder these interactions to make the game to be unequivocally better. De gustibus, aut disputandum est.Then again, it's Massive we're talking about here. And this sort of flawed design seems to be their trademark.
I'm not talking about a case of complexity. I'm speaking from a game design perspective of creating an item(or in this case a combination of two items) which override all others.
This was very similar to the situation awhile back with the Classic M1A. Athough not exactly the same, the end result is the same: A meta strong enough to preclude the use of anything else in those gear slots, even when it otherwise makes no sense to do so.
In my opinion that's a problem because it hurts build diversity. I read a thread where someone was legitimately asking if they could dispose of all other pieces of equipment in those slota since they'd never need anything else ever again. How is that anything but an over-simplified system?
You don't see the issue with that situation?
I have to agree with you here. I too think that both the Contractor's Gloves and the Fox's Prayer are still just a bit too strong so that they automatically become BiS for nearly every DPS-build.Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
You are using an AR and are thinking about incorporating maybe Grupo gloves or W&H kneepads? You are an SMG-player and want to use Sokolov gloves and kneepads? You want to add some extra damage to your 3-3-0-build with maybe Fenris for your AR or Czeska to improve your CHC? Think no longer! The answer is always: Contractor's Gloves and Fox's Prayer.
There are very little situations in which other parts can barely outperform those items (e. g. when playing a high-crit build with 60% CHC and CHD while not yet having incorporated a Grupo item) or players just choose other brands because it feels "wrong" to use an LMG- and rifle-brand on an AR- or SMG-build. So that also to me is a matter of bad game design.
Basically the cited "experiment" also underlines this:
Originally Posted by badkarmacreepin Go to original post