Curse

Thom Bangalter · Mar 06, 2007, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugeater

I realize that you're just regurgitating something you read, but I still have an issue with people saying that DPS is what kills people, or spikes are what kill people, or that lucky sundering hits kill people.

What kills people is taking their protection and healing out of the picture.

Whether you do this because their monk thinks they'll be safe for another swing and you lucky sundercrit them, or because certain members of your team have shut the monks down while other members kill the target, or because you spike so fast the monks can't react, or because the monks are out of energy due to pressure, or because all the monk's skills are recharging... doesn't mean that that's the way you kill things. If you pigeon-hole yourself into thinking there's one way to kill someone, then you're missing out on kills you could have otherwise gotten if you'd left your brain in gear.

WOW....you do know this is 'David the Hammer' from Time is Running [OUT] Right? one of the scarier warriors I've played against tbh.

martialis · Mar 06, 2007, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

What kills people is when you trigger your sundering bulls into a sundering crushing and, if you get really lucky, a sundering power attack/mighty/heavy-hitter of choice.

The chance of doing this is 1/15,000 (without shouts, etc)

Vamp adds more pressure, so if you want to add more pressure, then use vamp

Bastian · Mar 06, 2007, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by martialis

The chance of doing this is 1/15,000 (without shouts, etc)

Vamp adds more pressure, so if you want to add more pressure, then use vamp

Actually, its 1/5 per hit. 20% = 1/5. Shouts don't affect AP from sundering (at least I'm pretty sure they don't).

Vamps add more pressure for certain weapons. However, hammers and scythes attack slower than other weapons and do quite a bit more damage per hit. Therefore, when a sundering triggers (especially on a skill that does an incredible amount of damage), the benefits outweight the benefits of using a vamp weapon. Keep in mind, this is not a universal statement for all weapons - just hammers and scythes.

At least, that is what I have taken from this article and it makes a lot of sense to me.

Greedy Gus · Mar 06, 2007, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Look, david is a great hammer warrior I'm sure, but as soon as you start speaking for other people "every good hammer warrior knows...", that's when things get out of hand. If you have an opinion on the subject, based on your build, your team's build, and your playstyle, then by all means share it with us. But attempting to speak for everyone else is just irritating, and I guarantee you're selling vamp short.

Yes, hammers and scythes have pretty numbers on sundering activations. But they also have the best vamp damage, even to the point where it actually is relevant in spike terms. For every 3 hit hammer combo, you're doing +15 lifestealing damage on top--better returns than you can expect from sundering, almost every time.

And thom, is massaging epeens all you do?

LifesRestorer · Mar 06, 2007, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Yes, hammers and scythes have pretty numbers on sundering activations. But they also have the best vamp damage.

they also have the slowest attack speed

Thom Bangalter · Mar 06, 2007, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Well, I'll tell you how it feels from a midline perspective then. I don't care about losing health from a vamp weapon. It's 5 extra damage, I know how to prekite, and most importantly, I know exactly what shield set to switch to. If he's using sundering, he can catch me with a much bigger hit (sundering+crit+damage from bulls+deep wound+strength) that is worth a lot more than 5 damage, or in this case +10. Also, for all I know he's in his elemental set. It doesn't give anything away to me as a caster to know what set he's in--I have to guess and extrapolate, and in the time I'm switching shields around I could very well be dead.

Bastian · Mar 06, 2007, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Look, david is a great hammer warrior I'm sure, but as soon as you start speaking for other people "every good hammer warrior knows...", that's when things get out of hand. If you have an opinion on the subject, based on your build, your team's build, and your playstyle, then by all means share it with us. But attempting to speak for everyone else is just irritating, and I guarantee you're selling vamp short.

Yes, hammers and scythes have pretty numbers on sundering activations. But they also have the best vamp damage, even to the point where it actually is relevant in spike terms. For every 3 hit hammer combo, you're doing +15 lifestealing damage on top--better returns than you can expect from sundering, almost every time.

And thom, is massaging epeens all you do?

Gus, I don't think you understand the situation. Why in the first place are you choosing a hammer warrior for melee damage in GvG? Perhaps it is to spike out targets with knockdowns and big damage? If it is to do anything other than this, then perhaps the hammer isn't the best option for you and should be rethought?

I don't see this as really being an opinion. A hammer is only used for certain reasons - and the bigger the numbers you can get with one - the better.

I don't think he is attempting to speak for everyone - I think he is doing everyone a favor by pointing out why sundering on a hammer is better than a vamp. Plain and simple.

Speaking of which, you don't inspire a lot of confidence when you say that hammers and scythes have the best vamp damage in respect to spikes. I would look to daggers first (because of the dual attack potential), then swords and axes. All these have higher attack rates, and that is what matters for vamp mods. Additionally, if you have a 20% armor penetration trigger while spiking out a target with a hammer you will do much greater damage than by having a vamp. Therefore, I call shenanigans on your post.

Greedy Gus · Mar 06, 2007, 07:59 PM // 19:59

3 hit hammer adrenspike against 60AL:

Chances of Sundering activation:

3 times: .8% (+23.1% damage, significantly outperforming vamp)

2 times: 9.6% (+15.4% damage, outperforming vamp)

1 time: 38.4% (+7.7% damage, not outperforming vamp)

0 times: 51.2% (+0% damage, worthless)

So you're looking at about 10% of your 3-hit spikes outperforming vamp (though you're actually losing your strength armor penetration whenever sundering procs I believe), while over half of those 3-hit spikes doing nothing.

Vamp hammer mod is +9.7% damage against 60AL (number borrowed, should be accurate). Even if you give the guy a higher crit chance based on kiting or whatever, it's still going to be better than the +7.7% number.

Shenanigans or not, the numbers aren't lying.

As far as Bangalter shield swapping, good luck with that. Against any good team, the warriors are weapon swapping and changing targets so often that your shield micro is largely irrelevant in the bigger picture. That, and the team's damage make-up is going to be fairly varied overall.

Anyway, this isn't a new argument, and it's been debunked plenty before. There are pros and cons to both. As bugeater mentioned, don't fool yourself about why people die. You may realize when a sundering proc of +12 damage helped you kill someone, but the reason people are dying is more likely the 200-250 dev/crushing/fierce combo regardless of any weapon mod, in addition to what the rest of your teammates are doing.

http://www.team-iq.net/forums/showth...id=1319&page=1

Divineshadows · Mar 06, 2007, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

though you're actually losing your strength armor penetration whenever sundering procs I believe

No. While this is true on certain attack skills like penetrating blow, sundering (bonus armor penetration) and strength (base) armor penetration are not mutually exclusive.

Horseman Of War · Mar 06, 2007, 09:59 PM // 21:59

another reason vamp is better- a pvE example, even:

lifesteal damage is not reduced by level difference, 5 bonus damage a strike against bosses is always nice.

Plus the title of the thread is Scythe modding for sunder vs vamp.... vamp on dervishes is easily better due to the skills and weapon mechanics involved. 'nuff said there.

Blame the Monks · Mar 06, 2007, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Vamp hammer mod is +9.7% damage against 60AL (number borrowed, should be accurate). Even if you give the guy a higher crit chance based on kiting or whatever, it's still going to be better than the +7.7% number.

Your analysis is misguided. DPS alone is irrelevant. DPS only matters to the extent it generates kills that in turn win games. Tiny increases in DPS rarely get more kills, while the occasional big hits may.

Think about it -- have you ever seen a team lose where if they took 0.625% less DPS they would have survived (5% extra damage on one toon of 8)? Perhaps, but rarely. Usually if they are going to break, they will break either way. Even in the unlikely event 5% damage on one toon is the difference between breaking and not, simply spend 5% more time retreating or linebacking. On the other hand, how often do you see situations where an extra lucky 20-40 damage would drop a target? Fairly often, especially in some types of builds.

The simple fact is tiny increases in DPS doesn't get more kills, while the lucky big hits do get kills on occasion. As you said -- don't kid yourself on why people die. It isn't the extra 0.625% damage, it is the lucky, large hits that get the key kill that turns into a team wipe.

Greedy Gus · Mar 06, 2007, 10:44 PM // 22:44

I understand your point, but you jumped the gun. I was not talking about DPS over time, but that is actually the damage added to a 3 hit spike, which was the frame of reference people were using to say sundering was more useful. It's a fact that ~90% of the time, vamp does more damage on a spike than sundering. (unless I screwed up the computations, which is entirely possible). DPS isn't really worth mentioning, becase we already know vamp does anywhere from 1.5-2x as much DPS than sundering.

Patrick Smit · Mar 07, 2007, 08:05 AM // 08:05

hammer criticals at 16 attribute do 78 damage (vs 60AL), 96 when it sunders. Sundering provides thus 13 more damage when it occurs compared to vamp. So in 20% in the case ONE individual will do 13 more damage with a sundering weapon when compared to a guy handling the same hammer with a vamp mod.

The only big thing about sundering that its best to promote criticals, if u want them to be very effective. Cause sundering scales with damage, vamp damge not.

Now it changes for when 3 persons are chopping away there is a 50% chance that they will do 3 damage more compared to a vamp spike (so 50% chance they do 15 less damage). 10% chance that they do 21 damage more, and a 1% chance that they hit the target for 39 damage more.

If u do computations , then explain at least how u calculated it and what boundaries u use. The 90% comes falling from the sky for me. I did mine using binomial calculus based on crit hits. It becomes much more difficult when u take in noncrits as well, or base it on averages, these kind of spikes will be much less succesfull anyway, when the opponents is "worthy". But it might well be that in more then even 90% of the cases on average u get less damage out of sundering (there is a 19.6% chance to crit at 14 mastery). Promoting crits is thus important for sundering spikes to my opinion. If u wouldn't be using GftE or similar crit inducing skills, you would be "wasting" sundering potential quite a bit.

Eris Kallisti · Mar 07, 2007, 03:11 PM // 15:11

I think the key point being made here is that, even if vamp will, 90% of the time, hit for more than sundering on a three-hit spike, if that damage is not enough to drop a target, then sundering is better, because killing 10% of the time is infinitely more often than killing 0% of the time.

Greedy Gus · Mar 08, 2007, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

If u do computations , then explain at least how u calculated it and what boundaries u use. The 90% comes falling from the sky for me.

I pretty much fail at statistics, I took calc 3 instead of stat in high school (bad idea). Anyway, I just used a method that makes sense to me, and made sure it worked on the data that galen used on the teamiQ topic I linked to where he was making the same point about a 4 hit axe adrenspike (2 warriors hitting twice).

You're looking at the wrong data I think though. The amount of damage the attacks are doing is largely irrelevant, but those have already been averaged out before. I think the commonly used figures are about 34 per sword hit, 35 for axe, and 51 for hammer. That's including a fairly accurate critical hit chance. The 90% number is based on how many times sundering activates, which has nothing to do with how much damage the hits do. Which is why the +damage I mentioned is percentage based, it's added onto the randomized hammer damage, and the sundering damage scales with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eris Kallisti

I think the key point being made here is that, even if vamp will, 90% of the time, hit for more than sundering on a three-hit spike, if that damage is not enough to drop a target, then sundering is better, because killing 10% of the time is infinitely more often than killing 0% of the time.

Absolutely correct. The problem is that for 9% of that 10%, sundering isn't doing all that much more damage. It's only significantly outperforming vamp .8% of the time, which is the 1 time out of 125 3-hit combos where all 3 in a row trigger sundering.

So if you take the average ~51 damage per hammer hit, a 3-hit hammer spike does ~153 base non-skill damage.

51.2% of the time sundering adds 0 damage
38.4% of the time sundering adds ~11.8 damage
9.6% of the time, sundering adds ~23.6 damage
0.8% of the time, sundering adds ~35.3 damage

100% of the time, vampiric adds 15 damage.

So you understand why putting it in terms of "killing 10% of the time" is a bit hyperbolic. 9 more damage isn't anything to write home about, and that's if you're lucky.

Patrick Smit · Mar 08, 2007, 04:40 AM // 04:40

The above numbers ARE calculated using binomial statistics, I'm pretty sure as the chances are exactly the same as i calculated before (I rounded though). Now the damage done is less as what i calculated, AND i stated above that that it would be a waste of potential when u are not promoting criticals. When upromote criticals, sundering will shine over vampiric in the way i described, and based ion average well sundering is less efficient, as I stated before also.

Please don't say to people that they calculated wrong when calculations are done right and bescribed how they are made (based on criticals, no offense taken though, and i also do not intend to offend

). I get the point that they go for average damage (and base the sundering damage on that, i took experimental data from the game so they can't be wrong), but I allready knew and stated that sundering would be outperformed by vampiric based on average hits. Though when u have a GftE guided spike, sundering will outperform vampiric as u can get higher damage through which spikes will be more succesfull.

I think we agree on the damage stats, though I think we have a different point of view on the mods, I say that sundering can be valuable in getting those nasty high damage spikes, and u say the difference is hardly noticable. This is a personal point of view (an opinion or judgement) rather than a fact or argument.

Greedy Gus · Mar 08, 2007, 05:19 AM // 05:19

So your whole point is that sundering gets better under GftE? Agreed then.

Teh [prefession]-zorz · Mar 08, 2007, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Tbh just carry both, i find that the Vamp is easier to take down a monk with, but it might just be what style you play with.

RazielFirestorm · Mar 10, 2007, 10:38 AM // 10:38

i tried both over a lot of games now, what it comes down to are situations really, if the guy is protted vamp is better otherwise i pretty much always use sundering.
the reason being (as david the hammer said) sunder crits kill and in general when a dervish presses wearying strike 3 or 4/5 soft targets choose to run away which means a crit on their back. a crit hit with chilling victory (my follow up in current build) triggers at something like 120 dmg +60 cold dmg on the target. it seems to be a psycological thing as much as actual danger.
my current builds use 2 dervish with attack buffs (gfte or splinter weapon/nightmare weapon) and u can waste the infusers energy away just by making it look like a spike with just 1 guy. not only that but usually when u hit huge like this the tgt will run at the first instance he thinks ur looking to hit him next time which makes for more crits on peoples backs. i have to test more but it seems that the extra cold dmg is also affected by sundering il try it some more however for the moment while spiking in a 2 hit combo sundering is ftw especially as dervs can spike very often (vod every 3-5 seconds).
however there is no argument, vamp is absolutely better for pure dps, however i havent beaten many decent teams through dps only yet.

Thom Bangalter · Mar 11, 2007, 12:09 AM // 00:09

If people wanted DPS they'd use cleave instead of eviscerate.