Grav Round - mechanic question

[Rikiu]

I'm currently a level 25 Commando and Grav Round is the be all and end all of my rotation (surprise!). However, I'm a little unclear as to its mechanics and I was hoping someone who has more than my 2 weeks worth of experience can explain it to me.

 

With each vortex stacked on my target their armour is reduced by 4% but even with the full 5 stacks I don't seem to notice any significant damage increase whilst continuing to use Grav Round. I do, however, seem to score more crits. Is this the intended effect of the debuff or am I completely missing the point?

 

Thanks in advance.

[danarchist]

Came here to ask the exact same question =P

I was standing around helping a friend catch up to me on a quest and decided to to test out my "new shot" on some wandering strong enemies in the area while he looted crap for the quest. I noticed my first shot did the same damage as my 6th and that sorta made me wonder if it works at all?

I assumed the guys I was shooting just had low armor to begin with so I tried it later on a Champion mob, same results after a few tried. I did not notice a massive uptick in crits myself but maybe I will try again later and see if I notice the same thing

[ZekeMinus]

I believe Grav Round is not weapon damage, since armor only reduces the damage you take from skills that "deals ### weapon damage." This means it's great to weaken high-armor targets against your other rounds, and eventually, really helps your talented Full Auto.

 

EDIT: Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited January 20, 2012 by ZekeMinus

[Orrow]

Grav round isn't mitigated by armor so you wont notice any difference at 5 stacks. However High impact bolt and full auto hit significantly harder as does hammer shot. Grav rounds debuff will also affect demo rounds damage once you get it at level 40.

[CedricDur]

True, I felt the same. I'm well versed in the yellow damage (spell damage that ignores armor) and white damage (physical damage which armor mitigates) and so I was not looking at Grav Round damage but rather HiB's, since, finally, I had something that allowed HiB to come in use.

 

But I hardly noticed any difference between 5 stacks of Grav Round and none when HiB came in use. Maybe because the numbers are so low. 20% of 350 is around.. what, 60-ish points?

 

Sad truth is that Grav Round hits for more than HiB-with-five-stacks so I do no bother using it until I get HiB talented.

[Rikiu]

That's explains it all. Thanks for the reponses.

[JLapp]

I believe Grav Round is not weapon damage, since armor only reduces the damage you take from skills that "deals ### weapon damage." This means it's great to weaken high-armor targets against your other rounds, and eventually, really helps your talented Full Auto.

 

EDIT: Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I thought Grav Round did Kinetic damage and armor mitigated Kinetic and energy damage.

 

Might just be that low level mobs the OP is fighting just don't have enough armor to make a difference.

[genesiser]

At level 29 I can notice a difference in damage with 0 stacks and 5 stacks. The difference is with 0 stacks it'll crit for ~1000 and with 5 stacks it'll crit for ~1,070.

 

The reason you don't notice a difference is because 20% armor isn't all that much of a damage reduction. 20% armor sounds significant, but in reality it isn't.

 

For example, I was playing with my shadow tank. The enemy put 5 stacks of armor reducing that actually had 7% per stack for a total loss of 35% armor. I looked at my stats before and after it wore off and when the debuff was on me, I had a 28% dmg reduction. When the debuff was gone it was at 30.5%. I had my friend that's a jedi guardian test it out and his dmg reduction went from 39% down to 36% with the same 35% debuff.

 

Another thing to remember is even with 0 armor an enemy always has a base dmg reduction of 10% (you can easily see this by dequipping your gear). If you are fighting an enemy with say 12% dmg reduction from armor, the absolute most you will is a 2% difference. However in reality 20% of the armor will really reduce their dmg reduction by about .5%.

Edited January 20, 2012 by genesiser

[hkraven]

at lvl 50 I do notice the dmg go up(in PvE) with about 50 per grav round and tick from a starter hit(0) of about 1600-1700 no crit to around 1800-1900(5) no-crits. Its also worth noting that the armor reduction from Grav Rounds and other talents isn't just for you but it also affects everyone else(can HiP on something that has another troopers grav round stacks on it for an example, not sure you get the extra dmg though).

 

[EDIT]Checked ingame now and both Demo Round and Grav Round do kinetic dmg while HiP and Full Auto does weapon damage(energy).

Edited January 20, 2012 by hkraven

[DeltaGun]

Are you guys sure Grav round isn't mitigated by armor? That doesn't sound correct. Grav round does Kinetic damage and thus should be effected by armor.

 

 

As for the people not noticing a difference: just look at you own armor. Say you have 4000 armor at level 50. That's about 26.5% Kinetic and Energy damage reduction.

 

Now take off 20% armor, or a full stack of Vortex. 4000 - 800 = 3200.

 

3200 armor is about 22.5% damage reduction.

 

So with a stack of Vortex I now take a whopping 3% more damage.

 

You may not be noticing a difference from Grav round because it is such a small change. Later on you will begin to notice a change as the enemies armor varies and reaches a higher amount.

Edited January 20, 2012 by DeltaGun

[AWDBAHL]

Armor debuffs in general are pretty terrible. People think 5 stacks of it means they will do 20% more damage. In reality it ends up decreasing the absorb of the target by under 5%. The less armor the target has to begin with the less effective the armor debuff.

 

So if a sorc has 1000 armor which equals 10% absorb, and you but 5 stacks of armor debuff on them it means they have 800 armor now or 8% absorb.

 

So if you were hitting them for 900 before the debuff you would only be hitting them for 920 after it. With the RNG its hard to really notice that sort of miniscule difference.

[DeltaGun]

Armor debuffs in general are pretty terrible. People think 5 stacks of it means they will do 20% more damage. In reality it ends up decreasing the absorb of the target by under 5%. The less armor the target has to begin with the less effective the armor debuff.

 

So if a sorc has 1000 armor which equals 10% absorb, and you but 5 stacks of armor debuff on them it means they have 800 armor now or 8% absorb.

 

So if you were hitting them for 900 before the debuff you would only be hitting them for 920 after it. With the RNG its hard to really notice that sort of miniscule difference.

 

This is correct.

 

Way too much misinformation in the first part of the thread.

[ArchangelLBC]

The real benefit of Grav round comes from the 5% extra dmg per vortex that demo round gets and the 6% extra dmg per vortex that HiB gets from charged barrel. The second is also a reason to keep spamming it over charged bolts since you can keep 5 vortexes on the target alot easier than you can keep 5 stacks of charged barrel on yourself.

 

 

The other reason we don't notice much difference besides its relatively small increase is the fact that armor piercing cell, in theory, ignores 35% of the enemies armor. If that is indeed how it works then the armor its actually effecting is already less.

 

I feel the real benefit of armor piercing cell combined with the vortices from grav round really comes to the fore during boss battles by keeping your grav round/HiB/Full Auto/Demo Round damage high when you're facing something like HM Bulwark, or Ironfist. Being able to still get Demo Round Crits for 3500 on those fights can make all the difference.