Arsenal new 6 set bonus - PARSEC

[IamBorg]

Hello everybody,

my question is simple: has anyone tried to parse and see the difference (if any) between a full geared Arsena (or gunnery counterpart) with the NEW 6 set bonus AS OPPOSED to the Old 4 set bonus + NEW 2 set bonus ?

I haven't got much time lately to do the job but, on the chart, it seems that preserving the OLD 4 set bonus + NEW 2 set bonus SHOULD be better, as the new 4 set is pretty useless and the 6 one is just an automated HSM crit each minute. The difference, in this case, is just in the stats on the armoring part.

Hope someone already lost his time and tried to parse both the sets.

Thanks in advance for the answers

[MasterWentz]

I have seen a DPS increase since moving to the 6pc bonus from the old 4 + new 2.

 

It is by far better to wait until you have the new 6 to drop the old yes. So I waited until I got the 6th piece then swapped to 6 new from old 4 + 2 new.

 

I was a nice jump, I am at work or I could look at some parsec boss fight and dummy numbers to prove but yes it is better.

[Vairden]

Hi folks. I would love some more input on this question from the experts, because I've been asking myself a very similar question; why would I give up the old 2 (or 4) piece bonus for what seems to be a lackluster new 6 piece bonus. Below is the thought process I'm currently running with (I'm gunnery for terminology purposes). PLEASE NOTE: all following numbers are from quick, unscientific parses. They have been rounded and cruelly abused...

 

A grav round crit should give me an extra ~2,223 over a normal grav round. If I average 12-13 grav rounds each minute (and my math is right), I'm coming up with about 2 extra crits in that minute thanks to the old 2 piece bonus. That would be an extra ~4,450 damage. Now you add the 4 piece bonus. I come up with about 4 high impact bolts per minute in an ideal world, and an 8% damage increase comes out to about 400 each time. That means ~1,600 damage that the 4 piece grants. When you add that to the ~4,450 from grav round, the old 4 piece set grants ~6,050.

 

With the new 6 piece bonus, I'm getting an average of ~5,500 additional damage every minute, due to the automatic crit on demo round. This does NOT account for the possibility that the demo round may have been a crit even without the set bonus.

 

This means the old set gives about 550 more damage per minute than the 6 piece. I feel that a difference of 550 damage/minute is well within a margin of error for bad parses/bad assumptions/bad math. That would make them roughly equal in my head. However, once you consider the passive AIM increase from upgrading the armorings, it seems likely to me that the 6 piece is going to be better.

 

Like I said, this is just my thought process, and I know it doesn't have hard data to back it up. I'm open to correction from anybody who has spent real time and effort on calculating the differences.

[Gyronamics]

I won't give you the answer you want but I'll tell you why your question doesn't matter if you actually care about maximising your output.

 

The old set bonus is:

 

+8% damage on Railshot

+15% crit on Tracer Missile and Power Shot

 

The new set bonus is:

 

+2% damage for 15s, rate limit of 30s

Autocrit on Heatseeking Missiles/Mag Shot, limit of 60s

 

In brief:

 

Innovative Ordinance doesn't use Railshot

Innovative Ordinance does less than 10% damage with Power Shot

 

You flat out screw IO by using the old set bonus because they do little/nothing on top of having less mainstat/endurance.

 

Innovative Ordinance comes into it because if you actually care about damage output you'd primarily play IO and gear to maximise output with that.

 

Occasionally Arsenal is useful but at best it's the bottom of the DPS ladder for sustained ranged damage, has poor AOE compared to sniper/sorc and only has a role as a fast target swapping nuke.

[RookB]

I'll add my $.02.

 

I used the Merc DPS simulator and compared your scenarios. I found the following:

 

198 fully optimized gear with the 6 piece set bonus

=

186 4-piece set bonus + 198 2-piece

(The old armorings have 80 less Aim total. Everything else is unchanged from the full 198 scenario.)

These two scenarios produce almost the exact same amount of damage.

 

Just to reiterate, this is only true for Arsenal/Gunnery. IO/AS should replace all old set pieces with new.

[Vairden]

THANK YOU ROOKB! That is exactly the type of information I was looking for. And also thanks for the information about the simulator. I never knew it existed.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

My $.02.

 

Arsenal is good for fights where you need burst or mobility (Torque, Walkers, Underlurker, Commanders, Corratani.) where as IO you need to be able to stand still and do your rotation, moving in the IO rotation can royally screw it up. (that and the IO rotation is so key perfect that it's almost the most difficult spec in the game... a reduction in the heat cost of Thermal Detonator or STB makes your next Power Shot free and insta cast would be fine.)

[Pagy]

My $.02.

 

Arsenal is good for fights where you need burst or mobility (Torque, Walkers, Underlurker, Commanders, Corratani.) where as IO you need to be able to stand still and do your rotation, moving in the IO rotation can royally screw it up. (that and the IO rotation is so key perfect that it's almost the most difficult spec in the game... a reduction in the heat cost of Thermal Detonator or STB makes your next Power Shot free and insta cast would be fine.)

arsenal is better for target swapping. saying IO is less mobile makes me think you're using it wrong.