Barrage or Beam for managems?

[Harshil]

I always see people put barrage on their managems. Barrage increases nonbound specials by 30% so will give 30% more mana for the same gem, but Beam increases attack speed by 30%(exceeding the cap) so will also give 30% more mana for the same gem while also increasing hit levels faster. Am I missing something here? Because it seems beam is objectively better, but people still use barrage. Please reply soon.

[Ivan247]

Originally posted by harshilsangal60:

I always see people put barrage on their managems. Barrage increases nonbound specials by 30% so will give 30% more mana for the same gem, but Beam increases attack speed by 30%(exceeding the cap) so will also give 30% more mana for the same gem while also increasing hit levels faster. Am I missing something here? Because it seems beam is objectively better, but people still use barrage. Please reply soon.

Because firing speed has a cap but gem specials don't. Firing speed cap is 48 shots per second which is just slightly above the physical limit (from dev blog), and can be reached at about grade 20-30.

[Harshil]

Originally posted by IvanYiu247:

Originally posted by harshilsangal60:

I always see people put barrage on their managems. Barrage increases nonbound specials by 30% so will give 30% more mana for the same gem, but Beam increases attack speed by 30%(exceeding the cap) so will also give 30% more mana for the same gem while also increasing hit levels faster. Am I missing something here? Because it seems beam is objectively better, but people still use barrage. Please reply soon.

Because firing speed has a cap but gem specials don't. Firing speed cap is 48 shots per second which is just slightly above the physical limit (from dev blog), and can be reached at about grade 20-30. :orblet:

But beam in traps makes it exceed the cap so it HAS to give 30% more mana, right?

[Ivan247]

Originally posted by harshilsangal60:

Originally posted by IvanYiu247:

Because firing speed has a cap but gem specials don't. Firing speed cap is 48 shots per second which is just slightly above the physical limit (from dev blog), and can be reached at about grade 20-30.

But beam in traps makes it exceed the cap so it HAS to give 30% more mana, right?

The actual cap (close to 48 hit/s) is a game limitation and any firing rate beyond that point is the same as that capped firing speed.
At lower grades beam can possibly outperform barrage, but at higher grades beam gives zero benefits.

EDIT: Firing rate from traps can show values higher than 48 hit/s but that gem will perform as if the gem only has ~48 hit/s firing rate. (I think that's what you mean on "beam in traps makes it exceed the cap", and it even extends to unbuffed gems in traps)

[Harshil]

Originally posted by IvanYiu247:

Originally posted by harshilsangal60:

But beam in traps makes it exceed the cap so it HAS to give 30% more mana, right?

The actual cap (close to 48 hit/s) is a game limitation and any firing rate beyond that point is the same as that capped firing speed.
At lower grades beam can possibly outperform barrage, but at higher grades beam gives zero benefits. :orblet:

EDIT: Firing rate from traps can show values higher than 48 hit/s but that gem will perform as if the gem only has ~48 hit/s firing rate. (I think that's what you mean on "beam in traps makes it exceed the cap", and it even extends to unbuffed gems in traps)

Then why does the game show the fire rate to be more than 48 shots per second.The skill 'Traps' also increase the fire rate, so my fire rate is 240 shots per second. Do you mean the game is just lying about the power of my gem?

[12345ieee]

Yes, the game is lying. Fire speed is capped at 48.

[destrustor]

I thought the two were exactly the same, math-wise, mostly because I didn't factor bloodbound into that decision.
But yeah, if there's a hard cap to hits per second, barrage becomes immediately better.

I guess I'll just keep on barraging all my traps then.

I suppose the optimal strategy would then be to beam your gems until you hit the hit cap, and then switch to barrage once beam becomes obsolete.

[Ivan247]

Originally posted by 12345ieee:

Yes, the game is lying. Fire speed is capped at 48.

Actually I have a question on this: in AG ver1.1.6 Peter said that 48 hit/s was "just above the pysical limit". Is this true and if yes what is the actual cap?

[12345ieee]

I can't do it, Ivan, but you can, you have to measure the game's frame rate.
I bet it's 24.

In a game as simple as this you want to generate only fixed N shots/frame.
I imagine going to 3 was unreasonable for Flash.

[Ivan247]

Originally posted by 12345ieee:

I can't do it, Ivan, but you can, you have to measure the game's frame rate.
I bet it's 24.

In a game as simple as this you want to generate only fixed N shots/frame.
I imagine going to 3 was unreasonable for Flash.

I guess it's reasonable to just assume that 48 hit/s is the correct value then. I was interested to see if the code has an answer to this or not, and looks like it's "no". Thanks anyway.

[12345ieee]

Ah, sure the code knows this, but I'd rather not look at it.

[Harshil]

Originally posted by 12345ieee:

Yes, the game is lying. Fire speed is capped at 48.

Thank you!

[judasblanco]

I'm sure the 48 hits is a design cap geared toward reducing lag in extreme battles.. If it this bad at 15k monsters and 7 traps at 48 hits/sec imagine 278 hits/sec..

But, Barrage in mana gems in traps and beam on mana gems in towers at beginning to speed up gaining hits

[astrosha]

My usual setup (map permitting, of course) is a Killgem in a Trap, surrounded by six Amps. Next to those Amps, such that it gets the benefit from three of them, is a duplicate of the Killgem, set for Buildings (this is primarily my Beacon and Flying killer). I'll also make a few more dupes of the Killgem, toss them either into Towers or Traps, set to Random. Note - I do NOT enchant these dupes, they are strictly for hit farming.

I do something rather similar for the Managem - Trapped Managem with 6 Amps, and a few dupes of the Managem in Towers, set to Random.

Each time I upgrade the Managem, I'll roll all of the dupes etting the main Managem all of those hits, elevating its Hit Level a few times. For the Killgem, I'll do the same thing - and if I'm using less than half the mana I'll even roll the Beacon killer in and just replace it with the first dupe of the upgraded Killgem.

Honestly, once you've got some Grades on the Mana/Kill Gems, the Chain Hit component will do wonders for your Hit count. The 48 shot/sec limit is painful (just imagine what you'd get with 100k shots per second at real high Gem Grades) but not something to really worry about when you've got 10-20k monsters "on screen".