Ground Weapon DPS Makes No Sense

[Jivebot]

Weapon DPS seems to go in reverse. Pistols(Beam pistols especially) have the highest DPS. Then Rifles. Then Assault Guns. You'd expect it to be reversed. And then the secondary effects and secondary fire options don't seem especially different either.

What am i missing?

Going by the numbers there's no reason to use anything but pistols unless you just like the aesthetics of the rifles and cannons.

[Ziland]

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Yes. In ground, its impossible to miss, the way the game works.

And I give up. People have been playing this game for 7+ years, pistols are the LESS used weapons. There must be a reason. Period. Usually beginners would think like you, but until they actually understand how mechanics work in this game... its a common mistake to think that pistols are the best weapons because they fire faster and in bursts... then you could also grab an assault riffle and im pretty sure you will think that its even better than a pistol...

Again, until you fully understand how the mechanics of this game works, you will never understand why pistols ARENT the best weapons.

This is pretty much the atitude I met in city of heroes back in the day, yet I ended making one of the most powerful builds at that time, if not the most powerful (everywhere I went people kept PMing me 'WTF how are you this OP?'). All because I actually bothered reading the dps stats and synergies between mods. I had a literaly invulnerable high dps char (something I'm willing to bet was nerfed later on) and then stoped playing because of the sterility of the end game content, was younger then and had way too high expectations for what a game should be like (kinda regret it now, was a fun game, really made you feel like a superhero).

But none of that really matters, I need to get epic versions of some of those weapon types and do the tests myself. Mk XII very rare might be missleading, maybe pistols don't upgrade as well as rifles. That would make sense since this game's seven years old. COH was only 3 or 4 when I played it, I think. We'll see. The best test is when people start PM'ing like nuts, only then do you know you're onto somethimg. Sadly, not much crazy synergy or upgrade paths in this game, maybe that'll change, at least at first glance, there's still the expose/exploit thing I haven't even touched yet.

[Ziland]

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Do you realize that epic versions DOES not increase damage, right? and that the only thing you get is an extra mod and thats it? what increases damage is the MK grade change, not the quality change. At mk XIV, thats the maximum damage youre gonna get.

I think you might have gotten confused there? Epic ground weapons always get CrtH/Dm (at least according to the wiki on set ground weapons), just as space weaonns always get Acc/Dm when going epic. This makes epic a non negligeable dps boost.

What I do not know though, is weither or not this dm sufix is some extra damage added or a constant % increase. This is the only place left to make pistols inferior to other weapon types. Maybe the Dm sufix is heavily nerfed for pistols. Because my ultra rare pistol beats the crap out of my rare weaons.

https://lootcritter.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/untitled-2.png

Images for ground weapons are difficult to find (or I'm using bad search words). But look at that link. Epic dps of 163.4. My wide beam pistol mk XIV UR has a dps of 214.3. Completely ridiculing this epic split beam rifle. And it's dps increased by 2.96% when going from UR to Epic. So that means my pistol will go to 220.6 when going epic, if the change isn't knocked down for pistols.

In what world would 163.4 dps be more powerful than 220.6?

Caveat, that picture is 2 years old. So dps might have changed for that weapon since then. But this very rare dps of 157.6 at mk X!V seems cocher to me since split beams are 120/130 at mk XII.

Oh and just as an fyi. this split beam does less damage per shot as well, compared to my pistol. As they're both doing two shots per second. That little x2 after the damage type. So wide beam pistols do not fire more often that split beam rifles. Pistol only has less range and an insanely more powerful secondary fire with 50% more dmg every 4 sec instead of every 6 seconds for split beam rifles.

So yeah... On paper, standard pistols far outweight any standard rifle when it comes to the dps stat.

[Jivebot]

Thing is I have been trialing and erroring. And haven't noticed an apprecciable difference. Which is disconcerting in and of itself. Whether i use standard "White" quality pistols or purple quality rifles, the fights don't seem any easier or harder. The numbers don't seem to actually MEAN anything as far as I can tell. Just further contributing to the confusion that lead to my initial post.

[Wisecasper]

Even if the base stats don't change it still gains mods as the quality increases too, which would give different results. Although on sompek I gained about 10-11 dps from increasing my weapon from mk xiii to xiv I have no source of stats to test a quality change because only at MK XIV can the quality change without changing the level of the item. That final mod is also one of the most potent. On space weapons it would be barely noticable changing 1 of the 7 weapons but chaning them all should be noticeable

[Ziland]

Originally posted by Jivebot:

Thing is I have been trialing and erroring. And haven't noticed an apprecciable difference. Which is disconcerting in and of itself. Whether i use standard "White" quality pistols or purple quality rifles, the fights don't seem any easier or harder. The numbers don't seem to actually MEAN anything as far as I can tell. Just further contributing to the confusion that lead to my initial post.

I don't think it would be all too noticeable. Imagine a mob with 1k hp.
With the split beam mk XIV UR at 156.7 dps it would take:
1000/156.7=6.38 sec to kill.
With a WB pistol Mk XIV UR at 214.3 it would take:
1000/214.3=4.66 sec to kill

2 sec is basically just a couple of cast time on 2 or 3 skills put together. Add in UI lag and you won't see it at all.

Now with 10k hp it starts becoming a little bit more noticeable.
10000/156.7=63.81 sec
10000/214.3=46.66 sec
17.15 sec difference. But that's for bosses or equivalent, and you might get rooted and have to avoid aoe's, so given all that time not firing with aim and running around, 17 sec won't be very noticeable either. Doube that Hp an difference and 34 sec is still only marginaly noticeable.

But add to this crit chance and skills and you 'should' have a very hard time seeing much difference. But you 'might' feel it.

A dps counter can help see this difference. But it's hard to repeat the same mob dencity for ground, unlike space wich has the crystaline enityty and such. SB24 used to be my favorite to test dps in space. Not sure if there's anything like this soloable for ground either. Not that anyone really cares about ground, as Nemesis pointed out, it's kinda boring and you just want it done asap so you can go have actual fun in space.

But WB pistols are still boss. nah... :P

Prolly not..

[uni790]

Just throwing this out there, this is currently (and has been since the romulans released) the only weapon type I've bothered to use for ground combat, everything else just seems weak in comparison. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/843713887526021501/8E31D788C3A6963935A704F8F6E842802795A80B/

[Grumpy Old Gamer]

you dont have to do the math, just looka teh dps rating if you want dps, rifles have better range and higher spike damage.

[uni790]

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Originally posted by uni790:

Just throwing this out there, this is currently (and has been since the romulans released) the only weapon type I've bothered to use for ground combat, everything else just seems weak in comparison. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/843713887526021501/8E31D788C3A6963935A704F8F6E842802795A80B/

Serioulsy????? hahahahaha. You obviously only tried a couple of weapons. Because there are soooo many better weapons than the piercing ones.. lol. Piercing weapons are just one of the lest used weapons in the game... :s

Also, plasma piercing weapons are broken. I dont know why are you using em, but i stopped using them a couple of years ago because they are borked in some situations. They dissapear, they aim in wrong places lol. Not always, its seems reandom. But seriously, how can you say that other weapons are weak in comparison?? did you even tested other weapons actually? because its ridiculous hahahaha.

Yes, I've used pretty much every weapon type the game has aside from the lobi store ones, and yes it does bug out at times, easily fixed though by switching between fps mode and back to rpg mode, or just picking a new target, as it breaks when you've just started shooting something that has died, it is the only fully automatic weapon the game has, and easily doubles the dps of any other weapon I've tried(mainly due to the fact that there is no cooldown between shots), including all of the reputation weapons. The only situations I don't use it in, are for the Elachi, and Borg, they get the TR-whatever kenetic sniper rifle.

Although gotta say, it's never disapeared on me, I've never even heard of them doing that, gotta call that one out, as I've been using it since the Romulans were introduced.

[ImperatorPavel]

The epic mod is always a double mod. Acc/Dmg, etc. I believe it is fixed for ground and space weapons.

[ImperatorPavel]

Epic weapons only gain the additional hybrid mod at epic. Said mod is fixed as well for all weapons. You'll note any epic space weapon on the exchange has the mod [Ac/Dm].

[Evil Music Dude]

Originally posted by uni790:

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Serioulsy????? hahahahaha. You obviously only tried a couple of weapons. Because there are soooo many better weapons than the piercing ones.. lol. Piercing weapons are just one of the lest used weapons in the game... :s

Also, plasma piercing weapons are broken. I dont know why are you using em, but i stopped using them a couple of years ago because they are borked in some situations. They dissapear, they aim in wrong places lol. Not always, its seems reandom. But seriously, how can you say that other weapons are weak in comparison?? did you even tested other weapons actually? because its ridiculous hahahaha.

Yes, I've used pretty much every weapon type the game has aside from the lobi store ones, and yes it does bug out at times, easily fixed though by switching between fps mode and back to rpg mode, or just picking a new target, as it breaks when you've just started shooting something that has died, it is the only fully automatic weapon the game has, and easily doubles the dps of any other weapon I've tried(mainly due to the fact that there is no cooldown between shots), including all of the reputation weapons. The only situations I don't use it in, are for the Elachi, and Borg, they get the TR-whatever kenetic sniper rifle.

Although gotta say, it's never disapeared on me, I've never even heard of them doing that, gotta call that one out, as I've been using it since the Romulans were introduced.

too bad fully automatic rifles are probably the worst for single target dps.
it might have no cooldown between shots but it doesn't help when 90% of the bullets on that specific fire mode miss the target...

those fully automatic rifles are only useful for one thing... to be placed on bridge officers ;)

[Captain N30 (Formerly DinoTreat)]

I know if I’m looking for DPS on a ground weapon, I do t pay a lot of attention to dmg. I have several ground weapons that are around 50-60 dmg, but the DPS is around 200.

[StupidNameHere]

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Originally posted by wisecasper:

Rifles have higher knockbacks, can shoot at a greater range especially the secondary fire of the sniper rifle. So you do more damage with a pistol but you take a little more damage also as your enemy spends more time upright

No, you dont do more damage with a pistol, it is the other way around...

But, as other weapons that fires a burst of bullets, if your ground build is right, you can chain a critical hit in every shot, making burst weapons even deadlier than any rifle.

My stun pistol was pretty annoying and the Ferengi whip is the ♥♥♥♥.

[Ordinary Dark]

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