[Theorycrafting] Endgame PvE - DPS Crystal Builds

Qilong Profile Options #41

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MangTheory on 05/21/2012, 04:00 PM - view
Just tested it myself, and both Slaying and Furious crystals trigger when YOU personally are below 50% hp. At first the Furious seemed a little buggy, but I forgot to take into account the stamina bonus to determine what the 50% cutoff point for my HP would be. Really annoying that they call the crystal "slaying" when you're not slaying, you're getting slayed...

@EasymodeX If you're right about mob's spending nearly half of the entire fight enraged, then I will totally re-include that, but I was under the impression it was more like 20%, which is simply not gonna cut it. Even if it was predictable periods of time it might be really useful, like if the boss in Balder's is enraged the whole time when he's under 30% hp, the gem would be super awesome... but I don't think this is the case. Will have to test.

Thanks for the feedback, EasymodeX! I'll have to get into those details you mentioned a little bit more.


Mobs will switch into and out of enrage generally frequently. Time in seems constant and thus averaging to 50%, but I do not think anyone's timed this. I know that in some fights (Kaprima below 20%, Auricadis below 30/35%) you can count on the boss hitting enrage and staying there. Such crystals become invaluable, especially for Auricadis where the group can refocus in time to "push him over."

I know that I can push a BAM into enrage by packing several criticals into it at once. The more massive damage the mob seems to receive, the more readily it will switch into enrage. Averaging higher crits causes the BAM to hit enrage more frequently (and also revert from a "backstabbable" condition, and you begin drawing aggro). I tend to decrease my overall hyper criticals for the sake of maintaining position on the boss or BAM, but sometimes I cannot help myself!
MangTheory Profile Options #42

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Rengeki on 05/23/2012, 03:44 PM - view
combat movespeed crystal is feeling lonely...
Ha, this reminds me of theorycrafting back in WoW, where movespeed to boots was typically the better choice over the alternatives. Thanks for the reminder, I'll have to add this to my list of to-do-analysis.

Qilong on 05/23/2012, 04:04 PM
Mobs will switch into and out of enrage generally frequently. Time in seems constant and thus averaging to 50%, but I do not think anyone's timed this. I know that in some fights (Kaprima below 20%, Auricadis below 30/35%) you can count on the boss hitting enrage and staying there. Such crystals become invaluable, especially for Auricadis where the group can refocus in time to "push him over."

I know that I can push a BAM into enrage by packing several criticals into it at once. The more massive damage the mob seems to receive, the more readily it will switch into enrage. Averaging higher crits causes the BAM to hit enrage more frequently (and also revert from a "backstabbable" condition, and you begin drawing aggro). I tend to decrease my overall hyper criticals for the sake of maintaining position on the boss or BAM, but sometimes I cannot help myself!
All of your anecdotal evidence simply suggests either that bosses enrage at certain %HP thresholds (and thus your big crits make them reach those thresholds faster), or perhaps you're actually correct and "recent burst damage" is what enrages the boss. This shouldn't be all too hard to test (at least the basic idea) just by watching the "enrage bar" underneath the boss, and how it relates to your damage. Maybe this could be easy for one player to test on a lower level BAM or something. Food for thought.
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MangTheory on 05/23/2012, 04:22 PM - view
All of your anecdotal evidence simply suggests either that bosses enrage at certain %HP thresholds (and thus your big crits make them reach those thresholds faster), or perhaps you're actually correct and "recent burst damage" is what enrages the boss. This shouldn't be all too hard to test (at least the basic idea) just by watching the "enrage bar" underneath the boss, and how it relates to your damage. Maybe this could be easy for one player to test on a lower level BAM or something. Food for thought.


Mmm... enrage bar? What enrage bar?
Sheapy Profile Options #44

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If you're soloing BAMs end game for money, I'd highly suggest Slaying or Furious crystals. One mistake may cost your life, but the amount of DPS you put out is ridiculous. Check out this guy's videos. He posts videos of himself soloing BAMs from 20-60 using Slaying/Furious setups. 58 seconds for one ice giant, versus 46 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KGwrYo2htE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghYQnWyGcqE
Qilong Profile Options #45

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MangTheory on 05/23/2012, 04:22 PM - view
Qilong on 05/23/2012, 04:04 PM
Mobs will switch into and out of enrage generally frequently. Time in seems constant and thus averaging to 50%, but I do not think anyone's timed this. I know that in some fights (Kaprima below 20%, Auricadis below 30/35%) you can count on the boss hitting enrage and staying there. Such crystals become invaluable, especially for Auricadis where the group can refocus in time to "push him over."

I know that I can push a BAM into enrage by packing several criticals into it at once. The more massive damage the mob seems to receive, the more readily it will switch into enrage. Averaging higher crits causes the BAM to hit enrage more frequently (and also revert from a "backstabbable" condition, and you begin drawing aggro). I tend to decrease my overall hyper criticals for the sake of maintaining position on the boss or BAM, but sometimes I cannot help myself!
All of your anecdotal evidence simply suggests either that bosses enrage at certain %HP thresholds (and thus your big crits make them reach those thresholds faster), or perhaps you're actually correct and "recent burst damage" is what enrages the boss. This shouldn't be all too hard to test (at least the basic idea) just by watching the "enrage bar" underneath the boss, and how it relates to your damage. Maybe this could be easy for one player to test on a lower level BAM or something. Food for thought.


I tested this with Giant Warmasters in Feral Valley today (Slayer), and against various Ovoliths. Solo'ing, so the advantages of having back crystals is removed (they were still in, for the occasional Backstab/Heart Thrust). Speed of getting the mob to enrage, based on my opening moves, including going full bore critical hits or just Combo Attacking. It, sadly, wasn't experimental for the purpose of testing how much damage over how much time might cause the effect, if this were the case. Because I was going for the "One with Warmasters" achievement, I had plenty of time to test out strategies: I killed several while wearing no boss crystals, I killed several while going full bore back-based, and I killed several while doing my Slayer-dodging thing, where back crystals were almost never in play but for the opener.

In all cases, using my opener with Overpower/Backstab/Heart Thrust/Overhand Strike/HT/OS (relatively common) generally resulted in the mob hitting enrage by the first Heart Thrust, if not by Overhand. Note that this was not usually enough to get it anywhere near 50%, and the crits are only 5 digits with Acrimonious, Savage, Carving and Mutinous as the set up (when I was wearing my boss set and not my solo boss/BAM set, the latter of which prioritized Brilliants + Mutinous).

I am thus not asserting that simply receiving X damage over time frame Y causes the mob to enter enrage. I do know that the mob will step out of enrage even when below 50% hp, unless I "push it over" again.

My conclusion:
"Death by a Thousand Cuts" doesn't cause a boss to enrage, if ever. The boss will enter enrage on its own under various other circumstances, possibly randomly.
"Dropping a House on Her" will cause a boss to enrage, but the size of this house and how fast it landed by differ.

More anecdotal information: Lancers hitting Infuriate on Auricadis causes it to hit enrage, and stay there, for the entire fight. This might be a bug. Auricadis is enrages when the room begins to darken, and will not leave enrage. Because of this, damage-dealers using Furious Crystals during the final stage of the fight will increase their dps if they, say, switched out a Mutinous.

EDIT: I am also curious about "enrage bars" beneath boss's feet. I've spent my fair time on solo'ing BAM who're enraged walking all over me or with their enraged crotch or [filtered] in my face, and I'm not familiar with this feature, nor have I seen it.
Edited by: Qilong 12 months ago
Celaeris Profile Options #46

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Quintanis on 05/23/2012, 08:19 AM
Thank you Celaeris for posting on my question

please dont call me an idiot when i post the following question hehe

still having a hard time getting my head around the formula for it.

4x Mutinous -- Crit%=50%, NoCritDPS=13120 (because of the 4x Mutinous)
Total DPS = 0.5*13120 + 0.5*2*13120 = 19680

3x Mutinous, 1x Carving -- Crit% = 53%, NoCritDPS=12,340 (because of only 3x Mutinous)
Total DPS = 0.47*12340 + 0.53*2*12,340 = 18880

why is the 0.5 and 0.47 different? that should of been my post and not all the extra.


In the first equation, you crit half the time, so 50% of the time you do low damage, and 50% of the time you do high damage.

When you increase your crit rate to 53% (via carving), 53% of the time you do high damage, and 47% of the time (100 - 53%) of the time, you do low damage. I hope that explains the 47 since you do less damage.

MangTheory on 05/23/2012, 10:59 AM

Do you know which direct % damage modifiers stack additively, and which stack multiplicatively? Do they all stack additively, even if it's like 7.8% from Mutinous and 5.4% for behind the target? Need to test.


Everything has stacked additively in this game. There is no stat that stacks multiplicatively, except until recently (but we're not worried about it since we're not looking at damage reduction). Any straight damage modifiers has been 100% + %back (when behind) + % enraged (when enraged) + %boss (when attacking a boss) + %boss_from_crystals (from crystals). Also it's 5.1% for behind the target =).

@ issue of stamina and crit
It's mentioned in the level 5 quest when you have to regain your stamina.

@ Enrage bar
That's the warrior's edge bar, and it has nothing to do with enrage. I mentioned earlier that I've noticed mobs enrage at certain %ages of their health, or when lancers enrage them. It's not too hard to tell just fraps a video of a boss, and if dps is bad enough you can figure out when the bosses enrage.

Forgot to add that bosses do enrage after certain time has passed, but I noticed that on normal mobs more when aggroing them and kiting away.
Edited by: Celaeris 12 months ago
MangTheory Profile Options #47

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Qilong on 05/23/2012, 04:43 PM - view
More anecdotal information: Lancers hitting Infuriate on Auricadis causes it to hit enrage, and stay there, for the entire fight. This might be a bug. Auricadis is enrages when the room begins to darken, and will not leave enrage. Because of this, damage-dealers using Furious Crystals during the final stage of the fight will increase their dps if they, say, switched out a Mutinous.

EDIT: I am also curious about "enrage bars" beneath boss's feet. I've spent my fair time on solo'ing BAM who're enraged walking all over me or with their enraged crotch or [filtered] in my face, and I'm not familiar with this feature, nor have I seen it.


I think you mean Focused crystal -- Furious is for when YOU are under 50% HP.

When i say "enrage bar" I'm referring to that hash-marked bar directly underneath the boss's health bar -- it counts from 1 to 10, and turns white->orange->red occasionally... This is an enrage bar, right? If other people don't confirm this, I'll feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Celaeris says this isn't an enrage bar -- how do you determine when a boss is enraged, and what % of the time it is enraged?

"@ issue of stamina and crit
It's mentioned in the level 5 quest when you have to regain your stamina."

What is mentioned? Does it say your crit is affected or not? Is this shown on the character stat sheet at all?
Qilong Profile Options #48

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MangTheory on 05/23/2012, 05:00 PM - view
Qilong on 05/23/2012, 04:43 PM
More anecdotal information: Lancers hitting Infuriate on Auricadis causes it to hit enrage, and stay there, for the entire fight. This might be a bug. Auricadis is enrages when the room begins to darken, and will not leave enrage. Because of this, damage-dealers using Furious Crystals during the final stage of the fight will increase their dps if they, say, switched out a Mutinous.

EDIT: I am also curious about "enrage bars" beneath boss's feet. I've spent my fair time on solo'ing BAM who're enraged walking all over me or with their enraged crotch or [filtered] in my face, and I'm not familiar with this feature, nor have I seen it.


I think you mean Focused crystal -- Furious is for when YOU are under 50% HP.

When i say "enrage bar" I'm referring to that hash-marked bar directly underneath the boss's health bar -- it counts from 1 to 10, and turns white->orange->red occasionally... This is an enrage bar, right? If other people don't confirm this, I'll feel like I'm taking crazy pills.


Sadly, this is the Warrior's edge. He gets ten steps, and has two abilities that fuel off of it. Not enrage. You will never see it unless a Warrior is on the mob.

Celaeris says this isn't an enrage bar -- how do you determine when a boss is enraged, and what % of the time it is enraged?


Bosses are faster and deal more damage when enraged. But most bosses (and BAMS) have a visual/lighting cue when they become enraged:
Ovoliths begin glowing, Basilisks begin "flaming" (you go, girl!), Fimbrilisks sprout awesome wings and bits of themselves light up, Giants slip a mask over their face and their axe(s) glow, Arachnen, Naga and Crab distal parts begin changing colors, Kumases light up like Yule trees, etc. Even normal mobs will enrage, and this is best visualized with Noruks: lit runic swirlies appear on their skin.
Celaeris Profile Options #49

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Also if you have notifiers up you get the big angry face on top of your character telling you that the BAM you have engaged has enraged. For example, after enrage on the Ant boss (final) in SM, he will run to the center in 5-10 seconds to summon adds.

I use that icon to tell if the BAM has enraged. Once enraged, as Qilong said, each BAM has a visual appearance that shows they are. Once they aren't enraged, those visual signs disappear. I'm fairly certain every boss has a visual queue to see if they are enraged.

@ crit and stamina.
In the quest text, it mentions that crit is affected by stamina. Whether this statement is actually true or not is debatable, but it is in the quest text. I'm just telling you the source of this information. Easy to test of course, is to look at crit rate with 0 stamina versus ~120, if you're doing crit rate tests anyways.
Edited by: Celaeris 12 months ago
MangTheory Profile Options #50

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Thanks to Celaeris and Qilong for clearing up my ignorance about Warrior mechanics :D

So when you pull threat, you get the orange symbol over your head (and an orange circle around your feet). Similar to that, sometimes an angry red face pops up, which I think you were just describing Celaeris -- THAT shows when the boss is enraged?

I think I'm much less confused now.