Rifleman Archive
Thread: Worth using Powerups?
i think someone mentioned that a pup-ed t21 takes about 200 condition every half an hour of continuous speed-capped use. my personal record was two brand new 1083 condition t21s down to 300ish condition (both of them) in about 3 hours after killing 16 krayts (8 giant canyons, 2 ancients, the rest were canyons). about 12 crates of pups used i think (this was a while ago).as for HS3, it is probably what you would use most of the time on a lone enemy, however, i prefer strafe shot 2 when i am facing multiple opponents that are close together (jantas? mokks?), as it is a 5x dmg modifier and it as an AOE attack, takes enemies down faster than HS3-ing them one at a time.
Mallstrop wrote:
Is it worth using a powerup on your T21?
I have some +30 max / +15 Min powerups, they add around 100 max damage to my gun. However, the speed that the gun decays is increadible.
Using Headshot 3, the gun loses 2 condition every few shots. Imagine my supprise when I saw that the gun was on half condition after only 2 days use, not even heavy use.
Also, while I'm here, is head shot the best way to go at master?
From a damage perspective, it is essential to use them.
Here are the numbers:
Take a 176 - 404 damage T21 with a speed of 7.5 being fired by a Master Rifleman:
Flushingshot2
------------
Avg Avg Avg
Min Max Speed Dmg Dmg DPS
No powerup 176 404 7.5 290 1160 595
33% Max dmg 176 537 7.5 357 1427 732
33% Max/16% min 204 537 7.5 371 1483 760
33% Speed 176 404 5.6 290 1160 791
A 33% max damage PU will give you a 25% increase in average damage and, therefore, average damage per second (DPS). A 33% Max damage/16% min damage powerup will give you a 28% boost in average damage/average DPS. Thus, the 33% max damage powerup will give you an average of 267 points per hit more on a Flushingshot2 than with no powerup, and a 33% Max/16% min will average 323 more damage per hit than no powerup.
However, until you hit the speed cap, it is really the damage per second (DPS) that is important. In this case, a 33% Speed powerup is the way to go because a 33% speed powerup raises your DPS by a full 33%, meaning that you will hit for 31 points more damage per second over even the 33% max/16% min powerup (and nearly 200 points more damage per second than no powerup at all).
The above is true until the speed cap comes into play. Once you hit the speed cap, a faster weapon will not increase your DPS, so the speed powerup will not help at that point. There are too many variables to consider (personal speed mod, the speed of the weapon, the delay of the special) to be able to chart out where a speed power up becomes less useful, especially since it may be useful with one special but not with another (e.g., you may need it for Strafeshot2, but not Headshot3). But in general, you can figure with slower guns, speed powerups are better in general until you get close to the speed cap.
But either way, you are going to dramatically increase both your per hit damage and your damage per second if you use powerups, so if you can afford the decay, they are more than worth it.
Message Edited by Sotaudi on 08-24-2004 12:13 PM
MombassaMbomba wrote:
Personally I don't. My T21 has a good damage slice and the speed a powerup makes the condition drop too quickly. Also I am fed up with getting speed slices and spending loads on crates of T21's just to be left with loads of useless speed sliced ones.
People have said that they just go and buy a new rifle when it gets destroyed.. Am I missing something here or do they just get an new one and get lucky with the slice every time?
It must cost me around 500k to get a T21 with the damage over 500 due to the amount of slices I need to get a 30%+ damage slice?
According to what you seem to be saying, if you had a T21 that did 176 - 404 at 8.0 speed (which seems pretty common for a good out of the box weapon right now), and you got a 25% speed slice on it, you would try again until you got at least a 30% damage slice, and if you got at least a 30% damage slice, you would put no powerups on it. Let's look at the numbers for a minute.
Take that T21 above in the hands of a Master (with no speed enhancements). Firing Headshot3 with the speed sliced weapon and a 16% min/33% max damage powerup will result in only 28 points less average damage per shot than your unpowered up 30% damage sliced weapon, but because of the speed slice, it will actually do 243 points more damage per second than your gun. For Strafeshot2, your gun would have a 47 point per shot advantage but a 231 point disadvantage on a damage per second basis. While a 35% damage slice would reduce the disadvantage for you some, the weapon with a 25% speed slice and a min/max damage power up would still outperform the damage slice only weapon on a damage per second basis. Also, you can increase the DPS of the powered up weapon even more with a 33% speed powerup (until you start hitting the speed cap).
The point is that, yes, it is nice to get a huge damage slice (especially if you are speed capped). But if someone with a lesser slice plus a powerup can outperform your ubber damage sliced weapon, what sense does it make to make your weapon last longer? If you can afford them, there is no reason not to use powerups unless you get some ubber Krayt or loot drop weapon that is too good to use up too fast. Ironivally, the only weapon I do not use powerups on is a less than ubber DXR6b I looted that I keep just to hit lairs. Since the lair does not hit back, I there is no sense wasting my good weapons on it, and by not putting powerups on my lair-killer, it lasts longer and the only downside is that I have to take a few extra shots.