Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: a question about VK's and ham costs
is it possible to make VK's with low ham costs? maybe at the expense of dmg or speed?
thanks
Surprisingly, even if you put every experimentation point into Efficiency, the HAM doesn't drop enough to warrant the severe drop in damage and speed. The best option is to use a melee powerup that reduces the HAM 30+%.
Maya
Nivin,
Rather than say it's not worth it, I try to make the best low HAM VK's I can and offer them on my vendors and let the TKA's decide for themselves if it's worth it.
As a reference my normal VK's are:
- 38-147 @2.2 HAM: 35/51/35 +11 range
My Ultralight VK's are:
- 34-115 @2.9 HAM: 24/36/24 +11 range
Maybe it's worth it, maybe it's not. Since you're on Bria you can try it yourself and decide, my shop location is in my sig.
CohlTi wrote:
Nivin,
Rather than say it's not worth it, I try to make the best low HAM VK's I can and offer them on my vendors and let the TKA's decide for themselves if it's worth it.
As a reference my normal VK's are:
- 38-147 @2.2 HAM: 35/51/35 +11 range
- 46.25 DPS
My Ultralight VK's are:
- 34-115 @2.9 HAM: 24/36/24 +11 range
- 25.7 DPS
Maybe it's worth it, maybe it's not. Since you're on Bria you can try it yourself and decide, my shop location is in my sig.
Difference in DPS: 80%.
What does this mean? Using a "light" VK, you will HAVE to spam a Special with a 2.0 damage multiplier in order to have DPS EQUAL to a "normal" VK. In other words, you will HAVE to kill yourself in order to achieve the same results you would've gotten with the stronger VK.
Of course, that statement doesn't even take into account the fact that Specials have a built in SPEED penalty as well. So, in essence, you'd need to spam a special with a lot more than 2.0 damage to hit a DPS equivalent to a "normal" DPS using no specials at all.
In any case, you start SUCKY, then have to spam specials to get to AVERAGE. If you used a "normal" VK, you'd start AVERAGE, and would only have to use specials to get to AWESOME.
Get it? Got it? Good. That's why when we say "It's not worth it...", it's not worth it.
Math check: 46.25/25.7 = 1.80, 25.7*1.80 = 46.26, so logically, you need an 80% boost to hit 46.26 if you're using a 25.7 DPS weapon.
Unlike the other melee classes, TKA's have a lot more status attacks. I think it would be worthwhile to use the low HAM VKs to stack warcry/blind/stun/intimidate then switch to regular VKs to do damage.
I've got customers who prefer low HAM VKs to unarmed or high HAM VKs. Who am I to deny my customers that option? Should I dictate how they should play the game based on mathematics? And if I have some customers who prefer that option, how do I know this guy won't also? He did after all come here asking if it was an option, he had no idea what the stats would be like. Rather than just telling him how to play the game the "right" way I gave him concrete examples he can use to make the judgement himself. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Considering that half the posts to this forum are from people who just made master and don't know make to make anything but a rifle barrel, I see no reason forvisitors to accept anything given here as gospel.
Why bother switching out VK's to get lower HAM costs when you can apply states with your bare fists. I'm pretty sure thats the idea behind VK's. You can use them to get the big damage and lower speeds at the expense of high HAM costs, OR you can use your bare fists to apply states and slap on the VK's for damage.
An example...
Unarmed Dizzy: 105 HAM w/ VK's. 29 without. Thats with 400 in all secondaries.
Wouldn't itmake sense to experiment the HAM down some, with remaining experiment points to damage/ speed - trying to find some balance. My thinking is that damage or speed can be sliced whereas ham cannot. Then the TKA can add on a damage, speed, or ham powerup depending on preference.
Just my 2 creds.
EvilSparc wrote:
Dont TKMs get a huge boost to speed? If that boost is over 100 then speed is irrelevent. DPS is replaced by Damage Per HAM. I think the low HAM model shines more at that point.
Yes. But higher damage is still equivalent to a higher DPS, even if you're fighting at the 1.0 speed cap.
Plus, the way damage bonuses work, a 30 point difference in damage is significant. A Master TKA has +190 Unarmed Damage. That's a 190% bonus to his damage. Then factor in AP bonuses (which are being disputed on these boards, but are still working, so keep them in mind for now). That's another 25% bonus. Throw in a 30% Damage slice (easy to acquire, I sell VKs for only 5K, and every once in a while, I sell them pre-sliced).
115 damage * 1.30 (Slice) * 2.9 (skill bonus) * 1.25 (AP bonus vs. AR 0 mob) = 542 damage.
145 damage * 1.30 (Slice) * 2.9 (skill bonus) * 1.25 (AP bonus vs. AR 0 mob) = 683 damage.
That's a difference of 141 damage, which is about 20% of 683.
See the difference 30 points makes? This doesn't even take into account Power Ups.
Sorry, but it's my job as a Weaponsmith to make sure that the guy buying my weapons is well informed in their use...I'd be doing TKAs on my server a disservice if I allowed them to walk around with weak-ass VKs. If they want to slap on Status moves, they can use their bare hands, which have a MUCH LOWER HAM than any VK I could possibly make, "light" or not.
BTW, most TKMs on my server already know to swap out their VKs to pull off status moves...I'd be way too modest if I didn't mention that I helped them with that significantly. There's a reason why I'm regarded as an authority on Melee weapons on my server. =\
FelniFosk wrote:
Wouldn't itmake sense to experiment the HAM down some, with remaining experiment points to damage/ speed - trying to find some balance. My thinking is that damage or speed can be sliced whereas ham cannot. Then the TKA can add on a damage, speed, or ham powerup depending on preference.
Just my 2 creds.
While this does sound reasonable, consider the even greater loss in dmg/spd with a slice. Let's use the above as an example:
38-147 @2.2 HAM: 35/51/35 +11 range
34-115 @2.9 HAM: 24/36/24 +11 range
Difference Min: +4, Max: 32
Assuming you get a good 33% damage slice:
50-195 @2.2 HAM: 35/51/35 +11 range
45-152 @2.9 HAM: 24/36/24 +11 range
That's a difference of Min: +5, Max +43.
I don't think is justifies the HAM reduction.