Charged Dash

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Okay, with the number of people attempting to deal max DPS with channel release instead of channel sustain - it seems like the main issue is perception. Maybe the developers should replace the sustained channel animation with what is the current final wave animation, and replace the current final wave animation with a wet noodle.

Say it with me now. Blocked pathing increases Charged Dash maximum DPS. Blocked Pathing increases Charged Dash maximum DPS. Blocked pathing increases Charged Dash maximum DPS.

I don't know about your fantasy world, but in my world i get srunned and enemies tend to move, not even mentioning lethal damage that you need sometimes to dodge, so no magical 175% damage while your press button and chill for hours.

I did more testing with charged dash and have come to the conclusion that each charge does not actually count as a hit. Instead the skill does in fact only register one pulse even though it looks like each charge is pulsing multiple times. You can see here during a short DPS test on a white marsh boss ( no mods, No elemental overload, and no primeval force as to not skew results): https://youtu.be/M4KI7BarE7w. Both kills took around 16 seconds to complete using one single hit channel and one set of 10 loops around the boss. This is actually terrible news. Here is why.


I am currently using two 300 PDPS weapons with 590+ increased damaged, 470% more damage(counting the channeled bonus), 16 - 295 added flat lightning damage from gear and an attack rate of 6. If I were to believe my PoB I am doing 290k DPS, but I'm not because Attack rate hasn't been converted into pulses yet. Since Pulses = Attack rate / 2 my DPS is actually halved ( my average damage hits 3 times instead of 6) which means I'm doing around 145k DPS instead. That's a 5 link skill with above average weapons, a large amount of increased, more multiplier, and flat damage doing 145k. That's just not going to cut in when top performing skills are hitting 500k+ on 5 links and 1 million + on 6 links. The lower potential hits are kneecapping this skill's ability to perform.

To put this into perspective I slotted in a blade flurry with no other changes to the build and got 300k just from channeling it and 400k for pulsing it at 6. That's with a build used to maximize charged dash and not blade flurry.
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Suggestions:

- Revisit the attack rate. Right now the the average hit damage on charged dash can be scaled up to around 40-60k + with modest gear on a 5 link and 70-90k+ on a 6 link setup. That's a lot of damage with no place to go since the amount of pulses is so low. This feels bad on a skill that seems to push for attack speed investment, but doesn't deliver when invested in. This doesn't have to be a 1 million dps skill, but struggling to hit 200k on 5 links, and maybe pushing 300k in 6 link BiS is not OK.


- Redo the animation for charged dash so it communicates its single pulse damage better. I think a lightning tether linked to your mirage would suit the skill better than a cascade of misleading pulses. You already have searing bond ( just make the tether blue) art to work off of. The tether could get fatter as it charges and blow up when you release it in one big explosion like molten shell ( just color the molten shell explosion blue).

- Revisit the interaction between movespeed and release damage. It doesn't feel good to slow down to increase damage.

So first off, regarding the damage effectiveness mentioned by some people here. Yes, you get 60% more attack speed for stacking charges, however: only every second attack actually sends a damage pulse so all in all your attack speed while channeling is 80% not 160%, putting it at 184,2% damage effectiveness at maximum travel distance which is perfectly in line with stuff like Sunder.

Secondly, as the number of stacks you reach at maximum distance seems to confuse some people: the distance is always a fixed value tho some mouse wiggling seems to be able to squeeze some extra stacks at random.
The rate at which you gain stacks is determined by your attack speed, the more attackspeed the more charges you have at max distance. obviously with more movespeed you're gonna reach max distance faster, thus have less stacks. With a very slow weapon and high movespeed you might reach max distance with only 1 stack.
All in all you probably should try to get alot of movespeed so you get the maximum damage while channeling faster, allowing you to determine when you release and still get good dps, with slow movespeed and many charges accumulated you're much more inclined to play a blade flurry playstyle where releasing will be your main dps.

All in all the Skill gem feels pretty good so far damage wise, however heres what i don't like:

- you drop Haku spirits as mentioned before, this should be fixed

- in narrow places you extremely often get caught up at some edges, maybe consider giving the skill the same treatment u gave cyclone, where it auto-moves around edges

- with the sudden camera jumps the skill is quite exhausting to play and dangerous to use as you have no idea what awaits you when you move. My suggestion to fix this would be to make the camera follow the spirit instead of your body eliminating the problem completely, or maybe at least follow it to like a halfway point between the spirit and your character

Everything and it's opposite is said about this skill. It seems to be by far the most mechanically complex we have.

Description indicates movement speed slows down attack rate. Ok, but how ? And what does it affect ? Logically, it can only slow down pulses since it WILL make you reach final distance faster.
Stages reached depends on movement speed ? How ? How are stages gained then ? Time ? Attack speed ? Pulses ?

So... considering you play by reaching max distance and releasing. Movement speed makes you channel/release more often, but every channeling pulse is slower, and every release is weaker (less stages). Leading to final damage being a frickin' discontinued sloppy staircase function of movement speed that sometimes goes up, sometimes down, and is close to unpredictable. At least it IS close to impossible to test in game due to erratic variations.
In reverse... considering you play by releasing as little as possible to max max channel time. Descriptions indicates movement speed lowers your damage output by making you slower, but you reach max channel faster. This is perfectly acceptable since choosing movement speed is now a gameplay decision with both choice being perfectly viable. But are we sure it works like this ?

Testing seems to indicate you deal damage only every 2 attacks (corresponding to pulse), despite the description indicating the skill deals damage more frequently (60% more speed). So you deal damage less frequently. With 60% more attack speed. And no indications about what a pulse is.
Pulses don't stack even though they 'look' like they do (which is actually an excellent thing. Imagine being required to steer like crazy every time you use the skill to deal acceptable damage...)

Despite all this banana mumbo jumbo, the skill is AMAZING to play with. I love trap builds. But I am more excited to play with Charged Dash. That's how much I love it.


Can we humbly request complete formula and description from devs ? The wiki tries its best, but it's still very incomplete.

Pretty please with sugar on top ?

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Exiledtyrant wrote:

- Revisit the interact between movespeed and release damage. It doesn't feel good to slow down to increase damage.

This is what I would suggest too. At "base movement speed" you could have the current "60%" more attack speed and scale further with your movement speed so if you are at 30% it would maybe gain 75% of the movement speed as an extra bonus so at that point it would be 1.225 * 1.6 bonus attack speed or a total of 96% more. Say you get to 100% movement speed your bonus attack speed would be at 1.75 * 1.6 or 180% more.

If the bonus could scale like this you would still actually be getting to stages despite having a good amount of movement speed.

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lippuringo wrote:

I don't know about your fantasy world, but in my world i get srunned and enemies tend to move, not even mentioning lethal damage that you need sometimes to dodge, so no magical 175% damage while your press button and chill for hours.

My fantasy world is called Wraeclast. That said, looking over what other people have said in this thread, I realise I'm an idiot and continuous channeling and spamming zaps give exactly the same damage ratio (so I have edited my old posts), unless you rely on Damage per Hit (e.g. for Shocks and Stuns) or are bad at pressing attack after releasing attack. You still get what I previously called 175% (more accurately - 184.2% of base weapon DPS at level 20) when you are stunned...

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polimeris wrote:

Description indicates movement speed slows down attack rate. Ok, but how ? And what does it affect ? Logically, it can only slow down pulses since it WILL make you reach final distance faster.
Stages reached depends on movement speed ? How ? How are stages gained then ? Time ? Attack speed ? Pulses ?

You might be looking at an old description of Charged Dash. Movement speed does not slow down attack rate. It lowers the maximum stages you can get per channel, which is purely a damage per hit and not a damage per second penalty, unless you are bad at re-clicking right click after releasing right click.

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Uknowho wrote:

- you drop Haku spirits as mentioned before, this should be fixed

- in narrow places you extremely often get caught up at some edges, maybe consider giving the skill the same treatment u gave cyclone, where it auto-moves around edges

- with the sudden camera jumps the skill is quite exhausting to play and dangerous to use as you have no idea what awaits you when you move. My suggestion to fix this would be to make the camera follow the spirit instead of your body eliminating the problem completely, or maybe at least follow it to like a halfway point between the spirit and your character

I like all these suggestions. I don't know if they'll ever do these things as they may be intended drawbacks (1) or just difficult to program as fixes (2 and 3), though.

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adghar wrote:

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AndromedaDelux wrote:

it feels like crap having to watch things like quicksilver flasks and avoid using them because it cuts down on my damage. ... So you're screwed out of damage if you add move speed

Where in the world are people getting this idea???? Are you guys reading build guides for pre-3.3 Charged Dash or something? If anything, more movespeed increases your sustained DPS because you reach the end of your path faster and are therefore allowed to benefit from 150% more damage sooner. EDIT 2: Now I realise you're probably talking about clear speed, where you would in fact want to release channeling. However, unless you're relying on higher Damage per Hit for other mechanics, your DPS stays exactly the same with change in movespeed if you are consistently using the skill. 6 stacks applied over a 4 second channel deals the same DPS as 3 stacks applied over 2 different 2 second channels (going forward and then back), barring things like on-hit effects and Shock. It just feels more impactful to release with low movespeed, because you've been channeling for a longer period of time, which actually lowers down your DPS (by exactly the same ratio that having the increased stacks raises your DPS, hence why I said stays exactly the same).

In case you missed it in my post above - sustained channel when mirage has stopped moving grants 250% of skill damage, which is less than the 175% of skill damage you get by releasing the channel whenever the mirage stops. Taking the skill description at face value, sustained channeling for Charged Dash actually has a higher damage ratio than even Blade Flurry perfect play if you presume mirage has stopped in its path. The only "weakness" other than having to wait/position for the mirage to stop is the 50% physical to lightning conversion.

EDIT:

Here's the real scoop. Barring any odd Unique interactions (Abberath's Hooves?) or silly secret hidden damage ratios - the best way to maximise your on-paper DPS with this skill is to path to the nearest obstacle and never, ever release your channeling. If you are releasing in an attempt to maximise on-paper DPS - you are doing it wrong. Releasing can help your true DPS by granting mobility, usually resulting in survival where you would otherwise die, and maximise your true DPS that way - but it does NOT maximise your on-paper DPS!

Wait wait, so the description where it says Final wave deals 75% of damage per stage isn't accurate?

Assuming 6 stages * 75% is what 450% damage?
3 stages is 225% ?
So when the ghost stops moving does that then give you more of the 450% damage or normalize your damage?

I'm mainly talking about boss damage, as my build for clearing mobs has reached the point where I can no longer accurately tell if my stacks are making a difference, things just die regardless. But for bossing I usually try to move the ghost in a circle to get as many stacks as possible, like say, Izaro, then when he spawns I release.....and I assume I'm maximizing the damage of the skill for that 1 burst? Am I wrong on this and the ghost stops moving changes everything or am I right to assume the pulses scale up with the stacks so stacking high and getting a few in before a big smash on the boss before dodging is the right thing to do? Because when I run my ghost in a straight line it'll cap off at like 4 stacks on a boss, whereas if I run them in a circle I can reach 8.

What am I missing? Is this a skill description issue?

Can we get an admin in this post to clarify this thing? This is hurting my head. We didn't get much of a skill recap after this change and a recap or some kind of overview of the new interactions would help....

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What am I missing? Is this a skill description issue?

Looks like I failed to edit one of my posts... I pretty much have to admit I was wrong. If you go back to my first response in this thread, I do a bit of quick maffs to show that sustained DPS from continuous channeling and sustained DPS from charge/release/charge/release are equivalent, assuming no reliance on damage per hit or difficulties with pressing your attack key after releasing it.

Sorry for passionately arguing against ya, bro.

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AndromedaDelux wrote:

Wait wait, so the description where it says Final wave deals 75% of damage per stage isn't accurate?

The description is accurate.

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Assuming 6 stages * 75% is what 450% damage?
3 stages is 225% ?

Yes.

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So when the ghost stops moving does that then give you more of the 450% damage or normalize your damage?

No, the stop-moving bonus only applies to the staticy pulses on the ground, not the final wave. As you say it normalises damage between the choice of channel/release and continuous channeling.

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I'm mainly talking about boss damage, as my build for clearing mobs has reached the point where I can no longer accurately tell if my stacks are making a difference, things just die regardless. But for bossing I usually try to move the ghost in a circle to get as many stacks as possible, like say, Izaro, then when he spawns I release.....and I assume I'm maximizing the damage of the skill for that 1 burst?

Yes

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Am I wrong on this and the ghost stops moving changes everything or am I right to assume the pulses scale up with the stacks so stacking high and getting a few in before a big smash on the boss before dodging is the right thing to do? Because when I run my ghost in a straight line it'll cap off at like 4 stacks on a boss, whereas if I run them in a circle I can reach 8.

Nah, you're right. That initial burst is one of the exceptions to my rambling about sustained DPS - for bosses that aren't damageable right away, you're building up future damage in a period where the boss wouldn't normally be able to damaged, so it gives you a benefit above and beyond the 184.2% sustained DPS I/the other guy calculated. In my play it usually doesn't make that much of a difference, because if a single charge-up made an impact on DPS, the difference would be measured in single digits' worth of seconds, and I personally don't care for maximise-speed-to-within-0.001-second complaints. But I can see why others would want to shave off half a second or two from boss kills.

Do you still believe movement speed hurts your DPS, though? Charged Dash is one of the few melee skills that allow you to practically attack while moving, allowing movement speed to increase your true DPS against packs (because otherwise, you'd literally be clearing them more slowly).

Dev needs to clarify the skill gem description. It does not explain very much. It doesn't even say anything about the stack except that there is a stack.

Second, the movement control is problematic due to its origin. It is set to your character, regardless of the location that you are clicking.
Solution: set the initial point when the mouse clicked as the initial point. To turn back around, you have to place your mouse behind your character, not the original point of the click where you started casting your dash.

The second point shouldn't be too difficult to implement... This is so annoying to play with. Currently, this is not very different from the previous skill gem mechanically, because it's just so difficult to turn around and you just end up recasting it facing backwards.

Despite what some are saying, interaction with movement speed and attack speed is fine. (Probably even right on point mathematically, but we don't know the numbers)

Max Stage stack = c * attack speed / movement speed (c = some constant)
less movement speed, more attack speed = more stacks.

I tested this using faster attacks support and quicksilver flask

for MY BUILD,
no flask + faster attacks = 5 stages
flask + faster attacks = 4 stages
no flask + no faster attacks = 4 stages
flask + no faster attacks = 3 stages


However, with more movement speed, you reach your max stack faster.
Unless GGG did something weird, I suspect that the sustained dps should be the SAME, regardless of the movement speed.




I personally found single target to be okay so far, but I will have to test more.