Pulveriser => Stout walking stick > Sireth?

[Loriac]

I think I must be missing something, because I can't see how sireth is better than the walking stick for a build that takes pulveriser (L6 LD ability).

I'm looking specifically at the juggernaut build (16arti/2pal/2monk WF) here. Adjusted numbers include dance of flowers twist (+1.5w for centred weapons) and the LD abilities (+1w for L6, +0.5w for imp. power attack, +1 crit mult for devastating critical), overwhelming critical, battle engineer, and deadly weapons. Imp crit: bludgeon is assumed (though not necessary for walking stick). Expected crit adjustment is a weighted multiplier based on the crit profile

Sireth
base
2.5[d10] + 7, with various effects that add say 25ish damage post-crit. crit profile 15-20x2

adjusted
6.5[d10] + 9. Crit profile: 19-20 x 4; 15-18 x 2. Expected crit adjustment = 150% (10%*3 + 20%*1)

Walking stick
base
2[2d6] + 6, with fracturing adding 7 damage to mobs with skeletons. crit profile 19-20x3

adjusted
6[2d6] + 8. Crit profile 19-20 x 5; 17-18 x 3. Expected crit adjustment = 160% (10%*4 + 10%*2)


Now, first thing to note: with the 2d6 base damage, walking stick is 1.5 damage per w better than sireth. 6.5[d10] = 36. 6[2d6] = 42. Bear in mind that a large number of swings will be cleaves, great cleaves, momentum swings and lay waste each adding +1,+2,+5,+5 w respectively. Critical damage tier 3 adds 6 damage; this equates to around 1 expected extra damage with the walking stick. So sireth is about 12 damage ahead of the walking stick before factoring in strength adjustments, and not including additional w from tactical feats.

Now in theory, you'd need 120 damage adjustment to get the stout walking stick to pull ahead, but i. a lot of your dps is coming from the area tactical feats, when stout walking stick is picking up an extra 7.5 damage per mob per hit (not including its +10% crit adj vs. sireth). So at about a damage modifier of 60ish, the walking stick is better.


The maths above is rough and ready, but the TL;DR version is:

considering that the walking stick can be acquired very quickly, and is fairly similar to sireth damage wise, why would anyone grind for sireth?

The root of the problem here seems to be that pulveriser is broken wrt sireth. If that was fixed, then the expected crit adjustment for both weapons would be 160%, so the sireth would retain its flat damage advantage with scaling strength.

[SealedInSong]

but Sireth has the advantages of:
Cloudburst, which procs quite a bit for hard-to-calculate but considerable AoE damage
Lightning Strike +9.15 per hit
Supreme Good +3d6
and the possibility of planar conflux of prowess (+4 damage/to-hit)
+8 enhancement
red slot (U17)

the inability to pair with Pulverizer may (though I would find that foolish) be WAI. But given all of the above, I'm pretty certain Sireth will pull ahead in most if not all situations.

If it pulls ahead only slightly, well, that's DDO for you--incremental, sometimes barely noticeable improvements that add up over time.

[Loriac]

but Sireth has the advantages of:
Cloudburst, which procs quite a bit for hard-to-calculate but considerable AoE damage
Lightning Strike +9.15 per hit
Supreme Good +3d6
and the possibility of planar conflux of prowess (+4 damage/to-hit)
+8 enhancement
red slot (U17)

the inability to pair with Pulverizer may (though I would find that foolish) be WAI. But given all of the above, I'm pretty certain Sireth will pull ahead in most if not all situations.

If it pulls ahead only slightly, well, that's DDO for you--incremental, sometimes barely noticeable improvements that add up over time.

The 25ish extra damage mentioned in my post was intended to include the supreme good (+10.5), lightning strike (+9) and cloudburst damage procs. My post was intended to show that if you compare just these effects to the stout walking stick, the damage is broadly similar (and its likely the walking stick pulls ahead on tactical feat damage).

Also technically, you don't need imp:crit bludgeon if you're using the stout walking stick. You still need an imp crit feat of some kind to get overwhelming critical of course, but it does open up the possibility of (say) spec'ing imp crit: ranged for manyshot damge whilst still retaining the walking stick for melee damage.

I agree that sireth + planar conflux of prowess is an excellent pairing for the juggernaut build (as much as anything else, the +15PRR is sorely needed on that build) which would be a very good reason to get a CitW weapon.

Edit: the other key thing is that sireth can be used as a DR breaker by an arti whilst stout walking stick can only get either good or a metallic property. This is a major plus for sireth.

[Ormyrr]

Edit: the other key thing is that sireth can be used as a DR breaker by an arti whilst stout walking stick can only get either good or a metallic property. This is a major plus for sireth.

Walking stick has Aligned on it, so with an arti can also be used as a DR breaker.