Deadhead arcanes - Tweak/buff for quality of life

[Hexerin]

My proposal is simple:

• Reduce the per stack bonus from +120% -> +60%
• Reduce the per stack duration from 24 seconds -> 20 seconds
• Increase the total stack cap from 3 stacks -> 6 stacks

This allows for a smoother gain/loss curve, and potentially allows the player to maintain a bit more of the damage buff between firefights (depending on various factors). This is absolutely a buff overall, but it's primarily intended to improve quality of life for those using these arcanes. Currently, your damage will spike wildly as you move between engagements (or even just have a bit of downtime within a single engagement, not entirely uncommon). This aims to mitigate/fix that.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Hexerin

[Tiltskillet]

17 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

My proposal is simple:

• Reduce the per stack bonus from +120% -> +60%
• Reduce the per stack duration from 24 seconds -> 12 seconds
• Increase the total stack cap from 3 stacks -> 6 stacks

This allows for a smoother gain/loss curve, and potentially allows the player to maintain a bit more of the damage buff between firefights (depending on various factors). This is absolutely a slight buff overall, but it's also just a simple tweak that improves quality of life.

I'm having trouble seeing the buff.  The only substantive differences I see are downgrades.  The chief one being that it takes twice as many kills to acquire each 120% increment, and there are some negative side effects on damage application.  

The decay will happen at the same rate, just broken up into 60% chunks instead of 120%.   72 seconds from 360% to 0% either way.  I don't think more granularity is an advantage.  Maybe the opposite, slightly, as less granularity makes Deadhead easier for me to tell when I'm losing stacks without looking for the buff icon.

Did you mean to have more stacks or more duration?

[Hexerin]

Just now, Tiltskillet said:

Did you mean to have more stacks or more duration?

It occurs to me upon looking over the stats again, this is actually a straight downgrade. Kill an enemy, and then 25 second downtime, results in +120% damage loss from both. However, if there is a 13 second downtime, those stats result in the proposed changes losing +60% damage while current Deadhead loses nothing. This does not accomplish what I intended it to...

My goal is to have Deadhead not cause your damage to drop off a cliff every time a stack falls off. Especially since you need two stacks just to break even with (technically surpass) the mod you're stripping off your weapon for it (Serration, Primed Point Blank, or Hornet Strike). Merciless kind of works around this because the enemy density of SP means it's pretty much always fluctuating in the upper end of its stack limit, achieved by simply spamming into the groups. With Deadhead, however, you have to be more precise and methodical, but you aren't rewarded with higher general consistency for it. Your damage ends up spiking wildly.

I think I'll adjust the proposal to shift the duration to 20 seconds instead. That jumps the total duration from 72 seconds to 120 seconds, but that's probably fine considering you're earning the stacks through a method of skilled play.

[Tiltskillet]

9 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Kill an enemy, and then 25 second downtime, results in +120% damage loss from both. However, if there is a 13 second downtime, those stats result in the proposed changes losing +60% damage while current Deadhead loses nothing.

Yeah, that's what I meant about "negative side effects on damage application".  I decided I couldn't explain it well without making a graph, which would have been pretty intense feedback when it seemed likely a case of just punching in the wrong numbers. :P

17 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

My goal is to have Deadhead not cause your damage to drop off a cliff every time a stack falls off. Especially since you need two stacks just to break even with (technically surpass) the mod you're stripping off your weapon for it (Serration, Primed Point Blank, or Hornet Strike). Merciless kind of works around this because the enemy density of SP means it's pretty much always fluctuating in the upper end of its stack limit, achieved by simply spamming into the groups. With Deadhead, however, you have to be more precise and methodical, but you aren't rewarded with higher general consistency for it. Your damage ends up spiking wildly.

Most of the time for me 3x24 seconds is plenty generous in SP, as long as I'm playing actively.  However I do have some stack decay from time to time, chiefly doing Spy vaults(non-brute force) or dealing with Stalker / Acolytes / Juggernaut, where 6x20 would leave me ahead of what I get now.   So I guess I'd welcome more duration even if it does take some more kills to stack up to 360%.

It would make me feel like Merciless needed some help though.  It's fine with many weapons, but  I still use it a lot with some single target guns that are depending on bleeds to kill, and the 12x4 duration can feel oppressive on them.   Certainly moreso than current Deadhead.

[Hexerin]

8 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

It would make me feel like Merciless needed some help though.  It's fine with many weapons, but  I still use it a lot with some single target guns that are depending on bleeds to kill, and the 12x4 duration can feel oppressive on them.   Certainly moreso than current Deadhead.

I've been mulling over the idea of simply boosting Merciless to 6 second stack duration. Would bring the total duration up 72 seconds, which is what Deadhead is at.

[SteveCutler]

I'd prefer to make them more consistent buffs. Instead of having your damage swing wildly depending on stacks, provide some of the base damage even at zero stacks, so damage is more consistent.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

I want to see a Deadhead/Merciless Combo Arcane

Kills award 1 stack. Headshot Kills award 4 stacks.

each stack grants 30% damage. max 12 stacks. lose 1 stack every 4 secs.

Retain both the Headshot multiplier of Deadhead and Reload Speed of Merciless perks at max rank.

 

Note that this achieves OP's goal, of Deadhead not 'dropping off a cliff' but instead decaying smoothly.

(my main motivation though, is there are a number of Alt-Fire weapons, or Incarnon Mode weapons, that switch between Single Target and AoE modes; and a Deadhead/Merciless hybrid would be nice so cover both sides.....)

Edited September 30, 2023 by (PSN)haphazardlynamed

[Hexerin]

44 minutes ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

I want to see a Deadhead/Merciless Combo Arcane

Kills award 1 stack. Headshot Kills award 4 stacks.

each stack grants 30% damage. max 12 stacks. lose 1 stack every 4 secs.

Retain both the Headshot multiplier of Deadhead and Reload Speed of Merciless perks at max rank.

 

Note that this achieves OP's goal, of Deadhead not 'dropping off a cliff' but instead decaying smoothly.

(my main motivation though, is there are a number of Alt-Fire weapons, or Incarnon Mode weapons, that switch between Single Target and AoE modes; and a Deadhead/Merciless hybrid would be nice so cover both sides.....)

Buff the duration to 6 seconds, and you've got me sold on that. Might as well just delete both other arcanes from the game though, because they're both rendered completely obsolete by this hybrid arcane.

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-09-29 at 7:53 AM, Tiltskillet said:

I'm having trouble seeing the buff.  The only substantive differences I see are downgrades.  The chief one being that it takes twice as many kills to acquire each 120% increment, and there are some negative side effects on damage application.  

The decay will happen at the same rate, just broken up into 60% chunks instead of 120%.   72 seconds from 360% to 0% either way.  I don't think more granularity is an advantage.  Maybe the opposite, slightly, as less granularity makes Deadhead easier for me to tell when I'm losing stacks without looking for the buff icon.

Did you mean to have more stacks or more duration?

Because the arcanes lose the increase in increments of one. So if you got 6 increases, losing the entire buff takes longer. 

[Hexerin]

35 minutes ago, vixenpixel said:

Because the arcanes lose the increase in increments of one. So if you got 6 increases, losing the entire buff takes longer. 

That response was to the stats I originally posted, which are shown in the quote on that post. The original stat spread was indeed bad, not entirely surprising considering I was half asleep when I posted that. The OP now has the updated stats I mentioned in my response to that post.