Pistols, Lack Of Critical

[Zephyric_Reaper]

Just for fun today I was theory crafting with the wraith twin vipers and found out something interesting. 

Pistols don't ever benefit more from critical than mashing all your elements on it. Only expcetions to this are Aklex and Magnus. 

 

Let me show you guys some numbers. 

The bonus damage obtained from using crit dmg and crit chance (without the useless corrupted mod, already did the calculations and it's terribad) Puts the vipers with 3.2 crit dmg at 40% chance. 

This equals to 2.2 extra dmg at 40% chance, which, in average translates to .88 more dmg.

Now lets add two elemental mods which benefit from this extra dmg. 

That's 180% extra dmg but on a .88 ratio. 

This equals to 1.584 extra dmg out of merely the crit plus the elemental mods. 

Total it's 2.464 bonus dmg. 

 

So the cost of opportunity would be other two elemental mods. 

So we take the normal crit which is 2.2 on a 20% chance. 

This translates to 1.1 plus on 20% chance. This translates to .22 bonus dmg. 

With the four extra elemental mods it's 360% on a .22 ratio. 

This equals to .792 extra dmg from the crit in the mods. 

Adding the 2 extra elemental mods the other build didn't have it's a plus of 1.8 

This is a total of 2.592 bonus dmg. 

 

Now lets analyze the possible consequences of each build. 

 

In the first it's more RNG based, meaning fluctuating DPS. 

And in the second you can have bad elemental combos. 

 

 

 

 

Extra: As a little extra I calculated the gain (or the loss rather) of  hollowed point.on an aklex 

Assuming you put the other crit mods in you have a total of 3.4 bonus dmg on a 44% chance at 15% reduced dmg. 

Skipping through all math, you get 1.2716 bonus dmg. 

Now compared with the one without you get 2.2 bonus at 44% chance. 

This gets us 0.968 bonus dmg. 

At simple glance it looks like this. With hallowed you get 2.1216 dmg and without you get 1.968 dmg. However, you have to calculate that you're losing a mod slot because of it and you're just gaining, in theory a messely amount of 0.1536 extra base damage aka 15% more dmg base, WITH crit chance mod equipped. So you have 2 mod slots left (there are already 3 mandatory mods with pistols) which would probably be elemental and those benefit in a 15% more dmg base instead of 90% of the current base, in conclusion, not worth having. 

 

 

TL;DR:

 

Weapons with equal or less than 16% base crit chance benefit less from crit chance mods. And currently there are only two pistols with enough crit to make up for it. Pistols could use a crit chance buff or mods could use a buff!  

[TenkoTenko]

It's about time the Lex got her 20% critical chance buff. And no, that was supposed to come even before Alex came along.

[Brimir]

They make up for it with far superior Mutli-Shot, Damage and Elemental Damage mods.

 

Critical Hit mods are the only category of mods where Rifles aren't just gimp in comparison to Secondaries.

[TenkoTenko]

They make up for it with far superior Mutli-Shot, Damage and Elemental Damage mods.

 

Critical Hit mods are the only category of mods where Rifles aren't just gimp in comparison to Secondaries.

On and yeah, this here

[Zephyric_Reaper]

They make up for it with far superior Mutli-Shot, Damage and Elemental Damage mods.

 

Critical Hit mods are the only category of mods where Rifles aren't just gimp in comparison to Secondaries.

 

You miss my point. You can replace crit for elemental and tata, you got more dmg. I often feel vipers deal more burst than my boar. If I'm not mistaken all pistol elemental have 90% and rifles don't have an equivalent of hallowed which would be great. And of the only rifles that can do well with crit are grakatta and soma anyway. 

[Makya]

Don't pistols have similar crit rates as rifles, making it not a pistols thing but a weapon in general thing? A crit weapon is an exception in each style, not the norm.

[YAAAATZY]

Weapons with equal or less than 16% base crit chance benefit less from crit chance mods. And currently there are only two pistols with enough crit to make up for it. Pistols could use a crit chance buff or mods could use a buff!

 

Secondary weapons rely more on base damage rather than crit which reflects on their high base damage and stronger mods. If you compare mods like Hornet Strike and Serration, Barrel Diffusion/Lethal Torrent and Split Chamber.

Furthermore if you forma the weapons to it's full potential they are a lot stronger than primary weapons but this is balanced by it's lower ammo pool, ammo capacity and longer reload time.

All in all it is balanced as it is and secondaries does not require a buff.

Edited January 12, 2014 by YAAAATZY

[Zephyric_Reaper]

Secondary weapons rely more on base damage rather than crit which reflects on their high base damage and stronger mods. If you compare mods like Hornet Strike and Serration, Barrel Diffusion/Lethal Torrent and Split Chamber.

Furthermore if you forma the weapons to it's full potential they are a lot stronger than primary weapons but this is balanced by it's lower ammo pool, ammo capacity and reload time.

All in all it is balanced as it is and secondaries does not require a buff.

 

I get it. I am not asking for a buff but rather for an explanation. Why even have crit mods if no pistol really benefits well with them? With the exception of two that barely do and even then... 

I DO like my pistols, they're beast and they've caused me to forget about primaries if not for sniping. 

Talking of which, I had a burston and had a sicarus, burston dissapointed me so much and kept the sicarus. So I can see where you're going with the power vs utility. 

I do agree it's balanced but I'd much rather "spread the word" to people of these calculations so they don't go falsy believing that crit mods will agument their DPS as much as they do for rifles. 

[YAAAATZY]

I get it. I am not asking for a buff but rather for an explanation. Why even have crit mods if no pistol really benefits well with them? With the exception of two that barely do and even then... 

I DO like my pistols, they're beast and they've caused me to forget about primaries if not for sniping. 

Talking of which, I had a burston and had a sicarus, burston dissapointed me so much and kept the sicarus. So I can see where you're going with the power vs utility. 

I do agree it's balanced but I'd much rather "spread the word" to people of these calculations so they don't go falsy believing that crit mods will agument their DPS as much as they do for rifles. 

 

That is true, I have experimented with crit/base damage and my conclusion was that Soma is S#&$. My primary weapon is Burston Prime (You should try it if you like Sicarus, you'll love this more). Modded correctly it is freaking beast and makes Soma look like a BB gun. The Crit build on Soma is really great fun, to see those yellow numbers all over, but Burston Prime is the best weapon at the moment by far.

Modding it correctly it will do more damage than the Soma and also have the benefits of higher accuracy, ammo effeciency and status chance.

Furtermore you'll have a higher damage potential if you can land hits on weakspots which is piece of cake since there's about 0 spread even with Heavy Caliber and Split Chamber. Also adding Malignant Force gives it a whooping 24% status chance which gives it a proc on every burst.

Mine is 6 starred and does 900-1000 white damage and my 6 starred Soma does 850-950 yellow damage Grineer.

So Soma has finally found it's nemisis

Edited January 12, 2014 by YAAAATZY

[Brimir]

You miss my point. You can replace crit for elemental and tata, you got more dmg. I often feel vipers deal more burst than my boar. If I'm not mistaken all pistol elemental have 90% and rifles don't have an equivalent of hallowed which would be great. And of the only rifles that can do well with crit are grakatta and soma anyway. 

 

I'm not making excuses for it, I'm merely explaining it. I very much agree with you.

[Zephyric_Reaper]

That is true, I have experimented with crit/base damage and my conclusion was that Soma is S#&$. My primary weapon is Burston Prime (You should try it if you like Sicarus, you'll love this more). Modded correctly it is freaking beast and makes Soma look like a BB gun. The Crit build on Soma is really great fun, to see those yellow numbers all over, but Burston Prime is the best weapon at the moment by far.

Modding it correctly it will do more damage than the Soma and also have the benefits of higher accuracy, ammo effeciency and status chance.

Furtermore you'll have a higher damage potential if you can land hits on weakspots which is piece of cake since there's about 0 spread even with Heavy Caliber and Split Chamber. Also adding Malignant Force gives it a whooping 24% status chance which gives it a proc on every burst.

Mine is 6 starred and does 900-1000 white damage and my 6 starred Soma does 850-950 yellow damage Grineer.

So Soma has finally found it's nemisis

 

I did try burston, I did try modding it but I'm more of a vectis type of person. While I did enjoy it's ammo efficiency and ease of leveling, the burston suffered from los of fire rate due to frame rate so I had to sell it since a spike would most often kick in and besides it "feeling" out of pace, it also made it harder to follow up with the rate loss. 

It all narrows down to taste, I believe and personal preference.