Observations On Gram Vs Dhs For Charge Build

[winterau]

It has been widely said that DHS is the best weapon for a Charge build (charge speed + charge damage) so I thought I would test it out against the Gram which is the fastest of the heavy weapons.

 

My testing methodology was to video capture my character swinging both weapons with the same mods in them (max charge speed and +50 normal swing speed) at 30fps. My PC gets a solid 60fps and is vsync'ed so framerates shouldn't make any difference in the tests. I then counted the frame between swings, using the glow effect that occurs when you start to charge as the marker between swings.

 

What I found was rather interesting (at least to me). Counting frame 1 as the frame where the melee weapon gets pulled out, I observed the following:

 

For DHS

First Glow: Frame 6

Glowing Strike: Frame 28

Next Attacks Glow: Frame 50

Next Attacks Glow: Frame 81

Next Attacks Glow: Frame 113

 

For Gram

First Glow: Frame 8

Glowing Strike: Frame 32

Next Attacks Glow: 52

Next Attacks Glow: 91

Next Attacks Glow: 130

 

So what I find most interesting is that from not having the weapons out, both weapons take 44 frames to recover from the first strike and start the next one. From there, the DHS takes 32 frames (+/- 1 frame) for each subsequent strike. The Gram takes 39 frames for each subsequent strike.

 

I am not sure why they both take 44 frame for the first strike, and for the DHS that first strike really feels slow.

 

The next interesting part is that while the DHS has a - polarity allowing you to get in some extra levels of +elemental damage mods, the extra base charge damage that the Gram has means that it just edges out the DHS in terms of sustained DPS (by a very minor margin) and due to the first swing of the DHS taking so much longer comparatively, the Gram ends up being much better for pretty much every encounter.

[Reaver_X]

sooo don't use DHS at all??

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

sooo don't use DHS at all??

 

I think the objective of this experiment is just for acquiring knowledge.

 

If you have been using the DHS and feels that it is awesome or better than Gram then just continue using it.

 

The sudden revelation of this new knowledge should not affect your past views.

[winterau]

DHS does have some other advantages mostly related to it not being a heavy weapon meaning that you can use it for that extra bit of movement speed either by doing the sprint+slide+attack or the sprint+jump+slide+attack.

 

However yes, I was mostly just doing it because I was curious about whether or not the DHS or the Gram had more damage for a charge build and because the wider wisdom was that the DHS was the best weapon for AoE charge attacks.

 

I've now proved to myself at least that it isn't. I also kinda like the look of the Gram more, so at least I know I am not gimping myself by using it ;-)

 

The most interesting thing for me though is that 44 frames for first swing recovery. I will need to test some other weapons to see what they have on the first swing.

[Reaver_X]

DHS does have some other advantages mostly related to it not being a heavy weapon meaning that you can use it for that extra bit of movement speed either by doing the sprint+slide+attack or the sprint+jump+slide+attack.

 

However yes, I was mostly just doing it because I was curious about whether or not the DHS or the Gram had more damage for a charge build and because the wider wisdom was that the DHS was the best weapon for AoE charge attacks.

 

I've now proved to myself at least that it isn't. I also kinda like the look of the Gram more, so at least I know I am not gimping myself by using it ;-)

 

The most interesting thing for me though is that 44 frames for first swing recovery. I will need to test some other weapons to see what they have on the first swing.

 

i like the aoe fire damage that the sword does when u jump attack, with dhs, also the problem of that first swing can be fixed with fury on either of the weapons. i only use weaps like gram for rhino. And the DHS charge attack seems a bit faster.

[winterau]

Sure the DHS has the AoE fire attack, but Gram has AoE knockdown which is generally a lot better than a small DoT.

 

The first swing issue can't be fixed with Fury, as both weapons had Fury with the same rank on them and both had 44 frames for recovery from the first swing.

 

Yes, DHS is a bit faster, with max Reflex Coil and max-1 level of Fury, its 1300ms between swings for the Gram and 1066ms between swings for the DHS. However the extra damage that Gram puts out means it has both higher burst damage than the DHS and has higher sustained DPS. 

[Reaver_X]

dhs needs a buff then. I guess i'll use gram with my excalibur instead of DHS for the charge build, and if i want fast damage i'll switch to dual ethers then.

[contractkiller4]

dhs needs a buff then.

Not really--Dual heat swords don't slow you on charge attacks.  More mobility as a tradeoff for slightly less damage is pretty good.

[Reaver_X]

Not really--Dual heat swords don't slow you on charge attacks.  More mobility as a tradeoff for slightly less damage is pretty good.

 

oh, ok.

[Buddlschlumpf]

<p>Interesting research. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>@Reaver_x: besides pure dps, there are a lot of other factors playing a role: The mentioned mobility e.g., and a very important one, range, as well as the max multiple hits. It's 3 for dual weapons but afaik the heavy weapons don't have any limit on how many enemies they can hit.</p>

[Reaver_X]

so theres still a reason to use DHS then?

[winterau]

Worked out what was happening on the first swing, I was measuring from the first glow of the first swing to the second glow of the second swing. Once I corrected for that, the swing timers were consistent for all swings.

 

The only remaining factor that may push things towards DHS is crit rating. If the crit rating for DHS is higher than Gram, it will probably edge ahead (currently it is still behind Gram). I don't believe there has been enough data gathered on crit ratings for either weapon to draw any conclusions (the wiki says DHS has a 10% crit rating, but everywhere else seems to believe it is 5%).

 

tldr: Gram and DHS have very similar DPS and it largely comes down to preference between the weapons. Neither is clearly or significantly better.