Is It Really A Good Idea To Use Under-Ranked Life Strike?

[[DE]Momaw]

I know a lot of people advocate using a low-ranked Life Strike mod instead of maxing it. But is that really the optimal strategy?

 

Energy cost per strike = % of damage stolen as health = % of damage stolen as health per 1 point of energy cost

7  =   5  =  0.714%9  =  10  =  1.111%10 =  15  =  1.5%12 =  20  =  1.666%

 

Max rank costs more energy, sure, but it's over twice as efficient.

 

Discuss

[(PSN)OMGITSNUKERXD]

I prefer it at max rank.

[Drufo]

if you use finishers (e.g. with Ash, Excalibur etc) the answer is yes

[RavenousPartyLibrarian]

I think the point is that it supposedly heals you to full health either way.

[tinyranitar]

The point is it will heals you to maximum on finisher even unranked so, no point in maxing it.

[[DE]Momaw]

Okay, and if we aren't using a frame that lets us open enemies to stealth finishers whenever we want?

[MegpoidBeetle]

Being avid fan of channeling attacks, I try to keep my efficiency as low as I can so yea, unranked Life Strike.

[FelisImpurrator]

So from what I can gather - if you're not on a Finisher frame OR using Dakra Prime, ranked is best.

 

if you are, unranked is superior because you have an obscene damage multiplier. That, and on a channeling build a ranked Lifestrike will eat you alive.

[6KIRA9]

if you're going to use fast melee with low damage better max it so you get health faster but you'll run out of energy pretty fast too, if you're going with a melee with high damage then no need to max it as you'll get a lot of damage an restore health fast anyway, better save some energy.

[tinyranitar]

Okay, and if we aren't using a frame that lets us open enemies to stealth finishers whenever we want?

You can ground slam

[(XBOX)LooseScab]

I use it unranked regardless of frame or weapon. The most I'd even think of ranking it up to is 1 point. Its not needed provided your weapon can kill your target in the first place. The extra efficiency sounds nice but its based off of how much damage you deal anyway so higher damaging weapons will be better but as I mentioned, I use unranked on lesser used/weaker weapons like Kogake, Hate/reaper prime, boltace and so on. It works just fine as is.

[Fluttershy93]

Considering unranked can easily heal tons without being high on the drain if you use slide attacks and so forth then yes. Maxing it is simply just a big waste, certain weapons have a huge slide attack bonus, channel damage bonus, crit and all that. So once you start putting those into use and do 1 channel attack you're suddenly at full health. Why would you bother wasting points when it is effective unranked, without coming at the cost of a big drain?

[Shimonoki_Ryuji]

The general idea is this:

If you channel a lot - use unranked Life Strike to not burn through energy too much.

If you use channeling only to trigger Life Strike - use maxed, or 1-from-the-top.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Ryuji-kun

[FutureClem]

In practice, you will find out more often than not you swing more than needed to fully heal yourself. Those extra swings cost energy and higher rank life strike would only cost more.

[KingTaro]

Sure, if you carefully plan each strike, you'd consuming less energy with a maxed Life Strike, but that's ususally not the case.

The main reason you want to run low rank LS, is to lower energy consumption over time. Which can be necessary when facing high level enemies. 

 

All in all, with a maxed Life Strike, you'll just end up with alot of wasted HP steal. Which in turn means a lot of wasted energy.

[stoybot]

In addition to what others have already said, don't forget melee reach and multi-hit combos. If you swing a Primed Reach Galatine in the middle of a crowd, you'll waste a ton of energy and overheal (get back more HP than your maximum health pool). Melee weapons are, as usual, hard to quantify numerically. Most people choose Life Strike's rank based on combat testing. For example, a Scindo Prime hits so hard that you'll be getting your HP back with just 1-2 hits even under heavy fire, particularly if you use a combo like Tempo Royale's Bold Reprise.

 

I've found that rank 1 LS is pretty good on slow, hard-hitting weapons such as the Scindo Prime, while rank 2 is good for fast weapons with lower damage per hit - like the Prisma Dual Cleavers (with a Berserker build). In fact, the only melee weapon in my arsenal that has a rank 3 Life Strike installed is the Glaive Prime, and I use it occasionally for ranged healing.

[Fluttershy93]

I can already imagine how much energy would be gone if you used Orthos P with max P.Reach and Life Strike on in a group..

[Darzk]

The most efficient rank of Life Strike is the highest rank that does not provide overhealing.

 

That rank is determined by weapon choice and playstyle; if you use heavy attacks for LS even Rank 0 will overheal, or if you swing a large range weapon into a crowd you'll hit multiple enemies and want the lowest rank. Meanwhile, if you use a hard hitting weapon like Dakra Prime you'll want a lower rank, but a fast hitting weapon like Ichors or Fang Prime will want a higher rank of LS for the added efficiency per hit.

[[DE]Momaw]

I can already imagine how much energy would be gone if you used Orthos P with max P.Reach and Life Strike on in a group..

 

But if you're doing that, doesn't the "zomg overhealz!!1" argument already apply regardless of whether it costs 7 energy or 12 energy per impact?

[Darzk]

But if you're doing that, doesn't the "zomg overhealz!!1" argument already apply regardless of whether it costs 7 energy or 12 energy per impact?

Yeah, both overheal, but the 7 energy/hit costs 35 energy on a group of 5, while the 12 energy/hit costs 60 energy - an entire orb of wasted energy.

 

Also, you should add the efficiency with Focus Energy to the OP. A lot of players pair the two mods when they know they'll be LifeStriking a lot.

5  =   5  =  1.000%7  =  10  =  1.429%8  =  15  =  1.875%10 =  20  =  2.000%

Actually, I think energy costs can be real numbers, rather than just integer/whole number values. For example, you actually gain 0.6 energy per second with max rank ES, despite it only showing 1 energy gain every ~1.67 seconds. you can lose and use fractional energy costs, so the %'s actually look like:

     Base with LS              LS + FE 6.75 =  5% = 0.741%     4.75 =  5% = 1.053% 8.50 = 10% = 1.176%     6.50 = 10% = 1.538%10.25 = 15% = 1.463%     8.25 = 15% = 1.818%12.00 = 20% = 1.667%    10.00 = 20% = 2.000%

An interesting thing to note here is that swapping to FE and using a R0 LS is still less efficient than just ranking up LS. But it does help reduce overkill (in two ways, sticking with R0 and also reducing damage/swing).

Edited September 14, 2015 by Darzk

[stoybot]

But if you're doing that, doesn't the "zomg overhealz!!1" argument already apply regardless of whether it costs 7 energy or 12 energy per impact?

 

That's true only at lower levels. High-level melee play requires you to channel almost constantly for both damage and survivability, so 7 vs 12 is a pretty big difference.

[Acidulant]

As I use channeled strikes sometimes even when I don't need heal, max Life Strike costs tooooooooo much

[BubblesTheBlob]

I, for the most part, only use max life strike on weapons that A) don't do very much alpha damage, so base life strike doesn't cut the mustard, and B) I use for quick-melee attacks instead of combo attacks, and I just swap to it for a few seconds to heal.

 

There's really only one weapon I use a max Life Strike on, and it's Tipedo. My build hasn't even changed for it since U17 nerfed coptering, and it can still put out some reasonable damage due to the speed at which it can attack.

 

With my Galatine, I can hit (on paper) around 16k damage per Broken Bull swing while channeling. I try to keep this at ~5 energy, so I'm not starving after blowing a group off its feet in a single swing. I could just wait until I have 20 hits in for the 2.0x to arrive, but I'd rather kill everything on the first strike. This also works really well with any decently armored Rage build.

[Pridesfury]

at about 6k per hit average on my prisma cleavers thats full hp per hit unranked why would i need to spend 20 energy per hit when i could spend 5?