Tigris Prime: why Sweeping Serration?

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

I picked up Tigris Prime when I hit MR13, and poked around for a build for it. The one I'm currently running is Hell's Chamber, Seeking Fury, Primed Point Blank, and the 4 Status/Element mods. All of this makes sense. What doesn't, at least for me, is that every build I've seen also uses Sweeping Serration. The Tigris Prime is a status weapon, so I would image the focus is the status procs. The thing is, adding Sweeping Serration (or Shredder, which is the non-Baro version of the mod) doesn't make your Slash procs any stronger. The only thing I can think of is that there aren't many choices for improving procs on Shotguns, so people are throwing Sweeping Serration in just as extra damage. Is this actually the case, or am I missing something?

[Tacritan]

Higher Slash damage = Higher numbers on your slash procs. And Sweeping serration boosts your slash damage like no other mod.

[Takkov]

Since you are hitting 100% status with tigris prime, each projectile will apply a status effect, and for example multiple viral procs dont stack, but slash procs are all applied separately, so one shot of tigris prime can cause multiple slash procs. Most of the time, you need only one proc of the elemental combos, so that means, you want a high amount of projectiles that proc slash, hence you put in sweeping serration, which improves the chance for slash procs.

on an unrelated not to that, since the slash damage on the tigris familiy is so high, its one of the only weapons that benefit a lot from sweeping serration as raw damage

dont use shredder though, if you are going for that, instead use some utility mod or whatever you like, its damage increase is not high enough to sacrifice a mod slot for it, in my opinion

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

Except that the wiki states that mods that increase Slash damage specifically don't affect the Slash proc. Apparently general damage increases (Point Blank, Serration, Hornet Strike, Pressure Point, etc.) do increase the damage of the proc, but Sweeping Serration and Shredder don't.

[-QUILL_PETER-]

9 minutes ago, (Xbox One)D34thst41ker said:

Except that the wiki states that mods that increase Slash damage specifically don't affect the Slash proc.

That's not what they're saying. The damage of the slash procs isn't affected by slash mods, but the chance of a particular proc occurring is based on the ratio of your weapons damage.

[shut]

24 minutes ago, Tacritan said:

Higher Slash damage = Higher numbers on your slash procs.

Not really, but kinda.

Higher Slash damage != higher numbers on your Slash procs.
Higher Slash damage == higher chance for each proc to be Slash.

 

Basically, Sweeping Serration increases Bleed damage from the weapon-- not by making the numbers bigger, but making more of those numbers appear. It's great to have on a build that doesn't require many elemental procs for max effectiveness (e.g. Rad+Viral), although it's less helpful if your build requires a crapton of elemental procs for max effectiveness (e.g. Corrosive).

[Elvangreen]

26 minutes ago, Tacritan said:

Higher Slash damage = Higher numbers on your slash procs. And Sweeping serration boosts your slash damage like no other mod.

This is incorrect, if i have 10 slash and 90 other, or 90 slash and 10 other, my slash procs will deal exactly the same damage. all it increases is the chance of your proc being slash, rather than an elemental.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

6 minutes ago, Bravely_Casual said:

That's not what they're saying. The damage of the slash procs isn't affected by slash mods, but the chance of a particular proc occurring is based on the ratio of your weapons damage.

Ah. So Sweeping Serration makes the Slash damage a larger portion of the weapon's damage, which leads to a higher chance to proc the Slash effect specifically. That's the bit that I was missing. Thanks.

[Xzorn]

I prefer Vicious Spread, esp with Punch-Through. It's slightly more Avg Bleed Damage per shot and I like the "Cone of Death" effect.

I honestly haven't found much reason to use IPS mods on anything, Sweeping Serration is the #1 condition and it's still debatable.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

50 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

I prefer Vicious Spread, esp with Punch-Through. It's slightly more Avg Bleed Damage per shot and I like the "Cone of Death" effect.

I honestly haven't found much reason to use IPS mods on anything, Sweeping Serration is the #1 condition and it's still debatable.

This isn't a bad point. According to the wiki, Tigris Prime already has 80% of it's damage as Slash. I don't think the weapon needs any help ensuring that it's getting Slash procs instead of Impact or Puncture procs. Plus, if you do the math, Sweeping Serration only bumps it's IPS spread from 80/10/10 to 89.8/5.1/5.1 (fair note: I did some rounding).

Vicious Spread, on the other hand, preserves the 80/10/10 spread, actually gives slightly better overall damage (by about 4%), and also increases the damage of the Slash procs. Seems like a winner to me.

[Elvangreen]

3 minutes ago, (Xbox One)D34thst41ker said:

This isn't a bad point. According to the wiki, Tigris Prime already has 80% of it's damage as Slash. I don't think the weapon needs any help ensuring that it's getting Slash procs instead of Impact or Puncture procs. Plus, if you do the math, Sweeping Serration only bumps it's IPS spread from 80/10/10 to 89.8/5.1/5.1 (fair note: I did some rounding).

Vicious Spread, on the other hand, preserves the 80/10/10 spread, actually gives slightly better overall damage (by about 4%), and also increases the damage of the Slash procs. Seems like a winner to me.

You are not taking elements into consideration. they dilute your pool, even with the 4x weight IPS has in status chances.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

24 minutes ago, Elvangreen said:

You are not taking elements into consideration. they dilute your pool, even with the 4x weight IPS has in status chances.

Technically true, but also vague, and not actually much help. How much does the chance to get a Bleed proc go down when you factor in elemental procs? Or, where can I find the formula to do the math myself? Proper wording can make anything sound bad ("Your water pipes are full of Dihydrogen Monoxide" sounds a lot worse than "Your water pipes are full of water"), so I would prefer actual numbers before I actually decide not having Sweeping Serration is a Bad Thing (tm).

[Elvangreen]

26 minutes ago, (Xbox One)D34thst41ker said:

Technically true, but also vague, and not actually much help. How much does the chance to get a Bleed proc go down when you factor in elemental procs? Or, where can I find the formula to do the math myself? Proper wording can make anything sound bad ("Your water pipes are full of Dihydrogen Monoxide" sounds a lot worse than "Your water pipes are full of water"), so I would prefer actual numbers before I actually decide not having Sweeping Serration is a Bad Thing (tm).

k, so if you add a elemental that adds +90% fire, then you have 100 units of ips and 90 of fire, so if you had 80 slash / 10 punc / 10 impact, now you have

90 fire / 80 slash / 10 puncture / 10 impact

so the % of your procs that are slash has decreased, as there is less % of you damage as slash. Note also, that for status calculations the IPS numbers are 4x more weighted.

so for status calculations alone it would actually read it as 90 fire / 320 slash / 40 puncture / 40 impact.

but once you bang on 4 90% elementals, even that 4x weight wont stop the majority of procs being elemental ones, so Sweeping serration boosts up the slash dmg weight to allow more % of your procs to be slash.

 

Also, love your references.

Edited May 29, 2017 by Elvangreen

[Xzorn]

1 hour ago, (Xbox One)D34thst41ker said:

Technically true, but also vague, and not actually much help. How much does the chance to get a Bleed proc go down when you factor in elemental procs? Or, where can I find the formula to do the math myself? Proper wording can make anything sound bad ("Your water pipes are full of Dihydrogen Monoxide" sounds a lot worse than "Your water pipes are full of water"), so I would prefer actual numbers before I actually decide not having Sweeping Serration is a Bad Thing (tm).

 

Here's a comparison between Sweeping Serration and Vicious Spread.

Spoiler

Tigris Prime (Sweeping Serration)
1560 Damage (80% Slash) Crit 10% x2, 8 Pellet Count, 30% Status
Primed Point Blank
1560 * ( 1 + 1.65) =  4134 Damage
Sweeping Serration
4134 * 0.8 = 3,307.2 * 1.2 = 3968.4 Slash
Elementals
4134 * (0.6 + 0.6) = 4,960.8 Rad / 4,960.8 Viral
Multishot
(4,134 + 4,960.8 + 4,960.8 + 3,968.4) / 8 = 2,253 Damage per Pellet
8 * (1 + 1.2) = 17.6
2,253 * 17.6 = 39,652.8
Damage per Shot
39,652.8 * (1 + (1- 2) * 0.1) = 43,618.08

Status
Status Trigger per Shot = 17.6
Slash Weight (3968.4 + 3307.2) / (2480.4 + 3968.4 + 4134) = 0.6875 = 68.75%
Elemental Weight 2480.4 / 10,582.8 = 0.2344 = 23.44%
Elemental Trigger per Shot
17.6 * 0.2344 = 4.125
Avg Slash Trigger per Shot
17.6 * 0.6875 = 12.1
Avg Bleed Damage per Tick
(4134 / 8) * (1 + ( 1- 2) * 0.1) * 0.35 = 198.95
Avg Bleed Damage per Proc
198.95 * 7 = 1,392.64
Avg Bleed Damage per Shot
1,392.64 * 12.1 = 16,850.96

Estimated Total Damage per Shot
43,618.08 + 16,850.96 = 60,469.04

Tigris Prime (Vicious Spread)
1560 Damage (80% Slash) Crit 10% x2, 8 Pellet Count, 30% Status
Primed Point Blank + Vicious
1560 * ( 1 + 1.65 + 0.9) =  5,538 Damage
Elementals
5,538 * (0.6 + 0.6) = 6,645.6 Rad / 6,645.6 Viral
Multishot
(5,538 + 6,645.6 + 6,645.6) / 8 = 2,353.65 Damage per Pellet
8 * (1 + 1.2) = 17.6
2,353.65 * 17.6 = 41,424.24
Damage per Shot
41,424.24 * (1 + (1- 2) * 0.1) = 45,566.664

Status
Status Trigger per Shot = 17.6
Elemental Weight 3322.8 / (3322.8 + 5538) = 0.375 = 37.5%
Slash Weight 4430.4 / 8860.8 = 0.5 = 50%
Avg Elemental Trigger per Shot
17.6 * 0.375 = 6.6
Avg Slash Trigger per Shot
17.6 * 0.5 = 8.8
Avg Bleed Damage per Tick
(5538 / 8) * (1+ (1- 2) * 0.1) * 0.35 = 266.5163
Avg Bleed Damage per Proc
266.51625 * 7 = 1,865.614
Avg Bleed Damage per Shot
1,865.614 * 8.8 = 16,417.4

Estimated Total Damage per Shot
(45,566.664 + 16.417.4) = 61,984.065

 

Sweeping Serration is 433.56 Avg Bleed Damage more per shot while Vicious Spread is 1,515 more total damage per shot.

I actually through Vicious was better on both fronts but that might have been a Riven I was calculating. Either way, Vicious will perform better against Alloy due to higher Radiation damage up to lvl 120 while Sweeping will perform better against Ferrite above 50% damage reduction long as you proc Viral on the first shot otherwise the mitigation threshold goes up to 65% I believe. After 80% mitigation Sweeping would always be better against Ferrite regardless of Viral proc.

I should mention that in terms of scaling Corrosive + Blast is actually better than Viral + Rad. Somewhere around lvl 300 or so. The more you have to shoot an enemy the more effect Corrosive procs will have to overcome Viral + Bleed. So while not practical for the avg player Corrosive + Blast works better with Vicious Spread given the higher Elemental weight.

I would esp keep Viral + Rad if there's any Ancient Healers around. Putting both Barrels into a Heavy unit and having nothing happens is the worst.

Edited May 29, 2017 by Xzorn

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

So if I'm understanding correctly, Vicious Spread can be (but isn't always) better in the short-term, while Sweeping Serration is better in the long-term. This is because it's increased Slash weighting causes Bleeds to occur more often, and in higher level content, the ability to dish out damage without it being mitigated by Shields or Armor is an invaluable tool. Sound about right?

[Xzorn]

Yes, against Armor only though not Shields. Anything unarmored and Vicious Spread is better.

If using Corrosive + Blast Vicious is better. So the "long term" concept is also conditional.

There's such a marginal difference either way that I would just see if you like the spread or not and run with whichever.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

Ok. Thanks. I appreciate everyone's input.