Combat boosts

[bjanko]

Hello all =] Just a quick few questions. These are all relative to pre-evolution of combat, as a reference point.

 

 

1. How good/necessary are overloads/extremes now? For example, overloads before EoC were a *lot* better then super potions, probably giving around 25-30% damage more then without pots (Don't quote me on that, that's just estimating). Is it worth slaying with extremes/overloads? How much of a boost does it give over nothing now?

 

2) How good/necessary is turmoil (and the equivalents) now? Again for example, turmoil used to be 29/32/29 to piety's 20/23/25 (or something close to that). Is it worth slaying with turmoil still? How much of a boost does it give now?

 

3) How much bonus damage do criticals do? I've heard they do 50%, i've heard 5%, and 10%. Are any of these correct? Is it worth aiming for critical in certain situations (such as paying for fury over glory and things like that)

 

4) Nex armors are now power armour, not the amazing tank gears they used to be pre-eoc. Essentially, this means they are little better then barrows and give the same HP boost. Are they then really worth the price tag, worth using at bosses over Player owned ports armor, and do they really give 10% damage boost after bonuses?

 

5) I used to slay and boss with my steel titan a lot. I've heard rumours of both a combat familiar buff and nerf. How are combat familiars now, and are they worth using at all?

 

6)

 

Depending on which weapon you use, you use a different spell.

 

Basically your damage from magic gets nerfed if a spell is above the tier of the weapon. So now wind wave is more powerful then ice barrage. (chaotics)

 

Is this true, and if so, which tiers correspond to which spells? (For example, is it better to use Blood Burst then Blood Barrage at Zammy Gwd with a chaotic staff?)

 

7) Is there still a "metagame" best combat style to use, even after the rebalance? If so, what is it? (I've been told that T8 mage is better then T9 melee, so I don't want to get a drygore if I can just get save for Virtus wand + book instead or something, or even use my chaotic staff).

 

I already have any skills in question here (herblore, summoning, prayer), I just don't want to spend unnecessary money.

 

Thank you all for your continued help and support. =]

 

 

 

[chenw]

For spells, the general rule are:

 

1. Don't use anything higher than wind surge on normal spells, and any of the barrage will bre pretty much the same as each other barring effects, so I'd still use Blood Barrage over Blitz. This assume you are not in DG and you do not have access to seismics, in which you should always use the highest spell available to you.

 

2. When choosing spells, do not choose spells whose requirement level is higher than the weapon you are using, except polypore strike, since its level requirement is an anomaly.

 

Other questions:

 

1. Power armor's 10% damage boost is probably the most misleading statement regarding Power armor in the game. It is safe to completely ignore the % 'boost' and just go by the numbers.

 

2. Nex armors are currently one of the most used bossing armors in the game since, as a general rule, nothing in the game requires pop armor's armor and LP, so Nex armors are well worth using if you are willing to invest in the cash, although if you are only doing solo bossing, POP armor suffces until you decide if you want nex armors. Groups usually want you to wear Nex armor (no experience with pvm clans, but some only take those who are in nex armor).

 

3. Most of the prayer questions can be found in the wiki. Since prayer potions are so cheap now, there is no reason not to slay with the 95 curses active at all times. The biggest difference I have found is general found in the accuracy boost, I never pay attention to max hits.

 

4. No idea on how exactly effective are overloads, but I use them whenever I do combat, be it slaying or bossing.

 

5. If you use abilities, Critical strikes are 60% damage boost, on average, over non-crit abilities. An ability has damage range of 25%~100% of the damage written on its text, Critical strikes do 90%~110% of the damage written, so comparing the average, 62.5% over 100%, the damage boost is 60%, therefore every 1% of crit is worth roughly 0.6% dps (in reality it's less because Critical strike dps boost diminishes itself).

[Levells]

Replying on my phone, so bear with me.

 

1. If I remember correctly, overloads are a straight up 168 damage extra, applied after all other bonus like prayer, void, etc. Accuracy wise, potions make a huge difference in regards to attack and defense again painful targets. It's easy to know when I forgot to reovl when I'm being ripped apart... Sara is great at that. Personally, I don't slay with them. I stick with prayer, especially if I can get away w/ demon Horn+bone crusher

 

2. Yes, it's worth slaying with, perhaps not every Monster, but higher ones like Abyssal demons and dark Beasts, I would say so.

 

3. Crits with abilities are either 95-105% or 100-105%, I don't remember if we ever found out which. I think Crits on autoattack are +50% damage. Crit should increase your dps by half of the amount, so if you have a 8% Crit chance, that's a 4% increase in dps. If I'm remembering these wrong, Q or Mere will sort me out, I'm sure. As for if you should max Crit, I generally do except for Ring slot, which is vigour. I love berserking pretty much everything. Occasionally I'll be lazy and go for row w/ slayer or I cba to do a ring Swap at some bosses, so row all the way then. You can use that bit about Crit to dps and see if you think it's worth spending the money on things like fury or the Sara necklaces.

 

4. They may not be Tanky, but trust me, the damage boost is awesome. I have all superior ports and slowly grabbing nex Gear. Most of the time, you don't notice the lower Defence and the faster kills per hour helps out as well. As for actual damage bonus, it's equal to 10% of a fastest speed 1 handed Weapon. So if you're using lvl 80 2h/dual wield, it's a 6.67% damage boost. Using level 90 weapons... I did the math a few days ago and I think it was something like a 5.3-5.8% increase, if I didn't mess anything up. If you're asking in what order the damage bonuses are applied, that I can't help with.

 

5. I did a steel titan trip to Arma the other day and thought it did alright. Cheated and used a Spirit Cape :p kill count was kinda nice with it. I haven't used a titan since before the nerf, around kalphite King's release. I'd say it couldn't hurt, if you're not gonna use a yak for the task. As for bossing, I think I'll take it with me to Sara/Arma, since those aren't very loot heavy.

 

6 . as far as I'm aware, that isn't true. There used to be a problem with offhand spells where using low level spells would be the best damage, but that was fixed a while ago. As long as you use a spell at or above your weapon, you should be getting the maximum damage, as it should be.

 

7. I don't know this one fully. I would say Mage beats melee at nex, even with a range Swap. Between her defects and the Constant running in Shadow/ice, magers should have higher dps. On that note, I hear concentrated Blast (the dual wield basic) is what makes vwand/book so much better than c staff. As for if Virtus is as good/better than drygores at God wars, I don't know that one. Still saving for it myself, and haven't heard any stories about it. Slayer might be faster as well if you barrage w/ Virtus, I don't know how badly the barrage/momentum nerfs have hit it. I stopped using it, but I did only have ahrims wand and a grifolic orb back then...

 

I think that's about everything I can do for now.

 

Edit: anything about Crit, I would take his over mine. I remember several topics of his dealing with it, so he knows what he's talking about more than me.

[Sy_Accursed]

I believe 6 stems from misconception of a fix they did a while back.

 

Previously (aside from glitch behaviour) magic damage was uncapped and scaled with the spells and the levels where as melee and ranged damage whilst scaling with levels was limited by the gear used. This meant you could use quite low level magic gear without any major detriment.

The fix implemented makes magic work the same - whilst damage does scale up it is limited by the weapon level ensuring you are better off using better gear.

 

So yes if you use t80 or t70 and not t90 you would see lower damage from spells that reach max damage later than lvl 70 or lvl 80 than you would using t90, as they'd be limited by your weapon but it definitely should not be making them worse than the lower spells.