Hop->Goon->Lancer or Hop->Cata->Goon?

[Iconoclast]

I’m conflicted about which build to use with the recent buffs to spears.

I was watching Bong use Hop, Goon, Lancer and despite his character being extremely stacked, he would still be losing the +64% damage from Acrobatic Mount by going Lancer over Cataphract.

Cataphract’s SFRs are lower than Lancer by a significant margin, but Acrobatic Mount’s damage buff should still compensate with the other skills.

I also don’t know how much of a difference the Initiate effect makes on final damage with the defense ignore. Maybe he just built wrong? If anyone has experience testing the two, or an explanation on why not to take cata, that would be appreciated.

[draconis]

Can’t you simply go Cata-Lancer-Goon or is Hoplite mandatory in that build?

[ThefallenDemonlord]

@Iconoclast

or an explanation on why not to take cata, that would be appreciated.

The reason is probably because Cataphract becomes insignificant with its Acrobatic Mount and Trot.
You got Initiate, which is a huge damage boost if you have got a strong weapon, you have got the Dragoon Helmet, which boosts all spear damage by 50%, Gungho, which boosts damage by 40.6% with Boruta Seal, Dragon Fear, which boosts all damage by 15%, Sharp Spear, which boosts all spear final critical damage by 41.6%, Spear Lunge, which boosts spear damage by 50% (iirc,might have changed).

That’s way more than 100% damage boost already, meaning adding 64% of Acrobatic mount can shrink to less than 25% actual overall damage boost, but in return you get crappy SFR skills, so even the slow debuff that doubles Dragoon skill damage doesn’t help much here.

You also shouldn’t forget that Lancer adds a lot of mobility via skills and has pretty low cooldown times for its major damage skills on top of it.

@draconis

is Hoplite mandatory in that build?

Hoplite focuses on both Dragoon and Lancer, it boosts the final critical damage by over 40%(which is what makes Blossom Blader so strong for example), it is the only spear class with a crit rate buff, it is the only class with a strong spear debuff and has the strongest damage skill spear has to offer in combination with Dragoon Helmet (Pierce, up to 52290% against bosses without the vaivora weapon before any damage boosts).

If you take Cataphract, your focus wanders off to Dragoon, forcing you to steed charge every time to double the damage you deal with Dragoon skills to somehow catch up to what you could’ve done with Hoplite instead. Cataphract is more focused on PVP with Trot and Impaler.

[Iconoclast]

Hoplite is mandatory. All the SFRs were increased by a significant deal and Sharp Spear level 8 (+2 with zegas spear, +1 with gem) gives +41.6% final crit damage which is unrivaled.

Finestra level 7 is +57.6% crit rate.

@ThefallenDemonlord

meaning adding 64% of Acrobatic mount can shrink to less than 25% actual overall damage boost, but in return you get crappy SFR skills,

I appreciate the response, but how exactly does this work? And I have a good weapon, but how do I know the difference in value between lowering the enemy’s defense and increasing my skill’s damage?

[ThefallenDemonlord]

@Iconoclast

but how exactly does this work?

all damage boost is additive (except elemental modifier, attack type modifier and final damage modifier, which are multiplicative), so you start with your base value 100% and start adding the boni.

For example, 100% (base) + 50% (dragoon helmet) + 15% (Dragon Fear) + 50% (Spear Lunge) + 64% (Acrobatic Mount) + 40.6% (Gung Ho) = 319,6% total damage

@Iconoclast

And I have a good weapon, but how do I know the difference in value between lowering the enemy’s defense and increasing my skill’s damage

By calculating with and without the difference? You can make the calculation on how high 40% of your patk is and then subtract this from the enemies defense in the damage formula.
If you have calculated the damage for both values, you can divide the value with Initiate boost by the value without the Initiate boost to get the percentage boost of your damage.

There is no other faster/easier way unless you program yourself a battle calculator where you only have to enter the enemies defense and your attack value.

[Light.bound]

I am on the same boat, i tested out the Acrobatic buff vs initiate and it was giving me more DPS! YAY…but add in Crush and Quaint and the dps advantage goes out the window. Its not proper testing due to those two skills and the speed in which they CD, Lancer takes the DPS away from cataphract. But the things I hate about lancer is tht it has horrible AOE compared to Cata’s skills. The speed makes WBR hard to navigate since there are so many traps, debuffs and gimmicks you need to do, and speed and mobility helps. And having larger skill hit boxes. Quaint has a tiny hit box and I hate it.

I will probably go back to Cataphract from lancer since the movement speed is addictive and I want to be able to move around more than Lancers can.Yes it might be less dps but the whole play what you like does have some perks

Let me know what you went with!

[Iconoclast]

I rerolled Lancer -> Goon -> Hop, does considerably more damage because of higher SFRS.

Made a second character anyways of a different class and rerolling Lancer -> Goon -> Hop to Lancer -> Cata -> Hop to be PvP specific because Dragoon Helm ruins movement speed, which is one of the most important PvP stats to min-max.

I also missed zooming around on cata, but this way I don’t feel guilty about taking it either, because Lancer with Gigante Marcha and other high SFRs is more than enough for PvP. AoE does suffer though in PvE because Doom Spike/Rush are way better for mobbing than Crush/Quintain and the other skills are useless in PvE mobbing outside of Gigante.

[Light.bound]

I feel you. I miss the zooming since i went lancer. As a semi completionist I want to explore all maps, get all collections )not finish them…just get them) and do a bunch of other things. I feel cata was amamzing for that. The boss dmg is hard to beat with lancer. With all the buffs I feel like I melt bosses. Hard part is CMs. Shleter or Jungle I feel like I am a tooth pick with my lack of aoe or CC. At least before I could use Doom and Earth to CC the mobs. I did a Moringponia yesterday morning and no one was there except for a handful. It took forever. There were soo many buffs and rotations of buttons. Initiate is 60seconds which is good, but Acrobatic was toggled on or off which made for one less button to worry about expeccialy in that fight which took about an hour. Short Fights (like 400 dung)= Lancer for the win, but longer ones, I do like the simplicity and overheats of Cataphract.