can you feel my excitement? time to bring back the old threads:
tinyurl .com/hk36cjdx
tinyurl .com/f7eauz7j
tinyurl .com/35nwt7zd
BP…APS (rounded to 3 dp)
1…1.102
2…1.256
3…1.459
4…1.742
5…2.160
6…2.842
7…4.154
Note that these figures are rounded up to ensure that you actually exceed the breakpoint from sheet rather than math. For example, a 1.1 2h crossbow and 32.8 IAS on gear = 1.46 BP, number 3 above.
Using a RoRg and Taskers, you add the 40-50% pet bonus to this sheet APS . For example, 1.47 * (1+ 0.48) = 2.17 (number 5 on the linked graph) so you jump to that speed for your companions and sentries, and get the number of shots from your sentries for the skills you choose, based upon the graphs below.
The numbers on the left are the BPs as I’ve numbered above. It tells you precisely what number of shots your sentries will fire in 30 seconds
3 spenders
i.imgur .com/p1nAOPG.png
2 spenders
i.imgur .com/KgmGnjU.png
Abbreviations:
BP = Breakpoint
CA = Cluster Arrow
MS = Multishot
Imp = Impale
Chak = Chakram
EA = Elemental Arrow
Bolts = Sentry auto attack. Note that EA or Chakram will completely replace bolts should you use them.
(sorry for the broken links, can’t post links in this forum)
After reading a bunch of info scattered around about Sentry behavior (particularly with the 6 piece Marauder’s set bonus), I wanted to do a bit more research into the mechanics of Sentry’s behavior.
Most importantly, I wanted to try and get a better understanding of the exact Attack Speed breakpoints (as it relates to Sentries and TnT), the cool down timers for most of the skills, and how the skills interact - in order to optimize gear selections.
Rather than rely on how long it takes to kill a mob, I wanted to try and do some more detailed analysis.Be warned, the post is relatively long.
Here’s what I’ve found so far(I’ll try to credit those whose information I merely re-verified).
Sentry Break Points:
The goal here was to identify how a sentry’s attack speed is affected by the Increased Attack Speed stats on our gear. After doing some forum browsing I found the post below that identified that the sentry’s attack rate falls into certain fixed attack rates based on your character’s Attack Per Second (see below).
Credit goes to to Dialysis who initially posted the information about these break points.
I subsequently verified the break points identified in his post and confirmed that the break points listed above are accurate. Unfortunately, the only realistic way to get to a 12 frame attack rate is to use Tasker and Theos.
I’ve tried to clean up the information Dialysis provided in his table and add a bit more detail. I’m going to use a few abbreviations, to make things fit.
Min APS - Minimum Pet Attacks Per Second to achieve this fire rate
Max APS - Maximum Pet Attacks Per Second to achieve this fire rate
Sentry FPA - Number of frames between each attack a sentry makes
Sentry APS - Number of attacks per second the sentry will make
Min APS......Max APS........Sentry FPA.........Sentry APS
------------------------------------------------------------
0.98182........1.10204...........54............1.1
1.10205........1.25581...........48............1.25
1.25582........1.45945...........42............1.42857
1.45946........1.74193...........36............1.66666
1.74194........2.16..............30............2.0
2.16001........2.84210...........24............2.5
2.84211........4.15385...........18............3.33333
4.15386........Cap...............2.............5
------------------------------------------------------------
With the above table, I reference Pet Attacks Per Second. I’m using that term because sentries are treated as pets.
If you’re NOT wearing Tasker and Theo, your Pet’s APS is the same as your character’s APS
If you ARE wearing Tasker and Theo, your Pet’s APS is your character’s APS multiplied by the bonus provided by Tasker and Theo.
Pet APS = Character APS * (1 + (Tasker and Theo Bonus / 100))
With these fixed attack rates, the break points between tiers can make a significant difference in performance. It may provide the ability to add or subtract IAS on your gear and better optimize your gear for damage.
Internal Cooldowns for Skills and Usage
After locking down break points, the goal was to try and actual internal cooldown times for hatred spenders. Cluster Arrow, Multishot and Impale have a clearly defined cooldown between shots, while Elemental Arrow and Chakram merely replace the sentry’s standard shots.
Multishot and Impale
Sentry APS...Sentry FPA...Delay in Seconds.....Delay in Frames
--------------------------------------------------------------
1.1............54.................1.8...............108
1.25...........48.................1.6................96
1.42857........42.................1.4................84
1.66666........36.................1.2................72
2.0............30.................1..................60
2.5............24.................1.2................72
3.33333........18.................0.9................54
5.0............12.................0.8................48
--------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Arrow
Sentry APS...Sentry FPA...Delay in Seconds.......Delay in Frames
----------------------------------------------------------------
1.1............54...................2.7.............162
1.25...........48...................2.4.............144
1.42857........42...................2.8.............168
1.66666........36...................2.4.............144
2.0............30...................2.5.............150
2.5............24...................2.4.............144
3.33333........18...................2.4.............144
5.0............12...................2.2.............132
----------------------------------------------------------------
The sentries fire at their identified attack rate. At each attack, it makes a determination whether to fire a bolt or a spender. If a spender has reached it’s cooldown, the spender (Cluster Arrow, Impale or Multishot) will be fire instead of a bolt.
When multiple spenders are available to be fired, the sentry will always pick the spender with the longer cooldown. As a result, if you have both Multishot and Cluster Arrow on your bar and both spenders are off their cooldowns, Cluster Arrow will be used first (longer cooldown) and then Multishot will be fired on the next available attack.
Sentry Ramp-up
In the past, sentries started at a base firing rate of 1.1 APS and then readjusted their firing rate after firing a normal bolt. This led to significant issues when users had multiple hatred spenders that precluded the sentry from firing a normal bolt - essentially locking the sentries into an incorrect firing rate.
With the release of 2.1, sentry behavior has changed significantly to mitigate this bug. Now, sentries have been updated so they deploy with the appropriate initial firing rate - based on your character’s equipment. As a result, the issue with sentry ramp-up has been eliminated and users are able to take advantage of skills like Elemental Arrow and Chakram, without adversely affecting the sentry’s firing rate.
Closing thoughts
Hopefully some of the info here was new / useful. Please let me know if you see anything out of line. I’ve been trying to put together a damage calculation spreadsheet to compare different builds at different attack speeds. I’d hoped getting down to a 12 frame sentry attack would be incredibly powerful, but it looks like you may need to sacrifice too much to get there. It’s helped me figure out a few break points, so if I ever get it in a good spot, I may publish it - if there’s interest.
Open Notes / Issues:
There are a couple of items that need some additional testing / research to do a full write-up, but are worth mentioning to boost awareness.
Dynamic Attack Speed Changes
While the issue of sentry ramp up has been addressed, the underlying cause of the problem hasn’t been fixed. Rather, the issue’s been swept under the rug. Fundamentally, sentries still do not re-adjust their firing rate unless a regular bolt is fired.
The end result means that any temporary buffs that boost attack speed won’t affect a placed sentry that doesn’t fire a standard sentry bolt. This is typically only the case when using Chakram or Elemental Arrow; or when using a lower attack speed and having Impale and Multishot equipped.
In order to prevent abuse, the 2.1 patch seems to have also changed sentries to not only update their attack speed when a sentry fire a standard bolt but also only update the sentry’s weapon damage when a sentry fires a standard bolt. This eliminates the option of swapping weapons to abuse the behavior.
This requires a bit more testing, but the lack of ability to have temporary attack speed boosts significantly effect the sentry’s firing rate is a disappointing outcome.
Cluster Arrow Firing Rate
There seems to be some oddities with the firing rate of Cluster Arrow. It seems other have seen the issue on PTR, and I haven’t done a ton of research but for whatever reason occasionally CA will fire one attack faster than normal.
In my testing this morning, with a hand crossbow - I was able to get CA to fire consistently at a 126 frames between each CA rather than the normal 144 frames between firings, while at the 18 frame break point (3.3333 APS). Oddly enough, I was not able to replicate the issue when using a bow at the same firing rate. I need to do more testing, but I wonder if it has to do with IAS on the weapon.
If anyone has more info / detail about the bug - please let me know.
