Shooting Star or Physician?

[Lurixia]

hi, i wanna main either shooting star or physician, gear master and adept seem really boring.

physician is the most common tinkerer i believe, and most basic bitches play her; she can heal, support, do dps, everything. but, how good is her dps? is her dps as good as other tinkerers? is her dps constant or burst? how well can she solo?

shooting star i think is the rarest tinkerer class, even though its really strong. the bullet mechanic is nice and allows for fun spammable skills. but, really all you do is reload bullets and spam splash and chemical grenade. but the soloing is nice.

[MagicalLoli]

physician is the most common tinkerer i believe, and most basic bitches play her.

oh how times have changed~



Anyway...
Physician DPS is pretty constant now, with extremely low cooldown on Toxic Spill (as the CD isn't shared with the EXi). The playstyle is still as you would expect for alchemists, however, which focuses on a few core burst skills (Magma Monument, Ground Zero, Toxic Spill, Poison Pop, Toxic Surge) - it's just that the cooldown on Toxic Spill is so low now that you can consider it almost a DPS skill. Their ultimate (Toxic Surge) is very bursty as well. After awakening comes out, I'm pretty sure Adepts will have more damage (as they should). But who cares. Phys cutest class always.

Bonus 80 cap phys burst. (200M Toxic Spill + 210M Magma Monument)



I'm not too sure with Engineer changes from 90 -> 93 cap, but looking at numbers in the skill simulator, it looks like Shooting Stars are still fairly weak. I used to play more Shooting Star in 80 cap, but the damage was completely abysmal in 90 cap (and I don't think it's much better now). If you like their spammable playstyle, I think you'll pick up Physician quite nicely as you can spam Injection without cooldown to generate bubbles for your burstier skills. The soloing is great as you can heal yourself.

[Lurixia]

oh how times have changed~



Anyway...
Physician DPS is pretty constant now, with extremely low cooldown on Toxic Spill (as the CD isn't shared with the EXi). The playstyle is still as you would expect for alchemists, however, which focuses on a few core burst skills (Magma Monument, Ground Zero, Toxic Spill, Poison Pop, Toxic Surge) - it's just that the cooldown on Toxic Spill is so low now that you can consider it almost a DPS skill. Their ultimate (Toxic Surge) is very bursty as well. After awakening comes out, I'm pretty sure Adepts will have more damage (as they should). But who cares. Phys cutest class always.

Bonus 80 cap phys burst. (200M Toxic Spill + 210M Magma Monument)



I'm not too sure with Engineer changes from 90 -> 93 cap, but looking at numbers in the skill simulator, it looks like Shooting Stars are still fairly weak. I used to play more Shooting Star in 80 cap, but the damage was completely abysmal in 90 cap (and I don't think it's much better now). If you like their spammable playstyle, I think you'll pick up Physician quite nicely as you can spam Injection without cooldown to generate bubbles for your burstier skills. The soloing is great as you can heal yourself.

is Phys able to do enough damage to be considered "OP"? Now that I've played Alchemist, I find it wayyy more fun than Engineer. Now the dilemma is between Adept and Physician... I like the spammability of the Physician skills, but I've seen they are noticeably weaker than the Adept side skills, but the Adept side skills have way longer cooldowns.

[MagicalLoli]

What level is your Alchemist right now?

Once you get your Physician to level 55, you get your main damage increase with Contagion EX. This makes your bubble-consuming poison skills (Toxic Spill, Poison Pop, and and Toxic Surge) do double damage (every hit will show 2 hits). Compare Adept and Physician skills, then -

Adept - main burst skills:
Ice Beam: 1787% * 2 = 3574% with 25s CD -> 143% per second
Magma Monument EX: 724% * 3 * 4 = 8688% with 15s CD -> 579% per second
Ground Zero EX: 1660% * 3 * 1.3 = 6474% with 18s CD -> 360% per second
Poison Pop: 1168% * 3 = 3504% with 25s CD -> 140% per second
Toxic Spill: 1218% * 3 = 3654% with 18s CD -> 203% per second
Frost Fangs: 5364% * 3 = 16092% with 125s CD -> 128% per second

Physician:
Magma Monument: 724% * 3 * 3 = 6516% with 25s CD -> 260% per second
Ground Zero: 1660% * 3 = 4980% with 28s CD -> 178% per second
Poison Pop: 1168% * 6 = 7008% with 25s CD -> 280% per second
Toxic Spill: 1218% * 6 = 7308% with 15s CD -> 487% per second
Toxic Spill EXi: 1218% * 6 = 7308% with 15s CD -> 487% per second
Toxic Surge: 8380% * 1.8 * 2 = 30168 with 125s CD -> 241% per second

Things to note:
Adepts get 18% passive damage and 30% fire/ice. Physicians get 10% damage and 20% dark, on the other hand.
Adepts get 10s lower CD on Magma Monument and Ground Zero. (this was taken into consideration in the above calculations)
Physician Toxic Spill EXi does NOT consume Contagion EX.
Take these damage calculations with a pinch of salt, as they were simply calculated by doing damage % divided by time. This does NOT take into account cast times (for example, Frost Fangs is a much faster-to-use skill than Toxic Surge).

In the end, the DPS of Alchemists won't be as good as the new DPS classes nowadays (Gladiator, Chasers, etc), but if you gear yourself enough, you'll definitely be bringing some solid damage to the table (and on top of that, you're a healer!).

[octo]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

[Lurixia]

What level is your Alchemist right now?

Once you get your Physician to level 55, you get your main damage increase with Contagion EX. This makes your bubble-consuming poison skills (Toxic Spill, Poison Pop, and and Toxic Surge) do double damage (every hit will show 2 hits). Compare Adept and Physician skills, then -

Adept - main burst skills:
Ice Beam: 1787% * 2 = 3574% with 25s CD -> 143% per second
Magma Monument EX: 724% * 3 * 4 = 8688% with 15s CD -> 579% per second
Ground Zero EX: 1660% * 3 * 1.3 = 6474% with 18s CD -> 360% per second
Poison Pop: 1168% * 3 = 3504% with 25s CD -> 140% per second
Toxic Spill: 1218% * 3 = 3654% with 18s CD -> 203% per second
Frost Fangs: 5364% * 3 = 16092% with 125s CD -> 128% per second

Physician:
Magma Monument: 724% * 3 * 3 = 6516% with 25s CD -> 260% per second
Ground Zero: 1660% * 3 = 4980% with 28s CD -> 178% per second
Poison Pop: 1168% * 6 = 7008% with 25s CD -> 280% per second
Toxic Spill: 1218% * 6 = 7308% with 15s CD -> 487% per second
Toxic Spill EXi: 1218% * 3 = 3654% with 15s CD -> 244% per second
Toxic Surge: 8380% * 1.8 * 2 = 30168 with 125s CD -> 241% per second

Things to note:
Adepts get 18% passive damage and 30% fire/ice. Physicians get 10% damage and 20% dark, on the other hand.
Adepts get 10s lower CD on Magma Monument and Ground Zero. (this was taken into consideration in the above calculations)
Physician Toxic Spill EXi can potentially be twice as strong, but if you're using both Toxic Spill and Toxic Spill EXi off cooldown, you will not have Contagion up for both of them. The calculation was done assuming you only use Contagion for one of them, though realistically, the uptime should be better (you should be able to have 3 contagions per 4 Toxic Spills, not 2 per 4).
Take these damage calculations with a pinch of salt, as they were simply calculated by doing damage % divided by time. This does NOT take into account cast times (for example, Frost Fangs is a much faster-to-use skill than Toxic Surge).

In the end, the DPS of Alchemists won't be as good as the new DPS classes nowadays (Gladiator, Chasers, etc), but if you gear yourself enough, you'll definitely be bringing some solid damage to the table (and on top of that, you're a healer!).

wow thanks for all the info!

right now, my alchemist is level ~31. I'm finding it a bit hard to solo dungeons right now as I'm still using like level 20 gear (my luck with the end of dungeon treasure chests is horrible lmao) this power curve happened with my engineer as well, as soon as 30+ happened, dungeons became wayyy harder due to my lack of damage. any tips? but, with alchemist the damage curve is a little lesser than my shooting star as the skills are wayyyy more powerful

also, how come people don't learn both frost fangs and toxic surge? is there a restriction? in engineer guides i see people take both the gear master side ultimate and the shooting star ultimate, why don't people do that for other classes?

[MagicalLoli]

For damage, you'll be a lot better off after you get level 32. Also, make sure you always pay attention to how many bubbles you have (refer to the meter below your health bar, or look at the buff icon). Certain skills (Magma Monument, Ground Zero, Poison Pop, Toxic Spill) do triple damage if you have 5 bubbles or more. As you level up more, it'll become easier and easier to get bubbles (at level 65, Injection grants 3 bubbles and has essentially no cooldown as long as you hit it). Your bubble-consuming skills are the bulk of your damage - make sure you always get 5 bubbles before using them!

Ultimates share cooldowns. Taking the ultimate from your side is a requirement (e.g. Shooting Stars have to take Bullet Barrage, Gear Masters have to take The Quackums). However, Bullet Barrage for Shooting Stars is pretty bad compared to The Quackums, so most Shooting Stars end up taking both ultimates (and never use Bullet Barrage).
Physicians are better off using Toxic Surge because Contagion EX makes it do double damage for them. Also, it is dark element and Physicians stack that. Adepts on the other hand are better off using Frost Fangs due to their high ice attack.

[Benjix]

Adept is more colorful, Physician you see green all the time =<
on a bit more serious note, take this into consideration as well, if your graphic card is not the best, you might wanna stay away from Adept due to all the explosions, they do have cool looking skill after awakening though, while phys gets even more green stuffs....
Anyway Phys can "potentially" do dmg near equal to adept but they need a lot of mandatory setup before they can throw off their skills to maximize dmg and this kinda slow it down (like making sure you hit contagen before ult or toxic spill or w/e), Adept have more windows to just throw their skill whenever it's off cooldown, I believe this makes a little more fluid gameplay but that's just me. Phys are easier to get in parties though, since people take you most the time for the heal, try joining harder content with mediocre geared adept and you'll have a bad time.

[MagicalLoli]

nooo don't listen to him adept is not colorful, all you see is orange! proof:


But yeah, it is very difficult to pull off perfect DPS rotations on a Physician. WIth Slime Shake, you're looking at a Toxic Spill cast every 5-6 seconds (in a perfect world), which is incredibly hard to pull off when you factor in all the debuffing/healing you'll need to be doing as well! If they give us our Injection action speed back, that'll be a different story, however...

[Benjix]

Not true you also see lots of blue

accidental screenshot ended up too beautiful to ignore

[Elune]

Not true you also see lots of blue

accidental screenshot ended up too beautiful to ignore

Not gonna lie, that's prettier than anything the other tink classes can do.

[Lurixia]

nooo don't listen to him adept is not colorful, all you see is orange! proof:


But yeah, it is very difficult to pull off perfect DPS rotations on a Physician. WIth Slime Shake, you're looking at a Toxic Spill cast every 5-6 seconds (in a perfect world), which is incredibly hard to pull off when you factor in all the debuffing/healing you'll need to be doing as well! If they give us our Injection action speed back, that'll be a different story, however...

now i really can't decide ;-; i'm bad at aiming, and some physician skills like toxic spill have a really weird hitbox. with toxic spill, the enemy needs to be red on my cursor or it doesn't even hit them. if they are knocked down it doesn't even hit them as well. but, adept skills are easier to hit enemies with since you don't need to aim. but i am clumsy and physician has heals so i could heal myself but if i was an adept i'd need to bring potions... adept is more straightforward damage, while physician under the right conditions can be more powerful. do you think i should go with the easier class, adept, or the more fun, cuter, more wanted class physician? wahhhh ;-;

[MagicalLoli]

Toxic Spill only hits enemies that are poisoned! Meaning, you need to hit them with Toxic Twirl, Contagion, Poison Pop, or Toxic Surge first. Don't worry, it'll become so much easier to use when you get Contagion EX at level 55~ (it makes you throw 3 flasks in a cone, making it very easy to poison enemies! And not to mention, makes your bubble-consuming poison skills hit twice)

[Lurixia]

Toxic Spill only hits enemies that are poisoned! Meaning, you need to hit them with Toxic Twirl, Contagion, Poison Pop, or Toxic Surge first. Don't worry, it'll become so much easier to use when you get Contagion EX at level 55~ (it makes you throw 3 flasks in a cone, making it very easy to poison enemies! And not to mention, makes your bubble-consuming poison skills hit twice)

i finally became physician! the damage is really good, and ignition ex made the skill way better. or was really good until i got a little higher and had to start running the crash perimeter to site to level, and oh my god, even with good vibrations to heal me, i died twice!! it took me 10 minutes to run the dungeon because of the boss!! i don't understand whats wrong, in the dungeon i was running before i easily killed everything even though i was below the level... whet happened ;-;

wat do u think is a cute costume for physician? need dat pink aesthetic

[Dollphin]

Think Udo said something in world birds about Toxic Spill EXi not consuming Contagion EX, haven't done any testing myself though.