kDN 15 Nov Patch: SS and GM Boost

[Xenocho]

Apologies for the title error. The patch is actually dated 16/11/2017.

Engineer
Mine Thrower
Increased damage to the Mine Thrower.
- 180% -> 431%
The cooldown has been changed.
- 0 seconds -> 25 seconds
Removed bullet consumption

Biochemical Missile
The attack power of the chemical missile has increased.
- 1862% -> 3272%
Cooldown increased.
- 0 seconds -> 18 seconds
Removed bullet consumption

Mecha Shock
Damage has been increased.
- 521% -> 1026%

Mecha Bomber
Damage has been increased.
- 1449% -> 2124%

Demolition
Damage has been increased.
- 367% -> 440%
The consumption of the bullets has increased.
- 6 -> 10


Shooting Star
Splash
Damage has been increased.
- 321% -> 869%
The character is no longer pushed back when casting a skill.
- (Changed from 1 bullet to 2 bullet consumption per cast on kDN 12/12 patch)

Reload EX
Increased cooldown reduction.
- 3 seconds reduction -> 5 seconds reduction

Mine Thrower EX
Increased attack power.
- 50% -> 100%

Class Mastery I
Increased its attack power bonus.
-5% -> 15%
The cycle of automatic generation of the bullets has been shortened.
- 4 seconds -> 2 seconds
- (Changed back to 4s on kDN 12/12 patch)

Class Mastery II
Increased its attack power bonus.
- 5% -> 15%
The cooldown time of the Mainthrower Instant has been increased.
- 1 second -> 25 seconds (does not share cooldown time with Mine Thrower EX)

Buster call
Cooldown has been reduced.
- 42 seconds -> 32 seconds

[Awakening Passive] Biochemical Studies [Strengthening]
The increase in damage of chemical missiles has increased.
- 30% -> 100%


Gear Master
Chain Saw Tower
Damage has increased.
- 2479% -> 3930%

Big Mecha Bomber
Damage has been increased.
- 3672% -> 8138%

Mecha Bomber EX
Increased attack power.
- 30% -> 100%

Class Mastery II
Increased its attack power bonus.
- 5% -> 25%

Mecha Cannon
Cooldown has been reduced.
- 45 seconds -> 30 seconds

[Awakening Passive] Mechanical Mode [Awakening]
The action speed increase effect of Mechanic mode has been increased.
- 10% -> 20%

[Xenocho]

Skill comparison before and after boost

Shooting Star


Gear Master

[Chelly]

SS masturrace bitch

[SpeedColie]

Nice Reply XDDDD

[Xenocho]

I presented the tables for easier comparison and analysis. Let me know if I have any details wrong, thank you.

[nanalouis]

The dmg change for mecha shock and bomber are only for normal duck. So for the Enhanced Duck it will be higher than that number

[nanalouis]

Mecha shock 521% > 1026%. Mecha Bomber 1449% > 2124%

[Xenocho]

Yeap I have addressed that, including the % increment from learning [Awakened]. Not sure if they will follow the same %. Thank you.

[nanalouis]

Too bad for GM, SS overshadows her in this revamp

[Xenocho]

Too bad for GM, SS overshadows her in this revamp

I agree. The GM should get more on all towers to make them better.

[Hanakarasu]

Honestly, they should buff the other towers or at least have the Tower mastery awakening passive allow the gm to use two Gear Master towers instead of one.

But a buff is a buff, so this will be welcomed.

But that action speed buff...

Thanks for the chart.

[atom100]

Boosting the ducks are almost useless, 1 stomp they all dead, anyway any boosts for GM are welcome.

[Xenocho]

I'll share my thoughts to faciliate discussion, which may provide some insight rather than just looking at numbers. I will go through skill by skill and overall.

Shooting Star
Skills
Reload EX CD further reduced down to total 10s, which is good for more bullets and should improve the SS dps in the long run. As usual should be used off CD for the greatest effect.

Mine Thrower's boost is immense, dealing 3x the damage and resulting in a very strong nuke, on par with a full demolition when cast back to back with the EXi. This further strengthen's the SS position as a burst class. However, this skill still relies on boss size, with no advantage to big bosses (dealing full damage) while dealing significantly lesser to small bosses or those not in position. Having a cooldown also improves the SS playstyle (more on that later)

[Awakened] Biochemical Missile is improved significantly for a debuff skill. The cooldown added may also mean that SS cannot be used as a core damage debuffer anymore, since the debuff lasts at max 13s.

Splash EX is one of the most important part of the boost. With Splash's damage raised again, the SS can compete with top tier DPS classes from their DMG/CT burst potential while sustaining it for up to 15 bullets at least (around 117,315%?). Another key thing is that the reverse motion is removed, so the SS will not have to reposition anymore between Splash EX uses, which allow longer sustained Splash spam. While I have not tested the CMIII's compressed AoE, it may help for smaller bosses (have not personally tested this).

Demolition is improved slightly; with the long cast time and relatively lower damage/cast versus other skills, this may be out of favour for SS since it consumes 10 bullets, which is stronger if spent on Splash.

Playstyle and overall comment
With MT and BCM having bullet consumption removed, the SS playstyle becomes more straightforward now. Most of the output has been returned to the SS while Alfredo awakened skills become a filler or a pre-cast before the window. This is a good thing as the current Awakened SS has too much emphasis on making Alfredo do its thing right for efficient DPS, which kinda removed the "not focused on summons" aspect of the SS.

BCM is only used at the start as a debuff and precast (may not be necessary at all) while MT serves as the nuke with CD. Due to the hugh damage from MT, it should be priority even when boss is small but you may be able to get at least half of the total hits (56). After that, all bullets should be focused on Splash only, which is returned as the key skill for SS as before. Without having to consider DMG/bullet, which previously restricted the SS to use either use MT or Splash, this current playstyle allows the SS to use all skills without such mathematical consideration without neglecting skills. Overall, all SS skills will be useful and SS's DPS can probably contest top tiers.

Gear Master
Skills
Mecha Shock is not a bad boost, doubling the damage of Mecha Shock. However, getting 4 ducks sustained on the field for nests and raids are usually quite difficult, so the numbers on paper is higher than what you will expect from actual situations. On the other hand, for dungeons and nests which summons are not removed, the ducks will be able to deal significantly higher independent damage, increasing the strenght of your personal army.

Mecha Bomb is improved quite significantly, which now should be prioritised if you have ducks on the field. With 4 ducks, dealing 20,158% is quite attractive, considering this skill is more of a cast and forget. However, like above, getting 4 ducks sustained on the field can be hard, and DPS windows may only allow 2 ducks summoned and exploded. However, that deals 10k% with a relatively short CD, so it's not so bad too. Like the above, the strenght of your personal army is increased when the summons are not removed.

Big Mecha Bomber's damage boost is impressive, although it is simply just "doubled." The 17,090% when dealing full hits and doubled if used with the EXi provides the GM with an extremely strong burst of 34,180%, which helps in mechs which require the GM to deal damage in a short time. Also, this improves the GM's total damage potential when it comes to short windows. Clearly one of the most impressive parts of the GM boost.

Mecha Cannon cooldown reduction is okay, but to be honest, not really felt. My experience using Mecha Cannon is lesser, but the CD is still relatively long versus all other skills (especially when CD plated). However, as one of the burst skills of the GM, it still is okay. An issue is that you usually will want to have 4 ducks on field, which will take around at least 10s or so before being able to use this skill. With such timings, windows are usually gone. Let me know if you have more experience to share on this skill.

Chain Saw Tower boost of 50% damage is impressive but with lesser emphasis on towers in general, this boost is significant but not good enough. Coupled with short DPS windows and mobile bosses, the full strength of CST is diminished overall. However, this will still contribute to a decent burst and an impressive DMG/CT overall. The boost of this skill also improves Mechanic Chain Saw, which further boosts the GM and provides a stronger mini burst with short CD with an impressive 7,865%. However, its damage still pales in comparison to other current classes of the meta which shines as top tier DPSes.

Playstyle and overall comment
The GM's playstyle will probably remain the same. In terms of towers, while the Chain Saw Tower boost is impressive, the other towers are neglected, which is quite sad, especially since they put so much into maintaining 3 towers and a CST on field. With this boost, CST totally overshadows all other towers, and you probably will not even feel the loss of not summoning other towers at all. In addition, they did not do anything to Tower Recall, which suffers terrible cast time. I personally feel that with this boost, you may do well enough with just using CST and focusing on dealing damage from the GM itself, such as summoning ducks, casting BMB and such and Demolition too. For a 'summon focused class,' you only end up requiring CST as the other towers and tower recall takes up unnecessary time which could be spent casting GM oriented skills. Overall, GM is boosted but not to top tier level but should be able to hold her own better now. GMs would become stronger than many other classes, but mainly because the GM is boosted, while the others are not *yet* boosted...

Also, whats up with Skyline's damage? That totally needs a boost for its long cast time.... With Skyline untouched and Demolition boosted, GMs still have to borrow the ulti from her sister...

[Khlight]

I am confused or not sure how to calculate the boost in an EX/Awakened Version of a skill.
Example:
If Mine Thrower = 431% then Mine Thrower EX increases its attack power by 100%, how is it applied?
Is it 431% + 100% = 531% or
431% x 2 = 862% or there is another way of computing it?

Thank you!

[Xenocho]

Just to clarify, EX boosts are applied multiplicatively to the coefficient.

When I say skill coefficient, it refers to the multiplicative factor applied to the skill damage shown in the skill description.

For example, Splash has 300% damage. However, that is per bullet. As it deals 9 bullets, the total damage is 300% * 9, so 9 is the coefficient.

E.g. If Splash EX has a boost which +50% damage, simply multiply that to the coefficient. So, 9 * 1.5 = 14.5.

The new skill damage is 300% * 14.5 or for clarity, 300% * 9 * 1.5, which is the same.

[Xenocho]

Meanwhile, [Awakened] versions of the skill usually changes the skill damage shown in description. For example, Biochemical Missile has 1.8k% skill damage. However, when you learn the [Awakened] version, the 1.8k is replaced with 2.3%. In this case, you need not worry about the coefficient gain from [Awakened] but simply use that new skill damage for calculation of the [Awakened] damage.

However, not all function this way. Some are indeed increments to coefficient.

[Khlight]

Okay got it.
Thank you for the detailed info.

[Jeezus]

Here video of SS Revamped
dam rape :V
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16536713/

[TashaGodspell]

so the only use of bullet now is for the demolition ?

[Xenocho]

Yes, for now it is very efficient to use it for Demolition mainly. However, some small boss such as Rune S2 and S3 bosses have small hitbox, and going too near makes some of the bullets go through the hitbox, making it generally difficult to use. However, when used on sufficiently large bosses, Demolition should deal over 50k% in the 130+ hits.

[Xenocho]

kDN Patch 12.12.2017

Splash
- Bullet consumption increased from 1 to 2

Class Mastery I
The cycle of automatic generation of the bullets has been shortened.
- 2 seconds -> 4 seconds

Comment: SS still the same for short windows, but for longer windows, the dmg output will be lesser.

[Xenocho]

Err, what do you mean by that? I don't mean that the boss will be alive, but rather that dps windows may run out and you may still have bullets if it was still the 1 bullet per Splash

[atom100]

i'm asking if the future nerf version is better than the present one, the present splash is trash.

[Xenocho]

Err yes of course, the damage is more than doubled. With this current limitation, one can Splash maybe up to 8 times in a go, for 62,568%. This is compared to the current 8 Splash of 23,112% or 46,224% if allowed to expend 16 bullets.

Other skills have also been vastly improved, so Splash is just one part of the boost.