TLDR: Support Shot comes with trade offs that ultimately put human EKs at a disadvantage to giants, even in 1v1 situations. While my human and giant have a few different race-independent gear pieces, they add up to around a 90 max difference in favor of my giant (even though my human has Creepy Haunted accs :D), conveniently providing a fair comparison to an endgame human and giant EK. For less minmaxed gear setups, the gap will be larger because humans have to drop either the Smash or Hyperion set effect. So before considering any set effect or skill multiplier difference, giants roughly get 4~5% more raw Max Damage. As I equipped the Bohemian Hat for the Support Shot enhancement (I'm using an offhand bow), I had to drop the Hyperion Hat with Critical Damage enhancement that was on my Giant. This basically shows that humans are at a 2 gear piece disadvantage compared to giants that can equip a shield and Hyperion hat or one-piece Skirmisher. The 55% vs 87% combo card is also in favor of the giant, but until the future debuff duration update arrives, it’s not a significant advantage in solo content because the combo card resets every time I debuff (failing at 4 makes it worse, failing at 5 makes it the same as the gold combo card). 4 Smashes happens to be the exact number of I’m able to do in between each Dynavolt in ideal situations so it’s easier to complete. Might of Ladeca is far more noticeable and along with the higher Smash multiplier and max damage, giants make up for the lack of Support Shot (which caps at 21.85% but is at 17.25% for most of this clear because of no Stormborne title and glyph). As for single target EK DPS, I think many players, including myself, thought humans would be better because of how Support Shot directly affects the arcana skills. However, on average, my human clear times are 30 seconds slower, even though my Giant can take 10 seconds longer to clear the zombie phase because it doesn’t have a Ruin staff. This clear is very difficult to reproduce because on top of having to play to the best of my ability, it was an incredibly lucky clear (fast zombie phase, a ton of Dynavolts crits, lack of incoming crits), but still only just matches my previous Giant clear which is easier to replicate. I had to restart many times because I was critted for 6k damage when Mana Shield was off, and just died from the next attack without being able to react, which would not happen as a Giant. In fact, I was one tick away from dying in this clear so this could have easily been a failed attempt :). This forces me to play cautiously and flawlessly. This would be fine if I could see higher damage numbers with Support Shot, but I was barely matching my giant's Dynavolt Smashes. The 3% from the Support Shot Glyph would probably make the difference noticeable. However, this level of minmax really only comes into play in endgame content, and after the Fahmes revamp, Theta is the only “solo” content (which is a stretch because it’s party content) where this difference matters. I expect a similar DPS advantage for giants in Glenn (again, party content that lets Giants take advantage of Support Shots) because there are a lot of incoming attacks that giants can face tank and greed instead for damage, like in Theta. So I’ve come to the conclusion that while using Support Shot is important because it is a huge increase in damage, it introduces a lot of problems. It affects the title and gear setup, and DPS uptime because it needs to be used every 9 seconds. Even though I’m using an offhand bow, I'm rooted in the spot for a split second longer, and I notice I start my DPS rotation slightly behind my giant, which feels clunky. Time Shift also becomes more awkward because Support Shot falls off before you’re able to get every Dynavolt off. To exaggerate a bit, putting the bow in an extra equip slot feels like an enforced 1000 ms ping spike every 10 seconds, which to me is near unplayable. This is time that can be otherwise used getting an additional Smash in. I feel the duration needs to be increased from 7 to around 30 seconds in the future. That being said, Giants deserve to be the best at Close Combat. As I'm encouraged to play in a different way on my human, I’d like to invest more into my fighter gear and see how it compares to the constant Smash and Bash spam, but that will be for another time.
are you using support shot on offhand because if it was its own gear set the switching would be too slow? is that solved through ping? also wouldnt fighter combo be better than smash bash
@@andrewtran6654 I believe there is a forced delay implemented into the game to reduce server load, even KR players with low ping experience the same equip slot lag. My fighter gear is a bit lacking compared to my EK gear, so I’m not too confident about fighter until I make NB knuckles and get higher max.
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TLDR: Support Shot comes with trade offs that ultimately put human EKs at a disadvantage to giants, even in 1v1 situations.
While my human and giant have a few different race-independent gear pieces, they add up to around a 90 max difference in favor of my giant (even though my human has Creepy Haunted accs :D), conveniently providing a fair comparison to an endgame human and giant EK. For less minmaxed gear setups, the gap will be larger because humans have to drop either the Smash or Hyperion set effect. So before considering any set effect or skill multiplier difference, giants roughly get 4~5% more raw Max Damage.
As I equipped the Bohemian Hat for the Support Shot enhancement (I'm using an offhand bow), I had to drop the Hyperion Hat with Critical Damage enhancement that was on my Giant. This basically shows that humans are at a 2 gear piece disadvantage compared to giants that can equip a shield and Hyperion hat or one-piece Skirmisher.
The 55% vs 87% combo card is also in favor of the giant, but until the future debuff duration update arrives, it’s not a significant advantage in solo content because the combo card resets every time I debuff (failing at 4 makes it worse, failing at 5 makes it the same as the gold combo card). 4 Smashes happens to be the exact number of I’m able to do in between each Dynavolt in ideal situations so it’s easier to complete.
Might of Ladeca is far more noticeable and along with the higher Smash multiplier and max damage, giants make up for the lack of Support Shot (which caps at 21.85% but is at 17.25% for most of this clear because of no Stormborne title and glyph).
As for single target EK DPS, I think many players, including myself, thought humans would be better because of how Support Shot directly affects the arcana skills. However, on average, my human clear times are 30 seconds slower, even though my Giant can take 10 seconds longer to clear the zombie phase because it doesn’t have a Ruin staff. This clear is very difficult to reproduce because on top of having to play to the best of my ability, it was an incredibly lucky clear (fast zombie phase, a ton of Dynavolts crits, lack of incoming crits), but still only just matches my previous Giant clear which is easier to replicate. I had to restart many times because I was critted for 6k damage when Mana Shield was off, and just died from the next attack without being able to react, which would not happen as a Giant. In fact, I was one tick away from dying in this clear so this could have easily been a failed attempt :). This forces me to play cautiously and flawlessly.
This would be fine if I could see higher damage numbers with Support Shot, but I was barely matching my giant's Dynavolt Smashes. The 3% from the Support Shot Glyph would probably make the difference noticeable. However, this level of minmax really only comes into play in endgame content, and after the Fahmes revamp, Theta is the only “solo” content (which is a stretch because it’s party content) where this difference matters. I expect a similar DPS advantage for giants in Glenn (again, party content that lets Giants take advantage of Support Shots) because there are a lot of incoming attacks that giants can face tank and greed instead for damage, like in Theta.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that while using Support Shot is important because it is a huge increase in damage, it introduces a lot of problems.
It affects the title and gear setup, and DPS uptime because it needs to be used every 9 seconds. Even though I’m using an offhand bow, I'm rooted in the spot for a split second longer, and I notice I start my DPS rotation slightly behind my giant, which feels clunky. Time Shift also becomes more awkward because Support Shot falls off before you’re able to get every Dynavolt off. To exaggerate a bit, putting the bow in an extra equip slot feels like an enforced 1000 ms ping spike every 10 seconds, which to me is near unplayable. This is time that can be otherwise used getting an additional Smash in. I feel the duration needs to be increased from 7 to around 30 seconds in the future.
That being said, Giants deserve to be the best at Close Combat. As I'm encouraged to play in a different way on my human, I’d like to invest more into my fighter gear and see how it compares to the constant Smash and Bash spam, but that will be for another time.
are you using support shot on offhand because if it was its own gear set the switching would be too slow? is that solved through ping? also wouldnt fighter combo be better than smash bash
@@andrewtran6654 I believe there is a forced delay implemented into the game to reduce server load, even KR players with low ping experience the same equip slot lag. My fighter gear is a bit lacking compared to my EK gear, so I’m not too confident about fighter until I make NB knuckles and get higher max.