FRIGID DAWN ISN'T BIS?! | defensive BIS explained

[@McDudes]

Let's take a moment to appreciate how much better the current perk system is compared to "just run resil"

[@andersaroden7731]

Just run enchanted ward.

[@alexball9917]

Thanks as always

[@RPGabe]

We might be focusing on the wrong thing - I'm reminded of the picture of the returning damaged planes from WW2. Yeah Health isn't as good when you're getting heals... but you're getting heals, so probably not the situation we need to be optimizing for. Need to be optimizing for surviving without heals, to last as long as possible until the heals start up again.

[@ugga_mugga]

Keep in mind he's a big war player, every group has a healer and most players are on/near a sacred. The initial dataset he used was also from wars. He does get into health below 1000 healing which probably fits most casual players doing OPR and arena.

[@McDudes]

If you don't get healed at all, just play light armor rapier 😂

[@greyaye8565]

I get that it reminded you of the WW2 planes thing, but the situations are completely different. This isn't "we only have the dataset of the survivors" which is what the WW2 planes thing was about. We have the full dataset, and the code, and pretty much everything. He even mentions that it takes into account heals from a pot. You can see on the charts that small amounts of healing are being taken into account. Just given how the percentage values work, DR is better than health. It kind of always is...in like every game.

[@ManskiTheRed]

Mecrow has access to my gear sheet for wars. Whenever I finish my new "BIS" gear he makes a new video telling me why its actually all trash.

[@mecr0w]

LMAO

[@awpQu]

Benched

[@GR33Nday2]

Exactly xD

[@valiant719]

Good Stuff. I like how there's diversity even in defensive perks compared ro resilent in past + you factor in playstyle/positioning/healing to determime which personally guves you the most milleage.

[@mecr0w]

ye there are options depending on what you want to ward to

[@nodeflection5827]

Where the fuck would we be without you my guy. Great content as always. Only 4 minutes in, but my pop corn is ready. Good shit all around.

[@StrutZ007]

The thing about health is its always there and is universally useful against any damage source. Most of the other forms of mitigation are specific to a certain damage type or require a condition such as dodging an enemy attack to activate. They are indeed better when all those requirements are met but I still value health as a general buffer.

[@milkmangamingcomputers5593]

For conditioning perk are you calculating the downtime for when the 5s expires and the first hit is not being absorbed?

[@mecr0w]

Not rn I’m considering it to be relatively constant uptime since that’s what I experienced from looking at vods. Would prob be closer to 90% uptime if I were more precise.

[@milkmangamingcomputers5593]

Well the issue is the 5s timer on conditioning doesn't refresh with every damage type hit. The timer has to expire first before it refreshes. So you get hit with no absorb, then 5s timer with absorb, then it expires and you get hit again with no absorb and so on. So basically 2 hits, one on each end of the 5s timer is not being reduced. Tested it by getting hit only by thrust in the wild. @@mecr0w

[@MarcosPic1982]

Which 3rd perk would be the best next option for this set for wars without count weapons perk and condition perks? Health? Invigorated? Freedom? Shirking fortification?

[@mecr0w]

EA or EW or SF depending on what has the most uptime

[@MarcosPic1982]

@mecr0w EW is not elemental ward? That a gem... is SF still good for heavy armor? Evasion can now be triggered maximum 2 times...

[@mecr0w]

@@MarcosPic1982 EW is enchanted ward, SF is underrated and still imo is ideal for heavy melee builds even w the 2 dodges bc it reduces more dmg than other options

[@MarcosPic1982]

@mecr0w so if I play frigid set with SF as third perk would be a good combination right? I also have in the jewelry the perk that increases the time of SF up to 2 seconds. Or would you suggest me to do something different like Grit Ward?

[@AG-oi9uj]

What’s best one or two extra perk to run for defense on a light tumbler 150 con?

[@F_W87]

So where would void darkplate stand in all of this between the dawn and primal gear? I noticed you didn't mention it at all. Are you better off not running darkplate and going full on either set? I run full heavy tank with void darkplate chest and the rest dawn heavy btw.

[@Lidiq-]

I like and respect how you always go into details of calculations and stuff. With this one however I'm not really on the same boat. There are quite big differences in some of the builds and you cannot really tell what is BIS and what is not BIS for them. Saying Health is not best perk in general is bald statement. When you run light gear, this is the perk which will give you highest HP mitigation without any conditions on a 100 to 0 fight. All others are good perks as well in the different scenarios but cannot really compare to flat ~330 HP per perk. If we talk about Heavy, then the picture completely changes, as here those ~330HP from Health are not worth enough compared to both Wards, Conditions and Shirking. But here as well there are specifics. If you play Heavy Flamethrower for example, why would you need Shirking Fortification? You don't want to dodge that much, as you need to apply stacks. The more you dodge, the more useless you are. Hence, Enchanted Ward + Aversion are both BIS for this build. They are also non-conditional and cannot be ripped off by void. The discussion is quite long, but in general, there is no such thing as general BIS. There is BIS for specific build, class, role etc. Happy New Year.

[@mecr0w]

Ye it comes down to what con r u at, what weight, and then u have to look at it. Not super easy to do otherwise.

[@jamsandwich1003]

With the upcoming change to heavy dodge using 55 stam, do you foresee shirking fort uptime being lower than 50%?

[@mecr0w]

no bc heavy can still dodge 3 times unless they change it to 56 stam

[@myguy5142]

I didn't know it worked that way. I was about to say rings without Hearty are going to be useful b/c of the change. I guess not @@mecr0w

[@wesleyterrill8]

@@mecr0wcan you elaborate on that? Do you mean as long as heavy let’s the stam regeneration proc, you’ll still be able to dodge 3 times? Basically just don’t double dodge and stam lock yourself?

[@GenDrake3]

After the changes you'll still have about .45 stamina to dodge a third time unless they make it slightly above 55 stamina. Ags is horrible with explaining things and people do testing to find the actual numbers for dodges. Your stamina bar with hearty isn't exactly 110 it's more so 110.4

[@oprgaming153]

I might be wrong, but the theory is that a 700 GS hearty ring although it says 10% gives a tiny bit more than 10 stamina (10.45 according to a Godot video) so after two dodges your stam bar will show 0 but you'll still be able to take the 3rd dodge to grey bar yourself - idk how this can have been tested though so it might just be a theory craft rn - is the PTR still up?!@@wesleyterrill8

[@greyaye8565]

I imagine that Shirking Fort will be even better if the heavy is running Void Darkplate since I think Fort scales with armor.

[@mecr0w]

Yep!

[@NWSwill]

People vastly overestimate gear in NW. BiS is irrelevant in this game. The resistances don’t even work properly as intended. You can have gear with 3 dead perks that do nothing to contribute towards your build and still do fine in PVP as long as your gearscore is high enough. That’s all that matters.

[@fpsshotty7445]

What damage are you assuming for the conditionings? EW and EA are more generic and better for a war scenario. Assuming you are doing slash damage vs EW and Slash Con yeah its gonna be better because you are spec-ed for one damage type. EW and EA in a war scenario where you are taking multiple different damage types like arcane, slash, strike, fire, void etc might be better overall for coverage and deto pops. If the conditioning is assuming that the damage type you are getting hit by is the same all the time then for sure itll be better.

[@mecr0w]

I'm assuming slash cond w 3 primary different incoming dmg types for this example

[@mrbicboi2540]

Good point @fpsshotty. What does mecrow mean? Also is EW generally better than EA?

[@dinozavarTV]

Good videos, thanks again. Here is another idea for a topic. In a meta of Enchanted Ward, how useful is the 350 STR stat perk?

[@Turmoiloaded]

that applies to abilities as well so it’s not actually that bad esp since the enchanted effect only works off the second light attack hit which is already not that significant in a chain attack anyway

[@zombrexz1022]

Is it better to go 5 Slash cond or split it into 2 Thrust cond + 3 Slash cond?

[@DreadfulNW]

At least in wars, thrust damage is really only coming from muskets (not getting slotted much these days) and some bows (most are switching to boltcaster). You're better off running full ele aversion or whatever mitigation perks your weight class and build normally runs, and just have a thrust prot ammy and some extra emerald gems ready to swap to if needed.

[@mrbicboi2540]

Thanks for the analysis, with the lightning bow hitting like a truck, do you know if frigid dawn set EA and EW is double effective for countering the bow? I'm using light featherweight, 3EW, 3EA, 13% ele res. Still getting hit for 4k on heavy auto (mitigating 6k sometimes, wtf 10k auto?) Are you Abel to see if the lightning bow scaling is bugged?

[@hansmeier1548]

It's the +80% shoot, annoying trash ....

[@mrbicboi2540]

@@hansmeier1548 what u mean

[@Turmoiloaded]

Boltcaster’s damage buff only works on basics so dawn gear hella mitigates it since you’re reducing the base damage of every basic by like 8.5% per dawn piece and if the bow user uses an ability they lose 20% base damage so it makes up for the fact that your enchanted wars won’t proc

[@Jayson_Tatum]

So how do you take into account the idea behind conditioning perks is they have to proc to be effective, whereas the standard ward/aversion perk combo is always active? Sometimes taking that first, non-reduced hit can make or break your fight. I'm thinking more from a smaller scale perspective in this question.

[@mecr0w]

I don't take that into account atm, so where cond and a non cond are relatively close the other effect is pref to cond. When the difference is large, I'd pref cond.

[@McDudes]

could also gem up to cover the other dmg types. But that might defeat the purpose of going cond? 🤔 Also if everyone starts using conditioning perk on gear can't people counter it with elemental gems in weapons?

[@4rcheria]

Conditioning maybe reduce 1/3 of the damage types, but you also have to consider that the uptime is not 100%.. First you need to take a hit that doesn't get reduced to activate it and then you need to take a hit of the same type so it even reduce something. Also it can be cleansed like shirking fort. So the uptime is way lower than 100%.

[@mecr0w]

Yep some types are better than others. Slash cond has fairly high uptime for example.

[@zac6366]

Me sipping my tea with my SF build that I have not had to change with nerfs and buffs every patch. 🍵

[@ChristopherBenko]

Since you were doing this at 300 con what about grit ward? I would assume its similar to EW / EA?

[@codyseal7395]

Im running light armor Featherweight with Hatchet/Gs. Looking to get 2 pieces of bis heavy gear. What should i try to get?

[@michelefioratti3591]

What value do you apply to shirking fort? 50% of uptime i understand, but at what value ? cap? or 100%? Plus o thinking shirking fort is hard to analyze, in a war scenario in clumps you will rarely get value cuz null oblivion, it’s only good while playing around point, but then again in those spot you don’t take mutch damage and you have a healer

[@mecr0w]

SF just makes ur armor more effective and I said u start at 0% fort then gain fort from SF

[@HazzarLovesTunez]

unyeilding, 100 con, health and conditioning perks on armour, thrust or fire protection amulet, forti perf on spear i feel like a 200 con featherweight

[@shusakudake]

Mecrow what should i use than instead of health as buriser? i run gritward freedom health what exatly should i use instead of health now (point bruiser)

[@uglyfoox8964]

Condition

[@shusakudake]

​@@uglyfoox8964but which one

[@mecr0w]

Slash

[@Lootwurst]

And what to take? Ward and which Conditioning? I get deleted at every conditioning

[@mecr0w]

Slash cond is considered to be the best one since slash dmg is spammable and hits less hard per hit

[@marcnebot5669]

So in my case, as a bruiser could u tell me which perk would be better? Grit ward first then slash cond and freedom?

[@marcnebot5669]

@mecrow

[@Exprovider-Cahit]

as I understand for healers, Featherweight with dawn set + slash cond. is BIS? @Mecrow

[@mecr0w]

Yes

[@LilAlbus]

In the simulation you set ele, ench ward, AND conditioning all have 1/3rd uptime. In my opinion, this is super unrealistic, for example, as a ranged in kill squad fights slash conditioning will very rarely proc, and the majority of incoming damage will be ranged elemental and auto-attack based. Not to mention the tanky disruptors aren't going to be hitting you as hard as the glass cannon bolt casters and FS making an even larger portion of damage magical. This sim also assumes the perks in this game work as advertised and I've seen some tests that suggest otherwise. For example, I've heard that Enchanted Ward only provides 2% reduction in practice instead of the advertised 4%. I do agree with the argument against health; if you drop some health for more defensive perks, every heal you receive becomes more valuable because you can keep that health longer. It also takes more healing to top someone with full health. Still, it really doesn't seem like this simulation comes close to considering enough factors to accurately determine bis armor perks.

[@simojurtsenko1573]

As healer trying to take "agro" in front of players and run away and take them to woods I run enchanted ward and conditioning 3rd refreshing/weapon perk/shirking energy. 5 opal 3 trust cond amulet slash protection. Gloves are named scaled gauntlets enchanted slash cond nad flame cond ATM it feels pretty good, however it costs a lot to make...

[@mrbicboi2540]

That's a nice setup - 15 thrust and slash, 12.5 ele. Which conditions Do u take? I think youl be weak against the boltcaster tho, even with triple EA + triple EW I get hit 4k. The initial fireball will also hit u hard without EA.

[@simojurtsenko1573]

Got 3 slash 1 flame and 1 slot open, I think it's better to go 1 flame 1 slash becose the named item and rest thrust

[@McShadow96]

Why do you put base damage reduction perks in formula basicaly the same way you put old fortify? I can understand counting conditionings effective value by using 33% of those. But enchanted ward and elemental are both base damage reduction. Is 33% of those suppose represent both when those are working and their place in proper dmg formula? Quite wild estimate mate :D

[@mecr0w]

Those are meant for coverages since enchanted ward only works vs autos. Abilities it doesn’t work for nor heartrunes. It’s hard to give an accurate estimate for those, it’s like educated guessing.

[@willfulmisfortune3679]

So grit ward isnt even on the list. Is it that bad?(while running 300 con)

[@mecr0w]

The base dmg stuff I talk about here is slightly better than grit ward, but grit ward will function very similar (prob has higher uptime) than it

[@willfulmisfortune3679]

@@mecr0w thanks, in thinking about it, if/when if Im cc’d , there isnt any damage mitigation at all, so thst right there makes me want to avoid and just go with enchanted ward

[@Timayy]

yes healers do not run featherweight with frigid dawn set, all hail daddy mecro

[@mecr0w]

It’s bis if u have another defensive but if not it’s up there but not quite bis

[@CelsoAoryu]

I aways like conditioning on my sets, but meta facs dont like. I get mostly my cond sets in barnacles. Can u make a video i game with good sets to war positions or calsses? Im a tanker with woodgrain set with sturdy energy in chest, 5 health and 3 invigorated 1 refresh on set (i will change to 4 invigorated) The wall shield with shield rush

[@mozi1615]

Great stuff! So you’ve done defensive perks, vigor, health… how bout invig now? Invig BIS for clump fighters. Prove me wrong

[@GenDrake3]

Why is it bis? It's just reapplied and has a 100 uptime on you

[@mozi1615]

Plague Splitting Grenade: 25% less heals for 8s or with full invig 1.6s Sundering Shockwave: 15% rend for 10 sec or for 2 sec Enfeebling Maelstrom: hit for 27% less damage for 8s or 1.6s Etc…. No way you are 100% uptime debuffed when they come off that quick. Instead of defensive stats simply attempting to counteract debuffs, they will add to defensive when the debuffs drops off in the span of 1-2 seconds. Anywho

[@Malruse]

The biggest downside of invig is you need a full set just to make it playable....having 1 or 2 is basically useless. And with the need for weapon perks, that real estate becomes really high demand.

[@zombrexz1022]

Ive tried full invig, but it only sounds good on paper, cause you have to give up 5 perks, not worth imo, but everyone can build and play what they like, thats the cool thing 👾

[@peteralexis1446]

where do you get primal gear?

[@mecr0w]

Mutated savage divide

[@michelefioratti3591]

@Mecrow you never talk about grit ward, why?

[@mecr0w]

Oh the enchanted ward case is basically the same thing

[@Moridinn]

Interested to see how sensitive these calculations are to your assumption on % of dmg affected by base dmg / abs. I still think you’re being overly generous with saying both affect 1/3 of all incoming dmg. Certainly conditioning. I also think it’d be interesting to sim a ‘burst situation’ (bomb on point) vs. an ‘attrition situation’ (dogging around point).

[@nathiirblacktongue1683]

I run frigid with 2 thrust resist and 3 slash resist, armor gemmed with opals and jewelry with rubies. Flamethrower hits me for like 100 (20 damage ticks) damage and melee hits me for maybe 2k unless it's a hit to my back.

[@Roan249]

Health really is a complicated one. I fully agree that it loses its value extremely fast if you look at it purely on paper from a battle-of-attrition standpoint. It will not help when weighing your eHP per second against the DPS of the enemy. However, i believe Health is just almost impossible to simulate. One point that is rarely brought up, because its all based on assumptions, is the capitalization on overheal. If you have a strong pocket and get healed to full every like 7-10 seconds, this will indeed net you a large ammount of eHP over the whole fight, thats not just the extra bit of cushion that you went in with. Id recommend everyone to watch their health bar during fights or watch a few replays how often you are healed to full, and that extra HP every time is made possible by health. And obviously that health helps against everything, but that argument is almost older than the perk itself at this point.

[@uhtred7108]

What about shirking heals on dawn for disruptors?

[@mecr0w]

It’s solid

[@amadukane597]

can u also calculate fort condi and sh without ankh ?

[@trutoyrslf]

Everyone keeps telling me that Shirking Fort was always stripped from oblivion, is that true? If not, when was it implemented?

[@mecr0w]

it can be stripped which is why I lowered the uptime from 60% to 50%, but from looking at vods it's definitely not stripped all the time (even for point players). For 99% of players it will not be stripped because ig vg is only really used in war anyways, and if you aren't on point there aren't ig vgs who play near you too!

[@trutoyrslf]

@mecr0w I understand now it is being stripped... I guess I was just wondering if that was always the case or was that added like in S3 for example. I mean I can really tell/feel it being stripped now... when I didn't before S3.

[@abbster32586]

@@mecr0w Would you then say in Heavy running Tumblers boots over Darkplate would be bis? Then rolling freedom or slash conditioning as the third perk on Frigid?

[@artdz6610]

It always able to be stripped. Now with magnetic the stripping is alot more since the cooldowns are lower ​@trutoyrslf4381

[@kashman4251]

Good Video. Keep it up. More stuff....

[@TheCrushmaster]

I understood some of those words Also I miss your streams :[

[@mecr0w]

They’ll be back in a day or 2 just been enjoying the holiday

[@greenhand0317]

Which cond is most used in OPR and Arena?

[@mecr0w]

Slash cond or thrust cond

[@mrbicboi2540]

I've done about 50oprs in the last week and my experience is fire cond easily number 1, then thrust and slash is equal. There are barely any melee players. Bow users are using lightning so not even much thrust tbh. Arenas just depend on your server but seems to just be a bunch of heavy sns spear gs flame thrower

[@OnslaughtGamingVideos]

What does he mean by "dawn gear"

[@ithuu9576]

The new set dropped in new dung

[@jian-zhangcheng3982]

What's it mean ABS in Med set? Is BaseDMG mean harnessing? and ty for your study very nice !

[@mecr0w]

Old fortify just internally it’s called abs

[@Tarooo89]

Great video and simulation. It think it’s always important to take into account context when considering the effectiveness of any perk, as well as that we need 4330 more subscribers for the feet reveal.

[@mecr0w]

Lol

[@kkadans5906]

what takes you so long to say bis or not bis 16minute lol can u make some short content that answer the questions everytime i'm interessed in an answer but all the long boring mathematics makes it hard to watch

[@nodeflection5827]

lol just skip to the end

[@Ravynheart]

Read the description

[@arcthepaladin2694]

so a long winded/confusing explanation and an open ended title all leading to an "it depends" against certain builds answer? you need to work on how you present information my guy, your research and testing is very much appreciated by the community but how you present your conclusions is always important.

[@mecr0w]

Ye the description has the shorthand it just depends ur weight class mostly

[@PhilosHavlicek]

TLDR?

[@mecr0w]

See the description put one there

[@05matheussl]

what is dawn gear?

[@mecr0w]

New dungeon gear

[@WhoFlungDung]

It's the new Fridgid Dawn set that drops from the new dungeon. It's a heavy set that has Enchanted Ward and Elemental Aversion perk on it. You can't get those two perks together unless you get these set pieces.

[@andersaroden7731]

It seems it all comes down to which epistomological perspective you chose to view it from (or if you are an ontologist). I myself am firmly in the pragmatist camp.

[@pavelsrg]

so shirking heals.... not great?

[@mecr0w]

it's 221 HPS at 20k hp, which is marginal at best

[@Jayson_Tatum]

Well he specifically said this is in Heavy. Although, to answer your question, SH in Light is still somewhat viable with Health paired with it. The only problem with it is the CD time of 7 sec. If you're in skirmishes, duels, smaller scale, etc., it becomes a much higher skill ceiling to run SH. Mainly because you have to be able to proc it optimally, which isn't easy to do. In longer-term combat where you're consistently taking damage and getting healed, it's better to run mitigation perks instead of SH.

[@pavelsrg]

thank you for that answer - i just put SH on two frigid dawn pieces but i am running light, oh well @@Jayson_Tatum

[@theScary92]

5k hours as solo mage in oprs/3v3s/open world and shirk heal is as co epic state I never cared less about havin healer :) for wars 6 would be overkill so u might want some defence :p

[@pavelsrg]

@@theScary92 FS/ig?

[@hansmeier1548]

In short, fridge dawn is bis !? I can say after the dawn set release, im doing such low dmg with musket.

[@mecr0w]

not overall, but it's good vs certain builds

[@marchfu]

luv health luv enchanted ward luv refreshing ate cond ate frigid ate dawn simple as...

[@erifetihw]

long winded way to say skill based pvp

[@planetg2125]

Defensive perks are a waste. Full damage and don't play dumb. gg. El fin.