Gamma Burst: Red or Green?

Master/Hunter has been the “meta” for Gamma Burst for the past few months. Versatility, headcount + megavore for cool down, and a good spread of damage multipliers gave it a leg up over going with the green tree, which had many of the same gun damage and bonus damage boosts that Master already provided.

However, with some of the gear we’ve gotten from DLC2, how does the Green tree stack up? The Old God shield provides some of the elemental damage the Stalker tree misses. Hypothetically, you could use Barbaric Yawp with Gunslinger Jabber for 15% crit to close the gap there as well. Throw in Hidden Machine, which provides a V2 boost that Gamma builds have no access to with the Hunter tree, and the Power Inside, there has definitely been some closing of the gap between the two (also comes with the bonus of higher pet damage for the time being, which may be a factor depending on how pets are balanced for Mayhem 2.0).

So, math people of the Gearbox forums, how do the two compare? For level 57 and Mayhem 2.0, which Gamma Burst variant will prove to be the more effective?

@Ratore

I’ve been thinking the same for the last 2 or 3 days. Could not playtest it yet.
I think I will miss Megavore to shorten my CD but I guess HC and a Brainstormer might suffice already?! As I said, untested.
But Hidden Machine is what makes me wanna try. Plus the revive is a nice plus as well as a little move speed.
Waiting for other perspectives, and math.

Edit: i’m thinking about something like this:
http://bl3skills.com/beastmaster/#5050201335002304150050300500030000000
Not knowing if HC + Brainstormer w/o Megavore is enough to reduce my CD while still getting HM in GB

Horned Skag is still better by a big amount in that scenario, even though we don’t have crit boosts.

Stacking Scorcher Ant + Old God is actually ideal for Red + Blue, since Elemental Damage ends up being one of the biggest things to boost in that setup. It can also be used while having Horned Skag out for a great increase. Ant still remains (in theory) superior for final overall damage (when skills are up). For the Green Setup, it is a welcome boost, if not necessary to catch up in numbers (not even touching build practicality yet).

Hunter’s Eye Armor Damage vs. Robots is V2, and quite a hefty one at that. It is, of course, limited in its usage. The thing here is that getting Hidden Machine for a V2 type boost does not end up mattering that much because of the tradeoffs involved in going for such a setup. Getting this new multiplier by losing a significant amount of stuff somewhere else results in it being not as powerful as it could be.

Also, the fact Gamma Anoint does get an increase from Weapon Type Damage boosts means you can get V2 from your Class mod + Artifact.


Gun Damage

Gamma is a setup that likes getting extra Gun Damage, since it does not get any of those absurd 100%+ increases from anointments. Green + Blue gets a good amount of it, but still benefits from increasing it. Red + Blue, however, does not get as much Gun Damage from its combination, and is rather a bit more concentrated on V1 and Crit. This means it will absolutely love Gun Damage increases, and you can also find that on a Class Mod. The newly introduced Pearl also has a massive Gun Damage increase after it’s fully stacked, and it is more beneficial formula wise to Red + Blue than Green + Blue.

Math

On a 1:1 comparison for final damage multiplier on both crit/bodyshot, using just skills + Gamma Anoint (and a baseline value for Grank Crit + Gun Damage):

  • Green + Blue has an actual decent edge over Red + Blue right now.
  • I made comparisons with all variations of Hunter’s Eye (Off, Human, Bot, Boss). When Hunter’s Eye was on, Red + Blue outpaced Green + Blue a bit vs. Humans, a good amount vs. Bots and by a decently large margin when bossing with a BH.

Of course, this is not an end-all be-all for the question due to the intense variations that will happen in stat rolls and other things. However, when such variations are introduced i’d say Red + Blue is the one getting the most out of them.

Example: on paper, crit is a hefty boost for the Green Setup, but now we must start to think about practicality. Crit may be sigificant to that setup, but it is just as significant for Red + Blue because 1. It is not overstacked at all from skill boosts, and 2. Megavore exists.

Gameplay Practicality

No Big Game means a very short duration for Frenzy, Furious Attack, Psycho Head (if getting that) and Interplanetary Stalker (if getting that). This gets troublesome and can feel pretty clunky in gameplay. You could remedy this with a Cosmic Stalker COM, but you could use the same COM in the Red + Blue setup. And then again, Red Fang is the main attraction of Gamma to a lot of people.

Then there’s Power Inside: this capstone is weird to use with Gamma Burst, and you probably know why. Gamma Burst’s base duration is 20 seconds. This means you will have no TPI for at least 5 seconds of its uptime. With Persistence Hunter, that time increases to around 15 seconds. With Endurance, 30 seconds.

This is a very big problem for a build that wants max uptime on its ability, because you’ll be losing the 50% from TPI for the majority of Gamma Burst’s duration and that really chunks down your DPS. Not only this, but if you got off a cast while below 100% health, you’re stuck with the 25% boost. You can try to work some cooldown juggling, low duration Gamma build for maximum TPI uptime, yet that would be better done with Red Tree.

Pair this with the Hunt Skill duration + Cooldown problems and you have a setup that will feel very clunky to play sometimes. I’ve played with it a lot, and also went further into some Rakk memes with it. It’s completely playable and enjoyable, i just don’t think it really has anything standing out for it in comparison to Red + Blue, especially when you consider the many Gun, Item and Anoint synergy Megavore has, and the fact some enemies don’t have easy to hit crit spots (or any at all at times).

Of course, it also has its upsides. You’ll will be a bit more bulky, although this doesn’t matter too much if using Red Fang. Being faster helps a good bit. As for Pets, this combo might be good indeed, although i’ll leave that experimentation to you for now :smile:

The effective DPS increase from Megavore is not even taken into account for math (at least as of yet), which just makes it that more menacing when you realize these builds have similar numbers in paper, yet one has Megavore + Hunter’s Eye + Big Game while the other does not.

Final/Other Unrelated Points

I’ve been going back to a full, offensive Gamma Burst setup (with Cosmic Stalker/DE4DEYE) again, but for it to be “worth” it over just switching to Rakk/Fade it would need at least a DPS advantage somewhere (it’s fun either way). I think i might actually be able to give it an edge above Rakk, so that’s cool.

DE4DEYE is something i recommend playing around with on Red/Blue Gamma setups. It checks all the necessary boxes, meaning it gets you V2 from the passive, Gun Damage and Movement Speed from Furryous and then you can look for further stat boosts. Even then, it doesn’t really outdamage Cosmic Stalker overall (which also has an important Frenzy duration boost), but it should feel good and likely get more DPS/Single Shot Damage while the 75% threshold is met.

As for more elaboration on Green + Blue, that setup is better used on Fade (in theory). The Fade crit damage makes up for the lack of a big crit formula boost by straight up adding a 2.75 to it. SSpyR and i had a full Green/Blue Sniper Fade Away setup back in October for Mayhem 3 that went around for a while. It fully works on Mayhem 4, it just runs into those same cooldown issues, and by consequence anointment upkeep. Proper Amp Shield usage and smart gameplay was very rewarding though, and makes anointments not as important.

All of these issues for any of these builds get way more pronounced in the Takedown, but you can always play around them to an extent. Slaughter Arenas feel fine and fun to play on.

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Amazing knowledge and answer, thanks!
Enjoyable is not unimportant in a video game.
Even though it might not be better it could keep somewhat up with a Rakk setup.

Also, please share your Gamma Burst ideas. :slight_smile:

Just what I was looking for! Much appreciated.

I can’t out reply Ratore, but I tried a TPI Gamma build last night. I could get 5 in IPS and 1 in Head Count for a boost to cooldown.

Th damage was there and the extra movement speed from Fast and Furryious was nice. But I’m sorely lacking Gamma annointed items so it was very hard to bring it all together.

I think a proper setup could make it work, but I’m not sure how it performs next to Gammavore builds

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I think Ratore’s got it all covered, but I ran some calcs assuming one had DPS-minmaxed gear (Crit and WeaponType Dmg on COMs and the latter on relics) if using a Red Fang and 115% Gamma Rad anointment and had the following findings:

  • If using a relatively neutral artifact (Otto Idol, Safeguard), Stalker has a noticeable DPS advantage over Hunter
  • If using a Victory Rush, Stalker still has a slightly lesser DPS advantage.
  • If using the Pearl, Stalker and Hunter are pretty much even
  • However, if using single pellet weaponry and factoring in Two Fang, Hunter wins regardless of what artifact you use
  • Likewise, against robots, Hunter has a sizeable advantage regardless of what artifact is used
  • Stalker’s DPS advantage is predicated on having both Hidden Machine and TPI active - if either buff is not active, Hunter immediately gains the DPS advantage.
  • Furthermore, Stalker’s circumstantial DPS advantage is predicated on having DPS-optimized rolls. Hunter tends to dip a little into all ends of the multiplier (esp crit), and hence is less affected by any missing stat rolls
  • Megavore of course confers an indirect DPS advantage - this can become a hefty direct multiplicative boost to DPS (between 1.4-1.6x) for weapons that cannot consistently score critical hits (Nothingness, Lob etc.)

So yeah, in general, Hunter will provide superior and more consistent DPS. Maxing out IPS means losing out on Leave no Trace and/or Second Intention and losing Head Count, which will affect gameplay rhythm.

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Edited my post a bit to make it a bit easier on the eyes and added some stuff.

Darrel’s points are 100% in line with what i got too.

Hunter has so much good stuff in it that there’s not really a way around it, it’s very solidified as a great anchor tree for pretty much any and all builds, with very few exceptions that will have some heavy downsides regardless.

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