by Shinespark — last updated a month ago
Drive home the pain with this hammer evolved from a scooter assembly. The wheel shapeshifts and gains a unique buff to match whatever type of physical damage it has been modded for.
ITEM RANK
3876 / 76
APPLY CONDITIONALS
KUVA ELEMENT
And when I say "optimized," I mean don't trust Overframe's calculator an inch and I've gone overboard justifying and explaining mod choices mathematically.
No one seems to understand Melee Doughty. Let's fix that. If you're equipping [Sundering Strike] on your Puncture melees, I'm about to rock your world.
Oh uh, before we begin. Recommended Progenitors are Electric or Heat. Electric for chain reacting a crowd (remember, this hammer has only 40% [Follow Through], it struggles to cleave). Heat for armor strip and Heat Inherit hijinks. Both crowd control equally.
The version shown off is the “I need this Acolyte to die” pocket build, but there are alternatives given if you wish to run the weapon as a crowd chopper.
Stances modify not only how your weapon swings and the damage of those swings, but also invisible bonuses and penalties. Doughty is secretly restricted by penalties to Puncture on certain attacks (and rare bonuses from others). These vary from weapon to weapon, but for the Motovore it means the "spin to win" combo reduces your Doughty bonus by around -0.5x on many of the attacks. It's still the best attack option, but this may be why your numbers in-game don't line up with the math.
[Quickening] can be replaced by [Gladiator Vice], [Primed Fury] or [Berserker Fury], take your pick. Optimal DPS is reverse listed order, but I enjoy [Quickening] the most in practice. If you have an outside source of Attack Speed, go [Organ Shatter] or the secret best in slot mod I'll reveal later.
Tennokai. [Dreamer's Wrath], [Opportunity's Reach] or [Discipline's Merit], each to capitalize more often on the Tennokai. Opportunity’s [Reach] is best for a roaming build, Merit for single target, and Wrath for biggest numbers.
I’m not compromising on the Sacrificial set. A big fat crit bonus is too good to pass up when your Critical Multiplier (CM) is a skyscraper, and it doubles when you Heavy Attack. No, [Galvanized Steel] will not do, you need to maximize your Critical Chance and you have plenty of CM already. Doughty weapons have less essentials to mod anyway, so equipping Pressure + [Condition Overload] is not a bad thing like for other melees who are hurt by opportunity cost.
Swap Augur Strike for [Galvanized Elementalist] on an add clear setup, and make sure you’re using [Berserker Fury] over [Quickening]. Explanation further below.
It's BAIT. See, if you want a status effect to be more likely there are two knobs you can twist: the proportion of the element compared to the others and the final Status Chance of the weapon. Each mod you add for an element gives diminishing returns to the proportion of Status Chance it takes up. It quickly becomes more beneficial to increase the final Status Chance than it is to add more of the element.
Put another way: 75% of 100 (= 75) is a greater final result than 80% of 80 (= 64).
Asides from "everything?" Alright, here's the bread and butter: [Organ Shatter] is +2.1 CM (90% of the 2.3x base). Therefore, any mod we equip must outperform [Organ Shatter] to justify itself (hint hint, foreshadowing).
Attack Speed is also a huge bonus to DPS and weapon feel alike. We also can't forget just adding more Status Chance straight up (more foreshadowing).
It's this perspective that creates the build you see today.
First, we have to establish how we solve for this on paper (everything was fact-checked in-game, don't fret about accuracy). At 11 stacks of [Weeping Wounds] and with +60% Status Chance from [Jugulus Barbs], you hit 180% total Status Chance. We can then calculate our Puncture status after [Weeping Wounds] by using the status proportion. Remember: if it's 75% of your base Status Chance now, it'll be 75% of your final Status Chance later! So we multiply the proportion with 180% to find our result.
For these calculations, let's assume a 60% progenitor since it's the final state of any Adversary weapon (element doesn't matter, only the % since that affects proportions). Plus, I own a 60% Motovore! Makes it easy to field test.
[Jugulus Barbs] achieves 62.7% of your Status Chance as Puncture, resulting in 112.88% Puncture status or +11.3 CM. Easy justification for its slot.
Adding [Auger Strike] on top of [Jugulus Barbs] achieves 78.1% of your Status Chance as Puncture, resulting in a bonus of 140.6% Puncture status or +14.1x CM. (So: [Auger Strike] provides +2.8x CM, which justifies itself over [Organ Shatter] if you maintain combo. Hopefully not a big if)
Finally throwing in [Sundering Strike] reaches 83.33% of your Status Chance as Puncture, resulting in a bonus of 150% Puncture status or +15.0x CM. ([Sundering Strike] is creating only +0.9x CM, that's trash!! Remember, [Organ Shatter] is +2.1x!)
So yeah. [Sundering Strike] is complete bait! The diminishing returns of status proportions (+15.4% from Auger, but only +5.2% from Sundering) shred its benefits into pathetic soup. Seek alternatives.
Okay let's get silly. Let's equip [Galvanized Elementalist] as the third mod instead of [Sundering Strike]. It grants Status Chance stacks with kills after all! With all 4 stacks resulting in +120% Status Chance, we gain 36% Status Chance or a newfound 216% final Status Chance. Apply the 78.1% Puncture proportion and you will have 168.7% Puncture status or +16.9x CM. (That's +2.8 CM over just [Auger Strike] + [Jugulus Barbs], and +1.9 CM over the dinky [Sundering Strike]!! Even better, this will amp your progenitor element and Slash status damage!)
Wait, can we replace [Auger Strike] with Galv Elem then?? If we go Jugulus Barbs + Galvanized Elementalist, then 62.7% of 216% will be 135% Puncture status or +13.5x CM. (+13.6x in-game due to rounding. Hey, not a completely terrible idea. You gain 80% bonus status damage and a higher progenitor element status chance in exchange for 0.6x CM by using [Auger Strike]. Could be worth a shot to see if it's good in practice.)
So um. Equip [Galvanized Elementalist] on the Motovore before [Organ Shatter], wow. Ain't all that better than [Sundering Strike]’s +0.9x CM at max [Weeping Wounds] stacks?
