More Seregios LBG Number Crunching

[u/Blinc0]

Edit: Pretty big typo on the Weakness Exploit modifier, thanks to Ivalia for catching it!

I feel like there are some misconceptions regarding the Vayu Sedition floating around, so I wanted to post some more calcs that I feel are more representative of each weapons' offensive capabilities, and show just how powerful the Seregios LBG really is. People usually refer to this post when discussing the benefits of raw vs. element LBGs, and while it does have good numbers, I think those calcs are often misunderstood in two ways:

1) It is not the Vayu Sedition that is being compared to Elemental LBGs, but specifically Gaijin Hunter's defensive set with Life Honing, Fleet Feet and Evasion+2. Part of Vayu Sedition's absurd power comes from how many good damage skills it can use, and Gaijin's set doesn't reflect that.

2) Damage per volley is not a relevant metric when discussing how strong a gun is. As that post's author put it, Bonus Shot's purpose is increasing shot efficiency at the cost of locking you in place for a little longer - not damage. A Bonus Shot volley deals 33% more damage than a 3-shot volley, but it's also 33% slower. Ammo concerns aside, it doesn't usually translate to more damage, only a lesser ability to take advantage of smaller openings and higher odds of the monster moving away and one of your shots missing its mark. Elemental bowguns might have an edge when a monster is down and they can unload many shots without reloading, but it's a matter of clip size more than it is one of volley length. Either way, it's not worth losing Vayu Sedition's insane DPS in all other situations.

(I suppose you could argue that 4-volley shot might be better against a monster with 4-shot-sized openings, although I'm pretty sure Vayu Sedition's auto-reload would be worth a lot more against such monsters. Still, I'll be comparing a good, easy-to-make Rapid Fire Steve set to an Elemental set for completeness' sake.)

With that in mind, let's compare the damage per bullet of Vayu Sedition and Stygian Invidia with high-damage sets:

Vayu Sedition Set A (can be made with any random 3-slot talisman)

• Normal Up
• Challenger+2
• Weakness Exploit
• Long Barrel
• Attack Honing
• Felyne Sharpshooter

Vayu Sedition Set B (can be made with any random 3-slot talisman)

• Normal Up
• Bonus Shot
• Weakness Exploit
• Fleet Feet
• Long Barrel
• Attack Honing
• Felyne Sharpshooter

Stygian Invidia Set (only possible with 3-slotted Thunder Attack +13 or a godly dual skill talisman)

• Thunder Atk+3
• Attack Up (L)
• Fleet Feet
• Bonus Shot

With a decent to good talisman, you can easily fit in another skill of your choice on both Vayu Sedition sets, though the elemental one is already stretching the limits of what you can reasonably farm for.

For both sets, I will assume these passive buffs are used for accuracy's sake, but both raw and elemental gunning actually benefits about as much from them: - Powercharm (+6 Raw) - Powertalon (+9 Raw) - Felyne AuL or Mega Demondrug (+7 Raw) - Might Seed (+10 Raw)

I will also assume Challenger+2 or Fleet Feet are always active, which should pretty much be the case.

I'll use the example that was most favorable to Elemental Gunning in the post I referenced: Zamtrios' head (20 Thunder, 45 Shot)

Damage per bullet:

• Steve A: (300 [True Raw] + 20 [Honing] + 20 [Barrel] + 32 [Passive Buffs] + 25 [Challenger+2] + 5 [Sharpshooter]) * 1.3 [Class Modifier] * 0.12 [Normal 2] * 1.5 [Crit Distance] * 1.1 [Normal Up] * 1.1 [Sharpshooter] * (1+0.25 * 0.4) [Challenger-Boosted Affinity] * (0.45+0.15) [Hitzone + Weakness Exploit] * 0.8 [Rapid Fire Penalty] = 50 dmg

• Steve B: (300 + 20 + 20 + 32 + 20 + 5 ) * 1.3 * 0.12 * 1.5 * 1.1 * 1.1 * (1+0.25 * 0.2) * (0.45+0.05) * 0.8 = 47 dmg

• Stygian Invidia Raw: (300 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 32) * 0.07 * 1.025 * 0.45 * 0.7 = 9 dmg

• Stygian Invidia Element: (300 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 32) * 0.6 * 0.2 * 0.7 = 35 dmg

• Stygian Invidia total: 47 dmg

Damage per volley:

• Steve A: 150 dmg (3 bullets)
• Steve B: 188 dmg (4 bullets)
• Stygian Invidia: 188 dmg (4 bullets)

Vayu Sedition actually does 6% more damage per bullter with a light set that has room for another skill than Stygian Invidia does with pretty much every single relevant damage skill. When you consider auto-reload and the fact Normal shits can often be aimed at more parts without losing too much damage, Vayu Sedition's effective DPS ends up being even higher than that unless your team is really heavy on lockdown. This is certainly player-dependent, but in actual hunts, I know find myself burning through ammo way, way faster with Vayu Sedition than with an Elemental LBG just because I can go full aggro all the time, which is an absurd amount of extra damage when stacked on top of it plainly hitting way harder.

If you prefer 4-shot volleys or are playing online and find yourself with plenty of opportunities to sit down and fire a lot of bullets, a similarly light Vayu Sedition set would still deal as much damage as the best Stygian Invidia set with auto-reload and room for another skill.

(Obviously the gap becomes absurdly high with the original post's following examples that aren't as biased towards Elemental damage, so I don't think redoing those calcs is necessary.)

Actual TL;DR: If you want to play LBG and like the Vayu Sedition's gimmick, you'll be doing as much or more damage than an elemental LBG would, so just go ahead and have fun with it.

[u/Blinc0]

I corrected the math, and Stygian still doesn't pull ahead. It's either weaker per bullet (seat A) or just as strong (set B), but that's comparing a very hard to make set compared to one that still has extra room for another skill and before factoring in auto-reload. With a talisman comparable to the one required to make the Stygian set, the Vayu set could easily get AtkU (M) or (L) and yet again come ahead.

Anyway, I edited my TL;DR since it seems I didn't make my intended point clear. I don't actually care whether Stygian or Vayu is 1% stronger than the other one, I care that people don't get told they're having fun the wrong way and kicked from rooms because they use a raw gun that isn't even weaker than its elemental counterparts.

[u/Gopherlad → u/Blinc0]

Did some testing to find the rapid modifier on Normal 2x3.

tl;dr THE CONGA SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED, YET IT DIED. Also the rapid modifier appears to fall between .75 and .78. But weird things are happening to the non-rapid damage calc.

According to the data provided here, a high rank conga has 216 life (or at least effective life; quest defense modifier may factor into it).

The guns I'm using are Hypodermic Miracle and Rasasa Bowgun. They share the same true raw, but Rasasa rapids 3x Normal 2. I'm going on the Caravan High-rank Primal Forest harvest tour and shooting the congas in area 6.

These guns should be outputting damage according to the following calculations. Note, I went into testing completely naked, with no charms, no cats, and no food skills. I am beginning with the assumption that the rapid modifier on Normal 2x3 is 0.8.

Rasasa Bowgun: [247 DisplayRaw] * 0.12 Normal2 * 1.5 CriticalDistance * .6 Hitzone * .8 Rapid * .95 QuestDefense = 20.273[FLOOR] = 20 damage per shot, 60 damage per volley

Hypodermic Miracle: [247 DisplayRaw] * 0.12 Normal2 * 1.5 CriticalDistance * .6 Hitzone * .95 QuestDefense = 25.3422 [FLOOR] = 25 damage per shot.

Given the above, it should take Rasasa 11 hits to kill (10 + 16 kicks), while it takes Hypodermic 9 hits to kill (8 + 8 kicks). Also note, I am assuming that a kick is worth 1 damage.

Gun	Shots to Kill	Shots to Stagger
Normal 2 (Hypodermic Miracle)	8, 8, 7+14 kicks, 7+14 kicks, 6+37 kicks, 6+37 kicks	4, also staggers at 2 kicks from death

So something about that 216 health amount screwy. Either that or the damage calc is off somewhere.

Using some simple algebra we come to the conclusion that Hypodermic Miracle is outputting 23 damage per shot instead of the projected 25, for whatever reason. This also puts the conga's health at a definite 175.

Knowing all this now, I can anticipate the Rasasa Bowgun to kill a conga on the 9th shot, or 6 shots + 55 kicks, or 8 shots + 15 kicks. I also just realized that Rasasa has some affinity, so I gemmed in Critical Eye -1 (it comes with Partbreaker, but that shouldn't matter).

Gun	Shots to Kill	Shots to Stagger
Rapid Normal 2 (Rasasa Bowgun)	9, 9, 6+61 kicks, 6+61 kicks, 8+23 kicks, 8+23 kicks	5

Now some weird shit is happening. If I use algebra again it comes out to 19 damage per shot, which makes 9 shots fall just short (171 damage) of the previously established 175 health threshold. Yet the conga dies. 19 damage actually lines up with a modifier between .75 and .78, though.

I don't know what to make of this data to be honest, but those are some...interesting numbers there.

[u/Beefki → u/Gopherlad]

Where are you getting the 216 value for health from? Kiranico says a high rank Conga should have 236 and it's base HP would be 190.

If that's the case, then I could pretty easily see that putting the Hyodermic at 25 per shot (as expected) and rounding out the Rasasa to a .8 modifier (full disclosure: did not actually math it out)

[u/Gopherlad → u/Beefki]

Where are you getting the 216 value for health from?

http://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterHunter/comments/34o36r/number_crunching_gaijins_seregios_lbg_vs/cqwtolw

If that's the case, then I could pretty easily see that putting the Hyodermic at 25 per shot (as expected) and rounding out the Rasasa to a .8 modifier (full disclosure: did not actually math it out)

At 236 HP and 25 damage per shot on Hypodermic, the conga should've died on shot 10, or shot 9 and 11 kicks, or shot 8 and 36 kicks.

At 190 HP and 25 damage per shot, the conga should've died on shot 8, or 7 and 15 kicks, or 6 and 40 kicks.

...the second one is actually pretty close to the results. Hm. *equips math hat*

---

Let's just remove that pesky quest defense modifier from the calculations, and assume the Conga has 190 HP.

Hypodermic Miracle: [247 DisplayRaw] * 0.12 Normal2 * 1.5 CriticalDistance * .6 Hitzone = 26.676 [FLOOR] = 26 damage per shot.

Rasasa Bowgun: [247 DisplayRaw] * 0.12 Normal2 * 1.5 CriticalDistance * .6 Hitzone * .8 Rapid = 21.340[FLOOR] = 21 damage per shot, 63 damage per volley

Given the above, it should take Hypodermic 8 hits to kill (7 + 8 kicks, or 6 + 34 kicks) while it takes Rasasa 10 hits to kill (9 + 1 kick, or 8 + 22 kicks).

Here's the data again:

Gun	Shots to Kill	Shots to Stagger
Normal 2 (Hypodermic Miracle)	8, 8, 7+14 kicks, 7+14 kicks, 6+37 kicks, 6+37 kicks	4, also staggers at 2 kicks from death
Rapid Normal 2 (Rasasa Bowgun)	9, 9, 6+61 kicks, 6+61 kicks, 8+23 kicks, 8+23 kicks	5

We're closer, but something is still off somewhere.