Quote Originally Posted by Niluriel View Post
Thanks for this! I did actually notice Impulse drive (twice consecutively) did marginally more damage than my combo would... wasn't sure if that would change at higher levels but was a bit worried people would accuse me of button mashing if they saw me spamming one skill.
And this is why it's important to do the math rather than just go with what "feels" right. I think every new lancer goes through that phase of "Wait... no, that can't be right... can it?" Other easy traps are using AoE attacks when there's not enough enemies to push it above single target, and using DoT attacks when the mob won't live long enough to receive enough ticks.

Thankfully, figuring out what's effective is fairly easy in this game. Potency can basically be treated as exact damage numbers. I don't think it's QUITE right, but it's close enough. For DoT attacks, take the duration, divide by 3 to get the number of ticks, multiply by the potency per tick, and add to the initial damage from the weaponskill itself to find out how much total potency it will do when it runs its course.

Oh, one last tip while I'm spouting off DPS tricks: Once you get temporary buffs that increase your damage, use these before applying DoTs. The damage from a DoT is based on your stats at the time you use it, which means if the buff falls off while the DoT is still up, it still does increased damage. Do note that this means for things like Heavy Thrust, or Blood for Blood from lancer for extra damage, or Internal Release from pugilist so each tick has a higher chance to crit. Skills that directly modify the next attack such as Life Surge typically do not aid the DoT damage, merely the initial damage from the DoT that inflicts them.