I just thought about the idea of a biohazard CTR Very High. I mean, the biohazard is meant to stack its charge and then create an explosion. So if you can charge in a second, then you can do many charges quickly. It will go "BOOM" "BOOM" "BOOM" very fast. I'm going to try this when I get my toxic catalyzer to the biohazard! :D
Does this sound stupid or pure genius!? (sarcasm)
I know this, but it really doesn't make much of a difference if done to one enemy. If this is done to multiple enemies it will damage them but not cause them to explode.
You will still have the immobility and time taken while launching the charge attack, which that is cancelled by ASI. A single orbing charge is random and inconsistent, and might not produce an AoE radius that you would have preferred. It is better to stack charges than to use one and explode.
I am assuming by "boom boom boom" very fast you mean using one charge then exploding of course.
Otherwise, you will still have to take the immobility and time launching into consideration while spamming multiple charges.
Don't keep thinking to charge the biohazard.
IMO the best way to use biohazard in party or against 1 monster is to 2 shots - shield cancel - 2 shots - shield cancel. Its like a machine gun.
Of course, I got mine a bit more honestly... it has a Low CTR UV and I use an elite CTR trinket (good for alchemers and autoguns too!), so the total is Ultra, not Max. Still, I can rattle off charges about as fast as a clean Magnus can fire regular shots. It's super effective, especially when I solo in FSC!
There is a little bit of weirdness when catalysers get lots of CTR, though... the charge is actually ready to fire for a short but noticeable time before the "ready" flash actually appears. With my Ultra CTR, it's actually ready to fire as soon as you see the first smoky arc of the charge animation start to draw into you.
I've taken my CTR Med biohazard to lockdown and as Recon, it pushes it up to max. Just spamming charge, its fire rate is just a little faster than 1 shot per second due to ending animation (and I have +med attack speed too). It's... meh.
Damage
One thing that people overlook is that gun attack doesn't affect the charge shot, which comes with two implications:
- Damage trinkets are useless for charge playstyle.
- Poison/reduced damage doesn't affect the charge.
I have 2 elite trueshots module (aka +v.high attack) and the damage per regular shot on jellies/gremlins in t3 is about 20 less than the charge. It's wayyyy better DPS for me to just use regular shots when fighting 1-2 monsters.
I generally only use the charge when
- messing around
- trying to interrupt a turret
- running away/stalling for time until a group of monsters comes together.
@rawrcake
The orbit is consistent - a newly tagged charge starts at the top of the enemy and circles counter clockwise. If you do a charge -- detonate instantly, it will usually send the monsters going left.
I say it every time I enter a catalyzer thread, but I still think the catalyzer guns are better used in groups : 2-3 catalyzers spamming charge and then detonating at a critical point (monsters bunched together) --> pretty cool.
The best thing I'd ever done with Biohazard was stack a bunch of charges on a jelly while the Royal Jelly was spinning around invincible. As soon as he got out of the spin, I pushed the jelly into it and detonated for the kill. If I had CTR max, maybe I could have loaded 3-4 more charges, but idk if that's really worth it.
"One thing that people overlook is that gun attack doesn't affect the charge shot, which comes with two implications:
- Damage trinkets are useless for charge playstyle.
- Poison/reduced damage doesn't affect the charge."
What does "gun attack" mean in this sentence? Do you mean attack speed increase, damage bonus, or charge time reduction? Are you saying that damage bonus doesn't affect charge attacks? Is that true? Is it true for swords?
Damage bonuses affect both regular and charge attacks
Whoops, sorry for the vagueness.
I'm talking about damage bonus for the catalyzer (Neutralizer/Biohazard) charge attacks only.
I think it has something to do with how they're designed to be able to detonate when ANYBODY with a catalyzer (regardless of whether it's Neutralizer/Biohazard) shoots the tagged monster.
edit1:
I remember vaguely testing this when they first came out, but now that I have elite trueshots, I can get definitive numbers up. If I'm wrong, I'll correct it.
edit2:
This was in training hall
Damage:
Biohazard [v.high attack] 20 per bullet
Biohazard [no damage bonus] 16 per bullet
Biohazard charge (with both) : 41 damage
of note, Neutralizer is pretty much the same, except with a 44 damage charge.
"Don't keep thinking to charge the biohazard.
IMO the best way to use biohazard in party or against 1 monster is to 2 shots - shield cancel - 2 shots - shield cancel. Its like a machine gun."
I am staying on topic, the OP is thinking about the best gun being a Cayalyzer with charge time reduction
"Damage bonuses affect both regular and charge attacks"
Yeah, that. My Neutralizer already has an extremely quick charge time, Damage bonus appears like it is much more effective. (Appears...).
@Seiran the ATH is not a good place to be testing damage. Shuffle bots are not weak to shadow etc. (or even elemental I do not think) and have a very low damage cap.
Please go to depth 28 for damage comparing. The bigger the numbers taking advantage of what one normally would, the more accurate the results and they are much easier to work with.
@andyspace
cool
@rawrcake
Damage cap aside, if VH attack boost is enough to change 16 to a 20 damage, I'm sure you'd see SOME difference for a 41 damage shot. Weaknesses wouldn't really change that much.
I'll take both guns in a t3 run for a bit just for the sake of getting some numbers :3
Editing this as I go...
[Depth 19 - Very High attack]
VS Wolvers (dear god.)
Neutralizer: 81 | 148 charge
Biohazard: 81 | 133 charge
VS Polyp? (the jelly turrets)
Neutralizer: 81 | 148 charge
Biohazard: 128 | 178 charge
[Depth 20 - no attack boost]
Neutralizer: 66 | 161 charge <-- this should be proof enough.
Biohazard ----- didn't use, graveyard lol
Just look at the numbers (at least for Neutralizer) and you can see : The charge damage goes up (depth bonus) even though you LOSE 4 stages of attack. Normal attack goes down, as expected.
I'm sure you'd see SOME difference for a 41"
Your mind set for comparing damage is that you would see more of a difference, not "at least some so even better than these numbers." That has to be accounted for when you compare damage in the first place.
Also, your numbers will be off because you should use no damage bonus, heated at 10 just for the sake of that being the go-to for all gun damage numbers for comparison. You should also use depth 28 since that seems to be the place where people would optimize their bonuses based on.
The neutralizer has a higher damage charge explosion compared to the bio because Bio sacrifices raw damage for a poison.
Also, that proof you have is just proof that damage increases with the deeper depth more than a very high damage bonus with a charge attack. The very high damage bonus was more durastic on the normal attacks than the deeper depth damage increase.
At least this is what I am guessing.
...eh.
[Depth 19 - Very High attack]
Neutral monster (beast)
Neutralizer: 81 | 148 charge
Biohazard: 81 | 133 charge
[Depth 19 - no attack boost]
Neutral monster (beast)
Neutralizer: 61 | 148 charge
Biohazard: 61 | 133 charge
Biohazard (with poison): 70 | 144 charge
There. Same depth.
The only thing I'm trying to prove here is that damage boost does not affect your charge.
I'm not trying to get the optimized wiki numbers. Just patterns.
Training hall: Biohazard has a weaker raw charge than Neutralizer. Gun damage boost has no effect on charge.
T3: Biohazard has a weaker raw charge than Neutralizer. Gun damage boost has no effect on charge.
That said, on topic, charge isn't the magical thing you really think it is. I'm sure it's a bunch of fun if you can get a bunch of catalyzers in the party, but it's only worth if it you're running and trying to corral a group together.
Ah I see. I had no idea what you were explaining, sorry.
That is definately interesting. They really need to change that...
well, when you stack charge attacks, and detonate them with the normal attack, they dont each detonate like in a chain.they all detonate in one big explosion(of course the explosion size depends on how many chrages you set on it) just thought id tell ya that in case ya didnt know.