Flintlocks of Brutality (Lv26) - in depth look

[JaytB]

Introduction


Some people, including myself, have been wondering about what's so special about those flintlocks of Brutality.


In order to find out, I bought myself a pair of those hot looking -pun intended- blades.


I tested them out and like to share the results here. That way, you can make an informed decision on whether or not they would be worth it for you or not.


Looks and stats

The orange smoke in the picture below is the 10seconds weapon proc being active (discussed later in this topic)





Let's take a look at the stats and compare them with the current fairly popular Depraved Blades of Potency (DBP)





As you can see in the picture above, the flintlocks have a lot less dps as compared the the DBP and you'll also sacrifice some int. On the other hand, the flintlocks add some Dmg and survivability (HP).


At first sight, it seems that the little increase in Dmg isn't worth the huge sacrifice in DPS.



Let's look into a little more detail...


1. Weapon attacks


Unlike the DBP, the flintlocks are actually Area of Effect (AOE) blades, meaning you'll Dmg multiple target with each tap of the attack button.


I think you can see it by looking at the weapon symbol. For mages for example, when a staff shows a whirlwind around it, it means it's an AOE staff. I only tested a few weapons, so I can't be 100% sure yet, but so far it seems as follows...


This symbol indicates an AOE weapon.


This would indicate a single target weapon.


As said, I'm not 100% sure, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.


Whatever the case may be, the flintlocks did AOE Dmg on normal weapon attacks, so basically they could possibly outperform the DBP in large mobs in therms of pure weapon Dmg.




2. Dual Procs


The flintlocks actually have 2 weapon procs that activate simultaneous, as can be read in the description below...





* The first one, the barrel explosion, basically procs an AOE explosion, damaging enemies that are in fairly close proximity.


Here's a short video to show the proc (sorry for the crappy quality). Watch for the very brief explosion of orange circles, that's the proc going off. You can see them in the very beginning of the video and around the 8 seconds mark again. Ow, and please don't say my skill build sucks, I was just trying out an alternative build... Again


http://youtu.be/Ph6ZrifqRUI




* The second proc is 15dex increase and lasts for 10 seconds.


The cool thing about it is that it procs even when there isn't an enemy around. In practice this means that it can be kept active, to get that nice amount of dex increase before attacking the next bunch of mobs.


Below I pasted a link to a video showing off the proc. As soon as the orange smoke appears, you'll know the proc is active. At the start of the video I'm showing my inspect page to show you the stats before the proc, while at the end I did the same but while the proc was active. You can see the 15dex added and the Dmg increase it brings with it.


http://youtu.be/uMizessCNZ4


The stats before the proc...



And after...



What's worthy of notice, because we're looking at a Dmg focussed build, is the increase in Dmg from 221.7 to 228.4 or another +6.7Dmg.


In the next topic about skill Dmg, it will make more sense what this means exactly.




3. Skill Dmg


I've made a topic in the sorcerers section a while back. It compared DPS vs Dmg. As with sorcerers (and probably warriors), rogues' skill Dmg is also linked with their Dmg stat in their stats screen. So basically, the higher your Dmg stat, the higher your skill Dmg. Or in other words, the more Dmg all of your skills do.


Let's compare skill Dmg of Aimed shot for DBP vs Flintlocks with and without the 15dex proc of flintlocks.


DBP



Skill dmg: 370-463


Flintlocks without weapon proc



Skill dmg: 385-482 (or +15min, +19max Dmg vs DBP)


Flintlocks with weapon proc (+15dex)



Skill dmg: 397-496 (or +27min, +33max Dmg compared to DBP)




Conclusion


Because of it's AOE weapon attack, AOE Dmg (barrel) proc and 15dex increase proc, the flintlocks seems, on 'paper' at least, to (more than?) make up for their lack of single target DPS as compared to DBP.


In therms of skill Dmg, especially when keeping that 15dex proc charged, it should provide a noticeable Dmg increase as all Dmg skills (including all of your DOT's -Damage over Time-) will deal more pain to your opponents.


Personally, I think the weapon is best suited for fast elite mob killing. The AOE/skill Dmg increase should make killing mobs quicker. I haven't tested it a lot yet, I simply wanted to share the details about this weapon here.




As always, your constructive feedback is appreciated