gaming Stable vs Burst Damage

[Xievie 498]

When it comes to videogames and dealing damage, there are two different ways to do so.

 

The first is stable damage. Stable damage usually consists of faster but weaker attacks. You might also see them with quickly ticking DoTs or some sort of continuous fire turret.

 

The second is burst damage. Burst damage consists of slower, more powerful bursts of damage. You tend to see them relying on crit.

 

Here is a simple DPS race between the two.

Stable:

15000

17000

20000 CRIT

16000

15000

17000

 

Burst:

30000

Cooldown

27000

Cooldown

45000 CRIT

Cooldown

 

Now, don't base your decision off of this. It's not accurate because one may land a critical hit and another may not.

 

I chose burst damage because PvP suits me. In games with PvP, I'm sure somebody might try to do some hit-and-run strategy or something, and it's better to hit higher damage hits, then get back into range rather than do quicker, weaker attacks before having to get into range.

[Celtore 2,770]

I love burst damage as well, it's why I loved playing an air elementalist in Guild Wars. It's pretty useful to catch an opponent off guard, your opponent seeing their health bar suddenly drop from a large chunk of damage is a lot more startling than someone running up to them and hitting them with consistent but moderate damage.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Celtore

[Mutemutt 773]

Well, in MMOs (which is usually the only times I ever see people talk about DPS'ing) I usually play a healer so... stable damage, I guess 

 

Still, in a variety of games I prefer stable damage over burst damage. If I look at fighting games, I prefer characters with good methods of delivering damage over those that can deliver really high damage but only in a select few situations. I like the reliability of stable damage.

Edited August 25, 2013 by MuteMutt

[Scootalove 10,689]

I'm comfortable with burst damage. I use stealth to try to catch my opponent off guard, then when they are distracted I start to attack slowly but my bursts do a lot of damage. Going to up to an opponent, hitting them with consistent attacks could lead to you running out of energy or getting too tired to defend yourself.

[~Silver Essence~ 2,625]

It depends on what game am I playing.

 

Most of the times I usually go with burst damage in hard games, and stable damage in co op games.

[Umbreon 569]

In MMO's I normally play a tank, so I like stable damage...  Much easier to mitigate, hehehe.  But if I'm playing a damage character, I like both depending on what kind of mood I'm in.  Burst is great for PvP or particular fights where a boss might have a "vulnerable" stage, but there's something kinda relaxing about being able to put out a steady stream of numbers without too much stress.

[FabulousJeremy 48]

As someone who is active in MOBAs, I love marksmen esque champs.  The playstyle of outsmarting, outpositioning, and whittling down your opponents is fun to me.

[Jessper 735]

Generally, I'd say stable - I'm all about statistics and tactics in MMOs (it's serious stuff!) and I like to have a good idea about what exactly is my next hit going to do.

Now, that could be with burst too, but that generally tries to sneak in critical strikes and another similar RNG rolls and I'm trying to avoid that.

 

I mean, hey, it can't be really simplified into 2 groups. You have heavy damage with long cast/cd, you have extreme and fast damage hit'n'run glass cannons, you have DoT builds that essentially guarantee kill once you shoot it all on someone, you have characters that can kill other in 2 seconds but rely on scoring critical strikes...

 

So my category would be the one that limits the number of RNG as much as possible, which I guess would be stable... maybe. Then again, if the question is "dagger that hits 12 times  / 10s for 50 OR greatsword that hits 3 times  / 10s for 200" then I don't know, one prolly should change depending on the context, yes?

[Evilshy 5,090]

I find stable damage to be much more reliable. Misses, not-critical hits, shields, etc are a lot less forgiving to bursty players. Say you have 2 spells that, combined, kill your opponent. That sounds good on paper, but say your opponent dodges one, or has a shield that just eats one of the spells? Now you're left with long-ass cooldowns while they get a free reign until your spells are back up. They might not kill you, but they can chip you down or throw on some debuffs/DoTs, and then get out before you can touch them again. And anyway, even if all your stuff hits, what if it doesn't quite finish them? If you're up against a tanky fighter, you'll usually lose.

 

I'm also a primarily defensive player, so I like to stay in a defensively superior position and whittle you down until I can either end you, or you have to stop attacking because it's too risky for you to get close to me. I should point out, though, this is different from tanky defensive. I like stable-ish damage dealers and then play them defensively, even if I don't build them defensively. I prefer to wait for you to come to me so I can react to your attacks and nullify them as much as I can, allowing me to counterattack with far less risk of getting killed.

In co-op, I also play a lot of support roles. I like to stay on the edge, out of immediate danger, but close enough to influence the battle and give my team the advantage.

 

I can and do play other roles, but those are my preferred ones.

[Meirno 550]

I'm a huge burst damage guy. Lately I've been playing World of Tanks and it really reflects on my preference. Heavy tanks, Tank Destroyers with derp guns. I will happily take one smashing and possibly insta-kill shot above several small blows any day, any game. 

 

But the reason why is funny. 

 

It is so much more satisfying whenever that damage roll pops up on screen and is 4-6 times more than what your enemy hit on you

[Flying Space Badger 84]

I will preface my decision by giving some history on my gaming background.

 

I started playing MMOs with EverQuest around 99/2000 with a rogue simply because of their damage output. By the time I quit the game for EQ2, my guild had assigned two healers just to me for when I ripped agro and got mulched by whatever raid mob we were pounding on. Their entire job was to rezz the rogue so he could rip agro with another 500k double backstab, Those cleric hated me.

 

When I moved to EQ2, I decided to try out a wizard. It seemed like pretty solid sustained DPS until I hit the higher levels (One of the 2011-2012 updates I think) and she became a burst oriented face melting god for 30 seconds. It was glorious.

 

I moved to Guild Wars 2 when it launched and built an air traited elementalist, and well, you can likely see the direction this is going.

 

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