I noticed my Unload damage on paper was a fair way ahead of what I was seeing in the logs. While investigating I noticed that the Barrage buff disappears when I cast Unload, where it used to persist until the end of the channel. So I did some testing and pinned down the problem: Barrage doesn't work.

Here's the test:

1) Removed all gear except for my level 1 starting blaster (which I saved for testing stuff!)

2) Removed all buffs except for High Velocity Gas Cylidar

3) Fired Tracer Missle 3 times at the Operations target dummy (for a consistant stack of the armor debuff)

4) Checked to see if I had Barrage then fired Unload

5) Used the MOX combat log reader to total up the damage of Unload

6) Repeated 20 times with Barrage, and 20 times without it

Here's the results:

With Barrage

864, 858, 952, 818, 887, 824, 789, 816, 781, 821, 851, 755, 817, 816, 825, 949, 788, 818, 819, 782

average 831.5

Without Barrrage

787, 814, 776, 848, 853, 851, 913, 852, 860, 819, 817, 888, 814, 857, 789, 946, 851, 817, 957, 924

average 851.65

Conclusion:

The fact that the damage with Barrage averaged out as LESS than the damage without is pretty telling. Also I got a lower minimum with Barrage than without, and a higher maximum without Barrage than with. So if anything, Barrage procs have reduced my damage (although I suspect that's just randomness at play, and that Barrage is doing nothing).

Wow, if this is true... We'll need more testing, but this'd be absurd if it turns out that another key aspect of the Arsenal spec has been destroyed. I feel like Mercs are slowly being bled out by BioWare.

I would love to see more testing being done. Lets get a definitive answer. I just cant imagine BW would maliciously destroy a class. That is just a childish way to view it imo. Sure it could be true ~ But come on they are a company out to steal your money.

You've raised something here I've been suspecting myself for a while. Glad someone has taken the time to test and post about it. Bugs like this are often difficult to detect and I'm sure the devs will appreciate a mass of control data they can use to help confirm and troubleshoot the problem if it exists.

So test parameters ?:

1) Get yourself a couple of lowbie blasters (the less stats the better)

2) Get nekkid and remove all buffs except high velocity gas cylinder

3) Ensure a full stack of Tracers

4) Document Unload damage 20x with Barrage procced and 20 times without

I'm sure if enough of us can correlate our data, we can get to the bottom of this

very nice.

I thought the tracer armor debuff didn't work anyways so no need to add 3 but why not eh?

eliminate any other random aspect.

(corrected math to represent 25% damage from barrage)

this is actually VERY easy to test.

let's take an example ...

my HIGH end damage on Unload = ~1500

my crit damage modifier = 77%

this means a high crit on Unload = ~ 2655 (1500 * 1.77)

now, if Barrage actually worked then my high crit WITH barrage would be:

1: 2655 * 1.25 = 3318

ANYWAYS, if this actually worked, then I would expect to see in my MANY MANY combat logs a FEW hits where I

did a HIGH crit during unload (AKA - a hit over 3000)

NEVER do I see this (just reviewed a TON of logs against bosses and trash)

My max hit is always right around the non-barrage crit number (~2655 with some DR thrown in so ~2400)

This is pretty sad assuming this basic math is correct.

You would expect to see in over 300 Unload attacks at least ONE +3000 hit ...

PLUS, to get BARRAGE you are actually DEBUFFING the mob at the same time AND you have a debuff stance ...

Makes me think NOTHING is working.

lol. Soo... basically none of the vital talents/mechanics of our Arsenal tree are actually working?

That's funny, because that would mean Mercs are not only gimped, but completely nonviable in any competitive sense.

It's not actually funny.

I bet they state it's a tooltip issue.

This is going to turn into Mythic patch land pretty soon, you'll see.

I too went through my combat logs today (as I'm currently specced pyro). I checked two logs:

- the first questing during the Rakghoul event on various mobs

- the second during a HM DC raid covering several attempts where I was only dpsing Toth

It's clear that Barrage isn't working as simply as the tool tip states. Whether it's working as intended is, of course, debatable.

I'll ignore the first log as there's too many different variables across the various targets to glean much useful data, however a few hours spent solidly on Toth shows the average unload without Barrage totals 4112 damage and with barrage 4322. It's not a 25% difference by a long shot. However it's worth noting that Unload with Barrage is calculated from much much larger sample size (as you expect in a raid log).

A few interesting things I noted:

- off-hand shots hit for so little (70-150) that the 25% increase is indistinguishable within the normal range of hits

- Barrage often ends in the middle of unload

- Unload when Barrage hasn't activated often results in "Event Failed"

- When analysing individual shots of Unload an increase does *seem* to apply to normal shots, however it's difficult to tell within the range and it's not likely to be a 25% increase. This is much more noticable when comparing critical shots.

I will follow acnojs testing regime tomorrow when I spec back to Arsenal and post results.

stripped naked with a custom blaster no barrels/mods/enhancements in it. all of this is done with 5 stacks of heat signature on op dummy with High velocity gas cylinder

http://www.torparse.com/a/21154

Fight 1 unload with Barrage

Fight 2 (ignore messed up)

Fight 3 Unload without barrage proc

damage was almost identical

stripped naked with a custom blaster no barrels/mods/enhancements in it. all of this is done with 5 stacks of heat signature on op dummy with High velocity gas cylinder

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/21154

 

Fight 1 unload with Barrage

Fight 2 (ignore messed up)

Fight 3 Unload without barrage proc

 

damage was almost identical

thanks for the test. seems very obvious.

stripped naked with a custom blaster no barrels/mods/enhancements in it. all of this is done with 5 stacks of heat signature on op dummy with High velocity gas cylinder

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/21154

 

Fight 1 unload with Barrage

Fight 2 (ignore messed up)

Fight 3 Unload without barrage proc

 

damage was almost identical

I'm confused on how it's almost identical:

Fight 1 - Duration: 3:14

Fight 3 - Duration: 4:31

Fight 1 - Number of Hits: 239

Fight 3 - Number of Hits: 619

Fight 1 - Damage: 31304

Fight 3 - Damage: 27550

Fight 1 - Unload: Average DPS 68.87

Fight 3 - Unload: Average DPS 40.62

Fight 1 was 1:17 shorter, you did 380 less hits [i'm assuming because you had to use Rapid Shots to help with Heat], but did +3754 more damage and on average the DPS for Unload was higher.

This is just looking at the overview though, and not individual hits.

I'm confused on how it's almost identical:

This is just looking at the overview though, and not individual hits.

BOTH had a max hit for Unload = 103 ... if Barrage worked then you should expect to see a few hits > 103 as compared to the non-barrage parse.

Also, look at individual non-crit hits (103 was a crit). Both parses show between 65-68 damage.

If barrage worked then that 65-68 damage should NEVER be there in the barrage parse.

That would then switch to (65 * 1.25 = 81-85) damage. THis NEVER is the case in the barrage parse but SHOULD ALWAYS BE the case if barrage actually worked.

So, if Barrage worked, a normal Unload hit should be 80+ damage. Instead, it is the exact same damage as the non-barrage parse (65-68).

Yeah, looking at the individual hits it doesn't appear as though Unload is doing more damage, but this is what bugs me:

Fight 1: Unload

Avg. DPS - 68.87

Avg Hit - 69.7

Crt% - 9.9

Fight 3: Unload

Avg. DPS - 40.62

Avg Hit - 70.34

Crt% - 12.74

With Fight 1, you're average hit is lower, probably because your Crits were lower, but overall the average amount of DPS you did was higher. Hidden metric?

Same testing conditions as the op except instead of a level 1 blaster, all gear was removed except a BM Eliminators cannon put into an orange gun with augment slot filled. Also Rakata stim and force might were active while testing and remained throughout the entire test.

Results:

Curtain of fire proc avg. damage = 813.38

Without Curtain of fire proc avg. damage = 754.07

% difference = 7.3%

Total stats while testing:

Strength: 60

Presence: 355

Aim: 549

Cunning: 118

Endurance: 382

Will Power: 64

Expertise: 141

Full Auto - 716-983 weapon damage every second. That translates to an expected ~26% spread in damage between the min max non-crit hits.

% Spread of Full Auto with Curtain of Fire Proc = ~23%

% Spread of Full Auto without Curtain of Fire Proc = ~23.5%

Total damage done Full Auto with Curtain of Fire Proc = 17081

Total damage done Full Auto without Curtain of Fire Proc = 15503

% difference = 9.2%

Conclusion: considering the spread of the ability such a result with curtain of fire proc working correctly is highly unlikely, unless there is some hidden mechanic going on here.

Yeah, looking at the individual hits it doesn't appear as though Unload is doing more damage, but this is what bugs me:

 

Fight 1: Unload

Avg. DPS - 68.87

Avg Hit - 69.7

Crt% - 9.9

 

Fight 3: Unload

Avg. DPS - 40.62

Avg Hit - 70.34

Crt% - 12.74

 

With Fight 1, you're average hit is lower, probably because your Crits were lower, but overall the average amount of DPS you did was higher. Hidden metric?

you are being confused by what abilities are being used during the test.

In order to proc barrage you need to use Tracer Missile (ie: extra damage)

the non-barrage test he is just spamming Rapid Shots until Unload is ready again

Tracer Missile = more damage than Rapid Shots = higher dps

it is not a dps test however. it is a test of whether Unload gets an additional +25% damage when Barrage procs.

Which it does not.

I was looking at specifically "Damage Dealt Broken Down by Action" under "Damage Dealt", which seperates the amount of damage into abilities. The average DPS of your Unload ability is higher on Fight 1 then it is in Fight 3. Unless I'm still being confused because I'm much more of a "Is it dead yet?" player then breaking down in to specific numbers.

At the very least the cool down proc is working even if the +25% is not, meaning that [at least the way I'm looking at it] you're still capable of pulling down more damage if you have it enabled.

Guess its time to unsub.

Just finished my GW2 beta weekend...that was good stuff!

At the very least the cool down proc is working even if the +25% is not, meaning that [at least the way I'm looking at it] you're still capable of pulling down more damage if you have it enabled.

That's true, I didn't really intent to make a blanket statement that the talent didn't do anything (although in retrospect that's what I did), just draw attention to the bug so as to get it fixed.

A few interesting things I noted:

- Barrage often ends in the middle of unload.

I noticed this too in last nights raid. On the target dummy the Barrage buff dropped off the moment I hit Unload, but in the raid it dropped off half way through.

Thanks everyone who's added their tests and kept this thread bumped, hopefully Bioware reads and acts upon it.

I was looking at specifically "Damage Dealt Broken Down by Action" under "Damage Dealt", which seperates the amount of damage into abilities. The average DPS of your Unload ability is higher on Fight 1 then it is in Fight 3. Unless I'm still being confused because I'm much more of a "Is it dead yet?" player then breaking down in to specific numbers.

 

At the very least the cool down proc is working even if the +25% is not, meaning that [at least the way I'm looking at it] you're still capable of pulling down more damage if you have it enabled.

DPS per ability is affected by the length of the test and how often I cast unload. Since in the 3rd fight i had to wait at times for Barrage to fall off (hence the rapid shots you see so i don't drop out of combat and the boss dummy drops stacks) I had to cast unload less often in the timing of the test.

If my crit on both was exactly the same it would be easier to see based on AVG dmg Done per ability. since that is not the case you just have to look at min/max numbers and the log to see what the avg hits look like vs each fight.

Funny, My Barrage isnt vanishing during unload only after its done casting or the mob dies..

Are you getting the damage bonus?