Talk:Strun Wraith/@comment-108.71.25.35-20130924030612/@comment-13117751-20130928094909

This one is tricky to answer. Bullet-for-Bullet the Strun wraith will beat the sobek, but we already knew that.

It really depends on the time frame window for which you are considering your "DPS".

If we set up the Sobek to go for raw damage versus a Strun Wraith for raw damage (I'll get to crit consideration in a second), you'll find that the Sobek actually keeps up with the Strun Wraith due to sheer raw fire rate. So if I look at the time frame it would take to empty a sobek magazine, it actually outpaces the Strun Wraith in terms of damage dealt.

There's a caviat to this, of course. Firstly, you have to chew through 20 rounds of ammunition (more, obviously, if you're using ammo stock on either respective gun) to outdo the Strun Wraith's significantly fewer shots. Secondly, if you consider ANY time window longer than how long it takes to dump a sobek magazine, the Strun Wraith comes out the clear victor since a Sobek user has to take a huge break to reload whereas the Strun Wraith user would be able to continue shooting the remaining magazine, reload, and shoot some MORE before the sobek user even finished loading.

Okay, to consider crit in the equation since that's a popular modification setup for many Strun Wraith users...

Here's the reality, with the recent minor nerfs to the Strun Wraith's crit damage modifier, and the already low Shotgun mod card crit modifiers, the Strun Wraith crit build isn't actually as pronounced as what you witness on assault rifles. In fact, the damage gain is "mediocre" at best. Blunderbuss only increases your critical chance by 60%, and Ravage only boosts critical damage by 60%. That means your critical damage modifier would be 1.8 * 1.6 = 2.88, a gain of 108%. Your new (average) critical chance would be 0.2 * 1.9 = 0.38, a gain of 18%. This is an average raw gain of 19.44% damage, at the cost of 18 mod points. The sobek, having relatively no crit to speak of, is 'simplified' by focusing purely on a raw damage build. A SW user (we're assuming they're equally limited in mod space and are both willing to forma as necessary) trying to use a crit build will have to sacrifice raw damage space that the sobek user isn't restricted to...so switching to a crit build wouldn't really change much in the comparison.

tl;dr:

Consider your time frame. Over short intervals (less than the time it takes to dump 20 sobek shots) the sobek actually does MORE damage than the Strun Wraith.

Over medium--long intervals (factoring the time it takes to reload and re-engage a target) the Strun Wraith will simply do more raw damage due to its much higher base, shorter reload time, and ammo efficiency.

Crit builds don't actually make a significant difference in the comparison due to their relatively high mod cost for average damage increase.