Linear Fusions haven't really been the talk
of the town since... well, ever really.
However, a couple of things happened recently
that may give a little bit of life to linear
fusions.
Number 1 is their precision damage got increased
by 20%, although this didn't end up affecting
Sleeper Simulant.
Number 2 is the target acquisition at close
to medium ranges was significantly increased.
I DEFINITELY noticed this increase from Season
8 to Season 9 when using Arbalest in PvP.
I was using it in Season 8 to get a triumph
done and it was a terrible experience at best.
Then, Season 9 rolls around and I grind out
my 125 linear fusion kills for the Komodo
4FR Crucible ritual weapon in less than dozen
games.
All of a sudden, using Arbalest was dare I
say actually fun in PvP.
But, we're not here to talk about PvP today.
Today, we're here to talk about Line in the
Sand, the Season 9 linear fusion that came
with Sundial.
What makes Line in the Sand special is that
it is the only linear fusion rifle that can
roll with Firing Line in the entire game.
Firing Line is a 25% precision damage increase
when you're near 2 or more fireteam members.
As you might know, Firing Line is probably
the one perk that can actually keep stuff
like legendary snipers in contention as boss
killing weapons vs. exotic weapons.
And early in the season, there was a lot of
talk about Line in the Sand and its damage
capabilities.
So, you can probably guess where this is going.
Oh, and it's also the only linear fusion rifle
in the game that can get Rapid Hit, allowing
for super fast reloads without having to kill
something and without the need for Rally Barricade
or Lunafactions.
Rapid Hit x5 and Rally Barricade are approximately
the same speed in terms of reloads.
We did determine that auto-loading holster
is important for DPS and rotating your weapons,
but seeing as Firing Line AND Holster are
in the same column of perks, linear fusions
would need a substantial buff to make Holster
better than Firing Line.
I tested a range of Line in the Sand linear
fusions with Rapid Hit at various charge speeds,
466, 500, 533, 553 and 566.
All testing was done on the boss Ogre in the
Tribute Hall with 960 Line in the Sand Linear
Fusions, with the exception of the 466, which
is at 964.
However, the damage increase is not statistically
significant.
I was at 979 power when doing these tests.
Charge speed and damage per shot on linear
fusions are linked: the faster the charge
speed, the lower the damage and this includes
the charge masterwork.
As we can see here, the 466 charge speed shot
deals just under 20,000 damage, while the
566 deals 21.5 thousand damage.
What I would like to do is see if faster charge
speeds end up giving you higher or lower DPS
compared to slower speeds.
The charge time equals how many milliseconds
it takes to fire a shot, so 466 would be 466
milliseconds.
To test this out, I fired 5 shots as fast
and consistently as I could on each charge
speed that I had available to me, which were
466, 500, 533 and 566, although I could not
for the life of me get a 566 variant of Line
in the Sand with Firing Line, so I got a 553
instead.
However, the 553 and 566 charge speeds are
so close, that I feel we could just add on
a tiny bit of damage to our result and be
fine.
For our 466 charge speed Line in the Sand,
it takes us about 4.5 seconds from the first
frame where I see the charge animation starting
via particle effects on my screen until the
5th shot is shot from the magazine.
This is our highest possible damage window
because it negates any post-final shot downtime
and reloads.
At 500 speed, it's 4.66 seconds, at 533 it's
4.833 seconds and at 566, it's 5 seconds.
All we need to do now is toss in our damage
numbers.
466 charge speed at 964 deals 24,595 with
Firing Line.
5 shots is 122,975 damage in 4.5 seconds,
DPS of 27,328.
500 charge speed at 960 deals 25,288 with
Firing Line.
For the record, the 964 version dealt a whopping
101 damage more.
5 shots is 126,440 damage in 4.66 seconds,
DPS of 27,133.
If we use the 964 version, our DPS is 27,241.
Our charge speed increased and our DPS dropped
a little bit.
And that trend will continue.
533 charge speed at 960 deals 26,079 damage
with Firing Line.
5 shots is 130,395 damage in 4.83 seconds,
DPS of 26,996.
So, just on this alone, it's pretty safe to
assume that you want a faster charging Line
in the Sand if you want higher DPS.
However, for greater total damage, if each
individual shot counts, you want slower charging.
But, for example, is a 300 DPS difference
really that noticeable in the grand scheme
of the game?
A 1.2% difference in this case?
Absolutely not.
Let's throw some mods into the mix, Boss Spec
and Backup Mag.
WIth our 466 Line in the Sand with Boss Spec,
no Firing Line, our damage is 21,227 per shot.
If we want to add our 25% bonus with Firing
Line, we can, but for this test, it is not
needed.
106,135 damage in 5 shots, divided by 4.5
seconds, 23,586 DPS.
With Backup Mag, we get a 6th shot, which
now requires 5.5 seconds of time commitment
for lower damage per shot.
19,697 times 6 is 118,182 damage, divided
by 5.5 seconds, that's 21,488 DPS, which is
about 2,000 lower than boss spec.
So, if I'm looking to use this thing for boss
damage, boss spec is the play.
Is there any combination of Line in the Sand
that could beat the 466 speed, boss spec version?
The only one I can really imagine is a 500
charge speed, 6 in the mag, boss spec version,
with Rapid Hit.
That's a charge masterwork, with Ionized Battery,
and Rapid Hit.
I have this roll, but I didn't want to spend
17 cores on it, so I simulated it instead.
6 shots at 500 charge speed takes 5.72 seconds
to perform.
With boss spec, we are dealing 21,913 damage
per shot, giving us 131,478 damage in that
amount of time.
Sounds like it could beat it, buuuuuuut, we
end up with 22,985 DPS, which is 600 DPS less
than our 466 charge version.
What about over the long term?
Let's say 15 shots, 3 magazines worth?
Who is the winner there?
Well, I'm going to spare you here.
I did 2 simulations, one with the 466 charge
speed and one with 566 charge speed.
And over the course of 15 shots for each of
the weapons, both with Rapid Hit, the DPS
difference between the two was...
43.
43 damage per second.
In favor of the 566.
This is a number so small that it could've
been influenced by my potentially non-perfectly
timed shooting, we're talking fractions of
fractions of seconds here.
So, you could grab a 566 Line in the Sand
compared to a 466 and it literally would not
make a difference.
However, the amount of times you're shooting
15 linear fusion shots in a row at Rapid Hit
x5 is probably not that often and I prefer
higher DPS than total damage most of the time.
Real quick, when it comes to auto-loading
holster vs. firing line, I'll shave a generous
2 seconds off of our reloads, I'm assuming
you're playing really well.
And Firing Line still blows auto-loading holster
out of the water, by about 2,000 DPS.
In fact, I think for auto-loading holster
to beat Firing Line in terms of DPS, you would
need to be able to fire 15 shots faster than
the game actually allows you to shoot.
This isn't to say that auto-loading holster
is a bad get, because in stuff where you can't
be next to teammates all the time for DPS,
Firing Line does literally nothing.
Alright, we have our Firing Line DPS numbers
floating around 27,000.
How does that fare against some other weaponry?
We talked about Sole Survivor earlier in the
video, let's test against that.
Sole Survivor at 960 does 14,322 damage per
shot without Firing Line, we'll multiply by
25% to get our FIring Line damage value, which
is 17,902.
I did 5 shots to equal our Line in the Sand
shooting for now.
17,902 times 5 is 89,512 damage, which is
well below our total damage from earlier.
But, we're shooting at a rate of 90 RPM, and
we can shoot 5 shots, with the 5th shot landing
in 2.67 seconds at max rate of fire.
Which gets us DPS of 33,525, which is pretty
substantially higher than Line in the Sand.
Not to mention that I have Triple Tap on my
Sole Survivor, which enables me to shoot for
even longer without having to reload.
That means even more DPS for Sole Survivor
if you have those perks.
And, I wasn't using boss spec either.
Two big distinctions to make though: Sole
Survivor is far more difficult to farm for
in terms of time investment, while you can
get up to 4 Line in the Sands for about 10
minutes of work.
The other is that one uses special ammo, Sole
Survivor, while Line in the Sand uses power
ammo, which is much less common.
How about against the holy grail of linear
fusions, Sleeper Simulant?
Sleeper did not get the linear fusion precision
damage buff, so let's see how it's doing.
34,201 damage per shot, with a magazine of
3 shots, with a charge speed of 773 because
we have the catalyst.
We get a time of 3.36 seconds from the first
charging of the shot, to the third shot leaving
the magazine.
34,201 times 3 is 102,603, divided by 3.36
seconds gets us DPS of 30,536.
But keep in mind that this DPS value is right
before our DPS nose dives because of the animation
of the 3rd shot and the reload.
So while it does technically outperform Line
in the Sand under a 1 magazine condition,
it's not by a ton.
Not to mention that Sleeper is an exotic AND
I have the catalyst too.
Without the catalyst, these numbers get even
closer.
And, if I throw on boss spec to a Firing Line
Line in the Sand, we get even closer than
that.
And just for fun, we'll test against one of
the current champions, Izanagi's Burden, since
I heard some rumblings very early in the season
that Line in the Sand was actually out-DPSing
Izanagi's Burden.
The ol' Burden deals 15,158 damage per shot,
getting 4 shot per mag.
That's 60,632 damage in about 2 seconds.
Which is 30,316 DPS, still not beating out
Line in the Sand, although it's close.
The clip I used in the video was 2.33 seconds
for 4 shots, which actually tanks our DPS
down to 25,989, so if you're not firing at
maximum rate of fire with Izanagi's, then
Line in the Sand is better, again, assuming
you fire at max rate of fire.
But, let's test the real Izanagi's.
With a catalyst, with Honed Edge x4, we get
67,117 damage in a single shot, but we're
gonna fire off 5 shots to really get a good
comparison, reloads and all.
It takes 9.72 seconds to fire 5 Honed Edge
x4 shots using the same timing as earlier.
335,585 damage in 9.72 seconds is 34,525 DPS,
a pretty notable increase compared to Line
in the Sand's best DPS window.
The difference here is that with Izanagi's,
we are now out of ammo, which might seem like
a win for Line in the Sand.
But, to equal Izanagi's damage, we need to
fire 14 line in the sand shots, which takes
much longer to do.
All in all, is Line in the Sand the new god
tier damage weapon?
Nah.
But, it can at the very least compete with
something like Sole Survivor and if linear
fusions happen to get another buff, or something
gets nerfed, then Line in the Sand with Firing
Line and Rapid Hit might become a better option.
Based on what we saw here, it seems like the
best bang for your buck will be a charge masterwork,
accelerated coil, Rapid Hit, Firing Line version
of the weapon, pretty specific.
However, because the variations don't have
massive differences between them, especially
over the long term, any Rapid Hit/Firing Line
version will work just fine.
I've very frequently seen feedback saying
that linear fusions should just be moved into
the special ammo slot and taken out of the
power slot.
I know I've seen this feedback for swords
as well, and while I would agree with this
more than I would agree with swords, I just
don't know if throwing underperforming weapons
into other weapon slots is the best idea.
At the moment, it sure seems like Linears
could be dropped into the special slot for
PvE solely based on their damage alone.
I don't know the ramifications of what would
happen if linears were moved.
Arbalest is already in the special slot and
doesn't really cause too many problems in
PvE, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
I just don't know enough to say whether it
would be a good or bad idea.
Anyway, that's what I have for you on Line
in the Sand.
Thanks for watching.
