Maximum Single target DPS (Vehicile take down)

[MykC]

I'm looking at the Eldar Farseer and Space Marine Captain to take down vehicles (SM Dreads, Ork Kanz, Eldar Walkers, Tyranid Carnivex) as fast as possible.

Eldar:
Pistol -- +30% DPS, +25% Movement
Dagger -- 20.0 DPS, 1.3 Cool Down
Accessory: +40% DPS
Accessory: Psyhic damage to target (after about 1.3s)

Or SM:
Plasma Pistol -- +30 DPS, ? armor reduction to target of ?s
Power Axe -- 19.0 DPS, 2.0 cool down, Ignores up to 100 Armor

To make things simple, each +30% cancel and the DPS of each weapon cancel.

What we have is:
Ignore 100 armor vs +40% DPS
I think these are about the same. Not sure.

Ignore ? armor for ?s if hit by the plasma pistol (75% AC) vs ? damage from Psyhic.
This one is far more difficult to compare.

Any ideas on what would be better or a way to improve the damage?

[Buguba]

Any ideas on what would be better or a way to improve the damage?

If vehicle and elite infantry killing is what you're after, I would worry less about DPS and more about durability. Vehicles do a ton of damage, and there's rarely a time when you'll out-DPS them. Even if you do, vehicles are tough nuts to crack, and then they'll just outlast you.

By consequence, the Captain is a better choice to take on vehicles by default, due to the fact that he can tank so much better than the Farseer can with extra health/health regen.

It can definitely work for the Farseer too, however. In this case, I would leave the Witchblade of the Crone alone and go for the Singing Spear instead (as it prevents the vehicle or elite infantry from knocking you down). Runes of Fortune are mandatory as well, seeing as the Fortune ability will fully halve the damage the Farseer takes. That will give her the durability she needs to last in a CC fight. Don't waste your time on the Runes of Warding though. Fortune lasts longer, recharges faster, and is much cheaper to cast (10 energy as opposed to 25 energy). This means that Fortune makes a good team ability as well.

Second strike is really good to take as well, but largely redundant if you already have a high DPS weapon equipped. It will pigeon-hole your Farseer into ONLY taking down elite units, because second-strike is useless against hordes. You'll want that accessory slot open for other things, like Conceal, Confuse, Fortune, etc. Only take second-strike if you plan on equipping the Witchblade of Isha (the energy boosting Witchblade), due to the atrocious damage the blade has by itself.

The absolute best way to take down vehicles and heavy infantry though is to avoid CC altogether and go for ranged weaponry instead. The Farseer is obviously gimped in this area, but the Captain is much more suited for vehicle killing when equipped with a Plasma Gun and Jetpack than he is with the Axe. That's because you don't have to worry at all about tanking the monster vehicle CC damage, and you'll deal just as much damage as you would normally.

[DNA61289]

If you want to go CC with a vehicle, I would suggest using the chainsword and plasma pistol. Even though the axe does very good dps, it won't prevent you from dieing and it has a slower attack rate. The chainsword will do 30% more damage because of the pistol, and it will give you health back with every strike.

But, as Buguba said the best way is to go ranged and get the dreadnought, people say hes crap but honestly I like him better than OB.

[Arbit]

I was pretty successful with a melee farseer with FoF, confuse, the starter melee blade, speed pistol, eldritch storm (all I have at this point for a commander item), and the +40% melee/ranged accessory (no fortune). Lots of confuse and hit and run - confuse the walker, than chop it up while it's chopping something else up. It works pretty well until the deff dread level - FoF will not save you from the big shootas strapped to the kanz and they eventually wear you down!

[FooF]

If you want to go Walker hunting:

+70% damage with pistol and War, 40 DPS blade, EVASION, Fortune and Armor of Vaul

Walkers attack slowly and if they have a 30% chance to outright miss, when they do, they're not hitting you again for some time. Even if they do hit you, with Fortune they're doing vastly reduced damage. You can easily go toe-to-toe with any Walker one on one, though you rarely ever get the chance to.

Second Strike is useful but like Buguba said, it doesn't help you against swarms at all. The extra 70% is still pretty hefty. I haven't really tried the top-tier Spear against Walkers (with that 10% chance to do "massive damage") so I don't know if that means anything or not.

:edit: tried the spear. I'm underwhelmed by its damage (even with the +40%) but against the first Wraithlord on wave 12, I got it to about half health when all of a sudden it went down instantly. That is to say, the "massive damage" proc can at least take out a Wraith at half health. However, I easily hit it 5-6 times before it proc'd to the big hit. If you have a 1:10 chance to proc the strike, you might get lucky against a Walker and nearly one-shot the sucker but I don't think the Spear is the best weapon against Walkers.

[MykC]

Well, the Power Axe kills things like twice as fast with the extra DPS and the armor piercing. The faster you kill things the less DPS you take. The main reason I want to max the dps, is in waves 16-19 we like to corner, but these areas often spwan a pair of heavy targets, boss and tank or two tanks. So, taking those down asap allows us to maximize the nukes and keep us safe.

[Buguba]

:edit: tried the spear. I'm underwhelmed by its damage (even with the +40%) but against the first Wraithlord on wave 12, I got it to about half health when all of a sudden it went down instantly. That is to say, the "massive damage" proc can at least take out a Wraith at half health. However, I easily hit it 5-6 times before it proc'd to the big hit. If you have a 1:10 chance to proc the strike, you might get lucky against a Walker and nearly one-shot the sucker but I don't think the Spear is the best weapon against Walkers.

I was talking about the singing spear. It's too bad, because it's pretty much equivalent to the starting blade, but it takes away an essential pistol slot. No knockback is extremely helpful though, especially against some of the later waves where tankbustas, warriors, raveners, and grenades are all working to keep you on your back.

[Out1aw]

I was talking about the singing spear. It's too bad, because it's pretty much equivalent to the starting blade, but it takes away an essential pistol slot. No knockback is extremely helpful though, especially against some of the later waves where tankbustas, warriors, raveners, and grenades are all working to keep you on your back.

Don't forget that the spears changes the special attack rate to 15%. It's the main draw to me, though I almost always stick with the swift movement pistol and caster sword. Or once in a while the level 19 spear for the lol disruption of warp pull. Mostly I just notice what I miss about whatever wargear I don't have equiped.

[MykC]

I really like the the unshakable spear.

Cons:
1.0 DPS less.
-30% overall dps.
+0.7 cooldown (reduces how often special will trigger and reduces how often the pyshic attack will trigger).
-25% speed.

Pro:
+5% special
Unshakable

Unshakable can increase survivability and DPS if you can't be knocked down against targets (like ork) that spam knockdown.

[Makille]

But the attack animation takes absolutely forever. I found that equipping it makes me die more often because of this, not less. Using the swift pistol + caster sword, you can run up to an elite squad, kill them and run away, all the while kiting the rest of the enemy.

With the spear, you are slow in the first place, so you can't kite. The animation takes forever, so you have to spam click to run and hope you get out of range of enemies before they start shooting at your immobile self. And you have less energy generation, leaving you with no support spells: which is your main job.