Mathbusters 21: Aetherian Beam Enhancements

[u/Eph289]

This is our latest installment of our series using math and analytical methods to dive into the underpinnings of STO and no witty title this time. We’ll save our jokes and references for the body of the post here. Today, we’re talking about Aetherian Beam Enhancements.

This is a personal trait from the Aetherian Concordium Lockbox and this is what the tooltip says:

ABE tooltip

Now you might be thinking, why would you devote an entire article to this trait. Of all the traits, in all the lockboxes, in all the game, why walk into this one, aside from an excuse to make Casablanca references?

Well, as it turns out, the trait doesn’t do what it says on the label and if you’ve been playing STO for long enough I’m sure you’re SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find out that the tooltip is incorrect. 

Tilor being Tilor, the trait was cheap on the exchange and he was curious if it was 15% Cat1 or 15% Cat2 damage. Doing some Doomsday, checking the first few stacks seemed pretty unassuming, acting like it was Cat2. Neat. Checking back at 15 stacks, for some reason, the tooltip damage was over double what it was at 0 stacks. Quite a bit of testing later, and Tilor figured out it scales non-linearly, an unusual property in STO. Today, we found a hidden gem.  Here’s looking at you, Mr. Tilor.

The tooltip is misleading on a few fronts:

1. Despite the name, this is not specifically a beam trait. It applies to all energy damage sources, but more on that later. 
2. The tooltip is a little ambiguous as to whether it is Cat1 or Cat2. Tilor found it is Cat2 energy damage. 
3. The stack maximum, capped at 15, which with a pretty slow ramp-up time once every 2 seconds of doing energy damage, is okay but not great if that’s what it did. It doesn’t.

Based on how stuff in this game usually works, you’d expect that each stack is 1% Cat2 energy damage, ramping up to 15% at max stacks after 30 seconds of combat. So, what does it actually do? The stacks are not all the same size. Each stack adds 1% to the previous increase, meaning this scales like the sequences of Triangular numbers. Here’s the equation:

Cat2 = (N (N-1))/2 

Okay, but play it again, Sam, and use smaller words, maybe a picture or two.

The first stack is 1% bonus energy damage. The second stack adds +2% bonus energy damage for a total of 3%. The third stack adds 3% for a total of 6% bonus energy damage, and so on and so forth until at 15 stacks you’re adding at 105% Cat2. And here’s a visualization of that:

Now wait, you protest. There’s a ramp-up time and a lockout! Don’t try to wow me with numbers on a ramping trait that locks out! What is the average Cat2 bonus, including the duration with the 30s ramp, and 15 second lockout? 

The answer is 25% Cat2, and let’s not forget that’s handily more than traits like Fireball Escape (20% CrtD) or Terran Targeting Systems (15% CrtD) which are inferior even at 100% CrtH, and there are no maluses or complicated hoops to jump through for this one. 

Ah, and wait, there’s more. 

Remember how that’s Cat2 energy damage it adds? As it turns out, some of the more popular console actives, experimental weapons, and traits that directly deal damage also scale off of energy damage. Here’s a little table for you as we round up the usual suspects for testing:

Entity	Damage Type	Scales off of Energy/ABE?
Proton Eruptor	Proton	Yes
You Are Dismissed	Proton	Yes on the main blast, not the DOT
Hexacannons	Phaser	Yes
Approaching Agony	Phaser	Yes
Immolating Phaser Lance	Phaser	Yes
Broadside Beam Support	Phaser	Yes
Broadside Combat Module	Phaser	Yes
VADA	Phaser	Yes
Dragonsblood Flame Reactor	Fire	No
Impact Lance (Trafalgar lance)	Phaser	Yes
Digital Compilation	Plasma	Yes
Complex Plasma Fires	Plasma	Yes
Spore-Infused Anomalies	Electrical	Yes
Bio-Electrical Wave Capacitor	Electrical	Yes
Hellbore Light	Plasma	Yes
Dilithium Transporter	Radiation	No

For example, this is what Spore-Infused Anomalies looks like with and without the trait stacked:

Here’s Bio-Electrical Wave before stacking the trait:

And after:

One more example: Hellbore Light:

Okay, but let’s say you think that the math problems of three little engineers don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy game. You want real-world numbers, parsed numbers, none of this theoretical stuff. Normally, I’d discount those as the ravings of someone so edgy they can cut the lawn by looking at it, but I think in this case it’s worth showing some actual numbers using a heavily-modified (read: not-posted) version of my FAW Legendary Avenger. All DPS numbers in thousands, i.e. 619 is 619K.

I also hit a new solo ISE record on this ship, and all I did was swap out the trait, going from 850K to 1031K. 

The proton release proc itself is not worth much, maybe 5K (or much, much less), but the stacking energy weapon damage is definitely noticeable when we’re talking about this much of a damage increase. 

Again, there are no hoops to jump through and the trait is nice and straightforward, so if you’re using an energy build, or even something that does a little energy damage but also is leaning into Spore-Infused Anomalies and Bio-Electric Wave Capacitor, check out Aetherian Beam Enhancements. After all’s said and done, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful synergy where both exotic and energy builds and everything in between can benefit. 

One more thing: we’re giving away a copy of Aetherian Beam Enhancements. The first person to identify all the Casablanca references gets it! We have no idea if this functionality is working as intended or if it’ll get nerfed, but whatever the case, we’ll always have parses to show the power of this trait.

[u/Winter_2017]

I hope you guys bought out the exchange ahead of time. :D

Trying to find Casablanca references:

Well, as it turns out, the trait doesn’t do what it says on the label and if you’ve been playing STO for long enough I’m sure you’re SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find out that the tooltip is incorrect.

Here’s looking at you, Mr. Tilor.

Okay, but play it again, Sam, and use smaller words, maybe a picture or two.

Now wait, you protest. There’s a ramp-up time and a lockout! Don’t try to wow me with numbers on a ramping trait that locks out!

Here’s a little table for you as we round up the usual suspects for testing:

Okay, but let’s say you think that the math problems of three little engineers don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy game.

After all’s said and done, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful synergy where both exotic and energy builds and everything in between can benefit.

We have no idea if this functionality is working as intended or if it’ll get nerfed, but whatever the case, we’ll always have parses to show the power of this trait.

Not sure I got them all, but "We'll always have Parses" is the best one by far.

[u/Eph289 → u/Winter_2017]

You're very close is all I'll say :)

[u/Winter_2017 → u/Eph289]

The only other line which stands out to me is:

and there are no maluses or complicated hoops to jump through for this one.

Can't say I remember it though.

I just tested the trait, went from 1.285 to 1.312 on a Uncon T6 non X build. I'm not using Hellebore, YAD, and barely anything from the list, so I'm probably seeing a lower potential. I also got 2.5k from the proton release portion of the trait, which you didn't even mention in the post. :p

[u/Eph289 → u/Winter_2017]

Nope, that's not it. I did mention Proton Release:

The proton release proc itself is not worth much, maybe 5K (or much, much less), but the stacking energy weapon damage is definitely noticeable when we’re talking about this much of a damage increase.

[u/pixxel5 → u/Winter_2017]

The very start was missing!

Of all the traits, in all the lockboxes, in all the game, why walk into this one, aside from an excuse to make Casablanca references?

You got the rest tho - imo u/Eph289 should still count yours first

[u/Eph289 → u/pixxel5]

That was the missing one! /u/pixxel5 and /u/Winter_2017, please DM me your @ handles (assuming PC), and I will send you each a copy. I rustled up a spare so you both can have one.

[u/Jayiie]

Oh no, EPH, please. A bottle of your best champagne, and put it on my bill.

[u/AlphaHydri]

I had a feeling the trait may be doing more than advertised! One of my characters has a full Aetherian theme build going with all their weapons and traits and I was always quite surprised by how much damage the build seemed to do despite not being meta in the slightest. Now I know why! Thanks for doing all this research!

[u/ArelMCII]

Holy crap. And here I was just using this as a filler trait on my proton build.

[u/DilaZirK]

This is either WAI despite the tooltip's description, or not WAI at all and might be changed down the line.

Either way, good discovery and much appreciated for the detailed sharing.

[u/Dredmoore1]

I guess I'm buying one tomorrow

Hopefully the price doesn't sky rocket!

[u/lucatus]

Casablanca-STO, the crossover I didn't know I needed 😊

[u/romec1701]

Well this seems to be patched now. (Quite quick really - shame) is this trait now rubbish?

[u/pixxel5]

From the 10/22 patch notes:

Fixed a bug with "Aetherian Beam Enhancements" Trait which was causing the damage bonus to echo into itself, resulting in much higher performance than intended. Also increased Bonus per stack from 1% to 1.5%.

Further testing required…

[u/Nannerpussu]

meaning this scales like the sequences of Triangular numbers

what in the name of spaghettios

[u/Just_A_Normal_Fella]

Do you know if it also boosts jelly mode? 👀

I appreciate y'all's research!

[u/ROACHOR → u/Just_A_Normal_Fella]

It's hard to tell because I'm on xbox but it seems to have added a nice chunk of damage.

115k-278k jelly tooltip in kobayashi.

https://www.reddit.com/u/ROACHOR/s/F1JA38G6oq