AR #2 Chip Full Analysis
For a general review of all new equipment types, see this page. For a detailed look into the #2 processor chip, read on.
Contents#
- Basic information
- General principles
- Scope selection
- ITIs
- Night
- Low-rarity
- Budget equipment calculator
- Conclusion
Basic information#
- A max calibrated/gold/+10 #2 chip provides +15 FP, +25 ROF, and -50% critical damage. As usual for equipment, these are additive and applied before fairy auras/tiles/skills/etc.
- Chips use the exo slot, and can be equipped by ARs and SMGs.
- -50% critical damage puts you at 100% net critical damage, so no increase at all on a crit. Fairy auras, skills, and such can bring this back up (example with Command: (1.5-0.5)*1.36=1.36=136% crit damage, a slight reduction from the baseline).
- New equipment options do not make anything weaker. Your ST AR-15 can shoot things exactly the same way she could before. They can only make things less strong relative to new options.
- This page focuses on ARs. For some example numbers on how it works with SMGs, see this bit for Shrimp. As SMGs can make use of an exo's evasion, a comprehensive comparison of their equipment is more challenging.
General principles#
First question - is the critical damage penalty crippling? Let's compare an EOT+Chip setup to a VFL+Exo, without any tiles or other stuff in play.
Warmer colors mean an EOT+Chip is more DPS than a VFL+Exo. Minimum point on the chart is a +7% DPS improvement, and the maximum is +46% DPS (although those don't correspond to any real AR's stats). AR stats are thus low enough for the additive bonuses (+15 FP, +25 ROF) to be worth more than the 50% crit damage in a vacuum. Dolls with lower base stats benefit more, relatively, than those with higher base stats.
There are many complicating factors. As with most things that mess with ROF, frame breakpoints will make things vary. Sometimes an EOT and ITI result in the same effective ROF, other times the EOT will make you slower.
Raw FP buffs help a bit more against armor and are good for grenades. ROF gives better performance against weaker mobs and is particularly strong against Orthrus.
ROF is capped at 116, so ARs that buff their own ROF will be often be worse off with chips. As FP and ROF ARs put out similar pre-chip numbers, that means FP ARs should now generally be preferred as they can fully benefit from chips.
At night, almost all ARs are stuck with PEQs and care much less about crits. Chips are more universally useful there (and, with no scope alternatives, simpler to equip).
A number of exo-slot SPEQs were buffed to better compete with chips (full list of changes here). I may add more detailed analyses of those in the future, but you'll generally be fine using them in place of a chip (and as they tend to lack a crit damage penalty, no need to consider an EOT).
Scope selection#
Chips are looking pretty good. Now that we're ready to throw out most ROF-based ARs, let's see if VFLs will be unseated as the go-to AR scope.
A lot of factors combine to make some general rule-of-thumb or relationship impossible to give out. Damage simulators have a long list of issues, but you may be best off in many cases just simulating the team and seeing which scope/chip combination gives the best numbers. To help you distinguish between borderline and slam-dunk equipment selection cases, here are a few general charts.
A common claim is that you should pair the #2 chip with a VFL if you have 25% or more fairy crit damage, and an EOT otherwise. This is a bit of an oversimplification that is almost always wrong and ignores a number of important factors.
If given a specific doll, enemy stats, and buff situation (acc/ROF/crit rate/crit damage), you can plot the DPS difference of a VFL/chip and EOT/chip setup. A basic example:
If your doll & fairy combination falls above the 0% line, use a VFL. If they're below, use an EOT. Three variants: with more enemy evasion, with M4A1 & UMP45's tiles, with C-MS & JS 9's tiles. Note that G41 here is not using her SPEQ - consider her entry here to be as a generic FP buffer. 25% crit damage is sort of in the middle, but the crossover point can easily get as low as 10% or as high as 40%.
Even for a single doll it can vary: here's some charts with Medusa and her chip-like SPEQ (+3 FP over a normal chip). At level 90, she prefers a VFL much sooner because EOTs drop her down a frame. At level 99+, they no longer do and EOTs work better.
With a few more dolls:
Type95 and MDR have SPEQs that are solid upgrades over a VFL, so they prefer those sooner than usual.
You may also wonder if VFL+Exo setups could still be a thing at very high crit damage levels:
G41's "Exo" is her SPEQ (so use that over chips), and AK-12's ROF/crit rate selfbuffs are sufficient for her to prefer VFL+Exo setups over a VFL+Chip when her skill is active It trades a bit by configuration, but overall VFL+exo typically has an edge assuming good fairies. But this doesn't mean she does better than a different doll using an EOT/Chip.
For more specific ARs/cases:
Otherwise, the answer is no: a VFL+Chip will scale about as well as a VFL+Exo with crit damage, and it starts off much better. This chart style works nicely in terms of compactness, but if it's a little hard to understand here are two excerpts showing the raw DPS numbers:
"DPS" scaling is rather arbitrary - don't take the numbers there to mean anything. Note that these charts all use in-skill DPS - ROF selfbuffers will benefit similarly from chips while their skills are inactive. Thresholds may change if you are looking at their long-term (uptime-averaged) DPS instead of their short-term (burst) DPS.
While none of these line up too well with a supposed 25% threshold, the DPS difference for moderate crit damage auras usually aren't that big. You won't be too far off if you pick your scope based on a process like this:
For moderate levels of external crit rate/damage buffs, to check if you'll get a faster frame with a VFL: see this chart for what ROF corresponds to what frame, or this summary (which ignores SPEQs/ROF tiles). Keep in mind that this is still a bit of an oversimplification. Crit rate tiles, accuracy/rof, armor, in- and out-of-skill variations, and so on can make a difference.
Note that with no tiles/other factors, ROF selfbuffers usually still get slightly bigger numbers with chips (especially pre-skill DPS). However, any significant amount of ROF/crit rate tiles or crit damage fairies will usually make a VFL/exo better on them, so I would generally recommend VFL/exo setups on pure ROF selfbuffers like AUG, ACR, and Type97. In other words, that DPS advantage from chips mostly just exists in a vacuum.
ITIs#
If EOTs are an option, ITIs should be at least somewhat on the table. Naturally, accuracy and frames become the dominant factors. Considering relatively generic AR stats, here's how they stack up in a few configurations:
- No special support
- C-MS & JS 9 tiles (+ROF, +Crit rate)
- Damage II Taunt (+ACC)
At 0 enemy evasion, EOTs are always better than ITIs - the FP buff is worth it, even if you lose a frame. Against typical enemies with 15 EVA, ITIs are approximately equal to or worse than EOTs, making them not worth considering. In the 24-50 evasion range, EOTs and ITIs will trade depending on if you lose a frame or not. You should probably check your specific setup in that case. For 80+ EVA, ITIs are best.
Night#
Most ARs need PEQs to do anything at night, so PEQ+chip is an easy pick.
AS Val can use daytime scopes when paired with Python/Fervor, so the logic above applies (use a chip, then an EOT/VFL depending on the frames/fairy/tiles). She gets a little less use out of EOTs due to her perfect accuracy:
AR-15 can't use chips, so nothing changes there. With a PEQ as priority #1, her SPEQ rework doesn't boost her mod SPEQ by enough to be worth considering over a VFL as the second slot in almost all cases.
Low-rarity equipment#
+10, gold, max calibrated chips are awesome. Picking the right scope for them can be difficult to properly min-max, but they're very much worth using. However, new players and unlucky players may not have a full suite of gold equipment ready to go. Low-rarity chips keep the full -50% crit damage penalty and have smaller stat bonuses. Let's see if they can still compete.
Case 1: Gold scopes/ammo, bad chips
Gold chips have a ~4.3% rate from their IOP Special recipe. While better than some equips, it's entirely possible to get unlucky and not craft any for weeks - crafting all 20/week, some 3% of players will still be without any after a month.
To help cover my bases against frame thresholds, here are some gold equipment+low-rarity chip configurations on a two dolls with different ROF stats.
ADS is always better off with an enhanced green chip than an empty slot, but AN-94 almost always prefers a VFL+empty slot. Either way, unenhanced green chips can't compete with a gold VFL. Adding M4A1 and RO mod's tiles:
Now, even ADS doesn't like green chips of any kind.
(Note: as configured, in-skill DPS scales the same as basic DPS - there's no armor or ROF buffs in play.)
Let's say we can figure out the scope later, and just want to know if a green chip is optimal at all for a given doll. The big factors are their base ROF, fairy crit aura, ROF tiles, and crit rate tiles. I'll chart the thresholds for varying ROF and crit auras, with additional charts for a typical ROF and crit tile case.
This is the DPS from your best scope pair on a green chip, divided by your DPS from a VFL+empty slot. If you are in a region warmer than the "1" contour line, a gold VFL/exo paired with this chip is better than just a gold VFL.
Enhancing and calibrating green equipment is rather questionable (especially if you have other types of gold as options), so here's two charts with worse chips:
The worst green chip here is only sometimes a DPS boost, even with no fairy aura.
ROF tiles will change thresholds: with max chip stats, with partially enhanced chip stats, with unenhanced chip stats. Crit rate tiles will favor VFL/empty setups more: with max chip stats, with partially enhanced chip stats, with unenhanced chip stats (there's no "1" line here because every combination is worse with a chip).
In short: I do not recommend using green chips if the rest of your equipment is gold. They're only rarely a DPS improvement, and even then it's slight. Save your resources for better gear.
Case 2: Low-rarity everything
Note: optical/holographic/red dot sights have different names by rarity. I will be using the gold names as shorthand, even for lower-rarity equips. VFL = optical sight = +crit chance, EOT = holographic sight = +acc +dmg -rof, ITI = red dot sight = ++acc -rof.
There are way too many equipment combinations once you start adding blue/green scopes to fit on some 3D chart, so we'll have to go back to the line graphs. These will all use a 30% crit rate tile - if you're using blue equipment but not M4A1, you have bigger problems to address.
ADS & AN-94, unenhanced blue:
VFL/empty has a solid lead, unless EOTs don't drop you down a frame (where they're then quite close). As the options are nearly identical in AN-94's case, I would recommend a VFL/empty across the board with blue equipment.
ADS & AN-94, unenhanced green:
VFLs on their own officially (slightly) suck once everything is at least green. VFL/chip is a bit below EOT/chip for the sort of fairies you'd have at this point, so I would recommend an EOT/chip setup.
ADS & AN-94, enhanced green:
An enhanced green ITI gives plenty of acc, which is more valuable on low-level dolls. Frame breakpoints will make that fluctuate a bit. At this point I would still stick to an EOT/chip setup, but if at all possible I'd avoid enhancing green equipment and waiting for gold (and if you get a gold VFL scope but no corresponding chip, you should drop the green chip as described above).
M4A1 can't buff herself, so here's some charts for her specifically, at lv70, without tiles. If you've put UMP45's tiles on her, refer back (approximately) to the images above.
Budget calculator#
Alternatively, you can enter the best stats you have available of each equipment type, your doll's base ROF, and relevant tiles below. Enter percentages as whole numbers, without the % sign (so 48% = 48, 25% = 25).
| Optical Sight Crit chance (%) | Red Dot Sight ACC | Red Dot Sight ROF |
|---|---|---|
| Holographic Sight FP | Holographic Sight ROF | Holographic Sight ACC |
| Chip FP | Chip ROF | Base ROF |
| Crit tiles (%) | ROF tiles (%) | Fairy crit damage aura (%) |
DPS results
| Optical+empty slot | Optical+chip | Holographic+chip | Red dot+chip |
|---|---|---|---|
| ? | ? | ? | ? |
For a more exhaustive calculator, see this page. The above calculator neglects a number of potentially relevant factors to make it more accessible for players without maxed equipment/teams, at the expense of high-end optimization.
Conclusion#
The #2 Chip is very strong and will see use in many ARSMG formations. It is not always optimal - high ROF, crit rate, and crit damage may lessen its value. This is only likely to be a problem with pure ROF selfbuffers, so pretty much any other AR will prefer chips. It can reasonably be paired with both VFLs & EOTs, depending on the situation. FP selfbuffers now do much better than ROF ones.
ARSMG echelons as a whole ultimately see limited use in the current meta. Don't expect this to make them top-tier, as Hydras still have 199 armor and many newer/upcoming enemies go even farther.
For another way to check equipment options on a per-doll/echelon basis, this spreadsheet or this web port may be useful.
If you only have blue equipment, an optical (crit chance, or VFL) scope and an empty slot will remain your best bet. If you have a decent amount of green equipment (but nothing gold), a holographic (acc/fp, or EOT) scope and a chip is likely to be optimal - but be careful not to invest much here, as such setups should be quickly replaced by gold equipment.
While there will be exceptions, one general note - VFL+Chip+Crit damage fairy (Command/Para) setups will usually do better than EOT+Chip+non-crit damage fairy (Artillery) ones. EOT/Chip/Warrior also gives high DPS numbers, but if you're spending fairy commands, this becomes much harder to justify over fairies like Shield and alternate VFL/Chip/Beach or Taunt setups.
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