Strategy:Ripper

Power-wise, the Ripper is not much an improvement over a modded Chainsaw (which will be at 5d7 from the requisite P and B mods needed to make the Ripper), and is weaker than the Double chainsaw (which possesses 8d6 power). What makes the Ripper special however is its base 0.5 attack time; you'll essentially get two attacks with the Ripper for every single attack you'll get with any other Melee weapon, while it still possesses formidable power (averaging 21 damage per hit). With this combination of attack speed and power, it far outstrips the DPS of any other Chainsaw, while even exceeding the Longinus Spear in average DPS (42 average damage per second before traits versus 36). Then with a bulk or power mod added, its average DPS even exceeds the Azrael's Scythe (49 or 48 vs. 45, with even greater DPS values for the Ripper if a technical mod is added), while this gap grows with Brute investment (67/66 vs. 54 with 3 levels of Brute, while it becomes 79/78 vs. 60 with 5 levels).

The Ripper however has a significant flaw; besides requiring 2 levels of Whizkid and a heavy mod investment, it has atrocious accuracy, possessing a -4 accuracy modifier. This means with no levels in Brute and Eagle Eye, you wouldn't hit even a tenth of the time with the Ripper, and you'll need at least 3 cumulative levels of Brute/Eagle Eye to just have decent accuracy with this weapon, while needing 5 levels to ensure you won't miss, 2 more levels than you would need to achieve the same in other Melee weapons.

Is it worth building?

First thing, because of the massive negative base accuracy, this weapon is completely impractical for non-Melee builds with no Brute investment; it doesn't matter how fast you can attack when you can't ever land a hit. For non-melee builds that have no Brute but possess sufficient levels in Eagle Eye, it's still impractical to make when all those mods can be put to better use elsewhere.

Another major detriment is that even for Melee builds it's not an attractive investment, when it requires Whizkid 2 and four mods, so at earliest they probably won't get it until the later half of Deimos, while they get a guaranteed ridiculously powerful artifact from the Unholy Cathedral after the first level of hell, where they can easily win and kill the Angel of Death there with an unmodified Chainsaw. In such a case, what's the point of such heavy investment for a weapon you might use for just a few levels before replacing it? It does feature superior DPS potential as previously covered, but one can deem this not significant enough, especially over the Scythe, to feel it's not worth the Whizkid and mod investment; the artifact weapons as is will be way more than enough to make a joke out of any foe in the game for a Melee build.

The Ripper's main advantage is not DPS potential, but rather that with you being able to throw out attacks twice as fast, you can clear out hordes of enemies up to twice as fast; the Ripper will still hit hard enough that you can kill most enemies in one hit with it while berserked, so for every one enemy you kill with the Spear/Scythe, you could be killing two with the Ripper. This can end up saving you a lot of damage when having to fight many enemies at once, especially in The Mortuary/Limbo and on the UV/Nightmare difficulties. With all this info laid out, lets see how it does with each of the Melee masteries:

• Vampyre builds will benefit the most from this, as this double attacking rate can essentially mean double the healing rate in hordes, making them nigh-immortal (and being able to attack so much faster means it'll be easier to activate and maintain Berserker procs). Plus you can build partially to Whizkid 2 with Vampyre, by being able to take a level in Finesse without delaying Vampyre and then reach Whizkid 2 by level 9 (though as previously covered, you should ideally have at least 3 levels in Brute before using a Ripper, so practically the Ripper is not usable until level 10).
• The Ripper in the hands of Malicious Blades builds will be a fair bit less powerful; with no Berserker, the ease of proccing it is no longer a positive for the Ripper, and without being berserked, the Ripper will struggle to kill anything bigger than a Demon in one hit, significantly reducing its horde-clearing capabilities compared to the Spear/Scythe when they're not comprised of weak enemies (as will usually be the case in Hell). And of course the Ripper is not a blade, so it gets no direct benefit from the Malicious Blades trait (though neither do the Spear/Scythe). They can get Brute 3 + Whizkid 2 at level 10 like Vampyre does though.
• Blademaster builds will see the least benefit from the Ripper; what benefit is half attack speed when you can have 0 attack speed? The single hit power of the Spear/Scythe is preferable here, when you'll want to be able to kill as much as you can in one hit to maximize the effect of Blademaster; against a horde of strong enemies you can effectively have greater attack speed with the Spear/Scythe than you would with the Ripper, while they'll be equivalent against weaker enemies. Plus Blademaster builds will get Brute 3 + WK2 a level later than the other Melee masteries if they don't delay getting their master skill.

So overall, if you're a Vampyre build, the investment in the Ripper can certainly pay off over just using the Spear/Scythe, and is something to strongly consider. Malicious Blades builds will see considerably less benefit, but WK2 is still a good investment for them regardless of the Ripper, and as long as they got their armor and boots modding needs covered with enough extra mods for the Ripper, they can still potentially see greater benefit from using it over the Spear/Scythe. Blademasters shouldn't bother, the mods and WK2 investment is too heavy for something that will be inferior to the Spear/Scythe for them. For one more note, compared to the Dragonslayer, the Ripper still features the advantages it has over the Scythe, but with the Dragonslayer's permanent berserk, you should ditch the Ripper if you're able to get it.

If you're playing Angel of 100/Archangel of 666 however and you find a Chainsaw while you're actively investing in Brute, you should unquestionably make the Ripper, as with no Spear nor Scythe available, it will be unquestionably the best melee weapon you can obtain, unless you're lucky enough to find the Dragonslayer, in which case, abandon it for the Dragonslayer. The only possible exception here would be Blademasters, who may find better usage out of the Double chainsaw, with its considerably greater single-hit power.

Farther modding

Since you need Whizkid 2 to make the Ripper, you'll always be able to apply one mod to it. As for which mod it should be:

• The bulk and power mods have practically the same effect, as the bulk mod will give its damage an extra dice while the power mod will give its die one extra side, while the Ripper has equivalent die and sides at 6d6. The bulk mod is very slightly superior, as it raises its minimum damage by 1 while possessing the same max damage, but with the average damage output being only .5 higher than what a power-modded one would possess, it's practically negligible, so whichever mod of these two is available first/more expendable would be better to use.
• An agility mod is an obvious choice, since it would help cover its biggest flaw in its terrible accuracy penalty. But a single agility mod won't make this weapon remotely usable if you have no Brute investment, and if you are investing in Brute, you won't need an agility mod to hit with it.
• A technical mod improves its attack speed farther, which is unquestionably helpful, but how does it compare to improving its power with a bulk/power mod? With no Finesse, a tech-modded Ripper will have a .4 seconds firing time compared to a base Ripper's .5 seconds. This means you'll get a fifth attack for every four attacks you'll get with a bulk/power-modded Ripper, which besides the significance of that, also grants a superior average DPS of 52.5 vs. 49/48. With the two levels of Finesse factored that you would need to get WK, the attack speed of a technical-modded Ripper becomes .28 seconds vs. .35 seconds of a bulk/power-modded Ripper, which works out to the same figures as before of getting a fifth attack for every four, while the average DPS become 75 vs. 70/68.6. With a third level, you still get the same deal, while the DPS gap slightly grows with the average DPS becoming 95.5 vs. 89.1/87.3. Adding Brute makes the DPS figures grow even farther apart; with three levels of Finesse plus five levels of Brute, the average DPS becomes 163.6 vs. 143.6/141.8.

So overall, a technical mod would provide the most benefit and thus should be applied. You might very occasionally get a one-hit kill with the Ripper bulk-modded that you wouldn't get with it technical-modded, but the benefits of greater attack speed certainly outweighs it. Omega Tyrant (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2018 (UTC)