Arcanaville

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It's absurd only because the heroes have something more powerful and you know good and well you wouldn't want to face it from the villain side. Energy melee is held by 3 ATs, 2 of which are heroes. Stalkers, Tankers, and blasters.


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Technically, the three ATs with energy melee are stalkers, tankers, and brutes, two of which are villains. Blasters have energy manipulation, which isn't quite the same thing, particularly since its missing energy transfer.


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Of those 3, Blasters and Tankers both have higher base damage. Blasters by alot, and tankers by a little bit. Tankers also have more hp and better defenses. If anyone complains about EM, it should be villains.


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Blasters and stalkers have the higher base damage, tankers and brutes the lower base damage. Brutes have the higher damage cap, and fury, and can theoretically outdamage tankers.

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So there's no reason to believe that player tohit and critter tohit are necessarily coupled.

[/ QUOTE ]Except that they both have identical combatmod tables. Yes, they MIGHT operate differently, or use some other hidden, server-side tables, or any number of other explanations; however, the existence of the identical tables is sufficient for me to believe that they may be coupled. Also, the spreadsheet lists player and critter values as identical, rather than following pohsyb's numbers for player to-hit from +1 to +4.

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Well, in fact, I'm pretty certain that the game engine *doesn't* use the clientside tables: they are there as an artifact of how the game client is compiled, probably, but I find it difficult to believe that the game relies on the client-side tables for any real computations. So in fact, all the real tables are "hidden" and "server-side" in that respect.

There are ways to test that assumption conclusively, it does occur to me.

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Now if someone got 1-shotted by a Stalker who only had Hide going for him, no Stealth on top of it... or if "the meat" just stood around like an idiot after being Placated, then I could see how they earned themselves a rude suprise.

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So some 1-shot kills are ok and we just need to determine which ones fit the criteria for keeping?

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In a sense, actually, yes.

There are no real "one-shot kills" in the sense that while a single attack can kill, there is usually a significant number of "other moves" that have to set it up. Part of the problem with stalker assassin's strikes are that the prelude moves themselves don't have to take place "in-combat" and under any real risk.

I think most people probably don't see a big problem with a blaster using build up, and then Aim, and then nova, and one-shotting any squishies that happened to decide to stick around. The blaster takes a significant amount of time to set that up, and is under risk of attack while he does, and the range of that attack is not high, and there is a significant penalty (end crash) in performing that sequence.

I suggested once that damage-boosting of any kind incur a -stealth penalty, so that anyone - stalker, blaster, scrapper, anyone - that attempted to reach the damage cap by popping inspirations and/or using build up would find it increasingly difficult to maintain stealth. The idea was to make the prelude damage boosting moves, whose effects are concentrated on the single attack, to be "part of the attack" in terms of generating risk for the attacker, and to tie perception and damage together, so that stalkers could decide whether to hit for less (but still a lot) from relative safety on the alpha strike, or take the risk of hitting for a lot more but risk being seen.

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I'm not saying the numbers came out of thin air, I'm saying your numbers contradict each other. I'm asking which is right, the pohsyb-quoted numbers, or Circeus' spreadsheet?


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They don't contradict each other: one is the adjusted player to hit based on level, and one is the adjusted critter tohit on players. Those do not need to be the same; in fact, the existence of the purple patch itself suggests that they might have been the same at one point, and then was changed. The purple patch was never stated to affect critters chances tohit, only players.

There have been at least three different tohit scales (for players) based on level: the original one, the original purple patch, and the currently acknowledged purple patch (pohsyb's numbers would be the fourth).

The original purple patch was more extreme, and looked like this:

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For Reference, here are the current numbers (as of 6/4):

Foes your level have not changed. You have a 75% chance to hit and your powers are 100% effective.
Foes 1 level above you - No Change. You have a 68% chance to hit and your powers are 90% effective.
Foes 2 levels above you - You have a 60% chance to hit and your powers are 80% effective.
Foes 3 levels above you - You have a 49% chance to hit and your powers are 65% effective.
Foes 4 levels above you - You have a 25% chance to hit and your powers are 32% effective.
Foes 5 levels above you - You have a 8% chance to hit and your powers are 11% effective.
Foes 6 levels above you - You have a 8% chance to hit and your powers are 3% effective.
Foes 7 levels above you - You have a 8% chance to hit and your powers are 2% effective.
Foes 8+ levels above you - You have a 8% chance to hit and your powers are 1% effective.


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Notice the tohit drop-off is much more extreme (these numbers also come from geko). So there's no reason to believe that player tohit and critter tohit are necessarily coupled. Or if they are, then when the purple patch v1.0 and the purple patch v2.0 were put in, critters were simultaneously and silently being radically adjusted.

Circeus:

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Now watch the magic.


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There are a lot of ways to manipulate the numbers: the raw tables might not be being used by the game in exactly the way we think, so its entirely possible that what we think the numbers are, and what the raw code contains, might be completely different, because of those manipulations.

And when we try to determine how the game manipulates numbers...

Iakona:

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it is exactly (Set 1) - 0.25, or (Set 1) - (1 - BaseToHit), and does not match your 1.09, 1.18, 1.27, 1.36 progression.

I'm saying it would make more sense for it all to be (Set 1) * BaseToHit


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Circeus:

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Now watch the magic. Take each number and formulate it through the formula (2 - X) where X is the number:


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If there is one thing I'm sure of, its that the devs are absolutely in love with additive math. Multiplicative math is, for whatever reason (actually, I know the reason), the exception. Stacking is done linearly. Defense and tohit are combined linearly. When multiplication would have been fine, they often tabularize instead of actually incorporating multiplicative math (i.e. Villain Base To Hit). Even movement slows and perception are done additively, which is why there are so many tangles to balancing those.

You're thinking multiplicative math "makes more sense." I'm inclined to agree. But you're extending that to multiplicative math "is more likely" and in CoH, entirely the opposite is true. In fact, there are many cases where things look multiplicative, but are actually likely to be additive/subtractive, via some weird formula that works out the same (cf: resistance debuffs).

In fact, the very fact that the tables exist suggests that they might used additively: tables are often used to "precalculate" multiplicative formulas. Sometimes they are used in true multiplicative scalers (when there is little choice), and sometimes not.

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Now, according to the numbers you posted in your guide (EDIT: the numbers posted by Geko, which you claim are wrong)


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These numbers do not come out of thin air. Pippy started a thread back in November in which careful tests of accuracy were showing diverging results from the posted purple patch numbers we've all assumed were correct. However, after pursuing this vigorously, Pippy received a PM from pohsyb regarding the issue, which I saved:


Pohsyb:

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Ok so I just went and tested it all, here are the actual numbers. Again I don't know why the are different, but I have brought it to Geko's attention.

-4 .95
-3 .90
-2 .85
-1 .80
+0 .75
+1 .65
+2 .56
+3 .48
+4 .39
+5 .30
+6 .20
+7 .08


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I haven't seen anything more on the issue since then, but I assume a confirmation from pohsyb that there is a divergence is a sufficiently strong confirmation to make note of.

Its worth noting that since the client does no manipulations of tohit, its entirely possible that the files you are looking at contain dated information, or information that was updated server-side and not client-side, for whatever reason.


Edit: fixed possibly the most clumsy sentence I've written all year

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great stuff

I have a question:

"* SR is a "one trick pony" that has only defense (Update: SR now has resistances)"

what resistances did it pick up..?

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Each passive defense power in the SR set (dodge, agile, lucky) offers a scaling resistance to all damage types except toxic and psi. The resistance kicks in when you are at 60% health remaining, and (starting at zero) rises to a maximum of 20% resistance (theoretically) at zero health (theoretically, because you're dead at zero health). Basically, the resistance is:

(60% - HealthPercentage) / 3

per passive power. They stack, so if you have all three, it would be:

(60% - HealthPercentage) / 3 * 3, or just (60% - HealthPercentage)

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hmmm 1% HP only means 1 HP against som1 with 100 HP total, guess it wouldnt work =/

[/ QUOTE ] lol...umm no. The changes only protect you from being one-shotted if you have 100% of your hit points..not if you have 99.999999% of your hit points. One tick of caltrop damage means you can be insta-killed.

You've misunderstood the implications of what I wrote.

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Technically, you'll have to wait for an interval of time (probably one server tick) before performing the AS; although they haven't said how long that is, I'm assuming that the activation time of AS alone is enough to bypass it, but you never know. Also, they haven't addressed my question about what happens if in a single server tick of time, you have 99.9% health, and you get healed to 100% and hit for 100% within the same server tick: if they go by banking rules, you'll take the damage first and die, if they want to be generous, they might let you heal first and live - in which case the damage level of caltrops might not be enough to truly drop you below 100% under all conditions.

Although, if you have the ability to one-shot with AS (because you have a ton of insps), I don't see why you would ever bother with caltrops instead of just two-shotting the target with a quick followup attack (what stalker attack does less than one percent damage? Unslotted brawl is going to do 18 points of damage at level 50, verses the 14 points of damage that encompass 1% of scrapper health at level 50. About the only thing you can't finish off is a tank, and you can't really one-shot them in the first place).

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Assassin strike at level 50 vs a target with no resists at all, at the damage cap:
Base: 250.24
Critical: 1501.47

Total: 1751.71 hp in one hit.

Level 50 Stalker has 1017.1 hp.

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Whoops; +400% damage cap, not 400% damage cap. Still insufficient to one-shot any tank, though, even at the 500% total damage cap. In fact, insufficient to one-shot any regen or invuln scrapper running dull pain also.

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Yeah, I was looking at the wrong CombatMod table. Based on the numbers in your guide, 1.36 would be correct. (EDIT: while this would be correct, it's still a player-generated value based on data observations, rather than the value used by the game engine to calculate tohit. Because of this, I'm doubtful that 1.36 will be the value used for the i7 changes.)


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Those values have been at least indirectly vetted by a red name: Circeus confirms what I recall from his Ice tank analysis: the values I quote from +0 to +4 were included in Circeus' Ice tank damage spreadsheets which Statesman directly told Circeus appeared to have proper calculations in all respects as to calculating damage mitigation. This would include Circeus' tohit modifiers.


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That seems an odd way to calculate tohit, though...the numbers you've stated indicate that the formula could be shown as:
CombatMod * 1 - 0.25
when it would make more sense for it to be:
CombatMod * (1 - 0.25)


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I'm not sure what you mean by that. Technically, in I6 (and earlier) all villains had a BaseToHit which was looked up per villain type: minions, pets, bosses, AVs, turrets, all had a BaseToHit that was fixed for that type. And then the game code applied a scaling factor based on level difference: BaseToHit was modified upward or downward based on the level difference: i.e. a +4's BaseToHit was modified to BaseToHit * 1.36. And then that final BaseToHit was used in the rest of the tohit calculations.

The game calculates tohit procedurally and not formulaicly, and thus its often the case that what we express as a formula doesn't quite happen that way in the game engine exactly.

What we call "BaseToHit" in I6 is really a calculated value: its what we might call "VillainTypeBaseToHit" multiplied by "LevelModifier."

*We* look at it like this:

(BaseToHit * LevelMod +ToHitBuffs - ToHitDebuffs - Defense + DefenseDebuffs)

*They* look at it like this:

Step One: Calculate BaseToHit as VillainBase times LevelMod
Step Two: Calculate Intermediate value as BaseToHit minus Defense plus ToHitBuffs minus ToHitDebuffs plus DefenseDebuffs.

it gets even uglier because "Defense" is a calculated value: BaseDefense + MaxOf(SumOf(SetOf(AppropriateTypedDefenses)))

And the LevelModifiers already exist as a table: in I7 those LevelModifers are being directly converted into accuracy-style buffs, but maintaining their exact numerical value (as confirmed by pohsyb). The Rank accuracy buffs don't technically exist yet, because they are embedded in the VillainBaseToHit table, and so are being calculated as VillainBaseToHit/50%, and *that* is being used as the "RankAccuracyBuff" in I7.

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To me, there are several ways of adding ranged components to PBAoE powers, and each method is more applicable and worthwhile to different powers in the various sets.

1. Increased Radius: Simply put, increasing the radius of a PBAoE power makes it more useful simply because it can affect enemies further away from you. It can drastically affect the strength of a power, however, due to the fact that it can affect more opponents - so doing this for a large increase isn't viable balance-wise for quite a few powers. I personally see this being a good solution for Chilling Embrace - expanding it to be the same radius as Hot Feet would allow a Blaster to keep enemies slowed without necessarily staying in melee range with them - staying right outside of melee range, instead.


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One way to increase the radius of PBAoEs to improve their usefulness without making them overpowered is to assume that the primary purpose of PBAoEs is to *prevent* critters from wanting to be in melee range, and then *secondarily* to punish them if they elect to do so anyway.

This could be done by giving all PBAoE powers *multiple* effects with diffferent radii. The powers would be much stronger at close range, but would have effects out to longer range that were less intense, but still potentially useful from a damage mitigation perspective. Blazing aura, for example, could have a fear radius significantly higher than its damage radius, so that it would scare villains into running away first, and then damage those that were sufficiently aggroed to overcome the fear (or villains that the blaster deliberately approached). Minor fear (run away for a while, not run away to Mars) might be highly useful to blasters in terms of damage mitigation, and give BA a protective purpose: a "soft" repel on critters.

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Actually, you know what? the hami cant even 1 hit me, it shows that the highest dmg output( and i am projecting this if a stalker is lvl 50 with out the soon to be nerf) Here are the 3 highest dmg outputs in a single attack:

1.-When a building explodes, for the volunteer fireman badge, i was 1 hitted with unstop on from 15000HP
2.-a Stalker that takes 100% HP
3.-the Hamidon- taking 85% of my HP
How much HP do I have at lvl 50 with dull pain and accaolade powers? 3200HP
Still think that AS shouldnt be nerfed? To have a single power stronger then the Hamidon.

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The Hamidon nucleus does about 935 points of damage, yellow mitochrondia do 782.4 points of damage, plus 5 ticks of 47.7, for a total of 1020.9 points of damage (to a level 50). Yellow mitos hit a bit harder than the nucleus, and shoot faster (just enough so that while I4 regens could tank the nucleus unassisted, they couldn't quite keep up with a yellow mito).

The stalker damage scale is 0.9 of blasters, so at level 50 their brawl damage should be about 18. AS does 19.4446 BI. Stalkers have a 400% damage cap. Maximum AS damage at level 50 should be about 1400 at the damage cap. Without stacking insps, a stalker might do closer to 980 with build up. Neither level of damage is capable of one-shotting a tank at level 50. Neither level of damage is capable of one-shotting a scrapper that has any of the health accolades.

And Hamidon is not the highest single-attack hitter in the game. Many things outstrike it in a single attack: in particular many AVs. Hamidon and his mitos' main claim to fame is unresistable damage, very fast cycling damage, and mega accuracy (yellow mitos fire every 4 seconds: their damage output is a whopping 255dps - the nucleus is a comparatively weak 197dps - and they almost never miss).

Not that I think the facts mean much here.


By the way, energy punch at the damage cap does 5.4445 BI * 20 * 5.0 = 544.45 damage in 0.6 seconds: 907.4 dps during its activation. In four seconds, EP+BS does (5.4445+7.2223)*20*5.0=1266.68 damage: better than Hamidon or his yellow mitos.

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At +4, the best you can do is:

minion: 1.36 * 5% = 6.8%
LT: 1.36 * 1.15 * 5% = 7.82%
Boss: 1.36 * 1.3 * 5% = 8.84%
AV: 1.36 * 1.5 * 5% = 10.2%

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Shouldn't that be a 1.44 level modifier for +4?

minion: 1.44 * 5% = 7.2%
LT: 1.44 * 1.1506 * 5% = 8.28432%
Boss: 1.44 * 1.3 * 5% = 9.36%
AV: 1.44 * 1.5 * 5% = 10.8%

(Note that LT base tohit is 0.5753, so their rank modifier is 1.1506. Sure, it's nitpicky, but it's technically more accurate)

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My numbers come from Circeus, who got them from a long ago dev posting. The numbers from +0 to +4 are in the Guide; next version of the guide will have the entire table I got from Circeus.

Since you are quoting 1.44 for +4, I'm assuming that you're assuming the tohit increases mirror the damage increases (the 1.44 looks like it comes from your damage table). I'm not sure why that would be true: just looking at the purple patch numbers, its clear the devs seems to use a different scaling methodology for tohit level scaling and damage level scaling for players: the same is likely true for critters. Do you have specific tohit scaler numbers for critters?

As to the 57.53 base tohit for LTs: is this a dev quoted number? The number I've always used is 57.5, even in dev PM exchanges.

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Since Targetting Drone is a toggle power, the +DMG would be much lower that 100% anyway. I would say that it needs to be lower even than Rage's 80%. Cut it down to 50% or lower and I doubt it'll be greatly overpowered with the inclusion of +perception in the comparison.

If nothing else, remove some of the To Hit and transfer it over to Damage. It that's what it takes to keep the damage boost around 50%, I think that would be fine.

Remember also that Targetting Drone cannot be compared to Aim/Build Up COMBINED, only against one or the other. (Comparison to Build Up would be more appropriate, since it's the one it is replacing, but it is also the one it is least like)

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+50% base damage continuously would be overpowered even when compared to stacking BU and Aim together. BU and Aim simply don't add that much damage over time: its all burst, but with a cost people ignore: they both have activation times large compared to recharge.

Lets look at the best case for BU and Aim: BU cycling continuously, and 3-slotted for recharge, and constantly hastened (which cannot happen continuously anymore). That's a 90/(1 + 0.95 + 0.7) ~= 34 seconds. And about 1.2 second activation (1.17). Ditto for Aim. And BU = +100% base damage, and Aim +66% damage.

So lets assume the blaster does 50 damage per second (in whatever units) unslotted, and therefore about 100 damage per second 3-slotted with damage SOs (close enough for our purposes).

In 35.2 seconds, the unenhanced blaster does 1760 damage, and the enhanced blaster does 3520 damage.

Cycling BU as fast as possible, the unenhanced blaster does:

1.2 * 0 + 100 * 10 + 50 * 24 = 2200

the enhanced blaster does:

1.2 * 0 + 150 * 10 + 100 * 24 = 3900

For just Build Up, BU adds 2200-1760 = 440 damage in 35.2 seconds to the unenhanced blaster, or 12.5 dps. In base damage terms, that is +25% damage. To the enhanced blaster, it adds 3900-3520 = 380 damage in 35.2 seconds, or 10.8 dps: 21.6% base damage (why less in the enhanced case? because the activation time penalty for the enhanced case is higher because the enhanced blaster is giving up more damage during that 1.2 seconds that BU is activating).

Aim is even lower. Aim + build up combined don't reach +50% base damage over time. And this assumes perma-hasten, which also doesn't exist. BU's real contribution to long term damage over time is closer to +15% at higher levels. Its better than a +15% damage over time, because burst damage benefits blasters more (due to lower damage mitigation), but that is its real numeric dps over time benefit (at least factoring only the damage).

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Furthermore, neither he nor I see a conflict between a Blaster having a ranged damage role and melee attacks being an important part of Blaster's capabilities. Blappers are not broken because they focus on melee. Secondaries aren't broken because they have melee in them. I haven't said that, Statesman hasn't said it.

But he has said the Blaster role is ranged damage.


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My definition of "role" is: blasters will be designed to function most optimally when performing their role, and may perform at significantly lower levels outside that role. Its an operative definition: it says how to optimize blasters.

But that might not be the definition Statesman is using: if it is, then:

"it's just a 'perception' by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation"

contradicts the statement about role, because if blaster role is ranged damage, and blasters should therefore be optimized around ranged damage, then the appropriate metric to judge the secondaries is how they support ranged damage. And only energy and devices really do a good job of that: energy has boost range and power boost (PB can help keep foes at range: it can boost knockback and holds in primaries to do so), and devices has caltrops and autoturret (the only real ranged attack in the secondaries).


However, its possible that Statesman is using "role" in a different way: to mean "a capability unique to blasters irreplacable by other ATs" - even if it isn't the *only* capability, or even possibly the *best* capability.


If that is how the blaster "role" is being carved out, then I can accept that the blaster "role" is being ranged damage. It would mean that blasters should do enough of it to make its effect not directly replacable by other ATs, but it would not mean that blasters couldn't be potentially even better at other things if they wanted to (i.e. blappers).


But I'm sensitive to the fact that as long as this subject has been tossed around the forums, there have been people that have said:

"Blasters are all about range, and therefore the melee attacks are just plain wrong."


So long as the blaster "role" isn't used to justify eliminating the inherent risk/reward option that currently exists for blasters, I won't argue the "role" issue strongly.

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Hmmm, so what about debuffing PER instead? If the effects are that similar, it seems to me to make a lot more sense that a rapid barrage of incoming damage will addle thier minds making it hard for them to get their bearings than that it will break the muzzle off their rifle.


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Because as I mentioned, debuffing perception doesn't affect critters the way it should, because of AI limitations. If you attack a player, and then hit them with smoke grenade, you'll disappear and become untargettable. In fact, Night Widows do exactly that to players. But if you attack a critter, and then hit them with smoke grenade, they will still target and shoot at you, because perception isn't consulted for critters when determining if they can target you or not. I think it should, but Castle points out that there are AI limitations that would make that non-trivial to do (this is true for all critters: masterminds are partially immune to smoke grenade's -perception, because their pets are also AI-controlled critters, and "immune" to -perception).

Debuffing range is a way to simulate the fact that you've reduced the accuracy of the foe in such a way that they cannot reasonably expect to hit you beyond a certain distance away. Debuffing perception would be another way to do that, if debuffing perception affected critters in PvE under combat conditions (debuffing critter perception only affects whether or not they detect you to aggro on you in the first place, and whether or not they continue to be aggroed on you: once aggroed, they will shoot you up to their maximum range or until they lose aggro).

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(I also agree that Targetting Drone needs +DMG)

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A great number of people agree with you. I'm not one of them (I think Targetting Drone is a great power as it is and that there are other powers in /DEV that need buffs or tweaks instead), but it does seem to be a commonly proposed solution to the /DEV problem.

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I would buy that if Build Up got +perception, which is something only devices currently gets. Except, I really think its Aim that deserves +perception, and I'm not sure if BU/Aim blasters should be getting two +perception powers.

The best solution to this quandry? Swap BU for Aim in blaster sets, so that Aim is in the secondary and BU in the primary. Then its the secondaries with the (primarily) acc-buffing power, and now they can all get some element of +perception (and maybe range), and BU, the more damage-boosting power, is in the primary. That actually helps defenders as much as blasters, especially at lower levels (at lower levels, damage boost is much more helpful than accuracy boost, and both powers boost accuracy "enough" at lower levels).

I have often thought that BU and Aim are sufficiently similar mechanically that blasters should really get one or the other, and the slot replaced with something interesting. I have a thought there, but that's another post.

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Okay, so.... in i7 (after coming back to this after awhile), assuming boring joe average enemies with no tohit buffs or defence debuffs, these will be the important numbers to hit in i7

45% - Floor minion accuracy. +4 minions have a 7% accuracy. Oh noes

52.5% - Floor luts

60% - Floor bosses

70% - Floor AVs (prolly can't hit this without defender help)

So take invincibility with 36% defence max with 10 minions... toss in -5% from unyielding, add 8% from tough skin, you've got 39%, flooring minions, pretty much. From there, any boost gives you a HUGE advantage, much like 10% resists going from 80% to 90% halves your damage.

4% from 3 slotted combat jumping, something like 8% from 3 slotted weave... 8% from manuvres, and you are now flooring bosses. Add in a teammate with a defence buff and you can handle debuffs and tohit buffs.

Not as worthless anymore... but still possibly not worth the slots.

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45% floors everybody.

To simplify the equations somewhat:


minions look like this: LevelBuff * Floor[50% - Defense]
LTs look like this: 1.15 * LevelBuff * Floor[50% - Defense]
Bosses look like this: 1.3 * LevelBuff * Floor[50% - Defense]
AVs look like this: 1.5 * LevelBuff * Floor[50% - Defense]


In all four cases, 45% defense "floors" the critter, because no defense higher than 45% does anything: the "50% - Defense" cannot get any lower than 5%.

Then, at +0, the LevelBuff term disappears (1.0), and for each of those things, the *minimum* you can drop them to is:

minion: 5%
LT: 1.15 * 5% = 5.75%
Boss: 1.3 * 5% = 6.5%
AV: 1.5 * 5% = 7.5%


At +4, the best you can do is:

minion: 1.36 * 5% = 6.8%
LT: 1.36 * 1.15 * 5% = 7.82%
Boss: 1.36 * 1.3 * 5% = 8.84%
AV: 1.36 * 1.5 * 5% = 10.2%

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Well, unintentionally I'm sure, you've inserted your own subtext there. I've defended the need for melee attacks in the Blaster secondaries, and the need for there to be a better damage potential up close than at range more than once in this thread alone.

The statement means what it says. Once our role was premium damage, now our role is ranged damage. Since that's the new role, please increase the amount of range the AT has access to so they can perform that role better. That's different from "all of our attacks should have range, then".


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My issue is with the word "role." It implies that melee attacks should be the rare exception to the rule, not a valid choice a blaster might make. It says that blappers are either broken, or evidence that the blaster sets are broken, because by definition they cannot fulfill the blaster "role."

I still think the blaster role is "damage" and it should be a valid choice for every blaster to decide if for them their blaster will be "AoE damage" or "single target damage" or "long range blaster" or "short range blaster" or some combination of all of these, and each of them should have a valid advantage over the others.

Spines scrappers have more AoE than other scrappers, but no one says all other scrappers are inferior to spines scrappers. Spines and claws have ranged attacks, but no one considers them superior to all other scrappers just because they have ranged attacks. In a similar vein, I do not think that blasters should be heavily weighted towards AoE damage, or heavily weighted towards higher range. Designating any "role" for blasters other than "damage dealer" tends to do so, even if not everyone intends it to be so.

Maybe this is just being picky, but I don't think the blaster's role is ranged, I think its a blaster characteristic that (one of) their primary mitigation tool(s) is range.


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I can see why you want it in the primary (Defenders would go nuts if they couldn't debuff range, too).


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Actually, I'm still debating with myself if this should be restricted to blasters, or given to both blasters and defenders. There's some pros and cons both ways, but by putting it in the primary, both options remain open.

Its also the case that, to a certain extent, I want the effect to be inherent in "attacking" to fit the "feel" of blasters getting mitigation through offense, and not a utility power. In effect, I'd like blasters to get hit less often because their foes are genuinely afraid of getting blasted in the face, which seems to fit at least a little a "comic-booky" concept of blasters: the ones without true defense tend to stay alive by constantly shooting at everything and preventing them from really counterattacking effectively.

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I can see where it would help them operate better at range. I can see a dev thinking: "that's way too poweful" and another going "well, if we gave it to the MOBs, too...". Well, let's see where you take it.


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Interesting thing about giving it to the MoBs: they already did give it to the MoBs, you just might not be thinking that they did.

Relatively recently, the devs changed things so that -perception now affects players in PvE the way it does in PvP: critters can actually disappear from your view if they are beyond your adjusted perception range (or they actually turned on the -perception in critter powers, something). The net result is that, in effect, critters debuff range now. They do because range and perception are linked: you can't shoot at what you can't target, even if you actually have much longer range.

But this isn't symmetric. (As I mentioned to Castle once before) -perception doesn't affect critters the same way: once aggroed on you, critters can target and shoot at you even if their "perception" is debuffed to zero: the game doesn't force critters to "see" you to shoot you.

Critters can force you to close to extremely close range before they become targettable - critters can actually become totally untargettable for short periods of time. But players cannot do the same thing to critters, because of AI restrictions (the critters always somehow have to "know" where you are).

Debuffing range is an alternate way to get the same effect, and by giving that effect primarily to blasters, it enhances their ability to attack from range.

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Blasters revised role as ranged damage dealer (vs. previous role of best damage dealer) calls for a boost in range


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I have never been comfortable with that generalization. It implies that blasters should always be at range or seek to be at range, which then implies that all tactical options given to blasters that require melee range are, in some way, "broken."

Although it cannot be reduced to an easy sound-bite description, I believe blasters should more properly function as "damage dealers that have dramatically risk/reward ratios at long range as opposed to close range" - as opposed to scrappers that are "damage dealers that function primarily at melee range but whose mitigation is not generally range dependent." Relative to scrappers, I think a blaster that has no enemies anywhere nearby and firing ranged attacks should do less damage, and be safer, than a scrapper that is in melee range of lots of those things, and contrawise a blaster that is in melee range should do much more damage and be in greater risk than a scrapper.


The problem is that this is tricky to do: in effect the only way to achieve this is to somehow give blasters ranged defenses, but the devs don't want to give blasters defense at all. I've been attacking that problem from a number of angles (perception, scaled defenses, etc), most of which appear to be the kind of things too difficult to add to the game. So I have a proposal that might achieve that in a way that *might* be more palatable to the devs. I haven't had the time to fully flesh it out, but this seems as good a place to toss it out as any:


Give each blaster primary a means to debuff range.

Debuffing range exists in the game (cf: hurricane). The devs added range to all the villains to make sure we can't kite them intrinsicly, but the devs seem much more willing to give out situational, or active protection. If blasters could debuff range, they could *temporarily* gain ranged defense: it wouldn't be true +DEF, but it would be the next best thing. If the ability couldn't permanently debuff range to zero, it would not be excessively powerful: it could be tweaked to provide whatever damage mitigation we wanted.

There are four benefits range debuffing provide to blasters:

a. Ranged defense

Defense without defense. We'd be safer at range because they couldn't hit us from long range. At least, the ones we somehow debuffed.

b. Synergy with blaster secondary effects

Range debuffing synergizes well with a lot of capabilities blasters already have: immobilizes and knockback in particular synergize well with range debuffing.

c. Relative uniqueness

Not a lot of things debuff range, so this doesn't step on defenders as a class.

d. Easy to add

Most blaster primaries have certain logical places to put range debuffing, depending on how strong you want the debuffing to be. For example, short-lived range debuffing (~5 seconds) might be reasonable to put into low damage AoEs, like energy blast's torrent and explosive blast (yet another way to make EB actually worth something). Stronger, longer-lived range debuffing (~10-15 seconds) might be more reasonable to put into single target attacks, like AR's slug. Depending on how strong you want the effect to be, it could be made a continuous ticking effect in powers like rains.

e. leverages "short range" attacks.

"Short range" doesn't matter if we can temporarily make the critters' range even shorter. Tactically, one might see debuff -> move in -> short range attack -> move back -> longer range attack. I like things that give us options, over things that take them away, all other things being equal.


How do we conceptually justify debuffing range? Well, in the real world, range and accuracy are interlinked, but in CoH, range and accuracy are decoupled: you have the same accuracy from point-blank range out to maximum range, and then suddenly your accuracy drops (literally) to zero. Range debuffing is really the second half of "accuracy" debuffing: "real world accuracy debuffing" would ordinarily be comprised of reduced precision aka -ACC and reduced range. So in a sense, -range is a form of conceptual accuracy debuff.

So what do blasters do that conceptually fits in with reducing the accuracy of their enemy? Four things, actually:

1. Knockback/knockdown conceptually ought to rattle a target enough to disrupt their accuracy for a moment or two. Try throwing a baseball while falling down the stairs.

2. DoTs conceptually ought to be a distraction for an attacking target. Being on fire would definitely hurt my ability to play darts.

3. Sudden AoEs ought be be a similar distraction. Boom.

4. Constant fire from blasters, even misses, should rattle attackers, ala the keep-your-head-down approach to combat. A critter might rightly think that the scrapper way over there is no threat, because he's engaged with someone else, and can't reach him. But a blaster can turn around and decide to shoot you at any time. Every time a blaster switches targets and fires at you, that might serve to cause you to concentrate more about staying alive than shooting back, or throw your shot off.


This does give certain opportunities to add range debuffing to blaster sets:

* you could theoretically add it to any powers with knockback
* you could theoretically add it to any powers with DoT
* you could theoretically add it any AoE, balanced against how much damage it does
* you could theoretically add it as an inherent effect on all blaster single target attacks, perhaps always taking effect on the first shot you fire on any target within a certain window of time (but not being allowed to stack, or overlap permanently).


There are a lot of mechanical decisions that would need to be made to ensure this is balanced, but I think it could be made to work out. It would probably have to be introduced slowly though, to ensure it doesn't suddenly overpower blasters.

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well when the devs put lions into the game, those that dont transform into lions cannot compete in the concrete jungle of our pvp zones. the way i see it were the new lions for this game and only other lions = specific pvp builds and AT's can be lions, the rest are lucky to be part of the herd and feed upon last. i know a lot of AT's that can kill me the same that i can kill them AS or not, and i know others that will never kill me because im a lion.

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Winner of the Unintentionally Amusing Post of the Week Award.

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Would you change your name to EvilStupidPickleCook


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Estimated time until EvilStupidPickleCook shows up on at least one server: 1 minute, 13.28 seconds.

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100% to 0% Period. If you have 99.999999% hitpoints you can still die by one attack.

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That's not quite what _Castle_ said. The intended code kicks in only if the amount of damage matches/exceeds your maximum hit points.

For example, your max is 1000 and you currently have 900. If an attack for 901 lands, you die. If an attack for 1000 lands, you're at 1%.

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Actually, Castle addressed this specifically:


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3.) If PlayerA is damaged & has 800 hit points left, then something (PlayerB or a mob) does 1001 points of damage, will the player be at 10 hit points & still be alive?


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Wrong. Player A would be dead.


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1.) If PlayerA gets hit by PlayerB for 1001 points of damage, PlayerA will end up with 10 hit points and still be alive, right?


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Right.


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Statesman said:

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if anything occurs within a fraction of second that brings a player from 100% Hit Points down to 0, we instead give the player 1% Hit Points.


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This is a bit ambiguous, so how about this:

Player A has 1000 max health, and is currently at 1000 health (full). He is simultaneously hit by two attacks, each doing 600 points of damage in less than a second. Dead or alive?

Sounds like alive:

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Yes, at the end of that server tick, PlayerA would be left at 10 HP.


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If so, how long is the server "tick" with regard to "simultaneous" damage? About a second? Longer? Shorter?


And let me ask a really funky question. When I pop a respite, the health bar "fills" with the health. Question: is that just a visual artifact, or does it actually take a small fraction of a second for the server to "fill" your health bar. When you pop a respite, do you go from 500 health to 750 health in one big jump, or does that actually take a short period of time? If it doesn't happen instantaneously, then what happens if I take a hit, pop a respite, and then while I'm popping the respite, I'm hit with one-shot-capable damage? Does the respite fully count to bringing me to full health, or is it possible that even though the respite would have put me back to full, at the moment the attack landed I might be still "receiving" the health from the respite, and get one-shotted?

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The second level of difficulty is the exact same level of mobs as the first....the spawns are bigger. So claiming the the "second dificulty[sic]" level bosses are a show stopper means the first level ones would be a show stopper, which means you are lying i.e. Making stuff up.


[/ QUOTE ] i'll have to eat a little crow on this one M_E. I only solo on Heroic when I'm trying to finish story arcs before leveling. The vast majority of my Heroic and Tenacious mission have been on teams, so I haven't finished any story arcs on Tenacious. I tried two missions and in one...neither diff had a boss. In another, one had a PP lt, the other a PP boss. Clearly you were not "making stuff up" about bosses on Tenacious. Apologies.


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For the record, Heroic and Tenacious missions have evens and +1s, Rugged and Unyielding have +1s and +2s, and Invincible missions have +2s and +3s. Furthermore, Tenacious and Unyielding have more spawns than Heroic and Rugged, which is the source of their difficulty difference. And while all missions can theoretically spawn bosses if the mission calls for it, a special rule demotes all bosses in heroic missions to scaled down LTs, and this exception is for heroic only.


Also, I'm not sure if anyone notices this, and its been a long time since I mentioned it ages ago, the game seems to have a round-off issue that is highly prevalent when levels are concerned. If you are close enough to the next level (i.e. 8 or 9 bubbles in), it seems sometimes the game "rounds off" your level to the next highest: I've seen missions with +2/+3 foes in unyielding - and no +1s - and it virtually always happens when I'm close to leveling.

This happens time and time again. Anyone remember CoV beta when the level bump happened and people at 9.75 were bumped with the 10s? I wasn't surprised (although I don't know if that was being deliberately merciful, or another round off error).