Arcanaville
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Quote:Emphasizing the hardest hitting attacks isn't really giving them their proper weight overall: harder hitting attacks recharge slower, and overall virtually always have less damage over time than lower damage attacks due to the balancing formula that the devs use. Its actually the damage from the faster, lower damage attacks that end up delivering more total damage.Originally Posted by Auroxis
I'll give you my guesstimations about damage type percentages, but they are completely based off of my experience of high level TF's, and I participate in some TF's more than others simply because they are more popular.
Smashing/Lethal I would put at 66% like you initially had. Like I said, the hardest hitting AV's are smashing/lethal centric. Their hardest hitting attacks are usually S/L based(Recluse's KOB for example). The ITF is very popular as well as relatively hard to tank, and S/L is very prevalent there.
That leaves 34% for everything else, which I would put at:
40% Energy
20% Negative Energy
15% Psionic
10% Fire
10% Toxic(Apex)
5% Cold
Note that I have almost no knowledge of the Issue 20 trials. It might be heavier on psi.
I also think that underweights psionics relative to energy, at least a little. But the most odd thing to me is that you think negative energy is more common than psionics.
In either case, one critical difference in methodology is that I do not, in general comparisons, weight based on content popularity. I assume a build must have its performance judged under all reasonable conditions that arise when playing all reasonably appropriate content, which in this case means at the very least all high level task forces and mission arcs. My compositive scoring isn't "flawed" in that sense, because they are deliberately intended to do that. In my opinion, that is a better representation of overall performance, so to the degree that its flawed, its a flaw I have no intention of ever fixing.
If it turns out that across all high level content energy or psionics is provably more common, I would adjust on that basis. But the argument that the ITF is more popular, so smash/lethal should be weighted more, is not an argument that is consistent with my comparison methodology. -
Quote:You're not reading my larger point which is that low level controllers are not intrinsicly unfun. They are to you. They are not to others. I don't "make excuses" for the flaws in low level controllers because I don't see flaws. At least not the flaws you see.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I didn't bring this up to criticise levelling curves or teaming viability, but more to illustrate an often-cited justification for people's complaints on Controller performance which come up from time to time. Whether people are right to complain and whether they're good players is irrelevant to the larger point at hand - that some can and will justify a horrible gaming experience for a prolonged period of time if it leads to a better gaming experience later on in the game.
This is a stance I find repugnant, and the stuff of horrible games. It loops back into my belief that the worth of something is not just a question of how valuable it is, but also a question of how much its cost subtracts from its value. I don't care how good Controller performance is post level 32, because I will never get a Controller to level 32. It hurts too much to do so, and it horrifies me that some could stomach this. Not for their sakes or for their opinions, but because of what this means for the game. It excuses game design that is simply and genuinely not fun along the way.
What horrifies me is the notion that many parts of this game have been homogenized over the years to appeal to what only one specific group of people thinks is intrinsicly fun as if fun wasn't subjective, but there was an objective way to quantify it, and they had t he formula.
Whenever someone asks "why can't X be more like Y" my automatic response is "because we already have Y." We have faster leveling things *solo* than low level controllers, for people who cannot stomach low level controllers. But they aren't poorly designed because they fail to meet your requirements for leveling speed.
Full stop. No they aren't.Quote:No-one sets out to make a game people will hate, but invariably, developers do just that, if just by accident. Gaming history is full of bad games. More often, game developers will make a good game that nevertheless has horrible elements, such as Mass Effect 2 and its planet scanning mini "game." In such occasions, "fixing" these parts of the game could prove impossible, impractical or outright undesirable, but in an MMO, people are still expected to engage in everything
Sure, poorly designed games are made, but the reason why I said no developer *intends* to do that is because you made an accusation of intent: that there is an actual *philosophy* of game design that game developers follow that says if you bribe players, you don't have to make the game any good. You can in fact intentionally ignore quality concerns. I don't think most MMO devs, and certainly ours, think that.Quote:No-one sets out to design a bad game, but bad games keep being designed anyway. Most developers' reactions is to cover their ***** and coerce players into playing said games anyway.
The fact is, players are at least partially reward-driven, but that's part of the psychology of "winning" that players bring to all games. And this is a game, not a past time, even if there are people that use it as a past-time. And at least part of the fundamental aspect of all games is a sense of accomplishment. Games set goals that players attempt to reach through gameplay performance.
This is something that gets ignored often when people talk about "enjoyment" of games. They sometimes focus on some abstract continuous stimulation of pleasure centers of the brain as the model for how people should enjoy games. But many games don't have that kind of enjoyment within them. Many appeal to players' sense of accomplishment: they enjoy the memory of accomplishment, even if the actual gameplay was not conventionally enjoyable. People also say they enjoy running, but I suspect its a different kind of enjoyment than eating chocolate ice cream. We don't assume that someone that claims to enjoy running is a psychological masochist: that's just a different sort of enjoyment. Same for games, particularly MMOs.
And the paradox of enjoying accomplishment is that no one enjoys accomplishment that is effortless. There has to be a balance between effort - pain if you will - and the pleasure of satisfaction.
"Carrot on a stick" isn't an example of bad game design principles, its just the extreme case of a good design principle gone bad: making accomplishment either too monotonous, too trivial, too ludicrous in difficulty, or too unrewarding. Its bad only like most cases of extremes are. -
Quote:A couple of things.Originally Posted by Auroxis
I'm not saying they are wildly incorrect. I just don't think these particular guesstimates are a good idea for these sort of comparisons. It's pretty agreed upon that Negative Energy isn't as common as Energy, and Cold isn't as common as Fire. Also consider that TF's like Apex and Tin Mage are largely S/L/E based, and those force you into facing level 54 mobs which do more damage. Add to that the fact that defense debuffing mobs are largely S/L/E based, and that the game's hardest hitters are primarily S/L(Lord Recluse, Battle Maiden, Venged Bobcat, Goliath War Walkers).
Basically I think the 60% S/L and 40% everything else numbers not very agreeable. I personally find S/L more important than that, and the remaining damage types not even in importance. Another person might disagree with me based on his personal experiences.
1. Lord Recluse does significant smashing, lethal, energy, and toxic damage.
2. When Goliaths explode they do equal amounts of Smashing and Fire damage.
3. Among the AVs a tanker might find themselves tanking in content that is played more than rarely:
Korol (psionic)
Shadow Spider (lethal/negative)
Thorn Tree (mostly lethal/toxic)
Ice Mistral (smash/cold)
Barracuda (mostly cold/psionic)
Ghost Widow (negative)
Mako (smash/lethal/negative/toxic)
If you think 60/40 is wrong, well it probably is at least a little wrong. But perhaps you should state what you believe the relative proportions of the eight different types of damage are. Just saying "s/l/e is more important" isn't saying anything useful, because even if they are, knowing how much psionic and negative damage there is out there is still highly significant if purportedly strong builds are weak to those types. Relative to smash/lethal, it doesn't take much psionic damage to bring an Invuln tanker down, so it doesn't have to *be* common to be important. The only way those other types of damage would be inconsequential is if they were completely negligible, and I can say with 100% certainty they are not.
If you're just going to run the ITF over and over again, you can just focus on smashing, lethal, and energy damage and resistances and ignore the rest. But if someone asks you to tank for the STF, you'd be dead if you do that unless the team heavily buffed you to prevent it. So a tank that focuses exclusively on those three types is not in my opinion the best all around tank.
The Smash/lethal percentage across just level 50 content is something between 60% and 75%, which is why my original sheet picked 66%. I picked the lower level here to increase everything else, because I think psionic and energy now account for more than they did before and that was a quickie way to represent that for now. Anywhere in there and I think an argument can be made. Once you get to smash/lethal being 80% or more, or even s/l/e being 80% or more combined, I would expect some proof of that assertion beyond just a feeling.
The one thing I think the sheet definitely underestimates for simplicity that practically everyone's calculations do similarly is underestimate the importance of smash/lethal defense specifically. The problem isn't specific to smash/lethal defense, is that in City of Heroes you always get to use the better of your defenses. That's why my spreadsheet always uses the higher of your typed defense or the average of your positional defenses, except for non-positional psi (and in the case of toxic, there is no typed defense to compare to so it just uses the average of your positional defenses period). But since many attacks are typed with multiple attack types, there are lots of attacks that do smash/fire that should use the better of the two. The spreadsheets in effect use smash defense for the smashing part, and fire defense for the fire part.
To correct this would require a far more complex set of calculations though, and would ironically make the numbers less transparent for people using the spreadsheets. So that is fudged. Since most builds under comparison soft-cap everything or almost everything, its not an important factor in this thread. -
Quote:Sure, but who would take dozens of builds through hundreds of runs of dozens of scenarios?Originally Posted by TheNavigator
Wouldn't a large enough sample of runs provide a meaningful average?
Why hundreds of runs? Because the AE itself is going to randomize the challenges, and then each challenge will have random jitter in its run, so to get a meaningful average you'd likely have to run at least a hundred runs just to begin to average them all out.
I should point out that a long time ago someone tried to estimate the strength of an SR toggle by counting hits and thought 2000 was a lot of swings. They came up with 14.6% as the value. As SR toggles are actually 13.875%, that was slightly off. It always takes more samples to generate a valid measurement than people think. I did a 50,000 swing run once and came up with 13.91%.
I could specifically make a challenge mission designed not to kill but to test survivability. But the (legitimate) quibble would be over what kinds of attacks and damage to put into it. It would have coarse resolution, meaning we would be able to say two different tankers survived a particular level of challenge but not which one did so "better" most of the time. And one tanker could be stronger than another, and yet both fail a particular challenge and both pass a different challenge just because there isn't a specific challenge that exists in between them.
I have been thinking about some standard scores, though. I think there are six specific situations that are important when considering tanker strength.
1. Average spawn size for team size four
2. Average spawn size for team size eight
3. Aggro cap of typical spawn proportions
4. Aggro cap of bosses
5. Eight AVs.
6. Aggro cap of AVs.
What are these six data points? The first one is the data point that the devs have said in the past represents what a higher level tanker ought to be able to tank on their own without significant outside assistance. If you can't tank that, something's wrong. The second one is the obvious "solo a mission scaled for full team" data point. The third is possibly identical to or related to the second one, but I threw it out there just in case research determined it was slightly different. The fourth is the obvious maximum aggro you're likely to be able to draw in a mission if you are tanking and multiple spawns are overlapping and your team kills all the minions and LTs fast. All that';s left are the bosses, and you could theoretically be facing all bosses at one some point. The fifth is the likely limit the devs would throw at a player normally - this is comparable to tanking the entire AV fight in the LRSF solo (its a little higher than that). And of course realistically, number six is as high as you can go without resorting to higher level foes. I don't think there are many tanker builds that can do that anyway so there's no need to talk about +4 x 17 AVs.
Each of those scenarios can be represented with an average incoming damage score in theory. I'm trying to figure out what those are. -
Quote:Unfortunately, while that would be an interesting learning experience in terms of observing the relative strengths of things like debuffs and foe debuffing effects, there's too many random elements to make that sort of test useful for comparisons between builds. Each run-through would be different.Originally Posted by TheNavigator
If there weren't so many different mob types it might just be easier to run alts through a series of AE missions and time their survival.
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Quote:Yes and no. One complication to defense debuffs is that most of them are not autohit. So the presumed accuracy of the critters is important to determining how often they hit, and what they average effect is as a consequence. Also, one -30% debuff every minute is different from dozens of -5% debuffs every second. In particular, the latter requires more careful consideration of cascade failure, because each debuff is making the previous one easier to land. Defense debuffs weaken most characters with defense, but cascade amplification can make those not only cause more damage, but also self-amplify their own debuffing ability (by making it more likely for the debuffs themselves to land and take effect).Originally Posted by TheNavigator
I'm curious as to whether there's enough raw data available to generate a series of average debuff values based on general prevalence among all the mob types in the game. That seems to be the only significant survival element missing from Arcanaville's model and it could potentially have a drastic impact on the results.
Still working on a model for that. The other three effects I'm looking at don't have that problem and will be ultimately easier to incorporate: -recharge, -regen, and -res. And most of those have to hit as well, making -DEF the keystone of the entire thing, since so many super-strong builds rely on soft-cap defense. -
Quote:Mine assumes only one target, so I don't have that problem specifically although its a good point: I've seen erroneous Dark Armor calculations that assume you can get 250% heal per cycle, which would be a neat trick (you can get more than 100% heal as Mids specifies it, if you have higher than normal health, since the heal is calculated as a percentage of base health).Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
One thing I want to make sure to point out: Stainsteel may be "overhealing" to get his numbers. With Dark Armor calculations, it's important to make sure you don't heal for any more than my maximum hit points.
All heals also have another problematic issue that you cannot really easily hedge with calculations: you just have to know its out there. The *maximum* effectiveness of a heal like Dark Regen can sometimes assume a 100% heal, or a heal from zero health. But you can't really do that in-game because even with perfect reflexes, if you get too close to zero health a momentary burst of damage will kill you.
Back in I5-I7ish I experimented with, but ultimately discarded, a concept called the "run line." The run line was a reserve amount of health that you couldn't touch on a player in calculations, because at that level of health you're "effectively dead" meaning while you're still alive, statistically speaking at that point the only thing keeping you alive is not defense or resistance or regen, but luck. One damage tick goes the wrong way, and you're dead. But it was likely to be at least a little arbitrary and difficult to calibrate with calculations. The *concept* is correct, though: real health staircases downward and bursts upward with heals: but when you hit zero the game is over. You can't average out death (it was called the run line because that's the point in health where, if you wanted a high percentage chance of surviving the fight, you had to temporarily run away and disengage).
The run line is an interesting concept because it wouldn't be the same for everyone: in particular it would be lower for characters with resistances. In effect, it would be trying (among other things) to account for the difference in burst vulnerability between defense and resistance.
What makes this really complex is that heals have a counter-advantage that, say, regeneration doesn't have. Heals can be "banked." In other words, if you have reconstruction on a 30 second recharge, how many times can you use it in a 5 second fight? The answer is 1/6th of the time on average, but in practical terms the answer is one, because you can always start a fight with recon recharged. That's what I mean by "banking" a heal: waiting until its recharged before diving into the next fight. You cannot bank regen or for that matter defense and resistance. But you can bank heals, which is an advantage unique to heals. It doesn't matter on average, because to bank a heal you essentially have to slow down, and slowing down reduces the threat you face on average also: the average calculations still work. But in practical terms, heals have a situational disadvantage and a situational advantage that the players can leverage, which is *incredibly* difficult to account for in calculations. Simulations can to a degree, but even there only to a certain point. -
Quote:If you pick a specific circumstance, like say tanking the STF or tanking the ITF, you can generally narrow down the scope of the kind of threat you'd be facing. But I think its appropriate when talking generically about "strong" tanker builds that you assume the tanker won't always be able to pick the threat, and needs to be strong against all of the normal threats in standard content, and even (these days) on both the red side and the blue side. You can say cold damage is the least common (and it probably is) but does that mean you're disqualifying your tanker from tanking the Winter Lord?Originally Posted by Sailboat
I think at this point in the discussion, the definition of the threat being survived will make the biggest difference between these primaries.
At least I think its fair to assume a "strong" tanker should be able to tank for, lets say all the high level task forces that have come up as WSTs: ITF, STF, LGTF, LRSF, Apex, Tin Mage, Kahn, Barracuda. You do get a mix of damage in that content collectively.
Under those circumstances, you also get a lot of debuffs. But debuffs are a bit trickier to incorporate into a comparison, and I'm still working on that. The "DDR" row in my spreadsheet is part of those experiments to make debuff comparisons that don't make the spreadsheet too unwieldy (i.e. incredibly long). -
Quote:I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. Although the damage ratios used in the composite score are admittedly guestimates, you seem to be suggesting they are wildly incorrect. I would assume, if you're going to make that assertion, you have an actual counter-estimate for the relative ratios of damage a tanker is likely to see in-game without cherry picking content.Originally Posted by Auroxis
1. Composite score is flawed as I stated. Just because content exists doesn't mean it's popular.
Dechs spreadsheets are actually using simpler versions of the same calculations mine uses, focusing solely on long-term survivability ("sustainable" on mine). Its also, as mine is, build-sensitive. Factoring those two out of the equation, I don't see a discrepancy between Dechs spreadsheets and mine. They sort of can't, since they are basically using the same equations (at least for the sustainable part of mine).Quote:I find the chart Dechs has more telling.
Edit: one difference between Dechs Dark Armor build and the slainsteel build I entered into my spreadsheet is that Dechs build seems to be slotted low for heal (Dark Regen) - which is reasonable for Dark tankers that assume they will normally be hitting multiple targets with it. But that also means on single target comparisons, it will be lower than it can be. Slainsteel's posted build slots Dark Regen for almost 70% heal on a single target, almost twice Dechs build. My spreadsheets have been assuming single targets throughout; scaled up Willpower would quickly become stronger, while most other things wouldn't. Invuln normally gets stronger, but the build we've been looking at was already soft capped. -
UPDATE:
1. Computer time reduced to 1 second to make it easier to bail out. You'll still need to at least clear the general area enough to click it.
2. The final ambush on Murnau was bugged to send the standard spawns for the mission instead of the correct ambush. This should be corrected in the updated mission: that ambush should be far harder.
3. Standard spawns should no longer detention field players. This was unintended at the rates they were using it.
4. Non-gender neutral completion message altered for completing the mission.
Mission should be much harder now on the final fight, and should no longer continuously detention field players who cannot mez the force field Warbots. This also means players will not be protected from damage constantly by detention fields and thus the overall threat of the mission should now be higher.
COMING SOON:
Slightly stronger standard spawns
Slightly more resistance to strong mezzing characters
Slightly better offensive nature against single players attempting to solo mission -
Quote:I would argue that hidden behind that oversimplification is a deeper design statement, namely that controllers have a different power leveling curve than other archetypes, and there's nothing wrong with that for those that are willing to accept it. When my blaster reached 32, she got Nova. A flashy, fun power that occasionally has significant usage. But fundamentally, she was no different than at 31. In fact, energy blasters are never very different than when they reach 26 and get explosive blast. From that point on everything else is refinements on what they already have for the most part. They build out quickly and stabilize. My illusion/radiation controller, on the other hand, changed constantly, when she got phantom army, when she got spectral terror, when she got phantasms, even when she got EMP. Her power curve was much more dramatic over time.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
For a more domestic examples, look at Controllers. Every now and then, someone will complain that they don't do enough damage, or that levelling them up is painful or whatnot. That person will be told that they are just fine, because Controllers become awesome when they get their pets at level 32 (Mind Control notwithstanding, obviously), which is an argument that baffles me. If it sucks out the door and I have to wait for what is ostensibly 2/3 through the game, then the wait ain't worth it.
The important thing to note is that one is not intrinsicly better than the other. Sure, its easy to say that flashy and dramatic changes are intrinscly better, but that also breeds the very impatience you mention some people experience in wanting to "get to the end." Some things mature quickly, and then level off. Some start off lower and accelerate upward. This, like many other elements of the game, are attractive to different people. *You* shouldn't like controllers just because they get better later. But controllers might be just fine because they get better later, for the people that want to see things get better constantly.
If you want a stepper performance curve, you have to start lower and end higher. If you don't want to start lower than absolutely necessary, you will have a much less noticable increase in performance over time. These are absolute statements about leveling. Its one thing to say the devs should never make the early game slower, but that also ties their hands when it comes to making things faster as players go along.
Condemn the devs for handing out weaknesses, and you remove their ability to give out strengths as well. Whether a weakness is tolerable is a highly individualistic decision.
One more thing about controllers. My blaster leveled to 50 almost 80% solo. 95% solo from one to 30. But my Ill/Rad was the first alt I leveled at least 50% through teaming. And if you team, there's no such thing as leveling slowly. You level at the same speed as everyone else, because unless you die and acrue debt, you cannot level slower than the rest of your team (unless this is the old days and you're a significantly higher level than everyone else). The slower leveling for early levels for controllers is something a significant number of players never see, because so long as they team a majority of the time with that character, it is impossible to see. And its not a wild notion to suggest that a support character might tend to appeal to teamers more than soloers.
The fine distinction here is this: I can't and shouldn't convince you or anyone else that some problematic situation is fine for you because that situation comes with a compensating advantage. That's for you to decide. However, I can say that the offsetting advantages and disadvantages are fair and if you don't like them, you should just avoid them and concede they are there for someone else other than you, rather than try to eliminate them from the game when other people might appreciate them.
I don't believe there is any game design philosophy that has that as an explicit or implicit goal. No one sets out to deliberately make a game people will not enjoy. But by definition once you include rewards, you will encounter people for whom the gameplay itself is unsatisfactory, but can be bribed to tolerate it. That set of people will always exist, and they always feel they were targeted by the game specifically when that was pure happenstance.Quote:In general, I have a profound disrespect for the "carrot on a stick" approach to game design, because its cornerstone philosophy is to goad players into playing something they will not enjoy playing, because they're not doing so for the love of the game, but are rather working for a reward. Throwing great rewards at horrible tasks should never be a preferred solution. -
Quote:Something around two thirds of all damage is, in fact, smash/lethal, based on a lot of analysis I did long ago, which I don't think has been invalidated by content that was released since then.Originally Posted by Auroxis
What made you decide to go for 60% S/L and 40% everything else? I don't see Psionic, Fire, and Cold as common as Energy, for example.
Of the remaining damage, energy and psionic are more common than the other types, but I don't have solid numbers on how much. The difference is small, though, given that each is currently set to about 6.7% of the total.
Perception seems to vary on this, and I don't know why. At one point everyone seems to have been convinced that psionic damage was the third most common damage type after smash/lethal. Now its energy. And at one time, even earlier, there were a lot of people who even doubted that smash/lethal was the most common.
I suppose I could run a new damage survey across the game to try to recompute these values, but its tricky to do this in a way that doesn't introduce observer bias.
Even the typed calculations include some heavy approximations, because attacks aren't single-typed. What I should do is subject the builds to various kinds of attacks of various typing (energy blasts typed energy/smash/range with 60/40 energy/smash damage, etc) but that would become excessively complicated. -
Quote:Basically, "combined." It is to damage mitigation what quarterback rating is to a (American) football quarterback: a way to combine a set of statistics into one representative score.Originally Posted by Auroxis
What does the composite stand for?
In my spreadsheet, composite score represents something analogous to this: suppose you're a tanker facing off against a mix of critters, and they are throwing a mix of damage at you. If that damage comes in a certain proportion - 60% smash/lethal divided evenly between the two, and 40% everything else divided evenly between the other six, and psionics itself is divided 50/50 between positionally defensible psi and non-positional psionics - how much damage could the build take if that damage was apportioned that way.
So if you are interested in just smash/lethal performance, you could just look at those numbers. But if you want some way to combine them so you can compare different builds that may be strong in some areas and weak in others, this is one way to do that. -
Quote:That shouldn't be surprising. You soft-capped (to most things) a Dark Armor tanker: anything that can't kill it in about 12 seconds just can't kill it, and its hard to kill a soft-capped anything in 12 seconds. You'll notice, though, that the Granite tankers were catching up to DA as the time window dropped from unlimited to 180 to 60 to 30. Somewhere below 30 seconds the Granite tankers probably catch up and then pass the DA tanker, because Granite will be stronger against burst, and DA will have better sustained performance.Originally Posted by slainsteel
Holy crap!
I just plugged in numbers from a dark build to a copy of your spreadsheet I cooked up to see what the composite score comes out to be, it um, seems to beat granite?
I might have done something wrong, this is a build I used (not really well built, just threw in stuff there to get to really high resist and cap s/l/e/n) - dark regeneration is set to 1 enemy.
In real life, the DA build would be problematic without knockback protection and has no DDR to soften defense debuffs. The Granite tanker is also highly resistant to recharge debuffs because a significant part of its strength comes from its massive defense and resistances and rooted. So you have to take these numbers in context. They represent one aspect of a tanker's strength: the numerical mitigation. Situational issues can modify real world performance in the same way that attacking a pylon is different than attacking more dynamic spawns of critters. -
Quote:Iggy's Willpower build is arguably more impressive: it scores higher than his Invuln build in overall survivability on my composite scoring system (both builds are in my linked comparison spreadsheet).Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
By my calculations it is. Check the survivability analysis. I added a sheet near the front for "The Awesome Inv."
EDIT: I stand corrected, we were talking about different builds. Iggy's is pretty damn impressive.
Incidentally, I'm working to port my old proliferation spreadsheet and my PvP DR calculator to google docs for reference as well, but the proliferation spreadsheet in particular will take a lot of work due to the extensive use of formatting. -
Quote:A poster who shall remain nameless said any change to MA I was involved with would be, to paraphrase, unenjoyable and disasterous for the set. While that played no part in my recommendations for the set when it was adjusted I'd probably be rubbing it in now if the poster stuck around long enough to see it, because frankly they were kinda annoying.Originally Posted by BrandX
But it still happened! \o/ Which beats out the "that's dumb and will never happen" responses
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Quote:I would tend to not agree with this statement.Originally Posted by Auroxis
The relative strength gaps may shorten, but no matter how much you invest, the more survivable primary will always be more survivable if an equal investment is given(Except Ice Armor).
First, the easiest thing to get from the invention system is defense. Ice, Stone, and Shields will benefit the most right out of the gate because they have the highest intrinsic defenses. For almost no cost (relatively speaking) they can reach the soft cap and start out-tanking the other tankers for most content. Invuln is right behind them: as you increase the amount you're willing to spend you can get enough defense and/or enough recovery to run enough power pool powers to soft-cap Invuln to most types, especially with Invincibility.
Dark Armor is all over the place. Its not *that* strong out of the box. Invuln I'm pretty sure comfortably outperforms it. But a soft-capped Dark? Now we're talking about a very strong tanker. And look at the posted Willpower build. Willpower tends to be vulnerable to spikes but with enough influence you can soft-cap it *and* cap its health: its spike vulnerability gets significantly softened and its strong healing starts to make a huge difference: its performance in real-world play makes a huge swing with enough expense. -
Quote:For tankers, the amount you spend does affect their relative strengths. Willpower is not very strong without significant IO investment, but can mature into a monster. Invuln starts off very strong out of the box, much moreso than almost any other set, but at the highest levels of investment its lower protection for non/sl causes other sets to catch up. Ice is hard to strengthen beyond a certain point with inventions, so it never does as well against other primaries as it does right out of the box: it starts giving up ground almost immediately as you escalate build expenditures. Dark seems to have two modes: its very good out of the box, and it can be made very good at maximum expense. My own experience is that it doesn't have a lot of "moderate" builds that do very well against other moderate builds: it feels very all or nothing to me (although its possible I just haven't played around with moderate builds enough), particularly against fewer hard foes rather than a crowd of them.Originally Posted by Auroxis
I don't think build investment is at all important when comparing primaries to each other(except Ice Armor-Elec Armor). In terms of being "good enough" to take on current content however, build investment is definitely a factor.
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Quote:I thought Triumph prefers to run ITFs and LGTFs as long as its 7pm somewhere in the world.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Triumph seems to prefer ITFs and LGTFs from 7pm Pacific to a bit past midnight.
Still, given my playtimes during the week are midnight to 5am eastern, I'm doing ok on running WSTs. They'll have to be running WSTs until the Mayan doomsday for me to get that stupid assist badge, but I'll get there eventually and I did get I think five Tin Mage runs during the week. Not bad for the drunk/crazy/friendly/dead/pantsless server and considering I was only on for four days out of the week.
Considering Triumph is supposed to be a low population server, it actually seems pretty active when I'm on, and I'm on in the dead of night for a supposedly east coast server. And I've rarely heard people complain about how hard Tin Mage is, or how crappy its rewards are. Probably too drunk/crazy/friendly/dead/pantsless to notice, but still. -
Quote:Are you having some sort of breakdown? No one here seems to be having the problem you're ranting about. I'm sure some people don't have the time or the inclination to build these kinds of builds, but no one is actually complaining about it. I think you want the market forum, which is thataway ->.Originally Posted by Severe
no i cant.. wanna know why.cause youve been here for 6 years like myself. if you dont wanna focus on one toon in 6 years it doesnt say anything but about the game.
its about you!...YOU have every resource to do whatever you want including a higher placed build.YOU can make it real easy.YOU choose not to.
but whatever you do dont blame the game...its gotten WAY easier now then its ever been and it proves my point even more so.
at the end of the day. it really is the only arguement there is.it really is all about the influence. there simply is no other arguement.
im 39 years old. i work full time. pay bills and go out everyday life. i got the same problems in life as everyone else.so dont use real life as the excuse
dont use your too busy to focus on one toon..ive been here for 6 years and got 36 lvl 50s. gimmie a break if i was focusing on one toon i would still have only the lvl 50 thank you..so stop using that as an excuse.
stop blaming alt itis for it too...no one says they gotta be retired for the next 4 years while you do a 2nd build either.
there simply is one reason you guys say you cant have a high priced build.its influence! and this game has never been easier to gain influence.
For the record, I didn't use to make extreme IO builds, just because. Didn't feel like it. I decided to do so after I19 came out, and since then I've more or less completed three, with a couple more in progress. I don't have problems making these builds myself, nor have I ever complained about making them personally. I'm actually able to build them relatively quickly, compared to most players. In fact, my energy blaster currently has a multi-billion inf build (I didn't bother to even keep track) that just tries to acquire maximum speed. As any min/maxer will tell you, maximum speed on an energy blaster doesn't buy you much: the DPA on all its attacks are too similar. I could have range-capped her for less effort. I did it just because its fun, not for any on-paper performance benefit. By my best estimate, I've put about thirty billion influence into high performance builds since December. My next major project: a *dual build* Stone tanker that has an optimized multi-billion inf Granite build *and* an optimized multi-billion inf toggle build. Just because it sounds like a fun challenge.
But I acknowledge the fact that these builds are not in the reach of many players, and certainly not for multiple alts. That's reality. To believe otherwise is frankly silly.
Instead of ranting randomly, why not post one of these ultra-expensive Fiery Aura builds you claim is possible to build just as strong as all other tanker primaries. We have people actually posting real builds to compare the secondaries against, which allows for meaningful discussion about the potential strengths of the individual primaries without having to talk hypothetically or anecdotally. You asserted its possible for Fiery Aura to be just as strong as all other tanker primaries if only people were willing to spend enough influence, which is easy to get. Prove it with a posted build. -
Quote:I really don't see how you could conclude that, given that virtually all the builds we've been discussing have been all-out expense builds. Actually, I really don't see how you could conclude that anyone has said anything remotely like that at all, period.Originally Posted by Severe
so lemme get this straight.
your saying that with
vanguard merits
reward merits
hero merits
tickets
tip mishs
weekly strike forces
radio mishs
rwz raids
hami raid
cop and all other trials
ae mishs
all those contacts in the entire game
and i havent even mentioned farming or the market i might add
and god knows what else im missing you cant possibly make any influence what so ever?
really?
We have considered the issue of SO builds verses moderate IO builds verses maxed out builds, because those three tiers are significant: SO builds represent both the normal balance point for the sets and performance similar to what people will see leveling up which tends to inform people's judgment of the sets. The difference between "moderate" builds and maxed builds is grey, but clearly there are certain things most players cannot easy stick into a build even with very large effort. The Gladiator +Def proc, for example, is not something you can just easily earn, is difficult to buy, and would take over two months of alignment merit earning to acquire.
In other news I've updated the spreadsheet, adding two things. One: Iggy's Invuln build (because its a nice one), and I added a new sheet to the total workbook that will make some average calculations for the main mitigation sheet a little easier. First, if you punch in Mids recharge for Hasten, it will tell you what Hasten will *really* recharge in, if Hasten is non-perma. It will then also tell you Hasten's average speed boost based on its total cycle time.
It will then feed *that* into two other calculators you can use to determine Aid Self's cycle time and Dull Pain's cycle time given the average buff of Hasten. Again: just type in Mids numbers, and it will tell you what the real cycle time is. If Hasten is perma, numbers will be the same. If Hasten is not perma, they will be a little longer. If you also fill in the Heal strength and +Health strength of the two powers, it then calculates for you the heal/sec for Aid self, the heal/sec for Dull Pain, and the average +health for Dull Pain. Add up the heal/sec and fill in. You'll need to do a tiny bit of math for the average +health: multiply base health by the average +health for DP.
Note: these are averages: true cycle times will vary up and down as Hasten goes up and down. Technically speaking its possible to have non-perma Hasten, have Dull Pain's average recharge time be under 120 seconds, and see actual gaps occasionally in-game. I don't account for that here: this is just an estimator so you can easily plug numbers into the first sheet. -
Ok, I've whipped up a quick and dirty spreadsheet that distills the important stuff from the old power proliferation spreadsheet I was using to quick calculate this stuff. I've made some tweaks, in particular this spreadsheet presumes smash/lethal is 60% of all damage, not 66%. Otherwise its basically using the same calculations.
Just download your own copy and fill in anything you want. You can basically plug in the numbers right from Mids. All you have to do is this:
1. Pick an empty column to the right
2. Enter description, base tohit, and the res cap of the archetype in question (its just a safety precaution to prevent numbers from exceeding that limit). Base tohit should be 50% (i.e. 0.5) unless you want to see what happens when you fight Praetorian DE or Praetorians from the Incarnate trials, in which case enter 0.64 (64%). Or whatever you want to compare to.
3. Enter all the defense values. Keep Toxic blank. You can enter the value shown in Mids: the spreadsheet will correctly compute soft-cap limits from the base tohit you set in step 2.
4. Enter all resistance values.
5. Enter base health and you actual average max health. Base health is the correct base for the archetype in question: this will be used to compute the strength of heals. Your average max health is trickier. If you have +health powers that are always up (HPT) or perma (perma DP) that's easy: its just your max health from Mids. If you have non-perma DP, you will have to average based on up time to get an accurate value. If you have non-perma hasten and that's boosting non-perma DP, you'll have to do some calculations, sorry. Or guestimate. Or read this.
6. Enter regen rate straight from Mids.
7. Enter total strength of all heals in % per second. Take all your heals, find the percent heal, calculate cycle time (cast time + recharge time), and divide. That is the %/sec for that heal. Add them up for all heals and enter value in the blank.
8. You can enter the value for DDR (defense debuff resistance) or not: the sheet doesn't do anything with it either way yet. Its there because I was playing around with some ideas involving it.
Down below are the calculated scores. The Sustained, 180 seconds, 60 seconds, and 30 seconds sections are straight from my old proliferation spreadsheet for those familiar with that. Its the amount of incoming damage for each type you can sustain indefinitely, or over a fixed amount of time. Just to clarify, the 60 seconds value is the maximum damage per second incoming you can sustain without dying in 60 seconds. Meaning that level of damage will likely kill you in 61 seconds.
For each damage type, the defense type presumed to work for that damage type is the *better* of the average of all positional types or the specific defense type aligned with that damage type. Toxic is a special case: there's no toxic attack type in use in the game so it only uses the average of all positional types as a guess. Psionics are also special: All psionic damage is split in half, half obeys the normal rules, the other half will *only* use Psionic defense, not positional types (see the values for SR in the first column with powerset data).
I have prefilled in some reference data. My actual current soft-capped SR build is in the first column, and its also by default the reference values for all other normalized metrics. For these purposes, I ignored the scaling resistances. Then I have some of the builds posted in this thread. I also have a prototype Granite build I'm playing around with, and a proposed alternative build someone gave to me. And I have a build labeled "ridiculous" that just has massive numbers in it, so you can see what the ultimate in survivability will likely look like in terms of scores.
At the very top of that bottom section are the composite scores for the four time windows: sustained, 180, 60, and 30 seconds, which are just copied from those sections below. And there is a normalized set of scores below that, with my SR scrapper set to 1.0 (whatever you put in that first column will be the reference value for those scores).
Note, as with all such calculations, this should be a guide, not the final answer on survivability. It does not factor in things like End drain, or the debuff in RTTC (at the moment). It does not factor in powers like mezzes in Dark Armor. You have to use your judgment to decide how to weight the different time windows for survivability. Its a consolidated way to look at the calculable numbers quickly. -
Quote:Its a very playable build. With Darkest Night turned off, it has net 2.0 eps recovery before the shifter proc (which averages 0.2 eps). Some attacks are underslotted with Kinetic Shifters or Eradications, but not horribly (~85% - 87% dmg) and runs tactics to help with accuracy (+11% tohit as slotted). Given the mitigation it generates, it gives up maybe eight percent net damage from a nominally slotted for offense build.Originally Posted by Breog
That is a very impressive Willpower biuld (I can't see it as Mids hates me) but just the numbers you posted about it. I do wonder how it does in other areas, Dam etc
Impressive none the less, I do feel its a "what if" style biuld. As you mentioned you havn't seen a biuld like that in game. Given ulimated tools/influence style biuld thats not likly to see play.
Also, its cheaper than the SR build I'm playing now. Its expensive, given that it uses the PvP +Def and +Res procs, but its not the most expensive build I've seen really. So while I haven't seen one like it that I'm aware of, it was well within my ability to make and play one myself if I had a mind to. And knocking out those two procs, the build is *still* softcapped (albeit barely) and still very strong, so a player could build up to this build over time, slotting those last two IOs down the road.
Its actually a very good build. I think the compromise on total damage is reasonable. The only compromise you don't want to make in an ultra-strong tanker build is endurance, because if you can't swing, you can't gauntlet things. Especially important for Willpower. -
Quote:I'm using the builds posted in this thread, in particular slainsteel's Electric build, his Invuln build, and Strato's Willpower build.Originally Posted by Breog
I honestly dont understand your numbers... Im sure its because I havn't slept much and its late but could you break them down a bit more.
*It looks like your saying Elec Tanker took the most Energy damage out of the 3 which doesn't make sense in the slightest so Im sure Im reading it wrong... or backwards lol*.
Would it be possible to see the biulds you used? (guessing basic layout to keep things simple)
Im curious because I'm not sure how Inv Crushs Elec in Smash/Lethal damage, when Elec "can" Cap Res to 90% and Soft Cap Def.
See what your general numbers used for this would help give a point of reference. Because in Game I see Willpower Tankers taking Dirt naps all the time, and what you just posted doesn't back up what I have seen in game. (granted I'm probley not seeing High end Willpower biulds).
What the numbers above represent are normalized incoming damage sustainable numbers - the amount of incoming damage from attacks each build could live through for the time period specified. Sustainable means "forever" while the other maximum damage per second you could sustain without dying in that timeframe. The composite score numbers are basically those numbers combined into a composite score with smash/lethal representing 66% of the score, and the other damage types representing 34% divided evenly then divided by a standard number. The strength of Invuln slotted with SOs, basically. So on sustainable damage, the composite score is saying the posted Willpower, Electric, and Invuln builds are 35 times, 26 times, and 19 times stronger than an SO-slotted Invuln tanker.
Short version: higher numbers are better.
The reason Invuln beats Electric in those posted builds is because of Dull Pain. In sustainable damage Electric wins because it has higher regeneration to offset damage over time: 26.36 to 18.80. But in short damage burst like 30 seconds, that higher regen/heal is less strong, while Invuln's higher health becomes relatively more valuable.
The Willpower build is so strong because Stratonexus (almost) capped out health. Consider this: his Willpower build has 3484.35 health. The posted Electric build has 2558.04 health. So even though the Willpower build has only 73.6% resistance to s/l and the Electric build has 81.7%, it takes a total of 13198 points of damage to take out all of that Willpower health through resistances, while it takes 13978 to to take out Electric's health through its resistances: that is nearly a tie. Invuln does better, capping smash/lethal and health. Even if Electric soft-caps defense, and caps smash/lethal, it cannot cap health (so far as I know: post an Electric build that soft caps defense and caps s/l and caps health and I'll change my mind). The posted Electric build doesn't cap s/l, so the disparity is even greater. But even if it did, Invuln would still win. It would do better against the posted Willpower build, though.
Why you see Willpower tankers die more often than Electric tankers is basically what you said: you aren't seeing very many builds as strong as the one Stratonexus posted. I'm not sure *I* have ever seen a Willpower tanker build that strong in-game. It soft-caps everything except psionic, essentially caps health, and has a ton of regen with only one thing in RTTC range. Most Willpower tankers don't have as much s/l resistance, don't cap health, and certainly aren't soft-capped to almost everything, which makes them more reliant on pure regeneration and much more vulnerable to damage spikes. A 2400 health Willpower tanker is not so hard to spike. A 3500 health Willpower tanker is a lot harder to spike and kill before its regen brings it back up to full. And its *really* hard to spike anyone that is soft-capped without resorting to tohit buffs: its not easy to kill my soft-capped SR scrapper and she's far less hardy than Strato's Willpower build, outside of high order defense debuffs. -
Quote:Actually, I don't think her Neuron vengeance has +tohit. She's a Praetorian class (archvillain) critter in Tin Mage, which means she has 64% intrinsic tohit. What her Neuron vengeance does is damage cap her (i.e. +300% damage, to the 400% critter cap).Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Fair enough. I was just guessing, because the softcap alone isn't enough because her vengeance includes +tohit. As long as some people on your team had maneuvers, then you'd be in the clear again. Still, she's a +3 AV if you're level shifted, which is just under a 10% chance to hit you at the relative softcap. You were lucky to not get hit.
Of course, with Invulnerability, you should also be hard capped to S/L damage. So even if she did hit you, it should have only tickled.
For some reference, Focus is a 1.64 scale attack. A level 54 Praetorian AV should hit for 933.88 damage with that attack. But at +3, it hits for 1.33 times normal damage, or 1242. And then its damage capped, which means it'll hit us players for 4968. Oh, and it has 310 feet of range, so forget about kiting that. Even Invuln is going to feel that in the morning.
Actually, that's a joke: I've seen smart granite tankers kite her, because at least Focus is a ranged attack for her, doing ranged damage (always lower than melee damage for critters). Be thankful Bobcat doesn't cheat with Focus like players do, and use the melee damage tables.
Anyway, as I said I've seen smart Granite tankers kite her around with taunt, because it still pays to stay out of melee range. You don't want to let her land, say, Eviscerate on you. That will land for a net 1.7 * 949.07 * 4 * 1.33 = 8583.39 points of damage. And if you are soft-capped with 45% defense, she still has a 44.5% chance to hit you (19% * 1.3 * 1.5 * 1.2 for the base 64% tohit, the +3 level difference, the AV accuracy bonus, and the 1.2 intrinsic accuracy of her version of Eviscerate). 500 points of damage every eight seconds is bad enough. Even Invulns and Granite tankers are going to notice 860 points of damage come blasting through capped resistances.
By the way, might as well go for the badge regardless. Her version of Follow Up damage caps her anyway, so unless you have tons of defense buffs and can make her consistently miss Follow Up, she'll effectively be vengeanced most of the time anyway.
You know, now that I think about it, I believe if you put a player in the drivers seat with pissed off Bobcat, she could solo Hamidon. Not the LGTF Hamidon, I mean Hamidon. I guess Praetoria's version of Hamidon must be a whole lot stronger, or Cole could have ended the Hamidon Wars in one afternoon by just putting a bullet in Neuron's head.