Arcanaville
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Are you kidding? With Castle gone, I'm like the senior powers person around here. I'm going to be all like "you know, Tim, you don't have to do it my way but when Castle was here we agreed that doing it your way was going to lag out the combat timer. But hey, its only downtime, right?"Originally Posted by PracticallyGod
Is Arcana quitting too?
With Castle out of the way, I can finally get Elusivity in PvE, combos in Martial Arts, a better DPA equation, A QUICKNESS THAT ISN'T RETARDED! And with all the cool stuff the devs are working on for the next couple of years, there's less competition for MY IDEAS! Castle was like that white block guarding the MCP from my Tron disc and now Positron is totally defenseless! MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I mean, I'm of course sad to see him go and wish him all the best in his new endeavors. Yes, definitely sad. Going to miss him greatly. -
Quote:Personally, I'm surprised that's the only thing people think the Bifurcations do.Originally Posted by UberGuy
Personally, I think +regen, specifically, is a touchy tool for the devs to use to make an encounter "challenging".
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Quote:Jolting Chain is an example of the Real Numbers system being confronted with a novel power. JC uses a system of pseudo-pets to deliver its damage, but Real Numbers does not understand the complex logic that the pets obey in being cast and recast, and it thinks the power just invokes a ton of pets that all do damage all the time.Originally Posted by Madam_Enigma
Another example of real numbers being wrong or misleading might be for instance Jolting Chain in electric control. It's a low damage attack/KD control. But when looking at it's info, it says at level 50 it'll do 160+ damage per use. And it might, if it hits every enemy it possibly can. It shows for the damage total not per enemy, but ideal situation of it chaining to 15 or 16 enemies.
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Your understanding of mez protection is quite a bit faulty, which is causing you to come to erroneous conclusions.
Lets start with critters. Standard minions have base -1 to most mez attributes. This means it takes a mag 2 mez to mez them: mag 1 only raises their mez magnitude to 0. Mez magnitude must be greater than zero to be mezzed. Standard Lts have base -2, and Standard Bosses have base -3, and we all know it takes mag 3 to mez an Lt, and mag 4 to mez a Boss.
Players have base -1: they are like minions in that regard. That means it takes mag 2 to hold them. Acro has mag 2 protection: specifically -2. That lowers players to -3, which means like Bosses it takes mag 4 to hold them. You basically need one more mag than protection to overcome it.
Most holds are actually mag 3, not mag 2. Critter mez is similar to player mez: if its mag 3 for players, its probably mag 3 for critters. So critters with controller-like mez are usually packing at least mag 3, while non-controller-like mez is sometimes lower. Illusionist Blind is mag 3. Mesmerize is mag 3. On the other hand, green ink man barrage is mag 2 stun, and Stun (the attack) is mag 3 - just like it is for Energy Melee.
Mag 10 protection means it takes mag 11 mez to overwhelm it. Which is four mag 3 holds, assuming those holds don't crit (Illusionist Blind can critical hold just like Illusion Control Blind: Mag 3 with 20% chance of additional mag 1).
While there could be an argument to be made that mez resistances - which generally affect duration - could be made easier to acquire for squishies, that point is getting lost in your misunderstandings of mez protection, which are highly faulty. I would suggest learning more about the mez system before suggesting ways to overhaul it. -
Quote:In other words, what I said:Originally Posted by je_saist
What it means is really simple.
All you're saying is that power pool defenses tend to be numerically lower than primary and secondary power defenses, which means anything that affects them proportionately will show a larger numeric benefit on the stuff with the bigger numbers. But that's a highly non-standard way of designating bias. That would be like me saying that the Alpha slot is preferentially designed to benefit total focus more than power blast.Quote:If the Alpha slot is slanted towards "native defenses" then the entire enhancement system has been similarly slanted since release.
Moreover, this part of your statement was the part I have no idea what it means:
And I mean that literally: I have no idea what this statement is supposed to parse into, because it has no connection with the game mechanics I'm aware of.Quote:The Incarnate Alpha slot system boosts powers directly, rather than base-stats
The Alpha buffs function like enhancement buffs, which is to say that for the most part they are strength buffs. Strength buffs "directly buff base stats" if you want to put it that way. Nothing buffs "directly *instead of*" buffing "base-stats" because in that sense base stats (intrinsic power values) can't be altered by anything in the game. They can only be, well, buffed.
One more thing: simply looking at digits isn't always a fair way to judge "benefit." All three SR passives have a base 5.625% defense to one type. For scrappers, weave offers 3.75% defense to all types. Its arguable that Weave is stronger, and each slot put into Weave helps more than each slot put into the SR passives (excluding the effects of enhancing the defense debuff resistance in the passives).
So:
Actually, I see that weave increased by 0.6% whereas in your Kinetic Shield example it increased by 1.5% (Kinetic Shield is 12.75% defense, by the way, but that's not significant here). And Weave is defense to all types as I mentioned. Is 0.6% to all really miniscule compared to 1.5% to only smash/lethal? Or even the 1.8% defense to fire/cold/energy (and less to negative) of Power Shield? It actually seems in the general ball park.Quote:The buff effects on pool powers such as Weave and Maneuvers are pretty low to begin with. I think Tanks get the highest Weave rating with something like 5% defense. According to ParagonWiki Defenders and Arachnos get the highest Maneuvers rating with 3.5% defense. - 5+58%= 7.9
- 5+70% = 8.5
- 3.5+58% = 5.53
- 3.5+70% = 5.95
This is not just hypothetical number crunching. There was a time, before defense debuff resistance and the scaling passive resistances, when it was a legitimate topic on the scrapper forums to ask whether Weave was a better choice than taking all three passive powers in SR, because while all three passives combined were stronger (and didn't burn endurance) you could get more than half their strength with just one power and two discretionary slots: the passives required three power choices and six discretionary slots. Triple the effort for double the gain.
In any case, implying that this was an actual deliberate decision on the part of the devs is false: its a consequence of the numbers that they really had no choice on. But since most of us would not say that a defense SO is specifically designed to benefit power pool powers less than primary and secondary powers, I think its misleading to say the same for the Alpha slot.
Oh, one more thing:
Unlikely. When I asked about that, the only thing I think that was deliberate was tier 1: Accuracy, Damage, Endurance, and Recharge. Those are the four most popular enhancements slotted. The second tier which is composed of the three primary mitigators and a filler (defense debuff) was assigned more or less randomly.Quote:One of the reasons why I suspect that the developers grafted defense against the accuracy was to limit the usefulness of Incarnate buff effects to archtypes chasing after soft-cap.
Moreover, that would not be an especially good way to do it anyway. You can already soft-cap with the invention system, just sometimes at the expense of underslotting other things. So someone wanting to soft cap doesn't have to take Nerve: they can just build with inventions to the soft cap and then if they are underslotted with damage due to slotting just take Musculature to compensate. The biggest benefit to a soft-capper - because its the biggest benefit to everyone - is to take the Alpha that buffs the aspects you most want that are the most underslotted in your build. So a soft-capper doesn't stack Alpha onto their defenses if that is inefficient: they build to the soft cap making sacrifices elsewhere and then lets Alpha fill those in.
Not everyone is thinking that way yet, but I'm sure its only a matter of time. Either way, Alpha's attribute combos aren't even a small speed bump to soft-capping. Heck my MA/SR soft-cap build is taking Spiritual because that's what's not maxed out in my build: recharge. And outside of my defenses, my strongest mitigation power is Aid self. What would I want to make Aid Self stronger... Recharge and Heal I guess.
Way to go on making Alpha less useful to soft-cappers. Are there many soft-cap melee builds out there that cannot make good use of Recharge/Heal? I guess perma-hasten Willpower melee will just have to take Musculatures. -
Quote:Just how high do you think mez protection values are, anyway?Originally Posted by Savos
I really wish I could put the protection above in something like 72 point font.
Protection does not nor should it ever mean the same as resistance. Yet you keep claiming I somehow support this for some unknown reason.
A few things:
A) Mez protection for all melee classes is too high. Disregarding your 1 in a million chance (effectively) in your examples, melee protection doesn't fail.
B) Mez for anything without protection has two potential results: death in 5 seconds without chance of response or doing nothing for 10-15-20+ seconds.
What I would like to see:
1) Melee mez protection reduced to something like -3, enhanceable to -5 as well as providing something akin to a +50% resist to duration (e.g. 66.66% of normal duration base), enhanceable. Perhaps even modified by AT multiplier to protect those tanks that need mez protection that is overkill in 99.9% of the game.
2) Overall duration reduced on players via either global resist, achievable set bonuses or a global nerf to mob mez.
The reasoning is such that if implemented, melee must be aware of mez, though can still just ignore the huge majority of it, while limiting the case of 10+ seconds of standing around doing nothing for anything lacking protection (which is fine surprisingly enough!).
And contrary to what you believe about my "so does everything else" was intended to be for every other melee defense set. For non-melee with limited defenses it has some huge variability based on power set choices.
For the record, melee protection values are Scale 30 (technically, -30) and scale with the Melee Res Boolean table. That means that like things like damage, they increase with combat level: they are not fixed. For Scrappers and Tankers, this is what Scale -30 looks like at various combat levels:
15: 6.3 / 7.8
20: 6.9 / 8.4
25: 7.5 / 9.3
30: 8.1 / 9.9
35: 8.7 / 10.8
40: 9.3 / 11.4
45: 9.9 / 12.3
50: 10.5 / 12.9
When Scrappers first acquire mez protection, they can sustain two mag 3 or three mag 2 mezzes before they are mezzed. They are unable to sustain three stacked mag 3 mezzes until about level 40. Even at the level cap, tankers can only sustain about four mag 3 or six mag 2 mezzes before they reach their mez capacity. Exceeding both scenarios are possible but usually unlikely, which is the exact threshold mez protection was rebalanced for when it was adjusted to these values years ago: possible but out of the ordinary. Dropping protection to mag 3 for scrappers would mean more than one mez would mez them, and anything significantly lower for tankers would mean they would be unable to tank without a mez buffing support character. The balance point on tankers, by the way, was specified that tankers should be able to tank for a reasonable team of four with little to no assistance at standard difficulty settings. Its considered acceptable if a tanker requires some assistance at higher ratios. A spawn of four can easily possess a total of mag 8 or mag 9 mez in the alpha volley, especially at higher levels.
Basically, the current levels of mez protection, especially for tankers, are within about two points of what would be practical. If someone wants to quibble that Scrapper mez protection is, say, a point or two too high, I'm prepared to entertain that possibility in theory. But a drop to something like scale 5 with enhancement for all levels would be bordering on ludicrous. That would mean Scrappers, intended to be the best soloers, would be unable to handle dual illusionist spawns.
On the subject of the "one in a million" chance for melee protection to fail, one way to see it fail even at level 50 is to find the Possessed in the portal court yard in PI, and look for the multiple grav spawn. If you don't know what its like for melee to be mezzed, that would be one guaranteed way to find out.
About the only thing I have a real quibble about on the subject of mez protection is KB protection, but that's a completely different subject. -
Quote:In fact, even Real Numbers can be wrong since the devs are not infallible. Its just that because of how it works, it can only be wrong in certain ways. For example, if it tells you the intrinsic accuracy of a power is 1.2, then its 1.2. Its extremely unlikely to be wrong because it pulls that data directly from the power database which itself is pulled from the same source as the game engine. It only reads, it doesn't make up numbers. On the other hand, if it tells you the power does such and such damage, those effects are calculated with rather complex algorithms to account for all the ways a power can work, and that can sometimes be in error (usually by omitting something).Originally Posted by LarsNL
Two revelations for people who trust Mids' with their life:
1) Mids' isn't a product of little developer underlings in the game engine spitting it out directly from there. It's third party - it can be wrong.
2) HOWEVER, good news: coincidentally Mids' does have the right numbers - you just don't know where to look. Lock a power, go to Window -> Data View and oh my what's that? Accuracy, second attribute on the list.
A classic example of this occurs when the Real Numbers system tells you what your smashing defense is. The combat attributes will tell you what your net smashing defense is, and all buffs and debuffs on you. Interestingly, it can happen that the buffs and debuffs are wrong, but the total is correct. How that can happen is that the Real Numbers system pulls buffs and debuffs from a source comparable to the buff bar - it looks for all buffs and debuffs on the player and itemizes them. But it doesn't add them up: it pulls the total directly from the running attributes of the player. Real Numbers cannot always figure out things like resistances to debuffs, so sometimes the debuffs listed are the unresisted values, but the player is experiencing less of the debuff. Thus, the debuffs might be listed too high, but the total is still accurate because Real Numbers pulls that data from an authoritative source.
These kinds of things are important to know when attempting to use the game's own numbers to test itself. -
Quote:The game already has lots of defensive counters. Player perception itself is skewed towards +DEF partially because when its strong its very strong, partially because its mitigation cap does not vary with archetype like resistance, and partially because its easier to get regardless of strength.Originally Posted by all_hell
I'd actually like to see def devalued somehow. Make it so that there're fewer clear cut decisions in regard to res v def v regen.
But we still have:
1. Critters with intrinsicly higher tohit, for which the "soft cap" is out of reach for most players; Praetorian DE: base 64% tohit, soft cap at 59%; Pets and Turrets: base 75% tohit, soft cap at 70%.
2. Critters with tohit buffs: Build Up, Vengeance (which is still stackable and wide AoE), Quartz crystals (+100% tohit in an aura), etc.
3. Autohitting "trivial damage" and debuffs. Caltrops, earthquake, etc. These ignore defenses because they do not roll tohit rolls at all.
4. Defense debuffs. Unless you have very high defense debuff resistance, defense debuffs are still the most plentiful, and most dangerous debuffs around, by a wide margin. Yes, they have to hit (unless they autohit) but a one in twenty chance to hit is not rare if you are also subject to cascade failure, where the first hit will significantly raise your chances of getting hit again. How many times are you attacked in a given spawn: more than twenty? And even at the soft-cap, a +2 boss has a one in thirteen chance of hitting you, not one in twenty.
Outside of the invention system, defense is actually just barely viable without substantial layering of protection. But because you can get so much of it, its often the easier choice. A similar thing happens on the offensive side: far more people take recharge buffs than damage buffs in the invention system, because its a lot easier to build a high recharge build that can focus on its best attacks than to try to stack up a ton of damage buffs to generate a similar offensive output. But I don't see people asking for the devs to devalue recharge so building for more accuracy is an equal choice.
Is there too much defense in the invention system? Yes. But is it a simple problem to solve? No. And the reason is because ironically the huge preponderance of defense benefits *non-defensive* builds to an almost greater degree than actual defense sets. In the past, soft-capping was the exclusive purview of the defense-focused sets. Now, to some extent almost anyone can do that, to at least some types if not all of them. And that means whacking defense itself strips only some of the protection from the non-defense sets while stripping most or all of it from the defense-focused sets. If you devalue defense too much, you'll put the soft-capped Dark Armor characters back to where they were in I8 before IOs, but also the SR scrappers back to where they were at release with practically no protection. -
Quote:I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but Alpha buffs affect all powers that can be slotted with their buffs. They have exactly the same proportional effect on Maneuvers and Focused Fighting as defense SOs. If the Alpha slot is slanted towards "native defenses" then the entire enhancement system has been similarly slanted since release.Originally Posted by je_saist
Blowback has also started in the Incarnate tree. The Incarnate Alpha slot system boosts powers directly, rather than base-stats, so only power-sets with native defenses benefit from the Alpha Slot. Pool powers such as Maneuvers and Weave will show much less benefit on an Alpha-Boost than powers in the primary or secondary power slots.
In terms of "blowback" its worth noting the two aspects of game design where such blowback can occur. First, if soft-capping becomes so popular it actually affects the average performance of players in the standard content, it could affect the strength of the standard content (or more likely the rewards we get from it). That seems unlikely for most leveling content, because most soft-capped builds are created at level 50, not level 30. Second, if soft-capping becomes prevalent in the end game, then end game content will be designed to deal with that level of power on the part of the players. And that seems to be happening already.
I worry a little that the devs, having mostly bought themselves out of the extreme levels of defense disparity of the pre-I7 game, are starting to let their guard down with things like the Praetorian DE. Its a little too easy to do that and make something extremely unfair towards defense sets in the early game. At the moment, I don't think they are doing enough of it to be a serious problem yet, but it could be in the future. Its something to watch for. It took so long to convince the devs that if 75% chance to hit (for bosses) was a problem, 65% chance to hit was not a solution. And now we have whole classes of critter below the level cap that run around with about that level of tohit from minions to bosses. Such a thing should be unusually noteworthy and somehow strength-justified. I don't see either principle being obeyed with the Praetorian DE. -
Quote:Some powers are like that. Not sure of the technical details, but it has to do with how the game engine taps into the random roll system to print combat chat. Its not "clean."Originally Posted by Mr_Right
It looks like it's matching up with the disorient chance, which makes zero sense to me. Why is the chance to disorient even showing up in the to hit rolls?
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Quote:That was a bit of a joke. When your weak spot is 34% defense, 50% resistance, and the world's largest heal, your real weak spot is probably internet connectivity or the need to eat.Originally Posted by Werner
Non-positional psi hurts, but not THAT bad.
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Quote:According to the devs, of those three it's blasters that were soloing the slowest up until at least I13.Originally Posted by Ironblade
Tough to answer when you start with a false premise. i.e. that defenders can't solo. They solo just fine. Not as fast as scrappers or blasters but, duh, they're not mostly about damage.
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Quote:It shouldn't. Its showing the proc's chance to fire, which is not a tohit roll, but does show up in the combat chat. If it affects the streakbreaker, its a bug.Originally Posted by Mr_Right
Arcana, I hate to ask this now because I can't get on my computer and get screenshots, but I've been getting weird results with the Melee Purple Proc. I monitored my to hit channel, and noticed that when i activated my Dark dwarf smite, it rolls two to hit checks, one at my normal to hit (95%) which can change with debuffs and one at a constant 10% which doesnt change. I noticed it doesn't roll any other "extra" to hit checks with other ptocs. I just gotta know, do you think this could be affecting my steakbreaker?
I promise to log in late tonight and get pics for you, and even try and get some high volume rolls. -
Quote:Difficult and expensive, yes. Futile? No.Originally Posted by dave_p
Since you did not specify what type of softcapping, I assumed you (and by extension, Werner) were talking about the most common/practical (for DA, scappers & tankers) softcapping, which is to say S/L. I know almost no one that tries to softcap all 3 positions w/a resist based set, and that indeed would be a rather... difficult proposition, even for a tank (I'm tempted to call it futile, actually).
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.90
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Dark Armor
Secondary Power Set: Battle Axe
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Flight
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Death Shroud -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Beheader -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25), Mako-Dam%(25)
Level 2: Chop -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(27), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(27), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(29), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29), T'Death-Dam%(31)
Level 4: Gash -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dam%(7), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(34), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(7)
Level 8: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(9), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(9), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(11), RedFtn-Def(11), RedFtn-EndRdx(15)
Level 10: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Cloak of Darkness -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(13), HO:Enzym(13)
Level 14: Tough -- GA-3defTpProc(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(15), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(36), TtmC'tng-EndRdx(39), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 16: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(17), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(17), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(19), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(19), GSFC-Build%(23)
Level 18: Hover -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(39)
Level 20: Weave -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(21), HO:Enzym(21)
Level 22: Swoop -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(36), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(37), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), T'Death-Dam%(39)
Level 24: Dark Embrace -- RctvArm-ResDam(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(42), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(50), RctvArm-EndRdx(50)
Level 26: Murky Cloud -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(43), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(43), RctvArm-ResDam(48), RctvArm-EndRdx(50)
Level 28: Whirling Axe -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(31), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(31), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(33), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33)
Level 30: Obsidian Shield -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Dark Regeneration -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(45), Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(45)
Level 35: Cleave -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(40), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(40), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(40), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(42)
Level 38: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt(A), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg(46), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(46), Mocking-Acc/Rchg(48), Mocking-Taunt/Rng(48)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 44: Laser Beam Eyes -- Empty(A)
Level 47: Physical Perfection -- P'Shift-End%(A)
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 2: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 3: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Gauntlet
Level 5: Ninja Run
Level 3: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 3: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 3: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 3: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(33), P'Shift-End%(46)
I almost want to build it just so I can play it to see how indestructible it is.Code:| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1558;721;1442;HEX;| |78DAA5935B4F134114C767B75B6AE996522B943BF40285028B7889B707838297040| |C1AE28302CD8A435BBA16B2AD0A3EF9017CF7C91813EF5F4011BF12E0ED7D3D97A9| |10F6D14DFAFFEDFCE7CC39B373A6739BD3A610CF2F0BCDBCEAD8B55A61C1AE56A41| |BBA65D71FBBB6234242884EF60AD37255566BD29AB6DD4A61CA7DB4EE26D5CC9C74| |A4B4AED8F5BA230B539B327EB35A92AEACD6ADC68B39BFBEEE58B3D2DE28578BB1C| |6E0A1746BA5F24694C6D7CAC5521D66233C72709898D928AF583355E916B70A7376| |AD2EDDAD0ED8D259F87D090BF57842A4009362F7C00A8A55B28C22A344682F133AD| |61815C21EACD2D42AED1E2027BAEE3316093D4B8C65425F81B00FAB026A55806B35| |71BE14974C71C91497CC70C97638D02015F3B4E0398011104D8A71980BF15C30D4A| |C61F8B108C3243447192D84961841835561750C610F1EF11D8611CEA347546EF308| |03B02ACA3146F45480F22561DC2B32794A3B3441181B27FC849431F5B1B1B73A5AA| |DEF18EF09C73F303E12DA3F11C25024AE3E36AE0A0F291A3097509B4C28EFC411FE| |82AA6DAA6A1B3726C38DC97263B2DC982C3766881BF3155625D5A725D31A5A237D8| |C1461B29F91216C4378A70AEFE4B83C07E4397C227D38FC378477F39E8CEE27D4D3| |BEA78C4DC2C016E319E11B84F77276D1CB977407AC7EBA705EA07F818E377F83728| |FDDE633BF4EA33F10975695D25C29C795725C29C79546B8D20F081F54E183253AFF| |F132638D3051613884D7D0F361756D864729C31BB04695354A37E97354084BEDDE7| |A49EBD0F77A8C7FFF18A151E4ACCF990747578E4ECE08C670B6FF7AB6CD469EF09D| |66D005947910ED2EBE2DA22CE17019DF6C7C7B80B282436FC76CEC34761E36242EA| |05C44B984D2D60AF20223431190088A891245694189A1B4A22450BA505EA1786158| |6CF0377BBB9043D70E7FFF9ECFD93FEC64B98D0796AE0FF055628C73034EFA4E3AE| |F73267DCE199F73DAE71C9CF05F635F34A2| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
Defense:
S/L: 43.6%
FCEN: 42.4%
Psi: 33.6%
Melee: 46.1%
Ranged: 47.4%
AoE: 46.4%
Resistance:
S/L: 68.2% with tough, 47% without
F/C: 48.2%
E: 31.3%
N: 68.9%
T: 31.3%
Psi: 50%
And it manages 2.15 eps net recovery including the two procs with all toggles except Tough running (1.98 eps with tough) and has a reasonably slotted Dark Regen. Since I mocked this up off the top of my head, I'm guessing there's room for improvement. Still, it does look like a mighty hard thing to kill. The weak spot is, I guess non-positional psi? Only 50% resistance and 33.6% defense to that. And only one PvPIO and no purples: most min/maxers could almost build this thing with their pocket change.
The only problem is you have to hover while fighting to get the full effect. But when you're not tanking Godzilla and Mothra simultaneously, you can always shut off a few toggles. -
Quote:Each entity ("attacker") has it's own miss counter and worst miss percentage, and therefore essentially their own streakbreaker. All attacks used by that attacker count towards the same counters. That's why using a very bad accuracy attack in the middle of an otherwise good chain of attacks can hurt a little, because it can effectively turn off the streakbreaker until that particular misss streak is broken.Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Basically what it means is that it is possible to perform an Assassin Strike ten times in a row, and miss every single time, IF you are using other attacks between the Assassin Strikes. The streakbreaker does not consider uses of the same attack as "consecutive" unless they are actually used consecutively.
This is likely one of the main things that causes people to believe Accuracy has been nerfed. Their overall hit rate is well over 95%, they hit with every other single attack they use, but because of some random bad luck a particular attack misses every time. This is usually noticed because accuracy is very important at that moment, they're trying to mez a foe to provide damage mitigation, or they need a heal and their drain misses. The streakbreaker just tries to keep you from missing too many times in a row, it can't do anything about missing at the worst possible time.
My guess is that each individual entity has its own streakbreaker. You can't have all your "free hits" going to your allies or your foes, for instance. -
Quote:In this context, the term usually mean mutually exclusively independent, analogous to orthogonal axes in geometry which normally are at right angles to each other and thus share no common projection (they mark off completely different directions with nothing in common).Originally Posted by Wavicle
I looked up orthogonal and found many meanings but couldn't figure out just what you meant by it here, Arcanaville. Would you mind clarifying your use of that term?
If one archetype was good at single target melee offense and another one was good at AoE melee offense, they'd be good at different things, but not orthogonally different things: the two things share a lot of common aspects. On the other hand, if one was good at melee offense and another was good at healing, that would be orthogonally different things: those two things share essentially nothing in common.
CoH tries, but doesn't completely succeed, in making the archetypes (and powersets) individually good at unique things. For example, Defenders are only numerically better than Controllers at buff/debuff, and only numerically worse than blasters at ranged damage. They have very little in the way of orthogonality to their design. Similarly, Scrappers and Tankers are different only in quantitative strength for the most part. The unique differences between them boil down to criticals and gauntlet. That's a small amount of uniqueness relative to the whole of the archetypes. If the game had only Blasters, Controllers, and Stalkers, there'd be an enormous amount of orthogonality between the archetypes, because there would be almost no overlap between them at all (which is not to say that would be the best design situation: maximum non-overlap is not necessarily a good thing by itself).
I guess a simplified way of stating the same thought is to say that each archetype should not only have something they are the best at, it should be something the other archetypes aren't especially good at. Being the best at something everyone else is really good at is not especially interesting. Being the best at a subset of something someone else is generally good at is also not particularly interesting. Its ok to have some overlap, but there should be something that is relatively unique to each archetype that it is specifically intended to be better than everything else at, by a significant margin. To a lesser degree, the same thing should be true for individual powersets. It should be true, but it isn't always true to an objectively high enough degree. -
Quote:The design reason for scrappers to have mez protection, which was discussed many times in the past, is because mez protection is intended to prevent personal defenses from being detoggled, and because scrappers would be under both a higher threat of mez being in melee range, and higher threat of aggro and damage from being in close proximity to the enemy. Solo, these are less of an issue than teamed, but solo Scrappers are intended to be more self-sufficient in general.Originally Posted by hedgehog_NA
Scrappers dont need mez protection any more than blasters or defenders do. You can team and get buffed. You can take TP and be in melee range instantly. You have high defense to prevent a lot of it from hitting you. You shouldnt be taking the alpha strike, that is the tanks job. He/she need mez prot, not the scrapper. Oh yeah, you can always pop breakfrees. Your defensive toggles wont even drop. Why is it the rationalization for squishies not having any mez protection no matter how minor doesnt apply to scrappers? Scrappers are DPS. they are not and should never be tanks. If they do have a tanking role their damage should be lowered. Blasters gained damage to make up for no defense. Scrappers have high damage and good defense. What exactly did they give up to maintain balance?
Basically, scrappers gave up range relative to blasters, damage mitigation relative to tankers, and team utility relative to other archetypes. If you think Scrappers got the much better trade, you're supposed to play scrappers and be happy. That's why there's more than one archetype in the game. The players playing defenders and controllers are doing likewise.
The design imperatives for the archetypes, by the way, are:
1. They should provide different game play experiences
2. They should excel in orthogonally different areas.
3. They should perform roughly the same in terms of overall average progress across the player base.
Nowhere on that list is the requirement that they meet some paper-balance metric, deliberately so. Those are distant very low priority requirements.
And by the way, the devs acknowledged that the mez vulnerability of blasters specifically was too high and affecting their performance in game as data mined. That admission is implicit in the devs allowing blasters to shoot while mezzed.. That's the mez "protection" blasters have: partial immunity to mez. Why didn't defenders and controllers get the same benefit? Because they aren't having the same problems blasters were having, period. One can claim defenders and controllers need or deserve it just as much, but the player base as a whole, as evidenced by their in-game performance, disagrees. -
Quote:This is one of the more interesting uses of the word "reasonable" I've seen in a long time.Originally Posted by Dasher
When will we be getting Incarnate Powers that simulate the Movement abilities of Incarnates like Synapse and Neuron?
Neither of these Incarnates are subject to Travel Power Supression, so it is reasonable to assume there must be an Incarnate ability which addresses that.
Thanks.
DASHER
Plus, of all the things to ask for under the guise of this excuse, unsuppressed travel is a weird one to ask for. Especially since neither has travel powers and thus no travel power suppression. Take swift and sprint and slot the heck out of them, and you too can run like the gods completely unsuppressed. I believe that combination is faster than Synapse is designed to run, actually.
If you're going to ask for something using this crazy theory, you should at least ask for something you can't get with a power pool and a few slots. Purple triangles, or 20,000 points of health, perhaps. I'd like Genesis to allow me to hand out task forces named after me. 'Cause why should Synapse have all the fun. -
Quote:Just as an aside, I'd probably go s/l over energy defense if that was the choice, because my guestimate is over 2/3rds of critter attacks out there are vectored s/l, and pure energy vectors are not common (mostly rad and electric attacks, which are not as common as the more common). But the devils in the details there.Originally Posted by Desmodos
We're veering on a tangent here, but soft capping to one damage type isn't in the same realm of effort a soft capping to all three positions or all damage types.
Now for Dark Armor specifically, I'd place greater effort into Energy Defense over Smash/Lethal, but that's how I chose to build Dark Armor.
Werner's point (and he'll correct me if I'm off) was soft capping a Dark Armor scrapper (as in to all three positons or all types) would require unpleasant sacrifices. Which I agree with.
My point to your post was that such sacrfices would not be necessary on a Dark Armor tanker.
It does make me think I should start working on my DA Incarnate respec next. It's actually been years since I've actually respeced anything seriously. I've thought about it, but with I19 I'm actually considering wholesale rebuilds of all my main level 50s. Its just getting a bit expensive to do them all, even with, shall we say, optimized acquisition strategies (just because I don't usually do it, doesnt mean I'm not very good at it). -
Its an interesting build. I'll probably want to mull it over before commenting. It has 2/3rds the regen but more resistances, and its a more offensive build with higher recharge and more damage buff. But in pursuing recharge heavily the attacks are underenhanced for damage, and I don't know if the slightly higher damage buff and higher recharge compensate for that. Its interesting that it gets to 25.5% resistance to s/l, though. I don't know if the build has enough endurance to power that offense effectively though since it burns more endurance. You definitely want to replace the Performance Shifter Acc/Rech in stamina with the proc, and also the Performance Shifter in Physical Perfection with the proc unless you're a purity who would rather have the higher recovery than the inconsistent proc: the proc will return more endurance over time in the long run, and this build looks like it will need it, even with conserve power (although having CS up almost half the time will help).
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Quote:Well, as I mentioned upstream, I wouldn't presume to guess what everyone thinks in-game unchallenged. People believe some really crazy things, actually. I could write a book on just what I've heard in-game. I've had me quoted to me (unknowingly) in arguments.Originally Posted by Desmodos
I'm not suggesting any validity to the so called "defense myth" but I do disagree with your's and Werner's perception of what the general player base believes about defense and soft capping. I see far too many builds that make what I perceive to be questionable sacrifices in the pursuit of defense soft cap.
In game, I frequently get tells asking how I soft capped my DM/DA and then shock when I explain I'm not. I also see player confused as to why they're soft capped characters is face planting while I'm still alive.
From my perspective, the majority of the player base (not forum posters), do believe defense soft cap is the end all be all of survivability.
But in the checks and balances realm of the scrapper forums in particular, and most number crunching forum threads in general, I don't think the soft-cap-is-god idea is a viable position: it usually gets strongly challenged in my experience.
The number crunching community on the forums for this game has not always been right, or objective, or even always very smart. But it has, in my experience, done a very good job of rejecting the stupid and erroneous, and almost always ratcheting forward towards generally better ideas. It's worth noting I used to be one of the most controversial number crunchers posters, because my posts did not reflect the status quo, pretty much ever. Now, while people don't agree with everything I say (nor should they automatically do so) I'm about as controversial (when it comes to number crunching) as a train schedule.
Which works to the advantage of newer players wanting to learn. Most of the people who've posted in this thread do not agree with me or each other on everything, or sometimes hardly anything. But they will all defend the methodology because it's not really mine, it's the number crunching community's methodology, and it's been battle-tested now for years. At the margins, there's room for healthy debate, but at the core the issues of how we look at simple things like damage mitigation are pretty much settled. If youre a new player and you want to know who to believe, the easy answer is: when it comes to the basics, the overwhelming majority of number crunching actve forum posters, most of whom have survived strong peer review.
For more complex topics, you'll just have to play the game and then decide who makes the most sense based on your experience. Or just listen to what I say.
Just yesterday I broke one of my own rules, and I paid the price for not listening to me. The rule? Never go to a store with a purple in your inventory. NEVER
I need to add a new rule: never go to the store half-asleep. -
Quote:Elusivity actually exists in the game: it was added a while ago as a new game mechanics and first actually used when PvP was modified in I13. At the moment, it only exists in PvP, although the original idea was meant for both PvP and PvE.Originally Posted by William_Valence
I remember Elusivity from the last time you paddled me with it. I also remember you used to call it Anti-accuracy. The intention, correct me if I'm wrong, being to make defensive sets better resist tohit buffs when considering the efficiency of each point of defense.
My question is, what would be the drawback of pulling player's defense completly from the tohit calculation. My thought being if you did this the only option would be to have a seperate defense roll prior to the tohit roll. If the defense roll is a success then skip the tohit roll as it already counts as a miss. This would make player defensive sets ignore tohit buffs when considering the efficiency of each point of defense. And depending on how you have the system check the rolls, you may even be able to make player defense useful vs. autohit effects. Defense debuffs would need to be modified, but that would be obvious.
The way it was implemented, which was basically how I first described it, is as an accuracy factor, just a negative one. You know how AoE mezzes have an intrinsic accuracy penalty, usually 0.8 acc rather than 1.0 acc? Well, Elu basically works like that: if you have 40% Elu, all attacks against you act as if, on top of all other factors, there was a 0.6 accuracy factor at the end (1.0 - 0.4).
I've never been able to twist Castle's arm hard enough to get him to look at Elu for PvE. It's a technical design difference of opinion having to do with debuffs (among other things), and unfortunately it's not an argument I'm likely to ever win against him. But it is technically feasible to use in PvE, it's just a question of being extra careful with balance, because Elu needs a light tough: it can be ultra powerful in large amounts. Even the 30% or so they added to PvP at the start was extremely balance-significant.
I wouldn't *replace* defense with Elu. I would use both in combination, because they have advantages and disadvantages. -
Quote:I should point out that it's true that the OP will not likely notice the difference between 44.9 and 45, but it's worth noting that while the literal soft cap is 45%, unless you have high DDR defense debuffs will be able to lower you below that soft cap fairly easy in high debuffing conditions. Even on SR with 95% DDR I try to build in a percent or two defense above 45 just as a buffer against debuffs. So while you aren't likely to notice the difference between 44.9 and 45, that's not today there's no difference between, say, 45 and 47.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
You will never notice that .1% below softcap that you are sitting at. You could watch the combat logs all day and probably never see a time where that .1% was the difference between being it and not being hit. Hell, even sitting at 43% you will almost never notice any difference between that and being at 45%.
If that slot could be better used elsewhere, I would do so, 44.9% is so close to being softcapped it might as well be.
However, in any situation where softcap defense is meaningful, you will notice the difference between 43 and 45. At least, I can. That's a 40% increase in damage, and I can notice that. In fact, I'm currently testing a build that is not fully complete yet, and currently sits at about 43.5% defense. I notice the difference between popping a luck to push me to the cap and when it wears off, when pushing the limits of the build. -
Quote:See: Elusivity.Originally Posted by William_Valence
Because I'm feeling lazy, and I'm sure in your considerations of the defense mechanic you've already thought of this, I have a question for you. What would be the consequences of removing defense from the tohit formula? Or more accurately, adding a new mechanic that provides a percentage chance to avoid an attack, prior to any tohit checks and allowing npcs to keep the old defense.
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Quote:I'm confident in saying it's not most people, but basically everyone not doing an academic trivial exercise on paper.Originally Posted by seebs
However, most people are interested in questions closer to the first.
We don't buy mitigation powers to mitigate damage, we buy mitigation powers to stay alve in the face of damage. More mitigation serves two purposes, and two purposes only: allowing you to survive what's killing you now, and allowing you to take on more than what you do now. It's not because you'd like to see an additional five points per second of damage "mitigated.". We don't even *see* "mitigated damage" only admitted damage, the damage you take. We want that to be lower. It's for that reason that the true value of mitigation powers isn't arbitrary. Mathematically it's arbitrary, but in a practical sense the perspective that it keeps you alive longer, or against more stuff, is the absolute correct one, and the linear differential one is basically meaningless.
That's why the equations have to mean something. And by the way, the OP sidetracked into this error, but it wasnt the primary error. The primary error was that the OP thought the survivability equation said something it has never said, and the OP seems completely unaware there are time-based survival equations that specifically deal with the subject of time limited survival.
It's an odd error: the two forms of equation have been around since 2005.