JustBling

It is biconditional, but because the condition can never be met, it is also always false. This makes your contingent statement, (that psi blast has better dps that fire given certain conditions) an outright falsehood. Perhaps they haven't covered it in your introductory philosophy course yet, but lies aren't permitted in honest discourse. They may have a value in rhetoric, but then rhetoric is only about convincing an audience, not about reasoning out the truth. The truth value of statements based upon lies is also suspect.

My original claim was that your statement about having the factual high ground was simply wrong. As your only refutation to my claim is that you somehow still have proven your point--invoking rhetoric where truth is only a means to an end--I have to believe you accept my analysis.

The original question in this thread was what non-fire primaries are up to the task of soloing AV's and/or GM's. The simple answer is that sonic is one of the best, and this answer has been proven beyond reasonable doubt in practice by the numerous people that have accomplished these feats in the past. Your number-mashing is a feeble attempt to introduce numbers which prove that the reality of the matter isn't possible.

You're presenting figures that prove that going to the Moon is impossible, long after we've been there.

Facts that are not accurate are not, in fact, facts. At best, they're sloppy assertions, at worst, they are lies.

Here you post incorrect numbers for Scream's damage, which should be 58.39, unenhanced. I realize this is to Sonic's detriment, but I'm not presenting a side here, just checking your facts.

Further, you assume a 15% resist debuff, which is good for a start, but it's not that straightforward. There would be no debuff for the first attack in the first chain. Every attack after that would add a 15% debuff. Assuming this exact 'chain' is used, Shout would have the benefit of 30% debuff before the first attack's debuff faded.

Starting the next 'chain', you would have even more debuffs, at least for the first attack or two. Note that the Resist debuff's length actually depends on the attack, and is not standardized to five seconds as you claim.

No, they're talking solo. There's more than one Sonic/Cold or Sonic/Rad that has posted over the years with news of the latest pwnage. This was well before Incarnate content and the plethora of temporary powers, though I am not sure if it was before IO's.

Except the "five second" window is a seven second window for Scream, and a ten second window for Shout. Other attacks have varying lengths of debuff as well.

I'd be more wary of the number you posted, as it is not attainable.

Which you can't, and so Psychic is not the clear winner in the raw damage department.
This is one of those things that makes people question your sincerity, by the way. You claim that something is true if an impossible condition is met. Since your condition cannot be met--and you should know it, if you are well versed in these numbers--the statement is always false. It is a blatant disregard for the truth to present something in this way.

Which I've already pointed out is not, in fact, a five second window. In a long enough altercation, using Shout as you've suggested, a four stack of debuffs isn't beyond the realm of reason.

I'm out of energy at this time of night/morning, but seriously, your "hard numbers" are sloppy, if not wrong. It can be inferred that your conclusions are also wrong, and that your continual claims of having the factual high ground are baseless.

I suggest you stop doing this:

Italics mine, and may I remind you that you pointed me out specifically in your previous post. With that in mind, you are exaggerating in every instance.

The only positive change I recall you mentioning is a change to the effectiveness in Hami's. I agreed with your statements about Hami's multiple times. Yet somehow I'm still vilifying you.

Excuse me? I never called you evil. I was suggesting that your feelings for the changes to your character were prompting you to make irrational claims. I used the term "nerdrage" a couple of times, but that's it. Again, no morality involved.

You seem to be getting a persecution complex about this issue.

I just suggested that you find a constructive way to discuss the change, rather than blowing the significance of this fix out of proportion.

Meh, fair enough. I wasn't really questioning your selling the things off before the price flatlined, more of how your attitude toward your character changed that quickly. You still have some DDR with the tools to leverage it, but it's your 15 bucks. Play what's fun.

Good luck with your crab. I've never been able to stomach them, I think it's the legs.

Since you're comparing a 25% vulnerability to 5%, I think the number is more like 5x more vulnerable. Even if I'm willing to grant you 6x, it's a comparative measurement, so you have to compare it to the previous vulnerability, which was only 5%, because of the cap. The more important question to ask would be whether or not it makes the set unbalanced in comparison to its contemporaries.

I believe you answer that concern right here:

I agree with your assessment completely.

Maybe I didn't realize this, but you haven't actually played the toon after the change (hell, maybe it's not playable yet, I dunno), and you're ready to scrap him already? In fact, you have scrapped him already?

Hey! I agree with that too, one more time and we can make out and stuff!

Combat and I had it out over why he's posting. I claim he's simply butthurt, and is making up all sorts of crap to support the position that he holds. I further contend that he shoulda gotten over the sting a few pages ago.

He claims he's not butthurt, he's fighting to correct a great injustice, because apparently when the dev's fix a long standing issue, and it's not in certain players' favor, they don't have the best interests of the players at heart.

Oh, and he's defending his reputation as a high quality poster.

P.S. I may have slightly exaggerated portions of the argument for impact. Welcome to the internet.

And failed.

I didn't tell you to shut up. I still haven't, I'm just pointing out that your arguments aren't as compelling as you feel they are, which I have every right to do.

Which has nothing to do with the value of your current argument.

Actually, they are directly deterministic of exactly what happens in game from the inside.

I don't recall saying that. What I was saying was that the devs said they were going to fix the bug, and they did so. The only thing I recall calling a positive change was that the devs were getting around to fixing long-standing bugs.

Ha ha. Okay man, whatever, clearly there is no reasoning with you. I've acknowledged the instances in which your math is easier to work. Your error was stepping away from "6x more survivable" to "it's just like 83% DDR". Using numbers in that manner is nearly the same as making crap up. I'm not trying to shut you up, I'm calling you as I see you, in the hopes that someone else who is on the fence won't take your arguments at face-value.

I do hope, when this is over, you return to being a high quality poster.

We're done here.

Now you're babbling. For the record, your use of incorrect maths underscores that you are conceptually wrong. So yes, you are wrong at both levels.

This thread, since about page 3 or 4, has had nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with your butthurt. Your use of numbers--particularly substituting proportional for real numbers and vice versa--only underscores the fact that you really don't know what they mean.

(And...is that a little man of straw I see there? Has someone suggested getting defense was easy? I suppose we'll never know.)

Hamis are fixed, suck it up and move on.

Oh, and if I may point out--you're suggesting giving these sets more points than shield has after the fix. How is this rational? How does that really adequately demonstrate what shield has lost?

No, it's really not the same magnitude in terms of performance.

More important than that:
People's responses, that such an act would be unbalanced, is less a result of the changes to /shield being huge, and more a response to throwing numbers onto more or less balanced and working sets.

He seems to be toying with the notion that anything that confers an advantage (regardless of whether it's fair or unfair, intended or not) is an exploit.

I have agreed that proportional numbers are fine on their own. I even demonstrated that I understand and agree with what he is saying in the post to which you respond.

I am disagreeing with what he is doing with these numbers, it does not follow that I am disagreeing with everything he says. I have at more than one point expressed agreement with some of his statements, including his use of proportional measurements in their proper context. When he takes these measures out of context and removes those things to which they are proportional, he is engaging in fallacious arguments and I feel free to comment appropriately.

I'm not even disagreeing with things like this:

I am specifically disagreeing with this, which is an example of what happens when you confuse proportional math with real numbers:

He knows that giving these other sets this much DDR is unreasonable and wrong for several reasons, but he purports that it is the same amount that shield is losing. My point is that once he removes the context of shield's existing DDR, the value of the points cannot be held the same. I'm merely criticizing this, because he continually purports to have numbers that back him up.

All of these measurements are relative. Mathematically, there's no such thing as a "minion" of damage. Those minions do damage in terms of points. Your 5% defense deflects* the same number of points whether you add it to zero or forty defense.

How hard is this to understand?

Here, let's do some actual math.
I'll be using Arcanaville's simple formula:
NetToHit = Accuracy * (BaseToHit - Defense)

I'm clearing up variables that are going to be held constant.
Assuming attacks with no higher accuracy, the Accuracy has been set to one (1). I've then eliminated Accuracy as a variable for this example only, as it's not in contention.
Critter base to hit is 50%, and so has been set to .50.
Defense will be done in 5% increments.
I've renamed NetToHit as N, and Defense as D.

The simple formula looks like this:
N = 0.5 - D
The rest of the calculations are easy:

No defense:
N = 0.5 - 0 = 0.5 or 50% chance to be hit
Five defense:
N = 0.5 - 0.05 = 0.45 or 45% chance to be hit
The difference between .50 (50%) and .45 (45%) is 0.05 or 5% difference in mitigation.

Forty defense:
N = 0.5 - 0.4 = 0.1 or 10% chance to be hit
Forty-five defense:
N = 0.5 - 0.45 = 0.05 or 5% chance to be hit
The difference between .10 (10%) and 0.05 (5%) is 0.05 or 5% difference in mitigation.

It's really as simple as that. Five percent is five percent, no matter where you put it.

Now, for the record, I also understand your argument. The easiest way to express it is in terms of halving incoming damage. At 0 defense, it takes 25 to half incoming damage. At 40 defense, only 5 defense will half incoming damage.In terms of real numbers, though, there is a big difference in actual damage taken.

The individual at 40 defense cuts damage in half by using only 5 additional defense, because that character is already taking much less damage. In terms of points of damage taken, this halving eliminates the same amount of damage per point of defense.

In terms of "feeling" you do feel tougher after adding 5 defense to 40 because you are at the softcap. At zero defense, adding 5 is noticeable only on spreadsheets, or when combined with other forms of mitigation. However, you can't just take numbers and say something like this: "At 40 defense, adding 5 proportionately halves incoming damage, so it's just like adding 25 to a non defense build. Since people think it would be a big deal to do so, the 5 defense is a big deal." This is exactly what you said earlier in the thread, and it is a misuse of the numbers. Doing this removes the proportional measurements from their frame of reference, and without that frame of reference, you may as well be making numbers up. At least it would be more honest.

*Of course, attacks are deflected, rather than individual points of damage. The problem with lower levels of defense is that they are difficult to notice, as you will take full damage when you do get hit, unless you have other mitigation options.

Again, you're talking about proportional numbers, which are only useful when you compare them to prexisting numbers. Your problem is taking a proportional number and assigning it a real number value, then asserting it in a situation without cause.

That 5% defense everyone goes on about reduces incoming damage by the exact same number of damage points whether it is added to zero (0) or forty (40) defense. I'm not talking about "survivability percent" which is a proportional measurement. I'm also not talking about a comparison to the damage taken before the extra 5%, which is again a proportional measurement. I'm talking about damage sustained, which is a simple number in points of damage.

Proportional numbers are fine when compared to other proportional numbers, but when assigned real numbers based upon their proportional value, lose all meaning.

I understand your proposition about having to maintain an area of saturation around you. I just note that the use of debuffs and having to continually shunt aggro is probably more complicated than having things around you which you can't kill without gimping yourself.

Fair enough, then you juxtaposed him poorly in your statement.

Proportional math? Is that what it is?
I understand that people say that after a certain threshold, every point of DDR has the effect of multiple points. This is only a useful assertion when trying to expound upon the importance of more ddr, not a value that can be asserted without any existing DDR.

From a real number standpoint, every point of DDR reduces the defense debuff by the same amount.

Taking, say, a 25 percent reduction in shield's DDR and then saying it's just like 80ish DDR--which you then suggest adding to other sets to test player response--is simply wrong. Of course people would object to adding that much DDR to these other sets, especially in this amount, because you have artificially inflated the real numbers and many of these sets function just fine as they exist.

The change is what it is, I'm not going to label it as positive or negative, except as proof that the devs are fixing old bugs.

So you believe it was designed with the exploit in mind?

After using the bug (or tool, if you'd rather) you are subject to the natural results of its fix. This isn't a moral condemnation, just the results of simple cause and effect.

<3

Which is a fine way of gathering data, as long as you acknowledge its limits.

I don't think anyone would argue with that, but these abilities have a cost of less margin of error, and a playstyle that is far more finessey than your description of your shield character's soloing technique.

Bonker's solo everything project is quite impressive. He also began the TF's fully IO'ed. He wasn't purpled or PvP IO'ed out, to my knowledge, but he does state that he hit 50 and IO'ed first.
This is a poor example of what you can do without IO's, isn't it?

I don't believe that I have suggested that you shut up, just that your level of outrage was unwarranted. You keep inflating these things. At first, it was just a minority of players that were affected, and I thought that you agreed with that. Now, you state this change, in short, is somehow indicative of the dev's changing attitudes to the player base.

My message has always been that you and others like you used an exploit, and should accept the consequences.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There's actually no way to tell whether extreme melee or extreme de/buff builds solo content easier, at least not from the player's end. The devs have access to that kind of actual data, but players do not.

*sarcasm alert*Yeah, let's look on the forums, I'm sure we'll get an adequate sample of what the entire playerbase is doing. *end sarcasm*

These are extreme builds at extreme levels of player skill. At that level, I'd argue that most toons could do what you are proposing they do, melee or support.

You stated that shield is now below fire, a bottom tier set (with regard to raw survivability). Um, what changed your mind?

I agree Hami's could use a look at, maybe make them a little more attractive because the supply is more strictly controlled than IO's.

I think you're overstating the "opness" of debuffs from a single individual. Sure debuffers can do extreme things, but these things are no more extreme than those things of which melee is capable.

Actually, my argument is that you are blowing this out of proportion. I am factually correct. You have turned a numerical difference that you once admitted only affected a fraction of the player base into a train wreck.

You may as well type out "DOOM" in all caps too.

As for your numbers, you are using them wrong. You're cloaking the fact that your argument is really one of personal outrage behind numbers that are only correct on the face. When you apply numbers to a fallacious situation, you are garbling your conclusions. Please stop. Someone may believe you.

You're going back into fallacious nonsense at this point. You used a broken mechanic, and now it's going to be fixed. Your hyperbole doesn't change that. Your use of nonsense numbers and false equivalency doesn't change that.

I'm sorry you got burned. I'm glad you're finding a new toon as an inf sink. I hope you have fun.

Really? I honestly can't tell. Seriously.
<.<

If he'd just said something to the effect the he just doesn't feel as "super" anymore, I woulda read it, shrugged, and moved on. Now he's bewailing how "low survivability" shield is, and I couldn't help myself.

Hey, at least I didn't ask if I could have his stuff.
Okay, I'll stop.

This forum is open to a wide variety of people. You are nerd raging. Some passers-by will slow down to rubberneck at you, some will stop and ask what's wrong. Some folks will stop by and compassionately ask, "umadbro?" This is what happens when we throw a tantrum in public.

Which is another reason why people are stopping in to add their opinions to the thread. It's like watching a guy with a Lamborghini complain about how many miles per gallon he gets.

And I think you're wrong. Please note that I'm offering the same amount of proof as you: none.

Sometimes the random roll gods are with you.

Speculate all you'd like about how I see you. I find it funny that you will suddenly declare a powerset broken as a result of an exploit fix. You then proceed to make quantitative statements about the effectiveness of the powerset without an iota of proof, based solely upon your personal feelings about your character. Further, you make a bunch of statements about its relationship to other powersets with the same lack of proof. That's what got me into the convo, especially your suggestion that resist was somehow better than defense.

For the record, this is how I see you: you're the guy with the Lamborghini to me, nothing more.

STOP.
I never labeled you a "dirty exploiter" or suggested you wanted to exploit the game. I merely suggested that when you invested such sums of inf in this particular character, it would have been a good idea to do so with the understanding that it is something that could be fixed at any time.

Yet here you are, unable to deal with the highly probable consequences of your actions.
That's all this is about.

What you're complaining about is the alleged performance of the sets at a level of investment that the vast majority of players will never experience. I'm not even sure if your allegations are accurate, or to what degree fire has "greater survivability". The inability of the devs to balance around such numbers is less an indictment of class balance, and more of a shining example that some people will complain about everything.

You knew Hami-O's were broken. Your earlier performance as shield was the result of an exploited mechanic. Only now you point out the alleged disparity between shield and other armors.

This isn't about the actual powers or sets at all. It's about you and your anger, which should be more self-directed, as it was you that took advantage of a broken mechanic for however long it was relevant. Any wasted investment in the character that this change "ruins" is your fault.

Maybe you should have been in the forums a few weeks before this change was announced, pointing out that fire is way better than shield at ridiculously high levels of investment. The fact that you weren't doing so makes you appear simply petty.

Edit: To be honest, I'm not sure if my response is "I'm sorry you feel that way" or "cry moar pls" regarding your character.