Maelwys

>>>> Result <<<<

Would assume so. I can still bring my Sonic defender if you need 'im.

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If people compare the new stuff to what their old character was playing like, then they WILL compare new enhanced damage to the old enhanced damage no matter what you say. I do this, so does everyone else. What you see ingame is what matters and what will influence player opinions. Therefore statements like "25% increase to old base damage" are pointless.

And if you didnt get what I meant then dont bother.

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I get what you're saying Hammer.

But treating the overall damage increase figures Castle has given as actual "end result damage output increase" simply isn't correct. "+Damage buff == Actual damage output increase" is not how it works in the game because when damage buffs like Inspirations, Fortitude and Enhancements combine they don't multiply, but add.

You can have an attack unslotted (say, Energy Thrust), you could have an attack two-slotted with +2 Damage SOs, you could have an attack 6-slotted with different levels of Set IOs.... a "12.5% base damage increase" will ramp up what you're used to seeing on that attack by 12.5% every time, but the "Fury" numbers will be added onto that rather than multiplied by the enhancement figures.

In order to combine the base damage increase with the Fury "+damage" buff and produce a meaningful figure that shows how much an attack's damage output has actually increased, you need to represent it in such a way that it doesn't depend on enhancements.

If you've an attack unslotted, the output damage will rise up from 100% (Normal) to 112.5% (With Base Buff) to 132.5% (With Base Buff and 20% Fury). The output increase for that attack is "32.5% of the original value".

If you've that attack 3-SLOTTED WITH DAMAGE SOs, the output damage will rise from 199.5% (Slotted) to 112.5*1.995=224.4375% (With Base Buff) to 244.4375% (With Base buff and 20% Fury). The output increase is now ((244.4375-199.5)/199.5)*100 = "22.525% of the original value".

Comparing the new damage output to the original damage output (enhanced/buffed or otherwise) is fine, and it's probably the easiest way for players to get a feel for the changes, but in order to apply the changes across different enhancement/buff combinations, you *have* to work off the base numbers.

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Also, I don't like the Icons at all. Doesn't tell me anything. I want the defiance bar back. Or the Fury bar in this case.

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Actually yeah, I agree with this completely.

I don't want to be second guessing whether they're my attacks buffing me or enemy attacks hittin' me.

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Agreed, there's talk on the US boards about bringing the defiance bar back as a slider to show how much of a buff the "Fury" is granting you at any given time.

I for one don't want to have to break out a sodding calculator every time I fire a shot...

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ps. Mael remind me, what was the old maximum defiance damage buff?

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From http://www.cityofheroes.com/feature_update6.html:

=>50% Health: +18% damage buff
< 40% Health: +35% damage buff
< 30% Health: +70% damage buff
< 20% Health: +140% damage buff
< 10% Health: +280% damage buff
< 5% Health: +400% (this is the damage cap for Blasters as of Issue 5)

So the new defiance on the test server should be giving you roughly the same damage output that you'd be getting on live when hovering between 20%-40% HP... Anywhere from 25%-45% damage buff from the base damage increase, plus anywhere between 0% and 50% from stacked "Fury" attacks.

This'd tie in with what Castle was apparently aiming for - "70% to 100% extra damage on an aggressive but non-optimised build".

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However, I doubt that anybody at all will be comparing their new experiences on test server to base damage, they will compare it to the old enhanced damage, which is still improved only by the 12,5%.

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That'd be a 12.5% increase in raw damage output rather than a "+12.5% damage" buff though. Personally I'd be comparing it to the number of red inspirations I needed to chugg in order to hit the new (test) numbers on live.

I think it's safe to say that Castle's talking about a "+damage buff" (the equivilant to "damage enhancement" outside ED) rather than an overall damage output increase. So you could think of this extra "+70-100% damage" as your attacks getting an extra 2-3 damage SOs in them (+66% to +99%). Which is pre-ED numbers.

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LOL the amount of math that went on here was enough to make me need a couple aspirins

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You think *you* had a headache?

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Assuming not buffs other than the enhancements

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Good point that.

Blaster "Aim" and "Build Up" combined are +162.5% Damage, so if we apply typical slotting (95.5% IIRC) + those to the above 100-damage attack we'd get 358 Damage. With a 12.5% base damage buff, that rises to 402.75.

The difference here is the equivilant of a "44.75% damage buff", or slightly less than one "Huge" red insp.

Ayes, we're getting confusing again here...

Assume you have an attack on Live that does 100 Damage Base. When enhanced with 3x SOs that's a little less than 200 Damage (when enhanced) due to ED.

If we buff the base damage by 12.5% (New Defiance) we get 112.5 Base damage, 225 enhanced. So you'll end up getting an extra 25 damage when you use the attack- and 25 damage is 25% of the normal base damage.

In the game extra damage buffs always work off the base damage not the enhanced damage... so if you, on live, pop a small red insp (The "+25% Damage" ones) then that's almost exactly what you should see on test.

...and if my maths is wrong again here then I definately need my beauty sleep...

All deleted/fixed. And I'm going home now to play on the test server, Dammit...

Post deleted by Maelwys

I think we've proved without a shadow of a doubt that I'm better at spitting out numbers than checking them.
Right, I'll amend them one last time then you can take over Brainiac, time for me to get back to those laptops...

Amended the typo, apologies.

It was on that last set of calculations with 15% "unresisted" damage. I was adding 15% (unresisted) of the total damage without only multiplying by 85% (resisted damage).

Interestingly, with the proper numbers versus 75% (capped) resists the New defiance (plus about 20% buff from "Blaster Fury" with 15% unresisted damage) would be exactly as damaging as it is now on live.

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Versus 0% Resistance (Unbuffed, Undebuffed)
= (1 * 125) + 15 = 140 Damage total (UP by 40)

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What exactly is the 15 about? That is the typo as far as I can see.

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The +15 is unresisted damage. The error was 125 - it should have been 110. (85% resisted, plus 25% from the '12.5% base ranged damage buff') I didn't subtract the 15% when amending the formula from the previous list.

I'm not sure you'll be able to accomplish a (no deaths/no temps) run without a fairly min-maxxed team.

But if you guys need a hand simply getting through the TF, I should be about on Saturday. If so then I can drag my Sonic Defender or INV Tanker along... but we'll still need more then five people to start it.

Preferably a support toon and/or another tanker. I know you don't want to specify sets, but an Empath and another tanker would be ideal: Sonic/FF/Empath + Tank would definately give us a good shot at the badge!

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I would say,
go. Test defiance.

Seems to be up on the testserver

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Has there been any buff at all?! Whatever it is it isnt big enough for me to notice it!

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Not at home so can't check ATM, but if your old Defiance bar isn't there on test then the changes are up.

Stacking ranged damage attacks should show you the most difference. It'll be equivilant to about a 40-50% +damage buff on live's numbers after you attack a few times (ranged damage buff of +25%ish plus "Fury").

Oh, and the fire-when-mezzed thingy...

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I would say,
go. Test defiance.

Seems to be up on the testserver

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How is that relevant to the topic? I dont need to test it to know it is COMPLETELY INADEQUATE WHATEVER BUFF IT IS to counteract possible removal of unresistable portion. Get this to your head.

And Mael: I am not talking about MY playstyle, this will be universal across all blasters and would change team pvp for the worse with dead certainty.

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Sorry Hammer, I just don't agree with you here.

If they completely removed the unresistable component and added nothing? Then yes, there'd be a considerable negative gap between a Blaster's current performance versus High-Resists and their performance after the changes versus High-Resists.

But that's not what they're talking about doing, the figures I listed above show that versus a toon with anything up-to-and-including-75% resistance (capped resists for most ATs) to the Blaster's damage output, the Blasters are likely to get a buff rather than a nerf out of this whole deal.

The Devs have already buffed the raw damage output of Blasters (through the base damage buff and "fury"). Now, if that change ends up making Blaster overperform in PvP, what can they do? They can't realistically reduce that raw output again without undoing the PvE Defiance changes... and they've told us they're not going to change PvE game mechanics anymore based on PvP issues. So that's not an option they'll consider.

If they decide it needs tweaked? In the absence of being able to change the raw damage, they'll scale back on the other advantages that Blasters get that only apply to PvP. That's where the "unresisted damage" and "toggle dropping" references come from. I don't think Castle is saying they're in the same class of PvP effectiveness, he's highlighting that those are things that they CAN adjust in PvP which will not affect PvE.

What I am a bit worried about though, is something that you highlighted earlier. Versus toons with high resistance, Blasters will be only slightly more powerful after the changes, but versus toons with NO resistance, Blasters will be vastly more powerful after the changes. We're talking about 40-50% extra damage output compared to what you're used to seeing. However I'll admit that this is only really less balancing in small team or one-on-one encounters, and CoX PvP isn't meant to be balanced that way...

Is this changing? I don't know. Castle doesn't even know yet, apparently he needs to "Datamine" it lots.

Would all this be a big change? Yup. But only really for encounters versus unbuffed foes.
Would all this be a big Nerf? Nope. If anything it's a big buff (versus unbuffed foes).
Would all this be better than what we've got now in PvE? Almost certainly yes.
Would all this be better than what we've got now in PvP? I'd say yes, but only time will really tell.
As I said before, I'm slightly concerned about further unbalancing in small-team/solo encounters.

At one point I considered dropping Tough/Weave for Aid Self on my INV/SS... but I couldn't really live with the tech animation due to the character concept, and I wasn't about to drop Unstoppable.

I don't find myself using "Unstoppable" that much now, but I still find it to be a VERY useful situational power. When I need to use it it simply doesn't let me down... the only time I can think of recently that I needed to pop US was whilst I was tanking five-six DE Monsters at once in PI for an EoE-farming party (the day before the most recent ill-fated Defiant Hamidon Raid).

No healing support and multiple toxic DoTs on me meant I needed to pop Unstoppable or face faceplanting. Popped it, tanked happily for 170 seconds, then taunted, jumped behind a rock, crashed, popped a blue + Dull Pain, retoggled UY and TI, then jumped right back into tanking duty again, retoggling "Tough", "Weave" and "Invincibility" on the way. Makes me feel more useful when I don't have to rely on buffers/healers to tank!

How do you want to play your toon?
There are literally dozens of different ways to specialise your Peacebringer.

You could specialise in maximum AoE damage solo (Nova Form)
Maximum Single Target Damage on Teams (Human Form)
Team Tanker (Dwarf form)
Buffer/Healer (Human Form)

Ranged and/or Melee. Control and/or Damage. Shields and/or Heals. Concept and/or Performance.

Personally, I built my Peacebringer as a combination Blapper and Tanker, making full use of team buffs from the "Cosmic Balance" inherent to boost my damage and survivability. So I dropped Nova form completely (does poor damage compared to Human form when slotted with SOs and when teamed), slotted Human form very heavily (Travel Powers/Fitness/Attacks/Heals) and slotted Dwarf form (Footstomp/Heal/Taunt) reasonably well.

(Desperately trying to avoid doing actual work here, it's Friday and I've been cloning laptops all morning... )

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Pretty much - but the point being put forward by people like Mes, TG and Hammer (and myself I guess) is that it will cause a reduction vs high Res buffs which is really something PvP does not need.

Especially when coming to easier resisted attack types.

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Maybe at first glance, but assuming Castle cuts the unresistable portion in half (I can't see him doing away with it COMPLETELY) then it's going to be at worst an unnoticable nerf and at best (with "FrankenFury") a slight buff on those high-resistance encounters.

For anything less than a maximum-resistance Tanker at least, and IMO such Tankers should require more effort to take down anyway.

Consider a 50-damage attack, enhanced to 100 Damage, plus 12.5% ranged base damage. 15% unresistable.
Along with a 30% buff from "Blaster Fury" buffs (about 2-3 one-second-animation ST attacks)
(New Defiance with 30% +Damage from 'Fury' + half of current "unresistable")

Versus 75% Resistance (non-Brute/Tanker/Kheldian Resistance cap)
= (0.25 * 125.625) + 16.875 = 48.3 Damage total

Compare that to the same attack currently versus 75% Resists: 47.5 Damage total.

[Edit: Fixed Dammit!]

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If, with Newfiance and a reduction/removal of unresistable damage the 600 damage w/unresistable portion becomes 750 damage [u]compeltely[u] resistable I think there's a problem. It (as far as i can work out) means Blasters will do more damage against targets with no resistance and less damage against targets with resistance.

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As far i checked redtomax info on the powers and their unresistable portion, i think it need quite alot data mining to find the exact breakpoint to get to your statement.

stupid but quicky example:
blaster does 100 dmg = 50resitable/50unresistable
Troller get hit, has 50% resist, means 75 damage (50% of 50 + 50).
Lets say they fire of a few pre-powers or whatever, so they gain 40% damage from defiance 2.0, unrestable get removed:
100+40 = 140 * 50% = 70dmg
if we take it with unresistable dmg, it will become (50+40% = 70 unresist, 70 *50% = 35, makes 105 total damage, this offcourse provided the unresistable damage is buffable too).

Thats nearly a 50% increase of the initial raw damage.

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Given that Blaster's Current Unresistable Damage component is 30% of every attack, there's not really much difference with the changes unless we're talking about an enemy that's at or very near to the resistance cap.

Let's do a quick comparison here:

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A 50-damage attack, enhanced to 100 Damage. 30% unresistable
(Behaviour currently on Live)

Versus -30% resistance (RAD resistance debuff on a normal unbuffed toon)
= (1.3 * 70) + 30 = 121 Damage total

Versus 0% Resistance (Unbuffed, Undebuffed)
= (1 * 70) + 30 = 100 Damage total

Versus 30% Resistance (Buffed with Sonic Shields)
= (0.7 * 70) + 30 = 79 Damage total

Versus 50% Resistance (Buffed with Sonic and Thermal Shields)
= (0.5 * 70) + 30 = 65 Damage total

Versus 75% Resistance (non-Brute/Tanker/Kheldian Resistance cap)
= (0.25 * 70) + 30 = 47.5 Damage total

Versus 90% Resistance (Brute/Tanker Resistance cap)
= (0.1 * 70) + 30 = 37 Damage total

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A 50-damage attack, enhanced to 100 Damage, plus 12.5% ranged base damage. 0% unresistable.
(New Defiance with no 'Fury' + no "unresistable")

Versus -30% resistance (RAD resistance debuff on a normal unbuffed toon)
= (1.3 * 112.5) = 146.3 Damage total (UP by 25.3)

Versus 0% Resistance (Unbuffed, Undebuffed)
= (1 * 112.5) = 112.5 Damage total (UP by 12.5)

Versus 30% Resistance (Buffed with Sonic Shields)
= (0.7 * 112.5) = 78.8 Damage total (DOWN by 0.2)

Versus 50% Resistance (Buffed with Sonic and Thermal Shields)
= (0.5 * 112.5) = 56.3 Damage total (DOWN by 8.7)

Versus 75% Resistance (non-Brute/Tanker/Kheldian Resistance cap)
= (0.25 * 112.5) = 28.1 Damage total (DOWN by 19.4)

Versus 90% Resistance (Brute/Tanker Resistance cap)
= (0.1 * 112.5) = 11.3 Damage total (DOWN by 25.7)

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A 50-damage attack, enhanced to 100 Damage, plus 12.5% ranged base damage. 15% unresistable.
(New Defiance with no 'Fury' + half of current "unresistable")

Versus -30% resistance (RAD resistance debuff on a normal unbuffed toon)
= (1.3 * 95.625) + 16.875 = 141.2 Damage total (UP by 20.2)

Versus 0% Resistance (Unbuffed, Undebuffed)
= (1 * 95.625) + 16.875 = 112.5 Damage total (UP by 12.5)

Versus 30% Resistance (Buffed with Sonic Shields)
= (0.7 * 95.625) + 16.875 = 83.8 Damage total (UP by 4.8)

Versus 50% Resistance (Buffed with Sonic and Thermal Shields)
= (0.5 * 95.625) + 16.875 = 64.7 Damage total (DOWN by 0.3)

Versus 75% Resistance (non-Brute/Tanker/Kheldian Resistance cap)
= (0.25 * 95.625) + 16.875 = 40.8 Damage total (DOWN by 6.7)

Versus 90% Resistance (Brute/Tanker Resistance cap)
= (0.1 * 95.625) + 16.875 = 26.4 Damage total (DOWN by 10.6)

[Edit: Fixed Dammit!]

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Castle saying he would consider reducing the Blaster unresisted damage component was not a knock at Blasters, but an attempt to rebalance Blaster overall damage infliction in PVP.

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He is apparently very bad at math. If anything, the unresistable portion is PRECISELY the thing that is the balancing factor, since it only affects those targets that have resistance in the first place, NOT the squishies. If you increase blaster base damage, the thing that it affects are the squishies, NOT the targets with resistance, against whom the increased damage has LEAST effect.

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Whilst I can appreciate your frustration with the threat of any changes to your Blaster's PvP playstyle, I think that you're looking at the [potential] change from the wrong angle here Hammer:

Blasters apparently needed a change in PvE, so Blasters were changed.
PvE is the priority for the devs, since the vast majority of the game is in PvE.

PvP changes can occur due to bleed-through from PvE changes, rather than the other way around... as was pointed out earlier in the thread, few if any PvE changes have occured due to imbalances in PvP.

The Blaster changes might mean that Blasters need to be rebalanced in PvP... but the threat of causing imbalance in PvP will [u]not[u] prevent those changes in the first place.

The imbalance between Unresisted Damage and Allied Damage Resistance Buffs in PvP will be seen (and treated) as a seperate issue from any Blaster performance issues. One is a focus on a single AT's performance (Blasters), the other is a focus on a general gameplay mechanic (Resistance)

From what I can see the Devs (including Castle) are working on fixing things methodically, one at a time.

So, for example:
(i) They'll decide Blaster changes are needed because they're underperforming in PvE, they'll make changes.
(ii) They'll then decide that Blasters now overperform in PvP, and make changes that don't affect PvE.
(iii) They'll then decide that Resistance is now unbalanced in PvP, and make changes affecting only PvP.
(iv) They'll then decide.... etc.

MMORPGs are always progressively changing this way, resulting in both percieved nerfs and buffs alike.
In CoX we've been told straight-up that no PvE change will be made due to PvP imbalance, but not vice-versa.

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ps. AND GOODNESS GRACIOUS GREAT BALLS OF FIRE UNRESISTABLE ATTACKS ALSO WORK IN PVE

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Nope, only applies when you attack other players.

The damage TYPEs such as fire/ice/energy/smashing have different and varied types of enemies that resist them more than others, but there is no "30% unresistable damage" component to attacks in PvE.

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Goddamit we need that dev that specializes to pvp BADLY.

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Won't argue with that one, this would certainly be welcome!

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Problem is even now a Blaster, solo, has trouble dropping a buffed Squishy even if they're only relying on a self heal from range.

If all the damage gets reduced via resistance, it makes it all the harder. This is bad for balanced team fights IMO as it'll lean even more to the single digit kill fights that can be seen. It's less about who can get the most kills and more about which team drops the ball first because Res is such a big safety net when you throw in the odd heal.

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Shouldn't a Blaster have trouble "dropping a buffed squishy" though, if all the other damage-dealing ATs have equal or greater trouble dropping buffed squishies?

Or to put it another way: if Blasters were the only means of dropping buffed squishies, wouldn't it be worth allowing other damage-dealer ATs to do the same, albeit perhaps with SLIGHTLY less effectiveness?

PvP at present is all about movement. You don't move, and you're dead.
Stalkers, Brutes, Scrappers and Tankers are rarely if ever picked for their damage output on teams because they simply can't get close enough to the enemy to reliably leverage that damage output unless the enemy is slowed (Kin counterable), -jump/fly'ed (SS/TP counterable), or mezzed (CM/Clarity/etc counterable).

So at the moment you essentially won't see a PvP team without ranged damage dealers. Which pretty much equates to Blasters (for the raw base damage, damage type and unresistable damage output), Corruptors (damage type, buffing secondary and scourge) and Defenders (/Psi for the damage type and arguably /Sonic).

Nobody except a Blaster really has a chance of killing resistance-capped kiters. Psi damage toons such as /Psi Defenders are the sole exception because there are no allied Psi-resistance-granting shields.

There's only really two ways to affect this: stopping a toon that's at the resistance cap from kiting (they could then be dropped much faster... say through "-TP" powers and more -MaxRunSpeed/MaxJumpHeight powers) and raising the damage inflicted on them (giving the attacker "unresisted damage" or inflicting "resistance debuffs" on the kiter are the least-imbalancing methods of doing this).

Castle saying he would consider reducing the Blaster unresisted damage component was not a knock at Blasters, but an attempt to rebalance Blaster overall damage infliction in PVP. This may come with the side effect of making it generally harder in PVP to drop resistance-buffed kiters, but that's not the intention of the Defiance fix.

The Defiance rebalancing happened due to PvE, and changes were needed and welcome there. Unfortunately the bleed-through effect of the PvE changes will possibly make Blasters WAY too overpowered compared with other damage dealing ATs in PvP (they were already arguably overpowered before the change, when teamed with toon(s) that can boost their survivability in PvP). If with the new changes it becomes fairly pointless to bring any damage dealer other than a Blaster into PvP, Castle is looking at scaling down Blaster performance in PvP to compensate for the Defiance changes.

If the scaling down highlights more issues (such as no means to kill resistance-buffed kiters), that issue will need to be addressed seperately, AFTER any necessary Blaster rebalancing changes.

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Name me a power that was nerfed in PvE because of PvP. And I want a good, solid PvP only nerf.

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Whirlwind's about the only one I can come up with.
IIRC it was changed due to the non-rooting factor, which affects both PvE and PvP, but PvP moreso.

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In teams, unresistable damage is fine and IMO needed thanks to the prevalence of +Res buffs, especially ontop of APP/PPP shields at 44+.

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Thing here is that Blasters (and arguably Stalkers) are pretty much the only ATs that get unresisted damage worth talking about. I've always thought that was a bit unbalanced.

Now bear with me a minute here: Scrappers are pretty useless in high level pvp, apart from one or two exceptions in small team/solo situations. The criticals are also not guaranteed, and at best you're talking about a 10% chance to infict 50% unresisted damage, which works out at 5% unresisted damage on average. Corruptors Scourge kicks in when the target gets below 50% Health, which won't happen too often unless you're up against a tanker (IME your HP bar on larger teams is "binary", it's either full or empty), and even then a critical is not guaranteed unless the HP is *really* low. That leaves Stalkers, which have to be hidden and attacking a stationary target to get an unresisted AS.

The other "damage" ATs? EM Tankers, Brutes, Kheldians (Nova form or PB Human). None of them get any form of unresisted damage. Dominators? Defenders? Controllers? "Containment" is about the closest you can get, the target needs to be mezzed (so it won't happen on big teams) and Controller base damage is low.

Now since Blaster damage is ALREADY consistently the highest on the PvP side of the game even before factoring in unresisted damage, that strikes me as a little bit on the overpowered side. I'm not advocating a nerf, just highlighting discrepancies. I think that capped resistance is a bit too much of an "I win" factor on PvP teams, and I'd be considerably happier if ALL damage had a slight unresistable component to it... but given that Blasters are getting what amounts to a general damage output buff, I can see that it'd probably be easier for the devs to scale back on the overall damage they inflict **in PvP** than it would be to increase everyone else's overall damage infliction to compensate. It's a question of whether or not Blasters will be hideously unbalanced in PvP after the Defiance changes. Since they were already very strong in PvP (Disclaimer: when teamed/buffed) it really isn't much of a stretch to "unbalanced"... but I feel we'd be jumping the gun if we assume that they're going to actually nerf anything just yet.

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Oh god, if they take unresistable damage, then what reason does anyone have to roll Blasters in PVP?

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1. Highest ranged damage multiplier in the game
2. Heavy ranged damage of various types
3. Extremely high self-tohit buffs
4. Extremely heavy melee damage
5. Power Boost/Boost Range.
6. The Nuke.
7. TP-Foe/Webnade/Caltrops/Tripmines combo in Sirens.
8. PFF/FoN/Snowstorm/Hibern00b in Arena.

Realistically, even if they take away ALL the unresisted damage (and at this point from what I see it's only a slight possiblility that they'll even scale it down) it won't make much difference IRL unless the other team has a few Sonic buffers or a Granite tauntbot.

The only way they'll strip it is if doing more damage normally (FrankenFury + 12.% base buff) vastly outstrips what the 30% unresisted damage would have let you get away with before... and unless you're an AR or Archery, how often do you currently depend on that 30% unresisted PvP damage, honestly? A Fire Blaster versus a Fire Tank/Brute or an Ice Blaster versus an Ice Tank is about all I can come up with...

Ack, found another post by Arcanaville that addresses the Cone Issue:
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The area modifier for AoE attacks with regard to damage is (refactoring it so it looks like Castle's expression):

1 + 0.15 * radius/5 - (0.011 * radius/6) * (360 - arc)/5

Castle's formula (his corrected formula) drops the highlighted part. If its deliberate, Castle wants all cones with the same range to have the same buff, regardless of how wide they are. If not, it might be an "oopsie."

This assumes Castle is referring to the original AoE damage modifier formula, and not some new one he made up more recently. He is the powers guy, after all.


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No, you're correct. That step is a third step of obfuscation away (it's never actually mentioned in the formula, but implicit in the table data layout.) I hate reverse engineering things. The whole Area Modifier thing was set up by geko (or possibly the guy BEFORE him) pre-release, and hasn't really been looked at since.

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THIS WOULD MAKE THE FOLLOWING CHANGES TO THE ABOVE EXAMPLES:

+ For "Fire Breath" (Cone with a range of 40 Feet, 2.67 seconds activation and 30' Arc):
Duration = 7.5 + 2.67
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 2.67) / ((1 + (0.15 * 40)) - (0.011 * 40 / 6)) * (360 - 30) / 5
= 0.17622 / (7 - (0.07333 * 66)) = 0.081583333
= 8.2% Damage Buff for 10.17 seconds.

A little better, no?

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But if you're right about cone's, FA would give a pathetic low buff (it has a huge cone range) not to mention LRM mission (snipe range AoE).

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With those new numbers:

+ For "Full Auto" (Cone with a range of 80 Feet, 6 seconds activation and 20' Arc):
Duration = 7.5 + 6
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 6) / ((1 + (0.15 * 80)) - (0.011 * 80 / 6)) * (360 - 20) / 5
= 0.396 / (13 - (0.14666666 * 68)) = 0.130837
= 13.1% Damage Buff for 13.5 seconds.

LRM is just a long ranged AoE, and range doesn't matter for a "true" AoE, only Radius.

+ For "LRM Rocket" (AoE with a range of 150 Feet, 5.87 seconds activation and 20 Radius):
Duration = 7.5 + 5.87
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 5.87) / ((1 + (0.15 * 20)) - (0.011 * 20 / 6))
= 0.38742 / (4 - 0.03666) = 0.097751
= 9.8% Damage Buff for 13.37 seconds.

Castle posted a slightly corrected formula:

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First off, I edited the formula I posted before, so take a look at that.

Secondly, the formula as posted is NOT what the spreadsheets use to calculate things; it's a reverse engineering of what is being used.

Last, the AreaModifier is only used for AOE attacks. For single target attacks, it is ignored completely (so, no divide by zero errors!)

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Aside from simply editing the original post, I'll add this here:

FYI, here is the formula currently being used:
Buff: 0.66* (0.1 * CastTime) / AreaModifier
Duration: 7.5 + CastTime

CastTime is the cast time of the power
Area Modifier = (1 + (0.15 * radius)) - (0.011 * radius / 6)

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Lets run a few quick numbers through that:

+ For "Blaze" (ST, 1 second activation):
Duration = 7.5 + 1
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 1) = 0.066
= 6.6% Damage buff for 8.5 seconds.

+ For "Fire Ball" (15 Foot Radius AoE, 1 second activation):
Duration = 7.5 + 1
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 1) / ((1 + (0.15 * 15)) - (0.011 * 15 / 6))
= 0.066 / (3.25 - 0.0275) = 0.02048
= 2.0% Damage Buff for 8.5 seconds.

+ For "Shout" (ST, 2.67 seconds activation)
Duration = 7.5 + 2.67
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 2.67) = 0.17622
= 17.6% Damage buff for 10.17 seconds.

+ For "Fire Breath" (Cone with a range of 40 Feet, 2.67 seconds activation):
Duration = 7.5 + 2.67
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 2.67) / ((1 + (0.15 * 40)) - (0.011 * 40 / 6))
= 0.17622 / (7 - 0.07333) = 0.02544
= 2.5% Damage Buff for 10.17 seconds.

+ For "Total Focus" (ST, 3.3 second activation)
Duration = 7.5 + 3.3
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 3.3) = 0.2178
= 21.8% Damage buff for 10.8 seconds.

+ For "Thunder Strike" (5 Foot Radius AoE, 3.3 second activation)
Duration = 7.5 + 3.3
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 3.3) / ((1 + (0.15 * 5)) - (0.011 * 5 / 6))
= 0.2178 / (1.75 - 0.009166666) = 0.12511
= 12.5% Damage buff for 10.8 seconds.

+ For "Blazing Bolt" (ST, 4.67 seconds Activation Time):
Duration = 7.5 + 4.67
Buff = 0.66 * (0.1 * 4.67) = 0.30822
= 30.8% Damage buff for 12.17 seconds.

Looks fairly decent to me...

Although I think Cones might need to be looked at... apparently they currently work by treating them as an AoE-centered-on-the-player so that the cone's "range" becomes an AoE "radius". If my numbers are right, this seems to be giving them vastly lower 'defiance 2.1' damage buff numbers than is appropriate for the amount of enemies that small-arc cones are likely to hit.

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(i wrote a report about this for school, economy, how it all affects each other and if there is any balance between it all - got a perfect-grade for that )

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You got a perfect grade for "there are dumb people everywhere and they'll pay for anything lol"?

Education standards ARE slipping!
(back in my day that'd not get you more than a B+)