MrQuizzles

EF does not buff its own damage debuff. They are both measured to be 22%.

What it really means is that FF needs more utility in its other powers rather than pretty much nothing but defense.

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I am unaware of Tar Patch debuffing damage output of foes. I believe it only applies -speed (not -Recharge) and -DR (which has the effect of multiplying damage).

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Tar Patch has no -damage in it, but the -resistance does increase the -damage that other powers provide.

Darkest Night = 37.5% damage debuff
Tar Patch = 30% resistance debuff
Darkest Night + Tar Patch = 48.75% damage debuff

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A) Debuffs are being made to scale and be roughly as effective as Defense in i7, the "defense scaling fix". I am worried that even though Debuffing is an attack, draws aggro and suffers toggle-anchor death, it is not enough "better" than defense to be used in place of Defense sets that are much harder to *de*toggle.

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Well actually, ToHit Debuffs won't be anywhere near as effective as Defense in I7.

That's Rad Infection VS 40% defense (approximately what an FF defender can give to their teammates) against LTs.

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Here's a question. I know that Futurias and Ilr have touched on this, but it really hasn't come up specifically.

In the past I have seen suggestions that mobs resist debuffs as a function of their damage resistance. This would relate to the specific example of Nightstar being largely unaffected by Darkest Night, possibly as a function of having a high DR to negative energy.

Do we have any verification or quantification of this effect? It would be fairly easy to test in the arena using a Dark Amor Scrapper, and maybe a /Regen Scrapper as a non-resistant damage soak. (In fact, /DA would be decent for testing with Rad Infection, too).

In particular I ask because this would be a good reason to shrink the rank-dependant auto-resistance to toHit debuffs - AVs that already have damage-type-based resistance will have really severe overall resistance if this is the case.

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I'm very sure that ToHit debuff resistance is completely independent of damage resistance. I soloed Black Swan with my Dark/Rad. She was quite affected by my ToHit Debuffs, even though my damage debuffs did almost nothing to her.

All the incarnations of Nemesis, however, are 100% resistance to ToHit Debuffs. Yeah, my attempt at soloing him didn't go very well.

What numbers are you using for Dark Miasma?

_Castle_ quoted Darkest Night at 18.5%. Both Fearsome Stare and Twilight Grasp are about half that, Chill of the Night is about equal to Darkest Night. Tar Patch does enhance damage debuffs numbers, but the resistance debuff can also be resisted. Nobody knows whether or not it will affect the ToHit Debuff resistance.

So say you put Fluffy on the AV, keep one application of FS on him at all times (the debuff duration is unenhanceable), put Darkest Night on him, and between you and fluffy have two TGs on him at all times. Now let's say it's all 3-slotted for debuffs.

That's:
(18.5+18.5+8+8+8)1.54 = 93.94

Now let's apply level disparity and debuff resistance

93.94 * .8 * .7 = 52.606

So that is enough to floor a +2 AV's ToHit.

5% * 1.2 * 1.5 = 9% final accuracy

Now onto Damage Debuffs:
37.5 from Darkest Night
16.5% from Twilight Grasp
We'll say you have one Tar Patch down and the AV doesn't resist it.

(37.5 + 16.5 + 16.5)(1+(.3*.8))(.8)= 69.936% damage debuff

Although that's a rather extreme example. Dark Defenders have always been best against AVs, where they can pile all their debuffs onto a single target.

A Dark Defender can't provide protection that good against anything else.

I think it's also worthwhile to note that no other set can even come close to matching this sort of thing.

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Next up, dark has a perfectly good heal that is, in fact, so good that many dark defenders don't even bother six-slotting it. Dark miasma's heal provides a truckload of damage mitigation, and it's a very, very potent single target debuff. And did I mention that Fluffy has the same heal?

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Ok, now this is funny. The reason nobody ever slots Dark Servant for heal is because he never heals when you actually need it. He's so unreliable and unpredictable, why would you bother wasting slots on a fat chance?

I slot Dark Servant for ToHit debuffs because he can't turn Chill of the Night off. It's the one thing he can't mess up.

Don't count on Fluffy for anything except taking an alpha strike.

Why not six-slot Twilight Grasp? Two acc and three heals do just fine. I don't like putting a recharge enhancer in there because it's enough of a drain as is. If anything, I'd put another accuracy enhancer in there because I don't want it to miss against +2s or +3s.

When looking at the graph, though, an interesting question comes up: How do you balance the two against each other when they behave so differently?

You would have to find a suitable point of intersection. It can't be too high because defense-heavy sets like FF don't have much to make up for their losses before that point. You can't make it too low, either because, although debuffing sets like Dark Miasma have much to make up for it, the curve becomes very steep very quickly after that point. It won't be long before the disparity between the two far outpaces what else the set can do.

So, then, what do you do?

Ok, I added a new line in there to show what debuffs would look like in I7 if ToHit debuff enhancements were still schedule A.

The graph.

Personally, I like that line much better.

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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.

Here it is.

The debuff values use an RI that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.

The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).

Edit: Fixed the graph to properly reflect the changes.
Edit again: the change didn't seem to take for some odd reason...you'll get a 404 error for now.
Final Edit: Ok, now it's fixed. The graph is no longer so hopefully optimistic.

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Are you sure about the debuff numbers for even and +1? Seems like the numbers I saw before had a much higher gap around the ballpark of 15% where your nummbers appear to be 5%. The +2 on up differences didn't bother me that much but the lower gaps were a concern for me.

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The Debuff Now number for +0 looks a bit off since a 3-slotted RI right now will floor an even-lvl LT (forgot to mention that this graph uses LT values since they tend to fall in the middle). The line would be straight if it wasn't for it hitting the floor.

It's some arbitrary number. I *believe* that well-slotted FF defenders can get their teammates up to 35% defense. Stacking that with a well-slotted Maneuvers would let you hit 40%.

I'll check an FF defender guide to see how off I am.


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I'm actually a tad low according to Maldini's base values for powers guide. FF defenders give a base 25% defense to everything, or a 38.5% defense to everything when well-slotted. Adding Maneuvers to that brings it over 40% by a decent margin.

It wasn't enough to make much of a difference before, and the debuff sets do have more than just ToHit Debuffing to make up for it.

Now, however, the difference is huge.

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As for FF Defenders replacing Dark and Rad Defenders, I'm sorry, but it's not gonna happen. All this change really means is that Dark and Rad defenses will Enhance AT THE SAME RATE as FF. And they can still 1) heal, 2) buff damage and 3) rez, not to mention hold and slow and in the case of Rad even boost attack rate and Endurance, none of which FF is capable of. And if you bring up Aid Self, that's a slot that can't be used for the FFers Primary or Secondary, three if he wants to be able to rez.

Nobody's going to give up Accelerate Metabolism for an FF Defender. At best, this means FFers might be able to compete, instead of obviously being weaker than all other Sets but Trick Arrow. It's not what I wanted, I would rather the defense ratio stay where it is, and FF get some offense. But neither this nor the Accuracy rebalance are going to suddenly make FF popular. FF will be no more useful against reds and purples than it is against whites right now, and saying that an FF is better against whites than 300 Darks is certainly not true.

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While I may disagree with the extremism in the example, his point was that, because high-level foes resist toHitDebuffs (and now, high-rank foes resist it additionally), while Defense is invariant with foe level or rank, Defense is more powerful and consistent than toHit defbuffs. Whether the sets as a whole suffer for that is, as you point out, far less black and white.

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I've actually got a nice graph to show the extreme disparity between ToHit Debuffs and Defense as of I7.

Here it is.

The debuff values use an RI that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.

The defense values are using a 40% defense, which happens to be lower than even the post-nerf 3-slotted RI number (46.87%).

Edit: Fixed the graph to properly reflect the changes.
Edit again: the change didn't seem to take for some odd reason...you'll get a 404 error for now.
Final Edit: Ok, now it's fixed. The graph is no longer so hopefully optimistic.

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we discovered that we couldn’t pull the change out without jeopardizing the I7 release schedule. Right now, QA (at NCSoft and Cryptic) is working away at I7 and shaking out bugs. If we were to roll back this change, our teams would need to put I7 aside and retest the current build. I made the decision to stay the course instead.

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Great... just Great... then you can "Make the decision" to give us a 'Freespec' with this patch so we won't be totally gimped between now and when I-7 finally goes live. Debuffing defenders already have enough hardships to endure. A month or more of sucking b/c you guys messed up the development schedule.... shouldn't be one of them

...You already owe one to everybody who took Whirlwind...

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You know what. I'll prove your [censored] wrong that debuffing isnt gimped now. When the patch goes Live, I'll still debuff and kill things easy.

I've lived through SR going from Subpar, to awesome with perma elude. To no perma elude. Then the global defense change, then ED and I still run great. Other people proclaimed it was the end for SR and that it was useless to play. But I still fight damn well.

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Yes, but debuffs and the roles of defenders/controllers/corruptors are a bit different than defense and the role of scrappers. It's not soloing that I'm most worried about, it's teaming.

Being a corruptor, controller, or defender puts you in a somewhat competitive market. People generally want the hero/villain that can protect their team the best. If you look at I7, you'll see that not only are ToHit debuffs getting a good deal worse, but defense buffs are getting drastically better. So then why would anyone want a ToHit debuffing set on their team when they could have a defense set?

ToHit Debuffs aren't getting gimped, but they are getting worse. When compared to defense buffs, however, they're useless. Nobody will want them.

Two FF defenders with Aid Other can keep a team safe from +10 enemies in much the same way that 300 Dark Defenders can.

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Hmmm... so what are the debuff resistance modifier numbers? Looks like even level bosses have a .8 modifier. So is it +1 = .9, +2 = .8, +3 = .7, etc?

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No, it's just a flat .9 for LTs, .8 for Bosses, and .7 for AVs for all levels.

I applied it to The Sheet, and my values match up almost exactly to Statesman's (there's a slight difference in the hundreths place, possibly due to rounding).

Either way, Debuffs (which were getting double-dinged before) are now getting triple-dinged, and that's no good.

If you want something to do all those messy I7 accuracy calculations for you, look no further than my sig for The Sheet!

Note: The sheet that is currently available has not yet been modified for this

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

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new piece of information. All defense calculations will be correct, but ToHit debuff calculations for LTs, Bosses, and AVs will be incorrect. This will hopefully be rectified by the end of the week (4/9/06).

Yeah, I know it's a shameless plug, but it's a relevant and useful shameless plug.

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Statesman, is it possible that you could address or explain how this will effect such a combination (Dark/Dark) that relies on these ToHit Debuffs?

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See my post slightly further up to see how badly Darkest Night's getting nerfed.

From where Statesman put that in his post, his calculations of before the change, and with the wording of it in context to where it is, I'm pretty sure that the ranks having resistances to ToHit debuffs are new as of I7.

Oh dear, Statesman informed us of this little gem today:

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

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And with that, the sheet is incorrect as it currently stands. I have already made the appropriate corrections to my personal sheet, and I'll bug Pilcrow about getting it out to you guys as soon as possible.

This little tidbit of information makes ToHit Debuffs even worse than we originally thought.

Sorry for giving you false hope, everyone. I7 + this nerf means a general reduction in the effectiveness of ToHit debuffs.

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

[/ QUOTE ]Why, Statesman? Why nerf us even more?

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Unless I miss my guess, this has been in effect from day one. Either that, or all the AVs I fight are really lucky, because they don't seem to be too phased by Hurricane.

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I've never before ran across this, nor have I noticed it. As far as can tell, it's new info to all of us.

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

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Why, Statesman? Why nerf us even more?

This makes my sheet and my graphs all wrong, I'll have to redo them to spread this newfound doom and gloom. Actually, I've already redone the sheet and can see the numbers. Let's look at Darkest Night 3-slotted for ToHit debuffs.

Right Now, no nerfs:
Darkest Night comes out to be about a .3607 ToHit modifier

+0
Minion: 13.93
LT: 21.93
Boss: 28.93

+1
Minion: 22.53
LT: 30.78
Boss: 39.03

+2
Minion: 31.44
LT: 40.144
Boss: 49.144

+3
Minion: 41.55
LT: 51.3
Boss: 61.05

I7 with nerfs:
It comes out to a .2984 ToHit modifier.
The change from right now can be seen in parenthesis.

+0
Minion: 21.51 (+7.58)
LT: 28.01 (+6.07)
Boss: 35.37 (+6.44)

+1
Minion: 26.79 (+4.26)
LT: 34.06 (+3.28)
Boss: 42.17 (+3.14)

+2
Minion: 32.65 (+1.21)
LT: 40.69 (+.546)
Boss: 49.65 (+.506)

+3
Minion: 40.93 (-.62)
LT: 49.83 (-1.47)
Boss: 59.46 (-1.59)

Conclusions:
+0 = MUCH worse
+1 = MUCH worse
+2 = Slightly worse
+3 = Slightly better

At least defense sets will make out ok.

I would, but two things:

1. It would only ever be able to show the stats for a single defense/debuff value at one time. You'd never be able to compare, say, defense and debuffs. Every graph would look pretty much the same.

Defense vs Debuffs

2. Pilcrow's hosting it, and I don't want to bug him about uploading another version of it.

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Am I correct in saying that, in Issue 7 (even with the nerf), To Hit debuffs will still be better? Or does that only hold true for Radiation Infection? What are the base numbers for RI? Would you mind doing a similar graph for Darkest Night? Pretty please?

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That's why I made the trends graph. The base debuff for RI is 30%. Darkest Night is 18%. The graph would look almost the same for any other ToHit debuff, just without the bits where RI floors LT (just imagine the curve/line continuing on without hitting bottom).

It is a general improvement for all ToHit debuffs.

Ok, I made up 4 graphs that assume an enemy is being affected by a Radiation Infection that has been 3-slotted for ToHit Debuffs.

Graph 1- Final accuracies of the current live version
Graph 2- Final accuracies of the current test version
Graph 3- Final accuracies of Issue 7 with the proposed nerf
Graph 4- LT values of each set against each other (LT values fall in the middle, so it's a good comparison)

A bunch of graphs detailing the changes.

Yes, it's correct