Devs - Super Reflexes

I'd like to ask a very simple question:

Do you (the developers) feel that with the changes to Elude, that Super Reflexes is now balanced with the other Scrapper secondaries?

I'd like to pitch in my own ideas very briefly on the subject.

1. Super Reflexes is the only secondary that has no form of self heal. Yet, it is the secondary that needs it the most. Since Super Reflexes relies on defense over resistance, a SR scrapper will only be hit so often, but when he is hit it hurts a lot. I can go for quite some time with Elude on in between hits, though even with Tough, when i do get hit it is usually a very notable chunk of my lifebar. Few bosses hit me for less than half of my life. Unless i load myself down with Respites, my lifebar remains in its staggered state until the next lucky blow lands.

2. There are a large number of power pool abilities that raise the heroes defense. While only Tough raises the heroes resistance, and only to lethal and smashing. This means that a resistance based scrapper can get very high resist, and decent defense, while an SR scrapper can only get high defense. (not to mention that there are defense Inspirations, yet no resistance inspirations)

3. Being the only secondary to rely primarily on Defense, SR is extremely weak to enemies with Accuracy buffs. If a group of nemesis use Vengance, it basically overrides everything you have to defend yourself.

4. For being able to tolerate the least amount of damage of all the secondaries, Super Reflex scrappers are given nothing to compensate. They have no additional utility. The entire secondary is purely devoted to raising the scrappers defense, which is an inherently flawed method, for the reasons above.

5. A well slotted Elude completely negates the purpose of the entire rest of the SR line. Once you have Elude, and you have it slotted with recharge and defense, every other SR power becomes useless.

Just my 2 cents,
*crosses his fingers and prays that the devs don't think they've fixed SR already, and forgotten about it*

Satori

SR slotted correctly is pretty disgusting ..

My roomies DM/SR scrapper tanks 50th lvl AVs for me, he is 48th lvl, almost never gets hit the entire fight, granted, if he does, he dies, but out of 5 battles with this 50th lvl AV, he has died once ...

And if you haven't read this thread yet, it goes much deeper into why Defense is inherently worse than Resistance:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...part=1#1276589

/bump

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I'd like to ask a very simple question:

Do you (the developers) feel that with the changes to Elude, that Super Reflexes is now balanced with the other Scrapper secondaries?

I'd like to pitch in my own ideas very briefly on the subject.

1. Super Reflexes is the only secondary that has no form of self heal. Yet, it is the secondary that needs it the most. Since Super Reflexes relies on defense over resistance, a SR scrapper will only be hit so often, but when he is hit it hurts a lot. I can go for quite some time with Elude on in between hits, though even with Tough, when i do get hit it is usually a very notable chunk of my lifebar. Few bosses hit me for less than half of my life. Unless i load myself down with Respites, my lifebar remains in its staggered state until the next lucky blow lands.

2. There are a large number of power pool abilities that raise the heroes defense. While only Tough raises the heroes resistance, and only to lethal and smashing. This means that a resistance based scrapper can get very high resist, and decent defense, while an SR scrapper can only get high defense. (not to mention that there are defense Inspirations, yet no resistance inspirations)

3. Being the only secondary to rely primarily on Defense, SR is extremely weak to enemies with Accuracy buffs. If a group of nemesis use Vengance, it basically overrides everything you have to defend yourself.

4. For being able to tolerate the least amount of damage of all the secondaries, Super Reflex scrappers are given nothing to compensate. They have no additional utility. The entire secondary is purely devoted to raising the scrappers defense, which is an inherently flawed method, for the reasons above.

5. A well slotted Elude completely negates the purpose of the entire rest of the SR line. Once you have Elude, and you have it slotted with recharge and defense, every other SR power becomes useless.

Just my 2 cents,
*crosses his fingers and prays that the devs don't think they've fixed SR already, and forgotten about it*

Satori


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There shouldn't be separate caps on defense and resistance, it should be a cap on the combination of both. For example, if you max the caps on both (95% defense and 90% resistance) against a single even-level mob, let's run through the following senario:

A single mob attacks you 100 times for 100 damage.

95 will miss outright, so 5 will hit for 500 damage total.

Of that 500 damage, 450 will be resisted. So you will take 50 damage out of a possible 10,000 damage, giving you a rate of 99.5% total damage mitigation! And as others have pointed out, there's no way for SR to get any damage resistance other than Tough. So they hit the defense cap, and that's it. They would face an average of 500 damage in this senario.

I propose a formula that would keep the 95% defense cap for heros that hit the 90% resistance cap, but allow a higher defense cap for heros that didn't to allow for 99.5% damage mitigation! This would allow SR to hit 99.5% defense IF they have 0% mitigation!

So:

R = current resistance (after resistance cap)
M = damage mitigation cap = .995
D = calculated defense cap.

Assuming that:

M = 1 - (1 - R)(1 - D)

Then:

-M = (1 - R)(1 - D) - 1

1 - M = (1 - R)(1 - D)

(1 - M) / (1 - R) = 1 - D

(1 - M) / (1 - R) - 1 = -D

1 - (1 - M) / (1 - R) = D

D = 1 - (1 - M) / (1 - R)

Therefore (since M = .995):

D = 1 - (1 - .995) / (1 - R)

The final formula is the following:

D = 1 - .005 / (1 - R)

That's it. Plug in any number between 0.00 and 0.90 for R and you will the calculated defense cap for D. Hell, if 99.5% damage mitigation is too high, choose another number for M, such as 95%, if you wish. You will still limit Defense to 95% for heros with 0% mitigation, but for those at the resistant cap of 90%, you will see:

D = 1 - (1 - .95) / (1 - .90)

D = 1 - (.05) / (.10)

D = 1 - (.50)

D = .50

As you can see, 50% defense cap seems rather low, but it will match the damage mitigation cap of the hero that has no damage resistance avaiable!. So, on second thought, 95% damage mitigation may be too low. So I would say keep it at 99.5% damage mitigation.

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SR slotted correctly is pretty disgusting ..

My roomies DM/SR scrapper tanks 50th lvl AVs for me, he is 48th lvl, almost never gets hit the entire fight, granted, if he does, he dies, but out of 5 battles with this 50th lvl AV, he has died once ...

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Slotted correctly = 6 powers and 30 additional slots.

Invul can reach similar effectiveness with one single power.
Instant Healing is a superior defense to the 6 super reflex defense powers.


All scrapper defense sets except Super Reflex offer at least 2 of the following defensive powers : +Defense, +Resist, Healing.

Actually, all the other Secondaries have self healing. All the other secondaries have Resistance, and everyone in the game has access to large amounst of defense through power pools and inspirations.

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1. Super Reflexes is the only secondary that has no form of self heal. Yet, it is the secondary that needs it the most. Since Super Reflexes relies on defense over resistance, a SR scrapper will only be hit so often, but when he is hit it hurts a lot. I can go for quite some time with Elude on in between hits, though even with Tough, when i do get hit it is usually a very notable chunk of my lifebar. Few bosses hit me for less than half of my life. Unless i load myself down with Respites, my lifebar remains in its staggered state until the next lucky blow lands.

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Super Reflexes is also the only secondary set where it *doesent* make sense to have a self heal. I mean... It's Super Reflexes. How does a guy who can move fast enough to dodge bullets manage to use that to heal himself?

Oh, i agree, that's not the point. It's just that something to compensate that lack of heal would be nice, instead of no heal + worst defenses.

It's not impossible though, here's an example:

Premonition - You react so quickly to your opponents attacks that some times you see things happen before they actually do. You may use this power to heal all damage you've sustained in the last 3 seconds.

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SR slotted correctly is pretty disgusting ..

My roomies DM/SR scrapper tanks 50th lvl AVs for me, he is 48th lvl, almost never gets hit the entire fight, granted, if he does, he dies, but out of 5 battles with this 50th lvl AV, he has died once ...

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Slotted correctly = 6 powers and 30 additional slots.

Invul can reach similar effectiveness with one single power.
Instant Healing is a superior defense to the 6 super reflex defense powers.


All scrapper defense sets except Super Reflex offer at least 2 of the following defensive powers : +Defense, +Resist, Healing.

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This is true, but I also think that Invuln should never have been given to scrappers, it should be a Tanker only power set ..

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It's not impossible though, here's an example:

Premonition - You react so quickly to your opponents attacks that some times you see things happen before they actually do. You may use this power to heal all damage you've sustained in the last 3 seconds.

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How does seeing the future heal you?

I just want to know how long everyone has to keep b.itching before they will at least comment on it.

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Oh, i agree, that's not the point. It's just that something to compensate that lack of heal would be nice, instead of no heal + worst defenses.

It's not impossible though, here's an example:

Premonition - You react so quickly to your opponents attacks that some times you see things happen before they actually do. You may use this power to heal all damage you've sustained in the last 3 seconds.

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But if you've already sustained the damage, how would being able to see into the future heal it?

The idea is that you didn't get hit, you just saw into the future, and what could have happened. It was just an example, you could fit plenty of things in there to justify a heal, though yes, it would be a stretch.

One of the devs (can't remember which, might have been Statesman) once mentioned possibly adding resistance to the SR line. I think even stacking it on the existing powers wouldn't be a bad idea if done correctly. It makes sense that a character who can move to avoid being hit, when hit, can react well enough to at least take the blow in a less damaging manor (better to take that baseball bat on your forearm than your head...well, relatively speaking).

Wouldn't be much of a stretch as far as I can tell.

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The idea is that you didn't get hit, you just saw into the future, and what could have happened. It was just an example, you could fit plenty of things in there to justify a heal, though yes, it would be a stretch.

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Perhaps the SR hero has learned mastery over their body and its reactions, and in turn learned to use its inner-strength (or chi) through that mastery to heal themselves. Considering the hero world we play in and its many diversions from reality, I don't see that as much of a stretch either. I see SR as a defensive martial arts set, in essence, and it's no stranger than someone who has developed their psychic abilities to the extent they can summon small, fiery monkeys from thin air.

-Pel

Good points raised, Kyx2000. I'd like to see where SR goes down the line.

If they just add to current powers, they could add the +res to Quickness.

"...For those attacks that get through your defense, you still react fast enough to block the attack and soften the blow. auto +res to all attacks except Psionics." Something along those line. This is in addition to the +run speed and +recharge.

bump

Dude, if they added +RES to Quickness I'd let Geko make me his slave for a month.

SR with a healing power? Yuck.

Honestly if you people want self heal so bad, grab medicine! That's what you should grab instead of tough, you only have to go through 2 powers to get to the self-heal.

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There shouldn't be separate caps on defense and resistance, it should be a cap on the combination of both. For example, if you max the caps on both (95% defense and 90% resistance) against a single even-level mob, let's run through the following senario:

A single mob attacks you 100 times for 100 damage.

95 will miss outright, so 5 will hit for 500 damage total.

Of that 500 damage, 450 will be resisted. So you will take 50 damage out of a possible 10,000 damage, giving you a rate of 99.5% total damage mitigation! And as others have pointed out, there's no way for SR to get any damage resistance other than Tough. So they hit the defense cap, and that's it. They would face an average of 500 damage in this senario.

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While I certainly see nothing wrong with improving Super Reflexes (it's just not a very interesting set) comparing it to the single most defensively oriented set in the game and complaining SR can't compete is a mistake. No defense set, whether primary or secondary can compare to Invulnerability.

Despite its apparent weakness, SR offers better defenses than some tanker primaries. If it had a heal as well, it would be distinctly better than Ice, and vastly superior (defensively) to fire.

In your example, a fire tanker would take 3000 damage (70% resistance, 30 damage x 100 hits). An Ice tanker would take exactly the same damage as the SR scrapper, despite being the supposed "defensive" melee AT.

As far as actual defense goes, SR is well balanced with the other defenses out there, excluding Invulnerability and Regen (at high levels) which vastly outperform everything else. SR definately needs a revamp in the sense of utility--it only does one thing, and while it does it well having an entire powerset focused on a single thing is boring.

Rather than try to find a way to become as defensive as Invuln, you should try to convince the Devs to combine certain powers and give you new ones that will make the powerset FUN.

What do you mean, make it fun? I have loads of fun!

I do agree that it does need some work, but not a complete revamp. I like the +RES on quickness though.

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Super Reflexes is also the only secondary set where it *doesent* make sense to have a self heal. I mean... It's Super Reflexes. How does a guy who can move fast enough to dodge bullets manage to use that to heal himself?

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have you never seen bruce le films where he is beaten to a pulp then stands up, straighten himself, wipes the blood away, and looks all better (and hella pissed), to turn the tables and beat up the other guys?

I think AE-defense should be combined with ranged defense and the two AE-defense slots should focus on other ideas:

a) Lucky gets replaced with Deflection. Deflection is an inherent power that has a base 10% chance to return a percentage of a melee attacker's attack back to him. So, if you take a hit, you can have a chance to take only 50% of that damage and return the other 50% back to the attacker (with diminishing returns to LT's, bosses, and AV's). It's basically Aikido for scrappers, in a way. It would probably require new enhancement types or creative use of existing ones to increase the base chance to return the blow or modify the percentage of damage returned.

b) Replace Evasion with Glancing Blow. With Glancing Blow, you have a base 15% damage avoidance vs. any non-psionic attacks made at you. I mean, you guys are moving so fast, you should at least be able to "somewhat" avoid attacks that make it through your defenses.

Those are just examples. I've just always felt that having separate defense characteristics for ranged and AoE was kind of... odd... myself. SR scrappers deserve more variety.

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SR slotted correctly is pretty disgusting ..

My roomies DM/SR scrapper tanks 50th lvl AVs for me, he is 48th lvl, almost never gets hit the entire fight, granted, if he does, he dies, but out of 5 battles with this 50th lvl AV, he has died once ...

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Slotted correctly = 6 powers and 30 additional slots.

Invul can reach similar effectiveness with one single power.
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Hiyas!

Well, I think you're stretching the truth here about the Invul secondary set. If you're talking about Invincibility, you're better off having a SR guy against the AV at the end. One on One, the SR guy will walk away (probably) and the Invul will have to rely on a ton of powers to come though it.

Now, against the horde of 10 minions/lts...you're better of with Invulnerability.