Defense and Scaling
By
Aaron123,
Posted on: 2006-01-11 16:47 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Here's a question for you, Futurias. Why are you engaging a +4 AV? I mean honestly, that doesn't happen much, and I don't know if I recommend anyone do much of anything to a +4 AV. I would say no one should be tossing effects on anything above, say, a +2 AV unless they are willing to risk getting seriously squished.
I use DN all the time on teams on things up to +4 bosses. but the only time I'm looking at something that much bigger than me is when I'm on a large team, and/or where there are other things soaking up foe aggro, like Brutes who lead the charge or Mastermind pets mixing it up. Certainly there is someone who's higher level than me. Does it get me in trouble? Sure, sometimes. Does it do my team no good? Hardly. Especially if anyone else is in there debuffing. Especially if I can stack debuffs, which I can and do (Fearsome Stare, Tenebrous Tentacles, Twilight Grasp).
I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, but I am disagreeing a little bit with the doom you seem to suggest it means for those of us with ACC debuff powers.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Here's a question for you, Futurias. Why are you engaging a +4 AV? I mean honestly, that doesn't happen much, and I don't know if I recommend anyone do much of anything to a +4 AV. I would say no one should be tossing effects on anything above, say, a +2 AV unless they are willing to risk getting seriously squished.
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Sidekicked to a person that is -1 on an eight man team will pit you against a +4 AV. Or just being -2 on an eight man team.
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I use DN all the time on teams on things up to +4 bosses. but the only time I'm looking at something that much bigger than me is when I'm on a large team, and/or where there are other things soaking up foe aggro, like Brutes who lead the charge or Mastermind pets mixing it up. Certainly there is someone who's higher level than me. Does it get me in trouble? Sure, sometimes. Does it do my team no good? Hardly. Especially if anyone else is in there debuffing. Especially if I can stack debuffs, which I can and do (Fearsome Stare, Tenebrous Tentacles, Twilight Grasp).
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I've been on big teams a lot too. Generaly, I've found that shadow fall and twighlights grasp are not likely to get me killed and help more on big teams.
Suicide or overkill, with a sharp, cutting edge.
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I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, but I am disagreeing a little bit with the doom you seem to suggest it means for those of us with ACC debuff powers.
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Not "gloom" per se, but if we are fixing "defensive" powers, why not fix debuffs while we are at it? It's a defensive power too.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Sidekicked to a person that is -1 on an eight man team will pit you against a +4 AV. Or just being -2 on an eight man team.
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I suppose if you hang with people that do all their AVs in Invinicible/Relentless. That's not something I recommend. Not with at least of third of the ones I can come up with off the top of my head.
Remember that (at least in CoV - I haven't been in a large CoH team since it came out) foe levels no longer scale with team size. An 8-man team no longer adds +2 to the level of spawned mobs. If this is different in CoH, I assume it's an error, since it seems an appropriate change with I5/ED.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Thee is one thing i find odd on the TohitDebuff/Def stacking, altough once enemies hit the floor it is rare more to be needed, its just me being nitpicky, but:
If i got this right, having 10 debuf and 15 def would be the same as having 25 def. But this also means that having 45% debuff, you may as well turn off al def granting toggles because they are doing nothing.
On the other hand, -DMG can go as far as it go, but whatever is left will also then be cut down to up to 10% of what it was. So an enemy with a 1000 points attack being -dmg debuffed by 90% of its damage and then the hero having 90% resist, will end in a 10 dmg hit.
Having 45 def and -45 to hit on the enemy will always yield just 10% chance to be hit, not 1%.
And EVEN if it was, the minimun 5% chance to hit would kick in, yet there is no Minimun 10% damage done (as far as i know, may be wrong.)
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Minimun 10% damage done (as far as i know, may be wrong.)
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10% of base is indeed the -damage floor from debuffs alone.
Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%
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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%
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Interesting observation.
FWIW, two counterpoints:
-DMG + DMG RES doesn't protect you from secondary effects, -ACC +DEF does.
-DMG + DMG RES is more rare than, -ACC +DEF is.
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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%
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As a damage debuffer, that is not what I recall. 90% is the maximum that you can resist/debuff. They are not cumalitive.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%
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As a damage debuffer, that is not what I recall. 90% is the maximum that you can resist/debuff. They are not cumalitive.
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I suppose it would be easy to test with a Tanker, a Sonic, a Kin and a bunch of grey MOBs.
I have the KIN.
I may be wrong but i THINK thats what i got with my ice tanker. I mean, after the 14% damage debuff then i would use my resitances against ice only for the reminder, not the whole.
Again, i may be recalling wrongly.
Will have to run that test again tonight.
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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%
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As a damage debuffer, that is not what I recall. 90% is the maximum that you can resist/debuff. They are not cumalitive.
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I suppose it would be easy to test with a Tanker, a Sonic, a Kin and a bunch of grey MOBs.
I have the KIN.
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Tested with Darkest Night and Twighlights grasp with the Ancillary dark armor power.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Here's a question for you, Futurias. Why are you engaging a +4 AV? I mean honestly, that doesn't happen much, and I don't know if I recommend anyone do much of anything to a +4 AV. I would say no one should be tossing effects on anything above, say, a +2 AV unless they are willing to risk getting seriously squished.
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It happens all the time IMX. I'm at -2 to the mission, at highest difficulty and 5+ teamates. +2 AV to the mission holder, +4 AV to me. If you fight on big teams, that happens a lot IMX. If you don't fight on big teams, or don't fight w/ mixed-level teams, it doesn't happen much at all.
But IMX the double-whammy of the purple patch starts hitting debuffers at +2.
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So FF is going to be slightly boosted here and more effective (yay!) Debuffing getting hit by double-purple penalties means that debuffing has to be over-effective at lower plus, then dropping off effectiveness.
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This change isn't making debuffs worse than before in any way. A single acc debuff doesn't have to be more usefull than the entire FF set in every AV fight, for things to be balanced.
Besides, non-FF sets have -dmg, -recharge and healing which more than makes up for any acc/def advantage in an AV fight.
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I'd advocated a lower base value, but making debuff only get affected by the purple patch {once}. That way it can less potent near your level, but possibly more effective against higher cons at later levels.
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You know the most realistic implementation of this would be about the same against +3, slightly better against +4, and suck horribly for anyone soloing +0s.
alright thats great news for us poor sr scrappers..just one question left to answer.
Will we all be getting a free respec to adjust to yet another defence change it may now be worth slotting some powers like cj, hover, and maybe even weave?
If you dont give us a respec there's no real point since alot of us have used up our respecs trying to adjust to i3 and i6.
I cant see why handing out a free respec along with i7 being too much to ask 
@Leelow
@Death Wish
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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%
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As a damage debuffer, that is not what I recall. 90% is the maximum that you can resist/debuff. They are not cumalitive.
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I suppose it would be easy to test with a Tanker, a Sonic, a Kin and a bunch of grey MOBs.
I have the KIN.
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Tested with Darkest Night and Twighlights grasp with the Ancillary dark armor power.
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OK i just did a test with Damage Resist and debuff.
I took on an enemy that did 20.71 damage normaly.
I used chilling embrase and i got 17.81. Thats 14% less damage.
Then i poped up a 5% resist inspiration. He did 16.92 damage. Thats a total of 18.3% less damage, and that is definitively not 14 + 5. It does however fit with the debuff taking effect first and the resist taking effect later, so they do not stack.
I did not test if there is a total mitigation cap though, that may be a thing for tonight.
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OK i just did a test with Damage Resist and debuff.
I took on an enemy that did 20.71 damage normaly.
I used chilling embrase and i got 17.81. Thats 14% less damage.
Then i poped up a 5% resist inspiration. He did 16.92 damage. Thats a total of 18.3% less damage, and that is definitively not 14 + 5. It does however fit with the debuff taking effect first and the resist taking effect later, so they do not stack.
I did not test if there is a total mitigation cap though, that may be a thing for tonight.
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I tested this with just Dark Miasma powers some time back so I knew what I was getting with my Corruptor. Like you, the behavior I encountered is the separate powers are multiplicative, not additive. Darkest Night and Twilight Grasp left a foe dealing damage that looked more like:
NewDamage=BaseDamage * (1-TG) * (1-DN)
Not:
NewDamage=BaseDamage * (1- TG -DN)
Moreover, multiple applications of Twilight Grasp were also multiplicative.
Testing with other similar debuffs, such as Sonic's DR debuff, seem to provide consistent effects.
I should add that I would have always expected +DR to be multiplicative with -DAM.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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OK i just did a test with Damage Resist and debuff.
I took on an enemy that did 20.71 damage normaly.
I used chilling embrase and i got 17.81. Thats 14% less damage.
Then i poped up a 5% resist inspiration. He did 16.92 damage. Thats a total of 18.3% less damage, and that is definitively not 14 + 5. It does however fit with the debuff taking effect first and the resist taking effect later, so they do not stack.
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To the best of my knowledge, (foe) damage debuff and (self) damage resist never stacked. The debuff always reduced the outgoing damage at the target, and then the (self) resistance always reduced the damage that was *seen* by the resistance; the resistance never somehow "knew" that the damage had been originally debuffed.
Resistance stacks with resistance, defense stacks with defense, etc. Dissimilar things do not stack. What confuses people is when someone says "tohit debuffs stack with defense." They don't: not really. But the way the tohit formula works, *numerically* they have the same effect: they subtract from base tohit. So they combine in the formula *as if they stacked*. This makes some people think that perhaps related effects stack: -DMG and +RES being related. But in fact tohit buff/debuff and defense buff/debuff are the exception to the rule, not indicative of how things work in general.
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One point that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread (yes I read the entire thread and Jesus Mary Joseph you guys can babble, prattle, and otherwise say in 10 paragraphs what can simply be said in one) are the effects of foe defense debuffs, typically found in great quantity via lethal attacks?
The -5% def in unyielding was touched upon and noted that the -def will now scale. But then so would the -def from lethal attacks, no?
If your overall defense stays 0 or greater after calculating the -defs, then there's no problem. But if you're a toon with no defense, or your adjusted defense becomes negative, then scaling will occur under the new system and you'll actually get hit MORE.
My guess is that solo or on small teams it won't amount to much, but on large teams that are +2s and higher the difference could be quite significant, especially if you rely upon defense (if you don't foes quickly hit the 95% cap). Some melee sets get a def debuff resistance which helps lessen the blow (no idea what the % is on that), but what about defense powers that don't have that resistance, like force fields and invulnerability? The difference in foe accuracy current vs. new could often be greater than the protection given from powers like dispersion bubble or invincibility.
Are there plans to address this issue or does this mean that non-defense based toons will now suffer in these situations at the expense of defensive sets?
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One point that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread (yes I read the entire thread and Jesus Mary Joseph you guys can babble, prattle, and otherwise say in 10 paragraphs what can simply be said in one)
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I'll try to be brief.
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are the effects of foe defense debuffs, typically found in great quantity via lethal attacks?
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Actually, covered a couple times.
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The -5% def in unyielding was touched upon and noted that the -def will now scale. But then so would the -def from lethal attacks, no?
If your overall defense stays 0 or greater after calculating the -defs, then there's no problem. But if you're a toon with no defense, or your adjusted defense becomes negative, then scaling will occur under the new system and you'll actually get hit MORE.
My guess is that solo or on small teams it won't amount to much, but on large teams that are +2s and higher the difference could be quite significant, especially if you rely upon defense (if you don't foes quickly hit the 95% cap). Some melee sets get a def debuff resistance which helps lessen the blow (no idea what the % is on that), but what about defense powers that don't have that resistance, like force fields and invulnerability? The difference in foe accuracy current vs. new could often be greater than the protection given from powers like dispersion bubble or invincibility.
Are there plans to address this issue or does this mean that non-defense based toons will now suffer in these situations at the expense of defensive sets?
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No.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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oops double post
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I look forward to a detailed explanation of how this will work.
Glad you asked. Basically, Level advantage in PvE, Lts, Bosses, AV's, and Monsters had To Hit bonuses. This made Defense not scale properly. We changed them so that instead of To Hit bonuses, they have Accuracy bonuses. What that means is, Defense is applied before their bonus, rather than after. Since Accuracy is a multiplier, it is multiplying a small base value than before.
For instance, an AV had a base To Hit of 75%. If a player had 25% Defense, the AV would have had a 50% chance to hit.
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Thank bleep! I was long waiting for some sort of switch between acc and tohit was made. Of course, this does nothing for PvP, but it sounds like it'll make it so I can run missions again and spend some more time PvEing in PvP zones, without expecting the mobs to get me long before a player even sees me.
The problem with debuffing is that it is too good at even mobs and a cliff that falls off against "plus" mobs.
Let's compare it against 18.6% bubbles against +0 Minions and AVs, then +3 Minion and AVs.
50% - 18.6% = 31.4%. So a +0 Minion is 31.4% and an AV is going to be 47.1% (which is pretty dang good and a lot better than it used to be. Those are i3 numbers divided by two, as I couldn't find i6 numbers.)
31.4% * 1.4 = 43.96% +3 minion accuracy (still less than half a hit chance.) 66% +3 AV accuracy. Not great, but I'm trying to be cautious with my numbers.)
31.4% *1.55 = 48.67% +4 minion accuracy. 73% +4 AV accuracy. Not bad at all, actually for what are considered "low" numbers.
50% - 37.125 = 12.88% minion accuracy. 19.3% AV accuracy. Accuracy debuffing wins hands down on even mobs (something I totally expected.) It is gaining a lot more agro than the bubbler, of course, and has no mezzing protection.
50% - 26.5% = 23.5% * 1.4% = 32.88% minion accuracy. 49% AV accuracy. This is actually better than I expected, but isn't good. In the high level game, trying to use this as a primary defense for a team is death on the debuffer. Between 1/3 and ½ of the first attacks are going to hit when you attack with this debuff. Most likely, the debuff is going to be turned off very shortly. As no accuracy debuffer can protect itself from mezzing and being detoggled, you end up stunned, detoggled and then killed.
50% - 16.71 = 33.3% * 1.55 = 51.6% + 4 minion accuracy. 79.98% +4 AV accuracy. At this point, it's starting to lose out (and it loses out badly if you consider that without mezz protection you turn on the debuff, the counter-attack will likely detoggle you instantly. That will leave the 2nd (arguably the 1st) squishiest class one the receiving end of all agro.
A quick form of suicide that only gets worse as you increase beyond this.
It takes about three powers to get that much defense in Force Fields, of course. So it should be better. But it gains no specific agro either. Accuracy debuffing is much better at lower levels and then starts dropping off quickly by +4s or so, all the while gaining a horrendous amount of agro with no mezz protection.
So FF is going to be slightly boosted here and more effective (yay!) Debuffing getting hit by double-purple penalties means that debuffing has to be over-effective at lower plus, then dropping off effectiveness.
To be quite truthful, I almost never use Darkest Night anymore. It is either redundant or suicide. It's very hard to use without heavy support. Even though I'm supposed to be doing the supporting.
I'd advocated a lower base value, but making debuff only get affected by the purple patch {once}. That way it can less potent near your level, but possibly more effective against higher cons at later levels.
{If anyone is listening anymore.}
Still here, even after all this time!