(In a post-SO situation) it only takes +10% dmg to equal Criticals on minions. According to this horribly inaccurate chart, you reach that before you're even at half health. For the 30% bonus it would take to break even with Scrappers on bosses, you only need to be at 40% health. I dunno about your experiences, but that's not exactly a rare thing for my Elec/En, and unless I'm trying to solo a boss, that's not exactly the situation where I *have* to gulp down green pills as fast as I can.
The issue with Defiance is that it does give a nice value even when the player's in decent shape. It just has the forbidden fruit of a full defiance bar that players just keep obsessing over.
[ QUOTE ]
The issue with Defiance is that it does give a nice value even when the player's in decent shape. It just has the forbidden fruit of a full defiance bar that players just keep obsessing over.
[/ QUOTE ]
Just because I have not said it for a few days and quoting myself is easy:
[ QUOTE ]
1. Eliminate the Defiance bar. I already have a bar that tells me when defiance is working. Health bar low, defiance is working.
2. Criticals and Scourge are probably no better than Defiance at adding meaningful damage over the course of an evening of play. Criticals and Scourge are cooler looking and make the team go oooh-aaaah. Why is that? Because when they happen everyone sees the word Scourge or Critical (Domination too) and more numbers. When blasters get Defiance, the target should have the word Defiance fly above his head and the extra damage done should be a seperate number. As goofy as this sounds, I believe this would make Defiance more fun.
[/ QUOTE ]
Please. Pretty please with sugar on top. And a cherry?
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
[ QUOTE ]
(In a post-SO situation) it only takes +10% dmg to equal Criticals on minions. According to this horribly inaccurate chart, you reach that before you're even at half health. For the 30% bonus it would take to break even with Scrappers on bosses, you only need to be at 40% health. I dunno about your experiences, but that's not exactly a rare thing for my Elec/En, and unless I'm trying to solo a boss, that's not exactly the situation where I *have* to gulp down green pills as fast as I can.
The issue with Defiance is that it does give a nice value even when the player's in decent shape. It just has the forbidden fruit of a full defiance bar that players just keep obsessing over.
[/ QUOTE ]
The really important thing is that the 10% damage increase I get from scrapper criticals is much better at helping me kill mobs faster in comparison with defiance which, while boosting my DPS THEORETICALLY does not in normal gameplay help me kill faster. Getting double damage from an attack and saving yourself the cost of attacking again on a mob is usefull.
Getting a slight damage increase but still having to use another attack to finish off the mob that would have killed off the mob regardless of the slight damage increase is not usefull. There is a world of difference in comparing Criticals and defiance beyond simply DPS.
That's a bit hard to prove, Concern. Unless you've manipulated highcrit powers, you've got no way to move crits onto enemies with more health rather than those with less. I'm not aware of any of those within Spines.
As a result, you're stuck wasting half of your crits against enemies who a normal attack would kill. Defiance causes an extra predictable amount. You can use an attack combination that would leave enemies with just a sliver of health, and instead kill them. Of course, you risk some wastage, but that should average out equally with that of Criticals - except, again, Defiance is predictable.
For example, my Elec/En can either use a combination of a BU, and a Lightning Bolt, and an Energy Punch to kill a single enemy, or I can switch and instead use a BU, Lightning and a Charged Bolt, saving the Punch for another target.
I won't call Defiance a great inherent, but it's not useless. At least, not when it actually works.
Double checking if it works or not does not improve its usefulness. Defiance is broken and not helping anyone.
[ QUOTE ]
For example, my Elec/En can either use a combination of a BU, and a Lightning Bolt, and an Energy Punch to kill a single enemy, or I can switch and instead use a BU, Lightning and a Charged Bolt, saving the Punch for another target.
[/ QUOTE ] Ok then. Perhaps I'm just being a bit dense, given that I'm up a bit later than I should be at the moment, but what does using BU have to do with defiance? Or were you just using it as an example of a predictable damage increase? If you were it'd probably have been more on topic to use the example of an instance where you planned knocking yourself down to around 20% life to get the (theoretically) 140% damage buff from defiance yes?
Of course, it's not quite the same thing. Most folks don't usually look at a group of mobs and think, "Ok, first thing I need to do is get myself smacked around a lot, then I'll have enough defiance to take care of them easily." Just like, by the same token, folks don't really depend on crits in a fight either. Neither of them are planned things in a fight.
Well, I suppose you could plan a fight with defiance in mind, specifically knocking yourself down to a very low amount of HPs, but it's somewhat tempting fate to do so.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
[ QUOTE ]
Ok then. Perhaps I'm just being a bit dense, given that I'm up a bit later than I should be at the moment, but what does using BU have to do with defiance? Or were you just using it as an example of a predictable damage increase?
[/ QUOTE ]
The build up and such is just an example of a possible attack series against a target. The point was that, with even low values of Defiance, you can actually 'save' attacks.
I won't intentionally have an enemy beat me down to minimal values of health (most of the time, at least. I'm prone to abusing the living **** out of defiance as much as the next blaster). But you can't go forever without having your health drop a bit (unless you're something like Ice/Dev). If you use that inevitable damage, you can save attacks and perform slightly better.
Am I the only person that has ever liked defiance? I've not read the God only knows number of replies to this, but I think defiance is great....
I drop to 48% health and suddenly I've got an extra SO's worth of damage. What's wrong with that? If I'm in a small group and get down to 10-20% health but kill what's got agro on me then suddenly I can one shot guys as I'm doing double damage (+200%ish damage). Defiance doesn't change the world but it is a VERY nice bonus.
So... let me get this straight... you umm... intentionally - ran up your definance meter in one shot - to one shot some bad guys.... and you're amazed it does not work?
Does the term "exploit" mean ANYTHING to you? It never occured to you that the Definance scale may have code in there to prevent the very thing you're doing??
C'mon - how much of a genius does it take to figure out you could basically go to a nice hot zone and powerlevel yourself with almost no risk using that strategy. You think the dev's wouldn't take that into account?
I have a level 34 AR/Fire blaster ... and amazingly enough yes, defiance does in fact work on almost all missions.
Granted... I'd probably get more ummph from lighting discharged rectal methane with a bic lighter than what I get from it 80% of the time... to really see it work you need about 3/4 of a meter full and hold it for a good while.
But even with that criticism of it - I have on many occasions found out much to my surprise not only was it engaged but it actually was giving me very impressive damage. Enough so I've saved several teams by just continuing to fire where no sane mortal - even the tank - was left standing. (I also eat debt like candy in that toon. He's spent more time on the carpet than a rug doctor.)
What I've seemed to notice is that you have to sustain that meter for a while - then it kicks in. I have no data to prove this but my observations tend to indicate that jumping off a building ... may run the meter up - but you have to hold it at a level for a period to really see results.
Mind you - when I'm playing my blaster I seldom pay much attention to definace as I've always considered using it as a tactic a good way to get yourself killed. It is - what it is - a nice "gimmee" that kicks in measurably only when you're doing something pretty hardcore you should probably die from.
That is - after all - what it's designed to do. Not allow you to near suicide and one shot bosses.
[ QUOTE ]
The build up and such is just an example of a possible attack series against a target. The point was that, with even low values of Defiance, you can actually 'save' attacks.
[/ QUOTE ] You were using the wrong power as an example then, as you'd have to be fairly well and hurt in order to see a similar increase to that of BU. Heck, in my testing tonight I didn't even see an increase that outstripped aim untill I tried the 20% life test(around 33 on the defiance bar). It is significantly outstripped at that point though. The closest I got in my testing what with 14 points of defiance, or around 30% life, which was a 6% damage buff below that of aim. So yea, perhaps 25-28% life before you even outstrip aim, and actually perhaps 23% before you oustrip that of BU. That's not quite 'low' values.
While you do have a point, the 'low levels' of defiance is more applicable to popping a (low or medium) red than it is hitting aim or BU. Depending on the mob that can help me out, but also depending it can leave me needing to do still just a sliver more damage to really fight any more effectively.
It just really all depends.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
Oliin, and I'll quote my post here :
[ QUOTE ]
For example, my Elec/En can either use a combination of a BU, and a Lightning Bolt, and an Energy Punch to kill a single enemy, or I can switch and instead use a BU, Lightning and a Charged Bolt, saving the Punch for another target.
[/ QUOTE ]
The difference isn't a use of Build Up in one situation or the other. The difference is the use of a BI 2.7778 attack (Charged Bolts) instead of a BI 5.4454 (Energy Punch). In both situations I was already using BU and Lightning Bolt. However, even a small boost in damage brought me from needing Energy Punch to instead needing just Charged Bolts.
Given that this (in one example) could save me from wasting a good 2 brawl off Energy Punch's attack during a Build Up cycle, I'd consider that a good thing.
I don't expect, nor should we expect, Defiance to average or typically work on the same level as Build Up or Aim, for the same reason that Brawl doesn't compare well to Energy Punch and that Sprint doesn't work as well as SuperJump.
[ QUOTE ]
(In a post-SO situation) it only takes +10% dmg to equal Criticals on minions. According to this horribly inaccurate chart, you reach that before you're even at half health. For the 30% bonus it would take to break even with Scrappers on bosses, you only need to be at 40% health. I dunno about your experiences, but that's not exactly a rare thing for my Elec/En, and unless I'm trying to solo a boss, that's not exactly the situation where I *have* to gulp down green pills as fast as I can.
The issue with Defiance is that it does give a nice value even when the player's in decent shape. It just has the forbidden fruit of a full defiance bar that players just keep obsessing over.
[/ QUOTE ]
Uh, can you show me your math, Blueyed? Have you taken into consideriation that Scrapper crits double final damage after all buff are applied (thus allowing Scrappers to get 1000% base damage if they're at 500% cap) whereas Defiance only buffs base damage and only allows you to reach the blaster 500% cap at max?
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
Did some testing of defiance myself tonight over in the arena. Had a friend of mine smack me down to a certain defiance point value and then I'd blas them, repeat at the same level and then I picked another point value and tested that one. All the tests of supposedly max defiance were run with my character (Ikube) having less than 10 hps ouf of her max 1385.5.
Sure it's not the most complete list, but it's what my friend had time to help me test.
100% life (1 defiance) = +0% buff (100% damage)
50% life (3 defiance) = +12% buff
30% life (14 defiance) = +56%
Aim = +63%(ish) buff
20% life (33 defiance) = +131%
5% life (100 defiance) = +300% (400% damage, old damage cap)
And, just for the heck of it.
5% life + aim (100def+63ish% damage buff) = +300%
For comparison [ QUOTE ]
166.8 HP : 100% HP : 36.59 energy damage - 100%
92.9 HP : 55.7% HP : 39.62 energy damage - 108%
81.6 HP : 48.92% HP : 41.34 energy damage - 113%
73.2 HP : 43.88% HP : 45 energy damage - 123%
40.2 HP : 24.1% HP : 70.98 energy damage - 193%
38.2 HP : 22.9% HP : 76.86 energy damage - 210%
15 HP : 8.99% : 95.38 energy damage - 260%
[/ QUOTE ]from Blueeyed's test and
[ QUOTE ]
=>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)
[/ QUOTE ]From the feature updates article on the subject.
Blueeyed's and my tests seem to sync up fairly well I think, and both of them fit against the only given numbers we currently have ... a little bit poorly, but not too terribly badly, untill you hit what's supposed to be the blaster damage cap.
Nothing I could do was able to bring me up above the old cap of 400% damage. That leads me to the questino devs. Did we actually get our cap increased, or is there some coding going on to keep us from hitting our cap without outside buffs no matter what we do?
PS. I am not, usually much of a number cruncher. So I'll grant that my math may not be 100% accurate, but give or take a couple % points here and there I stand by my numbers given the (admitedly) smallish set of numbers I grabbed with my friend.
PPS. Blueeyed. Yea, gocha. Sorry, was just reading that bit wonkily every time apparently. <shrug> Go figure.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
[ QUOTE ]
Defiance is great for the "I don't give a crap about debt" playstyle, in my experience.
Or the LEEEROOOY... JEEEKIIINS playstyle.
Those two playstyles are often inter-related.
[/ QUOTE ]
what is the leroy jenkins playstyle?
[ QUOTE ]
Doublechecked Defiance - and its working for us (internally and on live). Can anyone give more details about this issue?
[/ QUOTE ]
It sucks and is a worthless ability. It takes too long to kick in and doesn't provide any solid ability to the player. A more gradual introduction to the ability instead of only having it useful when you have 3 hitpoints would be nice.
Arc Salvo, if we're going to start balancing classes or powers around the assumption that they either carry a few thousand reds or are joined at the hip with a Kineticist, we're going to have a few problems in even the best situations. Since ED, no one's regularly reaching the +damage cap on their own, and it's rare for scrappers to even reach half of theirs on average.
For more exact numbers and math... (for post-SOs)
Non-Claws scrappers :
100% (base damage) + 95% (SOs) + 100% * [10/23] = 238% damage.
* 0.05, for minions : +11.9% base damage (equal to >50% blaster health)
* 0.10, for LTs : +23.8% base damage (equal to between 40%-50% blaster health)
* 0.15, for Bosses : +35.7% base damage (equal to nearly 40% blaster health)
Claws Scrappers don't get Build Up, but instead get Follow Up (as well as a higher chance of critting on one of their two big power moves) :
100% (base damage) + 95% (SOs) + 35% * [(10/6) * (19/20)] = 231.58% damage
* 0.09, for minions : +20.84% base damage (equal to near 50% blaster health)
* 0.14, for LTs : +32% base damage (equal to nearly 40% blaster health)
* 0.19, for Bosses : +44% base damage (equal to slightly under 40% blaster health)
Note that Claws scrappers suffer from such incredibly poor base BI/sec that they're currently facing developer attention. Yes, it's that bad. If you don't believe me, grab Swipe and Slash sometime. It's worse than AR.
[ QUOTE ]
what is the leroy jenkins playstyle?
[/ QUOTE ]
It's a slur originating from World of Warcraft, where a player, in a staged setup, listened carefully while a plan was hatched for taking on a particularly difficult part of a Raid. After that point, the player then yelled Leeroooooy Jenkins in chat and committed electronic suicide in what's probably the ugliest possible way.
In general, a Leeroy Jenkins is doing something that's either suicidal or otherwise ill-advised.
[ QUOTE ]
Well, States is "happy with defiance", which means he must be happy with the crapperific bugginess of the inherent.
Fix it please 
[/ QUOTE ]
Whoa, Statesman doesn't play ANY blasters? Dang thats kinda depressing. I had a little bit of hope too 
I've been working on leveling a fire/fire blaster. I have a very melee type play style with him. aka I die alot. Anywho, their has been many a time that defiance actualled saved my hide. Cause when a power that has no dmg enhancements slotted yet 1 shoots somethin, you know defiance is working.
V-Tronix - Angry Angels
V-Tron Elec/EM - V-Tron X EM/EA
To Build a Better Hero #53098 [Newly edited and looking for Feedback] - Renegade Robots: V-Tron's Task Force # - A Summer Song and A Winters Tail #104106
We have an inherent?....
Raven Salvo 38 Fire/Fire - Freedom Server
[ QUOTE ]
We have an inherent?....
[/ QUOTE ]
That's what I keep saying.
[ QUOTE ]
There's bugs like this with defiance. Sometimes it give you no buff at all when you're damaged, and gives you a buff when you're at full health.
It's still not coded to be 100% right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, whenever I entered Talos (on Triumph if it matters) for a while I'd be at like 1% defiance with full health, but only in Talos. Haven't played that guy in a while since he's 50 and 'shelved' for now but I should check it.
Well, I for one thing find the "skill" useless MOST of the time because about the time I start getting it to where it's giving me some useful output, I am already dead.
Personally, I always thought it should scale exactly proportional to the HP bar, as the hp bar goes down, the defiance bar should go up. (i.e. each one pass the other exactly at 50%, etc)
I have never lived long enough for it to actually really help a group because I am SO squishy, I just get dropped or stunned and then dropped before I can get a cast off to notice any dmg output increase.
My perspective has always been increased damage as my health fades so I can "increase my output" and try to save a dying group, but alas, this just isn't the case, I just die along with them and if I am really lucky, I might get a shot off that has useful damage. I am better off just dying and letting a rad person use me for fallout.
Speaking of quirks that never get looked at, how come when I fight something that does the "earthquake" power thing, I kill the NPC but the earthquake continues to grief me for 15 seconds, but yet I cast blizzard and as soon as I die blizzard stops. In case the devs missed it, Blizzard is NOT a toggle, it's a cast and as soon as I die, it's already snowing, so it should run its cycle, regardless.
Just put that as a note in your hip pocket of things that'll never get fixed...
[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of quirks that never get looked at, how come when I fight something that does the "earthquake" power thing, I kill the NPC but the earthquake continues to grief me for 15 seconds, but yet I cast blizzard and as soon as I die blizzard stops. In case the devs missed it, Blizzard is NOT a toggle, it's a cast and as soon as I die, it's already snowing, so it should run its cycle, regardless.
[/ QUOTE ]
Is Blizzard a summons like a pet or do you need to target a valid enimy to cast it?
cause if it is a summons it will die with the caster cause their is nothing it's bound to. a power that requires a target will die when it times out or the target dies
V-Tronix - Angry Angels
V-Tron Elec/EM - V-Tron X EM/EA
To Build a Better Hero #53098 [Newly edited and looking for Feedback] - Renegade Robots: V-Tron's Task Force # - A Summer Song and A Winters Tail #104106
[ QUOTE ]
Well, I for one thing find the "skill" useless MOST of the time because about the time I start getting it to where it's giving me some useful output, I am already dead.
Personally, I always thought it should scale exactly proportional to the HP bar, as the hp bar goes down, the defiance bar should go up. (i.e. each one pass the other exactly at 50%, etc)
I have never lived long enough for it to actually really help a group because I am SO squishy, I just get dropped or stunned and then dropped before I can get a cast off to notice any dmg output increase.
My perspective has always been increased damage as my health fades so I can "increase my output" and try to save a dying group, but alas, this just isn't the case, I just die along with them and if I am really lucky, I might get a shot off that has useful damage. I am better off just dying and letting a rad person use me for fallout.
Speaking of quirks that never get looked at, how come when I fight something that does the "earthquake" power thing, I kill the NPC but the earthquake continues to grief me for 15 seconds, but yet I cast blizzard and as soon as I die blizzard stops. In case the devs missed it, Blizzard is NOT a toggle, it's a cast and as soon as I die, it's already snowing, so it should run its cycle, regardless.
Just put that as a note in your hip pocket of things that'll never get fixed...
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah what you're saying makes sense. I get what they're thinking in CONCEPT. I know what their mining has shown... however in MY reality... defiance doesn't make enough of a difference (with enough health remaining to use it) to make a difference.
When my health is low enough where my shots are really making a difference... I either die or have to take a pill. I take a pill and wham my health shoots up enough to take the bite out of defiance.
I'm not saying they need to make an EXTREME change... but defiance doesn't help until you're on the rail... (great in concept bad in implemenation.) I think the scaling should be altered a bit so that it kicks in higher.
If at that point a blaster wants to walk the line (where one pill can keep him alive and in business with defiance but still relatively low on health) then that should be their choice. Right now the only choice is (usually) death or a pill and drained defiance.
I have been playing my scrapper and my blaster that were both made post I6 and I don't see defiance comeing anywhere near the level of usefullness of that 5% scrapper critical. Especially since that 5% ramps up to 10% on LTs and 15% on bosses. When my scrapper hits for double damage maybe 8 to 9 times in a mission (not counting the crits on Death Shroud and Quills) it happens at anytime. At the start of a battle, at the end of a battle, in the middle of a battle. It is always usefull.
With my blaster however, I just don't see it. The benefit is not there except in the rarest of occasions so I don't see how it can possibly be as usefull as the scrapper inherant which is usefull ALL the time. Not to mention it gets used more often than my blasters defiance as well.
The comparison I am making in terms of usefullness is between my Level 32 Fire/Elec Blaster and my level 32 Spines/DA Scrapper. In both team play and normal solo play at any difficulty the scrapper inherant is heads and shoulders above defiance.
Scourge is the best thing since sliced bread. It makes AoE attacks shine like no other inherant in the game save Fire Ball + Containment. Without a doubt a power that is a gleaming example of something with both a realistic effect on gameplay and something that is noticeable.
However, other than my general complaints about defiance and the usual comparisons to other inherant abilities I am curious as to why you think that your graph represents something positive about defiance. My own conclusion of your presented data is that defiance is woefully lacking simply due to the number of attacks that are applicable before you die.