Patron Powers: Ghost Widow - Soul Mastery
By
5th_Player,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:37 in Developers' Corner
Scarlet, can you run that analysis on the Scrapper/Dark Mastery/Dark Blast power and see how it compares with, say, the Defender version?
According to Castle, the EPPs are supposed to have equivalent faults, and we should be comparing the PPPs directly to EPP powers (or at least viewing how PPPs and CoV primary powers compare in light of how EPPs and CoH primary powers compare, when direct comparisons are not available).
Edit: Note that Castle reports that all EPPs on melee characters also use the AT ranged damage tables.
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
I crash every time I try to enter Ghost Widow's first mission.
Oddly enough, I accompanied someone into this mission last evening and it was fine.
I have tried running in safe mode as well, with no progress or help.
Other missions and zones seem to work fine (Tried newspaper missions in St. Martial and contact missions in Nerva and Grandville)
As to the powers...trying the snipe myself and the hold, I'll see about the pet.
Is there a Patron indicator on your villain once you've chosen a patron? Something like "Ghost Widow's Knight" or "Captain Mako's Apprentice" or what not? It would be flavorful and cool.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Reference for Corruptors...
Dark Embrace
* Self +RES (S/L, N. Energy, Tox)
* END: 1 unit/sec
* Recharge: 4 secs
[/color]
[/ QUOTE ]
Dark Embrace costs 1 End/sec!
[/ QUOTE ]
How do you arrive at that conclusion? Has anyone actually tested that yet? 'cuz all that quote says to me is that one "unit" of endurance, whatever that may be, is taken away every second, and that they really need to try harder on this "hard numbers" thing. The endurance/second numbers we're used to seeing on the forums mostly have little relation to how the devs probably think of toggles because lots of toggles don't tick once per second. They tick anywhere from several times per second to, in the case of Cloak of Fear, about once every five seconds.
I suspect that in devspeak CoF would be represented as 1 "unit"/5 seconds. This is as misleading as it is unhelpful.
[/ QUOTE ]
Based on replies to my PMs to Castle, those units do not mean end/second. In the case of Dark Embrace, he quoted to me a value a little over 0.3 end/sec, which compares directly with EPP armors on the Hero side.
Note that I agree that giving us the information in such a format (on the plaque, not Castle) is particularly useless.
[/ QUOTE ]
*shakes her head*
Note: The inclusion of "unit" was from me. Valid, I say, because "1/sec" as was listed on the plaque on Monday (I don't know if it's been changed since) means nothing.
"1" what? Tick? Foot tap? Dollar? 'Mississippi'?
Having said that...How can they screw this up?
It's simple. It's straight user documentation.
Nothing to do with design, integration or testing.
Unbelievable.
Cryptic: Provide the numbers...completely and accurately, please.
Repeat Offenders
Here are the values I have for the four powers in question, mainly from Sherk's Hero Planner. The Damage column indicates Damage Scale. If you don't like math, just read the bottom Conclusion paragraph.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> Damage Endurance Recharge Activation Range
Defender Dark Blast 1.00 5.200 4.0 1.00 80'
Scrapper EPP Dark Blast 1.00 6.500 6.0 1.00 80'
Defender Gloom 1.64 8.528 8.0 1.10 80'
Brute GW PPP Gloom 1.73 ~11.000 12.0 ? 80'
</pre><hr />
Let's check the Defender powers real quick. Dark Blast's Endurance should equal its DS times 5.2...check. Dark Blast's Recharge should equal (1.0 - 0.36) / 0.16...check. Gloom's Endurance should equal its DS times 5.2...check. Gloom's Recharge should equal (1.64 - 0.36) / 0.16...check. So the Defender powers obey the CoX balance "laws".
Looking at the Scrapper's EPP Dark Blast, we can quickly see it costs 25% more END and has a 50% longer Recharge time, despite no change in Damage Scale. Further, Scrapper ranged attacks do only 76.9% of Defender ranged attacks. That means the 25% extra END ballons to 62.5% more END spent per point of damage than a Defender spends. Then, on top of that, you've got the increased Recharge time.
Summary: So, the up-front burst damage of the Scrapper is 76.9% that of the Defender, he pays an additional 1.625 times as much END for the damage dealt, and he must wait half again as long for his power to recharge.
Compare to the Brute's PPP Gloom. If we assume it "suffers" the same +25% END cost and +50% Recharge, then its END cost is 10.660. That works, since it is in the expected 10.500 to 11.499 range. The Recharge increase of 50% likewise matches. However, unlike the EPP, the base DS of Gloom has been increased to what looks to be about 1.73. That looks to be about a 5% increase over the 1.64 DS of the Defender's Gloom. Since Brutes and Scrapper have the same Ranged Damage values compared to Defenders, everything else pretty much evens out.
Summary: So, the up-front burst damage of the Brute is 80.77% that of the Defender (thanks to the 5% damage boost), he pays an additional 1.548 times as much END for the damage dealt, and he must wait half again as long for his power to recharge.
Conclusion: In this isolated instance, it appears that both EPP and PPP suffer from two drawbacks: 1) 25% higher END cost, 2) 50% longer Recharge. However, in the case of the PPP, there is one offsetting advantage: 1) a 5% damage boost.
So yes, the PPP powers, at least in this case, appear to be slightly (5% actually) more powerful than the EPP powers.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Reference for Brutes..
Gloom
* Unenhanced damage @ lvl 40: 44 (N. Energy, DoT)
* Foe -ACC
* Range: 80
* END: 11
* Recharge: 12 secs
[/ QUOTE ]
First, it appears END values are being rounded.
[/ QUOTE ]
I doubt the plaque info on End has been round sence the MM inof as several of the powers giving to the second decimal. As for the equations you used we have no clue if this is the correct equations. Sence this is the first time that the devs have given us numbers on the powers the old equations have been baised off of observation and thus could be completely different from what the devs implented.
This is another problem with the devs giving us numbers on anything is that the wrong equations will give us the wrong interpations. Prehapes after the dust settles and people starting getting in game numbers on the powers we will be able to combine the two and get the correct equations.
Scarlet, thank you very much - I didn't have the time to do that, and frankly, I think you've got a better grasp on the in-game tables than I do at this point. 
Based on this and what Castle responded in PMs, I suspect that all the PPPs will compare in this way.
I don't know what Soul Storm's long recharge is about. At that recharge, it does not seem to compare well (at first blush) with other damaging holds in EPPs, such as Char. I can only assume/hope that, as a signature power in the set, it has some other feature we are not yet seeing in testing. Possibly a very long duration?
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
[ QUOTE ]
As for the equations you used we have no clue if this is the correct equations
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually we do have a good idea that those equations are valid, or at least close to valid. They are derived from files found in the client, and when subjected to testing they line up very well with observations.
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
Not to mention I believe a red name actually confirmed the Recharge formula, but I can't recall the thread now. The main reason I actually remember is because someone then asked if we could get the formula they use to calculate Damage Scale and they said no, it was too complicated and used a lot of subjective values.
OK, looking at some of the other powers, I've found something interesting. The Scrapper and Tanker EPP holds have 32 second recharges. However, the Blaster and Defender EPP holds have 16 second recharges, even when they also do damage.
Personally, I would expect this to have a 32 second recharge for Stalkers and a 16 second recharge for Corruptors.
Edit: I have word that this may, in fact, be a bug. (It could also be an error in the plaque information - I don't know if anyone could have actually tested this power yet.)
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
[ QUOTE ]
Conclusion: In this isolated instance, it appears that both EPP and PPP suffer from two drawbacks: 1) 25% higher END cost, 2) 50% longer Recharge. However, in the case of the PPP, there is one offsetting advantage: 1) a 5% damage boost.
So yes, the PPP powers, at least in this case, appear to be slightly (5% actually) more powerful than the EPP powers.
[/ QUOTE ]
This sounds entirely more reasonable. In that light, I think it's safe to say we should ignore the in-game plaque info thing and wait for additional play testing to confirm numbers. Thanks Cryptic for confusing info. Thanks Scarlet for something much more digestible.
Could anyone offer me some testing tips? I got the spirit shark power and I need to find some enemies with no resistance or weakness to lethal damage. I tested it on some bane spiders compared it to non damage slotted Air Superiority, looks really grim does just a bit under what Air Sup will do.
Soooo anyone know of any enemies that just take normal lethal damage? I wanna give this power some more testing and get the numbers out to everyone.
I'm going to guess Fortunatas and their ilk take normal Lethal/Smashing damage. Pretty sure Hellions do too.
If you get damage numbers, just report the raw numbers here and the level of the foe that you inflicted it on. Also report your AT and level. As long as the foe had no resistances, we should be able to use that to determine the damage scalar for that power based on Iakona's handy tables.
If you can, it's often handy do test it on something much lower than yourself. The bigger damage numbers help avoid rounding errors by scooting the decimal place over a couple of digits.
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
[ QUOTE ]
Im not sure if this is the right place but since it has to do with Ghost Widow I figured I would put it here. I am unable to complete the mission Test Ceremony on Red Widow from her in her second story arc because the Soul Crystal that I am suppose to interact with spawns inside walls and objects making it unusable. I reset the mission 10 times in an attempt to cause it to spawn in a usable condition. While it did move around the final room of the mission map it always spawned in either a wall or the altar on top of the ruins.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem, I've yet to find anyone elese who's even tried to do the second part of her arc. I too have reset about a million tines and can't get this to be useable.. it would be nice if someone had made it work, maybe they can tell us how!
in the same boat 
, though i wasted my time clearing the mission hoping for some kind of ambush that would let me complete it...to no avail .
Huh.
So, on paper, the PPPs don't suck? Iiiinteresting.
We'll see how they play out, as I'm a little concerned about the AoE attack I'm getting from Ghost Widow. I already have AoE attacks (Cones, though, rather than burst radii) and while I won't turn my nose up at another, if it's crap compared to what I already have and costs more endurance to boot, I may just be as well without it.
And I'm curious how the pets turn out. I'm skeptical about somethign that's only around for 4 minutes out of 15...
Well here's my two cents on those that complain about the power pools and their end costs.
The scrapper/tanker epic power Focused Accuracy uses many times more endurance than the blaster power Targeting Drone. I'm not sure if its the same acc buff, but i know it sucks end like no tomorrow, no comparison to the blaster power.
To those of you with inside info, i'm not attacking you, i just know that on my scrapper foc. acc. uses way more end than targeting drone.
So its a power provided to AT's which would not normally be able to take it, and costs more for not any more effectiveness. Seems to be the general rule for the epic powers.
Whem I asked Castle about the PPPs and their stats, the FA example is actually what he first responded with. FA costs almost 5x as much as TD. I also don't know if the buff is the same (TD "feels" smaller to me, but that's a terrible metric).
I then pestered him for numbers for powers we actually could compare. 
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
Alright I did a rough timing of the Soul Drain buff duration. Skrape1(ice/kin) got it a mission ago.
~20 Seconds for buff duration. Icon begins blinking around 15 seconds.
I believe the melee AT version duration is 30 seconds? That's not too shabby, if so. Of course, the melee version has 1/2 the recharge, but that's not too surprising.
Any idea on the per-foe damage buff?
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
He had to leave for the night, so I can't really test that, we'll get to it tommorrow if possible tho.
Based on my Dark Mastery Defender and my Dark Mastery Scrapper, the hold, recharge, adn end cost times are looking comparable to what Dark Embrace (EPP, Defender) and Soul Drain (EPP, Defender) do. I know for a fact that the Defender Dark Mastery shield costs considerably more endurance than the equivilent Scrapper/Brute Dark Armor shield. I also know for a fact that the recharge times for Soul Drain and Dark Consumption (Defender Dark Epic) seem approximately double the recharge times for the same powers from the Dark Melee set. Also, the Scrapper Dark Epic Petrifying Gaze is a definitely shorter hold time, about half, and about twice the recharge time, as the Dark Miasma Corruptor/Defender Petrifying Gaze.
In other words, looking at the PPPs comparatively with the EPPs, they seem approximately balanced based on the numbers that have been given thus far. Caveat - I do not have a villain high enough to test the PPPs.
The EPP/PPP power is NOT going to be as effective as the primary/secondary version of that power. Period. This is the case for Epics *right now*. It is something that the AT getting does not normally have available to them. It is a mistake to compare the Epic/Patron powers to their Primary/Secondary equivilents from the sets of other ATs. It is NOT a mistake to compare them to the equivilent power from the hero Epic pools. Brute Dark Blast should be compared to Scrapper Epic Dark Blast. Corruptor shields should be compared to Defender and/or Blaster shields. Compare the Epics from the ATs, Defender/Corruptor, Dominator/Controller, Blaster/Mastermind, Stalker/Scrapper, Brute/Tank. Granted, they will not be exact. The ATs are not, clearly, exact matches - They have different roles in CoV than in COH, as they should. But for very rough comparisons, that's what we should be looking at.
@SithRose and @Sith Rose
Permanent resident of Virtue
"Mommy, I need Cthulhu. He keeps the bad dreams away."
But my Corruptor gets a hold, 'right now'. Ghost Widow's hold is nice, but no different in style.
PERC Supporter
La Pucelle (BS/SR)
Miseria Bella (Sonic/Dark)
Wrangler Annie (SS/Elec)
Coldsmoke (Ice/Dark)
Saber Maid (BS/Regen)
and others...
[ QUOTE ]
But my Corruptor gets a hold, 'right now'. Ghost Widow's hold is nice, but no different in style.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ghost Widow's hold appears to have erronious recharge information. Note that I have not tested this; it's based on information I received via PM. If it compares to Blaster and Defender single-target EPP holds, it actually probably has a 16 second recharge time, lasts around 10 seconds, and does "moderate" damage.
Note that, based on the video footage we've seen, it likely has a farily extraordinary activation time. I'm guessing it's closer to Bitter Freeze Ray than Petrifying Gaze.
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
[ QUOTE ]
I believe the melee AT version duration is 30 seconds? That's not too shabby, if so. Of course, the melee version has 1/2 the recharge, but that's not too surprising.
Any idea on the per-foe damage buff?
[/ QUOTE ]
My two DM's concur.
Repeat Offenders
[ QUOTE ]
Reference for Brutes..
Gloom
* Unenhanced damage @ lvl 40: 44 (N. Energy, DoT)
* Foe -ACC
* Range: 80
* END: 11
* Recharge: 12 secs
[/ QUOTE ]
First, it appears END values are being rounded. As such, I'm going to assume the END cost here is between 10.500 and 11.499. Now, standard CoX attacks cost 5.2 END per Damage Scale. That gives Gloom a DS between 2.02 and 2.21. Brutes at level 40 deal 25.45 damage times the DS of an attack with ranged attacks. Therefore, that gives an unenhanced damage of 51.41 to 56.24. That means with only 44 damage (around a DS of 1.73), this attack has a built-in penalty of costing more than the standard END amount.
Looking at the power from a different standpoint, CoX uses (DS - 0.36) / 0.16 to calculate Recharge time. Plugging in the 12 seconds of Recharge listed and solving for DS (did you just flash back to High School too?) we find the DS of Gloom here should be 2.28. Translation: with only a DS of about 1.73, the Recharge of this attack is significantly higher than standard CoX attacks. Therefore, this attack is also suffering from a penalty of having a higher than normal Recharge time.
Those two penalties only magnify the weakness of this power, because it uses the Ranged Damage value for Brutes (25.45 damage) instead of the Melee Damage Value (38.18 damage). As such, even if it did 56.24 damage, it would still have terrible END efficiency for a Brute (which is okay, given that it is a ranged attack).
So, with a power designed to standard CoX metrics, Gloom would cost 50% more END to deal the same amount of damage as a Brute's melee attacks. But with the stats we've been given here, it actually will cost at best 75% more END, and at worst, almost 92% more END. That makes Gloom close to half as efficient as a Brute's melee attacks in terms of amount of damage dealt per point of END. Not only that, but its Recharge is 40% longer than an other standard CoX power would be.
Make of that what you will. Keep in mind we have no idea how strong the -ACC debuff is, or how long it lasts. Nor do we know the activation time of the PPP Gloom.