Patron Powers: Ghost Widow - Soul Mastery

In the Test Ceremony on Red Widow - Utilize Soul Crystal, the Crystal cannot be interacted with at all.

Killed all the mobs in the map as well.

Filed a bug report about this.

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Based on the listed 44 damage at level 40, ranged attack damage progression for Brutes, and 3-even-level SOs, it would cause about 88 damage at level 50.

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Something doesn't line up here. The Damage Scale for this power is too low. Either the 44 damage at level 40 is incorrect or this power compares very poorly with Laser Beam Eyes.

LBE at level 40 would cause 68.7 points of damage.

LBE's normalized damage is 2.25. Gloom's is 1.7.

Has anyone verified the damage listed in the plaque?

Edit: I can test LBE on a level 50 Scrapper. I can't test any other melee AT EPP/PPP attacks.

Edit2: My original test listed a slightly higher DS for LBE because my target was susceptible to energy damage. Who knew that Skulls take extra energy damage?

yeah it compares extremely poorly with laser eyes

It looks like that's because LBE rocks.

The Damage Scale on Dark Blast reportedly 1.0. That's the Scrapper and Stalker versions. I wish I could test that, but my MA/DA/Dark isn't high enough to have it.

Edit: Thanks to the guys over on the Justice Hamidon channel, I can see that Dark Blast is, in fact, about as damaging as LBE.

So, either I'm doing my math wrong (totally possible), the reported damage on the plaque is bogus (very, very possible), or the Brute PPP attack is mildly sucky in damage.

My recomendation is to take none of my numbers above as a reason to diss this attack yet. I don't trust my results here because they don't line up with other commonly reported numbers for either LBE or Dark Blast.

If anyone out there has actually tested Brute/Gloom (or any of these powers), I can redo this with a real number. I'd need to know your level, the level of your foe, how you had the attack slotted (number and level of SOs.. +0? +3? etc) and, of course, the number of points of damage reported in the combat log. You'll also need to attack something neutral to negative damage. A RIP would be a likely neutral choice. Level of the target is unimportant as long as you let me know what it was.

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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.

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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.

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Ugh.

Having +25% end cost and -50% recharge just for a piddly 5% damage boost is NOTHING close to reasonable.

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Ugh.

Having +25% end cost and -50% recharge just for a piddly 5% damage boost is NOTHING close to reasonable.

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I think you misunderstand.

The +5% damage is compared to Scrappers, who also pay +25% endurance and -50% recharge compared to the base Defender/Corruptor power.

Oh. D'oh.

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Ugh.

Having +25% end cost and -50% recharge just for a piddly 5% damage boost is NOTHING close to reasonable.

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I think you misunderstand.

The +5% damage is compared to Scrappers, who also pay +25% endurance and -50% recharge compared to the base Defender/Corruptor power.

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Wait do scrappers suffer a ranged attack penalty like brutes do? (I heard that the damage table/scale for brute ranged attacks is 50% or something like that)?

Yes, they do. For an a true ranged attack, Scrappers and Brutes do the same damage with the same power. Note that powers in Scrapper and Brute primaries that happen to have range beyond melee are not treated as ranged attacks for this purpose. Why EPP/PPP powers are treated differently is unclear.

Soooo 5% more damage is enough to make these pools perma huh? *quietly holds in tears*

Thats it, I'm quiting and waiting for Exteel to come out! AHHHHHHHH!!!!

*runs around frantically and falls over*

Okay okay, I really just think the devs are starting off low so they can get a good feel of where to boost the powers(atleast thats what i'm hoping).

hence why most of them take body mastery, ignoring the crappy pools which are our only choices as villains

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hence why most of them take body mastery, ignoring the crappy pools which are our only choices as villains

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Which is why I think when they make the PPPs respeccable, and they WILL, they should make them a lot more like APPs--actually DIFFERENT and USEFUL.

I just hit 41 with Rakshaza on test and tried out Soul Drain. I hadn't used that power from the other sets before, but I have used mire from the kheldians, and I was assuming it was something similar. Mire is pretty awesome, so I was looking forward to something like that to supplement fulcrum shift.

What I"m seeing, however, is a PbAoE +DMG/+ACC (damage buff seems to be about 10% per target hit, assuming acc is similar) with a range of 10 ft (just outside of melee). Testing in the arena shows no debuff icons on the target.

I don't see how this could possibly be considered a good power for any corruptor, in either PvE or PvP.

For PvE: the range is too small to get more than one or two mobs in a spawn. It's way too dangerous to herd up enough mobs tight enough to get a respectable buff out of it, particularly since there's no debuff to help you survive the aggro you draw from trying to use it effecitvely. Fulcrum shift (which is, in every conceivable way, a superior power) is already somewhat dangerous to use to it's fullest extent, and it has a much better range and a respectable foe damage debuff.

In PvP, it's absolutely useless for a corruptor. The only hero that's going to be standing still enough to get an essentially melee PbAOE off against is somebody who's more than tough enough to take anything a cor can dish out (scrapper, blaster, tank) and paste them in return. Even larger range PbAoE's are mostly useless in high level PvP (where everyone is extremely mobile). 10 ft is, frankly speaking, crap.

I could see something like this for a melee AT (like brutes), but it's a fundamentally bad idea to put a melee power into the PPP for a low defense ranged AT. Anyone who picks this up is going to respec out of it at first opportunity IMHO. I regret picking it and wish I had gone for the armor instead.

This power needs to either be tweaked (adding a decent ACC debuff, increasing the range or the damage buff considerably) or it needs to removed from the corruptor PPP and replaced. As it stands now, it's worthless.

same with all the other patron powers

Plenty of people love Soul Drain on the hero side in PvE. I'll agree that SD is a very weak PvP power, but that's true of the Scrapper version as well.

I think what he is saying that for a scrapper it's just fine and dandy but for a ranged squishy not so much. he'd die trying to set that power off.

No, I wasn't clear, but I mean there are Defenders that love it in CoH.

Honestly, I'm looking forward to it on my Corruptor. Not every secondary is going to make good use of it, but Dark and Rade can do so quite nicely with their debuffs and controll effects. And Kinetics is up there anyway (though it might be overkill on them, depending on whether FS can cap their damage already).