As a player I'm definately more attracted to the "non-optimal" sets. I played Regen to the mid-twenties and grew bored with it. But I can't get enough of Super Reflexes, and I really like Invulnerability as well. Dark Armor I've put off trying (for aesthetic reasons; IMO it's a pretty ugly set to look at and hides your costume) but after reading this analysis I'm going to try it out. I predict I'll get bored with it as I did Regen (Regen's look is also grotesque), but you never know.
I'd love to see a similar analysis for Brute secondaries. Guess what my favorite Brute secondaries are? Yes, Energy Aura and Invulnerability. 
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[ QUOTE ]
I'd love to see a similar analysis for Brute secondaries.
[/ QUOTE ]
This look at scrapper secondaries is not just numerical: I also do a lot of comparisons to in-game testing (most of it implicit and not detailed in the posting, but discussed at length in the threads this and other earlier versions appeared in). I can do that because I've played all four secondaries to high levels. I haven't done so with all the brute secondaries, so it will probably be some time before I am willing to go into as much detail with them, especially in judging whether the other non-damage mitigating effects of the defensive sets override the damage mitigation conclusions or not. I can say that to the extent that non-damage mitigating effects have an effect on scrappers, they're not high enough to override the damage mitigation conclusions, from direct experience. But I do not have that direct experience with all the brute secondaries.
In the back of my mind, I've thought about doing a lesser look at scrappers, tankers, brutes and stalkers combined, but it'll have to wait until I either complete my look at blaster effectiveness (which is a stop and go thing I'm putting occasional time into) or get sick of it and decide to take an extended break from it.
Starsman has done some extensive cross-AT damage mitigation comparisons between the different melee ATs, though.
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[ QUOTE ]
I'd love to see a similar analysis for Brute secondaries. Guess what my favorite Brute secondaries are? Yes, Energy Aura and Invulnerability.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm a fan of both sets myself, aesthetically as I can't say performance wise.
The saving grace of Energy Aura are not easily quantified, though. One, very ironic one, is the presence of powers that are so lack lusting that you can completely ignore in your quest to accommodate great tools like Aid Self.
Other is the benefit of Energy Drain witch once properly slotted may make sure you never have to truly stop fighting. Guess what my main brute runs?
I have intentions of adding endurance consumption to my analysis in the future precisely to show this aspect of the set (and also to demonstrate the downsides of dark armor)
You can look at my current charts on my signature, just keep in mind that there is a tiny bug on them with Stone's psionic survivability, i fixed it for tankers but still is wrong for brutes (it seems weaker than it is).
That's a great charting tool!
Looks like Energy Aura underperforms Super Reflexes (especially Toxic and Psi). But when you compare the tier 9s, you see Energy Aura well ahead of Super Reflexes in all except Toxic and Psi. I guess it was decided to short Energy Aura for 37 levels compared to Super Reflexes, then give /EA a better tier 9. Very interesting, and the chart made that easy to see.
Comparing Energy Aura to the new and very popular Electric Armor was surprising. Energy Aura performs very similarly to Electric Armor with two exceptions: /ElA greatly outperforms /EA in Energy and Psi. But again /EA's tier 9 more than makes up for the difference in being substantially superior to /ElA's.
I could play with it all day. 
Great tool!
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I can play with it all day long too! I like making my own toys! 
Thanks you.
But i doubt they designed EA to be intentionally weaker than SR or EA.
Eventually I will get to the brute sets in my chain of proposals, since Fire Armor got half the survival love I wanted I'm now happy with how it stands. I still want to see Rise of the Phoenix and Consumption tweaked though.
The main issue those two sets suffer is complete lack of self heals, thats why they are flat lines, increments in the lines represent regeneration and heals.
Aid Self tends to help Energy Aura a bit more than Electric due to not getting hit thing there, and an Dark/Elec may work on the healing but thats forcing you into a primary, and nothing stops the Energy from doing the same.
Another curse the sets suffer is their pure nature. One is resist only, the other one is defense only (almost, the passives may help but are not exploited properly) and we seen over history how that affected Super Reflexes. Before you say Fire, remember fire also had heal to fall back on. SR got their passive resistances added, they may not always work as expected but I use Arcanaville's tested average resistance rating for simplicity.
There may be things coming on inventions that may help on those departments though.
I am working on many more things for that calculator, but am thinking of taking it into an offline application you can run on your own desktop and allow you to setup your own build, this may take a looong time though.
Wether EA was designed specifically that way or not, I give the devs the benefit of the doubt, even if it is "accidental genious".
I find I'm really drawn to the "pure" sets, as you put it. Or "gimpy". A rose by any other name... PvE side I don't miss a heal in SR (I'm undecided on EA, but with its bigger hole, it might be a good course to follow). And I find the set to have a very natural feel to it compared to the others (great for natural concepts). If it underperforms in PvP, I really don't care much. Makes any wins for a SR there all the sweeter. Even if they're few.
PvE side, I find myself, 9 times out of 10 surving team wipes with SR. Prior to level 35 or so however, that very much wasn't the case. SR is one painful level up through those very faceplanty times. Post 35 it's been cake. Faceplants have fast become a rarity. The one thing I have trouble with anymore is Toxic. But then who doesn't (well, Regen I guess lol).
Anyway I look forward to much more from Starsman and Arcanaville. You two are increasing my understanding of this game all the time. In fact just yesterday I was able to give someone SR and Regen advice based on this very thread (don't take Weave on Regen, do take Weave on SR, take Tough on both).
I look forward to all future developments.
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Well, I do use Weave + Combat jumping for 8.1 defense on my Regen, that's about 16.2% damage mitigation, not much but i find it useful, but thats just me and would not recommend it to people in general. I did it mainly because with Quick recovery and just 1 toggle, i sort of felt i didn't need fitness at all so decided to boost my resistance and defense with the overflow of available power slots.
Yeah, like the original post says Weave tends to get buried underneath all the mitigation the heals in regen provide. But builds are a very personal thing, and if concept calls for something, or you have something you truly feel helps, well who is anyone to argue? So long as you're having fun.
Oh, did I mention I'm putting Tough and Weave on a Dominator? Oh, yeah! I should end up with a nice mini Energy Aura for my Dom when combined with Black Scorpion's Patron Shield. Sheesh! What is it with me and Defense?
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Considering that Coruptors and Dominators both get 85% resist and defense modifiers (higher than scrappers,) yes i have thought about it.
My dominator's are a bit too low level still, though.
Depending on your combo of pool powers, you can have one extremely survivable dominator that would easily go into melee range, but it may take quiet a few powers.
An extreme build i can think of is taking:
CJ or Hover
Tough
Weave
Scorpion Shield
Maneuvers
3 slot all but combat jump (just one slot there) and you end with a total mitigation of
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
S/L 79.6%
E 53.1%
N/C/F/P 26.6%
T 41.7%
</pre><hr />
Thats the highest Smash/Lethal mitigation i was able to get from any Patron Pool set combo, the others are at 75.4% with advantages in other types (Mu Master takes you to 75.5% in energy also)
But i think I'm derailing Arcana's thread a bit away from the Scrapper Secondary topic :P
*Tongue hangs out looking at those numbers*
Maybe I'm not crazy after all. I don't think I'll be able to fit CJ and Maneuvers in though (but that's only what, 6% Defense between them?)
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Brilliant, commendable work. Assuming you would want to work for low game company pay, somebody should hire you as a game designer. As you say (paraphrasing), "Balance is *everything* to MMO players".
Anyway, I can't wait to see your analysis of any relevant changes in I8 and future issues. Hope you're still around playing and still motivated enough to keep revising the numbers with each issue.
It's folks like you who really provide amazing support to a game community.
How much Defense would SR need to provide so that SR performs above the 3 minion mortality line? How much would it need to be equal to Regeneration?
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[ QUOTE ]
How much Defense would SR need to provide so that SR performs above the 3 minion mortality line? How much would it need to be equal to Regeneration?
[/ QUOTE ]
If we ignored power pool defense stacking, then curiously (at least in my opinion) both answers are the same: approximately 7% defense. 7% defense makes three even minions of damage indefinitely sustainable, and it also pushes SR into the same range of damage mitigation as Regen. Factoring in a lot of intangibles, especially mitigation breakdown, it would be slightly lower than Regen performance at sustainable levels, but would be much stronger than Regen in extended burst damage situations. Overall, that would wash in my opinion.
One problem is that 37% defense for SR puts them in easy striking distance of going all the way to Elude-level protection with about 8% more defense, which is easily doable with power pool defenses (specifically, with weave and one other). However, its unclear just how much of a problem that is, if Inventions give both SR *and* Invuln the opportunity to get to, or exceed, those protection levels anyway. Regen will be able to stack enough protection to also exceed those levels, mostly by approaching SR/Invuln levels of damage mitigation, on top of its regeneration (not exactly, but within the ballpark of: enough to take the edge completely off of burst damage issues with regen and high order damage pyramids).
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Fascinating! Just 7% would do it. I guess that's why people see such a dramatic improvement when they pick up Weave and/or Maneuvers on a SR or EA, because those "solve" the "problem" of the Defense sets.
It might be a good course of action for SR and EA to get a buff of at least half of that to help it out. Oh heck, the whole 7%, why not? Regen can pick useful things like Tough up too (and it doesn't even "need" it) to become even more uber.
Thanks for the info!
BTW, do you think Regen is in need of further nerfing, or is it more a matter of buffing the underperforming sets to bring them into line with it?
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WARNING: I bold names.
[ QUOTE ]
Fascinating! Just 7% would do it. I guess that's why people see such a dramatic improvement when they pick up Weave and/or Maneuvers on a SR or EA, because those "solve" the "problem" of the Defense sets.
It might be a good course of action for SR and EA to get a buff of at least half of that to help it out. Oh heck, the whole 7%, why not? Regen can pick useful things like Tough up too (and it doesn't even "need" it) to become even more uber.
Thanks for the info!
BTW, do you think Regen is in need of further nerfing, or is it more a matter of buffing the underperforming sets to bring them into line with it?
[/ QUOTE ]
As I mentioned in the original posts, I don't think Regen is specifically in need of a nerf. If I had designed the set at the beginning of time, I would have not given the set Dull Pain, so that burst damage was more of an achilles heel for the set, and focused more of its protection on +regen; but as it stands, there's no specific justification for making that change now.
If regen was all by itself at the top of the food chain, one could make an argument that it was overpowered, but DA scrappers can approach and exceed its performance, albeit at higher build costs and with more caveats to that performance level. Given that, it would be simpler to bring Invuln and SR in line with DA and Regen than the other way around.
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Just wanted to say I read it all the way through, and I was fascinated. (Side note: and I thought *I* was thorough writing the Kheldian guide. Hah. Disabused.)
Another thing to consider: given how much SR benefit from lucks, consider the difference that Divine Avalanche/Parry makes; if you're bold, you might even ask what cost it has relative to another choice (ie, the weaker of the initial two attacks which is usually skipped, or cycling other attacks faster) in terms of lost DPS, but what gain in survivability you yield.
[ QUOTE ]
Just wanted to say I read it all the way through, and I was fascinated. (Side note: and I thought *I* was thorough writing the Kheldian guide. Hah. Disabused.)
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I wrote a short thing comparing SR, Invuln, and Regen in I3, and the feedback was "it doesn't include this" and "you can't be sure about that." So I wrote another one for I4. And then I5. And then I6/I7. Each time responding to the most common (and rational) objections. The next iteration would look at primary/secondary synergy, but I kinda lost the energy to do it, although its in the back of my mind to attempt that at some point (its mentioned in the analysis pieces above).
[ QUOTE ]
Another thing to consider: given how much SR benefit from lucks, consider the difference that Divine Avalanche/Parry makes; if you're bold, you might even ask what cost it has relative to another choice (ie, the weaker of the initial two attacks which is usually skipped, or cycling other attacks faster) in terms of lost DPS, but what gain in survivability you yield.
[/ QUOTE ]
Parry makes a heck of a lot of difference. The thing is that Parry is so strong, you can get to the tohit floor with just it alone: its base 15% defense, slottable to 23.4% defense, and stackable to 46.8% defense. That's the tohit floor right there, with no other defenses. What SR can do is not require you to stack it, and that's a qualitative advantage SR has over other sets, but a difficult to quantify one because the opportunity costs for stacking Parry are not as high as it might appear: parry and DA are both reasonable attacks in their own right, and do a lot more damage than, say, cobra strike or stun, and they are in sets that tend to have attack chain gaps that allow it to be used without a high attack chain penalty.
The difference can be extreme: my Kat/Invuln can tank Snaptooth and his reinforcements on Invincible, almost (but not quite) indefinitely with divine avalanche spammed, without unstoppable. That would be the best case scenario for Parry/DA: an awful lot of either melee or lethal (or both) attacks.
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I'm going to have to bump this(substantially). This is unbelievably awesome. What many will fail to realize is the tools that you've given us in this writing. Through it, you(ie the reader) can actually use the formulas and derive the effect of unique slotting and power pools. You could even dare say, that you could figure out the effect with teaming with specific defender primaries will do. True, such an analysis would provide to be bad for everyone in terms of teaming. Do we really want to know the BEST person for our Scrapper to team with?
Probably not, but overall, great thread. Number crunching can be fun.
[ QUOTE ]
What many will fail to realize is the tools that you've given us in this writing. Through it, you(ie the reader) can actually use the formulas and derive the effect of unique slotting and power pools.
[/ QUOTE ]
An explicitly stated purpose to the way the analysis was written was to show how the calculations actually work, and the theory behind them, so that number-crunchers could take the calculations and use them for their own purposes. Showing the final numbers only would have been much shorter, but much less useful.
Its also supposed to provide some cover for people wanting to use similar methodologies, since this covers in large detail the degree to which you can (and sometimes cannot) trust the numbers to reflect reality. That's actually the entire purpose to the second half of the analysis, and its not something many people will have any inclination to replicate.
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Have you ever considered similar comparisons between Stone, Electric, Energy, Fire and Ice defense sets, as well as Ninjitsu, using the same base HP and res cap as Scrappers? I know that's a lot of work, but it would let folks like me see how those sets stack in similar circumstances. I have high hopes for Ninjitsu, at least.
[ QUOTE ]
Have you ever considered similar comparisons between Stone, Electric, Energy, Fire and Ice defense sets, as well as Ninjitsu, using the same base HP and res cap as Scrappers?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. I have some thoughts on how I might do that a little differently than this behemoth, but I currently lack the time to do it properly.
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AWESOME job! Great info, well presented. Yes, it's a word chunk, but I appreciate insight into how that beautiful mind of yours works
And now, some requests: how hard would it be to do a 'mezzability/debuffability' comparision? Many people often contend (as you well know) that SR makes up for lagging behind in damage mitigation by being more resistant (er, that is to say better Defended) to mezzes and debuffs.
Based on your many and frequent conversations with the Devs, what proportion of powers design decisions were made with an eye toward 'comic-bookyness' as opposed to math balance? The game seems to be an interesting amalgam of the two to me. That's not necessarily a bad thing, IMHO...
Finally: I'd like to catch more of your thoughts about the 'good enoughyness' of the various sets compared to what you fight at level 50. It might not matter (as much) that they are 'unbalanced' if they are all demonstrably in the right spot compared to what you fight in a Heroic mission (from a design perspective). Should everyone be below, but very close to, the '3 +3 minions' line in order for the game to be properly challenging in your opinion, or should everyone be there or above?
And yet more finally: what should SR be better at than everyone else if it lags in damage mitigation? Should it an Invulnerability be 'brought even' with DM in some category? Or all they already there, all things considered (end burn, mez avoidance, etc). I'm thinking that the '3 minute/30 second/ chunks is what concerns us here.
It seems like we might be building a profile of what kind of playtyle the game was designed around, which would be useful info. It's possible the game may be 'too easy' simply because it was designed for dumber players 
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[ QUOTE ]
how hard would it be to do a 'mezzability/debuffability' comparision? Many people often contend (as you well know) that SR makes up for lagging behind in damage mitigation by being more resistant (er, that is to say better Defended) to mezzes and debuffs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not easy, because mez protection has thresholds. Below a certain level of mez, no scrapper is affected by mez at all. Above a certain level, they are affected quite a lot.
Debuffs in general are a separate thing, but its hard to separate debuffs into defense debuffs, and all other debuffs, because of the high frequency of defense debuffs. I know what it "feels" like playing all the sets: it feels like exempting defense debuffs, SR is the hardiest, and Invuln is the least hardy, over all, to the full spectrum of debuffing and other status besides hard mez. Mostly because of the effects of endurance drain, which are probably the single most problematic non-damage effect for a scrapper. SR tends to avoid them, regen tends to recover from them, and DA tends to stun/fear everything in sight before they are applied.
[ QUOTE ]
Based on your many and frequent conversations with the Devs, what proportion of powers design decisions were made with an eye toward 'comic-bookyness' as opposed to math balance? The game seems to be an interesting amalgam of the two to me. That's not necessarily a bad thing, IMHO...
[/ QUOTE ]
I've pieced together bits and pieces of this, and based on what I know, the way things are/were designed is that there is a concept design phase that is all fun/appearance/experience, and then there is a numerical design phase that is all numbers.
Basically, we have a fire blast set because the devs wanted us to be able to play with fire. Fireball looks the way it looks because the animators thought it looked cool. It does the damage it does because geko said so.
I *don't* think it does high damage because they wanted fire to be high damage as a concept. I think the concept of powers, and the numbers of powers, did not really get simultaeously considered like that in the general case. One noteworthy exception: animators have some say in how long it takes to animate, and therefore activate and root a power, which is one of the few ways in which "concept" collides with function in powers design. You see this most obviously in how both TA and Claws were handled as they were changed.
[ QUOTE ]
Finally: I'd like to catch more of your thoughts about the 'good enoughyness' of the various sets compared to what you fight at level 50. It might not matter (as much) that they are 'unbalanced' if they are all demonstrably in the right spot compared to what you fight in a Heroic mission (from a design perspective). Should everyone be below, but very close to, the '3 +3 minions' line in order for the game to be properly challenging in your opinion, or should everyone be there or above?
[/ QUOTE ]
I think there is a subtle misconception here. I think that when people quote the three-minions rule, or the 3/+3 rule, they are slightly misinterpreting what the devs are saying. The game engine has some spawning rules for how many, and which, critters to spawn at a particular spawn point either outdoors or in an instanced mission. The most simple way of expressing that spawn rule is "one player = three minions" but that isn't necessarily a direct balance rule. Its a somewhat more vague one, because those spawn points don't necessarily always spawn three even minions, obviously. Really, its a bit more abstract than that: a player is worth three points, say, and an even minion is worth 1. A player is about equal to three minions. An LT might be worth 1.5 points, say (making up numbers here), so a player might also be approximately equal to one minion and one LT (2.5 vs 3). The rule is partially an expression of intent on the part of the devs, and partially an expression of hope.
The game is *designed* to throw three even minion-equivalents at each player. In that sense, the game is "balanced" around 1 player = 3 minions. But is it "balanced" in the sense that its right? That's the *hope*: that players, on average, are about as powerful as necessary to make defeating three even minions, or anything else the game decides to spawn of comparable strength, something that is not impossible, not trivial, but something of a challenge.
They *know* that is false in many cases, specifically at least for most damage dealers in the late game. There, they have acknowledged that a single player is more of a match for three +3 minions, in the same sense they were shooting for balance at 3 even minions, which is to say that a single high level player (fully enhanced with SOs) probably has the same difficulty defeating three +3 minions as they wanted them to have defeating 3 even minions, subjectively.
This means the game is "balanced" around 1 player = 3 even minions in the sense that that is what the game throws at us, nothing more or less. The game is "balanced" around 1 player = 3 +3 minions in the sense that the devs believe that the average difficulty level that the average high level player has in dispatching 3 +3 minions is, in their opinion, what the average player should see, on average, all the time throughout the game.
Now: are they right? That depends. One problem with all balance metrics like this is that CoH supports a wide range of offensive ability, even for reasonable builds and reasonable build decisions. That wide range means any balance point you pick will have reasonable players existing very far away from that point. So the challenge the devs have is to make sure that the game is challenging enough for people who want it to be, while not making it so difficult that some archetypes are unable to solo heroic missions, which is one of their stated design goals of the game.
Given that, I think the only real compromize given how the game currently works is to make the purple patch work for them: design the archetypes so that the low end can solo heroic missions spawning 3xEven minions, and allow characters at the higher end of the offensive curve to face at least +3s in invincible missions.
There will *still* be characters that fall outside that range in both directions, but at least the vast majority of characters will live above the 3 even minion line and not extraordinarily above the 3 +3 minion line (remember: being balanced around 3 +3s doesn't mean they have a 50/50 chance of killing you, just that they are sufficiently difficult to make you work for that defeat, and possibly chisel you down a bit before the next fight against three +3 minions).
[ QUOTE ]
And yet more finally: what should SR be better at than everyone else if it lags in damage mitigation? Should it an Invulnerability be 'brought even' with DM in some category? Or all they already there, all things considered (end burn, mez avoidance, etc). I'm thinking that the '3 minute/30 second/ chunks is what concerns us here.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's probably the $64,000 question. The obvious answer is "status effect avoidance" but its already intrinsicly better at that, and yet I'm not convinced its *sufficiently* strong at that to be the balancing thing, because the devs have places *many* such balancers on top of defense: autohit debuffs, autohit damage effects, defense debuffing, tohit buffing, etc.
The other three scrapper sets have a very obvious design direction, and they very obviously implement that design direction to a high degree. Regen is all about downtime: health regeneration downtime and endurance downtime. Invuln is basically a smash/lethal "physical damage" king, in multiple ways, DA is basically all about "dark" PBAoE effects (stun, damage, fear, heal).
SR avoids status, but that really isn't the same strong statement it used to be in the past. In the days of perma-elude level defenses, SR was basically untouchable, except for the lucky hit, and if the lucky hit was hard enough, you could be dead in seconds (facing +5s and up ensured those hits were hard). Now, things are much less dramatic: SR is still hit, and often enough that it isn't, for example, sapper-immune like it used to be. Its just less sapper-prone.
It should have something, and its even worth *losing* some of what it has, to go after something really good. I have some ideas on what that should be: I'll post them in a follow up post.
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Wow, it's great to read what's going on "behind the scenes" for my SR Scrapper (at least on average). I've always thought SR seems to be lacking a "little something," but I could never figure out what would boost it to the "Ah, that's how it should be!" level.
Then again, I've never played Invuln or Regen, so I probably don't know how sub-par SR feels in comparison...
Great work on the analysis, matey!
[ QUOTE ]
My question is, knowing that some melee types take Aid self, how does it affect survivability as compared to tough/weave, or other efficiency/survival maxers? Also, how about when comparing a 100% success rate with a 75% successful heal rate using said power? (as aid self is interruptable)
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The short answer is "a lot." But Aid Self is not a simple power to analyze, because of its long activation time and even longer cool-off time. In the time it takes to cast and complete, you can actually take as much damage as aid self recovers, especially in situations where you need aid self in the first place. Many melee characters have significant offensive damage mitigation (parry, knockdown, fear, debuffs etc) that in effect gets locked out when aid self is used. That "cost" to aid self is difficult to factor into a quantitative analysis, sufficiently so that its an analysis unto itself. But players who use aid self can tell you that the effect exists: against a single hard hitting target like an AV or a boss, it tends to be highly effective. Against larger numbers, it tends to be less so, not just because its more likely to be interrupted, but also because its more likely the "time-out" cost is likely to hurt more, because in a larger group stoppage of offensive mitigation is likely to be a more significant factor in survivability.
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