I have posted on this very issue several times in many threads. basically if you are not running elusivity you are handicapping yourself. Sure I have had some success with a non defense based toon. As long as i was dictating where and when the battle occurs. 90% of the encounters i get in when elusivity is involved It is me who has to phase shift and run. If I am the one getting targeted I usually die. I do not mind dying in pvp. My main pre issue 13 blaster was a sonic/em and I am used to being killed often.
What we need is to decide if elusivity and diminishing returns are ok as currently implemented. Lets assume the devs state it is working as intended, then what needs to be looked at is some sort of tradeoff for all that survivability. If we are forced to endure a long drawn out battle to kill them then their damage or accuracy would need to be adjusted accordingly. I am thinking no one would be complaining about a fort or widow, ice tank and super reflexes scrapper/brutes. if they weren't wrecking every toon in the game at will. Their accuracy and tohit are as good and their damage attack chain is superior to most in the game. This in itself should have castle's insides all turned inside out. They are the "Tank Mage" of the game right now.
Hopefully arcana will be able to finish her study of this in regards to pvp as noted in my sig(from a private message she sent me when i asked her opinion on this subject a while back)
Also this was a quick reply
Mostly, it's tanks that are blowing the curve. Is that a problem? Yes and no. I think tanks should be allowed the def that they have, maybe even more so. However, they are doing WAY too much damage for how much survivability they have.
If it were up to me, I would replace gauntlet with a dominator style inherent that boosts def/res/hp. This is of course at the cost of some damage output/to hit.
It would make tanks more of what they are supposed to be, TANKS, and not tank mages.
Now that def is so good (def in itself is mez protection), I think res based sets got left out in the wind. If I were to change things, I would make mez resistance a function of damage resistance and mez protection granted from powers.
For example, hold resistance for a DA would be equal to some value from Obsidian shield + damage res (of the amount corresponding to the type of the hold attack) + value from acrobatics if taken.
Dark Bard, Zoobait, Debacle
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chucknorriss
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Now that I think about it. DR should do 2 things. Allow for over buffing in one category at the expense of others.
For example, the current DR cap for 'to hit' is around 30%. Well heck, lets let people go over it as much as the like. However, damage/res/mez res/ def will be DIMINISHED.
I'm not sure by how much, it would be determined from data mining.
However, in the simplest case, you could say that for every percent over 30% for 'to hit' reduces damage by a corresponding percentage multiplied by a factor. Of course, this is the simplest case and factor would be an AT modifier.
I included def/res/hp/mez res as it opens they way for more balance.
For example, lets take a blaster that has Aim and Build-up and suppose he wants to hit that hard to hit stalker. Under the current system of DR, hitting Aim and Build-up together is likely not going to increase his chances to hit much (damage is improved). His best course of action would be to hit Aim, attack until it wears off, then hit Build-up. This prolongs the period of his highest chance to hit (although not guaranteeing a hit as the old system would do).
Under my system, using current DR caps, would allow the blaster the full percentage bonus to hit (38% unmodded), but at the expense of some damage. In this case, my factor can be tweaked to provide little damage improvement, none, or negative at the base 'to hit'. To this, they can enhance Aim as they want to get more 'to hit' at the expense of damage.
Now let's add Build-up. Since Build-up proportionally adds more damage than 'to hit', unmodded it would not debuff itself until 'to hit' is enhanced or Build-up is combined with another 'to hit' enhancing powers like Aim.
What this does is bring more situational use to these powers beyond the click click fire. Clicking Aim and Build-up together maximizes your chance to hit at the expense of doing just pure Build-up damage. In fact, if the factors are done correctly, you would never want to use Aim against a res based def unless you absolutely needed to hit for some reason (mez or to interrupt).
Sorry for the long post, just got on a roll.
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chucknorriss
speak american godamnit
I think that most of the defence and elusivity stuff is loosely balance, i do beleive however, that ToHit needs a slight raise in the DR cap, i beleive around 42% is nice, as that is what a common ground between what i have seen in defence numbers.
Resistance suffers from a numerical disadvantage While ACC is equal in most cases to Elusivity, ToHit is equal in most cases to Defence, Resistance is equal to, in most ways, +Damage. As of now, i do not see much if any DR on + Damage. Giveni have not tested with much intermidiate + damage, i have tested with 10 Stacked FS + a tray of Reds + Aim, and the damage seems to scale accordingly. If what i am seeing IS true, then i beleive Resistence should be either unaffected by DR or have a higher DR cap.
Feel free to Comment.
Basically, I don't find any problem with Elusivity on "non" Tanker/Blaster builds who are just running their basic "toggle" defenses and maybe a few IO sets. Granted, I do see the problem when those same toons run a tier9 +defense power, such as Elude. They immediately go from an acceptable level of defense/survivability to an absurd and overpowered level of defense/survivability. That, I realize, and is the only real problem with defense that I see.
My Nin Stalker, outside of Retsu, gets pegged quite frequently by regular attackers. If it wasn't for the heal, he'd actually die a ton as well. The heal +Phase or +hibern00b (whichever suits peoples fancies) are what saves his bacon most the time. The toggle defense, for the most part, is ignored.
The only toons I can see having a problem hitting with those basic levels of defense are "basic" SO slotted toons with no access to BU or Aim, and who have not taken FA or Tactics+Kismet, but that's about it.
Basically, I just don't find defense as horribly broken as others seem to think it is, and this comes from both sides of the fence as I play all sorts of toons, heroes and villains alike. The most annoying thing for me so far is just the fact that I do miss occassionally versus defense based toons and that sometimes it can get me killed.
Here's a story, the other day I fought a Blaster who had good defense with my Widow. I missed with my BU+Slash from Hide Crit attack, so I placated and missed yet again with a quick follow-up of Slash while it was still under the affects of BU (mine recharges in around 6 seconds or so). I then fired off Poisen Dart and missed again. By this time the Blaster had repositioned himself, popped BU+Aim, and was returning fire and I died rather quickly. I went to the hosp, rested, came back and found that same Blaster. I did the exact same thing on him that I did the first time, only this time Slash connected twice in a row, I missed with Strike, hit with Lunge, and pelted him with Poisen Darts until he died (or Hibern00b'd, can't remember). The bottom line is, my misses on the first attempt caused an aggrivating defeat, while the second attempt I only missed occassionally and won. The perception of my first bought was that "omg defense is sooo borked rite nao" while my second bought was pretty much "omg whut defense?" Basically, missing does suck, and can cause things to appear worse than they are.
Necromatic:
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Under my system, using current DR caps, would allow the blaster the full percentage bonus to hit (38% unmodded), but at the expense of some damage. In this case, my factor can be tweaked to provide little damage improvement, none, or negative at the base 'to hit'. To this, they can enhance Aim as they want to get more 'to hit' at the expense of damage.
Now let's add Build-up. Since Build-up proportionally adds more damage than 'to hit', unmodded it would not debuff itself until 'to hit' is enhanced or Build-up is combined with another 'to hit' enhancing powers like Aim.
What this does is bring more situational use to these powers beyond the click click fire. Clicking Aim and Build-up together maximizes your chance to hit at the expense of doing just pure Build-up damage. In fact, if the factors are done correctly, you would never want to use Aim against a res based def unless you absolutely needed to hit for some reason (mez or to interrupt).
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Now this is definately a GOOD idea. It's very similar to one that I proposed many many moons ago to help fix defense. In fact, I asked at one point for the damage of Aim to either be greatly reduced or removed altogether, and the "to-hit" in BU to be reduced or removed as well. This was to keep "defense based" builds from being "double screwed" by both HIGH tohit buffs from these powers, as well as HIGH damage. For a defensive builds, that's a double whammy of d00m.
But no, I REALLY like your idea ALOT. Good thinking. I would back an idea like that 100%.
I hear what you are saying. Blasters can't exceed 20% def though, no matter what.
with frozen shield they get 30% elusivity to s/l/e/n/p while still having a hole to fire and cold.
Unless it was a blaster in pff (20% def and 80% elusivity)? then you simply missed with your widow because of bad luck. You very likely had capped, or near capped tohit chance. Just like rolling 3 crits in a row and winning a fight, it happens.
Personally I have an entire separate tab just for tohit rolls and I watch it like a hawk. I know if I missed/hit because of luck and I know when I missed/hit because of def+elusivity is too high, or not high enough to stop me.
the numbers are what they are. It is very difficult to balance def so that the user feels rewarded and so that the attacker doesn't feel ripped off.
Under the current ruleset I believe it is actually the lack of dr on acc (uh I cringe just writing that heh, as I don't like dr much at all) and attacks having higher base acc that are preventing def from being properly balanced. It is very difficult to attempt balancing with such large variance at hand.
while some of those ideas about tweaking tohit at expense of damage might work to allow us to hit them more.
I would be ok if they just adjusted the defense toons where if they are nearly impossible to hit then their other attributes take the hit.
if a widow hits elude then his tohit and damage should be decreased accordingly. if there is basically no chance of him being killed(which is what i think elude is meant to be) why on earth should he still be able to totally wreck an 8 man team of heroes while in elude? This problem compounds when they only enter battle with elude up.
Why should a fort have mostly unresisted damage, capped defense with elusivity and full use of heavy hitting ranged attacks and tohit capped as well? same with ice tanks and all the new flavors of the month all with a side of elusivity.
If they are going to remain at current levels of survivability then a trade off needs to happen somewhere.
I have to say that high level pvp rv and arena at level 50 is where it is mostly broken, I find that in sirens call things are much much more even. I still miss at least half my attacks on defense based toons but 1 toon does not wreck entire 8 man teams at that level. maybe some one good with numbers could examine that and see if it would be a good example for diminishing returns being tweaked.
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If what i am seeing IS true, then i beleive Resistence should be either unaffected by DR or have a higher DR cap
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Couldn't agree more. Resistance is horrible in PvP right now. By horrible, I mean that a /SR stalker is tougher than a /Fire tanker in many instances. Sets like ELA for brrutes, which pretty much have ONLY resistance, are complete garbage.
My fire tanker w/ tough is at the numbers it used to be w/o tough (excluding fire of course)
w/o tough he has as much res as my fire brute used to have - bout 33-36%
Compared to the value that def+elusivity is bringing that is absolutely horrible.
You'd think the Resistance based character would be able to play Offensively to win.
But My SS/Elec brute beats Forts and Widows by playing defensively and running them out of End -_-.
It's sad when the "Brute" character spends the match running away, powersinking, and Aid selfing, in order to be able to "Bring the fight" to the Defense based Ultra Damage dishing toon.
Anyone know why elusivity isnt applied to dispersion bubble or any other of the forcefield set except PFF?
I guess it really does depend what end you are on. My storm/sonic/power def cranking off pbu+kistmet+tactics+aim (used to be in excess of +180% tohit) is now capped at 30% tohit thanks to DR. In fact doing all of that nets me like 1-2% more tohit than just using my slotted aim.
w/ 30% tohit and 80% acc slotting and 40% global acc I can hit a toon w/ 35% def+ elusivity 69% of the time while that amount of tohit is up.
I've actually found more success cycling pbu (+ all my other junk) until it expires and then aim, as that gives me a much longer window of possibly hitting.
that's vs 35% def though, which tbh is pretty decent for a solo build w/ no tier 9 (say fortunata). However if the def toon has the ability to add defense and hit 55% def (say NW in elude), I can NOT exceed 38% chance to land any attack w/ the above mentioned build.
If I were to crank up my acc to 90% in powers and 90% global (at this point we are talking a billion dollar build likely, just to combat a SO'd widow in elude) I can get my chance to hit up to 49% during my tohit buff windows.
Maybe that is acceptable and maybe it isn't. These numbers are true for every AT trying to hit a high def AT w/ elusivity unless they have attacks with higher base acc (say KO blow w/ 1.2x). That particular attack would land 58% vs elude and capped outside of it w/ the super acc build. A non billion $ build w/ enhancing like my def would land 46% in elude and 83% outside of it with that one attack.
Long story short def w/ elusivity is way too strong vs builds that aren't extremely IO'd for acc and tohit, but likely still too weak vs one's that are AND have higher base acc attacks.
We know that for w/e reason the devs didn't put a dr curve onto +acc (or if they did it is tiny). Where it used to be massive tohit that ripped apart def it is now capped tohit, absurdly high acc, and higher base acc attacks.
To remove the variance the easiest solution is to remove the higher base acc that some attacks have (mainly looking at the ones with 1.2 modifiers, as 1.05 ones don't seem to really make a difference), put a harder DR curve on +acc, and then take another balancing pass at def and elusivity.
That isn't fun though, but really with such variance of builds and base acc in attacks it is almost impossible to prevent the scenario from being unbalanced one way or the other.
I think we can all agree it shouldn't take 5 people to drop a SO'd out widow, scrapper, or tank, but at the same time how easily should one be able to do it?
Why is your def more important than my tohit? Why is my tohit more important than your def? Who's right? they already made the decision for us w/ control stating "your control is not more important" and new we have 2-4 second mez.
See they started down a slippery slope w/ normalization and dr because once you start heavily equalizing everything you need to actually equalize everything or else there will always be haves and have nots.
Rather than embrace the chaotic balance vision of team based pvp in i12, they decided to gear everything more toward individual performance. That decision means that as long as your brawl does more damage than mine, we have a problem.