My eyes are opened!
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2009-05-17 17:19 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Except that you're forgetting something very important: recovery is a percent recovery. By increasing base endurance, you'd also be increasing end/sec recovery significantly to such a point that every Tanker on the planet would have end recovery better a */Regen Scrapper as soon as he/she gets Stamina (1+.25+.30 < 1.4*1.25). That's more than a bit borked.
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No it's not, not when the stuff you are using costs more endurance than anyone else's. It's just like comparing regeneration and +HP, the most reliable way to do it to not think at all as HP as a number but as a bar that goes from zero to 100, at that point hp buffs equate resistance to all damage types, including healing.
An increase to endurance would do the same, it would be a resistance to endurance cost AND also resistance to click endurance regain tools, like energy absorption or blue pills. That's right: if the end bar of a tanker was increased blue insps would do even less for them than for anyone else, where everyone usually gets 25% of their endurance back with a blue, a tanker would get 17.8%
Additionally, true analysis of the impact of this change would be much more complex than stating how much end per second you recover. You also have to check how much longer the at must fight and how much endurance is wasted due to lower modifiers and quite a few other aspects. I did a partial study on this a long time ago, but not something in presentable form. I may actually pull that stuff up and clean it up for presentation sometime in the near future.
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Stars, something else you're either ignoring or ignorant of is that the DPE numbers are determined for attacks before AT scalars are applied to the damage. This works quite well because it doesn't unduly penalize the endurance of high damage ATs, which isn't balanced, especially since everyone has essentially the same endurance capabilities.
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First: you should assume everyone having the same endurance capabilities while talking about balance.
Second: the way multiple ATs are designed you can't modify endurance cost after it's scaled for many issues. Best example are brutes. How do you manage them? Such a change would actually lower their endurance cost, not increase it, yet they do much more damage than many other ATs if you play Fury smartly.
All ATs except tankers and defenders get tools that make their endurance cost relative to damage gravitate towards 1 modifiers.
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If DPE were calculated after AT scalars were applied, you'd also need to do the same to defensive toggles and powers (although this would be much less devastating thanks to the lower proportion of endurance that goes to toggles). Thankfully, it isn't.
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I seen this implied before and I tend to slam the desk with my head every time i do, mostly because not only is it wrong but because it's so half baked. IF you were going to go that way you would also start to charge endurance for secondary effects and make sure this endurance was higher for stronger secondary effects, you would also make defender powers cost more endurance for stronger buffs, etc etc.
However, there are no rules anywhere in the game that dictate a power must cost more endurance based on any attribute other than damage. Other than that it's all up to the devs whim and pursue of desired balance to give any defensive power whatever endurance cost they want. Should they choose to compensate damage to endurance ratio issues of any AT they are not forced to change at all to deal with defensive tools.
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It's pretty easy to see if you actually start comparing power sets to power sets across ATs. Slug costs as much for a Blaster as it does for a Corrupter. Swipe costs as much to Scrapper as it does for a Stalker. Thanks for trying to make the argument though. It looked decent but doesn't follow through with the actual information.
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You are ignoring the inherent abilities of these ATs that make their average end cost go down.
In average, Scourge accounts for a 20% damage buff, this takes the base damage from .75 to about .9, still not full 1 but much less of an endurance penalty than it looks like at first.
The stalker critical rate is also high enough to make them match scrapper damage + criticals.
In the end, looking at base damage is not even trying to compare, it's just pretending you did.
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Rebalance endurance use so it is relative to damage output.
[/ QUOTE ]Endurance cost is already a part of the balance equation.
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That is, if it takes 1% endurance to do 5 damage, it should take 1% to do 5 damage for everyone. Tankers will use less endurance, Defenders will use less endurance, Blasters would use more.
[/ QUOTE ]That is, frankly, a stupid idea. It essentially removes the need for Blasters and Scrappers entirely. The balancing equation the devs use currently is based on the power's damage scale, not the actual damage it does. That means that the endurance cost is unaffected by the AT's ranged and melee damage modifiers, meaning there can be AT differentiation apart from simply power lists.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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All ATs except tankers and defenders get tools that make their endurance cost relative to damage gravitate towards 1 modifiers.
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Of course, Controller powers aren't balanced as attacks. Take the single target hold Fossilize for example, it deals scale 1 damage and costs 8.528 end, or ~64% more than a normal attack. The single target immobilizes aren't much better; Chilblain deals scale 1 damage (as a dot) and costs 7.8 end, 50% more than a normal attack. Then there are enigmatic powers like Lift that deals scale 0.8 damage and still costs 6.864 end, 65% more than it should. (Lift looks like a clone of Levitate that deals less damage and costs the same end ... Levitate's cost is as it should be.)
That's not even mentioning the fact that most times these powers are slotted for, well, control rather than damage.
Things aren't much better with their epics, either:
Mental Blast - scale 1 damage, 6.5 end (25% high)
Power Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Ice Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Fire Blast - scale 1.1 damage (no dot), 6.5 end (13.6% high)
Hurl Boulder - scale 1.64 damage, 11.7 end (37.2% high)
Seismic Smash - scale 2.6 damage, 18.511999 end (36.9% high)
(Not sure if those are bugs, or intentional because of Containment; somewhat dubious though since their higher costs are inconsistent.)
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Except that you're forgetting something very important: recovery is a percent recovery. By increasing base endurance, you'd also be increasing end/sec recovery significantly to such a point that every Tanker on the planet would have end recovery better a */Regen Scrapper as soon as he/she gets Stamina (1+.25+.30 < 1.4*1.25). That's more than a bit borked.
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No it's not, not when the stuff you are using costs more endurance than anyone else's. It's just like comparing regeneration and +HP, the most reliable way to do it to not think at all as HP as a number but as a bar that goes from zero to 100, at that point hp buffs equate resistance to all damage types, including healing.
An increase to endurance would do the same, it would be a resistance to endurance cost AND also resistance to click endurance regain tools, like energy absorption or blue pills. That's right: if the end bar of a tanker was increased blue insps would do even less for them than for anyone else, where everyone usually gets 25% of their endurance back with a blue, a tanker would get 17.8%
Additionally, true analysis of the impact of this change would be much more complex than stating how much end per second you recover. You also have to check how much longer the at must fight and how much endurance is wasted due to lower modifiers and quite a few other aspects. I did a partial study on this a long time ago, but not something in presentable form. I may actually pull that stuff up and clean it up for presentation sometime in the near future.
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I'm still curious as to why you think that every AT needs to use the same amount of endurance to fight the same target. It makes no sense. Tankers should expend more endurance on the same enemy than a damage focused AT because the enemy poses less risk to them. They're also spending less endurance and time on survival than any other AT in the game, which is the balancing factor to their higher cost of endurance for attacks.
The basic design mechanic that you're trying to attain is that, rather than spending the same amount of endurance per second as any other AT using the same powers, that each AT should, instead, spend the same amount depending on how long they've got to use them in order to have the same effect. That makes no sense whatsoever, especially from a balance standpoint. Endurance efficiency is a baked in functional benefit of the ATs, which makes sense because endurance is a percentage mechanic rather than a flat number mechanic. Tankers are paying more for each point of damage because damage isn't their schtick. So are Defenders.
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Stars, something else you're either ignoring or ignorant of is that the DPE numbers are determined for attacks before AT scalars are applied to the damage. This works quite well because it doesn't unduly penalize the endurance of high damage ATs, which isn't balanced, especially since everyone has essentially the same endurance capabilities.
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First: you should assume everyone having the same endurance capabilities while talking about balance.
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With the exception of a few power sets for a few ATs, they do. When you bring in sets that specifically have powers devoted to endurance recovery, that's simply part of the benefit of selecting that power set. They're losing out the additional survivability or damage available to them by having that power available. So yeah, I'm going to take the assumption that every AT has the same endurance recovery potential outside of a few sets that have greater endurance recovery as a baked in benefit of selecting that set. Most builds only get 100 endurance (or more with IO sets and accolades) and Stamina available to them. Anything above that is abnormal.
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Second: the way multiple ATs are designed you can't modify endurance cost after it's scaled for many issues. Best example are brutes. How do you manage them? Such a change would actually lower their endurance cost, not increase it, yet they do much more damage than many other ATs if you play Fury smartly.
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Simple. They've got a lower scalar so their attack does less damage. It still costs the same. Shadow Punch costs the same everywhere. The DPE changes, but the endurance for the individual attack (which is where the balance is) doesn't change.
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All ATs except tankers and defenders get tools that make their endurance cost relative to damage gravitate towards 1 modifiers.
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You've got to be ignoring Vigilance, but I'll excuse that. Vigilance is... ignorable. Well, not entirely. It can get pretty big. That's a pretty big case to ignore.
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If DPE were calculated after AT scalars were applied, you'd also need to do the same to defensive toggles and powers (although this would be much less devastating thanks to the lower proportion of endurance that goes to toggles). Thankfully, it isn't.
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I seen this implied before and I tend to slam the desk with my head every time i do, mostly because not only is it wrong but because it's so half baked. IF you were going to go that way you would also start to charge endurance for secondary effects and make sure this endurance was higher for stronger secondary effects, you would also make defender powers cost more endurance for stronger buffs, etc etc.
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And that's why it's a pointless suggested hypothetical. There are reasons that Defender have bigger secondary effects from their powers for the same endurance cost that Controllers pay: theirs are more efficient. Everyone is paying the same cost. Some people are getting more out of it.
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However, there are no rules anywhere in the game that dictate a power must cost more endurance based on any attribute other than damage. Other than that it's all up to the devs whim and pursue of desired balance to give any defensive power whatever endurance cost they want. Should they choose to compensate damage to endurance ratio issues of any AT they are not forced to change at all to deal with defensive tools.
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It's pretty easy to see if you actually start comparing power sets to power sets across ATs. Slug costs as much for a Blaster as it does for a Corrupter. Swipe costs as much to Scrapper as it does for a Stalker. Thanks for trying to make the argument though. It looked decent but doesn't follow through with the actual information.
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You are ignoring the inherent abilities of these ATs that make their average end cost go down.
In average, Scourge accounts for a 20% damage buff, this takes the base damage from .75 to about .9, still not full 1 but much less of an endurance penalty than it looks like at first.
The stalker critical rate is also high enough to make them match scrapper damage + criticals.
In the end, looking at base damage is not even trying to compare, it's just pretending you did.
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I'm not looking at base damage. You're assuming that I'm looking at base damage because that's what you're looking at. I'm looking at flat endurance cost. Not DPE. Just endurance. Every AT will have the same endurance costs for using a power as any other does. The difference is that some ATs will get more from that specific expenditure than others do. That is completely balanced because some ATs are just better at certain things than others are, not just in end effect, but also in efficiency of cost.
You're ignoring the fact that scalars contribute just as much to endurance efficiency as they do to the end effect. A Tanker spends 40% more endurance to do the same amount of damage that a Scrapper does because the Scrapper is all about dealing damage. Dealing damage isn't a Tanker's primary job function. It's going to have to pay more to do things outside of its specific domain of functionality. It's the same reason why Scrappers have to pay more for Petrifying Gaze than a Defender does. They're doing things that are outside of the normal scope of their functionality which means that they've got to pay somehow.
If DPE were "balanced" as you think it should be, the only difference would be time, which is pointless, because that simply means that Tankers are just as good at dealing damage as Scrappers given enough time, whereas no one else is as good at survival as a Tanker given enough time.
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If DPE were "balanced" as you think it should be, the only difference would be time, which is pointless, because that simply means that Tankers are just as good at dealing damage as Scrappers given enough time , whereas no one else is as good at survival as a Tanker given enough time.
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I had a big point by point reply but after reading this i realized there is no point. If you truly think that being as good dealing damage can even be on the same sentence as given enough time then there is nothing else to say, you have no clue what damage ATs are balanced around in this game.
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If DPE were "balanced" as you think it should be, the only difference would be time, which is pointless, because that simply means that Tankers are just as good at dealing damage as Scrappers given enough time , whereas no one else is as good at survival as a Tanker given enough time.
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I had a big point by point reply but after reading this i realized there is no point. If you truly think that being as good dealing damage can even be on the same sentence as given enough time then there is nothing else to say, you have no clue what damage ATs are balanced around in this game.
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Actually that was a poorly worded statement. I'll admit it. The point I was trying to make is that power efficiency is part in parcel with the balance metric of the game (namely, scalars). The system you propose is suggesting that, given the same endurance, that a Tanker should be able to deal the same damage as a Scrapper, ignoring time. For example, 100 endurance on a Tanker is worth just as much damage as it is for a Scrapper. Unless you're proposing that every power effect should follow that same model (everything being based off of a flat "effect per endurance" model rather than the current model wherein the power costs a certain amount and is modified by the AT's scalar), that should never happen. But then, if you did, every AT would have to be able to do everything to really have it matter at all.
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Things aren't much better with their epics, either:
Mental Blast - scale 1 damage, 6.5 end (25% high)
Power Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Ice Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Fire Blast - scale 1.1 damage (no dot), 6.5 end (13.6% high)
Hurl Boulder - scale 1.64 damage, 11.7 end (37.2% high)
Seismic Smash - scale 2.6 damage, 18.511999 end (36.9% high)
(Not sure if those are bugs, or intentional because of Containment; somewhat dubious though since their higher costs are inconsistent.)
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Interesting... not in the sense that you intended though... all Epics are meant to have end penalties but those two powers in bold are over the edge... they are likely a bug from when they used to do inherent double damage, they got all nerfed but they most have missed fixing the end cost for all of them... If i'm not wrong all should have a 25% end penalty (with the exception of fire due to the bonus DoT that should make that penalty look smaller)
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Things aren't much better with their epics, either:
Mental Blast - scale 1 damage, 6.5 end (25% high)
Power Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Ice Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Fire Blast - scale 1.1 damage (no dot), 6.5 end (13.6% high)
Hurl Boulder - scale 1.64 damage, 11.7 end (37.2% high)
Seismic Smash - scale 2.6 damage, 18.511999 end (36.9% high)
(Not sure if those are bugs, or intentional because of Containment; somewhat dubious though since their higher costs are inconsistent.)
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Interesting... not in the sense that you intended though... all Epics are meant to have end penalties but those two powers in bold are over the edge... they are likely a bug from when they used to do inherent double damage, they got all nerfed but they most have missed fixing the end cost for all of them... If i'm not wrong all should have a 25% end penalty (with the exception of fire due to the bonus DoT that should make that penalty look smaller)
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I wasn't aware there was an end penalty, but when I compared Fire Blast/Fire Ball to Pyre/Fire Ball, there was indeed a 25% end penalty. I thought recharge was the only one applied. Good to know!
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The system you propose is suggesting that, given the same endurance, that a Tanker should be able to deal the same damage as a Scrapper, ignoring time.
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No, the AT can not ignore time. All sets have cast times that bottle neck the damage output. You can't do more damage than what the power set allows you. At that point only way to do more damage is the AT modifier and, off course, damage buffs and enhancements and so on.
That's why no matter how much end you give a tanker, even if you made him never run out of endurance (that i do think would be unbalanced for other reasons) he would still, kill slower.
Just as a note: The average set can't dish out more than .92 ds of damage, there are some that do a bit more others a bit less and off course the ball goes off the park with AoE, this is ST.
This means, without endurance reduction, you can in average spend 4.78 end per second if you stick to single target attacks. It will take anyone 32.1 seconds to run out of endurance during this time, provided no toggles running.
If the buff I propose was implemented (40% extra end) the tanker would take 45 seconds to run out of endurance (yes i am factoring recovery on both cases.)
During this time period, doing .92 ds per second, the scrapper would do 34.89 scale damage while the tanker would have taken 40% more time to dish out 33.08 ds. This is 5% less damage in a 40% bigger window.
Now, I'll give you this: this is before stamina. Lets check it all with stamina 3 slotted:
At this point the scrapper will take 43.5 seconds to entirely drain out of endurance. The tanker will take 60.9 seconds to drain out of endurance. During this time window the tanker will do 44.8 DS of damgae and the scrapper 47.2 DS, again, within a 40% larger time frame.
All this is not accounting for the scrapper having a stronger damage buff modifier (stronger buildup) and that the scrapper may only be fighting minions (5% crit chance anything else is 10%)
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Things aren't much better with their epics, either:
Mental Blast - scale 1 damage, 6.5 end (25% high)
Power Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Ice Blast - scale 1 damage, 10.66 end (105% high)
Fire Blast - scale 1.1 damage (no dot), 6.5 end (13.6% high)
Hurl Boulder - scale 1.64 damage, 11.7 end (37.2% high)
Seismic Smash - scale 2.6 damage, 18.511999 end (36.9% high)
(Not sure if those are bugs, or intentional because of Containment; somewhat dubious though since their higher costs are inconsistent.)
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Interesting... not in the sense that you intended though... all Epics are meant to have end penalties but those two powers in bold are over the edge... they are likely a bug from when they used to do inherent double damage, they got all nerfed but they most have missed fixing the end cost for all of them... If i'm not wrong all should have a 25% end penalty (with the exception of fire due to the bonus DoT that should make that penalty look smaller)
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I wasn't aware there was an end penalty, but when I compared Fire Blast/Fire Ball to Pyre/Fire Ball, there was indeed a 25% end penalty. I thought recharge was the only one applied. Good to know!
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Hurl Boulder may also have an implementation issue: all ranged attacks within melee sets that have a melee modifier also suffer of a small penalty. There are not many that can be analyzed properly, but both Hurl Boulder and Hurl from tanker and brute sets show this. The penalty is of 9.75%.
Now, if you copy and paste this power to the controller epics, and then you add a 25% penalty on top of the baked in previous penalty you end with a 37.2% endurance penalty, exactly what you have there...
I think I have a PM to send to Castle.
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I'm still curious as to why you think that every AT needs to use the same amount of endurance to fight the same target. It makes no sense.
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Actually, while there is no numerical justification for making everyone have *identical* DPE, there is a strong fundamental reason for everyone to have *similar* DPE. The reason is that outside of teams, DPE is a fundamental limiter to performance, and for high defense characters (anything as strong or stronger than a scrapper) DPE becomes the primary limiter to performance for most builds until you apply inventions to the build or the build has enhanced recovery. In this case, I'm using the word "performance" to mean levelling performance as a subset of all reward-earning ability, consistent with how the devs measure balance in the game.
Since the devs have a performance range within which they expect all powerset combinations to live within for the powersets and archetypes to be balanced, wide ranges of DPE create unnecessary problems for that balance requirement.
For something to be "damage-oriented" it only needs to be able to deal damage faster. It does not need to deal that damage more efficiently to the same degree. In the case of "damage-centric" archetypes like blasters, higher efficiency makes sense. But in the case of, say, scrappers and tankers, the 50% spread in DPE doesn't have a clear justification. And when it comes to balance-significant game elements, the burden of proof is on the differences. All such differences should have an explicit reason for being there, and the differences in DPE don't actually always appear to have an explicit reason for being there.
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The system you propose is suggesting that, given the same endurance, that a Tanker should be able to deal the same damage as a Scrapper, ignoring time.
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No, the AT can not ignore time. All sets have cast times that bottle neck the damage output. You can't do more damage than what the power set allows you. At that point only way to do more damage is the AT modifier and, off course, damage buffs and enhancements and so on.
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I think you misunderstood that comment as well. My meaning was to give a static quantity of endurance with which to use, ignoring recovery, that both Tankers and Scrappers would deal the same amount of damage (ignoring inherents). It's not a DPS issue, which is why it ignores time, it's a DPE issue, which is why you can ignore endurance.
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That's why no matter how much end you give a tanker, even if you made him never run out of endurance (that i do think would be unbalanced for other reasons) he would still, kill slower.
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I also realize this but I'm curious as to why you think that it should change at all. What's the point of putting forth all of the work to normalize for DPE when there isn't even a significant reason for it beyond your desire for a pseudo standardized DPE mechanism across all ATs.
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Just as a note: The average set can't dish out more than .92 ds of damage, there are some that do a bit more others a bit less and off course the ball goes off the park with AoE, this is ST.
This means, without endurance reduction, you can in average spend 4.78 end per second if you stick to single target attacks. It will take anyone 32.1 seconds to run out of endurance during this time, provided no toggles running.
If the buff I propose was implemented (40% extra end) the tanker would take 45 seconds to run out of endurance (yes i am factoring recovery on both cases.)
During this time period, doing .92 ds per second, the scrapper would do 34.89 scale damage while the tanker would have taken 40% more time to dish out 33.08 ds. This is 5% less damage in a 40% bigger window.
Now, I'll give you this: this is before stamina. Lets check it all with stamina 3 slotted:
At this point the scrapper will take 43.5 seconds to entirely drain out of endurance. The tanker will take 60.9 seconds to drain out of endurance. During this time window the tanker will do 44.8 DS of damgae and the scrapper 47.2 DS, again, within a 40% larger time frame.
All this is not accounting for the scrapper having a stronger damage buff modifier (stronger buildup) and that the scrapper may only be fighting minions (5% crit chance anything else is 10%)
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It still remains that you've yet to answer the question of what purpose it serves aside from allowing Tankers, which are already at the least risk of any AT, to have a longer period of time (thanks to additional endurance) to deal damage in. I realize that it's not increasing their damage, your method is simply a very roundabout way to simply reduce the endurance costs of their powers by 40% in order to achieve some normalized system of DPE for Tankers.
Is there a some specific purpose you're trying to accomplish? It makes no sense to me that Tankers (or anyone for that matter) should have more efficient powers simply because those powers have a lesser affect. Is that really all you're asking for? If you are, it seems to me like a convoluted method by which to ask for a Tanker specific increase in DPE for no other reason than you think that they should, even though their DPE is already modified by their scalar thanks to the reduction in damage.
Is there any reason you can think of why DPE (on whatever varying scale you can think of) shouldn't be specific to the AT and tied to whatever damage scalar it uses?
I think i wrote the answer BUT it may had been on the long post I scratched. Anyways, Arcanaville said exactly the reason above your post.
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That is, if it takes 1% endurance to do 5 damage, it should take 1% to do 5 damage for everyone. Tankers will use less endurance, Defenders will use less endurance, Blasters would use more.
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Yeah! Nerf Blasters!
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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I'm still curious as to why you think that every AT needs to use the same amount of endurance to fight the same target. It makes no sense.
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Actually, while there is no numerical justification for making everyone have *identical* DPE, there is a strong fundamental reason for everyone to have *similar* DPE. The reason is that outside of teams, DPE is a fundamental limiter to performance, and for high defense characters (anything as strong or stronger than a scrapper) DPE becomes the primary limiter to performance for most builds until you apply inventions to the build or the build has enhanced recovery. In this case, I'm using the word "performance" to mean levelling performance as a subset of all reward-earning ability, consistent with how the devs measure balance in the game.
Since the devs have a performance range within which they expect all powerset combinations to live within for the powersets and archetypes to be balanced, wide ranges of DPE create unnecessary problems for that balance requirement.
For something to be "damage-oriented" it only needs to be able to deal damage faster. It does not need to deal that damage more efficiently to the same degree. In the case of "damage-centric" archetypes like blasters, higher efficiency makes sense. But in the case of, say, scrappers and tankers, the 50% spread in DPE doesn't have a clear justification. And when it comes to balance-significant game elements, the burden of proof is on the differences. All such differences should have an explicit reason for being there, and the differences in DPE don't actually always appear to have an explicit reason for being there.
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this is the proverbial nail
if this game used some other form of expended resource to activate abilities - like mana in other mmorpg's - that was a variable amount instead of this set 100 (which can be modified by io's and accolades, but not to the degree mana is different between classes in other games) then the efficiency argument would make sense
but it doesnt really. if the power does less dmg, heals for less then it should cost less in this game.
will it make tankers overpowered suddenly? hell no. just because they can beat on that av longer doesnt mean they are suddently doing enough dps to overcome the av regen.
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Actually, while there is no numerical justification for making everyone have *identical* DPE, there is a strong fundamental reason for everyone to have *similar* DPE. The reason is that outside of teams, DPE is a fundamental limiter to performance, and for high defense characters (anything as strong or stronger than a scrapper) DPE becomes the primary limiter to performance for most builds until you apply inventions to the build or the build has enhanced recovery. In this case, I'm using the word "performance" to mean levelling performance as a subset of all reward-earning ability, consistent with how the devs measure balance in the game.
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Considering we're talking about the 2 ATs that are supposed to be especially team focused, I'm curious as to how that is supposed to be taken into account. Tankers pay for their higher efficiency defenses by having less efficient damage dealing capabilities and Defenders pay for their higher efficiency support capabilities (both through their primary and their secondary) by having less efficient damage dealing capabilities, though they are made more efficient when on a team whenever said team is taking damage (which just asks for an arbitrary value to be placed on Vigilance for balance purposes).
That's what I find to be the unaccounted for variable. DPE is continually brought up without reference to the other side of the coin. Damage is not the only thing that endurance is spent on. If a standard DPE is going to be applied or even aimed for, shouldn't there also be some standard of "effect per endurance" (EPE) also be applied to powers in order to account for this?
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Since the devs have a performance range within which they expect all powerset combinations to live within for the powersets and archetypes to be balanced, wide ranges of DPE create unnecessary problems for that balance requirement.
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It also brings up the question of variable EPE across ATs. Tankers pay 75% of what Scrappers pay on an EPE basis for their survival powers. Defenders pay between roughly ~85% and ~75% (depending on the effect in question) of what Controllers pay on an EPE basis for their support powers. Tankers and Controllers have an EPE discount concerning their powers that aren't directly concerned with damage. If DPE is really that great and powerful of a balance metric, shouldn't EPE be addressed as well?
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For something to be "damage-oriented" it only needs to be able to deal damage faster. It does not need to deal that damage more efficiently to the same degree. In the case of "damage-centric" archetypes like blasters, higher efficiency makes sense. But in the case of, say, scrappers and tankers, the 50% spread in DPE doesn't have a clear justification. And when it comes to balance-significant game elements, the burden of proof is on the differences. All such differences should have an explicit reason for being there, and the differences in DPE don't actually always appear to have an explicit reason for being there.
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Couldn't the reason for the 2 ATs that are, by design, meant to be team intensive and support based less efficient on their own at dealing damage but more efficient at providing their role when on a team? I'm pretty confident that Tankers are more end efficient at getting and maintaining aggro on large numbers of targets than Brutes are thanks to the effects of Gauntlet. I'm definitely sure that Defenders are more end efficient at team support simply because they put out higher number with their sets than anyone else.
The reason that every other AT is capable of maintaining the sacred DPE "scalar" of 1 that Starsman is attempting to find is because they all pay roughly the same for the non-damaging support powers within their archetypal domain. Scrappers, Stalkers, and Brutes, thanks to having the same self defense buff scale, all pay the same EPE cost. Corrupters and Controllers pay the same EPE cost. Masterminds actually pay 25% more EPE than Corrupters or Controllers, though they've got the most efficient form of damage in the game (19.5 end for damage that is highly efficient because it comes from a completely separate entities; most of the end cost is simply front loaded and, after paying for it, is functionally free).
Tankers and Defenders, avoid the same DPE scalar as all the others by paying less for their non-damaging powers, which explains the differences, thereby satisfying Arcanaville's vaunted burden of proof for a difference to exist.
Endurance woes are meant to limit the ability of the Tanker to last as long in fights? Is that what I'm seeing? If that's so, increase the damage to nominal, because they're suffering a penalty to damage (to make them less offensive) AND a penalty to endurance efficiency (to make them even LESS offensive, AND less defensive, since they will lose their toggles if they run out of endurance).
As to the question WHY?
The mantra the devs say they go by is "Is it FUN?" I don't find standing in a group pressing taunt every now and then because I don't have the endurance to do anything else, FUN. I don't find having to get a group to do ANYTHING, FUN. What's fun is being able to compete, whatever AT and power set I'm using. The game already has too many ways to force the players to stand around watching helplessly as their characters get killed (stuns, holds, slows, -recharge, etc.). Having no endurance is among them, and is very frustrating indeed.
Endurance is an issue for everyone, but it should be EQUALLY an issue. As it is, Tankers and Defenders (and Scrappers, to some extent) get the short end of the endurance stick.
Having soloed a Dark Armor/Energy tank through the first 20-some levels, I can confidently say that you're overstating the case, Ultimo. Just say "I'm greedy" and put it in your sig.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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As to the question WHY?
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So that all ATs have roughly the same EPS and thus equal endurance woes.
QR:
Extra end use due to taking longer is partly mitigated by the extra time leading to more total recovery tics before the conclusion of the fight.
Also, consider Rest: a Tanker may well run low on End before a Scrapper, but the Scrapper will likely run low on Health before the Tanker. Do the times at which they elect to use Rest roughly match? Does the number of foes defeated before electing to use Rest roughly match?
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Having soloed a Dark Armor/Energy tank through the first 20-some levels, I can confidently say that you're overstating the case, Ultimo. Just say "I'm greedy" and put it in your sig.
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We're having a discussion here, and personal attacks are neither warranted nor welcome. So far everyone has contributed to the subject in a reasoned, civil fashion and I suggest you do the same.
(edited for typo)
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if this game used some other form of expended resource to activate abilities - like mana in other mmorpg's - that was a variable amount instead of this set 100 (which can be modified by io's and accolades, but not to the degree mana is different between classes in other games) then the efficiency argument would make sense
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Actually, it makes perfect sense. Someone who is specialized in a certain set of skills will perform those skills more efficiently than someone who is not. They would be better at controlling their energy expenditure with those skills than a novice. That is basic common sense.
I see no problem with a Tank using the same amount of Endurance as scrapper and doing less damage. The Tank is not specialized in dealing damage. he's much better at controlling Aggro and taking the damage. He also gets better protection for the same amount of Endurance usage as a scrapper.
The same goes for Defenders and Blasters. The Blaster is specialized in dealing ranged damage. The Defender is not.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
Last I knew, tankers and scrappers had the same DMG to RCH to END USE ratio.
But tanker have the lower damage scalar.
As it should be.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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We're having a discussion here, and personal attacks are neither warranted or welcome. So far everyone has contributed to the subject in a reasoned, civil fashion and I suggest you do the same.
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It's "neither... nor".
Carry on.
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I would simply say for tankers that they were designed around the idea that they would take longer to kill things because they CAN stand there longer to take the damage, but this is true due to high mitigation and higher hp than anyone else. However, how can you do this if your endurance is burnt at the same speed as everyone else even if you kill slower? In the end, you run out of endurance before you can kill the same target a more endurance efficient at would. By boosting the base endurance you are actually giving the tanker the one tool they need to be able to stand there longer and fight longer but slower.
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Except that you're forgetting something very important: recovery is a percent recovery. By increasing base endurance, you'd also be increasing end/sec recovery significantly to such a point that every Tanker on the planet would have end recovery better a */Regen Scrapper as soon as he/she gets Stamina (1+.25+.30 < 1.4*1.25). That's more than a bit borked.
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Many would think I'm insane by looking at the number but should you ever want to truly make the tanker match endurance efficiency of a scrapper without critical, you would need to increase his base endurance from 100 to 140. Due to critical the tanker would still be 10% behind in endurance efficiency.
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As for defenders: making the vigilance kick in on his own demise is not going to help them much. How much good is an end discount going to help them if they are close to dying already? An endurance discount would be much better for them. Now, the defender has other issues, soon they will be the lowest damage AT in the entire game (doms without domination where about there too.) IF you wanted him to have the same endurance efficiency as a 1 Scale Damage AT, you would have to give him a 54% endurance discount. But that's not going to do much to his effectiveness as the defender does not have the tanker's luxury to fight for a long period of time, therefore defenders need a more in dept look than just endurance, specially given that they were the only AT exclusively designed to be team ATs.
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Stars, something else you're either ignoring or ignorant of is that the DPE numbers are determined for attacks before AT scalars are applied to the damage. This works quite well because it doesn't unduly penalize the endurance of high damage ATs, which isn't balanced, especially since everyone has essentially the same endurance capabilities. If DPE were calculated after AT scalars were applied, you'd also need to do the same to defensive toggles and powers (although this would be much less devastating thanks to the lower proportion of endurance that goes to toggles). Thankfully, it isn't.
It's pretty easy to see if you actually start comparing power sets to power sets across ATs. Slug costs as much for a Blaster as it does for a Corrupter. Swipe costs as much to Scrapper as it does for a Stalker. Thanks for trying to make the argument though. It looked decent but doesn't follow through with the actual information.