"Damage Mitigation" and "Numbers"
By
Antigonus,
Posted on: 2009-05-23 06:46 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Of course, no actual numbers were given by the poster, nor were any sources posted by that particular poster.
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If you take the time to read my OP, you will find my argument does not require numbers. I'm talking about players that spam "lvl XX healer" in broadcast, and how there's not a consistent definition for the term 'healer.'
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AE: 38959 - Invasion of the Dark Realm
You're weighing the benefits of the Radiation and Storm debuffs too heavily. Purple Patch will quite quickly reduce the incredible benefits that you can gain from tohit debuffs to much less than you actually give them credit for. AVs are similarly resistant though additional reasons, though they'll also get benefit from the purple patch (Link for the chart of scaling AV debuff resistances).
While your numbers are appropriate for fighting even level enemies, you'll quickly find the debuffs to be lacking quite the punch you expected when taking on challenging scenarios. Buffs are never reduced in effectiveness. You may want to specifically mention this, especially if since you brought up +5 bosses.
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If you take the time to read my OP, you will find my argument does not require numbers. I'm talking about players that spam "lvl XX healer" in broadcast, and how there's not a consistent definition for the term 'healer.'
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So your arguments are so conclusive, you don't need actual proof to back them up?
To the OP, good work. Unfortunately, the healer haters will completely ignore anything you might have proven in favor of hyperbole and anecdotal "evidence". The hate runs deep here on the forums regardless of how popular the playstyle is in game.
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You're weighing the benefits of the Radiation and Storm debuffs too heavily. Purple Patch will quite quickly reduce the incredible benefits that you can gain from tohit debuffs to much less than you actually give them credit for. AVs are similarly resistant though additional reasons, though they'll also get benefit from the purple patch (Link for the chart of scaling AV debuff resistances).
While your numbers are appropriate for fighting even level enemies, you'll quickly find the debuffs to be lacking quite the punch you expected when taking on challenging scenarios. Buffs are never reduced in effectiveness. You may want to specifically mention this, especially if since you brought up +5 bosses.
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Good point. That would mean that, against AVs healing is actually a better form of mitigation than debuffs. Oh that's gonna rankle some folks.
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Good point. That would mean that, against AVs healing is actually a better form of mitigation than debuffs. Oh that's gonna rankle some folks.
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That depends on the debuff. AVs have no special resistance to damage debuffs. Unless they have damage buffs, which is very rare, heavy use of powers like Darkest Night and Enervating Field can neuter their damage output to the degree that no healing is required. I won't claim this is the typical case, but it's certainly not outrageous to achieve. Level differences still count, of course, but only certain TF AVs are over-level. Damage debuffs are less effective, for example, on the RSF and STF.
In my experience, calls for debuffs in AV fights are so they fall faster more so than so they kill slower.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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And thus, the numbers have just lied. (Sarcasm intended.) Picking an Empath Defender is more valuable than picking a Forcefield Defender by this logic.
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And therefore, the premise and logic are FLAWED. By the way, it's 95% not 90. I don't see the correlation between 4% natural healing regeneration and the amount of damage that forcefields can mitigate. Do a side by side comparison of an empath bound by recharge and endurance cost against a forcefielder, let's say in a hot little encounter like the Lady Grey Task Force in the last room.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
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You're weighing the benefits of the Radiation and Storm debuffs too heavily. Purple Patch will quite quickly reduce the incredible benefits that you can gain from tohit debuffs to much less than you actually give them credit for. AVs are similarly resistant though additional reasons, though they'll also get benefit from the purple patch (Link for the chart of scaling AV debuff resistances).
While your numbers are appropriate for fighting even level enemies, you'll quickly find the debuffs to be lacking quite the punch you expected when taking on challenging scenarios. Buffs are never reduced in effectiveness. You may want to specifically mention this, especially if since you brought up +5 bosses.
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Good point. That would mean that, against AVs healing is actually a better form of mitigation than debuffs. Oh that's gonna rankle some folks.
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Actual, healing is not a form of mitigation at all. That's an error in terminology. Mitigation is specifically defined as "lessening in force or intensity". Healing does nothing to lessen the force and intensity of incoming damage. The appropriate moniker for healing and regeneration would be damage recovery. Mitigation and recovery can be roughly equivalent, but they're still completely different beasts.
The issue with all of this is that it's more important to demonstrate the greater importance of mitigation rather than recovery in City of Heroes. Unlike most other MMOs, players have in combat damage recovery and very little damage mitigation innately. Because of this, it's possible to, with enough mitigation, hit the point of immortality without having any heals, which is impossible in most MMOs because they require healing for in combat damage recovery.
The other important difference as it pertains to this discussion between CoX and other "traditional" MMOs is that the mitigation cap in CoX is much higher and the comparative allowance of hp (re: player survivability reaction time) is much lower.
However, just because mitigation is more effective by a substantial amount doesn't mean that it is ineffective. Part of the design concept of CoX was that any form of dealing with damage would be an effective option. Damage recovery can work (though requires much more skill and doesn't scale with the degree of the challenge), which is evident when you look at */regen Scrappers and Stalkers, as can mitigation. The prevalence of buffs and design of the game, however, have made it so that mitigation is much more effective, especially once characters have actually matured.
Healing "mitigates" the ability of damage to cause you to die, which I think could quite aptly be called the "force" or "intensity" of the damage. Obviously "damage mitigation" is not the perfect term for this -- perhaps "death mitigation" would -- but it is a common term, and commonly includes healing, so let's take it as it is and move on please.
I team with the Repeat Offenders.
I just wanted to say, amazing, educational and very informative post, OP! Thanks!
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Obviously "damage mitigation" is not the perfect term for this -- perhaps "death mitigation" would
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If you could time a heal so that it struck at the same moment an attack did, and applied its heal to reduce the amount of damage the attack did, then it would be considered mitigation. It would also counter the innate weakness of healing that it cannot prevent death due to an alpha strike, only recover the health after the fact. Since eliminating this weakness probably would make healing too overpowered it's for the best that this is just a theoretical mechanism that couldn't be implemented anyway.
This is really the problem, though, while you can compare healing to damage mitigation, there are a lot of factors that complicate that comparison. For one thing, the "mitigation" due to healing depends on how much damage is INCOMING. Defense or Resistance will mitigate a constant percentage of the damage that hits you, whether high or low. The amount of damage that healing mitigates is the constant, and whether the amount that hits you is high or low makes the percentage higher or lower.
In other words, if you say, "If I'm taking 10,000 HP per second, healing is better mitigation than Defense" that really isn't saying much if in an average battle you are taking 200 HP per second. (numbers exaggerated for hyperbole) Most potential for healing over time is wasted because either the target is already at full HP, and thus does not need a boost, or some of the heal is lost to the HP cap.
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against AVs healing is actually a better form of mitigation than debuffs
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Another case in which this is in error: an ice/storm controller, for example, can overcome AV resistance to recharge debuffs by the sheer volume of -recharge available within the two sets.
:/ And yet, none of this addresses my problem with the term and usage of the word 'healer' at all, no matter how well thought out (though I question the accuracy when applied in the specific context of the OP) the argument may be.
And I do believe I've gone on record stating both what my issues with the context/usage are, and my general feelings about Healing in support sets. Though I'm perfectly happy to reiterate that for the billionth time.
Still, math is always fun to see when I don't have to do the work myself. And I do like a good discussion of logic. :3
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If you take the time to read my OP, you will find my argument does not require numbers. I'm talking about players that spam "lvl XX healer" in broadcast, and how there's not a consistent definition for the term 'healer.'
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So your arguments are so conclusive, you don't need actual proof to back them up?
To the OP, good work. Unfortunately, the healer haters will completely ignore anything you might have proven in favor of hyperbole and anecdotal "evidence". The hate runs deep here on the forums regardless of how popular the playstyle is in game.
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[rhetorical attack on poster's intellectual capabilities]
Right, now that i've responded in kind to the tone and objectivity of your post...
"Healer haters?" Um, what? If you mean the OP vindicates referring to Corruptors, Masterminds, Defenders and Controllers as "healers" then it seems that someone has debuffed your reading comprehension skills into the deep negatives. All the sets except Empathy provide the majority of their support through buffs and debuffs, and even Empathy is the same by the mid-game. That's not the same as saying that anyone objects to healing being used when appropriate.
For the record, objecting to the term "healer" has nothing to do with being opposed to the use of healing powers. It's more that calling support sets/AT's "healers" is the functional equivalent of calling Tankers "knockback resisters".
"lvl 37 mission team LF KB resisters!!!!!!! plz send tell thnx!!!!"
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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For the record, objecting to the term "healer" has nothing to do with being opposed to the use of healing powers. It's more that calling support sets/AT's "healers" is the functional equivalent of calling Tankers "knockback resisters".
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Glad someone gets the basis of my argument from the other thread. :3
Didn't read your entire post but both there are situations for both to be superior against the other.
In a very short summary:
Healing substracts from incoming DPS
Mitigation divides incoming DPS.
If the healing available is higher than the incoming damage, then healing will be superior than any amount of mitigation. That's a simple rule and the one people just try to go for, as it's easy math. Add more heals and we will eventually overcome the incoming dps!
Mitigation can be superior than healing depending on the amount of mitigation and the incoming damage.
Example of this:
Let's assume an arbitriary 100 incoming damage per second.
Let's assume you can heal 80 damage per second coming from multiple healers.
Now lets assume you had the option of just one force field defender that is properly build to soft cap everyone's defenses. This guy is providing 90% damage reduction, only 10% of the damage goes through.
This means the multiple healers are preventing 80% of the damage while the one force fielder mitigates 90%.
Now the true problem comes with scaling. When most teams see they are doing great, they decide they can take on tougher foes. At this point damage increases. Lets say the tougher foes now deal 120 dps. The healers are still healing 80 dps, but this does not scale so now they are healing only preventing 66% of the damage, not 80. On the other hand, the force field defener is still preventing 90% of the damage, it sustained relative to the new threat.
That is why many people laugh at the "need of a healer" because the healer is only superior to mitigation as the threat stays within a defined line while the mitigation oriented defender will scale to any level of threat.
That being told the true superior way to build a team would be a combination of both. If you add heavy mitigation you still get some damage. Mitigation cant entirely eliminate incoming damage (although he can make it insignificant,) add a healer on top and he eliminates that "small" incoming damage all toghether.
Mathematically speaking, mitigation multiplies the effect of heals.
If we go to the 120 example:
Let's assume 60% mitigation.
Lets assume 60 healing per second
Mitigation lowers incoming damage to 48 dps, healing covers that dps and is left with some spare.
Increase the damage all the way to 150dps and the mitigation will lower it to 60dps where healing completely erradicates it.
So it is true that mitigation can do wonders healing can never do, it is true that provided the incoming dps is lower than the heal per second, healing can be amazing, but when you go into extremes, the best is to have both, not one or the other.
PS: A tanker MAY be able to lower the need of AoE healing and allow any one to be a "healer" with a single target heal.
Next time I'm forming a team, I'm so going to ask for kb resisters and whatever off-the-wall terms I can invent for the other ATs.
Anyway, interesting analysis, but it misses some things, such as SR's scaling resistances, Invulnerability's defenses, etc. It also completely ignores mitigation through mezzes, though that, of course, is harder to calculate. And for a minor nitpick, a lot of the defense sets aren't mentioned (Willpower, Electric Armor, Energy Aura, etc.)
Never have I ran into a healer hater. I run into healer fans all the time though. The guys that cant start a mission until they have a healer. The person who immediatly demands a healer after a team wipe/couple people go down.
My problem with your research is that it does not fit well into the CoH world. If you are a defense based toon without soft capped defense, would you not rather have a defense buffer than a healer? Show me mitigation numbers for a 35% defense toon who just got buffed to 45% defense. Then put them up next to that same toon, who didnt recieve the extra 10 defense but instead opted for the healer... Gonna be one tired healer.
There is no absolute better form of mitigation/recovery/whatever. Its all highly dependant on the team, situation, and player skill.
EDIT: plus healing is very hands on, taking away from the time that player could be useing to hurt the enemy.
The problem is some people are so obsessed with disproving the whole "we need a healer or we'll die" theory, that they have actually gone one step further and tried to prove that healers are not just not needed, but are indeed useless.
Now I've teamed with lots of teams, some with healers and some without healers. So I have quite some experience on both sides.
My experience?
Having a healer is what I consider "easy mode" or the "safe option." An averagely played healer, such as an empath will quite easily keep a team alive providing there is some other form of support to back them up. So if you suspect the team may actually not be all that good, a healer might be able to keep the team moving. Also, healing is quite straight forward, it is a concept people will understand even if they are new to CoX. Again this reinforces the belief of it being a safe option.
However healers can only do so much and don't usually speed up the team's ability to kill faster. I'm sorry for any healers who read this, but I have rarely been on a team that has had healers and has still overperformed. If I had to grade the team, healer teams usually sit at 3/5 or 4/5. They are never the best, but they also rarely outright suck.
Now for teams without healers, there is a much bigger variety of performance. I was on an 8 man Manticore TF yesterday with 2 Trick Arrow defenders and myself a Mind/Storm controller (without 02 boost) and we blazed through the TF in just over 2 hours despite not having a healer. We even pulled 4 full groups and still lived as we locked down and debuffed them all to oblivion. Heals? They were not needed, and if they were, everyone has respites that they can utilize. I really enjoyed this TF.
However I have also been on teams that has had no healers, but also had players who are not fully aware of how to best use their powersets. These teams could hypothetically perform VERY well, but unfortunately some players have less knowledge then people expect and the team underperforms horribly. I have been on many teams that have lacked healers and proven to be a total nightmare. Especially if you are a good player and put yourself on the line to make sure the team is victorious, but the end result is that despite the team winning, you are the person who repeatedly eats dirt. Teams without healers generally go from anything from 1/5 to 5/5.
Overall, a team with a healer is safer then a team without a healer and is more likely to perform adequately. A team without a healer could potentially perform much better however it could also potentially perform much worse. It is a bit more of a gamble.
People quite rightly get upset when an ignorant player demands that the team invites a healer. The player in question obviously does not have the knowledge which if possessed, would tell him that healers are not required. However if my experiences are true, then it is quite likely that a bunch of average players would find having a healer less riskier and generally the safer option which is more likely to succeed. From their perspective, you can't blame them for wanting someone who can heal.
In conclusion, teams can do very very well without a healer, but they can also do very very badly. This depends on the quality of the players who are involved. If you are on a team with inexperienced or bad players, a healer might be a safer bet. However if you are teamed with good and experienced players, you could quite happily live without one.
So are healers bad or good? In my opinion they are just another way of allowing the team to succeed. They real reason this whole topic is discussed so heatedly is because of the need of some to try dispell the necessity of healers.
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Never have I ran into a healer hater. I run into healer fans all the time though. The guys that cant start a mission until they have a healer. The person who immediatly demands a healer after a team wipe/couple people go down.
My problem with your research is that it does not fit well into the CoH world. If you are a defense based toon without soft capped defense, would you not rather have a defense buffer than a healer? Show me mitigation numbers for a 35% defense toon who just got buffed to 45% defense. Then put them up next to that same toon, who didnt recieve the extra 10 defense but instead opted for the healer... Gonna be one tired healer.
There is no absolute better form of mitigation/recovery/whatever. Its all highly dependant on the team, situation, and player skill.
EDIT: plus healing is very hands on, taking away from the time that player could be useing to hurt the enemy.
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Never ran into a "healer-hater"? Never grouped with me, then. Then again, I define the term "healer" to be the type of player who just puts the tank/point-man on auto-follow and sets Heal Aura to auto (in some cases, Radiant Aura and in other mind-boggling cases Twilight Grasp/Transfusion).
And that's the problem with healer debates. It's an unclear term because everyone has their own definition for it. Some people insist on using it when they mean Defender or Controller who has the ability to heal, others see it exactly the way I do, and still other times, some people just plain mean they want a Defender of any kind and thought that's what they were called. My Trick Arrow Defender, being the sole support character on a group, has gotten "Nice Heals" more than once from people who have no idea what I'm doing.
It's all rooted in player ignorance, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. To me, the reason "healer" bugs me so much is because it only describes a very tiny portion of what some Defenders can do, but it's being heralded as the "One to Rule Them All". I will admit I'm bitter about it already because of experiences playing my Dark/Energy Defender on Infinity, but healing is frequently the least effective method to deal with incoming damage in a group outside of very specific circumstances. If you're not in a specific situation, buffs or debuffs will almost always be a superior option.
So yes, I'm a "healer-hater", but I'm not blind to the value of a heal. Just don't decide to sit back and spam it because you neglected all your other buffs/debuffs/attacks and expect me to keep you around for long. I give a pass to lowbie Empaths because they have very few options besides heals/attacks until a certain level (but you better be attacking still), so don't even try to bring that up against me. It won't work.
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Main Villain : Menkaura -- Lv41 Mastermind
@Laxx
"You will bend to my will, with or without your precious sanity." --Dragon Mage
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The problem is some people are so obsessed with disproving the whole "we need a healer or we'll die" theory, that they have actually gone one step further and tried to prove that healers are not just not needed, but are indeed useless.
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You hit the nail right on the head.
This is such a polarizing topic that it rarely ends in any kind on concensus. Each side will usually go to extremes to make their point. The whole thing is a stupid argument all around in large part because nobody can argee on what exatly is being argued. Half the time is spent arguing about what the definition of "healer" is.
Look people, "healer" is not an AT or a power set. It's a playstyle. You may or may not agree with it, but that doesn't matter. You have no more right to judge healers than you do Blappers, Skrankers, Offenders, or any other playstyle you may not agree with. Don't like it? Don't play with them. But don't come here and rail against them for doing what the game gives them the freedom to do.
Each persons individual preferance in that regard is irrelavent to the person playing their character. If a person playing the healer is consistantly getting teams and leveling, do you think they care what your opinion of their play is? I know I don't. I'll keep playing what works for me and the teams that ask for my services. If you don't like what I'm doing, you can bugger off for all I care. Don't invite me to your teams and we'll both be happy.
I'm sorry that some people think that healers are just a bunch of mouth breathing monkeys pounding their keyboards, but those people are wrong. It's just another way to play the game.
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In a recent thread in this forum, a person commenting on the 'Misuse of the word "Healer",' a (predictably) big flame war erupted of healer-haters vs. healer supporters. People are throwing all sorts of hostile words around, including this gem.
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Mad sarcasm for the win, unless that other massive generalization you made was serious. Anyway, it isn't actually a generalization. There is (shock!) a best way to build a team. There is a best way to build the characters on that team. And those of us who number-grind towards that goal, rather than airily speculate towards it based on "experience," realize that heals are the least effective damage mitigation in the game.
Can't argue with numbers.
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Of course, no actual numbers were given by the poster, nor were any sources posted by that particular poster.
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As the poster who said that, I would like to point out that when you right-click on a power now, you get specific data on the effects of that power. Channeling the marvelous power of literacy, you can read that data and get all the numbers you'll ever need! Yay! Numbers for everybody! And they are uniform and (mostly) accurate! Amazing!
There's your source. Not Mids, not Arcanaville, not my own personal spreadsheet, but the damn game itself. I figured it was taken for granted that people knew this information was there, but maybe not.
Leave the math aside for a minute. Have you played on a team with three VEATs on it, stacking leadership between 3-6 deep? You don't need healing. You don't need a little; you simply don't need any.
Heals are lacking because:
1) They usually require line of sight. Not always available.
2) Some have a funky range. Try healing a Blaster with transfusion, or a crazy scrapper with Twilight Grasp.
3) Reactive, not proactive. All the heals in the world won't keep my MM from getting two-shotted by Bosses, since he goes from full to dead in about .5 seconds.
4) Lag. A lagging or AFK "healer" provides no benefit. A lagging bubbler is only mildly impeded.
5) Timeliness. Heals use in-combat activation time and stamina to do their job. Buffers do it out of combat.
6) Vulnerable to effects. A mezzed healer is useless. An immobilized healer with an aura heal is useless. If his heal requires a to-hit check, accuracy debuffs may render it useless.
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When burst damage is not a concern, Empaths, Pain Domination users, and Thermal users can mitigate a lot more damage than even the perfect bubbler can alone.
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When is there a concern other than burst damage? Maybe I play too much redside, but most teams I've been on lately kill all LTs and minions in less than 5 seconds. At that point you have 1-3 bosses left, who in that 5 seconds have fired all their most powerful attacks off.
Take my team last night. Brute runs in, SoA drops Venom Grenade, my AR/Storm (who has 02 Boost) drop Freezing Rain. Footstomp + Suppression + Full Auto on enemies with around -40% resists. Also, they are running away and falling down instead of attacking.
End result? Everything dies. That character has gone 36-38 without using O2 Boost.
Oh dear. One of THESE threads. I do appreciate the detailed explanation and analysis.
Some fun facts:
The difference between 40% Defense and 45% Defense, is, most of the time, 45% Defense means you live through twice as much abuse.
40% means you live through twice as much as 30%.
So that's why capped Defense is such a big deal; you go from "a bit more than twice as much abuse" to "around ten times as much."
My experience (130+ levels of force field defender, as well as quite a lot of blasters, scrappers, and miscellaneous others) is that making the group-as-a-whole five times tougher means that you, plus one other Tank/Defender/Controller, make the group very safe from nearly everything.
Ten times tougher means that you may not need the other Tank/Defender/Controller- defensively.
Now for every T/D/C you remove from the team, you can add someone whose main job is damage (many Defenders and Controllers, of course, throw solid damage. But nothing, in my experience, beats a Blaster on "I can't die" mode.) And enough damage is mitigation all by itself. Five second fights are indeed frequent and enjoyable.
But getting back to the question of mitigation:
10x mitigation means, mostly, that natural regen rate takes care of incoming damage.When I was running Force Fields and I started getting pounded (everyone ELSE had capped defense...) people were happy to donate green and purple insps to me. They had quite a surplus built up.
Maximum acheivable mitigation is on the order of 300 times "unprotected level." Not 300%, 300 times. Or 30,000 %. That's a tank with capped Defense, 90% Resist to all incoming damage, and around three times the HP of a squishie (say, an Invuln with Dull Pain up.)
I find that 20x mitigation is more than enough for just about everything in the game. Even at 10x, you really are only fighting "the guys that break the rules". That may be psi-based attacks, it may be Gunslingers or Drones or Devouring Earth with Quartz out. It may be exotic damage types. But really, there is such a thing as defensive overkill.
To give the equivalent of 10x mitigation with healing, you'd have to be able to heal [say the tank, for simplicity] for ten times their HP, every fight.
Discuss.
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You're weighing the benefits of the Radiation and Storm debuffs too heavily. Purple Patch will quite quickly reduce the incredible benefits that you can gain from tohit debuffs to much less than you actually give them credit for. AVs are similarly resistant though additional reasons, though they'll also get benefit from the purple patch (Link for the chart of scaling AV debuff resistances).
While your numbers are appropriate for fighting even level enemies, you'll quickly find the debuffs to be lacking quite the punch you expected when taking on challenging scenarios. Buffs are never reduced in effectiveness. You may want to specifically mention this, especially if since you brought up +5 bosses.
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Good point. That would mean that, against AVs healing is actually a better form of mitigation than debuffs. Oh that's gonna rankle some folks.
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Doesn't change the fact a blaster with softcapped defenses from Cold Dom or FF buffs is taking a hell of a lot less damage than a defense-less blaster being hit by an AV.
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Alot of it is due to the elitist players who NEED to say that there are no healers. Play any other MMO, pick one, it doesn't matter, no one will every say they arent a "healer". Only in CoX have I seen this disussion. People forget what a phrase is and turn it into a debate that really should be ignored. Seasoned MMO players will know not to care about such semantics. A healer is a healer. When I first installed CoH, and saw the Defender class pic, I knew right then, Defenders would be the "healers" in CoH. I then logged on and made a controller and knew these where the "off healers" i.e. Druid,Shaman, Paladin.
We all know what each class is when we see it. If you've been playing MMO's long enough you know what they are and what they look like. Now CoH has AT's that are strictly "buffers/debuffer's something I enjoy, but people act like its a travesty if you ask for a healer.
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In a recent thread in this forum, a person commenting on the 'Misuse of the word "Healer",' a (predictably) big flame war erupted of healer-haters vs. healer supporters. People are throwing all sorts of hostile words around, including this gem.
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Mad sarcasm for the win, unless that other massive generalization you made was serious. Anyway, it isn't actually a generalization. There is (shock!) a best way to build a team. There is a best way to build the characters on that team. And those of us who number-grind towards that goal, rather than airily speculate towards it based on "experience," realize that heals are the least effective damage mitigation in the game.
Can't argue with numbers.
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Of course, no actual numbers were given by the poster, nor were any sources posted by that particular poster.
So for now I'm going to put aside the arguments of whether healers are all-that or not and talk about "damage mitigation" and "numbers." I will be collecting what I can find about how damage mitigation really works and hopefully we can all see what is actually happening. It should be educational.
Defense & To hit
The basic formula for to-hit appears to be
HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × (1 - TargetElusivity) × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods DefMods ) )
"Clamp" in this case bounds to hit chances between 5% and 95%. Base hit chances for players are 75% for even-level opponents falling to 20% for opponents at 6 levels above, and 8% for opponents more than 7 levels greater than the player. NPC hit chances are exactly 50%, but they can get to-hit penalties or bonuses based on their relative level to the player, and they can get accuracy bonuses as well.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics has more detailed information on the subject, with sources.
What this means for damage mitigation is that as long as you are fighting opponents between +0 and +5 to your level, your opponents get a base 50% to-hit modified by an accuracy dictated by their relative level and their relative class (minion, lieutenant, boss, or archvillain). So within an instanced mission, to-hit ranges from 50% for an even-level minion to a bounded 95% for a boss +5 levels to you. Typically if you are running on "Invincible" (setting 5), opponents are +3 and +4 to you, and +4 or +5 to someone you have sidekicked.
Defense on allies and to-hit penalties on the opponent have a natural point at 45% before they cap out. So...
A +0 minion will have a 5% chance to hit, compared to 50% chance unmodified. That is about 90% mitigation.
A +5 boss will have a 9.75% chance to hit, compared to the 95% chance unmodified. That is about 89.7% mitigation.
Capped out, defense mitigation seems to be the best you can get. However it has two weaknesses. First, it's a gamble. Defense either deflects the attack completely, or allows 100% of the attack to get through if it fails. There is a bit risk of allies dying to spike damage if their luck turns sour. Second, it is prone to cascade failure. Attacks like SMG bursts, sword strikes, and katana slashes have the potential to take out a chunk of defense. This can make it easier for more attacks to hit, which in turn debuffs defense even more. A firing squad of multiple gun and blade based minions and lieutenants can be an extreme threat to the health of those relying on defense alone for mitigation.
Shield Defense: Deflection & Battle Agility, base 15% (11.5% for scrappers & brutes), Phalanx Fighting 5% non-enhanceable + 3% (enhanceable) per teammate (3.75% and 2.25% for scrappers & brutes), Grant Cover 11.25% for teammates only (8.4% scrappers & brutes).
Alone, a shield defense tanker can manage about 29% defense with appropriate defense enhancements. To get the magic 45%, Combat Jumping (or Hover), Maneuvers, and Weave (from the fighting pool) needs to be added in. Or, simply have another shield-defense user close by to grant each other cover. Two shield-defense heroes can cap each other's defense relatively easily if they're both Tankers.
Scrappers tend to be slightly worse or slightly better depending on their primary. They get less defense than Tankers get from the same skills. But they can also get an enhanceable 15% defense against melee and lethal from a Broadsword primary (Parry power).
Stone Armor: Rock Armor 16% tanker or 12% brute vs. smashing & lethal, Brimstone 16% tanker or 12% brute vs. energy & negative. Granite Armor 20% or 15% all but Psi (with 50% or 37.5% resistance on top of that).
Stone armor mixes defense and resistance until level 32, where you suddenly get perfect defense and resistance at the same time, as long as you don't mind going anywhere. But the two basic toggles alone can get up to 25% defense on a tanker when slotted correctly.
Super Reflexes: Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, & Evasion have 13.875% positional defenses. Agile, Dodge, and Lucky provide 5.675% more, which totals to 19.55% defense before slotting. Upgrading six powers for defense is a big budget, but when done properly, you can get up to 30.5% defense to everything not including psionic. Scrappers and Brutes don't get the same defense from power pools that tankers do. So some help will be needed to top-off defense. But even so, the numbers are impressive.
Forcefields: Deflection Shield & Insulation shield 15% Defender or 11.25% others (Controller or Mastermind). Dispersion bubble 10% (7.5% others except Traps, which is 10% thanks to the fact that a pet generates it).
Properly slotted with SO or IO enhancements, a forcefield defender can manage to bubble anyone except himself to about 43% defense. It simply takes a 4 power combo of Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, Dispersion Bubble, and Maneuvers. This whole kit is available to Defenders by level 18. With that level of defense available, it's a wonder why forcefield users aren't more popular.
Cold Domination: Ice Shield & Glacial Shield 15% defenders, 11.25% corruptors.
Worth mentioning because these can top-off the defense of a defense built tanker or scrapper.
Radiation Emission: Radiation Infection, -31.25% to-hit Defender or -25% to-hit Corruptor or Controller.
Using a single power, Radiation users can "defend" as well as tankers and forcefield users, provided the whole group can be herded into the range of the Radiation Infection, and the anchor doesn't die too quickly. The fact that its an opponent debuff instead of a team buff makes it hard to work with, but when it does work, it works well. With To-hit enhancements, most opponents have their to-hit chances floored at 5% before accuracy multipliers are factored.
Storm Summoning: Hurricane -37.6% to-hit Defender, -30% to hit others + all sorts of other nasty effects.
Were you thinking Tsoo Sorcerers were bad? Hurricane by itself is strong enough to floor to-hit chances even cast from non-defenders (as long as it's properly slotted for to-hit). The only catch here is that it tends to push the affected targets out of range, and the debuff only lasts for 10 seconds once the target is out of range. So it's even more annoying to work with than Radiation Infection. Brutes, Tankers, and anybody built for AoE tend to hate Storm Summoners for just that reason.
Resistance
Resistance is easy to understand.
SufferedAmount = AppliedAmount × (100% TotalResistance)
The caps are set at 90% for Tankers, 85% for epic primaries, and 75% for everyone else. Minimum resistance is -300%, which means it is possible to take up to 4 times more damage than normal if you get debuffed that much. Most people are usually dead before that level of stacking happens.
This does mean Resistance% is effectively Mitigation%. So while Defense can get up to 90% mitigation for everyone, resistance can only get up to 75% mitigation for most people. Resistance also offers no defense against status effects. However most tanker, brute, and scrapper sets have specific powers to defend against the worst statuses.
Invulnerability: Resist Physical Damage 10% (tanker) or 7.5% (others) smashing & lethal. Temp Invulnerability 30% or 22.5% smashing & lethal. Resist Elements 10% or 7.5% vs. fire, cold, & toxic. Unyielding 5% or 3.75% resist + status defense. Unstoppable, 70% or 52.5% all but psi.
This particular set can cap smashing and lethal resistance with unstoppable, but usually offers only a 45% or 33.75% resistance to the same. Only passives seem to resist energy and elements, going from 10% (7.5%) normally to 80% (or 63.75%) during Unstoppable. All that is before enhancement, so expect 70% smashing and lethal resistance normally, and 15% everything else resistance when slotted properly.
Dark Armor: Dark Embrace 30% (22.5%) smashing & lethal, 20% (15%) negative & toxic. Murky Cloud 30% (22.5%) fire & cold, 20% negative & energy. Obsidian Shield 50% psionic & status protection.
Totals: 30% smashing & lethal, 20% energy, 40% negative energy, and 30% fire and cold. After enhancements, it comes to 46.8% smashing, lethal, fire & cold, 31.2% energy, and 62.4% negative. It's a very balanced set, but as you can see, nowhere near any caps. Help would be needed to reach "perfect" resistance.
Sonic Resonance: Sonic barrier 20% (defender) or 15% (others) to smashing, lethal, & toxic. Sonic Haven 20% or 15% to fire, cold, energy, & negative energy. Sonic Dispersion 15% or 11.25% vs. all but psionic.
Totals: 35% or 26.25% vs. all but psionic. After enhancements, 54.6% or 40.95%.
Sonic Resonance is the only Defender example of resistance buffing I can find. Thermal seems to offer a mixed healing and resistance package to Controllers and Corruptors.
All this means is that tankers can cap if they specialize and use their Tier 9 powers, but below Tier 9, resistance seems to be much weaker than defense. The one advantage I can find is that it is a constant mitigation and not prone to random failures. Get 50% resistance and you take half damage from everything. 75% resistance and you take a quarter damage from everything. This can be more than enough to prevent someone from being one-shotted. But it doesn't always replace the need for defense.
You would need two sonic defenders to replace a forcefield defender if you go that route. But if you do, expect good things for your team's damage output. Sonic Resonance can debuff the damage resistance of opponents by 30% directly, and 30% more using a teammate-targeted AoE (using Defender values). That means a Sonic defender can get the whole team up to blaster level of damage output, and improve actual blasters and scrappers to truly epic levels.
Slow
None of the power-sets are dedicated to slowing. But quite a few have a power that has a Slow effect. It seems to be applied like a status effect, so a good slow can act as damage mitigation up to 50%. However, I haven't been able to track down any solid data on how (or if) it stacks.
Healing
The "black-sheep" of damage mitigation would be healing. People either love it or hate it. No generic percentage of mitigation numbers are possible. Healing powers restore hit points that are already lost. So the best milestone is to generate HP/s (hit points per second) numbers for healing powers.
To start with, everybody actually has healing powers of a sort. Hit points are recovered at 5% every few seconds, taking 240 seconds (2 minutes) to go from 1 HP to full. Everybody also has a Rest power that can fully recharge HP and endurance in a few seconds once every 3 minutes, which can be hastened and made usable more frequently with recharge enhancements. (But honestly, who puts slots in to the Rest power?)
Most people at level 50 have a little over 1000 HP without HP buffs. Melee types get more, with Tankers getting the most at 1874 HP at 50. So given regeneration can restore this in 240 seconds, we have our first HP/s numbers.
Natural healing at level 50 is 4.17 HP/s most archetypes. 5.02 for Blasters & Stalkers, 5.58 for scrappers, 6.25 for brutes, and 7.81 HP/s for tankers.
We can easily get comparison numbers from most healing powers by dividing their HP recovery by the sum of their casting and recharge times.
Aid Other: 188.9 Tanker, Brute, or Scrapper to 262.4 for Defenders. 3.93 cast time + 10 seconds recharge time. Estimated recovery = 13.6 to 18.9 HP/s depending on AT.
Aid Self: 157.4 (Mastermind) to 367.3 (Tanker). 4.33s cast time + 20s recovery. Estimated recovery = 6.5 to 15.1 HP/s.
Healing Aura: 117.9 (Controller) to 133.8 (Defender). 2.03s cast & 8s recovery. HP/s values range from 11.8 to 13.3
Heal Other: 230.9 (Controller) to 262.4 (Defender). 2.27s cast & 4s recovery. HP/s values range from 36.8 to 41.8 HP/s.
Twilight Grasp: 238.8 HP healed (pet based, apparently). 2.37 s cast & 8s recovery. So 23 HP/s.
Transfusion: 238.8 HP healed (pet based, apparently). 1.17s cast & 8s recovery. So 26 HP/s.
Radiant Aura: 117.8 (Controller, Corruptor) to 133.9 (Defender). 2.03 cast & 8s recovery. So 11.7 to 13.3 HP/s
O2 Boost: 155.5 (Controller, Corruptor, Mastermind) to 176.7 (Defender). 2.27s cast and 4s recovery. So 24.8 to 28.2 HP/s recovery.
Nullify Pain or Warmth: 117.8 HP. 2.03s cast & 8s recharge. So 11.7 HP/s.
Soothe or Cauterize: 230.9 HP. 2.27s cast & 4s recharge. So 36.8 HP/s.
All these numbers are before Enhancements. Healing enhancements usually get the full 33% bonus before ED. So 3 slotted with SO enhancements (or IO), an improvement of about 95% is possible.
Converting to HP/s
We have a whole bunch of numbers for healing values that don't have any meaning compared to our numbers for Defense and Resistance. But we can still create a meaning from then by realizing that everyone does heal. A formula of
Healing rate / (1-mitigation%) = Effective HP/s mitigation
will give us a HP/s number of how much damage needs to happen per-second to actually overcome the rate of HP recovery our heroes have naturally. So we can start with the ideals.
90% possible mitigation from a maxed Defense yields:
4.17 HP/s / (1-90%) = 41.7 HP/s for most archtypes.
7.81 HP/s / (1-90%) = 78.1 HP/s for Tankers.
75% possible resistance for non tankers yields:
4.17 HP/s / (1-75%) = 16.7 HP/s.
An Empath Defender using both of his first two powers gets:
25.9 (Healing Aura + enhancements) + 81.5 (Heal Other, enhanced) + 4.17 (base healing) = 111.57 HP/s.
And thus, the numbers have just lied. (Sarcasm intended.) Picking an Empath Defender is more valuable than picking a Forcefield Defender by this logic.
Let's take a look at some combinations for a larger team.
90% possible mitigation from defense + max mitigation from resistance:
4.17 HP/s / (1-90%) / (1-75%) = 166.8 HP/s for squishies.
7.81 HP/s / (1-90%) / (1-90%) = 781 HP/s for tankers.
90% possible mitigation from defense + empath healing:
(4.17 HP/s + 25.9 HP/s + 81.5 HP/s) / (1-90%) = 1115.7HP/s
(7.81 HP/s + 25.9 HP/s + 81.5 HP/s) / (1-90%) = 1152.1 HP/s
max resistance + empath healing:
(4.17 HP/s + 25.9 HP/s + 81.5 HP/s) / (1-75%) = 446.28 HP/s
(7.81 HP/s + 25.9 HP/s + 81.5 HP/s) / (1-90%) = 1152.1 HP/s
Perfect 3 mitigation combo, squishie edition:
(4.17 HP/s + 25.9 HP/s + 81.5 HP/s) / (1-90%) / (1-75%) = 4462.8 HP/s.
Do you really need the Tanker edition?
But if you start to consider that level 50 heroes might have 1000 HP usually and rarely more than 2000 HP, a reality check is needed before you read too much into these numbers. No matter how many HP/s you "heal," burst damage can still be lethal if enough comes at once. Healing mitigation doesn't deal with burst damage. If over 1000 damage comes in at once, 95% of the time the character is going down if he isn't a tank, brute, or scrapper. For defense mitigation, 1000 damage can still be effectively lethal, but the odds of that damage landing are much worse. That works out to about 10% chance of being lethal if the alpha is from a single knockout blow or seismic smash, considerably less if it is from cascade failure from a firing squad, and practically non-existent for others unless the combined alpha of the enemy group exceeds 10,000 damage. Resistance mitigation does work. 4000 damage would have to come in at once for a squishie to be in danger of dropping from burst damage if resistance gets maxed. But if that 4000 damage does get unleashed at once, it is about 95% effective in dropping the teammate.
The bottom line?
Can a team survive without healers?
Yes, if they're good. Very specifically, a resistance based Tanker (dark, fire, invulnerability, or willpower), a sonic defender and a forcefield defender can join forces to create a 3 man team where the tank will only feel 1 point of damage out of 100. Natural healing is more than enough in this case, unless the two supporters start taking AoE damage or drawing aggro. From this base team, it would then be easy to pick up 5 more DPS people and you're ready to steamroll.
Defense based armors (Ice, Shield, or Super Reflexes) get the short end of the stick somewhat. Their defenses overlap with with a forcefielder can do. So the defenses aren't really helping anymore. A broadsword & shield scrapper or a katana & super reflex scrapper might not have need of any additional defense at all. All that really means is the forcefielder might be replaceable with cold domination users, or another shield user. But to get that perfect resistance, two sonic resonance users become necessary. Frankly they aren't that easy to find.
So healers are not important, right?
My numbers show me almost the complete opposite. When burst damage is not a concern, Empaths, Pain Domination users, and Thermal users can mitigate a lot more damage than even the perfect bubbler can alone. But things start getting really powerful when they mix. One forcefield caster and one empath working together is worth about 10 empaths, and will turn anybody in the team into a tank. So actually, everybody is important except the tankers. Sorry tankers.
So who you gonna call?
For small teams who aren't usually facing big spawns, or for teams tolerant of herding and control tactics, the best single-person damage mitigation experts are the Storm Summoners, Dark Defenders and Radiation Defenders, in no particular order. All three of these power sets offer both the means to shut down the to-hit ability of opponents, effectively hitting the defense cap without actual defense, and some means of healing to recover what little damage that does get through before it becomes a big issue. You also get Slow based mitigation from Snow Storm, Tar Patch, or Lingering Radiation, so either of these three can lock-down a medium sized enemy group before sending the rest of the team in to clean up.
For large teams, a forcefield user and an empath are all you really need. I might make a suggestion that a forcefield defender and a /Thermal controller would give somewhat better results, with a resistance tanker, or scrapper in front. But that isn't worth stressing over if the right people just aren't available at the time.
If you have read and understood so far, you have seen "the numbers" for yourself, and should be well equipped to start picking good combinations for teams. Feel free to start up your flamethrowers and get the BBQ started now. What am I not seeing that can change these conclusions?