"Damage Mitigation" and "Numbers"
By
Antigonus,
Posted on: 2009-05-23 06:46 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Umbral:
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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.
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The error in terminology isn't actually lost on me. But with surprising regularly I do hear people claim that "healing is the worst damage mitigation," in the healer-hater vs. healer supporter threads. The fact that the bubblers and tanks simply don't take a large chunk of the damage to begin with is very different than having someone restore the damage after the fact. But people do need a way to somehow compare recovery with prevention in order to make a good decision on how to build their own characters and recruit teammates. Such is life in CoX.
Starsman:
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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.
(..snip..)
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.
(..snip..)
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.
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Ironically, even though you didn't read my entire post, your conclusions are the same that I made. Specifically, the best way to build a solid defense for a team is to combine Defense with Healing. Good job. 
Emgro:
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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.
(..snip..)
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.
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.
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Either I've been short of VEATs in my team, or my VEAT associates have been absolutely terrible. The one team I had with an Arachnos Solder and a Widow on it was faceplanting left and right. But come to think of it, I didn't need to heal much, since the team was just popping Awakenings and resting up between waves.
I'll get back to you in a bit.
Fulmens:
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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."
(..snip..)
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.
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You do raise a good point in that Mitigation% can be itself misleading. 90% mitigation allows 1/10 damage to get through, 80% mitigation allows 1/5 damage to get through, so it's half as effective. 60% mitigation allows 1/2.5 damage to get through so it's half as effective again as 80% mitigation. For Defense numbers, 45% is twice as good as 40%, which is twice as good 30%.
But that is really what makes defense+healing so great if you can reach the numbers. Instead of healing the tank full HP 10 times during the fight, you only really need to heal the tank to full HP once per fight.
I think an example is needed of how healing vs. defense might work in an actual situation. Unfortunately, I can't find information on standard enemy types at level 50. But information from Custom mobs in Architect Entertainment is easily available. For now, let's create a custom "group" of super-strength/invulnerability critters (who fly, and have a big S painted on their chest for good measure, not that it matters). We can set the difficulty at Standard so things don't get too hectic. (Or will they?) From Super strength alone:
Minion:
Jab: 72.82 damage burst, 23.72 DPS
Punch: 107.09 burst, 20.59 DPS
Hurl: 175.63 burst, 16.73 DPS
Totals: 355.54 burst, 61.04 DPS (And usually less, since they aren't prone to throwing rocks from within melee range.)
Approximate to-hit (after accuracy): 50%
Lieutenant:
Jab: 109.23 burst, 35.58 DPS
Punch: 160.63 burst, 30.89 DPS
Haymaker: 263.44 burst, 27.73 DPS
Hurl: 263.44 burst, 25.09 DPS
Totals: 796.74 burst, 119.29 DPS (Same Disclaimer applies)
Approximate to-hit (after accuracy): 57.5%
Boss:
Jab: 182.05 burst, 59.30 DPS
Punch: 267.72 burst, 51.49 DPS
Haymaker: 439.07 burst, 46.22 DPS
Knockout Blow: 953.10 burst, 35 DPS
Hurl: 439.07 burst, 41.82 DPS
Totals: 2281.01 burst, 233.83 DPS (Ouch!)
Approximate to-hit (after accuracy): 65%
If we were to take a spawn of say, 5 minions, 3 lieutenants, and 1 boss. The expected alpha would be something on the order of 3745, without any mitigation. That would be enough to drop two tankers if they didn't have their defenses up. No amount of healing alone is even possible to keep the point-man alive in this case. A top forcefield defender who can manage 45% defense will reduce that an order of magnitude. The alpha that does get through is only 375 on average (but with Knockout blow so powerful, a boss can still one-shot a person about 1 out of 50 times, and give the point-man a good scare maybe 1 in 10 times. Natural healing would take on average 90 seconds (squishie) to 48 seconds (tanker) to recover between alpha strikes, assuming the rest of the team steamrolls the spawn before they get a second chance to attack. 1 out of 10 times, knockout blow is going to hit, which is going to keep the blaster or controller on point out for a good 3 minutes, or until Rest is available, before it's safe to take another alpha.
If the bubbler is a controller, mastermind, or cold domination user, things get slightly worse. With 36% defense, 28% of the damage gets through, or about 1/3.6 damage. The alpha expected on average is going to be to to tune of 1048.6, which means you need an actual tanker tanking, and it would take on average of 150 seconds to recover naturally if some recovery or +HP powers aren't invested in.
Enter the healer. A lazy empath, pain domination, or thermal user would still recover about 100 HP/s. So on average, it would take 4 seconds for the empath to heal the point-man of the alpha damage. (One healing aura, one heal other, and you're done most of the time.) Worst case not involving face-planting takes about 20 seconds to heal the tank.
You try to convince Mr. Brute to stick around and rest for a minute when an available healer can get him ready for the next wave even before he finishes the current one. If it's me, I'll just grab the healer and get on with it.
But still, score one for the healer haters anyway. 45% defense + 90% resistance on a tanker would mean the alpha is reduced to 37.5 damage, on average. That would take about 5 seconds to heal naturally. It is also just as possible to have a controller mass-hold or lockdown the whole spawn (except maybe the bosses) and prevent the opponents from getting a chance to attack to begin with.
All this is simply an example. What you might find in missions can vary wildly depending on your party size and team leader's notoriety setting.
In other news, I think a new king of Damage Mitigation needs to be crowned. There is a video posted to the Scrapper forum basically of a dark/shield scrapper soloing Lord Recluse in an Architect mission. The poster himself claims that he got really lucky since usually Big R zaps endurance recovery followed shortly by an out-of-endurance mass detoggling and a Game Over. But even so, that is impressive.
The whole healing debate also hinges on the amount of regeneration the team has as well. I'd say having an Empath on the team who is able to keep Regeneration Aura up most of the time, or two to keep it perma, with sufficient mitigation will completely remove the need for any healing whatsoever.
Furthermore, if I'm a high recharge /MM Blaster, /Psi Dom, WP Scrapper/Tank/Brute/Scrapper or Stone Armour Brute/Tank, I'm going to be getting a far better boost to my survivability by having soft-capped defense and some additional resistance than any healing could possibly give. Add any sets that have any sort of self-heal into the equation too and you'll see that healing as a form of 'survival increase' is very moot, especially once power sets start to mature. I'm not saying healing is bad. I'm saying [b]DEDICATED HEALERS ARE BAD[/i] because, especially later on, they don't bring a lot to good teams.
Not only that, but most sets that dedicated healers do not choose have enough healing to make up for any bumps while steamrolling through mobs. A Dark Defender or a Kinetics Defender both have very potent heals but both would be remiss if they chose to be dedicated healers to the point of ignoring their other abilities.
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The error in terminology isn't actually lost on me. But with surprising regularly I do hear people claim that "healing is the worst damage mitigation," in the healer-hater vs. healer supporter threads. The fact that the bubblers and tanks simply don't take a large chunk of the damage to begin with is very different than having someone restore the damage after the fact. But people do need a way to somehow compare recovery with prevention in order to make a good decision on how to build their own characters and recruit teammates. Such is life in CoX.
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Thats the thing though. healing is reactionary, and doesn't scale to content.
A heal doesn't remain as potent when the mobs do to keep parity. A buff does.
Not to mention that healing as you said, happens after the fact. Ask any regen scrapper what the one flaw is in their powerset. Its the fact you cannot regenerate from zero HP.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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Thats the thing though. healing is reactionary, and doesn't scale to content.
A heal doesn't remain as potent when the mobs do to keep parity. A buff does.
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That's not entirely true.
While capped defense may scale to always protect 95% of the time, if that 5% is enough to damage you faster than your natural regen can recover, you will lose without heals. Same with capped resistance. There is no way in this game to completely stop all incoming damage from mobs that aren't held, and if that damage exceeds your ability to stop it you will be defeated. In my experience, people want healers specifically so they can push the envelope just past the point where buffs alone can't keep a team alive.
I guess the obvious answer is to only play Controllers/Dominators.
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I guess the obvious answer is to only play Controllers/Dominators.
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And, interestingly enough, that isn't even entirely true. Controllers and Dominators using AoE mezzes cannot reliably reduce incoming damage by 100%. Because they have to actually hit with their controls, even if they're guaranteed to have high enough magnitude to hold anything, 5% of the time, they won't hit and won't end up reducing the damage at all. Just something to think about if you're considering Controls to be the biggest, baddest mitigation available.
Also, keep in mind that the purple patch reduces the duration of mez effects as well. You might be able to mez an even con enemy permanently, but you'll be significantly challenged to do the same to a +5 enemy when the duration of your mezzes is reduced to 30% of what it is normally. To get the same level of coverage on a +5 enemy, you'd need to have 333.33% uptime on AoE controls.
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Elitism can work in both ways, you know.
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Being a veteran who doesnt wince at a phrase is far from elitist. I play the game for fun, I leave my ego at the log in screen, I dont care if I'm considered or called a "healer" on my defender since its pure semantics and has nothing to do with me personally. If you get kicked off a team because somone wanted you to heal, then hey tough. But honestly how much does this happen? and in the end you'll get another team. And so the world keeps going. See in the end , after you sign off and head to the real world, the giant ego you have on the boards about a phrase, is diluted by real life problems and or agendas.
Thats what people are doing here, arguing over semantics. Because you just cant accept a phrase as "healer". I suppose your one of those people who call waiters "servers" or Stewardesses "Flight attendants". Whether you do or you dont, its all semantics, if you let some thing like that bother you, then you seriously need some down time. Rethink your life, because you failed somewhere along the road.
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SStingray:
Let's look at the "natural" regen of that Tank- not even Regeneration Aura. I am working these numbers out in public, so I may not prove what I expect.
I can get to almost 250% Regen with nothing but 5 slots in Health and, umm, a couple hundred million inf. (Numina's Heal and unique, Regenerative Flesh unique, and two generic Heals.) I think it's 232%. Assuming I pick up the other 18% somewhere else, that's a nice round 250%. When Dull Pain is up (about 2 minutes up, 1 minute down) that tank is at around 160% of normal HP. Normal HP is a bit over 1800. We can get 10% easily from accolades, so let's round off to 2000 (or 3000 with Dull Pain.) Dull Pain is, itself, about a 1500 point heal under these circumstances. Just incidentally.
So we're healing 3750 HP in those 2 minutes, or a little under 2000 HP/minute- if we throw in the Dull Pain at the end of that minute, we're looking at over 1800 HP per minute. There are spikes in the healing, but that's a nice round number.
So the healing is 1800/60 = 30 hit points per second. Assuming our "Tank" was Defense only, no resistance, that 375 HP of alpha strike would take about 13 seconds to heal back. Given a 50% Resist, that would be... six seconds to heal back.
Then there are Firetanks, Dark Armor tanks (who bring their own self-heal), Stone tanks (who bring quite a lot of +Regen), and you can see that tank + Force Fielder is quite a good combo for mitigating damage.
I personally feel that nearly any two of (Tank, Defender, Controller) should be able to keep a team of 8 alive and healthy through almost any fight thorugh the various types of mitigation. I used to say "Force Fielder plus anything else is very safe", but I generalized.
I guess it comes down to that. You need a little more than "10x mitigation" to be safe. You can get that through multiplying various mitigators. ToHit debuffs, damage debuffs, defense buffs, resistance buffs, slows, holds, or... yes, heals. But the "heal" part generally provides less than 2x mitigation in any given fight, so calling for healing is a bit ... backwards.
You don't NEED a tank in this game. You don't NEED healing. You don't NEED blasters and you don't NEED crowd control. You NEED some combination of mitigation that keeps everyone alive, and you NEED enough damage to win the fight. There's a hundred different ways to get there.
I have now talked my way into hopeless generalities and I will now yield the floor.
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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Thats the thing though. healing is reactionary, and doesn't scale to content.
A heal doesn't remain as potent when the mobs do to keep parity. A buff does.
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Trying to verify content scaling was a little difficult, and the only keywords I could find that got anything with useful numbers is "Purple Patch."
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Purple_Patch
Accounting for accuracy scaling up is relatively easy. Accuracy mods happen after defense & to hit calculations, so they multiply right in. But you also get damage mods going both ways. So things get heavy in a hurry. From my example above:
Even level: 3745 HP alpha, 510.4 DPS
Level +1: 4573 HP alpha, 623.2 DPS & your attacks do 90% damage, with your base to-hit at 65%
Level +2: 5482 HP alpha, 747.2 DPS, & your attacks do 80% damage, with your base to-hit at 56%
Level +3: 6475 alpha, 882.5 DPS & your attacks do 65% damage with your base to-hit at 48%
Level +4: 7550 alpha, 1029.0 DPS & your attacks do 48% damage with your base to-hit at 39%.
We have already established that this level of difficulty is too great for any healer, or any number of healers, to be sufficient without some other mitigation present. But with the Defense + healing model that I have been using, the healer may have to use 2 Heal others instead of one, as long as you have 45% defense from whatever methods you choose. 10 seconds to recover instead of 4? With just defense, the tanker takes a lot longer to naturally heal the damage without an investment in resistance or self regeneration. If they take 755 from what gets past defense, it heals in about 106 seconds, or just over a minute and a half if they don't resort to the Rest power. Even if you cut that in half by having better regeneration and some resistance, Mr. Brute or even Mr. Tank is even more motivated to call for a healer.
Going the opposite direction, we can cut down the number of expected enemies in the group to just three minions and a lieutenant at worst if we limit our group to just two people at notoriety 1. Burst damage gets reduced to 991 on average, while DPS gets to be about 160.2 HP/s. This kind of team isn't likely to defeat everyone in a big alpha strike. But 90% force-field mitigation reduces the alpha to 99.1, which would take 25 seconds to heal properly, but allow only 16.2 HP/s through for the rest of that battle adding about 4 seconds of recovery for each second the battle drags out (on average). An empath on the other hand would recover 112 HP/s, which is much less than fully required to deal with the threat. But should the duo survive, they'll be fully recovered in no more than 12 seconds.
So the best way to avoid down-time in a duo is not a pure forcefielder or a pure healer, but a half & half person who can handle both. Should the forcefield defender invest in Aid Other, that will cover 100% of the mitigation for just two, and the blaster up front will be perfectly happy. Otherwise call the Radiation, Dark, or Storm user. (Or perhaps the dark + shield scrapper?)
But all is not lost if a blaster get stuck with the Empath in a duo. Absorb Pain adds about 39.7 HP/s healing, if the empath uses it, and you still have the more advanced skills. Fortitude does add a 15% defense to an ally (with a 30% damage boost and a good chunk of +to-hit as well). So your Empath using his full set gives you 142 HP/s healing and about 30% defense mitigation tacked on to take DPS down to 112.4. So survive the alpha and the full Empath will be giving you HP back as you fight.
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Elitism can work in both ways, you know.
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Being a veteran who doesnt wince at a phrase is far from elitist. I play the game for fun, I leave my ego at the log in screen, I dont care if I'm considered or called a "healer" on my defender since its pure semantics and has nothing to do with me personally. If you get kicked off a team because somone wanted you to heal, then hey tough. But honestly how much does this happen? and in the end you'll get another team. And so the world keeps going. See in the end , after you sign off and head to the real world, the giant ego you have on the boards about a phrase, is diluted by real life problems and or agendas.
Thats what people are doing here, arguing over semantics. Because you just cant accept a phrase as "healer". I suppose your one of those people who call waiters "servers" or Stewardesses "Flight attendants". Whether you do or you dont, its all semantics, if you let some thing like that bother you, then you seriously need some down time. Rethink your life, because you failed somewhere along the road.
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Any other assumptions or general antagonism you want to throw at me (or the general public)? I'd really like you to get it all out of your system before I even bother replying, as you seem to delve into them quite frequently and frankly they do sort of reduce the chances of actually discussing the topic with anything even remotely resembling civility.
As that's all I'm interested in doing - discussing a topic, and explaining my viewpoint on it, and why I think a particular term is both inaccurate and a little shortsighted to use.
Going to emphasize that for your consideration: My only feelings in regard to the term in question is that I feel it's fairly inaccurate and shortsighted.
With that out of the way, please. Do get any further negativity out of your system, and try to debate like a thoughtful, mature person. I can't guarantee I'll do the same, but I certainly find pretend fun enough to give it a shot if you will. :3
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SStingray:
Let's look at the "natural" regen of that Tank- not even Regeneration Aura. I am working these numbers out in public, so I may not prove what I expect.
I can get to almost 250% Regen with nothing but 5 slots in Health and, umm, a couple hundred million inf. (Numina's Heal and unique, Regenerative Flesh unique, and two generic Heals.)...
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Good catch. The 240 seconds to go from full from 1 HP is 4 minutes, not 2. But otherwise it checks out.
Dull Pain would heal 1492 HP, once every 360 seconds, so it can be worth about 4.1 HP/s in healing, technically. Health pool would add a +125% regeneration from its own effect and IO enhancements, with the two procs adding 20% and 25% regeneration on top of that for a flat 250%. (Mids' reports 294%, but I don't know how it's computing that number.) Dull pain will increase the total by 746 when slotted for healing, which would get the total up to about 2600 or so.
Natural healing boosted by health and procs would be about 27 HP/s, with Dull Pain counting for an additional 4.1 HP/s on its own. So in this case, our Invulnerability tanker self heals close to what a real healer would do. Score another point for the healer-haters. Now if we can only do something about those crappy energy and element resistances when Unstoppable isn't running we would be in business. 
Actually, I really can agree with you in that there isn't one "best" way to deal with the whole mitigation issue, even though some people swear left and right that they've read the numbers and found healers useless, period. But I think you got me this time. If you can get a tanker with Health of Aid Self with a +HP build, or even a self-healing tanker like Fire or Dark, an actual healer does become useless, and a two person team of tank + forcefield can cover the whole team as long as the tank keeps control.
I can't help but to wonder what those tankers are doing to survive before level 50 and the purple IO set.
I think the point is that a team can do well with "healers" and a team can do well with Tankers.
I think it's more a matter of the team adapting their playstyle to the mitigation they have or want to use, rather than turning up their nose at either "healers" or Tankers.
Use what you have to the best effect.
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Either I've been short of VEATs in my team, or my VEAT associates have been absolutely terrible. The one team I had with an Arachnos Solder and a Widow on it was faceplanting left and right. But come to think of it, I didn't need to heal much, since the team was just popping Awakenings and resting up between waves.
I'll get back to you in a bit.
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So... when I don't quote numbers (that are publicly available), I'm being evasive and lacking in detail, but when you go by (clearly limited) personal experience, it counts as authority. Yeah, that's real productive.
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Seasoned MMO players will know not to care about such semantics.
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You certainly seem to care. A lot.
I still believe that punching stuff in the face serves as excellent mitigation. Things that are dead deal no damage; the faster my team can down a mob, the less you'll even have to worry about any of this. In the case of Empathy, for instance, the heals may be nice, but Fortitude, Recovery Aura, and Adrenalin Boost are where it's at (for me).
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SStingray:
Let's look at the "natural" regen of that Tank- not even Regeneration Aura. I am working these numbers out in public, so I may not prove what I expect.
I can get to almost 250% Regen with nothing but 5 slots in Health and, umm, a couple hundred million inf. (Numina's Heal and unique, Regenerative Flesh unique, and two generic Heals.)...
[/ QUOTE ]
Good catch. The 240 seconds to go from full from 1 HP is 4 minutes, not 2. But otherwise it checks out.
Dull Pain would heal 1492 HP, once every 360 seconds, so it can be worth about 4.1 HP/s in healing, technically. Health pool would add a +125% regeneration from its own effect and IO enhancements, with the two procs adding 20% and 25% regeneration on top of that for a flat 250%. (Mids' reports 294%, but I don't know how it's computing that number.) Dull pain will increase the total by 746 when slotted for healing, which would get the total up to about 2600 or so.
Natural healing boosted by health and procs would be about 27 HP/s, with Dull Pain counting for an additional 4.1 HP/s on its own. So in this case, our Invulnerability tanker self heals close to what a real healer would do. Score another point for the healer-haters. Now if we can only do something about those crappy energy and element resistances when Unstoppable isn't running we would be in business.
Actually, I really can agree with you in that there isn't one "best" way to deal with the whole mitigation issue, even though some people swear left and right that they've read the numbers and found healers useless, period. But I think you got me this time. If you can get a tanker with Health of Aid Self with a +HP build, or even a self-healing tanker like Fire or Dark, an actual healer does become useless, and a two person team of tank + forcefield can cover the whole team as long as the tank keeps control.
I can't help but to wonder what those tankers are doing to survive before level 50 and the purple IO set.
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Theyre tanking just fine without it.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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SStingray:
Let's look at the "natural" regen of that Tank- not even Regeneration Aura. I am working these numbers out in public, so I may not prove what I expect.
I can get to almost 250% Regen with nothing but 5 slots in Health and, umm, a couple hundred million inf. (Numina's Heal and unique, Regenerative Flesh unique, and two generic Heals.)...
[/ QUOTE ]
Good catch. The 240 seconds to go from full from 1 HP is 4 minutes, not 2. But otherwise it checks out.
Dull Pain would heal 1492 HP, once every 360 seconds, so it can be worth about 4.1 HP/s in healing, technically. Health pool would add a +125% regeneration from its own effect and IO enhancements, with the two procs adding 20% and 25% regeneration on top of that for a flat 250%. (Mids' reports 294%, but I don't know how it's computing that number.) Dull pain will increase the total by 746 when slotted for healing, which would get the total up to about 2600 or so.
Natural healing boosted by health and procs would be about 27 HP/s, with Dull Pain counting for an additional 4.1 HP/s on its own. So in this case, our Invulnerability tanker self heals close to what a real healer would do. Score another point for the healer-haters. Now if we can only do something about those crappy energy and element resistances when Unstoppable isn't running we would be in business.
[...]
I can't help but to wonder what those tankers are doing to survive before level 50 and the purple IO set.
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FIRST: redoing my math. I think I'm right but lemme go through it again.
250% of 3000 per 4 minutes is 250% of 750 per minute, or around 1800 per minute. I may have been unclear because the DURATION of Dull Pain is 2 minutes (and with three Recharge SO's it recharges in something like 3 minutes 10 seconds). So I was looking at the cycle something like this:
Minute 1: regen 1800 HP (Dull Pain up)
Minute 2: regen 1800 HP (Dull Pain up)
Minute 3: regen 1200 HP (Dull Pain Down), hit Dull Pain at the end, heal for a MAX of 1600, call it 1800 HP of heal + regen for convenience's sake.
Second, a couple of weenie points- I didn't get this post count by being reasonable.
* You frequently overlook the effects of slotting. If you're an Empath and you're not slotting Fortitude for Defense, I'm cutting you out of my will. If you're a Tanker who's not slotting Dull Pain for both recharge and healing, you should be thinking about your OWN will.
* I think you're also overestimating how tough it is to get the listed Regen. If you slot Health with three SO's, you're at 180%. Which is not too shabby. A 1800 HP scrapper with 180% Regen is, lemme try math in public again, 810 HP per minute or 13 HP per second. (the 295% number is, I'm fairly sure, Mid's getting confused. Should be 100% for being alive, plus (40% x 195% ) or about 80% for Health, and add to THAT the 45% from the two uniques and 12% for the Numina set bonus. Again, math in public, I could be wrong.)
* third, it sounds like you're deep in the "tank + heal" mindset. It might just be "that's the way the conversation went" but if you look up any of TopDoc's superteams... it's far from the only way to go. Any two layers of mitigation will do. If the alpha is "giving" and not "receiving" (see: Inferno, any Controller) that helps too.
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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You certainly seem to care. A lot.
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I usually post when something peaks my interest, plus I'm usually the voice of rational on certain boards since I don't take MMO's as serious as others. Hopefully someone sees the post and realizes how silly people are. In the end you can hate it or love it, but the world goes on. I'm not here to convert anyone just to make people think, even if it is for five seconds.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
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With that out of the way, please. Do get any further negativity out of your system, and try to debate like a thoughtful, mature person. I can't guarantee I'll do the same, but I certainly find pretend fun enough to give it a shot if you will. :3
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I get it, you come on the boards and debate, thats fine, but I use some retrospect, especially when it comes to discussing something so trivial. If you took it too personally then, hey thats how you feel. On the topic on maturity, well you really arent winning an award for "most mature poster" on an MMO board, it just aint gonna happen. What you can look forward to is atleast, some decent posts. In the end where all here to discuss semantics, honestly I missed the days people actually PLAYED the game.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
<QR>
Funny, i allways saw Resistance as "technical HP", meaning if you have 30% resistance, you have 30% more hp
meaning, one has 1000hp, and recover .5hp/sec
1000/100=10 x .5= 5 hp/s
now, add 30% res:
1033.33/100=10.33 x .5= 5.16 hp/s
5.16/5= 1.032
thats only 3.2% more effective than no res if it's at 30%, meaning that migitation is only effective when in great amounts (Capped res) or coupled with other forms of migitation
EX:
Add some fancy set-bonus shenannigans and health, etc to turn that .5 into a 1.5 hp regen rate:
1033.33/100=10.33 x 1.5= 15.49 hp/sec
coupled with another form, it is over 3x as effective as the Resistance alone.
Tack on say, 15% DEF, and now attacks have only a 35% chance to hit you, and when they do, they must either be strong enough, or lucky enough to break 16ish DPS (anti-hp/s)
hope this made sense, and also that this math can be applied easier to the OP's
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Elitism can work in both ways, you know.
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Being a veteran who doesnt wince at a phrase is far from elitist. I play the game for fun, I leave my ego at the log in screen, I dont care if I'm considered or called a "healer" on my defender since its pure semantics and has nothing to do with me personally. If you get kicked off a team because somone wanted you to heal, then hey tough. But honestly how much does this happen? and in the end you'll get another team. And so the world keeps going. See in the end , after you sign off and head to the real world, the giant ego you have on the boards about a phrase, is diluted by real life problems and or agendas.
Thats what people are doing here, arguing over semantics. Because you just cant accept a phrase as "healer". I suppose your one of those people who call waiters "servers" or Stewardesses "Flight attendants". Whether you do or you dont, its all semantics, if you let some thing like that bother you, then you seriously need some down time. Rethink your life, because you failed somewhere along the road.
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You complketely miss the point.
We dont hate the term healer for being the descriptor. We hate it because it generally is used by a certain type of person who promotes a stereotype.
back a couple years ago, if you were not an empath, you NEVER found a team unless you grouped with friends.
Everyone was so caught up in "healers" that they completely ignored you if you didnt fall within that tableau.
After a long while of this, people finally started inviting other types of defenders, and frankly, you try living through multiple years of being ignored (and many still are. ask a trick arrow or cold defender how often they get teams), you start to get a little angry about it.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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You complketely miss the point.
We dont hate the term healer for being the descriptor. We hate it because it generally is used by a certain type of person who promotes a stereotype.
back a couple years ago, if you were not an empath, you NEVER found a team unless you grouped with friends.
Everyone was so caught up in "healers" that they completely ignored you if you didnt fall within that tableau.
After a long while of this, people finally started inviting other types of defenders, and frankly, you try living through multiple years of being ignored (and many still are. ask a trick arrow or cold defender how often they get teams), you start to get a little angry about it.
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I get the point, its just so trivial that even to complain about is xeric. My first Villain was a Dark/Ice Corr, my first defender was a dark/dark/. So I know the life of having either one heal or just a buff/debuff combo. I still got on teams. A simple "dont kill my anchor" helped with teams who where new to aoe debuffs. If not I explained what they did. I've found teams with non emp AT's just fine. I've played on Protector, Guardian, Triumph, and Pinnacle. I've never had a problem getting teams with a Defender that wasn't an emp "a couple of years ago".
I don't know what your doing but if I cant find a team, I make one. And I have much success. "Never" finding a team is how YOU feel and or YOUR experience. I on the other hand have had no problems.
As for getting angry over not getting a team because of your AT...make one. People are always looking for teams, at all levels. If you've been playing for a "couple of years" you should know this very fact.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
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[ QUOTE ]
You complketely miss the point.
We dont hate the term healer for being the descriptor. We hate it because it generally is used by a certain type of person who promotes a stereotype.
back a couple years ago, if you were not an empath, you NEVER found a team unless you grouped with friends.
Everyone was so caught up in "healers" that they completely ignored you if you didnt fall within that tableau.
After a long while of this, people finally started inviting other types of defenders, and frankly, you try living through multiple years of being ignored (and many still are. ask a trick arrow or cold defender how often they get teams), you start to get a little angry about it.
[/ QUOTE ]
I get the point, its just so trivial that even to complain about is xeric. My first Villain was a Dark/Ice Corr, my first defender was a dark/dark/. So I know the life of having either one heal or just a buff/debuff combo. I still got on teams. A simple "dont kill my anchor" helped with teams who where new to aoe debuffs. If not I explained what they did. I've found teams with non emp AT's just fine. I've played on Protector, Guardian, Triumph, and Pinnacle. I've never had a problem getting teams with a Defender that wasn't an emp "a couple of years ago".
I don't know what your doing but if I cant find a team, I make one. And I have much success. "Never" finding a team is how YOU feel and or YOUR experience. I on the other hand have had no problems.
As for getting angry over not getting a team because of your AT...make one. People are always looking for teams, at all levels. If you've been playing for a "couple of years" you should know this very fact.
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I( know that fact. its why I generally dont bother with pick up teams anymore and only group with friends.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
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With that out of the way, please. Do get any further negativity out of your system, and try to debate like a thoughtful, mature person. I can't guarantee I'll do the same, but I certainly find pretend fun enough to give it a shot if you will. :3
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I get it, you come on the boards and debate, thats fine, but I use some retrospect, especially when it comes to discussing something so trivial. If you took it too personally then, hey thats how you feel. On the topic on maturity, well you really arent winning an award for "most mature poster" on an MMO board, it just aint gonna happen. What you can look forward to is atleast, some decent posts. In the end where all here to discuss semantics, honestly I missed the days people actually PLAYED the game.
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I do play the game. This is just what I do when I'm working on other things and need a momentary distraction in order to provide some bit of insight into my current project or focus. I'm ADD; That doesn't mean I'm not intelligent, but I tend to be fueled entirely by two things: Interest and Distraction. The more I have of one or the other, the better I get at doing something. Of course, that latter comes with a bleed point where I can't quite focus enough on one thing, but I'm getting better at balancing it.
I also don't recall exactly where I stated I was mature - Infact, I do believe I stated the opposite in that I'm not very mature at all, but when the situation demands I can engage in an intelligent, mature discourse without (usually) resorting to any jabs as to my opponent's personal wellbeing (or the wellbeing of the people they represent). Because I like debates. I like discussions. Even about the silliest things imaginable, because it all shows you so much about the person in question. It's all examinations of logic, and can lead to insights about other subjects that aren't even related (the infamous tangent).
You personally find the term trivial - I agree, honestly, as like many other ridiculous, blanket terms that make it into the English language, it's often misused, mangled, and thrown down as a profound exclamation far more often then it should be. And that's sort of my issue with the term as it is: People abuse the hell out of it, they throw it around in a meaningless fashion, and then they get upset when people misinterpret what they meant, or they themselves take it far more seriously then it needs to be taken. It's a word. It's also a word that, in the MMO community, describes a stereotype of player behavior. And that's the thing I'm most interested in discussing - a negative stereotype that may not be wholly deserved because people are dragging it over from other games where it was a positive stereotype, into a game with a wildly different system.
Healing may be necessary and extremely beneficial in games set up in a traditional MMO fashion, but for the most part, City Of * isn't set up in a traditional fashion. And this is entirely on purpose, as the game is modeled after another tabletop game (Hero System - Specifically Champions) where Healing was just as unimportant for the most part, while still being a useful power to have for those emergency situations. This is contrary to other games that have lent their gaming model (Warhammer Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, and so on) that was built up on what we can call the Tank & Spank (Tank, Healer, DPSx2) four player format that in other games has evolved up into the 5 or 6 player format (Everquest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer: AoR, most Korean Microtransaction MMOs) of requiring the same. However, much like Hero System... Co* doesn't require a healer. A group of heroes can do fine as long as their individual mitigation techniques are solid, which may or may not include a heal at all. And if it does, the individual hero can supply his own heal that's sufficient for most combat situations without relying on someone else. It all depends on how the player decides they want to set up their character, and with Power Pools so readily available, that can happen in Co* as well.
It's two wildly different systems, and because of people trying to apply one big generic system to MMOs in general without consideration of the system put in place by the designers (in effect trying to pigeonhole and stereotype anyone that's ever played an MMO ever, much like people used to do to people that played tabletop games back in the 70's and 80's), it leads to a plethora of misconceptions and hurt feelings that brings us to the problem we have today of nobody being able to decide on what 'Healer' means, and whether it's a good or bad thing.
The use of the term is inaccurate when applied to Co* archetypes, and it's shortsighted when applied to MMOs in general. Other then that, what the hell do I care what you call someone? If you want to be ignorant about things, willfully, and refuse to change your beliefs for anyone, that's your perogative. As long as your ignorance doesn't bring down the team's total efficiency when I'm in charge, because the second that starts to seriously impact everyone else's ability to have fun, you're gone. I don't care about individuals when I'm in charge. I care about the team, and I'll work towards maximizing efficiency with whoever I can get, without cherry picking because of silly things like what people want to stupidly call themselves. If you find yourself God's Gift to Teaming, however, and can't back it up, to the point everyone else is getting tired of your self-important preening? Boot. Just generally failing like it's your job? Boot. There's nothing complicated about it.
But that won't stop me from engaging in a discussion about the topic, and explaining my views as to why I feel it's both inaccurate, and short-sighted. Because it is. It doesn't even begin to describe what any AT brings to the table, except one tool in the box that isn't even all that special.
The word pertinacious, came to mind when I read your post. Deeming somone ignorant because they don't want to describe what the entire AT does in a request is in of itself shortsighted. On that note, everything in MMO's is shorthand. From the "Lols to the AFK's. All together your taking it too personal when a term bothers you. Honestly even debating about it, is opuscule.
Is it a bit pretentious? yes, it is after all a game.
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It's two wildly different systems, and because of people trying to apply one big generic system to MMOs in general without consideration of the system put in place by the designers (in effect trying to pigeonhole and stereotype anyone that's ever played an MMO ever, much like people used to do to people that played tabletop games back in the 70's and 80's), it leads to a plethora of misconceptions and hurt feelings that brings us to the problem we have today of nobody being able to decide on what 'Healer' means, and whether it's a good or bad thing.
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Its a little late in that sense, Tanks are called tanks in nearly almost every MMO I've ever played. Priests, Shaman, Paladins, etc have been called healers. And lastly, Scouts, assassins, Ninjas, Lancers, etc have been called Rogues or thieves. Many of the MMO populous have used these terms to describe the similarities the classes/AT's have. As for the phrases hurting feelings...again you need to rethink what you prioritize as a person. I seriously doubt the "goings on" and or "phrases" in a game, can effect a person's feelings, unless of course said person had an incipient mind state.
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything"
"You're like Giraffe's, the way you look down on me, with your vegetarian scorn."
Elitism can work in both ways, you know.