"Damage Mitigation" and "Numbers"
By
Antigonus,
Posted on: 2009-05-23 06:46 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Ah the world of passive agressive...safe enough to live in but never acknowledged, must be fun...
If you feel insulted, thats YOUR prerogative. But I posted my "feelings" about the subject several posts ago. I'm just now addressing you. I'm sorry you failed to see the clarity in my posts..well not really. Regardless if your looking for discussion, by all means keep posting, Psuedo intellectual topics as such are only for the destitute or manically pretentious. I've stated my points, you've stated yours = Discussion.
"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."
It would appear you'd know.
I don't know if it's been mentioned, but by level 50 characters without the Fitness pool (and Health) nor any healing/regen power of their own nor any IO increasing regen nor any HP accolade are the exception, not the norm. In my opinion, using base HP regen with base HP at 50 is a flawed basis.
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Deeming somone ignorant because they don't want to describe what the entire AT does in a request is in of itself shortsighted.
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Does using support really take more letters or thought than healer when it's certainly more accurate?
Is changing terminology when changing games that taxing of your flexibility?
Do you ask people to send a whisper when broadcasting for teammates?
Am i amused by all this, especially your dogmatic and insulting responses to others while simultaneously insisting that you have no emotional investment in this discussion?
i suspect the answer to many of these questions is yes.
i also suspect myself of wasting time here instead of eating breakfast.
The latter i can remedy.
Chow!
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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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 remember that! Those were frustrating times, since I started with a Radiation/Energy defender, I was always the "weaker" healer, even though I had the ability to take out any mission boss or even elite boss alone had I the need to. As this was before the implementation of the notoriety settings, I often had to do just that, too.
Those were frustrating times. It is kind of weird that I'm now experiencing the complete opposite frustration.
Nowadays people make statements like,
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...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 DEDICATED HEALERS ARE BAD because, especially later on, they don't bring a lot to good teams.
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and this somehow degenerates into a healers are completely useless argument.
I have up to now been actively ignoring the debate about what makes someone a healer, and instead just used a simplified definition "Healers are people who use healing powers."
To be honest, you will never find me playing an Empath, Pain Domination corruptor, Forcefielder, or even a /Thermal controller. One of the big issues that caused me to quit the first time and take a 3 year break wasn't the whole healer vs. everyone else war but a completely different issue. In short, the people who seek teams in the first place seem to have this mentality that the "sweet, sweet XP" justifies everything and that nothing matters except getting to the top levels as soon as possible. Task forces were pure hell, because people absolutely refused to start with less than 8 people, insisted on clearing every minion from every mission regardless of the time wasted, and more often than not team-wiped at the door because three bosses and their entourage were waiting just inside in response to having 8 people in the party. But that might be a rant better left for another thread and another time.
That certainly doesn't mean I want to become a hermit and solo everything from 1-50 and beyond.
I would much sooner leave the debate on who exactly deserves to be called a "healer," or whether "healer" is actually spelled with four letters or not to the other thread on the topic. Both extremes of thinking are in fact really unhealthy for any potential team that might pick up the subscriber.
Folks would do well to let go of their dearly held positions that they are becoming so identified and entrenched with as to become self destructive in both argument and in game play. The false dichotomies of having to choose between 'ONLY HEALZOR' and 'ONLY BUFFZORZ' also are getting old. Even the most heal heavy sets have been shown to have tools beyond just healing in this thread. Once you stop being mad because someone says "looking for healer" in broadcast or being insulted because you brag about being not mature and someone basically recognizes that as useless and, instead, go out and play the game with a strong sense of internal self worth and understanding that those poltroons in broadcast can be easily manipulated you will start having a lot more fun.
Even some of the most outspoken and decent minds on this forum have wandered into this thread and "stirred the pot" so to speak. Those of you who post frequently and contribute much in the way of intelligent discussion, guides, etc. could do better in spreading the knowledge that layered defenses generally end up working better than specialized defenses. A thread like this could be a platform for speaking out on that fact and would probably do a lot better than boiling down to angry posters getting their feelings hurt because they decided to take a pot shot at a poster that didn't feel like letting said shot go unanswered and such.
Having good buffs makes healing better and vice versa?
*Impales the Topic with a wooden stake*
Die, "healer threads" die!
Back to the foul Defender forum that spawned ye!
Excellent information in the first post. Just to stir the pot, there are a few additional factors I think we need to consider:
- The value of having 100% HP. This game provides binary protection against one-hit kills. Either you are protected against one shot-kills or you are not. You are protected anytime your HP are full. Defense helps you avoid incoming shots, making it less likely your HP are less than 100% and less likely that the follow up shot hits. Healing restores lost HP to 100%, reapplying the protection, but the heal needs to be timed between shots. Resistance needs to regen the HP. Most tanks aren't worried about one-shot kills, but...
- ...tanks aren't the only people getting hit. While it may be true in very controlled groups that most of the damage is directed at the tank, eventually something is going to take a shot at someone else. Two swings from a boss can easily kill a Controller; one if the Controller has already taken 1 more points of damage.
- Masterminds. The feasibility of keeping pets protected with shields is much lower with single-target powers than with area effects. A /Thermal, for example, is far better off keeping shields on the team members only and relying on Warmth for the pets.
- The added risk of debuffs. Debuffs are powerful but draw aggro. If not timed right, or if adds show up sometimes you face the risk of...
- ...the cascading effect of removing people from the fight. Players die. They get disconnected. They lag. They get mezzed. If a healing player dies, he or she can't continue to react to damage. The buffing player's buffs may continue to run for a while, although a portion of the protection is lost. Most of the very powerful Controller powers, and the debuffs offered by Storm and Radiation are canceled immediately.
Anyway, great discussion. Glad to discuss this rationally!
This forum is becoming the new Defender forum.
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Excellent information in the first post. Just to stir the pot, there are a few additional factors I think we need to consider:
- The value of having 100% HP. This game provides binary protection against one-hit kills. Either you are protected against one shot-kills or you are not. You are protected anytime your HP are full. Defense helps you avoid incoming shots, making it less likely your HP are less than 100% and less likely that the follow up shot hits. Healing restores lost HP to 100%, reapplying the protection, but the heal needs to be timed between shots. Resistance needs to regen the HP. Most tanks aren't worried about one-shot kills, but...
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The thing is, if you have a buff heavy team, even those squishy controllers may likely have tank levels of resistance/defense buffs on them, so the likelihood of them getting twoshotted becomes rather close to nil at that point.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
... where do you find that many buffers that actually use their powers, Cavatina? I want some.
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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Healing substracts from incoming DPS
Mitigation divides incoming DPS.
[/ QUOTE ]This was a very good post, and seems to have gone largely ignored in this thread. Starsman has pointed out exactly the difference between healing and all other forms of mitigation, and in the vast majority of cases, that difference makes healing the poorest of choices for stopping damage. However, healing combined with other forms of mitigation (or, in fact, any number of different types of mitigation combined) multiplies the effectiveness.
Since everyone gets natural regen and may get green inspirations from defeating enemies, a dedicated "healer" is far from necessary on a team with a few buffers or debuffers. On a well-built team, the "healer" will likely stop more damage by using attacks to speed the killing than by healing. Death is the ultimate debuff 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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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
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You can't do that.
Having 50% Resistance does not give you 50% more "effective HP", it *doubles* it.
With x% Resistance, you divide by (1-x%), not multiply with (1+x%).
If you have 30% Resistance, your "effective HP" is 1/(1-0.3) = 142.9% of your base HP.
(also, increasing 1000 by 30% gives you 1300, not 1033.33)
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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.
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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I agree with your post.
I don't think "healer" is "the sux". I was running an ITF last weekend and I specifically said we were looking for "supports". I didn't specify a "healer" or a specific type because we already had a good mix of SoA, Brute and MM (mm is considered support in my book). So in the end, an empathy and radiation joined us. Excellent! That's a good mix of healing, defense and debuffs. We did really well.
I think a lot of new players look for healer because that's what they are used to seeing from other games. If they actually choose a bubble set like /thermal, /ff and /cold, they may find that those buffs provide an "easier" way to support the team (instead of trying to click an ally and HEAL).
I am making a Sonic/Pain Corr now and I find healing quite annoying. I have to click a friend to heal and I sometimes lose track on what needs to be killed first (so my team takes less damage!).
This is another reason why SoA is so good. Most of their buffs don't require you to "click" an ally. You just need to stay closer and the awesome team buffs spread around.
Damn, how come I always end up praising SoA....
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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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
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You can't do that.
Having 50% Resistance does not give you 50% more "effective HP", it *doubles* it.
With x% Resistance, you divide by (1-x%), not multiply with (1+x%).
If you have 30% Resistance, your "effective HP" is 1/(1-0.3) = 142.9% of your base HP.
(also, increasing 1000 by 30% gives you 1300, not 1033.33)
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Thanks for fixing that....got the numbers all wrong 
so, its actually more than what I reasoned?
so, the hp/sec of this would be:
30% res, 1600 hp, 1.6 regen rate
1600 x 1.429 = 2286.4
22.864 x 1.6 = 36.58 hp/sec
that would be correct?
The correct answer is that Dark Miasma is best thanks to its heavy-handed combination of -ToHit, -Damage, and control in addition to the great AoE heal on its single-target debuff. As an added bonus, the set is completely non-disruptive and works well with most forms of teaming. Why, you'll hardly even notice just how much damage you're not taking. All you'll know is that life is good!
So pick up a Dark Defender today, you'll be glad you did!
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Thanks for fixing that....got the numbers all wrong
so, its actually more than what I reasoned?
so, the hp/sec of this would be:
30% res, 1600 hp, 1.6 regen rate
1600 x 1.429 = 2286.4
22.864 x 1.6 = 36.58 hp/sec
that would be correct?
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It's the equivalent of 36.58 hp/second.
Some of that comes in "damage not taken" so it won't show up in-game that way.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
now, If i were to break it down to about, 28% res, in return for like 6% def, would it be a significant improvement?
(so far my blaster is tougher than I once thought )
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on topic:
Healing is definatley valuable, as is any other form of buffage. The problem is really just all the neglect of other sets throughout the years in favor of healing (due to the run-off from other MMO's who *need* healers), which created a hatred of healers within the group of non-healers, due to the biased picking of the healing sets over anything else
:/ I still fail to see where I'm taking things too personal when the only times I even engage in discourse over it (and even stated as such) are on the forums when the topic is brought up to be discussed. That's sort of a ridiculous assumption to make.
As is your constant belittling of other people. As I alluded to, I do believe that says more about yourself then it does anyone else, and I certainly find it faskinating. Though, ultimately, rather tiresome at this point because you keep making the same assertions over and over again, as if you don't have anything else to stand on.
Which is also somewhat disappointing, as previously stated I'd sort of been hoping for more actual discussion from your side of the argument, instead finding nothing but stubborn vitriol. I even addressed the 'similarities' portion of your argument in detail.
Your use of the word 'pertinacious' was fairly amusing, I'll have to say.
Still, since nothing further can be gained from this particular avenue of discussion (when one side refuses to listen to the points being made, it does often tend to result in nothing), I'll leave you to your beliefs. As, after all, they're yours, and if you're not open to even attempting to consider seriously the beliefs of others, what point is there in trying to make a point from an opposing point of view?
To state again: If you want to be ignorant about things, willfully, and refuse to change your beliefs for anyone, that's your perogative. If that's how you roll, so be it, mang. There's room enough in the world for all opinions and views, and certainly room enough in-game.