Tier 1 Attacks: The Brawl treatment
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2010-04-21 11:14 in Suggestions and Ideas
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Absolutely. I never said otherwise. I believe I can eventually justify them, but I'm not in a position to do so now.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Of course, when you begin putting things in terms of "well, I can live with that" you start getting into the realm of your own personal opinions concerning the capabilities of a set being set as a design standard.
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| You've outright said that you believe that MA should be the best ST damage set for Scrappers on multiple occasions so of course you wouldn't find it untoward for the set to get a massive (and I do mean "massive"; when you're dropping the required recharge levels from "top end IO build" to "SO build" that's massive) buff to its performance. |
I am not creating a massive single target buff for MA. You did, when you decided to alter Storm Kick as a workaround for MA's set design issues.**
However, the discounts I'm thinking about aren't actually as drastic as you portray them to be. Looking at it from the perspective of what recharge level is specifically necessary to achieve a very specific build is not the appropriate way to judge the change. That's really not relevant from a game balance perspective, because specific builds have very specific requirements. Rather, the question is, for any given build, how much would the change increase the damage output of that build. And a buff to just one or two attacks gets quickly diluted in real chains.
Put it another way: suppose there was a way to make a build with 89% resistance at low cost, but it took a billion inf of inventions to get the last 1%. And suppose I was proposing a 1% resistance increase for such things. On the one hand, you could say I was cutting the costs to make a 90% resistance build by a billion inf, which is a huge benefit. On the other hand, its only an 11% survival increase. The question is: which is the game-balance significant perspective. And for me, the answer is the latter, not the former, for any game in which performance is not cost-normalized (and this one definitely is not). The former is simply impossible to balance around in the general case.
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| It's pretty obvious that Storm Kick is allowed to break the rules because the rest of the set would be vastly underperforming without it |
The Rosetta Stone to understanding these changes is: why Storm Kick? Why not buff the crit chance on Thunder Kick, say, or CAK? Well, the simple fact is Storm Kick was the only MA attack that didn't have a secondary effect. From a pure damage-balance perspective, it would have probably made more sense to buff TK or CAK. But Storm Kick didn't get the crit buff to balance attack chains. Its actually addressing a secondary effect issue (see below).
Now the question is: would MA with the buff be too powerful, relative to other scrapper primaries? Or rather, would it even outperform them on a damage output basis? Its saying something very weird if you are saying that the buff to MA is *huge* and yet the net result of that huge buff is not that MA ends up outperforming everything else. Or perhaps not so weird.
** Just to clarify, while I should not speak for Castle here, I think its innocuous to state that in my conversations with Castle, he and I are in general agreement that MA has no serious *performance* problems as the devs define performance, but it does not achieve the design goals for which it is intended. This is something I've said many times in the past. That problem either requires that the design goal of MA be changed, or MA be changed to meet it. But as it is not a performance issue, its also a consistently low priority for the devs to revisit. Within that context, for years I have advocated one of a number of things. I used to advocate MA's design intent be changed to include high single target output. But that is an increasingly difficult metric to achieve given other changes to the game. Alternatively, a better set of secondary effects makes more sense these days, and I actually haven't advocated major damage increases for MA in over two years. I did advocate a minor one when the animation changes that BaB put in place increased the damage of practically every other set to the point where MA was not even competitive on single target, even though BaB's changes improved MA's single target damage somewhat - it improved almost everyone else's more.
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An evocative (and amusing) argument but not really one that I would consider to be particularly effective since it's not like he could really have predicted a need to alter all level 1 power options when he was attempting to fix MA (which, I think we can both admit occurred before there was really as comprehensive a knowledge base concerning the actual capabilities of the sets as there is now). If you're attempting to use the fact that some of the powers would have far reaching changes for their respective sets as a push to get Castle to examine and more holistically balance the powersets in question as a whole, I can agree with the goal but not really the method. Even as such, unless you have specific ulterior motives, there are enough exceptions that I can honestly ask why bother with a change with so many different exceptions unless you've got ulterior motives and the obvious goal you're addressing isn't really the main problem?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Ah. While you will probably not find this convincing, I'll tell you what I already intend to tell Castle, when I finally get around to formalizing this suggestion.
I am not creating a massive single target buff for MA. You did, when you decided to alter Storm Kick as a workaround for MA's set design issues.** |
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| However, the discounts I'm thinking about aren't actually as drastic as you portray them to be. Looking at it from the perspective of what recharge level is specifically necessary to achieve a very specific build is not the appropriate way to judge the change. That's really not relevant from a game balance perspective, because specific builds have very specific requirements. Rather, the question is, for any given build, how much would the change increase the damage output of that build. And a buff to just one or two attacks gets quickly diluted in real chains. |
The endurance benefit, however, only gets diluted whenever you're using a build that moves beyond the use of the level 1 use powers. As I said before, most powersets continue to use at least 1 of their level 1 powers even at the highest tier of content. Those sets would, even after achieving high levels of recharge that would render the recharge tweak useless, still receive a substantial benefit in the reduction of their attack string endurance costs. The effects might dilute, but they don't dilute nearly as much because, no matter how you build it, those attacks still form a substantial degree of the endurance consumption of even top level attack strings.
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Put it another way: suppose there was a way to make a build with 89% resistance at low cost, but it took a billion inf of inventions to get the last 1%. And suppose I was proposing a 1% resistance increase for such things. On the one hand, you could say I was cutting the costs to make a 90% resistance build by a billion inf, which is a huge benefit. On the other hand, its only an 11% survival increase. The question is: which is the game-balance significant perspective. And for me, the answer is the latter, not the former, for any game in which performance is not cost-normalized (and this one definitely is not). The former is simply impossible to balance around in the general case. Now the question is: would MA with the buff be too powerful, relative to other scrapper primaries? Or rather, would it even outperform them on a damage output basis? Its saying something very weird if you are saying that the buff to MA is *huge* and yet the net result of that huge buff is not that MA ends up outperforming everything else. Or perhaps not so weird. |
Of course, a lot of this simply handwaves away the simple alternative that I've supported. I still believe that it would be better just to institute a level range specific change to address the issue and tackle any other ulterior issues specifically rather than attempting to get them addressed in a roundabout manner.
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This, I believe, is the quintessential problem with endurance management for a lot of ATs, especially non-damage-dealers that nevertheless have a damage-dealing role. Defenders come to mind, but Corruptors and Kheldians of some walks would count. The problem is that, as an AT's damage mods fall, its damage gets weaker, but its costs remain the same, thus efficiency drops, and sometimes significantly. Tankers, in fact, had a problem not too dissimilar from this way back in 2004-2005 (I think), and while I don't remember the exact nature of the problem, I do remember them simply not doing enough damage to justify their costs.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Besides this low-tier idea, there's another one that I've been kicking around for a very long time that I think is related to it, although independent of it. When the devs want something to have "more offense" they increase its damage modifiers. Doing so increases the dps output of that archetype. If they want it to have less, they reduce that modifier. That reduces the dps output of that archetype. But it *also* increases the *cost* of that offense in endurance. A conjecture I believe to be true but cannot prove is that the reduction of DPE that is coupled with the reduction in DPS is unintentional relative to the balance guidelines the game attempts to follow (even if it is otherwise intended by the dev that makes the change).
Does that mean there is a problem? That's harder to prove. But I believe the game would function better if that issue was untangled, since I believe its a hidden inconsistency in the game. |
The general formula is indeed 5.2 units of cost per unit of scale damage, but each unit of scale damage does different amounts for different ATs. Taken as ACTUAL damage delivered (at level 50), Scrappers and Blasters deal around 12.031 while Brutes deal about 7.something. I don't have numbers for Tankers, but I'd assume they'd be slightly more than Brutes. In the context of endurance cost, this is where your endurance goes, as it were - into an utter lack of efficiency.
Personally, I feel that endurance cost should not be based on scale damage, but on ACTUAL damage, instead. A Scrapper deals hideous amounts of damage, so I can live with that Scrapper's attacks costing more. Tankers, however, despite what apologists would have you believe, simply do not deal quite as much, and so I would have no problem with their attacks costing less. For instance, for a Scrapper to deal 1000 damage, that Scrapper would have to deal 15.984 scale damage, and pay 83.118 endurance points for it, recovery notwithstanding. A Tanker, on the other hand, would need 22.478, costing him 116.885 points of endurance.
To my eyes, this is not good design. I have nothing against certain ATs doing less damage. We can simply say that they need to fight longer to overcome their enemies, that they don't hit as hard. But there is no justification for why they should expend the same amount of energy doing less damage. A Defender trying to deal damage, even with the new Vigilance damage buff, is still SOL, not just because he can't kill things as fast and so takes more damage, but also because he's sucking wind for no reason whatsoever.
Far as I'm concerned, we need more parity between cost and effect, and we need to look more at the ACTUAL effects and less at effect modifiers.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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To everyone:
You do realize you are supposed to run out of endurance, right?
Building your character to not run out of endurance is supposed to lower your performance in other ways, hence balance.
Asking the devs to put endurance discounts on everything is just removing one of the tools for balancing powers and powersets.
...just felt I had to point that out; carry on.
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Just checked my rep (not that I actually care, just curious) and my comment asking to 'leave enhancements alone' gets a -rep + simple 'no.' response?
Lol okay, go ahead and mess with the enhancements. Oh wait. You can't! To bad for you ^^
PS: I actually like the enhancements, pics and names on a lot of them. Makes me feel I'm actually finding stuff rather than generic item #461. For other characters, simply ignoring the names is not asking for your first born's blood.
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However, endurance costs were never really "balanced" in any numerical sense. They were, over time, "normalized" but never actually balanced for.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
To everyone:
You do realize you are supposed to run out of endurance, right? Building your character to not run out of endurance is supposed to lower your performance in other ways, hence balance. Asking the devs to put endurance discounts on everything is just removing one of the tools for balancing powers and powersets. ...just felt I had to point that out; carry on. |
Here's an interesting question. If we are *all* supposed to run out of endurance at maximum speed (short of extreme acts of endurance build management) and especially so prior to I9 when inventions came out, then consider a thought-experiment comparison between Blasters and Scrappers.
Blasters and Scrappers at one time had the same damage modifier tables, which means they had the same DPE. In other words, it cost a Blaster (to a first order approximation) about the same amount of endurance to kill something as a Scrapper burned. But Scrappers have defensive toggles which burn endurance. If both have the same amount of endurance and recovery, and the Scrapper is running toggles, and they are both endurance-constrained then the Blaster will have to kill faster, or die often. Essentially, both are converting endurance points into XP, and the Scrapper is "wasting" some endurance running toggles.**
The only way the Blaster isn't *designed* to go faster than the Scrapper is either if the Scrapper runs out, but the Blaster doesn't (because the Blaster takes so much damage they are forced to rest or forced to fight slower and more carefully, even if they have lots of endurance available), or the Scrapper runs out first, the Blaster runs out second, but then dies to compensate for the extra kills per unit time.
So actually, it cannot be true that everything is designed to run out of endurance. Either Blasters are designed to not be endurance-constrained all the time, or they are designed to die and need more activity to cover the same leveling ground.
This is just one of the many oddities to the endurance system that exist because endurance was not really balanced for in global terms in any numerical sense.
** The simplified way to look at defensive toggles is that they trade the Blue bar for the Green bar: they allow you to convert blue into green by burning endurance and preserving (gaining) green. If Scrappers are supposed to be able to trade Blue for Green, they should be able to, if played correctly, end up Resting when their Blue *and* Green bars are about empty: as they lose green they burn blue, and as they burn blue they stop making green, and it should balance up in the end. They should, if played efficiently, not waste either blue or green by running out of one while still having plenty of the other. If that's true, Blasters should run out of green before they run out of blue, if they are balanced correctly. And that means Blasters are designed to be health constrained, not endurance constrained. At least in this one instance. This is contradicted by other design decisions, though, which is the core of the problem with endurance management in CoH: its not just annoying to some players, its more directly provably inconsistently implemented.
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I can see your point about the implementation, but the design seems to point to that intent; all characters are intended to either be endurance constrained or sacrifice some other element of performance (power picks or enhancements) in return for endurance. Otherwise why have endurance?
But again; I agree that this was probably implemented as a general rule of thumb, and not numerically calculated so that it enforced itself.
If it had been calculated, I imagine that we might have seen some differences in Defender design in particular, but there are a few endurance management options in powersets here and there that might have been different as well.
Of course, Inspirations (and teammates, to an extent) are intended to be ways of 'legitimately' going around the endurance constraint.
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See, what bugs me is this; say I'm on my Technology Tanker, levelling up. Im fighting Rikti, for want of an example. I go through, merrily hitting. Yet, the enhancement 'rewards' I get are all Science origin. I cant actaully use them. Despite, y'know, Rikti having high tech as well...|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Just checked my rep (not that I actually care, just curious) and my comment asking to 'leave enhancements alone' gets a -rep + simple 'no.' response?
Lol okay, go ahead and mess with the enhancements. Oh wait. You can't! To bad for you ^^ PS: I actually like the enhancements, pics and names on a lot of them. Makes me feel I'm actually finding stuff rather than generic item #461. For other characters, simply ignoring the names is not asking for your first born's blood. |
Now, sure, I can sell them...for an absolute pittance, even at an unbiased store. An enhancement you cant use is worth practically next to nothing.
Why not simply drop enhancements based on your origin, not that of the mob? That way, whatever you are fighting, you at least have the chance of recieving enhancements beyond TOs that you can actaully slot and get some use out of, without being locked into absoultely having to fight, say, Freakshow and Skyraiders (I think they drop tech?) which gets very dull after a while.
If it's too much of a leap for people to try and accept that in an RP viewpoint (Bear in mind, this is coming from an RPer), then surely it would make sense for your character to trade whatever mugjuggin they picked up for something they could use. Either with the contact or with someoen they know.
Something a bit fairer than paying the smirking Longbow Ops/Arbiters peanuts for stuff that is basically so much junk to you.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I imagine that the Devs would rather have you adapt to fighting a type of critter that drops a certain type of enhancement than have you pick a critter that you have little to no risk in fighting and get whatever enhancements you need from it.
Granted the difference is negligible now, but it may not have been intended to be when the system was designed.
Story Arcs I created:
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Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
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Except that doesn't work. At, say, level 35-45, 45+, there aren't 'easier' critters. You're into Rikti, Carny, Malta and Nemesis territory, none of which can really be classed as easy (not in general, anyway). Having origin specific enhancements is all fine and dandy; but things that are meant to drop as rewards that you can't even use? I don't buy that.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I imagine that the Devs would rather have you adapt to fighting a type of critter that drops a certain type of enhancement than have you pick a critter that you have little to no risk in fighting and get whatever enhancements you need from it.
Granted the difference is negligible now, but it may not have been intended to be when the system was designed. |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I have given it a lot of thought myself and my biggest issue is that some sets have some of their best attacks in those lower tiers (like Dark Melee Smite)|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, I've been thinking for a long time about taking the first two primary powers, and the first secondary power, and applying a recharge and endurance discount to all three (if it happens to be a passive, the discount just has no effect). Something high: 30% - 50%, but not cut to zero.
I believe I can make the case that its actually better for game balance overall, but I haven't had the time to do all the leg work, and the devs are too busy with I17/GR to entertain the idea anyway. Once things settle down a bit, though, its actually the next big thing on my todo list. |
My idea has been more along giving all offensive attacks a endurance discount if their DPAS is too low.
Basically: EndCost = (Dmg*5.2)/(Rchg/Dmg)
If up to me, I'd also penalize better DPAS attacks with higher endurance cost (forcing high DPS build to not ignore endurance costs too easily) but given the "lets not nerf unless we really need to" policy i think the devs are following right now, I'd just suggest to only apply the formula for anything that does less than 1dpas.
I would not apply this formula to AoE attacks, either.
Best thing of this is it not only helps most low level folk, it also gives low DPAS attacks a reason to exists other than for pure self-gimping concept reasons.
Flurry would drop to 2.22 end per click!
Oh and give Brawl either proper damage or insta recharge.
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My suggestion to those issues, while probably the tougher road I think the game would be greatly improved besides, is to add more varied enemy groups. We need varying and alternate enemy groups that cover all origins across all level ranges.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Except that doesn't work. At, say, level 35-45, 45+, there aren't 'easier' critters. You're into Rikti, Carny, Malta and Nemesis territory, none of which can really be classed as easy (not in general, anyway). Having origin specific enhancements is all fine and dandy; but things that are meant to drop as rewards that you can't even use? I don't buy that.
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Although I don't really fight enemies for their enhancement drops, if you needed to more options should be available. Not sure about the new enemy copy-cats we're getting soon...maybe it will help this issue.
Just an off-the-cuffs comment before I go to bed: I don't think the problem was ever that characters are supposed to run out of endurance, but rather that they don't all run out at the same rate. You'd think that, naturally, those that do more would burn more and so it would be balanced, but it isn't. Those that burn the most are those that do the least because their "effects" are much weaker while their costs are exactly the same. How this even passes for good design I will honestly never understand, but that's how it's always been, and it seems like that's how it's destined to remain.
To put it more simply: high-damage ATs do more damage for less endurance and end fights quicker, using less endurance. Given that they kill faster AND last longer, this is, in my eyes, bad design.
More down to basic numbers, I've always felt that the lowest-tier attacks should have the best DPS but worst DPA, scaling up as tiers increase. This would give characters more reason to use their higher DPA attacks, which would naturally come with the highest DPE, but would still give them a good attack chain in the lower levels where there just aren't enough powers for too much of an attack chain.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The problems with endurance cost as I see them:
Intra-AT:
Endurance cost, although normalized, will always favor those that kill faster than those that kill slower because those that kill slower must also do extra damage due to enemy regeneration. Usually insignificant against minions but not so much against bosses/EBs/AVs or any critter that has self heals that can cycle more than once due to slower kill speed.
Endurance Cost, even if accounted for in AoE powers, still heavily benefit AoE attacks.
Cross-AT:
Some ATs, (Tankers, I'm looking at you) were designed to take on threats at a slower pace than others, but they were always just meant to be slower at defeating similar foes. AT mods, though, make these ATs, mostly Defenders and Tankers, deal way less damage for the exact endurance costs meaning they may never get a chance to finish the fight the equivalent fellow player would be able to.
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Precisely the problem, and well-stated. I have no problem with some ATs killing slower, especially if they're designed to last longer, as well (i.e. Tankers), if only they were also designed to burn through their endurance slower. Yes, it would typically take longer for them to level up (it already does), but it wouldn't take as long as it does now, because they'd have to worry about endurance a lot less. In fact, if the extremely high levels of damage of your average Scrapper or Blaster came at the cost of extremely high endurance burn while lower damage values came with lower burn, I'd be satisfied. I might actually play a Tanker for a change, too.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Cross-AT:
Some ATs, (Tankers, I'm looking at you) were designed to take on threats at a slower pace than others, but they were always just meant to be slower at defeating similar foes. AT mods, though, make these ATs, mostly Defenders and Tankers, deal way less damage for the exact endurance costs meaning they may never get a chance to finish the fight the equivalent fellow player would be able to. |
You know, I've been here a long time. I've seen a lot of people basically give up on Tankers, and the reason is usually the same: "I can't kill anything without running out of endurance." This is a problem that I don't expect to ever see addressed unless we start balancing on damage DEALT to endurance used, rather than on damage MOD to endurance.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Very good point. I have noticed the Endurance problems more while playing Defenders, Controllers, and Tankers solo (most especially pre-20) and that's probably why.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Precisely the problem, and well-stated. I have no problem with some ATs killing slower, especially if they're designed to last longer, as well (i.e. Tankers), if only they were also designed to burn through their endurance slower. Yes, it would typically take longer for them to level up (it already does), but it wouldn't take as long as it does now, because they'd have to worry about endurance a lot less. In fact, if the extremely high levels of damage of your average Scrapper or Blaster came at the cost of extremely high endurance burn while lower damage values came with lower burn, I'd be satisfied. I might actually play a Tanker for a change, too.
You know, I've been here a long time. I've seen a lot of people basically give up on Tankers, and the reason is usually the same: "I can't kill anything without running out of endurance." This is a problem that I don't expect to ever see addressed unless we start balancing on damage DEALT to endurance used, rather than on damage MOD to endurance. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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Seconded.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Very good point. I have noticed the Endurance problems more while playing Defenders, Controllers, and Tankers solo (most especially pre-20) and that's probably why.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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hmm a 50% reduction (or w/e the number being discussed) on hoarfrost would probably have every other tanker up in arms. Rightfully so too considering a number of other armors would be getting a passive "improved" by this change.
Some controllers/doms getting a way faster cycling st hold, but others not probably wouldn't fly
Faster cycling tarpatch certainly blows anything the other defenders would get out of the water.
I'm sure there are even more egregious examples, but that is just off the top of my mind
If this were to happen I'd really want/expect attacks like flares/snapshot and fireblast/aimed shot to have there DS/end/rech increased prior to the change, they really don't need to cycle faster and already have cheaper endcost and rech requirements. The benefit those sets would get would be minuscule compared to the standard blast powers set at 4/8.
I suspect the truth might be simpler (and unfortunately more difficult to implement) than it appears.
Lets take a scrapper of a given level.
Let's put him up against a typical spawn for that level.
Now lets have a toe to toe fight; no kiting or other tricks.
Now, by the basic design, the Scrapper should win. But by how much? How much end and hp should he have at the end of the fight? Lets just deal in percentages to be simple: let's say a typical fight should leave a typical Scrapper at 70% of his totals (mileage will vary when you match powersets to critter powers, inspirations, enhancements and stuff, but ignoring that for now).
Also: how many times should the Scrapper have to activate powers to acheive this result, assuming he starts all recharged and at full?
Just make up some numbers for the above; whatever feels right.
Now redo the problem for Defenders. Controllers. Et Cetera.
How much do the numbers change?
Finally; my assumption about the Scrapper as a baseline assumes that after 4 fights in a row without Rest, a Scrapper should be all tuckered out.
Now regardless of how far off you think I am, I think that ultimately what needs to happen (perhaps in CoX2) is that all of the ATs need to be rebuilt in terms of the above, and then allowed to deviate a certain amount from the baseline.
I suspect the Devs actually use Defenders as the baseline, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is the fact that the ATs seems to have been much more 'eyeballed' than calculated with an intent toward balance...
...especially as regards the effect of Endurance.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
The problem with your suggestion is that it would only work if you actively excluded powers that aren't excluded in high level attack strings. Remember, however, that you're the one that said you're only interested in the powers available at level 1. Unless you set some abstract threshold of performance as gauged by a power's usefulness in an optimized structure wherein powers actually have to compete for priority, you're going to get special cases all over the place that will skew the effects of the change overall.
If you simply ignore or lower the value of the changes to those sets that actually have the affected powers high on their priority list for activation, the change is providing less benefit to them than it is for sets that actually get the full change. MA would get less use out of the change than SS even though SS already needs those changes less than MA because the low level SS attacks are already ridiculously cheap and recharge incredibly fast.
If you really want to stick with the idea of making specific powers cheaper and faster, rather than simply arbitrarily choosing the level 1 power options (and, yes, that's an arbitrary decision because it ignores the actual design of the set) why not simply make changes to each set individually for the less-than-optimal powers that actually would fulfill the conditions that you are, if not assuming then hoping, the level 1 power options would fulfill. Of course, that wouldn't fulfill the "make sure the changes affect everyone regardless of how they build themselves" criteria you imposed upon the change, but, then you'd at least be treating all of the sets somewhat similarly rather than applying a single template to all powersets.
It's for this exact reason that, if this problem exists, I would support the global buff. You might say that it's "harder to balance", but, honestly, how well balanced is the pre-SO game anyway? Scrappers and Tankers are barely more survivable than Blasters even if they take and use all of their survivability powers (and that's assuming that the Blaster doesn't just up and kill the target before it can deal enough damage to be a legitimate threat). Damage is already almost identical until you get to about level 10, at which points differences actually start popping up. How is providing a small buff to end redux and recharge redux in the same way that we already buff tohit all that imbalancing when your idea threatens to change performance at all levels regardless of how many powers you have because it doesn't admit that high level characters actually use low level powers?
Why would a global buff to end redux and recharge redux be all that bad, in the first place? You've constantly asserted that the change would apply in a targeted manner that diminishes as the problem diminishes while simply stating that you would make exceptions to any times that problems would occur. I've stated these examples, and you've either defended them (making Storm Kick even better regardless of whether its the right thing to do) or ignored them (Hack).
How would applying a small global buff to end redux and recharge redux be all that out of place? The only times it comes up are in those specific levels where you have both little to no slotting and little to no powers. As I suggest, the global buff would exist exclusively to offset the exact lack of enhancing that would logically occur at higher levels. There's already precedent for a level range specific fix to address problems that only address in low levels. At least with a level range specific fix, any problems generated are actually contained rather than having to specifically look at every instance to make sure that the suggested change doesn't explode and create something completely out of the realm of the original change.