What can the other secondaries do better than /Shield?

Gosh, I dunno, maybe that's why I said it was a bigger project than I could look into at the moment? I'm well aware there are a vast number of variables that go into performance, and that this particular case is rather "edge case" in the first place. Do I think there is a real problem with Dark Melee? No, not really. There *could* be, there is at least some "evidence" of it, but without deconstructing what's going on, I don't know. That evidence is NOT the fact that under certain circumstances, it can generate 300 dps, it *is* the fact that it can generate roughly the same DPS as Fire Melee, which is meant to have higher DPS than other sets since it has less soft-control.

Buff Fire Melee?
I could go for that

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Not that I know of, Shred's is alleged 300dps but again we can't say for sure becuse of Dull Pain. In the Plyon thread the top is 289DPS. I did 296DPS with my DM/SD against Romulus. That is the highest that I know of.

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps

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So you're going to ignore the buffherding people in this thread?

What about the fact that we've convinced Castle to take a look at Fiery Aura when he can?

I've been arguing against the EM nerf for a long time, and the opposing argument was always 'the devs are unaffected by posts in the forums' and/or 'they have infallible datamining techniques' so any and all nerfs are unquestionably correct and sound. This thread proves that argument to be absolutely false.

The devs clearly are influenced by post in here and they do not have some sort of infallible datamining process to create balance.

Now I can understand that some powers can be 'too powerful' and require 'nerfing'. But the process I've seen recently is very, very disturbing. I have no problem with putting a new power in a game, and in a reasonable amount of time, realizing it's way too powerful and dialing it back a bit. But it's simply very bad procedure to leave something in the game for over a year, and then suddenly claim it's ridiculously overpowered to the point of cutting it's dmg in half. Same thing happened with the botz nerf. If it's so ridiculously overpowered to demand such a massive nerf, how could it be missed for that long (and apparently even buffed at some point...)?

Sure, the devs will get support here on the forums where a large percentage of regular posters are the 'give the teacher an apple type', but nerfs like this will piss off a large percentage of their customers, and rightly so. If you invest in a certain powerset, most importantly time and effort, and the powerset has been out for over a year, I think it's fair to assume there won't be any major negative changes to that set. Cutting THE power in SD to half dmg is a pretty major negative change, imo.

What is this going to do to SD? I think it's going to make the set pretty damn lame if the effectiveness of SC is reduced to half of what it is now. But I'm sure they'll watch it for a year and if it looks underpowered after the nerf through their 'datamining' they'll fix it up, look how they fixed up EM after they over-nerfed that set (as castle has demonstrated in this thread being oblivious to the balance between single target effectiveness and aoe capability)... oh boy...

LOL, how many people take grant cover to buff teamates? That would be one nerf not many peope would complain about, I can guarantee you that (outside of those who take it for the DDR...). And most of the shielders in here creating the 'overpowered' buzz are all softcapped on their own, and primarily solo players. Does it carry 'some' value, sure, obviously, but I certainly wouldn't call it 'significant'.

Well ...

If everything constantly got buffed to bring similar sets into line with outliers, Castle would end up in a never-ending arms race that ends in either one-shotting bosses or mobs being buffed in order to compensate for players being buffed.

It's generally easier (and, frankly, better) to nerf 1 set into compliance than buff 6 others ... and then watch as those buffs create underporming outliers elsewhere. I.e., if mobs were buffed 'cause scrappers were LoLZerging +4 bosses, certain defender and controller combos would be left unable to solo anything but The Fluffy Bunny Gang.

And the cycle repeats.

Balance is a ... errr ... balancing act. Some things go up, some things go down. Fortunately, Castle and the powers team good at their job (no, seriously, they are -- especially compared what we used to have). I can pick nits with some of their decisions, but the game is FAR better than it used to be in part because of how the devs deal with balance issues.

LOL, what? You claimed the devs aren't influenced by posts regarding calls for nerfs. You were wrong. I quoted exactly what you said.

I never claimed my arguments that SD should not be nerfed would 'prevent the devs from finding out about imbalances for while'. If I did, please quote me like I quoted you. Of course you can't because I didn't.

Funny how my arguments to not nerf sd equate to 'anti-nerf shouting' and you feeling it should be nerfed is just you expressing your opinion on balance whenever you feel like it. And you seem to be implying that I was trying to somehow stop you from expressing your opinion. Again, if thats true please point out exactly where that happened, lol. I was just pointing out that your opinion that posts in the forums don't draw the attention of devs to calls for nerfs was completely wrong.

And that's the problem when you try to overbalance or shoot for perfect balance, in a game with so many different variables and situations. FM and DM are two very different powersets, but are very competitive with eachother anyway, yet when you look at one situation, it actually opens up the idea that one needs a buff, which is ridiculous if you've played either set at all.

Stick to buffing or nerfing the new powersets, early on, that seem to be way imbalanced, and buff older powersets that are clearly underperforming, and you will keep everyone happy. Or keep dropping massive nerfs on things that have been out for years and piss off a dwindling customer base, which imo, would seem to be a very bad idea.

This.

Before looking at Dark Melee I think it'd please a lot of people to see things like a change to Time Bomb, or Gravity Control's Lift becoming a small AoE, or as pointed out in this thread Fiery Aura seeing another small boost.

Even if DM is surpassing Fiery Melee in single target DPS no one is going to complain about it. Fiery Melee lacks soft control? Who cares just shield charge the mob first then smolder the rest in a fiery hell. Oh, you're not Shield Defense? You're doing it wrong! (I kid, I kid)

P.S. And how is Kinetic Melee going to be doing on those Rikti Punching Bags?

Yes, please.

can I haz buffz 2? give buffz 4 all every1 b happy. den other stuff buffz make every1 sad. not supr anymore. devz hates us.

Finally you say something I can comprehend enough to agree.

/Hi5

... sig worthy?

Why only buffing is impractical and a terrible idea, starring my favorite analogy:

Let's say that we represent all the power in the game with glasses of water. As the head of power balance, it's your job to make sure there's an equal amount of water in all the glasses. Everyone whose glass isn't as full as the others is going to complain, and everyone who has more is going to sit quietly and smugly. As soon as you try to take away water to balance things out, the haves are going to complain. Now your task is to follow the new arbitrary rule that you can only add, not take away.

Now let's assume that your original intent was for all glasses to be at 50% capacity. Because a few glasses have, say, 60%, you now have to fill all glasses that aren't yet at 60%. If you have for instance 100 glasses and 10 are already at 60%, you now have to fill 90 glasses instead of taking water out of 10. You've now done nine times as much work for no real reason. Not only that, but every one of the glasses now has 20% more water than you originally intended.

Also, because comparing powers isn't an exact science, all you can ever really do is tweak things and hope they line up. When powers behave nothing alike it's really hard to fill things into a chart and reach a conclusion that will absolutely be perfect. For instance, all throughout testing, everyone looked at Willpower's numbers and said that the set would be awful. We now know that that's not the case. Quite the opposite in fact. Spreadsheets don't always tell the whole story, and what's represented in the math isn't necessarily how things work in practice. So while you're filling glasses, not only do you have to eyeball it, but the glasses look like this:



So while you're doing nine times as much work to fill everything to 60%, you accidentally fill one to 70%. Because this is extremely easy to do. Now instead of correcting this, you have to fill 99 glasses to 70%. You've now done more than eighteen times as much work, and all the glasses now have 40% more water than you originally intended. Repeat this a few times until you have to buy entirely new glasses just to fit all that water in them, which throws budget and effort onto a totally different department, again, for absolutely no reason.

Not only does the buff-only approach require a ton more effort from the power balance department, but left unchecked it can even bleed over into most other departments and throw off the balance of the entire game. If we keep buffing powers to be on-par with eachother, nevermind the fact that the powers team would have to buff thousands of powers instead of just nerf a couple, we'd eventually have powers so strong that no enemies would be any challenge to us whatsoever. Which would mean now the critters team would have to rebalance all the creatures in the entire game.

Most people don't like nerfs, but sometimes nerfs are the best solution.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

It so is. I love Arcanaville, regardless of actual or implied gender.

Oh Arcanaville, if only you had a picture I could use in a Demotivational with that wonderful comment of yours! You could be the new "I can haz cheezburgr?" sensation! ^_-