What can the other secondaries do better than /Shield?
Very interesting Frosticus. I only wish that we could get some developer attention for the Burn change.
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Who wants to make the thread?
Shotgun not it 
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Excellent discussion is happening right here, why make another one?
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Honestly, I just wanted to see it all broken down.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
I dunno if that tells you what you want to know, but to me it is a pretty clear indication that removing fear from burn would in no way make the set overperform relative to shields current capabilities. In fact I'd go so far as to say a target cap increase on burn would still be warranted simply because SC provides so much mitigation, is frontloaded damage, and has a huge fricken area of effect.
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Thanks for putting in the effort, much appreciated.
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Nailed it. I think the scrapper secondaries are pretty balanced, though, imo, fire armor is lagging behind a bit.|
Originally Posted by Werner
Oh, they were out there. I believe there was an unspoken rule that once you figured out just how awesome Sword/Dark was, you were one of a special club, and you didn't TALK about it. A rule I violated, of course, being the braggart that I am. Also I wasn't the first of the "new generation" of Sword/Dark, if you can call it that. Several other people had theirs all soft-capped and running before I put mine together, even if my planned build had been floating around for a while, I think.
And I'd been after the concept for a long time, probably a couple years. I'd put together soft-capped Katana/Dark build in Mids' many issues ago, and brought it up on the forum for discussion. It was somewhat more compromised than what I ended up with since there have been so many juicy sets added since then, but it was doable. It was something I wanted. I just didn't get around to it until more recently, and by then, soft-capping Katana/Dark was getting pretty practical, not just something an extremist would play. I have to agree - if you aren't afraid of inspiration use, and know how to grab a bunch of defense from pools, and know where to strategically spends small sums of influence on bonuses, it can be a VERY solid leveler. Some other secondaries may level more easily, or with less trouble, but I really don't think Shield Defense is weak while leveling the way some people seem to. I wouldn't really recommend it as a leveling build to people without some experience though - you have to manage your endurance, build properly, plan for specific levels of defense, know when to use what inspirations, and so on. It's not rocket science, but it also isn't obvious for a new player. So there's one way in which a number of sets are better than shields - they are more friendly to inexperienced people. Willpower, for instance. Set it, forget it, don't worry about endurance, and it just keeps you alive. And some Willpower builds can be somewhat more survivable than Shields in most situations. There's just that pesky concept of "enough survivability" getting in the way, because once you have enough survivability, it's generally better to focus on offense, and Willpower does not... Or you could play a Blaster. This line of reasoning breaks down at some point. But I DO agree with you here. Shield Defense has enough survivability, and more damage output. You take other secondaries for flavor, not because they're better at the main job of a Scrapper - defeating enemies. It's EASIER to get that level of survivability out of Super Reflexes. So that IS an advantage. But IO'd to the teeth, Shield Defense seems to have slightly better survivability, plus a lot better damage. Yes to the first, no to the second. Invulnerability is going to own this sort of competition if you can pick your AVs, which of course you must. Soft-capped invulnerability in its element (non-defense debuffing smashing/lethal AVs), is as strong as it gets. However, that's an extreme edge case designed to cater to Invunerability's advantages. For general survival against random spawns, Invulnerability will be better than Shields against some, worse against others. I don't think there's a clear advantage to either. Anyway, if we're trying to convince new players to play something other than Shields, it's maybe not an argument they'll respect, but have you SEEN how many combinations we're playing on the Scrapper forum? The hard core min/maxers, the powergamers, we're all over the place. We're not just playing Shield Defense. LOL. Sounds like me. As I believe you said once, when the zombie apocalypse comes, I won't be able to run very fast, but I'll be able to carry a lot of ammunition. There's an advantage to Willpower. It has "go make a sandwich the moment the idea strikes you" survivability. +4x8, RWZ challenge spawn, whatever. Go AFK. With a good build, it'll still be standing when you get back. Everything I have has to WORK for that kind of survivability, and so does Shield Defense. I suppose that's more along the line of what I said earlier, though. Some sets are friendlier for less experienced players. It's not like you go AFK during a fight normally. It's just a way of saying that your survival will not be compromised by less experienced play. Hmmm, maybe what I'm saying is that Willpower is the best alternative to Shield Defense for anyone who would be posing the question in the first place. For damage, pick Shield Defense. For easy survivability and leveling, pick Willpower? I do think the other sets have a lot to offer as well, but I find myself unable to really articulate it at the moment. How about "fun"? Like I think Regeneration and Dark Armor are a lot of fun. Yeah, that won't convince anyone, I know. |
Shield defense is a great secondary, but the reason it's so popular is because it's got 2 things that are huge in this game right now - the ability to softcap defense with IO's and a great aoe attack in shield charge. And these both work great for wiping out large groups of enemies, which is obviously advantageous in a game like this.
But what is often ignored is that defense, when not sofcapped, is not a very good means of mitigation, which is why you hear people saying you're ok if you're willing to pop inspirations, specifically the purple shieldy kind, lol. It's the same thing with SR, but with SR you can softcap earlier and much easier.
Another thing that is often ignored is that if you play the game normally, going from arc to arc, you're going to run into a lot of enemies that will make your scrapper feel like a blaster, not just offensively but in terms of survivability, where other sets would not - specifically vs. enemies that have the ability to punch through high defense either with buffs or debuffs, characteristics that seem to be on the rise in recent issues.
Here is a thread where we discuss how we think the various sets rank against eachother at various stages:
clickit.
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Shield Charge is great no doubt, but I could also get extra AoE with Fireball. It's AAO that puts Shield Defense over the top. It turns an excellent mitigation set with extra AoE into a set that surpasses the top single target DPS by not just a little, but by a ridiculous amount.
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Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Shield defense is a great secondary, but the reason it's so popular is because it's got 2 things that are huge in this game right now - the ability to softcap defense with IO's and a great aoe attack in shield charge. And these both work great for wiping out large groups of enemies, which is obviously advantageous in a game like this.
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Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
Would it be a bit much if Fiery Aura got the buff for Burn and Immobilization/Knockback protection added? I guess Immobilization wouldn't necessarily need to be added, considering Burn already gives a short duration Immobilization protection.
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I'd complain about SC if they shrank the radius to 8ft and set the target cap to 5 and cut the damage by a quarter and made the cast time significantly longer and made the damage a long duration dot that cause mobs to flee.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I am not arguing against a buff to fiery aura.
However, I do not find it very compelling that some people are attempting to turn a short recharge timer into a negative. When they changed the recharge from 10s to 25s, I do not believe anyone was saying, "Thank God I no longer have to spend so much time animating Burn!" Or would you complain that you have to spend so much more time animating SC if it had a 25s base recharge? |
Then I'd complain about it recharging faster.
Pretending burn had no fear it still has to work way harder than SC, which comes down to opportunity cost. If I spend 15% of my time casting burn that is 15% less time I can do other things. Comparatively the Shield can get similar damage with no opportunity cost because they only use up 3% of their time.
Shields is from a mitigation standpoint a mediocre set (pre IO's), while it is also the strongest st and aoe damage set. With IO's it moves near the top for mitigation and furthers the gap for st and aoe damage.
If Shields is working as intended then Fire needs a very sizable buff. The reality (imo) is that Shields needs to be trimmed a bit and fire needs to be boosted a fair amount.
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Then how do you explain a db/elec being one of the top rikti pylon soloers? I just think people don't realize the other secondaries that offer additional offense can help other combos compete with whatever/sd, like db/elec clearly can. I also think you overestimate how powerful aao is, while completely ignoring the negatives of the power. First of all, I wouldn't consider it an 'excellent mitigation set' without io's, it only becomes so once you get it softcapped (or if you constantly pop purples, but really, constantly popping purples is excellent mitigation for any set), and that flat out requires io set bonuses and only happens late game. Secondly, without that mitigation, aao can become a problem on teams, because you're going to be eating most of the aggro, to the point you'll be pulling it off tankers, and if you're not softcapped, it can cause major problems.|
Originally Posted by Moonlighter
Shield Charge is great no doubt, but I could also get extra AoE with Fireball. It's AAO that puts Shield Defense over the top. It turns an excellent mitigation set with extra AoE into a set that surpasses the top single target DPS by not just a little, but by a ridiculous amount.
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There is no question that after io'ing it up late game that SD is as good as it gets in scrapper secondaries. But you don't balance the sets based solely on where they end up, you have to balance them on the whole. And as a whole, I think most of the secondaries are pretty fairly balanced - to claim otherwise based on builds that cost 3 billion influence and are played by forum celebrities is insane. But then, if I'm not mistaken, you felt reducing the animations on katana would create a ridiculously overpowered powerset. You were wrong there, and you're wrong here.
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I'd just improve what it's got. I think people underestimate how much dmg auras help dmg output - go look at what a db/elec does in the pylon thread. After that, I'd improve its end recovery power to work more like power sink and make burn a much, much better power - like maybe a pbaoe fireblast effect with maybe kd and dot.|
Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
Would it be a bit much if Fiery Aura got the buff for Burn and Immobilization/Knockback protection added? I guess Immobilization wouldn't necessarily need to be added, considering Burn already gives a short duration Immobilization protection.
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Another thing I'd do to boost competing sets would be to allow da and fa to use their 'rez' powers while alive - obviously the rez power wouldn't activate, but the pbaoe stun/fire dmg would.
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There are a lot of directions that burn could go. What I'd love to see myself though I don't think it is possible in this game is for it to be turned into a fire walk (if you ever played Diablo 2 it should be familiar). Basically a 10ft wide wake that would lay down behind you for like 5-8 seconds. That would be my dream version of burn as it just fits so well into a fire based set.|
Originally Posted by DR_EVIL_NA
What if the radius was increased, Max targets increased, fear removed, is that enough to get Burn in line with SC? Maybe a decrease in either animation time to Burn, or decrease recharge of FE to BU level?
I'd dust off some FA rooms for that. |
I think it might be possible (though I'm purely guessing) with a zero cast time/zero root time pseudo pet drop. It would be spherical in nature (just like all patches are), but if it summoned fast enough it would leave a proper visual wake as you move through an area. However, if it is summoning little burn patches preventing it from being ridiculously overpowered in short order would be a challenge judging on how the Assault Bot burn patches overlap and do insane damage.
But assuming you could find a way to make its damage ok that would be my ideal fix to burn and it is still functionally very similar to how it is now, just better and more thematic (imo). So no demolishing of any cottages would occur.
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Damage auras are impressive when they are constantly affecting enemies. They are extremely effective when they affect 10 enemies constantly as show in an earlier post.|
Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
I'd just improve what it's got. I think people underestimate how much dmg auras help dmg output - go look at what a db/elec does in the pylon thread. After that, I'd improve its end recovery power to work more like power sink and make burn a much, much better power - like maybe a pbaoe fireblast effect with maybe kd and dot.
Another thing I'd do to boost competing sets would be to allow da and fa to use their 'rez' powers while alive - obviously the rez power wouldn't activate, but the pbaoe stun/fire dmg would. |
Outside of some very rare scenarios that isn't the case though. I'd set them all to have a larger radius akin to blaster lightning field (20ft), so that the times it is good are more of a common occurrence.
FWIW, the db/elec leveraging the aura you speak of has blinding feint (double stacked), achilies -res and the pvp -res boosting its performance. Which results in roughly double the expected performance for an aura.
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Now that is an interesting idea! 300 base Recharge, could get it down to 150 easily. 333 base Damage, could up that to about 666 (|
Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Another thing I'd do to boost competing sets would be to allow da and fa to use their 'rez' powers while alive - obviously the rez power wouldn't activate, but the pbaoe stun/fire dmg would.
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). It would have 25 radius as opposed to Shield Charge's 20 and the magnitude 4 Stun and 8.31 Knockback as opposed to the 80% chance to Knock Down too.I like this idea quite a bit.
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Using RotP while alive would be amazing and is a suggestion that I've been on board with in the past.|
Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
Now that is an interesting idea! 300 base Recharge, could get it down to 150 easily. 333 base Damage, could up that to about 666 (
). It would have 25 radius as opposed to Shield Charge's 20 and the magnitude 4 Stun and 8.31 Knockback as opposed to the 80% chance to Knock Down too.I like this idea quite a bit. |
It would need a moderate downward adjustment though as it currently does more base damage than a blaster nuke with a shorter recharge. It is currently kept in line by not being able to buff it via bu/fe and such.
In all honesty I'd say it should be around 200 base damage if you could use it while alive with the same 300 recharge. IMO blaster nukes should never feel outclassed by a scrapper power. What that says about SC being 200 base with a 90 rech is that I personally think it was a lot more reasonable of a power when it did brute damage and ideally that would have been the version scrappers kept and everyone else would have been adjusted down. That would also require some way of enabling brutes to use their higher damage buff caps on that specific pseudo pet though.
IMO of course and I am in no way the authority on this stuff, just a single perspective.
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Sure the db/elec was leveraging game mechanics, but so do the SD's that put up the crazy numbers.
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Originally Posted by Frosticus
Damage auras are impressive when they are constantly affecting enemies. They are extremely effective when they affect 10 enemies constantly as show in an earlier post.
Outside of some very rare scenarios that isn't the case though. I'd set them all to have a larger radius akin to blaster lightning field (20ft), so that the times it is good are more of a common occurrence. FWIW, the db/elec leveraging the aura you speak of has blinding feint (double stacked), achilies -res and the pvp -res boosting its performance. Which results in roughly double the expected performance for an aura. |
Hrm, yeah I guess RotP would need to be reduced in damage if it were to be usable while alive.
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You just moved the goalpost, first you were talking about how good a damage aura is toward damage output and now you are talking about complete single target chains or something, of which the strongest /shield is still ahead of the strongest /aura toon.|
Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Sure the db/elec was leveraging game mechanics, but so do the SD's that put up the crazy numbers.
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That said, they are not leveraging game mechanics even remotely in the same way. The ability to make an aura shine in that fashion is available to two specific power sets (three if you include rage, but so far the discussion is isolated to scrappers). The ability to make AAO+Shield Charge shine is available to every single shield regardless of primary.
*It's probably worth mentioning that I really doubt the devs care if set A can do 20% more st dps under extreme build conditions than set B. But I am certain they care about set A wiping entire spawns in the time it takes set b to drop a couple targets. The reward rate of Set A is significantly higher.
If it so happens that Set A can both produce more st dps AND earn rewards at a significantly faster rate then there is reason to be concerned.
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Different ways to explain.| Then how do you explain a db/elec being one of the top rikti pylon soloers? |
1/ Simple. Shield hasn't access to DB (or Claws, or Katana). Granted, AaO would be comparatively less impressive for DB/Claws because of BF/FU, but on a Katana ? The 300 DPS barrier would be trivial to break.
2/ Well made build with extreme focus on ST damage, probably the best you can get out of a DB/Elec.
Are the DM/SD and FM/SD builds on that list nearly as optimized ? I'm inclined to believe Iggy's FM/SD 276 DPS might be close (he lacks Aid Self and has Assault, IIRC), but even Mojo's 289 DM/SD probably don't or had an unlucky run, seeing as Shred did 300+ DPS on his own DM/SD in an AV fight early on.
You're falling into the same logical loophole as many do, extrapolating too much from an insolated example. The only DM/inv on the list is on the bottom at 148 DPS, does that mean DM/inv has the worst DPS ? No, it's just that Aliana had a build focused on survivability at the time, and I don't think it wasn't even complete when he took down that pylon.
What examples are good at is to tell you what happens on average (that's how we do statistics) ; and without involving any maths, you can clearly see Shield owns 17 of the 20 first positions, and the whole top 5. There's a reason for such a trend.
If more combos, optimized to the max for ST DPS, were represented, you'd probably see Kat/Elec slightly above DB/Elec, Claws/Elec at about the same spot as DB/Elec, Kat/Fire, DB/Fire and Claws/Fire slightly under these... So, why don't you see these combos already ? Simply because unlike Shield, they don't combine extreme survivability with extreme damage, they have to chose - see the 2 Kat/FA at 175 and 160, which I assume were using Divine Avalanche chains.
Comparing a 260 DPS DB/Elec built for maximum ST DPS with a DM/SD that does a 280+ DPS chain that also gives him the equivalent of +~30hp/s while being at the softcap with capped DDR, the survivability gap is enormous. The DB/Elec should be at least doing 320-340 DPS for it to be somehow balanced - or more likely, the DM/SD should be brought down. Don't shout nerf just yet - I'm just speaking about a hypothetical situation where we'd balance stuff out of top end ST DPS. My point here is having one player on one specific build almost making it to the best recorded 5 shield builds in ST DPS while still having much lower survivability is more of an argument proving Shield is too strong than anything else...
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It was easy to misread that part of the thread, or at least it was for me, since the bulk of the thread to that point wasn't about auras. Yes, you were talking about damage auras not being as amazing as that high DPS run makes them appear, but my FIRST reaction was exactly the same as Cyber naut, and I had to talk myself down by backing up and reading more carefully. Since you were clear in your writing, I'm not sure much could be done about it to make it easier on the reader. Just saying I understand where Cyber naut's comment came from.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
You just moved the goalpost, first you were talking about how good a damage aura is toward damage output and now you are talking about complete single target chains or something, of which the strongest /shield is still ahead of the strongest /aura toon.
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
Shield hasn't access to DB (or Claws, or Katana). Granted, AaO would be comparatively less impressive for DB/Claws because of BF/FU, but on a Katana ? The 300 DPS barrier would be trivial to break.
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*chuckle*But no, I honestly don't think the 300 DPS barrier would be broken on a Katana/Shield, and at least not trivially.
My most recent (but still oldish) top end DPS comparisons in spreadsheets has Dark Melee/SR doing 5% better DPS than Katana/SR. That IS under fairly ideal circumstances (fully-saturated almost perma Soul Drain), but those are the circumstances we're setting up for Pylon soloing. I suppose the margin might be closer since you're going to have more of a Soul Drain gap with Shields. I'd also rather have the Katana/Shield for general play. It would do better DPS and better AoE in MOST circumstances. I just don't think it would be better than Dark/Shield in Pylon soloing contests. That's my useless (since we'll never see it) and not particularly well thought out prediction anyway.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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Curious what kind of build you have for that dm/sr and kat/sr.|
Originally Posted by Werner
Still waiting for my Katana/Shield.
*chuckle*But no, I honestly don't think the 300 DPS barrier would be broken on a Katana/Shield, and at least not trivially. My most recent (but still oldish) top end DPS comparisons in spreadsheets has Dark Melee/SR doing 5% better DPS than Katana/SR. That IS under fairly ideal circumstances (fully-saturated almost perma Soul Drain), but those are the circumstances we're setting up for Pylon soloing. I suppose the margin might be closer since you're going to have more of a Soul Drain gap with Shields. I'd also rather have the Katana/Shield for general play. It would do better DPS and better AoE in MOST circumstances. I just don't think it would be better than Dark/Shield in Pylon soloing contests. That's my useless (since we'll never see it) and not particularly well thought out prediction anyway. |
here's a buld I have for a kat/sr
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| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1417;715;1430;HEX;| |78DA9D935B6F524110C7F7C0A1943B94D23BA5F74229B4F8545BB589564D2F5484D| |A27B539D22D4509251C4CDA373F80C6C436FA64BC57FD08C6273F809F0967E7BF34| |FAEA09CC6F77F63FBB33B3E7E48FD7FC423C5B1546F046CDB2EDBD52B969351AB2E| |9CA5B956A39B869B532A5E258662CB95628A5DC42885847B197973529B3A4B0EA56| |E2C2BB260F64DD96D9D253352BCA839A3C967664BD7E289BB2DECA7606FEC2D1512| |D7BABDAAA4BDB0EE849E5B055AD57BC3C2B35A4DC0FF1704B5AFBB2691F561B919B| |8D6A397BFD68FF642F6FD92DD93C19A09C52F47FA192E3A7ED1269871039313507C| |C306692400AF845888ABC8A327454D0502BFE1023E8057C8C9E006336C6D8A62803| |51A6812807A21C88EA425417A2EE90DC09B9C3891DCC5E20021D095C10085752289| |7412E54D436DDDB9C72F706B0C9F06E01794681B41EC885679C7778492E9FDEC1F7| |9E55FE4F8CF977C007E023C34DF2007270063668302B32BB9C5D6E9D67B9DB8CBBA| |40BE9624228268C62C228C64982881644FA6910173D979C6A25738D9CA610DDA488| |EAF645DFF0E9BDAF8053C6EC6BC6DC19C324794CDF510CDDEE43B7FBD0ED01747BF| |49F3B9AA0A87E4419FD69EEC800704A2B83FA4D197CC2AEA1C7C00163A402C419A3| |BF398B12450DEBB28671C428EA1E47DD4512C4F525C6331C7A46AE843E297195B71| |9BB022C01CB8CF1156095DBB4435113BA3D13A87712F54EA2DE49D43B857A7B483E| |ADCF9DC6D547C995D41D4B7EE5BD53E7C017E0331AFC0DF88E0AE9F434B235D2685| |506B8472B59FD2A65732C5E5804E6812C23B7C0380F08B1A8335AC4FD8E98175F27| |FDE8115B7F7B56D48BE11405537F8CE4335895302FBECFB627CC5A810DFEEBF9E1E| |F6CE7297AC9EE28532063ECAAD17D651EA8E94335B29479A4A665356AFFF477520E| |2DA9BC2E2BB3ACCC8A3231CA4F3C574AB7FAEE7CCAF8950928135426A44C5899A83| |243CABC55A6FD075D4DE8B1| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
a katana/shield would just be a nasty...nasty combo...
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First of all, I was responding to a post that claimed nothing could do damage on par with a */sd. The fact that a db/elec did damage on par with several */sd's proves that other combos can do damage on par with */sd. In terms of survivability, it just so happens that both elec and sd are very survivable against a rikti pylon. Of course if the rikti pylon had one of the various abilities that punch through defense, we'd probably be talking about a different secondary as being overpowered.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
Different ways to explain.
1/ Simple. Shield hasn't access to DB (or Claws, or Katana). Granted, AaO would be comparatively less impressive for DB/Claws because of BF/FU, but on a Katana ? The 300 DPS barrier would be trivial to break. 2/ Well made build with extreme focus on ST damage, probably the best you can get out of a DB/Elec. Are the DM/SD and FM/SD builds on that list nearly as optimized ? I'm inclined to believe Iggy's FM/SD 276 DPS might be close (he lacks Aid Self and has Assault, IIRC), but even Mojo's 289 DM/SD probably don't or had an unlucky run, seeing as Shred did 300+ DPS on his own DM/SD in an AV fight early on. You're falling into the same logical loophole as many do, extrapolating too much from an insolated example. The only DM/inv on the list is on the bottom at 148 DPS, does that mean DM/inv has the worst DPS ? No, it's just that Aliana had a build focused on survivability at the time, and I don't think it wasn't even complete when he took down that pylon. What examples are good at is to tell you what happens on average (that's how we do statistics) ; and without involving any maths, you can clearly see Shield owns 17 of the 20 first positions, and the whole top 5. There's a reason for such a trend. If more combos, optimized to the max for ST DPS, were represented, you'd probably see Kat/Elec slightly above DB/Elec, Claws/Elec at about the same spot as DB/Elec, Kat/Fire, DB/Fire and Claws/Fire slightly under these... So, why don't you see these combos already ? Simply because unlike Shield, they don't combine extreme survivability with extreme damage, they have to chose - see the 2 Kat/FA at 175 and 160, which I assume were using Divine Avalanche chains. Comparing a 260 DPS DB/Elec built for maximum ST DPS with a DM/SD that does a 280+ DPS chain that also gives him the equivalent of +~30hp/s while being at the softcap with capped DDR, the survivability gap is enormous. The DB/Elec should be at least doing 320-340 DPS for it to be somehow balanced - or more likely, the DM/SD should be brought down. Don't shout nerf just yet - I'm just speaking about a hypothetical situation where we'd balance stuff out of top end ST DPS. My point here is having one player on one specific build almost making it to the best recorded 5 shield builds in ST DPS while still having much lower survivability is more of an argument proving Shield is too strong than anything else... |
Secondly, you seem to imply that it's bad to "extrapolating too much from an insolated example', and I would agree, but that's what everyone here is doing. We're looking at several billion dollar SD builds in extreme situations and some are screaming overpowered. And lets ignore the crazy 'isolated' situation where you have a gaggle of rikti monkeys surrounding the SD's for the duration of the fight so they can max out AAO. Pick something that is actually a threat to you to use for AAO (which you'll attract in missions that are set on a difficulty that can actually challenge you) and tell me how that works out. But when you look at an isolated example, I guess it's easy to just see the power at it's peak ability, ignore its negatives, and assume it's overpowered.
Finally, the reason you only see one elec build in the top ranks is because people are like sheep. They hear something is the best and everyone flocks to it. In the vast majority of the game, especially while leveling up, there is no huge difference between secondaries, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure, when you look at 'isolated examples' some sets look way better than others. There was a thread about a fire/wp taking out 4 av's at a time, what should we nerf in fire and/or wp? Of course not, because overall, in 99% of the game, it's in the same neighborhood as other sets and combos.
Comparing sets or claiming 'overpowered' based on 3 billion dollar builds vs specific situations is simply a really, bad, idea. If I'm not mistaken, the devs claim they do not balance based on IO's. Take a bunch of combos at lvl 50 with just SO's and no insps and try some of these 'isolated examples' with an SD, then other secondaries, and I guarantee the 'overpowered' crew would be singing a different toon, because SD would be an underperformer.
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I didn't move any goalposts, lol. You were talking about the elec 'leveraging' abilities and io's in its primary to get a high dps vs a pylon, and imo, that is no different than specific */sd's leveraging it's primary's abilities and ios to their advantage. Obviously the 'leveraging' isn't identical, because they all use very different sets, that doesn't mean the situation is not similar - they're both taking advantage of what their combo offers, and what IO sets offer - niether of which should be used to balance a single secondary power set, especially when only looking at specific isolated 'tests' like soloing a rikti pylon. |
Originally Posted by Frosticus
You just moved the goalpost, first you were talking about how good a damage aura is toward damage output and now you are talking about complete single target chains or something, of which the strongest /shield is still ahead of the strongest /aura toon.
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And the fact that there were 5 sd builds ahead of the db/elec doesn't change the fact it shows that sets other than /sd can compete for top single target dmg. I wonder how many of those SD's would still be on top if they weren't leveraging a large group of rikti monkeys to fully saturate AAO. I think I can safely say none of them, and the elec would be left alone on top. The stuff that elec is 'leveraging' is there for them pretty much all the time, being surrounded by harmless aao fodder, not so much.
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| That said, they are not leveraging game mechanics even remotely in the same way. The ability to make an aura shine in that fashion is available to two specific power sets (three if you include rage, but so far the discussion is isolated to scrappers). The ability to make AAO+Shield Charge shine is available to every single shield regardless of primary. |
If it was really AAO that was so powerful, you'd expect to see every primary be above anything non shield, yet that is not the case. And it's even less the case in regular game play when AAO is almost never fully saturated, and the negatives of aao, in that it attracts more than your fair share of attention from enemies that actually threaten you, become more apparent.
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*It's probably worth mentioning that I really doubt the devs care if set A can do 20% more st dps under extreme build conditions than set B. But I am certain they care about set A wiping entire spawns in the time it takes set b to drop a couple targets. The reward rate of Set A is significantly higher. If it so happens that Set A can both produce more st dps AND earn rewards at a significantly faster rate then there is reason to be concerned. |
There have always been sets and combos that did and do exceptional aoe damage. To look at specific combos with billions of io's sunk into them and call for nerfs is insane. Of course you can spend billions, pick a specific combo, then pick an enemy group that is weak to your chosen build, set it for +0/x8, and farm it - that's never going to change, nor should it, because you don't balance a game looking at cherry picked situations. And */SD isn't the only choice for these situations, you can take some of the better aoe primaries like fm, elec, spines and pair them with da or fire and do similar aoe carnage.
The funniest part of this debate is that so many here are calling for nerfs to lvl 50 fully io'd out scrappers, who are supposed to be the best solo toon in the game, yet whenever we have some of these tests/trials, there's always a rogue squishy, an at that is supposed to be weak solo, bragging about doing solo things better/faster than scrappers, and in some cases, doing things solo that scrappers can't even begin to do, like soloing gm's. If you're really nerf happy and so concerned about balance, shouldn't we start there?
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Well, I doubt you're actually calling for nerfs there, either. But if anyone else is confused about how a squishy solos a giant monster, it's something very specific, -regen. Other than staying alive yourself, the main problem with killing giant monsters, pylons and AVs is that they are giant bags of hit points regenerating at an astounding rate. For some reason, numbers are escaping me now, but it's something like 360 hit points per second on a giant monster, 130 something on a pylon, and 90 something on an AV. |
Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
The funniest part of this debate is that so many here are calling for nerfs to lvl 50 fully io'd out scrappers, who are supposed to be the best solo toon in the game, yet whenever we have some of these tests/trials, there's always a rogue squishy, an at that is supposed to be weak solo, bragging about doing solo things better/faster than scrappers, and in some cases, doing things solo that scrappers can't even begin to do, like soloing gm's. If you're really nerf happy and so concerned about balance, shouldn't we start there?
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So if you happen to have a power that can shut down a giant monster's regeneration, you essentially get 360 DPS for free, for that one power.
But how useful is -regen overall? Well, it's great against giant monsters. It's good against pylons and AVs. And... uh... that's about it? There are probably other things in game regenerating fast enough for that to make a difference, but they're few and far between. That 360 DPS isn't "real" DPS, then, like a Scrapper puts out. It's EXTREMELY situational DPS. It just so happens that those situations where it contributes the most are the situations that most impress people.
Kind of like a Shield Defense surrounded by Rikti Monkeys tearing apart a Rikti Pylon. It's a very specific, very rare situation, Which I think is the point.
I'm not saying Shield Defense isn't uber - it is. But it's not AS good as a quick glance at the Pylon soloing times might lead you to believe.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
I'm not really interested in participating in what turned into emotional "you evil nerfers" shouting, but still want to clarify three things.
First, when I say I feel Shield scrappers are too strong, I base my opinion on factual mathematic comparisons considering SOs for the most part, as well as my experience playing a variety of Shield characters on SOs on all three ATs with access to it. The potential with IOs just add insult to injury, but it's a consequence rather than a cause. This isn't to say I don't consider IOs - balancing on SOs doesn't mean ignoring IOs btw, otherwise we could argue the Lady Grey bug should have stayed in ; but on SOs alone, Shield is too strong.
Second, taking on AVs with AaO fodder is stuff pretty much any IOed SD scrapper should be able to do. Tons of people have done it, some have recorded videos. To argue it is not possible at this point is downright ridiculous. You shouldn't even use monkeys for pylon runs on a DM by the way, Soul Drain would kill them off in a few hits.
Third, if Shield is deemed too strong by the devs, they'll know it from datamining, not by listening to random forumites ; so there's really no point to barge in balance discussions yelling "EVERYTHING IS FINE, shutupshutupshutupdon'tmakethedevslookatShield, MOVE ALONG CITIZENS". There's one nerfherder in this topic and that's you Cyber_Naut, before you came in this was a "buff FA" argument.
Maybe in a future pass it will get a buff, but who knows when that will be? A year from now? Two?
/gignore @username is the best feature of this game. It's also probably the least used feature.