SS and EM for Scrappers!!

I got to say I almost replied with the same lien as Umbral did.

As for the shared set, if you mean FA, that set is under-performing on all ATs, at least since the arrival of Shields.

Oh goody, yet another "fury is hard to maintain" champion.

Just like perma followup breaks the correlation between brutes and scrappers? Oh wait, it doesn't.

But I'll play. Let's go with the assumption that a single attack's max damage is the point where the devs put the breaks on proliferation.

AT mods:
62.562 Scrapper
44.488 Tank
41.708 Brute
Right?

KO Blow does 3.56 base damage. You state that a level 50 minion has 430 HP. Rage buffs tank/brute damage by 80% and would buff scrapper damage by 100%.
Correct so far?

Apparently you would like me to ignore fury and crits because we can't count on them. Sadly, we can't because that statement is false. If a brute is in combat he has some level of fury. So we'll deal with that in a minute.

As it stands, we've got rage and enhancements. We'll assume 95% from enhs.

Tank: (3.56 * (1 + .95 + .8)) * 44.488 = 435.53752
Brute: (3.56 * (1 + .95 + .8)) * 41.708 = 408.32132
Scrap: (3.56 * (1 + .95 + 1)) * 62.562 = 657.026124

Still good? Cool. At first glance, were I also to completely ignore the persistent buff of Fury I'd also scream, "Hold the phone!!!" But I'm not one of those people. I know that fury exists as long as I'm in combat.

So how much fury does the brute need to match the tank and the scrapper?

Brute to Tank: (3.56 * (1 + .95 + .8 + x)) * 41.708 = 435.53752
Solving for x gets us ~.183 or around 9% Fury. That's what... two outgoing punches?


Brute to Scrap: (3.56 * (1 + .95 + .8 + x)) * 41.708 = 657.026124
Solving for x gets us 1.675 or 83.75% Fury. That is considerable and knowing that I generally sit between 75 and 85% fury while in combat it appears to me to be balanced.

But now I'm leaving off crits. We all know that will send Scrap KO Blow through the roof. A 1314 point hit is insane. But on average (10% crits, we'll say) it comes out to 722.7287364. A brute at 100% fury (unattainable) hits 705.28228.

Do I consider a 17 point discrepancy out of balance? No. I don't. Not at all.

What about the other Scrap big hitters? Is KO Blow completely out of whack with them?

KO Blow: 657 (227 more than your minion)
Headsplitter: 480 (50 more points than your minion)
Midnight Grasp: 509 (79 more points than your minion)
Greater Fire Sword: 605 (175 more points that your minion)

And this is one attack. We can do the same for all the other ST attacks in SS where we'll rapidly see SS under in many cases.

So let's not go throwing around BS like "narrow minded" when I'm not the one ignoring an AT's inherent.


No, Starsman, we're talking about attack sets. I was asking him to show me an attack set that is currently shared amongst the three ATs that is broken on one but not the other. If he could show me that, then perhaps I might be swayed to see your side of the argument rather than seeing the erroneous beliefs that I see presently.

EDIT: About those scrapper big hitters. We know that the DoT on GFS doesn't crit. That means KO Blow when critting beats it by quite a bit more than just the 100 points shown there.

Does that really tell us anything other than KO Blow itself is broken? We can go back to the argument that the rest of SS's ST attacks being so weak counters that if we like. We can go back to viewing SS on the whole as the poorly designed set that it is.

But my statement stands true: If it's broken on scrappers, then it's broken on brutes and tanks. If SS is the only outlier, when all the other sets work within tolerance levels when proliferated, then SS is broken and needs to be repaired NOW.

Do you really want some evidence? Just try looking at the interaction of effects in existing sets. +Dam means virtually nothing to a Brute because the comparative benefits of it are so minor.

Operating entirely off of straight up AT mods, consider the contributing benefits of a 100% +dam buff for each different AT.

For Tankers, that 100% +dam is taken down to 80% +dam by personal damage buff scalars. Assume 95% +dam slotting and apply both of those to the Tanker damage scalar and you'll net an improvement from 1.56 to 2.2, a 41% increase in overall damage.

For Brutes, the 100% +dam gets taken down to 80% as well, though it gets further reduced when you realize that Brutes benefit from Fury as well. Assuming a conservative 50% Fury, the Brute is getting 100% +dam to augment that 95% +dam from enhancement. This means that, without the 80% +dam that we're discussing, the Brute, with his .75 damage scalar, goes from a 2.2125 to a 2.8125, a 27% increase.

For Scrappers, the +100% +dam stays at 100%. So, with a 1.125 damage scalar starts with 2.19375 and ends with 3.31875, for a 51% increase in total damage. Even more, you can have a lot of fun when you factor in Critical and see that to 3.55 from 2.347.

Immediately, it's apparent that any set that provides a substantive amount of +dam is going to benefit Scrappers more than it will Brutes or Tankers. Assuming that, simply because a set is not broken on Brutes or Tankers (something that I have never claimed, in fact, I've regularly claimed that SS is broken overall and Scrappers would just break it even more) is completely ignoring the fact that not every set operates in the same way.

If you want more evidence, just compare any survivability set with a damage aura on a Brute to the performance of that very set on a Tanker or a Scrapper. Fiery Aura provides roughly the same level of survivability on each AT compared to the survivability provided by the other sets (actually, it's worse on Tankers than it is on either comparatively, though that's largely due to the caps restricting overkill resistance), but the additional damage capabilities are not the same: Brutes, thanks to Fury, are actually capable of dealing even more damage than Scrappers because of how Fury operates. Brute Blazing Aura, under the given assumptions (which are, remember, very conservative), would deal 27.081 damage per tick (9.18 * (1 + .95 + (50 * .2))). Scrapper Blazing Aura deals 26.91. If you give Brutes a bit more realistic Fury contribution, like 75% Fury, you're going to get Brute Blazing Aura dealing 31.671, which is 17.7% better than the Scrapper manages and that's not even getting to the top tier of performance.

Now, on the opposite end, if you want more fun, there's always Shield Defense. Once again, the survivability is roughly equivalent (Tankers actually get better rather than worse because they're not having to deal with redundancy), though we deal with +dam again. Shield Defense is actually remarkably bad for Brutes, when you get down to it. Saturated AAO provides only 65% +dam. Using the previous assumptions, 65% +dam equates to only 22% more damage. Tankers get the same 65% +dam though it equates to 33% more damage. Scrappers, on the other hand (and they're the AT where it's completely broken), get 81.25% +dam, which means they're getting 42% more damage. Now, moving on the Shield Charge, which is where it gets even better. Because pseudo-pets are limited by the pet damage caps rather than the AT damage caps that they originate from, Brutes get the joy of getting a Shield Charge that deals only 133.46 base damage. Scrappers' deal 200.2 and Tankers' deal 141.25 damage. Now, factor in all of the +dam components for each, and you'll get Brutes with 260% dam, Tankers with 160% +dam, and Scrappers with 176.25% +dam. Brutes' deals 480.45, Tankers' deals 367.25, and Scrappers' deals 553.05. Let's throw in some BU to make things even more fun. Remember, that's 80% for Brutes and Tankers and 100% for Scrappers. This brings Brutes up to 300% +dam (remember, capped for pets), Tankers to 240% +dam, and Scrappers up to 276.25% +dam. Damage totals become 533.84 for Brutes', 480.25 for Tankers', and 753.25 damage for Scrappers'. Is it balanced for Scrappers to deal 41% more damage than Brutes (which they're supposed to be the equivalent of) and 56.8% more damage than Tankers with such a power?

Well, considering that the only sets that are shared by all three ATs (in the same form, that is) are those that have been determined by the devs to not be broken when they cross ATs. I remember some analysis from way back when the devs first started talking about proliferation and players were wondering which version of Fire Melee Scrappers would get. The very fact that Scrappers got a completely different version than either is evidence that contradicts the entire point of view you're advocating. Brutes didn't get the Tanker version and Scrappers didn't get either of those. Of course, there's also the entire issue of Stalkers getting a different version of Energy Melee than Tanker or Brutes, and not just due to the basic AT transitions either (Energy Transfer got hit hard).

The only sets that have been proliferated straight through have been those that have been straightforward and without anything particularly exploitable by either of the ATs in question. Your challenge is loaded: you already know that there aren't any attack powersets broken for 1 AT and not for the others because those powersets that would be are either not proliferated or changed in such a way that they wouldn't be broken on the proliferated AT. The devs are smarter than that.

Billz, I dare you to start removing directly proliferating sets using theoretical numbers and try not to see sets that would completely break the game. That was the problem with the pre-proliferation Fire Melees. That's the problem with Spines, Energy Melee, Stone Melee, and Super Strength. Unless you have a very loose definition of "not too strong", you're going to realize just how much is wrong with proliferating those sets straight through.

To maintain fury, you need to maintain combat. You cant just jump without aggroing anything and without anything being aware of you with full fury.

From this point on, refer to the stalker notes that I have made twice already.

Since the topic actually makes more sense from tankers to scrappers, how does perma Blinding Feint affect the tanker/scrapper correlation? 6% (X * 1.46) instead of 10% (X * 1.50). You may find a trivial issue, however DB was designed, for some crazy reason (balance perhaps?) to be lower ST dps even with this tool. Same goes for claws.

Oh and for the sake of it, if you go into double stacked rage, then you jump into X * 1.56 instead of X * 1.50.

The statement: "if it's balance in one AT it's balanced on all" stays narrow minded.

Look at Fiery Melee. Set that is available for all 3 ATs. Look at the differences between ATs. Look at the differences in powers and numbers. You will see how the devs do draw lines and they alter sets for different ATs just to make sure the new user is not broken, because something IS considered OK for one AT but not the other.

I'd guess it was to appease BS scrappers. GFS can do more with dot, but Headsplitter still hits harder in raw damage. If that wasn't why then who knows.

I'm reasonably confident that they changed FM when making it for brutes because an unaltered tank version would have sucked for playing with the Fury mechanic until you unlooked incinerate at lvl 26. It was kind of a short sighted move as simply reording the set (which they did) and placing incinerate much earlier would have solved that issue. And did. Likely overcompensation. Remember this was the same time they were stating things like ice melee was too difficult to build fury with yet allowed stone melee and dark armor to go in as is, both of which wreak havoc on fury as much or more than ice melee ever could.

Why did scrappers get the Brute version with cremate? why does defender ice blast use the blaster animations instead of the corr/dom ones?
ctrl c + ctrl v probably.

Try looking at it by considering the contributions unique to the AT rather than the contributions unique to the powerset. Brute Fury affects the bonus DoT while it doesn't provide any benefit to Critical.

Let's compare Scorch to Scorch. Let's assume 75% Fury (what I would consider to be easy to maintain), 95% +dam slotting, and 7% crit contribution (averaged among ranks).

Brute: 35.03 + (4.17 * (.8^1)) + (4.17 * (.8^2)) +(4.17 * (.8^3))
43.17 total base damage
43.17 * (1 + .95 + 1.5) = 148.9

Scrapper: (52.55 * 1.07) + (6.26 * (.8^1)) + (6.26 * (.8^2)) +(6.26 * (.8^3))
68.45 total base damage
68.45 * 1.95 = 133.48

Brute Scorch is 11.15% stronger than Scrapper Scorch and that's not due to AT mods (so you wouldn't be able to just find it out by switching out AT mods). That's due exclusively to how Fury and Critical interact with the various attributes of a power different.

It's explicitly because of these differences in how the AT handles specific attributes that a powerset operates upon that you can't assume that a set is going to be balanced or equivalent with a direct proliferation. Rage provides large amounts of constant +dam, which is a mechanic that Scrappers have readily demonstrated the ability to abuse beyond the ability of Brutes and Tankers (just look at the Shield numbers). Rage will not operate the same for Scrappers as it will for Brutes. Brutes have higher damage than Tankers, but the contributions of Rage are diluted by the fact that Fury provides large amounts of +dam. Scrappers don't suffer from +dam dilution so they're going to get the full impact of Rage and get way more from it than they have any right to.

This assertion is based on the predication that the damage bands for the ATs are not allowed to overlap. That assertion is not true.


No, we can't. Some degree of overlap is intentionally allowed, and I personally consider it desirable. That overlap also exists among nearly all the ATs. Specifically disallowing it between Tankers and Scrappers doesn't make sense when it's so prevalent.

You only can maintain it's broken if you maintain that the cross AT performance overlap is to be disallowed or that we can arbitrarily move Scrapper performance ceilings by porting sets, or both.

You're trying to assert that the relative performance of Tankers cannot encroach on even low-end Scrapper performance at all, while simultaneously asserting that no matter what's going on between Scrappers and Tankers, that the absolute performance of Scrappers has no upper bound. I believe that both of those assertions are incorrect. It's possible for the performance of a Tanker set to be such that the it's relative performance is acceptable (say, below those of most Scrappers), it's absolute performance is acceptable (because it's below those of most Scrappers) the absolute performance of Scrappers given the same set unaltered would be above their absolute performance bound.

Do I know that SS meets those criteria? No, only the devs do. But I sure bet it meets at least the last one.

I don't see why they wouldn't give any of those power sets to other ATs

False. You're attempting to hide the facts behind powerset balance by stating that it's ok for tank SS ST damage to be as high as scrapper Spines ST damage. No one cares if that's true. It has no meaning in relation to whether porting SS without alteration is ok or not.

See above. A power does base X damage. A tank is never going to, nor should ever get to, do scrapper level damage with that attack when equivalent buffs are applied. There is no overlap. There should be no overlap. Scrapper base mitigation values don't get overlap with their identical counterpart powers do they? No, they don't.

It IS disallowed by the values used in this game when dealing with specific powersets. Again, we're not comparing SS to Spines. We're comparing SS to SS. As it stands NOW a tank can only exceed the damage of a brute during the first second of combat because the brute AT melee damage modifier is slightly lower. As soon as the inherent kicks in, the tank loses and will forever lose after that first second in combat.

I have stated nothing of the sort and am annoyed that you would attempt to place words in my mouth in this way. I have NEVER stated or implied that some tricked out SS tanker shouldn't be able to dish out more damage than some poorly slotted and built spines scrapper. What I HAVE stated is that IF SS on a tanker is balanced, then a straight port to a scrapper is ALSO balanced. The math backs this assertion. If KoB is broken on a scrapper, then it is NOW broken on a tank.

Nor have I EVER stated or implied that scrappers should have no upper bound on performance. That upper boundary is set in stone by the same math that balances powersets and archetypes.

I don't give a rat's *** about relative performance. I care about actual performance. I care about the math. KoB should have the same base damage across all ATs that use it. Period. If the AT mods themselves are balanced, then KoB will be balanced.

If KoB is not balanced on scrappers, then it is not balanced for brutes and tanks.

You act as if that's the only example in the game. It's not. It's not even the only example between Tankers and Scrappers. Overlap is allowed. Your claims that it is not are ridiculous. We have Controllers who overlap with Blasters, Defenders who overlap with Blasters, and Tankers who overlap with Scrappers.

It's not trying to hide anything. Your ability to argue this seems to be really losing contact with some pretty simple realities, and I really can't wrap my head around why.

You've asserted that any Tanker powerset that's not considered overpowered for Tankers is fine if ported directly to Scrappers. This is almost certainly false if that powerset would exceed all existing Scrapper powersets performance for some broad measure of DPS, such as AoE DPS.

The claim is that, if a Tanker powerset, on Tankers, which already have a lower set of damage and damage buff modifiers, are operating in Scrapper performance territory, that when ported directly to Scrappers, they will almost certainly outperform existing Scrapper powersets in exactly this way.

Your counter claim is that this suggests the Tanker powerset is broken, because it overlaps Scrapper performance. It might be true that the powerset is overperforming, but this is not clearly implied simply because it operates anywhere inside the Scrapper performance band.

No one claimed equivalent powers. I am talking about whole powersets. Footstomp on its own is not performing in the way you describe. Footstomp + Rage is.

Again, we're talking about powersets, not individual powers. SS is not balanced based on KoB or Footstomp viewed in isolation. It is balanced on all the powers viewed together. Scrappers get a nonlinear performance increase out of a direct port of SS, because they possess higher damage scales and higher melee buff scales. I believe the math shown in this thread does not support your claim that that's fine when ported to Scrappers.

I find it very unlikely that this is the sole arbiter of the upper bound.

But that's not how the ATs are balanced against one another. You're assuming it's just about setting the AT mods and power scales and calling it done. But it's not at all clear that this is the case. What matters is the product of the two. In general, Tankers do more damage than their AT damage scale suggests, because they have large damage mod attacks. The same is true of Brutes, and the only thing that lets them to damage comparable to scrappers is an immense persistent damage boost compared to what any other AT has. Rage in particular would function far more strongly on a Scrapper than on either a Tanker or a Brute.

Look at what happened to Psychic Assault when ported to Blasters, and yet it was not changed at all on Defenders. If it was fine on Defenders, then why was it changed on Blasters? One possible answer is that the devs did not like what it could do in terms of absolute single-target DPS.

For the sake of clarity, would you spell out what this statement means? I don't want to respond to it without making certain I know what you're saying.

Edit: I know what the mods are. I am looking for clarity on the idea of "balance against each other" and "within" those mods.

Without explicit descriptions of what is too much DPS or what is overpowered, you fellows probably aren't even arguing about the same thing.

Some of the argument concerns the size of KoB's damage. Rage's damage buff obfuscates the issue. A better starting point would be to note if energy transfer, total focus, and seismic smash are too strong for scrappers. At that I think what is okay for brutes is clearly okay for scrappers, whether or not they will become top performers for DPS for scrappers (and yet still being situationally weaker than brutes).

I don't think there's anything a superstrength scrapper could break that a stone/shield scrapper couldn't too, but if scrappers can't even get EM or SM then this is all [censored].

We'll go here first. Then I'll get to the other post. By stating that the archetypes (brutes versus scrappers versus tanks) are balanced by their AT mods, I mean specifically that the melee damage modifier is the device used by the developers to create the differences in how much an attack dishes out on an enemy.

If you go here you will see the chart I speak of. For the calculations I did earlier on KO Blow, I used the level 50 modifier. The same modifier I used when doing my big brute/scrapper ST damage output comparison.

That AT melee damage modifier, when coupled with a logical and accurate representation of the pertinent inherent abilities, in this case crits and fury, allow us to see quite plainly the damage output balance between the archetypes in question.

If I were to do the same for corruptors, blasters and defenders when comparing the blast sets, I would use the ranged damage modifiers which can be found in the list on the left.

These modifiers are multiplied by a power's base damage value to determine the amount of damage they do.

The base damage of KO Blow is 3.56. This is true for both brutes and tanks. As they have different melee damage modifiers, the end output of their damage is different. As brutes also have Fury, they end up doing more damage than the tank with the same power.

Taking that in, I hope that my following response make more sense to you.

It doesn't matter if some kin/ice defender IOed to the gills can dish out more damage than an ene/em blaster with SOs. That has absolutely no relevance to the discussion at hand.

We are discussing whether a single powerset, in this case Super Strength, should have a direct port, meaning that all the BASE damage values, endurance values, recharge, secondary effects, etc, to the other Melee based ATs lacking that set.

As with KO Blow having a base damage value of 3.56, it is my statement that the scrapper value should also be 3.56, as with all the other power values, when it's ported to scrappers. If it is found that the 3.56 value is too high on the scrapper, that is all the proof I need to view that the 3.56 value is too high on the brute and tank because it breaks the existing game balance.

And no one has EVER shown me where a direct port of SS to scrappers exceeds "all existing Scrapper powersets performance for some broad measure of DPS, such as AoE DPS." I already know why this is: The statement is false.

If a given powerset is vastly outperforming the other powersets available to a given AT, then that powerset needs to be nerfed. If the AoE output is so vastly superior with SS compared to the AoE output of the other tank sets, and porting it to scrappers would then create the same discrepancy, then SS's aoe output should be nerfed.

Once again, you are stating a falsehood about what I have stated. Perhaps you are doing so due to confusion, and I will, for the moment, give you the benefit of the doubt on that.

What I DO state is that if a powerset is balanced, then it will not outperform in some vast way other similar sets used by an archetype. If that is the case, then the powerset is balanced, and thus can be ported straight over thanks to the way AT modifiers and inherents are set up.

I am ALSO attempting to talk about whole powersets. Others kept speaking about "scrappers with KO Blow and Footstomp" being OP without bothering to take the sets in their entirety into account. AGAIN, If The Farking Powerset Is Balanced For AT-1, Then A Direct Port To AT-2 Should Not Be A Problem.

And this is exactly as it should be. It's true for claws. It's true for dual blades. It's true for dark melee. It's true for the sets that have buildup. Scrappers get better self buffs. This is by design. It is as it should be. What you are calling a problem is not a problem. UNLESS THE POWERSET ITSELF IS BROKEN.

Show me where it isn't the case. Show me how a scrapper can do more damage with an attack that the damage cap allows. (Discounting, of course, dam-res debuffs.)

Yes, I'm stating that in all cases where something isn't broken or the whim of the devs (see brute claws) states otherwise, this is and Should Be the case.

There are many cases where something broken is still present and left alone. See spines. A set, as mentioned, that the lead powers designer admits is borked.

Wait wait wait. Spines is broken how so? Does he mean its low single target DPS?

It was more because of the plethora of secondary effects. Pretty much every attack has a:

*) toxic dot
*) recharge slow
*) movement slow
*) low mag immobilize

Not to mention other attacks have additional special properties on top of that (range for Impale/Throw Spines, guaranteed high mag immob for Implae).

Consider that most attacks only have one or two secondary effects. Some have more than that, but certainly not every attack in the set. (Not saying effects like low mag immobilizes are particularly useful, mind you. However, that's the gist from what I recall of Castle's post - take it with a grain of salt.)

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

He said it would be broken if they got rid of the redraw, if memory serves.

BU has a base recharge of 90 seconds and 10 second duration. Ignoring animation time (which would further increase the recharge requirement), you're assuming 350% +recharge (381% factoring in recharge). Are you honestly that obtuse as to use a completely unrealistic level of recharge as your gauge for balance? I have a remarkably strong feeling that you're simply finding the point of equivalence beforehand and then assuming it's realistic.

Try pulling it down to a more realistic uptime ratio... like 20%.

Brute: 35.03 + (4.17 * (.8^1)) + (4.17 * (.8^2)) +(4.17 * (.8^3))
43.17 total base damage
43.17 * (1 + .95 + 1.5 + (.8 * .2)) = 155.84

Scrapper: (52.55 * 1.07) + (6.26 * (.8^1)) + (6.26 * (.8^2)) +(6.26 * (.8^3))
68.45 total base damage
68.45 * (1 + .95 + (1 * .2)) = 147.18

And that's assuming averaged contribution, which isn't exactly realistic, unless you've got BU on autocast.

Don't try to call out my math when you can't even get your assumptions to a realistic level.