Leadership Pool Suggestion

Maybe there are game balance reasons why this is a bad idea, and I'm certainly prepared to be shot down on that basis, but my suggestion is...

Make endurance usage of powers in the Leadership Pool scale with the effetiveness of the power. That way my Blaster, who generates Assault and Tactics bonuses that are only 56% as effective as a Defender's bonuses, isn't sucking down end at the same rate as the Defender. The way it's set up now, it's basically a waste for a Blaster, Brute, Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker to take Leadership powers, and almost as useless for Dominators and Master Minds.

If the End usage already scales, I apologize, but I see nothing in Paragon Wiki that indicates it does.

Well, they don't currently scale. However, neither does any other pool power (or pretty much any power, really). Combat Jumping is more effective for a Tanker than a Blaster, as well, but the endurance cost is the same. So does Tough.

Medicine, I believe, works better for ATs that have higher base HPs, but the endurance costs are the same. Flurry, and the other attack powers, work better for Scrappers than Defenders, but cost the same endurance for both.

As such, I'm not sure that there is a need to do this just for the Leadership powers, since everything else is affected by the AT mods in a similar fashion. Considering that if a team of Blasters were to all take Maneuvers, they'd ALL be sitting at 18.2% Defense (28%-ish slotted), I'd say that they're still pretty useful.

Yeah, and don't forget that a defender using the same blasts as a blaster use the same endurance. Blasters are just good at blasting. The power hasn't changed at all, but the defender does less damage. That is balance.

This holds true for tankers/scrappers and their powers. A tanker gets more effect out of his armors than a scrapper does, so should we make the tanker power consume more endurance? And a scrapper gets more damage out of its attacks, so do we make the tanker attacks cost less endurance? No. They are the same powers and balanced by the AT.

But see, to use the example of Combat Jumping, is CJ more effective for a Tanker than a Blaster because a Blaster has less inherent defense than a Tanker, or because the power itself applies a lower modifier to the Blaster than the Tanker?

If CJ applies the same Defense modifier to any AT who selects it, then I have no problem with it using the same amount of endurance regardless of the AT. But if it is less effective for Blasters because it only gives Blasters 56% of the defense bonus it gives Tankers, then yes, I think it should use less End.

And I'm talking about Pool Powers here, not AT powers. AT powers are balanced independantly of Pool Powers as I understand it. Tankers do less damage than Scrappers with the same attacks because Tankers have more defense and therefore don't have to kill things as fast. Defenders can use their AT powers debuff their enemies more effectively than blasters, and in some cases heal themselves - abilities which make up for their lower damage output; same is true of controllers.

So yeah, a Defender's energy blast may do less base damage than a Blaster's, but add in the resistance debuffs of Sonic Resonance or Radiation Emission, or the damage buffs from Kinetics, and you get a lot closer.

And do Defenders' weaker blasts really use the same amount of end as Blasters' more powerful ones? I've never looked at it, so you may be right, but I assumed from the recent Dominator changes that increasing the damage output of a power brought with it either an increase in end usage or a reduction in recharge, or both.

But you're missing the logic. A defender happens to be better at defending his team, thus when he takes maneuvers, it does more than a blaster. A scrapper or blaster who takes boxing will do more damage with it than a defender. A controller who takes invoke panic will have a longer fear duration than a scrapper.

It's all based on the AT modifiers. Primary, secondary, pool, ancillary, it doesn't matter. Things are balanced around the AT modifier. It costs the blaster the same amount of "energy" to "shout orders" at his teammates that it does a defender, but the defender is better at it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mousedroid And do Defenders' weaker blasts really use the same amount of end as Blasters' more powerful ones? I've never looked at it, so you may be right, but I assumed from the recent Dominator changes that increasing the damage output of a power brought with it either an increase in end usage or a reduction in recharge, or both.

The dominators were treated uniquely because their sets are not the same as anyone else's.

For a given power, damage scale is on a fixed ratio with endurance cost and recharge. Actual damage is then determined by damage scale and AT modifiers. Defenders spend the same amount of endurance to do less damage with the same power, because their AT mod for damage is lower. In general, the AT mods determine effectiveness of powers, but the cost is fixed across all ATs.

OK, I was wrong and as I said, if I was wrong, I would accept it. I don't like it, but I'll accept it.


However, I would like confirmation on this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn The recent Dominator changes didn't touch the endurance cost of the powers. Why? The powers retained the same damage scale. The Dominators just got higher Damage AT mods. As such, the recharge and endurance costs stayed the same.

I could SWEAR the endurance costs, and possibly the recharge rates of some Dominator powers were increased when the damage modifier was increased. Maybe not across the board or even on all powersets, but certainly on some. Either that or there is something really worng with my lvl 50 dom who runs out of end MUCH quicker than she did when she did less damage.

The Dominator AT ranged and melee damage modifiers were increased. Separately, several Dominator Assault powers had their damage, endurance, and recharge increased by some proportion. Also, some powers were upgraded from "utility" powers doing trivial damage to powers doing damage in proportion to their endurance cost. The end result is that the powers that were not otherwise altered do more damage per endurance, and the ones that were altered do even more damage and also cost more endurance. Overall, Dominator damage per endurance was lowered, but it became possible to do more damage and spend more endurance over the same period of time. I would consider this a buff: there are more ways to mitigate endurance consumption than there are ways to increase damage over time.