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You kind of just proved my point though, didn't you? /Inv, /WP, and hell, /Dark with their layers are ALSO better than SR when you sink as much money as you have to sink into /Shield to make it into an end-game god. Hell, for general team and solo PvE content I would take my Katana/Dark over /SR OR /Shield.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
SD's mitigation sucks with SOs? Really?
Let's compare because facts mean a hell of a lot more than hyperbole. 11.25 melee def = 17.55 slotted 11.25 S/L dam-res = 17.55 slotted 11.25 range/aoe def = 17.55 slotted 13.84 DDR = 21.59 slotted 11.25 F/C/E/N/T dam-res = 17.55 slotted +133.862 HP = +261 slotted 30% DDR 3.75 m/r/a def 13.84 DDR And for 1/3rd of the time with OwtS slotted 3dam-res/3heal, 35.1 S/L dam-res, 17.55 F/C/E/N/T dam-res and another +522 HP So for 66% of the time, the level 50 shield scrapper with nothing but SOs is running around with: 21.3% def to melee, range and aoe defense 17.5 dam-res to all but psi An extra 261 HP 57.68 DDR 33% of the time for the cost of some end but no real crash beyond that, we're looking at: 21.3% def to m, r, a 52.65 S/L dam-res 35.1 F/C/E/N/T dam-res +783 HP 57.68 DDR And this sucks? Really? SR gets 31% defense to m, r, a all the time, capped DDR and some scaling dam-res that is easily leap-frogged by hard targets. And for 35% of the time it can softcap its defense for the price of a complete endurance crash. Like willpower, SD has layered mitigation that can be built upon. SR doesn't. SR is awesome. I can do incredible things with it. But that's only true NOW that I've dumped billions into it. With just SOs, SR is squishy as hell. Make no mistake, the softcap on its own is very nice, but the softcap backed by consistent dam-res and substantial HP buffs is vastly better. And then to cruise around with +50% damage on top of that on average? K. |
As for Shield, it's not as squishy as Fire because powers like Weave and CJ stack so much better with it than Tough does with /Fire, however my SR toon was more survivable by a good margin. So was my /Inv, and none of them even touch my /WP toon on SOs. Yeah, Shield Charge helped keep the set alive, but then we all know what an outlier that was.
And before the AAO thing is thrown out there, it's really only the builds that have come close to the soft-cap that can really pimp the hell out of this by sitting perfectly safe in a large group for extended periods of time. I know I rarely could.
And thing is, I don't think I'd really even notice if AAO got knocked from 80% at 10 to 60% at ten, however, I get annoyed when people talk about /Shields like every average player has the several billion influence needed to make it into an end game monster.
Virtue:
Miserya - 50 EM/ELA Brute (Perma-shelved)
Adriana Rayne - 42 Katana/Dark Scrapper
Cyberpulse - 26 Super Strength/Willpower Brute
Steel Heart - 24 Invuln/Super Strength Tanker
So here is the question Shield Charge got a much needed nerf yea little tear comes to my eye but it was way overpowered and it is much more in line and I do not kill everything on the screen anymore.
Now comes the question on AAO what is the damage Buff %# we want to hit to balance out the +damage
with 10 enemies in range it is 81.3%
it's base is 12.5% then +7% per enemy
If mids is correct I do not have the in game numbers in front of me
so 12.5% base is fair better than assault if we just cap the targets at 8 instead of 10 we go to 67.5% damage buff That allow a 19.5% buff with just 1 enemy in the game or if we cap at 7 we hit 48.1%
If you prefer to lower the +enemy buff to half 3.5% you only hit 16% 1 target but requires 10 targets to hit 47.1%
So what total % is the balance point we need to hit ?
Then is the ramp up to much or just the total or both ? To look at what the best solution for getting to X balance point
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
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We're dealing with people who are focused on end-game multi-billion inf builds. They forget the drawbacks, especially those that exist while leveling up - ie a non softcapped SD drawing most of the team aggro with AAO and not having any purple insps or greens can create problems other secondaries don't have. And when you're facing defense-buster enemies, you end up wishing you were on another secondary.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
You kind of just proved my point though, didn't you? /Inv, /WP, and hell, /Dark with their layers are ALSO better than SR when you sink as much money as you have to sink into /Shield to make it into an end-game god.
As for Shield, it's not as squishy as Fire because powers like Weave and CJ stack so much better with it than Tough does with /Fire, however my SR toon was more survivable by a good margin. So was my /Inv, and none of them even touch my /WP toon on SOs. Yeah, Shield Charge helped keep the set alive, but then we all know what an outlier that was. And before the AAO thing is thrown out there, it's really only the builds that have come close to the soft-cap that can really pimp the hell out of this by sitting perfectly safe in a large group for extended periods of time. I know I rarely could. |
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Inv, WP and Dark don't have AAO. I will not toss out the monstrous +damage buff it provides just because you can't build properly or adjust your difficulty levels properly to abuse it.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
You kind of just proved my point though, didn't you? /Inv, /WP, and hell, /Dark with their layers are ALSO better than SR when you sink as much money as you have to sink into /Shield to make it into an end-game god.
As for Shield, it's not as squishy as Fire because powers like Weave and CJ stack so much better with it than Tough does with /Fire, however my SR toon was more survivable by a good margin. So was my /Inv, and none of them even touch my /WP toon on SOs. Yeah, Shield Charge helped keep the set alive, but then we all know what an outlier that was. And before the AAO thing is thrown out there, it's really only the builds that have come close to the soft-cap that can really pimp the hell out of this by sitting perfectly safe in a large group for extended periods of time. I know I rarely could. |
Be well, people of CoH.
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So you can solo +0x4-5 with /Shield on SOs or even minimal IOs? I really don't think that's representative of the average player, there.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Inv, WP and Dark don't have AAO. I will not toss out the monstrous +damage buff it provides just because you can't build properly or adjust your difficulty levels properly to abuse it.
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And really, we're lowering ourselves to taking shots at one another this quick? I'm disappointed.
But, okay. This is my problem:
I think there are a few of you that are such ungodly powergamers, min-maxers, and have become so good at this game that you all forget that a very good portion of the game's population are not even near that level.
It's mostly just the Scrapper forum, but I digress...
So when the idea of nerfs get tossed around that are going to hurt everyone, because at the insane min/max Billz level it's abusable, it rankles me.
REASONABLE changes that are abusable by EVERYONE like Shield Charge and the DDR in Active Defense I completely agree with, because it's obvious that those powers aren't/weren't working as intended, but the other suggestions...? Bleh.
Virtue:
Miserya - 50 EM/ELA Brute (Perma-shelved)
Adriana Rayne - 42 Katana/Dark Scrapper
Cyberpulse - 26 Super Strength/Willpower Brute
Steel Heart - 24 Invuln/Super Strength Tanker
Ok, fair enough. You are correct in that I don't think soloing at +0/x4 is all that difficult for a scrapper after level 22 and SOs. It's ridiculously easy to do so at level 50 and SOs when you've got other +def powers slotted into the build.
Of course, I don't use SOs at level 50. I use basic IOs on all of my characters at and after level 32. Which makes it that much easier.
Edit: For the record, my MA/SD scrapper is level 25 and he's at +0/x3 because he has no AoE yet.
Be well, people of CoH.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
Except the mitigation sucks. It's only with heavy IO investment does the set become serviceable
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Originally Posted by Silas
SD being great even on SOs is just like, whatever, man.
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Now if you don't want to make that sort of power and slot investment in survivability, that would have an effect. If you refuse to take inspirations, that would make a big difference. Maybe other sets can get the same survivability for less investment - I'm not sure, because I ALWAYS invest in my survivability. But Shield Defense does fine if you treat it right.
That said...
Will the average player treat it right? Eh, probably not. The average player is going to think Shield Defense is squishy. The average player is also going to think that Super Reflexes is squishy, because they won't soft cap it. Actually, they probably won't think either is squishy, because that will just be their normal expectation of survivability.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
So when the idea of nerfs get tossed around that are going to hurt everyone, because at the insane min/max Billz level it's abusable, it rankles me.
REASONABLE changes that are abusable by EVERYONE like Shield Charge and the DDR in Active Defense I completely agree with, but the other suggestions...? Bleh. |
The only other main proposed nerf I'm remembering from the thread is reducing the damage buff from Against All Odds. Yeah, that'll affect Joe Average, but it won't be a huge affect. Joe Average might not even notice. It's again probably mostly the min/maxers that pay close attention that will notice and care.
"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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Originally Posted by Werner
Lot of text
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I actually found SR with minimal investment to be pretty awesome. It's like a Shield/ tanker in terms of defense levels (almost).
But then it's a Claws/SR Brute and Claws is just amazing EVERYWHERE (love dat Spin, love dat Shockwave) so that might have had something to do with it. (SR is better on Brutes too, I realize that)
Just out of curiosity how much more DPS does AAO add to an attack chain for (Dark, MA, BS? One of the sets both have access to, doesn't matter which) in comparison to Death Shroud/Lightning Field?
Virtue:
Miserya - 50 EM/ELA Brute (Perma-shelved)
Adriana Rayne - 42 Katana/Dark Scrapper
Cyberpulse - 26 Super Strength/Willpower Brute
Steel Heart - 24 Invuln/Super Strength Tanker
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Good question, but I'm not sure there's an easy answer. A lot of AAO's dmg boost is going towards single targets (depending on primary) while the damage auras are hitting everything in range all of the time. I think the damage auras are a lot more beneficial than many players give them credit for being.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Unholy
Just out of curiosity how much more DPS does AAO add to an attack chain for (Dark, MA, BS? One of the sets both have access to, doesn't matter which) in comparison to Death Shroud/Lightning Field?
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Originally Posted by Smersh
Another Fan, all I see are numbers with no explanation.
That hardly makes any point at all. As far as I can tell, you made up all those numbers. Care to cite your source and, you know, explain what those numbers are supposed to represent? |
Sure if you read umbrals post he directs me to Arcanavilles spreadsheet ranking the armors with various options turned on.
Those columns is the output sorted by rank relative to invulnerability for 30 seconds and 60 seconds.
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That depends on how it's done. If only the high end is reduced, either by lowering the target cap or putting the buff on some kind of diminishing scale, then probably not much.|
Originally Posted by Werner
The only other main proposed nerf I'm remembering from the thread is reducing the damage buff from Against All Odds. Yeah, that'll affect Joe Average, but it won't be a huge affect. Joe Average might not even notice. It's again probably mostly the min/maxers that pay close attention that will notice and care. |
I honestly don't think the low end needs to be touched at all. AAO is fine until you start surrounding yourself with scads of guys.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I believe we should start focusing on an exact method in fixing Shield Defense. One that is numerically and arguably sound.
I also believe in my experience that Shields with SOs is good but not great. Then again I am used to extreme survivability so my perception is very skewed.
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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I saw your numbers how many grey rikti monkeys did you have surrounding you when you did that ?|
Originally Posted by Santorican
No kidding, I don't even know what those numbers stand for.
A perfect example of how Shield Defense blows Super Reflexes off the earth let alone out of the water is just go look at the Pylon result thread. All of the top 5 are all Shield wielding heroes. Coincidence? |
Until you can global mail packs of grey con enemies to fuel Souldrain and Against all odds that isnt relevant.
What is more worrisome is that the average to typical numbers in that thread were comparable to average blaster numbers and that is a problem. If the people complaining were serious about balance they would be looking at how to address the giant problems.
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Not at all. SR is the easiest secondary to softcap, and it needs to be. With SR you really need to build for recovery, because you need to be running all the toggles plus your mez protect clicky all the time. A softcapped scrapper with no endurance is still not very useful. In the current game environment, defense debuff protection is almost as big an advantage as the defense itself, and SR offers more than any other defense based set. |
Originally Posted by Cheeze_Head
I realize it would take a bit more work for other sets to soft cap than SR, however, I feel the point remains valid.
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It has issues, but being easy to softcap is not one of them. It does not exemp down well at all, because you cannot make Practiced Brawler permanent at an exemp level of 15 or 20 without purple recharge bonuses. It does not exemp down well because every so many levels you exemp down from leaves a huge hole in your positional defense. Under 30, you have no AoE defense. I have not run New Posi on my SR scrapper and probably never will.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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I didn't have any rikti Monkeys around me. I had 16 lvl 52s(minion, LTs, Bosses) on me when I did my time. Most of the Top 5 times have lvl 50+ groups on them so Soul Drain wouldn't kill them and then have nothing to fuel AAO and SD. Yes I did die a few times but I still had a lot of good runs too.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I saw your numbers how many grey rikti monkeys did you have surrounding you when you did that ?
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"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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Except that they're not.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Those columns is the output sorted by rank relative to invulnerability for 30 seconds and 60 seconds.
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I'm curious if you actually took my advice or just attempted to and failed miserably. For the assumptions I gave you, those numbers aren't even right. And you didn't even do the adjustment for the improved damage (which increases the value by 25% to compensate for faster kill speed fo SD which was the most important part). Unless you planned on spamming Aid Self ad nauseum (which is what that Aid Self tab assumes), those numbers would be substantially different. Now, comically enough, even with those numbers, I'm still right because you forgot to factor in the fact that Shield is killing things 25% faster. Seriously, with your own assumptions, Shield is second only to Ice and Dark (the values ignore endurance issues so the Dark value isn't really that high). Try again. Maybe you'll actually get it right one of these days.
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I used Comm Officers. Minimal risk, endless stream of fodder to replace what you kill. If you factored in the time spent collecting such precise fodder those top DM/SD times start to look a lot less impressive.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I saw your numbers how many grey rikti monkeys did you have surrounding you when you did that ?
Until you can global mail packs of grey con enemies to fuel Souldrain and Against all odds that isnt relevant. |
Of course in normal play, outside of these specific extreme situations, fully saturating AAO requires simply jumping into a x8 spawn. Takes about three seconds. I don't need to global mail you reasonably unthreatening minions because the game does it for me.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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Against a SINGLE hard target. Blasters more than compensate for this through their superior AoE capabilities.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
What is more worrisome is that the average to typical numbers in that thread were comparable to average blaster numbers and that is a problem.
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I am amazed that you're still attempting to create a balance issue between entire ATs.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
I used Comm Officers. Minimal risk, endless stream of fodder to replace what you kill. If you factored in the time spent collecting such precise fodder those top DM/SD times start to look a lot less impressive.
Of course in normal play, outside of these specific extreme situations, fully saturating AAO requires simply jumping into a x8 spawn. Takes about three seconds. I don't need to global mail you reasonably unthreatening minions because the game does it for me. |
In missions, which I run at +4/x8 on my DM/SD, the fodder is there and doesn't need to be gathered, usually. I also don't nuke the mobs initially. I run my ST chain against Bosses and get them down to 1/4 health then SC to kill everything. Now, with the much needed adjustment to SC, this won't be as effective and spawns should take more effort to grind through.
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Set the DDR in Active Defense to be non-stackable. That move reduces SD's mitigation at the high end while leaving the mid-low end unaffected.|
Originally Posted by Santorican
I believe we should start focusing on an exact method in fixing Shield Defense. One that is numerically and arguably sound.
I also believe in my experience that Shields with SOs is good but not great. Then again I am used to extreme survivability so my perception is very skewed. |
For AAO, we need to consider some assumptions:
Do we balance it around the age old 3 enemies is base difficulty so we should look at AAO's buff at that level? Or should we look at a more realistic difficulty level for a mid-level SOed up scrapper?
As it stands, AAO provides 46.875% damage buff if there are 5 enemies within 8' of the player and is autohit. It's cast time doesn't count due to being a toggle.
If we look at the other damage buffs, considering SO slotting:
Follow Up (.83 cast)and Blinding Feint (1.2 cast) only provide 37.5% and must hit their target to function.
Soul Drain against 5 targets provides 100% damage buff for 30s but (slotted) recharges in 61.5 seconds and also must hit the target to get the buff with a 2.37 cast.
Build Up needs no tohit check, provides a 100% damage buff for 10 seconds and recharges in 45.15 seconds with a 1.17 cast.
If we average them all out over time:
AAO: 46.875 no tohit check
BU: 21.6 no tohit check
FU/BF: 37.5 w/ tohit check
SD: 46.97 w/ tohit check
I don't know the answer to how much AAO should be nerfed. It's only real sibling is Fiery Embrace but that's about to be changed in a way that it is no longer a damage buff but will instead be extra damage similar to procs.
Gut answer? Leave the initial damage buff alone at 12.5% and drop the amount per enemy considerably. As it stands it caps out at 81.25% dam buff while also providing a solid taunt aura and a 7.5% damage debuff to enemies.
There's another toggle out there that a scrapper can take that buffs damage. It only provides 10.5% damage buff and costs .39 end/sec where AAO only costs .208 end/sec.
Perhaps AAO should be capping somewhere closer to 12.5 + (2.5*10) = 37.5%
Be well, people of CoH.
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This isn't a bad idea and would be sufficient for balance-sake, and generally unnoticeable by the majority of the player base. However you propose multiple changes, and I don't know that the devs should even consider even remotely drastic changes to a powerset that the player-base likes as it is, within the context that CoX is an aging MMO. |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Set the DDR in Active Defense to be non-stackable. That move reduces SD's mitigation at the high end while leaving the mid-low end unaffected.
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Drastic changes are certainly more tolerable to players, and even expected by veteran MMO players, when the game is young. Add several years and this acceptance goes down, more players will be put off and leave the game. Yes, I understand that I have zero factual evidence to back up this conjecture, but I can't see how the Dev team could ignore the need to balance this possibility against the changes they make.
Brute fury has been around a lot longer than Shields and it just got nerfed. What's the difference?
Be well, people of CoH.
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There isn't one. I would argue the same point. In that case, the Devs apparently decided that the Fury nerf was worth whatever displeasure the change will bring. |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Brute fury has been around a lot longer than Shields and it just got nerfed. What's the difference?
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From what I was reading in the Brute forum about the Fury changes, it is a nerf, but the alterations to how it's generated and when/how quickly it deteriorates have actually pleased some people too. The ability to have more stable levels of Fury is almost a buff that helps off-set the sting of the nerf. I'm not sure that flatly reducing multiple aspects of Shield's effectiveness could achieve such mixed reactions since there would be no upside.
I also want to note that, while I question the wisdom of implementing such changes, I do not disagree with the need for adjustment when considering only balance.
Perhaps they've learned a lesson regarding nerfing. They could always bump up the damage debuff on AAO to soften the blow of nerfing the damage buff.
Be well, people of CoH.
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I don't think the devs planned on DEF being supremely powerful either, and totally above all other forms of mitigation.|
Originally Posted by Werner
Well, the "solution" is based on a particular "problem". The devs probably never intended, for instance, that I be able to soft cap Dark Armor. It was intended to be more about utility, resistance, and healing. But when I soft cap it, I get something significantly more survivable than my Super Reflexes (outside of defense debuffs).
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Resistance + Healing unfortunately just do not provide the same amount of survivability as DEF does.
This is a disparity in the game's inherent mechanics, I wish it wasn't this way and that there were other viable options for high end play - but there aren't.
For high end play in the majority of cases (not all) you either build for +DEF or go home.
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Originally Posted by Werner
Partially agree. The enhanceable DDR in Active Defense only affects those very same min/maxers. It probably won't affect 99% of players.
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If the DDR SD gets was nerfed, I'd probably not play SD again.
-DEF is everywhere in this game, and even with gallons of recharge and HOs in Active D I still get debuffed frequently ( I can count on at least 2 to 3 full crashes per ITF)
It's a conundrum. With softcapped defenses, layered resistance and +HP - SD is better than SR. Once those defenses crash, the resistances and +HP are like a tissue paper before a storm.
So yes, cutting down the ability to enhance the DDR would neuter SD vs. -DEF enemies. I'm not sure that's a very good place for the set to be, because while it kills faster - it doesn't kill THAT much faster as to make massive -DEF irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by Werner
The only other main proposed nerf I'm remembering from the thread is reducing the damage buff from Against All Odds. Yeah, that'll affect Joe Average, but it won't be a huge affect. Joe Average might not even notice. It's again probably mostly the min/maxers that pay close attention that will notice and care.
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The min/maxers paying close attention are the ones posting in this thread, joe average already doesn't care about any of this.
The min/maxers who love SD want SD to stay as is, and the min/maxers who love some other set want SD to be nerfed.
That's primarily what this entire thread is about, any pretense of altruism or game balance is a falsehood.
I chose your post, because it's one of the most reasonable in the thread.
If the Devs really want to help SR out they should look at adding layers to SR's survival (not dependant on being hurt) and consider giving the "basics" of SR with fewer power picks and earlier in their career.
Nerfing Shields even more is not the right choice. Instead of "pushing" people away from one set, you should "draw" their attention to another.
I can understand your viewpoint on this Umbral, and am not diasgreeing with your numbers. But I have always considered the extra damage as a unique "layer" of survival for Shields that replaces "healing", "regen", or "utility" powers. Overall, I think that if you remove SC from the equation, AAO makes much more sense and is not overpowered. AAO + BU + SC is such an obvious thing, that it actually overshadows the characters other attack powers. Since they probably will not turn SC into a "hurl" type power like I want, I guess we are kinda stuck with the +damage concerns for the set.