Corruptor Blasts v. Defender Blasts

How do Corruptor blasts compare to Defender blasts of the same type?

I have a 50 TA/Arch Defender, which I enjoyed, and I have rolled a heroic Arch/TA in Praetoria, which is my first Corruptor.

What can I expect compared to my Defender, especially in the Archery department?

How do Corruptors compare with Defenders generally in the Blast department?

Thanks for the input!

Generally speaking Corruptors are better at blasting because it is their primary. Some defenders can blast quite well but in general they will do less damage. Defenders however have better debuffs so that helps compensate for their lower damage output.

However defenders solo do receive a damage buff they lose as they team with others.

Being a Defender fan and a blue-side player, GR has given me an opportunity to get into the ATs (formerly know as Villains) and specifically the corruptor.

I am really liking it

Solo, I don't see any huge differences in their base damage, so they feel very similar EXCEPT for;

...getting on teams and being able to KEEP that extra damage is sure nice

and, SCOURGE !!! This power is one that you will find some folks who will downplay its overall effect on DPS. I have even heard that someone went thru the trouble of assigning an average DPS value to it ( 17% approx), but that number simply does not do Scourge justice. Where scourge makes the greatest difference is on HARD targets. If you have played defenders alot, you know how tedious it can be to bring down a boss, EB, heck even Lts (prior to the Vigilance 2.0). Corruptors don't have anywhere near the trouble with these targets. I have not gotten my main corruptor onto any teams to fight AVs yet, but I am REALLY looking forward to "chain-scourge"

In strict mathematics, the Defender is now likely the better choice. The Defender always has better support and debuffs, and when solo, now does comparable damage against anything that isn't a boss or tougher, foes you'll only have to fight sparingly. When teamed, it does less damage, but individual damage is less important then, and the added support will often make up for this. Against higher-order foes, Corruptors are damned effective, and the more legitimately dangerous a foe, the more effective their extra damage becomes.

The exception to this is on Superteams, or more carefully designed ones anyway, where the stacked supports render the Defender numbers academic, and the much higher Corruptor damage cap actually means something. Last time I got on one of these with was with my AR Corruptor, and there was so much +recharge my attack chain turned into Flamethrower-Ignite-Flamethrower-Ignite, killing things so fast they never got the chance to run out of the patch. I will admit to laughing like a homicidal maniac at the sheer amount of incendiary violence I was unleashing.

In fun terms, Corruptors are a lot more enjoyable for me. Getting their attacks earlier makes them easier to level, and Scourge is actually quite helpful when solo against EBs, because it always seems to kick your damage into maximum overdrive just as you've run out of purple and you need it to die NOW, please.

To be fair, most of the situations where a Corruptor really worked for me would have been just as much fun on the right Defender, too.

My thanks for the responses.

I, too, have waited for GR to roll some Villain ATs, and I was interested as to how Scourge would function. I figured the blasts would be more Blaster-like and the buff package more Controller-like as compared to Ye Olde Defender, but I will just have to see how Scourge sorts out as well.

From a purely stylistic viewpoint, I personally find "SCOURGE SCOURGE SCOURGE SCOURGE" rising from my enemies more satisfying than an invisible increase in debuff strength.

Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, and Blizzard do the same damage for corruptors (and defenders) as the blaster version and for corruptors they do a Scourge check repeatedly which makes them more powerful for Corrs than Blasters. And that's not even factoring in the -res debuffs many Corrs can hit them with before hand.

My ice/cold corruptor lays down Heat Loss, (to recover from the -end of using a nuke) which is a -30% Res, then Freezing Rain which is another -30%, Power build up + Aim then Blizzard. By the time the debuffs and the +damage buffs wear off the thing is Scourging for double damage. I can wipe out +3 bosses with it. On a team with a good tank I'll ask him to herd multiple spawns together for me to wipe out.

Check out this link: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Damage_Scale

Corruptors do more damage per hit because their damage scale is at 0.75 as opposed to defender's 0.65. If an attack is normally calculated as doing 100 damage (Known as the powers BASE damage in my example), then it will do 75 damage for a corrupter, and 65 for a defender, a difference of 10.

If the attack has a BASE damage of 200, then it will do 150 for a Corrupter, and 130 for the Defender, a difference of 20 damage.

For 300 we get; Corruptor: 225; Defender: 195; Difference: 30

The more damage the attack does, the more effective it will be for a Corruptor over a Defender as their higher Damage Scale doesn't divide the BASE damage of an attack as much as it would for a Defender.

Vigilance offers a Defender a 30% damage buff while solo. Damage buffs, to my knowledge, is calculated after you have factored in the specific Archetypes Damage Scaler. So, for the purposes of a Defender, if they have a power which deals 100 damage at its' base, thus 65 damage for the Defender, that means that once you factor in the 30% Damage Buff from Vigilance the attack shall do 78 damage. This is THREE (3) damage more than the Corruptor will do.


SCOURGE is a bit more difficult to calculate because it is very dependent upon how close the enemy is to being defeated outright. SCOURGE does nothing until the enemy has been taken down to 50% of its' health, at which point SCOURGE allows the Corruptor a 10% chance to do a critical hit against the enemy. As the enemy's HP continues to dwindle, the Critical Hit Chance of SCOURGE continues to rise, becoming 100% when the enemy is at 10% of its' health.

SCOURGE is vastly more effective against stronger enemies who have more HP. For things like Minions, who have vastly inferior HP to a Boss, the SCOURGE damage is often going to wind up "wasted" in the sense that you often didn't need a critical hit to defeat it making the extra damage from SCOURGE unnecessary. However, for enemies like Lt's, Bosses, AV's, and even GM's, Scourge offers a very potent damage increase because these enemies have enough HP for the extra damage from a SCOURGE to be effective.

Paragonwiki states SCOURGE as giving a 10% chance to critical when the enemy is at 50% of it's HP, and 100% when it is at 10% of its' HP. From that, I infer these values based on the formula of y = -2.25x + 1.225 where X is the percentage of HP the enemy has left, and Y is the percent chance to do a critical hit:

50% HP; 10.0% Critical Hit Chance
40% HP; 32.5% Critical Hit Chance
30% HP; 55.5% Critical Hit Chance
20% HP; 77.5% Critical Hit Chance
10% HP; 100% Critical Hit Chance

Note: I do not know whether the critical hit chance continues to increase for values of HP under 10%. I also do not know if the game actually uses this formula for calculating Critical Hit Chance based upon enemy HP; It's simply a logical conclusion from the data points I was given from Paragonwiki (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Scourge#Scourge)

The formula to determine the average damage after factoring in critical chance is:

Base Damage * (1 + Percent Chance to do a Critical Hit) = Average Damage

So if we have a 100% chance to do a critical hit, that means that the AVERAGE damage is going to be two times that of our base damage. If our base damage is 100, that means that, at 100% chance to critical, our Average Damage will be 200.

100 * (1 + 1)
100 * 2 = 200

SO, for the purposes of comparing a Corruptor's SCOURGE to a Defender's VIGILANCE bonus when solo, we are going to compare their damage against an enemy at variable percentages of HP.

100-51% HP; Corruptor: 75 Damage; Defender: 78 Damage

50% HP; Corr: 82.5; Def: 78
40% HP; Corr: 99.375; Def:78
30% HP; Corr: 116.625; Def: 78
20% HP; Corr: 133.125; Def: 78
10% HP; Corr: 150; Def: 78

Even at just 50% of the enemy's HP, the Corruptor already has a distinct advantage in damage over Defender. If the Defender is on a Team, and not receiving a 30% damage boost from Vigilance then this advantage only becomes more dramatic as the defender is reduced from 78 damage back to 65. Keep in mind also that powers which do more base damage are going to continue favoring the Corruptor more so than the Defender, and with the addition of Scourge, widen the gap between the two even more.


The other major discrepancy is in the buff values between Defender and Corruptor. As a Defender uses higher buff values than a Corruptor, he is capable of bestowing larger damage buffs upon himself than a Corruptor could using the same powers. Very large damage buffs, such as those offered by powers like Fulcrum Shift, will favor the Defender far more than the Corruptor due to the multiplicative way in which buff values are calculated, while small damage buffs will have relatively little impact.

Using our old formula, and adding in Damage Buff Modifiers, we get a new formula which looks like this:

(Base Damage * (1 + Percent Damage Modifier)) * (1 + Percent Chance to Critical Hit)

Fulcrum Shift offers continuously higher damage buff values the more enemies are hit with the effect, and both Corruptors and Defenders have access to it. As such, it is a good power to demonstrate the different effect Buff Modifiers have upon each AT. Notice that we are still going to be calculating in SCOURGE and Vigilance while we do this.

Fulcrum Shift at 1 Enemy: Corrupter: 20% DamBuff; Defender: 25% Dambuff
100-51% HP; Corr: 90; Def: 97.5
50% HP; Corr: 99; Def: 97.5
40% HP; Corr: 119.25; Def: 97.5
30% HP; Corr: 139.95; Def: 97.5
20% HP; Corr: 159.75; Def: 97.5
10% HP; Corr: 180; Def: 97.5

Fulcrum Shift at 3 Enemies: Corrupter: 60% DamBuff; Defender: 75% DamBuff
100-51% HP; Corr: 120; Def: 136.5
50% HP; Corr: 132; Def: 136.5
40% HP; Corr: 150; Def: 136.5
30% HP; Corr: 186.6; Def: 136.5
20% HP; Corr: 213; Def: 136.5
10% HP; Corr: 240; Def: 136.5

Fulcrum Shift at 10 Enemies: Corrupter: 200% DamBuff; Defender: 250% DamBuff
100-51% HP; Corr: 225; Def: 273
50% HP; Corr: 247; Def: 273
40% HP; Corr: 298.125; Def: 273
30% HP; Corr: 349.875; Def: 273
20% HP; Corr: 399.375; Def: 273
10% HP; Corr: 450; Def: 273


Now, this chart seems as though it's still giving favor over towards the Corruptor. Even at fully power Fulcrum Shift, once the enemy is at 40%, the Corruptor is doing better damage than the defender. However, what really needs to be kept in mind is that from 100% to 50% HP, the Defender is doing quite a bit more damage than the Corruptor is capable.

Let us examine an enemy that has about 3000 HP. We're going to assume that we used Fulcrum Shift, and then blew up everything around him, so it's just us vs this enemy with our fully saturated Fulcrum Shift. We'll continue to use our Theoretical Attack, which is assumed to be shared by the Defender and Corruptor, and thus things like RECHARGE TIME and ACTIVATION TIME are irrelevant. Instead, we will simply examine this Theoretical Attack in the number of "Turns" it must be used when modified by the AT using it to defeat this enemy.

Keep in mind that this is still assuming AVERAGE damage for simplicities sake. The only other method of calculating percent chance would require that I make an entirely separate chart for every Phase in which a critical hit was possible: One to Calculate if the attack was a critical, and one if it was not. I would very quickly be making waaaay more charts than I care to type out.

Phase 1:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 2775 HP (92%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 2725 HP (90%)

Phase2:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 2550 HP (85%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 2452 HP (81%)

Phase3:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 2325 HP (77%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 2178 HP (72%)

Phase4:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 2100 HP (70%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 1905 HP ( 63%)

Phase 5:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 1875 HP (62%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 1632 HP (54%)

Phase 6:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 1650 HP (55%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy 1349 HP (45%)

Phase 7:
Corruptor Deals 225 Damage; Enemy: 1425 HP (47%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 1122 HP (37%)

Phase 8:
Curroptor Deals 247 Damage; Enemy: 1178 HP (39%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 849 (28%)

Phase 9:
Corruptor Deals 298.125 Damage; Enemy: 879.875 HP (29%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 576 HP (19%)

Phase 10:
Corruptor Deals 349.875 Damage; Enemy: 530 HP (17%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 303 HP (10%)

Phase 11:
Corruptor Deals 399.375 Damage; Enemy: 130 HP (4%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: 30 HP (1%)

Phase 12:
Corrupter Deals 450 Damage; Enemy: -320 HP (Less than 0%)
Defender Deals 273 Damage; Enemy: -243 HP (Less than 0%)

As it would appear, both AT's actually wind up finishing off their enemy at the exact same time, while solo, when receiving the full benefit of Fulcrum Shift. Keep in mind, however, that at much lower dambuff values, such as 20%, the Corruptor would have pulled ahead of the Defender in damage much sooner, and have been able to kill the enemy faster as a result. If the Defender is on a team, the Corruptors advantage would have been even greater. Still, this should demonstrate the power of a Defender when factoring in it's larger buff multiplier.

Finally, it is important to note that a Corrupter has a larger DamBuff cap than a Defender (500% vs 400%). At this high of a value, Corruptor will simply be doing more damage no matter what. Still, the only way to sustain this type of dambuff is to be on a team, and at the point where this is possible enemies are dying so fast that the question of who is doing the most damage is kind've irrelevant. As such, I consider this a moot point.



BOTTOM LINE: a Corruptor is going to be doing more damage than a Defender when primary and secondaries match, except in a few very specific cases in which they'll actually be finishing off the enemy at about the same time. While a Defender can be competitive in damage against a Corruptor while solo, once they are both in a Team a Corrupter WILL do more damage than a Defender assuming equal buffs, and a Defender will ALWAYS buff better than a Corruptor.

According to my maths if you don't make any kind of strategic use of Scourge (ie: don't attack injured enemies first in teams), then Scourge affords you a bonus of 29.5% *total* damage. It multiples out any of your enhancement modifiers so is significantly better than a 30% SO enhancement, for comparative purposes.

Maths:

Damage 0%-50% = 1
Damage 50%-90% = 1*(1+((%health-50)*0.025)
Damage 90%+ = 2

That's how scourge works, and when you sum the figures you'll find the average damage is 1.295, or 29.5% more damage from Scourge than without.

One advantage scourge has is being able to finish an enemy off with a weaker attack, allowing you to have your bigger attacks ready for the next target, or group.

Scourge is more strategic and requires a bit more thought.

I mostly like defenders better, because in a large team whatever damage the Corruptor is contributing isn't going to be that great, and Defenders have better values on all their buffs/debuffs.

Of course the Corruptor is ALWAYS going to solo better, while still being useful in a team. So it's kind of moot and more of a personal preference of play style.

One other thing to consdier, slotting will typically dilute the effects of vigilance. Damage buffs don't multiply off eachother (to multiply damage buffs you need resistance debuffs) and that 30% boost from vigilance is going to apply to base damage. By time an attack is slotted with SOs you have (rounding to a nice round number) about 100% in damage buff from your enhancements to that attack. Assuming this boost you have:

Defenders: 65*2.3 (1.0 base + 1.0 SOs + .3 vigilance) = 149.5
Corruptors: 75*2 = 150

Or, almost exactly the same base solo damage. At this point it pretty much becomes a race between the defender's higher buff/debuff numbers and the corruptor's scourge to see who takes the top damage spot. While it is, to the best of my knowledge, flat out impossible for a solo character to -res cap an enemy this is probably the best way for defenders to pull ahead of corruptor damage. Damage buffs favor the defender too but there is a significant "risk" in the damage race that a kineticist (the only set with appreciable self +dam) defender will hit their damage cap (with SOs and Vigilance covering 130% it's not too hard to FS your way there) at which point they stop gaining from damage buffs while a corruptor still has another 100% to go. Like was mentioned earlier, a corruptor at their damage cap wins, period. At damage cap the def deals 325 damage while the corruptor deals 450. At that point even if they have sonic blast as a secondary to try and make up the difference they would have to put out about a -130% debuff to overcome the corruptors damage (assuming the corruptor is also using the same debuff chain) and quite frankly I doubt thats possible for a solo defender.