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Originally Posted by Kidou
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.
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There are times when Bitter Ice Blast is recharged but I rather wait for Ice Bolt to finish off that 5%. I save endurance and save one big attack for next target.
And sometimes when I fight Freakshows, I can finish them off right before they heal. Thanks for scourge.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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You make a good point about SO's. It figures that I mess up something apparently obvious after doing all of that tedious calculation. |
Originally Posted by Elaith
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. |
I don't see it changing the numbers very significantly, however, at least before Fulcrum Shift/Sonic Blast craziness gets involved. I considered 75 vs 78 to be pretty close already to the point that the difference should have been fairly negligible in actual game play. Obviously Corruptor will be ahead a little quicker than before.
I'm too sick to move anyway though, so let's play with math.
Using your values, a slotted Corruptor vs a slotted Defender /w Vigilance should look like this:
100-51% HP; Corruptor: 150 Damage; Defender: 149.5 Damage
50% HP; Corr: 165; Def: 149.5
40% HP; Corr: 198.75; Def:149.5
30% HP; Corr: 233.25; Def: 149.5
20% HP; Corr: 266.25; Def: 149.5
10% HP; Corr: 300; Def: 149.5
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Originally Posted by m3lon
If you're going calculate with Fulcrum Shift at the target cap, you should also include the buff that's targeted around the caster, which is another +40 and +50 dam for Corrs and Defs respectively. It's also misleading to leave out damage slotting, because what type of maniac wouldn't slot their hypothetical attack for damage. That's another +95 dam for each.
Also according to in game numbers scourge is "2.5% chance for every percentage health below 50%" which isn't the same as what you used in your calculations. |
Adding in the 0.5 for Defenders and 0.4 for Corruptors seems to align with what Mids is saying, and checking Red Tomax confirms that Fulcrum Shift does indeed grant a +50/40% Damage buff to each AT.
Looking in the Effects tab in Mids, I see that the power does indeed grant a 50/40% increase. Stupid mistakes all around~
I did mention in my calculations that I could only find information for two data points, those being the 10% Critical Hit Chance at 50% HP, and the 100% Critical Hit Chance at 10% HP. I plugged those in and attempted to make a Linear Graph with them, which is where I'm getting 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. I'm aware it probably isn't the correct formula and stated as much.
If the game is correct, however, that does make things radically different than what I was calculating out as the Corruptor's damage, most significantly because the Corruptor has to go to much lower HP values before he sees much benefit out of Scourge. 50% HP would be doing nothing, while 40% would grant a 25% Critical Hit rate instead of the 32.5% I was coming up with.
So, by our powers combined, let's re-calculate friggin' everything.
Unlike Eliath, I am not going to round the DamBuff values to 100%. Instead I am going to calculate 3 IO's of Damage Enhancements, which offers a DamBuff of 99.08% to both AT's. This is going to make for some messy decimals, so I will be rounding at the second decimal place. I will once again be using a Theoretical Attack which does 75 damage when used by a Corruptor, and 65 damage on a Defender. I will also be using the In-Game definition to determine Critical Hit values for Corruptor.
75 * (1 + 0.9908) = 149.31 Damage for a Corruptor
65 * (1 + 0.9908 + 0.3) = 148.90 Damage for a Defender WITH Vigilance
65 * (1 + 0.9908) = 129.40 Damage for a Defender WITHOUT Vigilance
100-50% HP; Corruptor: 149.31; Defender: 148.90
49% HP; Corruptor: 153.04; Defender: 148.90
40% HP; Corruptor: 186.64; Defender: 148.90
30% HP; Corruptor: 223.97; Defender: 148.90
20% HP; Corruptor: 261.29; Defender: 148.90
10% HP; Corruptor: 298.62; Defender: 148.90
Next we are going to calculate the average damage when the enemy is suffering from a -15% Resistance Buff for the Corruptor, and a -20% Resistance Buff for the Defender to simulate the differences between the Defenders higher buffing values. We will be using the values from the last chart and multiplying them by 1.15 and 1.20 respectively as this best simulates what hitting an enemy after you've buffed your values would represent.
100-50% HP; Corruptor: 171.71; Defender: 178.68
49% HP; Corruptor: 176.00; Defender: 178.68
40% HP; Corruptor: 214.63; Defender: 178.68
30% HP; Corruptor: 257.57; Defender: 178.68
20% HP; Corruptor: 300.48; Defender: 178.68
10% HP; Corruptor: 343.41; Defender: 178.68
Now we are going to calculate Corruptor vs Defender while giving a 20% DamBuff to Corruptor, and a 25% DamBuff to Defender. Make a note that this ISN'T Fulcrum Shift, but rather Siphon Power. I wanted a way to demonstrate the effect very low amounts of DamBuff have on each AT, and now that I know Fulcrum Shift is giving a 60/75% DamBuff with just one enemy it no longer serves that purpose.
100-50% HP; Corruptor: 164.31; Defender: 165.15
49% HP; Corruptor: 168.42; Defender: 165.15
40% HP; Corruptor: 205.39; Defender: 165.15
30% HP; Corruptor: 246.47; Defender: 165.15
20% HP; Corruptor: 287.54; Defender: 165.15
10% HP; Corruptor: 328.62; Defender: 165.15
Next we are going to calculate Fulcrum Shift against a single enemy. This is to determine the damage values each of the AT's can expect when trying to do something like solo a Boss or even an Arch Villain. Corruptors will gain a 60% Damage Buff, while Defenders will gain a 75% Damage Buff.
100-50%; Corruptor: 194.31; Defender: 197.65
49% HP; Corruptor: 199.17; Defender: 197.65
40% HP; Corruptor: 242.89; Defender: 197.65
30% HP; Corruptor: 291.47; Defender: 197.65
20% HP; Corruptor: 340.04; Defender: 197.65
10% HP; Corruptor: 388.62; Defender: 197.65
Now we are going to Calculate Fulcrum Shift against THREE enemies. This is to determine the average performance that can be expected when soloing on Normal Difficulty. When Fulcrum Shift hits three targets this yeilds a 120% DamBuff for the Corruptor, and a 150% DamBuff for the Defender
100-50%; Corruptor: 239.31; Defender: 246.40
49% HP; Corruptor: 245.30; Defender: 246.40
40% HP; Corruptor: 299.14; Defender: 246.40
30% HP; Corruptor: 358.97; Defender: 246.40
20% HP; Corruptor: 418.79; Defender: 246.40
10% Hp; Corruptor: 478.62; Defender: 246.40
To Finish off Fulcrum Shift, we're going to look at the DamBuff values when it is affecting ten targets, the maximum of which it is capable of affecting. Corruptors will gain a 240% DamBuff, and Defenders will gain a 300% DamBuff.... Except, now they've run into a bit of a snag.
Unfortunately for Defenders, the limitation of total DamBuff they can have is 400%. With Fulcrum Shift increasing their damage by 300%, adding in their base 100% damage is going to put them at their Damage Cap. Their Damage Enhancements no longer matter, and neither does any benefit they might have been getting from Vigilance.
If the Defender wasn't restricted by any Damage Cap it could have been doing:
65 * (1 + 0.9908 + 0.3 + 3.25) = 360.152 Damage
However, because of this cap, he's restricted too:
65 * (4) = 260 Damage.
That's about 100 Damage less than what the Defender could have potentially done if not for the damage cap, which if significant. On the other hand, a teaming Defender can take solace in the fact that the highly optimized soloist Defender isn't doing any more damage than they are.
The Corruptor, on the other hand, is still sitting pretty under his 500% DamBuff limit. In fact, he's only at 439.08%, and he can still increase his damage by another 60.92% before reaches his limit. Powers such as Build Up, Aim, Power Siphon, and Assault are still perfectly viable for him, where as they would be somewhat wasted on a Defender when utilizing a fully saturated Fulcrum Shift.
Because of the limitations placed on the Defender, he is not going to have nearly the same edge that he did when I first made these calculations. Let's see by how much.
HP 100-50; Corruptor: 329.31; Defender: 260
... We don't really need to go on past here. I certainly don't need to do a phase chart. Simply put, once both AT's are slotting Damage Enhancements, (something they'd PROBABLY be doing) and utilizing a fully saturated Fulcrum Shift, Corruptor wins. Still, let's finish off this chart...
HP 49%; Corruptor: 337.54; Defender: 260
HP 40%; Corruptor: 411.64; Defender: 260
HP 30%; Corruptor: 493.97; Defender: 260
HP 20%; Corruptor: 576.29; Defender: 260
HP 10%; Corruptor: 658.62; Defender: 260
There's still ONE thing left we should do, and that is determine a Fully Saturated Fulcrum Shift Against Enemies Who Have their Resistances Debuffed From the Sonic Blast Pool. Again, assume a -15% DamBuff for the Corruptors' enemy, and a -20% DamBuff for the Defenders' enemy.
HP 100-50; Corruptor: 378.71; Defender: 312
HP 49%; Corruptor: 388.17; Defender: 312
HP 40%; Corruptor: 473.39; Defender: 312
HP 30%; Corruptor: 568.07; Defender: 312
HP 20%; Corruptor: 662.73; Defender: 312
HP 10%; Corruptor: 757.41; Defender: 312
As per usual, Sonic Debuffs favor defender a bit more than they do Corruptor. If you began stacking the -Res from using, say, more than a single attack, Defender would continue to go up in damage. Let's assume both have stack their -Res powers by 4 times, and are using a fully saturated Fulcrum Shift. This means that the Corruptors enemy is suffering from a -60% DamBuff, and the Defenders' enemy is suffering a -80% DamBuff.
HP 100-50; Corruptor: 526.90; Defender: 468
HP 49%; Corruptor: 540.50; Defender: 468
HP 40%; Corruptor: 658.62; Defender: 468
HP 30%; Corruptor: 790.35; Defender: 468
HP 20%; Corruptor: 922.06; Defender: 468
HP 10%; Corruptor: 1053.80; Defender: 468
good luck getting scourge to proc 30% of the time. You'll actually want to cut that number in half for reasonable calculations... and even that is being fairly generous.
anyway, now that corrs can access the awesomeness that is defender dark app with the 120 sec souldrain they are pretty impressive in terms of dealing damage.
Something like a fire/cold/dark or fire/storm/dark should be untouchable by any defender. Of course fire is 'that' good and freezing rain/sleet are also 'that' good, which easily make up for corrs self buffing for so much less with aim/soul drain/assault.
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30% Proc Rate for Scourge is achievable when the enemy is at 38% of their HP, according to the In-Game definition of how Scourge operates. I don't see that as horribly unachievable. In fact, you should pass by that number for every enemy you fight assuming you want to win the battle.
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Originally Posted by Nicetry
good luck getting scourge to proc 30% of the time. You'll actually want to cut that number in half for reasonable calculations... and even that is being fairly generous.
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Warkupo, your numbers are way off.
The 400% cap includes the 100% base damage a power does, so the maximum damage a defender can get a 65 damage attack to hit for is 260 and not 325.
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Well, that's a little like saying that the Crit rate for Stalkers is 100%, because they can get a 100% Critical every time they Hide or Placate. It's how many attacks come between the Hide or Placate that reduces that rate.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
30% Proc Rate for Scourge is achievable when the enemy is at 38% of their HP, according to the In-Game definition of how Scourge operates. I don't see that as horribly unachievable. In fact, you should pass by that number for every enemy you fight assuming you want to win the battle.
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The point is the OVERALL chance of Scourge is going to be considerably lower than 30%. This chance lowers even further when you consider that, in order to have the maximum chance of Scourge, you must be within 10% of the foe being at 0 HP, and most Corruptor attacks will do more than 10% of a minion's HP. Thus, it is more likely the minion will die within 20-30% of 0 HP, when the chance of Scourge is at best around 50%. And that's at maximum, so the overall chance will only be around 16-20%.
And of course as mentioned there are the blasts that do Scourge, but are so far over the foe's remaining HP that the damage is overkill. If the same shot would have killed the foe without Scourge, then the Scourge did not actually change anything.
As mentioned previously in this post, an analysis of Scourge which was once posted on this board concluded the damage bonus was about +7% for a minion, to about +21% for Bosses and AVs.
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Not really. Stalkers are using an entirely different mechanic to determine critical hit. A Corruptor who has his enemy at 38% of it's Health is GOING to have a 30% critical hit rate. Assuming the in-game definition of Scourge is correct, that's simply how it is. |
Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Well, that's a little like saying that the Crit rate for Stalkers is 100%, because they can get a 100% Critical every time they Hide or Placate. It's how many attacks come between the Hide or Placate that reduces that rate.
The point is the OVERALL chance of Scourge is going to be considerably lower than 30%. This chance lowers even further when you consider that, in order to have the maximum chance of Scourge, you must be within 10% of the foe being at 0 HP, and most Corruptor attacks will do more than 10% of a minion's HP. Thus, it is more likely the minion will die within 20-30% of 0 HP, when the chance of Scourge is at best around 50%. And that's at maximum, so the overall chance will only be around 16-20%. And of course as mentioned there are the blasts that do Scourge, but are so far over the foe's remaining HP that the damage is overkill. If the same shot would have killed the foe without Scourge, then the Scourge did not actually change anything. As mentioned previously in this post, an analysis of Scourge which was once posted on this board concluded the damage bonus was about +7% for a minion, to about +21% for Bosses and AVs. |
I made a point to mention in my first post that Scourge is relatively useless against Minions for the reason that it does more damage than is needed to defeat them typically. Where these numbers are mostly concerned is against enemies with enough HP for the extra damage of Scourge to actually matter, which is good, because they're the enemies I would want to have extra damage against.
I posted numbers for variable amounts of HP for this very reason; so that someone reading the chart could determine when Scourge was most effective in relation to the enemy they are fighting. It's far more accurate than just stating a 7% increase against minions and a 21% increase for Bosses or AV's.
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So 65 x 4 rather than 65 x 5? |
Originally Posted by Rinanir
Warkupo, your numbers are way off.
The 400% cap includes the 100% base damage a power does, so the maximum damage a defender can get a 65 damage attack to hit for is 260 and not 325. |
I had thought this as well, and by the time I got down there I was too dead from my cold too care about checking. I'll adjust the numbers in a bit.
Correct 100% + 300% max for defenders and 100% + 400% for corrupters.
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You are of course free to believe whatever you like, but I've solo'd just shy of 100 AV's (92 irrc) and every GM (thx to AE) with my fire/traps corruptor. AV's and GM's are the ideal scenario for scourge to be fully maximized. My recorded scourge rates over those many many battles always fell well below 30%.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
30% Proc Rate for Scourge is achievable when the enemy is at 38% of their HP, according to the In-Game definition of how Scourge operates. I don't see that as horribly unachievable. In fact, you should pass by that number for every enemy you fight assuming you want to win the battle.
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The exact figure was largely irrelevant to me because I had made the discovery at the same time that traps was negatively bugged to the point the toon would never reach the performance marks I had established for it, so I don't recall exactly. I also don't have the logs anymore that I examined. However, over those many fights I don't recall it exceeding 23%, and I'd be much more inclined to say it was closer to 20%. It also tends to drop off dramatically as foe class goes down. Even most bosses (which often get lumped in with AV's for a high scourge rate) are actually much lower because you typically 'burst' them down quite close to death with your short duration damage buffs such as aim/soul drain. I'm sure if all you fought were bosses to average out your damage buffs they would fall more closely in with AV's though.
Anyway, if you want to assign 30% as the value that is fine, it just isn't based off of what actually happens in the game, so I'm not sure how representative you will find any calculations you make turning out to be. Even if you were specifically talking about an AV solo'ing spec, your figures are very generous ime and while player power potential is certainly high enough for many corr builds to breach that threshold, I don't think that is an acceptable baseline (not that you are necessarily suggesting it is, but discounting minions, or 95%+ of the foes we face doesn't inspire confidence).
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These numbers are not a "belief", they are derived from a rather simple mathematical equation. Basically, 2.5% Critical Hit Chance against an enemy for every 1% HP under 50% of it's total HP. At specific intervals of HP, your potential damage is going to increase. |
Originally Posted by Nicetry
You are of course free to believe whatever you like, but I've solo'd just shy of 100 AV's (92 irrc) and every GM (thx to AE) with my fire/traps corruptor. AV's and GM's are the ideal scenario for scourge to be fully maximized. My recorded scourge rates over those many many battles always fell well below 30%.
The exact figure was largely irrelevant to me because I had made the discovery at the same time that traps was negatively bugged to the point the toon would never reach the performance marks I had established for it, so I don't recall exactly. I also don't have the logs anymore that I examined. However, over those many fights I don't recall it exceeding 23%, and I'd be much more inclined to say it was closer to 20%. It also tends to drop off dramatically as foe class goes down. Even most bosses (which often get lumped in with AV's for a high scourge rate) are actually much lower because you typically 'burst' them down quite close to death with your short duration damage buffs such as aim/soul drain. I'm sure if all you fought were bosses to average out your damage buffs they would fall more closely in with AV's though. Anyway, if you want to assign 30% as the value that is fine, it just isn't based off of what actually happens in the game, so I'm not sure how representative you will find any calculations you make turning out to be. Even if you were specifically talking about an AV solo'ing spec, your figures are very generous ime and while player power potential is certainly high enough for many corr builds to breach that threshold, I don't think that is an acceptable baseline (not that you are necessarily suggesting it is, but discounting minions, or 95%+ of the foes we face doesn't inspire confidence). |
If you think the in-game calculation is wrong, I'm not going to pretend like I know for certain that it's not. A few posts ago I didn't even know what the in-game calculation *was*, and I still haven't actually gotten on to look for myself. It would hardly be the first time where something in game was not operating as it was supposed to be.
I'm not just flat out assigning 30% either. I'm assigning 30% at 38% HP, because that is the only time the critical hit chance is 30%. If you had asked me what the Critical Hit Rate is at 49% HP, I would have told you 2.5%.
I feel this method is more realistic than just flat out assigning an average Critical Hit Rate, because an average assumes that the numbers in question are relatively close in value. For example, the average of 1 and 100 is 50.5, but 50.5 is agreeably nowhere near either 1 or 100. Corruptor's Scourge is much the same in that it has widely variable proc rates depending on the weakened state of the enemy. If my enemy is at 10% HP, and I told myself "I have a 20% chance to critical!", then I'd be way off from what my Critical Hit Rate actually was at that time.
These numbers are therefore relevant for all enemies, of all ranking. In the case of minions (and sometimes Lt's, depending on your powerset combo), the "problem" has always been that they have too little HP for the double damage that Scourge does to have any practical meaning, as they didn't need the extra damage to be defeated. That doesn't mean that a minion at 38% HP doesn't incur a 30% proc rate from Scourge, just that you didn't need Scourge to defeat that enemy.
If I were to assign a baseline, it would be the very first chart in my second post, where both Corruptor and Defender w/Vigilance are about 1 point of damage away from another, simply because that chart has not been modified by any buffs that the AT's might be capable of performing from the powersets they have available to them. I certainly wouldn't place baseline performance at the numbers given for a Fully Saturated Fulcrum Shift for the same reason that I don't think you would derive baseline performance from what your Fire/Traps is capable of doing.
Besides all this, the main thing I like about Corrupters over Defenders is that they get Fire Blast. If Fire Blast ever gets migrated over to Defenders, then I might try some.
Also, one thing to be aware of, not sure if it was mentioned previously, some of the Corrupter debuff powers get the same value as Defenders. Not many, but some, specifically pseudo-pet debuffs like tar patch and freezing rain. So for Dark and Storm, I think Corrupters pull ahead.
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I can back this up because I have observed this with Full auto, where it will only scourge at the 50% range or lower of a mobs health when initially activated despite it being a DoT. But ignite is yummy. |
Originally Posted by Siolfir
Blatantly false. Scourge has a chance of going off based on the enemy hp at time of power activation. The "rain" powers (including Blizzard, Rain of Fire, Ignite, and Ice Storm) Scourge a lot because they are autopowers on a pseudopet that activate every 0.2 seconds, NOT because they are DoT.
Regular DoT attacks actually hurt your chance to Scourge, since it checks once (at activation), and on the next attack activation the enemy's hp haven't dropped as much as they would if the attack had dealt all of its damage at once. |
If you just mean a Corruptor has Controller levels of buffs and debuffs, then yeah. It's not that major a difference, and it's not that major a difference in damage either. 10% here, 15% there, not really as much as, say, the difference between a Scrapper's defenses and a Tanker's defenses.
The Inherents pretty much balance out too, 30% in the case of a Defender, but that drops to about 15% of total damage with slotting, and disappears totally on a team or if you have strong damage buffs. The same 30% (I'd say 25%, because I don't believe the part about the last 10% of HP being a sure critical) in the case of a Corruptor, but that's against AVs or EBs, and against minions it typically comes so late as to be negligible. As others have mentioned earlier, since Scourge is a critical it can be used consciously to take out stragglers and conserve End by using weaker attacks, but honestly the Defender gets better burst potential with Aim. So you're essentially shifting the burst damage from the start of the fight to the end of it.
My take on the matter is, as long as you have a strong debuffing Primary (for Defenders) or Secondary, (for Corruptors) the two will almost interchangably. Sonic Assault on top of that will bring them even closer. The higher the debuffs, the more the Defender catches up with the Corruptor's damage. And everyone else will be doing more damage as well. (This type of Defender is usually called an "Offender" and this is the best combo for an damage dealing Corruptor as well)
On low damage capability buff (not debuff) oriented sets, though, like Cold Domination, Empathy/Pain Dom and even Sonic Resonance, the Defender will not be able to match the Corruptor's raw damage. Then again, even the Corruptor will suffer somewhat from the low damage potential, moreso because it is supposed to be his primary purpose. It's in that area that the Defender and Corruptor become more different, with the Defender having more of a team support role and the Corruptor being more of a hybrid Blaster/Controller.