Graphical De/Buff

Hello!

I know a lot of people are going to look at this and think "...what?" but I really like statistics and I enjoy representing data in easy to digest ways. So a couple years ago I started working on representing the De/Buff sets graphically, and it has finally grown into something that I think others might find useful. Here at a glance you can see some of the major differences among the sets, and see the sets that are fairly similar. I know it's not "new news" to anyone who is used to playing squishies, but I enjoyed the exercise and learned a lot. So without further ado..

Image: http://pics.livejournal.com/kwsapphire/pic/004yhprh

Gallery: http://pics.livejournal.com/kwsapphire/gallery/0008w6bk
(if, for some reason, you want any of the graphs individually)

Please let me know if you see any errors in my data, I've already refined the graphs several times due to general errors and brainfarts. I hope some of you find this useful and/or entertaining! ^_^

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Looks like Pain has the biggest area, it must be overpowered!

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I dunno, I personally consider "targets ally" and "toggle" to be weaknesses, since in the first case it means you can't use the power when solo (unless you have pets) and in the second it means you have to keep expending energy to use the power.

I like Pain tho, far better than I liked Emp. Dunno why. But it amuses me that my two favorite sets (Trick Arrow & Traps) look so similar graphically, and they both look utterly different than my least favorite set (Emp).

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I don't quite get why ranged is a category at all? How is that a meaningful difference between buff/debuff sets? What is the criteria for a power to be ranged? Is Recovery Aura ranged? What about Dispersion Bubble? What about Force Bubble? What about Resurrect or Mutation?

A better category might be, Affects Enemies, that way TA and Traps still have a 2nd line to make a shape with. I think it would better represent the concept being sought.

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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.

Originally each spoke counted both ends of the metric, so "affects allies" was at one end, and "affects enemies" was at the other (on the inside). Any power that could be considered both or neither was counted as half. It ended up being a little too complicated so I just stuck with the outside metric. I think you're right though, adding an "affects enemies" spoke would do pretty well, and I may do that.

As for range, I consider it a primary attribute of most squishies, and it is somewhat advantageous to be able to play from range. Recovery Aura is a PBAoE, so no, it is not ranged. Dispersion and Force Bubbles are also PBAoE, so they are not counted as range. Resurrect and Mutation are both casted on a ranged target, so those are counted as ranged powers.

I actually wanted to add more metrics but I wanted to keep it even (the angles are easier on six and eight spokes than on seven). Now I just have to remember what the seventh metric I wanted to display was.

I was also thinking of adding icons to the middle of each shape: one for "has healing" (using the healing cross power icon), one for "has shields", maybe "has anti-mez", and "has reoccurring buff that people are going to ask you to spam" (Fortitude, Speed Boost - using who knows what icon.)

Oh yeah! Pets! That was the other metric I was thinking of including. (Anything that can be dropped that follows you around, so admittedly not many in the De/Buff world, but a couple.)

Unless someone can come up with a better metric to add in with "affects enemy".

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It's interesting. I'm not sure it's really useful for an at-a-glance summary, though, since the area of the shape is determined more by the distribution of spokes scored than the value. For example, Traps and Poison seem terrible if you just glance at the area, but anyone who plays these sets knows otherwise. Sonic Resonance seems to be pretty great all around, and while it's a good set it's pretty much a two-trick pony (+/- res).

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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

Ahh, but it's not meant to be "more area = better power set". It's just meant to show how each set performs in various areas.

I guess it would be more helpful to divide "Affects Allies" and "Affects Self" out into four categories, to also include "Targets Allies" and "Affects Enemies". Requiring an Ally as a target for the power could be considered a detriment, since it means you can't solo (or at least you'd need pets).

Really what these graphs are meant to do is to showcase what power sets are similar, versus those that are highly different. For instance, Trick Arrow is my favorite set, and if I hadn't already also played Traps, I could tell from this graphic that Traps is very similar to Trick Arrow, and I am likely to enjoy it. Whereas I can see that Empathy is extremely different from Trick Arrow, so it makes sense that it's my least favorite of the De/Buff sets.

Because of this comparison, I am quite looking forward to Poison, which I have so far only played to level 8. The "affects enemies" metric would make this more clear, since Poison has massive debuff, just like TA.

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