DoT and Procs

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Indeed.

Some numbers after my Freezing Rain and Ice Storm tests.

My Storm MM has the 75% chance for DoT; the /Ice defender has the 25% chance for debuff/50% chance for DoT.

10 casting of each power hitting just one targeting dummy.

Freezing Rain averaged hitting 97.4 Reactive ticks.
Against +3 enemies that would be 847 damage (before counting in the resistance debuff of Freezing Rain and not counting Freezing Rain's damage).

Ice Storm averaged having 64.9 Reactive ticks.
Against +3 enemies that would be 564 damage (before counting in the resistance debuff portion of the proc and without counting the damage of Ice Storm).

That would be true if every tick applied a DoT. However, with a limit of five (or possibly four, not 100% sure which is correct) total DoTs it just means that a rain will max out the DoT damage in one second and immediately refresh them as they fade while an aura will only maintain 2 copies by itself (since each DoT lasts 4 seconds and it applies one evey 2 seconds). As long as you hit a target at least five (or whatever the stack limit is) times every four seconds, regardless of what you use to do so, you will maintain maximum DoT output. Rains are the easiest way to do this since they last quite a while and maintain a full DoT stack by themselves, but an aura plus fast activating attacks can do it too.

Now if the DoTs aren't capping out then yes, it's broken... but if they are capping out properly then rains just get you to that cap a lot faster. I guess whether it's overpowered or not really depends on your AT... my Fire/Fire Blaster can clear Cim wall spawns in seconds without slotting any Incarnate power at all so for her adding Rain of Fire + Reactive DoTs wouldn't even really be noticeable since everything is dead before the rain would end anyway. My Plant/Storm Controller, on the other hand, could probably get a massive DPS boost from the DoTs since he has Carrion Creepers, Freezing Rain, and Ice Storm.

Burn is too. Less egregiously so, due to the drastically smaller area of effect and lower target cap, but Reactive-enhanced Burn still melts everything it touches.

As I said in another thread, lol WAI

Yes, burn can now have the DPS to kill a plyon...pretty slowly but still.

It has a stacking limit. When my friend uses his Rain of Fire, then I will only very, very rarely be able to get my reactive to proc (if I get lucky to hit just after one of his Reactives ends and just before another tick of Rain of Fire replenishes it).

10 runs of Freezing Rain using the 75% DoT proc averaged 97.4 ticks (85, 89, 92, 94, 96, 96, 101, 104, 107, 110). Since each application checks for 5 ticks at a rate of 75% chance for each tick and Freezing Rain attacks 76 times, if there was no limiter I should average 5*.75*76=285 ticks. 97.4 ticks would be about 26 applications of the reactive proc over 15 seconds. It appears from the time of tick 1 until tick 5, 4 seconds pass, so we need about 4 seconds before one power can drop and a new one can replace it, which means Freezing Rain will replenish Reactives 4 times (0, 4, 8, 12).

It seems likely then that the stacking limit is 6, which would mean FR applies 24 applications of the proc over its lifespan (and I just got a bit lucky and averaged higher than the 90 ticks 24 applications would have).

10 runs of Ice Storm with the 25% debuff/50% DoT proc averaged 64.9 ticks (54, 55, 60, 62, 63, 64, 68, 71, 74, 78). 24 applications of the reactive proc at 50% chance should yield an average of 60 ticks over Ice Storm's lifespan.

Those numbers seem close enough that I am willing to make the guess that the DoT stacks up to 6 times. It could be just a coincidence though, 20 power activations is not enough to say for sure.

If the stacking limit is 6, that means while it is fully saturated, the 75% version is dealing an average of 301.05 damage every 4 seconds or adding 75.26 DPS (vs. even cons). That is very strong when teamed, but not likely not out of bounds for a team environment (although a trio could likely get there, and it is a very nice addition in a small team situation). In a solo environment it is likely you could only stack 2 to 3 (what is the best chain with the most very low cast time powers?). ~35 DPS added in a solo environment is also very strong, but likely not out of bounds here either. With aura toggles it seems likely one could get to 6 (especially those powersets that can take 2) and of course rains get you there very quick.

It seems likely to me that the best solution would be to add the same type of limit to these procs as exist on IO procs. In both rains and auras, as even in auras the procs are likely more potent than they should be. Maybe they could also just limit the stacking to 4, instead of 6? Possibly both should be done.

My Fire Blaster uses Blaze -> Fire Sword -> Fire Blast (not quite seamless solo but it would be with a more expensive build)... that chain alone can keep three DoTs going plus a couple more from Hot Feet. Some really fast attacking sets (like the old Dark Melee buzzsaw build) could stack almost four without an aura but it wouldn't be the most efficient DPS in most cases since you'd need to use Boxing or Brawl. Three applications is probably the best you can do with an attack chain optimized for maximum DPS unless the proc adds so much that it's worth using Brawl or Boxing instead of a slower but higher DPA attack.

Honestly, the only change I can see really being needed is reducing the DoT stack limit to four like the -resist limit. That would have no effect on most solo builds but would tone down rains a bit... not so much because I think they're too overpowered but because they make Reactive so much better on a few select builds than on the rest. Still, even at six if it's only adding 75 DPS that's not a huge deal, especially since that's 75 DPS per team rather than per person. Sure it's a major boost solo, but a tier 3 or 4 Reactive proc is essentially high end raid gear... look at any MMO that has endgame raiding and you'll find that characters with high end raid gear tend to obliterate generic (non-raid) high-level mobs. What we're missing so far is more high-difficulty encounters that let players take advantage of their new power, though at least we can crank up the difficulty. Running lvl 50 TFs at +4/x8 with small teams should provide plenty of challenge regardless of how many tier 4 Incarnate powers you have slotted... hopefully we can get the devs to remove the team size limits on starting TFs (including making them soloable) to make it easier to get a challenge until more difficult content is available.

My Burn already did that without any incarnate powers. Silly it has a 5 target limit IMO.

Adding 75 DPS in a 20 or 25 foot radius AoE which lasts 15 seconds with a base 1 minute recharge IS A HUGE DEAL. I am astounded there are people who pretend it is not. Being able to wipe out every minion and lt. in a +2 spawn every 20 seconds with a power that is primarily a debuff/control power really ought to seem way off kilter to everyone. Being able to do it with a power that is simply supposed to be a decent AoE damage power also ought to seem off kilter to everyone.

On top of that, rain powers can easily blow past target caps, anyone who has used Blizzard on the towers in an ITF or other target rich environment knows what I am talking about. My Emp/Ice defender does that all the time; now I can do it without crashing my endurance and instead of every 160 seconds I can do it every 24. But its no big deal, killing 40 enemies every 24 seconds is what Emp defenders were designed to do!

Yeah, I am a fun hating person.

It is also possible that the Temp Power lasts less than 4 seconds and can be replenished at a faster rate. Just a little bit shorter, say 3.75 seconds and it is possible another 1 or 2 applications of Reactive could occur at the end of the rain. If it were 3.5 seconds, you could get another entire series of applications. This means it is possible the stacking cap is 5 instead of 6. A cap of 4 seems very unlikely based on my testing and I still lean towards 6.

Howso?

explain?

Exactly how I feel. This is as kneejerk as kneejerk can be. Entirely not what I would expect from this studio considering other things they have fixed in the past.