Blasters surpurflous?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-07-11 23:09 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Your metric is "percentage increase over the damage a blaster is doing with Aim and Buildup active"? I'm sorry, but this isn't a meaningful measure. Not all blasters have Aim/Build Up, and even the ones that do have Aim/Build Up do not have them active all the time. Even setting that aside, arguing that you should measure the benefit of Musculature based on Aim/Build Up would be like arguing that Thermal Buffs aren't that helpful because they don't add much to scrappers with Moment of Glory active - it's not the general case, and it only confuses the issue.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
As far as percentage gain goes numerically blasters get the smallest percentage gain in damage from musculature. As far as total damage output goes a typical blaster (one with aim+buildup) gains less than 10% additional damage from musulature. A scrapper can easily gain 13% a controller or defender 15%
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Let me try to explain more plainly why I think Musculature is better for blasters.
Musculature is a 33% bonus to damage, of which 2/3rds ignores the "soft cap" (at the tier 4 boost). Since most players will slot their attacks with enough damage to reach the soft cap, this makes Musculature effectively a 22% damage boost.
Since you mentioned earlier that you played an ice blaster, let us consider the tier 1 attack "Ice Bolt", which blasters, defenders and corruptors all can potentially take.
According to Red Tomax City of Data, at level 50, the base damage of blaster Ice Bolt is 12.51 smashing, 50.05 cold damage, for a total of 62.56 damage. So a 22% boost would be +13.76 damage every time you cast Ice Bolt, above whatever your normal damage is.
Corruptor Ice Bolt at level 50 has a base damage of 8.34 smashing, 33.37 cold damage, for a total of 41.71 damage. So a 22% boost would be +9.18 damage each time you cast Ice Bolt.
Defender Ice Bolt at level 50 has a base damage of 7.23 smashing, 28.92 cold damage, for a total of 36.15 damage. So a 22% boost would be +7.95 damage for each Ice Bolt.
So a blaster is getting +13.76 damage per ice bolt from Musculature, nearly double the +7.95 damage that the defender gets. It'll be the same for other attacks.
The blaster gets more damage per second from Musculature.
Additionally, the fact that blaster powers are mostly attacks actually is beneficial for synergy with Musculature. In other words, nearly every power a blaster activates is something that does damage, and therefore benefits from Musculature; however, every time a defender casts Healing Aura, or Deflection Shield, or Lingering Radiation, or any other non-damage-dealing power, they are essentially gaining no benefit from the Musculature boost.
The blaster's role as damage dealer synergizes better with Musculature.
That's why I think Musculature is good for blasters.
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| There isn't anything with an aoe attack that isn't good at dealing with running enemies that don't hit back. |
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Recharge/heal is awesome for blasters. It lets you do great things with one or two slotted aid self, and turns rebirth into basically a 100% heal at tier 3 or 4 followed by even more pronounced durability thereafter.
For someone who laments the damage focus of blasters, why would an alpha that mainly boosts their damage be bad? They don't have many non-damage traits to usefully boost, apart from recharge, heal, endurance and range, all covered in the other two good options.
Speaking of trial performance, would you say that defenseless dom is going to be locking down lambda spawns with no risk? How about a scrapper who hasn't built up to or past the soft cap? I suspect not. It seems that you are keen to compare the performance of a purpled permadom and a softcapped scrapper to that of what you consider the average blaster.
On the contrary, I've found that a range defense build allows for exceptional survivability on lambda for blasters. It enables you to escape from most of the mez heading your way, especially since you typically need only survive the alpha before the spawn has melted in the face of the league's fire, particularly your own. In my experience it's actually one of the places where blasters most excel - team buffs are thick in the air and all anyone really wants is overwhelming damage.
Wish I had seen this topic earlier. My main character is a blaster. Part of the problem with incarnate level blasters is that everyone is still stuck in the mindset that defense is king. In my opinion it is not. I build to my strengths rather than trying to shore up my weaknesses. It not that building for defense is a bad idea its just not my preference. I view blasters that have built for ranged damage as ranged scrappers with poorly built defense. A blaster will never have as good a protection set-up as a scrapper.
I say dont use protection. Load up on as many damage and recharge set bonuses as you can. Slot up musculature and spiritual alphas. Build up some more endurance through set bonuses and accolades. You don't want to run out of breath during an encounter do you? If you run into a situation where your not sure of the outcome you can always rely on lucks, and if things get too hot you can always pull out till things calm down.
A blaster is like a hot rod. Its supposed to be sleek, fast, and powerful not clanking around like a Volvo that someone tried to put armor plating on. My blaster does 181% more than his base damage as his enhanced damage instead of 100% more like an SO build would. He also sits at 165% global recharge almost all the time. This does not include defiance, build up, or aim. He also has enhanced endurance both max and recovery as well as nearly capped HP so ha can take a scratch or two and still keep blasting.
This in my opinion is the way blasters should be built.
Edit to add: It also takes less buffing to get me up to full potential.
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Actually, I can back it up with a little math and your numbers. I didn't check your numbers for accuracy, but will just grant for the sake of argument that they are close enough. And the math part is pretty simple.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
As far as percentage gain goes numerically blasters get the smallest percentage gain in damage from musculature. As far as total damage output goes a typical blaster (one with aim+buildup) gains less than 10% additional damage from musulature. A scrapper can easily gain 13% a controller or defender 15%
You can disagree all you like but you can't back it up. |
I'd very often rather have 10% of a bigger number, then 13% or 15% of a smaller number.
Anyone who has built an alt for regen probably understands this concept.
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Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
Your metric is "percentage increase over the damage a blaster is doing with Aim and Buildup active"? I'm sorry, but this isn't a meaningful measure. Not all blasters have Aim/Build Up, and even the ones that do have Aim/Build Up do not have them active all the time. Even setting that aside, arguing that you should measure the benefit of Musculature based on Aim/Build Up would be like arguing that Thermal Buffs aren't that helpful because they don't add much to scrappers with Moment of Glory active - it's not the general case, and it only confuses the issue.
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Actually its very meaningful and arguably the only meaningful number.
But before we talk about why we need to get some basic concepts out of the way.
How do you characterize how good a combat unit is ? It isn't just how much damage the unit does, and isn't just how much damage the unit does its the product.*
To understand this think of 2 boxers boxer A is twice as strong as boxer B but can only take half as many punches.
If boxer A fights boxer B you are going to have ties or the fight going to whoever gets the first punch.
Now lets say we make both hit 10% harder
They are still in parity. It takes both approximately .9 times as long to take out the other.
But now lets say, Boxer A hits twice as hard, but we will only give him 7.5% bonus and boxer B still gets his initial 10%
Boxer A is still getting more than boxer B he hits twice as hard so his absolute bonus is 50% more than boxer B's
But when you look at how long it takes them to kill each other boxer B is still at .9 and boxer A is at .94
So when blasters get the most absolute damage it is still the smallest increase to their effectiveness and it is the smallest by a wide wide margin.
They easily have the worst survivability and the the smallest percentage gain so its a double whammy for them
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See the above post.
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Originally Posted by Madadh
Actually, I can back it up with a little math and your numbers. I didn't check your numbers for accuracy, but will just grant for the sake of argument that they are close enough. And the math part is pretty simple.
I'd very often rather have 10% of a bigger number, then 13% or 15% of a smaller number. Anyone who has built an alt for regen probably understands this concept. |
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No they don't.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
They easily have the worst survivability and the the smallest percentage gain so its a double whammy for them
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Another_Fan is always right, just ask him.
If you don't agree with him you are simply wrong.
Does not matter if his math is flawed, or if his 'facts' are just his opinion, if you don't agree, you are simply wrong.
I thought everyone knew that?
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Awwe you still care |
Originally Posted by MajorPrankster
Another_Fan is always right, just ask him.
If you don't agree with him you are simply wrong. Does not matter if his math is flawed, or if his 'facts' are just his opinion, if you don't agree, you are simply wrong. I thought everyone knew that? |
You'd be really impressive if you could actually demonstrate but you aren't a back things up kind of guy are you ?
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
See the above post.
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Oh crud, you're right. I guess doing less dps is better than doing more.. And regening less HP is awesome as long as your regen rate is very high.
Both cases assuming I'm boxing Boxer A, right? Or was I supposed to be boxing Boxer B? And do I find these guys in an AE farm, because I've never yet faced them in the regular game content, where more damage/sec output and more hp/sec regen are usually the considered the best metrics?
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Demonstrate if you can
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
No they don't.
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Originally Posted by Madadh
Oh crap, you're right. I guess doing less dps is better than doing more.. And regening less HP is awesome as long as your regen rate is very high.
Both cases assuming I'm boxing Boxer A, right? Or was I supposed to be boxing Boxer B? And do I find these guys in an AE farm, because I've never yet faced them in the regular game content, where more damage/sec output and more hp/sec regen are usually the considered the best metrics? |
If you don't survive to deliver that DPS its worthless.
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Then don't die.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
If you don't survive to deliver that DPS its worthless.
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[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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I'm a little confused about this 30% creation rate number. I see the post where Arcana mentions it in this thread and yes she does say "of all characters" but I don't see how this squares with the data from BaB in Arcana's AT Popularity Analysis post. There the table that BaB gave us for "Archetypes created since Issue 12" shows Blasters at 16% of the total, not 30%. It's close to 30% of all heroes but not all characters, period. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
30% is the initial creation rate
15 % the average popularity |
What am I missing?
We also have some mention in this thread of the Issue 19 publicity stats (which I cannot find a link to right now, anyone have it?). The assertion is that Blasters are still something like #3 most popular even at level 50. Whatever the actual number is, that's not an indication of an AT that nobody likes. 3rd out of 14?
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Arcana uses that as the initial creation rate, you would have to ask her where that comes from. |
Originally Posted by Zem
I'm a little confused about this 30% creation rate number. I see the post where Arcana mentions it in this thread and yes she does say "of all characters" but I don't see how this squares with the data from BaB in Arcana's AT Popularity Analysis post. There the table that BaB gave us for "Archetypes created since Issue 12" shows Blasters at 16% of the total, not 30%. It's close to 30% of all heroes but not all characters, period.
What am I missing? We also have some mention in this thread of the Issue 19 publicity stats (which I cannot find a link to right now, anyone have it?). The assertion is that Blasters are still something like #3 most popular even at level 50. Whatever the actual number is, that's not an indication of an AT that nobody likes. 3rd out of 14? |
Bab's numbers are across all levels, so the initial creation rate and the average, square very well as long as there is a sufficient drop off after level 1.
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World Peace : Don't fight
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Originally Posted by Fiery-Enforcer
Then don't die.
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And still, the fact that Scrappers do just as much damage as Blasters plus having a surviveability secondary and the Critical Hit inherent when all Blasters get is more damage hasn't been answered
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As has been evinced repeatedly in this thread and others, you seem to feel that there is a time limit on the efficacy of demonstrating anything. The first dozen pages of this thread are full of exactly such discussion, so I feel no particular need to go over it again. Blasters have the worst survivability neither among archetypes in general nor among what you call (or called?) damage archetypes, cf. this very thread.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Demonstrate if you can
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We went through hundreds of man-hours of laying out the myriad ways in which blasters survivability can be more than commensurate to their damage output by multifarious metrics and grades. I encourage you to peruse the results - they're super duper.
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Scrappers don't do as much damage as Blasters. Most DPS numbers are based on single-target high-recharge attack chains.|
Originally Posted by Tramontane
And still, the fact that Scrappers do just as much damage as Blasters plus having a survivability secondary and the Critical Hit inherent when all Blasters get is more damage hasn't been answered
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In large group settings, however, if you were to take the number of AoEs each AT has, the damage of each AoE, and multiply by the target caps of each AoE, Blasters do more DPS than Scrappers. This is without considering the fact that the radii on most melee AoEs is smaller than those of ranged AoEs.
The real question is whether or not the "small" damage advantage is worth the lack of survivability. I think Cyclone Jack said it best with "I'd rather have a Blaster and Defender than two Corruptors".
Blasters have higher base HP, and higher base damage, so they get the most benefit out of most buffs in game.
So lets make some comparisions.
Lets assign values for the boxers:
Boxer A does 20 damage per punch and has 50 hp.
Boxer B does 10 damage per punch and has 100 hp.
Case 1 Control no modifications to their stats:
Punch 1: Boxer A 40hp remaining, Boxer B 80hp remaining
Punch 2: Boxer A 30hp remaining, Boxer B 60 hp remaining
Punch 3: Boxer A 20hp remaining, Boxer B 40 hp remaining
Punch 4: Boxer A 10hp remaining, Boxer B 20 hp remaining
Punch 5: Boxer A 0hp, Boxer B 0hp
In this case whoever throws the first punch wins.
Case 2 10% modification to damage where the stats listed above are considered the baseline for each boxer:
Boxer A now does 22 damage per punch
Boxer B now does 11 damage per punch
HP remains the same
Punch 1: Boxer A 39hp remaining, Boxer B 78hp remaining
Punch 2: Boxer A 27hp remaining, Boxer B 56hp remaining
Punch 3: Boxer A 16hp remaining, Boxer B 34hp remaining
Punch 4: Boxer A 5hp remaining, Boxer B 12hp remaining
Punch 5: Boxer A 0hp, Boxer B0hp
Once again whoever throws the first punch wins.
Case 3 Lets double their hp while keeping the damage the same as Case 2:
Punch 1: Boxer A 89hp remaining, Boxer B 178hp remaining
Punch 2: Boxer A 78hp remaining, Boxer B 156hp remaining
Punch 3: Boxer A 67hp remaining, Boxer B 134hp remaining
Punch 4: Boxer A 56hp remaining, Boxer B 112hp remaining
Punch 5: Boxer A 45hp remaining, Boxer B 90hp remaining
Punch 6: Boxer A 34hp remaining, Boxer B 68hp remaining
Punch 7: Boxer A 23hp remaining, Boxer B 46hp remaining
Punch 8: Boxer A 12hp remaining, Boxer B 24hp remaining
Punch 9: Boxer A 1hp remaining, Boxer B 2hp remaining
Punch 10: Boxer A 0hp, Boxer B 0hp
And again whoever throws the first punch wins.
Case 4 Hp remains the same as case 3 since the change in hp made no difference in the outcome. The increase in damage will be made considering Boxer B's stats to be the baseline.
Boxer A damage is now 21
Boxer B damage remains at 11
Punch 1: Boxer A 89hp remaining, Boxer B 179hp remaining
Punch 2: Boxer A 78hp remaining, Boxer B 158hp remaining
Punch 3: Boxer A 67hp remaining, Boxer B 137hp remaining
Punch 4: Boxer A 56hp remaining, Boxer B 116hp remaining
Punch 5: Boxer A 45hp remaining, Boxer B 95hp remaining
Punch 6: Boxer A 34hp remaining, Boxer B 74hp remaining
Punch 7: Boxer A 23hp remaining, Boxer B 53hp remaining
Punch 8: Boxer A 12hp remaining, Boxer B 32 hp remaining
Punch 9: Boxer A 1hp remaining, Boxer B 11hp remaining
Punch 10: Boxer A 0hp, Boxer B 0hp
Results are the same as Case 3 however if the HP were increase Boxer B would win.
Just thought I'd present the data in an easier to understand format Another_Fan.
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Yes that's what I thought I would get from you|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
As has been evinced repeatedly in this thread and others, you seem to feel that there is a time limit on the efficacy of demonstrating anything. The first dozen pages of this thread are full of exactly such discussion, so I feel no particular need to go over it again. Blasters have the worst survivability neither among archetypes in general nor among what you call (or called?) damage archetypes, cf. this very thread.
We went through hundreds of man-hours of laying out the myriad ways in which blasters survivability can be more than commensurate to their damage output by multifarious metrics and grades. I encourage you to peruse the results - they're super duper. |
Blasters have the lowest HP Cap shared with several other ATs
They have the lowest modifiers for resit/defense powers bar none of any ATs.
Matter of fact the only survivability category they even share is team buffs.
(Bottom hitpoints)*(Bottom buff numbers)=Bottom survivability
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This is great - you're using this to compare a Blaster to a Blaster, right? You know, since they (generally) only do damage and little else? If you are, then the analogy works, although proves nothing helpful. If you intended to show that increasing a smaller number by a larger percentage is better and therefore Musculature is better for a Defender/Controller than a Blaster? Well, let's develop your analogy further to make it fit their roles;|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Actually its very meaningful and arguably the only meaningful number.
But before we talk about why we need to get some basic concepts out of the way. How do you characterize how good a combat unit is ? It isn't just how much damage the unit does, and isn't just how much damage the unit does its the product.* To understand this think of 2 boxers boxer A is twice as strong as boxer B but can only take half as many punches. If boxer A fights boxer B you are going to have ties or the fight going to whoever gets the first punch. Now lets say we make both hit 10% harder They are still in parity. It takes both approximately .9 times as long to take out the other. But now lets say, Boxer A hits twice as hard, but we will only give him 7.5% bonus and boxer B still gets his initial 10% Boxer A is still getting more than boxer B he hits twice as hard so his absolute bonus is 50% more than boxer B's But when you look at how long it takes them to kill each other boxer B is still at .9 and boxer A is at .94 So when blasters get the most absolute damage it is still the smallest increase to their effectiveness and it is the smallest by a wide wide margin. They easily have the worst survivability and the the smallest percentage gain so its a double whammy for them |
Boxer A only throws punches - 100% damage output
Boxer B spends half his time blocking, which halves incoming damage - 50% damage output, 25% damage reduction
Boxer A takes 100% of the damage from Boxer B
Boxer B takes 75% of the damage from Boxer A
If Boxer A deals 215 damage per hit and lands 10 hits a minute, that's 215*10*0.75 = 1,612.5 DPM to Boxer B
If Boxer B deals 110 damage per hit and lands 5 hits a minute (because although he could land 10, he spent half his time blocking), that's 110*5 = 550 DPM to Boxer A
So although Boxer A can only take half as much damage as Boxer B, he is producing nearly triple the damage output, since while Boxer B is splitting his time between punching and blocking, Boxer A is only punching. Boxer A wins. Every time.
Hurray for terrible analogies!
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Actually its very meaningful and arguably the only meaningful number.
To understand this think of 2 boxers boxer A is twice as strong as boxer B but can only take half as many punches. If boxer A fights boxer B you are going to have ties or the fight going to whoever gets the first punch. Now lets say we make both hit 10% harder They are still in parity. It takes both approximately .9 times as long to take out the other. But now lets say, Boxer A hits twice as hard, but we will only give him 7.5% bonus and boxer B still gets his initial 10% |
I'm afraid your logic is flawed.
First of all, I believe our discussion is blaster versus corruptor against PvE mobs, not a PvP situation. So a better analogy would be boxer A versus punching bag, compared to boxer B versus punching bag -- not boxer A versus boxer B and see who is left standing. No doubt you have many interesting points about blaster survivability, but they are irrelevant to the subject of whether Musculature is a good alpha boost for blasters or not. Against a punching bag (i.e., a PvE mob), the metric I'd suggest using is simply damage per second.
Second, Musculature Core Paragon is effectively a 22% over-the-cap bonus (i.e., 2/3rds of the 33%) to the base damage of all ATs. My argument is that since blasters have higher base damage, they effectively benefit more from this, because this translates numerically into a higher gain in DPS. I believe your argument is that blasters are getting a different percentage, your 7.5% figure. This is simply wrong. The bonus from Musculature Core Paragon is 22% of the base damage for all ATs, including blasters, defenders and corruptors. Blasters have higher base damage, so they get more DPS from Musculature.
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Boxer A: 500 hp 20 points per punch|
Originally Posted by Crim_the_Cold
So lets make some comparisions.
Lets assign values for the boxers: |
Boxer B: 1000 hp 10 points per punch
Base case
50 Punches both down
+10%
Boxer A does 22 points
Boxer B does 11
46 Punches Boxer A down
46 Pucnhes Boxer B down
Boxer A +7.5% boxer B +10%
Boxer A does 21.5
Boxer B does 11
46 punches Boxer A down
47 punches Boxer B down
Isn't math fun
And isn't it sad that "Damage AT" gets crap from the damage alpha
Endurance/Range is a solid choice for any Blaster with cones who also wants to run a number of toggles (i.e. Leadership, Fighting, Epic Shield etc.). Blaster toggles mostly come from power pools and have a correspondingly high end cost.
Recharge/Stun or Recharge/Stun/Slow allows a lot of Blaster combos to get higher recharge while maximizing the potential of some of their secondary abilities (which they often lack the slots for). Most Blasters have access to a stun of some type and slows are present in several sets.
Damage/Immobilize allows a Blaster to make better use of the immobilize from their secondary and also helps if they opt to pick up an AoE immobilize from their Epic Pool.