My impression of Staff Fighting (numerical and otherwise)

How about this:

Let's assume staff is using its best possible chain, which would be something like GS-IS-GS-EotS. We will assume FoB, and the bonus damage/-res for EotS.

Said chain would deal 5.662 base damage after -res, 32.783 if all hit their max targets. It does that in 9.11 seconds, so it will vary between .622 base DS per second and 3.5986 base DS per second. Assuming FoB and 95% enhancement, 1.306 DS/s and 7.56 DS/s. On brutes, if we assume a 150% boost from Rage, those numbers rise to 2.2392 DS/s and 12.955 DS/s.

Therefore, SS on tankers will need to exceed 7.56 base DS/s to beat's Staff's max, and on Brute's it will need 12.955.

First, let's look at single rage on both ATs.

With no recharge, tanker footstomp deals 1.79 DS/s at max (assuming a 10 second wait every 120 seconds). At the recharge cap, it would deal 8.95 at max. Therefore, it is possible for a tanker to overtake staff with just FS with high recharge, using only single rage. The point at which FS alone matches Staff's greatest potential is 322% recharge with a single application of rage.

However, let's add in one other AoE. The worst DPC is Dark Obliteration, so I'll use that as my base. Adding that to the equation reduces the recharge point to 158%. Therefore, a SS tanker could fairly easily overtake the max DPS of Staff even with only a single stack of rage, as they would only need about 100% recharge from non-enhancement sources. This is only a little greater than the benefit providing by hasten + quick reflexes, so almost possible without extensive IOing. In fact, a force feedback proc can provide about 50% of +recharge at the target cap.

On Brutes, the number goes up. If fury provides an equal benefit to both sets (and at the target cap, both set's will likely reach high levels of fury despite pauses), than it would take 227% recharge for FS + DO to beat the best Staff chain with only a single application of rage.

If we use 2 rage stacks, the recharge number for tanks goes down to 120% recharge. This is low enough to do essentially without IOs, if someone could get double-rage without any IO recharge bonus.

For brutes, double-rage reduces the necessary recharge down to 165% recharge. This is will within the feasibility range as well.

Now, if we were attacking exactly 5 targets, Staff would probably be at its strongest point relative to SS. At that point tank Staff would deal 6.21 DS/s, and brute Staff would deal 10.65.

Against only 5 targets, tank Staff would need to get 397% recharge with single rage. That is unfeasible. Double rage reduces that to a slightly more palatable 323% recharge. That is possible, with FF, Hasten, and enhancements reducing that to 108% recharge, but highly unlikely. I'm assuming that it would be unfeasible for brutes.

Of course, all this assumes that the tank is using the worst possible additive AoE (I'm ignoring AoEs with recharges over 32, because those generally aren't capable of being used in every fight). If we switch to mu mastery for the two AoEs, and use double rage, tanks need only 57.8% to match Staff at max targets, and 194% to match staff against 5 targets, both of which are well within the realm of feasibility.

On brutes, those numbers shift to 90% at max and 254% at 5 targets.

Therefore, I can safely say that it is possible for a SS Brute or Tanker to beat the best possible Staff chain under a large variety of circumstances. If they have double-rage, they will almost certainly beat it in any situation (requiring a total of 334% for brutes and 260% recharge for tanks to beat the best staff chain with just FS). Even using single rage, the max AoE of Staff is fairly easily eclipsed with a single patron AoE. SS can even beat Staff at it's forte (5 targets) with double rage and with multiple patron/epic AoEs.

There you go, math. Only thing I probably should have accounted for is animation times of SS, but because SS will not form chains easily that can be ignored in most cases.

I already have a problem. The numbers don't seem right. GS does 1.15833 DS, IS does 1.66, and Eye of the Storm does 1.23 without the bonus and 1.476 with the bonus. That means GS-IS-GS-EotS should do 1.15833 * 2 + 1.66 + 1.23 = 5.20666 DS without the bonus and 5.45266 with the bonus. With the 10% resistance debuff that would be 5.99793 DS with the EotS bonus. At the target caps that would be about 38.11 DS/sec. I get the same total arcanatime (9.11s) so that is 0.659 DS/sec and 4.18 DS/sec. With the total damage buff you mention above that's 1.38 DS/sec and 8.79 DS/sec for Tankers and 2.37 DS/sec and 15.06 DS/sec for Brutes.

If I use a more accurate calculation that factors in the variable MoB buff, it would be 1.32 DS/sec for tankers instead of 1.38 DS/sec which is slightly lower, but still higher than your 1.306 estimate.


Problem again. First a small one. Footstomp does 1.42 DS per cycle. That cycle is about 2.1s + 20s = 22.1s base. That's 1.42/22.1 = 0.064DS/sec vs one target, and 0.64DS/sec at the 10 target cap. Slotted 1.95 and with +80% Rage, that's 1.77DS/sec which is already lower than your calculated value which you say factors in Rage's downtime. With a 10/120 pause, that's 1.62 DS/sec.

The bigger problem: you then multipled by 5. Can't do that. Recharge buffs speed up recharge but not cast time. At the recharge cap the cycle time drops from 22.1s to 6.1s, not 4.42s. That means at the 10 target cap Footstomp increases to 1.42/6.1 * 10 = 2.33 DS/sec unslotted, 6.4 DS/sec slotted to 1.95 with +80% rage.

A small problem that will get bigger later: you assumed Staff couldn't get any better at the recharge cap itself. At the recharge cap you can run GS-IS-EotS. That means only every other EoTS will get the bonus damage, but you are now running the 10 target cap power more often. GS-IS-EotS-GS-IS-EotSBonus generates marginally higher results: 4.26 DS/sec instead of 4.18 DS/sec for base numbers, and with the same damage slotting numbers above it would be then 8.95 DS/sec for Tankers, compared to 6.4 DS/sec for Footstomp with stomp with single rage. Footstomp is never catching Staff Fighting at any level of recharge. Having one of the best AoEs out there and Rage to power it gets it respectably close, but its still only 71% of Staff's AoE output.

At double stacked Rage you'd be at 0.64 DS/sec * (1.95 + 1.60) = 2.272 DS/sec, but with two crashes per cycle you'd be active for an effective 2.272 * 100/120 = 1.893 DS/sec. At the recharge cap, that would be 6.86 DS/sec. That's still nowhere near Staff Fighting's 8.95 DS/sec, and I'll bet you probably thought double stacked rage would have helped more.


Full stop. Before I analyze the numbers, I have to reiterate: you can't do this. The moment you do, you're making an invalid comparison, period. You have to somehow justify why you're adding an AoE to one set and not the other, and you never do. That's a fatal flaw, period.

But lets look at adding DO anyway. Adding Dark Obliteration is not going to have the net effect you think. Because Dark Obliteration, even though it has high recharge, also has high DPA for an AoE. In particular its higher DPA than the staff attacks. And that's important because as I said: DPC is important for non-full chains, DPA is important for full ones. And the Staff chain is full. Which means its to the advantage of Staff to insert Dark Obliteration whenever it comes up. Which actually means Staff is going to be using Dark Obliteration about as often as Super Strength will be.

Because of Rage, DO is going to benefit SS somewhat more. But its not going to be absent from the Staff Chain because its single target DPA is higher than Staff's attacks and its target cap is higher than GS and IS.

You're now comparing a set with two AoEs against a set with four AoEs in a recharge environment where three is enough to make a full chain. And that's an environment where Rage can potentially close the gap on a set. But even so, given the numbers it looks like it would be close. However, at this point I think its your responsibility to demonstrate your assertion with your own calculations, given that unless I've made a mistake myself, yours appear to be faulty in a few very critical areas (the biggest of which overestimates SS damage by about 40%).

Wrong? No. It's sensible. She's proven time and time again that she has a better grasp on the mechanics of this game than almost anyone including the devs.

I've got the math to argue with her, but I don't have the free time nor the obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. Every game needs someone like that; more power to her.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

She also has a way of explaining things in a logical way that actually makes sense. I really wish someone with her talent for communicating math had taught my college calculus classes.

First, the -res debuff is only 10% for tankers (I didn't see that, I was looking at the brute version). It is 7.5% for everyone else.

Secondly, not sure what I did to get a lower bonus on Eye of the Storm. I must have missed a digit when I added the bonus (I had it going from 1.23 to 1.29).

Thirdly, I meant to put a disclaimer at the top for the main fault in the method: not calculating cast times + recharge, but just recharge. The numbers were supposed to be guesstimates, not perfect representations of actual gameplay.

Fourth: I used the chain posted either earlier in this thread or in another thread that was listed as "the best staff AoE chain." If I had gobs of free time, I would have tried to develop something better, but I didn't. This influenced why I didn't add DO to Staff as well.

But since you insist, I'll spend more than 5 minutes and make a more correct write up. I'll just focus on Brutes for now, because SS for brutes is comparatively weaker than SS for tankers with respect to staff.

Staff powers:
GS- 1.15833, 1.98 animation, 8 sec recharge, 5 target max, .586 DPA, .116 DPC (DS/(A+R)), .588 Max DPC
IS- 1.66, 2.376 animation, 10 sec recharge, 5 target max, .699 DPA, .134 DPC, .671 Max DPC
EotS- 1.23 to 1.4975, 2.772 animation, 17 sec recharge, 10 target max, .443 to .54 DPA, .0622 to .0757 DPC, .622 to .757 Max DPC, 7.5% -res

Super Strength:
Foot Stomp: 1.42, 2.244 animation, 20 sec recharge, 10 target max, .633 DPA, .0638 DPC, .638 Max DPC

Potential extra AoEs:
Dark Obliteration (Soul): .9, 1.188s, 32s, .758 DPA, .027 DPC, .433 MDPC

School of Sharks (Leviathan): .935, 2.508, 20s, 10, .373 DPA, .0415 DPC, .415 MDPC
Bile Spray: 1.2, 2.904, 32, 16, .413 DPA, .0344 DPC, .55 DPC
Arctic Spray: 1, 2.904, 32, 10, .344 DPA, .0287 DPC, .287 MDPC ,11.25% -res

Electrifying Fences (Mu): .8, 1.32, 20, 10, .606 DPA, .0375 DPC, .375 MDPC
Ball Lightning: 1.02, 1.32, 32, 16, .773 DPA, .0306 DPC, .490 MDPC
Static Discharge: .96, 2.244, 24, 10, .428 DPA, .0366 DPC, .366 MDPC

Fire Ball (Pyre): 1.0952, 1.188, 32, 16, .922 DPA, .0330 DPC, .528 MDPC

Energy Torrent (Energy): .96, 1.32, 24, 10, .728 DPA, .0379 DPC, .379 MDPC

Out of those, it is clear that Mu Mastery has the greatest AoE potential when adding two or more AoEs, though fireball is probably a better choice when adding a single AoE. SS would be better served with Mu and Staff with Pyre, though I will assume that both use Mu when adding AoEs for simplicity.
Here are the constant conditions:

1. 95% damage enhancement
2. 100% accuracy (assuming no misses for simplicity)
3. 150% damage from fury
4. Form of Body Buff (scaling at high levels of +recharge, but treated as constant for low levels)

Here are the variables:

1. # of Rage Stacks (multiplying final damage by 11/12 for 1 stack and 5/6 for 2 stacks)
2. Amount of +recharge
3. Number of added AoEs

First Test: No +recharge, 1 rage stack, no added AoEs

Super Strength MDPC:
Footstomp MDPC: 1.42*(1+.95+1.5+.8)*(10)*(11/12)/(2.244+20) = 2.487 MDPC

Staff MDPC (assuming 15% damage buff and 7.5% -resist from FoB and FoB bonus damage for simplicity):
GS: 2.246
IS: 2.60
EotS: 2.93

SUM: 7.77

So, with no recharge slotting, SS’s AoE potential will be much less. For our second test, we’ll go to the other extreme: 335% added recharge (115% from enhancements/incarnates, 50% from FF, 170% from global recharge), 3 extra AoEs from Mu Mastery, and double rage.
At this point, Staff has a few options. It could run GS-IS-EotS, or it could use the supplemental AoEs and EotS/IS. I’m guessing that the best option would be something like IS-EotS-IS-EF-BL-EotS. That way, the extra AoEs would get the FoB bonuses. Because SD is not significantly better that IS or GS, it probably shouldn’t be used in an AoE chain.

Second Test: High recharge, Double Rage, 2+ added AoEs

First, SS. Power order would be EF-FS-SD-BL. So, during the course of combat the following would happen: (1) EF-FS-SD-BL-EF-FS – (.633s pause) – SD-EF-BL-FS – (633s pause) – SD-EF (.4 sec pause) – FS-BL – (.232s pause) – SD-EF-FS … or an average chain of roughly 1.66 FS – 1.66 EF – 1.33 SD – 1 BF – (.587s pause).
Therefore, total damage would be 272.03 DS, in a time of 10.29, for a DPS of 26.43 DS.
Now, for Staff. First, let’s try the GS-IS-EotS chain.
For the first time, GS would receive no damage bonus, IS would receive a 4% bonus and Eye would get 9%. The second time they would all be at 15% and Eye would get the bonus damage. I’ll assume the 7.5% resist debuff.

Total Damage: 227.81 DS
Total Time: 14.256
DPS: 15.98

So significantly less than the SS chain at max targets. That should be expected, because a majority of the time you will be attacking a max of 5 targets. Now for the chain substituting BL and EF in. I make no guarantees that this chain will be the best possible chain using these AoEs, but it should bring up the damage a bit. Obviously, EF and BL will get the full damage bonus every time.

Total Damage: 268.524
Total Time: 12.936
DPS: 20.76

Significantly better than Staff without an added AoE, but still behind SS. In fact, SS would deal 21.19 without SD. It is important to note that this will be better than any possible in game performance because of the time it will time to manipulate the cones to hit max targets. If the SS user uses SD, they will need to adjust to use that cone, but it will be significantly easier to get 10 targets in a larger cone than 5 in a smaller one. If we adjusted the numbers on the cones so that we expect 3 in IS and 7 in SD, the DPSs become 24.85 for SS and 19.73 for Staff.

It should also be noted that regular gameplay would not extend long enough for the SS user to experience pauses. The combined damage of FS, BL, and EF is enough to defeat most minions in a spawn, and single target attacks are usually a better option after those attacks.

Anyways, let’s try a few more. First, the GS-IS-GS-EotS chain, with 240% recharge, compared to SS’s options of just FS, FS and BL, and FS, EF, and BL (all at double rage).

The chain of GS-IS-GS-EotS will deal 142.56 saturated DPS (132.6 before –res), in a time of 9.108, for a total of 15.65 DPS. This is not significantly worse than GS-IS-EotS chain, and comes with additional defense and simplicity, so it may be a common option. However, it is worse than the chain with EF and BL.

At 240% recharge and double rage, footstomp alone would deal 59.76 damage every 8.13 seconds for a total DPC of 7.35. So without AoEs, SS is about half as effective as staff, and nearly 1/4th as effective as it is with 3 AoEs and extremely high recharge.

At the same level of recharge and with double fury, BL would deal 68.68 every 10.73 seconds, for a DPC of 6.40. Because no coherent chain can be composed of just FS and BL, I’ll just add the DPCs, which would produce a combined DPC of 13.75, which is within reason of the Staff chain, especially considering that GS and IS will likely not hit maximum targets with no time lost (the point at which SS’s DPC exceeds Staff’s DPS is 4 targets in GS and 3 in IS).

If SS were to use Fireball instead of BL, total DPC would go up to 14.31. Additionally, if it were to add the DPC of EF to FS and BL, the total DPC would go to 18.42. In order to surpass the best Staff chain I’ve found with just EF and BL, SS would need about 295% recharge in the three AoEs.

From those, we can expect Staff to beat SS under several conditions:

1. Lack of extra AoEs, ie before level 35
a. Also, without SS having Burn available
2. Low levels of recharge bonus
3. SS not double-raging
4. Less than 10-16 targets
5. No downtime between mobs to allow powers to recharge
6. Perfect use of cone powers

Now, Staff probably doesn’t have to have ALL those things working for them, but it will absolutely be worse if all are false. So staff would probably at is comparitive best if the fighting was against a constant amount of tightly grouped hard targets with relatively low amounts of recharge. But in the high-end game, against a large number of targets, with extra AoEs, and at high levels of recharge, SS will be better. And that situation represents a large portion of combat at high levels. I highly doubt that SS users will want to skip added extra AoEs, and I also doubt that Staff will want to waste two powers choices on extra AoEs with 3 already in their set, so it is not a bad idea to assume that the sets will use their late-game power choices to shore up their weaknesses.

Finally, I’d just like to note that the reason SS/Fire/Mu is THE defacto farming set lies less in the ability to increase damage (though that IS important) and more in the ability to create a decent chain that is easy to use. By using burn, an attack with a good dpa and dpc despite a low target count and longish activation, they can fairly easily replace SD, and thus have an attack chain that relies on no cones, has the advantage of two powers that both boost the extra AoEs from Mu and work in a multiplicative way on each other, instead of in a way that promotes limited returns. In contrast, TW/Fire may be faster, and doesn’t even really need a lot of extra AoEs, but is harder to use.

At that point its obvious SS has the potential to beat any other set because it now has the potential for a full or nearly full AoE chain, but conversely I find it difficult to accept the position that evaluating Super Strength with its one AoE and two other AoEs added is an evaluation of Super Strength itself. Its really more the case that you added SS to those two AoEs, not the other way around.

I will concede that Super Strength can, in some cases, beat Staff in AoE damage in environments where the majority of the AoE damage is coming from outside those sets. But the statement "SS has better AoE damage" would still be, at best, highly misleading in that situation.

As to the actual calculations, I probably won't have the time to validate them until the weekend.

The thing is, I also evaluated SS + 2 AoEs and Staff + 2 AoEs, at a similar level of recharge. SS looked to deal 21.19 DPS with just FS, EF, and BL, and Staff was dealing 20.76 with EotS, IS, EF, and BL.

And while it IS silly to think that the majority of set's AoE might come from outside the set itself before adding in APPs and PPPs, it simply is not unreasonable past-35. Almost every build I've seen from a set with one or less (DM) functional AoEs tends to supplement that with powers outside of the build. Some do it by adding /Fire, /Dark or /Elec, some with Spring Attack, and quite a few by taking Mu or Pyre Mastery.

Because player tendency is to add those AoEs to SS, it is fair to count them. If a player asked me whether his SS/X brute or Staff/X brute would deal more AoE damage at level 50, I would say SS. But the second test was merely meant to be a control, like the first one was for Staff. I wanted to show that the way I was calculating produces the expected results: Staff is better with no help and SS is better with everything going for it. This analysis, however, ignoring many factors that could help SS, such as the improved damage of damage auras, burn, and spring attack. It is also extremely generous to believe that staff will always be able to maximize its cones.

I think it is silly to talk about powersets as if they exist in a vacuum in isolation from the benefits of other powers. Is Willpower as good at survivability with Tough/Weave/CJ/Maneuvers? Is DA as tough as granite without getting to the softcap through IOs + pool powers? Can Illusion still do its thing without perma-PA?

Yes, we should potentially talk about the sets performance in the absence of those additions, but we shouldn't pretend that those additions don't exist. Ideally, you'd try to balance so that performance is balanced before and after additions such as pool powers, IOs, and APPs. Making statements that only reflect the nature of sets before those additions is as silly as comparing those sets only after those additions. Oftentimes, it is not powersets themselves that are gimped or uber, but the way those powersets interact with primaries, secondaries, IOs, and pool powers.

I'm not sure how you can reconcile this statement with your tendency to ignore the cost of taking all these others pools, building to the various recharge levels and so on. You can't look only at the benefits of your favored position while setting aside its drawbacks and expect that to be considered a serious analysis. I'll also point out that contrary to your earlier denial your stance has come down to arguing in favor of SS/FA/Mu against staff fighting alone. If you really don't have a SS/FA/Mu yet you might want to go roll one, you seemed enamored with it.

While I won't say Staff is terrible, it does seem they have that sort of thing going with the powersets.

"We'll sell this set by it's numerical values! We'll sell this set for it's awesome animations!"

"Why not give the awesome animation sets better numerical values?"

"Are you kidding? That'd be OPed!"

Yep pretty much this. This is just one reason for the devs to be careful about basing what they may think the "players" feelings in the game are based on such a small purpose focused group of forumites.

I'm actually alarmed that you think that: that when presented with irrefutable evidence that your calculations generated the exact opposite of the correct conclusion, you still believe they were correct because a completely different set of calculations now appears to support your conclusions under a completely different set of situations.

Furthermore, while discussing powersets in a vacuum can ignore set synergies that might be important, generalizing one powerset combination into a judgment about the entire set is something that I have to state categorically is objectively incorrect.

If you want to say "SS/Fire/Mu is a higher damage farming build than Staff/Fire/Mu" go right ahead. But when you generalize beyond that, those generalizations have to be held to a far higher standard, a standard this analysis doesn't come close to reaching.

Do you still want to stick with your original calculation's conclusions:

Because at the moment, it seems like you're doing an excellent job of proving SS Brutes and Tankers will outperform Staff under exactly one condition: ultra high recharge farming builds with at least two additional 10 target cap AoEs outside of the set at or near the level cap.

Until someone actually *proves* Staff's performance is bad under more than marginal conditions, this is only a hypothetical problem I don't think you should spend more than a few milliseconds worrying about.

As I recall, the forums did an excellent job of being totally wrong about Kinetic Melee's performance as well.

You are /Fire. Anything with an AoE will be decent with /fire. Will you you be the best? Probably not. But you shouldn't suddenly find yourself dealing low damage, especially AoE. Despite the sudden change, my objections to Staff are not it's AoE damage, but a lack of high DPA single target attacks and the lack of use of FoB and FoM.


Drawbacks of SS taking Mu:

No Physical Perfection
No Gloom/DN
... concept?

Advantages:
Double to Triple the AoE output
2-3 potential purple sets
Decent pet

You sound like it is a gut-wrenching decision to select the best choice of APP/EPP to match up with a powerset. Outside of concept, it really isn't. Really. SS has one great AoE and the potentials to make any other attack much better, doesn't have a huge number of powers to take in the late game besides FS. Unless you have some odd tendency to start randomly filling out pool powers in the late game for concept, there is very little reason why you WOULND'T take these powers to help.

And you need to read more carefully, as I also explored the possibility of adding only one other AoE, which would work out best with /Fire or /Soul, either of which would allow SS to maintain acceptably high levels of damage. /Leviathan would also work admirably, though I avoided it mainly because the attacks had lower DPAs than comparable /Mu attacks.

And just so you are aware, the +recharge numbers were not chosen to help SS. They were the minimum numbers for Staff to run its AoE chains. It should also be noted that in the most optimal situation for Staff I used NO +recharge and gave SS no extra AoEs.

All of this is rather besides the point, as I never really intended this to become about Staff's AoE (after all, my Staff character doesn't even have the advantages of IS or the other Form buffs). The only reason AoE was mentioned at all was because the idea that Staff was a top level AoE set and that its AoE ability was enough to justify its low single target damage. I don't think it does, because it's AoE is only "good," not so mind-blowingly awesome that I could care less about single targets.

In addition to its inter-powerset balance disparities, I think it has fairly major intra-powerset problems. For instance, the fact that FoB and FoM are both considerably less useful than FoS, just from the magnitudes of the respective bonuses. I think the bonuses would be better if all 3 maxed at about 33%, which would both help the problems I mentioned and give the powerset some variety (and no, it doesn't count as real variety if one option is clearly superior). I also think that the same technology used to give players access to the various forms should have been used to grant BU power to each AT, probably one of the 62.5% +special variety (and that Stalkers should have been given access to the forms as well).

I stated in my first post that I would be playing Staff because it is has a niche, but having a niche doesn't mean a set is balanced. Instead, it means that the set is unbalanced at one particular section of the game, and should be treated as a bonus, not as justification for lower performance in other areas.

At this point, I believe I've gone far beyond the minimum required to point out the flaws in your analysis. If you believe I've overlooked something, you will need to be much more specific, because at this point I feel I'm doing someone else's homework for them.

The assertion that Staff has worse AoE than SS has been definitively disproved. With that, the assertion that Staff is only a "second tier" AoE set is similarly destroyed. And with that, the notion that Staff is an underperforming set is also objectively disproved in this case. I believe the burden of proof is now on the people attempting to state otherwise, and I consider that burden to be very high. If its getting to the point where people believe these assertions are trustworthy enough to abandon the set, then clearly I've become far too accommodating of bad analysis lately.

I wasn't talking to you, and I'm not going to insult you despite the derisive nature that your comment could be taken by me. The only reason that I posted my first AoE analysis was because you wanted a more in-depth reasoning for me saying SS is better than Staff at AoE. Regardless of how much I like you as a poster, this is the second time the thread has been derailed from my responses to you (MA build being the first), so I am going to try and focus on the original gist of my spiel.

The problem seems to be that you misunderstood me saying that Staff is a second-tier AoE set as a way of saying that Staff is a bad AoE set. I didn't mean it that way. All I meant is that extra AoE powers are more plentiful in APPs/EPPs than strong single target attacks, Gloom being the main exception, and that Staff couldn't maximize that fact with +dam or gain the same level of performance with the AoEs contained in the set.

In fact, the "second-tier" isn't supposed to be derisive, but praise for the set. It means that Staff is clearly better at AoE than most of the sets in the game. Being in the same category as Dual Blades, Electric, and War Mace doesn't mean you are bad in any way.

But even sets like MA can take advantage of extra AoEs to dramatically improve their AoE damage. In this way, potential AoE performance is more balanced than potential single target performance. AoE performance also has the added problem of being much harder to theoretically determine than single target damage, which makes it a metric vary hard to judge with experimental data.

We have both experimental and theoretical data that Staff is underperforming in single target scenarios. This normally would not be a problem, because nearly half of all sets are going to below average by definition. However, it can be argued that Staff deals too little AoE damage to make up for its lack of single target damage, which is likely to be below all but 1 or 2 sets.

Any argument Staff is fine despite this is balancing using the perks of the set as a justification. This isn't wise because perks are entirely impossible to mathematically balance. How much -tohit is Form of Soul worth? How much does staff gain for its perks in comparison to Kinetic Melee debuffing enemy damage?

Until you create a formula that balances the relative strength of every possible perk in represent to the damage potential of both a set's single-target and AoE damage, we should never use perks of a set to justify a deficiency in gameplay. They are just extras, and should be ignored when speaking about set balance in all but the most extreme examples.

Having determined that Staff Fighting has better AoE than nearly every other melee set it can tolerate quite a bit of lower performance in single target. The argument that this is balanced is based primarily on the fact that the offensive output of sets should be compared against the actual PvE balancing criteria the game follows. The standard benchmark is running solo base difficulty missions, aka the three minion spawn. However, the devs have also stated in the past that the balance metric for strong characters at higher levels with stronger slotting is probably closer to the equivalent of +3 x three minions. That implies, based on current difficulty slider functionality, a difficulty somewhere in the range of +0x2 and +3x1, which represent approximately the same difficulty apportioned in different spawn generation ways.

Its thus not AoE which is preeminent, like so many players have suggested in the past, or single target which is preeminent, as the trend now seems to be, but the overall offensive output when compared to spawns of approximately that size and strength. And since the difficulty slider is under the control of the player, single target focused sets and AoE focused sets should be compared across the range of spawn sizes indicated above, to ensure that they have some opportunity to perform within the same range as everyone else does.

The recharge capped AoE flooded cases is about as relevant to this game's balancing metrics as the pop a full tray of inspirations case is to balancing defensive sets.

I can, therefore, say that Staff appears to be, in the absence of a better analysis to the contrary, reasonably balanced against its peers without having to resort to a qualitative judgement of its bonus features. And all evidence I have says Staff's AoE attacks allow it to maintain reasonably high performance in a significant range of situations at every level including incarnate content. And I can say I have not yet seen any evidence of a numerical analysis which comes remotely close to the burden of proof necessary to contradict that assertion. If the set has issues, I'm very certain at this point they are subtle enough to not be trivially computable in this way.

This fact bears repeating: single target and optimal AoE calculations are interesting metrics, but there's no such thing as underperforming on single target damage in actual fact any more than there is such a thing as underperforming in cold resistance. What matters is defeating critters in combat, in the variable situations they present themselves in. That's always an amalgam of single target and AoE damage output.

I haven't seen your proof that Staff is better than "nearly every melee set". If you are just saying "SS is supposed to be a good set, Staff is better at it a lot of the time," I could understand, but other sets would be better than SS in those situations as well.

I see a set that has one decent AoE, roughly comparable to "Whirling X" AoE most powersets get, one weak 5 target cone with decent area (ie, Slice, instead of Headsplitter), and one strong 5 target cone over a decent area. Nothing gamebreakingly powerful, compared to the rest of the melee sets. Objectively looking at what each set brings to AoE, I don't see that Staff stands head and shoulders over most sets, but rather is just above average. I think size should be considered when talking about AoEs, so I'll use a metric of DPA/(Animation+Recharge)*Max # of targets*Radius to try and judge the set's AoE potential. I'll call that a "P" rating, for potential. Adding the those together gives a good idea of the set's AoE potential, combining damage and ease of use. A more accurate measure would also include factors like +dam buffs, -resist, etc, but this will serve as a decent simplification.

Battle Axe: 183.14
Whirling Axe- 124.89
Cleave- 13.722
Pendulum- 44.52

Broadsword: 210.63
Slice- 35.04
Whirling Sword- 160.57
Headsplitter- 15.02

Claws: 906.90
Spin- 281.72
Eviscerate- 38.70
Shockwave- 586.48

Dark Melee: 55.52
Shadow Maul- 19.27
Dark Consumption- 9.32
Soul Drain- 26.93

Dual Blades: 247.80
Typhoon's Edge- 165.89
Sweeping Strike- 30.21
One Thousand Cuts-51.6

Electric Melee: 971.77
Jacob's Ladder- 17.097
Thunderstrike- 75.67
Chain Induction (treated as a 15 radius PBAoE power with 6 max targets)- 387
Lightning Rod (treated as a 20 radius PBAoE with 16 targets)- 491.97

Energy Melee: 120.83
Whirling Hands: 120.83

Fiery Melee: 311.27 for non-tankers, 817 for tankers
Breath of Fire- 71.21
Fire Sword Circle- 240.03
(Combustion for tankers)- 505.79

Katana: 244.27
Flashing Steel- 39.47
The Lotus Drops- 189.25
Golden Dragonfly- 15.55

Kinetic Melee: 625.60
Repulsing Torrent- 485.22
Burst- 140.38

Ice Melee: 247.65
Frost- 47.10
Frozen Aura- 200.55

Martial Arts: 150.96
Dragon's Tail- 150.96

Spines: 1331.58
Spine Burst- 435.58
Quills (treated as 8ft PBAoE with 0 animation, 2s rech)- 141.12
Ripper- 33.42
Throw Spines-721.47

Staff Fighting: 317.42
Guarded Spin- 36.92
Eye of the Storm- 239.15
Innocuous Strikes- 41.34

Stone Melee: 405.49
Tremor- 405.49

Street Justice: 131.489
Sweeping Cross- 20.08
Spinning Strike- 111.4

Super Strength: 451.24
Footstomp- 451.24

Titan Weapons: 825.32 (average of with, w/o momentum)
Defensive Sweep- 59.87, 73.57
Titan Sweep- 59.19, 65.34
Whirling Smash- 636.98
Arc of Destruction- 59.35, 59.35

War Mace: 266.60
Whirling Mace-133.22
Shatter- 19.75
Crowd Control- 133.63

So, by this method, the AoE effectiveness of the sets goes:

1. Spines
2. Electric
3. Claws
4. TW
5. Tanker Fiery
6. Kinetic
7. SS
8. Stone
9. Staff
10. Other Fiery
11. War Mace
12. Dual Blades
13. Ice
14. Katana
15. Broadsword
16. Battle-Axe
17. Martial Arts (higher with Eagles' Claw)
18. Energy
19. Dark

Now, I can already tell where this analysis is incorrect. It overvalues large cones, undervalues small ones, and probably is a little generous for 15+ radius PBAoEs. If we adjust the settings so that smaller cones are worth something like 3/2 their Prating, large cones and LR 1/2th, and 15ft PBAoEs 2/3rds, and then account for +damage, I think we will begin to see the traditional set rankings emerge. Either way, the size of the AoE is important when we try look at sets, because the ability to hit targets easily directly corresponds with an increase in damage over time. It would take experimental evidence to determine exactly much certain types of powers are under/over rated from this type of analysis, but I still think it shows how the sets rank when you factor in the added difficulty of hitting targets with an attack with smaller area of effect.

I don't think this is the case. First, because +recharge is fairly common as buff, is easy to get through IOs, and can come in fairly large quantities just from basic enhancements and Spiritual/Agility. Secondly, because every set has access to a variety of additional AoEs powers, making it useful to balance the sets with the possibility of supplemental AoE.

This seems to be a way of saying that the game is too complex to mathematically determine, and that the effort to do so is not worth it. I disagree with that, and it seems like the only plausible evidence you would accept is thousands of data-logs from hundreds of different combat levels facing a large variety of enemies with variable resistances and powers, showing a wide-scale lack of damage in a large portion of combat in comparison with a majority of current melee sets.

That is unreasonable. Excuse if I am making a strawman out your argument, but NO set should require that much proof to change. While I cannot show the average DPS of staff given the infinite variety of playstyles and situations, I can show that it's potential isn't as high as other sets, and I can do so fairly easily simply by comparing potential expected DPS. With AoEs, I can show that the relative advantage of having 3 AoEs is less important when you take in account the relatively low DPAs of those AoEs in combination with the added difficulty of maxing out a short range cone. With single target, I simply have to show that the DPA of the single target attacks is not equivalent to what most attack sets get. Now, it may be more in-game applicable if I tried to show how the damage set puts out would affect the average spawns at certain levels of difficulty, but in general these metrics are good enough to show problems

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

I've heard that a lot in this thread, and it is an opinion I am frankly puzzled by.

"I think Staff numerically underperforms, but doesn't begin to show that until higher levels. Can we change some of the powers to make it a little better at the high end?"

"Screw the numbers, just have fun"

How is that a valid answer to a numerical complaint? If the numbers are changed without cottage ruling everything, the set will still mostly play the same way. It won't hurt your fun. To be frank, as much as it is great that a powerset is fun to a lot of people, that shouldn't stop the devs from trying to balance that set, whether it is over or underachieving.

And to me, fun is often a factor of easiness to play, and at low levels staff is absolutely basically works like a Mac. It succeeds because it is easy and simple to use, largely because the relative strength of its AoEs and the power of FoS. It is kind of like Willpower for the early levels, because it makes everything easier, but it doesn't have the raw numbers to be a top (or above average set) in the late-game. That said, even bottom dwelling melee sets can do ridiculous things, and staff still maintains a niche by offering survability in ways other sets can't. Personally, I don't the damage should suffer for that, just like DM isn't penalized by having -tohit in every attack, or Kinetic having -dam when using power siphon.