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Here's the problem I'm facing:|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I don't have the resources to level and build high end Dominators for such purposes, unfortunately. I did do a short experiment with a friend on his high end Plant/Psi- The clearing time matched my Arch/Ment, but that was with Seeds of Confusion, so reward rates were obviously lower. The problem with comparing builds across different players, though, is accounting for user error or player skill- Not that I feel either of these conditions had an impact on the experiment I just mentioned, but I also can't prove that they didn't, so any argument predicated upon it is inherently void. Do you see the problem I'm facing here?
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| I think that you are falling victim to your own preconceived notions here, to be honest. I believe you are trying to cover so many grounds with your argument that ultimately all add up to the same thing. If the primary function of both Blasters and Dominators is dealing damage, which is better? I believe that the best way to discuss that is by taking ideal sets on both counts and gauging which has superior damage output. |
Keep in mind this started with a discussion on whether /Mental's damage mitigation was high compared to peers, and has randomly shifted to looking at damage without actually acknowledging that /Mental's damage mitigation isn't actually extremely high compared to peers, because apparently that question requires a considerable amount of effort to decide what a valid peer actually is, which started with the question of whether an archetype does enough damage relative to blasters, whether that comparison should be at the averages or at the highest levels of damage, and whether that damage should generate the same level of rewards.
The problem you face of attempting to prove your assertions is a problem you're supposed to have. Its not a problem you can legitimately dismiss for yourself while simultaneously imposing it on others. Very few, actually probably no one would or for that matter should allow you to make this sort of assertion:
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| Yes, Dominators have more inherent tools to survive, but all of those tools are at least somewhat trivialized when it comes to high end play. Clarion provides status protection, and 32.5% defense to all positions does enough to mitigate mez. And yes, sure. Dominators can run Destinies besides Clarion- But so can any Blaster with a proactive nature and a break free macro. You are dealing in such a way that your approach to the analysis is theoretical to a point that it is potentially irrelevant to actual in-game experience. |
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
This is what I was asking Arcana to compare as I feel like she would be a great medium for this debate.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I think we've had enough of conjecture and both of our own personal bias about this. I believe it would be most logical to let Arcana run max survival vs. max damage analysis and we could take our disagreements from there.
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What you are asking for is not easy to do. If you want it done, try your own hand at it. If not, badgering another player to produce such a thing in their own time to try to prove or disprove your assertion that is only applicable in the smallest and often most dismissible set of cases seems out of line.
It is interesting that the idea of spawn wipe came up. I agree with Arcana in the general sense that how a build deals with and kills an entire spawn is a good measure to consider.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Blasters do not have any means of keeping enemies taunted. In a cave farm, this means that everything will constantly scatter outside my AOE radius after taking one application of ROA. It also means that a lot of the time, they won't even come back to me. If the mechanics are against my leveraging AOE's, obviously I'm not going to perform well. That's why full cave clearing is not a good method to use for a farming Blaster. It has nothing to do with me or my performance, it's pure game mechanics.
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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.
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I wasn't attempt to badger, just making a request. "I'm too busy" or "I don't feel like it" is a perfectly viable answer, haha. She already said she could do some math to fit a damage output metric into her survivability metric, so *shrug.* I didn't think adding Dom's to the mix would break anything any more. I would be more than willing to perform my own tests but1.) I don't have a Dominator, 2.) People trust Arcana a lot more than me, and 3.) I'm not as good at math anyways.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Her hourly rates for producing such an analysis seem to be higher than you are willing to pay.
What you are asking for is not easy to do. If you want it done, try your own hand at it. If not, badgering another player to produce such a thing in their own time to try to prove or disprove your assertion that is only applicable in the smallest and often most dismissible set of cases seems out of line. |
I do have some extra inf, I can roll up a Plant/Psiand pay for it to be PLed within the next few days, but it's going to take me about an extra week to make a build for it.
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This explains everything.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I would be more than willing to perform my own tests but1.) I don't have a Dominator.....
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At least he's honest, but honestly I do suggest you level a Dominator up for yourself and see how they perform. First-hand experience is always going to be better.
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What do you mean? I never claimed otherwise, I have looked at the numbers and seen high end Dominators perform though. I've never said Dominators are bad, just that they don't personally appeal to me. I'm going to give it a shot though, I had more extra inf than expected so I'm going to throw a Plant/Psi together.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
This explains everything.
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Originally Posted by Reppu
At least he's honest, but honestly I do suggest you level a Dominator up for yourself and see how they perform. First-hand experience is always going to be better.
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As for leveling up, I don't enjoy playing before 50 and I don't have the time anyways. I neglect my main projects as it is, haha. I prefer to just get PL'd on alts I'm curious about and take it from there. Performance below level 50 just isn't something I'm interested in, shrug.
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I mean it explains your borderline delusional ideas about how blasters compare with doms.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
What do you mean?
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| I never claimed otherwise, I have looked at the numbers and seen high end Dominators perform though. I've never said Dominators are bad, just that they don't personally appeal to me. |
Playing a dom is vastly different than extrapolating what it would be like from 'looking at the numbers'.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I understand how they work- I didn't even want Dom's to be a part of this discussion because I didn't consider them a primarily damage dealing AT, but I was proven wrong on that. I'm not sure how complicated this game is for you, but there's really nothing beyond the scope of comprehension once you understand how things work. I'm also not sure if you know what sort of Blaster I play. I'm not drawing parallels to execution, since it's clearly going to be very different per AT, just to end results. I know that Plant can match Archery's AOE output, but that it relies on Seeds of Confusion to do so, which means lower reward rates. How much of an impact that makes is something I look forward to investigating personally. Single target wise, I think there's a chance that the Dom would win because of redraw, but my initial calcs show that they're about even. I'm aware that a control primary with high end survivability built in means that the Dom can theoretically be *more* survivable, with higher potential, but there is really a cap on survivability if you're talking about build performance in the scope of in game scenarios, not theoretical max possible sustainable damage. Basically, if both survive the same situations, it doesn't really matter which "survived better," because alive is alive. My Blaster already solos 54x8 and GM's, so I think he's at the survivability cap anyways.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
I mean it explains your borderline delusional ideas about how blasters compare with doms.
An old saying applies here- the map is not the territory. Playing a dom is vastly different than extrapolating what it would be like from 'looking at the numbers'. |
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Mild aside here which people may or may not care about: CoH is a game of numbers, and thus it's very easy to just look at the numbers and see how something will perform in a given circumstance. Numbers will tell you what will happen in an ideal circumstance, but experience will tell you how common that circumstance is and what happens when that circumstance doesn't occur.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Playing a dom is vastly different than extrapolating what it would be like from 'looking at the numbers'.
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Tying this back to Dominators, there is a gigantic difference between how things go when a dominator is in control and when they aren't. Completely negating an entire group's ability to attack and then dealing absurd amounts of damage to them is about as conceptually powerful as something can possibly be. Conversely, dropping dead at the start of the fight is about as useless as something can be (I take that back. Vengeance is pretty darn good). Both of these situations are very common for dominators, and are very capable of happening right after eachother. More than any other archetype, dominators benefit greatly from the invention system, in my opinion. Increased mez durations, accuracy, and mez protection make the first situation increasingly more common, and the second one less so.
Okay, done randomly talking to myself now.
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I see a lot of irony here. If the game isn't hard to understand, how could you fail to comprehend that dominators are a damage AT? It had to be proven to you? |
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I understand how they work- I didn't even want Dom's to be a part of this discussion because I didn't consider them a primarily damage dealing AT, but I was proven wrong on that. I'm not sure how complicated this game is for you, but there's really nothing beyond the scope of comprehension once you understand how things work.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
My Blaster already solos 54x8 and GM's, so I think he's at the survivability cap anyways.
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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.
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Their primary is control, and I don't believe that their damage output can compete with high end damage output. They have Controller primaries, are Controllers a damage AT? They have Blaster secondaries, and Blaster secondaries are not the reason why Blasters do a lot of damage. So, shrug. They were clearly implemented in a way that gives them way more firepower than they deserve, but the concept behind them all but flat-out states "not very good at anything."|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I see a lot of irony here. If the game isn't hard to understand, how could you fail to comprehend that dominators are a damage AT? It had to be proven to you?
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| Did you ever upload those Malta or Carnie videos where you are running a mission at 54 x 8? I have trouble with them and Arachnos and would love to watch it. |
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This is a very strange way of looking at it. The Primary/Secondary powersets are not "This is the thing they do, oh and they have this too." If this were the case, then scrappers would be judged solely based on their primary, as well.. and in the absence of their secondary, we'd have a lot of trouble seeing scrappers do the things they do.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Their primary is control, and I don't believe that their damage output can compete with high end damage output. They have Controller primaries, are Controllers a damage AT? They have Blaster secondaries, and Blaster secondaries are not the reason why Blasters do a lot of damage. So, shrug. They were clearly implemented in a way that gives them way more firepower than they deserve, but the concept behind them all but flat-out states "not very good at anything."
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You have to take it as a whole.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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The thing with taking it as a whole, Void, is that Scrapper secondaries (and most other secondary sets in the game) complement and strengthen the AT's ability to complete its primary tasking. Take controllers, or Masterminds, or the HEATs: each has a secondary set that complements and enhances the primary sets in various ways throughout the combinations available.
Blaster secondaries, with certain notable exceptions (Drain Psyche being the obvious one, but /Devices does a bit of this too) largely exist alongside Blaster primaries but do not enhance them beyond Build Up. Take /Elec, for instance: 6 of the 9 powers in /Elec are melee powers that don't do anything to help out the primary set. One is a boost to Endurance drain that is melee range, one is Build Up, and the final power is the single target immobilize, which is only useful in the x0 world, otherwise known as toons that suck solo.
The "good" secondaries - Mental, Energy, and Devices - are good because they make your primary set more effective somehow, either through survival or raw power upgrades in the case of Energy.
Blasters' current implementation is that of a character in WoW who's trying to spec two talent pools at the same time, and the scattered, ineffectual build has a scattered, ineffectual result. Unfortunately, the devs don't have the stones for the cottage-rule-breaking overhaul that would fix the core issues.
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Please forgive me, but my love of /Fire compels me to write. Consider this a simple aside; as I write this line (which I am writing last) I consider not making the post at all, but the power of bias compels me.|
Originally Posted by Rakeeb
The "good" secondaries - Mental, Energy, and Devices - are good because they make your primary set more effective somehow, either through survival or raw power upgrades in the case of Energy.
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One of the things that makes /Fire "great" is the fact that it works well in the field of complementing the primary, just not in a way many expect and in a way that exposes the survivability issue more.
/Fire has your standard two powers most sets have that could be considered complementary, the immob and Build Up. Then it also has an end recovery power (which many other secondaries also have). It also has 4 attacks and, like all secondary attacks, these compete with, rather than complement the primary.
But then /Fire also has TWO damage auras. Of which, one is amazing. Like all damage auras they complement any attack in the primary because they do not compete for animation time. Naturally, in order to use them one has to enter melee and stay there; using them effectively vastly lowers your range advantage, but as far as the damage side goes they are fabulously complementary. And once one is in melee anyway, now you can add another AoE power which makes any blaster very good at eliminating (up-level) minions and Lts quickly. AoEs don't compete like single target attacks do. Psychic Scream and/or PsyShock are one of the best benefits you get for taking /Mental and FSC deals nearly 75% more damage (and even Combustion deals more damage than either of /Mental's AoEs).
If you overcome the survivability issue (which is, admittedly, hard to do solo), /Fire is complementary, it just makes the long range attacks you get short range (normally; you can still use them from long range, but then lose the benefit of the auras).
Also, I find it amusing that someone rated /Device as one of the three "good" secondaries.
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.
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Your only other alternative is Fire Mastery, which gives Rain of Fire and Fireball. Do these add up to Sleet? Maybe.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
One thing that I am skeptical about is going with Ice Mastery- I always prefer to take resistance APP/PPP's since I can build defense up with set bonuses, but Sleet seems to be a factor in the level of performance you've talked about. Do you feel like the control primary is enough to make up for having no resistance (aside from possibly tough?)
As for leveling up, I don't enjoy playing before 50 and I don't have the time anyways. I neglect my main projects as it is, haha. I prefer to just get PL'd on alts I'm curious about and take it from there. Performance below level 50 just isn't something I'm interested in, shrug. |
You're trading the +Res for the +Def and +Max HP that Ice Mastery gives. Ontop of the protection granted by the Control. Do I think it's enough?
Very yes. While I do love +Resistance, I do know the value of a soft cap over Resistance.
But if you really want Resistance, Fire Mastery is a viable alternative.
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Well the thing about if you choose a resistance shield, you can still have softcapped defense through set bonuses. If you really think than an s/l softcap and control is enough on its own though, I'll take your word for it when I'm working on this build.
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Originally Posted by Reppu
Your only other alternative is Fire Mastery, which gives Rain of Fire and Fireball. Do these add up to Sleet? Maybe.
You're trading the +Res for the +Def and +Max HP that Ice Mastery gives. Ontop of the protection granted by the Control. Do I think it's enough? Very yes. While I do love +Resistance, I do know the value of a soft cap over Resistance. But if you really want Resistance, Fire Mastery is a viable alternative. |
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Given your carrying on in this thread you have a hugely inflated & largely unjustified belief in your own grasp of "how things work".|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I understand how they work- I didn't even want Dom's to be a part of this discussion because I didn't consider them a primarily damage dealing AT, but I was proven wrong on that. I'm not sure how complicated this game is for you, but there's really nothing beyond the scope of comprehension once you understand how things work.
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I don't need a deep mathematical grasp of the issues because I've played both the ATs in question. In this case common sense & experience trumps fancy book learnin'.
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| I'm also not sure if you know what sort of Blaster I play. |
You know that blaster intimately- great.
You know next to nothing about the thing you're comparing it to, which your comments on the topic make clear.
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| My Blaster already solos 54x8 and GM's, so I think he's at the survivability cap anyways. |
No really, I am.
Which isn't to say you *don't* do these things, but at this point we're both presenting exactly the same amount of proof. =P
And in any case, it says absolutely nothing about the merits of blasters in general compared with dominators in general.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I'm a sad puppy |
Originally Posted by Rakeeb
ENERGY BLAST
Power Blast -> Power Burst -> Sniper Blast Power Bolt: 62.56 / 1.118 / 52.66 / 5.2 / 4 / 6.6 Power Blast: 102.6 / 1.848 / 55.52 / 8.53 / 8 / 11 Sniper Blast: 172.27 / 1.488 / 115.77 / 14.35 / 12 / 8.8 Power Burst: 132.6 / 2.244 / 59.1 / 10.4 / 10 / 13.2 Time: 5.58 100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (44.35%) = 389.35% Damage: 407.47 / 1405.77 / 1586.48 Base DPS: 73.02 / 251.93 / 284.31 Procs: 2x Superior, 12.53 Interface: 16.47 Odd Total: 29.00 Final DPS: 106.61 / 293.57 / 327.40 Welp. The long animation of Power Burst is what really kills this set. Without the Sniper Blast upgrade it would be abysmally bad damage, significantly worse than most damage sets in the game and so far beneath the hot sets that it's essentially a drag on any team they join. Even with the Sniper Blast upgrade, they're still the worst conventional Blaster set available and any player taking this set is putting themselves in the hole. There are some truly exceptional players using Energy Blast, but sometimes you're only as good as the tools you've chosen for the job. This set combines poor single-target performance with a widely hated secondary effect. In my line of work, we consider both "quantification" analysis (numbers, what you're reading now - numbers numbers numbers) and "qualification" analysis, which asks questions like, "What *should* we be doing?", and, "How can we do things better in a different way?" I'd say that Energy Blast is the set that needs the most work in the Blaster line because of these two reasons (with Electric Blast right behind it - we'll get to that in a moment) because it's so far away from where the metagame is going. It's a beautiful and conceptually fun set, but it needs a lot of work. |
Buff please!
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I don't understand what you are so angry about. Because I think that Blasters have higher max damage potential than Dominators do? This hasn't been proven in either direction, and everyone's initial calcs are showing the same as mine- That it's close. Or are you angry with me because I believe that high end /Mental Blasters can be as survivable as Dominators for all practical purposes? Please let me know what exactly I've said or done to upset you. I feel like you're misconstruing my argument that Blasters can achieve comparable and slightly better results for me saying that Dominators are irrevocably bad or worthless. I know they're not, so I don't see why you're so mad. Even Reppu isn't mad at me anymore, I don't think. And Reppu is always mad at me.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Given your carrying on in this thread you have a hugely inflated & largely unjustified belief in your own grasp of "how things work".
I don't need a deep mathematical grasp of the issues because I've played both the ATs in question. In this case common sense & experience trumps fancy book learnin'. It's irrelevant to the question at hand. You know that blaster intimately- great. You know next to nothing about the thing you're comparing it to, which your comments on the topic make clear. And I'm the president of Uruguay. No really, I am. Which isn't to say you *don't* do these things, but at this point we're both presenting exactly the same amount of proof. =P And in any case, it says absolutely nothing about the merits of blasters in general compared with dominators in general. |
Strato - Yeah, I couldn't believe I was typing that either, but in the elder game Devices is pretty good if you have a strong primary because it does what it does without getting in the way.
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In this case the territory is a map.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
An old saying applies here- the map is not the territory.
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What is it you farm with this build exactly ? Far as I can see you need a continuous small luck to maintain a softcap but you you also need a continuously saturated drain psyche to maintain your healing and the only vectors you have good resistance to are smash, lethal and energy. Almost everything that does lethal has def debuff, Smash has lots of stuns and your energy numbers aren't great. |
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Two Headed Boys build post link only for the sake of brevity
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I could imagine creating something in the AE that would work with this but can't think of anything in the wild.
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Do you seriously not know about s/l cave maps? It's not a build designed for farming, it's designed for everything but also happens to be good at farming. I can ticket farm and PL very efficiently on my Blaster. Keeping one small purple running isn't exactly rocket science, and I don't see why you'd find anything difficult about keeping Drain Psyche saturated on a farm map. "You only have resistance to the three most common damage types" is silly. I actually have about the same s/l/e res as my TW/FA Scrapper on my Blaster. Same defense outside Shadow Meld too. Building res to the most common damage is logical, so I'm not seeing what possible fault you're finding. My Blaster solos 54x8 Malta and Carnies and GM's too- I'm not sure how you could possibly find a build that softcaps everything with a small purple and has resistance to the 3 prevalent damage types to be in any way lacking. Especially when it has rain of arrows and the ability to regenerate over 100 hp/s.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
What is it you farm with this build exactly ? Far as I can see you need a continuous small luck to maintain a softcap but you you also need a continuously saturated drain psyche to maintain your healing and the only vectors you have good resistance to are smash, lethal and energy. Almost everything that does lethal has def debuff, Smash has lots of stuns and your energy numbers aren't great.
I could imagine creating something in the AE that would work with this but can't think of anything in the wild. |
I don't play Dominators either. So this is an actual question.
In a world [handwave] where survival isn't a problem, is there a Dom build that can compete on regular AOE damage with a three-ranged-AOE build like Fire/Mental? The thing I noticed in my [very level-limited] Blaster/Scrapper comparison was that a Shadow Maul that hit three people was "exceeds expectations", while a ranged cone that hit five was "not trying hard enough." I'm not sure how PBAOE compares to a ranged cone in terms of number of people hit.
It looks like most Doms have about two significant AOEs in the secondary and maybe one or two sets have a really damaging AOE in the primary?
I know there are Brutes that have large amounts of high-damage AOE available to them on an every-ten-second basis. I know there are lots of Blasters in a similar situation (/fire, /mental, and //elec all provide that third AOE that seems so handy in eliminating all minions .)
Doms seem a little short on mass damage, but that's entirely theorycraft on my side. What are the key aspects I'm overlooking?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
But if you believe its possible to easily prove Blasters always or generally come out on top, the most logical way to prove it is proof by example. Simply produce a proof that they always do, and you will simultaneously prove that such a proof exists. Conversely, if you can't, while that doesn't prove no such proof exists, it does prove its not trivial to produce.