Scaling Inherent powers..say what??

This might be known, and obvious to some peoples..but I had no idea. I was playing my new fender earlier, and chatting about the damage buff with a friend. 30%, minus 10 for each team member, to a min of 0%. Seems simple and fair enough.

Then, I was flashbacking an arc, that had me down to lvl 14. And I looked at the icon..13% damage buff. It was scaling with my level! I was not getting the advertised 30% unless I was actually lvl 20. How silly is that? Especially since fenders get attacks in pretty much the worst order for any AT.

So I wondered if it worked similar for other ATs. Almost totally sure Fury does not scale, for brutes. And scourge..not sure how to check that. Domination only does in the amount of mez prot it gives. (I think) Blasters get the same +damage from attacks, regardless of level to I assume.

Anyone know if this is WAI? And if so..why? It seems to make no sense.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Inherent_Powers#Vigilance

yup working as intended. As for why? No idea.

I didn't realize this!! No wonder the damage from my Traps/DP was just horrible as I was levelin up. I was constantly forming 8 man teams because I love to team. It was fun but my damage just sucked. I guess if I'm going to roll a defender and team up I should stay with the support classed type defender.

If I remember correctly the devs felt that a 30% damage buff at low levels would be too good.

I recall hearing/reading somewhere a very long time ago that AT Damage values start out closer to the same number at level 1, and then eventually scale to their normal values at level 20.

Now, if that's correct then that means that Defenders start closer to the same damage as Blasters at level 1, so it makes sense that the Vigilance damage buff scales upward at a rate corresponding to that (relative) base damage decrease over time. If they got the full buff value at level 1, and started at closer to Blaster levels of damage, then for the very early game (solo) Defenders could possibly outdamage Blasters.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Tbh Defenders have always been more about the support then damage.

When adding the Damage bonus to Vigilance, the scaling up from 1 to 20 was purposefully intended since low level foes are not big bags of HP nor do they have much in the way of Resistances to damage. Giving level 1 Defenders a 30% Damage boost was not necessary for their survival nor was it necessary to bridge the gap between Defenders and Corruptors, since Scourge was relatively inconsequential at low levels.

As to making that a situation where one must team up as a Defender, well, as mentioned above, Defenders are a support class and secondly, as I just mentioned, low level foes are not big bags of HP nor do they have much in the way of Resistances to damage... it's not that bad for a soloing low level Defender. And as you level up, your damage increases moreso than it ever did before up to level 20.

But how do you reconcile that with a Brute - who has a higher base damage mod - being able to generate a damage buff of over 100% consistently even at low levels? Honestly, that's not that hard. Hasn't been since I18. That's OK, but Defenders with a damage mod of 0.65 having 30% was too much?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well, for one thing, Defenders weren't built from the ground up with a Vigilance damage bonus in mind. That was a much later change, targeted at a specific problem, which does not necessarily include low-level soloing.

Also, Fury at low levels is pretty frickin' amazing. Low-level brutes significantly outperform pretty much everyone else of the same level, if they can keep Fury going. It isn't actually a very good example of a large low-level damage buff being well-balanced.

But, 100% is a lot larger than 30%. Would a full Vigilance buff for lowbie Defenders be particularly overpowering? Eh, not really. But is a not-full Vigilance buff for lowbie Defenders particularly detrimental? Eh, not really.

Another thing to consider is that damage mods do not fully take effect until level 20. So, at level 50, a brute deals 16% more base damage than a defender, but at level 10 the brute's base damage is only 6% higher.

At level 20 a blaster deals 1.73 times the base damage of a defender (ranged), but at level 10 the difference is only 1.29 times as much.

Don't get me wrong. I think defenders and corruptors should deal more damage than they do, but the 1-20 scaling of vigilance is not an issue (frankly, brute's damage buff should have always had a similar scaling).