Cyber_naut
-
Posts
1027 -
Joined
-
Quote:Actually, you've got it wrong. The poster I was responding to was referring to this post by castle:Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
If it makes you feel better, the poster you were responding to had it wrong. Castle said he would maybe look at Fiery Aura when he had the chance, not Fiery Melee. Which makes sense... Aura needs tweaking, Melee is just dandy.
"That leads me to believe the discrepancy lies with the primary sets Fire Melee and Dark Melee. Fire is MEANT to have higher DPS overall, so that's 'fine.' Dark Melee, not so much. I'd have to look at specific builds and slotting to see what's going on there, but that's a project I don't have time for now."
So the poster was jokingly asking for a buff to fire melee.
I would say you can have your opinion and I can have mine.Quote:I would also say you need to be a tad more realistic with your expectations, too. I would like for changes to get routed in more quickly, but an MMO is dynamic. Nerfs and buffs are going to come and go, no matter how long something has been in a game... especially when much of the dev team is tied up with developing a new endgame system and expansion. Even if there wasn't all that going on, changes are still going to happen.
In my opinion, it's bad business to drop massive nerfs, like cutting the damage a power does in half, on things that have been in the game for over a year, especially in a game that is as mature as coh is.
It's even worse when said power has recently been altered in an upward direction, and still nobody seemed to realize what is supposedly obvious, that shield charge is vastly overpowered and/or that some enormous mistake had been made in assigning damage to that power.
And finally, this thread makes me wonder if this quest for perfect balance is even good for the game. Players love the set shield defense in large part because it has a great power in shield charge. Why? Because the power IS exceptional. It's the same reason so many players used to love energy melee, the key words in that sentence being 'used to'. I think more sets could use an exceptional power, rather than trying to make all of the sets a bland mix of mediocre powers, balanced by some kind of ******** equation that couldn't possibly take into account all of the variables this game presents. This game needs more shield charges and less 'burn' powers. It needs more old school energy transfers and less barrages. It needs more new siphon lifes and less old siphon lifes - look what that did for dark melee as a set.
If you disagree with me that's fine, but don't phrase the situation as me being against any changes. I'm not. I'm simply against changes that I believe with turn city of heroes into city of mediocrity, and I'm opposed to changes that I believe will have a negative impact on player population, because that has a huge impact on this game as a whole, even if the majority of posters here seem to be primarily soloists. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Kioshi
Lol so true. I did the new posi tf with 5 other scrappers and at the ambush door in Atlas Park... I was popping greens and purples like mad to stay alive, and the others' health bars barely moved and I was all 'wth do I suck at this game now?'... Till I realized I was the only shielder and all the aggro was on me.
Ha, yeah, I remember using aao for the first time and thinking it was funny that I was pulling the aggro of my tank buddy, until I started running out of wakies... -
Quote:First off, kat/wp and bs/sd are both great combos. If you want to be able to survive a lot of different av's you need them pretty filled out with powers and well slotted, preferably with IO sets. The kat/wp could be made pretty survivable with minimal cost, maybe even with just so's thanks to da, same with the bs/sd thanks to parry. The key is health recovery outside of green insps - with wp, you got crazy regen, with the sd, you're going to need to fit in aid self, which could make for a tight build. Overall, the kat/wp is way cheaper to make 'uber', imo.Originally Posted by Akantor
Alright, thanks for the replies; I have been humbled.
I became a bit lost when my Katana/WP was soloing +1/x5 just fine aside from Arachnos/CoT/Pantheons due to their exotic damages, but when I consistently died against Tuatha de Dannans, a villain group consisting entirely of melee smash damage users... I became a bit disheartened.
I'm guessing it might even out a bit once I get tough/weave and start replacing IOs with sets.
In retrospect... if scrappers are invincible solo machines I guess no one would be playing tanks...
In terms of tanks vs. scrappers, they just play much differently. A scrappers job is to basically just kill stuff, while a tankers job is to grab aggro and protect teamates. The two at's can overlap or even try to replace the others function, but each are clearly better at their own job. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
this thread is funny
Buff Fire Melee?
I could go for that
And that's the problem when you try to overbalance or shoot for perfect balance, in a game with so many different variables and situations. FM and DM are two very different powersets, but are very competitive with eachother anyway, yet when you look at one situation, it actually opens up the idea that one needs a buff, which is ridiculous if you've played either set at all.
Stick to buffing or nerfing the new powersets, early on, that seem to be way imbalanced, and buff older powersets that are clearly underperforming, and you will keep everyone happy. Or keep dropping massive nerfs on things that have been out for years and piss off a dwindling customer base, which imo, would seem to be a very bad idea. -
Quote:LOL, what? You claimed the devs aren't influenced by posts regarding calls for nerfs. You were wrong. I quoted exactly what you said.Originally Posted by Nihilii
Indeed. It seems you are correct in assuming shutting off conversations and spreading misinformation about your favorite OPed sets being weaker than they actually are might really prevent the devs from finding out about the imbalances for a while.
Carry on with your anti-nerf shouting, I guess. Won't stop me from expressing my opinion on balance whenever I feel like it.
I never claimed my arguments that SD should not be nerfed would 'prevent the devs from finding out about imbalances for while'. If I did, please quote me like I quoted you. Of course you can't because I didn't.
Funny how my arguments to not nerf sd equate to 'anti-nerf shouting' and you feeling it should be nerfed is just you expressing your opinion on balance whenever you feel like it. And you seem to be implying that I was trying to somehow stop you from expressing your opinion. Again, if thats true please point out exactly where that happened, lol. I was just pointing out that your opinion that posts in the forums don't draw the attention of devs to calls for nerfs was completely wrong. -
Quote:I've been arguing against the EM nerf for a long time, and the opposing argument was always 'the devs are unaffected by posts in the forums' and/or 'they have infallible datamining techniques' so any and all nerfs are unquestionably correct and sound. This thread proves that argument to be absolutely false.Originally Posted by Frosticus
I agree 100% with this. Honestly the inaccuracy purported in this thread by Castle has me wondering how far off numerous other situations could be. I know I gave a big "you're kidding right?" when they increase the damage of SC by 50% not very long ago, but it seemed hunky doory with QA and the devs.
Now we are in a situation where the playerbase has grown accustomed to the performance and to reach balance it needs to be literally slashed in half. A downward shift from 133 as introduced to 106 would be a lot easier to swallow than dropping it from 200 now. Either that or even more time needs to be sunk into the power making it behave uniquely and abide by its own ruleset. I'm personally fine with "special cases" but how many cracks does it take to get it dialed in?
Lastly I have to agree about Castle looking at rikti pylons and making sweeping generalizations, and I think everyone should note how quickly we all jumped on him for that. The issue for me is Castle seemingly unaware that a persistent 81% damage buff would result in roughly ~35% faster kill times. That is disconcerting as the disconnection between the spreadsheets and actual performance might be cavernous. It is kneejerk reactions like that that sound disturbingly like "everyone laughs at you if you don't take EM".
The devs clearly are influenced by post in here and they do not have some sort of infallible datamining process to create balance.
Now I can understand that some powers can be 'too powerful' and require 'nerfing'. But the process I've seen recently is very, very disturbing. I have no problem with putting a new power in a game, and in a reasonable amount of time, realizing it's way too powerful and dialing it back a bit. But it's simply very bad procedure to leave something in the game for over a year, and then suddenly claim it's ridiculously overpowered to the point of cutting it's dmg in half. Same thing happened with the botz nerf. If it's so ridiculously overpowered to demand such a massive nerf, how could it be missed for that long (and apparently even buffed at some point...)?
Sure, the devs will get support here on the forums where a large percentage of regular posters are the 'give the teacher an apple type', but nerfs like this will piss off a large percentage of their customers, and rightly so. If you invest in a certain powerset, most importantly time and effort, and the powerset has been out for over a year, I think it's fair to assume there won't be any major negative changes to that set. Cutting THE power in SD to half dmg is a pretty major negative change, imo.
What is this going to do to SD? I think it's going to make the set pretty damn lame if the effectiveness of SC is reduced to half of what it is now. But I'm sure they'll watch it for a year and if it looks underpowered after the nerf through their 'datamining' they'll fix it up, look how they fixed up EM after they over-nerfed that set (as castle has demonstrated in this thread being oblivious to the balance between single target effectiveness and aoe capability)... oh boy...
LOL, how many people take grant cover to buff teamates? That would be one nerf not many peope would complain about, I can guarantee you that (outside of those who take it for the DDR...). And most of the shielders in here creating the 'overpowered' buzz are all softcapped on their own, and primarily solo players. Does it carry 'some' value, sure, obviously, but I certainly wouldn't call it 'significant'.Quote:The last thing I want to touch on with regard to Shields is that people seem to forget that it is the only armor set in the game that actually buffs teammates (and pretty well at that). That unique property may not carry much value to a solo shielder's mitigation value, but it has to carry value somewhere in the grand scheme. It can buff with more def value than a FF controller's dispersion bubble. That is not insignificant. -
Defense doesn't do much for you until you start stacking it up. At some point you're going to want weave, and get a steadfast 3% def unique. All the love you hear for shields is from softcapped builds and that isn't going to happen until late game when you can start getting IO bonuses into your toon. Until then, carry around lots of purples. Wait until you're on a team and start pulling all the aggro with AAO... lol.
-
Quote:Wow, looks like you were WAAAY off on this one, huh, lol.Originally Posted by Nihilii
Third, if Shield is deemed too strong by the devs, they'll know it from datamining, not by listening to random forumites
First of all, I'm pretty surprised at the supposed mistake on SC, and that it went this long without anybody noticing. Didn't they just recently buff the damage too? Who is in charge of catching that? You guys should hire arcanaville...
Secondly, I'm shocked that a dev would look at damage in regards to soloing a rikti pylon and be concerned that dm is doing so much single target damage. I chuckled when the poster a few posts after that tried to explain that it was a specific and rare situation where SD was saturated and that DM is balanced in that it has little aoe capabilities, and could only think of the bludgeoning em received despite those arguments.
Maybe they were actually serious about working on a city of sidekicks game... -
Quote:So what is the offensive difference exactly, lol? Please show your work because I'd love to see the equation that takes into account the massive variables that exist in this game.Originally Posted by Frosticus
Even on SO's which is where fire performs best relative to other armors and Shield is apparently "really weak" there is only a 14% difference in survivability. Yet there is more than a 14% difference in offensive output in favor of shields. IO's just exasperate the issue to the point of ridiculousness due to a variety of reasons such as def stacking better than res, the offense of shields responding to recharge better than fire's and so forth.
I think your far too basic equation for survivability, that clearly ignores pretty much every in game variable, makes your 14% calculation pretty questionable too.
I think FA is underpowered overall, but in your example you have the SD running at 21% defense. If you can't vastly outsurvive a SD running at 21% def in the vast majority of game situations, you're doing something horribly, horribly wrong, unless the SD is downing purples like oprah at a cake convention.
The point I'm trying to make is that trying to create a 'balance equation' in a game with so many different variables is pretty silly imo, especially at this stage.
It seems most of us agree that FA is one of the few scrapper secondaries that is underpowered. I would argue that it is a terrible idea to weaken one of the popular secondaries so you can balance it down to an underpowered, unpopular one. Unless your goal is to anger your customers and make your april fools joke move closer to reality.Quote:Personally I play both armor sets and I like both armor sets because I like offense more than uber survivability. Shields invalidates my Fire armor toons. Which leaves several options:
1. Buff FA so it is as clearly offensive as Shields
2. Nerf Shields so it is as clearly underwhelming as FA
3. Buff FA a bit and nerf Shields a bit and meet at some nebulous balance vector in the middle
Look back at how they buffed up dark melee. They took a pretty unpopular set and made it an instant fan favorite. They should do the same thing for FA. I would suggest buff burn somehow and see how it works out in game, not on a calculator. I would make it a much larger aoe, keep the fear, and front load the damage. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Castle
This thread makes my head ache. I *really* don't want to look at Shields, do I?
Definitely, waaaaay too many people enjoy the set. Give it the em or pvp treatment. -
Quote:When the dps's obtained from the pylon soloing came in, and people talking about dancing around in the middle of aggro-capped ae bosses, I think it's fair to say we're talking about IO'd out builds. And I'm sure the soft cap discussion came up pretty early, and you're not doing that without IO's either.Originally Posted by Frosticus
I haven't seen ANY of that occurring in this thread. In fact the numbers posted have been for SO's, Hasten, Hasten+70% global rech. There has been nothing like what you are talking about coming from anywhere but your own mouth.
This is from you in post #6:Quote:Like Nihili said this has primarily resulted in requests for improvements to Fire Armor so it can at least make a solid claim about its offensive nature. I've personally stated offhand that SC was more balanced with the old numbers. You can interpret that however you want. I'm just stating numbers.
"Not really looking forward to when it gets the EM treatment as I enjoy my bs/shield, but...it has to be coming."
Does this have multiple and/or fuzzy 'interpretations', lol?
I guess you missed post 12, where it was brought into the discussion which led others to say nothing else could compete with dm, which led me to show that in fact another combo could and did. So no, I wasn't changing the subject, just continuing the discussion.Quote:I've reread the thead I don't see where I talked about pylons at all. I wouldn't because that is one specific scenario that in no way represents typical gameplay. I'm pretty sure you are the one that brought up pylons because it is an easy Red Herring to defeat any relevant discussion that was occurring. You were pretty successful in it too.
Again, it was specifically mentioned in post 12, you obviously missed it, I did not.Quote:If you look over what was being talked about was burn vs SC, burn+FE+blazing aura vs SC+AAO. There was absolutely no discussion of single target performance at all until you dragged it into the conversation.
And I explained why I used that example - to show that other combos are capable of putting out that kind of damage. Another important difference is that the db/elec will have all those bonuses more often than an sd is surrounded by harmless aao fodder. And there are many differences after that, both pro and con for either combo, but again, my point was to show another combo that could compete with */sd in that instance.Quote:That said, you did cite an example of where an aura has achieved nearly double the typical performance and I explained why that specific corner case is possible. SC+AAO is possible on every shield combination. It is an important difference.
I think it's also important to note that only 2 primaries dominate that chart, fire and dm. If aao is the primary factor, and the only thing out of balance, why aren't any other primaries up there with fm and dm?
It was brought into the argument way before I came into the thread and I used it to make a few points, all relevant to the discussion of SD and competing secondaries. If that upsets you, grab a tissue, because my argument is on topic in terms of the title of this thread.Quote:Totally irrelevent to what was being discussed. There are already discussions going on about Pylon solo'ing. In fact there is a 40 or so page one dedicated to it. The rest of your post is just you off on some tangent that while possibly worthwhile to discuss, it probably deserves its own thread.
I've got every right to state my opinion and defend it, and to correct false information, like claiming I'm the one who first brought up rikti pylon soloing or single target dmg, and ridiculous stances like claiming that me talking about SD and competing secondaries in a thread about SD and competing secondaries is somehow a tangent.Quote:Without being rude you are being asked nicely to tone it down as you are being very aggressive in your position. Prior to your arrival it was a very calm and collected discussion occurring that spanned quite a few areas, the very least of which was "pylon solo'ing".
Finally, where exactly was my 'tone' upsetting you? I'm guessing the parts where I don't agree with you. In a public forum, you don't get to decide what the 'quite a few areas' of discussion are, and trying to shout down people who don't agree with you, especially using false claims, is downright lame. -
Quote:I'm 'barging' into a balance discussion, lol? If you want a one-sided discussion, don't post on a public board. If you have the right to claim it's 'imbalanced' or 'overpowered', I have the right to disagree and explain why.Originally Posted by Nihilii
I'm not really interested in participating in what turned into emotional "you evil nerfers" shouting, but still want to clarify three things.
First, when I say I feel Shield scrappers are too strong, I base my opinion on factual mathematic comparisons considering SOs for the most part, as well as my experience playing a variety of Shield characters on SOs on all three ATs with access to it. The potential with IOs just add insult to injury, but it's a consequence rather than a cause. This isn't to say I don't consider IOs - balancing on SOs doesn't mean ignoring IOs btw, otherwise we could argue the Lady Grey bug should have stayed in ; but on SOs alone, Shield is too strong.
Second, taking on AVs with AaO fodder is stuff pretty much any IOed SD scrapper should be able to do. Tons of people have done it, some have recorded videos. To argue it is not possible at this point is downright ridiculous. You shouldn't even use monkeys for pylon runs on a DM by the way, Soul Drain would kill them off in a few hits.
Third, if Shield is deemed too strong by the devs, they'll know it from datamining, not by listening to random forumites ; so there's really no point to barge in balance discussions yelling "EVERYTHING IS FINE, shutupshutupshutupdon'tmakethedevslookatShield, MOVE ALONG CITIZENS". There's one nerfherder in this topic and that's you Cyber_Naut, before you came in this was a "buff FA" argument.
And claiming that before I came in, it was a 'buff FA' argument is simply either dishonest, or simply wrong, one only needs to look at the title of the thread to understand that. And the loaded question brought out the 'overpowered' claims, but it's interesting that you would consider me, someone who is clearly opposed to any nerf to SD, to be a nerfherder. Even if you simply mean I brought dev attention to it, because according to you, if the devs want to nerf sd, "they'll know it from datamining, not by listening to random forumites". And if you mean that I brought in the pro-nerfers, I'm thinking the fact I was responding to claims it was overpowered would imply they were already here, if the title itself wasn't enough of a draw...
In regard to "I'm not really interested in participating in what turned into emotional "you evil nerfers" shouting"...
One, where was the shouting exactly? We're just typing arguments, if you disagree, that's fine, I'm sure we'll both survive our disagreement.
Two, who is calling you an 'evil nerfherder', lol. Again, some people simply don't agree with your stance that SD 'needs' to be weakened, no need to confuse that with being called evil... -
Quote:No, I'm definitely not calling for nerfs, lol. If you've read any of my posts it should be clear that I rarely support nerfs, unless something is ridiculously broken. For example, I can fully understand the AE nerf to the mm farm where people were hitting 50 in a day or two.Originally Posted by Werner
Well, I doubt you're actually calling for nerfs there, either. But if anyone else is confused about how a squishy solos a giant monster, it's something very specific, -regen. Other than staying alive yourself, the main problem with killing giant monsters, pylons and AVs is that they are giant bags of hit points regenerating at an astounding rate. For some reason, numbers are escaping me now, but it's something like 360 hit points per second on a giant monster, 130 something on a pylon, and 90 something on an AV.
So if you happen to have a power that can shut down a giant monster's regeneration, you essentially get 360 DPS for free, for that one power.
But how useful is -regen overall? Well, it's great against giant monsters. It's good against pylons and AVs. And... uh... that's about it? There are probably other things in game regenerating fast enough for that to make a difference, but they're few and far between. That 360 DPS isn't "real" DPS, then, like a Scrapper puts out. It's EXTREMELY situational DPS. It just so happens that those situations where it contributes the most are the situations that most impress people.
Kind of like a Shield Defense surrounded by Rikti Monkeys tearing apart a Rikti Pylon. It's a very specific, very rare situation, Which I think is the point.
I'm not saying Shield Defense isn't uber - it is. But it's not AS good as a quick glance at the Pylon soloing times might lead you to believe.
I was trying to drive home what you clearly understand, that while SD is great, especially io'd to the gills, it's not AS good as it looks when you look at specific situations like pylon soloing.
But I was also trying to point out that while SD is one of the shining examples of scrapper combos, it should be noted most at's have a shining example or two, and that some of them can do even more extreme things than SD's can, and not just in big target contests like av's and gms, but in team dynamics as well, where people cry 'overpowered' in terms of shield charge. Buffs, debuffs and controls can allow you to do things far more ridiculous than anything SD can accomplish solo, and even moreso in a team environment. That's why when I hear people crying for SD nerfs, it just sounds ridiculous to me, but maybe these people are focusing only on the scrapper at and not the game as a whole. -
Quote:He's talking about an IO'd out wp toon, and on top of that, wp works pretty well vs rikti because its easy to cap vs energy and with the massive regen a maxed out rttc gives you, rikti are pretty easy for a wp to handle.Originally Posted by Selenir
It terrifies me that this is possible... do you need to be IO'd with solid purples to get this absurd level of invincibility, or can you get it with SOs or a non-purple IO build?
But like any secondary, regardless of how pimped out it is, there are plenty of enemies that will make wp weep. Overall though, wp is a strong survival based secondary, and thanks to layered defenses its good vs a wide range of enemies, that you just turn on and forget, with the added bonus of additional endurance. -
You won't notice the difference from a well SO'd out scrapper and an IO'd out scrapper, except in really extreme situations. So on a regular team, just playing regular content, it's not a big deal at all.
But try to learn what recipes and salvage are valuable and you should be able to earn a good amount of inf by the time you hit 50 and you should be able to at least dabble in IO's, which do improve your performance. -
Quote:I didn't move any goalposts, lol. You were talking about the elec 'leveraging' abilities and io's in its primary to get a high dps vs a pylon, and imo, that is no different than specific */sd's leveraging it's primary's abilities and ios to their advantage. Obviously the 'leveraging' isn't identical, because they all use very different sets, that doesn't mean the situation is not similar - they're both taking advantage of what their combo offers, and what IO sets offer - niether of which should be used to balance a single secondary power set, especially when only looking at specific isolated 'tests' like soloing a rikti pylon.Originally Posted by Frosticus
You just moved the goalpost, first you were talking about how good a damage aura is toward damage output and now you are talking about complete single target chains or something, of which the strongest /shield is still ahead of the strongest /aura toon.
And the fact that there were 5 sd builds ahead of the db/elec doesn't change the fact it shows that sets other than /sd can compete for top single target dmg. I wonder how many of those SD's would still be on top if they weren't leveraging a large group of rikti monkeys to fully saturate AAO. I think I can safely say none of them, and the elec would be left alone on top. The stuff that elec is 'leveraging' is there for them pretty much all the time, being surrounded by harmless aao fodder, not so much.
Yet every single top SD is either fm or dm. I guess fm and dm are overpowered, lol. Of course they're not, but that's the trouble you run into when you try to balance based on rikti pylon soloing examples, and ignore 99% of the game.Quote:That said, they are not leveraging game mechanics even remotely in the same way. The ability to make an aura shine in that fashion is available to two specific power sets (three if you include rage, but so far the discussion is isolated to scrappers). The ability to make AAO+Shield Charge shine is available to every single shield regardless of primary.
If it was really AAO that was so powerful, you'd expect to see every primary be above anything non shield, yet that is not the case. And it's even less the case in regular game play when AAO is almost never fully saturated, and the negatives of aao, in that it attracts more than your fair share of attention from enemies that actually threaten you, become more apparent.
If this is true, how do you explain the sets that have feeble aoe? How do you explain the recent nerfs to EM, how has it existed so long with no aoe? Why hasn't spines been nerfed? What about electric and fm, what nerfs can we expect there?Quote:*It's probably worth mentioning that I really doubt the devs care if set A can do 20% more st dps under extreme build conditions than set B. But I am certain they care about set A wiping entire spawns in the time it takes set b to drop a couple targets. The reward rate of Set A is significantly higher.
If it so happens that Set A can both produce more st dps AND earn rewards at a significantly faster rate then there is reason to be concerned.
There have always been sets and combos that did and do exceptional aoe damage. To look at specific combos with billions of io's sunk into them and call for nerfs is insane. Of course you can spend billions, pick a specific combo, then pick an enemy group that is weak to your chosen build, set it for +0/x8, and farm it - that's never going to change, nor should it, because you don't balance a game looking at cherry picked situations. And */SD isn't the only choice for these situations, you can take some of the better aoe primaries like fm, elec, spines and pair them with da or fire and do similar aoe carnage.
The funniest part of this debate is that so many here are calling for nerfs to lvl 50 fully io'd out scrappers, who are supposed to be the best solo toon in the game, yet whenever we have some of these tests/trials, there's always a rogue squishy, an at that is supposed to be weak solo, bragging about doing solo things better/faster than scrappers, and in some cases, doing things solo that scrappers can't even begin to do, like soloing gm's. If you're really nerf happy and so concerned about balance, shouldn't we start there? -
Quote:First of all, I was responding to a post that claimed nothing could do damage on par with a */sd. The fact that a db/elec did damage on par with several */sd's proves that other combos can do damage on par with */sd. In terms of survivability, it just so happens that both elec and sd are very survivable against a rikti pylon. Of course if the rikti pylon had one of the various abilities that punch through defense, we'd probably be talking about a different secondary as being overpowered.Originally Posted by Nihilii
Different ways to explain.
1/ Simple. Shield hasn't access to DB (or Claws, or Katana). Granted, AaO would be comparatively less impressive for DB/Claws because of BF/FU, but on a Katana ? The 300 DPS barrier would be trivial to break.
2/ Well made build with extreme focus on ST damage, probably the best you can get out of a DB/Elec.
Are the DM/SD and FM/SD builds on that list nearly as optimized ? I'm inclined to believe Iggy's FM/SD 276 DPS might be close (he lacks Aid Self and has Assault, IIRC), but even Mojo's 289 DM/SD probably don't or had an unlucky run, seeing as Shred did 300+ DPS on his own DM/SD in an AV fight early on.
You're falling into the same logical loophole as many do, extrapolating too much from an insolated example. The only DM/inv on the list is on the bottom at 148 DPS, does that mean DM/inv has the worst DPS ? No, it's just that Aliana had a build focused on survivability at the time, and I don't think it wasn't even complete when he took down that pylon.
What examples are good at is to tell you what happens on average (that's how we do statistics) ; and without involving any maths, you can clearly see Shield owns 17 of the 20 first positions, and the whole top 5. There's a reason for such a trend.
If more combos, optimized to the max for ST DPS, were represented, you'd probably see Kat/Elec slightly above DB/Elec, Claws/Elec at about the same spot as DB/Elec, Kat/Fire, DB/Fire and Claws/Fire slightly under these... So, why don't you see these combos already ? Simply because unlike Shield, they don't combine extreme survivability with extreme damage, they have to chose - see the 2 Kat/FA at 175 and 160, which I assume were using Divine Avalanche chains.
Comparing a 260 DPS DB/Elec built for maximum ST DPS with a DM/SD that does a 280+ DPS chain that also gives him the equivalent of +~30hp/s while being at the softcap with capped DDR, the survivability gap is enormous. The DB/Elec should be at least doing 320-340 DPS for it to be somehow balanced - or more likely, the DM/SD should be brought down. Don't shout nerf just yet - I'm just speaking about a hypothetical situation where we'd balance stuff out of top end ST DPS. My point here is having one player on one specific build almost making it to the best recorded 5 shield builds in ST DPS while still having much lower survivability is more of an argument proving Shield is too strong than anything else...
Secondly, you seem to imply that it's bad to "extrapolating too much from an insolated example', and I would agree, but that's what everyone here is doing. We're looking at several billion dollar SD builds in extreme situations and some are screaming overpowered. And lets ignore the crazy 'isolated' situation where you have a gaggle of rikti monkeys surrounding the SD's for the duration of the fight so they can max out AAO. Pick something that is actually a threat to you to use for AAO (which you'll attract in missions that are set on a difficulty that can actually challenge you) and tell me how that works out. But when you look at an isolated example, I guess it's easy to just see the power at it's peak ability, ignore its negatives, and assume it's overpowered.
Finally, the reason you only see one elec build in the top ranks is because people are like sheep. They hear something is the best and everyone flocks to it. In the vast majority of the game, especially while leveling up, there is no huge difference between secondaries, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure, when you look at 'isolated examples' some sets look way better than others. There was a thread about a fire/wp taking out 4 av's at a time, what should we nerf in fire and/or wp? Of course not, because overall, in 99% of the game, it's in the same neighborhood as other sets and combos.
Comparing sets or claiming 'overpowered' based on 3 billion dollar builds vs specific situations is simply a really, bad, idea. If I'm not mistaken, the devs claim they do not balance based on IO's. Take a bunch of combos at lvl 50 with just SO's and no insps and try some of these 'isolated examples' with an SD, then other secondaries, and I guarantee the 'overpowered' crew would be singing a different toon, because SD would be an underperformer. -
Quote:Sure the db/elec was leveraging game mechanics, but so do the SD's that put up the crazy numbers.Originally Posted by Frosticus
Damage auras are impressive when they are constantly affecting enemies. They are extremely effective when they affect 10 enemies constantly as show in an earlier post.
Outside of some very rare scenarios that isn't the case though. I'd set them all to have a larger radius akin to blaster lightning field (20ft), so that the times it is good are more of a common occurrence.
FWIW, the db/elec leveraging the aura you speak of has blinding feint (double stacked), achilies -res and the pvp -res boosting its performance. Which results in roughly double the expected performance for an aura. -
Quote:I'd just improve what it's got. I think people underestimate how much dmg auras help dmg output - go look at what a db/elec does in the pylon thread. After that, I'd improve its end recovery power to work more like power sink and make burn a much, much better power - like maybe a pbaoe fireblast effect with maybe kd and dot.Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
Would it be a bit much if Fiery Aura got the buff for Burn and Immobilization/Knockback protection added? I guess Immobilization wouldn't necessarily need to be added, considering Burn already gives a short duration Immobilization protection.
Another thing I'd do to boost competing sets would be to allow da and fa to use their 'rez' powers while alive - obviously the rez power wouldn't activate, but the pbaoe stun/fire dmg would. -
Quote:Then how do you explain a db/elec being one of the top rikti pylon soloers? I just think people don't realize the other secondaries that offer additional offense can help other combos compete with whatever/sd, like db/elec clearly can. I also think you overestimate how powerful aao is, while completely ignoring the negatives of the power. First of all, I wouldn't consider it an 'excellent mitigation set' without io's, it only becomes so once you get it softcapped (or if you constantly pop purples, but really, constantly popping purples is excellent mitigation for any set), and that flat out requires io set bonuses and only happens late game. Secondly, without that mitigation, aao can become a problem on teams, because you're going to be eating most of the aggro, to the point you'll be pulling it off tankers, and if you're not softcapped, it can cause major problems.Originally Posted by Moonlighter
Shield Charge is great no doubt, but I could also get extra AoE with Fireball. It's AAO that puts Shield Defense over the top. It turns an excellent mitigation set with extra AoE into a set that surpasses the top single target DPS by not just a little, but by a ridiculous amount.
There is no question that after io'ing it up late game that SD is as good as it gets in scrapper secondaries. But you don't balance the sets based solely on where they end up, you have to balance them on the whole. And as a whole, I think most of the secondaries are pretty fairly balanced - to claim otherwise based on builds that cost 3 billion influence and are played by forum celebrities is insane. But then, if I'm not mistaken, you felt reducing the animations on katana would create a ridiculously overpowered powerset. You were wrong there, and you're wrong here. -
Quote:Nailed it. I think the scrapper secondaries are pretty balanced, though, imo, fire armor is lagging behind a bit.Originally Posted by Werner
Oh, they were out there. I believe there was an unspoken rule that once you figured out just how awesome Sword/Dark was, you were one of a special club, and you didn't TALK about it. A rule I violated, of course, being the braggart that I am. Also I wasn't the first of the "new generation" of Sword/Dark, if you can call it that. Several other people had theirs all soft-capped and running before I put mine together, even if my planned build had been floating around for a while, I think.
And I'd been after the concept for a long time, probably a couple years. I'd put together soft-capped Katana/Dark build in Mids' many issues ago, and brought it up on the forum for discussion. It was somewhat more compromised than what I ended up with since there have been so many juicy sets added since then, but it was doable. It was something I wanted. I just didn't get around to it until more recently, and by then, soft-capping Katana/Dark was getting pretty practical, not just something an extremist would play.
I have to agree - if you aren't afraid of inspiration use, and know how to grab a bunch of defense from pools, and know where to strategically spends small sums of influence on bonuses, it can be a VERY solid leveler. Some other secondaries may level more easily, or with less trouble, but I really don't think Shield Defense is weak while leveling the way some people seem to. I wouldn't really recommend it as a leveling build to people without some experience though - you have to manage your endurance, build properly, plan for specific levels of defense, know when to use what inspirations, and so on. It's not rocket science, but it also isn't obvious for a new player.
So there's one way in which a number of sets are better than shields - they are more friendly to inexperienced people. Willpower, for instance. Set it, forget it, don't worry about endurance, and it just keeps you alive. And some Willpower builds can be somewhat more survivable than Shields in most situations. There's just that pesky concept of "enough survivability" getting in the way, because once you have enough survivability, it's generally better to focus on offense, and Willpower does not...
Or you could play a Blaster. This line of reasoning breaks down at some point. But I DO agree with you here. Shield Defense has enough survivability, and more damage output. You take other secondaries for flavor, not because they're better at the main job of a Scrapper - defeating enemies.
It's EASIER to get that level of survivability out of Super Reflexes. So that IS an advantage. But IO'd to the teeth, Shield Defense seems to have slightly better survivability, plus a lot better damage.
Yes to the first, no to the second. Invulnerability is going to own this sort of competition if you can pick your AVs, which of course you must. Soft-capped invulnerability in its element (non-defense debuffing smashing/lethal AVs), is as strong as it gets.
However, that's an extreme edge case designed to cater to Invunerability's advantages. For general survival against random spawns, Invulnerability will be better than Shields against some, worse against others. I don't think there's a clear advantage to either.
Anyway, if we're trying to convince new players to play something other than Shields, it's maybe not an argument they'll respect, but have you SEEN how many combinations we're playing on the Scrapper forum? The hard core min/maxers, the powergamers, we're all over the place. We're not just playing Shield Defense.
LOL. Sounds like me. As I believe you said once, when the zombie apocalypse comes, I won't be able to run very fast, but I'll be able to carry a lot of ammunition.
There's an advantage to Willpower. It has "go make a sandwich the moment the idea strikes you" survivability. +4x8, RWZ challenge spawn, whatever. Go AFK. With a good build, it'll still be standing when you get back. Everything I have has to WORK for that kind of survivability, and so does Shield Defense. I suppose that's more along the line of what I said earlier, though. Some sets are friendlier for less experienced players. It's not like you go AFK during a fight normally. It's just a way of saying that your survival will not be compromised by less experienced play.
Hmmm, maybe what I'm saying is that Willpower is the best alternative to Shield Defense for anyone who would be posing the question in the first place. For damage, pick Shield Defense. For easy survivability and leveling, pick Willpower?
I do think the other sets have a lot to offer as well, but I find myself unable to really articulate it at the moment. How about "fun"? Like I think Regeneration and Dark Armor are a lot of fun. Yeah, that won't convince anyone, I know.
Shield defense is a great secondary, but the reason it's so popular is because it's got 2 things that are huge in this game right now - the ability to softcap defense with IO's and a great aoe attack in shield charge. And these both work great for wiping out large groups of enemies, which is obviously advantageous in a game like this.
But what is often ignored is that defense, when not sofcapped, is not a very good means of mitigation, which is why you hear people saying you're ok if you're willing to pop inspirations, specifically the purple shieldy kind, lol. It's the same thing with SR, but with SR you can softcap earlier and much easier.
Another thing that is often ignored is that if you play the game normally, going from arc to arc, you're going to run into a lot of enemies that will make your scrapper feel like a blaster, not just offensively but in terms of survivability, where other sets would not - specifically vs. enemies that have the ability to punch through high defense either with buffs or debuffs, characteristics that seem to be on the rise in recent issues.
Here is a thread where we discuss how we think the various sets rank against eachother at various stages:
clickit. -
Thanks for the advice guys, I'm trying some of your ideas now.
-
I've tried putting the new display drivers in (i have the same card as you), and now i get insane, almost frozen lag, on the character selection screen, then the game crashes.
-
I'm having the same problems and my system is a intel i7-920 with a ati hd4850. It's definitely something with the update as I've never had crashing problems before, at all.
I tried to update my drivers, and I got an insane lag - in the character creation screen, and then crashed out of there. I tried the ultra mode thing in beta and it ran fine there. -
Do you use the 3% def pvp unique in that build? I tried throwing a wp build together on a brute for s/l def and only got it up to 44.something% without the pvp unique.