Pippy

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Notice how /signed and "yes" aren't on that list?
So they support one form of fluff but ban another?
That borders on hypocracy.

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... "borders on" ...? That's like saying Moscow "borders on" Russia ...! It is hypocrisy.

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Nicely phrased, Pax.

Something that I think is interesting to note: most of the people I've seen defending the "/no" posts almost invariably give thorough explanations of why we disagree with an idea before we /jranger it.

I'm just sayin'.

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/e looks amusedly on as Miladys_Knight practises necromancy.

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Oh my goodness.

Resurrecting a thread after two and a half years takes some.... something...

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With power customisation they've said from the beginning that it would take more effort than it is worth.

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They've really not said anything of the sort.

They've said that it's very time consuming, and that it won't be in any time soon. But contrast that to adding more to the difficulty slider, which they've straight up said that they won't do.

It seems to me that they've been very careful to avoid saying that power customization is never happening.

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Im all for new ideas...but new ideas tend to get washed down the river of posts that keep coming...hence ala we need a sticky...

i will know monday if this becomes a sticky or not

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The only problem with putting said new ideas in a consolidated thread is that they are even more likely to get drowned in a flood of other new ideas. It also becomes difficult to tell who's responding to which suggestion.

Now, a consolidated "Nerf X" thread would be fine. It could be even be stickied ... to the LAST PAGE of the forum.

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Pippy there are alot more people complaining about there being multiple threads on PC vs people who want 1 place to discuss all good ideas.

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I realize that. In my opinion, the people complaining about multiple PC threads are incorrect.

If someone posts a new PC idea, they aren't violating any of the forum guidelines. Therefore, it's perfectly legitimate. While other people are welcome to complain about it, it's far from obvious that they are correct.

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Personally, I'd rather have multiple power customization threads, so that each new idea can have a chance to be fully fleshed out, and can enjoy the full attention of those following the thread.

The posts along the lines of "I want blue fior!" aren't too helpful, but the posts that suggest a different possible implementation are, in my opinion, useful. I would hate to see all of them consolidated into a single thread where it becomes difficult to discuss each idea individually.

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First, large boosts can be capitated by the fact that they get expended on a target for which the boost is overkill. This is much more likely to happen to big boosts than small ones, and its much more likely to happen near the end of fights instead of at the beginning. Both hurt large defiance boosts more than criticals (but smaller defiance boosts less than criticals).

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Unless I'm missing something, in terms of normal game play, it will usually have a larger effect on scrapper crits. On any given shor, assuming 3 SO damage slotting, you need a +194% boost from defiance to have the same increase that you'd get from a crit. This should come in at 15% health, which, as critics of defiance so often point out, is not a level of health that you'll be fighting at very often.

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Second, any boost above 300% or so is obviously irrelevant to a higher level blaster with SOs, except for powers that happen to be not fully slotted at that moment. Criticals are never capitated in that fashion, because they are not damage boosts and are unaffected by the damage buff cap.

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This, however, brings up a good point. I would suggest that a good case could be made for applying a defiance bonus to total damage, rather than simply throwing it in as a damage enhancement. Defiance, of course, gets even more diluted when you throw in BU and Aim.

Still, it should be noted that even with BU, Aim, and 3 damage SOs, you still won't run into the damage cap if you're over 20% health.

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1) What is the average damage increase from criticals that Scrappers get over time?


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I did a little bit of testing on this; in normal missions it appears to be about an 8% boost to total damage, plus or minus a percent or two.

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2) What HP-level do you have to be at for your Blaster to reach similar levels of increase for damage over time?

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If you assume that blasters slot 3 damage SOs, for a 94% damage boost, you need another 15.5% from defiance to get the same boost as a scrapper gets. This occurs at 52% health.

Note however, that if you're averaging over time, a couple of shots at lower health will disproportionately increase your damage. Put in semi-mathematical terms, the average boost from defiance is larger than that boost would be at your average health, because the damage ramps up so steeply at low health.

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All I'll add at this point is that if scrapping the "Veteran" part of "Veteran Rewards" and just releasing all of that new stuff to everybody would have allowed them to release I8 in a timely fashion, I'd be all in favor of that. (And I've been playing long enough to get nearly all of the rewards.)

Hami Potter

MY fire/storm's sort of turned into a control-weak splatroller. All I'll add is that sometimes ditching the immob from fire cages isn't a bad idea. Between FR, snowstorm, and hot feet, you can get a wicked amount of slow, and if they're slowed rather than immobilized, they'll spend time trying to get into melee range rather than standing still shooting at you. The trade off is that it's harder to get containment.

Interesting guide, though!

Hami in I8

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There's also no resist to psi, I believe.


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You're right, I forgot to put that in. I think that there's no toxic resist either, but I could be wrong.

Fixed it in my post.

Okay, so forgive me if someone else has done this, but I think a side by side comparison of Elude and MoG might be useful.

Elude is +45% def to melee, ranged, AoE, + recovery, and a nice run speed and jump buss. Note that since the I7 def changes, elude by itself will florr an enemy's chance to hit unless your defense has been debuffed. Combined with the toggle powers, it will likely floor everything's chance to hit even if you have been debuffed, with the exceptions of rularuu (who I swear have a smoke-grenade-like bug with their ToHit buff) and DE when there's a quartz crystal out.

MoG gives, about a ~70% def buff to all but toxic and psi, and 75% resistance to all but psi (and toxic?), sets your health to 25% of its max, and prevents healing. Also, you get a recovery boost and lots of mez protection.

MoG gets no bonus points over Elude for having status protection; it's no problem to keep PB up and running at all times, and it's almost certainly a power that every SR has already taken long ago. The resistance/HP effects basically cancel, amounting to a -300% debuff to toxic and psi damage. The additional defense over what Elude gets is almost always pointless.

Therefore, my conclusion is that MoG is basically like Elude, except without the run/jump boosts, with huge vulnerablities to toxic and psi damage, and side effects that basically negate the rest of the secondary.

So, while I'll refrain from saying MoG isn't a useful power, it's clearly not in the same league as Elude.

I could probably do a similiar analysis with Unstoppable, but I won't, because I'm feeling lazy.

When I7 changes go live, the loss in ToHit effectiveness will be comparatively small.

And, frankly, in PvE, which is all a really care about, less repel means that I won't have to work as hard to keep mobs in the debuff zone. Repel was great in some ways; in others, it was a huge pain in the [censored]. And, if it's really being cut to 25% endurance cost (I'll have to check that to make sure!) then I'll trade all the Repel in the world to keep my blue bar happy.

So, no, I don't consider the Hurricane changes to be a huge nerf. In fact, I would say I'll probably get more utility out of it in its new state; it's less powerful in the situations for which it was previously used, maybe, but it's also less situational.

Well, at least there wasn't a massive hyperbole nerf...

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Scrappers out damage blasters in melee. Blasters AT mod is 1, while scrappers is 1.125. Scrappers also get unresistable criticals of 2x damage 5% of the time, which can be compared to Blasters 33% unresistable damage.

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I question this assertion.

While scrappers base melee damage may be higher, blasters' attacks have higher BIs, are less resisted, and often seem to have quicker animations. The scrapper critical basically amounts to 5% unresistable damage, which does not compare favorably with blasters' 33% unresistable damage.

In answer to the OP: yes, I would feel better if scrappers were clearly superior to blasters in melee. From a purely balance perspective, blasters should never have an advantage, no matter how short term, over a scrapper, tanker, or brute, in melee range.

(Note that this isn't the same as saying that they shouldn't be able to defeat a scrapper, tanker, or brute.)

Now, if blaster melee damage gets toned down, I would definitely favor buffing them in some other area to compensate -- perhaps a 15% boost to range damage, combined with an increased likelihood of the status effect being applied with their melee attacks.

Geez, why is it that when I'm reading a dev math post I feel like I'm back grading final exams? :P

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(Base Accuracy + Accuracy Buffs - (Accuracy Debuffs * Combat Mod))/(1-Defense), final result capped at 5% or 95%

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This has the Official Dr. Pippy Seal of Approval.

Edit: Replaced excessive but well-deserved snark with a more polite plea for greater care on the part of Cryptic to ensure that its figures are correct.

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

[/ QUOTE ]Why, Statesman? Why nerf us even more?

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Unless I miss my guess, this has been in effect from day one. Either that, or all the AVs I fight are really lucky, because they don't seem to be too phased by Hurricane.

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I've never before ran across this, nor have I noticed it. As far as can tell, it's new info to all of us.

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Well, I've never seen a dev post acknowledging that ToHit is less effective against higher ranks.

But I have noticed that bosses seem to have an easier time punching through Hurricane -- something I could just chalk up to their higher chance to hit -- and most AVs seem virtually unaffected by it. (Specifically, the Praetorians.)

REgardless of whether or not its new, I submit that it's a bad idea, and should be abolished post haste.

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

[/ QUOTE ]Why, Statesman? Why nerf us even more?

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Unless I miss my guess, this has been in effect from day one. Either that, or all the AVs I fight are really lucky, because they don't seem to be too phased by Hurricane.

Let's do a side by side comparison. The pre-I7 number is on the left, the post-I7 on the right.

Even con: Pre/Post

Minion: 5%/6.25%
Lieut.: 5.66%/12.23%
Boss: 13.13%/19.50%

+1: Pre/Post

Minion: 8.32%/11.69%
Lieut.: 15.85%/18.43%
Boss: 23.32%/26.46%

+2: Pre/Post

Minion: 18.50%/18.00%
Lieut.: 26.03%/25.54%
Boss: 33.50%/34.42%


+3: Pre/Post

Minion: 31.28%/28.03%
Lieut.: 38.81%/36.51%
Boss: 46.05%/46.28%

I note that with the corrected numbers, ToHit Debuffs are less effective against enemies up to +1 regardless of rank. They are less effective against bosses at least up to +3.

I'm sorry, Statsman, but I'm not seeing how this isn't a nerf under most circumstances. At best, the improved ToHit calculation means its less of a nerf, but it is nonetheless an overall reduction in the effectiveness of slotted ToHit Debuffs, by your own numbers.

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States, are you taking into account that +level mobs resist debuffs?

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It looks like he is, but I'm not sure about his figures. It looks like, for example, at +3, RI is reduced to around 76% effectiveness in his calculations, whereas the last numbers I've seen -- and damage numbers I think bear this out -- indicate that at +3 levels, your powers are only 65% effective, in which case a +3 minion would have a

1.3*(0.5-0.65*0.4372)=28.1%

chance to hit, not 21%.

I'd like to see the numbers broken down again, and a bit more carefully. At first glance, they don't appear to be quite right. And the pre-I7 numbers look quite fishy as well.

(Not trying to be ungrateful or snarky; just calling it like I see it.)

EDIT:

He's obviously applying some form of reduction in the effectiveness of the debuff, otherwise a +3 minoin's chance to hit would be

1.3*(0.5-0.4372) = 8.1%,

rather than the 21% he's showing. I'm just not sure about his number for how much less effective it becomes.

Name: League of Superpowered Scientists
Motto: Initiating a monotonic decrease in the crime function C(t) since Feb. 2006
Leaders: Al Einstein, Mrs. Marie Curie, Sir Ike, Robo-Hawking

We're a new supergroup composed of heroes based on famous scientists. Ideally, there should be some logic behind your powerset choices. For example, Al Einstein is a grav controller, Mrs. Curie is a rad/rad defender, etc. Beyond that, the scientist requirement, and the obvious "Don't be a jerkwad" rule, we don't have a lot of regulations or anything. We're RP friendly but don't require it. We will have a base. We don't PL.

Any questions, or if you'd like to join, feel free to PM me or send a global tell to @Pippy.

Maldini, many thanks for putting this together! It's a great help.