Sarrate

Hrmm... what about Gauntlet (the aoe, not the st portion) against normal mobs? As I understand it, all the attacks powers are set as AoEs with varying radii, then all the effects in the attack are set to have a max radius of 0 (making them st) except for the taunt (which has no flags as ignoring the tohit check).

So, if a player attacks Mob A and hits, would Gauntlet have to check Mob B to see if it hits? If yes, then Gauntlet is a bigger pile than I originally thought it was. :P

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However this doesn't stand up when you compare two Tankers together. Whenever I've seen to Tankers Taunt (the power) the same target, the first Taunt to land goes into effect and the second Taunt only applies after the first Taunt's duration wears off. I've seen this in occurances of me beating on what I Taunted and still not pulling agro from a nearby Tanker who Taunted first even while beating on another mob.

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You need to have double the current aggro holder's threat in order to steal aggro. If the first Tanker Taunts / is in melee range before you, they'll be building up a lot of threat (from Taunt, aggro auras, AoEs, and Gauntlet depending on who it hits). Depending on how he slotted Taunt compared to you the difference could be even more extreme. (Primary and secondary would make a difference, too.)

I've engaged in 'Taunt Wars' tests with Tankers before, and this matches my experience.

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Additionally (and also to Sarrate's point) while the internal documentation might have read Taunt works as a control, the fact that it actually *does* work as a control for over 99% of the scenarios in the game, kind of reinforces my point.

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Kruunch: Anytime that you're teamed with a character with taunt capabilities Taunt loses its guarantee. I'm not talking about the generic taunt mechanic, but Taunt the power. I've been the Scrapper that is holding an AV that ignores a Tanker's Taunt. I've also been the Tanker using Taunt to try to pull mobs from an Invuln Scrapper to my group. This is my experience from both sides of the fence. In these situations, it takes a liberal amount of Taunt and damage to override the Scrapper's threat.

I wouldn't consider teaming with Brutes / (Invuln, Shield, maybe WP) Scrappers to only consist of 1% of gameplay.


Now Taunt MAG I have no trouble believing it not working as described (such as BP Masks and Recluse), but Taunt duration fits the bill matches every single test I've ever done or seen done.

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her

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Kruunch: His. :P

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Has anybody done any looking into of Threat degradation? I ask because I noted some interesting things last night on the STF, mostly between the tanker and me against the AVs and stronger opponents.

Now, at level 54, the AVs will only get 39% of Taunt's duration on them. At level 50, with Taunt's base duration lasting 45 seconds, and a recycle time of 11.67 seconds, unslotted, Taunt should still be up for 5.88 seconds (probably about 5 with Arcanatime factored in) even after it cycles (so, 5 seconds of stack time).

Now, also at +4 to me, the Scrapper, and a willpower at that, my aggro aura should only have an effective time of 0.4875 seconds. Meaning that it's less than the time I would need to stack it.


Now, with those two things being what I know (assuming that neither of us had slotted for Taunt, and I know that I didn't), here's what I actually saw:

The Tanker, while Taunting at range, as long as he kept Taunting , was holding aggro well enough. However, if he missed a Taunt cycles for even a little bit, aggro quickly fell my way. After I noticed this, I was trying to time when the Taunts would come by counting. Thus, when one was missed, I could tell right away that it was past time for it to have been applied. It was usually about a second or two after this that I would have the AV turn to me, who was in melee. now, according to my calculations above, the 5 second overlap should have had me covered on the aggro front. Even 2 * 1,000 should have beaten out 0.4875 *1,000 * Damage. But, for some reason, it wasn't.

Is this part of the threat degradation, that it's wearing off before the full Taunt duration?

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Aett: Threat decay is something I haven't tested. I am, however, shocked to hear you say that you could steal aggro off the Tanker at all - very surprising. Hmm... a couple things that could explain it:

<ul type="square">[*]RttC has a debuff component, which makes RttC's threat multiplier a bit higher than usual. (I want to say it was something like TauntDuration * 1000 for debuffs, but I can't remember what value Castle gave for those, if any.)[*]Being at range makes the taunt value lower than being in melee range.[*]AI Preferences.[*]Was the Tanker doing any damage from range? That would help significantly, even if it was just Vet powers like the Nem Staff.[*]Keep in mind that your damage was being amplified by your taunt duration*1000, so duration alone wouldn't sway an AV.[*]Note: A +4 would only resist it by 48% (Purple Patch). That'd make RttC stronger, but Taunt more so.[/list]
As I said, though, threat decay is something I really don't understand.

Des: I'm honestly not sure, but I'd guess the detailed info (with the 400% - 500% MAG) is incorrect/referencing the wrong data. If you look at a taunt aura, they show the MAG as a % as well. I don't think that there's any way to test it either - I don't think Combat Attributes has any listing for "Taunt" to spy on with a Power Analyzer.

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For all intents and purposes Taunt does mean you don't have to worry about agro. I have yet to have another toon pull agro from one of my Taunts and the only times I've heard of Taunt being overridden is when its done outside of the range of the Tankers AOE *and* a crazy burst DPS toon is on top of the mob.

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Kruunch: Team with another character that taunts in some way (Tankers, Brutes, and Invuln/Shield Scrappers in particular), that's where the situation becomes the most pronounced. In fact, my experience with my Invuln Scrapper is what drove me to test Taunt mechanics as much as I did. There was no way what I was seeing in game should have ever happened under the binary "on/off" explanation.

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In fact, it works so much like a control that for *years* Castle was reporting it as an unoverridable control.

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Kruunch: I'd say it didn't help that the internal documents said it worked precisely in that manner.

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P.S. - Banished Pantheon Masks resistance shortens the duration of a taunt. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with magnitude unless you're just relying on a taunt *aura* or a side swipe by Gauntlet to maintain agro which is silly.

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Kruunch: Pain/Death Mask Resistance
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* -100.00000 Melee_Ones Taunt for 10.25s [Ignores Enhancements &amp; Buffs]
Effect does not stack from same caster
* RES(Taunt) 100.00000 Melee_Ones% for 10.25s [Ignores Enhancements &amp; Buffs]
Effect does not stack from same caster

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They have Taunt protection (MAG100) and Taunt resistance (10,000%, I'm sure that's over the NPC cap, whatever that is).

I should point out that Lord Recluse has those exact same properties, although it's been demonstrated you can keep him taunted, but he is a lot squirrelier than most. (Granted the Tanker normally has 5-10 minutes of time to do nothing but Taunt.) Either that, or the MAG isn't working quite as Castle described to us.

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It's easier to cap positional defense then typed defense since there's only 3 positional defenses but 7 types of typed defenses.

Melee/ranged/aoe

vs

smashing/lethal/fire/energy/negative energy/cold/toxic

If you have to get each to 45 to soft cap, which set is easier to soft cap?

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Three quick corrections:

1) There is no such thing as toxic defense, it doesn't exist. (It's why typed defense based sets received toxic res instead.)
2) The seventh def type would be psi.
3) The typed defense bonuses are now grouped together (smash+lethal, fire+cold, energy+neg en), so you still only have to soft cap three 'sets' of defense. (Actually, there is still psi to deal with, but if you soft cap everything else, it will be a fairly minor concern alone.)

That said, which form of defense you go after is dictated by your secondary. If you're playing a secondary with positional def (SR, Shield) then you'll want to stack positional defense. Likewise, if playing a typed set (Invuln, WP) then you'll aim for typed def. Only the def ambiguous sets (DA, Fire, and Regen) do you get the choice.

Sorry to break the bad news, but it doesn't work like that. The game uses your highest defense value to defend against an attack. For example, if you have 51% melee def and 33.% smash def, when someone uses brawl against you (melee, smash) you'll only use your 51% melee def to protect against it.

Personally, I'd just try to get enough mitigation (Tough, Weave, IOs, etc) so that you're not knocked that low from the alpha to begin with. Remember that self heals are based off your base hp, so Aid Self is of much less value to WP than it is to other sets. (I believe that respites are the same way. Purple insps are WP's best friend.)

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so the defense cap for a shield is 45 percent is what you are saying, but in mids the build i have its at 60 percent, are we on the same page ?

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no matter how much defense you have, no mob will ever go below a 5% chance to hit you. 45% is the soft cap - it puts all mobs even av's at that 5%

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AV's have a higher minimum odds to hit. I believe it's 7.5%.

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Enemies higher rank than minions and/or higher than +0 will have a floor higher than 5% no matter how much defense you have. What 45% def does (assuming no def debuffs / tohit buffs) is ensures they're at that floor (whatever it is).

To figure out what a mob's tohit will floor at:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Rank RankMod
Minion 1
Lieu 1.15
Boss 1.3
AV/GM 1.5

Level LvlMod
+0 1
+1 1.1
+2 1.2
+3 1.3
+4 1.4
+5 1.5

TohitFloor = RankMod * LvlMod * 5%</pre><hr />

So a +3 Boss would floor at 8.45%.

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No, it's not a demo, it's a video. Which could be easily made from a demo.

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His UI is showing and the UI is never shown in a demo, so it cannot be a demo.

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I'm judging it based on the information they've released and on the survey that spawned the expansion. I'm also judging it on the fact they didn't release any new information or material since, or at E3, which betrays a lack of faith to me.

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Then you're simply speculating. Just because they haven't released new information doesn't mean that there isn't any. It's also entirely possible that nothing on the survey (aside from side switching) is part of the new features. We simply do not know.

It's the same problem I have with people saying that CO / DCU will be everything we ever hoped for without playing them. I haven't played either, so they could be the best gaming experience out there. I wouldn't ever make bets on upcoming MMOs being everything they promise without compromise; I've been burned too many times. (I'm looking at you, AoC.)

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Discarding other people because you wont do what it takes to grow your game and keep it competitive with newer games for those people's attention is also a mistake in my opinion.

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It's a gamble - do developers stick with their current loyal fanbase or do they drop them in hopes of getting a new one? Actually, there is another MMO that made that bet: Star Wars Galaxies. I don't think that worked out too well for them. (As a matter of fact, players were downright outraged.)

Are there legacy systems (such as ATs) in the game that won't be going away? Yes. Do new games promise things we may or may not see here? Yes. Are you not happy with that? Obviously. Does that mean the game cannot compete? I don't think so.

I don't have any special inside info on their engine, but I don't think all things are impossible, just time consuming. (I believe that's the big problem with power customization - time.) The effort spent on these time intensive features could have been better spent elsewhere. Writing an entirely new engine (and content for it) is something I'd also consider very time consuming.

The devs have been adding things to the game that would have originally been considered "impossible," but they have been getting more funding and developers to work on adding new features. (This includes their "R-Type" programmers, who knows what they're working on.) I believe Posi has also said something to the effect of (paraphrased): "the engine is actully quite powerful, and we haven't fully utilized it yet." So there's still room for the game to grow. (That may have been in terms of graphics, come to think of it. Hmm...)

On the subject of Going Rogue, I think it's far too early to judge it as a failure. I'd wait until we have a more comprehensive list of features before passing judgement. (The alignment system really intrigues me.)

In the end, the game doesn't have what you're looking for in a super hero game. You want a brand new game to fit your desires. I'm sure theres a non-trivial number of people who like CoH as it is now (AT system included) - discarding those people in lieu of a sequel would be a mistake.

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In this case, 'what it takes' would be a sequel.

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I hope they don't make a sequel. I think they're a terrible idea.

First problem is it would split their development team. Instead of having everyone work on one project, now their attention is divided which would slow updates to this game. It takes, what, 3 (?) years to develop an MMO from the ground up? So even if they started now, you wouldn't see CoH2 until 2012 or something.

The dev team isn't all that would be fractured - the player base would be as well. This originally wouldn't have been as big a problem as it is now because of the market. You know how villains complain about their market? Imagine it being worse. Less people playing means less recipes generated which means less sold on the market, kaboom. There's also the issue of people not wanting to lose their current investment / characters to transition to an unrpoven new game.

Take a look at this chart. Notice the EverQuest (light blue with triangles) population compared to that of EverQuest II (green with triangles). They started strong, but both populations ended up crashing. Their last data point shows the population of the games combined is less than that of EQ before EQII was releasted. Double the devs, double the servers, same to less number of subscribers.

In short, I'd rather they keep working on this game rather than make a new one. I don't see the pros outweighing the cons.

Shield Charge does just as much base damage on any AT (Brute, Scrapper, Tanker) and it does not crit. The way it works is by summoning a pet which deals the damage. All three ATs summon the exact same pet.

[edit: I spoke too soon. Brutes/Tankers share the same pet and Scrappers have a separate one. The only difference between them is Brute/Tanker's taunts and Scrappers don't. Otherwise, they're identical. See below.]

Brute/Tanker Shield Charge
Scrapper Shield Charge

Sorry about bailing, GP. My computer decided it had played nice long enough and was time to crap out on me. I suspect either my gfx card or RAM are shot.

Bleh.

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But, I'm sure there are unbelievers, for shame, that think it might be a small oddity or the result of lag. I challenge anyone to explain what looks like extending shadow maul to 20 feet, give or take a foot. Looks like about 20.

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Woah, I've known that moving/sidestepping lets you fit more mobs into a melee cone, but the maul you caught right there is downright insane, even by my standards!

Good work.

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Speaking of which, Werner has said he doesn't notice cascade failure on his Kat/Regen, so it's not WP's def resistance that's making the difference, rather DA.

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Oh, I NOTICE it. I have to, or it'll kill me. I monitor both base and melee defense. Base is only there to get my attention. The moment I see base defense go red, I spam Divine Avalanche until I'm back over 45% melee. That almost always works. If that doesn't, I also have Moment of Glory. 15 seconds of extreme defense will almost always interrupt a cascading defense failure. I do still occasionally have a problem – high level Rikti heavy assault suits, Silver Mantis and Positron have all taken me out in the past with defense debuffs. But I don't think Cimerorans have yet (very close but so far so good).

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Whoops, sorry about that Werner; my memory failed me there.

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Well if it is the Soulstorm like the one if the STF then it is a mag 100 hold so you will need lots of BFs.

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Yes, yes it is. Heck, even the Elite Boss version has the MAG100 hold. It would take 9 breakfrees to counteract the hold.

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I've yet to see a power that actually activates every second making the endurance cost the same as the end/sec.

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Invincibility, RttC, and AAO.

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At heart, all of you agree with me. A one time fee would be far better. You may be ridiculing it, there's nothing wrong with the idea. The continuous fee is more ridiculous than the idea to replace it with a one-time fee.

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$15 a month is dirt cheap entertainment. Going to see a movie can cost $10 or more for just 2 hours worth of entertainment. MMOs are $15 for unlimited access.

If it were a pay once and that's it deal, there wouldn't be free content like we have now. A lot of the recent Issues have had game changing features / QoL changes.

I have no problem at all with the monthly fee setup we currently have.

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Assuming everyone that is WP has Combat Jumping, Weave, and that Steadfast thing.

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Well, even without those, it still functions as 3.5% (+0s) to 1.68% (+4s) defense to enemies hit by it. People spend good money for that much defense.

[edit: Grammar.]

You know, I used to think that the debuff in RttC was fairly worthless, but I don't believe it anymore. A couple reasons:

*) As you stack def bonuses (just CJ (unslotted) Weave and a Steadfast is 18.4% s/l def and ~33.5% exotic def) that extra 3.5% starts to have a larger impact on your survivability that you give it credit for.

*) It's a debuff, debuffs are also threat modifiers, as well as taunt. So that debuff is making RttC more potent at aggro generation than it would be without it.

In PvP, yeah, it's not worth much. (Not sure how much RttC is worth in PvP anyways, considering people try not to stay in melee range.) In PvE, though? I'd say its impact isn't too bad.

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I've never tried to exaggerate the importance of the def debuff resistance. I've only tried to say that yes, it does, in fact, have an affect. Just because you want to ignore it doesn't mean that it's not there.

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I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but could the two of you actually state your case mathematically?

Yes, in principle, the Defense Debuff resistance should give Will Power an advantage in an ITF.

From my experience, and from what I understand of Sarrate's post is that the difference is minuscule.

Will Power doesn't have that much defense to smash/lethal to begin with. A single 20% defense debuff will drop Will Powers S/L defense into double digit negatives?

A single defense debuff puts a Cim minion at a 71% chance to hit a Will Power scrapper? ...75% chance to hit a Regeneration scrapper?

Am I figuring this wrong? Umbral and Sarrate are both better at the math debates than I am, but this difference is looking damned minuscule to me.

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Okay, so Roman minions have 2 attacks that cause def debuffs (Slash / Slice). It's possible for them to fire off 3 attacks within 7 seconds (Slash, Slice, Slash). If these are +2 minions, they will tohit cap at -25% def.

I wrote a quick program to go through three volleys of X attacks each 1000 times.

<ul type="square">[*]Runs with debuff resistance and 3.861% def (HS) with 3 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 952 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 954 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 969 times out of 1000.

Runs without debuff resistance and 3.861% def (HS) with 3 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 990 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 995 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 990 times out of 1000.
[*]Runs with debuff resistance and 9.711% def (HS+Weave) with 3 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 788 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 790 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 834 times out of 1000.

Runs without debuff resistance and 9.711% def (HS+Weave) with 3 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 928 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 898 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 927 times out of 1000.
[*]Runs with debuff resistance and 3.861% def (HS) with 6 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.

Runs without debuff resistance and 3.861% def (HS) with 6 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
[*]Runs with debuff resistance and 9.711% def (HS+Weave) with 6 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 999 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.

Runs without debuff resistance and 9.711% def (HS+Weave) with 6 attacks per volley
Run 1: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.
Run 2: Tohit capped 999 times out of 1000.
Run 3: Tohit capped 1000 times out of 1000.[/list]
Note 1: This assumes all the attacks in those volleys happen at the same time and aren't staggered at all. This means that if minion one hits, minion two won't benefit from the debuff.
Note 2: This is just minions, no lieutenants (3 def debuffing attacks) or bosses (4 def debuffing attacks).

This shows that in a small case (3 minions) with some stacked defense (9.711%) the def debuff resistance makes a decent difference. It gets completely shut down as the number of attackers increases (ie: during the ITF). Does it make a difference solo? Yes. Surrounded on the ITF, which is where I was making my debate? No, not in my opinion.

(Btw, I've set it up so I can set the starting defense and the number of attacks per volley. So if you'd like me to run with with X defense and Y attackers, I will.)

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The entire point I've been trying to make with this entire line of debate we've found ourselves on is that. The ITF isn't a balanced domain of comparison for any of the scrapper secondaries, much less */wp and */regen.

There is still a reason to have */regen around excluding it being simply a legacy power set. */Regen can actually perform just as well and oftentimes better than */wp if it's got a good player behind it. It's not universally inferior as the OP seems to think. The problem most of the time is that most players who are using */regen aren't really of a caliber to pull it off.

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I have no issue with any of that.

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As I said before, def debuff resistance's purpose isn't to actually negate the threat of a debuff cascade. It's to make the effect of the cascade less in magnitude and occur more slowly. It may not seem like much to you, but it's still a benefit of the debuff resistance and another reason why the ITF disproportionately favors */wp over */regen.

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I take issue with this because you're exaggerating (in my opinion) how much of a difference the def resistance makes. (You further mentioned you never cascade since your primary is Kat/.) The ITF may favor WP more than Regen, but the def resistance is not even worth mentioning except for completeness sake.

That's the only thing I've been discussing.


[edit: I just realized I wasn't completely mathematically accurate in one of my above posts. I forgot to factor in the inherent 5% extra accuracy that comes with BS.]

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Which also means we're now full circle to "cascades so fast it may as well not be there" discussion. :P

I have a feeling we're simply not going to agree, here.

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Actually, my */wp is kat/wp, so I don't even notice the cascades actually, but that's why you should assume the same primary with different secondaries.

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Where in my post was I assuming different primaries? I was speaking for the general case. Would a DM/WP cascade? I'm positive it would. How about MA for both primaries? DB? Fire? I think the only primaries that wouldn't are the (single) swords.

Speaking of which, Werner has said he doesn't notice cascade failure on his Kat/Regen, so it's not WP's def resistance that's making the difference, rather DA.

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Let's be honest, how often does it happen that extra mobs aren't pulled, or the Tank hits the aggro cap, or that Scrappers try to clean up loose mobs, or the team splits, etc. Ideally none of these would happen, but from my experience they are not rare by any means.

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In those situations, my */regen is getting beat on just as often as my */wp, but that's also due to the fact that my */regen runs with DC and SD which mean that I'm attracting the hate either way.

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Which also means we're now full circle to "cascades so fast it may as well not be there" discussion. :P

I have a feeling we're simply not going to agree, here.