Starsman

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But its really focused accuracy that is the real killer, since its tohit buff is lower, but continuous, and its base is also high enough that a reduction in slotting power to "just as strong as defense" still makes it pretty darned good against defense sets.

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This is exactly what I'm talking about. I in no way form or manner want to see this touched (edit: in PvE).

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Again, this change wont affect how players hit NPCs.

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So what you are saying is that we now will floor (or near-floor) *any* mob's accuracy with two lucks, one luck and 3 slotted SR/Ice/Ninjitsu/Bubbles, or any combination that works out to a 50% bonus.

I think this is going to finally show you guys the flaw in the tohit formula,

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What it may actually show is that def inspirations are overpowered and lead them to nerf them.


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Maybe you will get how we feel about a 3 Acc slotted attack only having a 10% (or is it 5%? When is the floor applied?) chance to hit a bubbled Rikti Drone.

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Remember he clearely stated this only applies to players being hit, not players hiting NPCs.

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Castle:
I'm curious. Why the complicated math (well, relatively)? Wouldn't it be more effective to get away from the subtractive design of DEF and move to something multiplicative (terminology shamelessly stolen from FreelanceWizard)?

The numbers on DEF powers would have to be tweaked, but you'd have -perfect- equivalence in scalability with RES sets at -all- levels.

Ex: 50% DEF would cut a target's ACC in half, whatever that ACC was to begin with. So then, say, a white minion would have a 25% chance to hit (50% base ACC x 50%). Then, no matter -what- the mob's base accuracy, 50% DEF would mean you take (on average) half the damage you would have with no DEF, exactly the same as 50% RES means you take half the damage you would with no RES.

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The system he described does this already, for ALL level and rank ranges. They simply seem to have chosen it not to apply for +6s and up, because theoricaly, if you managed to tank an even minnion, you may also be able to tank a +50 until you ran out of luck.

Now, it does is a bit unintuitive for the player that 25% def means 50% def, but truth is, the UI does not shows this def anyways. If it ever did, they can make the UI display Def*2 as the active Def value.

Also, if he changed the whole thing the devs would have to find every single power that grants def or acc debufs and buffs and change them all over, too big of a change.

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having Fortitude could increase your Burn damage.

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Hmmm... its a shame that enemies now run out of burn, can suddenly imagine fire/super strenght tankers with perma rage....

Something like AVs having 1.5 base acc multiplied by 50 then? And if so thats where the subtraction went? Resting the def against the 50 before the multiplication?

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For instance, an AV had a base To Hit of 75%. If a player had 25% Defense, the AV would have had a 50% chance to hit. Under the new system, the AV's has a base 50% chance to hit. The Defense is applied, reducing his To Hit to 25%. The Accuracy is then applied, giving a final To Hit of 37.5% -- a 12.5% improvement over the old system.

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This means that every enemy always had a base of 50% plus a % buff instead of a fixed buff? Or was it changed to be this way with the new system?

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I understand that Psi and Toxic don't penetrate dmg res, they "bypass" DMG RES because people typically don't have dmg res against those types.

Since most people with defense have defense against ranged, melee and AE, (although some do have defense typed by damage, and others have both!), 2Hit buffs are the games method of "bypassing" DEF.

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Only Super Reflexes and Ninjitsu relly on source damage (melee/ranged/area)

Ninjitsu is also a set with extremely low def numbers, as it rellies heavily on its utility powers like his AOE plasate.

Also altough a lot of pool powers now have range/melee def, they still are vulnerable to AOE (that being the cryptonite on that case) and are available for anyone, not a specific set, and even then are very low.

Lastly, vulnerabilities are not the realm of systems but of stats, so if range/melee/aoe are the flavor of the powerset, its up to the stats of these set to make sure one of those is lower, or to give some sort of -resist to the specific vulnerability if it was needed so that once that type of damge hits, it hits hard.

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This is that *other* grand design issue in CoH that has been discussed off and on (the first being Accuracy and Defense): Stacking.

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Yes, the issue being if i dodge/parry/deflect an attack, Resistance never gets to do anything.

That means that during the attacks that are mitigated by def, resist did absolutely nothing, so in a combined enviroment it would be something like... lets see...

((def/50) * 100) + (res * (1-def/50))

Here is the proof of this formula being right:

((12.5/50) * 100) + (25 * (1-(12.5/50)) =
25 + (25 * (1 - 0.25)) =
25 + (25 * 0.75) =
25 + 18.75 =
43.75

Now lets run again the case of 12.5 def and 25res:

75acc, 12.5def, 25 res, 100 swings of 90pts
56.25 hits of 67.5 = 3796.875


And now lets run it with zero def and 43.75 resist:

75acc, 0def, 43.75res, 100 swings of 90pts
75 * 50.625 = 3796.875

And we get exactly the same!

This formula holds right now against minions, if you want to get a real equivalence of resist + def stacking you can run the formula on a build to see the equivalent resist you get agasint minnions. Id say Stone is a perfect exsample test subject for this. I think stone gets 26% def and 18.5 resist once 3 sloted (outside of granite.)

((26/50) * 100) + (18.5 * (1-(26/50)) =
(.52 * 100) + (18.5 * (1-.52)) =
52 + (18.5 * .48)
52 + 8.88
60.88

So, Stone gets the equivalent to 60.88 resistance against smash/lethal currently against minnions.

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Yes, the old saving throw mechanic. The only problem with this mechanic is that it does not allow ToHit buffs to "penetrate" defense the way psi and toxic penetrate DMG RES.

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Psy and toxic do not penetrate resistances.

Its only that characters dont have resistances to the types, and truth be told, no one has any def against toxic so toxic will always ignore defense, and few sets have def against psy (some may have it in the form of melee/range/aoe def but no stright psy def)

So, under the TotalBuffedACC * (1-Def/50) formula, ACC bonuses still works as well as DMG bonuses do against resistances, they get mitigated but not ignored.

The witch doctors are waiting to see the real repercusions of this change before they attempt to resurect Starsman, after all, they dont want Darkstar to kick his rear back to the grave as soon as he stands up if this does not turns to work well.

If this is as we have been guessing, it will actually result in 1def =2res.

Example:
Against Minnion:

50acc, 25def, 0 res, 100 swings of 50pts
25 hits of 50 dmg = 1250 points of damge

50acc, 0def, 50 res, 100 swings of 50pts
50 hits of 25 dmg = 1250 points of damge

Against AV:

75acc, 25def, 0 res, 100 swings of 90pts
37.5 hits of 90pts = 3375

75acc, 0def, 50 res, 100 swings of 90pts
75 hits of 45pts = 3375


An interesting thing is, 1def = 2Res only if taken independently, look at what happens if you use 50/50 distribution of def and resist. Based on 1def = 2res that will mean 25resist and 12.5 def.

75acc, 12.5def, 25 res, 100 swings of 90pts
56.25 hits of 67.5 = 3796.875

Suddenly, they are not as strong together as they are on their own, so you cant just say the sruvivability of a character is equivalent in resistance to def*2+resist

Now, mixing high def and low resist:
75acc, 20def, 25 res, 100 swings of 90pts
45 * 81 = 3645

And finaly a low def high resist:
67.5 * 54 = 3645

So its interesting how here two oposite builds are equal but one in between both is inferior, and how these mixed sets are both inferior to pure res or pure def sets.

Therefore, going back to my point, it depends on wether or not this is what is coming and if so, how this will affect tankers that have a mixture of both types of shields. My stone tanker is not improving though, so I see no reason to even think about resurecting that one.

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So maybe the simplest way to put it is:
FinalToHit = TotalToHit - ((TotalToHit/50)*TotalDefense)

TotalToHit being the attacker's ToHit after buffs, debuffs, purple patch, level difference, class difference, etc. etc.

TotalDefense being the target's Defense after buffs, debuffs, blah blah blah etc. etc.

Does that sound right?

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Yes, exactly that, you can make it even simplier like this:

TotalToHit * (1-Def/50)

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Oh does this apply to ninjitsu as well?

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States says
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Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless of their rank or level.

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So i guess this means whatever it is, it will even help a fire tank with combat jump as his only source of def.

Oh and happy birthday

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honestly, there are countless ways they could write the equations and get it right.

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Right, but i do see a few reasons why it may actualy be tricky to get it perfectly right but until the devs actually tell anything, all we can do is have some fun with math!!!

And on that line here is yet anoter theory!!! So far, based on a few comments by Geko on how accuracy works, I think accuracy works arround a base index just like Brawl Indexes work. This index seems to be 1 =75%. You may notice he has in ocations refered to Accuracy as 1.0 while its 75%. So this would mean a minnion has arround 0.6667.

With this we can go...

Acc_Idx = Base_Acc_idx * (1+Level_bonus) + Buff
Acc_Idx = Acc_Idx - ((Acc_Idx/.6667) * (debuff * (1 - Level_bonus)))
Final_Acc = (Acc_Idx * 75) - ((Acc_Idx/.6667) * Def)

In this theory I am actualy thinking (hoping) that a def debuf will also benefit from the change, but still applying to it a mitigation by level as any other debuff gets.

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Net_2Hit = Base_2Hit * Purple_Patch_Multiplier - DEF * Purple_Patch_Multiplier


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The problem with this one would be that you are doing nothing to help with even enemies (or any level enemy) that has accuracy that is higer than 50%, so AVs, Bosses, turrets, etc, would still be gimping Defense.

NOW, if you did Net_2Hit = Base_2Hit * Net_2Hit = Base_2Hit * Purple_Patch_Multiplier - DEF * Purple_Patch_Multiplier * Rank_bonus

Then you do indeed get an actual scaling, but as far as i know, the rank bonus is not a calculated bonus itself, but simply the base of this enemy. Another issue is we are still leaving buffs and debuffs out. An advantage is that you wont always get negative numbers if you go above 50% def.

If it IS on a table, and enemy has an accuracy on a factor of... lets say 1 = 50 then 1.5 would mean the AV accuracy... Lets call it MinionDefIndex just as we do with brawls. In this case you can use this instead:


EnemyAcc - (Def * MinionDefIndex * (1+LevelBonus))

Still leaving out the buffs though.

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Scaling defense buff = Current Defense * RankToHitBuff% * LevelToHitBuff%


One equation, three variables.


Mine and yours diverge under two circumstances. The first is if and when a villain group's even level minions ever have intrinsicly higher base tohit than 50%, separate from any actual tohit buffs. Second, by separating level and rank factors, it points to a possible mechanism for leveling off the defense scaling buff past +5, whereas yours doesn't distinguish between the two.

Someone is probably going to say something about the fact that there aren't any villain groups with minion base tohit anything other than 50%, and even if there were, you could simply look at that as an intrinsic tohit buff. Actually, *assuming* that they did anything remotely close to this, the possibility of having villain groups with intrinsicly higher base tohit in the future jumps dramatically; long time followers of defense and accuracy discussions might guess why, but beyond that I'd rather let that one lie for now.

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Turrets for one have higher acc (they are becoming every day more common)

Also, you are leting out buffs and debuffs (if i did that id have 2 variables only on my equation) and if you do that you are forgetting about one of the many issues of def, how a simple acc buff of the enemy can easily negate your def entirely.

Still, this is all assumption so best thing we can actualy do is wait and see.

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Meaning if a power provides 10% Defense against an even level minion who has a 50% ToHit, it will provide 13% against an even level Boss who has a 65% ToHit, and 15% against an AV who has 75% ToHit. In all of those cases you are getting hit 80% of the time.

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Small correction but its actually a big point:

in all those cases you are getting hit 80% as often as you did before. Truth is you are not getting hit an equal ammount of times under each diferent def number. Even if it scaled proportinatedly, you get that you are bing hit (accounting the 10%):

40% of the time by minnions
52% of the time by bosses
60% of the time by AVs.

It basicaly turns the whole thing multiplicative instead of substractive, by translating the minnion oriented number into a true percentage modifier by dividing it by 50 and then multiplying it against the acc of the enemy and then substracting that result from the acc to get the final chance to be hit.

Simplyfiing my original formula (since i wrote it a bit of in the haste of the exitement)

(ToHit + buff - debuff) * (1-(DEF/50))

This way we dont calculate the enemy final acc twice.

Now that i think about it, i ponder if they may decide to change the minimun 5% chance to hit for a 45% def cap, would be very similar, but maybe a bit more in line with real 90% resist caps.

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See my previous post for a potentially simpler way to get much more exact defense stability with level and rank.

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How can 5 paragraphs be simpler than a simple formula with 4 variables?

If you run my formula you will see that what you explained in 5 paragraphs was covered into the formula already.

Test the excel file with the numbers you just used and you will get exactly the same result you explained with 25% def. Its not more exact, its the same thing, only I gave a formula anyone can use to check any value against diferent enemies.

The only issue is, if your Def goes over 50% you will always get a negative defense, but that may be simply fixed by caping the defense at 50.

Oh and going back to the point of cutting out at +5, honestly, I am not sure if I see a reason for it. I mean, after all, Resistance can have its effect against any enemy, +6s dont suddenly ignore resistances. Why should +6s ignore the new standard defense scheme?

Oh and all in all, i think after this they may coinsider 25% Def on inspirations a bit too powerful, so i would not be amazed to see those getting some big nerf.

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OK i have two theories of how it may work. The two posible formulas in my head are either:

a) (ToHit + buff - debuff) - DEF/50 * (ToHit + buff - debuff)
b) (ToHit - DEF/50 * ToHit) + buff - debuff

I made a small excel sheet with these forumlas so you can see the results with diferent numbers of enemy acc, debufs and buffs.

It is loaded right now with standard PvP numbers, that would be, 50 to hit chance, and +16.5 acc (thats what you get in pvp from one even ACC SO), with no debuffs.

You can find the Excel file here

You will notice it wont mean that you will floor a lt as easily as an AV with this formula, but they do get close with the same number (an AV gets to 7.6 acc with a 45% def)

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A mechanistic change like this wouldn't stop at +5. So either Statesman was being cagey (defense will be just as effective up to +5 ... because it will be so in *all* cases), or the change has to revolve around altering the tohit bonuses due to rank, and the tohit bonuses explicitly granted by the purple patch (although technically, those level bonuses are not really due to the purple patch; I'm pretty sure they predate it).

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Yes, im asuming there will be a hard coded switch for this formula to not be used if the enemy is over 5 levels higher.

I dare bet my head its just imposible for this change to NOT touch PvP in this way, since one of the issues of acc has always been stated how characters with too many inspirations and acc bonuses would easily negate def completely.

If the level diference bonus was removed, then everyone would be affected. States clearly noted how this will only affect players with def.

If anyone with just 1% def triggered this sort of selective application of level acc bonus, it would also make it all very unbalanced, as 1% would mean WAY more thanjust 1% so i doubt that either.

Check my post previous to this one to see what my actual theory is.

OK i have two theories of how it may work. The two posible formulas in my head are either:

a) (ToHit + buff - debuff) - DEF/50 * (ToHit + buff - debuff)
b) (ToHit - DEF/50 * ToHit) + buff - debuff

I made a small excel sheet with these forumlas so you can see the results with diferent numbers of enemy acc, debufs and buffs.

It is loaded right now with standard PvP numbers, that would be, 50 to hit chance, and +16.5 acc (thats what you get in pvp from one even ACC SO), with no debuffs.

You can find the Excel file here

You will notice it wont mean that you will floor a lt as easily as an AV with this formula, but they do get close with the same number (an AV gets to 7.6 acc with a 45% def)

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I haven't played a low level /SR for a couple of months, so at low levels, this makes a difference. But at higher levels, with SO's...i'm fighting on Invinc...without insp. If you allow my defense to work this good against +5's....that's just too good, imo.

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Maybe, and maybe not.

Right now Resist can go all the way to 90%, and if you found an enemy that was 50 levels higher than you, his damage would still be mitigated to only 10% of what it was meant to be. Off course, less than 10% of that damage may be needed to one shoot you.

With this, its the same. Only diference is, once the enemy hits, it will do a looot of damage.

With this change, if done with the formula i posted a few pages ago, it will mean that a stone tankeer will get a true equivalent of 69.5 smash/lethal resist with the combination of resistance and defense.

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And why scrappers? Not to be rude, but their "role" is not defensive... perhaps because they ARE changing the way DEF works globally?

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I bet thats just it.

So basicaly, if i have 20% (40% of a minnions acc) def against minnions it will translate to 30% (40% of an even AV's acc) against an even AV?

And this also means that the def will scale equally all the way to +5 enemies?

I dont see who would do this but still, how will that translate to +6 enemies? is it an imediate step down to nullified Def or is it a gradual decreses in effectiveness after +5 levels?

Will this apply to ANY power in the game that grants DEF?

What about -acc that is basicaly inverted def? Those debuffs also have a similar issue where not only are they mitigated by levels, but the acc bonuses of the higher level enemy on top of the mitigation makes them even worse... will this somehow also help these acc debuff powers?

Finally, how does this affects +acc? will it only work off the base of the enemy's acc, or will it work off the final enemy Acc at the moment of attack? If an enemy minnion is buffed to 60 acc somehow, will this translate to 24% def?

Is the formula in the end:

(ToHit + buff - debuff) - DEF/50 * (ToHit + buff - debuff)?

Would this also mean that Def will become less powerful against green enemies than it used to be (not an issue to anyone I bet though)?

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MMs were the ONLY AT singled out with their own sub-heading for a discussion of incompetance.

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You should note that he did not labeled the whole mastermind community as incompetent, he was just refering to a subset that are incompetent. True, every AT can be played incompetently, true, an incompetent corruptor can be more dangerous to the team than an incompetent brute, but an incompetent mastermind can be a self targeted nuclear bomb.

He did, however, noted a few very right on clues to how distinguish an incompetent mastermind from a competent one.

Listing them again and enumerated so no one miss them:

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1) Make sure you have competent Masterminds who can maintain control of their henchment.

2) Make sure that they are willing to sacrifice their pets if needed.

3) Make sure that if they have team buffs and foe debuffs that they are willing to use them.


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Now let me elaborate those:

1) means that the mastermind should know how to order his pets to:
<ul type="square"> [*]a) Attack a single target[*]b) Follow[*]c) Go to a specific spot without moving themselves[*]d) Move out of the way (done with a mix of b and c)[/list]
2) This is a big issue with many masterminds, they refuse to let their pets die because they are afraid of having to resumon and rebuff them.
<ul type="square"> [*]a) A really good mastermind must know at what point to just let their pets die[*]b) He should know how and be willing to send just one of the pets as a kamikaze (see #1.C).[*]c) Must know at what point to resumon dead pets. 3 dead tier 1 pets wont make as much diference as a well placed heal or debuff. If on a bad situation the mastermind decides to summon a pet instead of landing a heal or a debuff, he is doing an aweful choice.[*]d) Must know at what point to rebuff resumoned pets. Continuation of the above, there are points where resumoning is the right choice, but rebuffing them may be a aweful idea. Specialy tier 1 pets, in a big mayhem, wont be much diference if you buff them just so they get killed again, that effort should be placed on helping the team survive.[/list]
3) This was well elaborated by him on his post but here it is in a diferent typo filled spelling:
<ul type="square"> [*]a) Use the powers from the secondary pool ON THE TEAM[/list]
So, altough a bit vague in some points, he is very right, those are huge signs to distinguish between incompetent and competent masterminds.