UberGuy

I believe the melee AT version duration is 30 seconds? That's not too shabby, if so. Of course, the melee version has 1/2 the recharge, but that's not too surprising.

Any idea on the per-foe damage buff?

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What happens is the mobs stay deaggroed after its applied, but when someone strikes them, they "remember" who debuffed and pound you into dust despites attempts to get them off.

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Actually, if it helps, I have noticed that, lately, mobs do this in general. For example, if I lay Fearsome Stare on a spawn, and then someone else lands a Fireball on the spawn, what seems to be every mob affected by both poweres immediately attacks me - the caster of the Fearsome Stare.

This is definitely not how things always worked in the past. I cannot really say when I noticed this behavior though. The last Issue or two at most, I think.

Whem I asked Castle about the PPPs and their stats, the FA example is actually what he first responded with. FA costs almost 5x as much as TD. I also don't know if the buff is the same (TD "feels" smaller to me, but that's a terrible metric).

I then pestered him for numbers for powers we actually could compare.

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(You will note that I used the same snippy little “game show” cut down on you that you used on Bayani, revised slightly for originality. I did this just because you were being rude to him and I wanted you to taste your own medicine.)

At which point you pulled out your big philosophical and rhetorical guns and called me an [censored]. And you started backpeddling on what you said, and tried to say that what you clearly said was not what you meant.

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You know, I'm sorry, I admire your certainty in how well you understand my thought processes, and my intentions, but you are wrong. No matter how clear you think this is, no matter how awesome you think your command of this situation is, the fact is that you are wrong. Why can I say that? Because I am the only one here who can read my mind.

I misattributed what part of my post he was talking about. It never occurred to me that he meant the part about the testing I did with my buds. Why? Because I knew that what I meant (and not what I said) would never imply that.

But read on.

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You jumped on Bayani’s [censored] for assuming that when you said “every time” you meant “100%.” This was unjustified, unreasonable, and uncalled for on your part. And I busted your chops for it. Now you’re backpeddling and trying to reinterpret your own words to wriggle out of the embarrassing situation that you’ve put yourself into.

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Oh, am I embarrassed now? Hm. No. Not really. Embarrassed would require me to be uncomfortable with the situation. I'm not.

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The actual mature thing for you to do at this point would be to admit that you overstated your case, and/or exaggerated. It would also be cool to apologize to Bayani for being rude toward him. You know, that IS allowed on the forums.

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The second part of my post, the part about the informal testing, was poorly stated. That is all. It was not my intention to use it as overstatement. I posted it in the middle of a Hamidon raid in which I was at least partially active. I didn't complete my thoughts clearly.

Was I unclear? Yes. Was I condescending in my response? Yes. Am I sorry? For jumping on him, yes.

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But of course you won’t.

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For the rudeness I have offered you? Not really. Given that your stated point was, at least in part, to "teach me a lesson", I have little patience for or interest in such folk. Take me or leave me, I'm not interested in moral lessons on Internet game forums. Bayani’s doubtless capable of defending himself, and if I'm wrong, he can probably catch me at it on his own.

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Unlike some people, I don't come here to wordsmith everything not only that I say, but that others say too.

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This is demonstrably false. It is EXACTLY what you tried to do with Bayani. And I busted your chops for it.

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Oh really? You can demonstrate that my purpose in coming here to this forum and making my original post was to wordsmith? Please, do tell me how you know my purpose? No, you have inferred my purpose from my actions. A reasonable first approximation that reasonable people recognize as being a poor absolute final determination.

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For those still listening out there, you'll notice that nowhere in the last four or so responses has anyone actually addressed the one salient point in my post. Oh, no, they've been picking at my semantic constructs (or lack thereof).

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That would be because of you. I am talking about your semantic constructs because you have DEMANDED that I do so. It’s right there, at the top of this post. A direct quote from you.

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Impressive. By distracting you with other things to talk about I've actually actively disabled your ability to address the topic of the thread. This is a tactic I must remember for later use.

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A smirking behavior is, ultimately, why I will offer you no apology.

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Does that scream out to you "Nerf Defenders, Dominators, and non-EM Blasters heavily without giving them a single thing back?"

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Nope. But taking the two together, and looking at how changes/nerfs/buffs have worked in the past, I think it screams "we're not done with this yet."

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The addition of toggle dropping was probably a necessary evil, but I think they could have picked a much better class of evil. I think something probably had to be done, but of all the ways to balance PvP combat, toggle dropping would have been last on my list, after "make snowballs do unresistable cold damage" and "randomly cause you and your opponent to switch powers and defenses via an improbability field."

In fact, they had a really good pre-existing mechanism for making the unkillable killable. We know it by another name: "the Hamidon." Ask any experienced Hamidon raider what happens to Hamidon Nucleus resistances when holds are stacked on it, but before its actually held. Variants of that mechanism would have probably been better than toggle dropping for balancing high resistance/high regeneration melee fighters against lower damage attackers. "Better" as in "less likely to give players strokes." Possibly harder to code, but better nonetheless.

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And I happen to think that a decent number of veteran players agree with this perspective.

Does this mean that, right now, "ex toggle droppers" and "people with toggles to drop" are balanced in good ways? No. It doesn't. And I take previous dev comments to mean that it doesn't have to be.

Do I think it's great that any AT has the ability to hold off more than one other AT? Not really. But I strongly feel that any balance changes that would change such a thing would be on a level and scope that would have serious spill over into PvE; a PvE game that I love dearly and don't want to see more sweeping changes to unless they're to fix underperforming powers and ATs.

For what it's worth, I've been in PvP on a Brute once, and for many hours on two Corruptors, a Blaster and a Dominator. So please try to believe that my PvP perspective is not biased towards playing "god mode" on my melee characters. I actually have no experience with that.

Dude, please quote, exactly, where I made this claim. Come on. Do it. Quote my claim, verbatim, that "Bonesmasher drops three toggles 100% of the time."

You want to get me for being unclear, fine. You got me. My lack of clarity left you room to put words in my mouth. I left out fine detail that gave you ammunition. That was my mistake.

Unlike some people, I don't come here to wordsmith everything not only that I say, but that others say too.

I don't make any claims of being superior to you. Oh no, I make my snarky comments and take my snipes. Because it feels good to make fun of people with superior attitudes like you seem to.

For those still listening out there, you'll notice that nowhere in the last four or so responses has anyone actually addressed the one salient point in my post. Oh, no, they've been picking at my semantic constructs (or lack thereof).

That point being? That PvP is not, and by dev declaration, shall never be, about one-on-one. That one-on-one is not to be balanced for. That some people will always best some other people in PvP, be it because of AT, powerset, or both.

And this change has made it so Blasters are, by and large, one of those ATs that can't be a "one" in "one-on-one". It think that causes a lot of resentment. I can certainly understand that, if it's true.

But I can't support it.

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In the post he was responding to, you did not say "very reliable." You said:
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In testing with a buddy he dropped 3 toggles every time he touched me with Bonesmasher.

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every time = 100%

Sorry, but our judges have awarded this round to the Challenger. Here's a copy of our home game and don't let the studio doors hit you in the [censored] on your way out!

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Welcome to asshattery 101, folks. Where someone who introduces a contrary opinion will have their words dissected by self-appointed lords of What I Meant who will explain your own posts to you.

I never, ever claimed that the chance for the power to drop three toggles was 100%. I claimed that in our testing it worked that way. We tried it five times and it dropped three toggles every time.

I never claimed that was statistically significant. I never claimed that this meant that the toggle chance was 100%. I said, in the part of my post which you did not quote that it was "highly reliable".

Please return to your forum bridge. The are people crossing above it you may want to molest.

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As for your example, that's just dead wrong. It's not a 100% chance to drop 3 toggles. Either you're overexaggerating or you used a small sample size of 2-3 attempts. I've been playing a fire/energy blaster since the summer of 2004, and I've tested and played energy against my sg mates. Bonesmasher does not drop 3 toggles 100% of the time.

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Did I say 100%? No. I said "very reliable". Thanks for playing, though.

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That argument doesn't hold water with me. It's not balanced when it's takes multiple characters to take down one scrapper/tanker when that said scrapper/tanker can dismantle the opposing team by squishing the blaster or defender.

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I'm sorry you feel that way. You're wrong. PvP is a team contest only. If it wasn't, one-on-one would be viable. It's declared as non viable. Therefore, by definition, two or more on one is sometimes required. Period. End of story. If you don't like it you've got a rough road ahead. This is not my dictum, it's the dev's.

And I want to reiterate in here. I've gone into PvP with characters that are both squishy and never even had toggle dropping powers, and at least with the right primary I actually managed to kill melee foes. I killed Scrappers with my Corruptor. I killed Brutes with my Blaster. 100% solo? No. And to be fair, they weren't 100% solo when I killed them, either.

So having been there, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that you need toggle dropping to defeat a melee. I'ts a massive exaggeration. What you do need is a team.

When one guy can come along and reliably shut off 1/2 the toggles on a Dark Armor character, something's just busted. Say what you will about the toggle dropping chances on live. In testing with a buddy he dropped 3 toggles every time he touched me with Bonesmasher.

I'm going to guess Fortunatas and their ilk take normal Lethal/Smashing damage. Pretty sure Hellions do too.

If you get damage numbers, just report the raw numbers here and the level of the foe that you inflicted it on. Also report your AT and level. As long as the foe had no resistances, we should be able to use that to determine the damage scalar for that power based on Iakona's handy tables.

If you can, it's often handy do test it on something much lower than yourself. The bigger damage numbers help avoid rounding errors by scooting the decimal place over a couple of digits.

Well, let me say this much on the whole "blapping is the only way".

I took my Ice/Devices Blaster into SC one evening. I stayed there about 4 hours. I'd never PvP'd with that character before.

I sure as hell didn't blap. I didn't use Trip Mines. I didn't use my secondary at all. I don't have TP foe.

I did have one teammate - a Spines/Regen Scrapper. I did hang out near other heroes, and would retreat to things like Dispersion Bubble or Hurricane when we got too spread out or there was too much stuff after me.

I ended they night with a repuation of 77. I easily produced 1/2 of that on my own. I killed people with the Ice Blast primary and pretty much nothing else. The only secondary power used was Web Grenade.

Do I think that's a characteristic example that means everything is fine? No. Ice is a strong primary. The villains that night could have been really gimp.

But it certainly suggests to me that raw damage goes a long, long way when it has some teammates to back it up.

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But like everyone else, the "on paper" numbers look rather weak. I would just like to get Body Mastery rather than Mace/Mu/Leviathan/Soul Mastery

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Please be aware that, based on analysis of at least the Soul Mastery set, it does look like the PPPs are at least no worse than comparable EPPs. The PPPs don't look great when compared to base powers from primary/secondary powersets, but neither to hero EPPs.

I realize of course that this fact does not address the matter of the Power/Body/Primal Forces Mastery sets, which Villains simply do not get. However, for the powers which we can compare directly, the PPPs are not particularly bad as EPPs go.

OK, looking at some of the other powers, I've found something interesting. The Scrapper and Tanker EPP holds have 32 second recharges. However, the Blaster and Defender EPP holds have 16 second recharges, even when they also do damage.

Personally, I would expect this to have a 32 second recharge for Stalkers and a 16 second recharge for Corruptors.

Edit: I have word that this may, in fact, be a bug. (It could also be an error in the plaque information - I don't know if anyone could have actually tested this power yet.)

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Another testing note, in Mayhem missions I'm finding that the PPD Psi Corps LT's are taking 2 holds to be held, just like their bosses. Is this intentional? I'm gonna cross post this bit into the Mayhem thread.

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This is consistent with Fortunata/Night Widow Arachnos mobs and also with the Lost LTs. I suppose the thematic idea is that Psionic mobs resist holds better. Sure would be nice if our own powersets had features like that.

Well, I guess it depends on what the devs are after.

Most "long-term" toHit debuffs have larger bases than "long-term" toHit buffs. That means that slapping, say, Radiation Infection on someone will more than cancel their, say, Focused Accuracy.

This may be intentional. There's no clear indication that the devs want us to cripple other players with debuffs the way we cripple mobs. If the opponents lack toHit buffs we can cripple them, and if they have toHit buffs we can (potentially, I'm ignoring the other mechanics of some of the debuffs, here), we can leave them a bit worse off than they started. If such characters then face off against defense sets such as Ice or SR, they will have serious problems.

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening in practice. For one thing, the more powerful toHit debuffs tend to be hard to apply in a variety of environments. More importantly, being hit is, in general, less important than simply mitigation the effects of being hit - at least for most armored ATs. Thus defense and DR buffs and healing are preferred to debuffs. At least that's how it seems currently.

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As for the equations you used we have no clue if this is the correct equations

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Actually we do have a good idea that those equations are valid, or at least close to valid. They are derived from files found in the client, and when subjected to testing they line up very well with observations.

Scarlet, thank you very much - I didn't have the time to do that, and frankly, I think you've got a better grasp on the in-game tables than I do at this point.

Based on this and what Castle responded in PMs, I suspect that all the PPPs will compare in this way.

I don't know what Soul Storm's long recharge is about. At that recharge, it does not seem to compare well (at first blush) with other damaging holds in EPPs, such as Char. I can only assume/hope that, as a signature power in the set, it has some other feature we are not yet seeing in testing. Possibly a very long duration?

You still come out behind on +0 and +1 mobs. You about break even on +2 IIRC. You come out ahead on +3 mobs and up.

Scarlet, can you run that analysis on the Scrapper/Dark Mastery/Dark Blast power and see how it compares with, say, the Defender version?

According to Castle, the EPPs are supposed to have equivalent faults, and we should be comparing the PPPs directly to EPP powers (or at least viewing how PPPs and CoV primary powers compare in light of how EPPs and CoH primary powers compare, when direct comparisons are not available).

Edit: Note that Castle reports that all EPPs on melee characters also use the AT ranged damage tables.

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Reference for Corruptors...

Dark Embrace
* Self +RES (S/L, N. Energy, Tox)
* END: 1 unit/sec
* Recharge: 4 secs

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Dark Embrace costs 1 End/sec!

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How do you arrive at that conclusion? Has anyone actually tested that yet? 'cuz all that quote says to me is that one "unit" of endurance, whatever that may be, is taken away every second, and that they really need to try harder on this "hard numbers" thing. The endurance/second numbers we're used to seeing on the forums mostly have little relation to how the devs probably think of toggles because lots of toggles don't tick once per second. They tick anywhere from several times per second to, in the case of Cloak of Fear, about once every five seconds.

I suspect that in devspeak CoF would be represented as 1 "unit"/5 seconds. This is as misleading as it is unhelpful.

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Based on replies to my PMs to Castle, those units do not mean end/second. In the case of Dark Embrace, he quoted to me a value a little over 0.3 end/sec, which compares directly with EPP armors on the Hero side.

Note that I agree that giving us the information in such a format (on the plaque, not Castle) is particularly useless.

In my experience, PvP capable squsihies aren't lying around waiting for the melee toons to engage them, and when they are engaged, their teammates assist them. Moreover, such capable toons have means of self-defense or escape.

Ever tried to kill an empath with buffed teammates using a Brute? Ever tried to kill an Ice/ or Sonic/ Corruptor using a Scrapper when their Brute and Stalker buddies are around?

With smart players wielding the better powersets, it's not as if either is a trivial task.

The notion that there are "better powersets" is a separate issue, and one, honestly, I'm not particularly keen on seeing addressed because what works well in PvE doesn't often translate to what works well in PvP, and changes in one often spill into the other.

That would be immediately obvious in any strenuous testing, and it doesn't sound like the testing bears that out.

Hate to say it, but that was a pretty out there hope. 35-40 in CoV looks more like 45-50 in CoH, with AVs tripping over themselves to be in your missions. I assumed that 41-50 was just going to continue the progression.

Hell, I'm half expecting level 50 CoV missiosn to have 8-man missions place AVs in random spawns instead of bosses, with EBs where the LTs go and bosses for the minions.

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If Frozen Fists only have a 5% chance of dropping toggles in i7, does it mean MONSTERS, like Outcasts, will also follow these rules? Or will they drop our toggles as frequently as before?

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Monsters do not drop toggles.

Monsters may mez you, and this may cause your togges to drop. Monster powers do not and have never had the ability to drop togges except as a bug. To my knowledge most of those bugs were fixed by the time I5 rolled out. If you are still experiencing them, then report them as bugs.

Again, toggle dropping is not the same as being mezzed and losing your toggles.