UberGuy

Um, did you mean that for me? Because I've never said word one about soloability.

FF used to absolutely kick [censored] as team mitigation before I5. I personally think it was underrated due to "r u healor" syndrome, but many knew. Now it will, I think, be regarded that way again.

ToHit debuffs were never a straight line. They always were less effective in terms of mitigation versus higher level foes. In fact, mitigation falloff used to be roughly quadratic (increasing as a function of level difference squared), where now it will be roughly linear.

The defense scaling change is an unqualified improvement in the way toHit debuffs aid us. The nerf is due exclusively to the change in schedule (and to a lesser degree, the new rank-based resistance).

Meh. I don't see that being a "real" issue. ED still kicked in at the knee for the correct schedule. The most exploitive this got was it allowed you to get a little more than 3 SO's effect for 2 HOs. So - limited exploit that came into play only for level 45+ characters. Annoying in PvP, but hardly game breaking.

Exactly.

Their jobs are not, specifically, to provide us with patch notes, or explanations, or posts here on the forums. That is not anyone here's JOB except (possibly) for Cuppa and Awry, who work for NCSorft, not Cryptic.

I might be annoyed with a fast food employee that told me they were going to speed up service, or increase the amount of meat in their burgers, or add new menu items, if those things didn't materialize. I might even stop going to that place, if those things were important to me. But unless providing those things (and telling me details about them) was somewhere in the obvious job description of that employee I wouldn't assume I could get them fired over it.

They told us they'd do better patch notes. They should. They should keep promises if theywant happy customers. But nowhere is it written they even need to provide patch notes. It makes good sense that they do, but it just doesn't rise to the level some people try to take it here.

It's simple. If you can't stand the game's direction or changes, it's better if you just leave it behind. The level of stress some of this seems to cause some of you just isn't worth it. It's a video game. I understand better than some how invested we can get in a game like this. But if it makes you this unhappy, walk away. At least for a while.

I actually can't get Geko's math on DR debuffs against foes with nonzero DR to work based on testing I did with BP zombies, Dark Blast, and Tar Patch. I know he said his math was inexact. I remember a thread (probably long gone) where people were discussing this and coming up with forumulas for it.

Anyway, we're now firmly off topic here.

I was able to manage a test stacking two Tar Patches of my own, an the before/after numbers worked out to a ratio of 1.60. If they used to stack in a nonlinear fashion, the devs changed it without noting it.

[ QUOTE ]
MoG, Elude, Overload, PFF, etc will be harder than ever to punch though by players.

I'd like to know how much my 3 slotted nova form with 2hit buffs will be reduced and my debuffing AOE attacks?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nothing in any of this changes the character's ability to hit anything.

This affects only mobs ability to hit us.

The schedule change in the OP is for toHit debuffs - something that would make it harder for mobs to hit us (or to hit other players in PvP).

OK, that's the thread I remembered. Thanks for that.

So, getting back to my mitigation calculations, it sounds like Defense debuffs are not resisted except by specific powers (such as those found on +Def powersets).

Do we think that damage debuffs will be resisted or not? I have verified that debuffing the DR of a target increases the effect of a damage debuff on it. This strongly suggests to me that a target with appropriate DR would resist a damage debuff.

I would swear a redname confirmed this behavior in the past (that debuffs were resisted by damage resistance matching the "type" of the debuff). We were even discussing forumlas for it. It caused quite a furor at the time among the Defender community.

To my recollection, the discussion at the time centered on DR debuffs (at the time, I think that was primarily Enervating Field). It was some time ago, though, so I just may not remember correctly.

Anyone want to test it?

EDIT: Hmm, so we know it's resisted for damage debuffs. What about DR debuffs (the thing I remember the devs talking about)? And if those two, why not toHit? This is why I'm asking if we're sure.

Are we positive that their resistances resist the toHit debuff? Because now I've heard they do and they dont. Castle? Anyone?

Also, I think you misunderstood my point. I understand that DR debuffs affect damage debuffs. I was talking specifically about EF and the fact that there's no way to measure the damage debuff independant of the DR debuff (much like it's impossible to measure Hasten's true recharge directly).

I'm in a Strike Force right now, with my Ice/Dark.

How is that possible if damage debuffs work that way? (q.v Tar Patch and Darkest Night). I believe it is impossible for it to work that way. If so, the base debuff is set so that the "buffed" debuff works out to 22%.

In any case, it all means that I have, in fact, double counted it. I'll correct my earlier post to that effect.

OK, here are my attempts to meassure "defensive" mitigation. I've tried to calculate the combined effect of toHit and damage debuffs for Radiation Emission and Dark Miasma, as well as the effect of the DR debuffs in EF and TP on the damage debuff. (I am assuming it does not effect the toHit debuff.)

I express everything in terms of "Mitigation". This number is the final percent of foe's damage the debuffing will remove.

For accuracy, mitigation is obviously an average value. It's obtained simply by dividing debuffed accuracy by "normal" accuracy, and subtracting that from 100%. Someone who hits 80% of the time normally debuffed to hit 25% of the time has had (1-.25/.8) or 68.75% of their damage mitigated.

For damage debuffs, I have used builder numbers. I have Darkest Night at 37.5% and Enervating Field at 32.5%. I have increased both of these by the damage boost of EF and Tar Patch, which based on some forum searching I believe to both be 30%.

Here are the results:

Force Field
Pure defense mitigation. Assumed 14%+9.25% defense, 3-slotted with defense SOs.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>--------------------
+0 Minion: 73.145%
+0 LT : 73.145%
+0 Boss : 73.145%
+0 AV : 73.145%
--------------------
+1 Minion: 73.145%
+1 LT : 73.145%
+1 Boss : 73.145%
+1 AV : 73.145%
--------------------
+2 Minion: 73.145%
+2 LT : 73.145%
+2 Boss : 73.145%
+2 AV : 73.145%
--------------------
+3 Minion: 73.145%
+3 LT : 73.145%
+3 Boss : 73.145%
+3 AV : 72.438%</pre><hr />

No surprise here. This is exactly what the defense scaling is supposed to do. Average mitigation is constant (and nice and high).

Radiation Emission
Assumed that the user is hitting the foes with both Enervating Field and Radiation Infection. EDIT: I have changed this to reflect the fact that EF does not effectively buff its own damage debuff. (I suspect this is similar to how Hasten affects its own recharge, but it's base recharge is set for a round number even with its affect accounted for.)

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>+0 Minion: 93.250%
+0 LT : 92.225%
+0 Boss : 85.589%
+0 AV : 78.953%
--------------------
+1 Minion: 91.850%
+1 LT : 85.590%
+1 Boss : 79.330%
+1 AV : 73.070%
--------------------
+2 Minion: 84.201%
+2 LT : 78.381%
+2 Boss : 72.561%
+2 AV : 66.741%
--------------------
+3 Minion: 71.529%
+3 LT : 66.488%
+3 Boss : 61.448%
+3 AV : 55.260%</pre><hr />

NOTE: In reality a Rad Emission Defender (or Corruptor) can also be slowing their foes recharge rate, which has a meaningful but complicated effect on damage mitigation. Also, a Rad character is significantly increasing the rate at which his/her team (or pets, or self) is killing things through Accelerate Metabolism, the defense debuff in RI, and the DR debuff in EF. A Rad character can also provide moderate healing.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>+0 Minion: 94.225%
+0 LT : 93.348%
+0 Boss : 87.670%
+0 AV : 81.993%
--------------------
+1 Minion: 92.861%
+1 LT : 87.378%
+1 Boss : 81.894%
+1 AV : 76.410%
--------------------
+2 Minion: 85.866%
+2 LT : 80.660%
+2 Boss : 75.453%
+2 AV : 70.246%
--------------------
+3 Minion: 73.816%
+3 LT : 69.181%
+3 Boss : 64.545%
+3 AV : 58.855%</pre><hr />

Dark Miasma
I had to make this one a little different from the others because of the practical reality of how the powers work. In this chart, the Minion and LT lines assume that the mobs are being affected by Tar Patch, Darkest Night (3-slotted debuff), and Fearsome Stare (2-slotted debuff). The Boss and AV lines additionally assume that they are also constantly affected by one Twilight Grasp (1-slotted debuff). I am not certain of the damage debuff in TG - I think it is 25%, but that may only be the Corruptor version. I went with that number for these calculations.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>+0 Minion: 93.331%
+0 LT : 88.873%
+0 Boss : 96.122%
+0 AV : 92.283%
--------------------
+1 Minion: 87.815%
+1 LT : 83.421%
+1 Boss : 92.023%
+1 AV : 88.057%
--------------------
+2 Minion: 81.450%
+2 LT : 77.205%
+2 Boss : 86.924%
+2 AV : 82.916%
--------------------
+3 Minion: 70.313%
+3 LT : 66.450%
+3 Boss : 77.215%
+3 AV : 72.626%</pre><hr />

NOTE: In reality, a Dark Miasma character is providing more mitigation through the use of Fearsome Stare, which will cause most minions and LTs to stop fighting, and possibly Petrifying Gaze. Dark Pit can incapacitate minions for added control. I also did not include the additional debuffing possible from Dark Servant. Dark Servant can be summoned on top of foes, and if slotted for toHitDebuff he seems to compare favorably with Darkest Night for that purpose. Twilight Grasp also provides major healing (and is also used by Dark Servant also further debuffing that foe's damage).

That did occur to me. They're not much above the benefits of a SR Scrapper's armors, and they do have to cast them individually other than DB. Given that the other sets are tossing around Tanker-sized mitigation once the full set is brought to bear, I'm not sure there's much cause for concern. We'll see though.

Well, that does depend. While it says nothing about how interesting FF is to play, the numbers it offers through sheer defense are very impressive. When you account for the fact that this includes indirect protection from secondary effects (at least those that require a toHit roll), it's hardly sucky in I7.

I'm pretty sure that Tar Patch doesn't do -dam, but I'd be happy to see it verified. I am still at work, so I can't verify it myself.

You are correct about EF! Again, my thinking on what they do was colored by how I tend to use them. I will amend my previous post.

I mentioned RI being a defense debuff in the very text you quoted.

As to the results being skewed, honestly I'm trying to find out if Rad and Dark compare favorably to FF. Right now, from a pure defense perspective, FF is king. It's hard to skew things in favor of the underdogs.

I'm actually putting together a calculation of the total mitigation of Rad and DM (and now my Rad one will be less wrong since I'll remember the damage debuff on RI), so I can compare that to FF.

Things I will not be including in at least the graphs are the damage increase both sets provide, and the "AI recharge debuff" that Futurias mentioned. Those things matter, and I'll certainly enumerate them, but I have no clear way to show them on the same graphs that I can show damage mitigation versus foe level.

I have no idea how I'd ever quantify that. Not all foes will behave that way these days. Anyone with a ranged attack will happily stand in the Tar Patch and shoot at you.

I am unaware of Tar Patch debuffing damage output of foes. I believe it only applies -speed (not -Recharge) and -DR (which has the effect of multiplying damage).

Here's a slightly different view on all this.

Chart

This chart shows the reduction in hit rate achieved versus AVs of levels +0 through +3. By reduction, I mean:

(1 - after/before)

Line "FF Ratio" is a FF Defender using Shields and Dispersion Bubble. Defense is very constant. The little dip you see at +3 is because +3 AVs actually hit the 95% cap.

Line "RI Ratio" is Radiation Infection. It hammers a +0 AV pretty well, but tails off quite severely by +3. (Note, however, that it tails off even worse today.)

Line "DN Ratio" is the same thing for Darkest Night. DN is only 60% as strong a toHit debuff as RI, so it's no surprise that this line is quite a bit lower.

Of interest to many in this thread is line "DM Ratio". Here are the assumptions I used in this line.

*) Darkest Night is on the AV, 3-SO slotted for toHit debuff.
*) Fearsome Stare and Twilight Grasp are both a debuff of 0.1. I'm guessing at that number. It lines up with the notion of a 20% debuff.
*) FS is 2-slotted for toHit debuff, and TG is 1-slotted (this is how my DDD is slotted).
*) FS and TG are being cycled so that one application of each is on the AV at all times.

As mentioned earlier, FF is the clear winner, being better than anyone else except DM in full spam mode against a +0 AV.

Of interest is that Dark Miasma can mitigate significantly better than Rad with RI alone. (Caveat: I am not including Lingering Radiation's slow in this analysis.) If you consider that both DN and TG are also damage debuffs (that stack), the mitigation is pretty damn impressive. This lends some credence to the notion that Rad Emission is more of an offensive-oriented set, btter at increasing team damage output than decreasing foe output. (Rad could be buffing team damage with both Accelerate Metabolism and Enervating Field, as well as debuffing mob defense with RI).

Here's a rather shocking outcome. It does look like bubble defenders might return to their old glory days.

I'm going off hero builder numbers for FF here, so if these are wrong, someone please correct me.

Deflection/Insulation Shield: 14% defense
Dispersion Bubble: 9.25% defense

3 even-level Schedule B SOs is a modifier of 1.573, for a total of (0.140+0.925)*1.573 = 36.57% defense.

A +3 Archvillain has a 97.5% accuracy (capped, of course, at 95%). This is obtained through a rank modifier of 1.5 and a level modifier of 1.3.

1.3 * 1.5 * 0.5 = 0.975

Now, defense is directly subtracted from the base toHit.

1.3 * 1.5 * (0.5-.366) = 0.262

1 - 0.262/0.95 = 72% reduction in hit rate. This is an amazing reduction.

Strictly speaking, it looks to me like that should be 36%, 37% if you assume +3 SOs.

They have mods removing inflamtory, rude remarks. Had a post of your tone been directed at me, at the President of the US, or at someone you teamed with, they would have removed it just the same.

I have beat the devs up plenty on missing patch notes, changes I thought were wrong-headed, and probably other things I can't remember. I always did it in a civil tone. I've never had a post removed.

Honestly, your behavior is quite childish. You're not doing yourself any favors. By acting that way you almost guarantee that your viewpoint will be largely ignored, because you will be seen as an unreasonable extremist.

You can be negative without being unreasonable.

Sure, but they don't resist negative or energy with that.

Ahh, that's a good point. I guess this would have to be villains to have the breakdown I described - Dark Miasma Corruptor/MM, Dark Amor Brute, and maybe /Regen Stalker

(All I'm going for with the /Regen is someone who can easily soak the test damage and doesn't have passive resistances. Similar with the Dark Armor, their DR is fully togglable, and their resistance to negative can be quite significant. I'm focusing on Darkest Night because it handily would let us test both -toHit and -damage.)