Galaxy Brain

Theres a lot of blinders going on in this thread... starting from the top: Power Customization can only go so far. IIRC, things like making an alt theme for Fire Blast that uses the Beam Rifle for "fire rifle" is not feasbile due to the way the game is set up. Especially if you could customize each power to where Flares is from the gun, and Fire Blast from your hands it would break your character animations or something to that effect. The animations and emmision points for projectiles/FX are really baked in and make it very hard to swap around freely, especially with weapons involved. Im sure if they could have made swaps where you could use Crane Kick to shoot blaze ala Fire Bending, that would have already been tackled 😞 There are already sets that heavily imply an origin. For example, Traps, Robotics, Devices, and Assault Rifle, Arsenal Control/Assault all heavily imply the use of technology with the defaults/majority being all tech weapons or even typing on a wrist-pad to summon your powers. Demon Summoning blatantly uses demonic runes to summon your minions, as does Necromancy to a degree... though off the top of my head I cant think of any other magic-leaning sets aside from Sorcery Pool (obv), and possibly all the dark sets as they lean in on the netherworld. Bio Armor as mentioned also more leans on Mutation/Science. Point being, there is already precedent for some sets leaning more towards certain origins than others. A Sorcery/Magic/Arcane/Chaos blast set is not out of the question based on that, and if anything seems due to counterbalance all the tech-ish ones we already have! That is not to say you cant hand-wave the how for each of these. Your robotics character could be summoning magically produced constructs, while your demon summoner could be calling up demons from a Doomdash service on their smart phone. That doesnt change that the default aesthetics sort of lean one way or the other and from point 1, may not be as flexible as we like but as players its our job to be creative with the tools we are given. Aesthetics and Mechanics should have equal weight. Lastly, just because one set may be aesthetically similar to another, does not mean they would offer the same gameplay. Beam Rifle and Energy Blast both shoot energy at enemies, both can even knock back! However, both play out very differently witj EB being all about knocks and having a PBAoE nuke, and BR has the disintegrate mechanic and is more range based. Same with Elec Blast and Storm Blast both having electrical powers but one is based on sapping and the other location-based/debuffing. War Mace and Battle Axe even sharing the same animations but having power to power differences. So on and so forth. Just because you can currently emulate the feel with an existing set or there is something similar (elec/storm pre storm blast) does not mean a new set cannot be made that offers a different style of gameplay within that aesthetic! The only tricky bit would be to find out what exactly "sorcery" would do to stand out. Fittingly, my mind immediately went to Cursing a target like with Beam Rifle, but then having different effects for Cursed targets than what we see in Disintegrate. We just gotta be creative is all 🙂

One thing I noticed is the 8 second window for stacks... attacking the same target repeatedly wouldnt give you 10 stacks even with the fastest chain available, this seems like it would be very reliant on the AoEs siphoning to achieve max damage buff. Not to say its a bad thing as that sorta limits the ST potential being too bonkers?

It depends on the context. A single damage proc will hit for ~72 damage which could account for WAY more than the -20% res of an achilles. An attack would need to deal 310 or more in order for the -20% to match or surpass the +72 damage dealt! However, the -20% res will linger and effect all damage on the target. So an attack with 200 damage + 72 proc damage will be boosted from 272 -> 326 damage total. So unless you run with a team where you know they have -res procs everywhere it is usually a good idea to have it somewhere in your build in order to make the damage procs even better.

Found it: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_24 All nukes, not just inferno, would have multiple bonus damage rolls thay could lead to much higher damage. When they got updated, the bonus procs were removed and the new damage values were made to be "about average" based on the odds / damage per roll.

@Rudra, nukes definitely got smacked down in power level when their crashes were removed. Prior to that, they had IIRC higher base damage, but also multiple bonus chances to do even *more* damage. If I recall, inferno could do like triple what it does now with a lucky roll. Way, way back in the day you could form dumpster teams where tanks would herd entire maps to one spot (usually a dumpster) and then folks would pile on Burn or just nuke all at once. Rapid fire nukes of today are incredible but they do not come close to that goofiness 😀 As for the topic at hand, its a mixed bag. IMO, the root issue is deeper where certain stats and pool powers flat out overshadow others even when theyre used as intended. Combine that with limited picks and it will funnel you to only certain choices naturally as you learn how the game works.

Wait, are you suggesting I can't wear a supreme hoodie while using soul noir?

Right! Similarly, Cat 5 and Storm Cell to an extent also do this but have more time to toss folks in. To me, it just feels like the set shines in scenarios where you can make a "perfect storm" / scales upwards very well when it comes to chewing through MANY targets big or small. Its a matter of finding those scenarios tho

Three slotting for damage should not matter as it's the difference between what you are comparing more than their individual values. Dividing the results posted by 1.95 will give the raw results: Blizzard = 16 targets * 824.1402 = 13,186.2432 dam / 6762.176 Cat 5 = 16 targets * 131.0008 = 2,096.0128 / 1074.8783 Eye Wall = 10 targets * 628.7381 = 6,287.3810 / 3224.2979 Cat 5 Lightning = 5 targets * 121.9949 = 609.9745 / 312.8074 Total = 8,993.3683 / 4611.9837 Total = 20,582.8838 possible damage / 10,555.325 Comparing these values enhanced/raw will still be the same ratios as they are enhanced by the same 95% too: Enhanced: Cat 5 No Lightning = 8,383.3938 / Blizzard 13,186.2432 = 63.57% Raw: Cat 5 No Lightning = 4,299.1763/ Blizzard 6762.176 = 63.57% None of the numbers rely on Storm Cell as posted above, just on Cat 5 + Being able to throw in Storm powers.

Sure thing! So, first thing would be to look into City of Data: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=blaster_ranged.storm_blast.category_five&at=blaster . The site offers a lot clearer info on powers than in-game as IIRC the power detail window can be weird at times. From that link, we can look at the different parts of Cat 5 and the damage they deal for a Blaster: Cat 5 - Category Five https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=redirects.storm_blast.category_five&at=blaster Summoned instantly, the "Category Five" part of Cat 5 hits every 0.2s (Activate Period, seen in Auto and Toggle powers) over 30s for a total of 151 hits (30/0.2 = 150, but usually the last "tick" has a hit, like if you look at Fire Blast it's DoTs are DoT every Sec for 2.1s, so it counts as 3 since it goes beyond 2 seconds). Dealing 0.4449 damage per hit, x 151 = 67.1799 total damage. If we assume 95% slotting: 1.95 * 67.1799 = 131.0008 damage Cat 5 - Eye Wall https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=redirects.storm_blast.nukenado_pulse&at=blaster Summoned after the 5s mark, this hits every 0.5s over 25s = 51 hits. Dealing 5.0049 damage, x 51 = 255.2499. Times 1.95 = 497.7373 damage. A key thing here though is that this hits 10 targets per hit vs 16 on the base power. Adding them together, Cat 5 passively deals 322.4298 -> 628.7381 damage. Blizzard - Blizzard https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.blizzard.blizzard&at=minion_pets Lasting for 15s, it hits as fast as Cat 5 above but for more damage per hit. 15/0.2 = 75 (76) hits of 2.7805 * 2 (Lethal and Cold) = 422.636, x1.95 = 824.1402 damage Blizzard hits 16 targets the whole time, and deals its damage in 1/2 the time of Cat 5. However, it does not have the lightning procs: Cat 5 - Cat 5 Lightning https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=redirects.storm_blast.category_five_lightning&at=blaster Hitting 5 targets at a time, the lightning bolts hit for 62.5615 damage, x1.95 = 121.9949. The lightning also gives targets a 5s lockout from being struck again, so the most any one person can be struck is 6 times (30 / 5). 6 x 121.9949 = 731.9694 damage + 628.7381 passive damage = 1,360.7075 total vs 1 dude. So while Blizzard deals ~30% more passive damage than Cat 5, Storm's Nuke can likewise deal 65% more when active. ...stuff gets complex when you factor in mob sizes + the different target caps / lockouts, but I can try to map that out: Blizzard = 16 targets * 824.1402 = 13,186.2432 dam Cat 5 = 16 targets * 131.0008 = 2,096.0128 Eye Wall = 10 targets * 628.7381 = 6,287.3810 Cat 5 Lightning = 5 targets * 121.9949 = 609.9745 Total = 8,993.3683 Assuming there are 16 targets, and lets assume each attack you toss out procs lightning, you can proc roughly once every 1.5s if we average out the cast times of storm powers. 16/5 = 3.2, so after 3 attacks (4.5s) you have hit all but 1 guy in the crowd, but by the time you do so the 1st batch of 5 targets are 0.5s away from being valid targets again. In practice, the varying cast times / latency / etc would likely make it so you do hit 5 targets every 1.5s or so. 30 / 1.5 = 20 total procs * 609.9745 = 12,199.49 dam Total = 20,582.8838 possible damage So due to RNG, Cat 5 can be kinda hit or miss but combined with the other attacks you toss out during it, it can do tremendous bonus damage. Granted, it takes a good deal of time to deal said damage but it's there. If anything, IMO the fact it lasts a while means in any situation where you have more than 16 people (ITF fights for example) it will do WAY more output as you keep tossing targets at it.

Well there was that, and the total damage for cat 5 should be higher, esp of you include lightning

You may want to check your math on these.

Lets use Fire Blast as an example. With only 95% damage boost via enhancement, lets see how many blasters within 1s of animation to get to the tootsie roll center of 16 minions: Vs even level, it would take 4~3 blasters with 0 outside buffs using fireball at the same time to wipe out 16 minions depending on DoT Vs +4, it would take more than 8 to roughly 6 to do the same given all DoT damage applies (over 2.6s) Even vs +4, without any bonuses aside from what is slotted in the power (assuming you hit/etc), you would still see "wasted" AoEs even with a 1s animation

Could, sure. Seems like itd be easy to try in game and provide results 🙂

Skimming through this, a few things stood out. 1) if teams are clearing +4 mobs in less than 10s, are you really even contributing per person? Like if taking 2s of animation time means you miss out on that fight then I think there are bigger issues. 2) At the same time, that sounds very anecdotal. Does anyone have evidence of fights lasting this long on average / that they *really* are not contributing? Do you have results like @Ston where you actually compared sets back to back and showed tangible results?

It shows up if you show Pet Combat stats iirc