Galaxy Brain

(Shameless bump) With the change to Sentinel Regen I think this may be a more viable idea... 😉

Its all Nemesis

What the FRICK did you just FRICKIN say about me, you little AE BABY? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the FREEDOM CORPS, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on ARACHNOS, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in RIKTI MONKEY warfare and I'm the top QUICK SNIPER in the entire LONGBOW armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the FRICK out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my FRICKIN words. You think you can get away with saying that STUFF to me over the Internet? Think again, FRICKER. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the FORUMS and your @GLOBAL_NAME is being traced right now so you better prepare for the TORNADO LOADED WITH PROCS, maggot. The TORNADO LOADED WITH PROCS that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're FRICKIN dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my T1 AND T2. Not only am I extensively trained in NON-IO combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the SG BASE STORAGE and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the SERVER, you little PL BABY. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your FRICKIN tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you SILLY WILLY. I will SPAM fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're FRICKIN dead, kiddo.

I think this may be the best bet going forward to be the least disruptive. It would affect existing content, but it would allow you to toggle on the "Master" settings which in my mind would give increased incentives: Toggle on the enemies with advanced defenses -> huge Inf/XP gain per choice when you defeat them Toggle on the EB booster / Special enemy powers -> gain 1 merit per defeat of these new bosses Etc

So, to steer back on topic. We have a few points here: 1) In general, AoE damage is king simply due to how the game works 2) Because of AoE damage prowess, and personal defenses, certain types of play are devalued or out-competed 3) Incarnate powers can emphasize these traits I think all 3 could be addressed via altered content. For example, a "Master Mode" for TF's and Story Arcs that triggers Elite Boss spawns, spawns with incredible defenses unless they get CC'd, spawns that require specific positional attacks to hit since they have great def vs other positions, etc. Something that encourages players to use more of their toolkits than just the best damaging abilities.

Fair points, I suppose the difference is in the language though. Advertising "Hey, X AT run!" vs "Hey, NO X!" has different connotations IMO.

You're asking people to un-slot a number of things in order to join your team which can be off-putting compared to just joining a PuG normally. Like if you replaced Incarnate with anything else (No Stalker TF forming, No Energy Blast Team Forming), I bet people would understandably be questionable of the team. Yes, we as players have the ability to form specialized teams and make our own "rules", but look at the reaction to that whenever the same idea is suggested with Knockback 😜

Yes, you can do this but it's kind of obtuse unless you reach out and organize a specialized group of people to join along and for the people who do enjoy incarnate powers it is exclusionary. I think the healthier option would be to make optional content that leans on how Incarnates are much more common as well as leans into the sort of "anti meta" for some different/thrilling content.

It is a side note tho that you can use them in non-incarnate content which inflates their perceived power. Anyone running stuff at lvl 45 and above can see Incarnate abilities used, which combined with how easy it is to get them as Monos mentioned can be a sort of double whammy. @Yomo Kimyata, "Meta" in this sense is referring to the Game within the Game. CoH at it's basic level is a bout making your own character and going to town beating up on villains from mission to mission. The game within that game is then the best way to go about beating up villains mission to mission. For example, the mission to mission part has a "meta" in terms of the best means of travel where sometimes even the fastest (Super Speed) is not optimal due to vertically challenging zones. Likewise skipping any sort of travel is anti-meta as you have made it harder to get mission to mission. It's still possible to get everywhere you need to go, and it is definitely your choice to be a "sprint only guy", but it is not optimal. Same applies with missions. Even at +0/x0 difficulty, most encounters are with more than one enemy at a time. You could use ST attacks to take them out one by one, or use an AoE to hit them all at once. You have CC abilities, you could just fire it off at random at the first guy you see, or pick a select target to lock down first for better safety. So on and so forth. Team content by default has you face off against hordes of enemies, which by nature makes AoE powers higher value until you run into particularly difficult single targets. If we're looking at the game "as a whole", those single targets are much more rare than your normal group of baddies. If we focus on just certain trials/etc, then they become much more relevant. Just like the Super Speed example vs Vertical Maps, Flight or Super Jump get better the more verticality there is but with less SS pulls ahead. "Meta" refers to the natural optimization of play based on the challenges you have to overcome. I do think that overall, even with the specific trials/etc considered, the game does heavily favor AoE Damage over other traits for a variety of reasons already discussed. My OP gives a snapshot of what is probably observable in any given team vs any given mob of random enemies is capable of with an "average" AoE volley. Could they perform worse? Yes. Can they perform much better by adding nukes / etc? Also yes. But, despite this being a snapshot it does paint a picture that your "average team" just tossing out powers into a group of baddies is very powerful and at the very least makes Crowd Control powers overshadowed if most incoming damage can be eliminated by attacks. If a controller using their secondary to boost the damage of a team mate is more "effective" than using their primary to lock down the enemies, that seems a bit dubious as you'd think their primary function would be their highlight. The call for more incarnate content could tie into this all though. Identifying what the current meta favors and throwing challenges that require different strategies than the norm + some altered stats could be perfect for breathing new life into certain sets, playstyles, or even AT's. Just food for thought, but imagine if more things acted like Hami Mitos where you needed to CC them first in some manner to begin damaging them in a new Incarnate setting...

Being able to join an arc and finish it with somebody for X% of the reward equal to X% of the arc you ran would be amazing. Its always annoying that you can run a whole story arc with another player all the way through, but because you didnt also have the contact + the same missions you lose out 😕

@Xanatos, I did not skim read, and I am aware of how lvl 50 teams play. This idea would help controllers, would it be copied to Dominators as well?

I really think that the best bet is having a 3rd soldier, then making the medic replace Serum as a special pet that also applies it's own version of Serum.

I'm curious, how does finding the average base damage for a "large", non nuke AoE and then applying 95% (basic) damage enhancement and about 60% added enhanced damage to account for the variety of buffs ATs naturally get or are passed around in a team not usable data? Yes, specific teams may not match this but if you were to look at tons of team layouts averaged it should pan out close to this, no? In a vacuum yes, but AoE attacks and Mezzes could be treated differently. Agreed, and as shown even if AoE mezzes were auto hit they'd be outclassed by average AoEs. There needs to be some way to give them value in a meta where the AoE damage of even basic set ups is so strong. Many people online would say otherwise. If the game is to easy, either with enemies dying quickly or personal defenses too good, then yes that devalues controllers. A singularity effect would be awesome, and is hopefully in the works with the vectored knockback. However, it still doesnt help the usage of their other control powers.

Well, they sort of are when you want to boil down why certain sets "suck" and why the "game is too easy"

In my OP, I showed how strong just your average AoE is. The problem extends beyond judgement.

@Redlynne, for what it's worth we dont know exactly how hard changing animation or at least interrupt (in terms of canceling the animation into another action) time is. It could be as easy as changing the recharge by changing a play rate value. We have seen drastic animation time changes in dominator powers in HC already, so its definitely something that could be done along with the recharge 🙂

Mom, dad, please stop fighting 😞

@Redlynne, for the soldiers the recharge wouldnt matter given how long the animations are. That's where they need real help (honestly both stats).

that said, future soldiers would be lit as a new set

I agree that mercs should not have beam rifles. Different types of military guns? Sure, but lets keep it to pumping lead 🙂

It matters for a large amount of powersets to feel "effective" in normal gameplay. The normal gameplay loop heavily favors AoEs mowing through hoards of enemies for the majority of interactions which in turn favors certain powersets and playstyles over others. Each of those could (and honestly should) be looked at individually, but the flipside would be to introduce gameplay that favors the "forgotten" playstyles instead to give them new value. The latter being more economic as many sets suffer from similar issues when judged against what we observe as the norm.

Ok, I've been able to go through and gather data on all the Pet DPS per set given the actual rotations they use! The following will showcase the DPS of each set with 95% damage enhancement on the pets, along with the 25% from supremacy, and any buffs (Enforcer Leadership, Pack mentality, etc) or debuffs (Demon -Res, etc) relevant to the sets that can be attained naturally. Also included are relevant lvl 18 powers such as Smoke Flash, HoE, Etc, to the totals. The ST damage is straight forward the DPS on a single entity, while the AoE dps is the damage spread out to a group that accounts for the max practical targets per attack (this was tricky, but using the area formula you can get a rather accurate idea of how certain cones/areas could hit targets in a practical setting. For example the Soldier Full Auto has a target cap of 10, but with how narrow the cone is it is more likely you hit about 5-6). Values are also shown for +0 and +4 lvl encounters. Putting it together as a ranking between ST, AoE, and 0-4 performance: We have the above ranking for damage output at the least. We have three distinct tiers with some wiggle room between: A Tier: Demons Self explanatory, they cover a variety of damage types as well as have great debuffs which mix in well with their raw damage output. The debuffs allow them to be exceptional at ST DPS, and they are no slouch at AoE DPS as they are only behind the two sets that can ignite the battlefield with layered burns. B Tier: Thugs / Beasts / Bots = Ninjas Overall these 4 sets have similar performance across the spectrum, with Thugs getting a slight edge, and Beasts being a *little* better than Bots and Ninjas. Beasts are sort of "middle" of each segment which puts them in a great spot damage-wise, Ninjas are a worse Demons in terms of ST and AoE potential, and likewise Robots are a worse Thugs with their saving grace beign the Assault Bot's scaling vs +4 targets allowing optimal AoE performance. C Tier: Necro // Mercs Necromancy is a bit odd, as it sacrifices damage for a great deal of control and debuffing, as shown here where it's middling ST performance and poor AoE bring it down. Mercs however are on another level where they are bottom of the barrel in every slot except +4 AoE thanks to the Commando's scaling. These two sets are actually quite similar where they appear to be designed to have more control or debuffing instead of raw damage. While Necro has the Lich with multiple AoE controls, and strong ST debuffs throughout the tiers, Mercs really only has the two Spec Ops which have controls on very low usage 😞 Lets take a look at how they fare with @Monos King and I's suggestions: For reference, a global change was the addition of a +1 level shift to the T1 pets which accounts for a decent boost to damage and Debuff output. At a glance, the actual output of each set seems a bit tighter than before with fewer large "gaps" between them. Necro's changes to have many more ghosts + additional *conditional damage from the Lich add up fast to allow it to do much better vs +4 content than before, as well as snowball into an ST powerhouse if you are able to maintain your undead army. Likewise, the gap between Thugs, Bots, and Beasts have lessened to be roughly even in output. Ninjas are left behind somewhat with only changes to their defenses being proposed, which in context of the actual attack rotations makes other sets possibly a bit over-buffed. Even with the proposed changes, Mercs are still the least damaging primary (outside of +4 AoE being "OK"). Luckily our changes also make them incredibly durable while at least making their DPS competitive instead of purely anemic. Next up would be actually measuring that utility and durability per primary to compare against their DPS for a "proper" ranking.

What I am against is directly attributing performance to Procs as a hard-core measurement. Yes, they play a role but seeing as they are optional in how they are slotted they should not be the deciding factor in how powers get changed (outside edge cases).

Wolves can put the same exact procs in the same exact amount of powers, and they have literally over 3x the base DPS of Soldiers before that.

No, they should not be held back on account of this as even with all those procs they still fall way behind currently. Make them work at a base level then worry about that after.