Galaxy Brain

Just want to necro this thread since I found it when looking up something else 😉 Looking back, I think the 1st page suggestions are great but it definitely needs some extra oomph to set it apart from other sets besides knocking enemies down constantly. Additional cone hits, "mighty" hit pseudo-criticals, etc could all be fun.

I was playing around with this last night to see what would need to realistically change for SS if we want the same / similar current performance but with a nerfed Rage. Using the standard damage formula (seen below), we would realistically have to bump up the Recharge of the SS abilities to get more output: For a baseline, lets look at current Tanker SS (via Mid's) with 80% Rage This is with a single stack of 80% Rage. With no damage enhancement, it is a very significant boost. With 3 Damage IO's (around 99% enhancement), that relative boost is halved, though still very good. I also included the damage scale for these powers, though I know the Foot Stomp scale is not accurate, which is why it is in blue/italic. I blame the time change and me being sleepy, but this is more for tracking the relative change when we apply the new formula lol. Speaking of, lets see what we would need for Recharge Times to match a Rage at 40% damage boost: In order to get to just about the same damage performance with 1/2 rage values, we would need to slow down the Recharge of SS attacks by about 30% (1.33x multiplier is more accurate to near 1:1 ratio, but 30% is cleaner). This results in about a 22% base damage increase per power.... which coincidentally is just about what Bruising gave 🤔 Let's assume for a sec that we apply a 20% "Bruising" debuff on SS attacks, non-stacking, just as long as you hit your targets + the normal base damage and recharge times: So, at a glance it seems that halving Rage's buffs but adding in a -20% Res "Bruising" effect would let you match current values. Well, a bit less at base but a bit more when enhanced. Neat.

Generally cones do more damage per target iirc?

God I wanna play a bots/elec MM now

Fire Breath is actually it's best on tanks now due to their changes, but it's still bad. I think making Fire Breath not 30* and faster animating (at least match frost) would be a start, then making GFS a cone as well could go a long way immediately.

What would fire melee on tanks get? They have both powers.

Right, but that was also pre current defiance where we can attack through mez + support sets can also provide mez protection

Its *nice*, but it does not close the gap especially when kat/X is likely still better. Maybe if parry were more like a "counter" and had more offensive utility? You usually see katana wielders being the one to like... spin their sword to block projectiles or be on the defense. Broadsword could still have +Def but the attack can maybe deal large bonus damage if you had been attacked recently. Example: at the start of combat, if you have Parry (Counter) as a power, you could gain a temporary buff signified by the orange circle around (Counter) if an enemy swings at you. The attack does not have to land, but maybe there is a % chance per attack directed at you and direct hits have a better chance, idk. When you use Counter with the circle activated the attack procs a large amount of extra damage, DoT, and maybe even a knockdown on the target and then locks out Counter for X seconds.

I like this, but as mentioned earlier relying on geometry is unreliable. Obvious example being a completely open area with nothing to knock into, but how would this behave in a hallway where you have the choice to knock a guy 10ft into a wall, or 30ft into a wall on the other end? Which would be more effective?

Looks like designing / revamping existing enemies to add new content could be the way to go.

It looks like my basic idea has gotten a lot of momentum from pretty much everyone I've spoken with, as well as people who have popped into the thread! I guess all that is next is to see if this is even feasible to implement?

At least the tech is there in theory to be used on the Gun Drone in a way. My separate, but related, wish is to just have this in CoH:

@Redlynne *Coughcough* Detonator exists and can blow up pets just like you want here, and porting it to Dev... and hell letting you use it on an enemy directly would be cool *coughcough*

You arent doing it wrong, but every set is different.

I agree with this in terms of "Unskippable", but on the flipside I feel that having powers that are "Yeah, skip these lol" is equally bad. As you say, many of these are certainly optional powers but as-is they are not optimal. Boosting them up would indeed be buffing them beyond "QoL" as well. I think this is where AT differences should come into play as well. Blasters, Corruptors and Defenders all get the same powers for the most part, but these could be targets to make each version stand out a bit from others. Blaster Tesla Cage can be more offensive while Defender TC has an amazing -End/-Rec attached, and so on.

Well, if nobody is allowed to call for nerfs then you're left with this

I think the idea is like, beyond all that if you continue to play past like lvl 100 you could gain account-wide perks

@Wavicle, what is the overall goal you want to accomplish with this? Dont want to come off as condescending, more just curious as to what will improve and why

I'd vote against speeding up the animation... it becomes Katana then 😛

Ayyy badass ranks! 😉 For context, Borderlands 2 had a similar system where doing certain actions as you played would unlock Badass Tokens, which you could spend on a table of small buffs per token. They were from a list of about 10, but you could only pick from 5 at a time that were randomly assorted per purchase. These applied to your account, so playing 1 character and getting a bunch would help the next character out, and could be turned on and off at will. The more you got tho, the progressively harder it would be to earn more + the less bonus you got per pick. Something similar could be done here where each vet level you pick a random stat to give 1% to. But, that value decreases per pick so if you pick damage multiple times, it becomes: 1% > 0.88% > 0.77% > 0.67% > 0.59% > 0.51% > 0.5% > 0.5%, etc

They sap twice as fast, which while awesome... in the case of blasters they have the same "Ratio" of Damage - Drain if you have say, 2 elec/elec blasters tossing out AoEs and blaps.

I like it too! Its just as you said though, you need -End, -Recovery, and quick + constant application to keep it going else in the time before full drain you are essentially fighting in the open. In most situations, other secondaries have similar mitigation over time or immediate effects when it comes to control. There are certainly edge cases where you can effectively drain hard targets, but often the ones you'd want to sap dry have extreme resistance to it, which is true of other debuffs too but they don't need to be 100% to "work". I think what we all want here is for End Drain to just be better in some way given that it is a very fun playstyle, but it takes so much effort to work and the sets that have it typically end up sacrificing numerically too.

Well that's the thing, Dominator / True CC powers apply safety immediately where sapping attacks do not + are attacks I've played an elec/elec/elec blaster for years on live, I know all about both blapping and end drain. I would open with SC + PS to drain mobs, but I essentially never noticed the effects from any other power but those two as Ball lightning, Static Discharge, Blaps, etc would just kill enemies outright without need of further drainage. That is not to say that sapping is not viable or powerful! But that all the power of it, in my experience, is really rooted in a few powers. What we seem to be circling around here is that there are certain key powers are what really do the sapping, while others really... don't. Other sets apply slows, -Def, controls, etc that are all immediately useful. Attacks that apply -End, unless it is a lot of it, are more often not really notable for their secondary effect. Powers like conductive aura, Power Sink, etc are all notable because their main focus is to drain end and not their secondary effect. It just so happens that you kinda need all or nothing for this particular effect to matter which can be questionable, given to get to "all" you need particular synergies else you run into the situation where you may end up killing faster than draining and the effect never comes into play!

Broadsword definitely needs a little something (Same with Battle Axe). Their main problems compared to their contemporaries are the animation times + area coverage (and DPA changes on Mace vs Axe). If Broadsword had a different way to build damage / proc DoT / etc over Katana, and if Axe had better AoE potential then each would have a distinct niche I think. Edit @Burnt Toast, True, but BS and Katana, and Axe and WM are both nearly identical sets to each other.

Ran the defender base numbers, and we see the following at base: Minions don't seem worthwhile to drain, at least +0/+1. Oh, and lets look at 95% damage enhancement, 30% boost from Vigilance, and 1 enhancement for End Drain: And lets assume you have something like Enervating Field or Tar Patch which is a layer of -30%ish Resist: Corruptors would be somewhere in between all this and Scourge is silly.... so yeah