Galaxy Brain

Fixed, thanks for the catch! I very much agree that different secondaries would yield different results. I would love to dive into what the next runs should be using, though that becomes much more dynamic given the goal of singling out primaries. I think we can circle back once we get data on all primaries with WP as the "least invasive" secondary. (Also, probably shorten runs to 5 instead of 10 with multiple pairings in consideration...) This is a fair assessment. +0/x3 was chosen to give groups that would leverage AoE caps for Melee on occasion. Though to be fair, in most content AoE is already heavily favored due to just sheer amount of enemies on even the lowest setting on a team or even when x1 and you face a couple of minions at once. If there is a better way, maybe +(Number) / x 2 that would be better weighted we could try that? This was something I did not really consider / communicate well on my end. I had been going in ignoring SoW / Revival as powers in that if I die the run ends / DNF. I think the test should rely more on the primary's mitigation if possible and if you die you need to try again. Other AT's will have other hurdles. For example, most Tanks and Trollers could probably handle x8 no sweat with just the time being a factor. This raises another excellent point looking at your slotting. We should probably agree upon the /WP build as a static variable when it comes to RTTC slots, and so on. I did not include Taunt or -Tohit for example on my runs, nor +Res in the T1 passive. Of the Ancillary pools, Body mastery is again the least invasive though it does eat into the "these sets are balanced by end consumption" hypothesis. This is awesome feedback! These are all interesting points. The added recovery from accolades & Body mastery can make certain sets seem much better if their supposed endurance issues are alleviated. Granted, this is very easy to do given you could do it in the SO environment (same with Accolades), but still 🤔 The taunting aspect is something that @Hopelingand I are trying to hash out. It seems that safer sets can afford to taunt to save time while some others cannot (like BS vs BA), and this may be a variable we need to account for going forward. Hasten will make a huge impact... but I am very curious as to when it was used. In the beginning? Towards the end when the EB came into play? Just curious on if there are swings either way since I do not think hasten could last the entirety of the encounter no matter what we do (until we get to crazy decked out builds)

I dont think testing every secondary would be necessary as many give bonuses that are found in others, or the secondary sort of acts on it's own and would give similar value to each primary its paired with. I do think SR should be on the table at some point for quickness to see how even a smidge more recharge impacts play, but the reason to stick to WP is to get the least invasive look at the primary set without special factors from the pairings. I think that after WP is done we should work in secondaries on certain primaries to see of performance jumps up for say... two sets with a ~5 sec difference or so? Edit: To account for strategic differences, we could just have the tester write up a quick summary of how they played. Something like "I use parry often to allow me to herd groups up, then cycled attacks from highest to lowest DPA / AoEs till done" could suffice. That way we could at least compare notes and see like "oh, this set was able to be played this way much better, but this other set lacks the tools to do that / can be played this other way".

Thanks for the results Adjustor! Perhaps there could be a way to isolate player results as a sort of trial? I've already seen that the results can vary depending on the set and playstyle. I can herd with broadsword and not battle axe due to parry, but it seems BA handles individual mobs cleaner so the same style is not applicable between the two. Maybe a select few sets with varied gameplans should be used as a preliminary to see if we can gather consistent results. If somebody varies we would discuss what they did to try and stick to effective playstyles.

In my re-runs with BA and BS, BS comes out on top due to Parry allowing for way more mitigation than random KD. With BS< I can reliably herd about 2 groups per area and come out on top, where BA is a gamble to do so thanks to the mitigation being random. I think ultimately, herding the whole map up / as much as you can will lose time due to aggro caps and target caps, but being able to safely bunch up 2 groups to mow down at a time appears to be the meta.

@Yomo KimyataI agree, getting 1 person who is somehow equally good at all sets to run through would be the best option, but I don't think we have that at our disposal 😞 Thank you a ton for your feedback @tinytim1183, we are looking into ways to make the enemies more dangerous to make primary mitigation meaningful. Just a note on Primary/Secondary pairings: 9/13 secondaries have some sort of endurance management tool making it somewhat uncommon *not* to have something to mitigate costs. WP sort of gives everything an advantage as it can stack up with any secondary mitigation from the primary fairly equally IMO, and it is common to have +End there too. What I have noticed though is that the Accolades may be providing too much benefit on Pineapple... running the numbers: 3 slotted QR and Stamina = 3.45 end/sec - 0.69 end drain/sec (4 WP toggles + CJ) = 2.76 net end / sec With accolades, this is 3.8/s ---> 3.11/s! No accolades, Miracle proc -> 3.01/s No accolades, Miracle + Numina -> 3.18/s No Accolades, Panacea (~0.375/sec) -> 3.135/s Closest equivalent is having the Panacea Proc slotted into Health with no other IO's with these Accolades active... hmm

In any case, we are attempting to gather data on the set now with more solid "real" criteria. I would like us to talk to those points going forward as they are something more concrete.

This could be something separate, where we purposefully design a "Squishy scrapper" that has to fend off enemies with only their primary, to test the defensive power vs the pure offense 🤔 If we were to only quantify that, I suppose there could be like an EB with no protections, but they deal a ton of damage somehow..... and maybe they have a power to neutralize base regen on the player? The Scrapper's Secondary would be offline and they then have to rely on the primary to keep them alive either through a Kill, Mitigation, or at least time how long it took to die. Like a reverse Pylon lol.

Hm, that is fair. If we gave the enemies a few more attacks here or there to increase the threat, then we could quantify say... Battle Axe keeping foes on their butt vs Broadsword's Parry vs Ice's Slows, etc. The safer sets may have an edge between mobs being healthier vs more DPS ones that have to possibly heal up or approach differently. The original goal of course was to just see how the primaries could be pushed for damage, but what do you think @Hopeling?

The trouble with 1 person is that it is also just 1 data point unless that person is a master of all sets. What I mean by parity though is like... I dont expect like massive 2 minute average swings unless somebody is really bad vs somebody really good. On average it should wiggle a little but not that much.

This thread will be used to gather data from players who would like to join in. I don't expect there to be a huge amount of parity between players for most sets either, though if there is it would be worth discussing what they did differently!

Ad Hominem is essentially this: Person A - I think this, because of A, B and C. Person B - I think that is stupid, and *you* are stupid and out to ruin everything. Attacking the person instead of the subject at hand.

As DSorrow said, the goal here is to gather data on melee sets in a "Baseline, Standard environment" rather than in a test that weighs certain aspects much more than others. The motive is to determine what sets perform better or worse, and to weigh in X factors as well (such as Ice Melee's safety making up for lower performance, if it comes up).

I have created a new post in the Scrapper sub-forum to gather more data on this matter:

MELEE DAMAGE SET TESTING: Link to Rankings Hello everyone, It has come to light that the current metrics for testing performance are not reflective of normal game play conditions. Common metrics such as fighting a Pylon or clearing a Farm map do not take into account the realities of playing through a mission, which is 90% of the normal content players would be going through. In other threads, we often see these metrics tossed about to claim the power of certain sets over others, but rarely do we see... or rather even have metrics on "Normal Game Play". Pylons have unique properties that don't reflect "real" ST damage for most content, as shown by wild DPS swings from person to person on them (due to their stationary nature, and other factors). Farm maps similarly do not reflect how moving through a map, or just fighting different types of enemies can affect performance which leads to certain sets seeming much better when thrown at those specific environments. That said, mission environments can vary wildly as well which makes testing on them rather unreliable. (Luckily, we are able to pick maps in AE.) PREMISE: After conversations with @Infinitum, @TheAdjustor, @Steampunkette, and @GM Sijin, it seems that the balance of attack sets has become a bit clouded by the current meta. IO bonuses, Procs, Incarnates and the like have lead to outlier cases and combos that make sets seem much better or worse than they possibly should be. It is tossed around that the game should be balanced around SO's, but to our knowledge there have been few tests to actually gather data in a realistic setting on them. Copied from Beta: (The rules of this test are better described here: ) Overview & Biases: The above link will go into a bit more detail, but the goal of this test is to provide benchmark tests for Scrapper Primaries in a more or less neutral environment (no gimmicks, no enemy resists, etc) that aimed to emulate a standard mission experience. This means a 4-floor defeat-all mission with slight variations to mob placement, size, and level room to room as well as a mix of enemy ranks with a mandatory defeat of 2 boss spawns and a final elite boss spawn. With /Willpower and no pools/epics besides Combat Jumping (for the SO test, IO's had hasten), the enemies and difficulty setting were just enough to get "Safety" as a metric as many sets have clear design intention of trading damage for utility or mitigation, or vice versa, and allowing myself to actually experience or mitigate damage I felt is a worthy point of interest. Given this is an "everyday" sort of benchmark, ignoring the impact that Ice Melee's safety provides I feel would be unjust compared to if I just made myself invincible and went to town to track raw output. Likewise, a set like Fire Melee really showed where it can struggle if it's not constantly killing. This test has less mobs than a farm, but more to deal with than a Pylon, so results may vary wildly from the expectations provided by those popular trials. Both of those I feel do not provide a full picture between the mix of AoE and ST output, favoring the extremes on either end. The office map simulation just as well does not highlight certain sets in the way you'd expect either. Something like the new Energy Melee may massacre Pylons but end up on the low/mediocre end here or vice versa with other sets. I hope you find the following enlightening in some ways, and let the results speak for themselves when it comes to the changes to multiple melee sets we see here in Beta. Results on SO's only: All sets were played with a SO build with /Willpower as a secondary and no pool powers/epics except Combat Jumping, in order to isolate the primary set as much as possible. (except for Claws and Kinetic Melee which were given Overwhelming KD IO's + a lvl 50 damage IO to have the same slotting + knockdown on their ranged cones. These were ran due to the incredibly common practice of slotting for KD, and only 2 melee sets actually "needing" it.) Results without the IO in Claws can be seen here: As you can see by some of the names, we have been testing these changes internally for quite a while now to make sure things land in the desired spot! Breaking down this chart, each column represents a different aspect: AVG = the average clear time of the mission from all 10 runs (minutes : seconds : milliseconds) SWING = How far away from the Total Average the set performed SD Deviation = Standard Deviation from run to run, measuring how consistently each set performed despite the 10 runs having slightly different mob formations and placements BEST TIME = the best run time of the set, shows the max potential WORST TIME = the worst run time of the set, shows the minimum potential SAFETY = This counts the number of deaths in the 10 runs. A score of 0.50 means that I took substantial damage but never died, a 0.00 means I was practically invincible! SAFETY ADJ = Each point in the Safety column is multiplied by 20 seconds, and then added to the average to show an Adjusted Safety Average. With those all factored in, we can rank the sets against each other on more than just the average clear time: From left to right, we have the results with Claws KD, Claws "Pure", and the average between the two. Now, lets see how this changes when we jump to an IO build: Results on a "Mid Level" IO Build: All sets were played with a n IO build with no purples, winter sets, or "special" procs beyond a single Damage Proc like Mako's or Obliteration that *any* Melee attack could slot. All sets achieved 72.5% global recharge (142.5% most of the time with Hasten up, only a 20s cooldown there). All sets had the normal uniques like Numina, Kismet, etc slotted All sets ran the tests at +3/x5 difficulty With recharge and procs thrown into the mix, the top sets become a LOT closer in clear times, and safety really isn't a concern outside of Energy Melee where rapid ET's kinda hurt lol. Like above, lets see how all the factors weigh in: The margins are so close for the "top tier" that with more than 10 tests a piece I'm sure they'd all be near dead even! Combined Results:

We can start with WP, then the next best ones would be Ninja and Invuln probably. I thought Pylons had extra res? I can just edit that bit out anyways, but I think its time to move this thread to the Scrapper forums to start 🙂

SR could be a decent secondary test as well as +Rech is a factor. The idea though is to have your "normal" toggles running while completing the mission as fast as possible though, and not everyone takes tough/weave/maneuvers (at least to the degree of combat jumping). Ideally, the spawn sizes should be just enough to not give a terrible advantage to any one kind of set. If we had less targets than AoE suffers compared to ST, and vice versa for more. We will have to see if Elec/ and such really outperforms.

So, I think we have settled on our criteria after some testing between @Hopelingand I. MELEE DAMAGE SET TESTING: It has come to light that the current metrics for testing performance are not reflective of normal gameplay conditions. Common metrics such as fighting a Pylon or clearing a Farm map do not take into account the realities of playing through a mission, which is 90% of the normal content players would be going through. Pylons have unique resistance and regen properties that don't reflect "real" ST damage for most content, as shown by wild DPS swings from person to person on them. Farm maps similarly do not reflect how moving through a map, or just fighting different types of enemies can affect performance which leads to certain sets seeming much better when thrown at those specific environments. That said, mission environments can vary wildly as well which makes testing on them rather unreliable. Luckily, we are able to pick maps in AE. There is a unique Warehouse map that fits several criteria for traversing a mission that will provide more realistic challenges for players as they try to quickly defeat all enemies. Several boxes / railings / walls get in the way of enemy placement, there are several "T" shaped sections where enemies can spawn on either end, and there is a large circle area with two entrances which provide further choices and spawn points to realistically spread enemies around. There is also a vertical ramp section that will split up a mob into sections that the player will need to traverse. Enemies are not usually neatly grouped, nor the map as linear as can be so this should help replicate your "average" mission. This Defeat-All testing ground comes with special "Punching Bag" enemies of Hopeling's design. There will always be 2 Boss Punching Bags and 1 Elite Boss Punching Bag in the mission on top of the randomized regular spawns throughout the map. These enemies have no resistances, and only have the T1 street justice attack. Otherwise, they should behave as normal enemies with standard HP values, aggro to you as normal, but otherwise not really provide much of a threat as the purpose is to quantify the Damage Sets in a realistic setting. The difficulty of the mission should be run at +0/x3 based on our testing to best balance between ST and AoE leaning sets. At x3, the mobs can come in spawns of between 5 and 10 enemies, which line up perfectly with the target caps of almost all Melee AoE powers while also not being an overwhelming amount of enemies for more ST oriented sets. The guaranteed 2 Bosses and EB should likewise provide a venue for ST damage to shine. The x3 setting also provides a variety of spawns as shown in the quoted post below: After running 10 missions: About 30% of spawns were +1 lvl compared to +0, with no pattern of what types were +1 About 30% of spawns were groups of 5 Minions, and 2 LT's About 20% of spawns were groups of 8 Minions, and 1 LT About 20% of spawns were groups of 4 Minions, and 1 Boss About 10% of spawns were groups of 10 minions About 10% of spawns were groups of 3 Minions, and 3 LT's About 10% of spawns were groups of 4 Minions, 1 LT, and 1 Boss (the last group in a typical "Defeat the bad guy!" mish) So over time, the enemies in a mission would provide varied challenges for any set's strengths to overcome, and on occasion the +1 will provide harder targets or annoyances like those enemies with 1 hp left and all you have are your big attacks to swing with 😉 The map and enemy spawn sizes should give a healthy variance that over multiple tests give a solid "average performance". Ideally, players should run the mission 10 times to get a solid average and account for variable spawn types / runners / misses / etc. Each player's time will be recorded and added to a master list for comparison. Any notes from players will also be recorded! Ex: Each primary should have all their attacks slotted with even-level SO's to emulate the "Normal Slotting" expected: 3 Damage, 1 Accuracy, 1 End Reduction, and 1 Recharge. Build-Up style powers should have 3 recharges, and certain powers may have slight alterations depending on the power type (to be discussed). However we should be aiming for the "average / intended" slotting and avoiding IO's to gather the baseline data on sets for a first run. Inspirations, unique IOs, and pool powers except for Combat Jumping (due to extreme popularity/commonality) should not be allowed in order to focus on the primary set's performance. As for the secondary, Willpower is the least invasive choice as it offers no offensive perks aside from +Recovery. WP, Regen, Rad and Bio all offer +Recovery options. Elec, EA, Fire, and Ice all offer an End Drain, and Ninjitsu offers a +End button, making 9/13 secondaries offer endurance tools, so that actually makes WP the ideal choice to mirror "average" performance. Willpower Slotting should also mirror the average. 3 primary defensive SO's + 1 Endurance Reduction in the toggles, and then similarly 3 slotting the passives as well as stamina. Something like this by @TheAdjustor: Example: (Build Up should have 3 rech in there, but this is just an example) Players should feel free to run the map 1-2 times before marking down their 10 test times to get familiar with the primary set / map in question. Every set getting 10 run times per player should give us plenty of data, and the map / difficulty / secondary / slotting choices should ensure we get a wide array of scenarios that test the primary's capabilities with minimal outside effects. Caveats: Doing these tests on the Pineapple server also grants the character passive Accolades to boost Endurance. Technically, anybody can get these just by playing, but they are an X factor to consider. Inherently, there is randomness at play per mission in terms of +1 Spawns, Misses, Critical Hits, spawn layout and the like. The more test results we get though, the more we can iron out odd times. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thoughts?

If the Mez Protect proc was instead turned into big, stackable mez resist that would be cool. As Razor said, Blasters can already keep attacking when mezzed. Having them last far shorter would be essentially the same but more noticable.

It's this one on Pineapple 🙂

+1 Also, if somebody uses it for a damage badge... good on them? Lol

If you're looking for just raw DPS chains, we can calculate that easily using the tool tips in game without need to have somebody wail on a stationary target. Unfortunately, that will not be accurate due to HC changes

This can be done without testing, using MIDs or real numbers. In fact this was already done by me earlier in the thread vs War Mace. This... technically is not possible, and incredibly difficult to do. You would hit, wait 5 seconds, then hit again and subtract the time from the DPS? What about enemy regen skewing results in that time? This is incredibly variable depending on the lvl of recharge and the set in question. It has no negative acc penalties, when slotted for 1 Acc SO the powers should all have the standard 95% ToHit chance. May as well not run any powers? That is why we chose Willpower, it provides the least invasive effects while still giving toggles to account for. We agree on this, but as for the last part... what we fear is that there is a major outlier that performs much better. That someone would be Hopeling and I 🙂 We should ideally test every primary, not just a few. We want to see underperformers in perspective as well. Also.... Dark Armor most certainly effects endurance effeciency.

You could even make a case that Toxic is *more* resisted since there are no enemies with a Toxic weakness, while there are some with weaknesses to S/L. I'm also redoing those charts to have more nuanced breakdowns, more info to come 🙂

Invuln would be closest, but the variable +ToHit could potentially mess with results vs other sets. Of the secondary effects, the +Recovery on WP when 3 slotted, alongside stamina 3 slotting, *alongside* having all the WP toggles + CJ run is 2.55 end / sec. For comparison, 3 slotted stamina with no toggles at all is 2.47 / sec. SO it is better, but while running the toggles to emulate normal play its not that huge.

Which set then? The only other non-performance one I can think of is Invuln, but that has +ToHit (others have damage auras, or +Rech/Movement, etc) Running on Brutes and Tanks could be done, but Tanks are in an odd spot and Brutes would probably need more tests run for averages due to Fury being more inconsistent than Crits... we can certainly try tho. That said, I would like to keep it to one AT at a time to see what testing works before it's more repeatable.