Blackjoy

Did I hit soft spot Bill?

OMFG Arcana was the most pompous person on the forums. She thought she was smarter than every other person on the planet and constantly bragged about how much she got paid in her consulting job. Yes, she bragged about computing some number out to X decimal points and it was totally irrelevant. I know Arcana well. And I know how full of shit she was outside of computing numbers that amounted to jack shit. Yes, she figured out that devs didn't account for variable in power activation times. BFD. I can bet you my life that 99% of population of players who didn't read the forums had no clue when they made those changes. I am the one that got the devs to add +RES to SR, despite Arcana arguing against it. You wanna worship her, be my guest. But you aren't going to shove her crap down my throat.

If the Primaries are balanced correctly, then their effect should be negligible, or within tolerance. One can expect that there will be some synergy with some sets, but the net benefit should still be within one sigma or whatever the performance band the devs expect. And sets like MA or Claws have other benefits like Build up or higher DPS chains or soft mitigation that should provide a boost to XP/Hour or survivability that other sets can't. A set like Regen can leverage Dark Melee just about as well as SR. But yes, you absolutely run stats to see if that's true. Is DM way better for SR? Does it put SR out of tolerance? They run the numbers to figure that out. Yes...they should get normalized. I am just reminding the devs to do it. It won't happen automatically. Because they can use data filters to exclude any specific variable from data. They can look at all the DM/SR scrappers that don't take Tough if they wanted to. At higher levels, it would be harder to find scrappers without Tough and Weave, or put another way, the amount of data points would be smaller. The secondaries, just like the primaries, were designed based on formulas and design concepts. If you are going to figure out how accurate those formulas are, then you'd need to see the outcome naked=unbiased by other variables. This would allow you to adjust your formulas accordingly. But the formulas are only good to a point, as you suggest. The LIve devs had to use real data to fine tune the sets when something proved to be out of tolerance.

And if one set feels unplayable unless you take a specific pool power, then you think it's balanced to expect everyone who plays that set to take that pool power? No. All the sets need to be within the same performance range without off-AT mitigation. If they are not, then they need to be rebalanced BEFORE you start considering power pools. You only bring in the pools to make sure it doesn't totally screw up the balance.

t's a mess from our perspective, because we probably have a different idea of where it should be balanced. I'll bet dollars to donuts, the devs on Live didn't care what happened at level 50. For the players, tt level 50, the metric for scrappers dramatically changes. It goes from XP/Hour to ability to solo AVs and run +4s. The OG devs weren't going to balance that even though they publicly said no one should be able to solo an AV. I would be surprised if the HC devs care about balance at 50. The fact that the /Rad Scrapper I ran into can out Tank 90% of the Tanks on the server may not be a concern. I pretty sure they didn't give a rat's ass on Live and I kind of don't blame them. It's just impossible to set a ceiling on what can be done, what should be doable at level 50. I don't think any of the devs have the chops to balance at 50. It's like Cray Super Computer difficult. I mean, at 50 you can build SR to be as good as anything else....because at that point, it's not about SR, it's about pool powers, epic powers, patron powers, Incarnates, Set IOs, Procs, etc. And no, they didn't eyeball it, they used their formula. That's why it was so messed up, because the formula couldn't account for any of the variables. If they had used their intuition with SR, they would have noticed that SR sucks a pipe wrench on the way up.

That's right. They started with a design philosophy, a formula on how to balance the sets. It was all math. Except they weren't able to account for how sets play across all the variables and that's why the ran stats. How things work on paper is often different (and sometimes dramatically) than how it works out in real game play. Yeah...I am going to tell you Arcana was largely full of herself. She figured out that the DPS numbers they were using did not include caste times. That was her huge insight and something she spun into all kinds of clout. So the devs had to redo some of their numbers. on some primaries, BFD. Everything she did was based on her finding numbers and knowing numbers. She had like zero understanding of game design. I suspect she was also getting inside information from someone on the dev team, so she liked to broadcast all her secret knowledge. Arcana tried to argue that SR needed more +DEF and was adamantly against adding anything else. I told the devs that +RES can absolutely simulate dodging: You avoid an attack and it does less damage than if it hit you straight on. In fact, "super reflexes" would have been better modeled by a balance of +DEF and +RES. Some things you avoid entirely and somethings only manage to graze you. This is why Toxic and PSI positional attacks should also be resisted by SR. If they are positional, then treat them as physical attacks, and let the +RES simulate you dodging some of the acid/psi beam. But I suspect they can't code +RES based on it being positional.

By naked, I mean run the sets without mitigation from pools. Obviously you have to pick a Primary. If you run population stats, those choices are arguably normalized, unless your find that 90% of the Regens are taking Claws or Shields are all taking Broadsword. You do that as a BASELINE. Then you add in pool powers to see if individual pool powers are having a biased benefit. The sets should be balanced against themselves. That's basic game design. Nobody designed the sets based on having Tough. Do you think the devs designed Shield based on everyone taking Tough? No. They balanced based on what the other sets were doing and most likely how they could get people to pay money to play it. And if power pools are dramatically altering that balance, then you address it.

They usually do not post the data mining. How would they have any clue how to tweak it? Eyeball it? They look at what Titan DPS was based on the stats and then figure out how to lower that by a specific amount. Then, they test it. Did we tweak it too much or not enough? How thorough are they? I don't know. But nobody, with any accountability, is going to be changing numbers without running stats, which are readily available. Yes, people can use their experience and intuition to tell them something is off. But on a game like this, you're going to back that up before you go tweaking stuff and affecting lots of people's experience. Backing up changes with stats is MMO Game Management 101. Now, maybe they don't do that, but I would think they'd have screwed all kinds of things up already if they weren't verifying things with stats. Absolutely. This is the part I cannot answer and for which there is no right answer....other than the change which keeps the most people playing. It's possible that where they choose to look for balance, they find it and ignore all other evidence of imbalance.

By all means, keep talking about Tanks in a scrapper thread.

You're failing to grasp that SR was never designed to work with Tanks. The base numbers for +DEF had to be so high that when the global multiplier on Tanks was applied, it made SR too good. Another way you might process this info is that if SR had been originally balance for Tanks....it would have been dogmeat for scrappers. What is true for Tanks has nothing to do with what is true for Scrappers. Failing to grasp that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the game and how it is designed. This is like people claiming 90% +RES fails 10% of the time.

Absolutely. 1) One of the HC devs posted a thread and said that they were looking at balance. The ONLY way you can balance sets on an MMO is by running stats. There's no other way you can do that once you're past the design phase. 2) They've "balanced" a number of sets, specifically Titan Weapon which they said was OP. How would they know that? They had to run stats. 3) OG (as you call it) devs ran numbers all the time. The one they talked about the most was XP / Hour. According to them, the optimal XP/Hour resulted in some amount of debt because that meant you were fighting harder mobs and getting more X/H than you would fighting safe enemies. X/H would be one valid metric over the 1-35 levels. What you're asking is how do you normalize the data. I'm not a data scientist, but one philosophy is that when you have a sufficiently large population of data subjects, the choices and permutations are even distributed. So badgers should be present in equal numbers in all Scrapper secondaries and this their effect is already normalized. However, it's possible that you get skewed data sets. Tough and Weave, may be more prevalent on all scrappers and if one secondary benefits from those more than another it can skew the data. It also may be that sets with QR abilities are more likely to have it. I don't know. This is something they'll need to check. They knew something. They first nerfed Regen back into the fold. Then they buffed SR with scaling RES. So they both ran numbers and had an idea of what the metric was. I do not know if the HC developers have that info or the same philosophy. But I do know, by there own words, they are at least interested in "balance." Whether their definition for Scrappers matches mine, I do not know. I will point out that back on Live, I recall the devs running a bunch of simulations. They did some stress testing some ATs (it might have been scrappers) to see what they breaking point was. I don't remember the details, but it proved that they had ways to test out ATs, Powers, builds, etc. I think it's very simple. How do the secondaries rank, naked? They can run data analysis on Scrapper xp/hour of scrappers that don't have things like Tough or CJ. Then, start adding in pool powers and see how they rank. Haste, Tough, Weave, CJ, Stealth, etc. I would imagine Regen probably gets more from Hasten than any other secondary. What ever test/simulation they used to determine balance will suffice. You don't have to do exhaustive testing. A few simulations will show you if there is a huge discrepancy at the various levels. The hard part is agreeing on where you look for balance. Level 1? Lvl 40? Lvl 50 + Incarnates and 200m builds?

While I don't care about runners or Taunt auras for scrappers, I have to agree with Bill on this point. It is a flawed argument that any scrapper needs a Taunt aura for their mitigation to work. As Bill correctly points out, if the at mob is running, then it is not attacking and it's impact on the scapper can be discounted (ignoring its taking a few pot shots on the way back). The question is why is there a Taunt aura? I can think of three reasons: 1. The basic design philosophy that if you are constantly debuffing an enemy, or deriving some benefit from its presence, the game wants those enemies to attack you. The only way to enable that is to code a Taunt flag onto those PBAoE powers. I do find it really annoying that the game doesn't provide PCs with the same auto-knowledge on who is toggle debuffing them. 2. It was an intended design goal to allow some Scrapper sets to pseudo tank via Taunt auras. As is obvious, AT's on the Hero side (much less true on the villain side) were designed to overlap. The idea was that no AT was required and that AT's can fill in. Controllers overlap Defenders. Defenders overlap Blasters. Blasters overlap Scrappers (Depending on secondary). Scrappers overlap Tanks. And Tanks overlap Controllers. By giving some Scrapper AT's a Taunt Aura, they could perform light tanking duties. This is also evident via the inclusion of Confront on almost (is it all?) all Scrapper primaries. 3. The devs simply did no want to change the code on Tanker abilities. IT's easier to have all identical powers work the same mechanics and you just apply a global modifier to the AT. Now, this could be a bogus reason if there are some identical powers that do have different mechanics, but I haven't researched it. In any event, I am not arguing for any fixes of this nature, but I am not going to stop others from discussing it.

Great to connect with Bill in-game My take is that nothing we did together and nothing that happened proves or disproves my position. It's hard to normalize data as scrappers level up. It's almost impossible for individuals to do it at lvl 50. Builds will dominate outcomes, far more than secondaries. What Incarnates someone has as passives can dramatically affect performance and outcomes. For me, I am basing my OP on the observation I've made and my own attempts to normalize the data (which obviously no human an do perfectly in these types of settings). My observations tell me that SR, in and of itself, underperforms. By how much? I can't say. But I can't prove that. Only the devs can prove or disprove that by running the numbers and using ANOVA or actually running simulations that only rely on the secondary. Underlying this entire thread is a question I cannot answer: What is the baseline for scrappers? What should be the metric? Is it fair or good enough if all Scrappers can reach the low mark and then we just don't care what the high mark is? One thing that it seems all reputable posters agree, is that SR suffers, comparatively below 35. I suspect that truly fixing that might require more than just swapping Evasion and those changes might be sufficient to fix QoL issues as well. What I will argue on an engineering level is that there are two glaring deficiencies: 1) SR needs more mitigation mechanics other than just +DEF and some scaling +RES. The more types of mitigation a set has, the more robust it is. I am pretty certain there is no other set with as few mechanics as SR. 2) SR lacks synergy with itself. Many of the other sets (I haven't researched it heavily), seem to have powers whose whole is greater than the sum. To put it another way, there are non-linear benefits within the set. Other than DDR, which is arguably required for SR to function, it has none. No power benefits any other power. Devs, please run the numbers. EDIT: One thing Bill and I definitely agree on....I would rather see all the over-performing sets brought down at the high end, rather than SR made better. But nerfs have rarely been popular. The fact that so anyone can solo ITF at 4x8, imo, is broken. But I'm not trying to fix that.

Great teaming up. Looking forward to more Savage duoing.

Funny. I went through the exact same through process. Most of that was due to my thinking Exhausted was stopping my endo recovery. Now I am cognizant of the +recharge, but only if I've had to use a clickie. But yeah, I am not a huge fan having to give up the stacks to use Frenzy and Hemorrhage and there was a point when I was using them early to avoid the Exhausted That and you are actively fighting the mobs in melee so your Primary's secondary effects are providing you with some mitigation as well as outright defeating them. My Shield brute friend found out that he was better of capping Ranged than he was capping Melee.

Apologies. Am just seeing this now. I just sent a global chat to bill z bubba, but you don't appear to be on.

Yup. SR gets nothing from the +recharge which is a definite benefit for Regen. Regen also benefits from the endo discount. 1. I have run low on endurance on occasion, especially frighting Freakshow. 2. I don't have to burn early slots on endo reduction or add slots to Stamina and QR. So yeah, I think Regen gets more out of Savage than SR and that is another problem with SR...Hasten does nothing for it as a defense. Max diff carnies and arachnos are not an issue for SR. I'm sure Carniers would be deadly for Regen. Arachnos is only an issue for Regen if they start using glue grenades, but Hasten solves that. However, I will absolutely love to see your SR fight 4x8 IDF without any off AT +DEF. No...I'll give you Stealth. And FYI, I'm doing all my Regen testing without using any Inspirations. No purples, no greens, no oranges. Nothing. Wait....wait....I did have to use Insight on an Arachnos boss that kept perma-blinding me with smoke That was just annoying. I do use Hasten on occasion, but nothing else. I took Tough, but don't use it. My Sav/Regen is now 36 and I've done three straight Cimorea missions at +1 (dialed it back from +2 because these guys are nastry). Died three times in two mission getting a feel for how much damage these guys can pump out. The third mission i didn't die at all. Cleared the 1 hour time mission in like 15 minutes. No Inspiration. No resting. To fight +2 r higher, I need FA. Accurac is an issue because I don't have my attacks slotted well and am only running 5 Overwhelming in Shred, no other Set IOs.

There's no backpedaling. Regen is getting more out of Savage than SR. If you're on Excelsior, I'll invite you to come duo and we'll see who can take more punishment.

So while you're "Exhausted", there is no effect on your endurance? EDIT: Interesting. According to Wiki the only thing "Exhausted" does is stop you from gaining frenzy stacks. Which means keeping the stacks up can grant as much as a 30% endurance discount. This would explain why I haven't had to put any slots in QR or Stamina and only have one Endo Mod in Stamina and I have limitless endurance. It would also explain why a savage/SR could run well (at least with regard to endurance) as long as you never Exhaust. What's also interesting is that it gives a +Recharge which is a big help to Regen's reliance on all its clicks. Of course that +recharge provides no benefit to SR directly as contrasted with other sets that use clicks.

Yeah.....so I after this comment I rolled up a Savage Melee / Regen and am now playing it at lvl 33. Dull Pain + Instant Healing is effing God Mode at these levels. The only pool power I use is Hasten and that's usually after the fight. I was teaming with a Stone Stone in the 20's and had to give him all my blues. And Savage Melee is a set that stops endo recovery as a side effect. I hadn't run Regen since Live, so I was highly suspicious of this allegation and I was right. Regen is the ever-loving energizer bunny of secondaries. It has more uptime than my Staff/WP on which I had to slot Stamina and use endo procs. With essentially minimal slotting, Regen is far past SR in these levels, it's not even debatable. In other news, I did that same IDF 4x8 challenge with SM/Radiation Armor scrapper....wow. The guy blasted through them with no Insp and no click/toggle incarnates. Then I had him take off all his pool powers except Tough and he still prevailed. He did get red, but RA's performance was so far past any SR I've seen run those mobs, it's a joke. He's getting +700 hitpoints from a cyclical absorb power. He's got a heal. And he's cycling Melt Armor every 30-40 seconds. He's also got a +Recharge/enemy power that totally feeds his clickies....and that was my eureka moment. @Developers - One major problem with SR is that it's not even self-complimentary in the way some of these other sets are. There are no powers that form synergies with other powers, outside of DDR. Even an ancient set like Regen benefits from the interaction between Dull Pain and Instant Healing, making both of those better combined. Regen's Mez protection also provides extra Regen. SR has none of that outside of DDR. Even Quickness is problematic in that it merely makes Practiced Brawler cycle more frequently on auto, which is not exactly helping. Look at all the various mechanics a set like RA employs: +RES, +Heal, +Absorb, +DMG, +Recovery, +Recharge, Foe (-regen, -DEF, -to hit). And I'm not even including the abilities that help allies out. Shield is so well built, it can devote an entire power (Grant Cover) to making sure the other scrappers nearby don't die and get suspicious of how OP Shield is. Devs....please run the numbers.

It is for posters, it's not for the servers. They can run stats and see how sets compare. Alternatively, they can run simulations where they set up specific builds and see how they do comparatively. That's how you determine if a set under performs. You can run the sets with just their powers and see how they do. Then you start adding in pool powers to see if the benefits asymmetrically benefit some sets more than others. I would bet my digital life that SR is far behind a set like Regen or Willpower when it comes to leveling speed. I recall that in my 20's as a WP, I could take on 4 oranges and come out with full health and endurance. That wasn't even remotely true for SR or Shield. Grantded, WP has leveled off a bit, but I'm just winging the build. I'm leveling up a SM/Regen, since two days ago, and it it is joke how much comparative uptime Regen has. Did a Freakshow +3x8 at lvl 26 and I was the only non-50 who never had to take a knee on account of endurance. I think people's concepts of how good SR is pretty skewed by their experience at 50 when they've solved all their endo issues. By 50, I've yet to see any scrapper run out of endurance sans Sapper or some other effect. And yes, I've been hit by some Carnie effect that totally killed my endo, even at lvl 50. The devs can produce that data. And that's right, some form of +endo would be huge for SR and an Elude that doesn't crash you out to zero. Funny you should talk about 45->42. Remember that SR brute that died in 15 seconds? It happened when I asked her to turn off Maneuvers. She kept Weave and Tough. But turning off her 5% defense from Maneuvers had her go from completing the encounter at full health to dead in 15 seconds. We ran it a bunch. 5% was the difference between success and face plant. Scaling resists, Tough, proc'ing 180 hit points a cycle? Irrelevant. A slight loss of defense got her killed even though she was at cap with the rest. A ran that same thing with a Shield Brute and he did waaaaay better than she did when she dropped Maneuvers. Willpower and BIo have several other forms of mitigation when their defense fails. SR only has one. No debuff aura, no +HP, no +heal, etc. Run the numbers devs.

The fact that some of the other classic sets have problems doesn't negate the fact that SR has issues. Do other sets need updating in the face of BIo, WP, Shield, etc? Probably. But I haven't played all the other sets to know their problems intimately. If you want to argue for updates to DA, be my guest, I wont' be on here telling you otherwise. Without actually reviewing the logs, I am not 100% certain what my +DEF was when the four Cimorian boses hit me into paste in about 10 seconds. But either I was hit with a million to 1 streak, or I was getting debuffed. An no, I don't skip any SR powers. Nor am I claiming that DDR failing is an issue. My point is SFW about DDR? It's not like every single mob you face has defense debuff. My Regen and Bio get along fine in the face of not having DDR. I see plenty of scrapers have no issues on 4x8 ITF. DDR is being over sold. I don't see Energy Armor, Radiation Armor, Electric Armor scrappers and brutes crying for lack of DDR. 1. I don't have access the population numbers from the servers. Nobody in this thread does. So what's true across the player base is not something any of us can prove. The only thing I can do is tell the devs to look here. 2. Many posters have already corroborated my concerns. The fact that people agree that SR below 35 is problematic is a red flag. Sorry, I don't believe simply adding Evasion fixes all of SR's issues. 3. The fact that there is vocal opposition to fixing Elude because people want to keep skipping it, is a red flag. What clearly happens is that as you get higher in levels, all the scrappers start to converge. Everyone has multiple layers of mitigation from pool powers, procs, and Incarnates. Out of maybe 40 scrappers, I've seen one that didn't have Tough. Given that fact, I suspect all the scrappers are performing about the same statistically as you approach 50. That doesn't mean SR doesn't have problems, it suggests that there's so much off-AT mitigation that the build choice is less meaningful. Yes, I routinely check to see what types of scrappers or brutes I'm running with and other than Shield, no set stands out barring specific mobs like Sappers or Carnies. It's also hard to normalize the data given Incarnate and Teaming bonus on an anecdotal level. You can probably run a 4x8 ITF naked with the right team. I'm asking the devs to normalize the data and see how SR does comparatively, from 1-50, not just lvl 50.

This isn't about performing "up to its potential," this is about how the set performs comparatively. Well it's great to see some posters have some integrity. And if HC is going to fix TA, which did not need fixing, they need to address SR. It shouldn't suck below 35 any more than any other set, and it does. "and a reasonable build?" How does SR compare to the other secondaries when none of them can rely on Tough, Weave, and a bunch of Set IO procs to cover endurance? Because that is how the sets are suppose to be balanced. Let's see how SR fairs then. What most people on these forums aren't groking is that their build is good...it's not SR. That isn't even remotely true. The problem with Regen is that it can't tank alphas. It never could. And with all the massive +DEF and Set IO bonuses, +4x8 is the norm and Regen just can't take those DPS spikes. SR isn't even in the top 5. Go play the set without getting 50% S/L and 10% +DEF from Weave and Manuevers and use non-Set IOs. You will die...quickly, unless you're fighting +0s or relying on candy. The set has no way to heal itself and gets pulverized by AV's who hit right through its resists. Other sets are waaaaaay more survivable. SR is only workable because players can push beyond the soft cap and get massive S/L resist on-build. I had a Katana/SR Brute run some +4x8 with me against some of those Victoria's. Without Maneuvers (But with Tough and Weave), she died in like 15 seconds....LOL. No. The set can't handle the endurance drain early on. I forgot, that's whey they don't give you Evasion earlier. By giving SR all the passives, it grants the sets a more usable form of AoE protection...scaling resists and that paltry 5% and overall survibility. There's no point in another toggle that just drains you. By 35, you've either slotted up Stamina or your primary and are killing more efficiently. But there's a reason why Shield combined both AoE and Ranged into one toggle. So no, on reflection, moving Evasion earlier in the set doesn't solve the problems, it makes them worse. Now I remember why they didn't do it on Live. But talk is talk....the Devs need to run the numbers. Compare the secondaries and tell us where SR ends up when they rely only upon themselves.

SR isn't even in the galaxy of indestructible. You seems to be confusing a build with Tough, Weave, and 100+ million in set IOs with SR. Go start an SR at level 1 and tell me how comparatively indestructible the set its? "Edit: what makes other armor sets cry (nevermind everyone else) isn't truly our defense it's our DDR which isn't even mentioned." It is mentioned. I speicfically state that SR has its moments, but there are only a handful of mobs that have Defense Debuff. And even with DDR, you can STILL have cascade failure of +DEF...which is not true for +RES. The bottom line is I don't kneed to convince anyone posting here, nor am i trying to. Everything being said here now was said back on Live, and the when the devs finally ran the stats, they couldn't deny the truth. I just need the current developers to run the stats. Check and see if the set underperforms comparatively.

"Apples to oranges"? That doesn't even make sense. I'm not comparing +DEF to +RES. I'm pointing out that essentially all other sets combine multiple forms of mitigation to survive, not just one. On Live, I repeatedly made this argument and when the Devs finally checked the stats, they realized I was 100% right and the added resistance. Well, comparatively, it's not enough. "by your logic, can it be said to "always fail 10% of the time"? That is isn't my logic, because that is not logic. Yours is a statement made by people who have no idea what they are talking about. You seemed to be confused by the use of the % sign and seem to think +RES is a probability, it is not. SR....is the only secondary whose primary means of mitigation is defeated by the the Streak Breaker code. So the game is CODED to make SR fail even if the RNG would have been your friend. It's an asymmetrical detriment to +DEF. For all of those who think SR is fine, go play SR without Tough and Weave and your Incarnates, and see how well you do comparatively. In fact, I encourage the devs to run simulations of SR versus all the newer sets and see how well it does. Pair it with primary that has no +ENDO/Recovery and let's see its comparative XP/Hour. Without Set IOs and the pool powers, SR is a comparative dismal experience from 1-50, it needs to be adjusted. Run the stats. And SR was never built for Tankers, so the fact that it plays great for Tankers (because base values, Caps, and AoE availability are all different) is irrelevant to how it plays for Scrappers. This is a call to address SRS for "scrappers."