dukedukes

The level shift is a good point, I forgot the difference between the incarnate and level shift. I'd still limit what I would take a debuffer to in terms of missions, generally on teams people should be stacked out in, like harder content.

To provide perspective the topic came up for myself when I wanted to explore debuff builds as far as I could as an avenue of scaling damage and defenses different than typical tried and true approaches (+dmg, procs, def soft-cap, a sprinkle of -res). The initial thought was cumulative -tohit -dmg -res from debuffs and a good IO build should be capable of taking and dealing a lot of damage, and it does! But only if the critter is a giant monster (counter-intuitive much??). Instead when I run a +4 it's half as effective or more, which ends up being massively less effective like with defense. There's this split in the content where debuffs are very effective or not worth specializing in which feels arbitrary and build limiting. In a team setting you will not carry the team with debuffs (maybe an AV, especially -regen), though you will make a difference for an already strong team. Sure you can run some -res here and there and get a small damage scaling increase, but the more you invest (especially as an individual) the less relative gains you get like with most scaling factors, going all-in is counter-intuitive when your efforts are halved 4 days of the week (read: arbitrary) and my opinion is this lowers character diversity. Debuffs are arguably more difficult to play with yet are punished more. You have to apply the debuff before getting any benefit. Buffs are generally always active and happen to scale much better. Take defense and tohit for example. If you cap defense with -tohit you need roughly -90 tohit (good luck) for +4 but if you cap with actual defense instead you only need 45. There's a near 100% difference in the numbers you need to reach cap based on what you happen to generally be fighting: +0 or +4.

No because everyone deals with the damage PP reduction. Debuffers effectively have a second multiplier (even a third reduction thanks to the resist mechanic, occasionally) further reducing their effectiveness. scenario: you deal 100 damage. let's say kin gives 2x damage and a debuffer makes an enemy receive 2x damage at +0 +4 kin: outgoing damage = 100 * 2 = 200 incoming damage = 200 * 0.48 (dmg effectiveness reduction) = 96 +4 debuff: outgoing damage = 100 incoming damage = 100 * 0.48 (dmg effectiveness reduction) * (1 + 1(debuff amount) *.48(debuff effectiveness reduction)) = 71 If you wanted these two scenarios to equal you would have to not reduce debuff effectiveness at all. These were just example numbers though. Kin realistically can increase your damage by much much more, and debuffs would have a very hard time reaching 2x for +0, as a solo at least. I'm not saying debuffs should equal what kin can do because debuffs usually affect more stats and the stat floor/ceilings are different. you're unlikely to reach the -res floor but likely to reach the damage ceiling, especially in leagues Debuffs have a place but it's very niche. In general +4 groups like radios without AV's you won't have much impact, it doesn't feel like it's worth playing, so i won't!

Debuffs vs +4 enemies are very underwhelming. Sets like rad or poison bring barely anything to the table in terms of -res, -dmg, -defense, etc (ok, rad does good -regen). With +3 level shift (1 level difference) or enemies with no level (GM's) I can see them contributing much more but for other content you just won't feel much impact. There's also some odd interplay with resist mechanics lowering debuff effectiveness even further. Does kin lose effectiveness vs +4? 0% loss. Debuffs? An insane amount. Buffs > Debuffs. Make debuffs great... please.