aethereal

There are lots of non-damage procs that are good, but I think you specifically means things like the entropic chaos chance-to-heal and the chance-to-mez ones, which are I agree terrible. (But note that there is also the Gaussian's proc, and the Force Feedback proc, and the +2 Mag proc, and of course the Scrapper and Stalker ATO procs, and various other non-damage procs that are very good)

I am not arguing for a return to flat percentile procs. Though I will note that the oft-derided effect of that was to reward T1 and T2 powers, while now T1 and T2 powers are pretty universally garbage. So we went from a system that encouraged diversity in power choice to one that centralized on powers that were "already good." But I disagree that the theory behind PPM is sound. It's further overloading the already overburdened recharge time element of powers. One of the basic problems here is that we've made recharge time hugely central to CoH's balance (it controls damage of a power. It's the parameter we vary to try to make epic/pool powers less central), in an environment in which approximately all good builds build 180% global recharge, and another 95% local recharge is easily available, without even getting into Incarnates. We could imagine a system in which a power applied a modifier to PPM ("this power halves PPM." "This power multiplied PPM by 1.5"), or one in which powers had proc schedules, which could certainly holistically take recharge time into account, without being an inflexible formula, and in which their multiplier or schedule was easily viewable in power details.

That's usually the difference. You can look up in CoD whether it uses a pseudopet. But let's note that is not like pseudopets are some kind of considered balance approach to preventing procs from being overwhelmingly strong in certain powers. They're a backend approach to making some powers work, and they just don't really work with PPM. The fact that pseudopets complicate procs so much is one reason why we should not have the PPM system.

Yeah, I'm suggesting stuff that actually makes you engage in PvP, not just exploration and PvE content in PvP zones. Win X matches. Win a 2v2, a 3v3. Damage taken in PvP. Time mezzed in PvP. Fight 6 distinct globals in PvP. And, to be clear, I'm sure that a large number of badge hunters would try to do the content in the most expedient manner possible and never come back to it. Some people just aren't going to enjoy PvP, and that's okay. But something like this might encourage some folks to try it out and they might find they like it.

I'm sure a large percentage would. But, if someone makes a second build, does a variety of PvP actions, and hates every second of it? Then I think we maybe should stop trying to get that person to PvP.

I dunno if would work, but a big passle of badges seems like it might motivate people to try out PvP enough to see if they like it. I'm talking like 20+ badges that you get by doing a large variety of arena PvP activity, not just one thing that you can get by collaborating with a friend.

People keep mentioning this like it's a deal changer, but it's not. Like, if you get good results from straight-up damage enhancing a power (as blasters, scrappers, and to a lesser extent stalkers will), then you can spend two or three slots reaching ED for damage, then use the other 3-4 slots for procs. It's maybe a little less dramatic than six slots of pure procs, but that's still a proc build.

You mean the "embraced lightning rod" thing? I think that has to do with Fiery Embrace.

There's no way to move crits from the +50% ATO to the inherent or the other ATO without either giving top-end builds an unconditional buff or giving a nerf to some level of proc uptime.

I mean, this proposal makes it significantly more likely to get criticals at low levels. You don't need to use math. It just takes the performance of high-end scrappers and pushes some of it back down to lower-end scrappers. The math is to show that it doesn't nerf high-end scrappers significantly, and that it doesn't go overboard on the buffs. It's not, however, a reimagining of how scrapper crits would work. It doesn't make them controllable like Stalkers.

Scrappers currently have a very weird effect with their ATOs: a high-end Scrapper build can get 50%+ uptime on their +50% critical chance proc at level 50. (The way you do this: So let's say that you're putting the ATO in Total Focus (or some similar power). It has a 20 second recharge time and a 2.53 second cast time, that means it will have a 90% proc rate down to about 15.5 seconds of local recharge. If you have the recharge the ATO comes with and another +180% global recharge (perma-hasten), then that means that your total recharge time of the power is about 7 seconds, with a 90% proc rate. Count the 2.53 second cast time, you can use the power 6.5 times per minute. With the 90% proc rate, that's 5.87 activations per minute. Times five seconds per activation is 29.4 seconds of uptime per minute -- half of your time, you're in +50% crits. And this isn't the very best you can do). But this is only possible at level 50 (the non-superior version of the ATO is 2 PPM, so only 2/3rds the uptime of the superior version), and only if you have an appropriate power to slot it into (most but not all sets do) and only if you're building tons of global recharge. It's a huge boost in scrapper performance -- +50% crits is REALLY powerful, and it creates weird cliffs. My proposal: Change non-superior ATO's PPM from 2 to 2.5 (leave superior at 3). Reduce the effect of the ATO from +50% proc rate to +40% proc rate Increase basic scrapper critical rate from 5% (minions)/10% (non-minions) to 6% (minions)/12% (non-minions) Increase the effect of the other scrapper ATO from +3%/+6% to +4%/+8% Total effects: A character with 50% uptime on the proc today has 58% (minions)/66% (non-minions) crit rate half the time and 8% (minions)/16% (non-minions) the other half of the time. So a blended total crit rate of 33% (minions)/41% (non-minions). Under this proposal, the same character would have a crit rate of 50% (minions)/60% (non-minions) half the time and 10% (minions)/20% (non-minions) the other half of the time. So a blended total crit rate of 30% (minions)/40% (non-minions). An extremely minor nerf (or perhaps no nerf at all when you consider that you can't start with your proc up). Characters who have less than 50% uptime would get a mild buff. Characters who have more than 50% uptime would get a larger nerf. Scrappers at less-than-50 levels would get a substantial buff, able to sustain a higher uptime with their proc and being less dependent on the proc. Sets that do not have a great place to put the proc would be less disadvantaged.

You're being weird. I didn't suggest that SR was obsolete. I said that, with SR of all things, you can build yourself well above softcap on all three positionals without needing DM's debuffs. And with SR's DDR, adding more to-hit debuffs is basically useless. DM's to-hit debuffs seem like they're potentially very useful -- on sets that can't easily softcap themselves. If you want to improve SR's mitigation, you should look for anything besides to-hit debuffs. Now, obviously, SR can still use DM's heal. But I don't think that brings that much value to the table if you're making a mitigation play with your primary. You mentioned getting impressed with DM/SR back in the days of SOs. I imagine it was indeed a great combo in the days of SOs -- before you could softcap yourself without recourse to DM's to-hit debuffs.

I mean, it's not, though. Like, was there a time on Live when the to-hit debuffs from DM were useful with SR? Sure. Before it became very easy to build plenty of defense without relying on to-hit debuffs.

Well, as far as I know, it's not at all a top end DPS set. And that's, I think, emblematic of sort of the problems we have in these kinds of discussions. I'm sure that there's some kind of experience that backs up that poster's praise of DM/SR (not a combo that I'd recommend, since the -to-hit from DM becomes largely obsolete once you're about level 35 with SR). But there are so many different noches within playing this game, and so little visibility into how other players play, that people make these confident assertions that seem kinda crazy in someone else's game niche). For another example, I think a lot of the people in this thread who make assertions about how proc builds give up a ton of mitigation or whatever else don't quite understand how much people have been able to achieve with really sophisticated proc builds, perhaps because those builds are rarely very thematic or only function at 50 or whatever.

I find the assertion that Dark Melee is obviously superior to Claws to be weird.

Throw the endurance drainers a bone. Make an enemy with a passive power that checks their endurance and gives them a damage bonus (maybe and to-hit) based on their current end level.

I think that an enemy faction with some lieutenants that spawn with an aura power that gives gigantic AoE defense (like: +50%, say) would be a little change-up of gameplay. The aura would supress if mezzed. So when you came against spawns that had those LTs, you have to focus down the lieutenant or mez them before blowing your AoE wad. Obviously not the be-all, end-all of difficulty, but something that could be sprinkled in with other ideas.

Uh, did someone suggest that we do?

I mean, I think also that a lot of content is SO easy. Like, if you can solo +4/x8 (and a lot of people can), then 8 people on the team who all can solo +4/x8... that's a lot. It's gonna take an enormous amount of increased difficulty to catch back up to "about ten times the power necessary to overcome this mob." Against the right opponents, bigger bags of HP can be a potent difference -- there are enemy types that, with some characters, I definitely rely on "kill enough of them to lower incoming damage before my defenses get overwhelmed" (much of my high-level play has been with bio armor, where your defenses are clicky-based. It's presumably less important to apply the death debuff with mitigation that's more steady-state).

The purple patch definitely scales down your offense much more strongly than it scales up enemy offense. Comparing a +4 to a +7 enemy, you do about 1/6th as much damage to the +7 enemy. They do about +20% more damage to you. So, I mean, I don't exactly agree, I think it's certainly possible to challenge people through level differences, but I agree with you that with the current purple patch, it definitely becomes a case of "you can't hurt them," long before they are pushing your defenses hard.

I mean, they do more damage and hit you more often. Like, are you so ferociously damage-mitigated that that's not a big deal? Sure, I can believe you are so ferociously damage-mitigated that that's not a big deal. But if "doing more damage and hitting you more often" do not constitute more difficulty, I'm not real sure what does.

I think the slight complication of this is that because most medium-end and higher builds build a lot of global recharge, the value of fast-recharging powers quickly gets capped in a way that slow-recharging powers do not. If you're running permahasten (180% global recharge), then a power that has an 8s base recharge recharges in 2.86 seconds. A power with a 4s base recharge recharges in 1.43 seconds. A power with a 3s base recharge recharges in 1.07 seconds. Since recharge doesn't start until animation of a power finishes, you can't have a one-power attack chain in CoH (and other factors work against that too -- like you want a power that can hold -res, but that's not your highest DPA power, etc). If you have a 3 power attack chain, the smallest that people realistically ever have, that devalues recharge that's < the summed animation times of the other two powers. But you still pay for that recharge time both in base damage and proc rate. This is part of what pushes people towards 15 second recharge time powers. (The other is reliability in your damage output when not at the infinite limit).

I just don't get the design goal here. Why give Sentinels shorter range but then wink and say, "Oh, but seriously though, we didn't actually mean 60', we meant 70'"? Personally, the short range on sentinels never bothered me much, but I know it's a huge issue for some people. Let's make the range be whatever the range should be, and set it there, rather than having the ATOs change it.

That's a perfectly sensible design approach. It's just not the one that we have. Nobody believes that all the ATs are at roughly level A, and then all the ATO's raise them to roughly A+X. Nobody thinks that Brute ATOs are as good as the ATOs of any of the other melee classes. Starting from a place of "well, let's just ignore the reality of the state of the game" is not a good way to make game design choices. If a massive nerf to Scrapper and Stalker ATOs were coming down the line, then sure. But I don't think any such nerf is coming (nor do I think that Scrappers and Stalkers would be very attractive compared to Brutes and Tanks if their ATOs were down at Brute/Tank level).

Yep. As low as like 0.97ish against +4s. You can buy the ATO for 100 merits or about 8M inf. You don't need the rest of the set, you don't need a complex build. It will make a huge difference in performance even if you use it at 3PPM with no global recharge. Players in SGs I was in who didn't make "builds," who mostly used common IOs or SOs still bought the ATOs for their AT, with merits. I also want to be extremely clear to both you and @Naraka: Do you think that well-build Scrappers with the ATO make Blasters have laughably bad damage? Are blasters obsolete because Scrappers are the only kings of DPS, once we're talking about the kind of play that includes ATOs? That's not my holistic impression. Mine is that at a given level of build sophistication, blasters, scrappers, and stalkers are all fairly close to each other in terms of performance. If anything, people tend to think that blasters are a little ahead of scrappers, in environments that don't highly value mitigation (soloing TFs at hard difficulties, for exaample). So it's very convenient to use Scrappers for mathematical comparisons. Their mechanics are simple compared to Stalker or Blaster mechanics. But if we accept that Blaster ~= Scrapper ~= Stalker, then comparisons between Sents and Scrappers are implicitly comparisons between Sents and Stalkers or Blasters.