Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, Infinitum said:

Controllers Soloing GMs is out of balance.  theres lots of stuff way more out of balance than TW.  None of it really breaks the game. Im ok with all of it, it is afterall a super hero game and most of this is made possible by creative IO set building.

 

I think thats working as designed.

Soloing GMs is out of intended balance but it is such an outlier due to game mechanics, and it also is overall inefficient to leveling/ rewards / general gameflow to be considered a gimmick.

[Myrmidon]

1 minute ago, Infinitum said:

i actually was probably part of the reason sad to say. because even Castle said something about my test results.

 

its funny, people always said tank damage sucked, i pull out my EM to prove them wrong, next thing i know its, EM is overpowered, now we are back here on Homecoming with tank damage sucks again.   lol

 

Truth be told, I was Primarily SS and didn’t play EM until long after they nerfed it. I saw people use the old power level, however, I never did experience it myself.

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Soloing GMs is out of intended balance but it is such an outlier due to game mechanics, and it also is overall inefficient to leveling/ rewards / general gameflow to be considered a gimmick.

But it happens, its very cool but it happens.  way more eggregious than TW.  TW is a well designed set.  More than likely brought about by the EM nerf and needing to throw melee a bone.

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Myrmidon said:

 

Truth be told, I was Primarily SS and didn’t play EM until long after they nerfed it. I saw people use the old power level, however, I never did experience it myself.

Well its a shame you missed that, it was the most punchy fun set ive ever played, its like psi melee now only with punches.  EM still hits incredibly hard and the set works, but its annoying at times when you corpse bomb your biggest hit.

[Myrmidon]

33 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Well its a shame you missed that, it was the most punchy fun set ive ever played, its like psi melee now only with punches.  EM still hits incredibly hard and the set works, but its annoying at times when you corpse bomb your biggest hit.

 

 

The times they they are a changin.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Myrmidon

[Morgrum]

Honestly guys TW is fine.

It hits hard in burst damage with some of the worst Recharge, Endurance, and Animation times and a Combo system tacked to it.

This without a full IO set is so bad that most folks give up on TW and reroll something else.

Yes Momentum can help with that some of the time.

 

Yes you can build a set to do pure DPS but if I did that I would have to sacrifice the survivability of my WP Primary on my tank.

Its has good mitigation but so does my War Mace's cone and sweeping pbaoe as does SS's Footstomp which can be tweaked to have a fast recharge.

The set is clunky requiring you to do combos with long to momentum medium animation timers holding you in one spot I.E. leaving you vulnerable in TF's/Raids.

I look at my TW-WP combo and my SJ-Bio combo and my SJ-Bio hands down out DPS's in the range that is not even close with close to the same survivability because of the heal/absorb shields.

 

I look at the numbers your posting there and my TW simply does not do what you are posting because while he does good damage for a Tanker he is is built to tank aka the name Tanker.

TW by itself isn't an issue TW just like other attack sets with certain defensive sets I.E. Bio armor is an issue.

Maybe you should be looking at the common denominator that is allowing all of these different attack sets to have the massive damage instead of looking at the sets themselves. 

 

One thing that hasn't been stated is the delay in the initial attacks that TW has making it a bit more difficult then say a Foot stomp to grab and hold that groups aggro because you will not have Momentum up and ready for every set of mobs as you and your team leapfrog between groups. 

And as stated above there are AT combos that blow TW damage out of the water when your doing a static test on a pylon.

Which has no bearing what so ever to the game itself because your basically hitting a punching bag.

Your not looking for the glowy lines of death on the ground, controlling aggro, getting said AV to turn and face you instead of groups.

When your actually playing the game your DPS goes down tremendously because well you are doing a hell of a lot more then spamming attacks at an unmoving pylon by yourself.

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Morgrum

[Mr. Vee]

5 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It feels great to play and only gets more fun and smash as you go... but the performance of it takes away from the enjoyment of other sets. 

srsly?

[Indystruck]

2 minutes ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

srsly?

 

Yeah, playing outlier sets makes it hard to go back to other sets for some people. Not exactly surprising. 

[Galaxy Brain]

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

But it happens, its very cool but it happens.  way more eggregious than TW.  TW is a well designed set.  More than likely brought about by the EM nerf and needing to throw melee a bone.

It's cool, but it is such a gimmick that comparing that to a set that performs above where it should is apples and oranges. 

 

GM soloing does not net great rewards over time, and is mechanically not very transferable to other facets of gameplay due to how they get taken down vs normal mobbing. TW on the other hand had great performance across the board compared to other melee sets.

 

I do think other sets do need buffs, but as somebody else said earlier we do need some sort of "line" to balance around and currently TW feels above where that should be by an inch, while most other top tier sets are about at the line.

[Infinitum]

33 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It's cool, but it is such a gimmick that comparing that to a set that performs above where it should is apples and oranges. 

 

GM soloing does not net great rewards over time, and is mechanically not very transferable to other facets of gameplay due to how they get taken down vs normal mobbing. TW on the other hand had great performance across the board compared to other melee sets.

 

I do think other sets do need buffs, but as somebody else said earlier we do need some sort of "line" to balance around and currently TW feels above where that should be by an inch, while most other top tier sets are about at the line.

That same troller can then solo TFs AVs and then combine it with more and something even more cool happens, that power stacks.  (I get it its supposed to, and I have one that can do this) It makes any other AT unnecessary. 

 

All of melee should be buffed if needed, not any top performer nerfed.  If for not any other reason than to not look out of place with the OP of the buff debuff stacking game.

 

From what I'm seeing also, most upper level TW outliers come when in combo with bio, could that be creating a weird synergy that makes it such an outlier?

 

The reason I ask that is mine is a TW/Elec. It doesnt feel like an outlier to me when compared to my Fire fire pyre tank with aoes, or with my EM, rad, or psi brute with single target even when using rend armor as the main attack for ST.

 

I was just messing arounf PI last night with the portal Corp death mage families and I could take them down in 2-3 hits with my rad my EM or my psi, with TW it took a good bit longer to take them out.

 

I built my TW for aoe/cone, I didnt think it was bad but maybe my TW build is just crappy. lol

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

srsly?

Doesnt compute does it?  lol

[Infinitum]

5 hours ago, Morgrum said:

Honestly guys TW is fine.

It hits hard in burst damage with some of the worst Recharge, Endurance, and Animation times and a Combo system tacked to it.

This without a full IO set is so bad that most folks give up on TW and reroll something else.

Yes Momentum can help with that some of the time.

 

Yes you can build a set to do pure DPS but if I did that I would have to sacrifice the survivability of my WP Primary on my tank.

Its has good mitigation but so does my War Mace's cone and sweeping pbaoe as does SS's Footstomp which can be tweaked to have a fast recharge.

The set is clunky requiring you to do combos with long to momentum medium animation timers holding you in one spot I.E. leaving you vulnerable in TF's/Raids.

I look at my TW-WP combo and my SJ-Bio combo and my SJ-Bio hands down out DPS's in the range that is not even close with close to the same survivability because of the heal/absorb shields.

 

I look at the numbers your posting there and my TW simply does not do what you are posting because while he does good damage for a Tanker he is is built to tank aka the name Tanker.

TW by itself isn't an issue TW just like other attack sets with certain defensive sets I.E. Bio armor is an issue.

Maybe you should be looking at the common denominator that is allowing all of these different attack sets to have the massive damage instead of looking at the sets themselves. 

 

One thing that hasn't been stated is the delay in the initial attacks that TW has making it a bit more difficult then say a Foot stomp to grab and hold that groups aggro because you will not have Momentum up and ready for every set of mobs as you and your team leapfrog between groups. 

And as stated above there are AT combos that blow TW damage out of the water when your doing a static test on a pylon.

Which has no bearing what so ever to the game itself because your basically hitting a punching bag.

Your not looking for the glowy lines of death on the ground, controlling aggro, getting said AV to turn and face you instead of groups.

When your actually playing the game your DPS goes down tremendously because well you are doing a hell of a lot more then spamming attacks at an unmoving pylon by yourself.

 

I think your TW and mine have similar utility, because im not seeing the dps they are talking about either I built it to take a beating and aoe/cone the mob around the boss-av to death.

 

I also didn't think about what you said about people abandoning the set early, usually pre 30 becausr it is a clunky unforgiving set prior to that.  I had at least 4 sg mates abandon it.  Their complaint was it was dreadfully slow, and ate so much endurance they could barely finish missions especially when there was a boss or av present.

 

But everything you said is my experience with TW also, I'm glad its not just me that feels confused why it feels so OP because mine honestly doesnt and thats why its shelved on favor of at lease 2 others, 3 if they adjust EM.

[Galaxy Brain]

My in game experience with TW has it outperform other primaries while leveling and at max level, and this is without /bio or heavy IO use outside of the standard common slotting / performance shifter that *everyone* takes. When I said that it takes away from other sets, this is more a personal anecdote but others have mentioned it in the thread as well, going as far as getting tells that they are not fun to team with. When I play my TW and then try another weapon set... even with needing to set up momentum it just feels better. You get more reach, hit harder with generally more AoEs that hit wide areas, and have more reliable crowd control and buff/debuff due to wide area hits / etc. In general combat you usually only throw out a slow attack every 5th swing or so, which matches up with other sets imo where you usually rotate in a big hitter that is slow while your fast attacks recharge. The difference with TW is that it's all big hitters.

 

As for soloing TFs and AVs, melee ATs can do this as well as others. Itd be interesting to get numbers on what builds can do it and if any are possible without heavy slotting.... Though GM hunting is still a function of game mechanics stacking up vs those specific targets more often than not. Buff / Debuff is broken in this game via stacking between support sets, but that is a titanic can of worms that goes far beyond any one set or AT.

 

On a seperate but relevant note:

 

@GM Sijin, I wonder if it's possible to datamine what IOs are commonly taken and slotted and compared to power combos?

 

I know the game is *not* balanced around IO slotting, but looking into what % of X builds use certain IOs, such as the ever popular +end/recovery procs, or LotG, etc, could be interesting to see how prevalent the slotting of them really are when it comes to performance. 

[EyeLuvBooks]

Part of this issue (and this thread) is based on 'feel' and part is based on numbers and to me THAT is part of the disconnect.

 

I have an Invul/TW Tank at lvl 29 right now. He's got lvl 30 common IOs, no Performance Shifter (or any other recipe IO) and a couple of his powers have an empty slot or two because I'm lazy and I don't always want to stop and craft the missing IO. If I used this toon as my benchmark then I would say that TW is WAI but is not for everyone because of the various mechanics involved. It was MISERABLE to play for the first ten levels. The next ten weren't much better. The latest 10 were better after the IOs started getting slotted in but the character still finds himself sucking wind after 2 mobs without popping Blues. Defeating Orange Lts takes roughly the length of a Bible and don't ask me to fight red Bosses without a full IO tray.

 

In order to compare apples to apples I created a TW/Regen Brute this morning (because the Brute versions seem to be the ones catching the heat). I went through the Gal City tutorial, emerged at lvl 2, got the 2 xp booster and swept the park for Lts to lvl 6. Then I did a DFB which got me to lvl 10 and then a short AE mission to get me to lvl 12. I did all of this just to get a good idea of how the early levels were as opposed to the high-end where every toon can be a monster if you have 200M Inf to spend.

 

The DFB sucks for TW. I spent half the time spanking corpses and the first badge was a serious PITA because I had 1 non-AoE attack aside from Brawl. My TW Tank has the same problem at lvl 30 play because the team doesn't often need someone to herd the mobs and I usually get one attack chain off before the mob is dead. I can't tell you how many times I've started my windup and my target has vanished from in front of me due to KB. The animation has started so the attack goes off but the second one doesn't because my target is on the other side of the hall.

 

Btw that thing about missing with your first attack and so having no Momentum for the second? Yeah...that nearly DOUBLES your 'out of Momentum' time and until you start slotting at lvl 22 you're missing at least a quarter of the time based on numbers.

 

Another point (we were discussing this over on the 'Status Protection for Shields' thread): ANY attack that slows you down drastically reduces your time under Momentum. Fighting Vahz and lvl 5? Yeah...picked my nose for most of a whole spawn there. How many sets have resistance to Slow? At what point do you have enough Enhancements slotted to counter it? These are the reasons why many players abandon TW before it becomes really good. How many toons have TW versus how many HOURS are they played each week? With 1000 slots many players won't delete their abandoned toons they'll simply make new ones.

 

IMHO the issues with TW are edge-cases, not the norm. Yes, at the top-end of the game TW outperforms. Isn't that the payoff for spending 40+ levels in the shitter? Yes Brutes with TW likely do too much damage WHEN the player has a clue what he's doing (I alternated when fighting spawns, one set using Brawl for keep Fury up and one not). Also, the ever-popular Brute trick of setting Brawl to Auto to keep Fury up? Yeah...unless you've got your timing down to the 10th of a second Brawl will fire right in the middle of your attack chain and there goes Momentum.

 

Yes, in SOME cases, with the RIGHT circumstances, TW is too good. You don't see those circumstances looking at a spreadsheet. Can your EA-built, IO-infused TW Brute destroy a GM? Sure they could...but the same can be said for just about any other build in the hands of a skilled player. If TW is too good then it's not by any amount that I feel warrants action at this time.

[Infinitum]

27 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

Part of this issue (and this thread) is based on 'feel' and part is based on numbers and to me THAT is part of the disconnect.

 

I have an Invul/TW Tank at lvl 29 right now. He's got lvl 30 common IOs, no Performance Shifter (or any other recipe IO) and a couple of his powers have an empty slot or two because I'm lazy and I don't always want to stop and craft the missing IO. If I used this toon as my benchmark then I would say that TW is WAI but is not for everyone because of the various mechanics involved. It was MISERABLE to play for the first ten levels. The next ten weren't much better. The latest 10 were better after the IOs started getting slotted in but the character still finds himself sucking wind after 2 mobs without popping Blues. Defeating Orange Lts takes roughly the length of a Bible and don't ask me to fight red Bosses without a full IO tray.

 

In order to compare apples to apples I created a TW/Regen Brute this morning (because the Brute versions seem to be the ones catching the heat). I went through the Gal City tutorial, emerged at lvl 2, got the 2 xp booster and swept the park for Lts to lvl 6. Then I did a DFB which got me to lvl 10 and then a short AE mission to get me to lvl 12. I did all of this just to get a good idea of how the early levels were as opposed to the high-end where every toon can be a monster if you have 200M Inf to spend.

 

The DFB sucks for TW. I spent half the time spanking corpses and the first badge was a serious PITA because I had 1 non-AoE attack aside from Brawl. My TW Tank has the same problem at lvl 30 play because the team doesn't often need someone to herd the mobs and I usually get one attack chain off before the mob is dead. I can't tell you how many times I've started my windup and my target has vanished from in front of me due to KB. The animation has started so the attack goes off but the second one doesn't because my target is on the other side of the hall.

 

Btw that thing about missing with your first attack and so having no Momentum for the second? Yeah...that nearly DOUBLES your 'out of Momentum' time and until you start slotting at lvl 22 you're missing at least a quarter of the time based on numbers.

 

Another point (we were discussing this over on the 'Status Protection for Shields' thread): ANY attack that slows you down drastically reduces your time under Momentum. Fighting Vahz and lvl 5? Yeah...picked my nose for most of a whole spawn there. How many sets have resistance to Slow? At what point do you have enough Enhancements slotted to counter it? These are the reasons why many players abandon TW before it becomes really good. How many toons have TW versus how many HOURS are they played each week? With 1000 slots many players won't delete their abandoned toons they'll simply make new ones.

 

IMHO the issues with TW are edge-cases, not the norm. Yes, at the top-end of the game TW outperforms. Isn't that the payoff for spending 40+ levels in the shitter? Yes Brutes with TW likely do too much damage WHEN the player has a clue what he's doing (I alternated when fighting spawns, one set using Brawl for keep Fury up and one not). Also, the ever-popular Brute trick of setting Brawl to Auto to keep Fury up? Yeah...unless you've got your timing down to the 10th of a second Brawl will fire right in the middle of your attack chain and there goes Momentum.

 

Yes, in SOME cases, with the RIGHT circumstances, TW is too good. You don't see those circumstances looking at a spreadsheet. Can your EA-built, IO-infused TW Brute destroy a GM? Sure they could...but the same can be said for just about any other build in the hands of a skilled player. If TW is too good then it's not by any amount that I feel warrants action at this time.

I wish I could have put what I was trying to say to words as goid as you just did.  But that nails it.  Well done!

Edited September 12, 2019 by Infinitum

[Hopeling]

28 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

Yes, at the top-end of the game TW outperforms. Isn't that the payoff for spending 40+ levels in the shitter?

It isn't, no.

 

Firstly, because you're not in the shitter that whole time. While TW really does suck at low levels when you can't even chain together attacks to take advantage of Momentum in a meaningful way, that largely goes away by the time you get Follow Through and Rend Armor (ie, by about level 20 for brutes/scrappers, 30 for tankers); at these mid levels, TW does about as well as many other sets in the same level range. Your Brute has not yet reached this point, and your Tanker is only barely reaching it now. The set then really comes into its own when you have Whirling Smash and Arc of Destruction (level 32 for brutes/scrappers, 38 for tankers).

 

But secondly, you know which other sets don't bloom until they get their last two powers? Super Strength, Broad Sword, War Mace, Street Justice, every blast set, every control set, every Mastermind, Peacebringers, Warshades, Kinetics, Storm Summoning, and many others. Plenty of powersets or even entire archetypes bloom late, but nobody seems to think this means they should be objectively better across the board than indicated by the game's own design formulas.

[Snakebit]

1 hour ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

Part of this issue (and this thread) is based on 'feel' and part is based on numbers and to me THAT is part of the disconnect.

 

I have an Invul/TW Tank at lvl 29 right now. He's got lvl 30 common IOs, no Performance Shifter (or any other recipe IO) and a couple of his powers have an empty slot or two because I'm lazy and I don't always want to stop and craft the missing IO. If I used this toon as my benchmark then I would say that TW is WAI but is not for everyone because of the various mechanics involved. It was MISERABLE to play for the first ten levels. The next ten weren't much better. The latest 10 were better after the IOs started getting slotted in but the character still finds himself sucking wind after 2 mobs without popping Blues. Defeating Orange Lts takes roughly the length of a Bible and don't ask me to fight red Bosses without a full IO tray.

 

In order to compare apples to apples I created a TW/Regen Brute this morning (because the Brute versions seem to be the ones catching the heat). I went through the Gal City tutorial, emerged at lvl 2, got the 2 xp booster and swept the park for Lts to lvl 6. Then I did a DFB which got me to lvl 10 and then a short AE mission to get me to lvl 12. I did all of this just to get a good idea of how the early levels were as opposed to the high-end where every toon can be a monster if you have 200M Inf to spend.

 

The DFB sucks for TW. I spent half the time spanking corpses and the first badge was a serious PITA because I had 1 non-AoE attack aside from Brawl. My TW Tank has the same problem at lvl 30 play because the team doesn't often need someone to herd the mobs and I usually get one attack chain off before the mob is dead. I can't tell you how many times I've started my windup and my target has vanished from in front of me due to KB. The animation has started so the attack goes off but the second one doesn't because my target is on the other side of the hall.

 

Btw that thing about missing with your first attack and so having no Momentum for the second? Yeah...that nearly DOUBLES your 'out of Momentum' time and until you start slotting at lvl 22 you're missing at least a quarter of the time based on numbers.

 

Another point (we were discussing this over on the 'Status Protection for Shields' thread): ANY attack that slows you down drastically reduces your time under Momentum. Fighting Vahz and lvl 5? Yeah...picked my nose for most of a whole spawn there. How many sets have resistance to Slow? At what point do you have enough Enhancements slotted to counter it? These are the reasons why many players abandon TW before it becomes really good. How many toons have TW versus how many HOURS are they played each week? With 1000 slots many players won't delete their abandoned toons they'll simply make new ones.

 

IMHO the issues with TW are edge-cases, not the norm. Yes, at the top-end of the game TW outperforms. Isn't that the payoff for spending 40+ levels in the shitter? Yes Brutes with TW likely do too much damage WHEN the player has a clue what he's doing (I alternated when fighting spawns, one set using Brawl for keep Fury up and one not). Also, the ever-popular Brute trick of setting Brawl to Auto to keep Fury up? Yeah...unless you've got your timing down to the 10th of a second Brawl will fire right in the middle of your attack chain and there goes Momentum.

 

Yes, in SOME cases, with the RIGHT circumstances, TW is too good. You don't see those circumstances looking at a spreadsheet. Can your EA-built, IO-infused TW Brute destroy a GM? Sure they could...but the same can be said for just about any other build in the hands of a skilled player. If TW is too good then it's not by any amount that I feel warrants action at this time.

Wanted to read but you started talking about how hard life is in DFB.

[GM Sijin]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I wonder if it's possible to datamine what IOs are commonly taken and slotted and compared to power combos?

Given this information is in the database, it should be possible. Whether it's a reasonable ask is another question. If the player base were to request information of this nature they'd want to be certain they're including all the data elements they'd need to perform meaningful analysis. The reason for this is running queries on live databases can have performance impacts, and it's much better to one-and-done it. I also don't know what their policy is, or if they've got one yet, for providing that level of detail. It's certainly likely to be something they won't want to do frivolously.

[Galaxy Brain]

TW becomes "good" once you get to lvl 15~16ish (Brute/Scrap). By then you have a few slots in the TW powers, and have 2 cones, 2 st attacks, probably Build Momentum as well as some armor. The slotting can net you the basics for Acc / End early on, and you have two cones to handle riff raff which either give bonus Smashing and melee def (great vs most content) or have a great chance to knock down multiple foes. Given these are AoEs, it is fare more forgiving than most other Parries or Knockdown powers for self defense as the odds of missing all targets in range are slimmer than when you swing for 1 target and roll the dice early on, the only exception is with Staff Fighting which gets Guarded Spin, as well as Eye of the Storm early on. You also have a way to lower def on a single target, and another ST knockdown with hefty damage, but locked behind momentum. In most fights, you can swing your cone attacks in a group and damage everything in front of you, smack an LT or Boss with the STs, and swing the cones again while being relatively safe, and dealing good damage to a group. This is a nice spot early on, and only gets better as you get more slots and powers.

 

On its own, it is fine overall. It is the best damaging melee set, but comes with the drawback of higher end costs / periods of sluggishness. Though as brought up in this thread the "slow" times are not actually that slow compared to other such heavy hitters, and by swinging cones your odds of hitting just 1 target to gain momentum is very high as each target in the area has its own hit chance and the odds of missing multiple people at once are slimmer than ST. Once you get momentum up, you become very fluid and can deal big damage quickly on top of the other benefits TW enjoys from an AoE parry, Knockdowns, and so on. It is easy to gain momentum on average if you open with an AoE on different targets, which means you are slow much less often than you are fast which leaves End as the only issue with the set that can be supplemented by slotting early on, blues, or simply by killing fast / keeping enemies bounced off the ground and living through to rest up a bit.

 

In my experience, the drawbacks of the set don't really play out as intended and you get much  more positive in the trade, on top of side effects which other high-damage sets don't usually get on many powers.

 

 

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Hopeling said:

It isn't, no.

 

Firstly, because you're not in the shitter that whole time. While TW really does suck at low levels when you can't even chain together attacks to take advantage of Momentum in a meaningful way, that largely goes away by the time you get Follow Through and Rend Armor (ie, by about level 20 for brutes/scrappers, 30 for tankers); at these mid levels, TW does about as well as many other sets in the same level range. Your Brute has not yet reached this point, and your Tanker is only barely reaching it now. The set then really comes into its own when you have Whirling Smash and Arc of Destruction (level 32 for brutes/scrappers, 38 for tankers).

 

But secondly, you know which other sets don't bloom until they get their last two powers? Super Strength, Broad Sword, War Mace, Street Justice, every blast set, every control set, every Mastermind, Peacebringers, Warshades, Kinetics, Storm Summoning, and many others. Plenty of powersets or even entire archetypes bloom late, but nobody seems to think this means they should be objectively better across the board than indicated by the game's own design formulas.

Those formulas aren't translating to what the set actually does in gameplay in every scenario though, not for every design possibility anyway.  If you arent building for damage TW isnt going to do the extreme stuff you are talking about.

 

Thats what I was trying to figure out last night.  I can see if you were building for damage and also with bio armor how it could be OP but mines not.

 

And it is a clunky mess until about lvl30 to 40 somewhere ive had people drop it several times because of that.

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

TW becomes "good" once you get to lvl 15~16ish (Brute/Scrap). By then you have a few slots in the TW powers, and have 2 cones, 2 st attacks, probably Build Momentum as well as some armor. The slotting can net you the basics for Acc / End early on, and you have two cones to handle riff raff which either give bonus Smashing and melee def (great vs most content) or have a great chance to knock down multiple foes. Given these are AoEs, it is fare more forgiving than most other Parries or Knockdown powers for self defense as the odds of missing all targets in range are slimmer than when you swing for 1 target and roll the dice early on, the only exception is with Staff Fighting which gets Guarded Spin, as well as Eye of the Storm early on. You also have a way to lower def on a single target, and another ST knockdown with hefty damage, but locked behind momentum. In most fights, you can swing your cone attacks in a group and damage everything in front of you, smack an LT or Boss with the STs, and swing the cones again while being relatively safe, and dealing good damage to a group. This is a nice spot early on, and only gets better as you get more slots and powers.

 

On its own, it is fine overall. It is the best damaging melee set, but comes with the drawback of higher end costs / periods of sluggishness. Though as brought up in this thread the "slow" times are not actually that slow compared to other such heavy hitters, and by swinging cones your odds of hitting just 1 target to gain momentum is very high as each target in the area has its own hit chance and the odds of missing multiple people at once are slimmer than ST. Once you get momentum up, you become very fluid and can deal big damage quickly on top of the other benefits TW enjoys from an AoE parry, Knockdowns, and so on. It is easy to gain momentum on average if you open with an AoE on different targets, which means you are slow much less often than you are fast which leaves End as the only issue with the set that can be supplemented by slotting early on, blues, or simply by killing fast / keeping enemies bounced off the ground and living through to rest up a bit.

 

In my experience, the drawbacks of the set don't really play out as intended and you get much  more positive in the trade, on top of side effects which other high-damage sets don't usually get on many powers.

 

 

No way with the level 15 ish being good.   Just no way. Lol. Didnt happen for me anyway.

[Galaxy Brain]

15 minutes ago, GM Sijin said:

Given this information is in the database, it should be possible. Whether it's a reasonable ask is another question. If the player base were to request information of this nature they'd want to be certain they're including all the data elements they'd need to perform meaningful analysis. The reason for this is running queries on live databases can have performance impacts, and it's much better to one-and-done it. I also don't know what their policy is, or if they've got one yet, for providing that level of detail. It's certainly likely to be something they won't want to do frivolously.

I think this will need to be it's own thread, but it sounds like a worthwhile effort if we can gather a set of data points that would be gathered.

 

21 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

No way with the level 15 ish being good.   Just no way. Lol. Didnt happen for me anyway.

It happened for me that way lol. I can solo x3 at that lvl on my TW/Rad, and my TW/WP as well. Several sets have an endurance mitigation tool in them that I admit can overly help with TW downtime, but fight to fight you can often have good results even early on.

 

Note I said "good", not amazing/OP/etc. But the traits TW has makes it already very good with little true weaknesses, and as you add outside effects (via teams, IOs, secondary sets, etc) the effectiveness of the set goes up and up. 

[Morgrum]

Since I keep hearing Brute and Bio armor thrown around a lot as being the issue with TW.

Why not look at those two factors instead of crying wolf on an attack set that has inherent penalties built into it.

 

Hell we all know a Brute once they are IO'd out will completely outperform a Tanker in dps, close in on scrapper damage, and have near tanker survivability.

How is that TW's problem?

Sounds more like a class issue that is seen once again when IO sets are put into the mix.

Pre sets Brutes are fine.

 

Post IO sets well there is a reason you see so many Spines/Fire Brutes.

But don't cry wolf on them because the whining coming out of the AE building would cause Atlas park to explode.

 

Maybe stop trying to nerf sets because IO's are out of hand?

 

Also try leveling the set yourself.

No AE, No Power leveling, NO BIO ARMOR ( Because that's where things get skewed)!

Play the set and see what we are talking about.

 

And try to remember the game is not balanced on IO sets.

 

One thing more that is against the TW set the knockback mag is massive insanely so even with a KB to KD IO if its blue you will send the target flying and yellow and orange will go flying if some else so much a farts a KD mag 1.

That is not a benefit since I causes you to now try and rundown everything that was once grouped.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Morgrum

[Galaxy Brain]

We have brought up that TW itself has higher performance than other sets across ATs, not just brutes and not just with Bio, though bio does accentuate its strengths in a massive way.

[Mr. Vee]

Idk, it's strong but it has definite weaknesses. Most of the newer sets are really strong, and many of them don't have as glaring a weakness as TW. And its weaknesses aren't the kind that will show up well when you're fighting a stationary pylon. I've mentioned before how it is on good teams but even solo against moving enemies there are problems. E.g, most of us over the years have gotten quite good at lining up our cones for max targets even when we're saturated with enemies. But those techniques kind of depend on us then using the cone before the enemies move back around behind us. Now try doing that with TW - you might hit fewer enemies than if you'd just used the cones in the pile because they all had time to move behind you while you were animating. Now sure you can herd yourself into a corner to max cones but that's not always possible. Another thing - probably confirmation bias but it seems to me that if i'm going to miss with the set, 9 times out of 10 it will be on my first attack so that I have to have two slow animations before I hit anything.

 

So yeah, it's a great set, maybe even insanely great with bio or fire, but if it gets a nerf because of its pylon numbers or because a few people are savants and can solo apex on it when i can barely manage to hit those stupid swords with any melee toon, it's likely to become just crappy enough that the greater number of folks abandon it as has happened with nerfs in the past.