Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[Morgrum]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Hopeling beat me to it, but @Morgrum those stats reflect popularity and not raw effectiveness.  That's why you see a million inv/ss tankers and claw/regens, or theme/theme pairings.

I am not hoping to beat you to anything I am just showing raw data as you like to show when folks beat up on innocent pylons. (shrugs)

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Farmers pick Spines.

People who want to be Superman pick Super Strength.

??? pick Titan Weapons.

 

(I want to say ???="people who know TW is OP".)

Thars why mines on the shelf 3 back I guess.  Its not OP unless you exploit the damage aspect of it somehow, but my build doesn't.

 

Thats what I'm seeing here.

[Morgrum]

11 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Out of 6,300 people playing Titan Weapons Scrappers, 1/12 make it to 50.

 

Out of 8,000 people playing Street Justice Scrappers 1 in 26 make it to 50.

 

Out of 4,000 Scrappers playing Electric Melee, 1 in 10 make it to 50.

 

Out of 8,000 Martial Artists, 1 in 22 makes it to 50.

 

Out of 5,500 Spines Scrappers 1 in 12 makes it to 50.

 

When you break the numbers down by percentage, it looks like people just give up on a lot of powersets much more often than your initial numbers present it. But Titan Weapons, Electric Melee, and Spines are all near 1 in 10 going all the way.

So your saying that Electric Melee and Spines will be the next calls for nerf by forum users?

[Infinitum]

10 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

How much did it beat it by in this specific test?

326 to 295

[Morgrum]

7 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Farmers pick Spines.

People who want to be Superman pick Super Strength.

??? pick Titan Weapons.

 

(I want to say ???="people who know TW is OP".)

Or maybe they are Anime fans who want to cry out Arc of Destruction at the top of their lungs everytime I click on the button.

I know that's what I want to do.... and have done.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Morgrum

[Galaxy Brain]

9 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

this is starting to look more and more like a TW/Bio and scrapper issue than anything else.  If it was as OP as you guys are saying, why doesnt it overtake Spines fire on Brutes?

 

Damage is damage right?

Because spines/fire is ez pz farming in hyper specific content. Take a spines/fire to anywhere else and it's not nearly as good.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Because spines/fire is ez pz farming in hyper specific content. Take a spines/fire to anywhere else and it's not nearly as good.

But damage is damage if TW is as OP and aoe and works with anything op across the board as everyone says why not TW fire?

 

From what y'all are saying TW has more damage, is faster and momentum swing isnt a drawback.

 

So why not it then?  Damage is damage.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Infinitum

[EyeLuvBooks]

1 minute ago, Morgrum said:

Or maybe they are Anime fans who want to cray our Arc of Destruction at the top of their lungs everytime I click on the button.

I know that's what I want to do.... and have done.

It's good to enjoy what you do lol.

 

I still maintain that if TW is OP then it's a corner case of a few players who actually understand the game and build/play their characters well versus the other 90% of the players.

 

In my self-test that I did earlier today the spawns I fought without using Brawl to keep Fury high took, on average, one additional attack to put down. If you don't have Momentum, that one attack can take a LONG time.

 

I'd also like to see numbers and actual video on a TW in real team play. Maybe one of those crying for a nerf can take a mid-level TW character, join a non-farming, non-raid team and just play for an hour or two. I'd watch every second and COUNT how many time the TW hit an attack and the spawn was dead by the time the hit arrived...or how often that crucial (because of Momentum) first hit landed only to duff the second hit because the EB Blaster knocked the target across the room.

 

Show me numbers on THIS before you go crying for a nerf on something. If TW were THAT OP the S/L farmers would be creating them if droves as we speak.

 

If anything, I think we need to nerf Spines and Fire Armor. I mean, if they're SO popular they MUST be OP...right?

[Galaxy Brain]

This is going into outside meta, but Spine/Fire is much easier to play and *farm* with given specific content catered to it. When you can easily mop up a farm catered to your set with less effort, people will gravitate to that even if other sets can crank out more DPS that takes more attention.

 

TW/Fire will be able to do much more content than Spines/Fire will, but Spine/Fire is what is advertised as the AE farming build to use to make bank and people will flock to it. I dont think I have actually seen one in the wild outside of the AE lobby lol.

[Morgrum]

I have but they are rare.

And usually they are vet level 100+...………..

Ae builds are someone I try not to group with.

Farming does not equal Task Forces/Trials.

 

Running an ITF with AE farmers is not fun I have gone through that nightmare that in PUG's before.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Morgrum

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

This is going into outside meta, but Spine/Fire is much easier to play and *farm* with given specific content catered to it. When you can easily mop up a farm catered to your set with less effort, people will gravitate to that even if other sets can crank out more DPS that takes more attention.

 

TW/Fire will be able to do much more content than Spines/Fire will, but Spine/Fire is what is advertised as the AE farming build to use to make bank and people will flock to it. I dont think I have actually seen one in the wild outside of the AE lobby lol.

No, cant change the rules now, fire is what the farm caters to, damage is damage.  If TW is OP and easily played with no drawbacks like you say it shoud supplant Spines with no issues and be light years bettet because TW is so OP.

[Morgrum]

10 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

This is going into outside meta, but Spine/Fire is much easier to play and *farm* with given specific content catered to it. When you can easily mop up a farm catered to your set with less effort, people will gravitate to that even if other sets can crank out more DPS that takes more attention.

 

TW/Fire will be able to do much more content than Spines/Fire will, but Spine/Fire is what is advertised as the AE farming build to use to make bank and people will flock to it. I dont think I have actually seen one in the wild outside of the AE lobby lol.

The second you start quoting pylon test using a untested and balanced secondary/primary ( Bio ) you went into outside META. 

The second folks use the example of a TW/Bio scrapper running an Apex with an unbalanced secondary you went into outside META.

When folks start pointing at TW/Bio brutes you went into outside META.

The common denominator on the massive dps melee builds is not TW's its Bio Armor.

And I having played a brute with fire as his secondary I cant tell you BURN does way more damage then Whirling blade ever will.

[Steampunkette]

22 minutes ago, Morgrum said:

So your saying that Electric Melee and Spines will be the next calls for nerf by forum users?

Not at all. Only that your numbers are misleading. They present the fact that most people don't make it to 50 on Titan Weapons and posits that it's because it sucks at lower levels and gets good later because it's #1 at 50.

 

But the most popular set overall, which does really nice damage and is good pretty much from the get-go and strong all the way to post-50, only has a 1 in 26 ratio of being played to 50. While Titan Weapons, the 7th most popular set, gets to 50 1 in 12 plays.

 

It could be "It's better at end-game and sucks at low levels" just as easily "It holds attention better" because this game -runs rampant- with Altitis and the majority of characters stall out around 32-44.

 

Unless we intend to posit that it has a larger number of people who PL it to 50 and just play it at high end 'cause that's the only way it's "worth" playing. But we'd need some different numbers for that. Specifically good would be 'Time Played' on Titan Weapons characters compared to other character/set combo.

 

In short: Needs more Datas and drawing conclusions from 2 datapoints is bad.

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, Morgrum said:

The second you start quoting pylon test using a untested and balanced secondary/primary ( Bio ) you went into outside META. 

The second folks use the example of a TW/Bio scrapper running an Apex with an unbalanced secondary you went into outside META.

When folks start pointing at TW/Bio brutes you went into outside META.

The common denominator on the massive dps melee builds is not TW's its Bio Armor.

And I having played a brute with fire as his secondary I cant tell you BURN does way more damage then Whirling blade ever will.

There is a lot that does more damage than whirling blade, but it looks cool and knocks everything around.  Feels more OP than it is.  

[Morgrum]

10 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Not at all. Only that your numbers are misleading. They present the fact that most people don't make it to 50 on Titan Weapons and posits that it's because it sucks at lower levels and gets good later because it's #1 at 50.

 

But the most popular set overall, which does really nice damage and is good pretty much from the get-go and strong all the way to post-50, only has a 1 in 26 ratio of being played to 50. While Titan Weapons, the 7th most popular set, gets to 50 1 in 12 plays.

 

It could be "It's better at end-game and sucks at low levels" just as easily "It holds attention better" because this game -runs rampant- with Altitis and the majority of characters stall out around 32-44.

 

Unless we intend to posit that it has a larger number of people who PL it to 50 and just play it at high end 'cause that's the only way it's "worth" playing. But we'd need some different numbers for that. Specifically good would be 'Time Played' on Titan Weapons characters compared to other character/set combo.

 

In short: Needs more Datas and drawing conclusions from 2 datapoints is bad.

I will completely agree with that on both points we do need more data.

And not Pylon, apex Bio armor test...… I still hold that the issue we are having with melee sets having insane dps is due to Bio combos.

TW's is the third of my 8 Incarnates but since he is a Tanker he is naturally my main.

I have just gravitated to Tankers since Beta.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Morgrum

[Galaxy Brain]

8 minutes ago, Morgrum said:

The second you start quoting pylon test using a untested and balanced secondary/primary ( Bio ) you went into outside META. 

The second folks use the example of a TW/Bio scrapper running an Apex with an unbalanced secondary you went into outside META.

When folks start pointing at TW/Bio brutes you went into outside META.

The common denominator on the massive dps melee builds is not TW's its Bio Armor.

And I having played a brute with fire as his secondary I cant tell you BURN does way more damage then Whirling blade ever will.

I havent brought up /Bio as a point other than to say it accentuates TW's strengths, but then it does so with every other melee pairing and even blast pairing with Sentinels. Bio should also be looked at for sure, but in the same vein TW outperforms other primaries in most circumstances but not to the same degree that Bio boosts essentially any set it is paired with.

 

17 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

No, cant change the rules now, fire is what the farm caters to, damage is damage.  If TW is OP and easily played with no drawbacks like you say it shoud supplant Spines with no issues and be light years bettet because TW is so OP.

When it comes to farming specific content this becomes a question of efficiency as opposed to potential. Spines has another damage aura and easier to use AoEs that lend it well to farming content made for that combo, and has no resource via Momentum to take into account when doing mission after mission after mission that makes it friendlier to use. If you're gonna be farming day in and day out, you'll gravitate to the easier option that also gets great output. TW requires more skill to use, but its not like you are inputting a frame-perfect Shakunetsu Hadoken to start it up every 5 seconds.

 

Its also just one measuring stick much like how in your EM example it was able to output more ST dps when the TW by your omission was not built to lean into ST as much, but even still it came within 10% of a set that's entire identity is ST damage. Lets use that even, TW can come within 10% of the raw DPS of EM's ST dps while unquestionably having far more AoE capability and other perks, that alone is an issue for both sets.

 

 

 

[Hopeling]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

My EM brute by all definations a broken set beat it though.  Exact same secondary, slotting set bonuses and all.

 

Damage is damage no matter how many its supposed to hit.  The only place TW shines for me is minion lieu mob clearing.

 

It's not fast on bosses or higher even when compared to my EM.

 

Definitely doesn't feel over powered.

I keep asking you for details about this and you keep not providing them, so I don't know what you want me to say here. What chain is your EM character using? What chain is your TW character using?

 

TW can make complete attack chains in which every attack has higher DPA than the best attack in Energy Melee. If you're finding that EM does better ST damage despite all of its attacks being worse, it is pretty likely that the TW character is doing something wrong.

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

this is starting to look more and more like a TW/Bio and scrapper issue than anything else.  If it was as OP as you guys are saying, why doesnt it overtake Spines fire on Brutes?

51 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

But damage is damage if TW is as OP and aoe and works with anything op across the board as everyone says why not TW fire?

 

From what y'all are saying TW has more damage, is faster and momentum swing isnt a drawback.

 

So why not it then?  Damage is damage.

Redraw, and because cones cap at 5 targets, which is plenty in normal content but worse than a 10/16-target AoE when farming. It also doesn't offer a second damage aura, which again is more valuable in farming than in regular play.

 

I played a TW/Fire brute. It did indeed do great damage, more than my TW/WP. Fiery Embrace plus Build Momentum was a thing of beauty. But it doesn't dominate the farm scene for the reasons I just mentioned, and it doesn't dominate pylon tests because Offensive Adaptation is like Fiery Embrace but perma, so it doesn't stand out as the poster child for any specific thing. It's nevertheless the #11 most popular brute combo at 50, above TW/Bio. I don't know what you're saying 'why not' to. People clearly do play it.

1 hour ago, Morgrum said:

Yes I have and while TW does a bit more damage per say then other sets it was a balancing act for its slowness and built in penalties it was always designed that way.

TW's came out way before Bio armor.

Bio armor if I remember right never went live and was never balanced for release.

Yes, I played TW/WP before shutdown. I played it to 50 within two weeks of launch; you can see the thread I made on the old forums.

 

It overperformed then too. This isn't a new idea. There were plenty of threads about it on the old forums; in this one you can see one of the old scrapper forum regulars saying that it looks like it might set records, and giving a basic attack chain that does significantly more DPS than one of the best DM chains. This was one (1) day after the set went live.

1 hour ago, Morgrum said:

You are once again focusing on a secondary set that has never been tweaked for balancing to show how a attack set that was tweaked before it was released is an issue.

Are you kidding me?

 

I ONLY MENTIONED BIO AT ALL BECAUSE YOU BROUGHT IT UP. This thread is nine pages long. I've made dozens of comments. Literally none of them are focused on Bio, not even the one you're responding to there. I haven't played Bio. I have no opinion on Bio. I haven't talked about Bio except to make direct responses to errors of fact like claiming that TW/Bio is not a popular combination.

 

I know that, in a long thread, you can't expect everyone to keep all the context in mind, and sometimes new commenters have to be brought up to speed. Nor are you the first person to say Bio is the issue. But it's getting incredibly annoying to yet again write a detailed analysis of something about TW, then have it quoted, ignored, and to be told "nuh-uh, you're just salty about Bio". Come on. Respond to what I actually said rather than putting things in my mouth.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Hopeling

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I havent brought up /Bio as a point other than to say it accentuates TW's strengths, but then it does so with every other melee pairing and even blast pairing with Sentinels. Bio should also be looked at for sure, but in the same vein TW outperforms other primaries in most circumstances but not to the same degree that Bio boosts essentially any set it is paired with.

 

When it comes to farming specific content this becomes a question of efficiency as opposed to potential. Spines has another damage aura and easier to use AoEs that lend it well to farming content made for that combo, and has no resource via Momentum to take into account when doing mission after mission after mission that makes it friendlier to use. If you're gonna be farming day in and day out, you'll gravitate to the easier option that also gets great output. TW requires more skill to use, but its not like you are inputting a frame-perfect Shakunetsu Hadoken to start it up every 5 seconds.

 

Its also just one measuring stick much like how in your EM example it was able to output more ST dps when the TW by your omission was not built to lean into ST as much, but even still it came within 10% of a set that's entire identity is ST damage. Lets use that even, TW can come within 10% of the raw DPS of EM's ST dps while unquestionably having far more AoE capability and other perks, that alone is an issue for both sets.

 

 

 

Damage is still damage.

 

Oh what you don't know about my ST test is I cycled Rend Armor and arc of destruction as many times as I could.  Damage us damage and those are the 2 most damaging attacks.  They lost to a broken set.

[Steampunkette]

7 minutes ago, Morgrum said:

I will completely agree with that on both points we do need more data.

And not Pylon, apex Bio armor test...… I still hold that the issue we are having with melee sets having insane dps is due to Bio combos.

TW's is the third of my 8 Incarnates but since he is a Tanker he is naturally my main.

I have just gravitated to Tankers since Beta.

Understandable. But have you seen the results of the damage calculations against the baseline values of melee attacks back on page 2 or 3? It breaks the metrics in slow-mode by 18% on average. In Momentum? *whistles* the standard damage calculations for a melee damage set go out the window.

 

That's not Pylons or 'High Level' or personal anecdotes about what it's like to play, that's the cold hard facts of it's DPA/DPE calculated against the area and target values of AoEs, the animation times, endurance costs, recharge times, and knockback. But it's not inclusive of the DoTs that the set gets.

 

Whirling Smash outperforms it's cost, animation time, and recharge time by a whopping 44%! That's -huge-. And while in 'Slow Mode' both Defensive Sweep and Crushing Blow clock in at 10% overperforming based on all balancing factors. Put them into Momentum, with their much faster animation times, and the damage and effects they put out significantly outweighs the costs.

 

That's not including Bio Armor. That's not even including slotted values or how high you can buff your damage with Build Momentum. That's just the basic powers themselves, in a vacuum, being between 10% and 44% too good. The whole set coming out on average at 18% too good... before Momentum and before DoT.

[Hopeling]

19 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

There is a lot that does more damage than whirling blade

With a 15-foot radius? I can't think of any besides stuff like nukes. Can you give an example?

 

Something like Spin does more damage, sure, but that has an 8-foot radius instead of 15. As I pointed out six pages ago now, Whirling Smash does the same damage as Foot Stomp, with a faster animation and a shorter recharge, even though Foot Stomp itself already breaks the damage formula.

 

Whirling Smash isn't the #1 most damaging AoE, but its combination of damage, recharge, and area are unmatched.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, Steampunkette said:

Understandable. But have you seen the results of the damage calculations against the baseline values of melee attacks back on page 2 or 3? It breaks the metrics in slow-mode by 18% on average. In Momentum? *whistles* the standard damage calculations for a melee damage set go out the window.

 

That's not Pylons or 'High Level' or personal anecdotes about what it's like to play, that's the cold hard facts of it's DPA/DPE calculated against the area and target values of AoEs, the animation times, endurance costs, recharge times, and knockback. But it's not inclusive of the DoTs that the set gets.

 

Whirling Smash outperforms it's cost, animation time, and recharge time by a whopping 44%! That's -huge-. And while in 'Slow Mode' both Defensive Sweep and Crushing Blow clock in at 10% overperforming based on all balancing factors. Put them into Momentum, with their much faster animation times, and the damage and effects they put out significantly outweighs the costs.

 

That's not including Bio Armor. That's not even including slotted values or how high you can buff your damage with Build Momentum. That's just the basic powers themselves, in a vacuum, being between 10% and 44% too good. The whole set coming out on average at 18% too good... before Momentum and before DoT.

This is what I was saying earlier as well. TW *by itself* outperforms other sets when looked at by themselves as well. When paired with the same secondaries, the TW should come out on top in most cases outside specific pairings / situations.

 

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Damage is still damage.

 

Oh what you don't know about my ST test is I cycled Rend Armor and arc of destruction as many times as I could.  Damage us damage and those are the 2 most damaging attacks.  They lost to a broken set.

What was your exact attack chains on both? 

[Morgrum]

1 minute ago, Hopeling said:

With a 15-foot radius? I can't think of any besides stuff like nukes. Can you give an example?

 

Something like Spin does more damage, sure, but that has an 8-foot radius instead of 15. As I pointed out six pages ago now, Whirling Smash does the same damage as Foot Stomp, with a faster animation and a shorter recharge, even though Foot Stomp itself already breaks the damage formula.

 

Whirling Smash isn't the #1 most damaging AoE, but its combination of damage, recharge, and area are unmatched.

Whirling blade also needs a prep ability to be allowed to use it which other skills do not.

That is a factor your not including.

 

As is TW's use in groups where you start attacks that miss or lost because of your animation times.

I cannot tell you how many times I have had pulls die around me while I am in an animation only to try and get to the next group to start drawing aggro with Taunt and a slow attack.

 

The numbers you guys keep presenting are numbers based in a vacuum and not the reality of playing the game.

Another thing I and others have posted before here but was ignored outright.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, Morgrum said:

Whirling blade also needs a prep ability to be allowed to use it which other skills do not.

That is a factor your not including.

 

As is TW's use in groups where you start attacks that miss or lost because of your animation times.

I cannot tell you how many times I have had pulls die around me while I am in an animation only to try and get to the next group to start drawing aggro with Taunt and a slow attack.

 

The numbers you guys keep presenting are numbers based in a vacuum and not the reality of playing the game.

Another thing I and others have posted before here but was ignored outright.

They don't want to accept that because stationary pylon tests is the main thing they have to show its OP.

[Galaxy Brain]

6 minutes ago, Morgrum said:

Whirling blade also needs a prep ability to be allowed to use it which other skills do not.

That is a factor your not including.

 

As is TW's use in groups where you start attacks that miss or lost because of your animation times.

I cannot tell you how many times I have had pulls die around me while I am in an animation only to try and get to the next group to start drawing aggro with Taunt and a slow attack.

 

The numbers you guys keep presenting are numbers based in a vacuum and not the reality of playing the game.

Another thing I and others have posted before here but was ignored outright.

Missing due to other players killing the enemy isn't unique to TW though. Just play any PUG where people spam Judgements, or earlier where nukes or strong AoEs are whipped around. This may be coming from a biased perspective, but it seems in that example you are pulling first and swinging second where I generally play with Brutes or Scrappers that swing first. That said, that is a very big concern for Tankers using the set who may not be swinging first to get momentum rolling outside of Build Momentum.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

They don't want to accept that because stationary pylon tests is the main thing they have to show its OP.

 

What did you run your test on for EM vs TW? Also, the sheets I have presented show what is possible outside of even secondary sets, and muliple posts in this thread have also given their in-game experiences with TW outside of Pylons that back up the feeling that it is performing very highly.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Infinitum]

Just now, Galaxy Brain said:

Missing due to other players killing the enemy isn't unique to TW though. Just play any PUG where people spam Judgements, or earlier where nukes or strong AoEs are whipped around. This may be coming from a biased perspective, but it seems in that example you are pulling first and swinging second where I generally play with Brutes or Scrappers that swing first. That said, that is a very big concern for Tankers using the set who may not be swinging first to get momentum rolling outside of Build Momentum.

It affects TW more than the rest because its dependent on the mechanic.