Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[EyeLuvBooks]

A point that may have been made already but if so I missed it: TW does Smashing/Lethal damage unless I miss my guess, right? S/L are the two most resisted damage types in the game aren't they? If everything I've said so far is true, rather than comparing raw numbers (and by raw I mean untyped), should we be considering the TYPE of damage in there somewhere?

 

If TW does too much damage (I haven't seen the numbers but this is what's being said), how much of that is counter-balanced by the damage TYPE being heavily resisted?

 

This point might account for some of the discrepancy we're having regarding 'feel' and so forth. 

[Rylas]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

If you read all my postings on EM even on your thread, you will see how i have always said it still hits hard but lacks the flow and feel of the original.

 

Never hid that, and i havent cooked any numbers to support me on one had and not support me to suit my position.

 

you of all people with your stance on EM shouldnt want to see another decent set nerfed because of what happened to EM.  thats borderline hypocritical.

And so I shall reiterate, yet again, that I have not called for any nerfs. And my first post in this thread clearly stated my hesitance to do any nerfing because of how knee-jerk reactions to *perceived* performance issues has done real damage in the past (i.e. Energy Melee). I hope this isn't falling on deaf ears when I say this. Try to look past what you're afraid of happening to actually give people a fair shake when they present their arguments or themselves.

 

That said, if EM had actually been performing insanely too well, and had the nerf for such insanely good performance brought it down reasonably so, then I wouldn't making a case for its need to be buffed. And I would base all of these decisions off of numbers and well researched data, as well as adequate testing before implementation. I would not base them on my feelings or my wishes to have the most uberest strong set to play despite the issues it might create by being so uber. Why? Because that's how being open-minded and fair works.

 

I'll say it one more time, none of that means I am, or necessarily will, agree with any nerfs that aren't justified through the aforementioned requirements. So please, for the sake of civil discourse, try not to accuse people of hypocrisy or jealousy nerfing. Just make a strong case presented by facts, and if you're in the right, you have nothing to fear.

[Haijinx]

17 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

A point that may have been made already but if so I missed it: TW does Smashing/Lethal damage unless I miss my guess, right? S/L are the two most resisted damage types in the game aren't they? If everything I've said so far is true, rather than comparing raw numbers (and by raw I mean untyped), should we be considering the TYPE of damage in there somewhere?

 

If TW does too much damage (I haven't seen the numbers but this is what's being said), how much of that is counter-balanced by the damage TYPE being heavily resisted?

 

This point might account for some of the discrepancy we're having regarding 'feel' and so forth. 

Most melee sets are smashing or lethal though.

 

 

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Rylas said:

And so I shall reiterate, yet again, that I have not called for any nerfs. And my first post in this thread clearly stated my hesitance to do any nerfing because of how knee-jerk reactions to *perceived* performance issues has done real damage in the past (i.e. Energy Melee). I hope this isn't falling on deaf ears when I say this. Try to look past what you're afraid of happening to actually give people a fair shake when they present their arguments or themselves.

 

That said, if EM had actually been performing insanely too well, and had the nerf for such insanely good performance brought it down reasonably so, then I wouldn't making a case for its need to be buffed. And I would base all of these decisions off of numbers and well researched data, as well as adequate testing before implementation. I would not base them on my feelings or my wishes to have the most uberest strong set to play despite the issues it might create by being so uber. Why? Because that's how being open-minded and fair works.

 

I'll say it one more time, none of that means I am, or necessarily will, agree with any nerfs that aren't justified through the aforementioned requirements. So please, for the sake of civil discourse, try not to accuse people of hypocrisy or jealousy nerfing. Just make a strong case presented by facts, and if you're in the right, you have nothing to fear.

Ok look partner, Im not afraid of anything, TW isnt even my main, its a fun set though, thats not breaking anything in the game.  Kinda like EM was back in the day.  the one you are lamenting non stop about, the same one I miss also.

 

I dont want another Knee jerk reaction to any Set, even if this one isnt one thats close to my heart. Its not even third place on my list, its just a neat set to have IMO.

 

TW can be very clunky unless you play it right, and its very prone to making mistakes on it that ruins your attack chain, you have to play that perfectly or it wont work right.  That alone takes a certain level of skill and dedication I dont have to run one as a main.  They are powerful but not to the point where most people would have the patience to run one.

 

I learned this when i kept getting stuck in animation on the Apex task force and the blue flaming swords of death ate my lunch, didnt matter how good my attack was, i couldnt get to her, and when i did i would get stuck in an animation and get knocked out.

 

Em does need a buff but its not entirely unplayable, just incredible long, and unrewarding when you corpse bomb.  but i stand behind what i said about the ST burst damage on EM being better than the TW ST burst damage.

 

EM did play insanely too well back in the day, but there was nothing wrong with that just like there is nothing wrong with TW now.  I had one of the best EM tanks on live, and was arguing these same arguments then, people couldnt believe my tank could output that much dps - my tank then could do more dps (it was in the 400s cant remember exactly) than my EM brute now (brute is 326) according to a few tests i just ran, but i proved it to them on a pylon run, next thing i know they are usng the pylon runs to say EM was overpowered.  then came the nerf about a year later.

 

My TW brute is around 295 DPS, Em brute is 326. Tests i just ran tonight - all single target.

[Infinitum]

SO honestly i havent kept up with pylon tests, is 326 on the EM and 295 on the TW good DPS for a brute on either set?

 

Im built for survivabilty first, and also more AOE on the TW.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Infinitum

[Haijinx]

11 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

SO honestly i havent kept up with pylon tests, is 326 on the EM and 295 on the TW good DPS for a brute on either set?

 

Im built for survivabilty first, and also more AOE on the TW.

There are scrapper TW/Bio getting near 700

 

Next best scrapper ive seen is RAD/BIO in the upper 500s

 

Then there are a lot of 400 to  500 bio scrappers

 

Stalkers seem to be able to get upper 500s with Street Justice.  

 

All of the top times for melee are BIO.

[Infinitum]

10 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

There are scrapper TW/Bio getting near 700

 

Next best scrapper ive seen is RAD/BIO in the upper 500s

 

Then there are a lot of 400 to  500 bio scrappers

 

Stalkers seem to be able to get upper 500s with Street Justice.  

 

All of the top times for melee are BIO.

what do brutes normally get?

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

what do brutes normally get?

Id have to look ive seen people claim 600ish on TW but i never read that posted.

 

There was a 380 BIO_TW tanker attempt though.  

 

There are controllers in the 700s also.

[Infinitum]

wonder if I miscalculated my TW build then 295 is low compared to that, but im not really setting it up for that either so who knows.

[Infinitum]

how are they calculating DPS now also?

[Megajoule]

Because EM got over-nerfed, no power may ever be nerfed again for any reason.

 

No, that's an argument to (1) fix EM and (2) be more careful with nerfs in the future, when they are needed.  And it sure looks like TW needs... let's say adjusting.

[Haijinx]

14 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

how are they calculating DPS now also?

You'd have to look at the first post in the thread, there's a formula.

 

The best brute TW/Bio time i actually saw posted was 450.

 

The 700 for scrapper was more of a top score, more typical was 550 to 650 range.

 

Some have no videos or anything so no idea how real they are.

 

After a certain speed in the 500+ range though, the pylon dies so fast its regen tick timing pulses skew the results making it less accurate.

 

Thus 500 is probably more accurate than 700.  You'll notice the really fast times seem to have big 100+ dps swings between attempts.  This could be why.

 

There's also a possibility of some pve damage leaking in that has been mentioned.

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

You'd have to look at the first post in the thread, there's a formula.

 

The best brute TW/Bio time i actually saw posted was 450.

 

The 700 for scrapper was more of a top score, more typical was 550 to 650 range.

 

Some have no videos or anything so no idea how real they are.

 

After a certain speed in the 500+ range though, the pylon dies so fast its regen tick timing pulses skew the results making it less accurate.

 

Thus 500 is probably more accurate than 700.  You'll notice the really fast times seem to have big 100+ dps swings between attempts.  This could be why.

 

There's also a possibility of some pve damage leaking in that has been mentioned.

ok Im doing it wrong then  lol  ill post numbers again later

[Infinitum]

25 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Because EM got over-nerfed, no power may ever be nerfed again for any reason.

 

No, that's an argument to (1) fix EM and (2) be more careful with nerfs in the future, when they are needed.  And it sure looks like TW needs... let's say adjusting.

its not breaking the game, so why would ya?

 

and agree to the bottom 2

[Hopeling]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Is 326 DPS good?  I honestly dont keep track of DPS since live.

For a brute in a pylon test, it's pretty good for an "everyday use" build without a damage-boosting secondary like /Fire or /Bio, yes.

 

Bosses have about 2600 HP, so it takes 260 DPS burst to kill a boss inside the duration of Build Up. I would consider that a decent baseline for "good ST burst". Pylons are a poor measure of burst damage, but if you can do 326 sustained, you can probably do at least 326 burst unless your damage requires a lot of setup or something.

1 hour ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

A point that may have been made already but if so I missed it: TW does Smashing/Lethal damage unless I miss my guess, right? S/L are the two most resisted damage types in the game aren't they? If everything I've said so far is true, rather than comparing raw numbers (and by raw I mean untyped), should we be considering the TYPE of damage in there somewhere?

 

If TW does too much damage (I haven't seen the numbers but this is what's being said), how much of that is counter-balanced by the damage TYPE being heavily resisted?

Smashing and Lethal are both resisted more often than elemental damage types, yes. Lethal is resisted significantly more than Smashing though. For example, a lot of robot mobs in multiple factions have high Lethal resist and negative Smashing resist.

 

No other melee power set gets a damage bonus across the board just for doing S/L damage, and nobody seems to think that Dual Blades, Claws, Broadsword, Katana, Battle Axe, War Mace, Super Strength, Stone Melee, Staff, and Street Justice are underpowered just on the basis of their damage type, so I don't think it makes sense to say this is what balances out TW's damage. I guess it's theoretically possible that the devs decided S/L melee sets needed to be buffed in general but TW was the only set that actually got that treatment. But even if we assume that, we're still concluding that TW is in fact stronger than other sets, we've only reframed what should be done about it ("bring most other melee sets up" instead of "bring TW back down").

[Haijinx]

Wait .. one exception.  Tons of people over the years and now have used the smashing damage in SS to support the need for a crashless double stacked rage.

[Galaxy Brain]

I havent been able to reply to this for quite some time, but what had originally stood out was this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19VuZ9zJ_8eKN11JytgaK9mt9Fy-8pjANopb-FGh68Uw/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

This spreadsheet attempts to detail DPS at maximum recharge as a sort of baseline of "max potential" where you can have the most optimal attack chains. TW is between 15-30% better than any other ST set per AT when optimized, and always in the top half for AoE. No other set on that list has such a massive jump in a category except for Plant Control's AoE which has a bunch of odds and ends weirdness with AoE confuse and creepers. 

 

As for feeling, you can tell that TW hits very very hard and has a ton of perks even early on compared to other melee sets. You start with a cone that gives +def, a cone that reliably knocks crowds of enemies down and both have extended range, and hard hitting ST attacks that can debuff res and def, or just bonk a guy incredibly hard and fast with momentum. Yeah, it sucks if you miss and have to get momentum going again but the pause is not *that* long and in combat I'd say you are in your momentum state for well over half the time. In a perfect scenario, not even perfect as in the 500% rech and infinite endurance model, having 1 slow attack and 4 fast attacks sounds about right to where you get more uptime of being boosted than being slow.

 

The immediate burst of DPA and dps you get is one thing, but the secondary effects of TW are another with debuffs, self buffs, and soft control on top of boosted melee range. You can see that there are other sets in that sheet per AT that are top tier across ST and AoE, but usually they do not sit so far above the pack on average while also having a ton of side effects to boot. 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. As mentioned, why play BS over TW other than you can pair it with shield? You get your parry in a cone, and single attacks outperform the best attack chain in that set. Bringing it down a notch at the higher end while not affecting the average game experience for it would not be like the gutting EM got, but more just keep the power level in check a bit instead of creeping everything else to match it.

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I havent been able to reply to this for quite some time, but what had originally stood out was this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19VuZ9zJ_8eKN11JytgaK9mt9Fy-8pjANopb-FGh68Uw/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

This spreadsheet attempts to detail DPS at maximum recharge as a sort of baseline of "max potential" where you can have the most optimal attack chains. TW is between 15-30% better than any other ST set per AT when optimized, and always in the top half for AoE. No other set on that list has such a massive jump in a category except for Plant Control's AoE which has a bunch of odds and ends weirdness with AoE confuse and creepers. 

 

As for feeling, you can tell that TW hits very very hard and has a ton of perks even early on compared to other melee sets. You start with a cone that gives +def, a cone that reliably knocks crowds of enemies down and both have extended range, and hard hitting ST attacks that can debuff res and def, or just bonk a guy incredibly hard and fast with momentum. Yeah, it sucks if you miss and have to get momentum going again but the pause is not *that* long and in combat I'd say you are in your momentum state for well over half the time. In a perfect scenario, not even perfect as in the 500% rech and infinite endurance model, having 1 slow attack and 4 fast attacks sounds about right to where you get more uptime of being boosted than being slow.

 

The immediate burst of DPA and dps you get is one thing, but the secondary effects of TW are another with debuffs, self buffs, and soft control on top of boosted melee range. You can see that there are other sets in that sheet per AT that are top tier across ST and AoE, but usually they do not sit so far above the pack on average while also having a ton of side effects to boot. 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. As mentioned, why play BS over TW other than you can pair it with shield? You get your parry in a cone, and single attacks outperform the best attack chain in that set. Bringing it down a notch at the higher end while not affecting the average game experience for it would not be like the gutting EM got, but more just keep the power level in check a bit instead of creeping everything else to match it.

Sorry but bringing it down to match another set isnt the answer, the game isnt broken by it by a long shot.

[Megajoule]

Something can be out of balance, and need adjustment, without "breaking the game".

I mean, if that's your test, your standard, then anything short of I0 Smoke Grenade, or ... "push this button to crash the server" will fail it.  It's not a reasonable bar.

[Haijinx]

That spreadshhet included dots, right? 

 

So Savage was the #2 set.  

 

Also some of the new sets like TW don't have full powered build-up, so that is a consideration.

[Galaxy Brain]

Not bringing down to match, just bringing the gap down. It's ok of it's still the best but the gap is noticable thus the title of "slap on the wrist".

 

I have other threads detailing how I'd like to see sets brought up of modernized where needed, as well as a thread dedicated to discussing ways to add difficulty options. The latter I feel is important as the game is very easy to get into and play at a basic level, but then it doesnt get much harder as the ability to become better far outpaces what content throws at you outside of specific circumstance, especially while teamed. 

 

I would rather have well designed sets and challenges than just bigger numbers on sets + bigger hp to chew through.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I had one of the best EM tanks on live, and was arguing these same arguments then, people couldnt believe my tank could output that much dps - my tank then could do more dps (it was in the 400s cant remember exactly) than my EM brute now (brute is 326) according to a few tests i just ran, but i proved it to them on a pylon run, next thing i know they are usng the pylon runs to say EM was overpowered.  then came the nerf about a year later.

 

So, it was YOU that caused the EM nerf!

 

Get a rope...

[Infinitum]

20 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Something can be out of balance, and need adjustment, without "breaking the game".

I mean, if that's your test, your standard, then anything short of I0 Smoke Grenade, or ... "push this button to crash the server" will fail it.  It's not a reasonable bar.

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.

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Myrmidon said:

 

So, it was YOU that caused the EM nerf!

 

Get a rope...

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

Edited September 12, 2019 by Infinitum

[Galaxy Brain]

16 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

That spreadshhet included dots, right? 

 

So Savage was the #2 set.  

 

Also some of the new sets like TW don't have full powered build-up, so that is a consideration.

This one from the scrapper forums has more notes about that: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1av2vWL9UVgGw183BbjFNweJze7N5P3Tn8tYSppdFQgE/edit?usp=drivesdk