Focused Feedback: Rage

[Vindicator]

7 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Rage to not stack anymore, and rebalance the damage output of SS to be competitive with other sets while under perma-single-stack Rage with no crash.

This.  This, so much.  Also, I wouldn't mind it being a toggle.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Vindicator

[Sniktch]

3 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Domination actually does stack with itself, I've got like 40 seconds of it on my ice/fire build. Hasten doesn't stack, but it still has fairly forgiving penalties. I don't even mind the end crash on Rage so much, especially as we're getting more endurance in the patch. What I can't stand is the -999% damage debuff. That part needs to go.

At this point though, I'd rather the devs just admitted what they really want is for Rage to not stack anymore, and rebalance the damage output of SS to be competitive with other sets while under perma-single-stack Rage with no crash.

 

 

Do the effects of Domination stack - or does it just extend the buff?  If the CC boosts and mez protection do stack, then permaDom needs downtuned - or to no longer be a thing.

[DMW45]

2 minutes ago, Vindicator said:

This.  This, so much.

Agreed.

[Captain Citadel]

Just now, Sniktch said:

Do the effects of Domination stack - or does it just extend the buff?  If the CC boosts and mez protection do stack, then permaDom needs downtuned - or to no longer be a thing.

I don't know about the mez protection, but I'm pretty sure the CC boost stacks. It's not broken, though. At best you can hold an AV with it near the end of a fight, assuming you have perma-Hasten and enough global recharge to make one of your holds stack magnitude high enough. It wouldn't still be a thing 15 years later if it was really that bad.

[Sniktch]

5 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

I don't know about the mez protection, but I'm pretty sure the CC boost stacks. It's not broken, though. At best you can hold an AV with it near the end of a fight, assuming you have perma-Hasten and enough global recharge to make one of your holds stack magnitude high enough. It wouldn't still be a thing 15 years later if it was really that bad.

 

I believe you can break purple triangles without stacking anyway - it's mag 70, IIRC - so, maybe a corner case like soloing GMs.  Have to get more data.

[Megajoule]

8 hours ago, summers said:

 

How often does Superman or the Hulk collapse into exhaustion in the middle of a fight? Every 60 seconds or so?

The flipside of this is actually one of the reasons I have never liked Rage:  (at least one of) my tanker(s) doesn't get mad, or at least not chest-beating, vein-popping furious, and certainly not in every fight.  But I'm told over and over, by the numbers and people who seem to love this power, that if he doesn't, he's performing below par, and that isn't something that should be fixed - no, that's right and proper and I need to get with the program.

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Megajoule

[Captain Citadel]

Just now, Megajoule said:

The flipside of this is actually one of the reasons I have never liked Rage:  (at least one of) my tanker(s) doesn't get mad, or at least not chest-beating, vein-popping furious, and certainly not in every fight.  But I'm told over and over, by the numbers and people who seem to love this power, if he doesn't, he's performing suboptimally, and that's right and proper and I need to get with the program.

Yeah, thematically I hate Rage because of this. But I just stop thinking about it because it's not like the animation looks like your character is getting angry, they're just concentrating momentarily while it activates. I think at this point though, it should just be rebalanced into a toggle. It's required to make SS a competitive damage set and yet it's still saddled with horrible penalties that make it feel bad to use.

A Minimal FX option wouldn't go amiss either. I don't like constantly glowing from it, especially when I have all the glowing effects from Invulnerability turned off.

[Megajoule]

5 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Yeah, thematically I hate Rage because of this. But I just stop thinking about it because it's not like the animation looks like your character is getting angry, they're just concentrating momentarily while it activates. I think at this point though, it should just be rebalanced into a toggle. It's required to make SS a competitive damage set and yet it's still saddled with horrible penalties that make it feel bad to use.

A Minimal FX option wouldn't go amiss either. I don't like constantly glowing from it, especially when I have all the glowing effects from Invulnerability turned off.

And I think that if you're turning it into a (essentially "always on") toggle, you might as well go that step further and just take it out and rebalance the set to not require/depend on it.

I mean, if it's always going to be on unless you're mezzed or out of end, it might as well be an inherent.  (All of the above is IMO, naturally.)

[csr]

6 hours ago, Cawshun said:

The closer you get to perma-stacking and the lower your base damage%, the more value you receive. My Bio/SS tanker I made for testing is at 118.5% damage bonus with one stack, 198.5% with two. With perma double stack that's an average 167% damage bonus for a 41% dps increase over the base buff. Sure when taking group buffs in to account, especially with a kin, that % will drop, but the point is that while solo, it is a significant bonus.

What you've calculated is how much you've improved Rage and another 38.5% buff by double stacking, not your DPS improvement.

 

To perma double stack Rage you need it to recharge in 58.68s (one half the 120s buff duration minus the ArcanaTime Cast of 1.32s).  That's 240/58.68 = 409% total recharge.  Meaning 309% total +Rech.  Let's assume perma-Hasten and drop that to a rounded 240%.  That means you need something along the lines of fully recharge slotted Rage plus Spiritual or Agility Incarnate and another 125% or so global recharge to perma double stack Rage.  If you're using Musculature (or another Alpha that doesn't buff Recharge) instead you need more along the lines of 140% global recharge.  That's 5 LotGs, 5 Purple sets and another 52.5%.  That's a huge investment.  And with that you calculated a 41% improvement of your damage buff.

 

Let's look at the DPS improvement now.  Say you have perma double stack, 313.5% Damage from slotting (I've assumed Musculature is nowhere to be seen), the initial Rage stack, and the other 38.5% buff.  So by stacking you're getting 11/12ths 78% as a buff (you lose some value to the 1.32s cast every 60s instead of every 120s), but you're losing 1/12th of 313.5% from the crash.  That's about 45% of base damage gained.  Or about a 14.5% DPS increase since you were doing 313.5% with a single stack.  That's pretty significant, but it's also for an extreme case that shows double stacking Rage in its best light with a billion-plus INF build and at least T3 Alpha.  At that point in a toon's life, you are likely either farming or on large teams running TFs and Trials.  An increased DPS in the latter context probably isn't significant  In the former?  You can clear a map in about 87% the time a single stacker would.  Given some setup and recycle time, you're probably earning about 10% more INF.

Edited September 13, 2019 by csr

[Noyjitat]

Should restore it to the way it was before you nerfed it on homecoming. You say its a fix yet paragon never “fixed it” Its already punishing enough losing all that endurance and not doing damage for 10 seconds. Get rid of the -def on stacking as its been or leave it alone. Your new change is even worse than whats currently on homecoming.

[Megajoule]

4 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

Should restore it to the way it was before you nerfed it on homecoming. You say its a fix yet paragon never “fixed it” Its already punishing enough losing all that endurance and not doing damage for 10 seconds. Get rid of the -def on stacking as its been or leave it alone. Your new change is even worse than whats currently on homecoming.

It was bugged.  It was a known bug, that they just never got around to fixing.  You want it to go back to the bugged version because you know how to exploit it.  No thank you.

[Vanden]

8 hours ago, summers said:

How often does Superman or the Hulk collapse into exhaustion in the middle of a fight? Every 60 seconds or so?

It's a limitation of the video game medium. The consequences of the player's carelessness have to be something that will negatively impact the player (and be something that won't punish other players, if at all possible).

16 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

The flipside of this is actually one of the reasons I have never liked Rage:  (at least one of) my tanker(s) doesn't get mad, or at least not chest-beating, vein-popping furious, and certainly not in every fight.  But I'm told over and over, by the numbers and people who seem to love this power, that if he doesn't, he's performing below par, and that isn't something that should be fixed - no, that's right and proper and I need to get with the program.

This is just a failure of nomenclature. Thematically, a long-lasting, permable buff to damage is the perfect way of representing that a character is superhumanly strong, stronger than their peers. They should've called it something more concept-agnostic, like Might, when they were creating the set, but they didn't, so here we are.

[Megajoule]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

This is just a failure of nomenclature. Thematically, a long-lasting, permable buff to damage is the perfect way of representing that a character is superhumanly strong, stronger than their peers. They should've called it something more concept-agnostic, like Might, when they were creating the set, but they didn't, so here we are.

But why have a separate power to do that, whether click or toggle?  Why not bake that into the set's numbers, and have it Just Work?

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Megajoule said:

But why have a separate power to do that, whether click or toggle?  Why not bake that into the set's numbers, and have it Just Work?

Maybe there is no reason. Putting the effect on a power in the set rather than making it an inherent part of the powers' numbers is an equally valid way of achieving the theme. The former is just the option they went with.

[csr]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

It's a limitation of the video game medium. The consequences of the player's carelessness have to be something that will negatively impact the player (and be something that won't punish other players, if at all possible).

This is just a failure of nomenclature. Thematically, a long-lasting, permable buff to damage is the perfect way of representing that a character is superhumanly strong, stronger than their peers. They should've called it something more concept-agnostic, like Might, when they were creating the set, but they didn't, so here we are.

The best I could come up with was "Ferocity".  A synonym of Rage, but with a more neutral connotation.  Even if they keep the crash a name change to something like "Draw Upon Might" or "Buckle Up Buttercup" might be in order.

[Megajoule]

5 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Maybe there is no reason. Putting the effect on a power in the set rather than making it an inherent part of the powers' numbers is an equally valid way of achieving the theme. The former is just the option they went with.

It strikes me as pointless complication and/or "busy work" - like the I0 devs decided, got to keep them pecking a button, so they feel like they're doing something and/or so they don't just set up a macro (or a drinky-bird 😛 ) and walk away.  That's the only reason or justification I can think of.  I wish we could just simplify it out of the game and powerset completely.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Megajoule

[Sniktch]

Megajoule, there's one big problem - what do you replace it with?  Remember, art/animation is a non-starter - whatever goes there has to copypasta some other power's animations.

[Megajoule]

Good question.  I honestly don't know; I'll have to think about that some.

My first thought and selfish wish would be for something to plug the Psi Hole, but that's both thematically inappropriate and probably even more of a sacred cow than this power.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Megajoule

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Megajoule said:

My (even more) selfish wish would be to plug the Psi Hole, but that's both thematically inappropriate and probably even more of a sacred cow than this power.

The Psi damage protection hole isn't an aspect of Super Strength, because it's not an armor set.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Vanden

[Megajoule]

True, thanks for the reminder.

It would pretty much have to be another attack, and I admit I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

[DMW45]

21 minutes ago, Sniktch said:

Megajoule, there's one big problem - what do you replace it with?  Remember, art/animation is a non-starter - whatever goes there has to copypasta some other power's animations.

Why not the special buildup type proc power from Martial Combat

[Sniktch]

2 minutes ago, DMW45 said:

Why not the special buildup type proc power from Martial Combat

Because dumping Rage and rebalancing Super Strength to account for the loss would necessitate its base numbers already being damage-buffed to a risky degree, so even adding a Build-Up would probably be beyond the pale.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Sniktch
speeeling.

[DMW45]

1 minute ago, Sniktch said:

Because dumping Rage and rebalancing Super Strength to account for the loss would necessitate its base numbers already being damage-buffed to a risky degree, so even adding a Build-Up would probably be beyond the pale.

Well, then why not make Rage work like that?  A beefier version of that proc.  It's pretty thematic, I think.

[Sniktch]

4 minutes ago, DMW45 said:

Well, then why not make Rage work like that?  A beefier version of that proc.  It's pretty thematic, I think.

Because this digression was basically a roundabout way of gently saying to Megajoule "You know that axing Rage entirely and just melting the stats into the other Super Strength powers isn't gonna fly for a lot of reasons" without actually saying it.

[Megajoule]

yeah, as much as I wish it were... yeah. 😞