Focused Feedback: Rage

[ABlueThingy]

Can't you ignore part of the crash if you overcap Def or Res?

[Vanden]

7 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

Can't you ignore part of the crash if you overcap Def or Res?

Yes, and you can also not crash in the first place by only using Rage when it has the orange circle.

[Leogunner]

2 hours ago, William Valence said:

Well if it were put back to -20% defense, as you originally recommended, it would cause soft-cap defense to take 500% more damage, and resist sets would just get to effectively ignore it.

Not making an argument against you, but 500% of what?  If you're effectively taking 0% damage when taking into account sustain from regen and a debuff now increases that into 3.4% damage for the duration of the debuff, wouldn't you need to take these factors into account when comparing it to something who starts off taking 4% damage and 6.2% damage with the debuff?

[William Valence]

4 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Not making an argument against you, but 500% of what?  If you're effectively taking 0% damage when taking into account sustain from regen and a debuff now increases that into 3.4% damage for the duration of the debuff, wouldn't you need to take these factors into account when comparing it to something who starts off taking 4% damage and 6.2% damage with the debuff?

Short answer: Healing is ***** yo

 

Long answer:

500% of incoming damage. At softcap, with no resistance, you are effectively taking 5% of the damage that's being thrown at you. It's proportional and doesn't care how much damage is coming it, or your healing, it works out and it remains consistent as damage changes. With the -20% debuff you go from getting hit 5% of the time to 25% of the time. 5x as often. Or if 1000 dps is coming at you, 50dps taken becomes 250.

 

Healing is not proportional, it cares about how much damage is coming in, so you really can't use that in estimates, because your effective 0% is only effective 0% as long as damage that makes it through mitigation is less than the regen. And you have to know the incoming damage to come up with a percentage taken.

 

CO for example has an issue with it's Damage reduction stat as it wasn't proportionate either, so you had to determine incoming damage to figure out % damage mitigated. Healing can be self contained a bit by using your mitigation stats as a multiplier to get an effective HPS, which tells you your Immortality line, and can give you an idea of time to die vs different incoming damage values. But that again just shows you can focus on the mitigation stats primarily.

 

So in general when dealing with damage taken, mitigation affects incoming damage and healing output proportionally, so it's often easier and not too terribly imprecise to focus on it.

[siolfir]

On 9/20/2019 at 6:20 PM, Cawshun said:

You're ignoring that rage is permanent when it comes to the damaging abilities. SS is balanced around rage, so of course Stone Melee will come out on top when you ignore the affect of rage on the abilities. If you actually take one stack in to account (since one stack will no longer crash), Punch beats Stone Fist, Haymaker beats Stone Mallet, Knockout Blow beats Seismic Smash. So now it's 2-5 in favor of SS. That's actually why one stack would crash, because SS was over-performing in that time if it didn't. Now there's less reason for crashing at 1 stack because there are some other sets that can out-perform the single stack's damage even without the crash.

 

Why is it not okay? It's a matter of opinion about the play style of the set. It's not under-performing, in fact it's well above average in terms of performance. There has been no solid argument for change other than "I don't like it." SS is supposed to hit hard, and it does, but you can't let it hit that hard for free, especially when it's already such a popular set.

The point was to show whether or not Super Strength is balanced around Rage, but I edited that line out before posting because I considered it to be a leading statement. I just wanted to show the numbers and let people draw their own conclusions.

 

Also, the effect of Rage is diminished as +damage is increased, making the power proportionally weaker on Brutes due to Fury, or with armor sets that provide additional +damage (Shield, Bio); I didn't include a calculation for the proportional bonus from Build Up compared to Rage because those are build-specific and playstyle-specific issues, but I think that (with Rage always crashing damage when it wears off as it currently does) Stone Melee wins in an over-time comparison, because double-stacking leads to crashes twice as often and it can't make up the difference in not having Seismic Smash's animation time and base recharge advantages, and not having Heavy Mallet. Not having a crash shifts it back to Super Strength, as you mention above.

Edited September 21, 2019 by siolfir
5 sec recharge discrepancy that should be fixed

[FUBARczar]

On 9/21/2019 at 4:01 PM, Cawshun said:

Rage was designed as an extended period of increased damage to give SS the feeling of heavy hits with the damage crash to balance it so it wouldn't become over powered. 

Dude the rage debuff came way later, it's not the way rage was designed.  The crash was one of the dumbest things they could have done to help balance SS and rage.  And we've been stuck with that stupid decision.  Although the newly proposed tweak is a fair compromise between OP (original rage) and stupid (original crash/debuff).

[Haijinx]

24 minutes ago, FUBARczar said:

Dude the rage debuff came way later, it's not the way rage was designed.  The crash was one of the dumbest things they could have done to help balance SS and rage.  And we've been stuck with that stupid decision.  Although the newly proposed tweak is a fair compromise between OP (original rage) and stupid (original crash/debuff).

Actually there was always a debuff attached. 

 

The -def crash just never triggered if you stacked even for a second.  

 

That was a bug.  

 

Prior to the -dmg/-def/-end crash, it would get the only affecting self treatment on crash, which was an issue for aggro control.

[DanteTheStoic]

Please do not change rage. It has worked fine for all these years. Thanks!!

[Sir Myshkin]

On 9/21/2019 at 5:00 PM, Vanden said:

Yes, and you can also not crash in the first place by only using Rage when it has the orange circle.

Currently not 100% working as intended. May or may not even have recorded it... gotta double check that, but Orange circle popped, clicked, still had existing Rage buff, got nailed with "Weakened" crash anyway despite being given the "okay to go" orange circle. Had to completely wait out the +Dam buff dropping before being able to click Rage and move forward.

 

On 9/21/2019 at 6:45 PM, siolfir said:

I think that (with Rage always crashing damage when it wears off as it currently does) Stone Melee wins in an over-time comparison, because double-stacking leads to crashes twice as often and it can't make up the difference in not having Seismic Smash's animation time and base recharge advantages, and not having Heavy Mallet. Not having a crash shifts it back to Super Strength, as you mention above.

You're in luck, I've done the testing. It doesn't. Stone Melee still falls marginally behind, or barely catches up to Super Strength in the current state In a one-Rage scenario, the two are fairly close. In a double-Rage scenario, SS jumps considerably ahead, but there's an interesting caveat to what I'm saying, and that's on the fact that these were done on builds that were maximized damage enhancement with loaded procs (3-4 per attack, between both builds).

 

On 9/20/2019 at 5:20 PM, Cawshun said:

Why is it not okay? It's a matter of opinion about the play style of the set. It's not under-performing, in fact it's well above average in terms of performance. There has been no solid argument for change other than "I don't like it." SS is supposed to hit hard, and it does, but you can't let it hit that hard for free, especially when it's already such a popular set.

Yeah it doesn't actually hit that hard, I out performed a double-stacked-Rage Super Strength with Energy Melee.

 

On 9/20/2019 at 5:31 PM, Captain Citadel said:

When SS needs one stack of Rage up all the time to compete with every other set that has Build Up, it begs the question why the set is designed in such a way that Rage needs to be up all the time, and then spawns questions like "why not make Rage a toggle?" and other such things that have become staples of this thread.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having a set designed around one interesting mechanic, but when the mechanic becomes a necessary power choice for the set to holistically perform instead of giving it unique mechanic twists, we see problems like this crop up. Look at Super Strength and then look at Dual Pistols and Bio Armor and you'll blindingly see the level of design skill that progressed from the early years of CoH to the later years when it came to integrating unique tools/abilities and how they inter-weaved with other abilities.

 

Read all this and follow me to the end.

On 9/21/2019 at 3:13 AM, Haijinx said:

Basically because Double Stacked Rage exists, they will never fix the powers balanced based on a game no one has played since IOs came out.  Basically Jab, Punch and Hurl. 

 

KOB too really, it should have a 5 second lower recharge time 

Fun fact, FF+Rech in Haymaker and KO Blow, alongside 151% global recharge, I had consistent stacks of the proc and was able to effectively keep KO Blow on a ~5/s cooldown. Don't really need to ask for the change when it can be manually forced to comply in the current state of the game.

 

 

Alright, we all still here? Great. Lets talk about this more holistically with some actual testing performed:

 

This video is the current state of Super Strength, and as such, Rage. At not point what-so-ever will you see me, even for a glimpse, give one iota of care about the Rage Crash. Watch the Combat Logs, you'll see some surprising values popping out during that -9999.9^ when I pop KO Blow and still hit for 200+.

 

I ran this with single Rage, and double-stack Rage to get a baseline idea of how Super Strength performed compared to several other tests in the recent two week window of these changes.

 

I'm going to flat out say this: Super Strength, without Rage, is abysmal. The set must have an active Rage to be even remotely effective. The execution of changes to Rage, currently, removing the crash on a single-use of the ability is the most empirically effective way to make SS functional without considerable design overhaul to the remainder performance of the set. I can't really see what point there is in arguing that aspect, or a debate worth considering from a numbers and hard-fact stand point. This attempt at a "correction" (if we'll consider it that) is a simple hot-fix that was on the table long before Homecoming, and is just now being tested-out.

 

In the realm of a Double-Stack, the biggest key issue is the -Dam aspect. The Endurance drain was considerably negligible at best, any other aspect of a crash in that window would've likely been wholly unnoticed, the only one that is a tack in the heel is that window of fallibility when Rage crashes and people blindly attack on doing nothing, or stop completely and twiddle their thumbs. In the current state of the game, this window is correctable with very little effort, and doesn't require any other tampering with the power. In fact, it would be wholly possible to execute this correction on the Living Server right now: Procs.

 

The entirety of purpose on why I'm even testing Tanks is derived from Procs, and currently Tanks are incredibly easy, and vastly capable of flooding their attacks with them to significantly boost their performance. In the case of Super Strength, that window of depression (Crash) when it occurred, I glided over it with nary a care in the world because I was still punching at half-value from trigger procs that aren't impacted by the rage crash because they don't spawn off the AT and its modifier, but their own trigger points as IO's placed in the power with a pre-determined value.

 

I do have to say, I'm a bit baffled by the fact that I can stack nearly 200% +Dam on a Tank right now on one powerset, and still be effectively better on a different one that doesn't even achieve a quarter of that value. Talking SS versus Energy Melee. Both built to similar functionality, both with similar base starting points, both given access to similar values of -Res in their attacks, and yet SS is the one playing catch-up. Now, don't get me wrong, I get it, four minutes with four crashes at each 60/s mark (roughly), so 40/s of buried damage (not voided, still able to drop ~150ish DPS in that window), but even in the reverse of just using one application of Rage and sitting at ~116%, still couldn't come even close and well beyond two minutes in variance between the two. That makes me have to ask what's going on under the hood of SS that it performs that wildly under par when the data points are supposed to be starting from the similar thresholds.

 

Anyway, there's some practical testing to the problem. Frankly, if anyone asks, I think we should be done with the whole of the problem and make Rage a 60/s duration, 240/s recharge with a static crash of -ToHit, -Dam (both reverse values of what it gives each, whaddya think, 10% ToHit and 100% Dam?) and an endurance burn (what, 20? Nah, counterbalance the increase, 35) for 10/s. That takes it down into a realm of recharge that can be made "Perma" with slight effort and just results in a static 10/s window of neither plus or negative. Oh, and give one of the attacks a Bruising effect (specifically this set, as it actually makes thematic sense that someone so effectively strong could easily cause that effect). I'm thinking Haymaker, or just give it back to Jab and fix its base damage, it's barely 60% equivalent to any other T1 at this point.

[Myrmidon]

3 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Currently not 100% working as intended. May or may not even have recorded it... gotta double check that, but Orange circle popped, clicked, still had existing Rage buff, got nailed with "Weakened" crash anyway despite being given the "okay to go" orange circle. Had to completely wait out the +Dam buff dropping before being able to click Rage and move forward.

 

You're in luck, I've done the testing. It doesn't. Stone Melee still falls marginally behind, or barely catches up to Super Strength in the current state In a one-Rage scenario, the two are fairly close. In a double-Rage scenario, SS jumps considerably ahead, but there's an interesting caveat to what I'm saying, and that's on the fact that these were done on builds that were maximized damage enhancement with loaded procs (3-4 per attack, between both builds).

 

Yeah it doesn't actually hit that hard, I out performed a double-stacked-Rage Super Strength with Energy Melee.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with having a set designed around one interesting mechanic, but when the mechanic becomes a necessary power choice for the set to holistically perform instead of giving it unique mechanic twists, we see problems like this crop up. Look at Super Strength and then look at Dual Pistols and Bio Armor and you'll blindingly see the level of design skill that progressed from the early years of CoH to the later years when it came to integrating unique tools/abilities and how they inter-weaved with other abilities.

 

Read all this and follow me to the end.

Fun fact, FF+Rech in Haymaker and KO Blow, alongside 151% global recharge, I had consistent stacks of the proc and was able to effectively keep KO Blow on a ~5/s cooldown. Don't really need to ask for the change when it can be manually forced to comply in the current state of the game.

 

 

Alright, we all still here? Great. Lets talk about this more holistically with some actual testing performed:

 

This video is the current state of Super Strength, and as such, Rage. At not point what-so-ever will you see me, even for a glimpse, give one iota of care about the Rage Crash. Watch the Combat Logs, you'll see some surprising values popping out during that -9999.9^ when I pop KO Blow and still hit for 200+.

 

I ran this with single Rage, and double-stack Rage to get a baseline idea of how Super Strength performed compared to several other tests in the recent two week window of these changes.

 

I'm going to flat out say this: Super Strength, without Rage, is abysmal. The set must have an active Rage to be even remotely effective. The execution of changes to Rage, currently, removing the crash on a single-use of the ability is the most empirically effective way to make SS functional without considerable design overhaul to the remainder performance of the set. I can't really see what point there is in arguing that aspect, or a debate worth considering from a numbers and hard-fact stand point. This attempt at a "correction" (if we'll consider it that) is a simple hot-fix that was on the table long before Homecoming, and is just now being tested-out.

 

In the realm of a Double-Stack, the biggest key issue is the -Dam aspect. The Endurance drain was considerably negligible at best, any other aspect of a crash in that window would've likely been wholly unnoticed, the only one that is a tack in the heel is that window of fallibility when Rage crashes and people blindly attack on doing nothing, or stop completely and twiddle their thumbs. In the current state of the game, this window is correctable with very little effort, and doesn't require any other tampering with the power. In fact, it would be wholly possible to execute this correction on the Living Server right now: Procs.

 

The entirety of purpose on why I'm even testing Tanks is derived from Procs, and currently Tanks are incredibly easy, and vastly capable of flooding their attacks with them to significantly boost their performance. In the case of Super Strength, that window of depression (Crash) when it occurred, I glided over it with nary a care in the world because I was still punching at half-value from trigger procs that aren't impacted by the rage crash because they don't spawn off the AT and its modifier, but their own trigger points as IO's placed in the power with a pre-determined value.

 

I do have to say, I'm a bit baffled by the fact that I can stack nearly 200% +Dam on a Tank right now on one powerset, and still be effectively better on a different one that doesn't even achieve a quarter of that value. Talking SS versus Energy Melee. Both built to similar functionality, both with similar base starting points, both given access to similar values of -Res in their attacks, and yet SS is the one playing catch-up. Now, don't get me wrong, I get it, four minutes with four crashes at each 60/s mark (roughly), so 40/s of buried damage (not voided, still able to drop ~150ish DPS in that window), but even in the reverse of just using one application of Rage and sitting at ~116%, still couldn't come even close and well beyond two minutes in variance between the two. That makes me have to ask what's going on under the hood of SS that it performs that wildly under par when the data points are supposed to be starting from the similar thresholds.

 

Anyway, there's some practical testing to the problem. Frankly, if anyone asks, I think we should be done with the whole of the problem and make Rage a 60/s duration, 240/s recharge with a static crash of -ToHit, -Dam (both reverse values of what it gives each, whaddya think, 10% ToHit and 100% Dam?) and an endurance burn (what, 20? Nah, counterbalance the increase, 35) for 10/s. That takes it down into a realm of recharge that can be made "Perma" with slight effort and just results in a static 10/s window of neither plus or negative. Oh, and give one of the attacks a Bruising effect (specifically this set, as it actually makes thematic sense that someone so effectively strong could easily cause that effect). I'm thinking Haymaker, or just give it back to Jab and fix its base damage, it's barely 60% equivalent to any other T1 at this point.

 I would like to see the specifics on these “proc monster” builds of yours.

[Sir Myshkin]

11 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

 I would like to see the specifics on these “proc monster” builds of yours.

Not home to be able to, but I'll add them to my update on the Tanker Proc Monster thread tonight; I forgot to add them last night when I posted the update. Any of the experimental builds I do get posted in the thread(s) related to the Proc testing at some point, with revised builds once the AT is concluded.

 

Edit: Added them to the appropriate post. WP/SS in the most recent, and the Bio/NrgM was already posted in a previous update.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Sir Myshkin

[ShardWarrior]

On 9/20/2019 at 5:25 PM, siolfir said:

Stone Melee gets Heavy Mallet. Super Strength gets Jab. Stone Melee wins this one in a landslide, as there's nothing positive to say about Jab beyond "at least Brutes don't have to take it".

LOL! 😀  So true.

[Sovera]

Tbh I don't even understand why Rage *needs* a crash. Has someone been secretly deleting posts where SS destroys a pylon in one minute like a certain other set? No? Then in a world where TW exists why single out SS?

[Gobbledigook]

Adding endurance costs to Rage would just hurt certain power sets. Some power sets can afford it but i know my Dark armor/SS tanker could not afford them. Why punish DA? Shouldn't SS work for all power sets equally.

 

Why pick Super Strength if you could pick a power set that increases Defence or resists or debuffs mitigations/defences etc if they do equal damage. Some are more offensive and some are more defensive.

 

Not a good change. Better to just allow it to stack only once and up the damage of some of the attacks in SS to comparable levels of other sets OR leave it as it is and reduce the damage buff a little, 60% instead of 80% for example. And remove the debuffs when Rage ends, its not needed and it is not fun. 

Edited September 26, 2019 by GeneralDemise

[Cawshun]

6 hours ago, Sovera said:

Tbh I don't even understand why Rage *needs* a crash. Has someone been secretly deleting posts where SS destroys a pylon in one minute like a certain other set? No? Then in a world where TW exists why single out SS?

SS isn't singled out. TW is an outlier and I wouldn't be surprised to see its numbers adjusted in the future. Trying to balance around something that's over performing results in massive power creep.

[Megajoule]

1 hour ago, Cawshun said:

SS isn't singled out. TW is an outlier and I wouldn't be surprised to see its numbers adjusted in the future. Trying to balance around something that's over performing results in massive whinging from its defenders who insist it's just fine as it is and isn't hurting anyone.

Fixed.

[TheAdjustor]

3 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Fixed.

You know there is an entire thread where people are making an effort to test the scrapper melee sets to see what is OP and what isn't.  Unless  someone has actually done the testing slandering anyone that disagrees on the topic is incredibly invalid.

[Murcielago]

Scrappers need super strength!

 

*runs away*

[Myrmidon]

3 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

Scrappers need super strength!

 

*runs away*

 

And Tankers need Energy Aura!

Edited September 26, 2019 by Myrmidon

[Murcielago]

Just now, Myrmidon said:

 

Mans Tankers need Energy Aura!

[Haijinx]

8 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

 

And Tankers need Energy Aura!

A EA/SS tanker would be pretty awesome with the new changes.

 

 

 

 

[MunkiLord]

48 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

Scrappers need super strength!

 

*runs away*

And Stone Melee!

[macskull]

4 hours ago, Megajoule said:

Fixed.

Right, because a set that has godawful animation times outside of the momentum mechanic and absoutely chews through endurance is in need of a nerf. Go play an SO'd and un-incarnate'd TW character and tell me how that works out for you. Yes, TW has bigger PBAoE radius and bigger cone arcs than most other sets - that's a thematic thing and it doesn't really unbalance the set.

[HelenCarnate]

8 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

Adding endurance costs to Rage would just hurt certain power sets. Some power sets can afford it but i know my Dark armor/SS tanker could not afford them. Why punish DA? Shouldn't SS work for all power sets equally.

 

Why pick Super Strength if you could pick a power set that increases Defence or resists or debuffs mitigations/defences etc if they do equal damage. Some are more offensive and some are more defensive.

 

Not a good change. Better to just allow it to stack only once and up the damage of some of the attacks in SS to comparable levels of other sets OR leave it as it is and reduce the damage buff a little, 60% instead of 80% for example. And remove the debuffs when Rage ends, its not needed and it is not fun. 

They just moved the crash to the beginning instead of the end.  So instead of having it on your DA/SS and have it crash in the middle of mobs when you just cast your heal and having it detoggle you which spell almost certain death, you can pick the time to pay the endurance cost so that it does not cause any problems.  They did remove the debuff when Rage ends, as long as you do not have another stack of rage going.  If you do not think it is fun having the crash then it is fully in your power to never have it crash (once the bugs are worked out).

Edited September 27, 2019 by HelenCarnate

[twozerofoxtrot]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

Go play an SO'd and un-incarnate'd TW character and tell me how that works out for you. 

No. Why would anyone willingly do that? Should powers be balanced for terrible slotting?

 

Yes, your first character or your army of pre-50 alts are gonna have a hard time. After that, it's completely within your power to slot your alt characters with attuned sets for leveling.

Edited September 27, 2019 by twozerofoxtrot