Focused Feedback: Rage

[csr]

14 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

Like I said, personally I think they should just do away with double stacking, and eliminate the crash all together. Make it function like a lot of the clicky status protection stuff. Doesn't take a lot to make it perma, and you could just set-and-forget. 

The effects of those "clicky status protection" powers stack.  For example:  A Shield Defense Tanker might deliberately double stack Active Defense to get additional Def DeBuff Res (I think it takes my SD/DM Tanker from around 66% to around 88%, cutting the actual debuff suffered by nearly two-thirds).

[MunkiLord]

3 hours ago, Captain Citadel said:

It's balancing the entire set around double and triple stacking that's causing so much of the grief over these proposed changes, though. It was already a mistake to build the set around Rage when so many other sets get by without a constant buff power to account for. Build Up is optional for so many builds because you can't have 100% uptime on it, but because you can have perma-Rage and stack it, the entire set has to be balanced around the assumption that it will be built for perma at the very least. It'd be like if Hasten was part of a powerset instead of a pool power, you'd be expected to take it and build around it. No other damage sets are built with something like Rage that needs to be up all the time to have parity with other sets.

I was just answering the question, I have no opinion either way if that is a good thing. The only reason I'm paying attention to this at all is because eventually Super Strength will most likely be on Scrappers.

Edited October 5, 2019 by MunkiLord

[Demon Shell]

6 hours ago, Demon Shell said:

If you get your recharge high enough that you can maintain a 100% double stack of Rage, can you activate the second Rage inside the new Rage safety window to only have one crash every 2 minutes but twice as much +Dam/+To-Hit? If no one knows, I'll probably test that later tonight.

I did try it out (even though I didn't need to, first post already said you can't do that) and... I crashed every time Rage stacked for any duration. Didn't matter if I let it expire and then tried to activate it during the orange circle anti-crash window or not. I turned Hasten off and let it fully expire, it still happened. I took Gaussian out and let it fully expire, it still happened. I let it fully expire and ZONED and it still happened.

 

So... something is wrong. I think maybe if you let Rage stack and crash ever, you become cursed to always crash or something, even after you let it fully expire. According to the first post, once you let it fully expire you're supposed to start fresh.

 

Edit: Or... maybe because I had it double-stacked and tried triple-stacking it during what would have been the anti-crash window?

Edited October 5, 2019 by Demon Shell
Clarificaiton, Addendum

[TraumaTrain]

Maybe just make Rage an expensive toggle. .61 end/second or something. No crash. No stacking. Slot it for end reduction.

Edited October 5, 2019 by TraumaTrain

[Demon Shell]

Just now, Demon Shell said:

Took my Ice/SS/Soul Tanker out again and actually fought stuff this time. Difficulty was 50 +4/8 in DA.

 

I feel like no one ever adequately articulated just how expensive SS is. Like, I play a Fire/Dark/Soul Brute that uses Darkest Night, so when I say something is expensive, I mean "I just used Energy Absorption 10 seconds ago. Where's my Endurance?"

 

Fought DA Tsoo, KoV, and DA BP.

 

KoV were a joke, as they generally are.

 

DA Tsoo was a little surprising; Rage's To-Hit buff (which I feel is not brought up enough) trivialized their Hurricane. The heal was more annoying than I remember it being on my Brute. Overall, pretty much just buzzing of flies.

 

DA BP were a lot less dangerous than I was expecting. Their -end was effective and I did observe a -14%~ def debuff at one point, but even when my Endurance bottomed out in the middle of a fight I was still okay. Going to chalk that up mostly to Energy Absorption and being +3, though.

 

My build had the following attacks on bar:

Haymaker

Knockout Blow

Cross Punch

Foot Stomp

Gloom

Dark Obliteration

 

Once I got going I went ahead and put Haymaker away. It was a waste and I've already prepared a new build without it. I could have dropped Cross Punch instead and gained an extra 2 abilities, but considering the slots I had to work with I couldn't think of anything I'd want more than a cone. Worth noting, with how underwhelmed I was with Haymaker, Jab and Punch might as well not exist to me.

 

Foot Stomp/Dark Obliteration/Cross Punch did allow me to kill groups faster than on my Brute (but then again my Brute only has 1 AoE). Also as expected, ST did feel like it took longer to take down a Boss.

 

I had a pretty good time overall. The rest of this is about Rage, so I'll be posting it in the Rage topic.

That was all with single Rage. Then I started going double-stack.

 

Remember when I said SS was expensive? Jesus Christ. Between the -25 end on Rage's activation and Hasten's crash I'm losing an average of 35 endurance a minute without counting toggles or attacking. From the talk on here you'd expect the only thing it takes to double stack is recharge, but you need a TON of endurance management. And you can't even throw a Cardiac Alpha at the problem because those don't effect Rage's activation or Hasten's crash.

 

During the Rage crash I'd occupy my time mostly with Taunting, using Energy Absorption, and casting Weaken Resolve, then readying myself to redouble-stack Rage once the crash expired.

 

So, during the 50 second window where I was double-stacked and allowed to attack did I hit really hard? Yeah. Yeah I did. For as long as my endurance held out it hit really hard. The thing about SS double-stacked especially is that you don't see 2 half numbers pop out (from 2 damage-types) that you'd then add together to get the full value. You see one very, very large number. And when Gaussian proced at the start of a double-stacked Rage on a Weaken Resolved target, I saw the largest number I've ever seen on a +1 con enemy. And that was a situation I created in isolation. By myself.

 

Was it broken? I don't know. It took a lot to get there, and I was exceedingly vulnerable to -end/-rec. If I was fighting something like the end boss of DA, Ageless T4 might not have been enough to save me from my own hubris.

 

But I can say this, and this is ultimately why I spent the time I did on this post. A Brute has to build up Fury, a Tanker doesn't. And I would not want to see a Tanker in PvP jump up on me without warning and hit me like I hit that poor Storm Shaman. I know recharge is different there and you can't fully double-stack, but it only takes a moment.

[Captain Powerhouse]

7 hours ago, Demon Shell said:

A Brute has to build up Fury, a Tanker doesn't. And I would not want to see a Tanker in PvP jump up on me without warning and hit me like I hit that poor Storm Shaman.

PvP damage should not have changed, there are different modifier tables at play in PvP and those were not changed. There might be some issues here and there with epic pools that should had been addressed in the last patch.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[csr]

I dug out my Ice/SS Tanker to do some testing.  I'm afraid the Rage "safe" circle is not working.  If I failed to wait for the buff to drop completely, I got a Rage crash.  Even waiting 3 seconds after the "safe" circle appeared resulted in a crash.

[Sir Myshkin]

On 10/5/2019 at 11:05 PM, Demon Shell said:

Was it broken? I don't know. It took a lot to get there, and I was exceedingly vulnerable to -end/-rec. If I was fighting something like the end boss of DA, Ageless T4 might not have been enough to save me from my own hubris.

My testing/breaking of Rage is a few pages back. Interestingly, I didn't find the crash worthy of note on either a Willpower or a Bio Armor, and Ice has just as much flexibility to spike their endurance regularly with Energy Absorption. Both were tested using Musculature for an Alpha and Ageless Core for a Destiny ability. The Bio Armor didn't technically need the endurance portion of Ageless (was fine without it), just used it purely to pad more +Rech.

[CaptainIcyHot]

On 9/10/2019 at 6:29 PM, Leandro said:

Rage [Experimental change]

• Rage will now only crash if stacked. If the power is stacked, crashes will occur at every expiration until it expires completely.
• Rage crash has been changed to 10 seconds of:
  • -999% damage irresistible
  • -10 defense irresistible
  • -20% resist irresistible
  • -20% elusiveness irresistible
• The endurance crash has been removed, the power now instead drains 25 endurance on activation.

My 2 cents...

 

Drop the ability to stack. Drop the debuffs except the damage debuff. 10 secs of doing nothing is penalty enough.

 

I like the up front endurance cost rather than a toggle dropping crash. 

[WumpusRat]

On 10/8/2019 at 9:17 AM, CaptainIcyHot said:

My 2 cents...

 

Drop the ability to stack. Drop the debuffs except the damage debuff. 10 secs of doing nothing is penalty enough.

 

I like the up front endurance cost rather than a toggle dropping crash. 

I honestly don't even see why rage needs to have a crash. Super strength is balanced around the person having rage active. The set under-performs quite a bit without it. Just turn it into something similar to the clickable status protections that some sets have, and disable stacking. You could even fiddle with the cooldown if you wanted to make it harder to make perma. But no other damage boost has the drawback rage does. Sure, they don't last as long, but those other sets were built around the idea of buildup/aim/etc being a "limit break" power rather than an "always on, this brings your damage up to par" power.

 

IMO, remove the crash, remove stacking. Call it a day.

[Myrmidon]

Captain Powerhouse originally said something about looking into a vote. I wonder how that process would turn out.

[Vanden]

25 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Captain Powerhouse originally said something about looking into a vote. I wonder how that process would turn out.

A lot of angry players is my guess.

[summers]

Just push this out live is my opinion. I'm ready for more Tanks 🙂

[FUBARczar]

it's really weird that changes are being made to rage without touching anything else in the set, to get all things SS over and done with.

 

- The crash is still ANTITHETICAL to SUPER STRENGTH.  IMO a better solution is still either 1) a stack-able clickie with a lower buff (like 75% of current buffs)   or 2) an appropriately end-intensive toggle .  (should probably change the name, to avoid the cognitive dissonance of all the people who say, *it just makes sense if you Rage out that you Crash.*  Call it Unleashed, Unrestrained, No Holding Back, etc.)  

 

- Give Hand Clap some damage (my suggestion would be to add energy damage with -res (no KB) like a sonic attack, either stay PBAoE or a cone like Frost)

 

- and give a bump to Jab which currently might as well be called tickle.   

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

Give Hand Clap some damage (my suggestion would be to add energy damage with -res (no KB) like a sonic attack, either stay PBAoE or a cone like Frost)

Giving Hand Clap some damage is a non-starter, because with its recharge the damage formula would dictate that it be stronger than Foot Stomp. And making it a cone or taking out the KB would violate the cottage rule.

[Captain Citadel]

45 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Giving Hand Clap some damage is a non-starter, because with its recharge the damage formula would dictate that it be stronger than Foot Stomp. And making it a cone or taking out the KB would violate the cottage rule.

So what exactly are we allowed to change about SS then, Vanden? With Bruising gone, Jab is now a complete waste of a slot that we're forced to take on Tankers, and Rage is a pain in the neck to run perma-single-stacked, but SS as a set only gets competitive damage when you run it with double-stacked Rage. So in order to maximize uptime on double-stacked Rage, we have to take Hasten. As @Demon Shellreported, that requires taking a huge endurance drain, averaging -35 endurance per minute.without even counting the drain from toggles or an attack chain. And even with the awesome power of double-stacked Rage, we then have to put up with 10 seconds of being de-powered and only being able to fire off Judgment if we want to deal any appreciable damage.

Some part of the most holy and sacrosanct "cottage rule" will have to be bent or broken to fix the problems Super Strength has. There's no other way around it. SS is completely shackled to Rage, so Rage has to change in some way so that the rest of the set can be reworked to be more competitive with newer damage powersets.

[golstat2003]

3 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

So what exactly are we allowed to change about SS then, Vanden? With Bruising gone, Jab is now a complete waste of a slot that we're forced to take on Tankers, and Rage is a pain in the neck to run perma-single-stacked, but SS as a set only gets competitive damage when you run it with double-stacked Rage. So in order to maximize uptime on double-stacked Rage, we have to take Hasten. As @Demon Shellreported, that requires taking a huge endurance drain, averaging -35 endurance per minute.without even counting the drain from toggles or an attack chain. And even with the awesome power of double-stacked Rage, we then have to put up with 10 seconds of being de-powered and only being able to fire off Judgment if we want to deal any appreciable damage.

Some part of the most holy and sacrosanct "cottage rule" will have to be bent or broken to fix the problems Super Strength has. There's no other way around it. SS is completely shackled to Rage, so Rage has to change in some way so that the rest of the set can be reworked to be more competitive with newer damage powersets.

Honestly, for things like this I say the cottage rule be damned. (The same rule that Castle outright blunty said he had no issue violating if the need arised). SS needs to be modified.

[JCMcBoo]

I am still down with the suggestion to remove stacking altogether and just restart the clock each time that Rage is reactivated. This kind of behavior already exists for the tanker version of Divine Avalanche as opposed to brute and scrapper versions. You could possibly add a slight debuff to accuracy and endurance recovery while Rage is active as a downside. Thematically the fact that you are in a rage means that you are just lashing out wildly with everything you have.

[siolfir]

35 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

...SS as a set only gets competitive damage when you run it with double-stacked Rage. 

Competitive with what? It gets competitive with other melee sets with just single-stacked Rage.

 

13 minutes ago, JCMcBoo said:

You could possibly add a slight debuff to accuracy and endurance recovery while Rage is active as a downside. Thematically the fact that you are in a rage means that you are just lashing out wildly with everything you have.

So you want it to add to-hit and debuff accuracy? Not really seeing the point, there, and the to-hit bonus is the only reason my SS Brute bothered to take Rage.

[Demon Shell]

3 minutes ago, JCMcBoo said:

I am still down with the suggestion to remove stacking altogether and just restart the clock each time that Rage is reactivated. This kind of behavior already exists for the tanker version of Divine Avalanche as opposed to brute and scrapper versions.

Wait what? Parry-like powers don't stack on Tankers? That's messed up.

 

27 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Some part of the most holy and sacrosanct "cottage rule" will have to be bent or broken to fix the problems Super Strength has. There's no other way around it. SS is completely shackled to Rage, so Rage has to change in some way so that the rest of the set can be reworked to be more competitive with newer damage powersets.

Not necessarily. The Recharge/Endurance/Damage scale has never been part of the Cottage Rule. The reason Jab/Punch/Haymaker are so garbage is because of that scale. I mean, the actual reason is because moves aren't identically scaled based on animation time (if they were, 2 moves with the same end/damage/recharge would have the same DPA regardless of animation), but what are you gonna do? Review and alter the entire game to homogenize the numbers?.

 

Jab/Punch/Haymaker sit at 2, 4, and 8 second recharges. Among sets with 3 ST attacks in succession, they usually sit at 3-4, 5-8, and 8-12. That shifts their damage/end scale higher. If you shifted Jab/Punch/Haymaker to 3/6/8 respectively you've have a slightly harder hitting, more expensive Jab and Punch, with an untouched Haymaker. 4/8/12 and you'd have much harder hitting, but more expensive attacks.

 

Likewise with Hand Clap. Lower the recharge and/or add in a damage and -res component; its scaling wouldn't deal more damage than Foot Stomp.

[Haijinx]

For those who still don't realize it,

  There is currently a crash when rage ends.  

 

On Homecoming Live.  

 

 

[Vindicator]

1 hour ago, Captain Citadel said:

Some part of the most holy and sacrosanct "cottage rule" will have to be bent or broken to fix the problems Super Strength has. There's no other way around it. SS is completely shackled to Rage, so Rage has to change in some way so that the rest of the set can be reworked to be more competitive with newer damage powersets.

This.  The whole "but, but, muh cottage rule" needs to evolve.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, Captain Citadel said:

Some part of the most holy and sacrosanct "cottage rule" will have to be bent or broken to fix the problems Super Strength has. There's no other way around it. SS is completely shackled to Rage, so Rage has to change in some way so that the rest of the set can be reworked to be more competitive with newer damage powersets.

Not true at all. Adding effects to powers, like making Jab a defensive power or letting it keep Bruising, like I suggested earlier in the thread, or making Hand Clap do damage wouldn’t violate the cottage rule. It’s when you take away effects from powers that you’re violating it, like removing the KB from Hand Clap or making it only a cone.

[MunkiLord]

5 hours ago, Vanden said:

Giving Hand Clap some damage is a non-starter, because with its recharge the damage formula would dictate that it be stronger than Foot Stomp. And making it a cone or taking out the KB would violate the cottage rule.

The formula doesn't make it a non starter since it could just be ignored. 

[Vanden]

6 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

The formula doesn't make it a non starter since it could just be ignored. 

The formula can be broken with enough justification, but I don't think that would necessary to fix Super Strength. Contrary to some doomsaying we've been hearing on the subject lately, the set isn't in some dire straights that would require drastic action to fix. And we shouldn't make a habit of just ignoring the formulas. This isn't /coxg, after all.