Melee secondary comparisons, highlighting some DA wishful thinking.

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Sniktch said:

The reason Energy Drain is the problem is when EA launched, Energy Drain was Conserve Power and PPPs didn't have Conserve Power.  When APPs were proliferated to redside and all Epic pools were expanded, the presence of Conserve Power in the Body and Energy pools necessitated that EA or those APPs change - EA got Energy Drain instead of Conserve Power, Scorpion picked up Conserve Power, Body changed from Conserve Power to Superior Conditioning, Energy Mastery kept Conserve Power.  Problem is, Energy Drain was a renamed clone of Energy Absorption from Ice - which is why it's got the defense buff per target that puts it past the marker.

You're a little off the mark there; Energy Drain was always part of EA. It launched with both Energy Drain and Conserve Power, and Conserve Power became Energize. Energy Drain also didn't start as a clone of Energy Absorption, it was initially just an endurance drain/recovery power, and got the defense bonus later on.

[Sniktch]

...*chuckle* and that's why I say 90% eidetic, not 100% - knew Conserve got juggled, Drain was an issue, things got changed at APP prolif, and brain twisted three ropes into one knot.  Appreciate the correction.

[Gorgar]

On 10/19/2019 at 7:06 PM, Razor Cure said:

You are cherry picking the situation. Comparing them alone, with NO other toggles is just silly. Even at +1 team size, GD would kill teh mob of 3 baddies faster than DS would. WAY fast if they are higher then even con to you. Also, as I mentioned, its useless saying that damage auras are fine..at level 50, with IOs and incarnate powers. The fact is, its hard to run then while leveling, as the low acc, huge end cost and meh damage just make it not worthwhile.

And dont forget a HUGE part of why the Dark Armour damage aura 'feels' worse than it is..is the crazy amount of other toggles the set has.

I was woefully uninformed about this and ran my mace/da through the Hollows taking down huge groups of blue-con guys by having Death Shroud slotted for acc and damage, and just an acc and an end reduction in my attacks.  I didn't know how bad I had it!

 

Damage auras are fine, including at very low levels.  You may have to back off somewhat on single-target attacks, but they're very efficient aoe.

[Razor Cure]

1 minute ago, Gorgar said:

I was woefully uninformed about this and ran my mace/da through the Hollows taking down huge groups of blue-con guys by having Death Shroud slotted for acc and damage, and just an acc and an end reduction in my attacks.  I didn't know how bad I had it!

Again..missing the point. you are in the hollows. You know, like level 10ish? DO you have ALL the da toggles then? Oh that's right..you dont.

[Sniktch]

A further note on the EA chatter:

 

Realize all my numbers upthread are Scrapper vs. Scrapper, because that's one of the two ATs that has SR, Nin, and EA.  Brutes and tanks don't get Nin, tanks don't get EA.  And I picked Scrapper...because that's where the performance between the three sets is closest.  Stalker, EA blows Nin and SR away easily.

[KelvinKole]

3 month bump. 

 

Anyone ever notice that in game Obsidian Shield states that it provides debuff resistance to defense, tohit, and slow? Not in the description, but in the power details. If it actually offered this, Dark Armour would be fixed IMO. 

[Haijinx]

On 10/17/2019 at 9:24 PM, BrandX said:

EA needs reigned in?  Isn't it's current setup it's step up from it's original setup?

Also its a "newer set"? 

[Haijinx]

On 10/21/2019 at 10:24 AM, Galaxy Brain said:

Great write up @Sniktch! I guess it sort of puts it's toe over the line in that sense... but doesn't it also not have much DDR compared to SR and Nin?

EA is pretty good.  But that's because it used to be really bad.

 

 

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Also its a "newer set"? 

No.  Stalkers and Brutes had it during live and I believe Scrappers got it before CoH got shut down.

 

So, it's not a HC New Set at any rate.  And I'd say, not likely one that needs reigned in.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

i've tried all the armor sets and tbh DA is one of the top 3 in terms of overall resistance and utility. Don't get me wrong i'm all for buffing under-performing sets but DA is not under-performing in the least. Lets face it Stone needs far more love than DA

[Galaxy Brain]

Maybe just help with the endurance a smidge and that's it?

[Charistoph]

Endurance is a big issue with Dark Armor.  An incredible number of toggles, and the end cost of Dark Regeneration is considerable.  It's almost too bad Death Shroud couldn't pull a small amount of End per enemy hit as an offset. 

 

I would like to address a couple points about Dark Armor beyond that, though. 

 

Cloak of Darkness is currently rather pointless for Brutes and for Tankers.  -Perception is nice when you're between missions, but for the two ATs for whom attention is part of who they are it is contra-indicated.  Would it be too much to either remove the Perception aspect and either increase it's Defense to All or trade it for that missing KB protection?

 

Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom are also useless for Brutes, because stopping attacks isn't part of what they want to happen (I won't even go into the counter-productiveness of killing yourself to stun those around you).  I don't know if this can be properly addressed, or even should.  If I was going to fix these two, it would be to have them no longer be toggles, but clicks so they can be OS buttons rather than a consistent area control.  Toggle would be fine for the Tanker, but I think this could be spread across all the Dark Armors which have them as a toggle.

[crkohl]

One of my mains is a Katana/DA Brute. I agree that the only two things that should be touched (if at all. Please fix Regen first, DA is fine) are the endurance issues and Cloak of a Fear/Oppressive Gloom. Anything more than that, and we’ve got ourselves an OP set. DA is currently one of the sturdiest sets out there with the best heal in the entire game. It’s genuinely difficult to die with a good build.

 

Reduce the toggles to .21/sec like Shield, and lower the cost of Dark Regen by a small percent. That’s fair. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear is where we’ll have to get creative. Couple bad ideas below: 
 

OG: Have a built in taunt, and maybe reduce defense of enemies around you. Could keep the - Health aspect as it’s unique.

 

Cloak of Fear: keep the -ToHit, but remove the actual Fear effect. Might have to be renamed. Reduce the endurance cost to something not absurd.

 

Just spitballing. Definitely powersets and even ATs that need love before DA though.

[Replacement]

43 minutes ago, crkohl said:

Reduce the toggles to .21/sec like Shield, and lower the cost of Dark Regen by a small percent. That’s fair.

This is seriously all I'd like to see for right now.

 

While other sets likely need more love, they are a lot more work than this. Having played with some of these sets like Bio and Shield, I feel like this is a simple, low-danger change.  There is literally no coh combo sitting around gathering dust with players saying "this would be the best, most fotm build in the game! But it's ruined by DA's ongoing end costs!" <Tiny impotent fist shake>

 

I mean, unless we want to go through and nerf the end costs of those other armor sets. That seems less popular but yeah that's an option too.

[siolfir]

On 10/21/2019 at 6:46 PM, Vanden said:

You're a little off the mark there; Energy Drain was always part of EA. It launched with both Energy Drain and Conserve Power, and Conserve Power became Energize. Energy Drain also didn't start as a clone of Energy Absorption, it was initially just an endurance drain/recovery power, and got the defense bonus later on.

There was also a middle step where Energy Drain offered a small heal for each target hit in addition to having +endurance, while Conserve Power was still in the set.

 

That happened... 

On 2/2/2020 at 5:27 PM, Haijinx said:

EA is pretty good.  But that's because it used to be really bad.

 

 

I still played one, though. DM/EA, first Brute I ever had to take Taunt on (the powerset existed on Brutes and Stalkers, and of the two only Brutes got unsuppressed stealth, combined with no taunt aura to make sure you had trouble holding aggro).

 

1 hour ago, crkohl said:

One of my mains is a Katana/DA Brute. I agree that the only two things that should be touched (if at all. Please fix Regen first, DA is fine) are the endurance issues and Cloak of a Fear/Oppressive Gloom. Anything more than that, and we’ve got ourselves an OP set. DA is currently one of the sturdiest sets out there with the best heal in the entire game. It’s genuinely difficult to die with a good build.

 

Reduce the toggles to .21/sec like Shield, and lower the cost of Dark Regen by a small percent. That’s fair. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear is where we’ll have to get creative. Couple bad ideas below: 
 

OG: Have a built in taunt, and maybe reduce defense of enemies around you. Could keep the - Health aspect as it’s unique.

 

Cloak of Fear: keep the -ToHit, but remove the actual Fear effect. Might have to be renamed. Reduce the endurance cost to something not absurd.

 

Just spitballing. Definitely powersets and even ATs that need love before DA though.

And the endurance issues are mostly resolved through the Theft of Essence: Chance for +Endurance proc in Dark Regeneration and not using Cloak of Fear all the time - especially if it's only for the to-hit debuff. As for building in Taunt, I think the new Fury/Gauntlet changes will trigger on Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear for Brutes and Tankers, and @Captain Powerhouse stated in the Tanker feedback threads that he doesn't like the idea of more taunt auras for Scrappers, but didn't have plans on taking away the ones that exist already.

[Replacement]

43 minutes ago, siolfir said:

And the endurance issues are mostly resolved through the Theft of Essence: Chance for +Endurance proc in Dark Regeneration

I have a strong enough dislike of required IOs for a set to function, but this brings the set to two specific and unique IOs just to do its core job: survive.

 

And it's a silly restriction to enforce, when better toggles are around with lower end costs (shield, ea, bio), and as I mentioned above, would result in zero abusive new builds.

[Bossk_Hogg]

3 minutes ago, Replacement said:

I have a strong enough dislike of required IOs for a set to function, but this brings the set to two specific and unique IOs just to do its core job: survive.

 

And it's a silly restriction to enforce, when better toggles are around with lower end costs (shield, ea, bio), and as I mentioned above, would result in zero abusive new builds.

The end proc worked a lot better under the old formulas. Previously it would likely fill the end bar, now it barely seems to break even. So I do think the end issues should be reviewed. That said, can we stop acting like IO's are remotely hard to come by? Back in the day I had more trouble keeping my SO's up than fully kitting out a character on Homecoming lol. If someone isnt using IO's that's on them. They have been in the game longer than they haven't.  

 

 

[Replacement]

1 minute ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

The end proc worked a lot better under the old formulas. Previously it would likely fill the end bar, now it barely seems to break even. So I do think the end issues should be reviewed. That said, can we stop acting like IO's are remotely hard to come by? Back in the day I had more trouble keeping my SO's up than fully kitting out a character on Homecoming lol. If someone isnt using IO's that's on them. They have been in the game longer than they haven't.  

 

 

They're harder on burden of knowledge than scarcity 

[Charistoph]

2 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

The end proc worked a lot better under the old formulas. Previously it would likely fill the end bar, now it barely seems to break even. So I do think the end issues should be reviewed. That said, can we stop acting like IO's are remotely hard to come by? Back in the day I had more trouble keeping my SO's up than fully kitting out a character on Homecoming lol. If someone isnt using IO's that's on them. They have been in the game longer than they haven't. 

As Replacement said, access is not necessarily the problem, but knowing what is available to be put in where is a challenge for most.

[crkohl]

7 hours ago, siolfir said:

And the endurance issues are mostly resolved through the Theft of Essence: Chance for +Endurance proc in Dark Regeneration and not using Cloak of Fear all the time - especially if it's only for the to-hit debuff. As for building in Taunt, I think the new Fury/Gauntlet changes will trigger on Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear for Brutes and Tankers, and @Captain Powerhouse stated in the Tanker feedback threads that he doesn't like the idea of more taunt auras for Scrappers, but didn't have plans on taking away the ones that exist already.

As others have said, relying on an IO is not ideal. And it really does not proc as much as it should. My /DA brute doesn’t have endurance issues though.
 

Cloak of Fear? Well that’s the thing. I don’t even take Cloak of Fear on my DA characters because it’s so absurdly expensive for what it does. It needs a complete overhaul.

 

As for the taunt thing, that’s just me being a shameless Scrapper lover lol. Threw that in for kicks.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Just to toss this out there, OP you feela  defensive set should be able to run all of its toggles(+ Im assuming other pool toggles and travel power) with no end issue even while spamming attacks? That toggles should all always be able to be up all the time? Honestly that sounds like a very limiting view. After all someone could then argue that all clicky powers should have a duration to match their cool down so they to can always be up on defensive sets that use clicks more like Regen. At that point all defensive powers may as well be autos we dont have to manage.

 

Just a random thought I had while reading the OP.

[KelvinKole]

I'll echo some comments here about the strength of dark armor; it is amazingly robust when fully tuned, in spite of itself. The main complaints are no inherent kb protection and that its two unique powers, CoF and OG, are rather useless in today's game. The problem is that you completely skip them and still perform at top tier, so making them useful runs the risk of making the set too strong. Id vote for some sort of utility that doesn't affect the user, like Grant cover, or a pure debuff. 

 

Thinking more about opressive gloom, I quite like the idea of a power being fueled by your hitpoints and the inherent risk helps keep it balanced. How about losing the stun and having it apply a slow and - dmg aura around the user, or +dmg aura for allies only. There are much higher priorities. It's just fun to fantasize. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by KelvinKole

[Replacement]

5 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Just to toss this out there, OP you feela  defensive set should be able to run all of its toggles(+ Im assuming other pool toggles and travel power) with no end issue even while spamming attacks? That toggles should all always be able to be up all the time? Honestly that sounds like a very limiting view. After all someone could then argue that all clicky powers should have a duration to match their cool down so they to can always be up on defensive sets that use clicks more like Regen. At that point all defensive powers may as well be autos we dont have to manage.

 

Just a random thought I had while reading the OP.

Forget the slippery slopes, let's go full waterslide up in here, huh?

 

I don't think it's an unreasonable viewpoint -- every other set gets to.  If Dark Armor is intended to be different, then the individual toggles should become strong enough to justify it.  Instead, they're... not really any better than those cheap Shield Defense toggles.

 

As for the rest... yeah I'm not going to get into that.  I think you know as well as I do that your hype is stronk.

I will say, though, that you actually bring to mind what I think would be a cool change for Dark Armor: changing some of their toggles to Clicks that give duration buffs.  At least then I wouldn't feel like i'm working against myself when I spend a power selection on Death Shroud and Cloak of Fear.

[Replacement]

Update: egg on my face.  It turns out most DA toggles already have .21/sec end cost.  I really thought they had the oldschool costs (.26, like SR -- Cloak of Darkness also has a .26 cost, but I can understand that given the utility it brings).

 

Ok so this does leave me scratching my heads some, because I'm not really sure I'd appreciate them coming down under that point.  Though the expensive toggles could each come down some (Death Shrould  and Cloak of Fear from .52 => .39, for example).

Edited February 13, 2020 by Replacement

[Charistoph]

6 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Just to toss this out there, OP you feela  defensive set should be able to run all of its toggles(+ Im assuming other pool toggles and travel power) with no end issue even while spamming attacks? That toggles should all always be able to be up all the time? Honestly that sounds like a very limiting view. After all someone could then argue that all clicky powers should have a duration to match their cool down so they to can always be up on defensive sets that use clicks more like Regen. At that point all defensive powers may as well be autos we dont have to manage.

It depends on the clicky power.  SR and SD both have clicked control defense powers, for example.  Natively, their duration is 2/3 of their recharge time, but they can be brought to constant with a 2-3 Recharge SOs.

 

Dark Armor has zero Auto powers (unless you're a Stalker).  None.  7 toggles and 2 clicks.

 

Dark Armor is interesting because it is pretty much a Resist line, and the 3 Resist Toggles need to be run almost constantly, unlike Stone Armor, because of the alternative Resistances built in to the powers such as end drain and control (though Murky is less necessary than the others).  The damage aura is pretty much needed for Brutes and Tanks, while a bonus for Scrappers (and gone on Stalkers).  So these are the minimum 4 that one could be expected to be running at time, and we haven't even considered other powers like Combat Jumping, Tough, Weave, or Cloak of Darkness.  These 4 are also the only ones that we likely never consider taking off of toggle.  Could you consider  how effective they would be as click powers?

 

But we still have 3 more toggles in the line, all of which are of very situational usefulness.  Turning 2 of them on for a short bit for that usefulness seems counter-productive, especially when just being toggle auras reduces their effectiveness, and 1 is useless for Brutes and Tankers except for just moving between missions or just sneaking past mob groups.  Honestly, I think converting these 3 from toggles to clicks would help round out things a little bit without significantly changing the over all feel of the sets.  And/or it would be interesting to switch the Brutes' and Tankers' CoD to match the Stalker's Shadow Dweller.

 

4 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

Thinking more about opressive gloom, I quite like the idea of a power being fueled by your hitpoints and the inherent risk helps keep it balanced. How about losing the stun and having it apply a slow and - dmg aura around the user, or +dmg aura for allies only. There are much higher priorities. It's just fun to fantasize. 

Losing the stun reduces the need for the hp cost on Gloom, imo.  Honestly, for Gloom, set it to be a Click, decent stun range (but long cool down so it won't be useful to auto-activate), and inflict a self-DoT from there.

 

---

As a side thought, what if either Oppressive Gloom and/or Cloak of Fear were like Radiation Melee's Irradiated Ground?  Instead of an offensive aura pulsing out, make it a click and drop power, leaving a pulsing pet of control.  The pulses happen as they do now, so the Magnitude doesn't have to be changed, just the duration of the pet, overall recharge time, and initial end cost.  The end cost as a click would be pretty easy to address, as it would just be based on the duration of the pet (or maybe a little bit more).  This removes the trap of taking an interesting power, but is just another costly toggle.

 

Of course, I don't know how hard it would make such a significant change to a power, just tossing the idea out for consideration and research.