Focused Feedback: Dark Melee Update (Build 1)

[KelvinKole]

4 minutes ago, Microcosm said:

It is still a top performer, it's just not the ridiculously pay to win that Titan Weapons was. It beats out most the rest of the sets while also having a consistent heal, -tohit and end recovery. It is a great set today

Which honestly begs the question, why was time even put into this? I don't recall seeing dozens of forum posts screaming for a dark melee rework. Martial arts? Yes. Energy Melee? Yes. Force field? Yes. Electric blast? Yes. Dark melee? Nah, it's fine. 

 

Voice of customer should be heard. 

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, Microcosm said:

It is still a top performer, it's just not the ridiculously pay to win that Titan Weapons was. It beats out most the rest of the sets while also having a consistent heal, -tohit and end recovery. It is a great set today, with the exception of Shadow Maul. We can go through and remove the weakness of every single set if that's what people want, but the game will suck after that.

As far as pylon times and killing bosses goes, Dark Melee is indeed a very impressive performer when it can leverage soul drain. In terms of clearing missions, or competing against other primaries with damage buffs, I would dispute it's claim to being a 'top performer' right now, especially if we remove /shield from the equation, but I can at least understand where you are coming from, here. 

 

As for the above poster (It won't let me quote him.): I'm in agreement, a lot of different sets needed this way more than Dark melee did, but since they're clearly doing DM now, we might as well embrace it and discuss the pros and cons.

[Haijinx]

12 minutes ago, Microcosm said:

It is still a top performer, it's just not the ridiculously pay to win that Titan Weapons was. It beats out most the rest of the sets while also having a consistent heal, -tohit and end recovery. It is a great set today, with the exception of Shadow Maul. We can go through and remove the weakness of every single set if that's what people want, but the game will suck after that.

Is it though?

 

Seems like its behind TW and WM at the very least .. and still will be .. for both ST and AOE. 

 

For Stalkers its behind Stj and Savage for ST at a minimum.  

 

 

 

 

[Haijinx]

Maybe they are doing this as a sort of low hanging fruit idea.

 

ST should still be the same, with some nice AOE added.  

 

 

[Microcosm]

Just now, Haijinx said:

Is it though?

 

Seems like its behind TW and WM at the very least .. and still will be .. for both ST and AOE. 

 

For Stalkers its behind Stj and Savage for ST at a minimum. 

 

Ya all of those are valid. But it's ahead of just about everything else (and we should just not even count TW honestly). Stalkers is a little different story, but Stj provides less mitigation and Savage provides 0 mitigation, so that's still ok. It is also behind DB for both, btw, which again provides less mitigation.

 

I just want to buff what's needed (Shadow Maul, and giving any extra AoE on Stalkers) without jumping on the power creep train. If they want to decrease the recharge time of Dark Consumption to make it usable more often, with the reduction in damage and end recovery that would entail, that's fine; the additional damage is not a good idea for the health of the game.

[Haijinx]

Stj has an AOE knockdown that can be combod to an AOE knockdown PLUS AOE fear.

 

A Cone Knockdown 

 

And a Knockup that can be combo'd into a ST hold.   

 

Does pretty good for mitigation.

 

====

 

RAD melee I think gets better pylon times for scrappers than DM also.  There might be others. 

 

 

[Microcosm]

23 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

As far as pylon times and killing bosses goes, Dark Melee is indeed a very impressive performer when it can leverage soul drain. In terms of clearing missions, or competing against other primaries with damage buffs, I would dispute it's claim to being a 'top performer' right now, especially if we remove /shield from the equation, but I can at least understand where you are coming from, here. 

 

As for the above poster (It won't let me quote him.): I'm in agreement, a lot of different sets needed this way more than Dark melee did, but since they're clearly doing DM now, we might as well embrace it and discuss the pros and cons.

Not disagreeing. I just don't think it should be a top performer in AoE or anywhere near it, when it's a very high performer in ST and can heal and debuff tohit. If we follow the same logic, we've got to buff the high performing AoE sets to be high performing ST and mitigators too. You'll get to a point where everything is a differently colored titan weapons eventually. But Shadow Maul truly sucks and never should have, so full forward on that part.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Microcosm

[ScarySai]

14 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

RAD melee I think gets better pylon times for scrappers than DM also.  There might be others. 

Dual blades is above it as well, IIRC. Not sure if the AV chain is, but the Blind>Ablating>Sweeping>ablating chain most likely is with some built-in cleave, and two -res IOs as a cherry on top.

 

11 minutes ago, Microcosm said:

Not disagreeing. I just don't think it should be a top performer in AoE or anywhere near it, when it's a very high performer in ST and can heal and debuff tohit.

Would it be a top performer, though? In the time it takes for Consumption to come back and for the mauls to fire off, a lot of classes have likely outdamaged it. It's insane burst, but only if fully soul drained and endurance is completely topped off. Since ageless is a factor in dark consumption's performance, Assault core should be mentioned for other sets, as that sort of closes the gap of dark's +damage advantage.

 

The changes are really powerful, but I don't see how they are any more unhealthy for the game than permadoms, fire farming, other power builds and such - not that I necessarily want those things gone, but I think the ship has sailed on any idea of trying to keep things 'in line' outside of some serious outliers like TW.

Edited February 27, 2020 by ScarySai

[macskull]

2 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

I assume you're playing the same game that I am. Everyone will have that down to 30 seconds or less; It's usable every spawn to nuke all the minions and lieutenants. That's enough not to need another AoE. A lot of people seem to think that more AoE = more better since the state of the game is so AoE heavy, but when everyone is done with their opening nukes you need  single target dps to clean up the tough mobs and keep a fast pace. 

Well it's a good thing that Dark Melee's not exactly hurting in the single-target damage department then, isn't it? These changes are simply making it also competitive in the AoE department.

 

I could make the same argument and assume you're playing the same game I am, in which case I have no idea how you're moving so slowly that clearing a spawn takes 30 seconds, but I'm not going to and I'm going to point you to the fact that game's balanced around SOs which means absent any other buffs this power will be available every 45 seconds tops. I don't see how adding some AoE damage to a set that's sorely lacking it is a problem, but okay.

 

Let's look at it this way:

• Single-target-heavy sets are useful in encounters against single hard targets with lots of HP (basically, AVs and EBs, maybe multiple bosses) which, let's be honest, are not the majority of encounters.
• AoE-heavy sets are useful in encounters against pretty much everything else, where there are lots of targets, which is the majority of encounters but they can struggle against harder single targets.
• Sets that have good AoE and single-target damage might not perform as well as either of the above sets in their applicable scenarios (which isn't even the case, since they'll perform just fine) but they're going to be pretty much universally useful. There's no reason most or all sets can't fit in this category.

[Haijinx]

I think it has Good ST, but its not where it was due to new sets and buffs to other sets.

 

But its far enough down that buffing its AOE sure makes sense IMO.

[KelvinKole]

33 minutes ago, macskull said:

 

• Sets that have good AoE and single-target damage might not perform as well as either of the above sets in their applicable scenarios (which isn't even the case, since they'll perform just fine) but they're going to be pretty much universally useful. There's no reason most or all sets can't fit in this category.

This not a new debate. There's two schools of thought: those that think every set should be capable of the same things and those who think each set should have unique highs and lows. I'm of the latter and you seem to be of the former, so we're not going to get much further. I'll just say that CoH is a game that's had success due in large part to its replay ability, with each new alt presenting the opportunity to not only play differently but actually feel different from other sets. Making everything the same diminishes that, so now electric melee plays a lot like dark melee which plays a lot like radiation melee.. 

 

 

Also, titan weapons is low on utility. Hopefully it gets a self heal and endurance recovery tool soon. 

[macskull]

14 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

This not a new debate. There's two schools of thought: those that think every set should be capable of the same things and those who think each set should have unique highs and lows. I'm of the latter and you seem to be of the former, so we're not going to get much further. I'll just say that CoH is a game that's had success due in large part to its replay ability, with each new alt presenting the opportunity to not only play differently but actually feel different from other sets. Making everything the same diminishes that, so now electric melee plays a lot like dark melee which plays a lot like radiation melee.. 

 

 

Also, titan weapons is low on utility. Hopefully it gets a self heal and endurance recovery tool soon. 

Literally none of those sets play anything alike, I have no idea what you are smoking but I want some.

[Galaxy Brain]

Testing Time!

 

 

I was able to play the new DM tonight and ran the set in the same way as before in my Scrapper Melee Testing, seen in the thread below. I highly recommend you check out at least the OP here to dive into a lot of what a number of awesome players have been able to compile along with myself about the melee sets prior to this patch on Scrappers. 

 

 

For context, this test pits each melee primary available for scrappers against each other in a time trial using a "Mission Simulator" to emulate an average Defeat-All styled mission that has a mix of set Bosses and an Elite Boss for ST, and a healthy mix of enemy spawn formations and locations to test AoE, and restrictions to /Willpower, SO's, and Combat Jumping (along with no insps, etc) in order to isolate Melee Set performance as much as possible.

 

The last time I ran Dark Melee across 10 sets of tests, recording my times as I went.  After a total of 190 runs of the Mission Simulator across all 19 Scrapper Primaries, I went back and redid the bottom 5 runs per set as well to make sure that the standard deviation accounted for any hiccups in me becoming familiar with the powerset in general or for the earlier runs, just acclimating to the mission itself. This resulted in the following, combined with the runs of several others:

 

 

Dark Melee was dead last. 

 

While it does well against a single target, and can really output some damage on one guy if you siphon off of surrounding enemies, it was very slow going to actually clear of those enemies. You could hand out naps one at a time with boosted ST attacks, as well as mollywhop bosses, but Shadow Maul's unreliable nature and commitment on top Dark Consumption's pitiful uptime and damage meant that even on full tilt you are still dealing less damage to a crowd of enemies as the activation times per swing add up to where sets with traditional AoEs will outshine DM in a vacuum. 

 

Comparing it to Martial Arts for example, that set has only a single AoE attack in Dragon's Tail and still it was over 1 minute faster on average. It also has a variety of strong ST hitters and utility much like DM, but the X factor being it could quickly boost damage and then quickly apply its one AoE again and again without needing to re-position as often.  While both of my trials with these sets carried 2 deaths each, I felt MA was actually a bit safer mob to mob. Dark's -ToHit is awesome on bosses as you stack it up, and the self heal is nice too. MA however has a more reliable AoE KD that animates faster and a bit more burst damage, allowing you to more consistently negate hits over the course of hundreds of incoming swings as you either take minions out of the fight instantly or at least guarantee a few seconds where you know they will not hit you. DM cannot reliably apply it's -ToHit to a crowd which can make being swarmed more dangerous especially with the commitment and positioning required to use what AoE it has.

 

 

 

 

So, how do the new changes fare?

 

 

 

 

A huge improvement! 

 

Roughly comparable to Staff and Katana, the issues stated earlier have essentially been fully addressed. The new size and speed of Shadow Maul makes it much more reliable and lenient to hit multiple enemies with, which lets you KO faster on top of spreading more -ToHit. Same deal with Dark Consumption, the ability to Soul Drain -> Dark Consumption Wipe out a ton of minions (and refill end if it was missing) > Mop Up with Maul just feels much, much better and you still get to benefit from the ST output while your AoE is on cooldown. 

 

That said, perhaps it is a smidge overtuned on Dark Consumption....

 

 

 

(I really only used ToF on bosses as a safety net before Soul Draining)

 

With this super-basic slotting on /WP, I really never saw my endurance dip significantly to where Dark Consumption would deal far less damage. Combined with Soul Drain, I'm not sure if the endurance scaling has as significant an impact at all, and whenever it was able to be popped again I was around 85-100% end + Soul Drain at the ready most of the time even after battering my way through some crowds. 

 

The recharge on it feels way better than before, syncing up with SD quite nicely and that feels just awesome. Though maybe a bit too good if you are able to maintain high endurance. The more you invest into that the more and more DM will perform, and this is where some of the other feedback comes into play. 

 

Spines and Rad both have a high AoE focus, and Rad even has a Heal like DM does, but it doesn't have a defensive secondary effect nor as reliable/quick mez application. These combined with the new potency of an endurance-efficient / Soul Drain boosted Dark Consumption may have had DM swing a smidge too much on the other end of the pendulum if it keeps its other strengths as-is.

 

 

Overall though, great job! DM is a lot more fun to play now and the cycle of 2 drains feels just right. Just adjust the damage scale a scootch and it should be golden.

[Haijinx]

Nice.  Didn't the IO ranking vary though, with WM #2?  

 

 

[csr]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Maybe they are doing this as a sort of low hanging fruit idea.

 

ST should still be the same, with some nice AOE added.  

 

 

I think the idea is that Dark Melee was a clear outlier at the bottom of the list of AoE from the Tanker +Area perspective (it gained about half as much as the next lowest set in that regard).  I believe Capt P just wants to bring it up so that it's no longer an outlier but still near the bottom.  If that's the case, then I think he's gone a bit too far and I suspect there's a reduction in the buff to DC coming soon.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just now, Haijinx said:

Nice.  Didn't the IO ranking vary though, with WM #2?  

 

 

Funny you mention that:

 

 

The new DM on SO's matches an IO'd to the gills old DM! (Well, slower by a few milliseconds but who's counting?)

 

I unfortunately never got to finish the IO runs when Pineapple got snapped a while back, but the spread was a lot tighter overall.

 

 

[Haijinx]

Tbh not bad at all for a first pass though.  

 

Tone down DC a touch perhaps. 

[ScarySai]

Very nice work, Galaxy. It's nice to have some actual data to look at instead of raw feelings.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

Very nice work, Galaxy. It's nice to have some actual data to look at instead of raw feelings.

Yeah.  They did a great job with those tests. 

 

The one that disappoints me is Fire Melee, it would be nice if that one was in the top 3 of the IO one at least since it gets no mitigation.

 

 

[ScarySai]

4 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Yeah.  They did a great job with those tests. 

 

The one that disappoints me is Fire Melee, it would be nice if that one was in the top 3 of the IO one at least since it gets no mitigation.

 

 

All things being equal, Fire melee would probably do a lot better with /shield bolstering it, dark's +damage from soul drain is doing a lot of the work in these tests, don't forget. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by ScarySai

[Microcosm]

4 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Yeah.  They did a great job with those tests. 

 

The one that disappoints me is Fire Melee, it would be nice if that one was in the top 3 of the IO one at least since it gets no mitigation.

 

 

Yep, agreed on all counts. They also show how far an outlier TW is.

[Haijinx]

Just now, ScarySai said:

Fire melee would probably do a lot better with /shield bolstering it, dark's +damage from soul drain is doing a lot of the work in these tests, presumably.

There was a survival aspect in there since Fire on SOs died a lot iirc.  

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Microcosm said:

Yep, agreed on all counts. They also show how far an outlier TW is.

That was the original impetus of the big effort.  

 

Though War Mace is also Amazing on a high end build.  

 

During the TW flame war thread it came up that they changed (buffed) build momentum at the 11th hour before release.   Seemed that may have been a bad idea for an already strong set. 

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Just now, Haijinx said:

There was a survival aspect in there since Fire on SOs died a lot iirc.  

The set with the most deaths was actually Rad Melee with 4 compared to Fire's 2, though I chock that up to an assortment of RNG on Rad's end and much slower animations on some moves.

 

Fire is in an odd spot where I did have to back off at times and slow down a bit in order to live though. If GFS was like Shatter / Headsplitter and had a narrow cone, and then Fire Breath was a very wide cone ala Frost you'd see a lot better results from it IMO.

[Wavicle]

3 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

Also, titan weapons is low on utility. 

TW gets lots of knockdown, it gets a Parry ability, it gets -Res and -Def.  Lacking utility is not something I would say about that set.

But maybe you were being facetious and I didn't quite get it?