Focused Feedback: Dark Melee Update (Build 2)

[Jimmy]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

• Please note that Focused Feedback threads are heavily moderated to ensure they remain on topic. Any off-topic posts in these threads will be removed without warning.
• Changes from the previous build will be listed in green.
• Any changes or fixes that are only relevant to the beta builds (as in, not changes relevant to the live version of the game) will be listed in blue.

 

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Dark Melee Update

• Dark Melee was seriously underperforming in the AoE department. These changes are aimed to increase the AoE potential of the set whilst having minimal impact on the single target potential.
• Shadow Maul (Tanker, Scrapper, Brute, Stalker) is now a much larger, faster cone that's actually capable of easily hitting multiple targets - especially on tanks!
  • Arc increased from 45 to 120 degrees
  • Recharge increased from 8 to 11 seconds
  • Cast Time reduced from 3.07 to 2.35 seconds
  • Damage lowered from scale 2.156 to 1.6184
    • DPS reduction is minor, it has only been lowered from scale 0.653 to scale 0.645
  • Target Cap increased from 10 to 16 for Tankers
  • Target Cap increased from 5 to 10 for Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers
  • Changes from previous build:
    • Recharge reduced from 14 to 11 seconds
    • Endurance cost lowered to 11.024
    • Damage increased from scale 1.588 to scale 1.6184
    • Fixed a bug with Tanker and Brute versions of Fiery Embrace damage
    • Fixed a bug where Scrapper Boss Criticals were using PvP damage tables doing too much damage
• Dark Equilibrium (Tanker, Scrapper, Brute) has been reworked into a mini-nuke with a portion of its damage scaling based on your current Endurance percentage. At full Endurance, Dark Equilibrium will now deal similar damage to other melee mini-nukes (such as Lightning Rod).
  • Recharge lowered from 180 seconds to 90 seconds
    • This brings the cooldown in line with Lightning Rod
  • Endurance recovered per target lowered from 25 to 12.5
    • This maintains the previous endurance/recharge ratio
  • Damage for this power is now variable, with half the damage now scaling with the caster's current Endurance percentage
  • Changes from previous build:
    • Renamed to Dark Equilibrium
    • No longer crits for Scrappers
      • This brings it in line with other melee mini-nukes (Lightning Rod and Shield Charge) which also do not crit
    • Damage bonus to enemies within 3ft has been removed.
    • Damage formula adjusted:
      • Half the damage will now always apply, and is impacted by buffs and enhancements
      • Half the damage is now bonus damage that scales off of your Max endurance

Edited February 29, 2020 by Captain Powerhouse

[Bopper]

38 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

This results in lower damage at max endurance, but higher damage at low endurance.

Am I reading this right, it seems complete opposite to the previous version. Previous version did more damage at high endurance, now it does more damage at low endurance? Why the flip-flop?

[Troo]

Shoot, maybe a bit of over correction?

 

Dark Consumption was hated as a name? I thought that discussion applied to a different power set.

• Appears to have lost the mechanic that was intended to make it unique.
• Is this because of outside buffs?
• This is not just to increase low endurance scenarios is it?
• Crits makes sense.

Was Shadow Maul really under performing in tests? In this build it got boosted again in three categories.

• Cast time lowered, endurance cost lowered, increased arc and increased number of targets for..
• 3 second increase in base recharge (which won't matter with IOs, etc) and
• a .02 reduction in DPS.
• Seems like a sweat deal.

As always the effort is much appreciated! I am so excited for Energy Transfer to get similar attention.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Troo
edits to avoid too many posts

[Number Six]

I think he means relative to the last build, making the curve less steep. Overall it should still do more damage at max endurance.

[Leogunner]

2 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Am I reading this right, it seems complete opposite to the previous version. Previous version did more damage at high endurance, now it does more damage at low endurance? Why the flip-flop?

I think it's a typo.

[Leogunner]

2 minutes ago, Troo said:

Shoot, maybe a bit of over correction?

 

Was Shadow Maul really under performing in tests? In this build it go boosted again but in three categories.

• Seems like it should if it dropped recharge,
• then it should lower damage or,
• increase endurance to balance the equation.

Someone caught a bug with the 1st changes that didn't apply the damage scale to its rech/end costs properly.  They are just correcting that but in the process, SM has a slight reduction in its costs.

 

 

[Bopper]

3 minutes ago, Number Six said:

I think he means relative to the last build, making the curve less steep. Overall it should still do more damage at max endurance.

Thank you, now that I read it again with that in mind, it does make sense.

[Jimmy]

Sorry, I've just made that a bit clearer. For future reference, everything in green should be read in the context of "changes from the previous build".

[Caulderone]

So, I'm going to do a bit of math out loud so I can see the effect on DE in writing and see the changes.  The damage numbers here are made up for easy math and assume the new damage is the unmodified and is split exactly in half as the notes indicate.

 

Assumptions:

100% base damage of 200 (reminder:  I made this number up for easy math)

100% damage enhancement in power

50% damage boost from Soul Drain

 

80% endurance remaining

Before:

200 * 2.5 * 0.8 = 400 damage

After:

(100 * 2.5) + (100 *  0.8) = 330 damage

 

20% endurance remaining

Before:

200 * 2.5 * 0.2 = 100 damage

After:

(100 * 2.5) + (100 * 0.2) = 270 damage

 

So, if I have that done correctly, we get less max damage and more minimum damage.  At max end, it's about 87% of the original base damage, but at very low endurance is significantly more than the prior minimum (over 3x as much)  That seems pretty well done to me.

 

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Caulderone

[ScarySai]

28 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Am I reading this right, it seems complete opposite to the previous version. Previous version did more damage at high endurance, now it does more damage at low endurance? Why the flip-flop?

Its poorly worded: The damage still scales off max endurance, but since half the damage doesn't scale with endurance, you still do more damage with less endurance than the previous build.

 

I will be testing the changes shortly, on paper DC looks like it got overnerfed, but shadow maul might even that out.

Edited February 29, 2020 by ScarySai

[siolfir]

37 minutes ago, Troo said:

If so, that's fair. I need to jump in and take another look. Just reading the green can be misleading.

Yeah, if you check the old feedback thread it should have been doing a bit over scale 1.8 damage at that level of recharge. With the animation time reduction, that would have had the damage per second of animation increasing from 0.653 to 0.723 (both numbers factoring for Arcanatime), which is probably more than they wanted to buff it. So the recharge came down, endurance cost and recharge are directly related in their design formulas, and the new damage matches the formula exactly for that AoE size. I'm assuming that 11 seconds was picked for the recharge because at 12 seconds it would still be an increase in damage per activation time (to 0.694), which is still likely more than they wanted to buff the power. @Jimmy: at the new damage scale it's actually 0.645, the 0.633 value was at scale 1.588 - the change actually makes it closer to the old value.

 

If you're looking for comparisons, Hurl Boulder's 2.5 second animation and scale 1.64 damage gives it a scale 0.621, and Crowd Control in War Mace is 0.717.

Edited February 29, 2020 by siolfir
notes on why it was probably 11 seconds, comment on values in patch notes

[macskull]

Since the justification for adjusting the Dark Equilibrium’s damage calculation and removing crits was its comparison to other mini nuke powers, can its radius and target cap be increased to match those?

[Caulderone]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

Since the justification for adjusting the Dark Equilibrium’s damage calculation and removing crits was its comparison to other mini nuke powers, can its radius and target cap be increased to match those?

Especially since the 3' bonus damage was dropped, this would be nice.

[WindDemon21]

Please make soul drains recharge 90 seconds to line up with DE. The off time is beyond annoying and forces max recharge building for DM to minimize the difference. Especially since we know nobody is going to use either without the other.

[ScarySai]

After a bit of testing on +4 carnies, council, nemesis and Arachnos, I think Dark Consumption Equilibrium is feeling a bit anemic now.

 

Removing the bonus damage, it's ability to crit and modifying it's damage scaling at the same time was a huge overcorrection.

 

Shield charge hits harder now, claw's spin might even hit harder, I'll check that after testing. 

 

Bit crude, but I'm not great with excel, so bear with me here.

 

 

+4 council, here, with musc core t4, max endurance, fully saturated soul drain+AAO.

 

Stats: 

Edited February 29, 2020 by ScarySai

[Caulderone]

14 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Please make soul drains recharge 90 seconds to line up with DE. The off time is beyond annoying and forces max recharge building for DM to minimize the difference. Especially since we know nobody is going to use either without the other.

Soul Drain is already really, really good.  This seems highly unlikely.

 

Build Up gets its damage bonus up roughly 1/3 of the time on a high recharge build.  SDs damage bonus can be made basically perma-on, and with one target you are getting half of BU full time.  Then, with 10 targets, you exceed BU.

 

Frankly, I think we are better off if they don't examine SD at all.  We probably wouldn't like the results.

[RubyRed]

I finally got some time to test DM on Brainstorm this morning in a PI radio team (with 4 elec defenders! felt pretty good 🤣). Shadow Maul feels great now, I had basically just been using it as a single target attack before, but now I can actually consistently hit multiple targets. Great change.

 

Dark Equilibrium I'm not sure how I feel about. My level 50 scrapper didn't have endurance problems anymore so I very rarely use it on live, mostly only when I'm actively getting endurance drained. I tried just using it as part of my attack chain to see if the added aoe damage was good, but as @ScarySaipoints out above, it just doesn't feel that impactful. The damage didn't feel like it was really moving the needle in any fight, especially with how long the recharge is. I also don't like having attacks that can't crit, that's the whole reason I play a scrapper.

[RubyRed]

3 minutes ago, Caulderone said:

Soul Drain is already really, really good.  This seems highly unlikely.

 

Agree, SD shouldn't be buffed IMO. It's already really good, and making it trivial to get 100% uptime on it would feel a bit OP.

[ScarySai]

18 minutes ago, RubyRed said:

I finally got some time to test DM on Brainstorm this morning in a PI radio team (with 4 elec defenders! felt pretty good 🤣). Shadow Maul feels great now, I had basically just been using it as a single target attack before, but now I can actually consistently hit multiple targets. Great change.

 

Dark Equilibrium I'm not sure how I feel about. My level 50 scrapper didn't have endurance problems anymore so I very rarely use it on live, mostly only when I'm actively getting endurance drained. I tried just using it as part of my attack chain to see if the added aoe damage was good, but as @ScarySaipoints out above, it just doesn't feel that impactful. The damage didn't feel like it was really moving the needle in any fight, especially with how long the recharge is. I also don't like having attacks that can't crit, that's the whole reason I play a scrapper.

While it's better than what we have live, that's a super low bar. Honestly, it doesn't even kill +4 minions anymore with full damage buffs and Musc Core.

 

The last build I can understand needing some reigning in, but they made multiple big changes at the same time. Just nerfing crit was enough, and honestly the damage nerf would have been fine too, but they also removed the bonus damage. The bonus damage was a good chunk of the ability's damage. The ability is kinda trash as an AOE damage ability, much less a nuke akin to lightning rod, now.

 

I assume since it's a pseudopet, the combat log won't show me the results, but shield charge absolutely hits harder, now. An attack from my secondary. We should be considering players that want to roll dark with other armor sets, their results will be even worse, if /shield can't make this thing hit hard, it's not good.

Edited February 29, 2020 by ScarySai

[WindDemon21]

Notice I DIDN'T say to buff it. I only called for a 90s recharge to line it up with DE. Obviously it would be fine to flag its buff as not stackable like group invis is, and lower its damage bonus outside of that first target to compensate.

 

It's stupid it isn't already on the same schedule given the rework anyway since you're going to use them together at either rate.

 

Also per someone earlier it should be re-flipped for the damage bonus on DE. It should do more damage when your end is full, and less when its low, favoring using it for the endurance at that point. This nullifies the benefit of fixing end issues on a build.

[ScarySai]

18 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Also per someone earlier it should be re-flipped for the damage bonus on DE. It should do more damage when your end is full, and less when its low, favoring using it for the endurance at that point. This nullifies the benefit of fixing end issues on a build.

Exactly.

 

My problem with your soul drain suggestion is that they would have to modify something else with the ability to make up for it, and I don't want soul drain to end up like Dark Consumption did, here. A finger on the monkey's paw will curl.

 

Also, just tested again with reds+hybrid active to test how hard DE hits at the damage cap, it was an average of about 20 more than the screenshots I posted earlier.

 

So far - Shadow maul = B+

 

Dark Equilibrium: Was an A, now is more of a D-.

Edited February 29, 2020 by ScarySai

[Caulderone]

13 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

It's stupid it isn't already on the same schedule given the rework anyway since you're going to use them together at either rate.

 

Also per someone earlier it should be re-flipped for the damage bonus on DE. It should do more damage when your end is full, and less when its low, favoring using it for the endurance at that point. This nullifies the benefit of fixing end issues on a build.

1.  I disagree.  I have no problem with it as it is and would rather not take the nerf to it that would require.  I have no problem with you suggesting it, just want to put out a counter-opinion.

2.  It still does more damage at max end and less at low end.  That was a wording issue in the note which has been corrected.

 

 

[ScarySai]

Comparing numbers, here with the previous screenshots, I've decided to log into my claw/bio. For the sake of an accurate test, I have disabled the damage aura, the -res aura, and offensive mode. Bio is not modifying these results at all, this is purely what claws can do by itself. Dark Equilibrium's numbers are also included below.

 

Following tests are on +4 council.

 

Spin with no stacks of follow up.

 

 

 

 

 

Spin with just one stack of follow-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spin with two stacks of follow up, at the bottom you'll see it with three.

 

 

 

Reminder: This ability is spammable and can crit.

 
 

 

 

Dark Equilibrium, no soul drain, full endurance (Ageless, first layer to make sure.)

 

 

 

 

 

Fully soul drained+AAO + Assault Core Hybrid, effectively damage capped. The 309's were targets affected by the fury proc from the soul drain.

 

 

 

 

 

End result: Intentionally held back, spammable AOE from claws can hit harder than a fully buffed to it's max potential dark equilibrium in just two uses, or just flat out crit for more.

 

 

 

 

(This image isn't supposed to be here, but won't let me delete it.)
 

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by ScarySai

[Gauntlet_Prime]

Wow dark had a good AOE for less than a week... bummer.  This new form is not good.  It needed to be reigned in but this is too much.  The original damage curve was more interesting and frankly more functional.  And the removing of the bonus damage ring at very close quarters AND the crit chance just completely gutted it.  I was excited for these changes but now I am nothing but disappointed.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Gauntlet_Prime

[Caulderone]

31 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

PS: If there's a way to compact these images to reduce the length of the post, please let me know.

Drop the images into spoiler tags, maybe?