Homecoming Statistics: March 2020

[rebel_1812]

Thanks for all the data.  I did notice a drop in the number of people since the summer.  I am surprised but the server counts.  I have found it hard to find teams on indomitable and excelsior, yet those servers have high population numbers.  Maybe it is a difference of when people are online. 

 

[Troo]

15 minutes ago, rebel_1812 said:

 Maybe it is a difference of when people are online.

There is always the https://forums.homecomingservers.com/status/ page which shows real time numbers.

[biostem]

41 minutes ago, rebel_1812 said:

I have found it hard to find teams on indomitable and excelsior, yet those servers have high population numbers.  Maybe it is a difference of when people are online. 

I'd say it's a combination of factors.  For instance, I've noticed a lot of people looking for a team, but uninterested in starting their own.  If I start a team, and especially once I get 2-3 other people to join, I have no issues filling it up.  A lot also depends upon the level range you're looking for;  Sub-22 is tough, since a good number of folks run DFB or AE tunnel farms until that point, and some mid-level folks find it a bit daunting to join a 40+ team running radio missions in PI, since those are often +3 or more, and you'd be whiffing a lot without better slotting...

[Cutter]

17 hours ago, summers said:

How about there's still no 50s!

<snip>

 

SCRAPPER
There's no 50 for Kinetic Attack/Dark Armour

Rolled one up tonight because of this!

 

[Coyotedancer]

No Claws/Fire Stalkers yet... 

 

(grins)

 

Time to make another Unicorn, I'm thinking. 

FOUR of us managed to get Kin/Fire Stalkers to 50 since the first set of numbers came out. Let's see if we can do it with Claws./Fire, too. XD

[Midnight Blue Mage]

On 3/2/2020 at 2:47 PM, Cipher said:

200 Claws Ice Armor 2

😮 My Stalker has a soulmate! I must find them 😄

[summers]

Some more stats; these are the 50s combinations that the community has managed to cross off since September. That is to say: What were there no 50s last time, but there are now?

 

AT	Primary	Secondary	# new
Tanker	Electric Armor	Savage Melee	9
Corruptor	Dual Pistols	Trick Arrow	8
Stalker	Broad Sword	Dark Armor	7
Tanker	Dark Armor	Street Justice	6
Scrapper	Ice Melee	Invulnerability	6
Stalker	Martial Arts	Radiation Armor	6
Blaster	Assault Rifle	Darkness Manipulation	5
Tanker	Dark Armor	Martial Arts	5
Corruptor	Electrical Blast	Traps	5
Tanker	Fiery Aura	Street Justice	5
Tanker	Ice Armor	Battle Axe	5
Stalker	Ice Melee	Ninjitsu	5
Brute	Ice Melee	Regeneration	5
Brute	Savage Melee	Ice Armor	5
Brute	Spines	Energy Aura	5
Tanker	Super Reflexes	Battle Axe	5
Scrapper	War Mace	Ice Armor	5
Controller	Ice Control	Sonic Debuff	4
Scrapper	Ice Melee	Radiation Armor	4
Stalker	Kinetic Attack	Fiery Aura	4
Defender	Time Manipulation	Assault Rifle	4
Corruptor	Water Blast	Trick Arrow	4
Tanker	Dark Armor	Kinetic Attack	3
Scrapper	Dual Blades	Ice Armor	3
Corruptor	Energy Blast	Nature Affinity	3
Corruptor	Radiation Blast	Traps	3
Tanker	Super Reflexes	Spines	3
Sentinel	Archery	Electric Armor	2
Sentinel	Archery	Invulnerability	2
Mastermind	Beast Mastery	Traps	2
Tanker	Bio Organic Armor	Ice Melee	2
Stalker	Broad Sword	Fiery Aura	2
Stalker	Claws	Ice Armor	2
Corruptor	Dark Blast	Traps	2
Stalker	Dark Melee	Fiery Aura	2
Tanker	Fiery Aura	Kinetic Attack	2
Controller	Ice Control	Traps	2
Stalker	Martial Arts	Dark Armor	2
Stalker	Ninja Sword	Fiery Aura	2
Brute	Street Justice	Stone Armor	2
Tanker	Super Reflexes	Ice Melee	2
Defender	Traps	Energy Blast	2
Corruptor	Assault Rifle	Force Field	1
Sentinel	Assault Rifle	Ice Armor	1
Corruptor	Assault Rifle	Thermal Radiation	1
Defender	Cold Domination	Archery	1
Stalker	Dark Melee	Ice Armor	1
Stalker	Fiery Melee	Electric Armor	1
Scrapper	Ice Melee	Super Reflexes	1
Stalker	Kinetic Attack	Ice Armor	1
Stalker	Martial Arts	Fiery Aura	1
Stalker	Martial Arts	Ice Armor	1
Mastermind	Necromancy	Trick Arrow	1
Corruptor	Psychic Blast	Trick Arrow	1
Brute	Stone Melee	Super Reflexes	1
Defender	Storm Summoning	Assault Rifle	1
Defender	Storm Summoning	Beam Rifle	1

[summers]

Change in 50s; currently sorted by % change

 

AT	March	September	% change	Absolute change
Dominator	5070	2408	110.55%	2662
Sentinel	5437	2620	107.52%	2817
Blaster	12926	6350	103.56%	6576
Stalker	4822	2389	101.84%	2433
Tanker	9613	4767	101.66%	4846
Mastermind	6472	3284	97.08%	3188
Scrapper	9795	5012	95.43%	4783
Corruptor	7674	3930	95.27%	3744
Defender	7636	4164	83.38%	3472
Controller	12379	6768	82.90%	5611
Brute	27463	16168	69.86%	11295

 

[summers]

Changes in 50s, currently sorted by % change, under the following conditions:

They must have had at least 10 representatives in September (so, no 1 -> 15 which is a 1400% increase!)

I'm showing only those that have a +200% or more change

 

 

AT	Primary	Secondary	March	September	% change	Absolute change
Blaster	Fire Blast	Plant Manipulation	169	33	412.12%	136
Tanker	Fiery Aura	Radiation Melee	165	34	385.29%	131
Corruptor	Beam Rifle	Nature Affinity	60	14	328.57%	46
Corruptor	Fire Blast	Nature Affinity	58	14	314.29%	44
Corruptor	Fire Blast	Poison	40	11	263.64%	29
Blaster	Fire Blast	Tactical Arrow	111	31	258.06%	80
Stalker	Savage Melee	Super Reflexes	42	12	250.00%	30
Mastermind	Thugs	Storm Summoning	69	20	245.00%	49
Stalker	Ice Melee	Ice Armor	48	14	242.86%	34
Dominator	Gravity Control	Earth Assault	33	10	230.00%	23
Tanker	Dark Armor	Radiation Melee	56	17	229.41%	39
Dominator	Earth Control	Martial Assault	42	13	223.08%	29
Tanker	Fiery Aura	Titan Weapons	32	10	220.00%	22
Mastermind	Robotics	Sonic Resonance	32	10	220.00%	22
Stalker	Ice Melee	Shield Defense	35	11	218.18%	24
Tanker	Invulnerability	War Mace	35	11	218.18%	24
Tanker	Super Reflexes	Martial Arts	41	13	215.38%	28
Sentinel	Beam Rifle	Energy Aura	44	14	214.29%	30
Controller	Fire Control	Thermal Radiation	65	21	209.52%	44
Blaster	Dual Pistols	Tactical Arrow	37	12	208.33%	25
Blaster	Water Blast	Fire Manipulation	129	42	207.14%	87
Scrapper	Claws	Bio Organic Armor	46	15	206.67%	31
Sentinel	Energy Blast	Regeneration	52	17	205.88%	35
Corruptor	Beam Rifle	Poison	58	19	205.26%	39
Brute	Ice Melee	Ice Armor	48	16	200.00%	32
Scrapper	Staff Fighting	Bio Organic Armor	54	18	200.00%	36

 

 

Are Fire/Plant Blasters some kind of PVP meta?

Edited March 4, 2020 by summers

[summers]

Most and least improved: BLASTERS. If people like this, I can provide the numbers on the rest of the ATs (or anything by request)

 

PRIMARY:

 

AT	Primary	March	September	% change	Absolute change
Blaster	Beam Rifle	986	430	129.30%	556
Blaster	Radiation Blast	655	291	125.09%	364
Blaster	Assault Rifle	610	272	124.26%	338
Blaster	Energy Blast	1046	494	111.74%	552
Blaster	Sonic Attack	221	106	108.49%	115
Blaster	Fire Blast	2793	1354	106.28%	1439
Blaster	Dual Pistols	1197	582	105.67%	615
Blaster	Electrical Blast	795	387	105.43%	408
Blaster	Water Blast	1034	509	103.14%	525
Blaster	Archery	947	467	102.78%	480
Blaster	Dark Blast	567	309	83.50%	258
Blaster	Ice Blast	1255	693	81.10%	562
Blaster	Psychic Blast	820	456	79.82%	364

 

 

SECONDARY:

 

AT	Secondary	March	September	% change	Absolute change
Blaster	Devices	1275	562	126.87%	713
Blaster	Tactical Arrow	1270	575	120.87%	695
Blaster	Martial Manipulation	1101	501	119.76%	600
Blaster	Darkness Manipulation	333	152	119.08%	181
Blaster	Ninja Training	304	139	118.71%	165
Blaster	Fire Manipulation	1549	711	117.86%	838
Blaster	Radiation Manipulation	1233	566	117.84%	667
Blaster	Ice Manipulation	665	324	105.25%	341
Blaster	Electricity Manipulation	538	278	93.53%	260
Blaster	Plant Manipulation	892	463	92.66%	429
Blaster	Time Manipulation	1409	739	90.66%	670
Blaster	Mental Manipulation	698	380	83.68%	318
Blaster	Energy Manipulation	1659	960	72.81%	699

[summers]

On 3/3/2020 at 10:48 AM, MunkiLord said:

War Mace is really underrepresented on Scrappers. It's awesome. 

It is, however, the most improved as a % change. It grew +159% which is more than any other Scrapper primary - the secret is getting out!

[Vea]

@Chirikiti - Does this make you the highest Vet-Level on Torchbearer? 

On 3/2/2020 at 10:23 PM, Cipher said:

 

 

 

 

[DR_Mechano]

Seeing Assault Rifle as bottom of the barrel on Sentinels just kind of proves what everybody has been saying. The set is complete Garbage on Sentinels. I know that Sentinels are currently in 'the pipeline' for a rework but oof. Shorter cones, lower target caps and lower damage turn a set that is, in my opinion, fairly mediocre on Blasters into just terrible on Sentinels.

[artphobia]

...and that's that

These 10 I think were the last "No 50s"   ... that is till Shock Therapy.  :)

 

LvL50  Kin/Dark Scrapper

 

Lvl50 Ice/SR Brute

 

Lvl50 energy/ice Sentinel

 

Lvl50 claws/fire Stalker

 

Lvl50 Katana/Stone Brute

 

Lvl50 TrickArrow/RadiationBlast Defender

 

Lvl50 Archery/IceArmor Sentinel

 

Lvl50 Sonic/AR Defender

 

Lvl50  Traps/PsychicBlast Defender

 

Lvl50 ColdDom/AR Defender

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by artphobia
replaced with timestamp pics ... :)

[Shred Monkey]

Looking at level 50s isn't a good measure of what people stick to considering how easy it is to farm up a toon to 50 and then put them on a shelf, never to be played. 

 

I'd like to see the data sliced to eliminate those chars.   Maybe look at chars with over 25 hours of playtime?  25 hours may be the wrong number, but if you look at a graph of count vs hours played, you could probably identify a drop-off point between the "real" chars and the "abandoned" chars.

[Frostbiter]

Some interesting data here. Mostly about how skewed the results are do to a certain activity. For instance:

 

27,473 level 50 Brutes

11,362 of them not Fiery Aura leaving 16,111 that are.

 

Brutes have logged a collective 19,259,936 hours

Non Fiery Aura Brutes have logged 5,252,297 hours leaving 14,007,639 hours played solely by Fire Brutes.

With a combined total play time of all characters across all levels you have 47,370,758 hours played. Fiery Aura Brutes represent 29.5% of all hours played.

 

 

 

[Myrmidon]

11 hours ago, summers said:

Stalker Martial Arts Dark Armor

Last list, I was the only one into the 30s. Now at 50, there are two of us.

[roleki]

2 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

Some interesting data here. Mostly about how skewed the results are do to a certain activity. For instance:

 

27,473 level 50 Brutes

11,362 of them not Fiery Aura leaving 16,111 that are.

 

Brutes have logged a collective 19,259,936 hours

Non Fiery Aura Brutes have logged 5,252,297 hours leaving 14,007,639 hours played solely by Fire Brutes.

With a combined total play time of all characters across all levels you have 47,370,758 hours played. Fiery Aura Brutes represent 29.5% of all hours played.

 

 

 

I had ten weeks off this summer, so, 1600 of those hours might have been me.

[Frostbiter]

6 minutes ago, roleki said:

I had ten weeks off this summer, so, 1600 of those hours might have been me.

Your Brute  accounts for .0034% of all hours played.

Edited March 4, 2020 by Frostbiter

[tjknight]

Empathy defenders are super useful on mixed level teams. I'm always happy to have one if doing PUGs in PI or GV. Also, they are great to have when exemped on TFs. 

 

Also, I'm one of just 58 lvl 50 Ill/Traps! Feeling special. : D

 

[Mansome]

This is good data. At least we can see where the devs need to focus on. I think its odd how people are playing what most of us on the forums would consider bad powersets because of the nerfs the old devs did. I am really shocked at the amount of */Regen scrappers. I guess the biggest take away from this data is nerf Fire anything, nerf spines and nerf H34l0rz!

[UltimateXao]

22 minutes ago, Mansome said:

This is good data. At least we can see where the devs need to focus on. I think its odd how people are playing what most of us on the forums would consider bad powersets because of the nerfs the old devs did. I am really shocked at the amount of */Regen scrappers. I guess the biggest take away from this data is nerf Fire anything, nerf spines and nerf H34l0rz!

Eeehhh... Not really. What we learned last time from the sheer amount of SS/Invuln is that theme or concept actually is a huge factor in deciding what people roll and actually play. This is the problem with nerfing based on popularity, though anyone with a basic understanding of what constitutes fallacious reasoning could have told you that. Argumentum ad populum is basically a noob logic trap.

 

Believe it or not, this all fits neatly together with Spines/Fire. The abundance of Spines/Fire and strangely high numbers of power sets you wouldn't expect anyone to actually play points to the classic Path of Exile meta taking place in City of Heroes. I think Diablo II had a similar meta, too.

 

If you don't know what that is, basically it works like this: At the start of a new season, people roll up MF characters. MF is "magic find," these builds are designed specifically for the purpose of rapid farming. The point of them is to fund EVERYTHING ELSE people play during that season. Here's a quote from a page on PoEvault that sums it up nicely:

 

Quote

Magic Find (or IIQ, short of Increased Item Quantity) builds have insanely high clear speeds and often use items that increase the quantity of items dropped by monsters. These builds are meant to farm currency as quickly as possible, and are often otherwise incapable of completing end-game content or even the bosses of some maps.

This is because many builds in PoE that don't look that hot on the surface are actually insanely good with the right items, but how well they level, how expensive they are to gear for endgame, etc, varies greatly. It's similar to how, for instance, Invuln is kind of a mediocre set with gaping holes until you start applying the right IOs.

 

In PoE, these builds also have the desirable side effect of driving supply up and in the process bringing prices low enough that you don't have to dedicate your whole life to playing the game to get gear for your characters... The same thing seems to be happening on the AH in CoH. Especially because CoH seems to have a demographic of people who enjoy playing the game as a farming simulator the most for some reason lol. I can see the appeal, too, but I prefer radios to the AE when I just want to veg out and beat stuff up.

 

EDIT: Wait, crap, I posted this on the wrong account. Eh, no matter.

Edited March 5, 2020 by UltimateXao

[Mansome]

39 minutes ago, UltimateXao said:

Eeehhh... Not really. What we learned last time from the sheer amount of SS/Invuln is that theme or concept actually is a huge factor in deciding what people roll and actually play. This is the problem with nerfing based on popularity, though anyone with a basic understanding of what constitutes fallacious reasoning could have told you that. Argumentum ad populum is basically a noob logic trap.

 

Believe it or not, this all fits neatly together with Spines/Fire. The abundance of Spines/Fire and strangely high numbers of power sets you wouldn't expect anyone to actually play points to the classic Path of Exile meta taking place in City of Heroes. I think Diablo II had a similar meta, too.

 

If you don't know what that is, basically it works like this: At the start of a new season, people roll up MF characters. MF is "magic find," these builds are designed specifically for the purpose of rapid farming. The point of them is to fund EVERYTHING ELSE people play during that season. Here's a quote from a page on PoEvault that sums it up nicely:

 

This is because many builds in PoE that don't look that hot on the surface are actually insanely good with the right items, but how well they level, how expensive they are to gear for endgame, etc, varies greatly. It's similar to how, for instance, Invuln is kind of a mediocre set with gaping holes until you start applying the right IOs.

 

In PoE, these builds also have the desirable side effect of driving supply up and in the process bringing prices low enough that you don't have to dedicate your whole life to playing the game to get gear for your characters... The same thing seems to be happening on the AH in CoH. Especially because CoH seems to have a demographic of people who enjoy playing the game as a farming simulator the most for some reason lol. I can see the appeal, too, but I prefer radios to the AE when I just want to veg out and beat stuff up.

 

EDIT: Wait, crap, I posted this on the wrong account. Eh, no matter.

I get that concept has a huge impact on it, like superman and other characters like him. But lets be real 99% of the folks playing spines/fire and any combination thereof are just farming inf. Spines is ugly even after the updated costume options for it. I can't think of a single concept reason for that combination other than to farm. They do need to look at why the other sets are not being played as much. I remember back on live servers people avoided dark armor due to not being able to see the character and the insane endurance management you have to do with it. The minimal fx option helped with the first problem but the powerset still plays like you are having an asthma attack the entire time you are playing it even with IOs and Alpha slot.

 

The high number of empaths we see are just those who don't know any better, that defense and resists go a longer way than heals as does control effects. The one odd outlier I see with this is Stalkers with shield defense. Stalkers are not a farming AT as they have no way to hold aggro but yet you see them with shield defense for the AoE. I just wonder what is going on with the players who are selecting that secondary. If they exclusively team then I can see the reason. The other thing I can't understand is why so many controllers and masterminds picking kinetics. A huge part of the reason to play the set was speed boost. When they took away pet recharge buffs I just don't see a point even with fulcrum shift unless you exclusively team. My hope is that they eventually take away the pet recharge nerf or offer an alternate power choose for all ally +recharge powers for masterminds and controllers so they get the full benefit of the powerset. Kind of like how pain domination got Pain Bringer instead of Adrenal boost.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Mansome

[UltimateXao]

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

I get that concept has a huge impact on it, like superman and other characters like him. But lets be real 99% of the folks playing spines/fire and any combination thereof are just farming inf.

That massive overestimated asspull of a number aside, what I stated does nothing to contradict this idea. It was an explanation as to how efficient farming directly leads to less played sets getting more attention. Please respond with all context considered and included. Thank you.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

Spines is ugly even after the updated costume options for it.

Disagree. Some of the options look quite nice. Thorns always looked cool.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

I can't think of a single concept reason for that combination other than to farm.

I like how you pivot back and forth between complaining about the effectiveness of that specific combination, to the look of Spines, by itself, to devalue it conceptually. As if that's somehow a cohesive point. Just so people wouldn't start naming off other Spines builds that have solid concepts behind them and look the part. Or so you didn't have to throw Firey Aura's FX under the bus with it.

 

I'm not sure if you did this on purpose, but it seems kinda slimy.

 

I'd pull out a screenshot of my Ice/Spines tanker Sno Globe, but I'm not currently on Windows unfortunately.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

They do need to look at why the other sets are not being played as much. I remember back on live servers people avoided dark armor due to not being able to see the character and the insane endurance management you have to do with it.

These statistics actually show that a lot of things we thought weren't worth playing, people are playing. You said that yourself. ...Then there's others of course, that it shows are as unused as we thought. My point was popularity statistics don't actually tell you what is or isn't strong.

 

I don't really want to go into DA, because it's a strong but hard set and I don't have recent experience with it (I used it on a few characters on live). It's not as gloomy (hah) as you think. You can manage its end adequately. But you need to... HINT HINT ...Farm up a good and moderately expensive build for it, and you're probably going to want to speed level it out of at least the first couple dozen levels.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

The high number of empaths we see are just those who don't know any better, that defense and resists go a longer way than heals as does control effects.

You'd be surprised how long heals hold out. There's more and more exotic damage, massive damage spikes, debuffs, etc, in high level content. ...And Empathy does more than just heal. Even if it is the main thing the set does, Empathy has strong single target buffs, including one that increases defense, and several options can help with endurance management against enemies that... Y'know... Aren't pushovers and have things like nasty endurance drains. Wont save you from a Sapper, but it'll help you recover from it after it's died. Same goes for Carnies.

 

Also, as a general rule of thumb: Almost any set that has both mitigation and healing is going to be good. When you combine those two things, you're able to push whoever you're buffing over the immortality line. I actually really hate defending Empathy because of how overrated it is, as well as the stupid "HURR DURR EMPS AREN'T H34L0RZ" meme... But... It's not a bad set. At all.

 

I really just wish CM was AoE.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

The one odd outlier I see with this is Stalkers with shield defense. Stalkers are not a farming AT as they have no way to hold aggro but yet you see them with shield defense for the AoE. I just wonder what is going on with the players who are selecting that secondary. If they exclusively team then I can see the reason.

CoH is an MMO. People team. Frequently. Especially when leveling. You can also turn up the enemy count when you're solo.

 

Also, there are other reasons use to Shield Defense on a Stalker.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

The other thing I can't understand is why so many controllers and masterminds picking kinetics. A huge part of the reason to play the set was speed boost. When they took away pet recharge buffs I just don't see a point even with fulcrum shift unless you exclusively team.

Lots and lots and lots of people team.

 

And yes, Fulcrum Shift really is just THAT GOOD. Fulcrum shift is so good that I've often wondered if it might be better to just up the damage multiplier for all the ATs, nerf Fulcrum Shift by something crazy like half, and then do some work on the rest of the set. Because when you start getting up in the levels, it really does feel like Fulcrum Shift becomes completely make or break. Yes, this is from a teaming perspective, but if you're not... Well... I'd say farming, but even when farming it's actually more profitable to team up with a kin and duo farm.

 

I will admit I never understood why we don't see more Fire/Kin Corruptors.

 

1 hour ago, Mansome said:

My hope is that they eventually take away the pet recharge nerf or offer an alternate power choose for all ally +recharge powers for masterminds and controllers so they get the full benefit of the powerset. Kind of like how pain domination got Pain Bringer instead of Adrenal boost.

It wasn't actually meant as a nerf. I disliked this solution too, but it was actually a lazy way of fixing +recharge completely breaking pet AI. Maybe the AI really is that hard to work on. Maybe it's not, and we'll see pets get recharge again.

Edited March 5, 2020 by UltimateXao
Typo.

[Call Me Awesome]

Yay, I have one of only two level 50 Fire/Regen Stalkers.  I have to say it's really a good combination when you soft cap it to S/L.  It was the second character I got to 50 here on HC... I had no idea it was such a rare beast.  I must play her more often since she's such a unicorn.

 

My level 50's here are:

Fire/Energy Blaster - One of 642

Archery/TA Blaster - One of 569

BS/Shield Scrapper - One of 155

Elec/Shield Stalker - Gaaa, I swear I wasn't following the trend, most common at one of 307

Inv/Stone Tanker - One of 25

And the aforementioned Fire/Regen Stalker of which there are only 2 for some odd reason.

 

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by Call Me Awesome
Expanding on the answer