Debuff effects - damage standardization and usefulness

[Obus Form]

General:

As things heat up about the loss of damage on Electric Affinity's secondary effects (-end, -recov), I wonder about the game's 2ndary effects on other offensive power sets and the DPS cost associated with them.  It would be nice to have a discussion here about other debuffs (-def, -res, -to hit, -end, -recov, -regen, -damage, -recharge, etc).

 

Sidebar:

Diablo 3 originally released with Cold, Fire, Lightning and several other damage types on weapons such that, when wielded by melee, would give "flavourful" effects: Cold-type weapons would slow mobs, Fire-type weapons added extra fire DOTs, and Lightning-type weapons had random chances to stun mobs.  Because players unanimously chose Fire-type weapons for increased damage, Diablo 3 Devs (either before release or quickly after) standardized damage numbers across all elemental types (for melee weapons), thus "allowing" players to "freely" choose weapon types without losing DPS. This meant Cold, Fire, Lightning or other damage types became purely aesthetic (for melee players anyway).  Wizards, however, because their damage HAD to be elemental (Cold, Fire, Lightning or Arcane), still benefited from Cold damage slowing mobs, Fire damage doing extra damage in screen-wide attacks, and Lightning damage arcing to enemies and sometimes stunning (if you choose that passive ability).  The "play style" between the wizards Cold, Fire and Lightning damage types (I exclude Arcane because it's flavour feels less identifiable) felt amazingly different but was comparable in numbers.  Although damage numbers changed from season to season (due to varying buffs to different Set Items), the damage numbers were comparable in normal content (Tier 13 rifts).  For end-game (GRift levels) the Min-Max players ofc choose the damage type/Set Items with the highest DPS.  but generalized end-game (Tier 13 rifts) could be completed across any damage type chosen.  This felt easy to achieve for Wizards since Wizards will only ever have 4 powersets: Cold, Fire, Lightning, and Arcane.

 

Extending this past Wizard elemental damage types, Diablo 3 also standardized it such at every Set Item's full set can now solo Tier 13 rift bosses with some degree of ease. 

 

Back to COH, then, normalized damage:

I am wondering if this lesson can be learned from Diablo 3, specifically, whether or not damage should be normalized across power sets so that generalized content (Diablo Tier 13 rifts bosses, or COH level 54 bosses) can be "easily" killed by obtaining 99% + damage enhancement + Musculature by any offensive damage power set with the majority of the playstyle being felt at this level of content. By "easily" I mean that the 2ndary effects are not really effective before the lvl 54 boss dies.  I think that the new development of 2ndary effect IOs, such as the newly developed End Mod/Damage IOs, are the correct way to boost 2ndary effects to "effective" levels, but I hope that "effective" = "controlling" iTrial AVs in some manner not offered by other 2ndary effects.

 

2ndary effect usefulness:

Like Diablo 3, because mob kill speed is high, it feels (anecdotal evidence only) that the only useful COH debuffs (-regen, -rez) are ones that reduce AV kill time.  This feels true (anecdotal evidence only) at lvl 54 TFs and even in iTrials, with several noted exceptions such as Hamidon mobs requiring CC. 

 

In order to make other 2ndary effect debuffs (-def, -to hit, -damage, -recharge, etc) useful, I think we will need boss mechanics that absolutely require these debuffs in order for the lvl 54 raid or iTrial to progress.  If we follow along this path, but still want to keep 2ndary effects useful, it seems the only place left for 2ndary effects to be useful is iTrials AVs, in which case, we would need AV mechanics that can really show off the stacked effect of -To-hit, -Recharge or -End + -Recov, for example the boss doing a ton of damage AND having 95% to-hit such that any -To-hit, -Recharge, and -End + -Recov really relieves the tanks/healers.