Focused Feedback: Dark Miasma (Release Candidates)

[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.
  • The thread will be locked when no more feedback is required, but you are more than welcome to continue the discussion in a new thread.
• 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.

 

---

 

Dark Miasma

• The following powers were using Defender modifiers, they have been fixed to use their own AT modifiers
  • Controller > Darkness Affinity > Twilight Grasp
  • Controller > Darkness Affinity > Tar Patch
  • Corruptor > Dark Miasma > Twilight Grasp
  • Corruptor > Dark Miasma > Tar Patch
  • Mastermind  > Dark Miasma > Twilight Grasp
  • Mastermind  > Dark Miasma > Tar Patch
  • Pets > Dark Servant > Twilight Grasp
  • Incarnate > Lore > Demons > Support > Twilight Grasp
  • Incarnate > Lore > Vanguard > Support > Twilight Grasp
  • Mission Maker > Dark Miasma > Twilight Grasp
  • Signature Summons > Ghost Widow > Twilight Grasp
• All versions of Twilight Grasp
  • Accuracy increased from 1.0x to 1.2x
  • Fixed the heal VFX not playing correctly

[Darkneblade]

54 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

All versions of Twilight Grasp

• Accuracy increased from 1.0x to 1.2x

Nice! Can I also shamelessly ask to reduce cast times? Most of time I don't even bother to use that since getting killed and getting revived takes less time than Twilight Grasp animation times. Or if it isn't possible make it so -regen and -dmg debuffs apply buffs by same amount of debuff on target? Like they have -%50 regen -%10 damage you get +%50 regen +%10 damage for 10 seconds or possible lower since they have a resistance. 

[siolfir]

I have to agree with @Darkneblade: that request is pretty shameless.

 

 

[Draeth Darkstar]

Same feedback as last build. While all the Dark Miasma changes are technically bug fixes, the end result is a pretty heavy set of nerfs to non-Defenders and the set wasn't too strong to start with (on Defenders or anything else).

 

My suggestion remains to increase the Defender version of Tar Patch to -40% Res and leave the rest at -30%. This would be a small but appreciable buff for the Defender version of Dark that would put its -Res patch at the same level as the Defender's version of Freezing Rain, and leave the rest of the ATs at what they already have, and have had for many years. This would take a lot of the sting out of having both personal and pet healing reduced for the non-Defenders by at least letting them keep their offensive support the same.

 

The accuracy buff to Twilight's Grasp is appreciated, it never made any sense to me why Kinetics's targeted heal had it but Dark's didn't.

 

Also, the following change is missing from the Focused Feedback post and should be here:

 

Powers

• The following powers now ignore outside buffs (they all provide enhanceable resistance and should've always ignored buffs)
  • Controller > Darkness Affinity > Fade

Edited March 18, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Bopper]

12 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

the end result is a pretty heavy set of nerfs to non-Defenders

As it was shown in the previous thread, the numbers indicate the nerf is not that heavy. Going from 30% to 22.5% resistance debuff at worst (meaning no other resistance debuffs from any where else) is a decrease of 6% in DPS. 10% when you hit double stack. Again, when you factor in other sources of resistance debuffs (achilles, fury of the gladiator, reactive interface, etc) the impact is even less to the total DPS of the team.

[Draeth Darkstar]

Just now, Bopper said:

As it was shown in the previous thread, the numbers indicate the nerf is not that heavy. Going from 30% to 22.5% resistance debuff at worst (meaning no other resistance debuffs from any where else) is a decrease of 6% in DPS. 10% when you hit double stack. Again, when you factor in other sources of resistance debuffs (achilles, fury of the gladiator, reactive interface, etc) the impact is even less to the total DPS of the team.

You're ignoring the other 3 nerfs to Dark Controllers and 2 to Corruptors and Masterminds.

 

Having all personal and pet healing reduced by 25%, -Res reduced by 25%, and for Controllers with Fade and Power Boost, Defense reduced by 100%+ is a heavy set of nerfs.

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Bopper said:

As it was shown in the previous thread, the numbers indicate the nerf is not that heavy. Going from 30% to 22.5% resistance debuff at worst (meaning no other resistance debuffs from any where else) is a decrease of 6% in DPS. 10% when you hit double stack. Again, when you factor in other sources of resistance debuffs (achilles, fury of the gladiator, reactive interface, etc) the impact is even less to the total DPS of the team.

I also have to wonder how the set apparently managed to fall so far. I remember during Live, the common wisdom was that Dark Miasma was an excellent set. On Controllers, it's an even better buff/debuff set because it loses two powers of the kind that Controllers already get in the primaries for two more excellent buffs. But now it gets this small slap-on-the-wrist nerf and suddenly people are claiming it's not that good to begin with? Something smells fishy.

[Draeth Darkstar]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

I also have to wonder how the set apparently managed to fall so far. I remember during Live, the common wisdom was that Dark Miasma was an excellent set. On Controllers, it's an even better buff/debuff set because it loses two powers of the kind that Controllers already get in the primaries for two more excellent buffs. But now it gets this small slap-on-the-wrist nerf and suddenly people are claiming it's not that good to begin with? Something smells fishy.

The metagame has shifted significantly since Dark was considered a high-tier support. Offensive support is way more valuable than defensive support these days, and Dark is getting its best sources of both nerfed when it is far from the top performer in any category as it is. That's a lot of power reduction for a set that's currently sitting in the middle of the pack with no compensation, regardless of the fact that it's the result of legacy bugfixes.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[esotericist]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

I also have to wonder how the set apparently managed to fall so far. I remember during Live, the common wisdom was that Dark Miasma was an excellent set. On Controllers, it's an even better buff/debuff set because it loses two powers of the kind that Controllers already get in the primaries for two more excellent buffs. But now it gets this small slap-on-the-wrist nerf and suddenly people are claiming it's not that good to begin with? Something smells fishy.

i especially like how the twilight grasp complaints ignore things like "what happens if you compare controller/mastermind twilight grasp against defender heals in other powersets".

 

"It still does more actual effective healing on a group over time than its peers even after being nerfed, which demonstrates it wasn't all that great to begin with"

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

The metagame has shifted significantly since Dark was considered a high-tier support. Offensive support is way more valuable than defensive support these days, and Dark is getting its best sources of both nerfed when it is far from the top performer in any category as it is. That's a lot of power reduction for a set that's currently sitting in the middle of the pack with no compensation, regardless of the fact that it's the result of legacy bugfixes.

As Bopper pointed out, the DPS loss from Tar Patch is only 6%, 10% if you stack it. As for Twilight Grasp, only the heal is being reduced. The debuff already respected AT mods.

[Draeth Darkstar]

12 minutes ago, Vanden said:

As Bopper pointed out, the DPS loss from Tar Patch is only 6%, 10% if you stack it. As for Twilight Grasp, only the heal is being reduced. The debuff already respected AT mods.

And as I already responded to Bopper, the 10% total DPS nerf on top of 25% healing nerf is a heavy hit for a set that is already only an average performer.

 

Mastermind is the only AT on which Dark is the most popular support, and only barely for them. For Controllers it's a distant 3rd with bartely over 1/3 as many users as Kinetics, Corruptors it's 5th with about the same ratio to Kins, and Defenders its 7th with a whopping 1/7th as many users as Empathy.

 

Your "it's not a big deal" response is pretty meaningless in the face of actual evidence, sorry. If you're so against a tiny, tiny buff to Defender Dark to mitigate some of the nerfs, give me an actual reason.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[esotericist]

A set being popular is not an indicator of its relative strength. it's nothing more than an indication that, for some reason, more people are rolling that set.

 

why is debatable for each specific case, but there's plenty of reason to believe that sometimes sets are more or less popular for reasons unrelated to their numerically comparable attributes.

 

and "how much of a change did they receive" is far less important than "how do they compare after the change", and by most objective measures, they still compare well.

[Draeth Darkstar]

2 minutes ago, esotericist said:

A set being popular is not an indicator of its relative strength. it's nothing more than an indication that, for some reason, more people are rolling that set.

That is fundamentally and demonstrably untrue across basically every MMORPG in history including this one. It's not a 1:1 factor, but power and popularity have an extremely strong correlation.

[Bopper]

Correct me if I'm wrong (not being snarky, just simply unsure), isn't Twilight Grasp still the strongest heal available to Corruptors/Controllers? It also received a 20% increase in accuracy which is pretty sweet given all the debuffs it comes with. So 25% weaker heal for a 20% more accurate heal, tohit debuff, damage debuff, and regeneration debuff. That makes it a much improved power, especially while leveling.

[esotericist]

Just now, Draeth Darkstar said:

That is fundamentally and demonstrably untrue across basically every MMORPG in history including this one. It's not a 1:1 factor, but power and popularity have an extremely strong correlation.

it's good to believe in things.

 

unfortunately, believing in things does not make them so.

 

for the vast majority of the lifespan of the game prior to closure, blasters were one of the most popular archetypes, across their powersets. they were also provably, by all of the metrics available to paragon studios, mechanically one of the worst archetypes for their ability to actually complete content.

 

we have many, many other examples over the lifetime of the game of things being popular that were terrible, or things being unpopular that were good.

 

popular only means exactly that: popular. it has zero reliable correlation with any mechanical facets.

[Draeth Darkstar]

Just now, Bopper said:

Correct me if I'm wrong (not being snarky, just simply unsure), isn't Twilight Grasp still the strongest heal available to Corruptors/Controllers? It also received a 20% increase in accuracy which is pretty sweet given all the debuffs it comes with. So 25% weaker heal for a 20% more accurate heal, tohit debuff, damage debuff, and regeneration debuff. That makes it a much improved power, especially while leveling.

It's still the strongest area heal, except maybe for the new one in ElA, I'm not sure on that. It is not the strongest individual heal and it's not even a little competitive for healing against sets with multiple heals now (Pain, Empathy, Thermal, Time).

[Vanden]

15 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

And as I already responded to Bopper, the 10% total DPS nerf on top of 25% healing nerf is a heavy hit for a set that is already only an average performer.

 

Mastermind is the only AT on which Dark is the most popular support, and only barely for them. For Controllers it's a distant 3rd with bartely over 1/3 as many users as Kinetics, Corruptors it's 5th with about the same ratio to Kins, and Defenders its 7th with a whopping 1/7th as many users as Empathy.

 

Your "it's not a big deal" response is pretty meaningless in the face of actual evidence, sorry. If you're so against a tiny, tiny buff to Defender Dark to mitigate some of the nerfs, give me an actual reason.

You can't have it both ways. Either defensive support isn't valuable and the healing loss is irrelevant, or it is valuable and the healing loss matters.

 

As @Captain Powerhouse said, a power that is stronger than AT mods would dictate is by definition overperforming. The onus is on the anti-change side of the debate to give an actual reason for why Dark Miasma/Affinity should be allowed to overperform. And no, the set being "only" the most popular on one AT and as low as seventh-most popular (out of fifteen sets!) on another is not an actual reason.

[Frosticus]

Trick arrow says it is ok waiting while you buff dark after these changes...

[Draeth Darkstar]

37 minutes ago, Vanden said:

You can't have it both ways. Either defensive support isn't valuable and the healing loss is irrelevant, or it is valuable and the healing loss matters.

 

As @Captain Powerhouse said, a power that is stronger than AT mods would dictate is by definition overperforming. The onus is on the anti-change side of the debate to give an actual reason for why Dark Miasma/Affinity should be allowed to overperform. And no, the set being "only" the most popular on one AT and as low as seventh-most popular (out of fifteen sets!) on another is not an actual reason.

I never said it was irrelevant. I said it was less valued in the metagame. A single power being stronger than AT mods indicate it should be only makes the powerset it belongs to overperforming if both:

1. That power dominates the total performance of the powerset, and
2. AT mods are a strong indicator of actual-play game balance

Neither of those things is true.

 

The one Archetype where Dark measures up to a notable percentage of the population disproportionately values its one actual strength (control) because it's more useful for protecting pets than anything else any other support set provides, and even in that case, it's only a tiny bit more popular than Time. Every other support AT has its most popular support set leading by 50% over the runner up at minimum. Population-wise, Dark is unremarkable across the board on every AT but Masterminds and their population curve is far less steep than the others.

 

I am not advocating for some radical change here. I am saying that an average set does not need 3-4 stacked nerfs in one patch. There is no measure by which Dark is currently disruptively strong and this much reduction is in its total power is disruptive.

 

  

13 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

Trick arrow says it is ok waiting while you buff dark after these changes...

 

My sum total of suggestion is for somebody to change a 3 to a 4 in a power definition.

 

If your proposal for fixing Trick Arrows can be done in the amount of time it takes to hit "delete 4 ctrl+s" then you have a valid complaint. Otherwise, this hyperbole is unhelpful.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Coyote]

Good, thanks for the Accuracy buff.

[Vanden]

18 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

I never said it was irrelevant. I said it was less valued in the metagame. A single power being stronger than AT mods indicate it should be only makes the powerset it belongs to overperforming[...]

Semantics.

 

19 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

if both:

1. That power dominates the total performance of the powerset, and
2. AT mods are a strong indicator of actual-play game balance

Neither of those things is true.

1. No, an overperforming power is an overperforming power. Some powers overperform by design, but there's nothing to indicate that Tar Patch or Twilight Grasp are designed that way and strong evidence that their performance until now is unintentional.

 

2. Are you really going to claim that AT mods aren't that important?

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

Same feedback as last build. While all the Dark Miasma changes are technically bug fixes, the end result is a pretty heavy set of nerfs to non-Defenders and the set wasn't too strong to start with (on Defenders or anything else).

 

My suggestion remains to increase the Defender version of Tar Patch to -40% Res and leave the rest at -30%. This would be a small but appreciable buff for the Defender version of Dark that would put its -Res patch at the same level as the Defender's version of Freezing Rain, and leave the rest of the ATs at what they already have, and have had for many years. This would take a lot of the sting out of having both personal and pet healing reduced for the non-Defenders by at least letting them keep their offensive support the same.

 

The accuracy buff to Twilight's Grasp is appreciated, it never made any sense to me why Kinetics's targeted heal had it but Dark's didn't.

 

Also, the following change is missing from the Focused Feedback post and should be here:

 

Powers

• The following powers now ignore outside buffs (they all provide enhanceable resistance and should've always ignored buffs)
  • Controller > Darkness Affinity > Fade

Before this spirals out of control like the last thread, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for making this a well-reasoned post.  Instead of arguing about what does and doesn't constitute "hefty," I'm just chiming in to thank you for putting together concise criticism with an offered solution that's not just "stop nerfing the things."

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

The one Archetype where Dark measures up to a notable percentage of the population disproportionately values its one actual strength (control) because it's more useful for protecting pets than anything else any other support set provides

I like that this is the argument you make for why Masterminds choose Dark over other sets, and yet the control of the set was not touched.

 

If I had to make an educated guess, the reason Dark was so popular might have something to do with having an AoE heal that was as strong as a defender's, an AoE debuff that was as strong as a defender's, and a well known bug in Fade that allowed for Power Boosting its large AoE defense buffs while also having the large AoE resistances boosted by damage buffs. I'm sure that last one synergize well with Assault and a Gaussian proc triggering reliably in Tactics (who doesnt love +64% damage paired with 64% enhancement to Fade's resistance?).

 

But yeah...the untouched control is why the set was popular.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Bopper

[Draeth Darkstar]

57 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Semantics.

Misunderstanding or willfully misconstruing my argument does not make it semantics, sorry.

57 minutes ago, Vanden said:

1. No, an overperforming power is an overperforming power. Some powers overperform by design, but there's nothing to indicate that Tar Patch or Twilight Grasp are designed that way and strong evidence that their performance until now is unintentional.

 

2. Are you really going to claim that AT mods aren't that important?

1. Tar Patch is by any objective measure already weaker than Sleet/Freezing Rain on all affected Archetypes without the nerf. It being relatively less weak between Defenders and the other Supports does not make it inherently overperforming.

 

2. As a measure of powerset balance? Yes, absolutely. If perfect adherence to a set of ratios was all it took to balance powersets, Trick Arrows and Time wold be balanced. Are you really going to claim that's the case?

26 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I like that this is the argument you make for why Masterminds choose Dark over other sets, and yet the control of the set was not touched.

 

If I had to make an educated guess, the reason Dark was so popular might have something to do with having an AoE heal that was as strong as a defender's, an AoE debuff that was as strong as a defender's, and a well known bug in Fade that allowed for Power Boosting its large AoE defense buffs while also having the large AoE resistances boosted by damage buffs. I'm sure that last one synergize well with Assault and a Gaussian proc triggering reliably in Tactics (who doesnt love +64% damage paired with 64% enhancement to Fade's resistance?).

 

But yeah...the untouched control is why the set was popular.

I like that this is the argument you make for why Tar Patch should be nerfed. If that's not what you're doing, then what, exactly, are you arguing with me about? I haven't argued that Fade or Twilight's Grasp should be left as they are.

 

This dogpile has been lovely, but unless anyone wants to actually address what I've suggested in a substantive way instead of dogpiling me about how wildly overpowered things I'm not even talking about are, I think I'm done with this conversation.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Bopper]

31 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

I like that this is the argument you make for why Tar Patch should be nerfed. If that's not what you're doing, then what, exactly, are you arguing with me about? I haven't argued that Fade or Twilight's Grasp should be left as they are.

My first response was only in regards to Tar Patch and that the impact was only a loss of 6% DPS (at absolute worse, while likely less than half that in team settings). Your response to my numbers was I am forgetting the other nerfs. But now you're saying you're not against the other nerfs?

 

Ok. 

Edited March 18, 2020 by Bopper