SS & EM On Scrappers

[Ultimate]

Is there a reason that Scrappers still don't have Super Strength and Energy Melee?

 

All other melee powersets now appear to to be shared between the 4 Melee ATs but these 2 are still missing on Scrappers. 

 

Is it a balancing issue? I think both would be really fun on a scrapper. 

[Hyperstrike]

SS would require a COMPLETE overhaul to not be overpowered on Scrappers.

[Ultimate]

What about a change to rage? Remove the def debuff as def is most scrappers bread and butter leave the damage debuff and lower the dmg buff from 80% to 50%.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

26 minutes ago, Ultimate said:

What about a change to rage? Remove the def debuff as def is most scrappers bread and butter leave the damage debuff and lower the dmg buff from 80% to 50%.

even with this, if rage gets double stacked you are looking at double damage + crits; meaning that the occasional hit would be doing 4x its normal damage. There are other threads that address this. Energy melee has a slew of its own problems to deal with that mostly have to do with abhorrently low cast times makings the DPS supbar in general. 

 

The devs have stated that changes to rage are coming, but have not said much more. Wish i could say the same about energy melee.

[Haijinx]

Stone Melee says hi

[marcussmythe]

I always hear that ‘X would be overpowered if ported to scrappers’.

 

I am not convinced.  War Mace is not overpowered on Scrappers, nor on Tanks, and maintains the same basic ratio of damage out on both characters.  Same for Fire Melee or Claws or... (etc.)  The only large difference between tank and scrapper versions of these sets (other than the AT based damage scalar, and the Scrappers Crits) is the part where things like Buildup give a larger dambuff on a scrapper than on a tank (IIRC, 100% vs 80%)

The only place I see us getting into trouble is if we increase the value of the Rage buff when we port over to scrappers - given that SS is balanced against other tank sets on the assumption that Rage gives a certain % value, raising that % in translation might throw it out of whack with the other scrapper sets.  Id start it off at its current, tank, value on any port over, and adjust from there (a vv small increase might be called for, as other sets benefit from greater +Dam on their buildups or similar effects)

 

On the other hand - Titan Weapon exists, so... why worry?  Its unlikely to be any nastier than that...

 

[FrauleinMental]

1 hour ago, Ultimate said:

What about a change to rage? Remove the def debuff as def is most scrappers bread and butter leave the damage debuff and lower the dmg buff from 80% to 50%.

I think there's talk of a rebalance coming for Rage, and I suspect that's the main thing to be addressed before SS could be ported to scrappers.  I could imagine Rage becoming similar to other scrapper buff powers, like Concentration or Focus Chi.  In its current form, the Rage buff would be too good with the scrapper crit, but the Rage crash would be the ultimate penalty for scrapperlock.

[General Idiot]

Personally I would rather see Super Strength as a set get the rebalancing the devs have hinted it's due to get before it's ported to Scrappers. That said, I don't want to see Rage become just another Build Up power cause I think the set would lose some of its identity if that happened. That and the backlash from players if that was done specifically for the Scrapper version only would be pretty severe. So rebalance the set into something that works for all ATs, and then port it once that's done.

[marcussmythe]

If you made rate just another buildup, the set would need help elsewhere.  SS needs the buff from rage to make up for otherwise low base damage in its attacks.

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

even with this, if rage gets double stacked you are looking at double damage + crits; meaning that the occasional hit would be doing 4x its normal damage. There are other threads that address this. Energy melee has a slew of its own problems to deal with that mostly have to do with abhorrently low cast times makings the DPS supbar in general. 

Then make it so Rage cannot be double stacked and the problem is solved. 

[Zeraphia]

As I've said before, do not base much of your opinion on Rage being overpowered or assume a direct port of SS will be going to Scrappers. There are huge changes to Rage coming very soon, double stacking in fact may not be a thing. Would one-stacked rage with a crash be that overpowered on a Scrapper with only Foot Stomp as a 10 target AoE? I don't think that's convincingly "overpowered." Refrain from shouting from the rooftops about SS possibly being OP until said changes are seen. 

 

That said, SS is a fun flavor that definitely belongs to many "Scrapper-like" combinations in comics and popular literature, and I do think it has basis. 

 

As for EM, again, changes to the set are incoming. We have no idea what is in the pipeline for this set, but I see no problems with granting it to Scrappers, only that its single target is going to make them a little "Stalker-y" but I don't think every powerset should be a homogenization of every other powerset, giving a player a way to experience a cool flavor is never a bad idea in my book.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Zeraphia

[drbuzzard]

15 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Then make it so Rage cannot be double stacked and the problem is solved. 

Given my druthers, I'd like it to be made into a toggle. 

[Ultimate]

13 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Given my druthers, I'd like it to be made into a toggle. 

Toggles a great idea. Removes the double stacking issue and also adds a new end cost which helps with the balancing

[drbuzzard]

7 minutes ago, Ultimate said:

Toggles a great idea. Removes the double stacking issue and also adds a new end cost which helps with the balancing

Yes, it's a nice tidy solution for a number of issues, and also means one thing less I have to pay attention to clicking. I really don't like playing my Rad/SS tank all that much because of the bother of rage. You can't really run without it and be worth a damn, but paying attention to when to click it (and I avoid double stacking because I don't want twice as many periods of downtime) annoys me. 

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Then make it so Rage cannot be double stacked and the problem is solved. 

Then you're just dealing with a set that still sub-par in damage.

 

 

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

Would one-stacked rage with a crash be that overpowered on a Scrapper

Maybe.  Maybe not.  If the change is made game-wide, regardless of AT, SS stops being a viable set for Tankers (and possibly Brutes).

 

 

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

Given my druthers, I'd like it to be made into a toggle. 

This I could POSSIBLY see.  I'd have to look at performance numbers to see if the +ToHit and +Dmg make the set anything other than "meh".

But if you're paying in endurance on a steady basis...

[ShardWarrior]

47 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

Then you're just dealing with a set that still sub-par in damage.

Depends on what other changes are made to the set before porting it over.  The post I was replying to suggested SS would be OP due to stacking Rage.  I simply offered a suggestion to possibly eliminate that concern.  I was not saying this solitary change would fix everything.

[Hyperstrike]

3 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Depends on what other changes are made to the set before porting it over.  The post I was replying to suggested SS would be OP due to stacking Rage.  I simply offered a suggestion to possibly eliminate that concern.  I was not saying this solitary change would fix everything.

Yeah, what I'm saying is that the changes required to proliferate the set would probably just be better put into a new set.  Because what'd emerge from the rework would bear very little resemblance (if any) to SS as we know it.

And I know "cottage rule" isn't REALLY "a thing" anymore.
But making changes to sets THAT drastic are...
Let's just say that huge of a switch is SEVERELY off-putting and leave it there.

[Infinitum]

6 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

even with this, if rage gets double stacked you are looking at double damage + crits; meaning that the occasional hit would be doing 4x its normal damage.

But then you also have double rage drop where you are both vulnerable and only doing 1 pt of damage for a brief period twice in a condensed period of time.

 

That would definately interrupt any OP dps potential.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

But then you also have double rage drop where you are both vulnerable and only doing 1 pt of damage for a brief period twice in a condensed period of time.

 

That would definately interrupt any OP dps potential.

iirc somewhere on these forums deep in the heart of the internet the devs are looking into reducing rages effectiveness and eliminating the drop somehow. So you'd be ok with scrappers being the only AT with a rage drop?

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

iirc somewhere on these forums deep in the heart of the internet the devs are looking into reducing rages effectiveness and eliminating the drop somehow. So you'd be ok with scrappers being the only AT with a rage drop?

No thats not at all what i said, im personally ok with the rage drop as it is across all ATs its a mechanic that forces you to build around it and be on your toes to play around it.

 

I wasnt always ok with it until i figured out how to mitigate it.

 

My point was a direct port over to scrapper would not necessarily make them as op as you think because the rage drop exists - both in dps and also def which the scrapper already start out with lower base numbers.

 

I'm sure sime adjustment would be necessary but I dont think it would be as hhard as some people think.

[Hyperstrike]

28 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

 but I dont think it would be as hhard as some people think.

Hashtag Standard Code Rant

[Zeraphia]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

Yeah, what I'm saying is that the changes required to proliferate the set would probably just be better put into a new set.  Because what'd emerge from the rework would bear very little resemblance (if any) to SS as we know it.

And I know "cottage rule" isn't REALLY "a thing" anymore.

I think that's just too early to judge, I also think that betas exist for this reason. SS should be powerful, it is Super Strength, it's sort of in the name. Now that doesn't entitle it to be Titan Weapons, but it does mean if it performs better than average in some aspects, well it is what it is and it does have a Crash that is well deserved from time to time on it.

 

Also, "cottage rule" is still very much a thing and I do agree with it to an extent. People do truly enjoy aspects of a power (i.e. Detention Field) and despite how it may often be viewed objectively negatively, it would be wrong to yank it from FF and replace it with something entirely different because said people do actually really like this power. I'm all for changing secondary effects on powers to make them into something they should be, I'm all for breaking cottage loosely for cases like Telekinesis from Mind, but I'm not for completely gutting the entirety and purpose of a power into something that is totally outside the bounds of what the power was. This is also why people should engage in beta testing and online discussions when ports are being made, because if you don't, you end up with these sorts of dated sets.

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

Depends on what other changes are made to the set before porting it over.  The post I was replying to suggested SS would be OP due to stacking Rage.  I simply offered a suggestion to possibly eliminate that concern.  I was not saying this solitary change would fix everything.

This is exactly what I was trying to say, many people seem to have glossed over the fact that in addition to what CP stated, he's also looking into giving the entire set a damage tweak to make it at baseline competitive while having just only one Rage allowed to stack. I do think it would be powerful if it was directly ported to Scrappers, perhaps even #2 to TW, but I don't think it grants every single additional great secondary effect that TW has on multiple of its key powers. There's still lots of utilities and ways to justify other sets in favor of SS. I highly doubt that double-stacking Rage is going to be a "thing" for Scrappers without severe dev oversight.

[Replacement]

One of the principals I struggle to convey on these forums the most is the concept of "changes that enable changes."

 

Example: kneecapping double rage leaves you with an underperforming set.

 

It's true, but it's a workable problem. If the current incarnation is completely un-tune-able, you would want to fix that first and then be left with a relatively simple balance pass on the rest of the set.

 

When you take the hammer to it, you have to expect some cleanup and repairs are in your future.

[Solarverse]

I can see Em on a Scrapper since that power set feels very scraperish anyway due to fast animations and quick strikes. However, SS just seems to sluggish for Scrappers for my taste.

[MoisesG]

I say put SS and EM for scrappers on the Test Server already and let the test crowd start putting in their input to the Devs. Then just take as long as needed to find the balance.