Why I think Corruptors are taking a back seat to Defenders

[Peacemoon]

On 10/6/2020 at 2:44 PM, Solarverse said:

First let me say, that I am soooo glad that my interpretation of the base damage between Corruptors and Defenders was wrong. I am very pleased that the community showed me that I was wrong instead of just going with what I had believed to be true.

Having said that, I still feel their damage output is not enough. I feel Scourge outside of AV and GM fights is near useless and should scale all the way from 100% health with having a 5% chance to scourge, all the way down to 10% health with the 100% chance to scourge. I think that would make a big enough difference to bring them where they should have always been. And this is coming from somebody who hates buffing sets in game because I find the game already overly easy. However, I also believe in class balance.

Also, I believe a Defender should have the same base damage values as a Corruptor, only no scourge. I think if scourge were to be implemented as stated here, that alone would set Corruptor's damage output far above a Defender's even if a Defender's damage were buffed to match the base damage of a Corruptor.

I suggested this months ago when we had a weekly discussion on Corruptors. But since we’ve not had any updates to the game in so long, I’ve sort of given up making suggestions in those threads because I’m not sure the replies are listened to. Or even archived and dug our when something is being looked at a later time.

 

Which is a shame, because some of those weekly topics had some amazing ideas. But it felt like just the players talking to ourselves.

 

This isn’t said with anger, just an observation coupled perhaps with some disappointment.

[Riverdusk]

19 hours ago, Vanden said:

But why? Why do Corruptors need to do more damage? It's largely acknowledged that players are doing too much damage as a whole, so why is a damage buff justified for this entire AT? They already do more damage than Defenders outside of heavy proc shenanigans.

Or solo where vigilance gives defenders the same basic damage as corrupters.  Then you add that most defenders also have better damage buffs or -res debuffs and are safer doing it thanks to better defense buffs.  So, now you have most defenders doing better both offensively and defensively solo than most corrupters.  Procs just make it even more unbalanced.    Hence my idea that they need a solo buff moreso than a team buff (just like defenders got).

Edited October 8, 2020 by Riverdusk

[carroto]

I just rerolled a Defender as a Corruptor, despite knowing that Defenders are better in most cases.  As others have said, Defenders will tend to do similar damage solo, and on teams their debuffs will often contribute more damage than any extra damage a Corruptor might bring.  There's not a good case to be made for Corruptors from a raw numbers perspective aside from a small subset of builds perhaps.

 

However a lot of players don't enjoy just knowing that they're contributing in some abstract way.  They want to see the big numbers.  I don't know if that's enough to maintain any kind of popularity for Corruptors, but it was enough for me to decide to go that direction.  The Corruptor is just more fun.  Scourge is fun.  Although it's true that often times it's wasted on lower-tier enemies, there are plenty of times when playing a Defender that an enemy is left with a sliver of health and I know that the attack would have scourged and defeated the enemy on a Corruptor.

 

I don't know if that means they're balanced as-is.  The difference in buff/debuff strength between them feels too wide for the narrow discrepancy in overall damage.

[Troo]

If scourge kicked in 10% or so earlier maybe that is all that would be needed.

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, carroto said:

I don't know if that means they're balanced as-is.  The difference in buff/debuff strength between them feels too wide for the narrow discrepancy in overall damage.

Except the difference in their damage and the difference in their buff/debuff scalars are about inverse of each other.  It's not as wide as everyone makes it out to be.  Most Corruptor scalara are 0.85 or 0.75 compared to Defender's 1.0.  And Corruptors are 0.75 (with a theoretical 30% boost from Scourge) compared to 0.65 for Defenders.  Even assuming half of Scourge is wasted (lets say 15% boost), the Corruptor has a larger advantage in damage than the Defender has in buff/debuff.

 

Lets do a "best case scenario" comparison to show how "Defenders do the same damage as Corruptors when Solo" thing is not really true.  Scalar 1.0 damage attacks backed by Radiation Emission.

 

Corruptor:

Base attack - 0.75

Enhancements -  95% enhancement

Accelerate Metabolism - 20 % damage buff

Enervating Field - 22.5% res debuff

Scourge weighted half - 15% damage boost

 

(0.75 x (1+.95+.2) x 1.225 x 1.15) = 2.27

 

Defender:

Base attack - 0.65

Enhancements -  95% enhancement

Accelerate Metabolism - 25 % damage buff

Vigilance solo - 30% damage buff

Enervating Field - 30% res debuff

 

(0.65 x (1+.95+.25+.3) x 1.3) = 2.11

 

So even on a set that heavily favors Defenders by providing both a + Dam and a -Res, while also writing off Scourge as only half it's theoretical effectiveness, a solo Corruptor still outdamages a Vigilance boosted solo Defender.  

[carroto]

4 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

It's not as wide as everyone makes it out to be.

The main difference is that the damage difference is just what it is, while the buff/debuff difference gets multiplied by the number of team / league members.  Even if Corruptors can edge out slightly while solo as in your example, the difference may not be large enough to notice, while on a team it will be significant.

[Omega-202]

Just now, carroto said:

The main difference is that the damage difference is just what it is, while the buff/debuff difference gets multiplied by the number of team / league members.  Even if Corruptors can edge out slightly while solo as in your example, the difference may not be large enough to notice, while on a team it will be significant.

On a team though, the Defender loses their Vigilance bonus, the 400% Defender vs 500% Corruptor damage caps matter more and Scourge start mattering more as hard targets (bosses and AVs) become more common.  

 

It also really depends on the power sets.  Sure a Sonic Blast Defender will be better than a Sonic Blast Corruptor, but a Fire Blast Corruptor's higher damage will be better than a Fire Blast Defender.  A Storm Defender's higher -Res Freezing Rain is better, but a Corruptor can make better use of Fulcrum Shift without overcapping themselves and half the team like a Defender would. 

 

It's not black and white.

[ForeverLaxx]

2 hours ago, carroto said:

The main difference is that the damage difference is just what it is, while the buff/debuff difference gets multiplied by the number of team / league members.  Even if Corruptors can edge out slightly while solo as in your example, the difference may not be large enough to notice, while on a team it will be significant.

What @Omega-202 replied with here is pretty true in that a lot of times it comes down to a case-by-case basis. Also, keep in mind that Corruptors were originally a "villain only" AT and, like the other "villain only" ATs, all were built with the idea that they'd be soloists first and teammates second. Every villain AT's primary powerset (bar Dominators) is about dealing damage, and in the Dominator's case, their secondary is purely about dealing damage and is why I consider them more a Blaster than a Controller (seriously, roll up an Ice/Plant Blaster and tell me it doesn't feel like a Dominator instead). All the villain ATs were built with their inherent in mind while the heroes were retro-fitted with one that emphasised their more general role. Blasters even had to get theirs changed and I feel like Defenders went through some revisions as well, but I was a Blaster main back then and didn't pay much attention to the Defender.

 

The Defender is the "stronger" force-multiplier and I don't think anyone is going to disagree with that, but that level of force multiplication comes at personal cost to the Defender itself. The Corruptor is more selfish and while it can force-multiply its own team to a lesser extent, it benefits from that multiplication while on a team just as much as it does when solo, and that's the real difference between them.

[Twisted Toon]

3 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Blasters even had to get theirs changed and I feel like Defenders went through some revisions as well, but I was a Blaster main back then and didn't pay much attention to the Defender.

If I'm not mistaken, the first version of Defender Vigilance was an End Discount based on the health of the team.

The lower the health of the team, the more of a discount the Defender got.

If a Defender was doing his job, then his Inherent wasn't doing anything.

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

If I'm not mistaken, the first version of Defender Vigilance was an End Discount based on the health of the team.

The lower the health of the team, the more of a discount the Defender got.

If a Defender was doing his job, then his Inherent wasn't doing anything.

Right you are.

And a Blaster's original inherent was that the lower their health got, the higher the damage that they did. This became problematic when Blaster players loved riding on the edge of death and actually chewed anyone out who dared heal them. This was also problematic in PvP where Blasters would fly really high above their intended target, then drop out of the sky (which puts them to 1 health) and then would one to two shot anything standing.

It was a great system for the Blaster, but it caused to many issues with team members on teams who would try to heal them and it caused too many balance issues in PvP.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Solarverse

[kiramon]

14 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Except the difference in their damage and the difference in their buff/debuff scalars are about inverse of each other.  It's not as wide as everyone makes it out to be.  Most Corruptor scalara are 0.85 or 0.75 compared to Defender's 1.0.  And Corruptors are 0.75 (with a theoretical 30% boost from Scourge) compared to 0.65 for Defenders.  Even assuming half of Scourge is wasted (lets say 15% boost), the Corruptor has a larger advantage in damage than the Defender has in buff/debuff.

 

o even on a set that heavily favors Defenders by providing both a + Dam and a -Res, while also writing off Scourge as only half it's theoretical effectiveness, a solo Corruptor still outdamages a Vigilance boosted solo Defender.  

You know full well it's the min-maxers that care about this. It's about how much easier it is to hit 45% on a defender due to stronger buffs whereas a corruptor needs full set bonuses to hit them for most secondaries, resulting in less room for procs than a defender equivalent.

 

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, kiramon said:

You know full well it's the min-maxers that care about this. It's about how much easier it is to hit 45% on a defender due to stronger buffs whereas a corruptor needs full set bonuses to hit them for most secondaries, resulting in less room for procs than a defender equivalent.

 

A) 45% defense is not some magical value and is generally pretty meaningless on Corruptors and Defenders because they completely lack debuff resistance.  It's just a "more is better" situation.  And that's not accounting for a lot of sets that have effective overcapped defense/-tohit anyway.  A Dark Miasma of either AT will be pretty easily softcapped just with standard defense slotting + Fearsome Stare.  

 

B) IO bonuses and Incarnate values are the same between ATs, Scorpion shield has the same values for each and Defenders don't have a huge advantage over Corruptors on the defensive scalars (Corruptors are 85% or 75% depending on the power).  A Defender that hits 45% S/L defense with Scorpion Shield will be a Corruptor that hits 38-40% with the same slotting.  

 

C) Again, if you want to talk min/max, you'd know that it really depends on the powersets.  Some are better suited for Corruptors and some are better suited for Defenders.  And if you want to get into team dynamic, then the defense argument is stupid because any decent min/maxed team that is sticking together is running 5+ Manuevers and the Corruptor is soft capped anyway.  And if they're not sticking together then both the Corruptor and the Defender are dead weight.  

Edited October 9, 2020 by Omega-202

[Marshal_General]

What if corrupters had a scaling crit chance that started small at 100% health and went up from there to 100% chance at very low health.

 

The scalar would be based on rank of each mob. IE.... a 5% chance on minions at 100% health.

[kiramon]

On 10/9/2020 at 8:26 AM, Omega-202 said:

A) 45% defense is not some magical value and is generally pretty meaningless on Corruptors and Defenders because they completely lack debuff resistance.  It's just a "more is better" situation.  And that's not accounting for a lot of sets that have effective overcapped defense/-tohit anyway.  A Dark Miasma of either AT will be pretty easily softcapped just with standard defense slotting + Fearsome Stare.  

 

B) IO bonuses and Incarnate values are the same between ATs, Scorpion shield has the same values for each and Defenders don't have a huge advantage over Corruptors on the defensive scalars (Corruptors are 85% or 75% depending on the power).  A Defender that hits 45% S/L defense with Scorpion Shield will be a Corruptor that hits 38-40% with the same slotting.  

 

C) Again, if you want to talk min/max, you'd know that it really depends on the powersets.  Some are better suited for Corruptors and some are better suited for Defenders.  And if you want to get into team dynamic, then the defense argument is stupid because any decent min/maxed team that is sticking together is running 5+ Manuevers and the Corruptor is soft capped anyway.  And if they're not sticking together then both the Corruptor and the Defender are dead weight.  

You know better than that. We’re obviously talking like-for-like, though maneuvers helps. 

[Apparition]

On 10/9/2020 at 7:23 AM, kiramon said:

You know full well it's the min-maxers that care about this. It's about how much easier it is to hit 45% on a defender due to stronger buffs whereas a corruptor needs full set bonuses to hit them for most secondaries, resulting in less room for procs than a defender equivalent.

 

 

Which won't matter when procs get nerfed.

[skoryy]

10 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Which won't matter when procs get nerfed.

We don't know if it'll be a nerf, though.

[Apparition]

1 minute ago, skoryy said:

We don't know if it'll be a nerf, though.

 

It's already been said at least three times by developers over the past year or so that one is coming.

[Solarverse]

3 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

It's already been said at least three times by developers over the past year or so that one is coming.

Yeah, we'll just have to wait and see just how deep that rabbit hole goes once that nerf goes live.

[skoryy]

5 hours ago, Apparition said:

It's already been said at least three times by developers over the past year or so that one is coming.

  

On 9/20/2020 at 2:19 PM, The Curator said:

Procs & PPM
Something we’ve recently started looking at is procs. We’re only scratching the surface here, but our goals are similar to that with powersets: Bringing each option towards a happy medium. One big topic that needs looking at specifically is PPM. This system was still in beta when the game shut down, so it never really graduated properly to the live servers, and never received any follow-up balance passes.

 

There are numerous issues right now, such as the interaction it has with different types of recharge bonuses and AoEs, which causes the system to be unintuitive (slotting for recharge can make a power… less good!) in some areas and not well balanced in other areas (many procs are very strong in AoEs and very weak in single targets). 

 

Along with improving general game balance there’s a secondary benefit to cleaning up PPM and procs: it will allow us to continue building new enhancement sets with new and unique procs and set bonuses.

 

We’ve got no firm plans to discuss just yet, but it is a key area we will be looking at in the future.

 

Doesn't sound like an explicit nerf to me.

[Ukase]

As I was going to roll my next character, the game itself indicates the corruptor does 10% more damage. When you look at the game's sliding scales, that area where it ranks various categories, which I will hopefully display a picture below, it gives the corruptor a higher rank in damage. The trade off is in the strength of the buffs where the defender scores higher. 

This notion that any given AT or powerset needs "adjustment" is often times short-sighted. If you give increased DPS, then shouldn't we also decrease buff/debuff ability? And when we do that, why aren't we just playing a blaster? 

I think the defender and the corruptor are just fine as they are, at least in end game. Early and mid-levels - well, we'd have to do a lot of testing to get ALL the ATs to be balanced in that fashion. 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

If I’m choosing between an X/Y defender or a Y/X corruptor, it’s mainly going to be based on which powers I want earliest in leveling.  If I were PLing to 50 or not exemplaring then I’d look deeper into the sets to choose.

[siolfir]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

This notion that any given AT or powerset needs "adjustment" is often times short-sighted. If you give increased DPS, then shouldn't we also decrease buff/debuff ability? And when we do that, why aren't we just playing a blaster? 

Only if you feel that they were balanced correctly in the first place.

• Defenders were granted more damage when solo (Vigilance 30% damage buff) with no tradeoff whatsoever.
• Just look at Blasters before and after the i24 changes, and tell me that the Blasters gave up anything for increased survivability (sustain and more controls) and more frequent high burst damage (reduced recharge on non-crashing nukes).
• What, exactly, did Tankers give up for their higher damage modifier, higher damage cap, and larger AoEs?

The point of the thread was that at least someone doesn't feel that they are correctly balanced as-is in the current meta, and should receive a straight buff. Whether or not you agree with that point is a separate issue than "shouldn't they have to give something up to get something?"

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, siolfir said:

Only if you feel that they were balanced correctly in the first place.

• Defenders were granted more damage when solo (Vigilance 30% damage buff) with no tradeoff whatsoever.
• Just look at Blasters before and after the i24 changes, and tell me that the Blasters gave up anything for increased survivability (sustain and more controls) and more frequent high burst damage (reduced recharge on non-crashing nukes).
• What, exactly, did Tankers give up for their higher damage modifier, higher damage cap, and larger AoEs?

The point of the thread was that at least someone doesn't feel that they are correctly balanced as-is in the current meta, and should receive a straight buff. Whether or not you agree with that point is a separate issue than "shouldn't they have to give something up to get something?"

I would agree - at a minimum, someone feels their character could use some help/changes. And you make a fair point. 

But my thoughts are the changes to blasters were poised to go live - but hadn't yet. Perhaps they shouldn't have, and needed more testing. The tanker issue is something that was evaluated, and I believe evaluated quite thoroughly. Whether that is for the good of the game or not, time well tell. 

I suppose given the way my corruptors play, I don't think they require any further change. I'm quite happy with them. But, that's just my opinion. Hardly worth mentioning to some, I suppose.