Was Bio Armor ever balanced?

[Vanden]

Bio Armor never got released before the shutdown, so I'm not sure it ever got rigorous playtesting. The reason I ask is because I just found out that its T1 armor power gives 25% damage bonus while in Offensive Adaptation (31.25% on Scrappers). That seems insane. You need something like 181% recharge in Build Up for it to match that in extra damage over time. That's in an armor set, a defensive power set that also includes a -Resistance aura that gets stronger in Offensive Adaptation. It feels like there's no way those numbers would've gone live if it had actually been playtested.

[Saikochoro]

Well shield defense can get a larger damage bonus with AAO in addition to a telenuke. Rad gets a large damage bonus with meltdown that has pretty good uptime in addition to getting +rech.  
 

+Dam isn’t the only thing that boosts offensive performance. Several sets have large bonuses to recharge that neither bio or shield get. 

 

I actually used to really like bio until I found that I kept having to sacrifice recharge/procs to be able to get the same level of survivability as other sets. Not saying bio armor isn’t a good set, it really is, but I don’t think it is a true outlier. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Saikochoro

[TraumaTrain]

Bio Armor is balanced by being so ugly.

[Haijinx]

Considering some of the damage results, it probably wasn't. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

I love the +damage on bio armor but, yea, it's got some holes that become very noticeable as you start increasing difficulty. Go take it for a spin in a max diff ITF and once the seafood buffet at the end of the first mission shows up, you'll see exactly what I mean. Can you plug the holes, yea, to a point, but in very similar ways to what you have to do with fire armor. But it's at a pretty heavy cost just like FA as well.

 

That said, yes, my mace/bio scrapper sits around the 1:30 mark for pylons which seems a bit on the excessive side.

Edited October 16, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Haijinx]

Not sure Fire Armor is balanced for today's game.  

 

But in the other direction. 

 

It makes no sense they don't get KB protection.  That should be fixed.   

 

Bad enough you have to DIE to use the T9.  

[Vanden]

2 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

Well shield defense can get a larger damage bonus with AAO in addition to a telenuke. Rad gets a large damage bonus with meltdown that has pretty good uptime in addition to getting +rech.  

Rad Armor didn’t even get proper VFX, so if Bio Armor wasn’t properly playtested there’s no way Rad Armor was.

 

And Shield has to deal with clicky mez protection which is *blows raspberry* so I'm sure that balances out

 

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I love the +damage on bio armor but, yea, it's got some holes that become very noticeable as you start increasing difficulty. Go take it for a spin in a max diff ITF and once the seafood buffet at the end of the first mission shows up, you'll see exactly what I mean

I’m not sure if getting killed if you aggro-cap on enemies with tons of slows and defense Debuffs indicates a set is balanced.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Vanden

[ZorkNemesis]

3 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Bad enough you have to DIE to use the T9.  

You have to die to use Dark's T9 too, but I never saw anyone complain about that.

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

You have to die to use Dark's T9 too, but I never saw anyone complain about that.

I am now!

 

It needs fixed too.

 

Just make the T9 work when you are alive, but remove the untouchable or whatever effect. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Haijinx

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Nuke Leah said:

Dark Armor has the same restrictions and doesn't get Burn, which is one of the best powers in the game.

Yeah.  It should get KB protection too.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

8 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I’m not sure if getting killed if you aggro-cap on enemies with tons of slows and defense Debuffs indicates a set is balanced.

You don't have to crank it to 11 for the pain to be apparent, but I hear ya. There's plenty of reasons so many flock to the shiny new sets and being arguably brokenly good in 95% of the game and not suffering the silliness of other sets (as above, no KB protection, really?) are pretty high on the lists of those reasons.

[Haijinx]

So with the Blaster ATO, they can actually get more KB protection than a Fire Tanker .. 

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, Vanden said:

Bio Armor never got released before the shutdown, so I'm not sure it ever got rigorous playtesting. The reason I ask is because I just found out that its T1 armor power gives 25% damage bonus while in Offensive Adaptation (31.25% on Scrappers). That seems insane. You need something like 181% recharge in Build Up for it to match that in extra damage over time. That's in an armor set, a defensive power set that also includes a -Resistance aura that gets stronger in Offensive Adaptation. It feels like there's no way those numbers would've gone live if it had actually been playtested.

 

I'm kinda thinking it's balanced. It's quite strong offensively, but far behind the top defensive armor sets on defense. So it racks up great stats against Pylons, but it's more vulnerable to more situations (-Rech, -Def as the obvious, but also Endurance drain and -Recovery) than many other sets. And on the offense side, I'm not sure that it's out of balance compared to Shield (which is far stronger defensively at the top end) or to Fire Armor (which, granted, does have its own issues) or to Rad Armor (though that needs procs to do it). So, overall, it looks to me like it's comparable to other defensive sets that are on the strong offensive side... good offense, with some holes to balance it out.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

Rad Armor didn’t even get proper VFX, so if Bio Armor wasn’t properly playtested there’s no way Rad Armor was.

 

I’m not sure if getting killed if you aggro-cap on enemies with tons of slows and defense Debuffs indicates a set is balanced.

Shield defense has an even higher bonus to offense than either rad or bio. Some sets are more geared towards offensive power. 
 

I compare bio armor to other sets I play and if I don’t want to sacrifice recharge/procs and thus detracting from its offensive prowess, it is does not stack up defensively comparative to several sets. You don’t have to be soloing a buffed enemies +4/8 ITF to notice that. It is no secret that bio armor is strong offensively, but it does have to sacrifice to get to the same level of survivability other sets offer.
 

That seems to be a good trade off for its offensive strength. Some sets offer better mitigation. Some offer better offensive power. Some sets are a mix. Bio armor is honestly not the top dog in any of those regards when factoring in all available sets. It may be high up on the list, but I wouldn’t even say it’s the best secondary, much less an overpowered outlier. 

Edited October 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Sarrate]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

(as above, no KB protection, really?)

I sometimes wonder what the game would be like if status protection (for armored characters) was less absolute, but enemies with status effects were less prevalent. An AV knocking an armored character across the room from time to time? Not a problem, even super tough heroes like Superman and Hulk aren't perfectly planted. However, getting ping ponged repeatedly by a handful of thugs with guns? Much less so.

 

I say this because I think there could've been more variety and flavor in a game balanced like that. Now, however, any moderately common status effect that isn't protected against by an armor set is seen as a huge deficiency. At least now you can mitigate 90% of all knockbacks with 3 IOs starting at lvl 7 (Steadfast's min, I think). Much better than having to clog up 1 pool & 3 power picks for Acrobatics - and only at lvl22 (you are taking Stamina at 20, right? :P).

 

I know that ship has long since sailed, so I'm just musing out loud. Trying to change something that fundamental at this point would surely have a lot of unintended consequences.

[Haijinx]

6 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

Shield defense has an even higher bonus to offense than either rad or bio. Some sets are more geared towards offensive power. 
 

Well it sort of does.

 

Its variable after all.  

 

Bio gets a constant level.  Plus it can be paired with some big hitter sets that shield can't.   

[Tsuko]

2 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

Well shield defense can get a larger damage bonus with AAO in addition to a telenuke. 

Yeah but AAO is still simple + dmg, where Bio and fire are additional dmg, clearly better when you re capped by a Kin (or inspirations).

 

19 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Endurance drain and -Recovery

Bio have Endurance resistance.

 

8 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

That seems to be a good trade off for its offensive strength. Some sets offer better mitigation. Some offer better offensive power. Some sets are a mix. Bio armor is honestly not the top dog in any of those regards when factoring in all available sets. It may be high up on the list, but I wouldn’t even say it’s the best secondary, much less an overpowered outlier. 

i agree with you but i still think Bio armor is in the top 5 armors for teaming cause it takes advantage of any team buff : just the stacks of maneuver is insane on a Bio scrapper.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Tsuko

[Ironblade]

4 hours ago, Vanden said:

Rad Armor didn’t even get proper VFX, so if Bio Armor wasn’t properly playtested there’s no way Rad Armor was.

I happened to look up these two armor sets the other day.

Radiation Armor was on the public test server at the time of shutdown.  Bio Armor had not even gotten that far.

[cohRock]

On 10/16/2020 at 11:24 PM, Ironblade said:

I happened to look up these two armor sets the other day.

Radiation Armor was on the public test server at the time of shutdown.  Bio Armor had not even gotten that far.

@Ironblade, I think your source had it backward.  I know for a fact that bio armor was on the Live Test server.  I don't know if rad armor was available on Test or not, but I do not remember it.  Meet my brute, created August 2012:

 

* Rued Rude Rudy

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by cohRock

[Coyotedancer]

Bio was definitely on the test server before shut-down. FlyingCodeMonkey (Mr. Coyote) was testing it with a "mudbug" scrap named Bayou. 'Ugliest little red spud you've ever seen... But pretty convincing as a mutant crayfish.

[nihilii]

IMHO, bio armor is completely unbalanced, especially on scrappers and tankers.

 

- the damage buff is good already, not conditional unlike Shield. It also adds extra toxic damage to your attacks, AND gives you +tohit. Makes the leveling phase significantly easier, and also a big advantage in the upper end of endgame so you can slot less accuracy / more procs.

- the -res aura doubles as an aggro aura, excellent for Scrappers who don't always get one. That -res is significant on a Tanker (higher values).

- absorption is underrated as a mechanic, probably because it's so new. It's essentially extra HP beyond the HP cap. Granted, you don't get the benefit of regeneration, but regeneration is mostly sustain anyway. What kills you are spikes of damage, which absorb protects against in an unique way. Bio gets more absorb than anyone else and this raises the ceiling significantly. This is so good you can run in Offensive Mode 99% of the time.

- significant +recovery baked in. You can build a TW/bio character running what is arguably the highest DPS attack chain of the entire game (RA -> FT -> AoD -> CB -> FT) with infinite sustain before you even use Incarnates.

- the two achilles' heels of many OP-on-paper builds are end drains and slows. But with Bio, you get 70% end drain resist and 30% slow resist. The end drain resist coupled with all your endurance recovery options makes you essentially immune to all but most extreme forms of it. And starting with a base of 30% slow makes it doable to get to 100% with Winter IOs.

 

Bio essentially has one lone vulnerability, which it shares with many builds: lack of defense debuff resistance. You can patch that one vulnerability with luck inspirations, Barrier, Shadow Meld if scrapper/stalker, Vorpal, Divine Avalanche/Parry/Defensive Sweep; or you can even live through it in many situations with your copious amounts of absorb, heals and regen. For that one vulnerability that is far from unique, Bio gets just about everything else.

 

Oh, and you look like dung by default and with most power customisations. THAT is the real drawback.

 

Almost all of my melee playtime is on a bio character these days. The longer you play it, the worst it gets, as the very few flaws of the set become easier and easier to compensate. At this point I'm so used to the performance I don't want to see it nerfed, but I can't pretend it's balanced.

Stalker and Sentinel versions of bio are more appropriate, IMHO. Once you remove the auras and once all the heal/absorb/regen goodness is scaled to a lower HP AT, it is not so broken.

[Outrider_01]

6 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Yeah.  It should get KB protection too.  

So yeah, KIB protection standing in a burn patch which is effectively a very over powered damage aura like Blazing Aura shouldn't have a penalty?  Get knocked out, as everything runs towards it...not to mention that taunt pulling them back when they run away causing self immolation.  Why wouldn't Fire Armor have a weakness?

[siolfir]

This is the toned-down version of Bio Armor. It had more -regen (like -500%) for a while during the i24 beta; I don't remember the exact details beyond the complaints about it debuffing regen better than many debuff sets. But Bio Armor is the "if another armor set does something, this does it too" set. It was in beta for a couple of months before the shutdown was announced and I kept waiting for it to get released because that was going to be my next alt (and it was - just years later).

 

4 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Bio essentially has one lone vulnerability, which it shares with many builds: lack of defense debuff resistance. You can patch that one vulnerability with luck inspirations, Barrier, Shadow Meld if scrapper/stalker, Vorpal, Divine Avalanche/Parry/Defensive Sweep; or you can even live through it in many situations with your copious amounts of absorb, heals and regen. For that one vulnerability that is far from unique, Bio gets just about everything else.

The lack of defense debuff resistance combined with the psi hole make certain groups a real pain. Also, if you're going to count luck inspirations and Barrier as a patch for vulnerabilities then everything is OP.

 

That said, it took me far too long to realize I was tanking a +7 AV with my level 50 Bio Armor Stalker at one point in a duo with a Dominator (running +4/x8, then +3 level shifts) when neither of us was killing the other.

[nihilii]

14 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Also, if you're going to count luck inspirations and Barrier as a patch for vulnerabilities then everything is OP.

Adding Barrier and luck insps to all other powersets won't give them the extra damage output or the endurance tools Bio gets. Adding luck insps to SR or Shield won't help them survive. Adding Barrier and luck insps to Fire still leaves it behind Bio on KB protection, damage output, aggro ability (on scrappers), passive endurance drain, etc.. Adding Barrier and luck insps won't raise your practical HP beyond 4K on a Tanker, and so on.

Try soloing a STF on a SR with Barrier + luck insps. Chances are LR will hit you with his end drain and detoggle. Do the same with Bio, it's not going to be a cakewalk but it will be easier.

I absolutely count the potential of universal tools to patch vulnerabilities, the game is what it is and gives us what we have; and my conclusion is there are definitely holes that are more easy to plug than others.

 

If you wanted to argue (i.e.) anyone soloing +4/x8 against all factions is overpowered, then we enter a semantic debate than anything. I could then agree with you everything is OP - and go on to argue bio goes much further in being overpowered than the other options. We'd be back to the beginning, with slightly different and more cumbersome language to describe the same situation. Bio is unbalanced compared to other powersets, is my stance.

Edited October 17, 2020 by nihilii

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

Adding Barrier and luck insps to all other powersets won't give them the extra damage output or the endurance tools Bio gets. Adding luck insps to SR or Shield won't help them survive. Adding Barrier and luck insps to Fire still leaves it behind Bio on KB protection, damage output, aggro ability (on scrappers), passive endurance drain, etc.. Adding Barrier and luck insps won't raise your practical HP beyond 4K on a Tanker, and so on.

Try soloing a STF on a SR with Barrier + luck insps. Chances are LR will hit you with his end drain and detoggle. Do the same with Bio, it's not going to be a cakewalk but it will be easier.

I absolutely count the potential of universal tools to patch vulnerabilities, the game is what it is and gives us what we have; and my conclusion is there are definitely holes that are more easy to plug than others.

 

If you wanted to argue (i.e.) anyone soloing +4/x8 against all factions is overpowered, then we enter a semantic debate than anything. I could then agree with you everything is OP - and go on to argue bio goes much further in being overpowered than the other options. We'd be back to the beginning, with slightly different and more cumbersome language to describe the same situation. Bio is unbalanced compared to other powersets, is my stance.

I was thinking less about armor sets and more about covering survival holes for any AT regardless of powersets: pre-IOs Lucks were the answer for rushing the LRSF at +4, usually with a team of mostly squishies. Those "universal tools" only last for a short while, though, otherwise why not include Enrage inspirations and Ageless, throwing out any +damage, endurance, or recovery advantages that Bio may have?

 

Yes, Bio is a top tier set because it's layered, does practically everything, and has several "panic buttons" for when a layer gets stripped away, but it's not so far overblown beyond what other sets are capable of that I would call it unequivocally imbalanced in relation to them. There's little question that several other sets are better for sheer survival, a few sets offer similar-or-better endurance management, and there's even some room for debate on if it's the best offensive armor set (Fiery Aura and Shield being the contenders there).

Edited October 17, 2020 by siolfir