Eye vs. Blast Attacks

[dtj714]

In the process of looking at powers more critically for some build options, I came to realize that the ST “eye” attacks do more damage than the “blast” attacks, even though the later cost twice as much End and recharge half as fast (for human at least, the nova versions seem to have the same recharge). 

 

Now, I knew that at some point the eye attacks got buffed, but didn’t know by that much, and frankly it doesn’t seem to make sense. Can anyone more knowledgeable about the change explain?  A 10% KB chance doesn’t seem an adequate justification. 

[dtj714]

I looked at it in the character creator powers info. The “level 1” base damage for glinting/ebon eye is ~12, while gleaming/shadow blast is ~15.6 (about 30% more). But the level 50 values are ~77 and ~72, respectively.  So, it seems clear that something is off in the scaling. I’m going to post in the bug forum about it. 

[chi1701]

Ebon eye has -20% run speed, - 20% fly speed and -20% recharge

 

Ebon Blast has -20% run speed, - 20% fly speed and -20% recharge -20% jump height -20% jump speed and 10% chance knock back 1.87 magnitude

 

Not sure if additional debuffs counts towards a reduce overall damage and increased endurance cost.

[Doomrider]

If you look at the tooltip for ebon eye in the character creator it should be titled "nova ebon eye" which is a little weird (and misleading) but the damage for that tool tip should only reflect how much damage it does when used in nova form. This isn't a bug. Ebon eye does indeed out damage shadow blast and nova blast ever so slightly, but again only when it's used in nova form. I believe ebon eyes damage base damage at 50 when used in human form is closer to 44.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Doomrider

[dtj714]

57 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

If you look at the tooltip for ebon eye in the character creator it should be titled "nova ebon eye" which is a little weird (and misleading) but the damage for that tool tip should only reflect how much damage it does when used in nova form. This isn't a bug. Ebon eye does indeed out damage shadow blast and nova blast ever so slightly, but again only when it's used in nova form. I believe ebon eyes damage base damage at 50 when used in human form is closer to 44.

Then why does the damage start off at 12 vs. 15.7?  If what you're saying is correct, then those should be close, same as the level 50 values.  Maybe they don't apply the nova bonus until level 6?  I'll have to go in and look at that.  But yea that would be really misleading, since if it's "nova eye" it should at least always be "nova eye".

[chi1701]

1 minute ago, dtj714 said:

Then why does the damage start off at 12 vs. 15.7?  If what you're saying is correct, then those should be close, same as the level 50 values.  Maybe they don't apply the nova bonus until level 6?  I'll have to go in and look at that.  But yea that would be really misleading, since if it's "nova eye" it should at least always be "nova eye".

Ebon eye and the peacebringer equivalent is a human ability that was granted usable in nova form, hence it doesnt have "nova" in the powers title. All it gets is the 45% energy damage buff when entering Nova form. As for why the different damage? Simple explanation would be to ensure that the damage gap between human and nova form isnt that big.

[dtj714]

So I checked it and they both scale smoothly from 1 to 50, but not evenly - eye overtakes blast at lvl 18.  Then I thought maybe it had to do with how the nova percentage bonus was applied, but that doesn't seem to make sense either because the final values are only a few points off, and if they are even at 18 they should be quite different by 50.  Some math wiz can maybe explain?

Edited October 21, 2020 by dtj714

[Doomrider]

2 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Ebon eye and the peacebringer equivalent is a human ability that was granted usable in nova form, hence it doesnt have "nova" in the powers title. All it gets is the 45% energy damage buff when entering Nova form. As for why the different damage? Simple explanation would be to ensure that the damage gap between human and nova form isnt that big.

This is what I was referring to just for reference (as it appears in the character creation). The same can be seen for Shadow Bolt, it's listed as "Dwarf Shadow Bolt" and the stats in the tooltip reflect it's base values while used in that form.

Fwiw, the values indicated as "average damage" in tool tip are base and any bonus damage (45%) granted by Nova form would further influence it's actual damage dealt.

For instance... Dark Nova Blast base damage is 66.73 before the damage bonus granted by the form just like is Nova Ebon Eye is 77.41. The 45% bonus is calculated after the fact so those two powers actual damage at base w/o slotting should be closer to 96.76 (Dark Nova Blast) and 112.24 (Nova Ebon Eye) when used from Nova form.

As to why/how Nova Eye scales in relation to Shadow Blast, I couldn't tell ya. Maybe because Human Ranged damage mod is .80 and Nova Ranged damage mod is 1.2? 
I'm no mathemagician but that would be my first inclination.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Doomrider

[chi1701]

2 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

This is what I was referring to just for reference (as it appears in the character creation). The same can be seen for Shadow Bolt, it's listed as "Dwarf Shadow Bolt" and the stats in the tooltip reflect it's base values while used in that form.

Fwiw, the values indicated as "average damage" in tool tip are base and any bonus damage (45%) granted by Nova form would further influence it's actual damage dealt.

For instance... Dark Nova Blast base damage is 66.73 before the damage bonus granted by the form is calculated in much the same way Nova Ebon Eye is 77.41. The 45% bonus is calculated after the fact so those two powers actual damage at base w/o slotting should be closer to 96.76 (Dark Nova Blast) and 112.24 (Nova Ebon Eye) when used from Nova form.

As to why/how Nova Eye scales in relation to Shadow Blast, I couldn't tell ya. Maybe because Human Ranged damage mod is .80 and Nova Ranged damage mod is 1.2? 
I'm no mathemagician but that would be my first inclination.

From what I can tell, ranged and melee damage mod is same regardless of forms which is why nova has the damage bonus. Just been on live and checked Ebon eye, and both human and nova form it says just Ebon Eye. As for damage, as said previously, could be a ebon eye is higher to help human form before it became available to nova form. 

[Doomrider]

13 minutes ago, chi1701 said:

From what I can tell, ranged and melee damage mod is same regardless of forms which is why nova has the damage bonus. Just been on live and checked Ebon eye, and both human and nova form it says just Ebon Eye. As for damage, as said previously, could be a ebon eye is higher to help human form before it became available to nova form. 

Unless HC changed something the ranged and melee damage mods between forms are infact not the same. See table from the wiki below:

 

As for the Ebon Eye, when I bring up the enhancement screen in game I get the same Nova Ebon Eye tool tip so I'm not sure what it is you're looking at in game.

.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Doomrider

[chi1701]

19 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

Unless HC changed something the ranged and melee damage mods between forms are infact not the same. See table from the wiki below:

 

As for the Ebon Eye, when I bring up the enhancement screen in game I get the same Nova Ebon Eye tool tip so I'm not sure what it is you're looking at in game.

.

That website is third party info, base stats dont change, if that was case, keldian would out perform a blaster. Issue 4 has more info on balance. Keldian range for nova is 0.8 + 45% which could give equivalent of 1.2 base. And as for Ebon eye, just went of my WS, right clicked powers in human and nova, didnt notice when in enhancement slot section.

 

Just found the Nova Ebon Eye, never knew it was there tbh.

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by chi1701

[Doomrider]

23 minutes ago, chi1701 said:

That website is third party info, base stats dont change, if that was case, keldian would out perform a blaster. Issue 4 has more info on balance. Keldian range for nova is 0.8 + 45% which could give equivalent of 1.2 base. And as for Ebon eye, just went of my WS, right clicked powers in human and nova, didnt notice when in enhancement slot section.

So what if it's third party info? Does that mean that information is incorrect? I'm genuinely asking just fyi.
Where are you reading that Kheldian range mod for nova is .08? Issue 4 patch notes don't have anything that I can see, stating this specifically. Even if we assume the 45% damage bonus is to be included as part of that modifier which it really shouldn't since it does take away from your damage cap, it would be .8 x 1.45 = 1.16. 

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by Doomrider

[chi1701]

11 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

So what if it's third party info? Does that mean that information is incorrect? I'm genuinely asking just fyi.
Where are you reading that Kheldian range mod for nova is .08? Issue 4 patch notes don't have anything that I can see, stating this specifically. Even if we assume the 45% damage bonus is to be included as part of that modifier which it really shouldn't since it does take away your damage cap, it would be .8 x 1.45 = 1.16. 

 

I try to go by logic, your ebon eye does 77.1 damage at 0.8 this would then go up to 115.5 with damage mod of 1.2 and then up to 167.47 with 45% damage buff. Since this doesnt happen, I can only assume that the 1.2 is the equivalent not exact with 45% damage bonus. Basic way os saying Nova has same starting damage as blaster without the same damage mod.

Edited October 21, 2020 by chi1701

[Doomrider]

4 hours ago, chi1701 said:

I try to go by logic, your ebon eye does 77.1 damage at 0.8 this would then go up to 115.5 with damage mod of 1.2 and then up to 167.47 with 45% damage buff. Since this doesnt happen, I can only assume that the 1.2 is the equivalent not exact with 45% damage bonus. Basic way os saying Nova has same starting damage as blaster without the same damage mod.

Except that's not how damage scalars work IIRC. They're used to assign a base damage value to the power. Otherwise the base damage on the tool tip would indicate 115.5 for Nova Ebon eye. The 45% damage bonus is a buff granted by the toggle, whose damage bonus applies to powers the same way aim or build up does. 

As an example, lets suppose Blasters had access to Umbral Blast in it's current form, no changes made.  Ebon Eye in human form at 44.49 for the WS with a scalar of .80 would be 25% more at base with blasters 1.0 damage scale. The damage for their ebon eye would be 55.61. If you were to work it back the other way, you could say Warshade's Ebon Eye is essential .80 of the same base damage value used by Blasters. We use blasters as the reference point only because their damage scalar is 1.0. 

Now if we apply this same math between Kheldian forms where human is .80 and nova is 1.20 it starts to make sense, albeit it doesn't apply to Nova Ebon eye which seems to be a strange case but I have theory on that later...

Compare Shadow Bolt (T1) and Ebon Eye (T2) blasts with Nova's equivalent Nova Bolt (T1) and Nova Blast (T2) and it starts to make more sense.

Since Human form uses a ranged mod of .8 and Nova of 1.2 we have essentially a 50% increase in base damage examining the nova form equivalents. (ex. .8 x 1.5 = 1.2)

Shadow Bolt base damage is 26.69. 
26.69 x 1.5 = 40.035... the same base damage as Nova Bolt at 40.04 (tool tip rounds up).

Ebon Eye base damage (in human form) is 44.49.
44.49 x 1.5 = 66.735... the same damage as Nova Blast at 66.73.

This is where that 1.2 scalar is evident. Now as for Nova Ebon Eye this is a weird edge case. I believe they've essentially created a second power behind the scenes when they ported it's use to Nova form.
Because if we take the base damage in the tool tip at 50 and do the reverse math...

77.41 / 1.5 = 51.60

51.60 should be the base damage in Human form but we know that isn't the case. This is what to me, indicates the Nova version is actually a separate power otherwise it's damage value would actually be on par with Nova Blast when used in Nova form and we'd end up with 2 virtually identical ST blasts in Nova, at least as far as damage is concerned.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Doomrider

[chi1701]

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Peacebringer

 

Damage Scale melee 0.850 and ranged 0.8 no mention of 1.2 for nova or 1.0 for dwarf

 

Still searching, should be interesting what ever way it goes.

 

[dtj714]

All the above being said, I still don’t get how the T2 goes from 30% less base damage than the T3 at level 1 to slightly more at 50, if the 45% bonus for nova is included all the way through (which it should, if the tooltip is meant to reflect the nova values, screwy as that may be). 

But it is what it is I guess. Bottom line, T2 is not better than T3, it just looks falsely boosted. 

 

[Doomrider]

1 hour ago, chi1701 said:

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Peacebringer

 

Damage Scale melee 0.850 and ranged 0.8 no mention of 1.2 for nova or 1.0 for dwarf

 

Still searching, should be interesting what ever way it goes.

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Damage

The table I posted in my responses earlier shows the nova form damage scaler. I took it directly from this link. Look under the heading "damage scale by archetype"

Edited October 21, 2020 by Doomrider

[dtj714]

9 hours ago, Doomrider said:
Ebon Eye base damage (in human form) is 44.49.
44.49 x 1.5 = 66.735... the same damage as Nova Blast at 66.73.

This is where that 1.2 scalar is evident. Now as for Nova Ebon Eye this is a weird edge case. I believe they've essentially created a second power behind the scenes when they ported it's use to Nova form.
Because if we take the base damage in the tool tip at 50 and do the reverse math...

77.41 / 1.5 = 51.60

51.60 should be the base damage in Human form but we know that isn't the case. This is what to me, indicates the Nova version is actually a separate power otherwise it's damage value would actually be on par with Nova Blast when used in Nova form and we'd end up with 2 virtually identical ST blasts in Nova, at least as far as damage is concerned.

Where are you getting the human form base damage values?

[chi1701]

10 hours ago, Doomrider said:

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Damage

The table I posted in my responses earlier shows the nova form damage scaler. I took it directly from this link. Look under the heading "damage scale by archetype"

Wiki has been updated.

[Doomrider]

7 hours ago, dtj714 said:

Where are you getting the human form base damage values?

In game.

[Doomrider]

3 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Wiki has been updated.

Hey maybe when you're done scrubbing the wiki of information you don't like, you can scrub the screenshots I posted earlier? 😂

[ScarySai]

Imagine editing a wiki because you lost an argument.

 

Clown.

Edited October 22, 2020 by ScarySai

[Stone Daemon]

😂
Make sure you get the in-game combat data too, can't leave any evidence behind.

[dtj714]

5 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Wiki has been updated.

Dude, wtf, you removed the form damage scales?  It’s well known and accepted that that information was correct. Please put it back, or I’m going to ask the mods to take action. 

[chi1701]

11 minutes ago, dtj714 said:

Dude, wtf, you removed the form damage scales?  It’s well known and accepted that that information was correct. Please put it back, or I’m going to ask the mods to take action. 

If that was true, why did dev ask for it to be updated?