Melee Set Testing Results

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Arkterusss said:

I guess my question is, if I read the old scrapper results correctly, why did Claws get such a huge bump upwards?  They didn't change anything to that set for this beta did they?

Claws got a bump both because TW went down, and because i decided to test it with Shockwave converted to knockdown due to that being near standard slotting for the power. That one change allows it to skyrocket in effectiveness!

 

The non KD results are also posted.

[Moonlighter]

On 10/28/2020 at 11:24 PM, Vanden said:

"Splash damage" doesn't really have an actual meaning in in terms of CoH mechanics.

 

It's only great on Stalkers.

Bopper used the term splash damage to refer to lesser AoE damage that does not affect the damage formula so as to move a power into the true AoE balance formulas. Eagle's Claw is balanced as a single target power and the extra damage is less than the main attack, thus the term splash damage. So I assumed it was a thing,

Edited November 1, 2020 by Moonlighter

[Maxzero]

21 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Claws got a bump both because TW went down, and because i decided to test it with Shockwave converted to knockdown due to that being near standard slotting for the power. That one change allows it to skyrocket in effectiveness!

 

The non KD results are also posted.

 

How much of an impact will the EC losing its AoE have on the results?

[Blackfeather]

Out of curiosity, where does Martial Arts stand now, given that the change to Eagles Claw has been rolled back? Bit of a shame that, I did like the cone there.

[ninja surprise]

You'd really expect Fire Melee to do more damage since since its whole gimmick is supposed to be all the damage, with a side of damage and no mitigation or other secondary effects.

[BrandX]

18 minutes ago, ninja surprise said:

You'd really expect Fire Melee to do more damage since since its whole gimmick is supposed to be all the damage, with a side of damage and no mitigation or other secondary effects.

 

I would think Fire Melee should be a good mix of ST and AOE.  Not the top of either, but high on the list for both.  Perhaps the bench mark for others in terms of AOE, ST and Survival.

[ninja surprise]

1 minute ago, BrandX said:

 

I would think Fire Melee should be a good mix of ST and AOE.  Not the top of either, but high on the list for both.  Perhaps the bench mark for others in terms of AOE, ST and Survival.

It does have a good mix, with up to three AoE. 

But damage isn't all that great. Wonder if it's balanced around perma fiery embrace?

[csr]

11 minutes ago, ninja surprise said:

You'd really expect Fire Melee to do more damage since since its whole gimmick is supposed to be all the damage, with a side of damage and no mitigation or other secondary effects.

Fire Melee's secondary is DoT.  The faster you clear spawns the less value the DoT has.  The set also has more ST attacks than it can use.  It really needs a balance pass for Scrappers and Brutes.

[BrandX]

3 minutes ago, csr said:

Fire Melee's secondary is DoT.  The faster you clear spawns the less value the DoT has.  The set also has more ST attacks than it can use.  It really needs a balance pass for Scrappers and Brutes.

 

Change it up so Fire Melee's DoT is smaller with the same amount of ticks per attack, upping the upfront attacks damage?  Giving it a better arc on Fire Breath (better AOE).  Oooh.  Keep Cremate ST, but a side effect of AOE splash damage too?   So many ideas!  O.O  I mean, I won't likely use it, since I've been wanting Energy Melee forever for Scrappers, but it seems like there would be ways to get Fire up there, without being ST or AOE king, but really good at both, with no survival benefit (leaving that strictly for the secondary and IOs)

[Kanil]

1 hour ago, ninja surprise said:

You'd really expect Fire Melee to do more damage since since its whole gimmick is supposed to be all the damage, with a side of damage and no mitigation or other secondary effects.

in my testing, on high-end builds (see: i only play [x]/bio scrappers) , it actually performs close-to equal to a high-end TW build for general mission clearing/AOE damage - a lot of it is due to how it has a mitigating factor of being able to use fireball without having to worry about redraw/momentum. it's about equal to ice melee, which also sits at the top for similar reasons. both of them have a 10-target cap radius 10' radius attack that allows for crits on top of being able to smoothly integrate APP aoes in their AOE results.

 

i've been posting all over but yeah, if you just observe the raw numbers FSC is better than whirling smash in terms of damage and most of the time you're not going to need to have max saturation for enemies (in a 10/15ft change) so it tends to take the lead due to just being generally more flexible and mobile than TW on top of doing more damage by taking advantage of +dmg and crit stuff

 

previous post detailing testing i've done since this beta patch launched:

 

Spoiler

On 10/28/2020 at 1:49 AM, Kanil said:

as usual, my method was testing by running mender ramiel's defeat trapdoor mission at +4x8. all incarnates, similar rules to pylon testing where you don't use hybrid active nor lore pets - only destiny and yellow insps for the blinds that the arachnos do. you kill everything up to trapdoor except the popup turrets (this favors ranged by a lot to run off to the sides) and then waste trapdoor. timer starts when you self-buff w/ destiny or whatever, ends when trapdoor turns blue.

 

why trapdoor? it has a good combination of enemies, is a straight line with room for enemies to flee still and a decently sturdy EB at the end.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

beta tw/bio:
5m12s
5m22s
6m7s (enemy scattering)
6m1s (spent time healing due to -def from t.mistresses)
5m42s (the hell is with all the x:x2 enders?)

 

live tw/bio:
5m24s
4m48s
4m51s
4m54s
5m18s

 EM/bio/fire scrapper
6m34s - 1st run
5m44s
6m2s
5m48s
5m41s
5m43s
5m57s
5m21s
5m42s

fire/bio/fire scrapper
4m48s
5m27s
5m12s
4m46s
4m56s
4m48s
4m58s
5m16s

 

ba/bio/phys scrapper
5m25s
5m15s
5m46s
5m30s

 

kat/bio scrapper
5m35s
5m12s
5m19s
4m58s

 

ice/bio/mu scrapper
4m46s
4m36s
5m17s
4m41s

 

fire/time/dark corr
6m26s

 

fortunata/soul
4m51s

 

 

 

i normally just eyeball ranges instead of recording anything- i've been doing these tests for a long time ot try and gauge the relative power level of my characters and sets at the extreme high-end of performance to get a realistic view since i never saw any data that matched my own experiences.

 

annoyingly, since vids are banned all i have for testing sources is "source: dude trust me" and screenshots of my timer ie

 

but yeah, there are factors to consider if you're thinking about strength at the absolute ends of builds as well vs. 'SOs only' or 'generic slotting' - scrappers especially have to consider more variables due to how everything interacts with the crit strikes ATO. conventional wisdom and these tests aren't the end all-be-all of strength determination, it's only just another facet to consider when judging the set as a whole

Edited November 1, 2020 by Kanil

[ScarySai]

RiP MA.

 

We hardly knew ya, big boy EC.

[Galaxy Brain]

Good stuff @Kanil! 

21 hours ago, Kanil said:

but yeah, there are factors to consider if you're thinking about strength at the absolute ends of builds as well vs. 'SOs only' or 'generic slotting' - scrappers especially have to consider more variables due to how everything interacts with the crit strikes ATO. conventional wisdom and these tests aren't the end all-be-all of strength determination, it's only just another facet to consider when judging the set as a whole

This should be emphasized.

 

My tests here are in place to be a separate metric than clearing farms or taking down pylons, but its still just 1 metric. Claws may be the best here at the "general" tests but may not be the best for pure AoE or pure ST those tests tend to cover. 

 

This test IMO reflects the general day to day gameplay better though, so I do have a bit of bias when it comes to the "baseline / generic performance" using a story mission whether it be the Mission Sim or the Trapdoor mission you tried. But again, its one measure. If you're looking at a set for a very specific purpose, these tests generally will not reflect that specific strength.

 

 

 

 

[Kanil]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Good stuff @Kanil! 

This should be emphasized.

 

My tests here are in place to be a separate metric than clearing farms or taking down pylons, but its still just 1 metric. Claws may be the best here at the "general" tests but may not be the best for pure AoE or pure ST those tests tend to cover. 

 

This test IMO reflects the general day to day gameplay better though, so I do have a bit of bias when it comes to the "baseline / generic performance" using a story mission whether it be the Mission Sim or the Trapdoor mission you tried. But again, its one measure. If you're looking at a set for a very specific purpose, these tests generally will not reflect that specific strength.

 

 

 

 

thanks!

 

between your tests covering the baseline of powersets (where the majority of folks will be playing since most folks use SOs/IOs/midlvl IO stuff) and random folks just submitting trapdoor times for testing on the extreme high-end fringes of powerset combinations it covers most of the important bases for determining a powerset's overall value/tier, since clear time/damage starts massively overshadowing safety once you get to that point due to all the ways you can build around survivability. it makes the judgement on the high end a little more straightforward than it appears because of how the game funnels into that aspect at that level.

 

some day i want to make a thread about trapdoor testin' stuff because i love the idea of having a silly "objective" measure of general mission performance over just pylon bustin', but for that i'd really want video so it can be standardized more ie: approaches to tackling enemy groups/rotations/etc.

 

it's definitely way sillier/more loose than your stuff because it's way less objective from a raw "power pick" view than your extremely organized and standardized testing but i'd bet with enough entries it'd be easy to start breaking down the data for what's good there and bringing in a more 'full' view of where powersets lie across the board. a large enough volume of data can probably account for the addition of armorset AOEs (ala rad armor procs, burn, etc) as well, especially when you start factoring in video proof!

 

as an aside, i ended up respeccing my fire melee char and managed to push my time down to comical levels given some extreme luck/positioning:

 

there's a weird factor of how greater fire sword is more stiff for starting off attacks which causes a time loss, but it's gained in just how often crit strikes fires off on it - you can really start abusing crit fireball/FSC with good application of it over even crit whirling smash/titan sweep because of how those two powers combined with build up tend to do just enough damage even without crits to wipe out +3 minions, leaving only the LTs

 

 

[Sovera]

On 11/1/2020 at 9:12 PM, ninja surprise said:

It does have a good mix, with up to three AoE. 

But damage isn't all that great. Wonder if it's balanced around perma fiery embrace?

It pretty much is. But the sad thing is that even with FE the damage still isn't amazing.

 

But it would be difficult to balance Fire Melee because of Fiery Embrace's Damocles' Sword. Make it good enough without Fire Armor that it rivals the current best sets? It explodes when paired with Fire Armor. Make it as good as the other sets with Fiery Embrace?  Straight out of luck if you ever pair it with anything but Fire Armor.

 

People often make the mistake of considering certain mechanics as 'free damage', but it's never free. Psi Melee Insight is not free damage, bleeds in Savage Melee aren't free. The sets are calculated with these effects in mind.

 

It's just bad for Fire Melee that the calculations involve a whole power set which will never work well without a rework of Fiery Embrace for the reasons above.

[Kanil]

4 hours ago, Sovera said:

It pretty much is. But the sad thing is that even with FE the damage still isn't amazing.

 

But it would be difficult to balance Fire Melee because of Fiery Embrace's Damocles' Sword. Make it good enough without Fire Armor that it rivals the current best sets? It explodes when paired with Fire Armor. Make it as good as the other sets with Fiery Embrace?  Straight out of luck if you ever pair it with anything but Fire Armor.

 

People often make the mistake of considering certain mechanics as 'free damage', but it's never free. Psi Melee Insight is not free damage, bleeds in Savage Melee aren't free. The sets are calculated with these effects in mind.

 

It's just bad for Fire Melee that the calculations involve a whole power set which will never work well without a rework of Fiery Embrace for the reasons above.

honestly fire armor needs something anyways because for a live-play comparison vs. it's contemporaries for "offense-oriented armorsets", shield defense, bio armor and (arguably) rad armor all really step on it. it's just in one of those awkward positions where it happens to be quite good from a meta perspective due to fire farms.

 

if fire blast is justified in having a cleartime gap over it's competitors larger than TW vs other melee sets (esp. with high level builds, where the gap gets really silly) due to not having a survival-oriented secondary effect, fire melee should 'logically' follow that, right?

 

really i'd just love buffs all the fire powersets because i want to play them (even more), haha.

gimme combustion but footstomp instead of fire breath and make GFS even stronger!

make ROTP usable outside of death!