Buff Street Justice

[Vanden]

Street Justice is not a particularly great set. It has four single target attacks, all on the weak end of the spectrum, and a fifth that can't be used freely because it's a finisher. The AoEs are very small, and clunky to use because of the combo system. Combat Readiness is simply inferior to Build Up; you'll spend your level 3 combo on one attack at the very beginning of the buff, then you're stuck with a lower damage buff for the rest of the duration. And its heaviest hitter, Crushing Uppercut, is saddled with penalties to compensate for its damage on critting ATs.

 

Notably, this set is much better on Stalkers; rather than an AoE, it loses one of its single-target combo builders to Assassin's Strike, which fills the role of a heavy-hitting, non-capstone single-target attack that StJ lacks. It gets a real Build Up, but doesn't suffer for the loss of ability to build combo because AS builds two levels of combo. And Street Justice's AoE potential, as weak as it is, is pretty much average for a Stalker. With all that in mind, Stalkers will largely miss out on the buffs I'm about to propose, because the set's already in a good place for them.

 

Changes

 

Rib Cracker

• Damage scale 1.32 -> 1.64
• Recharge 6s -> 8s
• End Cost 6.864 -> 8.528

 

Shin Breaker (Scrapper/Brute/Tanker only)

• Damage scale 1.64 -> 1.96
• Recharge 8s -> 10s
• End Cost 8.528 -> 10.192

 

Combat Readiness

• All combo level gains are doubled during the duration of this power.

 

Sweeping Cross, Spinning Strike, Crushing Uppercut

• Using these powers at combo level 2 or lower now builds combo, rather than spending it. Combo level is still reset when using them at level 3.
• This allows finishers to be used more freely in combat, especially valuable considering all of the set's AoE is in finisher attacks.

 

Crushing Uppercut (Brute/Tanker only)

• Recharge 25s -> 20s
• Crushing Uppercut is heavily based on Knockout Blow, and has the same 5-second penalty to its recharge time. However, Knockout Blow is in the same set as Rage, while Crushing Uppercut is not. Crushing Uppercut does have the ability to critical for the highest single-target damage in the game, even surpassing Hidden Assassin's Strike, but only on Scrappers and Stalkers. Since Street Justice Brutes and Tankers don't get Rage or critical hits, the recharge penalty is unnecessary on those ATs.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Vanden

[Vanden]

On the topic of Street Justice, here's a fun anecdote: Nate "Second Measure" Birkholz was a player of CoH in addition to being an employee of Paragon Studios. Like many players at the time, he keenly felt the lack of a straightforward punching-and-kicking style melee set. After he became Producer for the game, he made development of Street Justice a priority for the team, and so some of the developers jokingly dubbed it the "Nate's Abuse of Power" set.

[Solarverse]

I have tried the set on a Scrapper paired with Shield....simply was not impressed.  Any change to help the set is welcomed. 

[siolfir]

I would rather see the power changes proliferated across all ATs that have access to the power.

 

This means that Stalkers, who do not get Rib Cracker or Combat Readiness, would automatically be excluded, but would be able to receive the increased damage (and recharge/endurance) from Shin Breaker, and everyone gets the 20 second recharge - which is still too high for its base damage - on Crushing Uppercut. The double gains on combo levels during Combat Readiness would make up for Assassin's Strike's providing two combo levels.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about eliminating everything except combo level 3 on finishers; it doesn't seem to be hurting Water Blast having Tidal Power from 0 to 3. I understand the desire to not have to constantly watch what you're using - you can just check my recent post history for that - but that same variable combo level performance seems to be the foundation of the set. I could see freebie radius increases for Spinning Strike at higher combo levels (base of 7' + 1' per combo level) to help with AoE instead: this is already done with Savage Melee and would give a 15' radius for Tankers due to their inherent.

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, siolfir said:

I'm not sure how I feel about eliminating everything except combo level 3 on finishers

I didn't propose anything like that, only that using a finisher below level 3 would build combo instead of resetting it to 0. You'd still get the existing benefits of combo level 1 or 2.

[siolfir]

2 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I didn't propose anything like that, only that using a finisher below level 3 would build combo instead of resetting it to 0. You'd still get the existing benefits of combo level 1 or 2.

Oh. So you want the buff from the current combo level and to have it build combo level, too? How about just not consuming until combo level 3 but not building it instead?

 

Or is the goal to just be able to ignore that the combo system exists and still get the max combo level performance by chaining nothing but finishers? Because in that case it looks like you want a new set with the same animations.

[Vanden]

7 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Oh. So you want the buff from the current combo level and to have it build combo level, too? How about just not consuming until combo level 3 but not building it instead?

I considered it, but I didn't think that would go far enough to improve the feel of playing the set.

 

8 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Or is the goal to just be able to ignore that the combo system exists and still get the max combo level performance by chaining nothing but finishers?

You wouldn't be able to do that, using a finisher at level 3 would still end the combo and potentially affect future finisher uses. To be truly able to ignore the combo system while still getting nothing but max performance from the finishers, they would have to not reset the combo level from 3.

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

I considered it, but I didn't think that would go far enough to improve the feel of playing the set.

 

You wouldn't be able to do that, using a finisher at level 3 would still end the combo and potentially affect future finisher uses. To be truly able to ignore the combo system while still getting nothing but max performance from the finishers, they would have to not reset the combo level from 3.

I'm aware that the level would reset, but you could still build combo level 3 using nothing but finishers, which would currently leave you at combo level 0 forever. I also don't think that it actually addresses the complaints you mention in your OP - "weak single target attacks, small AoEs which are clunky to use, the combo levels from Combat Readiness being used immediately, and Crushing Uppercut being loaded with penalties."

 

The small, annoying to use AoEs I agree with, but Spinning Strike is the real culprit there since combo level 0 Sweeping Cross is the same area and damage as Jacob's Ladder; the single target attacks are a common recharge pattern and although having an extra single targer attack instead of a mez/utility/3rd AoE power seems to hurt the set's potential it also offers additional ways to build combo levels; and the only penalty on Crushing Uppercut is the recharge - it costs less endurance than it should for it's combo level 0 damage (3.18), costing 14.35 when it should cost 16.54 for the damage (14.35 is what a 15-second recharge, scale 2.76 damage attack should cost). Even when reducing the recharge to 20 seconds it should still do more damage (3.56), but it should also cost more endurance (18.512). At 17 seconds recharge it would be Devastating Blow with a faster animation: scale 3.08, 16.02 endurance. All of the other powers follow the standard damage formula at combo level 0, so any additional damage from carrying a combo level is a bonus, which is why it costs you something (in this case, your combo points).

 

As you can likely guess, I disagree that having finishers build combo levels while still receiving higher performance (at the same recharge and endurance cost) is necessary or balanced (thus my assumption earlier about only having combo level 3), but the double combo gains under Combat Readiness is something I support, I agree that there shouldn't be two single target attacks in the set with the same recharge/damage (Martial Arts has this problem also), and the recharge on Crushing Uppercut should be brought down to 20 seconds - although any other buffs to the power should result in bringing the endurance cost in line, because the discount is what I'm using to justify the higher-than-it-should-be recharge.

 

Edit to add: supporting the recharge reduction on Crushing Uppercut, at combo level 3, it does scale 3.975 damage. That would put it at a recharge of 22.59375 and endurance cost of 20.67 if it used the standard damage formula. The recharge for it is too high even if it's always used at level 3 (although it costs far less endurance than it should at that damage). Combo level 2 is a touch over the theoretical scale 3.56 "standard 20 second recharge attack" with 18.512 end cost that many other sets have.

Edited November 6, 2020 by siolfir

[Vanden]

21 minutes ago, siolfir said:

I'm aware that the level would reset, but you could still build combo level 3 using nothing but finishers, which would currently leave you at combo level 0 forever. I also don't think that it actually addresses the complaints you mention in your OP - "weak single target attacks, small AoEs which are clunky to use, the combo levels from Combat Readiness being used immediately, and Crushing Uppercut being loaded with penalties."

When I say the AoEs are annoying to use, it's because they are finishers. You want to avoid using them before combo level 3, which is an incentive to not use them. Making them builders and spenders is directly targeted at that, letting you use them both in quick succession without feeling like you're hamstringing yourself. It just doesn't feel good when it seems like the game is punishing you for wanting to use your AoEs as much as possible in AoE-ideal situations, when the AoEs are already so small to begin with by design.

 

As for using nothing but the finishers, their recharge is far too long to make a full attack chain out of just them, and even if you tried, you'd still want to pay attention to when you're using CU, lest you use it below level 2 and end up with the damage penalty.

[Vanden]

22 hours ago, siolfir said:

I would rather see the power changes proliferated across all ATs that have access to the power.

 

This means that Stalkers, who do not get Rib Cracker or Combat Readiness, would automatically be excluded, but would be able to receive the increased damage (and recharge/endurance) from Shin Breaker, and everyone gets the 20 second recharge - which is still too high for its base damage - on Crushing Uppercut. The double gains on combo levels during Combat Readiness would make up for Assassin's Strike's providing two combo levels.

Sorry for the late reply to this; anyway, I totally see where you're coming from here, and I do agree with you to an extent. But with Street Justice, I don't think you can ignore just what a big deal Assassin's Strike is for the Stalker version. Unlike almost every Stalker set where they trade AoE damage for single-target damage (in a few cases AoE control for single-target damage), Stalkers lose a weak single-target attack for a strong single target attack. The set sacrifices practically nothing in the Stalker conversion, and it's a huge buff, akin to when Clobber in War Mace got its big damage. They do lose the -res in Rib Cracker, but that's trivial. I could see allowing Scrappers to get in on reducing the recharge of CU instead of excluding them like I did in my OP, but Assassin's Strike is too big a factor in the Stalker version to not consider it when buffing the set's single-target powers.

[siolfir]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

Sorry for the late reply to this; anyway, I totally see where you're coming from here, and I do agree with you to an extent. But with Street Justice, I don't think you can ignore just what a big deal Assassin's Strike is for the Stalker version. Unlike almost every Stalker set where they trade AoE damage for single-target damage (in a few cases AoE control for single-target damage), Stalkers lose a weak single-target attack for a strong single target attack. The set sacrifices practically nothing in the Stalker conversion, and it's a huge buff, akin to when Clobber in War Mace got its big damage. They do lose the -res in Rib Cracker, but that's trivial. I could see allowing Scrappers to get in on reducing the recharge of CU instead of excluding them like I did in my OP, but Assassin's Strike is too big a factor in the Stalker version to not consider it when buffing the set's single-target powers.

If you think Stalkers have it so much better that they shouldn't receive any changes, then only play the set on Stalkers and then you won't need any buffs, right?

 

After all, "some sets just perform better on some ATs than others."

 

So yeah, hit all the ATs or none of them, and enough of the favoritism BS.

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, siolfir said:

If you think Stalkers have it so much better that they shouldn't receive any changes, then only play the set on Stalkers and then you won't need any buffs, right?

 

After all, "some sets just perform better on some ATs than others."

 

So yeah, hit all the ATs or none of them, and enough of the favoritism BS.

I think maybe you should take a breath and give yourself a moment to think, here.

[siolfir]

6 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I think maybe you should take a breath and give yourself a moment to think, here.

I had a longer reply written out that ended up erased to summarize. Stating that "Assassin's Strike makes the set too good for Stalkers to receive any other buffs" is ignoring the whole point that Assassin's Strike is supposed to make the set good for single target damage to account for other tradeoffs in the AT - notably, power choices in both primary and secondary sets, fewer hit points, and - compared to Scrappers - lower base damage and lower self-buff modifiers. They surpass Scrapper single target damage because of Assassin's Strike, so using that to exclude them is... well, favoritism is the wrong term because it's not just one "favorite" AT but certainly discriminatory against them.

 

So yes, I think someone should take a breath and think about what they're saying. I just don't think it's me.

[Vanden]

16 minutes ago, siolfir said:

"Assassin's Strike makes the set too good for Stalkers to receive any other buffs"

Not what I said.

17 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Assassin's Strike is supposed to make the set good for single target damage to account for other tradeoffs in the AT

The salient point is that for Street Justice, and Street Justice alone, there is virtually no tradeoff for gaining Assassin's Strike. Every other Stalker primary loses some AoE damage or survivability in the conversion, but Street Justice only loses a small, single-target, short-duration -res debuff that starts weak and only gets weaker with the purple patch. Street Justice is also the only set that has a power that can hit harder than Hidden Assassin's Strike, in the entire game, but only in the hands of Stalkers and Scrappers. These kinds of considerations are not unprecedented; Total Focus's reduced critical damage has been in the game since it was ported to Stalkers in issue 6, and the changes in beta now are upholding them. I believe any buffs to Street Justice warrant the same kind of considerations.

[Razor Cure]

On 11/7/2020 at 7:38 AM, Vanden said:

And its heaviest hitter, Crushing Uppercut, is saddled with penalties to compensate for its damage on critting ATs.

Which still wont be as much of a 'penalty' as Total Focus or Energy Transfer. Not that I disagree with your point, but..if an attack needs changing just for a specific AT, something may be wrong.

On 11/7/2020 at 7:38 AM, Vanden said:

The AoEs are very small, and clunky to use because of the combo system.

True. But MA also says Hi. Sure, Eagle's Claw is becoming a cone/aoe (whichever, it makes NO sense that a targetted kick to the face somehow hits other people) but is also one of the few (only?) melee sets without a cone attack. Granted, DT is easier to use than SPinning Strike (which would be WAY better as just made into a pbaoe).

 

I like your changes. I'd suggest locking COmbo Level to 3, for the duration of CR. That would mirror the way Momentum works in TW (which would be waaay worse if you only got to fire off one powered up attack).

Also, given how energy melee now gets the Focus thingy, and TW gets momentum, both ON a miss, StJ (and also water blast) really should get their combo tic on a miss as well.

 

 

[Vanden]

18 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

True. But MA also says Hi. Sure, Eagle's Claw is becoming a cone/aoe (whichever, it makes NO sense that a targetted kick to the face somehow hits other people) but is also one of the few (only?) melee sets without a cone attack. Granted, DT is easier to use than SPinning Strike (which would be WAY better as just made into a pbaoe).

Well, I haven't played Martial Arts since before they buffed the damage on Crippling Axe Kick, which I think is like two or three set buffs ago, so I don't really feel qualified to talk about how to buff MA as a whole. Street Justice, though, I've played a lot.

[Moka]

I was about to say street justice doesn't feel very weak to me but I play it on a stalker paired with bio armor. I noticed a considerable difference when swapping to say, willpower brute.

[Vanden]

Bump for some math.

 

Now, Rib Cracker doesn't just do damage, it's also a debuff. It does -Damage and -Resistance (the former of which I didn't even know about, which, considering I've played two StJ Brutes to 50, should tell you how effective it is). The -Resistance is 7.5% and lasts for 5 seconds, so let's calculate how much damage it could add.

 

Suppose on a Scrapper you land Rib Cracker on a target, and then follow it up with the three strongest attacks you can land in the 5-second debuff window, which would be Crushing Uppercut, Shin Breaker and Sweeping Cross (maybe*). Crushing Uppercut is used at combo level 3, and all three follow-up attacks also miraculously get critical hits. The extra damage from Rib Cracker would be as follows:

 

Crushing Uppercut: (3.975 + 3.18) * 0.075 = 0.536625

Shin Breaker: (1.64 * 2) * 0.075 = 0.246

Sweeping Cross: (1.575 + 1.5) * 0.075 = 0.230625

 

Rib Cracker itself does scale 1.32 damage, so the total damage from Rib Cracker and the extra damage its debuff provides is 1.32 + 0.536625 + 0.246 + 0.230625 = 2.33325. Meanwhile, Assassin's Strike outside of Hidden with no critical does scale 2.5 damage. In other words, StJ Scrappers using Rib Cracker with the most ideal circumstances will still do less damage than StJ Stalkers will at the baseline. To be clear, I'm not posting this because I want StJ Stalkers to be nerfed; I'm posting this because I want StJ to be buffed, but it should be done in such a way as to avoid making StJ Stalkers too much stronger.

 

*What with Arcanatime and the difference between power activation times and the point in the animation times where damage and debuffs are applied, I'm not 100% sure it's actually possible to land all three attacks before the debuff wears off. I'm being generous and assuming you can, but using Sweeping Cross instead of Spinning Strike because the former is faster.

[ClawsandEffect]

My best Scrapper is a Street Justice/Bio. I haven't felt like he's "weak" at all. 

 

Buff it if you want, but it's hardly the set that needs it. That would be Broadsword. 

[Grindingsucks]

I agree with  ClawsandEffect.  I've had several StJ scrappers (and tanks and brutes, besides).  It's one of my favorite sets.  I don't feel like it needs a buff at all. 

[Haijinx]

I'm curious why Street Justice has an underpowered build up power.

 

The combo system doesn't seem like its strong enough that it needed that reduction. 

[Sarrate]

I have a mid 40s Rad/StJ Tanker, but it's been a while since I've played her. I mostly played solo, with some duoing / TFs sprinkled in there. I'd agree that AoEs tied to combo points is annoying while solo, but a bigger nuisance while in groups. That said I think your suggestion has some serious ramifications:

 

On 11/6/2020 at 12:38 PM, Vanden said:

Sweeping Cross, Spinning Strike, Crushing Uppercut

• Using these powers at combo level 2 or lower now builds combo, rather than spending it. Combo level is still reset when using them at level 3.
• This allows finishers to be used more freely in combat, especially valuable considering all of the set's AoE is in finisher attacks.

 

If finishers can build combo points, that means that the default builders are now less useful. Why use, Initial Strike, when you could just use Sweeping Cross for more damage, AoE, and still build combo points? It makes them redundant. The higher recharge you have, the less and less useful builders would be. That seems like a mistake.

 

Just making them not consume combo points seems like a better idea, but that'd raise the possibility of "build 2 combo points, use Sweeping Cross, Spinning Strike, builder to 3, Crushing Uppercut," leading to finishers benefiting too much from each built Combo Point.

 

 

Here are a few (not fully baked) alternate suggestions to consider:

* Raise the limit of Combo Points from 3 to something higher, like 5. Spenders would still only ever get buffed up to lvl3 and would only ever consume 3 points. So if you built up 4 Combo Points, then used a finisher, you'd end up with 1 Combo Point. This way you could save a finisher / user a builder without wasting it.

* Make Combo Points decay slower (it's only something like 10 seconds, I think?) and/or decay individually (instead of going from 3 to 0, it'd tick down from 3, to 2, to 1, etc). This way, it would be easier to start the next fight with greater than 0 combo points.

* Make Spinning Strike a pbaoe instead of a targeted aoe. I'm someone who really enjoys playing with cones and lining them up, but Spinning Strike's targetted aoe just feels bad. It won't hit as many enemies behind me as other AoEs would, and repositioning won't hit more enemies like a cone would. (This is not really related to the subject at hand, but still... :P)

[Vanden]

3 hours ago, Sarrate said:

If finishers can build combo points, that means that the default builders are now less useful. Why use, Initial Strike, when you could just use Sweeping Cross for more damage, AoE, and still build combo points?

I guess the same reason you'd use Gambler's Cut instead of Flashing Steel or Smite instead of Shadow Maul.

[Sarrate]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

I guess the same reason you'd use Gambler's Cut instead of Flashing Steel or Smite instead of Shadow Maul.

  If Flashing Steel or Shadow Maul's DPA were high enough, then high performing builds would always eschew the single target in favor of the cone, even against single targets. Here is a list of DPA (and DPE for good measure) of all Street Justice powers (Tanker numbers):

 

Power	Dmg	Cast	End	DPA	DPE
Initial Strike	44.38	1.056	4.37	42.027	10.156
Heavy Blow	61.28	1.32	5.03	46.424	12.183
Rib Cracker	69.74	1.584	6.86	44.028	10.166
Shin Breaker	86.64	1.584	8.53	54.697	10.157
Sweeping Cross 0	79.24	1.848	8.53	42.879	9.290
Sweeping Cross 1	83.21	1.848	8.53	45.027	9.755
Sweeping Cross 2	91.13	1.848	8.53	49.313	10.683
Sweeping Cross 3	103	1.848	8.53	55.736	12.075
Spinning Strike 0	81.36	1.98	15.18	41.091	5.360
Spinning Strike 1	86.43	1.98	15.18	43.652	5.694
Spinning Strike 2	91.12	1.98	15.18	46.020	6.003
Spinning Strike 3	101.7	1.98	15.18	51.364	6.700
Crushing Uppercut 0	168	2.376	14.35	70.707	11.707
Crushing Uppercut 1	176.4	2.376	14.35	74.242	12.293
Crushing Uppercut 2	188.2	2.376	14.35	79.209	13.115
Crushing Uppercut 3	210	2.376	14.35	88.384	14.634

 

Sweeping Cross is better than Initial Strike in every single way, even at 0 Combo Points. Sweeping Cross out performs Rib Cracker at 1 (ignoring the res debuff), and better than Heavy Blow at 2 Combo Points. If you hit more than one target, it blows the rest out of the water. Even Spinning Strike, a pure AoE, beats out everything but Shin Breaker at 2 Combo Points (while admittedly being ruinous to endurance on a single target, but besting all but Heavy Blow when hitting 2).

 

With a modest +100% recharge, Sweeping Cross could be used once every spender, even with the shortest string (Initial, Sweeping, Initial, Spinning). An actual string would probably look more like Shin, Rib, Sweeping, Crushing. Or maybe Sweeping, Rib, Spinning, Crushing, or something like that (in AoE when Spinning is up).

 

The main reason builders are used is to buff up the spenders, but if the spenders also build, then the spenders will get sidelined whenever possible. I think it would make spenders scale too strongly and cause their scaling to be squished, further diluting the mechanics.

 

You won't hear me say that the Combo Point limitation can be a drag at times, but I think your proposal has too many other ramifications.