How does BIO armor add +25% to Damage?

[Cyclops]

I started a toon and I was not given any options.

A post below said this was a way to even out with a Blaster damage wise?

 

Me no understand. How does this work?

[Zumberge]

Bio Armor has a power called Adaptation which gives you three toggle powers: Efficient, Offensive, and Defensive Adaptation.  Offensive is probably the one you're wondering about; when active it increases your damage at the cost of slightly reduced resistance.  You get it relatively early, so don't worry.

[Cyclops]

Ah, OK thanks!

[Tankshock]

Worth noting that Defensive has a -25% debuff to damage.

[Knottewe]

It's actually more than 25%.

 

The first power (Hardened Carapace?) gives a 25% damage buff while offensive adaption is active.

 

Offensive Adaption itself adds 15-20% (I haven't paid enough attention to get the exact number) extra damage as toxic damage to all your attacks.

[Cyclops]

So a Sentinel could as effective as a Blaster?

[marcussmythe]

It's actually more than 25%.

 

The first power (Hardened Carapace?) gives a 25% damage buff while offensive adaption is active.

 

Offensive Adaption itself adds 15-20% (I haven't paid enough attention to get the exact number) extra damage as toxic damage to all your attacks.

 

I was familiar with the first - will have to test the second with brawl or the like.  If its adding to all attacks, Im going to have to strongly consider Bioarmor (built to live in offensive stance) as my generic ‘I want a damage buff from my defensive power pool’ choice.

[Tankshock]

Defensive has a -25% debuff to damage.  Offensive has a +25% buff, so a 50% swing between the 2.  I'm not aware of an additional 15-20% buff.

[Novacat]

You'll notice if you look at the combat logs, a tick of toxic damage gets added, dealt by "your offensive adaptation".

So there's the 25% damage bonus as seen in the combat attributes, and that tick which seems to go entirely unmentioned anywhere in the power or data views.

 

But it's there:

You blast Button Man Buckshot with your Aqua Bolt for 21.88 points of Smashing damage and reduce their defense!

You drench Button Man Buckshot with your Aqua Bolt for 65.66 points of Cold damage.

Your Opportunity lowers Button Man Buckshot's resistance and defence for a short time.

Your Offensive Adaptation hits for 13.82 points of Toxic damage!

[marcussmythe]

Hmmmm.... This requires further testing, ideally with an unslotted power and no other buffs against a target with known (ideally 0) resists.

 

Maybe a brawl, unslotted, against an even-con minion of known 0 resist, in 'efficient', offensive, and defensive stance, and check the log to make sure its not coming from anywhere else?  Something is weird here.  My only character with Bioarmor is a Brute, so fury would mess this up for testing...

[Knottewe]

I went and punched something for you.

 

I didn't look for the ideal test subject for my beatings, a level 20 council Lt was all I had handy.

 

In offensive  brawl hit for 18.14 smashing and 6.85 toxic.

In efficient brawl hit for 14.51 smashing.

In defensive brawl hit for 10.88 smashing and healed me for 1 hp.

 

Also in the description of offensive adaption it states that "many of your powers will inflict a minor amount of toxic damage"

[marcussmythe]

I went and punched something for you.

 

I didn't look for the ideal test subject for my beatings, a level 20 council Lt was all I had handy.

 

In offensive  brawl hit for 18.14 smashing and 6.85 toxic.

In efficient brawl hit for 14.51 smashing.

In defensive brawl hit for 10.88 smashing and healed me for 1 hp.

 

Also in the description of offensive adaption it states that "many of your powers will inflict a minor amount of toxic damage"

 

Hmm.  Thats exactly the expected +/- 25% to base damage from the stance.  So working as expected there.

 

Its also an odd, and very high, 47% of the brawl base damage as additional toxic damage.  That is unexpected.  It may be a smaller percentage than that and appearing larger due to a target having resist to smashing but not toxic - but Ill lay that aside a moment.

 

My anticipation is that the minor amount of additional toxic damage is not a % of the attacks bqse damage, but arrived at in some other way - maybe just a flat ‘rider’ of additional damage.

 

If its a small fixed amount on the order of 5-10 points on all attacks, thats not going to prove noteworthy.  If its actually doing 47% of base as additional toxic damage when in offensive adaptation, I think we’d be hearing the screams of the dying already.  That would make offensive adaptation on par with Shield’s Against All Odds, without the need for a crowd (though carrying a hefty resistance penalty).

 

Thank you very much for this.  I regret I have only one influence to get.

 

If someone has an empty ‘second build’ and Bio Armor, on any AT (Sentinel, Scrapper, Tank preferred), Id love to get more data.

 

I need to get home, make a single damage type/bio armor and get it up to adaptation and run some thorough testing.

 

 

[Tankshock]

Wow, that's pretty big. Even if it's a spike, that certainly makes Bio more than just FoM.

[marcussmythe]

Wow, that's pretty big. Even if it's a spike, that certainly makes Bio more than just FoM.

 

The interesting thing will be where the amount of the total damage buff compares to a saturated AAO, and what overall mitigation looks like once you accept that you are planning around offensive stance.

[marcussmythe]

Preliminary testing looks like the ‘minor additional toxic damage’ is in the 20-25% ballpark.  Having trouble getting good numbers (Brute was being used for testing - and fury messes things up pretty badly).  Im PLing a TW/Bio Scrapper to Adaptation - and will try to get a PvP partner for testing - will report back.  Something strange was going on with brawl, for one thing.

[marcussmythe]

Okay, tested it on a SCRAPPER (I imagine numbers will be similar on a Sentinel)

 

On a Scrapper, Hardened Carapace while in Offensive Adaptation lists at and provides a damage bonus of 31.25% (if Sentinel is a lower number - Im not surprised, they tend to lower scrapper numbers for sentinels)

 

THEN the attack lists a separate toxic damage packet - across 3 attacks of differenet animation times, one an AOE (Followthrough, Crushign Blow, Titan Sweep) it appeared to be consistently within a fraction of 22%.  Theres a damned strange outlier - Brawl gets a much larger (percentage bonus wise) toxic damage bonus at around 47%.

 

Setting aside brawl, it looks like being in offensive stance is worth a solid 50% bonus damage (applied like a non-ED effected enhancement bonus).  For a Sentinel, Id guess its closer to 40% applied to the Sentinels already lower base - but thats still a no-joke bonus, even at 50 (and then it gets run through the Sentinel's Res Debuff.. Nummy!)

 

The cost of course is the -7.5% Resistance to your whole character.  While painful, if you account for it in selecting powers and playstyle choices, it looks like Bioarmor could be a huge bonus for 'offense focused' characters that (for whatever reason) do not choose Shield, Radiation, or Fire.

 

[Knottewe]

 

The cost of course is the -7.5% Resistance to your whole character.  While painful, if you account for it in selecting powers and playstyle choices, it looks like Bioarmor could be a huge bonus for 'offense focused' characters that (for whatever reason) do not choose Shield, Radiation, or Fire.

 

You are absolutely correct for the melee ATs but for a Sentinel Radiation and Fire (shield is not available) don't offer much beyond survivability. Fire is probably the better of the two with its 10% damage buff and aoes, although the aoes are pbaoe and pretty weak.