Bonuses and caps(Or why Fulcrum shift is half as effective as you'd expect)

[DrunkFlux]

Writing this  since when I run a search, I don't see anything on this topic.

 

So lets considering the following scenario.

 

Your a scrapper who reads your characters  damage  with that Claw strike doing 187 due to it  having a base of 100 and enhanced up to 87% damage, a fulcrum shift is cast, you see your damage buff is blue at 400%, but then you only do 500 damage.  What gives?  Shouldn't you do 935 damage(187*5)!?  Why is it lower?  To understand this better, we need to understand how stat bonuses work.

 

Or why a defender can hit  41% with power boost, clarion radial, and Farsight in Time manipulation, but a corruptor gets only 29%.  Shouldn't it be a LOT more for either of them?

 

This is a result of many power buff effects actually being cumulative, rather than multiplicative.

 

Lets say a defender casts fulcrum shift, and achieves a perfect cast (10 targets, and next to enemies), the actual effects from the damage up to the cap is calculated as follows:

 

Enhancements + Bonus damage

 

This is because enhancements count as bonus damage.  For simplicity I am using Enhancements + Bonus damage.

 

The defender has a damage cap of 300%(Technically 400%, counting baseline).   While you'd think with 85% enhanced damage to an attack with a baseline of 50 doing  92 damage suddenly only does 200 rather  than 368.  This is because the game is calculating the damage the power inflicts(before resistances and level difference) as follows:

 

50*(Enhanced damage + bonus damage).  If ignoring that your playing a defender, this translates to the following:

 

50*(1.85+3) = 245.5  However, with us playing a defender we have to account for the damage cap:  300% (added to baseline).  So, we are 85% over the cap, meaning it simply calculates the damage as follows:

 

50*4 = 200

 

In other words, the  game  is reducing our modified enhancement to 300%.

 

The same applies  with musculature.  Assuming we are only getting 30% from musculature (45*(2/3))

 

50*(2.15+3) = 275.5, the game reduces us to 200 because  it again reduces our modified enhancement  to 300%

 

How the  game  is programmed to do this, I admit I do not fully know.  But this effect is especially visible if you play a kin.

 

This effect is also why brute fury may not seem as powerful as you would think, or why damage buffs on a brute seem significantly less effective than on other archtypes unless stacked significantly more.  To compensate for the archtypes design of a lower base damage improved by fury, brutes have a higher damage cap than other damage focused archtypes.

 

Higher damage enhancement from musculature only means as a result it is easier to achieve the damage cap.  It will not raise your damage cap.

 

This same phenomena can be seen in other effects as well.

 

Clarion Radial, power  build up and power boost, while powerful in there own right, do not boost quite  as much as you expect and actually boost  in the same way enhancements do.

 

Accuracy bonuses from IO's on stacking only increase accuracy marginally  due to them being  added to enhanced accuracy.  Accuracy is based on Power Base Accuracy *(Accuracy enhancement + global bonuses + power bonuses).  Note that to-hit buffs are separate, and can greatly improve chances to hit.  This has been discussed in another post in greater detail.

 

Hasten cannot  achieve  permanent hasten due to cooldown cap being to low for it's cooldown to become shorter than it's duration.  This  is also resulted from enhancement IO bonuses and buffs only being added to it's enhanced recharge.    (Edit: It actually can, global recharge max is a bit higher  than I thought.  Extra Edit: Now that I think about it, this was Elude I was thinking of.)

 

Conserve Power only adds it's endurance reduction stat to the end reduct of each power it's effecting.   This is  still effecting effectively all of your powers however.

 

In short, do not assume that bonus damage is multiplying to your enhanced damage like it often does in other games. With any bonus effect, it's enhancement + bonus, rather than (power+enhancement)*bonus.  If it  was, we'd  be far far more overpowered, and damage numbers would be through the roof.

 

Also of  note:  Separate abilities providing actual defense/resistance stats do stack.  This is why many melee archtypes take fighting, leadership ect.  Resist cap for brutes/tankers is 90%, other AT's 75%.  Epics 85%.

 

Damage Cap for archtypes(Note: This is BUFF max, actual caps are 100% higher for archtypes):

300%(400%) (Defender, Dominator,, HEATS and VEATS(correct me if I am wrong on VEATS).  

400(500%)% Scrapper, Stalker, Blaster, Corruptor, Sentinel, Tanker

600%(700%) : Brute

 

 

Edit: I should make one clarification.  Incarnate powers are NOT effected by any kind of bonuses, be  it from powers or otherwise.  They are effected by most alpha slots except any recharge effects.

Additional Note: IO damage bonuses count as part of the same effects.  This is visible in combat attributes.

Edited March 2, 2021 by LaughingAlex
Moved Tanker to 400(500) category.

[macskull]

Wanted to address a few issues here:

2 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

Clarion Radial, power  build up and power boost, while powerful in there own right, do not boost quite  as much as you expect.

These are additive bonuses - they used to be multiplicative but that behavior was adjusted sometime last year. "Power Boost"-type powers basically add extra enhancement to aspects they affect which allows you to effectively bypass ED for slotting. If I had a power that granted 10% defense ED would cap that at about 16% (60% defense slotting). Now let's say I also had Power Boost (another 50%, to throw out a random number) and Clarion (another 50%) - my defense power would now give me (10*(1+0.6+0.5+0.5)) = 26% defense.

2 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

Accuracy bonuses from IO's on stacking only increase accuracy marginally  due to them being  added to enhanced accuracy.

Accuracy for player powers comes from three places - a power's inherent accuracy, slotting, and accuracy bonuses (from IOs or other powers). In order to get your final accuracy you 'd do the same sort of math I did in my defense example.

2 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

Hasten cannot  achieve  permanent hasten due to cooldown cap being to low for it's cooldown to become shorter than it's duration.  This  is also resulted from enhancement IO bonuses and buffs only being added to it's enhanced recharge.

This is untrue, you need about 110% recharge from non-Hasten sources to make Hasten recharge before its duration expires, assuming you have Hasten slotted with two 50+5 recharge IOs. The recharge cap is 400% - to determine if a power can be made "perma" take its base, unenhanced recharged and divide by 5 and if that number is longer than its duration it is not possible to have it recharge before its effects expire.

2 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

In short, do not assume that bonus damage is multiplying to your enhanced damage like it often does in other games. With any bonus effect, it's enhancement + bonus, rather than (power+enhancement)*bonus.  If it  was, we'd  be far far more overpowered, and damage numbers would be through the roof.

This is because enhancements are treated as buffs and are functionally identical to damage bonuses. It can be a bit confusing at first but once you realize everything modifies your base damage it's a bit simpler.

2 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

Damage Cap for archtypes:

300% (Defender, Dominator, Tanker, HEATS and VEATS(correct me if I am wrong on VEATS).  

400% Scrapper, Stalker, Blaster, Corruptor, Sentinel,

675% : Brute (Unless this was nerfed slightly? I know they cannot get as high as a scrapper anymore, even before crits)

These are actually 400% for Defenders, Dominators, HEATs/VEATs, 500% for Scrappers, Stalkers, Tankers, Blasters, Corruptors, Sentinels, and 700% for Brutes, but the number in your ingame combat attributes will turn blue at 100 points below that because your ingame numbers are tracking your damage bonus and you always start off at 100% damage (since it is possible for damage to be debuffed below its base value).

[DrunkFlux]

On that last part, I'm talking about the numbers shown in the combat attributes.  I'll correct my original post above.

 

On the point of hasten though I recall that was nerfed so it was no longer perma?

Edited February 25, 2021 by LaughingAlex

[macskull]

No, I think the only Hasten-specific nerf happened a looooooong time ago when they made it not stack with itself.

[DrunkFlux]

I'd have to check that part with hasten, thing  is I remember reading combat attributes, hasten adds additively with the IO bonuses.  I know that if you were 'somehow' to renew hasten before it ended it'd just renew itself.  I'll have to check later though(actually working atm, understand wanna get this accurate though, I see far to many people spreading misinformation about damage buffing).  I know that you can shorten it's cooldown with recharge enhancements.

 

Main point of my post is clarifying how power buffs and IO's interact with one another because of all the misinformation I see being spread.  I saw it twice which imo is twice to many times :P.

[macskull]

5 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

I'd have to check that part with hasten, thing  is I remember reading combat attributes, hasten adds additively with the IO bonuses.  I know that if you were 'somehow' to renew hasten before it ended it'd just renew itself.  I'll have to check later though(actually working atm, understand wanna get this accurate though, I see far to many people spreading misinformation about damage buffing).  I know that you can shorten it's cooldown with recharge enhancements.

 

Main point of my post is clarifying how power buffs and IO's interact with one another because of all the misinformation I see being spread.  I saw it twice which imo is twice to many times :P.

Almost everything in this game is additive. Hasten's recharge is affected by recharge bonuses (which includes Hasten itself) - it has a 450-second base recharge and a 120-second duration. Recharge time follows this formula:

RechargeTime = BaseRechargeTime / ( 100% + Buffs - Debuffs )

In order to make Hasten (or any power) recharge as soon as its duration expires we need RechargeTime to be equal to or less than its duration. We know everything in this equation except for what "Buffs" should be. RechargeTime is 120, BaseRechargeTime is 450, and we'll assume Debuffs is 0%, so after doing some algebra to get Buffs by itself you're left with Buffs equaling 2.75, or 275% total recharge enhancement. Obviously ED imposes a practical limit of about 95% recharge enhancement so we have to get the other 180% from somewhere else. Luckily, Hasten itself makes up 70% which means we only need another 110% from any other source - less if you have an alpha ability which reduces recharge since a portion of the alpha bonus ignores ED.

[Mr. Vee]

9 hours ago, LaughingAlex said:

I'd have to check that part with hasten

There's no need to check anything. There are plenty of us running around with dozens of perma-hasten characters.

[DrunkFlux]

On 2/25/2021 at 5:23 PM, macskull said:

Almost everything in this game is additive. Hasten's recharge is affected by recharge bonuses (which includes Hasten itself) - it has a 450-second base recharge and a 120-second duration. Recharge time follows this formula:

RechargeTime = BaseRechargeTime / ( 100% + Buffs - Debuffs )

In order to make Hasten (or any power) recharge as soon as its duration expires we need RechargeTime to be equal to or less than its duration. We know everything in this equation except for what "Buffs" should be. RechargeTime is 120, BaseRechargeTime is 450, and we'll assume Debuffs is 0%, so after doing some algebra to get Buffs by itself you're left with Buffs equaling 2.75, or 275% total recharge enhancement. Obviously ED imposes a practical limit of about 95% recharge enhancement so we have to get the other 180% from somewhere else. Luckily, Hasten itself makes up 70% which means we only need another 110% from any other source - less if you have an alpha ability which reduces recharge since a portion of the alpha bonus ignores ED.

 

Maybe I misread somewhere then.  Because I knew on LIVE it could be perma, but heard somewhere it couldn't be anymore.

[Mr. Vee]

Are you sure they weren't talking about enhancement diversification making it so it could no longer be made perma just by adding recharge to the power itself? There are quite a lot of folks who still complain about 2005 changes.

[Erratic1]

4 hours ago, Mr. Vee said:

Are you sure they weren't talking about enhancement diversification making it so it could no longer be made perma just by adding recharge to the power itself? There are quite a lot of folks who still complain about 2005 changes.

That wouldn't have gotten you to perma, just really close.

 

450/120=3.75 

3.75-1 (base) - 2 (6 slot Recharge Reduction pre-ED) - 0.7 (Hasten) = 0.05

 

With 3.7 (base + 6 slot Recharge Reduction + Hasten for 120 seconds) you'd convert 120s to 444a worth of Hasten's 450s base cooldown, leaving you 6 seconds short.

 

I got to perma-Hasten on my Rad Defender at the end of that first month of live but  had Accelerate Metabolism to add another 30% to Recharge.

[Mr. Vee]

Ah, I didn't start playing til '08. So much disproportionate grumbling about ed/perma hasten if it took another source of +rech 😄