Questions regarding Ion Judgement

[Techwright]

I've a couple of questions regarding Ion Judgement.  I've taken this on several of my Incarnate characters, doing so because the descriptions seemed pretty straight forward.  However, the damage results don't "feel" right.  I say "feel" because I'm not normally one to drill down into the mathematics. 

 

I understand from both the final judgement descriptions that the damage delivered should be extreme.  However, the results seem to pare down NPC opponents health meters about the same as a minor or possibly moderate attack by another power.  For those who love studying the underlying math without getting a headache, it is indeed hitting for extreme damage?  Or is there something else going on I'm understanding?  Additionally, on those selections that offer an endurance drain, it doesn't feel like it is doing much.  Again, are there figures to show the potency?

 

And then the big question:  Can someone explain the two final judgement options with more precise information?  Statements like "Has a chance to..." don't really define something for me.  Like, is that chance 90% or 5%, or some other, possibly a tight range?   Likewise, statements like "drains endurance" doesn't clue me in to the actual percentage or range of chance.  Also, if there are AT's that better fit one or the other of Ion Core Final Judgement or Ion Radial Final Judgement, I'd love to know which and the why, if possible.

 

Thanks in advance for any clarification you can provide!!

[Glacier Peak]

I picked up the T4 Cryonic Judgement on my Ice/Cold Corruptor main for theme and thought it's chance for hold would pair well. It's a cone attack with great range, but it doesn't do much in the damage category. And the hold rarely added much unless I was soloing AVs. I decided to switch to T4 Pyronic Judgement and haven't looked back since. T4 Ion Judgment is great on my farmer for adding a little bit of damage to a lot of enemies, like over the target cap I normally hit of 16 enemies. Haven't tried any others and I don't have much insight to the math either 😕 

[Lazarillo]

All the Judgement powers hit for more or less the same amount.  That amount is just below what it would take to one-shot an even-level minion at level 50; when you factor in difficulty scaling up levels, and the like, that goes just a little lower, too.  (though FWIW, the damage is buffed by a Musculature or certain Intuition Alphas, making it go above the necessary threshold).  But the thing about adjectival damage descriptors, however, is that they don't correspond to anything specific.  One AT's "moderate" might be another's "extreme".  It's just kinda the nature of the beast.

 

Now, that all said, you can right click on the powers for info, and then shift over to the "Detailed" tab, which will give you hard and specific numbers for most powers (Judgements included, AFAIK).  That can perhaps help you make your decision.  You'll see specific damage numbers, % chances for secondary effects, etc.

[Glacier Peak]

Also this:

 

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

[arcane]

They certainly do Extreme damage. Remember they do those hundreds of points of damage without any enhancements...

[Grindingsucks]

The only ones I've used are the mighty and ion ones.  Each is a potent AOE that does hundreds of damage (something like 250 to 350, iirc) to everything within range.  The ion one is particularly effective, as it can jump to a lot of targets.

 

Given how ridiculously powerful fully IO'ed characters are at lvl 50+, it may not seem like that big of a boost to you.  I would say it's just more power creep heaped upon already excessive power creep.  Then again, this is why I'm concentrating on play the lvl 30's, these days.  🤷‍♂️

 

I suppose what constitutes balance is somewhat subjective, in any event.

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, arcane said:

They certainly do Extreme damage. Remember they do those hundreds of points of damage without any enhancements...

Ah, so the problem of my thinking is that it would damage multiple targets at extreme levels each, while what it is doing is attacking multiple targets with a single extreme damage value spread over multiple targets?

[Grindingsucks]

Well, again- extreme is a non-specific descriptor.  That descriptor is not really helpful in terms of visualizing numbers- especially since there is not exact number value for "extreme".  It varies between sets and even powers within sets.

 

Honestly, I wish they would just get rid of the word descriptors altogether (since they serve no useful purpose and, in fact, are actually misleading) and just openly state the actual numbers.

 

If you want to know precisely how much damage, resistance, defense, etc. any given power provides, you need to use City of Data:  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/index.html

 

 

[arcane]

9 hours ago, Techwright said:

Ah, so the problem of my thinking is that it would damage multiple targets at extreme levels each, while what it is doing is attacking multiple targets with a single extreme damage value spread over multiple targets?

No - it literally does hundreds of points of damage to every single target. Extreme damage to every single target. The only reason it seems slightly less extreme than, say, Inferno, is that it is not benefitting from enhancements and aim/build up. Nothing weak about Judgements at all.

[siolfir]

Backing up @arcane and @Grindingsucks on this, you can look at the effects for Ionic Judgement on City of Data here: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=incarnate.ion_judgement

 

Each one of power descriptions includes this little bit (with other side effects and chances based on which path):

Some paths have a 20% chance for "critical" damage, some have a chance for a mag 4 hold, but every version of Ionic Judgement does an unslotted 428.3588 energy damage to each target hit. This value doesn't vary between ATs because it uses a modifier that is the same for all of them.

 

Now let's compare that to a Blaster's Thunderous Blast:

187.6845 + 62.5615 = 250.246 unslotted damage. So Ionic Judgement does 71% more then a Blaster's nuke, for all ATs.

 

It also does more than an unslotted slow Assassin's Strike (389.2714 total in PvE):

 

If you think that the damage is "meh" blame the rest of your build.

[arcane]

Right.. I thought someone might just prove me wrong, and it was the middle of the night, but I thought about adding “can anyone even tell me a single power that does more base damage than Judgements?”

 

Since the OP was also asking about percent chances for secondary effects, which are already plainly visible with a simple “Right Click -> Get Info”, I assume this was just an error in his perception, likely based on comparing slotted/buffed attacks to Judgement base damage, aka apples and oranges.

 

To the OP: to give you a little more information about Core vs. Radial, I will say that I personally always take Core on damage-centric AT’s, but I consider Radial on Support AT’s *if* the secondary effect synergizes with my build. AKA Ion Radial would be more attractive to pair with Electrical Affinity, Cryonic Radial more attractive with Ice Control/Cold Domination, etc. Void Radial and Vorpal Radial are reasonably attractive if you want to shore up your defenses in tough fights. But for the majority of all cases? Core (Damage) is king.

[siolfir]

18 hours ago, arcane said:

I thought about adding “can anyone even tell me a single power that does more base damage than Judgements?”

If you're basing it on single activation clicks that players can use, Blizzard (on a Corruptor) has an unslotted potential of 667.7092 if all ticks hit and all ticks Scourge. It's a special case, though, since it's a rain and those actually Scourge properly - the other Corruptor nukes don't Scourge for full damage.

 

For comparison's sake, Blizzard (on a Blaster) is 417.075 if all ticks hit, and Inferno (with all DoT ticks) does 419.1625, which is probably the closest a player can get without including special conditions like Scourge. The nukes did more damage in i23 before the crash was removed - they do scale 4 damage now (scale 6.7 for Inferno) and used to do 4.25-4.875 with Inferno doing scale 7.44354. I want to say that for Blizzard each tick was doing 6.78 damage vs 5.56, but the webarchive didn't grab pet information. Inferno would have surpassed Judgement damage then, too: scale 7.44354 for a Blaster is 465.679 damage.

 

I didn't look very hard specifically to look for any but there are several powers that do significantly more base damage in the game than Judgements, but I don't think you really meant about mob or object powers rather than things the players can use.

 

[arcane]

55 minutes ago, siolfir said:

If you're basing it on single activation clicks that players can use, Blizzard (on a Corruptor) has an unslotted potential of 667.7092 if all ticks hit and all ticks Scourge. It's a special case, though, since it's a rain and those actually Scourge properly - the other Corruptor nukes don't Scourge for full damage.

 

For comparison's sake, Blizzard (on a Blaster) is 417.075 if all ticks hit, and Inferno (with all DoT ticks) does 419.1625, which is probably the closest a player can get without including special conditions like Scourge. The nukes did more damage in i23 before the crash was removed - they do scale 4 damage now (scale 6.7 for Inferno) and used to do 4.25-4.875 with Inferno doing scale 7.44354. I want to say that for Blizzard each tick was doing 6.78 damage vs 5.56, but the webarchive didn't grab pet information. Inferno would have surpassed Judgement damage then, too: scale 7.44354 for a Blaster is 465.679 damage.

 

I didn't look very hard specifically to look for any but there are several powers that do significantly more base damage in the game than Judgements, but I don't think you really meant about mob or object powers rather than things the players can use.

 

Yeah I wasn’t intending to count NPC’s or crits - just the raw number a player gets reliably on any ole try. And the fact that we can’t just think of several examples off the top of our heads tells me the word “Extreme” belongs there 😉

[Carnifax]

10 minutes ago, arcane said:

Yeah I wasn’t intending to count NPC’s or crits - just the raw number a player gets reliably on any ole try. And the fact that we can’t just think of several examples off the top of our heads tells me the word “Extreme” belongs there 😉

Base I don't think so. If nukes and Tier 9 Blaster secondary / Stalker / Scrapper powers (which are of course mostly single target) can't manage it nothing can I reckon. 

 

Judgements are silly things.