So, procs...

[Mezmera]

8 hours ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

then mission accomplished

 

While I do appreciate the "different" you bring to the conversation I can't let you off where there's a clear instance where you're wrong.  If any such instance should pass it would undermine all of your arguments, like how Iron Man is the bad guy of the Avengers universe and such, love the fun reads of yours, but it is "then" in this instance.  😜

 

I don't think the OP is advocating for your support character to become useless with a change to procs.  Rather they will become more important with support having to do their thing to keep teammates alive through actually buffing and debuffing with having enemies survive a spike to hit back.  

Edited July 18, 2021 by Mezmera

[Marbing]

6 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Mids screenshots are not... exactly... good reference material. As you've said the comparison made is not flattering to begin with. Then you don't account that with your slotting Acid Arrow has a 47% chance for each proc to go off. Not for -all- of them to go off. 47% per proc. Which means the odds are reduced of having all four happening. On the other hand the Fireball will always do that damage.

 

So since it's 47% we could say there's a 50% chance of only two procs going off (Bopper, don't look, I'm butchering math!). Now that Acid Arrow is doing 74 damage while the dominator is still chugging at 125 per cast, all casts.

 

 

To be clear I'm not on either side in particular, but I do caution about glib comparing of numbers. I urge testing for these things. Find a nice group of +0 enemies (in the name of easy testing despite skewing things) and hover out of the way casting that skill until all are dead then report. That Acid Arrow is just -not- going to be doing a Dominator's Fireball damage.

So, you see that 34 next to each damage type in his screenshot? Under Acid Arrow: Where it says Lethal(34), Fire(34), Energy(34), Negative(34), etc? Each of those procs are 3.5 PPM to do 71.75 damage. Mids calculates chance for proc into the damage equation for you, 47% of 71.75 is 34 damage on average. If ALL FOUR went off it would be 71.75x4 + 0.31x21 (toxic), which would be 293 damage for that ONE hit, not the 142.4 that you are seeing in the screenshot. Just an FYI.

 

So, you are right, they wont all go off at once, but it looks like Mids already accounts for that in the damage calculations. I agree that LIVE testing needs to be performed, but I am willing to bet those numbers are a bit closer than you think they are. 

[oedipus_tex]

5 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Mids screenshots are not... exactly... good reference material. As you've said the comparison made is not flattering to begin with. Then you don't account that with your slotting Acid Arrow has a 47% chance for each proc to go off. Not for -all- of them to go off. 47% per proc. Which means the odds are reduced of having all four happening. On the other hand the Fireball will always do that damage.

 

So since it's 47% we could say there's a 50% chance of only two procs going off (Bopper, don't look, I'm butchering math!). Now that Acid Arrow is doing 74 damage while the dominator is still chugging at 125 per cast, all casts.

 

 

To be clear I'm not on either side in particular, but I do caution about glib comparing of numbers. I urge testing for these things. Find a nice group of +0 enemies (in the name of easy testing despite skewing things) and hover out of the way casting that skill until all are dead then report. That Acid Arrow is just -not- going to be doing a Dominator's Fireball damage.

 

 

Can you explain what you mean by the numbers not being reliable? Not trolling, but I am not sure if you just mean that Mids itself miscalculates the proc damage. From past experience I've known to be somewhat offbase when you get into the extremes, but this isn't an extreme case.  If it's true then the reported number is significantly off I'd like to revise my glance methods. But just glancing at it, with each proc dealing 71.75 damage, if they go off about half the time, that's about an average of 36 extra damage per added proc, or 143 damage total, which looks basically correct. 

 

Also if we're talking about the chance of stuff not firing, we have to consider the reverse case: there's a chance all four procs could go off at once. If they do, each one does 71.75 damage, for a total of 287 damage from procs. It might seem like this wouldn't happen often, but I believe each proc roll independently for every enemy struck in this power. If you are blasting 16 enemies every 18 or so seconds then you're likely to see a number of situations where both none of the procs and all of the procs fire.

[Sovera]

3 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Can you explain what you mean by the numbers not being reliable? Not trolling, but I am not sure if you just mean that Mids itself miscalculates the proc damage. From past experience I've known to be somewhat offbase when you get into the extremes, but this isn't an extreme case.  If it's true then the reported number is significantly off I'd like to revise my glance methods. But just glancing at it, with each proc dealing 71.75 damage, if they go off about half the time, that's about an average of 36 extra damage per added proc, or 143 damage total, which looks basically correct. 

 

Also if we're talking about the chance of stuff not firing, we have to consider the reverse case: there's a chance all four procs could go off at once. If they do, each one does 71.75 damage, for a total of 287 damage from procs. It might seem like this wouldn't happen often, but I believe each proc roll independently for every enemy struck in this power. If you are blasting 16 enemies every 18 or so seconds then you're likely to see a number of situations where both none of the procs and all of the procs fire.

 

What I meant (though @th0ughtGun corrected me) was that the procs wouldn't all go off at the same time so the damage tooltip would be misleading. Apparently Mids takes this in consideration and calculates an average. I confess I wasn't aware it even did this.

 

But I'll stick to my guns for a while longer and say that testing is still something more comfortable to present than maths.

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

 

What I meant (though @th0ughtGun corrected me) was that the procs wouldn't all go off at the same time so the damage tooltip would be misleading. Apparently Mids takes this in consideration and calculates an average. I confess I wasn't aware it even did this.

 

But I'll stick to my guns for a while longer and say that testing is still something more comfortable to present than maths.

If you have a 47% proc rate, each proc will do 71.75x0.47=33.72 damage on average is all you need to know basically.

[oedipus_tex]

What arcane and thoughtgun mentioned is my understanding as well.

 

Another thing to note about the Dominator Fireball to Controller Acid Arrow comparison is that it was showing the two powers in a vacuum. Acid Arrow didn't have any recharge applied to it, but Fireball did, which is why it looked like they were closer in damage. But when you add Global recharge to the build you can get Acid Arrow up really quickly without affecting its proc rate. Here it is on a what I consider relatively easy to achieve +70 global recharge with Hasten:

 

 

 

If you need something to fill in those gaps in your attack you can go with this:

 

 

 

That has a 90% chance to Hold a boss in one shot too, because of PPM.

 

I'm not whining about Trick Arrow being powerful, I'm excited for it. This is all just for situational awareness. The folks who say procs raise some eyebrows about intent aren't completely out of touch. I'll leave it up to the decision makers on whether this is in bounds.

Edited July 19, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[skoryy]

30 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

What arcane and thoughtgun mentioned is my understanding as well.

 

Another thing to note about the Dominator Fireball to Controller Acid Arrow comparison is that it was showing the two powers in a vacuum. Acid Arrow didn't have any recharge applied to it, but Fireball did, which is why it looked like they were closer in damage. But when you add Global recharge to the build you can get Acid Arrow up really quickly without affecting its proc rate. Here it is on a what I consider relatively easy to achieve +70 global recharge with Hasten:

 

 

 

If you need something to fill in those gaps in your attack you can go with this:

 

 

 

That has a 90% chance to Hold a boss in one shot too, because of PPM.

 

I'm not whining about Trick Arrow being powerful, I'm excited for it. This is all just for situational awareness. The folks who say procs raise some eyebrows about intent aren't completely out of touch. I'll leave it up to the decision makers on whether this is in bounds.

 

Accuracy: 55%?   I guess Kismet and Tactics would give you some boost but...

 

Added: That's some spicy end usage as well and Trick Arrow doesn't come with an end mod booster.  And you're probably going to avoid Carnies like a sewage plant regardless.

 

Basically, all that damage is coming at a cost just so you can keep up with a blaster.

Edited July 19, 2021 by skoryy

[Naraka]

47 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

Accuracy: 55%?   I guess Kismet and Tactics would give you some boost but...

 

Added: That's some spicy end usage as well and Trick Arrow doesn't come with an end mod booster.  And you're probably going to avoid Carnies like a sewage plant regardless.

 

Basically, all that damage is coming at a cost just so you can keep up with a blaster.

 

Do I need to repost the meme I made?  There are way too many options to cover Accuracy and Endurance usage.  That Controller merely has to pair with Earth Control and the Acc problem is resolved.  Slot out your Stamina and Health with uniques, pick up powers in epics that grant +End/recover, inspirations or merely use the remaining slots for END management/accuracy instead of recharge.  If teamed, there's a high chance some sort of +recovery will be in play and if not, It's a simple tactic to fall back on other duties  to conserve END.

 

Basically, there are far too many tools to overcome such costs to really be trying to pretend like it's a barrier to entry.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 hours ago, Naraka said:

Basically, there are far too many tools to overcome such costs to really be trying to pretend like it's a barrier to entry.

 

Goes back to my testing with my claws/bio scrapper. Sure, I can rework a great deal to cover the holes made by going procmonster instead of keeping set bonuses... or I can keep the set bonuses and stick with alpha-musc, dest-barrier and hybrid-assault and have a much more well rounded character while still pushing out high damage.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll continue procing the hell out of powers that are not supposed to do damage, cuz ... why not?

[skoryy]

7 hours ago, Naraka said:

 

Do I need to repost the meme I made?  There are way too many options to cover Accuracy and Endurance usage.  That Controller merely has to pair with Earth Control and the Acc problem is resolved.  Slot out your Stamina and Health with uniques, pick up powers in epics that grant +End/recover, inspirations or merely use the remaining slots for END management/accuracy instead of recharge.  If teamed, there's a high chance some sort of +recovery will be in play and if not, It's a simple tactic to fall back on other duties  to conserve END.

 

Basically, there are far too many tools to overcome such costs to really be trying to pretend like it's a barrier to entry.

 

So  now the Controller is losing damage to Earth Control, unless they've slotted those for procs, but then how are those hitting and wait a second.  APP end mods are nice, but they're not covering not having end mod enhancements, and chaining insps to keep your blue bar filled is some advanced high end macro button stuff that most players won't bother with.

 

If you're gonna go through all that silliness just to keep up in DPS, why not, y'know, just roll a blaster?

[nihilii]

Is that Mids proc rate for Acid Arrow accurate ingame? I'm always confused by which things are pseudopets and which things aren't, when it comes to arrows.

 

i.e. according to Mids, Glue Arrow from Blaster Tactical Arrow should be an absolute powerhouse taking 4 damage procs reliably proccing at 95% chance, and damage enhancements for a total of over 400 damage. However, ingame the proc rate is actually abysmal.

I guess it would make sense for Acid Arrow to proc well because it's a regular Targeted AoE while Glue Arrow is a Location AoE, right? That's the relevant difference I assume.

Edited July 19, 2021 by nihilii

[Marbing]

10 hours ago, skoryy said:

 

Accuracy: 55%?   I guess Kismet and Tactics would give you some boost but...

 

Added: That's some spicy end usage as well and Trick Arrow doesn't come with an end mod booster.  And you're probably going to avoid Carnies like a sewage plant regardless.

 

Basically, all that damage is coming at a cost just so you can keep up with a blaster.

Dude, he only 4 slotted the acid arrow, if you finished that out you would add acc and end redux obviously. He was just showing the damage output in comparison. 

 

Also, notice the unenhanced end usage is STILL LESS than the enhanced fireball… 

 

The radius is the same, the Acc is about the same, the damage is higher, recharge is close enough, and it has a bunch of debuffs… procs ftw!! 😂
 

Again, though (even as @oedipus_tex said) this IS just one power in a vacuum compared to another power in a vacuum. I still hold that testing would need to be done to verify. Also, TA is an example of a set that is often able to keep up DPS wise with other ATs because of procs but also because of Oil Slick (which can also be procced out well) doing insane damage in its own right. 
 

 

 

EDIT: Also, I wouldn’t build Ice Arrow as shown above, but understand it was just an example.

Edited July 19, 2021 by th0ughtGun

[Marbing]

3 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Is that Mids proc rate for Acid Arrow accurate ingame? I'm always confused by which things are pseudopets and which things aren't, when it comes to arrows.

 

i.e. according to Mids, Glue Arrow from Blaster Tactical Arrow should be an absolute powerhouse taking 4 damage procs reliably proccing at 95% chance, and damage enhancements for a total of over 400 damage. However, ingame the proc rate is actually abysmal.

I can say that my Acid Arrow for my TA troller hits hard (for a controller). Never tested Glue Arrow on a blaster…

[aethereal]

43 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Is that Mids proc rate for Acid Arrow accurate ingame? I'm always confused by which things are pseudopets and which things aren't, when it comes to arrows.

 

i.e. according to Mids, Glue Arrow from Blaster Tactical Arrow should be an absolute powerhouse taking 4 damage procs reliably proccing at 95% chance, and damage enhancements for a total of over 400 damage. However, ingame the proc rate is actually abysmal.

I guess it would make sense for Acid Arrow to proc well because it's a regular Targeted AoE while Glue Arrow is a Location AoE, right? That's the relevant difference I assume.

 

That's usually the difference.  You can look up in CoD whether it uses a pseudopet.

 

But let's note that is not like pseudopets are some kind of considered balance approach to preventing procs from being overwhelmingly strong in certain powers.  They're a backend approach to making some powers work, and they just don't really work with PPM.  The fact that pseudopets complicate procs so much is one reason why we should not have the PPM system.

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

I guess it would make sense for Acid Arrow to proc well because it's a regular Targeted AoE while Glue Arrow is a Location AoE, right? That's the relevant difference I assume.

Yeah glue arrow operates like a 'rain' type power which are generally bad for procs.

 

27 minutes ago, aethereal said:

The fact that pseudopets complicate procs so much is one reason why we should not have the PPM system.

It's an argument for trying to make the system more easily understandable and even in its effects across all powers certainly. Bear in mind ppm was an attempt to achieve the second part of that even if it was hugely at the expense of the first. The original system overwhelmingly favoured quick recharging, quick activating 'buzzsaw' powers. Ppm made more types of powers worth proccing so it succeeded on that front, but of course in practice it has turned out to be a gameable system and still quite uneven in which powers work well with procs, while being very opaque for a newcomer trying to understand how best to use them.

 

I wouldn't have said binning ppm is the answer if that meant going back to the flat 20% system. That system was too limited even if was easy to understand. I think we need some changes on a power by power level to even out performance and possibly a wider adjustment to ppm if doing it at the power level doesn't get us where we'd like to be. The theory behind ppm is sound enough to keep working with imo but how to make it easier for people to understand is certainly an issue.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Parabola

[Naraka]

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

 

So  now the Controller is losing damage to Earth Control, unless they've slotted those for procs, but then how are those hitting and wait a second.  APP end mods are nice, but they're not covering not having end mod enhancements, and chaining insps to keep your blue bar filled is some advanced high end macro button stuff that most players won't bother with.

 

If you're gonna go through all that silliness just to keep up in DPS, why not, y'know, just roll a blaster?

Oh darn, you're right!! 

 

If only you could, you know...combine some or all of those options somehow...hmmm...

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

14 minutes ago, Parabola said:

Yeah glue arrow operates like a 'rain' type power which are generally bad for procs.

 

It's an argument for trying to make the system more easily understandable and even in its effects across all powers certainly. Bear in mind ppm was an attempt to achieve the second part of that even if it was hugely at the expense of the first. The original system overwhelmingly favoured quick recharging, quick activating 'buzzsaw' powers. Ppm made more types of powers worth proccing so it succeeded on that front, but of course in practice it has turned out to be a gameable system and still quite uneven in which powers work well with procs, while being very opaque for a newcomer trying to understand how best to use them.

 

I wouldn't have said binning ppm is the answer if that meant going back to the flat 20% system. That system was too limited even if was easy to understand. I think we need some changes on a power by power level to even out performance and possibly a wider adjustment to ppm if doing it at the power level doesn't get us where we'd like to be. The theory behind ppm is sound enough to keep working with imo but how to make it easier for people to understand is certainly an issue.

I guess these are things that just so do not matter to me, that they exist only to be things for me to argue against.

 

Making things too easy to understand is bad. Making things too balanced is bad. There should be build choices that favor build styles. Anything less leads to generic watered down build options.

 

Procs like everything will need to be BIS for some builds and meh for others, otherwise they may as well just be removed from the game and their bonuses integrated in as standard effects everyone has at all times.

[Galaxy Brain]

14 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

Mids screenshots are not... exactly... good reference material. As you've said the comparison made is not flattering to begin with. Then you don't account that with your slotting Acid Arrow has a 47% chance for each proc to go off. Not for -all- of them to go off. 47% per proc. Which means the odds are reduced of having all four happening. On the other hand the Fireball will always do that damage.

 

So since it's 47% we could say there's a 50% chance of only two procs going off (Bopper, don't look, I'm butchering math!). Now that Acid Arrow is doing 74 damage while the dominator is still chugging at 125 per cast, all casts.

 

 

To be clear I'm not on either side in particular, but I do caution about glib comparing of numbers. I urge testing for these things. Find a nice group of +0 enemies (in the name of easy testing despite skewing things) and hover out of the way casting that skill until all are dead then report. That Acid Arrow is just -not- going to be doing a Dominator's Fireball damage.

 

Can't reply in full, but the % chance to proc is covered in the damage screenshot with each proc only doing ~34 damage instead of 70+ damage they'd do in full. Averaged over time, you'd expect to see that screenshot per hit.

 

 

Edit: ppl beat me to it lol

Edited July 19, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Parabola said:

It's an argument for trying to make the system more easily understandable and even in its effects across all powers certainly. Bear in mind ppm was an attempt to achieve the second part of that even if it was hugely at the expense of the first. The original system overwhelmingly favoured quick recharging, quick activating 'buzzsaw' powers. Ppm made more types of powers worth proccing so it succeeded on that front, but of course in practice it has turned out to be a gameable system and still quite uneven in which powers work well with procs, while being very opaque for a newcomer trying to understand how best to use them.

 

I wouldn't have said binning ppm is the answer if that meant going back to the flat 20% system. That system was too limited even if was easy to understand. I think we need some changes on a power by power level to even out performance and possibly a wider adjustment to ppm if doing it at the power level doesn't get us where we'd like to be. The theory behind ppm is sound enough to keep working with imo but how to make it easier for people to understand is certainly an issue.

 

I am not arguing for a return to flat percentile procs.  Though I will note that the oft-derided effect of that was to reward T1 and T2 powers, while now T1 and T2 powers are pretty universally garbage.  So we went from a system that encouraged diversity in power choice to one that centralized on powers that were "already good."

 

But I disagree that the theory behind PPM is sound.  It's further overloading the already overburdened recharge time element of powers.  One of the basic problems here is that we've made recharge time hugely central to CoH's balance (it controls damage of a power.  It's the parameter we vary to try to make epic/pool powers less central), in an environment in which approximately all good builds build 180% global recharge, and another 95% local recharge is easily available, without even getting into Incarnates.

 

We could imagine a system in which a power applied a modifier to PPM ("this power halves PPM."  "This power multiplied PPM by 1.5"), or one in which powers had proc schedules, which could certainly holistically take recharge time into account, without being an inflexible formula, and in which their multiplier or schedule was easily viewable in power details.

[Parabola]

3 minutes ago, aethereal said:

But I disagree that the theory behind PPM is sound.  It's further overloading the already overburdened recharge time element of powers.

Yeah, fair point. I guess I am saying that I feel the intent behind ppm was sound but that the reality isn't where we want to be. Trying to take the focus away from recharge in the build meta might be impossible now though. The game is built around recharging and using powers, the faster they recharge the more often the good ones can be used. People would still build for massive recharge with or without ppm. It's only really the way ppm reacts differently to slotted vs global recharge that sends it in an odd direction compared to how everything else works. 

 

5 minutes ago, aethereal said:

So we went from a system that encouraged diversity in power choice to one that centralized on powers that were "already good."

The way I see it ppm allows procs to function at or above a 'worth using' threshold in a much greater variety of powers than the old system and that is a good thing. Not saying it's a great system, just that I think it achieved that part of what I perceive to have been its aim.

 

11 minutes ago, aethereal said:

We could imagine a system in which a power applied a modifier to PPM ("this power halves PPM."  "This power multiplied PPM by 1.5"), or one in which powers had proc schedules, which could certainly holistically take recharge time into account, without being an inflexible formula, and in which their multiplier or schedule was easily viewable in power details.

Yes indeed. Something like this. If it could also take a pass at making pseudopet powers deliver consistent proc performance that would be great.

[Apparition]

IIRC, in one of the AMAs over the years, Synapse said that he was about two days away from scrapping the PPM system entirely and trying something different before NCSoft axed Paragon Studios.  It’s a pity that he didn’t get the chance.

[Galaxy Brain]

I think I may have asked this before, but it could be worth noting:

 

Is it more an issue of Damage procs in particular, since other procs are really not good in comparison?

[Marbing]

5 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I think I may have asked this before, but it could be worth noting:

 

Is it more an issue of Damage procs in particular, since other procs are really not good in comparison?

I have touched on this before, I think it’s a lack of other reasonable options that make damage procs stand out. What else are you going to do with the slots once you have achieved your build goals? All there really is is damage procs and -res procs.

If they buffed the other procs and added new ones like -reg or -hp then we would be able to achieve TRUE build diversity, where the different procs help achieve different goals. Maybe that way you don’t need to always load your defender up on damage procs because there are other proc options out there that help them lean into their strengths that are just as viable (for example). I would like to see that!

Edited July 19, 2021 by th0ughtGun

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, th0ughtGun said:

I have touched on this before, I think it’s a lack of other reasonable options that make damage procs stand out. What else are you going to do with the slots once you have achieved your build goals? All there really is is damage procs and -res procs.

If they buffed the other procs and added new ones like -reg or -hp then we would be able to achieve TRUE build diversity, where the different procs help achieve different goals. Maybe that way you don’t need to always load your defender up on damage procs because there are other proc options out there that help them lean into their strengths that are just as viable (for example). I would like to see that!

 

I think this is true of some of the more unique proc effects too. Like, the -End one (Tempest?) on ST ranged attacks is just not... good. If it were equatable to a damage proc that'd be one thing but as it stands it doesn't even compete with some of the worse utility procs.

[aethereal]

36 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I think I may have asked this before, but it could be worth noting:

 

Is it more an issue of Damage procs in particular, since other procs are really not good in comparison?

 

There are lots of non-damage procs that are good, but I think you specifically means things like the entropic chaos chance-to-heal and the chance-to-mez ones, which are I agree terrible.

 

(But note that there is also the Gaussian's proc, and the Force Feedback proc, and the +2 Mag proc, and of course the Scrapper and Stalker ATO procs, and various other non-damage procs that are very good)