Judgment missed every single mob on a max notoriety ITF

[EnjoyTheJourney]

The recent buff to the Cims may have strengthened Cims more than intended. And, perhaps the Cim defense buffs need a lower cap on their maximum total than they currently have and/or a shorter duration. 

 

A few data points ...

 

This evening while soloing one side of the last mission on a fully IO'd up 50+1 scrapper in a level 50 max notoriety ITF, while the rest of the team went the other way, a casting of T3 void radial judgment missed literally every single mob even though there were mobs all around. Even though luck must have (also) been bad, the chance to hit was probably floored for that to happen. Other castings of void radial often featured more misses than hits when soloing that same side. 

 

With base accuracy of 2.11 (in-game figures) for soul drain, it misses more often than not after Cims start casting their buffs. Sometimes it comes up with zero hits when my scrapper has more than 10 targets in range. 

 

With a base accuracy of 1.82, touch of fear often misses more than it hits for Cims.

 

Perhaps it's just one category of defense values (ie: AOE defense, negative energy, or something like that) that are becoming so high, or perhaps it's a larger issue. Either way, hopefully the recent buffs to Cims get another look.

 

My thanks to those who keep this game going and who keep it fun. 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2021 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Doomguide2005]

Accuracy does not equal To Hit. 

When the clamped portion for the defense and to hit buffs starts to get very low you need far, far more than 2.0 or 3.0 Accuracy to truly hit your targets.  In other words if they've floored that first clamped portion of the equation to 5% or .05 you'd need absurd accuracy to raise your final hit chance (in combat attributes your 'last hit chance') to 0.95.  Basically at that point you'd need an accuracy of 19.0+ (yes 1900+%) to have a final hit chance of 95%

 

Streak Breaker? 

I would think your Final Hit value would need to be truly awful or the number of targets on the small side for you to actually miss all your targets.  Only your 'last hit chance' or combat logs will report if this.  Streak Breaker won't kick in and force a hit on say 16+ targets unless your final hit chance is above 0.2 (20%) ... which, for example, Soul Drain, would NOT be even with a 2.1 accuracy  (0.05×2.1=0.105 or 10.5%).  

 

But that's all hypothetical or anecdotal without combat logs.  But I'm pretty sure they are working as intended and yes their defense will get pretty silly high unless you change what you do to keep them from buffing themselves silly (welcome to the foes hitting their soft cap).

 

I'd only really see it as problem if we (collectively) change tactics solo and still have major issues.  Teams probably won't generally have issues (and in another thread that seems to be the reported case).

Edited September 25, 2021 by Doomguide2005

[arcane]

I’ve done ITF’s since this story has started to come up, and, although I’ve noticed some whiffing, it seems like a +4x8 KM ITF is still quite the faceroll. Not convinced yet that a minor inconvenience in a game generally devoid of difficulty constitutes a problem..

Edited September 25, 2021 by arcane

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Generally it's true that +4x8 ITFs are still an easy run. But, there are very high peaks in defense buffs, as mentioned in the OP. 

 

On that note, it's difficult to see how how judgment missing noticeably more than half of targets is working as intended. 

 

From mids, for this scrapper:

 

Global bonuses include to hit is +6% (kismet) and accuracy +30% (IO set bonuses)

 

With "to hit" chance set to 48%, to reflect mobs being +3 levels, soul drain is listed with a 143.6%  (to hit a +3 mob); mids was set so that soul drain bonuses are not considered in generating this number. Somehow that is at times getting floored for all mobs nearby, leading to zero or very few hits, probably due to buff stacking that may have no limits on the number of stacks. 

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

42 minutes ago, arcane said:

I’ve done ITF’s since this story has started to come up, and, although I’ve noticed some whiffing, it seems like a +4x8 KM ITF is still quite the faceroll.

I'd imagine so.  But if you're running solo at max and gathering them up for a nice RttC, Soul Drain or other PBAoE buff or attack ... well oops! if you expect to land hits without mezzing them or knocking them on their collective butts or otherwise disrupting their ability to to self buff because you are also maximizing their defense at the same time.

Teams especially most high level ones also probably 1) have them mostly dead before they do anything 2) have at least 1 or 2 running Tactics 3) dropping mezzes and debuffs galore ... namely a teams alpha strike is pretty much prevents their buffs from ever occuring.

 

PS:  But that is assuming the team is acting like a team.  Scrappers, Brutes etc., running off alone and pulling them close to each is asking to see those ugly numbers.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Doomguide2005

[arcane]

19 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

On that note, it's difficult to see how how judgment missing noticeably more than half of targets is working as intended. 

Perhaps - I think that would depend on how often this happens and on how much team support you had when it happens.

Edited September 25, 2021 by arcane

[Doomguide2005]

56 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Generally it's true that +4x8 ITFs are still an easy run. But, there are very high peaks in defense buffs, as mentioned in the OP. 

 

On that note, it's difficult to see how how judgment missing noticeably more than half of targets is working as intended. 

 

From mids, for this scrapper:

 

Global bonuses include to hit is +6% (kismet) and accuracy +30% (IO set bonuses)

 

With "to hit" chance set to 48%, to reflect mobs being +3 levels, soul drain is listed with a 143.6%  (to hit a +3 mob); mids was set so that soul drain bonuses are not considered in generating this number. Somehow that is at times getting floored for all mobs nearby, leading to zero or very few hits, probably due to buff stacking that may have no limits on the number of stacks. 

 

 

That's because accuracy in the Attack Mechanics occurs after the to hit/defense portion is figured (and clamped).  And Mids isn't accounting for any defense buffs.

 

So 48 plus 6% = 54% good start (that's basically accounting for your portion of things).  But now account for their defense.  You can do that by going back into Mids and set that number as your Base instead of 48.  If they've only managed a 30% buff that's 24 (54 - 30 --> somewhere between fighting +5's and +6's).   If I've read it correctly 30 is about 5 close to each other ... if you're gathering 10 ... Ouch!  You're now looking at setting mids to around 8 or 9% to account for their defense before accuracy is applied.

 

Edit:  As an example some of the things I'd being doing on my Claws/SR

1. Try to leave the last group with FU buff active
2. Toggle on Tactics, more To Hit
3. Open with Shockwave (knockdown)
4. While they're on their butts get in and Soul Drain (LOL no Soul Drain for me ... proceed to 5.)
5. Now use Void
6. Move away ... rinse and repeat (and I don't even really care if they are defeated).  Move and they chase and aren't buffing.  Or some are and some aren't moving = no or less buffs as it pulls them apart.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Doomguide2005

[Aurora_Girl]

It's not a buff, it's adding back a power that was mistakenly turned off. 

[Coyotedancer]

It'll be interesting to see how this hits powersets that rely on grouping things up, like Willpower. "Hey there, Mr. WP/DB Tank. Your armor is working well! Hope you weren't actually planning on hitting anybody with those swords, though. Your Focused Accuracy isn't ALL THAT, buster. " 😝

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[EnjoyTheJourney]

7 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

It'll be interesting to see how this hits powersets that rely on grouping things up, like Willpower. "Hey there, Mr. WP/DB Tank. You're armor is working well! Hope you weren't actually planning on hitting anybody with those swords, though. Your Focused Accuracy isn't ALL THAT, buster. " 😝

 

 

 

This is a key point. The breadth of difference in defense values can be very high. 

 

A few more numbers, building off Doomguide's earlier post ...

 

In mids, for this scrapper soul drain is listed at base 1.2 accuracy and has 91.66% accuracy added through IOs slotted into the power (Superior Avalanche IOs, with help from a 30% global accuracy bonus from 2 purple sets). This is a multi-hundred million inf build, fully boosted where boosts might help, no expense spared, and the accuracy figures reflect that. And yet, when multiple spawns of Cims are near my scrapper there are occasions when soul drain gets zero hits out of ten attempts to hit, or hits very few if any are hit at all. Those are not rare occurrences. 

 

When a high end build with this kind of accuracy total can't even reliably hit a minion once the buffs are up, that seems a bit off. 

 

The main problems are likely that the cap on the number of defense buffs doesn't exist or is really high, and/or that the duration of buffs is overly long and can stack from the same caster. 

Edited September 26, 2021 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Doomguide2005]

You need To Hit not Accuracy to really counter their defense buff.  Liberal use of yellow inspires especially before using Soul Drain would probably help immensely.  

[Glacier Peak]

Pulling a few enemies away from each other so the buff doesn't apply helps too. 

[AerialAssault]

Assuming I'm selecting the right options in City of Data, the Phalanx Fighting Defence buff that level 54 Romans have is ~8% on Minions, ~10% on Lieutenants and ~12.5% on Bosses. In a typical x8 mob you might have between 2-4 Bosses, so they alone are contributing a huge amount of Defence, and then when you add all the others, and also the fact that they're at least two levels above you, it's not unfeasible for an AoE to miss every single one, especially if they're clumped up into one blob. At that point, you would have to swallow a few yellow inspirations to return to a 'normal' hit chance.

 

Their Defence is against all typed damage except toxic, so non-damaging debuffs should stick to them easily. If you don't have anything that fits the bill, your best bet would be to kite the groups to avoid them blobbing up, taking out the minions and lieutenants who lag behind (or bosses, if your damage is high enough). You could also utilize Knockback to scatter the groups up. Imperious is pretty helpful in this regard, as his Hand Clap would be unaffected by their Phalanx Fighting. Once they've been scattered, you can chase down and eliminate those Romans who are outside of Phalanx Fighting's fairly short range.

 

Alternatively, you could stick with the team. 

 

That being said, I believe there is no cap on how many Phalanx Fighting buffs Romans can benefit from (presumably all within range), so perhaps they should be capped, but I would be lying if I said I didn't find it a bit funny watching teammates who split off dive into a group of Romans, whiff their attacks and then die.

[arcane]

Did 3 more +4 ITF’s yesterday that were as easy as ever. This is obviously only an issue under specific circumstances, so dev intervention not looking warranted to me so far.

[Doomguide2005]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Pulling a few enemies away from each other so the buff doesn't apply helps too. 

Yeah he's facing a bit of a dilemma.  Gather them for a good buffs for RttC and Soul Drain or not because that gathering also buffs their defense.  His accuracy while decent isn't the problem its the defense and to hit inner clamp that's the issue.  He needs to hit buffs to make that portion of the equation approach the 45 to 50 range so when multiplied by his accuracy (~2.0) he'll get up to 90+.

[Bopper]

On 9/24/2021 at 11:10 PM, EnjoyTheJourney said:

The recent buff to the Cims may have strengthened Cims more than intended

Its not a buff, it's a bug fix. These powers were always intended and they existed in the ITF for the entirety of when it was on Live. The powers were only removed post-sunset because at the time the devs thought this power was causing an issue with lag. It turns out that was not the problem, but the devs forgot to put the power back in. This bug was recently discovered and the power got put back into the game.

[Aurora_Girl]

It's a single enemy group on a single TF that happens to have a unique and challenging system of interacting powers. Why are we mad again?

[arcane]

On 9/25/2021 at 9:52 AM, Doomguide2005 said:

I'd imagine so.  But if you're running solo at max

There is zero reason a player HAS to be able to easily solo an endgame task force at max difficulty. If that’s the only way to see a problem with this bug fix, it is one big fat nonissue

[Doomguide2005]

18 minutes ago, arcane said:

There is zero reason a player HAS to be able to easily solo an endgame task force at max difficulty. If that’s the only way to see a problem with this bug fix, it is one big fat nonissue

     Totally agree.  Fastest way to up the value of the defense/to hit portion of the equation is decrease the difficulty, second fastest way is pop yellow inspires.  Continue on with run Tactics and enhance it and Focused Accuracy and again enhance it.  Be happy with a smaller mob when you Soul Drain, ditto for RttC, etc..  Willpower is not an armor set that is going to find Cimerorans easy.   I doubt my SR scrapper will notice much change, certainly not as dramatically as the difference for WP.  1 or 10 foes it makes no difference in my survivability.  But I'd not want to solo +4/×8 Rularuu ... at least not and expect it to not change my overall tactics compared to fighting Malta.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

20 hours ago, arcane said:

There is zero reason a player HAS to be able to easily solo an endgame task force at max difficulty. If that’s the only way to see a problem with this bug fix, it is one big fat nonissue

Somehow responses morphed from responding to the OP to making erroneous inferences that depart from the issue at hand. What's above is a case in point, as the issue is the occasional instances of extreme defense stacking by the Cims as a general issue. It was particularly noticeable while soloing, which is why I cited it as an example. But, it's just one example. It's also sometimes an issue for teams, with the caveat that larger teams will often probably on average have more +to hit that affects the team and also less holes and limitations in the portfolio of debuffs they bring to any given ITF.  

 

The quote above is a black-and-white response to an issue that obviously has shades of grey; there is more to the game than solo vs (nearly) full steamroll teams. 

 

To correct a few of other errors of inference, my scrapper has shield as a secondary, not willpower. Somebody else introduced willpower as an example, not me. Also, I was not and am not "mad" about extreme defense stacking by Cims and my scrapper didn't die amidst all the whiffing. She came close to dying a couple of times, but she didn't die. I just didn't come as close to keeping up with the rest of the team as I usually do when I solo one side of that mission and the rest of the team goes in the other direction. Which isn't an issue to get mad about.  

 

21 hours ago, Bopper said:

Its not a buff, it's a bug fix. These powers were always intended and they existed in the ITF for the entirety of when it was on Live. The powers were only removed post-sunset because at the time the devs thought this power was causing an issue with lag. It turns out that was not the problem, but the devs forgot to put the power back in. This bug was recently discovered and the power got put back into the game.

It's surprising to hear this was always how things were on live. But, if it was, then it seems the current status quo is working as intended after all. 

 

 

[arcane]

28 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Somehow responses morphed from responding to the OP to making erroneous inferences that depart from the issue at hand. What's above is a case in point, as the issue is the occasional instances of extreme defense stacking by the Cims as a general issue. It was particularly noticeable while soloing, which is why I cited it as an example. But, it's just one example. It's also sometimes an issue for teams, with the caveat that larger teams will often probably on average have more +to hit that affects the team and also less holes and limitations in the portfolio of debuffs they bring to any given ITF.  

 

The quote above is a black-and-white response to an issue that obviously has shades of grey; there is more to the game than solo vs (nearly) full steamroll teams. 

 

To correct a few of other errors of inference, my scrapper has shield as a secondary, not willpower. Somebody else introduced willpower as an example, not me. Also, I was not and am not "mad" about extreme defense stacking by Cims and my scrapper didn't die amidst all the whiffing. She came close to dying a couple of times, but she didn't die. I just didn't come as close to keeping up with the rest of the team as I usually do when I solo one side of that mission and the rest of the team goes in the other direction. Which isn't an issue to get mad about.  

 

It's surprising to hear this was always how things were on live. But, if it was, then it seems the current status quo is working as intended after all. 

 

 

I’ve been running ITF’s in a team setting nearly every day since this whole story came out and I have barely noticed a thing outside of a couple of occasional and very minor inconveniences. It isn’t clear at all at this point that this is an issue for teams.

 

Considering how easy ITF’s are for the community, I think you need a little more than “I miss a certain type of enemy a little more sometimes I guess” to argue that this is a bad bug fix. I genuinely can’t see that teams are hurting in a material way from this.

Edited September 27, 2021 by arcane

[ZacKing]

On 9/26/2021 at 11:47 AM, Aurora_Girl said:

It's a single enemy group on a single TF that happens to have a unique and challenging system of interacting powers. Why are we mad again?

 

Don't disagree with the sentiment but challenging isn't the word I'd use.  More like tedious.  

[aethereal]

3 hours ago, arcane said:

I’ve been running ITF’s in a team setting nearly every day since this whole story came out and I have barely noticed a thing outside of a couple of occasional and very minor inconveniences. It isn’t clear at all at this point that this is an issue for teams.

 

Considering how easy ITF’s are for the community, I think you need a little more than “I miss a certain type of enemy a little more sometimes I guess” to argue that this is a bad bug fix. I genuinely can’t see that teams are hurting in a material way from this.

The meta right now seems to be more extensive use of Tactics (and Farsight) than was the case when I played on Live, which probably means that teams aren't really seeing much from this.

 

Solo, it's probably more painful.  Especially if your solo character either doesn't have a build-up/aim or has one that rolls to hit (such as Dual Blades/Claws/Dark Melee).  But, you know, that's part of the deal if you're trying to solo TFs?

[MsSmart]

You may want to check the actual "miss rolls"

 

Periodically, in my case the Random Number Generator (RNG) gets stuck on stupid and can't roll under a 90, and thus the miss rate is simply extraordinary. This infrequent happening, may have occurred to you during your ITF, do note that anything 95+ is an automatic miss, so no matter how much accuracy you stacked-up, you are going to miss and miss, and miss. I am not sure, in an area attack does the system roll for each mob in the area, or a single roll is used and compared to each type of mob in the area.

 

Hope this gives you some solace..

 

Sue.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

14 hours ago, MsSmart said:

You may want to check the actual "miss rolls"

 

Periodically, in my case the Random Number Generator (RNG) gets stuck on stupid and can't roll under a 90, and thus the miss rate is simply extraordinary. This infrequent happening, may have occurred to you during your ITF, do note that anything 95+ is an automatic miss, so no matter how much accuracy you stacked-up, you are going to miss and miss, and miss. I am not sure, in an area attack does the system roll for each mob in the area, or a single roll is used and compared to each type of mob in the area.

 

Hope this gives you some solace..

 

Sue.

I had never heard of a bug affecting to hit calculations like this.

 

That would make a failure to hit any mobs with a casting of a T3 void judgment still pretty awful luck, but at least a little bit more understandable.