Regen and an epic'ed out build

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Brutal Justice said:

45% defense is exactly in line with 90% resistance.  You can’t be “equal” with 90% and not be grossly out of balance with 75%.  

 

If 45% defense = 90% resistance and tanks/brutes cap at 90%, with kheldians capping at 85%, with everything else capping at 75%, then why aren't you pushing for defense cap values of 45% for brutes and tanks, 42.5% for kheldians and 37.5% for everyone else?

[Doomguide2005]

 

18 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

 

2) The +DEF cap is too high for scrappers (and probably everyone).  The easier any set can reach the DEF cap, the more resources it can devote to layered mitigation.  I'd lower scrappers and Tanks to 75% and everyone else to 60%.  Then raise it a bit if you have to. 

Which DEF cap are you discussing here?  The hard cap limit in the game?  Other?  60% is a roughly 140% drop off the hard cap game limit for defense on the Scrapper AT

18 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

 

3) Make the soft cap a hard cap.   Right now, doing Incarnate content at 4x8, you absolutely benefit from exceeding the softcap.  Remove that and +DEF won't rule mitigation choices.

What? 

It's soft! so of course you benefit by exceeding it as you no longer minimize the foes chance to hit you at the previous value.  The soft cap has moved to 59%.  Face foes in Aeon SF or vs Vanguard Sorcerer's and guess what that soft defense value has shifted again and is higher yet.  And it doesn't stop there.  Fight some Rularuu Eyeballs and your soft cap is much higher yet.  The soft cap is merely the variable numeric value required to minimize the foes chance to hit you.  Changing its meaning or to make it a new 'hard' cap, like it or not, on a game wide scale would have far reaching impacts requiring either eliminating or rewriting large sections of content present in the game.  Not happening, that's dead on contact whether desired/desirable or not I'd think.

18 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

 

And that leads me to ask, why was the DEF cap set so high?  Was it so Force field buffs would feel more substantial?  Sonic wasn't around at launch.   Was it for Ice Tankers?

*Shrug* got no clue why the picked what they picked.  Maybe there's some math reason behind the chosen upper limit, maybe not.

[Blackjoy]

3 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

45% defense is exactly in line with 90% resistance.

Ah, you mean lower it down to 40% +DEF.   Yeah, I was suggesting 35% as a start, expecting that when the rioting starts you'd have to raise it up.  

 

It would be interesting to what happens at level 50 with a 80% mitigation cap on +DEF.   What's more fascinating is that there would be almost no perceived change below level 40, at least not for true-levels.  LVL 50's exemping down would certainly notice the loss of everyday-god-mode.  I think /SR would also notice the loss of god-mode with bubbles, but there are few FF defenders, it probably goes unnoticed..

 

At lvl 50, you'd see a dramatic change in the perceived power dynamic, without changing a single power.  I'm guessng /Rad Armor with massive +Recharge would move to the top of the list.  /Regen would move up by virtue of others moving down.  This would most likely affect other AT's as well, especially some of the Defenders who can get that type of mitigation.   You'd probably see a dramatic drop in the number of people doing 4x8 ITF. 

 

It's probably too late for the Devs to make a change like this.  It would have to be made when starting the game over from the beginning.  If you did it now, you'd have a sizable number of people rage quitting because they couldn't solo 4x8 ITF, +3 AVs, etc.   There would probably be some other fad/FOTM shifts.  Force Fields, while still being great for squishes, would not be nearly as beneficial for +DEF based scrappers.   The Incarnate choices might change as well.

 

I imagine 99.9% of the /Regen builds would be unaffected from 1-49.

 

EDIT: One real down side, however, is that Tough might still feel mandatory, along with slotting up Health and Physical Perfection.  With a lower +DEF cap, scrappers would be scrambling to add whatever non +DEF mitigation they could. 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Bill Z Bubba]

24 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

Yeah, I was suggesting 37.5% as a start, expecting that when the rioting starts you'd have to raise it up.

 

Because the rioting is surely only to come from the unenlightened masses incapable of understanding the underlying math of the game.

[Blackjoy]

46 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Which DEF cap are you discussing here?  The hard cap limit in the game?  Other?  60% is a roughly 140% drop off the hard cap game limit for defense on the Scrapper AT

I was talking about the hard cap of 95% mitigation for +DEF, which, as I understand it,  you typically reach with 45% +DEF.   Is there a different +DEF hard cap for different ATs?

 

46 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

It's soft! so of course you benefit by exceeding it as you no longer minimize the foes chance to hit you at the previous value.

Right, and that means chasing more +DEF is beneficial.  

 

46 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The soft cap has moved to 59%.

I'm not sure I understand.   I run at +45% +DEF.   Against +4 ITF boses, that brings them down to about 8.XX% to hit. Popping Elude doesn't lower that value.   Similar against +0 Avs.  They floor at about 7.xx%.   Adding more +DEF or even -To Hit doesn't lower it.    I know that some Incarnate mobs have additional +To Hit, which means that if you come in at +45% DEF, the +4 bosses are hitting you at like 30%.  In those situations more +DEF does matter.  So It sounds like you're saying that this if I get my +DEF to 59%, I can soft cap those mobs as well?  

 

I'm suggesting that if you want to level the playing field and open up build choice, you look at making the 80% mitigation to +0, THE cap.  That means your +4 incarnate mobs aren't going to be affected by adding more +DEF.   Admittedly, I am not an expert on how Incarnate mobs are set up.  I assume you can lower the lvl back down to +0 and make it do able with an 80% mitigation cap.

46 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Changing its meaning or to make it a new 'hard' cap, like it or not, on a game wide scale would have far reaching impacts requiring either eliminating or rewriting large sections of content present in the game.

Possibly.  You may be 100% correct that some content would be unsurvivable.   But that depends on whether the +lvl is fixed.  More likely it would just send players back to square one on how to defeats these sections.  Instead of relying on massive +DEF boosts, they might resort to more tactical approaches.   But as I said, I am not an expert on that level of content, so I expect there might be some additional changes needed.

 

46 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Not happening, that's dead on contact whether desired/desirable or not I'd think

As I said, it's arguably too late to make this type of change, regardless of whether or how it might improve the game long term.  But I know there is at least one other person in this thread who thinks the lvl 50 game is somewhat overpowered.   If the devs were ever going to address that, it wouldn't be by trying to balance each set one by one.  They'd need to do something comprehensive/global.  

 

46 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

*Shrug* got no clue why the picked what they picked.  Maybe there's some math reason behind the chosen upper limit, maybe not.

Yeah, it's a real mystery.  It maybe that they needed that cap on the mob side i.e. they didn't have the tech to set it differently for foes vs characters.  It may also be that 95 mitigation was just a default starting point, = since you'd never want +DEF or +RES to reach 100%.  I wouldn't be surprised if they initially had both +RES and +DEF at 95% and they realized that +RES was more problematic at those levels.  But they never went back and looked at +DEF.   Or maybe by the level the players were reaching the +DEF cap, the devs didn't care.   I recall posts in Live where they essentially said said they weren't going to balance the sets for end-game content.  Because they can't and it's not worth their time unless something were so out of whack it was dramatically impacting the game on a wide scale.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Bill Z Bubba]

13 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

I was talking about the hard cap of 95% mitigation for +DEF, which, as I understand it,  you typically reach with 45% +DEF.   Is there a different +DEF hard cap for different ATs?

 

ALL incarnate levels enemies have a tohit bonus of +13.75%. So for all incarnate enemies, the softcap is 45+13.75 or 58.75%, rounded up by usually everyone to 59%.

 

The defense hard caps ARE different for different archetypes.

Brutes/Tanks = 225.05%

Kheldian/Scrappers/Stalkers = 200.38%

Everybody else: 175%

 

This does not include specific enemies with tohit buffs. Any tohit buff on any attack from any enemy changes the softcap the player must reach to bring said enemy back to the floor where floor = all accuracy buffs from rank and level and specific powers * 5%.

[Doomguide2005]

Yes the game's hard limit to defense varies by AT.  It also varies by level but only up to level 21 at which point it has reached the hard cap for that AT.

• Brute or Tanker 225.05%
• Khelds, Scrapper, Stalker 200.38%
• Blaster, Controller, Corruptor, Defender, Dominator, Mastermind  175%

Conspicuously not included is VEATs which I'm going to hazard is probably 200.38% like Khelds.  Also missing are Sentinels????.  HCwiki needs an update 🙂

 

Critters also vary by rank and level.

 

The soft cap of +45 exists because foes base chance to hit is 50%.   50 minus 45 defense leaves 5% the floor.  Incarnates get (rounded) a +14 so it becomes 64 - 59 to floor their chance to 5%.  But now you have to account for Accuracy.  All foes gain various accuracy mods based on rank, relative level and other things.  That's at least part of why you're seeing differences between +0 and +4 mobs for example.

 

@Bill Z Bubbadamn I'm a slow typist ... I also have a 4yr old distraction roaming about.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Doomguide2005 said:

@Bill Z Bubbadamn I'm a slow typist ... I also have a 4yr old distraction roaming about.

 

My now 23 yr old distraction was left in TX when we moved to MA. I should be looking for a job instead of spewing truth on the forum but whatever. Credit card ain't maxed yet. Maybe I can push my year long vacation to 16 months!

[Bill Z Bubba]

11 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Conspicuously not included is VEATs which I'm going to hazard is probably 200.38% like Khelds.  Also missing are Sentinels????.  HCwiki needs an update 🙂

 

Also, easy to test. Hop on your Sent and Veat and eat purples until combat monitor for defense turns blue.

 

175% for Sentinels

200.38% for VEATS

Edited July 6, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Doomguide2005]

6 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Also, easy to test. Hop on your Sent and Veat and eat purples until combat monitor for defense turns blue.

Oh sure, sure rub it in that my computer died and I can't log in 😜  But yep that would do it.

 

Edit:  Placing bets its 200.38 like Scrappers for Sents

Edited July 6, 2022 by Doomguide2005

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Oh sure, sure rub it in that my computer died and I can't log in 😜  But yep that would do it.

 

My bad. Editing above post now.

[Doomguide2005]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

My bad. Editing above post now.

And there goes the bet.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Doomguide2005 said:

And there goes the bet.  

 

But have ya noticed how neither black joy nor brutal justice ever respond to my posts? Methinks some folks have me on ignore. 🙂

Make no mistake, it's ok, I'm not replying for them.

[SomeGuy]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Because the rioting is surely only to come from the unenlightened masses incapable of understanding the underlying math of the game.

 

 

Careful. Devs just might decide to change one of the core mechanics of the game to make their job easier at the expense of everyone that has been playing the game since 2004. 😄

[Brutal Justice]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

If 45% defense = 90% resistance and tanks/brutes cap at 90%, with kheldians capping at 85%, with everything else capping at 75%, then why aren't you pushing for defense cap values of 45% for brutes and tanks, 42.5% for kheldians and 37.5% for everyone else?

Wow.  That’s exactly what I pushed for.  45 tanks/brutes.  43 heats and veats.  40 for everybody else.  You were clearly reading very closely during all those “back and forths” we had.  

[Brutal Justice]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

But have ya noticed how neither black joy nor brutal justice ever respond to my posts? Methinks some folks have me on ignore. 🙂

Make no mistake, it's ok, I'm not replying for them.

Or some people have jobs...   With your post history, you’ve also clearly demonstrated you realize there is a massive imbalance between resistance and defense but you refuse to accept it.  True to your name.  You’ve already been defeated you’re expressing hopeless rebellion.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Brutal Justice
Changes some repeated phrasing to achieve better English.

[Brutal Justice]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Because the rioting is surely only to come from the unenlightened masses incapable of understanding the underlying math of the game.

On the contrary.  Those who don’t understand the underlying math of the game probably wouldn’t even notice because they don’t know they are supposed to hit those math numbers for optimal performance.  

[arcane]

If SR is truly suffering mid-game (I'll take your word for it) but obviously not suffering late-game (simple fact), the only logical solution is to re-order powers and leave everything else the same. Further buffs will impact the late-game and SR shouldn't get any stronger late-game.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

Wow.  That’s exactly what I pushed for.  45 tanks/brutes.  43 heats and veats.  40 for everybody else.  You were clearly reading very closely during all those “back and forths” we had.  

 

That's not what I asked. You're not pushing for the values that would go with your statements. 45, 42.5, 37.5. Why the waffling if you're correct?

 

2 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

Or some people have jobs...   With your post history, you’ve also clearly demonstrated you realize there is a massive imbalance between resistance and defense but you refuse to accept it.  True to your name.  You’ve already been defeated you’re expressing hopeless rebellion.

 

LOL. Let's all notice how the softcap is NOT being lowered and recognize who has been defeated before they got started. Also, Hail Satan. He is the good guy in that myth, after all.

 

1 hour ago, Brutal Justice said:

On the contrary.  Those who don’t understand the underlying math of the game probably wouldn’t even notice because they don’t know they are supposed to hit those math numbers for optimal performance.  

 

Thanks for sharing how little you think of your fellow gamer believing that they wouldn't notice a sudden doubling of the number of landed incoming hits.

[Sabrehawk]

Yeah, let's just buff a set that under performs in endgame PvE. Not the first time nor the last. But for the love of all that is (un)holy don't go fiddling with core mechanics. The number of things that would break I don't want to imagine.

[Blackjoy]

3 hours ago, arcane said:

If SR is truly suffering mid-game (I'll take your word for it) but obviously not suffering late-game (simple fact), the only logical solution is to re-order powers and leave everything else the same. Further buffs will impact the late-game and SR shouldn't get any stronger late-game.

Reordering powers isn't going to to do anything unless we know the reason for /SR's survival woes is predominately due to AoE.  In fact, it's possible that putting Evasion earlier in the lineup might exasperate /SR's endurance issues.  IME, /SR's problems aren't that it needs more +DEF, it's that it needs more layered mitigation or at least +RES that is actually effective against AVs and EBs.  Granted, maybe that is intended kryptonite for /SR, along with endurance issues, no toxic or psi resist, and no defense against non-positional attacks.

 

1 hour ago, Sabrehawk said:

The number of things that would break I don't want to imagine.

Except that nothing would "break."  You just couldn't solo ITF at 4x8 as +DEF based character..  You might still doing at +0, but +4...not even close.  Admittedly, there may be some Incarnate repercussions, but that could be fixed by dialing some of those specific modifiers down. 

 

6 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The soft cap of +45 exists because foes base chance to hit is 50%.   50 minus 45 defense leaves 5% the floor.  Incarnates get (rounded) a +14 so it becomes 64 - 59 to floor their chance to 5%.  But now you have to account for Accuracy.  All foes gain various accuracy mods based on rank, relative level and other things.  That's at least part of why you're seeing differences between +0 and +4 mobs for example.

To be more technically accurate, I realize that what I a really suggesting is that the to hit "floor" be raised to 20%.   +DEF cap wouldn't even need to be touched.   But reading that, it is even more unlikely that the devs would mess with the "floor" on principle alone.   So really, I don't see anything being done to fix anyone at level 50.  /Regen is undoubtedly within one standard deviation of what it's expected to do, and as specifically stated by a GM, they acknowledge that /regen is suppose to be a challenge at the extremes.

[Brutal Justice]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That's not what I asked. You're not pushing for the values that would go with your statements. 45, 42.5, 37.5. Why the waffling if you're correct?

Who’s waffling?   I always pushed for 45, 43, 40.  Was I incorrect in stating that would still leave them slightly above the 75% resistance numbers?   Seems to go with my statements.  

 

You’re right.  I never advocated for 42.5 and 37.5.  Why?   Partially because round numbers are nice and it’s close enough to create some semblance of balance.  Also we all know there are more -def debuffs in the game than -res so it’s fine to leave a little cushion.  

 

I wasn’t incorrect with my math. I could have simply plugged in these numbers to get the equal numbers had I wanted to.  The fact you know the exact defense numbers to achieve perfect harmony, on paper, and yet still deny there is an issue that should be fixed, is evidence enough of how discussing it with you is a waste of time.  

 

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Thanks for sharing how little you think of your fellow gamer believing that they wouldn't notice a sudden doubling of the number of landed incoming hits.

I believe I was responding to you belittling the “Unenlightened “.  It’s not negative or incorrect to say people who don’t know about the 45% soft cap wouldn’t notice the change because more than likely, if they don’t know, they also don’t ever reach 45% on their own.  Some do.  Some don’t.  I would wager the “unenlightened” as YOU call them, mostly run hodgepodge IO builds or mostly SOs.  Some might also wander in here and borrow a build.  

 

If somebody doesn’t hit 45% defense already, they wouldn’t notice.  There is nothing negative about that statement.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

Also we all know there are more -def debuffs in the game than -res so it’s fine to leave a little cushion.  

 

Yes, we do. And we also know that resistance automatically resists resistance debuffs and defense doesn't. The devs know and knew this as well.

 

9 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

I wasn’t incorrect with my math. I could have simply plugged in these numbers to get the equal numbers had I wanted to.

 

So you just arbitrarily chose to round up to the nearest whole number for EATs but rounded up by 2.5 for everyone else out of the goodness of your heart while not actually caring that those values don't correlate to the basis of your argument that 90% resist = 45% defense and then expect the rest of us to hop on board at nothing more than your say so.

 

12 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

I believe I was responding to you belittling the “Unenlightened “.

 

I suspect everyone else got the sarcasm in my post but I'll apologize for leaving off the /sarcasmoff tag.

 

You are correct that the discussion of lowering the defense softcap is a waste of time and yet you continue to bring it up every chance you get.

[Sabrehawk]

2 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

 

Except that nothing would "break."  You just couldn't solo ITF at 4x8 as +DEF based character..  You might still doing at +0, but +4...not even close.  Admittedly, there may be some Incarnate repercussions, but that could be fixed by dialing some of those specific modifiers down. 

 

We may have different concepts of what 'break' means in this context. Personally I would say that if a change in the mechanics of the game make a character capable of doing content at +4x8 no longer capable, or even close to capable, of doing said content then that build has been 'broken' by the change.

 

However, soloing the ITF is not the only thing that would change. BZB is well known for soloing the ITF but he is not the only one who enjoys this activity. Personally I enjoy soling certain Dark Astoria groups at +4x8, solo bosses on. I suspect that several of my characters would no longer be capable of this. We clearly have different ideas of what 'break' means but I would view that as breaking builds that I have found enjoyable for a long time.

 

But there are other changes. How would this effect high end content? Soloing Aeon's Strike Force or running Linea's 801 AE mission series? What about PvP? 

 

What you are proposing is a mild change to some content and a monumental, earth shaking change to other content. The magnitude of impact of this change on content does not scale linearly with the type of content. It might change nothing about the leveling experience for most sets. But other sets, at the extreme end of difficulty, would be devastated.

 

There is some daylight between a change to a single powerset (Regeneration), in a single mode (PvE) and a change to a fundamental mechanic of the game that effects every character and every type of content, but not evenly. A buff to Regeneration in PvE affects players who use Regeneration in PvE. A change to the hit mechanics effects every single character in the game, but some far more than others. 

[Gobbledygook]

How did a discussion on Regen turn into ppl nerf-herding SR?

 

Also, the power order for SR Brutes and Tanks is different than Scrappers.