issue 27 Focused Feedback: Attack Typing Adjustments

[skoryy]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:44 PM, KaizenSoze said:

One of the Malta bosses, who was no walkover before, might have gotten too nice a buff from this change.

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I mean, they are Malta.  Being OP is their specialty.

[dom9630]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:43 PM, Luminara said:

 

The only Council Vampyr power affected was Gravity Well, which lost its Smashing tag.

 

And doesn't debuff ToHit.

 

 

The only Fortunata power altered was Telekinetic Blast... which had its Psionic tag removed, not the Smashing tag.

 

You might want to run your tests again, since the results you posted can't be the result the damage type changes.

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[KaizenSoze]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:51 PM, dom9630 said:

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Yes, you're correct multiple Council vamp attacks do -tohit.

 

Gloom, Life drain, and several melee attacks. All of which are probably hitting more often.

 

Side note, since you have a electric blaster. I find it useful to really lean into the end drain. Check out Clarion Radial, it buffs end drain nicely.

[skoryy]

Wait.

 

Vampyri have always had the -tohit attacks.  And the only change would be to Shadow Punch, all the other attacks are Negative only.  What exactly massively changed here?

[dom9630]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:56 PM, KaizenSoze said:

Yes, you're correct multiple Council vamp attacks do -tohit.

 

Gloom, Life drain, and several melee attacks. All of which are probably hitting more often.

 

Side note, since you have a electric blaster. I find it useful to really lean into the end drain. Check out Clarion Radial, it buffs end drain nicely.

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For sure, it does help.

 

 

[KaizenSoze]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:56 PM, skoryy said:

Wait.

 

Vampyri have always had the -tohit attacks.  And the only change would be to Shadow Punch, all the other attacks are Negative only.  What exactly massively changed here?

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It's possible they were tagged incorrectly and have been fixed. City of data is showing the new values I believe.

 

As for the melee attacks, they were probably smash/neg/melee before and are now just neg/melee. They don't even check smash def at all.

Edited July 13, 2022 by KaizenSoze

[dom9630]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:56 PM, skoryy said:

Wait.

 

Vampyri have always had the -tohit attacks.  And the only change would be to Shadow Punch, all the other attacks are Negative only.  What exactly massively changed here?

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Probably would have been a better example if I could get one to hit me with a negative punch, but AI is AI.

 

What I am saying, is by adding one-two more attacks that hit your more often for -tohit, it leaves you at the end of the mob waiting for debuffs to fall off.

[AustinSmith]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:44 PM, KaizenSoze said:

Malta:

Yes, I total see how those bosses got nastier! Gunslinger powers link.

I see that Explosive TIp, Incendiary Round, and Liquid Nitrogen Round are using non s/l defense.

 

Calling @Cobalt Arachne One of the Malta bosses, who was no walkover before, might have gotten too nice a buff from this change.

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Actually, Incendiary Round and Liquid Nitrogen Round have always been using exclusively Fire and exclusively Cold typed defense. The only one that got changed is Explosive Tip, which went from lethal/smashing to fire only typed defense.

It's also worth noting that the Malta ARs do -Defense that squishies don't have DDR to mitigate, AND Gunslinger pistol attacks all have always had 2.0x base accuracy.

[Luminara]

  On 7/13/2022 at 9:51 PM, dom9630 said:

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Gloom only has two tags.  Never had a third, wasn't changed.

[Luminara]

  On 7/13/2022 at 10:02 PM, KaizenSoze said:

It's possible they were tagged incorrectly and have been fix. City of data is showing the new values I believe.

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CoD has both.  Go to the Homecoming_blahblahnumbernumber line in the top right hand of the page and click it to toggle between live and test data.  Makes comparisons easy peasy dirty sleazy.

[KaizenSoze]

  On 7/13/2022 at 10:06 PM, AustinSmith said:

Actually, Incendiary Round and Liquid Nitrogen Round have always been using exclusively Fire and exclusively Cold typed defense. The only one that got changed is Explosive Tip, which went from lethal/smashing to fire only typed defense.

It's also worth noting that the Malta ARs do -Defense that squishies don't have DDR to mitigate, AND Gunslinger pistol attacks all have always had 2.0x base accuracy.

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Thank you for the info. I personally didn't test Malta, so I wanted to give dom the benefit of the doubt.

[dom9630]

  On 7/13/2022 at 10:06 PM, AustinSmith said:

Actually, Incendiary Round and Liquid Nitrogen Round have always been using exclusively Fire and exclusively Cold typed defense. The only one that got changed is Explosive Tip, which went from lethal/smashing to fire only typed defense.

It's also worth noting that the Malta ARs do -Defense that squishies don't have DDR to mitigate, AND Gunslinger pistol attacks all have always had 2.0x base accuracy.

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  On 7/13/2022 at 10:12 PM, KaizenSoze said:

Thank you for the info. I personally didn't test Malta, so I wanted to give dom the benefit of the doubt.

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Thank you as well.

 

Per my original post, I am taking two theories of build making that are being discussed when it is coming to blasters and comparing them back to back and notating the difference.

They are relying on just S/L versus All types of defense. 

 

I am giving feedback on how they feel, and what the experience for each are against different mob types. Obviously if you have more types of defenses, mobs like Gunslinger bosses are going to feel very different versus if you are just capped on S/L.

 

The reason for the experiment, is that there are specific things you have to sacrifice on your build to cover yourself for what people are calling 'only a handful of mobs' that were changed.

 

Ergo, Fortunata's attacks may not have changed significantly, but the side-effects of going with a build that covers all defense types (a future-proof build for enemy groups that are going to be introduced with this new damage typing) are what changed. You can solo arachnos a lot easier on S/L/E/N/F/C builds, but it's not as fun because having less recharge stacked on top of Fortunata's -recharge psi as a side-effect.

 

Ramifications are not always skin-deep to just a few mobs that changed just a few attacks.

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by dom9630

[kburd825]

Can we get access to Father Time for the winter missions? I think this should be included in the beta test.

[brass_eagle]

  On 7/12/2022 at 8:04 PM, Crasical said:

I went through most of the enemy groups that I could think of at the back-end of the game and this is what I came up with; specifically showing the ones that would get moved from smashing/lethal/energy to a more exotic damage type.

<shortened>

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I'm curious, did you look at how many of those that prioritize more exotic damage types instead of S/L have Mez attached to them? While I'm on board with this change as it gives the devs a chance to make more threatening enemies within trash mobs, I can't help but wonder if it will have a negative effect on the amount of Mez squishies can avoid now--especially at higher levels.

 

Less avoid -- more mez.

Edited July 14, 2022 by brass_eagle
effect not affect

[Crasical]

  On 7/13/2022 at 11:26 PM, brass_eagle said:

 

I'm curious, did you look at how many of those that prioritize more exotic damage types instead of S/L have Mez attached to them? While I'm on board with this change as it gives the devs a chance to make more threatening enemies within trash mobs, I can't help but wonder if it will have a negative effect on the amount of Mez squishies can avoid now--especially at higher levels.

 

Less void -- more mez.

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Running through the list, looks like just Council galaxy LT's Gravimetric Snare immobilize and the galaxy boss' Gravity Well hold.

 

[brass_eagle]

  On 7/13/2022 at 11:53 PM, Crasical said:

 

Running through the list, looks like just Council galaxy LT's Gravimetric Snare immobilize and the galaxy boss' Gravity Well hold.

 

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So not bad at all. I'm fine with some more mez. Just wouldn't want it to all of a sudden get egregious! Squishy epic shields are S/L after all.

 

Council could use a little more threat anyhow.

Edited July 14, 2022 by brass_eagle

[brass_eagle]

  On 7/13/2022 at 8:00 PM, dom9630 said:

 

<blurb>

 

+4 x8 solo is still very much possible, but the biggest loser here seems to be epic/patron pools. You can soft-cap these 'exotic' type damages (NRG/NEG/COLD/FIRE) - HOWEVER

 

In order to do so, it's basically become mandatory you go with Ice Mastery or Black Scorpion pools to get there.

Additionally, in order to get to soft-capped on different damage types you will have to sacrifice that sweet damage and recharge set bonuses - some builds more than others.

 

<blurb>

 

 

 

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Nothing really new there. Those two masteries have always been the premier choices IMO with a couple exceptions.  Here's to hoping there's a QoL pass on some epics in the future. *shrugs*

 

For now, I'll take the change. Step-wise.

Edited July 14, 2022 by brass_eagle

[dom9630]

  On 7/14/2022 at 1:09 AM, brass_eagle said:

Nothing really new there. Those two masteries have always been the premier choices IMO with a couple exceptions.  Here's to hoping there's a QoL pass on some epics in the future. *shrugs*

 

For now, I'll take the change. Step-wise.

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The 'new' part is that some blaster build could get away with temp invuln and other epics when all they needed to get was S/L defense.  Now if a player feels compelled that they want to protect themselves against energy/lethal/cold/fire they're going to have to go with one of two epic sets.

 

I agree epics/patrons could use some work, but that's another conversation.

[brass_eagle]

  On 7/14/2022 at 1:13 AM, dom9630 said:

The 'new' part is that some blaster build could get away with temp invuln and other epics when all they needed to get was S/L defense.  Now if a player feels compelled that they want to protect themselves against energy/lethal/cold/fire they're going to have to go with one of two epic sets.

 

I agree epics/patrons could use some work, but that's another conversation.

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True enough. The options to get energy/neg/tox/psi are limited. Cold/fire isn't too bad with winter IOs, but those can be prohibitively expensive. Though Ice Armor (power) only offers res to cold/fire.

 

I don't think my blaster would ever reach 45% def to exotic types without outside help. I'd rely on my team for the boost.

 

Overall, I think that's fine. Exotic types are... exotic. And defense provided a bit more than resistance without this change. They flip side to that is there isn't much in the way to build a small, healthy amount of resistance. Not incrementally small like combat jumping / hover that provide defense to all and you can stack for a decent cushion.

Edited July 14, 2022 by brass_eagle
add a few words at the end

[dom9630]

  On 7/14/2022 at 1:26 AM, brass_eagle said:

 

True enough. The options to get energy/neg/tox/psi are limited. Cold/fire isn't too bad with winter IOs, but those can be prohibitively expensive. Though Ice Armor (power) only offers res to cold/fire.

 

I don't think my blaster would ever reach 45% def to exotic types without outside help. I'd rely on my team for the boost.

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You're welcome to borrow one of my builds for testing, they come 45% s/l/c/e/b/f softcapped.

[Stormwalker]

While I don't think these changes are likely to be a really big deal, I do feel compelled to point out that in quite a few of these cases, changing the defense type to the more exotic type doesn't actually make sense from a "realism" perspective.

 

Take, for example:

Arachnos fire tarantula burning claws now prioritize fire defense

 

This isn't a stream of fire, or a burst of flame we are talking about here.  This is a claw attack, that happens to be on fire.  You don't defend against it the way you defend against a flamethrower.  You defend against it the way you defend against a claw, which is to say, a lethal attack.  It just additionally deals fire damage if you get hit by it.  If you have a forcefield that repels physical attacks, it's going to deflect that claw and you're not going to be hit by it.  If you have an energy field that repels a stream of fire like a flamethrower, but doesn't repel physical attacks, it's not going to stop that claw from hitting you.

 

Logically, the type of defense that works against an attack should have more to do with the delivery mechanism of the attack than the actual type of damage it does.

 

Of course, I recognize that the objective of these changes is not "realism", but is rather to make Smash/Lethal defense less dominant, but it's probably going to annoy the part of my mind that expects things to work in logical ways to be mildly grumpy henceforth. 

 

Oh, well.  Nothing to be done for it, I guess.

[ScarySai]

  On 7/14/2022 at 4:18 AM, Stormwalker said:

Oh, well.  Nothing to be done for it, I guess.

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If such was the case, these threads would be useless. I think you have a good point here, and share the same criticism for certain powers this change modifies.

[Shred Monkey]

As many mentioned this change hurts resist based characters a lot more than defense based characters (for endgame builds specifically).  I don't disagree with the change in principle.  But I think that an additional change be implemented to re-center the balance.  I suggest changing defense debuffs.  Defense based toons have a HUGE advantage there.  It's almost a binary (I'm OK vs I'm NOT OK) when facing certain enemies when you have no defense dubuff resistances and you're the center of agro.   I think it should be more like "I'm OK vs I need to be careful."   

 

My Suggestion is to make Defense Debuffs not stack, or cap if that's more doable.  Personally I think a target max at around 10-15% is about right.  This would be 3-4 times more incoming damage if you're at 45% defense.  That's still dangerous, but it's not 19.5 times more incoming damage, which is quite possible now.   

 

There may be other/better ways to look at this logically, but I think now is a good time to look at it.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Shred Monkey

[Stormwalker]

  On 7/14/2022 at 11:47 AM, Shred Monkey said:

As many mentioned this change hurts resist based characters a lot more than defense based characters (for endgame builds specifically).  I don't disagree with the change in principle.  But I think that an additional change be implemented to re-center the balance.  I suggest changing defense debuffs.  Defense based toons have a HUGE advantage there.  It's almost a binary (I'm OK vs I'm NOT OK) when facing certain enemies when you have no defense dubuff resistances and you're the center of agro.   I think it should be more like "I'm OK vs I need to be careful."   

 

My Suggestion is to make Defense Debuffs not stack, or cap if that's more doable.  Personally I think a target max at around 10-15% is about right.  This would be 3-4 times more incoming damage if you're at 45% defense.  That's still dangerous, but it's not 19.5 times more incoming damage, which is quite possible now.   

 

There may be other/better ways to look at this logically, but I think now is a good time to look at it.

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Actually, I'd argue that this change hurts typed-defense sets like Energy Aura as much as (if not more than) resist sets.

 

What it doesn't hurt is positional-based defense sets like SR.

 

Though given how few attacks are being modified, I don't think it's that big of an issue.  I'm much more bothered by the fact that the mechanics defy logic a little bit (as described in my above post).

[@Ghost]

  On 7/14/2022 at 3:41 PM, Stormwalker said:

What it doesn't hurt is positional-based defense sets like SR.

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I think positionals are still sort of the elephant behind the curtain, since it's basically just as viable to shift a squishy's typed def build to a hoverblaster. It's something I usually avoid on characters either for concepts or mechanics (hi, Seismic) but if the intent is to design more dangerous enemies checking rare typed defenses, it's also the safest route.