Focused Feedback: Fiery Melee Revamp

[aethereal]

4 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Breath of fire needs replaced with combustion on non tanks. There is no question on this IMHO.

 

While Breath of Fire is a mechanically underwhelming power, it's very thematic.  I have no doubt that there are a bunch of characters out there skinned as dragons or other fire-breathing creatures who want to continue to be able to breath fire.

[WindDemon21]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

 

While Breath of Fire is a mechanically underwhelming power, it's very thematic.  I have no doubt that there are a bunch of characters out there skinned as dragons or other fire-breathing creatures who want to continue to be able to breath fire.

Then it should be in the EPIC as fire breath, but not as a craptastic power in the melee where the set REALLY needs combustion in it's place. After abandoning 3 fire scraps over the course of the game due to the lack of aoe, and for how terrible breath is for aoe, this is not where they need to be "thematic" at the cost of actual play for the set. And the set has five other single targets, it doesn't need breath changed into a kinda more ST oriented attack only for AVs. Swap it to combustion, and done.

 

If theme is still part of their need and needs to be melee, they can make a tank, but on non-tanks, it NEEDS swapped for combustion. Also, as combustion is kinda like, you know, an explosion, it should also really have a kd effect too, which would also help fire melee's lack of mitigation as well (all version should be like this including blasters and dominators). Faster casting combustion with knockdown instead of breath of fire in ANY iteration of it that the devs would do? yes please.

 

While on this thread too: Scorch should really have it's cast time lowered to .67 or .83s. It's 1s cast time especially compared to the rest of the sets ST attacks, just kinda makes it really pathetic especially as it has no other useful value (upping to 4s rech is more than fine to average out it's dps too).

[BrandX]

4 hours ago, Sovera said:

-res procs are an easy answer to up damage, but it overinflates results and too many choose to ignore it. On a Tanker two -res shaves a whole minute from a pylon, but is not indicative of the set's power in regular play (and has no impact I could find in clearing missions which is what we do 99% of the time).

 

So slotting a -res for these tests and hitting a pylon of all things is a disservice. I'd not slot any, then compare times from live to beta and stick to those numbers when presenting results.

 

I see nothing wrong with it.  You use the -Res Procs if you want to be able to deal with the harder targets.  You use other damage procs if you want to kill maps faster.

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

 

I see nothing wrong with it.  You use the -Res Procs if you want to be able to deal with the harder targets.  You use other damage procs if you want to kill maps faster.

There's nothing wrong with it.  If the question is, "Who can win the minigame of 'beat a pylon fastest'?" then by all means do whatever you want to make the pylon die faster (but, I mean, probably roll a MM, right?).

 

But if we're trying to use a pylon time as an approximation of the performance of the set in ST DPS, we should be aware that -res procs give pretty strongly differentiated results on pylons versus most other hard targets.  And a set that can slot a lot of -res procs will do great on pylon times, but if that's it's big virtue, it won't do nearly as well in other ST DPS scenarios.

Edited October 11, 2022 by aethereal

[BrandX]

Just now, aethereal said:

There's nothing wrong with it.  If the question is, "Who can win the minigame of 'beat a pylon fastest,' then by all means do whatever you want to make the pylon die faster (but, I mean, probably roll a MM, right?).

 

But if we're trying to use a pylon time as an approximation of the performance of the set in ST DPS, we should be aware that -res procs give pretty strongly differentiated results on pylons versus most other hard targets.  And a set that can slot a lot of -res procs will do great on pylon times, but if that's it's big virtue, it won't do nearly as well in other ST DPS scenarios.

 

You're right.  However, from how I understand it, that -resist still goes a ways with ST that aren't pylons, in that the -Resist carries for all your other attacks.

[aethereal]

1 minute ago, BrandX said:

 

You're right.  However, from how I understand it, that -resist still goes a ways with ST that aren't pylons, in that the -Resist carries for all your other attacks.

 

It does go a ways.  But with purple patch, -res procs are relatively less effective (compared to just "more damage" such as a conventional damage proc) than they are on pylons, if the opponent you care about is +3 or +4.

[SomeGuy]

On 10/11/2022 at 5:15 PM, aethereal said:

There's nothing wrong with it.  If the question is, "Who can win the minigame of 'beat a pylon fastest'?" then by all means do whatever you want to make the pylon die faster (but, I mean, probably roll a MM, right?).

 

But if we're trying to use a pylon time as an approximation of the performance of the set in ST DPS, we should be aware that -res procs give pretty strongly differentiated results on pylons versus most other hard targets.  And a set that can slot a lot of -res procs will do great on pylon times, but if that's it's big virtue, it won't do nearly as well in other ST DPS scenarios.

 

 

I normally ignore post like this, but this is in the Fiery Melee revamp thread. I think a lot of people dismiss how much just ONE person proccing -RES can contribute to a team's overall DPS. Fiery Melee went from just being DPS or Vengeance fodder for the team it's on to also that (cause everyone is), and contributing a boost to everyone's DMG on a team.

 

FM got a super nice team contributing change with it being allowed to do this. Not to mention the Def Debuff it can apply on a target now increases a team's chance to hit 1:1 for how much debuff is applied. FM didn't just get a ST/AOE boost. It got a team buff.

Edited October 15, 2022 by SomeGuy

[Ratch_]

17 minutes ago, SomeGuy said:

 

 

I normally ignore post like this, but this is in the Fiery Melee revamp thread. I think a lot of people dismiss how much just ONE person proccing -RES can contribute to a team's overall DPS. Fiery Melee went from just being DPS or Vengeance fodder for the team it's on to also that (cause everyone is), and contributing a boost to everyone's DMG on a team.

 

FM got a super nice team contributing change with it being allowed to do this. Not to mention the Def Debuff it can apply on a target now increases a team's chance to hit 1:1 for how much debuff is applied. FM didn't just get a ST/AOE boost. It got a team buff.

fire manip blasters eating good

Edited October 15, 2022 by Ratch_

[Gobbledigook]

Give combustion on Tankers a Knockback effect since theu don't have Cremate and call it Backdraft instead 😛

[agentx5]

15 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

Give combustion on Tankers a Knockback effect since theu don't have Cremate and call it Backdraft instead 😛

There's an idea!

[kelika2]

Can you guys stop trying to nerf fire farming and find a way to punish or slow down speed task forces?  instead of nerfing fire farming, make the rest of the game worth playing

add side missions with a 20 hour lockout that awards exp/inf/merits to prevent farming the sides or only have said bonuses available at the end

kill x that repeats/gets larger each time and scales to team/personal difficulty

rescues but not escorts

clickies of various types

enemies that see through invis/hide and instant teleport/slow people trying to speed

flat out strait up getting rid of ATT, TT and MT and adding a longer cooldown to teleport target.  or disable them inside instances

 

i cant play the rest of the game because no one else wants to play the rest of the game.  you know how many people dont even fucking advertise its speed or ask if its speed and just speed anyways because its the god damn norm?

 

firefarming gives me that feeling of wading through seas of minions which CoX gave in an era of warcraft and everquest never had, and that will be gone.  well until i finalize this energy defense/resist build i been working on and make an energy farm map to get around these constant fucking changes to the core of the game

Edited October 16, 2022 by kelika2

[kelika2]

Also to addon to that idea to make other stuff better:

If you folks can LOWER exp gained on some stuff after a certain level like DFB.  Can you RAISE exp gained after a certain level for certain things?  With the new changes in power selection levels and added exp the complaints in Synapes would probably disappear overnight.  The list of task forces can fill another post but you get the idea.  I know you folks have internal tracking on the popularity of task forces somewhere.  up-to and including the old posi and psyche

[...]

Again requesting combustion cast time reduction for dominators.

 

I can't think of a good reason why blasters should get it, but not dominators. 

[agentx5]

34 minutes ago, ... said:

Again requesting combustion cast time reduction for dominators.

 

I can't think of a good reason why blasters should get it, but not dominators. 

 

Why not reduce it globally for any AT?  It'd be a win-win that way

[Ringo]

On 10/11/2022 at 4:15 PM, aethereal said:

There's nothing wrong with it.  If the question is, "Who can win the minigame of 'beat a pylon fastest'?" then by all means do whatever you want to make the pylon die faster (but, I mean, probably roll a MM, right?).

 

But if we're trying to use a pylon time as an approximation of the performance of the set in ST DPS, we should be aware that -res procs give pretty strongly differentiated results on pylons versus most other hard targets.  And a set that can slot a lot of -res procs will do great on pylon times, but if that's it's big virtue, it won't do nearly as well in other ST DPS scenarios.

It's not a minigame, it's a way of testing via setting a common baseline for all ATs.  It's not a comprehensive test but it does tell you performance within a given setting that you can then compare to other builds.

 

The ability to slot -res procs alter the results of the test.  That's data you have to have in order to evaluate the change.

 

If pylon times don't give you the data you want to use then you need to develop and run a different test

[Sovera]

No changes to fire melee or fire aura were about hurting farming. You guys are obsessed with it and any change that indirectly affects it feels like a personal attack on your favorite activity.

[Sovera]

7 hours ago, ... said:

Again requesting combustion cast time reduction for dominators.

 

I can't think of a good reason why blasters should get it, but not dominators. 

 

Fire Assault is considered very strong as is (just quoting, not my opinion) and when it gets a pass Combustion may have indeed the animation lowered, but other knobs will be turned down.

 

It's a case of 'don't ask for attention because you might get it' that Faultline has warned in the past when people asked for tweaks to Claws.

[aethereal]

19 minutes ago, Ringo said:

It's not a minigame, it's a way of testing via setting a common baseline for all ATs.  

 

It's clearly both.

 

And to the extent that it's a test, that is, to the extent that you care about not pylon times per se but about overall single target DPS performance, it's a test that overvalues the trait of "able to slot -res procs."

 

This is extremely understandable and straightforward.  The purple patch makes -resistance much more valuable at +0 (which pylons are) than at +3 or +4 (which most other hard content is).

 

This doesn't make pylon tests worthless: all testing is necessarily imperfect.  The map is not the territory, but that doesn't make maps useless.  But if you understand the ways in which the map is imperfect, you need to compensate for them.  This thread is like someone saying, "we can finally go to Greenland; it's huge!" and then getting angry at me when I point out that mercator maps greatly exaggerate the size of Greenland.

[Sovera]

There are level 54 pylons that can be acessed via the lfg trick. We just need to push that as the new standard.

[Gobbledigook]

8 hours ago, ... said:

Again requesting combustion cast time reduction for dominators.

 

I can't think of a good reason why blasters should get it, but not dominators. 

Also reduce the cast time for Hurl boulder/Hurl to Dominator levels for all At's please 🙂

[Nurvus]

54 minutes ago, Sovera said:

There are level 54 pylons that can be acessed via the lfg trick. We just need to push that as the new standard.

 

This is pretty much why I drafted this suggestion. I really do think that CoH could use a better benchmarking tool with the current focus on power balancing. This game is in a really weird spot with no DPS meters/parsing and ...pylons. 

 

 

[Parabola]

Re the proliferation of power changes to the dominator assault sets. My hunch (and I have no evidence for this) is that the devs will be giving dominators as a whole a balance pass at some point. I suspect that might be the reason that various power changes haven't been applied to their assault set equivalents; that they want to address the sets and AT as a whole rather than making piecemeal updates. Just a hunch though.

[Ringo]

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

It's clearly both.

 

And to the extent that it's a test, that is, to the extent that you care about not pylon times per se but about overall single target DPS performance, it's a test that overvalues the trait of "able to slot -res procs."

 

This is extremely understandable and straightforward.  The purple patch makes -resistance much more valuable at +0 (which pylons are) than at +3 or +4 (which most other hard content is).

 

This doesn't make pylon tests worthless: all testing is necessarily imperfect.  The map is not the territory, but that doesn't make maps useless.  But if you understand the ways in which the map is imperfect, you need to compensate for them.  This thread is like someone saying, "we can finally go to Greenland; it's huge!" and then getting angry at me when I point out that mercator maps greatly exaggerate the size of Greenland.

I think it's more like you pointing out that my proficiency at hitting a stationary target with a throwing axe doesn't directly correlate to my proficiency at hitting a charging swan.  You are correct, but that has zero bearing on my practice of throwing at a stationary target, and is only tangentially related to why I do it.

 

I understand that -res procs produce higher efficiency against even con targets as compared to +4's.  It's just not relevant when comparing Pylon tests to other Pylon tests.

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Ringo said:

I understand that -res procs produce higher efficiency against even con targets as compared to +4's.  It's just not relevant when comparing Pylon tests to other Pylon tests.

 

Of course it is.  Some of this other pylon tests don't have -res procs.  So if you compare beta fiery melee (with lots of -res procs) to live fiery melee or energy melee (no -res procs), then you say, "Wow, beta fiery melee drastically outperforms live, and is competitive with energy melee."

 

And that's true if you care about the pylon minigame.  Which is a fine thing to care about.  But if you are looking at pylon times as a generalized test of ST DPS, you have to say, "but I know that beta fiery melee's times will be relatively better in pylons than other targets compared to live fiery melee's performance on pylons versus other targets, meaning some prob of the improvement is illusory."

[kelika2]

7 hours ago, Sovera said:

No changes to fire melee or fire aura were about hurting farming. You guys are obsessed with it and any change that indirectly affects it feels like a personal attack on your favorite activity.

I dont know if the OP changes but Cascading Defense Failure on all the -def things and Knockdown spam on cremate was there to effect firefarming.  thats why breath of fire before had a 45 second dot.  extreme few NPCs in this game last 45 seconds