Focused Feedback: Irradiated Ground

[Ratch_]

Various Power Changes

• All/Radiation Melee/Irradiated Ground: This power can now only proc once every 10 seconds and hit up to 5 targets.

[Ratch_]

Since no thread has been made for this power going to take it upon myself to try to get some feedback on it from others. Personally I am in acceptance with the proc change, but am completely puzzled why this power is deserving of a target cap reduction. No other damage aura does this, and as Quills (in my mind) being it's closest counter part, what is this power doing that others are not that would justify this target cap reduction?

[Major_Decoy]

It summons burn style pseudo pets, unlike all the other damage auras.

[Ratch_]

6 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

It summons burn style pseudo pets, unlike all the other damage auras.

Sure, but it is not doing more damage than the other damage auras. It summons burn pets at a rate of 5s and each one with a lifetime of 10s. They have an activation of 2s.
This ends up meaning after a 5s duration and you are getting the 2 pets ticking permanently, a dmg tick will occur once every second.

• 4.8937 fire damage

Death Shroud

• 10.5659 neg damage

Irradiate Ground: 4.8937 * 10 = 48.937 fire damage
Death Shroud: 10.5659 * 5 = 52.8295 neg damage

*Tanker values

I'll edit my post as Quills is what I stated as being the most similar and I think this is more of the reality. Not sure why I was brain farting above and looking at Death Shroud.

Quills

• 7.9245 lethal

Irradiated Ground: 4.8937 * 10 = 48.937 fire dmg
Quills: 7.9245 * 5 = 39.6225 lethal dmg


On this merit alone I can see the target cap reduction to (in theory) have the powers match...but in practice IG does not pull ahead until 10s+ of standing in that specific patch. As you are moving through the game you can expect to not be having more damage because of patch dropping vs a following dmg aura
Irradiated Ground: 4.8937 * 8 = 39.1496 fire dmg
Quills: 7.9245 * 5 = 39.6225 lethal dmg

In the "golden" scenario at max target caps for each respectively:
Irradiated Ground: 48.937 * 5 = 244.685 fire dmg
Quills: 39.6225 * 10 = 396.225 lethal dmg

Edited October 6, 2022 by Ratch_

[Yomo Kimyata]

The advantage that IR has traditionally had over other damage auras (IIRC) is that procs get checked for triggering every 5 seconds rather than every 10 seconds (which I think is due to the summoning every five seconds).  If they are balancing due to "everything needs to be balanced as if everyone is using SOs" then that's nonsense, since only IOs make this a better power.

 

I said this in another thread:  IR is overpowered but almost everything else in Radiation Melee is underpowered.  I thought that was by intention.  In my opinion, bringing IR back from overpowered levels is fine, but you would need to bring some/all of the other powers in Radiation Melee up to snuff.  In my opinion.

[Ratch_]

Just now, Yomo Kimyata said:

The advantage that IR has traditionally had over other damage auras (IIRC) is that procs get checked for triggering every 5 seconds rather than every 10 seconds (which I think is due to the summoning every five seconds).  If they are balancing due to "everything needs to be balanced as if everyone is using SOs" then that's nonsense, since only IOs make this a better power.

 

I said this in another thread:  IR is overpowered but almost everything else in Radiation Melee is underpowered.  I thought that was by intention.  In my opinion, bringing IR back from overpowered levels is fine, but you would need to bring some/all of the other powers in Radiation Melee up to snuff.  In my opinion.

I don't think it's overpowered anymore since that traditional advantage is gone. Yes, if you are standing in a single spot and not moving at all it will do more damage than a similar counterpart (Quills), but really how often is this happening for us in live play to where the current small (potential) damage advantages this power has would really warrant a halving of it's target cap?

[Yomo Kimyata]

Like I said, the game is about IOs.

 

Slot Fury of the Gladiator, and enemies are exposed to a -res debuff twice as often.  Slot Achilles Heel, and enemies are exposed to a -res debuff twice as often.  Slot Analyze Weakness and get a +10% to hit bonus twice as often.  Slot Avalanche or Overwhelming proc and knockdown people twice as often.

 

Then there are damage procs, I guess.  There is a reason it doesn't take ATOs.

 

If the argument is, "We need to balance around SOs" then that is a BS argument.  If the argument is "We tested and IG is stronger than Blazing Aura!!! OMFG" then ok, buff up the rest of Radiation Melee.  I'd suggest cutting animation times mostly -- only two powers have activation times 1.5 seconds or less.  Extend range of Radiation Siphon, which feels like it has a 5 second animation time and a 30 degree cone, but doesn't since it's range is so short.

[Sovera]

When I took Radiation Melee it was for IR while complaining about the animations and clinging that at least the heal was useful. But IR was why I picked it. With IR nerfed the rest of the set definitely needs a nice do over with some animation shaving.

 

Might as well drop the whole patch thing if it's just the same thing as a regular damage aura but with a different flavor.

[Ratch_]

1 minute ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Like I said, the game is about IOs.

 

Slot Fury of the Gladiator, and enemies are exposed to a -res debuff twice as often.  Slot Achilles Heel, and enemies are exposed to a -res debuff twice as often.  Slot Analyze Weakness and get a +10% to hit bonus twice as often.  Slot Avalanche or Overwhelming proc and knockdown people twice as often.

 

Then there are damage procs, I guess.  There is a reason it doesn't take ATOs.

 

If the argument is, "We need to balance around SOs" then that is a BS argument.  If the argument is "We tested and IG is stronger than Blazing Aura!!! OMFG" then ok, buff up the rest of Radiation Melee.  I'd suggest cutting animation times mostly -- only two powers have activation times 1.5 seconds or less.  Extend range of Radiation Siphon, which feels like it has a 5 second animation time and a 30 degree cone, but doesn't since it's range is so short.

Can you elaborate a bit more about the "twice as often"?

Are you suggesting this power is proccing "twice as often" as other damage auras?

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 minute ago, Ratch_ said:

Can you elaborate a bit more about the "twice as often"?

Are you suggesting this power is proccing "twice as often" as other damage auras?

 

Based on my understanding, a normal damage aura checks for proc activation on trigger and then every ten seconds.  I think the chance of activating is something like 30.7% for a 3.5 PPM.

 

IR summons a pseudo pet every 5 seconds (or that is what I have been told), so every five seconds it is "activated" and checked for procs.  I do not know if it then checks for proc every ten seconds after that -- I don't think so.

 

But I am stating, not suggesting, that this power on auto checks for activation twice as often as a standard damage aura.

[Ratch_]

1 minute ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Based on my understanding, a normal damage aura checks for proc activation on trigger and then every ten seconds.  I think the chance of activating is something like 30.7% for a 3.5 PPM.

 

IR summons a pseudo pet every 5 seconds (or that is what I have been told), so every five seconds it is "activated" and checked for procs.  I do not know if it then checks for proc every ten seconds after that -- I don't think so.

 

But I am stating, not suggesting, that this power on auto checks for activation twice as often as a standard damage aura.

Okay, then yes, you are correct...it used to work this way. It does not work this way anymore.  Hence my concern for this power's target cap reduction.
 

• All/Radiation Melee/Irradiated Ground: This power can now only proc once every 10 seconds and hit up to 5 targets.
   

It's now using similar tech to enflame, and all this really ends up translating to is that this power no longer checks for procs on a pet/entity creation. Proc checking is agnostic to the pets, and instead is tied to the activation group for IG. Once every 10s a proc will check, just like every other toggle in the game.

[VertigoIguana]

3 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

IR summons a pseudo pet every 5 seconds (or that is what I have been told), so every five seconds it is "activated" and checked for procs.  I do not know if it then checks for proc every ten seconds after that -- I don't think so.

 

On the live servers it does, but not on beta with these changes.  I believe each patch actually gets two chances to proc as well due to the duration.  

 

6 slotted with damage procs, it just *melts* Minions and LTs on live, and definitely needed to be fixed.  But, I do agree with Sovera....IG is really most of what Rad Melee had going for it, so it could use some animation trims to help it out.

[Lazarillo]

52 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

If they are balancing due to "everything needs to be balanced as if everyone is using SOs" then that's nonsense, since only IOs make this a better power.

The nerf only affects IOs, though, based on this.

Or do SOs have proc rates I'm unaware of?

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

The nerf only affects IOs, though, based on this.

Or do SOs have proc rates I'm unaware of?

 

That's my point.  For as long as I've been on HC, people claim that all balance changes are made based off of SO slotting.  That is clearly not the case here.  So maybe we are entering a scary new world where developers and players admit that people use IOs.

[Lazarillo]

4 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

That's my point.  For as long as I've been on HC, people claim that all balance changes are made based off of SO slotting.  That is clearly not the case here.  So maybe we are entering a scary new world where developers and players admit that people use IOs.

I don't think balancing IO effects around IOs really means anything for the game as a whole being balanced off SOs though...

[VertigoIguana]

11 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

That's my point.  For as long as I've been on HC, people claim that all balance changes are made based off of SO slotting.  That is clearly not the case here.  So maybe we are entering a scary new world where developers and players admit that people use IOs.

 

I think the gist of "balancing around SO's" was more centered around the base difficulty of certain content, and overall performance of a set on SOs only.  It doesn't mean that IOs themselves won't also be balanced. Addressing situations where IOs specifically are overperforming in a power with a change that really only effects IOs (and brings the power in line with the design standard for other similar powers), doesn't run afoul of that in my mind.

[Ratch_]

18 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

The nerf only affects IOs, though, based on this.

Or do SOs have proc rates I'm unaware of?

It's more than just affecting IOs. The power is losing 5 potential targets it can hit as well, which is where my contention lies.

10 max targets -> 5 max targets.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Ratch_

[Gobbledigook]

Just make it similar to Quills with 10 targets. Too much of a nerf otherwise.

[Sanguinesun]

6 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

Just make it similar to Quills with 10 targets. Too much of a nerf otherwise.

 

Its a completely different mechanic and for a completely different set with a different functioning theme that I'll address later in the post.

 

As someone already mentioned, IR is a pseudo burn pet.  Its a stationary cloud( not really "ground" based either like the name indicated because it can activate in the air) that activates about every 5 secs or so.   Once activated the cloud patch remains stationary in that location ticking damage.  If you move, you can have 2 patches up for a couple of overlapping seconds.

 

Quills activates always in radius around you, constantly from you and with you for its tick damage.  It is not restricted with a stationary effect.

 

So the change to "10 seconds" though is for the ---damage/recharge debuff, etc etc----- that goes commonly by players into the power to add more effectivity to the power.  So instead of those procs applying those damage/debuffs every drop of a patch/cloud on the first tick of its activation (ie at the start of every 5 second interval), they're now instead only activating once every 2 cloud/patches instead.    This essentially reduces the output/effectivity of the procs put into the power by 50%.

 

 

Comparing then Quills at least on the level of considering procs to that of Irradiated Ground....

 

____________________________________________________________________

 

IO Procs that can go into Quills (12 Total):

 

ATO's:

Unrelenting Fury:  +end/+recovery (Unique)

Brute's Fury:  Fury Bonus  (Unique)

 

Slow Movement:

Ice Mistral's Torment:  Cold Damage

Impeded Swiftness:  Smashing Damage

Pacing of the Turtle:  -recharge

 

PBAOE damage sets:

Superior Avalanche:   Knockdown chance (Unique)

Fury of the Gladiator:  -20% Resistance (Unique) 

Armageddon:  Fire damage (Unique)

Bombardment: Smashing damage

Scirocco's Dervish:  Lethal Damage

Eradication: Energy Damage

 

Universal Damage Set:

Overwhelming Force:  Chance for KB/KD to KD (Unique)

 

______________________________________________________________________

 

IO Procs that can go into Irradiated Ground (11 Total):

 

 

--No ATO sets allowed---

 

 

PBAOE damage sets:

Superior Avalanche:   Knockdown chance (Unique)

Fury of the Gladiator:  -20% Resistance (Unique)

Armageddon:  Fire damage (Unique)

Bombardment: Smashing damage

Scirocco's Dervish:  Lethal Damage

Eradication: Energy Damage

 

Defense Debuff sets:

Achille's Heel:  -20% Resistance

Touch of Lady Grey: Negative damage

 

Accurate Defense Debuff sets:

Analyze Weakness: +Tohit

Shield Breaker:  Lethal Damage

 

Universal Damage Set:

Overwhelming Force:  Chance for KB/KD to KD (Unique)

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

 

So Irradiated ground

• takes less procs 
• no access to ATOs
• but gains 2 vs 1 -resistance and a +tohit proc choices if desired
• but cant take any ato procs 
• and -now- has any proc only occur at 50% of the time due to activation only once ever 2 patches
• and its a stationary/static patch/cloud activation that prevents potentially there being constant damage ticks for every group/mob encountered.
• It inherently has -defense 
• has the special attribute contamination and thus extra damage in conjunction with itself and other powers in the set(and the heal with siphon).

 

Quills

 

• takes more procs
• takes ATO's 
• only access to 1 -resistance
• inherently has -speed and -recharge
• as mentioned above is radius tick from the player dynamically as they move meaning its quickly damaging mobs in any group.

 

 

So if you want to view this a different way, Radiation's power set is more offensive(contanimation mitigating the general lower damage output of the set and the -defense to help it more). 

 

Spines is more of a defensive oriented set with -recharge and -speed but more readily seen straight up damage.

 

In other words, they're two different sets with differences in fuctions. That makes sense as the real live devs originally designed sets with different functions like that.

 

 

 

But these AoE toggle damage output/function isn't really any different in a larger scheme of their activations with the balances of their sets and in balances with other sets with similar functions too.  The changing of IR thus is lacking more transparent reasoning and given as well that devs focused on that...  yet bumping Breath of Fire to do more damage than some AoE T9 nukes should also show just how imbalanced the approaches/mindsets are becoming seemingly to change for the sake of change that is going on. 

 

All these irradiated ground changes to curtail its effectivity that has existed for the power set for years and years now make for compelling evidence that it is solely because of the dogged determination of a segment of folks including some on the dev team to curtail/discourage farming, not all at once (its becoming every update now this is going on), but in phases.

 

Outside of any other aspects of game play, changing irradiated ground and other aspects of rad etc would not be considered. It is just treating a perceived symptom(farming is bad) and not the perceived cause(an extremely imbalanced game economy and recipe access system due to time gating originally for subscription/microtransation purposes when the game was live as well as gatekeeping what others enjoy doing).  That's meaning both influence and character leveling aspects of the game regarding that.  If the team truly then wants to transparently address that, then that's a whole other thing.     

 

 

My recommendation for irradiated ground then:  due to the static nature of the power's mechanics and its differences with procs in conjunction with the rng of contamination, and its place with damage in the set wholistically, there's nothing that needs to be changed as -again- this has been the way its played since live.  Its not a power, proc, or set/set combo issue or balance one.  Its a contrived one from opposing mindsets of game play which needn't exist.

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Sanguinesun

[flakoff]

Tested on beta v live and may as well drop ig now as rest of set is so longggg to attack.

Which means goodbye  a toon I liked.

Teams move so fast ig really only helps solo play mostly.

It's like nerfs to fun tbh

 

[flakoff]

One point that I feel is really important, a shield/dark can destroy a mob way faster that a shield/rad on live so we going to nerf shield next or dark?

The point being rad melee is not even a top set and you are making it actually worse?

Edited October 7, 2022 by flakoff

[Booper]

54 minutes ago, Sanguinesun said:

no access to ATOs

This part should probably get revisited. Now that the pseudopets don't proc, there should be no reason for not accepting ATOs. 

 

I haven't looked at how the power has been mech'd and I won't be able to until next week at the earliest. But if it is mech'd similarly to how Enflame was redone, then I believe allowing it to accept ATOs is appropriate. 

[Ratch_]

7 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

 

Its a completely different mechanic and for a completely different set with a different functioning theme that I'll address later in the post.

[...]

 

So if you want to view this a different way, Radiation's power set is more offensive(contanimation mitigating the general lower damage output of the set and the -defense to help it more). 

 

Spines is more of a defensive oriented set with -recharge and -speed but more readily seen straight up damage.

 

In other words, they're two different sets with differences in functions. That makes sense as the real live devs originally designed sets with different functions like that.

 

But these AoE toggle damage output/function isn't really any different in a larger scheme of their activations with the balances of their sets and in balances with other sets with similar functions too.  The changing of IR thus is lacking more transparent reasoning.

[...]

 

My recommendation for irradiated ground then:  due to the static nature of the power's mechanics and its differences with procs in conjunction with the rng of contamination, and its place with damage in the set wholistically, there's nothing that needs to be changed as -again- this has been the way its played since live.  Its not a power, proc, or set/set combo issue or balance one.  It's a contrived one from opposing mindsets of game play which needn't exist.

 

 

 

I appreciate the detailed write on the power dichotomy here. The one thing you touched on and something that I would like to expand is the power's gimmick, contamination.

For anyone that has leveled a radiation character from the ground up I hope can resonate with this sentiment too, but pre-IG this set is really rough. Rad Siphon doesn't do a lot of damage, it heals sometimes, eventually you can contaminate your targets and start to churn out a bit more reasonable damage. You don't have access to the big hitter's until much later in the set. For the most part you are just relying on Contaminated Strike spam to put in work. The turning point really doesn't occur until IG is unlocked (and no, it's not because it can be proc bombed). Something that I think is really being lost in this decision is just how harmful it is for the set's holistic feel. IG at 10 targets is the sole power allowing for frequent wide contamination. Rad Siphon finally starts to reliably heal. Contamination procs more naturally, and the damage of it's attacks start to catch up to match other sets. This target cap change is severely hurting Radiation Melee in more ways than I think is apparent until you go out and start playing with the set vs larger groups. I really dislike the use of "spawning burn pets" that's been brought up in this thread since I think it's rather a loaded insinuation and what this power is creating vs what that power is creating are two different beast entirely. The delivery vessel may be the same or have similarities, but the output and function are not. Let alone the major design difference that one is activated vs one is toggled/passive. Just look at the activation period difference between these two entities being created and the damage being done between them.

Because no word is given on this change, we as a community can't provide direct feedback on it or have a dialogue on the reasoning behind the decision. At the risk of putting words in your mouth, I apologize, but I need to plea for this change to not go live. If the decision for this change is a part of some design standardization, ie. Ignite from AR & Burn are creating entities at 5 target max, this one is doing something similar but is at 10 target max, therefore it's straying from standard design, then I ask of you to please take a second look at the set individually. It's not atypical for powers to break standard design constraints even outside of the damage formula, just look at Crowd Control from War Mace, a cone with 10 targets, or even all the recent 15ft radius AoEs that scrappers/stalkers have been getting access to with recent additions. Irradiated Ground is the power that glues this set together, it's more than just a damage aura, it's the set's engine. Please reconsider this target cap reduction.
 

[WindDemon21]

On 10/5/2022 at 6:20 PM, Ratch_ said:

Various Power Changes

• All/Radiation Melee/Irradiated Ground: This power can now only proc once every 10 seconds and hit up to 5 targets.

Thanks for starting this thread I was about to. This is a TERRIBLE change, which again, screws over most any other playstyle that's not farmers just to try and nerf them. It's unwarranted, and unneeded.

 

To someone who mentioned about "proccing fury/achilles more often" don't forget, that those debuffs do not stack from the same source as well. So if it means it more accurately placed them fine. Even with that, the power has been more than fine as it is. You also have to factor, that you have to wait for it to be layed down, and then, it's severely underpowered even in it's current form UNTIL that 2nd patch gets placed down. Then you also have to factor that that happens even less in normal play when you're moving around the mob a lot.

 

This is 100% a terrible change that hurts the rest of the game, just at an attempt to nerf farming.

 

Also keep in mind, as a pseudopet that it creates, it doesn't gain the benefit of crits and the extra crit chance from the ato proc, and on tankers, it also does not get the increased radius as well. The power has it's own problems easily, and should be left alone.

 

If it's going to have this much vast nerfs, then I'd honestly rather it be just changed to a simple damage aura like quills/ icicles/lighting field etc.

Edited October 7, 2022 by WindDemon21

[Skoochy]

14 hours ago, flakoff said:

One point that I feel is really important, a shield/dark can destroy a mob way faster that a shield/rad on live so we going to nerf shield next or dark?

The point being rad melee is not even a top set and you are making it actually worse?

You have to understand this nerf is targeted at AE farming, in specific, rad/FA brute farmers. They don't care how it affects anyone else because most rad/FA toons are AE farmers.