How much should damage type factor into your decision regarding power choices?

[Story Archer]

G'day, all. 🙂

 

I'm like to play lots of different types of character sand powers and I'm always trying to decide 'what's next' - a dilemma I'm sure others can sympathize with. With some damage types obviously resisted more than others, when I'm looking at melee characters in particular, I'm trying to figure out how much of a factor the damage type actually is - would the various S/L weapon options (katana, claws, staff-fighting, super strength) be generally considered sub-par damage-wise vs. the more exotic damage types like ice, fire or energy? I know that the secondary effects of damage types play a role in their overall effectiveness, and that some sets have combos or various other utilities (like Rage) that can make up for the more resisted damage type but for the moment let's put those case-by-case instances aside. I know that we can look at the numbers in a vacuum to compare dps and whatnot, but out in the 'real world' where we have to deal in terms of the damage we actually did vs. the damage we were supposedly able to do, how big of a factor does it play?

 

I'm sure this is unrealistic to expect anyone to have done, but considering the staggering degree that some of our local number-crunchers have dove into the system, do we have any sort of quantifiable data on how commonly resisted overall each damage type is? Like, if I fought one of everything, at the end of the day what percentage of each damage type would have been resisted? Seems like a relevant factor to me, but certainly it would be interesting to know.

[Luminara]

[ZemX]

Between damage types and power animations, it's amazing the game works as well as it does considering how much of its "balance" was left entirely up to the art department.

 

 

 

[A Cat]

1 minute ago, ZemX said:

Between damage types and power animations, it's amazing the game works as well as it does considering how much of its "balance" was left entirely up to the art department.

 

 

 

Maybe it was good to have some chaos in the design, since cutting edge builds aren't really required for most stuff. Excessive reliance on the design formula sucks out the soul in things. We lucked out to be sure that things work as well as it does, but the inherent jank imo makes things interesting. 

[Frozen Burn]

Yes, the number crunchers in the community have done all this as shown in Luminara's post.  

 

As to answer your question in the Thread title:  How much does damage type affect MY decision in power choices?  ....not one damn bit.  I play to play the character, the concept, and for the fun of it.  While I will min/max my build and whatever power choices I made, I do not pick or choose powers to min/max the gameplay.  

[ScrewlooseCohh]

Personally, not at all.

I am more of a style than substance person when it comes to powerset selection and power selection.

I read the number crunchers threads and can do my own back of an envelope engineers thumb assessments which make me reasonably happy that taking all things into account most things are pretty much balanced.

regards, Screwloose.

"I am not young enough to know everything."

[FupDup]

I generally don't, but that's because I'm more of a "concept" person than building toons top-down with a specific meta role in mind. 

 

Also, not all sets of a particular damage type are created equally. For example, Archery, DP, and Broadsword are kinda mediocre lethal sets but Battle Axe and Claws are very stronk. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

The one thing that I try to do is avoid having only one type of damage across primary/secondary/pool/epic.  Other than that, yes I will spend hours hacking at a Zeus Class titan with a broadsword 

[honoroit]

someone once did an analysis of mob dmg resistances, among the most uncommonly resisted:

0/ toxic (often entirely unresisted)

1/ cold (very uncommonly resisted, aside from obv like ice elemental demon things, and probably signature npcs)

2/ negative (ghosts, nictus, undeadish things resist)

3/ fire (surprisingly uncommonly resisted)

4/ energy (less commonly resisted than smash / lethal)

 

commonly resisted:

most - lethal

a bit less - smashing

 

something like stalker... you can really notice that 'whatever this is really cuts hard' on sets like ice.

 

fire is fire, its always fire.

 

Figs, chem user, dual pistoleer.

Edited October 5, 2023 by honoroit

[Snarky]

Depends on your goals.  If you are uber gaming certain content...a LOT.  If you are designing a toon based on a concept and fun....very F-ing little.

[Luminara]

To add to the discussion:

 

I am a min/maxer, and I don't pay the slightest bit of attention to enemy damage resistances.  They just don't matter (except Unstoppable... <Brendan Fraser>Mummies.</Brendan Fraser>).  Yes, you'll encounter the Psi resistant this or the Smashing resistant that, but most of the time, you'll never notice whether an enemy has resistances, or weaknesses, to damage unless you're specifically looking for it.

 

If you do find that your attacks aren't flipping your pancakes against an enemy, fight something else or slot some procs in your attacks for a variety of damage types.  Easy solutions for minor annoyances.

[Black Zot]

Honestly, I find Psi to be the only damage type I have to stop and think about.  Smashing and lethal resistances are common enough you can effectively consider any S/L build to be taxed ~10% off its alleged damage output, but Psi is the only type to get outright roadblocked by some enemies.  Resistances to most types come in small amounts spread widely, but stuff that resists psi resists it HARD.  You can watch a psi nuke evaporate most of an even-level spawn, then hop into a pack of -10 Fir Bolg and watch them tank that same attack with nearly half their hp left.

 

Any other attribute can muscle through resistant enemies with a couple extra swings.  Psi attackers need a second damage type in their toolkit somewhere for dealing with resistant enemies without taking all damn day.

[UltraAlt]

20 hours ago, Story Archer said:

I'm trying to figure out how much of a factor the damage type actually is

 

none to me.

I'm a character conception player.

I don't play the end-game. I play the game.

 

I'll play any set that I have a character conception for.

Sometimes I'll just build a character to check out power sets before and build a character conception based on the power sets that I want to use.

 

What I can say is that it shouldn't be the immediate conclusion that everyone is power-leveling to 50 and only playing level 50's.

It seems a lot of people assume that.

It is always good to mention if you are talking about only 50+ characters (end-game) or "leveling" characters through gameplay (the game).

 

This might help you out some:

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/List_of_Enemies_with_Vulnerabilities_to_Specific_Damage_Types

[Without_Pause]

I'll add to the chorus of it being essentially a non-factor. I dinged 50 with my 4th Claws character if you add in my Fort, and there are just a couple mob types where it feels like watching paint dry.  This is less an issue on Scrappers due to being able to crit.

[pawstruck]

Are the power descriptions kind of a noob trap, then? Because it's like every third defensive set mentions whether it offers anything against psionics. This had led me to believe that psi would be resisted by only robots, really, and be uniquely cutting through other enemies.

[Black Zot]

5 minutes ago, pawstruck said:

Are the power descriptions kind of a noob trap, then? Because it's like every third defensive set mentions whether it offers anything against psionics. This had led me to believe that psi would be resisted by only robots, really, and be uniquely cutting through other enemies.

 

Psi DOES slice through a lot of stuff.  It's very all or nothing; enemies either laugh it off or it eats them alive. 

 

Pretty much every other damage type faces enemies with 10% or maybe 20% resistance, if they resist it at all.  Psi is the odd one out in facing enemies with either no protection or more psi resist than the rest of the spawn has resists total.

 

But yeah, there's a long list of power descriptions in this game which can be charitably called "inaccurate".  You need to click that little button that brings up the hard numbers of a power to see what you're actually getting.

[biostem]

I care more about animations and what best fits the theme of the character I am currently creating than the particular damage type.  That being said, it is nice to diversify things a little bit...

[pawstruck]

52 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

Psi DOES slice through a lot of stuff.  It's very all or nothing; enemies either laugh it off or it eats them alive. 

 

Pretty much every other damage type faces enemies with 10% or maybe 20% resistance, if they resist it at all.  Psi is the odd one out in facing enemies with either no protection or more psi resist than the rest of the spawn has resists total.

 

But yeah, there's a long list of power descriptions in this game which can be charitably called "inaccurate".  You need to click that little button that brings up the hard numbers of a power to see what you're actually getting.

 

That's a helpful way to think about it and makes sense of the experience I'm having on my Psi blaster. Thanks!

[Mjolnerd]

Me personally, not at all.

 

For all the pearl-clutching some players like to do about this set not doing as much as that other set (or for extra woe-is-me, being "unplayable"), every set in the game does enough damage. Every single one.

 

Kinetic Melee is fine. Archery is fine. Storm Blast is fine. You may not like them for one reason or another, and maybe they could use a once-over from the devs to address certain issues, but even if that never happens, their damage will still be fine. Really.

[High_Beam]

Damage really doesn't factor in for me because I make toons around themes, or crazy ideas.  I do have a bunch that are probably classified as low damage but I have never really noticed for the most part except the ones that aren't supposed to be damage dealers.

[Clave Dark 5]

Another voice here for "who cares"?  That way lies min/max madness.

[Greycat]

It figures in as far as "Does it fit the character."

 

Past that? Don't honestly care.

[Biff Pow]

The good thing about Psi is a lot of the sets have a Confuse power that lets you recruit a helper buddy against resistant enemies.

[Kaika]

Damage type honestly means very little overall, the impact it has in most situations is minimal. For sure it can become relevant but for every situation where it matters, there are magnitudes more where it did not. Lethal is pretty unarguably one of the worst damage types in the game, but that doesn't stop sets like Axe from being considered one of the best melee sets the game has. On the flip side, negative is likely the best damage type, but I can count on one hand the number of Dark blasters I've seen. What I'm getting at is that even from a min/max perspective is has a fairly minimal impact overall, with the actual effects of the powers being way more important. Damage type really just amounts to a situational bonus/downside that if anything just serves to make characters feel a bit different vs different enemy types.

 

This is of course assuming that the character is being made for general play and not like, specific speed runs or other more focused play.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Riot Siren

[hexadecimalwtf]

The type of damage a set has doesn't matter to me at all. I play what fits my characters concept. 

 

Question though. If a power has mixed damage types, say Lethal/Toxic, is the toxic portion resisted by the toxic resist stat or does it all count as lethal?

Edited October 8, 2023 by hexadecimalwtf