Nature Affinity - Corrosive Enzymes

[Sancerre]

Nature Affinity (defender primary)

Corrosive Enzymes - Tier 1 power

Spray a single target with toxic, corrosive enzymes reducing the damage they deal as well as their damage resistance.

Single Target

Damage Debuff: 31.25% (25% corruptor)

Resistance Reduction: 25% (18.75% corruptor)

 

Writing for a small but notable change -- please add some percentage of Defense Debuff to this, it can be even be -1% (the actual amount literally doesn't matter).  Why?  The obvious Achilles' Heel resistance reduction proc... and a few others if you would choose to proc it out i guess.

 

You may ask why this is needed -- I will note that no, it is not needed.  I would mostly justify the change as a quality of life.  everybody and their mom has achilles' heel slotted into their kit somewhere these days and it doesn't stack.  That in mind, this is a relatively low impact change for party play and a nice subtle change for Nature enjoyers to give a better sense that pressing the Corrosive Enzymes button feels impactful (there is literally nothing else to slot in this thing).

 

**good discussion in the thread -- i dont really like this suggestion anymore**

Edited December 7, 2023 by Sancerre
closing thoughts

[Rudra]

I feel like I'm the fricking No Fairy these days.... Okay, here goes.

 

14 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

everybody and their mom has achilles' heel slotted into their kit somewhere these days and it doesn't stack

A completely false statement. I do not have that set or even just its proc in any of my builds (that I can currently remember).

 

14 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

I would mostly justify the change as a quality of life. 

Making a power more powerful is not a quality of life change. It is a buff.

 

14 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

Why?  The obvious Achilles' Heel resistance reduction proc... and a few others if you would choose to proc it out i guess.

Wanting to slot preferred procs into a power is not even remotely a good reason to ask for a power to be changed. Especially when you admit:

14 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

You may ask why this is needed -- I will note that no, it is not needed. 

 

 

14 minutes ago, Sancerre said:

That in mind, this is a relatively low impact change for party play and a nice subtle change for Nature enjoyers to give a better sense that pressing the Corrosive Enzymes button feels impactful (there is literally nothing else to slot in this thing).

Corrosive Enzymes already gives a -25% damage resist effect when used by a Defender. And when used against a boss, EB, AV, monster, or giant monster? A -25% damage resist effect and -31.25% damage effect is very impactful. Especially when paired with Spore Cloud's -18.75% chance ToHit, -150% regeneration, and -28.125% damage effect. It does not need or warrant being able to inflict -45% damage resist.

[Sancerre]

first comment -- i am actually a fairly shocked to hear that you dont use achilles' heel on any of your heroes/villains.  dont know if that stems from some sort of personal refusal on your end or just a coincidental lack of -defense powers in the powersets you gravitate towards.  you seem to recognize the proc has value.

 

i was looking at nature from a 'where does it make sense to help out nature across the set' perspective.  didnt really do my homework on adjacent t1 powers -- there are even worse t1 powers (sonic siphon, for example).  in that vein, it does make my suggestion for corrosive enzyme a -very- strong button.  Admittedly, i do not personally value -foe damage% debuff very much -- maybe i should.

 

regarding collective synergies with 1 other power in the nature powerset... throwing down debuff numbers that are substantially away from poison / trick arrow / cold dom does not particularly have me imagining the proposal would suddenly shift the meta into Nature Affinity over Cold Dom.  bit of apples and oranges for me to compare debuff oriented sets to healing oriented sets anyways, i get that.  The initial thought was: Time Manipulation (in my opinion) is a very close parallel to Nature Affinity and i was looking to achieve a similar feat with corrosive enzymes that slowed response does (single target vs AoE) -- so i thought, if Time can do it... why not Nature.  i could very well be reaching too far here though.

 

side note -- spore cloud feels awful to use as a 3.1 second cast anchor toggle (all the same as darkest night)... Nature feels kinda sluggish overall.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Sancerre said:

first comment -- i am actually a fairly shocked to hear that you dont use achilles' heel on any of your heroes/villains.  dont know if that stems from some sort of personal refusal on your end or just a coincidental lack of -defense powers in the powersets you gravitate towards.  you seem to recognize the proc has value.

 

i was looking at nature from a 'where does it make sense to help out nature across the set' perspective.  didnt really do my homework on adjacent t1 powers -- there are even worse t1 powers (sonic siphon, for example).  in that vein, it does make my suggestion for corrosive enzyme a -very- strong button.  Admittedly, i do not personally value -foe damage% debuff very much -- maybe i should.

 

regarding collective synergies with 1 other power in the nature powerset... throwing down debuff numbers that are substantially away from poison / trick arrow / cold dom does not particularly have me imagining the proposal would suddenly shift the meta into Nature Affinity over Cold Dom.  bit of apples and oranges for me to compare debuff oriented sets to healing oriented sets anyways, i get that.  The initial thought was: Time Manipulation (in my opinion) is a very close parallel to Nature Affinity and i was looking to achieve a similar feat with corrosive enzymes that slowed response does (single target vs AoE) -- so i thought, if Time can do it... why not Nature.  i could very well be reaching too far here though.

 

side note -- spore cloud feels awful to use as a 3.1 second cast anchor toggle (all the same as darkest night)... Nature feels kinda sluggish overall.

Okay... let's tackle this in steps....

 

First, the damage reduction components as it pertains to your character and team. Corrosive Enzymes inflicts the target with -31.25% damage. Just with that power alone, you cut any target's damage by almost 1/3. Then you add in the toggle effect from Spore Cloud for another -28.125% damage. Between just those two powers, any target you choose is reduced to inflicting just 40.625% of its normal damage. Before you even factor in your or your teammates damage resistance. That's it. The target is doing just 41% of its normal damage under those two powers' combined effects. And then you get Wild Growth which boosts your and all allies within 25 feet of you for your damage resistance by +15% before you even get to slotting any damage resistance enhancements. And getting it down on recharge to where you can pretty much spam it back to back as soon as its effect wears off is not terribly difficult. So by those powers, you can basically shut down any target's ability to do any real damage to you and your teammates. (And that is before you count in Spore Cloud's -18.75% chance ToHit which means those attacks are less likely to even hit to try and do damage.)

 

Then let's look at the -damage resist component. Out of the box, at 1st level, you have a character that can destroy a target's damage resistance by 25%. That is insanely powerful. Why? Let's assume you have a power that does a base 100 points of damage. You are trying to hurt a Tanker class mob that has maxxed damage resistance, the full 90%. So you can only hit him/her/them/it for a whole 10 points of damage. Then you smack that target with Corrosive Enzymes. You dropped the target's damage resist by 25%. (I'm not sure how damage resist affects -damage resist, so I'm keeping my math simple here.) 90%-25%=65%. So now your attack is hitting for 35 points of damage as opposed to 10. And very few mobs have really high damage resistance. I want to say they have an average of 30-50%, but that is a shot in the dark from barely remembered posts. And you can apply a -25% damage resist to that.

 

Corrosive Enzymes can't slot any sets. You are correct. However, it also doesn't need any sets to be any better. Slot some global recharge from your other sets, slot some END reduction and some accuracy, and for the next 30 seconds, your chosen target is a paper tiger. Coupled with the set's +regen' and heals? That damage reduction, loss of ToHit, loss of damage, and loss of regen' to make up for the increased damage you and your team are inflicting on it means your chosen target is completely *&%^ed. You want impactful? (Edit: Especially at high levels/end game where a lot of players have their accuracy so high they can hit a gnat from a mile away with a sneeze....) The only thing Nature lacks for impact is a slow effect, and it has pretty much everything under the sun other than slow covered.

 

Edit again: As for you being shocked and wondering why I don't slot the Achilles' Heel proc? Because I just don't care. My characters can mow down targets more than fast enough without it and I have higher priorities in my builds.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Rudra

[srmalloy]

11 hours ago, Rudra said:

A completely false statement. I do not have that set or even just its proc in any of my builds (that I can currently remember).

hy·per·bo·le

/hīˈpərbəlē/ noun

noun: hyperbole; plural noun: hyperboles     

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, srmalloy said:

hy·per·bo·le

/hīˈpərbəlē/ noun

noun: hyperbole; plural noun: hyperboles     

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

And what about that statement you are claiming is hyperbole is hyperbole? His/her/their statement is completely false. I do not have that set or proc slotted in any of my builds that I can remember, and I know I'm not the only one. (I know this because my in game friends have shared some of their builds with me and they don't have it slotted either.) So not "everybody and their mom" has that set or proc in their builds. The hyperbole I used was in the line "have their accuracy so high they can hit a gnat from a mile away with a sneeze".)

 

(And if your intent is to say I am reacting to hyperbole, the author's own response to my comment proves otherwise.)

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

His/her/their statement is completely false

Unless you actually believe that they meant "everyone and their mom" to be taken literally, then its canonical meaning as an exaggeration or hyperbole stands; your insistence that it can only be taken literally, popping like a soap bubble at a porcupine convention with a single counterexample, smacks of narcissism.

[Bionic_Flea]

Dude, my mom has never even played.  And never will . . .

[arcane]

I would argue Nature Affinity is the #3 support set in the game at the moment and does not really need the buff, but that’s just my opinion.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

haha i feel like this could have been solved by @Captain Fabulous

 

I also do not use Achilles heel in any of my builds 

The Devs have said there is a looming procalypse so not sure how much traction this would get

that being said.....

taking a look at this set I see it has -regen and -resist so

yeah I could get behind adding a -def somewhere in there to round out the set however,

I'm not smart enough to figure out where it should go

@Sancerre There is a guide on here somewhere the dev's made about powers and how they are balanced

 

[Captain Fabulous]

20 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

haha i feel like this could have been solved by @Captain Fabulous

 

I also do not use Achilles heel in any of my builds 

The Devs have said there is a looming procalypse so not sure how much traction this would get

that being said.....

taking a look at this set I see it has -regen and -resist so

yeah I could get behind adding a -def somewhere in there to round out the set however,

I'm not smart enough to figure out where it should go

@Sancerre There is a guide on here somewhere the dev's made about powers and how they are balanced

 

/powercreep

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Unless you actually believe that they meant "everyone and their mom" to be taken literally, then its canonical meaning as an exaggeration or hyperbole stands; your insistence that it can only be taken literally, popping like a soap bubble at a porcupine convention with a single counterexample, smacks of narcissism.

Is it narcissistic to point out that a person's perception that any given proc is a must have is not correct? Anyway, if it is, then I'm a proud, card carrying narcissist. Let's not derail the thread any further over this, shall we?

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Let's not derail the thread any further over this, shall we?

"Accept that my one interpretation is correct by definition, that there is no possibility of any other interpretation, including common usage, being correct, and retire the argument accepting my victory." Yeah, right. How long have you been using the internet? All of the people beating at rusty brown patches of dirt where a dead horse was pounded into powder years ago say differently.

Edited December 5, 2023 by srmalloy

[biostem]

I don't think we need to stack the same array of debuffs around on powers, especially if the intent is simply to do so to allow IO set muling.  Frankly, I don't care what IOs people do or do not use, but aspects of powers should not be added or taken away to facilitate slotting IOs...

[Riverdusk]

I'd also love to see some -defense added to the power, but I think you lost the argument when you said the whole point of it was to just allow IO proc slotting.  That's a really bad justification for it.

[Riverdusk]

21 hours ago, Sancerre said:

 

side note -- spore cloud feels awful to use as a 3.1 second cast anchor toggle (all the same as darkest night)... Nature feels kinda sluggish overall.

 

That one I can definitely get behind and have mentioned it before myself.  Radiation infection got its horrendous 3+ second cast time reduced to 1.5 seconds.  Darkest night and spore cloud are similar toggle powers and could use a similar reduction (even shaving them down to around 2 seconds would feel a LOT better).

Edited December 5, 2023 by Riverdusk

[kelika2]

6 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Unless you actually believe that they meant "everyone and their mom" to be taken literally, then its canonical meaning as an exaggeration or hyperbole stands; your insistence that it can only be taken literally, popping like a soap bubble at a porcupine convention with a single counterexample, smacks of narcissism.

is there a hyperbole for making a mountain out of a molehill?

you love that word and explain it a lot

[biostem]

Who new a thread on Nature Affinity would turn into an English lesson? 

[Sancerre]

On 12/4/2023 at 4:00 PM, arcane said:

I would argue Nature Affinity is the #3 support set in the game at the moment and does not really need the buff, but that’s just my opinion.

 

Curious -- i personally rate cold and time VERY highly and i thought people really liked kinetics... as like the big 3.  I have viewed nature as more middle of the pack i guess -- good but not great.  different perspectives i suppose.

 

21 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

That one I can definitely get behind and have mentioned it before myself.  Radiation infection got its horrendous 3+ second cast time reduced to 1.5 seconds.  Darkest night and spore cloud are similar toggle powers and could use a similar reduction (even shaving them down to around 2 seconds would feel a LOT better).

 

yea idk maybe i jumped the gun with the suggestion at corrosive enzymes.  was just looking to speed up the some of the 'oomph' while using the set.  enzymes feels kind of lousy to use for incidental boss spawns every 20 feet.  enzymes feels OK to use on an AV but kinda just OK -- and i suppose that should just be fine for a T1 power.

 

spore cloud is probably the better target for better gameplay on Nature.  speed up the anchor animation to 2s

[Sancerre]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:56 PM, Rudra said:

Okay... let's tackle this in steps....

 

First, the damage reduction components as it pertains to your character and team. Corrosive Enzymes inflicts the target with -31.25% damage. Just with that power alone, you cut any target's damage by almost 1/3. Then you add in the toggle effect from Spore Cloud for another -28.125% damage. Between just those two powers, any target you choose is reduced to inflicting just 40.625% of its normal damage. Before you even factor in your or your teammates damage resistance. That's it. The target is doing just 41% of its normal damage under those two powers' combined effects. And then you get Wild Growth which boosts your and all allies within 25 feet of you for your damage resistance by +15% before you even get to slotting any damage resistance enhancements. And getting it down on recharge to where you can pretty much spam it back to back as soon as its effect wears off is not terribly difficult. So by those powers, you can basically shut down any target's ability to do any real damage to you and your teammates. (And that is before you count in Spore Cloud's -18.75% chance ToHit which means those attacks are less likely to even hit to try and do damage.)

 

Then let's look at the -damage resist component. Out of the box, at 1st level, you have a character that can destroy a target's damage resistance by 25%. That is insanely powerful. Why? Let's assume you have a power that does a base 100 points of damage. You are trying to hurt a Tanker class mob that has maxxed damage resistance, the full 90%. So you can only hit him/her/them/it for a whole 10 points of damage. Then you smack that target with Corrosive Enzymes. You dropped the target's damage resist by 25%. (I'm not sure how damage resist affects -damage resist, so I'm keeping my math simple here.) 90%-25%=65%. So now your attack is hitting for 35 points of damage as opposed to 10. And very few mobs have really high damage resistance. I want to say they have an average of 30-50%, but that is a shot in the dark from barely remembered posts. And you can apply a -25% damage resist to that.

 

Corrosive Enzymes can't slot any sets. You are correct. However, it also doesn't need any sets to be any better. Slot some global recharge from your other sets, slot some END reduction and some accuracy, and for the next 30 seconds, your chosen target is a paper tiger. Coupled with the set's +regen' and heals? That damage reduction, loss of ToHit, loss of damage, and loss of regen' to make up for the increased damage you and your team are inflicting on it means your chosen target is completely *&%^ed. You want impactful? (Edit: Especially at high levels/end game where a lot of players have their accuracy so high they can hit a gnat from a mile away with a sneeze....) The only thing Nature lacks for impact is a slow effect, and it has pretty much everything under the sun other than slow covered.

 

Edit again: As for you being shocked and wondering why I don't slot the Achilles' Heel proc? Because I just don't care. My characters can mow down targets more than fast enough without it and I have higher priorities in my builds.

 

i agree with you that -resistance is powerful and that is entirely the reason i suggested the change: to allow for more -resistance.  im pretty certain the math is different than what you have laid out but the general prospect is that -resistance is quite valuable all the same.

 

the -damage part on a single target ability is really not that impactful however... in my opinion.  during the general gameplay loop, im not slappin enzymes on everything.  i would mostly reserve it for an incidental boss that happened to be outside the AoE zone or explicitly AVs.  AVs have something like 85% debuff resistance though.  playing a corruptor and using corrosive enzymes against an AV reduces their damage by 4% and it gets worse if they are higher level than you.  yes 4% is better than nothing but it is not likely going to make or break whoever is getting hit by the AV.

 

city of heroes is an AoE game.  single target abilities, especially non damaging ones, are far less valuable in general gameplay.

[Sancerre]

On 12/4/2023 at 4:17 PM, Saiyajinzoningen said:

haha i feel like this could have been solved by @Captain Fabulous

 

I also do not use Achilles heel in any of my builds 

The Devs have said there is a looming procalypse so not sure how much traction this would get

that being said.....

taking a look at this set I see it has -regen and -resist so

yeah I could get behind adding a -def somewhere in there to round out the set however,

I'm not smart enough to figure out where it should go

@Sancerre There is a guide on here somewhere the dev's made about powers and how they are balanced

 

 

yea i get you on that.  the procalypse has been looming for how many years now?  mostly come to accept that the procs are the game -- so build around them.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Sancerre said:

 

city of heroes is an AoE game.  single target abilities, especially non damaging ones, are far less valuable in general gameplay.

No, it isn't. Your playstyle may be AoE focused, but the game isn't. I've run several ST-focused power sets and cleared the game just fine. So have several other players, some of which are on this forum. And ST heavy characters can still clear even +4/x8 spawns in a hurry. While AoE heavy characters may normally clear faster, I've watched ST heavy characters clear +4/x8 spawns faster than the AoE character on the team. The current meta is all about massive AoEs, but AoEs will always do less damage than ST attacks.

 

1 hour ago, Sancerre said:

the -damage part on a single target ability is really not that impactful however... in my opinion. 

Like you said, that is your opinion. However, the devs are looking for facts. And -damage still has to be factored in. And while your average faceroll team won't care about -damage, your MMs and solo Defenders/Corruptors will most likely do. Especially MMs since the less damage that EB, AV, monster, or giant monster is doing to the MM and his/her/their/its pets, the more likely said pets will survive and not have to be re-summoned and re-upgraded. Solo Defenders and Corruptors? Won't have to heal as often and focus more on damaging the target. And it is the mechanics involved that will determine if the devs agree with your suggestion. And so far? The only justification you have is that you want to be able to slot even more -damage resist because you don't think the -damage means anything.

 

1 hour ago, Sancerre said:

im pretty certain the math is different than what you have laid out but the general prospect is that -resistance is quite valuable all the same.

And because a game mechanic is more preferred that means the devs should enable us to stack even more -damage resist than we already can? Defenders, Corruptors, and Masterminds can already slot a -damage resist in their ranged AoE attacks courtesy of Annihilation. They can grab Cross Punch and slot Fury of the Gladiator. (Edit: And only the Fury of the Gladiator one is unique.) They can grab power sets like Radiation Emission/Blast (depending on AT) and slot the Achilles' Heel too. So why should Nature Affinity's Corrosive Enzymes give them yet one more place to slot it?

Edited December 6, 2023 by Rudra

[srmalloy]

On 12/3/2023 at 8:56 PM, Rudra said:

Then let's look at the -damage resist component. Out of the box, at 1st level, you have a character that can destroy a target's damage resistance by 25%. That is insanely powerful. Why? Let's assume you have a power that does a base 100 points of damage. You are trying to hurt a Tanker class mob that has maxxed damage resistance, the full 90%. So you can only hit him/her/them/it for a whole 10 points of damage. Then you smack that target with Corrosive Enzymes. You dropped the target's damage resist by 25%. (I'm not sure how damage resist affects -damage resist, so I'm keeping my math simple here.) 90%-25%=65%.

Damage resistance is its own debuff resistance. So a Tanker with 90% Damage Resistance resists 90% of a resistance debuff, and your 25% resistance debuff becomes 2.5%, reducing their resistance from 90% to 87.5%, and your 100-point hit changes from a net of 10 to a net of 12.5.

[Rudra]

35 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Damage resistance is its own debuff resistance. So a Tanker with 90% Damage Resistance resists 90% of a resistance debuff, and your 25% resistance debuff becomes 2.5%, reducing their resistance from 90% to 87.5%, and your 100-point hit changes from a net of 10 to a net of 12.5.

So if the regular damage resist for a boss/EB/AV is 50%, then Corrosive Enzyme's -damage resist becomes -12.5% reducing the target's damage resist to 37.5%? (I don't know boss', EBs', AVs' typical damage resists. I only remember there was a post once upon a time about 30-50% being the normal high values. Doesn't mean I remember correctly, just those are the numbers I remember.)

[arcane]

15 hours ago, Sancerre said:

 

Curious -- i personally rate cold and time VERY highly and i thought people really liked kinetics... as like the big 3.  I have viewed nature as more middle of the pack i guess -- good but not great.  different perspectives i suppose.

Right, but the difference is my “perspective” comes from what is actually the current meta in the game’s hardest content. Typical team composition is basically 1 Scrapper, 2 Blasters, 3 Colds, 1 Kin, 1 Nature.