Sleet

[MonteCarla]

As well as comparing Defenders vs Corrupters, you have to compare the Res debuff of Sleet vs those of other powersets.

Should Cold Dom (a bit of a Swiss Army Knife set) have a better Res debuff than say Sonic Resonance, which is meant to have Resistance debuffing as one of its core features? I'd say no.

 

Buffing the Defender Sleet instead of balancing the other versions would just create another disparity, this time between sets.

[arcane]

25 minutes ago, Apotheosis said:

Buffing Sleet, by itself, by 7-10% for Defenders, is not the same thing as buffing the entirety of a Powerset. And to imply otherwise is disingenuous. 

It may be an idea you disagree with. But it's your opinion that it's a bad idea. Not a fact.

 

You can buff the powers in a powerset without buffing the powerset? Teach me your ways.

 

But yeah, if you (1) believe in game balance and (2) understand exactly how in demand Cold Domination is, my statement is about as factual as you can get.

[macskull]

55 minutes ago, arcane said:

Yes, they could have slightly buffed the Defender version of the most powerful set in the game instead of slightly nerfing the Corruptor version. Which would have been a terrible idea. Imagine buffing Cold at this point in the game’s history…

Hey, they did try to change Frostwork into an absorb, so they did try to buff Cold. Also… gestures broadly at Blasters. The AT-specific differences are kinda whatever though, it’s the stacking change that’s the weird one, which means Cold now has what is objectively the worst location-based AoE -res power.

 

25 minutes ago, MonteCarla said:

Should Cold Dom (a bit of a Swiss Army Knife set) have a better Res debuff than say Sonic Resonance, which is meant to have Resistance debuffing as one of its core features? I'd say no.

It doesn’t. Cold takes several seconds to get the same -res as Sonic, and one of those two powers has a recharge time on the order of minutes. Meanwhile all Sonic has to do is throw Disruption Aura on the Scrapper once at the start of the mission and occasionally toss Sonic Siphon at things.

 

That’s the difference - Sonic can lay down that much -res with almost no setup time while also giving mez protection to the caster and entire team. Cold requires setup time to get there. Yes, Burnout exists but due to its long recharge that’s the exception rather than the norm. The lead powers dev has explicitly said powers and sets aren’t balanced around the existence of Burnout and the decision to allow debuff stacking via power/Burnout/power is intentional.

[Shin Magmus]

3 hours ago, Uun said:

I've been expecting this change for several years (since they applied the same fix to Tar Patch). I've known that the AT scaling for both Freezing Rain and Sleet was incorrect since back on live As unhappy as people are about the change, I view this as a bug fix, not a nerf. Cold corruptors, controllers and masterminds enjoyed an overpowered version of Sleet for years, but had no reason to think that it wouldn't be fixed eventually. The values for Sleet now match other AoE -res powers (i.e., Tar Patch, Enervating Field, Melt Armor, Slowed Response).

I have nothing to add, this is the correct take.  Sorry to the players who feel that *one* of their sets should have kept breaking established formula, but -22.5% Res is what you get from AoE debuffs on Corr/MM/Controller.  The sole exceptions to this are both HC reworks but they math out to similar totals: which are Trick Arrow having the -Res in the AoE power biased up (and the -Res in net arrow biased down), and Force Field... which has lower values split across its 2 powers because that set is strong enough now and would be pretty insane with higher debuffs.  Now Sleet isn't still just inexplicably much better than Tar Patch, Enervating Field, Slowed Response, Anguishing Cry, Melt Armor, etc.  Instead, Sleet is the same as them.  Welcome down to the level you should have been at.

[Glacier Peak]

I went to some lengths to ensure that people knew the history behind the change - based on a formula that had been established over twenty years ago, along with the added context of how Freezing Rain was the progenitor of Sleet. 

[macskull]

1 hour ago, ShinMagmus said:

Sorry to the players who feel that *one* of their sets should have kept breaking established formula, but -22.5% Res is what you get from AoE debuffs on Corr/MM/Controller.  The sole exceptions to this are both HC reworks but they math out to similar totals: which are Trick Arrow having the -Res in the AoE power biased up (and the -Res in net arrow biased down), and Force Field... which has lower values split across its 2 powers because that set is strong enough now and would be pretty insane with higher debuffs.

And Freezing Rain, which gets to break the rule Just Because.

 

EDIT: I feel obligated to point out that it's not the change in the -res/-def values I take issue with because I always expected that to go this way. It's the change to stacking which was unexpected and pretty unnecessary since it's now the only pseudopet that behaves that way.

Edited March 12 by macskull

[Frosticus]

I felt the change in stacking immediately on my ill/cold troller far more than the small reduction in strength. The resulting  difference of approx 300 dps in pylon testing. ~1160 down to ~860 with the same build . 

 

I won't die on this hill but there was a time back on the live servers that it expired after 15 seconds and was only possible to get more duration if you pushed the target out of the rain toward the end. 

 

 

[Glacier Peak]

15 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

I won't die on this hill but there was a time back on the live servers that it expired after 15 seconds and was only possible to get more duration if you pushed the target out of the rain toward the end. 

Ah that's interesting to read - I scoured through patch notes today looking for any changes to this power since Issue 6 and couldn't find any. Do you know a ballpark time frame when this was the case?

[Frosticus]

10 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Ah that's interesting to read - I scoured through patch notes today looking for any changes to this power since Issue 6 and couldn't find any. Do you know a ballpark time frame when this was the case?

Not really, but it was the early days of pylon testing back when breaking 300 dps was a lofty goal and pylons had no psi resistance. I remember noting that it wouldn't stack on the pylon and the build would have been much faster if it did. 

 

 

[Zect]

I have no firm opinion yet on the new cold dom, since I have not yet played it. However, I do want to comment on the approach and fundamental assumptions that seem to underlie Homecoming team's changes:

• Standardizing corr/troller-res debuffs at -22.5% apiece within the respective AT's and consistently applying AT scalars to pseudopets
• Not allowing a powerset's history or dev decisions from over a decade ago to restrict the balance of the game here and now
• Nerfing problematic cases, instead of buffing other cases to parity

Personally, while it's natural that there will always be specific power changes any one player disagrees with, I wholeheartedly agree with the overall direction of balance as reflected by the approach above.

 

P.S. I was even more surprised to read that the burnout interaction was confirmed as WAI (I have expected the sleet changes for many years but this one caught me by surprise). To me this is a simply amazing - preserving a neat, but powerful and situational trick that players can use with a considerable investment, while balancing the powerset for general use, which is far more impactful to the playerbase.

[Jacke]

I've read a lot of different viewpoints here.  I think there are some simple questions with difficult answers.  I'd also say ignore the history.  What's Past is Prologue.  How things are changed (or not changed) needs justification in the Present.

• Why is Freezing Rain on a given AT better than Sleet on the same AT?
  • There are many similar issues, example some Protection powersets on Melee ATs having fewer armour toggles and lower End/s costs.
  • There can be arguments about other parts of the Storm Summoning and Cold Domination powersets balancing out Freezing Rain being better than Sleet.
    • Without going into details, I'd say Storm Summoning has powerful pets/pseudopets and more damage with the top-of-the-line -Res in one power.
    • And Cold Domination is better at direct Team support and has its -Res separated into 3 powers (who also have other effects).
    • Cold Domination also gets important powers like its stealth+def+res aura and -Res patch at later Levels, which is still painful when Exemplaring.
  • I'd say Storm Summoning is definitely better for solo play and could even be better for Team play, especially considered Exemplaring for WSTs.
  • So why does the better powerset get the better -Res patch?
• Why wasn't Sleet made exactly the same as Freezing Rain?  Even if this required reducing or removing the -Res from Benumb and Heat Loss.
  • -Res was moved around when Trick Arrow was changed (one of the best powersets rebalances ever).
• Why is Arctic Fog at a higher Tier than Steamy Mist?  Why is Sleet at a higher Tier than Freezing Rain?
  • We don't want all the differences between powersets all homogenized away.  But maybe some equalization could help.

And the big big question:  Why isn't BURNOUT being considered for rebalancing?

 

Sure, it's 3 powers deep in the Speed Pool.  Rune of Protection is 3 powers deep in the Sorcery Pool, was in my opinion less of a balancing issue than Burnout, yet was rebalanced.

 

I'm not a powers dev.  But I've handled complex systems.  Studied RPGs for decades.  Tinkered with them.  Learned to understand the numbers.

 

I look at Burnout and think "WTF were they thinking?!?"  Completely throws away the Recharge System.  Makes other balancing so much harder.

 

Because there's always the question "But what if the new/rebalanced power is in this sequence of powers?  And then Burnout is used to do that twice?"  And were all the critical doubled sequences thought of?  Because powers immediately doubled are a lot harder to balance that in usual use.

 

Burnout gets to break the game every 30 minutes.  For the low low price of 48.75 Endurance and -25 MaxEnd for 60s.

 

If it was up to me, I wouldn't replace Burnout.  I'd make it live up to its name.  My proposal would need testing and balancing itself, but would work with the Recharge system, not break it.

• "The Mad Minute"
  • Burnout keeps fixed 1800s Recharge.
  • 50 Endurance cost.
  • For 60s
    • -25 MaxEnd
    • -0.5 End/s
    • +200% Recharge
  • Every 6s for 54s (Count goes from 0 to 9)
    • Chance for Mag500 Confuse Self for 10.5s, replace: Count x 5% (increasing chance)
    • +Res Heal on Self for 10.5s, replace: Count x 20% (increasing resistance to being healed)
    • PBAoE Fire Damage 20ft radius, damages Self, Teammates, Mobs
      • Damage to Mobs and Teammates BaseValue x Count (increasing damage to others)
      • Damages Mobs (max 16)
      • Damages Teammates (max 255)
      • Damages Self for 10% of BaseHP
  • After 60s
    • -50 MaxEnd for 10.5s
    • -50 End
    • -1000% Recovery for 10.5s
    • Mag500 Confuse Self for 10.5s, replace
    • +200% Res Heal on Self for 10.5s, replace
    • PBAoE Fire Damage 20ft radius, damages Self, Teammates, Mobs
      • Damage to Mobs and Teammates BaseValue x 40
      • Damages Mobs (max 16)
      • Damages Teammates (max 255)
      • Damages Self for 40% of BaseHP

If the toon is defeated during Burnout, including at the end, like Self-Destruct will leave no body to be rezzed.  All burned away.

 

Now that's a Burnout!  😺

[Glacier Peak]

I don't think Burnout should have a place in discussion about power balancing, but at the same time, as @Jacke points out, it's there and powers devs have to be aware of it when making changes. Having powers not meant to be chained together like Elude or double nuke is certainly a concern, but it should stay an exception to the rule and not the norm. 

 

At the same time, why would a player waste Burnout on Sleet when it already comes back so fast? Players can get Benumb perma for AV/GM battles. I could maybe see a case for Heat Loss.

Edited March 13 by Glacier Peak

[Jacke]

48 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I don't think Burnout should have a place in discussion about power balancing, but at the same time, as @Jacke points out, it's there and powers devs have to be aware of it when making changes. Having powers not meant to be chained together like Elude or double nuke is certainly a concern, but it should stay an exception to the rule and not the norm.

 

I think Burnout indeed has a place in discussion about power balancing, because it pushes any balance to the limit and makes that balance much harder.

 

I almost wish I'd not mentioned Burnout in that post, as it overwhelmed (burned out) my questions at the top of the post.

 

Care to give them a consideration, @Glacier Peak?  😺  Following is a repost (with a bit of editing):

 

 

I think there are some simple questions with difficult answers.  I'd also say ignore the history.  What's Past is Prologue.  How things are changed (or not changed) needs justification in the Present.

• Why is Freezing Rain on a given AT better than Sleet on the same AT?
  • There are many similar issues, example some Protection powersets on Melee ATs having fewer armour toggles and lower End/s costs.
  • There can be arguments about other parts of the Storm Summoning and Cold Domination powersets balancing out Freezing Rain being better than Sleet.
    • Without going into details, I'd say Storm Summoning has powerful pets/pseudopets and more damage with the top-of-the-line -Res in one power.
    • And Cold Domination is better at direct Team support and has its -Res separated into 3 powers (who also have other effects).
    • Cold Domination also gets important powers like its stealth+def+res aura and -Res patch at later Levels, which is still painful when Exemplaring.
  • I'd say Storm Summoning is definitely better for solo play and could even be better for Team play, especially considering Exemplaring for WSTs.
  • So why does the better powerset get the better -Res patch?
• Why wasn't Sleet made exactly the same as Freezing Rain for each AT?  Even if this required reducing or removing the -Res from Benumb and Heat Loss.
  • -Res was moved around when Trick Arrow was changed (one of the best powerset rebalances ever).
• Why is Arctic Fog at a higher Tier than Steamy Mist?  Why is Sleet at a higher Tier than Freezing Rain?
  • We don't want all the differences between powersets all homogenized away.  But maybe some equalization could help.

 

 

Edited March 13 by Jacke

[Uun]

11 hours ago, Jacke said:

Why is Freezing Rain on a given AT better than Sleet on the same AT?

It was an intentional decision by the devs to buff Storm. If you go back to the first page of this thread, I posted a link to Captain Powerhouse's explanation in the beta focused feedback thread.

 

11 hours ago, Jacke said:

Even if this required reducing or removing the -Res from Benumb

Benumb has never had -res.

[TheMoncrief]

On 3/11/2024 at 3:25 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I appreciate your input and I see this as a bug fix as well. However, I'll point out that in my post at the top that those "overpowered " versions of Sleet you mentioned didn't apply to the Corruptor version, as it has been the same value since Issue 6, which persisted for nearly twenty years before a change was deemed necessary. 

 

That's my issue. It's not a bug fix. Inasmuch as anything is definitive, the Corruptor version of the set is the definitive expression of the original developer intent for the power set. If there was a bug, it was that it was ported without alteration to Defenders.

 

I don't *LIKE* the change, but I can accept that it was needed. But please call it what it is - a nerf. It is produced not by a programming failure to properly express design intent being fixed, but by a change in design intent. They decided that Cold Domination was too powerful and nerfed it.

 

Nerfs happen. Players are rarely happy about them. We get over it. But misrepresenting what happened implies that there's nothing to be unhappy about and the players are being whiny cheaters having their broken stuff fixed, rather than players being unhappy about a change in the game that, however necessary, negatively affected their game play experience.

[Darkir]

On 3/11/2024 at 12:02 PM, Uun said:

I've been expecting this change for several years (since they applied the same fix to Tar Patch). I've known that the AT scaling for both Freezing Rain and Sleet was incorrect since back on live As unhappy as people are about the change, I view this as a bug fix, not a nerf. Cold corruptors, controllers and masterminds enjoyed an overpowered version of Sleet for years, but had no reason to think that it wouldn't be fixed eventually. The values for Sleet now match other AoE -res powers (i.e., Tar Patch, Enervating Field, Melt Armor, Slowed Response).

Then they should have fully fixed the bugs and make all corruptor powers Scourge. Sleet should Scourge and have the right power level. Not just nerf the powerlevel and still not scourge.

[Frosticus]

28 minutes ago, Darkir said:

Then they should have fully fixed the bugs and make all corruptor powers Scourge. Sleet should Scourge and have the right power level. Not just nerf the powerlevel and still not scourge.

Not disagreeing, but do any secondary powers scourge? I think a lot of housekeeping is still warranted, but it is probably a huge job.

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Not disagreeing, but do any secondary powers scourge? I think a lot of housekeeping is still warranted, but it is probably a huge job.

I could've swore it was tied to the enemy's health - not the type of attack being used on the enemy. 

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

I could've swore it was tied to the enemy's health - not the type of attack being used on the enemy. 

I can check but I feel like my lightning storm doesn't scourge. It should.

[Carnifax]

9 hours ago, Darkir said:

Then they should have fully fixed the bugs and make all corruptor powers Scourge. Sleet should Scourge and have the right power level. Not just nerf the powerlevel and still not scourge.

Why do you want Sleet to Scourge? The damage is crap anyway (I've just checked Freezing Rain in an old combat log I had on my Plant/Storm by parsing it and it's 1/5th of the damage of Tornado and unlike Tornado that'll be spread across a lot of enemies). 

 

 

Generally secondaries don't Scourge / do Containment damage. Primaries and Epics should, to some extent (Ice Storm in Controller epics is 50% containment damage for some reason, direct attacks like Fireball & Fissure do Containment as normal).

 

In Corruptor Dark epic Dark Consumption and Soul Drain do scourge (hilariously because it can target corpses Soul Drain will often pop up a load of SCOURGE messages on dead things). 

 

Although my Water / Trick Arrow is fully on board with the idea of Scourging Oil Slick Arrow (and my Plant/Storm and Grav/TA up for Containing secondary shenanigans too). 

 

4 hours ago, Frosticus said:

I can check but I feel like my lightning storm doesn't scourge. It should.

It doesn't but it should. LS in general isn't great for the stupidly high End costs. 

 

Quote

I could've swore it was tied to the enemy's health - not the type of attack being used on the enemy. 

 

It's defined in each power (or not) individually as is Containment. So there'd be work in adding them to each Corruptor and Controller secondary (on the plus side it means one could define a rule like "Secondaries do half the Containment / Scourge damage" if they liked / wanted to take a cautious approach. 

 

Looks like this in CoD. 

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.dark_mastery.dark_consumption&at=corruptor

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.sleet.sleet&at=corruptor

Edited March 14 by Carnifax

[Darkir]

9 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Not disagreeing, but do any secondary powers scourge? I think a lot of housekeeping is still warranted, but it is probably a huge job.

Repulsion bomb and force bolt scourge.

 

I want every corruptor power that does damage to be able to Scourge. I don't care that sleet doesn't do much damage. I want consistency and I want the devs to stop making corruptors just a worse defender for the majority of power combinations. Making every power able to Scourge would go a small way to not having defenders be the default choice for so many power combinations. People say the nerfing sleet on corruptors instead of buffing defenders is just a bug fix, well then fully fix it and let me Scourge. 

Edited March 14 by Darkir

[Carnifax]

1 hour ago, Darkir said:

Repulsion bomb and force bolt scourge.

So they do, they also have Containment for the Controller version. Weird. I assume during the last upgrade to FF the Powers dev added it in. Technically they shouldn't have but I like the precedent. 

 

Most annoying for me is Enflame. That won't do Containment or Scourge AND they gave Controllers the same damage modifier as Masterminds. Arcane Bolt supports both. It irks me deeply. 

[Uun]

4 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Generally secondaries don't Scourge / do Containment damage.

Perhaps it's because virtually all the damaging powers in corruptor/controller secondaries are pets/pseudo-pets. Controller pets don't do containment damage either. In addition to Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb, Gale also scourges/does containment damage. Acid Arrow does containment damage but doesn't scourge. Howling Twilight doesn't scourge or do containment damage.

[Carnifax]

16 minutes ago, Uun said:

Perhaps it's because virtually all the damaging powers in corruptor/controller secondaries are pets/pseudo-pets

It's not a Secondary, rather an epic, but Ice Storm does do a reduced amount of Containment damage and is a pseudo. 

 

I think it's just inconsistency across powers developed over loads of years by lots of different people (your Acid / Gale example for example).

[Hjarki]

6 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Why do you want Sleet to Scourge? The damage is crap anyway (I've just checked Freezing Rain in an old combat log I had on my Plant/Storm by parsing it and it's 1/5th of the damage of Tornado and unlike Tornado that'll be spread across a lot of enemies). 

I think the general rule people are looking for is that if you care about the damage, it doesn't Containment/Scourge. If you don't care about the damage, it does.