Enemies and Damage.

[Ultimo]

So, today I did the Manticore task force with a nice group of folks.  We went through it pretty well, as having three Storm Defenders (myself included) made the enemies unable to hit us reliably.  Very handy.

 

Eventually we came to the final battle, and we started with Hopkins, who is an AV.  My usual strategy is to teleport in next to the enemy, Hurricane running, and cast something to attack with, like Freezing Rain.  If they're near a corner, I'll position myself so Gale can blow them there, and Hurricane can keep them there.  Knowing an AV has very extreme damage, I popped three medium purples before beaming in.

He attacked me ONCE and did about 11k damage.  I have about 1k health.  He did enough damage to oneshot me 11 times over, in one attack.  Of course, his next attack did another 800 damage, and I was toast.  He had a 5% chance to hit, he hit me twice before I could even react.  I rezzed, recovered and toggled up, and he hit again for around 3000 damage.  Oneshotted again.  Three attacks three hits, 5% chance each time.  What luck, you might say.  I say EVERY attack I endured in this fight between him and Countess Crey, once she appeared, hit me.  They NEVER missed, and almost every attack was enough to oneshot me.

 

So this brings me to the point of my post.  Enemy damage at higher ranks (EB and AV) are WAY, WAY, WAY excessive.  If there is no way for the player to survive an attack, there's no game.  Enemies should never do enough damage to oneshot ANY character, unless it's a telegraphed attack that can be avoided or otherwise mitigated.  In the example above, there was nothing I could do to survive the attack.  I put as much defense and resistance on the character as I could.  Reduced his tohit as much as was possible.  I even used Inspirations to make myself as protected as was possible... but it made no difference.  Nothing I could do would have allowed me to do anything about that attack... so there was no GAME to play.

 

I said the same thing back in live days, and I've said it here before in reference to my AE characters.  It's nearly impossible to make a villain durable enough to challenge many players, especially groups of players, who isn't going to instantly wipe out half the team with one attack.  That's a problem I would like to see addressed.

[tidge]

6 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

He attacked me ONCE and did about 11k damage.  I have about 1k health.  He did enough damage to oneshot me 11 times over, in one attack.  Of course, his next attack did another 800 damage, and I was toast.  He had a 5% chance to hit, he hit me twice before I could even react.  I rezzed, recovered and toggled up, and he hit again for around 3000 damage.  Oneshotted again.  Three attacks three hits, 5% chance each time.  What luck, you might say.  I say EVERY attack I endured in this fight between him and Countess Crey, once she appeared, hit me.  They NEVER missed, and almost every attack was enough to oneshot me.

 

 Maybe it wasn't 5%?

[MoonSheep]

sounds like RNGesus unfortunately cast you a poor hand a few times which happen to anyone

 

also sounds like he was perhaps a few levels above you which makes debuffs less impactful

 

defenders are squishy when things go south. was the team overall able to defeat hopkins and countess? if yes, sounds like things are working fine

 

sometimes in CoH you die. i think it’s positive to have an element of challenge

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

So, today I did the Manticore task force with a nice group of folks.  We went through it pretty well, as having three Storm Defenders (myself included) made the enemies unable to hit us reliably.  Very handy.

 

Eventually we came to the final battle, and we started with Hopkins, who is an AV.  My usual strategy is to teleport in next to the enemy, Hurricane running, and cast something to attack with, like Freezing Rain.  If they're near a corner, I'll position myself so Gale can blow them there, and Hurricane can keep them there.  Knowing an AV has very extreme damage, I popped three medium purples before beaming in.

He attacked me ONCE and did about 11k damage.  I have about 1k health.  He did enough damage to oneshot me 11 times over, in one attack.  Of course, his next attack did another 800 damage, and I was toast.  He had a 5% chance to hit, he hit me twice before I could even react.  I rezzed, recovered and toggled up, and he hit again for around 3000 damage.  Oneshotted again.  Three attacks three hits, 5% chance each time.  What luck, you might say.  I say EVERY attack I endured in this fight between him and Countess Crey, once she appeared, hit me.  They NEVER missed, and almost every attack was enough to oneshot me.

 

So this brings me to the point of my post.  Enemy damage at higher ranks (EB and AV) are WAY, WAY, WAY excessive.  If there is no way for the player to survive an attack, there's no game.  Enemies should never do enough damage to oneshot ANY character, unless it's a telegraphed attack that can be avoided or otherwise mitigated.  In the example above, there was nothing I could do to survive the attack.  I put as much defense and resistance on the character as I could.  Reduced his tohit as much as was possible.  I even used Inspirations to make myself as protected as was possible... but it made no difference.  Nothing I could do would have allowed me to do anything about that attack... so there was no GAME to play.

 

I said the same thing back in live days, and I've said it here before in reference to my AE characters.  It's nearly impossible to make a villain durable enough to challenge many players, especially groups of players, who isn't going to instantly wipe out half the team with one attack.  That's a problem I would like to see addressed.

Have you considered the strategy of not standing next to an AV?

[AngieB]

LOL Snarky 🙂

[Luminara]

21 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

He attacked me ONCE and did about 11k damage.

 

His strongest attack is Total Focus.  TF deals base 1024.3802 damage at level 35, and he's internally capped at level 44, so the maximum base damage would be 1502.8998.  Presuming he was at 44 and you were 35, TF would deal 3,005.7996 per hit.  The only way he could deal 11,000 damage would be if the TF were set to Enemies Buffed and Players Debuffed.

 

3 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

He had a 5% chance to hit

 

At level 35, an AV has 77% resistance to -ToHit.  An AV has a base 75% chance to hit (50% ToHit * 1.5 AccMod).  Without slotting Hurricane for ToHit Debuff, you only reduced his hit chance by 8.625% (37.5 * 0.23).  With Hurricane optimally slotted for -ToHit (56%), you'd still only reduce his hit chance by 13.455%.

 

And that's without taking into account challenge settings.

 

The problem wasn't AV damage.  The problem was that your TF was set to Enemies Buffed and Players Debuffed.

[KaizenSoze]

Advice for fighting AVs with Storm. Hurricane has a 25' radius and a -range debuff. Most melee attacks are under 10'.

 

Keep an eye on the range indicator and stay as far back as you can. At least you can avoid melee attacks which are usually the highest damage.

 

It's very unlikely AV damage will get changed anytime soon.

[PeregrineFalcon]

33 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Have you considered the strategy of not standing next to an AV?

You know, I don't usually agree with Snarky but when I do it's because he's right.

 

You were trying to TANK with a DEFENDER. My Tank can't buff/debuff (or heal) and apparently your Defender can't tank. It's almost like this game has different character archetypes for a reason. What's next? Are you going to start complaining that your Defender doesn't do as much damage as your Blaster? Never mind, we already had that thread last month.

 

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

That's a problem I would like to see addressed.

Invite a TANK to your team, problem solved.

[Biff Pow]

Somewhere on an AV forum, Hopkins is complaining about my Blaster's damage.

 

[RCU7115]

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

So, today I did the Manticore task force with a nice group of folks.  We went through it pretty well, as having three Storm Defenders (myself included) made the enemies unable to hit us reliably.  Very handy.

 

Eventually we came to the final battle, and we started with Hopkins, who is an AV.  My usual strategy is to teleport in next to the enemy, Hurricane running, and cast something to attack with, like Freezing Rain.  If they're near a corner, I'll position myself so Gale can blow them there, and Hurricane can keep them there.  Knowing an AV has very extreme damage, I popped three medium purples before beaming in.

He attacked me ONCE and did about 11k damage.  I have about 1k health.  He did enough damage to oneshot me 11 times over, in one attack.  Of course, his next attack did another 800 damage, and I was toast.  He had a 5% chance to hit, he hit me twice before I could even react.  I rezzed, recovered and toggled up, and he hit again for around 3000 damage.  Oneshotted again.  Three attacks three hits, 5% chance each time.  What luck, you might say.  I say EVERY attack I endured in this fight between him and Countess Crey, once she appeared, hit me.  They NEVER missed, and almost every attack was enough to oneshot me.

 

So this brings me to the point of my post.  Enemy damage at higher ranks (EB and AV) are WAY, WAY, WAY excessive.  If there is no way for the player to survive an attack, there's no game.  Enemies should never do enough damage to oneshot ANY character, unless it's a telegraphed attack that can be avoided or otherwise mitigated.  In the example above, there was nothing I could do to survive the attack.  I put as much defense and resistance on the character as I could.  Reduced his tohit as much as was possible.  I even used Inspirations to make myself as protected as was possible... but it made no difference.  Nothing I could do would have allowed me to do anything about that attack... so there was no GAME to play.

 

I said the same thing back in live days, and I've said it here before in reference to my AE characters.  It's nearly impossible to make a villain durable enough to challenge many players, especially groups of players, who isn't going to instantly wipe out half the team with one attack.  That's a problem I would like to see addressed.

An AV has a 10.5% chance to hit, not 5%. The 5% is only for minions. Lts have something like 7-7.5%,  bosses are around 8-8.5% if I remember correctly. I'd have to check the purple patch for correct numbers though. The AV 10.5% is correct though.

Let's have some fun with the numbers. Imagine a +4 AV staring you down. With soft-capped defense, that AV has a surprisingly low 10.5% chance to hit you. "Wait a second," you say, "10.5% can't be right!" Believe me, it is. I'll get to why that is later, but for now, just take this in. With 45% defense, a +4 AV will only hit you one time in ten, which is less often than an even level minion will hit someone with 35% defense. Four levels and three rank increases don't compare to 10% of added defense. In-freaking-credible.

[Ultimo]

Some good info here, things I wasn't aware of.  All I can tell you is what the combat log said, and it said he had a 5.5% chance to hit.  Maybe the combat log doesn't take some of these things into account?

 

Either way, my character has just over 1000 health.  Even if his attack does 3000 at most, that's STILL three times my maximum health.  He does that, there's no way for me to do anything to defend against it.  There's no game.  I stand by that assertion, that enemies shouldn't be doing SO much damage that you can't stand getting hit even once.  My TANKERS would have a hard time withstanding 3000 damage, and would have NO chance of surviving anything like 11k.

 

It remains an issue on the AE too, as it's nearly impossible to make characters who are survivable enough to put up a fight without also being so absurdly damaging that there's no way for the player to put up a fight.

 

But, I've said my bit.  I appreciate the thoughtful responses.

[Icono04]

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

My TANKERS would have a hard time withstanding 3000 damage, and would have NO chance of surviving anything like 11k.

Your Tankers probably would not take nearly that much damage, because they (presumably) have much higher resistance than your defender, so most of the damage won't reach them.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

I'm not nearly so fussed about the damage as the RNG.  If they actually did only have  5% (or 10.5%  as RCU suggests), and hit you that reliably, that's nonsense and a prime example of why defensive Streakbreaker should be a thing.

[ZemX]

51 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

If they actually did only have  5% (or 10.5%  as RCU suggests)

 

There are multiple statements that don't track with game mechanics in that OP.  I'd say that casts enough doubt on the whole account.  

 

That said, it is theoretically possible to get two hits in a row at 5%.  Streakbreaker does only break miss streaks, not hit streaks.  But this should be an exceedingly rare occurrence.  People like to complain about the RNG, but it's not like pseudo-random generators are rocket science.  They work well enough even if they are not "truly" random.   Psychology makes us notice odd occurrences like this over the vast majority of the time it appears to be behaving perfectly randomly.

[Erratic1]

55 minutes ago, ZemX said:

People like to complain about the RNG, but it's not like pseudo-random generators are rocket science.

 

I recall decades ago while working on my degree, noticing the random() function was generating alternating even and odd numbers. Seemed like a flaw to me, but every source I consulted about it noted how the higher order bits met some sort of criteria for randomness. Left me flummoxed that the higher order bits being random should offset the lowest bit alternating reliably between 1 and 0. Looking back, for my purposes I probably should have inverted the bit order.

Edited May 22 by Erratic1

[tidge]

I've written a lot of RNG jibber-jabber, the dominant effect is that the RNG is certainly pseudo-random, in that it it will (try to) flatly populate numbers over the entire range (as observed), so not rolling a "natural 20" on one roll makes it more likely that the next roll will be a "natural 20". This is not the way real randomness works! perhaps the biggest mystery for me is: It's not clear to me if RNG "throws away" a "roll" when applying streakbreaker, or not. I believe there is a discarded roll, with high confidence but low power...there are so many RNG rolls in the game but AFAIK only Streakbreaker only applies to the ToHit rolls of attacks.

 

The dimension that confuses me the most about implementing streakbreaker: If the RNG is a flat-fill of number space, there should be no reason to implement streakbreaker.

 

Writing another way: If streakbreaker was implemented only because of (player) perception bias, then any remaining (player) complaints about a streakbreaker implemented on top of RNG can't be dismissed casually by saying "well, that is just perception bias". 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

10 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Either way, my character has just over 1000 health.  Even if his attack does 3000 at most, that's STILL three times my maximum health.

Yep, running a Task Force with "Enemies Buffed" is difficult, it's supposed to be. Guess what, not only will a tank not take that much damage because of resistances but if you have a good support character, like a Defender, they can help your tank to either not take or recover from said damage.

 

Look, I think it's great that you can tank on your all Storm Defender team. But, in those rare circumstances where you can't, it makes no sense to act like it's a problem that needs to be solved. It isn't. Bottom line, your Defender cannot tank as well as a Tank can. That's not a problem that needs to be addressed. It's supposed to be that way.

[Ukase]

17 hours ago, Luminara said:

At level 35, an AV has 77% resistance to -ToHit.  An AV has a base 75% chance to hit (50% ToHit * 1.5 AccMod).  Without slotting Hurricane for ToHit Debuff, you only reduced his hit chance by 8.625% (37.5 * 0.23).  With Hurricane optimally slotted for -ToHit (56%), you'd still only reduce his hit chance by 13.455%.

 

My only question is - did you do all this math from memory, or did you actually have to look up the formula. 
I realize the formulas are available on one wiki or another, for just about as long as the game's been around. At least, I think so. I haven't been around since the game first came out, but I recall using Paragon Wiki quite a bit, but I'm not real clear when - but I've lost my focus - I've just very curious as to whether or not you literally have the game that well mastered, or did you sneak a peek at City of Data and or HCWiki? 

 

[Xaddy]

11 hours ago, Ultimo said:

All I can tell you is what the combat log said, and it said he had a 5.5% chance to hit. 

So, maybe some of you smarter folks can use this as a teaching moment. I've seen things like this in my own combat log. 

 

So, I'm level 21, exemplared to 19. The Wolf Spider Assault in question is level 21. 

While the OP's intent is specifically about the amount of damage they took - some further explanation of what these kinds of messages actually mean, besides the obvious "they missed". 

Why does the 16.36 roll hit and the 80.89 roll miss? What do these numbers actually mean? 

 

[ZemX]

7 minutes ago, Xaddy said:

Why does the 16.36 roll hit and the 80.89 roll miss? What do these numbers actually mean? 

 

If the chance to hit is 30% then you need to "roll" a 30 or less on 1-100 random roll.  That's why the 16.36 hit and the 80.89 missed.  This is only counter-intuitive if you were expecting something more like a d20 RPG system where lower rolls miss and higher rolls hit.  But really this is an arbitrary choice.

[BZRKR]

18 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Keep an eye on the range indicator

I'm at work and so can't look in game, but where is the range indicator?

[KaizenSoze]

15 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

I'm at work and so can't look in game, but where is the range indicator?

It's on the target widow. I believe it's on by default. It's right about the mob name.

[Xaddy]

18 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

I'm at work and so can't look in game, but where is the range indicator?

 

At the bottom, above the Chat category. 

[ZemX]

20 hours ago, Luminara said:

His strongest attack is Total Focus.  TF deals base 1024.3802 damage at level 35, and he's internally capped at level 44, so the maximum base damage would be 1502.8998.  Presuming he was at 44 and you were 35, TF would deal 3,005.7996 per hit.  The only way he could deal 11,000 damage would be if the TF were set to Enemies Buffed and Players Debuffed.

 

Short of a bug occurring though, he can't be more than level 40 on a Manti TF, right?  At +5 I think that's around 2K damage for Total Focus.   What effect exactly do "enemies buffed" and "players debuffed" have when you select them?  I can't seem to find values for that anywhere.   I don't think 11K damage would be possible even then.  I doubt that combo works out to +550% damage does it?

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

My only question is - did you do all this math from memory, or did you actually have to look up the formula. 
I realize the formulas are available on one wiki or another, for just about as long as the game's been around. At least, I think so. I haven't been around since the game first came out, but I recall using Paragon Wiki quite a bit, but I'm not real clear when - but I've lost my focus - I've just very curious as to whether or not you literally have the game that well mastered, or did you sneak a peek at City of Data and or HCWiki?

 

Both.  I've memorized the equations for most of the effects in the game, but there are hundreds of scalars and modifiers.  I don't try to remember individual numbers, I use CoD and the wiki.  I'm a nerd, not a masochist.  Even if I did memorize the variables, I'd verify them with CoD and the wiki because that's just good practice.