I'm abandoning debuffs...

[dukedukes]

Debuffs vs +4 enemies are very underwhelming. Sets like rad or poison bring barely anything to the table in terms of -res, -dmg, -defense, etc (ok, rad does good -regen). With +3 level shift (1 level difference) or enemies with no level (GM's) I can see them contributing much more but for other content you just won't feel much impact. There's also some odd interplay with resist mechanics lowering debuff effectiveness even further.

Does kin lose effectiveness vs +4? 0% loss. Debuffs? An insane amount. Buffs > Debuffs. Make debuffs great... please.

[biostem]

29 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

Sets like rad or poison bring barely anything to the table

Looks at the calendar, then back to the thread, then back to the calendar, and back to the thread...

[Snarky]

it's a good suggestion.  and we don't need the Devs to do anything.  everyone strip debuffs from all your toons.  frees up power picks and slots.  win win.

[Ghost]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

it's a good suggestion.  and we don't need the Devs to do anything.  everyone strip debuffs from all your toons.  frees up power picks and slots.  win win.

Boycott debuffs?

[Uun]

Purple Patch applies to damage as well as debuffs. So yes, Kin does lose effectiveness.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch

[Jiro Ito]

Disagree, I think debuffs are pretty great.  Rolling a team of 8 corrupters on a hardmode sf is easy and fun.

[arcane]

Debuffs are objectively in a good place. OP is simply mistaken.

[dukedukes]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

Purple Patch applies to damage as well as debuffs. So yes, Kin does lose effectiveness.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch

No because everyone deals with the damage PP reduction. Debuffers effectively have a second multiplier (even a third reduction thanks to the resist mechanic, occasionally) further reducing their effectiveness.

scenario: you deal 100 damage. let's say kin gives 2x damage and a debuffer makes an enemy receive 2x damage at +0
+4 kin:
outgoing damage = 100 * 2 = 200
incoming damage = 200 * 0.48 (dmg effectiveness reduction) = 96

+4 debuff:
outgoing damage = 100
incoming damage = 100 * 0.48 (dmg effectiveness reduction) * (1 + 1(debuff amount) *.48(debuff effectiveness reduction)) = 71

If you wanted these two scenarios to equal you would have to not reduce debuff effectiveness at all. These were just example numbers though. Kin realistically can increase your damage by much much more, and debuffs would have a very hard time reaching 2x for +0, as a solo at least. I'm not saying debuffs should equal what kin can do because debuffs usually affect more stats and the stat floor/ceilings are different. you're unlikely to reach the -res floor but likely to reach the damage ceiling, especially in leagues

Debuffs have a place but it's very niche. In general +4 groups like radios without AV's you won't have much impact, it doesn't feel like it's worth playing, so i won't!

[Ghost]

And here I thought this was an April Fools thread

 

[Uun]

1 hour ago, dukedukes said:

+4 debuff:
outgoing damage = 100
incoming damage = 100 * 0.48 (dmg effectiveness reduction) * (1 + 1(debuff amount) *.48(debuff effectiveness reduction)) = 71

 

Resistance debuffs are resisted by the target's resistance to the damage type. Their effectiveness is NOT reduced by the Purple Patch. Assuming a 30% resistance debuff and the target doesn't have resistance to the damage type, the resulting damage against a +4 foe would be 100 x 1.30 x 0.48 = 62.4 (as compared to 48 damage without the debuff). Is a 100% damage buff more effective than a 30% resistance debuff? Yes, but that has nothing to do with the Purple Patch.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:20 PM by Uun
Incorrect information

[Jacke]

19 minutes ago, Uun said:

[Resistance debuffs] effectiveness is NOT reduced by the Purple Patch.

 

They are.  From https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch :

> These modifers apply to almost everything in combat: Debuff strength, Mez duration, Knockback magnitude, and Damage are all affected.

and

> A character's chance to hit is not directly affected by the combat modifiers, above. While Defense debuffs applied to the target affect chance to hit and are subject to the purple patch, and ToHit debuffs applied to the player affect chance to hit and are also subject to the purple patch, a character's base hit chance follows a different formula.

 

(I can confirm this with the devs too.)

 

To find the effective Resistance debuff, apply the appropriate Purple Patch multiplicative modifier.  That -Res debuff, because -Res is resisted by Resistance,, effective becomes a multiplier on Damage outside of the Enhancement System.

 

Example:  A Boss target is also at +3 Levels.  The +3 Levels is the only thing that matters in this case, not the being a Boss.  That means debuffs are cut to 65% Magnitude.

 

Say a -10% Res debuff is applied.  Purple Patch changes that to -6.5%.  Then the effects of the target's Resistances mean that effectively becomes a +6.5% Damage increase (after and outside of the Enhancement System).  If that debuff was only to SL Damage, only SL Damage is increased.

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

Debuffs are objectively in a good place. OP is simply mistaken.

I'd say that damage resistance debuffs being nearly useless, because of the Purple Patch and being so heavily resisted, puts them objectively in the pretty close to worthless place.

[arcane]

9 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'd say that damage resistance debuffs being nearly useless, because of the Purple Patch and being so heavily resisted, puts them objectively in the pretty close to worthless place.

The bolded part is objectively not happening in reality though. Resistance debuffs are known to be very potent and are as meta/fotm as it gets.

 

I guess I’m open to being wrong. Anyone got a video of a 4 star run with no infrigidates/sleets/heat losses/corrosive enzymes/melt armors/repulsion bolts/force bombs/debuff procs/etc? Of course I highly doubt such evidence even exists since resistance debuffs have been known to be gamechangers forever…

 

This seems to be an instance of people interpreting design formulas but having no knowledge of how those abilities actually turn out in the in-game experience.

Edited Wednesday at 06:03 PM by arcane

[Uun]

31 minutes ago, Jacke said:

They are.  From https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Purple_Patch :

> These modifers apply to almost everything in combat: Debuff strength, Mez duration, Knockback magnitude, and Damage are all affected.

and

> A character's chance to hit is not directly affected by the combat modifiers, above. While Defense debuffs applied to the target affect chance to hit and are subject to the purple patch, and ToHit debuffs applied to the player affect chance to hit and are also subject to the purple patch, a character's base hit chance follows a different formula.

 

(I can confirm this with the devs too.)

 

To find the effective Resistance debuff, apply the appropriate Purple Patch multiplicative modifier.  That -Res debuff, because -Res is resisted by Resistance,, effective becomes a multiplier on Damage outside of the Enhancement System.

 

Example:  A Boss target is also at +3 Levels.  The +3 Levels is the only thing that matters in this case, not the being a Boss.  That means debuffs are cut to 65% Magnitude.

 

Say a -10% Res debuff is applied.  Purple Patch changes that to -6.5%.  Then the effects of the target's Resistances mean that effectively becomes a +6.5% Damage increase (after and outside of the Enhancement System).  If that debuff was only to SL Damage, only SL Damage is increased.

I stand corrected. Just confirmed vs. the RWZ training dummies (which unlike the pylons have levels).

[dukedukes]

12 minutes ago, arcane said:

The bolded part is objectively not happening in reality though. Resistance debuffs are known to be very potent and are as meta/fotm as it gets.

 

I guess I’m open to being wrong. Anyone got a video of a 4 star run with no infrigidates/sleets/heat losses/corrosive enzymes/melt armors/repulsion bolts/force bombs/debuff procs/etc? Of course I highly doubt such evidence even exists since resistance debuffs have been known to be gamechangers forever…

 

This seems to be an instance of people interpreting design formulas but having no knowledge of how those abilities actually turn out in the in-game experience.

 

To provide perspective the topic came up for myself when I wanted to explore debuff builds as far as I could as an avenue of scaling damage and defenses different than typical tried and true approaches (+dmg, procs, def soft-cap, a sprinkle of -res). The initial thought was cumulative -tohit -dmg -res from debuffs and a good IO build should be capable of taking and dealing a lot of damage, and it does! But only if the critter is a giant monster (counter-intuitive much??). Instead when I run a +4 it's half as effective or more, which ends up being massively less effective like with defense. There's this split in the content where debuffs are very effective or not worth specializing in which feels arbitrary and build limiting. In a team setting you will not carry the team with debuffs (maybe an AV, especially -regen), though you will make a difference for an already strong team.

Sure you can run some -res here and there and get a small damage scaling increase, but the more you invest (especially as an individual) the less relative gains you get like with most scaling factors, going all-in is counter-intuitive when your efforts are halved 4 days of the week (read: arbitrary) and my opinion is this lowers character diversity.

Debuffs are arguably more difficult to play with yet are punished more. You have to apply the debuff before getting any benefit. Buffs are generally always active and happen to scale much better. Take defense and tohit for example. If you cap defense with -tohit you need roughly -90 tohit (good luck) for +4 but if you cap with actual defense instead you only need 45. There's a near 100% difference in the numbers you need to reach cap based on what you happen to generally be fighting: +0 or +4.

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'd say that damage resistance debuffs being nearly useless, because of the Purple Patch and being so heavily resisted, puts them objectively in the pretty close to worthless place.

 

They are not useless. seeing the most common extreme Purple Patch reduction (to +3 Level targets) is to 65%, ie. loss of 35%.  The rarer case of +4 Levels is 48%, a loss of 52%.

 

What they are is situational.  The more HP a target has, the more they impact play.  A minion is still likely to drop after a few attacks one way or another.  But the effect on say the worst case, a +4 Reichsman (which is +3 to Team members with at least a T3 Alpha boost but still +4 Levels (maybe +5) to Pets and worse to many MM Henchmen), those -Res Debuffs can make the difference between a brutal long slog and impossibility.

 

The 3 IOs that provide -Res,

• Def Debuff IO Achilles Heel special (3.5PPM -20% Res for 10s)
  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=boosts.crafted_achilles_heel_c.crafted_achilles_heel_c
• Targeted AoE IO Annihilation special (3.5PPM -12.5% Res for 10s)
  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=boosts.crafted_annihilation_f.crafted_annihilation_f
• PvP PBAoE IO Fury of the Gladiator special (3.5PPM -20% Res for 10s)
  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=boosts.crafted_fury_of_the_gladiator_f.crafted_fury_of_the_gladiator_f

 

all just replace when an application of the exact same IO with a -Res Debuff is applied, putting the duration back to 10s.  But that's 3 different effects that applied and will stack, if there's enough of them in use on a single Toon or a Team or League.

 

So the usual Purple Patch of +3L means -20% and -12.5% get reduced to -13% and -8.125%.  Assuming maybe a 50% Uptime, that's effectively -6.5% and -4.0625%.  So weak on weak targets, but something on bigger bags of HP.  Also all 3 IO's can stack.  And the effect is as if that % was a multiplicative boost of Damage after and outside of the Enhancement System. 

 

And that's just the -Res on 3 special IOs.  The bigger Power -Res debuffs still get hit with the reduction to 65% by Purple Patch, but these often start larger and can have greater Uptime,

 

My Rules of Thumb here:

• Rarely use the -Res IOs
  • unless they don't hurt getting IO set bonuses
  • or the particular bonuses lost aren't needed that much.
• Always look out for and use -Res Powers
  • especially the ones that can have high Uptime
  • and on harder targets.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 07:29 PM by Jacke

[Snarky]

you can argue over how many F-ing Angels sit on the head of a pin until you are all too old to get your rocking chairs to move.

 

i am maining a Dark Dark Dark Corruptor.  If one of my evil toys is slightly less useful?  Na und?

[Captain Fabulous]

Like many effects in this game it's not always about a single application, but the ability to stack them. One debuff might be fairly minor, but stack 3-5 of them and now it's a lot more significant.

The same goes for a lot of buffs. One FF bubble isn't a lot on its own. But add in any combination of defense buffs like multiple FF bubbles, Maneuvers, Barrier Reef, Cold Shields, and Farsight and it's not difficult to get the entire team to the defense soft cap.

[Jacke]

20 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Like many effects in this game it's not always about a single application, but the ability to stack them. One debuff might be fairly minor, but stack 3-5 of them and now it's a lot more significant.

The same goes for a lot of buffs. One FF bubble isn't a lot on its own. But add in any combination of defense buffs like multiple FF bubbles, Maneuvers, Barrier Reef, Cold Shields, and Farsight and it's not difficult to get the entire team to the defense soft cap.

 

That's what happens in Hard Mode TFs and some particularly difficult groups.  They have a lot of debuffs and stack them.  Worse case can see a Toon--even a Tanker--see its Defense and Resistances floored.  And don't last long.

 

As for Buffs, one good example is the RO Supergroup Green Machine, which stacks Empathy Toons.  Get 8 of them on a Team and they just chew through any group of mobs.

 

 

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

That's what happens in Hard Mode TFs and some particularly difficult groups.  They have a lot of debuffs and stack them.  Worse case can see a Toon--even a Tanker--see its Defense and Resistances floored.  And don't last long.

 

As for Buffs, one good example is the RO Supergroup Green Machine, which stacks Empathy Toons.  Get 8 of them on a Team and they just chew through any group of mobs.

 

 

exactly.  Justice Super Teamers ran a Water/Marine team a few months back 1-incarnate.  the enemies never stood a chance.  it was farcical.

[shortguy on indom]

• GO BUFFS OR GO HOME.
• IF DEBUFFS WERE SO GOOD, NOBODY WOULD USE INSPIRATIONS.

[biostem]

Buff:

 

Debuff:

[dukedukes]

4 hours ago, Jacke said:

 

They are not useless. seeing the most common extreme Purple Patch reduction (to +3 Level targets) is to 65%, ie. loss of 35%.  The rarer case of +4 Levels is 48%, a loss of 52%.

 

The level shift is a good point, I forgot the difference between the incarnate and level shift.

I'd still limit what I would take a debuffer to in terms of missions, generally on teams people should be stacked out in, like harder content.

[PeregrineFalcon]

7 hours ago, arcane said:

This seems to be an instance of people interpreting design formulas but having no knowledge of how those abilities actually turn out in the in-game experience.

So you're telling me that after being reduced by the Purple Patch and by the target's DR, damage resistance debuffs are worth using?

 

I've used some of the powers you mentioned, and the Sentinel inherent, Vulnerability, and, other than the Daggers you get from the P2W vendor, none of them seemed to noticeably affect DR on EBs, AVs or GMs.

[shortguy on indom]

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