Suggest correcting -Res values in Dominator Sonic Assault

[Shin Magmus]

   Everyone, in light of the Sonic Attack Blast changes simplifying the set and normalizing the debuff values on the various Ranged ATs, I've found some intentionally undertuned powers in Sonic Assault.  Dominators have higher debuff scalars than Blasters across the board.  Doms don't debuff as well as Controllers/Corruptors do with most stats, although they share the same -Res debuff scalar, but Doms debuff better than Blasters.  This is non-debatable and something you can see by comparing shared powers across the ATs, as well as fitting the design of Dominators as a class and their more-supporty Epic Pool options than Blasters.  With that out of the way, here are the debuff values for the same Sonic powers on each AT:

 

Corruptor Shriek:   -11.25% Res for 8s

Dominator Shriek:  -7.5% Res for 8s      ???????????????

Blaster Shriek:        -9.75% Res for 8s

 

 

   Now for comparison, let's look at Weaken Resolve: a true shared power that accurately reflects AT scalar differences.

 

Corruptor Weaken Resolve:   -7.5% Res, -10.0% Def, -5.0% ToHit for 15s

Dominator Weaken Resolve:  -7.5% Res, -7.5% Def, -3.75% ToHit for 15s

Blaster Weaken Resolve:        -6.5% Res, -7.0% Def, -3.5% ToHit for 15s

 

 

   Conclusion: The base values of the 3 ranged attacks in Dominator Sonic Assault do not follow established design principles or AT scalars.  These powers also have mismatched debuff durations with their identically named powers in Sonic Attack: Shriek is the same duration but Scream and Shout are different.

 

   Recommendation: normalize both the debuff value and the debuff time of Dominator Sonic Assault powers to match Sonic Attack.  Buff Sonic Assault ranged attacks from -7.5% Res up to either -11.25% Res (Dom AT Scalar) or -10.25% (Interpolation point between Blaster and Corruptor).  Additionally, match Sonic Assault debuff durations to the same powers in Sonic Attack: 8s for Shriek, 8s for Scream, and 10s for Shout... or maybe 9s for Scream on all versions just for the consistency of it being longer than Shriek.

   

[Shin Magmus]

   I'm going to go ahead and preempt the most likely contrarian response as well.  Before someone replies "the arbitrarily lower debuff values are good because the Sonic Assault is balanced around Disruption Aura's -Res", that's like claiming that Dominator Bitter Ice Blast should be arbitrarily weaker just because it has a damage aura, or that Dominator Seismic Smash should be nerfed just because that set has a damage aura.  No.

[Indystruck]

Huh, wonder why that happened.

[Uun]

There are several powers that were revamped for blast sets but left unchanged for dominators. Voltaic Sentinel comes to mind immediately, but I'm sure there are others.

[golstat2003]

6 hours ago, Indystruck said:

Huh, wonder why that happened.

 

Not enough testers on beta, and a VERY VERY large release.

 

I myself barely had time to touch everything that was going out in beta.

[arcane]

20 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

Not enough testers on beta, and a VERY VERY large release.

 

I myself barely had time to touch everything that was going out in beta.

Sonic Assault was not changed in this patch. This is an old issue. 
 

Agree it should at least be as high as the blaster amount.

[Troo]

it is known

[Shin Magmus]

   This does still need to be fixed.  It legitimately is not balanced correctly.

[General Idiot]

It's worth noting that powers are not typically balanced against the same power in a different set. Assault sets particularly often have powers with different values entirely from their counterparts in ranged or melee sets - in Sonic Assault this is only true of Shockwave and Shout, both of which have longer recharge and correspondingly higher base damage than the original versions in the ranged set.

 

Yes, the ranged powers in Sonic Assault have lower debuff values. But, or balancing purposes they're also not considered to be the same powers as the ones ranged ATs get even though they share names and animations.

 

The argument that the debuff value isn't consistent with what dominators get from other resistance debuffs holds a little more water, but without any other AT getting Assault sets to compare relative values with its really hard to say for sure if the lower -res values are an oversight or an intentional decision when balancing the set.

[Uun]

48 minutes ago, General Idiot said:

It's worth noting that powers are not typically balanced against the same power in a different set. Assault sets particularly often have powers with different values entirely from their counterparts in ranged or melee sets - in Sonic Assault this is only true of Shockwave and Shout, both of which have longer recharge and correspondingly higher base damage than the original versions in the ranged set.

 

Yes, the ranged powers in Sonic Assault have lower debuff values. But, or balancing purposes they're also not considered to be the same powers as the ones ranged ATs get even though they share names and animations.

 

The argument that the debuff value isn't consistent with what dominators get from other resistance debuffs holds a little more water, but without any other AT getting Assault sets to compare relative values with its really hard to say for sure if the lower -res values are an oversight or an intentional decision when balancing the set.

Nobody is talking about damage or recharge values. The -res mechanics of Sonic Attack for blasters, sentinels, corruptors and defenders were changed in i28p2. The different types of stacking Sonic Vibrations (introduced in i27p4) were eliminated and replaced with non-stacking -1.5 scale resistance debuffs. This change was not applied to Sonic Assault (introduced in i27p4), which continues to use the Sonic Vibrations mechanic. Whether or not -1.5 is considered the appropriate scalar for dominators, the mechanics of the powers should mirror those applied to other ATs.

 

Similarly, when Electrical Blast was revamped, Voltaic Sentinel was changed into a toggle for blasters, sentinels, corruptors and defenders. This change was not applied to dominators, whose version of Voltaic Sentinel remains a click with a 60s duration and 60s recharge. Whatever the appropriate damage of the dominator version is considered to be, there is no reason for the mechanics not to mirror other ATs.

[Shin Magmus]

   Yep, Dominator Elec Assault deserves to at least get the buffed Voltaic Sentinel and Shock dmg mechanics.  Additionally, Dominator Sonic Assault should just logically match the way every other Sonic power works, not only numerically, but also in the power description with the outdated (and needlessly confusing) "Sonic Vibrations" text.  These are mistakes.  Dominators are examples of powers being weirdly undertuned or not matching the rest of the game, despite a large push across all of their Assault sets to fix this exact issue by the HC devs in the past (it was the focus of a patch).  A good way to sum this up would be "you missed a spot"; I just pointed out one of the missed spots.

Edited Monday at 08:21 AM by Shin Magmus