Damage proc problems

[dukedukes]

I've heard the devs want to change procs in some way, so I assume the community consensus is procs create some problems we could use some solutions for. I would like to present some problems I personally observe about damage procs and hear any you have, as well as discuss whether the problems are valid. I'd prefer to avoid discussing solutions, I'm more interested in what the community thinks are problematic about procs.

 

I'll state that I do like damage procs existing but I recognize they are overused and create issues.

 

Here's my list of observed problems and a basic justification:

 

• No diminishing returns
  • Add a proc and you just get more damage linearly. Two damage enhancements receive DR/ED adjustments but six damage procs do not
• Can make a power meant to do a small amount of damage do a lot of damage
  • This makes power sets do good damage by coincidence and is difficult to balance
• Benefit heavily from global recharge as it's ignored by the proc rate formula
  • I know it used to use global recharge and was changed, but this is still a problem to me. The recharge downside is simply bypassed by global recharge.

 

Problems related to power slot competition:

• Many set bonuses are weak while others are very strong
  • Set bonuses could use more opportunities to be competitive with procs
• There is not much use in enhancing mez and other enhancement categories like range
  • These are enhanced here and there, but I'd like to see it be more impactful to compete with procs
• "Meta" builds don't care about any enhancements other than damage as they're built like glass cannons
  • This means barely any slot competition and lots of procs. This is a bigger issue than procs alone but it would be nice if meta builds had more competition for slotting. Barrier I think is a big reason for this.

 

Edited July 29 by dukedukes
rephrasing

[Maelwys]

• By far the biggest issue with Procs, for me, is that slotting LOCAL recharge aspect into a power can drastically lower its damage.
  It's both counterintuitive and bloody ridiculous that someone can (often unintentionally) punish themselves by enhancing a power.
  (and I know the mechanics of why this happens, but IMO the PPM mechanic in general needs nuked from orbit - give each damage proc a lockout period if you need to!)
   
• Another issue is how the procs apply in odd/unusual ways; especially where pets/pesudopets are concerned.
  Pets and Pseudopets can gain the effect of some procs; but not others. depending on what enhancements the summon power itself and its various subpowers accept.
  And it's not just damage procs - try putting a Panacea Proc into Triage Beacon/Spirit Tree; or into the second Necro MM Upgrade ability.
   
• Powers that create an entity that immediately "self destructs" (like Trip Mine) don't benefit from damage procs, but do from buff procs (e.g. Force Feedback).
   
• Some powers get far better milage out of procs on specific ATs - the Tanker version of Lightning Rod is coded as a Power Execution (and as such benefits fully from damage procs) but on all the other melee ATs Lightning Rod is coded as an Entity Creation (which procs very poorly)

 

 

So for me, it's really the counterintuitive punitive nature of local recharge slotting; and the myriad inconsistencies in how procs actually apply (or not!) to different powers.
 

Edited July 29 by Maelwys

[Triumphant]

I'm always somewhat hesitant to opine on threads about the mechanics of the game, because my understanding of this is so poor.  But, I will say, reading both @dukedukes and @Maelwys posts, that my personal experience playing the game does seem to reflect their critiques on the matter (and I do use a lot of procs in many characters.  I really love the idea of them, and find them extremely useful, even if they have some issues, such as those outlined above).

I don't use pets very often (or carefully observe how procs affect pseudopets), so I'm not as clear on that point, though I have no reason to doubt Maelwys comments, given that everything else they said feels spot on to me.

 

 

[ThatGuyCDude]

For me, part of the problem is that certain power sets--by virtue of touching several different aspects of enhancement--are more viable as 'proc bombs' than others.  Got a power that can take a slow?  Hurray, you can throw another damage proc in there!  It also bothers me that the proc damage is fixed instead of based on the triggering power: if my T1 punch procs did T1 damage, it wouldn't matter that they proc just as frequently per activation as my T9 procs doing T9 damage.  Heck, they could trigger every activation if their damage/effect were comparable to the power being used (well, most of them, Mez and knockdown procs are not so granular)!

The other counterintuitive point of slotting procs is that they're supposed to be a small bonus on top of other enhancements, and yet they end up being the most important thing you can slot.  I suppose diminishing returns on proc rates after the second proc could help with that, but how might priority be determined?  Slotting order?  Would make unslotters much more popular I suppose.  ...Oh wait, that's drifting off-topic.

I'll say that proccing with a Brute is loads of fun because they scale with Fury and the damage gets goofy; the attack itself does basically nothing but then 'crits' four or five times from the procs.  Honestly it's a huge draw for me to play with them, and I wouldn't even mind if the weaker attacks proc'd for weaker damage bonuses or lessened/shorter effects.

As for slotting for mez/range, the former has an interesting but opaque system in Dark Armor's Cloak of Fear: slotting for mez increases Magnitude instead.  Now granted, I'm not sure HOW that works... is it the number of fear enhancements that increase magnitude?  The percentage over 100% of the Fear rate as a chance to boost it?  City of Data was unclear on these points.  ...But, one wonders how more control powers would play out if slotting for magnitude instead of or in addition to duration.  ...It would reduce the need for magnitude-up procs, too, which could be replaced with something else.  Range doesn't have a power that plays with it in this fashion (as far as I know), so can't really make a comparison there.

[Maelwys]

FWIW; I do remember a time when (most!) damage procs were a flat percentage chance rather than PPM and stuff like this was all new and shiny.
(and IMO it was better back then the whole business with local recharge affecting them was only limited to the procs bought from the RMT store!)
 

[macskull]

2 hours ago, dukedukes said:

I've heard the devs want to change procs in some way, so I assume the community consensus is procs create some problems we could use some solutions for

This consensus does not exist. Proc nerfs are a solution in search of a problem.

 

38 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

(and IMO it was better back then the whole business with local recharge affecting them was only limited to the procs bought from the RMT store!)

Fun fact, prior to I24 recharge wasn't a factor at all in PPM calculations, and powers just used their base recharge time. The initially proposed changes as part of I24 were going to factor in global recharge in addition to slotted recharge, but a number of people wisely pointed out this meant some external buffs would actually make your character less effective, so they ended up going with the "modified recharge time" formula in use today.

[Maelwys]

41 minutes ago, macskull said:

Fun fact, prior to I24 recharge wasn't a factor at all in PPM calculations, and powers just used their base recharge time.

I had loads of the regular enhancement set IOs (with their flat % proc rate!)... but I thought the old Paragon Market RMT store IOs worked differently and did leverage PPM?
Checking the old Paragonwiki page suggests this is the case. Though to be fair I never bought any of those; had a thing against paying real money for in-game "loot"!
 

Edited July 29 by Maelwys

[tidge]

I agree with Senator @macskull ... there are no problem with %damage procs. If %procs are seen as a problem it would actually be that it is possible to achieve absurd levels of Global Recharge (which is just fine by me BTW). 

 

%damage is a pleasing option for some builds to leverage to make it so that they don't have to wheez through content when they lack damage powers. If someone makes the choice to use %procs, via franken-slotting, they are sacrificing set bonuses.

[FupDup]

I don't think procs are generally the main issue in and of themselves, I think the broader issue is that they're literally the only way to surpass your hardcoded limits. Slotting for giga defense is pointless because insps and teammates can buff you up without spending slots. Slotting resistance is pointless because, again, insps and teammates can hardcap you at all times without spending a single slot. HP is the only one that is useful, and that's only because there are so few external HP buffs available (if there were ever more support sets with +HP then HP would be useless too). Procs, meanwhile, let you go over your AT's damage cap.

And to be clear, that's completely fine. One would expect a person who invests in damage to have a higher max damage ceiling than someone who did not. This is logical. Where it falls apart is that this logic should extend to other attributes too, i.e. a person who invests heavily into +res bonuses should have a higher maximum res cap than someone who goes glass cannon. However, this game is 800 years old, so this is probably not even possible to code. And even if it was, absolutely everything would need to be rebalanced to account for it (i.e. probably lower the starting res cap, so that you have some room to grow without Blasters getting a 90% cap from investment). This would naturally piss off a lot of people and throw everything into pure chaos, so we're pretty limited in what we can do.

 

One ray of optimism would be the new "proc boosting" feature from the Cupid IO set, wherein slotting more pieces from the set makes the proc stronger and/or adds additional effects. Proliferating this to other IO sets could help add some more give-and-take to building besides "as many procs as you can possibly fit, all day, all the time." We could get creative with it too, like maybe Positron's Blast could create a small Irradiate-like effect around its main target or stuff like that. This is proven to be possible from a coding standpoint and would not disrupt any existing builds or expectations, just add entirely new options. 

 

It'd also be nice if recharge slotting stopped nuking your proc rates, which would make sets slightly less useless and would help us leverage any potential proc boosting (because it's hard to make use of the boosted proc if the PPM is sandbagged to oblivion). Some set bonus effects also kind of suck, like %damage in particular is just sad. In what world is 4% damage equal to 10% global recharge? Like seriously who the hell thought of this stuff. There's some bonuses that are quite rare, like range and speed, that could be made to appear more often for more interesting slotting options. 

 

Maybe try to come up with a defensive equivalent to procs? Like standalone global buff pieces that get slotted into non-attack powers. We already got several but not all of them particularly good (like Gift of the Ancients, Regenerative Tissue, etc). Buffing those and adding more could add extra non-damage options that are sorely needed. And when it comes to procs in attack powers, perhaps add more non-damage procs because there's so few utility options there (and most of them suck). 

Edited July 30 by FupDup

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

I had loads of the regular enhancement set IOs (with their flat % proc rate!)... but I thought the old Paragon Market RMT store IOs worked differently and did leverage PPM?
Checking the old Paragonwiki page suggests this is the case. Though to be fair I never bought any of those; had a thing against paying real money for in-game "loot"!

The RMT enhancements did leverage PPM, but the calculation was different and didn't factor in recharge at all.

[Snarky]

PROCs are bad, m’kay?

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

PROCs are bad, m’kay?

 

[Ukase]

To me, the biggest problem with %procs is I've got to plug the values into the spreadsheet formula to see their odds of firing. 

One minor issue is an experienced player has a huge edge over one not so experienced. (I could even swap out the word experienced for smart, or knowledgeable) 

I just learned 2 weeks ago that % procs let you exceed the damage cap. Silly me, I assumed all this time that we had a cap on how much damage a given attack could do. Apparently, there's still a cap - it's 6 %procs with enough fulcrum shift to get you to your character's damage cap, whether it's 675% or 400%. 

How many players know this? It's been covered in these forums, but me being more obtuse than most, it's taken me years to finally learn it. And I had to be told - verbally over discord - before I learned it. 

While I don't think anyone is keeping these things secret, it seems like more clarity could be useful. 

For me - I think a % proc should taper depending on how many other of the set is used. If you use the full set, you get 100% of the damage from the proc, every time the attack passes the ToHit check. If you only use 2 of the set, only 1/3 of the proc...that kind of thing. It'll never happen, of course. Some people tend to see builds with full sets and discount them as valid for elite play. (Fine for general purposes, of course) 

I just think incentivizing someone to use the full set is a good thing. Make the slots scarce. It's one of the few remaining challenge left in the game, creative slotting. 

As I'm learning more about the dps meta, the more I think it's really fascinating - but - it's also not a great thing for everyone. So many of our players don't want to think that hard when training and slotting. They want the fat xp, and like the sound and visual of leveling up. They want to visit a trainer, and candidly, some of our players would benefit from the trainer suggesting what power and slotting choices they should make. (Might make for a great challenge concept, lol. Have Fusionette in Kallisti Wharf tell me which power I should choose next) 

It's great that this game offers so many layers. There's so much behind the figurative Wizard of Oz's curtain! And most of it I still haven't seen. Or if I've seen it, I don't truly know what I've looked at yet. 

But the % procs...man, this game could certainly benefit from making them all work more consistently. Like..why does the absorb proc from Preventative Medicine work in a power that's inactive, but a numina unique has to be active? I know it's because they're different and work differently, but they should be consistent in how they work. Granted, neither of those are %procs, but the suggestion is still decent. Consistency, and transparency in how they work. Having to tab out (and I'm grateful for that effort, @macskull @Bopper  and whomever else spent lord knows how many hours on it.) isn't something any of us should have to do to determine how effective the %proc will be. 

[Mopery]

You can alter procs all you want, hackers gonna hack.

Players will find the next big trick regardless, and then the forum will be filled with "Should we nerf the latest unintended thing which players have figured out?"

I have never made a Proc-ologist character, although most of my builds have at least one in most powers.

"Roll With The Changes" -REO Speedwagon

[Gerswin]

I love procs and the randomness that they add to an otherwise ultra-predictable combat system.  I think that damage and -res procs are in a very good place right now.  If anything, I would support the addition of more procs to further diversify slotting options and increase the divergence between specialized and all-purpose builds.  I also think procs could be introduced as set bonuses: for example the 4 piece set bonus would be a 3 ppm proc and the 6 piece set bonus would increase to a 5 ppm. 

 

I do think players should be 'rewarded' for either a solid grasp of statistics or careful scrutiny of character performance when testing builds.  The nuances of slotting for set bonus, damage proc, +rech proc, -res proc, healing, etc require different strategies for different builds, as they should.  I suspect any developer adjustment to procs would just be removing the nuance and homogenizing builds.

 

 

[Auroxis]

1. Building for procs isn't free, it requires more attention to details when building as you sacrifice endurance reduction, accuracy, and global recharge. It rewards players who put extra effort into builds instead of just 6-slotting sets everywhere.
2. Only a few AT's in Controllers, Defenders, and arguably a few others get a significant chunk of their damage through procs, and none of these AT's are meta for farming or speeding through 4-stars.

 

So procs aren't a problem IMO, and them being a problem is definitely not a consensus. What I can accept as a problem is players feeling forced to slot a certain way, and that's something that can be addressed via the addition of proc boosting to existing enhancement sets. I very much welcome competitive slotting options, but not at the expense of nerfing already off-meta AT's and/or nerfing existing slotting options to the ground.

Edited July 30 by Auroxis

[lineuphere]

Thank god for the quirky, randomness of procs, otherwise we'd probably all have matchy-matchy full sets in all our powers and all be doing the same thing.  I don't disagree that some of the non damage procs like Numina, Prevent Med, etc can be confusing, but if they weren't, I suppose we wouldn't need a forum.

 

As others have said, losing set bonuses is a sacrifice to using procs. And procs are by no means an improvement to everything they're slotted in.  It may take a bit of mids research and spreadsheet calculating to fine tune how to best leverage your goals with them, but I don't see that as a problem, I see it as part of the fun of this game.

 

A single AT can be played a myriad of ways and being able to slot it in a variety of ways for the way I intend to roll is a way to keep the toons from getting stale.  

 

Further, while it may be silly to some, procs sometimes help me feel like they're adding nuance the story of my characters.  For example, when my Earth Control/Savage Assault Dominator launches "Unkindness", that power is fully slotted with procs.  With that, I think of each one of those ravens having their own purpose - %cold damage, %neg damage, %res debuff, %energy damage, %fire damage, and %smashing damage.  I'm proud of those birds when all those orange numbers roll up. Sure, I could slot Unkindness with 6 Ragnaroks and get all those great set bonuses, but... yawn.

 

[dukedukes]

16 hours ago, ThatGuyCDude said:

by virtue of touching several different aspects of enhancement--are more viable as 'proc bombs' than others.

 

I agree, it seems haphazard that some categories get a ton of procs while others get very little. There is an argument for things like def debuff or slow receiving a needed boost from procs, if you look at blaster sets the sets with these secondary effects are generally weaker than say, fire, which gets very little procs, so it serves as a slight balancing mechanism. This is a bit of a narrow view though.

 

1 hour ago, Auroxis said:

1. Building for procs isn't free, it requires more attention to details when building as you sacrifice endurance reduction, accuracy, and global recharge. It rewards players who put extra effort into builds instead of just 6-slotting sets everywhere.

 

For sure, there's still some good decision making even if you mostly fill everything up with procs. I wouldn't say it's very interesting but it's decent.

 

1 hour ago, Auroxis said:

2. Only a few AT's in Controllers, Defenders, and arguably a few others get a significant chunk of their damage through procs, and none of these AT's are meta for farming or speeding through 4-stars.

 

Yes I don't think these AT's should ever be meta for these things unless their primary purpose becomes very useful for some content. I'm not a fan of these AT's leaning on procs in order to feel impactful. If they were ever hurt by proc changes their sets damage output should seriously be revisited in response. Controllers specifically have Containment which procs do not interact with at all yet you still see controllers lean on procs over a double damage mechanic... this smells very off to me. The magnitude procs are superior to other slotting options gets ridiculous fast for some powers.

 

1 hour ago, Auroxis said:

I very much welcome competitive slotting options

 

This is my biggest gripe, I want to make difficult decisions building a character. Ideally sets, procs, and special enhancements all offer something you want. With the meta mostly being damage output procs are too easy of a choice to make. The meta isn't the fault of procs necessarily, they're just the obvious solution to the meta, it's more a problem of power creep which is a bigger issue.

[FupDup]

There are definitely a lot of categories that need more sets/procs in them for parity’s sake.

 

The worst offender is how Holds have more proc choices than every other mezz category combined, despite Holds being objectively the strongest form of mezz already. Stuns and Sleeps on the other hand get literally no damage procs at all. The rich indisputably got richer here.

 

And for ranged ST damage, sure you could argue that it helps other sets compete with Fire Blast, but I can counterpoint this by noting that Archery doesn’t get any more proc options than Fire does (besides KB procs on Explosive Arrow).

 

We need a lot more sets and procs so the playing field can be at least somewhat leveled. 

[golstat2003]

The problem is the weak damage for certain sets, which procs were never ever meant to solve.

 

The players decided that that is how we would solve that issue, by procing out (where possible) the damage weak ATs so that soloing wasn't as slow and painful as molsasses.

 

The idea that certain ATs should be faster while teaming, yet Brutes, Tanks etc have mez prot, defensive shields and can zoom through most content with adequate damage is seemingly an archaic one for a lot of players --- hence my first two sentences.

 

If procs are going to be changed in a way (devs have said some will be better, some will be worse and some won't change much) then that really does need to be coupled with a review of the damage potential of some pri/secondary sets and some ATs.

Edited July 30 by golstat2003

[Glacier Peak]

More typed damage procs! Not enough Cold damage procs.

 

Cupid's Crush had great design choices. Slot more of the set, thereby increase set's proc (mag/duration/effect).

[golstat2003]

44 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

 

I agree, it seems haphazard that some categories get a ton of procs while others get very little. There is an argument for things like def debuff or slow receiving a needed boost from procs, if you look at blaster sets the sets with these secondary effects are generally weaker than say, fire, which gets very little procs, so it serves as a slight balancing mechanism. This is a bit of a narrow view though.

 

 

For sure, there's still some good decision making even if you mostly fill everything up with procs. I wouldn't say it's very interesting but it's decent.

 

 

Yes I don't think these AT's should ever be meta for these things unless their primary purpose becomes very useful for some content. I'm not a fan of these AT's leaning on procs in order to feel impactful. If they were ever hurt by proc changes their sets damage output should seriously be revisited in response. Controllers specifically have Containment which procs do not interact with at all yet you still see controllers lean on procs over a double damage mechanic... this smells very off to me. The magnitude procs are superior to other slotting options gets ridiculous fast for some powers.

 

 

This is my biggest gripe, I want to make difficult decisions building a character. Ideally sets, procs, and special enhancements all offer something you want. With the meta mostly being damage output procs are too easy of a choice to make. The meta isn't the fault of procs necessarily, they're just the obvious solution to the meta, it's more a problem of power creep which is a bigger issue.

 

It's not off. Containment . . . simply is NOT that great overall. So not surprising Controllers dip into procs for more damage.

[dukedukes]

29 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

It's not off. Containment . . . simply is NOT that great overall. So not surprising Controllers dip into procs for more damage.

 

Containment as an isolated mechanic is amazing, it's scrapper crit on roids. It falls flat because there's a better, maybe accidentally, alternative (procs). A single proc may do more damage than your power enhanced, it's kind of a clown show if you think about it as damage values on your powers become irrelevant for damage. I wonder how the devs feel about balancing sets with procs in consideration, personally I wouldn't be happy about it.

[Forager]

19 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Powers that create an entity that immediately "self destructs" (like Trip Mine) don't benefit from damage procs, but do from buff procs (e.g. Force Feedback).

 

I didn't know this. Damage procs just do nothing? What about Remote Bomb?

 

This is tragic, if true, because I've had them in there awhile.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

It's not off. Containment . . . simply is NOT that great overall. So not surprising Controllers dip into procs for more damage.

 

Most of my Controllers still need to lean into a single-target START attack, for pretty much all levels, just to be able to finish off minions.