Damage proc problems

[Uun]

3 hours ago, Paradox Fate said:

Definitely seeing a lot of 'prob bomb' sets in Controller builds, having also one in my Arsenal Control/Trick Arrow character.

Probably all leaning hard on the 'damage is king' meta here - Which *might* be a problem in itself, but that's for another thread around here I think. 

There's a big difference between proccing out a controller or defender so that they do enough damage to solo at a reasonable pace and proccing out a blaster/scrapper/stalker/brute so that they can solo a pylon in 10s. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 7/31/2025 at 9:54 PM, Neiska said:

I just made a pet-less crabby build with lots of damage procs, one of my first ones that can solo 4/8 with EBs without having to bend over backwards to do it.

 

Do you think that if your build had pets it would be able to solo 4/8 with EBs as well?

 

On 7/31/2025 at 9:54 PM, Neiska said:

Then there's stuff like Super Strength builds that rely on procs to do damage during their crash periods, and so on.

 

The crash periods that were built in so as to compensate for their extremely strong performance 11/12 of the time?

 

I'm not picking on @Neiska in particular here, and I apologize for singling you out.  However, I do not buy the argument that "some builds are *sobs* u-u-u-useless without four damage procs."  Some builds are going to do more damage than others.  Some ATs are going to do more damage than others.  Some builds have more crowd control than others but WHO CARES because the meta and the evolution of the game only rewards damage?  Well, that one's on the current devs and players.  And let's be honest, every build is playable.  They may not be enjoyable for you and your lifestyle, but you don't have to play them!

 

One positive thing I will say about the current devs and this latest update -- they really seem to be working towards the goal of restoring some balance.  Adjustable Recharge or whatever the moniker is again is designed as a proc killer, BUT it also massively increases the frequency of AoE crowd control powers.  Was some of this imbalance and subsequent adjustments due to some of their decisions in the past that may have been short-sighted?  *shrugs* I dunno.

[Neiska]

9 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Do you think that if your build had pets it would be able to solo 4/8 with EBs as well?

 

 

The crash periods that were built in so as to compensate for their extremely strong performance 11/12 of the time?

 

I'm not picking on @Neiska in particular here, and I apologize for singling you out.  However, I do not buy the argument that "some builds are *sobs* u-u-u-useless without four damage procs."  Some builds are going to do more damage than others.  Some ATs are going to do more damage than others.  Some builds have more crowd control than others but WHO CARES because the meta and the evolution of the game only rewards damage?  Well, that one's on the current devs and players.  And let's be honest, every build is playable.  They may not be enjoyable for you and your lifestyle, but you don't have to play them!

 

One positive thing I will say about the current devs and this latest update -- they really seem to be working towards the goal of restoring some balance.  Adjustable Recharge or whatever the moniker is again is designed as a proc killer, BUT it also massively increases the frequency of AoE crowd control powers.  Was some of this imbalance and subsequent adjustments due to some of their decisions in the past that may have been short-sighted?  *shrugs* I dunno.

 

See, heres the thing - I wouldn't be opposed to them changing things, if they fixed the stuff that relied on them. We have sets that are clearly strong (mostly new stuff) while the old stuff like spines sits there forever and remains untouched. And anything we players do within our own ability to make things good gets hammered. Its like they want there to be useless sets?

 

But what confuses me more than that, is that lets not pretend that when they have an option (like procs) that everyone has the same access to it - the good builds as well as the bad ones. And all too often changes like this hits the bad builds HARDER than the good ones. You don't base balance around the top-end of things, you do it from the middle and go from there. But a lot of these changes make the good stuff even better, and the bad stuff even worse. An example would be the mastermind primary shake-up - the one that needed it most (beasts) remains entirely untouched. And it was dead last before, now its REALLY in last place.

 

And I disagree that the balance is better. Only changed so other things are stronger. Some things are stronger than they were before. Many things are weaker. That's not "balance." And personally, I think chasing "balance" is kind of a fools errand in the first place in a game such as this. Because it's impossible to be balanced against every enemy in every situation in every AT with every enhancement and every build. I'm not saying they shouldn't try, but to me they are focusing on entirely the wrong things. Especially when we take things like Incarnates into the equation. For all this discussion of "balance" the meta for the top-end content has remain largely unchanged and affects pretty much all the middle-ground stuff, like the fresh-50s. Another example is that not every AT can solo +4/8, and changes like this doesn't enable more builds to do that, it actually takes away from the ones that can. Which to my mind isn't balancing the game at all, its taking things we had before and taking them away, much like the several changes to the AE. It doesn't make the game more challenging, or unique, or special. All it does is add a bit more to the hamster wheel. Make players have to work harder for the same things they had before and call it "progress." When to me that isnt progress at all, that's going backward.

[Forager]

On 8/2/2025 at 9:21 AM, Lunar Ronin said:

They get around it by using inspirations as part of their character build.

 

Could you elaborate on what that means? And what parts of it were not possible on Live?

[Lunar Ronin]

11 minutes ago, Forager said:

 

Could you elaborate on what that means? And what parts of it were not possible on Live?

 

Some people store a significant quantity of large or super purple, orange, or dual purple/orange inspirations in their in-game e-mail, auction house, or both.  They keep their supply regularly stocked, and then continuously munch those inspirations as they play to use as their build's defenses and/or resistances, instead of building for them using powers and/or IO set enhancement bonuses.

 

It mostly wasn't possible on live, because to be able to use the /ah command you had to be subscribed for something like seven years straight, which the vast majority of players were not.  Also, in-game e-mail was limited to storing twenty messages, not the 150 or something that Homecoming has.

 

It's a practice that I find rather dull, boring, and monotonous.  It also was quite clearly never intended, at least not by Paragon Studios.

Edited August 3 by Lunar Ronin

[Yomo Kimyata]

16 hours ago, Neiska said:

 

See, heres the thing - I wouldn't be opposed to them changing things, if they fixed the stuff that relied on them. We have sets that are clearly strong (mostly new stuff) while the old stuff like spines sits there forever and remains untouched. And anything we players do within our own ability to make things good gets hammered. Its like they want there to be useless sets?

 

But what confuses me more than that, is that lets not pretend that when they have an option (like procs) that everyone has the same access to it - the good builds as well as the bad ones. And all too often changes like this hits the bad builds HARDER than the good ones. You don't base balance around the top-end of things, you do it from the middle and go from there. But a lot of these changes make the good stuff even better, and the bad stuff even worse. An example would be the mastermind primary shake-up - the one that needed it most (beasts) remains entirely untouched. And it was dead last before, now its REALLY in last place.

 

And I disagree that the balance is better. Only changed so other things are stronger. Some things are stronger than they were before. Many things are weaker. That's not "balance." And personally, I think chasing "balance" is kind of a fools errand in the first place in a game such as this. Because it's impossible to be balanced against every enemy in every situation in every AT with every enhancement and every build. I'm not saying they shouldn't try, but to me they are focusing on entirely the wrong things. Especially when we take things like Incarnates into the equation. For all this discussion of "balance" the meta for the top-end content has remain largely unchanged and affects pretty much all the middle-ground stuff, like the fresh-50s. Another example is that not every AT can solo +4/8, and changes like this doesn't enable more builds to do that, it actually takes away from the ones that can. Which to my mind isn't balancing the game at all, its taking things we had before and taking them away, much like the several changes to the AE. It doesn't make the game more challenging, or unique, or special. All it does is add a bit more to the hamster wheel. Make players have to work harder for the same things they had before and call it "progress." When to me that isnt progress at all, that's going backward.

 

Nice and well written!  I think a big aspect of this is that not only are we geared psychologically to like newer and better things, but there is no governor to keep the system balanced.  It's kind of like (and bear with me on the metaphor), driving the kids home for dinner and they are screaming, "Take us to Chuck E. Cheese!!!!" because it's fun and the driver is saying, "No, we have food at home."  When this was a commercial enterprise, there was an incentive for someone to be that driver, to keep everything running smoothly, to patch up any problems in Spines or to fix typos or to stop exploits.  When HC came out into the public, I really felt that the drivers were saying, "Hell yeah!!  CHUCK E CHEESE.  F*** vegetables, nothing but pizza and ice cream!!!" and it was (and is still) difficult for me to justify that.

 

Like I said, my impression is that they are walking some of their changes back, but it's difficult to be the uncool parent who says, "We have food at home, eat your Spines" rather than, "Hey, let's introduce new sets that make it easier to solo GMs!"

[Auroxis]

53 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

Some people store a significant quantity of large or super purple, orange, or dual purple/orange inspirations in their in-game e-mail, auction house, or both.  They keep their supply regularly stocked, and then continuously munch those inspirations as they play to use as their build's defenses and/or resistances, instead of building for them using powers and/or IO set enhancement bonuses.

 

It mostly wasn't possible on live, because to be able to use the /ah command you had to be subscribed for something like seven years straight, which the vast majority of players were not.  Also, in-game e-mail was limited to storing twenty messages, not the 150 or something that Homecoming has.

 

It's a practice that I find rather dull, boring, and monotonous.  It also was quite clearly never intended, at least not by Paragon Studios.

 

I've never seen anyone do this.

 

If you're using "builds with heavily procced attacks are bad because those players use insps to stay alive" as an excuse to stay away from procs, then all I can say in the nicest way possible is that you're missing out. You can in fact build to be tanky while having quite a few procs in your build.

[skoryy]

10 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

've never seen anyone do this.

 

If you're using "builds with heavily procced attacks are bad because those players use insps to stay alive" as an excuse to stay away from procs, then all I can say in the nicest way possible is that you're missing out. You can in fact build to be tanky while having quite a few procs in your build.

 

There's been posters on this forum who've said they do this. And I don't think Lunar is using it as an excuse, they're just giving their opinion on that playstyle.

[Erratic1]

18 hours ago, Neiska said:

See, heres the thing - I wouldn't be opposed to them changing things, if they fixed the stuff that relied on them. We have sets that are clearly strong (mostly new stuff) while the old stuff like spines sits there forever and remains untouched. And anything we players do within our own ability to make things good gets hammered. Its like they want there to be useless sets?

 

Not sure I would call Storm Blast strong. Kinetic Melee is one of the newer combat sets and...well...nobody but nobody calls it strong. Radiation Melee is far from godly. Meanwhile Super Reflexes is an original set and considered top tier. 

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Not sure I would call Storm Blast strong. Kinetic Melee is one of the newer combat sets and...well...nobody but nobody calls it strong. Radiation Melee is far from godly. Meanwhile Super Reflexes is an original set and considered top tier. 

 

Sure, not everything new is strong. But often is. Energy Melee is one of the strongest ST out there, Electric Affinity is one of the best for mms, I only just started a /marine and honestly it feels too good compared to some of its lower sets like /radiation or /pain. Not all of the updates were BAD, most weren't. I just wish they would fix the weak stuff first, before trying to curb the top performing things. A lot of the stuff thats at the bottom has been at the bottom for a long time now.

[Erratic1]

9 minutes ago, Neiska said:

 

Sure, not everything new is strong. But often is. Energy Melee is one of the strongest ST out there, Electric Affinity is one of the best for mms, I only just started a /marine and honestly it feels too good compared to some of its lower sets like /radiation or /pain. Not all of the updates were BAD, most weren't. I just wish they would fix the weak stuff first, before trying to curb the top performing things. A lot of the stuff thats at the bottom has been at the bottom for a long time now.

 

Energy Melee is not new, it got a reworking, just like every control set with a sleep got a reworking.

 

As for fixing weak stuff, part of the problem is a lot of time someone will complain if any change is made. Loudly, repeatedly, as if their toenails were being pulled off.

[Neiska]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Energy Melee is not new, it got a reworking, just like every control set with a sleep got a reworking.

 

As for fixing weak stuff, part of the problem is a lot of time someone will complain if any change is made. Loudly, repeatedly, as if their toenails were being pulled off.

 

Well ya, I meant new and/or reworked. 

[Forager]

11 hours ago, Auroxis said:

I've never seen anyone do this.

 

You don't say? You've never seen anyone store large supplies of inspirations in their email? What do you see in peoples email?

 

 

Edited August 4 by Forager

[Auroxis]

24 minutes ago, Forager said:

 

You don't say? You've never seen anyone store large supplies of inspirations in their email? What do you see in peoples email?

 

 

It would be pretty apparent in gameplay seeing someone pop insps over and over, and it would be discussed more often and not kept as a secret if proc builds were so reliant on insps.

[Lunar Ronin]

6 hours ago, Auroxis said:

It would be pretty apparent in gameplay seeing someone pop insps over and over, and it would be discussed more often and not kept as a secret if proc builds were so reliant on insps.

 

It's been discussed a lot over the past five years or so, on both here and on the Homecoming Discord server.  It was a fringe thing back in 2019 and 2020, but started picking up steam in 2021 or so.  It's gotten to the point now that a lot of meta chasers believe it to be the norm and talk down to those who build for personal defense.  It's definitely no secret, not anymore, and hasn't been for a few years.  You just haven't been paying attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are four posts I found just from a very quick search before I have to leave for work.  There are plenty more examples, and even more on the Homecoming Discord.

[Auroxis]

@Lunar RoninAll you did was link to some posts encouraging the usage of inspirations, and only two of those talking about storing them in e-mail/auction house. It has nothing to do with your assertion of proc builds relying on insps, and doesn't come close to proving that insp hoarding is somehow a widespread and common affair.

 

To further illustrate the point of the proc and insp discussion being separate, here's a link to an actual benchmark thread against difficult +4 mobs where builds were forbidden from using inspirations, and proc builds still came out very much on top. It turns out killing stuff fast is good for staying alive, and you can in fact build to be tanky and endurance stable while still having procs in your attacks. Possibly you've seen this already of course, but maybe you weren't paying attention.

 

 

Edited August 4 by Auroxis

[MoonSheep]

2 hours ago, Auroxis said:

@Lunar RoninAll you did was link to some posts encouraging the usage of inspirations, and only two of those talking about storing them in e-mail/auction house. It has nothing to do with your assertion of proc builds relying on insps, and doesn't come close to proving that insp hoarding is somehow a widespread and common affair.

 

the friends and extended network i play with with only use inspirations as the mechanism to survive, no building for defense other than the uniques and mastery shield

 

when min/maxing, IOs with +defense properties (and to that matter, ATs where half the powerset are irrelevant shield powers) are inefficient and can be better replaced with insps, allowing the slots to be used for procs.

 

an entire build crafted for 45% def can be replaced by a single inspiration

 

my AH is always stocked with T3 and T4 bids for def, damage and heal inspirations along with Ultimate insps. before each mission i’ll fill my insp tray with them and have a few T4’s in my email if things are spicier than expected. if we schedule to do a weekend evening of speed runs we’ll place hundreds of bids during the week for insps to prepare

 

as @Lunar Ronin says, some people may find it boring - and for general content it often is. for speed runs it’s the base standard

Edited August 4 by MoonSheep

[Auroxis]

5 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

 

the friends and extended network i play with with only use inspirations as the mechanism to survive, no building for defense other than the uniques and mastery shield

 

when min/maxing, IOs with +defense properties (and to that matter, ATs where half the powerset are irrelevant shield powers) are a waste of potential as it’s inefficient and can be better replaced with insps, allowing the slots to be used for procs. an entire build crafted for 45% def can be replaced by a single inspiration

 

my AH is always stocked with T3 and T4 bids for def, damage and heal inspirations along with Ultimate insps. before each mission i’ll fill my insp tray with them and have a few T4’s in my email if things are spicier than expected. if we schedule to do a weekend evening of speed runs and 4* content we’ll place hundreds of bids during the week for insps to prepare

 

as @Lunar Ronin says, some people may find it boring - and for general content it often is. for speed runs it’s the base standard

 

Ok?... It's great that you enjoy min-maxing inspirations, but even without insps a build can fill its attack chain with procs and still make room to hit good defense/resistance targets. What I'm railing against is Lunar's assertion (from what I understood anyway) that builds with procs only work because of inspirations.

[MoonSheep]

5 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

 

Ok?... It's great that you enjoy min-maxing inspirations, but even without insps a build can fill its attack chain with procs and still make room to hit good defense/resistance targets. What I'm railing against is Lunar's assertion (from what I understood anyway) that builds with procs only work because of inspirations.

 

oh right - i’d say it’s definitely possible to have a fairly procced out build and still have reasonable defenses 

 

i have been thinking about building an insp-less alt for many years but i just can’t quit those crunchy, delicious inspirations. mmmm mmm, so moreish 

[Forager]

12 hours ago, Auroxis said:

It would be pretty apparent in gameplay seeing someone pop insps over and over,

 

Lol stop it. You would rather claim to notice how many inspirations teammates use than just be like "oh yeah I guess I would have no idea whether or not people store them in email"

Edited August 4 by Forager

[Forager]

3 hours ago, Auroxis said:

Ok?... It's great that you enjoy min-maxing inspirations, but even without insps a build can fill its attack chain with procs and still make room to hit good defense/resistance targets. What I'm railing against is Lunar's assertion (from what I understood anyway) that builds with procs only work because of inspirations.

  

Nah man. You were saying that people don't use inspirations to fill defense needs in a bulld. You said you've never seen anyone do that. You also said it would be obvious to you if people are storing them in email. Here is a guy telling you that he does those things... and others do as well. You're misrepresenting the conversation to avoid just saying "oh dang I didn't know that." Quit squirming lol. People can scroll up.

[Auroxis]

1 hour ago, Forager said:

 

Lol stop it. You would rather claim to notice how many inspirations teammates use than just be like "oh yeah I guess I would have no idea whether or not people store them in email"

I do notice insp usage, i have buff windows open often out of an old habit.

 

It is genuinely something i've never seen used on that level.

1 hour ago, Forager said:

  

Nah man. You were saying that people don't use inspirations to fill defense needs in a bulld. You said you've never seen anyone do that. You also said it would be obvious to you if people are storing them in email. Here is a guy telling you that he does those things... and others do as well. You're misrepresenting the conversation to avoid just saying "oh dang I didn't know that." Quit squirming lol. People can scroll up.

Not sure why you decided to go down this confrontational BS route but at least keep the outright lying to a minimum. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you simply misunderstood my words and move on with my life.

[Forager]

43 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

but at least keep the outright lying to a minimum

 

You mean like this?

 

6 hours ago, Auroxis said:

What I'm railing against is Lunar's assertion (from what I understood anyway) that builds with procs only work because of inspirations.

 

Lol. Yikes...

[UltraAlt]

On 8/1/2025 at 8:36 AM, skoryy said:

por que no los dos

 

Because, unlike Champions (from when people actually sat around a table [or on the furniture in the same room] and played role-playing games), I can't mini-max powers that fit my character conception.

If you mini-max in CoH, you are mini-maxing the power picks and the enhancements. Sure you can say that your character conforms to that mini-maxing, but that isn't building the character on the character conception as far as I am concerned.

 

On 8/1/2025 at 8:36 AM, skoryy said:

I use Mids and I build by character conception. It can be done!

 

If you feel you can mini-max to fit your character conception, then more power to you.

[Lunar Ronin]

14 hours ago, Auroxis said:

@Lunar RoninAll you did was link to some posts encouraging the usage of inspirations, and only two of those talking about storing them in e-mail/auction house. It has nothing to do with your assertion of proc builds relying on insps, and doesn't come close to proving that insp hoarding is somehow a widespread and common affair.

 

To further illustrate the point of the proc and insp discussion being separate, here's a link to an actual benchmark thread against difficult +4 mobs where builds were forbidden from using inspirations, and proc builds still came out very much on top. It turns out killing stuff fast is good for staying alive, and you can in fact build to be tanky and endurance stable while still having procs in your attacks. Possibly you've seen this already of course, but maybe you weren't paying attention.

 

 

 

I very much realize that Defenders, Tankers, and to a lesser extent Corruptors and Controllers can build for both procs and defense.  However, you're not doing that on... say... a Blaster or a Stalker.  It's either one, or the other.  The ones that choose procs?  Yeah, they're either using inspirations, or they exclusively team and rely on buffs and Barrier Destiny.  And agreed that that procs and relying on inspirations for defense and/or resistance are separate issues, but they are very much linked.

 

But that's not the only reason why I don't use proc bombs.  Procs Per Minute is an inherently and fundamentally broken system.  By all accounts, it was going to be scrapped and replaced before Issue 24 went live.

 

• Players are penalized for slotting recharge in powers, and/or using Alpha abilities that boost recharge.  That's extremely counter intuitive and stupid.
• Damage procs ignoring damage debuffs means that is one less tool in a Homecoming writer's kit as it makes damage debuffs by NPCs pretty useless.
• Damage procs ignoring damage buffs screws the Brute AT.
• Damage procs let ATs that were intended for low damage (Controller, Defender, etc.), step on the toes of ATs designed for higher damage, (Corruptor, Blaster, etc.), further making a mess of AT balance.
• Related to the first bullet, the whole PPM system is counter-intuitive and opaque.  Players have to know that pseudo pets are bad for procs.  Then they have to know which powers use pseudo pets.  Then they have to know that slotting recharge is bad.  How in the blue blazes is this a good system?

 

It isn't.  The proc system should be completely overhauled from scratch.  Heck, revert to the system we had on live.  It was better than PPM.