Damage proc problems

[Auroxis]

9 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

 

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.

 

Well first off it's good that you realize proc builds don't rely on inspirations, at least on AT's other than the two you mentioned. However, Stalkers can definitely heavily utilize procs and be tanky enough without insps. I personally had successful solo +4x8 proc builds on /Shield, /Rad, and /Bio. So that only leaves Blasters, which while indeed relying on teammates more than other AT's, can definitely hold their own solo without insps by nuking the minions+LT's out of the pack and then leveraging CC's, set bonuses (yes, you can have set bonuses while also having procs), and their buffed sustain powers to deal with the remaining bosses.

 

9 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

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.

That's a compromise the devs made ages ago. Would I care if it went away? Not really, but after over a decade with it in the game it's something every knowledgeable builder is used to and readily gives new players assistance with, so just uprooting it also has the potential of confusing a playerbase used to this mechanic. Seeing as the net gains wouldn't be great, I don't see this as a high priority issue. Though Iike I said, I wouldn't mind it.

 

9 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

• 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.

This is a new one. Procs don't do nearly enough damage on their own to make damage debuffs useless. Even a Super Strength character only relies on procs to stay afloat for those 10s of rage crash, it doesn't turn you into a damage dealing beast by itself.

 

9 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

• Damage procs ignoring damage buffs screws the Brute AT.

You want procs to be affected by damage buffs? I'm not sure I wanna go down this rabbit hole, but I'll just say there are other ways to address brutes (if the tanker nerfs didn't already).

 

9 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

• 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.

Are they stepping on their toes? The meta 4-star comps have Corruptors and Blasters, not Controllers and Defenders. The meta farming AT's are Tankers and Brutes, not Controllers and Defenders.

 

9 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

• 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.

Enhanced Recharge issue aside, PPM was part of live for a very long time. Were procs more intuitive way back when everything was a flat 20%? Probably, but they were also boring IMO. Reverting procs to those levels removes a lot of slotting variety and nerfs AT's that don't deserve nerfs the most.

Edited August 5 by Auroxis
grammar

[Riverdusk]

 

Being able to stock up on inspirations in email and grab them during missions I personally consider not working as intended.   I have occasionally stored some large rez inspirations in mine, and sometimes for my MM's I've stored a few large team defense inspirations for AV battles and such, but that is about it.  Rarely ever actually used them that way.  No problem with that going away if the devs want to make email inaccessible during missions or disallow attaching inspirations to emails or whatever.

 

On the other hand I do believe it is a niche thing.  One of those things that is discussed more on the forums than actually practiced by the "regular" players in game. 

 

Honestly feel a bit the same way about even the 'proc' builds that started this thread.  I wonder how much this is really even an issue.  I could be wrong, but I don't think a lot of the 'regular' players build 'proc bomb' characters or even think about procs much.  I think again it is more a forum thing.  

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

Honestly feel a bit the same way about even the 'proc' builds that started this thread.  I wonder how much this is really even an issue.  I could be wrong, but I don't think a lot of the 'regular' players build 'proc bomb' characters or even think about procs much.  I think again it is more a forum thing.  

 

Leveraging %damage from procs *isn't* an issue, except for:

• Players who have some personal attitude on "AT roles, which are often only considered for a small fraction of game content
• Specific powers, some of which are exceptionally good for using %damage (but may require deep investment, such as in power pool choices), or specific powers that "trick" players into not realizing that the power is a poor place for %damage (e.g. pseudopets)

For my second point... I have almost no sympathy: players who want high levels of performance  should be testing their build choices in game. It strikes me as some sort of weird sense of entitlement to both "know about %procs, and where they can be slotted" and believe that they are automatically the best choice for powers... while complaining that they are "too complicated".  I recognize this feel as a "me issue", as I get the same feels from common build suggestions that "Tough/Build/Hasten" is the key to 99% of bestest builds. Ya gotta test what you are playing!

 

As for my first point... Defenders and Controllers are NOT solo steam-rolling content with %procs, certainly not like other ATs. The ATs without a significant number of attacks (in primary/secondary/epic) end up with fewer choices of sets (for set bonuses) on top of not having good damage-enemies-to-defeat-them options, so it really is a set of choices (choices are good!) and compromises for certain ATs compared to other ATs.

[aethereal]

7 hours ago, tidge said:

For my second point... I have almost no sympathy: players who want high levels of performance  should be testing their build choices in game. It strikes me as some sort of weird sense of entitlement to both "know about %procs, and where they can be slotted" and believe that they are automatically the best choice for powers... while complaining that they are "too complicated".  I recognize this feel as a "me issue", as I get the same feels from common build suggestions that "Tough/Build/Hasten" is the key to 99% of bestest builds. Ya gotta test what you are playing!

 

You're just gonna love the new update where all enhancement values listed in the games are lies.  And so are the power descriptions.

Edited August 5 by aethereal

[battlewraith]

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

You're just gonna love the new update where all enhancement values listed in the games are lies.  And so are the power descriptions.

Maybe they can adopt cooking terminology. This attack has a medium impact with a sprinkle of -regen and a pinch of toxic damage. Then we can all have "fun" testing what that means.

[tidge]

28 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

You're just gonna love the new update where all enhancement values listed in the games are lies.  And so are the power descriptions.

 

So they are rolling back Water Blast? /s

[Shin Magmus]

A hint of damage, a smidgen of Def debuff, and a suggestion of formulaic complexity... forsooth!

[macskull]

10 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Being able to stock up on inspirations in email and grab them during missions I personally consider not working as intended.

Developer intent rarely survives interaction with the players. A great example of this is the current Hamidon raid - the way players figured it out after it was redone for Issue 9 wasn’t the way the responsible dev had intended for it to be completed, but here we are 18 years later.

 

Let’s not act like inspiration use is some game-breaking thing. This game has never been particularly challenging outside of cases where players self-impose restrictions. In cases where a dev is concerned about inspiration use trivializing something that is supposed to be a challenge, they can simply disable inspiration use just like the various advanced difficulty settings do… but it’s worth pointing out that when you disable inspiration use you basically just shift the meta from a mix of Blasters and Corruptors to a mix of Blasters and Corruptors with a single Tanker or Scrapper thrown in.

Edited August 5 by macskull