Recharge is... bad, actually?!

[Sunsette]

Okay, slightly clickbaity title so let me get definitions clear upfront:

 

- Enhancement Recharge: Recharge that comes from slotted enhancements and Alpha Slots

- Global Recharge: Everything else (Hasten, etc.)

 

I recently discovered the updated PPM formula and I've been experimenting with it; having zero enhancement recharge on a power (as opposed to the natural inclination to get it to 95%-ish) not-quite doubles its chance of getting PPM. This has a dramatic effect on a few powers and minimal on others.

 

All data rounded to two sigfigs.

 

Ex: Focused Power Blast at...

0% Recharge/2 PPM: 63.01% chance to proc

33% Recharge/2 PPM: 49.78% chance to proc

50% Recharge/2 PPM: 45.24% chance to proc

95% Recharge/2 PPM: 37.03% chance to proc

127% Recharge/2 PPM: 33.17% chance to proc

 

0% Recharge/4 PPM: 95% chance to proc

33% Recharge/4 PPM: 95% chance to proc

50% Recharge/4 PPM: 90.48% chance to proc

95% Recharge/4 PPM: 74.06% chance to proc

127% Recharge/4 PPM: 66.34% chance to proc

 

Ex: Power Push at...

0% Recharge/2 PPM: 31.06% chance to proc

33% Recharge/2 PPM: 24.45% chance to proc

50% Recharge/2 PPM: 22.18% chance to proc

95% Recharge/2 PPM: 18.08% chance to proc

127% Recharge/2 PPM: 16.15% chance to proc

 

0% Recharge/4 PPM: 62.12% chance to proc

33% Recharge/4 PPM: 48.90% chance to proc

50% Recharge/4 PPM: 44.36% chance to proc

95% Recharge/4 PPM: 36.15% chance to proc

127% Recharge/4 PPM: 32.29% chance to proc

 

Obviously the downside is that you're using the attack less, which is where global recharge comes in. it's relatively easy to get global recharge into the 180-200% range for defense-oriented builds, before including Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge, which roughly works out (considering its internal cooldown) to an average of 33% recharge provided you have it slotted on enough attacks you use frequently. This means there's a serious benefit to high recharge builds finding one or two attacks that have multiple weird IO categories that aren't part of your standard rotation with a high cooldown, frankenslotting them to the aPROCalypse, and then letting go. It's especially great since IO procs don't have their effects limited by being low level IOs; you can grab a level 20 IO that procs for damage and if you keep the attack slow, it's a free 50% damage on each use of the attack. (Exact percentages of damage vary by power and IO).

 

Generally purple/very rare damage IOs aren't a great candidate for this because they have a higher than normal PPM at 4.5; you still want them on your slowest animating, slowest recharging attack that actually has enhancement recharge, because they'll very quickly hardcap at 95% activation chance otherwise (as shown by the Focused Power Bolt example at 0% recharge/4 PPM; FPB could get up to 50% recharge ish on 4.5 PPM and not overcap at all).

 

This also seriously devalues Alpha Slot recharge for such builds.

 

I am shooketh at the moment, and wondering if there's anything big I'm missing here. With this build philosophy, I essentially tripled an attack's DPA (rather than the normal ~double) while giving it a 66% chance to give me +100% recharge for 5 seconds and a 33% chance to give me free build ups and I can use it about every 8 seconds. The downside is it's slightly endhoggy and more susceptible to -tohit effects from enemies than the rest of my attacks.

[Chance Jackson]

The change along with the 90% were announced with I24 & it was not popular at all.

[Sunsette]

The change along with the 90% were announced with I24 & it was not popular at all.

 

I'm not surprised. It's a big paradigm shift and it only heightens the value of global recharge. All the same, I also understand the reasoning behind the change; for various reasons it somewhat countervails the tendency to try and strip a rotation down to three moves, which can feel monotonous and unsatisfying.

[Tankshock]

This is kind of brilliant. I've been moving towards more procs in unlikely attacks, but hadn't consciously reached this point.  The downside is that a lot of times you can't help but get solid recharge in a power when you go for set bonuses, and if you're going for 200% global you like need a decent number of sets. Still, it reminds me of just how good Carrion Creepers is when loaded with procs.

[Sunsette]

Yeah, this is basically an entirely endgame concern at this point; what I did was I worked out a three attack rotation that's fairly high DPS to begin with, then added two attacks that are based around proc fishing (one with a five-slotted purple but very high base recharge and extra proc, one with pure frankenslotting). The result is a 25% increase in my DPS staying at pure range, and a 50% increase at melee range. That's the conservative estimates, non-conservatively I'd guess it's more like 30 to 60%. So somewhere in that range.

[Hopeling]

Yes, it's a bit strange that slotting more recharge than you need can have a negative effect. However, in practice it usually doesn't matter a great deal: most procs offer only marginal benefits, and it's very rare that you realistically have a choice between 0% recharge and 95%. More often, it's something like 40% vs 60% because you're deciding between the Acc/Rech and the Acc/Dam to complete a set bonus.

 

For powers where you DO want as much recharge as possible, that's because you're using the power as often as possible, so you still get about the same number of procs per minute: lower chance per use, but more uses per minute. That's kind of the point of PPM procs: they're supposed to be equally good in fast and slow powers.

The change along with the 90% were announced with I24 & it was not popular at all.

This is true, but a large part of that was unfounded hysteria.

 

Before i24, the only PPM procs were the ones bought with real money. An overwhelming majority of IO procs in use were the original flat-rate kind, and compared to that, the new PPM formula was a substantial buff in almost all cases (although you might have to respec to take full advantage of it). I had a lot of conversations about this before shutdown: people worried because "slotting recharge reduces proc chance" sounds like a nerf, but for most people it was a buff from the previous 20% to a new ~60%, and only a nerf compared to a purely hypothetical 100% proc chance that they never actually had.

 

A few builds really did get nerfed - buzzsaw attacks and AoE immobilizes are the major ones. But the 4 PPM procs that OP looks at get a proc rate of 32% in the worst cases, while before the change they had only a 20% chance.

[Sunsette]

Agreed that this is an edge-case scenario. Thought occurs though; Assault Radial Incarnate is believed to be a 6 PPM system. While mids/pines/etc. doesn't currently have a model for Assault Radial Hybrid, if it's using this PPM system, that really underscores the beneficial effect of substituting global recharge for enhancement recharge (where possible) in attack builds.

[Machariel]

I remember enjoying this change when it came out on live and as far as I understand it, you are correct.  This is one reason why I always try to cram as much recharge into a build - it sometimes makes sense possible to underslot for recharge, let your global recharge cover it up, and use the extra slots on damage procs.  Unrelated to PPM, this also means you can sometimes underslot for accuracy as a great many sets gives substantial accuracy bonuses (my main is sitting on +48% accuracy from sets which is almost a free IO to every power).

 

However, I didn't get to play with it much on live before the game ended.  I've been having a lot of fun with it on Homecoming, though. 

I'm a big fan of slotting the Decimation Chance for Build Up proc in Snipe powers, since the Snipe sets don't have a lot of recharge enhancement and it's a reasonably long recharge power, so I feel like more often than not I get a free build up out of my snipe.  Anytime I can replace Flares in my attack chain with Blazing Bolt + free build up, it's a good time.  :P

 

It is pretty much an end-game concern, but I feel it's a significant one.  It adds an interesting question to builds: "Do you have too much recharge?"

[Zolgar]

But here's the thing..

 

0% Recharge/2 PPM: 63.01% chance to proc

33% Recharge/2 PPM: 49.78% chance to proc

50% Recharge/2 PPM: 45.24% chance to proc

95% Recharge/2 PPM: 37.03% chance to proc

127% Recharge/2 PPM: 33.17% chance to proc

 

Look at those numbers for a second. The first thing is obvious.

 

At 127% recharge, I can fire it off 9 times in the time it takes me to fire it off 4 times with 0% recharge. Which means I have 9* 33%, so it should fire ~3 times vs. 4* 63%, which means it's going to fire roughly 2.5 times. So, I'm still going to get the proc more often with higher recharge.

 

And the more important factor is, if RNGesus says no on the first attack, you have to wait more than twice as long to try again with 0 recharge. Plus, I'm just going to be doing more damage if I fire the power off 2.25x as often.

[Sunsette]

But here's the thing..

 

0% Recharge/2 PPM: 63.01% chance to proc

33% Recharge/2 PPM: 49.78% chance to proc

50% Recharge/2 PPM: 45.24% chance to proc

95% Recharge/2 PPM: 37.03% chance to proc

127% Recharge/2 PPM: 33.17% chance to proc

 

Look at those numbers for a second. The first thing is obvious.

 

At 127% recharge, I can fire it off 9 times in the time it takes me to fire it off 4 times with 0% recharge. Which means I have 9* 33%, so it should fire ~3 times vs. 4* 63%, which means it's going to fire roughly 2.5 times. So, I'm still going to get the proc more often with higher recharge.

 

And the more important factor is, if RNGesus says no on the first attack, you have to wait more than twice as long to try again with 0 recharge. Plus, I'm just going to be doing more damage if I fire the power off 2.25x as often.

 

It's a little bit more complicated than that as a result of the existence of global recharge and animation time.

 

Using Focused Power Bolt as the example there, at 200% global recharge, it can be used (roughly) every 5.71s due to attack clipping, which makes it actually 6.072s in my attack chain. Over one minute, that's ten chances to activate at 63.01%. First of all, I like the higher predictability more with buffs like Build Up and Recharge because they actually affect how you play.

 

Chance of no activations at 0% enh recharge is 0.00004795603%³ and there is a 87.96350087%¹³ chance that at least five activations will occur in that time period, which covers the entire minute with the buffs I want, basically.

 

When it's at 100%² individual recharge as well, that shortens to 4.21s, or 4.884s in attack clipping. That's twelve chances to activate at 37.03%.

 

Chance of no activations at 95%² enh recharge is 0.00980250185%³ and there is 47.540585129%¹³ chance that at least five activations will occur in that time period. That's a substantial loss of consistency -and- efficacy.

 

The lower the animation time the closer it comes to the ideal, but there's never an attack with less than 1s (less than 1.188s?) animation. Animation time is, time and again, -the- limiting factor for recharge in this game, a stark contrast to games like WoW and SWtOR where Haste is never allowed to increase by more than 10 to 30% under normal conditions but does speed up both animation times and often cooldowns, thus keeping attack chains the same and avoiding breakpoints like this.

 

I want to stress that your analysis is mostly correct at low levels of global recharge, such as leveling and builds that can't dedicate a lot of focus on recharge, this is just a particular instance of perverse incentive that arises at very high gear levels for a specific type of builds. However, since the specific type (endgame damage builds) is fairly common, it's worth noting.

 

---

 

¹ Don't ask me for the calculations, I just know to use a binomial probability calculator here, not how binomial probability actually -works-. It's witchcraft imo. Sorcery! Mathemagicians!

² I use 100% in one place, 95% in another, because I'm actually not good at math and I wanted to get this done quickly so I used calculations I already had laying around on hand. Don't worry; not only is this error approximate, the error is in favor of the high enh. recharge case, which is still inarguably worse. This clearly demonstrates my point.

³ At no point did I calculate the individual chance for an attack to miss due to a Natural 1, but it shouldn't substantially alter this comparison and would affect both sides equally.

[Auroxis]

It's not just global recharge that encourages under-slotting recharge, oftentimes the best attack chain only requires maximizing recharge on one attack, and sometimes even none of them. It's an intetesting mechanic for min-maxers for sure.

[Zolgar]

<snip>

 

Once you start trying to factor in global recharge though, your point kind of falters

 

To have any appreciable amount of global recharge perma, you have to rely heavily on set bonuses (or some wonky ass build that frankeslots and gets all its recharge from the chance for recharge proc.. so .. I suppose it's fair in that regard), most recharge comes in at 4-6 slots. Know what basically every set includes in its enhancers? Recharge.

 

If you're building a high power IO build, your IO sets are putting recharge in your powers, but you don't care because no proc is going to offer you more than the sum of the set bonuses you're getting for building the way you are- at this point, procs are not a "this is an integral part of my build" they are a nice added bonus when they happen.

 

So unless you are building something specifically not optimized as a concept build, you're usually getting 50-90% recharge in your powers whether you like it or not. If you are building something weird for concept to trigger procs reliably, this information is quite valuable.

[nihilii]

I think Sunsette's point isn't to suggest you should forgo set bonuses entirely, but that it is entirely possible and likely that a highend build with set bonuses in most powers might gain from underslotting recharge in a select few attacks.

[Sunsette]

To have any appreciable amount of global recharge perma, you have to rely heavily on set bonuses (or some wonky ass build that frankeslots and gets all its recharge from the chance for recharge proc.. so .. I suppose it's fair in that regard), most recharge comes in at 4-6 slots. Know what basically every set includes in its enhancers? Recharge.

 

If you're building a high power IO build, your IO sets are putting recharge in your powers, but you don't care because no proc is going to offer you more than the sum of the set bonuses you're getting for building the way you are- at this point, procs are not a "this is an integral part of my build" they are a nice added bonus when they happen.

 

So unless you are building something specifically not optimized as a concept build, you're usually getting 50-90% recharge in your powers whether you like it or not. If you are building something weird for concept to trigger procs reliably, this information is quite valuable.

 

I...

 

Yeah, this is basically an entirely endgame concern at this point .... added two attacks that are based around proc fishing (one with a five-slotted purple but very high base recharge and extra proc, one with pure frankenslotting)

 

I want to stress that your analysis is mostly correct at low levels of global recharge, such as leveling and builds that can't dedicate a lot of focus on recharge, this is just a particular instance of perverse incentive that arises at very high gear levels for a specific type of builds. However, since the specific type (endgame damage builds) is fairly common, it's worth noting.

 

This means there's a serious benefit to high recharge builds finding one or two attacks that have multiple weird IO categories that aren't part of your standard rotation with a high cooldown, frankenslotting them to the aPROCalypse

 

Agreed that this is an edge-case scenario.

 

Like this is something from an actual build I am actually playing, and it affects one or two of my attacks (depending on exact variant) and I've been repetitious about the somewhat anomalous nature here.

[Zolgar]

I guess I just missed the point of the post, since you literally said "recharge is bad" :p

 

 

[jack_nomind]

I guess I just missed the point of the post, since you literally said "recharge is bad" :p

 

The first sentence was also that the title is clickbait.

 

But I have more at issue with the earlier comment that the point "falters" when discussing global recharge.  Let's take the example of a 15s attack with a 6 ppm proc.  Ordinarily it's a 90% proc chance per activation; at 95% power recharge, it's a 7.69s recharge power with a ~77% proc chance.  If you slot a little differently and instead only get ~67% recharge, you keep the 90% proc chance, but have a 9s recharge power.  With no global recharge.

 

If on the other hand you have ~160% global recharge, the first version is at 4.22s recharge and the second is 4.59s.  That can but won't usually make a difference to an attack chain.  In this case, it's a matter of about 13% chance or one additional proc per minute 'for free.'  The difference is even more dramatic with lower proc chances, aoe powers, and especially with aoe and/or low proc chance powers that are slow-charging.

 

It's almost always possible to make the choice between full recharge or slightly less than that in a power's slotting, so your point about all sets having some recharge isn't well-taken.  (In fact, as Hopeling pointed out, many desirable sets don't even offer full recharge naturally - you have to give up a slot to another recharge enhancement if you want it.)  The point is exactly about global recharge and gaming the system with it.

[Tankshock]

Worth noting that this isn't about improving a single power. A couple people have posted that it is better for a power to have a lower proc percentage but have the power fire more frequently, and this is certainly true. But I believe the OP is talking about adding another power to your attack chain, with each power having higher dpa due to procs. Higher dpa leads to higher dps, even if your "best" powers fire less frequently.

 

It's high end stuff, but hardly an obscure footnote. (And when did we start footnoting forum posts ;) )?

[Erydanus]

I feel like this illustrates an issue with myopia in a lot of builds and theorycrafting. You focus on tuning this one power but ignore the overall build or playstyle or bigger ramifications.

 

Zolgar's example basically illustrates this. It seems balanced that the chance of proccing lowers with the increase to recharge but it's made up for being able to spam the power more times. HOWEVER that's only balanced for THAT power and only if it actually gets used that many times. If another power gets a lot of recharge - say it's just how the set being used in it is configured - but the power is only used once in a while then you can argue that proc chance got nerfed not normalized. I'm not sure it really matters as long as the power you're actually using has a lot of activations but I can see the point. (It's a pity but maybe what would be more balanced is if every proc had its own internal cooldown or diminishing chance to fire with actual activations within a certain timeframe but that's just not how it's coded.)

 

Anyway I generally just am irritated a lot by these changes and I am going to go shake my cane at some clouds now.

 

 

[Bopper]

FWIW I did some testing (which I hope to continue once Justin Server is back).

 

One of my potential findings is the correct Area Factor formula. It was initially

 

AF = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540)/30,000

 

However it was proposed by Synapse (before I24 Beta testing) that the AF was too much impact on proc probabilities and proposed dampening it's effect by 0.75.

 

His proposal was to make it:

NewAF = 1 + 0.75 (AF - 1)

 

Do the math and we get

NewAF = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540)/40,000

 

My testing seems to show we indeed are using the NewAF

 

[Sunsette]

First of all, thank you nihilli and TankShock for clarifying my points! I can ramble and that hurts my clarity. Second of all, YOU'LL TAKE MY FOOTNOTES FROM MY DEAD HANDS.¹

 

I also appreciate the explanation provided by jack_nomind. I may have actually underestimated this effect myself, focused as I was in seeing its effects in my own, high global recharge build. It's something I'll need to consider deeply in the revision of my guide.

 

FWIW I did some testing (which I hope to continue once Justin Server is back).

 

One of my potential findings is the correct Area Factor formula. It was initially

 

AF = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540)/30,000

 

However it was proposed by Synapse (before I24 Beta testing) that the AF was too much impact on proc probabilities and proposed dampening it's effect by 0.75.

 

His proposal was to make it:

NewAF = 1 + 0.75 (AF - 1)

 

Do the math and we get

NewAF = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540)/40,000

 

My testing seems to show we indeed are using the NewAF

 

First of all, this information is incredibly useful, thank you. Second of all, this brings up a question I had; in the case of cones, is the radius based on their original radius or on their modified radius? I am fond of increasing cone range. Does anyone know?

 

Much appreciated.

 

---

¹ This is a joke.

[Bopper]

 

 

First of all, this information is incredibly useful, thank you. Second of all, this brings up a question I had; in the case of cones, is the radius based on their original radius or on their modified radius? I am fond of increasing cone range. Does anyone know?

 

Much appreciated.

 

---

¹ This is a joke.

 

That is the exact test I've been wanting to do on Justin this past week. I want to know if range boosting my cones negatively impacts my cones. I recall Synapse originally wanting global recharge used for the MRT, but settled on using just Enhanced Recharge. I wonder if he also proposed using the final Range (global boosts, enhancements, etc) and never mentioned it for folks to check.

[Sunsette]

One step ahead of me!

 

I would be rather indebted to you if you could let me know, either by reply here, or private message, whenever you conclude the results of that research.

[Oneirohero]

I took this quote from the Paragon Wiki, LINK

The formula for calculating the required recharge + activation time to achieve a 100% proc chance is 60/PPM. For instance, if an enhancement has a 5PPM rate, then 60/5=12 seconds; a power with a base recharge + activation time of 12 seconds will guarantee a proc every time it executes, even if the power's final recharge is less. If an enhancement has a 1.5PPM rate, then a power needs a base recharge + activation time of 40 seconds to guarantee a proc.

The entire basis of this argument from what I can tell is that global recharge negatively impacts PPM for procs. But unless the wiki is wrong, it says that the EFFECTIVE recharge does not affect the chance, only the base recharge (unenhanced) plus it's activation time. In fact if you read the last paragraph by Arbiter Hawk he explains specifically that global recharge does not affect proc chance either, I will also quote it here but it is on the same link as above:

 

It's base recharge time. If you have a single target attack slotted with a 2 ppm IO, the power would need to have a 30 second recharge to have a 100% proc chance. You could then IO it to ~100% recharge and combine that with 100% global recharge bonus to get the power's recharge down to 10 seconds, and it would still have that 100% proc chance. This is how all of the store-bought IO set procs work, as well as the ATO procs that are not global bonuses. This changes the math on "optimal proccing" significantly from the traditional "flat rate" approach, and causes the performance delta of optimal and non-optimal to be much smaller, so you can really slot these in any power you use and you will see them be effective.

Admittedly I skimmed down beyond the first handful of posts but I'm not sure how this discussion on global recharge got this far without being checked. if it has, I apologise for skimming.

 

[Bopper]

I took this quote from the Paragon Wiki, LINK

The formula for calculating the required recharge + activation time to achieve a 100% proc chance is 60/PPM. For instance, if an enhancement has a 5PPM rate, then 60/5=12 seconds; a power with a base recharge + activation time of 12 seconds will guarantee a proc every time it executes, even if the power's final recharge is less. If an enhancement has a 1.5PPM rate, then a power needs a base recharge + activation time of 40 seconds to guarantee a proc.

The entire basis of this argument from what I can tell is that global recharge negatively impacts PPM for procs. But unless the wiki is wrong, it says that the EFFECTIVE recharge does not affect the chance, only the base recharge (unenhanced) plus it's activation time. In fact if you read the last paragraph by Arbiter Hawk he explains specifically that global recharge does not affect proc chance either, I will also quote it here but it is on the same link as above:

 

The paragonwiki is wrong. Keep in mind, when the game shutdown i24 only existed in Beta, so i23 was the "current" formula at the time, which used base recharge for its calculations. I have checked almost every avenue for what was supposed to be included in i24, including reading the ~800 post thread that began with Synapse's proposed change to i24 (using Global Recharge), then buried in the thread he changed course and realized it's unfair to punish players who get boosted by teammates ("here's some Chrono Shift, sorry I killed your procs, bro!"), so Synapse decided to only use enhanced recharge, not global. Testing by players today show that the enhanced recharge does use Alpha Incarnates as well (which makes sense, as Alpha is basically a global enhancement that incorporates Enhancement Diversification).

 

Also buried in the thread I reviewed was Synapse proposing to make Area Factor less impactful (he didn't think AoEs should be so heavily penalized) so he proposed dampening the effect by 25%. His formula was New AF = 1 + 0.75(Old AF - 1). Using algebra, this means the New AF = 1 + Radius x (11 x Arc + 540) / 40,000. My testing, which included links to my references, seems to show the 25% dampening was in fact implemented.

 

Also mentioned in the Synapse thread was the removal of 100% procs. In i23, you could guarantee a proc hitting by using it in powers with a long enough base recharge and activation time (your first quote), however Synapse believed procs should always have some sense of randomness and proposed capping it as 90% or 95%. Testing by today's players have shown that 100% procs are no longer a thing, but it's unconfirmed as to whether or not the cap is 90% or 95%.

 

Finally, seeing as how each of the things I just mentioned from Synapse's thread was implemented, it can be assumed his proposal of a minimum probability to proc was also implemented. I forget the formula exactly, but it was something line MinProb = 5% + PPM x 1.2%. As of today, I have not seen any testing done on Minimum Probability to Proc.

[Sunsette]

I took this quote from the Paragon Wiki, LINK ... Admittedly I skimmed down beyond the first handful of posts but I'm not sure how this discussion on global recharge got this far without being checked. if it has, I apologise for skimming.

 

There was a link in the second sentence of the very first post that discusses how this is a change from live servers at the time of shutdown, actually. So... you sort of skimmed the very first post!

 

This thread is about how enhancement recharge negatively impacts chance to proc and global recharge does not. Paragon Wiki has made the decision to remain accurate to the game as it was at time of shutdown, and so it cannot be updated for information on the myriad unofficial servers. The Homecoming community, I believe, is working on its own wiki to centralize information.

 

Finally, seeing as how each of the things I just mentioned from Synapse's thread was implemented, it can be assumed his proposal of a minimum probability to proc was also implemented. I forget the formula exactly, but it was something line MinProb = 5% + PPM x 1.2%. As of today, I have not seen any testing done on Minimum Probability to Proc.

 

Interesting info, thanks.