page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Super Strength Adjustments

[Troo]

Homecoming

[Jab, Punch, Haymaker] < [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch]

 

Homecoming Open Beta

[Jab, Punch, Haymaker] ?? >/< ¿¿ [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch]

 

Are [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch] still better than [Jab, Punch, Haymaker]??

[aethereal]

9 minutes ago, Troo said:

Are [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch] still better than [Jab, Punch, Haymaker]??

Without Unleashed Might, there have been no changes to these powers.  With Unleashed Might, not sure.

[ScarySai]

32 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Really? My DP/SR Sent is no more proced out than any other character I've built. I prefer set bonuses. Looking at the build right now, even less so. I see 5 attacks with 1 proc and 1 with 2 and that one is a ragnarok set with the KB proc and an SA: KB to KD. I've looked at a lot of the procmonster builds thrown around here. I wouldn't enjoy any of them and that's why I don't build like that.

 

Well I don't want to derail this by delving too much into this, but what you enjoy as a character is for the most part irrelevant to balance or a set's status in the power hierarchy. I enjoy warshades, warshades without the anim cancel are one of the worst characters in the entire game.

[Maelwys]

4 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Without Unleashed Might, there have been no changes to these powers.  With Unleashed Might, not sure.

IMO it really comes down to: Haymaker, Hand Clap, Cross Punch; pick any two.
((KO Blow and Footstomp are a given, obvs))

Lose Jab and Punch. Only pick up Boxing and Kick if you have spare power slots and *really* wanna max out Cross Punch's damage.

[ScarySai]

3 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

IMO it really comes down to: Haymaker, Hand Clap, Cross Punch; pick any two.
((KO Blow and Footstomp are a given, obvs))

Lose Jab and Punch. Only pick up Boxing and Kick if you have spare power slots and *really* wanna max out Cross Punch's damage.

 

Realistically: you take jab to slot absolute amazement, so a better power can rock hecatomb or an ato.

 

I've never seen a single person outside of fight club ever use kick/boxing as part of an actual rotation. Punch and jab have niche use.

Edited December 17 by ScarySai

[Maelwys]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

Punch and jab have niche use.

Punch is my Winter Set Mule.

Haymaker typically gets filled with one of the "lesser" ATO sets (read: SGF on Tankers) or Hecatombs if I really don't need 'em.
KO Blow gets substantial recharge aspect and *at least* the Unbreakable Constraint and the Hecatomb Procs.
Footstomp and Handclap and Cross Punch all get frankenslotted with at least three procs each. Depending on the defensive powerset I might go after the Eradication 3-piece set bonus and/or FoTG 2-piece set bonus. Handclap's getting my FotG -res these days on OB since it gives better coverage than Cross Punch.

I do tend to mostly stick within the set with SS though, despite how easy Rage makes leveraging procbombed Gloom+DarkObliteration or ElecFences+BallLightning. 🤷‍♂️

[Bill Z Bubba]

29 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Well I don't want to derail this by delving too much into this, but what you enjoy as a character is for the most part irrelevant to balance or a set's status in the power hierarchy. I enjoy warshades, warshades without the anim cancel are one of the worst characters in the entire game.

 

I don't disagree. Just as I find the opinion that running around with a perpetual +140% damage and +40% tohit buff shouldn't have any kinda of downside irrelevant to a discussion of balance. (Yes, there have been plenty in this thread saying just get rid of the crash.) Those people don't care a bit about balance. Rage and the Kheldian animation cancel trick are correctly put together. Both are badly designed garbage that need to get corrected. Leaving broken things broken is just lazy.

[Erratic1]

3 hours ago, aethereal said:

I don't mean this to be the be-all, end-all calculation for Super Strength as a set, and I'm pretty agnostic about whether Rage needs changes.  But let's not pretend that procs are just a way to shore up damage for low-performing sets -- they're crazy powerful, and Super Strength is a really good set (and Tanker a really good AT) to go proc-heavy on.  And that has to be taken into account somehow.  Now, maybe even with all that, it still doesn't need changes -- like I said, I'm agnostic.  But we need to start from the principle that you can't be blind to this unique potential of this set.

 

If we're not blind to things, then what here is the problem? Super Strength or procs?

 

Why does Super Strength need to pay a price and not Energy Melee or Battle Axe? What about people who do not deck their character's out with damage procs (e.g. the only time I have ever used a damage proc on any character was because I was full slotting a set)? 

 

If procs are the problem, fix them.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

If we're not blind to things, then what here is the problem? Super Strength or procs?

 

23 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

despite how easy Rage makes leveraging procbombed Gloom+DarkObliteration or ElecFences+BallLightning.

 

Appears the answer is, "both."

[Verfall]

5 hours ago, Zahnee said:

Except it comes in the form of a backhand to Tankers. Not only do you do less damage with UM but you’re locked out of Hand Clap v2. Don’t believe me? Test it out on a combination of pylons and clear speeds. 

Again, don't care. I'm still doing more damage than 2008, and I'm not getting my flow killed by an asinine crash. Pylons schmylons. I'm a tank. If I want damage I'll drag a blaster behind me. Will my damage be lower than rage? Yes. Will it still be higher than before, and not have 10 seconds of limp wristed slapping at 9k in the hole? Hell's yes. I'm old and don't wanna manage nonsense. I just wanna smash things in the brief time I get to play. This lets me smash without me firing a KO Blow for zero goddamn damage.

 

Also, I hate procs. And all I'm seeing is proc comments. Wish they'd just delete the damn things.

Edited December 18 by Verfall

[Captain Citadel]

4 minutes ago, Verfall said:

Again, don't care. I'm still doing more damage than 2008, and I'm not getting my flow killed by an asinine crash. Pylons schmylons. I'm a tank. If I want damage I'll drag a blaster behind me. Will my damage be lower than rage? Yes. Will it still be higher than before, and not have 10 seconds of limp wristed slapping at 9k in the hole? Hell's yes. I'm old and don't wanna manage nonsense. I just wanna smash things in the brief time I get to play. This lets me smash without me firing a KO Blow for zero goddamn damage.

 

Also, I hate procs. And all I'm seeing is proc comments. Wish they'd just delete the damn things.

I'm fine with procs but wish some of them didn't have the effects they do, like the one Winter damage set that freezes the target when it procs. I've had to 5-slot it or remove it entirely to keep it from ruining the concept/aesthetic of my build.

What I'm not fine with is proc-loading, I wish they'd limit powers to only having one damage proc at a time. I like building with set pieces for the set bonuses, not so I can load 3 set pieces and 4 damage procs into everything because the damage is just that much better.

[Maelwys]

37 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Appears the answer is, "both."

It depends.

Superstrength, as a powerset, is pretty much held together by Footstomp, KO Blow and Rage.

Footstomp does too much damage for its Radius. Always has. The whole set is weighted around it...
KO Blow is high DPA and can take not one but two Purple damage procs (and ED-capped recharge aspect without sacrificing their activation rate)
Rage is stackable +Damage and +ToHit; as we're all well aware of here.

Now take those three powers; chuck everything else in the set away (aside from maybe Taunt) and fill in the rest with high-DPA Epic abilities (and maybe Cross Punch).

Epic abilities don't really lend themselves to a hefty Single Target damage chain; so SS was never a top tier platform vs Pylons. But it WAS for general mob clearing.
Mu pool gives you two procable AoEs in Elec Fences and Ball Lightning.
Add Footstomp with a FF +Rech proc and a FotG -res.
Throw in Rage for both +Damage and +ToHit.

That last bit is important, because whenever you SIX SLOT an AoE with procs, you forgo both Accuracy and Damage aspect slotting in that AoE. Rage's +ToHit buff makes accuracy aspect slotting irrelevant, and its +Damage buff significantly lessens the blow from forgoing damage aspect slotting. And Brutes care even less about damage aspect (due to Fury) than Tankers. That's why threads like Ston's original melee powerset testing had SS firmly in the top spot for Brutes and near top for Tankers whenever Epic blasts and CP were permitted as "fillers" in the mob clearing leaderboards (e.g. Trapdoor).

So it's not that "Superstrength with Rage" is OP vs Pylons or anything else regardless of how you choose to proc it. It's that "Superstrength with Rage" starts getting OP if you replace most of the SS set with specific stuff OUTSIDE of SS AND then put your foot on both the Damage Proc and Fury accelerator pedals. At least until everyone starts getting Fulcrum Shifted; which lets the other powersets catch up + overtake it.
 

Edited December 18 by Maelwys

[aethereal]

I'd like everyone who is saying, "Well, then they should nerf procs" to just... imagine what an epic clusterfuck it would be for the devs to post a thread titled this:

FOCUSED FEEDBACK: We invalidated every single performance-oriented build in the game lol

[Zahnee]

7 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

It depends.

Superstrength, as a powerset, is pretty much held together by Footstomp; KO Blow and Rage.

Footstomp does too much damage for its Radius. Always has. The whole set is weighted around it...
KO Blow is high DPA and can take not one but two Purple damage procs (and ED-capped recharge aspect without sacrificing their activation rate)
Rage is stackable +Damage and +ToHit; as we're all well aware of here.

Now take those three powers; chuck everything else in the set away (aside from maybe Taunt) and fill in the rest with high-DPA Epic abilities (and maybe Cross Punch).

Epic abilities don't really lend themselves to a hefty Single Target damage chain; so SS was never a top tier platform vs Pylons. But it WAS for general mob clearing.
Mu pool gives you two procable AoEs in Elec Fences and Ball Lightning.
Add Footstomp with a FF proc and a FotG - res.  
Throw in Rage for both +Damage and +ToHit.

That last bit is important, because whenever you SIX SLOT an AoE with procs, you forgo both Accuracy and Damage aspect slotting in that AoE. Rage's +ToHit buff makes accuracy aspect slotting irrelevant, and its +Damage buff significantly lessens the blow from forgoing damage aspect slotting. And Brutes care even less about damage aspect due to Fury. That why threads like Ston's original melee powerset testing had SS firmly in the top spot for Brutes and near top for Tankers whenever Epic blasts and CP were permitted as "fillers" in the mob clearing leaderboards (e.g. Trapdoor).

So it's not that "Superstrength with Rage" is OP vs Pylons or anything else regardless of how you choose to proc it. It's that "Superstrength with Rage" starts getting OP if you replace most of the SS set with specific stuff OUTSIDE of SS AND then put your foot on both the Damage Proc and Fury accelerator pedals. At least until everyone's getting Fulcrum Shift.
 

When looking at Ston's original testing it’s important to emphasize that SS was only high on the list due to trapdoor tests that were loaded with -ToHit.

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I'd like everyone who is saying, "Well, then they should nerf procs" to just... imagine what an epic clusterfuck it would be for the devs to post a thread titled this:

FOCUSED FEEDBACK: We invalidated every single performance-oriented build in the game lol

 

So much better to piecemeal work their way through sets nerfing and altering powersets one at a time, eh?

[aethereal]

Just now, Erratic1 said:

 

So much better to piecemeal work their way through sets nerfing and altering powersets one at a time, eh?

I mean...  yes?

 

Like, I don't know what to tell you, I understand the appeal of, "Let's just do one gigantic change and rip it all up from the roots."  I think that PPM was a misbegotten system.  But when you have a shit-ton of work to do, spreading it out is just straightforwardly a good approach.

[skoryy]

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I'd like everyone who is saying, "Well, then they should nerf procs" to just... imagine what an epic clusterfuck it would be for the devs to post a thread titled this:

I'd like them to just play a controller or defender.

[skoryy]

20 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

It depends.

 

Don't mind me, just taking notes here for the future Inv/SS build...

Edited December 18 by skoryy

[Erratic1]

8 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I mean...  yes?

 

Like, I don't know what to tell you, I understand the appeal of, "Let's just do one gigantic change and rip it all up from the roots."  I think that PPM was a misbegotten system.  But when you have a shit-ton of work to do, spreading it out is just straightforwardly a good approach.

 

If you alter every powerset to accommodate the central problem, then all addressing the problem means is you throw everything out of balance. So addressing the central problem is unlikely to ever occur.

 

Sound problem fixing is to address the core problem, not jury-rig a few dozen things.

[aethereal]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

If you alter every powerset to accommodate the central problem, then all addressing the problem means is you throw everything out of balance. So addressing the central problem is unlikely to ever occur.

 

Yes, I think that the PPM system is baked in at this point.  I don't think that they will ever fundamentally change it (I have no inside information, I'm not even in closed beta, everyone is free to laugh at me when "we changed the PPM system lol" goes into public beta in two months).  It was a mistake but it's a mistake that too hard to fix at the root at this point (there are lots of things in CoH that are like this.  Why do we have two separate, complexly entertwined ways to buff your chance to hit an opponent??  It's obviously stupid, but it's also obviously not something you can back out of at this point), so instead they'll mitigate the damage.

[Major_Decoy]

20 minutes ago, Zahnee said:

When looking at Ston's original testing it’s important to emphasize that SS was only high on the list due to trapdoor tests that were loaded with -ToHit.

 

Also worth noting that any testing data older than six months is using an 80% damage increase from Rage for tanks instead of the current 70%

[Maelwys]

48 minutes ago, Zahnee said:

When looking at Ston's original testing it’s important to emphasize that SS was only high on the list due to trapdoor tests that were loaded with -ToHit.

There were certainly -ToHit debuffs (and -Rech and many others) being thrown around from all the Council and Arachnos... but that was intentional to provide a "wide variety of stuff to deal with". IIRC the main complaints about the "original" Trapdoor mission being used as a yardstick was that it unfairly favoured AoE damage, it was more favourable towards smashing/lethal damage than most PVE is (since most of the tougher mobs within it had no noteworthy resistances... the Wolf Bosses were the "worst" AFAIK) and the Spawn compositions were rather inconsistent.

The thread I linked to specifically states "All attacks had a 95% chance to hit" (if you check the builds all the sets are sitting at or above that threshold + in practice many of them upon encountering significant levels of ToHit debuffery could counter at least temporarily via hitting Build Up). In practice, outside of Four Star content I always aim for "95% Hit Rate whenever the enemy has no other buffs/debuffs in play" whenever I'm building to cap a character's accuracy vs a specific mob level. That's the approach I took when rejigging all my active characters for fighting against the new Lv55s (+4)... which Rage ABSOLUTELY gives you an easier job of hitting than Unleashed Might does.

((Also it's not just Ston's Trapdoor tests that show this out - any form of large mob clearing activity tends to favour builds with multiple Procbombed AoEs that are propped up by crazy levels of global accuracy and global recharge and/or FF-procs. The only reason SS doesn't feature very much in the AE farming thread is that whenever you don't particularly care about balanced survivability; after a certain point it becomes more efficient to combine all your insps into reds and cap your own damage without having to put up with a Rage Crash... but for a good while they were recommending a Rad/SS Tanker!))
 

Edited December 18 by Maelwys

[Biff Pow]

2 hours ago, Troo said:

Homecoming

[Jab, Punch, Haymaker] < [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch]

 

Homecoming Open Beta

[Jab, Punch, Haymaker] ?? >/< ¿¿ [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch]

 

Are [Boxing, Kick, Cross Punch] still better than [Jab, Punch, Haymaker]??

 

Unleashed Might makes the Super Strength attacks better than the Fighting Pool, you don't really need Cross Punch at all with the new Handclap. With Rage, nothing's changed.

[aethereal]

15 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

 

Also worth noting that any testing data older than six months is using an 80% damage increase from Rage for tanks instead of the current 70%

 

This is incredibly minor, though.  It's at very most 6% difference in total damage and actually realistically much less than that.

[OverkillEngine]

1 hour ago, Captain Citadel said:

What I'm not fine with is proc-loading, I wish they'd limit powers to only having one damage proc at a time. I like building with set pieces for the set bonuses, not so I can load 3 set pieces and 4 damage procs into everything because the damage is just that much better.

Or just gave them sensible limiters similar to powers, like activation %, then max number of targets affected, then a static Internal CoolDown utterly independent of the power they are slotted in. Would have prevented a lot of the need for faffing about trying to adjust AoE powers to be less proc friendly. And with a static ICD, it doesn't matter how fast or often you spam powers, or how many mobs you hit, it's not going to fire again until off ICD. At most what an AoE power would be good for is ensuring the proc fires [once] after its cooldown is done.