page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Bio Armor Adjustments

[The Curator]

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Bio Armor

• Quote

  Design Notes
  In previous page betas we have attempted to tackle Bio Armor in various ways. Due in high part to it's high complexity, we always knew that we would not manage to get it right on the first try. With this pass, we are focusing on still lowering the set's high performance while being a bit more minimalist in the changes we implement. The performance change will still be significantly felt, but we hope to keep the set's feel much closer to the live version.

   

• Offensive Adaptation
  • Recharge reduced from 4s to 0.5s
  • Proc damage lowered, reduction depends on activated power's endurance cost.
  • Proc damage is now increased by damage buffs.
  • Now debuffs the caster with irresistible: -7.5%/-5.63% res (on Tanker/Scrapper), * -3.75%/-2.81% def
• Defensive Adaptation
  • Recharge reduced from 4s to 0.5s
  • Cast time reduced from 1s to 0.67s
• Efficient Adaptation
  • Recharge reduced from 4s to 0.5s
• Inexhaustible
  • -Recharge Resistance now only applies in Defensive Adaptation
  • End Drain Resistance now only applies in Efficient Adaptation
  • Movement Resistance now only applies in Offensive Adaptation
• Evolving Armor:
  • Power now only applies -res in Offensive Adaptation
• Ablative Carapace
  • Absorb is now based off base HP instead of Max HP (scale unchanged)
• DNA Siphon:
  • Attack type changed from Lethal to Toxic
  • First (closest) target will apply the full effect; subsequent targets will yield 30% of its effects
  • While in Defensive Adaptation, the power will now only Heal and grant +End regardless of if the target is conscious or not
  • While in Efficient Adaptation, the power will now only grant +Regen and +Recovery regardless of if the target is conscious or not
  • This power now has Adaptive Recharge. It has a base recharge of 25 seconds, and each affected foe will increase the recharge by varying amounts to a maximum total of 90 seconds. First target adds 16.25 seconds, each additional target adds recharge proportionate to its buff strength
• Environmental Modification
  • This power now grants a 5 Max End buff while in Efficient Adaptation
• Environmental Adaptation > Environmental Modification (Sentinel Only Power)
  • Renamed to Environmental Modification
• Rebuild DNA (Sentinels)
  • Lowered the scale of the endurance recovered outside Efficient Adaptation
  • Efficient Adaptation: Increased bonus endurance
• Parasitic Aura/Parasitic Leech
  • Can now also be used while defeated.
  • Using this power while defeated will cost no endurance.
  • This power now recharges in 10 seconds if no targets are hit.
  • Area changed to 40ft PBAoE if used while defeated.
  • Used while conscious, this power now grants an auto self rez if the player dies within 45s of using it in it's conscious state.
  • Attack type changed from Lethal to Toxic.
  • Accuracy lowered from 1.5 to 1.0.
  • Duration of all effects reduced to 30 seconds
  • Recharge increased from 270s to 300s
  • Absorb is now based off base HP instead of Max HP
  • Base absorb increased from +10% to +25%
  • Base regen increased from +50% to +250%
  • Base recovery increased from +30% to +75%
  • Stance bonuses:
    • Defensive Adaptation bonus Absorb increased from +3.3% to 8.25%
    • Efficient Adaptation bonus Regeneration increased from scale 15% to scale 75%
    • Efficient Adaptation bonus Recovery increased from scale 15% to scale 22.5%
    • Offensive Adaptation now inflicts scale 0.1 damage every second over 14.25 seconds for a total of 1.5 scale damage on the first target hit.
    • Offensive Adaptation now inflicts scale 0.01 damage every second over 14.25 seconds for a total of 0.15 scale damage on subsequent targets hit.
    • First (closest) target will apply the full effect; subsequent targets will yield 10% of its effects

[macskull]

Been saying this since these changes first hit closed beta forever ago, but the duration reduction on Parasitic Aura is too severe even considering the higher base numbers.

[robobl4de]

I have to ask for confirmation even though it might be obvious, just in case:
"Proc damage lowered, reduction depends on activated power's endurance cost."

This is base endurance cost right? So slotting end cost reduction will not self nerf the proc?

Edited yesterday at 02:49 AM by robobl4de

[Captain Powerhouse]

53 minutes ago, robobl4de said:

This is base endurance cost right? So slotting end cost reduction will not self nerf the proc?

 

Correct.

[robobl4de]

5 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Correct.

Thanks for confirmation, do you mind telling the math for the proc damage to end cost scaling ranges. Is it 0-20 like the recharge scaling is?

[Hamborgini]

Parasitic Aura is not usable while defeated, at least on Brutes. The icon changes, but the power can't be cast.

[ScarySai]

8 hours ago, The Curator said:

• While in Defensive Adaptation, the power will now only Heal and grant +End regardless of if the target is conscious or not
• While in Efficient Adaptation, the power will now only grant +Regen and +Recovery regardless of if the target is conscious or not

Kind of dumb. Enjoyed using bodies for recovery and living targets for snap heals.

 

Removing functionality just to try to make other forms appealing is lame.

 

And respectfully, the parasitic aura changes are just trash. Get rid of them.

Edited yesterday at 07:12 AM by ScarySai

[Kranik]

I tested DNA Siphon on both live and test on a Stalker with the same power slotting and Offensive Adaptation on, and the drop in effectiveness is pretty stark. 

With my slotting (admittedly with no +Heal slotting), I get the following:

Test - +150.59 HP on the main target, +45.18 on subsequent targets = 421.67 HP (standardizing to 7 targets).

 

Live - +150.59 HP on all targets hit = 1054.13 HP (7 targets hit).

 

Setting aside the effect adaptive recharge has on procs (which is honestly whatever, losing AoE damage isn't ideal but oh well), that's an approximately 60% decrease in the heal for a set that has no other heal.

 

Obviously /Bio's survivability design ethos is more about Absorbs and +Regen, and those values should absolutely be factored in when trying to analyze and balance the performance of the set, but on an AT like Stalkers who see less relative value from Absorbs and +Regen because of lower Max HP caps this change marks a significant decrease to the overall survivability of the set. Especially when coupled with the additional -Defense that now comes with using Offensive Adaptation.
 

Maybe reverting all of the changes to the healing component of the power is an unrealistic ask, but keeping 60% of the effectiveness of the heal rather than only 30% on subsequent targets would be a welcome change.

[Neiska]

I am genuinely curious - how does the devs expect this set to be played or perform? Because these changes are effectively exact opposite of what all the conventional wisdom about the set is now. The only reason why the set can stand with the big armor sets is from stacking recharge and buff-stacking. Without cycling the buffs, Bio is a mediocre armor set. Go ahead and level one up if you want to feel it for yourself. Only when you get reach the point of enough recharge to continuously cycle Parasite - Carapace - DNA - Other tools to fill gaps does it get strong.

[Auroxis]

Not listed in the patch notes: Defensive Adaptation no longer applies a self damage debuff.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

I am genuinely curious - how does the devs expect this set to be played or perform? Because these changes are effectively exact opposite of what all the conventional wisdom about the set is now. The only reason why the set can stand with the big armor sets is from stacking recharge and buff-stacking. Without cycling the buffs, Bio is a mediocre armor set. Go ahead and level one up if you want to feel it for yourself. Only when you get reach the point of enough recharge to continuously cycle Parasite - Carapace - DNA - Other tools to fill gaps does it get strong.

 

Well, the intent is making it less good so people don't take it. Bit like WoW devs nerfing set bonuses when a new mediocre set bonus is released. Mediocre enough that even the ilevel increase is not enough to make people move over. So, the anterior set bonus is nerfed to force them to move.

 

In that aspect it worked. Despite these AT buffs that increase the AT's defensive values I logged in to my Water/Bio Sent having lost 4% to both res and defense. 

 

So I'm Mids-ing a Water/Stone now. Objective accomplished 😄

[Neiska]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

 

Well, the intent is making it less good so people don't take it. Bit like WoW devs nerfing set bonuses when a new mediocre set bonus is released. Mediocre enough that even the ilevel increase is not enough to make people move over. So, the anterior set bonus is nerfed to force them to move.

 

In that aspect it worked. Despite these AT buffs that increase the AT's defensive values I logged in to my Water/Bio Sent having lost 4% to both res and defense. 

 

So I'm Mids-ing a Water/Stone now. Objective accomplished 😄

 

You may be speaking tongue-in-cheek, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. I don't think anyone is surprised bio is getting nerfed, but this is like a quadruple nerf. Separating slow and recharge debuff resists to different stances? Lowering the uptime on the t9 from 90 seconds to 30 seconds and increasing its recharge? Only primary target gets full debuff, everything else 30%? 

 

I mean, 1 or 2 changes might be doable. But this is like flipping the table IMO. If they wanted to address it being over tuned, they would have done far better just reducing the buff stacks and left the rest alone. This? I suspect this will take bio from one of the best to the bottom 25% of armor. And it was only in the top to begin with once you had a lot of recharge, leveling bio is actually pretty painful to do. Only when you have enough recharge to continuously cycle buffs is it Great. So, I can only wait to hear the feedback from the folks who actually try to legitimately level bio in this state.

[FupDup]

The thing about Bio is that nearly all of the other armors in the game have been revamped and buffed around it, including a few in this very patch. Once upon a time, some years ago during the days of Titan Weapon dominance, a big Bio nerf would've made more sense since it stood so far above its competitors. But flash forward to today, and all of its competitors hit the gym and bulked up.

 

The gap today is a lot smaller than it once was even though Bio stayed the same the entire time. Game balancing is ultimately about relative comparisons rather than absolute ones, and Bio's relative position is not nearly as high as it once was despite the absolute stat values being unchanged until now. Some other armors like Stone, Elec, Dark, and Shield are already more or less equal to it. 

 

It's basically a change that got delayed by several years that is now being deployed at a time when it's no longer needed. 

[Kranik]

56 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

Well, the intent is making it less good so people don't take it.

-snip-

Objective accomplished 😄

Tongue-in-cheek or not…Yup.

 

I just finished slotting out a DB/Bio Stalker and if these changes roll out it’ll probably just get deleted outright. 

Bummer.

Edited 17 hours ago by Kranik

[ScarySai]

5 hours ago, Kranik said:

I tested DNA Siphon on both live and test on a Stalker with the same power slotting and Offensive Adaptation on, and the drop in effectiveness is pretty stark. 

With my slotting (admittedly with no +Heal slotting), I get the following:

Test - +150.59 HP on the main target, +45.18 on subsequent targets = 421.67 HP (standardizing to 7 targets).

 

Live - +150.59 HP on all targets hit = 1054.13 HP (7 targets hit).

 

Setting aside the effect adaptive recharge has on procs (which is honestly whatever, losing AoE damage isn't ideal but oh well), that's an approximately 60% decrease in the heal for a set that has no other heal.

 

Obviously /Bio's survivability design ethos is more about Absorbs and +Regen, and those values should absolutely be factored in when trying to analyze and balance the performance of the set, but on an AT like Stalkers who see less relative value from Absorbs and +Regen because of lower Max HP caps this change marks a significant decrease to the overall survivability of the set. Especially when coupled with the additional -Defense that now comes with using Offensive Adaptation.
 

Maybe reverting all of the changes to the healing component of the power is an unrealistic ask, but keeping 60% of the effectiveness of the heal rather than only 30% on subsequent targets would be a welcome change.

 

 

 

Stalker bio is pretty bad, too. nerfing that of all things is nonsense.

[Uun]

Ran several missions on my BA/Bio brute. 

1. Tips mission vs. DE set to +3/x6 (+1 lvl shift)
2. Tips mission vs. Nemesis set to +4/x8 (+1 lvl shift)
3. Radio mission vs. Arachnos set +4/x8 (+1 lvl shfit)

Seemed sturdy vs. the DE, but likely due to the higher brute res/def modifiers. Didn't need to heal at all. Decidedly squishier vs. Nemesis (the new Nemesis are really tough) and Arachnos at the higher notoriety, Died several times when I bit off too much (i.e., 5 Nemesis bosses).

 

I like the auto rez from Parasitic Aura, as well as the ability to use it while defeated. Had at least one instance where it failed to work while defeated. It was recharged but power couldn't be clicked.

 

The inability to use DNA Siphon to heal in Efficient Adaptation is terrible, especially since end drain protection now only works while in Efficient. The regen buff is minimal is minimal and won't save you if things go sideways. It's doubly silly because DNA Siphon still heals in Offensive Adaptation.  Please revert to the prior mechanic of live targets providing healing and dead targets providing regen. 

 

Please revert all the changes to Inexhaustible.

 

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

 

Stalker bio is pretty bad, too. nerfing that of all things is nonsense.

 

Nevermind how I feel about the change to DNA Siphon.  Saying stalker Bio was ever bad comes off like someone was never able to make the most of it.  My EM/Bio stalker is easily the hardest hitting ST melee character I have and the current Bio gives it great survivability along with all that great offense it gets you.  

Edited 14 hours ago by Mezmera

[ScarySai]

25 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Nevermind how I feel about the change to DNA Siphon.  Saying stalker Bio was ever bad comes off like someone was never able to make the most of it.  My EM/Bio stalker is easily the hardest hitting ST melee character I have and the current Bio gives it great survivability along with all that great offense it gets you.  

 

Outside of bio's offensive damage proc, it's not really doing much for a stalker compared to a scrapper. It's the worst version of the set by far, and you're overall better served by something like EA or stone.

 

As for the form changes, all they've essentially done is remove functionality from the forms and gave you less incentive to swap. No longer is swapping to efficient form to snapshot regen buffs worth doing, kinda cringe.

[Erratic1]

11 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

As for the form changes, all they've essentially done is remove functionality from the forms and gave you less incentive to swap.

 

If you do not get certain benefits without being in a particular form, isn't that giving incentive to swap?

 

I build my SS/Bio Brute around being in Efficient form, but admit I am one of the weird rare people who did not feel stances being there meant swapping all the time.

[ScarySai]

11 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

If you do not get certain benefits without being in a particular form, isn't that giving incentive to swap?

 

Not really if all they did is remove base functionality and bake it into the forms lazily.

 

On live I can swap to efficiency mode, pop carapace, pop parasitic and pop dna siphon on a bunch of dead bodies and get substantially more regen than someone who isn't doing that, then pop back to offensive mode when I'm not in danger and keep killing stuff.

 

So the swap was already incentivized, and they devalued it.

[Maelwys]

On 12/5/2025 at 10:34 PM, The Curator said:

---

Bio Armor

• Offensive Adaptation
  • Now debuffs the caster with irresistible: -7.5%/-5.63% res (on Tanker/Scrapper), * -3.75%/-2.81% def

This was using the wrong values on CB and it looks like it's still busted on Open Beta.



Tanker:


(that's -13.33% Res, -6.66% Def rather than the predicted -7.5% Res, -3.75% Def)


Scrapper:


(that's -5.62% Res, -2.81% Def which matches the predicted -5.63% Res, -2.81% Def)

Stalker/Brute:


(that's -10% Res, -5% Def which is considerably higher than the predicted values for a Tanker, let alone a Scrapper)

Sentinel:


(that's -9.33 Res, -4.67% Def which is considerably higher than the predicted values for a Tanker, let alone a Scrapper)

Currently the only correct "Offensive Adaptation" debuffs are the Scrapper's.
The values of the rest are far too high/harsh.

 

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

This was using the wrong values on CB and it looks like it's still busted on Open Beta.



Tanker:


(that's -13.33% Res, -6.66% Def rather than the predicted -7.5% Res, -3.75% Def)


Scrapper:


(that's -5.62% Res, -2.81% Def which matches the predicted -5.63% Res, -2.81% Def)

Stalker/Brute:


(that's -10% Res, -5% Def which is considerably higher than the predicted values for a Tanker, let alone a Scrapper)

Sentinel:


(that's -9.33 Res, -4.67% Def which is considerably higher than the predicted values for a Tanker, let alone a Scrapper)

Currently the only correct "Offensive Adaptation" debuffs are the Scrapper's.
The values of the rest are far too high/harsh.

 

 

Crikey, we had reported it and it got a nod from a dev. Didn't think it had made it to OB and didn't think to check. Would explain why my Sentinel was hit despite the AT buffs.

[ScarySai]

Bio's one of those sets that suffers from being good out of the box, and from having good offense.

 

What that means, is people vastly overestimate its capabilities, and spreadsheet andies have anfit over its benchmark dominance, which leads to undeserved nerfs like this. It's not top tier at all defensively compared to other options, but its got strong baselines that external buffs can make it dumb, like regen. It looks stronger on paper than in is in practice.

 

Like, go try and solo +5 arachnos on a bio character without any insps or barrier and try to tell me its overpowered, lol.

Edited 8 hours ago by ScarySai

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

Crikey, we had reported it and it got a nod from a dev. Didn't think it had made it to OB and didn't think to check. Would explain why my Sentinel was hit despite the AT buffs.

 

Hopefully just slipped through the cracks.

Might even be fixed internally on a different branch.

 

There were a LOT of power changes in this one after all!! 🙂

[Sovera]

2 hours ago, ScarySai said:

Bio's one of those sets that suffers from being good out of the box, and from having good offense.

 

What that means, is people vastly overestimate its capabilities, and spreadsheet andies have anfit over its benchmark dominance, which leads to undeserved nerfs like this. It's not top tier at all defensively compared to other options, but its got strong baselines that external buffs can make it dumb, like regen. It looks stronger on paper than in is in practice.

 

Like, go try and solo +5 arachnos on a bio character without any insps or barrier and try to tell me its overpowered, lol.

 

I don't even need to go +5. My Bio Tanker handled everything well during its solo trip up to Manticore's TF and then the debuffs folded it like wet tissue,