Test Discussion Episode 43: Ally - Death Metal Batman

Cyborg is doing more than DMB and hits more targets. Plus it's a difference between Epic and Legendary here. Cyborg is far less in cost and damage is higher.

If they wanted to reduce him, 5-10% would be more than enough and keep the cone the same range.

Not specifically related to this ally, but I don't know where to ask...the new animation on the test server for the Clarion artifact is this the final version? (I like this option ) and the animation in the form of bats when activating the weapon buff with the active passive skill Flashpoint Batman's (Combat Sature) will go to the live server (I hope so, very, very good effect...) ?

Not getting into numbers but remember that if a dps player uses DMB, they themselves will be doing added damage thanks to the debuffs. Cyborg may be a cheaper option but 8 players hitting that debuffed target are going to do a lot of added damage vs 1 cyborg that may miss. On test now, I’m more curious to see what added damage my toon can do vs the ally himself. And when we get down to it, HOL is the cheapest option and still near the top of ST. We can’t keep pushing their damage higher and higher, there has to be a “top dog”. This should be about being close sure but it’s got other added bonus effects that will most likely make up for the lack of damage.

Notes and sound waves I can work with, whatever the colour. I just didn’t want a Black Lantern emblem under my feet all the time.

Changes i'm working on right now
DMB damage lowered by about 8% across all ranks,
DMB Cone widened by about 80-100% (to more accurately reflect the FX)
Passive 01 PoT scaling adjusted.

The new FX you see for Clarion is the final FX. It now goes away on time so we can use it now on Live.

Not sure about the FP Batman one. We got the custom fx working a while back with other T3 passives at the time (FP Wonder Woman and Aquaman as well). Whatever you see forth both on PC Test though will be going Live if it's not already.

Allies that are legendary aren’t legendary because they are meant to do more damage. They are legendary because they have access to a second passive. That is it. You can’t compare one with the other and expect them to do more or less just because of type of ally. Look at the HoL bot. It does about the same as FB Batman and one is a rare while the other is a legendary.

So no, balance shouldn’t be drawn based on that. It is doing more damage than it should. On top of the damage it is doing you also have the debuff to increase it’s worth. Just because you personally don’t use it for the damage doesn’t mean it should be left as is. The test server is about balancing

That is understandable and reasonable, which is why the current build good. It's not doing as much damage as Cyborg and if a DPS is running DMB for the debuffs, you would have to coordinate with most likely a controller who would be running it as well. This is different than BWL's passive defense debuff. Where it is part of your natural rotation.

DMB only hits up to 3 targets, does less than Cyborg, and debuffs. Using this on your raid damage loadout would help the team and we know what happens when it helps the team. *coughtetracough*

If they nerfed his damage, no big deal, as again, the reason to run him would be for the debuffs not damage, but you are also comparing something that can only max to rank 8 to something extremely expensive that ranks to 10.

That's not true, if that was the case, there would be no more damage increase at ranks 9 and 10.

This is very reasonable. Thank you!

It was doing only slightly more damage than Cyborg, a nerf in the realms of what you suggested would have been over the top to begin with. Also I disagree, personally if I'm putting 299,000 ally favor in to the ally, I expect it to put out the damage

I personally do not think so. The devs will put in a change for 8% lower damage. If they think that’s where they want it than ok.

Will redo the test when the changes go up.

I'll have a look when it goes up also, but the part I was more expressing was that when I'm spending 299,000 ally favor on something I expect some decent return, this includes its active ability not just its passives, despite the fact Legendary allies have decent passives, I'm not just buying them for those I'm also buying them for an at least viable opportunity to use them actively that isn't just always overridden entirely by having another be so exceptionally strong in the active slot you never take it out

Does the ally debuff stack with a trolls debuff? Can it's debuff strength also be overridden by the batman who laughs or the heartbreak?

I have to agree with you completely here, & legendaries are always supposed to be the cream of the crop in most if not all aspects. I still want rares & epics to still be great too & be able to push (specific) builds further but legendaries on top.


This might be slightly off topic but I would like capsule legendaries eventually put on cyborg vendor though lol.

Didn’t test debuff but I believe someone else did and they also posted a video.

If type of ally mattered than HoL bot would have been one of the weakest allies because it is a rare ally. But it’s ST damage is as high as FP Batman. No dev has ever said the type had any indication towards damage. However I do recall them saying that it had to do with number of passives available.

Testing shouldn’t be about what we want but what they are intended to do. I personally want a combat ally that’s as strong as cyborg so that I can keep cyborg in as passive. So keeping it strong is nothing but a win for me. But I test based on what it asked/intended. And leave my bias elsewhere. The devs dropped the damage by 8% if that’s where they want the damage to be than that’s that. I will retest the new damage numbers and provide it as feedback.

The devs also intended to sell digital goods and keep the servers up from what I recall.

I think Ranmaru (et al) has been doing a great job with the design choices and all the utility provided in recent artifacts and allies. They seem fairly balanced but also fun, worthwhile, and not so easily passed up.

You're allowed to provide feedback about preferences as well Deity, testing isn't just about providing a raw data dump, we're not robots. it's more important to acknowledge any bias for what it is than it is to eliminate it.

It's just as important to get this feedback also, because without it the raw data provided might give the devs what they want, but it doesn't share with the devs what players actually want also.

They want players to buy in to the allys and this ally, if player preference feedback isn't provided then the devs have no insight in to elements that might drive players to buy in to it.

On that point HoL bot should be one of the weakest allies, he legitimately should, as a player ask yourself this, what is going to motivate me at all to buy in to an ally system, for an ally in regards to its active slot when I can simply spend 10,000 ally favor on HoL bot...

Why am I spending any all favor on DM Batman, especially 299,000 (enough to level 30 HoL bots) only to see it hit just as much as the one I spent 10,000 on.

Setting that expectation is the same as suggesting a level 80 artifact be as strong as a 200, no one is going to accept that, but seemingly with allies we seem to have a complete lack of scale when it comes to active slot output.

If it were me I wouldn't have nerfed DM Batman's active damage at all. I mean maybe I'm confused here, but is there some of reference point, when I look at Batman's active damage output am I supposed to be targeting a number somwhere based on something? Is the reference Cyborg? Are we only ever making allies as strong as Cyborg?

I think a lot of players set their own tier system based on launch balancing. Having a point of reference is good.

In this case, comparing DMB with Cyborg gives us a ground on which to adjust. Power Creep is real. The problem with what Deity has is that in his mind, they are all equal, when that isn't true just because they stop at different ranks. Rare, epic, and legendary are different maxes. Especially legendary being the most costly and it's not just because it has a second passive, it has a higher rank too.

With DMB, he does a secondary effect on his active attack. For consistency sake, following the rules of the stats revamp, it should be lower than one that does just damage. He should also, at rank 10, do more than one at rank 8.

I agree and I think the approach to date is probably guilty of being cavalier.

You're exactly right in that the legendary allies have 2 extra ranks, for the record those two extra ranks are equal to the first 8 in terms of favor cost, there just simply has to be more return or benefit provided in those final two ranks including in the active slot, otherwise people are just going to level the allies to rank 8 (if that even) and call it a day, I'm guilty of doing this on live myself, if that's any insight.

You have more to gain from having a variety of rank 8 allies, at present, than you have to gain from leveling any to rank 10 (outside of a few) and that should really say something about how these last two levels are being approached.

I entirely agree with not wanting too much power creep and I don't think that's necessary either, but when you've got no scale within the ally system at all and set an expectation that a rank 10 should only perform as well as a rank 8 in its active spot, then in my opinion, that's a problem and the wrong approach, no ones going to buy in to a system like that unless there is power creep.

Even at the moment despite the fact I've got I think 2 allies leveled to rank 10, my others are sitting at 6-8, because I've got them there and figured "meh" the benefits of putting another ~150k for such negligible gain is a waste of time and to top it off, why bother for the active slot because these things are worse than HoL bot I spent 10k favor on.

That's not a functional system, I'm afraid, that's just outright broken and entirely demotivating me from engaging in it, especially if using them in the active slot was something you were remotely gunning for.

I'm just being honest here or trying to be.

I definitely agree that people in can give personal feedback. Even in my post I made a suggestion of 15% drop. This for me personally made sense because DMB does damage and puts a debuff. The devs did nerf it but by 8%. That is where they feel it should be put. My opinion was noted. But just because I did not get what I suggested doesnt mean I will keep fighting for it since I put my 2 cents in.

As for the rank = damage. Until a dev says they are meant to work that way we cant sit here and say thats how it should be. If anything I remember a dev saying the legendary rank was only due to having 2 passives. Maybe I am misremembering it. If I am then I apologize, but until a dev says rank should = damage than I will continue to balance things based on damage potentials within the game as in and not how some view it should be.