Ok, then why when I asked if I should mix the Death Metal tank gear with Death Metal dps gear I was told don’t do it?
Mixing your gear has nothing to do with what either of us said, although I know you got confused about that previously, but none of it is actually "cheating". When you build a battle spec build all you're actually doing is "playing with stats" so as to build a more balanced character rather than one that specifically specializes in its otherwise more pure role, think of it as this graphic. The tank build to the left is fat, it absorbs a lot of damage in but does next to no damage out. The DPS build to the right is skinny, does lots of damage but if hit gets smashed like a pinata at a 6 year olds birthday party. The battle tank build in the middle is an attempt to meet a middle ground between the two, enough damage output so as to be able to do enough damage output to burn things in a timely or effective fashion if you need to overcome a mechanic but fat enough to be able to absorb enough damage if hit and not break. The concept is really that simple. You can go about doing that in a variety statistical ways, through gear, skill points, artifacts, allies, generator mods and the like, it isn't that there is a specific way to do this, but rather that there's easier and potentially more effective ways. If you have less skill points for example, you have less ability to skew stats back in a certain direction in this manner, so you might have to wear different artifacts for example or not wear DPS gear and only ever wear tank gear, that sort of thing, how you really reach the goal is a little irrelevant, just that you do. In whatever type of content you're playing you need to decide "how much Dominance, Health, Resto, do I need to be an effective tank" You then need to decide "how much can I sacrifice to increase my might and/or precision to improve my damage output", it may be that you for example, no longer set your skill points in to dominance but instead put them in precision because you've obtained an acceptable level of dominance just from your gear. Generally I'd recommend building your Battle role from the top up, if you can create a build that is effective in the most recent content it will work all the way back down the game structure, the lower you go back down the game tiers the more you can skew your stats back towards damage also if you so wish. The general reason you don't mix and match gear The reason you don't do this generally is for a few reasons. firstly the "perception", despite the fact you're playing with stats and 'stats are stats' other people will look at your mix and match gear and think you're an idiot that doesn't know what they're doing. In an MMO perception can be powerful, so often one big reason for not doing it can simply be to ensure you're playing the "perception game". If something goes wrong in a raid and they inspect you and see mixed gear, even if entirely incorrect, they're going to knee jerk into blaming you solely because they themselves are too stupid to understand what you might be doing and that reason alone is generally enough not to do it and you should find a different way to balance your stats. The other reason largely relates to "ease, cost and other role effectiveness" If you're buying a set of gear at end game, you're probably not buying both at once, so you're choosing one. You're asking yourself am I primarily going to tank or am I going to DPS... Whatever you choose first that will be what you buy on the vendor and your alt-role whether that be support or DPS will then initially be completed with "drop gear". When you choose your vendor gear/role you prefer you should always buy the gear that allows you to most initially fulfill that role in the purest sense, this means if you want to tank, you buy 'all tank gear' because that makes you a better 'pure tank', what you then do with your battle tank build becomes a flow on from there. When I battle tank for example, I tank in 'all tank gear' because that's what I'm buying on the vendor and I therefore balance my stats elsewhere, it helps that I have over 700 skill points, but it can be done lower, you just have to play to your limits a little more and perhaps play with tank artifacts and not DPS one, that sort of thing. I will occasionally use a neck with relentless precision in it, I will occasionally also use a DPS weapon, but this is sometimes also because they're what I'm buying at the time, or they're what I have. I will also mix augments sometimes. I might have dominance DLC augments (because I build them first) and precision body augments - there's some of these things you can play around with. Some things I never mix though, my 'head, chest, pants, boots, back, waist, hands, shoulders, rings, trinket belt and face mask are always tank role" The only other thing that's DPS is my DPS stat trinket that'll sometimes pop of course to boost damage. If you have any other questions feel free to ask - but that should really answer most, I hope.
I'm not sure I'd call it backtracking as much as it was finding a "balance" to the system they were going to include moving forward. They were pretty open from the beginning that they would have to further tweak and balance the clamping, so I think it's a little unfair to then call that "backtracking" because it needed to be toned down as a result of balance checks. It's actually the more sensible approach to make something harder than it need be, then make it easier, because had it been the other way around the devs would've found it much harder to buff the content or make the clamp harder, with some members in the community already losing their minds about it. You've got some people here losing it over the clamp in general, even as easy as it is now, you imagine their reaction if they'd made the clamp 'easy' then said "jokes, we're making it harder" lol
listen, i appreciate your viewpoints and your civilized approach to the subject i too am a realist and to quote the joker in the dark knight trilogy, "there's no going back". i dont think we will ever do away with the clamp, but i still am advocating for a few more changes, i dont think perfection has been reached just yet. other changes in the general game i would like to see that i personally think will help me and others complete more omni runs would be a post 30 gameplay tutorial on mechanics, roles, etc.
The trouble with an in game tutorial basically amounts to who are you ever trying to please and what do you do about the players who find whatever you do "wholly unacceptable". No matter what you put in as a tutorial, you're going to get elitist type players who find it too basic then start blaming it for creating bad players and not teaching enough, then you get the players who think its amazing, even if it does lack details then blame the tutorial or abuse others when they follow all the tutorial and only what's in the tutorial even if it was guilty of missing details. I don't blame the developers entirely for not putting in a tutorial because where do you start and where do you end? Even on Youtube the popular DCUO personalities on there are notoriously guilty of the same things, at one end you've got people putting garbage loadouts up calling them "beast mode", speeding everything up with a bad gangsta rap soundtrack lasting 2 minutes and at the other end you've got a 4 hour long diatribe, explaining something that could've been done in 10 minutes, only to have all the critical information lost in the "waffle". Does that mean it shouldn't be attempted at least? Probably not, but it's not an easy undertaking, especially on limited resources. Also mechanics are a hard one, because there's so many, there's definitely "mechanic themes" that could be highlighted or pointed out, but attempting to make a tutorial that meaningfully explained every mechanic in the game would risk teaching very little through attempting to teach "too much at once".
No it’s not about removing or keeping the clamp. The players defending the clamp have helped test the clamp and make sure that the difficulty is not out of wack. It’s the people wanting it removed that are all or nothing. Several passes have been made in the clamp to meet in the middle. The clamp has been adjusted so much that we are almost back to how it used to be in regards to time to kill. That has been a very fair compromise yet the same people keep crying that it’s not enough.
Progression is not gone. That is a myth. What have you earned in the years of playing? Sp: takes a long time and is earned. This has full piercing Augments: these follow you through your journey like sp. you spend time getting these stronger. Again full piercing Artifacts: takes time or money. Stays with you through time. Again, full piercing Everything that you spend time and money that follows you across your journey has full piercing. The only thing that gets clamped is your gear. And you did not spend years farming gear. The gear you have now is from the new dlc which is under 2 months old. Gear can be farmed in days. On top of that. If you stop progressing than you will eventually get stalled into not being able to run anything. Absolutely nothing has changed in endgame. You progress to be able to keep playing future content. Stop progressing and you’ll be forced into EEG. And the same clamp that you are upset about also helps you. If your under geared than the clamp boost you up to the minimum requirements. If you want to practice tanking than you can switch role and the clamp will boost your tank stats to the minimum needed.
You do realize that the ones who work on content don’t also work on styles. They (like any other game) have different departments. Just Ike how mepps gets blamed for bugs and content when he isn’t in charge of that at all
There is no point in adjusted the clamp more. The issue isn’t about the clamps difficulty. Some players will keep complaining until it’s removed. So why bother? If these players refuse to actually test and provide actual feedback than there is no point
If all you are doing is swapping out a weapon, that's one thing. A buff trinket doesn't even factor into your equipped gear because it shares the same stat block as your utility belt. When you start swapping out multiple pieces of gear, especially if you're the tank, well it's like a cop showing up to a protest without riot gear isn't it?
Well not really, because it's just about the stats, it's the stats that matter on your character, not really the gear (yes, I know different gear provides different stats, but its about reaching a stat threshold, then balancing in a different direction) Like I said in my post to Tiffany perception however is a powerful thing, so if you're mixing gear, even if statistically it works perfectly fine, you can't prevent another clueless player from simply looking at the tagline on your gear that says "damage or tank" and thinking you're an idiot for using it outside of what they consider its designated purpose. Also the reason why I don't suggest mixing is also simply for ease because even if you do choose to battle role at times, you're also at other times going to want to pure role, especially in more relevant end game content and therefore buying "mixed items" from say the vendor instead of just a straight set is going to compromise more heavily your progression towards a stronger pure role. Although the grind is the same to buy a set of gear for each role your short term progression towards getting a full set for at least one side of your character is compromised or lengthened due to a split in focus. It would be entirely possible for someone to mix and match if the truly knew exactly what they were doing and why, it's just generally speaking not a good idea for reasons discussed, not to mention if you're asking about battle role in the first place you probably already lack the current experience and knowledge to be mixing and matching in the first place, really just reinforcing why you wouldn't generally recommend it, because most people asking whether they should be doing it, almost certainly shouldn't be lol Also a buff trinket does factor in, although I gather what you're saying is your base stat, which you are correct, but it factors in as far as its usefulness in combat, for example choosing would it be a tank (health stat) trinket or a DPS (might/prec) trinket. Usually you'd run the latter because popping it as frequently as available is obviously going to improve your damage output, likely in almost all circumstances providing a better benefit to your battle build than the health trinket would.
I think having some kind of in-game glossary that people could examine at their leisure could be beneficial. Obviously we couldn’t explain everything but explaining a few recurring mechanics that are commonplace in video games but DCUO handles a little differently. For example, damage reflection. Lots of games have enemies reflect damage but DCUO is the only game I know of where the damage done to sender is a flat rate. If you attack Wonder Woman’s bracelets in a raid, you’re taking fatal damage regardless of whether you’re a healer giving her a love tap or a dps nuking her. I’m sure DCUO isn’t the only game that does this, but I’m thinking it’s pretty rare because I’ve never seen it before, and everyone I tell this is always surprised to hear it. Every other game I’ve played has some reflects multiply the returned damage, but that’s still proportional.
Progression may not be gone but it is seriously hampered to me. What motivation do I have to even try harder anymore? I haven’t played Elite since Flash Point and my current purple level gear from Death Metal is stronger than the Elite gear from Flash Point, and it seems good enough to complete current content. Any disadvantages are probably made up by the OP gear pieces I have. I guess I am more de-moralized at this point. I don’t see any true benefit to trying to be the best I can be anymore. I did go back to Doomed Washington DC under Reinhardt’s advice to get the gold level gear feat, which is nice I guess. I just don’t see any real reason to try harder anymore - that being mediocre seems to be enough.
What you’re describing is how it’s always been. You are refusing to get gear which makes you stronger in EG which is all you play. Nothing at all has changed in endgame so the whole “progression is hampered” is all in your head. Which by the way you are welcome to do so. No one ever forced you to have to get vendor gear. You were always able to just use purple dropped gear. You refusing to get vendor gear for endgame because it gets clamped in EEG which you don’t even play is a personal choice which has absolutely nothing to do with the clamp because you don’t play clamped content. It’s the same as you boycotting allies because if the clamp even thou the ally system has absolutely nothing to do with the clamp. Again, you’re welcome to do as you wish. Everyone can play how they want. However one has nothing to do with the other in any way shape or form.
