(Existing Powersets) strengths and weaknesses Rework/Update abilities!

No, I do not thing everything is perfectly balanced. Perfect balance is impossible by nature (not the power). Every power has different ways to apply their damage so how can they ever be fully balanced? How do you balance a power that relies on combos to something that does channeled damage to burst damage ti dot damage to pet damage? How do you balance a power like nature? A power that does more damage if they can stack poisons but can’t always stack them like in hallways?

However there is a balance range that the devs can strive to get things within. But a lot of the powers that need some help don’t actually need a damage buff to get a buff. A power like nature could get a change to something without changing the damage numbers and it would perform better. Same with atomic and other powers.

The biggest issue is that a lot of the players who make threads like this don’t actually know about balance and calculating the different aspects of the power. I’ve seen so many thread that players have made asking for a damage buff when they themselves were not even using a proper set up.

While this thread probably needs to be moved to the powers subforum instead of GD. I will say that Atomic almost needs a complete rework from both a tank and dps perspective. It needs a viable supercharge, It needs the aura to activate from simply activating any power in tank role or dps. It needs a viable range rotation from the dps side.

Tank side if it wants to be viable it needs either a health buff or large increase to mitigation the aura provides. Right now Atomic suffers from low heath pool and depends far too much on mitigation from the aura.

Not that I claim know how to "fix" Nature, but I think what that powerset could use is reduction (or removal) of SC cost for forms, which I believe used to be lower, before people started abusing EoG. On my Nature toon it often takes me half a raid to be able to switch to Wolf form, unless there's a healer with EoG there and if I drop my DoTs during boss-fight, which is often scripted - I do reduced damage for another few minutes. Nature used to be my favorite powerset years ago, but when I returned and saw the SC cost - I gave up on it.

On the other hand Nature as a ranged DoT DPS usually does reasonably well when the new raids drop, everyone is under-geared and simple "tank and spank" tactics don't work so well, because it can do damage while blocking and dodging and adds take a while to die. So - swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

I think it's reasonable to expect different powers/classes to have different strengths and weaknesses which will impact their popularity in the meta, depending on the design of new content. Otherwise - all powersets would have to be reskins, and all raids would have to use roughly the same mechanics suitable for everyone, which would suck, but it seems that's what many want.

I have a fix for nature
and its a simple one to bring it up to many other powers

most important change
poisons and pheromones' are in the air with nature so why do we have to spread them. just changing the powers to spread on their own and then just having to cast a move to refresh them would instantly bring nature up in hallways were it lacks the most.

would also be nice
and as far as the shape changes take them to pre EOG were they weren't supercharges at all . would put nature back into a wonderful place again.

I'm not sure about that. It might look better on the scorecard - in fact depending on the range of spreading it might be OP - but if adds die in 1-2 seconds, the DoTs won't do much anyway. And if they spread - and therefore split the damage - on their own Nature would be less effective against bosses, when adds would come out. But I don't know - I stopped caring and just have a farming mule Nature DPS, with no arts. However, I think Nature with 200 Strat, Trans and EoG can still do well at the beginning of Episode cycle, when things take enough time to die for the DoTs to work and spread, so a heavy handed solutions might make it quite OP in certain situations.

Gorilla was always a SC. And I imagine there was a reason for Wolf and Insectoid (which used to be only available to DPS and Healer, respectively) to be made SCs. Maybe it was causing lag in PvP, or something, which probably would be a non-issue, what with PvP being dead. I definitely would start playing Nature more, if I could switch forms easily, because the flexibility of multiple loadouts was what I like about it and why now I mostly play Mental and Gadgets.

I also don't remember Nature being in a wonderful place when I played it some 40 DLCs ago. It was always considered - rightly or wrongly - underpowered, especially when compared with FOTM powersets, like Light, Rage, Gadgets, or Celestial. I just never really cared, because it was fun.

the forms were changed specifically because of EOG

and as you stated with its strong at the beginning of an episode is exactly right the longer things live the better nature does. especially in boss fights with lots of adds around. That's how dot powers have always been. the longer an episode is out burst takes over

the powers spreading on their own wouldn't make it over powered it would just speed it up after boss phases and in hall ways the rest of the time it would hardly effect it at all

Maybe. I won't claim to know either way, because I've barely played it since 2015, or so. But I know the SC cost of the forms took the fun out of it for me.

Primal Wolf and Insectoid were turned into small cost supercharges for the 2017 stat revamp which was a terrible decision. They had their cost increased because of EOG abuse which was an even worse decision.

Before the 2017 revamp Nature and Electricity (and I think Rage) never got their damage AMs balanced like the other powers did, so their DPS was garbage.

remember the eog one. blanking on changes to it on stats revamp I'm pretty sure I was atomic at that time could be why . and agree on both points

Well, yes. I knew that. But what was the reason, or pretext for turning them into SCs in 2017? EoG wasn't in the game back then, was it?

I remember waiting for a Nature revamp for years, but in the end I got bored waiting and stopped playing.

I would have to go back and look at the notes. Artifacts hadn't been invented yet.

Returning back after doing some intensive testing in regards to just the tank powersets alone in DPS role. My tests were performed in 393 DPS gear with 553 SP and 17856 might. These tests were also conducted without Artifacts or Ally bonuses to stats. Out of all the tank powers in this game, Atomic is the only one without a DOT AOE pool. Let that sink in. By my testing, the average one damage tick of the 12 hit AOE pool does 7k-9k damage a tick spread across each tank DPS powerset (UN-BUFFED) mind you.

That alone is a staggering 84k-108k WITHOUT critical damage involved. This by itself is an enormous difference in DPS potential in comparison to an Atomic player that might accidentally or be potentially knocked out of their combo abilities. Once interrupted, there is absolutely nothing we can do to make up from the time lost within that period, trying to restart our combos while other tank DPS powers have the damage Pool to do damage automatically. What's worse is that this gap is further widened when we take into consideration the ability for other powers to STACK DOT abilities on top of one another to add 2 to 3 sources of continuous AOE damage at all times!!

An example would be Rage and it's ability to stack Galling Eruption, Severe Punishment, Violence, Any combo Melee or range power and then the cherry on top, berserk. Even using three of the abilities on that list would help to gap Atomic in damage by 350k-500k alone in 10 seconds WITHOUT CRITICAL DAMAGE BEING INVOLVED.

Ice has Wintery Tempest, Snow Devil and Bitter Winds which can all do automatic damage if the player is stunned or knocked back. Fire has Inferno, Enflame, Overheat, Spontaneous combustion and Burning Determination. Then there's Earth that has Debris Field, Totem and Crystal pet. Want to know what Atomic has? Get ready for this one, Electron Flare. Just one power that has the capability to do damage while the player is CC controlled or knocked back without having to activate a combo. ATOMIC HAS NO MULTI-TARGET DOT IN ITS BUILD! The only other DOT Atomic has is Irradiate and that's a SINGLE TARGET ABILITY.

These are supercharges aside too. Do you know what the average DPS difference is that I got from my calculations with just these skills I've listed in comparison to Atomic? I've ranged over 1.1-1.3 million damage difference alone without Artifacts involved. LET THAT SINK IN.

Please, by all means try to justify how Atomic is okay how it is when just in its base form alone is left behind when It comes to other powers and their superior versatility? Please tell me where you got the idea in your mind that it was fine the way it was? Who were the people you were playing with, actually? Not to be mean but if you put DPS them with Atomic, they aren't very good. Terrible in fact and that is THE TRUTH.

Let's not even compare the supercharges to one another because out of every tank power in DPS role, Atomic's Radiation Burn and Atomic Blast are out damaged by the others 5000 and 10000 SC by 400k to 1 million damage with ease.

There is absolutely no way on God's green earth you can tell me otherwise now. I've tested this very thoroughly as well. You cannot defend this foolishness any longer. It is nowhere near "Fine the way it is" I can't believe you actually said that. Rage is a combo power just like Atomic. It hits does more damage while completely your combos but the thing is...it does just about everything else better in DPS role by a landslide.

Rage in a 31s rotation did 9.3millin damage. Ice did 8.2mill, Fire did 9.2million and Earth did 8.9million. Atomic did an embarrassing 4.7million with the same gear and SP stats.

I used Neutron Bomb, Beta Surge, Atom Splitter, Thermochemical Explosion, Ionizing Eruption and Geiger Blast for test. You ask me where I want Atomic to be? I want it to be competitive and better than what it is now. If it can get new abilities that put it on Rages level, I'd be happy with that.

Forgot to mention that I tested this on three sparing targets in the House of legends and used the Max Damage hand mod, Core Damage chest mod and Escalating Might neck mod as well.

Sorry but that is not how dpsing works…


I asked for very specific things and you failed to do that and instead focus on things that by design make things look one sided….

What is your base dps?
What is your base rev up dps?
What is your buffed dps?
What is your max potential dps?


Testing is not that complicated.

Set your parsers to 30s or 60s.
Remove any ally that has rng aspects like Batman who laughs. Or remove them all together (I recommend using cyborg).
Use your regular loadout and rotation without any buffs from consumables or outside sources.
Run 3-5 parsers and average them out.

Boom base dps. (Repeat for 5 targets and st)


Set parsers to 10 secs
Do a rotation until the first 10s pops and stop dpsing. (To stop any lingering effects).
Repeat 3-5 times.

Boom rev up dps.

This is actually exactly how you test the difference between powers and their base DPS capabilities. I gave you that information and also told you I did not have the assistance of artifacts or allies. I also mentioned that Atomic does not have DOT AOE or the ability to stack said powers. Are you going to ignore that? I don't need an Excel PowerPoint to get my point across. Anyone in here can run the same test as me and even if it would come up higher or lower the end result is that atomic will always be on the bottom of the other tank powers in DPS role and that's a fact not opinion.

Still avoiding the very basics… why is it so hard for you to just provide these very basic numbers. Just give your base dps… with your base dps people will be able to see if the issue is with the power or the user..

Lol... You're complaining, that your powerset isn't a reskin of other powersets, that in your view perform better in the current meta. It doesn't say anywhere, that every powerset needs a DOT pool, especially that in most recent raids DPS meta is mostly ranged (especially in Elite), so melee powers are not super advantageous. And if you can't stack DOTs, than maybe you have better burst damage options than others, which you should make your build around. Maybe instead of focusing on what Atomic doesn't have and trying to mimic the playstyle of other powersets, you should try and use whatever unique strengths Atomic may have. And if you're saying that it doesn't have any - well, then you must have a very low opinion of the devs who designed a gimped powerset, that only has weaknesses...

And don't forget that almost all DPS nowadays use iconic and movement powers in order to top the scorecard, so if your powerset needs help dealing with the mechanics of the current content, you may want to try and use some of those.

Removing your artifacts and allies and adding no buffs to your powerset while testing IS the basics. It's the most simple baseline of how a power functions without assistance from buffs. I'm starting to think that you're so far deep into trying to be right that even though you're potentially incorrect you still go with it because you feel it's too late to back out now or something.

You can't be serious?