Test Discussion GU46: Rage Advanced Mechanic Update

Wow no more ranged powers? Really?

Channel Hate it's useless, show me a single player that have this power in his loadout, why not put a power like Snap Trap here? It could be the Hal Jordan construct cage, but red instead, or anything else, serious.

Revenge it's useless when you have access to Outrage.
Frenzy have a cool animation, but it takes too much time and most of the enemies will interrupt you before of you reach the 5 count (and for not to speak about the PvP), it should be waaaaaaaaaaaaay faster, or a instant ability that can be interrupted by Lunge, kinda like Saint Walker.
Violence have 0 utilty for DPS'ing.
Galling Eruption need to be applied to the target, this won't will impact tanks because: 1 they don't use this power for decrease Rage Crash damage, because GE uses too much power and we have other means for do that and 2, they will be close to their target anyways. The animation could be a spitting ball that touches the ground and makes the blood pool.

It's funny the amount of the Rage players that you see endgame, 99% of them are tanks, the ones that DPS are the masochists that love the power and will continue using no matter what ^^

Couple of things.

Relentless anger is not working correctly and appears to be capped and actually reduce DPS.

Can we have relentless anger and severe punishment buffed up to similar to where it used to be in DPS stance to enhance surviveability. This would be a PVE exclusive change to keep rage DPS from being the very close to God mode thy used to be in PVP.

Also can we add relentless anger and sever punishment to the savage state extenders list?

I'd like to bring to the discussion these options to make a melee DPS possible:

1. Buff "Redirected Rage" to absorb 100% of the damage for some seconds. Redirected damage can be removed, it's not that important.
2. There could be a passive skill or a buff that leaves you with 1 HP when you receive a damage over your total Health - that would give you a second to turn the "Redirected Rage" and receive a heal from a healer and go again into the Rage mode via "Relentless Anger" or "Sever Punishment". (Probably PVE only)
3. I always wonder why healers can't resurrect from some distance?

So what do you think guys?

Seeing that the AM is mostly targeted at Melee dpsing, please give extra survivability while in Savage form(PVE only). The range am dps HIGHLY lacks in damage and melee seems to be the only viable option to dps effectively. Make it happen devs !

Reading many comments about how the new AM is mainly melee, and definitely hoping that's not the case. I don't see how both in comparison to other AM-ed powers as well as end-game content this is of any use whatsoever (other than trash adds).

I tested the Rage AM vs. VM as a range DPS again and here are the results. All tests have been done without any white mods.

First three tests where done with these mods:
Precision & Might VI Expert
Precision & Power VI Expert
Precision & Health VI expert

Loadout:
Plasma Retch, Dreadful Blast, Galling Eruption and Bloodlust.

I'm aware that there are 2 free slots but this is the main rotation most people use while having Robot Sidekick and Berserk in the last two.

First test is a Rage Dual Wield Explosive shot rotation:
1) Galling Eruption > Bloodlust
2) WM > Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold Range > Plasma Retch (x3)
3) WM > Galling Eruption > Bloodlust



Second test is a full Rage AM rotation:
1) Galling Eruption > Bloodlust
2) Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Plasma Retch (x4)
3) Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Galling Eruption > Bloodlust




Third rest is a Rage AM and HB solar flare rotation:
1) Galling Eruption > Bloodlust
2) Solar Flare > Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Plasma Retch (x3)
3) Solar Flare > Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Galling Eruption > Bloodlust



As you can see there is barely any difference between the three different rotations when it comes to effective DPS. Even using HB's Solar Flare with AM doesn't make any noticeable difference with the mods I had. I decided to test the same three rotations but this time fully modded for precision.

Second three tests where done with these mods:
Precision VI Expert
Precision & Power VI Expert
Precision & Health VI Expert

Loadout:
Plasma Retch, Dreadful Blast, Galling Eruption and Bloodlust.

Fourth test is a Rage Dual Wield Explosive shot rotation (full precision):
1) Galling Eruption > Bloodlust
2) WM > Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold Range > Plasma Retch (x3)
3) WM > Galling Eruption > Bloodlust



Fifth test is a full Rage AM rotation (full precision):
1) Galling Eruption > Bloodlust
2) Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Plasma Retch (x4)
3) Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Galling Eruption > Bloodlust





Sixth rest is a Rage AM and HB solar flare rotation (full precision):
1) Galling Eruption > Bloodlust
2) Solar Flare > Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Plasma Retch (x3)

3) Solar Flare > Dreadful Blast > Hold range > Hold range > Galling Eruption > Bloodlust



As you can see having Precision & Might VI Expert in your red sockets give you about 200 more effective DPS for both WM and AM rotations however modding full precision for the AM + HB solar flare rotation gives a nice little jump to effective DPS by about 700.

I actually like that the WM and AM options for Rage in terms of range are pretty much neck to neck and by adding weapon attacks to the AM you can squeeze out a bit more damage. This goes well with what the DEVs stated some time ago that both WM and AM should do damage that competes but by combining AM with weapon attacks you'd be able to get even more damage. Only problem I have with this is that Rage is in my opinion the only power that works like this. The top end power are currently doing way more damage with both WM, AM and mix rotations while Rage can't really compete with either of its options because of the lack of useable powers for range DPSing. A ranged Rage DPS's rotation mainly consits of the 4 powers I used for my tests, the last 2 are just filler slots and because of how the power trees are made there isn't much else that can be done to make it different.

You can get a bit more damage out with the new Rage update and concerve power at the same time but it still needs improvements.

Side note:
If anyone wants to reply to this post try to just quote the things that are relevant to your point instead of quoting the entire thing since it takes up a lot of space.

Can the savage state last any longer? It's awfully short and makes long some WM attacks unusable for a combo WM & AM rotation. Can we make it like the chill effects for Ice?

Relentless Anger should be extending Savage State.

Relentless Anger should be absorbing 15% of all blows in dps role. That would be close to enough to allow meleeing in top content.

Also Relentless Anger should take 25% of the damage given to rage crash and shoot it back at the enemy upon canceling rage crash. With these 2 changes there's little way that this AM will fail.

This may sound a little op how about in instead of healing back all dmg it blocks all dmg for 8 seconds then blasts it back at you, only for pve ofc.

I can get on board with something like this if it were to work like Rage Crash. While you use it the damage you take builds up and after some time there are 2 things that can happen, either you "cancel" the crash by using a power and it would redirect the damage taken or you miss the window and crash like regular rage crash. However at the same time this coupeled with the enhanced melee might end up being too much.

Someone else suggested this a couple of pages back btw.

Another bit of feedback possibly make berserk a 25% supercharge. This is another very small change that in the long run would make this AM better.

Not going to happen. As with Celestial, the window is small to exclude a buffed hybrid approach. If you received buffed damage with the AM plus WM bonus, that would be the only approach anyone would use. The options are pure AM with buff, WM+burst, and WM/unbuffed AM hybrid.

No... If its always active its no AM anymore, its the normal state! Also chill effects lasts way to long... Think about fires volatility, thats a perfect duration for these kind of advanced power interactions. You can use some weapon attacks in between for clipping them but u dont have to.

Thats perfect!

OMG! Yes! Good news are always good. All hail Atrocitus!

Relentless anger is more then 15 % damage absorption in DPS stance, if I remember it's either 20% or 80% in DPS stance.

It needs to be 100% in PVE, like it was before.

And they need to fix the damage component it's bugged and capped.

And it needs to be added to the savage state extender.

I think Relentless Anger still heals back 100% dmg taken in PvE and from what I see it deals back 10% of your ongoing Precision based damage(weapon and combos). It works great in alerts where damage comes in smaller portions and over time compared to raids.

I don't htink your AM rotation is really optimal as I was finding the range AM rotation was much more effective than WM. I've not uploaded the sreens or logs but I'll post the numbers quick, I post the screens if needed or w/e. Fully prec and prec/x modded, all proficiencies, penetrating strikes and max damage.

WM same rotation as you had as far as I can tell: 17 991 DPS

AM range rotation of Galling/BL, DB/DB/Retch. DB/DB/Retch,DB/DB then galling and BL when they're off cd. I got 20 188 DPS.

AM melee rotation with the loadout of galling, bl, echain, db, outrage, I got: 22 631 DPS.

Anyway, I've been finding that that the AM is much better than WM and that the melee AM is much better than the range. The number I'm getting for the range am is similar to the numbers I get for almost every other AM expect Quantum but I've not tested them all and I don't have that many iterations of tests on the AMs yet.

Relentless Anger should extend Savage state aswell

We are using the same AM rotation you are clipping BD with BD and then using Retch. You are using max damage and penetrating strikes which is inflating your damage.