Combo powers = too much work?

Yesterday a friend challenged me to a DWF dps battle. At first I thought he was using his regular celestial toon, but instead used his ice. Towards the end of the raid I asked him "gave up on celestial? " He said "no, too much work."

I couldn't argue with that logic. There's a saying "work smarter, not harder." If you can put out the same results with less work then why not right?

Now my question to you guys is, do you think it's fair for combo powers to have a higher damage potential since you put more work into them? Would you conceive that as "balanced? "

Now before you answer this, keep in mind that pre - WM days the combo powers did indeed have the highest damage potential. The community cried because they thought it was unfair. Thus commencing the very early stages of power balance. Also, we did have a player base with a higher skill level as well. It's evident do the amount of people that complain now about combo powers.

Just a few things to think about while you're answering this question.

It's IFFY..
On one hand, You'll get combo powersets nerfed because People will forsee them as Flavor of the month if they end up stronger then the rest of the other powers.

And at the same time, You have players who wanted to be rewarded for their strong usage of clipping.

So... I can't quite say yes or no on the situation :/

Combo powers rely on the combos to output a good load of damage, and are more subject to interruptions because of that. Yes, they should deal more damage, based on the risk/reward principle and based on the more work principle as well. If not, people will just set combo-based toons aside and work on might-based-only toons, like ICE players, specially as the community before - based on the enunciate of your question - had more skill than nowadays, meaning that nowadays people have more trouble pulling off the same stuff than people before.

Combo-based powers have the combos as their strongest point, so their strongest point should be as relevant as might-based powers having powerhits as their strongest point.

It's more so that players back then we're more attuned to clipping. So combo powers weren't much of an issue. Where as now in order to maximize damage with rage and celestial your clips need to be on point. Someone going from a might power like mental or ice and are used to just pressing buttons consecutively in a row (one could argue though the start up for ice AM is very clip heavy) are going to struggle with a combo power where clipping is more of a norm, which in turn they end up doing poorly and write off prec powers as terrible.

That's the issue nowadays. Removing clipping dps dumbed it down a lot.

Depends.
If I went back to when celestial first launched and was considered OP, then yes. Simply due to as starting out you had to first learn the combos and then memorize the combos and rotation, and then build up muscle memory.

However with powers like ice its just put 5 abilities in an order and go 1, 2 ,3 ,4 ,5. Then there is also the case where precision powers will always be behind until the last month of the cycle due to weapon affecting overall dps, which is why I was a strong supporter of large DLC's returning.

In the past rage, HL, and celestial were known as the skillful powersets and the strongest. Now they are the revered powersets as far as the dps side( even though HL and celestial users can do good damage). They are still inferior to Mental, Ice, Gadgets. Those powersets wont be revisited until next year.

But to answer your question. Yes as far as DPS side goes, they require too much work, but the balancing issue is due to a failed test method, not due to the complexity of the powerset.

Yes, more work and the expertise gained from doing such should mean a better result. Anyone whining about that isn't wanting to take the time to learn and hone their skill, they just want to push a single button...

Cancer.

I don't know how others pick their power but as far as I know, I pick them based on whether I like them or not. If I wanna beat Darkseid as a Robin, I'll beat Darkseid as an accurate robin. Not the one that has psychic abilities just for a plot convenience because 'I gotta have dat burn brah' 'sick burn' 'op af' 'DPS lit'. If the group is good enough they'll make it. I beat DWFe with a quantum DPS in the group. Yet I see people complaining that quantum is bad. "Bad" as in? You do lower than the bloke who spends 10$ a month and uses his supplydrop and supercharge on the first wave of adds? Sorry, the DPS is good if you beat the instance. It's not if you don't. Being a certain power may be a convenience but not a necessity. DPSes who are butt hurt are the reason why we had the whole cycle of power changes. They will kill the game over time. This game would do way better if the community realises that PvE means Player versus Environment.

I've always been of the mind that if something takes a higher skill level to pull off successfully it should be rewarded for doing so.

Personally I love pre-WM, pre-AM DPS. Back when you had to clip, you had to use PIs, had to position properly, and had to weave in weapon attacks. DPS now a days, with the exception or combo and compound powers, might as well be smashing your face on a keyboard because that's what it feels like.

I've tried to play 1234 powers but there is no satisfaction in playing them. Sure the numbers are good, but anyone can press 1234, not many can master the speed and spacing of combos.

Also might sucks, prec for life!

I'm a scorpio, sorry.

DCUO hasn't been a skill based game for years. There needs to be easy-mode powers that can compete with (slightly) difficult-to-use powers. Is it fair? No. C'est la vie.

1. Scorpio fam xD
2. Ice is a way more fun dps power then celes.(yes i'm serious)
3. Not many are good with celes(im ok) but any1 can be good with ice.

*grumpy*

Ice is the snore. I love cele though, just couldn't DPS with it. Especially when I run with Fatal here every day, it gave me something to strive for but wasn't able to replicate.

Ice DPS be like...



If you use both hands, you could do twice as much damage!

I dps fatal on my celes he beat me by 4mill, then we dps'd off on my ice and had him by 3mill when we started last boss, but he didnt pick me up :/ so he beat me.
Fatal is a better dps then me but shows how you can switch powers and magic can happen.

Oh I know Zues. I also heard that you called me out as well as him yesturday but I was at work

I think so, if you roll a combo power you should deal more dmg as it requires more practice and skill then the other powers.

You know what I tell my league mates when they ask for advice when they go to switch to a different power? "Anything but prec based powers, its not worth the headache"

anymore the combo powers are just a pain in the backside IMO, so if ppl stick with them they damn well should be rewarded bonus damage.

Like you said, we've been down this road before and the fanbase voiced strong opinions this shouldn't be the case. Celestial was a very difficult powereset to master when it was first launched and when people started to utilize it to it's maximum, it was damn near impossible to match their damage output, like Light and Rage at their peak.

Before I would have said the quickest change was to change how precision is scaled ingame (Which is iffy in of it self) But then Atomic happened.

It's a little difficult to balance powersets that uses Combos as they require a lot more work than say, Ice for example, and the Devs want every power to have more or less the same damage potential ignoring the amount of skill needed. I don't envy the devs going forward one bit.

Not to say combos are weak, Atomic combos, Celestial and Light can do very good damage in the right hands, some just has to get good.

When Celestial first came out, it was hands down, the most fun powerset I ever played.

I'm guessing cc effects were far more minimal compared to now, cause now, combos suck hard to play.



Now, should combo powers hit harder? Absolutely! More difficult to play vs, say , Ice. Its also way harder to get huts off due to being knocked down every 10 seconds.

Idk what idea they had in mind when ramping up cc effects, but it really made the game unplayable by comparison.

Yup i did lol. was so pissed when he didnt pick me up, I was going to make a forums post about me beating him, gloating and all. But on 2nd boss he died and i didnt pick up so it was fair for him not to pick me up ig. I was dpsing the adds and all, popping orbitals on them.LOL

Celestial should definately be at the top based on the inputs for the combos. Rage is a little complex and deserves to be good damage. Hard Light combo's are rather easy although very stupid and annoying with how it moves enemies around...(Maybe my opinion is invalid I use Troll stance for my HL so maybe that changes things. As a troll tho the hardest part of a combo is just starting the power, and the rest is just taps and holds, not really needing to use other powers until you want to start another combo).

Dont have experience with others. Ice, Earth, Sorcery are insanely over powered in my opinion. When you get completed crushed DPS wise by somebody 20-30 CR lower than you something is very wrong lol and its usually one of those powers being used. I dont know if its the power being unbalanced or if that is a low CR person with 200+ baught SP or what.