Stats Revamp 1.7

Suggested change (PVP)

Sorry if this is not the correct place, but this affects several powers. May I recommend fixing grounding moves? (Like Lasso, movement grounds like downdraft attack, and healing debuff powers).

Sometime ago against all the feedback and against what several pvpers stated, grounding moves were changed were your target would only need to breakout to go back into movement, and this has prevailed since.

My suggestion since since the devs are fixing powers, is to bring back the grounding moves to it´s original state. (The same way grounding from NPC´s actually work). The grounding effect should last for the duration, not only during the breakout. Nowadays ground moves are kinda useless since all is needed is a breakout to go back to movement.

This is also weapons PVE feedback and needs to be looked into further. You guys should really be giving all the feedback that you can with weapons because there are not many testing weapons at all. Also when test and giving feedback. Try to keep your crits at zero. Keeping at zero gives the devs less excuses and using crits for inconsistent damage in feedback. Which by the way, has been tried within the weapons thread already. good luck

@Golden Spartan
Thanks for the feedback, and especially for providing your stats and data with it, since that makes it much easier to parse.

Weapon Mastery Bonus: In your WM taps test, the only case where you see damage dropping is when crits are significantly different from one test to the next. To get a rough correction for crits, you can multiply your kill times by (1+(crit_rate*crit_damage%)). That won't be perfect because of uneven crit distribution, but it will be closer.
I've gone through and specifically tested Staff and everything is working correctly as far as WM combo damage: you should see about a 10% increase from having WM specced vs. not specced. One bug we found during this testing is that you don't instantly get the stats from WM. To make sure your stats are updated for Weapon Mastery bonuses, unequip and re-equip your weapon. You should see about a 10% boost to Precision and Weapon DPS stats with WM specced. We're working on a fix for this.

Holds vs Taps: This is a side-effect of balancing weapons for clipping. Taps are generally much quicker than holds, so they have a much smaller clipping penalty because the bonus from clipping them is smaller. Without clipping, quick attacks will be superior to slow attacks (except in long combos or combos with cast times, where the clipping penalty is no longer counted). With clipping, they should be about the same. For best results with weapons, you will need to use Weapon Mastery attacks. Not only do these get a damage bonus intrinsically, they also have cast times which means no (or smaller) clipping penalty.

DoTs vs Taps: This comes down to 2 things.
First, depending on your setup, either superpowers or weapon attacks will have an advantage (depending on whether you focused into Might or Precision). It seems like your tests were Precision focused, so that accounts for part of why your Taps seem better than your DoTs.
The second part of this is that all abilities are balanced around (among other things) cast time and cost. DoTs have an advantage over burst abilities as long as you get past a certain duration, so a 300 cost DoT with a 1s cast that lasts 12s will always do more total damage than a 300 cost burst ability with a 1s cast. However, that damage is distributed over the entire duration of the DoT, so each tick for a DoT that hits 12 times will do 1/12 damage. This is because you're not channeling the DoT the entire time, but instead can do other attacks during that time. To get an accurate comparison, you would need to compare 12s of weapon combos vs. the time to cast the DoT (estimate about 1s), plus 11s of weapon combos to see which is better. DoTs should win every time. You can quickly see this by the fact that your inferno did 784 total damage (it has a dovetail around 1.13s), where your weapon parses were in the 300-500 dps range. Or you can do another sparring target test: one with Inferno + Weapon attacks vs. one with just Weapon attacks, and see which does better.

PvP Balance: Would you say that PvP damage is too high, too low, or just right? What about PvP healing? PvP shielding? PvP power healing? It sounds like overall time to kill in a group setting was too long, which could be a function of any of those. PvP RPS can be interesting and is something we may bring back in the future, but for now we want PvP to feel fun and balanced with any (reasonable) combination of roles, so we're looking to make global adjustments to address any systemic issues with PvP balance. Let us know what you think!

Again, thank you for the feedback, and we are looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on PvP balance in Stats Revamp.

You guys have to incrase cones of some powers like plasma retch, 1st hit of revenge, 2nd hit of eviscerating chain,ragebringer,outrage's 3rd hit.Also the cones/width of ram, fan,impact,whip trash ,Attract( from electricity) and other similar powers.Update their animations-visuals if you have to , make them bigger.

Those seem like thin tubes, not really cones....

Feedback:

- Could you give us the damage differential between 2 tiers as we already have on Live? You are CR 201, goes on FOS 1, Prime Battleground, Nexus, whatever and get died? I would like to have my 3 minutes running on Paradox.

Thanks for the response Moja. Sorry it took me some time to answer back but been kinda busy.

Didn´t know about the WM 10% increase and the weapon bug, which means in order to improve any weapon damage, WM spec is a must. I´ll just run possibly tomorrow some testing with WM spec with several/all weapons to check on the differences.

On Hold vs Taps:
I noticed what you mean while testing, definetely WM is the way to go if you want to improve the damage. I´ll need to take a look at the clipping changes, yet imo clipping is a way to maximize dmg and shouldn´t be penalized (i would assume several players feel this way).

Dots V Taps:
1) Setup: Ya, my setup has a prec oriented spec (since is the norm lately pvp wise). I´ll mix some might and let you know how it feels.

Now, PVP wise, till i try it with a spec a lit leaned towards might, yet considering the testing we´ve done before, while i understand the concept of DoTs having an advantage after a certain duration, this seems not to be happening. (Could be the spec, or other factors like CR calculations ¿? ).

Let me set an example (Fire):
Inferno v Flashpoint (this was with the very same char)

Inferno 12 CD v Flashpoint 3s CD

1 - 704 v 1123
2 - 1318 v 556
3 - 851 v 548
4 - 879 v 517
5 -717 v 1105
AvG: 894 v 769.8

As you can see, overall average damage in the 5 samples are kinda even. While on paper it does seems dots are slightly better than burst, in practice (REMEMBER THIS IS PVP FEEDBACK NOT PVE) a smart player will rather upfront 2x burst damage over the curse of 6+ secs rather than 1 DoT move over 12 secs, the reason: It puts more stress on the other player/team to try to get the K.O. IMO, some DoTs damage should be increased a bit (maybe 15%) to make more reasonable the gab between total damage from DoT v Burst. This is just me tho, and since my play time is limited, i wish more players would give his feedback PVP wise with numbers and stats to make the job easier for you guys.

I saw one video from a 2H crit in a duel in open world, where it landed 4k+. I´ve been shown stuff in open world (stealth attack, some atomic move, etc) that 1 shot you for 7.5k+ in open world, yet doesn´t work the same inside arenas, yet i was told stealth move could take 75% of your HP inside arena with a certain spec. I hope this people bring their feedback here. This definetely should be looked into.

- PVP BALANCE -

First of all, again thanks for taking the time for this feedback, and first i would like to point out a problem that i see overall in testing.

Most of the PVP players i´ve play/known (the top pvp leagues) have 250+ skill points. This 50 SPS gap imo is huge when you consider dps using those to increase the particular stats. My point is, when in test server we might have the impression of " this damage feels alright", when it hit lives, because of the sps difference, in live this perception might change to " the damage is just too much" because of the skill points differential (I could be wrong tho, am just using common sense) . Same goes for different scenarios like HP, Resto, etc. IMO testing should be done with 250sps at least.

About damage been too high, low or just right:
I have mixed feelings on this one. Please bare with me and let me explain: While i was testing, something that i am sure will become a huge frustration, are the hold finishers. Is kinda the example/testing i showed before: An MA Spinning punch (no clipping) was doing lows 300-600ish with my spec. That by definition means, some taps are more rewarding that some combos, making it really odd and not rewarding for using those moves. On the other hand, when the holds were, lets say 600+ they felt at least ok, so maybe reducing the overall tap damage and rewarding the holds would make a huge improvement.

Simple as this. You are fighting an evenly match against another team/player, you are on point with your skills, playing correctly, then he makes a mistake.. BOOM! You land your combo, just to realize your damage was really low. No instant gratification. Now multiply this for all the pvpers and you would understand the frustration this will create.

Now, one mistake we did when testing, is that most of us tried to use what was valid on Live server, and that was scrimming (4s) without WM. After my last testings it was obvious the WM moves would do such a big difference, yet there must be a limit:

Considering the base HP with full 101 is 7.5k ISH on Test, i was able to land WM combos - inside arenas - for 4k+. That´s 50%+ of the HP gone with 1 move. Now something important to note here, this was with a char with only 200 sps, and only 10 sps in prec (all the crits tho) for the sake of saving SPS to test several weapons.

Remember what i said at the beginning of this point about sps in test v live server?

Imagine a char in live server, that specs for maybe 3 weapons at most only with WM, thats 3*13ish = 39 SPS, 41 sps for all crits and the base WM Spec, 7 for movements/recoveries = you have a total of 87 used sps. My actual test char only has 10 sps on prec. A char that on live server has 270 ish, thats 183 SPS left that he can use to increase the damage. This can be a huge gap between what is tested and what hits live.

So if this hits live, the perception of high moves will be increased because of the base stats of the dcuo population. I mention this, because the same way PVErs are always looking for ways to improve their damage, so do PVPers, and that means, just speccing in the used weapon and no more, maximizing your skill point use.

The main thing that i would ask to most of the pvpers are, what is considering good as a high burst damage move?

For this let´s analyze the actual perception in pvp of high damage. Biggest offender atm are: #1 MA Lunge and #2 HB Lunge. The problem by themselves, is that they are just spammable and is more rewarding just spam that move damage wise that any other combo (At the point that the best damage after a counter is 2x MA lunges, fits perfectly in the timing and you can see this in any actual youtube pvp video).

An MA Lunge with a char in arenas on live server can crit a up to 6k (maybe like 6.2k) with constant 4ks/5ks. Average PVP HP is around 27.5k HP = 6k/27.5HP = 21.8%. This is considered high, again been the problem mainly because is spammable.

In my opinion, long moves or WM should be doing around 20%-22% HP as max damage, as long as they are not spammables. (Examples: like MA smokebomb, 2H Megasmash, DW 6th-8th, staff long combos, etc). Since some WM combos can land 4k+ in test inside arenas (53% HP off) that is just too much.

Same case with the 2h video Silver posted, 4.9k HP crit on a 7.5k HP char is just too devastating and definetely gamebreaking.

For team base pvp matches: (we tried 4s):

If we would had used WM, the results might have been diferent, but since we use regular combos the damage felt just fine (regular combos). The main problem/ cause of the stall was: Healers had enough power and dps were able to recharge the healer too (troll classes do this in dps stance, is a normal practice), and while damage felt wise, the healers were able to recover themselves.

Regardless if you min/max the power usage for PVP with tweaks, there will be only 1 way to get the kill: Damage and power starve.

This makes a game that was multidimensional into unidimensional and i see this becoming a neverending battle between devs and players, because all the mecanics will revolve on: What´s the best healer power, whats the highest damage move(s), what´s the best dps power and an uphill battle for you as devs, trying to tweak always something in a neverending circle.

If damage is improved where the highest damage moves are not spammables, this makes the matches more interesting. Now, teams can rotate shields, use heals, and even a coordinated team can just rotate shield supers, or damage supers to get the kills. (In those practice scrims we got the kills mainly by coordinating supers otherwise even both teams were even and high skilled, it was hard to get the kill).

That´s why i can´t stress enough the use and implementation of in game disruptive moves. What is this? This is like that story of the double edge sword, meaning that even the strongest weapon has a weak point. And that´s precisely what made this game so interesting. Let me explain:

Again, - THIS IS FOR PVP - for PVE am not your guy.

So what do i mean with disruptive moves? A way a team can counter other team strategies. Here is were the real fun begins. That´s why am mentioning everything from dots to debuffs. (Sorry for been too repetitive)

If in those matches, the troller healing debuff was more aggresive, we could had more options. Nowadays, the game is " focus x dps, hardswitch, if don´t get the kill go back to dps, heal debuff here and there but is not so important".

BUT, if you tweak the healing and defense debuff, where it actually hurts, inherently will starve the healing since now he must try to overheal to compensate the debuff, hence draining his power bar faster. Now imagine, if the same troller plays it smart, and debuffs not only the target, but the healer. It debuffs the healing out from the healer then the healing in from the target. Now the team is stressing 2 players at the same time. Add in decent DoTs that adds sustained and constant stress and burst moves when required. If the healer only has it´s own trinket, thats only 3 seconds that he is cleasned. He still has 57 seconds where is vulnerable to controllers harassment. This automatically make viable tanks, who can cleanse the team vs debuffs. But now, the problem with having a tank is now the lack of burst, because you sacrifice 1 dps right? (4s/5s). What if now, the tank is able to reduce controllers vit, now that same team is starving with strategy, not only the controller, but the healer (cut down power, cut down heals, cut down defence on target + healing in).

And i can go on and on, but at the end of the day, if you don´t place this disruptive moves, (again this is not a 100% get back RPS but important tweaks) not only will you balance the game more, but also make controllers and most important, tank roles viable again for pvp and not only for certain aspect of it. And about the shields, ya, they are strong, maybe reduce them from 100% to mitigate 50% of the incoming damage till the cap or time ends.

Moja, i can definetely go hours and hours talking about strategies lol. In the past we tried to explain this, but our feedback was ignored. If you wish to learn more about the strats used and why is important what i am saying, this is an old guide that i did, where you can understand why this dynamics were so important unlike the state of the game now. LINK

I´ll try to get some of our guys to test pvp again, but is hard since most of them are not playing atm because the current state of pvp (Yap, a full league basically inactive because of pvp). But i´ll try and hopefully i have time to do more testing during the weekend.

Thanks again and sorry for the wall of text!!

Hi

So is it really inteded that damage splits on 3 targets now????It wasn't like this....



Something tells me it happens to other powers too( at least to supercharge generators)...

Why is amazonian deflection classified as a block? That ruins any purpose the power once even had. I wouldn't use this as a tank since I can get block broken, and sure as hell wouldn't use it in PvP. Get rid of the block classification or else it's just be another useless power sitting in the tree collecting dust.

Hi Moja, i did some testings exclusively for weapons and all the results are here, missed some combos tho. Remember to take a look at the 2nd post of that thread for a clarification on stats. (Noticed this because of the bug you told us about wm). I hope that helps!!

Also, i noticed something about healing (pvp).

My healer stats are:



Note that i used 50 sps in might/power to increase the power pool = increased power regen. (I hope i am right on this one).



As you can see, i was able to spam heal power over and over, In this test i didn´t use a soder at all. Granted the testing dps didn´t have an optimal spec from what i saw, yet the power back is just too much. If you add a controller it goes crazy. And i would assume this spec works with powers like Light, rage, celestial and of course controllers benefit from it too.

@Moja let me know if there is 1 particular thread where i should concentrate all the pvp feedback.

I wasn't sure where else to put this, so here looks nice. I just wanted to post the differences between total SP we can somewhat expect coming up after revamp. The reason I was curious is you know what our pretty little community can be like on that subject. Here are the numbers with different SP totals and configurations.

All three of these setups were tested wearing fully special-forces modded (might or might/power in slots) CR 201 gear. I didn't have any generator mods equipped however, and no white mods either.

The rotation was simple, not optimal, just something to spam that would last a while without running out of power: Chain Gun, Railgun, 5BMinigun. This is for comparative testing only, definitely not min/maxing lol.

1. (235 sp build) 175 might, 20 crit c., 40 crit d.

Total stats: 19355 might, 48544 power
94.1 seconds, 8260/s dps, 777303 total
= 495,600/minute damage

2. (130 sp build) 70 might, 20 crit c., 40 crit d.
Total stats: 17817 might, 38769 power
65.1 seconds, 7968/s dps, 518594 total
= 478,080/minute damage, 3.5% difference

3. (130 sp build) 100 might, 15 crit c., 15 crit d.
Total stats: 18,288 might, 40537 power
70.3 seconds, 7027/s dps, 493734 total damage
= 421,620/minute, 17% difference

4. (60 sp build) 20 crit c., 40 crit d. 0 might
Total stats: 16,342 might, 34722 power
48.2 seconds, 7286/s dps, 351423 total damage
= 437,160/minute damage, 13% difference

Conclusion: I can't touch upon all the meaning of the data, but 3 things are kind of obvious:
1. Spending sp on maxing out crit chance and crit damage is still more important than might.
2. Most of your might still comes from gear, so the difference between someone who has 130 sp and 230 sp isn't mindnumbingly huge, which is nice to see.
3. The amount of might you have as a big effect on your total power, so do not expect to PftT with less than 175 in might probably.

PVP Feedback:

There is a bug with the LVL 10 PVP Rookie breakout trinket that you can buy all the way down in the pvp vendor. Is providing an extra 15,000 toughness both inside and outside arenas.

Here is the bug in test server:

PVP FEEDBACK

There is another bug, now related to block inside arenas. Check the video, it seems even blocking, you receive around 50% from incoming damage.

I have to say that I'm really confused developers...
You said that you wanted to make power matter and now you say that you don't want to make power matter anymore?

And we still have power problems with play from the tray dps and yet you let us use only 175 sp to get power...

Why not let us get more power with sp by increasing the cap of might+ power ?

Seems like power mastery should not exist in pvp.

Here's an example about the power issues.Now having 3 of those in a raid , can you imagine what would happen?

Having more power would help...

: It is safe to say that weapons are as far from balanced as ever. More info in Fatal Star's thread about Weapons!

For example, all of Martial arts' melee combos are doing about same damage.
What we are used to is the more taps/holds the combo requires the higher the last part of the combo should hit.
In this case we should see significantly increased clipped weapon dps potential between shorter and longer Martial Arts combos.

The more inputs required, the longer animation time and increased risk of interruption so the reward at the end should be worthy.

SP feedback:

1) Could you give us a system that when you choose the amount of the SP that you want to put instead of click YES and YES for every SP that you spend?

2) Could you give us also the Power attached on Restoration attribute in the same way that happens with Might and Power?

For the second one, attach power to all innates except for precision, but don't let the 10% buff stack with multiple stat bubbles. That should help fix the power issue support roles are having.

Yes, I think that it works better. Agree 100%.

1)I agree.
2)Or they can just create a Power stats alone which trollers,healers and dpses (that want to have more power) can put their sp in.