Please before finalizing this ally… listen to the feed back and take it into consideration … as it is now this will do nothing for the combo power players.
I get that combo powers need some love and that people really want this ally to be usefull...but man...some of thing that are being asked here are just unrealistic (dont wanna say ridiculous).
You tought about alot there, nice work! There also would be another aspect, which would be using a short combo to boost iconic abilitys. However i wouldn´t know how to avoid people from doing that. Even if the ally would only proc when beeing HL, Rage, Celest only. Also, i´m unsure if people talk HL/Celest bad, since they´re able to do pretty good base damage. However i noticed the same issue with John Stewart not really giving an increase in damage (I checked multiple times if he even gives the 6% might and he does, but i can´t see it in output numbers, as seen in screenshots below) Melee AOE with Ally: Melee AOE Stats: Melee AOE without Ally: Its pretty much same damage if we calculate hits/crits, however its easier to see with my single target loadout. Range ST with Ally: Range ST Stats: Range ST without Ally: Using ally 181 hits with 22,1% crits 210.366s and without ally 181 hits with 21,5% crits 211.700s That´s close to no difference while making full use of the proc duration. Loadout is handclap combo spam, keeping it on cooldown all time (requires base mods to be power instead of health, HP worthless anyway without defense...as you can check when removing rings/neck you get lower incoming damage but that´s another story). Not used OP Back, due to damage not counting when Sparring Target at 0 HP stunned.
idk, its a legendary ally which takes a lot of investment with f2p method. and for some reason every legendary ally so far has 1 useful passive and other passive is decent/useless, at that point just make them epic rarity instead.
We need new movement abilities and a new power like “portal magic” to where you can summon different beast magical blades at your will
I believe, a big issue is people either showing their damage parsers in 10s intervals and/or make use of finishers on Sparring-Targets when they´re below 35% HP, or the others who don´t know good loadouts and/or different Artifacts other equipment. Due to that, we would have to check which powers would truly need a buff and which powers don´t. Example: Water ST with Finisher at Sparring Target Some of those people would go and say "Oh, it does 232k/s", while the truth would be that its first only 10s so not the average and secondly with finisher against a target below 35%. True numbers would be 175k/s Doing it correctly would be like this, Atomic ST midrange: Celest ST midrange: Both parsers are average, which means they will constantly do damage around those numbers, obviously can differ with crits. Midrange since its possible to do so in many raids. Therefore, it seems like the powers which been talked bad are one of the better ones. It also shows that powers differ individualy, creating an Ally which should boost all combo powers doesn´t result in balance, it would break it even more. Additionally, Hardlight and Rage been never created to be range AOE, they dont even have the abilitys for that, Hardlight became range effective with AM combos and its boost. Combo powers ST tier list: (With Grim, Trans, Ebon Artifacts) 1. Hardlight ~210k/s 2. Celest ~200k/s (You might get higher results with Plague, however this one more beginner friendly and you dont lose as much output if combo interrupted) 3. Atomic ~190k/s 4. Earth/Rage/Water same level at around 175-180k/s average since they mostly played with Heat Vision, Finishers unless someone shows better loadouts/results with those. I think that shows which combo powers (If seen as true combo power) would truly need help.
Not sure what you are trying to share here. The Atomic and Celestial loadouts used in the screenshots aren't rotations that would ever be used at all for any viable rotation. Also testing for combo abilities using pets like RSK and Grim don't serve a purpose, nor would any might player be using Grim as an artifact anymore.
What did you just wrote there? It does not make sense. 1. Those midrange combos shown in screenshot do more damage. 2. Robot Sidekick gives free DPS, since we´re not needing all ability slots. Mainly players not using it, is due to them not having enough power, where i already stated above what to do. 3. Grim is used instead of Strat, since it doesnt proc as often with "only a few big hits", therefore we take its extra damage plus it apply´s power interactions, which will cause additional damage for used combos. I don´t get the intention behind this, show us how you would do it...there are always multiple ways. If it´s more output, even better. If it´s less, feel free to use mine.
You tested on a sparring target giving you power back. Go test the real effects of your rotation without it giving you power and you’ll see why the ally needs more power reduction and might increases.
Well, the intention was to show which power sits where, compared to each other. And yes those rotations do require a troller, which i believe they meant for besides stunning, buffing or debuffing. Obviously this Ally is useless as it is now, nothing to debate about there. However im quite confused that it´s a lantern ally with the intention to help HL, since people said it would need help while that would not be the case compared to the other combo powers, which i wanted to prove there.
I know it was mentioned in obsidians video that only the combo powers like atomic rage and celestial and light should have this. I disagree water, would 4 sure have it with ebb and flow and tsunami strike. Both highly used combos.so should earth with jackhammer and upheaval But I agree tumbling mastery and dashing combos not so much. And yes 6% for 10 secs is not worth lvling this ally
To not make this ally any more complicated and keep it the way it is I will buy this ally if it gives 20% might + 50% power reduction for 12 seconds or 15% might + 50% power reduction for 15 seconds. 30 second cooldown. I also agree with Obsidian that it should only work on Combo Based Powersets such as Light, Celestial, Atomic, and Rage because other powersets like Earth, Munitions, and Water need their own ally and a buff like that clearly would benefit them more than the combo based powersets so they shouldn't be able to use it neither should whirling dervish or tumbling master be able to proc it to keep other powers from using it and stacking too much might (Nature Poison Ivy).
The issue with all this is, that it would be a "Game-Changer", however that could be defined as pay2win. Instead they should tackle the cause in its roots and keeping allys as "cherry on the top". What they should do for Might is changing the Skill-Tree "Focus: Superpowered" to have powercost reduction or higher regeneration. For Precision they should stop the glitching with movement abilitys, that would allow people to choose from more weapons since only brawling and dual wield beeing used due to that. And truly is the reason for precision beeing better. Another factor would be that people with higher delay to the server won´t be able to do the dual wield weapon mastery effectivly. Therefore Allys shouldn´t "balance" the game, and "glitching" shouldnt be a gameplay method.
I understand that but their motive isn’t to change powers at the moment. They hardly are making an effort to do so just yet. Just a few abilities were changed last year. The only way to fix powers at the moment is through the ally system. If this works for the time being until they actually rework powers then I’m taking it. And they need to fix all bugs before they even touch anything dealing with powersets first and they have thousands of bugs.
I'm really late to the testing ballgame this time around, hopefully this is still a relevant window of time for feedback. Some notes before I get into it - I have always tested these damage-oriented artifacts/allies on a Single Target sparring dummy using the lazy HC/GH combo. I try not to introduce a finisher unless I need to (Ebon's for example) because that can introduce damage at odd times when I'm going for consistency over 30s averages. As such, I am just using Grim/Strat/Trans and a RSK. Since part of John's perks is reduction in power costs, I wanted to use things that made power out painful. I'm not going for "max damage," I'm going for % comparisons between different ally setups. Let's start with what I really like, and what I think will be unpopular opinions after reading this thread: I like John Stewart's buff over Batman Who Laughs. John's is consistent, if you're HL you know you're going to get it every 30s while you're in a boss fight. Which, at end-game, is where most time is spent. BWL's is a chance of a damage buff. It's also not as apparent when you have it. I try to ignore the cards above my head and so don't always pay attention to see when Batman came up. Also, there are 4 cards, so unless they're weighted, you can expect to get Batman 25% of the time. So over a 120s timespan, you'd get 20s of buff, possibly while moving or during a shield phase. For John, you'd get 40s, and you have to be actively doing combos, so...less likely to have it be during down-time. I like John Stewart's buff over Shazam's. There are benefits to Shazam's buff - you choose when it procs because you activate that combat ally. However, a lot of times, folks use their allies when it isn't safe for them to do damage themselves (reflect phases/high movement phases). If you do that, you lose part of Shazam's 30s timer, and I think the shortest ally timer is 90s. John's, meanwhile, is going to proc while you're doing damage. Chances are, you'll be able to do damage that whole 10s, and if not, it comes back around a lot sooner. They're both effectively 30s buff over 90s. There are a couple things I think can be improved upon: Chill mentioned earlier that Corps Combo should only be able to be proc'd by certain things. I'd second this. 110% tumbling master should come off the things that can proc it. At the very least, I think this needs to be combo powers that start from the tray. I find the power back on this negligible. I applaud the thought of adding it. I wish I knew the math behind the reduction because I can tell you it "feels" not good, but it's hard to pinpoint how to improve. If you're reliant on Cyborg or Oracle today, John Stewart isn't going to alleviate that strain. If I level this on live, it'd be to replace BWL, not Cyborg.
"Their motive isn´t to change powers at the moment", that´s not what i´ve written. I wrote change the whole "Focus: Superpowered", which would affect all powers and which they could change within 30 minutes. They "Mepps" or whoever told you/the forum/playerbase something different which is a lie, looking at it from a indie-developer perspective. What i also saw alot "They are new developers and they don´t know the code" Another lie and the biggest ******** people been spreading, if they wouldn´t understand code...they would be working in the wrong position, truth is understanding old code is easier as writting new code, that´s why programmers copy&paste that much. However, what their "motive" is we all can´t know. If they just to lazy or not allowed to change those aspects, who knows. And if their intent is to "balance" powers with allys, i can tell you...it won´t work and you got the best example with John Stewart now. On top of that, it would be beneficial for probably just 5-10% of the players who are willing to buy and level the ally. The issue is way older than most players even play this game, and it started when they added Weapon Mastery to the game. With that they had to reduce the "base" weapon combo damage, which ruined the hybrid damage dealer style the game had and the game been introduced with when it came out. The flaw been not many weapons had "range" combos and people only used blockbreakers till they came up with weapon mastery and it wasn´t to bad, only issue been to many people had to use their weapon to be top tier and alot complained which let them to develop AM which been intended to allow "powers only playstyle" which worked for that time, however with that they changed combo powers to be might based instead of precision which been the worst mistake they could make, since it was carefully considered in past to make all combos, weapon or ability precision based, without them eating power (the combo itself, not the ability usage). Let´s say they would give the skill tree "focus: superpowered" a power cost reduction, what would that cause/mean...then other roles would spec that aswell and we all can imagine where that leads to, if they however add negative values like -10% rest, dom, vita whatever it could be prevented. That would be the easiest solution and not much work for them but at the end whatever, if it came to the point of where we have to worry about them taking 30mins of their time to work on the game, then don´t expect anything to ever go into the right direction.
As the John Stewart ally stands, he doesn't feel worth the effort required to level him. If you're going to leave him as is, without buffing either the might buff (as per other suggestions), then he should be an Epic (purple) ally, rather than Legendary.
Howdy everyone, Ranmaru here I'll meet again with CB and go over some balance ideas with him but I wanted to go ahead and clear up some confusion that I've been seeing with some posts. 1. % stat buffs - While I love these, with most things you have to be very careful as to how high you can set these and grant them to players. As I'm sure you all know % stat buffs apply additively[1] so as we add more sources or % bonuses it can quickly spiral out of hand which I want to avoid. 2. Allies are a means to balance underperforming powers - While there is a level of truth to this idea, I would say that its moreso if I think a powerset sucks. In order for it to be competitive with powersets that are strong naturally(or through other sources) it might need more assistance but the intent is not to try to use a secondary system to solve a problem with a primary system; its simply that the task of a power rebalance is far greater than that of making an ally. As just of a more general note, we have a vector of how strong I want allies to be and I try to keep them all around the same level with some outliers[2] when making an effect there are a few vectors that allow us to ramp up the strength of the effect. Difficulty of the activator In terms of activators the difficulty is different for every type of activator so it is a case by case basis but i'll just present some that come to mind and explain the thought process Calculator passive - activator: Take damage. Difficulty is super easy so something like this I would apply something like a 20%-30% debuff on whatever desired effect I wanted[3] BWL passive 2 - activator: Time. Difficulty Super easy as well so I'd do the same as above. Nubia passive 1 - activator: Breakout. Difficulty Medium, its not something you can guarantee will happen nor will it happen at exactly the time desired so it would get somewhere between a 10-15% mult. DMB passive 2 - Activator: Cast an ability. Difficulty easy, this would likely get a 0% modifier since just asking to cast an ability is not something hard nor is it something that happens with 0 input. Desirability of the activator This basically means, do people want to actually do the activator/ do they do the activator already and if they don't do the activator how inconvenient is the ask. Using the same list as above I'll go over it again and describe how this vector works. Calc passive - Desirability: DPS - Low Tank - High. This one actually has 2 options so we then look back at what the effect is doing to see how it should be adjusted. Since it is granting health which is something a tank would like we have the desirability set to high which would incur another 20-50% debuff depending on exactly how high it would be rated. BWL passive 2 - Desirability: High - Since you don't have to do anything this effect is awesome since waiting is something you will do anyways and now you get rewarded for doing so. This would be around a 35% debuff Nubia passive 1 - Desirability: Medium - Since any time you get stunned you will want to use a breakout anyways so its not all that terrible but that also means you cannot activate it on demand so it should get something like a 10-15% mult. DMB passive 2 - Desirability - (Ability specific) Low - while rolling is something players do preform, asking them to lower their dps for an increase in dps is a rather dubious ask. Misc mults Uptime - If something has 100% uptime it should be weaker than something with 50 or 20% uptime Randomness - If you cannot reliably activate it or cannot control exactly what happens then it should be stronger to compensate for that. Charges - If you only get X number of empowered effects then it should compensate for the loss of effect vs a flat duration. Stacks - if it takes time to hit 100% efficiency it should compensate for that demand There is of course plenty of other things that I could talk about, but I'd rather keep it simple and just have some short notes for you guys. That being said its always an ongoing process and I have no problem talking and bringing up ideas about how things could be better. As always thanks for y'alls time and feedback it is mightly helpful when working on things of this delicate nature so I appreciate the time you guys give to us so that we can continue to improve this great game we all play. -Ranmaru [1] That means if you had 1000 might and got a 20% might boost from another source you'd have 1200 might, and then from an ally you are get a 10% might boost you would have 1300 might. [2] Cyborg passive, Krypto/HoL bot, weighting on BWL, Nubia proc effects,WW passives to name a few that might under or over preform. [3] Lets say for example that I wanted the effect to be converts 10% of damage taken to hp, if the activator was calc's passive I would instantly lower it by 20% so it would now be 8% but that might change as we add more modifiers.
