Test Discussion Atomic Powers

Isn't the weapon buff supposed to be able to clip other powers?

Yes, it does.

Karasawa and I were BSing on TS yesterday and brought this up.

What if combos healed based on how many mobs were around you? Or maybe how many were getting hit? This would incentivize combos during large groups, and I know the tech is already there as Rage gets their buff based on mobs in proximity.

Only proton remedy, density, and the breakout in the 1st tree are the heals that can crit. Atomic combos proc'ing 40% dom ticks and health ticks from the 2% health may say crit but won't actually have a change in value.

And to tack this descriptor on:

"Your atomic combos cause increased heals based on the amount of enemies surrounding you, as you are able to collect more matter and add it to your own."

Or some bs like that

I appreciate everyone's feedback about the Tank things. To be clear I am not against some damage absorption but it has to not be active while blocking. In fact internally I have been testing the Quark-Gluon Aura with 10% damage absorption that turns off when you block. It works well and allows for some mitigation while you re-position or throw non-Atomic Combo powers. However, to get the same addition without the same upside I could increase the Dom heals to 46% or increase the Health heals to 2.8%.

Personally, I like the damage absorption option and I think from most of the comments you all do too. I just want everyone to realize it won't help with blocking. Thoughts?

i feel increasing the heals either way does nothing to help with incoming spike damage. so it has to be something tied to the aura. absorption is fine, it has to be played with though to see how it feels.

i know in an effort to get this out live asap, you are probably looking to find the most correct and quickest solution. if something "new" cant be added to the aura mechanic, absorption tied to the aura only is definitely the way to go.

Since both you and we want a tough non-blocking tank I am all for modifications that don't stack with blocking, but allow us to survive! I'd recommend more than 10% absorption though. (25%?)

I definitely prefer mitigation to healing. I would like the healing buffed though.

Also Spord can you please tell us why healing bonuses and crits don't affect Atomic combos proc'ing 40% dom ticks and health ticks from the 2% health which may say crit but don't actually have a change in value? I personally think heal crits should apply to all healing, but if they don't for some reason, I'd like it to be explicitly stated somewhere (so you don't get a bunch of complaints when it goes live) and then not have the CRIT comments pop up.

I much rather have the absorption as lace said that helps out a lot in spike heals are nice but absorption is better coming from an earth tanks perspective give

I think that sounds like a great way to do it.

Also with blocking we have fortify block

the damage absorption option is probably the best route as it like you said offers the mobility to move while aura is up and along with the defense to keep us from getting killed while getting into position. and its passive so that even if countered or knocked back will still be effective

were the alternate route of the increased healing is nice but would not save us in a situation were you cant breakout or move or use a power to get those life saving heals

edit or side note : have you had any thought on fractures power cost I know i mentioned it before but it feels too high for the tier and its use

second edit: if it turns off while blocking will using a breakout also turn it off because they do still cause the vulnerability window to a block-break that would be my only fear but i agree that the extra mitigation isn't needed while blocking to hold true to the idea of a active tank

10% absorption while out of block is the equivalent of 2.5% additional mitigation for a total of 77.5%. To put that in persepective a 100k hit while out of block would be 25k without the change and 22.5k with it. That's a differense of 2.5k damage on a 100k hit. It helps but is it enough is the question. And again what are you basing the 40% and 2% on. What made you settle on those numbers in the first place? What test are you doing to come up with that? That would help us understand a little better and possibly provide a better bit feedback.

What about an additional HoT getting added to the Aura? Hots are great because they are passive heals and we don't have to do anything(other than the get and keep the aura) to have them. Passive heals are great because they purely additive. They don't help in lessening a hit, but they do help in healing the damage from that hit faster. A 1% health heal hot with the Aura? And to keep it from being more beneficial to blockers(Ie get the aura then go into block and get a hot that helps keep you alive) make the Molecular charges enhance the HoT up to a cap that falls off if you don't keep the combo up. So maybe getting the aura grants a 1%health HoT, gaining a molecular charge increases this by 1% up to 5%. Then just straight remove the 2% health heal on hit so we are left with a net buff of 3% health/s as long as you continue to combo?

Literally the first time it has been brought up? What? I made the below on page 7. At least 10 people agreed with the post. Before I made the post there were a few people that also brought up lack of survivability while outright blocking. I highlighted the portion of the post that is relevant. All of my other feedback points have been addressed.

Feel free to reread, follow the post link, read posts in pages 5-7 and continue with the current post.

The problem is when Atomic blocks it effective Health is whatever the 75% Damage Prevention (80% with Fortified Blocking) converted would give + the Health a normal Tank gets. All Tanks get the same Damage Prevention rating because their natural Defense x 3 because of Block / CR differential scale value = the Damage Prevention cap (as stated above). While Blocking all Defense increases are null and void. HOWEVER every Tank has a way to increase their effective Health while blocking 100% of the time. Atomic does not. These are:

1. Fire - A very large static Health increase based on flat percentage of their Health + a portion of their Dominance. This typically gives them a very good effective Health rating while blocking.
2. Ice - Easily rotated shields. This at a minimum gives them an additional effective Heath rating of Health + Restoration + Dominance (could go up some of the time). This can give a fairly good effective Health rating while blocking.
3. Earth - A static 50% Damage Absorption buff which can either rival or match Ice. Their effective Health rating can be a combination of both them and their pet or just them alone.
4. Rage - A stacking Health buff that can sustainably increase as they need more help. Their effective Health can be extremely high but at a minimum has an addition small increase from their Health and large portion of their Dominance.

At a very minimum Rage beats Atomics effective Health by at least 10%. If after Damage Prevention is factored in, and all Tanks mentioned have a Health rating of 30 0000, and Atomic takes total number of 30 000 or more in 1-2 seconds an Atomic Tank is dead. Most other Tanks will have somewhere in the ballpark of 9000 Health. Now sure if the hits were lesser Atomic would survive and then get 600 Health back after those hits from their aura making their effective Health 30 600 compared to Rage's at least 33 000 (more because Dominance was not factored in). An Atomic Combo may get in on time but it would have to be timed precisely.

That is hoping that Atomic will not die in those couple seconds. Density can help, yes, every rotation cycle but no more than that.

Now I am not saying Atomic necessarily has problems in current content but since Atomic is a powerset you have to consider every single scenario involving Atomic in tier appropriate gear from tiers 0-7. Because the community in general requires 1 Tank all of these should be considered with 1 Tank. I can name various scenarios where even an Ice Tank with consistent shielding had their shield pop, survived yes, but needed a lot of healing and going through pretty sturdy shields.

The thing is the feedback is directly related to when an Atomic Tank blocks. The problem is that Atomic is basically an Ice Tank without shields. It is the only Tank with an effective Health rating equal to their gear. It will be the only Tank that will have survivability close to a Healer when blocking with Fortified Blocking.

I know you want Atomic to block for a) counters and b) the new "death" effect that just checks if you are blocking or not. However scenarios where effective Health will matter include but limited to:

• Adds + Ares in Throne of the Dead Normal
• Adds in Throne of the Dead Elite
• Second and final boss + adds in Love & War
• Paradox Tyrant + side boss + adds in Paradox Wave
• Phased boss + 2 out of phase bosses + adds in Nexus of Reality
• Any speed run involving clumping adds together from various rooms.
• Final bosses in Assault & Battery
• Drones + Brainiac in Prime Battleground
• Boss + various adds during any part of Power Core and center tentacles/taking shots from Avatar of Meta

All of these completed with a full group at tier, etc. I know some of them you could say "just use 2 Tanks" the problem is while these were indeed hard to pull off they could be pulled off by 1 one of the other Tanks solo. The community got it done because the other powersets allowed for it. a lot of them done because of effective Health while blocking or effective Health overall.

Active and passive healing is nice but neither help if "you just die" out of nowhere doing something that is expected of you as a Tank because another Tank powerset in the past has accomplished it.


This is my long winded way of saying that if you are worried about making block better then why are you worrying? That is what the feedback is centered around. If you are worried about making non-blocking better than why not use the Fortified Blocking methodology and adding bonuses only when you block? Or lower the 90% pass Defense buff and exchange it for an equal amount of Damage Absorption. This way while not blocking you have roughly the same survivability. While blocking you gain the flat Damage Absorption as effective Health.

I know Damage Absorption does not directly translate to Damage Prevention but to keep it simple say you added 20% Damage Absorption. If the Defense boost translated to 70% Damage Absorption you could take away an effective 20% Damage Absorption from the Defense boost. This way while not blocking: 20% + 50% = 70% but while blocking: 70% + 20% = 90% (Fortified Blocking excluded). You would help an Atomic Tank that is forced into block (either because of lack of ability to do combos, whatever) a better experience. You also help an Atomic mitigate attacks that don't have the "death" check as well such as older ones.

I hope you get what I mean since this post is long and I should end it.

I very much like the idea of increasing the heals as it feels more unique, but I think most people would go for the absorption because it feels "safer." I am very curious now how it's calculated that 46% dominance heals or 2.8% health heals are equivalent to 10% absorption. Are there any other heal-based solutions on the table?

If we do get absorption I think Atomic really will feel like the jack-of-all-trades tank with its own version of Ice's defense boost, Fire's stoke flames, Earth's absorption, and Rage's active tanking.

We don't wanna block, I love how atomic tank plays, jus you have to be over geared to play the no block at active style most of us want.

Im not going to go into it all but it ultimately comes down to this. The developers have the idea that this tank should not block unless to avoid the one shot mechanics. If you feel there are instances it still needs to block then the problem isn't with the effective health while blocking, the problem is with the core concept of this tank mechanic and the mechanics in the game not meshing well........very similar to the old issue of melee dpsing not being viable due to mechanics in the game. Most of your list involved large add pulls. If that is the case suggest something to add NOT involving blocking to help with that. This is another risk/reward tank. The risk is comboing is counter able and you are constantly out of block(ie not getting the 80% mitigation and effective health boost other thanks get). The reward is you don't have to play like a turtle. So suggest something to fix it so that we maintain the theme of not needing to block instead of suggesting things that would help a blocking tank. If you want to play a tank that blocks go fire or Earth.

Not critting happens for many of the games mechanics that are meant to be flat calculated numbers much like how Berserk and Time Bomb's AM damage don't crit and how the heals from rage mode can't crit either. They are not meant to exceed the calculated values for them.

I think some damage mitigation is critical. I am fine with the mitigation not working in block. As it stands now with out mitigation atomic will be a victim of one shots in hard content.

Personally, I think Atomic should be a mix of the other 3 tank types

1 Fire - give Atomic some type of health buff/healing through powers
2 Ice - raise def/indirect health buff via shields
3 Earth - give some dmg absorb/ health buff via pet
4 Rage - give passive self healing/health buff via powers and enemies

For the most part we are there with Atomic. It seems as if tweaking some of the values is all that is left so that Atomic is as viable as any other tank for content (e.g., spike damage, managing lots of adds) and being able to do this while being active - ie not blocking.

Given the above I think a health buff is necessary, shorten the combo times (to help with control effects issues), add dmg absorb to aura, and increase the healing from both the aura and the combos. This might make atomic slightly op for smaller group content but may be necessary for the more difficult content. Consider tying increases to the length of time out of block - in other words tie some increased benefit to being active (more than just a combo and the aura activating power).