ATT SOE DEVS: Mental damage base values need adjusting immediately.

You're missing the point entirely. Who is the better DPS isn't a tough thing to decide. The issue is the power set, not the player skill. I mentioned it above, and I'll say it one more time so you can read it again:

A good mental player can beat a mediocre hard light player. That doesn't mean that Mental is better than Hard Light. It just means that the Mental Player was better than the Hard Light Player. Hard Light can STILL be better than Mental, but the player just sucked.

I am suggesting that your testing is not yielding the results you claim them to due to a flaw in your technique. I'll admit I went too far in trying to guess what that flaw was. I see where you can take offense to that. I wouldn't frivolously make that suggestion but I did take the time to do my own testing for about 2 hours specifically on the PI damage of Psychic Shock, Phantom Flames, and Menace.

I take theory-crafting seriously and make sure there is parity between my calculations and in-game results. I used theory-crafting to reverse my results to base numbers and observed that they match existing published results. I then took those same base numbers to fact-check your results and found a discrepancy. All I had to do was change the modifier and your results match my testing and my calculations. In addition my testing showed your numbers for Phantom Flames to be flat out wrong.

I invite you to attempt to derive base numbers from your results and you'll see that instead of the typical variation of less than .01 (due to reversing the effects of rounding), you'll find variations in the .2 to .4 range which is too great to be due to rounding. I also invite a third party to test and verify both of our results.

I made my own tests and I'm not actually seeing the exact same damage as you listed, Disaster, at least between each of the interaction damages. Not to mention, I realized you forgot to factor in Cryokinesis' double tick. With 983 Might, no crits, no DLC6 mods, damage done on Sparring Targets, and with a 35% damage bonus, I'm getting the following:

Code:

TK Push: 192-248
Psy Res: 205-242
Pyro: 186-236
Cryo: (124+43) to (168+99) or 167-267
Menace: 186-248
Psy Shock: 186-248
Phantom: 174-192

How you got the same numbers with all the power interaction damage is beyond me.

Drift, your numbers match my results and calculations. I can plug your might into my chart and see all of your values at 35% and then reverse them to base values. Your base damage numbers match previously published results also.

TK Push: 31-40
Psy Res: 33-39
Pyro: 30-38
Cryo: (20+7) to (27+16) or 27-43
Menace: 30-40
Psy Shock: 30-40
Phantom: 28-31

I am not missing the point at all, it is the fact that our stats and the way the fights are set up dictate how well a dps actually performs. Any monkey can push a few buttons and say i did top dps as long as they know how to clip in this game. The fact that power out from controllers is so insane it enables players to spam stuff to lay waste things faster.

Think back when this game first released and raids were done with limited power and not overgeared players. The top dmg scores at the end of the raid were usually held by dot based powersets because they were the most power efficiant. I used to top dmg scores at the end of raids by 200-300k on my nature dps by just using dots and spreading them while using duel pistols. Was that any indication that my dmg was actual good dps? No, it just ment i was able to manage my power more efficiently because players were at a limitation because controllers couldn't give you back massive amounts of power.

Because our stats only got better and power cost for powers stayed the same it was only natural that burst powersets became better dmg in raids because they weren't limited by power restrictions. Had there been a power cost increase as players aquired better gear/skill points i can almost bet you that the powersets we see now as top dps wouldn't be in that boat.

The top dps in raids could change at the drop of a hat when new stuff is released if they push the limits of controllers on power out to the raid.

I am not debating that we have a current top powerset for dmg i am just saying that these powersets are being enabled by high powerout from controllers to be in that top slot or else they wouldn't be there.

Just a tip for future testing. Eliminate the modifier completely. Switch to Controller stance where all damage is 100% even and keep your your Damage gear on. As long as you don't have any points spent on Dominance your total Dominance should be 100 at level 30. That should not impact any of your damage or stun effects and if it does it is easy to eliminate as you should never be changing your Dominance. Damage modifiers are the bane of testing and they should be eliminated completely when doing any sort of comparison. They only cause confusion during the discussion.

The second thing you want to do for pure comparison purposes is to eliminate your gear as a factor and reset your skill points. Especially if you test on sparring targets you will kill them too fast with full gear. If you kill sparring targets too fast they will a) stop all damage while they regen their Health or b) take you out of combat, both of these actions stop all damage.

Take off your gear when testing and make sure you out of combat when you test. The lower your get Might the better.

Third if you test with Power Interactions make sure it is always setup before you test the trait that relies on. The interaction is useless if don't do it before. I noticed a post where you stated you clipped the consumable with the trait you were testing. Don't do this. Use the consumable before the trait you are testing.

So long story short when testing trait effectiveness always:

1. Test in your support role. This ensures that your damage modifier is constant and cannot be overwritten. 100% for Gadgets, Mental and Light; 75% for Nature, Sorcery and Electricity and 80% for Ice, Fire and Earth. Use these modifiers to figure out base numbers.
2. Take your gear off when testing to lower your Might & Precision as long as possible.
3. When testing a trait do so only after you are out of combat
4. If you are testing a Power Interaction it always needs to be applied before the trait you are testing.

This gives you accurate and consistent numbers because you are testing under a controlled environment.
P.S. Sore I will post this in your stat testing guide for reference.

This is problematic when you're testing Defense Debuff powers.

You're ignoring the underlying assumption of the entire thread's purpose (i.e. missing the point): 'all things being equal, Mental is lacking damage potential.'

Yes, back when we had weaker trollers, DoT's ruled. And now that we have stronger trollers, burst rules. But if you give burst DPS some crappy trollers, the DoT's would rule that raid, even today, because the trollers are crappy. And, if you give us new content, even with current trollers, if the adds can last longer, DoT's will rule, yet again! And if you make a damage chart that calculates only damage done to objects, sorcery would've ruled before the update!

Hypothetical situations can cater to anyone's point. The entire thread is about the individual numbers that Mental puts out on its own, regardless of player skill. If the base damage of a power set is significantly smaller than that of another power set, then two players of equal skill will always result in one power set above the other.

Sounds like someone's testing is all messed up = D

Nope. The defense debuff is constant so factor that in as a new term in the equation or only test the trait when the target is not debuffed, wait for the debuff to clear and test again.

Mind explaining? If you are implying that my Dominance number is wrong it isn't. At level 30 your Dominance is always at least 50 but switch to Controller and it comes to 100. Dominance does not have an effect on damage in most cases but if anyone discovers that it does than eliminating it as a factor is easy to do as it twould not change. If that is not what you are implying that I am lost...

'Keep your gear on for effective testing. Take your gear off for effective testing.'

'Twas what you said, good sir.

If you want your gear to be a factor. If you look at the steps in context each one illustrates a sequentual change in the way the OP should be testing and the most important of these is to make sure your damage modifier is consistent (ie switching to Controller, 100%). You took my post out of context.

Mental is an odd duck though. It has a mix of dot and burst powers combined into one power. If you don't walk a fine line on base dmg you end up with another steel epidemic. Unless they take away the dot component or the burst on the begining of the powers with dots on the end you will end up with to much dmg for the power cost.

I could reply directly and say that testing with and then without gear would yield the same proportional results because all the gear does is modify the base results according to your stats. And if you account for that modification then it makes no difference.

Or I could say that 'I noticed a post where you stated you clipped the consumable with the trait you were testing. Don't do this. Use the consumable before the trait you are testing,' is a strange statement to make because clipping consumable with a trait means that the chain starts with the consumable first, and then the trait. So your follow-up request is for him to do exactly what he is doing.

Or I could say that in DPS role with damage modifiers, you can account for the modifier, and it remains a controlled environment. The modifier for [Insert any attack here] will remain [Insert accompanying modifier here] at all times. This makes it a controlled environment. It's just that if you want to find base numbers, you account for the modifier. If you want to just do what a lot of these guys are doing and post the numbers you get before and after the modifier, you still yield similar, proportionally greater results (because it is still the base numbers modified by your stats, modified by the damage modifier, all of which are given and can be accounted for in whatever equation you are using).

There is nothing wrong with your form of testing. It will yield accurate results and get the numbers needed to create charts to measure damage by. But there's no statistical difference between what these guys are doing and what you're asking them to do other than aesthetic representation.

Yes! Stack or dots and burst away. Although it feels like I just can't get all then powers I want on my load out if I want to go this route

Power cost is an interesting topic that Kristyana and I were both talking about a few days ago. That is to say, we were thinking that the only way to make trollers gearing up any more an important thing (that is, if trollers can already fill your bar as fast as you can empty it, does having more vit even matter? Do they NEED to gear up any more?), would be to scale power costs with CR, where the higher your CR is (the more power you have from gear) the higher the cost of your attacks will be given whatever tier they are on their respective trees.

But that's neither here nor there...

The solution that Disasterpiece is asking for, and something I could agree to, is the overall increase in base damage for higher tier powers in the mental tree. The increase doesn't have to be enormous, but it has to be significant enough that two players with equal skill can yield similar numbers in similar circumstances.

I totally understand that certain play-styles will reign over others given different circumstances (I made a rather long post about Sorcery vs. other healing powers in another thread about this sort of thing), and I know that DoT's will generally rule during content we are under geared for, while burst rules while we are overgeared. But the point is that Mental's burst is an insignificant one, and their DoT's are just as insignificant in comparison to their counter parts in other power sets. The mentality in this power set seems to be, 'Let's give Mental a little bit of both play styles, but because it has both, let's make it weaker,' as if somehow having to split power points between the two non-complementing play-styles isn't enough of a limp to walk on.

Except that a) if you stay in Damage stance there is the chance you will overwrite the damage modifier that you are trying to test with accidently whenever for whatever reason (which was implied by Sore when he checked the OPs numbers), in Controller stance there is 0 chance you can overwrite it, b) by having full Damage gear on you will kill your sparring target faster which may result in it resetting thus removing your damage or it taking you out of combat, removing your damage and c) in more general cases those consumables are used to clip long animation traits. They could be used the way you mentioned but they also could not be.

A controlled environment means the variables that you are not testing for have no or very little chance to change but instead the variable you are testing for is easily measured with little to no error. Accidently changing your modifier is a variable you can eliminate by switching roles. Making sure that you don't do enough damage so the sparring target does not have a chance to interfere with your damage eliminates that variable (and to a more extreme case making sure you start testing out of combat). Clarifiying that Power Interactions should be used before the trait you are testing eliminates the variable of the trait not using the Power Interaction.

The reasons above are why I made the suggestions that I did.

this is a great thread, I love all the points everyone is making and one way or the other I hope the Devs take notice of Mental (esp. the TK tree). We got a revamp of the illusions tree, we need one for the TK tree

I thought of the same thing for my Mental Single Target DPS toon. Wanted to use the thought bubble+pyrokinesis combo to full effect. Any idea on how much Dom I would need to make this single target build work Dis?