Book of Oa/Parallax:Ultimate Light Guide

Discussion in 'Oracle’s Database (Guides)' started by dr strangeonline, Mar 8, 2015.

  1. dr strangeonline Loyal Player


    So no changes other than adjusting the flat boost for the AM damage?.....

    Gets the job done I guess. I was hoping for some minor changes to improve the set along with the boosted damage.

    Thanks for posting what your parsing. I hope we can get the increased crit chance. It's way low compared to others.

    I think they've just adjusted the damage the melee powers we're doing(mostly) and that's why MT is still doing more damage. In some ways that makes sense since it's categorized a Melee power. Even though it can be cast from mid range. I'd like to see our mid range numbers improve some. It's just not feasible to Melee with our power set in certain area's due to all the Lunges.
  2. dr strangeonline Loyal Player

    Can someone ask Tunso in the Test Server Thread exactly what the changes are? I'm curious if they added a multiplier in certain range or whether they just adjusted the flat amount for certain powers. Mid Range should still improve damage wise a little bit judging from the parse(s) seen in that thread(and from Mighty).

    I'd still like to see Impact and Ram hit out to full range for 3 ticks and see them somehow work with the clipping mechanic. Or have it stated that the Clipping Mechanic is not an AM. That's really a misconception with the community and viewing Light to have two AM's. It has one way to deal advanced damage and another to refund power. The clipping mechanic is weak by the game's standard's(today).
  3. motionsick Well-Known Player


    I take it the above numbers in green are from 0-60sec? Multi-target? Is that 3 or 8?

    Single target on USPS I get ~13k/s on a single test dummy at 125CR (for comparison).

    Light
    o Increased damage for Advanced Mechanic Construct Combos.

    Not exactly super descriptive. I too was hoping for some AM tuning.

    eg: being able to buff during the combo frenzy, or drop a super or orbital. Maybe tune the SuperCharges to be PRECISION based, not Might. Allow the combo to be continued if certain conditions are met. Basically adding some sort of "burst" ability to the combo.

    But I guess I'll have to wait and see until more tests are done on the test server.
    • Like x 1
  4. dr strangeonline Loyal Player

    I just spent a little more time looking through the test server threads..... I'm honestly quite disappointed. The other powers(nature and Elect) are both getting AM tuning as well as increased damage.

    Our Melee AoE rotation looks to finally be hitting hard but won't be usable in most scenario's due it being all lunges. While other powers can cast their "Melee" abilities from mid range and do higher damage.

    The crit chance needs looked into as well.....

    Either Impact and Ram need that Melee based hit to deal heavy damage or we need a proximity multiplier.

    Getting the flat boost increased is okay.... Better than nothing but I'd still like to see some other things tweaked to improve the power overall with the AM.
  5. Mighty Committed Player

    I was really disappointed when I saw the three threads. In fact the league had some laughs comparing screenshots of the three posts between nature, light and elec. Nature and elec have some detail and some tuning and descriptions added. Light has one sentence. At this point this is a running joke. And yet folks still say light gets all the dev love.

    Tbh I think this update is going to be make-or-break for me. This past DLC got stale very fast. I hate the new Survival Mode, and SM has been what keeps me at it every night in the game. It's been a real struggle for me to stay on and stay positive about the game the past few weeks, in fact it feels like work as I'm trying to maintain a healthy league that's had some losses due to other games. The big green light at the end of the tunnel for me is this hope that they're going to finally really tune-up light and get it right, not leave it as an afterthought as its been in almost every update it's had since GU36.

    I really hope to see movement and give-and-take from the Dev team this week. If it hits live like this, I can definitely see myself bumping DCUO in my playtime priorities. Just had enough already.
    • Like x 2
  6. dr strangeonline Loyal Player


    I feel the same sadly.... I asked another user to post for me asking for clarification on what the inspiration buff exactly does for the flat boost. I believe its only increasing PREC. The crit chance should come up to.

    I also posed the question about 12.5 being considered Melee and how we'll need either a proximity multiplier or for IMP/Ram's third melee tick of damage to deal increased damage.

    Lastly I asked if there would be the possibility for other fine tunings. See below.
    • Snap Trap become's AoE as a combo. (60 degree cone)
    • Chompers become's full strength DoT.
    • Ram and Impact gain the ability to apply Dazing.
    • Inspiration will gain the ability to increase Combo damage for clipped combo attacks(not usable with Combo AM). In troller stance it will apply dazing from weapon/combo attacks.
    • Ram to become the defense debuff of the assault tree. No controller class besides Light has two defense debuffs that are both counterable from the tray.

    That would help both roles and may help the clipping am some. It's not their focus right now but it'd be nice to have this stuff done as well as increase damage ranges.
    Lastly I'd like to ask anyone that can access test to check how these changes will affect PvP. We don't want to just one shot people. These changes may mean a damage penalty to the AM is needed in arena's......
    Here's the link to the test thread for anyone interested. Maybe if you can post rib Tunso a little(friendly) about our one sentence adjustment.....o_O
  7. Mighty Committed Player

    I'm posting this here because, even though I have access to the test server, that account doesn't have access to the forums. I'm asking my pal Crappy Heals to copy-paste this for me, but here's my take on the HL updated for GU50 as it stands.

    ___

    I've run a handful of tests the past few days and I believe Light, as it stands on test now, is still not brought in line with other top damaging powers. I think the issue is the mid-ranged damage. I understand that AMs generally are being given a mid- or melee-range damage profile that's being balanced against themselves, and a full-ranged profile that's roughly balanced amongst other full-range AMs from other powers.

    I think one caveat is important here. Melee range and Mid-range in DCUO are two very different things. Melee moves are point-blank damage and often lunge a character at a boss ala claw, boxing, whipthrash, outrage and revenge, or are ineffective outside a very short range - ala eviscerate and blight. Right now, light's melee and rage's melee do comparable damage to many other powers' mid-range AMs. It seems to me like melee and mid-range have been balanced with each other, and I think this is a mistake.

    The risk associated with melee combos vs. mid-range AMs and combos is significantly different. I can mid-range any boss in T7, and really the only one I have an issue with is Stompa. I cannot, however, melee T7 bosses. Even simple weapon combos with AOE splash from the bosses will one-shot, or nearly one-shot a DPS. In fact, meleeing a group of T7 ads is even highly risky, much moreso than hitting them from 12.5 meters away. Further, mid-range combos and AMs are generally only vulnerable to interrupt, whereas melee combos are vulnerable to block. This is significant because a boss can be aggro'd to a tank and block and lay out a melee'ing player. It cannot do the same to a mid-range player.

    That said, my comparisons focus on the mid-range profiles of two top-tier DPS powers I'm proficient with in T7 (mental and Ice), and light, which I've played for nearly two years now.

    126 CR, 171 SP specced into all crits. Specced straight might with might-mix mods for Ice and Mental. Straight precision with precision mixed mods for light in the weapon-attack affinities, straight precision in the ability affinities.

    For ice and mental I had 10,049 might.
    For light I had 5006 precision.

    Mods were Max Damage, Core Strength and escalating might on ice and mental, relentless precision for light. Parse duration is 30 second intervals on the special test server sparring targets. I used robot sidekick with light and ice because I run those in my loadouts on live. I've included unedited, raw tape of these tests and hyperlinked them into the headers of the corresponding power on the chart below:

    Light ------------------------- Ice --------------------------- Mental -----------
    DPS ----- Crit% ----------- DPS ----- Crit% ------------ DPS ----- Crit%
    23,487 -- 24.2% ---------- 35,520 -- 35.1% ---------- 29,932 -- 29.4%
    26,261 -- 24.2% ---------- 33,047 -- 28.7% ---------- 30,071 -- 30.6%
    25,640 -- 30.1% ---------- 31,720 -- 28.9% ---------- 31,650 -- 37.0%
    25,102 -- 35.2% ---------- 32,957 -- 31.2% ---------- 29,887 -- 34.4%
    23,422 -- 21.7% ---------- 32,051 -- 27.4% ---------- 29,834 -- 33.9%
    27,519 -- 27.9% ---------- 36,500 -- 36.1% ---------- 29,406 -- 41.4%
    24,455 -- 22.8% ---------- 34,776 -- 31.6% ---------- 30,222 -- 32.3%
    24,961 -- 25.4% ---------- 31,329 -- 28.9% ---------- 36,322 -- 36.0%
    25,925 -- 24.0% ---------- 37,159 -- 33.9% ---------- 30,468 -- 30.6%
    26,227 -- 26.3% ---------- 31,874 -- 34.2% ---------- 34,234 -- 35.9%

    High: 27,519 -- 27.9% ------- 37,159 -- 33.9% ----- 36,322 -- 36.0%
    Low: 23,422 -- 21.7% -------- 31,329 -- 28.9% ----- 29,406 -- 41.4%
    Avg: 25,299 --------------------- 33,693 ----------------- 31,202 -----------

    Note on testing: For light, often people play the AM wrong. Reapplication of inspiration and dazing is a DPS loss. Further, when DPSing in mid-range, it's best to combo rapidly to maximize triple-ticks from ram and impact. When targets are at 35% health or lower, it's best to hold the duration of light blast to reap enhanced finisher damage, and then continue rapidly constructing. Also, the range of three-tick ram/impact is about a meter or two shorter than the range on arctic gust, mass terror, and a slew of other mid-range powers.

    As demonstrated above, the "buff to AM damage" is not yet significant enough to bring light in line with top-tier DPS powersets. I'd suggest buffing significantly the damage of the third tick of ram/inspiration. I have not done as extensive comparison testing at full range, but thumb nailing it, I think the full-range damage is good.

    Additional questions//requests going forward:
    1. The crit chance on light feels low. Was the "built in inspiration buff" designed to add a crit chance boost? It feels as if it's missing here.

    2. Can Snap Trap become an AOE combo ala John Stewart's attack?

    3. We are seriously lacking in passive damage. Would it be possible to make choppers a full-strength dot? This was an initial revision to the power last summer that was rejected at the time because spikequake was not getting a weapon mastery crit buff, and losing chompers as a burst move would have meant light had no wide-area, full-range burst to use with weapon mastery. Testers requested that spike quake be made the full-strength dot instead, but this was never done. Chompers was reverted on test and spike's WM issues has since been fixed.

    4. Can Ram and Impact gain the ability to apply and work with dazing?

    5. Please allow for a mechanic that prompts inspiration to increase combo damage (for clipped combo attacks only!). The combo/clip mechanic that existed before the extended combo mechanic represents the way many of us learned to play light and fell in love with the power. It is now a severely underpowered mechanic that performs extremely poorly on parses (less than half of the AOE damage of the extended combo mechanic, which is underpowered itself relative to other AMs).
    • It's totally understandable if this is not on the docket for GU50, but I think many of us would greatly appreciate some kind of word from your team on this and if it's going to be updated, or what the plans are for it.

    6. Reconfiguration of the defense debuff in the assault tree from whipthrash to ram. Currently light is the only controller power which has both defense debuffs vulnerable to counter from the tray.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.
    • Like x 1
  8. dr strangeonline Loyal Player

    [quote="Mighty, post: 3320897, member: 350350"snip[/quote]



    Our thoughts are almost the exact same. I've been talking with JonLegend and maybe crappy can post what I'm going to write below. But overall Light will fall behind due to not being able to use it's "Melee" abilities at mid range like other sets. Ideally we have a mechanic in place that could be used to let us capitalize on that design.

    Impact and Ram both deal a third tick of damage at 12.5 M or closer. That third tick could be used to increase our damage to the Melee level that other abilities/powers can do(EMP, MT, Time Bubble, Fury, etc) at mid range. All of those do more damage(or damage) at 12.5 M or closer. That third tick of damage is what should be boosted.

    The crit buff from inspiration does not appear to be active in the AM boost. It should. It's a small boon but should work with the AM.

    Chompers should become a full strength DoT.

    Having Snap Trap do damage in an AOE will differentiate the power from GH. It also would grant more versatility with power spec.

    Impact and Ram should apply dazing at the least so that players can jump right into their combo's instead of having to consider applying the PI when interrupted. It's also weird that Controllers have no passive way to apply their PI.

    I either want to hear confirmation that the clipping AM will get put on even terms with other AM's(and our combo AM). Or confirmation that its just a power refund mechanic. The damage it does is abysmal.

    This isn't damage related but still should be adjusted. Either Ram should be the defense debuff of the assault tree or Whip Thrash should have its vulnerability from the power tray to block removed. It no longer will have to be cast at mid range to apply the debuff due to the innate power change but is still very counterable. Bosses in PvE content block and no other controller gets put on their back for applying a debuff.

    Also on a side note I noticed last night(US PS4) that Whip Thrash wasn't applying the debuff when clipped. I'd land all 4 ticks of damage but the debuff wasn't applying consistently. That will likely be fixed but should get looked at to be sure.

    I hope these questions/issue's can at the least be addressed. Thank you for your time.
  9. dr strangeonline Loyal Player


    I saw in the Nature thread Spord mentioned removing the 3 sparring targets that hold a hit counter. Appearently they we're throwing off damage numbers. We may need to retake numbers after the other targets get updated to hold a hit counter soon.
  10. motionsick Well-Known Player



    Our thoughts are almost the exact same. I've been talking with JonLegend and maybe crappy can post what I'm going to write below. But overall Light will fall behind due to not being able to use it's "Melee" abilities at mid range like other sets. Ideally we have a mechanic in place that could be used to let us capitalize on that design.

    Impact and Ram both deal a third tick of damage at 12.5 M or closer. That third tick could be used to increase our damage to the Melee level that other abilities/powers can do(EMP, MT, Time Bubble, Fury, etc) at mid range. All of those do more damage(or damage) at 12.5 M or closer. That third tick of damage is what should be boosted.

    The crit buff from inspiration does not appear to be active in the AM boost. It should. It's a small boon but should work with the AM.

    Chompers should become a full strength DoT.

    Having Snap Trap do damage in an AOE will differentiate the power from GH. It also would grant more versatility with power spec.

    Impact and Ram should apply dazing at the least so that players can jump right into their combo's instead of having to consider applying the PI when interrupted. It's also weird that Controllers have no passive way to apply their PI.

    I either want to hear confirmation that the clipping AM will get put on even terms with other AM's(and our combo AM). Or confirmation that its just a power refund mechanic. The damage it does is abysmal.

    This isn't damage related but still should be adjusted. Either Ram should be the defense debuff of the assault tree or Whip Thrash should have its vulnerability from the power tray to block removed. It no longer will have to be cast at mid range to apply the debuff due to the innate power change but is still very counterable. Bosses in PvE content block and no other controller gets put on their back for applying a debuff.

    Also on a side note I noticed last night(US PS4) that Whip Thrash wasn't applying the debuff when clipped. I'd land all 4 ticks of damage but the debuff wasn't applying consistently. That will likely be fixed but should get looked at to be sure.

    I hope these questions/issue's can at the least be addressed. Thank you for your time.[/quote]


    All valid points I think. I agree there needs some additional tweaking or re-engineering. The critical mods do not seem to be working as expected. That and adjusting the 12.5M distance damage boost would help.

    Even if dmg/sec is higher right now it still seems 20-30% lower. I'm not sure HL would be able to keep up with "bursty" powers in real combat situations.

    Eg: Ice or Mental that hit for 70K+ every 4th power cast (on a single dummy), or mega-tonne hitting timebombs that have a Supercharge (or two) looped into the AM.
    • Like x 1
  11. motionsick Well-Known Player


    Why don't they just add 3 NPCs with the same CRs and health as the dummies, but re-spawn as soon as they die, but don't leave or attack.

    ???
  12. Mighty Committed Player

    Even then, I ran all three powers in the comparison on those targets and hit only those targets. The relative difference between the three should be the same, right?
  13. dr strangeonline Loyal Player

    yes. I'm questioning how big our increase is post update. Whether the damage increase is at the level it should be. I'm thinking its most likely that it is. It'd still be good to check though since we know that those dummies we're doing higher damage.

    Unless you used other dummies earlier. I haven't gone through and checked the post so I just wanted to put it out there.
  14. Mighty Committed Player

    I thought the difference only showed up if I was using penetrating strikes? Either way, I just used those three because I had the concern that there'd be something different between the two sets of targets. Just trying to eliminate variables. It's actually why I didn't do a celestial test, I couldn't test a PcDL loadout without hitting other types of targets.
    • Like x 1
  15. Rokyn Dedicated Player

    Excellent testing by the way. Been following along to what you guys have been saying. A couple of things I disagree with though in your post:

    With mid-range there really isn't a difference between Ram/Impact's three ticks and Fan's single hit just think of it as of Fan's main burst hit divided by three. It's not really based only on the mid range three tick to combo rapidly, it's to combo rapidly when it's a low health add or you need to finish an enemy with a bang. That is the situation where cutting the animation for Light Blast and Minigun is preferred that is when you need immediate burst damage to finish off an add or to get a big hit in before the other powers do hence you're squeezing in the big hitter in Fan, three tick Ram/Impact, or Grasping Hand. I should've updated this note in my section but I never got around to it.

    Letting Light Blast and Minigun's animations play out against bosses or high health adds is ideal since it's constant passive damage and according to Shiny's parser: it's where most of your damage is coming from. And Light Blast doesn't become a 35% finisher when in the combo AM; at least that's what I gathered when I used to play Light. I could never get an accurate testing on the base damage for the combo version of Light Blast since it always surpassed the 4 second/2.5 second mark and become part of the AM.

    This really saddens me to read these requests because it's like dejavu to me since these were the same requests me, doc, and couple others where making when the AM first came out months ago. We even tried reaching out to Spord about changing Chompers but to no avail and I made a detailed PM to them about a way to implement a clipping AM but nothing.

    I also don't think they won't change the debuffs since they have always managed to believe that Light was always best at mid-range and melee...essentially a risky power. I don't disagree with them but hey man give us a bone for PvP or something.

    EDIT: I remember mentioning in the Light AM feedback thread when it first came out on test and I was fighting for a John Stewart AoE Snap Trap but I got no response from the devs as well. I made the same exact request lol.
    • Like x 1
  16. Rokyn Dedicated Player


    Interesting. But then again the hit counter is important for us as well for maximizing damage.

    I see what you are trying to say. Shiny Mackerel came up with an easy way to test the the scalar differences for example an updated Mental, Quantum, and Gadgets. Apparently it's with multipliers and that would give you the how much something is being increased by. I've attempted to test for this before but I was successful very rarely, I was getting inconsistent numbers but I'm sure I was just doing it wrong.

    I think the best way to look for this would be similar to how anyone would test for base numbers is to eliminate crits, tac mods, and league proficiency. Test on a single target with same CR as yourself, and then get a large healthy sample of hits for various powers, and then rinse/repeat the variables and testing process on test server. I think you should contact Shiny for this. He can probably give you or show you how to calculate the scalar increase numbers for melee infinite combos, range infinite combos, and then compare them to the ones in test server. You will need Shiny's Combat Analyzer too in order to get a large sample size and eliminate crits from the results without the risk of human error.


    After GU47 Penetrating Strikes starts to skew data when you attack high defense enemies. The sparring targets in the game (TS special and Live regular) have I believe 15% mitigation (.85 in the formula) after the last update unless they reverted it back to 0 defense recently. Regardless, it's still little to no defense and so if anything PS should lower your DPS by a small margin.

    I think you're doing fine sticking to those three consistent targets since it keeps the same variable which is good for reproducing and keep stuff consistent.

    On a side-note to everyone:

    I apologize about my lack of involvement in the recent changes to Light. I have been busy with tanking and playing with Earth on live and I don't have access to test since I didn't renew my PC legendary. I also kinda lost interest in Light and in even testing anymore really, I kinda just get on to run SM or chill with the league.

    I'm here to help though for anything but I think you guys have this down better than I ever could, since well, we are coming up with similar ideas and conclusions. Coincidence, not?
    • Like x 1
  17. RamsesVIIX New Player

    Well this update just seems to be the nail in the coffin for me. Thought they would finally bost light to what it should be, instead I'm reading these post and I'm not too happy about it.... sigh... Realm Reborn here I come!
  18. Green Lantern Fadi Loyal Player

    I'm happy that they finally buffing light but still , it needs to get buffed hard , even with the buff , hl can not compete with ice or gadget .... Come on tunso it's Tuesday almost wed and still no word from u
  19. dr strangeonline Loyal Player

    link for strange to GU 43 test notes. will add FAQ section later.

    (Note to self - Some Info on P 10)
  20. Rokyn Dedicated Player

    Just saw what you were talking about, dr strange, hearing these two pieces of news from Spord gives me more comfort in knowing what's going on a bit behind the scenes.

    Which is fine by me since those changes are much more important than Light right now for sure.

    That's good. Hopefully this sheds a light on what's going on with those 3 special targets. With the hit counter enabled, single/three/eight target testing will be much more accurate for Light. Would be nice to have a teammate refresh a buff for you just compare the differences. Have you talked with Shiny yet? I don't have access to test server anymore but I certainly wouldn't mind going in there again and giving my feedback one last time but honestly I think you and Mighty covered everything I wished for before.
    • Like x 1