I appreciate the hard work the players are putting in to test in a new way following "tunso test" guidelines. I don't think I understand the results correctly. Have kept an eye on sores thread looking at the test results the avg and baselines. My ignorance begins on live server and in actual content. Looking at results for instance the first graph from sore nature outperforms ice using this test. Nature will not outperform ice in content because ice will kill adds before nature can setup dots. If nature uses a wm burst loadout ice still wins because the am just hits harder. Can someone explain why we use a testing system now that doesn't translate to raids and alerts? I'm thinking there is some point I'm missing. Anyone who wants to troll me go ahead but I honestly want to understand this testing method and how it translates to gameplay.
I do not believe the developers care much about DPS numbers when looking at how fast minion and match NPCs fall. Munitions indicates that with its supercharge that obliterates minions. A number of players care due to the scorecard and the inability to reason how powers are intended to work. In most MMOs, damage over time (DOT) powers are considered boss killers, and that is their main advantage. Many people who play this game do not seem to understand what DOT powers are intended for.
I I use nature vs ice as an example of one of the best dps powers vs one that seems to be underperforming in real instances. You can't say dots aren't meant to dps in high numbers when these powers used to be great not just in boss fights but through a whole raid. For another example I give you mental which is doing good in game. According to test mental needs a buff and just got one on test.
I can explain how and why nature beats ice in melee range but you are right as it does not translate to actual content. So to some it up briefly, if you are clipping brawling haymaker or one hand flip splash while you place your nature DoT you are doing greater DPS than ice in most situations. The problem lies in the fact you are going to be dead and ice is going to be alive because you are at 0 m and ice is at 12 m.
Minions are considered "trash" npcs. They are there to give you a wall to get through while you get to the boss. They filter Match NPCs (which are more like lieutenants) in with the trash to give a hurdle through. Like tiny bosses. Of course, what matters is the bosses, since that's the significant part of any instance. In the way I have described the hierarchy, you are looking at each mechanic to have a hard time to compete. Trash mobs die easy, even at or below level. So burst damage is always higher, while dot and cast classes would still be on setup before they get to their max potential. So in the end of a raid, the amount of damage you can do will reflect this. Burst would win. Which is why Fire got it's first "adjustment" after SOE Live 2014. In Tunso's design, we are looking at overall potential to bosses with best rotation. In the end of the day, whether his method is practical or not, it is how he tests it and how he deems it balanced (with a variance of course). So after the hurt settled, Sore decided to work with the testers to get a true understanding of how balanced we are. He has shown the players' version of testing and indeed, some are still under performing. Side note, I think we will no longer be brought down, always up. Which is going to be fun, as there doesn't seem to be a ceiling. lol
Hey thanks I kinda see what's up. Glad that some testers even after getting crapped on continue to test. At some point though going forward with this test to balance is going to hurt. First time I remember seeing them try to balance a power vs a power was earth and sorc both in same gu. When that gu went live both sorc and earth were underperforming not only in the common eyeball test but in the parser we used to test rotations. Instead of balancing pets vs pets and dots vs dots etc... We need balance across the board. So some powers have places they excel that's great, but show me a place where gadgets, ice, fire and several others will under perform like rage range. Maybe some of this can begin to be repaired by addressing midrange dps. I'm glad things are only going to go up cause there are a few powers out there who wouldn't exist if they went down any further.
This right here is a big factor. So theres 3 main factors of balance right now and everybody seems to be on the same page about needing them to be addressed. 1. Base damage balance - This is pretty much the best rotation you can get out of a power and trying to have it match everyone else. This is the key to everything. 2. Scaling - Get everything balanced and then theres a scaling issue. When you add the mods, affinities, all the general bells and whistles, stuff does not translate the same as it does when its all together. Some are blatantly obvious like Pet classes and weapons being static, but then theres really weird factors like a power scaling differently at different ranges with the same rotation. Mid-Range - This is the one that roughly half the powersets have an issue with. Ice, Fire, Mental, Quantum, Gadgets, Celestial to a lesser extent, can all do top tier damage from 12 meters away, everyone else has to be up close and personal. Theres 3 options they can pretty much do and none of them are great. 1. Eliminate 12.5 meters and bring everything down to close quarters which effectively nerfs everyone because melee is un-safe as hell compared to range. 2. Embrace mid-range and now we need to wait another god knows how long for the balancing on that. 3. Ignore it and essentially the other half of the powersets are SOL, this will not be a popular opinion and frankly shouldn't even be considered.
To be honest, I think there is a 4th here. Look at the ones that do not have the 12 meters range and give them an option that is equal to the others. They did that already with nature and electric, by increasing the range of SG and EB. It does change the aspect of something like Rage, which was intended to be a in your face power, but people are already looking at frenzy which is like what 7 meters? Doing this would also be easier than option 1 or 2.
I was on my Nature alt yesterday, the range on them are really wide now. I'm pretty sure they are 12.5 meters, same as EMP and I play gadgets all the time. :O
In an In an update where the idea that mid range no longer existed they changed a power with nature and elec to hit at midrange that's kinda a head scratcher.
I agree the range of EB and SG are 12.5 m. I thought you were saying that damage of nature and electricity were comparable to the ice, fire, gadget, etc at 12.5 m. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Or made some powers hit at 7m, and others at 12m. This is their excuse on why the powers are still not balanced from u36-u50.
Savage Growth Increased damage over time in Damage role. Increased the damage radius to 12.5m. That was in update notes for gu50 when it was released on live so guess if it isn't hitting there its a bug
It's nice to see how Tunso performs tests but in all honesty I think for accuracy there needs to be some changes done if its individual powers that we are testing against. I always see people doing tests in high lvl gear, modded, and enough SP for all crits at least and then some. The crits can skew numbers for tests and very often they do. It seems to me that for more accurate results we should be testing without gear (aside from lol lvl weapons) and SP to reduce the crits and give us a clearer look at how much damage the power itself is doing. On the flip side this method does of course have problems of its own like powers that rely on weapon damage to in addition to their use (WM) as well as powers that rely on crits for their big hit (Gadgets and Mental example). So really there's pros and cons to each kind of test I'm currently aware of and there doesn't appear to be any way to do a blanket test that will simply provide accurate numbers for every power across the board. This is one of the things that is frustrating when trying to compare powers DPS potential as there's a lot of different factors at play for each power and how they work.
The range isn't the issue. The issue is nature is not doing as much damage at mid range as ice, fire, gadgets, etc is doing. You will never see a nature dps of equivalent cr's beating these other powers in a raid. In fact, these powers can be 10 cr lower and still beat out nature.
Yeah that has a lot to do with why I started this post. According to the current form of testing all powers are OK with the exception of rage and mental which are slightly below but powers like electric nature hl sorc aren't getting any buffs in gu51 unless they sneak one in. The test has serious flaws radium broke down the problems in a post above lets hope that someone who has the ability to do more than post on the forums agrees.
