Test Discussion Damage Supercharge Balance

Right now, CB outperforms NVB by what can only be described as an insane margin on live. I tested that four minutes ago. I can see why people complain about it, and also why they defend it, but this change won't "ruin" CB, necessarily.

CB isn't far enough behind NVB based on these proposed change models to be cause for concern (lit. 25 damage a second assuming a 100K/s stable base output) and considering the potential uptime (44 seconds out of 60, potentially more, versus a mostly fixed 30 seconds overall per 60 for NVB) I'd still rate it as more useful, primarily because 4 seconds worth of interruption in a 15 second cycle is quite a lot, whereas 4 seconds out of a 22 second cycle still leaves you with more than the 15 second cycle started with.

Assuming that you CAN make back the SC for another CB before that 44 seconds expires, it'll basically still beat NVB all around. I don't have enough personal experience with EoG to know exactly what sort of SC back-end to expect, but having seen its effects on Live already I'd say that's less "nebulously, potentially possible" than it is "very likely to occur". Even a 120 range Cloak can fill up a 5K SC in about 60 seconds, right now, *by itself*.

Really am waiting for clarification from Ranmaru though, since it says down from 50% and 50% is not the current CB boost % either. I also verified that less than 20 minutes ago. So I know for a fact there's a typo in that sentence - I wanna know exactly where; not that I think you're wrong, necessarily, but like I said, pitchforks and torches yo.

And even if that is the case, I dunno. Considering how Electric does damage, that would basically be a standing 25% output bonus that's just Active, almost Constantly, using items and functionality already verified on Live.

I’m confused on why more people aren’t talking about the dismal state of powers like atomic and water dps and how they still got nerfs to their supercharges. I’m confused on why supercharges are even being changed right now when certain powers underperform entirely compared to others and should be revamped. From my understanding supercharges are being changed to fit the current metas, when all of that would be changed with a power revamp. Why not start with re-balancing the powersets so we don’t run into the issue of seeing supercharges over or underperform later on?

It doesn't matter if we can have 100% uptime on a buff and it matters even less when, even if we do, it still loses to Neo (which is mathematically proven to be the case). There's no debate here. We're not talking "nebulously." Best case scenario, even if we completely neglect the fact it's more vulnerable to damage loss, CB still loses like this. It's a pointless SC in this state. It doesn't matter if it deals out its damage over a longer period allowing for constant uptime (and it's actually worse like that) if it results in less damage than another option with less risk of damage loss.

This is also only one of the many cluster****s in this change. Even if CB was @ 30% instead of 25% it would just be another case of "virtually the only SCs that matter are buffs and 10ks." If they want to keep it as a longer duration SC then it has to be a drastically more powerful buff to make up for the risk factors and limitations that introduces.

By 25 damage a second, and only if you put no SC build backend into it. If you put the SC backend into CB, it's still gonna beat NVB by sheer dint of the fact that you can have it operational, longer, at the same potential frequency of occurrence.

25 damage a second, versus 50% more actual, base uptime, and potentially the ability to use it more often than 2x in 60 seconds, which instantly makes it outpace NVB again.

That means in a completely unaltered base state it's still functionally the same difference because let's face it, 25 damage - not 25K, 2.5K, or even 250, TWENTY FIVE - is not an arguable performance difference, you literally will not notice it and cannot detect it without extrapolating out the next 60 seconds beforehand using a calculator to detect it.

a 44% damage reduction to Doomspin didn't cause the end of the world, this won't either.

Christ... no.. I'm not trying to be rude but that's not how that works lol at all. I already did the math and the testing whereas you're just spitballing here. Neo wins without even factoring the qualitative differences (which also heavily favour Neo).

And what world are you living on? Doomspin may as well have been deleted from the game. You don't see people using it because it was made pretty much completely useless. Also, I don't think you're understanding what the CB change actually is here.

Although I applaud any attempt to revamp Rampage, this has a few issues.

1. [BUG] Does not apply the buff to the Poison DOT from Serpent's Call.

Test Case: Use Rampage then immediately use Serpent's Call. Observe that the damage from the Serpent's Call poison DOT is the same the unbuffed poison DOT.

2. In order to maximize the damage from Rampage now, you have to let the poison DOTs expire. If you use refresh or reapply the poison DOTs before they have expired they are immediately reverted back to regular unbuffed poison DOTs. This then requires you to spend several seconds to reapply them all again.

Was just about to say, that nerf in one instant rendered 2H useless, it went from everyone using it to no one using it, that's world ending by any definition and you don't even have to test to see it.

Appreciate the effort you're putting into your testing btw and I'm sure other players do too, just tone back the language a bit, I know you're passionate, but I just fear the devs will stop listening to you

You think it would be good idea if the source shard was edited so having it equipped, automatically grants passive power regeneration for fury/guardian/watcher so players won't NEED offering in their loadout which doesn't contribute in itself but rather is just a command to tell fury to actually work.

I still got it doing 117K/s over 30s on live right now, no buffs and no Controller, no Dervish, and only two pieces of Elite Gear.

So, "dead", I would dispute.

Would I like to see it do a little more than it does? Sure.

Would I like to see it do what it used to anymore? No, because although it may not have needed a 44% reduction, it still needed a reduction. I've got an old pre-nerf video with a 10 second parse that hit 190K, 50-ish CR ago. It was out of line.

Why do I feel this is all a hint to what the next artifacts are going to be.

Empowered Channeling Mod does not work on Light’s Ballistic Assault or Munition’s Mounted Turret Supercharges. These moves are channeling moves correct?

That's one of it's biggest issues, the load out required for it is so not ideal that's it's not even funny and its not a smooth transition. I feel like Source Shard should grant a passive pet buff, Something has to happen where either God wave and or offering is dropped and simply implemented into one action, it's a main issue why this artifact is limited to one powerset and is even less effective for earth. I can't speak for everyone but the idea of having to give your summon power every few seconds has never been a fun play style. If done right the pet system should have worked by giving the player real micro managing abilities "Triggers Summon to use signature attack" "Triggers Summon to use an attack built up over time ect"

I agree! Perhaps even a 40% buff for 22 seconds. I have been on the test server all day, parsing with Neo-Venom Boost and Circuit Breaker on Single Target, 3 Targets, and 8 Targets, and its not looking good for CB.

The base damage of Electricity on ST is already weak, high parses depend almost entirely on crit chance and base parses fall between 400/500k every 10 seconds(meanwhile the base parse of gadget st is 700/800k every 10s). Circuit Breaker has become useless atleast from a single target point of view, the extra duration doesn't matter because the damage bonus is so low and there's less crit chance because its 1 target. The difference in the ST parses between using NVB or CB are very visible, there would be no point having CB on a single target boss.

On AOE(3/8 targets), the parses between NVB and CB are much closer, but NVB is still the better option. At this point in DCUO, between EOG procs, 10k SCs, and Prec Brawling, adds don't stay up for long periods of time. So its useless to use CB which gives an extremely low dmg bonus for an extended duration of 22s when you can use NVB which gives a higher dmg bonus for a shorter duration of 15s, which is usually how long adds stay up for.

Reducing the damage of Megavolt really doesn't do anything to current Elec dpses because it is already considered a terrible SC compared to CB. I believe it would be better if it was buffed and made a 10K sc(since Elec has no 10k dmg sc atm). I have always loved the animation of Megavolt(the red lightning is SICK!) but the damage was always weak on ST and AOE. The best thing to do with Megavolt is to make it a !0K supercharge, then more elec dpses can diversify their loadouts.

At this moment, Electricity(with EOG spam) is the only power that can compete with Gadgets across every content in the game. Nerfing CB by such a large margin is not a good decision in my opinion, it just puts gadgets in a league of its own. I advocate for other powers to be buffed to create balance, not nerf powers that are doing just fine. If Circuit Breaker is gonna be nerfed, at least increase the base damage of Electricity.

EXACTLY! That's why you see EVERYONE switching to Electric now. Electric DPS absolutely DOMINATE the scoreboard... oh wait... not so much.

As a power set, Electric depends pretty heavily on this supercharge, and despite the fact that Circuit Breaker outperforms NVB on live by 15%, Electric is still decidedly meh.

This change is pretty rough on Electric DPS. It's fortunate that the healing side is considered pretty good.

I didn't see this mentioned, but the notes say Ice Elemental form can now use Iconic Abilities in the form, but I can't equip either Enhanced Heat Vision (with Solar Amplifier artifact equipped) or the Enhanced Mesmerizing Lasso (with the Lasso of Truth artifact equipped). The normal version of both (without the artifacts) can be put on the Ice Elemental loadout. Was that intended, or is that an oversight?

This is all on test server not on live server yet and is all subject to change.

I get the fact that SCs need a balance pass, however, before such changes are made in reduction of percentages, how about balancing SCs based on SC costs, dovetails etc...then applying the pass from there if even needed?

For instance. All non-iconic SCs at 10000 cost apply the same damage removing dovetails..all non-iconic SCs 5000 hit the same removing dovetails...etc.

Then work the iconics the same way.

Further, on the live server all SCs are not consistent with their boss and add damage numbers..even when bosses or adds are at full health.

Like mele' vs range in risk reward..there should be a risk reward system in SCs to include damage numbers reflecting the SC costs. This isn't the case as some 25's and 50's are outperforming 100's...and it is exceptionally worse with EOG spam.

If the SC nerf hasn't included this research..then we are putting the cart before the horse.

Personally, I think the artifact system has alot to do with how SCs are currently performing, and should have probably been addressed prior to the system going live..

Obviously I was talking about test, because I said you CAN place the non enhanced versions in Ice Elemental, and that's something you can't do on live currently. I identified something that looks like an issue and asked a question, to see if something is wrong and needs to be fixed BEFORE going live, or to know if that was actually intended. That's part of the reason for the feedback process. We help find things that got overlooked.

Lets definitely push to have source shard restructured.

I kind of tried to push removing the need for offering when all pets got buffed across the board a while back lol. I mean if you think of it like this gadgets is the only permanent pet power thats flexible enough to run a pet, source shard ability, & (if its ever added but shouldn't be) a useless ability to charge a pet for 1 good attack b/c of stealth, yet ironically does need nor use any of that lol. & i like gadgets.


If anything how its pet operates on its own, self powers, & give your p.i. should be a gold standard for how all permanent pets function if its going to take up a slot & reduce our passive power regeneration.

I also agree source shard just activate on its own.




Something im curious about, I haven't tried it in a while does grand summoning power itself? If not can we have passive power regeneration given to those grand summoned pets as a part of this sc buff since it is a 10k?