Test Discussion Episode 43: Ally - Death Metal Batman

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really saying don't test that way, I'm just saying don't feel like you need to exclude any personal preference, I actually encourage you to continue doing so and anyone else doing so, don't become a robot yourself either lol

I appreciate your reasoning for why you requested your nerf to DMBatman even if I didn't agree with it, I appreciate that you're saying the debuff, resulting in an increase in damage output to the boss is damage that could be attributed to the ally, totally appreciate that.

I guess to clarify also, I think we should sit here and say "how we think things should be repeatedly" that's how change can happen, it's just we have to accept if it never does happen, it is, what it is, but we can keep trying

Also it was also just the reference I was seeking as well, is the reference Cyborg's damage output? Is that where we're benchmarking things, I ask because there's numerous allies lower than that, so it's confusing when we choose where we set the benchmark and that reference point isn't clearly defined when various other levels seem to exist for no reason other than 'reasons'.

Has the patch gone live, I'm keen to give it another look

So I've been playing around with the allies on test and I'm pretty happy (personally) with where Death Metal Batman is sitting in terms of damage output in his active role, but I have to ask the question, did you nerf Cyborg without including it in the patch notes?

My testing of Cyborg to provide any sort of reference tends to indicate that he has taken a hit and quite a significant one at that, I even checked live server to compare and he seems to be hitting consistently lower now on test. He's now more on par with Zoom and Flash than what he was doing previously? Can you please verify whether this is the case, I'm just wanting to eliminate whether I was just getting outlier results in my testing.

I’ll check it out later today. When I was testing cyborg vs DMB cyborg was hitting based on number of hits. If you look back at one of my post he was hitting about 400+ when hitting 11 or 13. But when he did only 10 hits his damage dropped significantly. Those damage values were present for a while as far as I can remember.

Yeah never mind, took another look, I was just getting some consistently bad hits, he appears the same. no issues.

Lol. Yes that 1 extra tick makes it do about 80% extra damage lol

While we are on the subject of musical allies can we get a Gorilla Grodd ally with a set of bongos?

LOL, yeah trust my Cyborg to be consistently Malfunctional...

Also curiously though I'm surprised with your FP Batman figures, I've got him more consistently at 430,000-440,000

DM Batman now appears to be sitting 420,000 - 440,000, the range possibly goes to 460,000 single target.

So those two are basically equivalents, although the debuff with DM Batman probably provides the slight advantage, if you were choosing between those two

FB depends highly on being able to connect multiple grenades for aoe. If more than 1 hit than his damage increases. At the same time you can get closer (even melee) to make more of the grenades hit to allow for higher aoe damage. My numbers were showing a single grenade hitting

Cool, thanks for clarifying, makes sense.

Edit; ah yeah just checked that, matches yours.

In fact this is worth noting in that DM Batman doesn't suffer this same fate, I don't think it means decrease his damage especially given the potential still of Cyborg, but it's something to consider if you're choosing to use FP Batman

I don’t try to make it hit every grenade since it’s a situation that won’t come up in combat to much. In reg it can be done easily but I. Elite with tanks kiting it’s not a common. But it’s the reason I’ve been using FPB on live over HoL bot. They both have high ST damage but FPB can hit aoe too.

I understand that the passive it's not fully fledged out as even the description is not fully done yet but I just would like to plea to be careful with the amount of power back, because it seems like an opportunity to exclude even further trolls from content.

Don't get me wrong I love battle trolling so I see a good opportunity to put it on my battle troll loadout and that could make it so much more viable for elite content, but at the same time unless you add more power zapping/debuff mechanics to alerts and the like I do see troll role regarding power diminishing, in reality it happens already in alerts, not that I mind as much because I either battle troll alerts or just dps.

But depending on how it's executed it's basically goodbye to power trolls, in a way I don't mind as I have 3 different armories for my troll that I can get more creative on the set ups with this ally but yeah I'd just like you to consider that for the players that are big on that. It will certainly be good as well for buff trolling with claw.

Also this seems a better alternative to cyborg for power for dps as dps can use "debuff" powers and that will activate as well the artifact.

Looking forward to see the passives.

I think the debuffs that are involved with the passive will only be available to those that can actually debuff not just a move that could debuff if used by a troll but you’re a dps so it isn’t actually applying debuff. Could be wrong but that’s what I’m thinking makes the most sense, an actual troll only passive. Could be wrong but hoping I’m not or yeah, bye bye cyborg passive.

As far as diminishing the need for a power troll, I’d think a power troll already knows everyone wants a buff troll. They’ll settle for a knowledgeable power troll if they can’t get a buff one. But a power troll can skip on this passive and go for an ally that buffs teammates instead and the buff trolls can go for the one that powers teammates. And that means the power troll can run him as their attack ally which is great for them. Tho I do agree, can’t make it too much power back but don’t want to see it so weak that no one bothers with it. Also, sorry power trolls. I had one too, enough double nth weeks changed that. I still love ya.

Battle trolls should love it in either slot I’d think. I know I’m excited for it on my buff troll and will use it once I finally figure out a happy battle build.

I find it interesting how players keep throwing around "power trolls" as if they are lamenting the loss. Power trolls were already made obsolete by stats revamp to further be made obsolete by artifacts that buff instead of giving power. For the most part, a passive like this would probably not be used that often outside of one for a controller and most likely would be replaced by a better suited for situation one that will launch later. This is far from the ever growing list of ally passives that are coming out. Heck, when harley was being developed, they had options just for her and held some of them for future allies.

I do agree, content needs to be built to promote the use of controllers, but that doesn't change the passive on this being useful for more options. I'm a huge advocate of controllers, but there are far more tools controllers have for their role than just power. Unlike healers, they literally have 3 options for power healing, one of which is passive upon using a power. (PoT)

Edit: no smart group will ever choose to go no troll. Debuffs are too important. I can see pug groups thinking they can live without one but that means they’d have to have this ally which is good for sales haha

Tested Death Metal Batman and it seems that his range was not updated. Can’t really tell if the damage was updated but does seem slightly lower so will assume it was updated. Just did the following damage with him:

456,940 - 2 targets hit
389,694 - 2 targets hit
403,949 - 2 targets hit
419,808 - 3 targets hit
391,614 - 3 targets hit

except that's not the case either for artifacts or for this ally. As long as your power says "debuff" it works in either role for the passive of an artifact or this ally.

Yes, someone please explain this to me in simple terms...

Active Ability
Death Metal Guitar Attack
AOE damage guitar playing that places all 3 debuffs for x seconds, then switches to cone attack with guitar-scythe that deals y damage.

+ What three debuffs?
+ As a DPS I use The Batman Who Laughs' Gas attack which debuffs. Does this have synergy with DMGA?

It places all 3 controller debuffs. Attack, defense, and healing.

BWL does just defense debuff. Based on Penryn's tests, they do seem to stack with each other

Okay, cool. So as a DPS I could use that. Not sure how much I'd get with each debuff. And too bad it says "switches to" so you can't get the ally's debuffs when doing the cone attack. But if timed right with BWL the numbers might be interesting.

Feedback
Death Metal Batman feels very unreliable in combat. Sometimes he spawns too far away from the add group to inflict his debuffs. Sometimes he completely misses his cone attack.

The AoE debuff range is very small. The targeted NPC in this video wasn't even debuffed because Death Metal Batman spawned too far away:


The enemy behind Holographic Decoy didn't even take any damage from the follow-up attack.

Unless you have everything pulled into a really tight group, Death Metal Batman's use in an AoE situation seems dubious. Even then, you need to have some luck on his placement and target to make sure he actually hits the majority of the mob group.

EDIT:
If a target is moving or if the tank yanks a mob group away just as you summon Death Metal Batman, he'll miss the debuff phase.