Over all precision nerf earth explained and Earth guide

Yowza, just tested jackhammer. Huuuuuge drop in damage. I wonder if damage splits are going to completely kill it's usefulness...

Devs, this needs to be fixed, or jackhammer has to cost 0 power for these precision based follow up attacks which are now only as powerful as regular melee taps, with a max jackhammer combo limit of 15 hits. Only way this crap damage can make sense now.

all precision got.nurf.I have 700 precision it seems I have around 400 all my weapon attacks are criting low

Well this bites... Was just planning on trying to get better at DPS... Only to find out Precision based damage got nerfed.... Earth was already limited and now this <.>

I'll be the first to blame Light... Unless this wasn't an intentional nerf, then I'll take it back. {Joking xP}

In all seriousness... I hope the Dazed tree isn't getting destroyed... That's all we have, we can't go to the Crushed tree for DPS since there isn't a decent AoE PI spreader...

Has there been any official response to this yet? Or are we just expected to believe nothing has changed?

I have to agree with Sore. I'm not going to panic until I see some proper numbercrunching on earth OR a response from the developers.
I haven't seen the mentioning of a nerf to precision at all. IF it has been mentioned (by the devs) then please head me in that direction.

IF you have been nerfed without mention, that's ofcourse not right. I still miss my cryokinesis that got ninja nerfed way back.

The damage scales off of your precision and basic waepon dps. There is no combo involved tho so it's your standard melee attack with witchever buffs are in place previously + a second tick of dmgif the target is dazed at about 1/3 of the orginal tick's dmg. And people You're just seeing things :> I ran Gates yesterday, with my usual raid team, we finished in a better time, and i did more dmg then usually with the new inates. Jackhammer's dmg has always split before, even to the teens and twenties with a large enough crowd. other then that i see the usual ticks ranging from 500-620ish+ the second tick at 120-200 (crits of course). I think the confusion stems mostly from the crit font not beeing visable most of the time, but dmg itself stayed the same for me.

The only thing I can think of to account for this is placebo. I guess with the reputation of the developers to change things without saying, people have started to make up changes for themselves after every update. Nothing has changed with precision damage. I tested with multiple weapons, combos, and also HL constructs. All damage was the same, and I can't believe Earth somehow got it's own ninja nerf. Could you retest Sore? I didn't find either of those moves to change.

I concur with yourself, especially on my own quantification of Light. Not necessarily hard numbers on crunching the data, thats not for me, but from my own comprehension of how Precision was going to buff me post-U25 nothing has changed for the worse.

A couple of problems in particular that did not help the situation was the scaremongering of Fan change, Hold Claw change and the most important is a complete misinterpretation of Precision as a stat. I inform so many that they are not going to see +50% damage difference with +103 Precision, more like 6% maximum in my opinion, and this is why I always thought developers never implemented Precision Innates.

It is not an enormous scalar statistic, it actually doesn't increase by very much.

Anyway, regarding Earth I can't fathom why they would change anything - it already has a pretty narrow build complex. If anything, regarding Light Hold Claw change, the developers may have done a balance pass on all powers with incorrect splitting. I can see that affecting Earth, especially with for example Jackhammer.

Bishop

That may, indeed be the problem. Saw that in an Arkham Asylum thread.

I don't have a stat sheet at the moment but my base numbers from my weapon have increased in pvp. I have 1300 prec in pvp as a troller with the weapon buff and my standard hits range from 97-110 with a DW, 68-83 with 1h.

I have not seen a nerf of precision.

Agreed.

100 precision will increase your Effective DPS by +10. From there it depends on the ability cast. Spin Chop does 143%-213% of your DPS. That means 100 precision raises the range for Spin Chop by 14.3 damage at the bottom end and 21.3 at the top end. If you started with 10 DPS, 100 precision just doubled your damage. If you start with 20 DPS, 100 precision only gives you a 50% boost. If you have around 200 DPS, 100 precision only gives you a 5% boost. As you can see, the value of 100 precision is flat from a raw damage perspective but diminishes from a percent perspective.

If you've been around long enough, you will understand that the devs NEVER EVER EVER acknowledge ninja nerfs. We can scream and cry and beg until we are blue in the face and it's frankly still not going to happen. We have a lot of historical examples for that. That's why I emphasize the need for number capture and analytical comparisons. It's a community forum and it's up to US to discover/verify their adjustments.

Phew, I'm a little late to the party but has anyone else done some thorough testing?

Just got back today and installed the update (stats remain the same, core still active) - at minimum dual pistols attacks and combos are around15% softer than before. Lower mins and lower maxes from the last hour or so of testing on dummy and accumulators and reapers.

Ninja nerf it is. Curious as to why precision got hit as that really kills my playstyles with most classes. Will update further on 1H with my other main, those are the only two I had all the exact damage ranges memorized.

Do you have your numbers? With no modifier or escalating precision mod...what was your weapon DPS, precision, and high/low non-crit for those abilities? Keep in mind, my current tests were with two different weapons and saw the same ranges from a base attack percent perspective. Granted my pre-GU25 numbers were from somewhere just after GU22 (if I recall correctly). I'm not implying that GU25 was the update to reduce my ranges. It might have been GU23 or GU24 or sooner (if I recall incorrectly). I can't go back and do a historical test. I'd be curious if your numbers support my same ranges for current.

I agree.

I think you accidentally used the mitigated damage to find your final effective DPS. I'm getting 0.28-0.42 for melee tap and 1.7-2.5 for spin chop using your results. And that's pretty much what I got.

lol hmm i would like to see what the devs have to say about this though... would be nice if they did ... ruining earth a power that no one uses besides me and some people just to prove others that this power isnt bad and now it is i will explain.. why jackhammer got nerf and how according to range

Jackhammer is a Aoe move the range was from 500 - 650 with 794 precision before update 25 granted they were crits jackhammer had some ticks ranging from 200 - 450 non crits and the small ticks that were ranging from 50 - 90

Weapon attacks 1h
My regular 1800 crit even if it has nothing to do with precision using spin shop at 794 precision, My flurry hits about 250-360 xrits

Update 25
i gain the extra innates giving me a total of 902 precision seeing 450-520 somewhat crits and these are crits some ticks hiting about 150- 200 non crits and small ticks around 20 to 70ish

Even when poping trinkets that get me 1292 precision

Weapon attacks 1h
At 902 i cant even get a 1800 crits i hit 1400-1600 crits and again yes crits even if precision as nothing to do with crits. Flurry about 200-250 crits and not as much crits has i usually hit

Getting a increase of 108 is 10+ dps accroding to the precision stat so why im i hitting less unless the ranges were decrease... and why are crits lacking if precision has nothing to do with it?

Jackhammer either didnt split before and spilting now, Or had giant chucks if u were far enough the damage couldnt touch you but when it did it was still hitting non crits for 200-300

Earth doesnt have a crush PI Aoe good enough to use and no one uses uphavel unless they are tanking easily can be replace for jackhammer, tectonic is great but unstoppable gave me the cold down for jackhammer and the gaps in between gave me the weapon attacks plus the sand blast i use to finish them after a jackhammer, I have beating many HLs, Gadgets before yes earth was already broken in some ways more then 1 but having jackhammer the main thing nerf and my precision gaps when i ran out of power is no good

I assume this was in response to my post(although not a direct "reply"), and since I see that yours was more positively received by the community, i figured i would reply to clear up the smoke a bit, at least for my sake of making the assumption we were "NERFED"... Thank you Sore for doubting my method, therefore allowing me to "double-check" my work..

Let it be known that i'm no number-cruncher like a Sore, Omaar or Kris, etc. but my stomping ground, that I've ran well over 300 times since its release, is Gates, and I'd say 200+ of the runs have been in DPS role. So experience to make a comparative judgement is more than there.

On Shiva, my Earth, I'd venture to guess at least 50 runs in DPS mode. I try to use Gates as my personal testing/comparing & contrasting Zone for all my toons. It's the only place i take Pic's of the scoresheet, and a place i try to, if nothing else, make good "mental notes" of my performance.

As with any tests', i try to remove any/all variables, so I never Buff with colas or do anything "out of the ordinary(ie. run ahead and kill Actuators, use wipe-runs, etc). As i see it Gates is the prime "testing" ground, as the total damage is basically always similar(except for wipes, different raid-group compositions, running ahead to kill actuators etc.)...

So when i said my "Avg run is 900k-1.1mil", those figures are coming from no "small" sample size. Saying "leave the Gates scoreboard out of it", is dismissing a valid set of data to "compare & contrast". Sure the values are not as consistent as "Base Numbers" are/would be, they do/can hint at "changes" in how stats are registered/calculated/totaled, or in this case Nerfed(?)/inconsistant/changed.

Here is that 1.2 run, from only about 3 weeks ago(pre GU25):







1.) No wipes. Clean run. As i remember it, I was the only person to get KO'd, which happened twice. Once at the end of the "Hallway", not rallied, and again at the very beginning of the Vanquisher Boss fight, again not rallied... So i count at least 5 mins of me being KO'd. Sad thing was, for me at least, this run could have been as high as 1.35mil or so if my team would have picked me up, instead of dancing all over my dead body. So not #1.

2.) No Exploit. By that i assume you meant WD. No, my toon is Earth, Staff, Flight. Has been since Earths' launch, when i made this toon. I've never bought/used a Power respec or movement respec token. Why would i when i have a toon of every power and movement? Anyway, no "Buffs", like i said earlier, and i don't even use White(HT) mods. Not #2 either, which i assume most people were "assuming".

3.) Yes. Bad DPS'es. Nailed it. #3 it was in this case, as you can clearly see. I basically out damaged the other 7 players combined. If that makes the 1.2 any less worthy, than so be it. As i said though, No buffs, No HT mods, No WD, and I wasn't picked up for 5-7 mins... this run could have been 1.5-1.6mil if i would have "exploited" my DPS.

Anyway, that was that. Probably my last run with Earth Pre-GU25, and quite a memorable one.

Not totally convinced after my 3 sub-par Gates runs post-GU25(mostly due to reading through this thread), that a "Ninja Nerf" had occurred, i was prompted to return to Gates last night to "re-test", as maybe i was just in there with other ample DPS'es, and my numbers may have been skewed by being in group(s) with another Earth DD.

So i gave Gates another(loot-locked, Post-GU25) run and here it was, clean run:



Damage out-to-Power-in ratio in this newest run was 10:1, when that is basically what i have been accustomed to seeing on my Earth. Thing is that the three runs earlier this week when my highest Damage out was 745k, my ratio was 7:1, which more than anything, led me to write my earlier post in this thread.

Conclusion: Earth/Precision may have been Nerfed, but my testing methods are not solid enough to determine that for certain. If so i would say it's closer to a 10% nerf, than the 15%-25% I boldly stated in my first post.

Thank you again Sore for pressuring me to find a more precise answer than what i got from a 3 run test-sample. The 4th run un-sold me on the 'Nerf' idea, but not totally. I'm still like you Sore, and will say "not saying a nerf didn't happen", i just can't prove it.

I'm no expert but a simple check on Jackhammer splitting is to go to the sparring target and ensure you are hitting just the one and write the aversge number over 5 attempts.

Then use Earths pull and replicate on two dummies and if possible a third. Does the damage split?

Bishop

Already tested this before. It splits after 2 enemies.

Also, for anyone who's interested in testing the precision (and might) damage of Jackhammer and Upheaval, I have an old, old, old spreadsheet which showcases their total damage (Might included). I'll try my own testing and see if precision did get lowered in this update (because really, I don't usually keep track of my damage everytime).