Vita Increase vs. Power Cost Scaling

Pulling this out of the Player Rewards feedback thread because it seems to be taking over that one somewhat, and isn't hugely relevant to it.

I would like to begin by saying that trivial is not a word I would use to describe the upkeep of a team's power - the recent trend to include a third controller in some speed groups speaks to that. It seems to me that this power scaling is intended to combat perhaps two things:

1. The DPS power spam mentality. This is a shame, because DLC9 makes some fantastic steps towards including crowd control as a feasible and useful option, but now we have a lot less power with which to do it AND keep up the power bars. The knock on effect doesn't hurt the DPS so much as it hurts the healers and tanks.

2. The scaling of vita went unopposed until T5; the devs are seeking to return to the power out that T1-2 had, as the game was originally designed. Really, this should be a gradual thing done with every tier, not a huge difference added in for T5.

The power scaling accomplishes a couple of things. First, it prevents Controllers from going "power positive" as I like to call it. That's the point where a power over time tick would exceed the cost to cast it. If the trend had continued from the end of T4, you would only be running one Controller in raids now. Second, it also helps to normalize power pools. The number of powers you can cast with a full power bar at IL 90 is about the same as what you could when you were in lower tiers. That's probably a balance concession. It forces players to make wise use of their powers and use weapons.

The current power consumption penalty or "adjustment" is working that regard. However, it causes problems for Controllers as demonstrated in my previous post.

We maybe seeing large increases in Vitalization when going from one IL set to another, but Vitalization doesn't scale very well when you consider in-game mechanics. Adding +10 to your vitalization increases your instance recharge " / 3" number by one. To get that +10 increase in Vitalization though, your power costs are typically going to increase by at least a couple of points if you are going up an IL in a piece of gear. Consider the instant power scaling in my original post. Power costs for instant power are scaling much faster than what is generated by the power.

When I was coming up with the stats for "Controller #4 - IL 90 gear", I was only considering the vendor gear. If you're a Controller, you want to skip most of the vendor gear and use the 8 man Ops gear. I'm estimating that a fully geared Vestment of Rage Controller will have ~2500 Vitalization. That improves the situation a little bit, but not by much.

I hope someone takes a serious look at the power scaling issue. I'm personally finding it a lot harder to power a raid group that is using all IL 90 gear. I'm making extensive use of Battle Drone as a stand-in for a "backup Controller" to help supplement what I'm doing.

I'm mixed on this issue as of yet. We talked about this when T5 gear came out with OC because there was a huge difference from how easy it was to power a group in T4 vs full 85 gear. However, now that many folks on Live are wearing 87 and 88 gear, many controllers are saying it's a bit easier than it was at the beginning of the Tier. Though, an EO run with 2 controllers can still be pretty painful.

There are a few things I'm hoping we can look at while this is on test. They did something different this time around with the best gear. In T4, Norseman was +1 CR. In OC, the loot gear also increased +1 or 2 over purchasable gear. This time, the IL does not change. From a power cost standpoint, is there a difference in between the two gear sets? Is it going to cost the same to power dump in the vendor gear as full AnB dropped gear?

If it turns out that the power cost is the same since the IL is the same? I'm hopeful that controllers feel relief as they get those drops. With the Vit increase I'm seeing on those drops, we're going to get over 200 extra Vit which should put some relief on everyone just by p0t tick alone.

Something is off about the numbers that were posted but I can't say if it is a sample issue or a system issue. I need to go on the test server to test things for myself.

I will say that since tier 5 total Vitalization has been scaling half as much as Power costs have been which is causing issues. In theory Vitalization per point scaling is fine it's just tier 5 gear Vitalization totals needs to scale the same as Power costs (upwards of 10% per overall IL increase, +1 IL on each piece of gear).

The other side of the issue is that stats don't get restricted in previous tiers causing a tier 5 player using more Power than the appropriate tier Controller would ever be able to match.

Like I said though I need to do my own testing before I can comment on other aspects of this thread.

From a power consumption standpoint, the two sets are the same. In a full set of Scion of Ion gear, Sticky Bomb costs 346 power. With four pieces of Vestment of Rage and four pieces of Scion of Ion, Sticky Bomb costs 346 power.

Here is a comparison on the Controller vendor and 8 man Ops gear:
Ops Controller Legs: +86 health, +41 vitalization
Ops Controller Feet: +50 health, +23 vitalization
Ops Controller Head: +80 health, +37 vitalization
Ops Controller Shoulders: +65 Health, +30 vitalization

Things should get a bit easier when you have the full set. The 8 man Ops Vestment of Rage gear represents a very nice upgrade for Controllers.

I made some assumptions about the Base vitalization stat in each example. 1300 vitalization was on the upper-end of achievable vitalization at the end of the T4 era. 2000-2050 is a good estimate for a current controller that is wearing a mix of IL 87/88 gear. For Controller #4, I calculated those numbers based on vendor gear and expert mods (which aren't easily available on Test). The power over time and instant recharge numbers are accurate for the base vitalization assumptions.

With the vendor gear, I'm seeing a 73% to 73.5% increase in power costs. I'm assuming that is going to go to 75% if I find a utility belt in the 8 man Ops.

That is what I was going to say. Your numbers seem to be with the bases of modded gear (which changes the IL) and that is where I got confused. The vendor actually does have a IL 90 trinket which would be the same as a Utility Belt when you where it. If you have full IL 90 gear unmodded you should see a 77% increase in Power over base meaning your instant Power should cost 531 Power and not 525. I was clued off by this because you said your CR was 103 at that tier but it really should have been 94 if you had unmodded gear.

The other area of confusion I had is that the IL 90 gear (vendor and Operations) is not actually IL 90 gear but IL 91 gear when it comes to Power costs. I am guessing SOE manually made the adjustments to increase Power cost or manually decreased the IL value but kept the stats the same (ie stats are scaled to IL 91 but the stat that is shown in the Stats tab is IL 90 and thus also affects your CR value in the stats tab only).

I also think the Operation gear should really be IL 91 gear and the vendor gear should actually be IL 90 (even in respect to Power costs) but again SOE manually changed the IL (silly SOE ) on both sets to match Power costs. This is very confusing when trying to test though. :/

After including jewelry in my Power cost equation (I did not include them when I quoted that 10% number) above I was able to replicate my results to get an increase of about +7% increase in Power cost per an overall increase of +1 IL. In other words it should be:

Power Cost = B * (1 + 0.07 * CEILING( SUM(<each IL - 80>) / 14 ) / 100)

If I used IL 91 for the vendor gear I could get the above to work for most cases (I haven't tested all possible cases with IL gear above 80 though. I only tested 85, 86, 91 (shows as IL 90) and a mix of those gear sets but it held).

With that confusion out of the way I can test Vitalization increases in more detail. I just need a break first.

I haven't been trolling much, but I have helped out a few times. I also am not a mathematician like everyone else in this thread is, I can only say what I've experienced.

There's this yoyo effect that you get from this. A lot of it has to do with if you get the gear before your teammates do. I don't pug, so this is my example of working within my league. I'm more active at getting gear than they are and I have also been luckier to be blessed with 87 pieces over them. (Gotta love the loot system for best gear.)

1. When I was full T4, I had an easier time powering a group that was higher geared than me. IE 81-83 for team.
2. When I got the 81-83 and started modding them heavily, I hated it. I would use 2 powers and have nothing left. I couldn't do the gameplay I was used to. Couldn't even debuf. All I had was powering the team. I was PO'd at this and threatened to stop trolling.
3. I was getting lucky, got 84 controller feet and because I was active, I got a full 85 gear fast. So I was above my team. Who wasn't as active I felt the ease a bit.
4. By the time I got 86 gear, everyone else caught up. It was back to #2 in my own power consumption. I could feel a huge chunk being used. The only difference was I didn't have a lot of power loss, because the stats on the gear had more power to spend from, but wasn't enough in a raid situation.
5. Now I'm 86~88 gear, with mostly 87 and I can power a bit more than my group, because of gear, but it irks me to no end that it will spring back.

This is the issue with the current system. This system just hurts controllers. I don't. I give up. The content doesn't call for someone who CCs, though i understand some mechanics are included in DLC9, but what hurts the most is that all we have to worry about is power. Then we get introduced a mechanic that makes us ONLY worry about power. I think instead of introducing this mechanic, it should have just capped vit altogether and removed it from controllers.

Okay, I'm a little upset right now. This was one of the main reasons why I stopped controlling. We are a power battery, okay, but we are a power battery that can't even keep ourselves powered.

</2cents>

I've got full 88 troller gear except for one piece currently and all I do is pot, spam recharge every time it's off cooldown, and rotate trinkets. If that's not enough to keep a group powered in IL 90 gear then something is off.

In your equation, I'm not sure what your variable is. Is that base power? Not overly important, just curious.

It looks like you got it to come out linear, though. Which is a positive in that we can predict how our power costs will increase in the future if the plan is to try to always make us feel like we did at the beginning of new tiers. The issue then becomes that the Vit amounts aren't scaling the same since the output % is continually decreasing as our gear levels increase.

However, if we're strictly basing this on the gear IL, then the highest gear available (AnB gear for WotL 1) will alleviate some of the burden a the vit increase should help us out. Could probably make some guesses. Based on the numbers I've seen coming from the gear drops, it looks like trolls will get at least 200 extra vit over the IL 90 vendor gear. Sooo...:

5. CR 103 Controller (IL 90 - Assault and Battery gear - 75% scaling penalty)

• Vitalization Stat: 2500
• Power Over Time Tick: 245
• Power Over Time Cost: 350
• Instant Power / 3: 350 (1050 total)
• Instant Power Cost: 525

Controller #5: 1050 power to group at a cost of 525. 200% return
Controller #5: 11760 power returned at a cost of 350. 3360% return
Those numbers put us right back where we are with Nexus/Paradox gear. I don't know about everyone else, but unless I run a Paradox with 4 might-heavy/clip-heavy DPS and only 2 controllers, I don't feel too terrible about power out. It's no where near as easy as T4 where you could solo troll everything. However, I definitely applaud that the highest gear is actually the same IL as the vendor since it doesn't up the scaling penalty.

It is base Power of the trait you are using. So with respect to controlling that would be 200 Power for PoT and 300 for instant.

Regarding the Power costs they should in fact be linear. Though I did not test explicitly for 81-84 this is what instant Power should look like for all current tier 5 gear (with the theoretical IL 90 gear which doesn't really exist, see my posts above):

81 - 321
82 - 342
83 - 363
84 - 384
85 - 405
86 - 426
87 - 447
88 - 468
89 - 489
90 - 510
91 - 531

Projecting 92-95 it should look like:

92 - 552
93 - 573
94 - 594
95 - 615

So as you can see we are only 4 IL's off from instant Power doubling in Power cost (again see my posts above regarding the vendor gear).

This should actually be:

Power Cost = B * (1 + 0.07 * CEILING( SUM(<each IL - 80>) / 14 ))

The idea is that you find the average "sub-tier" above IL 80, multiply it by 7% and then multiply all of that by the base Power cost of the trait you are using to find its new Power cost. If you are mixing gear sets you can remove the CEILING() function to get a more accurate result. However you may not actually find some of the calculated Power costs in game. Some of the costs will be theoretical only if you remove that function. (As a side note you should also know that this IL average will not represent your actual CR.)

Final note is that this equation will only work for IL's 80 and above. If you use IL's of 79 and below you will break the game logic.

Has anyone done any further tests with this and the fact that we are now into t6 Fury gear?

Wearing full Strategos (IL 92) gear and T6 mods, I'm seeing a 90% power consumption penalty.

Sticky Bomb
Base Cost: 200
Current Cost: 380

Stasis Field:
Base Cost: 300
Current Cost: 570

More difficult to really check much here anymore. Yes, if Pen drops his Vit stat, we can redo the % numbers we did for the other tiers. I imagine it won't be pretty, but it'll give us an idea of where we are.

In the end, the game changed drastically with weapon mastery. We're back to folks talking about taking one controller, if any at all, in runs due to the overall reduced power consumption.

Let's come up with the stats for a well-geared Controller #5.

5. CR 106 Controller (IL 92 gear - 90% scaling penalty)

• Vitalization Stat: 3050
• Power over Time Tick: 283
• Power over Time Cost: 380
• Instant Power / 3: 404 (1212 total)
• Instant Power Cost: 570

Instant Power Scaling:
Controller #5: 1212 power to group at a cost of 570. 212% return

Power Over Time Scaling:
Controller #5: 13584 power returned at a cost of 380. 3574% return

Something to keep in mind is that Controller #5 is benefiting from the new generator mods and Weapon Mastery stat bonuses. Depending on your rings, utility belt, and stat bonuses, your vitalization can go above 3150 at the moment.

If you are a well-geared T6 Controller with a lot of SP, your power output efficiency is probably right around what it was during the start of Origin Crisis.

Keep in mind that vit kept scaling from T1-T4 whereas power costs didn't start scaling until T5. That means using T4 as a baseline means you're comparing to a point in time where the imbalance was already in place. T3 wasn't too bad but T1 and T2 is a more ideal balance point.

That's assuming that T4 was an imbalance. I don't think we've got statements that say the developers want to return controller power scaling to how it was in T1/T2. It's possible they think T4 is the ideal, and power cost scaling simply keeps us at or around that point.

I'm not arguing for or against either option, just saying we can't really make assumptions.

I'm already planning on being around Test for a bit tomorrow. Wouldn't be hard to grab a T1/T2/T3 set, mod it, and see where the costs fall. But, in the end, I'm just not sure the benefit of this now. I suppose with the "Awesome Mechanic" idea for Ice/Fire where they will likely need to spam powers more, the scaling will be painful.

However, Penryn made a few good points in his post.

A lot of changes have been implemented recently that make the original bare-bones calculations I did seem out-of-date. Yes, we can compare the % return we get off of PoT ticks and Instant Dumps, but...that's not all that factors in anymore. We have WM, and if I toss PoT in the window or I hit Recharge within the window, it costs me less power to do so...and so my % return will increase dramatically. I have no problem grabbing whatever #'s folks would find helpful, I'm just not sure at this point where to go with this.

I wouldn't use the original post as reference material now. It is over 6 months old. It was written before the introduction of Generator Mods and Weapon Mastery.

The power consumption penalty is still scaling like it is supposed to. Power output efficiency has definitely been tipped in favor of the Controller with the recent changes.