A glass cannon by nature will spend a lot of time with their face on the pavement.
But does that have to be the case for the game to be challenging?
I took squishies into the new lair, didn't spend a lot of time on the pavement, and still felt quite challenged by the content. Every time I did die, it wasn't because some unavoidable damage was too high for my chosen levels of hit points and defense, it was because I failed to pay attention and react to something avoidable. I feel like that's a much better direction than "you're going to die a lot no matter what you do because your combination of hit points and defense aren't high enough to survive the unavoidable damage". After all, if there's nothing I can do, action-wise/skill-wise, then the content isn't actually challenging... it's just punishing me for my build. Should that ever be the case in this game?
NOTE: I'm okay with "build challenge content", but I think it shouldn't be main line content. It should be tucked off to the side somewhere where the general population won't care about it. Sort of a little playground for the 1%. If they're going to do something monumental like the lair revamp we've been clamoring for, then it should be general population stuff. Challenging, but still allowing build creativity.
So I know certain dev(s) may have seen this thread... and that they have something to say about it... I just wish we could know what those thoughts were
So I know certain dev(s) may have seen this thread... and that they have something to say about it... I just wish we could know what those thoughts were
we will know eventually...
Just another reptile lover, known in game as @nacito
This is a big journey, so far if you're reading this, wish you a good day
So I know certain dev(s) may have seen this thread... and that they have something to say about it... I just wish we could know what those thoughts were
we will know eventually...
Think of it this way: Until CON is adjusted, we can assume their thoughts are "no".
fix the end-game content is my suggestion. Having gravi fire off warning-less cascades, random shots from kenina/frost, etc. is the real reason people need con.
what they did with TA's gravi is better, give warnings, give signs, animations, anything - so dps can survive.
once content is fixed, high con won't be necessary. nerfing con only hurts tanks and soloers. (and pvp which i think where most of this nerf-con stuff comes from).
if you were able to avoid damage by paying attention to the fight instead of randomly getting one-shotted, a non-con SS dps build would be completely viable.
and while playing today, someone was asking which Form scales with Con or SS.
and then checked and said there were no form for Ranged CON characters.
I think you misunderstand this suggestion. Base HP would be raised and anyone with 350 CON or less would not be hurt at all.
People would still have 10-15k HP with CON, they'd just have ~8k HP without CON.
didnt misunderstand anything, you shouldnt presume. i know people are asking for an increase in base hp, i'm saying it's not necessary if end-game content has animations/warnings so squisher ATs and DPS can block or mitigate accordingly.
raising base hp to 8k would trivialize all content other than rampage/TA (more than they already are). also, people with over 20k hp would definitely feel this nerf, so no, not all people over 10k hp would have the same hp. the trade-off with these super HP havers is their dmg is lower and thus, cannot hold threat as well as some of the better tanks in the game. i'd say this is a fair trade, since that is their playstyle. forcing tanks to just get up to the soft or hard cap of CON would water down playstyles further, even if the changes are better for those affected. if a tank wants to be silly and get 22k hp, they should be allowed to, but they'll sacrifice threat.
didnt misunderstand anything, you shouldnt presume. i know people are asking for an increase in base hp, i'm saying it's not necessary if end-game content has animations/warnings so squisher ATs and DPS can block or mitigate accordingly.
raising base hp to 8k would trivialize all content other than rampage/TA (more than they already are). also, people with over 20k hp would definitely feel this nerf, so no, not all people over 10k hp would have the same hp. the trade-off with these super HP havers is their dmg is lower and thus, cannot hold threat as well as some of the better tanks in the game. i'd say this is a fair trade, since that is their playstyle. forcing tanks to just get up to the soft or hard cap of CON would water down playstyles further, even if the changes are better for those affected. if a tank wants to be silly and get 22k hp, they should be allowed to, but they'll sacrifice threat.
as Tank role Con as SS can give you bonus threat, you meant that they will sacrifice damage?
Just another reptile lover, known in game as @nacito
This is a big journey, so far if you're reading this, wish you a good day
fix the end-game content is my suggestion. Having gravi fire off warning-less cascades, random shots from kenina/frost, etc. is the real reason people need con.
what they did with TA's gravi is better, give warnings, give signs, animations, anything - so dps can survive.
once content is fixed, high con won't be necessary. nerfing con only hurts tanks and soloers. (and pvp which i think where most of this nerf-con stuff comes from).
if you were able to avoid damage by paying attention to the fight instead of randomly getting one-shotted, a non-con SS dps build would be completely viable.
It isn't that high con won't be necessary - it is that it is possible without much sacrifice. It is a PVE issue more than pvp. Even with a good block, in TA Gravitar still can do damage that will 1 shot you (and I'm not talking about yellow bubbles) or knock you and have a minion finish you off with a single hit. You can get killed by any other of the Bosses as well.
Notice that Teleios' fight has a debuff that is HP% based? That is because you can just make a build that can withstand his attacks. A DPS becomes a convenience, but Con is the way to go if you want to survive. And really, there is no reason not to take it. Even if you could block or run out of the area of attacks to avoid damage, you could still take Con and do just as well. As a ranged player, take ego, take an energy super stat... you can take dex next I guess? You'll probably be criting enough already with the right specs. Strength to avoid knocks maybe? More energy?
Just take Con for insurance.
You are right with 8k being too high of a base HP stat though - a lot of us agreed with that if you read any of the majority of the other post. But there is a middle ground where the big gap between the super tanky and super squishy can be brought a bit closer together. Not so much you don't feel powerful taking Con, but enough that they aren't basically playing two different games - one where nothing seems to kill you and another where almost everything seems to kill you.
I had a realization, and that's that I can't support a raise to base HP, or rather that I'm not allowed to. Since I do all current content with base HP and it's fine, I'm basically obligated to say that a raise of base HP isn't needed. Whoopsie!
I had a realization, and that's that I can't support a raise to base HP, or rather that I'm not allowed to. Since I do all current content with base HP and it's fine, I'm basically obligated to say that a raise of base HP isn't needed. Whoopsie!
Optimally the HP change would likely be paired with an update that debuffs what the 'Tough' enemy modifier does to mobs, and in turn increases the HP and damage output of every enemy in the game, possibly save some cosmics and legendaries. In other words, everything outside of Alerts, Rampages, and the newer content (Mechanon and TA) becomes more powerful.
Of course that's a bit of a tall order to call upon in short notice, so I'd just settle upon this small buff to just make it so that non-CON people don't get crushed by a stray chest beam from a single DEMON villain.
This has to be the most well thought out Con Nerf suggestion I have ever seen... normally I'm opposed to nerfs entirely... but this one is so well thought out and packaged that I can honestly see no true downside... I can see people being butthurt about con providing less benefit per point, but the end result will be that the vast majority of those players will either A) see no change in their HP or find themselves with more HP... very few will actually lose significant amounts of HP...
This has to be the most well thought out Con Nerf suggestion I have ever seen... normally I'm opposed to nerfs entirely... but this one is so well thought out and packaged that I can honestly see no true downside... I can see people being butthurt about con providing less benefit per point, but the end result will be that the vast majority of those players will either A) see no change in their HP or find themselves with more HP... very few will actually lose significant amounts of HP...
Exactly. It's, if you want the TL:DR, just a bump to base HP, really. Everyone could benefit from some nice HP buffs .
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
Exactly. It's, if you want the TL:DR, just a bump to base HP, really. Everyone could benefit from some nice HP buffs .
Double base HP, double NPC damage, and everything becomes better .
Yep. Now, the ? is Will they. Will they dedicate there time to this(very viable) change, will they do it right, will they be willing to cut down CON a bit. All very daunting task if you ask me for a dev team, here's hoping they will and can.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
Exactly. It's, if you want the TL:DR, just a bump to base HP, really. Everyone could benefit from some nice HP buffs .
Double base HP, double NPC damage, and everything becomes better .
The more I think about it, the more comfortable I feel about "a nice HP buff" being an optional thing that people choose to have. Anyone can stat some Con if they feel they need higher hit points, and it's a bit of an over-generalization to state that "everyone needs this". Sure "everyone could benefit" from it, but everyone could benefit from a lot of things, not all of which are good for game balance. The problem with "Everyone takes Con" seems to be less about Con itself and more about the reason that "there's no reason not to take it over something else". I think we can blame ez2use powers like 2GM for this since it was really easy to just jam the highest performing, low cost dps power into your tons-o-health build. We can see with the cost raise that maybe this issue is going to be addressed in another way, without any sort of "sweeping, wide-ranging adjustments that affect the entire game and require a ton of work to do right"... and instead, these "easy to jam into a high health build" powers are going to be adjusted so that they're no longer easy to do just that with.
Now think about that, think about what this accomplishes. Not only do we devalue Constitution with this, but we also magically re-value energy stats, which have for a long time been viewed as garbage that there's no reason to take. We also revalue ideas like "stacking a bunch of Ego", which for a long time got the response of "lol why would you do that noob". Yes, we take a dps hit in the process because we can no longer uber-optimize everything with the same build, but that then attacks yet another problem: player dps being too high ( and especially, player dps being too high while being combined with very high toughness ). It seems like the only reason people can come up with for not wanting to do something like, for example, stack a bunch of Ego to get their energy needs met is "that's not optimized, ew, lower dps". Well, to me it seems like the concept of "optimized" is a bit too up there and needs to be brought down.. and oh look, this accomplishes that.
This also comes with the caveat that the entire game doesn't need to be looked at for balance issues - everything can stay balanced for current health values both minimum and maximum, because while people can still choose to just toss Con into every build, they'll have to take some trade-offs for doing that in the form of poorer energy management. They can still have some form of good damage, but in order to have the "constant flow of high dps" they'll have to give up something because all the best dps powers will be energy hungry.
See, the problem with "raising base HP" is that all it really does is make the game a bit easier, and makes a lot of work, and potentially just allows a bunch of the current problems to get even worse - needing to put less into Con means people are free to optimize their dps to an even higher level.
Other than a few niche areas, the game is actually balanced for current base HP amounts, so the solution isn't to raise base HP but instead to fix those niche areas. After all, it's not an indicator of bad design if glass cannons feel brittle - it'd be more of a design issue if glass cannons never felt the weight of their decision to play one, and never felt like they had to try to work around the fact that they just can't take some attacks. The problem to "Everyone takes Con" is to give them a reason to want something else, not to just give them more Con as default.
Exactly. It's, if you want the TL:DR, just a bump to base HP, really. Everyone could benefit from some nice HP buffs .
Double base HP, double NPC damage, and everything becomes better .
The more I think about it, the more comfortable I feel about "a nice HP buff" being an optional thing that people choose to have. Anyone can stat some Con if they feel they need higher hit points, and it's a bit of an over-generalization to state that "everyone needs this". Sure "everyone could benefit" from it, but everyone could benefit from a lot of things, not all of which are good for game balance. The problem with "Everyone takes Con" seems to be less about Con itself and more about the reason that "there's no reason not to take it over something else". I think we can blame ez2use powers like 2GM for this since it was really easy to just jam the highest performing, low cost dps power into your tons-o-health build. We can see with the cost raise that maybe this issue is going to be addressed in another way, without any sort of "sweeping, wide-ranging adjustments that affect the entire game and require a ton of work to do right"... and instead, these "easy to jam into a high health build" powers are going to be adjusted so that they're no longer easy to do just that with.
Now think about that, think about what this accomplishes. Not only do we devalue Constitution with this, but we also magically re-value energy stats, which have for a long time been viewed as garbage that there's no reason to take. We also revalue ideas like "stacking a bunch of Ego", which for a long time got the response of "lol why would you do that noob". Yes, we take a dps hit in the process because we can no longer uber-optimize everything with the same build, but that then attacks yet another problem: player dps being too high ( and especially, player dps being too high while being combined with very high toughness ). It seems like the only reason people can come up with for not wanting to do something like, for example, stack a bunch of Ego to get their energy needs met is "that's not optimized, ew, lower dps". Well, to me it seems like the concept of "optimized" is a bit too up there and needs to be brought down.. and oh look, this accomplishes that.
This also comes with the caveat that the entire game doesn't need to be looked at for balance issues - everything can stay balanced for current health values both minimum and maximum, because while people can still choose to just toss Con into every build, they'll have to take some trade-offs for doing that in the form of poorer energy management. They can still have some form of good damage, but in order to have the "constant flow of high dps" they'll have to give up something because all the best dps powers will be energy hungry.
See, the problem with "raising base HP" is that all it really does is make the game a bit easier, and makes a lot of work, and potentially just allows a bunch of the current problems to get even worse - needing to put less into Con means people are free to optimize their dps to an even higher level.
Other than a few niche areas, the game is actually balanced for current base HP amounts, so the solution isn't to raise base HP but instead to fix those niche areas. After all, it's not an indicator of bad design if glass cannons feel brittle - it'd be more of a design issue if glass cannons never felt the weight of their decision to play one, and never felt like they had to try to work around the fact that they just can't take some attacks. The problem to "Everyone takes Con" is to give them a reason to want something else, not to just give them more Con as default.
I'm of the mindset, make the powers worth it. You see, the reason everyone truly is so pissed, is because there literally is, to a lot in game, no reason. Mobs are still weak, and we're still strong. This wouldn't be the case if mobs were a challenge. No matter what you nerf no matter what you change, the mobs will still be weak. It's like placing a band-aid on a gaping wound, best to address the wound than go through all the cabinets applying band-aids.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
I'm of the mindset, make the powers worth it. You see, the reason everyone truly is so pissed, is because there literally is, to a lot in game, no reason. Mobs are still weak, and we're still strong. This wouldn't be the case if mobs were a challenge. No matter what you nerf no matter what you change, the mobs will still be weak. It's like placing a band-aid on a gaping wound, best to address the wound than go through all the cabinets applying band-aids.
Even the greatest fighter in the world is a pushover if his punches can't hurt you and your first punch makes his head explode. Mobs became weak because player damage and toughness were hugely raised, and especially because players were able to have too much of both at the same time. You certainly don't solve this problem by making everyone's baseline toughness even higher.
Despite what you believe much of the game is balanced towards the upper range of health and resistance. Hell its even balanced towards the upper range of damage as well. This is a two fold problem. The first step is addressing the health problem. There are numerous enemies that hit 2-5k frequently, several of which can deal that per second in AoEs. This results in any build not starting con dying instantly upon encountering such enemies. Normally the presence of a tank would counter balance such problems, but, it doesn't here due to enemies with aggro dumps and random target abilities galore.
Part two is dealing with the damage problem which further undermine tanking. Since a powerful DPS can pull aggro off most any tank quickly resulting in their own death, or a neusance to the rest of the team called kiting.
Healers can't do much to help a glass cannon when they die as soon as they get hit. However a low HP high resistance build should be capable of surviving such hits, unfortunately this is not the case. At most such a build buys itself one extra hit before death.
Despite what you believe much of the game is balanced towards the upper range of health and resistance.
It has nothing to do with believing, it has to do with having done everything with a base health low-resistance character. Despite what you may believe, it's entire doable, doesn't require any sort of amazing builds ( that would only lead you to those high health high resistance builds ), and doesn't require you to be some amazing proleet gamer.
The game is easier if you have high health and resistance, that's all. Players who coddle themselves with those crutches might not have the basic skills needed to cut it as a glass cannon, but that doesn't make it impossible or less viable to be one. I can do it, and I'm average at best, which means anyone can. What's holding people back is not a lack of ability, but a lack of desire. This is sort of proven when people would rather they just up the base hp and make the whole game easier.
Despite what you believe much of the game is balanced towards the upper range of health and resistance.
It has nothing to do with believing, it has to do with having done everything with a base health low-resistance character. Despite what you may believe, it's entire doable, doesn't require any sort of amazing builds ( that would only lead you to those high health high resistance builds ), and doesn't require you to be some amazing proleet gamer.
The game is easier if you have high health and resistance, that's all. Players who coddle themselves with those crutches might not have the basic skills needed to cut it as a glass cannon, but that doesn't make it impossible or less viable to be one. I can do it, and I'm average at best, which means anyone can. What's holding people back is not a lack of ability, but a lack of desire. This is sort of proven when people would rather they just up the base hp and make the whole game easier.
Actually, the reason base HP is needed to be upped is so not everyone has to stat CON. I mean look in-game, and you'll see nothing but 10K+ HP players with a countable number of players with 5K or say, a DEX/INT/EGO build that doesn't go and mod outside those stats with Con mods. Base HP raise doesn't make the game easier(in fact the OP states how this can be avoided.). It means you don't have to go all Con all the time. To use a word way over-used on these forums: Build diversity through different stats.
Buffing everything to stupid high levels and nerfing everything to piss poor levels yields the same results, but not the same community reactions.
Spinnytop, there's a very simple counter-argument to your position: Gravitar. The rampage one, not the one in TA. Sure, you can contribute some if there are enough people running around with res powers - but that doesn't change the fact that someone with 5k HP is going to spend a good chunk of that fight dead (especially if they're melee.)
Increasing base HP moves con from "you must have this stat if you want to avoid being a liability in some fights" to "you can take this stat if you want more survivability". The latter is much better place for the game to be.
Of course, there is one obvious alternative: change encounter mechanics to allow (non-tank) players to anticipate or avoid large damage bursts. Much like how Gravitar in TA shows where her force cascade is going to be instead of just firing like the rampage version. And if you did that you could probably justify just plain nerfing con some without increasing base HP to compensate - as long as you also slightly reduced the burst damage of TA bosses (and Frosticus) to account for tanks having lower HP pools.
I haven't really commented about lowering the amount of HP per point of CON, but if that's what you think needs to be done then sure, nerf Con!
Well atleast you deem to acknowledge CON gives to much HP per point...
The reason CON is seen as required is the fact that many bosses can deal 5k worth of damage to anyone with a single attack, resulting in anyone who doesn't have more than 5k HP spending the majority of the fight dead. In addition to the fact that CON can increase your health pool by 2-3x the base HP value. Combine that with the general lack of anything better to take as your 3rd superstat and it's no wonder why nearly everyone stacks CON.
NOTE: This does not mean that EVERYONE who has less than 5k health will spend most of the fight dead. Just because you survive it Spinny does not mean that everyone else can/does or that you're even in the majority, quite frankly you're most likely in the minority.
It's also worth mentioning that out of my 40+ builds only 7 of them stat Con.
Eh, if anything I support a Con nerf and base health adjustment just from a standpoint of tightening the distribution. Its prob really tough to design stuff fairly when the maxHP range of ur toons can be 4k-20k. Sure, ya can accommodate for the glassy FFs and Con-less dps ATs, but how then to also make the same content challenging to the high-end of that spectrum? And w/o just walling it off to some players?
And I guess its worth reiterating that maxHP is just one facet of survival, and sometimes not even a huge one at that. Having 2k more base health may be great, but if ur defense is still crap underneath then you'll still fold quickly to any type of sustained inc dmg that isn't buffered some other way (ADs, blocking, etc). Support toons are kinda like that- even designed to be lower health (10% maxHP penalty) and weaker defenses than a tank or tanky hybrid, but have strong healing boosts; getting more maxHP for them isn't about sustained survival, but having enough room to react and pop ur health back up.
The reason CON is seen as required is the fact that many bosses can deal 5k worth of damage to anyone with a single attack, resulting in anyone who doesn't have more than 5k HP spending the majority of the fight dead.
Combine that with the general lack of anything better to take as your 3rd superstat and it's no wonder why nearly everyone stacks CON.
^ the actual issue. This is why people take Con, and this is why people then get used to having it, and why they have trouble adjusting to not having it, which is what gives them the perception that they need it.
NOTE: This does not mean that EVERYONE who has less than 5k health will spend most of the fight dead. Just because you survive it Spinny does not mean that everyone else can/does or that you're even in the majority, quite frankly you're most likely in the minority.
I can't really comment on me being the majority or the minority, partially because what sort of grouping is being talked about here hasn't been very clearly defined, and also because no matter what that grouping is I haven't taken the time to count the actual numbers involved - I don't think you have either so. I'll point out two things however:
1. I'm not doing anything that anyone else can't do. 2. I don't always survive - and as a glass cannon, that's not only fine but expected... after all, what meaning does the choice of being a glass cannon have if you're not brittle?
It's also worth mentioning that out of my 40+ builds only 7 of them stat Con.
So then all this talk of Con being required or being seen as required is... what... rhetorical?
No, not rhetorical... The reason I don't stack CON on all my builds is because I don't want to. I want there to be more options to the survival aspect of my characters than to be giant HP sacks... But as endgame has slowly progressed on CO it's been progressivly balancing towards the top end of CON stacked builds. The average damage output of endgame content should NOT exceed the base HP value like it does currently... and CON should NOT be capable of trippling your max HP.
A Glass cannon should be fragile yes, but there are ways to build low HP with high defenses... however, such builds are largely impractical and only marginally better than glass cannons due to the sheer level of damage that can be put out by endgame enemies... even the damage output of high level DPS players trivializes most defensive abilities...
I've got a Shielder build with only 6k HP, capable of surviving a 22k hit with only ~110HP left... but her build accomplishes this by sacrificing in everything to focus exclusively on damage mitigation/reduction... Moving to less extreme builds, I've got a dodge heavy build with 5k HP that will die from any hit larger than 12k when RNG is on herside... a crit based Wardicator build loaded up with self-healing abilities that can heal 1.5k per second but that means nothing when her entire pool of 5k HP dissapears to a single 8k damage attack... but when it comes to my actual glass cannons I expect them to die to a light breeze but the others who I actually invested in defensive abilities should still be capable of surviving...
I could argue for better returns from Defense & other forms of damage mitigation... but that's not really feasable and adjusting base HP and CON would yield far more universal results than that, and lead to better potential balance for future and existing content.
Once upon a time, Strength's melee damage bonus had an impact on damage, then On Alert's Form pass happened and the biggest source of damage bonuses became the Form rather than the stat itself.
One upon a time Ego was changed to give a ranged damage bonus, then On Alert's Form pass happened and... see above.
Once upon a time too, Dexterity significantly affected critical hit chance. Then On Alert happened and gave out Critical Rating like candy. After that, it got nerfed. Now, with Justice stuff, Dex's impact is in the realm of single digit percentage points.
Not too long ago, Intelligence significantly lowered cooldowns. It used to do more, but On Alert happened and gave out Cooldown Reduction like candy. More recently, it got nerfed. Nowadays, it needs huge stacking to get any noticeable change.
One upon a time, Pre was a healing stat. Then On Alert happened and we could slot heal mods, and the Form pass happened and Rec could trigger Compassion. Pre's heal bonus is just icing nowadays for bubbles.
Recovery and Endurance's usefulness have always dropped off once a build can sustain its rotation.
And then there's Con which used to at least double your survivability with modest stacking, and with On Alert, probably triples survivability. When On Alert happened, gear didn't increase HP much, instead increasing Defense to make HP even more valuable. Not to mention Juggernaut which makes Con not just increase raw HP, but effective HP too by making that HP pool able to absorb more damage.
And then when Nimble Mind and Wardicator looping are taken into account, a DPS actually loses DPS by not statting Con. From my POV, that's just downright ridiculous. Look at the Auction House prices for Con vs every other stat, the difference is so huge it's not even funny.
However, from a non-DPS' perspective, many tanks still have a hard time against high end bosses like Frosty.
So there's four factors that need to be considered:
One is ensuring tanks have the survivability needed to handle current content while making sure DPS are squishy enough that fire is a bad place to stand in. This includes making Con mods affordable enough for new tanks to pick up.
Two is how to achieve parity between Con and other superstats. It shouldn't be that heavily stacking Con makes characters 4x more survivable, but stacking Ego instead of Int doesn't even increase raw DPS by 1/4, and stacking Dex doesn't even give 25% more crit chance, much less 25% more actual DPS. Even stacking Pre vs stacking Rec isn't a 4x difference.
Three is how to balance Con vs HP from gear. Gambler's mods are good substitutes for what Dex and Int do. Growth mods don't do nearly the same thing vs. Con. Personally, the mods are doing too much and non-Con superstats are doing too little. It's too easy to slot a single mod which does what 4 mods' worth of stats does. This goes with point two in that if DPS needed to stack a DPS increasing stat in order to perform well in their role, rather than hit steep DRs like they do today, they'd slot less Con.
Four is what to do about the specializations.
Personally, Frosty is the only outlier that requires a very tanky tank. I'd drop his damage based around dropping the HP required HP for top end content down to around 12.5k, then raise the base HP up to 6k, up from 4955. Bump Growth mods up to 800 each, so that slotting two of those is 7.6k HP, then reduce Con's effect to 8 HP per Con so that Sec SS Con + 4 R7 Con Mods will hit the target, and the remaining gear slots are leeway for possible future changes that may make other SSs have more impact than they currently do.
Low Def still keeps DPS squishy, but now they would have a choice between slotting Impact for Wardicator looping vs slotting Growth to be tankier, so the pure glass cannon approach is still there.
As for point four, I'd suggest making Juggernaut and Nimble Mind scale with PSS and call it a day.
So: -CON giving 8 health per 1 CON, while STR gives 3. -Nimble Mind scaling with SS. -Juggernaut scaling with STR. -Higher health from other sources.
Yeah no, that is not really improving things, just going to make STR the next OP and overused stat. The first two things I can agree with, but at that point CON stacking has been nerfed enough, and STR does not need that buff.
Comparing Growth mods to Lucky Gem and CON to DEX is not really a useful thing to do. If stacking crit rating mods and DEX is giving you to small advantages due to diminishing returns, there are good alternative for crit rating mods in offense gear. First there is a DUC, and if you don't need your crit rating in the other slot other you can add a Sentinel mod for some very nice healing bonus. Considerations like that do not come into play when choosing between either health, defense mods. You just need to figure out what is the best effective HP and if that is with health mods (which is likely already the case), is it worth the increased heal requirements to get your health up form 0 to max. And if you really want to compare mods, if you compare Growth mods in defense to Growth in utility gear, the health bonus suddenly looks very good.
Even with a DUC, Dex still doesn't change crit rating very much - you could stick a healing mod in there, except healing does nothing for DPS and the long term plan is to change how other SSes are weighted vs mods as well.
Stacking Str would have a negative effect on Severity as Pri. Str, which would reduce the value of Nimble Mind. Higher HP from other sources wouldn't compensate from getting 3HP per point, down from 15, and eventually something should be done about Wardicator to make Defense contribute less and Offense contribute more, to the point where Endurance's Power Overwhelming and Intelligence's Tactician become attractive alternatives to Juggernaut and Force of Will.
I've got a Shielder build with only 6k HP, capable of surviving a 22k hit with only ~110HP left... but her build accomplishes this by sacrificing in everything to focus exclusively on damage mitigation/reduction... Moving to less extreme builds, I've got a dodge heavy build with 5k HP that will die from any hit larger than 12k when RNG is on herside... a crit based Wardicator build loaded up with self-healing abilities that can heal 1.5k per second but that means nothing when her entire pool of 5k HP dissapears to a single 8k damage attack... but when it comes to my actual glass cannons I expect them to die to a light breeze but the others who I actually invested in defensive abilities should still be capable of surviving...
And on any of those characters, if you wanted more toughness you could have it. The option is there, you just decided not to take it. I don't see why that's a justification for giving you that extra toughness for nothing. DPS taking Con should continue to be a choice that people make, rather than something that's automatically added to everyone's build.
It's not a bad thing that X number of people choose to take Con on their dps/healer builds, regardless of what percentage of the population X represents. Hopefully with the design direction we see coming, there will be more of a downside to doing that, but we don't want to then undo that positive change by giving people Con anyways and letting them evade the choice entirely.
Having meaningful choices is good. If a choice is not meaningful enough then the solution is to make the choice more meaningful, not remove the choice.
Oddly enough Id on't agree with the OP. A lot of misconstrued evidence. For starters, it doesn't make DPS more valuable. It just removes choice from the system. You can choose to either be a glass cannon or you can choose to make yourself tougher. Making it both just ruins the system as a whole, not improves it. CON needs a cap on HP, definitely, or at least a diminishing returns value provided. And the other major factor certain powers and functions need to be finally divorced from CON such as Ego Surge and Defiance as well as powers that give a percentage based on max health.
Removing this choice doesn't fix the problem that is systemic in the game and at no point should choosing to be a glass cannon be a trivial choice to make.
Basically. The real issue with CON is that too much works off either the super stat itself, or the "best" stuff is just working based on a percentage of max health. And make no mistake, as the OP has, there are way more ways to get health in this game than just CON. If they nerf CON people will just move to the other methods to get health.
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I took squishies into the new lair, didn't spend a lot of time on the pavement, and still felt quite challenged by the content. Every time I did die, it wasn't because some unavoidable damage was too high for my chosen levels of hit points and defense, it was because I failed to pay attention and react to something avoidable. I feel like that's a much better direction than "you're going to die a lot no matter what you do because your combination of hit points and defense aren't high enough to survive the unavoidable damage". After all, if there's nothing I can do, action-wise/skill-wise, then the content isn't actually challenging... it's just punishing me for my build. Should that ever be the case in this game?
NOTE: I'm okay with "build challenge content", but I think it shouldn't be main line content. It should be tucked off to the side somewhere where the general population won't care about it. Sort of a little playground for the 1%. If they're going to do something monumental like the lair revamp we've been clamoring for, then it should be general population stuff. Challenging, but still allowing build creativity.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
This is a big journey, so far if you're reading this, wish you a good day
This is a big journey, so far if you're reading this, wish you a good day
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
fix the end-game content is my suggestion. Having gravi fire off warning-less cascades, random shots from kenina/frost, etc. is the real reason people need con.
what they did with TA's gravi is better, give warnings, give signs, animations, anything - so dps can survive.
once content is fixed, high con won't be necessary. nerfing con only hurts tanks and soloers. (and pvp which i think where most of this nerf-con stuff comes from).
if you were able to avoid damage by paying attention to the fight instead of randomly getting one-shotted, a non-con SS dps build would be completely viable.
and then checked and said there were no form for Ranged CON characters.
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raising base hp to 8k would trivialize all content other than rampage/TA (more than they already are). also, people with over 20k hp would definitely feel this nerf, so no, not all people over 10k hp would have the same hp. the trade-off with these super HP havers is their dmg is lower and thus, cannot hold threat as well as some of the better tanks in the game. i'd say this is a fair trade, since that is their playstyle. forcing tanks to just get up to the soft or hard cap of CON would water down playstyles further, even if the changes are better for those affected. if a tank wants to be silly and get 22k hp, they should be allowed to, but they'll sacrifice threat.
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they dont lose threat from having con as an SS, they lose dmg or energy regen whathaveyou.
Notice that Teleios' fight has a debuff that is HP% based? That is because you can just make a build that can withstand his attacks. A DPS becomes a convenience, but Con is the way to go if you want to survive. And really, there is no reason not to take it. Even if you could block or run out of the area of attacks to avoid damage, you could still take Con and do just as well. As a ranged player, take ego, take an energy super stat... you can take dex next I guess? You'll probably be criting enough already with the right specs. Strength to avoid knocks maybe? More energy?
Just take Con for insurance.
You are right with 8k being too high of a base HP stat though - a lot of us agreed with that if you read any of the majority of the other post. But there is a middle ground where the big gap between the super tanky and super squishy can be brought a bit closer together. Not so much you don't feel powerful taking Con, but enough that they aren't basically playing two different games - one where nothing seems to kill you and another where almost everything seems to kill you.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Of course that's a bit of a tall order to call upon in short notice, so I'd just settle upon this small buff to just make it so that non-CON people don't get crushed by a stray chest beam from a single DEMON villain.
42 40s, LTSer.
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42 40s, LTSer.
Now think about that, think about what this accomplishes. Not only do we devalue Constitution with this, but we also magically re-value energy stats, which have for a long time been viewed as garbage that there's no reason to take. We also revalue ideas like "stacking a bunch of Ego", which for a long time got the response of "lol why would you do that noob". Yes, we take a dps hit in the process because we can no longer uber-optimize everything with the same build, but that then attacks yet another problem: player dps being too high ( and especially, player dps being too high while being combined with very high toughness ). It seems like the only reason people can come up with for not wanting to do something like, for example, stack a bunch of Ego to get their energy needs met is "that's not optimized, ew, lower dps". Well, to me it seems like the concept of "optimized" is a bit too up there and needs to be brought down.. and oh look, this accomplishes that.
This also comes with the caveat that the entire game doesn't need to be looked at for balance issues - everything can stay balanced for current health values both minimum and maximum, because while people can still choose to just toss Con into every build, they'll have to take some trade-offs for doing that in the form of poorer energy management. They can still have some form of good damage, but in order to have the "constant flow of high dps" they'll have to give up something because all the best dps powers will be energy hungry.
See, the problem with "raising base HP" is that all it really does is make the game a bit easier, and makes a lot of work, and potentially just allows a bunch of the current problems to get even worse - needing to put less into Con means people are free to optimize their dps to an even higher level.
Other than a few niche areas, the game is actually balanced for current base HP amounts, so the solution isn't to raise base HP but instead to fix those niche areas. After all, it's not an indicator of bad design if glass cannons feel brittle - it'd be more of a design issue if glass cannons never felt the weight of their decision to play one, and never felt like they had to try to work around the fact that they just can't take some attacks. The problem to "Everyone takes Con" is to give them a reason to want something else, not to just give them more Con as default.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
42 40s, LTSer.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Part two is dealing with the damage problem which further undermine tanking. Since a powerful DPS can pull aggro off most any tank quickly resulting in their own death, or a neusance to the rest of the team called kiting.
Healers can't do much to help a glass cannon when they die as soon as they get hit. However a low HP high resistance build should be capable of surviving such hits, unfortunately this is not the case. At most such a build buys itself one extra hit before death.
The game is easier if you have high health and resistance, that's all. Players who coddle themselves with those crutches might not have the basic skills needed to cut it as a glass cannon, but that doesn't make it impossible or less viable to be one. I can do it, and I'm average at best, which means anyone can. What's holding people back is not a lack of ability, but a lack of desire. This is sort of proven when people would rather they just up the base hp and make the whole game easier.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
42 40s, LTSer.
Nerf Con!
Increasing base HP moves con from "you must have this stat if you want to avoid being a liability in some fights" to "you can take this stat if you want more survivability". The latter is much better place for the game to be.
Of course, there is one obvious alternative: change encounter mechanics to allow (non-tank) players to anticipate or avoid large damage bursts. Much like how Gravitar in TA shows where her force cascade is going to be instead of just firing like the rampage version. And if you did that you could probably justify just plain nerfing con some without increasing base HP to compensate - as long as you also slightly reduced the burst damage of TA bosses (and Frosticus) to account for tanks having lower HP pools.
You want more build diversity? Here's a thought: Try building differently
I haven't really commented about lowering the amount of HP per point of CON, but if that's what you think needs to be done then sure, nerf Con!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
The reason CON is seen as required is the fact that many bosses can deal 5k worth of damage to anyone with a single attack, resulting in anyone who doesn't have more than 5k HP spending the majority of the fight dead. In addition to the fact that CON can increase your health pool by 2-3x the base HP value. Combine that with the general lack of anything better to take as your 3rd superstat and it's no wonder why nearly everyone stacks CON.
NOTE: This does not mean that EVERYONE who has less than 5k health will spend most of the fight dead. Just because you survive it Spinny does not mean that everyone else can/does or that you're even in the majority, quite frankly you're most likely in the minority.
It's also worth mentioning that out of my 40+ builds only 7 of them stat Con.
And I guess its worth reiterating that maxHP is just one facet of survival, and sometimes not even a huge one at that. Having 2k more base health may be great, but if ur defense is still crap underneath then you'll still fold quickly to any type of sustained inc dmg that isn't buffered some other way (ADs, blocking, etc). Support toons are kinda like that- even designed to be lower health (10% maxHP penalty) and weaker defenses than a tank or tanky hybrid, but have strong healing boosts; getting more maxHP for them isn't about sustained survival, but having enough room to react and pop ur health back up.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Sure, but everyone has block. ^ the actual issue. This is why people take Con, and this is why people then get used to having it, and why they have trouble adjusting to not having it, which is what gives them the perception that they need it.
I can't really comment on me being the majority or the minority, partially because what sort of grouping is being talked about here hasn't been very clearly defined, and also because no matter what that grouping is I haven't taken the time to count the actual numbers involved - I don't think you have either so. I'll point out two things however:
1. I'm not doing anything that anyone else can't do.
2. I don't always survive - and as a glass cannon, that's not only fine but expected... after all, what meaning does the choice of being a glass cannon have if you're not brittle? So then all this talk of Con being required or being seen as required is... what... rhetorical?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
This is a big journey, so far if you're reading this, wish you a good day
A Glass cannon should be fragile yes, but there are ways to build low HP with high defenses... however, such builds are largely impractical and only marginally better than glass cannons due to the sheer level of damage that can be put out by endgame enemies... even the damage output of high level DPS players trivializes most defensive abilities...
I've got a Shielder build with only 6k HP, capable of surviving a 22k hit with only ~110HP left... but her build accomplishes this by sacrificing in everything to focus exclusively on damage mitigation/reduction... Moving to less extreme builds, I've got a dodge heavy build with 5k HP that will die from any hit larger than 12k when RNG is on herside... a crit based Wardicator build loaded up with self-healing abilities that can heal 1.5k per second but that means nothing when her entire pool of 5k HP dissapears to a single 8k damage attack... but when it comes to my actual glass cannons I expect them to die to a light breeze but the others who I actually invested in defensive abilities should still be capable of surviving...
I could argue for better returns from Defense & other forms of damage mitigation... but that's not really feasable and adjusting base HP and CON would yield far more universal results than that, and lead to better potential balance for future and existing content.
Once upon a time, Strength's melee damage bonus had an impact on damage, then On Alert's Form pass happened and the biggest source of damage bonuses became the Form rather than the stat itself.
One upon a time Ego was changed to give a ranged damage bonus, then On Alert's Form pass happened and... see above.
Once upon a time too, Dexterity significantly affected critical hit chance. Then On Alert happened and gave out Critical Rating like candy. After that, it got nerfed. Now, with Justice stuff, Dex's impact is in the realm of single digit percentage points.
Not too long ago, Intelligence significantly lowered cooldowns. It used to do more, but On Alert happened and gave out Cooldown Reduction like candy. More recently, it got nerfed. Nowadays, it needs huge stacking to get any noticeable change.
One upon a time, Pre was a healing stat. Then On Alert happened and we could slot heal mods, and the Form pass happened and Rec could trigger Compassion. Pre's heal bonus is just icing nowadays for bubbles.
Recovery and Endurance's usefulness have always dropped off once a build can sustain its rotation.
And then there's Con which used to at least double your survivability with modest stacking, and with On Alert, probably triples survivability. When On Alert happened, gear didn't increase HP much, instead increasing Defense to make HP even more valuable. Not to mention Juggernaut which makes Con not just increase raw HP, but effective HP too by making that HP pool able to absorb more damage.
And then when Nimble Mind and Wardicator looping are taken into account, a DPS actually loses DPS by not statting Con. From my POV, that's just downright ridiculous. Look at the Auction House prices for Con vs every other stat, the difference is so huge it's not even funny.
However, from a non-DPS' perspective, many tanks still have a hard time against high end bosses like Frosty.
So there's four factors that need to be considered:
One is ensuring tanks have the survivability needed to handle current content while making sure DPS are squishy enough that fire is a bad place to stand in. This includes making Con mods affordable enough for new tanks to pick up.
Two is how to achieve parity between Con and other superstats. It shouldn't be that heavily stacking Con makes characters 4x more survivable, but stacking Ego instead of Int doesn't even increase raw DPS by 1/4, and stacking Dex doesn't even give 25% more crit chance, much less 25% more actual DPS. Even stacking Pre vs stacking Rec isn't a 4x difference.
Three is how to balance Con vs HP from gear. Gambler's mods are good substitutes for what Dex and Int do. Growth mods don't do nearly the same thing vs. Con. Personally, the mods are doing too much and non-Con superstats are doing too little. It's too easy to slot a single mod which does what 4 mods' worth of stats does. This goes with point two in that if DPS needed to stack a DPS increasing stat in order to perform well in their role, rather than hit steep DRs like they do today, they'd slot less Con.
Four is what to do about the specializations.
Personally, Frosty is the only outlier that requires a very tanky tank. I'd drop his damage based around dropping the HP required HP for top end content down to around 12.5k, then raise the base HP up to 6k, up from 4955. Bump Growth mods up to 800 each, so that slotting two of those is 7.6k HP, then reduce Con's effect to 8 HP per Con so that Sec SS Con + 4 R7 Con Mods will hit the target, and the remaining gear slots are leeway for possible future changes that may make other SSs have more impact than they currently do.
Low Def still keeps DPS squishy, but now they would have a choice between slotting Impact for Wardicator looping vs slotting Growth to be tankier, so the pure glass cannon approach is still there.
As for point four, I'd suggest making Juggernaut and Nimble Mind scale with PSS and call it a day.
-CON giving 8 health per 1 CON, while STR gives 3.
-Nimble Mind scaling with SS.
-Juggernaut scaling with STR.
-Higher health from other sources.
Yeah no, that is not really improving things, just going to make STR the next OP and overused stat.
The first two things I can agree with, but at that point CON stacking has been nerfed enough, and STR does not need that buff.
Comparing Growth mods to Lucky Gem and CON to DEX is not really a useful thing to do. If stacking crit rating mods and DEX is giving you to small advantages due to diminishing returns, there are good alternative for crit rating mods in offense gear. First there is a DUC, and if you don't need your crit rating in the other slot other you can add a Sentinel mod for some very nice healing bonus. Considerations like that do not come into play when choosing between either health, defense mods. You just need to figure out what is the best effective HP and if that is with health mods (which is likely already the case), is it worth the increased heal requirements to get your health up form 0 to max. And if you really want to compare mods, if you compare Growth mods in defense to Growth in utility gear, the health bonus suddenly looks very good.
Stacking Str would have a negative effect on Severity as Pri. Str, which would reduce the value of Nimble Mind. Higher HP from other sources wouldn't compensate from getting 3HP per point, down from 15, and eventually something should be done about Wardicator to make Defense contribute less and Offense contribute more, to the point where Endurance's Power Overwhelming and Intelligence's Tactician become attractive alternatives to Juggernaut and Force of Will.
It's not a bad thing that X number of people choose to take Con on their dps/healer builds, regardless of what percentage of the population X represents. Hopefully with the design direction we see coming, there will be more of a downside to doing that, but we don't want to then undo that positive change by giving people Con anyways and letting them evade the choice entirely.
Having meaningful choices is good. If a choice is not meaningful enough then the solution is to make the choice more meaningful, not remove the choice.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Removing this choice doesn't fix the problem that is systemic in the game and at no point should choosing to be a glass cannon be a trivial choice to make.
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Basically. The real issue with CON is that too much works off either the super stat itself, or the "best" stuff is just working based on a percentage of max health. And make no mistake, as the OP has, there are way more ways to get health in this game than just CON. If they nerf CON people will just move to the other methods to get health.
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