Does AoED actually work?

tau41

So the other night I'm on PTS. I'm playing with Aura of Ebon Destruction, ask a friend to jump on. We're messing with powers and builds, and he's in the other room shooting target dummies. I'm watching him for a bit, he's got all his toggle stacks up, watching his average damage (13k-15k on a Fireball crit), and decide to party up with him to see how much of a boost he'll get from my AoED.

According to the tooltip, it's supposed to be 40% (my gear sucks, but whatever).

Well, we test for another 20 minutes, and his damage on Fireball never left the 13k-15k range.

Let's stick a fork in this right now-if AoED doesn't buff the group because it's bugged, there is NO REASON to use it, EVER.

So is it my imagination, is it actually not doing anything for party members, or is this another example of why Cryptic Math screws over build synergies?

kamokami

AoED does work. That 40% buff is not actually his 15k*1.4...it gets added into the general damage bonus layer with passives, toggle forms, superstat bonuses, etc. and is subject to the diminishing returns of buffs in that layer. So in reality it's not very much. In my experience, a 100% buff from AoED added got my teammates to do about 30% more damage.

If you want to see how much difference a small buff is making for your friend's damage you need to measure his DPS over time as opposed to looking at individual hits. See the parser link in my signature.

tau41

Actually, you answered my question perfectly:

"and is subject to the diminishing returns of buffs in that layer."

That's what I had suspected was going on there. That being the case, I have little to no control over what level of DR someone has in their particular layer for bonus damage.

This is something that has bothered me about CO for a -very- long time. As we and all my friends in SPEAR/ARC called it, Cryptic math. Without having any UI indication of DR, or even how much of a damage bonus a person has accrued at any one time, it's very tricky to chase.

spinnytop

Well that's what makes AoED great. You don't have control over your teammates and how much damage bonus they have stacked... unless you have AoED. AoED allows you to ensure that they have a high amount of damage bonus, which can be great when you end up partied with a bunch of people who don't. 100% damage bonus is basically giving someone 5 stacks of a well statted Form. That's why AoED can save a Dino run, it magically takes all those poorly geared people and makes them well geared.

Even for people who are deep into DR, you're still adding damage to their crits thanks to ebon lightning.

kamokami

spinnytop said:

Well that's what makes AoED great. You don't have control over your teammates and how much damage bonus they have stacked... unless you have AoED. AoED allows you to ensure that they have a high amount of damage bonus, which can be great when you end up partied with a bunch of people who don't. 100% damage bonus is basically giving someone 5 stacks of a well statted Form. That's why AoED can save a Dino run, it magically takes all those poorly geared people and makes them well geared.

Even for people who are deep into DR, you're still adding damage to their crits thanks to ebon lightning.

Yup. It is the best passive for bringing the bottom half of a parse up closer to the top half.

roughbearmattach

I must agree with Spinny and Kamokami--AoED is a superb passive, as it gives a really big boost to toons that need it, and a small boost to toons that don't.

For toons/pets that crit frequently, it is amazing.

jaazaniah1

Agreed. If you are ever at dino and people are not making the dps checks having someone with AoED join the team can make all the difference.

chaelk

also remember range from you to affected people.
several of my maintain/infernal healers have aoed and it works.
i know this from having to report that 2/3 of my score on cosmic fights was due to other peoples damage.
someone parsed general then my attacks and 1/3 of the score was mine, rest was other peoples bonus damage

chaelk

the question i have about aoed is;
your bonus goes on all 3 stats, others go on only pre, so how come mine is lower. there's no comment which says this is reversed in support role, yet support it swaps over.