Proper damage bonus for powers that have knocks vs knock immune targets

pantagruel01 · March 2016

As it was suggested that a separate thread be created:

There's no coherent reason for the damage bonus for a knock against a knock-immune power be linked to the base power at all -- on vulnerable targets, neither the CC time nor the falling damage are in any way related to the power of the attack that caused the knock. There should just be a separate damage tic with magnitude that depends on the knock distance, probably with a magnitude that's comparable to what Villains would take from falling, plus an additional bonus for the CC effect it triggers.

While we're at it, powers that proc CC effects could do with the same type of bonus.

flowcyto · March 2016

While we're at it, powers that proc CC effects could do with the same type of bonus.

Well, I would first like Manip to cover things that it prob should but doesn't atm (mostly non-knock CC's gained via special advs). Otherwise- essentially spec related debuffs somewhat are the 'added dmg' from CC, I'd take it. But atm it is a bit clunky, restrictive, and not as intuitive as something like innate added dmg coming from the CC power itself.

As far as KI bonuses: I agree it should be scaled to knock distance more closely and consistently, but are we talking baseline values that are normalized and fixed like current, or making the KI bonus scale w/ bonuses that affect knock distance?

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

kaizerin said:

Current knockback immune damage bonuses on powers:

(This is just for player information, if you want to discuss this further please make a new thread).

Haymaker, Uppercut: 0%-60% based on charge

Annihilate, Faultline, Force Blast, Force Cascade, Force Eruption, Massacre, Upheaval: 25%

Dragon Uppercut, Open Palm Strike: 20%

Eruption, Ebon Rift w/adv: 15%

Wind Breath w/adv: 12.5%

Maybe I'm reading in-between the lines, but I feel like this post implies that on some level you know that the current way knockback immune damage bonuses are set up is arbitrary and unbalanced. But since you asked us to talk about it, here goes a wall of text...

All melee knocks should be standardized at 60% and all ranged should be standardized at 15%.
Why all melee knockback immune damage bonuses should be standardized to 60%:

1) Melee dps is supposed to be higher than ranged dps because being in melee range is more dangerous. This has been a key aspect of design philosophy from the beginning of CO and COX.

The beginning of the end of this paradigm was the addition of forums for ranged DPS like concentration.
With more "epic" content incoming, being melee DPS has gotten even more dangerous and being ranged DPS has gotten even more rewarding. Positioning for melee DPS can even become impossible depending on where Grond spits.
Many bosses have PBAOE powers that ranged DPS don't even have to consider.
Even with a lunge Melee players have to spend DPS time moving into range before they can begin to attack while ranged DPS can just open fire. Also not all melee builds have s lunge

2) If your going to standardize knockback immune damage bonuses you may as well standardize them to Haymaker.

This will be a nice buff to melee DPS in general
IF you standardize knockback immune damage bonuses down to 20% @xcaligax will raise hell for nerfing Haymaker.
If 60% knockback immune damage bonus didn't cause the likes of Haymaker to break the game, then it wont break the other melee knock powers which are all less powerful than Haymaker.
I've already stated elsewhere that Open Palm strike could use some love The same goes for heavy weapons...

Why all ranged knockback immune damage bonuses should be standardized to 15%

As with haymaker, we round up...

aiqa · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:

kaizerin said:

Current knockback immune damage bonuses on powers:

(This is just for player information, if you want to discuss this further please make a new thread).

Haymaker, Uppercut: 0%-60% based on charge

Annihilate, Faultline, Force Blast, Force Cascade, Force Eruption, Massacre, Upheaval: 25%

Dragon Uppercut, Open Palm Strike: 20%

Eruption, Ebon Rift w/adv: 15%

Wind Breath w/adv: 12.5%
Maybe I'm reading in-between the lines, but I feel like this post implies that on some level you know that the current way knockback immune damage bonuses are set up is arbitrary and unbalanced. But since you asked us to talk about it, here goes a wall of text...

All melee knocks should be standardized at 60% and all ranged should be standardized at 15%.
Why all melee knockback immune damage bonuses should be standardized to 60%:

1) Melee dps is supposed to be higher than ranged dps because being in melee range is more dangerous. This has been a key aspect of design philosophy from the beginning of CO and COX.
The beginning of the end of this paradigm was the addition of forums for ranged DPS like concentration.
With more "epic" content incoming, being melee DPS has gotten even more dangerous and being ranged DPS has gotten even more rewarding. Positioning for melee DPS can even become impossible depending on where Grond spits.
Many bosses have PBAOE powers that ranged DPS don't even have to consider.
Even with a lunge Melee players have to spend DPS time moving into range before they can begin to attack while ranged DPS can just open fire. Also not all melee builds have s lunge

2) If your going to standardize knockback immune damage bonuses you may as well standardize them to Haymaker.
This will be a nice buff to melee DPS in general
IF you standardize knockback immune damage bonuses down to 20% @xcaligax will raise hell for nerfing Haymaker.
If 60% knockback immune damage bonus didn't cause the likes of Haymaker to break the game, then it wont break the other melee knock powers which are all less powerful than Haymaker.
I've already stated elsewhere that Open Palm strike could use some love The same goes for heavy weapons...

Why all ranged knockback immune damage bonuses should be standardized to 15%

As with haymaker, we round up...

I don't see why melee should be penalized like that. You might think 60% knock bonus is better, but you'd be very wrong.

Powers will just be balanced to do about equal damage to bosses, so that ends up with underperforming damage to any target that can actually be knocked. Against knock immunes Haymaker does not do 28% higher damage than any other melee power with a knock, nor does it do 60% higher damage than other melee powers without a knock. And unlike ranged attacks, if you fail to kill your target with that 1 attack you'll have to chase them to do any followup attacks, so having a low base damage to balance out that bonus to knock immune targets will be terrible for melee.

Having 1 power in the game that does a bit higher damage against knock immune targets, but lower against targets without knock immunity is ok, but that should never become the norm. And haymaker does have the long charge time so it can still do a good spike even if it's damage compared to charge time is not so great against targets without knock immunity.

xcaligax · March 2016

In my defense, even if the ingame tooltip says otherwise, haymaker's charge time is about 4 seconds.

That's counting from the moment the animation begins, to the the point it ends. Time it if you don't believe me

flowcyto · March 2016

Yeah I'm honestly not a huge fan of large KI bonuses. Having smaller, more normalized %ages as a perk is nice to make up for the lack of added potential fall dmg on CC immune targets. But w/ a large normalized bonus like 60%, as Aqia pointed out then either the power's base non-knock dmg is fine, but then the bonus is way overkill and unbalances the power on CC immune targets (and then knocks become the de-facto boss killing powers, and that's boring for build variety imo), or the dmg w/ the KI bonus is balanced, but he underlying base dmg is poor.

I do think that the penalty for not finishing off a target after a KB should be mostly w/in the realm of a user error- a choice the player makes, and if they judge wrongly then they have to spend mote time w/ a follow-up. To me that's a fair penalty for CCing a target away like that anyways- you are damaging while rendering the target helpless, after all. But its only fair if the user has full control if they want to attempt a KB w/ the power or not- that's why I don't really like powers that KB even on tap- they give you no choice but to risk that (unless you opt for a diff attack, but that kinda sucks to have to do).

KBs should prob get a higher bonus than the others, though, just cause of the higher risk, but not much more of a bonus imo.

For ref on the current system and exploring 'normalization'- just using what Kaiz said to us, since we know its official. Taking baseline knock values w/ a gear/stat/star-less lvl 40 Hybrid; double-checked on the PTS:

Haymaker: 0-60%; 0-53ft
Uppercut: 0-60%; 2.9-34ft (KU)

Annihilate: 25%; 17-35ft
Faultline: 25%; 8.4-21ft (KU)
Force Blast: 25%; 4.4-17ft
Force Cascade: 25%; 0-41ft
Force Eruption:25%; 5.2-31ft
Massacre: 25%; N/A (KD)
Upheaval: 25%; 4.2-27ft (KU)

Dragon Uppercut: 20%; 8.4-17ft (KU)
Open Palm Strike: 20%; 8.7-26ft

Eruption: 15%; 10ft (KU)
Ebon Rift w/adv: 15%; ??ft (amount not specified in tooltip; w/ quick testing I'd estimate its a ~15ft KB per proc)

Wind Breath w/adv: 12.5%; N/A (KD)

Kaiz can correct these distances if they are off, though it may be from the ~5% knock bonus that 5 Ego or Str give (which is pretty small, so I hope I'm not actually off by much).

And I didn't realize some KDs like Massacre had KI bonus. I think it s bit over-tuned atm, and perhaps that's why (KDs don't give fall dmg, so what is any KI bonus on them compensating for?). Overall I can see a general relation between knock distance/type and KI bonus, though its a bit inconsistent even in this sampling.
(edit: changed the Ebon Rift's adv to a KB, was confusing it w/ a diff power)

legendarylycan · March 2016

does frag grenade deal bonus damage to knock-immune targets, perchance?

raighn · March 2016

Wait a tick... Ebon Void is supposed to be 15% bonus to KI with it's adv?... if thats true... then something is bugged... unless there was a patch I missed (I'll have to get on my build that uses EV later to double check)... but last time I checked EV w/adv did +50% damage to KI... The bonus damage ticks when my target was knock immune have always been exactly 50% of the primary damage ticks... I even noted as much on the Builds & Roles board when I was asking for advice on the build...

flowcyto · March 2016

shadowfang240 said:
does frag grenade deal bonus damage to knock-immune targets, perchance?

Not sure. When I tested power activation time delay, Frag Grenade seemed to be one of many other powers that had no KI bonus. I thought I had a method in game for getting KI bonuses, but I'm casting doubt on that now. Prob was an issue w/ too much variance in the dmg ranges for me to really see the differences on average (variance on both the base dmg, and the dmg w/ KI bonus, and potentially resistances being messed up; I'm not sure there's an easier way to get an accurate test other than long parses, though).

Same thing w/ Ebon Rift's adv now- I just dunno.

legendarylycan · March 2016

well, either way, it needs its knock strength curbed some...i've never actually seen on in action (thankfully), but i'm pretty sure real frag grenades don't send bodies flying that far away from the epicenter...or that forcefully

flowcyto · March 2016

They could make the grenade work like Roomsweeper- in that if the target(s) is affected by a CC/snare effect already then it turns into a KU (or a KD) instead of a scatter KB. That'd make it less disruptive at least, and then more people may use it.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

flowcyto said:
They could make the grenade work like Roomsweeper- in that if the target(s) is affected by a CC/snare effect already then it turns into a KU (or a KD) instead of a scatter KB. That'd make it less disruptive at least, and then more people may use it.

It used to see PvP use, but then Force Geyser came into being.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

aiqa said:

Powers will just be balanced to do about equal damage to bosses, so that ends up with underperforming damage to any target that can actually be knocked. Against knock immunes

That would be putting knockback immune damage bonus parity over power balance itself. No one is suggesting that and I don't think the current dev team would even see any value in that. From what we know about kaizerins posting history and views on power balance, I don't think there's any reason to believe she would do that.
I understand where your coming from but this smells like nerf paranoia from the previous regime to me.

xcaligax said:
In my defense, even if the ingame tooltip says otherwise, haymaker's charge time is about 4 seconds.

That's counting from the moment the animation begins, to the the point it ends. Time it if you don't believe me

I certainly believe that charge-times in tool tips aren't what they are in practice.
I think she posted something about charge times in tool tips being inaccurate for some reason that may be related to "maintain Canceling". Maybe she can come in and correct me.

Also standardizing to knock distance seems like a likely outcome to all this.

aiqa · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:

aiqa said:

Powers will just be balanced to do about equal damage to bosses, so that ends up with underperforming damage to any target that can actually be knocked. Against knock immunes
That would be putting knockback immune damage bonus parity over power balance itself. No one is suggesting that and I don't think the current dev team would even see any value in that. From what we know about kaizerins posting history and views on power balance, I don't think there's any reason to believe she would do that.
I understand where your coming from but this smells like nerf paranoia from the previous regime to me.

Kaiserin's own dps testing thread were dps parses against knock immune targets. And Haymaker was not doing significantly higher dps against those than other top tier dps attacks like Massacre or Lasersword. To balance Haymaker while ignoring its bonus to knock immune targets, it would need a huge buff. And I haven't seen statements from any of the devs that points to a buff to Haymaker. Also I don't think it's acceptable for a select few melee attacks to do 60% higher damage than other attacks, and again I haven't seen any indication any dev thinks it is.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

aiqa said:

Kaiserin's own dps testing thread were dps parses against knock immune targets. And Haymaker was not doing significantly higher dps against those than other top tier dps attacks like Massacre or Lasersword. To balance Haymaker while ignoring its bonus to knock immune targets, it would need a huge buff. And I haven't seen statements from any of the devs that points to a buff to Haymaker. Also I don't think it's acceptable for a select few melee attacks to do 60% higher damage than other attacks, and again I haven't seen any indication any dev thinks it is.

I see now that I misunderstood your previous post. You can discard my response.

The fact that melee attacks (especially Haymaker) are balanced around fall damage does cause the power(s) to suffer against knock vulnerable targets. The buff to Haymaker (or melee knocks in general) you speak of is logical, but I wasn't bold enough to ask for such a thing. As an Open Palm Strike user (with Haymaker envy

) I'll take any buff I can get and this seemed like an opportunity.

A 60% buff to some melee attacks is not advisable. I believe melee needs a buff in general, and dealing with knocks is one of many ways to address that larger issue. I didn't want to go to deep into that because I figured it went beyond the scope of the topic of this thread.

Balancing melee dps v fall damage it tricky business and I admit I don't have the answers. All i know is that the current system is broken and if nothing else, I would like to get some kind of buff form its revision.

spinnytop · March 2016

shadowfang240 said:
well, either way, it needs its knock strength curbed some...i've never actually seen on in action (thankfully), but i'm pretty sure real frag grenades don't send bodies flying that far away from the epicenter...or that forcefully

comic book grenades send people flying every single time. they also have giant fiery explosions. comic book shotguns send people flying too.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

Actually, there's probably an internal 'price' for knockback, and the proper damage bonus would be to just convert that price into more damage.

sanguineviper · March 2016

shadowfang240 said:
well, either way, it needs its knock strength curbed some...i've never actually seen on in action (thankfully), but i'm pretty sure real frag grenades don't send bodies flying that far away from the epicenter...or that forcefully

Real frag grenades have almost no concussive force beyond about 10ft. Frag grenades are designed to explode their own shell, dispersing fragments of that shell outward, slicing and puncturing bodies out to about 50feet or so with lethality. This is why soldiers jumping on top of a frag grenade will actually stop it killing/wounding a load of other people. Their body will serve to absorb most of the shrapnel or slow it down to a point where it becomes non-lethal over a much shorter distance.

On the other hand, concussion grenades are designed specifically to send out a much more powerful shockwave and not shrapnel, which is far safer for the person throwing it. And far deadlier to whoever's inside the room it just got thrown into, because they're almost guaranteed to have their insides liquefied by the blast force. Still not knocked back, or up, but certainly down since they no longer have solid internal organs.

TL;DR: Real weapons are far, FAR more effective at actually just killing things than any of the munitions powers in CO besides TGM/Sniper are. I mean, they're designed to kill things, not knock them around like a bouncy castle.

legendarylycan · March 2016

well, right now, the frag grenade on my soviet werewolf soldier knocks back 54 feet...even for a game based on comics, that's beyond silly; if i had the option to make changes to it, i would:

* drop it to 20-25 feet (since it IS a superhero game, some exaggeration has to be allowed for)

* increase the blast radius from 15 feet to 30 (below the RL value of 50 feet, but actually making it 50 feet would likely make it too OP for the current balance level the game's set at - although, if possible, it could be made 50 feet and just have the damage decrease from the epicenter; dunno if that can be done in CO, but it certainly can in STO)

* (optional) add a chance for anything caught in the blast to have a Bleed debuff applied to them (to simulate open wounds from flying shrapnel; although, that shrapnel is likely to be superheated, which means any wounds caused would likely be instantly cauterized)

sterga · March 2016

Reality is far too violent and grisly for video games.

Seems like it would be easier to tweak Haymaker and Uppercut to have less insane extremes in damage than all of the other powers that don't. If you just tacked on that extra damage to powers with only 20-25% bonuses, there would be a bunch of new OP powers. And then you have more complaints about balance.

spinnytop · March 2016

Why are people bringing realism into the conversation at all? If you'll excuse me, I'll be over here breathing fire while I summon an angel and shoot my guns that never run out of ammo ever.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

sterga said:

Seems like it would be easier to tweak Haymaker and Uppercut to have less insane extremes in damage than all of the other powers that don't. If you just tacked on that extra damage to powers with only 20-25% bonuses, there would be a bunch of new OP powers. And then you have more complaints about balance.

so you think that Haymaker is over performing?
I have a lot to say about that but i would like to hear your rational around why Haymaker deserves a nerf before I speak.

tdits · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:

sterga said:

Seems like it would be easier to tweak Haymaker and Uppercut to have less insane extremes in damage than all of the other powers that don't. If you just tacked on that extra damage to powers with only 20-25% bonuses, there would be a bunch of new OP powers. And then you have more complaints about balance.
so you think that Haymaker is over performing?
I have a lot to say about that but i would like to hear your rational around why Haymaker deserves a nerf before I speak.

She didn't say overperforming. She said that their was too much variance between it's regular damage and it's knock immune damage. I would guess, based on her previous posts, that the fix she's thinking of is to lower Haymaker's KI damage bonus and raise it's base damage to compensate.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

tdits said:

She didn't say overperforming. She said that their was too much variance between it's regular damage and it's knock immune damage. I would guess, based on her previous posts, that the fix she's thinking of is to lower Haymaker's KI damage bonus and raise it's base damage to compensate.

She still said bringing the other powers up to Hayakers level would make them "OP" which is still questionable.
Giving Open Palm Strike a 60% ki bonus like haymaker would bring Open Palm Strike up to roughly Burning chi Fist levels of dps against knock immune targets ONLY. It would still get smoked by BCF against knock vulnerable targets and thus be considerably less powerful than BCF. If you did the same thing to Dragon Uppercut, it would still get smoked by Laser Sword regardless of target knock immunity.
If you think 60% KI bonus damage is too much then make it role dependent. 60% for damage role 40% for hybrid 20% for tank/support.

"But Sigma, Laser sword does scary damage.... in the PH"
We all know balancing the game against the PH is a bad idea, just like judging your latest build against the PH doesn't work.
Ask your self this question:

If you take a player who has built around a heavy single target melee power (EX:haymaker/BCF/Devour Essence/Massacre) and a player who has built around a heavy ranged aoe ( EX:Avalanche/Lightning Storm/Epidemic) and plug them both into a team of 5 doing the most common type of content (Grab Alerts) who do you think is going to parse higher encounter DPS?

The answer to this explains why Melee DPS (especially single target DPS) being higher than ranged DPS is a basic design philosophy of not just CO and COX but most MMOs and multi-player games.

The role of melee DPS is primarily that of "boss killers". Our AOE range is not large enough and AOE dps is not strong enough to do what range DPS does.
This is why I propose that all single target melee that isn't between Haymaker and Laser Sword DPS needs a buff.

Edit:
Warning: Sigma7 is not good at math. Please check my statements for accuracy.

sterga · March 2016

How is changing the extremes in damage a nerf? Seems like it would be a buff since those two powers would do more damage in more situations instead of just being the power you only use on bosses. Even then, not all bosses are knock immune. Pretty sure Haymaker on tap doesn't knock, so taps would do more damage.

Plus, being able to tap a power and do decent damage is more team friendly. You don't have to deal with charging a power for nothing because the enemy died or was knocked out of range by a teammate. There are other mobs outside of the boss. Why have powers that are gimped in non-boss situations?

I prefer not to make comparisons to OP powers when deciding if something is good damage or not. And I definitely prefer not to have such large gaps between kb bonus damage and normal damage.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

I didn't use the word "nerf" in my previous post.
I don't have a problem with what you suggest in theory, but I suspect that it would benefit Haymaker and leave other similar powers in the lurch. I could only get behind such a move if it included looking at the DPS of single target melee powers in general.

I have what I think are valid concerns about whether or not what appears to be a somewhat conservative dev team is willing to integrate fall damage into base damage. I suspect that the conditional damage of ki damage may feel safer to them.
This also raises the question of if we should even have fall damage at all... A big question.

"I prefer not to make comparisons to OP powers"
What powers that I compared are "OP" and why. You keep using the phrase "OP" in this ambiguous and open ended way which makes it hard to talk details and compare notes. You have a fair idea of what powers I consider "Under Powered" and why. Now its time to show your cards.

sterga · March 2016

"I have a lot to say about that but i would like to hear your rational around why Haymaker deserves a nerf before I speak."
"I didn't use the word "nerf" in my previous post."

.... .... ....

Massacre I would consider OP. It benefits from shredded, bleed, and bonus knock. And now can easily benefit from Furious / Willpower in its set. Plus, it can still utilize Endorphin Rush.

Haymaker is kinda half and half. VS non KB resist targets, not so much. VS KB resist targets, OP. It can also get free healing from Endorphin Rush.

Laser Sword, not sure. With the advantage, it can be on par with Haymaker and Massacre for dps, but it's also more than double the energy cost. The damage says 'OP' but the energy issues say 'not worth it' when you can get equivalent damage for less hassle.

Even though it's not part of the list, DE. High dps + healing at the same time. Although, might be less so after the fire snake changes.

It's not just those powers on their own, but what things they can easily utilize at low or no extra cost. Having background healing that only requires two advantage points means having to heal less and being able to do more damage. Cheap, decent dps buff / debuff appliers for more easy dps contributes.

flowcyto · March 2016

Laser Sword's combo is also hit pretty hard by activation time delay, which lowers its dps by >30% than what you'd garner from the tooltip values (which is a huge hit to its potential). Long charge attacks, like Haymaker and Massacre, and maintains like TGM or LArc are not nearly as affected by this as instants/taps are. (more info in the PSA link in my sig)

It seems to me that KI bonuses were not really normalized by any sort of cogent system overall in the past. But we're dealing w/ new devs, so hopefully we can come up w/ a more consistent/clear system. There are quite a few powers w/ KI bonuses, like Upheaval, OPStrike, or Updraft, that imo are UP and need some love, and some KUs/KBs that don't seem to have a bonus that could maybe use one. Would also like some clarification whether/why KD powers should get a KI bonus at all. It would imo be better to start w/ buffing weaker knocking powers first, and then stepping back and reviewing them all again before seeing if anything needs toned down.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

sterga said:

It's not just those powers on their own, but what things they can easily utilize at low or no extra cost. Having background healing that only requires two advantage points means having to heal less and being able to do more damage. Cheap, decent dps buff / debuff appliers for more easy dps contributes.

I understand your thought process, but I still feel like you are evaluating these powers in a vacuum. It feels like "these powers are over performing on paper", even when they don't over perform in-game, especially in team settings.

I have even had an opportunity to run gravitar with kaizerin and with Advanced Combat Tracker running. She is probably one of the best melee dps players in CO and she uses the "OP" Massacre w/ unstoppable. If I'm not mistaken her encounter was 2k dps give or take 500 (~2k dps is the average that I see w/various range dps builds). This is against a single knock immune mob (ideal conditions) by a player that's as "elite" as they come. How would her "OP" Massacre parse in less ideal/more common conditions like a custom alert/adventure pack/SC/LI? How would a less elite player perform under the same conditions.

I hate to keep asking you questions, but I'm trying to fully understand your position instead of just saying "your wrong!".
Can you address this question?

sigmaseven0 said:

If you take a player who has built around a heavy single target melee power (EX:haymaker/BCF/Devour Essence/Massacre) and a player who has built around a heavy ranged aoe ( EX:Avalanche/Lightning Storm/Epidemic) and plug them both into a team of 5 doing the most common type of content (Grab Alerts) who do you think is going to parse higher encounter DPS?

aiqa · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:
I have even had an opportunity to run gravitar

Gravitar is about as unfriendly to melee players as bosses come. Using that as your target to balance melee dps is more than a little silly. If you run TA you'll notice that none of the new bosses are that big a problem for melee. Tanking has even been locked into melee range for most of the bosses. Medusa, Teleiosaurus, and Teleios are all far more dangerous to tank when you are out of melee range. The only boss in TA that is still much harder for a melee build is Gravitar.

notyuu · March 2016

Just gonna say, why not have
+40% damage for melee single knock powers vs knokc ressit targets
+25% damage for melee aoe knock powers vs knock resist targets
+10% damage for ranged knock powers vs knock resist targets

just becasue, why not make thing suniform instead of having values all over the place?

sterga · March 2016

You want damage parsers, you can do them. The better question is why would a melee toon not be using aoe powers on groups? The ranged toons are. Your example is hinky.

And I have a parse of Kaizerin doing 4k dps in Grav rampage. I've also seen her near the top of the dps board in open world bosses, beaten by exploit builds and ao rotating ranged dps. So? Let's face it, a hybrid mode tank passive melee toon is going to do more dps in area, high damage content than someone with a dps passive simply due to not needing to heal as much.

Pretty sure it takes minimal effort to combo then massacre. Bestial has everything you need in set. Doesn't take a genius to read the tooltips to figure out energy powers. Failing that, two of our bestial tank players have their builds publicly listed for anyone to see.

You seem to keep using examples where an aoe would be more appropriate. Your opinion on under performing powers isn't any more accurate than mine. I based my opinion on reading basic damage parsers and knowing how powers can combo with each other and actually using them. I can tell you if I dumped laser sword for massacre, it would be much easier for me to use in combat. I could even dump rush and never have to worry about trying to actually use plasma cutter. Haymaker and Massacre rotations would be 10x easier to do in gameplay than laser sword ones I use now.

I don't even think it would be possible to run my build with lower tier gear and mods. But I know I could do bestial / might combos.

If you want to tell me I'm wrong, go for it. Doesn't magically make your opinion correct, but I'm not going to entertain your questionable view on how people play their toons. All melee is gimped in sky command. Solo adventure packs are going to use aoe powers more than single target. Parsing things outside the PoHo can have wild variations which doesn't discriminate between powers.

The powers you think are under performing, I thing are fine or could maybe use some slight tweaks. But certainly not a 60% knock bonus from 20-25% for reasons that have already been stated.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

aiqa said:
The only boss in TA that is still much harder for a melee build is Gravitar.

Grond is somewhat annoying for melee, in that you have to get good at luring him out of his puddles or wade into them after him.

aiqa · March 2016

notyuu said:
Just gonna say, why not have
+40% damage for melee single knock powers vs knokc ressit targets
+25% damage for melee aoe knock powers vs knock resist targets
+10% damage for ranged knock powers vs knock resist targets

just becasue, why not make thing suniform instead of having values all over the place?

Well because it's not good to have powers with knocks doing 20% higher damage against bosses than powers without a knock, nor is it ok when those do 20% lower damage to targets without knock immunity. How ever you balance things, with a 40% damage bonus to a knock immune target you either end up with an overpowered power, an underpowered one, or both at the same time, but never with one that is nicely balanced for most content.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

aiqa said:
Medusa, Teleiosaurus, and Teleios are all far more dangerous to tank when you are out of melee range. The only boss in TA that is still much harder for a melee build is Gravitar.

I'm not even talking about tanking.
If your not running a defensive passive, all of these bosses are more dangerous in melee range. sterga is about to reinforce this below.

sterga said:
Let's face it, a hybrid mode tank passive melee toon is going to do more dps in area, high damage content than someone with a dps passive simply due to not needing to heal as much.

On top of that a hybrid can more safely gather agro so you can make use of your smaller melee AOE radius and reduce DPS lost due to moving between targets.
Do you not see any problem with this? If you invest more deeply in DPS (passive/role) you should get more.

sterga said:
You seem to keep using examples where an aoe would be more appropriate.

Yes, this applies to the majority of group content.
A lot of the melee AOE powers have smaller radiuses than ranged AOE. This fact alone limits melee AOE potential. Your other option is to dip in to the ranged frameworks and suffer diminished damage bonuses (passive and role) and reduced synergy in the processes.

This is especially true for the MA framework. Much of the brick framework was designed with tanking in mind and it shows. Many of them have knock and melee KB, especially melee AOE KB can be disruptive in a team setting. Lightwave Slash? LOL Particle Smash? Very long and impractical setup with deep power investment. I'm not going to address heavy weapons because its being worked on.
Are all the melee AOE options inferior? No. Eye of the Storm comes to mind, but overall melee AOE dps often comes with serious thematic and synergistic concessions.

sterga said:
Your opinion on under performing powers isn't any more accurate than mine

Never said it was, that's why I was asking for your opinion instead of talking at you...

sterga said:
If you want to tell me I'm wrong, go for it.

And why would I do that now after I just overtly went out of my way NOT to do that? With the specific intent of avoiding typical CO forum snippyness...

sterga · March 2016

"I hate to keep asking you questions, but I'm trying to fully understand your position instead of just saying "your wrong!"."
"And why would I do that now after I just overtly went out of my way NOT to do that?"

Seems like you want to.

"Do you not see any problem with this? If you invest more deeply in DPS (passive/role) you should get more."

I did not say I don't see a problem with that. Pretty sure I didn't give my opinion at all on the topic.

I told you the powers I thought were OP and why. Oddly enough, you said I had tunnel vision even though part of the reason was due to the synergy those powers have with other things and how easy it is to buff them more than their base. You don't accept my reasons, that's your business. Asking me about a swath of irrelevant issues that have nothing to even remotely do with this thread doesn't interest me. Especially when you bring up scenarios and comparisons that don't make sense.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

sterga said:
"I hate to keep asking you questions, but I'm trying to fully understand your position instead of just saying "your wrong!"."
"And why would I do that now after I just overtly went out of my way NOT to do that?"

Seems like you want to.

I all but apologized for asking too many questions and then told you exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Ironically, you took it that way any way. Then I go further and clarify my intentions and you still quote my words as if to prove something. I'm not sure why your looking for an enemy here. You won't find one.
Ive been nothing but civil towards you.

sterga said:
"Do you not see any problem with this? If you invest more deeply in DPS (passive/role) you should get more."

I did not say I don't see a problem with that. Pretty sure I didn't give my opinion at all on the topic.

Which is why I asked (note the question mark).
Then we agree. This is why I suggested that when these powers get looked at, maybe some of the changes should be role dependent. (see... these things are connected)

sterga said:
I told you the powers I thought were OP and why. Oddly enough, you said I had tunnel vision even though part of the reason was due to the synergy those powers have with other things and how easy it is to buff them more than their base. You don't accept my reasons, that's your business. Asking me about a swath of irrelevant issues that have nothing to even remotely do with this thread doesn't interest me. Especially when you bring up scenarios and comparisons that don't make sense.

The topic of this thread is fairly open ended/vague. How powers that are up for adjustment perform in various common game scenarios is hardly irrelevant. I was asking you questions not to change your mind (your not a dev) but to pick your brain... This is a discussion forum after all

. Your pretty disinterested in discussion for someone who voluntarily entered a discussion thread.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:

aiqa said:
Medusa, Teleiosaurus, and Teleios are all far more dangerous to tank when you are out of melee range. The only boss in TA that is still much harder for a melee build is Gravitar.
I'm not even talking about tanking.
If your not running a defensive passive, all of these bosses are more dangerous in melee range.

If you aren't tanking, the danger to melee from the TA bosses is as follows:

Medusa: near indistinguishable from range; her aoe nukes hit everyone, everything else is small AoEs targeted at the tank which can be avoided by just standing on different sides.
Teleiosaurus: near indistinguishable from range; everything that hits non-tanks has at least 50' range.
Gravitar: worse for melee; she's got fairly large AoEs that she scatters about, and there's simply less floor space for melee to be in and still able to attack.
Grond: usually worse for melee, mostly because Grond tends to be right at the edge of one of his puddles. However, 'defensive passive' is somewhat irrelevant, as you don't want to fight in one of those puddles even if you've got a defensive passive.
Teleios: avoiding accidentally passing the siphon is tough if you've got multiple melee, though one melee on the opposite from the tank works easily enough. Defensive passive doesn't matter, genetic siphon doesn't care.

sterga · March 2016

"Do you not see any problem with this?" -> This is an accusation based on the assumption that I don't see a problem with that.

"Then we agree." -> I still didn't tell you my opinion, so you are making an assumption.

"Your pretty disinterested in discussion for someone who voluntarily entered a discussion thread."

I'm disinterested in assumptions made about what I think and "what if" scenarios that are illogical. You're also trying to bring up a lot of other issues that don't have anything to do with tacking on knock bonuses to powers. Ranged VS Melee is a whole other can of worms as is Melee Tank VS Melee DPS. It also looks like some aoe VS single target stuff.

Some of those things have more to do with encounter design and enemy AI than powers. Some of those things have to do with the game having balance issues all over the place, not just with powers.

"I'm not sure why your looking for an enemy here."

Making assumptions about what I'm thinking is dumb because you'll always be wrong. The more someone does that, the more likely I'll start adding sass. I am nitpicky with how people craft and use their words. It's the same thing I do to other people, not just you.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

sterga said:

"If you want to tell me I'm wrong, go for it" Assumption
"You don't accept my reasons, that's your business."Assumption
"you said I had tunnel vision "Assumption

Making assumptions about what I'm thinking is dumb because you'll always be wrong. The more someone does that, the more likely I'll start adding sass. I am nitpicky with how people craft and use their words. It's the same thing I do to other people, not just you.

Anyway this exchange is going no where and doing nothing for this thread. I wont address you directly any more here.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

pantagruel01
A lot of it depends on the "tank". I have some tank horror stories (some of them are even funny) and i assume you do to.

Medusa is inherently more dangerous in melee. Have you never had a tank loose agro in TA?

Grond can be ez or hair pulling depending on the tank. Not every tank lines the walls with the puke. Its not so much about defensive passive as it is that situations can emerge that make it impossible to be close enough to do melee damage.

As for Teleiosaurus, I don't personally have a problem with him, but Ive seen that tail cause many a wipe dispute warnings from my self and team mates. Tanks that wont sit still can also rotate Teleiosaurus suddenly putting people in tail range.

A well organized TA can be super smooth but TA pugs often fail for reasons like these.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:
Medusa is inherently more dangerous in melee. Have you never had a tank loose agro in TA?

Yep. She's got a lunge that does massive damage, if she aggro swaps you're better off in melee.

sigmaseven0 said:
As for Teleiosaurus, I don't personally have a problem with him, but Ive seen that tail cause many a wipe dispute warnings from my self and team mates.

Sure, but that kills ranged just fine, and it's harder to tell if you're in a safe location with ranged.

spinnytop · March 2016

Another 'soft' benefit of being melee is that you're right there next to the tank, so if the healer starts throwing out some aoe heals you're likely to catch them as well. For some reason ranged players like to spread out...

sterga · March 2016

o.O It's not an assumption if it's something you typed out...

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

@pantagruel01:
I didn't realize that Teleiosaurus tail swipe had a 50ft range.

@spinnytop
Good point.
Can I twist your arm and get you to weigh in on the powers kaizerin listed or the KI dmg bonus problem?

pantagruel01 · March 2016

sigmaseven0 said:
@pantagruel01:
I didn't realize that Teleiosaurus tail swipe had a 50ft range.

It does. 50' (180 arc behind) for tail swipe, 100' for spine burst, toxic stomp, mighty roar, radiation breath (180 arc forward). Her only short range attacks are her bites.

spinnytop · March 2016

Since I was asked, I'll weight in.

pantagruel01 said:

There's no coherent reason for the damage bonus for a knock against a knock-immune power be linked to the base power at all -- on vulnerable targets, neither the CC time nor the falling damage are in any way related to the power of the attack that caused the knock. There should just be a separate damage tic with magnitude that depends on the knock distance, probably with a magnitude that's comparable to what Villains would take from falling, plus an additional bonus for the CC effect it triggers.

While we're at it, powers that proc CC effects could do with the same type of bonus.

^ I agree mostly with this. The basis for the extra damage on knock immune powers is that a power would normally do X amount of extra falling damage on a target, and that the base power is balanced weaker than it would be without the knock component to account for this extra potential damage. Thusly, the damage bonus should be based on the power's base knock strength, before any bonuses from Strength or Ego are taken into account ( base knock strength because the Damage bonus from Strength and Ego does not affect fall damage, but does affect the bonus damage gained from the KI bonus, so "having more strength = more fall damage" is already accounted for in this way ).

So my issue with this:

"Haymaker, Uppercut: 0%-60% based on charge
Annihilate, Faultline, Force Blast, Force Cascade, Force Eruption, Massacre, Upheaval: 25%
Dragon Uppercut, Open Palm Strike: 20%
Eruption, Ebon Rift w/adv: 15%
Wind Breath w/adv: 12.5%"

Is that only two powers are having the full range of their Knock Strength taken into account. Oddly enough those two powers then have the same bonus despite not doing the same amount of fall damage ( i checked, haymaker's was 25% more ), so really to my way of thinking even they're not done up right. Each of these powers should get an increasing amount of damage bonus as they charge, so long as the knock distance increases with the charge, which is quite a few of these powers - the knock power should also give bonuses relative to one another. A power that knocks 100' should get a bigger bonus than a power that knocks 50', because that is accurately compensating them for the damage they've lost. Doesn't matter if they're ranged or melee powers, the base power itself doesn't actually matter - what's being compensated for here is lost fall damage, nothing else; all other aspects of the power are already accounted for in the powers base damage.

Now, on NPCs that are normally knockable but that have been rendered knock immune via KR stacks, this damage bonus should then be adjusted by whatever sort of knock resistence the NPCs have, because that resist would accordingly, on average, lower the amount of falling damage they would take. However, on NPCs that are never knockable, or that are for some other reason in an unknockable state ( i.e. the players did not put them in that state ), the full bonus should be given since there was never an opportunity to apply the knock to begin with.

As for CC powers getting bonus damage, that I'm a bit more iffy about, primarily because those CC effects never did any damage to begin with. What they did do was lower the damage output of the mobs in question( mostly to 0 ) so if anything they should be compensated with a similar effect when used against targets that are immune to their CC effects. For CC powers used against hold-immune targets, a damage debuff sounds reasonable. To me this also fits the theme of a controller struggling to control an uncontrollable foe - you can't stop them, you can only slow them down.

spinnytop · March 2016

xcaligax said:
In my defense, even if the ingame tooltip says otherwise, haymaker's charge time is about 4 seconds.

That's counting from the moment the animation begins, to the the point it ends. Time it if you don't believe me

Sure let's do that! Counting from the moment the button is pushed until the moment the damage comes out

https://youtu.be/AuIR312xcMc

Well this is awkward

pantagruel01 · March 2016

Yeah, did some testing. I wasn't able to get it down to 2.5s reliably because I was underspecced for energy, but repeated full charge haymakers had an average separation of 3s even with some minor energy issues.

sigmaseven0 · March 2016

Heh.. that was a lot easier than the last time I tried asking questions in this thread.

I'll admit this is probably more reasonable than what I put forward. As an Open Palm Strike user, I had some self serving overtones in my posts. Sometimes its hard to be objective when a power central to your build is on the chopping block.
For this reason, I'm eager to see what if anything kaizerin will do to Massacre.

raighn · March 2016

I'd love to see the KI bonus scale with the knock strength of the power...

Now, the bonus not scaling with str/ego only works IFF the KI bonus damage benefits from str/ego bonus damage... the reason for this is because your knock strength from str/ego translates into more falling damae by causing the target to be propelled higher into the air... Personally I think it'd be more balanced to NOT let bonus damage affect the KI bonus and instead calculate str/ego knock strength into the KI bonus.

How I personally see it working is as follows.

KI bonus is applied as an extra hit of damage. The extra damage is delivered as penetrating damage (since falling damage ignores resistance). KI bonus is calculated using base knock strength & bonus knock strength. Bonus damage does NOT affect KI bonus.

Proper damage bonus for powers that have knocks vs knock immune targets

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