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FC.31.20161102.0626.3 - Power Changes/Bug Fixes

kaiserin#0958 kaiserin Posts: 3,078 Cryptic Developer
edited November 2016 in PTS - The Archive
Misc
  • Added visible numbers to the scales in the tailor UI.
  • Onslaught Gloves of the Sniper now have a short internal cooldown. This change is targeted towards the use of this piece of gear with Power Armor abilities, and shouldn't have much impact on players who aren't using PA.
  • Added 1K perks for gaining 1000 of Unity, SCR and GCR currencies: Bronze Age, Silver Age, Golden Age.
  • Added a perk for completing all of those perks: Modern Age.
  • Added Phoenix Tear back to the GCR store.
  • Made some changes to the Cybermind Alert so it tracks mission credit a little better.
  • Made a change to the Qliphothic Warzone open missions to try and address an issue with rewards.




Power Changes
  • U-238 Rounds now apply Burn Through instead of its own debuff if toggled on for at least half of its duration instead of its own debuff. This is being done to tone down the number of debuffs PA can stack on a target.
  • Increased the duration of burn through to 12 seconds.
  • Plasma Beam's (player version) damage has been reduced to make it more in line with other power armor and aoe abilities.
  • Plasma Beam's tic rate has been increased to 0.25 seconds to reduce server strain.
  • Increased Melta Cannon chance to 10%. Tooltip is currently inaccurate.
  • Fixed a bug where Arcane Clarity was not working for the Witch AT.
  • Fixed a bug where Wil-o-the-Wisp was not refreshing Hexed.
  • Fixed a bug where Life Essence healed you for extra tics.
  • Added voodoo dolls as a costume option for Ebon Sigils.
  • Voodoo powers can now be colored.
  • Fixed a bug where R1 Infernal Blast FX was skewed.
  • Fixed a bug where Mk1 Takofanes Throne vehicle was invisible.
  • Fixed a bug where upgrading the Takofanes Throne did not expel the weapons.
  • Fixed a bug where Incendiary Rounds did not increase in damage with its mark.
  • Fixed a bug where the new arcane flight animation was playing when using any 2H block in regular flight mode.

Voodoo Doll Block
  • Now deals toxic damage back to attackers.
  • New Advantage: Has a 20% chance to stun enemies. This can occur once every 10 seconds.

Curse
  • No longer ruptures poison. We decided to take the power in another direction.
  • Stuns targets if affected by a poison.
  • New advantage: Refreshes all poisons.





Archetypes
  • The Witch AT no longer has access to Infernal Blast.
  • Now picks between Ebon Sigils and Venomous Breath at level 11.
  • Now picks between Curse or Will-o-the-Wisp at level 30.
​​
Post edited by kaiserin#0958 on

Comments

  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    I will methodically document any issues encountered while I beat Cybermind mercilessly. :D
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  • dakrushmordakrushmor Posts: 592 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    Visible numbers to scales = Yey!!!111 l hope this field is writeable too.

    Plasma Beam needs second version. Non-toggle and non-slot version with old damage lMO. Many people were using it in non-PA builds, cross frameworks builds ftw.
    Post edited by dakrushmor on
  • blumoon8blumoon8 Posts: 430 Arc User
    I've checked out the visuals of the new powers. I love ALL of them but the wisp. It feels a bit underwhelming, and to be honest, a little sloppy compared to the others. I'm not sure if it's animation is finalized or not, but I wanted to point it out just in case. :)

    I say stuff and I say things, sometimes together but only when I'm feeling adventurous.

    I'm @blu8 in game! :D
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    Internal cd on onslaught burst appears to be 0.5s. Given that, activation time scaling should also treat any power faster than 0.5s as a 0.5s activation power.

    If PA is no longer stacking multiple debuffs, Burn Through should be increased to -15% to match other debuff powers.

    While you're at it, make Burn Through available on a gadgeteering power. I suggest either Experimental Blaster or making it one of the random debuffs from Finite Improbability Engine, probably replacing Displaced.
  • riveroceanriverocean Posts: 1,690 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    Plasma Beam ---
    Ok I get nerfing the damage some... but it's still an awful power to use. Can the the way it targets get a look at please? Sure it did a ton of damage, but hardly anyone ever took it, because it was just so awkward. And I say this as a player who leveled a plasma beam + pestilence build to 40 back in the day B) .

    The New Witch power progression makes a lot more sense. Love the visuals and art (hooray voodoo dolls). Tried it out on test in both Lemurian Antiquities and a Nighthawk run. I did notice that all of it's powers are 50ft range abilities -- so it's forced close to the action a lot.

    It looks like Life Essence was adjusted to place a hefty heal around poisoned enemy targets. That seemed to work well especially with Sentinel Mastery. Tanks should love this.

    I actually like Arcane Clarity with this AT. Makes casting holds a little less annoying. I wouldn't mind someone taking a look at the cast time for Grasping Shadows. Even with AOAC it's a little slow.

    Even with some of it's oddities - it has the best DPS & Survival of the exiisting healer AT's. I know there are folks who think otherwise. But I respectfully disagree. The Witch is a unique AT with an unusual (and fun) blend of powers. I like this kind of thinking... keep it up!!!
    Questions About AT Play? Visit Silverwolfx11's Updated AT Guides!
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,021 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    U-238 Rounds now apply Burn Through instead of its own debuff if toggled on for at least half of its duration instead of its own debuff. This is being done to tone down the number of debuffs PA can stack on a target.

    Ok at first I raged because I didn't read it very well and I thought Burn Through was applying Plasma Burn and i was like "why they hell are they replacing a Debuff with a usless DoT?"

    But after re-reading I realized it's the same Debuff with Chest Beam (never seen the name of the Debuff)
    I was afraid that Chest Beam would be the only Debuff for the set, but my fears came out to be wrong

    Now BOTH Missiles (100feet) and Laser (50feet) themed PA Builds have equal debuffs

    I'm Ok with this, it's not really the nerf which I was expecting, Cheers

    Onslaught Gloves of the Sniper now have a short internal cooldown. This change is targeted towards the use of this piece of gear with Power Armor abilities, and shouldn't have much impact on players who aren't using PA.

    pig-44.gif
    How long is this internal Cooldown?

    Just a side note since the Cooldown on the sniper gear will make this power tricky

    BUG: Sniper Gloves generate damage while charging Shoulder Launcher, the damage is 2 Digit number for some reason (it also triggers debuffs in that period)
    Made some changes to the Cybermind Alert so it tracks mission credit a little better.

    Aww yeah... but there are still a lot of Bugs and Exploits with this alert which need to be fixed (hell the whole alert needs to be revamped)​​
    Post edited by avianos on
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • sanguinevipersanguineviper Posts: 451 Arc User
    Yay for minigun+adv no longer being a mandatory PA power.

    I wonder how much of a hit to PA's current 10,000-12,000dps all this will be. I'm sure it'll still be far ahead of everything else, considering it has been since 2009. So don't worry too much if you're someone thinking about having an existential meltdown over nerfs.

    Snark never dies.
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,021 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    Internal cd on onslaught burst appears to be 0.5s. Given that, activation time scaling should also treat any power faster than 0.5s as a 0.5s activation power.
    .
    Hey half a Second doesn't sound so bad, at least on paper

    The Inernal CD applies for each PA power individually right? or does it applies to all of them at the same time
    Curse
    No longer ruptures poison. We decided to take the power in another direction.
    Stuns targets if affected by a poison.
    New advantage: Refreshes all poisons.

    MEEEEEEH, the Poison Rapture was more interesting >_>
    Plasma Beam's (player version) damage has been reduced to make it more in line with other power armor and aoe abilities.
    Plasma Beam's tic rate has been increased to 0.25 seconds to reduce server strain.
    Increased Melta Cannon chance to 10%. Tooltip is currently inaccurate.

    I was never fan of this power due to the Targeting system (it won't work on flying)

    Too bad I was using it on a Gadget themed builds since there was no maintaince option for the poor Gadgeteers​​
    Post edited by avianos on
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • notyuunotyuu Posts: 1,121 Arc User
    So the Phoenix Tear device.. to buy it you need to collect 1K UNTIL rec, SCR and GCR... it then costs you 750 GCR to buy.. and when used consumes 3 GCR from your inventory... I'm sorry, but who is the target market for this device?
    In all things, a calm heart must prevail.

    Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.

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    Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,021 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    Increased the duration of burn through to 12 seconds.

    onion-22.gif
    notyuu wrote: »
    So the Phoenix Tear device.. to buy it you need to collect 1K UNTIL rec, SCR and GCR... it then costs you 750 GCR to buy.. and when used consumes 3 GCR from your inventory... I'm sorry, but who is the target market for this device?

    Sounds more like a Bragging Rights Reward I wonder if TvTropes' CO page was updated

    Shame Steam Archievements hasn't been updated to include new CO stuff, this would be the Epitome of perk hunting​​
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • pubiwodipubiwodi Posts: 10 Arc User
    Bugs
    Where it happens: Powers: Will-o'-the-wisp
    What happens: No debuffs will be applied to targets farther than 100 ft from the player. This includes debuffs acquired through advantages as well as the base power's poison stacks, and is determined at the time of impact. The damage component is unaffected.

    Where it happens: Powers: Will-o'-the-wisp advantages: Harbinger and Ghost Fire
    What happens: While the base power bypasses Line of Sight checks (please confirm if intended), the stun from Harbinger and the Fear part of Ghost Fire do not. Effects from other advantages, as well as the Clinging Flames (Ghost Fire) and the poison stacks (base power), are applied even if there is no line of sight to the target, but Fear and Stun aren't.

    Where it happens: Powers: Will-o'-the-wisp advantage: Guide
    What happens: While the base power bypasses Line of Sight checks (please confirm if intended), the Stun from Harbinger and the Fear component of Ghost Fire do not. Effects from other advantages, as well as the Clinging Flames (Ghost Fire) and the poison stacks (base power), are applied even if there is no line of sight to the target, but Fear and Stun aren't.


    Suggestions
    Allow Will-o'-the-wisp's advantages to apply their effects to all targets (except maybe Harbinger) instead of only the main target. The power's target limit is small enough, and its cooldown prevents excessive use.

    Incentivize the use of Ranks for Will-o'the-wisp. Currently, only the damage portion (comparable to a single pulse of Celestial Conduit) and power effects are modified by ranking the power up.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User

    I wonder how much of a hit to PA's current 10,000-12,000dps all this will be.

    Depends on the target. It will cut the current typical debuffs being applied by a triple-toggle build from -34.5% to -12%, so on a target with no other debuffs and no debuff cap it's a 17% reduction in damage. In addition, plasma beam now has lower dps than concussor beam, so best single-target dps in PA is probably now concussor-chest beam-shoulder launcher.
  • kyastralkyastral Posts: 342 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    I tried to locate the perks needed to unlock Phoenix Tear within the perk list but I did not find it.

    Suggestion: Please include an "Unlock Store Item* perk catagory within the perk list that describes the perks that are needed to unlock NPC store items, such as the Phoenix Tear.

    I understand that some of the store unlock perks are listed, but they are not clear as to what store items they unlock and requires unecessary searching; for example if you wanted to purchase some of the Soveriegn Sons costume pieces from the GCR store you need the JuJu perk. To find out what that perk is, you have to search through the Perk store in order to find out what it is. (its under Signature Villians, I believe) If we had one tab that described what perks unlocked which store items, it would streamline the search for the perks you need to unlock store items.
  • kyastralkyastral Posts: 342 Arc User
    notyuu said:

    So the Phoenix Tear device.. to buy it you need to collect 1K UNTIL rec, SCR and GCR... it then costs you 750 GCR to buy.. and when used consumes 3 GCR from your inventory... I'm sorry, but who is the target market for this device?

    I guess it's supposed to be a highly exclusive hard to get item. In my opinion, if this device is supposed to be very hard to get it should also be offered as a perk for LTS members *without* the 3 GCR use requirement. :wink: *Ducks head, runs away and hides*
  • chimerafreekchimerafreek Posts: 383 Arc User
    the sniper gloves were already kinda niche to begin with, now they're... still niche but less effective for that niche. :/
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  • notyuunotyuu Posts: 1,121 Arc User
    Suggestion: Increase the damage on the sniper gloves for charged powers and a smaller increase for maintained powers...ya know... to make up for the nerf (and to make em more useful overall)
    In all things, a calm heart must prevail.

    Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.

    eOGi6Cv.png9rfvawn.pngr3iD4nS.png


    Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,021 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    Truth be told Sniper gloves were ONLY useful on Power Armour builds

    Evertyhing else is horrible

    If the extra damage the gloves deals could transform into the type of damage the used power has, it would better DPS choice, piercing damage is horrible choice for many DPS

    So the damage is converted, let's say into Magic for a Magic DPS

    Seriously, devaluing your Gimmicky crappy OSV Gear instead of making it more appealing is really bad tactic, but again OSV was a bad update which made a lot of CO Veterans Quit​​
    Post edited by avianos on
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • pubiwodipubiwodi Posts: 10 Arc User
    Bug
    Where it happens: Perks: Bronze Age, Silver Age, and Golden Age
    What happens: Recognition held prior to the existence of these perks is not credited towards their acquisition.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    It might be time to do something about circle of arcane power. Possibly class it as an energy unlock. The prevalence of extreme energy gain mechanics make something of a mockery out of balancing by energy cost.
  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    There are more ways to make energy trivial. Energy cost is a good way to limit builds and options, but limiting dps with energy cost might not be a great idea in the first place.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    aiqa said:

    There are more ways to make energy trivial. Energy cost is a good way to limit builds and options, but limiting dps with energy cost might not be a great idea in the first place.

    It's a specific problem with power armor, in that running multiple toggles was always meant to be balanced by energy cost (which has, honestly, caused issues since launch), and a single power armor ability by itself tends to underperform.
  • kaiserin#0958 kaiserin Posts: 3,078 Cryptic Developer
    pubiwodi wrote: »
    Bug
    Where it happens: Perks: Bronze Age, Silver Age, and Golden Age
    What happens: Recognition held prior to the existence of these perks is not credited towards their acquisition.

    This will be the case as we had nothing in place to track these currencies for perk purposes prior to this patch.​​
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    kaizerin said:


    This will be the case as we had nothing in place to track these currencies for perk purposes prior to this patch.​​

    Can it be initialized to the value you have at the time the perk was added?
  • darqaura2darqaura2 Posts: 932 Arc User
    gradii said:

    It might be time to do something about circle of arcane power. Possibly class it as an energy unlock. The prevalence of extreme energy gain mechanics make something of a mockery out of balancing by energy cost.

    Really? becuase I never use it becuase of how worthless having to stand in one spot is.
    Pretty much this. I tried it a few years back on a few toons, but found it epicly dumb. The other one is the darkness power that you can hurt yourself with to full up your energy bar. THAT one is more useful than the circle which has you stand in place, where most Cosmic level content barely has you doing so. Maybe only Kiga really does, the rest movement is the name of the game.
  • nightr0dnightr0d Posts: 450 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    So you nerf the Sniper gloves further into the ground. Ok, so where do I sell them to get the tokens back since now they are useless overall. Don't tell me there won't be such a thing, it takes weeks to farm one of those! You nerf things, FINE but then give back the tokens so ppl can adjust their builds or get something else in return. Getting anything except costumes in CO is just a slap in the face waiting to happen. Numerous times over the years have items been introduced, left there for months or years then nerfed into the ground once ppl spent time to obtain them with ZERO compensation.

    Ok so PA was doing too much dmg. Might I ask what's the point of PA if not damage? I mean as far as I can remember that was what PA was all about. You use 3x powers to do the most dmg of all the sets. You deal with the energy issues and the targeting issue but are compensated with dmg. If you nerf PA then what role does it play? I can make another toon which uses only 1 dmg power and use the rest for utility/buffs/debuffs/healing instead of spending 2 more power points and 8 adv points like I do with PA because of the 3x toggles.

    Look, I get nerfing things but the PA set was always all about dmg (multiple toggles). That's the thing about that set, it was like that since close beta. Why would people invest into a PA build if they can just make one that does somewhat less dmg but gives you 2 power points and 8 adv points to play with since you don't need to use 3x toggles for max dmg.

    I understood why 2GM was nerfed, it was the single most dmg power in the game (high dmg, low energy cost, would work on almost any build, no downsides). But nerfing a set that's all about dmg is like removing Bleeds from Bestial.​​
    Post edited by kaiserin#0958 on
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    Just curious if anyone has checked to see how much of an effect the change to Sniper gloves has made to the damage output of his/her PA build?
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    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
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  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    nightr0d said:

    You use 3x powers to do the most dmg of all the sets.

    You usually want a single target attack, an AoE, a resistance debuff, a lunge for melee sets, and often a set specific status effect.
    With 3 PA attacks you can cover all all that very nicely.

    If you look at recently reviewed sets HW/bestial, you need more attacks to cover things.
    Most other ranged sets also need at least 3 attacks to cover their cover their attacking needs. TGM/burstshot is the only combo I would consider for making a build with only 2 attacks.
  • royalflvshroyalflvsh Posts: 165 Arc User
    Does the Sniper Glove nerf apply to Gadgeteer's Pulse Beam Rifle with rapid pulses? Can it not, please? I think we can all agree that Pulse Beam Rifle doesn't need a nerf.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    depends, did that trigger more than once a second?
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  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,021 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    royalflvsh wrote: »
    Does the Sniper Glove nerf apply to Gadgeteer's Pulse Beam Rifle with rapid pulses? Can it not, please? I think we can all agree that Pulse Beam Rifle doesn't need a nerf.

    This won't effect Pulse Beam Riffle AT ALL

    If The innate cooldown of theOSV Sniper is 0.5 sec and the Pulse Beam Riffle is dealing damage every 0.5 sec, then they in perfect pulse wave​​
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • nightr0dnightr0d Posts: 450 Arc User
    aiqa said:

    nightr0d said:

    You use 3x powers to do the most dmg of all the sets.

    You usually want a single target attack, an AoE, a resistance debuff, a lunge for melee sets, and often a set specific status effect.
    With 3 PA attacks you can cover all all that very nicely.

    If you look at recently reviewed sets HW/bestial, you need more attacks to cover things.
    Most other ranged sets also need at least 3 attacks to cover their cover their attacking needs. TGM/burstshot is the only combo I would consider for making a build with only 2 attacks.
    Not really honestly. I have a melee toon that uses only 1 power for dmg (never even has to use the EB) and I've topped the charts several times on OW cosmics (not even optimized) and I can do content just fine no problem. You only need a lunge if you want to maximize your dps, you can also just use a travel power (maybe if you are a tank you might need a lunge)

    The thing about PA powers is that individually they are not as strong as other powers. Furthermore running 3x toggles uses a lot of energy and on top each additional toggle makes powers cost even more energy. The energy requirements on such builds is by far the greatest of all the sets.

    I don't know how you build your toons but I can tell you that you can easily make one using only 1 or 2 dmg powers.

    For all intents an purposes PA is all about doing dmg. That's it's mechanic if you will.

    What bothers me the most about those changes is the Sniper gloves though. That's 15 days of grinding (if you do it every day)
    for one piece. To have it nerfed like this is just unacceptable. What's the point of doing content if once you get your gear they nerf it !?

    Not only is CO getting more and more grindy but now even the items we farm for are getting nerfed. Those nerfs don't affect just powers, they affect the build and the gear and the mods you use on those toons. That's a lot of time and G wasted because of lack of foresight.

    The success rate of cosmics will decrease a lot after this patch. Consider how much a PA toon helps carry those who can't make the DPS check (i.e Dino). If an optimized PA toon does the most dmg then let it, I don't see how it negatively affects anyone especially if we are talking about doing Cosmics. (I guess there are not enough failed runs as is, we need to make it even harder on people)
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    So, how much less damage are you doing on PTS with the nerfed gear as compared to on Live? I'm really curious how much of a difference there is.
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    aiqa said:

    nightr0d said:

    You use 3x powers to do the most dmg of all the sets.

    You usually want a single target attack, an AoE, a resistance debuff, a lunge for melee sets, and often a set specific status effect.
    With 3 PA attacks you can cover all all that very nicely.

    If you look at recently reviewed sets HW/bestial, you need more attacks to cover things.
    Most other ranged sets also need at least 3 attacks to cover their cover their attacking needs. TGM/burstshot is the only combo I would consider for making a build with only 2 attacks.
    To follow up on this a bit, the game is normalized so you get most of your dps out of a single spammable power, and each additional attack power increases that by something like 10%. One of the issues with PA has always been that it broke that paradigm; three-power builds do about 3x the damage of one-power builds.

    This means that power armor powers are forced to underperform when used by themselves, and thus can't fit well with other abilities. Personally, I suspect PA would be better off with a significant increase in base damage of individual toggles, and then instead of active toggles giving an energy penalty, active toggles give a damage penalty. For example, a toggle gives a -50% damage penalty to powers other than itself, using two toggles at once would do 133% of damage of one toggle, three would do 150%. At current PA power stats that's too severe, but then there would be room to improve base stats for PA powers.
  • nightr0dnightr0d Posts: 450 Arc User
    edited November 2016

    So, how much less damage are you doing on PTS with the nerfed gear as compared to on Live? I'm really curious how much of a difference there is.

    So after some testing I found that the drop in dps is between 30-35%. The build I used is affected by the Sniper, PB and MG nerfs. I knew it would be a lot but this is absurd!
  • nightr0dnightr0d Posts: 450 Arc User
    edited November 2016
    gradii said:

    nightr0d said:

    So, how much less damage are you doing on PTS with the nerfed gear as compared to on Live? I'm really curious how much of a difference there is.

    So after some testing I found that the drop in dps is between 30-35%. The build I used is affected by the Sniper, PB and MG nerfs. I knew it would be a lot but this is absurd!
    How much does JUST the sniper part affect it? my builds dont use any of the nerfed powers but use sniper gloves.
    There is no way to test that since those powers were changed thus I can't see only the Sniper gloves. Furthermore it depends on the power how much of an impact it has on your build.

    You can actually do the math to see how much of a change that was. For example for PB it would proc every 0.1s so it was worth it. Now it procs every 0.5 seconds, meaning you essentially have lost 8 ticks of dmg from the onslaught gear per second or you can think of an 80% dmg loss compared to live Sniper gloves.

    According to the current nerf of the Sniper gloves, the powers most affected by it are those who did dmg on a <0.5s per tick.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    gradii said:

    Wait does the sniper gloves still proc for each power armor power running at once? if it has an internal cooldown of .5 seconds is that PER attack or as a whole?

    The internal cd is for all powers combined, though it does still proc for every power armor ability as long as it's not on cooldown.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited November 2016

    Actually PA was pretty balanced until 2016 summer, when someone got a bright idea, that Plasma Beam should be a toggle.

    No it wasn't. Three-slot power armor has always been the highest dps ranged set (with some competition from from hard frost spam builds -- also nerfed), it was just somewhat annoying to use and, prior to fixes, PA exploit builds (one PA toggle, one non-PA maintain) were an easier way to max out ranged dps.
  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    edited November 2016

    aiqa said:

    nightr0d said:

    You use 3x powers to do the most dmg of all the sets.

    You usually want a single target attack, an AoE, a resistance debuff, a lunge for melee sets, and often a set specific status effect.
    With 3 PA attacks you can cover all all that very nicely.

    If you look at recently reviewed sets HW/bestial, you need more attacks to cover things.
    Most other ranged sets also need at least 3 attacks to cover their cover their attacking needs. TGM/burstshot is the only combo I would consider for making a build with only 2 attacks.
    To follow up on this a bit, the game is normalized so you get most of your dps out of a single spammable power, and each additional attack power increases that by something like 10%. One of the issues with PA has always been that it broke that paradigm; three-power builds do about 3x the damage of one-power builds.

    This means that power armor powers are forced to underperform when used by themselves, and thus can't fit well with other abilities. Personally, I suspect PA would be better off with a significant increase in base damage of individual toggles, and then instead of active toggles giving an energy penalty, active toggles give a damage penalty. For example, a toggle gives a -50% damage penalty to powers other than itself, using two toggles at once would do 133% of damage of one toggle, three would do 150%. At current PA power stats that's too severe, but then there would be room to improve base stats for PA powers.
    That could work but depends a lot on using 3 attacks that all do similar damage.
    If there are some lower damage attacks like AoE (which there are a lot off in the PA set) things might not work out.

    For example if you have one attack that does 5000 dps, one that does 4000 and one 3000.
    Obviously using 1 attack you'd do 5000, 4000 or 3000 dps.
    Using two attack you'd do (5000+4000)/1.5=6000, (5000+3000)/1.5=5333, or (4000+3000)/1.5=4666 dps.
    And using all 3 attacks you'd do (5000+4000+3000)/2=6000 dps.
    Post edited by aiqa on
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