Ha - made you look.
Not really, but the cosmic tank scoring needs a look. I rarely complain about game stuff but tanks are somewhat regularly not getting credit when the DPS burn the creature down in 3-4 minutes. Not just me, good tanks too.
If you're baby tank and not in decent gear, you could have a problem. I have had two runs today where I had the choice to either
A) Do my job and miss out on credit
or
Let baby go (potential wipe) so I can get credit.
I chose A in both cases but it is frustrating.
Before people start offering their advice that it must be the build or the player, lemme just put out there that one build does ~2K dps
@PH in tank mode with merc/heroic gear and SCR secondaries. That is what he has right now and walking down the road to GearMart really isn't an option for a few more runs. Offering up "well my build that has 11,000 runs can do it easily" is apples/oranges. That 2K DPS (adjusted for blocking / timing etc) should be sufficient. The other toon, when switched from tank to DPS on ape placed top 5 in score (I wasn't parsing or I would post it) but didn't get credit as a tank in the previous run. The only difference there other than role is removing the confront / defender gloves and gaining IP 7 as a result.
The above runs in question were nearly flawless. That should be rewarded, not punished.
I've been told different things about how the score is calculated -- that it is damage dealt+ damage taken (from certain sources) + outgoing healing (to borrow an STO term). Close? I look at the parsing sometimes and add those things up and get into the millions, then look at score and see 88K. Summpn ain't right. If I dealt over 100,000 damage that should be enough right there. If I took 2 million base damage THAT should be enough right there. Otherwise... I am being punished for high resistance?
I admit I only have a couple dozen runs as tank so far but I have hundreds as healer/dps and know the game plan. I also know I am not alone in this issue and have seen it happen to several other players. It also is not multiple deaths - in the above 4 runs I died once and that was because I wasn't anticipating the start.
And while I am ranting, dodge tanking sucks. The numbers are "alternative facts." When I have the dodge % over 200 and still only see "BLOCK - 5594" on fully 1/3 of the dino bites, I actively disbelieve.
Oh and invulnerability doesn't hold a candle to defiance, but using the above formula, using invulnerability should
increase my score, right, since I took more damage?
Where's the Tylenol?
(yes, I know some will say the answer is "stop being an altaholic and play 2-3 characters instead of running 15+ builds through endgame content." I say, "no."
)
Comments
Not entirely sure if they have the technology to fix it; it should really probably not be based on damage at all, just a proc effect to certain of the dino's attack that gives points.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Unscientific, but I've noticed that blocking less leads to a higher score. I'd say that giving tanks points for damage NOT resisted rather than damage resisted is pretty backwards.
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Giving credit for threat would be a neat idea.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
While they are at it they can nerf healing. It is pretty easy to score well (if not first) by doing what I call the "healnado," which is rapidly alternating tab and tapping iniquity....which incidentally rarely does anything for the success of the mission but damn if it doesn't score...
I am hoping the buff doesn't go so far as to exclude those of us in merc gear though. Of my many cosmic toons, most of them are in some combination of merc/heroic/legion, only two of them are justified and one of them (healer) fully distinguished and leaking GCR from every pore.
Aside, I remember the discussion about gear and cosmics and didn't weigh in then. After all of the new toons I have "geared" now (well, sorta) I can say better gear most *definitely* makes a difference as to how difficult cosmics are, though in current form I have not had a toon yet who couldn't complete all of them -eidolon in merc gear/SCR or Q secondaries.
Put a dodge tank in merc gear and blue secondaries and split dino bites with one other tank. That's some wakeup juice. Then you miss three dodges in a row because Cryptic and invent new curse words. That extra mod slot is a significant increase to off/def in the wardicator. Or damage buff in the utility slot. Or extra confront, you get the idea.
Well this meeting is almost over so I'll end with WTB legion's gloves of offense.
Why not just fix this problem by using the damage taken before reductions as part of the score calculations, rather than the damage taken after reductions? It seems like changing that variable in the algorithm wouldn't be too hard, since they have both numbers.
Remember that using threat as part of the ranking would not help soak tanks, so that's not going to work.
SIGNATURE:
Used to be coach on the forums. Still @coach in game.
I've seen healers score first lots of times. When my main healer is the lone healer for 4-5 kiga tanks she usually places in the top 3, if not first, because she has to put out close to 6K HPS. Not just mine - most decent healers would/do too. The score comes easily when there are few other healers.
I've also seen several healers using iniquity on dps-ers in the pile and rapidly changing between them and the tanks. Hence the "spinning" though it is really just rapid targeting.
I believe scoring as healer isn't as much about HPS as it is about being the first heal after the damage. It is also about where to stand and how many targets you can get in your auras and cones. If you know who to target and when, you almost never have to pause.
Spamming iniquity/tab works for the dogpile. Vitality only gets 5 at a time and iniquity can be faster/hit more targets. Every toon needs heals right after the AoEs and few dps bring their own. During the dino DoT there are always some who need it more than once. A healer in Kiga's storm will not run out of targets. In the dps pile you don't even need the storm - some dps is about to die at any given time. Very close to likewise after dino and ape PBAoEs. If you can time it right (not hard to do), those iniquity heals can be faster than vitality or even aura ticks or some players' own reactions.
I don't use that because my toon's focus is usually the tanks / preventing wipes and I use vitality 95% of the time anyway unless distance or healing just a single tank. Well, and I am lazy. I am also one that would be fine with the scores disappearing from the missions - I just noticed how easily they came as a healer vs. other roles.
I have a support dps/healer who does do mass dps pile heals (and can't do tanks well) but he uses life essence AoE and also has the AoE advantage on conviction. He heals during storms and after AoE damage and uses soul beam for damage in between. I click conviction between ape PBAoE and the lava, immediately after spikes, etc.. Conviction seems to be an even faster heal than iniquity, if fewer points/hp.
I'll go as far as to say few cosmics are pulled off without a healer in the top 5-7 scores, even amongst the dps kings/queens. The times they won't are when there are single tanks or lots of healers present. (again, dunno about eido as I haven't done one since playtest)
Back to my main point --is that I can score very highly by standing around and holding down a button if I am dps or a healer, and between the two building for dps is harder than "stack PRE and spam." If I am a tank I am doing much more work and they get rewarded significantly less by comparison.
Scoring on tanks depends for a very large part on your play style. If you don't just play soaktank you can get a good score enough even on low damage builds. Don't just stand around with block toggled on.
There has to be a reason for that type of healing and I doubt it is to randomly save 12 dpsers from death - especially at ape where that has nothing to do with success of the mission. How could they know who can survive and who can't and set up that type of targeting order? -it seems to be somewhat random. I can't think of a good reason why one would do this, other than score. Maybe not.
As for just holding down one button, of course you can. Holding down vitality and hardly needing to adjust to anything on kiga is pretty easy to do. On my PBR and electricity toons, same easy mode except for adding AOs FTL. Making less of AoE heals might be the way to go. Like limit them to the auras and things like LE which has less HPS. But then they would have to fix the abysmal targeting/hitbox system and that might be more problems.
Or...make all passive healing base off CON or REC and active healing off PRE. You can do one or the other really well but not both. And if CON you could wardi up and stand with the tanks...
I never just block/ soak tank - as stated in the OP I am attacking even when not trying for aggro because I know it is very possible to miss credit on a fast run. We even see zone chat comments like "that's a wipe -- tanks get credit now" and so on.
So you're upset because healers are actually healing people and getting credit for it?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I said healing is too easy and unbalanced score-wise, 'cause it is.
I said that tactic doesn't help the mission, 'cause it doesn't. The only place it could reasonably help the *mission* (not individuals, I mean actually increase the chance of success) is kiga and only then if you can find those who are dying and set up some sort of rotating target system for just them. But that is not what is happening.
I did two kiga runs last night. First time in a while, I played my main healer for the first one. I spammed vitality and nothing else save for one or two ADs during the final 1/3 storms - not even necessary, just precautionary. Placed second, and that was not doing much in phase 1. Since Flerer was the CCer it was fast and uninterrupted so I didn't even need to think about anything. Just stood there, holding down a controller button for 5 seconds or so at a time for about 6-7 minutes. I don't think I ever had to block.
The second run I played my dual role tank-dps. Another healer placed first, by a large margin, doing exactly what I described. Target-iniquity-target-iniquity. I wish I had video but then I also don't want to call people out by name. It is certainly "legit" and all - my only concern is how easy it is, nothing more.
Don't take my word for it. Watch a few healers in cosmic runs and it won't be long before you see it.
Maybe people want it to be that easy for cosmics.
Choosing the easiest healing play style yourself, and then bashing on others that prefer a more active and rewarding play style is not the best way to be taken very serious.
Also of course good healers change targets, it's baffling me you now complain about healers changing targets (after the silly tab argument). I don't think there is anyone that has claimed healers using iniquity do not change targets, the only thing which I've told you quite a few times now is that using tab for that is dumb, and no good healers would use that.
And there was certainly a LOT more than questioning how easy healing is, you directly accused lots of healers not contributing to the fights.
Since you obviously don't know what you're talking about and are not willing to learn or acknowledge your mistakes, I'm just going to ignore this thread now.
Your position actually lends credence to blanket/aura healing being more effective at keeping people alive, not single-target healing. Blanketing the area has a much greater chance of hitting the person who needs it right at that second.
And I say humbug that it takes any skill at all. Yes, you most certainly can cycle in whatever order (with whatever key/button you use) and it works very well if it doesn't matter who you target. I don't even think people who do this care who they hit. It is randomly throwing spike heals at people when damage spikes happen. Bound to score well, not necessarily saving anyone from anything.
Fine, some people play for score. Totally not the point. I'm saying (once again for the cheap seats) the scoring system needs work or removal if it is that easy to score while healing and yet tanks are not getting credit for a much more skilled role.
You seem to be taking this personally. However, I'm not bashing anyone. I am criticizing the system and you seem to think it is about me or other individuals somehow. This changes nothing of the fact that:
1) Healing is really easy
2) Tanking takes more skill
3) Healing scores better than tanking by an incredible amount for much less effort
People will see it for themselves. Unless of course, you would like to provide the contrary evidence yourself, but we both know that ain't gonna happen either, is it?
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Contribution by Person X = the difference of completion time for the whole team with Person X vs without Person X
We can roughly translate this to:
Contribution by Person X = Total Team Damage with Person X - Total Team Damage without Person X
Person X could be a DPS, where most of their contribution is their own damage
Person X could be a Tank, where without their aggro the team would have to block a lot more or die and deal less damage
Person X could be a Healer, where without their healing the team would have to block a lot more or die and deal less damage
Person X could be a Buffer/Debuffer, where without their aura bonus and debuffs the team would deal less damage
Person X could be a CCer, where this would not buff damage output but still very significantly reduces completion time given the mechanics at Ape, Kiga, and Eido Right but you don't have to save people from dying to contribute as a healer. Per our model above, if you enable DPSers to play more aggressively by enabling them to focus purely on dealing damage you will significantly contribute to reducing the completion time for a given Cosmic. Yes, but maybe that person should just die. I know that for my Healer, I focus heals on whoever is more critical to reducing completion time. That means the Tanks and the top DPSers. If, after doing so, I have the time to heal other people then ok.
In the same way that AoE people don't care who they hit either. But only as long as a few key hp bars are taken care of. You can't care about 50 people. You can care for about 5 people......so you pick your 5 and the rest will happen or won't. At least that's how I prioritize. Other's might prioritize differently....but there is a need for effective prioritization of who gets heals and it cannot happen in real-time.
On Kiga, you can get close to effectively prioritizing in real time by watching the hp bars in the raid window and healing whoever has lower hp. Since their death would incur a significant penalty with regards to completion time.
On Ape, it's all about the Tanks and CCer. After that top DPS. After that it's a dice roll.
On Dino, it's all about Main Tank and Baby Tank. Then Soak Tanks. Then top DPS. And if you can help keep the other DPS focused then great.
On Eido, it's all about the Tanks with regards to heals.....assuming they're cared for, it's vital to rez DPSers that die, but there's no need to heal them really. I agree that Tanks need a better measurement of their contribution. But that doesn't have anything to do with Healers. Healing is really easy when things are going well. It's really hard when they are not. Healers can make or break a Cosmic attempt just as much as Tanks. Everything scores better than Tanking by an incredible amount. Not just healing. The problem is with Tank scoring not with everything else.
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Spectre beats Eido in an SG run: VIDEO HERE
I don't know what to say to this.
The two styles are complimentary - aoe healing can cover a lot of ground, but it is extremely helpful to have a quick point healer there to cover the ground that the aoe misses.
Well they never claimed it would solve everything, they were just responding to what you said about providing contradictory evidence. You asked for it, so why are you now trying to minimize the relevance of giving it?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Dino seems to be at the right level of difficulty due to the DPS needing to play an active role in its success or failure. Sometimes it goes really well. Sometimes it goes really badly. But most of the time, after maybe 1 wipe and 3-5 missed checks we'll get the timing right and finish it.
Ape is a joke. The Hearts are supposed to be the DPS check but they are not since they can be permanently mezzed. Preventing the Ape from healing needs to be a shared responsibility between the CCers and the DPS.
Kiga is less of a joke than the Ape, mostly because people still somehow manage to die in this fight without being directly attacked. However the DPS is still fairly passive. The tombs need to be way scarier than they are to actually ensure that "we have enough DPS".
PARSER USAGE GUIDE: click here for an easy how-to ٩(๑・ิᴗ・ิ)۶٩(・ิᴗ・ิ๑)۶
Spectre beats Eido in an SG run: VIDEO HERE
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
If you want a super high score, make a super high DPS toon, or an incredible healer. Then you get to have the high score.
I am reminded of a thread about travel powers, how flight isn't usually as good as several others (acrobatics, super speed, even tp at times). That's okay, since you can actually make a toon with that doesn't use flight. If you choose to use flight, you can still be quite effective, but maybe not the best. That's okay, isn't it?
As to the original point, it would be great if tanks score was based on incoming damage, rather than damage after shields/mitigation. That would allow bubbles to be a defense that helped contribute to score. As someone who frequently is a baby tank, it's frustrating for a great run to leave me with no credit/reward.
Having a review of Cosmics, where mechanics are changed and the minimum fight time is a bit longer, is my solution.
Note: Different mechanics does not have to mean harder mechanics.
Note it!
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
The title of the thread mentions DPS as a comparison but I made it clear I wasn't really advocating for nerfing the dps.
Healing was brought up as a comparison but not in the OP. We got into this side discussion about healing based on two lines in a later post because internet. I have said multiple times in the thread that the focus is on the tank scoring or the scoring system in general. If anything I figured the gear comment would be the thing people took issue with.
Even so, between dpsing and healing, you at least have to build somewhat for a decent dps toon -- dino dps checks provide a challenge in that fashion. Healers have no such challenge and no real difficulty in building. They need essentially one stat to be productive and while they need to block AoEs like everyone else, they have the easiest path to being productive, all things considered.
Your other points about priority in heals -- I don't personally have a dps that requires a healer to participate for exactly the reason you mentioned - the focus is on the tanks first. If someone heals me, great, but it really isn't making a difference in how much damage I am doing. I get much more from the AoPMs and AoACs, some on healers, some not. Maybe others make dps that require healing, in which case I would say it is more that their build is forcing the healers away from their first objective. I'm not trying to say I decide what builds should be - the cosmics design have already railroaded that to a fair degree, whether good or bad.
Well they never claimed it would solve everything, they were just responding to what you said about providing contradictory evidence. You asked for it, so why are you now trying to minimize the relevance of giving it?
Future recordings do nothing to provide evidence for or against my comments about previous runs. I suppose my inability to alter space/time is your next complaint.
Everything on this thread is an opinion, no matter who it comes from. I find it difficult to "prove" anything about opinions, nor I have I claimed to.
IIRC someone claiming to be you said he/she was ignoring this thread. You should check your password.
And you have said a lot of things that are by no means opinions. Things like "which incidentally rarely does anything for the success of the mission" (which prompted the healing discussion) is neither an implied or explicit opinion.
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Spectre beats Eido in an SG run: VIDEO HERE
If you don't need any recordings then that will save you some time later.
OK fine, I'm game. Look, you are having trouble with this for some reason Clarence-knows-why. I am guessing maybe it is because you're defensive about your own play style, also. That is another opinion.
FTR I am not now, nor at any point in the future, seeking your agreement or approval. Does that help?
In order to tell me my perception of my CO experience is somehow incorrect, you'd first have to have been there for its entirety. Let me know when you meet that criterion and we can continue this part of the discussion.