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Distinguished Gear is Actually Kinda Really Bad And Here is Why (Informative Numbers Post \o/ )

lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
So recently I've been messing around with my Bestial DPS toon trying to make him into a dual passive build. Dual passive builds are a bit tricky since they require either sacrificing a bit of DPS in order to gain resilience, or keep the DPS but end up being a wet paper towel in a Michael Bay movie universe.

I had to decide which gear to get for my Tank role though.

As a general rule the endgame gear we currently have is separated into Justice (DPS), Distinguished (Tanks) and Virtuous (Healer).

Some players recently found out that Virtuous can actually be a good alternative to the RNG grindfest of Justice for DPS. Justice will still edge forward as the better DPS set thanks to the extra offense and higher set bonus to super stats, while Virtuous will be a bit tankier due to the set bonus to damage resistance.

All fine and dandy till this point.

HOWEVER

Upon running some tests on different build setups, I found out that, for Tanking purposes, Virtuous heavily overperformed Distinguished in every scenario.

The results were as follow:

Test 1
8O2bmSW.jpg
Test 2
EkishOh.jpg

Both tests used identically modded gear (for the DPS column it was Justice in DPS role since I was testing a dual passive build), and identical specs (Str/Brawler/Vindicator) with the only difference being that test 1 allocated 3 Overpower/2 Brutality in Str specs, and test 2 allocated 2 Overpower/2 Juggernaut/1 Brutality.

The tl;dr version of this is as follows. In both cases Virtuous and Distinguished acquired the same defense bonus, however Distinguished ended up losing half the crit chance and lost some severity (whereas Virtuous ended up gaining severity).

In the past Distinguished might have yielded better defensive results due to the Wardicator loop, but after it's removal this is no longer the case and Virtuous offers the same or almost the same defense amount with a lot less penalties to your offensiveness, which is important for a Tank since damage is ligated to threat generation. Not to mention that Virtuous Primary Defense offers more resistance to Crowd Control and Knocks than Distinguished does.

My suggestion would be to buff the Defense bonus the Distinguished set gives by a substantial amount (between a 10-20% more bonus to defense, which would require a bonus of 80-120 defense), or add threat generation as a set bonus.​​

Comments

  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    VIrtuous currently gives 1% more damage mitigation. So just make Distinguished give 2% more than it does now and they're basically evened out.


    PS - why did you bother doing a test without Juggernaut. Is that meant to be relevant to tanking in some way? o3o​​
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »

    PS - why did you bother doing a test without Juggernaut. Is that meant to be relevant to tanking in some way? o3o

    It's the way I did the tests for my dual passive build o3o you should post the results of your test for your build​​
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    At the moment of doing this test I'm kinda sleepy, but another way to look at it is by just looking at the raw numbers:

    Distinguished Gear gives the following defense bonus: 21, 21, 21, 42 set bonus. Total defense of 105. Total of 26% Damage resistance
    Virtuous Gear gives the following defense bonus: 21, 42, 21, 10% damage resistance bonus (equivalent to 40 defense). Total defense of 124. Total of 31% Damage resistance.

    If you were to consider a Wardicator set, Distinguished would give you a total of 162 Defense (considering Fortified Gear and the Offense return from Modified Gear+ Aggresive Stance) which translates to 40% Damage reduction.

    Virtuous would give you a total defense of 149, which translates to 37% Damage reduction.

    In the past with Wardicator looping on itself this difference was probably higher than just a 3% damage resistance difference, but right now Virtuous is offering almost identical damage resistance while offering a huge boost to crit chance and crit severity vs the 7% damage bonus that Distinguished's Offense provides.

    And this is only considering a Wardicator set, for any other Tanking build Distinguished falls heavily behind.​​
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    lezard21 wrote: »
    spinnytop wrote: »

    PS - why did you bother doing a test without Juggernaut. Is that meant to be relevant to tanking in some way? o3o

    It's the way I did the tests for my dual passive build o3o you should post the results of your test for your build

    My test results were that Virtuous mitigated ~1% more damage.​​
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 766 Arc User
    Note, that if you put a soviet mod in the primary offense, it can also bring it up as well.
    [NbK]XStorm
  • gentlegiantvexxgentlegiantvexx Posts: 321 Community Moderator
    edited July 2018
    This is why I was pushing towards Virtuous than distinguished while not being wardicator/guardicator. That 10% damage resistance outright is no joke, plus crit gloves too.​​
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,022 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    This is not good... how can a gear aimed for TANKS underperforming...

    And I thought Virtuous was only be useful for Healers, squishy dps with self heals for DODGE Tanks​​
    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!
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    avianos wrote: »
    This is not good... how can a gear aimed for TANKS underperforming...

    And I thought Virtuous was only useful Healers, squishy dps with self heals for DODGE Tanks

    But then the Kaiser Nation attacked, and wardicator loops changed.​​
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,022 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    But then the Kaiser Nation attacked, and wardicator loops changed.
    "I Cri Evrytiem"
    But seriously this is disappointing :/​​
    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!
  • shadowolf505shadowolf505 Posts: 697 Arc User
    Eh I still find Distinguished as a Tanking set personally.
    || Main Tank || DPSer || Healer || CCer || Altoholic || @shadowolf505 in game ||
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    So, how does Justice compare for a tank to the other two?

    And, just to make sure I'm clear, Justice is still the best for DPS, or no?
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  • soulforgersoulforger Posts: 1,649 Arc User
    So, how does Justice compare for a tank to the other two?

    And, just to make sure I'm clear, Justice is still the best for DPS, or no?

    Yes, Justice still best for dps. I think justic still makes for decent tanking gear, not sure really.
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    So, how does Justice compare for a tank to the other two?

    And, just to make sure I'm clear, Justice is still the best for DPS, or no?

    In a Wardicator setup with no other stat mods slotted:

    Justice: 144 Defense (36%) 176 Offense, Crit Chance, Crit Severity
    Distinguished: 162 Defense (40%), 133 Offense, No Crit Chance, No Crit Severity
    Virtuous: 109 defense (27%) + 10% Damage Resistance Bonus, No Offense, Crit Chance, Crit Severity

    From raw number comparison Virtuous would be 3% less mitigation than Distinguished, but Foxi's test yielded that Virtuous is mitigating an additional 1% vs Distinguished, so that Damage Resistance from set bonus is either applying more resistance than stated or might be applied in a different layer.

    But in any case both Justice and Virtuous apparently offer 3-4% less damage resistance than Distinguished while offering a better damage bonus thanks to the crit chance and crit severity. Justice being comparable to the other 2 sets can be somewhat justified due to the RNGness of Rampage token drops, but Distinguished even falls behind to Virtuous as a tanking set.

    For DPS either Justice or Virtuous work well. The only advantage Justice gets over Virtuous is 5-6% damage bonus from Offense.

    Distinguished used to be good for tanking due to the Wardicator loop, but once the loop was fixed...well, you can see the results.​​
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    Maybe DG should give more HP (than it does now) or some degree of regeneration when a set is complete?
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
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  • qawsadaqawsada Posts: 736 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    In my opinion, I would give the Distinguished Glove of Offense an additional of 26 Critical Strike (half of what the other two offers) on top of the offense. As for the Distinguished Armor of Freedom, I would increase the Defense to 42 Defense like the Justice and Virtuous counterpart (seriously, Distinguished Armor of Freedom has 21 Defense by default) and maybe increase the max HP. Ideally, I would assume this was meant to get a full Distinguished set to get the missing Def. In reality, it meh and it make other defense set more defensive in comparison.
  • shadowolf505shadowolf505 Posts: 697 Arc User
    Take what you want, use what you please. - Basically my standpoint now.​​
    || Main Tank || DPSer || Healer || CCer || Altoholic || @shadowolf505 in game ||
  • diggotdiggot Posts: 309 Arc User
    Considering that amount of time spend to attain the gear, compared to how much they improve your charcter,
    all the 3 sets sucks. My TK-lancers barely got ANY increase in overall dps or Lance-crits when going from Merc to full justice.
    The set-bonuses are appaling and should be severely increased. The sets also needs a serious overhaul to suit their varrying fields .

    Virtuous works as intended, great healing bonuses - No fix needed.
    Justice - needs some serious boost to its set-bonuses..
    Distinguished - Horribly broken defense.. The defense on the Heroic Chestpiece is higher than the distinguished, yet the distinguished costs ALOT more. I would inrease the defense of each piece and increase the overall setbonuses.

  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    But you quit the game, so why this concern?
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    I say just give Distinguished offense primary a bunch more Offense.​​
  • leuchadegoutiereleuchadegoutiere Posts: 136 Arc User
    It wouldn't adress the issue about the Defense value. Sure it would (maybe) get a bit better if you're using Agressive Stance in Vindicator Tree, but out of that spec, Distinguished would still be under Virtuous, just with more Offense :|
    @Leucha - Cascade, Praise, Gluh, Sanglots, Chernozem, Saadhaka, Ralsershei, La Lice, Cardinale and so on
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    It wouldn't adress the issue about the Defense value. Sure it would (maybe) get a bit better if you're using Agressive Stance in Vindicator Tree, but out of that spec, Distinguished would still be under Virtuous, just with more Offense :|

    There actually isn't much of a defensive issue. It's a 1% difference. I'm not too worried about that part.​​
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    Still, it would be nice if DG gear was the go to set for tanking. Since I've just started the grind up from mercs to some sort of purples for a new tank I am wondering if I should get VG (assuming that devs don't adjust DG) or go for DG (assuming that devs see/understand/care about the issue and adjust DG in some way).
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • waybig#9760 waybig Posts: 76 Arc User
    Well Distinguished gear are nice for tanking due to more defense, but virtuous are also nice, the difference isn't that huge.
  • leuchadegoutiereleuchadegoutiere Posts: 136 Arc User
    Well, I just would prefer that the difference between Virtuous and Distinguished would be more on defensive side (defense, HP, CC resist, %resistance) than on offensive side (offence, crit and sev)
    @Leucha - Cascade, Praise, Gluh, Sanglots, Chernozem, Saadhaka, Ralsershei, La Lice, Cardinale and so on
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    Well Distinguished gear are nice for tanking due to more defense, but virtuous are also nice, the difference isn't that huge.

    It's actually Virtuous gear that is nice for having higher damage mitigation o3o/
    jaazaniah1 wrote: »
    Still, it would be nice if DG gear was the go to set for tanking.

    I'd actually like it if it wasn't the "go to" set, but just another viable choice. I like the idea of Distinguished being the set you go to if you want steady Offense-based damage, and Virtuous is the one you go to if you want rng damage. The only thing that needs to happen then is that they balance that out between the two of them.​​
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    The basic problem is that gear has a point system, and Distinguished is spending points on some things (hold resistance, +10 to all non-super-stats) that are not highly valued by players.
  • thewinxfairythewinxfairy Posts: 70 Arc User
    What mods are you putting into the Primary Defense?
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    The basic problem is that gear has a point system, and Distinguished is spending points on some things (hold resistance, +10 to all non-super-stats) that are not highly valued by players.

    Well if the 38 crowd control resistance is the problem get rid of it.​​
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Well if the 38 crowd control resistance is the problem get rid of it.​​
    Actually, I wonder if someone did the math wrong
    • Justice Fitness: 42 defense, 553 hp. Measured in r9 mods, this is Impact x2, Growth x0.75 (2.75 mods)
    • Distinguished Freedom: 21 defense, 369 hp, knock/repel 70%, cc resist 38. Measured in r9 mods, this is Impact x1, Growth x0.5, CC resist x0.75, and something unknown for knock/repel resist; total value 2.25 + K/R (70%)
    • Virtuous Freedom: 42 defense, 369 hp, k/r 100%. Measured in r9 mods, this is Impact x2, Growth x0.5; total value 2.5 + K/R (100%)
    Virtuous actually looks bugged. if we assume a value of 0.5 for the 70% K/R (making distinguished equal to Justice), the Virtuous gear has a value of 3.2. If we measure in R9 cores, the distinguished has a value of 3.03 and the Virtuous 3.61.

    Checking primary offense:
    • Justice or Virtuous Precision: 21 defense, 52 crit, 2.5 severity. Measured in r9 mods, that's Gambler's x0.5 and unknown for severity, I think it's about 0.5xr9 core.
    • Distinguished Offense: 21 defense, 111 offense. Measured in r9 mods, that's Impact x1.5, suggesting a value of 1 for the severity

    Basic problem with all this is that Offense and CC resistance are not highly valued.
    Post edited by pantagruel01 on
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    The basic problem is that gear has a point system, and Distinguished is spending points on some things (hold resistance, +10 to all non-super-stats) that are not highly valued by players.

    It would be nice to see these dumped and swapped to +HP and +KR. Either that, or turn the CC bonus up to something relevant, like +1000.
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  • behemothking#9246 behemothking Posts: 120 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    lezard21 wrote: »
    Upon running some tests on different build setups, I found out that, for Tanking purposes, Virtuous heavily overperformed Distinguished in every scenario. ​​

    Virtuous outperforms Distinguished in every scenario except the scenario in which the tank is blocking.

    Virtuous
    [15:46] [Combat (Self)] You lose 423 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam.
    [15:46] [Combat (Self)] You lose 99 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam

    Distinguished
    [17:38] [Combat (Self)] You lose 446 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam.
    [17:38] [Combat (Self)] You lose 97 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam.

    EDIT: 2 hour gap between tests because PTS went down for maintenance halfway through my test :^)
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    I don't get it. Why did Dist perform better while blocking?​​
  • behemothking#9246 behemothking Posts: 120 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    The 10% resistance to all damage is on the blocking layer. The calculations below are done without factoring in diminishing returns in all damage resistance so the numbers are slightly off. I also did not factor in the fractional part of Defiance since it does not show in the power tooltip when it totally should.

    Virtuous
    (100/332) * (100/110) * 1500 = 410
    (100/332) * (100/470) * 1500 = 96.1291

    126% ADR from Defiance
    106% ADR from Defense

    360% ADR from Block
    10% ADR from Set Bonus

    Distinguished
    (100/340) * 1500 = 441
    (100/340) * (100/460) * 1500 = 95.9079

    126% ADR from Defiance
    114% ADR from Defense

    360% ADR from Block

    The gap is only 0.2 points instead of 2 points because, again, I did not factor in diminishing returns. The diminishing returns in the 300%+ ADR range makes the 10% you get from the set bonus become more like 3%. So if you calculate it like that, you start to see the numbers matching up.

    (100/332) * (100/463) * 1500 = 97.5825
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    Virtuous
    [15:46] [Combat (Self)] You lose 423 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam.
    [15:46] [Combat (Self)] You lose 99 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam

    Distinguished
    [17:38] [Combat (Self)] You lose 446 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam.
    [17:38] [Combat (Self)] You lose 97 (1500) Fire Damage from Blue Beam.

    So...

    Not blocking:
    Virtous: 28% damage taken
    Dist: 29% damage taken

    Blocking:
    Virtous: 6.6% damage taken
    Distinguished: 6.4% damage taken

    So...

    Distinguished pros:
    0.2% better mitigation while blocking.
    Energy proc on attacks.
    More offense from The Best Defense.

    Virtuous pros:
    1% better mitigation while not blocking
    1% better dps
    Healing bonus
    Energy proc on healing

    Not sure if balanced u3u
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    It's worth mentioning that the first 2 Virtuous pros only require 2 set pieces, allowing you to then pick Distinguished's helmets to gain the energy proc on attack bonus, whereas Distinguished requires the full set to get it's pros.
  • lezard21 wrote: »
    As a general rule the endgame gear we currently have is separated into Justice (DPS), Distinguished (Tanks) and Virtuous (Healer).

    That is the traditional belief. Optimally, the sets are chosen like this instead: Justice (Tank/DPS/Healer), Distinguished + Justice Offense(DPS with energy issues), Virtuous (Tank/PvP), and Distinguished(Behemoth AT/Rampages are boring/Lazy).

    Too tired to explain it. Distinguished just fell into being a niche set with no particular purpose. Rebalancing that would require changes to all of the equipment sets.
  • violetnychusvioletnychus Posts: 136 Arc User
    They can not compare when Distinguished has the weird restriction of offense.

    Guardicator nerf made offense/defense less important. Distinguished set is completely dependent on offense/defense.

    They definitely need to add offense or crit as a choice in each combination.
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Distinguished pros:
    0.2% better mitigation while blocking.

    Virtuous pros:
    1% better mitigation while not blocking
    It seems to me that this means that Distinguished wins out for tanking. 1% difference when you miss a Dino block is not going to remotely save your life. I mean, not that 0.2% is going to be life changing, but given the other differences...
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Distinguished pros:
    More offense from The Best Defense.

    Virtuous pros:
    1% better dps
    So, given a Best Defense build, does the additional offense outweigh the 1% bonus?
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Distinguished pros:
    Energy proc on attacks.

    Virtuous pros:
    Energy proc on healing
    Again, seems like for regular attack tanks, Distinguished wins out again. For heal tanks, Virtuous. Maybe we'll start seeing more heal tanks after this.

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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    So, given a Best Defense build, does the additional offense outweigh the 1% bonus?

    I was wondering that too. Testing to follow.​​
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    Here is a bunch of cross comparisoning. All mods are R7, damage versions of primaries are used, Exclusively stacked Con, spammed Annihilate.
    jRpEntL.jpg
    Even with Guardian + Warden taking big advantage of that defense bonus, Distinguished still doesn't outdo Virtuous in terms of DPS. In fact, only the Garden setup gave Distinguished better DPS than Mercenary, while with every other setup Distinguished was lagging behind every other set ( of course Distinguished can still slot 1 more threat mod than Merc so it's not actually lagging behind ).

    So Then I went ahead and did some mitigation testing. Same gear as above with Defiance, using a R3 block replacer, Guardian+Warden specs.
    YGIi9Wp.png
    So going by this it's actually a bit more than the 1% better mitigation while not blocking, and while blocking Virtuous and Distinguished are functionally the same.

    So seeing as Distinguished appears to be in 2nd place( barely ) in regards to mitigation and 3rd place when it comes to DPS, we can go ahead and shrink Distinguished's pro list down to:

    Distinguished pros:
    Energy proc on attacks.
    Some +crowd control stats that don't matter.

    Which means that currently Distinguished is for builds that are having energy issues, and that benefit can be acquired by simply equipping the Utility primary. For builds that spam a lot of heals on themselves, Virtuous Utility primary will of course likely be better.​​
    Post edited by spinnytop on
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    So as a bit of an experiment to test my "Just jam more offense into Distinguished" idea, I shoved two rank 9 Impact Prisms into the distinguished offense primaries ( all sets had threat mods for the tests above ) to see what the effect of adding 148 offense would be. It bumped the dps of Distinguished up to ~1538 while using Wardicator, so that still doesn't quite allow it to surpass Virtuous. However then also adding a bunch of Defense to allow Distinguished to better take advantage of The Best Defense could potentially help close both the dps and the mitigation gaps, while also allowing Distinguished to remain distinct from the other two sets.​​
    Post edited by spinnytop on
  • leuchadegoutiereleuchadegoutiere Posts: 136 Arc User
    Maybe rescaling offense bonus would address the issue on DPS side. It's unlikely to happen because I can clearly see all the implication of such a change, but it would make offence based build an alternative, instead of the current meta of crits > all to reach the best DPS.
    @Leucha - Cascade, Praise, Gluh, Sanglots, Chernozem, Saadhaka, Ralsershei, La Lice, Cardinale and so on
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Distinguished pros:
    Energy proc on attacks.
    Some +crowd control stats that don't matter.

    Which means that currently Distinguished is for builds that are having energy issues, and that benefit can be acquired by simply equipping the Utility primary. For builds that spam a lot of heals on themselves, Virtuous Utility primary will of course likely be better.​​

    Awesome info, Spinny!
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  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    I'll say it again, I would really love to see the CC/KB defense cranked way up on Distinguished. That way, it gives everyone more variety in end-game builds. Each of the three armors would have its own distinct benefits.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    I'll say it again, I would really love to see the CC/KB defense cranked way up on Distinguished. That way, it gives everyone more variety in end-game builds. Each of the three armors would have its own distinct benefits.

    The question is, can those stats be cranked high enough that people will actually care to farm for the results? I get the feeling the question will basically be "Does Distinguished make me damn near immune to holds and knocks, or do I still have to block?".​​
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