even so, the stuff is better than legion gear AND even using a full set, dodge sucks. do they really want to kill off dodge themed toons that badly?
I tested the set by testing dodge. how's that.
I'm not getting suckered again. This is a classic Chinese business tactic to sucker you in with fake sht. They will end up nerfing whatever this new gear buffs in a few months and make us pay for it, like they do with everything else, I'm done supporting the Asian gang bang on my wallet.
Damn, I am wrong. That's horrible, that gear shouldn't even be considered for pass. It's just another way to make Heroic and Legion gear redundant, most likely shoved into a lockbox I bet.
Try actually playing a character without dodge primary and dodge mod installed, and a non-dodge passive. I've done it. You might be surprised. Did you know that there are things in this game to keep you from dying other than RNG?
Not the point. Anyone who has altitis, a lifetime sub, a gold sub, lots of freeform slots, etc knows this.
I'm not sure why people are defending this nonsense, and at this point I frankly don't care to speculate why a tiny minority of players are the only ones supporting this.
Bottom line, nerfing gear and existing mechanics instead of choosing to bring a few powers in line is beyond stupid and will not end well.
Want to raise the level cap and introduce new content so that I need to buy new gear? SOLD.
Can't sell keys anymore and think that changing old gear and introducing new gear sans incentive to actually use it (the fact the old stuff is changed because Emmert is speaking on a panel regarding a tricky mmo topic is not a reason)? No deal.
Again the gear is for testing this not sure it will be added with this..and its not even ready yet..So people are asumeing to quickly that this is going to be bad..Give them time to work it through give them constructive help insted of complaining. There is no need for complaining
PS: If this new gear is real.....NOT IN LOCK BOXES!!! Make it so we get it from mobs bosses quest or unity dallies...
Haven't tested yet, but just from looking at the feedback/numbers in the thread so far, here's my suggestions:
1. Convert everything that currently adds flat dodge chance to dodge rating (Evasive Maneuvers, Thundering Kick with advantage, etc). This lets you scale everything on the same scale, with one exception (which I'll mention below)
2. Change LR to add flat dodge chance and avoidance, scaling with superstats and rank.
3. Hard cap Avoidance and Dodge Chance at 95%. I'd suggest that level 40 LR hit this at about 1000 combined superstats and rank 3. It should be at about 80% Dodge/75% Avoidance at "expected" level 40 superstat levels (whatever's necessary to get 60% total damage boost from superstats) and scale from there with Dodge Chance rising faster than Avoidance. You should be able to hit the hard cap on Dodge Chance far sooner than you hit it on Avoidance.
Reasoning:
If you invest in LR as your passive, you should be guaranteed to get roughly equivalent performance to the other defensive passives. Preferably, the good ones (Defiance, Invuln, sometimes Regen).
With this setup, LR users (and Archetypes stuck with LR) won't have to take other dodge-granting powers, but also won't get much benefit from them unless they do something other than just add dodge/avoidance. I think this is an acceptable tradeoff as long as LR is truly capable of standing on its own (which, at present, it's not consistently able to without backup, and with the proposed PTS changes, it definitely won't be).
Yes, this kills some build synergies, but it also means you don't need to know the ins and outs of the synergies to make a good dodge build. Which is as it should be. You don't need to stack a bunch of stuff to make Invuln perform well, and you shouldn't with LR either.
This nerfs the defensive components of Quarry, WotW, and the Avoid/Dodge primary defenses that everyone seems to be running around with. I think this is advisable, as in the current metagame, at even moderately high levels of optimization, you can get Quarry up to levels where it meets LR-levels of performance for most content.
I'd also suggest, when nerfing all the non-LR dodge rating stuff, that you put more emphasis on lowering Avoidance over Dodge Chance. High Avoid/low Dodge is far more frustrating than high Dodge/low Avoid, as it leads to spikier gameplay and less reliable defenses.
Alternatively, keep the hard cap and just make everything add flat dodge chance, with LR getting very close to the hard cap on its own.
Oh, and regardless. Buff the base defense on gear a bit.
Dodge/Avoid gear should hit its soft cap around the Heroic Gear mark. (40-50%)
Over-investing with Legion Gear should provide far less returns at that stage, encouraging Legion Gear havers to invest in something else (IE an avoidance core, + HP, defense, etc. etc.)
Dodge-built-in passives should have their soft cap raised to account for the built-in Dodge bonus... or said bonus should become a flat addition that doesn't trigger diminishing returns.
Lightning Reflexes, Quarry, Way of the Warrior and Night Warrior are saved. Adding Dodge/Avoid to a Defensive or Support passive build is still possible, but using Legion Gear to push Dodge/Avoid to absurd levels becomes impossible. BCR + RR is still viable.
With Unbreakable's fix, Masterful Dodge may very well have some competition in the Active Defense field, thus making both options attractive. Bring more powers in line and don't go overboard with the soft caps and we'll be fine.
Really, though... only being able to 'dodge' 15% of all attacks coming your way is harsh.
Again the gear is for testing this not sure it will be added with this..and its not even ready yet..So people are asumeing to quickly that this is going to be bad..Give them time to work it through give them constructive help insted of complaining. There is no need for complaining
PS: If this new gear is real.....NOT IN LOCK BOXES!!! Make it so we get it from mobs bosses quest or unity dallies...
This. Seriously, just look at some of the numbers that are coming out of the curve changes. Quarry has more dodge-chance than LR. The people who will be hit hardest are the people who actually use dodge-based passives. You can still get ridiculously high dodge chances by cheesing Evasive Maneuvers and Thundering Kicks. This is so obviously beta that there is no doubt that this will get changed substantially in the future, or at worst, not be released at all.
Though, as a bit of a potential rebuttal, you might consider the Telepathy moves to be a horrible failure that was rushed out the door. However, consider that there are plenty of people that have made excellent use of them for controller/debuff characters, and also that there had been something of like upwards of a year spent developing this stuff, and it was all brand new moves. Contrast this to the dodge curve adjustment, which is just a tweak and not in fact new stuff. If it's broken and can't be fixed, it won't get released.
And finally, here's a bit of a comparison between current iterations of dodge and other damage mitigation tactics:
Damage Mitigation:
Reduces all incoming damage.
If you're lucky/combine defense with a defensive passive, you can cut all incoming damage into half.
Defense on its own, if specialized to buff it (say around 350 defense) can almost sort of kind of halve damage on its own.
Difficult to stack, and has no special mechanics or extra defensive perks tied to it.
Dodge:
Redcues incoming damage sometimes - in some cases, upwards of 70% of the time.
Said damage gets cut down by an exact percentage of avoidance. If you have 70% avoidance, you only take 30% of the damage. Period.
Dodge can heal. BCR + RR. This right here is probably the biggest disparity between dodge and the rest of the defenses.
And finally, it's ridiculously easy to stack.
And hey, I got upwards of 15 characters geared to dodge and basically be tankmages. But on the other hand, holy sht you are reacting to this like babbies. It was only a matter of time before this would happen.
Lazy dum description for people who cant read: Dodge most likely will get nerfed. But definitely not to the extent it's been done here right now.
I'm not a buildmeister, and I normally don't comment on powers stuff where it doesn't relate to genre emulation, but...
I'm not against a modest nerf to Dodge to make other build styles more attractive. I don't think "more challenging content" that only caters to the top 5% of the player base is the answer, though we do need more good, repeatable content for those players. (A new Lair where the Difficulty slider really matters and where people receive decent incentives to run it would be nice).
I'm willing to wait to see if the initial numbers are just flat broke before I start screaming, and I'd encourage at least a little restraint from the rest of the player base. However, please take your time and be *very* certain before you implement this one, Cryptic. Anything that makes an AT unplayable should not hit Live.
This. Seriously, just look at some of the numbers that are coming out of the curve changes. Quarry has more dodge-chance than LR. The people who will be hit hardest are the people who actually use dodge-based passives. You can still get ridiculously high dodge chances by cheesing Evasive Maneuvers and Thundering Kicks. This is so obviously beta that there is no doubt that this will get changed substantially in the future, or at worst, not be released at all.
Though, as a bit of a potential rebuttal, you might consider the Telepathy moves to be a horrible failure that was rushed out the door. However, consider that there are plenty of people that have made excellent use of them for controller/debuff characters, and also that there had been something of like upwards of a year spent developing this stuff, and it was all brand new moves. Contrast this to the dodge curve adjustment, which is just a tweak and not in fact new stuff. If it's broken and can't be fixed, it won't get released.
And finally, here's a bit of a comparison between current iterations of dodge and other damage mitigation tactics:
Damage Mitigation:
Reduces all incoming damage.
If you're lucky/combine defense with a defensive passive, you can cut all incoming damage into half.
Defense on its own, if specialized to buff it (say around 350 defense) can almost sort of kind of halve damage on its own.
Difficult to stack, and has no special mechanics or extra defensive perks tied to it.
Dodge:
Redcues incoming damage sometimes - in some cases, upwards of 70% of the time.
Said damage gets cut down by an exact percentage of avoidance. If you have 70% avoidance, you only take 30% of the damage. Period.
Dodge can heal. BCR + RR. This right here is probably the biggest disparity between dodge and the rest of the defenses.
And finally, it's ridiculously easy to stack.
And hey, I got upwards of 15 characters geared to dodge and basically be tankmages. But on the other hand, holy sht you are reacting to this like babbies. It was only a matter of time before this would happen.
Lazy dum description for people who cant read: Dodge most likely will get nerfed. But definitely not to the extent it's been done here right now.
"And hey, I got upwards of 15 characters geared to dodge and basically be tankmages. But on the other hand, holy sht you are reacting to this like babbies. It was only a matter of time before this would happen."
No, I am reacting to this like a paying customer who sees absolutely no need for a nerf to gear I have paid for. Furthermore, when you call customers "babbies" and say things like "f night warrior passive" frankly sir you have no business being a community moderator. It was not a "matter of time", unless you just got your crystal ball out of hock and it's just now powering up.
edit: reread your entire post is an example of why you should not be a community moderator.
Wait, Bluhman's a community moderator? Since when? I thought he was just some weirdo who makes costumes with an LTS.
?_?
... also, those hold/root = dodge debuff suggestions from earlier sound great too, do those.
I would also like to note that, if you're primarily ranged, stacking EM and Thundering Kicks is a pain in the butt. Not so much if you're melee though.
Bluh a community moderator!! hahahahahahaahahahahhah that was a good one =p.
Though in all honesty I agree 100% with his opinion. Dodge needs to be nerfed, though definitely not as massive as it is right now, but lowering its effectiveness by... lets say... 20% would be a good start. Or leave dodge as it is but remove the advantage of BCR.
And also... plz buff Offense moar, kk, thx, bye =p.
___________________
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Click up there if you want to find more about the costumes behind my heroines.
OK, I've been running numbers and I propose a simpler, easier solution to dodge and critical chance. IMHO, the biggest change to Dodge and Crit was the gear post On Alert -- it made anyone just slap on some Heroic with the right mods gain a minimum 30% crit and 40% dodge with 60% avoidance (more of course with Legion).
So I propose:
All Gear AND Gambler's Luck cores have HALF VALUE for critical chance, dodge rating and avoidance rating.
Do not make any new curves, do not change any powers or specs. Gear is the problem. This change will still preserve the heroic concept for those players who want a dodge/crit toon. Now players might actually want to use Lightning Reflexes and Parry in their builds again (just like before On Alert).
Before and After Numbers:
Quarry/Legion Agility 72%/62% before, 59%/52% after
Heroic Agility 40%/58% before, 29%/45% after
As for halving the critical rating on Gambler's and Gear at least now people who want critical chance will need DEX or actually use the spec trees in Strength and Ego.
I don't know why you would change the Severity DR curve, it was bad before anyways and rarely did players use Piercing mods.
I have tested not your Offense changes, I suspect it was a reaction to the critical chance nerf. I would simply get rid of DR with it completely and just make it a flat bonus like Defense does. Additive damage already has a DR curve so why have the existing double DR for Offense?
Players, I would love to see support for this change vs. others.
and canadascott, we dont need lairs and new content to cater ONLY to top tiers, we need new mechanics that challenge ALL players by how its designed.
Hence the "where the difficulty slider really matters" part of my comment. That's the mechanic that was intended to make content accessible for a wide range of build styles, though even when it did matter (pre-On Alert), it always left something to be desired. Do that effectively, and players can work their way up to higher challenge levels on their own speed.
The current PTS build ( FC.31.20130824.10 ) has the following preview changes.
The diminishing returns curves on Avoid, Dodge, Critical Chance, Severity, and Offense have all been adjusted. Additionally Offense now scales in a separate layer of damage bonus to make it more straight forward to understand. Avoid, Dodge, Critical Chance, and Severity will now rise significantly more slowly while at level cap. Offense will now scale with an entirely new curve, and should be much more valuable to players overall. This is an experimental potential future change that will not be part of the bug fix release. We are interested in how these adjustments feel at at all levels of gameplay.
The Debugger has an upcoming set of gear (Justice Gear) for your testing and feedback.
Please discuss them in this thread!
I've seen some of you telling people that the variety of playstyles aswell as stat combinations were to be reviewed before PvP.
I'd like to say that for a start, completing your objective on this very subject will also result in a positive impact in PvP anyways. Do not crash on this one though, flat bonuses will be a problem with the nerfs, such as with Quarry.
Hmm while i dont post very often i have this to say, while i can expect these numbers to be toned down before going live i feel the dodge/avoidance changes should only start affecting the higher end builds, the ones that have near and above 80-100ish% dodge and avoidance mostly from stacking flat dodge buffs, anyone below i feel should be unnaffected imho.
Perhaps they could change the flat dodge/avoidance boosts into dodge/avoidance rating which is affected by diminishing returns, say having the rating equal to the amout they would have from the flat bonus until they start stacking it at which point dimishing returns would kick in and prevent them form having silly amounts of dodge/avoaidance, that way thouse with moderate amounts of dodge/avoidance (say about 55-65ish% dodge and 60ish% avoidance) would remain unnaffected.
nerfing gear isn't the answer either. monsterdaddy's previous suggestions made more sense.
I still like my previous suggestions but they are just hard to implement. Gear really is the major change due to On Alert. My proposed nerf to gear brings it closer to pre On Alert levels (but still better than before) and is very easy to implement.
We could also stop pretending this has anything to do with balance. This is an attempt to get us to purchase a new set of gear.
If people feel like they are trivializing the content, self limitation is a fix that could be applied by the players themselves.
Dodge too high? Don't rank up passives that use it. Is the content still super easy? Ok, strip out your secondary gear and run content. Is your damage output ruining your fun? Easy, take different powers or don't rank the powers you think are overpowered. Still not enough? Leave an active offense out of your build. We could go on all day with this.
All Gear AND Gambler's Luck cores have HALF VALUE for critical chance, dodge rating and avoidance rating.
I think that's an excellent idea. Balance-wise, I don't think the curves (aside from Offense) are the problem. The problem is that a single piece of gear can push far enough into those curves that the gear becomes an acceptable surrogate for certain superstats or powers.
Then Repurpose should be removed from Prescence's stat tree, or severly nerfed, to prevent people from using the new Offensive scaling to abuse healing more than it already is now. As it stands Repurpose+Offense is grossly op, and if you eliminate the dr's on Offense without nerfing Pre's spec tree, people will transition from dodge to healing.
um no. how about simply placing the nerf at the very top of the curve to stop people from "breaking the game" but leaving it so those poor souls without legion gear and rank 8+ mods can still get by? 60% dodge with quarry isnt OP. dodge is the only defense quarry offers.
Quarry is an offensive passive that provides more defensive capability then most other defensive passives.
Cause that makes sense.
About time dodge got hammered. Obviously it's going to be tweaked, but the fact that dodge was a stupidly easy to get boost that would flat cut huge chunks of damage was silly broken. Don't even need to min-max, it had a nerf coming for the past few months, just didn't have the people to do it until now.
As I've stated before avoidance is the one and only thing that needs adjusted.
There's nothing wrong with high dodge chance. Like Gradii pointed out, low dodge chance just makes mitigation highly unreliable for those of us that use dodge builds. It's okay for other passive offenses to have some form of reliable mitigation, whether it be all damage or broken down to a damage type. Point is, you don't see Kinetic Manipulation stating it only resists ranged physical damage 30% of the time, do you? No, you don't. As I've stated before, dodge is nothing more than a random number generator. Avoidance is the actual mitigation.
A lot of the problem is base avoidance (20%) and certain Legion gear can be combined to give NW, Quarry and WotW 60%+ avoidance, and non-dodge builds 55%+ avoidance. In all due fairness, NW, Quarry and WotW should be around the 40% mark, while a non-dodge build should be around the 20% mark (the current base). Only LR should be sporting 60% or more avoidance, simply because it is a passive offense. I'm sure between adjusting base avoidance, avoidance values and the passives, they could make this a reality.
If they went this route they could actually make a tier system with dodge mechanics, which is the way it should really be:
Teir 1: Non-Dodge Passives Medium dodge, low avoidance
Tier 2: Dodge Passive Offense (NW, Quarry and WotW) High dodge, medium avoidance
Tier 3: Dodge Passive Defense (LR) High dodge, high avoidance
I think dodge should be a bit of a gamble. You risk not mitigating any damage at all, but if it pays off you mitigate more damage than any comparable defense (LR vs. Defiance or Invulnerability, for example).
Letting dodge reach numbers as high as 95% almost eliminates the risk and makes it look a lot more like stacking defense, which is always on. Another problem with that is defense can be easily debuffed, while unless I'm mistaken, dodge and avoidance can't.
Going with Monsterdaddy's earlier suggestions brings back some element of risk by making dodge more conditional, and reducing how much dodge and avoidance you can stack through gear alone corrects the issue with scaling.
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The poster formerly known as Lightwave!
Yeah, this Dodge Nerf isn't going to work. That's obvious. Other powers rely on Dodge Chance to stay effective. Things like...
-Bountiful Chi Resurgence + Adv(Low Dodge will drastically lower healing of this power)
-Form of the Master(which grants stacks of Focus based off Dodging)
I am in agreement that AVOIDANCE is what should be looked at instead, due to the fact that other powers don't rely on how much damage you avoid. I came up with a suggestion that might be worth looking into. That being...
Avoidance: When it combat, every time you DON'T Dodge an attack you loose a percentage of your overall Avoidance. Your Avoidance CAN NOT drop any lower than the base 20%. Every time you DO Dodge an attack your overall Avoidance increases by a percentage, up to the Max you started with.
So basically if you have 60% Avoidance, your Avoidance amount would fluctuate between 60-20% while in combat. When out of combat your Avoidance would gradually increase back to it's max as if you were continually dodging attacks.
What does this change do?
Builds built around HIGH Dodge/Avoidance(such as builds using LR) will still be just as effective as ever.
Builds built around a Medium Dodge/Avoidance through end game gear(using non dodge passives) will be less effective as they will quickly lose there Avoidance in combat.
Still, I don't know how much this change would effect Quarry/Way of the Warrior Builds. But I think it's worth testing. Dodge might need to see a SLIGHT Nerf in the same form Critical Chance is seeing, but can't really say at this time.
Then Repurpose should be removed from Prescence's stat tree, or severly nerfed, to prevent people from using the new Offensive scaling to abuse healing more than it already is now. As it stands Repurpose+Offense is grossly op, and if you eliminate the dr's on Offense without nerfing Pre's spec tree, people will transition from dodge to healing.
I agree that putting Offense's damage buff on a separate layer is probably a bad idea, mainly because there are several synergies that build a large amount of Offense while also significantly boosting the player's defensive capabilities. Lafury's example is one such synergy (EDIT: I misread Lafury's post. I thought it was referring to Grandeur, not Repurpose), providing high Offense with a high healing bonus. Another is CON-focused Juggernaut with double The Best Defense, providing a huge health pool with very high Defense and Offense totals.
I do like that the devs are trying to make Offense more desirable. The current double-curve on Live (Offense's curve, then the additive damage curve) seems like it front-loads the reward for Offense, while offering next to nothing beyond a moderate Offense total. I prefer Monsterdaddy's suggestion of smoothing out Offense's DR curve, but leaving it on the additive damage layer. That would provide a reward for pumping Offense to large numbers, but would curb the most extreme cases with the additive damage formula.
Then Repurpose should be removed from Prescence's stat tree, or severly nerfed, to prevent people from using the new Offensive scaling to abuse healing more than it already is now. As it stands Repurpose+Offense is grossly op, and if you eliminate the dr's on Offense without nerfing Pre's spec tree, people will transition from dodge to healing.
Changing gear is not the answer.
Actually, Repurpose and Grandeur works because bonus healing has no DRs. Pre Primary/Warden/Guardian; suddenly your healer has a ton of defense and offense and their shields still do 10.2k+. Most of a healer's capabilities will come from their sentinel brooches, not pre. Pre has some awful DRs. Offense is fine as is, if anything, they need to take a look at just how much their sentinel brooches do (if I can get 16k+ shields, it's a bit insane).
__________________________________________________ Find me ingame: @NekoKairi.
Specializing in: twisted biographies. Seriously, run if you see one of my characters IC.
not everyone gets 16k shields. don't suggest a nerf just because YOU are overpowered.
Pre's healing has some of the worst DRs in game. Giving bonus healing with no DRs isn't the answer to that. Instead of messing with a neglected stat, they should rework Pre itself to be more useful to healers, instead of having to rely on sentinel brooches and gear with +% healing bonus.
And yes, bonus healing does need a nerf. Like I said, it has no DRs whatsoever.
__________________________________________________ Find me ingame: @NekoKairi.
Specializing in: twisted biographies. Seriously, run if you see one of my characters IC.
Dodge change won't hurt me too much. Tanked with PFF before on alert, without dodge and I'll do it again with less dodge now.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
Repurpose is not affected by offense gains from specs
Repurpose w/ only gear:
Repurpose w/ gear + specs:
1189 either way, therefore specs do not affect Repurpose.
Now that that's been nipped in the bud...
I like most of the changes to the stats so far. Offense actually means something now. Crit chance, crit severity and avoidance only take a large hit if you stack large amounts.
I do not like the dodge rating change. In my opinion it is much too steep. It is especially funny since none of the flat dodge buffs were touched making Quarry and Evasive Maneuvers even more absurd in comparison. I hope these numbers (23% dodge w/ R3 LR vs 32% dodge w/ R3 Quarry) are not indicative of the final numbers. If so, I will be forced to laugh very loudly at whoever thinks the current dodge numbers are good as is.
Personally I think about 25-30% dodge and 40% avoidance just from a Heroic Agility piece w/ R7 gambler's would be about right. Currently on PTS I have 14.3% dodge and 55% avoidance. In general I would rather dodge more often and take more damage (low avoidance) than dodge less often and take less damage (high avoidance).
Here is a bit of a further testament to the state of Gear vs. Passives. Let's take an example character - a Str/Con/Rec character that gains dodge only through two sources: Gear, and his Way of the Warrior passive.
Currently, his dodge stats on live sit at:
Chance - 49.5%
Avoidance - 69%
Funnily enough, on PTS, the new scale downsize this to:
Chance - 16.4%
Avoidance - 65.4%
What I'm seeking to point out here is how powerful dodge is when it comes to gear. To do that, I'll give you two other figures; the character without a primary defense piece (2 rank 7 cons and a rank 5 Lucky Gem, Avoidance Piece), and the character without his passive, Rank 3 WotW. Granted, Way of the Warrior doesn't offer a bunch of dodge boosts, but it should be noticeable.
Discounting any lost stats from removing the primary defense piece, that means, mods alone, you can get almost 20% extra dodge chance and avoidance through gear. This is on any build - it doesn't matter if you're a tank or a healer, or if you have Quarry or not. Slap dodge and avoidance gear on yourself, and you're pretty much set to use BCR and cheese the hell out of your foes.
That's not even looking at the underlying numbers themselves. The Way of the Warrior passive offers up a fairly smooth 96 dodge and avoidance points (fully geared). My gear, on the other hand, offers up 127 chance points, and 139 avoidance. Seems like 30 points makes a lot of difference on live!
On the PTS, the numbers are a lot closer together, and give a bit more of an insight about how the dodge curve works on both live and new. Seems live uses something resembling a logarithmic function - starts out steep, and then tapers off as rating gets higher. This is why something as little as 30 points can make so much of a difference when it comes to gear, why there isn't too big of a difference between the ungeared/no passive samples, as well as why at high levels of dodge it becomes really difficult to get above 60% without resorting to tricks like EM.
Contrast that to the PTS' current curve, which is pretty plainly linear. If you consider that the base dodge chance of all characters is 10%, and add up the remainders of the PTS values minus 10, they pretty much come out to the original value prior to gear/passive removal. Avoidance seems to just have had its funciton a bit dampened.
So with that all in mind, a downward-curving function (what we use on live right now) would favor people who stat with dodge-items over those who stick with a dodge passive. The linear function used right now doesn't really favor either tactic that much, but because, on average, the items give more stats than passives, they will ultimately win out. In contrast, an exponential curve (starts slow, rises high) would make the leading dodgers those that are the best at stacking dodge score - the ones that use passives and gear, and would leave dodge-gear users ultimately with a bit less bang for their buck. However, this also might have the side effect of making the lower-dodge passives become laggy in terms of their bonuses.
What I'm basically saying is that gear values as they are now probably can't really be easily fixed with a stat re-curving. And that generally leaves two options - making the passives stronger (which might stymie other non-flat dodge boosts if they aren't tweaked), or making the gear weaker.
I've seen a few (very few) of my fellow players express what can be done with dodge when we min/max. That's a valid point, but in my opinion a marginally valid one and here's my opinion why. Note: This is my opinion.
The only people who are in support of this that I see are people who I know from years of playing with them, against them, and talking to them to be power gamers in this game. They (we) are the minority. Yes we can do some amazingly powerful stuff in the game but let's be honest most people who freeform aren't doing that kind of stuff and the ATs definitely are doing much of it either.
This is a delicate issue and I'm being nice by calling it an issue because I don't think dodge, avoid, crit etc. are the issue. I can count on one hand how many people I personally know who quit because the game is "too easy" and I'd need a few pages to write the names/handles of the ones I've said goodbye to over the last 4 years because they ran out of things to do...
I'll probably catch some flak for this but hopefully my friends respect me enough to respect me disagreeing with them on this one. Those of us on a certain channel who are pushing for this? Stop listening to them on this topic, seriously. They (we) have historically always found ways to break this game since launch that the vast majority of the playerbase either never know about or simply do not do. It's the game within the game. These dodge changes won't kill the game for me (or them). It'll kill some concepts but I'll build around them as I usually do or retire them like I did my main Sho Nuff about two years ago when a major change gutted his concept beyond repair at the time (although that change made me leave the game for months). However, when people like my casual friends, my wife, my cousin's wife, my frat brothers, or my 13 year old son play the game they already find it difficult and some of their characters are using dodge as it is now. I repeat they are using the current dodge and think the game is moderately hard. And let's not forget all the dodge characters I see falling in defeat in the PUG alerts.
In a nutshell, this looks like an attempt to make existing content "harder" but to be frank it won't make much of anything harder for the people pushing for this change and they (we) know it because we already know several other ways to get around this. It'll make a few isolated pieces of content slightly more challenging but the big effect is that it's going to make the game more difficult for the type of players that don't seem to need/want it to be more difficult. Don't do this, give the power gamers something new to do that will faceplant them until they figure it out.
This is pretty much my opinion.
We can't tool this game to the power gamers, you just can't.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
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You should. They're often the ones who test this stuff.
That's part of the problem, most of the testing gets done by power gamers.
One of the reasons some of the stupidly hard stuff has made it to live and then has to be 'adjusted' is part of this problem.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
Comments
Upcoming set. The set is there to be tested, not to useto test other things. Unless anyone can provide a dev quote that says otherwise?
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
I'm not getting suckered again. This is a classic Chinese business tactic to sucker you in with fake sht. They will end up nerfing whatever this new gear buffs in a few months and make us pay for it, like they do with everything else, I'm done supporting the Asian gang bang on my wallet.
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Thankfully the gear is just for testing, as far as I am aware.
Read up two posts please.
Deliciously nutritious!
Damn, I am wrong. That's horrible, that gear shouldn't even be considered for pass. It's just another way to make Heroic and Legion gear redundant, most likely shoved into a lockbox I bet.
Not the point. Anyone who has altitis, a lifetime sub, a gold sub, lots of freeform slots, etc knows this.
I'm not sure why people are defending this nonsense, and at this point I frankly don't care to speculate why a tiny minority of players are the only ones supporting this.
Bottom line, nerfing gear and existing mechanics instead of choosing to bring a few powers in line is beyond stupid and will not end well.
Want to raise the level cap and introduce new content so that I need to buy new gear? SOLD.
Can't sell keys anymore and think that changing old gear and introducing new gear sans incentive to actually use it (the fact the old stuff is changed because Emmert is speaking on a panel regarding a tricky mmo topic is not a reason)? No deal.
NO. DEAL.
PS: If this new gear is real.....NOT IN LOCK BOXES!!! Make it so we get it from mobs bosses quest or unity dallies...
1. Convert everything that currently adds flat dodge chance to dodge rating (Evasive Maneuvers, Thundering Kick with advantage, etc). This lets you scale everything on the same scale, with one exception (which I'll mention below)
2. Change LR to add flat dodge chance and avoidance, scaling with superstats and rank.
3. Hard cap Avoidance and Dodge Chance at 95%. I'd suggest that level 40 LR hit this at about 1000 combined superstats and rank 3. It should be at about 80% Dodge/75% Avoidance at "expected" level 40 superstat levels (whatever's necessary to get 60% total damage boost from superstats) and scale from there with Dodge Chance rising faster than Avoidance. You should be able to hit the hard cap on Dodge Chance far sooner than you hit it on Avoidance.
Reasoning:
If you invest in LR as your passive, you should be guaranteed to get roughly equivalent performance to the other defensive passives. Preferably, the good ones (Defiance, Invuln, sometimes Regen).
With this setup, LR users (and Archetypes stuck with LR) won't have to take other dodge-granting powers, but also won't get much benefit from them unless they do something other than just add dodge/avoidance. I think this is an acceptable tradeoff as long as LR is truly capable of standing on its own (which, at present, it's not consistently able to without backup, and with the proposed PTS changes, it definitely won't be).
Yes, this kills some build synergies, but it also means you don't need to know the ins and outs of the synergies to make a good dodge build. Which is as it should be. You don't need to stack a bunch of stuff to make Invuln perform well, and you shouldn't with LR either.
This nerfs the defensive components of Quarry, WotW, and the Avoid/Dodge primary defenses that everyone seems to be running around with. I think this is advisable, as in the current metagame, at even moderately high levels of optimization, you can get Quarry up to levels where it meets LR-levels of performance for most content.
I'd also suggest, when nerfing all the non-LR dodge rating stuff, that you put more emphasis on lowering Avoidance over Dodge Chance. High Avoid/low Dodge is far more frustrating than high Dodge/low Avoid, as it leads to spikier gameplay and less reliable defenses.
Alternatively, keep the hard cap and just make everything add flat dodge chance, with LR getting very close to the hard cap on its own.
Oh, and regardless. Buff the base defense on gear a bit.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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The user formerly known as Dr. Sage.
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Dodge/Avoid gear should hit its soft cap around the Heroic Gear mark. (40-50%)
Over-investing with Legion Gear should provide far less returns at that stage, encouraging Legion Gear havers to invest in something else (IE an avoidance core, + HP, defense, etc. etc.)
Dodge-built-in passives should have their soft cap raised to account for the built-in Dodge bonus... or said bonus should become a flat addition that doesn't trigger diminishing returns.
Lightning Reflexes, Quarry, Way of the Warrior and Night Warrior are saved. Adding Dodge/Avoid to a Defensive or Support passive build is still possible, but using Legion Gear to push Dodge/Avoid to absurd levels becomes impossible. BCR + RR is still viable.
With Unbreakable's fix, Masterful Dodge may very well have some competition in the Active Defense field, thus making both options attractive. Bring more powers in line and don't go overboard with the soft caps and we'll be fine.
Really, though... only being able to 'dodge' 15% of all attacks coming your way is harsh.
Also, this new gear looks redonkulous.
This. Seriously, just look at some of the numbers that are coming out of the curve changes. Quarry has more dodge-chance than LR. The people who will be hit hardest are the people who actually use dodge-based passives. You can still get ridiculously high dodge chances by cheesing Evasive Maneuvers and Thundering Kicks. This is so obviously beta that there is no doubt that this will get changed substantially in the future, or at worst, not be released at all.
Though, as a bit of a potential rebuttal, you might consider the Telepathy moves to be a horrible failure that was rushed out the door. However, consider that there are plenty of people that have made excellent use of them for controller/debuff characters, and also that there had been something of like upwards of a year spent developing this stuff, and it was all brand new moves. Contrast this to the dodge curve adjustment, which is just a tweak and not in fact new stuff. If it's broken and can't be fixed, it won't get released.
And finally, here's a bit of a comparison between current iterations of dodge and other damage mitigation tactics:
Damage Mitigation:
Dodge:
And hey, I got upwards of 15 characters geared to dodge and basically be tankmages. But on the other hand, holy sht you are reacting to this like babbies. It was only a matter of time before this would happen.
Lazy dum description for people who cant read: Dodge most likely will get nerfed. But definitely not to the extent it's been done here right now.
Also, devs, don't forget, try considering lowering dodge effectiveness from equipmeeeent~~!
I'm not against a modest nerf to Dodge to make other build styles more attractive. I don't think "more challenging content" that only caters to the top 5% of the player base is the answer, though we do need more good, repeatable content for those players. (A new Lair where the Difficulty slider really matters and where people receive decent incentives to run it would be nice).
I'm willing to wait to see if the initial numbers are just flat broke before I start screaming, and I'd encourage at least a little restraint from the rest of the player base. However, please take your time and be *very* certain before you implement this one, Cryptic. Anything that makes an AT unplayable should not hit Live.
It's made of bodyparts of Deadpool, what else can it be.....
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
"And hey, I got upwards of 15 characters geared to dodge and basically be tankmages. But on the other hand, holy sht you are reacting to this like babbies. It was only a matter of time before this would happen."
No, I am reacting to this like a paying customer who sees absolutely no need for a nerf to gear I have paid for. Furthermore, when you call customers "babbies" and say things like "f night warrior passive" frankly sir you have no business being a community moderator. It was not a "matter of time", unless you just got your crystal ball out of hock and it's just now powering up.
edit: reread your entire post is an example of why you should not be a community moderator.
?_?
... also, those hold/root = dodge debuff suggestions from earlier sound great too, do those.
I would also like to note that, if you're primarily ranged, stacking EM and Thundering Kicks is a pain in the butt. Not so much if you're melee though.
Though in all honesty I agree 100% with his opinion. Dodge needs to be nerfed, though definitely not as massive as it is right now, but lowering its effectiveness by... lets say... 20% would be a good start. Or leave dodge as it is but remove the advantage of BCR.
And also... plz buff Offense moar, kk, thx, bye =p.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Click up there if you want to find more about the costumes behind my heroines.
So I propose:
All Gear AND Gambler's Luck cores have HALF VALUE for critical chance, dodge rating and avoidance rating.
Do not make any new curves, do not change any powers or specs. Gear is the problem. This change will still preserve the heroic concept for those players who want a dodge/crit toon. Now players might actually want to use Lightning Reflexes and Parry in their builds again (just like before On Alert).
Before and After Numbers:
Quarry/Legion Agility 72%/62% before, 59%/52% after
Heroic Agility 40%/58% before, 29%/45% after
As for halving the critical rating on Gambler's and Gear at least now people who want critical chance will need DEX or actually use the spec trees in Strength and Ego.
I don't know why you would change the Severity DR curve, it was bad before anyways and rarely did players use Piercing mods.
I have tested not your Offense changes, I suspect it was a reaction to the critical chance nerf. I would simply get rid of DR with it completely and just make it a flat bonus like Defense does. Additive damage already has a DR curve so why have the existing double DR for Offense?
Players, I would love to see support for this change vs. others.
Hence the "where the difficulty slider really matters" part of my comment. That's the mechanic that was intended to make content accessible for a wide range of build styles, though even when it did matter (pre-On Alert), it always left something to be desired. Do that effectively, and players can work their way up to higher challenge levels on their own speed.
I've seen some of you telling people that the variety of playstyles aswell as stat combinations were to be reviewed before PvP.
I'd like to say that for a start, completing your objective on this very subject will also result in a positive impact in PvP anyways. Do not crash on this one though, flat bonuses will be a problem with the nerfs, such as with Quarry.
Don't ruin powers - lower the additional benefits from gear.
But maybe not quite so much.
4% dodge for a R4 or R5 lucky gem? Seems kinda low. Personally.
Perhaps they could change the flat dodge/avoidance boosts into dodge/avoidance rating which is affected by diminishing returns, say having the rating equal to the amout they would have from the flat bonus until they start stacking it at which point dimishing returns would kick in and prevent them form having silly amounts of dodge/avoaidance, that way thouse with moderate amounts of dodge/avoidance (say about 55-65ish% dodge and 60ish% avoidance) would remain unnaffected.
I still like my previous suggestions but they are just hard to implement. Gear really is the major change due to On Alert. My proposed nerf to gear brings it closer to pre On Alert levels (but still better than before) and is very easy to implement.
If people feel like they are trivializing the content, self limitation is a fix that could be applied by the players themselves.
Dodge too high? Don't rank up passives that use it. Is the content still super easy? Ok, strip out your secondary gear and run content. Is your damage output ruining your fun? Easy, take different powers or don't rank the powers you think are overpowered. Still not enough? Leave an active offense out of your build. We could go on all day with this.
I think that's an excellent idea. Balance-wise, I don't think the curves (aside from Offense) are the problem. The problem is that a single piece of gear can push far enough into those curves that the gear becomes an acceptable surrogate for certain superstats or powers.
Changing gear is not the answer.
Quarry is an offensive passive that provides more defensive capability then most other defensive passives.
Cause that makes sense.
About time dodge got hammered. Obviously it's going to be tweaked, but the fact that dodge was a stupidly easy to get boost that would flat cut huge chunks of damage was silly broken. Don't even need to min-max, it had a nerf coming for the past few months, just didn't have the people to do it until now.
Deliciously nutritious!
There's nothing wrong with high dodge chance. Like Gradii pointed out, low dodge chance just makes mitigation highly unreliable for those of us that use dodge builds. It's okay for other passive offenses to have some form of reliable mitigation, whether it be all damage or broken down to a damage type. Point is, you don't see Kinetic Manipulation stating it only resists ranged physical damage 30% of the time, do you? No, you don't. As I've stated before, dodge is nothing more than a random number generator. Avoidance is the actual mitigation.
A lot of the problem is base avoidance (20%) and certain Legion gear can be combined to give NW, Quarry and WotW 60%+ avoidance, and non-dodge builds 55%+ avoidance. In all due fairness, NW, Quarry and WotW should be around the 40% mark, while a non-dodge build should be around the 20% mark (the current base). Only LR should be sporting 60% or more avoidance, simply because it is a passive offense. I'm sure between adjusting base avoidance, avoidance values and the passives, they could make this a reality.
If they went this route they could actually make a tier system with dodge mechanics, which is the way it should really be:
Teir 1: Non-Dodge Passives
Medium dodge, low avoidance
Tier 2: Dodge Passive Offense (NW, Quarry and WotW)
High dodge, medium avoidance
Tier 3: Dodge Passive Defense (LR)
High dodge, high avoidance
Letting dodge reach numbers as high as 95% almost eliminates the risk and makes it look a lot more like stacking defense, which is always on. Another problem with that is defense can be easily debuffed, while unless I'm mistaken, dodge and avoidance can't.
Going with Monsterdaddy's earlier suggestions brings back some element of risk by making dodge more conditional, and reducing how much dodge and avoidance you can stack through gear alone corrects the issue with scaling.
The poster formerly known as Lightwave!
-Bountiful Chi Resurgence + Adv(Low Dodge will drastically lower healing of this power)
-Form of the Master(which grants stacks of Focus based off Dodging)
I am in agreement that AVOIDANCE is what should be looked at instead, due to the fact that other powers don't rely on how much damage you avoid. I came up with a suggestion that might be worth looking into. That being...
Avoidance: When it combat, every time you DON'T Dodge an attack you loose a percentage of your overall Avoidance. Your Avoidance CAN NOT drop any lower than the base 20%. Every time you DO Dodge an attack your overall Avoidance increases by a percentage, up to the Max you started with.
So basically if you have 60% Avoidance, your Avoidance amount would fluctuate between 60-20% while in combat. When out of combat your Avoidance would gradually increase back to it's max as if you were continually dodging attacks.
What does this change do?
Builds built around HIGH Dodge/Avoidance(such as builds using LR) will still be just as effective as ever.
Builds built around a Medium Dodge/Avoidance through end game gear(using non dodge passives) will be less effective as they will quickly lose there Avoidance in combat.
Still, I don't know how much this change would effect Quarry/Way of the Warrior Builds. But I think it's worth testing. Dodge might need to see a SLIGHT Nerf in the same form Critical Chance is seeing, but can't really say at this time.
I agree that putting Offense's damage buff on a separate layer is probably a bad idea, mainly because there are several synergies that build a large amount of Offense while also significantly boosting the player's defensive capabilities. Lafury's example is one such synergy (EDIT: I misread Lafury's post. I thought it was referring to Grandeur, not Repurpose), providing high Offense with a high healing bonus. Another is CON-focused Juggernaut with double The Best Defense, providing a huge health pool with very high Defense and Offense totals.
I do like that the devs are trying to make Offense more desirable. The current double-curve on Live (Offense's curve, then the additive damage curve) seems like it front-loads the reward for Offense, while offering next to nothing beyond a moderate Offense total. I prefer Monsterdaddy's suggestion of smoothing out Offense's DR curve, but leaving it on the additive damage layer. That would provide a reward for pumping Offense to large numbers, but would curb the most extreme cases with the additive damage formula.
Find me ingame: @NekoKairi.
Specializing in: twisted biographies. Seriously, run if you see one of my characters IC.
And yes, bonus healing does need a nerf. Like I said, it has no DRs whatsoever.
Find me ingame: @NekoKairi.
Specializing in: twisted biographies. Seriously, run if you see one of my characters IC.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
Repurpose w/ only gear:
Repurpose w/ gear + specs:
1189 either way, therefore specs do not affect Repurpose.
Now that that's been nipped in the bud...
I like most of the changes to the stats so far. Offense actually means something now. Crit chance, crit severity and avoidance only take a large hit if you stack large amounts.
I do not like the dodge rating change. In my opinion it is much too steep. It is especially funny since none of the flat dodge buffs were touched making Quarry and Evasive Maneuvers even more absurd in comparison. I hope these numbers (23% dodge w/ R3 LR vs 32% dodge w/ R3 Quarry) are not indicative of the final numbers. If so, I will be forced to laugh very loudly at whoever thinks the current dodge numbers are good as is.
Personally I think about 25-30% dodge and 40% avoidance just from a Heroic Agility piece w/ R7 gambler's would be about right. Currently on PTS I have 14.3% dodge and 55% avoidance. In general I would rather dodge more often and take more damage (low avoidance) than dodge less often and take less damage (high avoidance).
Currently, his dodge stats on live sit at:
Chance - 49.5%
Avoidance - 69%
Funnily enough, on PTS, the new scale downsize this to:
Chance - 16.4%
Avoidance - 65.4%
What I'm seeking to point out here is how powerful dodge is when it comes to gear. To do that, I'll give you two other figures; the character without a primary defense piece (2 rank 7 cons and a rank 5 Lucky Gem, Avoidance Piece), and the character without his passive, Rank 3 WotW. Granted, Way of the Warrior doesn't offer a bunch of dodge boosts, but it should be noticeable.
Without WotW:
Chance - 39.2%
Avoidance - 58.7%
Chance PTS - 13.9%
Avoidance PTS - 55%
A loss of 10% chance and avoidance is pretty substantial on its own. However:
Without Dodge Primary Gear:
Chance - 31.2%
Avoidance - 47.8%
Chance PTS - 12.5%
Avoidance PTS - 44.6%
Discounting any lost stats from removing the primary defense piece, that means, mods alone, you can get almost 20% extra dodge chance and avoidance through gear. This is on any build - it doesn't matter if you're a tank or a healer, or if you have Quarry or not. Slap dodge and avoidance gear on yourself, and you're pretty much set to use BCR and cheese the hell out of your foes.
That's not even looking at the underlying numbers themselves. The Way of the Warrior passive offers up a fairly smooth 96 dodge and avoidance points (fully geared). My gear, on the other hand, offers up 127 chance points, and 139 avoidance. Seems like 30 points makes a lot of difference on live!
On the PTS, the numbers are a lot closer together, and give a bit more of an insight about how the dodge curve works on both live and new. Seems live uses something resembling a logarithmic function - starts out steep, and then tapers off as rating gets higher. This is why something as little as 30 points can make so much of a difference when it comes to gear, why there isn't too big of a difference between the ungeared/no passive samples, as well as why at high levels of dodge it becomes really difficult to get above 60% without resorting to tricks like EM.
Contrast that to the PTS' current curve, which is pretty plainly linear. If you consider that the base dodge chance of all characters is 10%, and add up the remainders of the PTS values minus 10, they pretty much come out to the original value prior to gear/passive removal. Avoidance seems to just have had its funciton a bit dampened.
So with that all in mind, a downward-curving function (what we use on live right now) would favor people who stat with dodge-items over those who stick with a dodge passive. The linear function used right now doesn't really favor either tactic that much, but because, on average, the items give more stats than passives, they will ultimately win out. In contrast, an exponential curve (starts slow, rises high) would make the leading dodgers those that are the best at stacking dodge score - the ones that use passives and gear, and would leave dodge-gear users ultimately with a bit less bang for their buck. However, this also might have the side effect of making the lower-dodge passives become laggy in terms of their bonuses.
What I'm basically saying is that gear values as they are now probably can't really be easily fixed with a stat re-curving. And that generally leaves two options - making the passives stronger (which might stymie other non-flat dodge boosts if they aren't tweaked), or making the gear weaker.
This is pretty much my opinion.
We can't tool this game to the power gamers, you just can't.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
That's part of the problem, most of the testing gets done by power gamers.
One of the reasons some of the stupidly hard stuff has made it to live and then has to be 'adjusted' is part of this problem.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
I agree with everything he said.
XS