People with no other sources of dodge, but gear, will see their dodge rate cut in half or more. That will be noticable, and is major.
I took my ego-blader who used Dodge mostly as her damage mitigation onto the PTS, all from the Dex spec tree and gear. Like you say, the Dodge % dropped in half. Also, the character's gear is more average than typical hardcore gamers.
But I was still able to last as long against an Overseer Mega-D and it's summon on the PTS as I did on Live. Can I say I did notice I dodged less attacks? Yes. Did it make the fight harder? Yes, but only a small margin. It was certainly something that can be handled with decent gameplay (knowing when to block instead of attack, knowing how often to keep healing, etc).
As others have said (and I've also hinted at in a previous post somewhere on the forums), Dodge/Avoid gear was not nearly as accessible before On Alert. And we did fine without it.
Does this mean my control based toon might be in more demand? To help prevent the damage hitting people?
I sure hope so, cuz right now I am not sure what she's good for...other than looking really hot.
That being said...Fix control already. If I can't hold a legendary (Which I wish I could...even for just for a few seconds.) At least make my control power do something mennacing to them. Like Trauma, or some other cool debuff, other than fear or something rediculous like a low DPS.
Not derailing...I actually made my control toon to help dodgers and defensive passive types as I run with a group of ninja and Quarry users.
Does this mean my control based toon might be in more demand? To help prevent the damage hitting people?
lol no.
Nobody ever said anything like that.
Silly billy.
You crazy kids and your imaginations...
This isn't about improving mechanics, this is about fixing the horrible, game-breaking mistakes brought about by the gear, mod and spec tree overhauls so many Blood Moons ago.
Again, if you pay attention to what I'm saying, I'm not saying that the change is game breaking, I'm saying that the change:
1. Doesn't fufil the intended goal of increasing build diversity
As opposed to what we have now with how people are slapping dodge gear onto their characters regardless or not whether they're built for dodge specifically?
An offense-based build could overcome lower damage mitigation by slapping dodge gear on while already employing other means of mitigation in their build. A defense-based build could enjoy even more damage mitigation by slapping on dodge gear and layering dodge mitigation over everything else. How is that diversity?
2. Doesn't fufil the intended goal of making defense a more desireable stat to gear for (even nerfed 18%/55% dodge avoid from gear is better than 7% resist from defense)
I don't think the intended goal was to make defense a more desirable stat, but to make it a more credible alternative to dodge in terms of damage mitigation on a standalone basis. As of now you could entirely not care about Defense if you were able to get your dodge and avoidance up significantly, because Dodge is just that good.
Even if say after the nerf, dodge turns out to be still more viable than defense, what's the problem?
3. Says that if you pick a defensive passive, cool go aggro that double group of Tough rated alert mobs and kill them all, but offensive passive user...
I've done it before with offense characters that have pretty low dodge + avoidance. How I come out alive from those fights are due to 1) High DPS output, 2) Active defense, 3) Heals and in some cases 4) I used a threat-wipe power.
Top end Offense builds should be able to perform at a level that matches the top end Support and Defense builds. There will be differences, Offense builds will take more damage, have to react faster, spend more power points on survival and in return see bigger yellow numbers, but they should be allowed a spot on the top tier.
From what I've seen, top end offense builds can outperfom builds that focus more on defense than they do offense.
To use an example, my WotW build, ontop of already having good dodge and avoidance levels, also has 50% damage reduction from defense, compared to the Defiance-based build I was using previously before retcon. It performs better than my Defiance-based build. The only drawback is that I enjoy less energy returns, and that was easy to make up for anyway with some minor tinkering.
EDIT: And you know what the funny thing is? My build isn't even "top end". I'm not even using any Legion gear, just the Heroic ones with mods that range from rank 4 - 6. I'm not even using any Dodge cores.
A big part of why an offensive passive build, post dodge nerf, might not perform as well solo against higher end encounters is poor (IMO) encounter design.
Mobs generally do not heal and so even low damage output from a character built to take little or no lasting damage will win, eventually, unless the player gets bored or his internet connection is lost.
The game's encounters are designed to give an advantage to "slow and steady wins the race" types. Defensive builds have all of the time in the world to win a given fight.
Balancing offensive passives against defensive passives with the idea that the offensive passive will take more damage but still have the same success rate as defensive passives faces the problem that at the end of a fight any health greater than zero is the same. It doesn't matter if you finish with one health or ten thousand. Survival, in terms of how much damage you took in a given encounter, is binary. Either you had a positive health total or you didn't.
What should exist (IMO) is encounter design that provides an equal opportunity for losing a fight for both offensive and defensive builds. Encounters where mechanics exist to make slow and steady a less sure thing while mobs' damage output makes glass cannon builds dangerous as well.
An offensive player should be relying on his DPS and skill at maneuver and active skill use to defeat foes as quickly as possible because he does not have the staying power of a defensive character.
A defensive player should be relying on defense and active skill use to defeat foes before time runs out.
The problem is that with our current encounter design an offensive passive needs to be a defensive passive in order to provide the same degree of chance of success against tougher encounters.
An offensive player should be relying on his DPS and skill at maneuver and active skill use to defeat foes as quickly as possible because he does not have the staying power of a defensive character.
The problem is that with our current encounter design an offensive passive needs to be a defensive passive in order to provide the same degree of chance of success against tougher encounters.
A player taking the route of a defensive passive is allowed the luxury of not worrying about survivability at the cost of damage output. An offense-based toon is not given that luxury in order to get more DPS power, but is given opportunities to increase their overall survivability nonetheless.
One effective way I can think of is getting global cooldown timers as low as possible so that they're able to use their heals and active defense more often and a downtime of a few seconds between each use is very achievable. This is actually pretty easy to do with the right gear and impact prisms, even if INT isn't a super stat. Another would be to take a threat-wipe power. Learning to block when needed is of course an important skill.
What should exist (IMO) is encounter design that provides an equal opportunity for losing a fight for both offensive and defensive builds. Encounters where mechanics exist to make slow and steady a less sure thing while mobs' damage output makes glass cannon builds dangerous as well.
So basically include a timer, so that defense-based players can't take their own leisurely time in defeating the enemy(s), and at the same time the enemy(s) hit hard enough for offense-based toons to be really cautious?
We seem to have those kind of encounters already in the form of certain alerts. Are you in the opinion that that's the proper direction that the game should be focusing on? (No sarcasm, genuine question)
Anyone remember when the mission Something Fishy was hard?
It used to be. Nowadays I can just go in there, punch that fish man in the face twice and have time left over for a manicure.
This dodge fix is nothing. Even without dodge, so much of the content is going to offer such little challenge.
I haven't run a character through the game using missions in such a long time. I've been an alert monkey since alerts started. Recently I've been doing missions, and all those missions I used to have trouble with? Cake. Total cake walk. All those missions that I used to have to prepare for, now I just gotta punch a guy a few times.
There is no challenge. Dodge isn't broke. The only thing that's broke is that when the dodge changes go live, the game will still be too easy.
I hate to pull the old-timer card, but, back in my day, we needed a group for Ape-Plus.
Just kiddin'. I love to pull the old-timer card. Git off m'lawn.
1. It does, because right now there's no reason to pick a defensive passive except for giggles. Why gimp your damage output for survivability when you can just have high damage and survivability?
2. I agree with this. In fact, this is one of the reasons I don't get why people are talking about their dodge gear being useless...so thanks for helping the point I'm making.
3. No... it doesn't say that at all... and my tests without dodge gear prove that it doesn't.
No, your tests without dodge gear, show that the normal difficulty is do-able even without dodge gear. Again, if you pay attention to what I'm saying, I'm talking about the top tier potential for characters with each type of passive. That and AT's I've mentioned AT's a couple times in a few threads.
Also, just because defense is trash below trash, doesn't mean that dodge after the change is good, that's an exceptional leap to make.
And again, it's been demonstrated in both PvP and PvE that you don't really gimp your damage by not taking a damage passive.
Woah woah woah, how much selective reading did you have to engage in to come to the conclusion that I said that I dropped on my DPS characters? I didn't drop on my dps characters so long as I paid attention and used my powers.
The bolded leads me to infer that you dropped on your DPS characters, which I stated. Sorry if I didn't have my "Mind Reader" ability slotted for magnitude. Now I'm just not sure what you're saying. You didn't drop on your DPS, unless you did? Whatever.
You don't seem to understand that this is going to be the case. My tests proved it. Go test for yourself... take your characters, remove their dodge gear, switch to offensive passives that don't use dodge, then go run some content. The trick here is don't just stand there and let them kill you and then come running back here saying "I DIED!", use everything you have available to survive and you'll find that it's going to be a lot more interesting and fun than it is now.
I did test. Since the change I've made an Ice form user, a Night Warrior user, and ported my Quarry character over to test and have run against my invuln build repeatedly. The main difference is I'm looking at the high end, Heroic and Justice gear, and running them to their limits while you're stripping a character, running on normal, and saying good enough.
I was being general because of the myriad ways to mitigate and etc., but given you're quarry example (depending on power set and whatever) the amount of time required to heal back is almost minimal when compared to the damage output increase provided by quarry stacks (and whatever else). That was my point about powers not existing in a vacuum.
There's no D passive that is set and forget to such an extent that your damage output boost from an O passive is outdone by consistent damage provided by "giving no *****" and "putting boot to face." Especially when coupled with stance and gear.
Offensive passives suffer from heavy diminishing returns. It's been demonstrated that without the bonus from the damage role, the offensive passive can be matched by defensive passives, also AoPM because: **** you AoPM!
Also, as a user of Quarry, without investing strongly in gear and other supplemental survivability methods, It's 28% for 31% avoid. My current live build had 56% for 31%. That's -not- much. The problem isn't that dodge from gear is too much, it's that there is no alternative. There's no opportunity cost to selecting dodge gear. You don't give anything up by selecting dodge gear, because there's no alternative that creates even the illusion of choice.
Instead of changing that, they changed it so dodge wouldn't really help the characters that would really need it.
But I was still able to last as long against an Overseer Mega-D and it's summon on the PTS as I did on Live. Can I say I did notice I dodged less attacks? Yes. Did it make the fight harder? Yes, but only a small margin. It was certainly something that can be handled with decent gameplay (knowing when to block instead of attack, knowing how often to keep healing, etc).
As others have said (and I've also hinted at in a previous post somewhere on the forums), Dodge/Avoid gear was not nearly as accessible before On Alert. And we did fine without it.
Impressive. I'm going to admit that you must be a better player than me, because my characters that lost about half their dodge chance, they did not hold up as well as yours. It took a great deal of shenanegins and cheesing to beat nimbus with an Ice user, and I didn't last long against Amazing Grace, I don't think I'll make the leap to a Mega-d unless I decide to break something.
Good luck on killing it, I think I remember you saying you were going to try.
As opposed to what we have now with how people are slapping dodge gear onto their characters regardless or not whether they're built for dodge specifically?
An offense-based build could overcome lower damage mitigation by slapping dodge gear on while already employing other means of mitigation in their build. A defense-based build could enjoy even more damage mitigation by slapping on dodge gear and layering dodge mitigation over everything else. How is that diversity?
It's called role dominance. Some times it's by design and others, like this, is from error. When it's not intended, it comes from assigning a misguided value to various items which is then subverted by an actual value placed on the items by a user.
In this case, someone was incredibly misguided when they believed that 19 points of defense or 639 points of health were a strong alternative to 139 points of avoidance or dodge.
The choices available the the developer looking at gear, in an attempt to destroy this role dominance, were to make the better gear worse or the worse gear better.
We see which he chose, and despite that, the better gear is still better, just not as universally powerful to everybody.
Even if say after the nerf, dodge turns out to be still more viable than defense, what's the problem?
First, it would show a complete inability to actually accomplish an intended goal. Build diversity and making defense a more desirable stat were stated goals on Mr. Crush's preview blog. It would be beyond the pale for him to make a change of this magnitude and not even be able to do what he was attempting.
Second, it still disproportiately hits ATs and offensive passive users to an unacceptable level.
It's still likely going to make it to live, and I'll wear my big boy pants and suck it up when it happens, but until then I will piss and moan and whine like a 5 year old who just needs that gumdrop or they'll die, and I will make it known that this is a bad idea.
I refuse to be the person who won't participate in the feedback and development portion of the process and then ***** and moan wondering "What the hell happened" after the change is made.
It's called role dominance. Some times it's by design and others, like this, is from error. When it's not intended, it comes from assigning a misguided value to various items which is then subverted by an actual value placed on the items by a user.
In this case, someone was incredibly misguided when they believed that 19 points of defense or 639 points of health were a strong alternative to 139 points of avoidance or dodge.
The choices available the the developer looking at gear, in an attempt to destroy this role dominance, were to make the better gear worse or the worse gear better.
We see which he chose, and despite that, the better gear is still better, just not as universally powerful to everybody.
Uh huh, you mean the one gear that gives a significant boost to dodge or the other to avoidance, either one gear that looks to specifically compliment a toon that is specifically built for dodge, would no longer be universally powerful to everyone else whose build focuses on other things like defense and what not?
Seems legit to me. Looks like dodge and avoidance are no longer going to be the king of damage mitigation mechanics and are being further brought in line with other forms of damage mitigation.
First, it would show a complete inability to actually accomplish an intended goal. Build diversity and making defense a more desirable stat were stated goals on Mr. Crush's preview blog. It would be beyond the pale for him to make a change of this magnitude and not even be able to do what he was attempting.
Second, it still disproportiately hits ATs and offensive passive users to an unacceptable level.
ATs, I have little experience with them so I can't comment much.
As for Offensive passive (FF) users? Oh you mean the ones who no longer have the easy way out by slapping dodge gear on themselves and then performing just as good or even better than defensive passive ones in terms of both DPS and damage mitigation, and actually have to get resourceful in sourcing for all available avenues to increase their survivability?
As for Offensive passive (FF) users? Oh you mean the ones who no longer have the easy way out by slapping dodge gear on themselves and then performing just as good or even better than defensive passive ones in terms of both DPS and damage mitigation, and actually have to get resourceful in sourcing for all available avenues to increase their survivability?
A player taking the route of a defensive passive is allowed the luxury of not worrying about survivability at the cost of damage output. An offense-based toon is not given that luxury in order to get more DPS power, but is given opportunities to increase their overall survivability nonetheless.
Increased survivability for an offensive toon achieved through skilled use of active abilities such as block, good timing on self heals, end the like, combined with effective maneuvering are fine IMO, having offensive passives function as defensive passives is less so.
So basically include a timer, so that defense-based players can't take their own leisurely time in defeating the enemy(s), and at the same time the enemy(s) hit hard enough for offense-based toons to be really cautious?
We seem to have those kind of encounters already in the form of certain alerts. Are you in the opinion that that's the proper direction that the game should be focusing on? (No sarcasm, genuine question)
To be clear, when I said before time runs out I did not necessarily mean an actual timer as in a countdown until an encounter auto-fails. What I meant was more a matter of mechanics to add an element of danger for a defensive passive user with a self heal who will otherwise pretty much automatically win because he can outlast nearly any foe in the game.
Some examples of such might be:
A mob with a heavy hitting attack that does lots of KB on a descending cooldown (starts on cooldown, cooldown gets shorter with each use). The longer the fight runs the more difficulty a defensive passive character will face in winning, while the offensive passive character faces that heightened difficulty from the beginning.
Adds joining the fight at a rate where it pushes the defensive passive user's ability to deal with them before their numbers become too great for him to overcome.
Encounters with victory conditions centered around defeating the villains before they can accomplish "X".
No, your tests without dodge gear, show that the normal difficulty is do-able even without dodge gear. Again, if you pay attention to what I'm saying, I'm talking about the top tier potential for characters with each type of passive. That and AT's I've mentioned AT's a couple times in a few threads.
Also, just because defense is trash below trash, doesn't mean that dodge after the change is good, that's an exceptional leap to make.
And again, it's been demonstrated in both PvP and PvE that you don't really gimp your damage by not taking a damage passive.
What is this normal difficulty you speak of? I ran everything, including gravitar, alerts, elite instances. I also mentioned ATs... specifically the ones I was using in these tests.
Also, you seem to be forgetting the role that Roles play... you do know that offensive characters often run in offensive roles... roles in which you cannot use defensive passives? Cause you seem to be under the impression that everyone runs in Hybrid role.
The bolded leads me to infer that you dropped on your DPS characters, which I stated. Sorry if I didn't have my "Mind Reader" ability slotted for magnitude. Now I'm just not sure what you're saying. You didn't drop on your DPS, unless you did? Whatever.
Oh okay, so you're acknowledging that I only dropped on my DPS when I didn't pay attention... so then you agree with me that that's fine and in fact is how it should be, right? See cause I thought you were being all like "yer dps just died constantly no matter what". So... not really sure why you're disagreeing with me on this point then.
Oh I get it, you're saying that people using Defensive passives should take a damage output penalty?
I did test. Since the change I've made an Ice form user, a Night Warrior user, and ported my Quarry character over to test and have run against my invuln build repeatedly. The main difference is I'm looking at the high end, Heroic and Justice gear, and running them to their limits while you're stripping a character, running on normal, and saying good enough.
Which means you should be doing even better than I was in my tests... right? How the heck could you have been doing worse, when I was using Heroic gear and you were using Justice gear? So if I'm able to do everything in the game just fine no dodge, then you should be having a cakewalk... which leads me to wonder what exactly your point is.
Does this mean my control based toon might be in more demand? To help prevent the damage hitting people?
I sure hope so, cuz right now I am not sure what she's good for...other than looking really hot.
That being said...Fix control already. If I can't hold a legendary (Which I wish I could...even for just for a few seconds.) At least make my control power do something mennacing to them. Like Trauma, or some other cool debuff, other than fear or something rediculous like a low DPS.
Not derailing...I actually made my control toon to help dodgers and defensive passive types as I run with a group of ninja and Quarry users.
Never in a million years would this happen. Crowd Control is way too broken from the base level up.
It can only be in demand if they decide to update it to On Alert Standards and Make Manipulator more useful..and stuff..anyway.
Short answer is no. DPS is still DPS so will automatically override your control. I speak from experience as I do play as a crowd controller.
Only difference is, I tend to solo anything I can. I cannot stand having my holds broken by DPSers or other CCers CCing over my holds and adding to more fail.
Best way to CC currently is to focus all your CC into Stuns and Incapacitates/Paralyzes. I don't do this because I don't team up with people often (apart from those who don't have enough DPS to break my holds or know how to play with a crowd controller)
What is this normal difficulty you speak of? I ran everything, including gravitar, alerts, elite instances. I also mentioned ATs... specifically the ones I was using in these tests.
Also, you seem to be forgetting the role that Roles play... you do know that offensive characters often run in offensive roles... roles in which you cannot use defensive passives? Cause you seem to be under the impression that everyone runs in Hybrid role.
I know that, seems other people tend to forget that the real difference in damage comes from the role's 25% boost. And at the high end, there may be a 25% difference in damage, but there's a far larger mitigation gap.
Also, I'd be very interested in seeing how you got past, say, a Sasquach or the Roin'esh commander, or really any part of the Mandragalore.
Oh I get it, you're saying that people using Defensive passives should take a damage output penalty?
If Defensive passives got a damage output nerf that matched what is happening to offensive passives and the dodge nerf, I'd have nothing to complain about but the trinity system. I don't want that, but that would take away my ability to complain.
Which means you should be doing even better than I was in my tests... right? How the heck could you have been doing worse, when I was using Heroic gear and you were using Justice gear? So if I'm able to do everything in the game just fine no dodge, then you should be having a cakewalk... which leads me to wonder what exactly your point is.
I have no idea what your tests were, so I can't tell you what that means. I know when I did my runs, it wasn't much different that what I had on live, and that's bad. (Remembering that on live I'm 35 with random blue and green gear and on test I had R7 mods R5 Avoidance and severity cores, and 4-slot gear at level 40)
As for Offensive passive (FF) users? Oh you mean the ones who no longer have the easy way out by slapping dodge gear on themselves and then performing just as good or even better than defensive passive ones in terms of both DPS and damage mitigation, and actually have to get resourceful in sourcing for all available avenues to increase their survivability?
I'm holding you to this. Prove it. If you're going to claim that dodge/avoid gear lets offensive passive users perform as good or better than a defensive passive user, prove it. I won't hold my breath, but I will wait patiently.
It's not true. I like Caliga, and his picture is kind of cool, but no the statement you made is false and I'd like to see you attempt to prove it. They do not have as much mitigation, they do not do better on survivability, and if there is a way to survive at the highest level content using every power in the system, that will be the cookie cutter build. Forget diversity, forget concept, it'll be Ice Barrier, CoPD, SoEW, EM, MD Revitalize for urveryone. If they can't survive than you're "l2p nub! Get resourceful" will fall on incapable ears as nothing would allow them to survive as well.
Anyone remember when the mission Something Fishy was hard?
It used to be. Nowadays I can just go in there, punch that fish man in the face twice and have time left over for a manicure.
This dodge fix is nothing. Even without dodge, so much of the content is going to offer such little challenge.
I haven't run a character through the game using missions in such a long time. I've been an alert monkey since alerts started. Recently I've been doing missions, and all those missions I used to have trouble with? Cake. Total cake walk. All those missions that I used to have to prepare for, now I just gotta punch a guy a few times.
There is no challenge. Dodge isn't broke. The only thing that's broke is that when the dodge changes go live, the game will still be too easy.
I hate to pull the old-timer card, but, back in my day, we needed a group for Ape-Plus.
Just kiddin'. I love to pull the old-timer card. Git off m'lawn.
This.
This whole thing is like using a band aid to plug up a hole in a dam without taking the wrapper off the band aid.
The problem isn't that dodge from gear is too much, it's that there is no alternative. There's no opportunity cost to selecting dodge gear. You don't give anything up by selecting dodge gear, because there's no alternative that creates even the illusion of choice.
Instead of changing that, they changed it so dodge wouldn't really help the characters that would really need it.
Which is an entirely different problem altogether; one that is not tackled by this change.
What about increasing the meaningfulness of offense and defense rating? What about making the +health bonuses actually worth something? Or +health recovery? The problem is not that dodge is too good, it's that that the entirety of the game mechanics has been tossed aside in favor of crit and dodge, from gameplay, to the usefulness of alternate forms of mitigation, and investment in such mitigation (i.e. the abject stupidity of diminishing returns in general as a "solution" for unnecessarily absurdly inflated numbers and Cryptic Math).
Now, I'm not saying dodge being too god isn't A problem; it's just not THE problem, and certainly not the problem this "fix" is attempting to fix, and not a solution enough to warrant the negatives.
I'm also not saying that they shouldn't do this "fix," I'm just saying 1) I disagree with you, 2) I disagree with the reasons for the fix and 3) I disagree with implementation of this fix.
Anyone remember when the mission Something Fishy was hard?
It used to be. Nowadays I can just go in there, punch that fish man in the face twice and have time left over for a manicure.
This dodge fix is nothing. Even without dodge, so much of the content is going to offer such little challenge.
I haven't run a character through the game using missions in such a long time. I've been an alert monkey since alerts started. Recently I've been doing missions, and all those missions I used to have trouble with? Cake. Total cake walk. All those missions that I used to have to prepare for, now I just gotta punch a guy a few times.
There is no challenge. Dodge isn't broke. The only thing that's broke is that when the dodge changes go live, the game will still be too easy.
I hate to pull the old-timer card, but, back in my day, we needed a group for Ape-Plus.
Just kiddin'. I love to pull the old-timer card. Git off m'lawn.
I remember when a lot of content was hard, and something Fishy was a great teaming event.
I tried it...just for kicks...with a DPS, a Controller, a Healer and well.
My Forcefielder kicked Fish Faces butt in 30 seconds.
My DPS...with 2 gun mojo was just a joke.
Even my Controller killed everything within seconds.
I also remember when Sinsister and Leech were a challenge as well.
There was a lot of fun content that was trivialized. There is a lot of content now that is trivializred.
Now with the grabs giving away XP for lowbies, lack of dodge/avoidance will get them one-shotted before trying. So let's piddle away and wait for a tank to queue.... in the next 10 years.
They were/are actually. The game progressed to the point where using a defensive passive for anything other than theme was a complete waste of time and a detriment to any team. An offensive or support passive was always the better option. More benefits, higher DPS, same durability...yes, same durability. There was absolutely no reason to use a defensive passive which is why nearly all of the better tank players I've run with in game switched to things like WoTW because it made them a better tank. An offensive passive...made them a better tank for all of the aforementioned reasons. The only upside to the defensive passive currently is we get to pay less attention.
How hilarious, this is the same thing people said about defensive passives with toggles. Saying the toggles made defensive passives a better choice for having as much damage and better defense than offensive passives. So using offensive passives is now going to be the crap again. Off passives+toggles did more damage than def passives+toggles do people not know how to add and multiply?
And now it's going back to let's make defensive passives more worth it and make offensive passives crap again. Heck I'm sure people are going to say defensive passives are too powerful again, they're going to nerf defensive passives, then it's back to using offensive passives and it keeps going on until we're left with having to 5 man every content.
I queue on Cryo a lot when the daily is Grabs. And I'mma healer on Nick (not for long though.. almost to Skarn's!) so that's covered..
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Now with the grabs giving away XP for lowbies, lack of dodge/avoidance will get them one-shotted before trying. So let's piddle away and wait for a tank to queue.... in the next 10 years.
How hilarious, this is the same thing people said about defensive passives with toggles. Saying the toggles made defensive passives a better choice for having as much damage and better defense than offensive passives. So using offensive passives is now going to be the crap again. Off passives+toggles did more damage than def passives+toggles do people not know how to add and multiply?
And now it's going back to let's make defensive passives more worth it and make offensive passives crap again. Heck I'm sure people are going to say defensive passives are too powerful again, they're going to nerf defensive passives, then it's back to using offensive passives and it keeps going on until we're left with having to 5 man every content.
People have called offensive passives crap since launch while I've never had any problems using them in my 4 years here...especially after On Alert hit and that's sans dodge gear unless it actually fits a theme. *shrugs* Wish I could see some of these builds people are putting together that make this game even remotely difficult but no one ever wants to share their secrets.
Now with the grabs giving away XP for lowbies, lack of dodge/avoidance will get them one-shotted before trying. So let's piddle away and wait for a tank to queue.... in the next 10 years.
How hilarious, this is the same thing people said about defensive passives with toggles. Saying the toggles made defensive passives a better choice for having as much damage and better defense than offensive passives. So using offensive passives is now going to be the crap again. Off passives+toggles did more damage than def passives+toggles do people not know how to add and multiply?
And now it's going back to let's make defensive passives more worth it and make offensive passives crap again. Heck I'm sure people are going to say defensive passives are too powerful again, they're going to nerf defensive passives, then it's back to using offensive passives and it keeps going on until we're left with having to 5 man every content.
I've been playing my offensive passive characters without dodge. On a character with Targeting Computer, and under 5,000 hit points, I don't feel useless at all. I certainly don't feel like switching to a defensive passive, because I like nuking the crap out of stuff.
So... yeah. If an offensive passive doesn't become useless when I have no dodge, how can it possibly become useless with less dodge?
If you tried to say my characters were min/max probuilds.... the probuilders would laugh at you until they threw up.
I've been playing mostly ATs my entire time here. And the only one that ever felt "useless" to me was the Mind, mostly because while Ego Sleep is a wonderful way to make the bad guys hold still for a minute, they wake up the moment they take any damage. And the Mind is at least as squishy as the Grimoire, possibly more so.
But any of my other ATs I can take into these Grabs and feel like I'm contributing to the success of the mission. And no matter how little I contribute, I still get the XP bonus...
Since I'm not doing FFs, I don't really understand the difference between Offensive Passives and Defensive Passives - I just know that I don't think these changes are going to piss me off that bad, and they might make me happy instead. I'll have to wait and see.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
WRONG! you CAN apply trauma with control powers. take CoS+Conditioning. but yeah CC needs some fixing. but being pessimistic and having a defeatist attitude about a CC fix wont get it done.
The fact that you have to take a passive in order to be useful with Crowd Control AND it's an advantage point which stops you from being able to get the "most" out of your passive says a lot.
If you want to apply trauma in other areas, you can simply grab ANY passive, and take Ebon Ruin which grants Trauma for free.
My attitude is simply there because there is no indication as of yet of any desire to even poke the CC system with a 50ft pole. Once there is I'll be ready and waiting, crying on the forums for a CC fix would be a waste of my energy. Why? Because it is not an important part of the majority of players builds nor what they want to use, it never really has been anyway.
Also the fact that if they were to make CC useful in higher level content boss AI would have to be updated or changed in order to deal with it, which I cannot see happening any time soon.
WRONG! you CAN apply trauma with control powers. take CoS+Conditioning. but yeah CC needs some fixing. but being pessimistic and having a defeatist attitude about a CC fix wont get it done.
Name a PvE encounter where you need Trauma, please. I tend to agree with raven on the state of crowd control. Trauma or not, it still sucks.
"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
Name a PvE encounter where you need Trauma, please. I tend to agree with raven on the state of crowd control. Trauma or not, it still sucks.
^ This. Ao'Quepasa/Ao'healz4lyfe doesn't strictly count because you are not forced to fight him. He is part of a rotation of villains, besides with blocking or skarns (or even without) he is quite beatable.
not really. lairs are full of tough enemies which pose a threat, and those can be Crowd controlled.
In a lair you don't really need Crowd Control, pack two guns, fire or some ice and you can own them all.
Groups of anything ranging from Henchmen to Master Villain can be controlled, shot, burnt, blasted etc that's common knowledge which is why I said boss AI. Aka, Legendaries and Cosmics (Super Villains as well if they go down this route). It would be a bad move to not update boss AI if they made CC useful (Actual CC not debuffs) in higher instances (such as Kenina + Frosty, Gravitar etc)
I've been playing mostly ATs my entire time here. And the only one that ever felt "useless" to me was the Mind, mostly because while Ego Sleep is a wonderful way to make the bad guys hold still for a minute, they wake up the moment they take any damage. And the Mind is at least as squishy as the Grimoire, possibly more so.
But any of my other ATs I can take into these Grabs and feel like I'm contributing to the success of the mission. And no matter how little I contribute, I still get the XP bonus...
Since I'm not doing FFs, I don't really understand the difference between Offensive Passives and Defensive Passives - I just know that I don't think these changes are going to piss me off that bad, and they might make me happy instead. I'll have to wait and see.
I've been tinkering with some ATs and I actually enjoy The Mind so far, flying around using ego sprites and then psionic healing to stay alive has been a lot of fun... plus ego sprites do not break sleep! And you get a kick back of energy for healing allies so you can basically tap heal all day and not be totally useless in grab alerts.
I've been tinkering with some ATs and I actually enjoy The Mind so far, flying around using ego sprites and then psionic healing to stay alive has been a lot of fun... plus ego sprites do not break sleep! And you get a kick back of energy for healing allies so you can basically tap heal all day and not be totally useless in grab alerts.
When I used to play the Mind AT, one thing I loved doing more than anything else (aside from when Ego Storm was epic) was applying Disorient + Ego Blast Rank 2 with Mind Opener + Ego Sprites x 2 when under the effects of Telepathic Reverberation this was really fun
I preferred Empathic Healing over Psionic Healing though...simply because the maintain seemed more useful. But my levelling days were from Ye Olde Pre On Alert days, so it might be different now.
One thing I thought was interesting though was the idea behind Empathic Amplification, it was a decent means through which to increase my damage output, if I was fast enough, it was a bit risky at times, but when I changed Mentella to be a more aggressive Mind AT it rocked.
I think making bosses controllable is doable with only minor changes actually. for instance what about for each type of control there is a lockout mechanic for about 10-15 sec? this would encourage the use of different types of control and add some strategy, while keeping bosses from being negated completely.
Lockout mechanics are not favourable. Why? Interrupt Lockout. I hated that mechanic, I know that boss AI would need to be completely re-done/updated to make it viable for CC.
CC ideally should be a helpful part of a boss encounter without allowing for total negation of the experience.
An example of this was when Clarence the Mecha Teddy was on the PTS and New Telepathy was still operating on the interrupts system.
It allowed me to solo Clarence without a scratch, even with lockout it would have to be personalized to each player, which would mean in a ten man instance with careful timing Gravitar's most dangerous attacks would be random-cascade and perhaps Force yank and Gravity Geyser.
If it was on the boss, it would be just as irritating as one person could apply a Stun/Paralyze/Sleep and lockout anyone CC based from doing anything for the entire duration of the fight, provided that the most common form of CC (Stuns) activates the lockout. Lockout based on CC type would be tedious and not very wise anyway, seeing as no one uses Confuse or tries to root a boss or placate them. (Based on the premise that the 10-15 sec lockout applies after any and all CC attempts.)
I cannot envision CC effects being allowed to lockdown higher level foes with their primary(intended) effects, rather I see them turning into powerful utility debuffs if anything in the current system, that when doubled up with other debuffs would make bosses a lot less difficult.
An example of a step in the right direction are the utility debuffs from Mental Weakness and Malaise, (however it would be useful if Manipulator could alter their % alongside their duration) as they arguably add something to the boss fight, for example when I took Mentella into K+F we lasted significantly longer until someone triggered the Flame Prison (back when it was total wipe of the entire map).
~END OF CROWD CONTROL RELATED RANT~ (much to everyone's delight )
lol straying off topic but I decided on Psionic Healing for the energy return on tap and the 100ft range! Typical strategy involves tapping like crazy till I get a nice crit then charging it up a bit to boost my target up to full hp, it doesn't always work out...but most of the time it seems to be effective!
I'm holding you to this. Prove it. If you're going to claim that dodge/avoid gear lets offensive passive users perform as good or better than a defensive passive user, prove it. I won't hold my breath, but I will wait patiently.
Hope I didn't keep you waiting long.
Let's take a look at my toon that currently has Dodge gear on the Live server shall we?
Here she is with no gear and no passive equipped. She has DEX as her main superstat to benefit a little from the +Dodge rating spec, which isn't a lot even at 100+ DEX as you can see: Her Dodge is at a very low 17%.
Now let's see what happens when I put on just a Heroic Breastplate of Elusiveness with a R7 slotted Gambler's Gem:
Note that with also both R6 and R7 DEX mods slotted, my Dodge has shot up to 56%. Note that I'm already getting a very decent 56% with no passive and no other gear that may help me get that % even higher. 60% Dodge is pretty achievable still even at level 40 where DR is already starting to take into effect hard. Also, at 259 DEX, I'm only getting +39 Dodge rating from the relevant spec which isn't that great.
So that's a near 60% Dodge and near 30% Avoidance layering over other sources of damage mitigation, like heals, active defenses and defense rating, and at the same time getting a DPS buff over a defensive build when using an offensive passive. That 30% Avoidance can be easily increased as well with the right offensive passive.
So in summary? Yes, I stand by the claim that dodge gear can let an Offensive toon out-perform a Defensive one very easily with a potent mix of survivability and DPS output, and I don't even need to have a top-end super-uber-duper build with Legion gear and super-rank mods to do just that.
So in summary? Yes, I stand by the claim that dodge gear alone can let an Offensive toon out-perform a Defensive one very easily with a potent mix of survivability and DPS output.
But you don't have much avoidance. What helps high dodge without that ? Your dodge in that case gives you something like 15% damage reduction.
Heroic Breastplate of Dexterity (?) would make much more sense.
But you don't have much avoidance. What helps high dodge without that ?
Heroic Breastplate of Dexterity (?) would make much more sense.
That's because this toon isn't using an offensive passive. She's actually using LR that gives a huge Avoidance buff and I unequipped it from my passive slot for the sake of showing an example.
And yes, it makes more sense to use the Breastplate of Agility in certain cases. Using that with a high-ranked Gambler's Gem, it's possible to get a nice mix of 40+% Dodge and near or 40% Avoidance. Either/both gets even better if Quarry or WotW is used.
And yes, it makes more sense to use the Breastplate of Agility in certain cases. Using that with a high-ranked Gambler's Gem, it's possible to get a nice mix of 40+% Dodge and near or 40% Avoidance. Either/both gets even better if Quarry or WotW is used.
The upper image is with Breastplate of Dexterity and R5 Gamblers on live :
(the other image its from PTS)
The upper image is with Breastplate of Dexterity and R5 Gamblers on live :
(the other image its from PTS)
Right, so it's going to get much harder relying on Dodge gear as a safety-net in the near future. I'm not entirely surprised with that drop. Avoidance doesn't look to be touched much with that minor 3% decrease being shown.
you almost faceplanted right in front of me once kenpo.
You have never run a single mission with me, or are you talking about when I was fighting purple gang at level 6 next to Kodiac the other night and you swooped in kill stealing?
Let's take a look at my toon that currently has Dodge gear on the Live server shall we?
Here she is with no gear and no passive equipped. She has DEX as her main superstat to benefit a little from the +Dodge rating spec, which isn't a lot even at 100+ DEX as you can see: Her Dodge is at a very low 17%.
Now let's see what happens when I put on just a Heroic Breastplate of Elusiveness with a R7 slotted Gambler's Gem:
Note that with also both R6 and R7 DEX mods slotted, my Dodge has shot up to 56%. Note that I'm already getting a very decent 56% with no passive and no other gear that may help me get that % even higher. 60% Dodge is pretty achievable still even at level 40 where DR is already starting to take into effect hard. Also, at 259 DEX, I'm only getting +39 Dodge rating from the relevant spec which isn't that great.
So that's a near 60% Dodge and near 30% Avoidance layering over other sources of damage mitigation, like heals, active defenses and defense rating, and at the same time getting a DPS buff over a defensive build when using an offensive passive. That 30% Avoidance can be easily increased as well with the right offensive passive.
So in summary? Yes, I stand by the claim that dodge gear can let an Offensive toon out-perform a Defensive one very easily with a potent mix of survivability and DPS output, and I don't even need to have a top-end super-uber-duper build with Legion gear and super-rank mods to do just that.
Pretty much. I'm amazed anyone is even honestly questioning this at this point.
This is the issue. That one piece of gear gives you 78% of a defensive passive. Everyone who is using that piece of gear effectively has almost an entire defensive passive slapped onto everything else they have.
The irony here is that Lighting Reflexes users benefit the least out of anyone from this.
So to repeat... you get to be a defensive passive build for the low price of 10% dodge and 15% avoidance.
Oh but wait, clearly these two archetypes are probuild min/max characters..
The upper image is with Breastplate of Dexterity and R5 Gamblers on live :
(the other image its from PTS)
Ok let's take a look how much mitigation that gives you:
In the first case(live):
Assume you are getting hit x times. The dmg you get will be the attacks you dodge x*0.392 added to the attacks you do not dodge . If you dodge the dmg is reduced by your avoidance. Lets say each hit deals y dmg. So if you are hit without dodge you get y dmg, if you dodge you get 0.413*y dmg.
The total dmg you get is:
x*0.608*y + x*0.392*y* 0.413 = 0.77 *x*y
Without dodge you would get x*y so you mitigated 23% of the dmg.
The second case (PTS):
x*0.817*y + x*0.183*y* 0.45 = 0.90 *x*y
You mitigated 10% of the dmg
So you lost 13% of total mitigation of incoming dmg. If my calculations are wrong, feel free to correct me. One might also add, the char on life gets 0.77*x*y dmg, an increase to 0.9*x*y dmg increases the dmg he actually gets by about 17% (0.77*1.17~0.9)
So with those changes the char in question will take 17% more dmg if the fight has enough hits to look at it statistically. If only a few blows are exchanged it is still a matter of pure chance as it was before.
Another point one should consider: With masterful dodge you will still dodge every attack and avoidance was barely touched. That means if you actually use other stuff to push dodge (like MD) you will lose even less mitigation.
You are now free to tell me I am wrong and correct my math, or use this information to either be relieved or simply spread more panic.
So in summary? Yes, I stand by the claim that dodge gear can let an Offensive toon out-perform a Defensive one very easily with a potent mix of survivability and DPS output, and I don't even need to have a top-end super-uber-duper build with Legion gear and super-rank mods to do just that.
You're changing your claim. You said an offensive passive can get "as much or more" survivability and damage as a defensive passive. Just to be clear:
As for Offensive passive (FF) users? Oh you mean the ones who no longer have the easy way out by slapping dodge gear on themselves and then performing just as good or even better than defensive passive ones in terms of both DPS and damage mitigation, and actually have to get resourceful in sourcing for all available avenues to increase their survivability?
I never claimed that cant get survivable, quite the opposite. My argument is, I believe, different than others against the change. I'm just advocating that they should be allowed to be survivable, because users of support passives and defensive passives (Excepting outliers like Regen, medical nanites, AoAC, ect...) Can be that survivable, and don't sacrifice near as much a people claim for it. I'd argue they sacrifice about as much damage as an offensive passive user sacrifices defense.
Offensive passives on live are not as survivable. Period, you proved it above, Spinnytop proved it with her example, it's been claimed, it's been shown, it's been proven.
I believe the mitigation gap covers the damage gap. I also believe that reducing dodge in this way will lower the threashold of what an offensive passive is capable of accomplishing, while allowing a defensive passive or support passive user to continue on unabated.
Contrary to popular opinion, that is not balance. Leaving offensive passives in a position to match the other types of passives, or throwing DPS checks absolutely everywhere that's considered team content; either would be balance. I'd rather the first, but if they chose the second, I wouldn't be able to argue unbalanced.
blkjackwilliams, my characters are posted fairly close to how I currently play them. Anyone that wants to test them is free to do so at their leisure. I'll stand by the notion that offensive passive characters in the game's present state are as survivable as defensive passive characters along with more benefits and present my characters for scrutiny. For most of the 40's on my roster there is no content in the game that I've done on a defensive passive that I haven't also done on an offensive or support passive and I have a character for every passive in the game except...Congress of Selves IIRC. I think that's the only one I don't have any character for presently and Medical Nanites along with CoS are the only ones I haven't leveled to 40 on the live server.
So, anyone that's interested, can pick a build and give it a go. Go find some content that's meant to be done solo (or for several of them go grab a lair) and have at it. If anyone wants to play the "can't solo a lair card" I'm not the person to discuss that with as I'm firmly in the camp that 5 man content is pretty much just what it says on the tin. It should require 5 people though I've solo'd multiple lairs on offensive and support passives as well with the builds I've posted.
Edit: I'm currently having too much fun playing the game again with my SG, PUGs (and my wife and son!) and making new toons for the first time in a year to sit down and make videos demonstrating stuff I'd already put in videos a while ago. But the builds are there for those so inclined to take the time. I'm just being honest and stating I don't have the interest in spending my available play time like that currently.
Comments
I took my ego-blader who used Dodge mostly as her damage mitigation onto the PTS, all from the Dex spec tree and gear. Like you say, the Dodge % dropped in half. Also, the character's gear is more average than typical hardcore gamers.
But I was still able to last as long against an Overseer Mega-D and it's summon on the PTS as I did on Live. Can I say I did notice I dodged less attacks? Yes. Did it make the fight harder? Yes, but only a small margin. It was certainly something that can be handled with decent gameplay (knowing when to block instead of attack, knowing how often to keep healing, etc).
As others have said (and I've also hinted at in a previous post somewhere on the forums), Dodge/Avoid gear was not nearly as accessible before On Alert. And we did fine without it.
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I sure hope so, cuz right now I am not sure what she's good for...other than looking really hot.
That being said...Fix control already. If I can't hold a legendary (Which I wish I could...even for just for a few seconds.) At least make my control power do something mennacing to them. Like Trauma, or some other cool debuff, other than fear or something rediculous like a low DPS.
Not derailing...I actually made my control toon to help dodgers and defensive passive types as I run with a group of ninja and Quarry users.
Old time member. I miss NERF :eek:
lol no.
Nobody ever said anything like that.
Silly billy.
You crazy kids and your imaginations...
This isn't about improving mechanics, this is about fixing the horrible, game-breaking mistakes brought about by the gear, mod and spec tree overhauls so many Blood Moons ago.
...fix control... lol. No.
As opposed to what we have now with how people are slapping dodge gear onto their characters regardless or not whether they're built for dodge specifically?
An offense-based build could overcome lower damage mitigation by slapping dodge gear on while already employing other means of mitigation in their build. A defense-based build could enjoy even more damage mitigation by slapping on dodge gear and layering dodge mitigation over everything else. How is that diversity?
I don't think the intended goal was to make defense a more desirable stat, but to make it a more credible alternative to dodge in terms of damage mitigation on a standalone basis. As of now you could entirely not care about Defense if you were able to get your dodge and avoidance up significantly, because Dodge is just that good.
Even if say after the nerf, dodge turns out to be still more viable than defense, what's the problem?
I've done it before with offense characters that have pretty low dodge + avoidance. How I come out alive from those fights are due to 1) High DPS output, 2) Active defense, 3) Heals and in some cases 4) I used a threat-wipe power.
From what I've seen, top end offense builds can outperfom builds that focus more on defense than they do offense.
To use an example, my WotW build, ontop of already having good dodge and avoidance levels, also has 50% damage reduction from defense, compared to the Defiance-based build I was using previously before retcon. It performs better than my Defiance-based build. The only drawback is that I enjoy less energy returns, and that was easy to make up for anyway with some minor tinkering.
EDIT: And you know what the funny thing is? My build isn't even "top end". I'm not even using any Legion gear, just the Heroic ones with mods that range from rank 4 - 6. I'm not even using any Dodge cores.
Mobs generally do not heal and so even low damage output from a character built to take little or no lasting damage will win, eventually, unless the player gets bored or his internet connection is lost.
The game's encounters are designed to give an advantage to "slow and steady wins the race" types. Defensive builds have all of the time in the world to win a given fight.
Balancing offensive passives against defensive passives with the idea that the offensive passive will take more damage but still have the same success rate as defensive passives faces the problem that at the end of a fight any health greater than zero is the same. It doesn't matter if you finish with one health or ten thousand. Survival, in terms of how much damage you took in a given encounter, is binary. Either you had a positive health total or you didn't.
What should exist (IMO) is encounter design that provides an equal opportunity for losing a fight for both offensive and defensive builds. Encounters where mechanics exist to make slow and steady a less sure thing while mobs' damage output makes glass cannon builds dangerous as well.
An offensive player should be relying on his DPS and skill at maneuver and active skill use to defeat foes as quickly as possible because he does not have the staying power of a defensive character.
A defensive player should be relying on defense and active skill use to defeat foes before time runs out.
The problem is that with our current encounter design an offensive passive needs to be a defensive passive in order to provide the same degree of chance of success against tougher encounters.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
A player taking the route of a defensive passive is allowed the luxury of not worrying about survivability at the cost of damage output. An offense-based toon is not given that luxury in order to get more DPS power, but is given opportunities to increase their overall survivability nonetheless.
One effective way I can think of is getting global cooldown timers as low as possible so that they're able to use their heals and active defense more often and a downtime of a few seconds between each use is very achievable. This is actually pretty easy to do with the right gear and impact prisms, even if INT isn't a super stat. Another would be to take a threat-wipe power. Learning to block when needed is of course an important skill.
So basically include a timer, so that defense-based players can't take their own leisurely time in defeating the enemy(s), and at the same time the enemy(s) hit hard enough for offense-based toons to be really cautious?
We seem to have those kind of encounters already in the form of certain alerts. Are you in the opinion that that's the proper direction that the game should be focusing on? (No sarcasm, genuine question)
It used to be. Nowadays I can just go in there, punch that fish man in the face twice and have time left over for a manicure.
This dodge fix is nothing. Even without dodge, so much of the content is going to offer such little challenge.
I haven't run a character through the game using missions in such a long time. I've been an alert monkey since alerts started. Recently I've been doing missions, and all those missions I used to have trouble with? Cake. Total cake walk. All those missions that I used to have to prepare for, now I just gotta punch a guy a few times.
There is no challenge. Dodge isn't broke. The only thing that's broke is that when the dodge changes go live, the game will still be too easy.
I hate to pull the old-timer card, but, back in my day, we needed a group for Ape-Plus.
Just kiddin'. I love to pull the old-timer card. Git off m'lawn.
No, your tests without dodge gear, show that the normal difficulty is do-able even without dodge gear. Again, if you pay attention to what I'm saying, I'm talking about the top tier potential for characters with each type of passive. That and AT's I've mentioned AT's a couple times in a few threads.
Also, just because defense is trash below trash, doesn't mean that dodge after the change is good, that's an exceptional leap to make.
And again, it's been demonstrated in both PvP and PvE that you don't really gimp your damage by not taking a damage passive.
The bolded leads me to infer that you dropped on your DPS characters, which I stated. Sorry if I didn't have my "Mind Reader" ability slotted for magnitude. Now I'm just not sure what you're saying. You didn't drop on your DPS, unless you did? Whatever.
I did test. Since the change I've made an Ice form user, a Night Warrior user, and ported my Quarry character over to test and have run against my invuln build repeatedly. The main difference is I'm looking at the high end, Heroic and Justice gear, and running them to their limits while you're stripping a character, running on normal, and saying good enough.
Offensive passives suffer from heavy diminishing returns. It's been demonstrated that without the bonus from the damage role, the offensive passive can be matched by defensive passives, also AoPM because: **** you AoPM!
Also, as a user of Quarry, without investing strongly in gear and other supplemental survivability methods, It's 28% for 31% avoid. My current live build had 56% for 31%. That's -not- much. The problem isn't that dodge from gear is too much, it's that there is no alternative. There's no opportunity cost to selecting dodge gear. You don't give anything up by selecting dodge gear, because there's no alternative that creates even the illusion of choice.
Instead of changing that, they changed it so dodge wouldn't really help the characters that would really need it.
Impressive. I'm going to admit that you must be a better player than me, because my characters that lost about half their dodge chance, they did not hold up as well as yours. It took a great deal of shenanegins and cheesing to beat nimbus with an Ice user, and I didn't last long against Amazing Grace, I don't think I'll make the leap to a Mega-d unless I decide to break something.
Good luck on killing it, I think I remember you saying you were going to try.
It's called role dominance. Some times it's by design and others, like this, is from error. When it's not intended, it comes from assigning a misguided value to various items which is then subverted by an actual value placed on the items by a user.
In this case, someone was incredibly misguided when they believed that 19 points of defense or 639 points of health were a strong alternative to 139 points of avoidance or dodge.
The choices available the the developer looking at gear, in an attempt to destroy this role dominance, were to make the better gear worse or the worse gear better.
We see which he chose, and despite that, the better gear is still better, just not as universally powerful to everybody.
First, it would show a complete inability to actually accomplish an intended goal. Build diversity and making defense a more desirable stat were stated goals on Mr. Crush's preview blog. It would be beyond the pale for him to make a change of this magnitude and not even be able to do what he was attempting.
Second, it still disproportiately hits ATs and offensive passive users to an unacceptable level.
It's still likely going to make it to live, and I'll wear my big boy pants and suck it up when it happens, but until then I will piss and moan and whine like a 5 year old who just needs that gumdrop or they'll die, and I will make it known that this is a bad idea.
I refuse to be the person who won't participate in the feedback and development portion of the process and then ***** and moan wondering "What the hell happened" after the change is made.
Uh huh, you mean the one gear that gives a significant boost to dodge or the other to avoidance, either one gear that looks to specifically compliment a toon that is specifically built for dodge, would no longer be universally powerful to everyone else whose build focuses on other things like defense and what not?
Seems legit to me. Looks like dodge and avoidance are no longer going to be the king of damage mitigation mechanics and are being further brought in line with other forms of damage mitigation.
ATs, I have little experience with them so I can't comment much.
As for Offensive passive (FF) users? Oh you mean the ones who no longer have the easy way out by slapping dodge gear on themselves and then performing just as good or even better than defensive passive ones in terms of both DPS and damage mitigation, and actually have to get resourceful in sourcing for all available avenues to increase their survivability?
Oh the inhumanity.
Caliga's PRIMUS Database! --XXX--The Caliga Build: Threatening Haymakers! --XXX-- Caliga and Conquer fanart!
Increased survivability for an offensive toon achieved through skilled use of active abilities such as block, good timing on self heals, end the like, combined with effective maneuvering are fine IMO, having offensive passives function as defensive passives is less so.
To be clear, when I said before time runs out I did not necessarily mean an actual timer as in a countdown until an encounter auto-fails. What I meant was more a matter of mechanics to add an element of danger for a defensive passive user with a self heal who will otherwise pretty much automatically win because he can outlast nearly any foe in the game.
Some examples of such might be:
A mob with a heavy hitting attack that does lots of KB on a descending cooldown (starts on cooldown, cooldown gets shorter with each use). The longer the fight runs the more difficulty a defensive passive character will face in winning, while the offensive passive character faces that heightened difficulty from the beginning.
Adds joining the fight at a rate where it pushes the defensive passive user's ability to deal with them before their numbers become too great for him to overcome.
Encounters with victory conditions centered around defeating the villains before they can accomplish "X".
Mobs with heals.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
What is this normal difficulty you speak of? I ran everything, including gravitar, alerts, elite instances. I also mentioned ATs... specifically the ones I was using in these tests.
Also, you seem to be forgetting the role that Roles play... you do know that offensive characters often run in offensive roles... roles in which you cannot use defensive passives? Cause you seem to be under the impression that everyone runs in Hybrid role.
Oh okay, so you're acknowledging that I only dropped on my DPS when I didn't pay attention... so then you agree with me that that's fine and in fact is how it should be, right? See cause I thought you were being all like "yer dps just died constantly no matter what". So... not really sure why you're disagreeing with me on this point then.
Oh I get it, you're saying that people using Defensive passives should take a damage output penalty?
Which means you should be doing even better than I was in my tests... right? How the heck could you have been doing worse, when I was using Heroic gear and you were using Justice gear? So if I'm able to do everything in the game just fine no dodge, then you should be having a cakewalk... which leads me to wonder what exactly your point is.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Never in a million years would this happen. Crowd Control is way too broken from the base level up.
It can only be in demand if they decide to update it to On Alert Standards and Make Manipulator more useful..and stuff..anyway.
Short answer is no. DPS is still DPS so will automatically override your control. I speak from experience as I do play as a crowd controller.
Only difference is, I tend to solo anything I can. I cannot stand having my holds broken by DPSers or other CCers CCing over my holds and adding to more fail.
Best way to CC currently is to focus all your CC into Stuns and Incapacitates/Paralyzes. I don't do this because I don't team up with people often (apart from those who don't have enough DPS to break my holds or know how to play with a crowd controller)
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I know that, seems other people tend to forget that the real difference in damage comes from the role's 25% boost. And at the high end, there may be a 25% difference in damage, but there's a far larger mitigation gap.
Also, I'd be very interested in seeing how you got past, say, a Sasquach or the Roin'esh commander, or really any part of the Mandragalore.
If Defensive passives got a damage output nerf that matched what is happening to offensive passives and the dodge nerf, I'd have nothing to complain about but the trinity system. I don't want that, but that would take away my ability to complain.
I have no idea what your tests were, so I can't tell you what that means. I know when I did my runs, it wasn't much different that what I had on live, and that's bad. (Remembering that on live I'm 35 with random blue and green gear and on test I had R7 mods R5 Avoidance and severity cores, and 4-slot gear at level 40)
I'm holding you to this. Prove it. If you're going to claim that dodge/avoid gear lets offensive passive users perform as good or better than a defensive passive user, prove it. I won't hold my breath, but I will wait patiently.
It's not true. I like Caliga, and his picture is kind of cool, but no the statement you made is false and I'd like to see you attempt to prove it. They do not have as much mitigation, they do not do better on survivability, and if there is a way to survive at the highest level content using every power in the system, that will be the cookie cutter build. Forget diversity, forget concept, it'll be Ice Barrier, CoPD, SoEW, EM, MD Revitalize for urveryone. If they can't survive than you're "l2p nub! Get resourceful" will fall on incapable ears as nothing would allow them to survive as well.
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This.
This whole thing is like using a band aid to plug up a hole in a dam without taking the wrapper off the band aid.
And it's the wrong dam.
Which is an entirely different problem altogether; one that is not tackled by this change.
What about increasing the meaningfulness of offense and defense rating? What about making the +health bonuses actually worth something? Or +health recovery? The problem is not that dodge is too good, it's that that the entirety of the game mechanics has been tossed aside in favor of crit and dodge, from gameplay, to the usefulness of alternate forms of mitigation, and investment in such mitigation (i.e. the abject stupidity of diminishing returns in general as a "solution" for unnecessarily absurdly inflated numbers and Cryptic Math).
Now, I'm not saying dodge being too god isn't A problem; it's just not THE problem, and certainly not the problem this "fix" is attempting to fix, and not a solution enough to warrant the negatives.
I'm also not saying that they shouldn't do this "fix," I'm just saying 1) I disagree with you, 2) I disagree with the reasons for the fix and 3) I disagree with implementation of this fix.
I remember when a lot of content was hard, and something Fishy was a great teaming event.
I tried it...just for kicks...with a DPS, a Controller, a Healer and well.
My Forcefielder kicked Fish Faces butt in 30 seconds.
My DPS...with 2 gun mojo was just a joke.
Even my Controller killed everything within seconds.
I also remember when Sinsister and Leech were a challenge as well.
There was a lot of fun content that was trivialized. There is a lot of content now that is trivializred.
Old time member. I miss NERF :eek:
How hilarious, this is the same thing people said about defensive passives with toggles. Saying the toggles made defensive passives a better choice for having as much damage and better defense than offensive passives. So using offensive passives is now going to be the crap again. Off passives+toggles did more damage than def passives+toggles do people not know how to add and multiply?
And now it's going back to let's make defensive passives more worth it and make offensive passives crap again. Heck I'm sure people are going to say defensive passives are too powerful again, they're going to nerf defensive passives, then it's back to using offensive passives and it keeps going on until we're left with having to 5 man every content.
I queue on Cryo a lot when the daily is Grabs. And I'mma healer on Nick (not for long though.. almost to Skarn's!) so that's covered..
People have called offensive passives crap since launch while I've never had any problems using them in my 4 years here...especially after On Alert hit and that's sans dodge gear unless it actually fits a theme. *shrugs* Wish I could see some of these builds people are putting together that make this game even remotely difficult but no one ever wants to share their secrets.
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I've been playing my offensive passive characters without dodge. On a character with Targeting Computer, and under 5,000 hit points, I don't feel useless at all. I certainly don't feel like switching to a defensive passive, because I like nuking the crap out of stuff.
So... yeah. If an offensive passive doesn't become useless when I have no dodge, how can it possibly become useless with less dodge?
If you tried to say my characters were min/max probuilds.... the probuilders would laugh at you until they threw up.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
But any of my other ATs I can take into these Grabs and feel like I'm contributing to the success of the mission. And no matter how little I contribute, I still get the XP bonus...
Since I'm not doing FFs, I don't really understand the difference between Offensive Passives and Defensive Passives - I just know that I don't think these changes are going to piss me off that bad, and they might make me happy instead. I'll have to wait and see.
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The fact that you have to take a passive in order to be useful with Crowd Control AND it's an advantage point which stops you from being able to get the "most" out of your passive says a lot.
If you want to apply trauma in other areas, you can simply grab ANY passive, and take Ebon Ruin which grants Trauma for free.
My attitude is simply there because there is no indication as of yet of any desire to even poke the CC system with a 50ft pole. Once there is I'll be ready and waiting, crying on the forums for a CC fix would be a waste of my energy. Why? Because it is not an important part of the majority of players builds nor what they want to use, it never really has been anyway.
Also the fact that if they were to make CC useful in higher level content boss AI would have to be updated or changed in order to deal with it, which I cannot see happening any time soon.
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Name a PvE encounter where you need Trauma, please. I tend to agree with raven on the state of crowd control. Trauma or not, it still sucks.
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^ This. Ao'Quepasa/Ao'healz4lyfe doesn't strictly count because you are not forced to fight him. He is part of a rotation of villains, besides with blocking or skarns (or even without) he is quite beatable.
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In a lair you don't really need Crowd Control, pack two guns, fire or some ice and you can own them all.
Groups of anything ranging from Henchmen to Master Villain can be controlled, shot, burnt, blasted etc that's common knowledge which is why I said boss AI. Aka, Legendaries and Cosmics (Super Villains as well if they go down this route). It would be a bad move to not update boss AI if they made CC useful (Actual CC not debuffs) in higher instances (such as Kenina + Frosty, Gravitar etc)
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I've been tinkering with some ATs and I actually enjoy The Mind so far, flying around using ego sprites and then psionic healing to stay alive has been a lot of fun... plus ego sprites do not break sleep! And you get a kick back of energy for healing allies so you can basically tap heal all day and not be totally useless in grab alerts.
When I used to play the Mind AT, one thing I loved doing more than anything else (aside from when Ego Storm was epic) was applying Disorient + Ego Blast Rank 2 with Mind Opener + Ego Sprites x 2 when under the effects of Telepathic Reverberation this was really fun
I preferred Empathic Healing over Psionic Healing though...simply because the maintain seemed more useful. But my levelling days were from Ye Olde Pre On Alert days, so it might be different now.
One thing I thought was interesting though was the idea behind Empathic Amplification, it was a decent means through which to increase my damage output, if I was fast enough, it was a bit risky at times, but when I changed Mentella to be a more aggressive Mind AT it rocked.
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Lockout mechanics are not favourable. Why? Interrupt Lockout. I hated that mechanic, I know that boss AI would need to be completely re-done/updated to make it viable for CC.
CC ideally should be a helpful part of a boss encounter without allowing for total negation of the experience.
An example of this was when Clarence the Mecha Teddy was on the PTS and New Telepathy was still operating on the interrupts system.
It allowed me to solo Clarence without a scratch, even with lockout it would have to be personalized to each player, which would mean in a ten man instance with careful timing Gravitar's most dangerous attacks would be random-cascade and perhaps Force yank and Gravity Geyser.
If it was on the boss, it would be just as irritating as one person could apply a Stun/Paralyze/Sleep and lockout anyone CC based from doing anything for the entire duration of the fight, provided that the most common form of CC (Stuns) activates the lockout. Lockout based on CC type would be tedious and not very wise anyway, seeing as no one uses Confuse or tries to root a boss or placate them. (Based on the premise that the 10-15 sec lockout applies after any and all CC attempts.)
I cannot envision CC effects being allowed to lockdown higher level foes with their primary(intended) effects, rather I see them turning into powerful utility debuffs if anything in the current system, that when doubled up with other debuffs would make bosses a lot less difficult.
An example of a step in the right direction are the utility debuffs from Mental Weakness and Malaise, (however it would be useful if Manipulator could alter their % alongside their duration) as they arguably add something to the boss fight, for example when I took Mentella into K+F we lasted significantly longer until someone triggered the Flame Prison (back when it was total wipe of the entire map).
~END OF CROWD CONTROL RELATED RANT~ (much to everyone's delight
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For the rest: If you complain that mobs are giving you a hard time then you deserve to be removed from existence.
Hope I didn't keep you waiting long.
Let's take a look at my toon that currently has Dodge gear on the Live server shall we?
Here she is with no gear and no passive equipped. She has DEX as her main superstat to benefit a little from the +Dodge rating spec, which isn't a lot even at 100+ DEX as you can see: Her Dodge is at a very low 17%.
Now let's see what happens when I put on just a Heroic Breastplate of Elusiveness with a R7 slotted Gambler's Gem:
Note that with also both R6 and R7 DEX mods slotted, my Dodge has shot up to 56%. Note that I'm already getting a very decent 56% with no passive and no other gear that may help me get that % even higher. 60% Dodge is pretty achievable still even at level 40 where DR is already starting to take into effect hard. Also, at 259 DEX, I'm only getting +39 Dodge rating from the relevant spec which isn't that great.
So that's a near 60% Dodge and near 30% Avoidance layering over other sources of damage mitigation, like heals, active defenses and defense rating, and at the same time getting a DPS buff over a defensive build when using an offensive passive. That 30% Avoidance can be easily increased as well with the right offensive passive.
So in summary? Yes, I stand by the claim that dodge gear can let an Offensive toon out-perform a Defensive one very easily with a potent mix of survivability and DPS output, and I don't even need to have a top-end super-uber-duper build with Legion gear and super-rank mods to do just that.
But you don't have much avoidance. What helps high dodge without that ? Your dodge in that case gives you something like 15% damage reduction.
Heroic Breastplate of Dexterity (?) would make much more sense.
That's because this toon isn't using an offensive passive. She's actually using LR that gives a huge Avoidance buff and I unequipped it from my passive slot for the sake of showing an example.
And yes, it makes more sense to use the Breastplate of Agility in certain cases. Using that with a high-ranked Gambler's Gem, it's possible to get a nice mix of 40+% Dodge and near or 40% Avoidance. Either/both gets even better if Quarry or WotW is used.
The upper image is with Breastplate of Dexterity and R5 Gamblers on live :
(the other image its from PTS)
Right, so it's going to get much harder relying on Dodge gear as a safety-net in the near future. I'm not entirely surprised with that drop. Avoidance doesn't look to be touched much with that minor 3% decrease being shown.
You have never run a single mission with me, or are you talking about when I was fighting purple gang at level 6 next to Kodiac the other night and you swooped in kill stealing?
Pretty much. I'm amazed anyone is even honestly questioning this at this point.
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Heroic Breastplate of Agility with Gamblers Gem
This is the issue. That one piece of gear gives you 78% of a defensive passive. Everyone who is using that piece of gear effectively has almost an entire defensive passive slapped onto everything else they have.
The irony here is that Lighting Reflexes users benefit the least out of anyone from this.
So to repeat... you get to be a defensive passive build for the low price of 10% dodge and 15% avoidance.
Oh but wait, clearly these two archetypes are probuild min/max characters..
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Ok let's take a look how much mitigation that gives you:
In the first case(live):
Assume you are getting hit x times. The dmg you get will be the attacks you dodge x*0.392 added to the attacks you do not dodge . If you dodge the dmg is reduced by your avoidance. Lets say each hit deals y dmg. So if you are hit without dodge you get y dmg, if you dodge you get 0.413*y dmg.
The total dmg you get is:
x*0.608*y + x*0.392*y* 0.413 = 0.77 *x*y
Without dodge you would get x*y so you mitigated 23% of the dmg.
The second case (PTS):
x*0.817*y + x*0.183*y* 0.45 = 0.90 *x*y
You mitigated 10% of the dmg
So you lost 13% of total mitigation of incoming dmg. If my calculations are wrong, feel free to correct me. One might also add, the char on life gets 0.77*x*y dmg, an increase to 0.9*x*y dmg increases the dmg he actually gets by about 17% (0.77*1.17~0.9)
So with those changes the char in question will take 17% more dmg if the fight has enough hits to look at it statistically. If only a few blows are exchanged it is still a matter of pure chance as it was before.
Another point one should consider: With masterful dodge you will still dodge every attack and avoidance was barely touched. That means if you actually use other stuff to push dodge (like MD) you will lose even less mitigation.
You are now free to tell me I am wrong and correct my math, or use this information to either be relieved or simply spread more panic.
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
Still waiting sadly
You're changing your claim. You said an offensive passive can get "as much or more" survivability and damage as a defensive passive. Just to be clear:
I never claimed that cant get survivable, quite the opposite. My argument is, I believe, different than others against the change. I'm just advocating that they should be allowed to be survivable, because users of support passives and defensive passives (Excepting outliers like Regen, medical nanites, AoAC, ect...) Can be that survivable, and don't sacrifice near as much a people claim for it. I'd argue they sacrifice about as much damage as an offensive passive user sacrifices defense.
Offensive passives on live are not as survivable. Period, you proved it above, Spinnytop proved it with her example, it's been claimed, it's been shown, it's been proven.
I believe the mitigation gap covers the damage gap. I also believe that reducing dodge in this way will lower the threashold of what an offensive passive is capable of accomplishing, while allowing a defensive passive or support passive user to continue on unabated.
Contrary to popular opinion, that is not balance. Leaving offensive passives in a position to match the other types of passives, or throwing DPS checks absolutely everywhere that's considered team content; either would be balance. I'd rather the first, but if they chose the second, I wouldn't be able to argue unbalanced.
The two things you quoted are essentially saying the same thing.
So, anyone that's interested, can pick a build and give it a go. Go find some content that's meant to be done solo (or for several of them go grab a lair) and have at it. If anyone wants to play the "can't solo a lair card" I'm not the person to discuss that with as I'm firmly in the camp that 5 man content is pretty much just what it says on the tin. It should require 5 people though I've solo'd multiple lairs on offensive and support passives as well with the builds I've posted.
Edit: I'm currently having too much fun playing the game again with my SG, PUGs (and my wife and son!) and making new toons for the first time in a year to sit down and make videos demonstrating stuff I'd already put in videos a while ago. But the builds are there for those so inclined to take the time. I'm just being honest and stating I don't have the interest in spending my available play time like that currently.
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