Buddy, you started off rude and stayed rude. Does nobody else in your life tell you when you're being this obnoxious, or do you just always turn it around on whoever does? Wow.
e: alerts are so hard how will anyone ever complete one without you to carry them? oh no!
Well, I can't say I'm to fond of the changes. Always great to know all that work in obtaining the items means I now dodge less (5-6%) my avoidance gear took a down turn (only gives me 2% now), and I do less damage (crit less often).
My Legion Breastplate of Agility feels useless now...so I am wondering if I should replace it with something else, as I only get 2% Avoid with it.
It's not like I had a perfect build, I had two chain attacks
But the thing that gets me is with all this is everyone saying "You move on and figure out how to restat/regear" without mentioning how one should likely be stating/gearing now.
Yeah, LR basically softcaps avoidance, and the softcaps a bit lower now than it was. I'd say a Breastplate of Defense + 2 Gambler's would do the job better.
On the other hand, if you have reasonably high additive damage bonuses then you should be doing roughly the same damage after taking the new Offense layering into account.
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That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
Buddy, you started off rude and stayed rude. Does nobody else in your life tell you when you're being this obnoxious, or do you just always turn it around on whoever does? Wow.
e: alerts are so hard how will anyone ever complete one without you to carry them? oh no!
If we were to review both our posts over the past month, I would bet people would see a different picture.
I'm not the only person who carries alerts - but I do it quite often and no longer will do so. I'm not the only person leaving over these changes and the incoming nerfs to follow.
And I'm not the one constantly having to edit my posts.
If these changes were as helpful as you would want people to believe, you'd be able to rely on merit over insults. If I were a more casual player, I would just realize I've been hit with some major nerfs only to repeat the same content I've already been doing endlessly because that's all there is to do.
But you're right if people were to read our posts, it would be pretty clear who the obnoxious one is
Well, I can't say I'm to fond of the changes. Always great to know all that work in obtaining the items means I now dodge less (5-6%) my avoidance gear took a down turn (only gives me 2% now), and I do less damage (crit less often).
My Legion Breastplate of Agility feels useless now...so I am wondering if I should replace it with something else, as I only get 2% Avoid with it.
It's not like I had a perfect build, I had two chain attacks
But the thing that gets me is with all this is everyone saying "You move on and figure out how to restat/regear" without mentioning how one should likely be stating/gearing now.
According to my friends, A legion breastplate of agility with 2 gamblers gems would get you around 25% dodge chance and 55% avoidance by itself. So, I would just keep the item and maybe put a growth gem in there. More HP never hurt anybody.
But you're right if people were to read our posts, it would be pretty clear who the obnoxious one is
You came into this thread reasonably at first, and then you spiraled down into condescending remarks and telling me I shouldn't be talking. So yes, we all know who the obnoxious one is. So why don't you take it in stride and let it go, and leave already if you dislike the changes so much. You're not going to get the last word, if that's what you're worried about.
Well, I can't say I'm to fond of the changes. Always great to know all that work in obtaining the items means I now dodge less (5-6%) my avoidance gear took a down turn (only gives me 2% now), and I do less damage (crit less often).
My Legion Breastplate of Agility feels useless now...so I am wondering if I should replace it with something else, as I only get 2% Avoid with it.
It's not like I had a perfect build, I had two chain attacks
But the thing that gets me is with all this is everyone saying "You move on and figure out how to restat/regear" without mentioning how one should likely be stating/gearing now.
Aren't you using Lightning Reflexes? I'm pretty sure it's always softcapped Avoidance. Adding Avoid gears or specs will have virtually no effect.
Adding the Breastplate of Elusiveness would be better; even though you'll be in diminishing returns, you'll still get a benefit out of the gear and both didge cores, if you slot that way.
_________________________________________________ @flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
You came into this thread reasonably at first, and then you spiraled down into condescending remarks and telling me I shouldn't be talking. So yes, we all know who the obnoxious one is. So why don't you take it in stride and let it go, and leave already if you dislike the changes so much. You're not going to get the last word, if that's what you're worried about.
I was reasonable until we got into mechanics. You're right I got very condescending because if someone is going to address something specific they better be on point with it. This game no longer has up to date info and the wiki was supported purely by the players yet endorsed 'officially' by Cryptic.
And I was off on the numbers, as the numbers I was quoting were clearly out of date. Feel free to call me on that.
But potentially misinforming new players who may glance these forums isn't something I take lightly, newer players often struggle enough as it is. After all, its the experienced folk who end up carrying them. I put in the time and effort to learn the system, and I've played the game on both ends of the spectrum as far as performance goes.
Answer me this, if these changes were necessary, where is the new content, where is that new zone?
If you honestly believe players will be eager to have their gear nerfed only to repeat the same content they've been doing, who needs a last word?
Well, I can't say I'm to fond of the changes. Always great to know all that work in obtaining the items means I now dodge less (5-6%) my avoidance gear took a down turn (only gives me 2% now), and I do less damage (crit less often).
My Legion Breastplate of Agility feels useless now...so I am wondering if I should replace it with something else, as I only get 2% Avoid with it.
It's not like I had a perfect build, I had two chain attacks
But the thing that gets me is with all this is everyone saying "You move on and figure out how to restat/regear" without mentioning how one should likely be stating/gearing now.
You have some options.
With Legion agility granting 25.3/55 it's still something - however depending on what you setup you may end up replacing those gamblers.
You could go def passive, like invul or defiance, and with invul that 25% is relatively fine, not as nice as the 54% it once was but still high enough (just barely) to make it worth using.
You could go for def stacking, particularly if you run str pri and have con statted. Vindicator and guardian/warden and there ya go.
I was reasonable until we got into mechanics. You're right I got very condescending because if someone is going to address something specific they better be on point with it. This game no longer has up to date info and the wiki was supported purely by the players yet endorsed 'officially' by Cryptic.
And I was off on the numbers, as the numbers I was quoting were clearly out of date. Feel free to call me on that.
But potentially misinforming new players who may glance these forums isn't something I take lightly, newer players often struggle enough as it is. After all, its the experienced folk who end up carrying them. I put in the time and effort to learn the system, and I've played the game on both ends of the spectrum as far as performance goes.
Answer me this, if these changes were necessary, where is the new content, where is that new zone?
If you honestly believe players will be eager to have their gear nerfed only to repeat the same content they've been doing, who needs a last word?
Well, maybe next time you can make an effort to collaborate. Instead, you chose to retaliate and try to make anybody that disagreed with you look like a fool. You seem to want to help the newer folk, and I can respect that. That's mostly why I made this thread. I'm sure that they enjoyed seeing how quickly this devolved, though. Maybe next time try not to attack people because you don't like what they have said.
Also, Fire and Ice alert, when it is finished, will be pretty new. Unless you're a time traveler. Let's not forget that Cryptic North got into the game fairly recently, and expecting a new team to pump out a new zone in a few months is nuts. It would have been nice to have this change, new content and all that at once but at least this way we can figure out what to do with our builds before that.
I, myself, will still wait around. Sad to see people leaving over a balance change, but I've seen it happen so often I can't say it surprises me.
It's funny... when some people decide that they're "leaving for good"... they just do it. They just leave, because sticking around to get the last word in would be pointless since after they leave people will still be talking.
Then there's other people... who decide they're "leaving for good" and take it as an excuse to be as rude as they like since, hey, they're leaving soon anyway so a soured reputation won't have any consequences.
In both cases, you really learn a lot about the person and whether you care if they ever return.
When a good chunk of the player base needs to start farming from scratch for months on end in order to regear and respec from the bottom up... why make new content?
Aren't you using Lightning Reflexes? I'm pretty sure it's always softcapped Avoidance. Adding Avoid gears or specs will have virtually no effect.
Adding the Breastplate of Elusiveness would be better; even though you'll be in diminishing returns, you'll still get a benefit out of the gear and both didge cores, if you slot that way.
I am using LR. So, switching it up to Elusiveness or Defense seems to be the opinion of everyone.
I dunno, the closer you are to 100% dodge chance, the more valuable those small amounts of dodge chance are. I generally prefer Defense but if you're actively using Evasive Maneuvers and/or Fluidity/Sidegrade or other methods of stacking dodge chance via powers, I think +Dodge Rating is still pretty valuable.
In my personal opinion I would just try and patch up the stuff any passive does not cover. Like adding dodge to Defiance, Invulnerability, and PFF. Regeneration could benefit from dodge and defense at the same time. Good ol lightning reflexes, stack that defense.
I've a Way of the Warrior melee damage char - I think the dodge is around 35% now. Avoid ... 58% maybe. Evasive Maneuvers can add 16% according to the current tooltip.
But with str / wardicator, her defense is at 68% damage resistance, AND I use Energy Shield / Laser Knight.
But sure, with LR - every little bit can help if you're nearing 100% consistently.
I stuck with dodge/avoid for their Primary defense item. BUT this character had the benefit of my doing the level 40 respec after the dodge nerf hit PTS, so I planned for it.
Frankly Dodge in CO isn't even real dodging, what it is is a mitigation with a random chance of success. More along the lines of a passive block or parry.
Think about it this way, a certain arachnid based hero is the archetype for dodging in the comics world. He has a near 100% dodge rate, when he dodges, attacks don't only do partial damage... they do no damage at all because they never make contact.
With Dodge in CO it's assumed that every attack hits, those that are "dodged" still hit, they are simply partially deflected to so that hit does less damage. Which makes it analogous to a passive block and not a true dodge.
With Dodge in CO it's assumed that every attack hits, those that are "dodged" still hit, they are simply partially deflected to so that hit does less damage. Which makes it analogous to a passive block and not a true dodge.
You know what would be awesome? Dodge being renamed to 'Deflect', and actual dodging worked in somehow via powers to get that chance to receive no damage.
Frankly Dodge in CO isn't even real dodging, what it is is a mitigation with a random chance of success. More along the lines of a passive block or parry.
Think about it this way, a certain arachnid based hero is the archetype for dodging in the comics world. He has a near 100% dodge rate, when he dodges, attacks don't only do partial damage... they do no damage at all because they never make contact.
With Dodge in CO it's assumed that every attack hits, those that are "dodged" still hit, they are simply partially deflected to so that hit does less damage. Which makes it analogous to a passive block and not a true dodge.
I keep saying the same thing! And it's something I think they need to fix, at least for the Passives that are all about DODGING!
With Dodge in CO it's assumed that every attack hits, those that are "dodged" still hit, they are simply partially deflected to so that hit does less damage. Which makes it analogous to a passive block and not a true dodge.
You are completely correct -- Dodge in CO is simply randomly firing damage reduction.
The reason for this design decision, I believe, is that the original devs felt that they were "fixing" one of the biggest complaints players had about City of Heroes: missing. Players thought that superheroes should never miss.
In CoH, when a target dodged the game told you that you missed. People swore that they were missing 50 or 75% of the time. Which was false, in general: there were of course bugs at times. There was a hard cap of 95% to-hit chance, so you always had a 1 in 20 chance of missing (a holdover from the D&D mentality). The devs even implemented a combat log that told you the result of every attack you made, and still people felt they were missing far more than they should be.
The problem was that players increased their to-hit chance and accuracy so much that they thought they should never miss. That made the devs add things like the streak breaker, which caused a whole host of other problems: in particular, it would force a miss if you hit too many times in a row. Now, there were players who had damage auras, which would fire very frequently. It's okay if one of those puny aura attacks misses because of the streak breaker, but that also causes the streak breaker to fire a whole lot more, which means that it's more likely to fire for one of your big attacks.
I'm guessing that the devs of CO felt they were doing themselves a favor when they avoided the whole "missing" problem. To add a real Dodge chance, you'd need to add a to-hit chance, and that opens huge buckets -- nay, dumpsters -- of worms, introducing an entirely different class of problems.
In the end, the Dodge mechanic of CoH, where a miss means you do no damage at all, is simply too good. Players always find a way to increase it, and devs were always eager to create new powers and trinkets for their fans would create new ways of getting it, only to find they have to retract it when it gets out of control. It would therefore be a mistake to add it to CO because the devs would simply have to nerf it.
Damage in CO is very consistent: it's basically one form or another of damage reduction: some of it is "ablative" armor, some of it is straight fractional damage reduction, some of it is randomly firing "avoidance." Because it's basically the same mechanic, it's probably easier to balance CO's Dodge with the rest of the game than it was CoH's Dodge.
You are completely correct -- Dodge in CO is simply randomly firing damage reduction.
The reason for this design decision, I believe, is that the original devs felt that they were "fixing" one of the biggest complaints players had about City of Heroes: missing. Players thought that superheroes should never miss.
In CoH, when a target dodged the game told you that you missed. People swore that they were missing 50 or 75% of the time. Which was false, in general: there were of course bugs at times. There was a hard cap of 95% to-hit chance, so you always had a 1 in 20 chance of missing (a holdover from the D&D mentality). The devs even implemented a combat log that told you the result of every attack you made, and still people felt they were missing far more than they should be.
The problem was that players increased their to-hit chance and accuracy so much that they thought they should never miss. That made the devs add things like the streak breaker, which caused a whole host of other problems: in particular, it would force a miss if you hit too many times in a row. Now, there were players who had damage auras, which would fire very frequently. It's okay if one of those puny aura attacks misses because of the streak breaker, but that also causes the streak breaker to fire a whole lot more, which means that it's more likely to fire for one of your big attacks.
I'm guessing that the devs of CO felt they were doing themselves a favor when they avoided the whole "missing" problem. To add a real Dodge chance, you'd need to add a to-hit chance, and that opens huge buckets -- nay, dumpsters -- of worms, introducing an entirely different class of problems.
In the end, the Dodge mechanic of CoH, where a miss means you do no damage at all, is simply too good. Players always find a way to increase it, and devs were always eager to create new powers and trinkets for their fans would create new ways of getting it, only to find they have to retract it when it gets out of control. It would therefore be a mistake to add it to CO because the devs would simply have to nerf it.
Damage in CO is very consistent: it's basically one form or another of damage reduction: some of it is "ablative" armor, some of it is straight fractional damage reduction, some of it is randomly firing "avoidance." Because it's basically the same mechanic, it's probably easier to balance CO's Dodge with the rest of the game than it was CoH's Dodge.
Then all they have to do is allow Dodge/Avoid Passive users to increase their avoidance to 100% (i'd settle with 99% just so those who say they should never miss feel better about themselves).
Then all they have to do is allow Dodge/Avoid Passive users to increase their avoidance to 100% (i'd settle with 99% just so those who say they should never miss feel better about themselves).
I'm pretty sure I've found a couple ways to get Aoid to 100%. I'll have to wait until I get home to see if they actually work, especially since they're based on numbers on the forums and wiki, which may not be accurate any more.
_________________________________________________ @flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
I'm pretty sure I've found a couple ways to get Aoid to 100%. I'll have to wait until I get home to see if they actually work, especially since they're based on numbers on the forums and wiki, which may not be accurate any more.
Avoid didn't change too much from what I saw. It should still be very possible to get 100%, or at least very near it.
I'm pretty sure I've found a couple ways to get Aoid to 100%. I'll have to wait until I get home to see if they actually work, especially since they're based on numbers on the forums and wiki, which may not be accurate any more.
Color me intrigued.
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That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
I'm pretty sure I've found a couple ways to get Aoid to 100%. I'll have to wait until I get home to see if they actually work, especially since they're based on numbers on the forums and wiki, which may not be accurate any more.
It is not possible to get 100%+ avoidance at level 40(without abusing a certain something). The highest you'd get at level 40 would be less than 93%.
Sidekicking to Level 1, however, has the best chance at reaching 99%. I've gotten 97.8% avoidance at level 1 and I didn't even have half of what we have today(before legion gear).
To divide by zero--Alas, the server doth quoted 500.
It is not possible to get 100%+ avoidance at level 40(without abusing a certain something). The highest you'd get at level 40 would be less than 93%.
Looks like this is correct; there are several powers that claim to give a flat bonus to Avoidance, ranging anywhere from 20% to 100%, however, these all seem to be affected by the same diminishing returns that Avoidance Rating is. That means that it's DAMN hard to push Avoidance above about 85%.
_________________________________________________ @flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
As I mentioned, it gets hit by the same Diminishing Returns as Avoid Rating does.
Even if you only have the base 20% Avoidance, you don't get the full 50% from Lashing Dragon Tail. The character I'm on right now has 54.6% Avoidance before LDT, and 63% after. Even with a MUCH higher Avoidance than the base amount, he still doesn't hit the 70% minimum that you would expect from LDT.
_________________________________________________ @flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
Simple answer: Dodge isn't the "be-all and end-all" mechanic when it comes to survivability. It never was pre nor post patch.
Powers are giving better dodge bonuses to make up for decreased bonuses given from gear. All the doomsaying about the nerf destroying builds turned out to be over-reaction in the end.
Regarding one of my LR characters who is using Heroic dodge gear, the cut I took to dodge was a mere 3-5 %, and I'm still maintaining near 70% dodge and over 80% avoidance.
My WotW toon still maintains a near 40% dodge and near 60% avoidance (without Elusive Monk kicking in) and has pretty good defense and high HP to make up for lower dodge + avoidance.
In a nutshell, to answer the question of "what do I do now?", it would be to do nothing, continue playing and being potent as I always have like nothing has happened.
Well, whilst a few veterans here are being supportive, it seems that the silver forums indicate people leaving in droves.
One of my best friends, an engineer, found the dodge change to be (and I quote) "mathematically stupid" in that they're balancing for the top 1 per cent to the complete and utter detriment of every other player. It sounds like GentlemanCrush is treating this like DOTA 2, when it really isn't. This is going to result in people leaving in drove, again. Which means less money for Cryptic and Perfect World, again.
I think the best thing to do at this point is to fire GentlemanCrush and to reverse the ham-fisted nerfs he's made to the game. My engineer friend is right, it is mathematically dumb to balance for the top 1 per cent. This isn't a competitive game, and nothing is going to revive the PvP. What they want to do is keep around the people who actually find the PvE fun, those (like me) who come back every now and then and buy new stuff from the cash shop.
But if my engineer friend is out for good, that kills my group, since he was the heart of it. That means the three of us are out. This isn't my choice to leave, this time, it's his. I really don't blame him for it.
As long as they have the mathematically challenged GentlemanCrush handling balance, they're going to continue bleeding players. Marvel Heroes, on the other hand, tried ham-fisted nerfs and learned their lesson quickly when they saw they were losing players. It's funny, Marvel Heroes started off with a mission to buff and only buff, they tried nerfing, it resulted in a lot of lost players, and now they're back to buffing.
Go figure.
I just wish that was a lesson that Cryptic had learned, if Cryptic had learned that early on, then perhaps CO wouldn't be a ghost town right now, losing more and more players each and every day. If they'd been like Gazillion and Marvel Heroes, perhaps they'd have retained a large slice of the players they had in open beta. Every ham-fisted nerf they've done is designed to balance the upper 1 per cent, but in the process it kills everyone who isn't min-maxing. GentlemanCrush is a mathematical cretin for not realising this.
So, yeah, my engineer friend is done, so my lady friend is done, so I'm done.
Okay auldwolf, please show us how the recent dodge changes have so utterly destroyed your engineer friend's build and gameplay experience so much so that he feels that he has no choice but to leave the game.
By the way, I'm not part of the super min-maxing top 1% of players you speak of and I can safely say that in no way has the changes been an "utter detriment" to me.
Also, how do you know that silver players, or even players in general, are leaving in droves due to these changes? Because the silver forums, which only represent a percentage of the total silver population, said so? :rolleyes:
I'm actually happy with these changes, it let me focus on different stuff with my gear, leading to an almost-total buff. Plus, I simply love learning new systems and figuring out how to use 'em.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
Simple answer: Dodge isn't the "be-all and end-all" mechanic when it comes to survivability. It never was pre nor post patch.
Powers are giving better dodge bonuses to make up for decreased bonuses given from gear. All the doomsaying about the nerf destroying builds turned out to be over-reaction in the end.
Regarding one of my LR characters who is using Heroic dodge gear, the cut I took to dodge was a mere 3-5 %, and I'm still maintaining near 70% dodge and over 80% avoidance.
My WotW toon still maintains a near 40% dodge and near 60% avoidance (without Elusive Monk kicking in) and has pretty good defense and high HP to make up for lower dodge + avoidance.
In a nutshell, to answer the question of "what do I do now?", it would be to do nothing, continue playing and being potent as I always have like nothing has happened.
I can relate. I'm reading how dodge is destroyed, Fluidity sucks and all of this other jazz post patch...while having 70% dodge and 70% avoidance in combat...layered on top of Defiance...and knowing full well I could stack more.
Some of the best characters I've EVER had (and I have 22 characters at level 40 now) have 10% dodge/20% avoid. It really is possible to play the game without vast amounts of dodge/avoid kids! It can even be fun!
Not all, just a good chunk. Some people have been affected. Others may find alternately useful slotting/gearing. Some folks have stuff to work towards now. Others have reason to grind for alternate mods to sell. The tweak may not have been as worldbreaking as folks believed, but there has been a change, and some folks have to adjust.
Or switch to dodge, since some folks experienced a bump.
Comments
e: alerts are so hard how will anyone ever complete one without you to carry them? oh no!
My Legion Breastplate of Agility feels useless now...so I am wondering if I should replace it with something else, as I only get 2% Avoid with it.
It's not like I had a perfect build, I had two chain attacks
But the thing that gets me is with all this is everyone saying "You move on and figure out how to restat/regear" without mentioning how one should likely be stating/gearing now.
On the other hand, if you have reasonably high additive damage bonuses then you should be doing roughly the same damage after taking the new Offense layering into account.
That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
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If we were to review both our posts over the past month, I would bet people would see a different picture.
I'm not the only person who carries alerts - but I do it quite often and no longer will do so. I'm not the only person leaving over these changes and the incoming nerfs to follow.
And I'm not the one constantly having to edit my posts.
If these changes were as helpful as you would want people to believe, you'd be able to rely on merit over insults. If I were a more casual player, I would just realize I've been hit with some major nerfs only to repeat the same content I've already been doing endlessly because that's all there is to do.
But you're right if people were to read our posts, it would be pretty clear who the obnoxious one is
According to my friends, A legion breastplate of agility with 2 gamblers gems would get you around 25% dodge chance and 55% avoidance by itself. So, I would just keep the item and maybe put a growth gem in there. More HP never hurt anybody.
You came into this thread reasonably at first, and then you spiraled down into condescending remarks and telling me I shouldn't be talking. So yes, we all know who the obnoxious one is. So why don't you take it in stride and let it go, and leave already if you dislike the changes so much. You're not going to get the last word, if that's what you're worried about.
Aren't you using Lightning Reflexes? I'm pretty sure it's always softcapped Avoidance. Adding Avoid gears or specs will have virtually no effect.
Adding the Breastplate of Elusiveness would be better; even though you'll be in diminishing returns, you'll still get a benefit out of the gear and both didge cores, if you slot that way.
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
I was reasonable until we got into mechanics. You're right I got very condescending because if someone is going to address something specific they better be on point with it. This game no longer has up to date info and the wiki was supported purely by the players yet endorsed 'officially' by Cryptic.
And I was off on the numbers, as the numbers I was quoting were clearly out of date. Feel free to call me on that.
But potentially misinforming new players who may glance these forums isn't something I take lightly, newer players often struggle enough as it is. After all, its the experienced folk who end up carrying them. I put in the time and effort to learn the system, and I've played the game on both ends of the spectrum as far as performance goes.
Answer me this, if these changes were necessary, where is the new content, where is that new zone?
If you honestly believe players will be eager to have their gear nerfed only to repeat the same content they've been doing, who needs a last word?
You have some options.
With Legion agility granting 25.3/55 it's still something - however depending on what you setup you may end up replacing those gamblers.
You could go def passive, like invul or defiance, and with invul that 25% is relatively fine, not as nice as the 54% it once was but still high enough (just barely) to make it worth using.
You could go for def stacking, particularly if you run str pri and have con statted. Vindicator and guardian/warden and there ya go.
And there's always AoPM.
Well, maybe next time you can make an effort to collaborate. Instead, you chose to retaliate and try to make anybody that disagreed with you look like a fool. You seem to want to help the newer folk, and I can respect that. That's mostly why I made this thread. I'm sure that they enjoyed seeing how quickly this devolved, though. Maybe next time try not to attack people because you don't like what they have said.
Also, Fire and Ice alert, when it is finished, will be pretty new. Unless you're a time traveler. Let's not forget that Cryptic North got into the game fairly recently, and expecting a new team to pump out a new zone in a few months is nuts. It would have been nice to have this change, new content and all that at once but at least this way we can figure out what to do with our builds before that.
I, myself, will still wait around. Sad to see people leaving over a balance change, but I've seen it happen so often I can't say it surprises me.
Then there's other people... who decide they're "leaving for good" and take it as an excuse to be as rude as they like since, hey, they're leaving soon anyway so a soured reputation won't have any consequences.
In both cases, you really learn a lot about the person and whether you care if they ever return.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
When a good chunk of the player base needs to start farming from scratch for months on end in order to regear and respec from the bottom up... why make new content?
When is this going to happen?
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I am using LR. So, switching it up to Elusiveness or Defense seems to be the opinion of everyone.
And more HP of course, as I have suggested.
I've a Way of the Warrior melee damage char - I think the dodge is around 35% now. Avoid ... 58% maybe. Evasive Maneuvers can add 16% according to the current tooltip.
But with str / wardicator, her defense is at 68% damage resistance, AND I use Energy Shield / Laser Knight.
But sure, with LR - every little bit can help if you're nearing 100% consistently.
I stuck with dodge/avoid for their Primary defense item. BUT this character had the benefit of my doing the level 40 respec after the dodge nerf hit PTS, so I planned for it.
Think about it this way, a certain arachnid based hero is the archetype for dodging in the comics world. He has a near 100% dodge rate, when he dodges, attacks don't only do partial damage... they do no damage at all because they never make contact.
With Dodge in CO it's assumed that every attack hits, those that are "dodged" still hit, they are simply partially deflected to so that hit does less damage. Which makes it analogous to a passive block and not a true dodge.
You know what would be awesome? Dodge being renamed to 'Deflect', and actual dodging worked in somehow via powers to get that chance to receive no damage.
I keep saying the same thing! And it's something I think they need to fix, at least for the Passives that are all about DODGING!
You are completely correct -- Dodge in CO is simply randomly firing damage reduction.
The reason for this design decision, I believe, is that the original devs felt that they were "fixing" one of the biggest complaints players had about City of Heroes: missing. Players thought that superheroes should never miss.
In CoH, when a target dodged the game told you that you missed. People swore that they were missing 50 or 75% of the time. Which was false, in general: there were of course bugs at times. There was a hard cap of 95% to-hit chance, so you always had a 1 in 20 chance of missing (a holdover from the D&D mentality). The devs even implemented a combat log that told you the result of every attack you made, and still people felt they were missing far more than they should be.
The problem was that players increased their to-hit chance and accuracy so much that they thought they should never miss. That made the devs add things like the streak breaker, which caused a whole host of other problems: in particular, it would force a miss if you hit too many times in a row. Now, there were players who had damage auras, which would fire very frequently. It's okay if one of those puny aura attacks misses because of the streak breaker, but that also causes the streak breaker to fire a whole lot more, which means that it's more likely to fire for one of your big attacks.
I'm guessing that the devs of CO felt they were doing themselves a favor when they avoided the whole "missing" problem. To add a real Dodge chance, you'd need to add a to-hit chance, and that opens huge buckets -- nay, dumpsters -- of worms, introducing an entirely different class of problems.
In the end, the Dodge mechanic of CoH, where a miss means you do no damage at all, is simply too good. Players always find a way to increase it, and devs were always eager to create new powers and trinkets for their fans would create new ways of getting it, only to find they have to retract it when it gets out of control. It would therefore be a mistake to add it to CO because the devs would simply have to nerf it.
Damage in CO is very consistent: it's basically one form or another of damage reduction: some of it is "ablative" armor, some of it is straight fractional damage reduction, some of it is randomly firing "avoidance." Because it's basically the same mechanic, it's probably easier to balance CO's Dodge with the rest of the game than it was CoH's Dodge.
Then all they have to do is allow Dodge/Avoid Passive users to increase their avoidance to 100% (i'd settle with 99% just so those who say they should never miss feel better about themselves).
I'm pretty sure I've found a couple ways to get Aoid to 100%. I'll have to wait until I get home to see if they actually work, especially since they're based on numbers on the forums and wiki, which may not be accurate any more.
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
Avoid didn't change too much from what I saw. It should still be very possible to get 100%, or at least very near it.
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It is not possible to get 100%+ avoidance at level 40(without abusing a certain something). The highest you'd get at level 40 would be less than 93%.
Sidekicking to Level 1, however, has the best chance at reaching 99%. I've gotten 97.8% avoidance at level 1 and I didn't even have half of what we have today(before legion gear).
To divide by zero--Alas, the server doth quoted 500.
Looks like this is correct; there are several powers that claim to give a flat bonus to Avoidance, ranging anywhere from 20% to 100%, however, these all seem to be affected by the same diminishing returns that Avoidance Rating is. That means that it's DAMN hard to push Avoidance above about 85%.
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
As I mentioned, it gets hit by the same Diminishing Returns as Avoid Rating does.
Even if you only have the base 20% Avoidance, you don't get the full 50% from Lashing Dragon Tail. The character I'm on right now has 54.6% Avoidance before LDT, and 63% after. Even with a MUCH higher Avoidance than the base amount, he still doesn't hit the 70% minimum that you would expect from LDT.
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
Ah~ Such an old image..
Powers are giving better dodge bonuses to make up for decreased bonuses given from gear. All the doomsaying about the nerf destroying builds turned out to be over-reaction in the end.
Regarding one of my LR characters who is using Heroic dodge gear, the cut I took to dodge was a mere 3-5 %, and I'm still maintaining near 70% dodge and over 80% avoidance.
My WotW toon still maintains a near 40% dodge and near 60% avoidance (without Elusive Monk kicking in) and has pretty good defense and high HP to make up for lower dodge + avoidance.
In a nutshell, to answer the question of "what do I do now?", it would be to do nothing, continue playing and being potent as I always have like nothing has happened.
One of my best friends, an engineer, found the dodge change to be (and I quote) "mathematically stupid" in that they're balancing for the top 1 per cent to the complete and utter detriment of every other player. It sounds like GentlemanCrush is treating this like DOTA 2, when it really isn't. This is going to result in people leaving in drove, again. Which means less money for Cryptic and Perfect World, again.
I think the best thing to do at this point is to fire GentlemanCrush and to reverse the ham-fisted nerfs he's made to the game. My engineer friend is right, it is mathematically dumb to balance for the top 1 per cent. This isn't a competitive game, and nothing is going to revive the PvP. What they want to do is keep around the people who actually find the PvE fun, those (like me) who come back every now and then and buy new stuff from the cash shop.
But if my engineer friend is out for good, that kills my group, since he was the heart of it. That means the three of us are out. This isn't my choice to leave, this time, it's his. I really don't blame him for it.
As long as they have the mathematically challenged GentlemanCrush handling balance, they're going to continue bleeding players. Marvel Heroes, on the other hand, tried ham-fisted nerfs and learned their lesson quickly when they saw they were losing players. It's funny, Marvel Heroes started off with a mission to buff and only buff, they tried nerfing, it resulted in a lot of lost players, and now they're back to buffing.
Go figure.
I just wish that was a lesson that Cryptic had learned, if Cryptic had learned that early on, then perhaps CO wouldn't be a ghost town right now, losing more and more players each and every day. If they'd been like Gazillion and Marvel Heroes, perhaps they'd have retained a large slice of the players they had in open beta. Every ham-fisted nerf they've done is designed to balance the upper 1 per cent, but in the process it kills everyone who isn't min-maxing. GentlemanCrush is a mathematical cretin for not realising this.
So, yeah, my engineer friend is done, so my lady friend is done, so I'm done.
Good job.
Bye, passive-agressive lifer no. 13312!
Make sure not to fall off that High Horse, kay? Don't want you to have any more butthurt
By the way, I'm not part of the super min-maxing top 1% of players you speak of and I can safely say that in no way has the changes been an "utter detriment" to me.
Also, how do you know that silver players, or even players in general, are leaving in droves due to these changes? Because the silver forums, which only represent a percentage of the total silver population, said so? :rolleyes:
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I can relate. I'm reading how dodge is destroyed, Fluidity sucks and all of this other jazz post patch...while having 70% dodge and 70% avoidance in combat...layered on top of Defiance...and knowing full well I could stack more.
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Not all, just a good chunk. Some people have been affected. Others may find alternately useful slotting/gearing. Some folks have stuff to work towards now. Others have reason to grind for alternate mods to sell. The tweak may not have been as worldbreaking as folks believed, but there has been a change, and some folks have to adjust.
Or switch to dodge, since some folks experienced a bump.