DISCLAIMER: I am not a developer of this game, just a player with very extensive knowledge of game mechanics and how the game works in general, so take my words as you will. I am not infallible in my conclusions, but I am very certain I am right, with good reason to believe so. I mean no disrespect to any developers, past or present, nor to any players.
Note: splitting post into two parts because apparently, this apparent essay I've written is too long for the database to handle. Hah.
This is probably going to be my last post for a long while, if not forever hopefully, however, I just want to say something on the matter of Piercing Blades which I did not have the chance to post in the feedback thread. Amenar said a few things about Piercing Blades being marked as Piercing damage in the system when it was not doing that, thus his change to make it pure piercing. I disagree with this change, but that's irrelevant at this stage. Also before going on with the rest of this post, there is going to be an explanation of mechanics that a lot of you will probably know about - I'm not writing this as a "I know more than you and I'm going to wave it around", but as an explanation to people who don't know.
This is the post by amenar regarding Piercing Blades:
You are correct, this was changed a while ago. At that point, it probably should have been changed to not be considered piercing damage. However, in all of our damage modeling, we are expecting it to be piercing damage. I could just correct the wording, but I don't think that's the change that is needed.
However, I will say that this (the recent change to PB to make it based off pre-mitigation) is how the feat was originally working in Module 4, back when Combat HRs were the most broken class in PvP. I'm sure it's obvious to everyone as to why this was the case, and why Piercing Blades is so blatantly strong right now, especially since it's now 50% Piercing damage instead of 40%, as was the case in Module 4. There was also the case of Red Dragon Glyphs which were also un-mitigatible, but those, despite the false outcry of some people, weren't as much of an issue as Piercing Blades (I would know, since I was considered as one of the best PvP HRs in Module 4, if not the best).
Additionally, with the way that many feats and powers have worked in the past, and how several similar instances were considered as bugs, it's not difficult to deduce what is typically a bug and what is not. Obviously this doesn't apply to everything, but in a lot of cases, there's sufficient data to indicate a positive. Thus, based on previous data, Piercing Blades was WAI (before amenar changed it), but I will state that amenar's change was a design decision, so I will not refute that even if I disagree with both the principle and the decision.
This is a post by gentlemancrush, the former Lead Systems Designer, from the preview Module 5 feedback threads. This was posted back in September 2014, which yes, is almost 2 years ago. Module 4 Piercing Blades, as I said earlier, was functioning as it now has been changed to, as in based off pre-mitigation damage, rather than post-mitigation damage. This post by GMC is proof that PB was WAI.
Guys, I wanted to step in and bring in some information about Piercing Blade.
First, I did some digging and it is currently *incorrectly* looking at damage before resistance, which is why it is going through immunity and dealing such a large amount of damage. Secondly, as to abilities piercing resistance. Most of these cases are either not intentional (WoB is a good example of this, and that is getting fixed with the rogue changes), or are designed for a pretty specific reason (like Piercing Blade intentionally being Piercing so that it doesn't get resistance applied twice).
These changes should be hitting Preview soonish, but I don't have an actual timeline yet. These changes cannot be rushed out because they do pretty drastically affect the performance of the classes in question, but we are making adjustments.
Thank you all for your continued feedback! Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Subsequently, there was a patch note that fixed this issue as per his words:
Piercing Blade Feat: This feat now correctly looks at damage after resistance instead of incorrectly using damage before resistances and immunities were applied.
Specifically, the part: "Piercing Blade intentionally being Piercing so that it doesn't get resistance applied twice".
This is part of the game design, especially given the way Piercing damage typically works. Piercing damage is not affected by damage buffs, and the majority of Piercing damage in the game is based off a fixed source of damage, usually Weapon Damage. Cases of this include TR's Shadowy Opportunity (Saboteur T5 Feat), TR's Oppressive Darkness (Class Feature), HR's Longshot (Archery T3 Feat) and the Black Ice Set bonus, and I'm fairly sure there's few that I don't remember right now. There are very very few sources of Piercing damage that scale, particularly off the hit that initiated it (Longshot does not count because it's a fixed damage source regardless, even though the type of hit determines the % value of the Piercing damage). The only two sources that I can recall from memory are TR's Shadow of Demise (Executioner Capstone) and the aforementioned HR's Piercing Blades (Combat T4 Feat). The other "scaling" Piercing damage source that we all know and hate is TR's Shocking Execution, which frankly, is widely known as being OP at this stage, especially against certain classes. Shocking Execution is the only exception to the "no scaling" rule of Piercing damage (if there's more, I'm forgetting it right now).
For the purpose of this explanation, I'm going to call the former type of Piercing damage Fixed Piercing damage (Piercing based off a set value such as Weapon Damage), and the latter type Percentage Piercing damage (Piercing based off the hit that initiated it, in a sense, scaling). The exception to these is Shocking Execution, which really, is an exception to most rules in this game, both historically and currently.
Additionally, there's what I would call "pseudo-piercing damage". Not real piercing damage, but with similar intent to Percentage Piercing. An example of this would be SW's Fury capstone, Creeping Death.
As a matter of fact, Percentage Piercing (and also pseudo-piercing) is really just a flat damage boost masked as an additional "piercing damage" hit. Both TR Shadow of Demise and HR Piercing Blades (before the recent change) were just x% damage boosts, as an additional hit instead being added on as part of the original damage. A lot of people, after the aforementioned change to Piercing Blades that GMC made, kept referring to Piercing Blades with a negative connotation because of the Piercing damage type mentioned in its tooltip, which is not really true. Fixed Piercing and also SE's Piercing are "true" piercing damage, meaning it's damage where the base damage is truly un-mitigated, where the base damage has already been pre-determined by a factor other than your own active damage from encounters/at-wills/dailies, while Percentage Piercing and by proxy, pseudo-piercing are simply damage boosts, not really "true" Piercing damage as the damage has been determined from your active damage. This is a little confusing and I admit it's probably not well explained, so if anyone wants me to try and rewrite this paragraph, then I will.
As GMC wrote in his post, it's intentionally Piercing damage so resistances aren't applied twice. To make this point more clear, I'll post some brief maths. For the purpose of not convoluting this further, let's say the target has 40% DR, and we have no armor pen. Piercing Blades will also be 50%, even though Module 4-9 was 40%, for the sake of consistency.
Module 4 and Module 10 Piercing Blades (pre-mitigation based) Pre-mitigation Damage: 10,000 Post-mitigation/Initial Hit Damage (hit that instigated the Piercing Blades proc): 10,000 * (1 - 0.4) = 6,000 Piercing Blades Damage: 10,000 * 0.5 = 5,000 Total Damage: 11,000 (45% damage from Piercing Blades) In this case, Piercing Blades' damage is 83% of the initial hit, almost comprising half of your total damage (5,000 is roughly 83% of 6,000). This is considered a 83% damage boost.
Module 5-9 Piercing Blades (post-mitigation based) Pre-mitigation Damage: 10,000 Post-mitigation/Initial Hit Damage (hit that instigated the Piercing Blades proc): 10,000 * (1 - 0.4) = 6,000 Piercing Blades Damage: 6,000 * 0.5 = 3,000 Total Damage: 9,000 (33% damage from Piercing Blades) In this case, Piercing Blades' damage is 50% of the initial hit, hence a 50% damage boost.
So now that we've established the differences between the pre-mitigation and post-mitigation forms of Piercing Blades, I will also say that the differences will be equal to nought when DR is 0%. Conversely, the post-mitigation form of Piercing Blades actually will do more than the pre-mitigation form when DR is below 0% (from debuffs in PvE such as Terror and Plague Fire), while the pre-mitigation form will do more damage when DR is above 0%, typically in PvP. Thus, pre-mitigation Piercing Blades is stronger in PvP, while post-mitigation Piercing Blades is stronger in PvE. Because of the nature of buff/debuff/DR interaction in the game, this actually means that pre-mitigation Piercing Blades can be as much as a 100% or 200% damage buff in PvP, while post-mitigation Piercing Blades will always be a flat 50% damage increase no matter what. Additionally, because of buff/debuff interactions in PvE, pre-mitigation Piercing Blades is a very very heavy nerf in party situations. Given that in strong PvE parties, you can achieve damage effectiveness of 200% and upwards quite easily (effectiveness being the ACT term for how much of the pre-mitigation damage you deal as post-mitigation, with effectiveness of 100%+ being a damage increase and <100% being a damage decrease), Piercing Blades is losing a large portion of its damage, and is no longer a 50% damage buff but rather something like 25% or less.
Generally Percentage Piercing is not a problem because it always scales off your initial hit, so it's not different to being a standard damage boost. Fixed Piercing is where the majority of past issues have come from for PvP. There are several reasons for this, and a few of them have been definitely noted as bugs by the devs. There have been cases of Fixed Piercing scaling with buffs (TR's Shadowy Opportunity is an example), going through dodges (bug), and because of the nature of Piercing damage, also aren't affected by deflect, so that completely nullifies one defensive component of the game. Fixed Piercing also being based off a factor other than your active damage (the damage you consciously and actively inflict), means that it's far easier to achieve higher damage generally with less gear and less effort. The former is not a bad thing, given the gear gaps in the game right now, but the latter is a bit of an abomination as far as PvP functioning in general, but that's a different matter.
I think my best attempt at explaining Fixed Piercing and why it's typically bad for the game is that it completely ignores all defensive components in the game. Percentage Piercing doesn't do that because it's based off how much you actually actively hit for, and since your initial hit *is* affected by defensive mechanisms in the game, then your Piercing damage is affected by those, by proxy. Changing Percentage Piercing to be based off pre-mitigation is basically crossing it with Fixed Piercing - thereby bypassing all defensive mechanisms in the game, and to make it worse, scaling off personal damage buffs. I believe I've explained this somewhere, but to rehash, pre-mitigation damage is generally affected by personal buffs, although most party buffs don't affect it, and debuffs only affect post-mitigation.
Perhaps the change to Piercing Blades is needed for HR in PvP, but I don't agree with that change, however, it's not my main point. I'm simply explaining why Piercing Blades was WAI and shouldn't be changed. But again, it's not my decision.
tl;dr PB change is a massive nerf in PvE party play, minimal change in PvE solo play, massive (over)buff in PvP, and no one is going to care anyway so who really cares.
Question with mod 4 Hps were around 40 to 60 k max. With Hps being 130 to 250k now is the pierce blades that much of a big deal? And Sandstorm before you leave( which I hope you Don't) for ever I really would value your opinion on what will be best for PVP and PVE single build. I know you have figured it out
Thanks Ara
0
vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
Comments
Note: splitting post into two parts because apparently, this apparent essay I've written is too long for the database to handle. Hah.
This is probably going to be my last post for a long while, if not forever hopefully, however, I just want to say something on the matter of Piercing Blades which I did not have the chance to post in the feedback thread. Amenar said a few things about Piercing Blades being marked as Piercing damage in the system when it was not doing that, thus his change to make it pure piercing. I disagree with this change, but that's irrelevant at this stage. Also before going on with the rest of this post, there is going to be an explanation of mechanics that a lot of you will probably know about - I'm not writing this as a "I know more than you and I'm going to wave it around", but as an explanation to people who don't know.
This is the post by amenar regarding Piercing Blades: However, I will say that this (the recent change to PB to make it based off pre-mitigation) is how the feat was originally working in Module 4, back when Combat HRs were the most broken class in PvP. I'm sure it's obvious to everyone as to why this was the case, and why Piercing Blades is so blatantly strong right now, especially since it's now 50% Piercing damage instead of 40%, as was the case in Module 4. There was also the case of Red Dragon Glyphs which were also un-mitigatible, but those, despite the false outcry of some people, weren't as much of an issue as Piercing Blades (I would know, since I was considered as one of the best PvP HRs in Module 4, if not the best).
Additionally, with the way that many feats and powers have worked in the past, and how several similar instances were considered as bugs, it's not difficult to deduce what is typically a bug and what is not. Obviously this doesn't apply to everything, but in a lot of cases, there's sufficient data to indicate a positive. Thus, based on previous data, Piercing Blades was WAI (before amenar changed it), but I will state that amenar's change was a design decision, so I will not refute that even if I disagree with both the principle and the decision.
This is a post by gentlemancrush, the former Lead Systems Designer, from the preview Module 5 feedback threads. This was posted back in September 2014, which yes, is almost 2 years ago. Module 4 Piercing Blades, as I said earlier, was functioning as it now has been changed to, as in based off pre-mitigation damage, rather than post-mitigation damage. This post by GMC is proof that PB was WAI. Subsequently, there was a patch note that fixed this issue as per his words: Specifically, the part: "Piercing Blade intentionally being Piercing so that it doesn't get resistance applied twice".
This is part of the game design, especially given the way Piercing damage typically works. Piercing damage is not affected by damage buffs, and the majority of Piercing damage in the game is based off a fixed source of damage, usually Weapon Damage. Cases of this include TR's Shadowy Opportunity (Saboteur T5 Feat), TR's Oppressive Darkness (Class Feature), HR's Longshot (Archery T3 Feat) and the Black Ice Set bonus, and I'm fairly sure there's few that I don't remember right now. There are very very few sources of Piercing damage that scale, particularly off the hit that initiated it (Longshot does not count because it's a fixed damage source regardless, even though the type of hit determines the % value of the Piercing damage). The only two sources that I can recall from memory are TR's Shadow of Demise (Executioner Capstone) and the aforementioned HR's Piercing Blades (Combat T4 Feat). The other "scaling" Piercing damage source that we all know and hate is TR's Shocking Execution, which frankly, is widely known as being OP at this stage, especially against certain classes. Shocking Execution is the only exception to the "no scaling" rule of Piercing damage (if there's more, I'm forgetting it right now).
For the purpose of this explanation, I'm going to call the former type of Piercing damage Fixed Piercing damage (Piercing based off a set value such as Weapon Damage), and the latter type Percentage Piercing damage (Piercing based off the hit that initiated it, in a sense, scaling). The exception to these is Shocking Execution, which really, is an exception to most rules in this game, both historically and currently.
Additionally, there's what I would call "pseudo-piercing damage". Not real piercing damage, but with similar intent to Percentage Piercing. An example of this would be SW's Fury capstone, Creeping Death.
As a matter of fact, Percentage Piercing (and also pseudo-piercing) is really just a flat damage boost masked as an additional "piercing damage" hit. Both TR Shadow of Demise and HR Piercing Blades (before the recent change) were just x% damage boosts, as an additional hit instead being added on as part of the original damage. A lot of people, after the aforementioned change to Piercing Blades that GMC made, kept referring to Piercing Blades with a negative connotation because of the Piercing damage type mentioned in its tooltip, which is not really true. Fixed Piercing and also SE's Piercing are "true" piercing damage, meaning it's damage where the base damage is truly un-mitigated, where the base damage has already been pre-determined by a factor other than your own active damage from encounters/at-wills/dailies, while Percentage Piercing and by proxy, pseudo-piercing are simply damage boosts, not really "true" Piercing damage as the damage has been determined from your active damage. This is a little confusing and I admit it's probably not well explained, so if anyone wants me to try and rewrite this paragraph, then I will.
Module 4 and Module 10 Piercing Blades (pre-mitigation based)
Pre-mitigation Damage: 10,000
Post-mitigation/Initial Hit Damage (hit that instigated the Piercing Blades proc): 10,000 * (1 - 0.4) = 6,000
Piercing Blades Damage: 10,000 * 0.5 = 5,000
Total Damage: 11,000 (45% damage from Piercing Blades)
In this case, Piercing Blades' damage is 83% of the initial hit, almost comprising half of your total damage (5,000 is roughly 83% of 6,000). This is considered a 83% damage boost.
Module 5-9 Piercing Blades (post-mitigation based)
Pre-mitigation Damage: 10,000
Post-mitigation/Initial Hit Damage (hit that instigated the Piercing Blades proc): 10,000 * (1 - 0.4) = 6,000
Piercing Blades Damage: 6,000 * 0.5 = 3,000
Total Damage: 9,000 (33% damage from Piercing Blades)
In this case, Piercing Blades' damage is 50% of the initial hit, hence a 50% damage boost.
So now that we've established the differences between the pre-mitigation and post-mitigation forms of Piercing Blades, I will also say that the differences will be equal to nought when DR is 0%. Conversely, the post-mitigation form of Piercing Blades actually will do more than the pre-mitigation form when DR is below 0% (from debuffs in PvE such as Terror and Plague Fire), while the pre-mitigation form will do more damage when DR is above 0%, typically in PvP. Thus, pre-mitigation Piercing Blades is stronger in PvP, while post-mitigation Piercing Blades is stronger in PvE. Because of the nature of buff/debuff/DR interaction in the game, this actually means that pre-mitigation Piercing Blades can be as much as a 100% or 200% damage buff in PvP, while post-mitigation Piercing Blades will always be a flat 50% damage increase no matter what. Additionally, because of buff/debuff interactions in PvE, pre-mitigation Piercing Blades is a very very heavy nerf in party situations. Given that in strong PvE parties, you can achieve damage effectiveness of 200% and upwards quite easily (effectiveness being the ACT term for how much of the pre-mitigation damage you deal as post-mitigation, with effectiveness of 100%+ being a damage increase and <100% being a damage decrease), Piercing Blades is losing a large portion of its damage, and is no longer a 50% damage buff but rather something like 25% or less.
Generally Percentage Piercing is not a problem because it always scales off your initial hit, so it's not different to being a standard damage boost. Fixed Piercing is where the majority of past issues have come from for PvP. There are several reasons for this, and a few of them have been definitely noted as bugs by the devs. There have been cases of Fixed Piercing scaling with buffs (TR's Shadowy Opportunity is an example), going through dodges (bug), and because of the nature of Piercing damage, also aren't affected by deflect, so that completely nullifies one defensive component of the game. Fixed Piercing also being based off a factor other than your active damage (the damage you consciously and actively inflict), means that it's far easier to achieve higher damage generally with less gear and less effort. The former is not a bad thing, given the gear gaps in the game right now, but the latter is a bit of an abomination as far as PvP functioning in general, but that's a different matter.
I think my best attempt at explaining Fixed Piercing and why it's typically bad for the game is that it completely ignores all defensive components in the game. Percentage Piercing doesn't do that because it's based off how much you actually actively hit for, and since your initial hit *is* affected by defensive mechanisms in the game, then your Piercing damage is affected by those, by proxy. Changing Percentage Piercing to be based off pre-mitigation is basically crossing it with Fixed Piercing - thereby bypassing all defensive mechanisms in the game, and to make it worse, scaling off personal damage buffs. I believe I've explained this somewhere, but to rehash, pre-mitigation damage is generally affected by personal buffs, although most party buffs don't affect it, and debuffs only affect post-mitigation.
Perhaps the change to Piercing Blades is needed for HR in PvP, but I don't agree with that change, however, it's not my main point. I'm simply explaining why Piercing Blades was WAI and shouldn't be changed. But again, it's not my decision.
tl;dr PB change is a massive nerf in PvE party play, minimal change in PvE solo play, massive (over)buff in PvP, and no one is going to care anyway so who really cares.
Thanks
Ara
aimed shot is not reducing ongoing encounters cooldown.