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Plasma doping
lumpkin1
Member Posts: 70 Arc User
Using +beam or +cannon to buff epic embassy consoles to buff plasma burn to crazy levels. Is this working as intended? If so, I might as well hop on board.
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I ran an ISA the other day, and one player felt the need to PM me to say my DPS was fake and it's going to be nerfed. I just replied that my build will run the consoles regardless thank you.
What was hilarious about the exchange was that he was a Tac Rom in a Scimitar. Easily the most OP noob ship out there. I really think people feel threatened when a science ship can come close to as much damage. Makes their e-peen shrivel at the sight of those numbers...
Now seriously, the +beam-influence is neglicible compared to upgrading it (though yes, I cant seem to think of a reason why that would be intended). It doesnt really make sense that MK XIV UR does 50% less burn then MK XIV Epic, does it? It easily outdamages the normal Plasma-proc of weapons.
Sure, going from Mk XIV UR to Mk XIV Epic is a huge boost to damage; but then so is upgrading any weapon to Mk XIV Epic. And sure, the tooltip on the plasma burn only tics up a bit per added Spire console. But then the same thing happens when you look at weapon tooltips.
I'm in total agreement that at face value, going to Mk XIV Epic is a huge leap. I also agree that adding the consoles boost the tooltip damage very little.
But there are more factors that allow people to boost the plasma burn. I generate 5 or 6k on an average ISA, most people who dope generate at least 15k. Having spire consoles with critical chance modifiers helps. Boosting base damage to be buffed by APA, APB, EPtW, etc helps too.
So yeah, they can nerf plasma burn. But then wouldn't the huge jump of Mk XIV weapons be prime for a nerf as well? And shouldn't they nerf buffs and debuffs like attack patterns too?
AHOD had been a huge performance boost and seems absolutely broken when used in combination with Reciprocity. But it's super fun. And plasma burn helps burn down HP bag NPCs in advanced and elite content, which helps make the content feel less unfun.
I don't know why there needs to a nerf in the first place. Who is this hurting?
XII->XIV on weapons=~50% extra damage
XII->XIV on consoles=130% extra damage
XIV UR to Epic on weapons=~2% extra damage
XIV UR to Epic on consoles=~45% extra damage
That's not consistent there at all.
On the other hand, on consoles, the mark/rarity appears to determine the base value used in calculations, unlike weapons.
If I have a beam array, at mk 0 it's dealing 100 damage. If I have 2 25% tac consoles, it does 100 * (1+.5)=150 damage.
At MK XII, it's dealing 222.4 damage. But, if I have 2 25% tac consoles, it does 100 * (1+1.224+.4)=272.4 damage, because the base damage of the weapon didn't change.
In both cases, the tac consoles only add 50 damage, because the base is fixed at 100.
If I take that console, at MK XII it's doing 34.2 damage. If I have 2 25% tac consoles, it does 34.2 * (1+.5)=51.3 damage.
But, at MK XII, it's doing 47.2 damage. If I have 2 25% tac consoles, it does 47.2 * (1.5)=70.8 damage
In the first case, it adds 17.1 damage. In the second, it adds 23.6 damage, because the base is different at each mark/rarity.
Plasma consoles, by having this 'moving base', appear to have been coded with these values, instead of weapons, which calculate a bonus amount based on mark, modifiers, rarity, and weapon type. This means so far as we can tell, the scaling of plasma consoles with mark/rarity must be intentional. I doubt they expected these results. But this means that someone literally looked at these numbers, and hard-coded them in the plasma burn, and thought they were okay, so far as the console's scaling with mark/rarity goes.
However, +Beam does not appear to be intentional, and here's why:
Short version of what follows is how inconsistent it is:
Plasma dot on a normal plasma weapon scales with either +Pla consoles or +Beam consoles. Nothing to see here.
Plasma dots on any weapon scale with the number of [Pla] consoles (the sci ones) you have and the Romulan Singularity Harness 2-set.
Plasma dot on the KCB does not scale with +beam, but does scale with +Pla consoles.
Plasma dot on a random phaser beam scales with both +beam and +Pla consoles.
Plasma dots on any weapon scale with DMG mods, but not weapon mark or rarity.
Plasma dots do not scale with energy or projectile weapon skill points.
Plasma dots do scale with weapon power.
Plasma dots scale with any cat 2 modifiers (decloak, apa, etc)
Edit:
Plasma dots also scale with the plasma damage accolade (2% extra damage) and the 10% all damage mastery on some ships. Both of which I'm sure actually are intended, just throwing this in for anyone running calculations.
---
So, what it looks to me as if is going on is that it's buffed by basically anything that multiplies the base damage (commonly called strength boosts)
Beyond that, it checks for anything affecting the weapon it's affixed to that can also buff plasma (this could be how it catches all the cat 2/weapons power/etc stuff), and then checks to see if there's anything that it missed that buffs plasma directly. +Beam appears to be an 'issue' with the first part.
TL;DR, so far as scaling goes, the MK /Rarity upgrades appear to be WAI, the +Beam does not.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
But how does plasma doping actually hurt those people - plasma users or torp users? And balance? Who cares? The devs certainly don't, it's not even a consideration for them.
You frequently say this game is a single player theme park with MMO window dressing. If that's true, who cares that one player does 1k and another does 100k. If both are having fun, who cares what's going on?
I think there's plenty of room for the Smirk builds and the Wizard builds.
This is what I was trying to get at, the multiplying effects are the issue. Thanks for putting up some numbers and a thorough post about it.
Unfortunately one has to cynically wonder if they're deliberately leaving it in because its profitable and serves as an advertisement for the upgrade system. "Buy this stuff to double your damage output!" may not be exactly accurate, but lying is what marketing people do, and how many player are spending lots of dil to buy in? Furthermore it adds some peer pressure on to those people who are still sticking to their Mk12s. And its pretty clear that just in general the decision-makers are more interested in monetization than balance. Generally, I think we're more likely to see it addressed once the market is saturated and everyone has bought their gold14s, then we'll get a 'fix' to nudge everyone towards something else instead.
My bad, read as you were comparing just the UR14 to G14 upgrades there.
You take somebody that does their Plasma build, whether Rom Plas, Corrosive Plas, stock Plas...they upgrade their weapons, they upgrade their Plasma Advanced Tac consoles, they work in the 2pc or even 3pc Harness, and they even have room to slap on some [Pla] consoles...
...and they won't be anywhere the DoT of somebody using a non-Plasma weapons with standard Generic Beam consoles and a couple of [Pla] consoles.
It's giving those folks the finger...that some tertiary console can provide a better Plasma DoT than their dedicated Plasma DoT weapon can.
As for who cares about balance? Me...I'm delusional, fighting that good fight to get things tweaked up and down so we might have a bit more balance around here so folks don't feel compelled to fly something other than they want and there's not as big a gap between them and others because of the sheer amount of broken TRIBBLE those others are using.
Heh, I say it as a complaint wishing that it weren't the case. :P
And to be somewhat brutally honest here, I've lost a bit of respect for some folks and their numbers as they've plodded along. I think it was right as DR launched that I first asked how often the tables were going to be reset because of the sheer amount of broken TRIBBLE that was introduced with DR and how long it would likely take to get it all sorted out. I haven't lost respect for all those folks, though, cause many of them are straight up about it - they know the TRIBBLE is broken and that it might get changed at some point...they're just having a blast with what's in the game at the moment. That's an honest thought process that's hard to find fault with...
Thing is, even if everything were fixed and balanced...there would still be the Wizard builds and the non-Wizard builds. Fixing things won't change that.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...those DPS guys could outDPS me if they were in a refurbished EV suit and carrying a plastic spork missing two prongs. They don't need all the broken TRIBBLE to be where they are compared to other folks...cause the broken TRIBBLE is there for anybody to get...those guys are where they are because of what they can do, not what they do it with.
Now for the sad truth on that. 47 accounts have been parsed and uploaded, post-dr, as doing less than 1k dps. In NTTE, a ground queue, 15 people have broken 1k dps. Of those 15, only 2 have records below 50k dps in ISA, and those two are at 30 and 40k.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Yeah, I didn't word that well.
I think a good balance measure would be to change the plasma boost on those consoles from base damage to bonus damage, modify the number of course.
I agree, I'd love balance. To me, NPCs should have gotten AI and a full set of boff powers instead of becoming bigger HP bags. This would have made my science captain main relevant with subnuc. But instead we have dumb NPCs with hundreds of thousands of HP, and they are selling power.
Not sure how they'd make money off of balance.
I'd put myself into the "having fun with what's available camp". My favorite ship in the game is the Dauntless right now, I don't use spire consoles, I fly around at top speed spamming sci abilities. If they nerf the plasma consoles, my DPS will drop, but as I said I'd keep running the consoles.
DPS is what it is, some see it as a source of pride. I just see it as a necessity for the content put out by the Devs. But yeah, e-peen comparing isn't in the best of taste IMO.
True, and they'd be on to the next broken thing. I think it says more about the Devs than the players that we have broken toys to play with.
This would not make any effective difference, since the Plasma burn from [Pla] consoles is buffed by the +plasma damage on even their own consoles. So, if I have 3 MK XIV Epic consoles, they innately benefit from +33.6% plasma damage, since they get the buff from all 3 of them having the +11.2 % plasma damage that's the second part of the console.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
I'm still trying to figure out why they didn't buff the Generics when they introduced the Fleet Generics.
VR12 Specific +30%
VR12 Generic +20% (-10%)
UR12 Specific +31.9%
UR12 Generic +27.9% (-4%)
Specifics got a +1.9% boost vs. the +7.9% boost that Generics got...going Fleet.
Specifics just got a rarity buff. A normal tac console at MK XII UR is 31.9%.
As to why the buff to generics, they wanted more rainbow boats in the game?
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
I think make them less noob-trapy in combination with their general upgrade your gear to mk14 cuz its so much stronger campaign.
I plasma doped my sci space toon but dont think I do it to the rest of the gang cuz of a freard nerf inbound.
The char has 3 +beam MKXIV spire locaters (ur) and 2 embassy signature nullifier (epic) which were rather easy to rarity upgrade at MKX. According to ISA phraser a friend of mine run the build was at 25k DPS while it used to be around 16k before the change.
Im new to topic and if Im eager to risk(?) more recourses to get more out of plasma doping what should I do? Force rarity upgrade on the + beam locaters or install more embassy consoles?
Also would plasma doping have any noteworthy influence on builds if one uses specific tac consoles? Im also hesitant to put in plasma embassy consoles at the cost of universals like Bioneural Infusion Circuits or Tachiocinetic Converters. Just asking because build experiments turn out to be expensive after DR.
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I don't build for Plasma Doping, so I'm using energy-specific tac consoles.
With two of the embassy consoles, Plasma burn accounts for ~5k out of the ~50k my Scimitar usually does.
this leads to a very generalized, uninspired build that everyone must run to be competitive. might as well throw 99% of the interesting items and ships in game away. i believe most just pull the build off a website and slightly modify it to the needs of their own economy. anyway, its not as intended, so its a known exploit. as far as i know thats not ok.
Gonna be honest VD, I read 'Generics' as 'Geriatrics'.
The guy who bought the scimitar and the guy who upgraded 4 or 5 consoles to gold spend money, they both should have something to cut through the endless bags of hit points in pve.
The guy who said these consoles make all others worthless knows only pew pew ships and pew pew builds. Its pretty self evident that embassy console build on a bug is a poor choice.
If you think these are OP in PVP, get in line.
So roughly 10% percent then and maybe circumstantial depending how long a run takes depending on the group you run in.
Thank you very much for this info.
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Now it's probably only one : give guys time to focus and work on their teens and upgrade them step by step
Plasmaburn is highly luckbased. You can have 30k plasmaburn in a 80k run. Or just 3k in a 80k run.
Actually you can do that with pre-DR-Equipment.
I can imagine.
Just courious how much of an influence the +beam consoles are there.
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Even Argala is almost more rewarding.
But, ok, I am going off topic here
As seem to be the rewards of a lot of space maps compared to some ground I my opinion. Havent found a space one that can compete with NTTE or DRH.
To get back on topic. Are any infos on tribble available how much plasma doping has been nerfed?
I only made one such build out of curiosity and havent invested that much but its still somewhat disturbing how much the developer interacts with game rules as of late.
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