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embassy console modified again!!
sennahcherib
Member Posts: 2,823 Arc User
-Resolved an issue that was causing Fire-at-Will to check its chance to activate Kemocite-Laced Weaponry and Plasma Explosion (from Embassy Consoles) twice per activation pulse (5 extra times @ all Ranks)
This change will normalize the proc rates will using Fire-at-Will and bring them into better balance with Cannon Scatter Volley, Cannon Rapid Fire, and other special energy firing modes.
-Plasma Explosions (from Embassy Consoles) now check their chance to activate on every shot of a firing cycle, instead of only the first shot.
Due to the increase in opportunity to trigger, their base damage has been reduced by 18%.
This change will allow all firing modes to benefit equally from these effects
someone could tell me, if this is a good thing or not? I have difficulties to understand. I use these consoles for flow caps, the plasma explosion is just a bonus, but after all the modifications done for these consoles, I'm totally lost.
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Based on the patch notes, it's a mixed bag but I think mostly positive. It sounds like they were activating too often during Fire At Will, much more than intended. Under FAW, Beam weapons fire 5 times in 4 seconds at 2 targets (normally 4 times in 4 seconds at 1 target, 1 second cooldown in both cases), and likely because of this each shot was giving 2 chances at an activation and probably applied to both targets. They will now only activate once per shot (possibly per target?) instead of twice. The end result seems to be about half as many activation chances during FAW and with 18% less damage per activation, though it will still have 1 extra activation chance over normal Beam fire after the second change.
In all other firing modes, the number of activation chances will depend on the number of shots per weapon cycle. They originally activated only on the first shot of a salvo, so without special attacks Cannon type weapons activated much more frequently than Beams. I believe this helps Beams more than Cannons in terms of normalizing the activations, but for the most part we should see an increase in activation chances. If I have firing rate and shot counts correct, all Beams go from 1 chance every 5 seconds to 4, DCs, Single Cannons, and Turrets go from 1 chance every 3 seconds to 2, and DHCs remain unchanged at 1 chance every 3 seconds. The end result is likely an overall increase in damage when not using special attacks (DHCs get reduced but most DHC users also use turrets so I think they still come out ahead).
I expect heavy FAW users will see a fair decrease over their normally expected values due to the first part, partially made up for when not under FAW. Cannon Rapid Fire will further increase activation chances for Cannons as the ability increases the number of shots fired, while Scatter Volley will use base weapon activation chances but increases the number of potential targets. Surgical Strikes reduces firing rate by making the firing sequence longer if I understand the ability correctly, so activations per second would be reduced but still higher than they were pre-patch when affected by Surgical Strikes. Beams may even proc more frequently when under Surgical Strikes post-patch than they did pre-patch without Surgical Strikes.
This is all assuming I correctly understand the patch notes and firing rates of energy weapons. I'm not absolutely certain about the Cannon firing rates but pretty sure about Beams.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Due to the increase in opportunity to trigger, their base damage has been reduced by 18%.
I mean why do we get an enhanced chance to trigger now in the first place? Because previously it was determined with the opening shot of a cycle and probably for the entire cycle then and now it’s determined by an each individual shot?
And even if that would be the case how did the number 18% reduction in base dmg fall from the sky which is made up in the argumentation like it’s needed to justify the change. Why not 10% or 25%?
Any explanation would be welcome here as well because the way it reads they just issued a nerf under the pretence of making adjustments to functionality.
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Due to the way BFAW works, each time you see a shot, it's a seperate activation, and thus a seperate trigger. But if you fire a beam normally, it has one activation and several shots in it. So BFAW got you a lot of extra triggers.
The net effect will likely be that BFAW will get less damage out of the embassy consoles than before (18 % less damage per proc), while other weapon uses will get more out of it (2-4 times more activation at 72 % the original damage).
Again assuming I understand the mechanics properly, only the first shot of a salvo would benefit from the explosion if the activation occurred. This is also how standard weapon procs work, if the proc occurs the first shot causes the effect, the other shots are simply standard shots regardless. With the latest changes, each shot can now activate the Plasma Explosion effect, so each shot can now have the increased damage. I couldn't tell you exactly how they reached 18% reduction but it probably has something to do with the firing rates (see my first post for the breakdown, hopefully I got it right).
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Thanks for reply in any case.
Think in week or two the outcome of the adjustments should at least be displayed in the combat logs.
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This means, that it's now on an equal level and we could get crits back. If we are not getting them back, it would be interesting to know, when we'll get them back, because they are really usefull for science ships.
Bringing a buffing ability 'closer to weapons that are fired without it' is, in the rest of the world, just known as a nerf.
Quiet that.
Even if we leave out the FAW debate the only thing I see for my cannon build here is a reduction of 18% base damage of plasma explosions. Or will I profit from this change of functionality with cannons?
Would not surprise me if I prase lower with them as well.
Those consoles are like 3 years old. Perhaps this time they settle on something a player can rely on permanently. It’s not as if those consoles wouldn’t have been adjusted a few times already the past 14 months.
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The important thing for me is to explain the specifics here.
You can call it a nerf to BFAW, but it's only a nerf to BFAW if you use those embassy consoles. If you use BFAw without the consoles, it won't affect you. if you use the consoles with BFAW, it could still end up being a buff, if you can't slot two BFAW and/or reduce its cooldown on your ship.
And as usual, I point out that nerfs don't scare me and I applaud them if they serve balance.
How many shots are in a cannon cycle? If it's more than one, it will be a buff, because you at least double your chance of activations, and you only lose 18 % damage per activation. Maybe it will be the time for Turrets, Cannons and Dual Cannons rather than Dual Heavy Cannons. And then there is a possibly for interaction with Cannon Rapid Fire and Cannon Scatter Volley. Or anything buffing weapon haste.
Sorry there but I still remain puzzled a bit or likely have an error in thinking.
The way the plasma explosions were described they so far only checked with the 1st shot of a cycle if they would trigger or not. If they did they would do so for the entire cycle right?
Now each shot of a cycle will check individually if it adds the explosion or not, but the check won’t be made for the rest of the cycle but only for the shot that is currently fired?
Or do the explosions generally only trigger only once for a cycle anyway?
pls. clarify.
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indeed. my main concern is also my cannon builds (dhc, dc, and single cannons)
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
That's not what Mustrum means.
He's saying "weapons that are fired without it [beam fire at will]" are being fired by some other weapon enhancement that is NOT beam fire at will.
Not other weapons fired with no buff/power.
We're equalizing Powers, not taking bfaw down to match non buffed weapons fire.
Such a tragedy the world has to face that FaW has to suffer the indignity of being more in line with other weapon abilities...
So, you're saying... it *is* a nerf then?! :P
At this point I'll just wait for the server to come online again, and assess the carnage from there.
A bit of a disclaimer: I'm a FAW newbie since I've only used this skill recently on one of my toons after I got her leveled to 60 from the recent XP event.
The way I understand this is that this was the original intention of the Plasma Generating Consoles (procs once per cycle). However. the way BFAW was coded, each shot fired was considered a new cycle so each shot had a chance to proc embassy consoles. Instead of fixing that, they decided to just make the Embassy Consoles proc for each shot on all energy weapons instead of per cycle. That in some ways would have resulted to a buff (since it would mean more chances of activations outside of FAW) so they nerfed it by 18%.
Now what I think would be a bigger impact is how FAW (and TS) used to check for procs twice per shot (hence the double proc'ing of abilities such as Kemocite on both FAW and TS). That is also being fixed on this patch. So effectively your chances of proc'ing these consoles under FAW is halved unless I am mistaken. With that in mind, I do not see why the 18% damage reduction was needed. Maybe the additional "normal" beam shots are enough to mitigate that.
As for cannons/turrets, these have a faster rate of fire than beams. If the proc is now per shot instead of per cycle for these, then I see them gaining quite a bit from Embassy Console procs so this is a buff for them, even with the -18% damage.
Again I am a newbie when it comes to energy weapons so if I got this wrong, please feel free to correct me.
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So in summary:-
Before 1 activation chance per cycle giving 2 proc's (a total of 8 procs) if activated applied to the entire cycle.
Now 1 proc activation chance per each shot in the cycle giving a maximum of 4 procs.
So unless you had ridiculous luck this adds up to more dps if you can boost your weapon fire rate.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
The proc of abilities that are basically "icing on the cake" of vanilla BFAW were adjusted so that they don't activate more than they should -- because they were activating more often than was intended --
They cleaned up the code interactions of the various abilities so that you weren't getting extra activations of those abilities that you should not have been getting, at all.
Then they explained the effect it would have relative to other abilities (which you have an issue with, without seemingly understanding the reasons behind it).
How is that a nerf?
I guess either my initial post is being ignored or it's overly complicated, so here's the simple form as I understand it. The interaction with FAW and Plasma Explosions is being "nerfed" (technically incorrect because it was not functioning as intended). In just about every other instance this is very likely a buff, including to the base Beam weapons themselves. DHCs are arguably getting nerfed a bit but we can consider this is a counter to the fact that DHCs tend to be viewed as superior to DCs most of the time, so now there's another balancing factor.
Let's see if I can do some quick numbers analysis. If I did this wrong please feel free to correct me. Let's say the pre-patch Plasma Explosion is 1000 damage with a 2.5% chance.
Pre-patch:
Beam Weapons would get a single chance once every 5 seconds, so an average of 25 damage every 5 seconds or 5 DPS.
FAW was incorrectly getting 10 chances every 5 seconds, an average of 250 damage every 5 seconds or 50 DPS, doubled if every shot is able to hit 2 targets.
All Cannons would get a single chance once every 3 seconds regardless of firing state, an average of 25 damage every 3 seconds or 8.3 DPS.
Note the massive disparity between FAW and everything else.
Post-patch: (damage is now 820)
Beam weapons now get 4 chances every 5 seconds, an average of 82 damage every 5 seconds or 16.4 DPS.
FAW now gets 5 chances every 5 seconds, an average of 102.5 damage every 5 seconds or 20.5 DPS, doubled if every shot is able to hit 2 targets.
Cannons, Dual Cannons, and Turrets now get 2 chances every 3 seconds, an average of 41 damage every 3 seconds or 13.67 DPS.
DHCs remain at 1 chance every 3 seconds, an average of 20.5 damage every 3 seconds or 6.83 DPS.
Assuming Cannon Rapid Fire adds 1 extra shot in the 3 second firing cycle of cannons regardless of type, CRF will add an additional 6.83 DPS from Plasma Explosions. Not so sure this is how CRF works.
Beams and Cannons have been brought more inline with each other and have been generally buffed. FAW has been reduced but is still an improvement over base Beam weapon fire, CRF now adds additional Plasma Explosion DPS similarly to how FAW does. Assuming you use the "standard" arrangement of 4 DHCs and 3 Turrets, your Explosion DPS goes from 58.1 to 68.3 without factoring in CRF.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Thanks for the explanation.
Like jb said it's a mixed bag...nerf to FaW yes...but kinda a buff to everything else.
I wonder if this change will give a little umph to DC's over DHC's...
Well, OK, what did you replace yours with? I'm always up to learn more.
(the following is pure speculation, and is not based upon any non-anecdotal evidence or inside knowledge)
Cryptic doesn't know what's going on. The guy who coded the embassy consoles doesn't work there anymore, the source code is spaghetti, and they're just flailing around changing values at random to see what happens. But the codemonkeys can't admit this to management, so they just snort a few more lines and then write some smooth-sounding explanation like that quoted from patch notes by the OP
Last I'd calculated, FAW was procing these consoles per shot and per-cycle, and everywhere else they were procing per-cycle.
For beams, one cycle of FAW is, best case, 10 shots, while one cycle outside of FAW is 4 shots. Previously, as far as I could tell from logs, 10 shots of FAW rolled 11 chances to proc (one for the start of the cycle and one per shot), and then your other cycle rolled 1 chance (at the start of the cycle). Since you can have at most 50% FAW uptime, I'll just lump the two together and say that your 14 shots gave you 12 chances to proc. We're going up to 14 chances to proc. 14/12=1.1666... Divided by 1.18=.988. That's basically a net even. I honestly do not give a TRIBBLE about a 1.2% dps loss on a proc for my ideal case when it fixes the consoles everywhere else, especially with the rest of the stuff in this patch.
If you run a Surgical Strikes build, you've got two cycles of SS and one normal cycle. Previously, that'd have only gotten you 3 chances at proc'ing. Now, that gets you 8, but at 18% less damage. So your embassy console dps on a SS build just went up ~3.14x
A CRF build, assuming you run DC's like I've been saying for months now, has 2/3 uptime on CRF, and fires a total of 16 sh
ots per DC/turret across two cycles of CRF and a normal cycle. The embassy console dps on such a build went up ~4.5x.
A CSV build, best case, can fire 28 shots in 2 cycles of CSV and a normal cycle. The embassy console dps on such a build went up ~7.9x.
TL;DR
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
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