Enhancement Diversification

[Monochrome]

OK, causing outrage on 2 other forums near you. Thought we ought to have a thread on this.

What this is about: Quoted from Statesman's post

Enhancement Diversification:

This is a new system being implemented into City of Villains and City of Heroes (when City of Villains launches) to promote the use of more different types of Enhancements in powers. Using a system of diminishing returns, when slotting the same type of Enhancement into a power, you will begin to see less effect of that Enhancement when the bonus reaches a certain threshold. The effectiveness of Enhancements you are slotting in can now be seen in the Enhancement Slotting screen.

What does this mean? Simply, if you are slotting Enhancements and your bonus to a single attribute reaches 70% through Enhancements, you will begin to see a drop in the amount each Enhancement should be giving you. If you exceed 100% bonus, then the drop will be more severe. We have added to the Enhancement Slotting screen a display of how much bonus you are getting from your Enhancements. When you are adding in Enhancements that will be reduced in effectiveness you will be able to tell.

Note that this only affects Enhancements of the same bonus. So you can have a Damage bonus of 66.66%, and an Accuracy bonus of 66.66% (from 2 SO Damage and 2 SO Accuracy Enhancements) and you will not be affected in any way. Adding in another SO Damage Enhancement will not give you a 99% bonus, but a 94% bonus, because the damage bonus now exceeds 70%.

A good rule of thumb is “2 Single Origins Enhancements = No Reduction. 3 SO’s = Slight Reduction. 4 SO’s = Moderate Reduction. 5 or 6 SO’s = Major Reduction”

Somebody's done the maths and suggests that the effect is:

For class A enhancements (damage, recharge, etc)

Bonus up to 70 - unchanged
Bonus from 70 to 100 - multiply by 0.85 (85% effective)
Bonus from 100+ - multiply by 0.15 (15% effective)

Goodbye perma hasten (suggestions are 2 minutes on, 40 seconds or so off) and a whole lot of other perma powers.

My view is that this will completely shaft a whole series of powersets, while leaving the really powerful ones who can cope with a small nerf largely untouched. My ill/kin will barely notice, aside from getting mezzed occasionally as his epic psi pool mez prot will no longer be perma. SR scrappers and ice tanks will be screwed much more than they were by I5, invul tanks will be a joke against non smash/lethal and in need of pool powers to get anywhere near the cap for S/L.

My main worry is for my stone tank, who due to the recharge gimp in granite armor can't perma hasten now, so will be way off in the new world. I have 7 attacks, and run out of ready attacks in non hasten periods now. Also at present I have 6 slot stamina and conserve power, and still have end issues as even with both 3 slotted for end, granite armor and focussed accuracy eat vast quantities of it. I'd love to be able to live with the lower armors, and not use granite, but they just will not provide enough protection post nerf. Will need some serious testing.

Also, on even con SOs I reckon that in practice (slotting attacks with 3 SOs for damage instead of 5) this means a 26.4% decrease in blaster damage, not good for blaster survivability.

Steve AKA Mr Monochrome

[Naaman]

Saw it, mixed opinion myself.

Yes SR gets the shaft again but we're so used to being the red-headed stepchild of the Scrapper set that we get given a bucket of lube at the character creation screen

 -BUT-

Having never been an advocate of Perma powers I'm not going to cry if this breaks it. Could they have done it better - yes but if it goes some way to stopping the culture of "If you don't have Hasten U R teh G1mp!" attitude or the Blasters cry of "Enemies outrange me but I won't slot for range because the ideal slotting is 1 Acc 5 DAM", then I think it will help the game.

The other good thing about it is they're finally giving us the numbers for the slots, this will help a lot more people than the diminished returns hurts

[Monochrome]

Having never been an advocate of Perma powers I'm not going to cry if this breaks it. Could they have done it better - yes but if it goes some way to stopping the culture of "If you don't have Hasten U R teh G1mp!" attitude or the Blasters cry of "Enemies outrange me but I won't slot for range because the ideal slotting is 1 Acc 5 DAM", then I think it will help the game.

The other good thing about it is they're finally giving us the numbers for the slots, this will help a lot more people than the diminished returns hurts

Yeah, but my main 41 blaster is nrg/nrg, so I can hit things from the next zone anyway with boost range without slotting ranges, what am I going to slot in my blasts, more knockback ? Yeah, that'll make me popular in teams, I'd better only group with friends. I already have aim and build up well slotted for recharge so don't need a second accuracy. Now I can nova stuff, not kill it and get vaped by their response, yeah right. Will make /dev and using nuke and bomb together more popular. Considering slotting 2 end redux in all my attacks and junking the fitness pool entirely, will only hurt me recovering from nova.

The funny thing was that pre I4 you could survive without stamina and hasten, and Toxic Texan my 50 DM/regen did so very happily. That was indeed the concept of the toon along with being all toggles, no clicks, which I4, I5 and this have beaten out of him, so much so that apart from transferring influence off him I haven't played him since I5 (basically the exemped 1st shard TF with you guys is the last thing I did with him).

The other thing that vaguely appealed was to generate 'Diversity Man' as a FF/energy def, exhibit lots of diverse slotting, particularly using lots of those underused knockback enhancements and try to solo, then get myself into teams and wait for the outrage. Actually after this the tanks might welcome the relief, rather than kick me.

Steve aka TheoPWildebeest 41 energy/energy/elec blaster, Freedom

[Zombieman]

Funny thing regarding Naa's mention of blasters saying "Enemies outrange me but I won't slot for range because the ideal slotting is 1 Acc 5 DAM"

Until recently my Zombieman blaster primarys had all sorts of stuff - range, accuracy, end reds, as well as damage...... However after seeing notes of a scrapper/tanker build which often six-slotted damage I thought I'd try something similar when re-equiping with SOs (the infamous 1 acc and the rest damage combo), and in testing I mislaid my xp debt.....   

Guess this means I soon will have to be a bit more careful than I've been recently.....

[judgejoolz]

Nice move Mr Z; however make the most of it 'cos the devs are likely to nerf the arse out of the six slot brigade...which includes me btw 

In dealing with this setback young Naam, as ever, shows maturity beyond his years.  Bless 

Me?  I'm gonna dust off my DoS software and hunt down Statesman's personal computer.  Now where's my IP sniffer... 

[Monochrome]

Class moments doing the Tyrant AV mission:

Player 1: Statesman, level 54 and forgot to bring a break free.

Fight breaks out, exit Tyrant, rescue Statesman

Player 2: Now can we throw him in the lava for ED

We are close to seeing melee free teams for most missions, having done a fair bit of the Praetorian arc including Infernal with 5 controllers and 2 kheldians (and no the khelds weren't tanking) it's perfectly viable. Already I'm seeing people specifically looking for controllers and defenders, and when I join the team finding maybe a scrapper but certainly no tank there.

Mr Minotaur 50 stone/axe tank Freedom (got any blues squire ?)