damage-bonuses
Latest
Behind the Mask: You wouldn't like me when I'm angry
There are quite a few controversial powers in Champions Online, such as Inertial Dampening Field or Dragon's Wrath, but there are no more controversial mechanics in CO than the Enrage and Focus mechanics. Both of these buffs provide tremendous bonuses to offense for very little opportunity cost. Focus provides a damage bonus to melee attacks which scales with DEX, while Enrage provides a damage bonus to all attacks which scales with STR. Focus is often scrutinized more heavily than Enrage, simply because DEX is a better stat than STR. However, because Enrage can be applied to ranged attacks, it has more potential for abuse. Focus is limited to melee attacks -- although some builds use ranged attacks to build Focus with Form of the Tempest, these builds inevitably close distance and strike with Dragon's Wrath, Dragon's Claws, or Ego Blade Breach. This week, we're going to look at Enrage -- ways to build and maintain it, and ideal ways to use it.
The itemization bug bites Tabula Rasa
As you should already well know, Destination Games is hard at work on patching up some common complaints in their new sci-fi epic Tabula Rasa. Though the most significant part of the patch for most players was Rage getting whacked with the nerf bat and the promise of a free respec, that wasn't all that Paul Sage and crew had in mind. An easily overlooked part of the patch notes says, and here I quote, "We have also fixed another problem where item rarity was not affecting damage bonuses on the items. Now green weapons will do more damage than their white counterparts of the same level. Blues will do more than greens." Itemization is getting tweaked, and it's going to have huge ramifications.As things of this nature usually do, the change has spawned a heated discussion within the TR community, with some feeling that the difference in itemization (which, if you'll note, is called a "fix" not a "change") is going to have profound implications for the way players approach equipment and the game in general. As the game exists now, damage is entirely independent of item quality, and the only advantages conferred by rare items (which follows the popular rarity scheme of white < green < blue < purple) are that they have their mod slots filled. In most cases an item bought at a vendor is basically equal to a purple of the same level that you can get either as a rare drop or as a quest reward. Why is that a problem?
