Volt's Discharge and Duration Mods

[Dauragin]

Volt's Discharge isn't really affected that much when there's a huge crowd and it makes duration mods useless.

 

 

[MudShadow]

You broke the health threshold of Discharge. Increase power strength and then you can keep them stunned for longer + deal more damage.

 

Tesla Coil-ed enemies will remain undamaged by Discharge for the first 4 seconds, then begin to damage themselves for 150 / 175 / 200 / 225  Electricity damage per tick for the remaining Effect Duration or until the 1000 / 2000 / 3000 / 4000 damage cap is met. 

If you look at the Discharge ability it will have a "health" stat. That is the abilities damage cap. You have 40% power strength in that video, which is only about 1500 damage cap. 

Edited May 27, 2017 by MudShadow

[(PSN)theelix]

30 seconds in and I'm already confused. 

You have 40% power strength, do you not know how Discharge works? It's based on how much damage you do; it's not that duration mods aren't useful, it's that you're building it for CC incorrectly. 

 

[Mudfam]

52 minutes ago, (PS4)theelix said:

30 seconds in and I'm already confused. 

You have 40% power strength, do you not know how Discharge works? It's based on how much damage you do; it's not that duration mods aren't useful, it's that you're building it for CC incorrectly.

There is no way to build this ability for CC. It's just plain broken.

The damage cap is what determines when enemies break free. Duration does nothing.

The damage and the damage cap both scale with power strength. Power strength does nothing.

Enemies shock eachother, which is presented as a good thing, but it's just bad. The damage is capped and fixed anyway, the CC duration decreases.

Due to the broken armour scaling in this game, high level armoured enemies who haven't had their armour stripped (this basically only happens in bad PUGs) can actually be CCd briefly... Yay?

In its current state this ability is worthless garbage. The damage cap completely breaks all its mechanics.

[Mudfam]

Actually the video above is hard evidence of an issue I've mentioned before. The stun doesn't even last 4 seconds! lol

And this is even against level 115 corrupted butchers, they have a fair amount of armour, and there's only 8 of them shocking eachother (to such a greatly beneficial effect!).

I never touch this ability, it's literally a suicide button. You think, oh damn, I'm getting swarmed, better use some CC. With enough enemies, they will actually break free and kill you before you're out of the long rooting casting animation. This is self CC.

[Inmemoratus]

Everything is terrible when you don't strip armor from heavily armored enemies. So it's really hyperbolic and disingenuous to make an argument based on using it against level 115+ grineer with their full armor.

[Ivan_Rid]

Discharge is overly reliant on enemy composition - you need either a few heavily armoured enemies or Ancient auras heaviliy reducing Discharge damage to make use of its CC potential.

Both conditions are counter productive to general gameplay flow - you want to strip armour and break auras as much as possible.

Solution seems pretty simple - remove the damage component from Discharge. Enemies turned into tesla coils will periodically shock nearby enemies and apply the remaining duration to them. To trigger the effect manually you have to cast Shock on affected target.

[Mudfam]

36 minutes ago, Inmemoratus said:

Everything is terrible when you don't strip armor from heavily armored enemies. So it's really hyperbolic and disingenuous to make an argument based on using it against level 115+ grineer with their full armor.

Not sure if you understood this, but the armour here is actually making the CC last much longer.

Volt's discharge deals 450 damage per second, when the total damage reaches a cap of 4000 the enemy breaks free. This should give you almost 9 seconds of CC, but every enemy in range of another will also do damage, reaching the cap much faster. Just 9 enemies and you have < 1 sec CC.

Armour provides damage reduction, so it takes longer for the ability to reach the 4k cap. This is the only reason why the level 115 butchers were CCd for a whole 3 seconds, rather than breaking free almost instantly.

Yup. Believe it or not, this ability is actually THAT broken.

I guess a lot of people just assume the ability does what it claims to do without noticing that it actually does nothing, beyond some pretty animation effects. Perhaps because most of the game is so easy that it doesn't even matter that you just made yourself a sitting target and pooped out 100 energy for no reason at all.

I strongly suspect that DE doesn't realise what adding the damage cap did to the abilty's mechanics. I think it was added as an afterthought and accidentally broke the original intended design, which is quite nice and clever.

[MudShadow]

To be fair, those are the worst possible circumstances to test the ability...

Maxed Ranged

Negative Power Strength

Twenty level 115 butchers bunched together in the simulacrum.

 

Overall though Discharges damage cap should scale better with power strength. As even with max power strength it doesn't do the damage it should.

Edited May 27, 2017 by MudShadow

[Mudfam]

1 hour ago, MudShadow said:

To be fair, those are the worst possible circumstances to test the ability...

Maxed Ranged

Negative Power Strength

Twenty level 115 butchers bunched together in the simulacrum.

 

Overall though Discharges damage cap should scale better with power strength. As even with max power strength it doesn't do the damage it should.

Not really. Only 8 of them are in range of eachother there. Power strength doesn't have any effect until damage reduction comes into play, it scales the damage per second and the cap in the same exact way - hence no change.

You could construct an artificial case where the ability is more effective, but in practice conditions in game are often worse than what's in this video (more enemies, no armour at all).

[KirukaChan]

It seems like the best way to make Discharge last longer is to mod for negative range, and cast it point-blank at whatever enemy you really don't like.

[MudShadow]

19 minutes ago, Mudfam said:

Not really. Only 8 of them are in range of eachother there. Power strength doesn't have any effect until damage reduction comes into play, it scales the damage per second and the cap in the same exact way - hence no change.

You could construct an artificial case where the ability is more effective, but in practice conditions in game are often worse than what's in this video (more enemies, no armour at all).

 

 -60% power strength gives Discharge a 1500 damage cap (almost the same as when the ability is level 1). As opposed to around 10,000+ (with max power strength). And the enemies he ran tests against have practically zero defences. So they took full damage and just burned through that 1500 damage cap easily. With a balanced build he could've CC'd them for probably five seconds and would have time to cast it again, which would stun lock them.

As for in-game. The circumstances are usually better because Discharge (when built correctly) actually clears rooms. Because the enemies typically are not level 115 and will die to discharge. But also a full group is there dealing damage as well. 

Edited May 27, 2017 by MudShadow

[Mudfam]

19 minutes ago, MudShadow said:

 -60% power strength gives Discharge a 1500 damage cap (almost the same as when the ability is level 1). As opposed to around 10,000+ (with max power strength). And the enemies he ran tests against have practically zero defences. So they took full damage and just burned through that 1500 damage cap easily. With a balanced build he could've CC'd them for probably five seconds and would have time to cast it again, which would stun lock them.

As for in-game. The circumstances are usually better because discharge (went built correctly) actually clears rooms, because the enemies typically are not level 115 and also a full group is there dealing damage as well. 

No, it makes no difference!

BOTH the damage and the damage cap scale with power strength.

At 299% power strength the ability does 1'345 damage per second with a cap of 11'960. 11'960 / 1'345 = 8.9 seconds.

At 40% strength the ability does 180 damage, with a cap of 1600. 1600 / 180 = 8.9 seconds.

No change. It only affects total damage.

You can then just further divide the duration by the number of enemies in range of eachother for a total of something close enough to 0 seconds.

In what hypothetical scenario is this useful? Perhaps, just maybe, there is a small level range in which heavy armour enemies get CCd for a few seconds, while lightly armoured ones don't hit hard enough to kill you yet, and for some unfathomable reason you neglected to remove their armour so that you can actually fight them in the first place. And this is the best case when you're up against pure Grineer faction, even then it doesn't work!

Edited May 27, 2017 by Mudfam

[Dauragin]

4 hours ago, Mudfam said:

There is no way to build this ability for CC. It's just plain broken.

The damage cap is what determines when enemies break free. Duration does nothing.

The damage and the damage cap both scale with power strength. Power strength does nothing.

Enemies shock eachother, which is presented as a good thing, but it's just bad. The damage is capped and fixed anyway, the CC duration decreases.

Due to the broken armour scaling in this game, high level armoured enemies who haven't had their armour stripped (this basically only happens in bad PUGs) can actually be CCd briefly... Yay?

In its current state this ability is worthless garbage. The damage cap completely breaks all its mechanics.

Listen to this man.^

[Dauragin]

52 minutes ago, MudShadow said:

 -60% power strength gives Discharge a 1500 damage cap (almost the same as when the ability is level 1). As opposed to around 10,000+ (with max power strength). And the enemies he ran tests against have practically zero defences. So they took full damage and just burned through that 1500 damage cap easily. With a balanced build he could've CC'd them for probably five seconds and would have time to cast it again, which would stun lock them.

As for in-game. The circumstances are usually better because Discharge (when built correctly) actually clears rooms. Because the enemies typically are not level 115 and will die to discharge. But also a full group is there dealing damage as well. 

Doesn't matter, duration should not be affected. Volt's discharge system is stupid.

[Dauragin]

5 hours ago, (PS4)theelix said:

30 seconds in and I'm already confused. 

You have 40% power strength, do you not know how Discharge works? It's based on how much damage you do; it's not that duration mods aren't useful, it's that you're building it for CC incorrectly. 

 

that's the thing, how Volt's Discharge works is absurd. you can't build Volt for CC either way even if you build it "right." If there's a health cap with his ability it takes away the purpose of duration mods and you'll never really go through with the whole duration given once you've reached that health/damage cap. it's stupid.

[Dauragin]

2 hours ago, Mudfam said:

Not sure if you understood this, but the armour here is actually making the CC last much longer.

Volt's discharge deals 450 damage per second, when the total damage reaches a cap of 4000 the enemy breaks free. This should give you almost 9 seconds of CC, but every enemy in range of another will also do damage, reaching the cap much faster. Just 9 enemies and you have < 1 sec CC.

Armour provides damage reduction, so it takes longer for the ability to reach the 4k cap. This is the only reason why the level 115 butchers were CCd for a whole 3 seconds, rather than breaking free almost instantly.

Yup. Believe it or not, this ability is actually THAT broken.

I guess a lot of people just assume the ability does what it claims to do without noticing that it actually does nothing, beyond some pretty animation effects. Perhaps because most of the game is so easy that it doesn't even matter that you just made yourself a sitting target and pooped out 100 energy for no reason at all.

I strongly suspect that DE doesn't realise what adding the damage cap did to the abilty's mechanics. I think it was added as an afterthought and accidentally broke the original intended design, which is quite nice and clever.

can we get some attention to what this guy is saying^^^^

[Tesseract7777]

The damage cap was an insult to players that made this ability scale terribly. What a joke. Sometimes I really wish Scott would actually play the damn game. 

[Vafthrudnir]

I mentioned the details of this ability somewhere in my posts, you should use fleeting expertise as Volt's ult will always last around 10 seconds.

[Kainosh]

Its....Well balanced?

Duration works well when you fight heavy targets. They become coils for longer.

Dunno i play sorties on Volt and it kills ok amount of enemies per cast (even grineer). those who dont die are stunned for about 10-20 seconds....And thats more than enough to deal with anything....unless you use Lato.

 

Also, duration already have great effect on Speed and Shield. Its fine that it doesn't affect Discharge much. Otherwise modding would be pretty one sided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Inmemoratus]

14 hours ago, Mudfam said:

Not sure if you understood this, but the armour here is actually making the CC last much longer.

Volt's discharge deals 450 damage per second, when the total damage reaches a cap of 4000 the enemy breaks free. This should give you almost 9 seconds of CC, but every enemy in range of another will also do damage, reaching the cap much faster. Just 9 enemies and you have < 1 sec CC.

Armour provides damage reduction, so it takes longer for the ability to reach the 4k cap. This is the only reason why the level 115 butchers were CCd for a whole 3 seconds, rather than breaking free almost instantly.

Yup. Believe it or not, this ability is actually THAT broken.

I guess a lot of people just assume the ability does what it claims to do without noticing that it actually does nothing, beyond some pretty animation effects. Perhaps because most of the game is so easy that it doesn't even matter that you just made yourself a sitting target and pooped out 100 energy for no reason at all.

I strongly suspect that DE doesn't realise what adding the damage cap did to the abilty's mechanics. I think it was added as an afterthought and accidentally broke the original intended design, which is quite nice and clever.

Do you realize most enemies have less than 4k health? How would a non-armored enemy break out of the CC if it's dead first? The logic doesn't follow. The only way an enemy can break out of this skill is if that enemy actually survives the damage, so if an enemy has a lot of armor and breaks out we can assume that the damage cap is taking pre-armor damage into account. That's the only logical way this can work.

If it does go by pre-armor damage, then the solution is to bring armor stripping.

If it goes by post-armor damage, then it lasts longer on armored enemies, and non-armored enemies just die before breaking out.

Either way you have nothing to complain about

Edited May 28, 2017 by Inmemoratus

[Vafthrudnir]

The ability last way less than it's max because the damage from the other hit enemies contributes to the cap, so large groups are under cc for less and it becomes even less when modding for range. The other limit is that if the ability deals 450 dmg per second and the cap is 4000 hp(they both increase with power strenght) and considering no armor in 10 seconds the ability will end regardless of it's max duration. Thinking again about that other shocked enemies contribute to the cap and the ability lasts 10 seconds if only 1 enemy is affected and less if more are affected, theorically with no armor if 2 enemies stick the dureation becomes half.

Also adding to the stupid sinergies if you use shock on a discharged target it emits radial electricity, as if it had any use, they are already stunned.

[Mudfam]

7 hours ago, Inmemoratus said:

Do you realize most enemies have less than 4k health? How would a non-armored enemy break out of the CC if it's dead first? The logic doesn't follow. The only way an enemy can break out of this skill is if that enemy actually survives the damage, so if an enemy has a lot of armor and breaks out we can assume that the damage cap is taking pre-armor damage into account. That's the only logical way this can work.

If it does go by pre-armor damage, then the solution is to bring armor stripping.

If it goes by post-armor damage, then it lasts longer on armored enemies, and non-armored enemies just die before breaking out.

Either way you have nothing to complain about

Excuse me, what..?!

Even in the starchart this isn't true of many enemies, and for many players, sorties, kuva floods and raids represent the only content worth doing.

My entire point is that this is CC that only just barely works on some enemies under some conditions, and it even has a long, immobile cast time. Using this ability in almost any situation will just get you killed.

Do you even play Volt? Or do you just have nothing better to do than be pointlessly contrary on a forum? You say "we can assume" and "That's the only logical way this can work" while talking about some hypothetical mechanic that you just made up and clearly doesn't exist.

I actually play Volt, and I understand the game's mechanics and those of this ability very well. Everything I say in my posts is fact, not speculation. I'm certainly not here to waste my time arguing, but to point out that this ability is effectively broken and useless.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Mudfam

[MudShadow]

4 hours ago, Mudfam said:

 

I actually play Volt, and I understand the game's mechanics and those of this ability very well. Everything I say in my posts is fact, not speculation. I'm certainly not here to waste my time arguing, but to point out that this ability is effectively broken and useless.

Well what you state is not really facts.I mean for starters you call discharge a CC ability when it's not even CC. It is clearly just a nuke which stuns enemies whilst it deals its damage. And If the enemies are not stunned for a long time then that's just because Discharge has dealt all of its damage in a shorter span of time.  And that's not a bad thing because the player can simply just cast it again. It takes 25 energy with maxed efficiency and Volt has a 800 energy pool. Effectively the less time that Discharge is up the more damage overall it can out-put with subsequent recasts.

Edited May 28, 2017 by MudShadow

[Mudfam]

14 minutes ago, MudShadow said:

Well what you state is not really facts.I mean for starters you call discharge a CC ability when it's not even CC. It is clearly just a nuke which stuns enemies whilst it deals its damage. And If the enemies are not stunned for a long time then that's just because Discharge has dealt all of its damage in a shorter span of time.  And that's not a bad thing because the player can simply just cast it again. It takes 25 energy with maxed efficiency and Volt has a 800 energy pool.

Flat damage "nuke" abilities are a relic of the past, from when content was all low level and hence balanced for such things (unless you went for long endless runs which only worked with a limited number of setups).

Now we have to face the game's broken scaling on a regular basis, abilties like this have become completely ineffective, and indeed are consistently being removed from the game in favour of abilities that have innate scaling or great utility. Just look at almost any other frame's "ultimate", these not only do damage but have other extremely useful effects. Even ember's ult becomes a great mobile CC ability with an augment.

It's not the only ultimate that still needs to be revised (I'm looking at you Mag), but definitely very high up there on the list.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Mudfam