The Case for Damage-To-Nano

[Hacre]

Haw. You missed the part where I offered up the almighty SS to the FC gods for something that's more useful in a fight.

Any rate, you have an NT hiding around, IIRC, how the hell does DtN work? This massive wall of text I have sitting here is pretty pointless if damage to nano caps on nano instead of HP, etc, and the 100s of other questions that I've had on the matter, so since you've introduced yourself into this thread, gief answers! The questions are all hiding around somewhere in this thread, so gief!

Ok, I'm a little rusty with the actual mechanics.

With Shelter and Guard, a percentage of the damage incoming is diverted to the nanopool. The damage converted into nanopool, is greater than the damage you would have been hit with. So, say, Shelter "reflects" 25% of the damage you would have been hit with and say that 25% = 1k. Your nanopool would be hit for more than 1k, how much depends on breed.

The biggest advantage to Shelter, is you will never be 30% capped for your HP, because it works with the damage -after- the cap has been calculated. It's why an NT can stand in an OS and not die, but be left with a little HP remaining.

That's why pre Izgimmer's Wealth, NTs still favoured low HP setups and found it necessary to dodge items that add HP, to keep NBG useful, because the more HP, the bigger the 30% hit and thus the more nanopool got chewed away at a greater ratio then the actual damage dealt.

The actual numbers for how NBG (the decent DtN "absorb"):

If Atrox, 80% of the incoming damage is converted into your nanopool at a rate of 200%. So say 2k damage that would have hit you, is directed to nanopool, you'd lose 4k nano.

If Solitus/Opifex, 85% of the incoming damage is converted into your nanopool at a rate of 175%.

Nanomage is 90%/150%. So as you can see, pre IW, especially for Atroxes, NBG would zap your nano pretty fast if you were heavy on the HP side of things in the face of capping specials. I believe someone worked out the optimum HP at something stupid like 5-6k HP, anything past that reduced the effectiveness of NBG, or basically it would never last for the full 25s.

For Shelter, the "reflect" nano, it is 25% of damage dumped into nanopool across all the breeds. The conversion rates of damage:nanopool are:

1:1.5 for Atrox
1:1.15 for Solitus/Opifex
1:1 for Nanomage.

So for every one point of damage dealt, 1.5 points hit's the Trox pool, 1.15 points hits the Soli/Opi pool and 1 point hits the Nanomage pool.

I hope this makes sense.

[Dancingrage]

So if I see this right, anyone using DtN never has to worry about overflowing the pvp cap because of spillover (like how absorbs do now) as the damage is strictly at pvp cap or less, but the actual nano loss varies based on breed.

The NBG numbers you posted look mighty steep but aren't that bad. Since no MP I know of has ever maxed nanopool or other +max nano items I don't know if anyone's ever even tried to see how much nano an MP can get (I'm guessing it'll be a pretty hefty amount, especially for NM MPs.) That's something to bear in mind in the event that we actually wind up getting any DtN tools.

The big question I had you did answer which was how does it work with pvp caps, this answers my question nicely, and explains why I was reading 'nerf NTs surviving OS's' thread titles a while ago.

The other question I have is regarding reflects: Specificaly how does it work with regards to reflects. is the DtN calced before or after reflects in place such as RRFE? And am I to assume that if you have run out of nano, all damage goes right to HP, do not pass GO, do not collect $200?

Even if that's the case it still sounds like a useful tool for MP defense even with our comparitively gimped nano amounts.

[Ebag333]

but the actual nano loss varies based on breed.

As it should.

Since no MP I know of has ever maxed nanopool or other +max nano items I don't know if anyone's ever even tried to see how much nano an MP can get (I'm guessing it'll be a pretty hefty amount, especially for NM MPs.) That's something to bear in mind in the event that we actually wind up getting any DtN tools.

My baby MP will probably have high if not maxed nano pool. Not going a weapon route with him, so I should have lots of IP leftover, so I'll probably up nano pool to better use Notum Shield.

As best as I can calculate it, I should have around 15,979 nano pool at 220. I will "only" have a nano delta of 234 on top of my base nano delta (no idea what that is).

The other question I have is regarding reflects: Specificaly how does it work with regards to reflects. is the DtN calced before or after reflects in place such as RRFE?

Good question. If it's like absorb, then one or two AS's will wipe out our nanopool.

I'm guessing though that since it's just a % of damage that's dumped (instead of the whole thing, like absorbs) that DTN comes post reflects.

[Hacre]

The NBG numbers you posted look mighty steep but aren't that bad. Since no MP I know of has ever maxed nanopool or other +max nano items I don't know if anyone's ever even tried to see how much nano an MP can get (I'm guessing it'll be a pretty hefty amount, especially for NM MPs.) That's something to bear in mind in the event that we actually wind up getting any DtN tools.

Without something like Izgimmer's Wealth, you'd find yourself out of nanopool very quickly, unless you have SS up first. Before IW, capped specials meant NTs dodging anything that added HP and not spending IP in Body Dev, to keep it effective. When my Soli NT tried (and liked, FYI) a HP setup (19k HP with OBs on BS) I just stopped using NBG altogether.

The other question I have is regarding reflects: Specificaly how does it work with regards to reflects. is the DtN calced before or after reflects in place such as RRFE? And am I to assume that if you have run out of nano, all damage goes right to HP, do not pass GO, do not collect $200?

Because DtN currently isn't 100% diverted to pool, reflects reduce the damage that hits -you-, not your pool. Damage into the pool isn't reduced by reflects if I recall correctly. Once your nanopool is out, you have no mitigation at all.

Even if that's the case it still sounds like a useful tool for MP defense even with our comparitively gimped nano amounts.

Well yes and no. Though I wouldn't call it a defense tool. In the absence of SS, it'd be an escape tool only, with SS it would be arguably overpowered.

In either case I'd confidently expect to find MPs dodging HP adding items to optimise the use of the DtN, as NTs did.

[Dancingrage]

@Ebag: From what I understand, it deals with damage that would be actually hitting you, so this is after all caps and whatnot. Say you have 10k HP, than the DtN is working off of 1.5k damage at 50% rate with a pvp capped hit (say, a special). Depending on breed, and assuming rates of nanoloss comparable with the Shelter line, a nanomage would lose 1.5k nano, soli would lose 1.6k-1.75k nano, while an atrox would lose 2.25k nano for the 1.5k damage mitigated. The other 1.5k goes to normal damage, but it looks to me as it gets sorted AFTER normal reflects such as RRFE, Shield of Zset, etc.

@Hacre: I can see why having high HP would really bite for this sort of thing, having up to 6k nano munched at a time would really suck. I don't know comparative rates of nano use for each prof, but most MPs, as I said before, never bother with nanopool. Determining how well it works compared to SS would basically boil down to seeing how many capped hits an MP could soak up with a reasonable DtN running such as listed in the first post. If it can soak up more than 5, then it's not terribly bad at all in comparison, more would be better to offset the fact that you're losing NR and the bailing part of SS.


15k max nano seems a little low to me, but I haven't sat down and really TRIED to push MP nanopool to it's maximums. I know we get more out of Ancient Knowledge and Nanomorph is also another way to get more before items and symbs are even calculated.

EDIT: Ebag, from what I recall, normal nano regen is actually based off of body dev, not nano pool, from what I recall, which is why MPs can keep their nano pool as low as it is while getting such neat recharge rates, but I'm not exactly 100% on that, some research may be needed to solve that one.

[Ebag333]

EDIT: Ebag, from what I recall, normal nano regen is actually based off of body dev, not nano pool, from what I recall, which is why MPs can keep their nano pool as low as it is while getting such neat recharge rates, but I'm not exactly 100% on that, some research may be needed to solve that one.

It's actually based off Stam is what I've heard. I know MP's who have reset body dev (either partially or fully) and still have high nano regen.

It's supposed to be based off psychic though.

I've never actually tested that though. Around TL5 it's always been "enough". *shrug*

[Dancingrage]

Just to clarify I'm referring to the amount regained per tick as opposed to tick rate.

Determined by Stamina would be sorta weird, that's nanomage hate for you right there. I'll also guess that it's so deep in the code by this point that trying to switch it would probably crack the game's spine in half and we'll all log in post patch as lv 1 leets with HP bars that compete with the Beast.

Now I'm all curious to the nano delta tick but it'll have to sit for a different discussion.

[Xtremtech]

Tickspeed is based on Psychic, with the level 1 value at 28 seconds, dropping 2 seconds for every 60 points in Psychic.

Tick amount is: Racial Nanodelta base value + (BodyDev / 100) + items and buffs (Racial base values are 2 for Atrox, 3 for Soli/Opi and 4 for Nanomage).

X

[Hacre]

@Hacre: I can see why having high HP would really bite for this sort of thing, having up to 6k nano munched at a time would really suck. I don't know comparative rates of nano use for each prof, but most MPs, as I said before, never bother with nanopool. Determining how well it works compared to SS would basically boil down to seeing how many capped hits an MP could soak up with a reasonable DtN running such as listed in the first post. If it can soak up more than 5, then it's not terribly bad at all in comparison, more would be better to offset the fact that you're losing NR and the bailing part of SS.

Assuming same numbers for the NT tool, you'd still be better off with SS (5 specials soaked up + can't be rooted) than you would be with a Nanobot Guard type item. If the damage taken -> nano conversion would be made better for you, you can expect hell from NTs, myself included. It's our unique tool with a lesser version available to Traders. Sharing it is one thing, someone else getting a far better version is by far another. Even concentrating on nanopool, unless you intentionally dodged/reduced your HP you're not going to mitigate 5 capped hits against nanopool.

15k max nano seems a little low to me, but I haven't sat down and really TRIED to push MP nanopool to it's maximums. I know we get more out of Ancient Knowledge and Nanomorph is also another way to get more before items and symbs are even calculated.

Fully concentrated, before IW, NTs are looking at around 20-25k nanopool. No way MPs are coming anywhere near close to this due to the perk lines available to NTs.

EDIT: Ebag, from what I recall, normal nano regen is actually based off of body dev, not nano pool, from what I recall, which is why MPs can keep their nano pool as low as it is while getting such neat recharge rates, but I'm not exactly 100% on that, some research may be needed to solve that one.

It's actually based off Stam is what I've heard. I know MP's who have reset body dev (either partially or fully) and still have high nano regen.

It's supposed to be based off psychic though.

I've never actually tested that though. Around TL5 it's always been "enough". *shrug*

Just to clarify I'm referring to the amount regained per tick as opposed to tick rate.

Determined by Stamina would be sorta weird, that's nanomage hate for you right there. I'll also guess that it's so deep in the code by this point that trying to switch it would probably crack the game's spine in half and we'll all log in post patch as lv 1 leets with HP bars that compete with the Beast.

Now I'm all curious to the nano delta tick but it'll have to sit for a different discussion.

Nano delta is based off body dev. Tickrate is based off psychic. Body dev is 100% stamina trickle. It is more than reasonable to have a decent ND tick, purely based from your symbiants.

[Klodovik]

Assuming same numbers for the NT tool, you'd still be better off with SS (5 specials soaked up + can't be rooted) than you would be with a Nanobot Guard type item. If the damage taken -> nano conversion would be made better for you, you can expect hell from NTs, myself included. It's our unique tool with a lesser version available to Traders. Sharing it is one thing, someone else getting a far better version is by far another. Even concentrating on nanopool, unless you intentionally dodged/reduced your HP you're not going to mitigate 5 capped hits against nanopool.

Actually, I would be pissed off if it wasn't made better, 'cos we, you know, lack NT's killing power, so it would be logical course of action to make it better.

I would rather take "damage to pet's HP" damage mitigation tool, tho. But pet's def (evades?) should be enhanced in that case.

[Hacre]

Actually, I would be pissed off if it wasn't made better, 'cos we, you know, lack NT's killing power, so it would be logical course of action to make it better.

I would rather take "damage to pet's HP" damage mitigation tool, tho. But pet's def (evades?) should be enhanced in that case.

You also have greater staying power.

[Klodovik]

You also have greater staying power.

You mean, "staying alive" power? True. A few professions have it better (more universal, to be precise), with better offensive.

[Chrys]

Nano delta is based off body dev. Tickrate is based off psychic. Body dev is 100% stamina trickle. It is more than reasonable to have a decent ND tick, purely based from your symbiants.

AS MPs can't afford to give up AS right wrist, and consequently Shiny Run Speed over Nanodelta (symbs have both - we can't even break 2k runspeed self with shiny runspeed, much less and we are sitting ducks on top of pets that'll never catch anyone). And obviously everyone's capped at 2 secs but the size of the tick does give MPs nanocasting problems in some cases, which will be worse if you use Notum Shield (on top of its laughworthy break-on-hit effect that makes it pretty pathetic for wasting 8 perks) or have a Damage-to-Nano ability.

Still, it might be nice to have better reasons to max nanopool, if we didn't already have such tight IP at 220.

[Corily]

I like the idea, but imo it still needs some tweaking.

At the current state it would definitly force MP's to go low hp. On top of that by loosing SS practically every profession will be perking us. You'd end up running without nanopool all the time wich leads to nerfing all the rest of our current toolset whilst we lost SS.

As it is now, we would still forced to use SS since the tradeoff is way to big.

[Ebag333]

I like the idea, but imo it still needs some tweaking.

At the current state it would definitly force MP's to go low hp. On top of that by loosing SS practically every profession will be perking us. You'd end up running without nanopool all the time wich leads to nerfing all the rest of our current toolset whilst we lost SS.

As it is now, we would still forced to use SS since the tradeoff is way to big.

That's going to depend on the setup and who you're up against.

If you're up against, say a soldie, then regardless if you have SS up or not you're getting perked.

Now, if you're a more atypical setup with more defense, and are sitting in the 2900-3000 range (sans evade procs and SS), then SS will definitely make the difference, as MA's will have to perk MM to land on you, AAD setup soldies won't be able to perk you, etc. AR setup soldies or MA's with MM up will perk you either way.

Lots of profs though are only sitting around 2.8k AR (agents, for example). So in those cases popping SS doesn't really matter either way.

Of course all that is only looking purely at the AAD side of SS. The spec blockers and root resists have their own benefits.

Anyway, from that particular perspective (against profs who can perk you regardless if SS is up or not, and profs who can't perk you either way), SS wouldn't be particularly useful. Now DTN on the other hand, would be more useful in those circumstances.

Would it be more useful than the 5 spec blockers that SS gives? Well, again, that's just going to depend on circumstances and personal preference.

I think it gives us an additional option, and that's never a bad thing.

[Dancingrage]

@ Chrys: Define Low HP, I was usually pvping on my soli MP at around 10k HP with about the same nanopool, which most folks called low. (I preferred evades over HP)

As I'm looking more at this it's looking more like an interesting tradeoff, the ability to take a wider array of incoming damage and mitigate it vs very specific defense alongside NR and root/snare resist. I don't have time to sit down and hammer out things at the moment but I'll probably have some more questions to folks later when I get a few minutes to rub together.

[Hacre]

@ Chrys: Define Low HP, I was usually pvping on my soli MP at around 10k HP with about the same nanopool, which most folks called low. (I preferred evades over HP)

As I'm looking more at this it's looking more like an interesting tradeoff, the ability to take a wider array of incoming damage and mitigate it vs very specific defense alongside NR and root/snare resist. I don't have time to sit down and hammer out things at the moment but I'll probably have some more questions to folks later when I get a few minutes to rub together.

Without a huge boost to nanopool, I can assure you that 10k HP is a loooooooooooot when it comes to wanting to mitigate incoming damage, with current DtN mechanics. I'd even go so far as to wager that, in the absence of SS, any Enforcer/Keeper/Shade with a root graft is going to drop you right through it.

Given the choice of a pre IW NBG, or SS, I'd go for SS, every time. However, I'd also be engraving "LOWER THE DAMN RECHARGE ON THIS" onto a slab of concrete, then smashing it in Funcom's face 30-40 times as well.

30s is just insane. IN-SANE. You don't need to lock a toolset out for -that long- to prevent spamming or to prevent back-to-backing it with other nanos like NSD/CoC or whatever. 4-5s recharge with a lockout nano akin to ICH/DM would be far far better.

[Corily]

Actually, in our case it might be better to go for a 50-50 % hp-dtn.

Imo it fits perfectly with our current toolset and if it was like that, I'd sure go for it.

Nt's have nanopool and lack healing, so theirs is required to be like it is now. Ours on the other hand would be alot more usefull if dmg is shared between hp and nano.

This would lead to an almost 'permanent' nano, that would only be canceled once the mp runs out of nano.

[Dancingrage]

@Hacre:

The request to get SS changed to a lockout is pretty much nigh impossible from what Ebag has informed us of. It sucks hard, but them's the breaks, which is why I'm thinking of other options for defensive ideas, thusly this big wall of text of a post here on the forum. That said, unlike NTs, we have more than just nanos in our toolset (pets, weapons, etc) so we can actually DO something while under 30s recharge, but it's rather limited.

Since I was a shield MP until I rerolled, enfo/keepers/shades didn't drop me terribly often but that isn't going to stop most perk damage, which is the problem. I could sit there and casually ignore SnD with 10k HP because I had enough reflects and -damage on the enfo/keep to see low triple digit hits with it. However, if you're perkable (unlike shield MPs) that's the problem that SS isn't terribly good at handling, which is perk damage. Sure you can have special blockers but perk damage and effects are going to ignore that.

@ Corily: I'd have to look at comparable HP/nano setups to get an idea how effective that would be. 50-50 would be nice but with how DtN works as listed above by Hacre, we'd have to have at least 2 nano per every hit point for it to be reasonably effective. Since my computer with the skill emulator is toast atm, I don't have good numbers at my disposal so I can't say one way or another but it seems like you may have a good idea there of a straight 50-50 split. Leaving it like that would make it more of an endgame option, whereas I was hoping to come up with ideas that would help TL5 MP play out to some degree, where we're suffering a bit in terms of effectiveness and defense lately.

WTB Ebag able to crunch numbers at some point.

@Hacre: Which of the DtN rates seems more appropriate for MP use btw? The higher rate of conversion from NBG or lower from shelter? Also if you got a few, poke at some NTs and see if they can put in more feedback since it's their defensive mechanic I'm looking at atm.

[Ebag333]

@ Corily: I'd have to look at comparable HP/nano setups to get an idea how effective that would be. 50-50 would be nice but with how DtN works as listed above by Hacre, we'd have to have at least 2 nano per every hit point for it to be reasonably effective. Since my computer with the skill emulator is toast atm, I don't have good numbers at my disposal so I can't say one way or another but it seems like you may have a good idea there of a straight 50-50 split. Leaving it like that would make it more of an endgame option, whereas I was hoping to come up with ideas that would help TL5 MP play out to some degree, where we're suffering a bit in terms of effectiveness and defense lately.

WTB Ebag able to crunch numbers at some point.

I'm walking around with roughly 11k of HP/Nano, but I have a slightly a-typical setup.

I think about 13k-15k HP and 8k-9k Nano is going to be pretty typical for Tigress MP's.

For TL5? Not sure what that would look like. TL5 we don't have particularly good nano pool or regen (chain nuking MQ can drain it pretty quick), so DTN would be rather short.

@Hacre: Which of the DtN rates seems more appropriate for MP use btw? The higher rate of conversion from NBG or lower from shelter? Also if you got a few, poke at some NTs and see if they can put in more feedback since it's their defensive mechanic I'm looking at atm.

It probably shouldn't be as good a conversion rate at NT's get with their top nano.

Something to consider is that it's going to be fairly tedious to setup to not be stackable with SS. While SS has a recharge that prevents us from using the DTN after SS is cast, there's not necessarily anything in place to prevent us from casting DTN first.

I personally would like to see a low grade version we can keep up constantly. Something that doesn't divert a lot of damage to nano, but doesn't use a terrible amount either.

That really changes the scope and purpose of it, from an AMS/CH style defence to more of an AAD/reflects style. That fits better for us, IMHO.

Maybe something along the lines of 10%, with a 1:3 conversion. That'd push around 100 dmg per hit to nano for regular damage, which is a 300 point nano drain per hit. For specials you're looking at a max of around 450 damage per special (assuming capping hit on 15k) reduced, with a hit of 1350 damage to nano.

Since MP's are going to (reasonably) top out around 16k nano (a hardcore nano setup MP could get above 20k, but you'd be killing yourself to do it), that means it'd take about 12 capping specials to drain your nano. Of course you'd most likely be dead before that.

For a Tigress MP that'd be about half that, or 6 capping specials.

With that low of diversion rate it really would work for any setup, including SoZ. Much more powerful than that and you're going to be looking at ways of excluding SoZ MP's from using a DTN nano, because they could easily have AMS like capabilities up the majority of the time.

Not to mention the problems of SoZ + SS + Major DTN up all at the same time. *shudders*