Signet of Cruel Delight needs re-balancing

With the recent release of scaling missions, there’s been a lot of feedback complaining about the high health of enemies, especially in higher tiers. But an interesting point I’ve noticed often being mentioned among those complaints is, despite their high health, the enemies aren’t challenging at all because their damage is never a threat, because Signet of Cruel Delight keeps the player at full health.

The issue is, it’s impossible to balance solo content to be challenging for both players who use Signet of Cruel Delight, and players who don’t, due to Signet of Cruel Delight’s ridiculous scaling and healing (chance to trigger is scaled by crit chance, and base healing is scaled by signet level; however, the healing can also crit, which means it’s scaled again by crit chance, as well as by crit power[1]).

With max legendary glyphs and all passives, a player is expected to have 42.5% crit chance and 140.1% crit power (as well as +7.5% crit chance and +30% crit power from max weapon expertise)[2]. A max Signet of Cruel Delight triggers for 1400 healing[3]. This means, on average, every two seconds, Cruel Delight provides 2233.595 healing. With max capstones and all passives, a player has 7512 health. This means the healing from Cruel Delight is approximately 29.734% of a player’s health; in other words, every seven seconds, Cruel Delight restores over 100% of a player’s health.

Show/Hide Calculations

Non-crit amount: 1400
Crit amount: 1400 × (1 + 1.401) = 3361.4
Expected value of non-crits: (1 - 0.425) × 1400 = 805
Expected value of crits: 0.425 × 3361.4 = 1428.595
Expected value per trigger: 805 + 1428.595 = 2233.595
Expected value per second: (0.425 + 0.075) × 2233.595 = 1116.7975

In comparison, Soothing Spring active restores 29.5% health, and Reconstituting Shells active restores 16–26% health, and only every 20 seconds; a weapon with 3-pip “of Restoration” attachment restores 2.25% health every 2 seconds. Furthermore, the healing from Cruel Delight is automatic, and doesn’t require sacrificing an active or passive ability slot.

I feel Signet of Cruel Delight should have its healing reduced greatly, and changed to no longer benefit from crit chance and crit power, to bring it in-line with other sources of healing. Additionally, its healing should be changed to a heal-over-time effect, or given a recharge/cooldown, to help balance it for both players who have low crit chance, and players who have high crit chance (and bring it in-line with Signet of Thirst).

7 Likes

Please no. There are parts of endgame when it works imho balanced. The problem of e10 faction missions is about scalling mobs different on their defensive stats and far less on offensive stats.

These “good” ideas will only lead into more mess. Keep in mind not all players use hammer and some other weapons have far questionable survivability options.

And we have there sustain tanking with no healers so cruel delight is in e9/10 dungeons quite often only way how to heal yourself, because any dps loose will make team serious problems (hello HR).

5 Likes

I think your math might be off. Gonna throw on my dropout mathhammer at this.

CD heals for ~1400 on each crit. At max glyphs you’re looking at a 50% crit rate with expertise. This means an approximate of 700 HPS or about 9.31% of HP without crits.

Now 42.5% of those CD procs are going to be crits. So CD will crit proc 21.05% of your attacks for an extra ~1981, or ~3381 total 21% of the time meaning those crits heal for about ~711 HPS or about 9.47% of your HP.

Ok here is why my math gets fuzzy so something with a better grasp slap me down if this wrong.

Combining the two you look like you’re getting around 1117 Health per second from CD or 14.87% Health per second.

Edit: Elsunga, not agreeing with this guy but the math for tanking is screwed and something has to be done about that but thats another topic anyways.

Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo: Will CD does not cost an active or passive slot, it does cost your signet slot. So you’re slotting CD instead of ■■■■■■ or Laceration (Not sure which of these two come out on top, but another topic)

Edit 3: REALLY? S 4 D I S M is a filtered word?

Your argument merely establishes that Hell Risen (and possibly sustain tanking) also need re-balancing, which many people would already agree with.

The point is, Funcom can’t scale the offensive stats of enemies in high-tier missions further to be challenging for players who use Signet of Cruel Delight, without making them impossible for players who don’t use it, which is why I argued Signet of Cruel Delight needs re-balancing.

It seems you made an error in the addition. Your 9.31% health for non-crits, plus your 9.47% health for crits, should be 18.78% health, not 14.87%. Your numbers are per-second, while I left mine as per-trigger. So if you normalize my 37.654% health to per-second, the amount would be 18.827% health. So it looks like there might be some rounding issues somewhere (I performed all my calculations using raw values), but your numbers otherwise agree with mine.

The trade-off between Signet of Laceration or ■■■■■■ for Cruel Delight is most similar conceptually to the trade-off between “of Havoc” or “of Energy” attachment for “of Restoration”, which is why I mentioned its healing in my argument.

I agree with this. Not gonna speak on the math but I can say that all content in the game is completely doable without cruel delight at any elite level even at appropriate ip levels it just requires a bit more creativity in your build vs the current situation where my scenario build is basically just my dungeon dps build with a AoE basic ability. With cruel delight however you are damn near immortal. Including scenarios and all the new scaling missions. I’ll agree it’s just a bandaid to a much larger problem. But let’s face it at this point it’s better to look for quick fixes then wait years for a full revamp, is certainly be onboard with them testing the idea.

3 Likes

The 9.47% health per second for crits includes the non crit amount in it too.

What I did was took the extra crit HP amount (1981) times 21.05% of the time (percent of time CD crit procs) and got 417 and added that amount to the flat ~700 heals per second from non crits for 1117 health per second on average.

Health per second is probably a better calculation because while you might be a lucky string of crits and suddenly heal you can also end up wtih a dry spell of no crits but looking at an average healing per second and damage per second can give you a better picture for having to adjust numbers.

Edit: Drenneth (WHY YOU ALL POST WHILE I’M DOING MATH!? /s) yeah because turning around and slapping a signet players have invested time and cache keys (either from Patron or $$$) into cranking up to max down into the dirt is a good way for them to say “Ok you know what, I’m not going to keep playing to level up the new best signet from scratch, I’m gonna go **** off to WoW (or insert game here) instead” Why I don’t expect to see any major rebalances to equipment at this point and why even the hammer nerf was so gentle months ago. The Ferocity Bomb nerf hit hard because it hit early when elite dungeons were just getting going.

I revised my calculations. It looks like I made an error somewhere. I’ve included my new calculations in the original post. But the numbers don’t change much; Signet of Cruel Delight heals over 100% of a player’s health over 7 seconds instead.

Please, let us avoid nerfing things.

There are many players who are perfectly happy with the current Cruel Delight and would be greatly upset with a nerf.

If anyone finds the new missions/scenarios too boring with a maxed Cruel Delight, then here’s an easy solution for them:

(1) Remove the maxed Cruel Delight from the talisman
(2) Insert a brand new green Cruel Delight.

Problem solved. Everyone is happy.

5 Likes

Option one is nerfing yourself. Option two is nerfing yourself

Your arguing for an “I win” button. I get it some people like an I win button. But no i don’t think its healthy for a game. Its not really an unreasonable request to at least look into balancing it to match other options like Thirst signet

1 Like

Old Reddit thread, didn’t check out the maths but it looks not bad:

It says that Cruel Delight beats Thirst after 25% crit chance. I’d state that Cruel is indeed a bit too strong, and i’d see it being reduced from 1400 once maxed to something like 1100-1200. Reevaluate later if this nerf isn’t enough.

3 Likes

I’m not sure about “balance solo content to be challenging for both players who use Signet of Cruel Delight, and players who don’t”, because that’s not the only source of automatic self healing. For example, AR has the passive “Anima Tipped Bullets”, which is miles ahead of anything other weapons offer in the same slot. There’s Anima Touched Weapons which give roughly 30% of your Combat Power healed per second. List can continue for a few more items that offer an advantage to the player who has it, over the players who don’t.

I agree Cruel Delight is overpowered, but it’s overpowered because it’s way better than Thirst. If there has to be some balancing done for the sake of solo content difficulty, then all self-healing options would need to be individually and collectively considered, compared to a player who doesn’t have any.

2 Likes

Currently, I have 1000 IP, 33% Crit chance and a maxed yellow Cruel Delight and I find E10 Into Darkness impossibly hard. The one time I tried it, my character couldn’t kill the Phonecian Agent boss.

Now, if a maxed Red Cruel Delight and maxed red Fierce glyphs make E10 Into Darkness too easy, then people should be asking for higher difficulty levels: E11, E12 etc. That way everyone gets more choice not less choice.

3 Likes

33% + Expertise? Or is that already figured in?

If you’re struggling with 33% crit chance and a max mythic Signet of Cruel Delight, imagine how difficult it would be for a player who didn’t have Signet of Cruel Delight at all. It would be essentially impossible, which is exactly the problem I’m arguing.

It could be for other reasons. I don’t have a Cruel Delight and had no issues with that fight.

This isn’t to argue that Cruel Delight isn’t unbalanced, just that not having one isn’t a deal-breaker of any sort.

Fernando probably needs some deck alteration.

Weapon healing passives need to be upgraded , to scale with combat power and crit . Now they cant provide reliable healing in hard solo content . They are essentially useless , except anima tipped bullets . so if passives are fixed to keep you alive without healing weapon in E10 scenarios or E10 Missile crisis , you can talk about nerfs. If passives not fixed , leave thing as they are.

I don’t find Chaos’ passive heals particularly ineffective. I’ve been using Winds of Change to do stuff a fair bit above what I’m supposed to be able to since the beta.

Anyhow, I still suspect a build issue.

I’m at ~1050 IP with a lv.1 red cruel delight and max mythic glyphs cause I don’t play scenario regularly (leveled them from lairs/regionals, if you’re curious), so my cruel delight is a 35% chance of healing for iirc 1027. Which then has 27.5% chance to crit for 113%cp. Which works out to like, 427 hp/sec or I can full heal myself in 19 seconds.

E10 scenario bosses deal 25% of my hp every ~2-3 seconds… I did finish all 3 but not by sustaining myself at 100% hp, that’s mathematically impossible. Mostly a matter of using potions and other sources of healing, and a bit of impairing casts late in the castbar so the boss deals less damage.

My favored way to fix CD is to make it a 100% chance to proc for about 1/4 as much. I strongly prefer non-rng effects, and this makes it more useful for low-level players and less useful for capped players, where the issue is.

1 Like

Actually, that’s an argument for re-balancing. The more people would get upset by a nerf, the more this indicates something is in fact OP.

That said, I’d absolutely agree one signet isn’t the problem here, it’s a symptom. The problem is that SWL’s balancing of survival and self-healing options across weapons may be even worse for solo play than it is for group play.

2 Likes