I hate posting this--Datto's new video on PvP and Supers (Destiny)

by Harmanimus , Tuesday, July 30, 2019, 01:30 (1725 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I would have to say the problem isn’t that everyone scatter. And I do agree that they currently are that bad to play against sentiments (even though I refuse to watch his videos, I can infer the frustration, but I’ll run my own reasoning) that others are expressing. I don’t necessarily think it should be easy to 1v1 a super, that would be absurd. The super is supposed to be a substantial advantage. But that advantage should still require a degree of skilled play to be successful with, not just spamming an attack button.

However, there are a few factors that make dealing with roaming supers extra frustrating. And I won’t even get into the imbalances of subclass trees for different activities or the toolsets of those supers. The two points I tend to highlight in conversation are both damage related, but are two separate but contributing factors. First is Super Damage Reduction, second is overall reduced damage outputs. To illustrate a big separation of “feel” I ran numbers awhile back on Stormtrance v. Ace of Spades for both D1 and D2.

Regarding DR on supers you have the base reduction (Stormtrance is 50% in D1; 60% in D2) and with MW armor a multiplicative increase. With 4 fully MW armor pieces you end up with 68% damage reduction. That takes AoS from a 3SK to a 9SK with all crits, (dealing roughly 22 damage per crit) and it takes about 15 with body shots. None of this accounting for Momento Mori. It does not feel good to have your Hand Cannon hit like an AR. Especially with their current damage model (600 RPM autos are a 9SK with crits and a 14 without).

And what exacerbates this problem is out generally reduced lethality. I don’t have numbers offhand, but the difference in damage in D1 with the AoS and D2 is about a 20% overall damage reduction. So you are hitting for less raw damage as well as against enemies with higher DR. Feels no bueno. To contrast the 9SK in D2, the same situation is a 5SK in D1. A 65% slower time to kill rather than a 200% slower one as in D2, assuming they have 4 full MW armor pieces. Though it isn’t substantially different if they don’t.

And the damage reduction also applies to grenades and melees (which are often treated as barely a threat most of the time even by Guardians out of super) minus the bonus from MW armor. So firecrackers and tickles in most cases given their nerfing for D2. Less special and heavy ammo available means that you are regularly faced down by a charging super without any meaningful recourse. Sometimes with them casting mid-fight and turning the tables instead of being punished for bad timing.

There are a lot of bad vibes for anyone solo queue, for people who aren’t super PvP confident, and for those of us who think D1 got a lot of balance better because your whole kit mattered.