Code Infection Overpowered.

Hackers are hitting me with code infections which do 200 dmg every 2.5 seconds.

This ability has a 14 IS cost and 2 seconds cast timer.

Lets do the math,

30/2.5 = 12
12x200 = 2,400 damage grand total. (Supposing the ticks only do 150 damage, the ability will do nearly 2,000 dmg)

Considering that our HP is around 2,600 now, a Code Infection could easily one shot you.

Archived image unavailable: infection3pg.html

I don't have hacking attributes (5 belief), but I've seen people actually do over 400 dmg per tick.

Message Edited by krytical on 04-06-200603:48 PM

there are also some shotguns that have ridiculous DoT effects...there's one that does 1280 total

Oooooh nice. /hotfix

Thanks for the post!

p.s. do you know the name of the shotgun by any chance ReguIus?

Oh yes, now that you mention that Reg.

I've also been DoT'ed by enhanced handguns for 200ish damage ticks.

After seeing this post, I decided to do some testing on this of my own.

Before anyone bothers to criticize it, yes, I am a hacker.  Yes, I like hacker.  Yes, I use the Hacker tree almost exclusively.  No, that doesn't affect my testing of the ability in question, namely, Code Infection 4.0.  (in honesty, I don't use Code Infection 4, but instead favor 3.)

Here is what I have come up with. 

For the first wave of testing, I told MrCyborg to hit me with a Code Infection 4.0 while using the Power Tactic and Overclock.  It should be noted that MrCyborg does NOT have max Belief, in fact, I am unsure of what his Belief stat actually is, but I know it is not max.  For this first pass of testing, I am wearing 0 Viral Resistance.  Here are the results.



The first 6 ticks are affected by Overclock, and are doing 223 damage per tick to me.  After Overclock wears out, the damage drops to 129 per tick.  This is with 0 Viral Resistance, and without using Insidious Code or any other debuffs as I saw you used in your screenshot Krytical. 

For the second testing pass, I put on my Viral Resistance outfit, which gives me a total of 225 Viral Resistance.  Not too shabby.  Here is how the damage was affected:



This is without Overclock.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to locate any screens of when we used Overclock.  However, you can see that where I was normally taking 129 damage per tick, I am now only taking 69 per tick.  That is quite a drop.

For the last testing pass we did, it was decided that I would use my Code Infection 4.0 on MrCyborg, because I actually do have 30 Belief.  In this pass, MrCyborg is wearing 0 Viral Resistance, and I am using Power Tactic as well as Overclock.  Here are the results:



For the first damage tick, I was in Speed Tactic, and this is before I activated Overclock, so only 142 that tick.

For the second tick I am now in Power Tactic and using Overclock.  My damage is now 299 per tick.

On the last two ticks my Overclock has run out (I am still using Power Tactic), and my damage is 170 per tick.

In summary, I don't really think this is overpowered.  Damage Resistance plays an important part in how much damage you take, and if you choose not to protect yourself against certain types of damage then you should take large amounts of damage from them.  If damage overall is going to receive a nerf, then damage resistance needs to have a much smaller affect than it does currently.

Even if it does ~150 damage per tick without Overclock. We have 2,600 HP now, an ability that does nearly 2,000 damage in 30 seconds with a cast timer of 2 seconds and and IS cost of 12 is definitely overpowered.

Any hacker can pull Insidious Code, Overclock and Code Infection 4.0 in the time it takes to break thier shield. That'll do 300ish damage per tick.

Message Edited by krytical on 04-06-200609:21 PM

man, krytical...
thanks for your dedication to making Hacker the uber-1337 character that it should be!

I will agree on one thing... this ability should be using more than 12 IS... it does do alot of damage in the end, however of course there is the deflection, and the fact that it is DOT...

That said... just up the IS cost some.

Oh really? In that screenshot I didn't have to go through all that hassle. All I did was overclock, insidious or destroyer whichever works best for you and cast away. Even if it's deflected, it only costs 14 IS so it's not a big deal.

My Wounding Throw only does 40ish damage every 2.5 seconds for 30 seconds and costs 35 IS I believe. They should change it to 170 dmg (300 dmg with find weakness) per tick.

Message Edited by krytical on 04-08-200601:17 AM

I still think it is amazing that a Spy is complaining about damage.  Some of the Spy abilties do massive damage outside of Interlock ... instantly, not over 30 seconds.  Granted, you have to be stealthed, behind someone, and within 6m (I think it is that range anyhow, could be smaller), but still.  Damage over time is nice, but it is hardly a game winner.  I know for sure that I'm not throwing on Code Infection and then just /dancing for 30 seconds and pwning people like you seem to be hinting at. 

My answer still remains:  Viral Resistance and Antibiotics.

*EDIT*  Perhaps the IS cost could use a looking at though.  I am trying to think of the logic behind Code Infection 4.0 costing 14 IS vs. the Spy DoT which is nowhere near as effective being 35 IS.  *shrug*

Message Edited by Dare on 04-08-200601:13 PM

Message Edited by Dare on 04-08-200601:15 PM

You know the hassle that MAs have to go through breaking your shield, interlocking you, making sure you don't roll out and then trying to get you staggered in order to do a Ki Charged Foot Sweep? (If it lands)

Oh yeah... that interlock bug makes it take a whole half a second to IL you! Then they just have to get a level 20 friend to pop off a power attack and it'll hit you for 1 damage, stagger you, and then Ki Charged Foot Sweep..

Well as I just explained to someone in a PM, this is actually a broken DOT right now. All of our DOTs changed for CR2 and this one was not converted. We may rebalance the ability later, but for now the priority will be getting the DOT itself fixed (actually it has been fixed and will be in the next Hotfix patch).

Lol.

I just went to a tournament. My first round was against a hacker, CODE INFECTION 3.0 AND 4.0 was banned from the contest, he did a code infection 2.0 on me NOTICE THE 2.0 and the darn thing was doing 140 dmg every 2.5 seconds (Yes I had 100ish viral resistance) he only used one damaging ability, Code Infection 2.0. Needless to say, it took 9/10 of my HP and I lost. Fortunately, the referees agreed to ban Code Infection completely from the tournement.

If you don't believe me, ask the hundreds of players who were there.

Message Edited by krytical on 04-08-200609:24 PM

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Dare wrote:


For the second tick I am now in Power Tactic and using Overclock.  My damage is now 299 per tick.

On the last two ticks my Overclock has run out (I am still using Power Tactic), and my damage is 170 per tick.

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 No offense - but you need to play around with your loadout.....  I can get better damage than that against a 50 - and I'm a 49 so can't load the top abils.

This message of for HCfrog. I do not post much as you can tell from my post count because I only post when I think it's absolutely important.(this is fearless from Vector by the way). From someone who has never used an MA ability in his life, I have always used hacker since beta. The code infection granted does a large amount of damage over time, but to nerf this ability is just going to nerf the Vector tree in it's self. HCFrog before you have this Hotfix implicated into Live servers, I would suggest you try the tree yourself first. Since it seems the one who are complaining about the ability are mostly MA's let's take the attacker(the hacker) vs the defender(MA loadout). Now with someone who has no resistance what so ever to hacker and doesn't have deflect loaded in the awaken, I can get damage around 220 solid every time. But this CR 2.0 is about resistance, and lots of it. I have fought against many MA's with high Viral Resistance and can only do about 60-90 damage every time it hits and as the Code infection does it DOT that damage decreases. In my opinion the other trees out side of MA exist so everyone doesn't have the same loadout. Now with that in mind there are advantages and disadvantages to every single tree. MA's can beat a hacker in IL while a Hacker can beat a MA outside of it. Back to the resistance to fair balance if you don't want to get beat by a hacker, your going to have to give up some of your Melee damage resistance for Viral resistance. And in my opinion that is called balance. It's starting to see this CR 2.0, which I like, is becoming more of a MA loadout combat system than a fair balance System.