In order to end the endless discussions asout wether Tactical Cloak is overpowered or not, I finally decided to do the math for all of you.
In the following sections, I will compare an Infiltrator that has been specced for max in either weapon or power damage to the characters that lore-wise should be able to compete with the Infiltrator. That is the Human Soldier with his Adrenaline Rush for the Weapon Damage, and the Engineer for the Power Damage.
How the numbers were calculated:
Unfortunately, Mass Effect 3 is rather inconsistent with Damage Bonuses. Most affect only the base damage, while others affect all damage, resulting in an overall mess when people try to do the math. Here is what I have gathered so far:
- Bonuses that are given by powers affect the base damage unless otherwise noted. Those could be called "Additive Bonuses" because they are added together.
- Vulnerabilities that are added to the target affect the whole damage, as far as I can tell. Those bonuses can be called "Force Multipliers", as they multiply the overall deadlyness.
- The Sniper Rifle bonus of Tactical Cloak affects all damage instead of base damage and thus is a Force Multiplier.
I will give the relevant numbers so you can follow my calculations.
Weapon Damage
Since Infiltrators and Soldiers have the same weapons to choose from, there is not much inconsistency here. Therfore, here the numbers:
Infiltrators
Additive Bonuses: 22.5 % Training, 90% Tactical Cloak, 17.5% Hunter Mode (Geth Only), 10% Geth Weapons (Geth Only)
Force Multipliers: 1.4 Cloak Sniper Bonus, 1.2 Proximity Mine Vulnerability (Geth and Salarian only), 1.325 Tactical scan vulnerability (Quarian Male only)
Bonuses, from highest to lowest:
- Geth Infiltrator with Javelin: 303%
- Quarian Male with Sniper Rifle: 294%
- Geth or Salarian with Sniper Rifle: 286%
- Human and Quarian Female with Sniper Rifle: 198%
- Geth with other geth weapon: 188%
- Quarian Male with other weapon: 182%
- Geth or Salarian with other, non-geth weapon: 176%
- Human or Quarian Female with other weapon: 113%
Given that Adrenaline Rush is the only other power buffing Weapon Damage in a comparable way, it will be our competitor here.
Adrenaline Rush instantly reloads a weapon, which is generally seen as significant advantage, but that, in my opinion, balances out against the cooldown where you can't use the Adrenaline Rush.
Additive Bonuses: 27.5% Training, 70% Adrenaline Rush
Force Multipliers: None
Overall Bonus: 98 %
Turian Soldier
Marksman is not as comparable as Adrenaline Rush, but since it is the only other competitor, really, it shall be added. It's maximal rate of fire bonus is 70%, but to account for reload time and ammunition consumption, I will estimate the Force Multiplier as 1.5
Additive Bonuses: 30% Training
Force Multipliers: 1.5 Marksman RoF increase, 1.2 Proximity Mine
Overall Bonus: 134%
Conclusion
Even when not equipping a Sniper Rifle, an Infiltrator has a significantly larger bonus to weapon damage. The Turian Soldier somes closer, but still falls short to the Sniper Rifle bonus.
Additionally, an Infiltrator has, skilled for maximum weapon damage, still a bonus to power damage of 100%, while the Soldier has 10%. And while a Soldier has to struggle with the high encumbrance, and can only fire one power over approx. 7 seconds, the Infiltrator can fire one every 3.5 seconds, not matter what encumbrance.
In terms of survivability, the Infiltrator wins again, as the Soldier has to forego any defensive evolutions of Adrenaline Rush in this build, the Infiltrator has his invisibility that moves the aggro off him.
Power Damage
This section is much less infallible than the above, as power cooldowns are more or less even more complex to calculate than damage bonuses. For the sake of simplicity, I have made them Force multipliers with the respective bonuses, but that is most likely completely incorrect.
Additionally, it is impossible to calculate the impact of the tactical cloak on the powers. While some have less cooldown, others have more, and I generally have no idea how the minimal TC cooldown interacts with encumbrance and other cooldown modifiers.
At last, powers are of course not easily comparable, which I also have not taken into account, as this is not the purpose of the thread. I will just remark that the powers of the popular Infiltrators - Arc Grenade, Energy Drain, Proximity Mine - are generally seen as on the strong end of the power table.
Infiltrators
Additive Bonuses: 45% Training (40% for Geth), 90% Cloak, 17,5% Hunter Mode general bonus(Geth only), 15% Hunter Mode damage bonus (Geth Only)
Force Multipliers: 1.325 Tactical Scan (Quarian Male only), 1.2 Proximity Mine vulnerability (Salarian and Geth only)
Bonuses, from high to low:
- Quarian Male: 211%
- Geth: 209%
- Salarian: 182%
- Other: 135%
The obvious competitors. Note that the Force Multiplier of the Geth Engineer is most likely estimated way to high.
Additive Bonuses: 45% Training (40% Geth), 32.5% Hunter Mode (Geth Only)
Force Multipliers: 1.2 Hunter Mode recharge speed (Geth Only), 1.325 Tactical Scan (Quarian Male only)
Bonuses, from high to low:
- Geth Engineer: 107%
- Quarian Male: 92%
- Other: 45%
As Sentinels can migitate damage with their armor, but are also mainly Power-Based, they shall be added here. Please consider that the Force multiplier of the Cooldown Reduction is most likely chosen way to high.
Additive Bonuses: 45% Training, 30% Tech Armor
Force Multipliers: 0.7 (except Grenadier Krogan)
Bonuses:
- Grenadier Krogan: 75%
- Other: 23%
While not overall conclusive data, the trend is clearly visible: The Infiltrators win against Power classes in terms of bonus.
Again, they also manage to have the higher weapon damage, too. I haven't run the numbers, but it should come down to about 50% maximum for the Engineers vs. 100% of the Infiltrators times the Sniper Force Multiplier.
In terms of survivability, Infiltrators and Engineers are similar, as both have an ability to shift the aggro (The exception is the Male Quarian, who makes up for it in damage).
Sentinels, Jacks of all trades, are of course nowhere near those two, but make up for it in other ways.
Overall Conclusion
It is rather obvious that the Infiltrator, the Half Tech, Half Combat fighter of Mass Effect 1 has grown into something that outperforms both pure Combat Specialists and Tech Specialists, thanks to his tactical cloak. Since someone will drop the n-word anyway, I shall say it out loud: The Tactical Cloak needs to be nerfed.
And since people are unable to read the last sentence, I have removed my suggestions in the last edit and will just leave this as my overall suggestion: Make the invisibility effect more effective to encourage sneaking instead of assassination.
Please Sign if you agree with me that the Tactical Cloak needs to be balanced. My suggestions are only numbers and can be discussed.
Modifié par AlienAtSystem, 15 juin 2012 - 09:17 .
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