Enough With The Trial Upscaling, Okay? :-\

[Melchiah]

When my main Mage starts struggling on TLs 5 below her current ceiling after picking up 93K in Damage, it's pretty obvious that Trials are set to scale to character power instead of TL. Apparently, those lucky Reforge rolls, the re-allocation of CL points, and my first decent drop in ages are biiiiig no-no's when I've got only $2.00 on my purchase record. Much punish needed. :-(

[Suzy.Bae]

When my main Mage starts struggling on TLs 5 below her current ceiling after picking up 93K in Damage, it's pretty obvious that Trials are set to scale to character power instead of TL. Apparently, those lucky Reforge rolls, the re-allocation of CL points, and my first decent drop in ages are biiiiig no-no's when I've got only $2.00 on my purchase record. Much punish needed. :-(

Not really sure what you mean. Are you saying that Trial toughness is scaled on how much power a character has?

I believe there's a scaling for both DMG and TOUGHNESS of monsters per trial according to the latest patch.

DMG being lower increase and TOUGHNESS being increased far more than DMG is, because it's easier to increase DMG than it is to get TOUGHNESS as per what I remember.

[Melchiah]

TL96, 1002K Damage, 100K Toughness. Playing on TL91, I've got Healers who were annihilated after one draw rotation at around 920K now taking three draw rotations, with their healing nearly outpacing my DPS. That's not supposed to be happening.

Enemy damage output seems higher too, and enemy count and elite rates shot way up after I added that extra Damage. Seems to be happening on all TLs.

I've suspected that it was happening since I started playing, but my Mage's most recent Damage increase was pretty steep given that it required no play time. So the upscaling was drastic and immediate enough for me to really notice this time.

What I'm saying is that even though I'm on TL96 now and cleared TL91 with much less DPS, TL91 is now behaving as if it were several TLs higher based on how it's soaking an almost 100K increase in Damage as if it weren't even there. That was a 10% increase in Damage on my end versus what is supposed to be static TL-specific values.

It reeks.

[Purple Potato]

Some reasons for why you might be losing at lower trials
1. Map RNG
2. That damage replaced something that doesnt affect Sheet DPS (AR is what Im thinking here)
3. You replaced haste with power, which makes sheet dps go up, but loses actual DPS.
4. You lost toughness so therefore die more.
5. IDK there's more but I cant think of them right now.

[Coda]

It is incorrect that Trials scale vs. the player's stats.

[GrauGeist]

Some reasons for why you might be losing at lower trials

* OP is not nearly as skilled a player as he thinks he is.

[Rytrik]

#gitgud

As Coda said... there is no upscaling. This is proven by people doing T100 for xp, and their clear times progressively decreasing as they get better gear & more CL. If upscaling was true, with more CL and better gear would come slower clear times. This is clearly not the case.

[Cultusfit]

No no scaling on this account

1 gave up something you didn't realize you needed more
2 took a break and lost a bit of skill

Are the options.

[Melchiah]

Gave up only 4K Toughness and 0.05 attack speed. No other stats were sacrificed. Added sheet DPS is now almost ~116K higher. Same results.

Stay in denial all you want, but I know what I'm seeing. And despite GG's flaming (and perhaps jealousy that my BH, who I don't even try to improve, is at the same TL as his primary BH), I never claimed to be good. I just know how to control my variables when analyzing things like this.

[Purple Potato]

I just know how to control my variables when analyzing things like this.

Says the person who thinks the 2-tap finger is RNG for which finger it will go to when it literally goes between the 2... I'll keep doubting unless you record it and post it.

[GrauGeist]

If someone posts something that is completely wrong, and keeps doing that, it's not "flaming" to point out that they know a lot less about the game than they think they do. Regardless of how much they grind levels. But wrongly calling it "flaming" is consistent with how that person keeps posting things that are wrong, and then complains about these phantom problems.

Me, I recognize that I'm in the endgame, top 1%, so I'm just doing my dailies waiting for the next ANB event, not grinding for the sake of grinding...

[Nhat]

Gave up only 4K Toughness and 0.05 attack speed. No other stats were sacrificed. Added sheet DPS is now almost ~116K higher. Same results.

If the Toughness reduction was due to a drop in Armor, then yes, you're going to take more damage from the mobs - as Armor provides damage reduction. If you dropped from 65% to 63%, then you're taking actually taking almost 6% more damage than you used to - difference between only taking 35% versus now taking 37%, it's not a "straight" 2% increase of damage taken...

Another thing that I've come to understand, is that the "sheet DPS" is not a true reflection of the damage output from your character. Most of the damages for Mage, and I suppose other classes as well, comes from triggering Utilities - which is affected by Ability Rate. So if that's dropped as well, then the rate you're able to cast Utilities have also decreased, thus affecting overall damage output from your character. (Edit: I know you said "no other stats were sacrificed", just covering it too, just in case)

"Sheet DPS" is only good if all you're doing is straight out standard attacks, which is only feasible for low level Trials or Story maps - yeah, I'm still running those for the Stars, so I know.

Just some input for consideration, if you haven't already...

Edit:

Also, beware of "artificial inflation" of Toughness due to Dodge/Parry/Block (depending on your class) - these stats should be avoided, other than Block for Shield Warriors, since they're all "chance" but have a big impact on the Toughness calculation.

[Purple Potato]

Another thing that I've come to understand, is that the "sheet DPS" is not a true reflection of the damage output from your character. Most of the damages for Mage, and I suppose other classes as well, comes from triggering Utilities - which is affected by Ability Rate. So if that's dropped as well, then the rate you're able to cast Utilities have also decreased, thus affecting overall damage output from your character. (Edit: I know you said "no other stats were sacrificed", just covering it too, just in case)

Yep, and singularity also procs life on hit and immolate 6/6 from apprentice.

[Suzy.Bae]

Gave up only 4K Toughness and 0.05 attack speed. No other stats were sacrificed. Added sheet DPS is now almost ~116K higher. Same results.

Stay in denial all you want, but I know what I'm seeing. And despite GG's flaming (and perhaps jealousy that my BH, who I don't even try to improve, is at the same TL as his primary BH), I never claimed to be good. I just know how to control my variables when analyzing things like this.

But it really doesn't scale with sheet DPS nor DMG.

This is transparently given by one of the Devs which was shared by someone who uses Discord. Saw it on one of the posts here, can't remember.

[Suzy.Bae]

When my main Mage starts struggling on TLs 5 below her current ceiling after picking up 93K in Damage, it's pretty obvious that Trials are set to scale to character power instead of TL. Apparently, those lucky Reforge rolls, the re-allocation of CL points, and my first decent drop in ages are biiiiig no-no's when I've got only $2.00 on my purchase record. Much punish needed. :-(

By the way, what's the trial level? Set equips, and CL level you have? I'm curious because I never faced any hardship with my Mage until Trial 95 because I lack some skill in circling around and some base stats due to RNG drops. Do you already have 6/6 Apprentice? Because even though it's not read by the system to add as Sheet DPS, it increases your total damage in no way accurate to 20-30% per immolate proc depending on the mobs hit and the AOE active on those mobs overall per run in the map?

Just saw he's at Trial 96 which is what I'm aiming to finish when I get the time. He has 1m DMG. I'm sure I've read 96k only in the first post so I thought he's talking about lower CL'd Mage. From what I understand, it's about 3x toughness increase per 1x increase per trial. Not sure if Humus, Nhat, or Coda is the one who love to put the patch updates but it's there, right?