Can we talk about Fortus
The Hell Hades team did a video on this which you can view here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5VusRODb5Y), but I have also been doing my own research on it. I did this because I went in for the 80 void shard guaranteed legendary, so was curious as to what Plarium would actually do to "fix" the champion.
As everyone knows, when Fortus was released he was very underpowered. Plarium acknowledged this and said that the damage output was not what they had planned, and "fixed" it with the most recent patch. First, I just want to make sure we all know what was the issue, and what was fixed.
Specifically we are referring to the A3 - Astral Terrors, and according to the skill description the damage of the skill is supposed to increase by 10% each time a fear/true fear debuff is placed on an enemy. The base damage multiplier for this skill is 3.5.
The way that the old damage was calculated was:
(0.1 * DebuffCount * 3.5) * Defense * BookBonus
The way that they patched it was
(0.1 * DebuffCount + 3.5) * Defense * BookBonus
Essentially the change was to add the DebuffCount to the damage multiplier, instead of multiplying it. This may sound confusing at first, but to truely understand this change you can look at the below numbers
In the old way, the damage multiplier of 3.5 was being multiplied by (0.1 * DebuffCount). So at 1 debuff, this meant that the final damage multiplier was 0.35. So the final damage done was effectively Defense * 0.35, which is ridiculously small. Each fear that went out increased the damage multiplier by 0.35, so you needed 10 fears out to get the multiplier back up to it's original 3.5.
The new way leaves the base as it is and then adds the fear count to it. This means that with 1 fear out there, the defense is now multiplied by 3.6, which is the equivilient to what 10 fears were under the old formula. Each subsequent fear then increases the base multiplier by 0.1, which means that it is incrementing slower than the old formula, but it is starting from a higher base now.
To illustrate this, look at the below table. The books value of 1 means he is unbooked and not getting any damage bonus from that source. This is also assuming his base defense of 1387 at level 60. As you can see, at 1 debuff count he was doing 485 damage, and now he is doing 4993 damage. You can also see that each debuff count was increasing the old base by 0.35, whereas now it is increasing it by 0.1. At 15 debuffs, the old formula has bypassed the base damage increase, being 5.25 compared to the new 5.0
The challenge that I have with this is that neither of the formulas really increase the damage by 10% as per the description. We can actually use Soulless, which is another defensive based nuker with an A3 that increases in damage by 10% for each debuff. In some elements, both of these champions should have the same linear progression in defense, but both of them have different damage calculations.
Soulless's A3 damage multiplier is 4.9, and it's calculation is
Defense * 4.9 * (1 + (0.1 * Debuff)) * BookBonus
At it's most simple form, this can effectively boil down to Defense * 4.9 * 1.X, where X is the number of debuffs. For example, if there are 5 debuffs on the target then it is Defense * 4.9 * 1.5.
Straight away you can see a few differences:
- First is that Soulless's multiplier higher by 1.4 than Fortus. This means that Fortus needs to have 14 fears out before he will do the same amount of damage as Soulless with 0 debuffs out, assuming both have the same defense.
- The second is that Soulless's total damage is being multiplied by the amount of debuffs, instead of just the damage multiplier. For Fortus, his base damage is effectively increasing by 10% each Fear, which in turn is an increase of about 2% of total damage (see above table). For Soulless, the base multiplier stays the same, and then the final damage is increased by the amount of debuffs
In the above screenshot, at 10 Debuffs on the target, Soulless is doing 14K damage. To reach this same damage level, Fortus would need to have 63 Fears placed:
In my mind, the current damage formula for Fortus is too weak, and not reflective of what the skill description says. It should just be changed to be the same as Soulless, which would make it more consistent with the the damage multipliers for other champions. Under this proposal, the damage would look this the below, with Fortus reaching the same damage potential after 19 debuffs are out
I actually do think both of these champions are very similar:
- Soulless's A3 is on a 4 turn cooldown when booked. Fortus is on a 40% chance to trigger, so it effectively becomes a 2.2 turn cooldown
- Soulless has a provoke CC mechanic, and Fortus has a Fear CC mechanic. The former is a 100% CC mechanic, while the latter is a 65% CC mechanic. Soulless does win the CC form those as he also has a 50% Stun on his A1, and Provoke on his A2
- Both are defense based champions and increase their damage based on the amount of debuffs. Soulless has a higher base defense (1421 vs 1387) but a lower Crit Damage (50% vs 63%). Soulless also has a higher damage multiplier at 4.9, compared to 3.5 for Fortus
- Soulless would be better in Arena or short battles, as he can get his max damage faster, while Fortus would be better suited for longer battles.
- Both are void legendaries
