Challenger Rating Question

Rating difference doesn't matter. Your stats are decreased by the sym's challenge rating, and the sym's stats are decreased by your rating. Think of challenge rating like a really mathematically complex debuff that the champions put on each other at the start of the fight.

If you think about challenge rating like that, this fact should now be obvious: you never gain anything from challenge rating. Remember: yours debuffs him, his debuffs you. Never does anything buff anything.

The only sense in which ratings difference matters is obviously, if you're debuffing him and he's debuffing you, you'd rather your debuff was as strong as possible. If you bring a 4/55 to the fight your CR debuff will be stronger than if you brought a 5/50 to the fight. But remember, the debuff he puts on you will be the same no matter what you bring.

Keep in mind I'm calling it a "debuff" to make it easier to understand. It isn't really a debuff and doesn't work like a debuff and cannot be affected like other debuffs. It is a mathematical number that affects how diminishing returns works and does so in a way not intuitive for non-mathy people. But it helps to think about it like this, because people keep asking these kinds of questions thinking that CR is like a class advantage: one goes up, the other goes down. It doesn't. Both go down, it is just a question of how much.

Imagine a hypothetical fight in which your champ had a one billion CR, and your opponent had a one trillion CR. The fact that his is way larger than yours would be largely irrelevant. Yours would be big enough to reduce the (DR-affected) flat stats of your opponent to basically zero. So would his. His doesn't "protect" him from your much smaller one.

@DNA3000 thank you for your reply, and if I'm understanding it correctly both champs use the CR system correct? Regardless if it's AQ or arena?

RehctansBew wrote: »

@DNA3000 thank you for your reply, and if I'm understanding it correctly both champs use the CR system correct? Regardless if it's AQ or arena?

As far as I'm aware, CR functions everywhere because CR is a variable used to convert flat stats to percentages. That's true for player champs and computer champs, and true for every environment in the game. It is, in a sense, a fundamental law of physics of the game logic. Everywhere you see one of those flat stats that has to be converted into a percentage, CR will take effect because it is in the conversion formula.

GroundedWisdom

DNA3000 wrote: »

RehctansBew wrote: »

@DNA3000 thank you for your reply, and if I'm understanding it correctly both champs use the CR system correct? Regardless if it's AQ or arena?

As far as I'm aware, CR functions everywhere because CR is a variable used to convert flat stats to percentages. That's true for player champs and computer champs, and true for every environment in the game. It is, in a sense, a fundamental law of physics of the game logic. Everywhere you see one of those flat stats that has to be converted into a percentage, CR will take effect because it is in the conversion formula.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was under the impression that the difference was the same for a 4* and a 5* with equal CR. In terms of the Debuff that is. So a 5* will Debuff more. Makes sense.

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

RehctansBew wrote: »

@DNA3000 thank you for your reply, and if I'm understanding it correctly both champs use the CR system correct? Regardless if it's AQ or arena?

As far as I'm aware, CR functions everywhere because CR is a variable used to convert flat stats to percentages. That's true for player champs and computer champs, and true for every environment in the game. It is, in a sense, a fundamental law of physics of the game logic. Everywhere you see one of those flat stats that has to be converted into a percentage, CR will take effect because it is in the conversion formula.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was under the impression that the difference was the same for a 4* and a 5* with equal CR. In terms of the Debuff that is. So a 5* will Debuff more. Makes sense.

I'm not sure why you believe I implied that: that's not how it works. CR is a number plugged into the flat stats DR equation. If your champ has the same CR as another champ, the effect will be mathematically identical.

I've been running numbers on a number of champs and will share those when done but from what I'm seeing I think there may be more of an affect than most think.

GroundedWisdom

DNA3000 wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

RehctansBew wrote: »

@DNA3000 thank you for your reply, and if I'm understanding it correctly both champs use the CR system correct? Regardless if it's AQ or arena?

As far as I'm aware, CR functions everywhere because CR is a variable used to convert flat stats to percentages. That's true for player champs and computer champs, and true for every environment in the game. It is, in a sense, a fundamental law of physics of the game logic. Everywhere you see one of those flat stats that has to be converted into a percentage, CR will take effect because it is in the conversion formula.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was under the impression that the difference was the same for a 4* and a 5* with equal CR. In terms of the Debuff that is. So a 5* will Debuff more. Makes sense.

I'm not sure why you believe I implied that: that's not how it works. CR is a number plugged into the flat stats DR equation. If your champ has the same CR as another champ, the effect will be mathematically identical.

Oh, a 4/55. You're right. I read too fast. I was in a debate with people on 4*/5*, and many were asserting that the 5* is better in spite of the CR being equal. I thought there was something I missed. Long day. Lol. Should read twice then answer.

RehctansBew wrote: »

I've been running numbers on a number of champs and will share those when done but from what I'm seeing I think there may be more of an affect than most think.

If you think you found a discrepancy, by all means message me if I don't see your thread. As far as I have tested, the DR formula works to predict every situation I've been able to verify, that wasn't being affected by an unrelated bug.

Keep in mind there are an unknown but non-zero number of strange bugs in the game engine that can throw predictions off. I'm really astounded the armor cap bug got past the devs, although I shouldn't be since the mechanics of damage mitigation have been wonky for as long as I can find trustworthy data on the game. I don't want to say its the worst I've seen without some objective way to define that, but its getting close.

DNA3000 wrote: »

Rating difference doesn't matter. Your stats are decreased by the sym's challenge rating, and the sym's stats are decreased by your rating. Think of challenge rating like a really mathematically complex debuff that the champions put on each other at the start of the fight.

If you think about challenge rating like that, this fact should now be obvious: you never gain anything from challenge rating. Remember: yours debuffs him, his debuffs you. Never does anything buff anything.

The only sense in which ratings difference matters is obviously, if you're debuffing him and he's debuffing you, you'd rather your debuff was as strong as possible. If you bring a 4/55 to the fight your CR debuff will be stronger than if you brought a 5/50 to the fight. But remember, the debuff he puts on you will be the same no matter what you bring.

Keep in mind I'm calling it a "debuff" to make it easier to understand. It isn't really a debuff and doesn't work like a debuff and cannot be affected like other debuffs. It is a mathematical number that affects how diminishing returns works and does so in a way not intuitive for non-mathy people. But it helps to think about it like this, because people keep asking these kinds of questions thinking that CR is like a class advantage: one goes up, the other goes down. It doesn't. Both go down, it is just a question of how much.

Imagine a hypothetical fight in which your champ had a one billion CR, and your opponent had a one trillion CR. The fact that his is way larger than yours would be largely irrelevant. Yours would be big enough to reduce the (DR-affected) flat stats of your opponent to basically zero. So would his. His doesn't "protect" him from your much smaller one.

Eh, not really. What you're saying (universal debuffing of stats) is based on taking the stat % against a 0 CR opponent (which isn't possible in this game) as a reference value and comparing that against every other stat percentages. However, if I take my base stats against a, let's say 10⁹ CR opponent as a reference point (which would reduce all my champ's stats to 0), and compare that with the base stat % against all other CRs available in the game, I could say that the DR system works as a buff for all champs (in the sense that it "buffs" my base stats above 0). Everything in the DR system is relative and you can only compare values against each other taking some fixed values as a reference point. If you take 10 CR as a reference (r1 1*), you'll see a universal debuffing against all opponents and if you take 110 CR (r4 5*) as a reference point, you'll see a universal buff in base state against all other opponents

But it helps to think about it like this, because people keep asking these kinds of questions thinking that CR is like a class advantage: one goes up, the other goes down. It doesn't. Both go down, it is just a question of how much.

You could say that CR does work as a class advantage (stronger goes up and weaker comes down). Example:

5/50 X-23 against 100 CR (5/50 4* or 3/45 5*):
Crit rating: 26% (703)

4/40 X-23 against 90 CR (4/40 4* or 2/35 5*):
Crit rating: 26% (686)

5/50 X-23 (100 CR) against 4/40 X-23 (90 CR):
Crit rating for 5/50 X-23: 26.5%
Crit rating for 4/40 X-23: 25.5%

However, I don't think this is a good method of comparing since I'm comparing the base stats for different ranks (4/40 4* vs 5/50 4*), using different CRs as a reference point (once 100 CR and once 90 CR) while comparing

@GbSarkar and @DNA3000 this could all be wrong, but these were some of the numbers I came out with last night:

Scarlet Witch 4* 5/50
Before Challenger Rating
Attributes PT/%
Attack 1216
Health 14596
Critical Rating 703/26.00%
Critical Damage Rating 858/200.10%
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 273/12.00%
Block Proficiency 2348/54.00%

Applying the CR formula provided by Kabam
(Player Crit Rating / [(5 * Opponent Challenge Rating) + Player Crit Rating + 1500))
and using a 120 Challenger Rating I get the following Decrease in stats:

Critical Rating 0.25
Critical Damage Rating 0.36
Armor Penetration 0.00
Block Penetration 0.00
Critical Resistance 0.00
Armor Rating 0.15
Block Proficiency 0.61

Using that info I applied the changes to the base stat

Critical Rating 703-(703*.25) = 526.69
Critical Damage Rating 858-(858*.36) = 545.80
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 273-(273*.15) = 230.96
Block Proficiency 2348-(2348*.61) = 915.28

I then calculated what would be 100% for each stat.

703 = 26% in Crit Rating,
therefore 26/100 = 703/x
26x = 70,300
70,300/26 = x
x = 2703.8 (or maximum value for that stat)

Having a maximum state allowed me to apply our new base stats after Challenger Rating:

Critical Rating 526.69/19%
Critical Damage Rating 545.80/127%
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 230.96/10%
Block Proficiency 915.28/21%

As I found the largest drop was in Block Proficiency and Crit Damage.
It's what I've expected all a long, but seeing the numbers just gives
me a sense of how drastic of a change it is. Not to mention when Fighting
a 5* with a 3000k a 21% Block Prof is a huge loss.

Im not 100% correct in all my numbers or calculations and they may be off,
this also leaves out Diminishing returns as I have no clue how that works.
But if it sparks conversation, and enlightens people maybe it was worth it.

I still think Challenger Rating is a horrible idea for the game, and there no
reason for it with the recent changes to the old gods. If you can complete act 5.2.6
with a 3* good on you as you are a far better player than I am.

Shrimkins

RehctansBew wrote: »

@GbSarkar and @DNA3000 this could all be wrong, but these were some of the numbers I came out with last night:

Scarlet Witch 4* 5/50
Before Challenger Rating
Attributes PT/%
Attack 1216
Health 14596
Critical Rating 703/26.00%
Critical Damage Rating 858/200.10%
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 273/12.00%
Block Proficiency 2348/54.00%

Applying the CR formula provided by Kabam
(Player Crit Rating / [(5 * Opponent Challenge Rating) + Player Crit Rating + 1500))
and using a 120 Challenger Rating I get the following Decrease in stats:

Critical Rating 0.25
Critical Damage Rating 0.36
Armor Penetration 0.00
Block Penetration 0.00
Critical Resistance 0.00
Armor Rating 0.15
Block Proficiency 0.61

Using that info I applied the changes to the base stat

Critical Rating 703-(703*.25) = 526.69
Critical Damage Rating 858-(858*.36) = 545.80
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 273-(273*.15) = 230.96
Block Proficiency 2348-(2348*.61) = 915.28

I then calculated what would be 100% for each stat.

703 = 26% in Crit Rating,
therefore 26/100 = 703/x
26x = 70,300
70,300/26 = x
x = 2703.8 (or maximum value for that stat)

Having a maximum state allowed me to apply our new base stats after Challenger Rating:

Critical Rating 526.69/19%
Critical Damage Rating 545.80/127%
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 230.96/10%
Block Proficiency 915.28/21%

As I found the largest drop was in Block Proficiency and Crit Damage.
It's what I've expected all a long, but seeing the numbers just gives
me a sense of how drastic of a change it is. Not to mention when Fighting
a 5* with a 3000k a 21% Block Prof is a huge loss.

Im not 100% correct in all my numbers or calculations and they may be off,
this also leaves out Diminishing returns as I have no clue how that works.
But if it sparks conversation, and enlightens people maybe it was worth it.

I still think Challenger Rating is a horrible idea for the game, and there no
reason for it with the recent changes to the old gods. If you can complete act 5.2.6
with a 3* good on you as you are a far better player than I am.

Sorry but this is all wrong. There is no such thing as "before CR" in this game. Those % values you see in your champ details are based on facing a champ with a CR of 100.

So if you are facing a r4 5*, those % will be slightly lower, and if you are facing a r4 4* then those % will be slightly higher.

The actual flat value never changes. The only thing that changes is the end % result based on that equation which has CR as a variable.

@Shrimkins so they apply CR to your stats when looking at champs? I didn't realize that, so there is no way of getting your base stats. These numbers were taking during a mastery reset and with no synergies, which I thought would be a good line to start.

And when applying the CR in this case 120, which is r4 5* that the actual numbers for instance the Block Prof of .61 after the formula represents the new percentage of 61% compared to 54%? That would mean, my champ actually gets an increase vs decrease in which it has always been described.

Shrimkins

RehctansBew wrote: »

@Shrimkins so they apply CR to your stats when looking at champs? I didn't realize that, so there is no way of getting your base stats. These numbers were taking during a mastery reset and with no synergies, which I thought would be a good line to start.

And when applying the CR in this case 120, which is r4 5* that the actual numbers for instance the Block Prof of .61 after the formula represents the new percentage of 61% compared to 54%? That would mean, my champ actually gets an increase vs decrease in which it has always been described.

The "base stat" is the actual flat value. Keep in mind that these values do not include masteries or synergies so you have to add those effects yourself to get the true number.

To convert the flat value to a %, you use the equation you listed: (Player stat/((5*CR)+player stat+1500))*100

Using this equation for your BP question: (2328/((5*120)+2328+1500))*100= 52.57% so the result is about 1.5% lower BP while facing a r5 5* champ vs a r3 5* champ. Maybe you just messed your math up a little bit in your calculations.

RehctansBew wrote: »

@GbSarkar and @DNA3000 this could all be wrong, but these were some of the numbers I came out with last night:

Scarlet Witch 4* 5/50
Before Challenger Rating
Attributes PT/%
Attack 1216
Health 14596
Critical Rating 703/26.00%
Critical Damage Rating 858/200.10%
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 273/12.00%
Block Proficiency 2348/54.00%

Applying the CR formula provided by Kabam
(Player Crit Rating / [(5 * Opponent Challenge Rating) + Player Crit Rating + 1500))
and using a 120 Challenger Rating I get the following Decrease in stats:

Critical Rating 0.25
Critical Damage Rating 0.36
Armor Penetration 0.00
Block Penetration 0.00
Critical Resistance 0.00
Armor Rating 0.15
Block Proficiency 0.61

Using that info I applied the changes to the base stat

Critical Rating 703-(703*.25) = 526.69
Critical Damage Rating 858-(858*.36) = 545.80
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 273-(273*.15) = 230.96
Block Proficiency 2348-(2348*.61) = 915.28

I then calculated what would be 100% for each stat.

703 = 26% in Crit Rating,
therefore 26/100 = 703/x
26x = 70,300
70,300/26 = x
x = 2703.8 (or maximum value for that stat)

Having a maximum state allowed me to apply our new base stats after Challenger Rating:

Critical Rating 526.69/19%
Critical Damage Rating 545.80/127%
Armor Penetration 0
Block Penetration 0
Critical Resistance 0
Armor Rating 230.96/10%
Block Proficiency 915.28/21%

As I found the largest drop was in Block Proficiency and Crit Damage.
It's what I've expected all a long, but seeing the numbers just gives
me a sense of how drastic of a change it is. Not to mention when Fighting
a 5* with a 3000k a 21% Block Prof is a huge loss.

Im not 100% correct in all my numbers or calculations and they may be off,
this also leaves out Diminishing returns as I have no clue how that works.
But if it sparks conversation, and enlightens people maybe it was worth it.

I still think Challenger Rating is a horrible idea for the game, and there no
reason for it with the recent changes to the old gods. If you can complete act 5.2.6
with a 3* good on you as you are a far better player than I am.

You've got it completely wrong here. During base stat percentage rating calculation, the base stat flat values do not change. Those percentage values which are calculated using those flat stats are important and that's what changes with change in opponent CR. What happens is this:

Your champs have a X flat stat value. Outside of fights, this is just a random number that doesn't mean anything. When you fight an opponent, that flat value is used internally to calculate the percentage rating for that base stat (using the formula you mentioned) and that's what is used in fight calculation. Now, that formula uses your opponent's CR as a modifier to generate the percentage rating so the percentage rating of the base stats of your champs (and NOT the base stat flat value) changes with change in opponent CR. Example:
SW 5/50 has a crit rating of 703. Against an oppnent with 100 CR, it translates to a crit rating percentage of 26% while against a champ with a crit rating of 90 CR, it translates to a crit rating percentage of 26.5% and against an opponent with 110 CR, it is 25.5%. The crit rating flat value remains constant (=703) throughout all these cases. It's the percentage value that changes due to change in opponent CR.

Another thing to note is that the growth in flat value percentage is not linear. The growth diminishes the higher your base value flat stat becomes. For example, a 5/50 SW has a block proficiency flat stat of 2348. Against an opponent with 100 CR, that translates to 54% bp. Now if you add 800 bp to that flat stat, SW's bp now becomes 61.1% (3148), which is a 7.1% increase in percentage points. Now if you add 800 more bp, the current bp becomes 66.4% (3948) which is a 3.3% increase in percentage points for the same (+800) increase in bp flat stat. If you keep on adding more and more bp, the growth will keep on decreasing and you will never be able to reach 100% for any base stat. This is what Diminishing Returns is

Thank you all for insight, and helping me understand this more. My biggest misunderstand was the thought that the CR percentage adjust the flat values which is where I was subtracting that difference and then recalculating a new percentage based on that. Now seeing the that those don't change, i feel like I wasted a good hour last night running numbers.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to work through it. And yep had a wrong cell when it came to the BP calculation.

GbSarkar wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

Rating difference doesn't matter. Your stats are decreased by the sym's challenge rating, and the sym's stats are decreased by your rating. Think of challenge rating like a really mathematically complex debuff that the champions put on each other at the start of the fight.

If you think about challenge rating like that, this fact should now be obvious: you never gain anything from challenge rating. Remember: yours debuffs him, his debuffs you. Never does anything buff anything.

The only sense in which ratings difference matters is obviously, if you're debuffing him and he's debuffing you, you'd rather your debuff was as strong as possible. If you bring a 4/55 to the fight your CR debuff will be stronger than if you brought a 5/50 to the fight. But remember, the debuff he puts on you will be the same no matter what you bring.

Keep in mind I'm calling it a "debuff" to make it easier to understand. It isn't really a debuff and doesn't work like a debuff and cannot be affected like other debuffs. It is a mathematical number that affects how diminishing returns works and does so in a way not intuitive for non-mathy people. But it helps to think about it like this, because people keep asking these kinds of questions thinking that CR is like a class advantage: one goes up, the other goes down. It doesn't. Both go down, it is just a question of how much.

Imagine a hypothetical fight in which your champ had a one billion CR, and your opponent had a one trillion CR. The fact that his is way larger than yours would be largely irrelevant. Yours would be big enough to reduce the (DR-affected) flat stats of your opponent to basically zero. So would his. His doesn't "protect" him from your much smaller one.

Eh, not really. What you're saying (universal debuffing of stats) is based on taking the stat % against a 0 CR opponent (which isn't possible in this game) as a reference value and comparing that against every other stat percentages. However, if I take my base stats against a, let's say 10⁹ CR opponent as a reference point (which would reduce all my champ's stats to 0), and compare that with the base stat % against all other CRs available in the game, I could say that the DR system works as a buff for all champs (in the sense that it "buffs" my base stats above 0). Everything in the DR system is relative and you can only compare values against each other taking some fixed values as a reference point. If you take 10 CR as a reference (r1 1*), you'll see a universal debuffing against all opponents and if you take 110 CR (r4 5*) as a reference point, you'll see a universal buff in base state against all other opponents

Not exactly, at least that's not what I mean. I was specifically talking about (and mentioned explicitly) the context of people wondering if CR makes the lower CR champion weaker and the higher CR champion stronger. That explicitly doesn't happen. People think it happens because of ambiguity in how CR was originally explained. Very specifically, they think if they bring a 5/50 to a fight against a 4/55, the difference in CR will make that 5/50 weaker than if they brought a 4/55 themselves. That's not true: the effects of CR will be identical whether you bring a 5/50 or a 4/55. The 5/50 will be intrinsically weaker (on average) than the 4/55, but CR isn't responsible for that.

It is this misconception that makes people believe that CR strongly disadvantages 4* champs relative to 5* champs, which again is not true. Thinking about CR as a debuff better illustrates what is going on: that 4/55 is going to reduce your stats by the same amount whether you bring a 4/55 to the fight or a 2* to the fight, to a first order approximation.

This has nothing to do with relative reference point comparisons, which is a separate thing. Technically speaking when ever someone asks "what effect does CR have" there is an implicit relative comparison in the question, because it implies asking what effect does *adding CR to the game* have, and that implies comparing with a hypothetical game that doesn't have it. But ignoring all of that, the mathematical effect of CR in the DR flat stats equation is to always lower the net percentage value of the DR equation.

DNA3000 wrote: »

GbSarkar wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

Rating difference doesn't matter. Your stats are decreased by the sym's challenge rating, and the sym's stats are decreased by your rating. Think of challenge rating like a really mathematically complex debuff that the champions put on each other at the start of the fight.

If you think about challenge rating like that, this fact should now be obvious: you never gain anything from challenge rating. Remember: yours debuffs him, his debuffs you. Never does anything buff anything.

The only sense in which ratings difference matters is obviously, if you're debuffing him and he's debuffing you, you'd rather your debuff was as strong as possible. If you bring a 4/55 to the fight your CR debuff will be stronger than if you brought a 5/50 to the fight. But remember, the debuff he puts on you will be the same no matter what you bring.

Keep in mind I'm calling it a "debuff" to make it easier to understand. It isn't really a debuff and doesn't work like a debuff and cannot be affected like other debuffs. It is a mathematical number that affects how diminishing returns works and does so in a way not intuitive for non-mathy people. But it helps to think about it like this, because people keep asking these kinds of questions thinking that CR is like a class advantage: one goes up, the other goes down. It doesn't. Both go down, it is just a question of how much.

Imagine a hypothetical fight in which your champ had a one billion CR, and your opponent had a one trillion CR. The fact that his is way larger than yours would be largely irrelevant. Yours would be big enough to reduce the (DR-affected) flat stats of your opponent to basically zero. So would his. His doesn't "protect" him from your much smaller one.

Eh, not really. What you're saying (universal debuffing of stats) is based on taking the stat % against a 0 CR opponent (which isn't possible in this game) as a reference value and comparing that against every other stat percentages. However, if I take my base stats against a, let's say 10⁹ CR opponent as a reference point (which would reduce all my champ's stats to 0), and compare that with the base stat % against all other CRs available in the game, I could say that the DR system works as a buff for all champs (in the sense that it "buffs" my base stats above 0). Everything in the DR system is relative and you can only compare values against each other taking some fixed values as a reference point. If you take 10 CR as a reference (r1 1*), you'll see a universal debuffing against all opponents and if you take 110 CR (r4 5*) as a reference point, you'll see a universal buff in base state against all other opponents

Thinking about CR as a debuff better illustrates what is going on: that 4/55 is going to reduce your stats by the same amount whether you bring a 4/55 to the fight or a 2* to the fight, to a first order approximation.

This is what I'm talking about. How can you say CR is going to "reduce" my stats unless your are comparing it with a higher % value for a different CR? You are taking a lower CR as a reference whenever you say that my stats are being reduced. However, as I said before, if you take a really high CR as a reference point, you'll see a universal buff in base stats. So saying that CR only "decreases" my stats isn't completely true.

DNA3000 wrote: »

Your stats are decreased by the sym's challenge rating, and the sym's stats are decreased by your rating. Think of challenge rating like a really mathematically complex debuff that the champions put on each other at the start of the fight.

If you think about challenge rating like that, this fact should now be obvious: you never gain anything from challenge rating. Remember: yours debuffs him, his debuffs you. Never does anything buff anything.

"Never does buff anything" also isn't true (as I pointed out in the X-23 example). If I am fighting a 4/40 champ with a 4/55 champ, my base stats are higher than when I fight a champ of similar CR i.e. a 4/55 champ. So I can say that CR "buffs" the base stats of my champs when I'm fighting a champ with lower CR

GbSarkar wrote: »

"Never does buff anything" also isn't true (as I pointed out in the X-23 example). If I am fighting a 4/40 champ with a 4/55 champ, my base stats are higher than when I fight a champ of similar CR i.e. a 4/55 champ. So I can say that CR "buffs" the base stats of my champs when I'm fighting a champ with lower CR

From that perspective, Dr Strange wasn't nerfed: everything else was buffed.

Let's be precise, because we are using very loose language here. CR is the name of a stat. CR doesn't buff anything, CR doesn't nerf anything. CR has no value. CR is a label. The precise question being asked or inferred by most players is: does the CR value of my champion ever buff the opponent, if the opponent's CR value is higher than mine verses when the opponent's CR value is equal to or lower than mine. The answer to that question is no.

The question you're describing is: if I arbitrarily change the CR of the opponent, will that sometimes increase the value of my net stats? That answer is yes. But that describes an option players are normally not describing, because they normally do not have that option. They are normally asking what the consequences are of changing their own attackers from lower to higher value or vice versa. If you can choose your opponents, choosing opponents with lower CR values will increase your own stats on a relative basis, and conversely choosing opponents with higher CR values will lower your own stats on a relative basis.

But that perspective isn't consistent with the related statement that CR "devalues" 4* champions. That question only makes sense in the frame of reference where the variable option is changing the attackers, not changing the opponents.

DNA3000 wrote: »

If you can choose your opponents, choosing opponents with lower CR values will increase your own stats on a relative basis, and conversely choosing opponents with higher CR values will lower your own stats on a relative basis.

Thank you for finally agreeing with what I was saying (even though you disagreed with it in the same post previously)
You also brought up the topic of 4*s supposed being devalued by CR (something that wasn't being discussed) and I have no idea why