William_Valence

You seem to need a course in elementary math. I might not be the best teacher on the planet, but that never stopped me from trying.

First: .6x2 is not 60% amplification. Next that amplification is only useful if the time it takes to provide it, is less than the loss in DPS you would get from simply doing damage. Also consider that blaster's are amplified as damage dealers, so a blaster on the team might be a better choice than other options.

If you have a debuffer, and for the sake of simplicity let's say it amplifies damage by 60% like you say, let's look at possible teamate options. A corruptor has a .75 ranged damage mod compared to a blaster's 1.125, so the .75*1.6 (that's a 60% amplification) + 1.125 * 1.6 needs to be > .75 * 2.2 + .75 * 2.2, if you want to prove a blaster is a worse choice than the corruptor. So lets see, is 3 > 3.3 ? No? Oh noes!!!! *Flails like a muppet*

WAIT!!! Let's compare this to an ingame situation to see if it's even Possible! What is causing this 60% amplification? My guess is, since you mentioned cold, Sleet. Sleet does -30% def and -30% resistance, for something that someone who has no clue, would say is 60% amplification. Players have a base tohit of 75%, and accuracy slotting to ed caps brings that to 75*1.9493 (not .9493*2) or 146.19, or the tohit cap of 95%. That means with accuracy slotting, the Value of the amplification goes down. Try this again assuming Capped accuracy slotting= (.75*1.3)+(1.125*1.3)>(.75*1.3)+(.75*1.3) or 2.4375>1.95 Yay!

And that's just comparing the blaster's primary against a Corruptor's Primary and secondary! Also, the player's tohit would have to be debuffed to 48% or lower for the defense debuff to even do anything, and even then the first Corruptor is the only one that provides any benefit there, so the blaster gets the same level of buff as a second corruptor!

Outside very specific scenarios, once the ability to mitigate the initial attack is reached, more damage trumps everything else, and it isn't always a given that adding debuff provides more damage than simply adding more damage. A balanced approach is better in more situations than not, and when you're looking for pure damage nothing beats a Blaster.

Also math is hard, I'm not even sure if -I'm- doing it right, you should avoid it until they invent some sort of math helmet or something. Geometry has some sharp corners.

The problem with this is, when the praetorian zone events came out I worked my tuchas off with my MM; controlling pets perfectly, managing their targets, and basically being a beacon of destruction just to find out that didn't count as participating. I then went through with no pets tossing my heal and ST debuffs every time they were up, even if it would be stupid to do so, basically backpacking and viola.

So, it really depends. If there's participation scoring, you might not notice it depending on what the participation requirements are.

Best dutch oven ever?

So if it were given a regen debuff, and maybe a second debuff (like a damage debuff) to validate the endurance costs, that would help?

I don't see an issue with a Psi Hole, or the fact some of it's debuff is ally only. Every set needs weaknesses, and it's not at all uncommon for a Buff/debuff set to have powers that require an ally.

If you're talking about the top quote, that's not math. That's a claim, you need to do math to prove that claim. Then you have to compare that math to a real-world ingame senario, then examine the results. You're missing some steps.

Yay! Don't need datamining to prove this one. I'll be looking forward to seeing the evidence that supports this claim.

There hasn't been any math done to contradict anything that's been said against your opinion.

That depends on what numbers you're trying to put together. If you want to show that Blaster's are disadvantaged, you can do that without datamining. If you want to show population numbers or average debt/death/kill/lifespan you're right, but that wouldn't be needed to prove your point anyway so it doesn't matter.

Do you have any way to demonstrate this, because your anecdotal evidence is easily countered by other player's anecdotal evidence stating the opposite.

If you managed to scrap together some factual empirical evidence, that would be a lot harder to dismiss.

Agree with the heal arrow thing. I'll buy a plane ticket to CA for rumble time the moment I hear Triage Arrow is being considered.

But for FF and sonic getting the debuffs I suggested, I could totally see a Meta, capable of manipulating sonic vibrations, using those vibrations to hamper an enemy's ability to recover from injury, and even further using the same vibrations that weaken enemies to damage to Disrupt their ability to cause damage.

And for FFs, that's why I said it might need it's name changed to Disruption bomb. A FF that attacks at the molecular level disrupting the enemy's ability to deflect and absorb damage as well as temporaraly hampering it's ability to recover from damage. Such an attack could leave an enemy disoriented, and enemies might find themselves knocked down from the force of the attack.

What do you think might fit the theme better?

I've got a sort of split personality when it comes to this game. When I play I either do one of a few things; run missions, get badges, or stand around. Seriously, I'll just stand around and watch stuff. When I'm doing that, I might be in Pocket D standing with 9 other people around a Cape DJ, or I'll find different places in the game and watch the things people do. It's a very entertaining way to spend 15-20 minutes.

When I run missions though, I want to destroy things. I team when I want a big light show, I don't when I wan't to try stupid stuff or achieve a specific goal. When I team, I expect nothing from the others on the team, except that they have fun. If they're not, there's a problem. We could be doing and ITF and they could be off with Sonic repulsion playing Cimerorian bowling for all I care, I'll solo the thing, have fun, and enjoy the fact that they're having fun. However, if a situation completely beyond my control made it so that one of the set's I chose at character creation was no longer helpful to the team, (Not counting stuff like quartz's because that's a gameplay weakness not a design limitation) I'd no longer be having fun and start getting frustrated. See my thoughts on masterminds and praet zone events.

And what I'm talking about isn't a weakness of the set, so much as a weakness in design. Like I've said a few times, I'm not considering stuff like quartz's. They are a weakness of the set. However, defense only stacks to a point before becoming unneeded. FFs brings defense and knock based control. Nothing else. In high defense situations all a FF user has is knock based control, and that can be...an issue. Adding an effect that better allows FF users to stack in high defense situations, so a FF user can always count on their primary and secondary unless they manufacture the situation, is the goal with the FF suggestion I made.

The thought with FFs is not so much that it's weak, and more that it doesn't stack well. If you have one FF defender, why have another? (Correct answer: Fun) That one is capable of bringing you to the soft-cap, what would having a second do? A FF controller can bring you to low 30s, a cold would put you over the soft cap and bring debuffs. The point is, in high defense situations, a FF user isn't needed. And something as simple as already having a FF on the team creates a High defense situation.

And while people can look past the issue and just have go with it, they shouldn't have to. Player's should have both their primary and secondary available to help the team. This isn't a player crafted senario where they skip all the powers in the set. When you put two FF users on a team, the second provides little to no benefit from it's FF powers. That's not how it should be. Enemies existing such as Quartz's being a weakness, that's ok. Being the second of two teamates with the same powerset being a weakness? Not ok.

So my suggestion for Force Fields would do it for you?

Why add a heal to sonic? What good does it do to bring sonic closer to thermal's playstyle instead of making it more debuff focused with it's own style?

Looking at what you said for TA, why does everything need a heal? The various powers in TA are tools, why do you have to fire them all on one group? Make the individual arrows more useful, and they will always have something available for a mob. A boss heavy spawn? OSA and Acid, whereas a regular group might only need disruption and Acid arrows. Making the powers more potent also means, when it's needed and they do use all their powers on an enemy, they debuff more than other sets. With my suggestion, they's drop tohit by 5% (enhanceable and unresistable), damage by 35% resistance by 45% and defense by 20% in 4.62 seconds (not counting Flash arrow as that doesn't notify mobs). I have no idea how that could be considered anything but reasonable. Add in an OSA every so often for an additional 25% defense debuff and kd or damage patch.

That's a fair enough point, but let me ask you this. If defender was not using it's secondary in favor of using only it's primary would you consider it a detriment to the team? Lets use an Emp "Healer" for example. If they decided to ignore their blasts and only buff would they be more a detriment to the team than one that used both it's primary and secondary. What I'm saying is that there's the potential situation outside player control that manufactures this problem for FF users. I'm not blaming them, but to me if I'm in a situation where the entirety of my character, primary and secondary, is not benefiting the team then I'm tagging along. I'll toss blasts like no other and listen to the Wooo whooo whooo woo of my buffs, but I'm not doing for the team the way I should. Addressing the issues that craft those senarios outside player control is my goal. And it may just be my viewpoint of the situation, but I definitely don't mean anything bad about players put in that situation.

Added to that, ATs are balanced with both sets in mind. I have no problem letting people tag along. I hate doing it myself it's not fun for me, but having someone on a team that's not doing as much as they could but still having fun, is golden. As long as their having fun, and not hurting other player's fun, because fun > everything. However despite that, FFs find themselves in situations, often beyond their control, where their secondary is no longer needed. My hope isn't to change them into something else, but to give them a moderate debuff, that can be a bread and butter type power as much as the defense buff powers. All to fufill the goal of increasing their ability to stack in high defense situations.

By the way, the level of debuff I was thinking was (Controller mods) -7.5% resist, -10% def, and -250% regen.

More advantageous, true, but honestly not where the power should be balanced around. My sonic is an Illusion/Sonic. I have the ability to anchor on my PA. My Phantasm, however, is a suicidal SoB that loves to die as much as he loves KB, and he loves him some KB. The buffs also end up at the mercy of pet AI, so even if the pet survives, it does what it wants. And not everyones a controller a summoned ally won't be available to all users.

I'll agree that in the beginning sonic has more debuff. But thermal has more buff. That's balance. Then when sonic is getting sonic repulsion, Thermal is getting freaking forge, again thermal buffs and sonic debuffs. Now with an odd KB toggle. Then in the last two levels I see thermal blowing past, and while your dark/thermal has one power from thermal for most of it's "career" that just shows playstyle and isn't an indicator of performance.

I also don't think it's acceptable for one set to become so much better than another just because it happens at later levels. I understand there are late bloomers out there, but they usually bloom into their own playstyle and not into another set's, blowing them away.

Starting both thermal and sonic at 15% resistance for the team only. A side by side:

Thermal
-PBAoE (includes self) heal 117.8 (enhanceable) every 8 seconds for 13end
-ST (Ally only) heal 230.9 (enhanceable) every 4 seconds for 13end
-Ally rez (Ally only) nuke level damage, boss level stun, High mag KB
-ST (Ally only) Mez protection with cold and slow resistance
-ST (Ally only) +20% tohit +40% damage, out of the box perma with the ability to use at least 3 more times on SOs before the first wears off
-ST -50% damage, -500% regen, -28.6% end, -200% recovery with a 64% uptime on SO's
-AoE -20% def, -22.5% res, with a 51% uptime on SOs

Sonic
-ST -22.5 res available every 16s base or 9.6s SO capped
-ST intangable
-AoE (ally only) -22.5 res
-AoE (includes self) 11.3 resist (enhanceable) -6.92 held/stun/immob prot
-AoE (ally only) KB toggle with variable end cost
-ST (ally only) Mez protection with perception buff
-AoE -25 def, -25 tohit, -20% rech, mag2 hold 4.5s (enhanceable), 3% chance for KD on a .2s pulse, with a 19% uptime on SOs

Numbers from mids and redtomax. Now, I don't think it's acceptable to say a person should pick a different set if they don't want to be worse. But I also think changes shouldn't be made that change what a set is at it's root. That's why I suggested the changes I did. Add in a -200% regen debuff ST, and another -200 ally only, with a third -200 on a 19% uptime, and it looks closer. Added to that a -22.5 percent damage debuff at the same intervals, and it becomes (imho) a better debuff set, that didn't change it's gameplay at all. Thermal can be better at buffs with some debuffs. Different sets for different people. Without liquefy, all Sonic debuffs is resistance. In standard builds it's up less than half the uptime either of thermal's powers are, and in high end builds, both thermals powers can be pushed to 100% uptime with sonic getting 36% uptime in my perma-PA build (yes I know that's not the balance point, just showing that in both standard and high end gameplay thermal has the advantage)

I also just want to say, I agree. I have nightmares about a once over on all the sets making every type of set follow the Assault template (I know, lame nightmare). Namely they all do the same thing with minor secondary differences. And I don't want to see that, and I think it's possible to come up with changes that prevent that.

Non-targeted statement: That was my biggest goal. If I failed on that goal, could someone explain. What would be preferable changes, and how do my suggestions either homogenize the sets or not address the issue (or both)?

No, what he was suggesting was that people are trained in a system before they are allowed to use it. He was also arguing a usless point as the analogy is terrible and wrong, thus wasting his time anyway.


No it's not. That's a terrible analogy and you should stop mentioning it.

The stalker has a specific gameplay intent. The gameplay intent is to attack from a hidden state, gaining extra damage from the suprise attack, and try to either retreat to hidden (lather...rinse...repeate) OR scrap it out and try to kill the remaiders. The gameplay intent is -NOT- to AS the enemies to death. What you're communicating, when you say the set is built around AS, is that the gameplay revolves around AS. That's wrong.

The gameplay revolves around hide. AS is the most exreme form of that gameplay giving even more damage from the Hidden state. It doesn't, however, define the AT's gameplay.

Stalker's are built around hide. That's it.



I know the AT was not built for AoE. I SAID the AT was not built for AoE. What I was trying to do was explain WHY the AT might have been made ST focused despite the fact that ST specialization is inferior in most of the game.

The AT isn't broken so much as it's not balanced realistically to current gameplay trends. If there were a true need for ST specialists, they'd be golden. But minus mass confusion or friendly fire being added to the game, I'm just going to wait to see what the devs do. I gave them three issues of trusting wait and see, back when Castle was talking about systemic issues and stalkers, and some stuff he said made me believe that changes might be coming.

So with that, there's no EM or Stalker complaints from me for a little while yet.

I do see a glimmer of hope with the KIR. People might not like the fact they can't AoE curbstomp entire groups with AM standing around, but it does show intent to make ST more neccesary in gameplay.

Bad analogy and incorrect analysis, but whatever. The Stalker is built around Hide not AS. AS is an annoyance. An attack that creates the illusion of superior damage, that usually costs the character it's ability to deliver AoE severely hampering it's ability to perform in situations that involve many enemies. Added to that is the lower damage mod due to the rightful fear that too much damage could be harmful to AT balance. (same issue exists with blasters) The long wind-up hampers repeate usage and hurts the damage output of an AT that's supposed to lose survivibility and gain damage.

Hide usually trades the utility of one power for the ability to stealth and the hidden status. This is the basis of the stalker, and what the AT is built around.

My guess is, that when stalkers were introduced, the old dev team still had their ideas on how combat was supposed to play out. The thought being that the game wasn't so AoE centric, and it was a fair trade to lose the PBAoE attack for an initial burst of single target damage after a bit of prepared downtime. However, in team situations there is a great deal of AoE, and the ability to provide a large bit of damage after a set-up time isn't as valuable.

You could easily improve stone without violating the cottage rule.

The problem with stone is, that it provides immense survivibility with a moderate offensive penalty and a huge penalty to mobility while the rest of the set provides less survivibility with no practical difference in the mobility penalty.

Because the mobility penalty is so steep, there's really no reason to use the standard armors. Minus Psi of course. It's just as tedious to use all armors +rooted as it is Granite +rooted.

The fix wouldn't be a sweeping change to granite, it would be a movement of the mobility penalty from rooted, adding the same close to ground only effect from Electric's grounded to maintain pourpose, and adding the removed penalty to granite to maintain the same level of mobility penalty when in granite.

A look at the endurance costs for the various toggles would be next to better represent the endurance to survivibility ratio.

I did mention the minor toxic resistance. However, I would not call O2 boost's secondary effects minor and I don't believe it will be improved. I could end up being suprised, but no O2 boost is nice, meshes well with the set, and beats Alkaloid soundly.


So dark, a control heavy set with no defense debuff is gets compared to poison because people (rightly) love the set, but the other debuff sets with the same debuffs in equal or greater ammount are too dissimilar to compare?

It doesn't matter if you don't want to compare them to poison, because when it comes to powerset balance you must. If the other sets do what poison does only better, then poison is underpowered.

The other set's do what poison does but better. Poison is underpowered. If you look and compare poison to the other sets you'll discover two things.

1. They're not all that dissimilar
2. Poison is not as good



Hitting these two at once.

Darkest night and weaken both have a 22.5% damage debuff and 11.3 tohit debuff. Weaken also has a secondary debuff.

Darkest night cost .65end/sec

weaken has and end cost of 13 and lasts 30s for an endurance cost of .43end/sec Adding a second enemy means you have to wait 16s for the power to recharge then pay another 13 end. To maintain that on both enemies means it would cost more endurance than it would to maintain Darks power. Remembering that Dark can debuff up to either 10 or 16, I'm not sure off the top of my head, enemies at the same time, without a gap between any of them.

Envenom and Freezing rain both have a 30% resistance debuff. Envenom debuffs defense by 22.5% and Freezing rain debuffs by 30% Envenom has a 50% regen debuff and a 15% heal resist. Freezing rain has Minor damage and speed/recharge debuffs

Freezing rain costs 22.8 endurance to debuff for 30s for .76end/sec

Envenom has the same 13 endurance cost.

The point is, that I wasn't making stuff up. When there's a single enemy poison gets a minor endurance advantage (assuming perfect timing) but the moment you add a second enemy, it loses that advantage. Whether you believe the ability to affect more than one enemy at a time is important or not doesn't remove the fact that ther -is- a large advantage to the AoE debuffs. And it applies the moment there's more than one enemy to fight.


It's true, poison is awesome. But being awesome does not mean it isn't an underperformer.

PBAoE vs TAAoE

It would be on the Corruptor/Controller otherwise it would be an Targeted Ally AoE debuff.

If my read-fu is correct, then you're right Zamuel and the change to Venomous gas is just for Controllers/Corruptors.

If the change was for everybody they wouldn't need to change the name.

I just hope Noxious Gas is made either toggle or perma-able to compete.

Sorry, didn't translate will in written form. I wasn't using "cost" as a negative. I was using it as a term to describe this->that. I do like O2 boost, and if I had my way, Alkaloid would be even more similar to it with it's own perception boost and some KB protection. I was just trying to explain that O2 boost "pays", "cost", whatever for the Perception/mez/enddrain with a lesser heal and a not to trivial endurance cost. Alkaloid pays the exact same price, and all it gets is a small amount of toxic resist that, in my opinion, should be moved to Antidote.

-50% damage debuff, -500% regen debuff, -55.9% special debuff, -70% Recharge debuff. That's Benumb.

Siphon power is a 20% debuff and I'd say it's less poplular, not because of any weakness on it's part, but instead because it's a part of the set that has Fulcrum shift. Sort of like how Armor powers are thrown to the wayside in Stone the moment people get Granite.

Blast debuffs? They're about a third of the magnitude and 1/5th the duration.

But do you really believe that it would not be devestatingly broken to allow benumb to stack?

The Repeat Offenders are proof of whats doable with stacking debuffs. It's not systemic. Sonic Siphon isn't as powerful as other ST debuffs, that's true. But allowing the player to stack it 3-4 times? My Ill/son would love that, but that would be terribly broken.

Different AT's have different thing's they can access. While it might be true that something balanced for Defenders should easily translate to Corrupters, that's not always the case for everything. Look at DP. In my opinion it's a very good defender set due to the Debuff ability it has. However the same set on blasters loses much of that ability and maintains sub-par damage.

Along the same vein. When will I be able to make a Thugs/Kin? Bots/Rad? what about a /Cold MM? If their balanced for one AT, then it should be A-Ok right?

The systemic issue is with Damage powers ST vs AoE. The reason I stopped harping about Stalkers and EM is because the dev team (mostly Castle) Expressed awareness of the issue and said they were taking steps to rectify the issue. Debuffs are not all balanced ST vs AoE, and that means there's no breakpoint. There's no true area where you get more benefit for using the ST power vs and AoE competitor. This is less an issue with Sonic and Cold because they have both buffs, and regular AoE debuffs. The ST debuffs are just to support the AoE ones. One tool of many. Poison however has all it's primary debuffing in ST form. The AoE is support. This is why Poision is lacking in comparison to the other sets, and it's why this is a balance issue not a systemic issue. They could change the game as much as they want, but unless every fight is against a single enemy at a time, it won't help.

Sure, it's very good at what it does. The problem is all the other debuff sets are just as good, and AoE to boot. The only time Poison has the advantage is when there's a single enemy. And that's just a moderate endurance advantage, which isn't worth the loss of being competitive when 99.99% of the game is against more than one enemy.

Problem is, that Alkaloid only has a heal and a small, unenhanceable resistance whereas O2 Boosts crappy endurance cost and heal is at the cost of a perception buff and some mez protection. O2 Boost is the hands down better of the two.

Here's the thing, where dark doesn't have Defense debuffs, it has everything else and a little more. And Tar Patch is the same ammount of resistance debuff in the form of a 25ft AoE that also slows. Dark has Dark servant, which has it's own Twilight Grasp, allowing for double the Regen debuff. ALSO there's howling twilight for a -500% regen (I believe is AoE) to throw in there.

Then you add in all the other sets. Because there are more sets than just dark. Storm has freezing rain, which is the same ammount of debuff in AoE form. And because we're talking hard targets, it's worth noting that it's perma-able. Then you transition to the rest of the game, and it hits ALL the enemies in the patch not just one at a time.

Thermal has melt armor. It's a bit less debuff, a few percentage points, but It's AoE and again quite perma-able. The fact it's in a Buff/debuff set not a primary debuff set makes it a bit more understandable as well.

Traps, oh god traps. MMMM traps.

And trick arrow. While it will lose on endurance a bit further out than other sets, it's still capable of putting out more debuff than poison in AoE.

Poison loses all around. It doesn't have to though, and that's the point of the thread.

lolwut? Did you mean "Unenhanced this drops the tohit on a target to 85%"?

Because that would be accurate. This power does, for more endurance, the exact same ammount of damage and tohit debuff as darkest night. It also has a -special debuff, but I don't think that makes up for the fact that it cost more endurance to keep on three enemies than dark's power cost to affect 16. And Weaken takes hella longer to do it.

Also, no, no, no. It does not do 85% tohit debuff.

No one's saying you cant enjoy the set, but I do think your idea of where the set stands in comparison to the others is a bit off kilter. And it could definitly use some love. Make that a lot of love.