Arc_Salvo

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Never felt that this was the case, as Manticore actually does seem to be a "Follow the Rules" kind of guy, most of the time. He only breaks the rules only when his deep personal convictions get in the way.

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Oddly, I never got that impression. From his info (which is, admittedly, ambiguous), I thought that he was the loner who does things His Way. The comics portrayals certainly don't help.

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I dunno, maybe it was Hickman's arc that made me think of him this way. He seemed like a nice, law-abiding guy in Issues 4-6.

HICKMAAAN, where is he, dammit? *shields his eyes and looks around*

edit: Anyhow, personally my opinion as to why he does those wildcard things he does is not because he's a bada** loner who has to do them just for the sake of being a bada** loner stereotype (most badly written cardboard cutout types like these do it just for those reasons as a plot convenience), but he does them because he's a very wily, subtle guy who has a very good insight into psychology, and has plan so complicated, that rely on such veiled levels of trickery, that he can't tell anyone what he's really planning, or they'll ruin his plan somehow just in the knowing of it.

More like the brilliant mastermind who's so brilliant everyone thinks he's crazy if he tells them his ideas, so he just doesn't bother rather than the loner guy with an attitude.

Even in the first arc by Waid, in the end of Issue 3 it seems like he's a nice guy that gets along with Statesman. Specially in the last few pages.

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Y'know, the one where the impulsive, doesn't-follow-the-rules member of the superhero team is publicly kicked out by the straight-arrow leader. The fallen hero ends up associating with a villain organization and even joining it in an apparent attempt at betrayal. Then, at some climactic moment, his true allegiance is revealed and we find that the whole scenario was a ruse to have the hero infitrate the villain's operation to to thwart the evildoer's plan.


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Never felt that this was the case, as Manticore actually does seem to be a "Follow the Rules" kind of guy, most of the time. He only breaks the rules only when his deep personal convictions get in the way.

In stereotypical plots, it's always some loner hothead or something who's skulking about pouting all the time or something, and when he quits the team or gets kicked out, you can see it coming a mile away and it feels contrived.

But Manticore's a nice guy who got along well with his comrades, and his "Betrayal" actually was kind of shocking and out of character for me.

I figured that fighting crime with the sidekicks illegally and then perhaps the stereotypical plot of: he does something so great while disobeying orders and fighting with the sidekicks that the leader takes him back albeit with a real suspension, which Manticore happily accepts for the sake of obeying the laws.

But that didn't happen.

Anyhow like I said earlier, anyone else feel like the Top Cow series is turning into "City of Manticore"? And that Manticore is steadily and steadily getting more "Batman-y" in feel?

And when is Manticore going to grab Cometshooter as his sidekick anyway? That boy's a natural!

Hooray for Cometshooter!

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So, where is Michael Weis?


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Who's Michael Weis?

Anyhow, TROY HICKMAN CAN TOO WRITE!

Maybe not as well as this guy...

... but hey: there's only one Uniquedragon.

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The DragonLance series is tied as my favorite set of books.

Drizz't is the other set.

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You lost me, Druid. You mentioned this why?

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He thinks you're Tracy Hickman?

Anyone going to talk about what you SHOULD do in Cox?

Here's one:

Challange Hellions to duel YOU WON!

S'always good.

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"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. "
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

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"This thread is filled with pages and pages of... Pilcrow sucks becaue he's an Illusion Controller" - from the sigline of Pilcrow.

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Castle challanged Chuck Norris to a duel - He WON!

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He is truly a Lesbian among Hellions.

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Indeed indeed.

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Windlacer, I'm suggesting changing knockback to knockdown on AOE's only, if that hasn't been clear before.


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Actually, if the devs *were* to make a change, and I had the choice, I would make single target attacks knockdown and preserve knockback for AoEs, not the other way around.

The reason is that with single target attacks, the primary benefit of knock is the momentary damage mitigation, and I can at least make a credible attempt at chain knocking. But if I hit a group with torrent, I want them all pushed back, because I can only continue to apply KB to one of them; I'd like the others to be unable to close to melee range while I do. I'm in favor of increasing the KB percentage on torrent, but not suppressing it to knockdown.

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Even if the knockdown were buffable to knockback with just 1 Knockback Enhancement? I don't think I need to tell you that if Torrent was changed to knockdown, but with a higher chance for the knockdown to hit, and then you added a knockback enhancer to change it back to knockback again, that you'd have a better Energy Torrent than before if you wanted a greater % chance to knock enemies back with the power.

Anyhow, as long as they change the radial knockback in Explosive Blast to knockdown or knock-up, I'm happy.

That's the power I find myself having the most trouble with in teams.

I just think that changing Torrent into knockdown (but buffable to knockback) would be better in general for control-freaks who don't want to ruin team locational aoe strategies.

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How many pages does it take for a dev response?? LOL they say consolidate yet they show no action, no response. Hmm maybe if i put the game under my pillow a fairy will show up and fix it... got a better chance with this idea than a dev!!!

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Aw, don't worry about it Crallen. Castle's on the job.

_Castle_

If he can get Claws/ fixed, he can fix anything. Well... him and the other less vocal devs (that he mentioned) who also help to fix things, anyway.

You can rest assured that they are reading this thread and the other threads on Blaster issues (particularly the Blaster vs. Scrapper threads out there) right now, and can expect a response not "soon"... but rather, "eventually".

We brought up a lot of interesting and highly complex issues that's going to take a lot of number-crunching and thought to figure out, and then they're going to have to make tough decisions on what to do on that information, and what changes they can realistically make based on them.

This is not an easy task, so you can expect some wait before they respond conclusively. They may respond "soon"-ish, but probably not with that much info, as it'll take 'em a long time to start drawing out a plan of action.

Also, let me say that I'd like the 20' attacks to be buffed to 50' (like Bitter Ice Blast) to allow them to be more easily chained with other longer-ranged singles, and also because it just feels "even" (if you're obsessive compulsive like me) to have the high-powered third blasts in every primary be 50' like Bitter Ice Blast.

That and adding one range SO to 50' adds +10', and 10' is such a nice and even, psychologically satisfying number to add as a range increment.

Windlacer, I'm suggesting changing knockback to knockdown on AOE's only, if that hasn't been clear before. An Energy Blaster can be counted on to eliminate single targets they knock back (generally speaking) and this makes single target knockback not a problem imho. It's the knockback on the AOE's (particularly Explosive Blast, which should honestly be changed to knock-UP imho) that make me boggle. And I'd like to see Energy Torrent changed to knockdown (knockback with 1 knockback enhancer) but with a slightly higher chance of the knockdown effect taking place.

Anyhow, regarding Nukes again:

I've shown that with aoe chaining, "fake" nukes are able to do the same damage as "real" ones, but 4 times as often and without draining all your endurance to boot (which allows you to mop up along with the rest of your team for even more damage)

This makes me conclude that "True" Nukes are unbalanced right now.

I suggested previously that all nukes should be changed into psuedo-nukes like Full Auto and Rain of Arrows, but realize that this solution isnt' palatable to many people, players and devs included.

So I'd like to propose an alternate solution:

Changing the recharge timers for "true" nukes from 6 minutes to at least 4.

To oversimplify a little bit: right now, Assault Rifle (and Archery/ in Issue 7) can do nuke-level damage every 45 seconds (with aim and buildup 3-slotted for recharge and Full Auto/Rain of Arrows 2-slotted for recharge, with the limiting factor being the slow recharge of aim/buildup rather than Full Auto/Rain of Arrows)

Real Nukes, as I've said, can do this damage every 3 minutes.

If you divide 45 seconds into 3 minutes, you find out that you can use pseudo-nuke combos 4 times for every 1 time a True nuke can be used, allowing psuedo-nuke users to do 4 times the aoe damage per second. Even if you cut that damage in half because it's all or mostly lethal/smashing damage (with a little bit of fire on the Assault Rifle side) to account for how badly they can be resisted at times (which again, is an oversimplification...) fake nuke aoe combos still do 2 times the dps as real ones.

If you reduced true nuke recharge timers to 4 minutes, it'd be a 2 minute recharge 3-slotted with recharge SO's, which would mean that the psuedo-nukers could only get in 2.66 (more like 2, realistically speaking) aoe combos in between "True Nuke" usages.

And if you cut psuedo-nuke combo damage in half to account for all the lethal/smashing resistance, that makes psuedo-nuke combos and real nukes roughly even-ish in terms of damage per second.

Not absolutely even, but I think that "Real" nukes have some advantages that psuedo-nuke aoe combos don't, including:

A. Instantaneous activation (it's all in one boom, meaning it's easier to use solo, you hit everyone at once and so don't have to painstakingly line up 3 separate aoe's in the time of aim+buildup and hope you don't fumble or miss)

B. Elemental/Energy damage type (not so well resisted, so large groups of +con robots won't make you cry...)

C. The ability to hit 6 more targets, 16 instead of 10 (most team-sized spawns don't have more than 10 targets, and those spawns that do have more tend to be almost all minions... but bad pulls and sudden ambushes/etc. do happen and in these cases, being able to hit 6 more targets instantaneously with that much damage is very useful)

So anyhow, in a nutshell, if we want to leave True Nukes and Fake nukes as is (concept/execution wise), this is why I think True Nukes should have their recharge timers shortened.

In addition to closing the aoe dps gap between True Nukes and Fake ones, I also think that this would subtly address the "Blasters being overshadowed by Scrappers in the late game" issue a little bit as well.

Alright, great suggestions so far, guys. Now is anyone going to sweep 'em up, summarize them, and add them to the old consolidated list in a new post?

I think we've gotten enough new stuff (that isn't a repetition of the old stuffo n the list) to revise it and repost it.

I'd do it myself, but am too busy irl with schoolwork.

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Ice Blast- unresolved

Bug: Blizzard: Every primary has a nuke, they drain all end and leave you unable to recover end for a short time (10 seconds). Blizzard drains and doesn't allow you to recover for the duartion of the blizzard + 10 seconds. blizzard's duration is 20 seconds so that is like 30 seconds we have to go without end recovery. (submitted by Icerian) NOTE: THIS MAY BE FIXED NOW.

Bug: Bitter Freeze Ray: The Foe freezes before the animation is done. (submitted by MageStorm)
Balance: Blizzard doesn't stack up with Nova or Inferno. If you are defeated before Blizzard ends, Blizzard stops (which is very easy to do because you don't have any endurance). (submitted by Sockem)

Balance: Blizzard doesn't get any bonus from Aim and Build Up making it less effective then other Nuke-type attacks. (submitted by Icerian)

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Can I add a wishlist request? Compared to the **BOOM** of Nova and other high end powers, the light, gentle snowstorm of blizzard looks like a wuss. Can we get a REAL blizzard, with torrnets of blinding snow and howling wind and - you know other blizzard like effects.

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That's an easy request to fulfill. Add the effects for snowstorm from the Storm/ defender set, and perhaps even the under-rain ice patch from Freezing Rain.

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edit: Oh, and have you seen the single target damage capability of a Fire/ Brute? It's BLAPPER-level, and has an elemental damage component.

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But...Arc_Salvo...there's a guy in the brute forum insisting that fiery melee for brutes is teh gimp!

(I, er, don't believe a word of it)

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He's what now?

Wow... does he have Stamina yet? Enough defenses taken/slotted to where he can take enough aggro to keep his fury high?

Wait a minute, why am I posting this here?!!! *sighs and heads over to Brute forums*

...now if only he were posting something reasonable, well thought out and inoffensive... then I could flame him... but since he isn't... I guess I can't. *shrugs*

It's SFC_Staley I believe, probably his actual real life rank and name. As Sergeant First Class (SFC) is an army rank (E-7) and he did say he was a Platoon sergeant, and these are usually SFC's. I don't think he's around anymore. He hasn't posted in a very long time and the few posts he does have in these forums have almost been eaten.

There's a good chance with the war going on that he's very busy with something or another. Even if he didn't get deployed to the front, he might be very busy (especially considering that he's in a position of leadership) supporting the effort, or doing extra work at a base to pick up the slack for units that might be deployed.

Wouldn't surprise me if this was the case.


Anyhow, my numbers above for Full Auto/Rain of Arrows combos vs Nukes is a little off up there.

Correction:

Without hasten, full auto/rain of arrows combos can only be pulled off every 45 seconds, as opposed to 3 minutes.

With hasten, full auto/rain of arrows combos can be pulled off every 36 seconds, but nukes can be used every 2 minutes and 45 seconds (2.75 minutes) which is a small difference (my overall points are still correct) but correct nontheless.

edit: these numbers have been fixed in my previous post here.

Arcanaville, the knockup buff to Explosive Blast is something I really really agree with. I also think that the damage should be higher than 2.5 BI too, honestly.

Anyhow, This is copied from the Blaster and Scrapper analysis... thread:
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It does bother me just a little that the numbers are even close, but to be honest, I don't think the devs can really give us much more damage; blaster buffs are likely to have to come from other sources.


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This is what bothers me the most too. I personally favor better recharge times in Blaster ranged attacks, more range overall (especially in the 20' near-melees) and buffing of aoe's for Energy/, Elec/, and possibly Sonic/... which I think is reasonable...

...but another thing that gets me is how situational the nukes are, and how often they're down (3 minutes with 3 recharges, and 2 minutes and 45 seconds with 3 recharges+hasten) compared to how not so useful they can be when used. One-shotting one spawn (up to 16 targets) every 3 minutes is not all that useful, particularly if you're an aoe set like Fire/ or Assault Rifle/.. not that Assault Rifle has this problem, because we get a "Nuke" that you can use every 36 seconds, for MUCH greater dps than the "boom"+total end drain+lock every 3 minutes types. Full Auto (and Rain of Arrows I guess) are NOT situational. They're set defining powers that can be used every spawn, or every other spawn on fast moving teams, and do whopping amounts of damage that make even Spines/DA types cringe. (Well if ROA for archery doesn't now, it will in I7 once Buildup and Aim can buff it...)

If you read TMS's Blaster vs Scrapper role on team thread you read lots of posts on why many Blasters don't use their nuke often or even skip it completely. Very good reasons such as how it's useless on small teams/overkill, they do enough damage already, they don't like twiddling their thumbs while waiting for the endurance lock to end while the rest of the team charges on blowing through mobs like crazy because they're a good team, it draws too much aggro and leaves to many people alive, it's not up enough to be a big factor... and such

And personally, I agree. The dps of a nuke is seriously godawful. The damage per second of a nuke at CAP (500%) is 0.3472 BI if you assume a 3 minute recharge. This makes "true" nukes more of an occaisional convenience to wipe out one spawn without effort every few minutes than a significant and consistent damage contributor to a team.

In contrast, Full Auto or Rain of Arrows at cap is 1.125 BI dps or more than triple the aoe damage per second that "true" nukes put out.

These attacks can be realistically applied to an attack chain for ludicrously devastating results.

My suggestion? This may be controversial and it may have been said before.. but I think we should get rid of "True" nukes and replace them with Full Auto/Rain of Arrows like powers.

This'd ensure that EVERY Blaster in the late game has devastating AOE's, not Just Fire/ Assault Rifle/ and Archery/

edit: I tell people that I do more damage than aim+buildup+nova (45 BI) every 36 seconds with buildup+flamethrower+buckshot OR m30 grenade+Full auto.

This is true, I do 47 BI (pre-resists) every 45 seconds as opposed to I dunno... 3 minutes? aim+buildup+fistful of arrows+explosive arrow+rain of arrows will do 50 BI in I7, if I remember correctly. Sure it's not all in one burst, and you can only do it to 10 targets at a time, but if you have a team to provide good aggro control (as you're supposed to), that's not that much of an issue considering the sheer amount of pwnage you can put out.

Hell, I personally can pump out buildup+flamethrower+buckshot+m30+full auto very consistenyl, that's 55 BI or approximately 120% of the damage of aim+buildup+nova every 45 seconds.

Which is why I'm calling for this drastic change to Nukes. Why use "True" nukes when "wannabe" nukes are better?

further edit: and about how much lethal damage is resisted... notice that since the DPS of "faux" nukes is over -3- times the dps of "true" nukes?

Even if you cut that dps in half to compensate for the many lethal-resistant mobs who do cut lethal damage in half... the dps is still 1.5 times better than that of a true nuke, and these faux nukes don't drain all your endurance and lock it either.

Any chance we can get the aoe's for Elec/ and Energy/ Buffed? Maybe Sonic/ too. I find it odd that Claws and Spines can out aoe these sets two aoe's combined (And Elec/'s are DOT's, one of which has to be delivered in melee) once they get their level 32 powers and slot them at level 33.

I mean, sure it takes them a long time to get to 33, but to get from 33-50 takes a lot longer than from 1-33, and during that time, Energy/ and Elec/ blasters will have worse aoe damage than two Scrapper sets, while having similar (in Energy's case) single target damage, or in Elec's case... worse single target damage.

I'd also talk about Fire/ Brutes also being able to out aoe these sets two combined aoe's with JUST Fire Sword Circle, but they can't cross over to COH yet.

edit: Oh, and have you seen the single target damage capability of a Fire/ Brute? It's BLAPPER-level, and has an elemental damage component.

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Then its back to your boring old lunch breaks where you're not buried under power bugs!

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Naw, then I'll just go back to making PCGen .lst files for my own fun and amusement.

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NERD! NEEEERD!



Just kidding.

I'm just jealous that I can't write .lst files for PCgen. It's a fine program.

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I vote CuppaJo for blaster rep :P

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Me too! She was on her level 50 Fire/Fire blaster for the Caleb bugfix test on the test server, and she only had the first debt badge.

Now everyone else was yelling that she got PLed, but I think that she probably just know how to play her Fire/Fire.

Oh, and she had Hotfeet.

God knows why...

Has anyone addressed the 2 second wait time after Ranged shot (where you can't attack) in Archery/ yet? I know it's in Concern and Redzero's reposts of the old consolidated issues thread, but I think it's worth repeating. No other snipe has that downtime to deal with, and I'm pretty damn sure it's a bug.

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I have to disagree. Other ATs with the lethal/smash problems all have ways to mitigate incoming damage - Blasters do not. My Claws Scrapper has zero difficulty due to lethal damage because he's not in such a hurry to kill. He's able to stand toe-to-toe while my Blaster is forced to kill quickly because he can't manage incoming damage. This is why the lethal problem is so huge - it henders a Blaster's ability to kill quickly, thus increasing the chance of death.

I can't remember the last time I've had anybody I know who plays an SS Tank (or Brute for that matter) complain about lack of damage. In fact if you read most of the threads concerning SS, it's about the enormous amount of damage they are able to do - not a lack thereof.

The only melee AT that has problems with smash/lethal is Mace, I know this from personal experience.

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I second this. With my MA/SR Scrapper when I come across those annoying enemies that cut my damage in half, I get irritated and take longer to kill them, but I'm never in any real danger.

With my Blaster, who has to kill quickly or be killed himself, I either use inspirations like mad, or die.

Plus, Scrappers don't have elemental and energy damage type in their primaries (except for Dark Melee and to a lesser extent, Spines) as a general rule, while Blasters do.

So the blasters without some non S/L component (particularly lethal which is even more frequently resisted than smashing) are disadvantged vs blasters with energy/elemental damage components in their primaries if the BI's of their attacks are similar.

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Guys, I seriously doubt changes to the way knockback occurs are likely to happen. It seems to me the easier a change is to implement, the likelier a change is to happen.

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Naw it's easy man, all they have to do is lower the magnitude of the knockback of these powers until it's low enough that it's knockdown on -1 cons and up.

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Hope this doesn't get him deluged with PMs. But OTOH I felt he deserved public kudos.

After reading the thread about Increase Density, where he talks about the mode of buffs (Replace vs default), I sent him a PM asking if we could have some powers fixed:

Smoke Grenade, Smoke, etc, lose debuffs for a second when replaced, in order to avoid stacking. As did O2 Boost, and as did Burn. In contrast to other powers like Clear Mind, Practiced Brawler, etc, which can be reapplied without dropping their buff (or debuff).

His reply was very helpful:
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It's a bug. I'll submit it to the programming staff.

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FYI, if you didn't know, some of these powers have been bugged for over a year.

It's amazing how effective Castle is, and unfortunately, it makes the rest of the Devs look rather negligent, when I see that easily 2/3 of the bugs squished in the last few months are due to Castle looking into the matter. I just wish that there were a few more like him on staff, looking to fix problems, rather than more designers, who look to create more powers/content/whatever. I'd rather have a little bit less game and have it be working right, than have more and have it be buggy.

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You're absolutely right, Blacksly! For fixing/debugging problems, Castle's either the best or most visible dev there is. Honestly speaking, I'm shocked that some other dev hasn't done what he's doing right now already. It seems like a no brainer if you play this game alot and try to have fun with it.

More than any other dev, I honestly think Castle has the "Player's Perspective" down. It's very easy for him (methinks) to see things from our side of the fence. And that's what makes him so insightful about what we want, imho.

Hey guys, don't be so hard on Castle, he's a new dev, remember?

He started during COV Beta, and was working on Stalkers and afterwards, Scrappers. He wasn't even remotely thinking that he was going to be looking at our problems until very recently, and it's highly likely that he never read our forums too much because he was reading the Scrapper/Stalker/Defender forums.

And in the Scrapper/Stalker/Defender forums there were very organized and highly publicized Consolidated issues threads that everyone knew about, and Castle's preferred method to communicate with those communities was to post his answers in those consolidated threads.

It's not an insult guys, it's just his method of operation. It's what he's used to doing because it's worked for him 3 times in the past with good results.

And remember, he wasn't here since launch like other devs, and for the short period he was here (like I said) he wasn't reading our forums because he was busy with other things, and it wasn't his job.

Anyhow, even if other devs knew about the various "issues" threads and "consolidated issues" threads floating around here, they might not have told him about it.

Here's a quick fact about Energy's aoe's that most people think about that are valid, imho:

With every other primary, you can chain your aoe's onto a spawn before you release your nuke.

For example: aim+bu+fire breath+fire ball+(run in) inferno

Or run in, aim+bu+short circuit+ball lightning+(run out) thunderous blast.

Or my favorite (because you can do it every 36 seconds at range) - buildup+flamethrower+buckshot+full auto.

These combos, while requiring almost total lockdown by a controller or almost all the aggro held by a tanker, allow you to do ENORMOUS amounts of damage, sometimes enough to kill -everything- in a spawn. Everything. Bosses included.

The problem is, because both of Energy's aoes have knockBACK, instead of knockdown, they scatter the mobs around too much to double aoe+nuke the mobs reliably.

Heck even if you're just teaming (instead of trying to stack damage like crazy), all the scatter is very team unfriendly. Especially if you have other aoe specialists on the team. Not just Blasters, but also Controllers and Defenders who need tightly packed groups to use their controls/immobilizes, aoe debuff toggles/placed debuffs, etc.

Since Knockdown has reported to be a low-magnitiude knockback by Castle in the defender's thread, I propose that energy/'s aoes be changed to knockdown (perhaps with a higher chance to activate to compensate for the lessened hang time/mitigation) and allow blasters to slot knockback enhancements to change these powers back the way they used to be.

Post ED, it's doable now. Anyhow, much thanks to the poster (whose name I forgot) who proposed this solution in the first place. Making Energy aoe's knockdown and letting enhancements scale them back up to knockback was someone else's idea.