Techbot Alpha

Originally Posted by Sarrate

This is one of those issues I wish would be discussed without going to pointless extremes.

Soloing +0, x0, no bosses is pretty easy, even without mez protection. The spawns are small, almost all enemies can be dealt with in a single mez, mobs have terrible tohit chances and low damage. Is it possible for something to go wrong and die? Absolutely, but it should not be happening with any degree of regularity. Heck, depending on character / level / enemy group being fought, sometimes I've gotten mezzed and not even bothered with a breakfree.

On the other hand, if you turn up the difficulty (larger spawns, bosses) the possibility of things going wrong greatly increases, disproportionately compared to melee characters. Also, even if each spawn only has one 'dedicated mezzer,' there is a high possibility there will be multiple mobs that can mez. For example, any Freakshow with a hammer arm can apply a stun. For lower levels, there are always the Tsoo Ink Men.

[edit: Squishies would also be more susceptible to problems caused by not seeing a mob, ambushes, etc. Whenever an encounter starts off without the player shooting first, they're going to be at a bigger disadvantage.]


Some squishies handle mezzes / harder content better than others. My Dark/Rad/Dark Defender, for example, can deal with quite a bit. She can handle large groups of mobs quite easily due to a plethora of aoe control, and permanently lock down bosses between OG and Cosmic Burst.. If she gets mezzed, mobs will still be debuffed (FS, Fluffy), crowd controlled (lingering Oppressive Gloom, Pet Gaze, Cosmic Burst), and healed (Fluffy). On the opposite side of the spectrum, my Dark/Rad/Soul Corruptor is far more brittle. She can crush large groups of mobs (TT to lock mobs into the debuff fields then chip them to death), but if she gets mezzed, all her mitigation shuts down. I understand that herding mobs is above and beyond what is 'normal,' but it's frustrating that her specialty is so easily shut down.

I will say that sometimes in groups lack of status protection can be more frustrating. As the teamsize climbs, more mezzers spawn. This makes it easier for one to catch you sideways. (Thankfully, you'll have support from you team so you probably won't die, but you time spent incapacitated can increase. The LGTF is a good example of this.)

Do I think that squishies should simply be given status protection? No, I don't think that would be the right solution - but I do wish there was a bit more leniency. Here is a rough example of what I mean. Give every character a passive that ticks every T seconds. It has a X% chance to give a MAG Y status protection for Z seconds. Just off the cuff numbers: every 5 seconds has a 50% chance for MAG 5 status protection for 1 second. The idea behind it is that even restrained heros fight back against their restraints - allowing them to briefly act. It might be firing off a strategic control, eating an inspiration, using a heal, landing the killing blow, etc. The main purpose is to prevent perma lockdown, while still leaving them as a potent threat to be dealt with instead of trivializing them.


Let me say I'm not the best squishy player out there. I'm very conservative with inspirations, thinking "I think I can handle this," which often gets me into trouble where if I ate insps off the bat I would have been much better off. I also acknowledge some players could do things on squishies I might not be able to. This is just my perspective on the matter. I speak for no one but myself.

[edit: Oh, one last thing - none of my squishies are completely tricked out on IOs. Some have more investment than others, but none of them are softcapped, perma-hastened, etc. Generally just enough to plug some glaring holes (like end consumption).]

Originally Posted by Dark_Respite

Not if I have anything to say about it... *grins*

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Originally Posted by Zem

I wouldn't hold my breath on end reductions. Far as I can tell, all of these powers are balanced by damage, recharge, and end cost. You can compare them to similar powers in other sets (cone AoEs, T-AoEs, etc.) The real problem with flamethrower from an end perspective is as Neo pointed out. It becomes an endurance waste when, due to the slow DoT, the power can't deliver ALL of its damage before the targets are killed by either you or your teammates. Reducing Flamethrowers DoT duration and more front-loading its damage fixes that. It still costs a lot but that's because it does a lot.

Originally Posted by Futurias

Please, do keep screaming that the sky is green and the moon is made of cheese. It's rather humorous.

Originally Posted by OzzieArcane

Hard to say about that, since the difficulty options they added are so new. I had thought that option was only ment for boss objectives though since bosses don't usually spawn in regular groups when you're solo.

Originally Posted by DSorrow

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Peacebringers yet. As someone who has one of these at level 50 (my second level 50, in fact) I think they're the most useless AT in the whole game. Peacebringers don't have much to bring to the table. They have quite weak damage, a weak single heal, KB in just about every AoE attack which makes their team DPS even less feasible and they don't even get mez protection to compensate. Oh, I forgot, they can have an ok offtanking power, though.

To be honest, though, there's absolutely nothing a Scrapper can't do better than a Peacebringer can. DPS? Scrappers win. Survival? Scrappers win in most cases, it can be a close call with a good PB player, though. Buffs? Neither have any, if it's a /SD Scrapper PBs lose by far. Heals? Ok, PBs have one weak ally heal, it has never, ever saved the day for me because usually in teams there are either enough buffs, debuffs, proper heals or competent players going about the PB heal is only good for topping off people after fights.

I'm not saying here I hate PBs, I quite like their unique playing mechanisms, but their weakness sort of hurts the gaming experience for me. What I hate playing about them is the feeling that they're not actually good at anything... You can correct me on this if you want.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

I've never been very much convinced of the merit of Smoke Bomb, but it IS useful from time to time. If you're looking for a clone of that, that'd actually be one item I'd wish to stay. Granted, I still prefer your Body Armour idea, but I think you could replace something else with it.

Basically speaking, though, Ninjutsu is about the LEAST protection I want to see in a Stalker set. Any less than that, and it runs into dangerous waters.

Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina

Unreleased powerset:

http://paragonwiki.com/w/index.php?t...3AGears+&go=Go

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

The complaint of squishy ATs not being able to solo +4/x8 missions just struck me as being very similar to complaining that your stock Jeep Wrangler can't win the Baja 1000.

A Jeep can go off road, but it takes a special vehicle to run something that difficult.

Not many toons in general can run content that difficult. It takes a specially built toon to run it with any consistency. The feats the forum scrappers pull off and report are NOT the baseline by which everything should be judged, they are outliers. Your average scrapper runs +4/X8 content no better than your average defender.

Because Bill Z's scrapper can solo at that level does not mean all scrappers can.

Just as someone soloing an STF with an Ill/Rad controller does not mean that all Ill/Rad's can.

And because Bill Z's scrapper can solo at that level certainly does not mean that everyone in the game should be able to. But you are acting as though they should.

Originally Posted by Monkey_King

Holy crap, look at the damage on Scrapper Shield Charge. That's heavier than Headsplitter, AoE, on potentially the same timer as Build Up. I desperately wish my scrapper was level 35 now. Are you sure you want to be doing that?

Originally Posted by Clouded

Ah yes, now we've struck gold.

So your new arguement is that restructuring mezz mechanics will bring about a golden age of teaming and social interaction in CoX?

Originally Posted by hedgehog_NA

This would revitalize teaming and help make COX a more interactive place instead of being split between those that can handle +4 x8 spawns and the gimps.

Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning

Okay, soI figured, screw it,I have plenty of scrappers, tankers, blasters, trollers, defenders and whatever else at high level, I"ll do a test, a scrapper with no mez protection, vs a squishy with access to all the tools. My rules were simple, I ran at +1, x0, no bosses. The test wasn't perfect. My only scrapper whose mez protection isn't baked in with resistance of some kind was a my softcapped IO'd to the gills SR scrapper and my squishies, except for my fire/kin aren't nearly as IO'd out. I was fighting against carnies, and that was good for the SR scrapper as well because she's DB, and Carnies are weak against lethal.

With all of these advantages, the SR scrapper died twice, because she was golden until an illusionist came in and then she had no way to deal with the incoming mezzes. She nearly died twice against a single illusionist, and died three times against a MI lieuteant (which wasn't a surprise, MI's cause troubles WITH mez protection, so meh).

The blaster I ran with was energy/elec/elec, which meant that there were a good deal of tools she had to deal with to neuter spawn sizes of this size. The blaster was not once in danger until the MI lieutenant which she killed after 1 try. Thank you blasting while mezzed. THe blaster did have the advantage of fighting in a cave, which meant there were fewer enemies to deal with and less lines of sight, but on the other hand, she dealt with twice as many Illusionists.

For my controller I used an Earth/Storm/stone because she's not as IO'd out as my Illusion/Storm or my fire/kin, but still has a lot of tools...This felt like the perfect mission, because while she had no defense against carnies, she destroyed them with a vareity of mezzes that were generally up close. I have stealth which meant I could get in close, mez the problem mob, let stoney deal with the others that weren't so hard. Even the MI lieutenant was laughably easy. It was also in a cave, so it was very easy to get the drop on enemies with stealth.

My defender was a rad/psi, which I thought would have some trouble because carnies have a lot of def to psi. It didn't. There were a couple of Oh *#$% moments, but that's par for the course on that build because it's a team oriented build. I died once, against, you guessed it, an MI.

Then I did my tank. Stone/Axe. I chose her for two reasons. I couldn't use my Fire/SS because her mez protection is baked into her resist powers, and because I figured with 40% defense to psi she should operate fairly well against carnies, my shield/fire tank has no baked in way to offensively deal with mezzers other than killing them and the stone axe at least has knockdowns and knock backs, and char. She got destroyed. THat might be because the final boss was an MI and got really lucky on the first hit, held me and then I got chain knocked down from all the phantasms. Part of this is my fault. That character does not have crystal armor, but I suspect that on say, Malta, this character would have less of an issue becuase of her ability to pre mez and the sheer amount of HP she has. I had no issues until the MI.

Let me reiterate, I don't think this was a good test. There wasn't enough data, they were all different maps with different enemy spreads. I think that if there had been more illuisionists on my tank, for instance, I would probably have had more trouble. But Squishies have a LOT more tools to deal with mez without mez protection is my expereince here. Even blasters.

Originally Posted by Silver Gale

I don't see the equivalency here. Were you promised that if you *didn't* go to HeroCon, you'd get a gift that people at HeroCon wouldn't get? Did you spend time and money on *not* going to HeroCon specifically so you could get that gift, and then watched as HeroCon attendees got the special gift anyway?

Originally Posted by Luminara

Archery powers which you could skip are Snap Shot, Ranged Shot and Stunning Shot.

Which powers in TA can be skipped is more dependent on how you play. You can skip Flash Arrow if you're going to use controls heavily. You can skip controls if you're going to work up an appreciable amount of Ranged Defense and stack it with Flash Arrow. You can skip Glue Arrow if you're going to take your patron AoE Immobilization and don't intend to exemplar down.

Originally Posted by Futurias

I've even refuted some of them. Using inspirations heavily to bypass or overcome the issue is, as I've noted, usually an indication of an actual issue. Not a solution.