Arc_Salvo

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If I lived near Austin I'd totally go and pretend I was someone else. Like Anti-Catwhoorg or LiquidX or something, (maybe that Puffyshirt guy I hear mentioned every once in a while).

How would anyone else know the difference? I'm tempted to go just to sew confusion and mayhem! Bwaahahahaaha!

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Funny, I was thinking I'd go and pretend to be Craban or Friggin_Taser.



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Same here, except I'd pretend to be LaserJudas for some odd reason. Too bad I don't live anywhere near Texas.

And if it' the NCSOFT in general playerbase, then who's to say you would meet that many COH/V types? Might be all Lineage or Guild Wars players.

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PSI IS NOT A RARELY RESISTED DAMAGE TYPE. IT IS ONE OF THE MOST RESISTED DAMAGE TYPES IF NOT THE MOST RESISTED IN THE GAME

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i'm pretty sure there are some assault rifle blasters, trick arrow and archery defenders who might want to argue this point with you.

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Actually, the way he and others described it, Psi sounds like it's kind of up there with lethal and smashing as a very resisted set. Maybe not as bad as lethal in particular, but very close, imho. And given the low damage Defenders do already, that's a big problem. I mean, I complain about lethal damage being halved with 100% Blaster damage. With your damage being cut down that much with 66% Blaster damage... well... ouch basically! This should get looked into, imho.

Wow, Redzero's reposting of the old consolidated Blaster issues thread is alot more comprehensive that I remembered it being.

Maybe because I've studied/played more primaries/secondaries more thoroughly since I last read it.

Anyhow, many of those issues are valid ones, and they're good ones to start with imho, although since ED, we obviously can't almost reach the cap on our own anymore. Man, I miss my 6-slotted full auto... bit I digress!

My issue (and it's a grievance shared by many) with the Blaster AT in general is that for an AT that's supposed to be the "ranged" damage dealer, but has precious little range for all that, and must give up range completely to actually be the king of damage, and actually to not be a worse damage AT than Scrappers in some cases! See Blacksly's post and mine in mistformsquirrel's thread for futher details.

A big issue I think is that every set should be reworked to be good at dealing out aoe's. If there's one thing I've noticed is that not all primaries are created equal in terms of aoe damage. Energy/ in particular is extremely aoe-unfriendly for reasons listed in the consolidated issues thread, and mistformsquirrel's thread. I mean, consider the huge amount of scatter it's aoe's cause, and the late level you get the second one (explosive blast) the damage is pitiful!

And Elec/ should get a looking at. Voltaic sentinel's kind of deadweight-y, and is short circuit's end drain/ock so great an advantage that it has to be melee AND have low damage?

And Archery? 'nuff said.

Anyhow, forgot to say this, but thanks for looking into our issues, Castle!

I don't know how long it'll take you to make any progress, but if you even make half the effort you did for Stalkers and Scrappers, and now Defenders... whoa man, we're going to see some good stuff!

You have been my favorite redname ever since I casually browsed the Stalker forums in COV beta out of curiosity. When I came across the Stalker consolidated issues and then read your, frequent, detailed, and knowledgeable responses to the thread I would've spit out my coffee had I been drinking any.

My eyes especially bugged out when I saw that you agreed that Claws was subpar and needed buffing, and in the exact same way so many of us have said it! FINALLY, a dev that gets it, I thought. A dev that thinks the way we do!

Anyhow, I haven't been disappointed by anything you've done yet, Castle. And I'm looking forward to whatever changes you and the rest of the team will be bringing about... well not any time soon... but eventually.

Castle: the Hurricane bug is easy to reproduce if you approach a spawn with a controller and have him/her stay pat while you fly behind the enemy spawn while stealthed, then have the controller mass immob the spawn from the other side, and turn on hurricane and rush the spawn from behind.

Hurricane will push the mobs in the opposite direction of the way it's supposed to be repelling them. As if the repulsion were being generated from the side that the controller is standing on, not the side that you're on.

This bug ruins my "Hurricane Flank" maneuver (wherein I sneak behind the spawn and use hurricane to push them INTO my team instead of away and possibly into another spawn and aggroing them too) on teams with controllers on 'em.

If you hit them from the side, you'll also see them pushed in the direction that the controller's facing rather than the one you are.

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...yet another unkept promise.

The Devs haven't said boo about getting Community Representatives for Archetypes other than Stalkers. Oh, and before you mention that _Castle_ picked up the Defender issues--he dumped them a few weeks later.

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I did? Funny, I still read them every day.

Oh, and I'm going to look at Blasters now that I've gone through the consolidated Defenders bug list. You guys got one?

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SFCStaley had one going, but it looks like it was eaten by the forums.

If you want a more recent free-form list of complaints, look here.

And at the AR/DEV thread by Revolver Law here.

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I play different ATs because they play differently. Who has what power set only matters to me when it starts to [censored] over my ability to play the characters I want to RP... which is quite a long list considering I have a year+ of "Oh that is goo... oh wait.. right.. exclusive power sets.. and this character wouldn't suit x AT.".



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I know it's not out yet, but wouldn't a power customization system resolve this urge better than set sharing?

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Yes it would to an extent, but it's a looong way off.

Looks good, Arctic Fox!

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Yep. Before a new issue hits, it's all doom and complaints. After a new issue hits, it's all doom and complaints. Welcome to the doom and complaints. See ya when it's doom and complaint time.

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It's not really the Doom And Complaints that gets me.

It's the condescension. It's the anger. It's the sense that I Am Right And You Are Wrong. It's the inability to see another person's point of view. It's the posts that insult and flame and troll and belittle other people, the nastiness that results when discussion turns to attacking.

It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why I'm on this forum. It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why I'm playing this game, why I'm playing any game that has me interacting with other people who can act like this towards their fellow players. It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I should just give up and cancel.

I keep hearing that it's worse in other MMOG forums, and CoH/V has it good. But with attacks like these, it's not good enough.

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This is my chief issue with the forums too. There are a lot of important things out there that you can and should get worked up over, but games you're supposed to play for fun like COH/V don't count imho.

I'd understand if we were talking about genocide or terrorism, or slavery or something godawfully wrong on so many levels, but a game?

I mean, people have gone through some horrible things in their lives, and getting upset over people's opinions on what should or shouldn't be in an issue update or what they would or wouldn't like to see in the future, etc. etc. al. seem really petty to me in contrast to the important things out there.

And most of all: aren't other people more important than trivial matters of opinion?

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Ah, but CoV's zones are much more fleshed out. Take out Hazard Zones in CoH, since there's barely any reason to use them, and the lists are much more comparable. CoV did away with Hazard Zones, but incorporated all the good features (big groups of spawns, monsters, etc.) into their city zones.

I am in agreement with you though. The last thing CoH needs is another zone. What we need more is revamping of all zones to bring them up to par. Zones like Boomtown and Eden are largely unused as, like I said above, there's no reason to go there. Rather than giving us yet another zone to play in, why not use what we already have and make it better? They could even take some of these unused zones to turn into PvP zones if they wished.


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I'm with Cantatus on this one. Sure COH has more zones, but these zones tend to feel empty/incomplete and the hazard zones even moreso. Honestly, the Hazard Zones are almot like non-zones in comparison to the newer zones out there like Striga/Croatoa/anything in COV.

Bascially they're just places where huge spawns of mobs stand around doing nothing, or occaisionally fighting each other.

BOOO-ring!

No talking, no creative animations, no flavor, no nothing... except for the Rikti Crash Site, which is almost up to the "newfangled zone" par, but not quite.

I also agree that COH wouldn't need new zones if they just revamped the old ones.

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He blued out all the CoV stuff.

So, essentially, here's the break down:

Day after issue 6 hits: everyone asks when I7 will hit.

A month after I6 hits: everyone complains that there's no news about I7.

Two months after I6: everyone claims that I7 will be the worst issue ever and everything will be nerfed and oh my god I'm quitting.

A month before I7 hits: news is released about what'll be in it. Everyone gets to complain about that.

Two weeks before I7 hits: I7 goes up on test. Everyone gets to complain about what's in there or what's not. Then everyone gets to complain about what gets nerfed or what gets buffed. Then everyone gets to threaten to quit.

The Day I7 Hits: Everyone complains about the servers being down or I7 not being ready to hit live or taking too long to go live.

Day after I7 hits: Everyone starts asking about I8.

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Yep. Fun, ain't it?

The only thing I have to add is that Grav/Storm seems to be the preferred controller of Statesman. So that makes it cool in itself.

I dunno, I always thought Statesman was too much of your classic "Lead Patriotic Character" stereotype (although a pretty good one) to be a real Mary Sue.

Kind of like a blend between Captain America and Superman that most people think of when they think "Generic American Superhero Lead".

Y'know, like Major Glory in Dexter's Lab, or Minuteman in Freedom Force?

I think it's commendable that Arctic is fixing his mistakes once he sees 'em, but I think that these updates are coming out a little too fast.

I mean, I love having 'em out this quick (because I love the stories behind Paragon City alot), but a little more time in between them to do some thorough fact checking would be good.

Y'know, reading the story bible, scouring the badge and statue text, etc. etc. al.

Zloth, I thought that the X-series for ATI handled SM 2.0, but didn't support SM 3.0?

I only think that this change would be to temp powers, the rationale being that there are ways for people of every origin to creatively use their background to be uniquely good at using their chosen powers.

A magician could use magic to enchant his Assault Rifle's bullets or to heighten his senses, or to conjure up unlimited ammo, etc. etc. al. for example.

And I think the devs realize this, so won't change effectiveness for primary powersets.

They just might be changing things around for temp powers (like the new lowbie ones) to try and have origins be more meaningful.

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(In a post-SO situation) it only takes +10% dmg to equal Criticals on minions. According to this horribly inaccurate chart, you reach that before you're even at half health. For the 30% bonus it would take to break even with Scrappers on bosses, you only need to be at 40% health. I dunno about your experiences, but that's not exactly a rare thing for my Elec/En, and unless I'm trying to solo a boss, that's not exactly the situation where I *have* to gulp down green pills as fast as I can.

The issue with Defiance is that it does give a nice value even when the player's in decent shape. It just has the forbidden fruit of a full defiance bar that players just keep obsessing over.

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Uh, can you show me your math, Blueyed? Have you taken into consideriation that Scrapper crits double final damage after all buff are applied (thus allowing Scrappers to get 1000% base damage if they're at 500% cap) whereas Defiance only buffs base damage and only allows you to reach the blaster 500% cap at max?

Defiance is great for the "I don't give a crap about debt" playstyle, in my experience.

Or the LEEEROOOY... JEEEKIIINS playstyle.

Those two playstyles are often inter-related.

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They were thinking something along the lines of "...carnies, Malta AND KoA in one group!"

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OH! OH! So something like a Knives of Artemis Combined Master Zeus Illusionist Titan?! That would be...


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About the same as any other opponent for SR?

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You know, I hate to say this... but except for the Caltrops (unless you hover), this is pretty much spot on.

When I meet any of those above groups, I hit Elude, and mop them up while yawning.

I LOVE the Legacy Chain. They're really cool. Awesome names, awesome costumes, awesome concept...

...and it doesn't hurt that I stumbled upon them with my magic corruptor The "Hierophant of Flames" who I named even before I knew the Legacy Chain existed.

It was fun to realize that he was named very similarly to the disciples of the Flame. I realized in the first mission I met them that they'd be his natural archenemies, and that was cool as all get out.

In my experience, since the short time I've been here (since when I4 launched) the devs don't seem to treat Blasters "like crap", but have seemed to have put our issues on the backburner while working with the more outright "broken" (in their minds) AT's like Tanks/Scrappers/Controllers who were at the time overpowered, rather than looking at us Blasters who had our problems, but weren't soloing AV's and herding up entire missions and burn-patching them to death or perma-holding huge spawns and annihilating them with Fire Imps armies.

It's my perception that the devs do want to help us and are looking into things, but that they've been sidetracked and beyond that: it takes them time to test things thoroughly to ensure that they don't make any rash changes.

I mean, look at the upcoming changes to defense in I7. They've had the idea in concept for months, and started testing it Last October, I think? And they've just recently got it almost hammered out to the point where they can patch it it on live servers and have confidence that not only is it balanced, but also that it'll work without introducing a whole bunch of bugs.

Given that I think our multitudinous issues are probably more difficult to test/solve than the problems with Scaling Defense (or the QOL issue of AV's being unsoloable), I figure it'll take them more time, but I do think they really are looking into it.

It's just not easy for them to look into it long and hard enough to get substantial conclusions, imho.

At the very earliest, I'd expect a minor fix to something (maybe /Fire secondary) in I7, and more changes in I8 or so.

I get the feeling that they know that they've neglected us Blasters for far too long (not intentionally imho, Statesman's words in the dev digest circa I5 suggest they were planning to look at us back then) and so are determined to address our issues now that all the big problems with the "unbalanced" AT's (who can't powergame anymore thanks to I5/ED) have been "resolved".

I interpret Statesman's post in the Blaster forums (the first redname post I've seen in the Blaster posts period since I reg-ed) as a positive sign that they're honestly looking into things, and I do have hope that we'll get some answers somewhere down the line.

Not "Soon", but eventually.

Anyhow, I don't see why we don't get some % unresistable damage in pve as well as in pvp. As for defiance, I don't know why they don't make the buff very gradual and the final bonus much lower than it is now, but start very early instead (at maybe 80% health)? Like some suggested. Or any number of changes to defiance to make it useful in PVE. They could have it work differently in PVE than in PVP for example, like som AT's inherents do.

Anyhow, I have faith in the devs commitment to fixing us, although very little faith that it'll happen quickly.

edit: And again, Thanks for taking the time to post in our little forum, States. I'm glad to hear from you, even if not in detail

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ZOMG! Statesman actually posted in the Blaster forum! He did it! I guess they are reading our posts! *faints*

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Posts like this make me wish I had the resources to develop Keyboard TASERS. I'd sell it to the devs so they could just zorch the hell out of you as a reward.

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Why you're so violently and personally flaming an ironic and good-natured "funny" post is beyond me. Why you're assuming that I'm a dev hater and interpreting what I said in the meanest way possible seems precipitous and uninformed to me.

If you were to read my posts regarding what I thought of the devs and the Blaster situation historically throughout the forums, you would find that I'm one of the few people who consistently say that the devs do listen, and are on the ball, and will fix our problems, but that they're busy and it takes them time.

Even when other people complain heavily about our problems (and I honestly think we do have them) you'll find that I'm always ready to step in and say "yes I know ____ sucks, but trust me, the devs are working on this, they're good people who want to make a great game, and they're really quite observant most of the time"

Honestly, I don't get people who wish hateful physical harm on others for so little reason over an easily misinterpretable statement without even getting to know a person...

I'm with the quick and dirty "halve the defense debuff from unyielding the way they halved every pool power defense buff" crowd, if such a crowd exists.

That and buffing the resist energy/elements passives would quell the complaints about the set imho.

When Invul's resists and defense were nerfed, I find it odd that the defense debuff in Unyielding wasn't nerfed as well. Seems a bit out of line considering the overall negative adjustments to all the powers.

It's not that /dev can't do fun things with tripmine (if the /dev in question took it), it's that it takes a long time to set up and most teams won't wait for you. You also can't 100% predict where mobs will run to and in what #'s and how closely they'll be together when they go towards mines.

But with aim+buildup (or just buildup) you get an instant damage buff that allows you to put out a lot of burst damage very fast with a significant accuracy buff, and because you're using your regular attacks, you can aim those attacks wherever you want to.

It's just easier/faster/more convenient to use buildup rather than mines, and on teams that are moving fast particularly.

And then there's the lack of significant self buffs and melee attacks in /dev.

If you think /dev is uber, try Fire/Eng on any team. I mean sheesh!

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Doublechecked Defiance - and its working for us (internally and on live). Can anyone give more details about this issue?

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ZOMG! Statesman actually posted in the Blaster forum! He did it! I guess they are reading our posts! *faints*