Another_Fan
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Posts
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Joined
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Kismet +6 acc
Increases your to hit by 6 points
Tactics from the leadership pool
Take AIM and BUILDUP use them as often as possible.
Think about slotting sets with a global ACC bonus. -
Quote:It has to be. Even for the three minion case, the player needs that their combat effectiveness be roughly 9 times that of the minion. For a spawn of 8 its up 64 times that of the spawn element. AoE as its currently implemented scales with the size of the spawn. This is a good thing if you had the situation where it capped at lower numbers or just became less effective by hitting more targets you would have situations where the addition of one or two enemies would turn spawns from manageable to completely impossible.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Or AoE becomes something that requires a higher level of skill to leverage than now.
AoE is just plain broken in this game, and I'm presuming game designer observers have taken note to never, ever, ever let it happen again, either in potential sequels to this game, or any other game (but of course, that's a bad presumption).
Just an aside, Ogre is probably about the easiest type of game to balance. Its a straight application of Lanchester's laws, and its the type of thing that had been done in Strategy and Tactics for every issue. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Sarrate
Readjusting Shield Charge effects skill, how? If anything, I'd say it'd increase it. Rather than just relying on SC to blow away minions with ease, now it would take more precise aiming to hit mobs with the 3ft epicenter. It also would make grouping up mobs play a bigger role so you can followup SC with other AoE abilities. I'm not seeing this effect "skill."
You are taking two separate statements about different things. Nerfing shield charge nerfs the benefits derived from the skill it took to plan out and acquire the material to make a good shield defense character.
Every point of data on a trendline need not conform to the line for the trend to be valid. Khan is the perfect example giant reservoir of hitpoints that much of the team can set an autofire and go afk for predictable amounts of time. ( I have done that even on masters of)Quote:Further, if they were continuously trying to minize skill, they wouldn't have started adding more difficult content. They've introduced "Master of X T/SF" badges, rewarding players who play well. Another example would be the Baracuda SF - which can be fairly challenging. The Khan TF, while it's fairly mundane, really shows the difference between players who know how to maximize dps and those who don't. (I four manned it in ~53 minutes under master settings, yet have been on full teams taking longer than that.)
The only skill involved in those events is picking a server with a large population.Quote:Another example would be the new zone events - the Halloween Banners (coordination between players) or Lord Winter (which had many interesting effects) are good examples as well. -
Quote:You only play characters less than a week ?Originally Posted by srmalloy
What amuses me most about the people who post builds for comment are the ones who post level-50 builds with four sets of purple IOs slotted. Which is all well and good for an end-game build, but for 99% of the character's career they either a) won't be high enough level to slot purple sets, or b) won't have the influence to buy and craft them -- yes, this is a blue-sky gosh-wow build, but what are you going to do while getting there? If your only focus is on what you're going to be at the very end, the trip to get there is going to be depressing.
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Have the two of you tried paying for them ?
I bought three off the market in the last 2 weeks and I only offered 71 mil give or take.
Retail is about 130 mil -
Quote:They can't take away the intrinsic skill, they can minimize its benefits.Originally Posted by Sarrate
Castle can nerf powers, powersets, ATs, IOs, etc. He cannot nerf "skill." When I say "skill," I mean the player's ability to play the game and their knowledge of game mechanics. A player who is skilled will still be able to leverage a power more than those that do not possess "skill." A skilled player willl still know how to react in situations where an unskilled player will not.
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Quote:Re: The design tools: That's sad if so, especially for things like powerset evaluation. They have all the data.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
By "the devs" you do mean, of course, all of the MMO devs in the industry combined and not just Paragon Studios devs. Because no dev team I'm aware of could or would give Werner the guarantee he's referring to, and every dev team I'm aware of would, if they were being honest, give the converse guarantee that everything that exists at the very highest levels of performance would eventually be reviewed, and possibly altered in some way.
Min/maxing in MMOs is a blood sport. If you are good at it, but don't treat it as one, you'll burn out eventually, because no MMO is going to let you consistently do it with immunity.
Could it be a lot more stable? Sure: its well within the realm of human ability to get five, perhaps ten times more stable by much more numerically careful design. I'm not giving the devs a pass for making what are clearly avoidable errors**. But no MMO designed by human beings will ever be able to grant min/maxers guaranteed performance stability at the high end of the game. Its not going to happen here, or anywhere else.
** Fundamentally, the problem is that the design tools aren't designed for transparency or auditability, nor do they have a trivial way of performing validation checks on anything. As I've said before, if I could add anything to the game by snapping my fingers, it would not be new zones or powersets or task forces: it would be better design tools.
In this case, it really doesn't seem the case you would need the tools.
As to stability, that is completely under their control just a matter of desire. -
Quote:The above. Over and over again.Originally Posted by Werner
Yeah, I don't think I'll continue forward with my IOing plans for my Fire/Shield, and I'll probably dump what I've bought so far back into the base. My intent was to make a damage powerhouse. The AoE portion of that now sounds likely to take a big hit, probably about the time I finish earning the billions of influence and dumping it all into the character, since that takes me months. No thanks. No longer worth the time investment.
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be examined. Perhaps it should. I'm just not going to bother IOing something that's definitely going to be examined. I am way, way too tired of fixing or abandoning carefully-crafted characters that the devs nerf or even buff into something not at all like what I planned. Perhaps if someone could just tell me what powers and which IOs might be STABLE for a couple years, it'll be worth the investment. But obviously that can't happen. At this point, I'm kind of thinking I'll never bother with a top end build again. I'll just keep leveling up alts until I tire of that, and then give up on the game completely.
Again, not saying not to nerf Shield Charge. Not working as intended, blah blah blah, fine, whatever.
But I'm just not sure if I can take it any more.
I can't count the number of people I know that put serious effort into making something superior and then left after it was dumbed down to sub mediocrity.
The devs seem to have an ongoing quest to nerf skill in playing the game and its very detrimental to the health of the game. Most people will only chase after the wallet on the string for so long then they find something else to do that is actually fun -
Quote:Nahh you need to be rude, persistent, and unavoidable, and all in a way that really wastes the time of the target. Long anecdotes that can't be politely declined are good for that. Back in my day people used to carry around pictures of their family and force people to look at them. If you were really lucky you might catch someone when they had a look of intestinal distress about them.Originally Posted by ConFlict
Actually being rude gets pretty good customer service in most industries. Just saying.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Largo
I'm all for people playing and enjoying nonstandard builds. But I question how long it takes to kill a boss without aim and buildup. I don't think I could do it. I'd feel way underpowered and thus, as a blaster, vulnerable.
If I wanted to stand in melee, not get hit, and use fire attacks, there is the ice/fire tank, or fire/sr scrapper and both have mez protection.
There is a real interesting point and question. Two to three melee hits from a boss and a blaster is toast. That is an accoladed out blaster with bonus hp at that. To kill a boss the blaster has to land 2500 points of damage.
This build looks like it could survive enough time to do the damage to multiple bosses that a build with aim and build up but no defense might not be able to.
As always with insps completely change the argument -
Quote:Originally Posted by dave_p
Despite the fact that the devs never post in here, I'd really like to think they're at least monitoring some of the threads in here, esp one like this where the overwhelming majority are in agreement about a bad feature. I think I counted about 3 or 4 pro-new UI so far and everybody else against, most of us strongly.
Perhaps if the thread were about how wonderful the new market is, a red name would come around say something about how that needs looking into to be balanced lest the market become the FOTM, or that too many people were using it to do things too easily. -
Wonderful thread
Especially when you contrast it with prior threads on this topic. As usual says more about the people posting than anything else. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
I'm completely horrible at math, and calculating attack chains, so I'm hoping someone here can help me out with this.
What is the ideal single target attack chain for a Fire/Electric blaster using a combination of Blaze, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch and Shocking Grasp? How much recharge is necessary for each attack to pull this off?
No Aim and Buildup in the chain ? Do the powers you listed all have to be included or are they just the ones that can be picked ?
If you do want to use Aim and buildup are you willing to alternate using them or do you need to use them as a combo.
Do you want that for the raw powers or with procs ?
Edit: And what are the limits of the sources of recharge you are willing to consider ? Empowerment buffs ? Kins standing next to you ? -
Quote:Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
*Tries whistling three times to summon a red name*
I really get the feeling someone should be reading this. I mean, it's normal for people to hate certain features after an issue goes live...
But it ain't normal for there to be majority agreement on suckage factor =S
The old system was booting people from the game before it was considered for improvement. What makes you think displeasure at the aesthetics is enough to get this one fixed ? -
Quote:Originally Posted by Dispari
This thread should be renamed "So it turns out everything is unbalanced."
BBBBut there are all these intricate balancing mechanisms that make certain that's not so. We have been assured of this.
Seriously, it does make you wonder just what the value of these mechanisms are when they can't even be properly applied by the people who came up with them. -
Quote:Are you going for bypassing nuke crashes ? Or do you want general utility ? Also just how much recharge does your build have ?Originally Posted by Donna_
I think i will be using this combo for it...
Performance Shifter ACC / RECH
Performance Shifter ACC / RECH / ENDMOD
Efficacy Adaptor ACC / RECH / ENDMOD
Touch of Nictus ACC / HEAL
Numina Conv HEAL / RECH
Doctored Wounds HEAL / RECH
If you are going for bypassing the nuke crash you actually need maximum end mod and you have to hit 7 targets to manage it (6 is doable with other sources of recovery).
If you are going for general use it doesn't need any sloting for end mod at all, 5 targets will give you nearly 8 end/sec recovery without any other sources. -
To the original poster:
During the holidays we had free server transfers at a time when the population took a very big dip so there are signs that there is an awareness of the problem. There was some talk this was a matter of spreading holiday cheer and they were so cheerful they felt the need to extend it twice.
The global email also has effects that can be seen as helping this problem. Overall it looks like the devs are going for making it easier to play on different servers rather than merging. -
Quote:Nukes become completely useless except as set mules at that point. Its significantly worse than what we have now, and the crashing nukes for the most part can completely be skipped.Originally Posted by theheat
Instead of having and endurance crash, why not just disable the toon from using attacks for, i don't know, 15-25 seconds, so that toggles don't crash, but you still can't attack. For the effect of " I'm spent, give me a minute"
By your logic current nukes currently need to be crippled more.Quote:Originally Posted by je_saist
Well, no. Because then toggles wouldn't end.
In the past the developers have indicated they "want" a complete crash. They do want to make the ranged avatar that launched a full nuke to be "completely helpless."
ROFL, I have to wonder which of the dozens of concepts of game balance failed to be communicated amongst the people whose job it is to make them work that came from.Quote:Originally Posted by Frosticus
No thx, currently I can overcome the crash. Under your system I can't.
As for Shield Charge it is going to get a pretty heavy reduction at somepoint down the road. Castle has confirmed it is not WAI.
Then again I look at the game, and see there was a problem with the death rate amongst the ATs, what was the solution ? Make death unimportant. -
Hmmm what are you planning on using this wee beastie on ?
Just from looking at it, it seems its meant for boss->av killing without insps. A pretty impressive build at that. Just browsing though without stamina you want more recharge in drain psyche. You also have plenty of plus accuracy and plus to hit, you really don't need an accurate heal set in there.
You can also lose the kismet +tohit if you want and 6 slot DP or 3 slot subdual seeing as it and flares are all you have when mezzed (Maybe put a proc in it)
If you can live with using a purple insp once a minute I'd lose the gladiators piece. That will pay for the rest of the build by itself and give you one more slot. -
Well we now have Dual Pistols so not as bad as it used to be.
There is a long laundry list of problems with psychic blast
Fist the damage when resisted is very heavily resisted nobody likes Carnies to begin with but a Psy/ment really gets to hate them. Ditto for robots of all stripes. In the beginning levels you get a little help because clockwork take extra damage from it but its really limited benefit unless you want to run Synapse over and over.
Second most of the benefit in the game comes from stacking effects. Psychic has very little that can be stacked. Will dom does not stack, scramble thoughts will tie you up for 6 seconds of casting time if you try. (Its a bad trade off) and if you do manage it, it doesnt stack for very long.
What you can stack is - recharge, which is of limited benefit.
The best tools you have are KB and range. You can pull things at range and try to keep the numbers you get down to manageable levels.
If you aren't doing a mental concept character I would think about Ice blast instead of Psy. It does most of what Psy does considerably more effectively. The control powers stack, everything does both slow recharge and slow movement making the effect much more valuable and you can easily use it to take take out troubling targets. -
Quote:Not to fall into name calling, which it seems is where you want to take this and getting back to the original question, just what is the relevance of comparing archery without rain of arrows and AR without full auto to fire blast ? You might was well start making comparisons for fire without blaze.Originally Posted by Nihilii
You're either very stupid or I am very smart*, but in the context of his post I thought it was pretty obvious he meant the normal attacks and not the level 32 power.
* More likely neither of these two options are true, rather you didn't read his post fully and don't want to back down now thanks to petty internet forum ego.
Especially when the original question was
The answer is that some of them are positively great and others are, situational novelty items, that have long recharges and serious downsides that are put there to limit how much they can contribute*.Quote:How good are the l32 powers, how much should I base my powerset choice around that final power?
*And if it wasn't done deliberately it certainly is the result. -
Quote:Very correct,Originally Posted by Bocus_King
you forgot to add the defiance boost to fire breath that one gets from using fireball first, can't check the numbers not in game right now.
And the attack one uses after firebreath like you said gets the defiance boost of both those powers where as ROA gets no such boost. So it evens out especially if ones secondary is mental and their third attack happens to be pyshic scream.
Off the top of my head the defiance boost for AOEs is less than 10% which is why I used approximately equal. Archery can also fit in a follow up attack to ROA. Both explosive arrow and fistful will fit in the (aim+buildup) boost. -
Quote:Yes it does.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Before you whip out your calculator, it helps to read what was actually written.
andQuote:Is the end crash at the end of a nova worth the blast or should I stick with something usable more often like RoA or Full-auto?
Last time I checked Full Auto was a cone, and Rain of Arrows a targeted AOE.Quote:both of which do considerably more damage than the cone and targeted AoE of Archery/Assault Rifle.
Edit: And back to the original poster, most of the crashing nukes are kind of meh, possible exception is blizzard which is really delightful but on a longish timer. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Galaxia
First, a bit of clarification; by nuke I mean big, slow recharging attack with end crash and not-a-nuke I mean attacks like full-auto and rain of arrows.
How good are the l32 powers, how much should I base my powerset choice around that final power? Is the end crash at the end of a nova worth the blast or should I stick with something usable more often like RoA or Full-auto?
Full Auto and Rain of Arrows are fantastic. If you are going to make them keystones to how you play, AIM and Buildup are your friends
No.Quote:Originally Posted by Gilia
I realize this isn't that helpful, but the short of it is "it depends."
Rain of Arrows and Full Auto are awesome for teams that are steam rolling or farming, because you can fire off a big AoE attack every 30-60s. However, Fire (a favorite of many for AoE) has Fireball and Firebreath... both of which do considerably more damage than the cone and targeted AoE of Archery/Assault Rifle.
AIM+ BU+Fire ball + Fire Breath ~= 560 pts of damage at max
AIM + BU + Rain of Arows ~= 800 pts of damage at max
Rain targets 16 enemies firebreath targets 10.
Generally the chain for a fireblaster includes something else after Fireball, usually from the secondary to get that nice 800 pts of lieutenant killing damage. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Sarrate
You're operating under the assumption that SS is balanced and doesn't require a change. If that is the case, I'd tend to agree. Changing flavor for flavor's sake is kind of pointless.
However, I wrote that post under the opposite assumption, SS needs works. I'm not just railing on Rage/Footstomp, mind you. It'd be nice if the lower tiers were better so you didn't have to 'slog through' the crappy levels just to get to 'the good stuff.' It's one thing to have great powers to look forward to. It's another to hate the fight up to that point.
I guess that is where we differ. It may be my issue as I don't see where this game is particularly balanced against anything, with the possible exception of the overall time it takes the population, or segments of the population to do things.
I can't agree about SS being a hate it set before rage and footstomp. Its really no worse than blast sets before aim and buildup.