Balanced

My Test-dwelling TA/A is Bluff. He's currently L19. I'll keep an eye out for you guys when I'm on.

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Statesman -- Thank you for adding the correction.

Please also add numbers for the Trick Arrow to-hit debuffs before and after, once you fix your spreadsheet!

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I'm not sure the spreadsheet will handle numbers that small.

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Where does the term "hammer space" come from? I understand the gist but I've never heard that expression before.

-mb

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Hammerspace is the strange extradimensional space from which cartoon/comic/animated/game characters produce objects that they clearly didn't have before (notably signs, weapons, bombs, and huge wooden mallets). The idea has been around for ages, but it's been called various things--the old Toon RPG had rules that covered pulling things from "your back pocket" (even if your character had no pockets, or, indeed, no clothes). Wikipedia suggests that the convergence on "hammerspace" as the standard term is mostly due to the influence of anime fans, particularly those of Ranma 1/2, which featured a girl who frequently pulled giant mallets out of nowhere to whack guys who annoyed her. (This behavior is, of course, not unique to Ranma.)

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In the game, having all the animations be as quick as snap shot would definitely decrease the visual appeal of the set. If any of you have ever seen a movie called "Hawk, the Slayer" you'll remember how absolutely silly the archer in that looked. A similar effect would happen in CoX if we animated all the shots that quickly.

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Would it be possible to stop some of the animations (particularly Snap Shot, Fistful of Arrows, and some of the debuffs) from rooting us instead? One of the defining characteristics of the archers from comics is that they're constantly moving, and firing while in motion--look at Speedy, for instance. TA/A already demands that we stay in motion to keep ourselves alive, so why not make it a feature of the sets? Not only would it improve the look and feel of the sets, it might help with the "Here I am, maul me!" problem we encounter while setting up debuffs.

I'd even quit complaining about how pathetically weak the accuracy bonus is compared to other secondary effects.

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this power breaks if I look at it crosseyed.

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/em recommends a good opthamologist for _Castle_, just in case.

I think these changes are a promising start. This won't fix either TA or Archery, but I'm OK with incremental changes. I'm of the opinion that the hurried changes on Test played a substantial role in breaking the sets to start with, and I'll not be so hypocritical as to suggest that we rush the changes again just because they're in our favor this time.

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Shadow Punch
Smite
Shadow Maul
Assassin Strike
Build Up
Placate
Touch of Fear
Dark Consumption
Midnight Grasp

Just a guess.

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I very much hope you're right. That would be perfect. I'm sticking with my poor claws/regen stalker for concept reasons, but I could definitely see myself running a dark/dark on the side.

In response to someone else's earlier speculation--I wouldn't expect to see negative energy resistance in Shadow Dweller, whatever it is. Dark Armor already gets that in two powers, Dark Embrace and Murky Cloud, so a third would be overkill. I have no reasonable guesses as to what it could be, though. It could be something really off-the-wall, and be in keeping with the rest of the set; I think a short-lived pseudo-pet that can distract enemies (but not do damage) while you go back into hide would be fun, and it would fit the name. I don't actually expect anything that cool, however.

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I've asked him in PM what kind of imagery (super-hero partciularly) he prefers, but he never answered. Perhaps he just thinks of himself as very Linear minded, one step up from a pawn so to speak. (Oof, bad Chess pun) ...and doesn't want an Icon.

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Think in terms of Castling in Chess.

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Wait...you're switching places with the King (Statesman) in a defensive move meant to buy his life with your own?

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I've actually seen castling used offensively before--it was a complicated fool's mate setup, and the guy's opponent got suckered completely. I'm not much of a chess player, and I don't remember exactly how it went, but it looked brilliant at the time. Maybe he's swapping places with a mastermind to AS the guy that was about to clobber him? How well does simultaneous Recall Friend work for swapping places? (I suppose you'd need an interrupt reducer in it.)

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Zone Giant Monsters are getting the buff. GM's that are mission-specified (like the ambush ones, or the Eden trial, etc) are not being touched. Those GMs are "arch-villain" level, i.e. made to be beaten by 1 team.

Zone Giant Monsters are the GM's that appear randomly (or triggered) in zones. This does not include the ambushes that are triggered from missions.

This change will be both CoH and CoV.

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I interpret this to mean that the "free range" giant monsters that are standard spawns in the Hive and on the Monster Isles in PI won't be affected by the change--just the "event" GMs. I hope that's what it means, anyway. It's bad enough now when some griefer drags the DE monsters into the goo at raids; I'd rather not contemplate what two or three of the buffed GMs might do.

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Yeah but if you fail the final mission of the story arc, I believe the clue or arc or whatever after that says that Kronos escaped to the Rogue Isles. I remember that because at one point on the beta boards we had a MM joke about having Kronos as a pet and someone said that it could be possible since he did escape to the Rogue Isles at the end of that arc, and sure enough, a bunch of us went and checked it and it did indeed say that he took off to the Isles. So you never know, he could be around at some point, which would be awesome because he's my favorite GM

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As I recall from the mission in which my empath single-handedly drove the Kronos out to sea (ahem), the text said he was heading toward the "Fallen Isles". I don't know if that's been changed to "Rogue Isles" since, although I do recall some discussion of it during Beta. Regardless, there's no reason why he couldn't turn up there--maybe the Fallen Isles were just along the way, or an extraction point, or something. The Titan in the mission is "incomplete", however, which is why he's only an AV rather than a Giant Monster.

Great, now I'm picturing some Freaks finding him on the beach and "fixing him up". The Malta Group meets Megas XLR.

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I'm not sure why you think this would be dispositive. FF's and Eminators are immune to Confuse and Deceive every time I've seen this tried.

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This is incorrect. FFGs are affected by confusion. In fact, when my illusionist was fighting Sky Raiders, it was my standard practice to Deceive the FFG into bubbling me. If the next spawn looked tough, and PA wasn't up, I sometimes used Hurricane + Gale to take the FFG along for the next fight as well (though it was usually more trouble than it was worth).

Edit: Just went and tested the DE emanators. If you confuse them, their buff stops working on the mobs, but if you hold them, it doesn't. I conclude that their buff aura is an auto power that can be redirected by confusion. Specifically, I brawled a Fungoid so he'd drop Fungi, then hit him with Blind. He ran out of the buff while I was Deceiving the Fungi, and the hold took effect. I Galed him back into the buff, and he stayed held until the confusion wore off the Fungi. I repeated the process, except for using Blind on both, and the Fungoid didn't get held while in the buff, even when the Fungi was held. I think I'll go annoy some Raiders...

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Does DB still put the individual bubble around a teammate when PFF is in operation? If not...then maybe the same test would be applicable to FF Gens. Does the bubble disappear around the Raiders? If it did, that would probalby be a strong indication the debuff is cancelled.

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Yes, the FFG's big bubble creates secondary bubbles. If you confuse one, you get a secondary bubble, and the mobs lose theirs.

Edit 2: Tested on the FFGs. Their big bubble is an auto power as well. If you confuse them, they bubble you, and the bubble doesn't go away when they're held. My original recollection (that the secondary bubbles went away when the FFG was held) was incorrect.

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Which is wa we will ne'er gie kilts. Coz a true scotsman is prood tae gang regimental. An' th' kimers coods nae handle 'at sort ay distraction.

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Lad I don't know where ya been, but I see ya won first prize!

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I went to a fancy ball
It was slippery in the hall
I was afeared that I may fall
Because I had nae on no trousers

Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say, "Hello!
Donald, where's your trousers?"

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*I* thought the code was "xyzzy"?

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A hollow voice says, "Fool".

Thanks for the explanation as well as the change, Castle. That will make it a much better power, and the history explains why such a ridiculously low chance to cause sleep was included in the first place.

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I recently fixed the Sleep portion of Poison Gas Arrow for all AT's, and fixed the fact that it was single target instead of AoE for Masterminds and Controllers. So, that one may be a bit better than folks are reporting in I7.

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Any help for TA is greatly appreciated, Castle. May I ask what you changed about the Sleep portion? Was there a misplaced decimal in its chance to take effect? If so, what are the approximate chances of it working?

(Seeing it take effect about six times over many levels left me a bit dubious about the Sleep effect. I still think we'd be better off losing the sleep chance in favor of a moderate -Regen in this power.)

First off, thank you very much for looking into all of this for us. Even for things that can't or won't be fixed to our satisfaction, the fact that you invested substantial time and effort into investigating the issue means a lot.

Now, a few specific responses...
Trick Arrow

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* Bug: Flash Arrow's -accuracy does not stack with itself. (Concern)
Correct, it does not. It is functionally the same power as Controller/Smoke and works identically to that power in terms of effect.

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Except that Smoke--a primary power, like Flash Arrow--is autohit. Ahem.

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* Balance: Entangling Arrow, a Defender primary power, is less effective than Devices/Web Grenade, which is in a Blaster secondary set.
Known issue. The original version of Entangling Arrow was funtionally identical to Web Grenade. This gave the set too many stacking slow abilities. This is one power in the Trick Arrow set that we are looking at improving at some point in the future.

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I'm glad to hear this will be revisited. It nags at me every time I look at my little TA/A defender. The idea that TA would have too many stackable -recharges with the original version is a bit laughable with the current state of the set. With the insane recharge on Glue Arrow, the only -recharge available in most fights is Ice Arrow...and I think the -recharge was reduced on it, along with its duration. Hopefully, this will be addressed when the set gets revamped.

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* Balance: Entangling Arrow and Ice Arrow have 25% longer durations as Controller secondaries than as Defender primaries. (Rigel_Kent, Concern)
As they should. Controllers are better at control type powers. The point you want to make here is that a Controller Secondary power is outperforming a Defender Primary power. We are aware of that and want to correct it at some point in the future.

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In principle, I have no objection to controller secondary powers having stronger control components than the defender primary version. However, the defender version should get some effect that makes it functionally superior to the controller version, and it takes a lot of debuff to outweigh better control. Please keep this in mind when the set gets revisited. (Aside: Petrifying Gaze in the Dark Miasma set suffers even more from this--it's a primary power, weaker than any controller hold, and has no secondary effect or bonus associated with it at all, making it the least effective hold in the game.)

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* Power Description: Poison Gas Arrow's description is not very clear, making many people believe the 'choking effect' is a hold, instead of the current implementation, which is a sleep. (Concern)
Cleaned up the text a bit.

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Can you share with us just what the chances of the sleep taking effect are? I've only seen a handful of minions affected by it, ever. It's certainly not anything you can count on--I'd rather see a minor, but reliable, debuff added to the power. A -Regen debuff would make sense, perhaps.

Archery

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* Balance: Archery seems underpowered in groups due to lack of enemy debuff.
* Balance: Archery seems underpowered in solo due to low base damage compared to other sets, largely due to animation times and reliance on lethal damage.
Archery has long animations so that it looksas good as possible while trying to keep the set playable.

I did a pass on all the End Costs of the Archery Powers and reduced the cost of Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, Fistful of Arrows and Blazing Arrow.

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Thank you! Thank you so much for this--I agitated for this fix back before TA even went live, and had begun to despair of ever seeing it.

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Okay, not that I want to be flamed or anything (I also agree that SR sets deserve some lovin'), but doesn't this necessarily mean that a person is exposed to the same amount of risk (up to +5 levels) for increasing reward (up to +5 levels)?

Doesn't this contradict the idea of reward scaling with risk?

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No, it means some of the greater risk they're currently facing will be mitigated. Higher-level mobs will still do more damage to defense-based characters when they connect, so they're still more dangerous than even-level mobs. They just won't hit as often as they do now.

I've had this happen on at least 2 occasions--once with a spawn that aggroed on me through Hide, the other time on my unstealthed mastermind. There may have been others that I took out without realizing they were OCD spawns. I noticed it with these because they were +3 to me--each consisted of one purple lieutenant and one red minion. In each case, the mobs were from a faction unrelated to any mission I was doing at the time. The first occasion was a pair of Council that came after me while I was hunting Hellions in the Oil Spill area for the hunt mission in Bocor's arc, and the other was a pair of Hellions that came after me while I was standing by Drea with no missions at all (I had just reported back after a heist). I didn't see either spawn before they aggroed, but they were not unusual spawns for the areas I was in.

The first time it happened (on my mastermind) the chasers managed to kill me. They caught up to me again shortly after I left the hospital and killed me again. After that, I waited behind a drone at the hospital until they ran up and got zapped. When my stalker got jumped, I led them all the way from Drea to the Arena and got a drone to take them out.

Note that this means that not only is the problem not AS-specific, it isn't even Stalker-specific. There is something wrong with the aggro (and the perception) on these spawns.

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Personally, I'm a fan of shadows.

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Do these shadows run?

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No, but they move when you're not looking.

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Personally, I'm a fan of shadows.

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Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of (States)men?

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Why?

This doesn't seem to make much sense to me ... we have our low-mid level characters struggling to pay for enhancements - and high level characters who have influence / infamy they can't use. Running in SG mode makes the low-mid level characters struggle even more as part of their inf is prestige ... and the high level characters can't contribute to prestige.

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You've got it backwards, Key. Levels 1-20 (I believe), you get full influence/infamy along with prestige (the prestige increases a little by level for a while, but caps fairly low). I noticed the infamy tapering off after L20. At L34, I no longer received any infamy--it was all prestige.

So, low-level characters can run in SG mode at no cost to themselves. High level characters, who have to date had a surplus of influence, will get substantially less if they run in SG-mode all the time (only what they get from selling enhancements). In the beta, I ran constantly in SG mode, and in the low 30s I found myself strapped for infamy to buy SOs. The level bump may have had some effect, but the infamy bump that went with it should have offset it somewhat. In the low 30s, characters will often have to choose between influence/infamy and prestige.

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But the combined force of the Freedom Phalanx and Longbow rocked the Rogue Isles with our might.

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Really. And throughout most of the Isles, supervillains yawned.

Face it. The Freedom Phalanx "rocked" a slum...and wasn't even allowed to hold that much.

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CuppaJo, you rock! The Mancusan bug caused our Tri-Team wipe during the Bugblatter Taskforce. Resolving this will help out us Soma players a LOT!

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Look, a good Soma can take on a Dentrid, even solo. You just need a Moebius Spear equipped. I know its stats are total crap, but Dentrids use a Klein Field for their defense--it looks different from the Tensor PC version, but it's the same power--and the Moebius Spear has a +Special that nullifies it for a couple of seconds with each hit (for */Polarity Somas, it actually gives them negative defense). That's long enough for a Soma to get in a couple of good Strikes, then back off until the Spear recharges. I solo them all the time with my Equilibrium/Polarity Soma.

<sanity on>
The scary thing is that I almost wish I could play this game we're talking about.

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Actually this is a bug. Mancusans are only supposed to spawn in Telenphier Conax missions. It will be resolved in the next server fission.

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Awww, man, they're nerfing the Mancusans?! I've been farming those guys for the Advanced Axon Nodes for my Neuromancy crafter. There's no other place to get those unless you go all the way out to the Spineshadow Reach, and that place is just fraggin' nuts, even with the shortcut through the Den. How's my Neuro going to keep his squad buffed if he can't make Bypass Boosters?

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So you're saying that with a single SO accuracy enhancement in an attack, that's more than enough accuracy for you? That when you're grouped and the mobs are +2 and +3, and you have much more lieutenants and bosses, you're comfortable with how accurate you are?

You're making the assumption that people won't use accuracy enhancements in their attacks. People will still use an SO enhancements in their slots. The difference is that instead of a 33% boost to accuracy, they'll have a 49% boost. That's pretty good because a 33% boost may let you hit the ceiling against an even level minion, but it doesn't when it's a +2 or +3 lieutenant or boss. And that's more in line with the kind of villains you're up against when grouped. Heck, even when soloing, if you set your difficulty up to midrange or higher, you're going up against +1 or +2 bosses! And you'll miss quite frequently with just a single SO accuracy.

The accuracy boost doesn't alleviate the need for some tweaking of the set (and especially doesn't alleviate the need for MAJOR tweaking of Trick Arrows), but there's no way you can discount it as being meaningless. Many many many blasters would greatly benefit from another 16% accuracy.

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geko's comment appeared to be based on fighting even-level foes. I continued that pattern with my analysis, while noting that the situation was worse against higher-level foes. That seems the best way to get the point across.

Generally speaking, I am comfortable with 1 acc SO against up to +2 mobs. I start getting nervous when fighting +3s, but I still feel reasonably effective most of the time.

I don't discount the benefits of an accuracy bonus. In fact, the current bonus helps substantially in the lower levels. In the mid- and upper-levels, however, its benefit pales in comparison with the available options--SOs, Tactics, Targeting Drone, and so forth. Against the foes the devs apparently expect us to fight most of the time, an archer either has too much accuracy and not enough damage, or not enough accuracy and not enough damage.

This isn't the only help the Archery set needs, by any means. Getting an adequate "secondary" effect would be a start, however.

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Archery has the highest Accuracy in the game. All powers have an accuracy of 1.16. Ranged shot, the sniper attack, has an accuracy of 1.39.

So that like getting 1 free ACC DO in all Archery powers. Against a target with no defense, thats a 87% chance ToHit.

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Of that additional 16% accuracy, 5% is the weapon-draw bonus common to all weapon powersets. It's there to help compensate for the delay in drawing a weapon. (Whether or not that's an appropriate way to address the draw animation time is another discussion.) That means the bonus accuracy for archery is 11%--that's closer to a TO than to a DO. Is anyone satisfied with a single green accuracy TO in their powers? Go ahead, ask around. I'll wait.

The fundamental problem is that the accuracy bonus isn't enough to replace the accuracy enhancements that people typically use above L12. Assuming you stick to even-level mobs (which is not always an option, even when doing your own Heroic-level missions), you'll hit them 87% of the time with no enhancements. Pre-DOs, that's pretty good. Once DOs are available, it's only par with what all the other blasters are doing. When you reach SO level, you'll find yourself hitting 8% less often than other blasters, because they will all have an SO accuracy enhancement or some equivalent, which brings them to the to-hit ceiling.

Let's look at some numbers. Assume that the both ArrowX from the Archery set and BlastX for the X set both do 100 damage when unslotted. Further assume that ArrowX gets 6-slotted with white damage SOs, while BlastX gets slotted with 1 acc and 5 damage SOs, also white. Start shooting at white minions with no resistances.

Average ArrowX damage = 300(.87) = 261
Average BlastX damage = 266.6 (.95) = 253.3
261/253.3 = 1.03, or 3% extra damage/attack, on average, for ArrowX.

Now try it without the weapon-draw bonus, which is after all, intended to compensate for animation time, not the other weaknesses of the Archery set:

Average ArrowX damage = 300(.82) = 246
Average BlastX damage = 266.6 (.95) = 253.3
246/253.3 = 0.97, or 3% less damage/attack, on average, for ArrowX.

So, if we rely on the accuracy bonus to hit enemies, we do 3% more damage with otherwise-equivalent attacks once we get into SO range (which constitutes the bulk of the game). Unfortunately, archery attacks aren't otherwise equivalent. They deal commonly-resisted damage, have no secondary effects, have relatively long animations, and in some cases offer lower base damage than analogous attacks in other sets. This gets worse when dealing with foes that have a level advantage, as the accuracy SO is overkill on even-level mobs--against +1 and +2 mobs, accuracy-enhanced blasters will still be hitting around 95% of the time, while our archer is hitting substantially less often.

If we discount the animation time, we must also discount 5% of the accuracy bonus, and we find that Archery averages less damage than other blast sets with typical slotting, in addition to the other burdens of the set. Not to mention the fact that if we rely on the accuracy bonus in lieu of slotting, there will be occasions when we will miss a shot at a critical junction, and find defeat where another blaster could have pulled out a victory.

If we slot for accuracy, the picture is even grimmer in some ways. One acc SO renders the accuracy bonus irrelevant when fighting even-level foes, so we'll find ourselves doing less damage (which is more resistable), more slowly, for more endurance, with no secondary effect at all.

It's a grand idea in theory, geko, but it falls short in practice. An accuracy bonus is thematic, and it helps somewhat in the lower levels, but it consistently leaves archery blasters (and defenders, too) coming up short later on.

In order to be a satisfactory secondary effect, the bonus needs, at minimum, to replace a typical enhancement at any given level. That would let archers use the slot that would normally go to accuracy to effect a substantial increase to their damage (or, in the case of Aimed Shot, reduce its endurance cost to something less absurd). A scaling effect could work, with the archery-specific bonus set to around 8% for L1-14, 16% for L15-24, and 33% above L25. Note that I said "archery-specific bonus"--if you include the weapon-draw bonus in that, we'll want something else to compensate for the animation time.

Archery is a nifty powerset. Please don't leave it gimped.