BellaStrega

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Curious if anyone even saw what I posted earlier about acc slotted rain of fire missing...

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Yes.

I believe Concern had a similar experience. By "similar" I mean "identical."

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Anyways. I tested this out right now.

I'm a level 39 Fire/Dark corruptor. I found a level 35 Lt. Night Widow to beat on.

I hit tar patch on her to keep her in the Rain of Fire as long as possible, I hit Rain and she consistantly dodged all exept 5 ticks on average. She dodged most all of Rain of Fire at -4 levels to me! Consistantly. And my rain is slotted for acc at about 130% acc if my calculations are right. Rain is also a pet that cannot be debuffed via smoke grenade, so that's not an issue.

I have a demorecord of this small little battle. I beleive they have *massive* def to AoEs like a Stalker does. I was able to hit her at -4 with single target attacks okay, but my AoEs would just whiff. This is not typical defense. This is not just a "hard to hit mob." This is not fair. A defense level that high combined with hide abilities is not a fair fight at all. And this is at -4! Without the aid of aim or buildup or a tray of insps, I cannot fathom fighting them at all.

_Castle_, I like the other Widows. I like the Night Widows too. Please look into this level of def.

--Suichiro

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It may not be strictly correct, but considering human nature i would've expected it be an ironic statement and consequently have the less strictly correct meaning. (Ironic in the literary sense, not the popular sense.) It seems to me that Centerfire's reaction would only tend to confirm that interpretation, despite how the poster may have intended it. This is really rather amusing.

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It is funny.

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Speaking of smoke grenade problems, I wonder if they're using the original version of smoke grenade. The original smoke grenade had a decimal error such that it, alone, could cap a blaster's defence. I know, I soloed AVs using it. If this is the case, that may explain their exceptional defence.

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I have a feeling it is something of this nature.

I have dropped rain of fire on a night widow and watched not a single damage number pop-up over her head.

Considering how many ticks are in Rain of Fire, I would say that is pretty good statistical evidence.

Kali, I went up against one with my Fire/Elec with SOs and even useing Build-up and aim whiffed an entire attack chain. It wasn't until I came back with a tray of insights and popped 6 of them combined with aim and build-up that I could actually hit her. They have screwed up the nightwidow defense somehow and I think it merits looking into.

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So, you need 166% (aim + build up) + (6x25) = 316% to-hit buff on top of your 75% x 1.33 accuracy to reliably hit her?

What level was she relative to you?

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I'd like to quote Statesman's actual response to me as to why powers like this haven't been fixed after all this time:

"If a defender feels less effective than a scrapper, then scrappers must be nerfed."

See, that power is working perfectly, that's why they haven't changed it since beta. It's all the other powers in the game which must be nerfed until they are the same. THOSE powers are clearly TOO powerful. Black Hole is working as intended.

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I'm fairly sure Statesman was being sarcastic.

The key word is "feeling"

The devs can't control how you Feel (weak or strong).

They can only control the powers themselves.

I'm pretty sure he was mocking you.

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I know whenever I say things like that, I'm mocking someone.

But I'm not Statesman. Who knows what sinister plots lurk behind his...not very sinister face?

Okay, aside from the kvetching in my initial post, followed by all the discussion: I have to wait and see how an even to +1 level Night Widow does, because it might all just be the +3 level boost.

The whole point was just to vent some (hopefully) harmless steam. However, as such threads always do, it drew people to explain game mechanics and offer helpful advice and such, and of course polarizing arguments.

It is possible the Night Widow is debuffing too much - but a +3 boss against characters with DOs is going to be a pain in the [censored] no matter what.

I'm not upset that I couldn't finish her off, I just wanted to get a few good hits in. It surprised me that I didn't get any in. With as much buffing as I had, my experience is that I should've been sitting at to-hit overkill.

But it's probably not all that big a deal.

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Sample size is too small to draw such a conclusion. Short run statistics lie, once again:

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Sorry, I'm going to stick with my intuition here.

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Speaking partly form memory here, but it could have just been a bad luck streak. I'm thinking back to the conversation we had with a several devs about how the streak-breaker works. Without digging that post back up, the basic premise was that the lower your acc (on your lowest attack) the longer the streak needed to be before the breaker kicks in.

So, before you poped that insight and BU... did you fire off even 1 shot? If so, you were probably at the 5% floor at that point. That puts you somewhere around 50-100 misses before the breaker kicks in.

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No. I didn't use a single attack before I used the insight, or before I used build up. All of my attacks had exactly the same slotting (two +3 Accuracy DOs).

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To OP, I do think the fact that it was a +3 boss vs a blaster might have played a *minor* role in your quick death. How does your blaster fare, generally speaking, against +3 freakshow bosses?

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Please state a little more of the obvious? I didn't complain about getting two-shotted. I complained about getting two-shotted after I used every attack available to me (one of them twice), buffed with build up and an insight, and having zero impact. If I'd even taken a third of her hit points before she turned around to hit me, I wouldn't be annoyed. However, my contribution was completely irrelevant - I wasn't even able to stack Freeze Ray with any holds from either of the controllers I was with to lock her down for a few seconds.

I'd do much better against a +3 Freakshow boss because I could at least hit it every time, or maybe miss once or twice.

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However, as I said earlier... these new difficulties DO suck. Mobs with -percep, mobs with fear, mobs with confuse... These are things that it seems were never planned for, and have very few counters. I know I'm not the only brute that's splattered a pet or two accidently when hit by a succubus.

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-perception has counters. I used one in the fight. That's not a big deal. Confusion does, too, in powersets as well as inspirations. Several powersets have had +perception, confuse protection, and fear protection added with issue 4 and later updates.

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Night Widows are probably my favorite creations, with the possible exception of Jack in Irons. geko designed them, and I built their powers. (Jack was a big team effort, I just love the way he looks.)

The majority of their defense come from their Precognitive abilities. The Stealth doesn't add anymore than three slotted Stealth would for a player. The Smoke Grenade, on the other hand, is brutal if you are lower level than they are.

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So they have about 4% from stealth, and then a really big debuff from smoke. On top of that, they have precognitive abilities that grant them a fairly large defense bonus?

That makes sense. What's getting me is that I had a pointlessly large to-hit buff and it did no good. I could be overreacting, because it was +3 and thus the debuff was much more effective.

I'll see what happens against an even-level.

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I know the "mobs" don't play fair, but if my Smoke has a crappy amount of acc debuff in it, they shouldn't get elude lvl defense out of theirs.

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If only. I could've hit Elude with my setup.

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I encountered my first Stalker-type Mob not long ago. It was one of the most fun battles I've had. Not sure what everyone is complaining about. Isn't winning a difficult fight cool? I think it is. Most of the Mobs in this game are predictable, dumb, and easy to defeat. When I met one that spun my head a little, I was practically giddy...

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Er, I didn't win.

I didn't win with +36% bonus to accuracy, and +91% to-hit buffs. It's not that I want a +3 boss to be easily defeatable. It's just that when I stack the to-hit buffs that far in my favor, I should have better than 5% accuracy.

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Wow....yeah missions in the PVP zones are really tough- I have only PVP'd with my tanker or stalker and with my tanker the mission difficulty HAS to be set to like the middle or lowest one cause the end baddie is gonna be a widow and they suck a$$!! They are straight Kill. On. Sight. Kill fast, kill hard and cremate the damm corpse. You had a great attacks against her- but it sounds like the only thing you had going on for you was the insight- that once you "lost" her, she completely negated all your accuracy DO's and build up. That is the only thing I can think of. It doesn't sound right at all- but again only thing I could think of.

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That's not what happened. I targeted her once, lost targeting, saw her a second time, lost targeting, hit the insight, hit build up, fired off seven attacks, missed six times, got taken out in two shots.

And stealth doesn't negate to-hit buffs at all. It does reduce the value of accuracy boosts via defense.

I mean, defense can obviously reduce to-hit buffs, or to-hit debuffs can reduce to-hit buffs.

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I thought that was a cool little addition.... however.... isn't the prison called the Ziggursky Penitentiary (or something like that), not Ziggurat? Isn't Ziggurat just a nickname for it 'cause it's shaped like one?

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Yes, so it's not unexpected for the press to use the nickname.

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I find your argument to be not marginally dishonest.

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It's always great when trolls self-identify; makes it easier to add them to my /ignore list.

*plonk*

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Troll? I was using marginal as in "by some margin". So by saying "not marginal", I meant "not by some margin", or in other words "by no margin". So I was actually saying you were being honest.

Lol. Ok maybe in poor taste but it was meant in jest. And here I thought I was being somewhat witty with my double entendre. Too late at night for humour I guess.

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I parsed it correctly, then.

However, one could reasonably take it to mean "your argument is more than marginally dishonest" although that may not be strictly correct, grammatically.

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Uh huh. Exaggerate much? I have been subjected to ToF in PVP and it was strangely not all that hard to deal with.

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I guess I just suck, then. *thumbs up*

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What can I say? Break frees for teh win. At least for blasters.

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One power available to anyone who wants to take it. I know of a few people who have deliberately taken it for PVP.

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Yay for those who have room to do so.

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People who PVP a lot and design their characters to excel in PVP generally make room for stuff like tactics or whatever, simply because it does give them an advantage. I know a duo who stimmed each other in the arena and were constantly accused of hax. Wacky.

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Or you could pack your own break frees. Packing break frees is not something that would suddenly be required by the existence of fear-wielding stalkers, after all.

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1. It's not Stalkers I'm worried about, as I am one (and I've only one reason to hit up Warburg... which won't take long). It's the Scrappers that are a pain. However, I did note, as a Stalker, that it'd be a bit overbearing as a power used by a Stalker that didn't require one other to obtain. The only reason I even care is that it could eventually affect me, as all Stalkers share key powers that people seem to constantly complain about. The arguments could only be furthered if one were to make it easier to pull off the powers in question.

2. As a Stalker, I don't really have room to pick up a fear resistance power, unless I cut out a few of the powers that make me a non-Hit'n'Run Stalker. My fault, I know.

3. Seeing as I can't afford to slot-out with SOs with Infamy alone, I can't just run from the zone every time I run out of Break Frees.

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Well, assuming that Touch of Fear is in the stalker version of DA when issue 7 gets to the test server, might it not be good to see how it works before predicting doom? And... I've never had trouble once I was into my teens with being able to afford inspirations at 50 influence apiece.

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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)

It might've been a Night Widow.

I don't remember which one it was. I just know that I had +33% accuracy and +91% to-hit buff, and my accuracy was apparently floored after all that, and that is plainly ridiculous.

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Corrected.

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Uh huh. Exaggerate much? I have been subjected to ToF in PVP and it was strangely not all that hard to deal with.

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One power sure does make up for the many that resist Disorient/Stun. I guess I could always try teaming up with someone who just might carry a buttload of Break Frees for me or, by chance, someone who has Stimulant.

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One power available to anyone who wants to take it. I know of a few people who have deliberately taken it for PVP.

Or you could pack your own break frees. Packing break frees is not something that would suddenly be required by the existence of fear-wielding stalkers, after all.

I think it was a Blood Widow. I was doing a door mission in Bloody Bay with a couple other people and we ended up with a Blood Widow boss - a claws/something stalker-type boss. I was playing an ice/energy blaster. She was +3 to me, +2 to the other players.

When she stealthed and I lost targeting, I hit an insight and retargeted her, ran up, hit build up, hit:

Bonesmasher
Energy Punch
Power Push
Ice Blast
Ice Bolt
Freeze Ray

in no particular order. One of those attacks hit...I have two accuracy DOs in each attack, I had an insight for +25% to-hit buff, and build up for another +66%, and as far as I can tell, my accuracy was floored. She then turned around and two-shotted me.

What's up with this?

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But for some insane reason, when I hit a boss, he hits back. If it's uberer than stun, how is that possible?

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Fear isn't as resisted as Stun, as far as I know... so, while it may not be "uber" in PVE, it's definitely quite the pain in PVP and could give a Stalker the recharge time that they need to easily finish someone off.

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And we naturally don't want stalkers to finish anyone off. Or for some builds to have an advantage in some situations over other builds.

Just for the record, Stimulant provides fear protection. So do break frees.

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It's because it has a 20% accuracy buff, and let's you keep a Boss perma-Feared with one power while you kill his little elfin helpers.

Cobra can drop toggles and stop porters, but there's no way ya can keep it perm on a Boss. I've tried.

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But for some insane reason, when I hit a boss, he hits back. If it's uberer than stun, how is that possible?

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With the 20% debuff stacked a couple times, it wont matter *how* many times he triest to hit back.

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In issue 7, anyway.

The ability to reduce attack rate and accuracy is simply not equal to the ability to stop it entirely.

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It's because it has a 20% accuracy buff, and let's you keep a Boss perma-Feared with one power while you kill his little elfin helpers.

Cobra can drop toggles and stop porters, but there's no way ya can keep it perm on a Boss. I've tried.

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But for some insane reason, when I hit a boss, he hits back. If it's uberer than stun, how is that possible?

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Grr. I'm so tired of people complaining about no content past 50. Do you guys also complain to Hollywood about no more movie after you fast forward to the end?

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>^O_o^<

Where did this come from? We have been talking about getting various sets for scrappers and tanks. No complaints about no content past 50. At least not from ME.. which it seems you are replying to me.

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Yeah, I love those people who are too afraid to reply to someone to the face... umm... post.

Ummm... anyhow there is a certain class of movie that people do fast forward through...

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I believe that complaints about people complaining about I7 have exceeded the actual complaints people have posted about I7.

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Well, yeah. But hide stacks with pretty much every other stealth power out there, I think - or does it? I'm not really sure myself. Doh.

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Concealment: Stealth and Cloak of Darkness are Mutually Exclusive.

I think you'll all be pleased with Dark/Dark for Stalkers.

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Until they go up against an Ice Tanker with Glacial Armor, Tactics and Focused Accuracy.

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One of the reasons I'd like to keep CoD in DA for stalkers, btw, is its +Perception.

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Well, yeah. But hide stacks with pretty much every other stealth power out there, I think - or does it? I'm not really sure myself. Doh.

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Concealment: Stealth and Cloak of Darkness are Mutually Exclusive.

I think you'll all be pleased with Dark/Dark for Stalkers.

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I'm holding out for swapping Death Shroud for Hide. I like the idea of a set that can stack hide + stealth within itself, though.