Ben_Arizona
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:He may be a troll, but if so he's a troll who's also following through on it with actual gameplay. I was on the team he's talking about and he was every bit as bad as he's making it sound.Originally Posted by Schismatrix
*heh*
Pull the other one, it's got bells.
(i'm guessing it was a slow day at the office and not enough people have been reading the Defender forums lately to make this worth posting there?)
He was asked politely to participate more actively and use his buffs (his build has the entire Empathy set, his tier 1 blast and Aim, and the rest is pool powers, including the complete Medicine pool) and ignored it. He was then asked less politely to "actually push some buttons now and then", and continued to rock the aura while rarely ABing the team leader (who was on autofollow) and doing nothing else. Suggestions for how to actually contribute were made and rebuffed or ignored. He was then mildly taunted and kicked from the team. -
Oh, hey, this guy.
I was on the TF with a kin so I was watching people's buff icons. Until we started complaining, the only emp buffs that ever showed up were the auras. Once asked to actually push some buttons once in a while, there was an occasional Adrenaline Boost on the warshade who was leading the team. I don't recall seeing any Clear Mind or Fortitude at any point - if they were being used, it was incredibly intermittent. I did get rezzed once, so there's that.
This stands out in my mind because there was a thugs/pain along with us who was keeping Enforced Morale multistacked on people. Good job that guy! -
There is a fundamental flaw with "are your buffs for you / are your buffs for your allies". Your buffs are for you and your allies. They are AOE buffs for a reason.
I have great fun with a kin/rad defender but I quite consistently team her. The buffs make her damage output remarkable and her allies' damage output frankly terrifying, and we all have fun. Hooray! -
/devices as a whole. Talking to people, you'd think the set's only two powers are "Place Fifty Trip Mines And Take Forever" and "Conspicuous Lack Of Build Up".
Almost any power that people call "useless in groups" when they actually mean "you can't spam it into the center of the fight". -
Personally, I hope the coming nerfstorm is Invention Diversification, combining a functional cap on the amount of any given global benefit from IOs with the addition of alternate IO benefits to actually diversify into. I feel like taking out softcap for non-defense sets and perma-(insert whatever thing that was pretty blatantly never intended to be perma) this way would go a fair distance towards limiting the current power bloat. Although obviously people will find new ways to min/max, cutting down on the ability to hyperspecialize tends to reduce power bloat in general.
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Quote:I'm not sure this makes the game easier so much as less frustrating. As far as I can tell, any fight or mission you can win with this change active, you could have won without it. Any build you can make with this change, you could have made without the change as long as you were willing to trade off the frustration of sitting around recovering blue after every couple fights.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
But then what was the point of increasing sprint, hover and fly's base speeds?
Having health and stamina at level 1... yea, great. Seriously. Anyone griping about the 1 to 20 game after that is smoking crack.
Welcome to easy mode from 1 to 50. Good thing we have a diff slider. -
Quote:What, you mean other than each of my characters suddenly sprouting three new powers?Originally Posted by UberGuy
The devs may very much understand that this won't be a huge change for people who already take and slot Health and Stamina.
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Quote:Honestly, it seems to me less like Mind falls behind and more like the others catch up. Aside from the issue of psi resistance (which is, to be fair, a pretty annoying one) Mind seems pretty much ahead of the pack before 32 and average (not below) afterwards. It can feel like the others do better at the high end because the damage is backloaded into the pets for them, but I honestly think it's just a leveling-out for most of them.Originally Posted by Local_Man
Overall, I have just found that it seems to take longer to solo a Mind Controller than most others after the others get pets. I have discussed this at length with a buddy who took his Mind/Kin to 50 -- we both feel that Mind falls behind on the damage curve after level 33 or so, where other controllers get a big bump up. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since Mind trades off that extra damage with greater AoE control, including 3 kinds of control that don't draw aggro.
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Quote:Yeah, Chilblain gets the best of both worlds, although its -rech isn't as hefty as Web Grenade's. That -50% is surprisingly high.Originally Posted by SuperSilver
Yay for Ice Manipulation!
Personally I find EM's Power Thrust to be my favorite secondary T1 to use when mezzed, but I like it less than Web Grenade under other circumstances. -
Quote:Mind is an extremely underrated set, partially because people are ultra-fixated on controller pets. Even without a pet Mind is at worst around the middle of the pack for controller damage; your evaluation seem to be pretty much on although Plant does (in my experience) tend to outdamage Mind on the whole. The big problem I've had is that while most enemies just melt away, enemies with strong psi resist can present a problem if you're not working to leverage confusion damage, and there are honestly a lot of those at high levels (Malta robots, Nemesis machines which also resist confusion, Carnies).Originally Posted by Peacemoon
This is not a criticism really Local Man, but everytime you say Mind solos slowly at high level compared to others, it makes me wish I could upload some videos and give you examples of the great killing speed of Mind and how wrong you are. Then again, it also makes me doubt myself and wonder if its purely because my character is super slotted.
Still, I think of Mesmerize, Leviate, Dominate, Terrify and your AoE APP of choice slotted for damage really will give a lot of the other control sets a huge run for their money. Especially depending on what secondary you choose.
Compared to Ice, Earth and Electric I personally think Mind is still far superior even with pets included.
Compared to Gravity I think Mind still has the edge even with singularity. Propel is a long activation (although good damage). Lift is low damage compared to Levitate. Crush takes 9s to deal its damage unlike Mind's powers which are all instant damage and no DoT. So it doesnt have the smooth attack chain that Mind offers, and it doesn't have an AoE attack like Terrify before APP's.
Plant I don't really have the experience to say as I played Plant as Dom, which isn't a fair comparison, but it will seem to rely much more on confuse damage.
Illusion and Fire I will give you, although Mind does outperform them at low level.
Why I keep making this point is I honestly feel because Mind does not have a pet there is a stigma which in my experience is unjustified. Having played the set aslong as I have maybe I am just able to leverage it in ways people new to it simply cannot.
Anyway again this is not a criticism, I am just wondering why I have such a great experience soloing with Mind at both high and low level, but it never seems to reflect on the forums.
Outside of that, Mind is a combination of quite solid damage and fantastic levels of control. I started with a Mind controller, so other sets always feel a little control-light to me.
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Quote:You and I have had this exact argument before in another thread, which is why I was hesitant to bring up my view.Originally Posted by Local_Man
If Flashfire+Fire Cages is OK, then what is wrong with Stalagmites+Stone Cages? Conflicts with your own power? Then don't use it when you use Earthquake . . . or use Stone Cages, wait 12 seconds for the -knockback to go away, and use Earthquake.
Stone Cages has many uses, and Quicksand is not a sufficient substitute all the time (although it can be sometimes). For example, for an Earth/Rad the combo of Stone Cages + RI is very powerful and up all the time as a form of continual control. Quicksand won't keep the foes all together for very long, allowing some to wander outside of the debuff. And then there is the issue of Containment once you get your APP AoE attack powers . . .
I'll clarify: I don't think someone who takes Stone Cages is "doing it wrong", I just see it as an unnecessary and redundant power for my playstyle and prefer to take something which has more use to me. Quicksand instead of Stone Cages works well enough for stun-control purposes, I team enough that even with Containment my earth/cold's direct damage isn't that big a contribution, and Quicksand plays nice with any PUG members I happen to pick up who I'm not in perfect timing sync with. For my purposes, there are better things to do with the power slot.
For what it's worth, this argument usually comes up in the context of someone saying "anyone who doesn't take Stone Cages has to be insane!", so I am perhaps a little overtouchy about it. Stone Cages is a handy power for some circumstances, but it is also a skippable one given what else Earth Control has to work with (and in my case particularly Earth/Cold, which means I have a second KD patch and enemies will usually be at the slow cap.) -
Quote:I think the Flashfire/Fire Cages combo is perfectly fine if you're not rolling with someone who uses KD patches. I mean, the problem is less with the power combo itself and more with not paying attention to who you're teaming with: if you're teamed with someone who drops the KD patches like candy then yeah, your stunnees aren't going anywhere anyway.Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
This is one of the reasons I hate people advocating the "Pseudo-hold" maneuverer Fire and Earth can do. There's no particular need for the Cage part and anything which is capable of avoiding the Stun (like a Boss) is now either aggroed at you or if there's someone laying down a Slip Patch you've just made them immune to it.
Mind you Earthquake also has a tasty ToHit and Defense Debuff and hopefully the knockdown will get a chance to kick in in around 10 seconds, so I lay it anyway.
That said, I don't like stun + immob on Earth Control because it's counterproductive to one of the character's own powers and Quicksand works fine to keep wandering to a minimum (and you should always have Quicksand down for the debuffs anyway). I don't even take Stone Cages, but that's a matter of personal taste. -
Quote:I've played kin defenders and I've played elec controllers and it really is a very different sapping experience, though. Elec controllers apply a steady drain and are much more able to keep an enemy down at a "can't do anything or can only fire off Brawl occasionally" level, while a kin can drop enemies to nothing very quickly but can't do much to keep an enemy there for long. While I'm not certain how well an elec controller could sap an AV, I'm not ready to discount the idea on the basis of kin-based theorycraft.Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
End drain is hit, or miss. There are a number of times I can get the end bar to go down at the same rate as health does, but I think in terms of higher end AVs, you most likely need two sappers to consistently pull it off. Note this is based on playing a level 50 Kin/elec defender. Without Transference, and one that uses some sort of buff(Power Build Up), I think doing draining on AVs(certainly higher end ones) will be rather difficult solo.
I have a plant controller too. The thing is that on dual-origin enhancements Seeds' recharge is just long enough that if you miss some enemies or fire it at the wrong time or an ambush shows up you can't do a whole lot about it, while Static Field produces a persistent patch that will grab enemies you've missed once they run into it.Quote:Originally Posted by Local_ManThere was a comment earlier in the thread claiming that Elec control is the most effective low level controller. I think some of the fans of Plant Control might challenge that statement.
Don't get me wrong, Seeds is a great power and stays a dominant control power in situations where Static Field is less useful, but in the DO levels Static Field is much more consistent control. (Assuming you don't have somebody dropping Rain of Fire on the static patch and then failing to kill his targets, anyway.) -
Enervating Field will apply a 22.5% resistance debuff, while Disrupting + Acid Arrows combined will apply 30% resistance debuff. Enervating Field's debuff will last until you turn it off, requires no accuracy check, and the power recharges much faster. However, as a toggle it will switch off if you get mezzed or run out of endurance while it is running, which the arrows will ignore.
Personally, I lean towards Enervating Field. The arrows need to be slotted for recharge and (for AA) accuracy, while EF pretty much meets its full potential on its default slot. Radiation Emission isn't my most favorite set but it's one where it's pretty hard to go wrong. -
Quote:Web grenade is excellent. I'd rather have the -rech than the very slow DoT from most of the other T1 immobs.Originally Posted by tanstaafl
In case you dont know; blasters can use thier first two powers from thier primary, and 1st power from thier secondary when slept/held/mez'd.
So it really pays to have effective and slotted attacks for those powers (aside from some secondarys - looking at web grenade) -
Quote:Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So, what you're saying is that KB in CoH completely ignores any and all laws of physics.
If you aim your AoE KB power, Explosive Blast in this case, at the BACK of a spawn, then the enemies between you and the target will be knocked AWAY from you, even though the KB effect is coming from the opposite side of them?
If so.....well, that's just frigging stupid. Anyone with ANY knowledge of how physics works would come to the same conclusion I did.
If it helps you get to sleep at night, imagine that you shoot a small pellet of Kirby Dots which rapidly expands and contracts as it approaches and passes a certain point to describe a sphere-shaped region through which a wave moving away from you passes.
Alternately, just chill because you're playing a game in which you're a flying guy shooting blue Dippin' Dot lasers at Nazis and physics is a "eh, close enough" approximation. -
Quote:Debuff and sapping don't fare as terribly as actual control does against AVs, since purple triangles don't nullify them. There's severe resistance, but I'm actually not sure how well elec sapping will or won't go against AVs (it works fine against EBs in my limited experience.)Originally Posted by Hart
Wouldn't you bump into AV resistance issues? I would assume that Elec/ would fare as horribly as any other control set against AVs, i.e. they'd totally ignore you.
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Quote:What do you do on any control set when you've already used your every-spawn control power, your other every-spawn control power is not absolutely perfect for the situation, and your long-recharge AoE hold is still recharging? I mean, other than "play mind control so you still have an AoE control for that ambush plus the next one".Originally Posted by kinaki
And when you get ambushed immediately after using your sleep elsewhere for its debuff, what do you do then? Synaptic Overload takes too long to run its course and Paralyzing Blast might be down. Whereas something like ice might have ice slick to back you up, you're left wishing you had another AoE control on electric. This is not theory, this is what has been happening to me.
Edit: response to previous posts, DogTags - though could be a response to your post as well; what if your SF had been down?
There are valid criticisms of Elec Control, but "if every power you have is still charging there's not much you can do" is a pretty weak one. Especially since Elec Control's every-spawn control is a persistent patch you can draw new ambushes onto.
For my part, I don't think Elec Control is the new top set for control: Earth Control is as solid as ever, and Mind Control is drastically underrated for some reason. It's up there, though, and it especially excels at low levels. I don't think any other set can area-control nearly as well on DO enhancements, with the possible exception of Plant (and even then, the recharge on Seeds of Confusion is just a little too long to be entirely comfortable on DOs.) -
Quote:Now if only there were some parallel AT for light-based characters. An AT that shot light beams for its ranged attacks, had explosions of light with every melee hit, its shield toggles were radiance-based, had maybe some thematic team-healing powers...Originally Posted by DrMike2000
The incarnate system will let you become a jacked up Dark/Dark Brute if you chose to play one, and everyone else will become a jacked up whateevr they are. The IO system already makes many characters pretty epic if they choose to invest lots of time in it. Incarnates will push that another step further.
If there were an AT that did that, maybe that would be really epic-feeling.
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Quote:Which is why I made clear that I was talking about the toggles, which is the one that is actually analogous.Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Actually, that's exactly the way that MoG works.
Okay, look, I don't actually have the time and energy to cut apart the several cognitive biases going on here. Mathematically, you are not improving your odds of getting a Big Damn Alpha off with the proc placed in Aim, but whatever, I've explained the math and gotten a response of NO U and anecdotes. The anecdotes stand out in your memory because they were striking moments and pushing the button gave you an illusion of personal control.
You claim "95% of the time when you had it in Targeting Drone on Test it did nothing". This is actually a perfectly accurate statistic. It fires 5% of the time. Hence, in Targeting Drone it does nothing 95% of the time that TD is active, and in Aim it does nothing 95% of the time that Aim is active and 100% of the time that it is not. The only difference is which one is active more. -
Quote:The thing is, you are exactly as likely to see everything die at once due to your supercharged barrage with the Build Up proc in Targeting Drone. For serious. Putting it in Aim does not make it more likely to go off on your Big Alpha Strike. The odds of it going off on the Big Alpha Strike are exactly the same either way. Calling this burst damage vs. sustained damage tradeoff is like a scrapper turning off all his armor toggles after the first five seconds of fighting a spawn and saying it's so that he can have burst protection when the alpha hits. It doesn't work that way.Originally Posted by StrykerX
Well, I did say putting it in the toggle is better for overall DPS (that's where I'd put it). Some people just love seeing a ton of things die at once due to a super-charged AoE barrage. Then again, the original post was about Archery / Devices, and you don't take Devices for burst damage, so...
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Quote:If you're that enamored of big orange numbers, you can wait for the Boost Up to appear in your buffbar, then hit Aim and go to town. Is it a long and stupid wait? Yes, it is. On the other hand, it's way shorter than waiting for the Aim-triggered proc to fire, and if you're not going to do that your odds of getting Aim + Boost Up on your big attacks are the same anyway.Originally Posted by StrykerX
It's just a question of whether you prefer higher average DPS or occasionally seeing a lot of very high orange numbers.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Sailboat
Well, if it's in a toggle it checks every ten seconds. Every ten seconds counting from when you start the toggle? Every ten seconds according to some server schedule? I don't know.
Let's say you're facing Mr. Big. Your proc checked four seconds ago while you were looking for him. Now it cannot activate for six more seconds, period. There's no chance you'll have it for the fight unless you wait.
If you had it in Aim, you'd have a 5% chance of having it right now, no waiting!
BUT...there's a caveat. Let's say you DO hit AIM...and it does not activate the Build Up proc this time. Are you going to attack? Or are you going to wait for Aim to recharge and try again to get the proc?
If you are going to attack anyway and not wait in hopes of getting the proc, then Ben_Arizona and the others are right; it makes no difference; your chances of the proc being up randomly in a toggle are no different from your chances of getting it to go off in Aim. Either way it's active 5% of the time you could be making your big attack; the only thing you control is if you decide to wait and not act (which probably is a LOT worse for your DPS than not having the proc active).
In other words, in a toggle, you only have a 5% chance at any random moment in which you happen to make the "shoot/don't shoot decision" to get the benefit; in Aim, you only have a 5% chance to have it activate in the specific, chosen moment you make the "shoot/don't shoot decision." Both are 5%, aren't they?
The scenario in which you do get to have any influence over the proc going off at the key moment is the scenario where you wait.
Except that since the toggle will check for proc every ten seconds, if you absolutely must have your Build Up proc active you can just wait and watch the buff icon bar. It'll still be faster than Aim would be unless your Aim recharges in less than ten seconds. Which is to say, perma-Aim. Which is to say, it's not going to happen. -
Quote:Hey, -rech isn't useless in PvE! ...it's just that tiny amounts of -rech with ludicrously short durations are.Originally Posted by Umbral
It's still largely applicable to Defenders and Corrs, but it gets a bit fuzzier when you start getting into stacking debuffs. Cryo ammo is still largely pointless thanks to the general uselessness of -rech in PvE, but Chem ammo can do some completely crazy things when properly stacked.
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Quote:The chance of Build Up being on during your AOE assault if you hit proc'd Aim before it is 5%.Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
There's a difference between burst damage and sustained damage. For sustained damage having the proc in the toggle is fine. I prefer to have the chance to proc affect all 3 of my AoE attacks at a time of my choosing rather than randomly at some much more er, random time. The chances of it proccing right before unloading the AoEs are MUCH higher if it is in Aim even if the toggle allows it to proc 3 times more often.
The chance of Build Up being on during your AOE assault if you are running proc'd Targeting Drone or Tactics is 5%.
You are not increasing your burst damage by putting it in Aim. You are only decreasing your non-burst damage so that your bursts seem bigger by comparison.