Bill Z Bubba

That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? You keep stating that tri-form is the intended playstyle, in fairness due to statements made by current devs, and I'm left with the factual knowledge that the AT itself works against that design.

If the devs actually wanted tri-forming to be the proper playstyle we wouldn't be dealing with flaky keybinds, meaningless human form toggles, redundant powers and passives only working in the human form.

The nearest comparison we have to work with is granite from stone armor. It also stops other powers from working but it does so by providing huge benefits.

Can the case be made that the loss of all mitigation is balanced by nova's damage buff? Can the case be made that the hammering of damage output in dwarf form is worth the extra mitigation and aggro control?

Actually, I can make the case that this is true for a late game warshade. Its superior damage buff and dam-res buff carry over to both forms.

A PB gets less than 5 seconds of a 72% buildup and dull pain. I certainly can't make the case there.

And that's probably why Castle will respond, if at all, with nothing mroe than a "back to the drawing board with you," on this topic.

A tri-form OR human-only warshade does just fine as a damage dealer especially on teams. At least, after level 32. But it wouldn't be the first AT to be considered a late bloomer.

Peacebringers, on the other hand, do not. They fail at the one job that their powers show them to have. Damage.

As for the catering to alternative builds, I don't believe the devs have looked at the AT enough to make that call.

As it stands, I've already shown that the AT, at least the peacebringer, is a damage dealer. It can't even begin to take on tanking until 20. Before then, it has NOTHING to offer a team except damage. And even well after that, its damage dealing vastly outweighs its ability to tank.

Yet the devs want us to swallow the line that this is a team based, shape shifting AT?

No, I find that a copout. I find it ridiculous to think that with all the tools available to us to streamline our control of our characters that clunky and overly long shapeshifting animations with broken binds for tray swapping is a design goal to push us into form use so that we can underslot the Primary form.

That would be the one where your power pools function. The one you start with at level 1. The one you can actually customize with the costume creator.

I completely understand your disagreement with me based on what you've heard and your own view of how the AT functions. I'm thankful for it actually. If nothing else, these discussions help me refine things before delivery.

I'm now at 22 hours on my PB. I'm level 19.7.

I'm not used to moving that slowly in this game. I see no reason for the primary form of this shapeshifter to be this weak. Where you liken a human-only khel to a petless MM, I liken it to a claws/sr scrapper that didn't take focus or quickness.

Less than it could be? Absolutely. Gimped? No. A petless MM is gimped. That AT was obviously designed to use pets.

Kheldians don't have that luxury, regardless of current dev statements on the topic. The only thing stopping the human form from being appropriately viable is a proper damage scale.

It has blasts and lacks mez protection, just like a blaster. It has melee attacks, dam-res shields, HP buffs and self-heals, just like scrapper. The fact that it has all of it means that they Should be doing less damage than both. The only question is to what degree.

Again, thank you for the discussion.

Looks like only the problem is the listed AT modifiers. The damage numbers shown are identical to the in game numbers. So either the unspecified values are wrong, or the melee and range damage modifiers are. I'm betting the latter.

Per CoD:
Human Melee Damage Modifier: 41.708
Human Range Damage Modifier: 34.756

Per Calculated using existing unspecified value:
Human Melee Damage Modifier: 47.27
Human Range Damage Modifier: 44.49

Ain't that interesting?

EDIT: Nope, not interesting at all.

Issue 13 patch notes:

• Peacebringers damage adjusted
  • Increased Melee Damage to 0.85 from 0.75
  • Increased Range Damage to 0.8 from 0.625
  • Increased Melee Dwarf Form Melee Damage to 1.0 from 0.85

CoD be needin some help.

So the question now stands at whether the prior buff was enough. I, of course, think not.

If human form khel is at .85 melee and .8 range, I have to figure out if buffing them up to 1 melee and 1 range as per VEAT levels is too much.

Again, that is not the desired goal of this buff. Human form damage will never equate to nova form damage. Human mitigation will never equate to dwarf mitigation except under lightform with all the shields turned on, but that's true now.

While true, it was only very recently that the change went in to allow the inherent to work while in the forms. Depending on what the numbers show, we might be able to get the human form modifiers altered without changing the inherent at all. As in... nothing but a pure buff.

If truly looking at my proposal in a void based solely on the buff you're getting from the inherent, you'll need 4 times as many teammates to match the same buff. Running the numbers now, but my proposal was a drop from 20% per appropriate teammate to 5%.

However, I've already found some nasty errors with the data on CoD concerning kheldians, so I'm going to have to log in and get all the actual numbers to see what's going on.

It might turn out that kheldians are broken on the backend and need fixed due to actually being broken rather than just designed poorly.

More later.

OF2,

I have to ask, if you are a tri-former and prefer to always be a tri-former, how will increasing the viability of the human form affect you?

Granted, I am asking for the inherent to be nerfed for this change, but if you're sitting at the damage cap with or without the change while blasting away in nova form or smashing away in dwarf form, how will an increase in human form viability affect your playstyle in any way?

You should see some of the festive rep hits I'm receiving for this push for change.

You need to figure in redraw times. I have no idea what the redraw would be on those attacks, but for claws calculating in redraw when I was attempting to add gloom to one of my brute claws users caused a *substantial* decrease in DPS. And that was with factoring in Gloom's considerable damage.

If you want to get an estimate, claws redraw takes ~.63 seconds. If I recall correctly, Widow redraw might be the same, but again, that's going off of memory and may not be accurate.

Energizer bunny steamroller with little downtime?

Claws/WP

It's a good 2 cents.

I completely agree that the current design plan for kheldians involves usage of the forms, but I don't agree that the devs have done a worthwhile job in making the forms desirable. Even with the inherent now working full force, for me at least, the price of shapeshifting outweighs the benefits.

They devs have gone against design wishes due to coding failure before and I see no reason for them not to do so here.

Fact of the matter is that when you do choose to concentrate your build on form shifting, you're left with a truly anemic human form with most of its powers, barring those that benefit the forms, either skipped or so poorly slotted that they're useless. Frankenslotted or not.

That said, do I expect the point that dev intent to focus on the forms to be used against my proposal? Absolutely. Luckily this change will still leave tri-forming as the superior choice for those that team while benefitting those that don't. (-citation needed here, but I'm working on that.)

In the future, you should keep a copy of the install directory on a dvd or external drive. I make a new copy after every issue so that my downloads after a wipe stay short.

My guide for that.

I haven't done the number crunching myself, but if I recall correctly:
They softcap more easily;
They can reach superior single target damage;
They have team buffs.

Comparisons *should* be made when you're dealing with an archetype's place amongst their archetype peers.

I'm sure that the devs could simply datamine khel advancement time from 1 to 50 in a void, but I don't think that they work that way. At least I don't think that they Should work that way.

I'm not seeking to make khels the big damage archetype. Were I doing that I'd be asking for blaster ranged damage modifier and scrapper melee damage modifier.

I'm not. I don't think that they should ever get that. VEAT damage modifiers and nerfing the inherent is, to me, the simplest and fairest fix that doesn't negatively affect anyone's playstyle while benefitting those that solo and/or forego the forms.

It does so while following the pattern set out by the developers for every other AT in the game.

Bring team based assistance? Do less damage. Bring damage? Do a lot but that amount is adjusted based on your mitigation.

AlienOne,

I feel like you completely ignored my post and didn't follow the one bit you quoted.

I know khels aren't defenders. They have no worthwhile buff/debuff capabilities.
I know khels aren't controllers. They have no worthwhile control.
I know khels aren't tanks. They have no worthwhile aggro controls.
I know khels aren't scrappers. They can't pull off the crap scrappers can.

I don't want khels to be defenders, nor controllers, nor tanks, nor scrappers.

I want them to be what they are and not suck at it. And they do suck at it when you choose to skip the forms. The reason so many choose to do so have been covered in great detail in this and many other threads.

You stated it yourself: The problem is what is the role?

The powers granted to the kheldian AT dictate its role. And what powers does it have? Damage attacks. What does the peacebringer have that is NOT damage? A heal other and a single pbaoe disorient.

The Human Peacebringer's ONLY role is damage. And it does it VERY poorly. A defender has poor damage due to having a buff/debuff primary. A controller should have poor damage due to not having a damage primary or secondary, but they gave them containment on TOP of already having massive control. A tank has piddly damage due to its primary being mitigation and aggro control.

The REASON that kheldians in general and peacebringers specifically are compared to scrappers and blasters, the kheldian is a DAMAGE primary archetype.

Yet it does defender level damage. It is NOT a support AT, so why is it doing support AT damage? Because of the ridiculously designed inherent. The leech inherent.

The useless while solo inherent.

If you're going to call an AT a teambased AT, its powers should go with that description. The ONLY thing about khels that is team based IS the inherent. everything else screams "crossbreed of a scrapper and a blaster." Ranged blasts, melee attacks, dam-res shields, self-heals.

And yet we have the following:
Khel Melee Damage Mod: 41.708 That's the same as a brute. Less than a tank. And khels don't get fury or an 850% damage cap.
Khel Range Damage Mod: 34.756 That's less than a defender.

Do I think that khels should have scrapper or blaster damage mods? Absolutely Not.

Scrappers don't have boatloads of ranged attacks nor do blasters have a mitigation secondary.

I think that the human form kheldian should have the same damage modifiers that VEATs get. 55.610 for both melee and range. To balance this out against the inherent, the damage buff drops from 20% per appropriate teammate to 5%.

Actually, while I do find it painful, my claws/sr scrapper CAN handle +4/x8 arachnos with bosses.

Do I think that is the level of performance that all ATs should perform at? Of Course Not.

That's actually not what I'm talking about at all.

What I AM talking about is that we are dealing with an AT that does NOT have massive buffs/debuffs like defenders do. It does NOT have massive control like controllers. It does NOT have massive HP and aggro control like tanks.

Yet many of the pro-kheldian side of this several year old discussion state that we shouldn't deal with kheldians as other ATs because they are a team based AT and thus their general weakness solo is acceptable in the same way that it is so for defenders and tanks.

This of course stems from the leech-based inherent. And that inherent will be at the core of my arguments for change.

The kheldian is a damage based archetype with weak damage output while in the human form. This weak damage output can be made up for with the use of the nova form but at the cost of the vast majority of the human form damage mitigation. The human form by itself has considerable mitigation to back its blasts and punches, but no real aggro control. Thus the dwarf form which gives up any worthwhile damage output for mitigation and aggro control.

Course, not everyone can tolerate the clunky and barely functional form shifting, not every enjoys using a mouse to click on powers due to its inefficiency, and quite a few people dislike the forms due to the overall sameness with every other kheldian.

So what to do? Until recently, the inherent did not function in the forms. That change took place because the powers that be felt that the AT deserved some change.

It is my belief that this particular change was only partially correct. I aim to show that the kheldian inherent should have been nerfed prior to allowing it to function in the forms. This nerf should have occurred so that human form AT damage modifiers could be raised.

Godmode can handle bosses in +4/x8 spawns and get through said spawns without burning an entire loadout of insps.



/sorry, man, couldn't help myself.

Further edit:

I have another peacebringer now. I ran it from 1 to 17 as a human only. It was painful. It truly was VERY similar to playing a defender solo. I STILL haven't pushed my difficulty above +0/x2.

At 17, I got fed up enough to crank up the second build with Bright Nova. Obviously it helped a lot, but it immediately showed off the second failure of kheldians. Tray swapping, form dropping keybind flakiness. Nothing quite as hairpullingly bothersome than having to doubletap a key enough to actually get the drop to human shift to occur WITH the tray swap but not tap the key enough that powexectoggleoff bright nova somehow causes nova form to turn back on.

Quite the damned if you do damned if you don't scenario there.

So I got to 18 and grabbed inca strike. Great power, of course, but as expected, a huge end sucker. I'm now lucky if I can get through a spawn with 2 +1 LTs and a +1 minion, which seems to be the non-council spawn config at +0/x2, and find myself out of end AND health.

Of course, as with many AT combos, a big change happens at lvl 22. SOs make a helluva lot of difference in a build. And I'll get access to the PBs true heal rather than the near useless dull pain clone. (Why near useless? Recharge is far too long to consider it an actual heal and PB base HP is low enough that the HP buff hardly matters before SOs.)

"Bill, why the hell do you keep playing something that you find so painfully inferior? Didn't you already deleted a level 50 PB? Didn't you delete that same PB at 30? Why the masochism, dude?"

Claws/SR used to suck as well. Now it doesn't. I thought I was done. I thought I was going to give up on seeing PBs fixed. Instead, now having finally experienced the AT without that mind-wrenching, migraine inducing PB Whining Sound FX of Doom (yay silence.ogg) I want the AT fixed. I plan to see it fixed before my time here is done.

Course, that gives me several years of harassing Castle to go.

I still want to know who wrote those notes we find doing the Ouroboros arc.

Thank you for "real numbers." Now I can hassle Castle with more accuracy.

Yea... if you're a brute looking for maximum DPS and don't use a weapon, you should have gloom in your attack chain. It's That Good.

NOTE: I don't know what fire blast may do for the non-weapon scrapper chains. That's something I've wanted to look into but haven't had the time to revisit those threads with updates.