Blueeyed

[ QUOTE ]
Blue, I did not even request anything to happen 100% of the time. My point was more one of, why is 40% good for some powers, and for others its only 7%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry about assuming you wanted it to work 100% of the time. It really did sound like that.

As to why it's differnent for different powers, that does make sense if you consider the that endurance cost is directly linked to recharge time - powers that occur more often should have a lower chance to active, not only from a thematic stance (I can't see someone being more likely to decide you're a bigger threat than a Blaster because of a Jab or Barrage, compared to Energy Transfer), but from a balance viewpoint. Higher endurance/recharge time powers keep their validity in a Taunting viewpoint, as opposed to if they all had the same flat rate (thus making low-endurance/recharge attacks the only valid choices).
[ QUOTE ]
In fact, I agree with what you've said. However, last I checked, mezzers (primarily Controllers) get Containment to supplement the fact that they have mezzed.

I'm saying if you can't let it work 100% of the time, you should be providing something that makes up for the missing percentage.

[/ QUOTE ]
I really don't think it works that way. If someone was so powerful that you had to disable part of their abilites for PvP, that doesn't necessarily justify a secondary buff. You reduce things if they are too powerful, and increase them if they underperform, not because you 'should'.

Most Defenders, Corruptors, and Dominators, some Blasters, and, yes, even Tankers got hit by mez suppression, and that doesn't mean they need Containment or *should* get it. Containment only came around to solve the problem of low PvP damage invalidating solo or small-group controllers.

And what would you ask for? A containment-like system that increased damage against Taunted targets? Tankers certainly don't need more damage - their current values are problematic enough from a balance viewpoint. Decreased incoming damage from Taunted targets? With Tanker defenses only getting dropped by Domination-buffed Dominators, the act of taunting itself should cause that.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't see why Blazing Aura and RotP don't benefit from Taunt, though, or Icicles. That seems unnecessary, and one of the strong points of RotP is that you can reclaim aggro after a death. Likewise, the high end for these probably need to go up unless their Taunt duration is extremely long - if these powers only recharge once every twenty seconds, you won't have a chance to use them twice when trying to help an ally.

[/ QUOTE ]
None of those powers are high End. BA and Icicles both had their End costs lowered significantly in I5. And RotP has no End Cost since you're dead when you use it and therefore have no End to spend. So I have no idea what you're trying to say in the last bit there.

[/ QUOTE ]

I meant the high-end powers with Gauntlet active... it was supposed to be a secondary statement having little to do with the statement on BA/RotP/Icicles except that the value for Gauntlet needs to be increased for them. For example, I assume KO Blow/Energy Transfer/Total Focus/Seismic Smash are the powers at ~40% Gauntlet activation. Due to their long recharge, I think that 40% really isn't enough. Chances are, anyone you want to protect will already be toasted by the time you get a second try. 60% or so would be decent for non-/em, probably ensure that at least one power activates Taunt during a decent attack chain. /Em's two big attacks probably would require a different and lower value, but together, they really should ensure a Taunt (a la 40% for Energy Transfer, 60% for Total Focus).
[ QUOTE ]
I don't see why they don't Taunt either. I mean if Tremor, Whirling Hands, etc. Taunt, why can't other AoE damage powers.

[/ QUOTE ]
It may be required, since the listed balance mechanism (endurance) isn't really applicable to them. It may also be working as designed, so that using RotP against enemies with mez protection won't instantly be forced turn and kill you again (the 'invulnerability' RotP is supposed to give is spotty at best in PvE, and worse in PvP).

[ QUOTE ]
So we've only gone from a non-functional inherent to one that is, at best, 40% functional - and really something much less considering the 7% low end chance, and the fact that primary damaging powers don't Taunt.

Seems almost pointless.

[/ QUOTE ]

As long as perma-mez isn't considered a valid ability, Taunt will have to be limited. It's a status effect, just like those powers are. If you allow Jab to taunt 100% of the time, you're going to find yourself able to apply a status effect nearly permanently against an opponent, or, alternatively, have it last a meaningless duration.

I would rather not have Taunt suppress itself unless it's absolutely necessary - that would hurt Tankers where they don't need it, such as when trying to defend their allies from melee ATists that can stay and fight.

I don't see why Blazing Aura and RotP don't benefit from Taunt, though, or Icicles. That seems unnecessary, and one of the strong points of RotP is that you can reclaim aggro after a death. Likewise, the high end for these probably need to go up unless their Taunt duration is extremely long - if these powers only recharge once every twenty seconds, you won't have a chance to use them twice when trying to help an ally.

[ QUOTE ]
Melee defenses come with a power that protects from immobilizations and knockdowns. How do you propose using those effects without nerfing melee mez protection yet again?

[/ QUOTE ]
If we're just going to pull ideas out of a hat, though, a good place to start would be to avoid the existing mez/debuff mechanics. I believe I posted the "Stagger" concept earlier in this thread. I'd be willing to wager PvE Blasters would trade Defiane for it pretty quickly, and PvP ones would be happythat it applied more universally than the existing setup.

<edit for example :
Blaster melee attacks gain a significant but uncertain chance "stagger" the opponent, causing a status effect like Disorient, but without detoggling or prevention of attack powers. During stagger, a target gets 100% -hold, -immob, -fear, and -disorient debuff, and <pipedream>powers like Phase Shift/Hibernate/PFF/Granite Armor can not be activated</pipedream>. Regeneration and heal powers may have to get a penalty during stagger. Individual staggers are subject to mez suppression, and can only last a short duration, probably two or three times the animation time of the power that starts them (outside of powers such as Ice Slick, knockback powers, which had their primary effect specifically neutered for PvP. They may be better off with a -knockback protection aspect, or just a longer stagger effect). >

No, it's still not a great mechanic. I don't expect to find a great mechanic in PvP. I just want to find the least bad one, and this certainly seems more effective than base PVE ruleset, without having the same irritation or border cases that TDs had.
[ QUOTE ]
Also, strangely, I never found those powers to be very good guarantees at keeping stuff at arm's length. They help, but a guarantee?

[/ QUOTE ]
Given that you can immobilize Archvillians without slotting, and with slotting, can pretty much keep Elite Bosses at perma-immobed with it, I'd say those work decently. Same for Shiver, although that's a bit more work-intensive.

The only time it's not assured is for Energy Melee's knockback, but that's largely due to the way power queing works.

I can't quite agree with that, Concern. The biggest balance issue with the i4-i6 toggle drop values were the ease in which mezzes could be applied to Tankers. To a certain degree, this was necessary - I'd rather not have Blasters of the world unite against Hibernate combined with no chance of mezzing, for example - but it also lead to the only actually overpowered Blaster builds.

I like the idea. Having to regularly go into danger to be able to secure your defenses fits the Blaster archetype. But I wouldn't go so far as to say it worked well.

It just didn't work as badly as a few hundred other possible schemes would have.

[ QUOTE ]
So which power does a blaster take and spend slots on to guarantee that nothing ever gets into melee range?

[/ QUOTE ]

Power Thrust, Web Grenade, Caltrops, Chillbain, Ring of Fire, Electric Fence, Ice Patch, Shiver. Of course, only Web Grenade and the two /ice powers are really that useful, thanks to the kludges in place to prevent them from being consistantly applied.

Correct me if I got the name of one wrong, Blaster powersets aren't my strong point.

I don't think _Castle_ can do this one. It'll require Geko for balance issues, and probably a lot of responses from the art team (although they could just cannabalize existing animations). Given that this is a Quality of Life thing, and nothing more, I'm doubtful we'd be so lucky.

It may not even be viable. It's possible some hero content is balanced around a lack of -special powers. It's possible a 'pure debuff' set would be considered too powerful, or too weak. Or be penalized by having their abilities split up into two weaker powers just to fill the set.

That's a decent point to present, Concern. Sadly, it hasn't gotten much attention before this.

I doubt anyone here could say Trick Arrow was too good for Defenders right now. It's still a weak set, and it meshes very little with secondary powersets - those which *should* match best are plucked out from being possible choices due to the nature of Oil Slick. I doubt you'd find many to say Trick Arrow is even good for Defenders.

But a Fire/Trick Arrow can drop Cages, Hot Feet, and Smoke for a tohit debuff on par with base Darkest Night, and enemies will be easily have their recharge floored or near-floored (AND still be lighting Oil Slick). An Earth/TA will have access to Quicksand and Glue Arrow, Earthquake and Oil Slick. An Ice/TA will have similar capabilities with Ice Slick.

I think we're going to see a lot of problems with players picking up /ta controllers and benefiting too much from it. I'd rather have a lot of the controls replaced with other debuffs that are already lacking from Trick Arrow (-regen, -special, etc) than have Trick Arrow nerfed because Controllers can get it.

I tried that out myself, and it works fine on its own. Are you loading the correct files? What error message are you getting?

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying they're useless - just not required. Blasters and scrappers get the most benefit from enrages.

[/ QUOTE ]

So... those archetypes with a lot of existing damage benefit the most from Enrages.

But, because you have mez protection, you should only need Break Frees when a very unusual Controller or Dominator pops up. That doesn't even make sense.
[ QUOTE ]
Or I was talking about Live.

[/ QUOTE ]
So was I. I don't believe Castle's number post has moved into the patch notes, yet, for that matter, either.
[ QUOTE ]
I believe there were elements of ego and confusion involved in the EF patch notes. It was not one of Cryptic's better moments. However, we have hundreds of patch notes which are likely accurate.

[/ QUOTE ]
Bolded for emphasis. Using an unreliable source for insight into the minds of people who... well, decided to buff Stalkers in i7... doesn't work wonders for an arguement.

For other examples, we have "Increased Defender’s Freezing Rain Slow debuff. To make it better than the Controller’s version. Defender’s increased more." We know that isn't the case.
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm just used to teaming with players like Myrmydon, WindGoddess, MightyStorm, Mario's stormer, and so on when it comes to storm. However, I don't recall ever teaming with a stormer who was actively bad, and most were pretty good. The results were typically fantastic.

[/ QUOTE ]
Try a pickup group with one. Either playing as the Stormer, or with one. Chances are pretty good you'll find two out of three to start fights with Gale.

I didn't say it was a bad primary. If you work really, really hard, you can do almost as much as a /rad controller or a d3. It's still not an insanely strong primary set.
[ QUOTE ]
Just wondering, though - why is it when the "these ATs perform badly solo" quote is brought up, the part where Castle says "teamed is a different story" gets brushed over?

[/ QUOTE ]
Largely? We don't have that information. Also because I don't see the value of "Three Blasters against one BF-less Tanker" as being that valid of a result.

[ QUOTE ]
Please tell me why melee ATs should need break frees to handle status effects that they have defenses against, but blasters don't need enrages to deal a lot of damage?

[/ QUOTE ]
At least currently? I'd be sure to bring some reds on my Scrapper. He already needed yellows up the wazoo, and that was with permaFollowUp.
[ QUOTE ]
Siphon Power will - assuming three damage SOs - reduce their damage by 10% per hit, right? It's still boosting your damage by 25%. Is the latter less effective because the former is not doing the full 20 or 25% reduction?

[/ QUOTE ]
Er, no, it's boosting my damage by 12%. I've got SOs, too, at least if I want to add something meaningful?
[ QUOTE ]
For like five seconds, and then they're gone.

[/ QUOTE ]
... according to the numbers released on Patch Notes, which we know are currenlty too low for at least Brawl and ThunderClap, that's only true if they Blasters gets remarkably lucky, or if you have fewer than three toggles.
[ QUOTE ]
And lord knows, there's no defender primary with autohit debuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]
And lord knows, there's no Tanker primary with massively useful click powers.
[ QUOTE ]
Strangely, these are a consequence of poorly designed powersets, a controller not trying very hard, and a balancing element designed into the AT, in that order.

Controllers can render a tanker completely irrelevant pretty easily. Masterminds don't have to buff their pets with the tier 9 power. /fire needs help, and /devices possibly could.

[/ QUOTE ]
Tribal Boogie could not mez your Tanker, and had a build built around mezzing, to the point where he ignored damage (and, man, did he need it). Was he not trying very hard?
Fire Melee better have been considered fair or overpowered before this point, or otherwise you did and are calling for nerfs an underpowered set.
[ QUOTE ]
I don't believe either of those is comparable.

[/ QUOTE ]
Two examples of patch notes not knowing their [censored] from an atlas? Should I go with the "This change was made because Enervating Field was too easy to apply compared to Tar Patch or Freezing (yeah, the anchor power, easier than the two targetted clicks)?"
[ QUOTE ]
It's a blaster power, but a controller effect. Controllers should be able to stack effects on their own much more easily than any other AT.

[/ QUOTE ]
Can we negate every tanker damage power, then? It's a Tanker power, but it's a "Blaster Effect".

Hell, can we keep toggledroppers for Blazing Aura and Icicles? I mean, sure, it'll still bug the hell out of you, and negate primary powers, which used to be your arguements, but, hey, they're both "Scrapper Effect" powers.

And, hell, while we're at it, let's make all Blaster damage irresistable, and ignore defense buffs on non-Tankers. If they run into a Tanker, we'll just forcibly disconnect them with a "paradox error". After all, damage is a "Blaster Effect", and as a result, nothing can prevent that unless it's a "Tanker Effect".
[ QUOTE ]
What, give up damage? Bull. Blasters still have their primary capability.

[/ QUOTE ]
Damage has not been the Blaster primary capability for a long time. Weren't people just saying that Blasters were kings of Ranged Damage? Which it's kinda hard to
[ QUOTE ]
As for the advantage - the advantage that was supposed to be reduced was issue 4 defenses, something that no longer exists.

[/ QUOTE ]
The advantage went from 50x or 100x survivability and 0.7x ~ 0.9x damage, to 1.5 ~ 10x survivability and the same damage. I fail to see how this does anything but shrink the advantage. It certainly exists in the far cases. What luck that toggledropping had no effect on the middle ones.
[ QUOTE ]
So you pop up and hit bonesmasher, and most likely two of my toggles are gone. How is that not negating? You think having them up for all of one attack means they're effective?

[/ QUOTE ]
For a fourth of all damage in the fight, if some melee ATists are to be believed? Hell, yes.

Or do you survive for eight to ten hits after that?
[ QUOTE ]
Don't even play that card. You spend all of your time ranting about how awful FF and Storm has it, and how melee has it way too good. You leak bias with every post.

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't say I was unbiased. I have, after all, a lot of Storming experience (and my Force Fielder was post 40 when he got a zipperless and lubricant-free reamage). Of course I'm biased. You're biased as hell against anything that'll put Tankers on the same level of survivability as Blasters.
Experience and facts tend to cause that sort of thing.

But claiming Concern is making this up, not believing it, because he could put a Blaster in his sig?
[ QUOTE ]
So if you lay a hold on a stormer, dropping his snow storm and hurricane and travel power, the break free magically turns them back on?

Right, then.

[/ QUOTE ]
...
You play a Dark/Dark Defender. Decently, for someone that picked the Energy Epic and :shudder: Black Hole. You know very well that anyone over 20 on a Defender knows how to pop Break Frees when a dangerous mezzer is around. Storm most of all. At least with Rad you can expect them to bug the tanker.
[ QUOTE ]
Now you're just taking the piss. Storm is a very potent set. I've never seen anyone in-game playing a storm defender actually claim with a straight face that storm is weak. I've only seen that on the forum. In the game, storm has in the past bordered on tankmagery - and that's arguable with /storm controllers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ask TheMightyScourge/Storm, then. I doubt there's a higher authority on the subject. It's powerful in situations, no doubt, but Radiation Emission or Dark Miasma is far more universally powerful, and does so without the costs Storm Summoning takes.

You are also the first person to state that Storm is powerful without adding the modifier "in the hands of a good player/creative person/who knows Storm". Storm is the only Defender set with both no self-heal, and no self-mez protection. It has no -dmg, and no meaningful defense against ranged attackers. Even Snow Storm can't be activated from a decent range.
Storm isn't powerful. It's good for a Defender set. That makes it *playable*. Seldom much more.

And Tankermagery requires tank-like levels of survival, which even if they repair Hurricane, without TDs, Storm will never get *close* to, and Damage. Defender... damage...

You know we can be beaten by Controllers in a damage race, right? That's tankmagey?
[ QUOTE ]
So low, Storm/ could solo AVs in issue 4. Like Rad and Dark, the nature of Storm's debuffs are such that they can defend themselves very handily.

Blasters have the lowest personal defense. Defenders do not.

[/ QUOTE ]
My apologies. I badly parsed that one. It's supposed to be that Storm and Force Field Defenders have the least personal protection of Defenders (argueably, Sonic can be added here, but liquify adds a lot), and that Defenders are easily the lowest PvP damage class.
[ QUOTE ]
It wasn't about irritation.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was about it being a kludge... that, despite victory here, you haven't bothered to excise from the other cracks in which it lurks.

It was about intra-AT balance... and now you have a whole AT relegated to the same sub-par performance levels as its worst sections before.

It was about inter-AT balance... and now Blasters will take their place firmly with Defenders and Dominators for lowest kills per death.

It was about the sanctity of powers... that is, powers whose effect matches their archetype. Oh, and isn't related to damage.

It was about evening the playing field... so now that Blasters make fertilizer, we real archetypes can play our games.

[ QUOTE ]
Which debuffs don't work? I've tested -res, -damage, -acc. I've never tested -def, but I assume it works.

[/ QUOTE ]
-Damage is directly resisted by damage buffs. You very well know that. This makes powers that were constantly balanced around a 100% base largely useless. "Intended", no doubt, but hardly working.
-Res works 'right' in PvP.
<nitpick>There is no -acc Defender debuff in game currently.</nitpick>
I have heard reports of Focused Accuracy resisting Hurricane's tohit debuff.
<edit: I thought I knew Acid Arrow's defense debuff wasn't working, but I based that off the Streakbreaker, and I finally have proof the streakbreaker is broken, so I can't say for sure here.

[ QUOTE ]
It is also really stupid to insist that status protection should be provided to protect melee characters who have status protection in their native powersets from any AT that isn't a controller or dominator.

[/ QUOTE ]
Good thing this change didn't nerf Dominator abilities to bypass mez protection. Oh... oh... Wait, no, it did. Ew.

You already suggested counters to this arguement, Kali. Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes, and Stalkers all benefit from greens, purples, and blues (I'd bring up oranges... but really, those things are sad. Blasters benefit from reds and yellows, despite having multiple powers dedicated to the same thing. Even an inherent.
Why should this be different only for melee ATs, and only for Break Frees?
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, it's fair for melee to PVP as if they don't have shields. At the same time, it's fair for defenders to PVP as if they don't have any buffs or debuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]
Have you tried PvPing as a a Kineticist? You say screw the buffs after the second time you SP an enemy and they think you missed.

Unless the melee AT was outnumbered, they still benefited from their toggles. _Castle_'s statement was only that you should prepare for the worst.

You know, like Kineticists that have to assume they'll miss with all their buff/debuff powers, because otherwise an Ice Tanker wouldn't be doing well in PVP.

[ QUOTE ]
It's also fair for blasters to PVP as if they don't have any melee attacks. It's fair for Controllers to PVP as if they don't have any control. Masterminds should be playing as if they don't have pets.

[/ QUOTE ]
Devices and Fire Melee. Any Controller against a Tanker. Any Mastermind that doesn't have six minutes.

[ QUOTE ]
The need for these effects is greatly reduced with the advent of Enhancement Diversification.

[/ QUOTE ]
And we all know we can trust the patch notes. Like "Enervating Field not changed", or "This change will not affect PvE".
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thats right, a team to challenge them.

[/ QUOTE ]No, I'm arguing that it is ridiculous that a blaster can mez melee characters due to the ability to bypass mez protection entirely.

[/ QUOTE ]
I believe he's referring to UberGuy's "Blasters should need a team to kill me" statement, or similar statements.
Of course, stating that a Blaster power (stun) should only be useful in large groups of the same type seems like it might edge the sides there.
[ QUOTE ]
Actually, toggle drops should just go away entirely. Get rid of the whole mess and find some other way to balance the ATs in PVP. The whole point of toggle-dropping is to simply negate entire powersets without recourse.

[/ QUOTE ]
"I don't like something. Remove it. Oh, and if you can fix the now-nerfed sets, fine, but don't hold back the fix to what irritates me at all."

The whole point of toggledropping is to reduce the advantage some powers give to archetypes that, largely, aren't balanced in PvE or PvP, but only balanced to match what players feel is wanted. Again, melee AT with >1.5x the survivability, mez protection, and ~1x the damage (scrappers), for example. For equality, this changes requires Blasters to give up the primary capability they have.

It does not negate the power. There is no way that I can turn off your toggles without hitting you, at least not without developing real-life telekinetic powers.

[ QUOTE ]
- something you consider to be fair because you primarily play characters that benefit from such abuse

[/ QUOTE ]
VERY much a bad arugement to pick, Kali. I, for example, have made only one Blaster over 20, and she didn't make it to 25 (deleted before PvP was added to the game). I have more levels on one Fire/Stone tanker than I do on all my Blasters combined. My Force Fielder died a rather horrifying death around i6, and never entered a PvP zone or the Arena. My Stormers have avoided ThunderClap since it's a pathetic TDs and an even more pathetic PvE power.

My Regener is my character with the highest PVP rank, and the only one with any PvP zone badges.

So stuff the bias card.
[ QUOTE ]
There's always single-target holds, disorients, and other status effects. Only /sonic and /traps can provide themselves with status protection, and then to hold and stun. Admittedly, sleep isn't something defenders get much access to.

Also, admittedly, sonic and traps don't get snowstorm.

[/ QUOTE ]
Remember BreakFrees? Remember how melee ATists keep pointing out that TDs ignore Break Frees? Whohoo, what an impressive jump there.
[ QUOTE ]
Two whole defender powersets had enough toggle drops to rely on them. Storm and FF losing their TDs won't have any affect on Rad, Empathy, Dark, Sonic, Trick Arrow, and only minor effect on Kinetics as its TD was already very unreliable. Defenders as an AT did not rely upon TDs. Storm, already a strong defender primary, got toggle-drops on top of that, and FF, a weak primary that needs some attention and variety, used TDs to shore up its leaky corners.

[/ QUOTE ]
Storm was powerful?! Oh, you mean for a Defender set. Powerful for an archetype that rivaled Dominators for the lowest kill to death count.
Aren't people trying to get Dominators buffed?

I mean, let's not get into how Force Field and Storm have been screwed repeatedly because of a stupid PvP-only mechanic with no real thematic relevance. Let's not even look at how they're the on the single lowest-damage Hero archetype, with the lowest personal defense.

Let's look and see if you can possibly expect a solution to two powersets that were just neutered in PvP, when their entire AT is currently being backburned by the developers.

You've seen the "Drumroll Please..." thread. You're happy leaving people that weren't doing well in the first place even worse for issues on end because it [b]irritated[/i] you?

Bleh, go on to level my Kineticist for a few hours, and see what I come back to.
[ QUOTE ]
Whichever it was, I was able to detoggle melee opponents fairly easily with just brawl.

[/ QUOTE ]
For anyone interested, the average rate I came up with (134 attacks) was just under 22% for Brawl two months ago. That's obviously too small of a field to be certain from, but it still suggests a change, and I believe that's the most thorough testing on the actual post-i6 numbers I've heard of.
[ QUOTE ]
Bonesmasher - Energy Punch - Total Focus - attack - attack - attack

That is mathematically likely to leave the melee target unable to react due to having the hell stunned out of him and the number of toggles the first two attacks will drop.

[/ QUOTE ]
So, what's the answer about the Brute seeing the Blaster coming and queueing up Energy Transfer (animates in less time than Bonesmasher, has a higher chance of stun) in response?

Or just having more than three toggles? I mean, Fire does still exist, right?
[ QUOTE ]
I saw Statesman come out and say several months ago that the blaster secondaries will be reworked. Not thinking about, but that it will happen.

[/ QUOTE ]
I saw him say the Legends and Skills systems were in the works. : )
[ QUOTE ]
But math? I recall very little beyond the TA/A vs. Regen test.

[/ QUOTE ]
Er... showing full attack chain comparisions between an unarmored Tanker and an unarmored Blaster showing that the two were likely to have be killed by the margin of one attack (which I'd consider pretty fair)? Showing that, no, the average tanker's defenses could typically stay up for at least half the fight (admittedly, not a huge benefit, but surprising given the tone of earlier tanker posts)?

Now, they may not have been response-worthy math, probably all stuff you've argued before, but it was out there.
[ QUOTE ]
Second, there's more to the argument against toggle-dropping than whining. You've acknowledged as much when you admitted that TD isn't a fun mechanic

[/ QUOTE ]
By definition, complaining that something isn't fun is whining, Kali. It's not a very good arguement, either, particularly since if I find something or its results 'fun', it means that I can't agree with you on the end result.
[ QUOTE ]
On live, there's a have/have-not dichotomy where some powersets get a lot of toggle-dropping potential, often with good mezzing to back it up. Not only do you have a good chance to drop toggles, you can leverage that by mezzing your target if you knock off the right shields. This makes balancing these sets more difficult as well as encourages FotM PVP builds

[/ QUOTE ]
This arguements a non-sequitar. It's a given - some builds will be more powerful than others in any one situation. An AoE-centric build will never take down a Boss as easily as a single-target centric build will. That's not been a problem for the last seven issues.

IF you could back up an arguement for either removing TDs, or for them being need, this is a good logical step in an arguement for moving toggledrops around. Doesn't explain nerfing those "have-not" sets, nor why TDs had to be removed rather than the "have-not" sets buffed.
[ QUOTE ]
The fact is that a significant portion of every melee character's build is tied up in toggle defenses. By including a mechanic that renders those toggles pointless much of the time, you're effectively cheating those players out of those power choices. As _Castle_ has reportedly said, melee should play PVP as if they don't have shields.

[/ QUOTE ]
O.... kay... that's a fact. In fact, that's the point of the whole system, to put melee archetypes who insist on both high personal defenses (1.5x ~ 9x survivability, complete mez protection) and reasonal damage levels (0.70 ~ 0.9 damage) on the same level as those with nearly no personal defenses.

Is the problem that powers are being negated in some situations? I'll skip the typical "hurricane/mez/knockback" rant here, simply because it's getting old to retype it, but some of these are obviously intentional designs, and some occur even in PvE as well. Should we remove them because they negate my Blaster's Hold that stacks to a max of mag 4?
[ QUOTE ]
Despite protests to the contrary, the core of the pro-toggle dropping argument is that 1v1 PVP is unfair between squishies and melee...

[/ QUOTE ]
That's kinda interesting. I still haven't found where the "Not balanced for 1v1" is, the closest I can find is Positron stating :
"Please report glaring unbalances here in this thread, so geko, Statesman, and the rest of us can get an idea what they are. One on One matches are less useful to us, because there is a LOT of Rock, Pape, Sissors, Spock, Lizard when it's just 1v1."
Less useful, or RPSSL, true, but not useless.

Admittedly, I've spent six hours beating up a Cisco Advanced Security IOS today(HATE, so my search-fu is a little exhausted.

But, given that we're apparently against kludges, at least when they apply to Tankers/Scrappers, we must be under the assumption that just because a Developer says it, doesn't mean it's right.

Why should PvP be balanced around multiple players?
Does it make it easier? No, it increases the maximum combinations exponentially, and means that you'll have to balance around things that aren't very common.
Does it increase the balance players percieve? Hell, no - this very thread is proof of that.
Does it make things more fun? I doubt it. It automatically excludes anyone outside of a group, and many players will find themselves balanced around things their group doesn't even provide. Fun's a user-dependent variable, and typically not one attached to a balance mechanism, but I can't see any part of balancing around teams that increases it.
Does it make them more hero- or villain-like? Certainly not - it's hard to think of a single super-powered fight scene where Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman all ganged up on Lex Luthor while ... ah, screw it, I can't remember another villain name... picks on the Flash. You know what I'm getting to. Look at the stupid CoH comic - everyone split up to take on someone they thought they were suited to handling.

Were toggle-droppers overpowered in Team PvP? Probably. I can't think of a single player aspect that wouldn't be, at the recharge cap, or with a empath spamming Clear Mind onto it.
Were they, as a mechanic, overpowered in 1v1? Given that my /regener (weak to TDs) did reasonably well against them in my hands, I'm a little doubtful. I'm even more doubtful given how the datamining that _Castle_ showed all but Energy Melee (yes, even Electric Melee was underperforming) were showing on the same scale as Dominators and Defenders.
I'm still of the opinion that BoneSmasher's TDs should have been moved to Total Focus (at that length of an animation, countering it through an active mez wouldn't have been too difficult) or Energy Thrust, though.
[ QUOTE ]
One of the older threads was repeatedly marked with insistence that a blaster can't solo a tanker is unfair, but followed with "if a tanker has problems taking on buld X, get a team to help." Apparently, squishies shouldn't ever need teams to accomplish their PVP goals.

[/ QUOTE ]
I believe that the arguement was more along the lines of "A blaster can never kill a Tanker without TDs, and that's unfair. A Tanker may require a lot more skill or preperation than a Blaster counterpart to defeat, this should be fixed if it's the case, but at the current time, the tanker has the option of a team." There's a pretty significant difference between "Can't" and "It's hard".
If I posted it in another format, it's simply because I couldn't believe a Tanker was loosing by default to a Blaster without their being an extreme deficiet or surplus of skill on one side or the other
[ QUOTE ]
Toggle-dropping is not in genre. I mean, do you remember that time when Starfire blasted Superman and suddenly he fell out of the sky? Yeah, neither do I.

[/ QUOTE ]
I seem to remember The Flash smacking someone like a wuss, then managing to use the same attack that did nothing before and actually disable his opponent for a while. Like, in every freaking show.

But I'm not a comic book junky.

From the viewpoint of an MMORPG, which we are playing, though, the concept of smacking someone and having their skills go away isn't exactly new.

[ QUOTE ]
and invuln could also reach very high defense with bugged invincibility

[/ QUOTE ]
<nitpick>Not in PvP. Even with it doublestacking (and assuming your enemy was damned stupid enough to give you a defense buff), it still didn't go that high. Particularly since the assumption of no-toggledropping pretty much requires people to stay at range, which in turns, leads to no real melee defenses utility. If you count the buff to Invinc (increasing the value of the first enemy) and +25% buff to everyone's base defense, I doubt it's a big difference in damage mitigation here compared to never activating at all.</nitpick>

[ QUOTE ]
I admit that the last gives me a certain amount of schadenfreude given all the ungracious gloating that flooded the forum after various melee nerfs.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow. Good thing all the people argueing with you were common posters back then. Otherwise this would really make you look rude.

[ QUOTE ]
Since Placate is -Aggro, and Taunt is essentially +Aggro, shouldn't the same changes apply to Placate that apply to Taunt?

[/ QUOTE ]

Placate is not -aggro. Taunt is not +aggro. They are both status effects, like Confuse or Fear, nothing more, in PvP or PvE.

Given that Placate autosucceds in PvP as is while Taunt has a failure rate, this change will not automatically merit a change to Placate. There is probably someone on the development team rating Placate differently because of how DoTs or latency affects Placate and not Taunt. Remember, these are the people who thought Stalkers needed a pvp-only buff. Don't expect too much.

[ QUOTE ]
PvP is not built around 1v1 battles, so your blaster will have a good number of opportunities to defeat Melee types (mostly Scrappers and Brutes) with the right buffs/debuffs from your teammates.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Sure, I can easily beat you one - on - one. Sure, I can easily add a good 75-80% of the damage on a team, without any of the downsides, and with many times the survivability.

That's 'working as intended'!
[ QUOTE ]
YOU decided to make your blaster to go into melee. YOU had choices among your powers and decided, I suppose, to focus on picking more from your secondary powers than your primary powers, which are probably mostly made up of range attacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are, on a standard Elec/EM (not exactly a stupidly FoTM combination, although one built a little harshly for PvE), has a total of 6 out of 12, or 50%, of his possible attacks which require melee range (that's including the ranged nuke and snipe, which really aren't going to be useful in PvP).

SnakeGandhi, with a good many Tankers stating that 'balance' is needing a team to kill them, with a good many Brutes saying that they'll go back to PvP now that they don't need to worry about Blasters anymore...

I can't see how you blame Concern.

[ QUOTE ]
How much ranged damage can they provide?

[/ QUOTE ]
My Fire/Stone? About 1 BI/sec, after enhancements.

Why's that matter? I've got Fault for easy mezzing/knockup, and if they stay out of that (which isn't easy, it's not as predictable or slow as Freezing Rain), they'll eventually have to attack, and then I can port in.
[ QUOTE ]
How much unresistable damage?

[/ QUOTE ]
In 1v1? Somewhere between 80% of S/L, and 100% of non-S/L.

UberGuy, think for a second. You just asked me how much damage a tanker provides that won't be resisted by a blaster.

[ QUOTE ]
Why do you consider it a problem that the toughest AT in the game is so hard for one person to kill?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because if it's impossible for one person to beat you, by definition, you are overpowered.

In addition, the two resulting metagame results, either that no one will fight you, or that they will only fight you when they have enough people to pop you like a zit, are not what I consider acceptable.
[ QUOTE ]
Why should PvP be that functionally different from PvE?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because in PvE, 90% of your threats are minion or LT-tier.

Why should Blasters have to treat Tankers like Bosses, Elite Bosses, or Archvillains, depending on build, while Tankers treat Blasters like minions (and not even dangerous ones)?
[ QUOTE ]
Tankers, Brutes and Scrappers don't get to drop one anothers' toggles either. They never got to, except with Brawl.

[/ QUOTE ]
Bold added. Brawl is the only reason my Claws/Regen scrapper had a chance of taking down an Invuln Tanker. Well, I should say was.
[ QUOTE ]
They don't get any irresistable damage, with the exception of Scrapper crits, which is rare enough to be a non-factor for most purposes.

[/ QUOTE ]
Other than, you know, the part where 200+ points of irresistable damage at once is enough to kill someone that would have otherwise saved dull pain for another couple of seconds.
[ QUOTE ]
Having the "tank" be tough is not unique to CoH/V. Having the "mage" be fragile isn't either. Nor, I might add, is having buffs from other people make the mage really, really scary.

[/ QUOTE ]
In World of Warcraft, a Warrior (tank character) can be popped like a zit within a good ten seconds of a Mage firing instants quickly. The Warrior only needs to get one good (and often mezzing) shot off to kill the Mage, but he risks getting beaten during that time.

In Guild Wars, an Elementalist (Mage) typically does well against Warriors without hefty interrupt skills and a series of Adrenaline-building powers.

In UberGuy's Dream City, no single player can kill a Tanker.

Which one doesn't fit the pattern.

[ QUOTE ]
Blasters still have 30% unresistable damage in PvP, so invuln tanker resistances (27.5% max against non-s/l) pretty much mean nothing anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, instead of requiring 212% of the damage to kill that a Blaster does (before considering Defense powers, Dull Pain, and other power choices, which still keep getting ignored by the "Invuln r r3s1storz!" crowd), you only require 191% of the damage to kill?

This is supposed to reassure us? This is your weakness?!

Don't make me drag Arc_Salvo in to point out exactly how much of Blaster damage a Tanker can easily provide.

It's done that for a very long time.

But given how few Kineticists bother in PvP zones (you mean every single debuff I have works at less than half efficiency? Oh, sure, I'd love that action), that's far from reliable.

[ QUOTE ]
But Glue Arrow is actually rather potent. It's far better than say... Caltrops; because the attack rate slowdown is fairly substantial, and with the change to it's recharge its now actually *usable* on a regular basis.

[/ QUOTE ]
Glue Arrow's on-test incarnation is very similar to that of Shiver in normal use. They each have different benefits, that's true, but the end result tends to be very similar.
[ QUOTE ]
Plus as a Defender powerset, I think all but Dark can ignite it right? It ignites for Fire *and* energy damage.

[/ QUOTE ]
Dark, and Psi.

Surprising how the most control-heavy secondaries don't work well with a control-heavy primary. Wait, no... that's not surprising. That's just sadistic.

[ QUOTE ]
if i were a dev, yes- it would. but only because my ears were muffled by my asscheeks. (i really hope asscheeks makes it through the filter)

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know why on Earth it did, but I'm afraid I've got to quote for righteousness there. It'll be gone by tomorrow morning, still, but given that "Count" is probably still censored on the game servers, it's a nice victory.

[ QUOTE ]
Nope. But taking the two together, and looking at how changes/nerfs/buffs have worked in the past, I think it screams "we're not done with this yet."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea....

I thought that for a bit, when I put in a few complaints about Defender damage in PvP not being enough to take down a Tanker with an unslotted heal active. Then we had i6, and Defenders are doing 66% of the damage against a Tanker that's still got his same, unslotted heal.

It's been six months since then, and I haven't seen a huge change. Even if one comes, do you think anyone will care?

[ QUOTE ]
so just to make sure, the devs didn't think this toggle change through and just pushed it to test. why is that again?

[/ QUOTE ]

Circeus's Force Field Defender came out of retirement long enough to steal Geko's candy.

I'm sorry, Fanboy, but you know very well that there's no understanding what the hell goes on in these people's minds. They nerfed Flash Arrow. They buffed /SR scrappers - the same powerset that Pingu's used to Tapper nearly every AV out there. They let Statesman and Geko near the SpreadSheet of Doom. They thought ED would be joyous fun. The developers released Swipe.

For a glimpse into their mind, this is the sort of data they had access to not months before releasing this change :

[ QUOTE ]
In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does that scream out to you "Nerf Defenders, Dominators, and non-EM Blasters heavily without giving them a single thing back?"

Well, that's a known issue, _Castle_ (along with how Flash Arrow either suppresses its own -perception, or is suffering a reapplication gap similar to what O2 Boost or Increase Density did), but I think the poster here are referring to a seperate issue.

If I cast Flash Arrow from maximum range against targets that can't see me, then have another team member with few aggro tools (ie : scrapper) run in, the enemies will look at the scrapper, then turn and fire on the Trick Archer.

I'm not sure if this is an intentional mechanic or not, but it as it is, it's enough to prevent me from using the power as a pre-battle preparation, simply because the costs just are too high for what they provide.

EDIT: and, yes, I agree with Great_Scott's complaint, if not his solution to said complaint.

Trick Arrow has six powers with a primarily control component. That's not a buff/debuff set.

[ QUOTE ]
It's convenient for you that your thread in Archetypes and Powers was deleted yesterday.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not really. Would be easier than delving through the three pages of stickies looking for this. And I liked Centerfire's quote in there, I really should have saved that.

What, you think showing me playing along with the stupid song thread-jack would suddenly cause a change of heart? That responding in kind to Foo's 'What logic' statement and eyeroll would somehow make me feel really immature compared to someone who ignores arguements simply because they don't like the first sentence?

[ QUOTE ]
I'm tired of going over exactly the same arguments over and over again. I'm tired of having my integrity attacked because I wanted toggle drops to be reduced.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then refute them or completely ignore them. Give a reason, rather than this bull of "You're wrong" or "Your example aren't enough or aren't good enough", or "I've answered this one before"?

I've yet to see you answer why Hurricane's current PvP kludge is acceptable. I've yet to see a single Tanker forumite comment on knockback suppression. Or Break Frees invalidating Dominator primary sets.