Bone_Machine

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but past that, the debuff is nearly worthless on invincible.

[/ QUOTE ] It isnt' worthless. What's more is that it's the ONLY -ac debuff you have....AND...it stacks with other +DEF and -Acc debuffs. If the devs change the way +DEF works, it will dramatically improve in worth against +X mobs.

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So it's worthless unless you are with a team with REAL -acc powers. Then it's not noticed by ANYBODY ON YOUR TEAM, which I would call worthless personally.


I have 3 HO's in it that are +acc/-acc/-deff and one -acc SO in my toon. All +3 because I'm lvl 47. As accurate as you can can get it. On a team with lvl 50's fighting lvl 52's I missed.. well it's easier to tell how many I hit. I hit maybe 1-3 in any spawn with it. At that level the -acc is TOTALLY unnoticable as well, trust me. And the power's accuracy is poor at best for the most accurate of powersets. It's just a plain underpowered, underperforming power. You sound like you don't know what you are talking about it every time you bring it up.

Are you only ever fighting with people of your level or do you join pick up groups and whatever comes your way? Because that might be the problem with your analysis.

Once a mob is aggro'd what exactly do you think you are doing with FA? Taking one less hit out of 20 from everybody attacking you? And that helps how?

I agree that the best use for FA is to stopp other groups from aggro'ing or perhaps using it to pull safely, but past that, the debuff is nearly worthless on invincible.

Mieux, I wasn't saying that you NEED Exploding Arrow, I was saying that if you think knockback is worthless, which you seemed to, you don't know what you are talking about.

And why do you keep acting like FA does ANYTHING but -perception? If you are fighting anything +1 or higher, the -acc debuff is almost completely unnoticable. How can you possibly act like you are doing anything remotely like Rad, Storm, or Dark defenders acc debuff? Between the to-hit roll and the paultry base acc debuff on FA the power is a joke if you are fighting anything above even level. At even level it's still just an amusing anecdote.

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Have you missed the giant expanding fireball when it explodes?

[/ QUOTE ] I skipped this power. I generally hate AoE knockback. Especially AoE knockback with radial vectors. I've teamed with all of one E-Arrow using toon. I do recall fire graphics...I also recall wanting to choke the guy for using that attack.

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Please never speak on TA/A again. I'm sorry, but this TOTALLY invalidates every arguement you have had on this subject completely.

[/ QUOTE ]Right...because Exploding Arrow is part of Trick Arrow isn't it?

The entire discussion has been on Trick Arrow...not Arrow Bone_Head. And AoE knockback is one of the most disruptive powers to teams in the game.

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That's the one thing you reply too?

Yeah, the whole thread has been about TA but there's also plenty of discussion about TA/A as well. If you don't know how to use Exploding Arrow in synergy with Trick Arrow, then yeah, I think you really are showing how little you know about TA. The knockback is PERFECT to get mobs who are comming after you and stepping out of Oil Slick range back on to it. You don't hit the guy in the middle of the mob, you hit the lead guy closest to you. Knockback is a VERY effective tool if used by a skilled player.

Whatever the supposed numbers on accuracy debuffs are, the acual effect is that Rad, Storm, and Dark can all have quite noticable accuracy debuffs when fighting +3's. The same can not be said for TA which is the 'debuffing' (to the exclusion of all other effects) set.

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Have you missed the giant expanding fireball when it explodes?

[/ QUOTE ] I skipped this power. I generally hate AoE knockback. Especially AoE knockback with radial vectors. I've teamed with all of one E-Arrow using toon. I do recall fire graphics...I also recall wanting to choke the guy for using that attack.

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Please never speak on TA/A again. I'm sorry, but this TOTALLY invalidates every arguement you have had on this subject completely.

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Standard grenades in the military do their damage from concussion and shrapnel...most of the damage is from shrapnel. The fire damage is incidental if there is any. There are incindiary grenades which are intended light things on fire. Whether Exploding Arrow is one or the other is arbitrary...but the idea that it would be all smash/lethal is totally plausible even if it is not convenient.

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None of which reflect the actual effect you see when you fire the thing off. It's a great big fireball. Looks great but, come on, throw us a bone here...

Look, I'm not one to second guess dev's much myself. I've been one on a smaller scale. I've made a semi-popular Half-Life mod and know what it's like to hear forum bashing non-stop. I am quite sympathetic to the dev's in that respect. While I do miss the pre-ED days, I totally understand ED from a developer point of view even though it's kind of a cop out. No need to lecture anybody on second guessing the developers.

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My TA is 27, I've a bunch of other toons that are much higher. More importantly, I have a strong fundamental understsanding of the game, the AI, the powers in other sets and AT's. Being able to tell that Emp/Rad to use Irradiate so as not to have to target Oil Slick makes a difference. Before that, I had her target me to set it off because in large groups she couldn't find it. This makes a difference. Using Entangle A to keep Hurricane using Shaman and Sorcs from advancing on you or your team....makes a difference. Rad can't do that. Kinetics can't do that. Ice Arrow (which should be renamed to Cryo Arrow) can turn off Hurricane and CoT Midgnight Chill debuff powers. Rad, Kin, FF, and Sonic can't do that (well, Kin can drain endo with Transference). TA has lots of tools. The trick (no pun intended) is knowing where and when to use them.


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But you haven't played a TA pre-ED with SO's? You didn't play a TA on test with the old timers? You can make do with what you have now, but you haven't seen the set when it preformed better. I have.

Also, FF and Sonic both have those bubbles they can phase shift the mob with, so take them off your list. Also Defender secondaries like Elec have holds (tesla cage) that can do exactly the same job as Ice Arrow available to all defender sets. So the uniqueness of Ice Arrow isn't really all that... unique.

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In one of my first replies to someone's TA question, I said that I would not recommend TA as your first or second defender. I also would not recommend TA as your first or second toon. Slotting is a thing a lot of people don't understand. Though TA's slotting is comparatively simple and straight forward, if you don't know slotting, you might not know that. You might waste slots on things like extra accuracy for Flash Arrow.


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Well, would you tell people not to play any defender set then? Because if you are saying that to noobs about TA then there is a good chance that we might be right about it needing some work. Not a total overhaul, but some tweaking. And extra acc in Flash Arrow is not a bad thing. It's inaccurate as hell. I have 4 slots in there currently and 3 of them are Acc/debuff HO's and I miss at least 1/5 of every mob now in large spawns.

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First off, there have been many allegations that recharge times for various powers didn't take into account ED. My understanding from various dev posts is that this is not true on a general level. Recharge times were set with ED in mind, and more importantly, as I talked about previously, they were set with the max recharge buff in mind: Speed Boost + Acc Met + Hasten +Adre Boost + Six SO's. I can't say for certainty that some mistake wasn't made with some specific power in TA or otherwise, but on a general note, I think you are operating under false assumptions.


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So wait, you are saying that they set the recharge times with AM, SB, etc in mind? That doesn't make much sense IMHO. The recharge times are optimal only with a team of like 5+ defenders? What if you have 7 kin defenders on one team? You could probably perma-Unstoppable with that (oh how I miss thee perma-Unstoppable). Why isn't that balanced for worst case scenario? Or any highly effective click power with a long recharge? I doubt they took into account team make up when they set the recharge timers. And my memory of how the test server changes and then ED went down I highly doubt that they were thinking of ED when they changed the timers on the inital test version of TA. Because that's when all the big changes went into effect. We are talking around when they said they first starting testing ED internally. Makes more sense that they made the changes on test before it went live without ED being a factor in their decision.

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Second, I play Trick Arrow. I've seen the avialability of my powers. It seems fine. Not only does it seem fine, I don't use Hasten but maybe 30% of the mission. I've frequently used Oil Slick back to back spawns at lvl 26.


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I've seen them on test pre-ED and live pre-ED and I can tell you that they were NOT overpowers on live by any streach of the imagination. They may seem fine to you but I can tell you from experience that with Perma Hasten and 6 slotted recharge they were more useful mid-fight if something went wrong like an ambush or accidenal aggro of another mob. Something that is plainly out of our reach today.

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The fact is, most teams don't sprint through missions. Someone is always pausing for one of fifty reasons. Maybe one spawn out of fifteen, we'll start the fight and PGA won't be immediately ready. Even when I do small teams and we blast through the mission, literally without pausing, I don't need to use every debuff every fight. I'm not going to use DA on three +1 or +2 minions when one of my teammates is a blaster. It's just a waste. In that situation, by the time my Rad got EF and RI down, one if not two of the minions would already be dead. And PGA recharges fast enough, I can use it every fight and multiple times in a fight. With Hasten, and +++ SO's, PGA is basically perma for things like AV fights (though obviously an anchor debuff is better for single targets).

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Relying on groups to pause to be effective is a bad. It should not be necessary. As to the readiness of PGA, that's one of the few powers that most people don't think has much of a problem at all recharge-wise. As to the need to use debuffs every fight, that's true of every defender set's powers in that situaiton and doesn't speak to TA specifically at all.

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I'd be willing to argue my perspective is much broader than yours. Rather than bemoaning what I can't do and acting like everyone else can do what I can...I recognize what I can do that others can't. I've played the other sets. I've teamed with the other sets. If you want to feel worthless in a fight, go fight a Monster with FF. Unless you can find a corner to FB him into...you are going to annoy others if you push it into other mobs or out of location AoE's. Bubbles are very helpful, but you get very little direct feedback from their effectiveness. Players certaintly don't tell you.


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I'd bet you would argue that. Even though I've seen TA on test before it went live, and I have seen it in the upper levels pre-ED and I have a high level TA/A right now. I know what I can do. I know that I can do some amazing things that make other defenders jealous at times. I'm certainly not worthless in any fight. But that doesn't mean the set doesn't need ANY work. There are certain situations where I shine. But others were I am sorely lacking. And I KNOW what it has been in the past. So go ahead and argue that you have a broader understanding of TA.

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Show me a set that someone doesn't think needs work? Maybe you can...maybe there's one or two...maybe, but I doubt it. Like I2 /Regen, TA is not very good at low level. Because the recharge timers are balanced for at least three SO's each, TA feels really really weak at low level. I have stated that many many times. At level 27, I feel that I always have a "trick" up my sleeve and I honestly feel like I am more effective than anything but a D/D or a very well played and slotted Rad. Though, as I said before, given the right cirumstances, Storms can render mobs completely harmless.


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Go ahead and feel that way, but trust me when I say I know what it feels like to have TA/A be even more effective than you. Pre-ED things were quite different.

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It's your perrogative to pursue that agenda. In the meantime, I will continue to tell people who ask about TA/A that it's a great set if you have skill...once you get past the teens.

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That's funny, that's pretty much what I tell people. But I also warn them that Flash arrow doesn't really debuff accuracy at all. That one ALWAYS gets people.

Hey Mieux,

All this from a lvl 27 perspective? Really?

Let me ask what exactly you think you are doing with Flash arrow that compares to any other defender debuff 'every fight'? I mean, I have seen it useful to keep close spawns from aggro'ing when you pull another one, but really, in the upper levels where you are no longer fighting even level mobs and they tend to be +3 or so. What exact benefit do YOU think you are getting out of Flash Arrow? I've had it 6 SO slotted for debuff back before ED and it doesn't do a damn thing that is remotely noticable. Are you really comparing FA to any other set's debuff power that is up every fight? PGA is fine as far as the debuff goes and the recharge on it.

Read my last post, please. This set isn't unusable. I've used it to great effect. I get plenty of compliments when I play my TA/A. It's a fun set to use. Hell, I killed a Stalker in Siren's Call the other day (sorry, I have to beat my chest about that one!) 1v1 which is no small feat. But the set needs some work. Even the dev's have said so. Hell, Castle just came out and said that one of the powers that we all have been complaining about not working right was bugged and is being fixed, so there's proof that in it's current state the set is already slated for improvement.

It's fine for you, from your limited perspective, to think that the set is fine, but I can tell you that it's not. It's ok. It's passable, but it really does need work. Read my above post. I personally don't think much needs to be done with the set. But post-ED the set was even further gutted and that specifically needs to be addressed.

As I've said before, pre-ED, most of your remarks would be totally valid, even if I disagree with it's total effectiveness when stacked against other defender sets.

The recharge times, as was said earlier, were changed before the set went live. More importantly, before ED. They were timed without ED in mind. The recharge times were changed again, not literally, but because of ED. I played my TA/A up to lvl 47 pre-ED. With perma-Hasten and 6 slotting available the recharge times were, IMHO just about right. They were up just about every fight and if a fight went long, which usually means BADLY, I could help pull our fat out of the fire. Now... Not so. After the initial shoot-off of all the buffs, there's not much to do if somebody aggro's another group or an ambush jumps on us from a different direction. All of our major debuffs are just done. At that point I'm just a second-rate blaster with particularly bad damage output (but hey, I'm ACCURATE). With my current build I have Hasten 3 slotted for recharge and pretend I still have it perma (it's on auto-fire). I have all the powers that might need it like Glue, Oil SLick, DIsruption, EMP, etc, 3 slotted. And they are just a bit too long on the recharge for a set that does NOTHING else but debuff. I cannot add to a team if the crap hits the fan. A reason why Vigilance is worthless IMHO, but that's a whole different debate.

If I could ask for anything to fix the set up to be equal in utility, not actual debuff powers... utility, with the other sets it would be to lower the recharges on EMP, Glue, Disruption and Oil Slick to be what they were in the pre-ED, perma-Hasten days or maybe a tiny bit shorter. Make Acid Arrow's AoE the same as the size of the actually effect we see. Up the accuracy debuff on Flash Arrow so that hitting orange minions is the same as the current effect on hitting white minions, whatever number value that is, and make it auto-hit. And lastly, this is really an Archery change, but make Exploding Arrow do Smashing/Fire damge instead of Smashing/Lethal which would fit more with the effect we see and lighting the Oil Slick.

I personally don't think the set needs much but right now, other sets do what this one does generally speakign with less powers and more often. Generally speaking.

Nope, lethal damage does NOTHING to Oil Slick. THe only reason it doesn't light is that there is a percentage chance for it not to ignite, plain and simple.

Now, if you really wanna do a fix for TA/A defenders... Make Exploding Arrow do Smashing/Fire instead of Smashing/Lethal damage. The effect is a giant fireball so it would make sense and would give a better synergy to the two sets.

Acid Arrow does debuf defence in an INCREDIBLY small AoE and it has a to-hit check so saying it doesn't debuff defence is not far off.

And to the person that says that in the higher levels recharge times don't matter... You do not know what the hell you are talking about. I have a lvl 47 NON-PL'd TA/A defender. The recharge times are killer unless the group is moving at a snail pace. You are a low damage wanna-be blaster for more than half the time if the group is moving fast.

Well, there are plenty but one of my fav actually happened last night in Siren's Call. I killed a Stalker with my TA/A defender. Yes, my TA/A DEFENDER. This was a very specifica set of circumstances. He was using SS as a travel power and was NOT regen, also, the Oil Slick atually ignighed for once. If any of those three things were different I coudln't have done it. I caught him waiting alone for his hide to kick in and hit him with my acid arrow prefenting him from hiding and kept hitting him with it when it recharged. He never got back into hide. After that I dropped Glue arrow on him to keep him there, dropped Oil Slick and lit it up with Blazing Arrow which prevented him from ASing me after placating me and it took a good chunck of his life down. He was Spines so he was hitting me even though I was keeping out of his melee range but I eventully worked him down by continually throwing down my debuffs and keeping him there. I have to say I was quite surpised. But as you can see, I'm pretty wreckless in PvP to even have attempted it.

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I would like to know more details about the "tweaking" to toggle dropping, since Energy actually has respectable damage and a side effect (disorient), and its blast set actually has a lot of, you know, blasts, Electric will not fare as well if this change is too drastic.

If toggle dropping is nerfed to the point where I cant even melee, since I cant blast well, and my "secondary effect" is essentially worthless, then what am I going to do in PvP besides get mercilessly slaughtered?

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You mean like Tanks are now when a blaster comes by and knocks off our toggles, hits our HEAVILY NERFED resistance for 30% unresisted damage and disoirents us to knock off the rest of the toggles and even if we get a counter-attack in, it does paultry damage because, hey, we're tanks. THAT kind of slaughtered in PvP? Yeah, cry me a river.

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Try to make toggle-dropping more power-based and less random.

I'd like to see Tanks get one high magnitude attack that can stun the other melee-ers through status protection. Sort of an Assassin Strike, but high magnitude instead of high damage. It would really bump up their threat level in PvP, without much effect on PvE.

But I could be bias towards Tanks...

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Best Idea Evar!!!!!!

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This is all so true about energy. It has too many advantages, especially when it comes to blasters using it. Add to this the unresisted damage which tanks already lost a HUGE portion of post i5-i6. Detoggling, stacked stuns, and knockback, along with no energy resists....WTH...I mean if no one can see the implications of this in PVP, they have got to be blind. Heck I even have a EM brute, and a SS tank, along with other blaster sets. Energy is hands down, along with ice following up there after above the rest. In PvP blasters with these sets chew me up all day long. Not asking for nerfs...but come on.

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The problem is with blaster's MASSIVE toggle dropping ability. That's the only thing that needs a good solid nerfing. Especially after I5 and ED.

You have obviously never herded Dreck and accidently hit a huge stack of mobs with Energy Transfer then. SUISIDE IS FUN!

I do like EM, btw. There is not much more satisfying than hitting a mob with ET right in the FACE. Which is why I chose EM for my stalker.

I often find I am having better luck with my SS tank in Warberg and most certainly in Siren's Call than I do with my EM tank. Problem with Siren's Call is that you are missing one of your big attacks, Total Focus. When they open up the lvl 50 PvP zone that might be a different story since the give out smashing and lethal damage like candy in this game. But Rage in a PvP zone is invaluable.

Having both a lvl 50 Inv/SS and Inv/EM tank, I chose SS for my brute. For three reasons really, or should I say powers:

Rage, as previously stated adds a nice damage buff and tohit buff. My inv tank hardly ever misses when attacking a pesky stalker. And toe to toe with a an Elude SR scrapper and I can get some hits in.

Footstomp has a LARGE AoE and with the knockdown keeps me that much safer. It does great damage for a melee AoE as well. Much better than the PUNY Whirlwind or whatever teh EM AoE is called. Whirlwind has a tiny AoE and paultry damage by comparison.

Hurl, the bane of many a flying foe. It has -fly, so my hurl with two range enhancements makes for a pretty deadly combo on flying foes. I knock them out of the sky and try to 'catch' the fly ball with my Knockout Blow. Nothing like running around trying to hit a falling foe like that. On top it does nice knockback/down so if they are superspeeding away I can run/jump up on them pretty quick while they are getting back up. Yeah, it's a slow animation but it's well worth it for versitility. The -fly is invaluable.

While EM's burst damage in the form of ET and TF are great, the acc buff of rage does wonders.

No way in hell are stalkers overpowered. In time, when people have learned to deal with stalkers and stalkers have learned to deal with those countermeasures, there will be better balance. But even right now I see them go down plenty in PvP. My Inv/SS tank is a stalker-killer. I can knockout blow through most any defences with the accuracy of fighting a +2 with SO's, which means I don't wiff much on my tank. Considering all the HO's out there most stalker sets are exactly as squishie as they feel once hide drops. They are no worse than a blaster with EM who can also two to three shot most squishies and disorient and drop toggles when they hit. No worse at all.

Yeah, it's extremely powerful and has a huge area. I have mine 6 slotted with 4 recharge and two holds and can use it almost every fight with perma-hasten. I use it for a panic button mostly. But every once in a while, when the team is just churning through mobs and my oil slick/disruption combo isn't up yet, I'll lead with it. Especially fun with Freaks. Can occasionally hold bosses in one shot.

How about a TF where you are fighting a bad guy so bad that it threatens the whole earth or something. Like the new X-men Xbox game. Brotherhood and X-Men fighting Apocolypse, etc.

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Not right away. A lot of the art has to be redone to take advantage of the new features, and we only have so many monkeys here. I mean artists!

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I'd like to volenteer my services. I worked on a HL mod for quite a while and will work for fairly cheap! I'm a little rusty but I make a MEAN crate!

Wow, I really like this idea of a damage debuff and a defence debuff. Although I do I see the PBAoE versions being a big problem to balance with it's massive step on the toes of Defenders. Perhaps, like somebody suggested that if a damage debuff was fairly slight and put on icicles which has a short range and a to-hit chance it could be acceptable. I REALLY like this idea. I too want to be the black sheep of tanks. I like a challenge and being different from everybody else. I chose a tank when there weren't many in the high levels and now they are a dime a dozen. I chose an ice tank simply because everybody said they sucked. And other than a few small issues, I think they are pretty cool, pun intended. But this idea is GREAT.

Hell, I was gonna suggest, since they 'balanced' Energy Absorbtion, I was gonna suggest that it gets a to-hit buff like Invincibility does. Seems only fair. But when I read that idea, it made perfect sense. This would even give ice tanks a tiny edge in psi damage to make it a damage debuff like that. Make it a fraction of one a defender would get. Just enough to take the edge off people who can one and two shot us internal squishies(read: Ice Tank). Hell, set an AV attack as a standard to hold it too. Just enough def buff to survive a nuke or whatever from an AV. Or make two AV shots into 3 or so.

Anyway, great idea guys.

Here here! Adding my two cents. This game has gotten nothing but better each issue and the dedication and more imporantly, INVOLVMENT IN THE COMMUNITY that the devs have makes this feel more like a mod than a regular game. Kudos for staying involved.

And this is comming from an Inv Tanker!