BrasswireBrush

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If the recharge times were adjusted, entangle arrow made identical to web grenade like it used to be, Flash Arrow Auto-hit (no need to change the debuff), Acid arrow given a larger splash radius (having it's original damage would be nice too), Oil Slick changed to self light so everyone can use the power, and the -recharge on Ice Arrow extended past the duration of the hold then I think the set would be a "great" set.

This is not asking for alot.

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Rather than let this be buried, I'll just quote it again.

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I think those are fine ideas. Im not sure I like the self lighting Oil Slick thing, but the rest look great. And I dont really think this is alot to ask here. Heck, Id be satisfied with even just two of those changes. We're asking for the powers to be as good as Web Grenade and Smoke, last time I checked those powers were not exactly considered "uber".

Every single Devices Blaster and Traps Mastermind/Corruptor has Web Grenade because they're forced to take it, but apparently this lvl 1 power is too strong and would be horribly unbalanced if given to Trick Arrow Defenders.

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RI would have to have 40+% -acc with three slots to floor even level mobs. Sorry...no way I believe RI is this high. RI seems very effective, but I'm not believing your assertion unless a red name states it...twice.

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And we dont believe your assertion of how high Flash Arrow is. From what I can tell your evidence is based off of one passing quote from Castle where he says "it's identical to Smoke grenade". Then you mathematically applied an AT modifier and enhancement modifiers to reach your 20% assertion.

When the set first came out someone did actual testing with Flash Arrow and concluded that the base debuff was about 7 or 8%. Unfortunately I can't seem to find that thread anymore, may have scrolled off the boards. Anyway since this fits much closer to my own experience than your 20%, I'm not believing your assertion unless a red name states it...twice. Or at least until someone has some numbers that they themselves have tested to show that the debuff is higher than 8%.

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8. When teamed with any other defender you feel useless


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Actually I do think that's the one thing my Trick Arrow Defender is good at. If I have to be the Defender for a team we're sunk. I just can't do it, I dont have the tools for that job.

But if there's already a Defender on the team then my TA Defender is a good "facilitator". He does a decent job of speeding up fights and adding a little bit more protection to what the other Defender is already doing. He doesnt add any +Def or +Res or Healing so he'll never step on another Defender's toes or add buffs that are redundant. If there is such a thing, he's a decent Blastrollfender. But as a primary Defender he simply can't hack it and falls far short of every other Defender primary in the game.

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OK, I have searched...Most of you may think this is a stupid question, but here goes.
What is the purpose of these badges...I have so many, but don't know what their purpose is...Aint that kinda stupid?

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Most badges are just for the sake of having the badge. Something to show off, or to collect.

Some badges unlock a Gladiator which can be used in arena gladiator matches.

Some combinations of badges will unlock other badges called accolades. Some accolades grant your character additional power (like +5 total endurance).

And some badges are required for your supergroup to unlock certain items to build in their base.

But most badges fit into category one. They're just there to collect for the sake of collecting them.

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FA is tantamount to +DEF for everyone who has to fight the mobs. What you probably don't notice is that FA is nearly doubling (depending on build) the +DEF of any /SR or Invinc using scrappers/tanks on the team

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At level 2 maybe. There is no way that Flash Arrow comes anywhere close to doubling the Defense of even a remotely competantly built Super Reflexes Scrapper.


And a question: Just wondering where you get the acc debuff as being 20%? Because the tested numbers I've seen peg it as being alot lower, more like 7%. I certainly dont feel it's anywhere close to 20% when I use it, so Im curious.

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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.


[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...

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Gah. That is what they're saying. "Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason", so why couldnt Glue Arrow self cancel for exactly that reason also? Would solve the problem of stacking and it wouldnt have such a stupidly long recharge as it has now.

[/ QUOTE ]Ummm..."Gah" is right... You're missing the part about a "permanent, anchorless, -Speed and -Recharge," being too good. Which is exactly what Glue Arrow would be if it were allowed to be permanent. The self-cancel doesn't stop it from being too good. As you said..."Gah."

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No Im not missing anything. Being too powerful has nothing to do with whether mechancally it can self dismiss (or stack) or not. That is a different issue altogether. And one that Im not sure I agree with you on, but either way it's irrelevant to how powers functionally work in the game.

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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.


[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...

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Gah. That is what they're saying. "Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason", so why couldnt Glue Arrow self cancel for exactly that reason also? Would solve the problem of stacking and it wouldnt have such a stupidly long recharge as it has now.

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Is it because the upper tier powers are so good?

Honestly I would be VERY careful in asking for the Devs to look into this set at this point. I do not believe you or many of my fellow Tankers would be very pleased with the results. If Barrage is boosted you can be darned sure that something else will get dropped.

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That's not a bad theory. But a lot of tanker secondaries are harder to compare at the top, since they get big AOEs, like Foot Stomp or Crowd Control.

Seismic Smash, for example, is pretty comparable. Really, Seismic is actually better than anything but ET, and ET does self-damage. Likewise, fire melee gets 3 aoe attack, 2 of which are quite good. Energy, meanwhile, is stuck with whirling hands, which also sucks.

Really, while ET is awesome and Total Focus is good, they aren't good enough to justify Barrage being so bad. If we're looking at the set as a whole, I'd point to how feeble whirling hands is also, as well how an attack like stun is pretty bad. (Even compared to Stone Melee, often considered the worst secondary, Stun is less useful in EM, simply because it is more redundant; most of Stone is doing KB/KU, but EM is already disorienting right and left, so Stun is generally not worth it, unless you like to spend a lot of time in Siren's Call)

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Energy Transfer, Total Focus, and Bonesmasher are three of the best Tanker attacks in the entire game. If you're going for single target burst dmg you'd be hard pressed to do better. The price Energy Melee pays for this is that it's lacking a bit a bit in AoE attacks (1 less than most sets) and it's first power is very low dmg.

And your comment about Seismic Smash being better than anything but ET is incorrect. Seismic Smash was recently buffed so that it would be brought up to the same level as Total Focus, before that it was worse. It still is if you consider that Total Focus is half energy dmg while Seismic Smash is purely smashing dmg. And then Energy melee still has ET on top of that. The energy melee set has *two single target attacks that are arguably better than anything in all of Stone melee, and most other sets as well.

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Actually, I may have a way of getting these badges within a short time.

I'm just waiting for an answer from a PM to Positron if what I am proposing may get me banned. (It's better to get permsission than forgiveness).

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One easy way I can see is just to come along on the missions of a much lower level hero/villain. This is standard operating procedure among badge hounds looking for missed mission badges, etc. If the lowbie does not care about the XP, run their Snaptooth missions and just take out Snappy as fast as possible.

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Yup I thought of that one also. Works for the other 4 PD missions as well.

Another way is to just get a good team together, teleport to Snaptooth and kill him the three times in quick succession, then quickly hit the exit button before the ambushes have time to do very much. Did this myself with a very good 3 man team (no one was exemplared or sk'ed) and once we got the hang of it we found we could complete the mission in about 3-5 mins and completely ignore the ambushes. The temp powers that the bartenders sell help with this.

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Simply put, spending several hours to collect the 200 presents required for Toy Collector wasn't worth it without some sort of tangible reward. We would have put in the effort if we had known there was some sort of reward. But spending an excessive amount of our already free time for something that appeared to be just another badge was not worth it to a lot of us.

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Agreed. If I had known there was a gladiator involved I would have made more of an effort to log in over Christmas and farm some presents. At the time I did not know, and being Christmas and all there was other more important stuff going on in the world than farming presents for just another badge.

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If it's a Valentine's Day badge, shouldn't it be the 14th? And it's currently 1:30 on the east coast and I've recieved no badge.

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The event starts before the 14th because they want people to be able to experience it for more than one single day. And it may be 1:30am on the east coast, but that means it's not midnight yet on the west coast, where half the servers are. Probably the one that you're on.

Toga.

At midnight on Feb 8th everyone gets the Valentine's day badge and the toga costume piece.

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I find your argument to be not marginally dishonest.

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

*plonk*

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As others have pointed out, he was supporting you, Centerfire. Ironically enough, he was using the definition of "marginal" that you defended earlier, while you apparently put him on your ignore list based on the definition Arcana used.

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Well at least one person got it.

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I find your argument to be not marginally dishonest.

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

*plonk*

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

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

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Define "marginal." My estimates suggest that controller bubbles admit something between 30% and 100% more damage than defender bubbles, depending on situation.


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Marginal, i.e., by some margin. I was not suggesting that the difference is negligible; that's your inference, not my implication.


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This would be an example of intellectual dishonesty, as most people would define it: explicitly or implicitly suggesting that one was unaware or not fully cogniscent of the facts, in direct contradiction to how they were originally used for effect.

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Use of the term "marginal" is not ipso facto editorializing, and need not imply "small to the point of irrelevance"; in point of fact the first (and therefore most common) definition of the term up on Dictionary.com is "of, relating to, located at, or constituting a margin, a border, or an edge". Far from brain-death as a prerequisite to adopting this definition, it is, in fact, widely accepted usage in economics (for instance, "marginal costs" being the additional costs of input necessary to generate the next unit of output, above and beyond the costs of input necessary to generate the current unit of output). It's not until we get to the fourth definition of the term that we start seeing the word as a synonym for "bad".

Had I said, "the margin by which a FF/* Defender's buffs and debuffs are superior to a */FF Controller's buffs and debuffs does not offset the superior damage mitigation the Controller can bring to the table through his primary and his superiority with the controls in his secondary", you not only would have understood me, but it would have been functionally identical to what I did say. It was not my implication that the difference between Defender buffs/debuffs and Controller buffs/debuffs is small to the point of irrelevancy, either relatively or absolutely; and you would have to be basically brain-dead not to see that this was not my meaning given both the context, and the definition which I gave you, when you asked.

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I find your argument to be not marginally dishonest.

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The problem is that Defender secondaries are 66% damage 125% buffs/debuffs, while Blasters are 125% damage and 100% buffs/debuffs.


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Ive seen you quoting other numbers like this in this thread. Im not sure but I dont believe these numbers are correct. I was under the impression that the way the scale works is that Blasters are at 100% dmg, everyone else is based off of that. If Blasters are doing 125% and Defenders are 66%, then Defenders are doing only about half the dmg of Blasters which I dont believe is correct.

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Actually, the developers have been stating for a long time that they didn't decrease everyone elses damage, they just buffed Blasters and Scrappers damage (ie. 125% damage.)

The problem was that Defenders had already been set to 66% before that.

I've seen several times where my Defender was easily only doing half the damage compared to an AR blaster, which I checked to see where moderate versus moderate damage.

Defender are actually doing about 1/2 the damage of Blasters before any external buffs/debuffs are applied.

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Well like I said I could be off-base here, but I always thought the standard way of comparing AT dmg numbers, and that testing had born this out, was to use Blasters as the 100% baseline. In such a scenario Tankers are at 80%, Defenders 66%, etc. If the 66% is not "66% of Blaster dmg" then what is it 66% of? What you're saying is that Defender powers do only about half the dmg of their Blaster counterparts. I do not believe this to be the case.


Edit: Thanks for the confimation BlueEyed, thought I was going crazy there for a minute.

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The problem is that Defender secondaries are 66% damage 125% buffs/debuffs, while Blasters are 125% damage and 100% buffs/debuffs.


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Ive seen you quoting other numbers like this in this thread. Im not sure but I dont believe these numbers are correct. I was under the impression that the way the scale works is that Blasters are at 100% dmg, everyone else is based off of that. If Blasters are doing 125% and Defenders are 66%, then Defenders are doing only about half the dmg of Blasters which I dont believe is correct.

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Isn't this unfair to the Defender AT? Is it untrue to say that, across the board , blasters primaries are stronger than defender secondaries, tanker primaries are stronger than scrapper secondaries, scrapper primaries are stronger than tanker secondaries

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Yes, it is untrue.
Secondary effects/debuffs work BETTER for Defenders than for Blasters. Granted, most Blaster-shared Blasts don't have a secondary effect that can be changed in value, but it's visible in Electric Blast.

Scrapper primaries are stronger at damage than Tanker secondaries. However, in general, Tanker secondaries provide more inherent crowd control while Scrappers provide more debuffs. That's another secondary being better at a (specific) thing than comparable primaries.

Doesn't seem wrong or unbalanced. Only problems are mistakes (Defender FR getting switched with Controller FR), and powers which are not multipurpose (Thunderclap) so that they don't have a purpose which works better for Defenders than for Controllers.

But the concept of having some aspects work better for Controllers is not inherently wrong. It's just applied poorly for a few powers. And that seems to be a case of "pure control powers don't work that well for Defenders". Simple solution is to insert debuffs even in all pure control powers like Thunderclap.

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Said much better than I ever could of and sums up my feelings about this thread as well. The idea of Controllers being better at control and Defenders being better at buff/debuff/dmg, regardless of whether a power is in the primary or secondary, is not a problem in and of itself. Taken in isolation it's quite logical. The problem is in the execution, the fact that certain powers provide little meaningful benefit for Defenders over Controllers. And I suspect that most people would even be ok with that if it weren't for the fact that certain whole powersets seem to function better for Controllers than Defenders.

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The devs have always said

Primary>Secondary>Power Pool

And let's put it like tihs: Controller secondaries *should* be working at 80% of defender primaries instead of somewhere between 80 and 110%.

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They've said all things being equal Primary>Secondary>Power Pool. When the primary is a defender primary and the secondary is a controller secondary and the power is a controlling power, all things are *not* equal.

But as I said, the rosetta stone is electric blast drain. If my view is correct, defenders should have higher end drain for electric blast than electric blast blasters. If yours is correct, then electric blast blasters should have higher end drain than electric blast defenders. Which one do you believe is proper, and which one do you believe best reflects the devs intentions?

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Sorry, but you're ignoring one thing here.

Electric Blast has two effects, Primary and Secondary. Primary effect is damage, Secondary effect is End Drain. Secondaries operate usually at 80% efficiency of the comparable Primary. However, Defender Secondaries only have 66% of the efficiency of the Primary Effect because some people are afraid Defenders could -by combining three or four powers at once- eventually outdamage Blasters. To make up for this lack in damage, Defenders have increased Secondary effects.

You'll notice that COH Defenders don't get Fire Blast. Fire Blast's Secondary effect is more damage, and that would imbalance this equation again.

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I dont think that's right. With what we know now it's not a matter of Defenders getting "increased secondary effects" it's a case of Defenders getting "increased buffs/debuffs". Electric Blast has dmg and a debuff just like most blast sets, so the debuff operates at a higher level for Defenders.

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However, Defenders do have powers that are 1:1 weaker than the Controller Secondary versions. Point in case Snow Storm. As Castle just said, Slows are more powerful for Controllers, and the power does nothing else but Slow. That, and Slow is a DeBuff effect. Point in case Thunderclap. The power is only a Disorient. These powers have no Secondary Effects, and the Primary Effect is slanted towards Controllers.


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Actually doesnt Snowstorm also have -recharge? So theoretically the -recharge would be more effective for Defenders than Controllers. But I see what you're saying here. Personally I think -speed should be counted as a debuff for one, not a control. Secondly Defenders shouldnt have powers (or at least not many, I think a few here and there wouldnt be that bad) that have no aspect that is better for them than for Controllers (ie Thunderclap). And certainly when you consider a powerset as a whole it should be obvious that it will function better in the hands of a Defender than a Controller, even if one or two powers are more effective for the Controller.

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The actual existence of such powers unfortunately breaks your argument, as it is based on improper abstract assumptions.

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I disagree with your assumptions.

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How ever Short Curcuit's primary function is end drain.

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It largely depends on whose hands it's in, really. For defenders, the endurance drain is enough to make it it's primary function. For blasters, the end drain is smaller, but it doesn't do bad damage at all. It does quite a bit of damage, actually.

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Except that even for Blasters the optimal slotting was always 6 End Drain. I would say the vast majority of Elec Blasters, and every Elec Blaster guide I ever read btw, considered it a drain power not a dmg power. But this is why I say you cant balance sets on what a power's "primary function" is. In your own words "it depends whose hands it's in". Too much grey area.

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Can we not argue over what's fair and what's not?

I don't think the developer's base assumptions about this game will change overnight. Simply put, if you think people are really stupid, announcing it in bright bold letters doesn't tend to change things. If you're right, they won't notice. If you're wrong, well, they won't care.

So let's thing of a workable change within the existing balance. Give mez-heavy powers a big enough debuff for there to at least be a tradeoff. To take the sample of Endurance Drain, the primary purpose of a Blast is to do ranged damage. Sure, it might not be the best range, and it might have some secondary effects, but it's almost always damage. Blasters give up a bit of end drain for a huge amount of damage. Well, let's have the primary effect of buff/debuff powers be buff/debuffs. A Controller better be giving up a lot of buff/debuff power to get spare control.

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Good post. I know that it really is a kick in the pants for Defenders to hear it said that this is the way it's intended. But really, if this is way it's been designed to work from the beginning then good luck changing it.

I think a suggestion to increase the strength of the debuffs on all the Defender control powers and blasts is an excellent suggestion and one that would seem to fall much more in line with the Devs "vision". And it would hopefully give the Defender version of these powers a tradeoff that has value.

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But as I said, the rosetta stone is electric blast drain. If my view is correct, defenders should have higher end drain for electric blast than electric blast blasters. If yours is correct, then electric blast blasters should have higher end drain than electric blast defenders. Which one do you believe is proper, and which one do you believe best reflects the devs intentions?

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Defenders are supposed to be the best at buffing/debuffing, so it makes sense in that portion, but the -end in electric blast is a minor secondary effect when compared to the main purpose of the powers (damage).

Blasters do 1.5 times as much damage as defenders do, and their blasts cost a bit less. Overall, I'd say that more than balances out the higher endurance drain that defenders get.

What we're seeing here is when a power's primary function is control, and it's being done better by another AT's secondary.

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Primary function of a power is unimportant because then you get into philosophical type discussions about what a powers "purpose" is and you cant balance an entire game around that. For instance Electric blast is primarily about dmg, Ill buy that, but the damage in Short Circuit is not it's primary purpose, the endurance drain is. So then shouldnt Elec Blasters drain more endurance with it? The Defender version of Short Circuit outperforms the Blaster version, your secondary is better than my primary.

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yeah sorry, didn't catch the typo. Was posting from work and trying not to get the supervisor catch me lol

I still stand by Nerva being the cloest to Paragon City though, thats why Longbow has such alot of strength there and its the furthest island from Grandville. It doesn't make sense for it to be the furthest because that would make Lord Recluse's base of operations very vulnerable.

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I remember reading something dura beta that Nerva was the zone closest to Paragon City, which is part of the reason Longbow has a presence there.

However, the map inclused with COV shows Nerva to be the westernmost zone. I can only assume that the map is not to scale and Nerva is actually more to the north west of the Rogue Islands.

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The map is what I was basing my statements on. It pretty clearly shows Nerva as being the farthest eastern zone from the mainland (you said western, typo I assume). Of the non-pvp zones Sharkhead is the closest to Paragon according to the map that comes with the game. If you include the pvp zones, then all three of them are closer which seems to make more sense I would think. Plus the maps shows the helicopter routes heading to Paragon coming from the West Side of the map, so unless they just like taking the long way around.... I dont see any way for the map to be correct and for Nerva to be the "closest" zone. Unless of course the map is both strangely oriented and is not in any way to scale.

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In the old zone previous on the CoV it mentioned that Nerva is the closest island to the mainland which is why its such a contested zone. Black Scorpion was said be on the frontline in Nerva holding back Longbow and maintaining control over the zone.

Sciccoro is clearly in charge of Nerva even though its not openly mentioned, the Giza casino is said to be owned by him although managed by Johnny Sontana. You also find Ice Mistrell in the Giza again showing his connection to the zone.

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That makes alot of sense except for two things:

1. The Giza is actually in St Martial
2. Nerva is actually the farthest island from the "mainland" of Paragon city.

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Scirocco's got Nerva and Cap au Diable last I checked was Scorpion territory.

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I thought Dr Aeon was in charge of Cap au Diable?