Castle

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Simply increasing the base damage is dangerous, and we can't make it exempt from ED.

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Wait... you guys can make powers exemp from ED?!?

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Nope. That's why I said "Can't." Well, actually, we could ask for new code to do that, but it isn't really something we want currently.

10% is 10%, no matter the AT.

100 health vs 140 health is defintely not the same, especially considering in most cases that 140 health is being applied to someone with a good deal of damage resistance. It means that the tanker with the same scale of heal will almost certainly survive longer than a blaster with a 100 point heal.

Surely, you agree with that?

Chimera is really good with his bow. Sure, he can still miss, but it won't be often.

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Castle, you know now that you've posted in two threads with this title, it's going to appear in every AT forum on the board right?

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Actually, you're right. I think it's also against board policy to 'call out' a dev in your post title. I think that means I've been bad by actually responding. I'll have to stop doing that.

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Are we finally going to see some Blaster fixes after I7?

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Fixes, yes. Complete redesigns of several powers and/or powersets, no. Unfortunately, what a lot of you are looking for is the later.

I'm (ever so slowly) going through the list you guys put up a while ago. I've referred a couple things to animation for bug fixes. Many things, I'm still scratching my head of how to fix in such a way that they are useful -- snipes are a good example of this. Simply increasing the base damage is dangerous, and we can't make it exempt from ED. So, I'm thinking of workarounds, which I will toss upstairs once fleshed out. Then, if it is approved, I'll be able to make the changes.

That process happens with each and every change (read: not a bug fix) I do.

EDIT: Adding a couple things.
I put in a fix for Endurance Drain that I think you guys will like. It is in I7, because it was a huge amount of data changes.

As for changing secondaries, when I was interviewing for this position over a year ago, this was the thing I mentioned I wanted to 'fix.' It's still something I want to do, but there are a couple technical and design philosophy problems to overcome. The design philosphy isn't easy to change, but it's hardly in the realm of impossibility. The tech side, though, is very much non-trivial. Since I've no control over programming schedules (for good reason, I might add) it is something I cannot do much of anything about.

FYI: my first COH character on Live was (is) a Fire/Fire Blaster.

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That makes me wonder: What would happen if you hit someone with a taunt then immediately placated them afterwards?

Looks like I have a new project

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Doesn't work anymore. I abused it completely in our PvP testing and was nearly lynched. Now, whichever is the most recently cast takes precedence.

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I just hope that the devs don't read this and decide to nerf aid self instead of boosting healing flames

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I'd like to do both, actually (and both my Brute and my Stalker use it!) But, alas, Aid Self isn't changing. Healing Flames, on the other hand, might get a boost.

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I have a few questions.

1. Will dark armor be a resist based set or will it be just defense like most of the other stalker secondaries?

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Resist with a bit of Defense tossed in.

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2. Will we get touch of fear?

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Unless it changes during testing, yes.

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3. Will stalkers get build up in place of soul drain?

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Build Up. Soul Drain would be counter productive.

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4. Since stalkers already get hide at lvl 1 will they be getting cloak of darkness as well?

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Hide replaces Cloak of Shadow.

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5. Will they have the same knockdown penalty as the other dark armor scrappers have dealt with?

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Yes.

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6. How will powers such as cloak of fear, oppressive gloom, and death shourd work for dark armor? This one has really been on my mind because the whole point of being a stalker is being undetectable most of the time so to me those powers while good as they are would be counter productive to being a stalker.

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Death Shroud is not given to Stalkers. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear operate exactly like the Scrapper version. It isn't wise to leave these on while attempting to Assassin Strike...

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7. Will we also get that gawd awful lvl 38 power they call a rez?

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Soul Transfer is still on the list.

List (barring changes in test)
Hide
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Shadow Dweller
Obsidian Shield
Dark Regeneration
Cloak of Fear
Oppressive Gloom
Soul Transfer

EDIT: Formatting was [censored]'d

Ok, here's the scoop.

Heal Self is not affected by AT Mods directly any longer. I'm not certain when this changed, but it was before 9/21/2004. The Heal Self Table is now a straight 10% of the AT's base (unbuffed) Health. So, Tankers still see a greater effect from a Heal Self of even scale than a Blaster or Defender because their base health is higher.

So, these values ARE correct.

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A level 30 Tanker using an unenhanced Healing Flames gets 178.5 health. With 2 SO's, that would increase to 296.31. 178.5 is 17.5% of a Tankers health at that level. 296.31 is 29% of a Tankers health at that level.

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Okie I want to ask a related question, also yay first post.

What about the fact that fire has 4 situational useless powers.

1 Temp protection... really useless... there isnt enough fire or cold for it to matter.

2 Fiery embrace... situational, unless you are fire/fire its usefullness is highly questionable.

3 Rotp..... a tank shouldnt need a self res and it doesnt even come close to being as good as granite or unstop

4 Burn... a power that deaggros mobs and makes them run and gets your team killed is questionable at best.


Also what about the contention that regen can take more damage over time than fire.

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Off topic.

EDIT: I think I found a bug. Stay tuned for more info! The info below is INACCURATE.

After numerous PMs about this, I'll go ahead an post this publicly.

Healing Flames heal scale of 1.75 has not changed since I3. I didn't bother going back further than that -- a year is a good period of time.

The AT mod for Tankers self heal has not changed in that time period, either. It is still 1.5. Brutes Self Heal mod is the same -- 1.5.

A level 30 Tanker using an unenhanced Healing Flames gets 178.5 health. With 2 SO's, that would increase to 296.31. 178.5 is 17.5% of a Tankers health at that level. 296.31 is 29% of a Tankers health at that level.

Brutes percentages would be the same, though the numerical value of the heals would be lower due to brutes lower max health.

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Awww man! I had hope there! But I'm happy to hear that it is working correctly on Dull Pain.

Does Weaken stack from another user?

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Yep

Unfortunately for Poison types, Reconstruction HAS to work this way. Sorry folks, it won't be changing.

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Since AS is practically a melee snipe, shouldn't it follow the rules for snipe attacks and have it's range and line of sight checked twice? Once when the attack is initiated and once when it is resolved. Not like now, when people can start up AS and kill someone 100 feet away because the target moved.

If not, can someone tell me how to interrupt a stalker running Elude or similar powers? It's impossible to hit them even if I can see them perfectly fine.

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This has been brought up a couple times internally. The problem with making AS check Range twice is that it would be virtually impossible to land in PvP. It would also make it unique in that all other melee powers only check range once, so even if your target is running, you will still land the attack, no matter how far away they get.

It DOES check line of sight twice, so if you constantly take routes which break LOS frequently, you can stop Assassin attacks.

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Surly some of these things could be fixed with a simple run through with a spell checker.

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You should see far fewer typo's in powers with I7. Thing's like "it's" for "its" on the other hand, are still likely to crop up and be low priority fixes.

Looks like Reconstruction is set to ignore external Buffs and Debuffs. I'll have to talk to geko about it later and find out why it is set that way.

It may be working as intended.

Tested on a Regen Stalker in I7 (neither power has changed from I6)

Level 12, no enhancements in Weaken or Dull Pain:
Normal: 102hp healed Weakened: 45hp healed

Level 12, 3 level 15 DO enhancements Dull Pain:
Normal: 161hp healed Weakened: 104hp healed

Level 50, no enhancements in Weaken or Dull Pain:
Normal: 407hp healed Weakened: 104hp healed

Level 50, 3 level 53 SO enhancements Dull Pain:
Normal: 803hp healed Weakened: 499hp healed

Looks like it is working correctly for Dull Pain. However, for Reconstruction, it appears the heal amount remains constant, which should not be possible with the way it is set up.

I'll add it to my list of things to fix.

Weaken reduces all the same effects that Power Boost increases, and Damage.
Namely:
All Damage Types, except 'Special' damage
ToHit and To Hit Buffs
Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, Confuse, Terrorize, Knockback, Knockup and Repel
Run Speed and Flight Speed buffs
All Defense types
Heals
Endurance Buffs (like Stamina)

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I picked up an enzyme recently at a Hami raid and... is it just my imagination or is an enzyme really providing a 33% defense BUFF ?! That would make it better than Cyto's which only provide a 20% defense buff.

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It's a bug. It'll be fixed.

EDIT:
More specifically, Enhancements should only effect the things they are listed as effecting. Dual and Multi enhancements (such as Hami-O's) sometimes break that due to a flaw in our system. That flaw will be being closed in the not so distant future.

Assassin strike at level 50 vs a target with no resists at all, at the damage cap:
Base: 250.24
Critical: 1501.47

Total: 1751.71 hp in one hit.

Level 50 Stalker has 1017.1 hp.

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Thanks, folks!

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Pff! I liked some of those 3-D Castle ones. Those were sweet. This makes you look liek a dork.

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I do math for a living. I think I qualify...

And, yeah, I liked 'em to, but this was closest to what was kicking around in the back of my head...and it's 56k modem friendly.

Thanks, folks!

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I've asked him in PM what kind of imagery (super-hero partciularly) he prefers, but he never answered. Perhaps he just thinks of himself as very Linear minded, one step up from a pawn so to speak. (Oof, bad Chess pun) ...and doesn't want an Icon.

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Think in terms of Castling in Chess.

Yes, it has been considered. It's one of the main problems, in fact.

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_Castle_, is it understood with the Devs that a lot of people wanted a Skills system for some Out-Of-Combat entertainment? From the sounds of it, Invention uses salvage, which is earned slowly with combat. Has this been considered? Is there any non-combat plans in the works?

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Yes.