ClawsandEffect

Good plan.

You'll also get 400 Paragon Points for being subscribed in the month of July.

The best part of that? Since you're going to be using your free month, it shouldn't actually cost you any more than the cost of the game itself.

Couple things:

A) The devs have already more or less confirmed we're getting it.

B) Blasters already have: Short Circuit, Combustion, Total Focus, Thunderstrike, and Scramble Thoughts at 3 seconds or longer. Ignite, Consume, and Ice Patch at 3.5 seconds or longer. And they have Trip Mine, Time Bomb, and Gun Drone at 5, 9 and 7 seconds respectively.

Conversely, Shadow Maul is 3.07 seconds.

I don't think cast time is going to be as big of an issue as you're thinking. Shadow Maul is only longer than Short Circuit and Combustion by .07 seconds. The rest of the powers I listed have longer animation times.

This is pretty much what I've been trying to say for most of my time in this thread.

JB is calling for tankers to get more damage because:

- Brutes outperform them when they are at their caps.

(This ignores the 99% of the time they are NOT at their caps)

- Incarnate abilities exist in the game.

(This ignores the fact that you have 49 levels before Incarnate abilities are even a possibility)

- Scrappers and brutes can get close to tanker survivability when slotted to the gills with billions of influence worth of IOs, in other words, all the best stuff in the game.

(This ignores the fact that not only is the game still balanced around SOs, but the majority of the players still USE SOs)

What he is asking, no, demanding, is that the balance between scrappers, brutes and tanks be altered because of a few factors that the game is not, was not, and never should be balanced around.

The balance between brutes and tanks exists as it is because when you slot both ATs with nothing but SOs, the brute does more damage, and the tank survives better. THAT is where they are balanced at. They are NOT balanced around ridiculous assumptions like 10 billion influence IO builds, Incarnate abilities, and sitting at their respective caps at all times.

The truly hilarious thing is: He really believes the game should be balanced by all those things.

If you balance the differences between archetypes by things your average player probably doesn't have much interest in acquiring, you are telling them "not only does your character suck because you don't min/max, but it's not even balanced because you don't."

I'm sure you've seen all the complaints from people feeling like they're being forced to grind Incarnate content.

Go ahead and tell them that they're going to be forced to do that stuff because the ATs are balanced around having all tier 4 Incarnate abilities and multi-billion influence builds.

Go ahead, tell em. I dare you.

And that doesn't even address how our soon to be joining us new players will feel if they're told their characters are balanced around things that they literally CAN'T use without paying real money for the privilege.

Do you want to tell all those new players that in order to reach a point where their characters are fairly balanced they have to drop some cash and spend hundreds of hours grinding to get all the best stuff?

If *I* were a new player and someone told me the game were balanced around min/maxing my character, and that I would never even reach a point where I could keep up with other players unless I did, well, I'd drop this game like a live grenade and never look back.

The game is balanced around SOs for a reason, whether anyone likes it or not. The only way to balance the game fairly is to balance it around the minimum enhancements possible, the ones that are available to everyone equally. You can't possibly expect me to believe that hugely expensive IO builds are available just as equally to the person who plays 30 hours a week as they are to the person who plays 3 hours a week.

Balancing a game around the metric of what a power gamer can achieve is a HUGE mistake, and one that I'm pretty sure the devs aren't stupid enough to make. It alienates both new players, and veteran players who aren't inclined to play the game that way.

I'm not trying to deny it because there IS nothing wrong with it. Those 3 ATs are designed to do completely different things. A scrapper is not meant to hold agro, a tank is not meant to be a primary damage dealer on a team.

You cannot balance ATs by how they perform at their respective caps. You just can't. It is not fair to those players who will never reach those caps for whatever reason.

You can go on and on and on about how your IOed out the wazoo brute outperforms your IOed out the wazoo tank.

Tell me, why should the players who are playing the game using SOs give a flying crap how your characters perform using enhancements they will probably never have?

And why do you think it's fair that those players should suffer because YOU want ATs to be balanced by their performance at the absolute peak of their abilities? You want the game to be balanced around how ATs perform when fully IOed with all their Incarnate abilities. That is NOT AT ALL FAIR TO THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE THOSE THINGS.

Pfft. The funny thing is, you actually believe that load of manure. Let's call it what it REALLY is shall we?

You think YOUR little min/maxed toys should be on top, simply because they're YOURS. You don't care in the slightest about having a balanced game, you just want YOUR characters to be more powerful than everything else. I'd be willing to be that you don't care even a little bit about other people's tanks, you just want YOURS to be the toughest, hardest hitting, most awesome things in the game.

Again, if this is such a HUGE problem, why are you the ONLY PERSON WHINING ABOUT IT ALL THE DAMN TIME? Whenever I see a thread title having anything to do with low tanker damage, I look down and sure enough, your name is there. Every time. If tanker performance is so bad compared to other ATs, why aren't there more people complaining like you are? And you can't tell me they gave up on it, people on these forums never give up on anything if they really feel there is a problem with it.

Really? I'm arguing that they're fine, and I have never soloed a TF, and I've never soloed a pylon in ANY time, let alone less than 4 minutes.

Why am I arguing that they're fine? Because I understand something you clearly don't. The game is not, and should not be balanced around how awesome you can make things with all the best IOs and Incarnate abilities. It is balanced around how your characters perform with the most basic enhancements available, because anything else would be colossally unfair to the people who can't get, or aren't inclined to get those things.

Funny. YOUR tankers deserve to be offensively awesome. No mention of anyone else's tankers to be found anywhere in your entire post.

It's pretty clear that this is all stemming from your own selfish sense of self-entitlement. You just can't stand that there might be someone out there better than you, can you?

All this rage over a video game. It deserves the scorn it is getting.

The game is balanced around SOs, and it is balanced around certain ATs having certain roles to fill on a team. It has been that way since day 1, and it will continue to be that way in the future.

Don't like it? Tough.

Right.

Since the Incarnate system exists now, it is the only thing that matters, and levels 1-50 are completely irrelevant. That is completely ridiculous.

Can a brute survive as well as a tank, unassisted, while slotting nothing but SOs? Because contrary to what you seem to believe, a lot of the players in the game still use SOs.

IO usage is NOT as predominant as yo are trying to have us believe. And the kind of IOed out brutes and scrappers you keep going on about certainly are not as common as you'd have us believe.

Yes, you see a lot of forum posters with awesome builds, and using IOs out the wazoo. Guess what? Those people are less than 10% of the game's population.



When Dr. Aeon 1 shotted me, I was sitting at over 75% defense to everything thanks to team buffs. And you know what? He still hit me. You could have 200% defense to everything there is defense for, and if you can't soak a hit you can and eventually will be turned into a grease spot by something. Tanks are meant to take those hits, and take more than one of them.


Again, you're bringing up the Incarnate system as a reason why this needs to change. Still no mention of how those ATs perform on SOs, which the game is still balanced around. No mention of how those ATs perform at level 25, or level 35, or level 40.

You keep going on and on about the Incarnate system like the rest of the game ceased to exist when it was introduced. I don't know about you, but *I* still spend the majority of my time in the game leveling characters, so I am wel aware that there is more to the game than level 50 awesomeness. And whether you want to admit it or not, when you are leveling and using a mixture of SOs and maybe the occasional IO here and there, tanks have a significant survivability advantage over brutes and scrappers. I have YET to see a brute that will survive as well as a tank at level 25.

You CANNOT balance ATs based on how they perform at level 50 with all the best enhancements the game has to offer slotted in them. You have to balance them based on the minimum performance available, which is SOs, because that is what is available equally to everyone.

The game is more than what you do at level 50. NAd you should remember that in your attempts to browbeat us into agreeing with you. Funny how you're the ONLY player that is this bent out of shape by the "unfairness" of tanks dealing less damage than brutes. If it were as big of a deal as you're making it out to be, why aren't we seeing posts like yours all over the place?

You seem to be confused as to what a tank's purpose even IS.

Tanks were not, and never will be, designed to be damage dealers. Their purpose is to redirect damage and any debuffs to themselves, instead of the team.

Yes, a scrapper or brute can be built to survive almost as well.

And yes, all 3 ATs are perfectly capable of being the last ones standing while the rest of the team is on the floor.

The difference is:

If you are a scrapper or brute and you're the last one standing, you're awesome. You can kill everything and get the glory for saving the day.

If you're a tank and you're the last one standing, you have failed at tanking. If you were a good tank, the rest of the team wouldn't be laying on the floor.

I build my brutes and scrappers to dela damage, because that's their purpose. I build my tanks to hold agro and survive it, because that is their purpose.

Saying a tank should put out the same damage as a brute while retaining their survivability, is exactly like saying a defender should have the damage output of a blaster while retaining their buffs.

You don't invite a defender to a team because you want more damage, you invite them because you want buffs and debuffs. I have never, ever invited a defender to a team because I wanted the damage output their own personal attacks provided, I invite them because I want what their primary powerset brings to the team.

Same goes for tanks. You don't invite them to a team because you want more damage, you invite them because you want someone to hold agro. If I want a melee damage dealer, I will invite a scrapper or a brute, and if I do so, I am not expecting them to hold agro.

You don't seem to understand that at all in your insistence that it isn't fair that one AT deals less damage than another, when those two ATs were designed with 2 different purposes in mind.

Tanks are not brutes, brutes are not tanks, and it is not at all reasonable to expect them to be.

Uh, yeah, it is. For one very simple reason: Tanks are not meant to be primary damage dealers on a team. And they never were meant to be.

You don't invite a tank to your team because you want more damage, you invite a tank because you want someone to tank. Expecting a tank to be a primary damage dealer is teh same as expecting it of a defender. That's not what that AT is designed to do.


Ever been hit by Dr. Aeon on an STF? He hits like a truck. He hits for more than Scrapper MAX HP with a single attack (I know because I've been one-shotted by him before, he hit for 2,700 damage) There are a few other enemies that hit every bit as hard as him. A tank can take it, while a brute would get 2 shotted.

Tanks are designed to be able to take the brunt of the damage that would be focused at the whole team, and a well built tank is intended to do that largely unassisted.

If you put a tank and a brute in the same situation, and tell them to do the same job, with the exact same amount of incoming damage, the brute will die first. Every. Single. Time.

Sure, if the only metric that matters is damage. But damage dealing isn't the only metric that matters.


A scrapper will never hold agro like a tank. Ever.


Because you want your tank to not only survive better than anything else, but deal damage like the ATs that are designed for dealing damage.

Your crusade is not only unbalancing, it is also completely unreasonable within the context of this game. This isn't a comic book, it's a video game. Things need to be balanced against each other in order for it to be fair. Tanks surviving better at the cost of damage output is both balanced, and fair.

If you want tanks to get more damage, they will need to give up some survivability to get it. I can all but guarantee that is NOT going to be a popular move amongst tank players. Especially since you are the only one that really seems to feel this is a huge problem.

I really don't know why I bother trying to get through to you, you're just going to keep whining about how unfair it is that another AT can do something tanks can't, and completely ignoring the fact tanks can do things those other ATs can't.

So:

2 for GR
2 for i12
and 3 from Vet Rewards (you'll get the 4th when you hit 48 months on that account)

For a total of 7 slots that count as earned/bought.

So, you'd lose access to one character, and you should get that character back in 6 months.

I'd just pick whichever character you like the least and leave that one locked, and you'll be able to play the rest.

Infinity and Champion might. I don't think any of the others will.

I do think we will see some others, like Pinnacle and Guardian, hitting yellow more frequently though.

If he's planning on farming fire using enemies in AE he won't need any KB protection at all, since you can custom design your enemies to not have any KB attacks.

I'm pretty sure I was correct there Klaw.

I'm looking at it like this:

The OP says she has 10 slots in use. That would mean all 10 of those slots are on the first page of the creation/select screen.

So, the 9 she currently has remaining would be 2 more on the first page, and an additional 7 on the second page.

Since all 12 slots on the first page are the default slots everyone gets, that would mean only the 7 on the second page would count as earned or bought slots.

So, if you only get 2 default slots when you go Premium, then 10 of the default slots on the first page will be going away, meaning only the 7 on the second page will count as earned/bought slots.

That comes out to 9, because I'm assuming here that the 2 for i12, and the 2 for GR are included in that 7 slots on the second page.

Important point: The OP was talking about her 3rd account, and she didn't say her 3rd account has as many veteran rewards as her first account (which is the one I'm assuming she is posting with here). So, we can't use her registration date on the account she posted with as the date from which the 3rd account's vet rewards are counting from. I'm going only by what the OP specifically said she has available right now, which works out to having 9 slots available if that account goes Premium.

No.

It counts each debuff separately.

If you apply a 50% damage debuff to an enemy who deals 100 damage per attack, he will then deal 50 damage per attack. If you then stack another 50% damage debuff on him, it will apply that to the 50 damage he is doing now and make it 25 damage. Then 12.5 damage, then 6.25 damage, and so on.

2 50% damage debuffs will NOT put an enemy at 0% damage.

I was thinking this myself.

Anyone who wants to play on the test or beta servers has to set up a shortcut to even get to them. It is not included when you download the game.

It is unlikely a trial player would even know that he COULD do that, let alone HOW to do it.

It is even less likely that a trial player who somehow discovers the test server would find out how to make the shortcut to it without finding out what it IS in the process of finding said shortcut.

Probably because in an era where AoE damage is in such demand, a set that only gets one pathetic AoE attack isn't very sought after.

I don't see very many Energy Melee Tanks or Brutes anymore either.

No, when you exemp you keep the slots, but set bonuses go away.

If you have something 6 slotted at 50, it is still 6 slotted if you exemp to level 12, because the game has no way of knowing what level you put those slots in at. The effectiveness of any enhancements in it gets downgraded based on what class of enhancement you can use at that level (so level 12 would be equivalent to DOs, level 22 should see no noticeable difference), but it still has 6 slots worth.

I'm not going to put money on it, but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.

Except that, thanks to the purple patch, you are NOT stopping their regen. You are debuffing it, but even a 500% regen debuff is resisted by 85%, meaning you're only actually debuffing their regen by 75%.

If you can't deal decent damage, that isn't enough of a debuff to win the fight for you.

Fixed that for you.

My Rad/Sonic can solo several of the GMs in the game. If Defender damage was as bad as some people keep saying, that wouldn't be possible, even with -regen debuffs.

Even when you hit a GM with Lingering Radiation, you still have to be able to put out a respectable amount of damage in a short period of time to hurt them enough to win the fight.

Since GM's resist regen debuffs by 85%, you're really only debuffing their regen by 75% instead of the 500% Lingering Rad says it does. If you don't deal good damage that isn't going to be enough to drop it.

They're exactly the same powers. It would be the same thing as making an exact clone of Hibernate and calling it "Freeze Tag". Simply changing the name doesn't make it a different power.

I don't think Tenebrous Tentacles will make it into Blaster Dark Blast, because it will open the door for a lot of complaints about powers that were changed or removed from sets in the past because of the exact same kind of conflict.

Oppressive Gloom is in Soul Mastery as well. We'll still be getting the ability to stack it with Dark Pit, just not within the same set. And there is no confusion about it being a different name either, Oppressive Gloom is called Oppressive Gloom in Soul Mastery too.

Just because that's all they told us about on the first day they mentioned it, doesn't mean that is ALL that is being done.

As far as I'm aware, Blaster Dark Blast hasn't even hit beta yet, and I highly doubt the devs are going to tell us exactly how the set is going to be set up before it's even beta tested.

For example: Since I was in Going Rogue closed beta, I happen to know that Electric Control originally had a combination stun/damage aura that was later deemed to be too powerful and removed. Can you imagine the outcry if they had said to the players as a whole "Electric Control will definitely have a stun/damage aura" prior to having decided that it was too powerful to be left in the set, and then the set went live without the power they promised would be there?

That's why the devs NEVER tell us that something is 100% sure to happen with a power set when they first announce it. I am quite sure Dark Blast for Blasters will be tweaked several times before it goes live, so I'm not taking what they've told us about it so far as gospel truth.