Devian

I checked the market today, looking only at 33s and 32s. The 33s are always more expensive, often times twice as much as the 32s.

[ QUOTE ]
There's a "known shortage" of IO's under level 50 these days.

Most IO's are generated at level (50 or set max) as mentioned. There's a lot of levels which used to get regular supply [e.g. level 33 heroside, 39 or 40 or 41 v-side] that aren't getting any supply any more.

So in THEORY supply is down, demand is still there. I have done level 30 rolling and gotten paid reasonably well for my pains. But I would advise you to do your own research in this case. I might say "roll at 33" but that's about as useful as someone saying "bet on black."

[/ QUOTE ]

Question: Wouldn't 33 or 32 be better for the purpose of exemplaring? Or is that more intended for people swapping into IOs straight at level 27? I have a pair of Plant/Rad and Fire/MM that I'm going park at level 32 and run posi duos every now and then. Trying to decide whether I should leave one of them at 30 instead.

End of April, I believe.

[ QUOTE ]
We're also working ahead on things for post I14 launch (booster packs, anniversary event, etc)

[/ QUOTE ]


BaB confirms it: I14 will be out before the next anniversary event!

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, it means you can SKIP taking the first or second power in the Travel Power Pools and, at level 6, pick the travel power immediately. No pre-requisites.

[/ QUOTE ]

When are we doing that for Fitness?

(*ducks*)

<QR>

Question: Can I take, say, Whirlwind at level 6 as well?

It'd be silly to do so, but I want to know if that's possible.

<QR>

Anyone knows how a damage proc behaves in Electrical Melee/Chain Induction?

Not sure if this counts as an FAQ, but here it is:

What mez protection does each VEAT branch get? I'm looking for a one-stop answer in the form of:

AT/Branch -
Mag X against effect A/B/C/D via power P
Mag Y against effect E/F via power Q

etc.

Thank you in advance!

[ QUOTE ]
Back in Issue 5 I used to joke about a fire scrapper.

I am SO THERE.

[/ QUOTE ]

I remember this thread about bread scrappers. It was hilarious.

Yummy Toast!

[ QUOTE ]
fine, then let them balance these attacks for the assumption that you should be using them like a true aoe. The end costs will more than double and so will the recharge times.

There's your balance, happy now?

or, and i realize this is a stretch, people can shut the hell up about it and treat it like the bonus it is instead of asking for something that you really will regret getting.

the devs have stated repeatedly that the type of skill they like to reward is that of actually playing and smart use of powers, not of building the character. Statesman said he doesn't like the effects and boring nature of powerleveling, but not necessarily the way we do it.

putting a system like this in place does encourage us to pack people into the cone. why? because it places us at greater risk to leave those mobs alive as we position them. And if you're willing to take the risk, you get rewarded with more damage that you don't have to pay for in terms of end and recharge, but skill and risk.

there's nothing wrong with it other than people want it to be easier to use the cone and get the reward.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFE

I see what you mean. I totally ignored that issue.

[ QUOTE ]
i don't know what they did for ripper and evis actually. they seem to be balanced as half a cone really. that's the closest the numbers get anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's about right. Ripper has a base damage just slightly higher than Hack (1.70 vs 1.64), while its recharge and endurance usage are 1.375x and 1.293x, respectively. In other words, it is balanced for 1.324 and 1.247 targets. Eviscerate as it is currently has a slight discount when compared to Ripper.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
PBAoEs are actually balanced for 3.5 targets in term of recharge and 2.5 targets in term of endurance usage. MA->Dragon Tail and Claws->Spin (pre-I7) both confirm this, and if we consider the lethal DoT component on the swords' as bonus, they match the pattern as well. The only odd man here is Spines->Spine Burst, and I have no explanation for that.

[/ QUOTE ]

no, it's 2.5 for end and 2.6 for recharge.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not counting Spine Burst and all the DM ones, all scrapper PBAoEs are damage scale 1 (again ignoring the lethal DoT of the swords') the same as Slash. They recharge in 14 seconds. Compared to Slash's 4 seconds, that's 3.5 times as long.

[ QUOTE ]
Personally, I have an easier time hitting multiple targets with Headsplitter than I do with Shadow Maul -- part due to the fact I play Broadsword for almost two years now, but also part due to Headsplitter's cone being a slight "line" as opposed to Shadow Mauls width. If targets are standing behind eachother, it's extremely simple to hit the one in the back while hitting the one in the front too (Headsplitter allows a 'larger' distance between both targets than SM does).

Still, I think Headsplitter's cone is just the cherry on top of an already awesome power. Even without any form of cone, Headsplitter would be a most brutal attack. I would not consider Shadow Maul without its cone as such. Shadow Maul's animation can feel so tediously long, that *not* hitting more than one target is almost not worth it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I love Headsplitter and Golden Dragonfly. I have over a year worth of experience with them and it takes me no time to line up the cone - no time as in stalker-placates-me-while-I'm-fighting-a-brute-and-I-turn-around-and-hit-him-through-the-brute =P

I usually use the closest enemy as my target/pivot point though, since the cone is narrower at the bottom.

Also noteworthy is that the damage/end/recharge of both HS and GD are balanced assuming they're only going to hit 1 target all the time, as mentioned by SF.

Shadow Maul on the other hand actually has a discount in terms of both recharge and endurance usage (also mentioned by SF), which are equal to BS->Hack. Granted, the animation is a bit long, although it isn't really much longer than Headsplitter. As we know, the animation time was not considered for balance at the very beginning of the game, hence we saw the tweaks to Katana, MA, and Claws.

Looking at Spines though, however, we see that Ripper is actually balanced a cone attack. Why is that? Because if you look at Spines attacks, the toxic DoT component is considered bonus. Lunge has a damage scale of 1 and a recharge of 4 seconds, in line with BS->Slash. Same situation when we look at Impale vs. BS->Hack. The current incarnation of Claws->Eviscerate is also balanced as a cone, but as we know it is getting a huge discount in I7.

PBAoEs are actually balanced for 3.5 targets in term of recharge and 2.5 targets in term of endurance usage. MA->Dragon Tail and Claws->Spin (pre-I7) both confirm this, and if we consider the lethal DoT component on the swords' as bonus, they match the pattern as well. The only odd man here is Spines->Spine Burst, and I have no explanation for that.

PS. I miss being able to chop a whole row of Nemesis robots in PI >.>

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
HO's increasing Range was a bug.

The cone sizes for the melee powers is part of the Recharge/Damage/Endurance calculation. Increasing Cone sizes means reducing Damage & increasing End costs or increasing Recharge time to compensate.

In general, though, this probably will not happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have an idea. Since if you raise the number on one aspect, you have to lower the numbers on another, let's get creative with where we lower things.

Melee cones effect a max of 5 targets. Lower that to 4, and you've cut the power by 20%. Nerf! But we'll be ok.

Now raise the size the the cone that those 4 possible targets could be in by 20% of a circle.. or 72 degrees. Viola, problem solved. Heck, even half that would be fantastic.

[/ QUOTE ]

The thing is that the cones as they are currently are not balanced for the maximum amount of targets they can hit. It seems to me that by looking at the endurance and recharge of these powers, they are balanced to hit 1.5 foes in average.

It's probably tied to the base end cost, so enhancements will have no effect on it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Scrappers out damage blasters in melee. Blasters AT mod is 1, while scrappers is 1.125. Scrappers also get unresistable criticals of 2x damage 5% of the time, which can be compared to Blasters 33% unresistable damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

I question this assertion.

While scrappers base melee damage may be higher, blasters' attacks have higher BIs, are less resisted, and often seem to have quicker animations. The scrapper critical basically amounts to 5% unresistable damage, which does not compare favorably with blasters' 33% unresistable damage.

In answer to the OP: yes, I would feel better if scrappers were clearly superior to blasters in melee. From a purely balance perspective, blasters should never have an advantage, no matter how short term, over a scrapper, tanker, or brute, in melee range.

(Note that this isn't the same as saying that they shouldn't be able to defeat a scrapper, tanker, or brute.)

Now, if blaster melee damage gets toned down, I would definitely favor buffing them in some other area to compensate -- perhaps a 15% boost to range damage, combined with an increased likelihood of the status effect being applied with their melee attacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I also question Castle's claim that blasters do not outdamage scrappers in melee. Besides the fact that blaster melee attacks generally have a shorter animation time and a non-S/L component, being in melee does not preclude a blaster from using his ranged attacks, which in combination with the available melee attacks actually give the blaster a better selection of high-damage attacks.

Scrappers attacks do 1.125 (BI) * 1.05 (incl crits) = 118.125% of blaster attacks of equal BI, with 1.125 (BI) * .05 (crits) = 5.625% of said damage being unresistible.

Pretty much all scrapper attacks with > 6 SBI or 7 BBI (scrapper BI and blaster BI, respectively) take at least 2 seconds to animate. The Katana attacks are around 2.3-2.4, while the rest (Shadow Maul, Ripper, Eagle's Claw, and the BS attacks) are much closer to 3 seconds. Compare these to the sub-2-second activation time most blaster melee attacks have. Both Bonesmasher and Havoc Punch (7.22 BBI) do damage comparable to Golden Dragonfly, Eagle's Claw (6.33 * 1.18125 = 7.48 BBI)

I'm aware that the blaster extreme-damage attacks (Total Focus & Thunder Strike) have ~3-second activation times, but they also have higher BBI than even Headsplitter (7.33 * 1.18125 = 8.66 BBI).

Here here!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


EC doesn't stack with other stealth powers, so removing it from the stalker set was presumably less of a balance issue and more about not wanting a completely worthless power in the stalker set.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think it was more of a "removing repulse from the brute set was less of a balance issue and more about not wanting a completely useless power in the brute set".

Stalker EA predates Brute EA. and Havind Hide and another stealth power in a stalker secondary would be absolutely huge for stalkers. no more dipping into concealment for stealth to stack for pvp. EA would be FOTM.

[/ QUOTE ]

I personally would still pick Nin for the untyped defense, heal and resistance to fear. But that's besides the point.

Didn't Castle just comfirm that stalker /DA will retain Cloak of Darkness?

Everyone go take and slot Smoke Grenade!

Come to think of it, whoever said SG worked better against LTs/bosses was wrong.

[ QUOTE ]
Why? What problem are you trying to solve? What imbalance?

[/ QUOTE ]

I feel bad for not being clear with what I was after.

I am in no position to say whether Uny's debuff makes sense in the scope of all scrapper/tanker sets.

What I'm trying to achieve is to make Unyielding's defense debuff:

1. Have the proper 4:3 scaling between tanks and scrappers.

2. Have less of a penalty on lower level players.

Let's say it is decided that a tank with fully SO'ed out Unyielding should get a 4.8% defense debuff. Then for a scrapper it would be 3.6%.

When a tank first gets the power and only slots it with endRdx, the debuff would be 3%. For the scrapper it would be 2.25%.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Actually you just made me more confused...??

You say it affects targeted based powers but not summoned entities. But then you say it affects Burn????

Since when did Burn become a targeted based power?

[/ QUOTE ]

It always has been. It's just that the target was always at your feet.

[/ QUOTE ]

The same can be said for Trip Mine, but geko listed it as one of those not receiving this buff.

My understanding of targeted locational power: You activate the power, a target appears and allows you to decide where to place the power. That includes all the rain-type powers, Caltrops, Oil Slick, etc.

Interestingly, Tar Patch belongs in this category too. Imagine firing PB (actually PBU) then laying a patch.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

To me the social aspect is no more a part of the game


[/ QUOTE ]

The social aspect is an integral part of the game, it's part of the immersions of being a super hero and teaming with other super heroes.


[/ QUOTE ]

It also significantly reduces my damage mitigation and offensive output at times, which others can attest to. I factor it out of my calculations because its a constant factor for all ATs, and because I'm embarrassed to tell you how high that constant factor can be on some days.

Maybe typing in the chat window should grant a +35% defense bonus and +60% resistance bonus while you are typing, because in the comic books, heroes almost never gets hit in the middle of a snappy comeback.

Of course, in Korea, hero don't talk.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm all for AS immunity while in chat mode.

On a serious note, maybe Unyielding's defense debuff should be derived directly from the enhanced resistance value.

(reusing this space to reply to the above post)
[ QUOTE ]
They did *lower* the defenses across the board, while decreasing accuracy. Now that they are fixing Defense so that it scales better/correctly, I dodn't see that any defense/accuracy numbers (across the board) need to be revisited.

[/ QUOTE ]
Mobs get a toHit bonus depending on both their rank and level with respect to the player. The rank bonus was changed in I5 and IIRC the explanation was to help out defense (in the strict sense, i.e. not including resistance) based sets. I am curious if they have plans to reversed that change.

My personal opinion is that the current boss and AV difficulty is appropriate and I am not advocating an acc buff to them.

Just to be clear, I am not asking for such acc buff. In fact I am actually looking for a clear denial of such plan from a dev.

[ QUOTE ]
+5 should be at the top level of effectiveness. The calculation they are doing does not actually preclude about +5 per se, but there isn't a reason to really go beyond it either.

[/ QUOTE ]While I don't principally disagree with the idea that +5 should be the highest level we can effectively take on, I believe this limit should be set universally for both defense and resistance.

Then of course we still don't know how exactly it is going to work for +6 and above.

[ QUOTE ]
This is a fairly elegant fix, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]Not disagreeing here. However, there is always room for clarification and improvement.

I would like to raise a couple issues in the light of this new changes made to mob toHit values.

1. Mob toHit bonus values with respect to rank were toned down in the wake of I5. Even level bosses used to have a BTH of 75%, now it is 65%. IIRC this change was made to help out defense sets. Given current I6 BTH values of 50%, 57.5%, 65% and 75% BTH for even level minions, LTs, bosses and AVs, the new accuracy bonuses will be 0%, 15%, 30% and 50%. Are there any plans to bump these bonuses back to 0%, 25%, 50% and 80%, corresponding to I4 BTH values of 50%, 62.5%, 75% and 90%? After all, the buff to SR/Evasion is going to be reversed.

2. Statesman mentioned that this new change is going make defense scale up to +5 levels. Why is this limitation in place, i.e. why only 5 levels? What are the values for +6 and beyond? OTOH, what happens to mobs 1 or 2 levels below?

3. The current Chance-to-Hit (CtH) equation is: <font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>cap{ cap[BTH + sum(toHit) - sum(def)] * (acc) }</pre><hr />...and it will remain as is for I7. Only the BTH and acc values are being changed for mobs. As has been pointed out by others, this proposed change is only going bring defense in parity with resistance in the absense of toHit buffs. While that is the majority of the cases in PvE (notable exceptions: Rularuu eyeballs), the same cannot be said for PvP. Have the devs ever considered making defense multiplicative, such as in the follow CtH equation?<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>cap{ [BTH + sum(toHit)] * cap[1 - (2 * sum(def)] * (acc) }</pre><hr />If the answers is yes but it has been decided that the current CtH equation is preferred, what would be the reasoning behind said decision?

To bring Instant Healing in line with other emergency powers, players will now be unable to regenerate for 15 seconds after IH shuts off.

In addition, Moment of Glory will now feature an Endurance crash at the end of its duration to better inform players of the crash.