Diellan_

I just checked and everything after Triage Beacon isn't loading. Bah.

Yeah, that was a brain fart. My point still stands, though: it's not the Defender numbers happen to be the same as Controller Freezing Rain; Defender Sleet summons Pets_Sleet_Defender, the same one that Controllers summon. Corruptors summon Pets_Sleet. But Pets_Sleet_Defender and Pets_Sleet are virtually identical. So either it was bugged and the Devs meant to give Controllers the Corruptor summon and to buff the Defender one, or they're satisfied with it as it is (in which case, that's an advantage towards Storm).

Frankly, we've let this argument go a bit too far for this thread, I think. We're not really touching either of these sets: you'll notice it had only one item on our list, and that had to do with Thunderclap being terrible. Cold Domination, likewise, had a single line about Infrigidate. As far as Garent and I are concerned, both sets are basically fine (fine enough for the purposes of this experiment, anyway).

The only real issue is whether or not other sets deserve to be able to compete with them (see Trick Arrow's debuff potential compared to theirs).

I think we'd have to ask the Devs that. There's the issue of how close people need to be to be affected (that's the 30 feet), and how far you're allowed to teleport (that's the 225?)... Not sure where the 25 is coming from, except that it's in our sheets which means it's in the game data.

The problem is the issue of things that aren't available in game yet and maybe not even announced, but their code is. Every now and then things get snuck in that aren't there and maybe the devs don't want to let the cat out of the bag (Vet Rewards, for example, are sometimes snuck into the game code and so they show up in Mids before they're announced).

Mids and City of Data get their data from the same set of Excel spreadsheets that we've got kicking around (this is actually why updating it wound up falling on me - I work with these sheets a lot as it is). Theoretically, this means that their data should be the same. In practice, we purposefully obscure non-player data a bit so that Black Pebble doesn't try and convince the Devs to block us off (I've been told directly from the Devs that they use Mids far too much to kill us off, so long as maintain discretion and don't go waving around our sources). City of Data obscures it by restricting what is visible in the dropdown menus (Zombie Man knows how to work around that), and Mids does it by restricting what it imports when I feed it the spreadsheets.

Then there's the fact that CoD has a very generic interface it uses to show all powersets and powers, something that Mids currently lacks. I really want to add a full-on Power Browser that supports linking to pets and other powers, like CoD does, but that's lower on my list than Exemp and PvP DR support (and just slightly above Mono support).

This is basically it.

Luckily, that doesn't have to remain the case... CoD is updated as of today to 2010.201105250125.1.0 (I still need to update the text that says what version it is :P).

I'm not saying the Defense isn't useful; I am saying that you have to factor in that it doesn't provide any solo mitigation.

It's tough to say, because the pseudo-pet being summoned for Cold Domination on Controllers is called Pets_Sleet_Defender (as opposed to Pets_Sleet, which is being called by Corruptors). This is probably a mistake/bug, but it implies that when Cold gets ported to Defenders, they'll get the existing Controller version.

You yourself in this very thread estimated that LS and Tornado, double-stacked, would provide the equivalent of -90% Regen. Benumb is -500%, which would be resisted to -75% against a level 50 AV (smaller at higher levels), and has a base uptime of only 25% (and the effects don't stack, so if you have the recharge to make it perma, it won't get any better than -75%). And applying -Res increases the amount that LS and Tornado can provide.

It's certainly a lot more work keeping up all the debuffs and damage sources on Storm, and to truly leverage it to its fullest potential, you need some kind of Immob/-KB source (Electric Fence from the Electric Mastery is a good fallback, since it is a moderately good DPA power in its own right). Cold wins there, hands down.

As I said, I'm not trying to diminish Cold here. This isn't a zero-sum game and it is possible for multiple sets to be powerful without hurting each other. I personally feel Storm is stronger than Cold, but I am willing to admit that it is due to my playstyle and the playstyle of the people that I play with regularly in my SG.

For one, Poison has Weaken, which does the same thing as Benumb.

For two, you could actually ask why I think the way I do instead of simply writing me for having an alternate opinion. You didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway:

I'm thinking about the sets on a much more global level, in all situations, with the current metagame in mind. Solo, the shields and Frostwork have no usage whatsoever (unless you get a pet from your epics or decide to buff your Lore pets or something), while Hurricane provides fantastic damage mitigation that includes yourself. Freezing Rain actually has a greater -Res than Sleet (-35% vs -30%). Heat Loss, while amazing, only applies the debuff portion for 30 seconds (compared to the buff portion, which is 90 seconds), giving it a horrible up time (8.33% unslotted). Meanwhile, Lightning Storm does amazing damage, and you can have 3 of them out with effort, and Tornado can provide fantastic damage and mitigation on top of it (I've watched Garent solo AVs with his Storm Defender, back before it was ridiculously easy to cap your own defense with set bonuses). Benumb is great and unique, and Infrigidate has some great debuffing, but they're both single target only, rendering them pointless for most of the game. On top of that, Infrigidate's usefulness is hampered by the fact that it exists in the same set as Sleet, which provides as much -Defense without any of the worry about missing with the power.

I'll give you the bit about Cold being easier to utilize than Storm. Hurricane is a magnificent power, but few people know how to "tap" foes with it for the ToHit debuff without scattering them.

I personally feel Storm is a more powerful set, but that doesn't mean I think Cold is weak, because I don't. I really don't.

Thank you for being constructive and helpful at the analysis. Or ignoring the part where he said he was not including knockdown/knockback effects because of their difficulty in quantifying just how useful they are (especially since teaming with most controllers can completely negate it).

You'll also notice he didn't really count -defense anywhere. This is because, except for the case of tier 9 AVs and Paragon Protectors, there are very few cases where -Defense makes a difference in the late game. Most players are slotted to between 40 and 70% accuracy in all their attacks, usually have some amount of accuracy in their set bonuses, and can get +ToHit from a variety of places as well. As a result of the fact that the chance to hit cap is so low and so easy to hit, he didn't bother factoring in -Defense into his analysis.

The other thing that Oil Slick Arrow brings is damage, and he didn't include that either (see the lack of Lightning Storm).

I would basically have to, given the recharge of the power.

It makes about as much sense as Tar Patch causing -Resistance. More, in my mind, in that Repulsion Bomb is a large burst of energy that could mess with the targets' defenses in a similar manner to Sonic attacks.

A lot of the villain specific sets were made with the specific villain AT in mind (see Electric Armor, whose Energy Resist is specifically such that Brutes can only just reach their cap, and now that it is proliferated to other ATs, they all wind up with far too much energy resist).

Cold, by the way, I don't consider nearly as powerful as Storm, Rad, or Dark (the latter two of which were available to Corruptors from the beginning).

You mean a corset exactly like this? Agreed.

But corsets, in general, seem to be the general fallback that the Devs make whenever they decide to make a female specific piece (see witch outfit, wedding outfit).

In specific: Long coats for women? They're a staple part of the genre (that's why men got them), people were clamoring for them ever since the Magic Pack mysteriously denied it, and this was a perfect opportunity to add it.

I was expecting "Victorian Steampunk" to be, well, more Victorian than it is. It could've been more like Soulless (technically more a gaslamp fantasy than steampunk, but the point is the same). I don't understand why the Victorian Steampunk and Classic Steampunk jackets on women are the same except for a few textures.

I looked over at http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=258072 about Poison, and they seem to be making a list of all possible ideas, even to the point of buffing powers that are already decent enough (Elixir of Life and Antidote, which are both as good as equivalent powers - Antidote is actually one of the better st mez protection powers in the game). They have some good ideas we can use, as well as some that we can't because of our rules.

Agreed. The TA suggestions are great... This is exactly what we were hoping for.

I don't really understand what you mean by "thematic", Miladys Knight. I don't think that Trick Arrow's theme is "too long of a recharge".

I was loathe to touch Kinetics and Rad, because they're already such strong performers that entire FotMs and SuperTeams are built around them. I didn't think it was pragmatic to put them on the list... I originally didn't have Storm or Dark, either, for similar reasons, but they got put in for completeness' sake. We should add in Kin and Rad as well, just to have a complete list.

That's an interesting idea, and one I like.



Also an interesting alternate solution. I've always liked the idea of applying -Enhancement(Endurance Reduction) effects as an alternative/supplement to endurance draining (I think ArcanaVille came up with it first, way back when). My only issue with it is that it takes a long time to have a noticeable impact, and part of the problem Trick Arrow has is that it moves slowly to layer its debuffs.


While I personally think that's a good idea, it might be considered too much a control power. Leaving it similar to Poison Gas Trap is probably for the best.

I can't believe I forgot about the radius on this power. It really is horrid, and a huge hit against the set.

We're talking about the self -recovery, not the endurance drain on the target. And we won't get this power's recharge dropped, not when control aoe holds are 180 seconds.

Hm...

I explicitly said non-stackable. It'd never be more than 20% -Resist.

Also, because of the pseudopet thing, Dark can and regularly does stack its -Resist. Tar Patch lasts for 45 seconds and has a recharge of 90 seconds; my D3 regularly has two of them out at once

It might've been the original paradigm, yeah, but that was six years ago and experience has shown that the original paradigm (if that's what it was) didn't work out so well.

Even with the changes, it won't be as good a debuffer as Cold or Dark or Rad or Storm. It's got better buffs, so it makes up. I am willing to hear other suggestions, though... This is meant to be the starting point for discussion, not the end.

Even if it doesn't stack? -20% isn't a huge amount. My reason for something besides -ToHit and -Damage is that these are defensive debuffs and Forcefield already has the defense side of things down pat; when it comes to helping the team offensively it has very little to provide (Repulsion Bomb is really it).

I agree with you; controllers have suh great control because they get powers with higher durations and more damage with lower recharge than those available to other ATs. But some people will make the argument regardless and I'd like to avoid it (I am sure Black Scorpion does to).

I hadn't seen this thread. I'll read it over and see if it matches our goals.