Draeth Darkstar

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
    My admittedly petulant urge is to just get rid of the pool altogether. Most of the people who take it do so solely to min/max, with no regard to character concept but solely to get those last few percentage points to make them uber, and I despise that playstyle.
    Wow, holier-than-thou-art much? What right do you have to judge people for enjoying the numbers behind the game versus playing the game however you enjoy it?
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dink View Post
    It's instead of.
    Please do something to make this an option, not a forced costume change. This will ruin every costume I use Celestial on currently.

    Changing parts out from under us instead of making them new options has a long history of being very unpopular with the playerbase. For every person that asked for this to change there was at least one that liked it the way it was (Hi!).
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dink View Post
    Fixed the Celestial Armor discoloration, will be in next update ^_^
    That looks excellent, but it is in addition to the current look, not instead of, right?
  4. Draeth Darkstar

    Stealth Question

    Mid's Hero Designer is also an excellent resource for power data, and is somewhat more user-friendly than City of Data, in my opinion.
  5. Draeth Darkstar

    My 4th slot

    Because of the way the hit chance formula is written, if you have a lot of accuracy bonus, but not much, if any, to-hit bonus (this is the great majority of characters), to-hit is going to be a lot more valuable in increasing your actual hit chance. Conversely, if you have a lot of to-hit, but little accuracy (rare, Hopeling's example of a Super Strength user stacking Rage is one of the most prevalent of these, Time Manipulators using Farsight are another), the accuracy is probably worth more to you.

    For more information, read this: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Combat_mechanics.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven View Post
    ...

    He doesn't have a long sig.

    O.o ??
    This?
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talesin View Post
    Perhaps I am not understanding your other point. Are you saying that the majority of sets in the game are in a pack together (toward the high end) and that there are only a few sets which are far below the others? Are you saying that you feel that the majority of sets are in balance with one another?
    Precisely.
  8. VEATs, and to a lesser extent, HEATs, are already tankmages. Many Corruptor/Defender/Controller/Dominator combos can be built to do it, too, and even some Blasters can aspire to such heights with truly outrageous builds.

    I don't see why we couldn't just accept a ranged/armor AT at face value at this point.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    It's almost never Super Speed, too, because the slow running animation just looks goofy with the high movement speed, but Prestige Power Surge fixes that almost entirely. Woah... Sidetrack!
    This is something of a tangent, but, the animation cycles faster with higher movement speed bonus, such as from Super Speed, doesn't it?

    Quote:
    Remember the Mass Effect 2 final level? At one point...
    WHOA! Spoiler warning, man.
  10. I24 saved the entire Blaster archetype for me. Between making all of the Blaster secondaries a bit more comparable to /MM and the huge slew of changes to Blast sets, I might have a reason to play one over a Corruptor now.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MisterD View Post
    I think you are missing the point Drae.
    The OP isnt (at least I think) complaining about ANY specific sets, be it melee, blaster etc etc. They are talknig about HOW sets get compared. Such as in Claw's "Tweak SS' thread, were a few people dived in with huge examples of how SS, at max performance, is not 'that' amazing. Which as I said there..is really pointless, since how often do we play at max everything?

    That is how I read the OP anyway..saying that comparing a set to another at max settings is just not really helping. There is always going to be outlier sets, but if one set, at 'base line' performance is X amount better than another at base, we can compare that.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talesin View Post
    Bingo. This was the point of my post.
    Golly, I guess I must have missed the point. Oh wait, no I didn't.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar View Post
    The only powerset groups in the game that have any truly dramatic overperformers are the Blast and Melee sets, which have Fire, and Titan Weapons/Super Strength respectively. Every powerset group has outliers that underperform, in some cases severely dramatically, which is why you tend to see people compare to the high end: the overperforming outliers in most cases are less obvious and less extreme.
    When the high end sets are closer to the pack (by a huge margin, in most cases) than the low end sets, no one wants to compare to the low end sets, because from a mechanical standpoint, that just leads you to comparing to something that's so mechanically inferior that you'd only play it for concept anyway, which isn't particularly relevant to a discussion of comparative power in the first place.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talesin View Post
    Then again, the examples were not the point of my post at all.
    Which is what the end of my previous post was written to respond to; I simply happen to take particular offense to misrepresentation of the Mastermind archetype, as it's my favorite and has a nasty tendency to get shortchanged.

    Quote:
    There are problems in support sets (see the other post in this sub-forum)...
    The support sets do not have serious outliers. They have two very widely segregated groups: great sets and sets you only pick for concept.
    Quote:
    ...blast sets, melee sets...
    Addressed previously. Yes, Fire Blast is head-and-shoulders above the other Blast sets (unlikely to be nerfed since it's still worse than most melee DPS), and yes, Titan Weapons and Super Strength have a bit of a quantifiable lead on the other melee sets, which is also unlikely to change, because there's no good downward mark to aim for, as the melee sets don't have a good average, they're more of a stack from bad to good, and the Devs have been slowly improving the bad ones.
    Quote:
    ...armor sets...
    Exactly what armor sets do you have a problem with? The only three that stand out in my mind are Stone, which has largely lost its niche as "unnecessarily durable at a cost" since every armor set is now unnecessarily durable, Regen, which takes more player finesse to get similar performance out of than the other sets, and Super Reflexes, which just lacks utility.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talesin View Post
    I know there is a way, I apologized above for not knowing how.

    I agree that the mitigation from kin is less than that of other sets, but it is not nothing. In fact most debuff sets suffer greatly in this game due to the scaling of powers based on the level of the enemy. The same can be said of Dark Miasma, Poison, and dare I say it, Rad. If you fight +3, +4, or +5 mobs then most of what you do with debuffs is ruined by the scaling.
    Any cry of "Overpowered!" in the name of a support set being better than Dark or Rad is... basically insane. Both of those sets are at least as good as Kinetics, and they're both significantly more versatile.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talesin View Post
    I am not sure I made my intentions clear with my OP. My intent was to try to discourage the kind of comparisons people make. Its like this, when people compare powersets using the "uber" ones as the model, the ones they compare to invariably look crappy in comparison. Rather if you look to the middle (the average) you may be able to get a little better perspective on the relative value of all the sets. It might help us to recognize powersets that both deviate above the mean and those below. To be very specific with an example, if bots are considered extremely powerful and thugs are more towards the average (not bad by any stretch, just not as powerful) , then why should we compare using bots? Doing so only makes us think that mercs is worse.
    Did you actually read that post?

    Masterminds really don't have any "uber" sets, in global balance sense. They have 3 primaries that can achieve some of the ridiculousness that the true outliers in the game have, but even the most ridiculous Mastermind combos are weaker than the top-end melee, control, and corruptor/defender combos, and they're certainly weaker than the true gamebreakers like Ill/Cold, Dechs' Triform Shade, and THB's Arch/Mental.

    And again, you're misrepresenting where these sets lie. If anything, the Mastermind sets look something like Demons=Thugs>Bots>Necromancy>Ninjas>Beast>Mercs.

    The only powerset groups in the game that have any truly dramatic overperformers are the Blast and Melee sets, which have Fire, and Titan Weapons/Super Strength respectively. Every powerset group has outliers that underperform, in some cases severely dramatically, which is why you tend to see people compare to the high end: the overperforming outliers in most cases are less obvious and less extreme. Mercenaries, as a set, since you like this example so much, is unbelievably bad compared to the rest of the Mastermind primaries. Truly. Outrageously. Terrible. It is, in fact, one of the worst powersets in the entire game.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Talesin View Post
    Is Beast Mastery really so bad? When you compare them to Bots maybe, but when you look at them compared to Mercs or Ninjas they aren't so bad.
    Bots, Thugs, and Demons are relatively balanced with one another. They have feasible pros and cons and are fun and effective to play. By Median, these are the average performers, and they're also the most comparable to the performance of the other ATs, which makes them the best balancing point for Mastermind primaries.

    Necromancy has a bit less raw power than those three, but is still pretty effective without excessive micromanaging and has a strong niche in debuffing tohit when fighting single targets.

    Ninjas have some problems. They have stellar ST DPS, but their AoE is lacking, bad AI makes them struggle a lot more than the above sets more frequently, their Tier7 is inefficient, and they're really hellaciously squishy. They can be used effectively with intense micromanagement.

    Mercenaries and Beast Mastery are your real outliers. Both of these sets have significant design problems that really hold back their capabilities. I'd really rather not get into the whys in this thread, because it's been done to death in various other threads, so if you're really curious, go look in the Mastermind forums.

    To the OP: Cold Domination has better top-end debuffs than Radiation, and Poison can hit higher on single targets as well, so that's a bad example. Super Strength no longer has the best DPS even with stacked rage, so, again, bad choice, and... Kinetics is pretty much the only Support set that significantly contributes damage output other than Storm, which is much, much harder to quantify than %damage buffs, so... I'm not sure where you were going with that one.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
    "It's 4:30 and this is due at 5:00"

    defeat all clockwork in the warehouse

    <copy/paste>

    defeat all clockwork in the warehouse

    <copy/paste>

    defeat all clockwork in the warehouse

    "cool, I'm done"

    "You can't turn this in, it's got too many warehouses"

    "Oh, okay"

    <hastily scribbles out warehouse, adds 'station' in the middle two>

    "Perfect!"
    That's Synapse, silly.

    Citadel is the one that's full of nazis.
  17. Solution: Make your petless mastermind. Solo to 15 or whatever level it is dual builds unlock. Make an alternate build that's actually useful (read: has pets and upgrades) for teaming. Solo with your gimped build on +0x1, switch to alternate build if you feel like involving yourself with other players.
  18. Re: The "Medicine Pool as Justification for Useless Prerequisites" tangent:

    Medicine
    • Stimulant is changed to Injection, is no longer interruptable and can be used on both allies and foes. When used on an ally this has its normal effect. When used on a foe it debuffs their Recharge, Damage and To Hit.
    • Field Medic added as Fifth Power, a click power that improves the effectiveness of your heals and decreases your resistance to healing (so that heals done to you are more effective). In addition if you own Field Medic Aid Other and Aid Self get a bonus:
      • Aid Other is uninterruptible
      • Aid Self gives an Endurance Over Time effect
    Courtesy ParagonWiki.

    Useless pool power prerequisites have been addressed in every pool except for Fighting in Issue 24.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
    Still that doesn't change the OP's reason for suggesting this which is to take the defensive powers of the pool without taking an attack. And you, me and the 800lbs gorilla in the room know damn well the reason for that is just for IO set bonuses.
    Actually, if all I cared about were IO bonuses, this thread wouldn't exist. Most characters can benefit an awful lot from a 4-slot Kinetic Combat mule (read: Boxing or Kick). This thread was started because I don't like feeling forced into taking powers that I will never, ever use to get to powers that I use 100% of the time: Tough and Weave; and no, not for IO set bonuses, though that is a perk, for the base functionality of the powers: making the character more durable.

    Please take your horrifically condescending, know-it-all attitude somewhere else, now. Thank you.
  20. I'm really surprised that people are planning not to slot the recovery bonus because it's large. I was thinking that because it's large, I would heavily slot it, then maybe drop Consume and leave Stamina at 1 perf. shifter proc.
  21. In Issue 24, Blazing Aura becomes Cauterizing Aura. In addition to it's current damage pulsing effect, it loses its endurance cost, gains a heal per pulse, and a 50% Recovery buff (double Stamina, for reference). I haven't gotten to test it on the Beta server to see how significant the heal is, but I'm trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to slot for all this.

    My current thought is:

    +5 Armageddon (Accuracy/Damage/Recharge)
    +5 Armageddon (Damage)
    2x +5 Heal IO
    2x +5 EndMod IO

    This slotting would give:
    33.30% Accuracy
    94.69% Damage (127.18% with Musculature Core)
    95.90% Heal
    95.90% EndMod
    +4% Recovery (Set)

    This is about the only way I can think of to frankenslot this power for all these effects and have it be fully functional. The downsides are that this uses 6 slots and 30 Enhancement Boosters, 2 pieces of a purple set, and has crap for set bonuses.

    Anybody have any better ideas?

    Edit: Apparently the heal with ED slotting is around 18 hp/s, or around 1.5% hp/s for Blaster base HP at 50.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe View Post
    .......OR maybe it's the standard weekly maintenance like the popup said when they brought the servers down and someone got the time wrong in the announcement.

    Just sayin'.
    Isn't the standard weekly maintenance... Thursday morning?
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    In general, I don't think prereqs are all that bad design-wise. In the fighting pool's case, it might be a special case that warrants review for that reason alone. Even if its not players' first choice, the prereqs in power pools should at least be things most players don't already have tons of.
    If you would be willing to directly express that opinion to Synapse, I think you may have a better chance of convincing him to reevaluate the current setup than anyone else has had.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Siolfir View Post
    I'd like to see it - I'm one of those that doesn't even bother putting Boxing in the tray, and only rarely put slots in to use it as a set mule. I'd rather see a different utility power option instead of just moving Tough down a tier, though, and if they were swapped you'd still need to take one of the attacks to get Weave since you need two powers from the pool to get it.
    As I stated in the OP, I24 is changing pool prerequisites to worklike APP/PPPs according to the coffee talks. That means the first two powers are available at 4, taking one power opens up the next two, and taking two powers opens up the fifth one.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I want to comment on the notion that taking powers is a "cost." This is just backwards design. Levelling up is a MAJOR part of the MMO reward system. It's when we get new stuff, grow more powerful and are, above all else, the most excited. New power picks should be things we WANT. To make taking a new power a cost is to take the fun out of training up, and THAT can take the fun out of playing altogether. I've burned out on this game many times, and every time it's been just after levelling up and taking something which fails to impress me. Maybe I lost patience for 32 and the T9 primary power, or maybe I got to a place where the next could of levels of slots aren't that important, but the point of it is that without the "morale boost" of levelling up, the game grows stale, and fast.
    This is about half of the basic logic behind why I feel this should happen.

    The other half is that, according to the new design paradigm, the pool powers are supposed to each be useful and stand on their own merits. If that's the case, then there should be no need to be forced to choose between two powers that do essentially the same thing in Tier 1 of Fighting. If someone wants the pool for the extra attack chain, they could Take Boxing/Kick, then the other, then Cross-Cut even if Boxing or Kick is switched with Tough, and people who don't want or need the extra attacks but want more durability can get exactly what the new goal of pool power sets is: powers that are useful to them.