Eldagore
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lol, I dont know why rad blast isnt right there with fire really. Some of its animation times are a tad long, but
You get to shoot lasers out of your eyes
the tier 3 is a mag 3 stun
the snipe > all other snipes, and half all other ST blasts put together
the nuke has a hold, so you dont get killz0rd when your endo gets drained
I made a rad/devices recently. I had one or two rad blast defenders back in the day, but defenders arent my thing as much so they arent around anymore. I have a rad/mental blaster that is good fun, and have a rad/ice blaster on my alt server, havent played him in a long time.
Rad/devices, as i see it, will be one of the most fun blasters in my large selection of them if/when fast snipes and crashless nukes come around eventually. The nuke as a crashless pbaoe with a hold? awsome, just follow it with irradiate/bomb. The snipe with fastsnipe mechanics? OMG, thats like ultimate robot pew pew ever. I am leveling mine slowly here and there as i wait for blaster changes to get finalized. At lvl 19 now, it has been all fun so far with little to no enemies resisting the nrg dmg and rediculous acc with target drone and def debuffs means dmg/rech slotting across the board so far. I can't wait for the changes to come about. -
Liquidator from Darkwing Duck. google it or look on Youtube if you dont know who it is. Too bad there is nothing in the game to make a costume to look like that. MIght lean a tad towards control instead of blast, but he chucked or sprayed water plenty of times to count. Boo on you if you cant see the comparisons from the villains of that series to powersets in this game.
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I just want to say-
Please download Mid's Hero designer. It will let you do two things-
1. It will let you see all the AT's and powerset combos and let you read about the powers offline, and it will show you things like range, give you damage numbers so you can compare powers, that kind of thing.
2. It will show you easily how enhancment diversification works. See, you can make that Ice blast character in Mid's, and pick your powers and put slots in them. Then you can actually put the enhancments in the slots(use SO's) and it will show you when you get to "ED Cap" by changing colors. First, it will turn green, showing you are getting close to "ED", then yellow, showing you that you are starting to really get the benefits reduced, then it will turn red, which shows you that adding more enhancments of that type will pretty much get you nothing.
Using that tool just to play around with slots and stuff will catch you up pretty fast on how to pick powers and slot them.
As for changes in the game? Ha, wow. I would agree with others, i would make a new lvl 1 character, and join some teams go go have fun. Or solo some missions using the contacts you get. One thing to mention here- street sweeping for XP left the building like 20 issues ago, missions are the way to go now.
Hope that helps. -
Quote:Your base mechanics could work, however the numbers you give would be a nerf to the set overall while at the same time magnifying the current penalties three fold.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Ok, here's my take on Stone Armor, admittedly coming from someone who doesn't actually like playing melee characters so it's worth exactly what you paid for it
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The core problem is Granite (yeah, I know Captain Obvious but bear with me here). Granite is a Tier 9 Armor power and like a lot of the Tier 9 armor powers it aims to make you nearly invincible but at a strong cost. In most similar powers the cost is limited up-time and a crash at the end. Granite however has permanent up-time but is balanced by decreasing your offense (and mobility but that's less of a concern). Now fundamentally this isn't actually a bad idea, it's an interesting idea compared to other armor sets and helps cement Stone as an extremely tough set.
However the problem is that the actual implementation fails because it renders the rest of the set virtually obsolete. While Granite is active most of the rest of the set can't be used and outside of Granite Stone Armor isn't a particularly great set. It can't seem to decide if it's a resistance set or a defense set which leaves it with rather erratic coverage against different attacks due to the interactions of defense and resistance. This is then compounded by the fact that to achieve full coverage it has to run a total of six toggles (more than any armor set apart from Dark Armor) in a set with no recovery bonuses. Given the choice between six toggles and three most players sensibly opt to just run Granite and only take the other powers as set mules or for use while exemplared.
So how to fix this? I would say that a fix needs to try to do two things. First balance out the performance of the pre-Granite set so that it provides a more balanced set of defenses. Secondly make Granite into a situational power rather than something you always run by default. In other words a Stone Tanker/Brute should feel comfortable using their non-Granite toggles and only turn on Granite if they feel the need to become tougher.
To that end I'd change the set as follows (numbers given are for Tankers):- Normalize Rock Armor, Brimstone Armor and Crystal Armor so that they all provide both typed defense and resistances to S/L, F/C or E/NE as appropriate. I'm not sure on values but I think something like 15% defense and 10% resistance would be about right.
- Remove the Run Speed and Jump Height penalties on Rooted and remove the restriction on having Combat Jumping, Super Speed or Sprint toggled on at the same time. This allows Stone Tankers to at least jump a little bit to get over curbs and deal with in-mission terrain issues and gives them the ability run around in the mission while maintaining the thematic need to remain in reasonable contact with the ground (you can jump a bit and you can run fast but you can't Super Jump or Fly while using Rooted).
- Add a recovery buff somewhere. Possibly a scaling buff in Mud Pots or alternatively a fixed buff in Rooted and Granite (see below for more on Granite).
- Now comes the biggy, Granite. Instead of the old effects it works as follows.
- Granite has no endurance cost and (possibly) applies a recovery buff.
- Having Granite toggled on provides movement speed debuffs pretty much identical to the old ones and also prevents toggling on Super Speed, Super Jump, Fly and Hover (you can keep Sprint and Combat Jumping though).
- While Granite is active Rock Armor, Brimstone Armor and Crystal Armor all have their base effects increased to 20% Defense and 50% resistance but each applies a 20% recharge debuff and 10% damage debuff.
- While Granite is active Minerals has a moderate unenhanceable Psionic resistnace buff added to it (I'm thinking about 40%) but also applies a 20% recharge debuff and 10% damage debuff.
- Taking Granite grants a new Inherent power called Path of the Earth (or something less lame, I suck at names). This is basically Teleport but the target area has to be on the ground and the animation has you drop straight into the ground and then pop up at the target area with suitable burrowing graphics. Technically it should only be usable while Granite is active but given the lack of vertical movement I'd say let it work outside Granite.
The basic goal here is that a Stone Armor character with Granite, Rock Armor, Brimstone Armor and Crystal Armor should have about the same performance as a Stone Tanker currently gets while in Granite form while also having the option to run Minerals and get even tougher. Outside Granite the set now has a pretty decent set of defenses having defense and resistance to pretty much everything. In Granite those defenses become even better but at the cost of recharge and damage, however since the debuffs are moved from Granite to the individual toggles it becomes possible to reduce the debuffs by toggling off powers that aren't necessary against the current enemy group. The HUGE problem I do see here however is that the set has three toggles that need both resistance and defense slotting which may be to much of a crunch on builds. One option would be to make the resistance portion unenhanceable but increase the values so that you get about 10-15% out of Granite and 70% in Granite but I'm not sure if this would be to good. Another option would be to have Brimstone Armor provide E/NE/F/C resistance while Crystal Armor provides E/NE/F/C Defense thereby making Rock armor the only combined Defense and Resistance toggle, the downside being fewer strategic options for in-Granite toggle juggling.
Of course while this technically only violates the Cottage rule for one power (Granite) it would basically mean every single stone armro character has to redo thier build completely so I can't really see the devs going for it.
In any case that's my $0.02.
I would rather just see rooted have the movement penalty removed so I could have a choice between "not as tough but no penalty and really tough but penalty". People here have some interesting ideas that I think could work- in a new powerset- like someone else mentioned. Which in itself would fit with what the devs have done in the recent past with new mechanic type ideas.
*edit- now that i think about it, your concept of an amplifying tier 9 type power would work especially well with a regen or absorb type set rather then a resist/def type. -
I skimmed through most of this thread, it's a lot of the same old arguments. Clearly, as these arguments have been brought up for issue release after issue release, there is an underlying problem, despite elec blast's strongest supporters claims of uber l33tness.
I post this in most of the "fix elec blast" threads.
How to fix it:
There are 2 major offenders, and one minor one in electrical blast when it comes to performance. They are:
Tesla cage and VS as major
Short Circuit as minor
First, Short Circuit- the power is simply too long an animation for the results. I am sure it is penalized mostly for it's endo drain ability, which is OK, but when combined with the mediocrity of the rest of the set, it becomes a problem.
Fix: shorten the animation, but only just a little. Clipping too much time would probably make a new animation needed, and the current one is too cool to replace. Then, front load a big chunk of the dmg, with the remainder given in 2-3 rapid tics.
Secondly, the two major offenders.
-Tesla Cage: this power was probably seen as balanced back in yesteryear when considering it was in a set that could also sap endo. It is not balanced anymore, not within the set nor against other sets with holds. This power should be given damage to make it function like Abyssal gaze. There is no reason not to.
- VS: First- avatar FAIL. Please give VS a new interesting avatar. As for the rest- this guy should work out in theory, but it doesnt in practice. VS should be given a longer duration, even at a higher endo cost if need be. VS should gain more ability- lightning field for one, and i would give it Tesla Cage. Not the new improved damaging tesla cage- but the current one with a lower mag hold, like a mag 1 hold. This does two things: it adds minor aoe dmg to the set and increases VS dmg potential, and secondly it adds some very soft control to the set as random minion holds. Most importantly: IF the player pays attention, they could then use their own Tesla Cage on the same target as VS to increase the mag of the hold. A new non-button mash mechanic/trick up the sleeve for the set.
These things would do wonders for the set. Using the defensive power in the set(Tesla Cage) would not hurt your DPS output(comparitively) and VS would become less annoying and potent enough to actually cover for the loss of the tier 3 blast. -
Quote:This looks a lot like posts I have made in the past on the subject. You and I are on the exact same page on this one, goat. I do think though that they should alter rooted first, and then let players have a go with the set for a while before messing with granite.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
not a ton of Stone experience here, but my brute is 27 and I'm really enjoying him so far.
He may not be high enough for Granite yet, but he's certainly high enough for me to have become thoroughly disenchanted with Rooted. The movement pentalty & inability to jump is a ridiculous price to pay for status protection. It seems to me a relic of a previous regieme's balance ethos- remember when status protection on /inv meant you couldn't move at all? Game balance through player irritation/annoyance is an old philosophy that is happily largely extinct aside from a few remaining exceptions like Rooted.
Another old problem still present in /stone is incompatible toggles.
DA was originally a nightmare of incompatible toggles, which they eventually fixed.
Granite may be all that, but making it incompatible with all your other defensive toggles is an old, bad idea and it should be changed, even if that means reducing its stand-alone efficiency.
(the whole toggle thing HAS to be a Jack Emmert hangup- I remember when his "fun solution" to the 'problem' of Instant Healing was to make Instant Healing incompatible with Integration? *eyeroll*)
I'm having fun with the set and I'll keep playing it regardless, but those two old style design quirks strike me as the place to make whatever changes may come. -
In this thread, there appear to be two camps.
1. Change the mechanics of the set, redistribute defensive values, or add a new one like TP or absorb
2. Remove the movement penalty in rooted, or granite, or both.
So far, in this thread, there are more players interested in just removing the movement penalty, although we are only on page 2. This is of course a very narrow sample size, but, given the choice between a total overhaul and dropping one number value off of one power, which do you think is more appealing to the dev team when considering a set that has been here since launch? -
Martial arts is hella awesome.
Street justice- How to play: First make a character you really dig, a character you see as "I'm gonna go find me some punks, and they are gonna get beat." My iteration of this was a Huge model, but slimmed down a bit but still nice broad shoulders, classic style costume, spandex with some very light pads, belt etc, and the Valkyrie mask. Then I made him Old looking, medium white beard, bald head, trustworthy looking eyes. he ws a retired crime fighter, and came across some punk hellions mugging some poor lady on his way home from the grocery. So he got mad, and beat those punks, beat those punks so they wished they never stepped foot in his neighborhood. So when i play this guy and this set, in that kind of mindset, it is very satisfying to throw that big haymaker at some punk gang banger. Shoulda stayed home, punk.
Elec/shield scrapper is also flashy, powerful, and has a huge array of concepts you could go for. Costume creator for both character and powers is very handy on this one.
Stone smas...I mean stone melee. I concur with the above. Make it with a set that gives you some endo tools, or some rech, or both. Elec armor is a prime pairing for it, but I hear a lot of good things about stone/fire brutes too. Stone melee is the definition of smash, even one of the powers in the set is named smash. man, now I am pumped to go overhead two handed screenshake smash some stupid freakshows! -
Revamp? Nuh!
Remove the movement penalty from rooted. That is all.
THEN- allow some time to pass so the change can be data mined and some actual opinions can be formed if anything else needs to be looked at.
Essentially, rooted is a forgotten leftover from game launch when the devthink was movement penalties are a good mechanic for tankers! Well, no it wasnt, thats why it got taken off of invuln. It is NOT FUN. Hence, it should get removed from rooted so players can choose to run non-granite and move freely with lesser def values, or "tank up" and get some penalties for it. As it is, the player is penalized for both methods for no good reason and the result is granite only builds cause who in their right mind would stack armors when you cant move either way?
Granite as it is currently is a unique, interesting mechanic. NO TOUCH!! At least, not until there is a suitable option in place to use the set without it. Then we can come back to it. -
Quote:You mean like adding a range boost to follow up attacks when a snipe is used?Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Hypothetically speaking, what would you say if snipes had two benefits, one of which was the insta-snipe under tohit buffed conditions, and the other was something that cause the use of the snipe to make other attacks more valuable as follow up attacks, that would work all the time regardless of tohit. Take, as an example, Eagle's Claw. It will increase the critical chance of follow up attacks. Ignoring the mechanical oddities of that feature, if snipes made follow up attacks better, and *only* for blasters, and *always* regardless of situation, and the tohit based insta-snipe was just an added feature of the power, would you say that was too much capability for one power to have, even though a substantial part of that capability was always on, and therefore no different in principle from assassin's strike-concentrated buffs (and incidentally, whether stalkers were designed to be focused on AS, many stalkers didn't take it due to its mechanical issues so I believe the situation to be roughly analogous: many stalkers had to respec into AS to get the benefits because not all originally had it).
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Quote:Precisely, which is why it is so important to NOT laser sight focus in on ST dmg comparisons between sets and AT's so much.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
8 players or however many become AoE by multiplication.
Plus, on a large team you're going to have a variety of powerful buffs and debuffs flying around- a big team will mulch pretty much whatever gets in its way regardless of how its damage is focused, although it will certainly benefit from AoEs.
But for normal mission content one highly optimized AoE character can quickly defeat a x8 mission by themselves- that's what I mean by efficiency.
IMO, the most important metric for balance to the devs is rewards/time. ST damage does not rock the boat for that metric like aoe dmg can, and to a lesser extent survivability(because you can leverage more aoe if you can survive bigger spawns) thusly, ST dmg can be tweeked upward a little bit, or even maybe a medium bit, and it wont disrupt the balance of reward/time. Giving blasters a bit more ST dmg has a benefit to an average solo player because offense=defense for a blaster(so it will address some of the percived squishyness of the AT), and this can be done without making blasters farming kings. At least thats how I see the 10 o'clock meeting notes on the white board playing out. -
Quote:I would disagree with this also. Before IO's ST dmg was more important because the test of your worth was fighting an AV or GM. Once IO's hit, the reward metric plainly put: the more you kill the more you get. So people started shifting more and more to aoe. When purples came out, it really ramped up.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Also, an observation. For years the mantra around here was that AoE was all that mattered. Single target attacks were basically the "trash" you used to fill in your AoE chain so you weren't bored, maybe finish off a target or two.
I've been noticing a trend over the past couple of years, that I don't think is coincidental with pylon testing, where a large contingent of players is now saying that AoE is irrelevant, that the game has "shifted" to where single target is all that matters.
It seems one thing the sniper change is doing is reinvigorating the AoE is all that matters camp. Which I think is a good thing, because if there's going to be inaccurate nonsense on the forums, it might as well be balanced in both directions so most players assume its all noise.
the pylon thing- mostly that is a ST challenge, because it started with melee characters, who really dont have any aoe to speak of useful enough(or often enough) to make a dent in a pylon, or at least the initial contestants in the pylon game didnt. As other have said, an AOE pylon challenge could be started to compare aoe builds, but IMO the AOE pylon thread is really aliased as the many "best farm build" and "critique my SS/Fire(or similar) farm build" threads. DPS for aoe is only important so much as how fast you defeat spawns, not so much as to how high AOE DPS numbers you can get. Quantity over quality. If for instance(random numbers) 300 AOE DPS will clear your mission in 4 minutes, but 340 AOE DPS will clear it in 3, that is useful. If 340 clears it in 3, and 390 clears it in 3, then nobody will care.
Anyway, my opinion on the relevance of AOE vs ST with snipes in particular was in my last post so I wont go into it again. -
Quote:"You are wrong" is a pretty strongly worded response when your basis for it is as shaky as it is.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You are wrong
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=291837
Its not perfect but it shows the DPS of the chains using the new snipes for very aggressive optimization.
My own numbers show that you can get an easy 20- 30% more single target DPS.
Within the first 10 posts there are numerous complaints of the metrics used in the analysis in that thread. Not the least of which is the IO slotting and incarnate abilities used to amplify the results. And looking at sets in that way will have a bad effect on how this change is implemented in the end IMO.
-For one, it is not really a build goal lately for much of anyone to make a blaster "best ST dmg" build, unless you have a specific goal of fighting GM's or something in mind. AOE is king in the city.
-Perma fast snipe, using devices which is mostly what that post shows, totally ignores what build up does for aoe dmg. Go ahaed and make that archery/devices character for that awsome fastsnipe ability. i will continue happily without it on my archery/electric. Fastsnipe is not going to help fireball/firebreath combos, even as it does make fire's ST dmg go up. I would make the comparison of this ST vs AOE DPS thing like this:
My insane recharge bonus built katana/SR scrapper vs my Elec/shield scrapper. my katana scrapper chains soaring dragon/golden dragonfly almost seemlessly, with some gamblers cut thrown in here and there to fill in a gap once in a while. he can take down a single hard target like no ones buisness. My elec/sheidl scrapper is an aoe machine. he has good recharge built in, but not really all that great, and his build is certainly not as expensive.
Guess which one blows through a x8 mission faster?
The point is, looking at one very specific point of a powerset when comparing them leaves out some VERY important and relevent info. The only real thing that thread does show is that indeed, adding fast snipe to fire blast could be a tricky buisness as blazing bolt is a powerful attack and fire is already a front runner in this game because of its easy to use and formidable aoe.
but we already knew that. I am sure the devs do too. Sort of how they already know Ice blast may need a minor tweek to stay with the pack, and sonic too. -
Quote:This point you are trying to make, and Tex too- it is based on the presumption that indeed, fastsnipe mechanic is going to be so powerful you would be a total idiot not to use it, or that it will become a defining power in blast archtypes, like assasin strike to stalkers.Originally Posted by BrainBrillo
What he said. And let me make my complaint more specific - the problem isn't that you *have* to take the snipe. Stalkers *have* to take Assassin's Strike, and I am be part of the vast majority who seem to have no issue with that.
The problem arises with the fact that once I take the snipe, I (as a Defender or Corruptor) must then go two deep into a specific Pool set in order to get full access to this incredibly potent attack that will be available every ~6 seconds. Plus, as a corruptor, I will be stacking 87% +hit in Tactics, violating an otherwise near-universal maxim of intelligent build design (don't keep stacking a stat once you reach the 15% return level of ED) because the last .6% hit I get from stacking a 4th +to-hit takes me past the magic number that makes my snipe fast cast. And a +hit Kismet is now mandatory...but I'm less irritated about that, one slot somewhere on my build irks me less than two mandated powers.
Sure, I *can* skip this whole mess - the same way you *could* skip Stamina when Fitness was a pool. But it was so good that it became mandatory, and I and Oedipus and others are arguing that reliable fast cast snipes are so good and so central that they *will* make Tactics mandatory for every Corruptor and Defender - especially since the Blaster version is apparently being balanced around the assumption that they'll have perma-fast snipes in parties. (Woe betide the post-I24 Defender who's in an 8 person party with a blaster who isn't receiving perma-fast snipes. I assure you the whining will be audible from orbit.)
TLDR - mandatory primary/secondary powers are OK, mandatory Pool Powers are bad, and perma-fast snipes are sufficiently potent that Tactics will become mandatory for any Def or Corr who aspires to play a halfway optimized build.
As I said in my first post here, it is highly doubtful the dev team plans for this kind of outcome. IMO, in their minds, they see the change and have some sort of calculable DPS increase in mind- and I am certain it is not a value that would end up with a situation you and Tex are trying to advocate. -
Quote:I did not mean it as yelling lol. I just wanted it to stand out some to those that skim threads. I suppose italics would have sufficed.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
It's really not necessary to yell at me. I appreciate that emotions are running high, but this isn't personal.
My apologies if I've offended you somehow. I feel like I'm working overtime to be polite, and would appreciate if you could do the same.
Also, lol at "yelling" through typing. Even after all this time with the internet and the abundance of texts, tweets, I-facebookspace posts etc, it is still an underlying issue that body language and intonation are mostly lost through typed communication. -
Quote:YOUR BUILD DOES NOT REQUIRE TACTICS AND KISMET IO.Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Sorry guys, I can't support this change if I understand what is being proposed.
I for one am not excited that for 9 of 12 Defender and Corruptor sets, your build now requires Kismet and Tactics. For 2 sets (Psy and Dark) you don't even get Aim, so this is your only avenue. Some people are going to nitpick on the word "requires." I guess you arent "required" to take T3 blasts, mezz shields, basic armors, Hasten, or old Stamina either, but not doing so often has a detrimental impact.
Again maybe I missed something. I don't want to be Chicken Little. But I think this change breaks many more things than it fixes.
From what I see of it, the change itself is not complex. It's basically "In what circumstances do we let characters have access to a new powerful attack?" Well the answer to that is "always" if you are a Defender or Corruptor but only if you build yourself like a cookie cutter.
Like I said in the other thread, why would you want to play a terrible set like Devices when you could roll Traps Corruptor (or any Corruptor) and still get that Device's supposed benefits? Please tell me what I've missed (serious request, not being facetious).
If you didnt use a snipe before, or used it as it was, YOU ARE STILL GETTING A BUFF EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE WHEN YOU MEET THE CONDITIONS.
IF YOU CHOOSE you can modify your build to make use of the new fastsnipe mechanic.
FASTSNIPE IS NOT AN I_WIN BUTTON. It's not like Fastsnipe>entirety of the blast set the snipe is in. It is a rare increase in available damage from the dev team, if you choose to use it. They are not making the game more difficult to compensate for it. They are not removing other utility, or modifying other dmg powers for this change.
If you are an OCD min/max player, then I suppose you would feel it is being forced on you as it looks to be so far a decent gain in dps output. If you really feel it is somehow unfair to you, join the beta when it arrives, test the combos you fear are getting shorthanded against ones you dont, and report the results in an unbiased manor on the beta boards.
As to why play devices over traps? Why do you do so now? As a blaster, the question is moot. As a defender or corruptor, the answer could simply be posed as why play traps over dark? or time? or any set? Why play a regen scrapper over a WP? Why play an invuln brute over dark armor? why play a scrapper when you could play a stalker? Cookie cutter builds are what happens when you are not satisfied with anything but the absolute top level of performance out of a given power, powerset, or even archtype. Stuff has advantages and disadvantages, and this new snipe thing is going to be part of that puzzle. If ervery blast character you make has to be a time corruptor now(or whatever) because of one single change to snipes, then ur doin it wrongz. -
I think there is some over reaction here, though that is to be expected when any significant change is announced.
First, people need to really wait for it to go into beta before raging about how it was done wrong.
IMO, the change was well thought out AND based on our feedback over the last several months/years.
#1. "Devices is weaksauce!!!! It doesnt have build up!!" has been the blaster board mantra for years. - Looks to me like devices got a boost now. IMO, people are weighting this fast snipe dmg increase to be worth more then what build up can do for other sets. I disagree with this as a whole. Targeting drone is not going to increase the damage of rain of arrows, or overcharge, or inferno by 100%, or blaze, or bitter ice blast, etc. PLus build up will also temporarily (when combined with a few minor build considerations) allow for fast snipe. Overall, I feel the devs have a solid starting point for "devices vs build up"
#2 "AR has nice aoe, but pretty poor ST dmg" Well, fast snipe is going to benefit it more then some other sets. I would make a case for elec blast poor st dmg, but I hold hope that that particular set will be seeing some other changes to give it a boost.
#3 "snipes lost their utility with ED" - Utility restored, though in a different useage compared to what was going on pre-ED. A good thing IMO, the game has changed significantly from that time.
#4 "Drain Psych is so useful, it is an anomoly when comparing performance of secondaries"- yup, so we didnt give that set any changes. If it was clearly the top performer before and players liked it, why would the devs buff it? And obviously the players like the regen/recovery boost mechanic, so they used that as a basis for the changes to the other sets. Not particularily related to snipes, but its not like the set "got nothing"- it still has build up to use with snipes.
#5 "OMG what about ice blast and sonic?" LOL ice blast. ORLY? I have NEVER seen anywhere on the boards a post where people complain ice blast is too weak. It has 2 holds, one of which does significant dmg, it has the most potent nuke in the game(crashing style) it has a steller tier 3 blast- but indeed, no snipe. And the devs have already said they might adjust other aspects of the set if it doesnt see the right amount of buff from this change. Sonic is similar, though not quite on the same level as ice. The tier 3 blast isnt stellar, and IMO sonic will be the one of the two that actually sees a change to compensate for the lack of snipe. my money is on a decrease in activation of the tier 3, and possibly a minor buff to something like howl.
#6 "OMG not everyone can use the fast snipe all the time!!" - DUH. Of course not. If they wanted us to do that, then why in the world would they spend time in programming to make a new mechanic for the powers? Why not just hax the interupt time off and call it good? -Answer: because then devices would still sux compared to the other secondaries see #1. IMO, it is always better to make an interesting change that requires some planning and thought to utilize then to make a ham fisted easy change that results in simple button mashing play.
tldr: The devs have approached this in the correct manor, and IMO have picked a suitable starting point for beta testing. -
Here is the blunt difference:
Broadsword is boring, and has all it's abilities eclipsed entirely by other sets. In return for this, the devs gave it more costume options then you can shake a stick at. If you consider BS, you shouldnt- take katana instead, or if you want a sheilds character just make a mace. "Sad but true!!"
Mace is the only of the 3 that got a looksie pass from the devs. hence, it is generally superior in damage and the powers feel more fluid in an attack chain, and the target caps etc make sense. Mace is a solid performing set, and IMO if you want to look at the animations these 3 sets offer you should just use this one.
Ax has the potential to be a lot of fun as it shares a lot of dynamics with mace, but for some reson the devs cant be bothered to tweak some numbers in a table for 5 minutes to fix the target caps on pendulum. In general, ax is inferior to mace for no good reason. It does KU on swoop, but swoop is unfortunatly about .4 seconds too long an animation to feel fluid and fun for the dmg it does. The rest of the KD can be moderatly useful for survivability at best, and totally unreliable and pointless at worst. Ax is not a bad set really, it just gets outdone in pretty much every aspect by mace.
Of these 3 sets, the only one I find myself considering when creating a new character is mace. Broadsword used to be a lot of fun, in issue 3. ED smacked it down and totally destroyed it's playstyle, and the devs have never revisited the set to give it an injection of fun like they did with mace. Ax. i dunno if you want to try it i would make a scrapper. If you get the random KD to fire the same time a critical goes off, it could feel pretty powerful and look the same. -
Here is my speculation for the set:
Item 1: The devs are still scared of significant +res values
Item 2: The set offers both a recovery and recharge bonus
Item 3: The set must be balanced for tankers
The set offers a lot of different mitigation to stack, plus a lot of goodies that benefit the player. IMO, the devs will weight the regen and foe debuff higher then they should when considering balance, and the res values will be relatively low to compensate for the perceived awsome level of the foe debuff and player buff combined with the +HP and regen. Furthermore, anytime you take tanker HP and start adding regen and more +HP, it becomes a "scary" scenario to manage other mitigation values to avoid the overpowered label. I expect to see res numbers in the mid to low 30's for tankers(and that may be aiming high even), which translates to lower values for scrappers- low enough that the +res is just a side benefit to the regen/HP and self buff goodies. Low enough that comparing a baseline scrapper with all powers activated to a scrapper with the +res fully enhanced will show only marginal improvement in survivability.
In short, the +res values will not be the focus of the set, but a minor "layered mitigation" added to the other stuff.
In the end, it will play a lot like willpower, but will sacrifice the def for self buff goodies, making it overall less durable, but more flexible to build with when combined with certain offensive powersets. I look forward to analyzing its values and selecting an appropriate game breaking combination/build to make with it. -
A change to ranged sets?
You know, that other hero game, they have blast attacks that maintain DoT so long as you hold the button down. it is actually rather fun, and makes certain powers more logical and combinations of certain attacks dynamic.
Powers like firebreath, rain of fire, x-ray beam, the psi tornado, burst, short circuit- if they worked like that it would certainly alter the dynamics of blast sets.
Hows that for speculation? -
#1 Stone Armor.
Remove the freegin movement penalty from rooted please. What a relic! The rest of the set, including granite, isnt really that bad. But rooted is pretty much mandatory, so pretty much mandatory to play the set like you are stuck on super hero flypaper. it wasnt fun 8 years ago, and it still isnt fun.
#2 Electric Blast
Tesla cage should be given damage to make it play like Abyssal gaze. There is no reason not to. VS should gain a few more attack type powers, like the current no damage tesla cage with a low mag hold, lightning field, maybe even a longish recharge short circuit. Something so it does worthwhile damage and offers some help to the player, or even offers neat tricks if the player is paying attention, like stacking the tesla cages. This set has unique FX and sound, but it is so pathetic on damage and survivability(yes I am ignoring the drain metagame. i do not always make elec blast characters with one of the like 3 powers that make that metagame work) that it is constantly brought up in discussions about "fix it" or "revamp". I am not even the first to bring it up in this short thread.
#3 Energy Melee
Time to take this set out of issue 3 time out. it has learned it's lesson. Change TF into a thunderstrike clone. Change stun into a ranged power, 40 foot range, and allow it to do some tier 1 blast set damage. Make the damage from ET happen at the begining of the animation. My suggestion would be use the old animation with damage occuring to target when it used to, but then add a little something to the end of that one for the self damage so the overall cast stays the same if that is the concern. Or, just get rid of the self damage, the power isnt that great that it needs a penalty. Give us an alternate aniomation for whirling hands that doesnt look like it was stolen from Glee. I vote the animation from footstomp, with tintable "power wave" FX on the ground.
Once those 3 things happen, we can talk about some of the less "annoying enough I wont play them" stuff. Like Ice control. -
The endo question is simple. MA is awesome. Players do not want to stop the awesome.
When a player has to choose between stopping the awesome, or resting, the choice is clear: Awesome.
In other words-
Enters spawn:
"I kick your face whapow!!"
"Oh you too? Ok I kick you!!"
"A new challenger approaches!! I kick you!!"
"Oh man, all these guys got kicked. OWAIT There's one over there!!"
Sprints
"I kick you too!!"
And so on and so forth until you suddenly realize despite mashing the 1-2-3-4 keys your avatar will not kick. So you investigate why, and realize you are out of endo!!
hence, "ZOMG MA uses so much endo!!"
Your perception is your reality as I always say. -
Quote:Theme can be a challenge, especially with the standard fx, and the lava stuff looks awsome, but is indeed somewhat limiting. I have found the crystal stuff to be most flexible- especially with the array of new gauntlets and backpacks we got lately. If you tint the crystal ones right, they can look like diamonds, quartz, energy formations, etc. I have revamped the costumes on my older SM characters several time each as they give us new goodies to mess with.Originally Posted by LeperDave1
OK... setting aside the number crunchers, because I don't play that game...
What I'm seeing is that people either love or hate the aesthetics of Stone Melee. That is my reason for having not run one so far. What I like, for the most part, is playing super heroes, and SM animations look more Anime to me than what I want.
That said, running a character that can turn to stone works perfectly well with Super Strength and Invulnerability from my perspective.
Oh I just gotta throw this in there too, the tremor animation. I agree it is too long, but it does look awsome- I have this one costume on my SM/elec brute, i used the critix/giant skull helmet, gave him this dark bronze/black type costume, and used a flaming eyes aura to make them glow this sort of burnt yellow/ with flames. He is pretty scary looking, and when that guy does the tremor attack, it looks seriously violent. Bonus: because it takes so long I can use camera spin to watch them pay. Not that any of this makes number crunching difference, but IMO it does count for somthing in a game designed for fun. -
I got one, so long as titan weopons is being discussed-
At release, the forum consensus off of beta was that AT, between scrapper and brute, was largely irrelevent on dmg output. More of a choice between if you like criticals or fury, but the end result was very similar.
Now, i see a whole lot of talk about the set on brutes, but mostly talk about lvl 50's. So, is brute TW better in the end then scrapper TW? Did it take some time to work the bugs out of the l33t builds to accomplish this? Or is this more a comparison within the brute AT more then an overall comparison, when TW is discussed as so powerful?
Not to derail the thread or anything, but I havent leveled a TW character past 13 yet, i made a scrapper with a costume I really like, but no backstory or theme yet. So, if lvl 35-50+ TW is more fun on a Brute, i would consider reroll.
On a side note, regardless of opinions on TW, I find Siesmic Smash>TW. Numbers are great, but I gots ta have my screen shakin' smash soundin' fun. -
lol. How did you slot your one offensive power? Did you stick a few triples or quad IO's in it and proc it out? Purples? lol, with the old sound fx it would be humerous, but machine gun brawl with the new sounds would make me lol every time.
Take this!!
smack
biff
smack
smack
biff
pow
smack
biff
haha, "You will inevitably fall to my relentless punches!! Concede now to avoid my assault of attrition villain!"
i would like to see jumpkick girl on the prowl too.