Flaming1

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Exactly. The lack of a penalty for death makes the K-D ratio a bad way to balance sets. I think a better judge would be the number of kill per hour.

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How about Bounty/Reputation per hour instead? ...Then divide that by # of deaths.

My Scrapper for instance can walk into Sirens and join a team and walk out with +25 Rep in half an hour and have 1-3 deaths. My Dom might end up on a Stalker-heavy team meanwhile and get +30 rep, but die 40 times getting it.

...atleast that's been MY experience.

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Because Bounty/Rep are simply surrogates for Kills -- a near-linear relationship, by my offhand estimate.

It still doesn't address the rather excellent point that rate of killing is not revealed by a raw killcount.

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Yeah, I like Energy Manipulation as a Blaster set. I just played through my longish, alta-holic list of Blasters the other day, and I was shocked at how much of them were ranged-only (I've always been a concept player) and how many (3/4ths) had Energy Manipulation as a secondary.

Power Thrust (for the fun, "smackiness" factor and the boss-level mitigation + the decent frontloaded damage at lower levels) is just so awesome, and the early availablility of Buildup is quite nice.

If you like Blaps, Energy Manipulations has lots of good ones, and stuns in 'em to boot, and if you like Range (like I did when I made all those Blasters), Conserve Power, Power Boost, and especially Boost range make for some awesome non-situational buffs.

When I look at energy manipulation (as a Blaster secondary) it really rocks so hard because every power is useful (even Stun), and just about all of 'em are non-situational, and the secondary as a whole is very flexible and useable to any given player, imho.

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Arc brings up a good point -- even without the Blaps in Energy Manipulation, no small strength of the set is the superiority of its utility powers to many of the other Blaster secondaries.

Power Boost, Boost Range and Conserve Power are exceptionally useful, even in situations (like, say Force Bubbles and Hurricane a-go-go) that disallow heavy Blapping.

This isn't to say that the other powersets are without good utility -- Devices gets the one +Perception power, Electric gets some good status, Ice has Slow and Fire gets, uh, Hot Feet. It's more that those unique abilities in the other Blaster secondaries are situational at best, without the near-global efficacy of the Energy secondary utilities.

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Not really, the synergy between controller primary sets and their secondary allows them to use the defender Primary powers as secondary powers to greater effect.

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I remain unconvinced this is globally true.

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Grave/Storm for instance. AoE immobilize + Snow Storm. Add Freezing Rain. The slow from the immobilize + the slow from the storm + the slow from freezing rain. Even if the target is not immobilized, they are at the slow cap because all three powers produce a slow effect. Ice/Storm is even better since all three of their powers would also give -recharge.

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Remember that a stormie can hit the Slow cap with Snowstorm alone, if slotted correctly. With fewer slots on the Defender, due to the relative Defender versus Controller debuff scale.

The AoE immobs available to Controllers, such as those in Gravity and Fire do represent synergies with the shared powersets -- that point, I defer -- but it's substantially mitigated by the increase to the repops of those AoE effects in I5.

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You can go down the line and see how controllers are MUCH more dangerous to the opposing team, yet are still pursued less than the defenders. The reason is that the defender has the least defense for himself and is an easier target which means you can get a kill count faster. Thats it.

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You'll note that the issue I take is with the claim that Defenders are without substantive deterrent. That's untrue. They may have less than Controllers, but that doesn't mitigate the fallaciousness of the prior claim.

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It's very obvious that /EM dominates the PvP world because it has insane burst damage, but you're all right in a sense that it is considered the "PvP set". That however isn't as effective in any battles that go higher than 2v2, this coming from someone who played an /EM blaster for a short time. To be perfectly honest I think /Ice is the trumping group-PvP set for it's PAoE, and wide-cone slows (And damn do I mean wide, that thing is like a monster-fan), that are absolutely annoying as hell in PvP for an opposing force. I don't think /EM should be worried about a nerf, since its supposed to be a blitzkrieg killer. I personally will skip this FoTM and stick with my Ice Manip

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As concerns both PvP and PvP balance, one of the underlying principles that I suspect guides that balance should be that there's no reason that any given powerset should be preferable to all others in the overwhelming majority of possible circumstances. Which is where we sit with Blaster secondaries right now.

I'm reticent to weigh in as to whether or not the resultant fix should mean a nerf to Energy or a buff to all others, but I will say that those possibilities aren't mutually exclusive.

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This doesn't mean that everyone running an /EM is an experienced PvP player, but there is a higher percentage of experienced PvP'ers using it than any of the other secondaries.

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1) I think part of the point you miss is that, yes -- experienced and skilled PvPers gravitate for /EM for many good reasons. However, we also see no small fraction of newer, inexperienced PvPers gravitate towards /EM. That's why it's an FotM.

2) I can't call it anything but an impression without anything remotely resembling numbers, but perhaps part of the concern should arise from the point that the Energy Melee powers may well outperform its counterparts (albeit, by a lesser degree) in the three other ATs with Energy Melee powersets?

Just something to chew on.

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Controllers can buff too. ...no, the "attractiveness" you're looking for is their complete lack of deterrents. Blappers and Controllers have ways of making others Sorry that they got up in their grill. Defenders have NONE

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A hyperbolic blanket statement.

There are components to the buff/debuff sets that are shared with Controllers that are more effective in the hands of Defenders. Hal fof the Storm set (it's not just Hurricane). Dark Fears. Bubble-bouncing. Kinetic sapping.

While unavailable in the first three PvP zones, APP toggle-knocking Blaps should be widely available in Recluse's, the Arena and Base Raids. And don't forget the superiority of Defender Leadership to any other AT -- no minor component of post-I6 PvP.

As for the secondary sets, while the scale is set low, only one Defender secondary is predominantly S/L damage. I agree that the strength of the Controller primary, relative to Defender blasts more than compensates for the differential in the shared sets.

But your argument is to claim that Defenders are wholly defenseless, which is patently untrue. When paired, Defenders with different powersets can provide an exceptional buffing platform, comparable, if not surpassing Controllers. Hide an Emp inside a Hurricane or a Force Bubble, and it's about as impregnable a buffing juggernaut as can be found in PvP.

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As for any AT-Rhetoric, I shouldn't need to tell anyone that being somone's Buff-bot and spending all of your time running back from the hospital is no fun... there's nothing "Wholey Different" for a Defender in PvP being solo or being on a team in that regard. And, Dominators don't even get that far. The only thing Castle said that could be construed as "wholey different" was the Blapper who's given shields and clear-mind in PvP by a team-mate. The Defender who gave those buffs still has no personal survivability and no deterrants.

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A semantic debate, trying to extrapolate from Castle's intentional (see above) vagueness.

On teams, Defender performance can't be considered by the exact same metrics as the damage-oriented ATs. Their ability to multiply buffs across their team are their primary determinant of success, so the metric for Defenders shouldn't necessarily be a Kill/Death ratio. I imagine it looks more like how much their teammates' Kill/Death ratio benefits from their presence. So it'd look more like:

(Teammate Kill/Death with Defender)/(Teammate Kill/Death without Defender)

Kill/Death is not an unimportant metric for Defenders, it's simply not their primary metric of success.

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Please, give us more data. More information. I know I'm not alone in this. I know it's not your job to give us data, and that anything you do give us is entirely on your time, but my poor little heart thrills every time you give us tidbits from your datamining

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A teensie cautionary note on that.

For the most part, Castle simply confirms what large sections of the PvP playerbase has been dogmatizing. Be careful about asking for too much, though.

Complete transparency of the datamining may simply drive more sections of the playerbase to FotM PvP building. It's one thing that we all know /Eng Blasters outperform all others; that differential is so widely accepted at this point, it's hardly surprising.

My fear is that complete transparency will simply narrow the field of "acceptable" PvP builds in the perception of the playerbase, by virtue of having Dev confirmation.

And, speaking only for myself, one of the most disappointing and outright boring elements of CoX PvP is going up against the exact same FotM sets over and over and over again. If all I wanted to PvP against were a very limited set of build options -- Eng/Eng stalkers, /Eng Blappers, the occasional pocket Emp -- I'd be playing a game with far more restricted build options -- like an FPS.

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So umm... Naturally, here's my question: If it's acceptable that an AT perform very poorely at this K-D ratio solo, but does better in Teams... then why is it acceptable that defenders and dominators to continue to STAY AT THE BOTTOM of this K-D ratio while on teams too?

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To play Devil's Advocate here, I'd argue that the purpose of Defenders and Dominators on teams, not just in PvP, is to enhance the Kill/Death ratio for their teammates, at potential risk to themselves. PvP simply underscores that point.

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My Defenders and Dominators can sit in a huge pack of other Heroes/Villains... corruptors, blasters, controllers, MM's even... But several opponents always single me out right off the bat. I'm always the first to die from gank-squad alphastrikes.

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I imagine that this simply underscores that all ATs are primarily PvE-balanced, in which Defenders have a much more generous aggro management cushion. Since we expect PC toons in PvP to behave fundamentally differently than in PvE, I'd argue that Defenders exhibit the greatest differential between PvP and PvE in terms of how well their powersets scale against opponents.

Remember that prior to the buff to Blaster HP, Blasters were equally put in the "squishie" category, and arguably worse off due to less damage mitigation capacity than either Defenders or Controllers. If not for that buff, it seems quite likely that Blasters would likely bear as much of the coordinated attack as Defenders.

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That blue shield and purple lightning bolt are the biggest friggin human-aggro magnets I've ever seen in any PvP game. My tankers and controllers have to work their butts off to get that kind of aggro from other players. Why isn't _Castle_ talking about this? Why aren't any of YOU talking about this?? "My Blaster blah blah blah" ... "My Stalker blah blah blah"

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Because this is a conversation that's neither on the PvP board nor the Defender board.

Remember that the attractiveness of targetting a Defender is two-fold -- it's not just that he's the squishiest (I'd probably defer that point), it's also that without his buffs and/or debuffs, the rest of the team often folds like origami. Two birds, one stone.

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It would seem to me if there's a list, and any 2 AT's are at the frikkin bottom of that list... I would think a Developer's response to those AT's would be something a lot more involved than "I don't know" with Dominators, or just putting a few Defender graphic-bugs we've had since Beta "on the white board" and calling it "good" while at the same time nerfing their -ACC debuffs by 40% -- Nope... not Castle, Statesman, or Positron, they all just take off to spend real time on Scrappers, Blasters, and Stalkers again. Shouldn't the AT's on the bottom of the lists in all categories, be getting the attention here?

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I think you're letting your ATist rhetoric blind you to the point that Castle's list strictly discusses solo PvP, which he explicitly qualifies. Furthermore, he goes on to vaguely suggest that PvP-performance hierarchy is wholly different on teams -- which is ostensibly what PvP is built around.

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The other reason is that datamining has value, but doesn't represent what is possible. Looking at what happens to the average player does have value, since they need to enjoy the game, but you also have to look at what the above average player can do. In high skill level team PvP, Scrappers are not the AT that scores the most kills, blasters are by far. This may not be possible for the "average" or new team but its of critical importance when it comes to determining how to balance the game. The techniques that only the dedicated PvP SG's/VG's are using will filter down over time.

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Here's the thing with datamining. In addition to having access to statistics concerning the mean and median player, it's reasonable to also assume the Devs have access to the outliers. Seeing what the bulk of players are doing is useful and pertinent. And you're right that the Devs should also be looking at overperforming builds, but we have evidence that the Devs also pay attention to those builds -- one potential argument for that being thehits to perma-38 Scrapper secondary powers in I4.

Whether or not they do regularly look at such outliers is open to debate, without more detailed knowledge of their inner workins, it's hard to say. But in principle, we know they have access to the necessary information from the live servers.

<has a big ole Nickelodeon flashback>

Seeing as how we've lost the previous incarnation of our lengthy congratulations thread to the sands of time and mod housekeeping -- and we're on the cusp of having a big ole flood of Villains dinging L50, it seemed like a good time to restart an old tradition.

So to kick off -- grats to Khenti on dinging Crey Cryostorm to Fitty! That's right -- Fitty, tonight!

<raises glass>

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Nobody's saying that the snipe can crit. In fact, I highly doubt it CAN crit. That'd be overpowering. It also won't be as strong as a Blaster's snipe, in the same way that, say, energy blasts given to Controllers in their epic pools are scaled down a lot.

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Consider the off-and-on complaint that Scrappers APP ranged attacks can crit.

Just sayin.

One word: Chum Spray.

<squick!>

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The other reason was because of the way Storm Kick actually worked. Originally, Storm Kick was a 4-hit DoT. The problem was that the system couldn't be set to check ToHit's for each individual strike (Or "Kick"). So Storm Kick was either an all or nothing attack. You either did all four hits of damage, or you missed every single one.

Suffice to say, being rooted in place for a two to three minute animation when you missed was NOT very fun. So they changed the animation AND the way Storm Kick itself worked.

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Shadow Maul, anyone? Missing with Shadow Maul is the most humiliating experience. You stand there and punch air for many many seconds and do no damage at all.

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At least Shadow Maul does pretty respectable damage. Try Flurry just once, I dare j00.

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What design philosophy are you talking about?

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I imagine it may be described as such:

Blaster secondaries should have some self-buffing capacity, but not so much as to make help from support ATs moot.

The buff/debuff capacities you mention don't scale anywhere near as well as Defender/Controller support, nor should they. My suspicion is that he's referring to the point that not all Blaster secondaries are comparable in terms of utility.

Let's use Castle's /Fire example, and compare it to /Energy, probably the best performing secondary set. Energy gets great utility powers in addition to great blaps. In contrast, Fire's utility is relatively limited, and has reasonably mediocre blapping potential, as well. In this particular comparison, Energy clearly outstrips Fire -- we take that for granted around here.

I imagine that Castle's point about "design philosophy" is about the fundamental limitations of the Blaster secondaries -- there's a relatively limited pool of buff/debuffs that the Devs were willing to give Blasters. However, some sets simply received those abilities disproportionately. For instance, it seems the Devs substantially overestimated the utility of Hot Feet -- the Slow might be useful; but that utility is overwhelmingly mitigated by the PBAoE range and the aggro-generating DoT component.

Prior to ED, it seemed like the HamiO Black Market was going to boil over with the demand for Ribos (Resist/End) and Golgis (Heal/End).

Lately, it seems like Nucleoli (Dam/Accs) are near the top of the demand list. Interestingly, the debuff HOs, Enzymes and Lysos seem to have gone up in value. Before, it seemed like you couldn't give them away. These days, it seems that the proliferation of multicomponent debuffing sets (Rad and Storm, for instance) has increased the relative value of these HOs.

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And here I was wishing that so many Acc/Mez HOs would stop dropping for me. I'm practically giving them away.

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Well, it just speaks to the point that HOs just weren't designed to be farmed, or collected en masse.

All those Dam/Ranges? There's a reason Flamer's attacks are almost all maxed out with those; I used to get them dumped on me like it was a Clearance Sale. To this day, I still get people trying to pawn them off on me.

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Hey, cute stuffs!

I know you want some of that hot chess action.

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nice image, only it's missing that CoH feel.

hmmm...still not happy with it...be back in a bit

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Actually I think that is pretty cool. Subtle, but cool.

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Agreed, that is quite a nice touch.

<seizes>

Hey, cute stuffs!

I know you want some of that hot chess action.

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Jonyu, poz and Positron are working on an 'Invention' system, which branched off of the Skill System work. The 'Salvage' system used in bases is an offshoot of the skills system design as well.

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<fwoosh>

Whoa. And here I was thinking that this particular reincarnation of the Skills/SSOOCS was an offshoot of the Salvage/Crafting system for bases.

Just goes to show how wrong I can be, I guess.

<da shrug>

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Geko remains isolated in his arcane cave o' nerf. Jonyu and Castle feed him a Regen or Invul every once in awhile to sate his thirst.

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Well, lordie knows we're still working through leftovers from I4.

What is the expiration date on those, anyways?

And who can forgit Jonyu or poz (not to be confused with Positron or pohsyb)?

Uh, besides everyone apparently?

So, then the moral to this thread is:

"Shoolved™"

<headsmack>