Frosticus

In other words, let me polish your knob Arcana. Figuratively of course.

The thing is, if you are in no position to say anything beyond telling people they are wrong and have no idea what they are talking about; yet can contribute nothing beyond "I'm not at liberty to discuss it". All while also saying as of GR you are completely reworking your vision of the set from the ground up. The result is you sound as contradictory as one of those fanatical religious people on the corner. Any person who doesn't blindly follow you (see above person) would tell you that it would be far better to say nothing at all.

Just so we are clear, in this thread you have come across as saying you are the only one who knows anything at all, yet what you know is going to completely change in 2 months and you are going to start from scratch at that time. Essentially what that means is what you know and have been thinking has been dismissed and you are going to be moving in an unknown direction in 2 months, but you still know it all even though you are starting from the ground up and may have new ideas from what you have at this point in time.

Then you regale us with stories of how you invented snipes and convinced Castle you were right about MA nearly 3 years ago. But did you convince him you were right about the ideas you haven't even thought of because you are starting from scratch with the set in two months? I'm really impressed if you did and I can definitely understand why you wouldn't be able to talk about something like that. I just wish you'd use your super human ability to see through the veil of time for something more meaningful, but oh well. I hope you are thankful for people like Ryuuk.

Thank god. So your nebulous ramblings were just that. While you've proven you are the supreme armchair quarterback around here (congrats I guess) we'll just have to agree to disagree about who has a clue or not considering you think CAK is the jumping off point.

I actually breathed a sigh of relief with the information you just revealed. One it restores some of my faith in the developer team because it puts your statements about how
into the light that they should be taken. Which is to say you are definitely right, it was condition one from earlier. And two I'm absolutely confident I'd dislike the set after your changes. I can confidently base that position off of the one piece of information your divulged about your opinion of MA.

It's my mistake though I failed to see where you said
As it got drowned out by you reminiscing about the good old days. It's funny you say something like this and then speak with such absolution about how you'd go after CAK first, but I'll just assume as usual you have some information that none of us do and you are now lording it over us.

As is often the case 20 minutes I'll never get back from speaking to you, but maybe in another 10 posts you'll berate someone else and finally reveal whatever information you are sitting on and we can all continue on with our lives. Until then, cheers.

It's just you.

I agree. As a single event some of the long animations are aesthetically pleasing, but when you chain them together it is often the faster sets that become the most visually attractive especially when the power effects start being taken in to consideration rather than just the animation.

If what you are implying is true, then my respect for the powers team just hit the floor. Nothing personal, but if they are handing the set over to a player to rebalance then all I can do is laugh.

I don't really care about your personal restraint. Honestly I can't express how little it impacts me, but if you want me to put the importance of a video game into perspective just ask. It probably won't make you happy though. This just goes to show how high your head is in the clouds and if Castle handed the set over to you I hope he is embarrassed to show his face at the office. Best of luck with it though, you will absolutely need it if they acknowledge you as the designer and you don't have a red name to shelter you.

Definitely looking forward to you living up to your self proclaimed brilliance with this set.

It's a hack n' slash game. The new missions in i17 demonstrated that while they can move away from that design to a certain extent it comes largely at the cost of team gameplay.

I'm hopeful we see more missions like the new ones, but at the same time they are terrible in teams as you have no access to the information about the story arc (same as always, but moreso because the leader is constantly interacting with the contact) and because it essentially devolves into: hey come play my personal story arc about me guys. Which there are plenty of already in AE.

You announce a nuke so that people don't waste their own long cool down powers like an aoe hold, or heatloss. And so that the support knows you are going to put yourself at high risk and not be able to protect yourself as much as normal.

For instance when a blaster announces a nuke I get ready to search for a close by survivor and refill him with transference. Or I know that casting vines at this point would be a waste for my plant/kin.

If you are announcing timebomb, just what exactly are you doing it for?

I like hearing your opinions about how you will change the set when the devs give you the green light to do so.

Either your opinion of yourself is lost in the stratosphere, or the dev's really are out of ideas to the point they will hand it over to you.

Anyway, the fact that you don't realize why a crippling attack would do slow and immobilize is humorous. Moreso why you don't realize the rationale for setting it at mag 2. But it is topped by you thinking it should be the jumping off point to re-balancing the set, when if done properly it would be the second last power touched (assuming we aren't allowed to go after provoke, which means yes, tweaked even after buildup).

I'd love to hear why you think I'm wrong, but I doubt you have anything to say that extends beyond what you've already stated in this thread. Which has been underwhelming so far.

I hope you do get your shot at re-balancing MA. I'd like to see your great ideas come in to play as I'm sure you are just being humble and have much better plans than you've expressed so far. Yes I know that is a farfetched premise, but what are we without hope?. Likely outcome is it becomes another toon I stop playing, but that's not a really big deal to me.

Edit: /signed for the changes Umbral just proposed. I'd like to add a long duration dot to cobra strike when used with focus chi as it fits in my mind. Those changes would push MA up to being one of the most enjoyable sets imo. I'm curious how knockup and knockback work at the same time though, ie when they both proc on crane kick? which effect takes precedence?

A well built ill/storm will vaporize minions at a speed that makes blasters dizzy. They aren't why you slot -res proc in FR. Luts and higher are why you slot it and because the additional -res benefits everyone including you, PA, Phantasm, nado, LS, and your entire team. Solo it takes mere seconds for it to be more beneficial than a damage proc. In a team it happens in less than a second.

That said. I like slotting my FR with:
achilies proc, lady grey rech/end, def/end/rech, undeminded rech/end, def/end/rech, damage proc.
But if the build is tight that proc is one of the first slots that will go on the chopping block across all the powers.

Ya the self damage didn't stop me from slotting it on my fire/storm either, just mentioning it so he knows. It is sort of like if you put the stupefy set into seeker drones and occasionally get knocked away when you summon them. If you don't know what's happening you might just say "wtf" several times before you clue in.

No you aren't wrong. Ill/storm is an entirely different beast than ill/rad.

Your annoyance factor is much higher and covers a much larger area resulting in you often pulling agro that PA has no chance of gathering because they weren't near them to begin with.

You also have no heal, or damage reduction affecting them so you feel everything that slips through.

You have two solid options.
1. Build for some solid defense (like you are trying) and combine that with spec terror and some hurricane use. Layer it with indom will to protect you from the few mezzes that slip through.
2. Ignore defense and go balls to the wall with hurricaning. This can be just as effective (maybe moreso if you get good at packing mobs), but it is very engaging and ime with 3 lvl 50 stormers (def, troller, MM) it wears you down quicker than playing an actively buffing kinetic toon.

Personally I go with option 1 as it allows me to play both aggressively and not as aggressively depending on the team or solo situation. I'd aim for closer to 30% ranged and try to get your endurance consumption under control. If you can still squeeze out 90% global rech (before hasten/slotting) that would be a pretty crazy toon. I use those numbers because I know you can do it, but it will come at the cost of some of the procs you have slotted in attacks.

No thanks, rather just shield charge the spawn for near instant defeat, while doing considerably more damage than TB and have it recharge over 4 times faster.

Poor teams rarely run in to situations where TB is the most efficient strategy to employ. It almost never happens on good teams.

Which leaves solo'ing. It can have some application in that environment, sure. But if you are basing your solo strategy around a 360 second recharge power then that might be indicative of other more prominent problems.

I don't think that would solve the problem as it certainly doesn't explain why Phantasm happily wades into melee despite only having three powers, the shortest of which is 40ft.

Observers are different than team enabled powers.

Surely using a veng bot greatly reduces the stress requirements, but why stop there? Why not park them by the AV and use them as Fallout bait as well?

That's also ignoring the fact that a dead teammate will spike your vigilance end reduction to the point where endurance is meaningless.

well kittens ya, but the catgirls never seem to enter pvp maps in this game.

I'm just bugging you bro. You know you are my hero.