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I knew these changes were planned, so I've held off on posting to this thread until I could try them out.
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Removed Recharge debuff from Net arrow.
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Huzzah. Entangling Arrow is now officially worse than Web Grenade. A primary power should be better than a secondary power, at least if they're at the same tier, and this one was weak to start with. Give it something else. It could be a narrow cone, so you can get two or three mobs in it, maybe. Or it could cause knockdown--an automatic knockdown on impact, and a minor chance to cause knockdown throughout the duration (as they try to move and trip on the net). It still wouldn't be much of a power, but it would help out the */TA controllers, who are forced to take it.
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Added the ability to add Accuracy Enhancements to Flash Arrow.
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Well, it's a start. It would have been better to make at least the defender version autohit. If the defender version were autohit, and the controller version took accuracy enhancements, it would nicely differentiate the two sets. It would also be consistent--Smoke (which is very similar, except that it's a debuff in a controller primary) is autohit, while the equivalent secondary power, Smoke Grenade, is not.
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Reduced base Accuracy of Ice Arrow. It was 120% of normal and should not have been.
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Correcting the accuracy is fine.
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Increased recharge and decreased duration of Ice Arrow. Reduced Slow debuff.
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The duration/recharge ratio was decreased drastically. It will no longer keep even a minion out of a fight; I have expressed my opinion on this in the Petrifying Gaze thread. My reservations are, if anything, stronger in this case; Ice Arrow is the only tool a TA defender has that can actually neutralize a foe. That ability was absolutely necessary for my bowfender, at least until Acid Arrow became available, because the only way he could finish a fight with a lone +1 lieutenant (a common foe in his Heroic solo missions) was to freeze it repeatedly while his endurance slowly recovered.
The new version functions more like a single-target -Recharge. It doesn't prevent attacks, it just delays them a few seconds.
Of course, it's still better than Petrifying Gaze, because it has a secondary effect (however minor). However, it's no longer worth having before SOs become available.
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Swapped availability of Ice arrow and flash arrow.
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I have no objection to this. The original version of Ice Arrow was a bit more control than a defender should really have at level 1. And, of course, there's not much point in taking the new version until around L22, anyway.
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Reduced Duration of Poison Gas Arrow's debuff to 20 seconds, and the duration of the cloud to 20 seconds.
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Any basic debuff--and this is a core debuff of TA--should at least last for the duration of a reasonable solo fight. 20 seconds seems to be just a bit short--it will typically last if I'm fighting 3 even minions, but not long enough to finish a minion+lieutenant pair, even with their resistance debuffed. 30 seconds is a reasonable duration for this power, I think.
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Removed Recharge debuff from Poison Gas Arrow. Reduced its duration and reduced the chance to sleep.
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This change was particularly painful with Glue Arrow unavailable most of the time. Can we get something to replace the -Recharge? Otherwise, this power is going to look awfully shabby next to the likes of Enervating Field or Darkest Night. Thematically, -Regen would make sense, but it may be overpowered if -Regen is all-or-nothing. -Recovery would be interesting, too, and offer some interesting combo opportunities with Electric.
I couldn't tell if the chance to Sleep a foe was reduced, because I've only seen the "choking" emote about 10 times in 17 levels to start with. Did something that unreliable really need to be reduced? Why not just remove it and make the debuff better?
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Reduced Duration of Glue Arrow from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
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Again, I think 30 seconds is not unreasonable. It should last through a typical solo fight. I did have it lapse a few times before a fight ended last night, but it wasn't unmanageable. However, see my comments on recharge times.
Can we pretty please have a -Fly on this power? Flyers apparently ignore the -Speed on it, which reduces its utility considerably in some cases. Wiith part of a spawn slowed, and the rest moving at full speed, it actually makes scatter worse--the opposite of its intended effect. I'm really coming to loathe clockwork oscillators now.
It'd be nice if it had the same range as Poison Gas Arrow, too. I don't care which range you choose, I just find the "Out of Range" message annoying when I'm trying to lay down debuffs.
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Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow and Disruption arrow.
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OK, so now we have to stack the two powers to get a -Res approaching that of Enervating Field. In itself, that's not so bad. Was the recharge time on Acid Arrow also increased? I found myself having to wait for it much more often, but I didn't time it. It wasn't too onerous, but it would be a bit much on top of the other changes.
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Increased Recharge rate of Disruption Arrow to 120 for Defender and Controller.
Increased Recharge time of Glue Arrow to 120 seconds from 20 seconds. (Dev note: balancing)
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These are the changes I have the biggest problem with. I have no objection to preventing these powers from stacking. That's perfectly reasonable. After all, the core debuffs from Dark and Rad don't stack, right? Of course, Lingering Radiation and Tar Patch can stack a bit if you make a point of slotting for it...but those are completely different, right?
My objection is to the approach taken to prevent the stacking. These are not "they all fall down" nuke powers. They're debuffs. They're the heart of a TA defender's job. These changes prevent us from doing a substantial part of that job 75% of the time. Even with the slow, endurance-strained pace of my TA/A, Glue was only available every second or third fight. As a result, a substantial portion of my damage mitigation was gone, and I had nothing to take up the slack. In teams, it was even more pronounced, because teams tend to go from one fight to another faster; more often than not, I felt reduced to what other ATs have often accused defenders of being--a gimped blaster.
If you really feel that the debuffs should never, ever be allowed to stack, then make them not stack. Fix the code, for the love of Knuth! You've changed pets so that a new activation replaces the old pet. Most buffs have always had a mechanic that prevented a single hero from stacking them on the same target. Apply one of those mechanics to the debuffs--just pick one. Either would be far better than these interminable recharges.
TA is a debuff set. It doesn't buff. It doesn't heal. Its control elements are matched or exceeded by other debuff-heavy primaries. If a set is going to be this focused on debuffing, then it should debuff better than any other set. If it doesn't, then why would anyone ever want a TA defender on a team? Look at the set in light of these changes and try to come up with an answer for that.
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/WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE
) would stand a chance. This was also never more true than when I would solo. A defenders ability to dish out damage in the later game (and by this i mean lvl 22 and above when SOs are available) takes a back seat to every other AT in the game. My slow power became CRITICAL to my survival while soloing, especially with bosses and lts.