Futurias

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Nice article, Arctic.

As for the story confusion, was it possible that another by the name of Galaxy Girl was involved with the meteor?

Edited for spelling

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It's Cassiopia that stopped the Meteorite. You'd think that the person who saved the world would get the huge statue and name everywhere.

Or at least in Bloody Bay.

Thanks, Arctic_Sun.

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Galaxy City is a small, sheltered district near the heart of Paragon City. It is a densely populated region located between Independence Port to the west, and Perez Park to the east. Galaxy is south of the financial towers of Steel Canyon, and north of the industrial warehouses of King’s Row. Tour the zone here.

NOTE: A few people suggested things they would like to see on Galaxy City in another thread (and via PM). While not everything is included here, I will see what I can include when I do the more in-depth Neighborhood Report in the near future.

cheers,
Arctic Sun

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:blink:blink:

So am I remembering a different heroine that sacrificed her life to stop the Meteor? The one that fragments hit in Bloody Bay?

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So the difference between Longbow and Wyvern (other than color schemes, and guns versus bows) is two-fold, have I got this right? 1) Wyvern also takes on paying private security gigs in addition to fighting super-villains "on spec," and 2) Longbow has a code against killing, and Wyvern doesn't.

In the level 10-15 "Defeat the Wyvern financier and witnesses" mission from Radio Free Opportunity, didn't we find out that Wyvern in the Rogue Isles is specifically being paid by Longbow?

And in the level 25-30 Lt. Demitrovich missions, there's at least one where Demitrovich is specifically trying to get us to plant evidence against Wyvern where Longbow will find it, and dont' I remember from the briefing in that mission that Demitrovich also knows that they're working together?

I guess where I'm going with this is roughly the same place the poster did who asked what's less deadly about a flamethrower when compared with arrows -- given that Wyvern is being paid by Longbow to kill the villains they're trying to kill in the Rogue Isles, how does this make Longbow any less dark?

Hmm.

Which raises the question, if Freedom Corps were going to hire a Paragon City mercenary company to supplement their attack on the Rogue Isles, why didn't they hire Hero Corp?

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Well, it more deals with how they deal with prisoners after they are captured and how lethal they will be to "capture" the villains.

Longbow, will use "intense force" appropriately to capture them.

Wyvren doesn't *mind* capturing villains, but if needed be, would drop a house on a villain, even if it *might* kill them.

It's a matter of attitude.

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Want to find out more about Wyvern, the dark force of justice both founded and funded by Manticore? Check out our latest enemy group update here!

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Nice! I very like the mention of the latest comic book and the events there.

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wow great. So now I have a power that is, for all intents and purposes for a Kinetics defender, garbage. I was using it to aid squishies. See a boss on them, hit whirlwind and follow and keep the thing on it's back while using the flopping mob to Transfuse off of. Wow, yeah, some SERIOUS 'sploits there. Tried doing my usual tactic the other day and my transfusion goes off halfway across the room as the mob is sent flying. *big thumbs up*

So, Hasten got it's def removed, SSpeed got it's stealth removed in PvP and Suppressed in PvE, and WW had it's entire fundamental use buggered. Watch, now they'll have it so every time you use flurry you lose 125 xp. Or they'll add a 20sec recharge on Air Supp because you can use it to chain-KD a +2 boss. OMG 'SPLOITS!!!ELEVENTYONE!!!!

It is SERIOUSLY about time you handed out a free respec per month, because what somebody uses reliably one day is utter CRAP the next, and they can't fix it till they level up high enough to run the NEXT respec trial.

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And the people that cry DOOOOM can't seem to see that exploits *must* be blocked off, or eventually more people will be taking advantage of it.

It can be upsetting when your normal usage is changed too, but you have to live with it *if* it doesn't open new and different exploits.

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I didn't know it was possible to attack while using whirlwind. Was it possible to juggle mobs for an indefinite amount of time while safely killing them? I know endurance would be an issue but assuming it wasn't, is the above possible? If it is that is likely what they were trying to fix/stop.

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Hmm. Whirlwind + Fire Patch?

It's *always* the fire tankers faul, you know!

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Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?

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Yes, the change was done purposefully. No, a patch note was not generated -- my fault, sorry! I simply forgot to note the change down.


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You guys seriously need to harden the policies on your CVS or whatever other tool you're using for version management. This happens way too often.

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Problem is that they don't have a "don't show patch notes on just test" code for notes.

*Because* it was to patch an exploit, it won't get told before it goes live (to keep people from abusing it greatly before the fix is in, basically.)

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Hover: We might buff it some, at some point. However, it should never be an effective travel power.

Flight: I'll talk to geko about it. No promises. (I got spoiled by the Holiday Jet Pack, too!)

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Hmm. If it could pulse for 30-60 second duration flight in an AOE around you, you could zip in and out of direclty around the caster.

That would make it useful.

It can be fun to whip it out sometimes as peopls go "they have group flight?"

Dang, forgot to head to atlas to help people get the Top Dog badge.

WOW! Just knowing and issue is an issue is pretty sweet. I had Hover 6 slotted for speed and Flight was also maxed out for speed. Hover never made a great outdoor travel power but is was good for tactical movement in missions. I really would like to look forward to getting a small boost to Hover. Getting a boost to Flight would definately be awesome.

One thing however, since we are on the issue of the Flight Pool, what about the issues involving Group Fly. Its very clumbsy to use for Masterminds right now and using it on teams aggrovates teammates who do not want to fly, and they have very valid reasons for not wanting to! The worst thing you can do to a teammate is give them a travel buff they don't want and that's no small deal.

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Hover: We might buff it some, at some point. However, it should never be an effective travel power.

Flight: I'll talk to geko about it. No promises. (I got spoiled by the Holiday Jet Pack, too!)

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Have you actually used regular flight with big melee attacks? The suppression usually is just a second or so after the attack hits and then you are zooming off.

Hover is totally useless right now.

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Pretty cool to have a mob with a 100 mag stun in the game. When will this be fixed to a normal stun magnitude to avoid toggle droping even if you are running Unyielding and have Thaw, Antidote, Increase Density, and Clarity on you. Yes I saw where Castle said their stun is being replaced...how about a time frame, or implementing it sooner than fixing badges ?

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It was fixed awhile ago. It should reach you guys in the next patch or two.

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I had something similar happen to me on a 40+ Wailer mission too. As I play a defense based character though, it was hard to replicate.

You are taking just one part of the power and saying that it must give a bigger penalty against the rest of the power, so that the power is less effective.

This is very faulty logic.

If the rest of the power (resistance and mezz protection) is 75% of tanker, increasing the debuff actually increases it twice.

Technically, just leaving it is "effectively" increasing the debuff by 25% in comparison to the rest of the powers.

Hmmm....

Now that's an odd thought. Is it a fair increase?

Let's take a 15% Resistance for tankers. It has a 5% accuracy debuff (effectively a 5% increase in defense).

The scrapper power has 11.25% resistance (75%) and the same 5% debuff (effectively subtracting 10% resistance.)

The scrapper actually has only *25%* of the protection (resistance/defense) of the tanker set.

That is very much not fair. A 3.75% debuff against 11.25% does balance well. {corrected logic there}

That's a 3.75% "net mitigation" which *is* 75% of a tankers "net mitigation" effect.

Brutes and scrapper *need* to have this scaled correctly, otherwise they are getting heavily dinged for their mitigation.

Man, that 5% really hammers the resistance values of that power. It really is too high.

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A Tankers job is do soak up damage so they get a bonus to their resistances. Scrappers and Brutes make up for this by dealing more damage.

How can you complain that Brutes have to wait 8 more levels to get an inferior version of Unyielding when they're getting powers like Knockout Blow at level 8 compared to a Tanker at level 20?

Powers are balanced by the grand scheme of the archetype, not via individual powers so it's not fair to compare power for power versus the various archetypes. Brutes are more than fine as they are.

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The problem is that a flat -5% debuff compared to the reducection everywhere else is flatly *UNFAIR*.
[*]It should not have a -5% to psi thematically.
[*]It should be a balanced percentage based on the reduction of defense due to i6.
[*]It should be balanced to a weaker penalty (percentage-wise) for *weaker* power sets.

If a scrapper/brute version of Invulnerbility is 75% as effective as a tank, the debuff should be 75%.

With the massive reduction in i6 for resistances *and* defenses, the debuff penalty should be about 1/2 as much as it is. So a -2.5% for tanks and a -1.75% for brutes/scrappers would be *FAIR*.

And it's just so wrong that when you set yourself to be physically unyielding, you make yourself become *VULNERBLE* to psionic attacks. It isn't just a hole in our defenses, it is a actual weakness.

But for some reason, balancing INV this way seems to be an anametha to the developer to correct.

It's probably some phonbia of INV scappers and tanks herding whole maps solo.

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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%

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As a damage debuffer, that is not what I recall. 90% is the maximum that you can resist/debuff. They are not cumalitive.

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I suppose it would be easy to test with a Tanker, a Sonic, a Kin and a bunch of grey MOBs.

I have the KIN.

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Tested with Darkest Night and Twighlights grasp with the Ancillary dark armor power.

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Yes i know, but then you can resist up to 90% of that already debuffed damage for a max mitigation of 99%

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As a damage debuffer, that is not what I recall. 90% is the maximum that you can resist/debuff. They are not cumalitive.

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Anything that makes people run away is foolish to give to a tank... tanks want power that make baddies run in and attack them giving tanks fear that makes baddies run away makes NO sense.

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This is not exactly correct. A tanker is trying to keep attacks away from his team, not necessarily keep all attacks on him (as a matter of fact, several powers are just damage avoidance powers. Like Ice Patch.)

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Here's a question for you, Futurias. Why are you engaging a +4 AV? I mean honestly, that doesn't happen much, and I don't know if I recommend anyone do much of anything to a +4 AV. I would say no one should be tossing effects on anything above, say, a +2 AV unless they are willing to risk getting seriously squished.

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Sidekicked to a person that is -1 on an eight man team will pit you against a +4 AV. Or just being -2 on an eight man team.

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I use DN all the time on teams on things up to +4 bosses. but the only time I'm looking at something that much bigger than me is when I'm on a large team, and/or where there are other things soaking up foe aggro, like Brutes who lead the charge or Mastermind pets mixing it up. Certainly there is someone who's higher level than me. Does it get me in trouble? Sure, sometimes. Does it do my team no good? Hardly. Especially if anyone else is in there debuffing. Especially if I can stack debuffs, which I can and do (Fearsome Stare, Tenebrous Tentacles, Twilight Grasp).

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I've been on big teams a lot too. Generaly, I've found that shadow fall and twighlights grasp are not likely to get me killed and help more on big teams.

Suicide or overkill, with a sharp, cutting edge.

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I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, but I am disagreeing a little bit with the doom you seem to suggest it means for those of us with ACC debuff powers.

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Not "gloom" per se, but if we are fixing "defensive" powers, why not fix debuffs while we are at it? It's a defensive power too.

The problem with debuffing is that it is too good at even mobs and a cliff that falls off against "plus" mobs.

Let's compare it against 18.6% bubbles against +0 Minions and AVs, then +3 Minion and AVs.

50% - 18.6% = 31.4%. So a +0 Minion is 31.4% and an AV is going to be 47.1% (which is pretty dang good and a lot better than it used to be. Those are i3 numbers divided by two, as I couldn't find i6 numbers.)

31.4% * 1.4 = 43.96% +3 minion accuracy (still less than half a hit chance.) 66% +3 AV accuracy. Not great, but I'm trying to be cautious with my numbers.)

31.4% *1.55 = 48.67% +4 minion accuracy. 73% +4 AV accuracy. Not bad at all, actually for what are considered "low" numbers.

50% - 37.125 = 12.88% minion accuracy. 19.3% AV accuracy. Accuracy debuffing wins hands down on even mobs (something I totally expected.) It is gaining a lot more agro than the bubbler, of course, and has no mezzing protection.

50% - 26.5% = 23.5% * 1.4% = 32.88% minion accuracy. 49% AV accuracy. This is actually better than I expected, but isn't good. In the high level game, trying to use this as a primary defense for a team is death on the debuffer. Between 1/3 and ½ of the first attacks are going to hit when you attack with this debuff. Most likely, the debuff is going to be turned off very shortly. As no accuracy debuffer can protect itself from mezzing and being detoggled, you end up stunned, detoggled and then killed.

50% - 16.71 = 33.3% * 1.55 = 51.6% + 4 minion accuracy. 79.98% +4 AV accuracy. At this point, it's starting to lose out (and it loses out badly if you consider that without mezz protection you turn on the debuff, the counter-attack will likely detoggle you instantly. That will leave the 2nd (arguably the 1st) squishiest class one the receiving end of all agro.

A quick form of suicide that only gets worse as you increase beyond this.

It takes about three powers to get that much defense in Force Fields, of course. So it should be better. But it gains no specific agro either. Accuracy debuffing is much better at lower levels and then starts dropping off quickly by +4s or so, all the while gaining a horrendous amount of agro with no mezz protection.

So FF is going to be slightly boosted here and more effective (yay!) Debuffing getting hit by double-purple penalties means that debuffing has to be over-effective at lower plus, then dropping off effectiveness.

To be quite truthful, I almost never use Darkest Night anymore. It is either redundant or suicide. It's very hard to use without heavy support. Even though I'm supposed to be doing the supporting.

I'd advocated a lower base value, but making debuff only get affected by the purple patch {once}. That way it can less potent near your level, but possibly more effective against higher cons at later levels.

{If anyone is listening anymore.}

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Wow, Burn got better? They removed the fear!

Oh, they didn't? Carry on.

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Heh, no kidding. When will they realize that is the core problem with burn.

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No, the core problem that Burn had is that it allowed tanks to do blaster damage.

This has been corrected.

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Let me just restate something from one of my earlier posts for the record.

I can see how the devs might have set the resistance cap based on the minion to-hit floor. They couldn't ever let us cap +0's because we would and then there would literally be zero risk for gaining xp. Once they decided 5% is as low or they were willing to go, 90% would have been the corresponding cap for res against minions

However....if that was their thinking, then they never should have gotten out the front door because their method of implementation never got them past +0 Lt's, Bosses. I have a hard to accepting that the 10% concept would be abandon as soon as one faced a Lt. or Boss of the same level.

The idea that's its taken them over 2 years to discover the formula that allows them to suddenly scale defense and preserve the 10% floor is also less than compelling. It wasn't until recently that Statesman even stated that defensive scaling was a problem.

...and for the record../SR's passive resitance doesn't scale either. As we faced higher level mobs, the higher damage means our health based resistance is in effect for a narrower window of time.

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Actually, defense versus resistance scaling has been a "known" issue for quite a while. And while determining how to fix it may have taken a while, *implementing* it has taken a bit of time too.

We all wish it could have been sooner, but the fact that it has been (mostly) fixed is very good.

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FYI: Darkest Night

Its base Scale is 1.5. It has been since at least I3 (that's as far back as I checked.) Defenders multiple is .125 and enhancements are 1.98 (my calcs before were thinking ToHit Debuffs were Schedule B.)

1.5 * 0.125 * 1.98 = .37125 or a tad over 37%.

Any guide that says it is Base 30 Probably meant 30% mitigation, since that lines up with the 1.5 base.

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*Blink* *blink*

Well, as mentioned previously, it was on the boards here that a developer told us that it was a 30% (divisible) debuff (which would match the the -15% to the base_to_hit that you were talking about earlier.)

The new numbers you are talking about don't make sense from what we were previously told.

(IIRC, Darkest Night was 30% base debuff accuracy, smoke and smoke grenade were both 15%. They used Cat A SOs, so were 33% each (now up to 95% increase for 3SOs.))

I don't understand your numbers above at all other than Defenders are at 125% of the "base" debuff.

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Bolded for what the heck? I dont think you cleared much up here Castle.

Guides have talked about DN being a 35% base To Hit Debuff unehanced.

For example, this guide

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I *think* he's trying to say the base of Darkest Night (after the 125% boost from being a defender) is -18.75% to the Base_to_hit.

This is actually a little higher than the 30-35% we were told (it is effectively 37.5%.)

3xSO would get that to -74.25% -ACC debuff (or -37.125 to the base to hit.)

That means the old, pre-ED Darkest Night with 6xSOs was actually a -111.75% debuff! (WOWZA!)

I am no longer totally confused. Just moderately.

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FYI: Darkest Night

Its base Scale is 1.5. It has been since at least I3 (that's as far back as I checked.) Defenders multiple is .125 and enhancements are 1.98 (my calcs before were thinking ToHit Debuffs were Schedule B.)

1.5 * 0.125 * 1.98 = .37125 or a tad over 37%.

Any guide that says it is Base 30 Probably meant 30% mitigation, since that lines up with the 1.5 base.

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*Blink* *blink*

Well, as mentioned previously, it was on the boards here that a developer told us that it was a 30% (divisible) debuff (which would match the the -15% to the base_to_hit that you were talking about earlier.)

The new numbers you are talking about don't make sense from what we were previously told.

(IIRC, Darkest Night was 30% base debuff accuracy, smoke and smoke grenade were both 15%. They used Cat A SOs, so were 33% each (now up to 95% increase for 3SOs.))

I don't understand your numbers above at all other than Defenders are at 125% of the "base" debuff.

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The purple patch is not a flat 10% per level, though. My calculation is probably off a little bit.

+0 is -60% -ACC. 20% Minion accuracy, 30% AV accuracy.

+1 is 54% -ACC (-10% resisted). 25.3% Minion, 37.95% (21% increase).

+2 is 45% -ACC (-25% resisted IIRC). 34.38% Minion, 51.56% AV accuracy: 58.2% increase.

+3 is 36% -ACC (-40% resisted). 44.8% Minion, 67.2% AV accuracy: 89% increase.

I'm not sure, but I believe +4 is about a -55% difference. Against AVs, it's basically death to try and debuff their accuracy. They generally will hit for nearly full damage against the 2nd squishiest AT in the game.

I *never* try to debuff anything above +2 as primary damage mitigation on a team. It is a short form of suicide.

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We'll just pretend for a moment that accuracy debuff powers only get hit by the increasing accuracy of mobs.

+1s with a -60% ACC Debuff would be 22% minion or 33%, only a 10% increase.

+3 would be 28% Minion and 42%. Only a 71% increase compared to a 120% (my math up above totally sucks.)

Heck, and I just realized that powers like Fearsome Stare which has a -ACC effect (something I even slot for) is hit three times.

Increasing mob accuracy and increasingly resisted by mobs that you have to hit against their increasing defense.

The purple patch is not a flat 10% per level, though. My calculation is probably off a little bit.

+0 is -60% -ACC. 20% Minion accuracy, 30% AV accuracy.

+1 is 54% -ACC (-10% resisted). 25.3% Minion, 37.95% (21% increase).

+2 is 45% -ACC (-25% resisted IIRC). 34.38% Minion, 51.56% AV accuracy: 58.2% increase.

+3 is 36% -ACC (-40% resisted). 44.8% Minion, 67.2% AV accuracy: 89% increase.

I'm not sure, but I believe +4 is about a -55% difference. Against AVs, it's basically death to try and debuff their accuracy. They generally will hit for nearly full damage against the 2nd squishiest AT in the game.

I *never* try to debuff anything above +2 as primary damage mitigation on a team. It is a short form of suicide.

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I believe what Kali is saying is this.

37.39% defense versus melee/range is equivalant to 74.78% total damage mitigation.

This can be determined by a comparison of normal 50% defense to the new value of 12.61% defense (determined by subtracting the 37.39% from the original 50%).

The total mitigation can be worked out either by dividing that 12.61% by 50 and subtracting the result from 100%... or we can recognize that what we are doing is equivalent to multiplying the original defensive value by 2.

I do not believe she is talking about enhancers when using this particular factor.

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1 point of defense does seem to be about 2 points resistance, up until you hit the 95% mark accuracy, then resistance scales better.

So, back to Accuracy Debuffs. I think it is the 30% debuff, but it is calculated as a -15% against the base_to_hit. So both explanation are correct. (This is mostly so that I understand it.)

Pre-ED, you could actually get a -45 against the 50% base_to_hit (which is functionally equivilant to 90% debuffing.)

I think it works out fine, but I really think -ACC still doesn't scale too well against +mobs.

Against even levels, it's a 60% -ACC (3 slotted.) Against +1, it effectively gets hit by -10% (resisted) and the +10% accuracy that mobs get. So it gets effective drop 20%.

Against +2s its about a -50% (2x25%) and +3s its a -80% (2x40%). +4 is basically totally negated and you of course have an increase in base accuracy. So against +4 AVs, you basically aren't doing hardly anything except keeping them from the 95% accuracy cap *and* gaining huge agro.

(It's a fast way to die, BTW.)

Defense and RES, OTOH, are still effective to a larger degree. They are still mitigating a decent percentage of damage.

Resistance basically starts to improve quite well against Defense when you hit the 95% hard cap.

(This is mostly summing up what I understand in this so far.)