Grey Pilgrim

Hopefully Glamdring and Orcrist will get some billing in the new Hobbit movies. Speaking of which, I don't think the LoTR movies ever showed Gandalf's sword glowing like Sting did (other than when it was struck by lightning), which seems like an oversight. Or am I forgetting something?

Sting is pretty cool, though. They should have had Bilbo do what he does in the book: stab it into a massive wooden beam and pull it right back out. That's a pretty good sword, in my book.

It was more of an acknowledgement that it's clunky to have powers requiring a character to be on the ground when their inherent gives them two fly powers. Arbiter Hawk pointed out that you can now use Solar Flare from above as well, and I don't see the huge benefit to it. It still requires you to worry more about your positioning than any power with KD, and it's still hard to keep being in melee range after using it. Mobs flop around and are probably moved to the side a bit from bouncing or from you not positioning yourself perfectly, meaning you are prevented from using your best attacks, just like if they had been pushed a longer distance away. Also, Kheldians are spread thin for slots, so trying to scrounge some up so you can slot Combat Flight enough to move at a decent pace with it is rather hard to do. Both my PB builds are tight and don't have any loose slots to just throw around anywhere. I'd still rather be able to use super speed to stealth in if I choose.

I haven't quite been able to test this, but I'm guessing Solar Flare is rather spherical in its effect shape, meaning that the higher you move up to minimize the KB on your targets, the harder it is to keep them all in range of it.

Last but not least, it requires you to use Hover. I don't mind using it on my few hovering characters, but on my other character, I want to be able to leap or dash around. How I move is a huge part of what a character feels like, and to be required to hover just so I can *kind of* use a PbAOE attack that is KD in other melee powersets just is bothersome.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we can now use Solar Flare while hovering (it was one of many indications I had that Arbiter Hawk had been reading player feedback on the Kheldian forums, as a few people had pointed this out). I just don't think it's all that beneficial in reducing Solar Flare's KB. It's more or a red herring than a solution to the problem of KB in the power. It's great that Combat Flight is not a drawback in combat for human form, though.

*added*

Zenyth, we do have a lot of long recharge powers, so unless you are in perma Eclipse or Light Form range, it could be helpful. Though as you said, the end drain would make it tough to use, or so I would think.

Ah, I guess I misinterpreted the QoL stuff, somewhat. Though toggle suppression would be a performance boost. QoL usually refers to mundane stuff you have to do all the time, like ease of using a base, the AH, etc. Toggle suppression would be a boost to how we play (depending on how it was implemented), which is beyond QoL, to my mind. We're the only AT that has to worry so much about retoggling, outside of ATs with a crashing Tier 9 (and those are hated because of the required retoggling).

I'm not saying that Warshades or even Peacebringers only perform decently on an IO build. However, IOs really help them shore up their slot crunch, and weaknesses. Recharge is plentiful via IOs as well, which also helps Khelidans and their many long recharge powers enormously.

But no matter what enhancements you are using, you have to look at base performance, and what you can build off of. Kheldians are just goofy in that regard, even if I like their overall approach. There are clashes with their caps and inherent, etc.

I've pointed this out before as well. I think he just noted Foot Stomp because so many of us were using that comparison at the time. But as more than a few of us have said, the damage should be higher than tanks for a human form attack. Human form is weaker than Tanks in a lot of ways, so it should make up for it with other things. And dwarf should be on par with tanks.

I would agree, I think Two Headed Boy is letting his love of Warshades cloud his judgement a bit. The changes we're seeing on test to Warshades aren't QoL changes so much as balance and power adjustment. Their stealth power wasn't giving defense as it should, and Dwarf wasn't taunting as it should, nor was Dwarf providing mez protection instantly like it should, etc.

And as you point out and we have before, there are still some wonky bits of design with Warshades. They could work better overall, no matter how nice they can do some things now.

Wow, didn't think the trailer looked like WoW, but that gameplay vid sure did, at least for art style. Some of the combat looked interesting, seems like you can dodge attacks if you are sharp enough.

What DPS part do we know? Guess I'm not following you there. Do you have some numbers that Dominators can put out? Like I said, I'm sure AOE is probably competitive for a Warshade, but I'm not sure it would be for ST damage. I know my Fire Dom does more damage than other Doms, but he seems to do as well against EBs as my Blasters do (for damage).

I actually think a Peacebringer does better than a solo Defender, at least in human form. I'm not necessarily the most accomplished Defender player, but I've given up on trying to solo with them. They're teeth-grindingly slow, even with a decent debuff set like Sonic. Beating a boss in Dwarf form takes way too long, but I do okay with a boss against them. But still, it's not all that great.

As for Clarion, it's nice, but it isn't around for most of the game. Going to be glad when my PB gets it, though.

I'm going to keep hoping and arguing for more changes. We know Arbiter Hawk has his eye on animation changes still, and I'll hope he sees the need for other adjustments. He has said more than once that he's keeping his eye on them.

You're not looking at Joe's numbers or comparing very well if you think the last is the case. Yes, Light Form and Inner Light are nice, but they're not tipping the balance that much. And again, I love my Peacebringer, even if he's not where he should be.

No, they're not really all that close for damage for PBs. Energy Assualt's damage blows what PBs can do out of the water, and the comparison gets worse for Fiery Assault. Looking at straight damage numbers, Incandescent Strike is the closest thing to being competitive, but then it recharges and animates more slowly, as well as not being a ranged power (while Doms do have melee attacks, they do have mostly ranged attacks, and good ones at that, something that cannot be said for human form). And of course, PBs can't mez like any Dominator can easily do. Even if they got Pulsar at a guaranteed Mag 3 AND Solar Flare did KD, they wouldn't be in the same boat.

Warshades are in a better boat for mezzing, but I wouldn't say they're on par with a Dominator. I'll grant that they're probably good enough there, though. Damage... it's harder to say. Depends on what your settings are, etc. I'd say I would need a spreadsheet comparison of the two. Anyone know what some proven DPS numbers are for Dominators? We could compare those with Joe's Warshade numbers easily.

Of course, Cosmic Balance can muddy this comparison slightly for Peacebringers as well. The problem there is that I don't think there is any set damage level I can depend on as a Peacebringer, and I don't necessarily like the AT being balanced around that. As I have said before, it's better for us to have more guaranteed performance solo and on small teams, with lower buff numbers from Cosmic Balance. The inherent is nice and cool, but it's still designed with an 8 man team in mind (and we've all discussed whether it buffs as well as it could since then). To put it simply, Dominators work well solo or on a team of any size, whereas Kheldians are all over.

For the first part of your post, I do think the Jack of All Trades thing doesn't work well enough. Or really, that we're decent enough at all the trades to justify that moniker. Warshades, as always, are still closer, though. I'm okay with Warshades being decent at mez in comparison to Dominators, for instance. That's an okay target to shoot for. And they should keep adjusting for the two ATs to keep them adjusted how they work (rather than boosting them in similar ways in all things).

By status resists, I meant slows, end drains, etc. I thought those were thought of as status ailments, compared to mez. Dwarf really could use those. And as for Dwarf's damage... yeah. It takes forever to drop a boss, a problem I don't have on my Tanks at all. Not sure if this is a Cosmic Balance issue or what, but I feel like Dwarf should at least have the ST damage to keep up with a tank, it's not like it is that huge (and Dwarf is supposed to be on par with a Tank).

Last but not least, I saw the rating thing before looking at this thread, via Dev Digest. Question marks by our capabilities are not clear, nor do they show what we should be able to do. Other ATs vary a fair amount by powerset, and the Devs should be able to give a ballpark for those numbers.

I'm startled that they think the current question marks are clear to anyone. A new player would just be confused, and older ones would think it's a bug. I'm not going to go to "the devs do not know what Kheldians are capable of, but it certainly doesn't look good that they could even fix a rough amount (which is all those numbers mean, anyway).

That's why I said *maybe* to the stacking. But it's also why I have always said Pulsar needs a guaranteed Mag 3. If you want to look at it that way, Solar Flare as KD would help round those things out as well. I dunno, Warshades may once again be the thing to target for, at least for mezzing capabilities (but Doms can definitely beat a Warshade at crowd control... between domination and all their powers, it's far easier and constant for them to do it). Not sure if Warshades in human can match up with Dominators for ST damage (probably for AOE) from the numbers Smiling Joe gave. I just don't have the analysis to know exactly with the DPS. I can just see how much Energy Assault outdoes PBs, and I think Energy is generally a middle of the road set.

Do you mean Arbiter Hawk? Doubt I've ever seen Ghost Falcon comment on them, and I don't think powers is really his purview.

I think the problem is that we don't really excel anywhere, with the current setup. I guess Warshades can excel at AOE damage, but I'm not sure how well their numbers compare with other such groups like Blasters. Still, I think Nova form should be more on par (for both Kheldian types) with Blasters. Same thing for Dwarf with Tanks. The autohit taunt is nice, but some status resists would round things out more, since Dwarf WILL be hit. I guess I can understand not having psi resists, since not all Tank sets do, but the status resists would be helpful.

Human form is still the sticky wicket in all this. However, I think if the above happens, Human form can safely be made to be more like a Scrapper or Dominator (and more competitive with those two ATs: at the moment, both blow away what a Peacebringer can do, and probably a Warshade). This is because each is significantly different, with its own pros and cons. There is also reason for a Kheldian to want all three forms, or to choose one or the other in a given situation. Each would also work as a single form focus as well.

I'm sure this cannot be done for I21, but I think it is something that should be done in the near future. Until the form's are adjusted to work and work well (both just for Kheldians and how they compare to ATs), we're still going to have issues. The current changes are good and getting better, but they're still not all the way there.

*added*

I should add what I mean by competitive. I think human form could be competitive with dominators if the KB was reduced more to KD (not necessarily in all powers) and Pulsar was made a guaranteed Mag 3. Probably also an ability for WS and PB players to stack with their AOE mez and ST mez as well (since both of their STs are hold). Damage would also need to be looked at there as well, because Dominator sets do more damage and more mez, from what I can see. However, even if all of the above were done, Doms would still be better at their jobs as they will have more crowd control tools. Kheldians would just be similar and at least on a level to compete.

Scrappers would be a different direction, but again, I'm not thinking Kheldians have to be better than those respective ATs in their form. Just competitive. Human form certainly does not compete for damage with Scrappers as it currently stands.

Not too keen on those. The end reduc would be moderately helpful for Human form, but I think there are other bonuses that would be more helpful. Range would do nothing for me in Nova form, either. For Dwarf, were you thinking +HP, or greater healing from the healing powers? The latter could be helpful, but again, not as much as others.

I kind of agree. It really annoys me that I can be surviving okay in Dwarf form, but then get drained out of it and die in short order. I still think the need to shapeshift and be limited to the powers in that form are enough of a drawback that you don't need the end use.

I dunno, I guess I'd be okay with it if other things were working better in our powers, though. It has seemed odd to me that the forms need to have an end requirement, though.

We talk with our devs a lot more than in other MMOs, so keep that in mind. And they're never going to tell us everything, even what they are planning for the future. I was surprised that Synapse said he was thinking about adjusting the crashing for nukes, since it's obviously something he is just thinking about doing (or so I gathered from the dev chat summary). Whereas the more common approach is to not say anything until it's actually in a build.

Heck, we just got a couple of adjustments to Kheld powers in the newest build on test out of the blue. We're just going to have to deal with the uncertainty and know that we're being looked at. I do hope Hawk will be a little more talkative at times, but we're not going to get much more than we do now.

Slow/-recharge resistance, as well -end resistance would both be great helps to Dwarf form (I was end drained out of Dwarf form on a recent Lambda, and Council really put a crimp in how quickly your powers recharge with all their snipers and galaxies with slows). Both would make the form have some nice boosts over what Human form gets.

No, they do not. Page one rewrite suggests that forms are a broken idea, which they are not. The overall concept of Kheldians is a good one. Their particulars is where they are messed, which is what the changes before now (and currently) are adjusting. I think looking more at some powers and caps and Cosmic Balance could help, but the overall idea of Kheldians is a good and fun one.

Yes, I was surprised we even got anything for I21. I wasn't sure we were ever going to get another look, so I was really happy when Second Measure told another player that Kheldians were being looked at for I22. I've gotten away from the excitement of that lately, because we really do need more adjustments, and we're supposed to be giving feedback on the changes. I think the assessment would be good, but not enough, at least from our end.

Yeah, I don't think the AT needs a complete rework. The overall design is okay, it's the particulars that are goofing it up, caps not working well enough with the purpose of each form, Cosmic Balance making AT balance more difficult, some powers needing further adjusting, etc. And Warshades certainly need less adjustment than Peacebringers still do.

We discussed this much earlier in this thread. It's balanced in that both have significant pros and cons, with Eclipse being able to, well, eclipse the resists on Light Form with no crash. Also, Light Form only has Mag 3 mez protection, which is nice, but will be less useful if there is more than one mezzer in a crowd (and most Khelds aren't going to have significant defenses).

The two are balanced: both sides could easily wish for what the other gets on their "uber" defense power.

Ah, well that's good. Forgive me getting all "doomy" on you. Though I would say that tri-forming isn't as bad as you make it out to be. It'll be better when they shorten the shapeshifting animation and maybe give Dwarf some added help, but there are still advantages to both.

Arbiter Hawk tells me the IO set was designed before the current changes, so that's part of the problem. He did suggest that some changes to the set would be a good idea, so hopefully it will happen. I'd probably like to see all the resist bonuses taken out for something more helpful. Not sure if a chance at +recharge or defense would be more helpful.

The Dwarf and Nova ones could be okay if they reworked caps there, but I'm not sure if that is easier than adjusting the IO, or what. Caps would be helpful to all, probably. Dwarf could at least use an auto-hit taunt and a higher HP cap, I would think. Probably some slow resistance to give it a leg up on Human as well. All those would not overpower the form, but make it a more viable alternative to the other two forms, and more Tanky. I wouldn't mind Human doing so much more damage if Dwarf clearly was more of a viable tank.

I noted the problem of caps and our inherent to Arbiter Hawk in a PM. I did ask if it would help to get an official feedback thread, but he is reading this one, so I don't think it's all that needed.

So, as I have noted before, Arbiter Hawk is reading the thread and monitoring Kheldians. We're probably at the limit of what is going to happen now for I21, but we should all keep making a strong case for what more is needed. It sounds like animation changes should keep coming, as well as an adjustment to the Kheldian AT IO set (if I didn't misread Arbiter Hawk on that, but he did agree that none of the bonuses should go to waste). Development does not happen in two seconds, and we do have good indication that more is being done.

We're just (understandably) impatient and wanting it to happen now. The sooner they fix things, the better, but I guess we do need to be patient. And make good cases for what more is needed: how the AT is not working well currently, besides how it compares to other ATs. We're doing better there now, just reminding us all what works and what does not.

If that's how the Scrapper one works, it needs rewording. It sounds to me like it gives them a 20% chance to crit. But imagine a power description needing rewording in this game! That never happens.

Street Justice is indeed good fun. First Ward is as well, and thankfully it's now 20-30, so you're more likely to get it all in. It was 20-26 at first.

Wow, is it really capped at that? That's not terrible, but I think there are Tank sets that outdo that, if I'm remembering the pylon thread correctly.

True, didn't think of that. Another issues with our caps, inherent, and the damage buff from Warshades.

Yeah, we're kind of in a negativity zone, but it gets like that when things sit without feedback. If anyone has the time and the inclination for a an overall plan for Kheldians, go for it. Give something more positive to focus on and point to for the devs. I was going to work on a plan for our inherent, but haven't had the time lately.