Grey Pilgrim

Well, it's tough. As far as I can tell, Castle seems a bit like me, where we know we should ignore criticism, and often can, but still take it to heart (I'm a teacher, so I receive a fair amount of it). Sometimes you can learn a bit from the criticism, and part of me cares too much, so I do keep my ear out still.

I would agree that it warrants working on sooner rather than later, though. But I guess finding time to test does let Castle show that he got it to where he needs to be... which may feel warranted, after the response in this thread.

Depends on your setting, though. At some settings, you can have a boss in almost every mob solo. Same thing on teams... the Citadel TF I was on tonight was replete with them. AOE certainly has its benefits (we needed more on the Citadel as well), but ST does have a stronger place than some feel like noting.

I guess I have to ask what your definition of "working as intended" is. It almost sounds like you think it's whatever the heck Castle's whimsy chose upon. When to me, "working as intended" means that it is balanced against the other powers and ATs in the game, which seems to be Castle's intentions from his posts and how most of the game is set up.

Heck, I don't even know if we're really disagreeing, other than defining this concept differently. Because you said Frosticus had valid reasons for supporting the nerf and... those all pretty much stack up to how Shield Charge is not working as intended. To me, anyway. Heh.

Anyway, what to do about Shield Charge hurts my head (which is already dealing with illness). I suppose it's rather sporting of Castle not to change Shield Charge's numbers right away to what they're supposed to be, but maybe he'll find a middle point from those to where they are now after testing? I honestly don't know that there is an overall best solution to this now. I guess I'm glad I'm not him, heh.

Blapping can work quite well with Blasters, especially if you build well for it. My AR/EM Blaster knocks them about, then leaps in to finish them off with some hard punches. He can also keep the bosses stunned to drop them more quickly and safely.

My Elec/Elec is even better with his Smash/Lethal defenses. Some mobs can be trouble that bypass those defenses, but he is able to absolutely mow through mobs, and that done mostly in melee. He also soloed Nosferatu and all of the Praetorian EBs.

His approach IS different than my Scrappers and Tankers, mind, but the point is that a Blaster build can succeed in melee. Also, my Elec/Elec finds his damage output cut back a fair amount if he only stays at range... same for that AR/EM Blaster, if he's just going after a single hard target.

On the one hand, the devs do have to take into account things that have been in game for awhile, and live with them because of what you are stating here (Castle has stated as much with certain game systems, like the def cap level being the same for all ATs).

At the same time, it would be completely irresponsible for any developer to be ignorant of game balance and how all the powersets play. You can have fun and be ignorant on your own, because you're only really responsible for yourself. Not working as intended is not an irrelevant factoid when you do have an overall system that affects the experience of large amounts of people.

So, I dunno. Not sure how realistic your expectations are, and how that's going to work out for you with all this.

I don't know about that... they ported Fiery Melee over pretty nicely for Scrappers. I have a lowbie Fire/Fire Scrapper that I play from time to time for kicks, and he's fun. I think the Combustion change to Cremate worked pretty well. Who knows when they'll bring Super Strength over, but I'm sure they could make it work okay (though I rather wonder if it'll happen after or at the same time that they even out Rage).

Demobot, it's a shame you don't like your SS Tanker... I do quite well with my Shield/SS, and my Earth/SS was fine for damage before I rerolled him.

I actually wouldn't mind seeing Energy Melee on Scrappers... I think the ST focus would work better for Scrappers, really. At least, I don't mind it on my MA/Regen Scrapper. Hmmmm, how many more attack sets remain for Scrappers to get beyond SS and EM, anyway?

For Tankers, I think I'd like to see spines the most, given that they usually have more of an AOE focus and that would fit nicely for them. Though I usually have difficulty finding a good spines concept.

Hey now, I wouldn't call you a petulant child, that's just mean. I was just trying to help you see the error of your ways, heh. So see the bright side! Shield Charge will still be wicked cool, fun, and effective!

I do know what you mean, though... I don't like having to respec and try to avoid it as much as I can (I generally plan my bulids out to a T on Mid's before playing them much, and adjust that build as I level, meaning I don't have to respec from a bad choice very much). However, it still happens.

Probably the most annoying thing for me was when I got a Stone/SS Tanker to 32 and found I hated Granite form with a passion. I had even started to IO him, too. I dropped him when Shields came out, plucking out as many of his IO sets as I could, but that was a pain... I did that over a couple of weeks, I think, as I hate wasting game time on respecs.

Enough rambling, but I do know the pain of shifting stuff around and repecing.

Yeah... I really do enjoy how the game is set up. I kind of understand how it can get a tad unbalanced, but I also like it. I'd be interested to see what the new endgame stuff does to make the game more challenging. If it ups the difficulty for that content without changing how the AOEs work, I'm fine.

I snipped this down a bit. Basically, I would say Werner is overdoing it, since all Castle has said is that Shield Charge would get toned back (he even said what the numbers were supposed to be which are still QUITE good). Of course, it's up to him to decide what he wants to invest in.

There is still the basic problem that other people pointed out, and it's that things are going to change in the game. Preferably it won't be too many nerfs, but it is going to happen. You just can't expect things not to change, even if it has been in the game awhile.

And believe me, I do also feel the irony you describe of Fiery Aura now needing improvements (well, on top of others that have been made over the years). Really, Burn was the more overpowered portion of the set, and it got smacked down overly hard... which revealed other weaknesses in the set (oh, and I do think Consume could use lower recharge as well... a lot of other end recovery powers have much less recharge). Burn needed to be toned down, that's for sure, but I wish it had been adjusted well when it got hit so hard.

Shortened your post a bit. I know that the devs have a complicated job and that there is a lot going on. However, it sounds like this mistake should have been caught by the devs as it was implemented, and barring that, noticed much sooner. If this was just one thing, too, it wouldn't matter as much. However, there do seem to be communication problems about powers and bugs that do crop up from time to time that I feel is troubling (as I noted earlier).

It's not THAT big a deal, obviously, as the game runs well, I love it, and I think the devs do a great job. I just want to see it keep running well, hence the concern when devs don't know common issues with the game that a lot of posters and players do.

Cut back on being overly negative, please. I would be much more likely to have agreed with you back in the days when Burn was nerfed (and it went from being overpowered to just not worth it, to my mind). Now, not so much...

I recall a lot of people were being negative about Dual Pistols having any adjustments from its induction to "1-2 years down the road," yet we saw a good tweak with I17. They are capable of making good decisions.

For the AOE/ST thing, I dunno. Part of CoX's draw is that you can take on so many mobs at once and hit them, too. Moving away from that could cause issues or make things not as fun.

And while everyone loves AOE, there are times when it's not so great. I much prefer my Arch/Dev Blaster for hard targets like EBs, etc., than my AR/EM Blaster. He dishes out much better ST damage. Also, I do love my Fire/Fire Tank, but I do miss his ST attacks a lot when he SK's below 35.

Yeah, I really like Castle and co. I think they're great, personally, and hate it when people attack them. I do think it's odd how mistakes like these seem to slip in game (or go unnoticed even though players point them out), but I'm not going to be mean about it. Hopefully some good things will get adjusted to how powers are changed from all this.

I really do hope something happens with Fiery Aura though all this. I love the set, and have had MANY discussions about improving it (I even thought I PM'd Castle with some ideas over a year or so ago), but if it takes this thread for something to happen rather than the others I've engaged in since the "buff War Mace" thread, I'll take.

For what it's worth, the best ideas I've heard were:

1. Make Fiery Embrace last 20 seconds for all damage, so you are not punished for picking a non-Fire attack set.
2. Make Burn work. Either make it a one time AOE cast that hits mobs in its radius (either with a DoT or whatever Castle thinks is proper), or take out the fear component and up the recharge level to a point that Castle is okay with Burn doing what it does. Don't leave the power as it is, where it doesn't help a tanker, brute, or scrapper tank, or do real offensive damage with far too much setup. It doesn't have to be just like Shield Charge (though an explosion like power would be cool), just similarly useful. And after seeing this thread... well balanced, heh.
3. Adjust Rise of the Phoenix so it can be of some use while alive as well. I'm less attached to this one, as I think it's an okay power now, if kind of a not so fun power to have at the tier 9 level.

I'd like to have KB protection and Immobilize protection as well (Fire doesn't do anything that is better than other sets that get those protections). But things I recall Castle saying about such protection leads me to believe that they aren't going to change that. I don't know why, since I can think of game fiction reasons that Fiery Aura can't be immobilized or KB'd, but that's what I remember. Of course, I might be remembering wrong.

Okay, thanks, both of you. And I just go to the wiki to get to the mid's file stuff, I know it's all part of the Titan Network.