Hellwraith
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I totally needed to hear that, since I have had an otherwise unenjoyable day. Just hearing that Fire Aura might get some love makes me feel warmer and fuzzier.Originally Posted by Castle
This:
is the point my temple began to ache. There shouldn't be a 50% disparity in max performance here. I'm not too concerned about the protection levels shields can generate; it'll be needed. The DDB Resist is higher than designed, but, again, not really the major concern here.
AAO, actually looks fine. The maximum boost it can generate isn't that large.
Shield Charge isn't bad, basically it can get you to 2 scale 0.7 aoe's on, at best, an 19.5 second cycle time (ignoring Arcanatime, for the moment.) Then again, to get that, you've got a +400% Recharge, which is freakin' huge.
That leads me to believe the discrepancy lies with the primary sets Fire Melee and Dark Melee. Fire is MEANT to have higher DPS overall, so that's 'fine.' Dark Melee, not so much. I'd have to look at specific builds and slotting to see what's going on there, but that's a project I don't have time for now.
Several folks have suggested via PMs and in this thread that I look at Fiery Aura again; to bring it's performance up a bit. I'll see what I can do.
Just remove the burn panic, and I swear, YOU WILL GET COOKIES!!! I'm talking crazy chocolate chunk, gonna need a glass of milk quality cookies. -
Quote:Cool, thanks for the idea... I couldn't remember which dev might be the one to ask, since I always think of Babs and Castle, but animations and powers probably wouldn't do much to help.Originally Posted by macskull
Your best bet in regards to this matter is to PM a developer directly, probably Ghost Falcon as he seems to be the lead tech/support guy. However, I wouldn't expect the devs to disclose backend information about how the servers run unless they see fit to do so.
Hellwraith -
Hello all,
I have a somewhat detailed set of technical questions I am curious about, which may be propriatary and something that the developers don't want to comment on, but I am curious about how the database that drives Wentworth's has been implimented.
1. What do you use for the backend db? Oracle, db2, SQL Server, mySQL, etc?
2. Are you using full text searching to allow people to search the database?
3. What sort of schema do you use, and what optimizations? Is there partitioning, compression, etc?
4. Do you have a single DB for WW that crosses all servers, or is it one per server?
5. How much time do you spend in transaction vs. outside of the DB?
6. How many transactions do you perform per hour, etc?
Sorry, lots of questions, and I am assuming you may not be able to answer them, but I have noticed some spotty performance here and there, and was wondering if anyone had information that they could share.
Thanks for anything you can say to sate my curiosity!
Regards,
Hellwraith
P.S. If this isn't the proper venue, please feel free to send ma a PM regarding the questions. Thanks! -
Quote:I am so down with that plan... except maybe listening to Filter "Hey Man, Nice Shot"Originally Posted by Eldagore
This, except, skip the endo discount, any type of buffs etc..... allow walk to remove rooting. Imagine walking through your mission punching, shooting, stomping, blasting etc whatever is stupid enough to step in front of you. I imagine it on my Assault rifle blaster.
Slow walk into warehouse....walk down hall...smart talkin thugs come after me...slug...buckshot....keep walkin.... with this song lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IJw9jid5Yk
it wouldnt work for powers like full auto or snipes mind you, but for basic attacks to have rooting removed would make for epic demo records and badass-ery.
of course, i expect this would be extremely time consuming and wouldnt work on a lot of powers, but still, I can imagine
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Quote:Originally Posted by Ice_Ember
Castle deleted his fire tank.
that explains it... lolz
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Quote:Not saying that, solo, it isn't very powerful. Just saying that when playing on a team, FF is annoying if you want to buff people, and that it is overshadowed by the fact Traps can have effectively the exact same level of protection (due to def cap), plus kill faster. Single target buffing is, generally IMHO, dumb. It is a huge waste of gametime.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
It requires no thought to play FF, and is very powerful against most mobs, but other things are almost exactly as powerful, and offer more depth. -
Quote:Pretty much, those are the same issues I would say it has, though I would add in some end drain protection. I wouldn't say it can't tank, but more that the added offense if gives isn't really of equal parody with its ability to take damage (especially with the frustrating way burn now works).Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
The problem, however, is your metric.
Is Fiery Aura weaker at tanking (as in damage it can sustain) than the best ones, like WP, Invuln, and Stone? Probably.
But that's one metric. Can it tank? Overwhelming yes. And that's really all that matters. A Fiery Aura tank can be built to tank anything this game can throw at them. And I would prefer to solo or run with my Fiery Aura than most of my other tanks: and I like them all, really.
That doesn't mean Fiery Aura doesn't have some wonky issues that SHOULD be ironed out (Consume and Burn issues, maybe a little more resistance). It can still tank, though.
To sum up, my suggestions would be:
1. Eliminate the panic from burn... it is no longer overpowered with the aggro cap and ED, and doesn't need the panic any longer.
2. Remove the damage from consume, and cut the recharge rate in from 180 sec to 120 sec. Add in 40% end drain protection for 120 sec.
3. Add +5% cold resist to Temp Protection, and remove the unneeded fire protection from it.
4. Up the base smash/lethal resistance in Fire Shield by 3 -5% to go from 30% to 33% - 35%.
I don't think adding that in to the set would do anything to unbalance it, and would still likely leave it somewhat weaker than others in the AT, but not so drastically as it is today.
You still have to sacrifice KB protection, and have no inate defense, and nothing to protect you from psy, but you no longer have to worry about scattering the mob when you fire off Burn to get immobalization protection, you don't get dropped so quickly by Sappers and Carnies (and can recover the end, which otherwise can slow the game down to a boring crawl), and you have a smidge more resistance to the most common damage type in the game, along with helping to cover the cold resist slightly.
Anyway, I have shouted this from the rafters here before, but the only thing I recall ever hearing was Castle saying he was happy with the performance of his Fire tank. In the meantime, since mine is at 50, he sits happily on the shelf waiting for some dev love. -
Quote:LOL...um, no, my logic is that the overall number of negative factors in their ability to tank add to their being somewhat bad at tanking, not one single factor.Originally Posted by Calash
By that logic Ice has a huge problem with it's inability to cap Resistance. Not all tanks can, or should, be able to do everything.
You could say any of the 10 items I listed as not being a factor... for instance, Inv has no psy resistance, though they still tank quite well, but it is a weakness (one that some tanks don't have). I am saying that, fire tanks have too many weaknesses, compared to all of the other tank sets.
A good point was brought up that the set is really a hodgepodge due to development changes and the constant nerfing, especially to burn, beyond the changes with ED and the nerf of res and def. I tend to think that was what has made fire/fire, IMHO, less effective tanks. Give me back burn as a tool without the panic, and some End drain protection (similar to elec), and I would be a lot happier playing them. -
Quote:I would never say Fire/Fire can't tank at all, that isn't the case, and all of the tanker auras help in maintaining aggro. However, on a team that does high damage, the extra I am doing, especially the small increase from BA vs. other auras, is insignificant.Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Blazing Aura isn't shabby. It helps you keep aggro, and the damage does add up. I generally fire off Combustion and FSC in the middle of the mob, which really hurts the minions. Blazing Aura takes care of the rest of the minion's health while I use my STs on harder targets. So you'll never hear me demean a damage aura's ability, especially BA.
My one SG cohort uses an assault blaster, and alternates spawns with full auto and LRM, and believe me, short of bosses, nearly everything is KOed. The added damage from BA over any other tanker aura doesn't make any actual difference in how quickly we take mobs down.
However, I usually get hit with the alpha and can often get dropped in a single mob situation, and that is frustrating. Add in psionic mobs, end drain, or heavy knockback, and I am really in trouble. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Calash
Soft-capping is not the end-all of tanking and should not be listed as a weakness of the Fire/ set.
Nitpick aside we finally live in an age where we have good yardsticks to measure Fire/ against.
Electric is another Resistance only set and while it is not Offensive based it can be used as a good baseline for the performance of Fire/ against other sets.
Shield gives us a similar comparison but this time along the Offensive orientation.
IMHO on the Offensive end Fire performs well when put against Shield. It could use an Alpha mitigation tool like Shield Charge, and/or a reduction to the recharge of Fiery Embrace.
For resists, bump up S/L by 5% in Fire Shield, Energy and Neg-Energy by 5% in Plasma Shield. It still does not encroach on the levels from Electic but would go a long way to help the set on large teams.
The problem is, you could say that any of the weaknesses I listed, none are really a requirement to be effective, but combined, and the fact that no other set has nearly so many, really demonstrates the overall problems.
Soft capping isn't a requirement, but I think the littany of problems I wrote probably all have a multiplicative effect in making the set painful to use, and other than the newly added Elec, I believe every other tanker set has at least one power with some defense in it. I think that makes it fair to say having no added defense at all inherent to the set adds to its problems as compared with others in the AT.
I believe the devs have said that you should be able to use sets out of the box without requiring IOs or specific pools, but I really don't believe that that is possible, especially at higher levels. The cascade of problems with the set become very apparent with 8 man teams. -
Quote:Agreed, it isn't a necessity or something that I think should absolutely be there, but it does exist in other tanker sets, Shields, Stone and Willpower come to mind, so I figured it was worth mentioning as a weakness. So, while you can softcap defense with a lot of work, sacrifice and influence, you still can suffer defense debuff cascade against a few enemies, which can kill you fast.Originally Posted by Sailboat
I'm can see what you're saying about many of the weaknesses you list for Fire, Hellwraith, but this one I don't see:
Why would a set with zero defense get defense debuff protection? If it did, then certainly everyone else should have defense debuff protection, since everyone else has at least zero defense. And if everyone had protection, that would be like removing defense debuff from the game.
It's not like every character in the game has an inherent right to softcap defense...and resist it being debuffed too. It's okay that Fire Tankers survive through other means.
I do, however, wish they didn't have quite so many holes compared to, say, Shields.
Generally, playing any tank, having around a 20-30% defense debuff protection across the board would make sense to me, and probably not be game balance breaking, to prevent being KOed due to a string of bad luck, IMHO. However, there are a lot of other problems in the set that I would love to see addressed first. -
It really has a lot of problems as a set... my Fire/Fire was the first character I created around I2 (thus my name), and basically, since I chose not to dumpster dive at the time, it took me an eternity to get to 50 with him. The multiple and nonsensical changes to burn caused me to leave the game for about 2 years.
Here's my quick list of weaknesses with Fire/X
1. No built in defense at all - very difficult to softcap anything
2. No built in knockback protection
3. No built in endurance drain protection
4. The built in immob protection causes mob scatter and aggro loss
5. No built in defense debuff protection
6. No built in ability to increase hitpoints, and Healing Flames doesn't help with taking Alpha
7. No built in psionic resists
8. Top tier power is a rez, not an emergency button like most tanks
9. Consume has an excessive recharge time
10. Max smash/lethal resistance tops out around 70% (assuming tough), weak cold resists
The idea was always that they killed faster than other tanks, and that was how they were balanced, but really I find that logic no longer applies. Using Burn is beyond frustrating against most mobs, since I don't have a controller handy to play with, and Fiery Embrace is only most effective with fire secondaries, which don't really offer much damage mitigation. I won't even include Blazing Aura's small damage bonus in the discussion, since it really is not significant.
As a whole, the devs have been saying Works As Intended anytime people bring up the problems with Fiery Aura, so I don't expect them to be fixed anytime soon. Apparently, they have never tried to use them with simple lev 50 IOs against high end content, since you will get destroyed by anything in a large team, be it Malta, Carnies, KoA... In the meantime, I play way more fun sets that get some dev love like Shields and WP : )
Hellwraith -
Quote:I think that succinctly really sums up the problem. Damage has always been king, but there really isn't much to add to FF to help it overcome the fact it is overshadowed by IOs. I would have loved a Mag 3 immobilize in there, but I don't know where you would put it. The KD in bomb is nice, but really, it is protecting me from damage I am already not taking. Even if they moved softcap into the 60s, I am already hit so infrequently, it would make only marginal difference.Originally Posted by brophog02
I was hoping someone would bring that up. The problem here is now, anywhere the knockback is useful Storm is now more useful than FF. In the situations that resist the debuff of Storm, knockback is usually resisted as well. Now we're back to just defense where things like IOs cut into FF's territory, and those situations are usually ones in which a FF user doesn't have the damage to move beyond a stalemate.
FF is a one trick pony. It does that trick VERY WELL (and I happen to enjoy that trick) but it isn't the toolbox that the other sets are. There are a few situations where I'd still rather have FF than anything else (Raid type situations, for instance) but for the most part a set like Traps, Storm, or Dark can do what it can and a lot more. That's why those sets are more popular than FF.
The problem with FF's is that it is no longer a game where the cost of giving up offense is worth the massive defensive benefit. It is far easier to get defense through other means than more offense. With a set like Traps, everyone can turn themselves into defensive juggernauts AND have great offense whereas you can't add offense to a set that doesn't really have any. But you sure can add defense to a set that doesn't have any, and that's what really harms FF.
The knockback is very handy, and this is coming from a guy that flocks towards the knockback sets like candy, but if I want knockback I'd rather use Storm and get a lot of offense to go with it. If I were fixing FF, I'd continue what they started to do and that is add more offense. That helped a little when Repulsion Bomb got some added damage, but it is not enough. A small team damage buff would help enormously.
FF is the only Mastermind secondary that doesn't either include a damage buff or resistance debuff and the benefit of defense (either passive or active) is not enough with the way the game is now structured.
The end drain protection mentioned is nice, but really, my bots kill that Sapper before he ever becomes an issue, and I just don't have enough time to devote to shielding anyone except possibly the brutes. The other end drains are small enough that I don't really have to deal much with them. -
Quote:Yeah, I noticed that only after looking at Mid's (and I am no nerf herder), but I was somewhat stunned to see that value. I should think the devs might at least buff dispersion bubble to the same levels, especially for the status resists.Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
Thats about it, Bots/FF is good and I really do love mine, but traps is FF + some other great debuffing set, at least when you are looking at soloing.
The one thing that annoys the hell out of me is FFG being better than Dispersion Bubble, I know it has a limited life but it just doesn't feel right to me.
While Traps seems to be a great solo set, truthfully, I tend to think traps is actually a better team set than FF as well, due to reasons mentioned above.
Hellwraith -
Quote:I agree with many of those points, and with skill, you can often get away managing mob scatter with FF out of the box, though it isn't nearly as easy as with an AoE immobilizer. So far, what seems to hurt the set is:Originally Posted by Anshar Seraphim
In many ways, comparing Traps to Force Fields can be the same as comparing apples to oranges. They're both good for different things and for different reasons.
1. Its biggest benefit is meeting the defense softcap, which another, more diverse set can
as well
2. It is really cumbersome to use with a full team, if you want to make the most of the secondary and buff everyone - spending 25% of my time shielding is very expensive
3. There isn't much to look forward to at high levels, you kind of start out very tough, but with not much room for improvement with IOs. It seems to lose its luster as you hit high levels
Granted, it depends on what your goal is for #3, you could push for damage enhancement or regen, I suppose, but it is often unnecessary, especially if you team. Similar with PFF, I probably hit that button almost as rarely as brawl.
However, Traps gives healing beacon for damage mitigation and resistance debuffs, which can help kill faster, the ultimate damage mitigation. You have to manage the force field pet a bit more, but I usually use the location order to move my pets around, so keeping them on a tight leash isn't usually too difficult.
It may simply be that I should look more at FF as a great soloist only set, but not as effective as a teammate. Especially, when seeing the idea of employing group fly, considering the hate that generates (and the acc debuff) on teams. -
Sounds like I am not the only one who feels "build envy" of the Bot/Trap combo. I wonder if there are any small tweaks that could make FF a bit more viable and attractive as a MM secondary, when compared to IOed out Traps builds.
To be fair, there is the added toxic resist and end drain protection in FF, so I suppose there is a difference, though even the status protection magnitudes and overall def are higher for personal FF in traps than dispersion bubble. FF can keep you out of melee combat, and you have PFF, a great emergency protection button. However, tt seems like it ends up a wash, though, since many of those benefits really only help teammates cover holes in their protection, since I am not too worried about bots getting drained, and toxic is rare.
I'm thinking it's time for a switcheroo... I'm convinced, time to roll a Bot/Trap.
Any ideas about how FF could be improved, though?
The easiest idea I can think of would be adding in defense debuff protection, and altering the deployment method of FF to include the whole team, sort of in the radiation AM or empath hug style. It would at least give it that next level of protection that can't be gotten from traps, and let you deploy powers to all teammates without spraining your force field finger. Altering the set to include an AoE immobilize might make it more tempting as well, but I am not sure where that would fit in.
I hate seeing a dead secondary, but now I can see why no one chooses it. -
Hmm, that may make sense... I am likely just overdoing it with making sure I hit the DEF softcap on the pets. I usually like to team, just to keep things interesting, often PUGging, but it may be that I haven't played with the new difficulty settings enough to find enjoyment solo.
I am somewhat concerned that, as far as I know, there is no way to obtain any defense debuff protection with FF, though, so going above and beyond softcap seems like a good idea. However, realizing that even without the added deflection and insulation shields the bots can likely get softcap by using just dispersion bubble and maneuvers (plus sets), I am beginning to think that FF isn't as valuable as I thought.
Considering that I don't have a heal (excepting Aid Self), it seems that Traps can get me to the same place, and provide the heal I am lacking (along with all the other fun with traps, especially the - RES). Maybe I am missing something numerically there, but I may have to try a pass through Mids and see.
An aside, usually, I don't Min/Max quite so much, but lately I have been somewhat dismayed that some shiney new sets seem to be better at doing the same job I was used to doing. I am starting to think that there is nothing unique to FF that makes it stand out, when compared to Traps, especially if the numbers really don't make any changes. I guess Force Bubble is a bit fun. The invincibility (against most mobs) can be exciting, but the micromanagement has been tedious, adding in with the micromanagement normally needed just to run a MM. Could be user error
Hellwraith -
Just wanted to ask the Force Field masterminds whether or not you have found using FF at all annoying. Let me preface this that I tend to believe I should be using my secondary actively, which currently translates to deploying both deflection shield and insulation shield, both on my 6 active bots and on my 7 teammates.
While I felt anecdotally that I was becoming frustrated that I was constantly checking and deploying force fields, I wanted to do a little math to see if my perception was off (forgive me if this has come up before, but I haven't seen it in the forums).
Based on Mid's estimates, here's what I came up with:
Deflection Shield 2.07 cast time, 240 second duration
Insulation Shield 2.07 cast time, 240 second duration
So, deploying both on a single ally costs 4.14 seconds.
On a full team, with all my bots deployed, we have 13 allies. Using 4.14 seconds per ally, it would take 53.82 seconds to deploy them all. That, of course, is not a realistic estimate of how long it would actually take, due to some human factors. Conservatively, I would imagine that around 60 seconds are needed to fully deploy shields to all teammates and pets. This also assumes that no teammate has any pets, or the amount of time stretches even farther.
To give an idea of the whole impact, due to the 240 second recharge time, using 60 seconds to deploy shields means approximately 25% of your playtime is devoted to cycling shields on.
Now, the obvious answer may be, don't bother shielding either teammates or your pets, or play something else, but I am curious if the developers have ever examined this issue and discussed it, considering that MM didn't exist when FF was originally constructed. To me, it seems an excessive amount of time to devote to a non-reactive power, especially when there are a lot of potential ways to reconstruct the FF powers to avoid such overhead in the MM set.
Some suggestions would be, make them deploy similarly to the "hugs" from empaths, allow them to exist for the mission duration or an extended duration, alter them to toggles, etc.
I was curious to know if others have felt that this has made your FF experience tedious and occasionally boring. Thanks for the input.
Hellwraith -
Some quick questions I didn't see answered in the raid guide...
1. How effective are debuff powers on mitos/hami? If you stacked enough Rad or Dark defenders, could you get their ToHit down to 5%?
2. Can mitos/hami be hit with detention field or black hole?
Just looking at what mechanics could be best manipulated to give heroes an edge, since resistance, defense, and regen don't appear to be effective, from what I have read.
Many thanks!
Hellwraith -
/signed
Pretty much covers everything I thought was lacking in terms of bases. If all of that were I11, I would be more than happy! Let's hope the devs take a peek at the thread! -
Does #2 (change to fear powers) include the various rain powers and fire tank burn.... please, please let it include burn! As it stands, without using provoke, because of the fear powers, burn is useless.
-Hellwraith -
I know there was mention of adding some additional powers to some primaries and secondaries... please, please, please tell me you will consider adding a tanker version of provoke to either all primaries or secondaries? Almost every tank has to take provoke to do his job, which severly limits our power pools, which in turn limits the differences from one tank to another. Thanks!
-Hellwraith -
The problem with States theory is that all progress is measured in XP, which is only garnered through defeating enemies. Because XP scales with level, such that defeating a foe 5 levels your junior is meaningless, the system will be broken. If XP were static, based on level, then altering which level presents a "challenge" would be acceptable, but as it stands, the scale would be very broken in this system.
-Hellwraith