Horusaurus
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:You mean like how ATs get things that they can't get anywhere else like blasters having shields or controllers having mez protection, etc? 'kay, gonna make a note of this, huge success.Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Surely by now people get that the Ancillary Pools aren't there to suddenly turn your character into an amazing one?
At level 38 you've got, for generic purposes, all of the power-set choices you'll take for that character. The Ancillaries don't add anything to those powers but they might plug a gap, without dramatically changing the nature of the AT. So you won't suddenly get Team Heals for Scrapper APPs.
Also to note is that each AT has base values for the effectiveness of their various attacks/defences/resists/buffs/debuffs/controls etc etc.
The -def of my Scrapper's Katana attacks is not as high as the -def of a /Rad Defender's blasts. But I do more damage, especially in melee, because I'm a melee AT.
So giving Scrappers 'souped-up' controls/debuffs whatever would be overpowered, because the power of the , um, power would have to be rammed up to take account for the low base value of these kinds of moves.
I certainly think that Scrapper APPs could do with some proliferation - Sonic and Electric for starters - if only for some variety.
But souping up their powers for me is a clear /unsigned.
Edit: As for souped up, I didn't say make it overpowered, I said make it not useless. Holding a single minion or lieutenant that dies in one attack is pretty much useless. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Silas
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Well honestly, my main point to this thread isn't to make all the ancillary epic damage sets, but to feel like they're actually being useful and worth taking, overall in my opinion weapon mastery and darkness mastery feel highly underwhelming.
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Quote:You and me both.Originally Posted by Lucky666
I never got why brutes got aoe immobs but scrappers didn't.
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Quote:Caustic Insult- Toxic damage with a chance for damaged ego.Originally Posted by Aneko
Make that Ironic Mastery and I'll take it.
Berating Comment- Taunt effect that also causes -tohit
Eye roll- Single target confusion effect
Sarcastic Quip- Smashing/Energy damage ST ranged with -res
Ego Smasher- To powerful so it got removed. -
Quote:And that's why I want other people to input in on this. I realize I'm sorta one track mind with what I want. I agree with most of your post. If they are to give us some controllerish powers I would like them to have a slightly bigger impact. I believe one major change that could be made would be to make the immobs into aoe immobs. A single target immob isn't overly useful when you have 10 enemies charging you as you retreat. Hah, stopped that lieutenant! I'm safe now!Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It also doesn't account for the fact that "The Final Countdown" was already playing in my headphones.
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I'm not against revamping the Epic pools, because I agree - Dark and Weapons kind of suck. However, I don't think the OP and I are on the same page as to what constitutes "good" powers. Scrapper Epics are not ranged attack sets, they are control sets with ranged attacks in them. Even the Patron Pools they get from Stalkers aren't all attacks. I'm not sure if I agree with this or not, but that's how they're designed and that's what we should judge them by.
I find "Weapon" Mastery to be underwhelming because it doesn't really have weapons in it. I'd have expected a bow (which didn't exist at the time, granted) or guns (we had single pistol and rifle powers back then). What it IS, by contrast, is Devices, more or less. With the addition of a fifth power, it became even more like it. The shuriken powers just don't thrill me, personally. I mean, OK, the one shuriken, maybe, but, but the exploding one? The hell? Why not have a barrage of them? OK, I know that when Epics were made, it was on player complaint that "What, so in the 10 new levels I get to take the powers I didn't want before?" so they couldn't really afford to add much new artwork, but we got Cryo Freeze Ray, didn't we?
I really don't mind Weapon Mastery's balance, though. Web Grenade has a recharge debuff on it, so it's good for that and Caltrops is not a damage power, it is a run speed debuff. Aside from wolves and other "fast" enemies, with enough debuff in the thing you can more or less slow a whole spawn to a crawl. It's useful for making a retreat if need be, it's useful for sewing chaos among enemies and it's useful for keeping them from scattering too fast, which can help tremendously with lower-level enemies like those of the Steel Canyon fires.
Dark, on the other hand, I hate because it's just stupid. I get that Epics are not attack sets, but this is just... Ugh! Dark already has a ton of support powers. Why can't we have had a decent AoE or cone? Torrent is just offensive. It should have been put in a support slot, not a damage slot. I don't actually mind Dark Blast being in there because A) it looks VASTLY better than Gloom with the damn skull thing which I hate and B) it delivers its damage instantly, as opposed to over time, which seems to be Dark's "thing." The only thing I'd like to see happen to it is for Torrent to stop sucking.
When it comes to Pyre Mastery, I actually really like both the immobilize and the hold. They're not THAT useful on a Scrapper as status effects, but both of them do some SERIOUS damage, which is always a plus. And Body Mastery's Conserve Power, though on a long recharge, is still very useful. Yes, granted, a constant endurance bar increase is useful, but for the time it's active, Conserve Power has a MASSIVE impact. Even before inherent Stamina, I was using it to fight enemies with heavy endurance drain and run the old super-expensive Focused Accuracy (it's much, much cheaper now) so I value having a safety net for when my end drops like a stone. -
Quote:Okay well, I'm not about stripping and gutting the entire set, I've also had ideas of tweaking existing powers to make them feel more useful. Adding debuffs that make sense, buffing damage, etc. of course all these buffs would be balanced.Originally Posted by Patteroast
Personally, I like Body and Darkness the most. I haven't tried Blaze, since it came out after the last time I got a Scrapper to 50, but it looks fine to me too. Weapon Mastery... never been a fan.
Conserve Power alone is one of the major reasons that I've chosen Body Mastery for more than one character. My first level 50 Scrapper also really enjoyed having insane tohit, back before the nerfed Focused Accuracy, but it's still not that bad. I'm not that enthusiastic about the attacks in Body Mastery, but I take it for utility, not damage. I already do a lot of damage. Plus, I usually choose Body as a 'natural' set, and very few of my characters who want it would like to have Laser Beam Eyes. It just looks silly for most of them.
The number one reason that I took Darkness Mastery was because it fit thematically. (Also, the character I tried it on briefly chose Weapons, and that made me want to switch...) Gloom would be nicer than Dark Blast, but I still find Dark Blast nice for a little bit of damage to take out runners. But the main attraction of the set is definitely Tenebrous Tentacles. That power alone makes me satisfied with picking Darkness. Especially considering that my guy with it is Spines... immobilizing the enemies so I can AoE and cone their faces off? Yes please. Also, I'm perfectly happy with a hold, even if it's single target and without damage.
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Quote:I prefer "Fire Woman" but "She Sells Sanctuary" is pretty wicked no doubt.Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
And it doesn't even work! I've got "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult in there now.
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Quote:Not that I'm dissing it persee, but the damage takes a long time to really be noticed and the fear effect can make it difficult to keep enemies in it unless you have someone who knows to immob enemies the second you caltrop, would be useful if you had an aoe immob in the set but web grenade in this set is single target. Something to think about.Originally Posted by Icy_J
Did this guy just diss Caltrops?
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Quote:I never said how serious of a regen debuff, even a minor would be nice, compared to what it is right now. The issue is okay, fire out damages them. But what do the others offer in exchange? I can't think of anything off the top of my head of what they offer that's worthwhile. The only one that has something different to offer lieu of damage is body mastery. Darkness and weapon don't seem to offer anything.Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
Your avatar is a jerk.
Other than that, things look solid, if bordering a little on too powerful (especially the regen debuff on Shuriken... really, on a -Regen Debuff on a T1 attack?)
Also, the Conserve Power thing is the reason that Energy Aura Scrappers will get Energize. If you take that out of the pool, there goes \EA's click heal.
And don't forget: the secondary effect of Fire powers is MOAR DAMAGE. It's natural for Pyre Mastery to outdamage the other sets.
Edit: I highly doubt the entire reason the devs decided to buff energy aura with energize is strictly because of scrappers and tanks having conserve power. Energize being placed there is simply a buff that has been long needed. Conserve power in body mastery still needs to go. Superior conditioning is what should be there. -
So this has bothered me for a very long time. I feel that a good majority the of the original scrapper ancillary pools are incredibly lacking in epic vibe. Out of the current 4 I find 1 good (Blaze), 1 acceptable (Body) and the other 2 I feel are fairly useless (Dark and Weapon). I'll break down each of these.
Blaze, I find the most acceptable, okay, yes you do have to take one mediocre power to get to the real meat but once you get there boy is that meat tasty! Fire Blast and Fire Ball goodness! Pew pew to your hearts content! Ok, yes Melt Armor is pretty laughable with the numbers it puts out compared to it's endurance costs. I've heard many people compare it to an emote with an endurance costs, but you don't have to take it so oh well. Next!
Body master...well first off...one issue I have with it, scrappers and tanks get stuck with Conserve Power with it's huge recharge time I find fairly useless while brutes and stalkers get superior conditioning which seems superior in every way. When brutes and stalkers received ancillary powers why weren't scrapper and tank versions changed? A permanent bonus to endurance sounds better in every way possible! Focused Accuracy is okay, if you have accuracy issues go ahead and take it, it's kinda end heavy but it does what it does. Laser Beam Eyes, longer animation time than fire blast, lower damage...this should really be toned up. Physical Perfection, it's fine, in fact one of the few reasons why I find body mastery acceptable on scrappers. Energy torrent...well it isn't a high mag KB so it's fine, fast animation also so I won't complain to much. Now...we move onto the stuff I have real issues with.
Dark mastery, where do I start with you? Torrent makes me ill, a decent size cone, and it has a very high mag KB which can be odd to use, but it's possible I suppose to shove groups of mobs into corners and what not. It's damage though is pretty repulsive. Petrifying gaze...it does no damage and compared to char why would you ever want this? Oh, and remember when the devs were porting epic pools and said they didn't want any duplicate powers? Guess what Darkness and Soul mastery have in common? Both have poor, poor mediocre dark blast instead of gloom. Why give us awesome fire blast but then not gloom? But I digress, at least this power feels more useful than the rest of darkness mastery, it's ranged, it deals damage. Movin' onto nightfall which is a smallish cone, damage that's almost as low as torrent and fairly long animation time. Fire ball it is not. Tenebrous tentacles! Hey who let a decent aoe sneak in here! Cast time is better than nightfall, damage is better and it even has an immob if that matters to you.
Moving onto weapons. What do we start off with? Web grenades, while in pve this power isn't overly looked for but it does have it's uses for pvp, I'll just ignore it unless I need it. Caltrops, eh the damage is good if you can get enemies to stay in it, but otherwise you could have melee'd them to death by the time that damage occurs. Hey shuriken! It's brawl in ranged form! Albeit it recharges silly quick so it's fairly spammy but eh...no umph behind it and it lacks any kind of debuff along side it to make it interesting choice. Next is focued ac-I mean targeting drone, see my previous statements of focused accuracy for this. Exploding shuriken is awful. Period. The end. Exact same endurance costs and recharge time of fire ball but it's damage is almost a joke when compared.
What makes all of this even worse is that a lot of these things could easily be fixed to be brought up to date. Here are my idealized changes to each power set.
Body Mastery
Tier 1- Superior Conditioning in and out with Conserve Power
Tier 1-Focused Accuracy is okay as is.
Tier 2-Laser Beam Eyes needs a buffing
Tier 2-Physical Perfection, don't mess with it, we have something good.
Tier 3-Energy Torrent a slight buff to it's damage won't break it, go for it!
Darkness Mastery
Honestly, after reading over this set over and over again I cannot find any good fix for it. It all seems so hodge-podge it just feels like it needs to be tossed. Now if it were me, I would just take the brute soul mastery and use that in it's place. But yet again, just what I would do.
Weapon Mastery
Tier 1-Web Grenade, I'm not overly fond of this power but I have seen it been used from time to time and actually be sorta useful and I still like it in pvp.
Tier 1- Shuriken, now, I have come up with a crazy idea for this, how about some toxic DoT and a regen debuff along with it? Or how about a debuff of some kind?
Tier 2- Targeting Drone, same as focused accuracy.
Tier 2- Flash Bang, in my mind it would essentially be very similar if not the same in power aspect as flash arrow from trick arrow, maybe have a hold in it also?
Tier 3- Exploding Shuriken, it's damage really needs to be buffed or something changed to make it feel special and useful.
Well that's the end of my rant, I'd love to hear any ideas others may have. So please post!
P.S. Yes, I am aware that several times through out this post I compared a good many powers to what we get in blaze mastery. -
Quote:Close, but not quite, Goku is the winner.Originally Posted by Aneko
In the never-ending battle for truth, justice and the Champion way... Superman wins.
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Sounds pretty awesome, I'm curious to see what other cool ideas could come from this. /signed
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Team 1
1) @Amygdala - Ice/Thermal Corruptor
2) @Captain Drej - Thugs/Pain MM
3) @BigMoneyHustla - Ice/Fire Blaster
4) @ResplendentMs - Emp/Dark def
5) @Cherry Cupcakes - fire/dark corr
6) @MAH - Emp/Psi Def
7) @Ascendant Destroyer - Elec/Elec Blaster
8)@Hospy - Robotics/Force Field MM
Team 2
1) @Cobalt Azurean (Elec/Elec Dom [probably])
2) @Zubenelgenubi (BLASTER, baby!)
3) @ChicagoDoodler (Mind/Psy Dom)[tentative on attendance]
4) purplemanwolf (MA/SR scrapper) [tentative on attendance]
5) Stray Kitten (scrapper?)
6) ZeroForce (blaster?)
7) @Jitsurei
8) @SovereignSavior
Team 3
1)@Disciple of Horus (whatever, probably DM/SD or fortunata)
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hai ping, happy birthday
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Quote:Awesome! Congrats!Originally Posted by Mary Deluce
Man, I miss RAF too.
... and that other person you mentioned.
((Just got married btw, moving in a week. Will post pictures when I get a chance, and hopefully be free to start jumping back on every now and then.)) -
Quote:Originally Posted by Neuronia
My Champion alts are staying here, the exception being PvP alts which will go to whichever server the new league is on.
Some friends and I will be doing a lampoon Elitist SG of the Elite on ViP, as will hundreds more no doubt. Monocle and top hat required!
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Quote:I had typed out a meaningful post but then I thought on it and decided it wouldn't making a difference anyways. So I'm not going to get sucked into your eFight. Have a good time in game. G'luck on your badges.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Seeing that you want to say I didn't experience what I experienced, I think I can safely ignore you because it is abundantly clear that you don't want to discuss anything. Instead you want to be right.
Even others only claim a 60% success rate with a select group of people (speed runners). I've already said that I can see that some groups can do it, in multiple posts in this thread. It isn't common though. -
Quote:Yes. Yes I am. Yes it is. Not easy, but possible.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Oh, so you are trying to say that what I've seen was wrong? Without exception, every time I've done Tin Mage, no one has got the badge without the nuke/shivan combo.
I didn't say it wasn't possible. However it isn't as common as you, and the other people claiming it is easy, seem to think it is. -
Quote:Eh, no, not at all. A nice mixture of buffs and debuffs and it's a cakewalk. And with barrier out if people time their clicks you can easily keep an entire team way over softcap. Honestly it's gotten to easy. Now if you charge in their half-cocked then yeah it'll fail. Or hey if you don't even have the buffers/barrier, have people bring purple inspirations, 4 purples and 4 reds popped, he should die fairly fast. You have enough inspiration room for 3 strings of purples and 2 strings of reds.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
On the flip side, 100% of the Tin Mage runs I've been on that people get the Midnight Dodger badge nukes and shivans were involved. I'm not talking about 1, 2, 3, or even 4 players with nukes & shivans. I'm talking about 6-8 players with them. Any less and no dodger badge.
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I'd like to see Ready Aim Fire back and Masked Secretary.
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A ton of very nifty power proliferations, energy aura being revamped looks pretty wicked and it being on scrappers even better. I've been hoping for stone or ice melee on scrappers for a while but I doubt it'll ever occur. I'd say super strength also but I doubt it'd ever occur.
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Y'know, I think the funniest part of this is that this is probably the least grindy of any MMO I've ever played but people are still moaning about it. This game is EASY. Basically those very rare items had such a tiny chance of dropping, you'd have a better chance at spitting into a windstorm and hoping to hit a fly on a mountain a mile away. Before anyone says "WELL THIS ISN'T X GAME", it's still an MMO, the drop rates are still reasonable. The only issue with grindiness at all is lack of options of what to currently grind. Three options, some more to come. How about instead of just constantly crying foul you come up with ideas and lay them out for the devs. The devs in this game are more community oriented than ANY I have ever seen.
The I don't want to team to earn my stuff is probably at best a joke to me, a bad one at that, you're playing an a massive multiplayer online game. I won't break out the dictionary to tell you what multiplayer means. You want the devs to cater to people who refuse to team on a multiplayer game? In almost any other community you'd be laughed out and told to qq.
In short, you're being unreasonable, demanding and childish. Hope to see you in game.
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All I gotta say is that I've seen F2P MMOs, yeah, I don't like all of it. But I've made to many friends on Champion so I don't on pulling up my stakes yet.