LordXenite
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Posts
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Joined
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It would be awesome to be able to design our own temp powers and allow the player to choose which power they get and use in the Arc's mission... Choice is good!
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Quote:I've never played any AT's that have shields, so leveling Ascendantia without them as a TriFormPB, wasn't a big problem for me. Since my background the AT I initially took to Lv50 was a Controller, I looked for ways to actively neutralize a hard enemy or a small group of easier enemies and the only Power Pool that had something to offer was the Presence Pool.Originally Posted by kendo
I did come across an interesting build that LordXenite ... ... ... but I was curious about some of the choices in that build, especially choosing to use the taunt pool powers. does using those mitigate more damage than the shields that were skipped to make room for them?
I've never actually measured or calculated how much damage fearing an enemy will prevent, but essentially, since I identified my PB's best combat style as dispatch the small fires first and worry about the Boss later, I usually combine Invoke Panic + Intimidate on (and near) a Boss, usually fearing it, and then using Pulsar, Photon Seekers and Nova/Dwarf powers I quickly get rid of the minions and lieutenants and then work on the Boss at my leisure. This fighting style requires quite a bit of form shifting and good rhythm, but I still find it slightly more "relaxing" compared to the frantic dance that is my TriFormShade, and it's always fun seeing a Boss that could easily kill me since I have no shields cowering away while I blow up his minions and then turn to him with a smug grin.Quote:Originally Posted by kendo
or maybe the idea is to fear most, hopefully all, of a group and then switch to squid form and blast away with much less return fire?
It serves me well when soloing, or when fighting tougher enemies on a team that lacks more reliable control/dps components.Quote:Originally Posted by kendo
either way, I find it an interesting concept and would appreciate hearing more about how it works in practice.
Indeed, as she was planned from Lv1 as a TriFormPB. So I focused my Human-form power selection and slotting to augment her forms and her bind layout are set towards that goal. For that reason she doesn't have Lightform despite the power being essential for Human-only PB's. She simply doesn't spend too much time in her Human-form to justify the crash after Lightform.Quote:Originally Posted by kendo
Well, to each their own, but Ascendantia's build is quite form-heavy and Photon Seekers are very good on it as well. Naturally I gave up on some Human-form abilities.
Neither do I, which is why I usually have Hasten on auto-fire and I let it trigger whenever I switch to Human-form and do not have any other powers queued-up.Quote:Originally Posted by kendo
I don't care to switch in and out of forms just to activate hasten for the little time it's still up by the time you get back into Nova or Dwarf.
Indeed that is one of the issues with Kheldians, PB's especially. It's easier to see an emergent direction for a Warshade since it's much more focused on DPS where-as the PB lacks that focus and is more centralized around surviving while antagonizing the enemy.Quote:Originally Posted by kendo
...guess that's one of the reasons I am having such a hard time designing my PB. hard to know how to spec him until I know how I want to play him but can't get a good idea of how I like to play him until I know what powers to include :-) -
Quote:As far as I remember, there may be some missions that have Elite Bosses and such that may require some backup (bring-a-friend type missions) but they're few and far between as far as I can remember. Sorry I don't have more details for you, but all in all, soloing a Kheldian, Warshades especially, was quite a positive experience for me the 2nd time around, i.e. once I figured out how to play my TriFormShade.Originally Posted by Cross_Black
Can a lv 50 tri-form or human form solo at all...not talking about farm soloing...just basic soloing 0/0 or maybe turned to 2 mans, without putting alot of money into them?
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Quote:Gratz on getting to Lv50.Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
So, I was on this push to get my Troller to 50; in a mad dash effort to unlock HEATs and get my hands on a shiny, new Warshade.
Warshades can be very powerful especially against many minions and lieutenants, but even though Warshades are a purple whirlwind of doom, they're still not ubber tank mages. I myself haven't checked out Psi/Men Blaster, but the thing is, Warshades can, due to their playstyle, mix it up very nicely with good damage and good damage-resistance numbers, however... in a team, Warshades get even better because their stats rise with the boosts from their inherent power.Quote:Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
However, as I was Midding through the Psi/Men Blaster powers; it seems as if rolling a Warshade becomes nothing more than an exercise in doing it because I can?
In essence, I think your time in researching, and making a Warshade will not be wasted. Also, check the Kheldian forums for more info. Good luck on your voyage, wherever it may take you.Quote:Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare
Any opinions, comparisons, rebuttals... pros/cons are appreciated
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I can definitely be on Mondays 8pm EST, but that's all I can promise at this time.
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I was very happy to see the SG roster light up with logged-in players. Kinda sad about that ITF... for some reason, it was the laggiest I've ever experience in recent memory
Can't wait till next Monday though!
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Quote:Well, players have to play the game the way the game has to played. In other words, as long as there's no Human Game Master behind the game, modifying it to include every scenario players wish to introduce, computer-based RPG's can only allow a very limited set of interactions. That I believe is the obstacle standing in the way of MMORPG's. If a game included code that would allow players to actually come up with gameplay options that were not originally included in the game's script (such as P&P gaming allowed), then we'd be looking at a whole different animal.Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
It's the entire industry that has moved away from the RPG part, not just players.
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Quote:Uhh... why should there be more when most people seem satisfied with just the bare necessities required to blow stuff up and beat it down alongside your friends?!Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
There has to be something more, right?
If you're looking for more, you'd first have to convince publishers that it's going to be worthwhile investing in making something more, and so far, the two companies that I see making headway in that direction are BioWare (SW:TOR) and Cryptic (STO). Hopefully those companies and the newer MMO's they will come out with, will return some long awaited (at least by me) RPG into the whole MMORPG formula.
If you want to know what I miss in current MMO's, I miss the whole story-telling we have when playing P&P RPG games. Sitting together, rolling a die and together, spinning a tale we can still laugh at years from now. Current MMO's are all too focused on simply killing stuff, and not many people even care why. -
It's Monday and in about 5 hours, I'm going to log in and see what adventures we can get ourselves into...
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OK, I'm sold then, but the first one to tell me I need to take shields to buff my team, gets booted.
You're quite convincing Joe, you know that? Are you sure you're not a silvertongue? (Lawyer)
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Quote:There are several differences between what I suggested be done with adding an AoE heal effect, and adding a +Recovery AoE buff to the shields. Let me count the differences, and see where they lead:Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
And after all that grief you got for suggesting they add an aura component to restore essence, you're saying this?
LX, I'm with you on a lot of things, but adding a recovery aura to the shields would no more make teams demand that you stay in human form than your suggestion make them demand that you stay in the back and become a heal-bot.
- I suggested a change one power, not three.
- The power I suggested be changed are heal powers that almost no PB would refuse to take, where-as some PB builds don't even have Human shields, naturally, mine's like that.
- The power I suggested be changed is a click power that a PB can click and forget, and therefore does not force the PB to stick with the Human form so the prolonged power-effect will help the team, not so with the +Recovery AoE component were it added to the shields.
- According to my suggestion, the most complaints a PB will have may be: "HEAL ME n00b", according to the +Recovery AoE suggestion, it may as well be: "Don't you dare use Nova, you gotta buff us NAO!".
If you remember my original suggestion thread, I suggested the -Res component be added to any and all PB attacks, across all three forms. This was done so that a PB could help the team while it's active in all its three forms. Adding something that buffs the team only in one form will become restrictive and making that buff a passive buff will restrict PB teamplay even more. If however each form were given some sort of passive enemy control/debuff effect, I'd be much happier, but these effects should not buff the team in ways force multipliers already do.Quote:Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
The recovery aura isn't the only component of the suggestion. By giving the forms the -res component to their attacks, the forms will help with a team's blue-bar too - by helping them kill faster.
It's the conception of how teammates will want you to play once they know you're a walking Light-stick of Accelerated Metabolism, not the game balance, I'm worried about. Forcing PB's to take shields and spend time in Human-form to buff their team's endurance recovery seems much more likely to happen than the team demanding the PB rock one AoE heal power that has a long cooldown and doesn't heal for much anyway.Quote:Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
If it takes less effort to down a spawn when the nova's spamming aoe's than it does when the human form is "rockin' the shields" then the net effect on the team's collective blue bar is the same.
I'm not saying it's such a bad suggestion, I'm just saying for me it's not good enough yet. Also, my team does not dictate to me what form I take and how I fight, that's up to me as a Kheldian and I will be against anything that changes this, using on passive toggle powers.Quote:Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
When attacking hard targets like AV's or Giant Monsters, I've got to think any team in their right mind would be crazy not to want you in one form or the other to bring those massive resists down.
It's not a bad suggestion.
About fighting AV/GM enemies, that's why I suggested adding a -Res component to each and every PB attack, across all forms... you know?
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Quote:Lovely, so now Peacebringers will be chastised if they're not spending "enough" time in Human-form, so much so that TriForm Peacebringers would become obsolete, and you call that a change to better the AT?Originally Posted by Doc_Hornet
3) Human form now has a unique specialty... giving +Recovery to the team (and self)
I'm not against introducing a second HEAT, but I doubt it would end up differently than HEATs and VEATs. You see the issue here is that there is yet another design-constraint the Developers have to work with which most players would absolutely love to ignore, this constraint of course is the fact that no EAT must be allowed to surpass any other existing AT in everything that it does.Quote:Originally Posted by Socorro
Should all those player personality options be bound together in a Single HEAT, or should there be a second HEAT, One designed to be equally effective soloing or teaming, as a leader or a leiutentant? I think that the one HEAT we have should be the latter, and if not modified in that direction, a second HEAT should be introduced that is.
The whole idea of character-classes relies on each class having strengths and weaknesses so that the class has its own unique collection of playstyles. If you ignore this and create a class with no weaknesses you'd end up with City of <insert ubber class here>, instead of City of Heroes or Villains, especially once Going Rogue allows us to switch sides.
No longer will we have regular AT's because in a game where specific roles are not required for 95% of the content, any AT will do to level up to Lv50 and unlock the UbberAT and from then on, that's the only thing players will create, especially if there are no restrictions/weaknesses put in place for that AT.
In other words, it's Human nature to give in to the chocolate and avoid the bread and butter...
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Quote:I think it could work as long as the PB actually had to continually do something more than passively spend endurance points to keep the buff/debuff effect going...Originally Posted by Justaris
...In order to truly be a generalist AT I'd like to see some sort of force multiplication powers added, but in practical terms I'm not sure what I'd be willing to give up to get it or where it'd fit into the current setup for Khelds.
In short, it'd be nice to have, but I'm uncertain how/if it would work with the AT as it stands now. -
Quote:I never said it was a good design strategy, just that I sense that was the design-concept when Kheldians were first envisioned, and also, that I personally happen to like it.Originally Posted by Socorro
You bring this up numerous times, LX, and you may be right. Nevertheless, if its true - its about as borked a reason behind AT design as I've come across.
And the fact that the Devs have now allowed team-bonuses to apply to Nova/Dwarf forms proves that the Devs wish to allow people to play their Kheldians, even the TriFormer ones, with a more leisurely pace and simply fight battles with one form or the other without feeling required to form-shift mid-battle. So your line of though is challenged by I13's changes, isn't it?Quote:Originally Posted by Socorro
To use HEATs properly, we all have to be mini-Napoleans or Pattons - Leaders.
You would be right if the assumption was that everyone is supposed to enjoy every AT in the game. I pay $15 a month to be able to play CoH/V and yet, most of the character AT's that CoH/V offers, specifically the melee-centric AT's have never appealed to me, and most likely never will. Is that bad design? No, not really. Games designers who work on class-based games must take it for granted that not every player will like every class, so naturally Kheldians may seem a wasted effort as far as some of the player-base is concerned. Heck, VEATs are a wasted effort as far as I'm concerned...Quote:Originally Posted by Socorro
I know that some ATs & Builds cater to certain personalities (support, stealthy, thoughtless smashing...) but there's so many choices that you can find what fits your style. But when you get to 50 and get your 'reward' AT, it's only good if your a 'Leader' personality? Bad design... Bad...
I'm not saying you should have stuck with Scrappers, I'm merely saying that I personally enjoy my Kheldians the most when I play them just like I described. There are other ways to enjoy playing Kheldians, however, if you're playing Kheldians and expect to enjoy their solo-performance level on the same face-melting basis that Scrappers produce, you may be disappointed even if you're playing a Warshade, and playing a Peacebringer may bring you to tear your hair out.Quote:Originally Posted by Socorro
I enjoy being on teams, but I don't like forming teams, nor leading teams. Should I have stuck with Scrappers then?
I also enjoy playing my Kheldians in All Kheldian teams, and I enjoy playing my Kheldians while pugging with others after being invited to a pug. -
Quote:And here's the real problem: I think the Devs meant for Kheldians to be the ones starting teams and leading their teams to victory. Everything in Kheldian design leads me to this conclusion and while Warshades lead the charge by blowing stuff up, leaving scraps for the team to clean up, Peacebringers are more focused on protecting their charges while the team works together to kick butt.Originally Posted by Star_Seer
I'm not saying Peace Bringers get booted from task forces, just that they are not particularly sought after, strange for a supposedly team based archetype.
The thing is, a lazy Kheldian is a dead or lonely Kheldian, and a lot of people simply don't like to have to invest that kind of commitment in a class they already spent 50 previous levels of gameplay on another class to unlock! -
Uhh... guys, I kinda hate to say this, but Thursdays have become a problem for me since my schedule has changed. May I suggest we move our SG night to another day? Monday through Wednesday would be much better for me.
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Quote:The healbot mentality is a player-created problem, stop pinning it on the Devs.Originally Posted by Star_Seer
Its like the devs tried to shoehorn a healbot aspect into the AT because that was a popular playstyle in the olden days.
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I have to say... HEH! You want to stress-test, play against your worst nightmare, not against the easy groups.
While I agree that using inspirations cheapens the idea of soloing AV's, soloing spawns meant for teams already seems nightmarish enough, especially if you're fighting a difficult group to begin with, which the spidies already are. So in this case, sporadic use of inspiration is quite acceptable and even popping several insps pre-battle seems acceptable to me since essentially: a) everybody can do it; b) you're already fighting spawns meant for a team, not to mention 4 levels above you!
You want to stress-test, go fight Carnies, Malta, CoT Possessed Scientists, Aracnos and other groups that are set up against your specific weaknesses. -
Quote:Hmm... in my 50 levels of Peacebringing, I've had only one person tell he wasn't happy with my PB on his team. He was a tank, Stone tank, I think. He basically complained about my KB and how since my DPS was low compared to Blaster/Scrapper, I didn't really contribute to the team anyway.Originally Posted by Star_Seer
The is nothing the make Peacebringers desible to a big team - the are the TF leaders girl friend of Archtypes.
The facts however told a different story, because you see... my playstyle essentially contradicted his as I was stealing aggro and had the audacity to endure alpha-strikes on my own and eliminate the minions in a spawn before the team got there.
I'm sure it was very annoying to see my PB teleport into a spawn in White Dwarf, taunting everything around her, then using Solar Flare, Photon Seekers, Invoke Panic and Pulsar nearly at the same time, leaving most minions and Lieutentants dead/disoriented/feared and then shifting to Nova to blast stuff from above while the team makes its way to the spawn.
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Quote:I don't want to push Peacebringers into being a team-based AT, they're already there, considering their Inherent power. As far as bringing Peacebringers into the solo performance people are used to getting from Scrappers, that I'm not too keen about. I would not object to it, but it is not one of my goals as far as Peacebringers are concerned, and even if it were, I'd rather enhance other aspects of Peacebringers before looking at adding more damage.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
You want to push the PB further into the realm of team based AT and I want to pull it further away.
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Quote:Well, the way I see things, you'd be absolutely right to assume PB's are nothing more than damage dealers, if their attacks didn't cause the obscene amounts of KB that they do. Since KB is a part of the equation that makes Peacebringers and so is the constant defense debuff that is applied with every repeating attack, we're left with a character class that is designed to mitigate and survive damage more reliably than terminating a foe with speed and efficiency — with the exception of minions, naturally. Hence my conclusion that PB's are not purely, damage dealers. I tend to judge a class by what it does most reliably, and damage has not been the most reliable aspect of Peacebringers in my experience.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
I guess I need some more info, because I'm still failing to see how a PB is anything but a damage dealer with a situational tank form.
My suggestion to add a -Res self-stacking debuff to each PB attack, as well as your suggestion to increase the damage in Human-form attacks would, no doubt, nudge Peacebringers even more to the damage dealing arena, but I'm biased towards my idea simply because it enhances my teams' DPS as well as mine. -
Quote:And yet, I completely agree with you that PB damage should be brought up, although we differ in how we'd prefer this to be implemented...Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
It's interesting to me how vastly different are the views LX and I have regarding PBs.
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As much as I dislike the whole notion that PB's are damage dealers only, I'd like to see this thread stay on topic and the perception of PB's as gimp stay in other threads. This thread is quite an interesting discussion, revealing more about the different players who play PB's rather than PB's themselves.
Like Joe, I'll never say no to an increase in PB's overall damage, but it seems to me that when the Devs designed Kheldians, WS's were designed as a excellent soloist Control/Damage AT and PB's were designed as a wonderfully adept team-player Mitigation/Aggro-Magent/Damage AT. I therefore think that while increasing the damage output of PB Human-form attacks is definitely a step in the right direction, it is just the first step, and the overall direction is not and should not be focused on pure damage alone, survivability both in solo and team situation is quite important. -
Quote:Yes, that ship has sailed long ago, however, the good news is that no one's making us take Glowing Touch anyway, so there's no problem with simply leaving GT alone.Originally Posted by Star_Seer
I'm just saying I don't think PBs should be 'Healers' as all, but I guess that ship has sailed already when they got glowing touch.
If you've read this thread thoroughly, you'd find my suggestion includes adding a self-stacking (although with a limit) -Res debuff to every PB attack, including those in the forms. This will increase the overall damage PB's do in both solo and team play and leaves Glowing Touch out of the deal.Quote:Originally Posted by Star_Seer
How about adding the following to glowing touch, When used on a foe it reduces the targets damage resistance by 25% for 10 sec, does not stack from the same caster.
The idea of allowing a PB to have an AoE heal was, as mentioned, only so that Glowing Touch will not feel such a terrible waste that requires the PB to target an ally, ensure the ally and PB are within GT's range, switch to Human-form and activate Glowing Touch, only to heal the ally with a modest heal that will be countered the next time the ally gets hit.
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Quote:Turning any character into an auto-follow healbot is the sole responsibility of the player who sets their character on auto-follow and control-clicks an AoE heal power then sits back and watches or simply walks away.Originally Posted by Star_Seer
I don't think turning PBs into auto follow healbots is the right way to go...
Don't pin this on individual powers, or on specific classes, because, if even an Emp/DarkBlast Defender can be played aggressively, PB's have nothing to worry about!