Luminara

My main, Parthenia, is a daughter of Hades and Persephone. Nothing in Greek mythology suggests or states that Hades and Persephone had children, at least nothing that I've ever come across, so it seemed like a good place to go for an origin for TA/Dark.

My Fire/Elec scrapper is Astraph, one of the two handmaidens of Zeus.

Parthenia has a sister, a Necro/TA mastermind named Acheronsia.

My Fire/TA controller is Djeseritra, ancient Egyptian for "holy woman of Ra". Obvious Incarnate material there.

Mythology has always been a fertile source of inspiration for my characters, and being that mythology centers around gods and goddesses so frequently, it was inevitable that some of them would end up tied to deities.

Haven't stayed close to them long enough to listen to them breathing. By the third or fourth roar, I'm looking for anywhere else to be.

You've been on a soapbox, ranting about AoEs being inappropriate for frequent use and insisting that players should focus on single-target attacks, and now you're saying that you don't like min/max elitism? How are you any less guilty of that behavior when you're attempting to argue that AoEs shouldn't be used as often as they're available because they have greater endurance costs, longer recharge times and lower damage potential? It's like complaining about pollution and global warming while you're roaring down the highway in a Hummer with an oil leak.

That's exactly what I mean when I accuse you of hypocrisy, and it's exactly the wrong kind of "support" to bring to an argument about KB. You insist that KB is fine in one post, then insist that it's a horrible thing in the next if it's in a power that you personally dislike. You go ballistic over talk of AoE usage in situations with fewer than X enemies, thereby endorsing min/maxing and attempting to back up your statements with commentary on efficiency and DPS, but you turn around in your next response and proclaim min/maxing as elitist behavior and say that you don't want to see it happening.

You aren't helping. And the only one being arrogant here is you. I've seen enough of your posts to know that you're more intelligent than this, and not usually this inflexible and foolish. Stop it.

KB/KD doesn't exploit AI in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact, as there are a number of bugs with KB/KD which allow enemies to do certain things they shouldn't be capable of doing.

It might, it might not. I don't want to take any chances, but since I've never seen anyone enforce "defenders are healers", "you must have a travel power" or any other supposed requirements for teams, I won't lose any sleep worrying about it.

If that were going to happen, it would have occurred so long ago that we wouldn't be discussing it now.

You don't say.

Or by someone using an AoE on a lone enemy?

"Selfish" would be demanding a change to an entire powerset, which could affect tens of thousands of players, to satisfy a much smaller number of players.

"Selfish" is throwing a temper tantrum because you don't want to change targets or interrupt your mindless mashing of number keys to tap the W key.

"Selfish" is freaking out because a few foes were knocked out of your PBAoE, ignoring the fact that the end result is the same (defeated foes, safe team).

"Selfish" is forgetting that the team is just that, a team, not a tank/brute/scrapper and his/her entourage.

"Selfish" is expecting everyone else on the team to actively work to make you happy, rather than you trying to work with the team to find a satisfactory medium.

"Selfish" is getting angry about KB, but never doing anything to deal with the "problem", such as discussing it with the person doing the KB or looking for ways to deal with it yourself.

Players who would treat Energy Blast users in those kinds of ways are more selfish than the Energy Blast user because those other players are deliberately, willingly and knowingly placing themselves above all others. An Energy Blast user just doing his/her thing, shooting stuff, might be careless or inattentive, but that doesn't make him/her selfish any more than it makes the scrapper who one-shotted a foe (thereby forcing someone else to switch targets, lose anchor, etc.) selfish.

The exception is the KB user who deliberately misuses his/her KB to irritate, annoy and frustrate teammates, but let's be honest here, that sort of behavior isn't restricted to KB users. Anyone, with any powerset or range of abilities, can be a jerk.

Nor would altering the behavior and function of an entire powerset be warranted.

You were insisting that people needed to coordinate and develop tactics while teamed.

I pointed out that "we don't need five players beating on one enemy for ten minutes, coordinating efforts to ensure that we're following the scripted routine for the particular foe in question."

You responded with, "And this is the direction the game would head to if we could straight out turn off KB.", implying that the developers would increase enemy HP and design more gimmicky AI scripts in response to changing KB to KD. Your own comment just two paragraphs after that reinforced that you did not want to see enemy HP drastically increased and scripted routines which required multiple players executing precise actions with split-second timing.

My reply addressed that implied increase in HP and difficulty. So if there was a communication failure, it was at your end, not mine, and attacking me won't make it any clearer.

Ah, good, the mature, adult, intelligent response I was hoping for and knew you were capable of delivering. So glad to see that you've managed to retain your composure and replied with grace, dignity and wit.

Mutually exclusive situations. If you park yourself, you're not just firing freely because you're knocking enemies out of range of your attacks. If you're firing freely, you're not parked because you have to chase those enemies.

The net effect is still the same. KBed enemies deal 0 damage to everyone, and they deal that 0 damage to everyone for longer periods than KDed enemies.

And who also have status protection powers which allow them to ignore status effects, thus ensuring that they're free to move back into melee range if and when things are knocked away from them. "I can't move" typically isn't a valid excuse for melee ATs to avoid closing to melee range, and when circumstances do dictate that they really can't move, then they should be grateful to have some KB to give them a chance to get a handle on things.

KB affects the user much as it does everyone else. An Energy blaster deals no damage to anything knocked out of range of his/her attacks. The difference is that the user adapts to it, via use of W, rather than complaining about it.

And some recharge quickly.

Recharge time can be improved, as can endurance cost.

Nor do I eschew the use of single-target attacks. But in any situation where there's more than one foe, or I find the secondary effect(s) of my AoEs/cones more useful than straight damage output, I use my AoEs/cones. If I can, say, keep a boss Immobilized by popping him with TT every time it's up, then I do it. If I can keep a boss on his back by popping Energy Torrent and Explosive Blast every time they're up, I do it. My AoEs/cones will recharge, my endurance will fill back up, I have no reason, at all, not to use my AoEs/cones freely.

So you jumped into this thread to protest the change or removal of KB not because you believe it would be detrimental to the game and the enjoyment of players in general, but because you just don't want one of your toys taken away. It's perfectly okay, as far as you're concerned, for you to be the one doing things which might annoy others or interfere with their activities, but it's not okay for anyone else to do it when you're the one who might be the "victim".

And you accuse me of eroding support for KB? Hypocritical much?

You need to step back and think about everything you just said. Does it really matter if a Storm controller blew everything away from your tank? No-one's taking damage, so who cares how the mitigation was accomplished? Does it any difference at all who's defeating critters if the team is gaining XP at the same rate as it would if it were run the way you suggest it should be run? Are you so terrified of getting a little debt (which typically disappears within one to three spawns when playing with a large team) that you can't abide anyone trying something nonstandard or deviating from "the plan"? Or are you just one of the handful of people left who still believe this game is "hard"?

Instead of pitching a melodramatic hissy fit because you might not be in complete control of every situation, try adapting. Improvising. Being flexible. Being versatile.

I find it highly unlikely that the developers would increase critter HP across the board and grant everything resistance to or protection from KB simply because they changed KB to KD. Given that we've already had enemies added with the capability to resist or ignore KB (Cimeroran Traitor lieutenants with their PBAoE status protection power, for instance), and nothing's changed elsewhere, I consider your conclusion to be suspect. You'll have to show me that the sky is falling before I believe it, Chicken Little.

KB interrupts critter TP, and Sorcerers on their backs heal 0 points of damage. Perfect situation to spam those KB AoEs.

Like the mindless one-star show, me me me mentality you've been espousing when you talk about playing your tank?

You know, I did that in I4, when I was leveling up my tank. Gave orders, made people play the way I thought they should to enable me to "do my job"... Then I realized what an ******* I was for doing it and made myself stop. And the game didn't get any harder. Funny, that.

Then let them die. If someone is doing something and it isn't working, let them learn the lesson. The worst that can happen is that you get some debt if they come running back to you and drag half a map with them. So what? You don't even have to pay that debt off if you don't want to, the Patroller/Criminal day job will do it for you. And the team will come together when it's ready. The servers won't shut down tomorrow if a team didn't mesh in the first mission, or the second, or the tenth, or not at all.

But don't just yank the leash and start giving orders when someone does something that you didn't think of or don't like because it's not part of "the plan". People who try different things have managed to surprise and impress the developers with unexpected and interesting ways to approach problems, and the developers appreciate them for that ingenuity and creativity. You might learn something from them, if you give them half a chance. At the very least, you'll learn one more thing that doesn't work. How many ways did Thomas Edison learn how not to make a light bulb before he learned the way that did work? Same concept here, we're making light bulbs when we try different things in this game. If we don't learn what doesn't work, we're far less likely to figure out what does.

It's already on the tracks, Leo. There's no turning it around, it's a one way trip.

Let me make a comparison for you. In another game, you'd spend up to three hours trying to put together a group of five to twenty random people, spend another three hours on a small map, beating on one thing at a time, die over and over again if anyone made the tiniest mistake in following a scripted routine... and walk out to discover that not only did you not get the reward you were hoping for because either it didn't drop or someone else rolled higher than you when it did drop, but you also have to spend more than you earned to repair your gear. That's not an uncommon scenario in another game.

We don't have any of that here. Teams can be assembled quickly and easily, maps can be cleared in minutes, there's no gear to be damaged or repaired and you're guaranteed the same reward that everyone else gets (presuming that your connection is stable, of course). The absolute worst thing that can happen to you here is that you get some debt... and the game pays it off for you if you log out without working it off. And the absolute hardest content in this game is a cakewalk that requires no more communication or coordination than can be achieved through a few hotkeyed chat messages.

So relax. Drink some decaf or something. If someone goes off and aggros a spawn, let it go. If someone drags a spawn back to you, deal with it and forget it. If you end up with debt, check your badge progress. If someone Gales an entire room, laugh. Run away, but laugh while you're running. None of these things are the worst that could happen in a game, in this game, or even in that particular hour of your life. And nothing that happens in this game is so bad that it should make you behave as anything less than a reasonable, calm adult. **** happens, you move on.

Back on the original topic, I still think Energy Blast is just dandy exactly the way it is now.

"Many"? How many? I've got five years under my belt, all but a handful of the teams I've joined have been pick-up groups and I've run into exactly the same number of KB haters in the game as I have people who kick others for not having travel powers, not being "healers", etc. That total, to date, is zero.

So how many is "many"? Ten? A hundred? A whole thousand (which would still represent less than 0.01% of the total player population)? Why are you so concerned with the petulant demands of a tiny subset of people who, in actuality, care only for themselves?

KB is entirely a choice now. One can choose to play with KB powers, or not. One can choose to team with KB users, or not.

Or maybe they're desperate to retain and expand the player base and willing to try just about anything if they think it will please existing players and bring new ones in.

By the way, shouldn't you be railing against Fitness being changed to an inherent pool? It does remove it as a choice.

What happens when I want Power Thrust, Power Push and Explosive Blast to do KB, but the rest of the powers do KD?

Nothing, because we can't select individual power settings. So instead of getting enemies away from me so I can more easily assess the battlefield and/or line up a shot with Energy Torrent, I just knock them down and have to run around. And instead of giving me several seconds of reprieve, due to the additional time they would've spent in the air due to the KB, I'm only getting a couple of seconds to figure out what the hell's going on and how to deal with it.

Pass on the broken idea which drastically nerfs my survival tools, thanks.

That would depend on how much damage the AoE does, wouldn't it. If and when an AoE has the potential to deal damage equal to or greater than a number of single-target attacks which use a comparable amount of endurance, then the AoE is the superior choice.

If you have a heavy hitter for taking down boss class or higher critters, use it. But if you've also got AoEs that deal sufficient damage to warrant the endurance expenditure, use them too. The only wasted endurance is endurance spent on corpse shots, and even that endurance can be well spent if you're using AoEs and still have other targets up.

AoEs recharge. And as long as they hit something, they matter just as much now as they will eight seconds from now. Just like inspirations, it's okay to use them frequently, there's always more just around the corner.

I'd hate to see someone letting a team wipe occur because they didn't want to spam Gale "because it's wasteful".

I'd also hate to see someone let Gale sit in their tray, unused and ignored, if they had it slotted with three damage procs. 3 * 71.75 = spam that sucker.

...

Technically, the enemies in this game don't have enough HP to require tactical coordination or communication, until you reach EB class and higher, and technically, there are only a handful of instances in which EB class and higher critters are thrown at us in numbers greater than one, and technically, nearly every EB class and higher critter has either KB protection through AV Resistance or is affected by the purple patch to a sufficient degree to ensure that even high mag KB isn't a notable problem, so technically, no communication is required for anything beyond gathering a team.

This isn't World of Walkcraft. We don't need five players beating on one enemy for ten minutes, coordinating efforts to ensure that we're following the scripted routine for the particular foe in question.

Reality check. That leader is basically saying that if I don't want to play his way... then I'll be given leave to not play his way and not have to listen to the whining, childish attitude and pointless demands. Do it his way, or play on a team that's just as easy to find/put together, just as fast and far, far more enjoyable and relaxed.

Teams aren't diamond encrusted platinum. Leadership in this game is not a rare and highly sought-after commodity. Teams are a dime a dozen, and being the "leader" means nothing more than being the chimp in charge of clicking the mission and selecting Team Task. And that team leader with the chip on his/her shoulder and a hate-on for KB is no more important, special or worthwhile than any other team leader. So, really, who the hell gives a damn if some nobody says you can't play with him/her? There are a hundred thousand other people out there to play with, the enormous majority of whom don't have attitudes and serious control issues.

So spare me the "my way or the highway" crap. It's a team, not a house or job. In all likelihood, it's not even a good team, if the leader is that much of a dick, and being kicked off of that team isn't a shame, it's freedom from incarceration. There's always another team waiting, and in my experience, they're almost never run by these self-styled emperors.

The defender is no less capable or defeating a spawn than anyone else. Perhaps not as quickly, but that's the trade-off for having the tools to deal with two or more spawns at the same time, as opposed to being forced to deal with one enemy or spawn at once.

Interesting fact: a solo defender with attacks slotted at 95% +Damage deals exactly the same damage as a blaster (within a thousandth of a point, anyway), with the same attacks slotted identically, with only 50% -Res. The blaster does, obviously, have the higher damage cap and more effective self-affecting damage buffs, but that doesn't make the defender less capable or efficient in any way other than "by comparison to the blaster's maximum output". Which really... doesn't matter. The defender can still do the same job, it just does it differently.

KB can't be guaranteed in every attack because when it occurs, it's 100% damage mitigation. Enemies on their backs deal zero damage. The KB "chance to" in Energy Blast is set to percentages in each attack based on an expectation of how much damage they should be mitigating in comparison to similar sets with different mitigatory effects.

Dark Blast, for instance, imposes 9.375% -ToHit per attack when used by defenders. With a minimum hit rate of 5%, this means a single Dark Blast attack reduces an enemy's likelihood of hitting you by (very) roughly 20%. Tagging ten enemies with the two cones in Dark Blast increases your survivability by (again, very) roughly 40%. If you could guarantee KB with Energy Torrent and Explosive Blast, you'd effectively mitigate 100% of incoming damage, 100% of the time, while still dealing damage comparable to or greater than the cones in Dark Blast. The same logic applies to the single-target attacks. Energy Blast has to have a lower than 100% success rate for KB to keep it in parity with the other blast sets in regard to damage mitigation. It can't be perfectly reliable or reproducible, or it becomes grossly overpowered in relation to the performance of every other blast set in the game.

If the developers were to increase the KB chance to 100% in some or all of the attacks, they would also have to increase the recharge time or endurance cost enormously (re: Repulsion Bomb), or reduce the damage drastically (re: Power Push) to balance the set appropriately. We can't have perfect 100% damage mitigation and good, fast damage output, there has to be some risk and some balance. They haven't actively tried to prevent us from building tankmages since IOs were added to the game, but they aren't going to just give them to us, either.

Agreed. It's a blue moon topic. It comes up once in a while, the most vocal of us jump in to argue, then it dies down. Just like "healers", "SB PLZ", "kicked for not having X", "X is overpowered", "X is underpowered" and "Stamina is required" threads. None of it has ever been shown to represent anything more than a few peoples' opinions or completely uncorroborated and ultimately irrelevant stories, and none of it really matters. We do it anyway because it's the debate itself that's enjoyable, regardless of what we're debating.

I do. I build all of my characters with a minimum of two PBAoE, cone or AoE attacks. If I can find a third one, I grab it.

My main is a TA/Dark defender. My primary attack sequence is TT/NF/repeat.

My Energy/Energy blaster opens with ET/EB, and when I get to 44, my attack sequence will consist of ET/EB/Repulsion Bomb/ET/EB/next spawn.

My Rad/Energy defender will follow the same tactics as my Energy/Energy blaster, substituting School of Sharks for Repulsion Bomb.

My Fire/TA corruptor, RoF/Fire Breath.

Archery characters, RoA/Fistful/Explosive.

Mind/Fire dominator, Fire Breath/Terrify/Psionic Tornado.

Even my melee characters have at least two AoEs, eventually (some have to wait for APP/PPP accessibility), and I use them as frequently as possible.

If we weren't meant to be capable of decimating entire spawns with AoEs, we wouldn't have AoEs like Rain of Arrows, or combinations of AoEs in the same powerset, like Fire Breath, Fire Ball and Rain of Fire or RoA/Fistful/Explosive or Buckshot/M30/Flamethrower/Ignite, or combinations of AoEs across powersets, like OSA, Rain of Fire, Fire Breath and Fire Ball, or AoEs in the APPs/PPPs available to ATs with access to multiple powersets with two or more AoEs already.

The original design goal was to make every character capable of facing three +0 foes at once, and winning. Some envisioned builds provided the means to achieve that goal through strong single-target attacks and high personal mitigation, others through a combination of weak single-target attacks coupled with middling AoEs and personal mitigation, and some through heavy usage of AoE with no personal mitigation. The target may have shifted from +0 foes to +3 foes, but the basic goal remains the same, pit players against multiple enemies, and the tools used to achieve that goal have only gotten better. We have more, and stronger, AoEs now than we did at launch, we have things like damage procs which we can slot in AoEs to make them even more devastating, we have options like Hasten, teammates with +Recharge buffs, base buffs and IO set bonuses to make those AoEs recharge more quickly...

AoEing constantly is how the game is supposed to be played, if you want to play it that way. That's all there is to it, it's a choice, and it's a choice which the developers have fully empowered and supported from day one. Short of having a guaranteed eight person team, AoEing constantly, or as frequently as your build will support, is the fastest, most efficient means of leveling in this game. For the same endurance and time that you'd spend defeating three enemies, you can defeat ten or more.

The only real threat to an AoE-heavy character is foes which don't drop when the AoE action is finished, and that's why we have single-target attacks, to assist them in joining their companions on the floor. Yes, even blasters. Having someone around to Taunt foes off of your blaster helps, but there are enough damage mitigation tools available to everyone, including blasters, to do quite well without a babysitter.

In actuality, it doesn't. The KB in powers meant to deal damage, such as Energy Torrent and Explosive Blast, is low enough to ensure that even with only half of the enemies being knocked back (on average), they're still close enough for similar AoEs and cones to hit. Cone and AoE powers with high magnitude KB, such as Torrent (Dark Blast) are not "chance to", thus ensuring that all enemies (up to the hit roll cap) are knocked back together and to an equal distance. Thus, in a typical combat scenario, the KB user isn't actually scattering spawns to any appreciable degree because all foes still remain in range for or close enough together to be hit by the same or similar AoEs and cones.

The only way to actually scatter spawns in this game, using KB powers, is to deliberately avoid slotting the KB AoEs and cones with Accuracy AND slotting them heavily for KB, thereby ensuring that less than an expected number of foes will be knocked back and that those which are knocked back are sent significantly further than normal. And that kind of slotting isn't indicative of a problem with KB or scatter, it's indicative of a player who is either new or deliberately attempting to cause trouble. Either kind of player can be dealt with far more effectively than asking the developers to redesign KB across the board.

This is true if, and only if, one operates under the presumption that the player(s) using KB cannot or will not defeat the enemies in question. In order to prove that, you need to conclusively prove that attacks with KB are dealing less damage than all similar attacks, or that all KB users are jackasses or idiots.

I already know that you can't, but if you'd like to try, go for it.

And many of the anti-KB crowd ignore the reality of the situation, that attacks with KB deal damage, that players using KB are doing so in addition to dealing damage, not in lieu of dealing damage.

We, the people who enthusiastically enjoy KB, are no less effective or intelligent than the people who determinedly despise KB. We're not idiots who forget that we're in combat 0.3s after we fire off an AoE with KB, nor are we too weak or ineffective to finish what we start. If anything, I would portray us as more effective in combat because we enjoy what we're doing so much that we pursue targets more aggressively than most other players. When we send everything skidding across the floor, out of range of your PBAoE aura, we don't just stop and wait for them to get up, we keep going, slamming them again and again and again until there's nothing left, so in the end, what damn difference does it make if you don't have them in melee range? Dead is dead, by my hand or yours. Safe is safe, by my KB or your RttC.

The "KB problem" is not KB or its use, it's ego and a false sense of ownership. "Stop knocking MY mobs around, you jerk!" "That was MY kill!" "How am I supposed to play when MY target isn't standing right in front of me?!" They aren't "yours" (plural, not specifically addressing you, EG), and you (again, plural) aren't the center of the universe. If you can't hit something because it was knocked away, move or find something else to hit. The goal of the team is to defeat enemies. The KB user is just as capable of that as anyone else, alone or in conjunction with you.

And yes, I have played melee characters on teams with heavy KB. I've never complained, nor even thought about complaining, because I'm capable of hitting things just as well when I move 5' or switch targets, and because I'm aware that my actions are no more or less important to the team than the actions of the KB users. Dead is dead, safe is safe, period.

Nor could we. Even at the maximum value for KB to function as KD (0.74 or 0.75, forget which), the absolute strongest KB one could generate with a KD baseline would only be mag 2. And that's redlining the KB enhancement value. Not only is it not worth the effort in regard to the slots spent, it's not worth the effort in regard to the effect. One short butt scoot does not satisfying KB make.

Untrue. Helmets are designed to break on impact because that's how the force of the impact is absorbed and dissipated. They're made that way for the same reason cars are designed with crumple zones, to transfer the kinetic energy away from the more easily damaged things, like skulls and flesh. There are no materials which could safely and reliably absorb the kinetic energy of an impact without fracturing as well as simply using something which can and does break at specific points and under specific forces. You could keep your skull intact with a simple, cheap steel helmet, but it wouldn't protect your brain because it would just transmit the force of the impact straight to the center of your head. Nor would a padded steel helmet be any better, or a padded titanium helmet, or a gel-filled titanium helmet, or anything else you could devise to be practically indestructible, because it's the destruction of the thing itself which dissipates the force, not the materials, weight or expense.

Helmets break because that's the best way to keep the brain from turning into mush when it's hit. Not because it's the cheapest, or the lightest, but because it's the most effective.

Stupefy: Chance for Knockback.

The only way you'll ever have more fun with one slot would be to drop ten large on a "personal escort". This is far cheaper, and less likely to get you a month in slam.

I take Invoke Panic for my melee characters which use +Res and/or +Regen. Even on a cheap build, it's easy to stack enough global +Acc and +Rech to alleviate Invoke Panic's lower base hit chance and long recharge time. Then I throw 5/6 Glimpse of the Abyss in there and call it Harold.

I mean done. Call it done. I don't name my powers.

>.>

<.<

ONE TIME! Good grief, you people never stop, do you. -_-

No it doesn't. The only radial KB in the game comes from PBAoE KB powers, such as Solar Flare or Repel. KB in this game uses the player as the originating point, not the impact location, and as such it can't cause radial KB unless the player is the focal point of the power (again, Solar Flare and Repel are prime examples). The only way to force radial KB with M30 Grenade is to stand in the middle of the spawn while using the power.

Furthermore, M30 Grenade's base KB is only mag 3.32. Even if you used it right in the middle of a spawn, thereby forcing the resulting KB to behave in a radial manner, you couldn't "send enemies flying in all directions" without maximally slotting the power for KB, or using it on enemies which con significantly below your level. Mag 3.32 results in a KB distance of less than 10' when used on critters which con +0 to your level and have no KB weakness (Clockwork are weak to KB, for instance, and therefore would be knocked back further).

Castle said that they spent a month trying to create KB reduction for powers via a special IO or power. They couldn't get it to work, it was buggy and unreliable.