Microcosm
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:! Welcome back, Darth!Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
Hi guys been away a couple of years taking care of other stuff. Upon return to the game I see many many changes and mainly improvements to the game overall.
I am pleased to hear about the new changes coming and look forward to more Kheldian goodness in the future. Nice to see the devs revisiting the AT and providing the changes presented.
The lightform carry over to Nova and White Dwarf and eclipse like timing changes are welcomed as well as the reduced time for the seekers.
There are a couple of Mez heavy groups I'd like to see again with my new build.
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If you plan to stay in melee it should interact extremely well with reactive interface.
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Quote:In previous discussions that vulnerable time was covered by either hibernate or eye of the magus, though eye of the magus does not work as well for sr.Originally Posted by Kangstor
Considering that not even AV fights last more than 6 minutes (2 eludes total time give or take 20 seconds) and only incarnate trial contents have a non-breathing combat longer than 6 minute fights (only if you are trying MO btw or being unlucky and more than half doing trial for first time) I think calling it perma-elude is not an overreaction. Ofcourse I didn't tested it yet but if what OP said true burnout have 6 minute recharge. With current system you can get elude's recharge down to 200 second 20 second longer than its duration. so it will be like this.
Elude-burnout-elude-20sec-elude-burnout-elude. I don't think its a bad deal considering you are only vulnerable for 20 sec at every 6 minute rather than every 3. -
Quote:I tested it with just hasten, and it definitely reduces burnout's recharge.Originally Posted by Arbegla
It can be slotted for Enhancement recharge, and is affected by the Alpha boost, but latest testing shows its unaffected by Global recharge (so things like ageless, and hasten won't affect it)
Granted, Synapse said that might be a bug... so you could in theory get a 6 minute burnout recharge time.... which is just often enough to make things like Strength of will and One with the shield (and IH, and Mog, and the list goes on and on) into double stacking, or even close to perma level beasts. -
Pilgrim, if you truly feel it is balanced as is, I can get behind it. But I don't think its current level of power should be an excuse to let the abysmal damage or other problems be overlooked though. The other changes are a massive step in the right direction, but they are not fixed yet, as Joes numbers demonstrate.I still want some psi resist
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Wow, would have thouht the discrepancy would be a little smaller by now.
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Quote:I'm not arguing to suppress anyone. I want my own pb to be good just as much as you yours. I'm arguing for what I view is balanced. And yes there is a tradeoff between consistency of performance and relative height of performance, otherwise why play the inconsistent character at all? The damage difference between the two is still too large, but when fixed I do honestly feel warshades should do a little more damage because getting that damage ia more difficult. It sucks that pbs have been bad for so long but that does not mean they should now be better at the same time as easier; that makes no sense.Originally Posted by Flux_Vector
To be honest, I'm not all that concerned about psi resist. A relative handful of enemies do psi damage at all, and another relative handful of those are particularly dangerous because of their damage. (What scares you more about a Dark Ring Mistress - her damage, or her mask of vitiation? Right. Seers? I'd rather they spammed psi damage at me instead of using surveillance and drain psyche! Grr, I wish drain psyche would go play in traffic.)
I'm not even that concerned about the change in general - this might make me dust off and use my PB again, but my current main is still going to fight circles around her. In my experience, enemy debuffs and their still-low damage give me reason to believe that even perma-rescap actually may not be enough to push PBs into the top tiers of play. It wasn't that hard to get seriously high resists on a teamed PB before this, and it didn't exactly wow anybody.
What I'm arguing against here is the sense being given off by some players that seem like they are not wanting to adjust light form for a better internal power balance/role for peacebringers, but rather arguing that peacebringers don't deserve to perform as well as warshades in any regard, period, because warshades are foe drain based. That may not be the intention behind it, but it certainly is the argument being presented. The word 'deserve' is even used outright, posters may backpedal and claim it's not what they 'meant' now that they're being called on it, but it is indubitably what they 'said.'
Cherry-picking the conditions of comparison, refusing to look at the ATs in an overall manner, playing up the purported downsides of the AT/power being defended, playing down the downsides of the AT being improved, these are not valid points or argument techniques, these are techniques of internet rhetoric and as usual when these sorts of posts come out anywhere, they are not being written in good faith here.
What I am arguing against, to be blunt, is the blatant act of 'forum pvp' on the part of these players who are clearly and unarguably trying to limit or block the improvement of another AT to maintain the statistical dominance of the one they prefer to play. And it is, in this specific case most especially, it is outright despicable given both the magnitude of the performance gap and the fact that it has existed and persisted since the introduction of the ATs, years ago.
As a more general newsflash - something being 'situational' or 'execution-based' does not give it the right to be superior, let alone dominant. Maybe what should be argued is that warshades should be made easier so they're more accessible to the playerbase and a tempting buy for players in Freedom, not that their execution requirements mean they 'deserve' to be more powerful for the handful of veteran forumgoers who really, really like them.
Edit: and I'm not a "warshade" player, I'm a kheld player whose pb has sucked too bad to play. -
Quote:I did say something about the debuffs in my response to big soto: they're useless.Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
Nowhere do you talk about the sapping and the -recovery that eclipse does, as well. So once the alpha is past, you've got capped resistances to everything including psi and you've slowed down incoming damage via their blue bars.
Since Light Form doesn't do anything to debuff the enemy, and doesn't do anything to slow down the actual damage, AND doesn't even give resistance to psi, I don't see how you can argue that the changes to Light Form will be out of balance with Eclipse.
And if you can argue that Light Form will cap resistances when added to the human shields or the dwarf resistances then we can say that Eclipse is safe when used after Gravitic Emanation in conjunction with Inky Aspect and Shadow Cloak.
It's a bit disingenuous to assert that Eclipse is dangerous to use when you have that many powers in your primary and secondary that let you use it with impunity.
Eclipse is easy enough to use, but it is still more dangerous to do than lightform.
And again, I'm in the camp wanting to add some psi res to lightform. -
Quote:I'm pretty sure the new lightform still has a recovery bonus, which, while not as strong as the old version, does much better for your character than th me initial extra end from eclipse. And, while technically there, the end and recov debuff on foes does practically nothing.Originally Posted by Big_Soto
I play both a PB and a WS and I do not think this buff to Light Form is better than Eclipse. Eclipse is a -end, -recovery to a foe and a +resist, +end to self and Eclipse does not have a end or hp crash when it wears off. Light Form does not have a debuff and we get a +mez resist instead of a +recover and +end like Eclipse has. IMO Eclipse is still superior to Light Form.
Eclipse Pros- -End Foe
- -Recovery Foe
- +End Self
- +Resist Self
- No End Crash
- No HP Crash
Cons- Needs Targets to Use
Light Form Pros- +Resist
- +Mez Protection
- Does Not Need Targets to Use
Cons- End Crash
- HP Crash
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Quote:Then argue for fixing pulsar. Don't over do it on lightform when your real problem is with the underperforming mez. Plus, wouldn't you rather have a slightly reduced res value in order to gain some psi? And again you would still be able to hit 85% with either shields or dwarf; no one is trying to take that away.Originally Posted by Flux_Vector
Is eclipse the only thing your warshade uses for survivability?
No?
Didn't think so.
Also, it'd be nice if you could leave the snark out of your comments in a discussion like this. -
Quote:It's not comparable, It's better. It can't miss, is not dangerous to use in the first place (a partial crash when you have two human heals and a dwarf heal is easily manageable), and caps you whether you face one opponent or several. It also has mez protection (3 is a lot more than 0), and the recovery bonus is much more useful than a flat endgain.Originally Posted by Flux_Vector
Now PBs just have comparable defense outside of dwarf form, which is good, because black dwarf form is significantly more powerful offensively than white dwarf too.
It's only really worse in two ways: it won't cap nova, and it has no psi. -
I'd like to add that, after seeing it in beta, I agree the resistance on the new lightform should be lowered a bit (regardless of putting defense in the shields or not). Eclipse needs to remain stronger, as a more dangerous power to use, a power which can't be used preemptively, and a power without mez protection. I don't feel Lightform's crash is a good enough tradeoff.
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Wow. Thanks devs for actually listening to us and taking the time to fix some of these issues.
One problem though: "Shadow Cloak - This power has been updated to reflect changes to power pool Stealth that have occurred since it was made. It now provides defense to all types of damage, rather than just positional defense, and half of the defense bonus now suppresses while in combat." Shadow Cloak is a copy of Cloak of Darkness (Dark Armor), not of Stealth, and as such its defense values are not supposed to be halved when discovered. It even had a text bug for a while on live where the power description called it Cloak of Darkness.
I'll be submitting a bug report in beta with this info. Would appreciate it if some others would as well so we make sure someone notices the problem. -
I won't have access to miss for a while, but you can check for a guide by unnamed hero (?) I think about softcapping electric with several sets. I dont always like his slotting or trying to get defense to other types, but it should help with ideas. It's generally going to be expensive.
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Quote:Not all. Accolades can be used in forms now, as can any incarnate power and certain temp powers.Originally Posted by Lxndr
Aren't you locked out of all non-form powers when in a form, anyway?
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Ah, but AIB, according to the devs the game is still balanced around that former state with dos, sos, and hamis. It is not expected that you make use of ios, and, in fact, think you might find a lot of the nonforum-goers crowd still work with so builds.
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I think you would have more fun though if they functioned less like a soviet era compact and more like a Porsche.
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Quote:See, the endurance cost and debuff is limiter enough; making it unenhancable for recharge just makes it largely useless.Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
When I saw it it was a 30 minute recharge, it cost 48.5 Endurance, and had a penalty of -25% max endurance that I don't recall the duration of.
Hopefully, the order of the Endurance cost and the -25% max endurance is:
100 End - 48.5 end = 51.5 end remaining out of 75 end possible
rather than
100 end * 75% = 75 End - 48.5 end = 26.5 end remaining. -
Well, everything recycle said is true. Circle of thorns are an absolute joke. Carnies' biggest problem is enddrain, to which electric is immune. Most attacks coming from Council Vampyrs have s/l or are melee based. The only attack that would be bothersome is gloom/dark blast (ranged, pure negative).
The difference between the willpower and the electric without tier 9's against the pure fire was very, very minor. Even then, how many of Infernal's attacks are pure fire damage? Against his attacks that are pure fire, the willpower will do very minorly better (the electric takes 1.18 times the damage the willpower takes); against his attacks that have a s/l component, the electric will do quite a bit better because the defense will be equal but electric has much higher fire resistance (the willpower will take 1.85 times the damage the electric takes against those!).
The worst case you mentioned was Black Swan. I don't know how many of her powers are pure negative, but I am sure they hurt without power surge. Should still be able to solo her.
If you would like a reference, mauk2 made an AE arc designed to be a survival test for a team a while back (it's got plenty of negative damage). I managed it +4/x8 on my elec scrapper, and I know at least one other person did it with their elec brute.
Bottom line is /electric with s/l softcap is amazingly sturdy all around as well as good offensively. It pays for this by being absolutely terrible (second worst after fire) during the low levels and on SO's, a problem Willpower never has.
Edit: just realized the fire example numbers are off a little bit cause my build is getting some f/c resistance from purple sets. Doesn't make a huge difference though. -
Quote:Ya I brought it up in another thread and billz said we should call that a bug. FYI shadow cloak has the same problem (the power its copied from, cloak of darkness, gives both typed and positional, but scloak gives only positional). Please file a bug report for both if you get a chance.Originally Posted by PC_guy
pretty sure thats on the list of known bugs. it should provide both. but doesn't.
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Quote:Where? The most frequent attacks not paired with s/l are actually energy by a large margin, which happens to be electric's strength. For others, even electric's 'weakness' of negative, you can use power surge, as mentioned.Originally Posted by Moonlighter
I am well aware of the advantages of S/L capping, and do it myself on not only scrappers but other ATs. In the AV arcs you still run into plenty of AVs that will hurt Elec.
Why would you leave tier 9's out of it? If you can't have it up the whole time, fight the AV without it and then pop it partially through the fight. If you don't use the tier 9's and we are still in the fictitious scenario of that pure fire AV, the willpower will take 4.555% of damage and the electric 5.368%. In that scenario the electric is taking a little less than a fifth extra damage.Quote:I guess we are counting tier 9's now that incarnate powers let you take out an AV in the up time? -
Quote:Having the slots available for human form powers introduces the problem someone mentioned above of taking a form to get freebie slots only. You'd have a human-former running around with a random, unused form, and a bunch of extra slots. Human builds should be subject to the same slotting restrictions as everyone else because the crunch really only occurs when you are trying to make use of the extra forms.Originally Posted by Redlynne
That would add +20 slots to the Forms (total), which couldn't be spend on Human Form. You'd essentially get +8 slots for Nova and +12 slots for Dwarf. That is of course more than the +14 slots method I'm suggesting, but my method can spend those slots on Human form, while yours can't.
AIB, what you said is true, but to make effective use of the forms' extra powers you need slots for them. Instead of looking at it like we get a higher number of slots than everyone else because of inherent slots, think from the perspective that we get fewer slots per power. Proportionally we are behind everyone else. This of course matters less the more IO bonuses you get, but the game is balanced around SO's (lol). -
Quote:I was thinking more along the lines of each form power (not the form itself, but the powers) started off with three inherent slots instead of one.Originally Posted by Redlynne
You mean, something like ... +1 Enhancement Slot at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 29 and 29? That would give Kheldians an extra +14 slots over other ATs ... which when you consider that Kheldians have +10 powers to slot in Nova and Dwarf forms (of which 6-8 routinely receive extra slots), that wouldn't be overpowering like it would for other ATs. Basically, Kheldians would get 3 extra slots at EVERY Slot Level ... not just at Levels 31+.
I personally don't really feel the slot crunch that much, but it is a frequent, and seemingly valid, complaint; it would totally overpower me personally though :P -
Quote:No. A) Almost all attacks have a smashing or lethal component, so even against a F/C AV you will still be dodging very nearly the same. B) Electric has Power Surge, which will cap your resistances to everything but psi (which still is not a hole, as you get solid psi resistance from Static Shield). C) Energize does better for you when against a single target than RttC. S/L softcapped Electric is one the sturdiest sets available.Originally Posted by Moonlighter
The problem with /Elec is it can't soft cap to everything. It can manage S/L and has high energy resists so against those types of AVs you'll be fine but you will hit the wall against F/C based AVs, negative based AVs and (as many scrappers are) Psi AVs.
Willpower, on the other hand, can cap S/L, F/C/ and E/N and still have good resists and excellent regeneration. You just have fewer holes and can do stupid scrapper tricks in more situations. ...
Elec is a nice damage oriented set, but getting extreme defense is tough unless you go with a Sword set.
Edit: Example from my own db/elec build. I'll pretend we are in wonderland and an AV is doing pure fire damage, so no smash/lethal at all. As a side effect of getting my s/l to 45%, my melee defense is 39%, so with power surge on I'm taking 2.75% [based on 100% of enemy attacks] of that incoming damage, and I regain an average of 48.4 hp/sec. Plugging into will power, at defense softcap, maxed out for resistance and with SoW on (and same slotting for health to be fair), I'm taking 3.81% of that AV's pure fire damage and regaining 46.7 hp/sec (no set bonuses, though, since I don't have a full build). The willpower is taking more than an extra third of the damage; whether you think the extra regen from set bonuses for willpower make up that difference or not is up to you. -
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