Muon_Neutrino
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I'm sorry to have to disagree with you, but about the last ways I would choose to describe Detonation are 'good enhancement values' or 'good for frankenslotting'. What gives thunderstrike and crushing impact their good enhancement/frankenslotting values are the fact that both sets have 3 triples, each of which enhances three of acc, dam, end, and recharge. Detonation has only two triples, neither of which has any recharge and one of which wastes a slot on range. (I understand that some people like range, but imo it's almost completely useless on TAoEs and only of use on cones in relatively limited circumstances - and if I wanted to slot for it, I'd use the cheap hamis.)Originally Posted by Dr Harmony
Detonation has it covered in terms of the actual enhancement values.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Detonation
Positron's (like Decimation and Touch of Death/Makos) is the expensive set with the proc and some very good set bonuses.
Detonation is the cheap set with no proc but very nice frankenslotting values, like Thunderstrike and Crushing Impact. The difference is, Thunderstrike and CI have good set bonuses too, and Detonation doesn't.
I do agree with the sentiment though, it would be nice if detonation *were* the TAoE set equivalent of thunderstrike or crushing impact - a relatively cheap set composed entirely of uncommons, with good enhancement values and OK but not ridiculous set bonuses. It'd take some rejiggering of the enhancements themselves in addition to the set bonuses, though. I'd make it something like:
acc/dam
end/range
acc/dam/end
dam/end/rech
acc/dam/rech
dam/rech/range
Your suggested set bonuses are fine, although I'd seize the opportunity to make a long-overdue change and pair up the resistance bonus as was done with typed defense bonuses (so add a corresponding negative resistance). It *should* get one additional triple to cover for spending some on range, as it seems the devs do think range is important, but definitely not *all* triples. -
The endurance mod acts just like slotting an equivalent amount of endurance mod enhancement into any power which accepts that type of slotting. So it will enhance the recovery in stamina, the endurance return in power sink, the endurance drain in everything, etc. It's basically a free endmod enhancement in everything.
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Bonus values for defender traps over corruptor traps:
4.5s immob duration and 12.5% slow on webnade
6.6% -res and -def on acid mortar
3.3% def on FFG
1.65% -tohit and 6.6% -dam (per seeker, so double those) on seekers
68.12 *LESS* damage on trip mine
97.32 *LESS* damage on (lol) time bomb
In my opinion, the only ones of those bonuses that are truly important are the def on FFG and the -res on acid mortar, and you have to weigh that against dropping trip mine to a massively reduced *65%* of its corruptor value. As for damage, defenders solo are exactly equal to corruptors before you factor in anything other than enhancements ( 0.65*(2.25) = 1.4625 = 0.75*1.95 ). Corruptors get scourge, defenders get slightly better numbers on some debuffs. For most sets it would definitely be tempting for me to go defender, but for traps I'd really strongly lean towards the corruptor. It's not very hard to cap defense on either one, and trip mine is really a *ton* better on corrs. I rather wish I had known about that particular difference before I made my traps/DP.... -
Count me as another person who thinks the elemental order set looks freaking sweet, sees the consumables as totally pointless, and point blank refuses to spend money when I don't know what I'll actually be getting.
Honestly, I'm not sure I trust where this game is going anymore, which is a very sad thing to realize. -
My thoughts looking at this build:
Fossilize, ice arrow, volcanic gasses: I'd grab more hold duration. Lockdown hold/rech would be nice, and volcanic gasses should get the lockdown proc too.
Stalagmites: Why an acc/dam? Damage is pointless, just grab a plain acc.
Boxing: I see what you're trying to do, but there's *got* to be an easier way to get 2.5% E/N defense, especially with how *many* slots this takes up.
PGA and tough: You could get another 3.125% S/L defense from one more slot in each, that could free up some slots elsewhere.
Animate stone should be slotted as: Expedient reinf. acc/dam, dam/end, acc/dam/rech, resist proc; sovereign right resist proc; blood mandate acc/dam. Resist procs are GREAT in a pet which already has high resistance.
I assume oil slick arrow is one of those things you were unsure how to slot? It gets max damage, some recharge, and an achilles proc. It's a beastly damage tool.
Earthquake should also get an achilles proc, I personally like to slot it for some recharge and tohit debuff, too.
That third slot in hasten really doesn't do much, especially if you add a recharge-boosting alpha. I'd drop it.
I'd swap stealth for maneuvers. A tiny bit more end, but slightly more defense, and for the whole team.
Finally, TAKE EMP ARROW. I did a massive double take when I realized this was missing. This is one of the two best holds in the game - and you've already got the other in volcanic gasses! Drop flash arrow - the bonuses are OK, but the power itself is crappy. You'll get a good bit of extra E/N def from basilisk's gaze in EMP, so you can afford to drop the slots from boxing to help slot up EMP and other powers. Use some of the slots from flash arrow to get back its S/L def by adding a slot to tough and PGA.
I like to put some slow in glue and quicksand to deal with uplevel foes. I ended up with one leftover slot, which I put into CJ for a -KB. You want one of those.
This is what I'd do. The slot levels are somewhat arbitrary, I didn't worry too much about what got slotted when.
Click this DataLink to open the build!
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I always get my alpha slot with shards. Not necessarily because I think it's faster, but because I don't feel like I'm really contributing when I bring a plain 50 on a trial.
With DA coming this won't be as big of a reason to use shards, but for now I would always get a rare alpha via shards before I do anything else incarnate.
And it doesn't actually take that long to get a tier 3 with shards, either. You need 7 commons, an uncommon, and a notice. That's 40 shards and a notice if you build that way, but it gets easier if you can arrange things so that you can use grai matters and ancient nictus fragments for a couple of the components. For example, to get a spiritual partial core requires 2 grai matter, 3 ancient nictus fragment, an essence of the incarnate, a penumbra of rularuu, and a drop of the well. Most of my characters reach 50 with a healthy stockpile of vanguard merits, and ITFs are run all the time and usually garner a healthy amount of shards. I could see a wtf and 3 itf runs getting you your rare. Sure, you won't be getting it in a single night like you could through trials, but it definitely wouldn't take more than a few days - assuming, anyway, that you can get the task forces going. That would be the big advantage of doing it in DA; that you don't need anyone else's cooperation. -
About the only thing I can say I *always* slot is a miracle proc in health, simply because there's almost no reason *not* to. It doesn't cost any extra slots, and it's not like there's anything else important to put in that base slot. Other than that, I find that when I plan out builds, it varies way too much from character to character to have a single 'standard' set of stuff to slot. In fact, I don't think there's even a single *power* that's actually common to all of my builds, let alone a single slotting.
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I'd go A, just because it's the most versatile. Rings are very retro sci-fi, but the problem is that they're almost single-purpose - they don't look like anything *but* that. A looks like the one with the most potential for use across multiple concepts. That said, I do share the potential concerns about how far the wings on A might stick out - it would indeed be nice if we could get pictures with characters for size comparison.
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One account. Holdings ~9 billion inf, so category D
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Warning, long list incoming. Most of these are somewhat minor, I just went down the list of sets and thought of what I would change for each one. The ones that need help the most in my opinion are ice control, force field, sonic, trick arrow, and energy melee, with SR, dual pistols, electric blast, beam rifle, mercs, devices, and khelds coming in close behind. Poison, ninjas, SS, and stone armor also need some sort of work in my opinion, but I don't really have good suggestions for those.
Assault rifle: Buff full auto to 16 max targets/30 degree cone.
Beam Rifle: Increase disintegrate spread chances by ~15% across the board. Give AoEs a ~20% chance to spread disintegrate. Buff disintegrate spread to a 20 foot radius/5 target cap.
Dual Pistols: Replace Swap Ammo with 'Reload Ammo' - taking it would grant the three ammo toggles as it does now, but the power itself would be a copy of Aim instead of a placeholder. Shorten animation on executioner's shot.
Electric blast: Give short circuit the irradiate animation. Give tesla cage scale 1.96 damage. Reduce endurance cost and increase duration of voltaic sentinel.
Blaster psi blast: Un-nerf the range back to 100 feet. Un-nerf will dom back to the defender version.
Devices: Add stealth strike damage buff to cloaking device. Extend snipe damage buff in targeting drone to all snipes. Turn time bomb into a toggle - toggle on to set, detoggle to detonate, automatically detoggles after 30s or so, not detoggled by mez - and decrease interrupt time. Decrease endurance cost and increase duration of gun drone.
Gravity: In addition to changes currently on test: Swap dimension shift and wormhole. Give propel a 8 foot radius of minor splash damage and good chance for knockdown. Add damage debuff and chance to stun on targets knocked back by singy's repulsion field.
Ice control: Remove damage tick and sleep delay from flash freeze, add an ~8s unenhancable mag 3 confuse, reduce recharge to 60s. Add a damage debuff to shiver and triple its debuff duration. Remove delay on confuse in arctic air.
Mind control: Add tohit debuff to terrify.
Cold dom: Fix 'poofing' bug in sleet.
Empathy: Buff resurrect in some way - all other ally rezzes do something special, make this one give some buffs or something.
Force field: Add chance to stun, -damage debuff, to force bolt, increase its damage to something noticable. Reduce endurance cost of repulsion field to 0.05/tick when not repelling anything, give it a damage debuff and chance to stun on enemies it knocks back. Give force bubble some debuffs - slow, -damage and -range would be good - and make it add a small amount of ranged defense to the user. Add -1000% -regen to detention field *if* the tech exists (or can be made) to make this only apply if the target is actually phased.
Sonic: Add more debuffs to sonic siphon: -250% regen and a damage debuff would be nice. Add a damage debuff to disruption field. Reduce endurance cost of sonic repulsion to 0.05/s when not repelling anything, reduce cost per enemy repelled to 1 end, add damage debuff and chance to stun on repelled enemies. Add -1000% -regen to sonic cage *if* the tech exists (or can be made) to make this only apply if the target is actually phased. Add a strong slow component to liquefy and reduce recharge to 200 seconds.
Storm: Fix 'poofing' bug in freezing rain. Remove delay on stun in tornado. Buff gale somehow so that it isn't so totally useless - removing the accuracy penalty would be a good start; perhaps also add chance to stun.
Thermal: Reduce melt armor recharge to 100s.
Traps: Increase force field generator movement speed, reduce 'leash' radius of its AI so that it will begin following you sooner when you move away from it. Turn time bomb into a toggle - toggle on to set, detoggle to detonate, automatically detoggles after 30s or so, not detoggled by mez - and decrease interrupt time.
Trick arrow: Add 12.5% additional (resistable) tohit debuff to flash arrow, increase recharge to 30s. Reduce glue arrow recharge to 40s. Increase disruption arrow cap to 16 targets, add damage debuff. Increase acid arrow to 15 foot radius, increase duration and recharge to 30s, increase toxic DoT to scale 1.32 over 30s. Add ~5s duration guaranteed mag 3 hold to initial hit of poison gas arrow, add 250% -regen to pulsing cloud.
Broad sword: Reduce defense strength in parry to 2/3rds current value, but make it cover smashing as well.
Katana: Reduce defense strength in divine avalanche to 2/3rds current value, but make it cover smashing as well.
Kinetic melee: reduce knockback mag in repulsing torrent to ~1.4, increase to 100% chance, allow it to grant a power siphon stack.
Titan Weapons: Reduce defense strength in defensive sweep to 2/3rds current value, but make it cover lethal as well.
Energy melee: Add splash damage to energy transfer, without altering recharge/end/etc. Buff barrage to an 8s rech attack, switch barrage/energy punch order for tanks. Buff whirling hands to scale 1.12 damage, add chance to knockdown, increase chance to stun. Add chance to knockdown to bone smasher, energy transfer, total focus. Allow stun slotting in energy transfer.
Ice melee: Add 7th tick of damage to freezing touch (bugfix). Buff greater ice sword to a 12s rech attack.
Stalker claws: Revert eviscerate back to the cone version now that AS is being changed.
Dark armor: Remove accuracy penalty on cloak of fear OR reduce endurance cost OR do both at half strength. Add taunt to scrapper versions of mez auras.
Regen: Increase smashing/lethal resistance in resilience by 66% and add 20% slow resistance.
Super reflexes: Add scale 1.25 (enhancable) smashing/lethal resistance, 10% (unenhancable) +max HP, +50% (unenhancable) regen to practiced brawler, all non-stacking. Add scale 3.5 (unenhancable) resist all to elude.
Ice armor: Buff hibernate for tankers in some way. Add scale 1.25 (enhancable) S/L resistance to frozen armor.
Mercs: Reduce recharge on spec ops controls, give them stealth strike damage. Buff arc on solders' full auto. Make serum not worthless - increase +dmg to at least 50%, either increase duration to 180s or lower recharge to 350s.
Earth assault: Reduce cast time on stone spears. Buff hurl boulder to a 10s attack.
Electric assault: un-nerf charged brawl, havoc punch, thunder strike back to their original 10s, 14s, 20s versions - or at least to 8s, 12s on the first two. Reduce end cost, increase duration of voltaic sentinel.
Fiery assault: Give flares its bonus damage secondary effect back.
Icy assault: Buff ice slash to a 12s attack, ice blast to an 8s one.
Psi assault: Buff subdue to a 10s attack.
Thorny assault: Buff thorn barrage to a 14s attack.
Kheldians: Reduce knockback mag in solar flare to ~1.4, buff pulsar to mag 3 and shorten animation. Shorten all form changing animations. Add mez *resistance* (not protection) to human form shields or to 1st resistance power - total of 100-150%. Add taunt effect to black dwarf mire.
VEATs: Increase all TAoEs to 16 target cap (bugfix/parity). Add arm-launched version of wide area web grenade to crab offense. Increase radius of wide area web grenade to 15 feet, allow slow slotting. Add defense debuff to venom grenade. Buff mace beam attacks somehow - shorter animations, higher damage/recharge, something. Buff resistance of wolf armor, crab armor, bane armor to 10%, make all 3 mutually exclusive
Poison, ninjas, super strength, stone armor: these sets all need work, but I don't think I understand their problems well enough to offer good suggestions. -
The clone arcs, both heroside and villainside, are some of my favorites. And I will second the vote for faultline as a nice self-contained and well done story.
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Quote:What about the HP dm1z? It also has that Fusion design (thanks for pointing that out, by the way, looks interesting), and seems to get good marks for performance.Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Well there are always the AMD Fusion A series laptops. Ones built around the A6-3400M or A8-3500M CPU/GPU combo. Yes they tend to be larger than netbooks (15" screens) and you could look at the graphics as integrated but they are considerably more powerful than the integrated graphics found in previous generations.
You can find a few for just under $500 on NewEgg. -
I'm not sure about entire sets. There are some that look prettier or more fancy than others, but I don't find any of the existing sets low quality enough as a *whole* that the whole set needs redoing. Then again, I often don't *like* a lot of the animations in the new 'better' sets, so perhaps my tastes are just different.
Quote:This, for example, is one of the things that makes me think that, because I would *never* play any of those sets if the only animation choices were the ones BrandX would like to have. In fact, the only set where I want a full alternate animation suite is pistols, precisely *because* the animations are so 'fancy' compared to the existing AR/BR/arch animations. Not to say that I would oppose them making such animations for AR/BR/arch if there is enough demand, just that they're exactly the sort of animations I wouldn't ever use.Originally Posted by BrandX
Me, I'd pay for new animations for AR, BR, Archery, where I didn't just stand there and shoot! Give me a duck down and fire. A roll and fire. Some movement in there! And I would buy BR, play a AR past lvl 35 and get an Archer to 50!
Apart from that, I just want a few key powers redone. Barbed swipe, ripper/eviscerate, and impale are biggies. Piercing rounds too, if the powerset as a whole can't be redone, since it's easily the biggest offender. I'd also love to be able to use the current energy transfer animation for the various powers that use total focus' 'hangtime' animation (though of course you probably wouldn't be able to do that for total focus itself since then EM would have two attacks with identical animations). The 'beachball' animation for neutron bomb/repulsion bomb also look pretty goofy in my opinion. I really would also like some alternate animations for concentrated strike and arc of destruction. -
I'm waiting for spines/ice. 3 taunt auras, two fury-boosted damage auras, and about 18908580 times more spikiness than any other powerset combo? Yes please. It's about the only thing that'd be tempting enough to me to make dealing with fury worth it.
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Quote:Well, I already know that a netbook with IGP won't cut it. Looking around even the amount I did, though, I saw that some of them do have discrete graphics (a lot of them are that 'ion' type) - are those graphics cards still too weak? And I'd still really prefer to have a netbook rather than a full size laptop if possible. I don't want a tablet because I'd rather have full PC architecture and control over my device, but I would like something more portable than a regular laptop.Originally Posted by newchemicals
Well the problem with netbooks boils down to the atom processor which won't cut the mustard with old Intel IGP + slow processor.
Price/performancewise I would be looking at a low end laptop. With the development of tablets, netbooks are quickly going the way of the dodo.
Laptopwise, the value section all have the 15.6" LCD screens, smaller actually costs more. The AMD APU (Llano) based laptops might be a good value since they offer somewhat better graphics performance than their intel counterparts but due to high demand the AMD based laptops are going to cost slightly more. -
Hey all,
For a while I have been idly musing about buying a new laptop so I can actually work on the go, but with the recent theft of my main rig (and right after I fixed the thing, too...
) I think I'm going to have to go from 'musing' to 'doing'. I'm not sure what my plans are going to be yet, but if it ends up being feasible, I'd prefer to get a netbook. The laptop I used to have was one of the heavy 2006 vintage macbook pros, and I found that it was clumsy and heavy enough that I never ended up taking it anywhere (even *before* the battery died) as it was just too inconvenient. I'd rather have something nice and portable this time, and I've always liked the netbook form factor.
Coming around to the reason for this post, while obviously netbooks are no powerhouses, I *would* like it to be capable of light duty gaming in addition to the 'real' work I'd ostensibly be buying it for - especially since it's likely to be months before I have the free time to put together a new desktop. For CoH, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to crank the graphics up or go on trials, but I'd really like to be able to play normal solo and team content with my friends at a reasonable framerate. However, I don't know much about the netbook market, and I was hoping to get some advice.
Obviously I'd want to look at the ones with at least 2 gigs of ram and actual discrete video instead of integrated, but beyond that I'm not sure what are the 'good' options when it comes to processors, etc. And, of course, I'd like to do that while getting the best deal I can. Is this possible while staying below 500$? If so, how much below?
So basically my question is, what netbooks out there will run CoH acceptably, allowing for reduced (although hopefully not completely minimized) graphics settings and not playing in trials, etc? What options are there, what tradeoffs need to be made, and what should I be looking for? -
Quote:Penelope Yin, maybe? That'd be nice.
...as well as putting a previously minor character (who is much beloved) into the spotlight as a full-fledged hero in their own right.
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Yeah, dark miasma was ported to controllers as 'dark affinity'. It's basically dark miasma without fearsome stare and petrifying gaze, replacing them with a sort of 'AoE-shadow-meld' short duration buff and a click that gives you (and your allies?) +regen/+recov buffs for defeated enemies in range. Personally I'm not too enthused about it, since it lost a lot of mitigation by losing fearsome stare's fear *and* -tohit. It's harder to cover for the missing -tohit with the fade buff, since it's such a short duration. Plus, the character of the set is different, as before it was basically all debuffs and you didn't really have to worry about your allies too much.
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Quote:Perhaps calling it 'aberrant' isn't quite the right word, but it was the closest I could come. My point isn't that slotting for range is somehow wrong or shouldn't be allowed, but that slotting this power for range shouldn't have such a disproportionate impact on its effectiveness. That is, the *effect* of this slotting is aberrant, not the choice to slot it that way itself. Simply calling it an 'aberrant slotting' I guess was my clumsy attempt to sum up that concept in a couple words. Going back to the hypothetical example I posed on page 1, slotting taunt (a secondary effect) enhancers in KO blow wouldn't be aberrant. Having those enhancers suddenly doubling the power's damage (the power's primary effect) would be.Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
@ Muon_Neutrino
I'm not sure that I would consider adding range to be aberrant slotting. Range enhancers have existed since release, HO Centrioles have been around for a long time, and all of the sleep sets except Fortunata have a sleep/range enhancer in them. I would be willing to bet that the devs see slotting for range as a standard slotting style and not an aberrant one.
The reason we're focusing on it is that this is a nonsensical situation. It doesn't make a difference whether the AT and powersets are intended to solo or not, the power is next to useless either way. In what way is that supposed to be an acceptable situation?Quote:@ Everyone
Most of you are focusing on the "this power sucks solo/having it while teamed is moot issue"
I understand that you're not trying to be snarky here. However, I have to say, I find your analogy extremely unconvincing. For one, going to a restaurant and eating at home are not mutually exclusive, and neither is one inherently superior to the other. Second, both of those are perfectly normal ways to get food, which is not analogous to the situation here. Going out instead of eating the food you have is making a choice to ignore something which fulfills the same purpose in an exactly equivalent way. If flash freeze worked just fine to absorb alphas, and we just refused to use it and demanded that the devs make ice slick non-notify or something, then I think that analogy would apply.Quote:My last point and I'll leave you all to it after that. Flash Freeze and Ice Slick being base range 80 would solve most of the Alpha strike problems Ice faces solo. You'll have to pardon the analogy (and any snark either accidental or implied) but asking the devs to change the base range to 80 when you can just slot range enhancers is a bit like going to a restaurant to eat every meal when you have a whole pantry full of food at home. You have the means to do it for yourself but don't feel that you should have to.
If I were to recast that analogy to the situation as I see it, though, I'd say it was a situation where you have no food at home and you want to go out to dinner, but instead are told that the houseplants are technically edible and you could cook and eat them instead. Both will accomplish the objective (assuming for the sake of argument non-toxic plants
), but one of them is not something you should have to do just to fill your stomach.
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Quote:I bet she'll be a lot better at them than many people I've seen!Originally Posted by _Wyll_
...She is so close to 50 she can taste it and she is all ready making plans to run Trials!
It's amazing how fast kids pick up stuff like that, I find.
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Short answer, no, it's not going to work. Enervating field, lingering radiation, and radiation infection all do debuff an AV in different ways, but none of them make him easier to hold.
Choking cloud has a 80% chance for mag 1 hold and 50% chance for mag 2. Even if both go off and stack on the AV, that's only mag 3. You need mag 4 to hold him even if the triangles are down, and while they're up he's got better than 50 mag protection.
Mezzes, in general, are pretty pointless against bigger targets. Aside from immobilize and sleep (in some cases), you're not going to mez anything that's got purple triangles or is a GM for any useful period of time. Stick to the debuffs and stay at range. -
Quote:Yes, it is required for functionality. If you can get into range of a spawn, hit the power, and be dead before the animation finishes, then it *IS* non-functional. It didn't do its job. If you're on a team and you have someone who can run into a spawn and absorb the alpha, then using flash freeze on that spawn is redundant and it doesn't *matter* if it gets your face shot off or not. Bottom line, if you use a normally-slotted flash freeze on a spawn, it does not do the job like a proper control power should. You should not need to resort to aberrant slotting techniques to make a broken power work, not when other sets aren't required to labor under such limitations.Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
It's not required to make the power functional. It works perfectly well on a team where you have an alpha absorber like a tank or a brute.
My complaint isn't that you can't make the power work. My complaint is that you *should not be required* to go to such lengths to make it work. Where you see 'problem solved and bonus', I see 'two slots that I wouldn't have had to waste if the power wasn't broken'. And, again, *why* does this power need to have this drawback, where other sets' equivalents don't? What advantage does it provide?Quote:If you want it to work perfectly well solo adding a couple range enhancers works quite well. It solves the Alpha problem solo AND you get to use it from farther away ALL the time. That sounds like problem solved and BONUS! to me.
Or, if flash freeze wasn't broken, I could take those slots and put them in something like blasts. And while I will definitely admit shiver is a slot light power, AA is just as slot hungry as any normal AoE control if you actually want to enhance the power properly.Quote:A few flaws here. MOST AoE hard controls have short durations, long recharge, and lower than standard accuracy. If you are going to use them at all its 6 slots worth or you are wasting your time. With slows you can get lots of mitigation out of 3 or 4 slots. Ice control is probably one of the easiest control sets on your slot budget. That's what allows me to use a couple extra slots for range in Ice Slick and Flash Freeze.
I wasn't intending to compare full sets with all effects (like ice's KD and confuse, or earth's pulsing holds, or mind's aggro-free controls, or elec's end drain), I was simply comparing slows and hard mezzes as forms of mitigation, since you were specifically talking about slows as equivalent to 75% resist to all. Ice certainly gets other benefits than just slow, just like other sets get other benefits than just straight mezzes.Quote:When you put it like that it makes it look bad. The problem is that you haven't added in all the other effects you get when you are using Ice control to cap -rech (you can't avoid them they are built in) you get that confusion that pulses and leaves things confused "most" of the time. You get the cower in fear when it ticks a large amount of the time, and it's all layered inside capped -rech and capped -run speed.
Spreading out the alpha just means you take the same damage over 10 seconds instead of all at once. Sure, it gives you time to hit an insp, or regen a whopping 5% or so of your health, or use a self heal if you have one (most doms don't). Or, if you had used a regular control, you could just kill them and not have to worry about any of that.Quote:Spreading the Alpha out with a KD patch and slows is valuable. I admit its not near perfect mitigation like a hard control or soft capped defenses but spreading the Alpha out gives your regen a chance to work, gives you a chance to pop an inspiration with out getting overwhelmed with incoming damage, or a chance to activate a self heal and the opportunity for that self heal to recharge and be ready for use again before its needed.
Last, but not least, hard controls DON'T lock every thing down immediately. I frequently take some alpha damage from opening with Cinders, Flash Fires, Char, etc. The thing with Stalagmites and Flash Fires is that they have a 70' range and a 25' radius. That means that the lead mob is generally in perception range but the rest of the spawn isn't. The lead mob gets a chance to retaliate and even if you notify with a miss the rest of the spawn doesn't because they don't chain aggro because you are out of perception range.
And honestly, I don't seem to have alpha issues with regular controls. As long as I don't aggro the spawn *before* I cast the mez, except for the ones I miss (hence my 95% comment) I don't get shot while using fearsome stare, or seeds, or a regular ranged AoE hold. That's a heck of a lot different than getting shot by 50-100% of the spawn with flash freeze or ice slick in LOS.
(Also, cinders is PBAoE, and char is a ST hold. Why were you listing those?)
Cooperative terrain is often available, yes. I made extensive use of it when I could on my ice dom. However, that just means that the problem is masked, it doesn't get rid of the issue. Grab a rikti mission, find a big spawn in one of those long straight tunnels. No cover there. You can't carry enough insps to def cap yourself for 2/3rds of the alphas in an entire mission, and if you're waiting for jack to recharge for each one, you'll be there quite a while. And if you have an alpha absorbing teammate, the specific choice of primary is pretty irrelevant anyway. Any control set will provide roughly the same benefit for the 10s the spawn will survive on a team.Quote:Cooperative terrain is available in about 90% of the places you run into spawns on indoor maps. It is alot more common than you are making it sound and even when it is out of range a strategically placed Ice slick and a single pulling attack gives it right back to you. In any case all those things plus... an Alpha absorbing teammate like a brute or tank, 2 range enhancers in Ice Slick, 2 range enhancers in Flash Freeze.
The set already *has* another standard control - flash freeze. It just sucks, is all. And given what the devs just did to wormhole, which was in the only *other* set which had as many problems with alphas as ice, I wouldn't bet any money on the devs not changing it. I wouldn't bet any money in *favor* of the possibility, either, mind you, but that more because I'm not confident the devs will get around to changing *anything* in the set soon, not because I don't think they'd change flash freeze.Quote:It isn't. It's the only set that only has 1 standard control power in it. A problem that I don't think the devs will remedy by morphing the other powers in the set into a standard control. Ice takes some thought and different tactics to use well but it has a lot of mitigation potential. I kind of like to be able to use something that is different but still powerful. I really like it as a change from the "click - hurry we have 20 seconds to kill all these stone statues" approach that most of the other control sets bring to the game.Quote:Why is ice the *only* set which is not allowed to have the ability to break an alpha with a standard control power? Especially with the current changes to grav on test, *every single other control set* has at least one straightforward, easy to use way to control mobs without taking an alpha. Why is ice the only set which is required to go to such elaborate lengths to perform such a basic task? A melee based control set is fine, and actually quite interesting, but only if it can actually still do its job.
And a change in mood is fine. I enjoyed the set myself, when I wasn't cursing at it. I don't *want* to turn the set into a carbon copy of the other sets in the game. Fixing flash freeze isn't going to turn it into a set where you only fight statues. It'll just fix the incredibly annoying and unacceptably large hole the set has in its selection of mitigation abilities.
Also, I know this wasn't directed at me, but I think what DC was after here isn't that the set is so overpowered that you can skip half the powers because you don't need them, but that half the powers are so *underpowered* that there's no *point* in taking them. I don't know if I necessarily agree with him on that, but I think that's what he was trying to say.Quote:Now that makes no sense to me. Comfortably skip sounds like its overpowered and you can get away with only half the stuff. Turning around and saying that its weak after you skipped half the stuff is kind of a head scratching 'duh' moment for me. My doms use everything from the primary but Chilblain and Jack. I don't need the single target damage from Chilblain with an assault secondary and I don't like the unplanned aggro that Jack can draw. If I were planning on building an Ice troller to solo I'd be taking every thing from the primary.Quote:Just because it can be made to work or combined with such and such secondary doesn't make it a good control set. And the fact you can comfortably skip half the power set and not even miss it tells you all about its weakness. Chilblain, Flash Freeze, Shiver, and the AoE imob are all pointless. That leaves Ice Slick, BoI, Glacier, AA, and Jack. And if you look at slick's weaknesses, glacier's long recharge, AA's end costs, and Jack getting rocked every fight there's plenty of room for improvement.
[edit: heh, beaten to the punch by 1 minute] -
Quote:Sorry, missed that bit. Still, I want to go further than just removing the damage.Originally Posted by Snowzone
Flash Freeze was dealt with in my first post.
Slotting range into a power should be for the purpose of letting you use it from farther away. It shouldn't be *required* to make the power functional at all. What if KO blow required that you blow two slots on taunt enhancers to unlock the ability for it to do damage? That'd be just as silly. There is also no earthly reason why flash freeze needs to be so unnecessarily crippled. What the heck is the *point* of the pathetic tick of damage anyway, unless you're *trying* to make the power useless? Sure, if the devs wanted to add an extra 20 feet of range, I wouldn't complain. It would give a bit of extra breathing room to avoid accidentally aggroing the spawn before casting the control. But fix the actual problem with the power, too.Quote:Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Try slotting more range in Flash Freeze. A set of Sandman (every thing but the proc) with a level 50 range IO in the 6th slot will give you more than 80' range that will put you out of mob perception range when you cast it and will solve quite bit of the Alpha problem you describe.
Slotting Ice Slick with 2 rech, 2 range will do the same to relieve most of it's problems too.
AA is awesome, no doubt about that. Honestly, though, it doesn't *need* any help. Sure, if the devs wanted to buff it, I wouldn't mind, but if it was a choice between that and getting a functional alpha buster, I would pick the latter in a heartbeat. That'd be a choice between making the set better at something it already does well enough, or closing an unacceptably gaping hole in the set's mitigation, and I know which I'd pick.Quote:I wouldn't make any of the changes that you all are suggesting. I'd simply make the range of Ice Slick and Flash Freeze the standard 80' and then reduce the recharge of Flash Freeze to 45 seconds.
AA is where I would make the changes. I'd increase the pulse duration to once every second instead of every 2 and set it up so that it could stack up to a mag 4 confuse 10-25% of the time.
Slows are very nice, I will definitely admit. They work on everyone, and you can keep them up pretty much forever. I played an ice dom to 50, so I got plenty of experience with that. But there are two things I think you need to note about this form of mitigation.Quote:Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Slows are one of the most powerful soft controls in the game. Capped -rech can reduce incoming damage over unit time by 75%. That's almost identical to having 75% damage resistance, it adds together with any defense and resistance that you do have to provide even more mitigation, and it slows damage down enough that any regen you have works even better. Not only that but it applies to you, your entire team and Jack. Wanna know what's even better? There's enough -rech in Ice/ to -rech cap +4 mobs.
First, while you're talking about capped -rech being equivalent to 75% mitigation for everyone, keep in mind that a standard hard mez is *95%* (or 100% if it doesn't require a hit check) mitigation for everyone, as long as it lasts (and that's more than long enough to permanently remove quite a few mobs from the equation before it runs out). Second, slows are only 75% mitigation over the long term, where all the powers are being used as soon as they recharge. For any given power a mob has, slows provide absolutely *no* mitigation until you reach the point where that power would normally have recharged for use again. Hard controls start providing *all* of their mitigation right away.
For fights that last long enough that a mob would normally cycle attacks many times, and which would outlast a traditional control set's ability to provide hard control, slows will start to catch up in effectiveness to actual controls, but you still have to keep their limitations in mind as well as their advantages.
What sorts of things? The ones I see are ice slick from behind cover (requires cooperative terrain), summon jack into the spawn (highly unsustainable), stealth in for glacier (which requires support from outside the power set), or waste a bunch of slots in flash freeze to turn it from 'totally unreliable' to 'only somewhat unreliable' (which is an aberrant slotting that shouldn't be required to make the power functional). All of those are much more over-complicated, clunky, and failure prone than the simple 'cast an AoE control' that most sets can do.Quote:Smart play gives you lots of ways to avoid an Alpha Strike. The problem with most players is they are too impatient to let that mitigation take hold before they start attacking.
Why is ice the *only* set which is not allowed to have the ability to break an alpha with a standard control power? Especially with the current changes to grav on test, *every single other control set* has at least one straightforward, easy to use way to control mobs without taking an alpha. Why is ice the only set which is required to go to such elaborate lengths to perform such a basic task? A melee based control set is fine, and actually quite interesting, but only if it can actually still do its job. -
Quote:Except it doesn't do that. When I tried using flash freeze, I found myself fairly reliably taking at least a partial alpha when using it. It's that stupid tiny tick of damage that forces the sleep to be delayed - even if you don't miss anyone, that 0.25s is quite often enough time for them to get off a shot. And if you *do* miss someone, the spawn gets notified even earlier and I usually took a *full* alpha. There's nothing quite like walking into range of a big spawn of rikti, hitting the sleep, and being dead before the animation finishes.Originally Posted by Snowzone
That leaves Flash Freeze as an opener to stop Alphas...
In my opinion, the power in ice that most needs changing is flash freeze. The capability that ice most lacks is exactly what flash freeze is supposed to provide, but is so bad at - alpha busting. And flash freeze is just *bad*. It's got twice the recharge of both other ranged sleeps available in control sets (ignoring static field as that's such a different type of power), has the stupid tick/delay, and even has a shorter range.
Ice has gobs of soft control. However, none of that control actually *negates* attacks - both knockdown and slow merely *delay* them. It is able to keep this soft control up for much longer periods of time as a compensation, but the only way the set can actually *negate* attacks the way other sets can is with the confuse in AA. That's what the set needs help with. I wouldn't be opposed to buffing shiver in some way - my own thought would be adding a significant -dam effect, along with roughly doubling the duration of the debuffs - but flash freeze is where I would make changes.
First, remove the damage component and the delay on the sleep. I don't care about the cottage rule here - if someone has a TAoE set in it now, that's fine, it'll continue to work until the next time they respec, but I don't care if the power loses the ability to slot that set type. Second, shorten the delay between when the power makes the hit check and when the effects are applied. Missing one mob in the spawn shouldn't notify them early enough for them to get off an alpha. Next, add an additional, unslottable (but affected by dom) mag 3 confuse for ~8-10s - justify it by saying the sudden cold snap is a shock to the system and can daze and confuse the victims. On teams where the sleep is broken immediately it'll still let the dom negate the alpha, and solo it allows you to choose between waking them up early and making them shoot each other or taking advantage of the much longer lasting sleep part of the mez to get in there with AA - either way, you can still actually *negate* the alpha. Finally, drop the recharge to 60s - longer than the 45s of mass hypnosis or spore burst, but still much better than 90s, and it would have that significant extra mez component. -
Quote:Dude, it's a set currently in the pre-beta stage, actively being developed, very obviously not finished, and equally obviously not intended to have been released to the players yet. Why the heck would they have a power with a name like 'call hawk' and then *not* give it proper graphics when it goes live? It's still using placeholder graphics, placeholder animations, etc. The set's not done yet!Originally Posted by Prof_Radburn
From what I have seen with the Beast Mastery I hope they will do something about it Locust
power nothing but a ball of whatever,then we move on to the Hawk power what do we get a ball of something or other.What or where are the Locust,s or the Hawk do hope this will be put right before it goes live as it is disappointing at the moment.