Neogumbercules
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Quote:SuckingOriginally Posted by Santorican
And what's Assault Rifles unique ability?! -
Quote:Took the words right out of my mouth. I agree with this completely. I file buffing the speed of fly into the "list of things lots of players want with no practical downside" which also happens to be a lot of things the heavy forum users always seem to be against for whatever reason. Like back before they increased the trade limit. Other travel powers are not only faster but have the benefit of having drastically more useful pre-req powers. The advantages of full flight movement in an actual gameplay scenario are.... limited stretches at best. Even in that case, it's better to switch to hover when you're doing practically anything other than trying to get from A to B because you get all of the 3D movement, no suppression, decent movement speed for combat, lower end cost, and no flight drift.Originally Posted by Warkupo
The argument that Fly has an advantage over other travel powers in that you can take short breaks while your character auto-flies to the mission is invalid due to the fact that with any other travel power I can simply *be* at the mission, use the bathroom, and return before any of the fliers on my team have arrived. I still operate under the same rules of time as the fliers do, after all. In doing this I also avoid embarrassingly returning to see my character has spent the last 2 minutes of his free-will trying desperately to move through a solid object.
The argument that Fly has the advantage of going in a straight line, thus arriving faster has yet to be true during my game-play experience. Save for perhaps Grandville or Terra Volta on a Super Speed character, I have never been beaten to a mission by a flier when we both started from the same point at the same time. I have often beaten the flier even when they had a head start. It is often not even the case for me that fliers can even travel in a straight line. Often a building gets in the way before I can reach a high enough altitude to avoid it, meaning I either have to stop going forward and travel straight up, increasing my travel time, or go around the building at a much slower speed than the others would have gone, and risk hitting another building I will have to go around as well, also increasing my travel time.
Assuming I *did* take the time to go all the way up to the ceiling, I now have to descend as well. If the area is particularly crowded I may not be able to simply descend down to the door. If I decide to just drop down by turning of flight so I can get to the ground quicker I risk taking damage, though I'll admit I do like to suicide drop and turn on hover at the last moment as a thrill so maybe you enjoy this sort of thing. I also risk hitting a spawn I might not have seen from so high up in the clouds when doing this, which, if I just plummeted to the earth like a rock, could wind up in a very embarrassing death.
The argument that Fly has superiority in certain maps is inaccurate as well. The Shard becomes far faster to navigate if you learn and use the jump points located all over the map. It does require that you map the area out a bit, but once done it is far quicker to use SS, SJ, or TP to quickly move to a jump pad and reach your destination in far less time. The only real advantage Fly has in the Shard is that it can be useful if the jump pad decides to be cute and throw you into the abyss, in which case you can activate Fly and correct your course. However, you can also just activate your temporary Fly power, which you can have indefinitely, so it's a moot point. The only zones where Fly has an advantage is Terra Volta, and Grandvill, and only against Super Speeders. Teleporting and Super Jumping work just as well they normally do.
The argument that Fly is safer is due to being out of the sight of anything that could harm it is also in accurate. There are enemies in the sky, but they still travel fairly low to the ground, so I will not include them as a threat. Snipers, however, have proven deadly at times for the slower fliers who can take 2-3 shots before getting out of their range, only to clunk their way into the range of another. This is especially hazardous for squishier characters. Conversely, my Super Speeder is typically unnoticed and out of a sniper's range before the shot even goes off, assuming I am even seen at all. He also has the advantage of slotting the (admittedly expensive) stealth IO for perma-invisibility, thus escaping the attention of nearly every enemy in the game. I have also never died from landing in a bad spot with Super Jump, but then, I have adapted the amazing ability to adjust my camera downward so I can see where I am going before getting there. While on this note, every other travel power has the advantage in that it can move the camera without having to worry that it will ruin its path. This is not true for Fly (and teleport to some degree). Teleport has the same vertical advantage Fly does, except that it is also the fastest travel power available, so the snipers are a virtual non-issue. Additionally, a Teleporter can keep moving if it gets immobilized, and can be useful for escaping such a situation in a combat scenario.
Fly has a disadvantage in that you have to slot it to get it to an acceptable level which is, unfortunately, still very low compared to all others. Often I will leave Super Jump and Super Speed with only the initial slot until very late levels, if I slot them at all. Fly, on the other hand, forces you to devote slots to it early so that you can even comprehend getting to a mission in a realistic time, and even then, you will still probably just get teleported by someone faster than you. This problem is alleviated somewhat with IOs such as Blessing of the Zephyr in that they add benefits from slotting a travel power, however, it isnt as though the much faster Super Speed and Super Jump cant also take advantage of these IO bonuses and be made even better than Fly by utilizing them, thus negating any real advantage this might have given Fly.
Fly has a disadvantage in its perquisite powers. Combat Jumping and Hasten often make it into my character builds for their min/maxing potential. Combat Jumping costs nothing, can be slotted for defense and travel, both of which offer very good set bonuses for very few slots, offers the same defense as hover, grants immobilization resistance, and does not disrupt the flow of combat. Hasten makes everything faster, thus allowing me to do everything faster, such as attacking, healing, controlling, whatever, at the cost of a moderate amount of endurance which is typically very easy to get around. It is also essential for perma-Hasten, obviously. Builds which achieve perma-hasten are typically the kinds of creatures that are running around soloing enemies designed to be a challenge for groups of eight and more. Recall Friend is useful for getting the flier to your door, and Teleport Foe is useful for dividing a dangerous spawn, after you've slotted it with some range enhancements to beat the aggro radius of the spawn, of course.
Air Superiority offers limited control for melee characters, but lacks enough power to typically stay on my builds, and becomes less useful as my defenses rise and my need for such gimmicks decreases. Hover is much better after the latest speed boost, and can be slotted similarly to Combat Jumping, however, it's endurance cost is much higher, lacks any res protection of any kind, and leads to Fly, which is still the worst travel power available. Unless your build somehow required both powers, for the interests of reaching the soft cap or fitting in another Luck of the Gambler, or concept, there's no real reason to take Hover over Combat Jumping.
Finally, everyone can Fly now with temporary powers, thus negating any vertical penalties the other travel powers may have had. Not only are they handed out like candy, but you can buy them if you do manage to run out of all the free ones somehow for next to nothing. Actual game play experience has also proven to me that despite the reduced speed of these temp powers compared to Fly, I am still capable of arriving to the mission faster than a flier even if I do have to utilize them. In fact, they made me *faster* than I was before, as I no longer have to go around, thus pretty much *ensuring* that I arrive faster than a flier, where before it might have been close. Additionally, if an enemy flies out of my range, I can just activate my temp power and attack them, thusly negating any advantage Fly or Hover had in a combat scenario as well.
I often feel that arguments against flight getting any sort of buff are based on purely on a conceptual basis, and lack any actual practical analysis. After having practically applied flight in various situations for the better part of three years, I can do nothing but conclude that Flight is the very worst travel power in the game with few, if any, redeeming qualities over other selections which are just as easily available, save, of course, for conceptual reasons.
Maybe if super jump wasn't in the game there would be a place for flight, but SJ gets most of the functionality of flight with the advantages of being faster. Falling into an angry mob is a parroted fallacy in the SJ/Fly argument that has been repeated around here for years. Any reasonably competent person can jump around the zones with practically no danger of landing in mobs with the simple act of looking where you're going and using objects in the environment to jump off of instead of always just flatly landing on the ground.
Even in the event that someone who prefers flight due to lag/slow computer issues, buffing the speed of flight certainly isn't going to hurt anyone. You can argue all day that it isn't "needed" and I'll agree that it's not something flight NEEDS but right now flight really has nothing special to offer anyone looking to maximize either their build or just trying to get the fastest travel. It's greatest strength is concept and making it faster isn't going to hurt anything. -
They ruined EM when they nerfed ET. Having that big long TF attack was one thing, and easy to deal with once you got to 32. EM was the fast hitting high damage ST monster. Now it just sucks in every regard because the devs felt the need to needlessly single out 1 average performing set because of a single power that was too good for it's damage per animation time and nerf it to hell and back when there were clearly more broken things they could have spent fixing at the time. Now EM has horrible AoE and slow, clunky ST damage who's best power just happens to smack you back for damage whether your target is alive or not.
It was a triple whammy. They killed both the feel and performance of the set while also destroying the single reason so many people liked EM in the first place.
More damage isn't the answer. They need to give back that quick ET animation so the set gets it's quick and fluid feel back. Leave the lower stun chances as is and call it even. Let it be the ST killer it used to be. There are clearly sets that specialize in doing 1 thing really awesome (for example SS brutes eclipsing all other brutes on sustained and consistent AoE damage with just ONE AoE attack in the whole set) and these seem to have gone by year after year without being touched.
The EM nerfs just seemed both random, horribly implemented, and based on trying to arbitrarily adhere to some kind of formula for animation/damage rather than trying to preserve the feel of the set while fixing the numbers. -
I think the worry isn't brute/scrapper it's brute/tank and stalker/scrapper. Those will probably be the most redundant in the melee category.
Corrs/Defenders should be interesting. -
So of the people who are supporting MA as it is now, what changes specifically would you want to implement to get players to want to go there? By the way "because I wrote the best content ever" isn't really an answer, as I think the current situation shows that not many people, especially the general population of the game, really give a hoot about playing for the story content. I haven't had time to read the whole thread on my way out to work since I last posted... or before I posted, but all I'm really picking up is a lot of people shooting down any new ideas but failing to offer some concrete ideas of their own.
The one constant I see is a dislike of the custom mob XP.
I'd also like to point out that when MA was new and everyone was abusing the hell out of it, I had the most fun I'd had in years of playing this game. I'm not saying it was all around a good thing and we should go back to that, but it truly was amazing to again be immerssed in a game that actually felt like it was "massively multiplayer." Tons of players all crowded together, getting teams instantly, and rocking some bad guys. It was really fun gameplay and I really enjoyed playing with all of those people. I rarely encountered the typical dumb farmer type team. It was a lot of fun, chatting, and joking around.
After the MA changes the buildings became deserted and are even more so now, and even playing Freedom Villains I feel like it's a ghost town. Other than the usual areas Freedom blue side, it feels freaking empty over there too. Sure you can throw together a team, but it's not like it used to be. I think part of the MA problem that just can't be helped is a waning CoX community that may look strong on paper, but in reality, is just too spread out between all of the servers, then spread out between all of the zones, then further spread out between either red or blue side. That's a topic for another day, though. -
This is my completely unfounded opinion, but if the level of damage we got with FM is supposedly ok, then I can't see how anyone can make the argument that SS would be OP.
Billz worked out I was doing like 250 ST DPS on my FM/Shield doing a pylon in a thread I made a while back. That's on a build that I just threw together to get myself soft-capped. I wasn't specifically building for an optimised ST chain, and in fact, my main focus was on doing as much AoE damage as I could without totally gimping my ST abilities.
With the Rage penalties (I suspect castle's desire to revisit Rage, but his lack of time/priority for it are why we're still waiting for SS) SS on scrappers would be slightly better in overall AoE damage than FM thanks solely to Footstomp. With ST, I doubt it could touch an optimised DM or FM on an overall basis, especially considering it's pure smashing damage. Of course this is all purely speculative.
IME, my SS/Shield Brute with Dark Obliteration seems to be about on-par with my FM/Shield scrapper who does not have an AoE from the APPs. The biggest difference I've noticed is that my SS brute gets tedious to play because I'm constantly running out of end and my recharge rate causes me to have to deal with more Rage crashes more often. -
I like FW's idea and wish to expand on it slightly.
The ability to gain some kind of item or just give us the option to go into a mini-respec mode. Basically you don't get to reselect any powers or change your slot order, but you get to swap enhancements around. You get to swap them around from 1 power or another, or move them from your powers back to your tray, keeping the 10 enhancement limit. This would give players the ability to slightly alter builds without going through the trouble of earning a respec, buying one with real money or in-game, or just going through the process of a whole respec just to move a few things. -
My "solution" to re-incentivising people to return to AE and helping to reduce the farming capacity has always been to simplify the process as much as possible and make it as easy and straight forward to understand as it can be. Rather than coming up with tons of new rules regarding XP and custom mobs I would just do three things:
Big increase, possibly double, ticket drop rate.
heavily cut XP gain straight across the board. No special rules based on power selection or whether or not a mob is custom. Just have everything be worth 50% XP.
Make it impossible to make a custom enemy group with just 1 class. Each group needs boss, lt, minion.* This way even the most optimised farmers are still severely limited and will probably realize that they'd be better off farming normal content for XP with a good amount of drops. People who play AE will still earn XP, but will also earn tons of tickets to spend on rolls. This has the added effect of drasitically increasing market supply of just about everything that isn't purple.
I believe these changes if implemented would provide enough reward for players to still consider playing the AE, while also preventing the massive influx of farming and allowing players to not feel like they are being limited in their creative ability to design custom mobs to behave exactly the way they want them to behave.
*Note that right now (unless they changed it since I re-subbed, been gone for a while) you can make an enemy group with just 1 class of enemy. Only problem being you earn 0XP for them. My proposed change would make it impossible to even create an arc without all classes being in your custom enemy group. You'd simply get the orange error message telling you to make more enemy classes. -
You can argue the OPs points but you can't argue that AE isn't pretty dead now. I'm sure there are people out there playing it, just like there are people out there playing the arena, or there are people doing Eden trials. AE should have never given out XP/Inf to begin with, and the fact now that they have to come up with all kinds of convoluted and annoying ways to prevent whatever they consider abuse of the system only works to confirm that.
They basically released an entire new system to the game, released alongside a new retail box (architect edition) and then, months after it's release, completly overhauled a huge part of it. In my opinion it was released too soon and all of the aftermath (the extreme farming and subsequent nerfing and alterations) was a result of poor decision making and maybe some wishful thinking on the devs part.
If I were to make myself more useful by suggesting something other than complaining I'd suggest adding purples to the list of things you can get with tickets if you wanna bring players back to AE. -
This is another great example of something that I really HATE about this game (despite liking the game quite a bit). How hard would it be to fix this? They are an all ranged henchmen group that need to stay at range to be effective. They have existed for years, and for years, their screwed up AI has been making them run into melee.
It would probably take all of 5 minutes for Castle to go in and remove all melee attacks from them so they never run into melee. But it'll never happen. Nothing enraged me more as a MM than seeing my Assualt Bot run into melee range, then use flamethrower. It's idiotic. I don't care if there are ways around it. I don't care if I can set up macros to avoid it and control my guys manually to make them come back. That doesn't matter. The problem shouldn't even exist to begin with.
Examples of this kind of annoyance can be found all over this game. Stupid little things that aren't working right that could have been fixed 500 patches ago but slip through month after month. -
I wasn't whining at all and neither is anyone else. I don't know why you came into this thread with so much negativity. Furthermore, if you've been reading the thread or even the original post you'd realize that many people have stated what they feel needs tweaking with AR. No one is asking for a major buff, or anything of the sort. Also, you need to extend your thinking of AR beyond that of just blasters, since that's all I saw you mention in your post.
As for using the immob+ignite, I've gone down that route on an AR/Traps, and it was a pretty awesome combo...SOLO and before the recharge got nerfed. Solo it's still a decent technique if you don't mind the 4 second long animation time but trying to use it on a team is a complete waste of time. You'd be better of using any other AoE attack and letting them + all of the rest of the teams AoE damage to kill everything.
Ignite is only decent for soloing and a total waste of time on a team unless you're fighting AVs. I agree with you on the point that IO'd out builds make this game trivial and make average sets that can't perform as well seem like weaksauce even if they are fine. However, that's not the point of this thread.
Quote:Well I'll leave the mathematical comparisons to anyone else willing to do it. My personal proof only extends to my many many levels of playing AR. The animation changes were good, and buckshot became a decent power. My 3 complaints based on my experiences are:Adjust the two to be a bit more easy and usable as they are, and you have your needs answered, I should say. IF you can prove the changes are needed, of course.
1. there's too much KB in the set to the point where it becomes counter-intuitive to use BS or M30 as opening attacks, or at all, depending on what AT/power combo you are and the nature of the powers you have to use. Like every chance to KB power, you can't really plan out how it's going to work because it's just totally random on what effect you're going to have on the spawn. Make em 100% chance to KB so they can be used intelligently or lower the mag so it's only KD.
2. Flamethrower does it's damage so slowly that more often than not targets die before the damage is fully dealt, especially on teams. It also creates an issue of finishing off your own targets with follow up AoEs in a Full Auto, Flamethrower, BS, M30 AoE chain before full damage is dealt, giving the power a terrible DPE, killing it's potential damage, and not really fitting into a good attack chain.
3. Ignite is so situational that using it on teams on anything other than an AV or something that can't/won't run is a waste. It's really only worth using on bosses when teaming since opening with your regular AoE chain plus everyone eles' opening salvo is enough to kill anything other than bosses at reasonable levels. Unfortunately bosses will take at least 2 shots from an Immob to make it stick, or you need some kind of containment power like Tar Patch, but even at capped -speed, enemies can still walk out of it in a matter of seconds. Solo you can't use it at all unless you have something to keep the enemies from moving out of the area the instant you cast it. It's got a ridiculously long animation time which steals time away from you that could be better spent doing almost anything else.
and I guess Full Auto would be my last thing. While not something that I consider a weakness that holds back the set as a whole, the 10 target cap just seems arbitrary. It's not an OMG amazing power. RoA is an OMG amazing power, and even if FA was giving 16 targets, it would still be doing less damage, which I honestly don't see as a huge problem. It just doesn't make sense to me that the flagship power in the set is so mediocre. In fact, that's the problem with all of the supposedly good powers in AR. It's a set full of poor/mediocre powers that as a whole add up to being a functional set. Hurray. No power in the set gives you that OMG THAT WAS AWESOME feeling. Burst, Slug and BS have very boring no mess animations. Just adding white hot tracer rounds to burst and some kind of streaking projectile to slug would be cool. Flamethrower's animation sucks and so does ignites and the fact that they are almost exactly the same is just double the suck and that's before we even get into the problems mentioned above with those two. Then you get to 32 and take full auto and it's got barely more damage than FT and only has yet again a 10 target cap. It's just not very inspiring. How about a massive spray of tracer rounds flying out of your gun, shooting all over the place?
Putting 6 more targets on FA wouldn't break anything. Actually, screw it. Just turn Full Auto into a summon that has 6 dudes show up and do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLKjcOehW_I -
Here's another one that popped into my head.
Change ignite to be a far better fire based AoE, similar to my original suggestion.
Change flamethrower to be the sets extreme damage ST attack. Make it a really fast burst of fire that burns the enemy for good up front damage with like an 80% chance for extra DoT. -
I'm rubber you're glue...
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Claws/Elec is a good combo. You get a wicked fast attack chain, awesome AoE damage, infinite endurance, and with the right pool choices and Energize you'll be damn tough to boot. I have a 36 claws/elec brute and she's a real butt kicker.
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Not as much as a hassle as you might think. Run into a spawn, hit spin, start ST'ing your hardest target, being sure to use spin every time it's up. You don't really need to position with a taunt aura, as they'll all pile up on you anyway. This of course depends on what enemies you're fighting. My experiences on Liberate so far have shown that most spawns stay up close and personal.
In normal PvE Claws is an absolute monster as well, and doesn't have to deal with rage crashing all the time. -
I'm currently using my SS/SD to PL my alt account which is a Claws/Elec brute. Gonna be a nasty farmer and it's going to be vastly more end efficient than SS/SD. With the high end cost powers of SS, Rage crash and Hasten crash I WELCOME Claws/Elec's infinite endurance and wicked fast attack chains and wicked fast spin.
Got her up to level 20 so far. She's pacted with a MM on my main account so it's taking a bit longer. I plan on breaking the pact around level 24 or so. Love being able to play 3 characters at the same time on 2 accounts
I suspect claws beats SS in ST DPS, endurance efficiency, it's got a much easier leveling curve, and gives it a huge run for it's money in AoE as well. It's glorious. -
Quote:That doesn't do anything for Corrs or Defenders and doesn't address the actual issues with the set.Originally Posted by Katten
I'd be happy if they just went ahead and boosted the defuriance up a bit, that'd make up slightly for the loss of aim without changing anything difficult, and without overpowering AR at all.
I guess everything needs to stick to the formula though (sigh) -
Dark gets a gimped heal range for some reason, even though it requires a to-hit check and has the MM endurance penalty. Granted it comes with a debuff and it's a rather powerful heal, but the heal range on the other heal auras are all "normal."
Twilight Grasp 10 ft
Pain and Therm aura 25 ft -
Well it's good to see that at least most of us here agree that some powers in AR need at least some tweaking. If we keep it up there's a chance it will at least end up on someone's radar.
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I recently got my bots/traps to 32 and i want to re-roll now with a secondary that can more effectively and easily keep targets debuffed, controlled, slowed/kb'd, from range without having to use 5 different powers in melee range. This has led me to choosing between /dark or /storm. Clearly, the debate is between Tar Patch and Freezing Rain. Freezing Rain has the added defense debuff, huge -res number, the ability to slot achille's heel, and slows, and KDs enemies. Coupled with snow storm, nothing is getting out of that massive burn patch.
Hands down Freezing Rain beats Tar Patch. As a whole, though, /Dark does seem very tempting for me. I have a mercs/dark MM and he's been at 50 for years. I'm familiar with all /dark has to offer, and that is why I am given pause over this choice. The to-hit debuffs in that set will make my bots all but invincible against normal foes. AoE heal for when they do take damage, and a rez/stun for my teammates. Can't leave out fluffy, either. A whole extra layer of debuff and control.
Primarily I'd like to hear from some bot/storm users about their experiences in the post-32 game. -
Ah yes, how could I forget the end cost on flamethrower. Massive DPE fail if you finish off your targets before letting Flamethrower tick away on them as well. Honestly, with AR and Traps getting proliferated last issue I was really expecting some tweaks to those sets. I was actually surprised AR was left totally untouched.
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I've seen it suggested to reduce the oT part of Flamethrower's DoT a million times and yet it's never happened. I'm not sure why. Comparing the set to archery may not have been the most convincing way to advocate buffs for Ignite but that's what my late-night mind wanted to do (perhaps fueled by RoA jealousy).
Either way, I believe my suggestion to buff Ignite was original and something that I personally haven't seen before so I threw it out there. I think it would completely negate the need to buff any other power in the set and help ignite from being a almost always skip kind of power to a really good power. Of course, it also doesn't violate the cottage rule.
We've all (redside players anyway) seen how amazing those swarm missiles can be.
But of course increase Full Auto to 16 targets and giving Flamethrower what I've called the "midnight grasp" treatment would be welcome changes as well, or in place of my suggestion. I'll point out though, if those two things do happen, Ignite becomes even more of an always skip power.
I've found the AoE in AR to just be really finicky and kind of counter intuitive, that's what annoys me about the set. I've stated that AR is my most beloved and yet most hated blast set. I love the ideas of the powers in the set, I just hate the way they work. I primarily play Corrs but I'm sure these problems flow over to blasters and now defenders as well. Typically on a corr you want to open with whatever buff/debuffs you have, then lay down AoE death on the spawns. You want to keep the foes close and tightly packed for your Full Auto and neatly placed in your debuff radius. That means that for me, I won't open with M30 or Buckshot because it'll mess up spawn placement. So I open with Full Auto and hope my debuffs/buffs or someone else holding a lot of aggro keeps me from getting murdered. Once that power is done, I can open up a can of flamethrower on the enemies which will slowly tick away their health. If I were to use M30 or Buckshot at this point a massive amount of Flamethrower's damage and endurance cost would be wasted if I finish off the spawn. It just puts flamethrower in an odd position, almost like I just don't want to bother taking it anymore. With a big burning AoE like my swarm missile ignite idea, one could lay down controls/debuffs like Fearsome Stare or Tar Patch, Ignite everything, then start up with Full Auto. That right there would be enough to rinse the spawn and M30 and Buckshot could be used to take off the last slivers of health.
This change would definitely put Flamethower into the skip category, which is why I personally believe both flame powers in AR need to be seriously overhauled. -
For a very long time now, people have been lamenting AR's lack of an Aim like power, it's weak ST damage, it's slow DoTs. One of the best things going for it was Ignite, which was recently nerfed, making it from a situational power to an extremely situational power, and brings lots of trouble into a slot heavy build when choosing which powers are worth investing in. Now some issues have been addressed with shortened animation times, but the set still has problems.
Flamethrower's DoT is very slow, and the animation time on ignite is long. Any recent buffs to AR are still completely overshadowed by Archery. Archery and Assualt Rifle are very similar sets; they are both natural themed, AoE heavy, follow a close template, and they both posses a 60 second recharge crashless tier 9. Yes, one good thing AR had going for it over the other blast sets before Archery came along, is dwarfed by Rain of Arrows with it's ability to be cast from safety, more damage dealt almost instantly, and it's ability to Scourge on each damage check on corrs. Archery also has superior ST damage in the form of Flaming Arrow, Aim, and the control of AR with Ex. Arrow and the stun arrow. On top of all of that, Fistfull of Arrows causes no knockback, making it mesh much better with an AoE heavy set, and with corr and defender support sets that require enemies to stay inside of debuffs.
I've seen a lot of suggestions to buff AR, and I myself have thrown in my suggestions from time to time. I have not seen this one posed before though, so I figure I might as well pitch in.
Change Ignite to a clone of the Assault Bot's Incendiary Swarm Missile. For those of you who aren't familiar with this power, I will describe it. The bot fires a bunch of missiles from it's missile pod which connects with a single enemy, it then blows up and spawns a little ignite patch underneath the feet of all of the enemies inside of it's radius. I think it has a 16 target cap. Like all area effect ignite-like powers, the enemies attempt the flee the area. Of course it's your job to make sure they don't make it out of the giant fields of flame alive.
The numbers would obviously have to be play tested and worked on in order to make it a balanced change. Cottage Rule wise, it seems to fit the criteria. The power won't change what IO sets or enhancements it can take, and it still does the same basic job; create burn patches.
My suggestion for the animation would be something like the LRM animation only no interrupt time and a clone of the projectiles that fly from the Assbot.
I think this would help AR in that it would solidify it as the undisputed king of AoE without stepping on the ST damage of other sets, give it another option for an all purpose good AoE that doesn't KB, doesn't step on the shoes of RoA, does something other than S/L damage, and works well with the DoT death trifecta of Ignite, FT, and Full Auto. -
SS/SD/Mu Brute
With the chance for +recharge proc (it's +100% recharge) and a good recharge build, you're using footstomp every 5 seconds or less. The proc is just about always running. You're getting +damage from shields and you get Shield Charge, which is better than Lightning Rod due to it's ability to do full damage to all enemies inside the radius. Most people don't mention, or just don't know, that Lightning Rod only does full damage within a few feet of where you click, does about 2/3rds that damage in about a 10 foot radius, and only a bit of damage to enemies on the outside perimeter of the attack.
Then you get to follow that up with your APP AoE Attack. You literally 3 shot entire spawns. I doubt anything else even comes close. It's got amazing alpha strike AoE and amazing sustained AoE and amazing damage mitigation due to being able to perma knockdown an entire spawn (just incase for whatever reason they don't die in whatever the animation time for FS+SC+APP AOE is). Plus the chance for +recharge proc doesn't work in Lightning Rod or Shield Charge, as it applies the effect to the psuedopet that actually does the attacking.
If you want a hero, Fire/SD/Fire. Yes, FSC is THAT good. -
AR is at the same time my favorite primary and most hated.