Oedipus_Tex

I have no problem with more APPs. However, I want to clarify that when I said across the board signature powers was "dangerous," what I was referring to is what might be called the "Hasten Problem."

Hasten is themed to look like you have lit your hands on fire. Costume is one of the most important things to me. However, I will never, ever, skip Hasten on some characters. I will stand there and look ridiculous with my Ice themed character's hands burning orange, because skipping it is build suicide (or at least generally unproductive) for a Controller or Dominator.

Unless the powers you are describing all do virtually the same thing, then "theme" is actually at greater risk from implementing this sort of system without extreme care. Because the moment one of the "signature" powers stands above the rest, everyone will go with that power, and a bunch of people will be upset that their Fire/Fire Blaster now has to have a war mace throwing power in order to be competitive with other players.

That is why I said this sort of system requires an entirely new game. It is not that it is technically hard to code a new spell or power, but that the repurcussions of doing so are very large.

In the past I've suggested that the developers sell us new APPs, as long as they are well thought out and reasonably balanced (ie better balanced than the last proliferation, which somehow resulted in Dominators having Sleet).

Well, this is what Kick and Punch and several other Pool powers are. Watered down versions of existing attacks. They are also pretty much universally skipped, because in order to make them less powerful than the version the "real" AT gets you end up with a power that just isn't that great.

So, yes, it is technically fairly easy to create a Sonic Blast that does half as much damage as regular Sonic Blast. Whether you would still want it afterward is a very different question, and the reason I said you would probably not want it after you saw it.

I am fine with more APPs and even APPs that open at earlier level (though I would MUCH prefer the level 26, 32, 35, and 38 powers be lowered from their current levels to 22, 24, 30, and 32).

Of course we can, because if our ideas blow up in our faces and turn out to suck, we don't get blamed for it.

Not to mention, this is a two way street. When players of this game complain about developers not proactively tweaking sets, they're talking about buffs. They don't mean nerfs. And the honest truth is that you can only buff for so long before it becomes apparent that a nerf would have achieved the same affect faster and more honestly. When players start demanding balance more than they demand buffs to this or that I'll more willingly support large scale changes. But that isn't the culture of this game and IMO just buffing stuff left and right creates major issues (in fact, its exactly what caused the Earth pet to be head and shoulders better than Ice's).

Agreed. This is why I suggested splitting the knockdown in Ice.

Vs minions, lts, and bosses, make it unresistable. They have a chance to fall no matter what cages someone puts on them, and even if they have inherent kd protection (since having your feet slip out from under you is somewhat different than being physically blown over by force).

Vs everything else, it works as normal.



The more we talk about -Range in Shiver the more excited I get for the possibilities that would enable. The synergy with Ice is really quite amazing, really, and extremely unique. Not only could enemies want to get up close to you, they also (due to speed debuffs) struggle to do so. It could be really great, and handles what would otherwise potentially be a nasty conflict between Shiver's cone and AAs PBAoE eloquently.

No you wouldn't. Once again I think you are oversimplifying by treating Ice Control as Earth Control with Stalagmites removed.

EDIT: But I'd still be opposed to just giving Ice Control a Flashfire clone.

This is kind of thing I'd have to pass to an Arcanaville type. I have no idea what threshold at what level range against what enemies is considered acceptable performance. I do know that my Ice Dominator did very little dying (less even than my Ice and Earth Controllers) as he headed toward 50, and from level 40 he was able to powerlevel himself in the AE using ambush spawns. Admittedly, Arctic Air was a lot better at this when enemies still self rezzed.

I do know that my IOed Ice Controller does stuff like Positron TF with no problems, but he still has a few set bonuses from purples. Same with Sutter, Numina, etc. I am considering an Ice/Dark Dominator in the next issue due to what I consider great compatability between these sets in the next issue, and don't anticipate major problems that are especially out of alignment with what I've experienced with Plant, Earth, etc, but will keep my eye out for them. My Plant/Psi Dominator actually died a TON leveling up, mainly due to occasionally wiffing on Seeds of Confusion. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the assumption that anything I aggro will struggle to run up to me.

I would love this.

FWIW I think Glacier is one of the best mezzes in the game, for a reason that's rarely cited: high visibility. The other holds/stuns/etc often leave me wondering whats affected and what isn't, where Glacier makes it very clear, even through the huge amount of visual noise this game throws at you.

I assume you are talking about the AoE sleep and another power, but I'm not sure which. Shiver? Please read my comments earlier in the thread about these powers.

Let me clarify. Saying the set isn't totally worthless isn't the same as saying it couldn't be better than it is. If I could post my full thoughts on the set in every individual post I would, but you'll have to read back on the thread to see what else I had to say about the set, which isn't entirely glowing. Still, the set is the one I play the most. And Ice Control is not simply Earth Control with Stalagmites removed.

Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean by 'examining the set by itself.' No set is ever by itself. The power of the set is defined entirely by its relationship to the game world. You hint at this with your statement that Ice Control is better on Controllers than Dominators (a statement I would debate if I had the energy. We'll leave at, any AT with the potential for perma mezz protection and a Mag 6 hold is far from my definition of weak).

For frame of reference, I posted a video of my Ice/Fire incarnate character running around Rikti War Zone. While he's not drop dead amazing, he isn't bad either. I'm sure someone will say that IOs and incarnate powers fix "anything" and it's therefor irrelevant, but that's a subject for another debate, and one in which I would highly disagree (again, see Devices and Energy Melee for examples of sets in much worse shape). One specific thing to look at is how spread out the enemies in each individual group are. A mezz from range would likely not hit the entire spawn.

(Video will be live once it finishes uploading. The first few groups are low level Rikti, and it gradually progresses upward. The black screen at the end is where my video driver crashed :P).
http://youtu.be/rHHiBCFPDOU


EDIT: If some people who feel the set is very poor could post some videos of trying to use the set and failing significantly I'd be interested in seeing them. I have some pretty good ideas about where Ice's holes are, but the level of frustration expressed by some people doesn't match my experience, especially post-mezz protection. Earlier in the thread I identified getting mezzed as Ice's chief worry based on my experiences around levels 30-40. I've certainly tasted the floor at the hands of Ice Control but whether that happens more often with Ice than the other sets is something I think could be highly debated. I've played every set but Gravity to 40 or higher several times, and while Ice has its issues I've never found it as limiting as some posts suggest. That may be because I always team, but I always team with Earth and Electric too due to their initial low damage (on Controllers) and while there are differences, I still do not feel Ice is so far behind as to be worthless.

EDIT2: After watching the video myself, it does make me wish Shiver had a -Range debuff. You can see, I think, that generally the biggest threat to me is anything that gets outside AA. If I could make enemies run toward me more often I'd be a lot better off. Knockdown working with Immobilize would help a lot too (you can see I use the immob very often, specifically to keep enemies positioned. The slow is useful not because its a primary goal but because it means anything temporarily able to move is less able to catch me, usually while another power animates).

[EDIT: edits to tone and clarity]

I have characters with both sets, and respectfully disagree with this comparison. IMO some positive points not touched on are Glacier, the fact that Ice Slick's -RunSpeed keeps enemies in the area better than Earthquake considering animation time (EQ + Quicksand takes much longer to cast), and how Arctic Air fits in overall. My Ice characters do not even have Shiver, so the idea of Earth with Shiver being the same as Ice Control is not representative of how I personally use the set.

Also, Salt Crystals < Glacier.

One specific place Ice is fairly competitive, for example, is cast time relative to control effort. On a team with decent buffs and/or with IOs, where alpha strikes matter less, it is entirely possible to pour almost all of your time into damage powers and let the control happen on its own. Earth has to set up Volcanic Gasses + Quicksand to match around what AA does just by the character showing up, then continually recast these powers throughout the fight (with VG not being perma without IOs). AA is one of the only control powers that is almost always available, irrespective of recharge. Getting hit with massive -Recharge or -ToHit debuffs does nothing to curb AAs effectiveness. There is also never a moment where the player has to refrain from using the power toward the end of a fight or risk not having it recharged for the next group, which is, IMO, a significant and often overlooked advantage.

You can see elsewhere in the thread where I give my criticisms of Ice, but IMO Ice is not a Devices or Energy Melee.

Well, the prehistoric animal was also not the size of a grizzly bear. And again, people are animals so "technically" a caveman "should" fit.

The word "dire" as a catch-all intensifier for, for lack of a better term, "magically feral" animals, is a fantasy trope used in D&D and other fantasy games for abnormally large and ferocious animals. In those games, like in this one, the "dire" wolf shares almost nothing in common with the actual historical animal, which was only about 5ft in size and at its heaviest might have weighed around 200 pounds. An average lion weighs between 300 to 500 pounds fully grown. The females are somewhat smaller, but not half the size of a wolf.

Well, that's your opinion.

The Dire Wolf might as well be a caveman as far I'm concerned, because, you know "people are animals." I think I will be calling it the "Oni Wolf" because it's that far out of place to me.

I agree that it should have been a bear. Or rhino. Or anything but a gigantic fantasy realm wolf.

I would like Ice Slick's knockdown to be unresistable but only work on up to boss level. I feel that would be a fair tradeoff. I do feel Ice Slick should be the "premier" knockdown patch in terms of its knock capability. The idea of immobilizes preventing enemies from falling over is kind of weird to me anyway because if they are on the ground when immoblized they can stand up.

Another possibility would be to have Ice Slick have a custom knockdown animation with a longer animation time than the standard slip and fall. Slip, fall, take a moment to regain footing before being able to stand again. Again because I feel that of the various slick powers Ice Slick is the one with the most cards invested in knockdown.

As for Shiver, which was brought up by other posters, like I wrote in the other thread, I would set the duration to 45 seconds and leave it at that.

There are a lot of things that could be done with the sleep power, but one possible idea I have for it is to have it contain multiple sleep ticks (similar to how Fire Control damage does multiple ticks, not necessarily like Electrics). Basically instead of one pulse you get 4 or 5, one every few seconds. Unlike Electric's sleep patch, this effect would stay "on" the enemy and be able to sleep them even if they run away or something after being initially hit.