Rufus_NA

Really, it comes down to that Phase Shift and Phantom Army (and the rest of the untouchable stuff) are, in general design mistakes. Just like characters easily getting mezzed, these powers make the game *less* interactive and, as a consequence less fun.

The practice of 'nerfing' these powers really comes down to the developers attempting to undo their mistakes. Phantom Army, in particular, is absurdly broken, and should not ever have made it into the game - not even in it's current 'nerfed' form.

Has anyone tried to use confuse pulling tactics? This would require a Mind/ Dom, but stacking confuse, hitting with a ranged attack, and then accepting TP should be as good as pulling gets.

By the numbers, there is a large disparity in power between the dominator primaries with fire and plant at the top, and gravity bringing up the rear.

The design of dominators - melee attacks combined with no mez resistance and low hit points, and a paucity of AoE attacks - makes them unsuitable as team damage dealers, and (depending on primary) with long recharges, they may also be very limited in their control options. Moreover, control does not interact well with the brute's fury ability, and has a generally low margin of utility on teams. It's hard to see how a dominator contributes more to a team than a corruptor, mastermind, or brute will.

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They are tohit buffs.

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Arcanaville, have you experimentally verified this?
In one of the earlier issues my testing indicated that Burn was being affected by Insights.
The same testing also suggested that Burn in PVP had a base accuracy of 75% and that lucks were 12.5%. (I think it was I5.)

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For instance, with a 33% chance to hit, you'd have a 64/729 chance to miss 5 times in a row, or roughly a 1/12 chance to miss 6 times in a row and automatically hit the 7th time. 1/12 is pretty significant.

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I think you're overstating the effect:

Let's calculate the average number of attacks to get a hit with a base to hit of 1/3 and at most 4 consecutive misses:
1/3 of the time it takes 1 attack to get 1 hit
2/9 of the time it takes 2 attacks to get 1 hit
4/27 of the time it takes 3 attacks to get 1 hit
8/81 of the time it takes 4 attacks to get 1 hit
and
16/81 of the time it takes 5 attacks to get 1 hit.

So the average number of attacks necessary is

27/81+36/81+36/81+32/81+80/81=211/81

So the modified chance to hit is 81/211 - roughly .38.
That's a difference of roughly .05 in the chance to hit, rather than .08 you had.

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Final to-hit : misses allowed
>.9 : 1
.8-.9 : 2
.6-.8 : 3
.4-.6 : 4
.3-.4 : 6
.2-.3 : 8
0 -.2 : 100


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So, accounting for the streak breaker, the chance to hit an even-level opponent opponent is going to be 75.29% rather than 75%, which does explain _Castle_'s slightly high chance to hit.

Notably, the description is quite ambiguous about what happens with multiple attack powers that have varying chances to hit. Here's a simple example:

Let's say we have an attack with a massive to-hit penalty that has a .75 chance to hit, followed by two attacks that are at the to-hit cap. Can all three attacks miss?

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Super Reflexes Auto powers (Agile, Dodge, and Lucky) now add some minor damage resistance. This Damage resistance starts at 0%, but improves as the caster loses HP. The Resistance kicks in at 60% HP (when HP bar first changes color) and markedly increases at 40% and 20% (again, when the bar changes color). We have not yet determined the exact values.

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I don't get it. Sure, it's a buff to SR scrappers, but, from a mechanics point of view, it's bizarre.

An extreme possibility is that the damage resist increases 'faster' than the proportion of hit points lost. That would leave the SR scrapper in a place where he's better off with fewer hit points, and leads to things like sitting in the lava to fight an AV.

So, let's stipulate, for the moment that you never want a decrease in hit point total to correspond to a decrease in durability. That puts benefit caps of 16 and 36 on the 60% life and 40% life boosts respectively. (10 and 24 if you allow slotting the powers for resist.)

Moreover, since this is a step activation, it's clear that there will be periods where the effective durability of the scrapper is reduced by his natural healing.

Now, let's take a look at what sort of environment this change is going to actually help the SR scrapper in. Clearly enemies that perform 1-shots aren't affected. If it's not stacked with other powers, it moves the minimum 2-shot from 50 to 54% of the scrappers life bar, and the minimum 3 shot from 33 1/3 to 38% of the hero's life bar, and creates a micro 3-shot gap at 40% of the hero's life. Since the most common 2-shot (in my experience) is a boss hitting small at range, and then big in melee this isn't going to help with those.

So, really, this improvement is mostly beneficial for the hordes of peashooters scenario, and even then, I'm left wondering whether it's possible to have DoT stacked deep enough to KO a character before the damage resist is triggered.

A change like this tells us that:
Most 1 and 2 shotting of SR scrappers is 'working as intended'.
The devs want to see more brinksmanship.

These aren't the nerfs you're looking for.
Move along.

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I didn't test Suppression on either of these as Snarespawn and I were both in a hurry. But I doubt that these are Suppressed.

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Just confirming that neither siphon speed, nor inertial reduction, nor speed boost are supressed.

It seems like a team of this nature would to well to stay tightly grouped - even if it's just for the bubbles. Perhaps team flight + team teleport, and everyone follows the leader at higher levels? In order to have complete mez protection, you'll need to have every team member carrying a clarify, and an increase density (to cover sleep and knockback respectively) if the team is tightly grouped, then it will be easier to keep those up. This is especially an issue because of the large variety in buff timers: 45 seconds (ID), 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes.
Naturally, you'll also want the team tightly bunched if you want to take advantage of the Dispersion Fields, leadership powers, and the kinetics powers in general. (It's tempting to suggest simply having each player set a PBAoE attack on auto, and buff or move full time during combat.)

I think the team looks something like:
2 Force Field defenders
2 Dark Miasma Defenders - mainly to patch the psi-hole.
2 Sonic Resonance Defenders
2 Kinetics Defenders

Secondary choices should include Sonic for debuff, and Psi for the extra damage type. Endurance drain should not be a particularly effective option at the higher levels, and unnecessary at the lower onces.

Game Plan: At the lower levels, go after clocks - the Kinetics have Increase Density which will offer additional damage resistance to Smashing/Energy. A side trip to Positron is probably a good option as well, and Synapse is obviously ideal.

I feel like a lot of the issus that people have regarding Ice tankers, Force Field defenders, and Super Reflexes scrappers are related to the problem that defense is mechanically weaker than resistance.

There is some (offtopic) stuff about that in the Sonic thread, and it's (more or less) been repeated here: defense-based sets see a higher variance in damage rates than resitance-based ones (thus the comments about getting one and two-shotted by AVs), and defense is more affected by increased foe accuracy defense debuffs and auto-hit powers (quartz, damage auras, and higher level or ranking opponents) while they equally affected by damage resist debuffs.
In effect, people who play ice tankers (or other defense-oriented sets) are penalized more for taking on challening opponents. Consequently as long as people are pushing past the 'design opponents' defense-based sets will be inferior to damage-resist based ones. Balancing the more difficult environment for defense would make defense-based sets comparatively overpowered - and probably herding capable - in a relatively less challenging environment.

Really, in order to balance things against the other tankers, Ice tankers need some ability that scales with rather than against relative mob level - that is- an ability that is more effective against higher level opponents. (Based on the game mechanics, I would suggest that a -regen aura might be an interesting choice.)

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but I'm having some real difficulty when I start TK it activates right away, however, I'm not able to move and start sweeping or adjusting the movement of my anchor until the animation finishes. This gives about 1 or 2 seconds of uncontrolled drift that I often end up with just 2 or 3 in a clump. This is mostly when I'm trying a TK without the mobs setup nicely. If they are in a good line or clump it's much easier but when I try to throw it on during a good fight I lose them easily with that movement delay. Any suggestions?


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Depending on your build, this may not be practical, but if you have Whirlwind active, then you can move while activating powers. Taking a single power for such situational applications is questionable, but you might want to check it out on test.

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that matters. statesman has range on the brain. he thinks it MEAN'S
something.

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My current theory is that either that states et al completely underestimated the power of defenses, or that the confused AoE with Range. AFAICT those are the only plausible explanations that I can come up with for the current situation.

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You know... it'd kinda be nice if powers that helped blasters were.... you know.... availible to blasters. Yeah, that'd be awesome.

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According to quotes from states in an article that's published on the net, the original uber power combinations were:
Ranged damage + Self Defense
and
Range damage + Holds
and that those builds were 'too powerful' so they eliminated them by using the 'AT' system. Giving blasters reliable defense or lockdown powers would put them into one of the categories above - precisely the type of thing that the devs wanted to eliminate with the AT system in the first place.

That said, blasters have Lightning clap (PBAoE Stun), Ice Patch (PbAoE persistant knockdown drop), Frozen Aura (PBAoE Sleep), Auto-Turret (an aggro-drawing pet), Short Circuit (PBAoE endurance drain) and the rain powers (very limited AoE Fear + DoT).

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(AT, Dmg, HP)
Blaster: High/Low
Defender: Med/Med
Controller: Low/Low
Scrapper: High/Med
Tanker: Med/High


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Lovely theory, realistically, the scale is more like:
(AT, Damage, HP, Defense)
Blaster: High, Low, Abysmal
Tanker: Medium-high, High, Obscene
Scrapper: High, Medium, High
Defender: Medium, Low, Medium
Controller (discounting pets): Very Low, Low, Very High

Making it relatively easy to see which AT gets the shaft.

The only semi-reasonable explanation for the disparity is that the blaster's AoE ability should offset the drawbacks. However, Defenders, Fire tankers, and Spines scrappers all also have good AoE capability.

Adding an 'dispersion' element to the AI that prevents high density clustering would definitely improve the Blaster's relative utility.

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You can't snipe and cover in this game. The moment the enemy locks on, the decision is made by the program whether you're going to be hit or not. Nem snipers have hit me through walls, almost constantly. Where as, if I am drawing a bead on them and they walk past an obstacle, I lose the shot.

That should be looked into. It would help allow us to be the ranged weapon that we are meant to be.

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Actually, it's possible, dangerous, and slow. As I've better and better at 'pulling', I've started being able to hit things without having them retaliate, and, more recenlty, I've been able to hit things and have them not even chase me (not consistently, and using terrain). The problem is, that if that happens, the mob will immediately hit me with an attack when I pop back out from cover (unless I wait for aggro to wear off).

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That said, Full Auto, Total Focus and Shocking Grasp (I think that's the TF for elec), are very good power.

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Shocking Grasp is a single-target melee hold. The Ice PbAoE Sleep is probably quite good for solo play with the Ice primary - I would guess it's actually better than the nukes.

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Maybe I make sammies faster than some, but I think I could make one before my friends old /Invuln died, as long as DP was on.

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I should point out that /Inv is significantly more powerful that /Regen except against Psi/Toxic opponents. I think it works out to something like 20 even con minions will, on a good day, match the regeneration of the /Inv if Def and Resist are both capped.

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I noticed on this thread there was no mention of my build. Am I doomed then as a Mind & Kinetic Controller?

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I've only played Mind/Kinetics to 28. The mind/ primary is considered weak because it does not have a pet, but is generally considered the strongest primary from 1 to 18, and one of the better primaries from 18 to 32.

Another issue is that, for soloing, the two most useful powers for you from Kinetics will probably be the ones that are available at 35 and 38.

For soloing, you would do well to pick up an efficient pool power attack such as flurry or kick in order to deal damage. In general, you will be better off on teams though.

Remember, that it's a game, and all about doing things you enjoy, rather than getting there the fastest, or doing the most damage (although people do enjoy doing that as well), or whatever.

Finally got Terrify with my mind controller. Looks like it's got a 2.7777 BI and does Psionic Damage.

A probably under-appreciated aspect of confuse/decieve is that it is an ideal tool for mezing bosses:

Simply stack confuse on the boss. Confuse does not draw aggro, so the boss will not attack even if it fails. Once the boss is solidly confused you can let him clear out the room for you, or use one of the usual tactics for doing so.

Finally, because of the long base duration compared to holds, it's much easier to stack decieves. It's possible for a soloing ill/rad or mind/rad to stack up to 8 decieves, starting at level 22, by running perma AM, perma Hasten, and six-slotting Decieve for duration, although that may not be optimal slotting in practice. Depending on where the mez break is for AV's this may well be a significant aspect of the power.

A silly question, but:
Will an Endurance Reduction/Trave Speed Hammy-O affect the speed of TK'd enemies?

I believe that Telekenesis is also an anchored toggle AoE. Good luck figuring out which one is the anchor with that one though.

Although this may change at the higher levels, my Empath has been quite succesfull up to level 26 with only one healing power - Heal Other. I am adding Regeneration Aura with the intent of using it as a sort of self-heal.

According to my resources, Heal Other consumes less endurance per use than Healing Aura, has half the recharge time, and Heals almost twice as much (nine fifths) - if only to one character. So as long as your team is using good tactics - that is, it's letting one or two people take most of the damage (can you say tank) Heal Other is going to be much more worthwhile. Moreover, Heal Other has range which means that the squishy defender can stay out of AoE radiuses while healing using it.

Heal Other slotted for maximal heal over time, (3 Heal and 3 Recharge reduction - no hasten) has, so far, been just the right amount of healing. In my opinion, the primary redeeming quality of Healing Aura is that it is a self-heal, but Empaths aren't exactly the best soloists to begin with.

If you are not with the rest of the team, then it is your responsibility to get with the team. Defenders - regardless of type - will prefer to follow the damage magnet (generally a tanker) and will be concentrating on keeping him up. In a large team damage dealers are going to be a secondary concern because they're usually not between the defender (and incidentally the rest of the team) and a dirt nap.

In response to your theses:
The math of endurance, defense, and damage resist indicates that it is more efficient to let a tanker (or a defensive scrapper) take the damage for the team and then heal that person. It's also much easier for the defender to manage.

A competent defender will let any strays run off on their own. If you want help from the defender, stay with the team. Defenders that allow the tank to fall so that some straggler survives should review their priorities.

Getting close to the defender, especially while you are taking damage, at higher levels is a good way to kill the defender with AoE attacks.

When I'm concentrating on healing, I pay very little attention to who's dealing how much damage in large teams. I can tell when people are being foolish, but that's not exactly rocket science. Generally, the things that I notice are things that you should already be aware of.