Sarrate

Seriously? I know I have the equation around somewhere, but I never actually sat down to realize how generous it actually was. When described like that... obscene...

Heh, indeed. It's funny that you say that, because recently a WoW dev was talking about how they're redoing stats in their next expansion. In particular, "haste" right now speeds up cast/melee time as well as the global cooldown (for spells only). They had talked about it effecting cooldowns, but decided it would make things too volitile.

There are other things the devs could do to try to temper AoEs, but it may be too late to do now.

Thanks for the explanation.

Okay, what about this:

Buffing something reduces the skill of building (and playing) a set. Take Invuln before the def set bonus change - it was hard, if not impossible to soft cap it. Now, post change, it can be with a bit of work. Same goes for playing a set, buffing it makes it easier to get better performance, ergo nerfing "skill."

On the other hand, nerfing increases skill required because it means a player has to build / play better for similar performance as before.

Consider, they've nerfed perma-god modes like Unstoppable / Elude so that they can't be permaed with 6 enhancements. (They can't be permaed at all.) Instead, players now have to create IO builds around maximizing +def while trying to maintain other important stats (such as acc, dmg, +rech, regen, recov, etc).

So, you're arguing that despite the fact they're adding content that is different / more challenging than prior content that they're trying to remove skill? Really?

Yes, the Khan TF is the easiest of the TFs they've added recently (haven't done the new Posi yet). It is a good dps check, though. Like I said, I four manned it, under master settings, in 53 minutes while full groups have taken that long just on Reichsman.

Learning to survive is fairly easy. Learning how to deal good dps is much harder. Why? When soloing, you can kill spawns fast enough even when using skills inefficiently. The game also doesn't provide good feedback when you're not doing as much damage as you could. If you don't survive well enough, you die. There is also the unique dpa mechanic where the hardest hitting power isn't always the best for dealing damage.

So, yeah, you can put a power on auto and walk away, but you're making it take far longer than it needs to.


How about Protean? Yet another boss that's more than a simple tank and spank. (Kinda like Ghost Widow's heal, but avoidable via skill rather than raw defense.)

That's one way to do it, but not required. The Halloween Event took coordination. Just having enough players isn't enough - you needed them to spread out to all the flags at once in order to make them vulnerable.

Likewise, Lord Winter doesn't require a plethora of people to down him, either. I think Lord WInter is one of the best designed encounters I've seen. Why?

First, the encounter isn't just a tank and spank. There are adds (summoned snow beasts and winter lights) as well as AV every 25% health. There is target switching and movement.

Second, there are a lot of powers / debuffs being thrown around, so it's likely to hit everyone with some form of kryptonite. Lord Winter deals Cold/Lethal/Smash damage, the cold being resisted far less than others. There is a lot of recharge debuffing, crowd control (hold/sleep), detoggles effects, and end drains. The northern lights he summon also debuff defense. The effects by themselves never felt oppressive, but were enough to keep me on my toes. My WP/Fire Tanker is very survivable, but there were enough effects being thrown around that I couldn't just idly sit by and not react to it.

To top it off, there is a time limit, so you can't just put an attack on auto and walk away.


That encounter is challenging, but also very fun. (I've done it in 8 man teams before, so you don't need a large population to do it.) I look forward to more like it.

Compounding factors include not liking to replay the same set multiple times and having a hard time justifying new characters of the same AT if they don't do something much different than the others. (I enjoy my WP/Fire Tank, but I haven't been able to any new ones stick because I kept thinking that he already has what that combination offers covered.)

I'm well aware that I'm extremely fickle about what I play. So, nope, no offense taken. :P

I remember it being a bit more widespread than that in DAoC. It was used on Darkness Falls trash, hibs had an aoe spot somewhere, it was used in roaming PvP (aoe mez then drop 2-3 pbaoes and kill people before they could react), and it was also used to defend / attack keep doors.

WoW also has more AoE fodder than just Heroics - there is trash that is AoEd in ICC, as well as some boss fights (Deathwhisper, Gunship, Dreamwalker, etc).

Having said that...

Yeah, it is much more common in CoX compared to other games. I do seem to enjoy games that lean a bit more towards AoE for "trash" than those that require repeated use of CC. So a dungeon with aoe fodder and single bosses works well for me. Dungeons that are single target & crowd control everything and single bosses? It can get a bit tedious.

Let me preface what I'm about to say with this: I don't have a Shield character, but I have seen many played before (in person and in videos). Also, I'm not pro-SC nerf, nor am I vehemently against it. Right now, I'm being an observer on the sidelines.

However, in a generic sense, I will say that leaving things out of balance is a bad idea. For me, I'm quite fickle when it comes to making new characters. They need a concept that interests me, powersets that I want to play, and I expect a certain level of performance. Recently, I have kept running into problems where I think:

"I wouldn't mind making a def based character. I could make SR, but the benefits of Shield outweigh it. I wouldn't mind making a Shield Brute, but Scrapper Shield is so much better. I don't want to make a Shield Scrapper or Scrappers don't have the primary I'm interested in playing."

It prevents me from making new characters because I don't necessarily want to make a Shield character, but the way my logic works I don't want to spend a lot of time making a character that ends up being subpar. (I did make a Claw/Elec Brute, simply because the name was too big a draw for me to ignore, but I'm constantly unsatisfied with the builds I try to plan for her. I'm hoping GR will provide new avenues for me to go down. I don't like it when sets are so disproportionate - too high or too low.)


I'm not saying you have to enjoy the nerf or that you shouldn't say you don't like it. That's your right and I'm sure that it's a lot of fun. However, to say that nerfing should have a statute of limitation is a bit naive.


[edit: Oh, I should point out that other games can have far more significant changes than CoX does. If you'll allow me to use WoW as an example, Blizzard has no equivalent to the "cottage rule." They'll change not only the power of abilities, but also the core of how they work. To take the most extreme example, Hunters are being migrated from mana to focus. They're completely swapping the resource they're using!

Change in MMOs are inevitable - nothing is sacred, for better or for worse.]

Just out of curiosity, and this will likely sound very *head-desk* to you, but what in particular is broken about AoEs?

Is it the fact that AoEs are balanced so low (ie: hitting ~3 enemies) when they average hit more?

Is it the fact AI is dumb enough to stay all clumped up?

Is it the fact so many things in the game can be AoEed?

Is it the fact there is rarely any reason not to AoE?

The reason I ask is many games I've played have featured the same qualities. In DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) one of the quickest ways to kill spawns was with caster PBAoEs. Herd up some mobs, blow them away with AoEs. (It became the power-leveling way of choice, in fact.)

WoW is also very AoE friendly, atm. Herd up a bunch of mobs, then blow them away at once. (Heck, right now some classes use aoe abilities in single target fights because they're so good.) Even back in vanilla, Frost Mages used to aoe farm for xp/gold.

What is so unique about CoH AoE mechanics that make is so ludicrously broken in comparison to other games?

True, having a specific set isn't necessary; however, it doesn't nulify the fact that some sets are numerically superior to others at performing certain tasks. The OP asked which set(s) would be "the best." Even if all sets can do the task, some can do them better. Having said that, relying on numerical superiority alone won't yield the best results. If you want to perform at the peak allowable by the game, you'll need both.

For example, you can tank AVs without ever being attacked, but I wouldn't consider that the best method. Why? The team is losing out on your damage output - the AV would die quicker if you were in melee range dealing damage.

(Numerical superiority can shift depending on the situations. Invuln may be king while dealing with s/l damage, but not so much against things like Psi Clockwork. They could do the task, but DA would be a better pick.)


[edit: Yes, I know, you don't need to be "the best" to accomplish things.]

Readjusting Shield Charge effects skill, how? If anything, I'd say it'd increase it. Rather than just relying on SC to blow away minions with ease, now it would take more precise aiming to hit mobs with the 3ft epicenter. It also would make grouping up mobs play a bigger role so you can followup SC with other AoE abilities. I'm not seeing this effect "skill."

Further, if they were continuously trying to minize skill, they wouldn't have started adding more difficult content. They've introduced "Master of X T/SF" badges, rewarding players who play well. Another example would be the Baracuda SF - which can be fairly challenging. The Khan TF, while it's fairly mundane, really shows the difference between players who know how to maximize dps and those who don't. (I four manned it in ~53 minutes under master settings, yet have been on full teams taking longer than that.)

Another example would be the new zone events - the Halloween Banners (coordination between players) or Lord Winter (which had many interesting effects) are good examples as well.

Let's not forget we've already heard the devs say that there will be more challenging content in GR.


I fail to see any trend of the devs trying to "dumb things down."

Castle can nerf powers, powersets, ATs, IOs, etc. He cannot nerf "skill." When I say "skill," I mean the player's ability to play the game and their knowledge of game mechanics. A player who is skilled will still be able to leverage a power more than those that do not possess "skill." A skilled player willl still know how to react in situations where an unskilled player will not.

If Castle nerfs a power, like Shield Charge, a "skilled" player will be able to adjust and adapt to that change. They may not be able to reach the same peak that they did before, but their skill remains the same. Even if a set, like Shield, was nerfed to "uselessness," a skilled player would be able to identify the next best build and utilize that instead.


I absolutely cannot accept the notion that "skill" simply equates to utilizing a very powerful ability. That is not "skill," that is a crutch.


Side note: The more specialize and fine tuned your build is, the more susceptible it is to being disrupted. A build with perfectly 45% def, just enough recharge for the best attack chain, and just enough end to sustain it will be upset if any of those factors are disrupted (via nerfs, buffs, new enemies, IO changes, etc), then build breaks. I've seen this happen in just about every MMO out there. In any MMO, you have to expect that things will change on you, for better or for worse.

The thing that's annoying to me isn't that things change, but what it takes to adjust a build after something changes - which is a different subject entirely.

I don't understand how this keeps getting perpetuated, especially when discussing (spared no expense) IOed out builds. I really haven't worried about alpha strikes / burst damage since I picked up Tough/Weave while running SOs. While IOed, unless it's on the order of magnitude of tower buffed Recluse, I don't bat an eye. (Seriously, I've been stunned by Reichsman then hit with toggles suppressed and I only lost about half my health.) If WP has issues surviving burst damage, then Shield is even worse at dealing with it.

The biggest (only?) thing I really worry about on my WP are being in def debuff heavy situations with a healthy dose of exotic damage (Arachnos, Romans and Nitci at the same time, etc) and the STF (GW & Recluse, whom I've only died to a handful of times ever).

I don't think I'd go so far as to claim that; I think some primaries are definitely better at Tanking than others. (If I had to choose between Invuln and Ice, for example, I'd say Invuln is "better.") Having said that...

I absolutely believe that someone who takes a primary and knows how to use it well will be a better tank than one who just picks "the best" powerset and completely leans on it for success. To use the above as an example, I'd take a good player using Ice Armor over a bad player in Invuln any day.

Werner, I think right now is probably one of the worst times you could ever hope for stability in a build, and it's not even because a power(set) might be looked at. Even if they're locked in and not changed for a year, I bet your builds wouldn't be "safe." Why? Going Rogue.

For one thing, we know that GR will sport mobs that will be tougher than what we're used to. I mean, Castle has said "I'm not too concerned about the protection levels shields can generate; it'll be needed." Again, he knows that Shield can softcap, and he thinks it will needed. There could be any number of ways that he could get around it (mobs with higher tohit would be just one way), which could upset current build goals. Suppose that the new softcap is 50% - without changing a single power builds would suddenly need to be reworked.

Critter design aside, there is another big unknown - the Incarnate system. We know nothing about it other than the name and that it will make our characters "more powerful lvl50s" (paraphrased from Positron). Anything it provides could upset builds. Suppose for a moment that we could get a passive +recovery boost via the Incarnate system. That could change people's builds. Just about any buff could. (Okay, we probably wouldn't have to worry about debt protection, but let's not be too silly. )

(To make things a bit more frustrating, we'll only be introduced to the first of 10 Incarnate levels in GR. So even after it's launched, we won't know the full breadth of the system.)


It's pretty much why I haven't done any build planning at all since I heard that GR would have a way to make our lvl50s more powerful. There is just too much uncertainty to make any plans that would require a large investment.

CJ - Combat Jumping (+jump height, +jump control, +def), found in the Leaping pool.

Steadfast Unique - Steadfast is a resistance IO set. The unique (ie: you can only slot one of them in a particular character) provides +3% defense to all types / positions.

s/l - Smash / Lethal. In this context, they're talking about increasing your smash/lethal defense.

Your numbers look off to me. Base (with Tough) those numbers are:

S/L: 50%
E: 82.5%
N: 30%
F/C: 35%
P: 35%
T: 0%

Assuming your numbers for s/l are correct, that's 58.4% enhancement. If so, the slotted numbers should be:

S/L: 79.2%
E: 90%
N: 47.52%
F/C: 55.44%
P: 55.44%
T: 0%


My take? Lucks are my goto inspiration to get out of trouble because they provide unusually strong mitigation compared to any other inspiration in most circumstances. I do use oranges, but much rarer. (There are only two ATs that can get as much out of oranges as purples, Tanks/Brutes, and not all of them have high enough resistance to make it meaningful.)


As I think about what the topic was about (meaningful +res bonuses), I'm not sure how many characters I have would chase them. Defense, in general, has better perks (higher mitigaiton cap, avoid damage to mixed type attacks, avoidance of secondary effects, easier to stack with pool powers). In this case, the devil would really be in the details - how many bonuses are there, how big are they, how many slots do they take, etc.

This is a tricky subject. On one hand, Blasters probably shouldn't be able to hit the 45% softcap permanently with IOs... on the other hand, I know I've eatten 4 lucks on my Blasters to overcome hard fights (EBs, multiple bosses, etc). Without recoding, I don't think there's anyway to make a distinction between the two. While the former may be out of line, I don't really feel the second is.


My other concern with a lower def cap would be the interaction between def and def debuffs / tohit buffs. Right now, the softcap is 45% - you can have more def than that, but it usually won't do you any good. If there is a critter with +10% tohit (from say, Tactics), now you'll need 55% def to floor them. My concern is if def was hard capped at 45%, players would have no way to add extra def to compensate. That would make the Recluse fight in the STF very... "interesting."

("Interesting? Define interesting??" - "Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die!")

Ahhh, I gotcha. Those things would definitely do the trick. Your raw DB damage output isn't as much of an outlier, it's just numerous other factors (such as your aura) that inflated your number a bit. Nice.

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification, Castle.

Castle, are those numbers right? If I'm doing the math right, those numbers should be:

Tankers 3' scale 1.92, 20' 1.36
Tanker 20' scale 2.56

Your numbers seem to put Tankers at an AT mod of ~0.85 instead of their current 0.8.

I admit, I didn't look at it too closely before. For the sake of argument, let's see:

Lightning Field deals 12.51 dmg every 2 seconds, or 6.255 dps, unslotted. Add in enhancements (95%) and double slotted Bliding Feint (37.5 * 2 = 75%) or 170% +dmg. Apply that to Lightning Field for a final dps increase of 16.8885 (6.255 * 2.7). If you want to count the 5% chance to miss, that'd drop it to ~16 dps.

Your final dps was 262 while Shred's was 223, a difference of 39 dps, over double our estimate for Lightning Field.

On the other hand, however, it's possible Shred spend more time healing back damage than you did, assuming he took Aid Self. That could be a significant hit if he was unlucky enough.

A couple things to consider (forgive me if you've already thought of them):

• They're utilizing herding to saturate AAO. This likely isn't the usual performance. (Similarly, Invulns can herd monkeys to be unusually safe. In actual team environments, you probably won't see all 10.)
• This is comparing Claw/SR to DM/Shield. SR has +rech* while Shield has a lot of +dmg, something you can't get in the quantities Shield gives.
• In this case, AAO is providing a +dmg boost of +81.25%. In other words, saturated AAO is allowing the Scrappers to operate with higher damage enhancement (before FU and SD) than most ran with pre-ED.

It would be interesting to see what kind of dps Claw/Shield could pump out.

* +Rech starts to lose it's value after the "ideal" attack chain has been hit. It can help with things like higher Soul Drain uptime and the like, but Claws doesn't benefit from it.

Hold that thought a second, taking another look at "the list":

289 Dark Melee/Shield Defense - _Mojo_
212 Dark Melee/Super Reflexes - DR EVIL NA
36% performance difference

276 Fiery Melee/Shield Defense - Iggy Kamakaze
189 Fiery Melee/Super Reflexes - Gaidin
46% performance difference

236 Broad Sword/Shield Defense - Chaos String
165 Broad Sword/Invulnerability - Hopeling
43% performance difference

174 Martial Arts/Shield Defense - Broken Prey
167 Martial Arts/Super Reflexes - American Dynamo
4% performance difference

Keep in mind, that's only a handful of people, and their builds (and chains) likely varied, but it's the only "hard" evidence I have on hand. However, if having a 50% performance gap is bad, take a look at the non-Shield perofrmance:

Highest performance per primary (no Shield)
262 Dual Blades/Electric Armor - Shadowsylph
228 Claws/Super Reflexes - Iggy Kamakaze
223 Dual Blades/Super Reflexes - Shred Monkey (added since Shadowsylph is such an outlier)
219 Katana/Super Reflexes - Laevateinn
212 Dark Melee/Super Reflexes - DR EVIL NA
189 Fiery Melee/Super Reflexes - Gaidin
167 Martial Arts/Super Reflexes - American Dynamo
165 Broad Sword/Invulnerability - Hopeling

The point? Even before adding Shield into the equation, there can be a huge performance rift. Between Iggy's Claw/SR and Hopeling's BS/Invuln is a 38% performance gap.

Keep in mind Castle said "Shields." He didn't say "Scrapper Shields" or "non-Tanker Shields," but just generic "Shields." Yes, he is responding in the Scrapper forum, but that's because it's where this thread is.

What? No it doesn't, and hasn't since I3/I4. CoF makes enemies stand in place and tremble while debuffing their tohit. There is no run effect at all.

Hardly; his rez is a 15 sec MAG 12 stun, not 50. I've never been stunned by him on my WP Tank, with just shy of MAG 13 protection (no SoW).

Ahh, good 'ole Occams' razor. Yep, that'd do the trick, alright.

I'm honestly not that surprised that not all people have concepts for their epic/patron powers. Likewise, it doesn't bother me too much when others have mismatched powers / concepts. The only time things like that bug me is when it happens to my characters.

(It's also why some of my characters haven't been played / respecced in ages. I feel like the powers I could/should respec out of for more potential are pivitol to their concept. For example, my BS/Regen is still using SOs/HOs, no MoG, but 3 powers from the Dark Epic and Assault/Tactics. I could make her a lot stronger, but I don't want to make the sacrifices necessary to do so. So she's been benched... that and I'm not that great at playing with the new Regen.)


(Unrelated tangent: While looking up the correct spelling for Occam's razor, I found Newton's Flaming Laser Sword. I'm now snickering like an idiot at work.)

Just out of curiosity, how do you know who has / hasn't put some thought into their epic/patron choices? The only way you can really judge if someone has justified it in game is by reading their bio... if they filled it in. I know I'm terrible at writing bios for my in game characters, but that doesn't mean I haven't thought about their choices.

I don't know what the actual requirements for it are, but you can always selectively turn options on, you don't need to turn on everything to enjoy a little bit of it. You can always just play with the settings a bit and just see what your system can handle at an acceptable framerate. (I hear occlusion is a major resourse hog, so avoid that one.) The only option I have turned on right now is water bumping water up a notch, which really looks nice in the Rogue Isles with all the water they have.

(Which reminds me, I need a new graphics card. I've been using a gforce 7800 backup for months and it's finally starting to croak, too.)

Shield uses positional defense (melee / ranged / aoe) and protects against attacks flagged with those positions (like Mental Blast, which is ranged). Many (most?) psionic control powers, like Mesmerize, are not flagged with a positional component, and therefore completely bypasses your defense.

So powers like Mesmerize, Dominate, and Blind are your Achilles heel. It's been that way for as long as I can remember, so nothing new.

On top of that, it has a recharge/end discount, to boot.