Sarrate

I think it's this part, Werner:

Source


[edit: That's not saying you will be banned for it, but they could - so advertising that you do it isn't the best idea.]

I've only fought him once (on the above Brute) and I was able to dodge his drain every time. He only had time to use it twice, but I stalled and let him use it a third time and actively got hit by it, just to see how bad it actually was.

Draining 60-80% of an Elec Brute's end and a ~50% heal. Nasty!

I did the same thing, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I actually didn't "find" the teller, so much as just started clicking on people in the lobby. They definitely could have made her stand out a bit more. (I didn't rob the bank... that time...)

I also missed Leonard inside the mission. I was too busy killing stuff. Only reason I found him was a) I had NPC text in a separate tab and b) I made a targeting macro for him. :P

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When I got to the mission to slay Protein, I was cursing on the way there "What? That's my cloning facility, you [ bleep ]s!" There was also cursing as I was escaping from it.

Anyone else get a strong Metroid vibe from that, btw? I couldn't help but flash back to Super Metroid (escaping from the space colony and escaping from Zebes) during it.

Epic.

VEATs are definitely a shining jewel for villain teams, no doubt. Many (all?) VEATs have res debuffs for extra offensive firepower, too. Unfortunately, not all villain teams will have them.

Villains do have more damage, absolutely. It can overwhelm spawns fast and kill them before things pose a threat - also true. On the other hand, it's more brittle and more likely to break when things go wrong.

Consider this hyperbole, for a moment. If you have 8 Blasters, spawns will melt really fast. If something unexpected happens (such as an ambush, aggroing extra spawns, etc) it breaks really fast. My experience, which is much different than yours, is exactly that. Villains will cruise through mobs, but curve balls are far more likely to break the group.

This may be another factor - a stronger feeling of teamwork.

(Btw, while villains have a bit less cohesion than heroes, I wouldn't quite go so far as saying 8 people soloing the same map... That's what CO teaming is like. Yuck!)

I can only speak for myself, but grouping in CoV is usually less fun for me than grouping in CoH. I'm sure there are three things going on:

1) Weaker overall defenses - Villain ATs have characters with weaker defenses and weaker support than hero side ATs. Compare a Brute with a Tanker or Corruptor to a Defender. Heroes also have access to their best buffs/debuffs earlier. (Speed boost at lvl12? Yes, please!) As many are aware, since mitigation strength is non-linear, the combination of these two are huge.

2) Enemy difficulty - In addition to the above, villains have to deal with much nastier enemies than Heroes. Succubi, anyone?

The two of these make villain groups more brittle, and more likely to fail when 'things' hit the fan. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against there being challenges in the game, or anything like that; I've just had far more bad experiences where teams bang their head against a wall villain side than hero.


3) Conflicting roles - Sometimes Villain ATs step on each other's toes more than hero teams do. As a simple example, a Brute can be hindered by multiple Brutes or Dominators controlling well. That sort of thing bugs me. I know, this doesn't always happen, but this doesn't happen hero side at all.

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There are other reasons, as well. Hero side is much more open for story interpretation than villains - where you're frequenly either an arachnos pawn or a mercenary. Heroes have other perks, too: more content (zones, TFs, etc), a higher population, a more filled market, etc.

It's funny, too, because by all rights I should like villains more. See, I love hybrids. I played a Friar/Paladin in DAoC, a Paladin in WoW, Bear Shaman in AoC, Warrior Priest in Warhammer, etc. Villain ATs just haven't grabbed me. (I need to try playing my VEAT again.)

Y'know, I honestly can't tell, because both are sending conflicting signals. let's take a closer look, shall we?

On the left hand side, we can see two powers being used: Rage (yellow glow) and Invincibility pale purple lines emanating from his body). You can also see the yellow aim FX (tohit buff), which could either be from Rage or Invin.

On the right hand side, again, two powers are being used: Temp Invuln (the little burst from the left shoulder) and Unyielding (white cage). You can also see purple shields indicating a def buff.

Problem is, I would've expected one of you to have all of them. Of course, power customization makes it worse, since there is an option (for Invuln anyways) for "No FX" (except in PvP). Having said that, I'm going to guess you're the one on the right - when I fought my brute clone tonight, she didn't have knock protection, so I'd assume clones aren't allowed to have status protection.

So, how'd I do?

HAH!! That's a great shot.

You're a real Scrapper, Bill. You know something is painful, yet you subject yourself to it over and over again because, dammit, this time it just might work.

I think it's entirely possible, Bill. Remember, a lot of people play MMOs - not every person pushes towards the end, or have a single "main" like you do with BillZ. I mean, people could be alters, badgers, or completionists (run all available content on the way up, turning off XP to stay in the right level range). Another possibility is people with less time to spend on CoX.

I mean, from within this same thread:

It isn't hard for me to imagine enough situations where people level much slower than we'd expect. I know what you said was just an opinion, just trying to maybe give some insight on the other side of the fence.


[edit: Also, don't forget the people who just started playing the game, and quit before hitting 50. I know it took me a loong time to unlock VEATs. It's not because I couldn't do it, but because I have a much harder time enjoying CoV than I do CoH. I still only have 1 lvl50 villain, a Dark/Rad/Soul Corruptor.]

[edit 2: Btw, I wanted a VEAT, too. I simply wasn't willing to spend all that playtime on a character I didn't enjoy just to unlock one. Further, I refused to do any PLing just to unlocked them. I didn't want to be "that noob" in an epic AT that wasn't well versed in CoV.]

I wouldn't say I hated early SS, but it did grind my gears. (This is also from a Tanker's perspective - it may be different for Brutes.)

I only speak for myself, but I missed Footstomp more than Rage. Being unable to damage more than a single target at a time sucks. Having to wait till lvl38 to have one, and 39 to slot it, was very obnoxious. It was also a big waste of endurance. AoEs are incredibly end efficient if you hit multiple targets. (I should note I was leveling her before the new difficulty sliders, which I'm sure would've made it worse.)

You're operating under the assumption that SS is balanced and doesn't require a change. If that is the case, I'd tend to agree. Changing flavor for flavor's sake is kind of pointless.

However, I wrote that post under the opposite assumption, SS needs works. I'm not just railing on Rage/Footstomp, mind you. It'd be nice if the lower tiers were better so you didn't have to 'slog through' the crappy levels just to get to 'the good stuff.' It's one thing to have great powers to look forward to. It's another to hate the fight up to that point.

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant, either.

This depends on your definition of "well" and "uber well."

There is also the problem of 'sub-par combination x/y has Z performance with IOs' while 'optimal combination a/b has Z+50 performance with IOs.'

Is nerfing always the way to go? No.
Is buffing always the way to go? No.

There is a balance between the two. I'd suggest reading Positron's blog entry on "nerfing" if you want to hear the reasons for it straight from a designer.

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I started writing a response to this last week, but I held off posting since I hadn't had time to corroborate my thoughts with personal performance comparisons, calculations, etc; I didn't want to pull numbers out of my ****. I thought I had saved what I had written, but I guess not.

At any rate, I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I think my main concerns with SS boils down to this:

1) Rage's Persistant tohit buff
2) Rage's effect on non-SS powers
3) Footstomp
4) Rage amplifying Footstomp's already broken nature

I don't care too much about Rage's damage bonus on lower tier SS powers, nor do I worry too much about KO Blow (due to it's slower than usual recharge). The above are the root of the issues.

Then I started thinking about what it would take to 'fix' them.

1) Lower the tohit buff
2) No way to make the buffs exclude these
3) Lower either the damage or radius. Alternatively, increase the recharge.
4) Can't make it exclusive (see #2), and even with a toned down Footstomp, it may be too good.

On the subject of Rage, my train of thought kept going. Suppose:

1) Tohit buff is lowered
2) The damage buff operates at a lower value for pool powers
3) The damage buff is averaged out with the crash (no crash, lower dmg buff). (This would likely result in stacking being eliminated.)

What would this accomplish? It would create a click power that provides a damage buff that is basically the same as other sets... unfortunately, it would be quite bland.

I always thought Rage would've made more sense if it was strong, but either not perma or the penalties would be enough so that you may not want to perma it. An offensive 'god mode,' if you will. In this case, it would mean tweaking the set such that the lower tiers aren't as lack luster as they are now so you didn't feel like you needed Rage to be competetive, but it would provide a lot of oomf when something needs to die.

That would make the set progress through the levels smoother and be more flavorful, imo. As always, there is a catch: it would involve changing more numbers, which has a higher chance of using a 'wrong' number, and there is a higher chance people won't like it.

You would be correct, Sailboat. The order I'd rank increasing survivability is:

1) +defense
2) +maxhp
3) +regen

*) Take Tough/Weave (no matter how you focus, I'd recommend this)

The good thing is you shouldn't have issues increasing both 1 and 2 at the same time. If you can push ~40% def and 3000+ maxhp, you'll be very solid. (I sit at 39% s/l, 42% exotics, ~3160 maxhp, and ~650-700% regen with 1 target. I fear very few things.)

It will definitely be expensive, though.

1) Invincible Reichsman
2) Hamidon

:P

This is for another reason besides death being more trivial now: potency. Buffs and debuffs offer far more to a team than heals do. Compared to what stacked buffs/debuffs can do, heals do remarkably little for life saving.

On a all Dark Miasma / Storm Summoning STF, Ghost Widow's hold was ticking for 10 damage, if it hit. It normally ticks for around 400. (Extreme example, but straight heals can never offer that kind of safety.)

Yep, that's exactly what I was getting at by including Veteran Reward powers.

You said:

which means it was intentionally created such that the set was underpowered without Rage, but on par / balanced with it. That may not have been what you meant, but that is what you said.

Again, I doubt it. Like I said, you have to completely throw animation time out of the picture if you're looking at balance of these legacy sets. The bottom tier powers (low dmg/rech) are designed to deal more dps than the top tier powers (high dmg/rech). Simple example:

Punch: 1 scale dmg, 4s rech. 0.25 dmg/sec
Haymaker: 1.64 scale dmg, 8s rech, 0.205 dmg/sec

With that in mind, if you compare Haymaker with Stone Mallet and Bonesmasher, you'll see they have the same stats. Likewise, Punch will share the same stats as Energy Punch. They were designed to be equals, but they didn't include all factors into their equation (cast time, full attack chains, etc), so the intent fell flat.

(The only power in the set is worse than it should be without Rage is KO Blow, it should have a 20s rech instead of 25. Of course, it also is available at lvl20/8 instead ov lvl38/18 and it has a heightened range (13ft vs 7ft).)

Do these deficencies deflate Rage's potency a bit? Yes, but that doesn't mean Rage's current strength is necessarily a good idea. The problem with Rage/SS is three fold:

1) Rage doesn't just boost some of SS's deficient powers "up to par," it also boosts the strength of all attacks. So damage auras, pool powers, epics, temp powers, and vet powers are all stronger on SS than they would be on any other character. This means powerful attacks (such as Fireball) would be boosted as well.

2) Footstomp is too good. I have Footstomp, and I love it, but it is too good compared to other sets. It deals too much damage for the recharge / radius that it has. It is balanced as a 10ft radius, but actually has a 15ft. (Compare it to Frozen Aura, which has the same damage/rech and only a 10ft radius.) This is exasperbated by Rage, which makes it that much better. There is a reason a lot of people say SS is a great AoE set even though it only has one.

3) It scales very well. Since the bottom teirs are so lack luster and the upper tiers are so good, adding recharge to maximize powers like KO Blow and Haymaker while squeezing out Jab has a tremendous impact. It also means that there is room to add in better powers (like Gloom).


To sum up:
* SS wasn't designed around Rage. If it's balanced with it and underpowered without, it's a coincidence.
* Rage has farther reaching consequences than just bringing it up to par.

No, it wasn't. Or at the very least, I argue the "obviously" part.

* Animation times aren't a part of balance. Low damage/recharge powers were intended to have higher DPS than high damage/recharge powers. Due to DPA, this completely fell apart.
* KO Blow used to deal little (think EM/Stun) to no damage. I can't remember which, but the damage was added later.
* A lot of SS's powers did knockback. This includes Punch, Haymaker, and Footstomp. (The knockback being detrimental to player damage output wasn't considered - it was added because it was thematic.)
* Rage didn't use to have a def crash, it used to have a high MAG disorient. It was either strong enough to detoggle your by itself, or all it took was an additional MAG1 stun to break your status prtoection.

I do not think Super Strength, and honestly a lot of the original sets, were balanced around many of the intangibles people think they were.

I'm 99% positive, but I haven't specifically tested it with a Power Analyzer. I'll try to remember to do that tonight, but my CoX time has been pretty tight, as of late.

The idea of solving problems is interesting, but this is a pretty big turn off. One thing I hate in a lot of older MMOs (or MMOs back at release) were cryptic messages about what I should be doing. ("Go to some cave North of here and do X.")

They can be very cool - it gives a good sense of adventure and has a lot of RP flavor. I really do dig quests/missions like this when they're well written/implemented. When not, however, they're really frustrating. I really dislike having to alt+tab out of games to read what I should do next. Yes, I've done it before, but it's gets tedious very fast, especially when running into a lot of them at once.


Srmalloy has an interesting solution around it, but it has a problem of its own - if given the choice between convenience (in this case, a contact telling you what to do next) and reward (looking it up online, out of game), a lot of players will choose reward. Think about it, if a contact offered you a free recipe/temp power if you could answer a trivia question, would you look up the answer online if you didn't know it? I'm betting yes - I know I would.


Unfortunately I don't have a good answer to the problem. I seem to be better at finding pitfalls than I am at devising solutions, which means I come off more negatively than I would like. Bah.

Assuming the devs made it "follow the rules," dropping the self damage alone would cause ET to go from 4.56 scale (202.87dmg on a Tank) to 3.56 scale (158.38dmg on a Tank). In addition, the end cost would go from 10.19 to 18.51. Basically, it would become a Total Focus clone with a different animation.

If they weren't adverse to changing the animation (which BABs has previously posted he is hesitant to do) and wanted it to keep the same DPA (~75 before AT), it would drop the cast time from 2.67 to ~2.08.

Note: Just answering the hypothetical "what ifs," not expressing my opinion on whether should be done.

Kind of. Eating the self damage once or twice isn't a big deal. If you're leveraging ET all the time? It can make a big difference. For example, using ET every 15s causes about 11dps to a lvl50 Tanker. Natural regen (including 3 slotted Health) is 13.9. That's 80% of your Natural regen. That isn't insignificant in high stress situtations.

Another way to put it, if you used ET three times in one fight then had to use a Respite, you just healed back the damage inflicted from ET. (For a Tanker. The self damage didn't deal a standard percent of the using AT's base hp, last time I checked.)

Can it be overcome? Sure, absolutely. As mentioned above, respites, heals, regen buffs, etc all can circumvent it - but I wouldn't say it's trivial.

Semantics.