Sentry4

I'd have to disagree with you here.

It would be extremely imbalanced for tanks to be that close to brutes in damage. Damage has to do with the speed at which something dies, and it fluxuates up and down but keeps going. You'll kill it in X minutes, or Y minutes, depending on your damage.

Survivability is an absolute continuation or stopping of damage. You'll kill it in X minutes, or you won't kill it at all.

You have to realize the value that staying alive does to your damage. If the brute dies, the tanker outdamages him.

Even if the tankers had 1% more survivability than brutes, how do we value that? Should the brutes do 1% more damage? 5% more? 100% more?

Here's the thing, that increase in survivability means nothing in some circumstances and -everything- in other circumstances. When the brute dies, he's doing 0 damage compared to whatever damage the tank is doing. The tank isn't doing 1% more damage or 5% more or 100% more, his increase in damage is undefined because we're comparing a number with 0.

I have no doubt the devs realize this. Damage is not survivability. You will not kill something before it kills you unless you're PvPing (extremely common there). In PvE, damage is not survivability, but survivability can translate to damage.

The value of the increase in survivability is weighed by it's frequency being 'everything' instead of 'nothing'. I don't care if brutes do 2x as much damage if tanks outsurvive them 1/5 of the time. Then again, maybe 2x damage translates to tanks surviving 10% more than brutes. It's hard to compare an increase/decrease in speed with the absolutes of stop and go that survivability has.


I understand the frustration of tanker players because of it's niche. It's extremely useful and useless niche depending on the situation. Where are tanks necessary? Bad teams, the teams where people die. If everyone is dropping but the tank, then their survivability is invaluable and their niche has been fulfilled, to keep going and to keep damaging while the others have been forced to stop.

The devs will not typically create content so hard that it will require a tank or else fail, but the usefulness of the tank really depends on how good or bad the team is. That's the problem, that the tanker doesn't have a role when survivability is not necessary. As I said before, it means nothing or everything, and in every steamrolling/perfect team, the tank is useless. That being said, so are many many other ATs. No offense to other ATs, but most people believe that the perfect team is only comprised of 2-3 different kinds of ATs.

So I understand that tanks don't preform well at top levels compared to brutes, but it has it's niche when the teams aren't perfect. I'm not even sure a brute would be included in the perfect team. Maybe just 1, and probably only if it was SS/Fire, else it'll be outshined by something else.



Let's compare tanks in PvP. Yes it's a different part of the game, but it demonstrates perfectly where tanks fit in. Sometimes you're fighting against someone who does so much damage, that your scrapper or brute will fall in a matter of seconds from the burst, but getting a tank will allow you to get enough hits in, with the possibility of winning the match.

In this situation, the tanks survivability is invaluable, and no amount of damage the scrapper or brute has will allow it to win. Yes, there are situations where the scrapper/brute will be confused or held for such a long period of time that they're useless unless they survive the first 10 seconds. Sometimes they die, while a tank would have lived and won.

The only problem with tankers is that the above situation does not happen often in PvE. The solution would be to create content like the above situation. The problem with that is it's making a tanker required on the team or solo, and the devs don't want to do that.

The solution I see, is making a situation where certain ATs are necessary, and making a tank the only one capable of filling that role out of the melee ATs. In the PvP situation I mentioned before, a tank would win, but so would a controller who confused/held them first.

That means that a Scrapper/Brute would be useless, while a Tank -or- Controller -or- whatever else (excluding the other melee characters) would be useful.

These circumstances already exist, just extremely rare, and more often in PvP. We should be bringing these to PvE more, rather than just PvP.



Tankers are fine. They survive what others cannot. They do exactly what they were built to do. The only problem is that not enough content exists that makes that skill useful.

Tankers can rock climb extremely well, but the only problem is that we're stuck in the middle of the ocean. If the devs were to introduce a rock wall, the tankers would shine. To avoid tankers being the only useful AT, they should also include a rope so that the fit controllers, or defenders, or anything other than the current melee ATs, can climb it with them.

I assume that nobody is complaining about tankers performance against any other AT other than melee ATs. Create situations where tanks outshine brutes, scrappers and stalkers. Then the problem will be fixed.

Then, players have a justified and undertstandable reason to roll a tank over a brute or scrapper in the top end of gameplay, rather than the bottom where teams die.

I'd agree with that.

Since illusion can't really leverage much -tohit (outside of Spectral Terror), I may give it to a well built Ill/Cold instead.

The -tohit strength component of -special in Poison can be enhanced, but it cannot be in cold. This is a big reason why Poison is superior in Dark/Colds vs Dark/Poisons. If your main route is going to be debuffing accuracy and getting hit less, poison is superior. That, and the uptime of the debuffs.

If you use Heat loss, you can close the gap between them really well (count heat loss as a 2nd benumb and alternate them to make it close to Poison uptime).

Then it comes down to things like the heal resistance poison has as a debuff, compared to the -rech and -dmg(fire only) ice can dish out.

I would prefer cold, even though it would take a bit more timing and attention then Poison. Having just 2 debuffs to use every 30 seconds is kind of nice sometimes.

I agree it should be somewhere at the top.

I'll leave this here.

From...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=288393

I thought this was a lottery system to specifically stop a couple teams from dominating the event, and scoring 20-0 on new players. Maybe that was another thread.

That being said, if this is allowed, I have a team ready as well on freedom when it starts.

Also allowes players to hit the HP cap (which SR doesn't) and grants EA as much DDR as SR.

I've been meaning to test this. When I want to hit the cap I'll usually 4 slot super speed and throw some slots in sprint. Maybe 2 slot swift or throw in a gift of the ancients, although I'm sure a lot of my toons are way over. I've just been procrastinating on run speeds.

I'm unsure how the percents of run speed work with the miles per hour. Super speed base is 350% run speed on mids, but +100% SpeedRunning on Redtomax, but that translates to 50.1 mph.

Then sometimes I'm unsure how to factor DR with it. Do I DR the +100% SpeedRunning or the 350% Run speed?

I'm calling backup. Then I'll make a separate thread about how to hit cap while factoring slotting, stealth, powerboost, maybe even AM since this is a rad thread. I'll include different slotting choices using basic IOs and movement HOs.

Now that confuses me. I've heard about it speeding up your jump speed while suppressed, but when I tested it, 1 slotted hurdle makes you hit the cap everytime. 31.11mph jump speed is the cap. 14.32mph base + 24.85mph hurdle = >31.11mph, even when factoring DR.

Furthermore, the jump height is enhanced, but SJ's height hits the Max jump height cap of 72ft. So it doesn't give an increase to jump height or speed while in suppression. SJ hits both caps.

My tests actually showed that a CJ with 1 jump IO is better than the 2 slotted hurdle for height.

I've gotten the exact same answer from others who did the same (2 slotting hurdle), but I've taken toons and tried both. I recorded the jump speed with SJ on, 1 character with 1 slotted hurdle and 1 with 2 slotted hurdle. Both were the same speed under suppression.

With CJ, they were also the same speed (capped). However, 1 jump IO in CJ (and 1 jump IO in hurdle) jumped further (meaning higher) than 2 jump IOed hurdle.

Hurdle gives 166.8% jump height.
CJ gives 200% jump height. <-- This is better to enhance with 1 slot



It looks to me like it doesn't do anything, but that's why I'm asking you. I'm hoping you can test it, because it may be an inaccuracy, or only truth in past issues. Using that 1 slot in CJ seems to be better.

"Suppression" is just capping your 'jump speed' and 'max jump height'. With 1 slotted hurdle, the speed is capped already, meaning an extra jump IO doesn't increase speed at all.

If you're trying to increase max jump -height-, it's already capped with SJ, and if you're going to use a slot to increase it outside of SJ, combat jumping does a better job of that.



Lastly, giving hurdle another +jump doesn't even grant more control. Combat jumping gives more control than SJ, meaning it appears faster than SJ when suppressed. It actually has the same speed (going in one direction, capped). Although it's true that more control means more....speed in where you want to go. I don't know how to translate that to numbers, but going from A to C to B to D in a big "W" will be faster with CJ even though they're the same speed in one direction.



So we know it's not for the unsuppressed jump height because if that was the focus of it, putting that 1 slot in CJ would give us better results.

It also can't be to hop along and keep damage on targets, because jump speed is already capped, and 1 slot to CJ would actually make it faster (higher max jump height) than 2 slotted hurdle.

So, is 2 slotting hurdle a mistake? Or am I missing something?



Also, the change from 2 slotted hurdle to 1 slotted CJ to what I do now (no slot CJ, 1 slot hurdle) is so extremely small, and is something I wouldn't use a slot on either way. It's a small increase in height, an increase you don't even always hit because you throw an attack before you get to the highest height.

Not to mention, with jump speed being tied on SJ/CJ, and jump height being higher on SJ, I would recommend -against- using CJ to bunny hop chase opponents. CJ is nice for maneuverability, but going in a straight line (like in chasing), SJ will be better than CJ, suppressed and unsupressed.

I agree, you shouldn't ever look at "the numbers" or "what's best".

You should only pick the powers that fit in with your concept and RP style.

Everyone else is "doing it wrong" as Caradoc has politely and intelligently put. A bonus to a build should never be factored beforehand, or else you ruin the surprise for yourself.

We all might as well assume procs have a 0% chance to go off, since averages obviously don't exist. Am I right?

The majority of PvPers hate doing incarnate trials.

Disabling incarnate powers would mean characters could be built faster and easier, resulting in more diversity. Every PvPer wants more PvP toons so they can try different tactics. The problem is that ontop of money and accolades, they need to grind a ton of incarnate to get their character where they want it to be.

I have a list of 20 PvP toons I want to create.
The more unique ones are near the end of the list, the more FotM combos are near the front. This is the norm for PvPers.

Unfortunately another common situation for those PvPers, I personally will never get there because of Incarnate grinding. Influence isn't a problem for me, and for a lot of others have their ways as well, and we've all been getting accolades to the point where many of us can get a handful of them in a couple of hours.

Incarate trials are the limiting reactant for many PvPers. If people were given unlimited components for Incarnate (like on test), their would be more and different kinds of characters in RV. Instead of a new character every couple of weeks, a new character in several days would be possible.



A big problem with the current PvP system is the great amount of investment necessary before hand just to have your -character- viable in PvP.



If they were to revert the i13 changes, I would hope they would also disable Incarnate, simply for that reason.


Also, why don't we PvP on test? Unlimited Superpacks, unlimited influence, unlimited incarnate. I know a lot of people did in the past, but I'm not quite sure what went wrong. It wouldn't be too hard to set up some RV nights on test. Those who don't want to do extra work can just transfer their toons.

Simply put, the developers thought that defense on a squishy would be too powerful, so they've implemented changes to squishies, assuring they can't get any useful amount of defense.

Diminishing returns affects defense, meaning it's not simply halved but rather it's a curve that slowly diminishes as you follow it.

For squishies, having 45% defense, 70% defense or 3000% defense is relatively the same. They're all useless.

I would suggest every Blaster/Cor/Dom/Defender/Controller/MM to avoid specifically trying to get defense.



Lastly, 45% defense works in PvE because all critters have the same base tohit (50%), and +tohit buffs are not that common.

In PvP, +tohit buffs are on every character and they range from small to huge. While 45% would work if nobody had +tohit buffs, you need anywhere from %60+ defense to floor their tohit.

I believe an individual would need around 220% defense or so in order to have that number permanently, and that's only on the ATs not listed above.

I don't have any experience with Grav/FF controllers. If you post a build, we may be able to critique it. I'm fairly sure you'd have to go purely with 'disruption', which is creating a hassle for your opponents.

Force bubble to repel
Force bolt to KB
Wormhole to teleport
Grav hold now and then to help a spike

Those would be your primary techniques.

I would.

I'd even put money on it.

After 10 issues, I think it would be less of a gamble and more like a sound investment.

They're stuck where they are. They can't even go back to the i13 changes without a bunch of testing. Like Z said, if they change a single thing, they're going to have waves of feedback and people disagreeing with changes and people wanting to revert to what we have now etc.

It's not a great business tactic to throw an untested bone at the few dogs that are left. It may kill them, and then you've wasted time programming something that got rid of even more PvPers.

They won't change anything in PvP without testing, because it would be a financial 'risk'. Good businesses don't take risks unless necessary.

Their testers and programmers are busy and constantly will be. They're understaffed.



They could turn off TS/DR/HD/Squishy Res/New mez system on the test server and say they're testing it. That would mean they get everything they want (testing), while all the PvPers would just go there for PvP from now on.

In fact I can't think of a single reason they haven't done that. That bypasses all their concerns. If they say it's simply for testing, they don't need to attend to it at all. The PvP community would then choose themselves whether they'd want to PvP on the test server or the real servers.

They would finally give PvPers what they've been asking for all these years while having 0 responsibility to change or fix anything because it's just on the test server.

I have a list of people I'm supposed to email if they change PvP back to how it was. If they did this on test, they have 0 responsibility and will get accounts back.

Any flaws with this idea?