Smiling_Joe

Add this one to the list of names I wish I'd thought of.

I smell a troll.

But I'll bite. So, judging by this quote:

You're pretty much trying to provoke someone into "proving their elite status" before you post anything that's actually useful.

The only reason I can think that you'd follow that route is because you're trying to up your reputation on the boards by appearing to be more elite than someone who is perceived as elite.

In other words, you don't have enough confidence in yourself to build up a reputation based on its own merit. You want your reputation handed to you by tearing someone else's down.

You want to know where the bar is? Here's the bar: BillZ didn't get all those reputation points by posting videos or boasting about what he can do with his purpled-out scrapper in the game or what he's done for his archetype on his server. He got that reputation by offering informed, civil opinions in discussions all over the forums, and by posting builds where requested and helping those who asked.

AlienOne has posted videos on YouTube, but more importantly he's offered play advice, build suggestions, and constructive criticisms of suggestions. He's been, for the most part, a stand-up and civil guy.

You want to be taken seriously? Put yourself out there, treat other people with respect and contribute something besides venom.

Until then, go away troll.

Agreed. The inherent makes it plain that kheldians were never meant to be a solo archetype. The persistent damres debuff, anemic damage and deadlier enemies they had to deal with in the beginning are an indication to me that apparently they were designed to be all but crippled unless they were on a team - and thank heavens they changed that.

But that's the thing - it isn't just Bill that's trying to diminish the team-dependent aspect of Kheldians. Most - if not all - of the changes made to Kheldians have been made because much of the player base has been - whether by choice or because of a negative perception of the archetype - soloing.

We see the benefits of the inherent more because we team, sometimes with each other. (although I need to look up from my novel this Thursday and actually show up for sg night). So I'll happily admit I'm biased, because I've seen what a variety of Khelds can do when filling a variety of roles on large teams.

Doesn't mean I'm swinging over to the all-damage side - I'll still push for multiple roles because that's what I enjoy about khelds - but I do recognize that the reality will likely fall somewhere between.

If that focus ends up damage dealing, c'est la vie, but as it stands PBs are designed to do more than damage. It's just that the design is a poor one.

Oh yeah. I just don't know how much it'll do to close the gap between WS's and PB's. It'll go a ways, but I don't know how far. Like I said, I never say no to increases in damage, I only say no to that as the only answer.

You could, but with a PB you don't have to dump ALL those damage slots, owing to the higher modifier. In fact, I played with a support PB a few weeks ago who slotted all his powers with one lv 50 ACC IO, one lv 50 DefDEBUFF IO, and two lv 50 DAM IO's as a rule of thumb and did a fantastic job debuffing. Lower damage powers and ranged attacks would be slotted more towards DefDEBUFF and not so much for damage, but by selectively slotting the heavy hitters for damage and using hasten he could be a respectable damage dealer too. He was a bi-form nova/human, so that helped in the damage department as well.

My point is that he didn't build specifically for damage, but didn't have to give it up to be fairly good at something else.

No scrapper can do quite that well. You'd still be doing good damage on your scrapper with a mix of enhancements, but your control still wouldn't measure up.

The point could also be made that Pulsar will have more of an effect than Hand Clap, Fault, Touch of Fear, and company due to the higher A/T modifiers. You might also remember that Incandescent Strike is also a pretty good hold. (not that anyone ever notices, given that the damage is big enough that your enemy is dead in seconds anyway) Solar Flare's KB is as much of a control as Hand Clap, as well. In fact, many of the ranged blasts are controls by Hand Clap's standard, given that they do comparable amounts of KB.

My point is that the modifier cannot be discounted when an archtetype's control/damage/buff/what-have-you ability is being evaluated.

Having said that, however, this:
I can conditionally agree with. See, while it's true that the modifiers are an important measure of an archetype's performance in a given area, I'll also recognize that the observable effects of a power do more to define an archetype's role than modifiers. Incandescent Strike may well be a good hold, but as pointed out above, it's hardly noticeable in the shadow of the heavy damage, and so no one in their right mind would slot it for hold. The same can be said for the vast majority of human form powers, and so while the developers may well have designed the archetype modifiers to encourage a jack-of-all trades role, I've come to admit that most players (myself included, btw) slot for the more obvious role of damage.

The condition in that conditinal agreement is that while I can agree that role is most common, I don't think for a minute that it discounts PB's playing other roles, given the right builds.

With regard to Bill's assessment of the form powers, I also agree. To say that they are integral to playing a PB is the same as saying there's only one way to build a PB, and that certainly was never originally intended, although I can't say what the intent is now in the light of recent changes.


This I think oversimplifies the problem just a bit. The disparity between the WS and PB archetypes isn't just about damage. They have the same damage modifiers and their powers - on paper - do roughly comparable damage.

It's not JUST that you're doing less damage on a PB than on a WS, it's also that the damage you're doing is more heavily resisted. For example, the WS level 6 attack (shadow blast) does a straight up 72 points of unslotted negative energy damage at level 50, but the PB's Radiant Strike does 47.27 points of energy damage and 45.38 points of smashing damage. Added up number-for-number, Radiant Strike does more damage than Shadow Blast. On paper. Take into account the heavy smashing resists present just about everywhere in this game and the fact that negative energy is one of the rarer resists, and you'll find shadow blast gets alot more of its damage through more often than radiant strike (notable exception given to the CoT).

This isn't just true of human form, either. It's also true in the other forms. Note that I'm not necessarily saying that all PB attacks do smashing/energy combinations any more than I'm saying all WS attacks do only negative energy - there's a good mix, it's just that negative energy is less resisted than either smashing or energy damage.

There's also disparity in the powers to take into account. Human form Warshades can triple their damage output with perma double (and triple, in some cases) dark extractions, while Photon Seekers are... well.... yeah. Solar Flare is all energy damage, doing an unslotted 67.12 points of damage, while unchain essence does 115.67 points of pure unslotted negative energy damage. A longer recharge and the need for a corpse is a small price for such power IMHO.

Then there's the click factor. A PB has click heals that take away dps, while a WS has Stygian Awesome and a Siphon Life clone. Stygian is generally used after the spawn, and the siphon life clone deals damage.

Massive control? No. But it can bring some control. Massive buffs? no, and I'm not going to sit here and say that a single ally heal is even "some" buffs. As far as debuffs go, however, keep in mind that most of a PB's attacks debuff defense, and while it doesn't debuff as well as that rad controller or defender, it's a better debuff than what the melee weapon sets bring.

To say that the Peacebringer is a damage dealing archetype implies that there is no other way to build a peacebringer. Stated another way, there's only one way to build a peacebringer and that centers around damage. The notion of only one way to build a peacebringer is one of the main gripes of the op, so the statement that peacebringers are a damage dealing archetype would seem to run against that spirit IMHO. Damage is a good thing to build for in a peacebringer, and I'll be the first to admit that I build mine for damage. It is not the only way. I have seen some frighteningly effective support PB's whose owners - while coming from a radically different perspective than mine - wanted a background support alien. To each their own. They were as good at it as many defenders I've seen. (doesn't say much for those defenders, though)

With you in the front seat on this. Couldn't agree more.


Not necessarily so limited as you're thinking, and in fact I'm not so sure that only boosting the damage modifiers to VEAT levels would be enough.

I wouldn't mind one bit, for example, if they changed the powers to remove all smashing damage elements, making them all energy-only powers. That'd make us more effective, damage-wise. What I'd like to see more than anything else is a damres debuff component added to our attacks (even if it replaces the def debuff).

There's also the option of shortening recharges across the board on melee attacks while at the same time cutting endurance costs.

My point - and the point of all of this - is that while I would never say no to increases in damage, the disparity between WS's and PB's is too complex for that to be enough in and of itself without adding more damage than the dev's are willing to give.

Warshades don't simply do more damage. They create ideal circumstances for dealing damage. Peacebringers should be able to do the same, but we're seen as a direct-damage archetype. We're more direct than Warshades, but we're more than damage. I think the problem is that what we do besides damage just wasn't very well thought out in relation to how it all synergizes.

Okay, back to the other novel.

Woot!

See, now this falls under the "I wish I had paid more attention" category, as I could have sworn placate never rooted any of my stalkers. I really wish I could test that out now, but since I'm at work I'll just have to risk looking like an idiot.

BUT if the other powersets don't root placate (and it's entirely possible they do - the old neurons ain't what they use to be) then all I can say is: buh? Is broadsword's placate that much different from the others (I have too many stalkers to start a broadsword) or is this a truncated list of changes and that's how placate will behave from now on across the board?

Or, you know - do I have a mind like a steel sieve and that's how it's been all along?

Oops, thanks for that - fix'd.

...curse you spelling, and your little adverbs, too.

Yes, but use Notepad. I don't trust Wordpad's formatting. For a teleport bind you'll need two files. First, create a folder in your C: drive called "binds".

Next,open Notepad and type the following:

shift+lclick powexec_name shadow step

Now save the file as: "human.txt" in the binds folder.

Going back to Notepad, open a new file and type the following:

shift+lclick powexec_name black dwarf step

and save that file as: "dwarf.txt" in the binds folder.

The binds your loading them will be as follows:

bind [key] "powexec_toggleon black dwarf$$goto_tray 8$$bind_load_file C:\binds\dwarf.txt"

...for dwarf, and:

bind [key] "powexec_toggleoff black dwarf$$powexec_toggleoff dark nova$$goto_tray 1$$bind_load_file C:\binds\human.txt"

...for human.

HOWEVER, it seems a bit of a waste to have an entirely new folder on your hard drive for two one-line bind files. Why not just incorporate the files into your binds? It would look like:

bind [key] "powexec_toggleon black dwarf$$goto_tray 8$$bind shift+lclick powexec_name black dwarf step"

...for dwarf, and:

bind [key] "powexec_toggleff black dwarf$$powexec_toggleoff dark nova$$goto_tray 1$$bind shift+lclick powexec_name shadow step"

...for human.

Hope that helps

Awesome! Glad you got'em loaded.

Hmmm... lemme see. I can see a couple problems with the binds themselves, but it would help to know exactly what the error message is. Is it just rejecting the text file outright, or is it that some of the binds are giving back unknown command errors?

First, some of the binds:

numpad4 "target_name quantum$$target_name void"

I could be wrong, but I don't think target_name will work, or doesn't work any more. You might try something like:

numpad4 "target_custom_next quantum$$target_custom_next void$$target_custom_next cyst"

(threw the cyst in there in case you forgot it)

numpad5 "$target is mine."

You might be better off with a "say" or a "team" in front of that $target:

numpad5 say $target is mine.

Also, while I don't think the quotes don't hurt it, they certainly aren't needed for a single command.

Now, if you're getting an error on the whole file, then that tells me that there's something wrong with the formatting. What program did you write it in? Sometimes programs like Word will put their fancy little curvy quotes in place of actual quotation marks, and that would definitely mess up your file. I even have that problem when I save a file as a .txt file in programs like wordpad.

I generally use Notepad for bind files, but then you probably did too. I'd still check the quotation marks, just to be thorough.

Apart from that, have you tried saving it to a different path? Maybe the file got corrupted (and I'm hoping it's not related to the current path - that would be bad - but you never know.) on that sector of your hard disk.

That's about all I can tell you without a specific error syntax - hope it helps.