Smiling_Joe

[ QUOTE ]
It is a modified clone of Soul Drain, not follow-up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hear it described as a follow-up clone alot, lately. I think that's largely because when Castle initially made the changes, someone said it had been given the "follow-up treatment" and it seemed to catch on.

So I guess that makes Black Dwarf Mire the love child of Follow-Up and Soul Drain?

[ QUOTE ]

I don't remember what the original in-game description for Regen was (I can probably look it up somewhere) but I do remember what the description for SR was: SR in the in-game text description was claimed to have *no* weaknesses: its defenses were explicitly stated to work against *all* attacks. That was also false, because the guy who wrote those had little or no idea how the powers in the game actually worked. Alone, out of context, those descriptions are not especially reliable without significant corroboration.

Regardless of the original design intent of Regen at launch, it is unambiguously true that -regen was added to the PvE game as a specific foil to Regeneration. I specifically remember discussions at the time in which it was pointed out that -regen was practically non-existent (while -Def was highly ubiquitous) and having a dev (Jack, I believe) point out (either in a PM or on the boards) that that was going to change, deliberately so. Whether it was done to the degree that was desired, or ended up too high or too low, is a separate debate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh. Pwn'd.

Well, since you've trumped my blatant rhetoric with actual evidence to the contrary, I suppose I could cling stubbornly to my later point that the game has changed even more since I4 (with respect especially to the I5 changes to IH and Integration), but that argument's a little too subjective for my taste, and so I think I'll bow out at this point and find more productive ways to waste time at the office.

Like actually doing some work.

'Been fun, all!

[ QUOTE ]

Dude, with zero snark intended at all ... have you read the in-game description of the Controller AT? We really can't use those descriptions as the basis of arguments here one way or another, because the game has changed while most of those descriptions have not. When the game came out and that description was written, -Regen effectively didn't exist as a debuff players encountered. That changed in I4.

My point was that this change, adding -regen as a foil to the Regeneration powerset, appeared extremely intentional in the context of the times. All I'm saying is that I do not believe it was an accident that it hit Regen particularly hard in the same sense that it was (apparently) an accident that cascade defense failure hit SR particularly hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

No snark taken! (Or intended on my part, either)

I get your point, and my counterpoint in the rest of the paragraph (the part that didn't get quoted) was that even though the game changed significantly in I4, it has changed even more since. It has seen the addition of even more burst damage (the I-10 Rikti and the Cimerorans spring immediately to mind, but there are others), but more importantly changes have been made to /Regen that make -Regen and -Slow less of an intended "hole" in its mitigation than it was in I4.

In I4, IH was a toggle, and it could be argued that this was one of the major reasons why debuffs were added. However, its change in I5 to a click is a pretty big argument against Debuffs being an intended weakness. So is the I5 nerf to Integration's unenhanceable regeneration. Why put Regen debuffs into place to be Regen's weakness if you're only going to nerf Regen's main regeneration powers in only one issue?

In the context of the past issue, it may have seemed like it was an intended weakness, but in the context of the changes from then to now it seems very much less so.

EDIT - after some thought, I felt the need to clarify something - what I'm not saying very well is that whether it was intended at the time or not, changes to the game severely reduced the effect that debuffs had on Regen. The game in its present state leaves little doubt that regen's current "dictated" weakness is burst damage, not debuffs.

Note that I said "dictated" and not "intended." By that I mean that the game's present state sometimes dictates its own counter-balances, regardless of what's intended. This IMO would be one of those cases.

[ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't be so sure.

In early days, Regen was incredibly survivable, and it got a reputation as something of a whipping boy as the devs tried to bring it in line with their vision of what should be going on.

As mentioned upthread, there used not to be many meaningful -regen debuffs in the game. That changed in I4, which, as it turned out, introduced Arena PvP. At that point, many player powers which did not previously have -regen debuffs had them added. (Back then, there was no significant split in how powers behaved in PvP and PvE; the main different at the time was that you could detoggle people - another attempt to deal with how indestructible certain ATs and/or powersets were otherwise.)

Remember that, at the time, it was common for people to skip Reconstruction, because Regen simply didn't need it. Regen built that way was actually very much all about +regen buffs, so high-magnitude -regen buffs were actually pretty dangerous to it. This means that, back then, -recharge was far less significant to Regen characters, primarily affecting their ability to keep Dull Pain up. Without -regen, Regen actually had only one weakness - burst damage.

At the same time player powers got -regen added in, so did NPC powers. Death Mages never debuffed regen with Twilight Grasp before I4.

So in the context of the times, it actually seems quite likely that -regen was designed to be a hole for Regen, possibly primarily in PvP, but also in PvE in general. That progression felt very different from the one SR had. The devs were trying to bring Regen down while they were throwing things at SR to improve it, because there were people pointing out that SR was arguably your worst choice of secondary in the period beween perma-Elude being canned and I7's critter accuracy changes (and I9's IOs).

[/ QUOTE ]

It may seem that way, but what does the description for regeneration say? I'm at work, and so if someone could quote from the ingame description that would be awesome, but I got this from Paragon Wiki:

[ QUOTE ]
Regeneration lets you regenerate more quickly from damage and effects. Regeneration offers almost no actual damage resistance, but your Hit Point and Endurance Regeneration can become so incredibly fast, that your wounds heal almost instantly. Those who possess this power set have little downtime, but risk the effects of spike damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I remember correctly that is the quoted description text from in game. I have a mind like a steel sieve, however, so anyone with access to the game feel free to correct me.

My point is that the original intent was that burst damage was clearly Regen's hole. It isn't a hole for other sets like SR and Invuln, since the damage has to land for it to take down an SR scrap, and is resisted for an Invuln scrap.

That's not to say they didn't intend in I4 for -Regen to be a weakness, but then that leaves multiple holes in /Regen's mitigation. The game obviously changed greatly with I4, but it's also changed greatly now. Remember Fire Aura was given slow protection as a mainly QoL change (from Castle's perspective, anyway - it seems clear to me from the '06 Fire Aura thread that's been necro'd over in the tanker forum that he felt it didn't need buffs at all, but saw the point that slow resist for the sake of its heal was at least thematic).

So there is at least a small precedent for some sort of debuff resist in Regen (a tiny debuff resist was also recently added to /Invuln mainly as a QoL change to offset a self debuff in the set, as well).

As I've said before, though. Regen doesn't REQUIRE such a change to be functional, and so I can't - and won't - get behind any argument that begins with that as a basis.

To my mind, however, -Regen or -Slow resists being added are how Regen should work, for the same reasons as the resists in /Fire. It's just that such an argument, while perhaps a nobler one, carries a very low priority. Regen doesn't need help any time soon.

But to maintain that Regen somehow doesn't deserve some sort of debuff resist because debuffs appear to be its intended weakness is patently wrong, IMHO.

[ QUOTE ]
Only read the first pages so not sure if this was covered or not.

Other sets have some kind of weakness. Some are huge, others are small. Invuln has that psi hole, same with fire but add toxic and KB to it as well. Dark has energy and the players blue bar. SR has a very small hole in a few psi attacks.

WP and Regen share a weakness. Debuffs. WP at least has decent defense numbers so that if the debuff is not an autohit, there is a decent chance it will miss. Regen has no built in defense so there is a decent chance it will hit.

The 2 debuffs that the OP spoke of are the worst for regen.

With WP if you get hit with -recharge, you sit and wait to attack, not a big dea. With regen you hope and pray that your current regen will hold up once you used your heals. Most times it does but a small bit of -recharge resistance would be very helpfull.

The other is -regen. With WP if you get hit with -regen you have your defense and resists to fall back on. With regen you have nothing to fall back on other than a little bit of s/l resists. The magnitued of the -regen is part of the problem. Mobs can toss around enough -regen to shut down normal regen and in some cases totally shut down IH. For this I could live with a decent amount of -regen resistance or a rework of mobs debuffs so that they shut down most AT but not regen or WP with a single debuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was covered. It's just not true. Regen's weakness is burst damage. Debuffs are cross-powerset problems. Some powersets resist them better than others, but all are affected by them.

So arguing that Regen doesn't deserve resistance to the particular debuffs in question because they were intended to be its weakness is the equivalent to arguing that defense debuffs were intended to be the weakness of Super Reflexes - an argument that has been made and was put to bed by Arcanaville a couple pages back.

Now if you were to argue that Regen doesn't need resistance to -Regen/-Recharge because it isn't underperforming, then I'd have to agree.

[ QUOTE ]

(I'm attacking your logic here that if it's a buff, it should be supported. Basically calling everyone who doesn't agree with you a retard doesn't sit well with me.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Well said.

[ QUOTE ]
Lol
Achilles' heal, or Achilles' heel?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sigh. Stupid Freudian Slip.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Yes it is. And many people have answered, "Regen does NOT need some debuff resistance." Sure, it would be NICE, it is WANTED, but it is NOT NEEDED.

[/ QUOTE ]

Defense debuffs were the Achilles heel of the SR set. They were given resistance to said debuffs out of balance concerns.

Recharge debuffs are the Achilles heel of the regen set. Why should they not be given similar treatment? One could use the same arguments against giving the SR set defense debuff resistance that you use. "Learn how to deal with it", or "pop a purple". But they gave them that change because it made it a better, more balanced set overall.

Again, why can regen not be given similar treament?

[/ QUOTE ]

The achilles' heal for Regen is and always will be burst damage. -Regen and -Recharge are different animals altogether, and arguing that their presence is necessary based on the so-called Achilles' Heal premise is inherently flawed for that reason.

Arguing that protection from -Regen/-Recharge is not needed is a far stronger argument IMHO, but it ignores the fact that /Fire was given -Recharge protection for exactly the same reasons stated by the OP.

Likewise, SR was given -Def Debuff resistance not because it was its achilles' heal, or because the set was gimp, but because defense debuffs obviated the set's chief mitigation. In other words, the debuff got around SR's mitigation in a way the dev's apparently thought wasn't in line with the preferred method of simply overcoming it. SR is reliant pretty much solely on defense - the scaling damage resists aren't really enough to count as effective mitigation, given that they aren't high enough early enough - and therefore was given protection from that obviating factor.

Regen is more of a mixed bag - three powers that give Regeneration, two heals, with DP doubling as a +hit point, and four other powers that give various other forms of mitigation (if a rez can be considered such). Nonetheless, situations with -Recharge and -Regen get around /Regen's main mitigation methods in exactly the same way as -Def got around SR's. These situations don't gimp /Regen. They obviate it.

I'm pretty much indifferent to whether /Regen gets these changes, mostly because I don't see how the set is underperforming without them. At best, I would give them a low priority and be very, very grateful to see their addition at some point.

But I don't see how Santorican's earned the ire and the mocking arrogance that I've seen proliferated in this thread.

What is this? The Defender forum?

EDIT - sorry, Val - this isn't necessarily directed at you... you just made the Achilles' Heal point that I wanted to address.

[ QUOTE ]

The movie not withstanding, ignore the two gladius idea. No roman soldier would be caught dead without his shield. Correction, they WOULD be caught without the shield. Their tower shields were an integral part of their warfare. When they stood shield to shield you saw a solid wall of metal coming your way. They would then stab around the shield with the gladius. That's what the blade is designed for.

[/ QUOTE ]

No Roman soldier would go without his shield, but then the Russel Crowe movie was called "Gladiator." Gladiators were the pioneers of dual blades, and could get away with it because the Gladiatoral games were the professional wrestling of their day. So instead of a Roman soldier, a Roman gladiator theme could maybe suffice for Dual Blades, especially since gladiators were all kinds of crazy, fantastical armor that can be (somewhat) duplicated using costume parts that don't have to be unlocked - especially if the OP has the Valkyrie set.

Before that set existed, though, I saw alot of people using the "Masks with hair" option with the Roman pattern and the tall mohawk to (kind of) simulate a helmet.

[ QUOTE ]
Angry Scotsman: One of my favorites, if only the kilts were plaid. Barbaric looking, flamberge and shield or ... I'm not sure for the dual blades.

[/ QUOTE ]

Longsword and Main Gauche would be my choices for Dual Blades.

[ QUOTE ]
Fifteen, and blue.

[/ QUOTE ]

DINGDINGDING!

WE HAVE A WINNER!

::Passes out slices of bubblegum confetti pie::

Thanks for that! Made my evening. Not so thrilled about your second post, though.

I wonder, though, if it would be possible to check it using the mission author?

OH! That might work, actually - I could make a very small mission, then make a bunch of kill boss spawns set to hard where the boss and surrounding minions are set to friendly. Then I could go in and - using my character as an arbitrary unit of measurement - measure! I'd have to give them all the same emote so they don't wander, of course.

So if melee range was five feet, was set to seven feet, and given that the average toon is around three feet shoulder to shoulder (and occupies a three foot diameter circle...)

...huh. MA's kind of a handy thing to have around, eh? It's kinda doing it the hard way, but then I've never taken the easy way out.

[ QUOTE ]
Each map has spawn points placed manually by the devs.

You'll always get the same number of spawns in a mission, and team size/difficulty affects how large each spawn is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, however, that's not what I'm asking.

Let me see if I can clarify: What I'm trying to determine is how far apart - on average - I can expect the individual mobs (regardless of how many there are) in a spawn to be within the same spawn when the mission is populated.

When a mission is populated, is there some metric that tells the individual mobs in a spawn how far apart they should, well, spawn?

And if so, how far apart does it tell them to spawn?

And as a side note, does anyone know a better word for a spawn than spawn? Re-reading what I just wrote above, I had the inescapable vision of Hellions in Perez Park leaping upstream to do unspeakable things. That one's gonna haunt me.

Thanks, Werner!

[ QUOTE ]

Ya know Smiling_Joe, lookin' at your sig I just have to ask...

What would Modok do? If his memory got too full?

[/ QUOTE ]

HE'D FIND THE POWAHSOURCE, BABY!

...AND Build Up, and Follow-Up, and all their kin:

Is the damage buff applied to these powers affected by...

1. Procs?

2. Criticals?

3. Set Bonuses?

4. Enhancements?

Or does it just give you double the base damage? Not in game, right now, and can't check the combat log...

EDIT - I meant BASE damage, not enhanced. I suspect it's base damage only, but want to confirm.

Please and Thankyavrymuch.

Gratz man! That's freaking awesome!

I've taken to summarizing the mission briefing (and the previous mission's debriefing) in the mission entry popup so non-team leaders can see it. Since I obviously can't fit all the text in there, it necessarily needs to be somewhat devoid of the flavor, but I've learned to use that to my advantage, providing "Architect Entertainment Commentary" when possible to add humor and insight to stories.

From what I'm told, it's been very popular with folks who play my MArcs on teams.

When it's all said and done, I've got to say DM/Regen. What can I say? I like the whappity-whap nature of the punches, and /regen fits my spastic keyboard pounding to a tee.

Having said that, though, I've been addicted to my four newest ones lately: DM/Fire (Two heals, two build-ups, and two DC's ftw!) - Claws/SR (Love the Focus. It's my precious.) - Fire/Dark (more survivable than I'd ever imagined, and as an old Shadow Maul fan, I LOVE breath of fire) and BS/Shield ('cause everyone needs a shield scrapper).

They're all only in their mid-20's right now, and I'm sure one will rise to the top, but right now I'm all about leveling the four horsemen more or less simultaneously. I'm weird. I know.

Doh! Wednesday night's are my late nights - but I will try and be there for this one!

When something is feared, it defaults to two stances - the cowering stance and the aggroed-but-afraid stance. The former is the default until it's attacked, and then it goes into the second stance, where it can attack, but at a much slower rate. (not that it casts the slow effect on them, but they're literally only allowed the option to flee/attack every few seconds)

So even if you have both running, they will still slow the rate of incoming damage dramatically, even if they aren't hiding behind their arms.

I like DA. I'm growing a DA/Fire who's a beast, so far. There hasn't been any buffing or nerfing to DA, but buffs to other sets and new sets have made made DA look, well, less.

Slotted for endredux and with liberal use of the heal and its tools to supplement its armor, it's been great, so far. It's when I'm sapped or am slowed that it seems squishy to me (in other words, just relying on armor). That could be just me, though.

Non-spiritworld Croatoa

Two of the Nerva Archipelago maps do fairly well as outdoor maps with no city walls, especially the thorn tree island map.

No you can edit live and republish and preserve ratings, so long as it isn't dev's choice or hall of fame.

However. it won't make changes to your local files - if you want your local files to match you have on live after tweaking you'll have to either do the changes manually again to your local files or - more sensibly - save the live files to your local disk and remove the older version.