Soul_System

Actually though it came across butchered the guy really seems to have a workaround for the pet movement issue. If we had a command that applied an unresistable toggled immobilization to our pets we could easily get them to stay at range because they could not run. The only issue i see with this is that i dunno if they can separate the immob from knockback protection. They might be built together. THEN AGAIN if this ability also applied the exact opposite amount of kb anti-protection (lol) it would equate to working as we would like it to.

Right now I team with alot of people, most are hero since I'm blue side and you get A-merits for running tips. I'm vigilante. This means i get left out in the cold 2 ways. This needs to be equalized and made fair.

1st I cannot get my tips done easily with the group, I have to do them on my own while ev everyone else gets theirs done all at once during the fun of teaming. Give us at least half credit. IE for every 2 hero/villain tip completed we get credit for 1 vigilante/rogue tip. We are, after all, not that far away. We are a shade of grey, sharing many of the same philosophies but differing in a few key areas. Chances are I agree with some of what they are doing even if i would do it differently.


2nd I cannot get A-merits. Even if I do the exact same amount I will end up falling behind reward wise. That's not cool, there is no real reason to do that. Either let Vigilante's/Rogues get A-merits or convert the A-merit system down into reward merits completely. Either way both sides should be treated equally.

Honestly they really should consolidate and streamline things and get 90% of things on the same system. There should be a single set of merits, tickets, and threads or whatever you decide to make the end game currency.

Currently having so many sets of merits is limiting and frustrating.

They fixed poison trap on beta test. It now appears useful, as well as moderate buffing of poison in general.

Hopefully they can look at time bomb next. It needs both a recharge and set time cut to be useful as is. I'd love it if they let you attach a time bomb to a foe (by throwing it and without causing aggro) and you'd have a sniper-like charge-up for the throw and then 15 sec delay on the boom.

Would make it useful even with current damage and recharge.

Quite frankly the debuff in Flash Arrow IS a little smaller than what perhaps would be wanted. If you start adding this into the defense equation though it makes a fair difference. IE X person has an average of 40% chance to be hit and now they have a 30% chance to be hit. You've cut their damage by 1/4. It also only really requires 2 slot for this, so it's efficient. Not being a toggle once applied it's there unless you die and it costs relatively little endurance.

That being said in practice the power, though useful, is a little underwhelming. Without changing the usage or the slotting any change to it would be multiplied by the rest of the set as TA really seems to be above average in defender sets USED RIGHT and slotted for effect. Additional to hit seems almost too much as we bring good and varied mitigation of other types. (Note: When i say above average set I keep in mind that TA is above all else versatile. Good in every situation, not best at any.)

Personally I'd love to see a minor confuse added that would only affect minions for a short time and shorten the recharge to 10 seconds (10s duration possibly self stackable to affect lt's). Would keep it "aggro free", cut some of the alpha on teams, and be a great boon to the solo TA, but that's prolly not gonna happen.

NECROMANCY!!!. But no for serious a thread like this should never quite be forgotten.


Add dual blades, willpower, the flashback system, and weapon customization to the list.

A few things:

An option at the beginning to use the rikti code or the current implementation. Since they have to rework the tf's for the code anyhow this is really no additional time spent. Downside is however they would have to have basically 2 copies of each tf. I will say that rikti code would make things much more viable even upon team bailing stupidity.

YES, shorten TF's. This would help alot with team bailing as well as frustration values and time spent vs rewards.


Perhaps I'm just silly, but the biggest 2 reasons I don't do TF's:

1. They take soooo friggen long, and I find that I actually do have a life. If things happen, the game is secondary. Making them horribly long just begs for it.

2. Freekin people bailing. Ironic considering the last statement? Maybe. But fact is it's extremely annoying to spend 2-4 hours and get shafted because everyone leaves, or enough people leave that it can no longer be handled.

I'd really love some sort of mechanic to recruit some new people in a controlled fashion if the tf's aren't gonna get any shorter. Just put a tag on each player in a tf that checks if they completed X mish. Have the final rewards scale based on the number of missions you were around for.

I'd love the weapon customization to be able to extend to things like fire or ice sword. Rename the power and let you choose various fire or ice weapons :P.

Caltrops properly used is a deinfite team mate saver and utility tool. Triage propely used is constant and steady dmg prevention for tougher fights. You place it at the start, and are free to do as you wish. NO it doesn't heal quite as much as an actual pbaoe heal on auto, but the pbaoe heals both require endurance and the person to cast them repeatedly....IE time. The triage beacon also will not be held/slept or killed and thus continues to do it's job when the pbaoer might not.

Not only that multiple triage beacons is god mode and has always been god mode. Even when triage first came out when it was alot gimpier multiple triage beacons was like.....woah. So do everyone a favor and put more of those suckers out there . No it won't help on the easy fights....but do you NEED help on the easy fights?


The absolute weakest point of triage is not it's immobility or even it's recharge, but it's subtlety. PBAOE heals are quite noticable CHUNKS of hp. Triage is gradual healing...much harder to notice.

Well said parrot.

[ QUOTE ]
My experience 180% opposite to yours then.

I have not been dropped by agro from Oil Slick, although DE have come close

Generally, against Nemisis and Carnies it is Oil Slick + Glue for the win. Well, Glue then Oil Slick in the case of Nemesis. Stupid Jaegers.

I just don't know how our experiences can be so different with this power. I mean, this is a power I open with to MITIGATE damage from agro.

[/ QUOTE ]

See this is the exact same feeling and stance I had vs flash arrow because to this day I have not had 1 problem with it. Using it or not using it has made 0 differance in my aggro gained.

Yet others have problems with it.



I can sit here and tell you right now for a fact that the dmg oil slick does has an uncanny knack for aggroing enemies on me unless I have a nice tanker buffer, and that aggro is usually painful, poison gas arrow/flash arrow/glue arrow on.

The knockdown and dmg mitgation is quite true, I only have the issue after ignition.

[ QUOTE ]
The last thing I want TA balanced around is herding.

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you say it, herding is just an extreme example of what happens many times in normal groups.

Oil slick getting me hurt or killed in the normal group would get me pasted in about 2 seconds in herding . The problem is the same jsut pushed to an extreme.



I've mentioned that i've used it and had problems in all sorts of groups, herding being prolly half of my organized groups but still that mebe half of half.

I would not focus on herding as my reason for changing something as that is something that's really not intended by the devs.

So don't try to peg it all on herding. There are times in 90% of groups I would prefer to be able to launch and unlit slick and then have the option of lighting from there.

[ QUOTE ]
I realize you group regularly with the same group of people and also play in PuGs. On my TA, I played in PuGs exclusively just about into my 30s. Then I joined a new SG and picked up CoV so I switched over to villains. Agro is a general problem for TA, Oil Slick has been no more dangerous to my character than any of the other powers. Actually, it is the only power I can use other than EMP Arrow as part of an Alpha Strike while in LoS of high level mobs so that makes it actually safer than any of the other debuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Suprisingly my aggro issues with oil slick are typically worse on the more organized groups, because they go for bigger and MORE mobs.

But i've learned to be selective about when to use oil slick and sometimes have to not use it completely.

Learned this from having all my debuffs out, including oil slick, and i'm fine. Then either I or a team mate lights slick and suddenly I have several ticked off foes.

+2's and higher really hurt.


With herding.....oil slick becomes a mid battle tool at best. You basically have to wait until the first "wave" of enemies dies or your oil slick will aggro more than your team can save you from.

On PUG's I typically draw alot of aggro with the slick dmg unless I have sufficient tankage and sometimes even then lvl variance and skill levels throw a monkey wrench in that.


I'm just saying, make oil slick easy to light for all secondaries (i don't consider blazing arrow easy to light) and you won't need auto light, plus you get a lil more versitility.




[ QUOTE ]
I was going to say, Disruption Arrow is a much bigger death sentence than Oil Slick. At least some of them are flopping around on the slick and unable to return fire. If I fire off disruption before the tank has got aggro or the controller has applied controls, that's usually the start of a rapid downward spiral.

[/ QUOTE ]

In teams against higher lvl foes oil slick aggro far outweighs my debuff aggro.

Far as you firing disruption first? Hehe I nearly always fire my slick before disruption when i use both together.

Though first thing I fire if i'm starting early is flash arrow. 10% sucks for a defender debuff but it's 10% that could possibly save my life, if things are close that is.

[ QUOTE ]
f you are going to claim that agro is a problem, start listing the specific instances, includeing team make-up, playstyle, and environment that caused you a problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any instance in which your team is capable of recieving negative aggro. IE tankers+controllers can't control 100% of the mobs, and the remaining mobs are not immeadiately delt with.



Nearly any herd.



Situations in which you might not HAVE a tanker, and the controllers cannot hanlde 100% of the mobs.


Situations where the tanker literally cannot survive all of the aggro needed to keep you safe.


Situations where you get an extra group or ambush unexpectedly.


There are more which i cannot think of.

Yes i know these really SEEM like select situations but I do not ONLY team with people I know. Sometimes I hit PUG's and stuff and things are usually not as good. Levels and class mixes vary alot as do skill levels.

As things are I have the option of using oil slick as a defender power ice slick and not light it if I so choose, and that has come in handy more than once.


[ QUOTE ]
In my typical uses of Oil Slick, I already have all the agro I am going to get anyway from my other debuffs. In a team, especially a team with either scrappers or tanks, agro from oil slick is not an issue for me. Between Glue Arrow and Poison Gas Arrow, I am not takeing that much damage and there is more than enough time for any of the melee players to get any agro I have gotten from Oil Slick off of me. Assumeing I am even in line of sight of anything agroed on me.

[/ QUOTE ]

1st off the dmg from oil slick alone prolly generates more aggro by itself than all of your debuffs combined.

2nd your playstyle would seem to involve alot of debuff and hide. VALID yes, and good for letting your front line secure aggro. But you effectively take any further contribution out of the fight while you hide.

Also teams do not always have frontline enough to handle things unless your going vs easily handlable mobs.

If your fighting no challenge mobs then aggro, control, tankage, etc are all extremely devalued. Nothing really matters that much if they arn't threat.


[ QUOTE ]
In teams without people to run in and grab agro, my debuffs are again just as likely to draw agro simply because there is no one else for the agro to go to. My AoE debuffs don't make the enemy want to come out and love me and if the rest of the team is not made of AoE damage dealers, alot of agro is going my way anyway. Which makes the damage that Oil Slick puts out really important since it allows the team to kill the mobs faster and thus makes me safer.

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, I walked into this. I really should have said against challenging missions, IE things that cannot be immeadiately vaped by the extreme aoe dmg of oil slick + a lil support.....oh wait that's pretty much all but bosses +2 and down.



[ QUOTE ]
Frankly, if agro is your only problem with Oil Slick lighting every time, it seems like a personal playstyle issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

If i have to run and hide half the time I use oil slick it really takes away from the power to me, because it takes away my secondary and aid other and such in the process.

Playstyle issue....yes. But it would be a issue with a proposed change not the way it is currently. That's pretty key to me.

I'd wager you wouldn't mind having to shoot the slick i you could use aimed shot or snap shot to light it instead of blazing, and other sets were able to light it.


[ QUOTE ]
Currently, haveing oil slick not light everytime and haveing it's usefullness based on what secondary or primary you pick is not balanced.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree on both counts, but it does NOT have to be auto-light as soon as you fire it. having oil light itself is as silly as having a flaming arrow fail to ignite it or MISS a 50 foot slick.


[ QUOTE ]
It is, underpowered in fact.

[/ QUOTE ]

While i agree on that in realtion to other sets not lighting it...i must clarify a bit.

While I may believe a 100% ignition success rate is overpowered, which is merely my opinion of course, I have a hard time seeing the current implementation as UNDERpowered.

If you wanted to balance it as a pure control I would wager it's as comparable to ice slick as ice arrow is to block of ice.

HOWEVER, it also has a good bit of dmg.


I wouldn't call it overpowered in it's current form, but I wouldn't call it underpowered either.

The aggro issue might be specific but it is very important on teams where you are NOT one of the higher lvls.

There have been many instances in both PUG's and and a well oiled group I team with regularly that I simply do not lay oil slick until a good ways into the fight because I know it will be a for sure death warrent if it lights.

As it stands right now I can afford to lay it in several situations because the delay in lighting will give me the time to prepare for the aggro. Also in teams that have no convieniant way to light it for you I can use it as crowd control and not really worry about the aggro.



Part of the big deal in laying it and it lighting is the fact that it exceed the aoe cap. I'm fairly sure on this. I have had two tankers massively herd and let them firmly get aggro and laid slick only to get plowed OR play a dicey game of suriving the aggro I picked up above and beyond thier aggro caps.

I wasn't seeing any in the area of the oil slick not slipping or being burnt.


With all the EM tankers out there oil slick tends to get lit yes, but you can make it stay unlit by placement in such cases and still use it. Same applies to fire tankers.

Fire blasters you can't do much about, you throw a slick out there it's GOING to light.


So yeah, in addittion to concept I do have a valid reason to have oil slick required to be manually lit. They just need to balance the ease and ability of lighting it among secondaries.


Where is my zappy arrow?


I don't see why i need a reason besides aggro. If your a defender aggro management is extremely important for you own survival if your capable of drawing it.

I'd rather not have to pass up on using oil slick more than I already do because I know it will get me plowed, But then I see oil slick as a good defender tool as well. Not just a buncha dmg ticks in a locational aoe.

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, putting all jibes aside, don't worry about the set being nerfed. It doesn't overperform even when you use every single power in the set and that includes EMP arrow.

[/ QUOTE ]

The set does not overperform, We've been trying to get it fixed for a lil bit now, though EMP Arrow DOES get scary....but the recharge is scarier.

Oil slick as it is now does not overperform. An oil slick that lights every time would IMO.

[ QUOTE ]
Is there something really amazeing about killing white minions every three seconds? Should we nerf Rain of Arrows too?

[/ QUOTE ]

Rain of Arrows is a nuke power, final tier in the secondary. It's only feather it has in it's cap IS dmg. Oil slick in addittion to having hefty area dmg, which seems to ignore the aoe cap of 16 from my experience, also provides modest dmg mitigation.



[ QUOTE ]
Or, maybe not. Do you know anyone who fights White con minions in a team?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope but oil slick is far from useless vs higher cons, it is effective until about +4. But for +4 and down it's golden.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't, and I certainly don't consider TA to be the best soloing defender set.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not and prolly never will be. Oil slick makes every other fight cake, and the rest of your abilities, on test, will see you thru the other half.

VS difficult spawns you have the IWIN of EMP Arrow and oil slick. Boss in there? Ice Arrow stacked on the EMP.


[ QUOTE ]
Ergo, this set really helps improve a teams damage output, it doesn't outshine other sets. Hey, it's almost balanced.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree it's close, though we disagree on the final steps.



[ QUOTE ]
It still has room for buffs and that is if Oil Slick lights every time without requireing an attack to set it off.

[/ QUOTE ]

The major thing I disagree on with this is it auto-lighting. I don't want it to automatically light, I want the control of lighting it in my hands....only reliable. Also the imbalances in secondary and lighting i want fixed.

In many situations lighting it can be a bad idea. Yes, I realize team mate might light it for ya, but you have a lil extra time to deal with the situation.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm still not clear on where you're coming from. Are you saying that you feel Oil Slick NEEDS to be nerfed as part of a bug fix because you THINK it will be nerfed later on?

Here's the way I see it.

If Oil Slick's failure to ignite is a bug, which it certainly seems to be from _Castle_'s comment (not to mention the basic flammable nature of oil), then it follows that the rest of the power's attributes and behavior was balanced around the power igniting every time it was hit with an appropriate damage type.

Which means that currently, the power is underperforming; not that it will overperform after a bug fix is applied.

[/ QUOTE ]


Many things have been nerfed for much less. It's powerful enough to draw the eye of the nerf bat, and perhaps rightly so.

I'm saying this is just less aparent when the set is not performing correctly.


However with a fixed set, and people already starting to warm up to it, it very well might be FOTM soon, things like this get more focus.


Anything +4 down oil slick provides a good amount of dmg mitigation and a large amount of dmg.


I really am worried it's gonna get a nerf sooner or later. Partly because I don't think it's fully balanced if it's fixed. Partly because there have been bigger nerfs for less reason.



But as far as my experience goes, against anything within your normal lvl range, oil slick overperforms WHEN it lights. It's been my opinion that lighting sporadically has kept it balanced.

glue Arrow + Oil slick is enough to ensure firey death.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand the reasoning here.

Why should we have to take a performance hit as a price for getting a bug fixed

[/ QUOTE ]

I feel strongly that if they get the ingition fixed that this power will be nerfed after a little while, and most likely for good reason.

I hear you Zen but if we get it lighting 100% with it's current abilities it NEEDS to be nerfed.

I love the set, I want the set to be even with other primaries, but I don't think that means I have the right to overpower any parts of it.


[ QUOTE ]
Frankly, the set wasn't balanced around TA being a damage preventer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering the amount of control and debuff TA does have I have a hard time believing this. Even the vaunted Oil slick arrow is capable of modest control.

Our offensive powers are oil slick, acid arrow, and disruption arrow.

Considering oil slick is also controllery thats 6 1/2 power meant to reduce dmg.



[ QUOTE ]
Oil Slick was always meant to light, EVERY TIME. The developers balanced the set around this and _Castle_ even came out and said that it not lighting every time was a bug. If it doesn't light every time, then the set is still not balanced. If TA were to become more defensive than it is, then you may as well turn it into a clone of the other sets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Could you gimme a linkie of castle saying it should light 100% of the time? Even in the power description it says MAY burst into flames.


No it would not be a clone of the others. The set does not need to depend on oil slick. The problem has always been the rest of the set couldn't pull wiegjt. Now it is.

No other set has a pbaoe -dmg/sleep, or a persistant slow like glue arrow, and stuff that has been done across sets has been implemented differently to give it's own flavor.



[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and if I have used Oil Slick I already have all the agro I am going to get regardless of whether I light it or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a difference between debuff aggro and debuff aggro + omg dmg aggro. Many times my slick has sat there for awhile and then after it gets lit THEN i pick up a truckload of aggro.

If they the ignition rate higher than a 80% then the dmg needs to be nerfed.

Same if you make it auto-light.

It's just too powerful in it's current form to hold that sort of dmg and have an almost perfect chance of lighting.


The imbalance between lighting and secondaries NEEDS to be fixed.


However, adding up all attempts and success rates I got the following:

190 total attempts over the last string of posts. 142 times the slick lit.


Thats about 75% ingition rate.



The problem here? As with all random numbers we hit streaks. It's not reliable.

Making it auto-light to me actually nerfs the power in a way. No longer can I place it without getting full aggro on many teams.



NO instead what I would like is oil slick with a 100% ignition rate. Take the dmg down to 80% of the current amount. This way I can use it for dmg or control as i see fit. There ARE times ignition is bad juju for you.


Again FIX the lighting disparity between sets, for crying out loud. Trick Arrow lights it extremely clumsily compare to rad and elec, and several defenders cannot light at all.


PS. If you take it down to 80% dmg and give it 100% chance to ignite it comes out to around it's current effectiveness or a bit more, only it's reliable. I'd rather have reliable than thay extra 1/5 dmg.

Mark, hang in there.


Early lvls Ta/A is out like the fat kid in dodge ball.


Your defender skills really don't do much until you finally get a full complement. About the time of oil slick you notice things seem to click into place. Things finally become workable and you can make a differance.

This is due to a combination of finally having a suffiecient number of slots AND powers to create that effect, wheras other defender sets can make that differance from early on. I have a lvl 15 bubbler that was near worshipped in mishes the other day for instance.


Your blasts? Your never gonna be hard core dmg dealer, even with your debuffs. But your not toothless either.

Lethal dmg kicks you in the shins....HARD, as does the 65% blaster dmg ratio.


However at lvl 36 I can 2 shot even con minions who don't have high lethal resistance (which is prolly kinda rare)

[ QUOTE ]
I see myself probably switching Explosive Arrow for Fistful of Arrows. Eventhough a debuff-less cone attack on a Defender is nothing to get excited for, it's better than the lackluster damage and unreliable knockback of Explosive Arrow.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fistful is prolly one of archery's most solid attacks. Decent all the way around.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not disparaging Acid at all. I just don't see why we have to employ two debuff powers to get a better debuff effect than other sets get with one. It's that kind of logic that has caused so many problems with the set.
"Oh, they can out-debuff if they apply Acid arrow, too."
"Yes, but we shouldn't have to. Acid should be icing on the Disruption cake. If all we do is debuff, we should do it better."

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually now that they have made a recharge change to disruption arrow this is prolly one of the examples of thigns being done right.

The combination of Trick Arrows powers SHOULD provide some benifits over others IF they are gonna be weaker singly.


However I still hold out disruption arrow could use a secondary effect, if nothing else for flavor. Maybe it could disrupt regen . A - regen on a locational aoe.

You would have to pin things in it (entangling arrow *cough cough*) but it would be nice. If entangling arrow was boosted a lil more this would be another great combo for the set.


Also it would be very hard to abuse in PVP even though it's auto-hit.




Things like this would actually fit quite well. Making trick arrow a set who's powers interelate and combine with each other for an effect greater than the sum of it's parts.


[ QUOTE ]
I do realize that there are also several soft and hard control powers, but other defenders have access to the same types of powers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah but we have them all in 1 set.

[ QUOTE ]
I think adding an interrupt tick to Disruption would be a good secondary effect. It'd make it extremely useful against any foes with interruptible powers: Raider Engineers, self-destruct mages, several others I can't think of. Plus, it would make stalkers hate us even more. And that's become a personal goal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Much as I think disruption needs a secondary effect, I no longer believe this is it. It would have marginal PVE benifits, and to be balanced in PVP you would have to give it a to-hit check.

Also, I honestly think we are already stalker-bane as it is.

[ QUOTE ]
So, we can hit one (maybe two) people with a bigger -RES debuff than other sets, but those same sets can affect more foes with a single power that lowers resistance more than one component of the Trick Arrow one-two?
That don't make no sense, boss. If we're all-debuff, then all our debuffs should be better than the debuffs in mixed sets.
All of them.Individually.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok much as I hate to say it, Acid Arrow is pretty darn good. It needs a SLIGHTLY larger aoe, but not much larger. I'm thinking maybe a 20% increase in the diameter.

With proper herding you should be able to hit around 6ish people on decent sized herds. On really tight herds or really large ones (multiple tanks) I've hit the aoe limit with acid arrow before.

Also if you choose select foes that makes a differance, as it also does vs a Giant Monster or Arch-Villain. Still need -regen though. 20% more dmg taken by the AV does not compare to stoppping thier incredible regen.

Also it must be noted Acid Arrow has a fairly weighty -def component. 25% -def BASE.

What disruption needs is a secondary effect. I wanted disorient chance per tick.....but controllers would step all over us with that. So it needs something else.


We are not all debuff, we are alot debuff and a good amount control.