Stormbringer

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PeeVeePee followed by costumes. I like busting heads, and I love doing it while looking guud.

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what he said.

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'Let's put chilli on the menu!'
'This chilli is way too hot.'
'Look, only a few people are eating our chilli.'
'Hey, manager, could you fix this chilli?'
'No, we have to prioritise all our other dishes. Only a few of you are eating the chilli.'
'But the chilli is really hot.'
'Sorry, this wasn't a chilli restaurant when it opened.'
'But I like chilli. Could you just make it a little less hot?'
'Hey, are the managers catering to those obnoxious chilli eaters again?'
'I hear they nerfed the pizza because of the chilli. I hate chilli eaters. I ate chilli once and it was horrible.'

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best. post. ever.

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I do really like the suggestion about trying to re-use the old event where everyone got a level 40 on Training Room to come PvP with.

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Yes! Yes! That event was an absolute blast and I would LOVE to do it again.

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QFT
Better than (or second only to) the double XP Event!
Waaaay better than like anything else (halloween, christmas, valentines day, the anniversaries, cuppa's going away, rikti invasion, 5th collum-council war)

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why not auto-level to 50 on test?

fights in RV will still be auto-exemped to the appropriate level for that zone and in the arena players can set the effective level anyway.

surely the presence of phat loot (HOs, accolades, temp powers) will keep people (even those interested in pvp) playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

this bump to 50 on test might be a good way for players to try out different builds, different sets and perhaps even dip their toes into the icy waters of pvp.

great guide.

thanks for putting it together.

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No, it's quite clear that is NOT what the power is designed to do, AS EVIDENCED BY THE HURRICANE NERF.


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No, it shows people were not prepared for the exploit others found in the power. People wined. Instead of fixing the exploit, the devs gimped the power for everyone. And now, everything related to repel is going to suffer.

Which is a shame.

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qft

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yeah it sucks being pinned against a wall/geometry, but that's what the power was designed to do.


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No, it's quite clear that is NOT what the power is designed to do, AS EVIDENCED BY THE HURRICANE NERF.

Comparisons suck. We're discussing Hurricane because it sticks out above the crowd, not because it compares well to the crowd. It is above and beyond irritating. SO what the hell is the point of comparisons?

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the fact that the devs nerfed hurricane does not necessarily imply it was functioning other than as intended.

consider, for example the "hurricane bug." in pve hurricane will occasionally pull mobs instead of push them away. this has been a problem with the power since i1 and has not been fixed. anyone looking at hurricane while it's pulling mobs away instead of repelling them can tell you the power isn't working as intended...it's intuitive. yet the devs have not fixed it.

are we to conclude then, that a power that sometimes repels mobs and sometimes pulls mobs in is working as intended? no.

and yet the devs saw fit to nerf the repel on hurricane.

right after the introduction of city of stalkers.

when hurricane was one of the few powers that gave stalkers problems.

seriously...

why do you think hurricane got nerfed?

shifty, i respectfully disagree with your analysis.

you realize that, if you are correct, it should be nearlyimpossible for any mob to catch any other mob that happens to be running away.

my experience is that this is not true.

and, even if it were, it would point to a problem in the way travel powers and travel power suppression work in the game. i don't think this has anything to do with hurricane.

in the case of the fleeing storm guy/gal with bfs who's not attacking, i would send 2 toons after 'em. you'd lose them from the fight for awhile. but they'd kill the storm. send a stalker and a dominator or corrupter...use a combination of immobs and slows...the storm, all by himself against a smart team, isn't gonna last long.

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Apologies if this has been mentioned before...

But has anyone pointed out how Hurricane is *still* an aggro magnet for all the NPCs in the PvP zones? All you have to do is nick a mob and the entire spawn will descend on you with great vengeance and furious anger. Before, the risk/reward ratio wasn't so bad to have that power running. Now, is it really worth it? Are those NPCs gonna be repeled like they are in PvE? Are they going to get into melee like all the melee ATs are able to now?

So what then, drop the Hurricane so you can get a mercy AS before you get street debt?

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Fortunately the changed doesn't affect me since I don't do pvp and apparently it isn't supposed to affect pve from what I hear.

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It does. It isn't so glaringly apparent, because of mob behavior vs. player behavior, but it's there.

And, of course, the lessening of debuff effectiveness is also there, but that's allegedly going to be better come I7.

Myself, I'd really like to think that there's some master gameplan, that the developers are aware of these huge gaps in gameplay quality between ATs (and even between sets within ATs) and are trying to address them.

But stuff like this just sends me reeling and really undermines my enjoyment.

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you're back?

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When I mentioned a stormer swooping in it means we were already in the middle of a fight and he decided to drop in. It doesn't mean that he affected every single one of us, but it does mean that those of us affected had no clue why our attacks were not working all of a sudden. The affect of hurricane negated all of the attacks of those in its range and while everyone was trying to figure out where that stormer went/was we got killed by a large group that followed him in.

That stormer most likely would just jump in and jump out, leaving the lingering effect of his -range/acc debuff on us long enough to get us killed, but staying alive because he ended up out of range (or most likely went into invis).

I said we had lost before, which means we didn't complain as soon as we started losing (to paraphrase your kind way of putting it). It was when we kept losing due to the same swoop/drive by tactic (abuse of hurricane comes in here) that we began to complain.


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I'd have to agree on this. It was silly how easy it was to do this. The speed you can move through and disrupt the battle was too fast. It's a suprise attack, and you're gone before they know it, and they're probably still travel-suppressed from having been fighting. Snipes get LOS broken since the hurricane doesn't need to stick around, they can just go around a corner, and ranged attacks were already reduced in rage and accuracy from the suprise debuff. Click to-hit buff powers take too long to activate since I'd already be gone by the time the animation ended.

The other parts of hurricane that got nerfed didn't bother me nearly as much.

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there are a couple things to remember here...

1) this was a fight with a group and the stormer swooped in to help. while the team was distracted. essentially any toon could have done this...a kin with fulcrum shift, a dark with darkest night, a rad, a sonic a forcefield toon. all of them would have had an enormous impact on your fight if they were playing their toon well and got what amounted to "a free shot."

2) the fact that this group was unaware that the debuffs were applied until it was too late had as much to do with their surviveability as the debuffs themselves. if you're aware this debuff is applied, you can reposition for closer ranged attacks or tactically retreate 'til it wears off. i can see this altercation serving as a learning experience for the group in question, although most likely a painful one.

3) hurricane most likely didn't "negate all attacks in its range." it probably debuffed the range on the powers of non-melee toons. so tanks, scrappers, brutes and scrappers were still able to attack. non-melee toons could have attacked too, had they known to close range with their targets.

4) the fact that the group "kept losing to the same swoop/drive by tactic" is worrisome. i'm assuming this group tried to address this issue, but nothing is mentioned of it in the above post. i'd be curious to know solutions were explored besides complaining.

5) i'm not sure what the "this happens too fast" stuff is about. everyone has access to the same movement powers in this game. if the storm was giving your team such problems, why not just follow them and kill them? how could it be that the storm repeatedly "surprise attacked" the other team? wouldn't they start to get the idea after awhile that the storm was gonna do his/her thing? could nothing be done about it 'cuz it happened too fast? i'm sorry, but this doesn't sound like a very strategic criticism of a power. furthermore i'd be curious to hear what tactics were explored as a counter to this perceived threat. did the team consider spreading out a bit? did non-melee toons take to the air? did you guys send a spines scrapper/stalker after the storm to slow him/her down? from the sound of it the team just sat there and was repeatedly surprised by the storm and their exploitative tactics. i really have a hard time buying into this.

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well i dont see the point in suppresion or the way you walk through it now, what's the point of picking a power set with repel resist now, well after they nerf TK and force bubble

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Probably just handy to have. But Suppression would remove the ability to keep people pinned without nerfing the rest of Hurricane. If the Range and Acc debuffs were still applied on the old tic timer, I really wouldn't care as much... but since they're linked, it seems to me that Hurricane gets a royal shafting.

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yeah this "fix" is something of a disaster.

i said "FINE!"

ok, FINE!

it's really really good.

yeah, dark sucks in pvp.

rad suffers on teams, but is pretty good 1v1.

personally i'd rather see the underperforming sets buffed.

And I feel the number legtimate counters, combined with what the power did when uncountered, resulted in a power that wasn't balanced in compared to the vast majority of other powers in the game. Something can have counters and still be unbalanced, particularly if the effect is as severe as Hurricane's effect was if it were to go UNcountered.

--ironically there are powers out there that have fewer counters than hurricane and are more effective at eliminating enemies from combat.

People usually complain for a reason when they do, and things that are much complained about often ARE complained about correctly.

--and sometimes the reason people complain isn't valid. sometimes people complain 'cuz they're lazy. i'm not saying you're lazy (obviously you're not, given the volume of your posts), i'm just saying that the number of complaints in this case does not lend them much validity.

It pleases the ego to stand in the face of such complaints and say, "Pfah, I know how to counter such things, you're just not GOOD enough, the game is fine!"

--i'm not saying this at all. i don't repeatedly list the counters to hurricane to stroke my ego. i list the counters it because i know they work. and i want other people to know they work too so they stop asking for an unnecessary nerf. to ask for something like this is pretty serious in my book. you'd better be dayum sure you know what you're talking about if you're gonna ask the devs to rain on someone else's parade so your light shines a little brigher. frankly, i'm not convinced the people complaining the loudest are the best informed in this particular matter.


I feel evidence and consensus never, ever overlap. Evidence is in the fact, not in what people feel about those facts. This is particularly true in light of the fact that the people you are talking about aren't exactly representative of the vast majority of players, having taken PvP to an extreme most people don't want to. Given this game is a product meant to bring about enjoyment, that fact needs to be taken into account also.

--or, perhaps, we've taken pvp to the place it's headed. maybe this group of well-informed pvpers are ahead of the curve on things. maybe they've learned from their experience what the casual pvper will learn in time and they know this is a bad move. perhaps the reason we're all here is not as you suggest. perhaps we're not here stroking our egos as much as we're fighting to protect something we think is pretty cool. you have to admit, it's a possibility.

ultimately you simply don't care about the majority of players and how the game affects them. I do.

--and this is why i'm skeptical of your opinion. because it appears you've made up your mind about me and my motivations. in truth, here more than anywhere else, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. please believe me when i say i mean this in the nicest possible way...but be careful when and where you speak your mind. sometimes you do nothing more than reveal you have no idea what you're talking about.

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not that we're right because we agree.

we're right because we're aware of the legitimate counters.

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And I feel the number legtimate counters, combined with what the power did when uncountered, resulted in a power that wasn't balanced in compared to the vast majority of other powers in the game. Something can have counters and still be unbalanced, particularly if the effect is as severe as Hurricane's effect was if it were to go UNcountered.

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we've seen them work enough times to know that they do work...unlike many of the people supporting this nerf.

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I've seen and delt with Hurricane quite a bit. I know your counters work, but in my eyes that's simply not sufficient given how potent it was. Ultimately no amount of repeating, "But there were counters," necessitates that it was balanced. People usually complain for a reason when they do, and things that are much complained about often ARE complained about correctly. It pleases the ego to stand in the face of such complaints and say, "Pfah, I know how to counter such things, you're just not GOOD enough, the game is fine!" That's why so many DO it, after all. Game balance goes beyond simply the inclusion of counters, though. Fun factor is important: being able to spam holds to hold someone forever isn't FUN, even if it's not unbalanced in well prepared team PvP. Thus supression. Being able to kill someone in one shot isn't particularly horrifying in well prepared team PvP, but it isn't FUN, thus the one shot fix. And being repelled against a wall indefinitely (while having your Accuracy and Range debuffed, and possibly knockback effects on top of it) isn't fun, thus this. Proper game balance is clearly intended to involve a fun factor that goes beyond YOUR particular fun. I'm sorry that bothers you guys so.

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i submit that if you have a consensus among your best-informed pvp population that a power is or is not overpowered, that is some pretty strong evidence.

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I feel evidence and consensus never, ever overlap. Evidence is in the fact, not in what people feel about those facts. This is particularly true in light of the fact that the people you are talking about aren't exactly representative of the vast majority of players, having taken PvP to an extreme most people don't want to. Given this game is a product meant to bring about enjoyment, that fact needs to be taken into account also.

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i would weigh this strongly against the opinions of casual pvpers who limit their pvp involvement to PUGs in Siren's Call.

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And that's why I'm very skeptical of your opinion; ultimately you simply don't care about the majority of players and how the game affects them. I do.

To Psypunk (sp?): Your post was pretty hostile within the first sentence or two, so please forgive me for not reading it, much less replying to any potentially very good points you may or may not have made. I'm here for interesting discussion, not to be berated by people angry over a game or what has been said about a game. Sorry.

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i would argue that i care about the other players and their enjoyment of this game as much as you do.

this change is inappropriate for the problem it set out to fix.

i'm asking for a better solution.

preferably one that doesn't leave me open to all melee attacks.

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Actually, I bet the power in itself never really bothered any of the Dev's.

What did bother them however is the hundreds of whiny posts coming from non-storm users who couldn't AS through the hurricane.

Seriously, that's all it comes down to. Majority rules in this game and the majority of noob PVPers are villians (stalkers mostly) that hang out in Sirens Call getting ticked whenever a stormer shows up. They complain, the Dev's start listening.

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I don't think so. I'm sure you've heard of datamining.

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yeah, we've all heard of datamining.

doesn't mean anyone is doing it.

we have no evidence whatsoever as to what informed the devs and prompted them to begin playing with hurricane.

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the fact of the matter is that there is something of a consensu among informed people who routinely pvp that hurricane was not overpowered because of the number of available counters.

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Independent of whether or not that group IS correct, consensus doesn't equate with correctness. Historically groups have come to form a consensus incorrectly quite often.

I've seen arguments from this group, and I haven't found myself moved by them so far. The fact that there's a consensus within that group doesn't add persuasive force to it. It's clear you and that group disagree with me, and I'm fine with that, but saying, "We're right because we agree," isn't persuasive, particularly since I can think of psychological reasons why such conclusions would be reached.

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not that we're right because we agree.

we're right because we're aware of the legitimate counters.

we've seen them work enough times to know that they do work...unlike many of the people supporting this nerf.

i submit that if you have a consensus among your best-informed pvp population that a power is or is not overpowered, that is some pretty strong evidence. i would weigh this strongly against the opinions of casual pvpers who limit their pvp involvement to PUGs in Siren's Call.

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Silly example, but remember this is a business. Do they want to cater to a group of 30 big-time PVPers or the 100's of 10-15 year olds that give up easily?

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Well whichever they pick, I can't say it's likely they're going to cater to individuals who start throwing out insults and tantrums when make changes to the game. You've made insulting little nits in quite a few threads like this, blatantly assuming anyone who feels differently than you:

-Must be a child.
-Must be unskilled.
-Must have never succeeded.
-Cares nothing about game balance.

And those assumptions aren't founded. Ever think that maybe you're just WRONG about what's reasonably balanced? Ever think people can take an intellectual stance opposite to yours without being whiny children? I know it may be hard for you to see, but what you find acceptable isn't the universal and sole balancing feature in this game, particularly when what you find acceptable and reasonable is coming from the position of:

Krole, Level 50 Ill/Storm

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mal, i posted a few pages back about 15 ways to overcome a storm guy and his mighty hurricane.

it's my feeling that, unless a player has explored these options in team pvp, he or she should refrain from calling for a nerf.

the fact of the matter is that there is something of a consensu among informed people who routinely pvp that hurricane was not overpowered because of the number of available counters.

yeah, i had limited my counters to the ones i could think of off the top of my head for the repel portion of the power. i did this 'cuz that's what castle and the gang have said they're taking issue with in base raids.

i think the fix is inappropriate. yes, it addresses the purported problem, but it also annihilates defender melee protection.

that's too much in my book.

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The better question, Stormbringer, is to ask my hurricane is being singled out.

I'm guessing that the devs are uncomfortable with stormies being relatively sturdy compared to other defenders.

But, perhaps most importantly, the devs don't have any real problems with a defender being defeated in 10 seconds, but it's damned tedious and slows down gameplay for a defender to effectively pin a melee player and then take 5 or 10 minutes to to defeat him. This is especially annoying to the uninformed or casual PvPer who may not understand that there are counter-measures available to repel.

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this is a very good question.

although some of castle's comments lead me to believe any and all sustained repel powers are next on the chopping block.

i sincerely hope this doens't happen. to remove repel would be bad for the game.

there has to be a better way to deal with the potential for abuse.

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Actually, the only thing I really wanted to change in this mess was the ability for Repel Fields to effectively trap a player against geometry in Base Raids.

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Castle could save the programmers a lot of trouble by simply making a public service announcement letting all the ignorant players out there know about the counters to getting trapped like use of Phaseshift or TP to remove oneself from the corner or enlisting the help of a kineticist to buff you.

Then again, requiring teamwork for success in a game where pvp is balanced around teams... I dunno...

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if i'm not mistaken PHASE SHIFT IS AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE in the form of the stealth pool AND the free temp power in warburg.

furthermore, THE KIN POWERSET IS AVAILABLE To BOTH HEROES AND VILLANS. ID IS AVAILABLE (for controllers and corrupters) at level 16.

TP (self and ally) is available to everyone as well.

of course there are certain sets that are flat out immune to repel anyway, so the above counters are really only necessary for certain sets.

how many more counters to one particular aspect of a power this game require?

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I don't even understand any of this. Why does everyone have to get jacked for pvp, because " it's not fair! "?? Why cant you just let the hurricaine folks pin their folks against the wall, let the stalker folks sneak up on people and slice them in half, let the controlling folks hold people like they do in the rest of the game, and let everybody just be what they thought they'd be when they signed up for their powers? We choose the powers we think are best, there's a reason for that. It is not so that the game will come along and make everybody the same!!

Dark Fantasm

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Agreed. And unnerf Regen so PermMog could come back and Instant Healing is a toggle again. :-b I'm all for the Golden Age of CoH.

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dood, if you have a problem with the regen nerf start another thread.

and leave hurricane out of it.

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No one power should be able to control the battle field for one side or the other.

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i assure you, kid, if a stormer showed up in SC and started prancing around with nothing but his hurricane on he'd be ganked in seconds.

it takes more than hurricane to win a battle.

a lot more.

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Not true. Stormie comes into zone, every hero in the zone seems to run to the stormie with hurricane turned on to protect them ALL.

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i'm sure they're there healing that storm and buffing that storm as well.

and there you have it.

more than one power in effect.

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The game is all about tactics and counters.

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And the tactics and counters required for the old Hurricane were abnormally specific when compared to the tactics and counters required for almost everything else. If you want the game to require more precise tactics and more specific counters, I'm all for it, so long as it's not JUST Hurricane. But you seemed to be happy with it being JUST Hurricane in that regard, and I don't agree with that.

I'm okay with just disagreeing on that matter. I'm not happy with MOST Archetypes being very, very general in what it takes to counter them, and one or two being substantially more specific. You seem to like it. That's fine.

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What sort of nonsense. Nonsense such as viable counters? Nonsense such as maybe bringing some teammates to help stop this stormer that is most likely teamed?

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Nonsense such as needing pretty specific team mates. Against almost any other powerset, sure I'd need team mates at times, but almost any SORT of team mate would do. That's much, much less true of Hurricane, and that's what I felt was nonsense.

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The repel and melee safe zone...

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Mobile safe zones you can fire from shouldn't exist. I don't agree with the existence of "safe zones" The sheer fact you'd CALL it that just reinforces my point. You're free to disagree, but I've got nothing further to say on the existence of mobile safe zones created by powers. I don't feel speaking about them strengthens your case.

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i dunno...overcoming hurricane requires any one of the following:

1) ranged damage
2) melee damage (plus repel resistance)
3) ranged mez
4) melee mez (plus repel resistance)
5) TK
6) Detention Field
7) Sonic Cages
8) Force Bubble
9) Immobilize (to pin the storm in one spot to prevent debuffing)
10) Stacked Slows (to render the storm virtually immobile)
11) TP Foe (to remove the storm from those he/she is protecting)
12) Wormhole (see TP foe)

there are other powers that reduce particular aspects of the hurricane's effectiveness or allow a user to overcome some of it's debuffs. they include:

13) TP Self (to kite the storm)
14) SS (to kite the storm)
15) to-hit buffs (to hit through the debuff) - availabe via the leadership pool and in various sets via aim, power build up, FA, etc.
16) repel resistance (to melee the storm) - available to a variety of sets and via kinetic's ID

and there are probably a lot more that i forgot.

i'm sorry, man.

but as i look at this list of viable counters to storm, i'm not convinced it requires overly specific sets.