Stormfront_NA
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I have Psi Mastery with one of my controllers incidentally, but it is not that effective a Rikti Boss stills takes me out in one mez shot, its very difficult to make it perma as it is for melee, etc; In short the powers sound better than what it truly is, the power is all bark and no bite.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
You don't consider a stun to be effective at preventing a mezzer from mezzing you?
Every Corruptor primary except Fire Blast and Energy Blast has access to at least a stun, and many have holds available, some have more than one.
Ice and Electric Blasts have true holds in them, Ice has 2. Sonic has a large AoE sleep cone, and a stun, it also has a wide KB cone. Archery, Radiation, and Assault Rifle all have at least a stun in them. Dual Pistols has a stun that can be converted into a hold.
Energy Blast at least has KB on it's side, and at least one power is guaranteed KB.
Secondary wise, corruptors have a grab bag of tricks. Dark Miasma has a hold and a cone fear, not to mention Dark Servant, who also has a hold and a cone fear (and he can use them even if you are mezzed) Sonic and Traps actually DO get mez protection. Radiation can put their chance to hit so low you probably won't be hit by a mez in the first place.
But of course using those powers to prevent the mez from landing is apparently too much to ask. Do people really want the game dumbed down to the point that they don't even have to think about what they are doing?
When I play my support ATs, I keep an eye on what I'm fighting so I can be ready to pre-emptively mez whatever the biggest mezzing threat is in that particular spawn. Or if there is more than 1, I pop a breakfree before I go in.
Conversely, my main is a Claws/Regen/Body scrapper. He doesn't have the option to pre-emptively do anything at all to protect himself from mez, and has to trust that his mez protection toggle will see him through. Most of the time it is effective, but some things can punch through it, and fighting Malta or Arachnos are going to guarantee his toggles drop at least once or twice in the mission.
Question: If mez protection is so desired by support ATs, why is Psychic Mastery for Controllers not by far the most popular APP, since it has one of 3 sources of true mez protection available to Controllers in it?
Out of every 10 builds I see in the Controller forums, maybe 1 took Psychic Mastery, and maybe 1 or 2 took Cold Mastery. The rest of them all took Fire or Stone.
If mez protection for support ATs is so damned important, why is every controller in the game NOT using Psychic Mastery?
I'll answer the question with a question: Maybe because it's not as big of a deal as some people would like to make it out to be?
You made good points with regards to secondary effects and powers corruptors get, but again they seem daunting on paper. Yet what are their MAG potencies? I bet they are lucky to be a 2 for a single target and a 1 for area; otherwise why have Dominators or Controllers? Given their area and single potency MAG values, what are their "real" chances to affect a Boss or above? What are their real chances to affect a minion or LT, all given in one application, after all it only takes one application from a minion to lay a support down.
You did spend a lot of time explaining how Controllers and Dominators, could use their powers to be protected from the abusive use of mez. I also appreciate your "pre-empt mez" concept (good concept incidentally), question how good did it work? I find my pre-emptive mez only works effectively about 25% of the time, and they are heavely slotted for the job with IOs no less (but IOs do not raise the mag potency of my attack, only duration or chances to hit). When looking at a player MAG potency attack and MAG resistance from mobs; If a Controller/Dominator your MAG 2 area pre-empt mez has at best a 25% chance to pre-empt a boss, so you may get lucky and mez him, the other 75% of the time, you are in trouble, the same area mez, does have a 50% chance to take a LT down, which means 50% of the time one of those LTs is not going to be impressed, and finally you do have a 75% chance to pre-empt a minion, if you have 4 of them, it is statistically likely one of them is gonna get lucky and roll under a 25% and resist your effort, I suspect the game fudges too :<).
Thus what are the statistical chances that on one MAG 2 area mez application: You are going to mez 1 Boss, +2 LTs, +4 Minions? Incidentally it does happen, I done it before, but all too seldom, frankly it was a feat of extraordinary luck.
Trust me, as a player that plays support ATs as well as melee, there is much we can do to mitigate the obvious and designed vulnerabilities into support ATs to mez by devs; yet because we work hard at it and experience success the majority of the time, it does not mean there is not a problem with the class and the binary set up for mez (you have lots of protection or absolutely none), in fact could it be possible because we do have to work so hard, that it may be indicative of a problem as well.
I can agree with your point over the Scrapper's inability to pre-empt, on the other hand he does not need to do so at all, his unconditional protections will see to it (unless he set up at +4/x8/Y/Y Carnies or Rikti). While a support AT has to 100% succeed in the pre-empt or suffer the dire consequences, that means the one boss, 2 Lts and 4 minions have to be neutralized in the very first try, for in the next round, they will go first and they will mez you, after all what part of "zero" mag protection we don't get?
Its not like in the I3 days that only Bosses had mez and were limited to melee, today's mobs as lowly as minions has near sniper range attacks with mez side effects, so I agree with you that in most cases, you get to pre-empt, but player mez is hardly 100% effective. Also the player's mez range is in general inferior to the range attacks of mobs, which have secondary mez effects, that means a player has to get within mob "ranged attack" range, in order to try the the area or single mez; thus range is not quite the unconditional protection we may think it is advertised to be. Also consider, you can't pre-empt an ambush that insta-spawn on top of you, you are actually by mission design being pre-empted; how fair is that? a Melee is ok with this, after all their protections will work, but it goes so much harder on the conditionally protected ATs; it feels like support ATs are getting picked-on, and frankly no matter how good a player you may be, you got owned, and there was nothing you could have done; for it was a sucker punch by any other name by the devs.
I also want to make one observation, you say, if there is more than one mob to pre-empt, you pop a break-free in advance ( you already know, that the pre-empt attack is not going to work very well). You indicate you "have to" use an inspiration for a regular not stressing comfrontation! I don't think a melee has to pop a "luck" to engage a boss, 2 lts, and 4 minions in normal difficulty setting? Heck, when I go with my Elec/Shield Tanker, I take on +4/x8/Y/Y and never come close to even need an inspiration! That includes EBs as well! So why would one think it is ok, for a Controller to have to use a break free in advance to fight a regular group at standard setting?
Once again, I am asking for some unconditional mez protection for support ATs, MAG 3, the same as a boss. I do not think its dummying down the game at least not significantly. It is only making the dangerousness of mobs more in line, to what they should be. Why should a minion be given an "I Win" botton against Support ATs? Consider that 3 minions to Mez gang on the MAG 3 resistant Defender with ranged attacks' secondary effects, would have a 50% chance for the Defender to go down! Put the standard 4 which comes in the average mob size and the Defender's chances to resist the mez unslaught is only 25%, and that is normal group size at standard difficulty! It gets worse for the Defender if a single LT adds its MAG 2 or a Boss its MAG 3 potency. If you really do the statistical math, MAG 3 protection for Support is really not that much, and a good player such as yourself could use good practices to be able to overcome quite a great number of arbitrary attacks in which no amount of inspired playing could help you before.
Stormy -
Quote:You make a point, but you said "If there is enough", do you realize how much, really how much it does take to be enough?Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
No it isn't. If there is enough mez flying around to incapacitate the tank, how long do you think the rest of the team will last once he's out of commission? (having been in that situation before, I can assure you it is between 15 and 30 seconds, depending on how much damage is coming in along with those mezzes)
Melee ATs have such a high amount of mez protection because it is necessary for them to do their job. Unless you think a tank should NEED an Empath, Thermal, Sonic or Pain Dom along to stand a chance in hell of holding the agro of an enemy group that throws a lot of mez.
The only melee AT that a case can be made for getting less is stalkers, and they've been shafted so many times that would just be kicking them when they're down.
You said melee "needs it" mez protection, I can not disagree with you, but what makes you think support do not need it any at all as well? After all can't melee pop break-frees too? Please consider mez is now very far ranged, and players' ability to mitigate the use of such mez is hardly fool proof such as melee's unconditional protectin is.
A great point you made was why would a tank would have to depend on a defender at all for mez protection? Yet you are comfortable with a Defender having to depend on a Tank for everything? Is this concept of balance, acceptable to you?
You also made an interesting point, a group would not last long if the tank goes down. That is not entirely true either, tanks and melee are not indispensable; their presence do make life a lot easier though :<) Also it would be a weaker point if the mobs would not area, range, melee spam mez as well, or support were not 100% vulnerable, even minions are not 100% vulnerable.
With regards to Stalkers they need even more resistance, not less, besides their 1 big hit, after that they are wanna be Scrappers; when engaging large groups, its going to take them much longer than a Scrapper to deal with the group, and thus exposed to more mez attacks over time.
While I do not propose that ranged ATs have as good mez protection as melee, a zero protection is not right either. Please consider that melee's protection is high and unconditional, it always work they don't have to hit, and then hope to affect the target for some sort of protection, its there, it works, it does not matter if the attack was from an Av or minion. Contrast that with say a corruptor, they don't have holds, what is their mez mitigation ability? Range? a 5% acc debuff? Present minions have long range attacks with seconday effects that are mez attacks, at no protection for the support class, the minion is guaranteed 75% chance of success, if the attack came from a LT or Boss, the Corruptor is automatically defeated. Frankly I fail to see how a supoprt AT can be considered "heroic", when they are so vulnerable?
Stormy -
Hi...
I seen some posting about "staking" desks, safes, lamps, floor tiles, and what not... But how do you stack them?
Are there any manuals out there that can teach me or tell me how step, by step?
Hugs
Stormy -
Mmm...
Melee do have some challenge, but not nearly as significant as non-melee experience. If you read the posts in these forums, asking for more chalenge, they are coming from melee, why would this be?
The zapper for instance is one of the very few challenge4s melee do have, not only they can one-shot zapp their endurance, they are also placed around corners and places very hard to target in advance or from a distance; making them that much more hazardous. but the Zapper's range can reach those so called ranged as well. I can agree with you, at one time, range was protection, and that ranged attacks could provide effective protection; but frankly that is not entirely true either.
What I am looking for is aless black and white approach to mez attack protection, and allow shades of grey.
Stormy -
Quote:Interesting, but not an accurate point at an absolute level, also why melee has no challenge in the game.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If every character in the game had reliable mez protection, a lot of the enemies that are challenging would be pushovers. And that probably isn't a good thing for the game.
Remember that each Mez attack has a MAG potency, and so the "dangerousness" of a mez mob is dependent on its MAG potency and the victim's MAG defense. This why Support is so helpless against minions, they have MAG-0 to resist a MAG-1 Attack, a Tanker with MAG-12 potency defense, would need to be simultaneously striken by 13 mezzing mobs to be affected, I don't think it ever happens...
So some MAG protection afforded to Support ATs, is not game breaking by any means, it just makes low end mobs not as dangerous, a level of danger they should never had in the first place. If a MAG 3 was to be given to Support ATs, it would let them resist 3 Mez minions attacks, but if they were attacked by a Mez Minion and Mez LT at the same time, they would have a 75% chance to resist, if they were hit by a Boss (MAG 3) it would be a 75% chance to resist, the same chance the boss would have to resist a controller's strongest mez! If the Controller was hit by both a LT and Boss, effective combined MEZ MAG 5, the Controller would have a 25% of shaking it, if a minion was to add their 10 cents, thus a boss, lt and minion, then the Support AT has NO chance,a nd is auto sent to la la la land. I would think a support getting hit by a boss, lt, and 1 minion (MAG 6 composite) to happen far more often than the MAG 12 composite needed to affect a tank.
Stormy -
Mmm...
Hate to say this, but the devs likes having the support ATs 100% vulnerable to status effects, its their cheesy way to add challenge to content. Want to make the mission harder? Want more in game challenge? Easy! Add more ambushes that opens up with spam AOE mez! that's it, presto, more challenge! Wohooo!
Since that is their mentality, the chance that they will give up their cheesy way to add challenge to the game, by letting Support ATs actually resist a mez attack! Ha ha ha ha, Never gonna happen! They gave support ATs 2 baby pacifiers, break frees and reduced duration mez effect IOs! so shut up and start sucking, game is working as dev's intended!
When it gets to reduced duration, all I can do is laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and wish I could be mentally challenged and not notice how pointless that is!
When one considers how long the durations of mob mez's are, even if by some miracle you could cut by half the duration, its all pointless anyway, ha ha ha... So instead of being mezzed by 15 seconds, I am mezzed by 7 seconds, ha ha ha, I am usually dead in 3 seconds by the mob ambush (since they go mez, melee, mez, melee pattern of attack, and lately tend to spawn right on top of you), so that made an awesome difference, right?, ha ha ha ha! Must suck pacifier harder, maybe it will make a difference...
As of the introduction of IO sets, many support ATs have gone the route to soft cap defense as a mitigation to the over excessive use of mez (since there is absolutely nothing that can be effectively done to protect from it); but as we can see now, a new batch of mobs are coming out with new high to-hit-buffs or buff others that are making defense pointless, guess we can chalk it up to increased challenge, ha ha ha, this is so balanced, it's simply genius (ends sarcasm).
Stormy -
November 17, 2010 Plans:
There is a distinct possibility that I19 may be up and running by next wednesday :<)
I propose we gather at Atlas, then go to Oro and unlock our Alpha Slot!
If I19 is not up, then we go for plan "b", giggles
I propose we do the Oro Lars Hansen thread: Madman's Council, level 25-29, but because it is an Oro the minimum level will have to be 29, so we all can do the TF and get the contact!
Hugs
Stormy -
Mmm...
I wish developers would add challenge in rational and balanced manner. Not do less than professional stunts like the resistance stealth and their exceptional bonus to accuracy.
The game when adding challenge, need to consider that there are 2 basic types of protections, conditional and unconditional.
Do notice that quite a great deal of game challenge; disproportionately impacts conditionally protected ATs. For example, all mobs now, minion or better have a form of mez attack. Their first attack is always an attack that is right out a mez or has a mez as a secondary effect. Now lets look at this practice for a moment...
An unconditinally protected AT, is simply impervious to mez attacks, or at least it would take a large number of mobs concentrating their attacks on them, which almost never happens, and reason why melee can do +4/x8/Y/Y as often as they do. So the challenge and threat is basically zip!
A Conditionally protected AT, with a Zero MAG resistance to any status effect, has a 25% chance to resist a minion's attack, and then zip for anything tougher. It seems to me, this simple situation gives support ATs considerably much more challenge, than their melee cousins. Of course, this total vulnerability, can be compensated (ha ha ha ha) by the use of break-free inspirations, which becomes a must at every engagement, since every engagement has status effects spammed; frankly this is not a good practice; I thought inspirations were supposed to be used for moments of epic significance and not as if they were bubble gum!
Now lets not sell short unconditionals! After all they can area hold a bunch of mobs! That is awesome, right?
Lets put some math to this...
lets keep this simple, to a solo situation to keep statistics simple
Mob consists of 1 boss, 2 LTs, and 4 Minions for analysis sakes...
The strongest single hold is MAG 3, and area hold is MAG 2.
Now what are the chances to resist a MAG 3 attack based on your own resistance?
MAG 3 Attack vs MAG 3 resistance: 75% to resist, you actually can get lucky an d zap a boss in one hit!
MAG 3 Attack on MAG 2 resistance: 50% to resist, you have a 50/50 chance in bringing down the LT in one hit!
MAG 3 Attack on MAG 1 resistance: 25% to resist, you have a 75% chance on bringing down the minion in one hit!
MAG 3 attack on MAG 0 (essentially any support AT): 0%, auto toast
MAG 2 attack on MAG 0 (essentially any support AT): 0%, auto toast
MAG 1 attack on MAG 0 (essentially any support AT): 25% chance, not encouraging isn't it?
For reference purposes, a Scrapper with MAG 7:
2 x MAG 3 attacks: 100% chance to resist
3 x MAG 3 attacks: 50% chance to resist (that is getting hit by 3 bosses at the same time)
Brute MAG 9:
2 x MAG 3 attacks: 100% chance to resist
3 x MAG 3 attacks: 75% chance to resist
Tanker MAG 12:
4 x MAG 3 Attacks: 75% chance to resist (that is getting hit by 4 bosses at the same time)
Also consider the MAG effect of mobs:
Minion - Status effect MAG 1 (there are a few exceptions with stronger values)
LT - MAG 2
Boss - MAG 3
So getting back to condtional ubberness...
Given Controller initiates hostilities, in an ambush: mobs initiates, and Controller gets no chance to protect themselves at all.
Round 1: Controller fires an Area Hold, MAG 2 ( she will follow with a MAG 3 single to Boss, if around)
Minion has a 50% chance to resist, LTs have a 75%, and Boss has 100%
So of the 4 Minions, 2 LTs, 1 Boss, we neutralize...
2 Minions, and 1 Lt
Coming at you is one Boss, 1 LT and 2 Minions. If they all use a mez on you, you can't resist the Boss and LTs and you have 2 chances at 25% to resist the minions efforts. Not good, inspiration time ah?
Round 2: Inspiration taken, mobs close in!
round 3, personal mez on boss... Boss is suffering effects from the MAG 2 Hold, and you just added 3 more for a 5 effect. He has a 25% chance to resist, the odds are on your side!
But now you have a LT and 2 Minions on your face and having a good ole day, you are bleeding hit points in a serious basis, next round they gonna use some attacks with secondary mez effects...
Round 4, since you spent a round popping an inspiration, your area hold is back! So now you stack a MAG 2 on the 2 minions and the LT, so they each are at MAG 4 effect, its curtains for the Minions and the LT has a 25% chance to resist.
So in practicallity it ook you 4 rounds to achieve protection, used one inspiration, and you finally have cotnrol of the situation...
Frankly is control an effective protection? Or as effective as some make it out to be?
Food for thought, I agree, balancing under this conditions is really tough...
Stormy -
Wow, this is awesome good news!
Chad, this is great, so as long as the lowest member in the group can get to Oro and qualify to get into the menu range, we are good to go!
Hugs
Stormy -
I am not enforcing the storm name, I am opening it up to anyone...
Well maybe one restriction...
We got to look cool while whooping the beasties!
Hugs
Stormy -
Stormy Wednesday Plan for November 10!
We gonna go storm the monsters of Paragon City!
Wednesday Nights Menu:
Name Location Badge
Adamastor - Dark Astoria - Keeper of Secrets
Babbage - Boomtown - Clockstopper
Eochai - Crotoa - Pumkin King
Jack in Irons - Crotoa - Giant Killer
Sally - Crotoa - Believer
Jurassik - Crey's Folly - The Solution
Kraken - Perez Park - Unleasher
Kronos - Not available besides doing the Crimson thread
Lusca - Independence Port - Devilfish
Paladin - Kings Row - Knight Errant
See ya tomorrow at 8pm eastern, 7 Central, 6 Mountain, 5 Pacific!
Stormy -
Quote:Originally Posted by Diggis
Hmm, no I think you would need to do them through Ouro if you are a level 50.
The problem I am trying to address, I want the entire group of 8 of us to get credit for unlocking the contact to start Tfs such as Ernesto Hess and Katie Hannon, not just the thread owner. Oro would in effect cheat the other 7 from the credit, despite they "did" all the work and frankly deserve such credit!
Stormy -
Mmm...
Quite frankly, I have done that arc too many times, and I frankly find it, very, very boring.
I read the post over Oro Menders not being trust-worthy, mmm, yet I can go to the crystal, click on the crystal, go to menu, level 45-50, and presto a ride to Cimerora is provided. Thus the Menders are protecting the timeline as they supposedly are supposed to.
I agree with other posters, that there are many ways to time travel and get around, such as the portals at Portal Corps or at Grandvillle for instance. The so call thread to join the club, is really pointless, with regards to protecting the timelime and history. We don't have to solely be members of the club to travel to the past and preventing Requiem from changing the future, that is just a dumb proposition!
While I support leaving the club thread as a means, I do not support it as the only means.
Stormy -
Mmm
very interesting, if a minion is worth 0.33 and each of us is considered a threat of 1, not sure how are we rated number wise.
But that means a single hero is roughly a threat of 3 versus the minion, to get an EB you need a threat of 6. If so, you need 2 to 3 players, killing all but one rikti minion within the spawn check rate?
Stormy -
Quote:Interesting, maybe I am mistaking but both of these contacts are not level specific? So a level 50 can go visit them at Crotoa and Striga, and get the thread? If so this is great news!Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Yes it can, especially for Hess and Katie, which both start from a contact that needs no introduction.
Stormy -
Mmm...
I think having to unlock Cimerora to enter it, is in effect bogus. Since it's a time travel thing, I would be inclined to think, that once you unlock Ouroboros, you unlock Cimerora by default. So to get to Cimerora, it makes no sense to go thru the building next to the university, why not have the additional destination at the Oro portal?
I can see the value to keep the club thingy, but your membership to the club could be acquired through the standard arc or set it up where there is an agreement between the Oro monks and the club, so once you join Oro you get club membership automatically.
Hugs
Stormy -
Hi:
I have now participated in several threads to unlock Hess and Katie, and despite that I did every single mission; I did not get credit towards unlocking the contact since it was not my own thread.
It is possible if all are lowbies, to get the same mission thread, and thus as you do them we all get credit as we go. But if we have higher levels, then this can not be done; nor going the Oro way would solve this problem either.
I was wondering, in the Portal Jockey accolade, we are supposed to defeat a bunch of Praetorian Villains, it does not matter if it was our mission or not, we get credit for the villain defeat. So perhaps the missions towards unlockable contacts could be flagged in a manner similar to the Portal Jockey accolade. So when we have all the flags say towards Hess, we get credit for it, despite that the thread we accomplished may have not been our own.
Hugs
Stormy -
Hi!
First, I really enjoyed the Rikti invasion event, and wish it would happen more often!
I have observed that in the beginning of the event, there is a high volume of players pursuing the Accolade and thus you have a high density of players sufficient enough to spawn EBs. But I also have observed that about after a day, the intensity of attendance by the player base drops dramatically, to an extent that those players participating in the defense of a zone from the Rikti no longer get EB spawns; and as a result can not get to accolade despite their best efforts.
So my suggestion is, instead of spawning huge amounts of EBs on huge groups, and none at all for smaller groups; why not have EB spawns based on participant numbers, so if you have a single group of 8 or 8 players defending say Galaxy, they would be rewarded with two sets of spawns of 1 EB each time, if you have two groups of 8 or 16 players, subsequently you get the two spawns of 2 EBs, and therefore every 8 more players gets you one more EB. This way if you can get 8 players to participate, you are guaranteed the opportunity to defeat 2 EBs per invassion you participate on.
Hugs
Stormy -
Hi:
I was doing the oro thread a Heroes' Epic with my Fire/Kin Controller, and had some trouble taking Nighstar down, but it was not really too bad. But when I went to destroy the glowy, things turned really ugly.
I would be attacked by a group of Rebels, get hit, and they would go invisible. So far, ok, I get it.
But then I would smack them with a Fire Cage and Flashfire, when the Fire Cage struck, the fire from it would engulf them and stick to the mob, as it does with any other mob. But when the rebel got struck by it, it wiould simply turn its stealth and become invisible, fire and all!, obviously I could not continue attacking it, for it was not targetable. Is this correct or a bug?
Stormy -
Quote:By now I have 36 level 50 alts in Champions of all AT types and combos one could imagine, yes I am a hopeless Altoholic. That not counting my 50s on other servers as well :<)Originally Posted by SerialBeggar
When you say "the few times I play my empath", how much time have you put into playing a powerset with PBAOE heals? PBAOE, by definition, means you need to be close to or in the fight so your heals affect everyone there. Of course, this also means that you're now within the effects of AOE attacks. Are you getting pegged by single target attacks or just splashed by AOEs? I don't know about anybody else, but my play style has developed to the point where, no matter how bad the situation gets, I will hesitate momentarily to gauge whether I have enough time to run in before the enemies cycle to their AOE attacks.
It's not something I actively think about, anymore. I just use the time between the ranged heals and buffings to get a visual overview of where the enemies are concentrated compared to where my team mates are (I have "Show Player Health Bars = Always" set in Options). I take a moment to see what type of attacks the enemies are using, especially the bosses and lieutenants. I consider whether it is best to go for the PBAOE heal now or do my own AOE attack first distract them (my Emp Def is /Energy with Energy Torrent for the almost guaranteed knockdowns), then go for the PBAOE heal.
Since I try to evenly play all of my alts, I can't say I play any AT or special build much. I do have a Psi/Emp Defender, Several flavor of the month Controller/Corruptress something/kin (giggles) I rifle thru.
By now all of my 36 of which 18 are hero and 18 are villain, are fully top IOd, and only 6 of them are missing some of the power giving or enhancing accolades.
Hopefully, that will give you a sense of how much or little I play, any given AT and power set.
I hear what many are posting, with so much confidence and bravado. But when I get on my support toons, and walk into the fray with PBAOEs, I do note that I do get single out, despite I have completely and totally avoided doing any damage attacks, in the case of my Emp Defender, all I done are buffs and heals, and yet I get singled out; despite our Tanker, Brute and Scrappers are making a mess out of the mobs. I understand the code says that will not happen, yet it does.
In general, I am not really complaining that this is happening, it actually gives me the challenge that a melee AT could not dream of affording me for they are so well designed and balanced.
My earlier post, was simple advise for a player playing a support type that is having a hard time staying alive. Frankly playing a support type, in certain TFs and missions and not dying once is not a give-me, as it would be for any melee type. The simple truth is, I shared my observations, my conclusions may not be correct of why the situations happened, yet the situation happened and at one time it killed me. In time, I observed what was the situation that was getting me killed (Scientific Method) and after seeing it how happened several times, I developed practices to help me deal with it.
Today, I rarely ever die or are defeated when I play my support alts; also I survive with out using the break-frees either. To me, that is a true measure of successful playing.
As I said, just try my suggestions, and find out if they do you any good.
Hugs
Sue, Aka Stormy -
Mmm...
Love the corrections :<)
While the game has a lot of advertisements such as we don't do this or not, the game allso fails to say a lot of things, leaving it to the player to find out on their own. Is this practice, good, bad or indifferent is upto each player.
While I will confess in some instances to some exageration or poetic license in the description to over-plused perception by certain mobs such as Nemesis Sharpshooters and Rikti Drones, yet their exagerated perception is of an arbitrary value...Essentially there is nothing you can do about it, it's simply rigged.
I see comments about the no healing aggroe, I hear you, my experience does not consistently support you. The few times, I play my empath, I do single heals on the main DPS, I almost never get any aggroe. I pbaoe a heal, and I get ringed like a bell, despite the group is below 16 and we have a tanker. What is the reason, this is occurring? Who cares! its happening. The same happens with buffing, especially if they are as a result of a debuff; sure not supposed to draw aggroe, thats what the devs said, yet the unpleasant surprise of aggroe happens.
While much of what I said, does go against the CoH Dogma, I would suggest you try the suggestions, and later if you would please post if the suggestions had a beneficial effect or not in reducing your mortality rate.
Stormy -
Mmm...
Correct me if I 'm wrong, but...
Normally the game is developed by a "developer team".
As a consequence from having a development team, there will be functional or specialized members within it, such as costumes, effects, power customization, mapping, etc.
Among those specialized developers, one of them is going to be responsible for base design and development.
That individual's responsibilities may be more than just base building, it could be just 25% of his total duty/job description, but I bet no matter how you cut it, it is a significant portion of his job description.
Now if I was to be that person, I would imagine, that I would have a very healthy desire to retain my job during these very tough employment times.
Since I want to keep my job, I really need to impress my management that all things base is far from done, and that the effort is an evolving one as the game is. If I was to fail, frankly, I am toast! And my job went birdie bye bye...
Now given, that I want to keep my job significant, I would always would be thinking! What new thing I could do?
Frankly, these forums, are a great source to do just that. If we keep our posts clean, free from flames/chaff, the forum posting then becomes a very valuable resource for the developer.
And thus our requests can hardly be thought as ignored, and the devs don't care.
If anything, because these forum's posts are polite, specific, and clean is a strong point despite that it may not be a super poster in volume...
Hugs
Stormy -
Quote:And the congregation said: Amen!Originally Posted by Genetic Freak
If you autocomplete a bugged (or what you perceive to be bugged) mish, you should also fill in the bug report to accompany your completing it.
Stormy -
Mmm...
There are many reasonable situations why you are getting attacked, and just as many idiotic ones as well...
Standard Reasons:
1. When a member of your group attacks, it alerts the enemies of the group's presence. That includes you, even if super invisible.
2. Lately Tank using players do not taunt, they depend on their very weak class inherent taunt. This is rough on support classes.
3. There is an aggroe cap, which also can be resisted by the mob. Just because the Tank could gather the attention to "upto" 16, does not mean 16 will go after him.
4. Some mobs have enhanced perception, and their plus to perception is truly stupid, "I can see anything, period. you can be as far as the door entrance, even if I am the very back and there are walls in between us", such as Rikti Drones and Nemesis Marksmen.
5. Ambushes, all have Stupid level plussed Perception
6. Status Effect dispensing Mobs if not successfully taunted, will mez first support ATs. They seem to prefer Controller types over Defenders. They also know, that attacking melee ATs is pointless with Status Effects, can't blame them there.
You may be voiding your own Stealth...
1. You attack someone and do damage
2. You attack sonmeone and miss
3. You debuff a mob
4. You debuff a mob and buff a friend, this really flags you for a whooping!
5. You use a buff PBAOE, that is like screaming "Honey I am home"
6. You do an area debuff, and buff friends at the same time; you must have a death wish... As tempting as fulcrum shift may be, if the tank or scrapper are not taunting, you may want to resist the urge to use it.
7. Healing, if you heal the tank by more than the mob's damage, you really made that mob angry and he is coming to explain the errors of your ways right now! It seems also , that mob gets some kind of resistance to taunt as well, or at least thats my perception as death dashes towards me and I am screaming like a little girl, get him off me!, get him off me! Ge..I am dead; the group now enjoys a quiet moment... The trick is to heal for less than the mob's hardest hit on the target to that moment.
8. It seems some mob groups, to have mobs that focus attacks on healer or buffer types. Longbow Spec Ops are notable for this. They lay towards the side and allow the fight to ensue, the moment a player buffs or heals, they go into action.
My suggestions towards survivability:
1. If you gonna debuff a mob, and especially if the debuff results with a player (Kin type powers) benefiting from it as a buff: Target thru the most damaging player (Blaster, Scrapper, Tanker), and hope their attacking a mob results with their having firm aggroe, otherwise you gonna be pushing daisies really soon.
2. Healing, I know we love to do PBAOE heal, but you taking a huge chance on over-healing a player by more than the damage they may have received by a mob! Don't be surprise if a large number of mobs, decide to stop attacking their current threat and they come looking for you. Single heal, manage your threat potential. Just think many AOEs have a very, very weak damage component, and many mobs do use these powers mostly to unstealth players. If you PBAOE heal, you WILL heal these players for much more than they suffered from the weak damage enemy PBAOE; you are in trouble sweetie...
3. never stand behind the group while in combat from the direction you came from, I mean "never". Choose a left or right side, go there and do your trade. Why I say this? All too often, something clicks and "an on your face ambush spawns". The ambush "always" spawns at the entrance to the room from the direction you came. Thus if you were in the back working your bunns off to keep your group going, your reward is now to have a full mob spawn all around you "instantaneously", and targeting you FIRST!, simple prevention to this bs, is don't stand at the back.
4. Hover is your friend, it really is. Hover beyond melee range always. You may find as a support AT capping your defense ability versus melee is nearly impossible, yet capping range and half way cap aoe is in the realm of possible. If the mobs are not 100% of the time auto hitting you, you may find your survivability dramatically improving!
5. Get added range to your heal and buff powers, the farther you can be, the less sporadic aggroe you will bring upon yourself, you will also have a lesser chance of being within an area of effect of an attack, the Malta and Longbow stun granade has very large radiuses, much more than you would think.
Hope this will help...
Stormy -
Mmm..
I love the auto-complete/drop feature...
I do agree devs primarely made this feature to assist with the
at the time" high opportunity of missions being bugged. I think, today bugged missions are seldom.
A secondary reason for mission to be droppable or autocomplete, had to do with AT "soloability". Some AT builds can go thru any content and complain about challenge or lack of; while some ATs and particular builds within the AT set just don't have a chance under certain environments. Imagine an Emp Defender in a Carnie heavy with Illusionists mission doing the thread alone; while after a ton of break frees, enourmous patience may finally defeat the mission, one could wonder if that was actually fun or just tedium?
This second reason, maybe now questionable with the itnroduction of the difficulty slider.
The introduction of the "red indicator" of las mob or clickie, may also make the auto complete function to come into question as well.
For myself, I confess to wantonly use it when I think the mission is essentially a "bs" mission or one that has retarded travel, like you are in Perez Park, and your next exiting mission is to Kill All in a cavern, just like you had in the past 3 missions but this time at Dark Astoria.
A BS mission in my book, for instance, is in a Heroes' Hero, towards the end, you are supposed to defeat Siege, but its a kill all, in a power plant filled with clockwork. You ahve stairs, you easily and consitentenly are knocking away clocks chasing them all over, etc. A very annoying mission. This is one, that sane people should skip and complain to devs about.
Stormy