Tannim222

Pink, personally, I do not appreciate your accusational comments about me and certain bandwagons.

They are misrepresentation of my involvement in this, and other threads about this power set.

That said, after testing this set, I can easliy tell that the negatives far outweigh the positives. Comparitively speaking, the durability of this set is starting to appear to have the lowerst performance of all the Brute secondaries.

Quite simply, this set has no way to deal with the amount of damage it allows the user to take in. It doesn't in away provide enough of a benefit in either damage or speed for defeating an enemy to offset the amount of damage that gets through.


To quote myself, here are the possibilities for dealing with the holes in this set:

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No healing: Green inspirations, Aid self (2 power slots, 4 or 5 additional enhancement slots)

No immoblization protection: Breakfree inspirations, Leaping pool; Combat jumping (1 power slot) or Hover + TP (3 power slots, plus at least 2 additional enhancement slots in TP)

No knockback protection: No inspirations available, Leaping pool; Acrobatics (3 power slots) or Hover (1 power slot, possible 2 additional enhancement slots for movement as desired)

So, knockback is the most easily dealt with, except it has no inspirations to help it. You can get away with just hover, or go with acrobatics.

Immoblization requires the most sacrifice in terms of power slotting (or matches knockback if you go acro for both). But offers 2 viable and different paths for building.

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Without some form of additional mitigation, this set will be dependant upon carrying greens and / or breakfrees (depending of you bother to build to protect yourself against knock back).

High end zones and missions will definitely either create a dependance upon steady inspiration use, or dependence upon teaming with the right AT combinations.

If you don't bother to do anything about knock back, it will not be fun. I have seen for myself what having no knock back is like and seen other players even at the high end game of CoH take a melee build with no knock back protection and die due to constant flopping.

Now, if this secondary had a way of significantly reducing a targets endurance so that targets couldn't attack, then you have something different.

Lightning field and powersink combined won't do it though, and even if they were changed so they could, waiting until level 37 is way too late.

First I'm not jumping on the band wagon, I have been in it since the information on the set has been released.

Second of all, with Grounded being a toggle, a player can still take the flight pool or leaping pool if they wish, all that needs to be done is to *gasp* turn off a toggle and activate their desired travel power.

You seem to have missed some other points as well. By proving this change, the healing would benefit the survivability of the set, and provide more freedom in character building.

After all, if a player doesn't want to take a regen toggle with kb protection because it has -jump or - fly and its too hard to take it and create some nice useful binds or macros for ease of use, then a player doesn't have too. They can use up more power slots to get that knock back protection.

The idea is that immoblization is easier to work around than knock back is. While, yes it would be nice to ask for and get both protections in the set, the idea I posted is sort of a comprimise between what is currently designed, and what many players have issues with what is designed.

That is basically what I was clarifying for Front_Loaded with regards to endurance recovery from the attacks.

I wasn't concerned with recovering endurance from Lightning Rod or Thunderstrike so much as the fact that the description does not indicate that these attacks drain endurance from targets.

Actually, you will notice the idea is to change Grounded to it would look something like this:

Grounded: toggle, .27 EPS, +75% health regeneration, knock back protection, -fly, -jump.

Note, there is still a weakness to immoblization in the set (until the final power is reached). So, it still has that weakness.

If a player wants to work around that particular weakness, there would be 2 paths to take. Combat Jumping (1 power slot) or Teleport pool (2 power slots and at least the use of one additional enhancement slot). And there is still the ability to use breakfrees. There is no inspiration to help against knock back.

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Jacob's Ladder does indeed show me the same "2 points of negative" type message, and I have yet to see it return any endurance to me.

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I do not know if the power was designed to return endurance. The power description does not indicate that it does.

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Jacobs Ladder- You are able to generate a strong current between your arms and snap a powerful bolt of electricity in an arc in front of you. This melee attack can electrocute all foes within the arc dealing High energy damage. Jacobs Ladder can drain some Endurance from your target and may overload his synapses, leaving him writhing for a moment. Disturbing an overloaded target will disperse the electrical charge and release him. Damage: High, Recharge: Moderate

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So we can see that it is suppossed to drain endurance, there is nothing about returning it, and there is a chance to "sleep" the target.

Going over all of the ElM attack descriptions, the only 2 that indicate there is a chance to recovery endurance from a drained target are Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch.

It certainly would be nice if there were a chance to recover endurance with Jacob's Ladder and Chain Induction.

Interestingly, Thunder Strike and Lightning Rod do not include anything about draining endurance from the target in their descriptions. I didn't pay attention to end bars with Thunderstrike, but I will be sure to do so.

+75% is not way too high, to use Stone Armor as an example, it has a toggle that is +100% regen, + status protection, with -run, fly, and jump.

To use /regen as an example for Scrappers, Integration has a higher regen rate, even when considering just the buffable portion of the power, and it provides + status protection, and has no penalties.

What I'm saying is to take Grounded, make it a toggle with +75% regen, + knockback protection, -jump, -fly. The EPS doesn't have too be too high to be balanced, Considering the relatively low regen rate, only 1 status protection type, and the penalties, it could be .27 or even .23 EPS.

Considering all of the energy resistance available in the set, the resistance offered in Grounded is rather unnecesary and is akin to Tempurature protection in Fiery Aura. In fact, I would be surprised if the resistance it offered is even as high as 7.5%, my guess its probably 5.6% like other passive resist powers for Brutes and Scrapers.

The negative energy resistance is well covered in Conductve shield as well. And its not like there is an overwhelming amount of negative energy to deal with in the game.

Which is why I suggested the very same thing earlier in this thread, except to make Grounded a toggle with a + regen component as well. It doesn't even need to be alot, +75% regen would work well.

Yeah, my guess is that the template for the 2 first attacks were pulled directly from the Blaster versions.

For Blasters, it has been long known that the end drain on these attack powers is barely noticeable. I didn't think that would change now.

Ok wierd, I replied earlier with links but it disappeared.

The way Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch work with regards to end drain is that there is a chance for the end drain to occur. The end drain is based off the target being drained.

The power descriptions for Brute Elect/ for Charged Brawl and Havoc punch can be found here.

In both Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch:

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A portion of drained Endurance may be returned to you.

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On Live the portion of drained Endurance is a set number. On Test the set number has been replaced with a percentage.

Endurance mod enhancments augment the amount drained and recovered, but not the chance of that occuring.

What I do not have is the base chance of this occuring. Eitherway, it isn't sufficient enough to base a build around end drain with.

I agree with the sounds issue. They either need to have a punch sound effect added to go along with the current electric effect, or perhaps as someone else suggested, thunder effects.

The sound effect for Jacob's Ladder really needs to be changed. Give it an effect that actually sounds like the electric arc does, let it end in either an electric discharge or thunder effect.

I agree. After testing out an elec / elec last night, I can easily see the need for some form of healing in this set.

I honestly do not see how a pure resist set with no form of heal boost and / or recovery is really viable without constant support from a healing partner. Which is what /elec brutes will need during higher end content.

The only thing that can be done will be to carry alot of greens and / or aid self with 2 - 3 interupt SOs in it.

The entire no immobilzation / knock back issue, while annoying to find in yet another set, is far more easily planned around by either leaping or hover / TP combo.

Look at it this way:

No healing: Green inspirations, Aid self (2 power slots, 4 or 5 additional enhancement slots)

No immoblization protection: Breakfree inspirations, Leaping pool; Combat jumping (1 power slot) or Hover + TP (3 power slots, plus at least 2 additional enhancement slots in TP)

No knockback protection: No inspirations available, Leaping pool; Acrobatics (3 power slots) or Hover (1 power slot, possible 2 additional enhancement slots for movement as desired)

So, knockback is the most easily dealt with, except it has no inspirations to help it. You can get away with just hover, or go with acrobatics.

Immoblization requires the most sacrifice in terms of power slotting (or matches knockback if you go acro for both). But offers 2 viable and different paths for building.

Healing requires the most enhancement slots (you don't need to slot hover and TP both. You can just use base slot hover and 2 slotted TP w/ end reduction to move around in combat). But it is the most restrictive path for building.

I too believe that Grounded should not be a passive but a regeneration toggle, rather like the one in /Stone. Add knock back protection, and - jump, - fly.

This way, there is healing capability within the set, knock back protection, and you can still either go acrobatics or teleport to work around immoblization protection.

If this set has to be given a passive, replace conserve power, mimic the current grouded, and call it Insulated.

At the very least, give lightning field a chance to recover drained endurance from targets to the user.

I still say that MoG needs to be changed to properly represent what Regeneration is and how it feels during play.

MoG should reflect an enhanced version of what the set currently offers and have most of its current design removed.

MoG: click power, should last 3 minutes on 10 (or maybe 12 min timer).
Only able to be activated when at 15% or less health, and provides an instantaneous 50% heal. Which is enhanceable by heal enhancements based on sched B scale.
1000% regen, enhanceable on sched B scale.
25% base resist to all (-psi since Devs don't like Psi resist too much, but it should stay in really) - enhanceable.
High magnitude protection from status effects.
150% base endurance recovery- enhanceable.

Drawbacks:
MoG negates any other form of regeneration, healing, and endurance recovery powers including passives, others within the /Regen set, and outside buffs.
After the power expires, you drop to 10% hp and 0 endurance, and cannot regain endurance or be healed for a breif period (10 seconds?).

Now MoG would never have to be discussed in a Defense scaling thread ever again

The entire mechanic if toggle dropping was quite simply (IOP) implemented incorrectly. Why should a simple "brawl" attack effectively turn off someone's powers? And why does that only in certain parts of the "world".

Look at it this way, playing your character in most of the "game world" brawl doesn't turn off an NPC's powers, so why should this happen vs a PC? Simply because of "PvP balance"? I say hogwash.

There are otherways toggle dropping could have been implemented that is more thematic with how powers work and at the same time work the same in both PvE and PvP.

Yeah but Rage is a click power that can be slowed and thus diminish its use. Also, Rage also is "balanced" by that 10 second period of "You can't do squat".

My bet is that any dev that would consider something like adding a +50% damage boost to a TD would be "Okay so what's the downside to now balance this power".

Then again, I've been wrong before

I wonder if it would be possible to do something else for Blasters. Well, not just Blasters, but any AT really.

Each time an attack is queued and released, the user of said attack gains a small resistance to the damage type of that power. Power Pool powers, Brawl, and temporary powers are not eligible. The buff starts at the activation time and ends once the animation is complete. The resistance doesn't have to be high, but noticeable say 4%.

Since the overlap is almost negligeable, attack combinations really won't stack resistances, but steady attack streams may provide a continuous buff during the cycle.

I have a little something I have been tossing around involving some sort of "skill" system.

The first one is Origin based, and deals with enhancements:
There are three tiers for each origin hereto fore labelled by number.
1. Increased chance on enhancement combinations. A flat % bonus added when enhancements are combined. You're knowledge and consistant usage of enhancements provides you a greather chance to combine enhancements.

2. Enhancement strength boost. A flat bonus % added to the base value of the enhancement. You're increased skill with enhancements allows you to augment an enhancement to greater heights.

3. Adding multiple effects to enhancements. Rather like the HOs, a player can "craft" an enhancement to have multiple effects such as an ACC / Damage SO. You have now gained intimate knowledge of enhancements and can now create enhancements for multiple purposes.

For each tier you must spend a certain amount of influence as your "tuiition". Then effectively use each tier ability multiple times (example tier 1 = 100 successful enhancement combinations) The enhancements are only purchessable at the school. Once the correct requirement has been met for the tier being worked on, the character receives a badge with the appropriate label. This badge opens the door to go to the next tier skill.

Tech: Tinknering (1) Gadgetry (2) Inventing (3)

Science: Experimentation (1) Genetic Alteration (2) Gene Splicing (3)

Magic: Practitioner (1) Spell twister (2) Spell Craft (3)

Natural: Physical Training (1) Physical Improvement (2) Pharmacology (3)

Mutant: DNA Boosing (1) DNA Resequencing (2) DNA Mutation (3)

If "inventions" are being worked on and will be made available for sale, then all tier 2 and 3 crafted enhancements could be sold as well. If not, then the same could apply and only the crafter may use the modified enhancements.

Also, following a similar line one for costumes:

Tailoring:

Dyes (1) You gain knowledge about color dyes applicable to superhero clothing. You can now change color slots for a worn costume.

Designing (2) You learn about the nuances of fashion and are able to coordinate costumes. You can now change slot options for each costume slot.

Visual Enhancer (3) You have gained knowledge in how to operate the special equipment that releases the auras of those with special abilities. You know can apply the any of the auras.

With the Tailor skill tree, another requirement may be to spend prestige on proper equipment to have in a base, and influence on the costume dies. The number / badge requirement can be applied to each one as well.

I've posted the following before, and I still stand by my idea:

Defiance should not be + damage + acc as the Blaster's health goes down. At later levels in the game, it is so situational to really make use of this benefit. Instead, Defiance should allow all Blaster attacks to have an unresisted portion of damage like PvP.

The baseline for unresisted damage should be 10%.
AoE = baseline so 10% of the AoE damage is unresisted.

Cones +5% unresisted damage for a total of 15%

Single target melee attacks: +10% unresisted damage for a total of 20%.

Single target ranged attacks: +15% unresisted damage for a total of 25%.

AR and Archery should be given an additional +5% unresisted damage in each category,

Further more, in lue of toggle dropping the way it is now, every attack that has a status effect should have a bonus for that status effect to occur which matches the % of unresisted damage. If the effect lands, the status effect is unresisted. This should be for both PvE and PvP.

Other changes would be as previously suggested by others, any power in a Blaster secondary that is a point blank status effect (Ice slick etc...) should be given a range.

/Fire is in need of serious help though. This secondary has very little utility powers.
Blazing Aura should be changed. Keep it a toggle and call it Smoke Screen. Give it a similar animation to Steamy Mist from the Storm set, but make the smoke darker. Smoke Screen acts like Steamy Mist in that it has a stealth component. The effects of the power should be simlar to that of Cloaking device.

Burn is a poor power for all the ATs that use it. Burn should be changed. Each burn patch that is laid should immediately cast a less damaging, but longer lasting version of Incinerate. This Incinerate effect should pulse 3 times throughout the duration of Burn: The begining, middle, and at its end. The fear effect can stay. This way any mob hit by Burn will still take damage when they leave it. The Tanker and Brute version should have a Taunt component to the Incinerate effect that lasts longer than the fear so that mobs return and stop outside the burn patch.

I still say Defiance needs to be based on what Blasters are designed to do, attack, not soak damage.

That being said, the Defiance bar should raise everytime a Blaster attacks, just let it build even slower than say, Domination. Once it is full, click the Defiance button, and obtain a +30% accuracy, +250% damage buff to all attacks for its duration. Which should be very short, even shorter than domination.

The problem is that defense sets were at more risk vs higher level / con mobs when compared to resist sets.

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a massive spawn of bad guys

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Thats the main kicker so many people are having a problem with. The number of bad guys Tanks can take on has changed dramatically from I4 to now.

The Tanker that is complained about the most? Invulnerability. Probably because it is one of the most common tank types around. Also it experienced the most down grade changes during these past issues.

The question is, do the players need to redefine their perception of what a Tanker can now do and let go of the past?

Or, is it that other ATs (at a similar level to given established Tank) can take on the same number of villians **with the same style of tactics** and out tank a Tanker? - This has yet to be proven true. Plenty of opinion and speculation, but no proof.

The other issue is how the Tank does its job. There have been a ton of ideas thrown around out there, many repeated in this thread and a few other recent ones like it.

Yet Tanks are left with the same old, I protect the team by gaining agro via Taunt (or Taunting abilities w/in my powers) and absorb damage.

Of course the only suggestion that I have seen that would help a Tank solo better is the idea where Gauntlet is changes so that as a Tank's health goes down, their Taunt factor in the attacks and auras goes up as well as their defense / resists.

The rest are more team-centric in nature though.

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Shouldn't scrappers have the same problem as tankers i.e. they hit stuff and get hit? Tho, they don't seem that they do. Is their "coolness" factor merely a function of their higher dmg?

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OK I am not going to speak to the coolness factor. But just in terms of why don't scrappers have the same problems... the idea is that both scrappers and tankers (and to an extent blasters) are one-trick ponies. Tankers absorb damage; scrappers deal it out. So why are tankers more unhappy?

I think the reason is that the one trick scrappers have is ACTIVE, and the trick that tankers have is PASSIVE. And for most players, active > passive in terms of fun.

F

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Actually, scrappers aren't exactly one trick ponies. While yes they do have high offensive capability, they can also actually tank for small groups, or for larger groups with plenty of assistance. While their ability to Tank the way a Tanker can is no where near as good and it does require more of a team effort for a Scrapper to do so.

Also, I would not call the current Tanker passive in its role. The old stand in one place and only hit Taunt when it recharges (Taunt-bot) while still possible is certainly no where near the potential a Tanker can reach.

With Gauntlet and Aura-voke, a Tanker is much more active in its role than it used to be before these tools were added to the AT.

One could also point out that a Tanker is not only a meatshield, but in effect is a form of control. By keeping enemies focused on itself, the Tanker effectively removes those enemies from combat for the rest of the team to handle either what is left, or take out what the Tanker is "cotrolling".

Now do not take this as a statement that Tankers are as good at controlling in the sence a Controller is. The 2 ATs use distinctively differnt abilities to control, and one would note that the Tanker version of controlling can place the Tanker at risk more so over that of a controller (using more than just group immoblize )

A contoller is not a one trick pony either. As it can both control and defend.

A defender is probably the most versatile. Most sets (contrary to the many players out there that ask R U H3al0R ?!) can be used to buff, debuff, and / or control. They can also be used offensively in conjuction with their debuffs / buffs. While the offense is no where near as high or efficient as Blasters, many set combos can be quite effective at damage dealing.

The only true one-trick pony is a Blaster. While some can "blap" they are no where near the in-melee capability of a scrapper. However, given the proper assistance, I have seen high level blasters actually "scrap or *tank*" for small man (2-3) teams. Truly impressive. However, within their own AT, currently cannot perform a multi-function like the other hero ATs.

Actually, something is already being looked into for this. It may not be something like you want were you are left with 25% hitpoints, more likely 1 hitpoint, but at least one shotting is being looked into .

Sorry Statesman but agro cap is 17.

First 17 posters can only post to Statesman.

Everyone else, run amok.

Hmm.... not quite spies
likes shadows.............
/guesses to self: probably still withing the comic book genre...
City of Vigliantes?

From my brief testing last night, I suspect that /regen will be horrid on an 8 man team without a consistant baby sitter.

QR is one of the last few great perks of /regen. Yeah I have a feeling there will be nerf again for /regen in the future. I mean, its only been nerfed, what, every issue to date?

It has become a matter of fact for me that when an issue is due, /regen is getting a nerf.