Teeto_K
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Posts
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Joined
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I'm in favor of raising the blaster HP cap. But, similarly, I'm in favor of raising EVERY AT's HP cap.
+HP is possibly the ONLY non-broken form of Mitigation we have in this game. Contrast it with, Defense and Resistance, both of which give accelerating returns, each point giving more and more survival time than the previous until near the cap gaining even 5 points of defense doubles your lifespan. Meanwhile, Each HP point you gain increases your Health bar in a linear fashion. Having twice as much HP means it takes twice as much DPS to kill you in the same amount of time.
I'm strongly in favor of not only increasing blaster HP cap to +100% above base, but doing the same for ALL AT's. Mostly for the sake of making Frostworks good.
Those are my 2 cents. -
No way man this is TOTALLY exactly what I love about mission architect. For instance: I like blowing up robots. So what do I do? Build a custom villain group out of Rikti Drones, Arachnos Tarantulas, Warhulks, and anything else I can find that explodes, and go to town.
Build horrible villain groups out of cross buffing enemies, enemies that spam AOE's, holds, endurance drains, quicksand, and more, then make a timed escort mission for a melee aggressive AI ally with no attack powers.
All this and more. I'm no writer, but I like designing missions. Sometimes with a very loose definition of "design". -
I'm actually in the process of rebuilding my own Fire/Stone tanker, and have been giving him a bit of play recently. Here are the things that jump off the page at me about your build:
Blazing Aura undersold: As an offensive tool, standing in melee of one enemy with BA on will do better DPE than attacking it with a more "typical" click based attack. Every enemy beyond the first is basically free damage. Not to mention it's a no-brain aggro-holder for everything near you. Slotted as you have it, counting your +Acc set bonuses, you'll have roughly a 68% chance to hit +2s, and a 58% chance to hit +3's, making it unreliable as an aggro grabber/holder, and of course lack luster as a damage power.
No Fault: Nothin says stop like fault. Everything falls, and heavily slotted, the minions and half the leuts stay stunned for almost the amount of time it takes to recharge. Yeah minions aren't that scary, but Fault into Tremor is a beautiful combo for stopping the damage temporarily. Every second that ticks by, you're closer to your next healing flames.
6 slotted Crushing Impacts: The set has good bonuses all around, but unless you are really enamoured of the 5% psi res it's getting you, I'd drop either the Dam/Rech or the Dam/End from it, depending on your build's needs end-wise. Try taking out the enhancers in mids and see if you're still happy with the +Enhancement values. If you like what you see, this gets you 2 slots.
3 slotted Temp Protection: The tangible benefit 99% of the time will be 5% extra cold resist, bringing you from 25% to 30%, roughly. If you're willing to give that up, it gets you 2 slots. You could ALSO dump a slot from one of your toggles, since you're not building +Def, I wouldn't put the Steadfast +Def in the build, and put one of the Steadfast KB protections in Temp Protection instead, netting a third slot.
Burn's Slotting: I know you're tossing together a motley assortment of enhancers for +Enhancement value, and I noticed you put a Dam/End/Rech enhancer in there. Stop and look at burn's End cost: It's 5.2, the same as Stone Fist. It is possibly the best DPE attack in the game. If/When you start spending the 5 slots I just saved you (:P), consider focusing solely on Accuracy, Damage, and Recharge. Nevermind the endurance, even against a single target it's more than twice as efficient as any other attack you got. Just imagine it has 250% endurance reduction pre-slotted into it. That feeling should tide you over.
Res/End/Rech in +Resist armors: So, removing this 1 enhancer from all 3 +Resist shields loses you: 2.8 resistance to physical, 15% stun resistance, and gains you 3 slots. It's up to you if taking roughly 10% more damage from physical damage is worth that trade. I'm not sure it is, but I'm tossing it out there because it's a possibility.
I'm not sure what I'd do with 8 more slots and 10% more incoming physical damage, or 5 more slots without the extra damage, but maybe you do. Happy hunting, and good luck! -
Yeah for a long time, my gales seem to randomly just not have any oomph, hurling enemies all of 5 or 6 feet. I couldn't put a finger on when, because my dates with storm summoning, until recently, have been torrid and brief, and infrequent, but some time between my Storm/Energy defender and my Illusion/Storm controller, something happened.
I ... think?
Issues like this are why I've always put myself on the "Doesn't like Ragdolling on living targets" list, though I've no issues with it for corpses. It's a hotbed for difficult to quantify problems, and inability to quantify often means complaints fall on deaf ears or are handwaved.
I still yearn for the pre-ragdoll days, when knocks could be chained, knockback was unsupressed, and trolls didn't hide inside walls. ; _ ; -
What I'm wondering is, how does the "Designated Helper" code interact with betraying allies? If he betrays, does he keep his dissallowance from using non-standard-attack powers?
If not, I have a fun idea that I should mess around with...
Step 1: Fill mission with Escorts to a particular objective, then glowies that make each of them betray. The result: Fully customizable royal rumbles with bosses, AV's, EB's, Author Self-Inserts, whatever you can imagine!
Ever wanted to fight every version of Marcus Cole at once? Now you can! (Except for the bit where some of them aren't in MA, maybe?)
Solo showdown with the Freedom Phalanx? Or bringing a team? Why not!
I was kind of inspired by the "You're cloning yourself" villainside arc, that one mission where you can set up a massive ambush of 8 boss level doppelgangers, it seemed like a fun time. (Until I played it with my Pistols/Time defender, 8x Time's Juncture is pure pain). Making your own danger room sounds like a hoot, don't it? -
I know it's a lot of work hashing these up, but for what it's worth, I always get a little excited from seeing this thread pop back up to the top of the forum, and it never dissapoints.
Your involved, humourous, and personal review style make for entertaining reading, so thankyou very much. -
Quote:One doesn't presently exist. But since [Power Build Up] and [Power Boost] are capable of buffing defense buffing, then a set bonus could be built.
Unfortunately, there isn't a single (de)buff that's common to (de)buff sets. Not one. Healing is as universal as it gets. Further, there is, as far as I know, no set bonus that would buff FF's ability to buff defense.
+Strength to: Defense, Tohit, Healing, Regeneration, Endurance, Recovery and Movement, would affect every buff AND debuff that wasn't flagged "Unaffected by buffs", which frankly, no set bonus could help anyhow.
Of course, that whole suite still leaves sonic-resonance out in the cold, unless the duration of set bonuses' buffs is long enough that Liquefy would inherit the buff for a signifigant period of time.
Oh well. Better change it into an endurance discount bonus. Defenders love endurance discounts, right? -
Might as well pack this in here, because forum searching isn't turning up much: Is there anyplace where the # of ticks on the new DOT's or the damage values per tick are listed?
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Quote:That's as may be, but frankly, I'm in favor of buffing all of the blaster Tier 3's to being unequivocally better than the tier 1 and 2's. It really rankles me that so many of them are just plain bad or worse than the basic attacks. A high damaging 100% mag 3 hold is pretty cool, so I'm not asking for it to be better than Blaze. But when the best DPA in your blast set is Charged Bolts, something is wrong. Power Burst should be to blasters as Headsplitter is to scrappers. Instead it underwhelms.
Giving Tesla Cage the same damage as Cosmic Burst would essentially make it equally useful to Cosmic Burst. The difference between a 2.24 second animation and a 2.37 second animation is pretty much unnoticeable... you'd have a marginally worse DPA but a longer range and the DPA difference would be slight. If I can get a T3 blast that has a guaranteed hold or stun and DPA 5-10% lower than my T1-2 attacks I'll gladly use it (though I'll also probably grab a high DPA melee attack to sub in when I don't need the mitigation and can survive being in melee).
Of course, I got so caught up in Tesla Cage that I never got the chance to address the OP.
Electric Blast has its issues, but those issues can be shored up by your choice of secondary. It's not only possible to play an Electic blaster, but you can in fact thrive. Just about any secondary besides devices is going to have suitable single target options to help with electic blast's issues there, and Mental and Fire both have solid AOE options.
My own Electic blaster is Elec/Fire, and uses Fire Sword and Ring Of Fire to round out her single target, and skips Short Circuit in favor of Combustion, Fire Sword Circle, and Burn, to help with AOE. Hot Feet and Blazing aura do a lot there too, especially since all of the AOE choices are long animating. The end result is a very well rounded blaster. If someone on the team is outdamaging her, they're working for it, and have earned it. -
Edited to address:
Quote:I always assume that when people say "Turn it into a tier 3 blast", they mean like Cosmic Burst, it's estranged cousin, who also has a 100% reliable mag 3 mez packed into it, along with it dealing repsectable damage. I know I wouldn't advocate taking the hold out of this power, or reducing it in any way. Because my own Electric Blast users (A Kinetic defender and a Electric/Fire blaster) lean on it heavily to solo well. In fact, avoiding nerfing the hold-ability of Tesla Cage is part of why this next bit is so important:You can take the third hold away from my Elec^3's cold dead hands, sir.
But this, this is important, and deserves stressing. I find my own Elec/Fire blaster favoring Char as a hold because all that extra "Hands up time" is potentially deadly, and further, that longish animation has ramifications for damage powers that are even further reaching.Quote:Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Sure, if you also cut the cast time down and make the animation way less stupid.
Tesla Cage currently has the same recharge as, and 0.5% more mez duration than Cosmic Burst, with roughly 5% longer animation.
If nothing but the damage and endurance costs were changed, it would be changed to a scale 2 attack like Power Burst and Cosmic Burst, but possibly the longest animating one of all, aside from perhaps Shout: It would have less DPA than the other 2 electric blasts, Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt, making it an inferior addition to an already full attack chain, compared to most of the melee options existing in blaster secondaries.
Mind you, this buff wouldn't be completely useless: It would round out ranged attack based chains for situations where closing to melee is impractical, or would take longer than simply standing and firing. Devices users, of course, would benefit greatly, as would people who prefer to stay ranged focused and build that way.
But if we really wanna "Buff Electricity's Damage" in the most broad case, without shortening that animation we would have to compromise on it's mezzing capabilities: To get the DPA up higher than the Tier-1 and 2 blasts, we'd need to push Tesla Cage's damage and recharge up into a higher bracket, such as that occupied by Bitter Ice Blast, which would make Tesla Cage edge out Charged Bolts on DPA, or perhaps something more extreme, such as Bone Smasher? Though this is getting into dangerous territory, as you approach snipe level damage from a "normal" blast, you begin to raise the question of "why snipe at all", never mind the fact that the rest of the game already poses this question too often as it is.
The longer recharge is not something that will be too easy to sell to people who currently count on the power as a tool to enable soloing (their hands really would be cold and dead), and have it slotted for holding. And thus, it would be a hard sell to the developers (cottages abound).
So getting that animation time cut down in conjunction with a damage buff, even by a fraction of a second, is critical. Because it gets us the meaningfully higher DPA, without hampering it's usability as a mez by trying to bump up it's damage scale by increasing its recharge.
People have gotten buffs to SCRAPPER damage sets based on similar logic, and they're SCRAPPERS for crying out loud, I don't see why blasters couldn't follow suit. -
You add 25% resist to 0% resist totalling 25%, and you live 1/3 longer, it takes 134 damage to kill your 100 hitpoints, where before it took 100 damage to do so.
You add 25% resist to 50% resist and you live 2x longer, it takes 400 damage to kill your 100 hitpoints, where before it took 200 damage to do so.
Same 25% resist, but a marked difference the difference it makes.
And yes, Regeneration, +Health, and Resistance and Defense all interact in interesting ways. To take all the relevant parts together, it would look something like:
( HP per second from Heals and Regeneration ) x ( 100% / Resist ) x ( 100% / ( Effective_Defense* / (Expected_Softcap + 5)) = Indefinitely_survivable_incoming_DPS
* Your effective defense being your defense score, but capped if it exceeds Expected_Softcap for a given scenario
Indefinitely_survivable_DPS - Actual_Expected_DPS = Net_DPS_Suffered
If Net_DPS_Suffered > 0 then Seconds_to_live = Maximum_Health / Net_DPS_Suffered
Quote:But you do raise an important question: Does additional recharge buffing benefit (IH + MOG + DP + Recon) more, or does it benefit Healing Flames more?But Teeto, do you really expect me to double check if your brackets and math all check out while I'm being pounded on by multiple damage types from multiple attack vectors, all while suffering a fluctuating level of defense debuffs and also while I myself reduce that input by killing enemies?
"No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
Since Recon and Healing Flames share the same base heal, but Healing Flames recharges in 40 seconds rather than Recon's 60, we can simplify this:
For every 2 Reconstructions, you get 3 Healing Flames. So that's 1 extra Healing Flames that Reconstruction cannot compete with. So it's 1 out of every 3 of your Healing Flames against Mog, IH, and DP in a no-holds barred cage match. 4 powers will enter: None will ever leave because none of them do any damage. Who comes out on top!?
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I don't know how much this will mitigate things for Dark Armor, but I know that on my firey aura characters, the bigger they are, the more "spread out" the flames are, and consequently, the more visible they are under all that fire.
You might try making your character inordinately huge, if at all applicable. -
So I'm tossing around a build for my Ice Blaster, and I run into this problem that basically rears it's ugly head and makes me sad every time I play him:
I never use ice storm. On big teams, the much vaunted AOE punch of the power feels like by the time I set it up and get it ticking away, the team has melted everything but the bosses and it's not worth the effort. Never mind the risk of scatter and such. Solo, the power doesn't seem to perform either: Yes, it is a lot of damage in total, but, Between static discharge, Frost breath, and my single target output, it gets washed out in the blitzkrieg and doesn't feel like it's contributing. Again, the scatter making second-wave AOE's harder to line up.
So, I'm respeccing out of it, and replacing it with the previously skipped Ice Blast: Previously I had left it out because the occasional gaps in my single-target chain could easily be filled with re-upping buffs, firing cones, Holds, and other useful things. I'm not a scrapper after all, and wether teamed or alone, I've got more on my hands than grinding down the biggest HP bar.
Buuuut, picking it back up gets me a more complete ranged chain (Though I doubt gapless), better leverage of Defiance's "use attacks while mezzed" feature, and finally something to fill in the gaps when I really DON'T have anything better to do in my single target grind-down.
In the build, they're both being used to chase the same 6.25% recharge bonus, if I was willing to put in the hours for purples, maybe I'd not see them as being so interchangeable, but my budget won't support that.
So the question is: Is this a terrible idea? Or have other ice blasters become as dissilusioned with our rainy crackly "1-generator" as I have? -
Quote:Because even at their all time highs in salvage prices, the inf value of Tickets converted into Salvage is much lower than the inf value of Tickets converted into recipes.
I sometimes wonder why people buy the 'gotta have it nao' Uncommon and Rare salvage from the market at anywhere between 50k - 2million inf, when you can buy ALL of those from AE with Tickets (-gasp- you mean tickets in mass means i can save a few million?)
A Post by TopDoc a while back before the recent salvage crash put the optimal value of a ticket at about 12,000 - 14,000 influence when converted into various kinds of Bronze recipe rolls. Even at the minimum, that makes rolling common "cost" 96,000 inf, Uncommon 960,000 inf, and rare 6,480,000. Of the 3 salvage options, only common was EVER even close in value to the value of recipes, and really only in the mid-level arcanes. -
I will commend the developers on creating a more merciful fix than the one I'd have implemented.
I'd have removed XP and Tickets from Ambushes all together.
And had XP and rewards in MA multiplied by your Combat Level divided by your Security level, if combat level was lower than 10. (AKA: 1/50th of normal rewards if exemplared to level 1)
Would have single-handedly murdered Exemplar based and Ambush based farms in one swoop. In fact, applied to the real game, the exemplaring change would have a similar effect on DFB spamming, without affecting TF's, which I would consider a happy bonus.
I'm not opposed to farming per se, I'm opposed to the gap between the top end and the average being based on leveraging the aggro cap to create a queue of enemies who patiently wait to be mowed down. -
Quote:Really, All you needed were 51's for the SO's, since you could ++ them with store bought enhancements. I remember cherishing every 51 and 52 drop, almost more so than the 53's, since those tended to be AV drops and constrained to the power-10 enhancements.Originally Posted by Lothic
It's funny how things change - next to Hami-O's there was a time when the lvl 53 SOs were effectively the most valuable enhancements in the game.
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Quote:I recall when I21 went live, and I found myself in posession of a dozen or more additional salvage slots, I breathed a sigh of relief. But it also seems like my Salvage menu button looks more like Salvage a lot more often.
The overall salvage drop rate has increased by around 50%, and the double drops alone aren't enough to account for that.
A 50% drop rate increase is surprising, but now that you mention it, I'm not exactly disbelieving. It certainly FEELS like my inventory maxes out faster. My brother who recently resubbed has been filling up with similar alacrity. I am curious to the reasoning behind such a marked increase. -
It's a dismal prognosis, but unfortunately, it's as true as it can get. Complicating factors include:
F2P'rs can't hand-trade, so you can't even dump them on unsuspecting teamates.
F2P'rs can't use the auction house, so you can't even post them in the vain hope that they'll move.
The odd person here or there will probably dump enough money in the game to unlock trading, but it's not likely they'll get far enough progressed to unlock the auction house, which requires 105 dollars spent on the game.
Perhaps at a later date, when we see more Premiums who've invested more heavily, there may be a market for those premiums trapped between Tier 4 and Tier 7, but for now, I'd say it looks bleak. -
Healing Enhancements tend to increase the following 3 things:
The Strength of Healing powers.
The Strength of Regeneration Buffs.
The Strength of Maximum Hit Point buffs.
Something that muddies the water however, is the fact that in the case of Regeneration Buffs and Max Hitpoint buffs, there are several powers for whom some or all of the buff is unenhanceable.
[Integration] being a straight up case: A portion of its buff is enhanceable, but another portion is unenhanceable. Looking up the [Power Name] info usually will let you see both parts of the buff and which part is going to get enhanced. Another example is [Dull Pain].
This isn't true of ALL such buffs, but it is true for several prominent ones. -
Well I WAS going to suggest a Rad/Fire/Mu blaster, but Fire Manipulation can moderately easily be substituted with Mental Manipulation.
3 cones in the form of Psychic Scream, Electron Haze, and Static Discharge.
2 Targetted AOE's in the form of Neutron Bomb and Electrifying Fences.
2 PBAOE's in the form of Irradiate and Psychic Shockwave.
Then you take Atomic Blast and Spring Attack.
This is quite literally more AOE's than you'll reasonably be able to use. But don't let petty details like "reason" stop you! You'll have 5 for using from range, and 4 you can use in melee. VERSATILITY! -
Quote:Well, lets use a real-world example of slotting, rather than off the cuff "theoretical" numbers, if we're gonna be specific.Originally Posted by DarkSideLeague
Just out of curiosity, what would the endurance drain numbers be like with Musculature Radial Paragon? (I know that's post 50, but an extra 33% enhancement [2/3s ED immune] might make a difference against +3s)
Effiacy Adaptor, the most "dedicated" End-Mod set, slotted up with level 50 IO's to 6 slots, gets you 101.47% end mod enhancement. If you leave out the "Effiacy Adaptor: End Mod" enhancement, you're still sitting at 95.11.
Adding Musculature Radial Paragon boosts these numbers to:
5 Slotted with Musculature: 118.76% enhancement
6 Slotted with Musculature: 125.12% enhancement
Either slotting is reasonable, because you might be chasing that 5% recharge bonus for the 6th slot, OR, you might just be in it for the other bonuses if you already have 5 of those, and you might rather put a Recharge reduction, or Endmod/Recharge from another set, or something. I don't have the patience to hash out EVERY reasonable slotting ever concieved. (Even though End/Rech in the 6th slot is probably what I'd use, go download mids. :P )
So what do these numbers mean?
5 Slotted with Musculature:
Short Circuit = -76.56% endurance drained
Power Sink = -76.56% endurance drained
Total = 153.12
6 Slotted with Musculature:
Short Circuit = -78.79% endurance drained
Power Sink = -78.79% endurance drained
Total = 157.58
So maybe that 6th slot is looking a little dissapointing. I dunno: TO THE PURPLE PATCH!
Against +0's (100% effect): 5 slots 153.12, 6 slots 157.58 I totally already typed this!
Against +1's (90% effect): 5 slots 137.81, 6 slots 141.82
Against +2's (80% effect): 5 slots 122.5, 6 slots 126.06
Against +3's (65% effect): 5 slots 99.52, 6 slots 102.43
Against +4's (48% effect): 5 slots 73.5, 6 slots 75.64
Against +5's (30% effect): 5 slots 45.93, 6 slots 47.274
So yeah, things get a lot more hopeful with musculature. For what it's worth, Clarion Radial Epiphany combined with Musculature Radial Paragon will make each of these powers drain 106.8% endurance, for a total of 213.6%, which against +4's will STILL drain 102.53% endurance. It's still not very hopeful against +5's, but, meh, stop fighting +5's you silly goose. -
The biggest "nerf" to Endurance draining on electric blast, that I can think of, was the introduction of Enhancement Diversification.
Going from being able to slot Short Circuit for +200% Endurance Modification (Issue 5 and earlier) down to about 95% Endurance modification (Issue 6 and later) caused 2 problems for short circuit operating alone:
1: It no longer can fully drain equal leveled (+0) enemies in one shot, on its own.
2: It's effectiveness alone against +3 or higher enemies is drastically reduced, since it takes 3 applications to achieve full drain, even fully slotted (+95%), without any other powers helping it out.
Luckily for you, you are Elec/Elec, and have some help for Short Circuit in the form of Power Sink:
You basically NEED power sink and short circuit both to fully drain targets, and both to be fully slotted (+95%), and even then, the amount of combined drain is going to be penalized by hitting higher level targets:
Combined drain values of Power Sink and Short Circuit, each slotted to +95% endurance modification
+0: 132.6% drain
+1: 119.34% drain
+2: 106.08% drain
+3: 86.19% drain (NOT FULL)
+4: 63.648% drain (NOT EVEN CLOSE)
Ball lightning can add a few points to these, but since you're likely using it as a damage power, it's few points of drain aren't going to help much in the spots where you need it, the +3 and +4 range.
But, as far as I can tell, Enhancement Diversification is the only game change in the game that reduced the effectiveness of endurance drain. It was potentially a BIG reduction though, depending on your powersets and your ability to supplement Elec's draining abilities. About the only blaster secondaries that got off easy (that I can think of off hand) were Energy and Electric, due mostly to Power Sink and Lightning Field for Elec, and Power Boost for energy.
If you're looking for a way to boost drain, an Oft overlooked power is Tesla Cage: It has a -100% recovery debuff that is easily permable and cheaper to maintain on bosses than spamming Short Circuit. Slotting Endurance Mods increases the strength of recovery debuffs, allowing you to floor the recovery of even +3 bosses, and NEARLY floor the recovery of +4's. This can make plinking away at them, even if you're not holding them, a much safer prospect. Perhaps not so attractive for you though, since Shocking Grasp + Tesla Cage are much more immediately effective than trying to drain them.
As far as Short Circuit and Ball Lightning no longer returning endurance, to the best of my knowledge they never had this ability. I recall being dissapointed that was never added to them, because of how fun +End per target hit would be in basic AOE's. A beautiful dream, but not one that ever saw the light of day.
Good luck and cheers, Elec blasting can be a uniquely difficult experience, but also uniquely rewarding. -
Quote:Issue 21 has, for subscribers, who spend only 15 dollars:
So yes, you are spending money and your money is not going as far as it used to
1 new free powerset
1 low level trial
1 incarnate trial
1 new mini-tf story arc every month
1 or 2 new powersets proliferated to all but one archetype.
The Imperial Defense costume set.
First Ward and all of its content.
New tutorial
New Starter arcs and "extended training arcs".
Whatever I wanna spend 400 points on.
Find me an issue release in recent times that stacks up against that. When was I getting more for my money? -
So far my favorite thing I've done with it is:
Phantom Army - Lightning Storm - Tornado - Water Spout - Burn Out - Lightning Storm - Tornado - Water Spout
How EFFECTIVE this particular string of powers is is up for debate, but the sheer mad cackling it inspired in me was well worth the respec to fit it in. -
Well, there's a quick answer to "Why not knockdown", how strong of a reason you consider it is up to you:
KnockDOWN is achieved by reducing the magnitude of a knockback. Changing a knockback power to knockdown puts it below the protection threshold of more targets. If something has Mag 4 protection, You need mag 4 to even budge it. To compare, it's like suddenly changing a Controller's hold to be Mag 2. It suddenly doesn't work on a lot of stuff.
Why not knock UP? Well, it doesn't quite share this problem with knockdown: A VERY high Knockup magnitude still lands the enemy relatively close to where they were lifted from, while still overcoming protection. Below a certain threshold, the Ragdoll system doesn't even kick in, and instead it uses the same knock mechanics that player-knocking uses, which for a knock-up, will ground you exactly where you were lifted from unless you were in some kind of airborne lateral movement.
There's still a reason: It would look doofy. Some powers shouldn't knock up, not based on what they do, visually. Gale, Force Bolt, Nova, all 3 would look strange if they hurled enemies straight UP instead of away. I can't think of others, and maybe they don't exist, but it's a legitimate concern for the developers, even if the players consider it irrelevant. (See: No emotes with a weapon/shield out because of clipping, No Pink Ice because Ice_Is_Not_Pink_in_Paragon.txt was passed into law.)
The final reason is that you actually do sometimes want to move an entire spawn over THAT way, and that should not be the sole province of players with Force Bubble and Hurricane.