The_Foo

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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.

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Quoted from Statesman.

And then he gave it to brutes.


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No, they tried to give it to Tanks and found it was obscenely overpowered (look at the output Brutes can do and imagine that with Tanker defenses even now).

It's not as though they stole something from Tanks to give to Brutes; they just repurposed an idea they couldn't make work with Tanks.

Be angry about the fact that they haven't even tried to fix #3 on that list, and have subsequently hacked away at #1 and #2, not about something they actually haven't done.

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Exactly. They tried it and it was overpowered on a tank.

The fixed #1. I don't really feel compelled to comment on #2 at this time. #3 was a non-issue in my mind. Tankers have all kinds of great knockup/down/back and disorients attached to their attacks. Some are even AoE. Tanks can play the front-man of most teams. What's not comic-booky about that?

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If you're going to define the comic book brick as someone with knockdown and knockup powers, then that's really all there is to say, isn't it?

The difference between a Tanker and a comic Brick is the difference between an Armoured Personnel Carrier and an actual Tank.

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I agree with what UberGuy said.

Too often people think of pool powers only in relation to specific ATs (or even subsets of ATs) rather than all ATs.

Aid Self is not overpowered on my fire blaster that has it. It's a tool that helps him survive and must be used within the limits described above. He has nothing else to fall back on when solo, save for respites, unlike many (but not all) melee characters who may already have a self-heal.

On the other hand, my ice blaster does not use Aid Self because he uses his holds to help mitigate damage in a way that the fire blaster can't.

The system works. Let's leave it as is, please.

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Now give your Ice Blaster Aid Self. Is that now balanced in comparison to your Fire Blaster?

Shouldn't the Fire Blaster be given some benefit such that taking Aid Self isn't required to bring him on par with the Ice Blaster?

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Well, I have to chime in here that I think the notion of measuring AS as overpowered because of its raw HP/second healed seems overly limited.

I like to compare AS to Reconstruction, which is a 25% heal every 60 seconds. In comparison, AS is a 20% heal every 20 seconds. Normalizing those comes out to:

Recons: 0.416%/sec
AS: 1%/sec

I'll grant that this is a pretty hefty numerical difference. But let's look at it for a second in a more wholistic view.

*) You have to stray into a power pool and take another power. If you're a melee character, you probably have very limited use for this power choice. (Tankers actually make effective healers with Aid Other, however.)
*) Aid Self has a 3+ second activation, where you can do nothing but move (if you reduced the interrupt time)
*) Cannot be activated in motion at all. You have to stop moving to activate it.
*) Cannot be used in most damage fields, other fast DoTs or pulsing effects

Compare that to a Reconstruction

*) In-powerset power with no prerequiste (other than being a certain minimum level)
*) Can be used on the move. The animation does not root the caster
*) < 1 second activation

Do those differences warrant a 2.4 factor in healing/sec? I don't know, but I can see it being better than Reconstruction in that raw metric because of the other differences.

Finally, Aid Self is one of the few self mitigations accessible to some non-armored ATs, such as Blasters. Nerfing it bearing in mind what armored sets can do (which is arguably much more useful to them) would be a hard, hard nerf on these people. And it sounds like that might be one reason they're not doing it.

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Yes, this is all true, but recall that you're measuring it against a power from a powerset that's entire defense is based upon healing itself!

It's like saying the Tylenol III you can buy in the store isn't overpowered in comparison to the version a Doctor has access to. Well, sure, but everyone can get it, unlike that specialised version.

Compare the difference between an SR Scrapper with and without. Heck, compare an character with Aid Self to another with SR based solely on how long the two can take incoming damage when not fighting (assuming both have the same HP).

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Aid Self is over-powered.

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ZOMG!


Seriously, though: isn't this all just a merry-go-round at this point? Aren't you (the Dev team) just letting Aid Self fill in the cracks that have appeared in game? Wouldn't it be better to actually get in there and address these sorts of issues so that you can change Aid Self and at the same time point and say, "but look at the changes we made to survivability overall!" when you do it?

Is it really fair that an SR Scrapper with Aid Self is about as effective as a Fire Tank that doesn't stray from their primary? Doesn't Aid Self on a Brute make a mockery of the Brute vs. Tank comparison?

Maybe you can't reply candidly in this venue, but this does seem like a case where everyone's trying very hard not to point out the pink elephant in the room.

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You're going to tell me to go smash something again, aren't you?

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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.

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Quoted from Statesman.

And then he gave it to brutes.


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No, they tried to give it to Tanks and found it was obscenely overpowered (look at the output Brutes can do and imagine that with Tanker defenses even now).

It's not as though they stole something from Tanks to give to Brutes; they just repurposed an idea they couldn't make work with Tanks.

Be angry about the fact that they haven't even tried to fix #3 on that list, and have subsequently hacked away at #1 and #2, not about something they actually haven't done.

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Nope, not changed.

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...yet?

DundunDUN!

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And that's if I keep them around me, shooting their craptastic bows, and shuriken. Not sending them off to take out the threat, using their awsome melee abilities.

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You could always walk them into melee yourself. They are on Follow.

[/ QUOTE ]Hmmm, Dokunoichi stays out of melee range, poisoning her targets, while my ninja concentrate all attacks on that one target, when that one dies, I pick a target, command them to attack, poison it, and kill it. I repeat this process till my enemies are dead. I need all my ninja to be doing this, not hanging around me.

Taunt would be better.

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Well, sure, if you refuse to change your playstyle.

Have you considered the radius on this? Does anyone know, offhand what the raduis for Supremacy is?

Next time you log in, check for the Supremacy buff icon next to your pets' names, then tell them to stay and back away slowly. I suspect you don't have to be standing right on top of your minions for it to kick in. You've probably got a good distance outside of melee range to work with.

And, heck, if you're standing back so far as to not let Supremacy kick in, then your pets really aren't working at full offensive potential anyway, so you're already shooting yourself in the foot.

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Okay, I have only read up to page 15. I still say this power is worthless to melee and a little usefull to ranged. Like Orochi said, ninja need to concentrate on one target, and drop him fast. For that they need to be directed to attack, or they will use those craptastic ranged powers they have.

This is not gonna make the pets the targets of attacks, as it will only take a few more hits to drop the mastermind. A aoe taunt on the pets, or the pets stay alive after you die, and get vengence, would make people think twice about just attacking the mastermind.

In other words, Bodyguard sucks.

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You should really go back and check some of the posts you skipped. "A few more hits" may be higher than you think, according to the math, which is showing MMs suriving 2500 damage worth of AoEs.

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Personally, I don't really think the PvP concerns will matter much, since PvP isn't balanced based on one Vs. one. If you have something you are particularly weak to, teamup with someone who can help you out.

But anyhow, if they decided they wanted to do it, maybe the Devs could make it so:

If the MM is targetted with a TP Foe type power, each Bodyguard has a chance of being picked as the target instead. So, instead of porting you away from your minions, theres a chance they will just snag one of the bodyguards instead.

Just a thought.

[/ QUOTE ]See, now that makes sense.

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Do you realise what kind of precedent that sets? Should my Controller automatically bring Spectral Terror, Phantasm, Decoy Phantasm, and my Phantom Army with me if I'm TPed?

What about a Fire Tank? Should Burn come with him when teleported? Dark Servant? Rain of Fire?

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Do those powers move with you when you go somewhere else? Are those powers the entire crux of your powerset? With the exception of the 3 personal attacks, the MM is physically unable to do anything else with his primary if the pets aren't there. Can the same be said for the powersets you mentioned?

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Okay, so my Phantasm and Phantom Army, who do follow me around, should be TPed with me then, right?

A Mastermind gets to control his pets. That's the tradeoff they make in order to get all those wonderful followers. It's the very nature of the AT to be decentralised. There are positives and negatives to this. Asking that one of the major negatives be removed simply because it gives people a quicker way to defeat you in PvP is ludicrous.

Should a Brute be given 50% Fury at all times in PvP because it's harder to build it than in PvE? Maybe Dominators should always have Domination in PvP, too?

It sounds to me like you really don't agree with having tradeoffs for all the good that having pets gives you.

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2. TP Foe brings the MM and his pets, and the specific target (i.e. the MM, is replaced with a random pet)



I disagree with this, as this negates the usefulness of TP Foe.

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A MMs pets ARE his powers. If you use tp foe on a tank or blaster, do their powers get left behind? A MM's powers should not be left behind by using tp foe on him.



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Could not have said it better myself. With or without bodyguard, this is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

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Do you realise what kind of precedent that sets? Should my Controller automatically bring Spectral Terror, Phantasm, Decoy Phantasm, and my Phantom Army with me if I'm TPed?

What about a Fire Tank? Should Burn come with him when teleported? Dark Servant? Rain of Fire?

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Dr. Corvus, I like the way you crunched the numbers to show the usefulness of Bodyguard.

Personally, my problem with Bodyguard is the fact that it bypasses my entire secondary line. I am a FF secondary. I put bubbles on my minions every 4 minutes to extend their lives and make them more durable. Bodyguard, if implemented as described, will have all of the damage I pass to my minions bypass the bubbles completely! What good is my secondary now?

In PvP, why should any hero target my pets? They are harder to hit than I am, and have more resistance. Now, heroes can pump damage into me, and if I don't have bodyguard set, fine...I die just as fast as I always have (faster because now I can't fade in and out of PFF). If I do have bodyguard set, they can kill my pets by attacking me, and they will kill them FASTER and EASIER than if they attacked them directly. My set doesn't come with a heal, like Dark Miasma, my set depends on PROTECTING my minions and making them harder to kill. All bodyguard does is make my minions EASIER to kill.

I guess if you want to PvP post I7 as an MM, you better have Dark Miasma as your secondary, because FF is going to be pretty worthless.

Yes, bodyguard will extend my life expectancy, but it does so at the cost of my entire secondary.

Suriyama
40 bots and bubbles
Justice

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In PvP, what happens to you now? Presumably, your enemies just ignore your pets and Build Up+Snipe You, or whatever.

Now, if you've got your pets on Defensive/Follow, you're effectively being given up to 75% more HP, drawn from your pets.

Yes, it doesn't really bring your secondary into play, but that's not really different than before, right? Your pets die when you die, and in my experience, it's faster to kill the MM (unless using PFF), and ignore the pets than it is to target the pets.

Is your complaint that bodyguarding won't do anything, or that it won't do enough?

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I think the point was that it's much easier now to take down all the Henchman, leaving the MM WITHOUT Bodyguard to take the full damage from the next attack.

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Anyone who could do that could have one or two shotted the MM without the bodyguard feature anyway.

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So the net result of this change is...?

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They've raised the bar a LOT on what it takes to one-shot a MM. In fact without bodyguard it's not that hard for a Stalker or a Blaster to one or two shot a MM. With Bodyguard, it shouldn't be possible for any player to one-shot a MM, even if they're at the damage cap and get a critical.

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Ok, so now my MM will be two shot. Whoopdy doo.

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"Two shots instead of one? You've just doubled my life expectancy! I HATE YOU!"

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Well, congrat-u- [censored] - lations to you, then. MY force field Mastermind DOES draw aggro because, GASP, I use Force Bolt to keep targets in a state of soft control. GASP! I don't stand by, idly, while my henchmen do all the work. GASP.

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It's a good thing you weren't sarcastic about it, though.

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Sounds like something Tankers should also be able to for their team.

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My tanker has no interest in spreading damage he takes among his team-mates.

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Note, he said "for" not "to", so invert the effect.

Unless, of course, you already understood that and were just being a jerk.

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Dividing a large amount of damage which is focused on the Tanker and dispersing even portions of it among the team could be a viable tactic. Just not one I'm interested in using. There are a lot of Tankers complaining lately about their "survivability"--even on MM threads.

EDIT: Meanwhile, he's clarified what he meant. I think that would be good in a certain Primary, but I don't see absorbing/deflecting damage directed at teammates as being .. what's the word .. characteristic of all Tanker types. That gets into the Defender/debuffer realm, and as someone said -- Tankers have taunts.

Edit2: Actually now that I think about it, Bodyguard as a skill for Tankers does make sense. Sacrifice themselves for a team-mate. Take 2x damage to intercept hits on the Bodyguarded. Something like that.

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There ya go. Now you're getting it.

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Sounds like something Tankers should also be able to for their team.

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My tanker has no interest in spreading damage he takes among his team-mates.

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Note, he said "for" not "to", so invert the effect.

Unless, of course, you already understood that and were just being a jerk.

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Okay, so with 3 henchmen, 100 pts of damage gets spread out as though 5 people were hit: 100/5=20. Henches get 20, you take 40.

So if I have 5 henches, the damage gets dropped to 14.20, so the henches takes 14.2 each and you'd take 28.4?

Basically, you've got almost 70% RES to damage, so long as the henches live?

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MM ... The new tank. Pluse this 70% res is not a toggle and so takes up no endurance to run. Put together a solid attack chain and your in business

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I forgot a pet, though. 3 first tier, 2 second, 1 third = 6, not 5.

Also, don't forget there are downsides. You can't direct them while they're doing this, so it'll be harder to coordinate against a single target, and instead of toggle-dropping, you've got pet deaths (with long recharges).

It should be very interesting against AVs, though, provided they're not tossing out AoEs like Mardi Gras beads.

Okay, so with 3 henchmen, 100 pts of damage gets spread out as though 5 people were hit: 100/5=20. Henches get 20, you take 40.

So if I have 6 henches, the damage gets dropped to 12.50, so the henches takes 12.5 each and you'd take 25?

Basically, you've got 75% RES to damage, so long as the henches live?

*edit* forgot you can get 6 pets total!

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Sounds like a much need hand in the MM's direction

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Sounds like something Tankers should also be able to for their team.

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Especially with the name "Bodyguard".

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Well, we found (and fixed) a problem with guantlet and destructable objects today. Not sure if that addresses this specific issue, but there it is. One step closer.

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Mmm, destructible objects...

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It looks like the devs finally figured out how to count to one.

Single target attacks now hit only one target no matter how many you have stacked.

There might be a bug though. A couple times when I had a few stacked up, it would say "Readying attack", but then nothing. No hit, no miss, no nothing. Cone/AoE attacks worked fine there, but single target wouldn't do anything. I'll have to play with it some more and see what's going on.

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I think I may cry. I'll have QA test it.

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Give me access to internal servers and I'll test it this Friday.

I promise not to touch anything else.

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I pity The Foo.

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I CRUSH YOU.

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It looks like the devs finally figured out how to count to one.

Single target attacks now hit only one target no matter how many you have stacked.

There might be a bug though. A couple times when I had a few stacked up, it would say "Readying attack", but then nothing. No hit, no miss, no nothing. Cone/AoE attacks worked fine there, but single target wouldn't do anything. I'll have to play with it some more and see what's going on.

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I think I may cry. I'll have QA test it.

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Give me access to internal servers and I'll test it this Friday.

I promise not to touch anything else.

Incredible necropost, though we still don't have a real response as to why the debuff doesn't scale the same way the buff does on Unyielding.

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Sure then give blaster mez protection also.

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Seriously, though. Give everyone mez protection, just a little bit.

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Ok, quick run down:

The AV / Player bonus only applies if your Fury is 80% or more. That's the point where diminishing returns sets in, and this allows you to get to max rage easier. That's not exactly what we wanted, nor is it exactly what you folks were told. I'm sorry for that. I'm uncertain at this time what can be done to improve how this works, but I'll be exploring possibilities.

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I was alot happier with "Its broke"

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Yeah, really. The problem with fury in PvP isn't that we can't get from 80% to full fury quickly enough, it's that we have about a snowball's chance in hell of getting even close to 80%. We need help building fury in PvP, period. Not in specifically reaching the very maximum fury possible.

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He's saying we only get minion Fury generation *until* 80% currently.

Presumably, after it's fixed, you'll get the appropriate Player/AV level Fury generation from 0-100%.