Trickshooter

I forgot all about this set until today!

Although when I looked at it, I noticed that I was giving at least 3-4 people on the team FF-level defenses, and I didn't think that was really fair, so I lowered the Defense boost from Roulette down to 10% for Defenders, 7.5% for everyone else. And since not everyone can be under Roulette's effects, I tried to buff Serendipity a tiny bit by increasing the KB protection it grants to mag 4.

This is really late, BUT thanks for the compliments everyone and thank you to Moderator 13 for fixing the thread title for me!

I don't think Trickshooter would fit in well with the Phalanx, since he's intended to be a teenager and would just look like Manticore's sidekick to most people.

Buuut... I'd love to see maybe Tierce, Chevaliere, or Brightside joining. Hmm...

I wish I had screenies to attach of them, but I'm at work so all I have is the pictures on my character page in my signature. :B

P.S. You should also do a player-submitted Powerset addition (mostly because I recently remembered I had made one over a year ago)!

Broadsword - I think I've seen 2, besides my own, in the last year.

Sonic Resonance - About the same as Broadsword.

Trick Arrows - I see a couple, but never any over level 30-ish. I think I've seen two other level 50 TAs in the last year or so.

Battle Axe - I think I've seen 3 in the last year.

Ice Armor - I have mine, that's about all I see.

Mercenaries - I haven't seen these in forever. I only even knew one person who used them.

This is all with the addendum that I mostly solo on Protector.

More times than not, whenever threads like this start bringing out numbers, someone always shows up to dismiss the discussion with a sweeping "it should be about how much you enjoy it" comment. Obviously some people enjoy the numbers behind the powersets, and their enjoyment shouldn't be dismissed because someone else is satisfied with the concept or playstable.

Every set is enjoyed by someone. No one is saying that only the best sets are fun. TA will always have a following just for being an archery set or a debuff/control set or a toggle-less set. But TA is bottom of the barrel for debuff values and for many players that is frustrating.

Those players aren't asking for the concept or playstyle to change. They just want it to appeal more to what they find enjoyable, and they use numbers and values to make their appeals for change.

If you enjoy the set as is, then that's fine. I also enjoy playing the set. My TA/A is my main and my favorite character to log on to and bring on TFs and Trials. But I also look at the numbers and see how poor most of the debuff values compare to nearly every other set and it bothers me enough to want to see something change.

Actually, Dark Miasma can use Howling Twilight to cause more -Recharge than TA can cause with 3 powers.

And Dark Miasma on any other AT puts out the same amount of -Resistance that TA can put out with just Tar Patch.

The only effect TA is consistently better at than any other buff/debuff set on all the ATs is -MovementSpeed.

Edit: I'm not a hater of the set or anything, it's my favorite, but I also can't pretend it's not the weakest of all the buff/debuff sets just because it's my favorite.

Electric Blast. It makes me hate life.

Radiation Emission. If I get one to level 50, I'll be expected to use it, even when I don't want to, just because Rad is considered "necessary". I hate the idea of asking "What should I bring?" and getting "Your rad" 90% of the time.

Ice Control. Just too low on damage for me.

Dark Armor. The graphics just don't pull off "darkness" to me. I feel like it looks more like pigpen or like a graphic representation of being surrounded by a bad smell (Hmm... actually, maybe I can make that in to a concept...)

Peacebringers/Warshades. Both ATs just have so many powers, and there just aren't enough slots for all the things I want.

I wouldn't really say TA has had 4 or 5 passes. It's shown up in plenty of patch notes, but other than animation time changes, these have only been bug fixes. If you really go back and read the patch notes, TA hasn't receive an actual buff since Issue 7 (when Glue Arrow and Disruption Arrow had their recharge timers reduced to 60s). And from the PM I got from Synapse, they would like to work on making real changes to the set, but don't have the time yet.

Whether that means they have just don't have any time to deviate from their schedule or that the time they can use wouldn't be enough for the amount of changes, I don't know, but he reassured me it was on their radar, but changes, if any, were at least a year off.

Yes, that Thermal can apply Forge to about 3-4 players, but the Trick Arrows can put out Disruption Arrows and Acid Arrows at every encounter (after SOs come in to play, anyway) and increase an entire team or league's damage output.

Also, you're comparing Oil Slick Arrow to powers in the secondaries, and that's not a good argument to make because TA is a primary, so it can be paired with those secondary powers you say have better DPS or just plain do more damage.

But that is part of the reason I still stand behind my original point that TA is one of the best sets for dealing damage on a Defender.

Why?

Because it does damage independent of the secondary powerset.

For direct damage, as long as you have a way to light your Oil Slick, you are doing more damage using Oil Slick Arrow and your secondary powerset than just using your secondary powerset alone.

Yes, a Defender using Blizzard will do more damage than a Defender using Oil Slick Arrow, but a TA/Ice Defender using Oil Slick Arrow and Blizzard will be doing more damage than a Defender using just Blizzard.

I hope that clears up what my point was.

I think it was forgotten about. Thaw's +Resistance was also missed.

When it comes to pets, if the Devs decide that the damage they cause should be different depending on AT, they have to fake it by manually calculating and setting the damage, rather than relying on damage scales to multiply a base damage (like normal attacks). Just wanted to make that clear before anyone reads the rest of this post and dismisses it because Rain of Arrows is a pet and doesn't actually use the AT damage scales.

Anyway, having said that I'm pretty sure both the Corruptor and Blaster versions do less damage than they should.

It looks like the Rain of Arrows pet that Blasters use was never updated to reflect the increase in the Blaster Ranged Damage scale from 1.0 to 1.125. This may or may not be why the Corruptor version is lower, too. By that, I mean if the Corruptor version's damage value was calculated using the Blaster's damage value, under the assumption that the Blaster version's damage value was correctly calculated using the 1.125 ranged damage scale, that might explain the Corruptor version's lower damage.

On to the math!

Assuming the Defender version is correct, we can divide the Defender version damage by the Defender ranged damage scale to guess the "base damage" (that is, the damage value calculated if it was multiplied by a 1.0 damage scale).

48.76997 / 0.65 = ~75.03

So now we can assume that ~75.03 is RoA's damage value at an AT damage scale of 1.0.

Then we look at the Blaster version and see that it causes: 75.0735.

Given the similar values, it's very likely that the Blaster version wasn't recalculated with their updated damage scale. If the Blaster version was calculated correctly using their 1.125 damage scale, their version would actually cause:

75.03 * 1.125 = 84.41


Now, looking at the Corruptor version, we can find the level of damage it should cause by multiplying 75.03 by 0.75.

75.03 * 0.75 = 56.2725

But the Corruptor version actually only causes 49.4929. Why?

If we assume that the Corruptor version was originally a copy of the Blaster pet, and that whoever made it assumed that the Blaster version was calculated correctly using a 1.125 damage scale, that might explain it.

75.0735 / 1.125 = 66.732

If we assumed all of that, 66.732 would incorrectly be RoA's damage value at an AT damage scale of 1.0. If we multiply this value by the Corruptor damage scale of 0.75:

66.732 * 0.75 = 50.049

Pretty close to the actual damage value of 49.4929. Not exact, which is why this whole post could be wrong, but it's still worth thinking about.

So to wrap this up:

Well, it is the only Corruptor weapon tier 9 that doesn't Scourge for the full amount, but every other non-weapon set tier 9, except for Ice Blast's Blizzard, only Scourges for 41.71 damage. So there is some precedence, I guess.

These are ideas I had for Sonic in my Big Ol' Spreadsheet of Buff/Debuff Set Numbers & Improvements™:

Sonic Siphon
Add a stackable 3% (for Defenders, 2.25% for all other ATs) +Resistance(All but Psi) buff for the Caster (or maybe in an AoE with an increase in the recharge timer).

This would actually make it a "siphon".

Sonic Barrier
Add 43.3% +Resistance(Regen) (for Defenders, 34.6% for Corrs/Controllers, 26% for MMs)
Add 21.65% +Resistance(DefDebuff) (for Defenders, 17.3% for Corrs/Controllers, 13% for MMs)
Add scale 2 +Protection(Knockback)

The reason for this is because these debuffs/effects are usually associated with these damage types, and can't be avoided (unlike +Def shields). Besides, this adds a bit more "realism" in that if you're not taking the full hit from an attack because of the sonic shields, some of it's effects should be absorbed, as well.

Sonic Haven
Add 43.3% +Resistance(ToHit) (for Defenders, 34.6% on Corrs/Controllers, 26% on MMs)
Add 43.3% +Resistance(Recovery) (for Defenders, 34.6% on Corrs/Controllers, 26% on MMs)
Add 43.3% +Resistance(EndDrain) (for Defenders, 34.6% on Corrs/Controllers, 26% on MMs)
Add 50% +Resistance(Movement Speed) (for all ATs)
Add 50% +Resistance(Recharge Speed) (for all ATs)

Same reasons as above.

Disruption Field
Add -12.5% ToHit Debuff (for Defenders, 10% for Corrs/Controllers, 7.5% for MMs)
Add -12.5% Defense Debuff (for Defenders, 10% for Corrs/Controllers, 7.5% for MMs)

To make this power similar in effectiveness as other buff/debuff toggles and making it worth the end cost.

Liquefy
Reduce recharge timer to 240s
Increase Knockdown chance to 5% every 0.2 seconds
Reduce ToHit debuff to -25% (for Defenders, -20% for Corrs/Controllers, -15% for MMs)
Reduce Defense debuff to -25 (for Defenders, -20% for Corrs/Controllers, -15% for MMs)
Reduce Recharge debuff to -25% (for Defenders/Controllers, -20% for Corrs/MMs)

The problem with Liquefy is that is has incredibly strong effects that keep it on a very long recharge timer. When Liquefy is up, it can turn around the worst situations because it has such high values (even when unslotted). But if Liquefy is down... well, if the rest of Sonic Resonance isn't keeping you alive, then there's nothing you can do.

Keep in mind that with this suggestion, before anyone freaks out about a "nerf"... the ATs will be losing 5-10.7% -ToHit/-Defense once every 2.5-5 minutes from Liquefy in order to gain 7.5-12.5% -ToHit/-Defense much more often in Disruption Field.

So with some of the debuff moved to Disruption Field, you should have to rely on Liquefy less often, but when you do it need, it's up more often, just with less debuff than before (but it's still a decent amount).

Distortion Field actually has a 2% chance to Hold every second, 3% on targets hit by Time Crawl.

Lockdown is a Hold set, so the proc is tied to whatever kind of power the Distortion Field pet has that causes the Hold (though, for clarity, the Hold and Slow occur in the same power used by the Distortion Field pet*), but the chance for the proc to go off is not dependent on the effects occurring. How often the proc goes off depends on whether it's an auto power, a toggle, or a click.

Distortion Field's Hold is caused by an auto power that tics every 1 second, so Lockdown's proc should go off every 10 seconds.


*When it comes to powers that summon two pets or a pet with multiple powers, proc effects would only go off with whichever power being used was the same type as the set.

For example, if you slotted a Posi's Chance for Energy Damage in to Oil Slick Arrow, the actual Oil pet that causes the Slow and Knockdown chance would never proc the Energy Damage. It would only proc with the Fire pet, because Posi is a damage set, and only the Fire pet causes damage.

I think it does boost Lightning Storm's end drain. It's been awhile, but I think some pet's do inherit +Special effects.

But even if it does, it's duration will only be as long as Power Boost normally lasts. Power Boost only lingers on the effect of Clicks; Summons and Toggles will only have the effect for the duration of Power Boost, more or less.