I know I've made posts like this before (and I know some people may by sick of them), but I plan to keep it up until some attention is brought to this underplayed, undervalued set. After all, sets like War Mace, Dark Melee, Claws, Ice Melee and Electric Armor didn't get the way they are these days by players just accepting them the way they were before they were buffed.
In this post, I plan to go through each power, explain what I feel is wrong with it, and offer my opinion on solutions to improve them.
Before I start, I should say that I love the Trick Arrows set. I played on Test every other day while Issue 5 was in Beta. The day Issue 5 went Live, I immediately logged on after patching and made Trickshooter, my Trick Arrows/Archery Defender who is my main, my first 50 and my namesake.
Now, I feel that by around level 35 or so, it's a decent set, though others may disagree. But either way, the trip there is the one of the most frustrating that I and many others have ever experienced while leveling characters.
That said, I'll start with my feelings on the first two powers in the set.
Generally speaking, the first two powers in any set are seen as the "bread and butter" of a set. However, in regards to Trick Arrows, that statement couldn't be less true. No other set has two powers as situational as this set does in the first two tiers. Also, given the developers' feelings that every power in a set should be a difficult choice to skip, I think it says a lot that the only difficult part of choosing to skip these two powers is that you'll always be forced to take one of them. If it was possible, I'd say most people would want to skip both.
1) Drop the Endurance Cost and Accuracy bonuses on this power
2) Increase the debuff values
Trick Arrows, as a set, puts out less -Recharge with three powers than most of the other sets can with a single power. So why should this power be so inferior to it as a debuff?
It's not uncommon for sets to be able to floor or nearly floor the recharge rates of a group of enemies. Would buffing Trick Arrows' Recharge debuffs really push the set in to having "too many"?
Honestly, I don't think it would. Yes, Trick Arrows can speed up the rate at which some enemies die, but it has few tools to deal with sturdier foes who generally have several high damage attacks or have mezzes that recharge almost as soon as their duration ends. Increasing the set's ability to slow down a foe's recharge rate would go a long way towards helping the Trick Arrows Defender to defend his teammates from these kinds of enemies.
Since the increased Accuracy and Endurance Cost discount were given when this power's debuff was originally removed (and then later readded, at a much smaller value), I feel it's warranted that they be restored to their normal values if the debuffs are increased.
Decrease AccMod to 1.0
Increase EndCost to 7.8
Increase SpeedDebuff to -62.5% (-50% for Corr/MM)
Increase RechDebuff to -62.5% (-50% for Corr/MM)
1) Swap availability with Glue Arrow
My only real suggestion for this power is to swap it's availability with Glue Arrow as the second tier power. Would it make sense for Smoke Grenade to be the second tier of Devices? Or for Smoke to be in the second tier of Fire Control? Flash Arrow is a very situational power throughout most of the game, like many -Perception powers, and has no place in the first two tiers. As I said before, this is not a "bread and butter" power; no -Perception power is for their respective sets.
Other than that, there's not much you can do with this power; it works exactly as every other similar -Perception power. But I do have a suggestion to improve it's usefulness, involving changes to Disruption Arrow, that I think will keep to the "theme" of Trick Arrows (that the set works best when several arrows are used together on the battlefield). I'll get to that part further down.
1) Lower the Speed debuff
2) Increase the Recharge debuff
3) Swap availability with Flash Arrow
Speed debuffs can be useful, but offer little support for Melee ATs, who only use -Speed to keep enemies near them for AoEs, and it's not as if Trick Arrows is lacking in -Speed, having a second power that also already sits at the -90% cap. Recharge debuffs on the other hand offer much more of a benefit in combat to all Archetypes, but the meager value in this power just can't cut it.
It seems like the debuff value of this power was made with the assumption that "stacking" it would make it too powerful. But again, stacking Recharge debuffs to higher amounts isn't something new. In fact, it's typically a large part of how some sets defend a team.
Decrease SpeedDebuff to -60%
Increase RechDebuff to -30%
1) Increase the debuff values
This is the third worst Hold in the game, only above Poison and Dark's debuff-less Holds, both of which are in sets already seen as better than Trick Arrows. Also, sticking to the Ice theme, this power's debuffs should at least be comparable to debuffs in similar Ice Blast and Ice Control Holds.
Increase SpeedDebuff to -25% (-20% for Corr/MM)
Increase RechDebuff to -25% (-20% for Corr/MM)
1) Allow Sleep effect to stack
I can understand the Damage debuff portion of this power not being allowed to stack, but it seems crazy to see any Mezz flagged to not stack, as that's generally something allowed, and even encouraged, in order to Mezz higher ranking foes. Is this potentially left over from it's Alpha days, where its effects were cast by a pet?
Wish List Item!*
This is the perfect power in the set to add a new -Regeneration effect to. Most people see -Regeneration as an effective way to help defeat AVs, and while that's only somewhat true, it would definitely go a long way towards improving the image of the set in many people's eyes, especially when compared to sets which are often seen as better debuffers, eventhough they also feature buffs and heals in their sets (*cough*Rad, Traps, Cold, Storm and Dark*cough*). For balance concerns (this is an autohit power, afterall), give it a similar 66% chance to occur, like the Sleep effect, so that it goes along with the "some foes may react badly" line in the description.
Remove "Does Not Stack" Flag from Sleep
*Add RegenDebuff -100% (66% Chance)
1) Increase the resistance debuff value
2) Increase the radius of the AoE
3) Increase recharge timer
Not too long ago, I would have considered this power working just fine. Then came the Defender version of Acid Mortar, which is vastly superior in many, many ways. It debuffs defense more, it debuffs resistance more, it has longer range, it fires faster than Acid Arrow recharges, it can stack, and it can keep aggro off the caster. It even does more damage! Acid Arrow, once a unique power in the Trick Arrows set, is now overshadowed by a similar power, as most of Trick Arrows is.
Increasing the resistance debuff value would not only improve Acid Arrow compared to Acid Mortar, but it also improves the whole set for Controllers, Corruptors and Masterminds.
One of the benefits to choosing Trick Arrows as a Defender, is that you get Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow; two sources of Resistance debuff that allow the Trick Arrows Defender to cause a higher value of -Resistance than other sets for more of the time (-40%).
But this doesn't really translate over to the other ATs' versions. They sit at the values they should, but because of issues with "psuedopets" in other sets, Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow tend to be at equal or lower values by comparison with no compensation for the loss of something that is intended to be a reason for choosing Trick Arrows over the other sets, i.e. greater offense through more Resistance debuff.
Increasing the debuff of these powers restores that benefit to playing Trick Arrows on all ATs.
Increasing the radius of the AoE, well... 8 feet as a debuff radius is incredibly small. It's almost funny that the power has a 16 foe target max, because well... is it even possible to fit 16 enemies in to an 8 foot radius?
What good does having two Resistance debuffs do Trick Arrows if one has a small radius and the other can only affect 10 enemies at once? At best, Trick Arrows can debuff resistance by 40%, but only to 10 enemies, while other sets can get close (30%-35%) with a single power that can hit 16 enemies, and that can typically stack with itself (Tar Patch, Freezing Rain, Sleet).
If increasing the radius a bit means the recharge has to be increased as well, then so be it.
Increase Radius to 10ft to 15 ft
Increase Rech to 30s
Increase ResDebuff to -25%(-18.75% for Con/Corr/MM)
1) Decrease the endurance cost
2) Increase MaxTargets limit
3) Increase resistance debuff
4) Add -ToHit effect
This power has always been one of the most frustrating for me because of how poor it is compared to any other similar power, but how necessary it is for Trick Arrows to feel effective, especially while teaming.
Like Acid Arrow, increasing it's -Resistance debuff improves the set's effectiveness, while also restoring a benefit to the set that's been missing from the other ATs' versions.
The endurance cost has long been out of whack with it's effects: it's twice the cost of Tar Patch, which has a higher Resistance debuff, as well as a Speed debuff, and it's just short of the cost of Freezing Rain, which also has a higher Resistance debuff, as well as a Speed debuff, Recharge debuff, Defense debuff, and damage. Disruption Arrow does nothing that warrants a 14.56 endurance cost.
It's also limited to hitting only 10 enemies. The only other buff/debuff AoE powers that are limited to 10 targets are Fulcrum Shift and Heat Loss (both for obvious reasons), neither of which Disruption Arrow is even remotely comparable to.
In addition to fixing those inconsistencies, I also feel this power is a good place to add a small -ToHit effect to. Trick Arrows as a set needs more defensive debuffs, namely -ToHit, and Flash Arrow's debuff alone can't cut it. Adding -ToHit to Disruption Arrow not only fills that hole in a bit, it also:
A) Gives incentive to take Flash Arrow in order to stack both effects
B) Fits thematically with the Trick Arrows set, which works best when multiple arrows are used at once
C) Fits along the lines of Liquefy and Earthquake, which also reduce ToHit
D) Offers invention set options to a power which currently can't really be slotted for much
Decrease EndCost to 10.4
Increase MaxTargets to 16
Increase ResDebuff to -25% (-18.75% for Con/Corr/MM)
Add ToHitDebuff -6.25% (-5% for Con/Corr, -3.75% for MM)
1) Reduce recharge timer
Now, in a perfect world my suggestion would be to make it correctly light everytime the OilSlickTarget pet is defeated, but I understand that's not easy, and maybe not even possible.
What I'M asking for is... a temporary rebalancing of this power.
Without it's ability to create a large burn patch, Oil Slick Arrow is sort of like Ice Slick, except with less Knockdown, higher endurance cost and at twice the recharge (though, it does have an added -Defense debuff). With the ability to create a large burn patch, it's a beast and completely worth the 3 minute recharge.
Unfortunately, this power is bugged, and has been for 11 issues now. Yes, when it works, this power is great, but what about the times that it doesn't?
Why should a power that doesn't work half the time be balanced around the half of the time that it does work?
With that in mind, this power should have it's recharge time reduced. Not to Ice Slick's timer, but less than what it is now. Should this power ever be fixed, then by all means return it to 3 minutes, but for now it's just unfair.
Decrease RechTime to 120s to 150s
This power has the Mary Poppins syndrome; practically perfect in every way. It's just a shame that it's the only power in the set that really feels that way.
I haven't checked everything, but it seems that -RES, -DEF, -speed, and -RECH are the same. Heal is of course weaker due to HP, but heal/HP powers tend to vary even between Controller/Corruptor. I haven't looked at every other effect, but regen/recov seem to be the same (for what few powers there are that do those).
