Trickshooter
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Posts
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Joined
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Beaten to the punch!
This works both ways, though. In regards to FF vs. Cold, a FF user hit by a -Special power like Weaken would have the +Defense values lowered on any shields they cast after being hit. But a Cold user's shields would not be affected by -Special because of the "ignore outside buff/debuffs" flag.
Edit: Also, the reason this issue only ever comes up in regards to +Resistance is because all +Damage, -Damage, and -Resistance effects are flagged "Ignores Enhancements & Buffs", anyway. -
I think it gives you better coverage when they use the buffs mid-combat. Howl's AoE size is only 15 feet, that's the same size as Venomous Gas or Suppress Pain; it won't always cover the entire area of a fight.
With each Howler Wolf having their own Howl, it effectively increases the size of the AoE, so if your pets are ever split up within a group of enemies, less of your pets will miss receiving the buff from Howl. -
Quote:I believe it's intentional. The Howl's are flagged to not stack, regardless of caster. Because the two Howler Wolves version of Howl is the same version (i.e., the same internal name of Mastermind_Pets.Howler_Wolf_3.Howl), they won't stack. The Alpha Wolf version is technically not the same (having an internal name of Mastermind_Pets.Alpha_Wolf_3.Howl), so it's technically not the same power and can stack with the Howler version.Originally Posted by Jibikao
Yup, I just did the test again. This time I only keep two Howling Wolves. I look at the pet window and the second Howl overwrites the first one. They did not stack. The new one seems to overwrite the old.
Then I only keep one Howling Wolf and one Alpha Wolf. I see two Howl buffs.
I am going to assume this is a bug? -
Not necessarily what I'd play (I only even have 3 of these combinations), but it's what I think of when I think of these Archetypes.
Blaster: Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation
Scrapper: Martial Arts/Super Reflexes
Controller: Earth Control/Sonic Resonance
Defender: Radiation Emission/Radiation Blast
Tanker: Invulnerability/Super Strength
Stalker: Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu
Brute: Fire Melee/Fiery Aura
Dominator: Mind Control/Psionic Assault
Corruptor: Ice Blast/Cold Domination
Mastermind: Robotics/Traps -
I certainly don't FEEL addicted to them, but I've made a lot of Sonic Attacks and Ninjitsu characters over the years.
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Quote:I mostly disagree with this part. Trick Arrows benefits greatly from +Recharge.Originally Posted by Deacon_NA
Trick Arrow- Why TA? Most of the powers are quick to recharge and can't stack. Except for the very notable exception of Oil Slick Arrow which you want up as often as possible. TA lives in 2 states: with OSA and without. You want to be "with" as often as possible.
While 4 of the powers in TA don't stack (Entangling, Flash, Ice, and Acid), these same 4 powers are the only ones that I'd consider "quick to recharge" (with the longest being 20 seconds).
The other 5 powers have much longer recharge times and you'll want them up as often as possible (particularly Poison Gas Arrow, Glue Arrow, and Disruption Arrow, as they can stack and double their debuff values, and for PGA that also means Sleeping up to Boss-level enemies).
Although, I will agree that for TA, the difference between OSA being available and not being available is so significant that you'll want OSA up as often as possible. -
Quote:There actually is a Toxic_Attack type now that would allow someone with Toxic Defense to dodge it. In fact, you can see it used in a few places (The Hellfire Gargoyle from Demon Summoning has it in his Hellfire Aura, and so do a few of Maelstrom's attacks when he shows up in Tip Missions).Originally Posted by Hopeling
There's no typed Toxic defense, but toxic attacks have whatever positional tag is applicable.
It's been present since at least Going Rogue (given where it's shown up so far), it's just that nobody has gone back and retroactively added Toxic_Attack typing to any attacks that do Toxic damage or Toxic Defense to the Typed Defense powers, powersets, and set bonuses.
There are also a few destructable objects in-game that have 100% resistance to Toxic damage.Quote:Also, while players tend to have low resistance to it, NPCs are another matter entirely. Anti-Matter in the Keyes trial, and the Avatar in the Underground trial, for example, have 80% (!!!) resistance to toxic. That's not just thematic differences, that's a preemptive middle finger to any hypothetical Toxic Blast set. It is, at least, no less resisted than other exotic damage types, and frequently more so.
Adding a Toxic damage based attack set would require a lot of work to make sure the type wasn't unfairly penalized against as many things as it currently is. -
Quote:While I agree that the change to ET's animation was heavy-handed, it's not fair to blame PvP.Originally Posted by BrandX
But the change to ET only came about because it killed squishies quick in PvP...
There has been a way to make the amount of damage (or the amount of debuff or duration of mez) different in PvP long before the Issue 13 PvP changes. In fact, damage value, debuff value, and mez duration have been PvP-adjustable since PvP was introduced just by giving a power two separate values and flagging one "if target is critter" and flagging the other "if target is player".
That's how we had 1/3 non-resistable damage on Blasters, non-resistable criticals on Scrappers, triple damage on Controllers, and non-resistable debuffs on Defenders all before Issue 13.
If ET's PvP damage was the cause for concern, it could have been adjusted as far back as Issue 4.
Anyway, I think Energy Melee will be reviewed soonish. Along with Ice Control and Trick Arrow, it is one of very few sets left that people consider still underperforming compared to similar sets by a wide margin.*
*There will always be people that consider any one set performing poorly compared to other sets, but from what I've read, these three seem to be considered to have the largest discrepancies between them and other sets in their respective categories. -
Quote:Disruption Field no longer notifies mobs. They might know they're being debuffed and attack the Defender after someone else has alerted them to the team's presence, though.Originally Posted by Star_Seven
I know it used to...but from city of data it doesn't look like it does anymore. Anyone know?
Will a mob be notified at all, even a little aggro towards the defender if its being hit with Disruption Field?
But if you put it on an invisible ally near them? They won't attack, no.
I forget when that changed, but it's been awhile. -
Quote:Well, I'm not sure though if it's actually a bug in-game or just a CoD display issue. I'm inclined to think it's not a display issue though, since so many of the pre-Demons pet powers are set up correctly, with only a handful of powers not following the same pattern.Originally Posted by blueruckus
All of the attacks have the 'ignores range buffs' flag. I noticed that a lot of demon summoning attacks show the same as well. I get the feeling that this maybe is supposed to be recharge and not range? Otherwise, I'm sure someone would've stumbled upon this long ago since DS has been out for almost 2 yrs now. Should be able to test this easily on an RWZ dummy though.
Here's how it looks like it's supposed to be, based on the way the older sets look:
Any ranged ability pets have is supposed to be flagged "Not affected by RechargeTime buffs/debuffs."
This is to prevent the pets from spamming or ignoring specific powers because of recharge speeds.
Any melee ability pets have is supposed to be flagged "Not affected by RechargeTime buffs/debuffs" and "Not affected by Range buffs/debuffs."
This is also to prevent the pets from spamming or ignoring specific powers because of recharge speeds, and also to prevent their melee abilities from having their range decreased to a point where it's impossible to use them (same with most melee attacks in the game).
Only Demons and Beasts seem to stray from this on nearly every power the pets have. -
Quote:The attacks and controls appear to be missing the flags, not their buffs and debuffs.Originally Posted by Mad Grim
That is very interesting. If they accept recharge buffs, and it is on purpose, then it should be entirely possible to make some of their buffs permanent. Like, say, Lion's Roar, so you'd wind up with a permanent 15% or so (adding in both) def bonus. Following this, from Fortify you can get another 15%, and their base is around 10%. Add in Maneuvers and you have them nearly soft capped without the secondary or pet uniques. Then a set such as thermal or sonic and their resist goes through the roof, making them nigh-invulnerable tankerpets.
Then their damage skyrockets due to Wild Charge being up all the goddamned time, as well as their buff at 32. Then factor in their heals are up all the goddamned time and you have an extremely powerful set.
This is assuming that what City of Data lists is true, and that it is working as intended. Both big ifs, but if so... :] Hello invincible beasts.
Even further, they now no longer have to gaps in attack timing that Reppu was speaking of. -
I can agree that the Howler Wolves, Alpha Wolf, and Lionesses could probably use 1 or 2 more damaging attacks each (the Alpha Wolf only has 2 once fully upgraded!). But the damage on what attacks they do have isn't disproportionate to other Mastermind pets (by that I mean they're not doing less damage than other MMs using powers on the same recharge timers or using the same amount of endurance).
Eventually, they have a lot of stacking damage buffs, but again... not many oppurtunities to use them. They can have up to 20% +Damage at all times from Pack Mentality, as well as up to a 20% chance to half-crit all attacks from Pack Mentality, once you have Fortify Pack. Then, they all start out with Wild Charge, which gives 33% - 41.25% +Damage for 20 seconds every 90 seconds. And then the tier 1 Wolves can grant another 24.75% +Damage for 15s every 60s once they get the second Upgrade.
I would suggest they give the pets a second version of some of their attacks, perhaps with those second versions not granting Pack Mentality. I would also suggest they give the Alpha Wolf some sort of AoE Attack, or add damage to Growl. And then I'd also suggest they widen both the Dire Wolf's cones a bit.
As far as the +Resist(Recharge) they have in their inherent resistances and in Wild Charge... pets themselves aren't individually flagged as immune to recharge buffs and debuffs. A flag must be set on each individual power that the pet has to make it immune to effects of recharge. It appears, just from City of Data (haven't checked anywhere else yet), that their attacks are not flagged immune to recharge effects. Whether that's intentional (as a feature of the set) or an oversight, I don't know.
City of Data correctly lists most* other Mastermind pet attacks with the +/-Recharge immunity, which makes me think they might be correct in showing that the Beast Mastery pet attacks don't have that flag set.
*Most sets before Demon Summoning all correctly have the flags sets. Demon Summoning, though... is missing a lot of the "ignore +/-Recharge" flags according to City of Data. If that's true, their overall performance right now might be much higher than intended. -
Quote:What you're seeing is the "summon" of the Poison Gas Arrow and Glue Arrow pets, which is autohit.Originally Posted by Mokalus
So I admit I'm fairly new to Trick Arrow, but when parsing hit rolls, Poison Gas Arrow shows up as autohit:
I'm a little confused as to what is going on here, and whether I should be slotting accuracy in it now that I can. Specifically, this is on a Mastermind, but I'm not sure if that makes a difference.
Glue Arrow's effects are also autohit anyway, but to see how Poison Gas Arrow is working, you need to view the Pet ToHit Rolls combat spam. -
Quote:Well... a buffing Defender. A Defender with a debuff or control heavy powerset will be subject to the level difference percentages I posted earlier.Originally Posted by ShadowMoka
Unless you're a defender or something.
And also any AV debuff resistance, which is around 85-87% level in the Incarnate Trial range. And that's to slows, -recharge, -Acc/ToHit, EndDrain, -Defense, -Recovery, -Regen, and -Perception.
And then if the AVs have any Damage Resistance, it will resist any Damage debuffs or Resistance debuffs of the same damage types.
Yay unfairness! -
Quote:Ah, cool. That makes more sense.Originally Posted by Android_5Point9
I believe it got answered on a ustream. I guess "variety" would be a better word, expanding the capabilities or just flat out increasing the potency of the debuffs. Not literally the range, though.
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Quote:Do you know where you heard/read that? This is the first I'm hearing about it and I'm really curious.Originally Posted by Android_5Point9
I think it was either Hawk or Synapse who mentioned that they were looking at TA, but the only way they were going to update it is by expanding its range or power of debuffs to make it one of the best debuff sets there are, and not by adding more utility or changing mechanics (ala Gravity).
I'm not exactly sure how TA would be helped by a buff to it's range, though. It'd be like... painting your car because the tires are flat. Yes, it's different than it was before, but the actual issue wasn't addressed. -
For reference (Yay numbers!)
These are the values at which your debuffs values, mez durations, and damage will function at when fighting enemies a higher level than you:
+1 - 90%
+2 - 80%
+3 - 65%
+4 - 48%
+5 - 30%
+6 - 15%
+7 - 8%
You can find out what this will look like by moving the decimal place of the percentage value to the left 2 places and multiplying this number by your debuff value, mez duration or damage value.
So let's look at Blaster's Ice Bolt:
At 50, this will do 62.56 damage without basic SO slotting. With SO slotting, it will do roughly 123.24 damage. Let's assume they're attacking an enemy with no Cold or Smashing Resistances.
Against a +1, this will be reduced to: 110.92
Against a +2, this will be reduced to: 98.59
Against a +3, this will be reduced to: 80.12
Against a +4, this will be reduced to: 59.16
Against a +5, this will be reduced to: 36.97
Against a +6, this will be reduced to: 18.49
Against a +7, this will be reduced to: 9.86
Also, this is your base chance tohit against fighting enemies higher level than you:
+1 - 65%
+2 - 56%
+3 - 48%
+4 - 39%
+5 - 30%
+6 - 20%
+7 - 8%
To see how this would affect you in game, use this formula:
Final Hit Chance = (A power's inherent accuracy * (1.0 + A power's accuracy enhancements + global accuracy bonuses)) * (Base chance tohit + (ToHit buffs - ToHit debuffs) - (Target's Defense buffs - Defense debuffs on target))
So again, we'll look at a Blaster's Ice Bolt, and assume this Blaster has no IO bonuses, has slotted 1 Accuracy SO, and the target has no Defense.
Against a +1, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 86.6%
Against a +2, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 74.6%
Against a +3, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 64%
Against a +4, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 52%
Against a +5, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 40%
Against a +6, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 26.7%
Against a +7, their final chance to hit will be reduced to: 10.7% -
Quote:An extra, unintended tohit roll was not removed.Originally Posted by New Dawn
The going from 66% to 100% is not a bug fix. The removal of the extra unintended tohit roll is a bug fix, of which, I never included in my thoughts.
PGA was originally autohit, but made a chance-to-occur roll (which only appears in the combat spam as a ToHit roll, but is not actually a ToHit roll) for it's sleep in order to prevent abuse of an autohit Sleep. This was how the power was originally balanced.
They then made PGA require a tohit roll, but left in the chance-to-occur roll for it's sleep; a roll that was intended to balance an autohit power, which it no longer was. This was a bug.
Now, they've removed the chance-to-occur roll, so it functions like similar location AoE mez powers where the players ToHit and Accuracy mods determine whether the power takes effect. This was the bug fix. -
Quote:Or it's a bug fix. Because it's a bug fix.Originally Posted by New Dawn
A little single nudge might be a sign of unconvinced need for buffing.
I sent this to Synapse back in November:
To which he replied he would forward it to Arbiter Hawk who had made the previous change to Poison Gas Arrow's pet.Quote:Poison Gas Arrow's effects are no longer autohit, but the power cannot be slotted for accuracy. So not only can the actual debuff "miss," but now the Sleep (which only ever works on Minions to start with) has to make two successful to-hit rolls to actually take effect (the normal to-hit check most powers make, followed by the 66% chance).
Could this please be reviewed? If an accuracy check is intended, please allow us to slot accuracy and remove the 66% chance on the sleep effect. If it's unintended for it to require a to-hit check, please make it autohit again.
Edit: There is some hope for TA. Synapse has already agreed that the Trick Arrows set is in need of some love. It's just that they don't think they can fit it in to their schedule for the year. -
Quote:Well, to be fair the Devs aren't against Stalkers having a shield. When they say it doesn't fit Stalkers, they don't mean because you're holding a shield and that's not stealthy.Originally Posted by Leo_G
And conversely, Stalkers *must* be covert therefore they cannot use a shield? Double Standards much?
If Stalkers have no choice but to be covert therefore they cannot get Shield Defense, Scrappers have no choice but to *not* be covert and cannot get Ninjutsu...
..from a conceptual point, that is...
The actual design of the Shield Defense powerset is what they've always been concerned doesn't fit Stalkers: defending allies, relying on allies to buff their defense, and then having lower defenses than other sets in exchange for a nearly build up-level damage buff when you're surrounded by enemies.
It just didn't fit the original intended design of the Stalker to be an assassin. As they're backing away from this a bit now and letting Stalkers scrap it out better, Shields for Stalkers might be revisited in the future. Although we'd probably end up just getting a second build up-type power in place of Against all Odds (like Reconstruction in place of Rise to the Challenge) and with Hide taking the place of Phalanx Fighting, we'd probably get a tiny boost to the defense from the toggles (like the Energy Aura toggles for Stalkers).
Until we get to that point though, I like to think the Devs are letting Ninjitsu remain exclusive to Stalkers, since all the other Melee ATs get Shields. Like a temporary trade-off until they're ready to port Shields to Stalkers. -
Issue 22 will be coming out soon, too, so you'll probably be able to utilize the solo Incarnate content (so you can pursue Incarnate stuff without having to find a League to join).
And new sets will be coming with that, or (hopefully) soon after: Darkness Control, Darkness Assault (more like a proliferation of old Dark powers for Dominators to use as a secondary), Darkness Affinity (altered Dark Miasma without control powers for Controllers to use as a secondary), Staff Fighting, and Beast Mastery. May or may not be pay-for sets. -
Quote:Unless something's changed from back when I had Shadow Meld, the animation does the white/pink/yellow soul swirlies around the arms, then you look exactly like a Warshade using... Shadow Cloak, I think it is.Originally Posted by Vitality
Don't get me wrong...I do appreciate the picture you posted. However, I'm looking to see the actual powers that I plan on taking...which are Dark Blast and Shadow Meld.
Dark Blast does the same animation as the normal Dark Blast, but again, you have the soul swirlies on your arm, and the blast is a darker blue/gray.
This is all from memory, mind you. -
As Codewalker stated, the first bug has been fixed. I believe it was Black Scorpion that fixed it during Issue 18 beta and I haven't experienced it failing ever since.
The second one... I know pets go crazy when Oil Slick gets lit, but I really have no explanation for why. The "Foes Affected" field lists "Foe" so it should only affect NPC enemies (players aren't affected by Avoid). Unfortunately, I have seen Fire Imps stop what they're doing the moment Oil Slick gets lit on fire, run just to the point where they're outside of the AoE of the flames, and do nothing until the Oil Slick's lifetime ends.
It's one of those weird bugs where I'd normally think someone was exaggerating when they explained it to me if I didn't see it so often myself (and have to apologize for it over teamspeak :B). -
I would suggest Trick Arrows/Archery Defender.
Trick Arrows' debuffs are the most potent on a Defender, and Defender's Rain of Arrows is the only one that does the correct amount of damage (Blaster and Corruptor both do less than they should, though it's still more than Defenders).
Note though: It's a very late bloomer, TA's debuffs aren't as potent as other debuff-heavy sets, though most TA powers have larger AoEs, and what you bring to teams (offense) is not usually what people are looking for in a Defender.
Corruptors' Scourging Archery is nice, but Corruptors' TA is numerically very similar to the MM version, which is very... um... meager. -
Quote:Same, I had the whole Elemental Order set very quickly and I didn't want the wolf.Originally Posted by BrandX
Don't know how many packs I opened, but I had all the costume pieces before I finished opening the 24 packs.
I was actually more worried about getting the Wolf Pet. I have no desire for it, so I was all "Don't be unlucky and get that wolf!"
But I ended up getting it while I was trying to get the Defender ATOs. Which, by the way, I had the most trouble getting. I'm sure it was just the RNG picking on me, but I literally had 3-4 of all of the other AT sets before I got my first Defender ATO.