Umbral

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MagicFlyingHippy View Post
    I'd also like to see it tried that, instead of doing a damage boost, Focus Chi gave a ToHit bonus and then added additional base Energy damage to your attacks, the way Enchantment of Serafina does with Psychic damage.
    Enchantment of Seraphina doesn't provide all of your attacks with additional psychic damage. It provides you with a global damage bonus to psychic damage (see here). It is, however, possible for a power to do this, though it requires that it be a specific list of powers and not just "all powers". Considering that it would likely apply only to the MA attacks and no others, it wouldn't be altogether that hard to do.

    Now, the question, as I see it, is whether Focus Chi should actually do such a thing. Personally, I don't really think it needs to be anything different than Build Up with a possible buff or addition of specific secondary effects to all MA powers while it is active. If we're discussing changes to Focus Chi, I would suggest that Focus Chi either increase the chance for the chance based secondary effects (which we know is possible thanks to Dual Pistols) or add additional magnitude of the very same effects if those powers are guaranteed. Assuming that the powers remain the same (which I doubt they would), imagine if Cobra Strike and Eagles Claw could actually provide mag 4 stun if you used them while Focus Chi was active or if the knockdown in Dragon's Tail was guaranteed under the same condition. This would easily allow Castle to circumvent the headache of dealing with Power Build Up effect but still allow Focus Chi to provide specific, meaningful improvements to the secondary effects while it is active. It would also allow players to get some immediate and controllable use out of those less used and less like secondary effects without treading upon the toes of Controllers and Dominators.

    Concerning the desire to maintain the "flair" of MA while simultaneously tackling the issue of improving performance, I really would have to wonder if players that like EC would suddenly start hating it if the attack didn't have the pause in the air. Removing half of a second from the animation time would still leave the animation with plenty of time to look devastating (Golden Dragonfly is even faster and yet it still manages the hangtime and visual effect without completely rendering the attack useless) while being the simplest way to improve performance for that power in question.

    Now, if I were to be forced to come up with a suggestion for what to do with the powers in the set, I wouldn't touch the damage or recharge values: as I see it, those are fine. The only problematic damage power is Eagles Claw and that's largely because the animation is too long relative to its dam/rech/end. (all of these values assume the targets are enemies)

    Thunder Kick: Split the current stun chance into a 10% chance for mag 1 stun and 100% chance of mag 1 stun with the same duration as is current (the mag 1 effect would not stack with itself). This would prevent the power from being able to stun minions while still allowing it to provide some stacking capability with other stun powers within the set. While Focus Chi is active, the 10% chance increases to 100% so that the power provides a 100% chance for a mag 2 stun.

    Storm Kick: Leave it alone. It's already awesome enough. Focus Chi provides no additional benefit beyond the basic +dam.

    Cobra Strike: Leave the 100% chance for mag 3 stun alone and add a guaranteed 11.25% -tohit debuff to the power. If you stun the target they're not attacking. If you don't manage to stun the target, you've addled them enough that they're not going to be able to hit you as easily (yes, I realize that it's the same amount of -tohit that ToF is bringing; I'm allowing for the "full" quantity even though Cobra Strike deals damage because MA doesn't have much other -tohit to stack with it). While Focus Chi is active, the power provides another mag 1 stun and 5.625% more -tohit.

    Focus Chi: It stay the same, with one exception. It alters all of the powers in the listed ways (whether by altering proc chances in the same way as Swap Ammo does or provide additional benefits as an activated mode like the Kheldian Forms, Targetting Drone, and all of the Dual Blades attacks).

    Crane Kick: Lower the chance for knockback down to 40% while adding a 7.5% defense debuff and 40% chance for a flat mag 4 knockup (doesn't use the sliding scale, just uses melee ones), logic being that you're either knocking them off of their feet and it's now easier to hit them while they're down or you've hit them hard enough that they've lost some of their footing so they're still easier to hit. The knockback and knockdown combine to provide a 64% chance to knock the target. Additional benefit in that it would allow MA to bring an AH proc to bear. While Focus Chi is active, the chance for knockback and knockup increases to 100% and the power provides another 7.5% -def. Having both knockback and knockup in this power may seem a bit strange until you check out...

    Crippling Axe Kick: Leave it be except that the power also provides 10000% +res(knockback). Yes, immobilization isn't really all that useful (well, unless you want to prevent a target from running, something that I actually found quite useful about MG regardless of whether other players have found it menacing), but the ability to stop a target from being flung away from you is useful to melee. The power doesn't provide resistance to knockup however, so you'll still get to toss the guy to the ground with (new) Crane Kick and other KU powers. While Focus Chi is active, the power provides another mag 1 immobilize, another dose of -spd, and a 40% -rech debuff.

    Dragon's Tail: Change it from knockback to knockup and increase the mag to 4 (melee ones). Increase the radius to 10' as well. While Focus Chi is active, the chance increases to 100%.

    Eagles Claw: Decrease the animation time by .5 seconds. Reduce the single target damage down to 1.78 scale (from 2.28) and have the power provide an additional .5 scale to all enemies within 7' (a la [Electrical Melee.Thunderstrike]). The critical damage only applies to the first target and is equal to the full damage of the power (i.e. 2.28 damage scale). When Focus Chi is active, the power provides an additional 1 mag of stun.

    Overall changes:

    The most obvious should be that the set gets a bit more AoE damage. Dragon's Tail gets a larger range and Eagles Claw starts dealing damage to nearby enemies, making both powers substantially nicer. The ST damage goes up a bit by adding the ability to slot an AH proc as well as improving the DPA on Eagles Claw (which, even if it's not a stellar choice for an ST attack chain due to the comparatively long animation time, is still an excellent choice for additional AoE utility). The secondary effects become substantially more cohesive and capable of stacking without allowing for an untoward benefit that would make the set more powerful than it should be. You also have the ability to prevent your target from getting bounced away from you with your own attack while still getting a fair deal of mitigation from knock effects. Focus Chi also gets the "better secondary effects" benefit without making Castle pull out his hair with Power Build Up, and, since Castle could control the explicit contribution of each and every one of the additional secondary effect mechanisms of Focus Chi, it would be substantially easier to balance. It would also have the added benefit of actually providing the set with a useful Power Build Up type effect that would allow for instantaneous lockdown of bosses while the power is active, without forcing power cycling to accomplish it.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Donna_ View Post
    I don't think this would effect Ma badly in PvP
    It would however provide them with an untoward advantage and require some really delicate rebalancing just because you want to have that untoward advantage (because you don't want to be hit with diminishing returns) and enjoy the fact that the set does well in PvP expressly because it does so poorly in PvE.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eva Destruction View Post
    Does this make any sense to anyone?
    MA sees a decent bit of use in Siren's Call PvP because of Eagles Claw's massive animation time providing it with a lot of burst damage potential, especially since it also allows you to follow up that heavy hit with more hits thanks to stuns (and how there is no more mez prot in PvP so you can guarantee that stun).

    Someone trying to make a claim that the set shouldn't see a fix or variety of fixes because of PvP though, just seem even more selfish to me since it's pretty obvious to anyone that PvP is both used less than PvE but it's also not even remotely balanced in the first place.

    Quote:
    Looking at the sets from the point of view of a leveling Scrapper running on SOs...is there any other set (not counting Parry and Divine Avalanche) that has to sacrifice kill speed for consistent mitigation to the extent that MA does?
    DM has to make some pretty massive sacrifices when using Touch of Fear, but that's partially mitigated by the presence of a decent self healing attack and the native tohit debuffs of the set.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Donna_ View Post
    I would suggest if anything...

    Focus Chi - (instead of Build up effect) - Increases the chance for Crits and %'s on proc chance for damage for x number of seconds.
    It's possible for the devs to alter the chances of aspects of a power occurring, but it's not likely that the devs would have that power globally alter the proc rates of IOs as well. They could, but it would likely involve a including every single one of those procs on the list of things that the power effects.

    Having the power increase the crit chance isn't going to be particularly spectacular either. In order to make it provide quite the same oomph (assuming 95% +dam slotting) as 100% +dam, any power with a 5/10% crit rate would need to get an increase to 59/66% crit rate while the power was active. Of course, because it's not operating off of a +dam mechanic that causes dilution, on a team, you're going to get a lot better performance than that because you're augmenting all of the +dam you've got normally as well as any extra +dam your team is providing you with. By this same token, you're still not going to perform in the same way in PvP because you're trading controlled direct increase to damage (via +dam) for an increase to the random chance to deal double damage.

    I highly doubt the devs would replace Focus Chi or any BU power that isn't integrally related to the function of the powerset with a power that increased the chance of an AT specific function within that AT (and, yes, critting is an AT specific function so that if the set were ever proliferated across to Tankers or Brutes, it would need to see a rather spectacular change).
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper View Post
    Well, FA has a 10% chance for an extra 62.56 damage (unenhanced, Blaster numbers) which alone puts it above RoA's base damage
    Except that it doesn't.

    RoA's base damage is 3 ticks for 75.07 damage (level 50 Blaster) for 225.21 damage. FA's base damage is 17 ticks of 10.14 damage (level 50 Blaster) with a 10% chance for 62.56 damage, for a total of 178.63 damage. Unless you're saying that, when it procs, FA does more damage than RoA, you're simply wrong.

    Something else that rarely gets mentioned that probably should is that FA also has a target cap of only 10 targets, unlike RoA's 16. Even if you did get an entire group in the middle of your FA, you're only going to hit 10 of them (and, remember, RoA operates by making 3 different attacks against all targets in range so it's possible for it to hit more than 16 targets if one tick misses or if it kills a target early).
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint View Post
    but i still don't see them giving out a vet power that you can't use yourself.
    I'm not even sure why it should have that limitation. It seems like a lot of work (heavy coding required) just to arbitrarily attach some penalty to a not-that-spectacular benefit.

    Instead of calling it "mentor" just call it "ancestral guide" or some sort of thing (let them take their pick of the name/appearance, but it all does the same thing) that is simply a summonable object that allows anyone to train to whatever level. It's going to be given to players that have been playing for in excess of 6 years (since I doubt they're going to retroactively add it to existing vet rewards), so I doubt you really need a reason to arbitrarily prevent players from training themselves since it's likely they have a 50 on that account somewhere and, even then, you could just as easily explain it as being something you've gotten that helps you out just becaue you've been around this long.

    The only limitation it really should have is the ability to switch builds, which I would want removed for the reasons listed already.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dante View Post
    But a big 'yes' to knocking my foes to the floor and a second shaved off of Eagle's Claw.
    Half a second off of EC. Shaving off A full second would just be borked (95.6 DPA and a stun on a 12 second recharge coupled with Storm Kick?).
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    I can't quite prove that the devs overvalued the combination of immob/slow relative to each separately *because* of a belief in synergy that didn't exist, but I can prove all of the above, and within that context this is a reasonable assumption to make, and almost certainly true.
    So, you can prove that, in the past, when the devs largely didn't know what they were doing and mostly just stumbled upon balance by happy coincidence, that MA was weak because the devs didn't know what they were doing?

    It's completely pointless to bring up the old design of the set when the discussion is how to fix the set as a whole now. You may as well just cite how pre-nerf IH operated in a discussion about whether current */Regen should get debuff resists. You're pretty much doing this over and over again by simply stating that you talked to someone 3 years ago about this and already got an answer even though the entire paradigm has shifted in the intervening time, especially when there is a perfectly reasonable logical foundation for abandoning the archaic model that you still believe exists. The devs can change their minds. Apparently you can't.

    The CAK model would work wonderfully as a model for the other powers in the set if the devs actually wanted to maintain the whole idea of "a diverse suite of secondary effects". As the devs know now, it's not so much a question of how many different effects you've got as it is what you can generate via the interaction of those various effects. If each power in MA operated using a different secondary effect pairing (one mez effect and a second debuff that is rendered irrelevant by the operation of that mez), then they could easily "over load" the set with secondary effects (which, as you have stated, was the primary reason why MA was given such paltry effects in the first place) and be confident that it wouldn't be completely borked.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    As for the reasoning behind the -Regen (which had an alter punch animation)...the martial artist is hitting a nerve point, stopping the flow of chi, causing a disruption in the tagrets regen.
    So how does hitting a nerve point that makes the target move slower somehow prevent it from healing? You can't simply say "nerve point!" and be done with it, especially since the best power for that particular excuse to be used on is actually Cobra Strike (which would likely make it a power that people would actually take rather than completely ignore, depending on the grade of -regen applied)

    Quote:
    Also, adding the -regen effect, only effects the HARD targets that make up very little of the game, but gives MA the distinction of being the ST DPS set, without really breaking the game.
    Except that MA isn't the ST DPS set. It's simply one of them (Fire, DM, and MA are probably considered the nominal ST sets, though Fire is more of an all around damage set; MA and DM both share the position of heavy ST and utility focus with DM having more utility but less AoE and MA having less utility but more AoE). Giving it -regen without allowing other sets to have it allows it to pull ahead of virtually every other set out there while still being able to maintain the same AoE performance that the set already has (which, while low, isn't the lowest out there; DM is bad even by MA's standards). Something else to consider is also that -regen is a very quick and dirty way of getting through GMs. The only reason that you don't see Scrappers and Tankers killing GMs like trollers and defenders (and MMs, and blasters, and corrs) is because of a lack of -regen. Against a GM, that -regen is going to do a helluva lot more (thanks to higher base regen to debuff) and could quite easily push an MA/* into the GM soloing realm (which I'm pretty sure the devs didn't want happening with any AT).

    Most of this comes from the fact that I don't think the devs should provide 1 set with a massive benefit against hard targets without providing it in some way to all others unless that set specifically needs that benefit to compete. The AH proc seems really great and it seems a bit unfair that only a few sets can slot it and only 2 of them can get much use out of it until you look and see that those sets can't really get up to "average" top end performance without it. -Regen in MA is pretty much the same only it's even more specific. I doubt the devs want to specifically turn MA into the AV/GM stomping primary (which it would be if it got any decent degree of -regen), especially when they're not even sure what kind of primary it's supposed to be.

    If Scrappers were to get -regen, I'd prefer the -regen to be granted via a worthwhile ancillary power (i.e. screw the "3 times worse" rule that makes everything 6 times worse for a Scrapper because we have to deal with "3 times worse" and crappy AT mods) or an IO. If you really want a mechanism that augments performance against hard targets but not against other targets, it's probably smarter to consider -res: it's actually a useful secondary effect for things other than AVs/GMs though the only things it really is useful on is hard targets (because they have to survive long enough to see much use out of it).
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    But MA's secondary effects are very clearly limited. It was granted only a limited amount of individual effects, including slow and immobilize. Putting them both into the same power only makes sense if the two effects were meant to be packaged as a singular "super effect" - the effect of "immobilize, or at least slow if not immobilized." But that means in the grand scheme of things it should really count as one effect simulated by two game mechanical effects.
    How does it not act as one "super effect"? As I see it, CAK is a well designed power because it specifically accomplishes the two things set out for it: it deals damage and it either stops or inhibits the ability of the target to get away from you. It's not like CAK actually pays more for having a "second" secondary effect even though it largely amounts to one. As a power, it's perfectly well balanced, conceptually and mechanically.

    There isn't even a problem with CAK not working well with the other powers in the set. The presence of a single immobilization effect in one of your primary attacks doesn't somehow decrease the effectiveness of your stuns or knockback powers. If anything, it's good design because it's both a reasonably controllable effect (1 shot immob a minion, 50% chance to immob an LT, 2 shot immob a boss; if the target isn't immob'd, at least it's slowed down somewhat) and it doesn't face the issue of redundancy (because you don't have 6 attacks in the set that all immobilize, making anything past the second largely useless). If the design of the set is to have a large number of powers that each have secondary effects that are useful but not identical (i.e. swiss army secondary effects), CAK should be a model of how the powers in the set should be designed, not the power that should be changed first.

    The problem only exists if you assume that the set is supposed to have a specific number of secondary effects present that that's all, which I don't think is true at all (you would need a dev to come in and outright tell me that they're limiting the number of different secondary effects and that they will only be present a certain number of times, because, otherwise, that's just unbelievable that the devs would shoot themselves in the foot like that). If you assume that the set is supposed to be designed around having a diverse number of secondary effects that, while not being directly synergistic, are intended to be used simultaneously, then there is no problem with CAK because the presence of an immob and a slow in the same power have no bearing upon the presence or magnitude of similar effects in any other power.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    I was sure Umbral could figure out a better number for the idea, than I could...probably a good idea to go with -150%
    I doubt we'll ever get some kind of native -regen on a Scrapper simply because I doubt they'll ever give the AV killing AT (and, yes, I would label Scrappers as the "AV killing AT" because it's almost impossible to take a powerset pairing that can't be made to solo AVs well, with the exception of Spines/*). 150% -regen would turn into 22.5% -regen for a level 50 Scrapper on a level 50 AV, which equates to roughly 21.2 additional DPS for as long as the power lasts (assuming a Storm>CAK>Storm>Crane attack string, that's 117.5 extra "damage" for every iteration of the attack string).

    The problem with adding any kind of -regen to a set is that it is completely useless against all but an exceptionally small number of entities in game (AVs, GMs, and some players in PvP). Adding -regen is pretty much specifically stating that you want the set to be better against those targets than anything without it and that the power should be better than any other option you could possibly have on the table.

    Personally, I wouldn't add any -regen to CAK, but that's mostly because I'm not entirely sure I see how a kick to the shin is going to make something heal slower. Lingering Radiation and Benumb provide -regen because they are literally stopping the ability to heal. Drain Psyche provides -regen because you're pulling it out of your target. Crippling Axe Kick is, quite literally, kicking a guy in the shin.

    If Scrappers were to get any -regen, I would go about doing so by adding it in an APP, but that wouldn't fit with Castle's method of simply providing useless ancillary powers to Scrappers, so I doubt that will ever happen. Barring that, I'd go for a proc that provided -regen, but, once again, that would require providing something more useful for Scrappers than Defenders or Controllers, so I doubt that will happen either.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Windenergy21 View Post
    Well when they do, what I had also originally suggested, and make CaK the "new storm kick" by reducing its animation time, to just a very quick kick to the shins, upping its DPA, then the cone of storm kick would be more balanced (reducing its crit chance of course and possibly porting it to CaK)
    So your solution is less "buff Storm Kick" as it is "turn CAK into Storm Kick and weaken Storm Kick so that it becomes Shadow Maul"?

    CAK is already a good enough power. It provides a good, useful secondary effect and deals a respectable amount of damage. CAK isn't a problem power (and if it were buffed up to the extent you seem to want it to be, it would be quite possibly bordering on overpowered by having higher crit chance, high DPA and immobilization). Storm Kick is in a gray area. Eagles Claw is definitely sub par. The simply solution is, honestly, to just fix Eagles Claw rather than trying to reinvent the entire set.
  13. The simply reason is because no buff that affects other players provides DDR. You're already providing a massive amount of survivability to your party members. Allowing them to partially or fully mitigate one of the few effects that your buffs don't allow them to largely ignore (because, remember, defense acts as debuff resistance by allowing you to dodge attacks).

    The only powersets that provide DDR are personal survivability powersets that operate using some degree of defense (Invuln, SR, Shield, Energy, etc). The only powers that provide DDR are powers within those sets and the only power that I can recall that allows you to give it to your allies is Grant Cover. The reason for this is simple: defense based sets need DDR in order to prevent a defense debuff cascade. Buff sets are already designed to provide more than the targets have normally, so there is no need to provide them with any degree of resistance to the defense debuff cascade. If FF did provide DDR, you can be reasonably confident that it would be even more overpowered than it already is (and, yes, though it gets a bad rap, FF is one of the single most powerful sets out their based on animation time consumption and overall contribution).
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Necrotron_RO View Post
    The best ideas I have seen to fix MA yet. It never made sense that my Storm Kick was traveling through the bodies of 5 people, but only damaging one.
    Any fix that makes Storm Kick even better isn't really going to be balanced. It's already the best attack in the set. It doesn't really need to be made better.
  15. Umbral

    Fury Equation

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight View Post
    Note also, that the more fury you already have, either the faster it will degrade or the less your powers will increase it by (might be both or one, can't recall).
    Actually, if I recall correctly, the degradation is a standard amount regardless of how much Fury you're packing. The only thing that varies depending on your current Fury level is whether you get Fury from attacking: you generating 5 Fury for every attack as long as you do not have more than 70 Fury at the time of the attack. In order to gain more than 70 Fury, you're going to have to get it from being attacked.
  16. Umbral

    Fixed wings

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lothic View Post
    Who knew something like that would be so hard to create in this game.
    I'm not even sure it would be that hard. Depending on the mechanism the devs wanted to use, it could be creating a specific version of the wings that has the "in air" animation of simply being extended and still (just trim the rest of the animation off of the wing animations and leave them fully extended) or it could be a flight pose that leaves the wings extended rather than moving. It would be some degree of work, but, since most of the wings already have full animations and you could cannibalize those for the static wing animations, I'm not sure it would be a great load of work.

    The most I can figure, it's likely one of those "not worth the effort" things: the devs probably think that there are not enough people interested in static wings to make the expenditure of time worth it.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Doomguide View Post
    *Glances at section title, reads "claws/regen build" ... and wonders how this question, whatever it was, happened to be in the wrong section? Stalker?
    Considering the only Claws/Regen in his sig is a Scrapper, I'm not entirely sure that it's supposed to be a Stalker. The only reason I can imagine would be that it's supposed to be a PvP build rather than a PvE build, but he hasn't posted anything involving a Claws/Regen build since this in any forum.
  18. Umbral

    Ugh!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent View Post
    Not against the maximum reward rate content in the game, the kind where dev power-weakening efforts, if any, should be focused. Farms, Hamidon raids, various AV or GM heavy end-game content.
    For farming, the reason debuffs don't matter much is largely because enemies don't survive long enough. If you're killing anything that gets near you within 10 seconds, that 20 second debuff isn't really a stellar performer compared to the buff that doesn't care whether your target dies or not.

    For hami, there is very little that actually does matter beyond +regen, +recov, and heals. An FF fender is going to be less useful than a Rad fender for this exact reason: at least the Rad fender has a heal.

    For AV based end game content, you're assuming a lot based exclusively off of a very small level range. Yes, AVs and their debuff resistances play a large part in the end game, but that's not the entire game. Hell, the desv have explicitly stated that the game is intended to be replayed with alts rather than played extensively at the end of the game with a single character.

    You can't simply say "well they suck at the endgame where everything resists debuffs or dies to fast to make them worth is" without readily admitting that, for the entire rest of the game, debuffs are more powerful than debuffs.

    Quote:
    In more common gameplay, yes, debuffs are better than buffs. Live em, love em, don't leave home without em. But if common gameplay becomes the basis for weakening debuffs even more, a lot of end-game content will go right back to Issue 0.
    Well, the problem that you're attempting to bring up (debuffs would get hosed by top end content if they were brought in line) is less due to debuffs and more due to the sheer amount of debuff resistance that the devs have had to put into the game in order to prevent buffs and debuffs from rendered even the hardest content pointless. If buffs and debuffs were brought in line, you can likely expect that debuff resistances would likely be brought back in line as well, likely such that debuffs and buffs would act in a roughly identical way.

    Quote:
    (Regen debuffs being the major exception, but only because they're a countermeasure to something else that's overpowered.)
    I wouldn't say that AV native regeneration is overpowered. The problem is, as I said before, with the fact that the game operates under an assumption of indefinite survivability rather than an attrition based survivability model. -Regen forces one side of the fight to become attrition based while allowing the other to maintain indefinite survivability. It would be much better if the entire game operated off of an extended attrition model (AV fights last 3-5 minutes, any longer and one of the two parties has died thanks to simple attrition) so that -regen wasn't needed anyway. -Regen is simply there to address the problem that the Cryptic devs gave absolutely everything the same in combat regeneration as out of combat regeneration (which is simply bad design).
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by DreadedByMoon View Post
    Now at the moment I don't plan anything too crazy for this character as is usually seen on the Scrapper forums. However it is a possibility in the future of it. I am rather familiar with WP and how it's a fire and forget type of support. But at the moment, I'm willing to take a more hands on approach to my scrapper's survivability if it means it would end up more durable then using willpower. So I guess my question boils down to which would be able to survive better in say, for now a farming environment. But I would also like to know which would have the most potential for those crazy AV slaying and RWZ challenges I keep hearing about as well.

    Thanks ahead of time for any input that someone might be able to shed on the subject.
    Well, if you get good (and I do mean good, not just average, but "I can predict when damage is incoming so as to use my clickies to the best effect") with the */Regen clickies, you'll maintain better survivability than you will with */WP. If you don't, then you'll maintain better survivability with */WP. Regardless of survivability, you'll maintain better damage with */WP for the simple fact that you don't have to use any animation time keeping yourself alive and you don't have to deal with redraw. They're both going to perform roughly the same where farming is concerned but, then again, neither is a particularly spectacular farmer.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Thoughts?
    Completely broken. You want to make every attack in the entire set as powerful as the most powerful attacks in the set are right now? This is also completely ignoring the fact that the set would have terrible performance without massive amounts of recharge because you're making every single attack have a minimum base recharge of 6 seconds. Thunder Kick may be a bad attack at the top tier of play, but it's the attack you use when you're leveling because it recharges quickly so that you can actually saturate your attack string.

    By providing every attack in the set with a flat 15% chance to crit, you're also making the entire set even more powerful than you would be by increasing the base damage (which would already threaten to break the set further). You would be providing turning the new "weakest" attacks in the set (Crane Kick, CAK, and Cobra Strike) with a DPA of 76.3. The weakest attacks would be given the DPAs of the best attacks in a number of other sets. Even worse, you're making the secondary effects of every attack in the entire set stronger than the comparative secondary effects in every other set: CAK is providing more immobilization than MG, Dragon's Tail would provide the secondary effects of both Whirling Hands and it's own secondary effect simultaneously, the chances on Cobra Strike and Crane Kick are better than the secondary effects of their comparative powers, and, to top it all off, you're giving every attack in the set the additional secondary effect of "more critting" (yes, a higher crit chance is the "given" secondary effect of Storm Kick).

    You would generate a horribly broken powerset by instituting those changes: better secondary effects, more damage, and no real weakness. Those would never get through even the most preliminary forms of balance analysis.

    If you want some simple numbers to demonstrate this, try this theoretical attack string: Storm>Thunder>Cobra>Storm>Thunder>CAK. You would only need SOs in order to run it (Storm and Thunder require 60% +rech while Cobra and CAK require 80%). You would be able to achieve a base DPS (no enhancements, no procs) of 89.5 with a 55% chance to keep a boss perma-stunned, 100% chance to keep him immobilized (stun + immob = held), and knocked on the ground roughly 10% of the time. That's 60% mitigation while doing as much damage as possible. For comparison's sake, MG>Smite>Siphon>Smite achieves only 75 base DPS while requiring 235% +rech and maintaining only 40% mitigation (roughly 20% -tohit) and Inc>GFS>Cremate achieves only 83.1 DPS while maintaining no mitigation.

    An SO attack string with that build would be able of solidly outperforming the top tier attack strings of the two best ST performing in the game across all points of comparison. No, I'm sorry, that's just not gonna happen.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
    A 200 point difference when I'm being very nice about how many I actually hit with spin/evis AND we're completely ignoring the no damage output time of the rage crash for DOUBLE stacked rage. Edit: AND we're completely ignoring shockwave.

    For the last farking time, a direct port of super strength would not be overpowered.
    Edit: AND you're completely ignoring animation time.

    You're talking about Super Strength using roughly 55% animation time ((2.244 / 6) = 37.4% animation time; (2 * (10/120)) = 16.7% Rage crash downtime averaged out, assuming no attacks are made during this period) and comparing it favorably to Claws using 100% animation time.

    SS can do just as much, if not more damage more easily than Claws can (15' radius compared to 8' radius) using nearly half the animation time? Broken or not broken? Let me consult my magic 8 ball. Signs point to yes.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by War_Hero_NA View Post
    I love the animation for EC though.
    The best way to go for me would be 3 second animation time, 240 damage.
    Jump, float, kaPOW.
    If that happened, you still wouldn't see decent returns from it. 240 damage means that you would likely have a 20-25 second recharge time and an endurance cost of roughly 18-20. A long recharge time like that coupled with a long animation time means that you're going to have to get a lot of recharge to see much continuous use out of the power (massive cycle times are bad; repeat this after me). It's for the same reason that Total Focus and its ilk are rather droll powers even considering their sheer hitting force.

    One of the biggest problems with doing anything to provide real, substantive improvements for MA are that so many players want the aesthetics and the performance when the aesthetics (i.e. long animation time in EC) are the problem. You can't solve the problems of the set by making EC a progressively harder and harder hitting power without making it completely useless as a basic attack. In order to bring EC up to the same hitting power as Storm Kick (which you would need to, because a 2.772 sec animation time that deals 240 damage is only marginally better than the DPS you'd manage with Storm Kick and Crane Kick but has significantly higher recharge requirements to make viable) you would need to pull the other values of the power up to such an extent that it's no longer possible to use the power effectively: it would simply become a tier 9 ST nuke.

    The problems with long animation time powers aren't due to a lack of damage. If the problem is that people aren't using them because they're ineffective, you're simply exacerbating the problem by making them less useful because they're up progressively less often. Every time a power such as EC gets brought up, the simplest, most direct way to address the weakness of the power is to simply reduce the animation time to a viable level. Increasing damage almost always requires increases to endurance costs and recharge time, and few players would "enjoy" a buff that made the attack in question more powerful but made it less usable. I doubt most players would even notice a reduction in the animation time by half of a second, especially when it allows them to actually kill targets faster.
  23. Umbral

    Ugh!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent View Post
    Buffs, maybe. Debuffs, no. Purple patch, massive AV resistances, and not much stacking.
    Purple patch and AV resistance do some to offset the potency of debuffs, but the sheer size of most debuffs allows them to still compete very well when they're pitted against buffs. Compare the sizes of most tohit debuffs to defense buffs and you'll find that the debuffs are, quite often, substantially stronger.

    The issue of stacking is similarly vague. It's remarkably easy to stack a large number of different debuff types, but that requires a certain team makeup, or lack thereof. The same applies to stacking buffs, however, so it's not like it's a weakness of debuffs exclusively.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    One would think. And yet the set has barely been TOUCHED in what must be five years at this point, coming on six. Surely if it's a question of a couple of hours, more would have been done, meaning there's more to this than just finning in the fields in a spreadsheet.
    I think it's more of an issue of "there are more important things to deal with now". The problem with changing many of the completely borked mechanisms in game (Rage, Granite Armor, etc.) is also the fact that it's going to piss people off. Look at what happened when the devs tweaked Energy Transfer or, if you can remember back then, Instant Healing. The devs have to be cognizant of player backlash when they're fixing things and that lends a large amount of trepidation to any fixes that they're going to put in after the fact, especially long after the fact (because players have had 5 years to get used to it).

    Fixing the numbers, itself, is a simple process (as it has been said numerous times, it's all in a spreadsheet). The problem is, and always has been, getting the devs to overcome their natural tendency to not rock the boat whether by demonstrating that the power is overpowered or by providing a show of player support for such a change.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cava_ View Post
    I basically tried to keep it simple and get as much regeneration going as I could, but it doesn't really seem to be working :S
    Well, there's a pretty simple reason you're not getting much out of it: */Regen doesn't get much from +regen. It doesn't get all that much from +hp either, and that seems to be something you aimed for pretty intensely as well. The only power in the set that benefits at all from the +heal set bonus is Dull Pain and, even then, it's only the heal portion rather than the +hp portion (this is due to Recon being unaffected by outside buffs because it provides resistance). You generally want to ignore those set bonuses as well.

    What */Regen really loves is defense and recharge. */Regen loves recharge. With an obscene passion. Thankfully, both of these things often come hand in hand.

    Now, for your slotting, it's pretty much apparent you have no clue what you're doing. A large number of 6 piece set bonuses are largely useless, like the Crushing Impact and Scirocco's 6 pieces. Because the enhancement bonuses are so high, you generally only need 5 slots in order to get all of the enhancement you need.

    Here's a build that should show you what I'm talking about. It manages softcap defenses with a single application of Parry, perma-DP, and infinite endurance sustainability. Notice the AH proc in Hack: it's one of your best long term damage contributors. Similarly, I used Obliteration and Doctored Wounds rather than Scirocco's Dervish and Numina's. You'll also notice that I did not take Fitness: */Regen gets access to QR, which will do everything you need, especially since the sets provide large amounts of end redux as well.

    Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.704
    http://www.cohplanner.com/

    Click this DataLink to open the build!

    Level 50 Natural Scrapper
    Primary Power Set: Broad Sword
    Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
    Power Pool: Leaping
    Power Pool: Speed
    Power Pool: Fighting
    Power Pool: Leadership
    Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

    Hero Profile:
    Level 1: Hack -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(5), Achilles-ResDeb%(7)
    Level 1: Fast Healing -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Heal(50)
    Level 2: Reconstruction -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal(9), Dct'dW-Rchg(11)
    Level 4: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(15), EndMod-I(17)
    Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Winter-ResSlow(11), Zephyr-Travel(13), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(13), LkGmblr-Def(15)
    Level 8: Parry -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(17), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(19), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), LkGmblr-Rchg+(21)
    Level 10: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal(25), Dct'dW-Rchg(25)
    Level 12: Build Up -- AdjTgt-Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(27)
    Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
    Level 16: Integration -- Numna-Heal(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(31), RgnTis-Regen+(31), Heal-I(50)
    Level 18: Whirling Sword -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(33), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(34)
    Level 20: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(34), RechRdx-I(36)
    Level 22: Boxing -- Empty(A)
    Level 24: Tough -- ImpArm-ResDam(A), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(36), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(36), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
    Level 26: Disembowel -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(27), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(37), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), T'Death-Dam%(39)
    Level 28: Instant Healing -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29), RechRdx-I(29)
    Level 30: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(31), GftotA-Run+(40), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(43)
    Level 32: Head Splitter -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(43), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(43), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45), Oblit-%Dam(45)
    Level 35: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(39), GftotA-Run+(42), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(42)
    Level 38: Moment of Glory -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(39), RechRdx-I(40), RechRdx-I(40)
    Level 41: Focused Accuracy -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(42), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(48), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(48), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(48), GSFC-Build%(50)
    Level 44: Physical Perfection -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-End%(46), EndMod-I(46)
    Level 47: Resilience -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
    Level 49: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A)
    ------------
    Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
    Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
    Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
    Level 1: Critical Hit
    Level 0: Ninja Run