Vindicus

Well if anyone ever posts in the future that the devs hate powerleveling, I'm going to link this thread. Just incredible...

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And as long as the MASSIVE +DEF buff that NW's had is removed, then they'er only situational too and not game breaking. ...

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Do you happen to know the status on this fix? Personally I see that as the only issue. I have to agree with UberGuy that the difficulty of Night Widows is fine, as long as this defense problem is corrected.

You know what Night Widows need? AS

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As long as they allow Brawl to do it, I'm fine with that. It gives more of a strategic purpose to, as of when to use your actual moves and brawl.

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I whole-heartedly agree with you there. If a player really needs to resort to dropping someone toggles to beat them, it's an acceptable risk to use Brawl. My beef with toggle dropping stems from the hipocracy of game balancing that has been done. If you read any of the PvP General threads, you'll most likely find someone complaining about getting killed by so-and-so and there was nothing they could do about it. The response is always "Get on a team, PvP isn't balanced for 1-on-1 encounters". But then on the flip-side, everyone seems to think that any AT or build should be able to solo a tanker, the supposed toughest AT in the game. If you can defeat a Tanker as easily as a Scrapper or a Kheldian, then who would want to play a Tanker in PvP?

Don't even get me started on the neutering of Aggro Management abilities in PvP. Statesman keeps harping on how Tankers are the kings of aggro, and yet Gauntlet doesn't work and Taunt is hard-capped at 50% effectiveness. All this is because players found it "annoying" to be Taunted the whole time. That's the point of Tankers! They are supposed to redirect damage to themselves to shield the team! Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent here. Obviously I'm a bit sour on how Tanks have been implemented in PvP...

It's not just about Brawl, it's about all the other attacks that have a high chance of knocking off 1 or more toggles with every hit. The entire Energy Melee set comes to mind. It might not be as serious for a defense-based melee set like Ice or Super Reflexes, but for a set like Fire Armor, you spend your entire time in PvP just trying to turn toggles back on. But anyways, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. The PvP in this game is stale , regardless of what AT you choose to play.

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Detoggling=Rule Applies For Everyone

Having 2 Level 50 Tanks and a Level 42 Tank, I say detoggling is just fine. Its part of the game, deal with it

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Detoggling = Not equal for everyone because not everyone has a Primary full of toggles

Having 3 level 50 tanks, I say detoggling is a cheesy game mechanic that goes against the often barked "PvP is team based! They aren't trying to balance every 1-on-1 encounter!"
It's a part of the game that is being changed, deal with it.

I too can make an asinine post...

Anyways, yes, it's been commented on that toggle droppers are being adjusted in Issue 7. It's a kludge that was put in the game before all the balancing took place, and it sounds like they are actually revisiting this.

That actually wasn't my concern. Just to clarify, I'm concerned that even if I satisfied an accolades requirements at, oh say level 25, if my now level 40 character is awarded the accolade, the accolade will be considered as "having been earned at level 40". Clearly in my example I would have gotten said accolade at 25, and it would be available to my now level 40 character if he malefactored down to 30. I personally don't have a problem with losing accolades when you exemp/malefactor below the level at which you earned them. It kinda rewards the obsessive people who go out of their way to earn badges and accolades as soon as humanly possible.

If the accolade is smart enough to know when I actually satisfied its requirements (i.e. there is a table of badges earned with player ID's and their level and date when they obtained them or something) then I have nothing to worry about.

My concern is that when Issue 7 goes Live, people will receive accolades at their current level. If you malefactor to someone, you lose powers and accolades you earned after the level you melefactor to. So, if you actually satisfied the requirements for an Atlas Medallion-like accolade at 25, and you receive the accolade at 40, then the accolade would not be available if you malefactored down to level 30. It's a minor issue of course, but it would be nice if the accolade roll-out didn't work this way.

/e shrug

Here's my take on the Flight pool currently. I've been mainly playing a Fire/Dark corruptor for the past 2 months, and I use Air Superiority and Fly. Obviously I didn't fit Hover in there since I took the Air Sup route. I use Fly in combat as a means of knockback protection.

Some people would argue that the end cost is acceptable because "we aren't supposed to use 'travel' powers in combat". Obviously the devs have designed travel powers around the notion that people are going to do this, or there wouldn't be any suppression. So to that extent, Fly should be a viable power to have running during combat. I don't think with its current endurance cost that it achieves that. Like many people I had the chance to use the holiday jetpack, and in side-by-side comparison the jetpack was far superior. The only failing of jetpack compared to Fly was the odd suppression built into the jetpack, but then that was probably intentional.

Getting to my point though, you can overcome 1 of the drawbacks of Fly with slotting, be it the slowness or the endurance cost. To handle both drawbacks, you would almost have to 6 slot the power, and it's a bit insane to invest that many slots into a movement power. (Though with ED many build have quite a few slots that are useless anywhere else...). So in short, one of the aspects of Fly needs to be addressed, the endurance consumption, or the flight speed. I would personally prefer the endurance cost be lowered, as End Cost reducers are more expensive.

You're starting off 2006 with a bang States.

LOL, nice one!

Just when you thought it was safe to browse flash videos again...

The Badger Card

1. Disturbed - Stricken
2. Disturbed - Stupify
3. Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
4. Stone Temple Pilots - Plush
5. Linkin Park - Breaking The Habit
6. The Vines - Get Free
7. Greenday - Basketcase
8. Muse - Stockholm Syndrome
9. Crossfade - Colors
10.Breaking Benjamin - So Cold

I believe the offical response goes something like this:

"It was never our original intent for Super Groups and Villain Groups to be able to avoid prestige grinding."

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Honestly Castle, in some of the missions...like bank heists...having idiot civilians running around knocking you all over the place while you are fighting in the vault goes beyond annoying.

It isn't so much that they are getting in the way, its that every time they bump into you they jostle your camera angle. My camera gets so jerky during these fights that it nearly makes me sick.

I literally HATE the bank heist missions for this reason and this reason only. What the hell are people doing running through the vault anyway?

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I heard that! Last night a friend and I were duoing in a bank heist and were attempting to pull the entire mission together. Well, my friend was unfortunately trapped in a section of hallway because a frantic NPC was stuck in a door against one of the mobs. My teammate was subsequently beaten to the ground, with me following about 10-15 seconds later.

And no, the problem wasn't us trying to pull the whole mission, it could have also happened with a normal amount of aggro. The NPC counts in those missions is rediculous.

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I am tired of doing bank missions with full teams only to have my AS interupted because the damn headless chicken npcs that run thru the bank push me out the way. Is there a way to change it to where only mobs can push us around. I remember at one point a red name said that they were working on this but nothing has come to the light yet. It is bad enough during those missions that we get doors blocked by them but now they can interupt the AS too? Its almost like they be trying to grief us on purpose. I have had a few team wipeouts from this where I could not take out the boss due to the interuptions from the npcs and we had a few situations where we could retreat because the npcs blocked the doors.

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In CoH Beta, players were able to push NPCs rather than the other way around. Quite reliably, players would then herd the NPCs all into a small area, causing AI issues and horrible server lag.

I hate being pushed around, too, but I don't believe it will change any time soon. (NOTE: I could be wrong!)

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If at one point, players could push NPC's, and it was removed, would it not be possible to just not allow NPC's to move us either? Then there will be no pushing at all. I know it's not a game-breaking issue but it's a bit silly when my 7 ft tall 300 lb tanker gets pushed aside by a frightened old woman.

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Stone, as a primary, is tough to live with. I have taken EVERY available defense, only 2 attacks (3 slotted accuracy, and nothing else), and taunt. I finally picked up swift around 18. Level 19.8 now. Even with numerous slots devoted (with +2 lvl DOs, as I can) to defense, I still faceplant fairly regular.

I have no travel power. Primary, secondary, and fitness pool, for health.

The good news: If I fall the entire team goes green to red immediately. This shows that I was, indeed mitigating crazy damage. Invuln? Still standing when I fall.

I am useful, I am just finding my limits. We all should.

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This isn't a knock on you, but what you said really illustrates one of my points. You are generously slotting your primary and still face-planting regularly. Does it seem odd to you that, the AT that is supposed to be all about damage mitigation, goes down as much as anyone else? Isn't the trade off for lower damage supposed to be more survivability? Your problem is that in the early levels you are playing, you have to take care of your defenses before you can fill out your attacks. You'll finally start to see increased survivability when you get some more attacks and slot them up. And therein lies the rub: for a lot of tanks it boils down to killing them before they can kill you, which IMO doesn't really sound tankerish.

But have heart, at least you are leveling up a Stone tank. After you get Granite you will finally be a tank, although while using GA you will hit like a 10 year old girl. But I'm fine with that, it makes the power balanced and feeling like an impenetrable force is worth the loss of damage.

I couldn't help but notice your comment about limits at the end of your post. I think you missed the point of what I was saying. My issue is not with what a tanker can handle now, its how much better any other AT can handle the same situation. For example, I have an alt who is a level 15 Rad/Rad defender. With Radiation Infection and Enervating Field on, I can stand in the middle of 8-10 even con enemies and hardly take a scratch. I'll bet there have been times when your Stone tank couldn't do that (I faintly remember my times with my Stone tank in the Hollows, yum, dirt) Now, that isn't to say I think my defender is too powerful, I just think tankers whose primary is all about damage mitigation should get out what they put into it.

P.S. Were you running Mud Pots? The reason I ask is that at that level, Mud Pots will bleed you dry of endurance and attract more attention than your build can likely handle. Statesman himself said you can pull your weight by only tanking 1/3 of a spawn, so don't bite off too much and you will live longer. Let your team take a little bit of that aggro, they are heroes too after all.

I know how you feel Val. The problem is, our vision of what a tanker should be does not mesh with PvP. For a tanker to be able to leap into a spawn for an 8 man team and have a better than average chance of survival, his damage mitigation would make him severely unbalanced in PvP. It's clear to me that the meatshield role has no place in the current scheme of things, as there are much more efficient ways to deal with PvE enemies. Heck, it's plain as day that , slot-for-slot, you are better off slotting your attacks than Invuln's passives.

But I digress, the goal was to point out what we felt was wrong with Statesman's post. For starters, the comment about a skilled tanker being able to corral all the mobs: I guess we better hope spawns contain 17 or fewer enemies, what with the hard cap on aggro and all. What's the point of a hard cap? AoE powers were already nerfed, thus removing the incentive to herd. So why implement a cap on aggro, the role that Statesman himself said we are supposed to shine at? This is the one nerf that really ticks me off beyond all others.

As for taking the brunt of the spawn, I'll just nod in agreement with what you said. I would hate to think all I brought to the table was the ability to occupy 1/3 of a group of enemies with a character whose primary function is supposed to be meatshied.

So to wrap it up, Dull pain was the saving grace of his Invuln tanking experience.....a heal. Kinda rubs against the whole "Invulnerability" concept eh? Oh that's right, it brings us back to the whole "can't be balanced in PvP" crux.

In closing, I can't help but go off on a rant regarding the role of tankers in this game. The following is only my opinion. Tankers in PvE are really nothing more than sheperds for the ignorant enemy AI. Their purpose is to occupy the mobs while the team pummels them with impunity. The whole purpose of tankers in the PvE game hinges on this game mechanic called "Aggro", which can just as easily and more effectively be dealt with through other means (i.e. debuffing, holding, out-right defeating with attacks)

In the PvP game, tankers have even LESS of a raison d'etre (pardon any misspelling there, my french is rusty ). When facing real people, "aggro" doesn't exist. Sure, you can fire off Taunt and lock an enemy onto you, but that's pretty much the extent of what a tanker does in PvP. Otherwise, the tanker just tries to beat the crap out of the enemy a la scrappers or brutes. And if that is your goal, you are far better off just rolling a scrapper or brute. In short, tankers are collateral damage from a lack of forethought on the devs part. They should just finish nerfing our defenses, give us a fury bar, and make the transformation complete.

Sorry for the rant, it's been a long day.

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Raidable? If that's the topic of discussion, then I guess I'll stay out, I don't really care one way or the other about raidable bases. If a small group is locked out of PvP base raids, that don't bother me any.

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I'm not sure about anyone else, but I always figured raiding was a function of a base...So when anyone said a "small functional base" I assumed that meant raid capable...because if it wasn't then it wouldn't be functional....

I'm not sure if you would call a car functional, if it only turned on and let you listen to music, but didn't actually drive anywhere.....

So anyway, yeah I think everyone is talking about raiding when they say functional...

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At least for my group, Raiding is not included in our definition of functional. Right now my goal is for our base to enhance our PvE experience. This includes having the basic required Energy and Control units, a workshop, an infirmary, and a teleporter. Off the top of my head that is all that concerns us. We aren't even concerned with a Vault because obtaining an IoP would just open us up to having the base we worked hard to fund get smashed (and like someone else said, with my luck of combining a +0 and +1 enhancement and failing, I don't like the odds that base items will be repaired after an IoP raid).

I was floored when I realized that to have power, a Circuit Breaker would not give you power (50K prestige), you have to buy the Basic Generator (250K prestige or so). Even the barest essentials cost an arm and a leg to small groups.

Many thanks to the people who have run numbers showing the improbabilities of affording the top tier base components. I'm hoping this analysis leads Cryptic to slash construction costs a bit. And let's face it, if a break comes, it will be to construction costs and not rates of prestige accrual. It would be easier to datamine what SG's spent on base items than it would be to figure out the various ways they accumulated prestige, since there are varying rates of prestige accrual in the game. And if I've learned anything in the past 18 months, it's that they always go for the fix that requires the least amount of code change.

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Well, so far you could still be a Stone Tank. There are downsides, but you still get that "Come on, hit me, hit me again, it tickles" feeling when you port right into the middle of that spawn and yell out your "yo mama" jokes.

Only question now, is will Stone face the nerf bat next?

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The day my slow, rooted, -50% recharging Stone tank is as flimsy as Invuln is the day I hang up my tanking boots...

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OK, now that Statesman has given us his idea of the Role of the Tank, I have to ask the questions:

With the resources we have at the present time, can we fulfill that role?

Are there Primaries that would not have been able to fulfill that role? Secondaries?

Is the role a reasonable one that we can live with, long term? If not, how can we expand on it? If the DEVs can expand on it, what is reasonable to ask them to do that will not unbalance the game?

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If I understand Jack's rationale correctly, he found Invulnerability boring because of its level of inate damage mitigation. So the bonuses from Invuln's toggles and passives were reduced. He wanted Invuln tanks to fulfill their role actively through the use of our fists instead of Taunt.

So, to follow that same line of thinking, I would propose taking Invuln's passives and turning them into powers that "do stuff". Give us powers that encourage active tanking, rather than passives that have been reduced to being nigh-useless. I think that would go a long way towards helping the flavor of Invulnerability.

As far as Fire, the need to dip into the Leaping pool for knockback protection still cramps our ability to take some liberties with our builds. It has been billed as the "offensive tanker", and yet most Fire tanks can really only use Burn if the enemies are locked down. But, again since our role is more distractionary, perhaps that is supposed to be the new purpose of Burn (mitigating damage by making enemies run around like chickens with their heads cut off). In the new CoH world, I guess Fire is working as intended.

For Stone, life outside Granite can be painful in teams. I've had plenty of encounters with groups of 8-10 +1 Carnies with my level 47 Stone tank outside of GA. In those encounters, I would say my survivability was akin to the scenario Statesman described. Inside GA, the tanker game changes from "stay alive" to "aaaaah, must control aggro!!!" as I attempt to fulfill my role to the team while moving and recharging at snail-like speeds. you really have to decide what kind of tanking mood you are in with Stone, and I think that gives it a great feel. Again, I think this set is working as intended.

Ice.......someone else will have to chime in on this one. (I never fancied playing a DEF only tanker)

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I would much rather hear Cryptics explanation of our intended role and how they see us accomplishing it. Since we have obviously been wrong by their direction, I would really like for States and company to tell us what we are supposed to contribute to a team, and how that contribution stands out beyond all other AT's.

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Tankers manage aggro better than any other Archetype. They also have the highest combination of hit points and defenses in the game. Their role is to take the brunt of a spawn's aggro just long enough in order for the rest of the team to be able to eliminate the mobs.

Should a skilled Tanker be able to corral EVERY mob? With a lot of skill, it should be possible - but it's certainly not required to be a good Tank. As long as the Tanker can hold onto aggro so that his teammates are facing less than they'd normally face (i.e. 3 minions), then the team has an advantage. Namely, each teammate can quickly eliminate his opposition...and then come to the Tanker's aid at the end.

I just played a Tanker with the following group (actually, at the request of a PM)...

Inv/Fire tanker (32, SKed to 49)
Level 50 Elec/Elec Blaster (it was his mission, set on Rugged)
Level 32 Peacebringer (SKed to 48 or so).
Level 48 MA/Inv scrapper
Level 50 Fire/Kin controller
Level 35 Earth/empathy controller (SKed up to 48)
Level 49 Energy/energy blaster

We faced the Carnival of Shadows. Typically, I'd start combat by Taunting any Strongmen in the spawn. I knew that I could handle their damage best. I'd usually catch some other minions and lts. I'd end up with a good 1/3 of the spawn focused on me, while the rest of my group disposed of the others. Whenever I saw a teammate enter the red, I'd either Taunt the mobs off them or hit the mobs to get their aggro.

End result? Well, no one was that familiar with their builds. The Controller was defeated by getting too close to another spawn. The Peacebringer carelessly tossed off attacks and ended up aggroing too much. After those two defeats, we settled down and functioned fine.

Admittedly, my own health dropped down to a 1/3 several times. I'd get a little concerned, but usually I had Dull Pain ready.

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Thanks for speaking out on this States. Based on this scenario, would you say the Invuln tank prevailed through the use of his Primary powerset more (i.e. Resistance/Defense), or by virtue of healing and team support? If your answer is the latter, this indicates a concern many of us have: the notion that other pool powers and our secondaries are worth slotting more than our Primaries. I know from experience in the post Issue 5 world that powers like Fault and Hand Clap have done much more for mitigating damage than (for instance) the Invulnerability passives. This doesn't sit well with me, but it may be that Invuln's passives are collateral damage in the balance process.

In short, the fact that we have more hit points and Gauntlet shouldn't be our only defining characteristics, our Primaries should make a strong contribution too. Just my opinion of course.

I would much rather hear Cryptics explanation of our intended role and how they see us accomplishing it. Since we have obviously been wrong by their direction, I would really like for States and company to tell us what we are supposed to contribute to a team, and how that contribution stands out beyond all other AT's.

Many thanks for the updated summation of DA. In light of Issue 5 I decided to dust off my shelved Kat/DA scrapper, and this will help immensely!

Pardon my tone, but has the development staff ever heard of "controlled experimentation"? The concept is fairly simple.
To conduct a test, you change one variable in the experiment and observe the results. In this way, you can see the effect changing that one variable had on the experiment.

The current state of Burn on test is a prime example of how NOT to conduct a controlled experiment. You gave Burn a dramatic Fear effect; ok, I can buy that, it makes sense conceptually. This doesn't really impact Fire/Ice tankers, but I won't start crying nerf on them. For almost any other Fire tank, this alone is a pain to deal with.

Now Burn is getting tweaked yet again, with not just a damage nerf, but also a recharge nerf. Folks who swear by Hasten won't feel this nearly as much as the rest of us. I will be the first to agree that the damage needed to be toned down a bit, but this combination of nerfs further proves the remark floating around that "if the devs come up with a number of solutions, any of which will work, they will implement all of them".

In summation, this string of nerfs to Burn has an unbalanced affect on Fire tankers. The fear affect renders it all but useless to every Fire tank build, save for Fire/Ice. If the damage is the issue, directly address it. Beating around the bush isn't helping the issue one bit.