Writer_Tina

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Some strange perceptions of how people have reacted this set. I can't recall anyone besides just Zen_Concern who is actually okay with no knockback protection. Almost no time has been spent defending the holes in the set or pretending they're not there; some number of people have simply gotten over it, because it's fixable and the set is pretty interesting.

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My reference to dissent was more to the point of people disagreeing to what extent these things can be worked around or matter, than "the set is perfect as is". Obviously even I don't think that (though the lack of KB protection in and of itself isn't my main problem with it).

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If you post ideas in a thread like this and you don't see players e.g. me going wild over it - so what? I'm not on the dev team, what do you care if I'm impressed with your idea?

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I don't care if you're impressed, per se, but I'd like to know if anyone feels the changes sufficiently address their problems with the set that it'd be worth championing.

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If you have a real suggestion for the set you would like to get noticed, your best bet is probably to PM someone who can do something with it, or email.

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I'd like to see a little more back and forth on it in general as well as having some more time to test it first, but otherwise, I'm already there with this idea. I'd hate for some good suggestions to get lost in the arguments, so I'll probably try to sum up the various suggestions in just this fashion.

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Negative could use a boost to 40%.

Psionic could use a boost to 50%.

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I'm in favor of these.

Energy protection being highly-boosted but Neg. Energy falling short is actually a major flaw for this set IMO.

And Psi protection is one of the bonuses for the set that help offset its lacks for me; with that in mind, I'd like to see it be superior protection.

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And toxic could use a boost from zilch to 30%.

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This I don't care about either way, and I'd rather see no Toxic protection and boosted other protection than less boosts to other protection.

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Also add in -resistance debuff resistance to the main status shield.

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Hrm. The only real problem I have with this is that there's no real precedent for it; Defense debuff resist doesn't exist in shielding sets which concentrate on Defense to the best of my knowledge.

On the other hand, it does help compensate for a lack of a heal.

Okay, well, my brain insists on coming up with ideas even when I'm trying to actively avoid thinking about this, so...

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Asking for all new powers just isn't going to happen. I can't think of a single time this has ever occured.

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Yeah, I was afraid that was going to be a problem.


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I'd also like to see Conserve Power replaced by Quick Recovery - a passive Stamina, which will allow Elec Brutes ot reliably opt out of Fitness.

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Part why I suggested switching Power Sink and Conserve Power, actually, was to help with this.

So, let's see what we can do with existing stuff here, with that in mind and with improving the set as is in mind:

Charged Armor: No change in scope and, give preliminary numbers seen elsewhere, I'm probably content with it as is in terms of protection.

Lightning Field: I've never been fond of this style of power in an armor set and I often skip them, but I know other people who love 'em, so... no change to the power.

Conductive Shield: I haven't seen any hard numbers on this, so I don't know if the effectiveness holds up to other sets, but one thing it does seem to be lacking is some sort of secondary protection (Dark Armor's equivalent has resist End drain, Energy Aura's has Range/AoE, according to hero builder -- I don't actually have an */Energy or */Dark, so if someone wants to confirm this, that'd be helpful.)

If that's not going to be the case here, the numbers maybe should be boosted. Otherwise, going with the feel of things, I might add Disorient to this shield, to go with my next suggestion.

Why Disorient? Well, because I associate Disorient with heavy kinetic energy, e.g., hard blows. Kinetic energy seems to make as much sense to conduct away as anything else.

Static Shield: The more I think about this, the more I think that anything that provides Hold and Sleep protection to a melee toon probably should provide Immob protection, since an Immob might as well be a hold if you don't have a ranged attack. So, add Immob after moving Disorient to Conductive Shield.

Grounded: Grounded might need some buff to its numbers, might not. If I were going to add something to it, it'd be either extra Psi or extra Fire, but since it's an auto power, those probably would unbalance it. So, tentatively no change.

Lightning Reflexes: Probably unchanged. The only thing I can think of that might be nice to beef up the set would be adding Slow resist, but the +Spd already helps with that.

Conserve Power: Toss it completely from the set.

Now we have a choice:

Move Power Sink into its place, since a) the offensive End drain/recovery is in line with the whole Elec/Elec combo as well as in line with a Brute outlook; b) Given the emphasis on Endurance-related foo in Electric sets, having a power where End recovery is available more often just fits the whole set; c) It makes leaving Fitness off more feasable and attractive, which helps address concerns of how to work around the sets protective lacks without losing a lot of power choice flexibility.

Alternately: Add Quick Recovery in its place, as suggested in ProcessedMeatMan's post. Combined with Power Sink, it definitely helps point c) above.

Either Power Sink at 28 and Quick Recovery at 35 or vice versa works for me. Obviously, Quick Recovery earlier, as a passive, works better overall in helping with Endurance management, though, so I'm leaning towards that, which would make Power Sink fall into the 'unchanged' category.

Power Surge I'm happy to leave this unchanged in terms of the protection it provides, and am not keen on adding Repel because I think that's counter-productive on a melee char, but in lieu of that, maybe the pre-crash phase could include Sleep.

I know Sleep is not generally terribly useful in single-target attacks for melee toons, but as a PBAoE it would be, getting things off your back for a while. Electric melee contains some Sleep-due-to-Overload component, so it fits with the theme of electric, and the theme of the super-Overload of the power.

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EDIT: I went back and read his suggestions.

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Two things:

a) I appreciate someone did and has some feedback on them; it might make it possible for me to come up with other suggestions should I change my mind about not giving a crap about the set anymore.

b) See my name? That's my, y'know, name. Tina. It's a girl's name.

As a programmer, 'feedback' to me says not "let's argue about whether or not this is a problem". It says to me "let's hear what you think is a problem and what might be done to correct it".

When people are basically to the point of saying the exact same things that everyone already knows -- namely, that some people think the lack of KB/self-heal is an issue and don't like having to work around it because they feel it's limiting, but other people disagree because it is work-aroundable -- it's exceedingly irritating to see that the few people (not just me) who actually suggest possible ways to change this are totally ignored, because people don't really want to actually give feedback to the devs; they want to argue.

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We are doing what we're supposed to be doing.
We have to explain why we think the set lacks.

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That's been done. Over, and over, and, googleplex of over. That's not what's being done anymore. People are pretty much doing the "No it isn't", "Yes it is" dance.

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Making suggestions on new powers to add to the set is not what this thread is for, but there's nothing to stop you from doing so.

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I don't see a substantive difference between "The set needs KB protection or a self-heal to make it work" and "suggesting a power", and that's not even the point. The point is... it's not terribly productive to simply repeat that over and over again and shout at people about why their point of view is wrong. What's productive in development is contributing possibilities.

The thread might as well be one page long if it's just going to be people saying the same things over and over again, though. How is telling someone their opinion is wrong actually contributing anything? You can state your opinion, and that's fine, that's actually helpful feedback, but telling someone that their dissenting opinion is wrong is not. Their dissenting opinion is also legitimate feedback.

And again, I really have to emphasize this: it's a lot more helpful to spend some time saying how to address a fault than to argue about whether or not it is a fault.


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Anyway, the only ones you need to worry about reading your suggestions are the Devs, not us. If they saw your idea and think it's good, then great. If not, then bummer. Doesn't matter much what we think.

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Actually, it does. Because the issue here is: some largish percentage of people playing the set feel certain lacks make the set sub-par in performance. Seeing a suggestion about how to improve performance does give the devs some feedback, but seeing how the players who specifically feel a lack in the set react to that suggestion is greatly more valuable in determining if it would actually address their concerns.

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If you are playing a controller, defender, dominator, blaster or corrupter and have a problem attracting too much aggro then guess what? Change YOUR tactics. Using a group immob(which I don't bother taking on mine) on a group that no one else has the aggro of and taking full force of the group is your own fault. Blasting a group and starting a fight using fireball is your own fault. Laying down debuffs before a tank, brute or scrapper takes the aggro on larger teams is your own fault.

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Okay, this all presupposes a number of things about my playstyle you don't know, and continues to miss the point, so I'm just going to stop here except to note that, among other things:

a) I accept the weaknesses of the ATs I play, which was more or less part of my point.
b) I nearly always play in a team of two. That means I'm used to having gaps to cover, and you know what? I still play a really wide variety of sets with the same exact problems as similar sets and have fun.
c) Yesterday, I laid down a patch of quicksand, drew all the aggro, and having a scrapper in melee range dealing out tons of damage didn't change that one iota, so it's not quite as straight-forward as you say
d) I disagree the purpose of a Brute or Scrapper is to draw aggro; rather, I think it's a side-effect of their actual purpose, which is to cause damage

When you're ready to address any part of my actual point, including the post before the one you bothered to reply to or the second half of the one you did reply to, you can let me know. Until then, I'm to the point where I not only don't care anymore whether or not a solution can be found that makes the set more attractive to people, I actually actively hope they nerf the other Brute defensive sets to give them more weaknesses, just so you people will all explode in a ball of fury.

This is how much people with selective reading comprehension piss me off.

Now, to separate this bit out:

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You are welcome but comparing other ATs(that happen to be ranged attackers) lack of knockback protection to brutes which are melee makes no sense.

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The hell I can't (also, I'm not just talking about 'attackers').

Ask me how much aggro I draw laying down mass debuffs, multi-immob, cone attacks, or AoE attacks. You wanna know the answer? ALL OF IT. I DRAW ALL OF IT.

Don't tell me KB doesn't do anything to be because I'm out of melee range. It's still that much time I'm on my keister not able to do anything, and if I'm back near the far end of my range -- which as a squishie, I often am -- I still have to get back into my range.

What's more, since in these circumstances I am a squishie, I don't have anything to mitigate personal damage, with the possible exception of a minor self-heal or an APP.

Maybe I am sick of being a damage-provider or a controller who has absolutely no defense at all. Maybe I'd like, for once, a blaster set that includes some self-protection that doesn't involve hovering out of potential melee range (thus, I note, making it impossible to use blaster's melee attacks). But I don't go around saying "I'm so sick of this weakness, so this set sucks". I either make a cogent suggestion, or I work around the weakness.

That is why this thread annoys me so much. Because the number of cogent suggestions is tiny, and they're mostly overlooked. Not because people are sick of lack of KB protection, not because people think the set has holes, but because they're so busy explaining why they're right that this is an issue or how horrible it is they have to work around it that they forget to address possible ways to fix this, which in a thread posted on the TEST server forums about a set where the devs are ACTIVELY SEEKING FEEDBACK is extra-super-duper sad.

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(that happen to be ranged attackers) lack of knockback protection to brutes which are melee makes no sense.

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Okay, see this? This is what I mean.

The other half of my post, since apparently you can't scroll up and find it, specified this:

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But the fact is, I spent quite a while thinking about the set, and I'm playing it, and I suggested something that included a self-heal, and not one of you chattering monkeys even noticed. Which tells me that you're so hung up on proving you're "right" (which, since we're all providing opinions here, you can't never do) that you don't want to actually listen to anyone.

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I include it here separated from the talk about the Verboten Subject so perhaps you can read it this time instead of haring off on the Verboten Subject, which wasn't even my point, my point actually being that people are concentrating so hard on the Verboten Subject, they miss anything else people say, possibly because of some sort of strange alien mind control.

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Comparing brutes to other sets which are not melee aggro hounds holds little weight sorry.

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Wow, way to totally skip the point of my post while simultaneously proving it.

Hint: the part you quoted was only half the post.

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Thats because players are sick of sets without knockback protection.

Its gotten old really old, a set with no knockback protection and no self heal is just plain silly.

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Hey, you know what? I play a lot of ATs where I get jack [censored] for defense of any kind, including no KB protection and no self heal. Don't talk to me about it getting old.

But the fact is, I spent quite a while thinking about the set, and I'm playing it, and I suggested something that included a self-heal, and not one of you chattering monkeys even noticed. Which tells me that you're so hung up on proving you're "right" (which, since we're all providing opinions here, you can't never do) that you don't want to actually listen to anyone.

Yeesh.

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Mayhem Missions are nothing more than a crumb being handed out to draw in a younger crowd (which seems to be working), older more mature gamers need more than mindless smashing.

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So... these older, more mature gamers that I'm apparently not part of... Baby Boomers, I guess? I mean, they'd have to be to be older than me.

Also, I have to wonder if you've played the same missions I have. Quite aside from the fun of smashing things up, this is easily the most dynamic mission type there is in the game.

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Rather than 67845302948 more people posting, "Hey, this set doesn't have KB protection" can we have some posts with either: Some suggestions about which powers to change/add/subtract

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No, no. I tried that. People were too busy calling each other poopy-heads and repeating what everyone knew and arguing over which side was more immature and demanding to actually read it, though.

Of course, I also didn't suggest adding KB protection, so it'll probably do nothing for anyone even if they do read it, because after all (fire) a set with no KB protection (dark) is utterly worthless (Power Surge).

That having been said, I agree with whomever said that Lightning Reflexes really ought to provide Immob protection, both for thematic reasons and because of all sets to not include it, this one is one of the odder ones.

Just as a note, I can hover above a patch of NPC-laid caltrops. I've yet to see an NPC lay the other powers, so I can't speak to that.

Tar Patch and Caltrops aren't listed as having -fly in Sherksilver's hero builder, though Quicksand is, so I won't argue about consistency, though. (I don't have characters in a position to actually test the reliability of that info; none of them are at a level where they routinely encounter fliers.)

Anyhow, I support it being -jump in any event, so it's just quibbling. I don't need it to be -fly, but I don't object to it. I would feel odd about it bringing down fliers, though, under the circumstances, for the reasoning I stated.

Just a quick note -- I'm probably repeating someone since I haven't had time to keep up with this thread.

I understand the justificaton for Glue Arrow not affecting fly; it's an effect that spreads over the ground around the mob you target, so I wouldn't expect it to take down a flier (though I concede it might make sense to keep one grounded, but don't feel it's necessary). But I believe that it needs two changes:

1) Target the ground, not the mob. The effect is a stationary target on the ground, so why isn't the target?
2) Add -jump.

Just had a chance to do a second mayhem missions, with respecced versions of the same characters, both level 14, both set on Villainous, a Ninja/Ninja stalker and a Rad/Rad Corrupter.

Okay. This one was full of bugs and problems.

* The first time we took out a non-standard enemy (Clockwork - this is a King's Row instance), we got the Key Found message, but no new door on the map.

* This time there was a villain to rescue -- a 2-level higher spines scrapper. However, we never busted down a door to get her out. Note, I'm not complaining if this is the meant behavior (take out cops and longbow, get villain), but it's inconsistent with other reports.

* As others have mentioned, the villain had a tendency to wander off doing her own thing, including exploding items and scaring civvies in favor of attacking other things. Also, I watched her run back and forth between two nearby groups of detectives, hitting one, then running to the other group and hitting one there, then running back and hitting one in the first group. Repeatedly. It was like tennis, only with spines.

* Our second key mission did show up on the map. We walked in and the villain didn't follow us. So I went back outside to see where she went... only to be dumped directly back to Cap au Diable. I could (and did) re-enter the mission, but that was very weird.

* When I came back in, my partner in crime informed me that his waypoint for me says 6+ miles away. Once I walked back into the key mission door, it told me the bank was 5.2 miles away.

* The villain followed me in this time, then proceeded to stand in a corner by the door, looking as if she was waiting for us to do something, no matter where we went.

* Once inside the key mission, we literally had endless waves of ambushes, generally about half a minute apart. ENDLESS. Maybe it was the nature of this particular mission (lots of scattered safes, one of which eventually disgorged an appropriate origin +3 DO), but it certainly went counter to the other two types of key missions I've been able to see. And the ambushes were so close together that the only way to not get interrupted hitting the glowies was for one of us to distract them while the other got the glowie.

* This key mission had a LOT of glowies for the small space. Combined with the frequent ambushes, it was almost not worth the time expended (though there was a time bonus at the end).

* Walking back out after finishing dumped us both to Cap au Diable.

For non-problematic observations:

Definitely, sequential BONUS TIME messages take a long time to display. My best suggestion here is to make all the text appear at once rather than each bonus time award showing multiple messages.

Also, it's still really hard to tell how much stuff will get you a reward. Some stuff is single-object, it seems (newspaper boxes, mailboxes, trucks (I think)). For the multi-object ones, I'd like to see the message change to

X:XX time for N# ThingDestroyed

e.g., "1:00 for Cars (6 cars destroyed)" or "1:00 for six cars" or something similar.

A +3 DO is a nice reward for a character at 14, I will admit.

It's still fun, but I've yet to complete one down to robbing the bank and seeing the hero (this time we just ran out of time before my partner in crime had to leave and I didn't want to try to finish it solo), so I'm still a little dubious on difficulty.

After keeping an eye on this thread for a while, as well as some preliminary play as an Elec/Elec, I've come to solid feeling about this set and would like to propose the following possible change:

Move Power Sink to Conserve Power's current tier, making it available at 28.

Some rationale for this: Power Sink is an End Drain combined with an End Buff. The combined Electric set is really centered around Endurance drain, particulary on the Melee side; on even just the armor side there's a great deal of emphasis on Endurance, with Lightning Field draining it, Static Shield and Grounded resisting drain, two primary methods of Endurance recovery in the set as is, plus Power Surge, which includes boosted Endurance recovery.

While Conserve Power is certainly useful, it has no Endurance Drain component as Power Sink does, and it's not offensive as Power Sink is. Both of these things make me think that in the case of an */Electric Brute, which is all about making things go SMASH, it should be available earlier. More Endurance = More Smash; Less Endurance for Foes = consistent with the attack side of this set.

As for what to do with Conserve Power, I see several potential choices:

a) Simply switch it with Power Sink and call it done. Probably the easiest change to make, leaves the set substantially similar, and for reasons mentioned above, continues to be thematically appropriate.

b) Make a Burn-like ability centered around lightning: a field like Burn with a similar duration and damage, with the Immob freedom, and with an End drain component with the usual chance of returning some endurance to you. Thematically appropriate, makes Hover more attractive as KB protection by providing Immob freedom in the set as well, and still has a chance to buff your endurance, leaving the lack of Conserve Power less of a major change.

c) Add a power somewhere between Dark Regeneration and Drain Psyche (Dominator), which is to say, a foe-targetted power that drains Health and Endurance from the foe and provides a Heal/End Heal for the Brute, while dealing minor damage to the foe. Given the late tier at which the power would become available, I'd want it a bit stronger than Drain Psyche and with a recharge time closer to Dark Regeneration's (but I'm not going to provide numbers here, since this is, obviously, debatable in terms of where a good balance lies).

This has several plusses on its side. First, it's another attack type power in an otherwise defensive set, which is both not unusual in Brute's defensive set and thematically appropriate for any Brute. Secondly, it fills -- however late -- the lack of heal power in this set, addressing some people's concerns about the holes in the set. Lastly, it continues to drain foe Endurance and buff the Brute's Endurance, which both fits the theme and gives it at least some minor overlap with Conserve Power.

For various reasons, I like the third option best, but would be content with any of these.

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If the result is to have Banners, Tables and Tiles in any color combination with any Icon they should just give us the ability to set colors and icons without having to edit our SG settings.

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I think I agree this would be a nice QoL change.

On a different but related topic: I'd like to see the possible SG logo choices be expanded to include every symbol in the merged CoV/CoH chest detail list. You already have to have CoV to use bases anyhow.

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I dont mind the knockback on lower levels, but it would be way cool to have a knockdown to add to what the set already has...

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Actually, Thunder Strike appears to do knockdown on white+ cons, judging by the Big Pile o'Snakes I made several times in a row. And its knockback distance doesn't appear to be very far even when it does this.

I'll pay more attention to this next time I load up the Brute to see if it's consistent.

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... you only get endurance back from your single target attacks. Therefore, Jacob's Ladder would not return any endurance to the user.

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But it does specify endurance drain in the effects list, which is why people are thinking it would also have the chance for endurance return.

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I can't remember ever seeing Thunderstrike give any back as a blaster

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Thunder Strike does not specify endurance drain in any event.

Okay, the lighter blues and blue-greens are not the greatest match, granted. But really, when I think 'storm', I think greys and green-greys anyhow. (And lightning does vary a bit in colour; I generally have associated it with yellow, myself.)

Also... Ever see lightning hit a power transformer? BLINDING SEAR OF WHITE, blue, yellow, orange. So while I agree red lightning is a little... odd... if you're going for the "lightning is hitting you now!" sort of feel, white, yellow and orange are well within real-world parameters. ^_^

Also... check out this picture for real-world red lightning with dark blue and this one for naturally occuring ball lightning of a mixed red, yellow and orange.

Lastly... how about a plasma ball look? Reds and purples, maybe.

Just tryin' to be helpful. ^_^

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You might be able to get away with purple, depending on the shade. Maybe pink, but a pink brute running around would have to be one serious concept character; it wouldn't be suited for everyone.

Cool powersets or style: the choices we're forced to make.

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My Elec/Elec Brute wears green. And plant parts. So, uh... I don't feel limited.

It's not like the only colour that goes with red is red. White, black, and grey go with anything. With this red, I'd say most of the yellows would work, the oranges would probably generally work, some of the greens would work really well, certain purples would work really well... I would even venture to suggest this particular shade of red would work well with a dark blue.

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You miss my point. You have an option of doing mayhem missions or normal storyline missions. Who's going to bother doing normal storyline missions when they could just as easily do mayhems?

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Um. Me?

I mean, mayhem missions are fun, but I'm not going to cease doing my contact missions just because they exist. There's only so many times I can do a frantic, low-timed mission before I need something normal.

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In addition, there's a small graphical glitch

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This?
http://img302.imageshack.us/img302/8...cglitch2tl.jpg

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Aye, that'd be the one.

And yeah, I'd come to the conclusion demorecord would be the ideal way to capture it, but hadn't gotten back to Test yet. But this shows what I mean, thanks.

I've found a couple problems with Jacob's Ladder overall, outside of my personal issues with its cone performance:

It has yet to give me an endurance drain message (and therefore, not even a remote chance of getting End back).

It does, however, occasionally give a message on the Healing Delivered channel about having done 2 pts of Negative Energy damage.

In addition, there's a small graphical glitch which I've been trying to capture a screenshot of, but haven't managed yet. Basically, during the power-up portion of the animation, there's a point just prior to the attack where I can see visible rectangular seaming around the electricity, at about the point where my hands are held out for width.

---

Overall, I like the set so far, with 4 powers taken in it. The endurance drain component functions quite well for Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch.

My feel for the endurance-return is that I get it less often than I see it on my Rad/Elec defender, but I haven't done an actual comparison -- I may, when I get some more time.

Still, the chance seems fairly low overall, and I wonder if that's intended. In 20-25 potentially endurance-draining attacks I generally get 1-3 returns. That leads me to think the chance is set around 10%, which seems a bit low for a set that's very much end-drain oriented.

I do feel the powers are a tad on the slow side in terms of animation, but not enough that I feel a great need for change. Jacob's Ladder could maybe be sped up slightly, but for the act:damage ratio it doesn't suck.

By the way, Thunder Strike? SPIFFY power. I love it. The act time's a bit slow for it to be a major part of any Brute's attack chain, but it definitely is a good battle opener and a good "I'm surrounded" reaction power.

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The guys who say JL's cone is the same as Shadow Maul are nuts. Shadow Maul requires the mobs to be in a perfect single-file line. With JL I can reliably hit 3 mobs as long as they are close to each other and I target the one in the back.

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My experience is precisely the opposite.

With Shadow Maul, I can hit people directly next to each other, or in this configuration:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
X
X X
</pre><hr />

Provided that they're all bundled up close and I have the back X targetted. With Jacob's Ladder, I've been consistently unable to do so. The only times I've gotten multiple targets on it is when they're either directly behind one another, or just off that (overlapping), or once with a big group where they were standing practically on top of each other.

I was expecting it to be like Shadow Maul, which I can pretty consistently get multiple targets on. It does not seem to work as well for me, so I'm questioning how big a cone it actually is.

(I've got some other comments about Jacob's Ladder, but I'll put those in a separate reply.)