brophog02

What it ignores is why Total Focus was nerfed. Stun powers like this are mag 3, period.

Could you elaborate on why?

I'm fully aware of how endurance draining needs to work (I wouldn't have known to mention it, otherwise). However, the point I made remains. Both effects are only a small fraction as effective on the enemy as they are on the player.

I totally agree. I have no use for the vanguard merits anymore, but I do it because its just fun. Watching everyone fly up to the mothership is just an epic event in this game, and it never really loses that feeling.

That depends on if you're in a thread designed to powerlevel NEGATIVE rep.

It's not even a fraction as effective on enemies as it is on players, much like end drain. Both effects can quickly debilitate players, whereas when used on enemies it requires a lot more of the effect to have much of an impact.

Its important enough that we have several powerlevel threads and several nerf rage threads.

Pre-20 it is highly beneficial, both when leveling up through that range and when exemplaring back down into it. After that, it's of limited usage.

Both +acc and -def get hurt by all of the accuracy bonuses given out in IO slotting.

Actually, you said mitigation.

In terms of secondary effect though, that still wouldn't answer why Archery would have the different tier 9, but not Radiation. The difference between Radiation's -def and Archery's +acc isn't a whole lot (particularly, like you said, post IOs).

I don't think power for power they need to be standardized, just brought a little more in line in terms of annoyance factor.

I can see that on particular combos, sure........


Energy Blast only has a 20% chance of KB on Power Bolt (but very low mag), 30% on Power Blast, and 60% on Power Burst. Slug has a 25% chance for KB.

In terms of AOE mitigation Assault is nearly equal to Energy: Torrent is a 60% chance for KB, Buckshot is 50% chance. M30, Explosive Arrow, and Explosive Blast are all clones of one another, and therefore all have a 50% chance. Fistfull attempts to compensate with a lower recharge and lower endurance figure (one of the rare differences in such attributes between Archery and Energy).

Both Assault and Archery include a disorient power, thus providing an ST mitigation tool like most blast sets do, unlike Fire where that power is replaced with Rain of Fire. By that logic then (which I don't agree with), it should be Fire or Radiation with a short recharge tier 9 and not Assault or Archery. Radiation is in the same boat as Archery, but with a lower chance of knockback (25%) in its AOE, -def rather than +acc, and a single target disorient built into its tier 3 ST power. It, like nearly every other Blast set, has a typical nuke that crashes.

Damage type isn't a balancing metric to my knowledge. Smashing and Lethal are extremely common amongst all player damage sets and none of them are compensated in terms of damage against other sets of a less resisted type. In fact, the opposite tends to be true across the board. Fire and Ice, as blast sets, do more base ST damage than the other sets do, despite being less resisted. Again, Scrappers provide excellent evidence to this as well.

Too bad stupidity didn't get altered. With Wentworth's now having its lag issues, idiots think that if there are two of you in there, and one of you happens to be running something like steamy mist, shadowfall, etc.........then that person is causing their lag.

Seriously.

Same thing with Masterminds. I've seen folks on teams that at level 8 with 1 mastermind on the team with all 2 of his minions out.......that mastermind was causing their lag.

Double Seriously.

As to Hami, the new one trumps the old one, although the new one is a bit too easy, imo. You almost have to try to die now if you have even the most modest of communication and an experienced leader.

That's, essentially, the kind of things this game doesn't like to do, hence where people have the problems.

There's nothing that should be confusing. In fact, you've very adequately explained why ROA makes other powers redundant, and similarly why the endurance crashing nukes don't.

I never said the opinion would be popular, and I'm more than aware of why that is the case.

But they don't really play differently, it is just annoying early on. You advance through the levels so fast now that you're at 20 in no time at all, and even exemplaring a set like fire or ice isn't impacted even as low as a Posi with the new SSK system. In a case like Energy, it just falsely creates the assumptions that Explosive Blast is poor, or that Energy is a ST set, when neither are true.

There's just no reason for it being this way. Scrappers, for instance, aren't this way. Every Scrapper gets their taunt power at level 12. If they have a single activation build up power, it's at level 6 (with the exception of Blinding Feint, which is at 8). The sets are getting a third ST melee attack by level 8. Even with the diversity of some of the sets, there isn't such a thing as waiting until 18 to put together a reasonable attack chain. The diversity in Scrappers comes in the powers, not in odd tier placements.

Some of the blaster tier placements are the same issue as Gravity has with Wormhole.........simply unnecessary.


YES. I do play an Energy Blaster a lot, so that does impact that situation some, but there are also advertisements and such for certain Blaster sets, mostly from those that think all a Blaster is there for is AOE damage. I've heard people flat out say that if you're not Archery or Fire, don't bother joining their team. It certainly isn't as pronounced as something like Emp defenders, but it does exist.

You'll find yourself very much in the minority here due to the long activation time creating a ridiculously bad DPA. Ironically, most people would say the opposite: when it is taken, it is generally done more on Defenders than it is Blasters, due mostly to the comparative damage with other powers in the set. I would like to hear your thoughts on why you like it so much, as threads pertaining to snipes are generally one sided.

Oddly, I thought this one would face the most criticism (and it still might). Archery and Energy are essentially identical sets except for two big things: The ST damage is split more evenly in Energy (and more concentrated in Blazing Arrow for Archery) and the fact Archery has the short recharge ROA rather than the long recharge Nova. Other than that, if you look at the cone + AOE in each set, and the total of single target in each set, you'll see they are indeed very, very similar. Obviously they play differently due to the secondary effects, but in term of balance metrics like damage they are extremely close.

Assault Rifle is similar. In all three instances the standard cone and standard AOE are essentially the same (I believe M30, Explosive Blast, and Explosive Arrow are indeed exact clones). Fistful, Torrent, and Buckshot are very similar as well (certainly in terms of damage). Assault Rifle's problems are really more in terms of Ignite acting as a tier 3, but even that is partially made up with the inclusion of Flamethrower, which gives Assault Rifle more AOEs than a standard set (replacing the normally skipped snipe attack), and not by the inclusion of Full Auto.

Does Energy need rebalanced then? I would say, no. It's a middle of the road set, which is why I'm using it as a simple comparative. Why would archery need re-balancing, then? ROA in its current form isn't what makes Archery viable, although its issues of redundancy have made people think that. People have made Archery a set around ROA because its extremely effective in today's common high recharge builds, rather than because that's how the set is truly balanced. If it were that case then we have some serious balance issues with nearly all of the remaining Blast sets, because Archery's ST and AOE damage (ignoring tier 9s entirely) are right where they should be, with respect to the other Blast sets.

He's fine if you don't let him mess with the status quo of a character too much. "The Long Halloween", for instance, is a great detective oriented Batman story, but in many respects it is just straight forward quality story telling.

Stories like "The Long Halloween" and "Superman for All Seasons" are great examples of why his writing can be very good. They're tightly focused with excellent pacing. They're very intelligent books with many deeply layered substructures, usually taking the time to highlight specific motifs about a significant character and examining the life of that character in a meaningful and caring way. They also both happen to be books where he's just there to write a well written story in an established setting without any canonical implications.

Those kinds of works show why he can be a great writer. His problems start when you give him a large piece of creative control that may have far reaching implications into the character/universe. He's best used when you can let his writing talents be put to use on non canonical impacting projects, rather than a universe impacting project like Ultimatum.

In many respects, I think it is how the industry has handled stories that has had a bigger impact on how he is viewed. If the industry felt that simply well written stories were more important than universe altering events then I think they'd get far more mileage out of a writer like Loeb.

Nothing in his statement forced the assumption that he wasn't both the mission holder and leader, therefore nothing guarantees that he is confusing anything.