geko

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We just received tech that will allow players to pass buffs onto certain powers (such as Blizzard).

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Let me help clarify this. Currently, due to limitation, target based powers, such as Rain of Fire, Blizzard or Rain or Arrows, cannot be buffed. So if you cast Build Up and then cast Blizzard, it would not do any more damage. This change will now allow such powers to be affected by buffs just like any other powers.

This change affects targeted based powers, but not targeted summoned entities or built devices or traps (you cannot pass build up and fortitude to your trip mine or fire imps). This change will, however, fix other powers that may seem unrelated, but were coded in similar ways. This includes powers such as Twilight Grasp and many Kinetic powers (typically, powers that affect one type of target one way, and another target in another way).

If you are confused, that’s ok. Lets just say "Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Blizzard, Burn, Ignite and Rain or Arrows just got a whole lot better".

To answer some of your questions...
yes, this applies to all Defense powers, not just SR and Ice Armor (and of course, it affects CoH and CoV). It is a change to ToHit/Accuracy math for critters, not to individual powers. Also, the way the math works, this will also give a slight bonus to ToHit debuffs (but it is very slight and only in some situations). This does not affect PvP, and it does not work in the inverse EvP (that is, critter will not be harder to hit).

Bug… In an upcoming patch, flying entities that are disorient will no longer behave oddly.

For the most part, only control AoE powers have Accuracy penalties. At the moment, I cannot recall any AoE damage powers that have an accuracy penalty. Fireball, most certainly, does NOT have an accuracy penalty.

Archery has the highest Accuracy in the game. All powers have an accuracy of 1.16. Ranged shot, the sniper attack, has an accuracy of 1.39.

So that like getting 1 free ACC DO in all Archery powers. Against a target with no defense, thats a 87% chance ToHit.

In comparison, most powers in the game have an accuracy of 1. Most sniper attacks have an accuracy of 1.2. Assault Rifle has an ACC of 1.05 (1.25 for thier sniper attack).

Just letting you know I have read this, and will be addressing the valid issues.

Got it.

I am fixing the legitimate bugs now and having the other issues looked into.

thanks

Just a quick note since this is a hot topic. Regarding the issue of Earth Thorn Casters stacking multiple Quicksands (and such).
Without getting into details, ALL CoT Thorn Casters have been reworked. The amount of control powers these minions have will be severely reduced or outright removed. Expect other related changes with all Thorn Casters.

This change will come in Expansion 5.

It’s not really a defense cap. It’s a cap on how many foes can give you a defense bonus (much like Invincibility). Since the power Always hits, that would give you access to unlimited defense.

As it stands now, the power gives you a Defense buff of 18.75% per affected target. The max affected targets is 5, giving you a base defense bonus (if you hit 5 foes) of +93.75%. That means it reduces your enemies chance to hit you by 93.75%. If those foes are your level, that is 18.75% beyond the max possible defense to a Boss (Bosses Accuracy is 75%. Minus 93.75% gives them a -18.75% chance to hit you. That is hard set to 5% because a foe always has a 5% chance to hit you). So essentially, this is Max defense for foes your level. Enhancements will, of course, increase that to Max defense to foes higher level than you.

Unlike Invincibility, the defense is to all Attack types (except psionics). Also, with the short recharge time, you can actually STACK this power. So although you are limited to 5 foes buffing you in one click, of you can reduce the recharge enough, you can get double the defense bonus from a second Click.

The power is still quite massive, and probably still too powerful.

Correction. End Cost was not reduced to 11 in Expansion 4. I was mistaken. We are considering this now, but nothing has been changed yet. My apologies for the confusion.

As for making it a toggle power, we looked into it, but it was not technically possible. Since a toggle power basically reapplies an effected every server tic, it would make the target intangible on one tick, but then it could not apply the intangibility on the second tic b/c the target was unaffectable. So making an intangibility power that was a toggle resulted in the targeted phasing in and out every other tic. This does not occur in a power like Phase Shift b/c you are able to affect yourself when shifted.

Black Hole is not broken:

Accuracy is normal at a base of 75%. It does not have an accuracy penalty.

Black Hole is not a Controlling power to be used in every encounter. Like most high level power, it is situational and is very powerful when suddenly faced with more foes than you can handle. It is very potent to remove half of your enemies for 30 seconds when used correctly.
Black hole is a Magnitude based power. That means Enhancements will not increase the duration, but rather the Magnitude. What this translates to is the more Intangibility Enhancements you slot in, the higher rank and level foe you can affect, but the duration is constant.

Good question.

No I dont believe it does.

Once the target its defeated, all toggles are removed. The explosion occurs after the target is defeated, so the EF would not apply.

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Yeah, but this basically screws Ice Tankers, no have almost NO resistance, and all defense. Now they have MUCH less defense because their stacked armors will not help them.


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Well, that's not entirely true. You're still getting the benefit of the "higher of the two" DEFs. You're lucky they aren't averaged, or worse, taking the "lower of the two".

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, still.

Its been hosing certain toons forever and benefitting others. Now that its hurting some others, the fix "sucks". Not from where I'm sitting, I assure you.


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What the hell kind of lame answer is that? Fix one, screw the other? Are you always that myopic? It's pretty obvious you've never played an ice tanker, so I don't know why you bothered to reply. How does the higher of the two equate to "stacking armors" which is what the Devs JUST rolled out? Since SO many attacks do smashing/leathal, in addition to other damage types, why not just leave up FA, which has a higher defense that the other armor sets? If the lower defense rating are simply ignored, they serve NO purpose at all, except to drain end faster.

Try to look beyond the end of your own nose the next time you post.

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Myopic?


Defense still stacks. If you have defense to fire and lethal, you don’t get double defense to a fire sword and regular defense to a regular swords and fire blasts (that is not fair to the guy with the fire sword, nor is that system fair to Dark scrappers, or energy blasters). It does mean you get the chance to apply the higher of the 2 values.

The lower defense values are not ignored. If you have 30% defense to lethal, and 20% defense to fire, you get 30% defense to a fire sword (the higher of the 2). But you still get 20% defense to a fire only attack like a fire blast. Of course the lower one serves a purpose. And if you get an Insulation Shield put on you, your Fire defense may go to about 40%, so now you get 40% defense to a fire sword (the new higher of the 2), and 30% defense to a broadsword.

Been doing some changes to the ST. This is how it should work soon:

• ST has a Cloak of Fear. Lower level/ranked foes will tremble in its presence.
• It has a Terrify attack power. This power can affect more powerful foes (even those not affected by the Cloak of Fear) and should cause most foes to run in fear, but only for a very short distance, and it should only affect a couple of targets (narrowed the cone area significantly, and decreased the run away time). The affected foes should only run far enough as to get out of range of the ST Terrify attack, so ST will switch to another target.
• Once the affected foes run out of range, they will tremble in Fear (even those not affected by the cloak of fear).

Hopefully, this should reduce the scattering affect of ST.

Fire armor does not give Defense. It gives damage resistance. Resistance reduces the amount of damage you take, and defense reduces the chance you can get hit.

Let say you had a power that gave you 50% damage resistance to fire and 10% damage resistance to lethal. Now lets say you got hit with a Fire Sword (lethal and fire damage) for 100 points of fire and 100 points of lethal damage. You would only take 50 points of Fire damage and 90 points of Lethal damage.

(For the record, the Tanker power, Fire Shield, gives a base 30% damage resistance to smashing, lethal, fire, and 10% resistance to cold (no defense.))

Defense, however, reduces your change to get hit (it does not reduce damage). Lets say a FF defender put a Deflection Shield on you and you were also in his Dispersion bubble (lets say un-enhanced for this example). The Deflection Shield would give you 25% Defense to Lethal and Smashing attacks and the Dispersion bubble would give you 18.75% Defense to Lethal, Smashing, Fire, Cold, Energy and Negative Energy Attacks. You would thus have a total of 43.75% defense to Lethal and Smashing. Now let’s say you were attacked with that Fire sword. A fire sword is a lethal and a fire attack. You have 43.75% defense to Lethal, and 18.75% defense to fire. Your defense to Lethal is greater, so that is the defense that matters. The Fire Swords chance to hit will be reduced by 43.75%. However, if you get hit, you take dull damage.

I'll look into it. It's entirely possible, but not intentional. If its true its slower with level, it will get fixed.

Sounds like this player has invested in 4 powers - 3 of which he choose, and most of which he has probably slotted more than 6, and he still cannot fly. How much more of an investment did he make compared to your 1 power? How much did he have to give up compared to you and he still cannot go vertical.

No matter how you slice it, flying is ultimately safer than super speed, and offer an undeniable vertical advantage over super speed (or in this case, 4 other speed powers). If flyspeed had the same max as runspeed, why would anyone ever take superspeed?

TAnker/earth melee/Seismic Smash

In general, Debuffs stack, even debuffs from the same caster and same power on the same target (there may be a few exceptions, but I cant recall any at this moment). All debuffs stack if they come from a different caster, or from the same caster but a different power.

By contract, Buffs from the same caster and the same power on the same target do not stack. However, ALL buffs on one target, will stack if they come from a different caster, or from the same caster but a different power.

woe, didnt believe you, but you are correct. it is grossly inaccurate. will fix.

got it. fix on the way.

it used to be 20 seconds. I meant to change it to 60 seconds, but accidently made it like 600 or something. That made it 5 times better than the Defender Clear Mind power. Clear mind was 60 seononds, and it is now 90 seconds. Stimulant must not be as good as clear mind.

I must take a moment to comment.

THANK YOU for posting this as a Short and Long version. We try to read as much as we can, but when someone posts a 2 page explanation of why they feel a power needs to be changed, it is not always easy to read and will often get overlooked. If you want to get your point across, make a short post, or do what Lightless. Nice job.

Now about your post, I will be sure to put AB under the microscope for review. I do not know if we will change anything, as we already recently made a change to the power, but it has not lost our attention.

I see nothing wrong with Rad Blast and RAd Emmision END cost. It is comperable to all other sets, and identicle to their counterparts on others sets.

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I know I'd sure like an up front answer whether or not stamina is being looked at for "balancing." Otherwise I'll skip the rad powerset entirely and just pick up stamina like 90% of the rest of the population.


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There is not present plan to modify Stamina. It takes 14 levels, and 2 powers to unlock stamina. Then it takes 2 DO enhancements for Staminas END Recovery buff to be as effective for one player as AM gives to your whole team. Yes it is Auto, but it stil does not give all the other buffs AM does.