Feedback: Stimulant too SHORT!!

This guy (Hard_Target) knows what he's talking about here.

Don't expect a blaster with a pool power to be an effective replacement for bringing a Defender along.

Plus, stop calling it a nerf... geko already posted to say that the original duration was intended to be increased to 60 seconds but was accidentally bumped to 600 instead. That's a fix, not a nerf, even though it may feel like one because you have to look for a Defender if you want status protection.

Also, perhaps it shouldn't be "safe" to hunt in hazard zones as a solo or duo...? Wacky idea, I know.

Good gaming!

Hmmm, geko. This is methinks one of the better power rebalancings i've seen from ya'll lately. My experiences as a controller using the Medicine pool:

Can neither heal self nor others (interruptible) during combat. all the aoe, lack of any DEF for a troller and disturbing amount of DoT of some enemies means i run away to heal. i cannot heal teamates in battle as either they (and consequently me cuz of short heal range) or i are under fire. it's less frustrating to let them die, tp them to a safe location and rez them. obviously, this does not go over well w/ most folks.

Stimulant is the same story. the ONLY saving grace of this pool is the "6 minute bug" u introduced in stimulant. it allowed the entire team a certain amount of protection from all the status effects in-game now. there will be NO re-applying this in combat for the above reasons. have to get close, avoid taking ranged or melee damage, avoid taking any aoe damage, and of course any DoT negates the ability to cast as well. Stimulant (as-is in LIVE) makes Medicine a viable grp-friendly pool. reduce the buff to one minute and u'll see folks dropping the power left and right...as i would. there is NO way i could ever reapply it in the heat of battle. this will severely frustrate the frontline as their toggles stand a much higher chance of dropping now. they all die horrid ignoble deaths as i run away to a SAFE location to tp the carcasses to and use the rest of the INTERRUPTABLE powers to rez them.

I am an ice/kin controller. I have been and always shall be ALL ABOUT THE GROUP. Medicine seemed to be a logical extension of this mindset. Plz DO NOT bump stimulant back down to one minute. Clear Mind is STILL superior...it has range and CANNOT be interrupted. a one-minute duration will force me to respec this power because of the pain and frustration of battle-application.

[ QUOTE ]
Most buffs in this game are way too short, IMO. Most things are 2 min or less. Ugh. Can we please have the average buff time upped to 10 or 20 min?

I can understand keeping powerful self buffs with negative ending effects short (e.g. - unstoppable, elude, etc). But for just your standard run of the mill variety buff (clear mind, fortitude, practiced brawler, etc), a longer lasting buff would be a real nice thing.

I'm not asking for the 1-2 hour long game breaking buffs of EQ (KEI anyone?). But a 10-20 min timer would be so much better than a 2 min timer and not overpowering at all. Heck, increase the endurance to compensate even.

JM

[/ QUOTE ]

I think they are avoiding this to prevent buff bots from being a common site. If you have played other mmorpg's you will surely have noticed a significant portion of the player base running around with 2 characters, one to do the dirty work, the other to buff as needed.

You can still do it in COH, however, the nature of the combat and the short durations of the buffs in question makes it extremely cumbersome and difficult to execute accordingly, longer buffs would probably change that.

I think what they need to do is when you are affected by a particular status power, not all your toggles drop all the time, just some of them, like a 50/50 chance or something.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]



This isn't normal for stimulant to last this long? Carp. My main is a forcefielder. I grabbed Stimulant in respec and now between my bubbles and stim-ing people I have little time to blast. The range, recharge, and interuptability of it make it a full time job keeping people stimulated. On top of that the interuptability makes it close to worthless as a curative. (Unless I can enhance that to zero? Which I'd gladly pay that price.) EDIT: Even when not interupted with the range and cast duration the status effect has usually warn off by the time I get it on them.

I agree Clear Mind should be longer, MUCH longer, atleast 4 minutes like a bubble.

I agree Stimulant shouldn't be as good as CM, but it already has other penalties that make it a pain to administer. How long does the average TaskForce/Trial fight last? I'd say longer than 60 seconds. Please take that into consideration when adjusting this buff time. I would have no problem with anything from 2-4 minutes, maybe even 1.5 minutes. If it goes to 60 seconds I'll have to think long and hard about whether I keep this power.

Another idea that might make it easier to palate with a shorter recharge time is allowing range enhancements on it.

EDIT: Another idea is to have the Medicine pool work better for defenders and contollers. Much like Leadership.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, same sort of slip as the SG debuff? Lucky you don't work in the payroll department Have you had someone go through all the powers yet and check the values are what they should be? If it's happened at least twice chances are there's some other typos waiting to be found.

[ QUOTE ]
Apply early is good. Apply often is okay too...but when that turns into 'restart application cycle every 33 seconds, alternating with other buffs' then it isn't a matter of strategy, it's a matter of unfun rote repetition. Stretch that out for an hour or two, repeat every time you play the game, and it starts to be a little bit frustrating.

If status effects didn't eat toggles, I probably wouldn't be worrying. I'm *not* going to avoid certain zones or enemy types or anything because they have status effects...defeats the whole point of playing the game to only hang out in the easiest zone farming the easiest mobs. I want to be somewhere scary trying new things and generally having fun. But if I have to spend most of my time there spamming status protection, that fun will eventually dissipate.


[/ QUOTE ]
This is one of the reasons I stopped running my Emp Def. I spent most of the Indy TF doing nothing but casting Clear Mind, Fortitude and Recovery Aura. The dark defender in the group ended up doing 98% of the healing since I had a bad tendancy to be stunned whenever it really was needed. And since Clear Mind locks me up for such a long time after activation I couldn't heal when needed even when I wasn't stunned. Seriously, over half my time was spent locked into the Clear Mind animation.

Emp Defs get all these nice powers and can't do a damm thing for themselves with most of them. All these nice targetted buffs cannot be used on the originator. Only the Group/AE buffs do anything for the caster.

I really think the whole status effect concept needs review. They are extremely common and anyone who can buff against them ends up being tagged as a buff bot. The tanks and scrappers have a good point about their toggle avoidance/mitigation abilites being hosed by being stunned/slept/held for even a fraction of a second.

[ QUOTE ]

Now, if you fight in a full group with 3 frontliners (2 tanks and a scrapper) that means, you go from 6 cast to... 36 casts!! Or, if you like, one cast every 10 seconds . How fun is that, for a blaster, to cast Stims every 10 seconds... Yay.


[/ QUOTE ]

Last time i heard, blasters where damage dealers, not buffers. They should not be as good buffing as a defender, ever. Should not even be an alternative. If you ask me i'd increase the delay so it could not be spammed on everyone.

[ QUOTE ]

- Tankers can't be good sponges (and will refuse to be) against status effect spamming mobs without good protection


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a fire tanker and i have my own defenses against those status, i need no external buffs. I tought all tankers got stun defense somewhere...

I don’t mind that stimulant isn’t as good as clear mind, but anyone who’s played with any of the medicine powers can see how stimulant is next to worthless in it’s current (60 second) form. Extend its duration, remove its interruptability, or give it some range (at least 50). Any one of those would make it useful but still keep it weaker than clear mind and increase density. 90% of the time, anyone who is immobilized is also in range of an area DOT or getting hit with explosive blasts, making the entire medicine line unusable. This is an acceptable limitation for Aid Other, Aid Self, and Resuscitate, since they are still good downtime reducers or runaway and heal powers, but since stimulant is mainly only useful during combat, it becomes almost worthless.

I agree. I think every beneficial buff in this game (clear mind, density, speed boost, etc) should last as long as the Deflection Shield buff that the defenders get.

I know, because when I get in a group of 5-8 people, I spent 80% (or more) of my time casting density because it simply wears off too quickly. I mean, how fun is buffing density for 2 hours straight? Wow, exciting, I really feel like a crime fighter.

At least in EQ a buff would be at least 30 minutes and some, varying on what they were lasted up to 4 hours. It's just realistic because getting people to do things together isn't always a 'right now' effect. People have to AFK a lot for varying reasons and then you sit around waiting.

Someone should really look at durations of these buffs and really match thier durations to Deflection Shield's duration so that kinetics defenders can do something a little more than cast density and speed boost the whole time I am grouped.

Casting every 30 seconds or so is not fun. The duration of all of these should be upped.

As for the Buff Bot issue, just make it like Grant Invisibility: a group-member only buff.

As for a power beeing "too good" and making defender useless... Mmm, out of all the defenders ability, only 2 can be compaired (clear mind and ID), and 2 ressemble (AM and O2) so it's not like it replaces what defender already do.

Power pools are already very strong. Hasten? Stamina?
You don't see tankers complaining about Thought and Weave.

I think the main problem is that Mez's got a HUGE increase because a lot mor mobs have them, but there are a lot of defenders who have zero defense against them. How many defenders have zero defense to offer their team against mez's? Rad? Dark? How many defenders have glaring weaknesses that preclude them from fighting certain mobs? FF, Storm, Kinetics. How many defenders actually have a solution to mez affects? Empathy.

I believe that all defenders should get a buff duration increase for every targeted buff. I think 50% is a fair amount. Then the clear mind works 135 secs for Defender, and 90 secs for controller. Grouping is fun, but being a buff bot is not.

Stimulant should work better as it still is a fairly bad solution to a suddenly epidemic problem of toggle dropping. 90 seconds seems passable. Even if the duration is identical to clear mind, clear mind is still head and shoulders above Stimulant because it can be used in battle and has a better range.

[ QUOTE ]
Geko, what about the duration of Inertial Reduction?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops.. meant to say Increase Density. I was doing that all day.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Geko, what about the duration of Inertial Reduction?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops.. meant to say Increase Density. I was doing that all day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh. In that case, I *really* wish ID lasted at least as long as Speed Boost.

A quick thought on the danger of the two account buffbot thing...I'd rather have my own game experience be a little bit more fun than be secure in the knowledge that someone, somewhere, isn't two-boxing an empath to PL themselves. (Which of course happens plenty anyways.) As for selling...what economy? Once you hit 30 you'd feel like an idiot for wasting all that time.

Still, those who don't want to see it have opinions as valid as my own, but would a minute or so extra all around really suddenly transform ID or fort into KEI?

-signed, a kinetics defender who never wants to hit the #4 key again in her life.

[ QUOTE ]
Stimulant must not be as good as clear mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not? Stamina's better over time than conserve power, even with hasten. 6-slotted stamina allows more endurance output than even a 6-recharge conserve/6-recharge hasten COMBO can. Where's the equity? Every other power pool provides a lesser effect than analogous powers in actual power sets. Stealth is slower than cloaking device, stimulant is shorter than clear mind. Aid other is worse than heal other. Invisibility is worse than superior invisibility. Challenge is worse than provoke.

Stamina is better than conserve power PLUS hasten.

Huh?

Dear Geko, Positron, Statesman, whoever.
This thread is not just about stimulant. It's about the playing field.

Lately, i've had the feeling that all the dev's attention have been drawn toward the exploiters and the solo-ers.

Is this why Stim won't stay longer then 1 minute? Fear of exploits?
Exploiters are there, they will always, always, always will be. Back in Beta, Dummy-Mobs missions were beeing expoited. I mean, for crying out loud, it's a beta! And people were still cheating to level faster. At lauch, it was hirelings (swarms and monkeys) and Prisonners. Then CoT portals. Now initial TF missions. And the more you will fix it, the more exploiters will find a way to level fast, and the more the guys playing for fun are getting hit.
I play for fun. But now hirelings are worth no exp, prisonners are not worth hunting, and CoT portals are an exp-less pain in the ***. I fear a TF nerf comming too... bleh.

Same for soloer. The game is getting tuned for them. Now with more exp per mission, groups are even more hard to find, since missions are worth soloing.

And, in a solo mission, you will face a LOT less status effect mobs. Best exemple are carnies, i can get solo mission with ZERO illusionists, while grouping gets me 2-3 per spawn plus the occasionnal master illusionnist.

So, by having poor status protection, solo play is , yet again, the best option. Adding a friend to your team will hurt more then help, because that friend brings more Stunning Lieutenants, but, in their current form, no good buffs against them.

Single target buffs (Stim, CM, ID, O2) are a way to make grouping fun, good, enjoyable, and most important, it helps make huge portions of the content fun to do. Exploiters and power levelers are already farming missions like Axis America non-stop anyways, please let the player who enjoy the ride to 50 form good efficient group to tackle all mobs, including carnies and Riktis. And if the exploiters use this to farm Rikti missions... so what? They are farming Nemesis, werewolves, Axis, and Minx mission anyways.

Exploiters go from game to game, get to last level fast, and leave. Don't waste so much time on them. Just keep the game fun.

[ QUOTE ]
Exploiters go from game to game, get to last level fast, and leave. Don't waste so much time on them. Just keep the game fun

[/ QUOTE ]

This argument is too weak. They do should think about the casual gamer while nerfing but that does not means they can ignore the exploits.

As for stimulant, ever ocured it was in part designed to be used on no more than 2 players? Only tankers should be really getting hit by it and then again only the ones that lack protection for poor power selection

Random thoughts:

Some of these powers should have the option for duration increase enhancers. 'Enhance Buff Duration' or something. ID as cool as it is isn't worth slotting unless you really really want the damage resistance improved.

Increase Density is rather annoying at its current 60 seconds, and its rather slow recharge time. Seeing Stimulant get increased to 60 without ID getting adjusted to keep it significantly better bugs me.

I feel that Increase Density costs too much Endurance.

Making certain buffs toggles would be interesting. Somewhat similar to DAOC approach, but has exploitable problems that need ironing out (no distance limitations, etc). All the benefit of not really being able to buff everyone (makeing the choice(s) a tough one), but removing all the pain of spending a large chunk of your time refreshing the powers.

Aside from rather special cases, if you are ID'ing your team full time you are playing the game wrong. At best a key defender or another controller should be getting ID attention from you from time to time, and only when it really feels necessary. The other special cases (Clockwork TF, fighting Energy/Smash AV's like Nemesis Rex, Anti-Matter, fighting Sewer Trial Kraken) you can't really do much else anyway and its time well spent.

Casting every 30 seconds or so is not fun. The duration of all of these should be upped.
-------------

yet more trash talk. So do any damage dealers use a power more than every 30 seconds? Of course they do. So why the heck should people be annoyed if something needs to be used every 30 seconds from the medicine line. Move your finger an itsy bitsy bit and hit the stupid key and get over it

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the reply Geko.

I understand how this was a "bug".
But look at the results:
- Medecine power now becomes a good choice.
- Players can finally hunt Eden, Crash Site, and non-Nemesis Peregrine with some kind of safeness.
- Effective stun resistance has become appreciated, sought after, and used.

Maybe, after this 60 sec -6 minute "blunder" you may want to re-evaluate giving it the a comparable duration has force-fields.

At launch, force fields lasted 2 minutes, and it just did not cut it. 4 minutes works fine.

How about 3.5 minutes for stim and 5 for clear mind and ID?

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, I've hunted RCS, Eden, Carnies, Malta, etc.....all without personal stun protection. It's called "strategy" whereby you use unique powersets to minimize the stuns. In my case, I used Transference to drain the END of the stunners....I've seen electrical blasters use their powers (slotted for end drain) to accomplish the same. It sounded like you wanted a 'safe' killing spree.....and that's your right, although that sounds like putting a fairly easy game on "don't hurt me" mode to me.

I know of no single buff that lasts six minutes in this game. I personally would prefer if my own Increase Density (Kin version of Stimulant/ Clear Mind) lasted longer, but even I'd acknowledge six minutes to be far too long. As it is now, ID for me is a "stun remover" and not a preventative measure by any means....otherwise, I am a "stim-bot."

But to claim you need this protection to survive these encounters simply indicates an unwillingness to adjust your tactics against varying enemy powers. I assure you....you CAN take on these villians, even solo, in relative "safety" without the use of bugged powersets.

-Sir Payens
lvl 50 Kin/Energy Defender
lvl 26 Fire/Energy Blaster
Infinity

[ QUOTE ]
This is similar to the Increase Density issue. Not only is the buff shorter than Clear Mind, but it has the movement penalty.

It receives some resistance to smashing and energy but doesn't cover Sleep, which Clear mind does.

If the energy/smashing resistance is deemed to be better than Sleep resistance, then why does Increase Density have *two* other shortcomings (duration and movement penalty)?

It seems like the durations should be the same for the two powers and let the movement penalty offset whatever advantage Energy/Smashing vs Sleep is deemed to have.

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, ID has an offsetting power (Speed Boost) to easily remove the movement penalty....which is very similar to stealths movement penalty in that it's noticeable, but not a killer.

Secondly, the damage resistance is of significant merit if properly slotted by the Kineticist. It's about as effective as granting someone Tough from the fighting pool...which is considerable when you realize that smashing damage is a very common damage type in the game.

But a player that is Speed Boosted AND has ID applied is getting a 30% increase to END recharge, a 30% increase in attack/recharge rate, a 25% damage resistance to smashing/energy attacks, resistance to stuns (Disorients/Holds/Immobilize) AND a movement bonus....AND THAT'S WITH NO SLOTTING ABOVE/BEYOND THE NATIVE FIRST SLOT! Slot out ID or Speed boost, and these base numbers go way, way up. And the recharge on these powers is 3 seconds or less.

I agree....up the duration of ID to match at least that of Clear Mind, preferably to that of Speed Boost (2 mins). But even if left alone, this is a potent two-buff combo from any Kineticist as-is.

-Sir Payens
lvl 50 Kin/Energy Defender
lvl 26 Fire/Energy Blaster
Infinity

[ QUOTE ]
I think the main problem is that Mez's got a HUGE increase because a lot mor mobs have them, but there are a lot of defenders who have zero defense against them. How many defenders have zero defense to offer their team against mez's? Rad? Dark? How many defenders have glaring weaknesses that preclude them from fighting certain mobs? FF, Storm, Kinetics. How many defenders actually have a solution to mez affects? Empathy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you not been reading the thread? Radiation's buff Accelerate Metabolism protects from all status effects. How is that "zero defense"? Storm and Kinetics also have buffs to protect vs some status effects. All of which have been mentioned already in the thread. Force Field hasn't been mentioned yet but... I'll leave it to someone else to tell if they have a bubble that protects from status effects or not. At the very least, the higher Defense a FF defender's bubbles give makes you less likely to be hit by the status effect in the first place.

The problem that this thread is about is giving buffs a little longer of a duration.

Here's an alternative to the current scheme of single target spamming of status effect resist buffs. Make them group buffs and stretch out the recharge timer, along the lines os Recovery Aura. That way chosing when to use them becomes a tactical decision. No one gets stuck playing buff bot. Emp Defs would actually get to concentrate on healing. And there would be no 100% status resist coverage; status effects could still have a large effect on groups without them being so overpowering that a person gets stuck doing nothing but buffing resists.

Yes I'm beating this into the ground. It's from personal experience doing the Indy TF. All those Tank Smashers didn't stun our tanks or dps chars once. The cost was burning me out on playing an emp def.

As for those who compare buffing to a blaster doing dps, they should consider that the defender isn't choosing targets and what powers to use on those targets. The buff bot is following a schedule and could be run by a macro if they were allowed. It's mind numbing.

1. Cast Fortitude on Teammate #1.
2. Cast Clear Mind on teammates # 1-7.
3. Cast Fortitude on Teammate # 2.
4. Cast Clear Mind on teammates 1-7.
5. Return to step one.

No, it wasn't quite as simple as that. I got to throw a heal every once in a while. And I watched End bars religiously to justify throwing RA at the correct time. 6 slotted with Recharge SO's it still can't do 100% coverage.

So all you blasters who want to tell us how to run our defenders go out there and make one of your own. Blaster is the only AT that doesn't have split priorities when it comes to choosing what powers to take and slot. Tanks have to get their resists but still need to get damage powers. Scrappers also need their defensive powers since they are at melee range. Controllers are spread across the countryside for power utilization. Defenders have no offense if they don't choose their secondaries. But the blaster? Lets see.... I need an offense. pick a damage power. I need a defense. Another damage power so they go down faster. Lets get Hasten so I do even faster damage. Eventually I will get stamina so I can do more damage longer. Face it, blasters are just that: blasters. Not controllers, tanks or defenders. And yes, I have a blaster character. I love it. It's incredibly easy to run. I've never had a door mission that couldn't be solo'd, even with the recent +1 mobs.

There are 6 types of players that do not have status protection.

All 5 Blaster Primaries and the Dark Miasma primary for Defenders. That's it.

All Tank, Scrapper, Controller combinations have some form of status protection. Five out of Six Defender primaries have status protection.

On an eight person team you typically need at least two defensive characters (defenders/controllers) to perform safely. Two people in the group with Stimulant shouldn't do as well.

Heaven forbid you have to actually bring some defensive toons along when you take on large groups of enemies.