[ QUOTE ]
I would like to make a few suggestions
A) Remove Entangling Arrow for:
Morphine Arrow:
You shoot an arrow with a small dose of morphine causing minor damage and healing a moderate amount of hit points to an ally (Ally: Heal, Minor Dmg)
This will give the set a atleast one power that can make the set more desireable for teaming. A team sometimes requires a healer and having a debuffer is more of a luxuary. This power would cause about 3-4 damage and heal about the same ammount O2 boost heals.
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This is close, but I would prefer the "atropine injection arrow" with an animation of me pulling an arrow out of my quiver and burying it into your chest (think Air Superiority animation with an arrow between two hands). This hand-to-hand range power provides you with a heal and 60 seconds of 100% mez/status protection...plus they could have the target do the nice shaking animation of the Tesla cage (just without the electric show). I swear I'd make the character just so I could stick it to my friends like that. 
hmm being prior military i really like the antropine injection idea it rocks star for you
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I like TA as a defender primary because it means my controller gets it as a secondary.
Basically I get two controller sets.
[/ QUOTE ]
Precisely. TA should either be a controller primary, or (like Dark) not available to controllers as a secondary ... for that reason.
Mostly a controller player,
FCM
Please try MA arc ID 351455, "Shard Stories: Scavenger's Hunt." Originally created for the Dr. Aeon contest, it explores the wild potential of one of the City's most concept-rich but content-poor settings: the Shadow Shard.
I find it slightly ironical that specifically debuff components are removed or altered in most powers. Isn't that what defenders are supposed to do, debuff enemies? For me Trick Arrow set looks more like a controller set. I figure the only reason why it wasn't made to be a controller set is due the fact that they can't have "blast" power and the set is obviously meant to go along with Archery.
This is again one set I'm not touching even with a long stick. The main reason are recycle changes. I personally want to add other things to my powers than recycle enhancements. Basically this powerset reeks of Hasten and I hate it. Why not write somewhere within the set description "You are adviced to pick Hasten if you don't want to dedicate all your slots to your primary powers" and "Warning! Not for low level people!". If you think I'm wrong in this conclusion, then lets examine powers that the set has:
So, what powers we have in the set now:
Entangling Arrow: A fast recycling immobilize that, frankly, is not very useful. I mean, it only immobilizes one foe and if you wait a few levels, you get Ice Arrow at level 6. Lower level enemies really don't hit that hard for me not to wait for more useful power. You might want to pick up this anyways if you are actually planning to try the set without Hasten.
Flash Arrow: -ACC and Perception debuff. Says slow recycle so I assume it is same as Glue Arrow's was, that is, 20 seconds. This is still usable for non-hastened character.
Glue Arrow: Good news to everyone! Because with Hasten and six +3 SO recharge reducers you can have this up the moment it drops. If you have trouble sparing slots, then drop two for 7s downtime and if you want to go without Hasten, six slot it for 6s downtime!
Ice Arrow: Ironically this suffered a Petrifying Gaze hit. I hear that with two recharges, two hold durations and hasten is is still useable power. No idea what the recycle changed to, but it can't be much past 30s... I hope.
Poison Gas Arrow: I'm sure you are all happy to know that with Hasten and one +3 SO you can reach ~29s recycle or optionally you could use three +3 recycle SOs to reach same goal.
Acid Arrow: Again debuff reduced... are you also planning to reduce debuffs from sonic? It already has slow recharge, though I'm not sure exactly how slow. Lets hope for 20s because soon the set has no fast recasting power.
Disruption Arrow: Sonic still has two -res powers in the set. Definite six slotted to reach 6s downtime or perhaps pick Hasten and only four slot it for that 7s downtime.
Oil Slick Arrow: No idea how long recycle this has, so maybe it is a set saver and recycles in, say, 20 seconds. However, if it is anything like Ice Slick after change, then it recycles in 90 seconds.
EMP Arrow: If this is anything like EMP pulse, it's recharge is 300 seconds. This means that if it is six slotted with +3 SO rechargers, then the downtime is 91s or 75s with Hasten.
Quickly thinking a nonhastened slotting:
Flash Arrow: 1 or 2 recharge (1/2 slots)
Glue Arrow: 6 recharges (6 slots, it is autohit, isn't it?)
Ice Arrow: 1 acc, 2 hold, 2 rchr (5 slots)
Poison Gas Arrow: 3 recharges (3 slots, again autohit?)
Acid Arrow: (?)
Disruption Arrow: 6 recharge (6 slots)
Oil Slick Arrow: (?)
EMP Arrow: 6 recharge or if no acc boost, 2 acc, 4 recharge (6 slots)
A few observations:
I'm sorry to say but the changes represented here make it a controller secondary set, since controllers are already supposed to pick Hasten. It's the first defender set that is wholly dependant on Hasten. All other sets have toggles and fast recharging powers to offset the long recycles, but this set has exactly two relatively fast recharge powers: Entangling Arrow and Flash Arrow.
I'm curious to know what exactly is a Trick Arrow defender supposed to do his first 20 levels when he has neither SO enhancements, nor reliable Hasten? Spam entangling arrow and flash, I suppose? This set has the longest low level recharge powers that I've seen in any defender set and it really doesn't get any better on higher levels. It looks semi- good material for offender builds, though, except the set doesn't have self heal and zero defense powers.
For all 60s powers the best you can do with six slotted DOs is 28s. For all 120s powers the best you can do with six slotted DOs is 56s recycle. A level 15 char has exactly 14 slots to spare both for his primary and secondary powers; two six slotted and one five slotted power. Lets assume he three slots his long recycle powers and those 60s powers now recharge in 38 seconds and 120s powers in 76 seconds.
I suppose you could build a defender that picks only a few key powers and six slots them because for me, it seems that Trick Arrow is a slotting nightmare, especially for low level players. It gets worse if you have to slot for something else besides recharge - I wonder how many of those powers are exactly autohit powers and many of them seem also quite endurance heavy based on my tests. This is probably a set that number crunchers like, because they can start optimizing it - like or hate, I'm a number cruncher and I hate it.
- Thremaine
A question about the proposed changes to Trick Arrow. if the -recharge powers were not ment to stack, why were three allowed by level 8? So you are removing the -recharge from entangle and so forth. That makes Entangle arrow even less attractive. The main reason I took it for a level one defender power was it could stack with glue arrow. I use glue arrow to give myself enough time to stop the enemies. Stop them, not just prevent them from moving. By it's self entangle arrow is only marginaly useful. So I can stop things from moving at all, and it only effects one at a time for thirty seconds I believe... gee everything has a ranged attack too. And it slows them down? It's not a big enough slow down to make much difrance all by it's self. Or what about poison arrow? It also has a -recharge. The thing is it doen't slow enemies down. That meens they leave the AoE real fast unless you use glue arrow. Even then it's not enough to stop them from attacking at a decent rate. That meens to get any benifit from poison arrow you almost need glue arrow to be in effect too. Once again stacking powers. Oh wait, stacking powers is bad isn't it. Taking away Trick Arrow's ability to stack with it's self guts the power set's usefullness. It's an effective defender primary right now BECAUSE it stacks.
Besides, Trick Arrow is sopose to be a debuff set. Your removing one of the main debuffers for low levels and moving the other one to a higher level. Why would anyone want to use the set if it doesn't debuff when you need it to?
If you feel that in game testing shows trick arrow to be over powered, take this into consideration please: There are on avrage 2 or 3 trick arrow defenders on any 8 man team I join. That meens 2 or three people using the exact same abilities at about the exact same time on one group. Of course the set will appear overpowered in that situation. In a team with only one Trick Arrow defender it will take every debuff to protect the team.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
I'm pretty interested in trying an Archery defender so far, but I'm a little concerned with some of the adjustments already being made to Trick Arrow. I agree that being able to take a hold that can perma lock a lieutenant without any slots or other powers at level one is too beefy.
But I'm not sure about removing/reducing the debuffs on several of the arrows. Let's face it: Trick Arrows is a one-trick pony as far as standard defender roles. It doesn't buff allies, and it doesn't heal. It debuffs. If it's going to only have that role, it really needs to be the best debuffing set available, in my opinion.
The control aspects offset the weakness of not buffing or healing to an extent. But as a defender primary, debuffing should come before control.
I'm also of the opinion that TA should not be made available to controllers. It just doesn't seem to make much sense for them (thematically), and as a controller-ish set offers, perhaps, too much. I think it would make more sense to use a toned down version of TA for a blaster secondary, to keep the set with both AT's that can use the Archery set.
I'll end this by saying that I think the set in general is great. It's nice to see a defender set that is different from the others in many ways (lack of buffs and heals), while blurring the lines a bit into control. It's unique, and that's good.
It's great to see bows and arrows finally making it in!
Dear Positron,
Please do not nerf the Trick Arrow set. It is wonderful as is. I think you and your peers are misunderstanding the critique of some. The problem that some people are having is that the nature of the powers seems to be more suited to a blaster's secondary or controller's primary than it does to a defender's primary.
Not that I am complaining, mind you Indeed, I do play my Trick Arrow/Archery defender offensively, some would say "Blastfender", with good results. This is the first Defender set that I really enjoy playing.
I do notice that the TA/archery combination is rather an endurance hog, but one would assume that was to compensate for the high accuracy.
I also notice that Ice Arrow does not deal the cold damage the text says it does. I hope that this is a bug as I would assume it would act in the same fashion as the controller's Block of Ice. So I would really appreciate seeing some damage from my frozen foe.
Thank you for your time and attendion
Sincerely,
TA is a good set, but it has a large synergy with Controllers. If you balance it around Controllers, the Defenders are going to be left with a painfully lackluster set, as they lack those internal synergies - and it seems that it is supposed to be a Defender set first, not as a weak afterthought.
Pull it from Controllers rather than risking the anger that Controllers are Defending better than the Defenders can, and getting ALL of the Defenders powersets with little variation.
Then get to work on creating some Controller-only buff sets PLEASE, so that the Defenders can get a bit of variation from Controllers. At the very least, decouple the powersets with different names and balance them seperately according to the needs of each AT.
One more thing:
DO NOT PUT A !!!!ING HEAL IN THE SET!!! for crying out loud! We've been trying so hard to escape that damn idiotic stone age 'healer' label for ages.
A no attack "Group-Friendly" Defender is like a "Team Friendly" basketball player who won't dribble, run, or shoot, under any circumstances. "I'm a PASSER."
As much as a like to b*tch (if the saying 'A b*tching sailor is a happy sailor' is true then I'm orgasmic), I have to give credit when it's due.
The development team did a bang up job with the trick arrow and archery set.
I'm now up to level 10 on the test server with a trick arrow/archery defender. I am REALLY enjoying this new powerset (almost makes me forget about all the tanker nerfs - almost) but I am a tad puzzled about 'poison gas arrow'. From the description it is supposed to give minimal damage and have some sort of slow effect on the target/mob. However, I am not really seeing any evidence of this. Unlike the glue arrow where the slow effect is quite obvious there is no sign of villains slowing down when poison gas arrow is used.
I currently have is slotted with 1 'slow' training enhancement.
Can anyone provide any feedback on this?
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Ok, this set is currently undergoing a revision.
Acid Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack)
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Ok, given the latest change to this power, this proposed additional change really sortof seems over the top to me. Before todays patch, and the "fix" to the acid arrow damage, the arrow could serve as a moderate AoE damage and -res/-def. As of today, not only has the rate of damage been massively decreased, but so has the damage itself. And thats on top of the -res decrease? I can see that acid arrow was pretty powerful before (I really used it a lot anyway), but now its barely worth taking when you consider how short the debuff lasts, and how little damage it does, and how small the affected area is (does not seem to be nearly as large as any of the other area affect arrows). Can we at least get an explanation of why acid arrow is getting gutted in damage? Was it really THAT powerful??
Hey gang, made a trick arrow defender and its a blast to play, but there are a few questions i have about it. First of all what part in a team did you envision this AT to play? As with all the defender sets it's a jack of all trades type of set, but not really good at any of them. It's true I can fill in as a (weak) blaster, or (poor) controller, but wasn't that part of the reason you introed these nerfs to begin with...to keep the different AT's from acting like the others? Also i'm not really sure this AT belongs in the defender catagory....just how do we defend the team? We can't heal, unless we take powers from ther medicine pool, we can't debuff or buff...how exactly does this qualify as a defender?
Secondly, while it's true we can play at blastroller in a team, this set seems to me more geared to solo play. Seriously, i thought you were tryin to promte team play. While it's a fun AT to play (can't wait for it to go live), I can't really see where your goin with it. Also (and mebbe i haven't gotten far enuf into the archery set, only lvl 7), i didn't see a dedicated sniper shot in the set..it could use one. Anyway, This AT is one of the few things I found I liked in the i5 update =).
When's the next altaholics anonymous meeting again?
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Ok, given the latest change to this power, this proposed additional change really sortof seems over the top to me. Before todays patch, and the "fix" to the acid arrow damage, the arrow could serve as a moderate AoE damage and -res/-def. As of today, not only has the rate of damage been massively decreased, but so has the damage itself. And thats on top of the -res decrease? I can see that acid arrow was pretty powerful before (I really used it a lot anyway), but now its barely worth taking when you consider how short the debuff lasts, and how little damage it does, and how small the affected area is (does not seem to be nearly as large as any of the other area affect arrows). Can we at least get an explanation of why acid arrow is getting gutted in damage? Was it really THAT powerful??
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I agree. Acid Arrow was great and useful before, but now it's not worth taking. I fired it on minions 10 levels lower than me and was incredibly discouraged to see a power that could once take out a whole mob of minions that level now barely scratches their health points with the incredibly slow rolling -1 damage. This is Acid Arrow, not Hot Water Arrow. Acid hurts painfully all at once until your nerves are dead, it doesn't annoyingly sting your skin. It's acid, not a sunburn.
Maybe it's -res was too good for Disruption arrow being the next available power, but I didn't see anything wrong with the damage. It didn't do alot to begin with (except on really low-level minions) and now it barely does anything at all.
I can live with the rest of the soon-to-be changes on this powerset, I was expecially glad Ice Arrow was being pushed up and switched with Flash Arrow. A single-target hold is nice, but as a Defender I was looking forward to being able to have all AoE attacks. But I really don't like Acid Arrow now, and probably won't take it. Or I will, and will just respec it away once I have the more useful AoE's in TA.
Hi every just wanted to post that oils slick arrow has a new bug.the bug is when u zone it seems to decode the oil slick from being lit.Also noticed that zoning out and back in a mission fixes it.but get annoying after awhile.Just thought everyone should know.also sometimes when u goto the ID screen or option screen fixes it too.
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Ok, this set is currently undergoing a revision.
The fact was that it was too "Controllery" for a Defender power. There were also a lot of redundant debuffs that made the set VERY powerful.
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It makes me sad that you actually believed enough of what the "this should be a controller primary" contingent said to make some of these changes.
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Net Arrow: Removed Recharge debuff from Net arrow (Set already has many recharge debuffs)
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This makes net arrow weaker than web grenade, when defender powers should be at least as good as equivalent blaster powers. Please put something in to make this at least web grenade's equal.
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Ice Arrow: Ice Arrow is now available later (swapped availability of Ice arrow and flash arrow). Increased recharge and decreased duration of Ice Arrow. Reduced Slow debuff. (To bring it in line with similar hold powers like Petrifying Gaze). Reduced base Accuracy of Ice Arrow. It was 120% of normal and should not have been.
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I don't mind the accuracy reduction or the move in power order. I do mind the reduction in duration coupled with the increase in recharge. Please do one or the other, but not both - consider the same for Petrifying Gaze.
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Acid Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack)
Disruption Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Disruption Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack). Increased Recharge rate of Disruption Arrow to 120 for Defender and Controller to prevent multiple stacking
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Please consider just giving the -res debuff to one of these powers and give the other something else to distinguish them more and minimize the need for these changes?
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Glue Arrow: Reduced Duration of Glue Arrow from 45 seconds to 30 second and Increased Recharge time from 20 seconds to 120 seconds to prevent multiple stacking. Fixed Glue Arrow visual f/x.
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That so many powers have entirely too long recharge times to account for players six-slotting for recharge and running perma-Hasten as of I5 implies that there's possibly something wrong with the game, and making it more necessary to get perma-Hasten to be able to use these powers at a reasonable rate doesn't help solve the problem, and makes the game less fun.
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The latest changes to durations and recharges of this power set are leaving TA defenders with a huge gap in which they can't really 'defend' a team -- or themselves for the solo-inclined archer.
What are TA defenders supposed to do in between recharges? Toss single target immobilize and/or single target holds? Flash Arrow? Glue Arrow and Poison Arrow appeared to be the staple powers for the set -- and they played nicely together. A slow and a damage debuff -- not quite Tar Patch, but fun nonetheless.
Endurance 'hogginess' of the set made slotting for end reduction a must. Now, we must also slot for recharge... So, when do we slot for the actual powers themselves?
Stamina and Hasten are peeking their ugly head into this set. 
When you compare Ice Arrow to Flash (another low level hold), Ice Arrow is inferior in EVERY way. It has shorter duration, longer recharge, longer activation and no damage. If the purpose is "balance" then doesn't this break that rule?
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But I'm not sure about removing/reducing the debuffs on several of the arrows. Let's face it: Trick Arrows is a one-trick pony as far as standard defender roles. It doesn't buff allies, and it doesn't heal. It debuffs. If it's going to only have that role, it really needs to be the best debuffing set available, in my opinion.
[/ QUOTE ]Agreed. As it is now, not only can you not keep any single debuff permanent until very late into the game, they're all individually extremely weak now without their recharge slows. Instead of stacking several mild debuffs for a great sum total, now you're forced to pick and choose between one of several weak debuffs at a time. This is pretty ridiculous considering that the other debuff defender sets get awesome debuffs that can be maintained all the time from the moment you get those powers (which is as early at level 1 or 2) and yet also have a far more flexible toolkit overall than Trick Arrow. They not only do more, they do it all better, and they generally don't have the alpha strike problem that Arrow does (takes time to stack all those debuffs).
I don't see how an arrow defender is supposed to actually defend a team with such mediocre tools. You can't keep them up all the time, they don't do much anyway, and even the Hold, a mere single-target power, can't take an enemy permanently out of a fight. There are blaster builds that put out better team damage mitigation than that, much less every other AT. Trick Arrow is just pretty pointless in its current form.
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Hey gang, made a trick arrow defender and its a blast to play, but there are a few questions i have about it. First of all what part in a team did you envision this AT to play? As with all the defender sets it's a jack of all trades type of set, but not really good at any of them. It's true I can fill in as a (weak) blaster, or (poor) controller, but wasn't that part of the reason you introed these nerfs to begin with...to keep the different AT's from acting like the others? Also i'm not really sure this AT belongs in the defender catagory....just how do we defend the team? We can't heal, unless we take powers from ther medicine pool, we can't debuff or buff...how exactly does this qualify as a defender?
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Just looking in on the state of the tread and noticed this and several similar posts. Maybe it is time to make Trick Arrow into a Blaster secondary rather than a defender primary? Wasn't that what everyone wanted from the start?
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Poison Gas Arrow: Increased Recharge of Poison Gas Arrow to 60 seconds from 24 seconds to prevent
[/ QUOTE ]Wait, if you did not want multiple stacking why 24 to begin with?
Right now, you prevented it from being used in around 60% of the situations it used to be available at without slots.
This leaves the arrow defender with one single hold in most situations being the only tool "to defend" with.
Radiation can use their toggle defender powers unenhanced all the time and for multiple usefull effects!
Kinetics can stack their debuffs with great ease.
Both sets also have healing and +recovery + recharge buffs.
Arrows only has debuffing which is now not on all the time and needs lots of slotting to work with consistency.
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Net Arrow: Removed Recharge debuff from Net arrow (Set already has many recharge debuffs)
[/ QUOTE ]But should you not be treating powers more individually?
Making the weakest power useless will not help balance at all..
This power happened to be the least likely choice already.
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Increased recharge and decreased duration of Ice Arrow.
[/ QUOTE ]The power can bearly hold same lvl minions and lt now, permenantly when 5 slotted with two recharge and two duration singles.
That makes it 75% weaker than freeze ray, why keep that power at all?
[ QUOTE ]
Acid Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack)
[/ QUOTE ]Yes but remember Acid arrow can miss and it has a really small area in which it works.
Besides you knew it had two damage resistance debuffs?
You also knew it has no heals, buffs and -regen like rad/kin.
What made this new change necessary?
How many damage resistance debuff sonic blasters have?
Having two debuffs weak ones rather that one strong debuff, sets us another step behind rad because of activation time and slotting required.
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Disruption Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Disruption Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack). Increased Recharge rate of Disruption Arrow to 120 for Defender and Controller to prevent multiple stacking
[/ QUOTE ]Why was it quick to begin with?
Again, please remember this power has no secondary effects.
Similar powers like tar patch also slow the target.
Other powers like Enervating Field, debuff damage also.
[ QUOTE ]
Glue Arrow: Reduced Duration of Glue Arrow from 45 seconds to 30 second and Increased Recharge time from 20 seconds to 120 seconds to prevent multiple stacking. Fixed Glue Arrow visual f/x.
[/ QUOTE ]This means that we have no powers to support our team 75% of the time, this is like having healing powers that require 120 seconds to recharge.
If you do not want stacking, reduce stacking effects?
Or just weaken the power, so stacking is like the base now.
This change hurts lower lvl defenders, making them useless.
Overall those changes do not make sense, they leave arrows in the back row, helping the team rarely and vaguely.
The set weaknesses are clear, no heals and buffs.
You have managed to greatly blur the streangths.
Positive suggestions:
<ul type="square">[*]Allow powers to stack[*]Adjust powers by potency[*]Improve the strong points
Being damage resistance debuff[*]Add -regen to Poison[*]Remember no heals/ buffs[/list]
Thanks for all the tweaking, you saved me the 300 plus hours I would have invested in making a trick arrow defender who can't really defend! Always good to know ahead of time when something is going to be complete and utter garbage.
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for all the tweaking, you saved me the 300 plus hours I would have invested in making a trick arrow defender who can't really defend! Always good to know ahead of time when something is going to be complete and utter garbage.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ha, agreed. I won't be rolling one anymore.
Cheers!
I think, neither will I. These changes are way to severe imo.
Seems to be the trend lately
Spines/ D A lvl 50 Scrap, stone/wm lvl 50 tank, Kat/reg lvl 50 Scrap
Grav/Kin lvl 50 Cont, Fire/Enegry lvl 50 Blast
Warshade lvl 50, PB lvl 39, nightwidow lvl 50, crab lvl 42
plant/thorns lvl 50 dom, ice/fire lvl 40 dom, grav/nrg lvl 41 dom
Agreed. Trick Arrow just got turned into nigh total crap. For the love of mike Dev's Defender Single target Holds that do zippo damage (Pretty much all of them) and one that does Zippo damage and no secondary effect (Pet Gaze) should have shorter recharges and higher durations than Blaster Holds (as much as I love my blaster alts this does cheese me off... but for heavens sake don't nerf them just improve those defender primary power list holds.) It's rediculous. Utterly and completely assinine.
Thanks,
Rogue Demonhunter
PS: As it is your not making this set particularly attractive. You are pretty much ENFORCING the need for Hasten and Stamina on so many builds with I5 it isn't even funny. Time to make those two inherent at certain levels me thinks.... Seems to be your insisting we have them.
I knew these changes were planned, so I've held off on posting to this thread until I could try them out.
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Removed Recharge debuff from Net arrow.
[/ QUOTE ]
Huzzah. Entangling Arrow is now officially worse than Web Grenade. A primary power should be better than a secondary power, at least if they're at the same tier, and this one was weak to start with. Give it something else. It could be a narrow cone, so you can get two or three mobs in it, maybe. Or it could cause knockdown--an automatic knockdown on impact, and a minor chance to cause knockdown throughout the duration (as they try to move and trip on the net). It still wouldn't be much of a power, but it would help out the */TA controllers, who are forced to take it.
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Added the ability to add Accuracy Enhancements to Flash Arrow.
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Well, it's a start. It would have been better to make at least the defender version autohit. If the defender version were autohit, and the controller version took accuracy enhancements, it would nicely differentiate the two sets. It would also be consistent--Smoke (which is very similar, except that it's a debuff in a controller primary) is autohit, while the equivalent secondary power, Smoke Grenade, is not.
[ QUOTE ]
Reduced base Accuracy of Ice Arrow. It was 120% of normal and should not have been.
[/ QUOTE ]
Correcting the accuracy is fine.
[ QUOTE ]
Increased recharge and decreased duration of Ice Arrow. Reduced Slow debuff.
[/ QUOTE ]
The duration/recharge ratio was decreased drastically. It will no longer keep even a minion out of a fight; I have expressed my opinion on this in the Petrifying Gaze thread. My reservations are, if anything, stronger in this case; Ice Arrow is the only tool a TA defender has that can actually neutralize a foe. That ability was absolutely necessary for my bowfender, at least until Acid Arrow became available, because the only way he could finish a fight with a lone +1 lieutenant (a common foe in his Heroic solo missions) was to freeze it repeatedly while his endurance slowly recovered.
The new version functions more like a single-target -Recharge. It doesn't prevent attacks, it just delays them a few seconds.
Of course, it's still better than Petrifying Gaze, because it has a secondary effect (however minor). However, it's no longer worth having before SOs become available.
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Swapped availability of Ice arrow and flash arrow.
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I have no objection to this. The original version of Ice Arrow was a bit more control than a defender should really have at level 1. And, of course, there's not much point in taking the new version until around L22, anyway.
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Reduced Duration of Poison Gas Arrow's debuff to 20 seconds, and the duration of the cloud to 20 seconds.
[/ QUOTE ]
Any basic debuff--and this is a core debuff of TA--should at least last for the duration of a reasonable solo fight. 20 seconds seems to be just a bit short--it will typically last if I'm fighting 3 even minions, but not long enough to finish a minion+lieutenant pair, even with their resistance debuffed. 30 seconds is a reasonable duration for this power, I think.
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Removed Recharge debuff from Poison Gas Arrow. Reduced its duration and reduced the chance to sleep.
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This change was particularly painful with Glue Arrow unavailable most of the time. Can we get something to replace the -Recharge? Otherwise, this power is going to look awfully shabby next to the likes of Enervating Field or Darkest Night. Thematically, -Regen would make sense, but it may be overpowered if -Regen is all-or-nothing. -Recovery would be interesting, too, and offer some interesting combo opportunities with Electric.
I couldn't tell if the chance to Sleep a foe was reduced, because I've only seen the "choking" emote about 10 times in 17 levels to start with. Did something that unreliable really need to be reduced? Why not just remove it and make the debuff better?
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Reduced Duration of Glue Arrow from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
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Again, I think 30 seconds is not unreasonable. It should last through a typical solo fight. I did have it lapse a few times before a fight ended last night, but it wasn't unmanageable. However, see my comments on recharge times.
Can we pretty please have a -Fly on this power? Flyers apparently ignore the -Speed on it, which reduces its utility considerably in some cases. Wiith part of a spawn slowed, and the rest moving at full speed, it actually makes scatter worse--the opposite of its intended effect. I'm really coming to loathe clockwork oscillators now.
It'd be nice if it had the same range as Poison Gas Arrow, too. I don't care which range you choose, I just find the "Out of Range" message annoying when I'm trying to lay down debuffs.
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Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow and Disruption arrow.
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OK, so now we have to stack the two powers to get a -Res approaching that of Enervating Field. In itself, that's not so bad. Was the recharge time on Acid Arrow also increased? I found myself having to wait for it much more often, but I didn't time it. It wasn't too onerous, but it would be a bit much on top of the other changes.
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Increased Recharge rate of Disruption Arrow to 120 for Defender and Controller.
Increased Recharge time of Glue Arrow to 120 seconds from 20 seconds. (Dev note: balancing)
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These are the changes I have the biggest problem with. I have no objection to preventing these powers from stacking. That's perfectly reasonable. After all, the core debuffs from Dark and Rad don't stack, right? Of course, Lingering Radiation and Tar Patch can stack a bit if you make a point of slotting for it...but those are completely different, right?
My objection is to the approach taken to prevent the stacking. These are not "they all fall down" nuke powers. They're debuffs. They're the heart of a TA defender's job. These changes prevent us from doing a substantial part of that job 75% of the time. Even with the slow, endurance-strained pace of my TA/A, Glue was only available every second or third fight. As a result, a substantial portion of my damage mitigation was gone, and I had nothing to take up the slack. In teams, it was even more pronounced, because teams tend to go from one fight to another faster; more often than not, I felt reduced to what other ATs have often accused defenders of being--a gimped blaster.
If you really feel that the debuffs should never, ever be allowed to stack, then make them not stack. Fix the code, for the love of Knuth! You've changed pets so that a new activation replaces the old pet. Most buffs have always had a mechanic that prevented a single hero from stacking them on the same target. Apply one of those mechanics to the debuffs--just pick one. Either would be far better than these interminable recharges.
TA is a debuff set. It doesn't buff. It doesn't heal. Its control elements are matched or exceeded by other debuff-heavy primaries. If a set is going to be this focused on debuffing, then it should debuff better than any other set. If it doesn't, then why would anyone ever want a TA defender on a team? Look at the set in light of these changes and try to come up with an answer for that.
The Way of the Corruptor (Arc ID 49834): Hey villains! Do something for yourself for a change--like twisting the elements to your will. All that's standing in your way are a few secret societies...and Champions of the four elements.
removed
"Trust me, it worked in the Simpsons." - Calash