The changes to the Illusion Controller are UNBALANCED. Superior Invisibility and Group Invisibility are two of the Primary powers of an Illusionist. With these changes (along with the changes to Flash) this charcter is deemed USELESS. I would like my time and effort and money back that I put forth into building my Issusionist/Bubbler controller that is being deemed USELESS by all these unwaranted changes. There will be no teams that want illusionists.
I ask: Waht pwers are of any use with an illusionist now? All they have left are pets that draw aggro which they can not hide from now. Illusionists will take the place of the Blasters after all the proposed changes as the "DEBT MASTERS", along with being the unwanted team player (nothing left to offer but unwanted pet induced aggro).
deep breath 
I just reread States' original post, as well as one by CuppaJo (this one) that originally had me upset with the stealth changes.
I confess: I was misunderstanding. From Cuppa's post, I thought that the defensive buff from the powers in primary and secondary sets was going to suppress, along with the visibility, but I was wrong!
I actually don't have a problem with suppressing the stealth component of these powers upon attacking. I wish that Smoke Grenade would not be counted as an attack, though, since it draws no aggro. My biggest issue with the stealth changes was that they basically made powers like CD and Group Invisibility no better than the pool powers, but this is not the case.
I play the game pretty much straight. I do my missions on Tenacious and I don't PL or herd. In this way, dropping stealth does not really change much, since as soon as I engage a mob they all come after me, even if I snipe. For crowded missions or outdoor areas, I'll have to be more careful though.
This is a microcosmal view, I acknowledge. I have only one hero with stealth powers and it's my /dev blaster.
I think the pool powers will still help heroes who are supporting teams and not attacking. What I think would be a good middle ground would be to have the powers only suppress on damaging attacks. Debuffs and mez powers that don't damage would not suppress stealth or the defense buff.
well, sometimes you can rationalize changes, but changes to invis I can not really do that with. This is supposed to be a comic book style game. When certain comic book characters (names unmentioned, but one carried a lasso and the other is in a recent movie) are invisible, they can sneak around, they can hit ppl, and image that, they don't amazingly become visible. It is also hard to hit them because you don't know where they are. It makes sense, that's why it was originally done that way in this game. now they are trying to backup and make everythign harder, not really a problem, I can deal with that, but at the same time they are finding weak solutions. The 5 person or whatever taunt, ok, I GUESS I can somewhat understand that, but it makes absolutely no sense what with an aoe power or cone power that you can't hit all in its range. Lets do an example: say there is a 10 foor radius fire, 5 people walk in and start burning to death, the sixth guy walks in and says, "haha, I'm number six, that wont hurt me until one of you die . . ." I'm just sponging the numbers, but the logic is failing because people build their characters too well. Instead of a "Bravo! You actually made a real hero," it's, "Congrats! You made a real hero, so we are going to punish you." Really teaches you to work hard. I won't lie and say I'll stop playing, but I will say that I will always try to find a way to live longer, hit harder, etc. I guess myself and a lot of you others keep the nerfers employed.
removed
I have a 50 AR/DEV blaster with cloaking device (6 SO +def). I always thought of stealth as working kind of like the Predator (from the first movie). As long as he didnt attack, he could shadow Arnold and his gang. As soon as he attacked, they were aware of the threat, and he got banged up, but it was still hard to hit him, because of the stealth.
Anyway, that's how I saw it, conceptually. In actual play, sometimes I am as powerful and untouchable as the Predator, and many other times, I am using every trick I have just to stay alive. I pretty much agree that the Stealth changes dont seem to make a whole lot of sense:
* Defense, in general, only applies when someone is actually attacking you. It doesnt affect anything when you arent in a fight.
* To be attacked, you have to be seen.
* Once enemies see you, they will try to hit you.
* Once you are hit, your defense bonus from stealth is halved
* If you attack them first, your defense bonus is halved
So, a power that only applies during combat is always less effective during combat.
I thought there was plenty of balance between all the stealth powers before. For someone like my AR/DEV blaster, there was a unique form of alpha strike in that I could "cloak and smoke," and then trip mine (or timebomb, only I didnt take that). I still got a defense bonus after the fight started, which always seemed logical to me, since I had thrown smoke at them and was still invisible (and I feel that I earned the defense bonus I get, as I 6-slotted both of those powers for for -def/+def, respectively). Stealth from Concealment could be taken much earlier, but had a lower def buff. Invis and Phase Shift from Concealment has serious stealth, but you couldnt attack, good for stealthing or as part of the "oh crap" routine). Superior Invis was the best of both worlds, and a nice, unique thing that Ill controllers could brag about.
Now it seems that all stealth powers are basically good for one thing - stealthing. I remember one of the nice things about FF defenders being that first bubble that makes it so you can run carefree to missions in Perez between 7-10, while everyone else is trying to squeeze between the bounderies of mob sight. It sounds to me like the stealth powers are now going to be good for little more than this, only not nearly as effective....especially if you do happen to be seen and hit once.
I know defense and offense arent apples:apples, but I cannot imagine an attack power, which is only ever useful for attacking, that does half damage whenever you hit someone with it. I'd wonder if I was having an off day, or if my rifle was jammed. If I bought a cloaking device that shut off every time I attacked, I'd want to take it back for a working one.
I can understand putting limitations on pool powers so they dont throw balance on primaries/secondaries out of wack, but it sounds like Cloaking Device and Superior Invis got lumped in with the pool powers simply because one isnt a secondary, and one isnt part of a "defensive" secondary set. Totally not fair.
Please, please, States.... roll this one around alot more, AND give us a very detailed reply as to what the goal with these changes was in the first place, especially for Cloaking Device.
PS. Please tell me you arent doing the same thing with Smoke Grenade....
I agree that an attack would negate the partial-invisibility of stealth. The enemies should now see you. But you should keep your defense bonus.
Themeatically, you are still difficult to see. Stealth fighters use hit and run. Think Batman. He does not give up any advantage by attacking because he ducks right back into the shadows.
From a mechanics standpoint, with the defense bonus nerfed as much as it is, losing what little defense the power still has makes this power a little harder to justify taking.
--
My AE Story Arcs:
Family Matters - 82136
Ya know I don't wanna play PvP now with my blaster for this reason. I can fix all the other problems except for defense. OK ok so for some reason this power was prolly causing a problem in the Arena. But as I went to arena the victory score for my blaster was 0-4 my Blaster being the loser even with stealth as it was. Not to mention that number will now factor over to PvE combat. Was this power too beneficial in PvE? I didn't think so. My blaster never fought on Inv setting for same slaughter reasons as always. Can't this be a PvP feature only. As you said some powers will behave differently in PvP than in PvE but why is this such an offense on both scales? It can't be the only survival tool of the blasters? Are minions and Bosses sopposed to have agg to the blasters even more than already.
I played with a scrapper a few times in my journeys that had Stealth. He used it for the defense. However when fighting with him I noticed that the agg was higher for my blaster when we both had it running. I asked him to turn it off and viola my agg was reduced to the things I singled out. It saved my life being able to have the option to turn it off. As it is on Test I have gotten rid of the stealth pool alltogether due to it being a waste for a blaster to have a cloak power but never be cloaked when it is needed and to have to take another precious power to either go even more invis which isn't EVER needed or to grant an ally invisablility that is greater than my own. If it was a perfect pool it would grant the same bonus that grant invis gives to the user with stealth and throw away invisability altogether with a better bonus power(something that anyone here can claim to use effectively worth the loss of a power other than sneaking to the end of a mission by a scrapper and clearing the Boss objective solo).
Very frustrating that PvP is affecting PvE so badly. I used to need stealth versus same lvl enemies now I only have Hover and when I was in my 40's I remade my toon just to have Fire shield Hover and stealth with alot of defense in Hover and Stealth so those Mez's wouldn't hit me "Every" time! Eventually I got the Knockout blow and worked around that with stealth to sneak behind them but now not only will the mezzer see me but the rest of the enemies will turn and fire on the now naked blaster, as soon as I hit the #key for the power, that still needs to take out the mezzer before any others attack.
In my opinion you are fixing PvP. And it is fixing it soo much that now everyone can be afraid to enter it. If everyone should be afraid then fine but nothing seems to work as it was so I am praying when next I go into PvP with my blaster for a "fair" fight I won't be reduced to a Target Sign for all others to see and attack as soon as I do. Why bother then? I will just hide somewhere and snipe where they can't find me then run.
It was a real problem given all the powers I wanted to take that I had to not take so that I could take that second Cloak Pool power so I could save my a** with Phase Shift when I got it. The third pool power is useless to anyone with the pool imo. Invis in any form is useless if it doesn't permit you to attack. First off you can be seen in the later levels with it on anyway. And secondly why take it when you can just be a little careful where you step and have the same invis by not standing on enemies toes. I wouldn't take stealth as is because they could alreaady see you before this but now theres no middle. Its either cloak or no cloak if you attack and that makes it an invaluable skill even for the measly defensive bonus it grants. As if blasters already didn't need all the defense they could get without status protection before. But now this slap to the hand? Come on! Perhaps you could Please! make it grant the same defensive stealth it had before and then make the defensive %'s different given the different classes that used it. Like Tank and Scrapper %'s the same as they are on Test and Controller and Blaster %'s as they are now on Live.
Just to add a little more. This hurts controllers with pets now greatly as well in PvE as they can't get their "pet" in the fight now without standing right in the middle or next to the enemies they want to engage. Cloak was a way to get close before they turned and mez'd you to controller goo piles before your "stupid" pet starts even turning to face the enemies. This is only slightly less a problem for Illusion controllers as they have Decoys but think of the other classes. Are they to spawn new pets right in the middle of the enemies now with slower recharges in pets to get the fight started? This hurts bad. Bad bad bad. Ouchie goes my blaster and controller.
This to be said also on PvP if a controller has cloak it doesn't matter as is if they become unstealthed anymore as if they hit you that first time as a blaster you are dead. There is no pass go, no collect $500 its just dead. So who is this helping? Not Blasters, not controllers, scrappers don't need it, tanks don't need it, defenders don't need it. This only hurts Controllers and Blasters who as we've seen have gotten no love this Issue. Though I have less complaints as far as controllers as you have finally put my controller with 3 pets in her place with everyone else : ). It was fun but thank you for not letting it go on. (I'm being serious btw, Thank you) I fought a controller with 1 pet and got my bum handed to me. No stealth no defense just mez. And death.
Edit: I wanted to add that ppl think the 10 second suppression is effective story based. That when you fire you should be seen, to that I say "You always were seen" But now you may have never had it on because now they are not shooting blindly" It shuts cloak "OFF" for 10 seconds. To speak of a favorite movie of mine. Predator. When he engages someone his Stealth does not do this.. " Oh S*** my cloak is now 100% gone? I am standing here with a gun in my hand and a dead body!!.... It goes like this. "Haha your looking right at me and even if you shoot I still took 1 of you out and you won't hit 50-80% of the time bein if I move my location. So why is it taken away completely. Why not have it reactivate if we move or leave it how it was. Still stealthed but they saw us? It was perfectly fine. Add to it don't make it NOTHING. I know ppl should be seen while cloaked if they fire, I know other enemies will be able to know the location. But that doesn't mean you turned the power OFF.
I am trying to uderstand how a power everyone loved is under fire from its own users via illegitimate claims that movies made the Hero/Villain 100% visible when he fired? The enemies of that person could shoot at the Hero/Villain but only when it was a villain would the shots always hit as they will now. And I didn't realize I was to be made a villain. Aren't I the Hero? Aren't I sopposed to be able to snipe and run and get away safely suffering Mild wounds to none at all if done well? Not shoot and have every enemy say "There he is I see him Perfectly now, Attack til dead" Why bother with the less visabble stealth animation when you are taking it all away? Is that a tease to make us think they can't see us? It is gone show it that way. They see us, it turns back on in 10 secs, and they continue to follow us as they always have when you turn cloak back on after it is knocked off (meaning it reactivates for no reason now as they will be 100% able to see you for a duration nomatter what like always unless you don't return fire in which case they are getting vengeance for there fallen foe with another dead body) and they continue firing whereas you fire back from the new further back location without any cloak or defense.
So controllers can now get pets out and cloak and do nothing to fight and still be 100% cloaked the whole fight without taking any damage. Why bother now they might as well take Invis and get pets out and be 100% Invis so their pets can hold you. A blaster cannot take out a pet yet alone take out the pet holding them and then take out the controller that was invis'd the whole fight.
Pinnacle Heroes: Ilconke lvl 50 En/En Blast, Pane lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank, Kimil'Lee Draco lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller, Blackest Blackness lvl 38 DA/DM Tank, il lvl 35 PB
Pinnacle Villains: X lvl 50 Claw/Nin Stalker, Knumbskull lvl 42 Elec/Elec Brute, Metal Master lvl 35 Bot/Bub MM, X'ile lvl 32 Mind/Psi Dom
Will the Stealth nerf be applied to the Knives of Artemis as well? When will the effects of villain powers ever be BALANCED or will they remain overpowered? It seems that the villains have been given every possible advantage and yet are worth so little for their trouble, xp and influencewise. The miserable state of enhancement drops has never changed, we still see level 53 trainings (do they sell well? i delete them). The accuracy drop for Lts and Bosses barely scratches the surface: coming down from godly accurate to still hitting-you-a-lot isn't an applaudable effort, Dev team. Put more effort into balancing, not AT-to-AT, but the overall game. Why do villains Brawl for so much? Is it necessary? They throw this basic attack every 3 (or is it 4) seconds and it is for A LOT of damage AND they spend NO ENDURANCE ON ANY OF THEIR POWERS. How about reducing the rate-of-attack of villains? That way, maybe the Tsoo Sorcerer running his Hurricane activates O2 Boost a little less frequently than AT EVERY POSSIBLE MOMENT...AND FOR FREE. For as popular as PvP is and how full all the Arenas are, why isn't the focus on improving an otherwise dull, repetitous, ludicrous game instead of making it worse with EVERY ISSUE RELEASE?
- Captain Amazing
Ok, so now I have many Stealth toons that will have an end draining toggle that makes me move slower for a miniscule amount of defense, which drops to half if I attack OR get hit. Why bother with suppression? I know players complained about the accuracy debuff on travel powers, even though it made perfect sense (and I thought it was great). Rather than leave in a the accuracy penalty on SS. SJ and Fly, it was removed and suppression was implemented. If you're going to continue with this whole suppression thing, how about suppressing the movement penalty as well. If all the mobs can now see me, the stealth obviously is NOT working and I should NOT be forced to move slower for that 10 seconds.
Alternately, could you give us a new costume option. A T-Shirt available to all toons that existed before I5 goes live that says "I got nerf'd in I5 and I still play".
I don't like the idea of Halving the defense buff at all. Makes Stealth pretty much worthless. You are halving it once in I5 to 3.5 % and halving it again when you get hit to 1.25.
Then you can't use it for aggro control, since everyone can now see you.
So how is it not a completely worthless power?
[ QUOTE ]
Basic Stealth Powers (Pools, temp powers, and Powers not in a Defense set like Blaster Cloaking Device, Controller Illusion Invisibilities):
Toggles:
If you Attack, or are Hit - Critters see you. You loose half your defense buff (and your PvP stealth) for 10 seconds. Your translucency is reduced to indicate this change.
[/ QUOTE ]
Suppressing Stealth while attacking is acceptable, even if it undermines the usefulness of the stealth powers (particularly in view that their defense numbers were dropped and get halved when stealth get suppressed). No longer will you be able to deal with one spawn in a room using stealth if the spawns are close together.
However, that stealth is suppressed when the character is attacked is a very significant change and one that is not a healthy one. It makes normal stealth powers far less useful for travel, as opposed to pure or stacked stealth abilities.
Is this change intended to force characters/groups to stop stealthing through missions to a boss/objective?
If so, the response is... unfortunate. The issues that drive stealthing missions are usually time commitment (pre-Striga TFs, the respec Trials, etc. where spending an hour clearing every mission would only extend the mostly pointless repetition that the door missions represent before you can get to the 'good' stuff), repetitive mission design (oh, another six story-office complex with a Glowie and a boss at the end), or a particularly disliked enemy group or map type (Cave maps, for example). Stealth let people avoid 'content' of this type that was particularly unappealing to them.
This change to stealth, for example, would make the Cavern of Transcendance even more potentially annoying. Troll caves that aren't defeat all but are crawling with repetitive enemy spawns become far more annoying, etc. It certainly doesn't seem conducive to 'fun,' as subjective as that word is.
If this change has to go into effect, please consider reducing the stealth suppression effect to the same duration as the movement suppression effect. 4 seconds, while still unappetizing, will not render stealth quite as useless for purposes for travel.
I would like a clarification. Statesman says, "Critters see you". Later he says, "All enemies see you". I assume this means the same thing. WHICH enemies? How much is "all"? Does this mean all enemies within the now increased radius of the perception of the foes? Or does is mean only those that are alerted, and the others (not linked) have only a standard chance to see you? (For instance, they might still be out of perception range if their back is turned) If they don't see you, is it possible for them to go back out of perception range when the suppression ends?
More importantly, I would like clarification of how it DID work. My understanding was that if you attacked, anyone effected by your attack, or linked to the effected target, could see you, even if outside of the reduced perception range. Was this the case, or has stealth always been "suppressed" as some devs have claimed? Is this what is meant by "all enemies see you", above, or is this a change?
If your defense is suppressed when you attack, but not if you are hit by an attack, then this makes sense. You are basically hiding and ducking behind cover. Likewise, although I would prefer to be able to "pull" a foe into a dark corner and take him out without alerting his buddies, it would make sense if they were to fire blindly in my direction if alerted, even if they can't "see" me. They can see me, in Statesman's sense, but they don't know exactly where I am.
However, that would be stealth suppressing on attack or hit, but defense suppressing only on attack. If defense is to be suppressed whether you do the attacking or are attacked, then essentially the full effect of the defense will ever only be used once, when you are first shot at, and then will drop down to the half level, where it will remain as long as you are in combat. I cannot see this effecting combat in any significant way. You might as well just code defense permanently to half its current level and thus simplify the code.
After all, the purpose of stealth is not to be attacked. If it is working, you will not take any damage at all, thus defense is irrelevant. If the defense from Stealth should be less than Combat Jumping and Hover, then just make it less than Combat Jumping and Hover, and be done with it.
Hmm... I see phasing is getting hit too now - for most of what I use it for (in mission) 30 seconds is ok (unless the higher recharge time has been put at 10 minutes or something silly like that). [Surviving the first 30 seconds of PvP till you are 'in position', and shaking aggro in mission when things go bad - walking through missions touching glowies phased is gone now, but was a little strange to be allowed anyway]
But... I also have it on my blasters so they can get to their contacts without having those zone-snipers downing them, I hope they do balance out the zone-snipers a little too now also.
//AtCbM// www.crystalblue.dk
Victory - Mare,Dagger of Pain,Keep,Hogun and Bloodpetal
The Keep-Arcs: 164260, 188373, 192610, 196090 and funny side-chapter 218575.
Mender-Arc: 266163
Well I for one don't like the changes at all. As far as I am concerned this has totally killed this entire pool. Stealth I wanted to look cool, not for an exploit, and maybe a panic power (even though I know by the time it activates I am probably dead). So taking away the cool phase shift and killing the benefits of stealth and invis basically kill the whole pool for me. I will be respecing it out of my one toon with it. I won't say to which pool because I know that will just get that set adjusted sooner rather than later.....down of course. Hate to be a doom sayer but geesh, I5 seems like nothing but nerfs all around. I had hope for I5 coming around but I have pretty much given up now (not one I5 change is a positive for any of my toons; or is a tiny bone thrown after a complete skull pounding).
Ok, I can understand the stealth suppression. It makes sense But from what I understood, the Cloaking Field combined with smoke grenades were supposed to give the Device/blaster a way to avoid being seen. Now the smoke grenades suppress the cloaking field and I'm seen every time I throw the grenade. I thought the Grenades were supposed to reduce the visibility of villians?
Is this a bug or do you really intend to nerf the concept of this really cool combination of powers?
To any Rednames:
Have the proposed stealth suppression changes gone live with Issue 5? There's no mention of such changes being included in the update notes for today (08/31/05). An official "Yay" or "Nay" would be downright dandy.
-Skull
I am curious if smoke grenades in the */dev secondary should force suppression of cloaking device. I tested this in only two missions (both DE) and multiple times I would SS within range with cloaking device on and use smoke grenade. I would say about 80% of the time I was attacked unprovoked...is this working as intended?
Actually the suppression of stealth powers [All that are affected] doesn't make since. The power itself should not change, however I do feel that a chance to 'see' you should be given when you attack or get too close to an baddie. [even if you are inviso-maybe they feel your breath or see dust go around you or something] But to cause the suppression of a power ... well I've already said...it doesn't make since.
For example... (on live last night)
I was hovering at max range for a snipe power while having cloaking shield on. Shot a -1 Council. Not only did he know where I was at but so did all of his friends...[even ones that were just running by-I was in striga island btw]
If anything the one I shot should of had a chance to see me since I shot him but since I was so far away and only shot once, the others shouldnot have seen me. [maybe been like hey..whats going on with jim over there]
Not only did they see me but by the time they got towhere they could attack me, I had 1. moved 2. suppression had gone[fully cloaked again] and they still found me and shot me.
States had said that these changes were mainly for PvE [response to a PM I sent] but I still don't see it.
Thanks for listening to me...
and as always...let the flaming begin
Mike
Oh... one thing I forgot to say...
IMO only the power Stealth should get a defense all the time.
The other inviso powers should only affect acc. debuffs and that should increase per level you have the power. for instance a lvl 20 that got Inviso at 14 would be better at not being seen than a lvl 41 that got inviso at 41 just for having the power longer. Again...just mho.
Statesman,
Please post at least 1 situation in which a Hero would have the full, unsuppressed, +DEF portion of stealth in effect.
I dont understand. Can someone explain this please?
When is the stealth defense of use? if you are attacking or are getting hit it gets halved for ten seconds, but if you are attacking or get hit, you are going to keep attacking or get hit until one of you is down... so def stays at half. Doesn't it?
When is it not half? When you are just standing there.
Please explain the reason I need defense when I am just standing there not attacking or getting hit.
205723: A Different DESTINY
When Soldiers of Arachnos got their names added to the Destiny List, Longbow managed to get a copy of the list and began rounding villains up. But one name on the list shocked them...
The word you are looking for is "lose" not "loose." Loose is when your pants are too baggy. Lose is when you don't have something anymore. As in he's going to lose his wallet if he doesn't fix his pocket.
I suffered a lot of nerfs through I5 (my main had 13 powers hit) but this one pisses me off the most because its mainstay for EVERY hero I make.
And whats worse, the vast majority of the 'real' players and heros in 'COH' (the ones that play, don't PL) don't care for PVP/Arena, yet we have to suffer this....
My patience with COH is rapidly diminishing....
W
ps how bright was it to have a free 5 day trial right after a buggy new release. Thanks for the additional pain.
So what you're saying is that the power works the same way as before except you are no longer harder to see for all groups in the room and that "difficulty of sight" defence buff is gone. Personally I didn't relise that there was a problem with stealth. I understand wanting to balance things for COV but making things unrealistic or uncomic book like is not what I thought this game was about.
If you have stealth on and you are paying for it then you should be enjoying its benefits. I could understand the visability supression (However, 10 seconds is a very long time in any fight. Most of my fights as a scrapper are just barely that long.). I think supression should only last as long as I'm fighting. If I'm hurting and the baddie turns his head to look at someone else I should be able to disappear back into the shadows from which I came. I also agree with the idea that if some baddie opens up with an AK at the wall his buddies in the room should notice, but I don't believe I should lose my buff becuase they would constantly be trying to precieve where I am with stealth enabled, that should be a tough job. Many factions of baddies can already see right though my stealth so why are you changing this? I just don't understand.
As for the balancing with COV, COV isn't even out yet why can't you change it so their "sight" is greater making it easier for them to see us if that's the problem. To counter out the defence, increase there acc a little it certainly wouldn't have to be much becasue stealth's defence isn't that spectacular. Why are you changing the existing game for the one that is still in development ?
Your explanations suck. Give me a comic book based example of why you are making this change and then I'd be more swayful about the changes you are making. Normally I'm really behind you guys about the changes you make. I like that power leveling is so much harder now. If a side kick wants to learn from his mentor then he should get a mild xp buff. The dreck power leveling thing was so unhero like though. What knowledge would a sidekick gain from standing on a wall and watching an empty street while his mentor sits on the wall next to him watching the same empty street. Hell, I might not even mind it if they were at least talking but when both mentor and Sidekick are AFK they really don't deserve anything. This time changing stealth I dunno what to say, WHY ?
Roxy On DA...Finally!
ooowaaaa. You GO Girlfriend!!!
(Not like he listens, but I like the way you talk, lol.)
This the only Dev thread I've responded to. Though I have numerous alts of various ATs, the different tweaks to their powers have been -- well -- the sort of thing you can adjust to, tactically. However ...
[ QUOTE ]
Basic Stealth Powers (Pools, temp powers, and Powers not in a Defense set like Blaster Cloaking Device, Controller Illusion Invisibilities):
Toggles:
If you Attack, or are Hit - Critters see you. You loose half your defense buff (and your PvP stealth) for 10 seconds. Your translucency is reduced to indicate this change.
Clicks
If you Attack, or are Hit - All enemies will see you. You loose half your defense buff. Your translucency is reduced to indicate this change.
Primary Stealth Powers (Those in a defense set like Dark Armor/Cloak of Darkness, Dark Miasma/Shadow Fall, Storm Summoning/Steamy Mist, Warshade/Shadow Cloak)
Toggles:
If you Attack, or are Hit - Critters see you. (You loose your PvP stealth for 10 seconds). Your translucency is reduced to indicate this change. No Defense is Suppressed
[/ QUOTE ]
My main is an Illusion Controller. Who now, with his few AoE holds, can't hold very many for very long, and with his Invisibility can't do much else besides that.
First off, if it's in my Primary Power Set, I consider it a Primary power. I project Illusions. That's my job. Invisibility of various sorts is an Illusion. That's not Basic, it's not an Add-On or an Afterthought or a Pool Power. It's right there in my job description and in my Primary Power Set.
Not that it makes that much difference. The Defense bonuses are now so low that the difference between full and half is not that significant.
As things currently stand, I can still Stealth glowie missions -- as long as there isn't a high-Perception mob somewhere along the way. (I've never quite understood why clicking a glowie -- playing with the computer keyboard, searching the files, whatever it is -- doesn't have the chance of drawing aggro from nearby mobs, but that's probably planned for I6.)
But as far as combat is concerned, my Invisibility powers -- a goodly chunk of my abilities, mind you -- are useless. since villains react to "seeing" me faster than any attack I have can go off (ditto for anyone who I've made invisible), and since the defense has not only been reduced but now is half that.
I guess I'll stand back, throw nice, non-aggroing Deceives (until I6), use various Secondary powers to help my friends, shoot through the tanks, and hope that none of the baddies take a hankering to my tender flesh.
This feels like this was a solution in search of a problem. I haven't run across anyone complaining that stealth powers -- pool or otherwise -- were making the game not fun, or too easy.
And, from a "this is a game about comic book characters" perspective, this simply robs a huge super-power theme of all color or utility. The stealthy ninja. The invisible person. The master hypnotist that nobody notices. Nope -- can't do that any more.
Concrete suggestions?
I. Explain
1. Explain what the goal here is. What problem, specifically, was being targetted for solution, and how this was the least intrusive way to deal with it. Maybe folks will agree with you, or at least come up with some alternative ideas yo may not have considered.
2. Explain the rationale for group Illusion Controller Invis with pool powers, vs. with "Primary Stealth Powers." Like I said, with the Defense nerf it doesn't make that much difference, but it *feels* wrong.
II. Change
1. Leave things as they are.
2. Failing that, don't nerf the defense of these powers -- including the overall I5 reduction to Defenses. If I'm going to be "noticed," I should still get *some* substantial value from being, well, invisible.
3. Additionally or alternately, put in some sort of delay before bad guys figure out where you are. Or have a chance that they don't (negative aggro?). At the very least, mobs should not attack before an invisibled character's attack *goes off*. That just makes no sense from a gamepla perspective.
Nothing new here that hasn't already been said, but maybe one more voice saying it will make a difference.