I am a katana/dark scrapper with 2 acc, 2 damge and on def debuff in most my att. the 2 acc seem to help my crit hits. on the def side i run a mixture of enh def and end reduct so i can keep three or four running with four slotted stamina.Ed is not going to hurt me much. 
But i will admit the debuff is a waste right now as far as I can tell. Dear devs if you want us to use the darn things make them effective. (oh, if it were not for dark regen i could not solo,if it misses it is face plant time.) Guess my main piont is,if they want us to diversify, make it worth it, do not just force the issue. THANK HEAVENS FOR EMPATH DEFENDERS 
Going to miss my meat shields. 
Life was simpler before I gained some knowledge
I think this is a great thing. Not because it is not a nerf. But because it is helping the SR group which got nerfed so badly. I thank you in these non-nerfs.
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Will this resistance be in any way enhanceable?
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Well, it most definitely should be enhanceable. I mean, what a shame it would be if we were to try and ONLY put defense enhancements in the powers. That doesn't encourage diversity.
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They will appreciate this -- I think Ice Tankers should get this too.
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Yes, my ice tank on protector i think [only lvl 5] has a power much like an invul, yet takes more dmg...
Not exactly a revelation but if they make it enhancable, that'll mean that those auto powers could be slotted 3/3 which will mean no wasted slots.
Not that you'd want to tell them what to do and interfere with their artistic vision, or anything.
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Ice could use some love as well while you folks are at it.
[/ QUOTE ] out of curiosity and completely off topic, are there threads which explore/establish Ice's comparative effectivenss to Inv and other sets under ED? I guess i'm wonding if Ice is going to be as bad off as Inv or worse.
I think some of the challenges for the dev in applying this to Ice may be:
1) thematic - if this is supposed to be associated with /SR's "dodging," then it's not clear that any other +DEF set should get it. I guess i never thought ice was about "doging" per se. In other words, if Ice gets this, then every set with some +DEF could argue for this. If they limit this power change to strictly "Super Reflexes" then they won't have to open that can of worms.
2) One of the reason I think they had to do something like this is based on the Gamespot screenshots. Remember /Ninji? Ninji has the toggles with the AoE, but it also got a bunch of other powers in place of the passives. This forces the question of whether the passives in SR were balanced with all that other stuff? Did Dodge and Agile make up for the reconstruction like power? Did they make up for caltrops? At 5% +DEF, coupled with a toggle max of about 20% ...that answer has to be a resounding no. Ice doesn't have to make up for the powers in /Ninjitsu the way /SR's passives have to.
3) Ice got that PBAoE dmg debuff and /SR did not ge that. This means that the devs see the powers/problems associated with Ice/ and /SR as requiring different solutions. Personally, I like that. I don't want a power that Ice/ has in /SR just because it helps the problem. I'd like to keep the Ice/ solutions as separate and unique from the /SR solutions as possible.
Please don't misconstrue this as a vote against Ice needing improvement. I'd just like to see them get something that was more thematic with Ice than a "rolling with the punch" power....just my opinion.
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You know, I still haven't run into any Archvillian or monster that one shotted me unless it was +3 or above. Two shotted yes. If you fight even level or +1 AVs what the heck is one shotting you so often? And if it's one or two AVs in the entire game do you think you could use an orange pill for that one encounter?
I don't know, I hate to sound like a fanboi because there is plenty still wrong with the game and SR even with this buff (cough*tohitbuffs*cough) but for me the one shot scenario is a non-issue. I have never actually encountered it in game and there is an easy and obvious way to prepare for it.
Getting two shotted has been a threat many times however.
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I've seen plenty melee folks one shotted by an AV. My Peacebringer was oneshotted by an even con Neuron even through my shields. Many of the AVs have some sort of alpha strike that can shred even the toughest of us apart. I'd say you've been lucky if being one shotted has never been an issue.
My gut reaction on this is kind of mixed, States. I see what you guys are aiming for here, but I'm not sure execution's going to work.
Against piddling stuff like the odd minion attacks, this works just fine. Damage values are small enough to let the resistance kick in after each hit lands.
Just going by the numbers, if you get knocked down into a lowish Resist value, and then catch a big hit off a Boss, will this Resist be enough to survive it? When does the Resist kick in?
If two attacks are enough to kill us, I'm assuming we get the Resist to the first after it's done moving our HP%. That first hit doesn't matter, if you can survive it. But what about that second hit? Does the Resist FROM that second hit apply TO that hit as it lands, or is our new Resist calculated after the second hit's done hosing our HP bar to zero?
I can see this being great against lots of stuff in a group, but against lone monsters that hit like a ton of bricks, I'm still curious. Did you guys do something shifty to make this viable against, say, a Hatched Kraken? Otherwise one Foot Stomp that lands will still almost kill me in one hit.
"I'm flying free with my beautiful butterfly wings!" ~ Randy Marsh
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Super Reflexes Auto powers (Agile, Dodge, and Lucky) now add some minor damage resistance.
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Unless it's a significant resistance value it's basically valueless.
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Super Reflexes Auto powers (Agile, Dodge, and Lucky) now add some minor damage resistance. This Damage resistance starts at 0%, but improves as the caster loses HP. The Resistance kicks in at 60% HP (when HP bar first changes color) and markedly increases at 40% and 20% (again, when the bar changes color). We have not yet determined the exact values.
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I don't get it. Sure, it's a buff to SR scrappers, but, from a mechanics point of view, it's bizarre.
An extreme possibility is that the damage resist increases 'faster' than the proportion of hit points lost. That would leave the SR scrapper in a place where he's better off with fewer hit points, and leads to things like sitting in the lava to fight an AV.
So, let's stipulate, for the moment that you never want a decrease in hit point total to correspond to a decrease in durability. That puts benefit caps of 16 and 36 on the 60% life and 40% life boosts respectively. (10 and 24 if you allow slotting the powers for resist.)
Moreover, since this is a step activation, it's clear that there will be periods where the effective durability of the scrapper is reduced by his natural healing.
Now, let's take a look at what sort of environment this change is going to actually help the SR scrapper in. Clearly enemies that perform 1-shots aren't affected. If it's not stacked with other powers, it moves the minimum 2-shot from 50 to 54% of the scrappers life bar, and the minimum 3 shot from 33 1/3 to 38% of the hero's life bar, and creates a micro 3-shot gap at 40% of the hero's life. Since the most common 2-shot (in my experience) is a boss hitting small at range, and then big in melee this isn't going to help with those.
So, really, this improvement is mostly beneficial for the hordes of peashooters scenario, and even then, I'm left wondering whether it's possible to have DoT stacked deep enough to KO a character before the damage resist is triggered.
A change like this tells us that:
Most 1 and 2 shotting of SR scrappers is 'working as intended'.
The devs want to see more brinksmanship.
I'm not an SR expert like some (I think mine is level 23 atm) but to me it would make more sense conceptually to have DEF increase and not RES. I know many think that the problem with DEF is ... well ... only having DEF but I like having sets with a "strong suit" so you kind of live by the sword and die by the sword. I'd prefer to have something like:
def based set
res based set
def with small res
res with small def
To me this promotes more unique play and experience. This is especially true when you pick a set that is pure def or pure res. These players accept having a main strength knowing that they are giving up versatility. A pure res set is great until it runs into something with -RES. A pure def set is great until it goes against something with insane ACC, or it gets unlucky. Those who don't want to live on the edge and prefer to hedge their bets can take one of the hypbrid sets. It's something like has kept me drawn to CoH and something I'd like to see continue. Though I bet many disagree with a pure DEF set.
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I've alluded to this in a couple of places, but I wanted to describe something we'll be doing for Super Reflexes quite soon...
Super Reflexes Auto powers (Agile, Dodge, and Lucky) now add some minor damage resistance. This Damage resistance starts at 0%, but improves as the caster loses HP. The Resistance kicks in at 60% HP (when HP bar first changes color) and markedly increases at 40% and 20% (again, when the bar changes color). We have not yet determined the exact values.
This change is in addition to the recent modification that gave most Defense Primary and Secondary powers resistance to Defense Debuffs (self Defense powers).
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I figure I would toss another "out of the box" idea at the SR problem.
Instead of giving SR Damage Resistance, or even more defense, perhaps sticking to the theme of SR is where the answer lies.
I have seen countless situations where the agile and dexterous Hero deftly avoids multiple opponents with such skill and grace that often the opponents hit each other with their own attacks.
I'm not sure how you would translate that into this game, but I'll toss out a suggestion.
Each of the passives, (melee, range, and AoE) has a chance to redirect all or some of the incomming attack to a nearby enemy. To make it feasable, the positional aspect of each auto power determines what attack can be redirected, for example: Your melee auto power can only redirect melee attacks, your range auto power can only redirect range attacks, and finally your AoE auto power redirects AoE attacks.
Now, to illustrate how this would work in keeping with the SR theme: Imagine your some agile Kung Fu Hero facing off against 3 Freakshow. They all rush you and begin melee attacks upon you. Since your Defense is now significantly reduced due to the ED changes, you can't rely on Defense alone to keep them from beating the snot out of you. So, every attack that overcomes your defense and "would" land, your new ability kicks in and makes a check to see if none/some/all of the damage is taken, and what damage, if any, is redirected to one of your opponents.
Scenareo: Freak Slammer swings his sledgehammer at you, you duck behind his Freak Stunner pal and us him as a shield, thus Freak Stunner takes the damage you would have taken.
Again, I'm not sure how this can be implememnted, or even *IF* it can be implemented, but it's just an Idea, and if it sparks some creative mojo in a Dev's brain, then my job is done.
"All that crap is grey to me, no XP." - Positron 5/15/05 8:36am . . . The world stopped and silence ensued except for the sound of a crying infant off in the distance.
"Everyone needs to chill the hell out." - BackAlleyBrawler 11/13/08 3:26pm . . . Geeks around the world stopped and blinked.
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I've seen plenty melee folks one shotted by an AV. My Peacebringer was oneshotted by an even con Neuron even through my shields. Many of the AVs have some sort of alpha strike that can shred even the toughest of us apart. I'd say you've been lucky if being one shotted has never been an issue.
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As an aside, what level were you as compared to the AV?
Anyway, I understand and recognize that there are anecdotal cases of AVs that can one shot a character. Getting one-shotted by an even level AV (or even a +1) is extremely rare and you can prepare for it by packing orange pills. My point stands - to me it's a non-issue.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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I've alluded to this in a couple of places, but I wanted to describe something we'll be doing for Super Reflexes quite soon...
Super Reflexes Auto powers (Agile, Dodge, and Lucky) now add some minor damage resistance. This Damage resistance starts at 0%, but improves as the caster loses HP. The Resistance kicks in at 60% HP (when HP bar first changes color) and markedly increases at 40% and 20% (again, when the bar changes color). We have not yet determined the exact values.
This change is in addition to the recent modification that gave most Defense Primary and Secondary powers resistance to Defense Debuffs (self Defense powers).
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I figure I would toss another "out of the box" idea at the SR problem.
Instead of giving SR Damage Resistance, or even more defense, perhaps sticking to the theme of SR is where the answer lies.
I have seen countless situations where the agile and dexterous Hero deftly avoids multiple opponents with such skill and grace that often the opponents hit each other with their own attacks.
I'm not sure how you would translate that into this game, but I'll toss out a suggestion.
Each of the passives, (melee, range, and AoE) has a chance to redirect all or some of the incomming attack to a nearby enemy. To make it feasable, the positional aspect of each auto power determines what attack can be redirected, for example: Your melee auto power can only redirect melee attacks, your range auto power can only redirect range attacks, and finally your AoE auto power redirects AoE attacks.
Now, to illustrate how this would work in keeping with the SR theme: Imagine your some agile Kung Fu Hero facing off against 3 Freakshow. They all rush you and begin melee attacks upon you. Since your Defense is now significantly reduced due to the ED changes, you can't rely on Defense alone to keep them from beating the snot out of you. So, every attack that overcomes your defense and "would" land, your new ability kicks in and makes a check to see if none/some/all of the damage is taken, and what damage, if any, is redirected to one of your opponents.
Scenareo: Freak Slammer swings his sledgehammer at you, you duck behind his Freak Stunner pal and us him as a shield, thus Freak Stunner takes the damage you would have taken.
Again, I'm not sure how this can be implememnted, or even *IF* it can be implemented, but it's just an Idea, and if it sparks some creative mojo in a Dev's brain, then my job is done.
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Now THAT makes sense. And it works too, in an insane Jackie Chan kung-fu-meets-Buster-Keaton kind of way.
Shoot, abilities such as this would possibly overcome SR's limitations in a way that makes it insanely fun to play.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
This is a bad idea on several levels.
First off, on principle, Reflexes does not help absorb damage. If anything they should be given a 'roll with it skill' which could be either resistance or a flat percentile 'you miss' chance. But this just doesn't make sense. They should get more of a dodge bonus if anything due to frantic weaving.
Secondly, as we've discovered, the thing about resistance is it makes like no difference unless you're at high numbers (at least 50%). At less, it's not doing as much. So essentially you're not helping avoid the alpha. If it comes at full life they have no resist, if it comes at 20%-60% they're still not surviving it cause they'll not be higher than their initial effective total (and if they are something's wrong). Give them a higher defense bonus and it'll actually matter.
I also think the base numbers need a big boost, especially with ED. Like double or triple.
The developers need to go back to the drawing board and see how to make the scrapper secondaries different from one another. When you get to a point where you cannot tell the difference from one to the next, some changes need to be made.
People can argue semantics about how the secondaries play out, but to me it is just like Pong. In pong you had some "variation", but all it was a white square going back and forth on a tv screen.
Lets take a look at blaster secondaries. Devices and Energy Manipulation. What is sp wonderful here is that they are two very strong sets but very different in what they do. Energy and Devices have very few common powers. But what if they did give Devices a Build-Up, conservation, and power enhancer? And what if they gave Energy Manip a hold, aoe slow, invis, etc?
You need to keep powers different.
Frozen Rage
47 Ice/Emp Controller Victory
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Instead of giving SR Damage Resistance, or even more defense, perhaps sticking to the theme of SR is where the answer lies.
I have seen countless situations where the agile and dexterous Hero deftly avoids multiple opponents with such skill and grace that often the opponents hit each other with their own attacks.
I'm not sure how you would translate that into this game, but I'll toss out a suggestion.
Each of the passives, (melee, range, and AoE) has a chance to redirect all or some of the incomming attack to a nearby enemy. To make it feasable, the positional aspect of each auto power determines what attack can be redirected, for example: Your melee auto power can only redirect melee attacks, your range auto power can only redirect range attacks, and finally your AoE auto power redirects AoE attacks.
Now, to illustrate how this would work in keeping with the SR theme: Imagine your some agile Kung Fu Hero facing off against 3 Freakshow. They all rush you and begin melee attacks upon you. Since your Defense is now significantly reduced due to the ED changes, you can't rely on Defense alone to keep them from beating the snot out of you. So, every attack that overcomes your defense and "would" land, your new ability kicks in and makes a check to see if none/some/all of the damage is taken, and what damage, if any, is redirected to one of your opponents.
Scenareo: Freak Slammer swings his sledgehammer at you, you duck behind his Freak Stunner pal and us him as a shield, thus Freak Stunner takes the damage you would have taken.
Again, I'm not sure how this can be implememnted, or even *IF* it can be implemented, but it's just an Idea, and if it sparks some creative mojo in a Dev's brain, then my job is done.
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I think the implementation issue is probably at the forefront, but ignoring that, how about this:
Instead of a change to redirect all damage, or some amount of the damage, have a (somewhat) random split. Currently, you get attacked, the enemy either hits or it doesnt. Make it a 3 part chance.
If the enemy misses, then the enemy misses, works like now.
If the enemy hits, and their "roll" or however its actually calculated is less than some redirect threshold(lets say 2x defense whose source is a SR power, capping out around 60ish), then you can redirect the damage to the closest enemy. I say closest enemy because a), it makes sense (redirecting a ranged attack is pretty difficult, redirecting an AoE? much more so I would think), and b), given the AoE limit explanation, theres obviously something that already determines the "closest" enemy/ally built in. So if you redirect the attack, you will take some percentage of the damage, and the enemy takes whatever you don't.
If the "roll" is above the redirect threshold, you take full damage, as it was an especially accurate attack.
Eh?
Please, please, PLEASE give this to ice tanks.
Paired with the increased damage debuff and the defense debuff resistance, ice tanks might actually be getting somewhere with this.
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Statesman, the main problem noticeable with super reflexes is that you are the most likely one to get killed by one hit from any Archvillain and this makes it less desireable.
The reasons are the lack of dull pain and real damage resist.
How is taking less damage once you are hurt, going to compete when certain things that only take down *18% of the life of an invulnerable Scrapper, can ultimately kill the SuperR hero with just one single shot?
The percentage was calculated assuming dull pain 40% health boost and 75% resistance are available to the most common types of damage.(140*25%=100*18%)
This of course may change slightly with ED coming.
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You know, I still haven't run into any Archvillian or monster that one shotted me unless it was +3 or above. Two shotted yes. If you fight even level or +1 AVs what the heck is one shotting you so often? And if it's one or two AVs in the entire game do you think you could use an orange pill for that one encounter?
I don't know, I hate to sound like a fanboi because there is plenty still wrong with the game and SR even with this buff (cough*tohitbuffs*cough) but for me the one shot scenario is a non-issue. I have never actually encountered it in game and there is an easy and obvious way to prepare for it.
Getting two shotted has been a threat many times however.
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Infernal 1 shoted me 5 times in one mission alone arrg and that was not my mission. Mine is still sitting there never to be done and I was running tough.
Babbage has done the old 1 shot me
Envoy of Shadows is just a lost cause for SR's because of the auto hit aura was not one shotted but he is almost a guaranteed death for sr even with perma elude running in I3 he owned me
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
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With all due respect, a bullet is the worse case scenario for conceptually grasping a rwtp idea. By contrast, it's hard to imagine ever completely dodging an explosion and much more likely you will just minimize the damage you take by moving farther from the blast radius.
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Only in the movies is it possible to dodge the effects of an explosion. Injury and death come from high velocity shrapnel,which is as easy/difficult to dodge as bullets, and the high pressure shock wave, which expands uniformly radially and is impossible to dodge altogether.
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Damage mitigation from a reflex is a given and not even debatable in a real world setting. Sometimes you may not mitigate, like when being fired on by a short pulse laser, but many more times you will, like being fired on by an extended burn laser (you move out of the beam).
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In truth, resistance by dodging is the special case, not the general case. It seems like the general case because of the familiarity of some examples (i.e. boxing), and general misconceptions, most of them presented in the movies.
I suppose technically since CoH models comic books and movies, it is irrelevant if it happens in real life, but only if it happens in fiction. But its *especially* in fiction that dodging *lethal* attacks tends to be all or nothing. In any movie with any hero of any kind, in comic books with almost any hero with dodging ability, is not only bullets that they dodge all or nothing. It tends to be sword attacks, disintegrator rays, explosives, poisoned weapons, and the like.
Spiderman will dodge all the bullets from the minions - because they can kill - and then get hit by one of the tentacles of Dr. Octopus, which is probably moving at one tenth the speed - because it can be portrayed as non-lethal.
Narrativium, again.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
Okay... now do the same thing (or something similar) for ice tanks, and make Defiance kick in at a reasonable speed. Ta!
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You know, I still haven't run into any Archvillian or monster that one shotted me unless it was +3 or above. Two shotted yes. If you fight even level or +1 AVs what the heck is one shotting you so often? And if it's one or two AVs in the entire game do you think you could use an orange pill for that one encounter?
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I have been one-shotted (hit for more than my max HPs) by the following even level creatures:
DE Thorn Monsters with Hurl Thorn (does about 15% more damage than I have in HP, could have surivived with Tough)
Battle Maiden, using Headsplitter IIRC
Infernal, Cleave and again with Pendulum
KoA Boss: Critical on Headsplitter
Ruladek: Pretty much every attack he does, including his fast recharging 10,000 point Nova attack. Getting hit with Total Focus from an AV level opponent hurts.
Edit:
Also: Positron got me with his Nova
so did the Psi Clockwork King once
Eating 5% resistance inspirations is not a solution either. Generally when I'm one-shotted, it's for considerably more than my max HPs (generally at least 10%)
Thanks for coming through with some improvements to SR. The combination of Damage Resistance Inspirations, Resistance to Defense Debuffs, and this interesting change should make my SR hero more fun to play. However, I'm very curious to find out what the specifics on this will be, such as:
1. How will this Damage Resistance be typed? Is there a mechanism for positional typed Damage Resistance?
2. Will the buffs in the three auto powers stack with each other? Or will they provide resistance to different types of damage? Or will just having one of them unlock this innate escalating resistance auto-power.
3. Will this buff be enhanceable? This would be a nice option, as I'm sure you're aware there aren't many diversification opportunities when slotting the SR powers.
States, I hope the +RES numbers are HUGE. Because as it stands taking ED into account, SR is busted.
Has your team run the numbers of a 32 level SR scrapper in a PvP situation? 6-slotted toggles and passives with +DEF Vs. the standard 2x ACC SOs?
Instead of adding +RES to a defense set, make the +DEF of the set actually matter. As it is, I might as well not run any toggle defenses in the arena and save the endurance.
Are SRs not supposed to be able to PvP until lvl40 when they have Elude and some slots in it?
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Statesman, the main problem noticeable with super reflexes is that you are the most likely one to get killed by one hit from any Archvillain and this makes it less desireable.
The reasons are the lack of dull pain and real damage resist.
How is taking less damage once you are hurt, going to compete when certain things that only take down *18% of the life of an invulnerable Scrapper, can ultimately kill the SuperR hero with just one single shot?
The precentage was calculated assuming dull pain 40% health boost and 75% resistance are available to the most common types of damage.(140*25%=100*18%)
This of course may change slightly with ED coming.
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You know, I still haven't run into any Archvillian or monster that one shotted me unless it was +3 or above. Two shotted yes. If you fight even level or +1 AVs what the heck is one shotting you so often? And if it's one or two AVs in the entire game do you think you could use an orange pill for that one encounter?
I don't know, I hate to sound like a fanboi because there is plenty still wrong with the game and SR even with this buff (cough*tohitbuffs*cough) but for me the one shot scenario is a non-issue. I have never actually encountered it in game and there is an easy and obvious way to prepare for it.
Getting two shotted has been a threat many times however.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563