I got an idea! give us hide! and an Assasins Strike! 
<-----Super Reflex master
This isnt a buff. its a fluff. It does nothing to improve the set, its a little bandaid on a gaping wound.
Liberty:
proud member of the LEGION, SISTERHOOD
@Doctor Photon
Technically, this resistance sounds interesting. I've always enjoyed tempting death with my SR scrapper (and since I5 have also died quite a bit more), so something that kicks in at low hp would be nice.
That said, I agree that the set no longer feels like Super Reflexes. Nerfing the defense in I5 has done it in, and while I can justify damage mitigation as a result of reflexes, the set still feels a lot less fitting its name than it felt in I4.
And on the general concept of frequent power changes, I must say that it's a pain in the butt, even when it's a benefit like this. I just recently installed the test client and tried to respec my I4 character to fit I5 (which I hadn't done until now). Then I read about ED and did another respec for that. That respec included dropping one of the auto defenses, and now I have reason to put one back in.
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks, Statesman. Another good step in the right direction.
However, questions:
Why would I get BETTER at rolling with a punch the more I get my face smashed in? Shouldn't the dam-res start high? (I understand that this doesn't quite work with game mechanics, so let's move on.)
[/ QUOTE ]
why cant hey just reverse this... start it out at its peak, then drive it down at each color change in the HP bar?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks, Statesman. Another good step in the right direction.
However, questions:
Why would I get BETTER at rolling with a punch the more I get my face smashed in? Shouldn't the dam-res start high? (I understand that this doesn't quite work with game mechanics, so let's move on.)
[/ QUOTE ]
why cant hey just reverse this... start it out at its peak, then drive it down at each color change in the HP bar?
[/ QUOTE ]
Because then, instead of slowing your time to death by increasing your defenses as your health decreases, it would in fact increase your speed towards death, much in the same way defense debuffs did.
[ QUOTE ]
why cant hey just reverse this... start it out at its peak, then drive it down at each color change in the HP bar?
[/ QUOTE ]
That would be more counter productive, because you need the resistances more as your bar goes down. I could just see a toxic attk (assuming they would give resistance to that type of dmg) it starts off '-3' '-3', and then at yellow '-5' '-5', and red '-15' '-15'. It would totally make me mad if it went that way. Why not just take the highest resist, and give it to them all the time?? Oh wait, that's Invuln... But, invuln has +Def and +Resist buffs, so why can't the other way around be true?? I forgot, the different builds within a given archetype aren't supposed to be balanced. I mean, if that was the case, there would be more SR's, and Regens and Invulns wouldn't be as far ahead in terms of quantity playing a given build. I see why there are more regens and invulns out there, but it's from a game mechanics aspect, because you can get 90% of everything in the SR pool in the other pools, but the reverse isn't true...
[ QUOTE ]
Statesman, why are you guys still screwing around trying to make a fundamentally broken concept work? You've known (or should've known) from day one that SR can't be balanced the way it is implemented, because it's either too good vs minions and LTs or it's too bad against bosses.
I and others suggested a simple fix in the first few weeks the game was out and it still appears to be the best solution:
Make SR give a flat dodge chance in addition to the regular "miss" chance that any other character would have. If a fully slotted SR scrapper has a 66% dodge chance, then that's exactly how much the power is reducing the number of debuffs and damage he's taking. By 66%. So if you decide that the balancing point is 40% or 30% or 10% or 80%, that's where you set the bar at and you leave it alone.
It's easy to implement, it's easy for players to understand, it solves most of the problems with SR, and it just makes more sense for what the power pool is supposed to represent.
Is there any particular reason why you can't go with the best solution, when it also happens to be the simplest and easiest solution?
[/ QUOTE ]
I like it. I always thought +DEF was a bit over-complicated idea to build a set around. So many other factors mess with ACC and DEF it just turned into a big mess.
My first gut reaction to Statesman's team's change: Scaling resistance with the player's hit points? Oh come on, can you come up with something more complicated and less intuitive please?
Stigmatus your idea is simple and elegant in comparison. I'd much rather see a dodging defensive set than a +DEF set. +DEF is just broken in CoH. Throw it away and try again devs, please.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks, Statesman. Another good step in the right direction.
However, questions:
Why would I get BETTER at rolling with a punch the more I get my face smashed in? Shouldn't the dam-res start high? (I understand that this doesn't quite work with game mechanics, so let's move on.)
[/ QUOTE ]
why cant hey just reverse this... start it out at its peak, then drive it down at each color change in the HP bar?
[/ QUOTE ]
Because then, instead of slowing your time to death by increasing your defenses as your health decreases, it would in fact increase your speed towards death, much in the same way defense debuffs did.
[/ QUOTE ]
well I would rather start out with resists then gain them as I get smashed. Besides... either way you get resists where you had nothing before... considering the numbers arent a joke like the damage debuff in chilling embrace
[ QUOTE ]
Besides... either way you get resists where you had nothing before... considering the numbers arent a joke like the damage debuff in chilling embrace
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't think about it as a change from then to now. Consider it as a retcon. You might consider it better than it used to be, because it was indeed better than it used to be. But consider a new player who creates an /SR. It would be even more frustrating for them than you, because you recognize that having the resists at all increases your survivability. The new player will feel the sting of the first hit even more than you did before there were resists, because as they get hit, it just accelerates their dying.
Think of all nerfs as retcons, they essentially are.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Besides... either way you get resists where you had nothing before... considering the numbers arent a joke like the damage debuff in chilling embrace
[/ QUOTE ]
Don't think about it as a change from then to now. Consider it as a retcon. You might consider it better than it used to be, because it was indeed better than it used to be. But consider a new player who creates an /SR. It would be even more frustrating for them than you, because you recognize that having the resists at all increases your survivability. The new player will feel the sting of the first hit even more than you did before there were resists, because as they get hit, it just accelerates their dying.
Think of all nerfs as retcons, they essentially are.
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay so I am wrong. haha.
I think resists is kinda dingy for SR chums anyway. 
I would rather have seen a decent +regen, or something uh... cooler and more SR themed than that (not that +regen isnt a more classic SR/speedster deal)
Damage Resistance is perfectly fine. we need debuff resistance. alot of it. but, anyway. I hear alot of people talking about how damage resistance is so not SR. its about dodging. but, come on now. the whole thing is whacked not that its a bad thing. its just a classification of what the power is most like. I mean take origins for example. I make a natural scrapper. but, give him robot arms and tech armor and a pp helmet. on top of that I get laser eyes and energy torrent with flight and tp.....thats not to natural is it? well, stick with it people at least there trying to help us. give'em that much. and besides. the only thing that can break me at the current un-ed moment is bu-aim. so whoever thinks sr is absolutly gimped...come gimme a holla..I got alot of time to spend in the arena.
[ QUOTE ]
the only thing that can break me at the current un-ed moment is bu-aim. so whoever thinks sr is absolutly gimped...come gimme a holla..I got alot of time to spend in the arena.
[/ QUOTE ]
I bet 1 million influence that I can kill you in about 5 secs.
Focused accuracy + Build-up ( and I throw in Tatics for good measure, really don't need it though) + Head-spliter + Disembowel + Hack = Dead Sr's scrapper(even if you have 6 HOs in elude)
SR should come with a warning not to PvP
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the only thing that can break me at the current un-ed moment is bu-aim. so whoever thinks sr is absolutly gimped...come gimme a holla..I got alot of time to spend in the arena.
[/ QUOTE ]
I bet 1 million influence that I can kill you in about 5 secs.
Focused accuracy + Build-up ( and I throw in Tatics for good measure, really don't need it though) + Head-spliter + Disembowel + Hack = Dead Sr's scrapper(even if you have 6 HOs in elude)
[/ QUOTE ]
Psh, I bet a million inf you can't finish that chain in 5 seconds.
Hell, Id pay a million just to see the battle and have it recorded for posterity. The Devs cant really argue with something that blatant
In case anyone cares, I took a look at the SR resistance of agile in CoV, just to get an idea of what kind of numbers Statesman and the gang were thinking of. Its very likely that whats in CoV now is not what its going to be permanently: for example, it doesn't work the way Statesman describes.
Statesman says its a tiered resistance that starts at 60% health, and "dramatically" increases at 40% and 20%.
At the moment, the resistance kicks in at about 55%-60% health (remaining) and then *steadily* increases from zero to about 22% resistance as your health drops to zero. I don't see any sort of quantum jumps in the resistance level, although keep in mind this is a tricky thing to measure: if the health bar isn't 100% in sync and updating for health regeneration quickly (and in the past its been horribly off) then my computations can be a bit off. But the floor, about 22%, is unlikely to be far off, because I tested rundowns all the way to zero (dead) and I have measurements where remaining health was far under 1% remaining.
In broad terms, a resistance power that kicks in at 60% health and rises uniformly from zero to 22% or so, is acting as very roughly the same as 6.5% flat resistance.
And no, you can't slot it.
A couple unanswered questions:
Positron implied the res would go up with level: I haven't tested for that effect yet (the numbers I have are for level 10, the first level you can get an SR passive at all in CoV). I'm going to test again at level 14 when I hit that to see if its gone up.
Also, I don't know how this stacks: I have agile, but in CoV, SR stalkers don't open dodge until 20 (yes, they've replaced the lucky/evasion sequence goof with agile ten levels before dodge - for a melee character). So I can't test stacking yet (sue me, I've been testing other interesting things, like my mastermind, and my ninja, and I accidentally left my SR too low to get level bumped, sigh).
Another interesting factoid: SR scrappers have three passives that can/will have damage resistance (dodge, agile, lucky) but SR stalkers only have two (stalkers do not have lucky).
Also, the power description says res to all, but I haven't tested it against the more pesky damage types yet (i.e. psi, toxic).
Is the damage resistance actually worth anything? Well, I'm composing my MA/SR stalker review in my head as I type this; hopefully I'll post that here (CoH) and there (CoV) in a day or so: I think I now have enough time with MA/SR stalkers (about 20 hours or so) to have a basic idea of where its going to end up.
[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.)
[ QUOTE ]
Statesman says its a tiered resistance that starts at 60% health, and "dramatically" increases at 40% and 20%.
At the moment, the resistance kicks in at about 55%-60% health (remaining) and then *steadily* increases from zero to about 22% resistance as your health drops to zero. I don't see any sort of quantum jumps in the resistance level...
[/ QUOTE ]
Considering how craptacular defiance is, I doubt you're that far off with you're guestimate is. I sure would like to know who the hell told Jack that all his players would just love having abilities that give a tiny little boost when they're almost dead.
Yea, the dam-res should be a static so that we can slot for it. If you take all three passives, and slot them all, it all stacks. This defiance like ability is crap, even though it's better than nothing.
I just want to know when the hell SR is getting these "fixes" on test. I'm tired of waiting. As I jsut figured out in another thread, it was the capped debt that torked me all out of shape in the shard this weekend, it was that I couldn't stay on my feet long enough to kill anything and be useful to my team.
Fix SR to where I can take out 10 observers before they can off me, and I'll be happy. Throwing one shockwave after the tank has taunted the mob and getting obliterated for your effort is no way for a scrapper to go through a mission.
Be well, people of CoH.
After playing CoH since May 2004 both my brothers will be leaving when ED goes thru. I havent decided yet if Ill continue playing but my account has stopped billing.
Sorry, States. I have very, very little confidence that you or your team will fix SR or defense. The buff is a start but honestly, I can picture you and your team dusting off your hands saying Well, now that SR is fixed lets move on.
Its difficult to imagine that SR could possible get worse but ED does just that. And good Lord, you may as well have called ED Women wear red dresses. Its just as accurate. Just FYI, the only defense SR has thats worth slotting in PvP is a 6 slotted elude with membranes (not that is does much good). SR *IS* 6 slotted Elude. After ED, SR *IS* 6 slotted Elude with 3 rech and 3 Def. This game has been out 18 months (?) and your combat system and the SR set remain broken. I hope you can understand the level of disappointment/ frustration I feel.
Toggles? Slotting toggles is a placebo in PvP. Do you even realize this?
PvP is the only thing holding my interest and that is waxing due to the exploits, useless powers and broken combat system that take so long to be recognized and addressed. Add to that the entire game is doing a 180 so where do these fixes sit on the waiting list?
Its the imbalances that guide people into making the FotM builds and your work making different power sets is wasted. I have none of the FotM builds and Ill tell you if I see another Ice/EM or Spines/Regen whirlwinding like a jackass for 10 min I am going to vomit on my keyboard.
I strongly suggest that before you go trying to put icing on the cake, you make sure there is actually a cake to put it on.
Cart before the horse.
HEY!!!! 
Where is the TANKER LOVE????????
We should have this power built into our passives as well. Especially the INV tanker. Then there would be a reason to take the passives and even slot them!
[ QUOTE ]
HEY!!!!
Where is the TANKER LOVE????????
We should have this power built into our passives as well. Especially the INV tanker. Then there would be a reason to take the passives and even slot them!
[/ QUOTE ]
Tell ya what, when the Devs strip Invul of dull pain, leave the base dam-res where it's at now, AND strip all defense from Invincibilty, THEN, and ONLY then, can you come into this thread and cry for more goodies with Invul.
Many SR users have been screaming for more types of damage mitigation like Invul, DA and Regen have, since Issue 1. We're finally getting some. It'll turn out to be useless just like defiance, but at least they're doing SOMETHING now.
Be well, people of CoH.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
HEY!!!!
Where is the TANKER LOVE????????
We should have this power built into our passives as well. Especially the INV tanker. Then there would be a reason to take the passives and even slot them!
[/ QUOTE ]
Tell ya what, when the Devs strip Invul of dull pain, leave the base dam-res where it's at now, AND strip all defense from Invincibilty, THEN, and ONLY then, can you come into this thread and cry for more goodies with Invul.
Many SR users have been screaming for more types of damage mitigation like Invul, DA and Regen have, since Issue 1. We're finally getting some. It'll turn out to be useless just like defiance, but at least they're doing SOMETHING now.
[/ QUOTE ]
To be honest, based on the "feel" of the passive resistance, I think SR and invuln would both be better off if we got invincibility, and they got the passive resists. The passive resists "feel" very invuln-like, although that's difficult to explain to someone that hasn't played both a lot.
When SR had actual defense, I4 numbers or better, SR scrappers could and would get into serious trouble where they were deep in the red, and still fighting. The high defense meant that the play experience was such that *most* of the time SR got away with that, and *occasionally* it did not - the "luck factor" people talk about. SR scrappers didn't have to go all the way to death, necessarily; they could back off and re-engage, but that simply meant there was an artificial invisible line drawn on their health bar that they were treating as if it was the zero line - and they too experienced the probabilistic nature of SR as usually beating that line, and occasionally crossing it and forcing a retreat (or hospital).
Invuln doesn't quite play that way. At high resists, being in the red doesn't mean the next shot will kill you: with invuln, you aren't thinking "please be lucky, please be lucky" - you're tending to think "must go faster, must go faster." In essence, you're thinking if only you could attack fast enough, nothing could kill you no matter what your health bar reads.
In actual fact, the mathematics of the sets aren't quite that harsh in terms of their actual behavior, but the effect is strong enough in certain circumstances to affect the psychology of the sets - their "feel."
Separate from the possible benefit we might get from this, the damage resistance being added to SR feels "wrong" to me because it feels to me like invuln's end-game flavor is being added to it. Flat (and enhanceable) resistance would be more palatable: it wouldn't be backloaded so much, and therefore wouldn't quite so significantly dominate the low health "feel" of the set.
There's also this: we are still the lowest health regeneration mitigation set, by very wide margin. Every time we see this damage resistance, it will be because we have gotten hit low enough to force downtime. The best power for SR to slot in I6 might actually be rest.
The devs really just need to give us back the proper amount of defense: its still very obvious to me that SR is balanced against the other sets *without healing taken into account*. Its as if SR and invuln were balanced without dull pain, and then the devs tacked on dull pain as an extra little invuln "bonus" that they figured wouldn't matter all that much.
[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.)
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
HEY!!!!
Where is the TANKER LOVE????????
We should have this power built into our passives as well. Especially the INV tanker. Then there would be a reason to take the passives and even slot them!
[/ QUOTE ]
Tell ya what, when the Devs strip Invul of dull pain, leave the base dam-res where it's at now, AND strip all defense from Invincibilty, THEN, and ONLY then, can you come into this thread and cry for more goodies with Invul.
Many SR users have been screaming for more types of damage mitigation like Invul, DA and Regen have, since Issue 1. We're finally getting some. It'll turn out to be useless just like defiance, but at least they're doing SOMETHING now.
[/ QUOTE ]
To be honest, based on the "feel" of the passive resistance, I think SR and invuln would both be better off if we got invincibility, and they got the passive resists. The passive resists "feel" very invuln-like, although that's difficult to explain to someone that hasn't played both a lot.
When SR had actual defense, I4 numbers or better, SR scrappers could and would get into serious trouble where they were deep in the red, and still fighting. The high defense meant that the play experience was such that *most* of the time SR got away with that, and *occasionally* it did not - the "luck factor" people talk about. SR scrappers didn't have to go all the way to death, necessarily; they could back off and re-engage, but that simply meant there was an artificial invisible line drawn on their health bar that they were treating as if it was the zero line - and they too experienced the probabilistic nature of SR as usually beating that line, and occasionally crossing it and forcing a retreat (or hospital).
Invuln doesn't quite play that way. At high resists, being in the red doesn't mean the next shot will kill you: with invuln, you aren't thinking "please be lucky, please be lucky" - you're tending to think "must go faster, must go faster." In essence, you're thinking if only you could attack fast enough, nothing could kill you no matter what your health bar reads.
In actual fact, the mathematics of the sets aren't quite that harsh in terms of their actual behavior, but the effect is strong enough in certain circumstances to affect the psychology of the sets - their "feel."
Separate from the possible benefit we might get from this, the damage resistance being added to SR feels "wrong" to me because it feels to me like invuln's end-game flavor is being added to it. Flat (and enhanceable) resistance would be more palatable: it wouldn't be backloaded so much, and therefore wouldn't quite so significantly dominate the low health "feel" of the set.
There's also this: we are still the lowest health regeneration mitigation set, by very wide margin. Every time we see this damage resistance, it will be because we have gotten hit low enough to force downtime. The best power for SR to slot in I6 might actually be rest.
The devs really just need to give us back the proper amount of defense: its still very obvious to me that SR is balanced against the other sets *without healing taken into account*. Its as if SR and invuln were balanced without dull pain, and then the devs tacked on dull pain as an extra little invuln "bonus" that they figured wouldn't matter all that much.
[/ QUOTE ]
Take invincibility... Please... Ill gift wrap the focker for you and send you a framed picture of me on my bed in my skimpies with "XOXO love you lots Arcanaville" written on it in black marker.
Invincibility (outside the name) is much more a SR type power. The increasing defiant resistance and passive obstinace is much more tank like. I would gladly trade you anyday. I always thought invinc was much more suited thematically to a SR scrapper anyway.
[ QUOTE ]
Take invincibility... Please... Ill gift wrap the focker for you and send you a framed picture of me on my bed in my skimpies with "XOXO love you lots Arcanaville" written on it in black marker.
[/ QUOTE ]
Much like passive resistance, this is yet another buff I was not asking for.
[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.)
The more I think about CoH, the more I want to just say, 'Okay. I'll come back in a year and -hope- things make sense.'
Unless this resistance buff rivals that of what Invulnerability could do in like, Issue 2, then there is literally no point to it being there. I know for sure that if I was in the red as an I5 and ED'd SR Scrapper, the last thing I'm doing is standing in that pack of yellows (if I was playing rationally, which isn't always the case).
It's like the DEVs aren't even listening.
Well, I like this change ... sorta. But mainly I wish it was more of a constant resistance increase, maybe with level, instead of how much damage you take. I like that it targets the passives, giving them more value.
However my disappointment with the ED thing just makes me not care, really. Defense is all we have as SR Scrappers, and we're having that one thing curtailed.
Regen gets fast HP regeneration, self-heals, a little resistance, greater HP, plus a final power that provides high defense as an alternative. Invulnerability has resistance, defense, a self-heal, more HP, and still the best final power of the Scrapper sets. Dark Armor has a mix of PBAoE damage, resistance, defense, stealth, a self-heal, and 2 really cool control powers. SR just does defense and if it's at really low levels it just doesn't do much beyond even-con minions.
I think ED is just making the enhancement process too complicated, and I don't want to have to break out a calculator every time I build a character. I think it also hurts the one-trick power sets even more.
Anyhow, I'm dabbling in the CoV beta right now, and I'll see how things go, but I am taking a break from the forums in the meantime because I think the ED thing is counter-intuitive and makes things harder to figure out. I hope this never sees Live, and we can fix the remaining issues with power sets such as improving SR and Ice's lot compared to the other defense sets.
I've always argued for resistance helping out SR a little, because it makes sense as helping to minimize the damage through partially-dodging attacks, and I think this new SR buff is in the right direction, particularly by targetting unpopular (and expensive) powers like the SR passives.