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How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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Haven't faced him yet, but sounds like an interesting challenge.
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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Don't much like it. You need to keep PvP mechanics, especially ones that are highly controversial, out of PvE no matter what.
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Quoted yet AGAIN for emphasis. Toggle-dropping in PvP is annoying and bad enough, but when a boss stacks mez effects on you, and THEN drops your mez protection toggles, that's just low. We can't toggle-drop them to turn off their innate resistance, defense, or mez protection in return, so really, what you did her was give them an edge without giving them the drawbacks that come with it. Bad implementation. Now if you were to actually make them like another AT, WITH ALL THE DRAWBACKS OF THAT AT, that would be another story. Blaster-level melee and ranged, give the NO mez protection, NO defenses or resistances, and comparatively lower HP.
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Iti's called poor AI design. You know the games that "cheat." The give the computer controlled player unrealistic abilities. Able to "predict" what you're going to do because the computer knows what buttons you just pressed so that it can quicly create a counter. This is the same thing.
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Honestly, it really just pissed me off, so I quit for a while. In the future, I'll probably avoid the arc because of it.
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ditto. i hated that guy and will probably avoid the arc from now on, which kinda stinks because it was a great map. I am not a big fan of the way it works pvp either and seeing it with no warning in a pve zone was jarring and not at all enjoyable.
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Haven't read the whole thread... But I just wanted to ask a rhetorical(sp?) question.
Guess who you get to fight in the first mission of the respec trial? 
"Through Avarice evil smiles; through insanity it sings"
Forum Troll Rule #1: Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is either a fanboy or an idiot.
I'm a proud carebear.
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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I remembered facing this guy back as a Stalker in Beta, at a time when I didn't have any available teammates to help take him down. This was profoundly frustrating. I beat him by deciding that debt no longer mattered, and that I would exploit the rez bug mercilessly.
My tactics essentially encompassed:
1) Hide and Assassin's Strike Ballista.
2) Placate and Crit Ballista.
3) Run like heck around a corner.
4) Let Ballista kill me so he would walk back to his spawn point.
5) Rez and repeat.
Dooooooooooooooooommmmm!!!
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Why don't Stalkers get the Full Build Up?
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Now, as to "Why?" the answer is "Because it would be too effective otherwise." The boards are full of anecdotal evidence that Build Up + Assassin Strike is strong enough to nearly one shot kill bosses who are not resistant to your damage type, as well as doing substantial damage in PvP. Now, I'm not saying this will not change, nor am I saying "Sorry, this is the way it is, we aren't going to change it." Stalkers are my bailiwick, and I'm keeping an eye on things to see that they are as balanced as we can make them. Right now, I don't see a need to change the Stalkers multiple, but datamining may show me that it needs to be improved.
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As a blaster with targeting drone who still cant see some stalkers in Siren's Call and gets one-shotted by the Build Up + Assassin Strike combo, for the love of God please dont up this value.
Yes, I know, I know, keep moving. But this is an MMORPG... can I at least type sometimes?
Not asking for a nerf, but please don't make this combo any more deadly.
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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It put that contact on the avoid list, something my entire SG is recommended to bypass, and there that contact will stay until the toggle drop goes away...
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Out of curiosity, does anybody have the name of that contact, so I can avoid him/her too? This sounds like exactly the kind of poorly-conceived, uninventive, frustrate-the-player-masquerading-as-"challenge" scenario I want absolutely nothing to do with.
--Doc Q / Gideon Krieger
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Guess who you get to fight in the first mission of the respec trial?
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I don't mind the idea of fighting him on the respec trial, really. An elite boss with an annoying power is precisely the kind of difficult, but not impossible problem that should be a feature of respec trials.
Normal story arc, not so much.
@Mindshadow
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Toggle-dropping is annoying as all crap. Keep it out of PvE, and, pleasepleaseplease, look into replacing it with something else in PvP, too!
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/signed
As for him being a part of the respec trial... that makes even less sense. I hate the fact that a perfect team has to get together for a respec. Most of the time you've gimped yourself when you've signed up for it. I just want to go to Steel Canyon, defeat 20 Tsoo, and /respec. Instead it feeds min/maxers and here I thought that the devs were trying to stop that. You can keep these insane respec trials around... just give us an IoP instead of a respec.
Currently roleplaying, badgehunting, and laughing at the PvPers of CoX. lol, PvP.
Truedusk - Human Rogue
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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This is a GOOD challenge. I think many of us would MUCH prefer the devs making the villains harder as opposed to nerfing the crap out of us to make us weaker. For many of us, we're the Not So Super Heroes these days. If you'd just make the bad guys tougher then I think it would play better with the our psyche knowing that we have to be more cautious around the buy guys because they're badder, not because we're not as Super as we once were. Forget about the whiners who are like "Waahhh, he's too strong and killed me because I was reckless!" and weaken the powers of the bad guys.. Then again, this prefered route probably won't happen because PvE was nerfed because of PvP...
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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That mission is challenging, no question about that. Fun? Not for me.
I took that mission and tried to solo it on my EM/EA Stalker at 24...I'd faced 5 other Elite Bosses and did ok with some hit and run tactics.
I hit BU and used Assassin's Strike and noticed I barely did any damage. I was about to Super Speed out of there when my toggles dropped and I was stunned. By the time I popped a Break Free and turned on my Kinetic Shield I was dead. Hit the Hospital button and rezed on the beach in the mission rather than the Hospital. I logged out, frustrated that all my current missions required a team.
To make a long story short, no I didn't like it. I like my Stalker and I like doing the story arcs but it seems many of them have Elite Bosses and Heros and my team making/leading skills suck (plus I'm impatient and would rather play than send 10-15 tells trying to make a team), so I'm finding CoV less and less to my liking. This frustration is compounded by how easy I'm finding it to out level contacts and miss out on badge missions. Newspaper missions are cool for a while but they are so repetitive.
-Pinnacle
Sue Choppy-50-BS/WP Scrapper
-Justice
Chill Thrill-50 Ice/Dev Blaster
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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I apologize for being a Brute in a Stalkerville, but its so refreshing to see a Dev actually respond to player concerns...
Ballista is in my opinion far, far, far too nasty. He was an exercise in frustration to fight; he'd drop all of my toggles in one or two chained attacks, and I'd be dead before I could even think about running or putting my toggles back up. (This was an even-level Ballista, by the way; I was not playing at boosted difficulty.) Then, of course, the second time I didn't have the benefit of Fury to help out, and I did even worse. Four team wipes and 20k or so of debt each later my (small) team gave up.
There was no fun, it was not challenging, it was merely futile. I suppose if I'd had a full team, I still would have died (thanks to the Taunt inherent to my attacks), but my team would have avenged me. Of course, if I'd had a full team, the graphics would have completely overwhelmed me with lag. Catch-22.
So I waited a couple of levels, brought a good team in and trounced on him. But it wasn't due to any real skill on our part -- it was because the Dominator and Defenders stacked holds on him, then we just depleted his hit points. Again, not really fun.
As an aside, if this degree of toggle-drop is even close to what I should expect in PvP, I am even less interested than I was previously in giving PvP a try. It's not as though my toggles make me invulnerable to begin with; at roughly 30-40% resist it's more a matter of taking the edge off of the damage. Without them up, I am merely a chew toy with a temper.
I can only say thank you for not making Ballista-like villains more common. And I hope that I won't see more of them, because it simply isn't fun to let a mission sit in my tray until I can overwhelm it.
Actually, I happen to *like* the idea of having an 'uber elite' boss as a respec guardian, if you will.
Imagine the hero respec trial where instead of a rather longish and annoying set of random run-here-and-do-this-while-killing-x-mobs-and-then-door-mishes-only-to-end-up-at-the-silly-reactor-for-the-same-ol'-wavespawn bit, I'd much rather have *one* in-depth, challenging mission at the reactor. Have a ton of baddies in the beginning of the mish (check!), have a bunch of -traps (check!) or ambushes (no check?), culminating in a huge battle where you first protect a valuable object (Check!) against waves and waves of badguys (check!) and finally come across the big bad boss who started all this crap in a massive megafight of epic proportions (no check 
)
Respec missions do seem to be directly opposed to those who need to run them (truly 'gimped' characters, like those people who didn't realize that you have a finite number of slots, and therefore, sunk the first dozen slots or so into sprint, brawl, and rest), but they need to be challenging. Adding a boss like this to the respec just fits, to me. Sure toggles drop, and he KB's you, and mezzes you, but if you're gimped anyway, your defenses are probably not all up to snuff in the first place. Just some tweaking of his damage and hp and you have a perfect 'trial'... something that gives great challenge, can be finished in 2hrs or less, and gives a sense of accomplishment instead of punishment.
And since most people won't need to solo respec trials (If you're gimped, you're going to need help anyway, correct?), and the solo types are already pretty confident about the skills/slots they've planned, many people who hate him can totally avoid him.
In that timed arc, it's just too much annoyance/risk for rewards/gain. (at least kill the timed portion!)
Besides, that tree just sucks. imho. lolz. kthxbai.
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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This would only be fair if we can perform toggle drop on them just as easily.
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Stalkers are at a 100% value, while Blasters and Scrappers are at a 125% value. From your perspective, that really doesn't change things, but I wanted to be clear on what is going on.
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Is this for real? I have to go test this out. That's a pretty big change, and I knew nothing about it.
Edit: It's a big change to Scrappers and Blasters. Their Build Up used to be +100% damage.
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By value, I meant the number the AT multiplies the base power by. Build Up has a base of 80% damage increase.
100% value = 80% base damage increase. 125% = 100% base damage increase.
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Stalkers are at a 100% value, while Blasters and Scrappers are at a 125% value. From your perspective, that really doesn't change things, but I wanted to be clear on what is going on.
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Is this for real? I have to go test this out. That's a pretty big change, and I knew nothing about it.
Edit: It's a big change to Scrappers and Blasters. Their Build Up used to be +100% damage.
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By value, I meant the number the AT multiplies the base power by. Build Up has a base of 80% damage increase.
100% value = 80% base damage increase. 125% = 100% base damage increase.
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I know you work for Cryptic but what does everything have to be so "Cryptic?" A lot of terminology in COH/COV is misleading and confusing. I would suggest someone go back and re-write all terms and descriptions so that even an idiot can understand them. The enhancement indicators is a good start. Now if only I can see what my final damage/defense/debuff # are. Similar to what the hero planner/builders do.
Quick comments:
Smoke Flash: 4 second activation time? No problemo, every set needs some powers that aren't worth taking, to open up room for the pool powers you need. Which is why I don't like SR for stalkers .. you want every power in it, and still need to get a heal from somewhere. When is DM for stalkers comming? 
Ballista: haven't fought him. Looking foreward to it. Who gives his mission?
Toggle dropping: inane idea to start with. PvP could use a LOT less of it.
With ED and the defense readjustments of I5, it seems to me that Toggle Dropping is nowhere near as necessary as it used to be if you want to take down a Tank or a Scrapper. I might be in favor of rolling back the number of toggle drops in PvP for just this reason.
It's still pretty hard to take down an Invuln or a Stone tank if all you have is Smashing or Lethal, but it's not like Regen scrappers are gods anymore.
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100% value = 80% base damage increase. 125% = 100% base damage increase.
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Hmm...
100%=80% and 125%=100%
Castle, do you always deal in fuzzy math?
Does this also mean that 125%=80% 
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I know you work for Cryptic but what does everything have to be so "Cryptic?" A lot of terminology in COH/COV is misleading and confusing. I would suggest someone go back and re-write all terms and descriptions so that even an idiot can understand them. The enhancement indicators is a good start. Now if only I can see what my final damage/defense/debuff # are. Similar to what the hero planner/builders do.
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Yea, sometimes it can get confusing. For example:
A even level SO DefBuff Enhancer does NOT buff your Def by 20%. It increases your DefBuff power by 20%. If you have a 10% DefBuff from a power and you put that enhancer in it, you do NOT get a 30% DefBuff (your 10 plus the enhancer's 20). You get a 14% DefBuff (your 10 plus 20% of that 10).
So with the Buildup giving 80% base damage boost, and it working at 100% value, you get the 80%. With it working at 125% value (scrappers), you get 100% (125% of the 80%) base damage boost.
ARRRGGGHHH, my calculator is doing headspins....
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100% value = 80% base damage increase. 125% = 100% base damage increase.
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Hmm...
100%=80% and 125%=100%
Castle, do you always deal in fuzzy math?
Does this also mean that 125%=80%
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.8 x 1 = .8
.8 x 1.25 = 1
Whats so fuzzy about that?
Currently roleplaying, badgehunting, and laughing at the PvPers of CoX. lol, PvP.
Truedusk - Human Rogue
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100% value = 80% base damage increase. 125% = 100% base damage increase.
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Hmm...
100%=80% and 125%=100%
Castle, do you always deal in fuzzy math?
Does this also mean that 125%=80%
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No, but it does mean that 0.999999999 is equal to 1.
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Stalkers are at a 100% value, while Blasters and Scrappers are at a 125% value. From your perspective, that really doesn't change things, but I wanted to be clear on what is going on.
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Is this for real? I have to go test this out. That's a pretty big change, and I knew nothing about it.
Edit: It's a big change to Scrappers and Blasters. Their Build Up used to be +100% damage.
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By value, I meant the number the AT multiplies the base power by. Build Up has a base of 80% damage increase.
100% value = 80% base damage increase. 125% = 100% base damage increase.
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I know you work for Cryptic but what does everything have to be so "Cryptic?"
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Cryptic? It's veritably Hubbardesque!
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No, but it does mean that 0.999999999 is equal to 1.
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To be picky, only point nine repeating is equal to one. 0.999999999 is equal to ... well ... 0.999999999.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!
Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?
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With a Mastermind + Dominator duo toggle dropping doesn't add any challenge at all since we dont have important toggles. This is another reason to remove it.
Please please keep toggle dropping out of pve.