Level 34 Ninja/TA here. (my apologies if I ramble, its 4 am lol)
The TA set functions well enough for me I must admit, whether or not its credited to my archetype is up for debate. I can't, however, keep from feeling that many of the powers (yes i've taken all that are available) are half finished or were just cut and pasted on from other sets in an attempt to ship the set out in time for whatever issue it was that they debuted (5?). I love the set from a conceptual standpoint like many others, but several powers leave me saying saying 'huh?'. Perhaps the set would actually benefit from having 4 or 5 Location AoEs, it would certainly make it unique and maybe even alter public opinion on the set. Glue, Disruption, PGA, Oil slick, and EMF(later in my post) littering the field of battle would actually be quite interesting and fun not only to see, but to play IMO. Am I the only one that would like to try TA as a Location AoE set?
Power Questions, Ideas, and Opinions:
If Glue arrow used to be a Location AoE as the description says, and it was changed to Targeted AoE to make the set easier to play, does that mean that the Recharge should have been adjusted as well to reflect the decrease in effectiveness in the power, perhaps another oversight like in PGA. The power is basically just as effective as Lingering radiation in 90% of all fights, only exceeds LR when adds jump in (assuming the psuedo-anchor is still alive)
Another annoyance for me. Acid Arrow vs. Acid Mortar. From general observation, Acid arrow just seems the same as a single shot from the Traps: Acid Mortar. I admit I'm not at all into number crunching, but I'd guess they have similiar recharge times however acid mortar gets 10 shots if I remember and its quite effective at tanking of all things. I'm not calling for a nerf of Acid Mortar though, seeing that it doesnt really seem overpowered in any way. I do however call for additional secondary effects for Acid Arrow. A lot of effects could thematically fit into this power: Fear, Confusion, -secondary effects, -accuracy, -dmg, choke, -recovery,-regen, and -end. Naturally I'm not suggesting all of them be added, but atleast 2 or 3 should.
Entangling Arrow is just the worst power i've ever been forced to take lol, it should be replaced by a boxing glove/beanbag arrow IMO. Not that it would be much more effective, I'd just rather not look at the awkward net grafic everytime a longbow eagle takes flight.
EMP Arrow: Why the rippoff of the final Radiation power?
Just a suggestion, but how about modification,and make it an EMF arrow, creating a location aoe endurance draining field with a lingering
-recovery debuff. Perhaps a 'rain of fire' type energy dot on robots, ghosts(ghostbusters anyone? lol) and oil slicks only. Grafically speaking, it could just be an arrow sticking out of the ground with a large version of the lightning aura effect around it.
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EMP Arrow: Why the rippoff of the final Radiation power?
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Just to clarify, EMP Arrow is in fact NOT a ripoff from the Radiation Emission set's final power. The Rad version is PBAoE, drains your endurance like a blaster-nuke and has a high chance of a crit to hold bosses. The TA version is ranged, does NOT drain your endurance (though it stops recovery for a short while), and seems to have a much lower (if any) chance to critical hold. It seems essentially a modfied version of Gravity Distortion or Total Domination from the Controller sets, except with a seemingly longer duration. As such, it is actually very, very useful for dealing with the inevitable adds.
Only problem is, of course, that Controllers with TA as a secondary will have their version of EMP Arrow last much longer than ours.
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As an aside, Coven...very very very bad for anchor debuffing. The bosses and crew fly all over the frikin room when people don't aggro from melee. The mavens drain endo like there is no tomorrow. Had another four courner aggro. Total chaos...RI..wouldn't 'have done much. One Entangle and I could bring the boss down to the floor and slap Glue Arrow on her.
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In situations where you expect a medium amount of scatter, the second debuff after RI is LR. In situations where you expect massive scatter, the *first* debuff is LR. I recommend LR to rads partially because the debuff is just really really good, and partially because it synergizes well with a set that has two powerful toggle debuffs; LR tends to keep wanderers close to the anchors for longer periods of time.
In any case, the situation where the villains are intiially highly bunched up, and then stay that way for some time, and then suddenly scatter is the extreme case where TA will look the best relative to rad (or toggle debuffs in general). The opposite extreme case is the case where the villains are intially scattered, and TA has to deploy debuffs to only part of the spawn, without any real way to reposition or redeply those debuffs for a significant amount of time. This can happen in many spawn configurations, or in missions with ambushes and large patrols.
Since my highest rad is a controller, an especially common situation for me was the one where a controller (me) mezzes half a spawn, and the rad (still me) debuffs the other half, when the critters are too spaced out for rad debuffs to hit them all. They can be spaced out far enough apart for even TA's debuffs to hit them all. But in the rad case, a team can wipe out the debuffed half and move on to the mezzed half while the rad redeploys the debuffs. This is non-trivial for TA to do: in effect TA does not always integrate well with controllers (it also happens with rad defenders working in concern well with non-rad controllers: I've been there also). At the mid-levels (high 20s to high 30s) the places you'll most likely see areas where even TA cannot necessarily cover all the spawns that will likely aggro are Orenbegan maps. Orenbegan tunnels have the interesting combo of tight spaces but lots of adjacent spawn points, which favor smaller but more available toggle debuffs over larger and less available TA debuffs. In fact, in general indoor maps minimize the deficit of small area of effect of rad toggles, because its wide enough to stretch across most corridors and tunnels.
I'm sure you can list all sorts of situations where TA debuffs might have worked out better than rad: I never said otherwise. What I said was that the number of such situations wasn't higher than the number of situations where rad's debuffs wouldn't have worked equally to or superior to TAs debuffs, which means from a situational mechanical perspective, TA is a wash compared to other sets at best. That puts us back to looking at the type and strength of the debuffs, and basic mechanics of them, not the situational mechanics.
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Your right, because when the set came out and was on test most of the experienced posters on TA went over how it was balanced and what benefits it had then.
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and yet they changed it...why?
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Easy question to answer, since various devs have directly or indirectly addressed this.
1. Castle stated that the debuffs were changed from Location AoEs to Targetted ones (using in-game terminology, not the one he originally used) because Location AoEs were deemed more difficult to use for normal players.
2. Low debuff strength and wider area of effect only looked balanced on the surface: allowing them to stack made the debuffs more materially powerful in real play, so that was changed.
3. The set has more control than the average defender primary, and TA control was hit in the cross-fire when controller control was reduced. Controllers got containment in exchange, but TA defenders didn't get a corresponding offset. Remember when Ice arrow did damage? It probably did make some sense to remove damage from so strong a control power (in a defender set), except its not as strong a control anymore with recharge changes and ED. Ironically, its now one of the few single target holds that *doesn't* do damage. If they were going to treat it like a controller hold when it came time to adjust its control strength, then they should have treated it like a controller hold when they were originally fiddling with it, and left the damage in.
The fact that they did what they did to Ice arrow is indicative of the fact that many of the changes to Ice arrow weren't made with the set's overall strength being taken holistically into account. Many changes were made to address specific issues without regard to overall set balance, and many others weren't made with any direct thought to the set at all, but were done collaterally.
Its almost certainly in recognition of that, that the devs have stated that an overall reexamination of the set is probably warranted.
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EMP Arrow: Why the rippoff of the final Radiation power?
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Just to clarify, EMP Arrow is in fact NOT a ripoff from the Radiation Emission set's final power. The Rad version is PBAoE, drains your endurance like a blaster-nuke and has a high chance of a crit to hold bosses. The TA version is ranged, does NOT drain your endurance (though it stops recovery for a short while), and seems to have a much lower (if any) chance to critical hold. It seems essentially a modfied version of Gravity Distortion or Total Domination from the Controller sets, except with a seemingly longer duration. As such, it is actually very, very useful for dealing with the inevitable adds.
Only problem is, of course, that Controllers with TA as a secondary will have their version of EMP Arrow last much longer than ours.
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(Rad) EMP does not drain a rad's endurance, it only stops regeneration. I also do not believe it needs to crit to hold bosses: it is a mag 4 hold right out of the box.
The TA version is not a clone of gravity distortion or total domination, its a variant of EMP: unless its been changed, EMP arrow does special damage to robots, just like (rad) EMP does.
How an arrow stops end recovery is just one of life's mysteries.
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You should keep in mind when saying things like "Sorry...CoT are generally not good mobs for anchor debuffing" that I have a tendancy to test things out before making statements like "this will definitely work,"
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You're testing it out as a solo toon. On teams...your teammates are spread out.
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My opinion comes from playing 50 levels of rad, both solo and teamed (especially teamed). My testing was done to confirm that nothing has changed since the time I was leveling rad, not to see what RI does. I already knew what RI does.
[/ QUOTE ]I'm not referring to what RI does...I'm referring to what the CoT Thorn casters do. As I said, I have a handful of toons in the Envoy story arc. I fight CoT just about every time I'm on. The other night...every time I'd approach a Fire Thorn Caster, he would take one swing with Flame Sword and then run way to blast from range. The Earth's do this as well, along with the Air. I have not seen PS exhibit this same time of AI. Perhaps it's been awhile since you've fought the Thorn Casters specifically.
You seem to imply that an anchor debuff causes them to stand firm and not scatter. I'll have look for that next time I fight them.
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the second debuff after RI is LR
[/ QUOTE ] The majority of Coven fly, if not all of them. LR does not slow flight. Coven bosses seem particularly mobile.
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What I said was that the number of such situations wasn't higher than the number of situations where rad's debuffs wouldn't have worked equally to or superior to TAs debuffs, which means from a situational mechanical perspective, TA is a wash compared to other sets at best. That puts us back to looking at the type and strength of the debuffs, and basic mechanics of them, not the situational mechanics.
[/ QUOTE ] I disagree. I do not think the coverage is a wash. My experience says that I get more consistent buffing of more mobs, on average, from FA and PGA. I definintely think Glue has a larger raidus than LR....and LR needs to hit. By the time you get LR down, mobs can scatter. Until you get LR slotted with Acc...it will miss mobs under the influence of RI.
My TA has continued to do teamed mission on Invinc. I am still surprised at how ubiquitous the debuffing can be.
IME, TA is a wash with the other sets in overall realized debuffing. Some situations, anchors are better. Some are not. On average...the higher value, dual coverage of RI/DN/EF are balanced against TA's superior delivery method. Not on paper..but in game play.
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The opposite extreme case is the case where the villains are intially scattered,
[/ QUOTE ] Yes...but the spawning AI seems to consistently place the mobs within range of FA, PGA, Oil Slick, etc, with exception of that one mob who roams.
I've noticed that Oil Slick causes knockdown out past the fringes of the graphic. I've seen FA hit mobs who I thought were waaay outside the range get hit. I believe it's precisely because TA's powers are not anchor based that they can have a much larger radius.
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This can happen in many spawn configurations, or in missions with ambushes and large patrols.
[/ QUOTE ] Yes...it can. Which is why TA takes some skill. You can't be asleep at the switch. Once the mobs scatter, or if you fail to use FA to keep spawns from aggroing, you can make your life more difficult.
That having been said...I've been doing a few of those missions where you get repeated ambushes. Even when caught by surprise, TA is able to neutralize scramble quite well. Oil Slick here, Glue Arrow at a choke point, PGA on the heavy hitters, liberal use of FA, all have allowed me to mitigate damage in ways I think would have been extremely challenging for a set like Rad.
Once a mob is aggro'd what exactly do you think you are doing with FA? Taking one less hit out of 20 from everybody attacking you? And that helps how?
I agree that the best use for FA is to stopp other groups from aggro'ing or perhaps using it to pull safely, but past that, the debuff is nearly worthless on invincible.
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but past that, the debuff is nearly worthless on invincible.
[/ QUOTE ] It isnt' worthless. What's more is that it's the ONLY -ac debuff you have....AND...it stacks with other +DEF and -Acc debuffs. If the devs change the way +DEF works, it will dramatically improve in worth against +X mobs.
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but past that, the debuff is nearly worthless on invincible.
[/ QUOTE ] It isnt' worthless. What's more is that it's the ONLY -ac debuff you have....AND...it stacks with other +DEF and -Acc debuffs. If the devs change the way +DEF works, it will dramatically improve in worth against +X mobs.
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It IS worthless, what other -ACC or +DEF powers do we get...powerpool maneuvers is all I can think of. Just because it's the only -ACC we get doesn't mean it's at all useful in the heat of battle. Bone is right, you might get hit once less out of 20 shots...wow
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What's more is that it's the ONLY -ac debuff you have....AND...it stacks with other +DEF and -Acc debuffs.
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Anyone finding a problem in this analysis?
It's the ONLY one you get, but it stacks with others of its type?
Well, that's nice and all... but I can replace the same thing with a NightFall.
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but past that, the debuff is nearly worthless on invincible.
[/ QUOTE ] It isnt' worthless. What's more is that it's the ONLY -ac debuff you have....AND...it stacks with other +DEF and -Acc debuffs. If the devs change the way +DEF works, it will dramatically improve in worth against +X mobs.
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So it's worthless unless you are with a team with REAL -acc powers. Then it's not noticed by ANYBODY ON YOUR TEAM, which I would call worthless personally.
I have 3 HO's in it that are +acc/-acc/-deff and one -acc SO in my toon. All +3 because I'm lvl 47. As accurate as you can can get it. On a team with lvl 50's fighting lvl 52's I missed.. well it's easier to tell how many I hit. I hit maybe 1-3 in any spawn with it. At that level the -acc is TOTALLY unnoticable as well, trust me. And the power's accuracy is poor at best for the most accurate of powersets. It's just a plain underpowered, underperforming power. You sound like you don't know what you are talking about it every time you bring it up.
Are you only ever fighting with people of your level or do you join pick up groups and whatever comes your way? Because that might be the problem with your analysis.
Oh, and that's with two Tactics on me as well and I was missing that much.
Regarding my own experiences with flash arrow (my TA/A defender is level 24):
I originally chose it when I created him, and I eventually went on to 6 slot it (2 acc/4 acc debuffs -all +3 DOs). Despite using it on a group of mobs (blues at the time- it was an old mission) and trying to pull around a corner, I was still peppered with a menagerie of bullets. Fed up with it, I used a freebie respec I had and dropped it for entangling. I've since picked up ice arrow and found myself using entangling less and less, so I recently used yet another freebie respec and got rid of entangling, and hence had no other choice but to revisit flash arrow. As of now, I only have 2 accuracy enhancements in it, and to this day nothing has convinced me to invest any more slots into this power. In my opinion, it's only a slightly gussied up version of smoke grenade and nothing more.
Now I'll add comments in regards to TA as a whole. All in all, I am enjoying playing my character. It requires much more patience to do so compared to both my rad and dark defenders, and you have to work a lot harder to achieve the same type of results that you would get with either of those 2 sets. But I knew that going in, and it's not something I really have a problem with at the moment.
However, my being pleased with him overall doesn't mean the set doesn't have problems that need to be addressed-preferably sooner, as opposed to later. The long animations can be a hindrance at times, especially when on a team that's killing things quickly. When I do team with him (which isn't often), many times my target is dead before my shot even goes off, or he's switched positions, forcing me to fire since I'm still locked in the animation. _Castle's_ recent post indicated that this is by design to achieve the smooth look of him firing an arrow, so my guess is that that aspect isn't likely to change. (That's probably the reason why I enjoy playing him- he seems to have a smoothness to him that my other defenders don't have). But as good as it looks, TAs debuffs lack sufficient punch to make up for it. Either they're saddled with long recharge times (see glue, poison gas, disruption, ice-even though this power was addressed primarily with the rest of the defender holds in the nerf-fest of I5, and oil slick), or they don't have enough of an effect (see flash, ice arrow's -recharge component, poison gas's sleep), or don't contribute anything really useful (entangling would have been handier ten times over if it stopped mobs from firing at me so much.) There is a noticeable improvement in performance once hasten is added into a TAs build, but then again, pretty much half it's powers can't be used every fight without it. And while it can be argued that you don't necessarily use all your debuffs every fight (I often don't), TA is the ONLY defender primary where this is the case. Thus, the current predicament TA finds itself in pretty much guarantees that my character will never be as effective as my other defenders, and I say that with confidence despite only going about halfway through it. And particularly because other sets exist that give the same or better results with a lot less effort, lots of people understandably feel that the time invested so as to receive a payoff really isn't worth it.
However, maybe the coming fix for poison gas is a sign of good things that are soon to come. I was at least halfway expecting that TA would get the major overhaul it needs once I7 comes down the pipe, but _Castle's_ recent comments suggest otherwise. But, one can always hope. As of now though, TA is best suited as a controller (or mastermind) secondary, when the said controller/MM can use powers from his primary to fill in the gaps and shortcomings, rather than a defender primary.
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because I'm lvl 47***On a team with lvl 50's fighting lvl 52's I missed..
[/ QUOTE ] What kind of idiot are you? The fact that you can't +5's is somehow proof of something? The fact that you expect it to be of some major value against +5's shows you are quite out to lunch on this whole discussion. I'd love to see how long you last with RI against +5's.
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You sound like you don't know what you are talking about it every time you bring it up.
[/ QUOTE ] And you sound like someone who needs to cash in their reality check. It's past due.
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Are you only ever fighting with people of your level or do you join pick up groups and whatever comes your way?
[/ QUOTE ] Perhaps you might want to read some of my above posts and answer that question for yourself.
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Anyone finding a problem in this analysis?
It's the ONLY one you get, but it stacks with others of its type?
[/ QUOTE ] <shaking my head> You know what Blue...don't even worry about.
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because I'm lvl 47***On a team with lvl 50's fighting lvl 52's I missed..
[/ QUOTE ] What kind of idiot are you? The fact that you can't +5's is somehow proof of something? The fact that you expect it to be of some major value against +5's shows you are quite out to lunch on this whole discussion. I'd love to see how long you last with RI against +5's.
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You sound like you don't know what you are talking about it every time you bring it up.
[/ QUOTE ] And you sound like someone who needs to cash in their reality check. It's past due.
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Are you only ever fighting with people of your level or do you join pick up groups and whatever comes your way?
[/ QUOTE ] Perhaps you might want to read some of my above posts and answer that question for yourself.
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(Concern grabs a fire controller with smoke)
(Smokes the entire mob without a single miss due to it being auto-hit)
I can see why he would want it to hit +5 mobs. If nothing else, for -perception since the accuracy debuff won't do anything. It is really important when useing this ability for -perception that you get ALL the mobs and not miss any. Especially in large groups where you have large mobs. It only takes a single mob to get the agro of all the mobs which is why smoke was auto-hit.
It seems like instead of copying smoke, the developers decided to copy smoke grenade from the blaster secondary instead and give it a longer animation time and recharge.
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What kind of idiot are you? The fact that you can't +5's is somehow proof of something? The fact that you expect it to be of some major value against +5's shows you are quite out to lunch on this whole discussion. I'd love to see how long you last with RI against +5's.
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Hmm.. I did just fine against the +5's. FA was the only completely USELESS power. I helped my team out and had no problems. I routinely team with my SG mates running lvl 50 missions on Invincible. What's the big deal? You don't have enough skill with TA to handle that?
FA was completely useless because of it's to-hit check. Smoke from teh controller line is auto-hit. FA should be too. All of the other powers, when they were up, were quite useful.
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And you sound like someone who needs to cash in their reality check. It's past due.
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I'd be willing to bet that many of the people on this board don't think what I was doing was out of the ordinary at all. Perhaps your skill level isn't up to the challenge. It would certainly explain why you think the set is ok. It underperforms when you push it, especially compared to other defender sets, but you'd only know that if you really pushed it's limits.
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Anyone finding a problem in this analysis?
It's the ONLY one you get, but it stacks with others of its type?
[/ QUOTE ] <shaking my head> You know what Blue...don't even worry about.
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...you're reallly going to have to answer this question since it's a giant gaping hole in your "FA is a great power" theory. You really didn't answer anything here, just attacked Blue.
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...you're reallly going to have to answer this question since it's a giant gaping hole in your "FA is a great power" theory
[/ QUOTE ] There's a gaping hole alright...but it's not in my theory.
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Hmm.. I did just fine against the +5's.
[/ QUOTE ] lol...yeah...with a team of lvl 50's fighting +2's...I should think so.
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FA was completely useless because of it's to-hit check. Smoke from teh controller line is auto-hit.
[/ QUOTE ] This is a different issue. Two different AT's. The fact that the powers share the same base value means that the powers share the same base value. One power is called "Flash Arrow," the other is not. You'll need to put forth an argument why the mechanics of one is relevant to the other.
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I'd be willing to bet that many of the people on this board don't think what I was doing was out of the ordinary at all.
[/ QUOTE ] You are entirely missing the point. Whether it is ordinary or not, none of the powers in the game are designed around your ability to fight +5's. Complaining that TA is worthless because you can't hit +5's is evidence of your being out of touch with this game's fundamental assumptions .
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All of the other powers, when they were up, were quite useful.
[/ QUOTE ] "quite useful?" Really? Can you tell me the % of -dmg PGA was doing against +5's? Or how about DA's -res. I'd love to see the values against +5's.
Why weren't you sidekicked? Power-leveling?
EDIT:
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I routinely team with my SG mates running lvl 50 missions on Invincible.
[/ QUOTE ] Ah...If you're 47, at some point you should also be facing +6's. Yeah...I'm sure they rely on your debuffs heavily.
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There's a gaping hole alright...but it's not in my theory.
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Nice...but again, personal attacks are still not answering how FA is so awesome.
Quoting your previous post for reference
"FA is not teh uber -Acc debuff. It is still a great power. "
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Nice...but again, personal attacks are still not answering how FA is so awesome.
[/ QUOTE ] First off, I said it was "great" I didn't say it was "awesome."
Second, the answer is fairly obvious.
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You should keep in mind when saying things like "Sorry...CoT are generally not good mobs for anchor debuffing" that I have a tendancy to test things out before making statements like "this will definitely work,"
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You're testing it out as a solo toon. On teams...your teammates are spread out.
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My opinion comes from playing 50 levels of rad, both solo and teamed (especially teamed). My testing was done to confirm that nothing has changed since the time I was leveling rad, not to see what RI does. I already knew what RI does.
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