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This is isn't true either. My TA provides more debuffs, on average than my Rad. My TA provides more debuffs, on average, than other Rads I've teamed with. We kill stuff faster than FF, we have more utility than Sonic, we offer far more debuffing than Kinetics with a few exceptions, and the set is less potentially detrimental than Storm.
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Nice straw man. All Defenders kill stuff faster than FF. All defenders have more defence than kenetics, and all are potentially less disrupting than storm. Now, if you could say all that about only one set, it would be impressive, but you cannot. You can say it about most all of them.
While having more utility than sonic is true, again, it is not hard to do, and only one set could be argued to have less than sonic (FF).
As a side note, and has been touched on in earlier posts. The activation time on these powers is way too long. Many times I have fired off an arrow, only to have the target move while I am waiting for it to fire, and lose most of the benefit, hitting only one target instead of at least 4-5.
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Radiation Emission can debuff defense. Trick Arrow can't.
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Acid Arrow debuffs defense.
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Radiation Emission can debuff regeneration. Trick Arrow can't.
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EMP Arrow debuffs regeneration.
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Radiation Emission has a Slow and Recharge debuff that's up 1/3rd of the time base. Trick Arrow's? 1/4th.
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Trick Arrows has 3 -Speeds and 2 -Recharges. If we're just focusing on those effects, there seem to be enough to go around that if one is down, I can use another.
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Resistance debuffs? Trick Arrow falls behind whenever Hasten's down.
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This I don't get. With 3 Recharge SO's, Disruption Arrow is ready every 60 seconds or so. It lasts 30 seconds (I think). So for 30 seconds I can't have enemies being affected by it. Just 30 seconds. Burritos take longer to make in the microwave. I realize in the game that 30 seconds can seem like forever, but don't make it seem like a Trick Arrows defender can only use Flash Arrow regularly. I use all my debuffs regularly except EMP Arrow and Oil Slick Arrow. Certainly the recharges are long, and make you worry that you're wasting them if you use them too late in a fight, and being forced to slot each with 3 Recharge SO's is terrible... I forgot where I was going with this. Anyway, the point is that I'm not spending forever waiting for powers to recharge. There is downtime, and it can seem like forever when the recharge timers are balanced against 6 Recharge SOs and permaHasten still, but it's not so bad that I'm waiting 5 minutes between groups of enemies, forcing my team to slow down.
If my team wants to go ahead, they can go ahead. I can be assured knowing that Flash Arrow, Acid Arrow, Ice Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow, and (if I had it) Entangling Arrow will be up every fight. That's not that bad. Not every Defender goes through their entire Primary at the start of every fight, do they?
The real problem is that Trick Arrows' debuffs are the least effective debuffs. Not just because of their base values, but also because many only have a single slottable-effect, which you have to slot for later because you need the first three slots for Recharge enhancements. The recharge times aren't that bad with 3 Recharge SOs, but the fact that you NEED 3 Recharge SOs makes the set feel lousy to people who use it.
Hm... I thought a few of those aspects had been removed when they were on test, Somberero. Well, I'll default to your knowledge of the set.
In which case :
Radiation can debuff defense to the point where accuracy enhancements are unneeded against purple-con mobs. Trick Arrow's doesn't seem to. Radiation can debuff regeneration every second of an Archvillian fight. Trick Arrow only for a short time (30 seconds out of 3 minutes?).
So, you're right. I guess it is more the size and relative utility, rather than the existance.
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So, yeah, I'd love to agree with you here. But it's rather exhausting to post genuine concerns, experiences, and suggestions while the people at the other end put their hands over their ears and go "lalala I'm not listening."
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I think it's more likely they look at it and are terrified because of how much work it'll be 
I can see it now...
Fred the Programmer: "Couldn't I just make Electric Melee instead?"
Tom the Supervisor: "No, Jim is doing that, now get back to work, and I don't care if it takes 6 months!"
Fred: "Awww hell."
Jim: "haha!"
Sgt Liberty - 50 Martial Arts / Super Reflexes
Verdigris Eagle - 50 Archery / Energy Manipulation
Stormeye - 50 Storm Summoning / Electric Blast
[ QUOTE ]
Really? Because, you know, they sure did so with the top-tier controller powers. What are those called again? Oh yeah. Pets.
[/ QUOTE ] You clearly don't have the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about. There is no revealed way to stop each pet's abilities from taking effect. Each is a separate caster and thus Glue Arrow would stack. Obviously they feel this is too good.
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Having glue arrow #2 cancel out glue arrow #1 would have been an acceptable solution.
[/ QUOTE ] A permanent, anchorless -Speed and -Recharge, that is sticky...would be too good imo. That fact that you don't even acknowledge that possibility shows your mindset.
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I suppose that's why Glue Arrow has a longer recharge than a power like Tar Patch. You got me there.
[/ QUOTE ] And this is why I find your whole approach contemptable. Your lack of knowledge about the powers and unwillingness to concede or even acknowledge downsides in other powers makes your position distasteful where I otherwise might be sympathetic. Tar Patch does not stick to the mobs. Once they are free and clear of the "patch" the debuff no longer takes affect. You know...like when the energy blaster or defender constantly ET's them out? Or some Stormie insists on Hurricaning everyone off the patch into a corner? Or maybe you haven't seen Shockwave in action?
Let me clue you in GP. CoT spawns are generally close enough together to that Glue hits most of them right on alpha. The -Recharge keeps on working long after the Thorn Caster AI consistently has them clear the area and attack from range. Tar Patch is worthless then.
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The fact that you don't feel your debuffs are needed very often does not diminish the fact that they are not available very often
[/ QUOTE ] Because my powers aren't CONSTANTLY available the set is horribly broken? Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. God forbid the game should require us to make tactical decisions about the ability to use every single power every fight.
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However, you do have the option of using those toggles every fight if you wish.
[/ QUOTE ] No I don't. The recharge on Choking Cloud is so long, it's almost worth slotting it. I've been on plenty of small teams were we roll along before EF recharges and someone aggros the next group. What I don't have the option on is keeping my Anchor alive. What I dont' have the option on is status protection which completely knocks off all my toggles.
You position, your whole attempt to argue your position is pathetically biased. You consistently downplay every single power and basically refuse to acknowledge the other sets have drawbacks. They do. And as such, TA is as viable as they are.When I find a Rad defender that has respeced out of RI and EF because of issues with anchors, and you don't even acknowledge it...ONCE[/b], you don't care about truth. You don't care what anyone else's reality is if it doesn't support your biased claims.
TA is a great set. You obviously can't play it very well.
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Nice straw man.
[/ QUOTE ] Do you know what a strawman is? Blue tries to claim that TA can't defend a team. That fact that it provides some advantage over just about every other set refutes that contention.
TA can defend a team compared to the other sets. Some players can't.
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You can defend a team with Trick Arrow.
[/ QUOTE ] Well, it looks like you got at least one thing right in that post.
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You clearly don't have the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about. There is no revealed way to stop each pet's abilities from taking effect. Each is a separate caster and thus Glue Arrow would stack. Obviously they feel this is too good.
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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.
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An anchorless Slow, that is sticky...would be too good imo.
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Works fine for the Mastermind Poison set's Neurotoxic Breath, and for Shiver. Admittedly, those are cones, but they also aren't high aggro, and are very wide, so that difference really shouldn't break anything. A more apt comparison might be Freezing Rain, again, a lower degree of slow, but otherwise follows the same rules.
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Blue tries to claim that TA can't defend a team.
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THIS is a strawman. I said specifically that the problem isn't that TA can't defend a team. Admittedly a double-negative, but otherwise pretty correct. Perhaps having the rest of my post saying how, although TA can defend, other powersets can perform much better, should have been more strongly worded to make it clear..
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TA is a great set. You obviously can't play it very well.
[/ QUOTE ]How about this, Mieux. I can play Force Field. I can play Radiation, whose toggle-management is apparently a lot harder than I thought. I can play Storm Summoning. But apparently I can't play Trick Arrow worth mentioning, and if your set underperforms for someone with significant experience with several other sets, and in the hands of several other players who've player several other sets, can we assume that the rest of the playerbase is not ALWAYS the source of the problem?
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Radiation can debuff defense to the point where accuracy enhancements are unneeded against purple-con mobs.
[/ QUOTE ] Right...right...and how many people do you know take out their acc enhancements because of it? Do you know any Rads that take out their acc enhancements because of it?
I know a Kineticist that doesn't slot for accuracy because of it, Mieux. I know many players in one of the SGs I run with only slot 1 +acc, simply because they can rely on having an Irradiate or Rad Infection around whenever they're playing with tough stuff.
And it's always fun to see a Paragon Protector pop Elude and not dodge a single blow before death. 
Acid Arrow does debuf defence in an INCREDIBLY small AoE and it has a to-hit check so saying it doesn't debuff defence is not far off.
And to the person that says that in the higher levels recharge times don't matter... You do not know what the hell you are talking about. I have a lvl 47 NON-PL'd TA/A defender. The recharge times are killer unless the group is moving at a snail pace. You are a low damage wanna-be blaster for more than half the time if the group is moving fast.
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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.
[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...
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Works fine for the Mastermind Poison set's Neurotoxic Breath, and for Shiver. Admittedly, those are cones
[/ QUOTE ] Master Minds are completely different ball of wax than defenders. You cannnot compare a Defender power to a MM power. The requirements for MM's is completely different than it is for defenders.
In addition, I changed my post to say a "permanent" -Speed and -Recharge because I figured most people wouldn't understand the full implication. Apparently I was right.
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THIS is a strawman.
[/ QUOTE ] Your post is worded such that it looks like you are still implying that this is true: TA's can't defend teams. Since you later acknowledged that TA can defend I team, which means my interpretation was incorrect, I owe you an apology.
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I can play Force Field. I can play Radiation, whose toggle-management is apparently a lot harder than I thought. I can play Storm Summoning. But apparently I can't play Trick Arrow worth mentioning
[/ QUOTE ] I've played FF, I've played Rad, I've played DD, and I've played Kinetics. TA is not the hardest set to play, IMO. But it does require a very different mindset than the others. Which makes it hard to play. Kinetics is fraught with far more peril and is far less capable of pulling a teams fat out of the fire. My TA provides far more benefit to team defense than my Kinetics did at the same level. If I play both TA and Kinetics, expecting the same type of effect, one is going to seem horrible broken compared to the other. The sets operate differently. TA debuffs. It does this and it does it well. I've seen it in action. I've seen it compared to my Rad. Why? Because of the nature of the debuffing. While Rad has better potential debuffing, the reality is that in game play, TA is more consistent. TA comes up a little short when you add in AM, Radiation Aura, and Mutation, on top of the the other powers. TA also doesn't offer any status protection of any kind.
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and if your set underperforms for someone with significant experience with several other sets, and in the hands of several other players who've player several other sets, can we assume that the rest of the playerbase is not ALWAYS the source of the problem?
[/ QUOTE ] This is a loaded a question. If 99.9% of the population cannot make an certain power work...and that other .1% can....then due to the natuer of why there is a CoX, the power should be changed.
What I steadfastly object to, is shameful selective reasoning put forth by people like Goofy. Reasoning that completely ignores the context of the game and creates a false impression of the set and its problelms in the scope of the comparative defender experience. Argueing that EF and RI are always available is "intellectually dishonest" as Centerfire would put it. While technically they can last the entire fight...they by and large don't. While technically they can affect every spawn in a group...they rarely do. But Goofy won't admit that because it reveals some ever so slight crack in his argument that TA is by far the worst set. TA isn't perfect....but players who refuse to be completely honest about the relative value of sets and powers make the game worse...not better.
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What I steadfastly object to, is shameful selective reasoning put forth by people like Goofy. Reasoning that completely ignores the context of the game and creates a false impression of the set and its problelms in the scope of the comparative defender experience. Argueing that EF and RI are always available is "intellectually dishonest" as Centerfire would put it. While technically they can last the entire fight...they by and large don't. While technically they can affect every spawn in a group...they rarely do. But Goofy won't admit that because it reveals some ever so slight crack in his argument that TA is by far the worst set. TA isn't perfect....but players who refuse to be completely honest about the relative value of sets and powers make the game worse...not better.
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Not getting too involved in this debate because I don't and never have played a TA character, but I have to agree with the observation that many people tend to argue from the assumption of "perfect effectiveness" of powers that are usually not quite so perfect in practice (anchored debuffs for example). It's not generally representative of what happens in game, but at the same time, the potential of such powers when they do hit their maximum effectiveness can't be completely dismissed, either.
However to be fair and balanced... many people are also very quick to attribute someone's problems with a set to their playstyle, skill, or lack of skilled teammates. This is often not the case either and usually doesn't accurately represent what happens in game. Sure, some teams are just full of crackmonkeys who don't know what your powers do, but especially once you're past the Hollows, most teams aren't. (Edit - to be fair, we primarily remember and post horror stories about the ones that aren't, which create and reinforce a stereotype of idiot pickupgroup teammates who have crazy builds and can't form coherent sentences).
(Also an edit: I would hope most of us forum monkeys would be experienced and prudent enough to leave said teams as soon as we caught warning signs, like teammates who are unable to speak coherently or who do nothing but jump around and charge spawns thoughtlessly.)
Related to that misjudgement is the idea that setting up "perfect situations" for your powers (such as by corner pulling) is attractive in the first place. Many teams are able to charge in and overwhelm a spawn of enemies, especially if any sort of defender is able to either heal them of, or mitigate the damage from, the spawn's alpha strike.
I'd go so far as to say that if most spawns don't get a serious advantage during their alpha strike, most competent teams will win unless there are adds at some point during the fight. My observation is that when things are going to go south they either go south right away, almost as soon as the battle starts, or else go south because there are adds.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.
[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...
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Gah. That is what they're saying. "Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason", so why couldnt Glue Arrow self cancel for exactly that reason also? Would solve the problem of stacking and it wouldnt have such a stupidly long recharge as it has now.
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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.
[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...
[/ QUOTE ]
Gah. That is what they're saying. "Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason", so why couldnt Glue Arrow self cancel for exactly that reason also? Would solve the problem of stacking and it wouldnt have such a stupidly long recharge as it has now.
[/ QUOTE ]Ummm..."Gah" is right... You're missing the part about a "permanent, anchorless, -Speed and -Recharge," being too good. Which is exactly what Glue Arrow would be if it were allowed to be permanent. The self-cancel doesn't stop it from being too good. As you said..."Gah."
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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.
[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...
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Gah. That is what they're saying. "Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason", so why couldnt Glue Arrow self cancel for exactly that reason also? Would solve the problem of stacking and it wouldnt have such a stupidly long recharge as it has now.
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It can't, exactly. The debuff sticks to its targets, so if you throw another one, it will stack with the first debuff. They'd have to change how it works for dismissing the first glue patch to also remove the debuffs it inflicted.
Whether stacking them is really overpowered is a different debate.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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The debuff sticks to its targets
[/ QUOTE ] My experience has shown me that Glue Arrow also makes a sticky patch which affects any mobs that subsequently run into it. That was the "pet" part I'm referring to...not the debuff already on those who get hit initially.
Does Glue not create a "pet" that debuffs those who enter post alpha?
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Controller pets self-cancel. That is, only one summon can exist at a time. Hence, 'balanced'.
[/ QUOTE ] The point here is that Glue Arrow would stack. Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason..so they don't stack. There was no way to stop the stacking effect of multiple pets...which leads too...
[/ QUOTE ]
Gah. That is what they're saying. "Controller pets self cancel for exactly that reason", so why couldnt Glue Arrow self cancel for exactly that reason also? Would solve the problem of stacking and it wouldnt have such a stupidly long recharge as it has now.
[/ QUOTE ]Ummm..."Gah" is right... You're missing the part about a "permanent, anchorless, -Speed and -Recharge," being too good. Which is exactly what Glue Arrow would be if it were allowed to be permanent. The self-cancel doesn't stop it from being too good. As you said..."Gah."
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No Im not missing anything. Being too powerful has nothing to do with whether mechancally it can self dismiss (or stack) or not. That is a different issue altogether. And one that Im not sure I agree with you on, but either way it's irrelevant to how powers functionally work in the game.
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No Im not missing anything.
[/ QUOTE ] Yes, you missed it entirely by raising the question to begin with. GP tried to make a point. He does this by insulting the devs..and I quote:
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Yes, self-stacking was overpowered. However, rather than address the self-stackability, they took the cheap way out and introduced unprecedented recharge timers.
[/ QUOTE ] So I don't care if you disagree with me that self-stacking was overpowerd, because GP is the one who said it. More to the point, GP then accuses the devs of "taking the cheap way out." He believes it's "cheap" because of his fundamental ignorance about the game. He thinks they should have lowered the recharge so that it is perma...but doesn't stack. As Kali and I have pointed out...this isn't possible on two fronts. You didn't get it. If you did, you'd understand why his referrence controller pets was wholly off the mark. Erasing one Glue Arrow patch and putting down another creates a continuous, anchorless, sticky debuff. This is one of the reasons why Dark was so ridiculous before I6 and still uber...Fearsome Stare.
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And one that Im not sure I agree with you on, but either way it's irrelevant to how powers functionally work in the game.
[/ QUOTE ] No it's not irrelevant. It's completely relevant to this entire tangent. It is because a power might be too good the devs implement it one way or another.
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The debuff sticks to its targets
[/ QUOTE ] My experience has shown me that Glue Arrow also makes a sticky patch which affects any mobs that subsequently run into it. That was the "pet" part I'm referring to...not the debuff already on those who get hit initially.
Does Glue not create a "pet" that debuffs those who enter post alpha?
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Yes, but the devs can set it up to disappear if the TA makes a second patch, which is what the other poster was saying. Under that setup, you couldn't stack patches, just the debuffs from patches.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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you couldn't stack patches, just the debuffs from patches.
[/ QUOTE ] lol...right. But because of how GA is implemented, the debuff would stack. Because FA has no patch...it is not instantiated as a pet. Thus, it's debuff appears to be controllable. A self-canceling pet creates a "new" caster and thus the debuffs would stack...AFAIK.
I don't know this is correct. Maybe the devs could make it self-canceling, non-stackable. But Castle already said that Tar Patch cannot stack with "itself" but it can stack with another Tar Patch. I presume he meant from the same caster...as we saw back in I4.
The bottom line is calling the choice of solving the issues a "cheap way out" is, IMO, a cheap shot without being able to explicitly lay out what is and what is not possible and underscores the ad hominem approach I've seen GP and other "TA Sucks" posters take.
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you couldn't stack patches, just the debuffs from patches.
[/ QUOTE ] lol...right. But because of how GA is implemented, the debuff would stack. Because FA has no patch...it is not instantiated as a pet. Thus, it's debuff appears to be controllable. A self-canceling pet creates a "new" caster and thus the debuffs would stack...AFAIK.
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Yes, there is exactly no way to keep the debuff from stacking, whether you dismiss the pet or not.
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I don't know this is correct. Maybe the devs could make it self-canceling, non-stackable. But Castle already said that Tar Patch cannot stack with "itself" but it can stack with another Tar Patch. I presume he meant from the same caster...as we saw back in I4.
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Geko pointed out that it wasn't possible to keep debuffs from stacking in this manner. While - for example - Darkest Night (from one character) can never ever stack with itself - despite reapplying itself every tick, dropped and click debuffs like glue arrow and such can stack.
Whether or not the first Glue patch is banished by summoning the second, the debuffs the first applies will remain and stack with the debuffs the second applies.
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However, you do have the option of using those toggles every fight if you wish.
[/ QUOTE ] No I don't. The recharge on Choking Cloud is so long, it's almost worth slotting it.
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Okay, Choking Cloud has a long recharge timer. How long is that timer? 90 seconds.
Oh, damn, I'm sorry. I've introduced a fact, and I know you don't like those much at all.
So, if 90 seconds is long, what does that make 120 seconds? How about 180 seconds?
Now, the toggles which of course I was referring to (Radiation Infection and Enervating Field) have recharge times of under 10 seconds each. If those aren't available every fight, I want to join the group after you leave.
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When I find a Rad defender that has respeced out of RI and EF because of issues with anchors, and you don't even acknowledge it...ONCE[/b], you don't care about truth. You don't care what anyone else's reality is if it doesn't support your biased claims.
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Right. One rad defender's experience must logically cancel out everyone else's. Just like Trick Arrow, right?
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TA is a great set. You obviously can't play it very well.
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Actually, I can play it to the best of its boundaries. It's still grossly underbalanced as a defender primary. Those of us who have played the set longer and to higher levels than you acknowledge that. The developers acknowledge that. But as long as Mieux can believe it's not, everyone else must be wrong. Gotcha.
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you couldn't stack patches, just the debuffs from patches.
[/ QUOTE ] lol...right. But because of how GA is implemented, the debuff would stack. Because FA has no patch...it is not instantiated as a pet. Thus, it's debuff appears to be controllable. A self-canceling pet creates a "new" caster and thus the debuffs would stack...AFAIK.
I don't know this is correct. Maybe the devs could make it self-canceling, non-stackable. But Castle already said that Tar Patch cannot stack with "itself" but it can stack with another Tar Patch. I presume he meant from the same caster...as we saw back in I4.
The bottom line is calling the choice of solving the issues a "cheap way out" is, IMO, a cheap shot without being able to explicitly lay out what is and what is not possible and underscores the ad hominem approach I've seen GP and other "TA Sucks" posters take.
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Mieux, if you had thought for five minutes (maybe) about how the powers currently function in this game you would have realized that Goofy was correct in saying that they took the cheap way out.
Flash Arrow, Smoke Grenade, and Smoke were changed so that their debuffs are removed when the power is cast again and then re-applied on the second application. This was done specificaly to prevent stacking. So it is possible that when a player activates a power to remove that powers debuff from the enemy.
Two effects are applied when you cast Glue Arrow (it helps if you know how the power works). One is that a debuff is applied to every mob in the AoE effect of the power on casting of the power and this is due to the TA defender. Then, a pet or spawn is created that casts it's own debuff every tic. These already do not stack. Obviously they can make non-stacking debuffs.
So, removing the pet and applying the same mechanics of Smoke Grenade and other powers could work.
Except that you really wouldn't want them to do that unless they actually did allow the power to overlap for about a second. The reason is that the instant a -recharge power is removed, recharge timers go back to recharging at the rate they were before the -recharge hit as if they had spent the whole time recharging normally. In other words, every power will be recharged and it won't matter if you hit them again with a -recharge.
I understand that Glue Arrow does not follow some of the straight forward mechanics of the game that you are used to but I would have expected you to understand what Goofy was saying after you spent all that time going on about how people were making comments about Trick Arrow but not understanding how the powers worked.
All of this aside Glue Arrow does need -fly. Spamming Entangle Arrow doesn't cut it. Why do I need two debuffs to do what Tarpatch does in one? That is the story of the TA line. You need two powers to do what other debuff sets do with one and you don't even get any vaseline. You just spend more time debuffing to achieve the same result or you don't provide the same result, console yourself that you are not as good a debuffer as other sets and continue on your merry way.
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Yes, self-stacking was overpowered. However, rather than address the self-stackability, they took the cheap way out and introduced unprecedented recharge timers.
[/ QUOTE ] I think you're oversimplifying the problem. My understanding is that Location AoE's are pets. You can't stop pets from stacking.
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Really? Because, you know, they sure did so with the top-tier controller powers. What are those called again? Oh yeah. Pets.
Many buffs, too, are not self-stackable. Want two sets of bubbles? Then you need a second force-fielder. The point is, the technology exists to prevent powers from self-stacking.
Having glue arrow #2 cancel out glue arrow #1 would have been an acceptable solution. It was suggested many times in the dev response thread. It would have allowed a reasonable recharge rate to be applied while eliminating the self-stacking problem.
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The other factor is that the recharge times are generally set against the max recharge times. IOW, they have to consider Glue Arrow with Hasten, AM, Speed Boost, and Adrenaline Boost.
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I suppose that's why Glue Arrow has a longer recharge than a power like Tar Patch. You got me there.
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And the other factor is that you simply don't need DA or GA for EVERY fight, especially on small teams.
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The fact that you don't feel your debuffs are needed very often does not diminish the fact that they are not available very often.
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My Rad and Dark Defenders dont' use their toggles every fight. My Dark hardly at all, and even if I waste the time firing both Toggles on my Rad, chances are, once anchor is dead before the other is even set.
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However, you do have the option of using those toggles every fight if you wish.
If your anchors are dying immediately, I suggest this is not a flaw with the power design, but with group coordination.
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Following that, ED was introduced, causing the TA defender to spend inordinate amounts of time without the benefit of his debuffs.
[/ QUOTE ] Once you get into the higher levels, this isn't true.
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Well, dang, my character must be bugged. Because my Trick Arrow defender is higher than 26, and it's certainly true for me. Do your recharge timers magically scale down as you gain levels? Because mine sure don't.