I second Mieux's suggestion.
At this point, I think it might be best if a spreadsheet of the data were made available.
At least then the wildest of speculations will be headed off. It won't prevent crazy interpretations or self-interested spin or armchair statisticians or college-freshmen-who-were-taught-never-to-trust-any-statistics, but at least then we won't be arguing over syntax.
I know it's a lot to ask, but a little sunshine here might be the best thing.
40062: The World's Worst PUG
84008: Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
230187: The Hero of Kings Row
No H8 - 08.04.10
@Circuit Boy - Moderator - Pride global chat channel
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Energy is good, but doesn't really need Barrage, Energy Punch or Total Focus
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Energy is great...but barrage is not in the EM blaster line.
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Devices works well, though not particularly fast.
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Devices can be very dynamic and quick if the tools used are Web Grenade, Caltrops, and Targeting Drone. If playing a TP Miner, the set will seem very slow.
With the dynamic route blasts like Elec, Ice, and Fire shine with Web Grenade.
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The others need to drop a couple of things here and there and take mostly support type stuff like Power Thrust, Thunderstrike, and the like.
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I am not sure about Ice as a secondary, atleast Ice has a secondary effect.
Fire Manipulation needs to be given a 'slotable' secondary effect in pvp and pve. I personnally would like one of the AoEs taken out and blasters given Incinerate and Greater Fire Sword.
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In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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Raise your hand if you saw that one coming.
[/ QUOTE ]I did. I got into it with Powerfist and various Stalkers about how Blasters are not the equal of Stalkers. Mez protection and defense mean you have to be brain dead to argue that Blasters are the same as Stalkers in PvP.
The problem is that a lot of old school PvPers are used to the Arena which weeds out all the sets that can't do the burst damage that is needed to win in PvP. Hence, people only saw /Em blasters and this became "blasters" in their world view.
Blasters are defenseless and by and large are sitting ducks in PvP. They can get mezzed and held from range and then subsquently wiped out in seconds. Without an Emp or Kin backing them up...they get worked. I'm not the least bit surprised that controllers outpeform non-/Em blaster.
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Well, I meant who saw that Dominators and Defenders are at the bottom of the pile coming. Also, I'm sure Dominators are at the very bottom. Both ATs are pretty much equal in their inability to deal any crucial damage, but Defenders have a much better primary to fall back on in PvP for escape purposes; defense and debuffs don't 'suppress'.
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Also, I'm sure Dominators are at the very bottom.
[/ QUOTE ] If it's true...then I'm sure it's my fault. About four months ago, I took my TA/A into BB at 15 and defeated a dominator solo. I'm sure that had to be the all time low for the entire AT.
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Couple things.
1) I was giving the AT mods, not considering build up/aim or external buffs. I did not specify a given power set. I think everyone who PvP's is aware of how dominant Energy Melee/Energy Manipulation can be.
2) "Damage as a secondary effect" If I don't Stun a person on my TF hit, they can typically escape. I could just be bad at energy melee, though (most of CoX PvP experience is Super Strength, Dark Melee, Claws, or Mind Control.)
3) Datamining -- I looked at Blaster/Scrapper a few minutes ago. In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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More 1v1 Trivia. So the next time you're told to get a team... just refer to Castle's posts.
Currently roleplaying, badgehunting, and laughing at the PvPers of CoX. lol, PvP.
Truedusk - Human Rogue
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3) Datamining -- In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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So umm... Naturally, here's my question: If it's acceptable that an AT perform very poorely at this K-D ratio solo, but does better in Teams... then why is it acceptable for defenders and dominators to continue to STAY AT THE BOTTOM of this K-D ratio while on teams too?
My Defenders and Dominators can sit in a huge pack of other Heroes/Villains... corruptors, blasters, controllers, MM's even... But several opponents always single me out right off the bat. I'm always the first to die from gank-squad alphastrikes.
That blue shield and purple lightning bolt are the biggest friggin human-aggro magnets I've ever seen in any PvP game. My tankers and controllers have to work their butts off to get that kind of aggro from other players. Why isn't _Castle_ talking about this? Why aren't any of YOU talking about this?? "My Blaster blah blah blah" ... "My Stalker blah blah blah"
It would seem to me if there's a list, and any 2 AT's are at the frikkin bottom of that list... I would think a Developer's response to those AT's would be something a lot more involved than "I don't know" with Dominators, or just putting a few Defender graphic-bugs we've had since Beta "on the white board" and calling it "good" while at the same time nerfing their -ACC debuffs by 40% -- Nope... not Castle, Statesman, or Positron, they all just take off to spend real time on Scrappers, Blasters, and Stalkers again. Shouldn't the AT's on the bottom of the lists in all categories, be getting the attention here?
Castle, I love you. I love you, I love you. I can't say it enough.
Please, give us more data. More information. I know I'm not alone in this. I know it's not your job to give us data, and that anything you do give us is entirely on your time, but my poor little heart thrills every time you give us tidbits from your datamining. 
;;
~Gabriel
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So umm... Naturally, here's my question: If it's acceptable that an AT perform very poorely at this K-D ratio solo, but does better in Teams... then why is it acceptable that defenders and dominators to continue to STAY AT THE BOTTOM of this K-D ratio while on teams too?
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To play Devil's Advocate here, I'd argue that the purpose of Defenders and Dominators on teams, not just in PvP, is to enhance the Kill/Death ratio for their teammates, at potential risk to themselves. PvP simply underscores that point.
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My Defenders and Dominators can sit in a huge pack of other Heroes/Villains... corruptors, blasters, controllers, MM's even... But several opponents always single me out right off the bat. I'm always the first to die from gank-squad alphastrikes.
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I imagine that this simply underscores that all ATs are primarily PvE-balanced, in which Defenders have a much more generous aggro management cushion. Since we expect PC toons in PvP to behave fundamentally differently than in PvE, I'd argue that Defenders exhibit the greatest differential between PvP and PvE in terms of how well their powersets scale against opponents.
Remember that prior to the buff to Blaster HP, Blasters were equally put in the "squishie" category, and arguably worse off due to less damage mitigation capacity than either Defenders or Controllers. If not for that buff, it seems quite likely that Blasters would likely bear as much of the coordinated attack as Defenders.
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That blue shield and purple lightning bolt are the biggest friggin human-aggro magnets I've ever seen in any PvP game. My tankers and controllers have to work their butts off to get that kind of aggro from other players. Why isn't _Castle_ talking about this? Why aren't any of YOU talking about this?? "My Blaster blah blah blah" ... "My Stalker blah blah blah"
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Because this is a conversation that's neither on the PvP board nor the Defender board.
Remember that the attractiveness of targetting a Defender is two-fold -- it's not just that he's the squishiest (I'd probably defer that point), it's also that without his buffs and/or debuffs, the rest of the team often folds like origami. Two birds, one stone.
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It would seem to me if there's a list, and any 2 AT's are at the frikkin bottom of that list... I would think a Developer's response to those AT's would be something a lot more involved than "I don't know" with Dominators, or just putting a few Defender graphic-bugs we've had since Beta "on the white board" and calling it "good" while at the same time nerfing their -ACC debuffs by 40% -- Nope... not Castle, Statesman, or Positron, they all just take off to spend real time on Scrappers, Blasters, and Stalkers again. Shouldn't the AT's on the bottom of the lists in all categories, be getting the attention here?
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I think you're letting your ATist rhetoric blind you to the point that Castle's list strictly discusses solo PvP, which he explicitly qualifies. Furthermore, he goes on to vaguely suggest that PvP-performance hierarchy is wholly different on teams -- which is ostensibly what PvP is built around.
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Remember that the attractiveness of targetting a Defender is two-fold -- it's not just that he's the squishiest (I'd probably defer that point), it's also that without his buffs and/or debuffs, the rest of the team often folds like origami. Two birds, one stone.
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Controllers can buff too. ...no, the "attractiveness" you're looking for is their complete lack of deterrents. Blappers and Controllers have ways of making others Sorry that they got up in their grill. Defenders have NONE and Dominators only have theirs when Domination is up, which in PvP, basically never happens.
As for any AT-Rhetoric, I shouldn't need to tell anyone that being somone's Buff-bot and spending all of your time running back from the hospital is no fun... there's nothing "Wholey Different" for a Defender in PvP being solo or being on a team in that regard. And, Dominators don't even get that far. The only thing Castle said that could be construed as "wholey different" was the Blapper who's given shields and clear-mind in PvP by a team-mate. The Defender who gave those buffs still has no personal survivability and no deterrants.
Which is why I dont even bother bringing my defenders to PvP zones other than to grab badges or missions. If I played buffers I might hang out and buff, but I play Dark and Storm because I dont want to buff.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
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Please, give us more data. More information. I know I'm not alone in this. I know it's not your job to give us data, and that anything you do give us is entirely on your time, but my poor little heart thrills every time you give us tidbits from your datamining
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A teensie cautionary note on that.
For the most part, Castle simply confirms what large sections of the PvP playerbase has been dogmatizing. Be careful about asking for too much, though.
Complete transparency of the datamining may simply drive more sections of the playerbase to FotM PvP building. It's one thing that we all know /Eng Blasters outperform all others; that differential is so widely accepted at this point, it's hardly surprising.
My fear is that complete transparency will simply narrow the field of "acceptable" PvP builds in the perception of the playerbase, by virtue of having Dev confirmation.
And, speaking only for myself, one of the most disappointing and outright boring elements of CoX PvP is going up against the exact same FotM sets over and over and over again. If all I wanted to PvP against were a very limited set of build options -- Eng/Eng stalkers, /Eng Blappers, the occasional pocket Emp -- I'd be playing a game with far more restricted build options -- like an FPS.
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Controllers can buff too. ...no, the "attractiveness" you're looking for is their complete lack of deterrents. Blappers and Controllers have ways of making others Sorry that they got up in their grill. Defenders have NONE
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A hyperbolic blanket statement.
There are components to the buff/debuff sets that are shared with Controllers that are more effective in the hands of Defenders. Hal fof the Storm set (it's not just Hurricane). Dark Fears. Bubble-bouncing. Kinetic sapping.
While unavailable in the first three PvP zones, APP toggle-knocking Blaps should be widely available in Recluse's, the Arena and Base Raids. And don't forget the superiority of Defender Leadership to any other AT -- no minor component of post-I6 PvP.
As for the secondary sets, while the scale is set low, only one Defender secondary is predominantly S/L damage. I agree that the strength of the Controller primary, relative to Defender blasts more than compensates for the differential in the shared sets.
But your argument is to claim that Defenders are wholly defenseless, which is patently untrue. When paired, Defenders with different powersets can provide an exceptional buffing platform, comparable, if not surpassing Controllers. Hide an Emp inside a Hurricane or a Force Bubble, and it's about as impregnable a buffing juggernaut as can be found in PvP.
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As for any AT-Rhetoric, I shouldn't need to tell anyone that being somone's Buff-bot and spending all of your time running back from the hospital is no fun... there's nothing "Wholey Different" for a Defender in PvP being solo or being on a team in that regard. And, Dominators don't even get that far. The only thing Castle said that could be construed as "wholey different" was the Blapper who's given shields and clear-mind in PvP by a team-mate. The Defender who gave those buffs still has no personal survivability and no deterrants.
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A semantic debate, trying to extrapolate from Castle's intentional (see above) vagueness.
On teams, Defender performance can't be considered by the exact same metrics as the damage-oriented ATs. Their ability to multiply buffs across their team are their primary determinant of success, so the metric for Defenders shouldn't necessarily be a Kill/Death ratio. I imagine it looks more like how much their teammates' Kill/Death ratio benefits from their presence. So it'd look more like:
(Teammate Kill/Death with Defender)/(Teammate Kill/Death without Defender)
Kill/Death is not an unimportant metric for Defenders, it's simply not their primary metric of success.
Dont know anything about doms so wont touch that. Would you say that (1)giving defenders the ability to heal and buff themselves would help them?
(2) give blasters more damage and range alrdy
I was just thinking a great inherent for defenders would be to "target self" for buffing.
But that is me.
"I'm not scared of anyone or anything Angie. Isn't that the way life should be?"
Jack Hawksmoor, The Authority.
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In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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To be honest, I wish you would release what the team numbers look like. 1v1 means very little in a rock, paper, scissors balanced game. Another factor that will result in /EM looking much better than the other Blaster secondaries is the fact most serious PvP players will be running it over all of the other secondaries. This doesn't mean that everyone running an /EM is an experienced PvP player, but there is a higher percentage of experienced PvP'ers using it than any of the other secondaries. The delta between /Em and /Elec is not that great, but because most PvP'ers are min/maxers /Em wins by a landslide despite not being that much better.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
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This doesn't mean that everyone running an /EM is an experienced PvP player, but there is a higher percentage of experienced PvP'ers using it than any of the other secondaries.
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1) I think part of the point you miss is that, yes -- experienced and skilled PvPers gravitate for /EM for many good reasons. However, we also see no small fraction of newer, inexperienced PvPers gravitate towards /EM. That's why it's an FotM.
2) I can't call it anything but an impression without anything remotely resembling numbers, but perhaps part of the concern should arise from the point that the Energy Melee powers may well outperform its counterparts (albeit, by a lesser degree) in the three other ATs with Energy Melee powersets?
Just something to chew on.
It's very obvious that /EM dominates the PvP world because it has insane burst damage, but you're all right in a sense that it is considered the "PvP set". That however isn't as effective in any battles that go higher than 2v2, this coming from someone who played an /EM blaster for a short time. To be perfectly honest I think /Ice is the trumping group-PvP set for it's PAoE, and wide-cone slows (And damn do I mean wide, that thing is like a monster-fan), that are absolutely annoying as hell in PvP for an opposing force. I don't think /EM should be worried about a nerf, since its supposed to be a blitzkrieg killer. I personally will skip this FoTM and stick with my Ice Manip 
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A teensie cautionary note on that.
For the most part, Castle simply confirms what large sections of the PvP playerbase has been dogmatizing. Be careful about asking for too much, though.
Complete transparency of the datamining may simply drive more sections of the playerbase to FotM PvP building. It's one thing that we all know /Eng Blasters outperform all others; that differential is so widely accepted at this point, it's hardly surprising.
My fear is that complete transparency will simply narrow the field of "acceptable" PvP builds in the perception of the playerbase, by virtue of having Dev confirmation.
And, speaking only for myself, one of the most disappointing and outright boring elements of CoX PvP is going up against the exact same FotM sets over and over and over again. If all I wanted to PvP against were a very limited set of build options -- Eng/Eng stalkers, /Eng Blappers, the occasional pocket Emp -- I'd be playing a game with far more restricted build options -- like an FPS.
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You bring up (tangentially) an interesting point: to what degree are the min-maxing players creating the illusion that /eng is that much better. If I'm going to build a PvP blaster, I'm going to go /nrg. Period. No reason not to. I imagine a lot of forumgoers would do the same. Thus, you get the most informed, and probably the most skilled, players gravitating towards the highest-performing sets.
I'm wondering how much we're padding the numbers. Is the margin of difference between /nrg and /fire really so great? Or are we, those who know the numbers, inflating a marginal difference by showing preference for a slightly better secondary? When we get kills with our /nrg blasters, are we getting them because of the /nrg or just because we're the best players in the game? Would we be able to skew the numbers if all of us forum-goers built and played /fire blasters?
I'm not saying that /nrg isn't simply better in every way (because frankly I think it is), but we shouldn't ignore the fact that we're probably causing a bias in the results of their datamining.
~Gabriel
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I wonder who's ahead: doms or defenders.
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I'd guess perhaps defs, with their ability to use +Dam or -Res to boost their damage. Though as I said in a thread about something being better than Trick Arrow, being faster than a three legged dog isn't anything to get excited about.
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It's damn near impossible for my bubbler to do anything in PvP other than buffing teammates or hiding in PFF. With a build twinked for PvP, I can honestly say that Defensive Chick has racked up 2 or 3 kills and several dozen defeats. She's a good benefit to her teammates, but I've always wondered if the benefit of having her (basically, the def bubbles + force bolt) is outweighed by having such a fragile, low damage teammate.
But don't get me started about my dark defender, "KK, can you stand still for 10 seconds while I whip out my debuffs? I'll just debuff your base accuracy and damage, so you might not even feel it if you have any buffs going."
When the toggle drop adjustment comes into play (not really a nerf because it is a relic from when the game was quite different) blaster /em will lose a great deal of its performance. When I observe /em blasters in action they definately seem to rely heavily on stunning all opponents (even melee) in 2 hits. Bonesmasher +energy punch= many dropped toggles and a pretty solid chance to stun.
While /em's damage output will stay more or less the same, the fact that AT's with mez protection will usually be able to react and move instead of just standing there and taking the quick death beating should make people feel better about /em's. Rather than fumbling for a bf and a green just to get away, more melee AT's will be able to eat a green and actually fight back, which will be a marked change for many /em blappers.
Of course I still standby the advice of moving around whenever any toon comes at you with aim and/or buildup.
Good /em blappers won't need the toggle drops to kill though and their performance should remain impressive. However, with sooooo many /em blappers out there right now I find it hard to believe they are all good pvp'ers (especially after fighting many of them with my ice/elec and my ice/rad corr), but that is the nature of a FOTM: everybody and their dog has one.
I personally see no problems with the /em set that require any negative adjustments. Is it the best blaster secondary? Right now it is, partly because the stuns work very well with the current toggle drop system and partly because so many pvp'ing blasters are using it that it is bound to have success stories.
In its current form /elec can actually abuse the toggle drop system too: shocking grasp+havoc punch+charged brawl= more than likely held melee toon. But that combo is only available in Warburg and higher and you don't see many elec's (at least on freedum).
I personally try to avoid exploiting the current system (though even the most devout have occasional slip-ups 
) and as such I welcome the toggle drop changes because it should help to create a more entertaining battlefield.
Hopefully, the new TD system won't make /em feel so un-uber that the next FOTM becomes /elec. . I really enjoy being one of the rare /elec's out there fighting the good fight. Though I don't see it happening because the stuns still make it a squishy destroyer.
As always this is just my opinion, take it as you will
Frosticus
Dark works if you do the following:
*) Have a team
*) Use your Shadowfall often
*) Ignore Darkest Night. It's too hard to apply and to easy for them to get out of.
*) Use your fear cone constantly. Fearing Tanks, most Scrappers and Brutes people in bubbles, and just about anyone you can think of is incredibly powerful. With good communication to a team I have directly lead to the defeat of entire squads of foes.
*) Use Tar Patch to prevent foes from fleeing and speed their defeat. Dropping a Tar Patch under foes recently feared aids those squad defeats mentioned above.
*) Use Petrifying Gaze to surgically disable other buffers, such as Hurricane users.
So as others have said, I tend to aid my team in killing. I don't kill much by myself, though my Ice/Dark Corruptor can certainly get a few kills in with Ice's burst damage.
Certain team compositions can nullify the above tactics, but then if Dark could always reshape the battlefield on its own it would probably need looking at.
After a few runs of acting like the above I am clearly prioritized as a serious threat, and foes try hard to kill/disable me on sight. If my team can actually threaten our foes, though, I can usually come in on their coattails and wreak havok.
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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Couple things.
1) I was giving the AT mods, not considering build up/aim or external buffs. I did not specify a given power set. I think everyone who PvP's is aware of how dominant Energy Melee/Energy Manipulation can be.
2) "Damage as a secondary effect" If I don't Stun a person on my TF hit, they can typically escape. I could just be bad at energy melee, though (most of CoX PvP experience is Super Strength, Dark Melee, Claws, or Mind Control.)
3) Datamining -- I looked at Blaster/Scrapper a few minutes ago. In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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I am willing to bet that in teams Blasters are even more dominant. A fortitude buffed Blaster is meaner than anyone else, because you took the glass out of the glass cannon.
Does anyone have the numbers for teams?
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3) Datamining -- I looked at Blaster/Scrapper a few minutes ago. In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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First I think _Castle_ is super cool for responding, even in a thread where we were probably not being as respectful as we could. 
On the K-to-D thing, again, I think looking at K-to-D is pointless. If you think about it from a tactical standpoint, it always makes sense to target the most threatening character first. My VG is heavily PVP oriented. When we are in a PVP zone, if an infamous /EM Blapper bounces into the fight, we nearly always switch targets to them to dispatch them before they can 2 shot us. So if you blow up the actual numbers, that Scrapper might have 5 kills to 3 deaths, but that Blapper might have 20 kills to 18 deaths. The Blapper's ratio appears worse in such a case, but it's pretty clear he's better at melee damage than the poor Scrapper.
Since we are picking on the uber power sets, how about datamining Spines/ Scrappers versus all of the other kinds. I imagine Broadsword might be close but I would bet the numbers for Claws, MA, DM, and Katana are pretty far behind.
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3) Datamining -- I looked at Blaster/Scrapper a few minutes ago. In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.
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First I think _Castle_ is super cool for responding, even in a thread where we were probably not being as respectful as we could.
On the K-to-D thing, again, I think looking at K-to-D is pointless. If you think about it from a tactical standpoint, it always makes sense to target the most threatening character first. My VG is heavily PVP oriented. When we are in a PVP zone, if an infamous /EM Blapper bounces into the fight, we nearly always switch targets to them to dispatch them before they can 2 shot us. So if you blow up the actual numbers, that Scrapper might have 5 kills to 3 deaths, but that Blapper might have 20 kills to 18 deaths. The Blapper's ratio appears worse in such a case, but it's pretty clear he's better at melee damage than the poor Scrapper.
Since we are picking on the uber power sets, how about datamining Spines/ Scrappers versus all of the other kinds. I imagine Broadsword might be close but I would bet the numbers for Claws, MA, DM, and Katana are pretty far behind.
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Exactly. The lack of a penalty for death makes the K-D ratio a bad way to balance sets. I think a better judge would be the number of kill per hour.
Well, Blaster secondaries have long been sub par compared to the secondaries of other ATs
There's a whole lot of melee going on in those secondaries, where as what they need there is something to supplement themselves.
Devices works well, though not particularly fast.
Energy is good, but doesn't really need Barrage, Energy Punch or Total Focus
The others need to drop a couple of things here and there and take mostly support type stuff like Power Thrust, Thunderstrike, and the like.
Thrythlind's Deviant Art Page
"Notice at the end, there: Arcanaville did the math and KICKED IT INTO EXISTENCE." - Ironik on the power of Arcanaville's math