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CoX will be a better place with EM adjusted.
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That may be true, but /em currently is a good balancer for regen stalkers and scraps.
I'm not saying nerf one for the other though, believe me. I do think /em in some capacity may need some tweaking. We'll be able to tell a little better after the toggle drop changes. I would much rather see the other secondaries raised somehow to compensate for the disparity.
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Regen isn't particularly phased by toggle dropping, all droping Integration does is mean the stalker/scrapper needs a break free and loses a minescule portion of their healing ability, otherwise, all their powers are clicks or Autos.
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nerf regen then? 
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Castle replied that the chances of the sets being reworked the way the players were mentioning was not going to happen.
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Castle said that SOME of the things would not happen and he said that the complete reworking of the powers would not happen in addition to which he said that they are STILL going rework the secondary sets. That is not a maybe, it will happen because the other blaster secondary sets are underperforming compared to EM.
He also stated that there were ideas that could be implimented with ease.
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Potentially very good news then! The extra range + recharge ideas, and the mild tweaks to secondaries suggested could very well go through by I8 then, I'm thinking.
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
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2/3 isn't exactly miniscule. If they have and have slotted up Health it's more like 5/8. That's not exactly a small part of it.
If you can't kill a /regen who's detoggled, it's not his regen rate you're having problems with. It's his overall HP, any DR he might have, or your own low burst damage.
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that slow regeneration means next to nothing in PvP, only Instant Healing, Recon and DP are the true reason Regen Scrappers and stalkers live so long and are so tough to kill.
Okay, here's Castle's variables in all of this:
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Variables:
Solo Kills
Teamed Kills
Solo Deaths
Teamed Deaths
Number of AT in existance @ proper level range
Yes, there are certainly more sophisticated metrics we could use, but this works fairly well.
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He still didn't tell me the Calculations, as in how these Variables are ACTUALLY used.
...Nor did he answer my quesiton about: "What happens when you remove Storm Defs and Plant Doms from the equation?"...
For me... and this is just my gut instinct... these variables only tell Half the story...
What does "teamed kills" even mean? Is that "I got last hit" Kills, or "Stalker #22814 got 3 more kills for me while I was sittin in the hospital"??
"Number of AT in existance @ proper level range" in particular REALLY concerns me.
I could get the exact same stat right now(but in a smaller sampling) just by hopping around each PvP zone doing /whoalls... it doesn't even touch on Bounty/Rep per Hour.
EDIT, b/c he PM'd me back TWICE:
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Oh, and for all of that, it's also broken down by Primary, Secondary and Pool power selection.
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One word: DWAahh? 
/em for blasters is with out a doubt a very good set. Every power is potentially useful (even stun, though who needs it with so many other powers that stun lol).
I personally think /em is balanced by the fact that you have to run around with pink fists all the time, just like spines is balanced around having off-white spikes all over your body (why can't spines look like thorny assault?).
Seriously though /em is so popular for blasters because it is strong, but more importantly because people hear it is the bomb and clamor to it like flies on a dead body.
I can't comment on any blaster secondaries other than /em and /elec, but /elec is 95% as effective in pvp and just as powerful in pve imo (if combined with a primary that compliments it with a hold). If the devs want to make /elec=/em then drop lightning field (ya blasters really need a taunt aura lol) and put in charge up (charge up=power boost).
I see no reason to nerf the damage portion of any AT that has /em, but the multiple stuns could be looked at in some of the constantly used powers like bonesmasher (my squishy says it is more than 50% 
) and energy punch. TF should keep its mag3 stun, but maybe reduce its potential of landing a mag4 because it is almost a guaranteed mag 4 right now and one shot mezzing a boss shouldn't be in a blasters arsenal. This would also make the power "stun" more attractive instead of just a skippable power.
If the stuns on /em were adjusted across all AT's a bit, then I think non-/em's would be satisfied, while not really negatively impacting the performace of the /em user in pvp or pve. This in conjuction with some general improvements to the blaster secondaries that warrant it could create a more diverse blaster population, especially in pvp.
Just my feelings about an acceptable consession on the matter.
Frosticus
The problem with reducing the stun is that if the Blaster doesn't 1-shot Stun the Boss, the Boss likely 1-shot Stuns (or worse) the Blaster (there are exceptions, depends on set combos), which is unacceptable since a Stunned Blaster is usually a dead one shortly thereafter (except vs Malta, who like to make it a long, drawn-out torture session 
), and the Stun effect was specifically to allow the Blaster a chance to aviod that fate (IMO).
Also, if TF DOESN'T 1-shot stun the target, you're left hanging in a 3-sec anim, more than enough time for a Boss to unload some amped melee move which may 1-shot kill the Blaster.
Of course, if you want Blasters to dump the /EM set en masse, then by all means drop the Stuns. Those are what attracted many (if not most, I can't really say for sure) to the set in the first place since Blasters need anything/everything they can get to keep mobs from attacking them, since they cannot take the abuse.
Granted, many would still keep it for the frontloaded damage, but I suspect the number of users would drop precipitously if the Stuns were not reliable/strong enough to do the job.
The support powers, like Power Boost and Boost range, would still make the set attractive to some, but PvPers would be much less (IMO) inclined to take it without a means of stopping melee toons who have MUCH higher defenses (HP in some cases as well) from wiping them all over the map (yes, this is somewhat of an exaggeration, but you get the idea).
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What's sad is that _Castle_ can be so incredibly wrong when he is the only dev that regularly posts on balance issues. Perhaps they should datamine kills in the arena, especiall the arena on Test to see what is and isn't true.
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I agree. They seem to rely on internal PvP bouts for balance rather than datamining. That tends to emphasize certain users tactics. In addition remember they have free respecs and PLing for internal bouts. It will definately shape their view. The whole PvE vs PvP thing on the same build isn't even a datapoint for them.
-Teklord
"[In Siren's Call] stalkers are so far above any other AT in Kill Count vs Death Count that it isn't even funny." -- _Castle_
"I think everyone who PvPs is aware of how dominant Energy Melee/Energy Manipulation can be." -- _Castle_
"'OMG! He's nerfing EM!' -- Nope, at least not for I7." -- _Castle_
So... when?
We've all known about stalker imbalance for six months. We've known about the energy (and electric) secondary since perhaps a week after I-4 went live. That's June of 2005 and it's now April of 2006 with no change in sight. Blappers and stalkers are no longer "Flavor of the Month" but "Flavor of the Year."
While I appreciate recent changes to toggle-dropping, hurricane and whirlwind, entire ATs (defenders, tankers, masterminds and dominators) still don't stand a chance. I don't underestimate the difficulties of programming such a vast game, but I don't see why you're fiddling with To-Hit Debuffs and Mastermind Force Fields while neglecting ENORMOUS balance issues.
When?
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Think about it. Is the complaint that everyone is running around with the same powers, just because of variety's sake? NO! The problem is that blasters/stalkers are running around with an overpowered set, trivialising PvP.
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The problem is simply that some high burst damage sets can kill in one rotation of their good powers. High burst damage isn't a problem, as long as you can't kill in one burst. EM compares somewhat poorly to some other sets when it comes to damage over time. But in a PvP setting, this never comes into play, because of the hit and fade nature that can be employed.
If PvP fights took longer and were not 3-5 second affairs, serious hinderances to burst damage sets like 20 second recharges would come into play, and really reign the effect of their burst superiority in.
Unfortunately, the creation of the stalker AT guaranteed that the devs could never "slow down" PvP combat to create knock-down, drag-out fights even among those with low defenses. You can't cut damage in half universally and still have an assassin archetype.
Fair enough TiredTanker, but when I7 comes /em will probably have a hard time stunning melee toons anyway unless they are sonic/em's that take screech and stun. Which I think is fine because way too many /em blasters use the borked toggle drops to trump melee toons.
My experience with /elec's havoc punch and charged brawl tell me that bonesmasher and energy punch don't actually need to stun at all to be effective, but just to be clear I never said to drop the stuns from the set (just adjust them on powers that can be abused and frequently are such as bonesmasher)
Regarding the one shot boss mez of Total focus, I still think it is unnecessary. My /elec got along just fine fighting on invincible even before shocking grasp, which combined with freeze ray lets me lock a boss. I can certainly tell you that I don't lead with thunderstrike (which is our similar power to TF), during that 3.3second animation I am way too vulnerable. To maximize the buff period of build up and/or aim TS and TF are best used as finishers imo.
If an /em blaster is leading off with TF to mez the boss (such as powerboost+TF) and can survive that animation time then they could conceivably survive using the stun power prior to TF (especially if stun received a reworked animation of around 1second to compensate the adjustment). Additionally, said blaster is not very bright if they are fighting a mezzing boss and they don't use some kind of mez protection proactively such as a bf, clear mind, clarity etc. and is just asking for debt if they rely on mezzing the boss before they get mezzed (especially with a 3.3 second power necessary to do it).
I agree that many blasters are attracted to /em because of the stun potential. If stuns were the absolute attraction though, we would see more sonic/em's because they can stun like there is no tomorrow. Many are also attracted because everybody talks it up so much and has made it FOTM (or even FOTyear).
Imo powerboost is the set defining power of /em, but that is just what I think
Overall though I think STUNS are what people have a problem with when facing an /em and rightly so, they are really powerful. The whining won't stop until /em gets nerfed, some people start salivating when they think about how they would nerf /em to get back at some blasters who have owned them repeatedly.
I'm just trying to think of a constructive way to appease the masses without gimping a nice set. Devs prefer to nerf rather than buff.
Finally, if blasters started dropping /em en masse because of a percentage change to bonesmasher, energy punch and a slight mag reduction on TF then those same people will drop the set come I7 when they can't 1-2shot mez melee AT's because of the new tog drop system.
Frosticus
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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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As concerns both PvP and PvP balance, one of the underlying principles that I suspect guides that balance should be that there's no reason that any given powerset should be preferable to all others in the overwhelming majority of possible circumstances. Which is where we sit with Blaster secondaries right now.
I'm reticent to weigh in as to whether or not the resultant fix should mean a nerf to Energy or a buff to all others, but I will say that those possibilities aren't mutually exclusive.
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Not really, the synergy between controller primary sets and their secondary allows them to use the defender Primary powers as secondary powers to greater effect.
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I remain unconvinced this is globally true.
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Grave/Storm for instance. AoE immobilize + Snow Storm. Add Freezing Rain. The slow from the immobilize + the slow from the storm + the slow from freezing rain. Even if the target is not immobilized, they are at the slow cap because all three powers produce a slow effect. Ice/Storm is even better since all three of their powers would also give -recharge.
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Remember that a stormie can hit the Slow cap with Snowstorm alone, if slotted correctly. With fewer slots on the Defender, due to the relative Defender versus Controller debuff scale.
The AoE immobs available to Controllers, such as those in Gravity and Fire do represent synergies with the shared powersets -- that point, I defer -- but it's substantially mitigated by the increase to the repops of those AoE effects in I5.
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You can go down the line and see how controllers are MUCH more dangerous to the opposing team, yet are still pursued less than the defenders. The reason is that the defender has the least defense for himself and is an easier target which means you can get a kill count faster. Thats it.
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You'll note that the issue I take is with the claim that Defenders are without substantive deterrent. That's untrue. They may have less than Controllers, but that doesn't mitigate the fallaciousness of the prior claim.
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Yeah, I like Energy Manipulation as a Blaster set. I just played through my longish, alta-holic list of Blasters the other day, and I was shocked at how much of them were ranged-only (I've always been a concept player) and how many (3/4ths) had Energy Manipulation as a secondary.
Power Thrust (for the fun, "smackiness" factor and the boss-level mitigation + the decent frontloaded damage at lower levels) is just so awesome, and the early availablility of Buildup is quite nice.
If you like Blaps, Energy Manipulations has lots of good ones, and stuns in 'em to boot, and if you like Range (like I did when I made all those Blasters), Conserve Power, Power Boost, and especially Boost range make for some awesome non-situational buffs.
When I look at energy manipulation (as a Blaster secondary) it really rocks so hard because every power is useful (even Stun), and just about all of 'em are non-situational, and the secondary as a whole is very flexible and useable to any given player, imho.
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Arc brings up a good point -- even without the Blaps in Energy Manipulation, no small strength of the set is the superiority of its utility powers to many of the other Blaster secondaries.
Power Boost, Boost Range and Conserve Power are exceptionally useful, even in situations (like, say Force Bubbles and Hurricane a-go-go) that disallow heavy Blapping.
This isn't to say that the other powersets are without good utility -- Devices gets the one +Perception power, Electric gets some good status, Ice has Slow and Fire gets, uh, Hot Feet. It's more that those unique abilities in the other Blaster secondaries are situational at best, without the near-global efficacy of the Energy secondary utilities.
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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.
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How about Bounty/Reputation per hour instead? ...Then divide that by # of deaths.
My Scrapper for instance can walk into Sirens and join a team and walk out with +25 Rep in half an hour and have 1-3 deaths. My Dom might end up on a Stalker-heavy team meanwhile and get +30 rep, but die 40 times getting it.
...atleast that's been MY experience.
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Because Bounty/Rep are simply surrogates for Kills -- a near-linear relationship, by my offhand estimate.
It still doesn't address the rather excellent point that rate of killing is not revealed by a raw killcount.
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Yes, publishing the data would be a really bad idea (from a public relations standpoint alone, a complete nightmare). Four AT's screaming about the other eight being better...the other eight getting upset 'stop nerfcalling!'...the top four ripping each other in board wars...and everyone mad at the devs.
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Well, we do that plenty enough around here, no?
My point is more that Dev verification of some of our favorite AT/powerset-ist dogma simply creates more problems than it solves.
I've said for some time that the Devs don't need us to nerfcall, that's the point of datamining. And people are right to question whether or not the metrics they're looking at, are the correct ones, are the ones which reveal true imbalance. But it's frankly not in the Devs' (or the playerbase's) interest to widely publicize that data -- it only adds fuel to the fires of AT-versus-AT politic.
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Not really, the synergy between controller primary sets and their secondary allows them to use the defender Primary powers as secondary powers to greater effect.
[/ QUOTE ]
I remain unconvinced this is globally true.
[ QUOTE ]
Grave/Storm for instance. AoE immobilize + Snow Storm. Add Freezing Rain. The slow from the immobilize + the slow from the storm + the slow from freezing rain. Even if the target is not immobilized, they are at the slow cap because all three powers produce a slow effect. Ice/Storm is even better since all three of their powers would also give -recharge.
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Remember that a stormie can hit the Slow cap with Snowstorm alone, if slotted correctly. With fewer slots on the Defender, due to the relative Defender versus Controller debuff scale.
The AoE immobs available to Controllers, such as those in Gravity and Fire do represent synergies with the shared powersets -- that point, I defer -- but it's substantially mitigated by the increase to the repops of those AoE effects in I5.
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You can go down the line and see how controllers are MUCH more dangerous to the opposing team, yet are still pursued less than the defenders. The reason is that the defender has the least defense for himself and is an easier target which means you can get a kill count faster. Thats it.
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You'll note that the issue I take is with the claim that Defenders are without substantive deterrent. That's untrue. They may have less than Controllers, but that doesn't mitigate the fallaciousness of the prior claim.
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Point One: Controllers actually slow better than defenders because slow is considered a controll not a debuff as many thought it was. So in the above examples that I gave with a controller useing storm and his primary to create a synergy, remember that the controller is flat out better regardless of the synergy. The synergy is a nice fat bonus.
Point Two: I never said that defenders were without deterants, I simply said that they had less than a controller. Which is true. Due to the synergy between their secondary and primary, controllers are more dangerous in PvP than a defender. That is also true. That is before I consider X3 containment.
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And leaves out MMs, Stalkers and Brutes.
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Not Stalkers according to this _Castle_ post -> click here
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EDIT: Additionally, this change was mostly aimed at the Bloody Bay and Siren's Call levels where Stalkers are so far above any other AT in Kill Count vs Death Count that it isn't even funny. In higher level PvP zones, players have plenty of options of dealing with Stalkers, which *should* force Stalkers to Team more.
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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.
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How about Bounty/Reputation per hour instead? ...Then divide that by # of deaths.
My Scrapper for instance can walk into Sirens and join a team and walk out with +25 Rep in half an hour and have 1-3 deaths. My Dom might end up on a Stalker-heavy team meanwhile and get +30 rep, but die 40 times getting it.
...atleast that's been MY experience.
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Because Bounty/Rep are simply surrogates for Kills -- a near-linear relationship, by my offhand estimate.
It still doesn't address the rather excellent point that rate of killing is not revealed by a raw killcount.
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I think he was getting at bounty and rep being shared by a team and then comparing how many times the ATs died. That is different from kills which are not shared by teams.
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Castle replied that the chances of the sets being reworked the way the players were mentioning was not going to happen.
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Castle said that SOME of the things would not happen and he said that the complete reworking of the powers would not happen in addition to which he said that they are STILL going rework the secondary sets. That is not a maybe, it will happen because the other blaster secondary sets are underperforming compared to EM.
He also stated that there were ideas that could be implimented with ease.
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Cool... I'll believe it when I see it.
Currently roleplaying, badgehunting, and laughing at the PvPers of CoX. lol, PvP.
Truedusk - Human Rogue
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Yes, publishing the data would be a really bad idea (from a public relations standpoint alone, a complete nightmare). Four AT's screaming about the other eight being better...the other eight getting upset 'stop nerfcalling!'...the top four ripping each other in board wars...and everyone mad at the devs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, we do that plenty enough around here, no?
My point is more that Dev verification of some of our favorite AT/powerset-ist dogma simply creates more problems than it solves.
I've said for some time that the Devs don't need us to nerfcall, that's the point of datamining. And people are right to question whether or not the metrics they're looking at, are the correct ones, are the ones which reveal true imbalance. But it's frankly not in the Devs' (or the playerbase's) interest to widely publicize that data -- it only adds fuel to the fires of AT-versus-AT politic.
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Here I disagree and believe numbers should be posted. Because the AT's should be balanced enough even with numbers to cause a good debate.
For example what wins in a fight a lion or a tiger? Or a Silverback or a bear? king kong or godzilla?
See if AT's were actually balaced these debates would be great and whats even better is people would be in debate.
But the problem is what we have now.
What wins in a fight a silverback or a chimpanzee, a lion or a bobcat, a eagle or a vulture.
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I think he was getting at bounty and rep being shared by a team and then comparing how many times the ATs died. That is different from kills which are not shared by teams.
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Okay... maybe that too. But the difference between Rep and Kills is one of them has a timer on it and the other doesn't. Either way, it's impossible to gauge who's contributing to actual kills, and who's hiding in the hospital leeching b/c they don't have any mez/+PER protection of their own.
If it was up to me, I'd Calc these stats off of 2 very specific things:
# of Deaths per hour while 200ft or less from a Teammate
PvP Rep earned per hour.
Raw kill numbers are great and all, but this is a QoL issue too, remember that.
Of Course a Blaster or Scrapper or Stalker or whatever is more likely to biff it when they leave the safety of their team to chase down the runners or take another team on...that's soloing but with the "I'm still in a team flag" up. No no.. I'm more interested in who's really getting GANKED here... sitting directly adjacent to their teammates or following them in, and then getting whacked so fast their teammates can't do anything about it. ...that's the kind of datamining I could trust.
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CoX will be a better place with EM adjusted.
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It would also be better if all Controler and defender toggles required per hit chances rather then being Automatic like so much of Rad is.
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CoX will be a better place with EM adjusted.
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It would also be better if all Controler and defender toggles required per hit chances rather then being Automatic like so much of Rad is.
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All toggle debuffs are like that. Toggle debuffs are trivially easy to break though, since you can just move 300 ft and they drop.
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
[ QUOTE ]
Point One: Controllers actually slow better than defenders because slow is considered a controll not a debuff as many thought it was. So in the above examples that I gave with a controller useing storm and his primary to create a synergy, remember that the controller is flat out better regardless of the synergy. The synergy is a nice fat bonus.
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This is fair, I'm totally unaware of testing regarding Slows, so that's a point I'll readily defer. I suspect that no small source of the problem lies in the rather nebulous definition of the Defender role.
We've had plenty of discussion and argument about the nebulous definition of an Offender, for instance. If we consider a Defender's primary role to be support, particularly in PvP, thenthe available damage in the secondary seems mildly superfluous by comparison. Tangentially, I'm curious as to how well self-described "Offender" builds perform in PvP, both solo and teamed, in comparison to more team-oriented builds.
[ QUOTE ]
Point Two: I never said that defenders were without deterants, I simply said that they had less than a controller. Which is true. Due to the synergy between their secondary and primary, controllers are more dangerous in PvP than a defender. That is also true. That is before I consider X3 containment.
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If you look upthread, I'm pretty sure I voiced that position in response to Ilr. I don't argue that the Controller represents a greater threat, but to quote from upthread:
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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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It's that argument that Defenders are completely helpless in PvP that I don't find reasonable.
2/3 isn't exactly miniscule. If they have and have slotted up Health it's more like 5/8. That's not exactly a small part of it.
If you can't kill a /regen who's detoggled, it's not his regen rate you're having problems with. It's his overall HP, any DR he might have, or your own low burst damage.
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