This doesn't help specifically with /FF, but any chance that Bodyguard will allow MMs to chain-summon pets in the face of damage (but not mezzing)? Is summoning Henchmen Interruptible?
To wit: You are slowly trundling around SC with a full Bodyguard and suddenly an AS hits you from nowhere. Thanks to Bodyguard, your Tier 1 henchmen drop and you survive. Recast Tier 1 henchmen.
You get Placated, henchmen begin to attack the Stalker, but the Stalker sticks around for a second AS. The henchmen drop again, but you survive and recast them while re-placated.
Stalker gets the idea and runs away...
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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This doesn't help specifically with /FF, but any chance that Bodyguard will allow MMs to chain-summon pets in the face of damage (but not mezzing)? Is summoning Henchmen Interruptible?
To wit: You are slowly trundling around SC with a full Bodyguard and suddenly an AS hits you from nowhere. Thanks to Bodyguard, your Tier 1 henchmen drop and you survive. Recast Tier 1 henchmen.
You get Placated, henchmen begin to attack the Stalker, but the Stalker sticks around for a second AS. The henchmen drop again, but you survive and recast them while re-placated.
Stalker gets the idea and runs away...
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Stalkers can't AS us in SC since its a faction PvP zone and we're both on the same side...however, lets apply your description to Blappers instead, since they dish out even more damage than stalkers do.
MM turtling around in SC, blapper jumps out of nowhere and pours disgusting amounts of damage into the MM. Lets assume ONLY the level 1 minions die, the level 2 and 3 minions begin fighting back, meanwhile the MM is either sleeping or disoriented (blapper attack, don't forget). Lets further assume the MM has a breakfree and uses it. Now the MM needs to either re-start toggles or replace pets. Assuming the toggles are still resetting for another couple of seconds, he remakes the pets. All this time, what is the blapper doing? Not standing around, I'm sure, he's still attacking. MM is probably dead by now. Assuming he's not, however, because your example has him getting out his second group of tier 1 minions, the blapper comes back and cranks out his alpha volley again. Down go the tier 1 minions again, and if the MM wasn't dead before, he most probably is now. Using your example, I guess we have to assume the MM is eating greens to stay alive....so now he doesn't have any of his tier 1 minions....the answer to your question is NO, he can't make more tier 1 minions, because the power has a 90 second reset.
However, in my experience, a suprise attack from a blapper such as described would kill the MM in the first couple of seconds. Remember, the minions may be sharing damage, but there is still NOTHING to help with status effects, and blapper attacks are (currently anyway) shutting down toggles and sleeping or stunning the target instantly. It stands to be seen how much the toggle dropping is going to be reduced in I7, and personally I'm hopeful that both stalkers and blappers both have theirs greatly reduced (while praying that the detoggling of force bolt remains relatively unchanged of course LoL....and I even have a blapper and a stalker).
Suriyama
40 bots and bubbles
Justice
Any example which presupposes a one-on-one fight is fundamentally flawed. COX balance in PvP is not based on 1-v-1 encounters; it's basted on team-versus-team encounters.
Sure, that blapper might jump out and whack the MM hard - and unless the WHOLE hero team does likewise, the MM probably doesn't go down. So s/he can still support their team-mates (buffs, debuffs, resummoning tier 1 and maybe tier 2's, heals, running leadership toggles, etc, etc).
Team-mates, by the by, who're going to be tryign to drop that BLAPPER (and said blappers allies).
yeah yeah we all know that's the excuse the devs say all the time, you dont need to repeat it again
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Any example which presupposes a one-on-one fight is fundamentally flawed. COX balance in PvP is not based on 1-v-1 encounters; it's basted on team-versus-team encounters.
Sure, that blapper might jump out and whack the MM hard - and unless the WHOLE hero team does likewise, the MM probably doesn't go down. So s/he can still support their team-mates (buffs, debuffs, resummoning tier 1 and maybe tier 2's, heals, running leadership toggles, etc, etc).
Team-mates, by the by, who're going to be tryign to drop that BLAPPER (and said blappers allies).
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Wow... I must be on a lot of ignore lists because I posted pretty much the same thing just a few posts up and it seems to me either no one read it or couldn't read it as I've been set to ignore or something. I don't see what I could have ever said to deserve being set to ignore, but whatever. Not my loss. It does make it hard to share useful information though if no one is reading it.
It hasn't been just this instance either as many of my comments in almost all the forum sections I've been in have been ghosting through in a similar manner. It's really quite strange.
It does make it hard to share useful information though if no one is reading it.
Not reading it, or choosing to ignore it because they dislike it? Considering human nature and particularly the evidence provided by these forums I'd say the latter is the most likely culprit.
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It does make it hard to share useful information though if no one is reading it.
Not reading it, or choosing to ignore it because they dislike it? Considering human nature and particularly the evidence provided by these forums I'd say the latter is the most likely culprit.
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QFT
I attempted to argue reason (admittedly with a little bit of sarcasm, from time to time) a couple years back. see the post count. see how far my patience held out - about as long as it would were a flea biting my ankle.
I am really excited about bodyguard. however, my first inclination is that it will be way too powerful. I already see certain mm sets or set combinations absolutely terrorizing (no pun intended) purples and even AV's in pve. what held them back before was that they'd get one-shotted for drawing agro with a heal. I've heard the arguments that they don't want to set their pets to defensive, yadda, yadda. I've already set up my macro to attack and still be set up to utilize bodyguard. it's painfully easy.
Will this also affect positive things. Buffs and heals?
Let's say AoE heal... I only get healed for 60% of the health, and my three minions get healed for 20%+100%? If all of them are in the AoE?
Also, do they have to be in follow mode.... or can they be defensive + in range of mm
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yeah yeah we all know that's the excuse the devs say all the time, you dont need to repeat it again
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It's not an excuse, it's the design paradigm - IOW, the very GOAL the developers are aiming for.
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Also, do they have to be in follow mode.... or can they be defensive + in range of mm
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They have to be in Follow mode, in supremacy range, and be in Defensive stance. All three are required. 
And there's no reason to suspect Bodyguard is intended to affect positive changes to HP totals - while that may actually happen, I'm pretty darned sure the developers would classify that as a bug, and move to fix it ASAP.
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This doesn't help specifically with /FF, but any chance that Bodyguard will allow MMs to chain-summon pets in the face of damage (but not mezzing)? Is summoning Henchmen Interruptible?
To wit: You are slowly trundling around SC with a full Bodyguard and suddenly an AS hits you from nowhere. Thanks to Bodyguard, your Tier 1 henchmen drop and you survive. Recast Tier 1 henchmen.
You get Placated, henchmen begin to attack the Stalker, but the Stalker sticks around for a second AS. The henchmen drop again, but you survive and recast them while re-placated.
Stalker gets the idea and runs away...
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OK except this isn't likely.... with all buffs up and running + the fact that you have all six minions out.
Let's see, that's six pets...
six + two for you = 8 parts...
100 / 8 = 12.5 %
If 12.5% of AS damage can drop the tier one pets, plus the fact that they have +RES to lethal, I'll be shocked. Not only that, they could have more RES and DEF depending on the secondary.
Not only that, placate is single target, which means only the MM can't affect the stalker....
So even if tier 1 pets die. 3 pets will still be attacking the stalker, pop a couple of +acc and +def into the tier 3 pet and he won't be able to do another AS.
well the pets def and res aren't being factored into their share (which is stupid)
but i agree 12% of an AS would be like 120 dmg, which is only about 1/3 or 1/4 of the tier 1 pet's hp in warburg
Sorry, right, should have said Warburg, not Siren's Call.
I used a Stalker as an example because whetther or not it is covered in PvP design, the 'AS from nowhere' is a common PvP concern.
Would it really take 4 AS in a row on the MM to drop a Tier 1 Pet? Wow...
As a default example for future reference, we should probably use a pair of Bots/FF MMs versus a pair of Ice/Electric Blappers.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Overall I think Bodyguard will help with MM survivability in PvP. That said, I'd still like to know what they are going to do about the time it takes a middle to high lvl MM to buff all the pets. The 5-10 minutes it takes to buff up all the pets is one of the main discouraging factors of why there are not more MM's in PvP. I think people can live with the deaths if they could return to action at full strength the way all of the other AT's can.
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Overall I think Bodyguard will help with MM survivability in PvP. That said, I'd still like to know what they are going to do about the time it takes a middle to high lvl MM to buff all the pets. The 5-10 minutes it takes to buff up all the pets is one of the main discouraging factors of why there are not more MM's in PvP. I think people can live with the deaths if they could return to action at full strength the way all of the other AT's can.
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The buff time is definately a major issue that MMs have with their AT. No other AT has to waste 5-10 minutes (just over 5 in my case because I slotted 3 recharges into my second tier buff) before they can get back into the game. Many groups, especially PvP groups, don't want to take on a MM because they know the MM will die first, and then be unable to rejoin and contribute for an inordinately long amount of time.
Another major issue is the lack of travel powers for pets. Pets should share the MMs travel power. I don't think MMs would mind if the pets couldn't attack while traveling, and had to stick very closely to the MM, as long as they could move WITH us. Let them all huddle in a tight circle when we activate our superleap, superspeed, flight, or teleport, and go with us. Even if they won't attack until the movement power is turned off, it would still be an improvement over what we currently have.
Suriyama
40 bots and bubbles
Justice
does group fly/team TP work with them?
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yeah yeah we all know that's the excuse the devs say all the time, you dont need to repeat it again
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It's not an excuse, it's the design paradigm - IOW, the very GOAL the developers are aiming for.
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Thats the stated goal, and its nice to say, but the way the two different sides are being designed is not leading to the stated goal.
1-1 heroes currently (I say currently because it might change someday) excell in every single area of the game over villains. The best healers are heroes, best damage dealers are heroes, the best damage takers are heroes, the best controllers are heroes, the best buffers/debuffers are heroes.
If heroes excell over villains in every single category of the game, then how can villains SUDDENLY be balanced with heroes in a group environment, if all player skill levels are equal? They can't.
If the members of a villain team are individually less capable of what their purpose is than the members of a hero team, that villain team is NOT going to be balanced against the heroes.
*****Disclaimer**********The following is personal opinion*********
The only thing keeping the heroes in check currently is the fact that villains (for the most part) are better and more skilled players than their hero counterparts. They have to be, because they are playing at a disadvantage to start with. I've played on both hero and villain sides, and playing a hero is stupidly easy.
Now I know that most of the people who play villains also play heroes. What I'm talking about, however, is the pretty clear split between those who MAINLY play heroes and those who MAINLY play villains.
None of this really has anything to do with bodyguard, but it is in responce to your "devs say things don't need to be balanced 1-1 because balance is designed to be group-group."
Currently, whether 1-1 or group-group the game lacks balance. Obviously players are dealing with the fact, because we're still playing both PvP and PvE.
Please, PLEASE, don't use the "you don't need to be balanced 1-1" argument. That doesn't hold true when certain ATs aren't even balanced against other builds within their same AT.
Suriyama
40 bots and bubbles
Justice
Yay another PvP change invading the game. Isn't Cryptic ready to throw out PvP yet? Scrappers win. The game has been a good PvE game but all of the disruption and changes due to some madman's desire to include PvP is WRONG.
Stop this PvP disease today!
Masterminds do NOT need any changes unless they are nerfs. They already stomp through missions on the highest rep levels. So are we adding additional rep levels so they can *really* kick some A?
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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Yay another PvP change invading the game. Isn't Cryptic ready to throw out PvP yet? Scrappers win. The game has been a good PvE game but all of the disruption and changes due to some madman's desire to include PvP is WRONG.
Stop this PvP disease today!
Masterminds do NOT need any changes unless they are nerfs. They already stomp through missions on the highest rep levels. So are we adding additional rep levels so they can *really* kick some A?
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Great, another troll who thinks MMs should be nerfed because we can do missions on max difficulty.....so can brutes, so can scrappers, so can stalkers, SO CAN ANY AT ONCE THEY HAVE SOs SLOTTED. Whats more, the other ATs don't have 5 minutes of setup time, or more!
I double dare you to try soloing a /Thermal corrupter who's primary isn't Ice Blast. Not everyone can solo at the highest difficulty levels, even with SO's.
One of the things that MM's do well is fight incredibly difficult spawns that would be difficult to impossible for anyone else. It's a perk of the AT, and I don't think MM's should be nerfed for it. Higher level encounters should just be designed with MM tactics in mind, and it seems like right now that they aren't.
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yeah yeah we all know that's the excuse the devs say all the time, you dont need to repeat it again
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It's not an excuse, it's the design paradigm - IOW, the very GOAL the developers are aiming for.
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Thats the stated goal, and its nice to say, but the way the two different sides are being designed is not leading to the stated goal.
1-1 heroes currently (I say currently because it might change someday) excell in every single area of the game over villains. The best healers are heroes, best damage dealers are heroes, the best damage takers are heroes, the best controllers are heroes, the best buffers/debuffers are heroes.
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The best Stealthers are villains (Stalkers), the best Pet-summoners are villains (Mastermind), the highest-damage-output characters are villains (Brutes in the full swing of Fury), and the best jack-of-all-trades characters are villains (Corruptors and dominators).
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If heroes excell over villains in every single category of the game, then how can villains SUDDENLY be balanced with heroes in a group environment, if all player skill levels are equal? They can't.
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One word: SYNERGY. To elaborate: the whole is grater than the sum of it's parts.
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If the members of a villain team are individually less capable of what their purpose is than the members of a hero team, that villain team is NOT going to be balanced against the heroes.
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No one villain is really intended to be "the" person for X, Y, or Z purpose within a team, however. A Hero team with a single member of each archetype, who loses the defender? They now have almost ZERO serious buff/debuff capability. A Villain team that loses ANY particular member, however? Corruptor goes down? The Dominator and, perhaps, Mastermind are still able to send out ranged damage. The Mastermind can keep up with the buffing/debuffing, and perhaps healing.
Villain teams don't have linchpins; they don't have single, clearly-defined roles on their teams. Instead, they blur the lines between archetypes, and between those roles.
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does group fly/team TP work with them?
[/ QUOTE ]Yes it does. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it does work.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
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Overall I think Bodyguard will help with MM survivability in PvP. That said, I'd still like to know what they are going to do about the time it takes a middle to high lvl MM to buff all the pets. The 5-10 minutes it takes to buff up all the pets is one of the main discouraging factors of why there are not more MM's in PvP. I think people can live with the deaths if they could return to action at full strength the way all of the other AT's can.
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The buff time is definately a major issue that MMs have with their AT. No other AT has to waste 5-10 minutes (just over 5 in my case because I slotted 3 recharges into my second tier buff) before they can get back into the game. Many groups, especially PvP groups, don't want to take on a MM because they know the MM will die first, and then be unable to rejoin and contribute for an inordinately long amount of time.
[/ QUOTE ]Well, according to the binder guide, every final upgrade has a base recharge of 60 seconds. So assuming you're trying for max speed with 3 SO recharges it should take you about 2.5 minutes to fully equip.
Not that any of this belongs in a thread about bodyguard. I just had the urge to shoot down some uninformed hyperbole.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
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Ok, Bodyguard has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this. PvP is what is making those two /Forcefeild powers irrelevant. That is the way it is now, before Bodyguard is implemented, and that is the way it will be after Bodyguard is implemented. Nothing really changes does it?
So what does this have to do with Bodyguard at all? And why is is such a detriment to /Forcefeild? Are you even happy with /Forcefeild as it is now without Bodyguard? Because that seems to be the real issue your trying to take.
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BodyGuard adds to the present problem, but is not itself the core of the issue.
You are right as it is now Pets are ignored in PvP and the FF secondary has little to do except dispersion bubble.
This is a big part of the core issue. FF'ers have it worse than other MMs cause there is very little in the secondary be able to aid the MM in a fight.
BodyGuard compounds this (slightly) now that the MM is sharing damage with the pets, the secondary still doesnt have a way to aid the fight. THe MM takes damage the pets take damage, the MM will survive a little longer with the BG function, but still cant effectively use the secondary to repair damage (self or pets).
BodyGuard is to keep MM's alive longer this it will suceed at.
The core issue is that in PvP everyone targets the MM and ignores the pets.
However to actually see BG in play will make a world of difference. to see how it improves the survivabilty of the MM to make a counter offensive or will the MM still get ganked but last 2.2 seconds longer.
Until this is on test we are only argueing theory not actual application, and until we have actual results from testing the devs are not going to make any allowances or alterations.
HaloInc
Triumph:
Heroes: Lady Halifax, Miss Kia, WhiteLotus, Agent Immolate, Lady Empathy, Sylence Fyredancer, Maiden of Fire
Villains: Innocent-Ella, Aegis-Sprite, Midnight Dragonfly