Official Thread for Trick Arrow changes
By
Adamh_77,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 17:05 in Developers' Corner
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I'm really glad that it worked for you in pvp, at least somewhat. My experiences were the exact opposite. Got of glue arrow in a few fights and an oil slick. Was never able to get oil slick to light and then i was targted once the slick was down and pretty much insta killed due to 0 defense. CJ did nothing to prevent me from being hit and I really didn't expect that it would with its miniscule def bonus.
Our debuffs don't seem to do much to heros and on the villian side did little to help in fights vs the AV's.
The animations took way too long for me to even attempt to get anything fired off or debuffed in any sort of rapid succession. I'd get about 2 shots off and then get killed by passing blasters/scrappers/tankers etc.. Had an empathy try to save me once but that was pretty sad, they just died too. All the other heros were just as busy dealing with villians and their own problems or non problems for the scrappers/tankers 
All in all i was not impressed with the slow / squishy feel of TA/A. PvE the changes have helped a little bit at the mid levels
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I have to ask what you normally play? Defenders are always very squishy and are almost always a high-priority PvP target. If you aren't used to playing a squishy character (Defenders, Blasters, Controllers) it can be a pain.
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Used to play a controller and a scrapper, then went to a tank and a dark defender for a bit. Now i play a dominator, brute & mm. So i'm familiar with squishy characters. The problem is TA/A has no real good defense at all in the set. The debuffs for acc of foes is pretty pathetic compared to dark/rad/etc... My grav/rad controller was much less squishy even before this whole containment ED junk
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Yeah, Trick Arrow/Archery has about the defenses of a blaster, and needs to be played as such. YOu have the aggro-seizing ability of a fire/fire blaster (maybe better), so you must be careful. NEVER lead the way.
During the event, my experiences with Trick Arrow (on almost all the masterminds in RV) were that Glue Arrow was just too good. Having a set duration and not a set area of effect to leave it was a bit crazy, especially since it -always hit.-
Just my two cents, but I think it should be changed from autohit really. The rest of the powers were fine, I suppose lowering the animation times on them would be fine.
um, if they nerf Glue Arrow, they'd have to nerf Ice Slick (in three power sets), and several other autohit slows.
Glue Arrow really really needs to stay the way it is now. It finally gives Trick Arrow the potency to be atleast somewhat decent when compared to the other Defender sets.
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Just noticed Damage Proc Mini-FAQ wasn't working with new forums, it's been updated.
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During the event, my experiences with Trick Arrow (on almost all the masterminds in RV) were that Glue Arrow was just too good. Having a set duration and not a set area of effect to leave it was a bit crazy, especially since it -always hit.-
Just my two cents, but I think it should be changed from autohit really. The rest of the powers were fine, I suppose lowering the animation times on them would be fine.
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Just an FYI, but Glue Arrow does have a set area-of-effect on the ground. Escaping it won't release you from the Slow effect (that lingers), but it will allow you to jump and fly again.
If Stalkers can say the best defense against them is to never stop moving, then I'd say the best defense against Glue Arrow is to stay off the ground. 
I've come up with what I believe is a really excellent way to improve both Trick Arrow and more specifically Flash Arrow.
Rather than cross post, I thought I'd just link to it.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...mp;o=&vc=1
From the 5/31/06 Training Room patch notes:
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The Oil Slick Target should be easier to hit now.
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Well, I ran out and did some testing. Testing was done using Blazing Arrow with two +3 accuracy SOs (if I had thought about it beforehand, I would have removed them; I may get in a subsequent test tomorrow with base accuracy).
As far as the patch note goes, it is accurate. Out of 50 Oil Slicks, I only missed once (and hit it on the subsequent attempt). I still don't understand why there's a to-hit check on our own power, but it is much better than it is on live.
That said, there's the second part of the equation that has yet to be addressed. That being Oil Slicks that are hit and destroyed, but outright fail to ignite. Out of the 50 Oil Slicks (all of which were hit with Blazing Arrow and defeated), only 24 actually ignited. This isn't a typo or math error. The success rate of lighting my own Oil Slick was only 48%.
Is this a bug with Oil Slick? Is it just Blazing Arrow? Is this the intended success ratio? (if the answer to that last question is "yes" then please help me bury my TA Defender)
I'd be interested to see other players' results. I'd be even more interested to hear some developer feedback.
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From the 5/31/06 Training Room patch notes:
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The Oil Slick Target should be easier to hit now.
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Well, I ran out and did some testing. Testing was done using Blazing Arrow with two +3 accuracy SOs (if I had thought about it beforehand, I would have removed them; I may get in a subsequent test tomorrow with base accuracy).
As far as the patch note goes, it is accurate. Out of 50 Oil Slicks, I only missed once (and hit it on the subsequent attempt). I still don't understand why there's a to-hit check on our own power, but it is much better than it is on live.
That said, there's the second part of the equation that has yet to be addressed. That being Oil Slicks that are hit and destroyed, but outright fail to ignite. Out of the 50 Oil Slicks (all of which were hit with Blazing Arrow and defeated), only 24 actually ignited. This isn't a typo or math error. The success rate of lighting my own Oil Slick was only 48%.
Is this a bug with Oil Slick? Is it just Blazing Arrow? Is this the intended success ratio? (if the answer to that last question is "yes" then please help me bury my TA Defender)
I'd be interested to see other players' results. I'd be even more interested to hear some developer feedback.
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OK, something's definitely up.
I just logged off from test with Sgt. Scorpion, my level 27 TA/A defender. I ran a short test with oil slick, using blazing arrow slotted for 1 acc/3 damage/1 recharge/1 end reducer (all even level SO's). I activated the slick 20 times, and the results are appalling.
While the ability to hit more consistently is nice, the fact of the matter is, out of 20 tries, I missed 3 times, but the slick lit only once. No, that wasn't a typo. ONE TIME.
I admit that part of the cool factor is being able to use an arrow as a followup attack and light it. But I'm beginning to think the best way to fix this would be for it to just light by itself and be done with it.
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While the ability to hit more consistently is nice, the fact of the matter is, out of 20 tries, I missed 3 times, but the slick lit only once. No, that wasn't a typo. ONE TIME.
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It was definitely streaky. The first 15 in my testing lit, while the last 17 did not.
Tomorrow I'm going to try running the test with different attacks, to see if the results are similar with single-target attacks that don't have dual damage types, and with area effects of single damage types.
Whatever the bug is, it needs to be fixed before I7 sees the live servers. If I'm going to jump through hoops to get this aspect of my power to work, there's no reason it shouldn't work each and every time.
Say, can I jump in and just point out that if this power is supposed to light every time, the developers should just have it light every time.
I mean, wouldn't that save alot of development time? Does it require a programmer to change and is that the reason that this power is still unbalanced for secondary defenders sets and primary controller sets?
Haveing to use a power to light the oil slick is unbalanced. There are no two ways about it. Some sets have to give up damage in order to light the Oil Slick. Other sets, can light the Oil Slick while still damageing the enemy. Some Primary sets cannot light the Oil Slick while others can. THIS MECHANIC IS BROKEN ON IT'S FACE!
Oh, and if all of this falls on deaf ears, yes it would be nice if Oil Slick worked. Nothing like telling a blaster to hold back their attack until after you lay your Oil Slick down and then have nothing to show for it after the blaster destroys the Oil Slick. The rest of the team is wondering why you bothered to waste their time. People wonder why TA gets a bad name.
Ironically, before this latest patch hit test, my oil slick was lighting roughly 80% of the time. While it wasn't perfect, I was able to live with it.
Eh, forget the cool factor. This thing hasn't been working right for going on a year, back when I5 came down the pipe. Just let it self light (thereby being a benefit to certain sets that have no inherent way to light it anyway) and the problem that continues to plague this power would be fixed.
Talk about a change in circumstances.
I just finished another minitest with my archer in regards to oil slick. I didn't change anything in regards to slotting, and activated it in the same general area.
Out of 20 attempts, blazing arrow hit 20 times, igniting the slick 20 times. Again, no, this is not a typo. This time I had a 100% success rate in lighting the oil slick.
Clearly something isn't right and this test alludes to the streakiness of the power as a couple of you outlined above. This is just a wild guess and may not make any sense, but could the streakbreaker somehow be coming into play here?
In any case, it is nice when it does light. If only it did so with some more consistency. Hopefully a red name is taking a look at this.
You know....I would be happy if I could light it w/ another Arrow from Trick arrow.
Which is exactly why I was debating leveling up a TA/Electric defender, but I've run out of stamina for TA for the moment.
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Testing was done using Blazing Arrow with two +3 accuracy SOs (if I had thought about it beforehand, I would have removed them; I may get in a subsequent test tomorrow with base accuracy).
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Minor correction: I was using the version of my character with only one +3 accuracy SO.
Working on the no-accuracy test currently.
Now I'm perplexed.
I tested the Oil Slick again this morning, after removing the accuracy enhancement from Blazing Arrow.
Accuracy results: 47 out of 50 hit on the first attempt, the other three hit on the second attempt. That's right around the 95% cap, which I'm guessing is where it's set at.
Ignition results: 50 out of 50 Oil Slicks ignited. As far as I know, nothing changed server-side since yesterday when I tested. The things different in today's test from yesterday's test (on my end) were: No accuracy in Blazing Arrow (vs. 1 yesterday); today I had Speed Boost; and today I was grouped (with my wife's Ice/Kinetics controller, take a guess as to why!).
One minor factor is that, for these 50 Oil Slicks, there were no enemies on the slick. Yesterday, almost all of mine had enemies; however, even some of the ones that had no enemies yesterday failed to ignite. After these 50, I did 10 with enemies on them, and all 10 of them lit (though one did take two attempts to hit it). Admittedly, 10 is within the "streakiness" factor I encountered yesterday, so I'll likely run another set of 50 later today after the patch is done.
New test, which adds more questions.
This time, I brought a level 1 Fire/Fire Tanker to attempt to light the Oil Slick. I ran another set of 50 slicks, but divided the method of lighting evenly between Blazing Aura and Scorch. I did this to check the differences between using a single-target attack and an area effect attack. I also wanted to use attacks with only one damage type to see if the "failure to light" bug (it is a bug, right?) was caused by Blazing Arrow's dual-damage nature.
I would have done two sets of 50, one for each attack, but as each set takes me more than an hour (even with Hasten on autofire), this was a more practical approach for me.
First, let me say how surprised I was that the unsidekicked level 1 Tanker had no difficulty hitting the level 32 Oil Slick.
Here are the results:
Blazing Aura vs. Oil Slick
Ignite success: 88%. 22 out of 25 (two missed the first time, but hit and lit the second time).
Hit ratio: 92.59%. 2 initial misses, which both hit on the next attack, for a total of 25 hits and 2 misses out of 27 attacks.
Scorch vs. Oil Slick
Ignite success: 96%. 24 out of 25 (one missed the first time, but hit and lit the second time).
Hit ratio: 96.15%. 1 initial miss, which hit on the next attack, for a total of 25 hits and 1 misses out of 26 attacks.
Combined Blazing Aura and Scorch vs. Oil Slick
Ignite success: 92%. 46 out of 50 (three missed the first time, but hit and lit the second time).
Hit ratio: 94.34%. 3 initial misses, which all hit on the next attack, for a total of 50 hits and 3 misses out of 53 attacks.
So it seems that the hit percentage is set at around 95%, regardless of attacks, slotting, level difference, etc. Which isn't perfect, but it's probably the best that can be done within the boundaries of the current system. All seven of the misses (across all three of my tests) were followed up with a hit on the next attempt, which is a darn sight better than the performance on live.
I still advocate having Oil Slick light automatically. Yes, the concept of using a second arrow is cute, but it's cumbersome and impractical under most circumstances, and downright unuseful if the TA Defender has chosen the "wrong" secondary.
I am disturbed by the failure to ignite, though. While I did get inconsistent results in the tests I've run so far, the fact is that Oil Slick can and does fail to light up. Since this has happened with Blazing Arrow, Blazing Aura, and Scorch, I think it's clear that it's a problem with Oil Slick itself, and not the method of delivery as some of us suspected (dual damage type, single target vs. area effect, etc.). Hopefully this knowledge helps the dev team track down this bug and squash it. Once again, this is a bug, right?
If they the ignition rate higher than a 80% then the dmg needs to be nerfed.
Same if you make it auto-light.
It's just too powerful in it's current form to hold that sort of dmg and have an almost perfect chance of lighting.
The imbalance between lighting and secondaries NEEDS to be fixed.
However, adding up all attempts and success rates I got the following:
190 total attempts over the last string of posts. 142 times the slick lit.
Thats about 75% ingition rate.
The problem here? As with all random numbers we hit streaks. It's not reliable.
Making it auto-light to me actually nerfs the power in a way. No longer can I place it without getting full aggro on many teams.
NO instead what I would like is oil slick with a 100% ignition rate. Take the dmg down to 80% of the current amount. This way I can use it for dmg or control as i see fit. There ARE times ignition is bad juju for you.
Again FIX the lighting disparity between sets, for crying out loud. Trick Arrow lights it extremely clumsily compare to rad and elec, and several defenders cannot light at all.
PS. If you take it down to 80% dmg and give it 100% chance to ignite it comes out to around it's current effectiveness or a bit more, only it's reliable. I'd rather have reliable than thay extra 1/5 dmg.
Soul, your post brings up an interesting question.
What's the success rate for lighting the slick on the controller side? Is it the same? More? Less?
It probably should be less given the added control they have from their primaries. If it's the same, I can live with it. And I'm not trying to open up another can of worms here, but if they can get it to light 100% of the time, then it's only fair it be the same on the defender side as well.
Incidentally, my next round of testing will be via missions to get a better idea of exactly how all this will play out. I'll be recopying my toon over so as to respec again and change some slots around, but blazing will still be 6 slotted. The only difference is that all my archer's enhancements will be +3's. Anyway, I'll follow up later on with a post as to the results.
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If they the ignition rate higher than a 80% then the dmg needs to be nerfed.
Same if you make it auto-light.
It's just too powerful in it's current form to hold that sort of dmg and have an almost perfect chance of lighting.
The imbalance between lighting and secondaries NEEDS to be fixed.
However, adding up all attempts and success rates I got the following:
190 total attempts over the last string of posts. 142 times the slick lit.
Thats about 75% ingition rate.
The problem here? As with all random numbers we hit streaks. It's not reliable.
Making it auto-light to me actually nerfs the power in a way. No longer can I place it without getting full aggro on many teams.
NO instead what I would like is oil slick with a 100% ignition rate. Take the dmg down to 80% of the current amount. This way I can use it for dmg or control as i see fit. There ARE times ignition is bad juju for you.
Again FIX the lighting disparity between sets, for crying out loud. Trick Arrow lights it extremely clumsily compare to rad and elec, and several defenders cannot light at all.
PS. If you take it down to 80% dmg and give it 100% chance to ignite it comes out to around it's current effectiveness or a bit more, only it's reliable. I'd rather have reliable than thay extra 1/5 dmg.
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No, actually the damage should not be lowered. One of the reasons I am willing to accept a power ability to prevent damage to a team is because of the damage output of the Trick Arrow Primary. The two were always balanced against each other as far as I was concerned. TA in my opinion is almost balanced. It needs -regen somewhere other than EMP arrow but other than that, the set is pretty well balanced now with the new recharge times. Acid Arrow could use a larger AoE as well but I would be happy if it was made single target and given -regen.
I know what many others want is for this set to get a better -acc debuff in the form of Flash Arrow. Frankly, the set wasn't balanced around TA being a damage preventer. The whole purpose of the set was to be offensive rather than defensive and a self-lighting Oil Slick with the same current damage would go a LONG way to achieving that goal and still keeping the set in balance with other defender sets. It isn't going to mitigate the damage of Dark, or Rad. It isn't going to offer the protection of Bubbles or Storm even. I expect it to enhance the damage output of a team better than any of those sets however. That was the problem with TA before recent changes. It simply didn't boost offense as much as it's defense was lacking compared to other sets. Now the defense and offense were given a boost in I7, it comes close to being balanced.
Oil Slick was always meant to light, EVERY TIME. The developers balanced the set around this and _Castle_ even came out and said that it not lighting every time was a bug. If it doesn't light every time, then the set is still not balanced. If TA were to become more defensive than it is, then you may as well turn it into a clone of the other sets.
Just my opinion.
Oh, and if I have used Oil Slick I already have all the agro I am going to get regardless of whether I light it or not. Usually because I am useing every other Arrow and AoE power I have to maximize the effect of the slick while I have it out. Even then, the agro generated by Oil Slick is not noticeable. Hell, I can get as much agro from useing flash arrow before a fight. Glue Arrow nets me a fair share of agro as well even if I don't use Oil Slick. Which makes me wonder why anyone is worrying about the agro of Oil Slick when everything else in TA draws plenty of agro anyway? Bloody hell, I alpha-strike with my TA because I get tired of teams screwing up my Oil Slicks by spreading out the mobs.
Just a couple reasons off the top of my head as to why I think Flash needs a stronger acc debuff:
1) It's really no more effective than Smoke Grenade, with a few cosmetic additions to it. It just doesn't seem balanced that the devs took a power from a blaster secondary, made slight alterations, and then stuck it in a defender primary. It really doesn't play to the strength of the AT, which, besides buffing, is to debuff.
2) The power in it's current incarnation lacks focus. It's quite possible to pick up unintended aggro despite the pseudo-stealth aspect of it, and the accuracy debuff is nominal. Just what, then, do you use it for? What are its strengths?
3) When playing TA, you have to choose between entangling and flash as openers, neither of which are really great powers. We're already well familiar with flash's problems, and despite the fact that entangling is now more valuable due to glue's ability to ground fliers, on it's own it's still lackluster. Significantly upping flash's acc debuff percentage would in fact be a boon to low level TA defenders, since they would have an effective way to mitigate incoming damage. As they start off, they would actually have something that would be considered useful. It would also underscore the same mantra that many of us have been repeating for quite a while now: a set with no heal and no direct buffs to speak of towards fellow teammates should not only debuff, but do it quite well.
Boosting flash's acc debuff percentage, along with giving the set another source of -regen besides EMP would, I think, make it overall much more effective. In fact, I would say both are necessary in order for it to take another major step forward. The changes currently on test are welcome ones, but I still don't think we're quite there yet.
I hear you Zen but if we get it lighting 100% with it's current abilities it NEEDS to be nerfed.
I love the set, I want the set to be even with other primaries, but I don't think that means I have the right to overpower any parts of it.
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Frankly, the set wasn't balanced around TA being a damage preventer.
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Considering the amount of control and debuff TA does have I have a hard time believing this. Even the vaunted Oil slick arrow is capable of modest control.
Our offensive powers are oil slick, acid arrow, and disruption arrow.
Considering oil slick is also controllery thats 6 1/2 power meant to reduce dmg.
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Oil Slick was always meant to light, EVERY TIME. The developers balanced the set around this and _Castle_ even came out and said that it not lighting every time was a bug. If it doesn't light every time, then the set is still not balanced. If TA were to become more defensive than it is, then you may as well turn it into a clone of the other sets.
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Could you gimme a linkie of castle saying it should light 100% of the time? Even in the power description it says MAY burst into flames.
No it would not be a clone of the others. The set does not need to depend on oil slick. The problem has always been the rest of the set couldn't pull wiegjt. Now it is.
No other set has a pbaoe -dmg/sleep, or a persistant slow like glue arrow, and stuff that has been done across sets has been implemented differently to give it's own flavor.
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Oh, and if I have used Oil Slick I already have all the agro I am going to get regardless of whether I light it or not.
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There is a difference between debuff aggro and debuff aggro + omg dmg aggro. Many times my slick has sat there for awhile and then after it gets lit THEN i pick up a truckload of aggro.
One of Castle's recent posts.
In it he clearly refers to "not lighting every time" as a bug.
That is a recent post that I just did a quick search for and if I go through my private messages I will probably find more refrences to it being a bug. I'll search if you want, but take my word for it, the power was meant to light everytime you hit it with an energy or fire attack.
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I hear you Zen but if we get it lighting 100% with it's current abilities it NEEDS to be nerfed.
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I don't understand the reasoning here.
Why should we have to take a performance hit as a price for getting a bug fixed?
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I'm really glad that it worked for you in pvp, at least somewhat. My experiences were the exact opposite. Got of glue arrow in a few fights and an oil slick. Was never able to get oil slick to light and then i was targted once the slick was down and pretty much insta killed due to 0 defense. CJ did nothing to prevent me from being hit and I really didn't expect that it would with its miniscule def bonus.
Our debuffs don't seem to do much to heros and on the villian side did little to help in fights vs the AV's.
The animations took way too long for me to even attempt to get anything fired off or debuffed in any sort of rapid succession. I'd get about 2 shots off and then get killed by passing blasters/scrappers/tankers etc.. Had an empathy try to save me once but that was pretty sad, they just died too. All the other heros were just as busy dealing with villians and their own problems or non problems for the scrappers/tankers
All in all i was not impressed with the slow / squishy feel of TA/A. PvE the changes have helped a little bit at the mid levels
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I have to ask what you normally play? Defenders are always very squishy and are almost always a high-priority PvP target. If you aren't used to playing a squishy character (Defenders, Blasters, Controllers) it can be a pain.
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Used to play a controller and a scrapper, then went to a tank and a dark defender for a bit. Now i play a dominator, brute & mm. So i'm familiar with squishy characters. The problem is TA/A has no real good defense at all in the set. The debuffs for acc of foes is pretty pathetic compared to dark/rad/etc... My grav/rad controller was much less squishy even before this whole containment ED junk
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