It figures, I take a little break away from the boards & game to play some COD 4 and come back to this joke of a thread. How come I never see a wish list about Blaster 30% unresisted damage or defender unresisted debuffs- maybe because all your groups rely on them, or how about any Rad/Slow wish lists? Never see any slow suppression suggestions or call for rad nerfing, hmmm take a look at what has entered Terp's tournament so far, wonder whats entered?
Next question, what percentage of overall pvp occurs on test between two sg groups? Doubt its fairly high, yet changes should be made to a power for problem which primarily applies to just test pvp. Sorry I dont hear too many cries of people being perma caged in zones or in arena matches on live, I dont know too many sonic players who IO out their sonics with LOTG and whatever else they can get their hands on, in order to keep someone perma caged, (Maybe Ajax and Omega might, but if they dont, I can't think of others who would bother, if they did they are the extreme not the norm).
Next, caging has already been nerfed, you can call it a bug being fixed. I would be hesistant to buy that reasoning, When triple containment was taken away from trollers, the Dev
s said they never intended for trollers to have it. Yet thats BS as triple containment was given when the multiple pet nerf occured. So its been reduced, either by bug or nerf, if anything should be addressed is, why don't they take intangiblity enhancements? Why didn't mesmerize take recharge enhancements, their was no reason for it not too and now mesmerize finally does, so why isn't an intangible power able to be slotted up .
If a 15 second cage takes you out of the game as a blaster, I got some bad news for you, your just not that good. If you watched organized pvp for some time going over a year from now. You probably witnessed players like Sing, Blazing Blue, Aura, and others lead their team in kills and to Victory while being perma caged by a 30 second cage. Players like those would still find a way to dominate. Don't believe me, ask some of the others who witnessed it like Craggs,Myk, Ajax, Hoj, Inc- a.k.a Krusty the Clown.
Im a problem solver though. So heres the solution the Intergalactic nerd herd has shown it has no problems banning powersets. So get a few of the INH leaders, I recommend Alarys, maybe dust Psypunk off the shelf for this, and Putz you can all collaborate on a post banning caging in the Ladder. You can call on the rest of the Intergalactic virgins to a summit *tinfoil hats must be worn in show of solidarity* to officially ban sonics. This would be great for several reasons. One it would allow you all to start whining and complaining about something else. Two it would save me the time of posting on this drivel of a topic.
Finally the Devs wouldn't have to waste time & money from my monthly subscription fee trying to nerf a power through cage suppression or diminishing returns- 
which impacts the very few. They can use that time trying to come out with powersets which dont suck in pvp like Dual Blades or the joke which Will power looks like its becoming.
Everyone goes home happy.
Happy Thanksgiving to all from Felonious the Problem Solver.
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Like I said, the only argument I've seen in favor of "doing something" to cage that holds any objective substance is the one that cages have no viable counter, and hopefully the above comments address that clearly enough.
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That's the crux of the matter, and no, your above comments *don't* address that clearly enough.
Every "counter" you suggest is a generic counter that can be applied to any situation and any AT/powerset/player/etc. Every power in the game has a way to be directly countered in some way. Cage does not. Many believe it should.
Why do you believe it should remain unique and without a way to counter it?
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Just because the counters I listed can be used against all other tactics.. doesn't make them invalid counters.
You said it clearly and accurately yourself, they're generic counters. If you take away generic counters like breaking line of sight and evasion, then things like AS (among other things) also have "no" counters. It's not unique at all, it's just something that takes a little more practice and skill to counter.
Not to mention, there's still the obvious counter that it's not as unique and powerful as claimed. If 8 cager teams could run the field in PvP matches, I'd agree that there's something broken and in need of a fix, but they can't. That fact in and of itself is a check on the "power" of the cage power.
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You still haven't answered my question. Why do you believe that cages should be the only power in the game without a direct counter?
Breaking LOS is a direct counter for AS, the same way it is for taunt. It's reactionary and allows a player with skill to avoid being affected, or to reduce the effects of that power. With cages, once you're caged, you're caged, there is no way to react to minimize the effect. That's what most people are taking exception to and what you've failed to justify so far with your arguments.
Hell, would it even be so bad if a break free could break you out of a cage? It breaks you out of every other status effect in the game (except KB). People would have to start carrying many more of them in matches to avoid perma caging, but then they'd be giving up greens, reds, and ornages, which would seem to balance it all out.
For the record, Fel, I fully support getting rid of Blaster 30% unresisted damage, and Defender unresisted de-buffs. The reason for their existance is no longer relevant to the game.
And like I said, I don't want to see cages nerfed, I'd just like there to be a way to reactively counter them, like you can everything else in the game. I don't think that's too out of line now that everyone wants to cheese out and bring more and more cages to an 8v8.
Like Omega said, there used to be a "gentleman's rule" about bringing more than one cager to an 8v8 and anyone who did got laughed at and called noobs. Now we're seeing 2 and 4 cager teams and it seems half the community thinks that's just swell, while the other half would like to play the game instead of running around for 10 minutes at a time in their orange disco ball, unable to affect anything.
removing blaster unresisted damage could possibly make them do even more damage than they do now. if you toss EF onto a target with zero fire resistsance, it'll definitely do more.
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removing blaster unresisted damage could possibly make them do even more damage than they do now. if you toss EF onto a target with zero fire resistsance, it'll definitely do more.
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Only if tied to a base damage increase, the 12.5% ranged damage increase that is being played with combined with removing irrestible damage is a net buff to Blaster damage up until the target gets to around 50% resistance. I'd like to see Defender unresisted debuffs removed as well, but that's going to take some additional rebalancing. The delta between how effective EF is for a Defender and a Controller right now is way too large.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
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Like I said, the only argument I've seen in favor of "doing something" to cage that holds any objective substance is the one that cages have no viable counter, and hopefully the above comments address that clearly enough.
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That's the crux of the matter, and no, your above comments *don't* address that clearly enough.
Every "counter" you suggest is a generic counter that can be applied to any situation and any AT/powerset/player/etc. Every power in the game has a way to be directly countered in some way. Cage does not. Many believe it should.
Why do you believe it should remain unique and without a way to counter it?
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Just because the counters I listed can be used against all other tactics.. doesn't make them invalid counters.
You said it clearly and accurately yourself, they're generic counters. If you take away generic counters like breaking line of sight and evasion, then things like AS (among other things) also have "no" counters. It's not unique at all, it's just something that takes a little more practice and skill to counter.
Not to mention, there's still the obvious counter that it's not as unique and powerful as claimed. If 8 cager teams could run the field in PvP matches, I'd agree that there's something broken and in need of a fix, but they can't. That fact in and of itself is a check on the "power" of the cage power.
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You still haven't answered my question. Why do you believe that cages should be the only power in the game without a direct counter?
Breaking LOS is a direct counter for AS, the same way it is for taunt. It's reactionary and allows a player with skill to avoid being affected, or to reduce the effects of that power. With cages, once you're caged, you're caged, there is no way to react to minimize the effect. That's what most people are taking exception to and what you've failed to justify so far with your arguments.
Hell, would it even be so bad if a break free could break you out of a cage? It breaks you out of every other status effect in the game (except KB). People would have to start carrying many more of them in matches to avoid perma caging, but then they'd be giving up greens, reds, and ornages, which would seem to balance it all out.
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Having one break free break you out of a cage seems a little too over the top. Like KoC said, it should take like 4 oranges or 4 bfs to get you out if something like this is to be done. Cage is not really a 'status' effect that has a magnitude or something.
Also, if you are going to have some kind of buff give you resistance to cage, like someone said ID giving like 25% resistance to it, are you also going to allow multiple cages on a target?
I'm not really for any change to cage as it is. I don't see the big deal really. If a team wants to bring 6 cagers then so be it.
However if some kind of change to cage is to be done, I would be against some kind of buff adding resistance to it. Don't we have enough buffs in the game already? I mean we spend a good amount of time buffing up at the beginning of matches now.
Why not make it a debuff that would say cut the cage time in half as long as the debuff is on the cager? For example you could use Sonic Siphon or something from a set that rarely gets used in PVP like /Dark or both. Or every set that has cage capability could also have the debuff that cuts the cage time in half.
I would think that would add more counter-punch-counter to PVP instead of it just being Blaster/Emp/Kin.
That way if the team trying to cage someone can take out the person who is trying to debuff the cager, then the cage would be in full effect.
Dunno, I don't really think anything needs to be changed, but if you are going to do it make it so the counter to cage can also be countered by taking out that person. Would just seem to add more flavor to PVP as a whole to me.
For all those who support cage, as leave as is, come by this thread and post for some good fun 
. Fugly chicks, washed up WoW players, and whiney blasters need not apply but can come by for cake. Suggestion against bad Suggestions
lol, so good.
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Like I said, the only argument I've seen in favor of "doing something" to cage that holds any objective substance is the one that cages have no viable counter, and hopefully the above comments address that clearly enough.
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That's the crux of the matter, and no, your above comments *don't* address that clearly enough.
Every "counter" you suggest is a generic counter that can be applied to any situation and any AT/powerset/player/etc. Every power in the game has a way to be directly countered in some way. Cage does not. Many believe it should.
Why do you believe it should remain unique and without a way to counter it?
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Just because the counters I listed can be used against all other tactics.. doesn't make them invalid counters.
You said it clearly and accurately yourself, they're generic counters. If you take away generic counters like breaking line of sight and evasion, then things like AS (among other things) also have "no" counters. It's not unique at all, it's just something that takes a little more practice and skill to counter.
Not to mention, there's still the obvious counter that it's not as unique and powerful as claimed. If 8 cager teams could run the field in PvP matches, I'd agree that there's something broken and in need of a fix, but they can't. That fact in and of itself is a check on the "power" of the cage power.
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You still haven't answered my question. Why do you believe that cages should be the only power in the game without a direct counter?
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...Correct, I didn't answer your question; I usually don't answer questions based on faulty assumptions. Again, you put it perfectly yourself: counters exist, "generic" (as you termed them) or not.
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Breaking LOS is a direct counter for AS, the same way it is for taunt. It's reactionary and allows a player with skill to avoid being affected, or to reduce the effects of that power. With cages, once you're caged, you're caged, there is no way to react to minimize the effect. That's what most people are taking exception to and what you've failed to justify so far with your arguments.
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Breaking LoS is a generic counter that still applies here... unless you've gotten caged while NOT in the LoS of a cager before, which I've never seen happen. The fact that you need to be pre-emptive about it doesn't render it not viable.
But even if you toss aside the LoS argument, there are still other things I've listed that have apparently gone untried by those clamoring for a cage nerf. Hell, I tried it myself the other day:
There was a fairly lopsided match where we ended up going rogue, and I noticed that every time I would go (on my kin) to try to solo the other team's kin, their grav troller would come cage me. After this happened twice, I put two and two together and then phased after dealing damage to the kin for a third time. Grav troller comes by, apparently fired something at me (I honestly don't even know what the grav cage animation is), I unphased and went back to soloing the kin.
Yeah, it's a simple, isolated example. But it's a perfect illustration of what you can try. I'm just concerned that I'm seeing the same pattern of suggesting counters and then having those counters virtually ignored as if they don't exist and haven't been successfully used by other players, with practice.
It'd be terrible if a single break free freed you from cage... that would honestly neuter the power.
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Also, if you are going to have some kind of buff give you resistance to cage, like someone said ID giving like 25% resistance to it, are you also going to allow multiple cages on a target?
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I don't think so, since resistance will simply lower the duration of the cage there isn't any real benefit to allowing stacking. If you want to cage someone with $buff_that_gives_cage_resistance then you just have to reapply it more often. The balance point should be on the amount of duration, off hand something between 25% and 50% sounds right but I'd certainly like to test it from both sides before saying an absolute number.
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Why not make it a debuff that would say cut the cage time in half as long as the debuff is on the cager? For example you could use Sonic Siphon or something from a set that rarely gets used in PVP like /Dark or both. Or every set that has cage capability could also have the debuff that cuts the cage time in half.
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This could work if cage were turned into a toggle, but AFAIK there isn't a mechanic to allow a click effect to changed after its been applied to target. Now, you can apply a debuff that halves the duration of caging pro-actively and that might be interesting, depending on how it was implemented.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
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It'd be terrible if a single break free freed you from cage... that would honestly neuter the power.
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unfortunately like most other forms of mez in the game
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This could work if cage were turned into a toggle, but AFAIK there isn't a mechanic to allow a click effect to changed after its been applied to target. Now, you can apply a debuff that halves the duration of caging pro-actively and that might be interesting, depending on how it was implemented.
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Well that's what I meant, a debuff like sonic siphon which lasts what 30 seconds on a target?
Example, Team A Sonic cages a blaster, it lasts 15 seconds.
Team B Sonic hits Team A Sonic with Sonic Siphon
Team A Sonic cages blaster again, this time it only lasts 7.5 seconds.
Sonic Siphon wears off of Team A Sonic.
Team A Sonic cages blaster again, it lasts 15 seconds.
Even if the debuff was a toggle on the cager, as long as that debuff is on the cager, the cage duration is cut in half. Now if the caging team decides to take out the debuffer, well the debuff drops and the cager can cage with the full effect.
*Edited for clarity*
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...Correct, I didn't answer your question; I usually don't answer questions based on faulty assumptions.
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What faulty assumption, exactly?
Are you saying a *direct* counter to cage exists? Or even a way to *react* to the cage effect? And if not, then why should it stay that way when every other power in the game has a way to directly and/or reactively counter it?
Stop blowing smoke and answer the question. (and stop with the high and mighty act, you're not fooling anyone, and it's assinine). Why should cage be unique, in your opinion. I don't think you have a good answer, so you keep posting paragraph upon paragraph of nothing to sidetrack the issue.
Again, for the cheap seats, I'm not asking that cages be changed in any way. Leave the power as is. But give us some way, however obscure, to *REACT* to it, not generically *AVOID* it. Are you understanding me yet?
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It'd be terrible if a single break free freed you from cage... that would honestly neuter the power.
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unfortunately like most other forms of mez in the game
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Then make it 3-4 BFs. Whatever. Some way to react to being caged > no way to react to being caged.
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...Correct, I didn't answer your question; I usually don't answer questions based on faulty assumptions.
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What faulty assumption, exactly?
Are you saying a *direct* counter to cage exists exists? Or even a way to *react* to the cage effect? And if not, then why should it stay that way when every other power in the game has a way to directly and/or reactively counter it?
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Yes.. again, I've already given several ways to counter being permanently caged. There's no way to "react" to it; once you're caged, you're caged. Next step is to learn from that and be more prepared to pre-empt it next time. But it can be pre-empted, which has been my point all along in listing the possible counters for it that already exist and have been used.
..The last sentence does answer "yes" to whether or not there are counters to being caged.
To answer the other question, it follows from the counters above that cage is not unique.. every disruptive tactic can be marginalized in one way or another. Refusing to bring or use the necessary tools (phase, Hurricane, etc) to counter cages does not mean that they don't exist.
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Stop blowing smoke and answer the question. (and stop with the high and mighty act, you're not fooling anyone, and it's assinine).
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...Seriously, I don't do the whole "personal attack on the forums" thing, and I'm not trying to act or fool or be high and mighty. I'm not sitting here with a thesaurus, I'm typing how I usually type when I make an argument. Please don't let things devolve to a debate over my word choice.
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It'd be terrible if a single break free freed you from cage... that would honestly neuter the power.
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unfortunately like most other forms of mez in the game
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Then make it 3-4 BFs. Whatever. Some way to react to being caged > no way to react to being caged.
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If that's what would honestly satisfy the people concerned with the way cages work now, then I don't see why not. It's extreme enough to the point where either cage targets would neuter their own damage resistance (fewer oranges) and/or damage (fewer reds), or accept being caged.
It seems like sacrificing one's own damage output and survivability in exchange for five 30-second get-out-of-Cage-free cards is a foolish tradeoff, so it likely wouldn't have any practical effect aside from appeasing people who are unhappy with the existing pre-emptive counters to cage.
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..The last sentence does answer "yes" to whether or not there are counters to being caged.
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Too bad that's not the question I asked. I said "directly" and/or "reactively". To which the answer is "no". You keep re-phrasing my question to give the answer you want to give instead of answering the question honestly. That's a very old and cheap debate tactic.
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...Seriously, I don't do the whole "personal attack on the forums" thing, and I'm not trying to act or fool or be high and mighty. I'm not sitting here with a thesaurus, I'm typing how I usually type when I make an argument. Please don't let things devolve to a debate over my word choice.
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Then you may want to choose your words a little more carefully to avoid the seeming condescention. You appear to have a fairly firm grasp of the English language, so one might assume that you are intentionally conveying that tone. If you say you're not, I'll take you at face value.
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If that's what would honestly satisfy the people concerned with the way cages work now, then I don't see why not. It's extreme enough to the point where either cage targets would neuter their own damage resistance (fewer oranges) and/or damage (fewer reds), or accept being caged.
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I think options are all anyone is looking for. If the option to reactively counter a cage is a sub-optimal insp loadout, then I'd take that option if the circumstances required it.
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... appeasing people who are unhappy with the existing pre-emptive counters to cage.
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Correction: appeasing people who are too lazy to settle with the existing pre-emptive counters to cage.
...
You see, doing something "premptive", means they have to actually take high risks. It may mean much more movement. Getting more AT/powers to help with premptive measures, may mean they actually might have to change their current team composition, or the way they usually fight.
And ofcourse, they don't want to do that. They don't want to give up their "perfect" little arena team they have, and make some sacrifices in one or two areas to achieve what they want.
They want to stick to the exact same tactics, exact same powers/ATs, exact same team they have... and still want to be able to just laugh at caging attempts everytime somebody tries it.
...
Get around the excuses and read between their brain wrinkles. Really. That's exactly what's going on here.
Low health? Pop a green. Low in damage? Pop a red. Get mezzed? Pop a BF. Somebody die? Give him a wakie. Somebody waltzs around too much? Use the cheap-o web grenade you bought.....
... except, wow, caging. We can't just click a button and negate it. If they get us with it, we're out of the fight. There's no easy way around it... man, how could this be..!!!
Jesus Christ almighty, we actually have to try something different.. or we might have to gamble on some wild "premptive maneuver"... We actually have to risk something..!!
Man, this sucks..!! Give us some "direct" way to get rid of caging.. give us a inspiration that pops caging... or give us a skill which pops caging so we can just sneeze at it when one of us gets caged..!
Hey Billybob, he's caged! No sweat, BobbyJoe, here's my nifty "anti-cage power"... One click and Blliiinng!!.. there... he's caged no more..!
Excuses, excuses.
<rolls eyes> Yeah, that's exactly it. Good job at following the conversation up to this point.
Yes, I'm sure everyone will learn to adapt to the sudden proliferation of caging. So your advice to "change up your team composition" will result in everyone bringing storms. So yay, cage heavy sonic and grav teams vs storms every match. How exciting.
Sounds like it would take hours to score a single point.
Multiple break frees is actually pretty similar to the suggestion of multiple oranges.
They actually might have the mechanics to do it via a debuff. Weaken and benumb are able to effect the duration of holds, immobs, buffs, and whatnot.
Adding it to, say, ice arrow or poison gas arrow heroside and to the special in weaken or benumb villain side would provide a direct counter.
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Hmm, so with cage suppression 50% of the time, we go from
7 Sonics for keeping 7 opponents out of the game,
To
4 sonics to keep 4 opponent out of hte game, and then alternating to the other half.
yaaaay suppression!
Maybe it needs to be nerfed more, so it actually does something even less of the time.
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I can't even begin to figure out what in the hell you're talking about.
When have you ever seen 7 Sonics in a match? And even if a team brought 4 sonics and rotated to cage the entire opposing team, nobody would be getting perma-caged, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
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I don't think there are even 7 sonics on Guardian. In 10 months, I've never teamed with one.
There is nothing wrong with sonic cage. Is it fun to be repeatedly ASd by waves of Stalkers? I like being able to cage a vill when I need to. It doesn't last as long as it takes to die, hosp, heal, and rejoin the battle.
There are always going to be situations in PvP that are not as fun as we would like. When it stops being fun, go to another zone or server. Thats why we have choices.
Just an FYI, perma-caging in the zones rarely happens and isn't really a problem. Caging in arena matches is an issue and that's where this discussion comes from.
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
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Like I said, the only argument I've seen in favor of "doing something" to cage that holds any objective substance is the one that cages have no viable counter, and hopefully the above comments address that clearly enough.
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That's the crux of the matter, and no, your above comments *don't* address that clearly enough.
Every "counter" you suggest is a generic counter that can be applied to any situation and any AT/powerset/player/etc. Every power in the game has a way to be directly countered in some way. Cage does not. Many believe it should.
Why do you believe it should remain unique and without a way to counter it?
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Just because the counters I listed can be used against all other tactics.. doesn't make them invalid counters.
You said it clearly and accurately yourself, they're generic counters. If you take away generic counters like breaking line of sight and evasion, then things like AS (among other things) also have "no" counters. It's not unique at all, it's just something that takes a little more practice and skill to counter.
Not to mention, there's still the obvious counter that it's not as unique and powerful as claimed. If 8 cager teams could run the field in PvP matches, I'd agree that there's something broken and in need of a fix, but they can't. That fact in and of itself is a check on the "power" of the cage power.
RE: Shocker , I came from a town mostly of hicks (aka anywhere in Pennsylvania not named Philly or Pitt), so I'm trying not to sound like my roots >.>
Nah, again, not trying to sound high-minded.. just trying to avoid misinterpretation.