EA's design intent- Grendel. a vicious, invisible monster. apparently everything has been worked around the fact that yuou have complete freedom of where and when you want to aggro things.
Shield's design intent- to get melee AT's in on a little of that 'force multiplication' action and to make a specific type of powerset that becomes more powerful as you add more to the team, instead of less useful.
bottom line on both of those responses.
I do vehemently disagree that sacrificing defensive strength to the degree that these sets do is remotely worth the tricks they are given.
Red name response is critical on this issue. And even then, honestly, I'll continue to argue if I don't like it.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
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Trading that recharge auto for a resist auto is still a losing proposition, no matter how you try to say it. With resists you shouldn't fail to mention SR's scaling resists as well.
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SR's scaling resists give it a smidgeon of extra survivability, but...
and that's a big but....
While it is highly useful against people who peck away at your hit points, it is virtually useless against mobs thgat take big chunks of hit points at one time. and frankly, that's where you are likely to have your only problems as an SR... Minions are easily deflected (for the most part) It's the tougher mobs like bosses and AV's that have a chance of killing SR in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, scaling resistance is useful, but it is not nearly as useful as even much smaller amounts of 'full time' resistance. That's one of the reasons Most sr's will take the fighting pool (That and a place to slot steadfast)
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I'd say scaling resists are a lot more useful as they most damage types (or does it do all?), while EA now covers only 3. And I think most EAs take Tough on their way to Weave as well.
Yeah nice, notice you didnt mention anything about Energy Drain, which also comes with the set, kinda a tradeoff for some holes.
Point of the matter is I can get very good mitigation out of EA on my brute, AND have limitless endurance. Helps to keep the fury going, and NEVER have to sacrifice attacks to "manage" it better.
So yeah, no scaling resists, no recharge bonus(to help use your non endless endurance up faster, yay), and a psi hole.
Seems like a good trade to me.
And once these buffs go thru, heh, my softcap to 6 types of defense combined with a 30 second heal/end filler, and unsupressed stealth? Yeah you can keep your SR.
I play EA, actually. But thanks.
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Castle, tell us what the hell this set was designed to do!
Is it supposed to be super strong to Energy like Electric is?
Is it supposed to be mediocre mitigation and have to buy more from pools with its End Recovery?
Why no Taunt in ED?
Why the same ED/CP combo?
Does the presence of Stealth and lower mitigation mean that EA isn't designed to be as tough as the other defensive sets on purpose?
What is EA supposed to be good at and what is the designed for average playstyle?
I'm sick of arguing. I want answers.
Red name response is critical on this issue. And even then, honestly, I'll continue to argue if I don't like it.
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I'm not Castle, but the answers to your questions are implicitly written in the design of EA and the coming changes. You just have to accept what it is.
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Point of the matter is I can get very good mitigation out of EA on my brute, AND have limitless endurance. Helps to keep the fury going, and NEVER have to sacrifice attacks to "manage" it better.
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I think what people complain is that EA has 2 endurance management powers. Energy drain is already good enough for endurance. Conserve power looks a bit redundant, but it is nice for handling tier 9 crash. If you look at the suggestion list, there are suggestions to replace conserve power with something else.
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So yeah, no scaling resists, no recharge bonus(to help use your non endless endurance up faster, yay), and a psi hole.
Seems like a good trade to me.
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It's quite subjective whether it is a good tradeoff. Endurance management is indirectly related to survival. At high levels, people can manage their endurance usage pretty nicely in general without endurance management powers.
If they choose to manage their endurance instead of say... slot for set bonuses, or for max damage, or run the leadership pool, or slot for recharge instead.
Yes, purple sets are sweet. When you cannot get purple sets, it's often frankenslotting city, and then you have to pick and choose what you are going to slot for.
I challenge the notion that ed and cp are not mitigation, especially when they allow you to:
1. recover almost instantly from the tier 9 crash... How many sets with a 'real' tier 9 can really shrug off it's crash?
2. skip stamina. I am not going to go into this, but sets without real endurance management tools add stamina in as one of their methods of 'getting endurance under control'. Skipping fitness will save you, on the average, 3 power picks and 4 slots.
3. Run the leadership and/or fighting pool. These toggles are EXPENSIVE. And tactics is incredibly useful.
So yes, people can manage their endurance without endurance management tools (Except stamina) but I much prefer having the freedom to decide to worry about something OTHER than recovery in my slotting options.
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I'm not Castle, but the answers to your questions are implicitly written in the design of EA and the coming changes. You just have to accept what it is.
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Actually, considering what Positron has said about Shields, I'm guessing Castle's response would be more than unsatisfactory for me. I disagree strongly right now with what you and FW consider the 'exchange rate' for utility powers. I don't understand why almost every other defensive set is set within one range of power (some higher) and then you make another set (3 now) that are significantly worse and give them utility powers whose utility needs to be used to buy back into the standard level of performance.
it's not a perk or a utility power at that point. It's a deferred cost.
it's like saying, "Look, you have tons of Endurance Recovery! Have fun never resting" but making all the toggles in the set cost 1.0 eps.
So you do have the ability to never run out of end, as long as use no toggles (accept lower mitigation). If you want to perform as well as your peers, you don't really get that bottomless Blue Bar.
it's bad design and I'm a little sick of seeing it in EA, Elec and now Shields. You hold out a treat in one hand and then slap them with your other hand when they take it. What a great trade off!
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
Conclusion: You can't keep every paying customer happy. So, just try your best and appeal to as many people as you can.
Yes, but the positive treat balances out the pain of the slap. You may get slapped in the face, but you have a cookie (or two) anyways.
That's my point though. It doesn't balance out.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
SF, you don't like EA. That's your right. a bunch of other people DO like EA, that's their right.
Every person has a particular playstyle. Playstyle has far more effect on how 'well' a person does than powerset ever will.
I like AR, I can do things with AR that would make a fire blaster blanch (In fact I have) and yet, by the numbers, AR is about one of the worst blaster sets in the game, right ahead of electric blast.
It's the way I play it... I cannot do the same thing with fire blast or archery, despite the fact that they have much better numbers, but other people can.
I level far faster with my /ea brute than I ever could with a dark armor, FA, stone, wp, or even SR brute. The only thing that comes close is electric and DA. And yet electric and /ea are widely considered the worst brute sets. And yet, for my playstyle, I can get a ton more leverage out of them than I can out of the 'traditional' favorites.
The thing is, the 'role' of a particular powerset is NOT what the devs tell you it is. No matter what they tell you, it is likely to be wrong, because the role YOU play with it is probably NOT the same role as was originally intended.
I have played with shields a LOT, and got level-bumped a few times. Shields, when backed up by brute HP, are extremely survivable... with the way that I play. I don't care for shields, but it has nothing to do with the powers in the set, it has to do with the fact that I am unhappy with the 'fantasy-esque-" leanings that cim and shields bring to the game. In fact, the only reason I played the set was because there are a couple of shields that look nothing like shields at all.
Basically, what it comes down to, Is that concept is considered more strongly than power meshing, and every set is designed so that you can skip one or two powers and not cripple yourself. That is the one part of 'Jack's vision' that has survived to the present day... It is almost impossible to accidentally gimp yourself to the point where you cannot play and progress.
The point behind shields? to provide powers that make sense for someone that uses a shield. To remain traditional to the kinds of defensive abilities guys in movies and comic books can do with a shield.
The point of energy aura? to provide powers that are designed with kinetic energy deflection, redirection, and absorption in mind. to make sense as 'force fields' from a specfic/comic book point of view.
The point behind electric aura? To have a cool electric field surrounding you, and to do the kind of stuff you would expect a guy that controls electricity to do.
Look at the bright side- At least we are not stuck with "CoH phase 2" where the defensive and offensive sets were paired thematically, with no mixing and matching of powersets whatsoever.
I do like EA. I like my DM/EA and enjoy playing him alot more than any other villain character I've made.
I just will not accept the "balance" that has been set up here when it looks so wrong compared to all the other sets.
I'm just going to shut up about this from now on. I'm going to wait till i13 is live and then PM Castle just asking how he sees EA and just continue playing. I'm tired of this topic honestly, particularly in light of the Shield set.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
QR: I don't know if anybody noticed, but Energy Drain's seizure inducing gold effects have been reverted since the last patch to the training room. It is now the familiar subtle blue.
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Actually, considering what Positron has said about Shields, I'm guessing Castle's response would be more than unsatisfactory for me. I disagree strongly right now with what you and FW consider the 'exchange rate' for utility powers. I don't understand why almost every other defensive set is set within one range of power (some higher) and then you make another set (3 now) that are significantly worse and give them utility powers whose utility needs to be used to buy back into the standard level of performance.
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In fact, I agree with you. However, there is a concern to avoid "building cottages." It is pretty unlikely to delete a power and replace it by something completely different. Practical suggestions would be adding and tweaking existing powers. Quite a few suggestions in this thread are more suitable for modifying EA during proliferation as they are more radical. But there are still plenty of room to improve EA without building cottages, and I would like to see more thematic improvements than what is in the beta patch notes.
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I'm just going to shut up about this from now on. I'm going to wait till i13 is live and then PM Castle just asking how he sees EA and just continue playing. I'm tired of this topic honestly, particularly in light of the Shield set.
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If Castle ever replies you in detail, he might as well post his opinion in this thread, as his answers are of interest to all of us here.
Is there a new animation for ED? What is it, if anyone would mind telling me?
Thanx!
"I'm not scared of anyone or anything Angie. Isn't that the way life should be?"
Jack Hawksmoor, The Authority.
There was a weird pulsating old-sonic-shield looking orange bubble that flickered horrifically a patch or so ago, but due to it's seizure-inducing rythmic horror, it was quickly removed and ED returned to it's prior, 'dying carnie' splendor.
Ahhhh- cool, thanx.
Glad to see it's staying the same.
"I'm not scared of anyone or anything Angie. Isn't that the way life should be?"
Jack Hawksmoor, The Authority.
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And once these buffs go thru, heh, my softcap to 6 types of defense combined with a 30 second heal/end filler, and unsupressed stealth? Yeah you can keep your SR.
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Your heal is "lulz" at best. Especially solo. It's quadruple "lulz" in pvp. Have fun.
Glycerine:
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This IO change was the key. As long as the change sticks, I'll be so happy to play my Brute once again.
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And, NO set should ever be balanced around IO's. This should never be the intent as, according to the dev's, IO's are completely [u]optional[u]. So if this is the case, there is definately something wrong with EA still, and you just pointed that out.
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And, NO set should ever be balanced around IO's. This should never be the intent as, according to the dev's, IO's are completely optional. So if this is the case, there is definately something wrong with EA still, and you just pointed that out.
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No, no set should be, but it would appear that this set has been
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
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And, NO set should ever be balanced around IO's. This should never be the intent as, according to the dev's, IO's are completely optional. So if this is the case, there is definately something wrong with EA still, and you just pointed that out.
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No, no set should be, but it would appear that this set has been
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No, the IO change was an improvement versus sets that have easier IO slotting options.
Fire armor and dark armor SUCK without a -kb IO, especially dark. Acro's end cost can cripple a dark, I know..I ran a dark scrapper a long time before IO's ever came out, and it was miserable.I'd have taken ea in a new york minute back in I5.
invuln has bigger holes than /ea without some IO work, even if all the IO work does is help fix end drain so it can run weave and tough. A little global recharge reduction, sub-slotting with some 50 IO's, and inv performs quite well.
SR without IO's was BRUTAL when you would run up against enemies with any -defense. The cascade would lay you low even if you didn't run out of end.
EA is no more reliant on IO support than any other set. The only ones who would honestly think otherwise are the ones who weren't around or honestly cannot remember how brutal the game became right after I5, the GDN and ED.
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SR without IO's was BRUTAL when you would run up against enemies with any -defense. The cascade would lay you low even if you didn't run out of end.
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I would agree if you said before they made defense enhancements increase SR defense resists. IO's don't fix cascade defense debuffs.
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EA is no more reliant on IO support than any other set. The only ones who would honestly think otherwise are the ones who weren't around or honestly cannot remember how brutal the game became right after I5, the GDN and ED.
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I have been around since the start, and my experience is different.
Dirges
Frost, of late, I've agreed with some of your posts, but this is not amongst them.
I've played brutes with every one of these sets in I6 and I7 except SR. (I played an SR scrapper, as SR brutes didnt exist)
Accro is not that large an end drain. Dark regeneration? potentially yes. Accro? no.
-def for SR might once have made some sense, but in recent times, SR is so utterly immune to -defence that it's not even worth talking about.
Both EA and shields can be extrordinarily powerful with enough IO sets. [edit: maybe stronger than they should be] They're both weaker than average without them. That's the way it is.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
That's why I said 'was'. Prior to IO's, SR's had big problems with defense debuffers, same as any other defense sets.
Or did you assume that I was somehow linking IO's to the buff that sr's defense debuff resistance got? The only link they have is timing.
And dark, on brutes, WAS hard to play, due to end concerns. and acrobatics made it no better. brute playstyle was particularly rough on end, and a lot of people would wind up skipping valuable tools like cof and cod...not because it influenced their playstyle, but simply because running them drained out end like a bleeding wound.
But then again, everything is changing next wednesday anyway. We shall see how things balance out.
Personally, I could care less about the IOs when without them the set doesn't match up well. Don't get me, wrong, I will leverage them to the best of my ability to do so, but I don't like that I have to.
I still don't like that we haven't been given the design intent for EA, or Shields for that matter.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲