Fourth-tier travel powers... pointless?
By
A_duck,
Posted on: 2009-05-22 05:39 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I generally want to punch teammates that use group fly. And by generally I mean every single time they get near me with it.
Acrobatics is good.
Group fly needs to be replaced, not changed just replaced, it has virtually no use except for a select few MM builds.
Team teleport needs to be replaced with teleport attack. (Picture your character disappearing like a normal teleport, a series of flashes around the target area, maybe some faded images of your character, then you reappear at the targeted location. The key to this is you don't follow the teleports, it would function just like any other teleport attack, jsut you wouldn't appear at the location the camera locks to right away.
Acrobatics is fine.
Whirlwind needs more damage.
Group Flight had a specific niche in Hami Raids for "PA Drop Teams". It was used to distract mitos so the raid wasn't bombarded with residual blasts. Some MMs use it now to move pets around, but the fact that flight enhancements in the power only apply to you and no one else in the area causes it to be too slow. I believe Group Flight was intended as more of a tactical power.
Whirlwind, before it was "fixed" was common in old school PvP because the animation overrode every other animation and also removed all rooting of powers. Since the fix, most take it for flavor anymore... however, I personally believe Whirlwind was never meant to be used for extended periods myself.
Acrobatics is the most-often picked Tier4 travel set power, and for good reason. It's the only power available to every character who doesn't want to worry about being knocked back/down. Since the introduction of -KB IOs, it's popularity has waned. Making the protection not so ridiculously over-the-top contributed to this some, but it's still good for 95% of the game. It's still relatively common, and the side-benefit of cutting hold durations by around half is often overlooked.
Team Teleport is similar to Group Flight in that it's mostly a tactical power by design. Unlike Group Flight, however, it's tactical use is more limited and specific to groups that build around the knowledge of its use. Again, similar to GF, TT is a choice some MMs take to move their pets around. I did this on occasion myself, but have since stopped doing so as it was less useful for my playstyle.
In the end, a fair number of powers in this game are skippable, and frankly, I don't mind that one bit.
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@Laxx
"You will bend to my will, with or without your precious sanity." --Dragon Mage
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In the end, a fair number of powers in this game are skippable, and frankly, I don't mind that one bit.
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I'd say they were insignificant instead of skippable. Every power can be skippable as being skippable is simply a player's choice.
I'd rather have every power having some signifance, even if it is trivial.
Group Flight and Acrobatics is two good examples. Acrobatics is a significant power, almost to much so before IO's, for the reasons you listed. Group Flight on the other hand is insignificant and even has adverse effects. Anywhere outside of MM's using this for their pets, or at the old hami raids, would get you flogged by almost all players.
I'd personally love to see many insignificant powers buffed or replaced. Of course I don't expect that to happen, but I won't hold my tongue when it is brought up either.
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In the end, a fair number of powers in this game are skippable, and frankly, I don't mind that one bit.
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I'd say they were insignificant instead of skippable. Every power can be skippable as being skippable is simply a player's choice.
I'd rather have every power having some signifance, even if it is trivial.
Group Flight and Acrobatics is two good examples. Acrobatics is a significant power, almost to much so before IO's, for the reasons you listed. Group Flight on the other hand is insignificant and even has adverse effects. Anywhere outside of MM's using this for their pets, or at the old hami raids, would get you flogged by almost all players.
I'd personally love to see many insignificant powers buffed or replaced. Of course I don't expect that to happen, but I won't hold my tongue when it is brought up either.
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That was exactly my point, though. They aren't "insignificant" at all, because it's just player choice.
Group Flight is a tactical power, or at least, I feel it was designed to be one. I really don't think it was meant to carry teammates long distances or to be used to fight in except in rare situations. However, removing the Accuracy Penalty on this power would go a long way to redeeming it, and I won't pretend to think it needs the penalty to be "balanced".
Main Hero : Annilixxion -- Lv50 Blaster
Main Villain : Menkaura -- Lv41 Mastermind
@Laxx
"You will bend to my will, with or without your precious sanity." --Dragon Mage
I use group fly on certain masterminds just to ensure the minions are restricted from using their imaginations to follow some messed up pathing to the desired location - tactical use only. Against knives of artemis, I do use group fly to keep the minions from scattering away from all the caltrops.
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HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
They really need to remove the ability to enhance Group Fly, and make it so other enhancements such as Swift or Accelerate Metabolism don't work on it. That way everyone in the bubble will move at the same speed. They can just raise its base speed to compensate.
Another idea I thought of was to have the edge of the bubble "bump" anyone who tried to leave it. So effectively anyone who didn't keep up would be Knocked Back into the bubble. I think there are people who wouldn't like being "trapped" in the bubble, not to mention the potential for griefing.
Right now, Group Fly seems to be really only useful for Masterminds. I've got a character that's got it for concept reasons, though. (He never uses it, so it just takes up a slot)
Acrobatics give hold resistance to squishies, for that alone its pretty good.
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Whirlwind. . . it used to do knockup instead of knockback. Was rather fun with a blaster, you could run in and blast to your hearts content while the critters played yo-yo with the ground.
Nastalgia done now 
Just like grant invis gives full invisibility w/ no downside, group flight should be made into a click, which can be canceled, and has no disadvantage. In fact, for a 4th tier, this "grant flight" that would replace group flight, should also protect against -fly and immob effects.
Whirlwind, in addition to what it does now, should also grant a limited hover ability; I imagine the Flash spinning around and being able to take off during that.
Team tp should either be like the recall team power, or needs to be adjusted to grant the hover effect to teammates, when used.
I say replace the Flight and Teleport tier-4s with Blast nukes and be done with it. Whirlwind can be reworked to include Dual Blades and be the horizontal version of One Thousand Cuts.
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Just like grant invis gives full invisibility w/ no downside, group flight should be made into a click, which can be canceled, and has no disadvantage.
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The only problem with Flying as a click power is, what if you are flying high over Steel Canyon, and poof, the duration runs out?
Although I can appreciate the humor of standing on the tram watching heroes constantly falling from the sky in the zone around you...
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Just like grant invis gives full invisibility w/ no downside, group flight should be made into a click, which can be canceled, and has no disadvantage.
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The only problem with Flying as a click power is, what if you are flying high over Steel Canyon, and poof, the duration runs out?
Although I can appreciate the humor of standing on the tram watching heroes constantly falling from the sky in the zone around you...
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It'd be no different than how IR from Kinetics can wear off mid-jump. You watch the icon, and when you see it blinking, you better land quickly!
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The only problem with Flying as a click power is, what if you are flying high over Steel Canyon, and poof, the duration runs out?
Although I can appreciate the humor of standing on the tram watching heroes constantly falling from the sky in the zone around you...
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I see this more as the compelling reason to take the power.
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Group Flight had a specific niche in Hami Raids for "PA Drop Teams". It was used to distract mitos so the raid wasn't bombarded with residual blasts. Some MMs use it now to move pets around, but the fact that flight enhancements in the power only apply to you and no one else in the area causes it to be too slow. I believe Group Flight was intended as more of a tactical power.
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Group Flight was also sometimes useful on the post-I9 Hami raids for the Yellow Mitos teams (it really cuts down on your DPS if you have to jump up to hit the Mitos) until they added the Flight Pack vendor to Firebase Zulu.
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They really need to remove the ability to enhance Group Fly, and make it so other enhancements such as Swift or Accelerate Metabolism don't work on it. That way everyone in the bubble will move at the same speed. They can just raise its base speed to compensate.
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My next blaster build uses GFly as an IO mule. Don't you dare think about messing that up for him 
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Group fly needs to be replaced, not changed just replaced, it has virtually no use except for a select few MM builds.
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I'm thinking about getting fly and group fly once I respec so that when I do my Bubble Raves, it can be in midair with groups of ppl rather than just standing on the ground. I hope they don't get rid of it at least not before I have a chance to hit 50 and respec.
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Rather than remove the 4th tier powers, I would rather they just add a second 4th tier choice... or just leave it as is. There are generally enough powers to choose from.
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Rather than remove the 4th tier powers, I would rather they just add a second 4th tier choice... or just leave it as is. There are generally enough powers to choose from.
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yep, or another 2nd tier power
I really like the final decision made about Epic and Patron pools (Although I thought I was gonna lose power sink on my corrupter which really annoyed me for a bit)
Say NO to dropping/removing powers!
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Tier 4 Teleport power to me should have Assemble the Team added to the mix. Very useful and very popular.
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HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
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Tier 4 Teleport power to me should have Assemble the Team added to the mix. Very useful and very popular.
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Not gonna happen, no matter how useful it would be. It would invalidate the 42 month Veteran Reward.
Maybe an emergency exit power, that sends the player and those around him back to the beginning of a mission map?
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Tier 4 Teleport power to me should have Assemble the Team added to the mix. Very useful and very popular.
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Yes, it is. But it's popular for those people who don't have the teleport pool and summon teammate power. The thing is that even if you only have the summon teammate power, it still doesn't take long to summon everyone.
As an additional 4th-tier power, how about a special form of Teleport that works a little differently? It would be Outdoors only, disabled in PvP zones, long recharge (a minute or two?), cost 90 endurance, and let you teleport to any location on the map. That could be useful.
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Teleport attack.
The only 1 of the 4 I've used is acrobatics, and that was on a dark armor tank that didn't have any other kind of knockback protection.
Is it just me, or are the fourth tier travel powers mostly... very skippable?
We have Flight: Group Flight.
Superspeed: Whirlwind.
Super Jumping: Acrobatics.
Teleport: Team Teleport.
Group Flight and Whirlwind I have wanted to take for a long time... because they look cool visually... but I never have because they have been slapped with too much of a downside for me to consider taking it above one of my other powers.
Acrobatics and Team Teleport have their uses in select builds and select situations respectively... but for 90% of the time they seem completely skippable.
Anyway... I want to hear your thoughts on these powers. What you use them for (if you do) and if not, what you might think would make them better.
As for me... Acrobatics and Team Teleport might be fine as-is... but I for one think adding some damage dealing to Whirlwind would make it much more attractive.
As for Group Fly... making it faster and removing that abomination of an acc penalty would make me take it in a heartbeat.
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