Does anybody actually like Flurry the way it is?

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Exactly. It does less for the long animation, so making the animation shorter would bring it in line. Upping the damage would bring it in line too, but I'm more partial to seeing the animation time decreased.

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I guess the only argument I have against this is that since Shadow Maul and Sands of Mu have the same animation and are cone powers, new players (such as myself, once upon a time) who see Flurry in action would expect it to be a cone power also. This expectation would hold true even if the animation were shortened. The devs would have to change the animation entirely to remove that expectation, and I wonder which is easier, development-wise -- developing a new animation for Flurry, or making it a cone power?

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I'm ambivalent about making it a cone. It's very tricky getting the cone to affect more than one target in Sands or Shadow Maul and requires that you have enemies practically on top of each other. Since the damage is fine for Shadow Maul, it's like having icing on the cake when you get it to affect more than one target. If you don't, it's no big deal. But if the only change you make to Flurry is to make it a cone, it'll only be on par with other attacks if you do get it to hit more than one person. Most of the time, it'll affect only one target and still be underpowered.

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I don't expect that Flurry will ever be "on par" with Shadow Maul or Sands of Mu because, frankly, it's a pool power, and I don't expect pool powers to be as good as mainline powers. I just want Flurry to be the kind of power I can take without feeling like I'm hurting my toon. With only moderate damage and a low chance to disorient (one of my least favorite effects), I still wouldn't consider it a good attack even if the animation time were decreased. Give it the potential to multiply that moderate damage and low chance to disorient over 1 to 5 minions, however, and now we're talking.

I have to admit, though, my desire to see Flurry made better springs from my desire to use it on a speedster Dark Melee Scrapper who's also got Shadow Maul and Sands of Mu, so most of the time I will already be doing the necessary dance to get two or three minions in the cone. Would I take Flurry on any other kind of toon? I don't know. So if improving Flurry in some other way (increasing dmg or chance to stun, decreasing animation time, etc.) would open it up as a better tool for a wider range of builds, I can't really argue with that. I guess I just like triggering that same animation three times in a row because it gives me the feeling like I'm really beating the stuffing out of those minions in my cone, and making Flurry a cone attack would make the beatings that much better.

Well, while reducing the animation time on Flurry would certainly solve many of the problems, it would no longer be Flurry. It would be Barrage. Maybe a really fast Barrage, but still only two or maybe three punches.

I don't see any way to make Flurry continue to have as many hits as it has without taking as much time as it does. The punches are already as fast as they can be, I think. So you're either talking about changing its concept drastically, or bringing it in line with the other attacks that have the same concept. (Although I do wonder what it is about darkness that makes people able to punch really fast...)

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Exactly. It does less for the long animation, so making the animation shorter would bring it in line. Upping the damage would bring it in line too, but I'm more partial to seeing the animation time decreased.

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I guess the only argument I have against this is that since Shadow Maul and Sands of Mu have the same animation and are cone powers, new players (such as myself, once upon a time) who see Flurry in action would expect it to be a cone power also. This expectation would hold true even if the animation were shortened. The devs would have to change the animation entirely to remove that expectation, and I wonder which is easier, development-wise -- developing a new animation for Flurry, or making it a cone power?

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Making it a cone would be easier. Very much so. It's just adding another attribute to the power. But it still subjects it to the problem that it's only good when you do manage to get it to hit multiple people.

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I'm ambivalent about making it a cone. It's very tricky getting the cone to affect more than one target in Sands or Shadow Maul and requires that you have enemies practically on top of each other. Since the damage is fine for Shadow Maul, it's like having icing on the cake when you get it to affect more than one target. If you don't, it's no big deal. But if the only change you make to Flurry is to make it a cone, it'll only be on par with other attacks if you do get it to hit more than one person. Most of the time, it'll affect only one target and still be underpowered.

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I don't expect that Flurry will ever be "on par" with Shadow Maul or Sands of Mu because, frankly, it's a pool power, and I don't expect pool powers to be as good as mainline powers. I just want Flurry to be the kind of power I can take without feeling like I'm hurting my toon. With only moderate damage and a low chance to disorient (one of my least favorite effects), I still wouldn't consider it a good attack even if the animation time were decreased. Give it the potential to multiply that moderate damage and low chance to disorient over 1 to 5 minions, however, and now we're talking.


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Sands of Mu though is a vet power. There's no reason why a pool power can't overshadow a vet power. Actually, there's no reason why any one power has to be more or less than something from another pool. People state "A power in a secondary or pool power should never be stronger than a primary power" as if it's some kind of universal MMO standard, but it's not.

But once again, even if it was made into a cone, it would only be on par with Shadow Maul and Mu if you managed to get it to hit multiple people. You use Shadow Maul or Sands on a single target, and they're still good. Making Flurry a cone just means it's good in much fewer situations.

I don't expect it to be a good attack. I just want it to consistently equate to an average attack.

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Sands of Mu though is a vet power. There's no reason why a pool power can't overshadow a vet power.

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It's not the comparison to Sands of Mu that is the issue, it is the comparison to Shadow Maul. And if Sands of Mu did less damage than Shadow Maul then you could say that. But it doesn't. If A = B and A > C then B > C.

If Flurry were turned into a cone attack with the damage that it currently has, though, there would be no problem. Flurry does less damage than Shadow Maul. So the only similarity would be the same range and cone arc. Shadow Maul would still be the better attack. (There's also the -Acc vs. the stun, but IMHO the -Acc wins that one, too)

Of course, Flurry recharges faster and costs less End than Shadow Maul. But that is a constant for all attack powers. No one says Air Superiority is better than Haymaker because it recharges Faster and costs less End. (Well, maybe they do )

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Sands of Mu though is a vet power. There's no reason why a pool power can't overshadow a vet power.

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Don't forget, you can't slot Sands of Mu, so SoM gets progressively get weaker compared to Shadow Maul, right?

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Does Flurry still have silly high damage in PvP?

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Yes, but only the fite klubers use it. Flurry does about the same damage as knock out blow in pvp.

Never thought I'd see the day when flurry would need a nerf. It kinda tells you something about the new pvp system...

[/ QUOTE ]Of course, the animation will probably still get you killed, but I think it's hilarious that it does so much damage.

Last I checked, Dominators do the most PvP damage with it, too. Also hilarious.

They could shave off part of the animation at the beginning and end for Flurry and still keep the same number of punches. At the beginning, the character takes a moment to get into "Flurry mode" before he starts throwing his fists, and at the end there's another little pause after the final "uppercut" punch. Neither of these little moments of inaction make sense for a power that's supposed to be super-speedy. I'm not sure how much animation time shaving off those two parts would save, but anything's better than nothing.

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Sands of Mu though is a vet power. There's no reason why a pool power can't overshadow a vet power.

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It's not the comparison to Sands of Mu that is the issue, it is the comparison to Shadow Maul. And if Sands of Mu did less damage than Shadow Maul then you could say that. But it doesn't. If A = B and A > C then B > C.

If Flurry were turned into a cone attack with the damage that it currently has, though, there would be no problem. Flurry does less damage than Shadow Maul. So the only similarity would be the same range and cone arc. Shadow Maul would still be the better attack. (There's also the -Acc vs. the stun, but IMHO the -Acc wins that one, too)

Of course, Flurry recharges faster and costs less End than Shadow Maul. But that is a constant for all attack powers. No one says Air Superiority is better than Haymaker because it recharges Faster and costs less End. (Well, maybe they do )

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I'm not sure I understand this focus on making it a cone. I have Shadow Maul. I doubt I can actually get it to hit mulitple people more than 1/3 of the time, and that's if I'm very lucky and carefully align mobs up so that I can try. Applying that to Flurry means that 1/3 of the time (at best), you have an OK power, and 2/3 of the time, you have a sucky power. Because of its damage, Shadow Maul is at the very least an OK power when it hits one person, and very sweet when it hits more than one. Why "fix" Flurry so that it's only OK 1/3 of the time and still sucky the other 2/3 times? And that's if you're lucky!

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Does Flurry still have silly high damage in PvP?

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Yes, but only the fite klubers use it. Flurry does about the same damage as knock out blow in pvp.

Never thought I'd see the day when flurry would need a nerf. It kinda tells you something about the new pvp system...

[/ QUOTE ]Of course, the animation will probably still get you killed, but I think it's hilarious that it does so much damage.

Last I checked, Dominators do the most PvP damage with it, too. Also hilarious.

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Isn't the life expectancy of dominators in PVP about 3 seconds? Considering that's about 0.07 seconds shorter then flurry's activation time, it probably should do a lot of damage for them.

I joke though. seriously, If I understand the PVP damage chain change correctly, Damage is based on activation time but short activation powers and long recharge powers get a bonus. So while flurry has some crazy numbers, chaining blaze + Fire blast + Flares takes slightly more time and does significantly more damage.

The quirk is, flurry is no longer horribly underpowered for the amount of time it takes to activate. That's more a problem with the current game numbers though. PVE is balanced around damage numbers that only work within the PVE environment.

For instance, in PVE it doesn't really matter if a 1 second activation power can far outdamage a 3 second one, just so long as the AI dies first. PVP is a different beast though. Before I13 using flurry in PVP was the hallmark of an total noob, there were so many far better powers to choose from. Now, it actually has uses, although it's probably not the greatest power around still.

N-N-N-N-NECROTHREAD!

Seriously, let the dead alone.