HEAT Epics

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

I thought it was summed up when someone said it was because the eipc pools are actually built into the primary and secondary.

Khelds get more power choices than any other AT, so don't really need any extra choices.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

This.

I like it when somebody posts exactly what I'm thinking so I can avoid the whole arguement phase. Nicely said.

Fly/Teleport aren't really stackable (But I assume you know that) so that is slightly different. Plus leadership is the type of thing that you either have or don't, so having access to both makes sense.

The other thing is that I really like the pool lockouts. They add a flavour to the AT's that no others have, and teleport is a Warshade thing so doesn't really fit into Peacebringers.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

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Originally Posted by Debt_Magnet Since the SoA's get access to an epic pool why dont they give that option to the Kheldians?

Because the Devs decided not to.

This is actually not true.

Kheldians get 26 powers from their primary/secondary. (Yes, plus two freebie travels.)

Night Widows get 27 from their Primary/Secondary, Fortunata get 30, Crabs get 28 (30 if you count the two frags/vemons as seperate powers) and Banes get 30.

All four of those get Patron Pools.

AS a Kheldian player I frankly fail to see why any Kheldian player would be OPPOSED to getting access to APPs.

IF YOU DON'T WANT ONE, DON'T TAKE ONE. But don't rain on other people's parade because of your viewpoint.

I would immediately take any Psi based APP on my Peacebringer, because it would actually FIT his background. His host was a powerful psychic. It makes NO SENSE that he can't use ANY of his Psi powers now that he's joined.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

QFT.

Of course, the Devs might have to deal with *possible* "overpowered" scenarios from the min/maxers because of adding EPPs... And this may be something that the Devs really have no interest (or no time) to deal with. However, you make some excellent points, and ones that I would definitely agree with.

I'd also mention that "outcry" from the playerbase is *almost* the only thing that will cause the Devs to re-look at an AT and see what they can do to "improve" on it.

That said, in the past, this has also proved to add "nerfage" as well... And, if adding an EPP to a Kheld causes powers such as Stygian Circle or Eclipse to get nerfed.... I would make a complte 180 on my stance and say "don't add EPPs."

Yeah, I like those powers that much.

"The One"

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

Plus 10 more from the forms.


Anyway, it'd be neat, but I don't think necessary. APPs/PPPs are designed to fill in gaps that the AT may have. As it stands, there are very few gaps that the Khelds have that cannot already be filled within the Primary/Secondary.

I'll never count the form powers, as "picking" the powers in nova or in dwarf don't apply towards your normal level power picks, thus they are a non-issue.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

They do, however, add in a balancing effect in that they fill out what the character can do. If it shows up as an auto or on the power tray, I say it counts.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Balanced by their "mostly" mutually exclusivity with the human form powers and each other no?

I don't agree with that. Using Nova or Dwarf turns off all your other powers. In effect, that is the balance consideration at work. If when you turned on Dwarf you had all its powers PLUS your human form powers I would agree with you.

When you pick say Bane Spider, you have access to the whole wolf training and your Bane choices. There are a couple of exceptions. Crabs can't have duplicates of Venom Grenade and WAWG and Night Widows can't have both Follow-Up and Build Up, but other than that, the VEATs have more power choices than Kheldians.

QFT.

Most people don't seem to take this into consideration--that switching into a form is like playing a completely different toon with different powers, shape, speed, capabilities, and working set bonuses. It just "happens" to be worked into a current toon you have. Every time you hit that form-switching button, you're effectively switching into another power set/build/costume "on the fly."

"The One"

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

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Originally Posted by AlienOne Most people don't seem to take this into consideration--that switching into a form is like playing a completely different toon with different powers, shape, speed, capabilities, and working set bonuses. It just "happens" to be worked into a current toon you have. Every time you hit that form-switching button, you're effectively switching into another power set/build/costume "on the fly." "The One"

That's how I understand a lot of people play and view Kheldians. A sort of Kheldian form-lock if you will. I've often heard people say that when they're blasting in Nova, that's all they would do. Quite frankly, on some teams and most missions, that's quite enough, especially when your Nova employs procs in its slotting. You shift into Nova and lazily snipe/blast from the back row.

Others, myself included, who play their Kheldians as maniac shape-shifters and constantly use keybinds and employ the fact that shifting down to Human-form and executing a Human-form power still flows nicely — when you time things right, because I13 made it more difficult to accomplish and it actually requires good timing now — and allows the Kheldian to extend their power usage a bit more.

For Warshades, Black Dwarf Mire can still be executed to enhance Eclipse and Sunless Mire, and White Dwarf Flare still buys you a split second to call forth those Photon Seekers, execute Pulsar at the same time almost, and finish with Solar Flare.

Granted, you take more risks that way, and it's a subtle advantage that many may not employ, but I believe it still has to be taken into account when discussing the Kheldian balance of power.

This isn't to say that I don't want more power for my Kheldians, but as I said in my previous short post, Kheldians don't have EPP's simply because the Devs don't want them to and no amount of thematic/gameplay discussion is going to change that unless we can prove that Kheldians are not performing their intended design goals.

A quick Google search yields several threads where Geko speaks about Kheldians as a class that is designed to adapt to the changing circumstances of battle. The recent changes to Kheldians (I13) and what Castle said about not allowing Kheldians Human-form mez-protection so Dwarf won't be obviated, lead me to think the Devs have not changed their goals for Kheldians. If we would be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that adding EPP's to Kheldians would help them adapt better to the changing circumstances of battle, I suppose the Devs may see the logic in adding EPP's, until such time or until the Devs change their goals for Kheldians, I doubt we'll ever see EPP's added.

This is of course my opinion, YMMV.

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..

I disagree. Just look at the most recent buffs to stalkers, for example. All the more experienced players really wanted was a buff to the damage scalar, and successfully demonstrated that Stalkers weren't performing as they should in the damage area alone. However, there were a wide range of suggestions for everything from increased survivability to fear effects and -toHit added to AS to scrapper-like criticals, each with their own camps of devotees. In the end, the outcry for change was so much that the devs implemented ALL of the requests (or nearly all of them) regardless of whether it was demonstrated that the stalker as an a/t was failing in that area. I mean, really - the fear effect? That was just gratuitous, right there!

But none of what they implemented was game-breaking, so they did it. The point is that so long as it is something an archetype's community is behind and they can demonstrate that it won't unbalance or break the archetype in question I haven't seen any evidence that performance (or the lack thereof) has to be directly related to the changes requested.

Besides, Epic Pools wouldn't take away from an adaptability role - they'd add to it.

You're referring to Castle not adding human form mez protection, right? If so, you're also assuming Castle thought human form wasn't viable without it. He never said we should be forced into form-shifting; the only thing he said was that the addition of mez protection obviated dwarf form.

Since the majority of the changes were focused on problems with human form (increased damage in human ranged attacks, increased human damage scalars, and increased range of human ranged attacks), I don't see how it could be read that Castle didn't agree that human form should also be a viable way to play, and so I don't quite see how he disagreed with Geko's vision, there.

Did I misunderstand you?

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Originally Posted by AlienOne So, in the end... Who here is the "authority" on the "Dev view" on what they intend for Khelds? Who knows if they have any different intentions for Khelds in the future? Who knows if they will implement any or none of our suggestions on these forums in those "intentions?"

No one person is, which is why most of forum discussions boil down to people expressing their opinions.

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Originally Posted by AlienOne I believe that's the point of suggestions. I've seen in the past seeming "Dev intent" change, based on playerbase opinion/suggestions, as long as it wasn't game-breaking. We are, after all, customers. "The One"

Most certainly. However, despite the Devs displaying a capacity for "divine mercy" — for example, changing the Blaster inherent to allow them to utilize some of their attacks while being mezzed — that "divine mercy" wasn't even extended to Human-only Kheldians to mitigate the outcry for Human-only mez-protection that has been going on for several issues now. So, I think EPP's wouldn't even get on the table before that outcry is somehow addressed.

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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe The point is that so long as it is something an archetype's community is behind and they can demonstrate that it won't unbalance or break the archetype in question I haven't seen any evidence that performance (or the lack thereof) has to be directly related to the changes requested.

I did not mean performance as in how efficiently a Kheldian defeats enemies, but rather the performance a Kheldian will have in performing its role, and since the Kheldian role isn't as clear-cut, at least not to me, I can't even decide what I'd want from an EPP and every suggestion for Kheldian EPP's hasn't gained mass community support so maybe we should discuss what sort of EPP's we could all get behind?

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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe Besides, Epic Pools wouldn't take away from an adaptability role - they'd add to it.

I'm actually quite convinced that from the adaptability role perspective, the Devs are of the opinion that we're doing just fine and we don't require any more additional performance increase. If anything, I13 boosted form performance in team situations and decreased Kheldian form-shifting abilities for a soloist Kheldian!

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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe Since the majority of the changes were focused on problems with human form (increased damage in human ranged attacks, increased human damage scalars, and increased range of human ranged attacks), I don't see how it could be read that Castle didn't agree that human form should also be a viable way to play, and so I don't quite see how he disagreed with Geko's vision, there.

I think that Castle indirectly hinted that Human-only Kheldians should be viable and were boosted for that purpose, as long as they are still vulnerable to mezzing the same way they always were. I'm guessing therefore that any EPP mez-protection suggestion wouldn't be the first thing to be approved by the Devs, if any will.

No, I got that. Performance of a role is what I meant, as well. What I'm saying is that the developers have a demonstrable history of making changes that didn't necessarily increase an archetype's performance of its role, but also didn't necessarily decrease it. Fear and -toHit pbaoe in a stalker's AS and the increase in HP didn't play to the stalker's role of melee glass cannon. In fact, it worked a little bit against the "glass" part of that role, in that they were no longer as fragile in the performance of what is essentially the same role.

Performance of the role, or performance in arresting? Couldn't resist a little joke!

Actually, the argument could be made (and was made, by some) that pre-I13 Kheldians were performing just fine with regard to their role of being adaptable. Shape-shifting Khelds could still switch forms to change roles in battle, and teaming khelds of all flavors still enjoyed bonuses while teamed that depended on team makeup.

That didn't change the fact that Khelds needed help. The damage buffs, the dwarf-form breakfree and the range increases only indirectly helped a Kheldian be more adaptable, but were addressed principally to problems that were independent of the role of the archetype. After all, how is a direct damage buff making a kheld more adaptable? It enables the kheldian to get through a battle quicker? That's an indirect benefit.

Taking the animation time out of shapeshifting would have been a direct boon to our adaptability, but that wasn't done. Allowing auto pool powers like Stamina and Health to transfer to the forms would have been a direct help, but that wasn't done either. The only change they made that directly affected our adaptability was to allow the team link inherent to carry over to the forms.

Adding epic pools - or kheld specific pools of any sort, really - actually would directly help us be more flexible and adaptable, and so long as they come at the cost of other power choices from our primary and secondary, wouldn't overpower us or starve us for slots. Kheldians are performing their role just fine, I agree. But then, they were just as adaptable before I13 as after - they just the balance between killing and being killed while performing that role more towards the killing side.

My point is that the archetype's performance of its role isn't necessarily the mean by which it is measured when it comes to requesting changes. We've gotten tons of changes in this game not because something wasn't working as intended, but simply because we as a community asked for them.

If no further changes are made to the kheldian archetype, it's not necessarily because the developers aren't willing to make changes, but more because there is no solidarity among we the players. Most of us are content with Khelds as they are, and those of us who do want change seldom agree on what form it should take, and really aren't discontented enough to pursue it.

And really, there's nothing wrong with being happy.

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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ...My point is that the archetype's performance of its role isn't necessarily the mean by which it is measured when it comes to requesting changes. We've gotten tons of changes in this game not because something wasn't working as intended, but simply because we as a community asked for them. If no further changes are made to the kheldian archetype, it's not necessarily because the developers aren't willing to make changes, but more because there is no solidarity among we the players. Most of us are content with Khelds as they are, and those of us who do want change seldom agree on what form it should take, and really aren't discontented enough to pursue it. And really, there's nothing wrong with being happy.

Very true, all of it.

This.

I really, really, really wish I could come across like this and word things like you do, rather than seemingly post something "argumentative" in nature to try and say the same thing you do with more diplomacy.

I agree that pre-i13 the same argument could have been made, before all the changes... I certainly was pretty content. But, I also loved the changes post-i13 too... Logging on to my PB and switching to Dwarf and doing a buttload more damage per attack was a "oohhh.... This is nice!" feeling. And I didn't even request any changes then (with the possible exception of human-only mez protection, which I've been on the rampage for forever, so that doesn't count...haha)!

"The One"

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades The way you play changes your IO slotting..