A Spines Discussion

Or, it could, as I'm using it, be meaning "now" as in "the devs we have now are actually trying to address animation as a fundamental point of balance rather than a mostly cosmetic aspect of the game". The Cryptic devs left animation times alone because they saw it as a purely cosmetic value. It actually had a real effect upon the numbers, but this effect was only factored into the heuristic considerations rather than any theoretical or numerical balance consideration. Now, Castle is actively trying to bring animation time into the damage formula (though I'm not sure if he actually is finished with the rework of it) in order to determine how balanced certain powers are with animation time included (such as would need to be addressed with any change to Spines' animation times).

The question is then whether the long animation times of Spines' attacks are actually "bugs". One could easily consider them the heuristically generated balancing factor that makes Spines balanced and therefore not a bug in the least. In this sense, it's not a bug or a design flaw in the least. In fact, it's actually a properly applied design concept because it balances out what would otherwise be an overpowered set. The fact that you're trying to call it a "bug" and labeling it as fact has nothing to do with anything in fact. If anything, it's not a "bug" or "design flaw", it's a "lack of update" with has nothing to do with either design flaws or bugs.

Yes if I solo I'm sure I'd get much better mileage, or if I solo on a team even.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but only claws (incl widow claws) has received adjustments based on cast time. I don't recall any of the other weapon sets being altered due to chopping off the pauses. I recall Clobber being buffed, but that had nothing to do with animation trimming, but rather buffing the set as a whole.


One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.

If the devs have made the decision across 25 or more powersets (including repeats across AT's) that weapon sets will no longer have baked in redraw times and 1 set remains... you can explain that however you want. Heck I (and others) were able to justify PSW at one time, so go for it.

As I've said several times in this thread, feel free to correct me and name another drawn set that still has baked in times. All I can think of is probably the mace patron attacks, though there certainly isn't a lot of attack chaining going on with them.

A few examples of sets that used to have baked in draw times and have been reinvigorated by BaB's.
Gun(s)s (ie I doubt dual pistols will have it)
Bows - arch and TA
Swords - kat, BS, dual blades
Axe/Mace
Claws
Widows
Banes

Sets that haven't been updated
Spines
thorny assault
.
.
Oh I thought of another one, maybe pulse rifle hasn't been done... yet.

Call it w/e you want, an oversight, pending, future prospect, I'll get to it when I get to it. I've been told in other discussions that most would label that a "bug". If that is the incorrect terminology then my apologies. Semantic quibbling aside it doesn't change the fact that w/e you call it, it is there.

take care.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "adjustments based on cast time" or "altered due to chopping off the pauses" since both of those are rather vague. I know for a fact that Katana's numbers got tweaked rather extensively when it got the new two handed animations. Energy Transfer for tweaked to the new, longer animation time to make up for its damage. Claws got the revisions to its numbers completely exclusive of the redraw being removed to make some of the powers more in line with their new animation times. Blasters got their tier 1 and 2 blasts standardized with new animation times. All of the "brawl speed" powers got their animation times increased, which actually caused Castle to increase the damage of a couple of them to compensate. Ever since Castle has been in charge, an animation change has either been due to power balance or accompanied by power balance.

One of these posters isn't as knowledgeable as he thinks he is, one of these posters should really quiet down because he's just making himself look unintelligent, especially since I don't even think you understand what a heuristically generated balancing factor is. The real weapon sets were actually considered to be underperforming when BABs did the edit. Spines wasn't, nor has it ever.

That's for one very simple reason: Spines/* isn't actually a weapon set. It uses a specific stance, but that, by no means, makes it a weapon set. What you're completely ignoring is that the Spines stance isn't always self reset. If you've got Quills going, you'll actually remain in the Spines stance without having to do any redraw.

First off, Banes and Widows weren't even out when BABs did the redraw edit, so they never had baked in redraw. Also, the pulse rifle attacks don't have redraw automatically accounted for. Lastly, I don't even think you realize what the redraw tweak did.

It didn't stop powers outside of the set from resetting the stance to the neutral combat stance. It didn't change the animations at all. All it did was remove the short, required animation for redraw that was automatically factored into each attack already. It slightly sped them up when used completely internally, but otherwise left them alone. The animations were no faster when use intermittently than they were already. And, as said before by people other than me, by taking Quills, you don't drop out of the Spines stance at the end of your Spines attacks so you don't have the internal redraw. The removal of automatic stance adoption is actually present insofar as this (re: if you're in the stance, you animate without having to go through the stance readoption animation).

As of i16, this is now untrue I don't know if it's a bug or what but if you use any spines powers after you've turned Quills on, if you press escape or Z to cancel any action, or if you simply leave your character to settle out of the attack stance, your spines retract, even with quills still ticking away. Meaning you need to redraw in order to attack!

In fact, I'm now going to email support to check if this is right.

Oh, this might have been the case then. I never played spines much before i16, all I've noticed is that your spines retract even with quills toggled which ruins my look please fix it devs.

You've got the wrong idea. BaB adjusts animation times *ONLY* when Castle requires it. He doesn't go shaving off or adding seconds because he think it looks good. He said so himself when another poster jokingly accused him of butchering EM and he replied it was Castle that put him on the task.

The weapon sets had their animations shaved off because Castle wanted the weapon sets to start being proliferated to Brutes and those draw times were affecting fury. That's when Castle tasked BaB to go in and mess with animation times. Now any weapons sets (except Spines) can be cleanly proliferated without messing with animations, just the numbers.

He has, in fact, done just that. He slowed down Stone Melee's mallets from ~1.16s to ~1.6s because they were interrupting too early. That was a purely aesthetic change. Now, I don't think he does it willy nilly, I'm sure he runs any animation change by Castle first, but that's not the same as all animation changes originate from Castle.

I think the reason Spines didn't get the weapon draw time removed from their powers because Castle thinks the set is (too?) strong now and can't justify a buff like that without tweaking something else. Until that time, he's just leaving it alone for better (powers not getting changed) or worse (slow animations).

That is exactly what I've been saying, if Spines were to get it's redraw time removed a lot would have be changed and from what Castle said it wouldn't be to a lot of people's likings.

Really, I think you just have to wait until Spines gets proliferated to Brutes (can you imagine how bad it'd be on them currently?). Then Castle will have to crack his knuckles and finally get on with 'fixing' Spines.

People may cry now about that but the set will probably be better off (not to mention spread around to more ATs). It'll flow better and probably not be completely handicapped vs single hard targets.

But my point was, BaB probably won't go shaving off animation seconds and then Castle following behind to balance everything. Castle will ultimately dictate the direction in adjusting the set with new animation times and then BaB will alter the animations afterwards. You won't get one without the other.

Stay on topic please. We were talking about drawn sets, so EM, blasters (defiance changes to arch and assault were mutually exclusive to redraw changes), and brawl all have absolutely nothing to do with the discussion.

katana switching to two hands was long long before redraw was adjusted.

Claws IIRC was shown to be extremely powerful with baked times removed when it was thrown up on test. So the entire set was rebalanced at the same time and made much more aoe centric. So like I said claws (and the knowledge learned from it and applied in a similar form to widow claws, but not identical) is the only set that has actually been changed when the baked in drawn times were removed.


At least you recognize you don't know what you are talking about. You can say things like heuristically generated balancing factor all you want. People said the same thing about PSW relative to old psi assault. But somehow I seriously doubt that when spines was designed Geko (or whoever did it) said, "this set is perfectly balanced with these pauses, but none of the other drawn sets are and I hope my replacement fixes all of them except spines". Ya it is pretty stupid when you actually examine just what you are saying.


get up to speed it is i16.

And yes spines IS a drawn set as I've stated several times it falls into the drawn/weapon sets and experiences REDRAW. It's hard to comprehend I know.


I know when they made banes and widows it was done with no prior knowledge whatsoever amirite?

I know exactly what the redraw tweak did. It removed the baked in redraw time that practically every weapon/drawn power in the game. If you force a redraw you increase the cast time to ~original values. It makes for much more seamless attacking, much faster attacking and it was spread to almost all other attack sets that benefit from it when it was so successful on dualblades.

In general it takes about 0.5-0.8 seconds off of the cast time of every attack depending on the associated redraw time. I think most fall into the 0.7 area, but I gave a range as some seem a bit faster and others a bit slower.

It does not change the actual animation (though I think some powers were tweaked a tiny bit), it just removes the pauses and hitches thus reducing the total cast time.

Exactly, except for spines, it still has the pauses at the end. And as for quills welcome to i16, not to mention that I'm pretty sure I've experienced redraw w/ quills going prior, ya the spines would stay out, but you'd still go through a redraw animation prior to attacking. Admittedly it was some time ago so that might be hazy.

I think you keep arguing that spines is balanced enough to not require the redraw to be taken out? But then at other times you seem to be arguing that the set doesn't even have redraw?

I can agree with the first statement, but it in no way means that the issue is not present. If you are saying the second, well you are just wrong.

While I'm not a personal fan of how Castle adjust things most people are very satisfied with the rebalancing acts he has done in the last several issues. Not just to single powersets, but entire AT's.

If it came out looking as good as claws, but with b/u instead of followup I think it would be a great set.

For me at least, the slows and .33 mag immobs on many of the powers fall way below the fact that it is one of the slowest attacking sets out there now.

I could also sacrifice a bit of range on spineburst for a smooth playing set. Heck the range on impale was cut in half while I was actively using the set on a daily basis and it came with no beneficial offset. I could swallow other changes a lot easier if it came with a very fluid playing post-changes spines.

but ymmv.

Anyway, I've had my say and it is obvious that some people (not you Santorican, I get where you are coming from) can't think objectively due to biases. That's ok, it is what it is.