Buff Trick Arrows!
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2009-10-30 15:26 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Rather than just dismissing my efforts, and the efforts of the people who've added to this thread, would you mind actually posting something useful?|
Originally Posted by Fire_Minded
After Playing TA, im rather surprised this Thread still exists.Theres nothing wrong with TA.
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I'd like you to post something a little more intelligent. Perhaps type up a rebuttal for each of the points I made in my OP. Maybe post a play comparison of TA and several of the other sets. Maybe even suggest that the sets that easily outperform TA are "too powerful" and suggest fixes for them.
If you really think TA is fine, explain why. If you're just trying to bait people in this thread, then be a little more direct with it and call us fat.
But don't try to act like you're smarter or superior because you disagree with the opinions of the people in this thread, and then not back it up.
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After reading some of your other posts, I'm rather surprised that you're still playing this game. I'm reasonably sure that you've sampled every unperforming powerset and deemed them fine by now.
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Originally Posted by Fire_Minded
After Playing TA, im rather surprised this Thread still exists.Theres nothing wrong with TA.
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There's no greater evidence one can present of a power set's gimpiness than fire minded pronouncing that there's nothing wrong with it.
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Unqualified opinions based on extremely limited experience don't alter reality. If they did, the world would be flat, the moon would be made of green cheese and you'd be right. It isn't, it isn't, and you aren't.
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Originally Posted by Fire_Minded
After Playing TA, im rather surprised this Thread still exists.Theres nothing wrong with TA.
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Heh, I agree.
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Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
There's no greater evidence one can present of a power set's gimpiness than fire minded pronouncing that there's nothing wrong with it.
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would love this as a blaster secondary...
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Eager for that -6% Recharge from Entangling Arrow? |
Originally Posted by HeavyTank
would love this as a blaster secondary...
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Concur. I couldn't even stomach TA until I was playing a Demons/TA. Strongest combo? ha, yeah right, TA is not so very good...but being TA meant you were a unique snowflake.|
Originally Posted by HeavyTank
would love this as a blaster secondary...
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It just seems like a set that would've been better for blasters. TA on Defender or Corruptor? No thanks...not that i've ever seen a def or corr using TA to judge. no heals and no buffs? everybody says, 'why?'
It meshes nice with an MM though. Glue arrow to keep the packs from scattering all over, the huge Burning Oil Slick every other pack is everything old fire armor Burn tanks used to be. No healing capability sucks for an MM, but if you have a pet that can cover that hole (like Robots or Demons...merc medics not so much, lol) it's not as bad. Ice Arrow combined with Demon Prince stacking a Hold with yours was an instaheld boss. Very cool for an MM.
I guess it was supposed to be a hybrid sort of set, like the Kheldian ATs are, but it just didn't work out. You bring a lot of stuff that seems cool on paper. All kinds of goofy debuffs. Poison Arrow with Sleep? Clearly someone who never played the game except on paper. Poison Gas Arrow needs a HOLD (puking gas) or a DISORIENT (poison gas made the enemies dizzy). That Sleep is worthless, totally worthless. If it ever put anything to sleep I never observed it. I guess maybe you can slot the super-cheap Purple Sleep IO set there or something? I dunno.
If a blaster could provide damage and TA debuffs though? Sweet, man.
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As is TA would be a bit to good for a Blaster secondary. I would however love to see a blaster secondary BASED on TA.|
Originally Posted by HeavyTank
would love this as a blaster secondary...
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Originally Posted by Iannis
TA on Defender or Corruptor? No thanks...not that i've ever seen a def or corr using TA to judge. no heals and no buffs? everybody says, 'why?'
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In general the game mechanics encourage the use of both buffs and debuffs. There are a couple of reasons for this. The biggy is that buffs and debuffs stack in a way that one type alone often cannot match and in some cases stack multiplicatively (the main exception is -damage and +resistance which are applied separately and thus suffer from diminishing returns when both are used). The secondary reason is that, on average, buffs are more effective defensively and debuffs are more effective offensively.
So yes you can say "no heals and no buffs" but that doesn't make it an inherently bad set in the same way that "no debuffs" doesn't make empathy an inherently bad set. What it does do in both cases is provide a limit on how they can interact with the game mechanics which in turn limits their general utility.
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TA defenders qualify as defenders. Potentially other players can do very well on the back of a TAs potential support if they can play to a TAs strengths. Many don't know how to, many haven't really got the ability to. Where ingame, people can work fully to a TAs strengths, their average local TA doesn't pick enough of the right powers and are incapable of offering the entire flexibility that a TA can offer.|
Originally Posted by Fire_Minded
After Playing TA, im rather surprised this Thread still exists.Theres nothing wrong with TA.
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It can offer a opportunity for people to create a great amount of survivability for eachother and even succeed in support where other defender types can only fail but most people are too blind to see its assets put together versus the game and even if they do, theyre built in a way that can't make complete use of them. I just want an end friendlier build after using EMP, so I can use it more often, keep supporting as usually needed and maybe see TA get more love than it can currently get. As eggs is eggs from my tankies perspectives a TA is as good as any.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
To be perfectly honest New Dawn, I'm not sure I believe that. What server do you play on that you meet people that don't pick enough of the powers from TA? Nearly every player with TA that I've met is only missing Entangling Arrow or Flash Arrow, and then picks everything else. You can't convince me that the lack of either of those powers in a build makes as big a difference as skipping Radiation Infection, Transfusion, or Tar Patch from their respective sets.
I'm also not convinced that even if the Devs went so far as to remove the -Recovery from EMP Arrow entirely that it would make any noticeable difference in the number of people that play and love the set.
Can TA be effective? Yes, but that doesn't make certain issues with the set any less valid.
Why should Disruption Arrow only hit 10 enemies when every other AoE -Resistance can hit 16, except Heat Loss? And why should it cost 14.56 endurance? That's only 1.04 less endurance than Fulcrum Shift!
Why should a -Perception power be okay as the second tier power, when it would be crazy if Smoke or Smoke Grenade were second tier in their respective sets?
Why should the sleep of Poison Gas Arrow not stack, when in nearly every other instance we're encouraged to stack mezzes?
Acid Arrow's 8 foot radius was a trade-off for having the recharge reduced to 20s during beta. What timer does it have to be at to get the radius at a more useful size?
And let's not even get started on Oil Slick Arrow, 4 years and 12 issues later.
It's not a question of effectiveness; you can tell anyone that will listen that TA is effective and that they're just doing it wrong if they think otherwise. But true or not, that doesn't make all those issues just disappear.
By skipping EA or FA, people aren't offering everything a TA can offer. All those who do not see what they can offer can't possibly realise the potential levels of survivability that can be gained from them.
My all scrapper STF was done with least amount of defeats using a 'duct tape' trick archer made from a scrapper and it was very effective. No temps used like Shivans and it was near as damn an MoSTF. All Scrapper MoSTFs are waiting to happen just don't make a duct tape empath out of a Scrapper in trying it.
Could I tank an STF with a Scrapper for a TA more easily than I would a Rad or Kin (Radiation Infection, Transfusion respectively)?
Sure could. Dark Defenders would be just as easy, as would Traps and Storm. Surprisingly unlike other people I do not need to build and play in a way that Rads, Kins and Empaths are as necessary as they are for most people.
Most people would rather have Rad, Kin, Dark or Emp on a STF than they would a TA, yet with a TA it's potentially as easy as it would be as having all four of those others put together. The beauty of TA in my book is that it does provide a team with survivability if they know how to contrive it. Different defenders, different ways to play, with that in mind TAs qualify as perfectly good defenders.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Not sure I understand what you mean by "duct tape trick archer made from a scrapper" and "Scrapper for a TA". Also, you only seem to mention Defenders' TA; do you feel MM, Corruptor and Controller TA performs just as well?
Anyway, as strongly as I disagree with you that in any universe TA has the potential to be as effective as having Rad, Kin, Dark and Emp put together, you're really not understanding my main argument.
Let's say, for example...
Radiation Infection cost twice the endurance cost it does now. Would Radiation Emission be less effective at defending a team? Not really. Would it make it tougher to play for the average player, though? Yes, it would.
Or what if sometimes, Dark Servant just... didn't show up? Would Dark Miasma be less effective at defending a team? Maybe a little, but hardly much for the majority of the game. But would it be fair? Nope.
Would it make sense for situational powers like Fallout or Black Hole to be the tier 2 power? Not at all.
What it Repel was the tier 1 of Kinetics and Corruptors and Controllers were forced to take it? Would that seem right? Nope.
But someone picking a TA is expected to just accept similar situations?
Take off your "Inspirational Speech" hat and put on your "Game Design" hat. These things shouldn't be!
Being able to take advantage of the immobilize hole in AV protection and restricting mob flight doesn't make TA anything other than able to take advantage of the hole in immobilize protection and prevent flight.
It still falls behind the other defender primaries that focus on debuffing and they also have buffs.
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So basically you are saying that TA is only an effective set if you take all 9 powers and that anything else is failing to live up to it's potential? I find that assertion ridiculous. There is no set in the game that requires all 9 powers to be functional. The armor sets come close but even with them there are normally at least one or two powers you can skip without wrecking your defenses. Almost all builds skip some powers from their Primary and Secondary and in TA EA and FA are the most skippable powers. So yes by skipping one of them you might not be offering "all that Trick Arrow can" but by taking both you aren't necessarily offering all that your CHARACTER can.
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Originally Posted by New Dawn
By skipping EA or FA, people aren't offering everything a TA can offer. All those who do not see what they can offer can't possibly realise the potential levels of survivability that can be gained from them.
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You say that as if either of those powers makes a significant difference in any combat situation. They don't. You don't see threads with titles like, "Boy, it sure was lucky that our defender had an Immobilize!" or "6.25% -ToHit and 'free' Stealth saved our lives!". Why? Because they aren't true.|
Originally Posted by New Dawn
By skipping EA or FA, people aren't offering everything a TA can offer.
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You also appear to be suggesting that a TA defender is required to take all nine primary powers in order to perform on par with any other defender. Why? Why should we be required to do that when every other type of defender can get away with using half or fewer of their primary powers? Why should one defender need nine powers just to be considered almost as useful or effective as another defender using four or five powers?
TA is not suitable for low level play. The recharge times are too long on the key powers, the mitigatory effects are too low and there's just no way to buffer the weaknesses until much later in the game.
TA is not suitable for large team play. The mitigation it offers is so intricately linked to recharge times that any team which is not struggling will find that the TA is contributing little to mitigation, because the available powers simply can't be recharged quickly enough to keep up. And any team which is struggling is going to continue to do so because even when a TA's powers are recharging quickly enough to be used more than once during a fight, they either don't stack or weren't mitigating damage or contributing to "kill speed" sufficiently (if they were, they wouldn't be used more than once during a fight).
TA is not suitable for "only defender on the team" play. The alpha mitigation is horrendous and the design of the set requires the player to risk that alpha, or exploit weaknesses in the critter AI, in order to provide mediocre mitigation for the rest of the team. That's stupid. It's badly designed and in desperate need of a review.
And TA doesn't even offer combat improvement well enough to offset the lack of appropriate mitigation. Acid's radius is idiotically small, Disruption's endurance cost and 10 target limit are just moronic in light of what it actually does and OSA has never been reliable (and is detrimental to teams with pets), nor is it available frequently enough to compensate for "everything else".
Yes, many of us who are considered "experts" can cite examples which refute those conclusions. The problem with that is that the vast majority of players aren't experts on TA, nor can any information passed along in a guide grant them with the expertise needed to circumvent the enormous flaws in TA.
Nor will telling people that they just need to take every power in the primary solve anything or make the set perform better. You do more harm than good with that kind of foolishness. The set needs to be fixed, not downplayed as just being underrated and "fine, as long as you take every power and use them all". And teams need to want a TA along because they're just as useful and effective as any other type of defender, not because they felt sorry for the player behind the TA and decided to "bring them along" as a virtual pity ****.
Well, Dayum Luminara...O_O *blinks* Well spoken!! I am not even going to attempt to pick up where you left off...there's no need!
Being British I had to go to bed last night.
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Using the same secondary effects that scrappers and trick archers can get and tanking in a way that I could for a trick archer (though I've never needed to with my tanker) with my scrapper survivability for the entire team gets created.|
Originally Posted by Trickshooter
Not sure I understand what you mean by "duct tape trick archer made from a scrapper" and "Scrapper for a TA". Also, you only seem to mention Defenders' TA; do you feel MM, Corruptor and Controller TA performs just as well?
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| Anyway, as strongly as I disagree with you that in any universe TA has the potential to be as effective as having Rad, Kin, Dark and Emp put together, you're really not understanding my main argument. |
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Let's say, for example... Radiation Infection cost twice the endurance cost it does now. Would Radiation Emission be less effective at defending a team? Not really. Would it make it tougher to play for the average player, though? Yes, it would. Or what if sometimes, Dark Servant just... didn't show up? Would Dark Miasma be less effective at defending a team? Maybe a little, but hardly much for the majority of the game. But would it be fair? Nope. Would it make sense for situational powers like Fallout or Black Hole to be the tier 2 power? Not at all. What it Repel was the tier 1 of Kinetics and Corruptors and Controllers were forced to take it? Would that seem right? Nope. But someone picking a TA is expected to just accept similar situations? Take off your "Inspirational Speech" hat and put on your "Game Design" hat. These things shouldn't be! |
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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It's what a TA can do with other people that matters. People can draw short straws for themselves and fail at making a TA potentially good for a teams needs or a team can fail at playing in a way that is to a TAs strengths. Same with any type of defender.
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Originally Posted by Frosticus
Being able to take advantage of the immobilize hole in AV protection and restricting mob flight doesn't make TA anything other than able to take advantage of the hole in immobilize protection and prevent flight.
It still falls behind the other defender primaries that focus on debuffing and they also have buffs. |
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I'm sorry New Dawn..but one shouldn't have to go so far out of the way to make the set barely up to par. Why are you being so vague? Please explain more about this tanking?
Even so, the build that you're describing probably neuters the defender as far as damage is concerned. They would have to skip many powers from their secondary making them ineffective when it comes to soloing.
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I don't believe that is what I said. I could skip EMP no problem. Your reply is now out of context no?|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
So basically you are saying that TA is only an effective set if you take all 9 powers and that anything else is failing to live up to it's potential? I find that assertion ridiculous. There is no set in the game that requires all 9 powers to be functional. The armor sets come close but even with them there are normally at least one or two powers you can skip without wrecking your defenses. Almost all builds skip some powers from their Primary and Secondary and in TA EA and FA are the most skippable powers. So yes by skipping one of them you might not be offering "all that Trick Arrow can" but by taking both you aren't necessarily offering all that your CHARACTER can.
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Every power has to offer something for either you or a team member. You can either take those powers and be able to offer conditions or skip them and be incapable of offering those conditions.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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This point is largely moot. The only thing TA has "strengths" over is when you compare it to nothing at all, because it's very weak compared to every other set. You even noted in your above quote that you never said TA was anywhere near as good as the other debuffing sets. You seem to be arguing that since TA can technically provide some level of support, that makes it okay. Even if it's vastly inferior to all other sets. Even if you play it really really well. You're arguing that TA can provide n level of support where n is a non-zero value, and that means it's just fine. Even if the value of n is fractional or microscopic.|
Originally Posted by New Dawn
It's what a TA can do with other people that matters. People can draw short straws for themselves and fail at making a TA potentially good for a teams needs or a team can fail at playing in a way that is to a TAs strengths. Same with any type of defender.
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You're telling us all about how TA has strengths that can be played to and how teams can fail to take advantage of those while simultaneously noting that you don't disagree that TA is weaker than the other sets. It's like you're arguing that a Tanker who only has Tough/Weave is still valid because he can technically maybe tank some of the time, and is maybe sort of better than not having a Tanker at all. But no, it's not the numbers that are bad, people just aren't using him right.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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[QUOTE=Luminara;2919620]You say that as if either of those powers makes a significant difference in any combat situation. [QUOTE]
That is not what I said. Now your reply is out of context too no?
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Someone else has said that I have said to take all 9 but I haven't. I do myself as I made a TA to play one.| You also appear to be suggesting that a TA defender is required to take all nine primary powers in order to perform on par with any other defender. Why? Why should we be required to do that when every other type of defender can get away with using half or fewer of their primary powers? Why should one defender need nine powers just to be considered almost as useful or effective as another defender using four or five powers? |
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| TA is not suitable for low level play. The recharge times are too long on the key powers, the mitigatory effects are too low and there's just no way to buffer the weaknesses until much later in the game. |
[QUOTE]TA is not suitable for large team play. The mitigation it offers is so intricately linked to recharge times that any team which is not struggling will find that the TA is contributing little to mitigation, because the available powers simply can't be recharged quickly enough to keep up. And any team which is struggling is going to continue to do so because even when a TA's powers are recharging quickly enough to be used more than once during a fight, they either don't stack or weren't mitigating damage or contributing to "kill speed" sufficiently (if they were, they wouldn't be used more than once during a fight).
TA is not suitable for "only defender on the team" play. The alpha mitigation is horrendous and the design of the set requires the player to risk that alpha, or exploit weaknesses in the critter AI, in order to provide mediocre mitigation for the rest of the team. That's stupid. It's badly designed and in desperate need of a review.
And TA doesn't even offer combat improvement well enough to offset the lack of appropriate mitigation. Acid's radius is idiotically small, Disruption's endurance cost and 10 target limit are just moronic in light of what it actually does and OSA has never been reliable (and is detrimental to teams with pets), nor is it available frequently enough to compensate for "everything else".
Yes, many of us who are considered "experts" can cite examples which refute those conclusions. The problem with that is that the vast majority of players aren't experts on TA, nor can any information passed along in a guide grant them with the expertise needed to circumvent the enormous flaws in TA.
Nor will telling people that they just need to take every power in the primary solve anything or make the set perform better. You do more harm than good with that kind of foolishness. The set needs to be fixed, not downplayed as just being underrated and "fine, as long as you take every power and use them all". And teams need to want a TA along because they're just as useful and effective as any other type of defender, not because they felt sorry for the player behind the TA and decided to "bring them along" as a virtual pity ****.[QUOTE]
My TA has existed since TAs have come out, it's no pity spot taker. If I see one as a leader it wouldn't get looked over for something else.
I will say that all of TAs powers have an area of use. If you're unequipped to suit those areas from not having the power then whose fault is that?
I do understand that other defenders are more effective for the typical player with less powers, I am not against tweaking.
But I will repeat my main point again. TA qualifies as a defender set.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Originally Posted by Negate
I'm sorry New Dawn..but one shouldn't have to go so far out of the way to make the set barely up to par. Why are you being so vague? Please explain more about this tanking?
Even so, the build that you're describing probably neuters the defender as far as damage is concerned. They would have to skip many powers from their secondary making them ineffective when it comes to soloing. |
In the spirit of christmas.. actually no, gaming. I rather lose an argument than do something like write a guide or whatever. Purely because if a guide were to mention everything someone needed to know, the game becomes unchallenging and well for me not worth playing. The vagueness doesn't exist from me thinking that nobody can see what I am on about, it's from me thinking that as many players where possible should discover the game for themselves.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
After Playing TA, im rather surprised this Thread still exists.Theres nothing wrong with TA.