Buff Trick Arrows!

With TA, if you're helping your team in an effective manner, no one will ever notice it. It's just how the set works in this game.

This reminds me of a debate a few months back about "healer" characters, in which some were claiming healing is never, ever desirable and a Trick Arrow Defender could outperform an Empath on a sewer run. Supposedly there is a "secret" method to running Trick Arrow that makes it extremely effective; if this is true I haven't seen it.

To give the set a quick once over of my own:

Entangling Arrow - Single target immob. Similar to a Controller power except weaker all around. Has lower magnitude (3 instead of 4), no damage, shorter immob time, and half the -Recharge of the similar Ice Control power, Chillblain. Essentially it is one half as good as a power most Controllers skip.

Flash Arrow - -6.52% to hit and a blind. If blinds caused 1/10th of the inconvenience in enemies they do in players, this would be fine. As it is, it's marginal.

Glue Arrow - A quick examination of AoE slows puts this one near the bottom in power. The -90% run speed is okay-ish, but -20% Recharge is too minimal to mean anything. It does recharge quickly, but because this is an anchor power the actual duration tends to be shorter than advertised. (The anchor thing may be a bug, because it has come and gone over time). Powers that blow this out of the water are Shiver (30 second faster recharge on a Controller, and, for reasons known only to game developers, 48 seconds faster on a Blaster) Quicksand (which adds an auto hit 25% defense penalty) and Snow Storm (45% more recharge penalty and more AoEs to stack it with).

Ice Arrow - A single target hold on 18 second recharge. It's... well it's actually the worst single target hold I can think of in a support set. Recharge is 8 seconds longer and animation almost a second longer than the Blaster power Freeze Ray, even if hold duration is 3 seconds or so longer. Recharge is also 2 seconds longer than Defender Petrifying Gaze.

Poison Gas Arrow - A 30% damage penalty. Decent but not game changing. The first AoE so far that has provided a real survivability boost.

Acid Arrow - We're at a level now where we competing against Speed Boost, Dispersion Bubble, Fortitude, Freezing Rain, and Fearsome Stare for a spot on a team, and we're toying with a power with an 8ft radius. The effects are ok, the AoE is awful, and the effects aren't dramatic enough to compete with single target monster powers like Benumb and Heat Exhaustion. Falls into approximately the same category as the lvl 1 Cold Domination power Infrigidate.

Disruption Arrow - The extra 20% damage is nice. Of course, our Dark Miasma friends have been getting 30% since level 1 with the superior Tar Patch, which also happens to offer slow powers. Not sure why this costs 14.6 endurance to Tar Patches 7; at least it recharges 30 seconds faster.

Oil Slick Arrow - We're finally getting to something good. Too bad about the 180 second recharge and the fact that knockdown patches get cancelled out by Controllers trying to get containment (see: reasons the Ice Controller went to the corner to cry).

EMP Arrow - Again you're playing Controller, except not as good. Great size at least.


What it all boils down to for me: with TA you're playing a character who is trying to be a Controller, and failing. Where Dark Miasma, Storm, and Traps manage to blend controls, buffs, and debuffs effectively, TA is forced to rely almost entirely on Oil Slick Arrow for a reliable advantage. You have no way to restore HP, no good single target debuffs, no recharge boosters, no mezz defense or protection, no reliable knockback for soloing, no team buffs of any kind, some of the lowest debuff values of any Defender, holds and slows weaker than an Ice Blaster, and mezzes weaker than a Controller that take an average of 30-50% longer to recharge.

The shorter answer is I agree TA could use a buff. Love the concept. Don't like the implementation.

I don't play a controller when I play a Trick Archer. I play a debuffer mainly and as with many types of characters, at times, a limiter. Where I create limits, it's up to the rest of the team to monopolize to an extent on those limits. Even in certain extreme cases (where people may think this is impossible) the teams need for heals need not be there, the teams need for mezz protection need not be there. The Trick Archer may not be up to pace as some sets under certain conditions but it has the tools.

I don't think it's particularly easy creating a new defender set that has to stand out differently and work differently in order to be something that is innovational without being contraversial.

I could with an Icetank comfortably tank Lord Recluse for a Trick Archer. People shouldn't be asking me how, they should wonder what it is that an Icetank has and that a Trick Archer has that can be working together in unison to get things comfortable. When it comes to the rest of the team, things still can be comfortable, when Lord Recluse spawns his Banes the Trick Archer still has the tools.

Going from group to group in general gaming it is down to everyones actions on how well things go. For an example, often people will be better off generally, if they're attacking after Flash Arrow. I often see the difference that power makes ahead of my debuff chain in the health bars of people after the fight. I have aid other for the between parts if needs be but usually its from mistakes, mistakes that didn't have to be there, and it is as a pool power a helpful option. Haste is the best option.

Best thing I can say about TAs is it's not for whack a mole types. If you consider yourself intelligent then go for one.

OP, After reading your suggestions I honestly feel like you're approaching this more from a "buff us up just a little" than an actual balance perspective based on other powers.

In simpler terms, you're not asking for enough. I have a traps MM and a traps corr, and the amount of neutering I can do to a spawn combined with the synergy of the set, I've taken out half a spawn with that secondary before I started to touching my primary. Dark may not be able to destroy a spawn, but it makes sure the spawn can't destroy me either. TA by comparison does not neuter a spawn into helplessness and provides little to no personal survivability.

In particular.

Oil Slick arrow lowered to 60 seconds recharge. Its buggy as it is, have it up often.

PG arrow, duration increased to 30 seconds, recharge increased to 60 seconds, stacking allowed, -500%(or more, after all PG trap is -1000% and dark can stack more than -500%) regen added.

Ice arrow - Give chance to increase Mag by 1, lower cooldown to 15 seconds, increase base duration to 15 seconds. If you're going to give a hold to a debuffing set, it should be a hold that can actually be used for something, like a hold that gives you a chance to hold a boss and that with slotting can be easily stackable, maybe even on more than one enemy. For defenders and Corruptors, this change will do them a world of good survivability wise.

Acid arrow - To keep this power in line with other similar powers, increasing the recharge should increase the duration. I agree that the radius needs a bump, as do the debuff values.

Disruption arrow - I think that this should stack on some -tohit and -perception, and have a shorter cooldown. It would make sense for a disruption arrow to actually...disrupt...something. Loud *** noises make attention spans shorter and annoy the crap out of people so they have a harder time focusing on anything, and what they do focus on they're not very good at paying attention to it. In balance terms, you could make the thing have no aggro component, and that lets the set stack a ton of -tohit and -perception before the alpha is taken, and the -res component wouldn't hurt either. All you have to do is add "Emits sounds too high for humans to hear" in the description and make the thing drive warwolves crazy and you've got a winner.

The other option is to give this thing a taunt aura. Now wouldn't THAT be an interesting toy. Give it the ability to take about double the damage of a seeker drone, and a taunt aura, -res, and -perception. Makes enemies run in close to angrily try to stomp the thing to oblivion. Give it a decent range on that taunt aura, and you've got an alpha taker, or a handy positioning tool. I've always wanted a power that could pull enemies towards one point, this is a close second.

To be honest, /TA needs some cottage rule violations. I've always been frustrated with that perspective, if you make something broken you shouldn't be restricting yourself to tweaks to get it working. /TA out of the box was a bunch of great ideas marred by overzealous value reductions and bugs that have yet to be fixed (Oil slick, I'm looking at you). The set needs to be revamped as a whole to feature some stuff it didn't before. If nothing else, /TA needs to have some way to buff or help self.

I saw a joke about a "healing arrow" earlier. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. Hows this, we combine disruption arrow with flash arrow and keep the no aggro portion, and then we add a new "Aura buff" where you fire a slew of arrows with giant suction cups on the end upwards, and they fall back onto all nearby allies, with one flying straight up and landing on your head. Everyone gets a buff, arrows disappear, group moves on.

The issue with Trick Arrow isn’t that it cant be played well in groups or that it doesn’t help teams, its that nothing it does do cant be done better by other more versatile primaries. Strictly speaking, specialization balances out utility. However with Trick Arrow it doesn’t seem to debuff as well as Radiation, or Dark, or Cold for that matter. So does it make up for it in other areas? If so I dont see it. Oil slick (bugs and all) and EMP arrow are effective 8/9’s tier powers and seem at least on par with the 8/9’s from the other sets.

However in powers 1-7 Trick arrow offers less utility than the other Control/debuff sets.
The options (from a mechanics point of view) seems to be debuff/control with shields, Debuff/control with heals/rez. Debuff/contol with heal, rez and buff; or Slightly Sub par debuff/contol with OSA.

The argument isn’t that TA cant be made to be effective, its that for the first 35 levels for a defender there appears to be nothing that TA does better than the other primaries and no real advantage in versatilityto make up for it. I love my TA/A defender. I played her to 50 on two servers but simply put Rad, Dark and Cold defenders appear to bring more to the table in terms of utility, functionality and effectiveness.

Maybe 99% of the players are playing with TA defenders wrong. If that’s the case and TA is a primary that only elite players can make blossom then let it be known through out Paragon. TA as a primary doesn’t currently appear as effective as other options and in a game that has modified power sets repeatedly over the years in the name of “Game Balance,” it seem time for the red-names to take a closer look at how TA is perceived, used, and plays out in the game.

Some people miss powers, just talking powers in general, because sometimes they do not see the utility. Maybe that utility would only be good in 5% of the game for 1% of the people who can make something of it but then some people may be doing that 5% of the game most of the time and priding themselves upon it. Especially those who love to do the things other people told them they couldn't do.

Most TA builds I wouldn't want for myself as I personally wouldn't be always comfortable tanking for them. The reason being, is that they may of skipped something they did not see the utility in. Perhaps every so often power designers sometimes make sets for dynamics that some of the population don't even think of, or care to get into, from their current standpoint. They looked at what they needed as far as the end of their own noses and took 6 out of 9 powers and go on to complain that they can't defend well enough.

I am all for a buff, but the right buff, not a buff that's there because people couldn't see that part of its difference is that one may play with someone of the set differently to how they may play with other defenders.

Subtle changes like halve PGAs rechg to 20 secs (good for fast teams and competes with the other defenders debuff toggles that are 8 sec rechg better) or make Ice Arrows Cast time 1 sec and rechg 16 sec would help the set in my book.

Something I'm wondering is why Trick Arrow was not given the ability to light its own Oil Slick. Even though it doesn't do damage, in theory Flash Arrow should be able to light it.

My TA is very welcome around some people but not everyone. I'd be right in saying that some of what is the best that you can offer will only be there if what you are offered is ideal. A help me to help you scenario. I specifically said though that I wouldn't always be comfortable tanking for a team with just a TA. This can mean that 99% of the time I would love it. People behind a toon matter and the game keeps fresh when you vary your team make ups and the people behind the characters. I'll always try to man up to powersets rather than pick holes in them.

Im not sure that TA increases "arrest speed" more than a rad, who also buffs and has quality of life buffs, or Cold who has a wide array of buffs. One might even make an argument for Dark (or Kin increasing speed faster and given resists In many cases Debuff needs to have superior values than buffs for an equal effect on "Arrest speed")

It seems to me that the three methods of effective defending are weakening the opposition, increasing your teams effectiveness, and mitigation of incoming damage/effects. The issue with TA is that it focuses on just one aspect of defending and it doesnt seem to address this task any better than sets which address de-buffing in addition to other methods of defending.

Im not offering a solution though I think the set needs some tweaking not a major overhaul. I love the concept of the set but it captures a little too much of the "I'm not really a superhero" attitude for set parity. But maybe that WAI, I hope not.