Buff Trick Arrows!

I love my TA Defender but as a concept. Everyonce in a while I remember her come back and run a mission or tow then then say, oh yeah thats why I dont play her. Purpled up she marginally effective and my friends nicknamed her "Deadweight."

It seems she works best running with large groups of "meh" players. Good players dont need/ notice her debuffs enough to speed up defeat rate, poor players arent helped enough by her.

And here I kept thinking that TA was overpowered as it was!

All I wanted changed was the base accuracy increased since it's a drawn weapon.

The way TA sits for me, any character with TA tends to find reasons to shelve certain powers after a while, having read the posts, I realize that the shelving of powers is coming from the lack of benefits as your TA gets older. You guys are right, let's up the buffs!

Knight, your experiences with TA as a defender primary don't resemble my own experiences, nor does your judgment; I find TA to be a fun and effective set, both as a primary and a secondary. If you don't enjoy TA as a primary, that's one thing and saying "I don't enjoy it" covers that. To make a categorical judgment is another, and not something well supported by your own statements. Reflect for a bit about what the odds are that the strengths of TA could be highly meaningful on a controller, but amount to diddly squat on a defender or corruptor. The math on that way of thinking doesn't add up particularly well.

As for the last few posters before Knight who called TA silly names, you only succeeded in making yourselves look uninformed. Players solo emps, FF, and sonic defenders at all levels of the game; anybody who can't solo on a TA has truly earned the response "lern 2 play." Likewise, anybody who can't make a substantive contribution to a team with TA (as a primary or a secondary) is either brand new to the game or, if they're not a new player, then they should stay away from bows and arrows in real life because they'd probably point the arrow in the wrong direction and hurt themselves.

The question isn't whether or not TA "sucks", however one might define that. TA doesn't "suck" and people who say that are inviting others to draw unflattering conclusions about their playing skills and/or their willingness to be honest. The question also isn't whether TA performs like another set that some like better (for heaven's sake, play that set instead). The question is whether TA would be more fun to play, and therefore more popular, if it received some buffs. I believe it would be and everybody else seems to think it would be, as well. In fact, I don't recall seeing anybody come into this thread to argue that some kind of buff to TA would make it less fun to play.

The only concerns I see expressed about buffing the set are that buffs could potentially overpower controllers; which, once again, makes arguments that TA "sucks" as a primary rather difficult to believe.

I find /TA to be distinctly underwhelming as a MM secondary. Admittedly I'm running it with Ninjas, and those little buggers are hard to keep alive at the best of times, but it seems (at least so far -- she's 24 at the moment) very light on mitigation. Glue Arrow's useful, and Ice Arrow is nice, but Flash Arrow? I haven't noticed a scrap of difference between fights where I use it and fights that I don't. It doesn't seem to be very good at helping you split spawns (like Fire Control's smoke) and the -To Hit is unnoticeable.

At least Oil Slick Arrow looks like it'll be decent mitigation once she gets it.

Actually, its a numbers thing. I have a perfectly enjoyable, though not exactly easy time soloing my Trick Arrow/Dark. I have a little bit of masochist in me too and I like having to work harder to make something work for me. I have tons of little tricks that make the set work for me pretty well.

It is when you start putting it on a team that people notice the buff and debuffs just don't add up to what they can be for other Defenders. Everyone always says that you put 8 Defenders on a team and they stun everybody. But Trick Arrow is the least stunning to a team.

Yes, you don't have a heal and that is what people notice most. But if you start looking at the Debuff numbers you aren't even the best at that. Over time, even the scrubs that play in PUGs have noticed that the team moves better with a Trick Arrow, but they move even better with a Rad or a Traps or a Dark or a Kin or a Cold.

Someone mentioned that Trick Arrow gets some controls to offset its lack of "buff". The two single target controls really don't bring that much mitigation to a team, so I don't feel like I'm missing much. I actually didn't take either power and I do fine solo. They are not a force multiplier like buffs and debuffs are.

Even some of the set defining powers like Acid Arrow, are very hard to hit multiple targets because the AoE is so small. That doesn't help a big team as much as most of the other debuffs that other Defenders are running.

Many people enjoy Trick Arrow the way it is because it is a challenge. This game really is not that hard and people like the badge of honor of playing a slightly more challenging Toon. But in the end, Trick Arrow is not balanced well against the other Defender Primaries. You really do bring less to a team than other Defenders.

To anyone who took offense at me poking a little fun at TA (coming back with the old 'learn2play' is a tad predictable and not much of argument), let me point out that my experience of TA is as a Corruptor, not a Defender or Controller. Any of you saying TA is just fine playing an A/TA Corruptor at high levels? Didn't think so.

EDIT: One particular issue I've noticed as a Corruptor is that Acid Arrow still seems to use Mastermind stats, meaning only 15% off resist - wasn't this a bug that was supposed to be fixed a long time ago?

-heal in pga would be spiffy

Personally, I see three overlapping flaws with Trick Arrow which contribute to its "meh..." status for Defenders (and others by extension). It's overall debuffs ... supposedly the point/strength of the powerset ... take too long to put into effect, since they need to be stacked via multiple attacks, and they've got poor "every spawn group" utility due to durations and recharge times.

The biggest problem with Trick Arrows ... in my opinion ... is the animation times. I'm am constantly left wondering why ANY of the animations for Trick Arrow lasts for longer than 1 second. Honestly. If I'm supposed to be stacking debuffs (single target or otherwise) onto hostiles in order for my TA powerset to contribute meaninfully to the battle and it's taking me about as long to debuff as it takes to kill things ... I'm not doing much to help myself, or my team. Unless the target is something filled with hit points, I'm actually wasting time debuffing targets rather than adding my own damage into the mix, when looking at the Time To Kill with either option.

In this respect, Trick Arrow simply doesn't feel *responsive* enough to swiftly shifting combat dynamics ... especially in teams. Quite often, I'll fire off a debuff just in time to watch my target get defeated while I'm staring at a nocked (trick) arrow ... simply because the animation times are so LOOOONNNGG.

Nock, Pull, Release = 1 second

I for one would LOVE IT if BaBs simply streamlined ALL of the animations for Trick Arrow to take 1 second to cast. Every power in the powerset. THAT right there would justify the "need" for Trick Arrow to have all of its debuffs broken up and scattered around between 2 or 3 different powers, all of which need to be applied before the effects of the powerset can even be FELT in play.

Another major problem is that buffs "stick" with the players ... while debuffs "fizzle" when hostiles get defeated ... and this game is entirely structured around defeating hostiles ... quickly. What this means in practice is that when you've got reacharge times that are double the duration of the debuffs, and the debuff durations are long, you get a situation where the debuffs aren't available for use on every spawn group ... meaning the powerset gets applied intermittently. You also wind up "needing" to invest in tremendous amounts of recharge in order to have the debuff powers available "often enough" to start even making a noticeable difference (as opposed to an UNnoticeable one!) in play over time against routine spawn groups.

The reverse problem is when you start being able to stack your debuffs together, because the duration exceeds the recharge time (usually through slotting and globals) which creates a situation where the powerset "needs" to be weakened globably so it doesn't become "too useful" against high hit point targets like AVs. Put these two factors together and you have a worst of both worlds condition ... where Trick Arrow is too weak/intermittent against regular and routine foes, but too powerful(? really?) against the biggest and the baddest foes ... simply because the weaklings die too quickly and the heavies don't die fast enough.

It would be far better then ... in my opinion ... for Trick Arrow to break with the conventional prescription of other powersets with regards to its debuffing powers (ie. the powerset's focus and purpose for existence). Rather than having long recharge times with short debuff power durations, Trick Arrow ought to do the reverse. Trick Arrow should have short recharge times for its debuff powers (such as 20-30 seconds) paired with long durations (20-60 seconds) ... with the caveat that these debuff powers do not Self Stack from Same Caster. Thus, quickly reapplying a debuff attack doesn't stack the effect, it merely extends the duration (by overwriting the previous debuff).



Put these things together ... a faster animation speed for Trick Arrow, and restructuring its debuff and recharge rates ... and you'll have a much more responsive, and therefore much more FUN TO PLAY powerset. And by balancing the powerset around the premise that the debuffs will not self stack, you can "afford" to raise their baseline debuff performance without risking serious unbalancing versus other powersets.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...