Buff Trick Arrows!
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2009-10-30 15:26 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I'm not sure whether Dark and Traps have too much Control to be given to Controllers.
Trick Arrow has a little bit of control and it hasn't proven to be too much benefit for Controllers.
But, I too can't imagine either being more Controller Toons more powerful than Rad or Kin.
Part of the problem with balancing is that when the Dev's moved the Trick Arrow 'control' powers a Controller secondary they made them better for those toons. I've never understood that. Not all Defender primaries have those types of powers, so it makes it harder to balance these between Archetypes.
But we are now talking about the strongest Defender Primaries:
Kinetics
Radiation
Dark
Traps
Trick Arrow isn't anywhere near these in value added to a team.
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Yep I'm pretty sure. I'm of the opinion that the original crew of devs made a mistake and realized it way too late when they allowed controllers to have access to kinetics and the new devs are stuck with it because of the cottage rule.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
i think at the least they'd have to change Dark Miasma up a bit, but do you really think that Traps would be that overpowered in Controller hands compared to Radiation Emission? (Or the 12 ton elephant in the room, Kinetics?) IIRC the more recent ports have involved tweaking the pets to be in line with AT mods, Traps' attacks won't get containment damage and Rad offers significant debuffs and potential for control stacking itself, although Traps' AoE controls are on a shorter timer than Rads'.
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I'd be willing to bet that for the same reasons that I listed Masterminds won't get kinetics.
It's scarey just thinking about a Fire/Dark controller using current controller mods.
SR levels of defense using SOs in just 3 powers with a self heal included. (Shadow Fall + Smoke + Darkest Night)
Fire Imps AND Dark Servant.
Flashfires + Howling Twilight.
Hot Feet on top of Tar Patch.
Petrifying Stare + Char.
Fearsome Stare just for giggles.
All that without taking into consideration any secondary effects of the powers. Nope, can't see it happening and that's why I think that TA hasn't gotten buffed. It's as high as it can go without either breaking controllers or without breaking the cottage rule and changing the powers.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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According to RedTomax Defender's Acid Arrow has a res debuff of 20%. 15% is 3/4 of 20%, not less than half.
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Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
I gotcha - so Acid Arrow was intentionally supposed to suck for Corruptors. With less than half the resist modifier that Defenders get, it looks like TA/A Defenders actually do more damage than Corruptors with the same power set. But the Corruptor makes up with it by having much worse controls.
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If you define "as high as it can go" as "significantly worse than some other secondary," maybe.| All that without taking into consideration any secondary effects of the powers. Nope, can't see it happening and that's why I think that TA hasn't gotten buffed. It's as high as it can go without either breaking controllers or without breaking the cottage rule and changing the powers. |
Meanwhile, let's talk Bots/Traps and Bots/Dark before we call /Dark or /Traps Controllers overpowered.
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TA had much better numbers in closed beta and was gutted just before release. You tell me why then.......
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
If you define "as high as it can go" as "significantly worse than some other secondary," maybe.
Meanwhile, let's talk Bots/Traps and Bots/Dark before we call /Dark or /Traps Controllers overpowered. |
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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That is a terrific question, I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong, because all my other Defenders are so much better. |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
TA had much better numbers in closed beta and was gutted just before release. You tell me why then.......
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I can't imagine that Trick Arrow was better than Kin, Dark, Traps, or Rad.
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That doesn't appear to be an answer to me. Here try one of these.|
Originally Posted by Talionis
That is a terrific question, I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong, because all my other Defenders are so much better.
I can't imagine that Trick Arrow was better than Kin, Dark, Traps, or Rad. |
A) The devs are stupid.
B) The player base is stupid and will never notice.
C) The devs hate villians so they had to make sure that TA was lame enough to provide the proper amount of suckage for Masterminds and Corruptors.
D) The Devs like defenders being the least played basic Blue AT and want to make sure it stays that way so they had to drop the numbers to maintain the status quo.
E) TA with good numbers challenged the supremacy of Fire/Kin controllers so the numbers had to be dropped to make sure that Fire/Kin maintained it's rightful place.
F) Because TA is control heavy and when the controller AT modifier was applied to TA as a direct port the numbers were higher than allowed by Castle's formulas especially after the debuff numbers were taken into account.
G) TA was too good in pre-I13 PvP and had to be eviscerated before release so that stalkers and blasters wouldn't whine.
H) Some unfathomable reason that you in your infinite and unscrutable wisdom have thus far failed to enlighten us with.
Tell me why you think the devs dropped the numbers. The ONLY reason I can come up with is F. That combining TA with controller primaries gave too high numbers.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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No. It's because game developers are not omniscient and overestimated how powerful the set is. It's not like the game developers are idiots OR you are right. That's ridiculously overstated.
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A) The devs are stupid. B) The player base is stupid and will never notice. C) The devs hate villians so they had to make sure that TA was lame enough to provide the proper amount of suckage for Masterminds and Corruptors. D) The Devs like defenders being the least played basic Blue AT and want to make sure it stays that way so they had to drop the numbers to maintain the status quo. E) TA with good numbers challenged the supremacy of Fire/Kin controllers so the numbers had to be dropped to make sure that Fire/Kin maintained it's rightful place. F) Because TA is control heavy and when the controller AT modifier was applied to TA as a direct port the numbers were higher than allowed by Castle's formulas especially after the debuff numbers were taken into account. G) TA was too good in pre-I13 PvP and had to be eviscerated before release so that stalkers and blasters wouldn't whine. H) Some unfathomable reason that you in your infinite and unscrutable wisdom have thus far failed to enlighten us with. |
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Another issue connected to this is that proliferation is seemingly problematic with most ATs because the devs make direct ports and shift the numbers around instead of outright changing the set(s).
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
No. It's because game developers are not omniscient and overestimated how powerful the set is. It's not like the game developers are idiots OR you are right. That's ridiculously overstated.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
F) Because TA is control heavy and when the controller AT modifier was applied to TA as a direct port the numbers were higher than allowed by Castle's formulas especially after the debuff numbers were taken into account.
Tell me why you think the devs dropped the numbers. The ONLY reason I can come up with is F. That combining TA with controller primaries gave too high numbers. |
F seems reasonable but you really have to wonder about Castle's forumulas. There are a couple of recent power sets/proliferations/changes that really make you wonder.
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I'm fairly sure that using brawl in PvP would cause some players to whine. |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
G) TA was too good in pre-I13 PvP and had to be eviscerated before release so that stalkers and blasters wouldn't whine.
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Buff Ninja/TA MMs plz.
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Not really. I'd be very surprised if those formulas haven't shifted a bit over the years.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
F seems reasonable but you really have to wonder about Castle's forumulas. There are a couple of recent power sets/proliferations/changes that really make you wonder.
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I remember way back that it was said a player should be equal to 3 minions. Much more recently, I recall a comment how a player should be equal to 3 +3 minions. The views of the Devs here has shifted, just as the players' has as well.
Furthermore, back when TA was created, Jack and Geko still had their fingers in the pie. Now I'm not going to say "Blame him!" and point to Jack, but his "vision" definitely had a skewing effect on what was made. I will, however, put a lot of the blame at Geko's feet. His power design ideas have apparently lead to a lot of headaches when it comes to trying to design around them.
Head of TRICK, the all Trick Arrow and Traps SG
Part of the Repeat Offenders
Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize
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I'm hearing a lot of chaff from your direction however I have yet to hear anything of substance.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
No. It's because game developers are not omniscient and overestimated how powerful the set is. It's not like the game developers are idiots OR you are right. That's ridiculously overstated.
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There are other power sets that have been around for much less time, have far fewer issues, yet have been adjusted. Do you have a more reasonable explantion than the one that you just offered that no matter how you have danced around it comes down to the devs are stupid (ie: aren't omniscient) or are lazy (ie: have overestimated and not repaired it).
I find it much more reasonable that the devs do know exactly what they are doing, nerfed it during closed beta for that reason, and haven't made any changes to it because either they aren't allowed to by the person in the company that makes the decisions in that regard, or the big picture hasn't changed enough to justify it.
What does all that mean to me? It means that most of my TA/ defenders have gotten deleted, new ones won't be rolled, and the one that remains doesn't get play time because it's power level is unacceptable to me even when heavily IO'd (ie: it's not fun).
My /TA controllers do see play time and I have plans to roll a couple more /TA controllers pairing them with primaries I haven't tried yet because even with the low numbers /TA gives it's still a decent pairing since the combinations make the primary better.
I've got a couple /rad controllers and yes they are quite formidable but my /TA controllers are just fine. The power level is acceptable even with out IO sets and they are fun, different from all the FotM controllers that I see running around and are just as effective for the uses I put them to.
Will I take a buff to my TA toons? Sure, gladly in fact. Do I think it's reasonable to expect to see it buffed any time soon, no I don't.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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So basically your argument is that the devs have never misjudged the capability of a powerset, ever. Which makes this comment...| I find it much more reasonable that the devs do know exactly what they are doing, nerfed it during closed beta for that reason, and haven't made any changes to it because either they aren't allowed to by the person in the company that makes the decisions in that regard, or the big picture hasn't changed enough to justify it. |
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| I'm hearing a lot of chaff from your direction however I have yet to hear anything of substance. |
Trick Arrow has never appealled to me as a Controller secondary. But I think its interesting that the Control powers of Trick Arrow are actually stronger for Controllers than they are for Defenders.
Controllers already have controls. Arguably Controllers need the controls to be less strong than the Defenders do. If the problem was balancing Trick Arrow for Controllers, I would've started by not upping the control value of the Trick Arrow powers for them.
The only control for Trick Arrow that I see as working is Oil Slick, and its not up every spawn and does not light consistantly. It provides a team's worth of mitigation. Single target controls just don't help that much.
The nerf bat is a terrible thing, almost always when the Dev's nerf something, they over nerf and the set becomes borderline unplayable. IE. Fire/X Tankers. They used to be godly, then they got nerfed to the point that they were almost unplayable. It took a ton of issues for them to finally boost the healing power to make Fire Tanks playable.
I don't know what the Dev's saw that scared them. But I'm sure they overreacted to it. It's the history of Dev's especially in City of Heroes.
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Hardly, it means that thus far (including this post) you haven't offered a resaonble explanation and have essentially accused the devs of incompetence twice (the nerf in closed beta AND the subsequent lack of buff for 9 issues).|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
So basically your argument is that the devs have never misjudged the capability of a powerset, ever. Which makes this comment...
...rather interesting. |
I've seen the devs greatly misjudge things once, but after the repairs the issues tend to be minor and I have to say that, though I don't always agree with the way that the devs do things, or the reasons that they do them, we do have a dev crew that is dedicated and are willing to communicate with us on a continuing basis.
In any case this is far far off topic so I'll ignore further posts from you on the subject and get back on topic with the same thing I have essentially said since the beginning of the thread.
Yes, Buffing trick arrows would be nice for defenders, masterminds, and corruptors. No, I don't see how it could be done with out potentially making the power set too good as a controller secondary.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Knight,
I don't think it is a bad question. And if we knew the answer, we might better know how to communicate the need for the change to the Dev's.
Trick Arrow feels weak compared to other sets. I've wondered what I'm doing wrong, thinking the Dev's must be right.
What has caused the Trick Arrow to be nerfed and kept them from getting anything sustantial back?
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Believing that the set is underpowered does not mean I am "accusing the devs of incompetence." I think your penchant for hyperbole isn't suited to your purposes. | Hardly, it means that thus far (including this post) you haven't offered a resaonble explanation and have essentially accused the devs of incompetence twice (the nerf in closed beta AND the subsequent lack of buff for 9 issues). |
I don't agree with your assertion that Trick Arrow is nearly overpowered on Controllers. I haven't accused the game developers of anything whatsoever. I think City of Heroes has some of the best game developers of any game on the market. This does not mean that I think their judgement is perfect. I don't think THEY believe their judgment is perfect. Mine certainly isn't.
In fact I will tell you something. I used to BE a game developer for a different game. And in the course of that I wrote some powers that were overpowered, some that were underpowered, and some that were just right. There were even abilities that, as I was releasing them, I thought were over or underpowered for whatever reason, but went ahead because I wasn't the only person making those calls. There is a lot more... a WHOLE lot more that goes into the release of a power/spell/ability/whatever in a commercial game product than you might assume. Further, sometimes a power that seems okay on release turns out to be far worse or better than you initially pictured.
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I know that often times Dev's don't look at every possible combination. They look at the ones they think will be the best and the worst, but they do miss things. |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Further, sometimes a power that seems okay on release turns out to be far worse or better than you initially pictured.
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People often do not actually play the way the Dev's expect you to either. And you can sometimes self gimp yourself.
Not all powersets are supposed to be good at the same things, but I have had a hard time figuring out what Trick Arrow is supposed to be good at.
First off it has no buffes so clearly its not buffing
Second it has some controls but the ones that seem worth playing are all on long recharges
Third and what I presumed the set was good at was debuffing. But it is not the best at debuffing by any stretch and some of the powers that would seem key to debuffing are also on long recharges.
Usually, powersets should be balanced on each other by getting something the things you don't have that other powersets do have. Trick Arrow has no buffs. I'm not sure what they got for not having those kinds of powers?
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Absolutely. The other thing is that powers are not necessarily over or underpowered in a testing state, but in the context of the game they are placed.| I know that often times Dev's don't look at every possible combination. They look at the ones they think will be the best and the worst, but they do miss things. |
For example, if the typical mission in this game involved the "prevent 30 enemies from escaping" mechanic, Controllers would become much more powerful, even if no changes were made to their powers. If the typical mission involved AoE explosions, armored archetypes and Force Field Defenders would rise in power.
An example of this at work are the two cutting-edge-of-overpowered Controller combos, Fire/Kinetics and Illusion/Radiation. There is nothing about either of these combos that would be particularly outrageous if it didn't happen that killing massive numbers of weak enemies quickly was one of the best ways to earn money and equipment (recipes in this game), or if archvillians didn't just happen to be bags of HP with very high regeneration rates. One of the things that makes Going Rogue interesting is that all of the powersets will rise or fall depending on what the new typical challenge is, and its possible that the days of the Fire/Kin and Ill/Rad are numbered. No one can say until we see what the expansion has in store.
All of that said, I don't know what set of circumstances would make Trick Arrow a top set. I've posted my summation of the powers already, so I won't rehash that. Except for the tier 8 and 9 powers, everything else in the set seems like a copy of another set's powers, only weaker. And despite my ongoing debate with Knight, I still hold that the set is underpowered on everyone, including Controllers.
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The shaft. |
Originally Posted by Talionis
Trick Arrow has no buffs. I'm not sure what they got for not having those kinds of powers?
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(thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week!)
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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lmao!
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Originally Posted by redlynne
the shaft.
(thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week!) |
Global @radubadu
Usually playing one of the following toons blueside on Virtue:
Cadler 50 WP/SS tanker
Radubadu 46 Fire/Fire blaster
Hell Runner 35 Fire/Fire brute
So we are agreed on this then: "Buff TA for Defenders!?"
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And Corruptors and MMs. Arguably those two need it more, since they get neither higher debuff values or longer mez durations. Or really anything to stack it with.
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Originally Posted by hewhorocks
So we are agreed on this then: "Buff TA for Defenders!?"
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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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