HEATs Are Very Nice in Early Levels

Well, just to chat a bit, I wanted to note one very nice thing about HEATs in the early levels... they sure can play easily. My Warshade wasn't bad getting to six, and picking up Nova got him to twelve very quickly. Other ATs are nice early on (Stalkers, Scrappers, and Blasters come to mind), and those always stand out. Most other ATs take a bit to come in to their own.

I've been leveling a Wolf Spider, and while he hasn't been in too much danger due to his mez protection and ranged defense, he has been slower to solo... took until level 8 to get a 3rd attack, for crying out loud. But that's nothing compared to my Masterminds, Controllers, and Defenders at those levels. *shudders*

Just kind of, well, putting it out there. I hear a bunch of people supposedly having issues with their Kheldians early on, but I find them quite easy when I focus on Nova form at the start.

Yup. The gimp is strong when you don't take nova at 6. My no-nova PB is 12 now.

No no ... EASY MODE is getting around in Atlas/Galaxy and KR/Perez/Hollows and Steel/Skyway on a PB prior to level 6 and 14. Talk about stress free travel to the mission door.

Warshades are all taxibots for teammates at 10.

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

Billz, seriously... stop acting like Kheldians killed your long lost love or something. And I do mean that in a teasing way. It's just funny how you are so all over about Khelds, but with some definite depression about them. A little less doom would be nice, though.

Kheldians aren't Scrappers, but they do have an easy time of it at lower levels, with or without Nova. Nova makes it even more so (and if you're not going for Nova, you should know what you're passing over... I'm playing a Huntsman now, and I know that I'm passing up some options that Banes and Crabs could offer... same thing with passing forms in Kheldian).

In truth your proposal would adversely affect tri-formers by reducing the bonuses for the inherant while only giving buffs used by primarily human only and human dwarf bi-formers, the fact you feel this is acceptable does not erase the fact it is a nerf.

While true, it was only very recently that the change went in to allow the inherent to work while in the forms. Depending on what the numbers show, we might be able to get the human form modifiers altered without changing the inherent at all. As in... nothing but a pure buff.

Then I have only one remaining question.

If you can attain similar or close enough to par numbers on a purely human form, then what would be the reason to use the restrictive nearly bind/macro required forms on what was seemingly designed to be a shape shifting AT?

Again, that is not the desired goal of this buff. Human form damage will never equate to nova form damage. Human mitigation will never equate to dwarf mitigation except under lightform with all the shields turned on, but that's true now.

That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? You keep stating that tri-form is the intended playstyle, in fairness due to statements made by current devs, and I'm left with the factual knowledge that the AT itself works against that design.

If the devs actually wanted tri-forming to be the proper playstyle we wouldn't be dealing with flaky keybinds, meaningless human form toggles, redundant powers and passives only working in the human form.

The nearest comparison we have to work with is granite from stone armor. It also stops other powers from working but it does so by providing huge benefits.

Can the case be made that the loss of all mitigation is balanced by nova's damage buff? Can the case be made that the hammering of damage output in dwarf form is worth the extra mitigation and aggro control?

Actually, I can make the case that this is true for a late game warshade. Its superior damage buff and dam-res buff carry over to both forms.

A PB gets less than 5 seconds of a 72% buildup and dull pain. I certainly can't make the case there.

And that's probably why Castle will respond, if at all, with nothing mroe than a "back to the drawing board with you," on this topic.

A tri-form OR human-only warshade does just fine as a damage dealer especially on teams. At least, after level 32. But it wouldn't be the first AT to be considered a late bloomer.

Peacebringers, on the other hand, do not. They fail at the one job that their powers show them to have. Damage.

As for the catering to alternative builds, I don't believe the devs have looked at the AT enough to make that call.

As it stands, I've already shown that the AT, at least the peacebringer, is a damage dealer. It can't even begin to take on tanking until 20. Before then, it has NOTHING to offer a team except damage. And even well after that, its damage dealing vastly outweighs its ability to tank.

Yet the devs want us to swallow the line that this is a team based, shape shifting AT?

No, I find that a copout. I find it ridiculous to think that with all the tools available to us to streamline our control of our characters that clunky and overly long shapeshifting animations with broken binds for tray swapping is a design goal to push us into form use so that we can underslot the Primary form.

That would be the one where your power pools function. The one you start with at level 1. The one you can actually customize with the costume creator.

I completely understand your disagreement with me based on what you've heard and your own view of how the AT functions. I'm thankful for it actually. If nothing else, these discussions help me refine things before delivery.

I'm now at 22 hours on my PB. I'm level 19.7.

I'm not used to moving that slowly in this game. I see no reason for the primary form of this shapeshifter to be this weak. Where you liken a human-only khel to a petless MM, I liken it to a claws/sr scrapper that didn't take focus or quickness.

Less than it could be? Absolutely. Gimped? No. A petless MM is gimped. That AT was obviously designed to use pets.

Kheldians don't have that luxury, regardless of current dev statements on the topic. The only thing stopping the human form from being appropriately viable is a proper damage scale.

It has blasts and lacks mez protection, just like a blaster. It has melee attacks, dam-res shields, HP buffs and self-heals, just like scrapper. The fact that it has all of it means that they Should be doing less damage than both. The only question is to what degree.

Again, thank you for the discussion.

I really appreciate the chance for informed and calm debate based on logic and provable facts as oppossed to raw "feeling" on matters relating to Kheldians.

If i were you, I would possibly attempt to sway the developers in a direction more specificly to the PB side as their efficiency seems to be the one in question.

More specificly (and I loath making any changes as it always makes somebody unhappy) possibly extending the duration on build up(while lowering the damage buff to say perhaps 50%) and possibly lowering the numbers on lightform while allowing it to cross into the forms.

This would follow what "appears" to be the company line of promoting the use of forms while improving the PB to closer to WS levels of performance.

As far as some of the other things you said, I'll point out a few things I seem to recall.

(in no particular order)

The Developers recently did have another look at Kheldians leading to the I13 changes that seem to support the use of forms mentality.

I believe you could be correct about the Kheldians being poorly designed, I believe the intent was to make using the forms an integral part of the Kheldian AT but I think due to it being so early in the game they really could not have seen how the game would change and therefore made decisions counter to their intent inadvertantly.

One of the other things that my friends discussed at one of the two last hero-cons was that the developers were trying to find a method of streamlining the form changing mechanic (another reason I believe that the Kheldian intended style of play involves using the forms) but had run into alot of coding and animation problems that sent tham back to the drawing board.

I think your conciderable skills would be best used in such a way as to go with the apparrent current thinking of the developers reguarding any proposed changes to the PB's or Kheldians in general.

Again, thank you for the calm and rational debates reguarding this matter.

So, Bill... while you're playing through, you are limiting yourself to Human form only? That seems to be the case, and I want to be sure, as that really would explain how you can possibly say "horse manure," when I say I'm having an easy time in the early levels with my recent Warshade. Nova form really does make a difference, and it is part of the AT... it used to be the common advice to people going human only was to take Nova until somewhere in the 20s, as you would then have enough human form powers and slots to make it worthwhile. That seems to still be the case (I'm going Human/Dwarf with my Warshade, but I'm not going for that setup until later in the 20s). I would say going human form only for the lower levels is rather masochistic, and you're not proving much by saying it is difficult to be human form only in early levels, as you are ignoring a big part of how the AT was designed. Nova form DOES make things a lot easier in the early levels.

Interestingly, human form is stronger since the I13 changes, too, so buffing it even further requires showing Castle that he did not do enough with that (I don't know how much work he put into it, but he did have enough data to say that mez protection in human form would make it too powerful).

I think the problem that you, Obsidian, me, and most other Kheld players pick at in these forums is that there are discrepancies in how the AT works. I can honestly say if BAB and Castle were the ones who designed Kheldians from the ground up, they would work much better (Dual Blades, Willpower, VEATs, and Shields show that very well, to my mind). Form shifting does take too long, and there are far too many exclusionary powers between the forms (I13 fixes helped some with this... the inherent not working in the forms was an odd choice).

Because Warshades have long duration powers that work between the forms, they fit what the AT is supposed to do much better (i.e., a formshifter that can adapt to the situation). Build up for Peacebringers is always an issue, as switching to a form after eats into your time that you can use the power. It would make much more sense if the power could be used while in a form (same thing for clicks like Dull Pain, etc.), or at least had a longer duration. But that still brings back to the issue that formshifting takes longer than it should.

I don't think any of those changes would really overpower a formshifted Kheldian, either. Scrappers, etc. can hit Dull Pain without having to formshift first (or take the risk of being in human midfight). Same thing with Build Up and other powers (you could pick and choose what powers work in forms, maybe... but that might be hard from a tech standpoint, I don't know... but I don't know how overpowered it would be to allow things like Eclipse to be used while in a form... the attacks would be, but I don't know about the others). Anyway, there are other Peacebringer powers that are clearly not working as well as Warshades, and that is an issue, but probably above and beyond what I need to say.

I really would love to talk to Castle and co. about some things, as I often wonder about their approach. Do they honestly think Fiery Aura and Kheldians are fine after their tweaks in I13, or did that just get them to "good enough for now?" I know how any work requires letting go at some point and saying "good enough," (especially with the limited time they have to work on everything) but I do want to know if they think more work should be done at some point.

It sounds from Obsidian's post like they do have things they want to do, but ran into issues that would take too long to fix, so we have Khelds as they are now. Better than pre-I13, but probably with some more fixes needed. To wrap up, it would be far better to work as a group with the spirit of what the devs are trying to do (making Khelds work as formshifters), and argue that another look and more work sooner rather than later is merited.

Hope that all made sense. I don't think Kheldians are all a bed of roses or anything, as there are things I could pick out easily that would make them more appealing and work right. Same thing for Fiery Aura (but to a lesser extent than Kheldians). Kheldians are playable right now, but could use some work, to boil it down.

It was primary build human only until 17 where I cranked up the secondary build for triforming. She's 20 now. Took stamina on the primary build and dwarf on the secondary.

I'm taking Obsidian's advice and changing the course of my efforts toward specific changes to the peacebringer. Even with my distaste for the still low human form damage output, I'm not so blind that I can't acknowledge the AT on the whole and what that means to its balance.

As it does appear that almost all of us see the same disparity between PBs and WSs, where WSs seem far better designed to utilize the forms, I'm currently writing up a proposal on PB specific changes.

Yes, the Kheldian AT was designed to be a shapeshifter, but I fail to see how that was meant to be the only path intended. A Kheldian has 24 (that's Twenty-Four!) other powers in their primary/secondary beyond the shapeshift toggles. The VAST Majority of these will not work when Shapeshifted, noR can these be slotted to a good level of effectiveness if one chooses to go the Tri-Form route. There won't be enough slots left over.

So many Powers and Slots that are mutually exclusive to shapeshifting... In light of this, *IF* Shapeshifting is intended to be the path Kheldians should take (and it's considered gimping if you don't), then as Billz says, it's Bad Design... Very Bad.

I'll be covering exactly that in a new thread later tonight. It is an opinion that the PB human form benefits the nova and dwarf forms enough to consider the forms anything more than situational and supplemental.

If tri-forming is the intended design then the PB human form powers are badly designed for EVERYONE attempting to play the archetype as per the "intended" design especially when placed in comparison to its cousin the warshade where its human form has several powers that directly and for large portions of time benefit the forms.

New thread is up.

AO, I discount anything Geko said because too much has been changed to correct too many of his design decisions. Anything he had to say is irrelevant beyond historical reference.

Something that would make a PB's Build Up a lot more useful to mix with the forms would be to put it on a 30 second duration for reduced effect over the longer duration ... thus making it more akin to a human form Mire for WS.

Also, the Defense Debuff is largely "wasted" on the PB ... imo. It does remarkably little to speed takedowns ... unlike the Slow of WS powers. Slow actually mitigates incoming damage (especially when stacked to appreciable degrees) while Defense Debuff does (realistically) almost nothing *useful* for the PB, aside from maybe levels 1-4 when you can't slot accuracy for anything worth a darn. By the time you reach level 22+ the Defense Debuff is doing almost nothing for you since you've got "enough" accuracy at your disposal then to not "need" the Defense Debuff to cover any shortfalls.

Change that Defense Debuff to a Resistance Debuff typed to match the damage dealt by each specific PB attack and NOW we're talking! A Resistance Debuff is something that EVERY teammate will be able to appreciate without reservation. Furthermore, it's extremely odd that Kheldians are typed for resistance for protection ... but don't have any anti-resistance attack capability whatsoever (beyond build up and mires for pure self-only offense).

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

The thing that turned me back on to my mid-30 Kheldian was starting another one on another server and taking Nova as soon as it came up.

With 4-slotted attacks in Nova, caving around the Hollows was easy mode personified. I levelled THREE FRIGGING TIMES in the Atta mision and only died once at the end while simultaneously levelling AND finishing the mission.

My mid-30's Kheldian was human-only. When I went back to him, I immediately popped to his second build and went tri-form (well, bi-form, Nova/Dwarf and pretty much left human alone save for when I was forced to take human-form/pool powers).

Thus far, he's been a blast to play.

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If I were to redesign the forms I would do the following.
Forms dont have separate attacks, heals ect.

Turning on Nova form toggle gives hover, a damage boost - greys out melee attacks.

Turning on Dwarf gives extra HP, resistance and a damage penalty, attacks have weak gauntlet like a brute - greys out ranged attacks.