What is the point of knockback?

Well, there's the minor point that the Devs put knockback in the game. And it's in comics books, big-time. It's a major theme of comic-book combat. And movies. And every tabletop superhero game I've ever played. And in real life, when enough energy is involved.

So, other than in City of Heroes, comics, movies, superhero games in general, and real life, there's no point in knockback.

As I tried to describe in this post, there's a distinct difference between AREA knockback powers and powers that only knock back a SINGLE target.

AREA kb can be abused, potentially (if not used right) scattering enemies and causing problems for melee types. Just last night I teamed with 2 Peacebringers who viewed it as their role to use their area kb explosion to fling stuff away from my Scrapper; coupled with the fact that the mission was a custom AE arc full of slows, it was hard for me to close the range again, and I can see why that's annoying.

BUT Area kb can be used well and not be a problem at all. And SINGLE-TARGET kb is only a problem if the player using it doesn't do damage. I can see that Force-bolting a bad guy away makes the Scrapper have to chase him down. But big-damage dealers can do ingle-target kb with confidence, because they will swiftly kill their knocked-back target anyway, so it does not cause a problem for anyone but the whiniest of complainers. You break it, you buy it -- you knock it back a lot with your energy blaster, but you also waste it quickly.

Energy Torrent, your area kb attack, is the one you might have to be careful with and line up correctly before using.

With my scrapepr hat on scrapper, if your target gets knocked back by a single target knockback

/Target enemy near and back to wailing.


if

I'm going to avoid all the insults, and insulting insinuations and sum up KB this way:

I when took down the Winter Guard solo in the Baby New Year mission with my Eng/Devices Blaster, he had the chance to hit me twice.

Twice.

I was on a PuG with my BS/DA scrapper fighting Knives of Artemis.

The energy blaster on the team thought it was highly amusing to target through me, wait until I had just gotten into melee range through the zillions of caltrops, and immediately fire Power Push. Every. Single. Time. And THEN he had the nerve to call me a leecher because I was incabable of killing anything due to his actions.

Needless to say, my stint with that team was very short, and that blaster has been on /gignore for quite a while now.

None of the scrapper players in this thread ever said "don't use knockback".

It is extremely rude for anyone to expect 7 other people to adapt to their playstyle because they refuse to change theirs. If unchecked knockback usage is proving detrimental to the team, it is NOT the rest of the teams responsibility to fix it, it is the person doing the knockback's responsibility.

In the case of some powersets knockback is actually dangerous to melee toons. An Invulnerability or Willpower tank, scrapper, or brute needs to be surrounded for survival. A lot of people who use knockback, with no thought for anyone else on the team, are dependant on the tank to keep agro off of them in certain situations. Such as teams set for 8 at +4. A lot of these people will fire an AoE knockback drectly at the cluster of enemies around the tank, getting the tank killed as a result, and THEN blame the tank for losing agro, leading to their own death.

Guess who's fault that is? Not the tank's.

If an energy blaster wants to kill my target then fair play to him (I would hope it only happens a few times before we learn to go for different targets however), but if an energy defender wants to try and kill it, or a stormie wants to mitigate its damage with gale then we have a problem.

I rarely count energy blasters as a problem because their KB is a secondary effect, dead mobs is the primary effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Hey, an energy defender can kill stuff too! Granted it'll probably take a bit if it's not a minion, but said target isn't likely to be doing very much in the meantime. Gale, though... yeah. Only non-harmful time I could think of to use gale on a scrapper's target is if said target is the only one left, is a boss, and is already stuck in a corner - in which case I have more interesting things to throw at him anyway.

For the discussion of who is responsible in the "KB issue", I would say that both parties are equally responsible. the KBer for attempting to lessen the aggravation of careless KBs. The Meleer for restraining the urge to get offended by the KBer. Remember, only you can control whether you get offened or not.

As for what I do when I join a team while playing an Energy character? I appologise for all the KB I am about to do, then proceed to use my Energy powerset to defeat the foes. Fortunately, I know the people that I team with 95% of the time, so they don't have a problem with me using KB characters. Despite the fact that some of them have been quoted as saying theat they don't like KB. I contribute more to the team than my KB takes away.

I like and appreciate knockback.

I dislike scatter.

There are times you can use knockback wonderfully. Single target knockback is rarely the problem, unless someone is being stupid about it. ( I think we all agree wit that statement)
Stupid uses include:

Knocking toggled targets into other groups of mobs.

Constantly pushing a target away from a melee character. ( Hey, stuff happens, If it happens once in a while, Ok. If it's happening almost every fight or most every mob, then maybe the knockback artist may need to make adjustments)

Using an AOE knockback as an opener when you have a scrapper heavy team, or an AOE centric team. I think this tends to be the biggest problem ( or is in my experience). Say I'm playing a DB/DA scrapper. I go to hit my heal. wham! Archer uses Explosive arrow. Now I have no targets for my heal. I jump in the middle of a group of mobs go to hit Typhoons Edge in DB. Pow. I hit nothing because all the targets are now on the other side of the room.

These are not the only times, and there are always exceptions ( Like a tank joining a team of storm/nrg defenders. There will be knockback, and the tank will have to adjust).

Again, I'm not adverse to knockback. The melee player that can't adjust to single target knockback on occasion needs to get over it. But a knockback player that fires off his attacks scattering everything and making it harder for his team mates also needs to get over it.

Let me add, I've played a stormie, nrg/nrg blasters, Arch blaster, and scrappers of various sorts. When I have a knockback power, I try to be responsible in how it's used. When I have someone with knockback powers on my team, I try to be understanding of what they are doing, but if a person is using knockback in such a manner that it is detrimental to the team, then sending a tell asking them to make adjustments is not out of line.(Adjustments mean asking them to try and backstop with a wall or not to open with an AOE knockback and just wait a few seconds until after the others have a chance to use their AOE damage powers, not telling them to never use a power.) I find asking and explaining why usually works wonders.

Knockback is definately one of those things that looks good on paper, and it definately sets CoH apart from other MMOs and gives it that "superhero" feel, but it needs to be used responsibly. When you knock a foe away from a Tanker, Scrapper, or Brute, you are making it more likely that 1) the foe will come after you 2) the meleer will lose taunt effect on even more foes as he moves around and 3) the meleer will lose magnitude of scaling defenses such as Invincibility, increasing the damage he takes. Oh, and 4) he will do less damage.

On the other hand, when you knock a foe down, it can take him considerable time to get back up, particularly if he gets caught in a corner and the "ragdoll" physics makes him flop around indefinately. So it's a balancing act. Personally, I think the best use of single target knockback attacks is to single out a foe that is NOT directly engaged with the tank, and pick him off away from the main group. Just be ready for him to come at you, and if he does, either finish him or knock him back into the tank.

Flying overhead as mentioned can knock foes down, not away, and circling around to knock runners into the tank can be an effective use of your knockback, too. AoE knockback is really going to be the biggest problem, either again target foes that not engaged in combat with the tank and knock them into him so they are, or wait until the tank has built up aggro on them really well before unleashing them AoEs. You're also likely to kill more outright if they've already taken a lot of damage, which will solve the problem of whether they are knocked back. (No one cares if a dead foe is flung away from them )

In the long long ago, we made a SG on Triumph called Pandemonium. The only requirement for membership was that you have a kb power. Some rooms in missions turned to total chaos with up to 4 hurricanes running. It's where my appreciation for Ice/Storm controllers matured. Our Energy/energy blaster loved it because nothing touched her in all the soup and it was shooting ducks in a barrel. Now if we had peacebringers with that radiant targetted AoE and shield tanks with their shield charge, the carnage would be more gruesome.

Maybe we should revive our chapter on Freedom.

The search button is your friend. Everyone in this thread fails royally in search-fu.