So...why hasn't the KB hole been closed yet?
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2010-01-18 22:48 in Suggestions and Ideas
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KB io's can be easily obtained from doing bronze recipe rolls in the 10-14 range. i get 2-3 a day in about 2 hrs of play. with that said...|
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
This problem suddenly got stuck in my craw once I realized how ridiculous it is.
Invulnerability: You have an Unyielding stance, your sheer strength allows you to shrug off knockback. Ice Armor: Your slippery Wet Ice allows you to simply avoid knockback altogether, I guess? Willpower: Your force of will, your undefeatable attitude as a normal human being, allows you to plant your feet and not be knocked back, no matter what. Dark Armor/Fiery Aura: Gaining your powers from the Netherworld/fire, naturally you are incapable of resisting attempts to knock you off your feet??? There is literally no reason, concept or balance-wise, why Dark Armor and Fiery Aura should lack knockback protection. The knockback hole is nothing more than a holdover from the days of failed concepts like rooting status protection, unstackable armors, or, more on the money, Provoke being better than Tankers' built-in Taunt. Except being obligated to take Acrobatics (or spend a rather sizeable amount of Inf on the -KB IO) is far worse. |
yes they could look at DA and FA and put the kb protection in obsidian shield and either temp protection or plasma shield.
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ive always wondered why they never had kb protection built into the fire and dark armor sets. to go along with this, why do bane/crab VEATs get no built in status protection, yet they get built in protection to just about everything else.
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Originally Posted by IanTheM1
This problem suddenly got stuck in my craw once I realized how ridiculous it is.
Invulnerability: You have an Unyielding stance, your sheer strength allows you to shrug off knockback. Ice Armor: Your slippery Wet Ice allows you to simply avoid knockback altogether, I guess? Willpower: Your force of will, your undefeatable attitude as a normal human being, allows you to plant your feet and not be knocked back, no matter what. Dark Armor/Fiery Aura: Gaining your powers from the Netherworld/fire, naturally you are incapable of resisting attempts to knock you off your feet??? There is literally no reason, concept or balance-wise, why Dark Armor and Fiery Aura should lack knockback protection. The knockback hole is nothing more than a holdover from the days of failed concepts like rooting status protection, unstackable armors, or, more on the money, Provoke being better than Tankers' built-in Taunt. Except being obligated to take Acrobatics (or spend a rather sizeable amount of Inf on the -KB IO) is far worse. |
So... what I am hearing you say is that you want the KB Protection removed from Willpower and Ice Armor because it doesn't makes sense conceptually... and added in to Dark and Fire Armor instead.
Is that right? 
I believe, to balance out the damage auras as well as the other PBAoEs in DA and Fiery Aura lack KB so that way enemies can push you off of them.
However, this idea is somewhat debunked with Electrical Armor (Though DA definitely has far more AoE powers).
Though in the end, as people point out, there are plenty of ways to overcome KB, whereas so many others suffer from a fear hole for reasons less known.
Though part of what bugs me about fear holes is just what it implies about your character.
"Lo, I am the most epic bad@#$ villain/hero ever- Oops! Ghost Widow looked at me funny, I'm just gonna stand here and soil myself in terror."
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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i dont fear the holes, i just think they are insanely annoying because you could just go with another set and save yourself a good several mil inf or power choices not having to worry about the kb. i know with stuff they have now the holes can be filled, but if i had the choice i would rather go with a set that had built in protection which covered everything instead of leaving one hole that you have to take the inf or power choices to overcome that weakness or your gonna have problems at later levels. ive tried using dark armor and i have a fire armor im tempted to delete because its just annoying to play those sets because of the weakness, i love using my bane spider too, but i hate playing him because of the kb hole, fortunatas/night widows VEATs get kb protection built in with their mez protection.
my point is, it would make the sets a whole lot more fun to play if you didnt have to worry about the kb as much.
Might I point out, that other sets, too have holes that cause issues. Psi is a popular hole in defensive armors, as is Fear, another one being Endurance Drain. Dark Armor has a level of protection against each of those, and simply lacks KB. On Fire? Well, I am a bit confused on the thingking behind it. Yes it has a high damage component compared to most other Armors... but it seems to be a touch more "holey" than others.
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Actually, the reason for the fear hole in most armor sets (i.e. all but WP, SD, and DA) is that, in the early game (i.e. pre-CoV), fear was almost exclusively a player used mez effect (I don't believe the blue mitos had it at that point). DA got fear protection later on when the scant few enemies that currently use it were introduced (with the logic that you shouldn't be afraid of stuff if you've got your own literal cloak of fear). WP and SD (the newest sets out) both have fear protection. I honestly doubt that the devs couldn't just add fear protection to all of the armor sets now without any problem since I'm pretty sure the mez toggles would have been given fear prot in the beginning had the devs been thinking of it.|
Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Though in the end, as people point out, there are plenty of ways to overcome KB, whereas so many others suffer from a fear hole for reasons less known.
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This is, comically enough, the same reason why so many armor sets have a psi hole. The original intent behind psi was to have a damage type that you just couldn't dodge (which is also why there the only non-positional attacks that exist are psi). That's why there are powers that are +def(all but psi). They were originally conceived as +def(all) and psi was excluded because you weren't intended to have any defense to psi at all. When psi was finally given a defense type (to prevent it from completely destroying defense based characters), the defense powers that excluded def(psi) weren't kept up to date and the hole was left in.
In yet another interesting case of the game evolving, the reason there is so little toxic resistance (in self heals, a modicum of toggles, and a couple +def buffs) is that originally it wasn't a damage type at all. It used to just be untyped damage. When players complained because it completely destroyed resistance based toons (in the same way that psi used to destroy defense based toons), it was changed to the toxic damage type and +res(tox) was added to the few powers that currently have it.
Stuff like this happens when a game evolves via band-aid fixes rather than comprehensive alteration. Thankfully, most of the band-aid evolution happened thanks to how Cryptic operated, and our current band of devs seems much more inclined to study the entire system and look for an underlying solution rather than just attempting to solve surface problems with simple methods.
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Though part of what bugs me about fear holes is just what it implies about your character. "Lo, I am the most epic bad@#$ villain/hero ever- Oops! Ghost Widow looked at me funny, I'm just gonna stand here and soil myself in terror." |
There's also another way to look at it... it being defined as the various holes in each armor set, or intentional weaknesses for each archtype. City of Heroes is a GAME, something that I think is lost on several players. Fire and Dark Armors trade off having some status protections because they get damages, heals, and other powers that other sets don't get.
This isn't to say that there are not problems with each set, there are. Fire Armors most powerful offensive attack is useless without a buff type that can prevent knockback, and a control type that can keep enemies from running away. (using SO's only, Fire Aura can still be knocked around by several NPC's with the rebalanced Acrobatics, and Burn's fear effect). When Dark was ported to tanks, nobody, and I mean nobody, actually thought about what the job of a tank was and how well the dark powers would act as a tanking set. Nor did anybody stop and think about just how endurance intensive Dark Armor was, and that it was best coupled with Dark Melee for endurance recovery, a near forced power coupling.
However, Umbral brings up a good point. The current mix of developers seem a little bit more into actually thinking about the design of powers. As already brought up, Electrical Armor breaks some of the rules applied to Dark and Fire. Part of this was due to the devs focusing on survivability of the set.
Now, because City of Heroes is a game, I don't mind intentional design choices such as leaving holes in various archtypes. Part of the game's point is that no power-set should play like another power-set. You should have a different experience playing a Stone tank than you would on a fire tank. You should have a different experience playing an electric brute versus playing an electric scrapper or electric tank.
The Archtype differences are going to become more important as Going Rogue brings in the ability to have any archtype on any faction. Some of the questions facing the devs include: why would I want to play this archtype with this powerset? What does this archtype do differently that another archtype does not do? Occasionally we may get answers that we personally don't like, and I suspect that filling in some of the defensive and status effect holes is just something that won't happen.
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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
Might I point out, that other sets, too have holes that cause issues. Psi is a popular hole in defensive armors, as is Fear, another one being Endurance Drain. Dark Armor has a level of protection against each of those, and simply lacks KB. On Fire? Well, I am a bit confused on the thingking behind it. Yes it has a high damage component compared to most other Armors... but it seems to be a touch more "holey" than others.
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- Or,They decided it was no problem, since it is so easy for the player to plug the hole himself.
- OR, They have not plugged that KB hole yet, because they have not yet decided what other vulnerability to insert, if they remove that one.
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Elec Armor's a bit odd... it's kind of an in-between between sets with knockback protection and sets without. Sets with toggle or click KB protection get 10,000% knockback resistance on top of their 10 points of knockback protection, which means that aside from unresisted knockback (Rikti UXB explosions and one of the Warburg nukes are the only such powers in the game, I think) you will never get KB'd as long as you have the power active. In addition, the knockback protection comes in the same power as the rest of the set's status protection. Elec's knockback and immobilize protection comes in a separate power than its other status protection, but it's always on. As a tradeoff, Grounded gives you about 15 points of knockback protection, but no knockback resistance, and only works when you're on the ground (the immob protection is always on). While this is fine for normal PvE as many players don't move during combat let alone jump, it can be annoying for jumpy players. As long as you stay on the ground, though, the number of NPC-used powers that can KB you through Grounded can probably be counted on one hand.|
Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
However, this idea is somewhat debunked with Electrical Armor (Though DA definitely has far more AoE powers).
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Personally, I don't have a problem with the KB hole in Fire and Dark (Elec if you PvP or do Hami raids; and why does everyone always forget Ninjitsu when they talk about sets without KB protection?), as it's very easily countered in five ways:
1. Team with a Kin that has Increase Density (9 points of protection for 60 seconds)
2. Bring along Break Frees (5 points of protection for 30 seconds)
3. Get Acrobatics (9 points of protection, enhanceable to 11, for as long as you have endurance to run it)
4. IOs - Steadfast and Karma give 4 points of protection each for one slot and only cost a few million inf (your 50 should have this lying around as pocket change, buy one and give it to the lowbie); Kinetic Crash gives 3 points of protection for 4 slots in any knockback power and is incredibly cheap if you're patient (again with the 50 if you're not); Blessing of the Zephyr gives 4 points of protection for one slot but is generally not worthwhile in PvE because of its cost; some PvP IO sets give 3 points of protection for a certain number of slots (3 or 4, generally) but they are prohibitively expensive
5. Base empowerment buff - 10 points of protection for one hour, for the cost of the salvage required to craft it
For probably 90% of PvE, 3 or 4 points will get you by just fine. If you find yourself lead alpha taker on teams fighting mobs such as Council, you might want 8-12. Things like Hami raids are going to want 13+, and so on. 13+ points (Acro and an IO, basically) will stop every NPC power but a handful. For those who don't want to spend inf on the IOs or don't want to craft the buff every hour, or don't have a Kin friend, why not just take Acro? There are very few builds in this game that don't have room for an extra power pick, SJ is possibly the best travel power in the game in terms of speed and maneuverability, and Combat Jumping provides the best level of in-combat movement, not to mention extra immobilize protection.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
What Mac said.
(I may not always like/agree with what he says, but this time... he so totally nailed it!)
Personally, defensive sets should have holes of some kind that aren't so obscure as WPs (I think burst damage is the only hole for that set...and not even so much so as it's a hole for Regen).
In the beta, WP actually had a hole to immobilization but I guess they plugged it because enough players whined about it (and as if it wasn't as simple as taking Combat Jumping to get around it). It's probably too late to go around poking holes in sets now to make the game less binary but players really need to adjust their attitude about holes that exist.
There are always ways to circumvent holes like that, even holes as wide as psi and toxic damage for Energy Aura. It should be seen as a challenge to overcome, not an oversight.
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Cos they don't want to.| So...why hasn't the KB hole been closed yet? |
/obvious answer
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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KB, however, is one of the more common (and annoying) effects in game.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Personally, defensive sets should have holes of some kind that aren't so obscure as WPs (I think burst damage is the only hole for that set...and not even so much so as it's a hole for Regen).
In the beta, WP actually had a hole to immobilization but I guess they plugged it because enough players whined about it (and as if it wasn't as simple as taking Combat Jumping to get around it). It's probably too late to go around poking holes in sets now to make the game less binary but players really need to adjust their attitude about holes that exist. There are always ways to circumvent holes like that, even holes as wide as psi and toxic damage for Energy Aura. It should be seen as a challenge to overcome, not an oversight. |
Hellions have it at level one, for heck sake.
Psi and toxic, aside from Umbrals explanation (which I didnt know, before) are relatively rare damage types. KB? Rather frequent. It's also majorly counterproductive to have such a hole on a Melee AT or two. Stalkers? Rely on melee. Brutes, Tanks, Scrappers? All rely on melee.
And 'Get a -KB IO' is not valid when balance should be centred around SOs. Yes, you CAN plug the hole. Should you have to? Not like that.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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If Dark or Fire get their KB hole plugged, could Invul/WP/Stone/Ice get a self heal that recharges just as fast as the DA or Fire self heal?
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That's what it comes down to. Knockback is easily THE most common negative effect in the entire game. Practically everything post-40 has knockback, many thing in spades. Even simple things like Banished Pantheon clubs or simple monster slaps have a lot of knockback to them. People keep bringing up the Psi and Toxic holes, but let's be realistic here. What does psi and toxic damage, especially in the later game? Only rare Carnie bosses do psi, and only some Arachnos, which you don't even meet in City of Heroes for the most part. The Psychic Clockwork exist in something like three missions in the entire game, and that's practically it. Toxic damage exists mainly for the Hydra, which are very rare, and while Arachnos troops DO use it, it's rare to find an enemy which uses enough of it to matter, which practically comes down to Toxic Tarantulas. AND Toxic resistance is present in large quantities in pretty much every heal.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
KB, however, is one of the more common (and annoying) effects in game.
Hellions have it at level one, for heck sake. Psi and toxic, aside from Umbrals explanation (which I didnt know, before) are relatively rare damage types. KB? Rather frequent. It's also majorly counterproductive to have such a hole on a Melee AT or two. Stalkers? Rely on melee. Brutes, Tanks, Scrappers? All rely on melee. And 'Get a -KB IO' is not valid when balance should be centred around SOs. Yes, you CAN plug the hole. Should you have to? Not like that. |
And let's be fair here - how many enemies have any meaningful endurance drain on them? That's pretty much restricted to Sappers on both sides and Mu Strikers, and nothing is other than Malta Sappers is significant enough to be unkillable before it makes a difference. And, no, endurance drain protection does not save you from the Mask of Vitiation, which is a recovery debuff.
Basically, making someone vulnerable to knockback is the equivalent to making someone vulnerable to BEING HIT. It's disruptive, it can sometimes be pretty dangerous, it's easily the most annoying effect in the entire game and it's BLOODY EVERYWHERE! I really, really hope that sets without knockback protection get at least a few points, enough to resist simple things like clubs and slaps. I can live with a giant Greater Devoured knocking me back, but I really ought to be able to push back a backhand from a skinny walking mushroom.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Yeah... Would you like those heals to also lose their max hit points buff and cost 40 endurance points, too? Don't act like these sets get powers for free.
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Originally Posted by EmpireForgotten
If Dark or Fire get their KB hole plugged, could Invul/WP/Stone/Ice get a self heal that recharges just as fast as the DA or Fire self heal?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Just burrowing these two points, but a different point of view for me is that we don't know what is coming up, say like in GR. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What does psi and toxic damage, especially in the later game?
... And let's be fair here - how many enemies have any meaningful endurance drain on them? |
The above items still give room for the devs to try new mobs, attacks, etc. to put in the game and exploit. You could ask the question "what is the GR bosses all have toxic damage?" It would be nice to have something to counter it.
Not a perfect response, but IMO, if the differences didn't exist, it would be harder to make newer/different content and challenges for players and teams.
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Since it seems that everyone wants all the holes closed for every Tank AT, sure why not. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yeah... Would you like those heals to also lose their max hit points buff and cost 40 endurance points, too? Don't act like these sets get powers for free.
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Isn't this another "Just normalize every Tank Primary" Thread?
Tanks have holes for a reason. Invul has a Fear and Psi hole. My Heal doesn't do as well at negating those holes as well as Fire or DA can. Yes, those powers cost End, but they are also up a lot more frequently than Dull Pain.
On an Invul, With IOs, I can sort of negate my psi hole, but I can't make Dull Pain recharge in 20 seconds.
On a Fire or Dark Armor, I can negate my knockback hole with IOs
Maybe, as a compromise, they can Increase the recharge of Fire and DA self heals to equal that of Dull pain/hoarfrost. Then We can close off that pesky KB hole. Hell - we can even throw in the increased HP while we are at it
Tbh, the KB hole is, at least now, dealable with.
Fire armour lacks immob protection, except in Burn.
...Uhm, sorry? Just...that...
My head hurts trying to rationalise that one.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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What you are suggesting is that they add enemies which specifically target these weaknesses and yet avoid having any sort of knockback and you consider that to be a good idea in the slightest? How do you think people would react if, suddenly, the entire expansion were chock-full of enemies that made their entire defence sets obsolete? I rather doubt it would be with cheers and applause. The thing about crucial weaknesses that makes them interesting from a game perspective is that they are serious, but they are also RARE. The solution is not to make other weaknesses more common, like in some crappy story where Kryptonite is everywhere, it's to either reduce the needless quantity of enemy knockback to only enemies which would be expected to deal it (e.i. larger or stronger ones) or to give people protection from it. Ideally, protection IN their own self-protection sets.|
Just burrowing these two points, but a different point of view for me is that we don't know what is coming up, say like in GR. The above items still give room for the devs to try new mobs, attacks, etc. to put in the game and exploit. You could ask the question "what is the GR bosses all have toxic damage?" It would be nice to have something to counter it. Not a perfect response, but IMO, if the differences didn't exist, it would be harder to make newer/different content and challenges for players and teams. |
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Originally Posted by EmpireForgotten
Since it seems that everyone wants all the holes closed for every Tank AT, sure why not.
Isn't this another "Just normalize every Tank Primary" Thread? |
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| Tanks have holes for a reason. Invul has a Fear and Psi hole. My Heal doesn't do as well at negating those holes as well as Fire or DA can. Yes, those powers cost End, but they are also up a lot more frequently than Dull Pain. |
If you want to go ahead and claim that Fiery Aura is more survivable than, say, Invulnerability or Willpower and THAT is why it has to suffer elsewhere, then by all means, do so. That wouldn't be a very strong argument. But if you don't want to commit to that, your argument boils down to "but they get a comparatively balanced heal, so they must suffer drawbacks!" never you mind that both Dark Armour and Fiery Aura already suffer PLENTY of other drawbacks as it is.
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On an Invul, With IOs, I can sort of negate my psi hole, but I can't make Dull Pain recharge in 20 seconds. On a Fire or Dark Armor, I can negate my knockback hole with IOs |
And again - if you're trying to balance around inventions, you lose by default because the official standpoint is that they will not balance sets and powers with the expectation that people will indulge in inventions. And even then, the knockback hole is hardly the only way Fiery Aura and Dark Armour fall behind.
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| Maybe, as a compromise, they can Increase the recharge of Fire and DA self heals to equal that of Dull pain/hoarfrost. Then We can close off that pesky KB hole. Hell - we can even throw in the increased HP while we are at it |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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There is nothing wrong with DA's and FA's KB hole.
In fact, it's only bad in situations that keep you constantly ping ponging over the map (which I've had happen a few times before the KB IOs), and the Katie Hannon TF!
Getting knocked back every now and again, is a comic book staple! Even Superman get's knockedback.
Admittedly, it would be nice for FA's immobilize protection to be moved to a power outside of Burn. Seeing as how Burn scatters enemies.
That said, I've relied on Burn as my Immobilize protection, and that wasn't usually a problem.
As for WP...I was actually for the Immobilize hole in it. It would of been new and different, and easily worked around anyways.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
What you are suggesting is that they add enemies which specifically target these weaknesses and yet avoid having any sort of knockback and you consider that to be a good idea in the slightest? How do you think people would react if, suddenly, the entire expansion were chock-full of enemies that made their entire defence sets obsolete? I rather doubt it would be with cheers and applause. The thing about crucial weaknesses that makes them interesting from a game perspective is that they are serious, but they are also RARE. The solution is not to make other weaknesses more common, like in some crappy story where Kryptonite is everywhere, it's to either reduce the needless quantity of enemy knockback to only enemies which would be expected to deal it (e.i. larger or stronger ones) or to give people protection from it. Ideally, protection IN their own self-protection sets.
That's called a "straw man," and I'd advise you to avoid using it. It convinces no-one and it looks really bad from a distance. Yeah, except you keep forgetting that Dull Pain increases your total hit points pool by about 1000, which gives you effective resistance by a lot, significantly increases regeneration AND it heals you for even more than that. It's not only insincere to ignore that, but it borders on hypocrisy, and I don't throw that claim around lightly. You act like Fiery Arua gets a hideously superior heal and that's why it lacks knockback protection, but in actual fact the heals are just about balanced with each other, which DOES NOT call for further balancing. In fact, Fiery Aura's heal is somewhat better than Reconstruction, but that is a change which was done to it AFTER the set was shown to underperform (once the developers got over the old days of farming, of course). If you want to go ahead and claim that Fiery Aura is more survivable than, say, Invulnerability or Willpower and THAT is why it has to suffer elsewhere, then by all means, do so. That wouldn't be a very strong argument. But if you don't want to commit to that, your argument boils down to "but they get a comparatively balanced heal, so they must suffer drawbacks!" never you mind that both Dark Armour and Fiery Aura already suffer PLENTY of other drawbacks as it is. I'm not sure if you're honestly clueless about this or if you're just making ludicrous assertions just to make an unfounded point, but let me put it like this: Dull Pain is a significantly larger heal AND a significant hit points increase, whereas Healing Flames is a comparatively smaller heal with no hit points increase. Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that if you were able to make Dull Pain recharge as fast as Healing Flames, that would be anything short of absurdly unbalanced? And again - if you're trying to balance around inventions, you lose by default because the official standpoint is that they will not balance sets and powers with the expectation that people will indulge in inventions. And even then, the knockback hole is hardly the only way Fiery Aura and Dark Armour fall behind. Yeah, by this point, I'm calling this pure hypocrisy and I'm done dealing with it. You're obviously convinced that recharge is the only thing that matters and only if a vastly more potent power recharges as fast as a vastly inferior one will the sets ever be in competition. That is, to put it bluntly, false on its face. |
The Majority of my post was very thong-in-cheek and I wasn't looking to get you all riled up. But I will try to make my point.
Yes, making Dull Pain the Recharge of Healing Flames would definitely make the set Broken and OP'd. Invul is sorta fine as is (I have other issues - mainly steaming from the creation of Will Power, but that's a different post). The Holes that Invul has is Manageable and the set is definitely playable.
Had this post been made prior to the Healing flames buff (Before is was complete garbage with Aid Self being a better heal than the primary), I would agree with you that there are far to many holes in Fire Armor and KB hole should be considered being closed.
The Devs chose to buff healing flames however, and looking at the set, seems very survivable and playable. I feel that, just as the ridiculous buff I proposed for Dull Pain, Filling the hole of Knockback in the set would make Fire Unbalanced.
I also agree that IOs shouldn't be used to balance a set - but they are there and its pointless to ignore them.
I've teamed with several fire tanks. Most taskforces/teams I have been on don't really require a tank, but a fire tank performs just as well as any. In some cases, a Fire tank is more preferred than an Invul tank. In some cases, its the other way around.
I guess maybe I don't understand the issues fire tanks face. What OTHER problems do fire tanks have that plugging one of their holes would fix?(Basically giving them an extra power to choose from - since acrobatics wouldn't seem needed).
A lot of people are throwing around the argument that "every set has it's hole." This is true. Ice has low resistance to Fire, which is common enough to be an issue. Inv has it's Psi hole, which is somewhat common in the late game. WP has burst damage. Stone has. . . levels 1-31 or a Psi hole after that. SD has lower defense in exchange for higher damage.
Cover those holes and each set get's overpowered big problem.
Now, FA and DA have KB holes. KB is around for the whole game. Almost every villain group has someone ready to hand it out. What does FA have in return that SD doesn't also get (if not better since its damage bonus goes to ALL damage types). DA and ELA are very similar, only it has two mez aura's and smaller res numbers. But ELA can drain most foes before the fight is over, so they both offer secondary mitigation methods. I'd argue that the recharge res available in ELA would be helpful in DA, because a lot of DA players do rely on a fast recharging heal. But I think that's a suitable hole for DA.
Now, if you cover the KB holes . . . the sets wouldn't be overpowered no big deal.
I think a stronger argument is needed to keep the KB hole in. Would FA and DA suddenly tromp other sets if they had KB protection? Their other holes aren't enough? Would they not still play differently from other sets, as most of they're mitigation tools are different?
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
This problem suddenly got stuck in my craw once I realized how ridiculous it is.
Invulnerability: You have an Unyielding stance, your sheer strength allows you to shrug off knockback.
Ice Armor: Your slippery Wet Ice allows you to simply avoid knockback altogether, I guess?
Willpower: Your force of will, your undefeatable attitude as a normal human being, allows you to plant your feet and not be knocked back, no matter what.
Dark Armor/Fiery Aura: Gaining your powers from the Netherworld/fire, naturally you are incapable of resisting attempts to knock you off your feet???
There is literally no reason, concept or balance-wise, why Dark Armor and Fiery Aura should lack knockback protection. The knockback hole is nothing more than a holdover from the days of failed concepts like rooting status protection, unstackable armors, or, more on the money, Provoke being better than Tankers' built-in Taunt. Except being obligated to take Acrobatics (or spend a rather sizeable amount of Inf on the -KB IO) is far worse.
Never surrender! Never give up!
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