Khedians suck, all that knockback is not team friendly

I had a level 49 Peacebringer that didn't know that KB was knockback and didn't know that it was doing kb.

We had two Archery Blasters on the team trying to use Rain of Arrows and the nimrod kept blasting and breaking them up.

I eventually kicked her. But oh man its frusterating.

We had another one later that was better, but still lots of knockback equals not keeping mobs bunched.

i have a lvl 36 PB and i hate all the KB most of the powers come with

WS on the other hand have very few KB powers (the only one that comes to mind is the cone power)

Maybe u guys should have a Troller or a tanker to round them up and then fire rain of arrows. Then tell the peacebringer/Warshade to shoot. Work as a team and tell him the plan of attack. Warshades and Peacebringer are Very Strong just like any other toon but u got to build it right in the way u like it. Plan out ur attack according to the team build and go from there.

Idiocy =/= AT is bad
Unfortunately, there is no known cure.

Quote:

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.

[Insert any powerset that contains Knockback] sucks, because of a couple people I saw who didn't know how to use it well.


(Then again, it would be nice if a couple of attacks for PB's had Knockup instead of Knockback - Solar Flare and Radiant Strike being good examples. As for Nova powers, it doesn't take much brains to fly over the spawn and shoot from above.)

a well played Kheldian is plenty team friendly. A poorly played Kheldian is no different than a poorly played energy blaster, a poorly played tank, a poorly played emp defender, etc. There are all kinds of powers that can conflict with each other depending on how they are used though. If you have a bunch of blasters firing AOEs without a tank to hold the aggro or a control to lock people down ahead of time, then your team is going to be a mess anyway because you're going to have a ton of blaster faceplants when they draw all that aggro.

Saying an entire Archetype sucks because you don't know how to properly lead a team is...well, not smart.

There is nothing wrong with Knockback or Knockback powers. Nor is there anything wrong with the Kheldian ATs or the KB powers in either of them. Idiots can cause problems whehter they have KB powers or not, it just happens to be an easy vehicle for frustrating others. It's a PEBKAC issue.

Hogwash. By that arguement, Energy/Energy blasters are entirely useless, which is far from true.

People seem to have this huge bea in their bonnet about KB.
Simple solution to the scenario you mentioned; ask him/her to wait till AFTER RoA had gone off. Problem solved.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I was too upset when I originally posted. Long day and night and day and night of 2xp. A lot of pressure of managing, recruiting, and keeping a team. So I was too blunt and tactless. Knockback still is a connundrum.

I really didn't want spend a lot of time to teach a level 49 Peacebringer how to play her toon. And to be honest, I don't know enough about Kheldians, to teach her.

I do know a lot about knockback. I don't get kicked when I use my stormie or my explosive arrow, but I know when and how to use them. But even then, I often don't use those powers in big groups and I feel like I'm underproducing. If my explosive arrow doesn't kill them all, then it makes it so the next fireball can't knock off three of them in one shot.

The reason players get so up in arms about Knockback is that in most playing experiences you don't need the knockback to stay alive. And there is huge benefits and synergies to keeping mobs together. The strategy for most toons is to keep the bad guys bunched up and away from the squishees.

If you have a tank, its not just about keeping bad guys around him for the buff from the numbers. Keeping bad guys near the Tank, keeps the bad guys in the Taunt Auras and off the squishees. It is funny that Tanks get blamed for "not holding the aggro" when the very player that is getting chased around knocked the mob too far from the Tank for him to do just that.

If the bad guys are bunched on the tank, then Fireball hits them all. And if the bad guys are near the tank, then its more likely the bad guys are in the Tar Patch. Keeping the group together, is an enormous part of team strategy and synergy. Far more strategies for good players revolve around keeping a mob bunched.

Knockback is a great power. Its enormously impressive visually. It also provides a valid form of mitigation. But it is often missused and even more often if you play correctly it means the power doesn't get used and is more a solo power.

Knockback is great for making your 6-year old cousin giggle.

For other things... not so much. KB is a flawed secondary effect, much like Endurance Drain is, except that (at least in Energy Blast's case) KB requires you to position correctly (takes time), and the reward is "you don't piss off your teammates".
Which other secondary effect has that? "Oh gee would you stop debuffing enemy resistance, I'm trying to do as low damage as possible!" /sarcasticstrawman. Thing is, people don't get annoyed by other secondary effects, except maybe immobilizes and slow.
Granted, sometimes you get lucky with that 50% AoE KB and conveniently push enemies into tar patches, ice slicks, etc. Most of the time you're just paying the price for playing a set with no real secondary effect, just a tack-on that has a cool novelty value, but no real practical purpose compared than say, -ToHit or -Res.
Why have a set riddled with a bunch of random chances for KB when you could play a more effective set that can optionally get a KB power if they wish? Of all Corruptor primaries at least, only Electric and Fire don't have any sort of KB. Dark Blast and Sonic Attacks also have 100% AoE KB powers, and by their reliability you can actually count on them working, something that even Energy doesn't touch with its random KB. Power Push and Nova are exceptions, but even then PP is ST and Nova is on a really long timer. That's pretty lame for a set that is supposed to be specialized in KB.

But yeah, KB is fun, I guess. I like to use M30 Grenade (with its random 50% KB), but I save that for cleaning up after Flamethrower -> Full Auto -> Flamethrower.

PBAOE with knockback sucks, it'd be good to have all of that (bar the nukes, nukes are supposed to send bodies everywhere) switched to knockdown.

Directional, single-target melee and cone knockbacks are generally fine though since you can aim the blighters.

If you invite a PB into your team... you're going to have some KB. Most teams I've been on have been willing to put-up with it because my tri-form PB brings alot to the table besides (like dwarf form, etc.). And after 42 months of playing the game, I've noticed you will always find someone doing something annoying on any PUG team you're on (scapper-lock, tank grabbing too much agg to hold, suicidal blasters, trollers that throw holds after you lay down your ice sheet...etc,etc,etc). Unless they're causing team-wipe, most of us look the other way. Because my rule is, if you start telling me how to play my toon... I gain to the right to do the same to yours.

And most folks don't like that...


So I'm in the camp that you did something stupid with kicking the PB. But willing to give the benefit of the doubt, cus she could have been real pain. So the question is, was your team that much better with her gone?

If so, then you made the right decision.... if not, then you were in the wrong. But due to this, I think you give-up any right to ***** when you get kicked from a team for doing something their TL finds annoying.

Seems only fair....

One of the things about City of Heroes I fell in love with was the team flexibility. There's no screaming need for a healer, or a tank or a blaster. None of that balance bs you find in other games <cough>WoW<cough>.

It's what you bring to the table. There's opportunity for everyone. So you're a scrapper in a team of scrappers? Sucks for the bad guys.

Pack of Tanks? Well, it won't be quick, but nobody's getting ganked.

And on every AT as a replier noted, there's something to annoy someone else. KB doesn't bother me, it just tells me when I do and do not use my 'nuke'.

Archer's and Assault spec's have it easy, imho. Their nuke doesn't drain, doesn't reduce you to ornamental status while you wait for recovery. Having played an Ice/Ice blaster to 50 I can see advantages and disadvantages in some of the other primary sets.

I actually rather like having variety in my team. KB means I have to rethink my normal button mash paradigm.

And that's something we should all do. Get out of the macro box and accept some flexibility.

There's no knockback a Peacebringer can do that an Energy Blaster/Defender/Corruptor can't do better.

Under the circumstances, probably the best thing the PB could have done is switch to Dwarf form and take over or support tanking. Then again, it could have been a Human Form. My Tri Form only does knockback in Nova, though, all human attacks are melee, which means no KB. Well, there's Solar Flare, but I haven't gotten to that point yet.

This is an old conversation, though. It's a matter of knowing the techniques for controlling knockback, which is true for all ATs. (And a PB doesn't even need to pick up Hover to direct his knockback downward)

I'm surprised that nobody in this thread has yet given this advice: tell the PB to Dwarf up. If you have two Arch blasters, you have enough AoE damage already - you want someone to gather mobs up and keep them gathered, and dwarf form has a taunt - and a PBAoE with knockdown, which keeps mobs in the rain.

If they don't have Dwarf, the next best thing is to let the rains drop before opening up with blasts. If they can't do that, then everybody is probably better off if they solo, since disrupting team DPS kills your own XP/time as well...

I find Peacebringers work better as "blappers" when in a team. When you're in the center of a group battle, then any knockback effects still tend to keep enemies within the radius of area attacks and can really save some bacon. Knockback is in a number of powersets and archetypes and it's just a matter of understanding and managing the effects to optimize their effectiveness. ...KB is one of the reasons I usually run my katana scrapper as perimeter clean-up, rather than heart-of-the-fray. It's not a hindrance, it's a way to get enemies where they should be!

There are bad players for any archetype (never ask me to be a "healer", for example), but that's a limitation of the player not an automatic suck-factor of the powerset itself.

Yep, an old beaten horse here...

Solar Flare & Luminous Detonation are the biggies that cause KB for PBs. I eventually specced out of Luminous Det. because it was just too much trouble to use on teams (that it doesn't do much damage helped too). But Solar Flare... It sucks not to use Solar Flare. It does really good damage, but on teams I do have to run around to KB things back to the middle or against walls, and that's so annoying.

KB really does cause friction in teams. Yeah it can be controlled, but as long as there are ATs that need bunched up foes and ATs that spread them out, there will be some friction. Will this ever be addressed? Does it need to be? That's opinion, but I tend to think it should be.

My preferred fix would be for just about every power/attack to cause KB if it does a certain threshold of damage. We're Superheroes dammit! Things are supposed to be flying around all ragdoll like, smashing against walls. All this bunching things up...we call it herding for a reason, cuz it's what you do with Cows and Sheep... real heroic there. I know, I know... DPS will go down if everything is KBd. Make it so KBd foes took extra damage (slamming into walls, falling off cliffs) then. KB is, IMO, one of the most signature things about the superhero genre. It's dynamic! It's fun!

But this game encourages just the opposite - and that's a shame.

I dunno, I think I would get annoyed rather quickly if every attack in the game had the ability to cause Knockback. It's a pain to have to continuously chase down baddies on a melee character because they're being knocked back constantly.