Would buff/buff AT be overpowered?
By
Adelie,
Posted on: 2010-03-22 08:48 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Controllers are low damage, that is true. However most controllers actually have pretty decent single target damage. The first two powers in most control sets are damage scale 1 (some are a little better, some a little worse). Now given the Controllers damage scale of 0.55 this isn't much until you factor in containment. Since controllers deal double damage to a mezzed enemy and most controllers can mez a single target with mez this means that controllers effectively get a single target damage scale of 1.1 (or only slightly worse than blasters) against a single target. They have two reasonably fast recharging attacks they can use this with and can easily take either Air Superiority or Jump Kick as their travel power pre-requisite to give them a third. They aren't damage powerhouses, but this is more than enough single target damage to solo effectively at reasonable difficulty settings. Of course, the fact that they are mezzing their enemies means they are a lot safer than a blaster.|
Originally Posted by rsclark
That perfectly describes playing the above character - or did you think that 2-4 damage every minute from a hold contributes significantly to damage above and beyond brawl.
And what was the point in adding "never will" to that sentence? How would the idea that I would get a damaging power in 31 levels make me not have to rely on brawl for Outbreak? Did you try to change your point half way through the sentence and fail at it? |
Obviously they don't have a whole lot of AoE damage, for the most part they have an AoE immobilize on an 8 second recharge but with the exception of roots it's damage scale is only about 0.3 so even with containment it doesn't do a whole lot. This does change a bit once the controller gets an APP since these add a decent AoE (especially Fire) and of course Plant controllers already have a semi-decent one. However even with containment a Controller will never be an AoE powerhouse.
So in summary, yes Controllers don't match up to Blasters in damage output and tend to fall behind a well built Defender (with the exception of Fire/Kin but if they don't do enough damage to solo all I can say is "you're doing it wrong". This is especially true for a Kinetics controlelr since you've got Siphon Power and Siphon Speed right off the bat.
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Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
That said, on my pre-pet earth/cold, the vast majority of the damage solo comes from veteran Sands of Mu. One thing to bear in mind is that an earth controller who slots Fossilize for damage is going to have little to no actual control ability at lower levels before Earthquake, Stalagmites, and Volcanic Gasses are acquired and slotted up. It makes soloing marginally faster to slot Fossilize for damage instead of hold, but significantly reduces team utility - the damage added by slotting Fossilize that way is a drop in the bucket on a team, but the loss of the ability to lock down problematic enemies in a pinch is fairly significant. You can slot Stone Prison for damage, but the damage is still pretty bad even if you do.
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Um.....
Originally Posted by rsclark
That perfectly describes playing the above character - or did you think that 2-4 damage every minute from a hold contributes significantly to damage above and beyond brawl.
And what was the point in adding "never will" to that sentence? How would the idea that I would get a damaging power in 31 levels make me not have to rely on brawl for Outbreak? Did you try to change your point half way through the sentence and fail at it?
WHAT? XD
"Did you try to change your point half way through the sentence and fail at it?"?!
Did you try to provide a counter argument and fail at it? XD
There is absolutely no power in this game (excluding zero-damage ones) that provides as low as 2-4 damage PER MINUTE! What game are you playing?! XD
This post is hilarious...
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Well, technically if you don't slot Flash Freeze for recharge and never use it on anyone who's already mezzed it provides 6 damage every 90seconds which is equivalent to 4damage a minute. So an Ice controller who only uses un-slotted Flash Freeze would deal 2-4damage a minute.
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Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
There is absolutely no power in this game (excluding zero-damage ones) that provides as low as 2-4 damage PER MINUTE! What game are you playing?! XD
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Ah, but technically Flash Freeze is an AoE, so he'd have to use it on a target that's alone. If there's anyone else nearby, the damage is significantly more.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Well, technically if you don't slot Flash Freeze for recharge and never use it on anyone who's already mezzed it provides 6 damage every 90seconds which is equivalent to 4 damage a minute. So an Ice controller who only uses un-slotted Flash Freeze would deal 2-4damage a minute.
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Also, flash freeze is a level 18 power. Even considering you could use it exemplared all the way to level 13, does it still only do 4 damage per use?
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It deals 6 damage per target at level 50, it only deals 3.1 damage per target at level 18.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Ah, but technically Flash Freeze is an AoE, so he'd have to use it on a target that's alone. If there's anyone else nearby, the damage is significantly more.
Also, flash freeze is a level 18 power. Even considering you could use it exemplared all the way to level 13, does it still only do 4 damage per use? |
Besides, I'm assuming the controller is fighting a single minion since a controller who's only attack is an unslotted Flash freeze would have difficulty handling anything tougher than a Girl Scout (and even then he's relying on her not biting).
I stand corrected. An unslotted Ice Controller, between the levels 18 and 40ish, can do 4 damage per minute, if and only if the character faces only one opponent at a time during that level range, at all times.
Does this mean I lose? 
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No need for a counter argument if there's no argument. Most controllers DO go through the newbie zone with no real attack powers. Adding some comment about later damage powers doesn't make that less true.|
Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]
Um..... WHAT? XD "Did you try to change your point half way through the sentence and fail at it?"?! Did you try to provide a counter argument and fail at it? XD |
You have one immobilize/hold/whatever that does negligible damage and in the case where you pick a slow recharge (and actually useful later game power) instead of a faster charge (and later worthless single target imm), then that minimal damage is doubly useless.
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| There is absolutely no power in this game (excluding zero-damage ones) that provides as low as 2-4 damage PER MINUTE! What game are you playing? |
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WHO CARES! Let's take this one step at a time for the slow class.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
An earth/kin is perfectly capable of soloing, despite your inability to figure out how. A force field/kin cannot solo.
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1. The fact that something CAN solo does not mean that people WILL solo with it
2. many characters are built with the intention of being group only and are thus built in a way where soloing is impractical
3. since characters of this type (group only) already exist and are functional, then there is no reason other characters of the same type cannot also
4. the fact that this theoretical character absolutely cannot solo makes no difference when placed beside characters who functionally cannot solo - both would group all the time.
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When was the last time you leveled slow enough to be able to afford to slot two builds before 50? Must be all that pointless soloing that gets done.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
There is some truth in that, it would be really nice if we could have one slotting set for solo and one for teaming wouldn't it? Perhaps some sort of "dual build" system could be implemented that allowed players to change their slotting between two sets at will?
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It would also be nice if everyone could afford to fully kit out two builds per character while leveling up. Although if you don't care about IOs it's not too bad.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
There is some truth in that, it would be really nice if we could have one slotting set for solo and one for teaming wouldn't it? Perhaps some sort of "dual build" system could be implemented that allowed players to change their slotting between two sets at will?
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There's also the simple issue that even with the hold slotted for damage earth/cold is going to be a pain in the *** to solo before the pet, so going through the hassle of building a second build that's marginally better at it is not hugely tempting.
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I can easily afford it on all my characters and I don't spend much time soloing (mostly just safeguards and other missions I hate doing with a team). Simply selling salvage at the AH is more than sufficient to provide the Inf needed for SOs or common IOs (mostly SOs in my case, I'm lazy when it comes to leveling builds). Sure it would be tricky if you relied solely on Inf drops but if you sell salvage (and maybe run a bit of AE for tickets to trade for rare salvage) it is trivial to get enough inf to afford two sets of SOs all the way to 50. Or of course you can do a bit of salvage flipping. Getting in the habit of putting in bids to buy/sell salvage everytime you pass the AH gets more than sufficient Inf for SOs.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
When was the last time you leveled slow enough to be able to afford to slot two builds before 50? Must be all that pointless soloing that gets done.
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Okay Rsclark you have proven what?
That trollers can't solo til 32 okay, that is a ridiculous statement, because 1 they can't solo on -1 difficulty without any damage issue and my Ill/FF and my Ice/Emp do it on -1/x3 with ease which averages the xp to about +1/1.
But anyway the point is that so they can't solo (to those that need to l2p) that early in the game past 32 they like their Dominator cousin's make most PvE content irrelevant, however, unlike their dominator cousins they have access to buffs and debuffs being able to solo high end content like AVs and GMs, I would say not being able to do anything that well for the first 30 levels is a good trade off for soloing AVs and GMs and practically being one of the best farmers for late game, but that's just me.
And what most people are trying to tell you is that, all ATs have the OPTION of soloing, weather they do it well or not is more than likely the player and not the AT. The dev's don't want to limit people to HAVE to team.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
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As was said earlier, at low levels the game's damage modifiers mean that your hold is doing no less damage than a blaster's first attack. You both two shot every minion.|
Originally Posted by rsclark
No need for a counter argument if there's no argument. Most controllers DO go through the newbie zone with no real attack powers. Adding some comment about later damage powers doesn't make that less true.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
You have one immobilize/hold/whatever that does negligible damage and in the case where you pick a slow recharge (and actually useful later game power) instead of a faster charge (and later worthless single target imm), then that minimal damage is doubly useless.
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We've already established that controller damage at lower levels is plenty and at later levels, as long as containment is up, you essentially have a damage modifier equal to blasters. For both of these reasons, your argument here has nothing to stand on.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
It's called hyperbole (and only slightly at that). Look it up, chuckles.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
WHO CARES! Let's take this one step at a time for the slow class.
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It's not a matter of being able to solo. It's about being able to contribute.
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Originally Posted by rsclark
When was the last time you leveled slow enough to be able to afford to slot two builds before 50? Must be all that pointless soloing that gets done.
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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There is no argument?! So that's why you keep countering everyone's post so offensively and calling people names!
Originally Posted by rsclark
No need for a counter argument if there's no argument...
...It's called hyperbole (and only slightly at that). Look it up, chuckles.
And I'm sorry for laughing at that post. I thought this was an argument, and the fact that you had to use such a massive level of "hyperbole" to support your case made me chuckle and shake my head. I was wrong, I guess. This isn't no stinkin' argument!
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This is true if you're reasonably lucky with salvage drops and market fluctuations. If you're not, it can be tough to afford steadily updated SOs without muling money over from another character. This is especially true if you are either an infrequent player or rather alt-heavy; I'm a little of each (I don't play every day and I have a lot of alts) so I'm usually going through patrol XP, which reduces the ratio of drops to levels gained.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Simply selling salvage at the AH is more than sufficient to provide the Inf needed for SOs or common IOs (mostly SOs in my case, I'm lazy when it comes to leveling builds).
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Sometimes, a character just doesn't get good drops. The salvage is all stuff that's "1098 for sale, 0 bids" and the recipes are all things that market for under their vendor-sell value. If I'm on a server where I have well-established characters I'll mule a few million over to cover the cost of SOs; if not, it can be uphill keeping them maintained.
(Yes, I am aware there is "free money" to be had in arbitrage of underpriced market items to resell to vendors. I will withhold my feelings on this subject to avoid even more unnecessary flamewars than this thread has already had.)
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That is the really nice thing about AE though. You can trade tickets for a much more controlled salvage selection. 540 tickets gets you a piece of rare salvage that you can self for at least 2million. You can get that pretty easily in a few hours play just by running some random story arcs and doing that a couple of times will easily pay for SOs to 50.
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Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
This is true if you're reasonably lucky with salvage drops and market fluctuations. If you're not, it can be tough to afford steadily updated SOs without muling money over from another character. This is especially true if you are either an infrequent player or rather alt-heavy; I'm a little of each (I don't play every day and I have a lot of alts) so I'm usually going through patrol XP, which reduces the ratio of drops to levels gained.
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This is true for people who play the AE. I tend to prefer not to since the writing and mission design can be a pretty severe crapshoot.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
That is the really nice thing about AE though. You can trade tickets for a much more controlled salvage selection. 540 tickets gets you a piece of rare salvage that you can self for at least 2million. You can get that pretty easily in a few hours play just by running some random story arcs and doing that a couple of times will easily pay for SOs to 50.
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Fair enough. The fact remains that the tools are there, whether you use them is up to you.
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Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
This is true for people who play the AE. I tend to prefer not to since the writing and mission design can be a pretty severe crapshoot.
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The tools are also there, if one is sufficiently masochistic, to solo with a character who doesn't have or use any direct-damage attacks from his primary or secondary. Isn't this what used to be called man-style or some such nonsense? Of course, they didn't have two buff sets perpetually cranking up their Brawl, and it wasn't endurance-free back in the day... |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Fair enough. The fact remains that the tools are there, whether you use them is up to you.
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(You see I bring it all full circle with my amazing powers)
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There is a difference, however. A subtle one at that. It's called cost vs. benefit.
Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
The tools are also there, if one is sufficiently masochistic, to solo with a character who doesn't have or use any direct-damage attacks from his primary or secondary. Isn't this what used to be called man-style or some such nonsense? Of course, they didn't have two buff sets perpetually cranking up their Brawl, and it wasn't endurance-free back in the day...
(You see I bring it all full circle with my amazing powers)
If you want to apply the "The tools are there, use them at your own discretion" ideology to everything, then you might as well demand that we have ponies in the game, along with rainbows and lollipops. And that developers should come to our homes and scratch our backs...
However, you cannot apply that ideology to everything. The benefit of bringing a Buff/Buff Archetype to the game just for the sake of "having more tools to play with" is simply absurd when you consider real, tangible factors such as cost. Note that cost isn't the only factor that decides whether or not a "tool" should be implemented. There are many. But I'm sure you can figure them out on your own.
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You can solo 1-50 using Brawl if you want to. However, the fact that it takes a long time is not a reason to buff Brawl.|
Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona
The tools are also there, if one is sufficiently masochistic, to solo with a character who doesn't have or use any direct-damage attacks from his primary or secondary. Isn't this what used to be called man-style or some such nonsense? Of course, they didn't have two buff sets perpetually cranking up their Brawl, and it wasn't endurance-free back in the day...
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As for introducing new tools, that fact that a tool doesn't exist is not alone sufficient reason to introduce it.
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As I've said, I don't think the double-buff set is a good idea.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
You can solo 1-50 using Brawl if you want to. However, the fact that it takes a long time is not a reason to buff Brawl.
As for introducing new tools, that fact that a tool doesn't exist is not alone sufficient reason to introduce it. |
However, it would not be inherently impossible to solo it, and it would not be useless if it existed. It would be optimal at a low team proportion, and decrease in utility as its team proportion rises, approaching (but not reaching) zero as it becomes 100% of the team (including solo).
Another thing occurred to me. Can you guys imagine how horrible it'd be if MORE than one of these was on your team?
I mean, you know how when they roll a new Powerset into Beta, everyone on test will be playing it for obvious reasons? And when it goes live, it's Shiny of the Month for a while, like Dual Pistols?
Yah. This Archetype would be horrifying under those circumstances...
"Hey, Recluse! We're an 8-man team of buffers!!! WE'RE GONNA F**K YO' S**T UP!"
...and then 8 buffed-to-the-cap characters start brawling Recluse to death...
This makes me want to start a gimmick team.
Speaking of gimmick teams, every AT in this game is capable of soloing if the team consisted entire of it. And it's usually hilarious.
8 Blasters: Kaboomies!
8 Controllers: Remember when enemies used to have attacks?
8 Defenders: Just ask the Repeat Offenders.
8 Scrappers: TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL!
8 Tankers: Well okay it'll be a little slow.
8 Kheldians: Between Dwarf and Nova, you've pretty much got an entire team.
8 Brutes: SMASH! multiplied.
8 Corruptors: See Defenders.
8 Dominators: See Controllers.
8 Masterminds: So much carnage. So much lag.
8 Stalkers: Everyone on three... I said three! Three!
8 Soldiers of Arachnos: Possibly too good.
But 8 of these things? Brawling everyone to death? That could be hilarious, actually.
That said, on my pre-pet earth/cold, the vast majority of the damage solo comes from veteran Sands of Mu. One thing to bear in mind is that an earth controller who slots Fossilize for damage is going to have little to no actual control ability at lower levels before Earthquake, Stalagmites, and Volcanic Gasses are acquired and slotted up. It makes soloing marginally faster to slot Fossilize for damage instead of hold, but significantly reduces team utility - the damage added by slotting Fossilize that way is a drop in the bucket on a team, but the loss of the ability to lock down problematic enemies in a pinch is fairly significant. You can slot Stone Prison for damage, but the damage is still pretty bad even if you do.