What can the other secondaries do better than /Shield?

Ya AAO is a very very good power. It really does a lot more for a character than "make me hit harder" in the grand scheme. The comparison between AAO and Energize is neat, it just shows another benefit of AAO that most people don't realize.

It would be interesting to look closer at some various build levels, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Shields is the most endurance efficient damage delivering set of all the armors. Well it probably still trails ELA with an aura, energize and powersink, but SC has insane DPE, and AAO increases DPE by a lot. If I'm bored one day I might take a look at it heh.

When talking of leveling up, I am pretty sure SD has a much nicer ride from 1-36 then SR.

Regen is probably the nicest from 1-20, although Fiery is pretty decent as well. I also like Invuln very much from 1-20. Dark, Elec, and Willpower fall into the next tier for me at the lowbie levels. Shield and SR would be the worst in the lower levels, although with True Grit, AoE defense, and some Sm/Le resistance, SD is better than SR.

20-40 things change. Regen stays excellent whereas Fiery starts to really drop off (especially in the 30s). DA, Willpower, Elec, and SD really pick up in the early 20s, all of those sets have completed their basic protections at this point except for WP, which has to "suffer" with getting QR instead of HS (DA may have some slotting issues until late 20s, early 30s, IME). SR benefits greatly from SO level enhancers but does not complete its basic protection until the 30s. Invuln doesn't really gain much until 28 and finishes off the basics in the 30s (there is a minor downward trend here for Invuln relative to the early game, but, unlike Elec and Fiery, it rises back up after Invincibility and Tough Hide). Electric drops off quickly in the 30s, much like FA.

In the late game, while it is easy to point and say that SR has more defense and better DDR, the value of bowling every other spawn onto its backside and giving yourself and (if you have one) your team time to defeat them while they cannot respond should not be overlooked. While Elude is very good, it has a much harsher crash than OwtS and is usable less frequently.
SD and SR are on par, or at least very close mitigation wise and SD has more utility. I'd put both of them below Regen, DA, and WP. Regen stays a steady performer as does Invuln. DA and WP can really shine. Fiery and Electric have mitigation issues in the late game in exchange for other things, which varying people see with varying opinions.

Rating the sets in the end game on just SOs I would go:
DA=Regen=Invuln=WP=SD>>SR>>FA>>>Ele.
My favorite scrappers to play are
Invuln>>>>>FA>Regen>SD>>WP>Elec>>>SR>DA.

My Claws/Elec/Blaze scrapper is still eminently playable, even if I cannot attempt the same feats of crazy I can on the Kat/Inv/Body scrapper I still run on SOs (which is not the Kat/Inv scrapper I normally run).

So any set that has a top performing power is 'vastly overpowered' and due for a nerf? So what's next after SC?

And I've certainly never claimed it's not the best attack power of the defensive sets, it definitely is, and it's the main reason the set is so fun and popular. IMO, this game could use more SC-like powers, not less.

This doesn't apply to this situation. They should have taken the time to look at the damage it was doing when they ran it through beta, if indeed they had the wrong numbers set for the power. And even if they missed it there, they sure as hell should have caught it after they buffed the power later on. As far as 'squeeking', people have been squeeking about this power from day one. Not really sure where you're going with all the cats and mice, but I'd say the guy in charge of power numbers has a responsibility to check them and make sure they're what they are supposed to be. Finally, if this power is as 'vastly overpowered' as you claim, then this is an enormous blunder on the devs for not catching it for over a year, plain and simple.

Grossly overpowered abilities are always fun in a game like this.

You didn't read this thread, did you?

The power wasn't grossly broken until they decided to go in and "fix" it so that it would do appropriate damage for the archetypes using it. They "fixed" it incorrectly. Eventually the incorrect alteration will be corrected.

No, this game doesn't need more broken powers. I will agree that the devs need to be more careful when implementing changes for no other reason but to avoid threads like this.

However, if you absolutely must have SC left as is, I'm sure Castle will be happy to nerf everything else about Shields in order to keep the set balanced with the other mitigation sets. (Actually, I know he wouldn't do this, so accept the nerf to SC now.)

LOL, what am I ignoring exactly? You're responding to me saying that there seems to be unanimous support for FA buffs. I'm fully aware that you support buffing FA, which is why I mentioned it...

My point was perhaps buffing FA would cure your feelings of inadequacy next to SD toons, without crippling and perhaps ruining a set that many players enjoy.

Secondly, you clearly feel SD is 'strongly overperforming', while I clearly do not, perhaps you've forgotten that. I'm sure there were many frosticus's stating without a doubt that FA was 'strongly overperforming' that helped get FA nerfed into the underperforming state it is in today. I hope the devs don't make the same mistake with SD, but after reading castles posts, I'm not very optimistic. My guess is, in another year or so, there will be outcry from a lot of forum goers to nerf the next popular defensive set, followed by cries to buff an underplayed and underperforming SD - especially if they keep making defense-busting enemy groups, which I have a feeling GR will be loaded with.

Not a 'big difference' when it comes to kill times. There are several combos that are as good or better than sd builds at farming, ie killing a bunch of bad guys. Using your logic, broadsword is overpowered and fire melee is a joke.

We're not discussing aoe ability? I could have sworn that SC was an aoe attack...


First of all, if perception is the only thing that matters, then castle could nerf SC's animation and leave the damage and you'd be fine with it, right, lol?

Secondly, so... you're arguing the animation is overpowered too? Really?

First of all, again, there are many builds that can make teamates feel like they're not participating, and again, it comes from aoe heavy builds vs single target build disparities. This existed before SC and it will exist after castle guts SC.

Secondly, god forbid we have sets that are unique and/or have unique abilities. What's really sad is that any power that stands out, and lets scrappers compete with other at's, draws the nerfbat. For some reason, it's perfectly fine for other at's to kill enemies at the same or better pace that SD toons do now with a mix of powers, but it's not ok for SD's to do it with 2-3 powers.

When DS launched my friend and I pacted and then took turns farming in RWZ with our BS/Shield toons who aren't even soft-capped. Running on +2/x6 we don't have any bosses except for mission objectives. One SC will kill an entire spawn save the 1-2 lieutenants, which are more than half dead. Just swing Headsplitter and Disembowel.

I admit I haven't played things like Spines/Fire but I kind of doubt any other set can kill a complete spawn of +2/x6 in three seconds flat.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

What you, or even castle, considers 'overpowered' is a matter of opinion. People were of the opinion that FA was overpowered, and the devs came in with their magical balancing bat and now FA is.. underpowered. And they did the same thing to EM. Hence my lack of confidence in their balancing abilities. I agree this game could use less broken powers, and power sets even, but from what I've seen the broken powers and sets are more often the result of excessive nerfs.

Whatever the devs decide to do, I'll roll with, but I'm not going to stop giving my opinion, so accept my opinion now, lol.

'Top performing' and 'vastly overpowered' are not synonymous.

As for what's next, I could list a few things, but based on the fact that Castle had no idea until this thread I'm not going to say anything because the ones I have in mind don't break barriers on nearly the same level as SC. My hopes is that many (and I mean there are a ton) of underperforming, or just underwhelming, powers get attention.
I think I even mentioned in this thread that if you want to start tossing out SC in the epics for everyone to grab this conversation probably wouldn't be happening. Of course, the devs would likely scale the enemies to this new level of offense that everyone has and the net result would be the same as reducing SC in the first place, except instead of just SC all offense powers would be reduced.

The rest of your post I more or less agree with, but not much can be done about it. The mistakes (plural intended as there was more than one) happened. They are done and in the past. I'm sure if Castle could go back he'd make sure that whoever was responsible (him or otherwise) did a better job, but that isn't an option.

I'm sure the standard tacky apology will accompany the fix when it finally occurs and that will placate those that require it. Hopefully the cause of the error is understood and similar things will occur less frequently in the future. Beyond that who knows.

At any rate, if SC was introduced at ~106 AoE damage it would still have been considered an amazing power by the player base. How do I know? because it was deemed so at 133 damage.

This we can definitely agree on. Look what the buffs to DM did for that set.

The facts. You aren't even trying to have a discussion you are just being belligerent, ignorant and purposefully obtuse.

We get that you think Castle overnerfs, I'd probably agree in many cases. That doesn't change the fact that SC is NOT working as intended. It is NOT working as he designed it to work and it is grossly outperforming everything like it.

If you want to be productive in the least you'll stop frothing at the mouth and start using your brain to come up with intelligent and meaningful arguments based on logical understandings of the game to persuade Castle to introduce your fix to the issue. It sounds like he is still in the deciding stage of exactly what to do to the power, so here's your chance to actually contribute something. But just so we are clear, when he does look into the power it is going to go down in damage.

I'd be doing just that right now, but imo the numbers he listed for SC as it is supposed to be are still extremely impressive to me, so I don't feel it is necessary.

Anyway, I think I'm probably done talking at you for now. I'm not talking with you because you either aren't comprehending what I'm saying or simply choosing to be stubborn which is leading to a level of obnoxiousness that is grating. Quite frankly I have better things to spend my time on.

Except not really.

There are calculations for balancing powers. Attacks are balanced by the give-and-take numbers of their endurance cost, range, damage, recharge time. If an attack has an end cost of this, a damage of that, and is single target, then its recharge SHOULD be a number that can be decided by plugging the other numbers into the attack equation.

SC breaks the rules by having twice the damage it should. "Twice the damage" is a literal, factual amount derived from the attack equation. There's no "Well, I feel like this is hitting too hard just because."

These are the facts, not "opinions."

Thank goodness it isn't JUST a matter of opinion. Castle and co. do have balancing points: it comes out in the game and in their posts. Sure, there are higher performers, but most of the ATs and powersets work quite well with each other. If you're honestly thinking it's just a matter of opinion, that speaks largely to many of the problems you are having.

Fiery Aura had a lot of issues from the start, and has been adjusted positively a lot over the years. It no longer has to get its mez protection from Burn (other than Immobilize, but Combat Jumping makes a lot more sense here), Healing Flames has been buffed, and Temperature Protection is actually choosable now. I would agree that the overpowered quality of Burn made many people forget the other issues in the set, though, and that Burn was overly nerfed.

However, I think Shields as a set works quite well and has none of the issues that Fiery Aura did or currently has. When arguing for improvements to Fiery Aura (Consume's recharge, Fiery Embrace, the state of Burn, KB and immobilize protection), it's quite fair to point out that the newer sets like Willpower and Shields have none of those issues and discrepancies. Seriously, Fiery Aura still shows that it's an opening powerset in the game and that it had an overpowered attack that was nerfed.

The changes to Invuln a few issues back pretty much rounded out its issues (though I do wonder if it could use a little Regen somewhere), but Fiery Aura still needs it. It is not in the same boat as Shields, however.

I accept that you have an opinion. I don't accept that your opinion has any validity or worth.

TL;DR:
FA possibly having issues is not the result of some misguided nerf, but rather the result of the constantly changing nature of MMOs and has more to do with overall game changes than anything specific that was done to FA.

You keep saying that the devs nerfed FA and it became underpowered. This is not really how it went down. FA was not very strong one day and then after a nerf it was very weak. It is an accumulation of things that have gotten FA to where it is today.

Adding fear to Burn lowered the offensive punch, but FA was still considered a good set after that (unless you also had Ice Melee, in which case it was still stunning). The GDN did not touch FA's mitigation, but decreased the damage of Burn and increased its recharge (the damage was changed for both versions of Burn (only one pet exists), but blasters kept the quick recharge which Brutes picked up as well when I6 came out) and lowered the duration of the Fire damage buff in FE to 20 seconds (it used to be 30, IIRC, which Brutes still have). Target caps were also introduced in I5, which affected Burn quite a bit. The aggro cap, of course, limited how well the bigger offensive punch of FA could be utilized. ED hit FA hard. Villain content is less forgiving, Brutes have less HPs and lower base values. Content in general hits FA weaknesses more (more webnades, more KB, more slows, etc. are added to enemies) I7 increased the effectiveness of defense, which was a relative negative for FA. Burn was changed again, having its recharge changed to 25 seconds (this was a slight buff for tankers, but a big nerf for blasters and brutes). Healing Flames got an excellent buff. I9, inventions were a nice add for FA. +HPs, +recharge, +regen, and KB protection were all very good for FA. I13 I believe is when they added more defense to IOs, which lowered FAs relative status. Scrappers have even fewer HPs, a lower resist cap, and lose some aggro utility on top of the lower base values. Mob AI is occasionally tweaked to reduce the chances of speedy collapse and collision detection has gotten a lot better (although you can still get stacking sometimes). More armor sets give us more to compare FA with.

Bill, I think you would appreciate the link in my sig. It fits your quote very well I think.

You left off that Burn was changed to a maximum of five targets. That alone is a huge hit for the offensive capability of the set. (Ice Patch also only affects five, which of course is not necessarily the same five as Burn. The higher con mobs can walk off of Ice Patch to escape Burn and will attack from range.)

FE is a waste for non fire melee, unless looking for spike damage in PVP.

The problem isn't that it's the best attack power in a defense set. The problem is that it's one of the best attack powers in the game. Period.
It is way better than a similar power that is a tier 9 in an offensive set (lightning rod) and almost as good a lot of nuke style powers which have crashes and massive recharge to compensate for it. And no buffing those powers isn't an option. I REALLY don't see how you can argue the SC is not overpowered.


I wouldn't say 'enormous ', it's hardly game breaking, but a blunder it is definitely. Castle already admitted they made a mistake. This doesn't mean nothing should be done about correcting that mistake though.

If there is some magical balance equation in play, how did FA get nerfed into the state it is in now, where nobody seems to think it's 'balanced' with it's competitors? Same thing with EM. The answer is that there is no perfect balance equation, and that guesswork, feel and opinion play a big part in the attempt to create some semblance of balance, hence the constant adjustments to powers and sets.

Apparently I'm only talking AT you as well, since I've made it pretty clear I understand castle is going to gut SC's damage. You seem to agree, which makes your claim that castle is still in the 'deciding' state a bit odd.

And it's a shame you're done talking at me, I'd love to hear you elaborate more on how SC looks too good and how you'd solve that 'problem', lol.

Right back at ya. The only difference is I don't demand other people to adopt my opinion or imply that they should just shut up, as many posters in here seem to be in the habit of doing.

That's not the only difference. Another difference is that some opinions are based on an understanding of how this game is now balanced and will continue to be balanced while other opinions are based on not caring about balance and the reasons for it.

One of these will be ignored by the developers. I don't care whether you adopt my opinion. I'm only attempting to show you why the opinion to leave a broken power broken will forever be ignored.

Actually, based on what Castle said caused the issue, the subtleties of programming are very much a part of what went wrong.

Your average developer is guilty of tunnel vision, they are tasked with making changes to one part of the system and therefore they concentrate strictly on what they are touching and tend to do positive testing only due to the changing nature of the environment in which they work. So the developer would have coded SC to allow for AT scaling and then verified that the AT scaling was working as designed after "just checking the power a handful of times".

I am not saying that what happened with SC could not or should not have been caught, I am simply pointing out the realities of software development that I see in my job everyday.


>

have to agree....the Devs will choose to ignore everything and proceed with whatever plans they have come too regardless of what the player base says.

Thier history has shown this course of action time and time again. Choose what I do, harp on thier mistakes and maybe the Dev team will finally figure out that making design decisions based on arrogance is poor at best.


ps probly not