Just thought I'd ask
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2010-05-06 19:19 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Ice Armor and Ice Melee were given to Brutes in Closed Beta for CoV, but it turned out that they both hampered Fury generation.
For the rest I assume it's simply a matter of them not being proliferated yet. Sorry if that's not the answer you were looking for, but I can't think of any other reason for most of those.
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I believe a similar point was made for Doms not getting Illusion Control
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
Ice Armor and Ice Melee were given to Brutes in Closed Beta for CoV, but it turned out that they both hampered Fury generation.
For the rest I assume it's simply a matter of them not being proliferated yet. Sorry if that's not the answer you were looking for, but I can't think of any other reason for most of those. |
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Brutes had Ice Armor during CoV beta. Back during that time the developers found that the functions of Ice Armor interfered with the functions of the Brute Play Experience. |
Originally Posted by Far_Realm
Why don't Brutes get Ice Armor?
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Several players have pointed out that Brutes generally don't rely on taking hits as much these days to generate fury, so there's a possibility that Ice Armor could be re-visited. As far as I am aware, the developers haven't given a flat no to the idea, but we do know it's not at the top of their list.
With the current game's focus on Soft-capping defenses via IO's, and admission from the developers that maybe they put too much defense bonus's into the IO sets, it's possible they are rethinking the inherent design balance of defense, which could also explain why Energy Aura hasn't been proliferated.
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| Why don't Masterminds get Cold Domination, even though they get Thermal Radiation? Why don't they get Radiation Emission, for that matter? |
The basic idea is that Cold Domination was a debuff version of Force Field, which Mastermind's did get. As force field contained no enemy debuffs, it didn't fit the Corruptor Design model, so rather than rebuilding the Force Field set from the ground up, the developers made Cold Domination.
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| Why don't Blasters get Dark Blast? |
Now, the developers may revisit this in a future proliferation.
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| Why don't Defenders get Thermal Radiation and Fire Blast, even though they get Cold Domination and Ice Blast, and even Traps and Assault Rifle? |
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Why don't Corrupters get Force Field? Why don't Tankers get Energy Aura? |
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| Why don't Dominators get Illusion Control? |
While I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure that Illusion Control is on the list of never to be proliferated sets.
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| I'm not looking for the obvious answer, "The Devs haven't gotten around to it yet," or for bullies who answer me with thinly-disguised put-downs - I want to know if there's supposed to be any good reason for these particular absences. |
Back when this game was under previous management
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it was said blasters wouldn't get Dark Blast since the -tohit would grant a blaster, then a glass cannon, too much defense. Who said? People on the forums.| Why don't Blasters get Dark Blast? |
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| Why don't Corrupters get Force Field? |
Who was saying this? People on the forums.
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| Why don't Dominators get Illusion Control? |
As has been mentioned, brutes did have ice armor at one point, but it was removed. However, I have heard it said that at that point, fury actually required you to be *hit*, not just attacked, so ice armor would have been a double whammy in that regard between the defense and slows.
Nowadays, though, given brutes' posession of dark armor and stone melee - aka two sets which get large amounts of mitigation from mezzing foes and flat-out preventing them from attacking - I personally don't think that the previous argument against ice armor holds much water. If it were really that bad, then brutes wouldn't get dark armor and stone melee either. As long as you can take an alpha on the way in and at least a few other shots during the fight, you aren't in *that* bad of shape for fury.
The other one of these I know something about is dark blast for blasters. I'll quote a post I made in the controller forum regarding controllers potentially getting dark miasma:
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All the dark sets in CoH are interrelated, and they're not really going to be able to port any of them until they plan out how to port *all* of them. Presumably they're putting that task off until they have more time to work on it.|
Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
It was something Synapse (I think) said, about how all of the various dark-themed sets were interrelated and they needed to think carefully about how best to do it. I'll see if I can find the post.
Edit: Ah, it was actually Sunstorm. Post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...63#post1311463 Basically, dark miasma being ported to controllers is problematic because dark miasma, dark control, dark assault, dark blast, and dark manipulation (all of which they apparently hope to do eventually) would all be mixing and matching from a similar pool of powers, and you need to avoid overlap. Dark blast would need to avoid overlap with dark manipulation, which would share a lot of powers with dark assault, which would need to mesh with dark control, which would need to avoid duplicating stuff from dark miasma, which is already set up to avoid duplications with dark blast. That sounds like a thorny task. |
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Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
I don't recall any reason discussed for this not being ported to doms, but I've wondered if it has to do with there being so little control in Ill. Illuision has all these powers that misdirect and confuse, but that's something I say and I have nothing to back it up.
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And I can't wait for Illusion to get ported to doms, simply because it'd be a control set that might actually have a chance to keep you alive against a PToD eb. It would be a hell of a novelty to fight a downgraded AV *without* hammering back purple pills like they're going out of style. *That* might actually be a reason why they're holding off on proliferating it, since it compensates so nicely for one of the dom's main weaknesses.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
I think that in many cases, the answer is "they haven't gotten around to it yet". The fact that powersets weren't "proliferated" from the start is a legacy of past policies that changed (which is why there's been proliferation at all).
Cold Domination I think hasn't been proliferated to Masterminds yet because it has enough thematic/power similarities to Storm that many MMs might have felt cheated. Thermal is much more distinctive.
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Actually, the general consensus that it isn't very good might have something to do with it.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
With the current game's focus on Soft-capping defenses via IO's, and admission from the developers that maybe they put too much defense bonus's into the IO sets, it's possible they are rethinking the inherent design balance of defense, which could also explain why Energy Aura hasn't been proliferated.
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Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
Nowadays, though, given brutes' posession of dark armor and stone melee - aka two sets which get large amounts of mitigation from mezzing foes and flat-out preventing them from attacking - I personally don't think that the previous argument against ice armor holds much water. If it were really that bad, then brutes wouldn't get dark armor and stone melee either. As long as you can take an alpha on the way in and at least a few other shots during the fight, you aren't in *that* bad of shape for fury.
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And of course, Fury isn't a consideration for scrappers, and they don't get Ice either.
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
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Incorrect. Muon_Neutrino posted Sunstorm's bit on the overlapping of the dark powers. |
Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Back when this game was under previous management
it was said blasters wouldn't get Dark Blast since the -tohit would grant a blaster, then a glass cannon, too much defense. Who said? People on the forums. |
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Once upon a time it was said that Corruptors shouldn't have FF since Corr secondaries should have the ability to buff allies and debuff bad guys. This was before Corrs got TA. Who was saying this? People on the forums. |
Again, if you accept the over-arching theory that corruptors secondaries are based on debuffing enemies, Trick Arrow is one of the most versatile debuff sets available. If you accept the over-arching theory that the mastermind secondaries were based on protecting pets, again, Trick arrow fits the bill as it has some powerful soft and hard control features. Trick Arrow features pretty much every debuff that's available in the game, even a regeneration and recovery debuff if you take EMP Arrow.
So, I'm not sure why you say that Corruptors should get Force Field based on Corruptors getting Trick Arrow. From what we know from the developers, Cold Domination "was" the Corruptor answer to Force Field.
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| I don't recall any reason discussed for this not being ported to doms, but I've wondered if it has to do with there being so little control in Ill. Illuision has all these powers that misdirect and confuse, but that's something I say and I have nothing to back it up. |
Now, yes, that is changing with Going Rogue. Existing Masterminds will be able to become a Hero, and through Praetoria, new Masterminds can start as Heroes.
Looking at Illusion from a design perspective, what I stated is what holds up. The gameplay of the hard control sets suits the fast paced Assault play of the Dominator archtype... which is the design goal. Dominators should not play like Controllers.
One of my biggest personal issues with the cries of proliferate that set, or that set, or that set is that the uniqueness of each set is lost. The different play experience becomes meaningless, or harder to differentiate. Right off hand, unless somebody can make a convincing argument for how Illusion Control would suit the Dominator play-experience goal, there's no reason to proliferate it.
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The "Dominator play-experience goal" is "fun"; I and many others would enjoy playing an Illusion Dominator. That's a good enough reason to port the set.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Right off hand, unless somebody can make a convincing argument for how Illusion Control would suit the Dominator play-experience goal, there's no reason to proliferate it.
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Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
Wouldn't Illusion Doms provide a whole new play experience rather than dilute any existing experience?
Drop Phantom Army, and wade in with impunity with your melee attacks. I dont think any powerset pairing currently pairs taunting pets with low personal defence and melee damage, it could be interesting.
The core Dominator tactic of "tie them up then beat them up once its safe" still applies. In this case the "tie them up" part often becomes "distract them with taunting indestructable pets", but its still an extension of the basic playstyle in the same way that IllusioN Control extends general Controller control.
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So you're asking why they didn't just give them all those sets to begin with?|
Originally Posted by Far_Realm
Why don't Brutes get Ice Armor?
Why don't Masterminds get Cold Domination, even though they get Thermal Radiation? Why don't they get Radiation Emission, for that matter? Why don't Blasters get Dark Blast? Why don't Defenders get Thermal Radiation and Fire Blast, even though they get Cold Domination and Ice Blast, and even Traps and Assault Rifle? Why don't Corrupters get Force Field? Why don't Tankers get Energy Aura? Why don't Dominators get Illusion Control? I'm not looking for the obvious answer, "The Devs haven't gotten around to it yet," or for bullies who answer me with thinly-disguised put-downs - I want to know if there's supposed to be any good reason for these particular absences. |
Well, for one, they wanted to make it so people who wanted to play a set would have to go to one perticular AT to play for some of it.
Perhaps they knew Power Proliferation would be good Issue material so left it out on purpose to have something to proliferate.
Truth is, some of what you're asking is really that simple. Just hasn't been proliferated yet.
Ice Armor and Ice Melee had problems in beta at the time of CoV. Though I find it funny, you ask why Brutes don't get it, but don't mention it for the other melee ATs that lack it.
Thermal Radiation was just recently ported over. So it's not like they started with it. So, that's likely why they don't have Cold Domination yet. It's not like they said "Let's give them one elemental set and not the other" when Masterminds were introduced.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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IIRC, the lack of proliferation was one of those things imposed by Statesman like the lack of real numbers, that vanished when he did.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Perhaps they knew Power Proliferation would be good Issue material so left it out on purpose to have something to proliferate.
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Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Looking at Illusion from a design perspective, what I stated is what holds up. The gameplay of the hard control sets suits the fast paced Assault play of the Dominator archtype... which is the design goal. Dominators should not play like Controllers.
One of my biggest personal issues with the cries of proliferate that set, or that set, or that set is that the uniqueness of each set is lost. The different play experience becomes meaningless, or harder to differentiate. Right off hand, unless somebody can make a convincing argument for how Illusion Control would suit the Dominator play-experience goal, there's no reason to proliferate it. |
My Ice/Psi Dom strongly disagrees with the concept that Domis are suited to Hard Control systems. That's a generalization which doesn't particularly bear up IMO. And Earth Domis show that a pseudo-pet heavy Control set can still work well with Domination.
* I haven't seen any real reason that Illusion should not be proliferated to Dominators, the only one I can think of off-hand is that both Domination and Illusion benefit greatly from +Recharge bonuses and that might create an edge-case IO'd monster.
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People said this years before Sunstorm got his redname. Take it up with people.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
Incorrect. Muon_Neutrino posted Sunstorm's bit on the overlapping of the dark powers.
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Also incorrect. Corruptors started CoV with the Kinetics set , which much like TA, doesn't actually fit into a pigeon-holed this is a "something" set. |
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Again, if you accept the over-arching theory that corruptors secondaries are based on debuffing enemies, Trick Arrow is one of the most versatile debuff sets available. If you accept the over-arching theory that the mastermind secondaries were based on protecting pets, again, Trick arrow fits the bill as it has some powerful soft and hard control features. Trick Arrow features pretty much every debuff that's available in the game, even a regeneration and recovery debuff if you take EMP Arrow. |
/me shoots je_saist for 202 points of healing damage.
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| So, I'm not sure why you say that Corruptors should get Force Field based on Corruptors getting Trick Arrow. From what we know from the developers, Cold Domination "was" the Corruptor answer to Force Field. |
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Remember: Illusion Control was the genesis of what eventually became the Mastermind set. It was stated pretty explicitly a few years back that the Illusion Set was close to a MasterMind as Heroes were going to get. Now, yes, that is changing with Going Rogue. Existing Masterminds will be able to become a Hero, and through Praetoria, new Masterminds can start as Heroes. Looking at Illusion from a design perspective, what I stated is what holds up. The gameplay of the hard control sets suits the fast paced Assault play of the Dominator archtype... which is the design goal. Dominators should not play like Controllers. One of my biggest personal issues with the cries of proliferate that set, or that set, or that set is that the uniqueness of each set is lost. The different play experience becomes meaningless, or harder to differentiate. Right off hand, unless somebody can make a convincing argument for how Illusion Control would suit the Dominator play-experience goal, there's no reason to proliferate it. |
Okay, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to say this again: Ice Armor and fury generation was not the ONLY problem with Ice Armor/Ice Melee being ported over to Brutes. There was also the HUGE problem that Ice Melee sucked back then. No true AoE damage. Two powers that were soft controls that hindered fury generation further than the slows did, and very weak single-target attacks. It was just a very bad set back then, [i]especially[/] for brutes. For Tankers, who could utilize the soft controls to perform their function, Brutes really couldn't.
Ice MELEE was the bigger problem. Not the slows or much at all to do with Ice ARMOR.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
So why no Ice Armor for scrappers?
Why no Rage for Controllers?
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This is likely the most detailed description of the problem. It was not one thing, but a combination of things. I think the -Recharge is more of an issue than you are giving it credit for, though. Maybe not for each of the Power Sets separately, but stack the two together, and you have a powerful AoE slow which is reducing the Recharge of all foes, and stacking single target -Recharge on whoever you are are hitting. |
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Okay, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to say this again: Ice Armor and fury generation was not the ONLY problem with Ice Armor/Ice Melee being ported over to Brutes. There was also the HUGE problem that Ice Melee sucked back then. No true AoE damage. Two powers that were soft controls that hindered fury generation further than the slows did, and very weak single-target attacks. It was just a very bad set back then, [i]especially[/] for brutes. For Tankers, who could utilize the soft controls to perform their function, Brutes really couldn't.
Ice MELEE was the bigger problem. Not the slows or much at all to do with Ice ARMOR. |
Control powers can be compensated for, as noted for Dark Armor. Lack of damage is certainly a problem, but it would not be a problem IF the set had high Fury generation. Dark has -Acc, which as a damage mitigation tool does not reduce Fury. So with all the same tools for both controls and damage mitiigation, Ice/Ice has two factors reducing Fury generation while Dark/Dark has only one.
It's certainly possible that Ice/Ice would work fine under the current implementation of the game, but without actual testing of that, I wouldn't be 100% sure. And the only ones who can do testing of that assumption at this time are the devs. I'm sure they're not putting off the Proliferation because they don't want to, but merely because so far there have been possibilities that would take less investigation and testing to ensure they are not still facing problems in implementation.
And I would say in general that is the best answer to the OP's question. There may be no "good reason" those Power Sets aren't available to all ATs. Merely, those examples are problematic of issues involving their porting, and up until now there have been less problematic choices.
Also, check out this list of "Why don't X get Y?". It is as far as I know complete. (And not yet obsolete, although Electric Control is apparently coming "soon")
As far as warden de dios's "Who said this? People on the forums" thing...
I'm a person on the forums. I usually try to label what I know vs. what I guess vs. what is internally consistent and seems plausible to me. I have no Dev Mind Analyzer. But if I come up with a theory that makes sense I'm not going to shut up because it hasn't been notarized by a dev.
A lot of those sets STILL seem like "bad fits" to me. Fire blast has essentially no self-defense built into it; seems like a bad fit for Defenders. Dark Blast is slow-firing DoT with [relatively] a lot of control in it; seems like a bad fit for Blasters. On the other hand, Fire Manipulation seems like a bad fit for Blasters to me and that's been there since day 1. Someone wrote a whole guide on why Dark Armor is a bad fit for Brutes (even though they have it now.)
Do the Devs agree with me? Is it in a box somewhere on a whiteboard labelled "Issue 19"? I don't know. I wouldn't port */Fire defenders, Dark/* blasters or */Ice brutes, if I was king, but I'm not.
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Why didn't you mention scrappers? I'm not looking for the obvious answer, "I forgot about them," or for flames about how I'm nitpicking - I want to know if there's some reason you hate scrappers so much and don't think they should get any powers proliferated to them ever.
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Originally Posted by Far_Realm
Why don't Brutes get Ice Armor?
...snip... Why don't Tankers get Energy Aura? I'm not looking for the obvious answer, "The Devs haven't gotten around to it yet," or for bullies who answer me with thinly-disguised put-downs - I want to know if there's supposed to be any good reason for these particular absences. |
One of the other factors in Dominators not receiving Illusion Control is that it would have a very hard time build Domination at rate even comparable to other current sets. Dominators don't get Domination from any attacks that their pets throw out, which means Spectral Terror, Phantom Army and Phantasm all do not benefit Domination. And since that becomes 1/3 of the power set not helping compared with 1/9 of most other powersets not helping. At least that was the best explanation that I heard. Now it might still work as people would deem the trade-off acceptable, less Domination generating ability for better aggro spreading, but I can't speak to the developers or other players' opinions on that matter.
50s: Anaxagoras - En/En/For Blaster, Vicious Kittie - Claws/SR Scrapper, Rad. Therapy - Emp/Rad/For Defender, Anaximander - En/En/Mu Brute, Marble Vanguard - Stone/EM Tanker
Current: Vitriolic - 42 Bots/Poison MM, Aseity - 38 DB/WP Scrapper, Tai Shar - 42 Earth/Storm
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Considering that Doms build Domination with any attack, not just those from their primary, and that all Doms have a secondary whose primary function is attacking, that's really kind of a silly argument. I don't even think that it's intended play to rely on your primary powers to build Domination; the design plan seems to me to have been that Dominators would use their secondary Assault set to build their Domination, then unleash their controls under Domination's effect.
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Originally Posted by Anaxagoras
One of the other factors in Dominators not receiving Illusion Control is that it would have a very hard time build Domination at rate even comparable to other current sets. Dominators don't get Domination from any attacks that their pets throw out, which means Spectral Terror, Phantom Army and Phantasm all do not benefit Domination. And since that becomes 1/3 of the power set not helping compared with 1/9 of most other powersets not helping. At least that was the best explanation that I heard. Now it might still work as people would deem the trade-off acceptable, less Domination generating ability for better aggro spreading, but I can't speak to the developers or other players' opinions on that matter.
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Why don't Brutes get Ice Armor?
Why don't Masterminds get Cold Domination, even though they get Thermal Radiation? Why don't they get Radiation Emission, for that matter?
Why don't Blasters get Dark Blast?
Why don't Defenders get Thermal Radiation and Fire Blast, even though they get Cold Domination and Ice Blast, and even Traps and Assault Rifle?
Why don't Corrupters get Force Field?
Why don't Tankers get Energy Aura?
Why don't Dominators get Illusion Control?
I'm not looking for the obvious answer, "The Devs haven't gotten around to it yet," or for bullies who answer me with thinly-disguised put-downs - I want to know if there's supposed to be any good reason for these particular absences.