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Spines. Claws. Forts. Crabs. Permadoms. APPs and PPPs.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So how do you balance ranged AT damage sets with melee AT defense sets? The devs picked the absolute easiest way to balance it, by not allowing them to be combined.
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In short, we only combine ranged damage with damage mitigation all the time.
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And in CoH Beta, there was no target cap IIRC so blast AoEs were ridiculous. Also, enemies didn't always have ranged attacks. And there was no travel suppression. Oh, and no ED. Back then, 6 slotting your fire blasts for damage, 6 slotting your armors for def/res, get Tactics for accuracy, stamina for endurance, hasten for rech and pick fly and zip around sniping things to death and zipping around blasting stuff while enemies are helpless to attack back because all they had was melee...yeah that was pretty overpowered.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
In CoH Beta you were allowed to take any power you wanted to, and everyone ended up making ranged/defense characters. So, they came up with the AT system to stop people from playing overpowered characters and nothing BUT overpowered characters. I wasn't there myself, but I did some reading up on it. Overpowered characters, and completely gimped characters on the other end of the spectrum, were the reason the AT system exists now.
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Can you do *any* of that now? The best you can really do with that now is shoot at something and take some out before they close into melee with you. There's the option to kite if you pick up +speed bonuses and rely on unsupressed movement but it's really no different from Scrappers with ranged attacks (like Claws or Spines). Not particularly effective but useful.
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If he was the one preventing a ranged/defense AT from happening, the current devs have had over 3 years to change their stance on it, and they haven't, which leads me to believe that the current devs have their own reasons to not give it to us. What those reasons are, I can't say. I may or may not have hit on some of them, and I hardly expect them to tell me if I did. So, you can keep asking for a ranged/defense AT all you want, and if you get it, everyone here has the right to say "I told you so". I'm not going to hold my breath. |
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So how do you balance ranged AT damage sets with melee AT defense sets? The devs picked the absolute easiest way to balance it, by not allowing them to be combined. |
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I'm curious too, because I think it would be a lot of fun to play. I have wanted this AT for a while but they never say anything about it, and it comes up a lot.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
I'm curious to know what the devs stance on a ranged/defense AT actually is. I'm not going to jump to conclusions and say they're 'keeping it away from us' or 'they don't like it because it's overpowered'. Really, I'm betting the devs are thinking 'It's a lot of work and requires extensive revamping'. Because there are many sets that work better in melee but this AT would lose much of that advantage. I doubt it's because it's too powerful. In PvE, it just isn't. In PvP, it's probably about as good as combining extreme stealth and extreme ST damage...just slower.
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"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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This is my exact opinion on the matter as well. It would be great to hear from the inside what their take is on the idea, but I would bet money that its a very serious undertaking.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
I'm curious to know what the devs stance on a ranged/defense AT actually is. I'm not going to jump to conclusions and say they're 'keeping it away from us' or 'they don't like it because it's overpowered'. Really, I'm betting the devs are thinking 'It's a lot of work and requires extensive revamping'. Because there are many sets that work better in melee but this AT would lose much of that advantage. I doubt it's because it's too powerful. In PvE, it just isn't. In PvP, it's probably about as good as combining extreme stealth and extreme ST damage...just slower.
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Think about it; If they picked only 4 assault sets and 4 defense sets, thats 16 combinations using 72 powers that would all have to be tested, tweaked and implemented. Thats more work (On powers) than we are getting from the entire GR additions.
So I dont think its a question of "Can it be Done?", but more a question of justifying the amount of time to actually do it right.
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HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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You forgot to mention how the the Defenders soloing AVs/GM have the debuffs to do it. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Where did I EVER say "Blaster offense with Tanker defense"?
The only time I even mentioned that combination was when I was pointing out that that isn't what a tank-mage actually is. I never mentioned any numbers on anything. I mentioned Fire Blast, but I said nothing about damage values. I mentioned Invulnerability, didn't say for what AT. I was talking about the sets themselves, I never even brought up what modifier they would or wouldn't have. Okay, say we give it defender damage numbers. Because everyone knows that defenders can't do damage. (We'll just ignore the ones that soloed GMs, they were clearly cheating because defenders can't do damage, right?) And let's see....stalker numbers for defense, they're kinda squishy, right? And here we'll just ignore the fact that stalker, scrapper, and brute defense base values are identical. Seriously, go look, every single set that they all share has the exact same base values. Tanks get better numbers because it's their primary. I was actually assuming scrapper/stalker/brute numbers on the defenses, because they have it as a secondary, just like this mythical AT would. I can just HEAR the screaming if this AT was released with those sets having lower base values. They can't lower resistance caps either, not if they want to keep it balanced. All but 3 ATs have the same resist cap: 75%. Only Tanks, Brutes, and Kheldians have higher caps (Tank/Brute = 90%, Kheld = 85%) If you drop it any further than 75% the tier 9s of resist sets become useless, since they wouldn't be doing much of anything at all. Imagine an Unstoppable that got you to the godly level of 65% S/L resistance, when you had 50% to begin with. So how do you balance ranged AT damage sets with melee AT defense sets? The devs picked the absolute easiest way to balance it, by not allowing them to be combined. |
They're not soloing these things because they just pump out so much damage. They're doing it because they're usually weaking the enemy in some way.Let's look at Dominators. Solo AVs? Yup! Mez Protection? Yup! Able to do it completely from Range? Yup!
Is this the case for all combos in all ATs? Nope!
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What I could see is an Assault (As in Dom Secondary)/Armor AT, which is basically a professional Blapper.
And the only reason I can see that is because that's basically what my Human Form Peacebringer is.
This is possible, in theory.
And it is possible to balance it, in theory.
The reason I chose Assault rather than Blast is because of the following:
- Assault Sets feature a good mix of Melee and Ranged attacks. This would encourage this fictional AT to move into Melee Range, there for putting that armor to use.
- Assault sets tend to focus on Single Target Damage. They do have Cones and AoEs, but the really heavy hitters only hit one target at a time.
As for Balance... I suck at balancing things. I know an AT like this /could/ work, since I play one. ((GO GO PEACEBLAPPER!)) But aside from the lack of utility, I don't know how to keep this AT interesting while preventing Tank Magic.
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/FIRE Dom would feel much like any Ranged/Defense set. I know my Fire/Earth Dom feels like a Scrapper once I have Domination up (not perma yet). Lockdown from range, mez protection, and I run into melee and lay waste.|
Originally Posted by NightErrant
What I could see is an Assault (As in Dom Secondary)/Armor AT, which is basically a professional Blapper.
And the only reason I can see that is because that's basically what my Human Form Peacebringer is. This is possible, in theory. And it is possible to balance it, in theory. The reason I chose Assault rather than Blast is because of the following:
As for Balance... I suck at balancing things. I know an AT like this /could/ work, since I play one. ((GO GO PEACEBLAPPER!)) But aside from the lack of utility, I don't know how to keep this AT interesting while preventing Tank Magic. |
Ranged/Defense wouldn't be Tank Magey. More so, if you get rid of some sets AOE mez attacks (like Sonic's AOE Sleep). And hit points is a perfect way to balance it.
Low resists with low hit points only goes so far (ask stalkers) and if you throw IOs into the mix to max out defense, is all good untill you get hit twice in a row.
And as has been said, jousting/kiting may keep you alive, but really does eat into your offense. And will quickly have you running, unless you grab hover...and anyone who's made a hover blaster, knows that's not a perfect defense (a good one but far from perfect).
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Because that's not how it works.
Tankers don't get better defence numbers "because it's their primary"; they get better defence numbers because their AT modifiers are higher. That's why they get better numbers out of non-Primary defence powers as well, like Tough, Weave, and Combat Jumping (and they don't get better numbers from Manoeuvres because it uses a different AT mod value than other defence sets.)
Underneath the panel, all these sets have the same numbers in them. It's the ATs that multiply them. And if the devs determined that 80% (hypothetical number) of melee defence was the balanced value for a primarily ranged character, a simple tweak to AT mods would create that effect.
That's why Masterminds have much worse numbers for their buffs than Defenders or even Corruptors - but Masterminds don't spend their time whining about how their Darkest Night is only -22.5% to hit, while Defenders get -37.5% (they do sometimes whine that their Twilight Grasp only has a 10ft radius, but that was a specific programmed nerf, not a factor of AT mods).