Personally, I think 'balance' is highly over-rated...

One of the reason the devs do not worry about +damage as much, is that every AT and pets all have damage caps, so they can only get so much extra damage. So if they get the powers balanced right being at the damage cap is not broken. Now that doesn't change how people view fulcrum shift as overpowered or not, just lowers it's importance.

I have always been a bigger fan of human tanks over pets. PA is stuck using the game AI which is lacking, and it's damage self heals. Now I do see what you mean, and also wouldn't be surprise to changes to either power, but since ED, GDN, and the aoe control changes I seldom get shocked when powers are adjusted.

Fulcrum Shift has seen two nerfs IIRC

it pretty much only heals the basic, unslotted damage

....


If you are serious about this, or if any other new poster comes along and THINKS you are serious, there's a big difference between buffs / debuffs and attacks.

In the case of Fulcrum Shift, it's one of the few powers in the game that can damage cap a player. It's the only player in the game that I'm aware of that can damage cap a team. Basically, it's designed to be the ultimate in damage boosts.

In the case of Phantom Army, again, it's designed to be a "semi" tank. Remember, the entire game is balanced largely against SO's, something I believe Positron has commented on with his own blog. It's only with extensive IO work that an Illusion controller can perma Phantom Army. Against an SO build, Phantom Army has an extensive down-time. Phantom Army also lacks direct damage, as enemies will eventually heal away a large percentage of the damage Phantom Army can inflict.

There's a big difference between designed imbalance, and incidental imbalance. Now, I don't think you are serious. I think you are trying to make a joke, and honestly, it's a bad one. So, I probably shouldn't be taking the time to spell this out. However, since I can't risk a new player coming along and thinking that you are serious because they just don't know any better, I am going to have to spell it out.

Designed Imbalance is when a power, or combination of powers, deliberately causes a breakage of "normalized 1 to 1 power balance"

Giant Monsters, Rikti MotherShip raids, Hamidon, and even high level Task Forces are all based on the concept of Designed Imbalance. Mob powers, archvillians, Giant monster's, elite bosses, and so on are all designed to tax the limits of a team's mix. Rikti Mothership raids are best accomplished when everybody is at Soft-cap defense, and everybody is at max damage. Lady Grey Task Force pits players against the high-level rikti, that could shred a single player on their own. I could detail each situational event where the game is balanced against the idea that a player is "super-buffed" but I shouldn't have to.


Incidental Imbalance is when a power, or combination of powers, unintentionally causes a breakage of "normalized 1 to 1 power balance"

This is where things like Shield Charge fall. Shield Charge was never meant to be as powerful as it was once the AT modifiers were added. So, Shield Charge breaks the balancing in regards to other powers.

Many of the minor power changes made to the game are based on fixing incidental imbalances. From a long term point of view, the last time Deliberate Imbalance was modified involved the across the board buff on Dominator's damage and the modification of Domination to affect mez's only (both those cast on the player and those cast by the player).

Hopefully this will explain to future readers of this thread some of the background behind various powers and their affects across various archtypes.

No.


And players aren't really historically proven to be good at judging this either.

If the Phantom Army was a mastermind pet, it would be problematic. As it is, they make poor tankers because you can only really use them as alpha strike tankers when you first cast them. After that, they quickly become scatter-brained and also follow behind you rather than lead in front of you. They are explicitly part of the "chaotic control" design of Illusion, which has very few hard controls (Blind and Flash are pretty much it) and few actual attacks (Blind and Spectral Wounds are pretty much it). The Phantom Army was explicitly intended to be part of the control of the set, and part of the damage of the set.

They are unkillable, but then again Earthquake is unkillable. Volcanic Gasses is unkillable. Bonfire is unkillable.

Illusion just happens to have a reputation for excelling in interesting corner cases, such as AV fights where the PA can be focused on a single dangerous target. Try using it on an AV that has or spawns minion support, or moves around a lot, and things go pear-shaped rapidly. But actually, in "normal" missions Illusion's chaos counter-balances its strengths to a sufficient degree to make the set interesting to play, but not overpowered. In fact, its performance is only average outside of singular hard targets.


Incidentally, in my opinion the best "unkillable" controller pet in existence today isn't the PA: its Carrion Creepers.

I understand what you mean but I don't agree with all of your interpretations. Earthquake is unkillable, but enemies also won't attack it. Carrion Creepers is indeed a great power though.

Obviously we all are never going to agree 100% about which powers are overpowered--especially since the notion of "overpowered" depends on a relationship to the game world. I don't particularly want the power changed, because like I said I'm happy to use it as long as its a "legal" tactic. Whether it should operate as it does is another question. If we concern ourselves with balance and comparing sets side by side, having one that is simply invulnerable to everything should not allow it to sidestep a comparison to +defense, resistance, mezz absorption and the like. Whether you want to take the argument that far is up to you--my take on it is I'm happy to have it but won't be terribly shocked or upset if its taken away from me one day, because I can see how someone would think it bypasses checks and balances imposed on other sets.

Which checks and balances do you think occur at all that the Phantom Army bypasses? I'm personally unaware of any specific design rule that the PA violates that any other controller set is required to follow, unless you think one of the rules that other controller sets are required to follow is "is not allowed to have the phantom army."

Moreover, Illusion breaks this rule three times. The Spectral Terror is indestructible. Phantasm decoys are also indestructible and draw aggro (they taunt).


A lot of people assume that the PA was made indestructible purely by accident, or without forethought into what it meant for them to be indestructible But I do not believe that to be true. They are looked upon - and have been used as - "indestructible tanks" but that's not the whole story of what the PA is. The PA is really an entity that takes a lot of control away from the controller and gives it to an uncontrolled entity. Its a keeper of Illusion control power.

Indestructible pets are certainly better than destructible ones. Replace the Phantasm with an indestructible version, and of course it gets better. But the PA is not a replacement for a destructible pet. Its a replacement for powers. Controller powers are not "destructible." Certainly, the controller can die, but that's also true for the Illusion Controller. When the PA is cast, its designed to do two things: attack things for damage, and draw some aggro from some of the NPC attackers.

*Both* things are replacements for powers Illusion control doesn't have. It only has two attacks (Blind and Spectral Wounds) and only two explicit control powers (Blind and Flash - although you could also count deceive). The rest of the hard and soft control a controller would normally have is split up into the Spectral Terror (also indestructible) and the PA. The PA "controls" by drawing aggro, and it serves a similar function: hard mez turns damage off. The PA sends damage > /dev/null: the damage goes into a bottomless pit.

Is it "fair" that the PA can just sit there and take an unlimited amount of damage? Well, if you compare that to a tank, it seems like not. But when you compare it to a mez which is what it actually replaces, you're comparing *taking* an unlimited amount of damage with *turning off* an unlimited amount of damage. And in both cases there is an actual limit: mez eventually expires, and so does the PA.

Its important to remember what the PA and the Spectral Terror are. They are not "extra" indestructible pets that Illusion got for free. They are actually thieves: they hijack powers the Illusion controller should have gotten and take them over, granting the benefit that the Illusion controller doesn't have to cast them or burn endurance on them, but dealing the penalty that the controller has no control over how they are used. They are both indestructible because in a very real sense the intent is to simply hijack the control of the powers from the Illusion controller, not to give those powers to pets the Illusion controller has to baby-sit.

Given how Illusion is designed, it would actually be broken if either the PA or the Spectral Terror could be killed. If they were killable, both pets would have to be either significantly stronger or recharge significantly faster (moreso for the PA than the ST). And particularly in the case of the PA, where the aggro drawing is replacing a hard mez. Mez cannot be broken by damage. If the PA can be, it would be weaker than the mez it was intended to substitute for.

So go play fps. I like my twitch free, cruise control gameplay thank you very much.

soo... you like Halo then?

My ears are STILL ringing...

No idea, never cared enough to get an Xbox.

If you want to play a fun not so balanced super hero game, I'd suggest trying out Champions. I've played it before and its a fun game, fast paced fighting, and nice graphics and costume creator. The mechanics weren't my favorite so I stayed here, but you should try it out.

He's complaining about powers changing too much and you're trying to send him to champions? That's just mean. They don't even have a cottage rule there - my power to pull enemies together into a bunch turned into an AoE slow.

Slow resistance saves lives.

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.

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

I'd argue this point

But this is better

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=224877

And less effort for me.

By "no one" you mean not a single player, out of over 80,000 accounts, has EVER taken that power? That is what you are literally saying, that there is not a single character anywhere in the game with that power.

Bull****, and provably so. I have Temperature Protection on both my Spines/Fire scrapper and my Fire/DM tanker. It serves a useful purpose on both of them, it is a mule for my Steadfast Res/Def, and it provides slow resistance so that slows will not be as likely to prevent me from using my heal when I need it.

There isn't a single power anywhere in the game that no one has ever taken, THAT I can guarantee.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

No, that is not better, because it doesn't prove "most people take fire/kins for speed boost." All it really shows is that my choices are wannabe scrappers and prima donnas.

You want to argue a point? Try making one instead of linking to a thread of someone who expects you to beg them to actually use their secondary.

It did completely destroy your point about kins never taking speed boost especially since its a topic that comes up regularly, and the entire point of the thread wound up being kins talking about how and when to speedboost. Also the desire for quality of life improvements in speedboost comes up fairly regularly on the boards as well w, kind of odd for a power you say people aren't taking.

Most of mine. For (a) a nice place to fit a KB protection IO, and (b) for the slow resist they added into it. If they don't *have* it, it's planned for them. (Note, the slow resist is called a "buff." Note also they can do so without replacing a power.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

how did it completely destroy his point? why are you trolling him even. what you linked to was a discussion about a person not giving out sb until they were asked and thanked for it that turned into a stupid debate over making SB an AoE and other things of that nature. people do not make any kin/? or ?/kin toons just for SB. if that was the case, you wouldn't see alot of the other kin powers in their picks.