Yeah, I'd like knock up instead of knock back personally, but a lot of people like the knock back, so I can't see changing that.
Some minor buffs would be nice. They need to tread carefully, though, as the primaries run in a fairly narrow performance band. I'd like to see buffs done with the same restraint they showed when buffing Invulnerability. Just enough to make it very solid, without so much as to attract complaints of it now being overpowered.
My only vague suggestion would be to make the secondary effects more useful. The chance of stuns just don't seem to cut it in practice.
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It is fairly easy to slot a damage/knock back if people want the knock back without affecting performance. I don't see that as a big issue, and it certainly didn't stop the devs from fixing countless other powers to use knock up.|
Originally Posted by Werner
Yeah, I'd like knock up instead of knock back personally, but a lot of people like the knock back, so I can't see changing that.
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| Some minor buffs would be nice. They need to tread carefully, though, as the primaries run in a fairly narrow performance band. I'd like to see buffs done with the same restraint they showed when buffing Invulnerability. Just enough to make it very solid, without so much as to attract complaints of it now being overpowered. |
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| My only vague suggestion would be to make the secondary effects more useful. The chance of stuns just don't seem to cut it in practice. |
If Cobra Strike did excellent single target damage it would bolster single target capabilities while reducing the need to rely on Crane Kick.
It could also use some overall utility to make up for the lack of AoE.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
It fairs pretty well in single target DPS with high recharge builds (skipping Eagle's Claw, of course, and assuming none of the very common S/L resistance), but it would indeed be very nice to do some minor tweaks/buffs as mentioned.
Upping Eagle's Claw DPS a bit would be nice.
You 'can' avoid the knockback from Crane Kick usually if you first use Dragon's Tail and immediately follow with Crane Kick (while they are still under KB supression), but alas.
I'd love to see some more 'utility' added to make up for it's lesser AoE.
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Which is very very wrong if you ask me. Singletarget T9 attack that gets skipped in optimal ST chains. Blah.| skipping Eagle's Claw, of course |
It'd be definitely great if EC DPS was improved.
MA crits a ton, or at least way more than other primaries for Scrappers. I thought it was my own imagination but I'm still in the process of testing this and so far, it's critting at least 2x more often than other primaries for Scrappers.
MA also deals pretty high single-target damage, for some reason it doesn't seem like smash is as much resisted as lethal...although lethal/smash resistance usually comes together.
I would like to see an energy component added to all of MA's attacks. Let's see how that alone improves dps. I love AC's animation, but it does kill my speed. Explain smash/energy attacks by saying the scrapper uses his chi in every attack, & once in awhile Focuses his chi 
. I almost never take Cobra, so adding damage may change that.
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Most other powers do knockdown, which can be turned into knockback with a +KB enhancement. Knockup is rare, and cannot be turned into knockback.
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Originally Posted by Moonlighter
It is fairly easy to slot a damage/knock back if people want the knock back without affecting performance. I don't see that as a big issue, and it certainly didn't stop the devs from fixing countless other powers to use knock up.
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
Which is very very wrong if you ask me. Singletarget T9 attack that gets skipped in optimal ST chains. Blah.
It'd be definitely great if EC DPS was improved. |
....
...ok. How much?
How high would Eagle Claw have to go in order to make it worthwhile for inclusion in max-dps chains?
10 percent higher? 20? 50?
Double?
Remember, shield charge is doing roughly double the designed damage, and the devs didn't even seem to NOTICE.
I'm honestly curious to hear the answers for this.
Also, what would you be willing to give up for it?
As i've said a million times on the subject a while ago, what they need to do, is turn Storm Kick into a melee cone, and turn Crane Kick, into a mini cone like that of headsplitter/golden dragonfly, which makes far too much sense that it shocks me it doesn't work this way already. For such a powerful kick, it makes complete sense that the force of the kick would travel through multiple opponents and knock them back as well. As does the melee cone on storm kick make sense too.
It seems to me that it would also make sense that cobra strike could have a -resistance effect to it.
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Thumbs up to all three of these! ESPECIALLY the line-cone Crane Kick idea, that's been suggested for years now.|
Originally Posted by Windenergy21
As i've said a million times on the subject a while ago, what they need to do, is turn Storm Kick into a melee cone, and turn Crane Kick, into a mini cone like that of headsplitter/golden dragonfly, which makes far too much sense that it shocks me it doesn't work this way already. For such a powerful kick, it makes complete sense that the force of the kick would travel through multiple opponents and knock them back as well. As does the melee cone on storm kick make sense too.
It seems to me that it would also make sense that cobra strike could have a -resistance effect to it. |
Granted, I'd only change at most two, because the AOE sets give less optimal bonuses than the single target sets.
At least for my tastes, they do.
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Well, the problem with EC is that it simply takes too long to deal less damage than comparable tier 9s. If you want some object comparisons, EC takes 2.772 seconds to deal 164 damage (59.2 DPA). Headsplitter takes 2.508 seconds to deal 187.1 damage (74.6 DPA), Midnight Grasp takes 2.244 seconds to deal 189.9 damage (84.6 DPA), Greater Fire Sword takes 2.508 seconds to deal 194.43 damage (77.5 DPA), and Golden Dragonfly takes 1.98 seconds to deal 164 damage (82.8 DPA). EC takes nearly a full second longer than Golden Dragonfly to deal the exact same amount of damage. That has always stuck in my craw.|
Originally Posted by mauk2
I'm honestly curious to hear the answers for this.
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The solution, as I see it, is to simply reduce the animation time on EC. Shave off half of a second by skipping some frames (especially during the "I'm hovering in midair, getting ready to kick you!" phase), and you'll bring the DPA from 59.2 to 73.1 (164/2.244). It would still be the "worst damage" of the tier 9s within its group, but it gets a pass on that by having a ridiculously awesome tier 2 power.
Another suggestion to round it out might be to provide some degree of AoE damage to it a la Thunder Strike (~50 damage, 8' radius). The explanation could be you hit them so hard, the wind itself damages their nearby allies. It wouldn't make the powerset better in ST situations (which is being addressed by reducing the animation time) but it would provide some much needed AoE performance for the set (since it lacks the ridiculous utility that DM has).
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Also, what would you be willing to give up for it?
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I like the animation, I wouldn't want it to change, but the hovering could be reduced for about the same effect. Otherwise I'd just suggest they increase the damage to compensate properly instead, as I love the animation so much, even the hover time. It's like "oh sh#t" you're going to get it now!!!" Love it | Well, the problem with EC is that it simply takes too long to deal less damage than comparable tier 9s. If you want some object comparisons, EC takes 2.772 seconds to deal 164 damage (59.2 DPA). Headsplitter takes 2.508 seconds to deal 187.1 damage (74.6 DPA), Midnight Grasp takes 2.244 seconds to deal 189.9 damage (84.6 DPA), Greater Fire Sword takes 2.508 seconds to deal 194.43 damage (77.5 DPA), and Golden Dragonfly takes 1.98 seconds to deal 164 damage (82.8 DPA). EC takes nearly a full second longer than Golden Dragonfly to deal the exact same amount of damage. That has always stuck in my craw. |
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| Another suggestion to round it out might be to provide some degree of AoE damage to it a la Thunder Strike (~50 damage, 8' radius). The explanation could be you hit them so hard, the wind itself damages their nearby allies. It wouldn't make the powerset better in ST situations (which is being addressed by reducing the animation time) but it would provide some much needed AoE performance for the set (since it lacks the ridiculous utility that DM has). |
And to the last part which I don't feel like quoting as I'm on my 3rd triple shot before RUSHING out to a party in the streets
, MA is definitely underperforming. It's a "fun" set, but when that wears off and you're left with its low performance as well, that hurts it too much for me to be regularly playing my MA's . I LOVE cones. And as stated as it makes FAR too much sense as well, if storm kick and crane kick were made in to their proper cones, the set would be fun enough, actually, even if underperforming still even with those powers as cones, that I'd has enough fun with its animations that I'd play it almost so regularly as my main (far too many toons to have "A" main) :P)But I'm off for the night, so take what I said with a grain of salt, some pepper, some spices, your choice of vegetable and meat, make a gourmet healthy meal, and then be in perfect bliss and get back to me
.P.S., made "chunk" ratatouille with chicken, zuccini, yellow squash, and egglplant, with chunks of chicken, olive oil, several herbs/spices, and then dipped it in creamy Point Reyes Blue cheese. Its a very healthy, and very light + tasty meal, I suggest you try it!
(350 degrees for an hour, cut squash'es into 3/4 inch thick circles, and then into 1/4ths, same for the chicken'ish pieces, mix in a bowl with the olive oil and spices, top with paprika, and cream the Point Reyes blue cheese with a *tiny* bit of butter and tiny bit of milk to give it a creamy consistency but not take away from the flavor and make a dressing-like dip for the ratatouille chunks, its very good , sorry to ramble, I really need to get going lol) Have fun, and healthy enjoyments!!!P.P.S. this game rocks so much to keep my attention at this point as you can clearly tell that I love the community so much to keep posting here when I'm late to get out to party
*hugs to peeps* (yes laugh all you want, life is wonderful for such priceless moments )I'm Outie!!! Wish me luck on the night!!!
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This is exactly what Umbral was proposing.|
Originally Posted by Windenergy21
I like the animation, I wouldn't want it to change, but the hovering could be reduced for about the same effect.
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Originally Posted by Windenergy21
Um, MA doesn't get Thunder Strike i'm confused.
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Originally Posted by Windenergy21
And to the last part which I don't feel like quoting as I'm on my 3rd triple shot before RUSHING out to a party in the streets
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Originally Posted by Umbral
The solution, as I see it, is to simply reduce the animation time on EC. Shave off half of a second by skipping some frames (especially during the "I'm hovering in midair, getting ready to kick you!" phase), and you'll bring the DPA from 59.2 to 73.1 (164/2.244). It would still be the "worst damage" of the tier 9s within its group, but it gets a pass on that by having a ridiculously awesome tier 2 power.
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....
But I LIKE the Eagle Claw animation. It is ridiculous amounts of awesome.
Further, I didn't ask about reducing animations, I asked about increasing damages.
So, to normalize your suggestion to what I actually asked about, you feel that Eagle Claw needs to have it's damage increased to roughly 202.4, for a dpa of 73-ish. In other words, about a 23 percent boost.
Would that be enough to have it included in max dps attack chains?
I don't think so.
But I could be wrong. And it'd still be waaay awesome to get a boost.Quote:
| Another suggestion to round it out might be to provide some degree of AoE damage to it a la Thunder Strike (~50 damage, 8' radius). The explanation could be you hit them so hard, the wind itself damages their nearby allies. It wouldn't make the powerset better in ST situations (which is being addressed by reducing the animation time) but it would provide some much needed AoE performance for the set (since it lacks the ridiculous utility that DM has). |
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| You're assuming that something should be given up? It's a known quantity that EC and MA as a whole are poor performers. They don't need to "give anything up" to get a boost to performance. If they had to sacrifice something to get a buff (which rarely if ever happens when you can demonstrate that a powerset is underperforming like MA has regularly shown to), it wouldn't be a buff. |
I seriously doubt that EC will get a damage increase. there is always a 1% chance though.
An animation trimming though is reasonable and a realistic expectation. Splash damage added would be very nice. They would probably use a slightly smaller radius than thuderstrike, assuming they don't just resort to ctrl-c for the change.
If the set is determined to be under-performing by Castle (player analysis ranges from useless to moderately useful depending on who is appealing to him) then there is no reason to expect any "trade offs" for buffs received.
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Don't be so negative! |
Originally Posted by Frosticus
I seriously doubt that EC will get a damage increase. there is always a 1% chance though.
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Although, I suspect the new "End Game" system is going to put all set tweaks on the back burner Real Soon Now. If it is as mighty as Positron has hinted, it is likely to change all sorts of things around all topsy-turvy.
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| An animation trimming though is reasonable and a realistic expectation. |
Hmmm.... 40 percent chance to crit would be BUTCH.100 percent chance! Now that would ROCK.
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Splash damage added would be very nice. They would probably use a slightly smaller radius than thuderstrike, assuming they don't just resort to ctrl-c for the change. If the set is determined to be under-performing by Castle (player analysis ranges from useless to moderately useful depending on who is appealing to him) then there is no reason to expect any "trade offs" for buffs received. |
And if I saw it on the Intarwebz, it must be true.
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I'm not being negative. They won't make it do more damage than headsplitter and it isn't that far behind now.
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Don't be so negative!
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Reducing animation time and increasing damage both do roughly the same thing in the end: they give the attack better DPA and attack strings better DPS. The problem with increasing damage is that, unless you can convince the devs otherwise, it will come with a commensurate increase to endurance costs and recharge times. Shortening the animation time would leave the endurance and recharge costs where they are (which are fine, from where I'm standing) while simultaneously making the attack more useful (get the stun in faster) and less likely to be wasted (because you took 2.5 seconds to kick the guy in the face and your team already wasted your target in that time).|
Originally Posted by mauk2
Further, I didn't ask about reducing animations, I asked about increasing damages.
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| Would that be enough to have it included in max dps attack chains? |
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| I made that same suggestion years ago. Have a "second attack" go off when you hit the ground, a shockwave thing for more AOE. It got ignored then, too. |
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| I dunno, the devs seem to disagree, and remember, MA has already gotten some pretty heavy buffs. Remember the original storm kick? (shudder) |
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You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? Raising the crit chance even further has been suggested numerous times, though it's always been taken with a grain of salt, especially since a large portion of crit damage of is "wasted" via overkill in normal play (i.e. not punching AVs). Even so, a 40% crit rate is simply stupid. Anything over 20% isn't going to happen.|
Originally Posted by mauk2
A far more realistic, and easier, expectation is to raise the crits chance. They already did that one.
Hmmm.... 40 percent chance to crit would be BUTCH. |
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100 percent chance! Now that would ROCK.
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| What?! I have seen posted, on these very fora, the hard proof that Posi never buffs anything, because doing so starts an endless cycle. |
Now, if you're talking about Castle buffing, you're completely misreading what has been told to you. The concept of only ever buffing something is simply stupid because it leads to an infinite cycle of buffing and increase in scale of enemies so as to prevent difficulty from being tossed out the window and replaced with a single button that reads "I win!". By that same token, only ever weakening sets accomplishes the same thing.
The entire point of the explanation you are so horribly misinterpreting is that sets should be strengthened or weakened based on their position relative to the specific point of reference the devs choose to mark as "normal". If a set/power is doing worse than it should be, the set/power will be buffed. If a set/power is doing better than it should be, the set/power will be weakened to bring it in line. Only ever using a single method of normalization (buffing or weakening) is simply stupid.
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He's referring to Positron's blog post about buffing / nerfing. As you went on to state, he was grossly misinterpreting what either Positron said, or how forum goers presented Positron's viewpoint.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
Well, considering that it's not Posi that does the power rebalancing, I doubt that Posi really ever does buff anything.
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This is a really good point. The rest of MA is always affected by the reality that anything that delays the next Storm Kick will reduce the damage of the set because Storm Kick is sooo good.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
The problem with attempting any fix that would place EC into top tier attack strings is that you've got to make the attack competitive with Storm Kick, which is very unlikely to happen because it has extremely high DPA and a very short recharge time. Unless the attack gets a massive overhaul and starts dealing in excess of 80-90 DPS, Storm Kick is still going to be the better attack and, because of this, it will be bad to delay its use by using another attack. Because of this, it's even more effective to have the animation time of EC reduced rather than the damage increased: with a 2.03 base animation time, the attack wouldn't interfere with the use of other attacks to the same extent that the current animation does.
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| Actually, the devs have simply determined that MA is sufficiently within the realms of "normal" that it doesn't immediately deserve to receive treatment. This doesn't mean that if players actually demonstrated a lower level of performance (which many players have been doing for a remarkably long period of time) that the set could get a boost. Getting a boost has nothing to do with giving anything up. Very little in the way the devs design the sets is zero sum, especially when you get into tweaking specific powers for overall set performance. |
I think the fact that Storm Kick is the sole reason the set is even viable complicates the issue. This means that the problem can't be solved with a couple of minor tweaks.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
So is Storm Kick our Psychic Wail? Our one awesome power in a set of "good enoughs"? 
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Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
I love the animation for EC though.
The best way to go for me would be 3 second animation time, 240 damage.
Jump, float, kaPOW.
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If that happened, you still wouldn't see decent returns from it. 240 damage means that you would likely have a 20-25 second recharge time and an endurance cost of roughly 18-20. A long recharge time like that coupled with a long animation time means that you're going to have to get a lot of recharge to see much continuous use out of the power (massive cycle times are bad; repeat this after me). It's for the same reason that Total Focus and its ilk are rather droll powers even considering their sheer hitting force.|
Originally Posted by War_Hero_NA
I love the animation for EC though.
The best way to go for me would be 3 second animation time, 240 damage. Jump, float, kaPOW. |
One of the biggest problems with doing anything to provide real, substantive improvements for MA are that so many players want the aesthetics and the performance when the aesthetics (i.e. long animation time in EC) are the problem. You can't solve the problems of the set by making EC a progressively harder and harder hitting power without making it completely useless as a basic attack. In order to bring EC up to the same hitting power as Storm Kick (which you would need to, because a 2.772 sec animation time that deals 240 damage is only marginally better than the DPS you'd manage with Storm Kick and Crane Kick but has significantly higher recharge requirements to make viable) you would need to pull the other values of the power up to such an extent that it's no longer possible to use the power effectively: it would simply become a tier 9 ST nuke.
The problems with long animation time powers aren't due to a lack of damage. If the problem is that people aren't using them because they're ineffective, you're simply exacerbating the problem by making them less useful because they're up progressively less often. Every time a power such as EC gets brought up, the simplest, most direct way to address the weakness of the power is to simply reduce the animation time to a viable level. Increasing damage almost always requires increases to endurance costs and recharge time, and few players would "enjoy" a buff that made the attack in question more powerful but made it less usable. I doubt most players would even notice a reduction in the animation time by half of a second, especially when it allows them to actually kill targets faster.
With another brand new melee set coming when is MA going to be tweaked to be brought up to par? I've been leveling a EM Brute recently, and as much as people complain that EM has been over nerfed the set is like MA on steroids. It has a energy component for high resistant enemies, the stuns are plentiful and come naturally while doing damage, and the top tier attacks hit like a truck.
MA on the other hand is pretty lack luster. It's playable; I don't want to exaggerate it's weakness but it is badly in need of some tweaks.
~ The tier 9 is terrible. Can Eagle's Claw please be brought up to equal the other tier 9 abilities? My long recharge tier 9 shouldn't reduce my DPS.
~ No utility. The set is S/L and has no utility. It has no endurance management, no overall secondary effect, nothing.
~ The mitigation is bad. The stun from Cobra Strike is enemic, single target, and takes a whole activation cycle while doing no damage. If I wanted a single target mitigation tool then Air Superiority is heads and shoulders above this power. At the very least make Cobra do good damage so it is almost as good as the EM attacks.
(Or give MA another mitigation power in addition to Dragon's Tail that works against multiple foes.)
~ Make Crane Kick do knock up and allow it to use Cobra's alternate upper cut animation. Or make Cobra Strike do equal DPA so I can drop Crane. Though honestly I'd love an upper cut animation attack that did knock up.
~ This set with it's lack of AoE and S/L damage should not be doing middle of the pack single target damage.
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50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
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