Sooo when is MA going to be adjusted?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Greater Fire Sword also suffer from this? I know Fire is a better loved melee set, but goose and gander here. Only perused the pages here, but it looks like this keeps coming up. It's a valid point that MA could use a tweak here and there. Not sure I would put the whole bank in upping the T9 attack though.

No, GFS is in the top fire chain. The reason many don't go with it is because you need very high recharge to run that chain and you can do a bit less damage for substantially less recharge and iirc less eps. Basically the investment needed to move up to a GFS chain isn't rewarded by an equitable increase in damage. But it is a good attack.

You're confusing the cause of GFS getting skipped with the cause of EC's being skipped. GFS generally gets skipped because it has very high recharge requirements to manage a well formed attack string; the best attack string for FM is actually GFC>Inc>Crem, whereas MA's is Storm>Crane>Storm>CAK. EC gets skipped because it's actually got worse DPA than the other major ST attacks in the set, not because it's harder to use.

1. Couldn't care less
2. Terrible selfish idea, have already stated why ealier in thread
3. I'm sure someone does... fell free to mess with thier toon too.

Well, considering that most tier 9 Scrapper powers can't do the roughly 390 damage needed to take out a level 40 even level minion with their tier 9 without a crit and/or BU, I'm not entirely sure why you think they should. Assuming 95% dam enhancement, you would need a 3.5 damage scale attack in order to do that. The highest that Scrappers get is 3.194 with GFS.

Now, there are some attacks in game that are that strong (Total Focus, Energy Transfer, Seismic Smash, KO Blow), but there are 2 caveats: none of them are currently available to Scrappers and all of them have a recharge of 20 seconds (or 25, in the case of KO Blow). The slowest Scrapper tier 9 (what we would consider a "tier 9" rather than a mini-nuke like Lightning Rod) takes 15 seconds to recharge.

Personally, I'd rather have the Scrapper attacks than the Tanker/Brute ones because I like having my big hitter up more often even if it does deal a bit less damage. The 20 and 25 second attacks simply aren't available often enough to be put to substantial use within the confines of attack strings (where that extra 1.5-3.5 second difference in recharge time can drive you to do some very sad things with your string).

I think it's hilarious that your only defense is "omg selfish!" when it's just as apt (if not more so since there are more players that participate in PvE than PvP) to state that your desire to prevent any buff to EC that makes it more useful in PvE is selfish in and of itself. Giving EC some degree of splash damage would go a much longer way towards making the set as a whole a lot better for a lot more people than it is currently. Are you honestly going to try to say that it's selfish to desire improving the power so that it benefits more people rather than the few that enjoy it now (and that's assuming that you don't simply call out the current EC in PvP to be broken because it hits so hard and has a stun attached)?

oh here we go again, another paragraph of umbral's garbled responses... can't you finish a sentence without starting another one in brackets before you get to your point??

Anyhow lets have a look and see what rubbish your spouting now...

I think it's hilarious that your only defense is "omg selfish!"

It's not a defense as you are not attacking a suggestion i have made, it's an opinion... a valid one to which you have no answer other than you think it's hilarious, now that doesn't bother me what so ever you find hilarious because to be honest I don't rate your opinion on anything...so, laugh all you want.

your desire to prevent any buff to EC that makes it more useful in PvE is selfish in and of itself.

I think you will find the want for inaction is alot less selfish than making the effort to cause a problem for other players for your own means... you think it's selfish that people who design expensive builds, work hours on them to get them to where they want them are selfish not to want them changed? Then I think your understanding of the word is flawed and I can see now why you fail to come accross as selfless in your suggestion for changing things to better everyone. Oh and guess what, I pve'd before pvp... so I'm both.

Giving EC some degree of splash damage would go a much longer way towards making the set as a whole a lot better for a lot more people than it is currently.

Wrong, this is your opinion of the set, not everyone elses.

Are you honestly going to try to say that it's selfish to desire improving the power so that it benefits more people rather than the few that enjoy it now

Yes I am honestly saying that because there are plenty of sets that already cater for this hard done by PvE group... and yes it is selfish exactly to desire improving(debatable) a set to meet your own means and to hell with everyone that already enjoys it... I find it incomprehensible that you do not deem that selfish !!

and that's assuming that you don't simply call out the current EC in PvP to be broken because it hits so hard and has a stun attached)?

Really?? It hits so hard in pvp does it??? Look at these figures and then try that last comment again.

Headsplitter 236.4
Eviscerate 174.1
Midnight Grasp 204
One Thousand Cuts 279.2
Lighting Rod 200.2
Greater Fire Sword 257.2
Golden Dragonfly 197.1
Ripper 152.2

Eagles Claw 241.8


So yea i can see your complaint it's way way out of sync with the other sets...


oh wait.

Those are parentheses, not brackets. Parenthese are the curved ones "()" and brackets are the square ones "[]".

It's spelled "you're". "Your" is the possessive. If you're going to say that I'm spouting rubbish and that my responses are garbled, make sure you're actually doing so correctly.

Actually, I have made a legitimate answer to it. You just didn't like it, so you ignored it.

The funny thing is that I doubt anyone here actually cares about what you think. I'm more than confident that the people here care what I think. What's sad is that you honestly don't think that you're really just a joke right now.

So the people that pointed out that Shield Charge was broken and needed to be fixed were being selfish because that required action? Arcanaville was being selfish when she called for all of the various SR fixes? Billz championing all of his various Claws tweaks is selfish as well? Are the players that point out AE exploits to the devs being selfish?

Asking for something not to be touched just because you like it that way is, in fact, more selfish than asking for something to be changed to benefit more people. If there is a problem, it should be addressed, not ignored simply because a few people like it. EC is only a good power for PvPers. It's largely worthless for PvE.

I've done both as well. You're not unique in that argument. I can, however, tell you that PvP is a vastly smaller portion of the playerbase than PvE is, so it doesn't really matter what PvP base argument bring up: a PvE based solution will still benefit more people in a more significant way.

And so is claiming that doing so to EC would completely ruin the set for those people that PvP. You don't get to be immune to your own arguments just because you posited them. "Opinion" is a double edged sword (though I can probably whip up some numbers if you want me to and turn that "opinion" into "fact").

We're both being selfish. I'm being selfish by wanting EC to be improved for PvEs sake. You're being selfish by insisting that nothing should be done to it that doesn't make it better for PvP. Comically enough, considering the number of people involved, I'm likely the one being less selfish because, rather than looking after a tiny group that shrinks every day, I'm looking after the larger group that more of the game is devoted to.

Numerical fun times (also known as "Umbral Schools Your Face and then Laughs About It")!

First off, if you're going to use the numbers, make sure they're right. GFS has a rolling DoT, which means that the previous tick has to land in order for any later tick to land. The damage on GFS is actually 240.8. The same applies to Ripper and its real damage of 136.2. Secondly, One Thousand Cuts doesn't get to use both of the 43.79 damages: only one of them hits in PvP. The real damage for it is 235.47.

Now that we've got the actual numbers, let's play this game again. Oh wait, EC is on top and, unlike every other power on that entire list, gets a guaranteed hard mez effect attached to it. So it's the best ST attack for Scrappers in PvP based on damage and it pretty much assures that you get a follow up attack thanks to a hard mez that no other set gets. I'm going to say that it hits hard because of that.

If you want to play a numbers game with me, make sure you get your numbers right. Honestly, you're just demonstrating exactly how little you know about the game. Which might be why you're really just a joke. Which is why you make me laugh.

I agree nothing needs to be given up. But I dont see that happening while Castle is still the powers guy. There are so many powersets in the game that have powers (*shakes fists* at dimension shift) that need to be looked at for not being up to par. I dont see what he is scared of with this, MA should be hitting just as hard if not harder than EM does but with faster recharge. All this set used to have was its flashy animations but when those were taken away in issue 2 we received Partial Arts instead. Back then I loved the animations so I can see the trade off of looking cool for the sake of damage, but even still its not like they could have not just really upped the damage of the powers if it had to follow some kind of damage, endurance and recharge formula to keep it balanced. I think one thing in this game that definately needs to go is the Cottage Rule, that damn cottage needs to be burned into the ground and have a penthouse built in the spot where it used to be.

No, ugh, just no.

MA needs to be MA. MA is Ice melee with less control and more damage. What I mean is, MA is a control focused melee set that leans more tward the damage side of the scale. Thats where changes should be made. Look at Bill z's results are in thread, MA is high and in the middle for single target damage. If you made the control effects more useful, and increased the radius of Dragons tail to 10', and maybe made one of the powers a mini-cone, MA would be center of the field for all aspects. The jack of all trades set that it should have been.

Right, this works wonders for The Mission Architect "fixes" or imagine BoTZ changes monthly but to any enhancement for any reason and sometimes even powers.

Want to find out what it's like playing a game where you have no idea if a power will be the same next month? Play Guild wars. The only reason you won't rip your hair out is that it takes no time or effort to unlock the stuff that gets changed. Just a "10k run to LA" or just a power pack from the store if you PvP and don't want to wait the 5 RA fights it takes to unlock stuff.

Want to find out what it's like playing a game with no cottage house rule and it takes time to unlock stuff? Play SWG. There are less people on a planet in that game than stand around Cap's BM.

And you know even with all the stuff the poster you responded to said I still dont think it would good enough to get people to gravitate towards martial arts. The problem overall with this game is this, because so many of the powersets are different we have huge performance gaps and in many cases grand canyon sized gaps. The other issue is you cant make the sets exactly the same in functionality because the game would be too bland.

Here is how I would have designed CoX. All melee ATs would have access to all the melee sets. While we still would have AT mods for some things the performance with the mods in place would give similar performance regardless of AT. Meaning no defenders/corrupters with piss poor damage, controllers would have gotten pets at level 12 and I would do away with containment but have the pet to grow in power as they level. Stalkers would do the most melee damage in single target and have the best version of build up tied with blasters. Blasters would be doing way more damage than they do now, for the squishieness they have they need more damage, defiance is nice and all but you typically dont live long enough to dish out the damage unless you use holds, stuns or a tank, therefore their damage would like this with aim+build up and tier 9 nuke regardless of which one it is (may need to rebalance the timers), everything dies up to +4 levels of the blaster. Basically for giving up all your endurance everything lower than an elite boss has to die. Thats really the only way to make those kinds of powers fair. Call it overpowered all you want but consider the total risk to the blaster if he misses? Thats instant death for him. Overall my goal would be to make performance so similar that the only reason to choose one powerset over another in the same AT is because of concept reasons not because one set has the easiest leveling curve.

What I have hated about this game since day 1 our levels of powers have been constantly decreasing all because the devs refuse to make the game harder by changing the AI or critter abilities. They have forgotten this is a super hero game, at some point I want to feel you know...super? Currently only 1 of characters still feels this way and its my WP tanker. He is spec in such a way that really the only thing that can kill him is ghost widows take you for a ride attack. What I want to see is more challenge but still keeping the super feeling on other things. Thats where the balance needs to happen not with the player abilities.

Your completely missing the point here, no one here plays a scrapper strictly for control. We play the sets for damage otherwise we would play the control ATs thats why I think the controls could be removed or not counted when the powerset is balanced. Essentially what we have now is that we are paying a tax on useless fluff that isnt going to matter in the big scheme of things. I never took cobra strike on any scrapper or stalker, in general control effects on non-control AT tend to be useless. Why waste time on power like cobra strike to stun a minion when I could just out right kill said minion with one of the more powerful attacks. Death is the ultimate form of control in my opinion. Thats why the damage needs to be upped by alot.

As for as what I meant about the cottege rule thing, there are some stuff thats way past obvious that needs to be fixed but they dare not touch it, cuz they dont want to tick off the 3 people total in game on all servers that have these suck *** powers. I dont think the devs would be stupid enough to change out the powersets every issue or even 1 once a year, its just those crazy out of place powers that you know are ******* up the powerset that need fixing that have to be changed. Cobra Strike, Dimension shift, Sonic Resonance tier 9 power, temperature protection are just a few examples. And lets not get me started on the retardedness of some power pools like team teleport. Thats really all I am saying and why I am all for the wholesale destruction of the cottage rule as it would be better for the game in the long run.

I completely agree that KB is a generally undesirable effect for people who want to maximise killing and raking up speed runs of various missions/TFs/SFs. My rebuttle to that is "Do I really want to play with people, to whom my concept of fun (mercilessly throwing a Mob over a hand-rail into the hard concrete below and laughing at his rogdolling body 50ft away) is so totally alien?

Id rather not be on a team that I know doesn't understand the meaning of MY fun. Is that selfish? Yes. Do I care? No.

Those are parenthesis and the words in them are parenthetical expressions (not new sentences as you imply). Learn English.

I didn't miss the point, I just don't agree with it. Of course people wouldn't play scrappers only for control, but control is an interesty gamplay effect that is already in the balance equation for MA. So considering weak secondary effects that are balanced as strong secondary effects, upping AoE capacity slightly is reletively simple, and with MA already in the middle for single target damage, you can see that there is an opening for dramatic improvement. Overall damage is not this opening, however, and damage does not need to be upped by alot. Variety in playstyle options is what's needed, not whitewashing all the sets with damage paint.

Though if you think Moar dmg is whats needed, then what, make the scrapper primarys like the assault sets? I mean if a set not having the best damage makes it bad, that would mean they all need to be the same. All the same powers with the same stats and maybe different secondary effects? You could have about three templates. One single target, one AoE, and one mixed. But personally, I think that would be boring.

Secondary control and jack of all trades as a targeted playstyle works because there are already damage centric powersets. Not everyone plays the same, and some people might want a set with some control and options instead of a set like Fire that is all damge and hit as often as possible before you die and you might live.

But of course people all have the same playstyles, and discounting entire powers and effects is the best way to go about improving a game in the long run.

Not useless fluff. The secondary effects are essential to flavor the sets' concepts and can be used to good effect if a strategy is formulated with those effects in mind. Ice feels more 'icy' when it slows and freezes the enemy, fire feels more 'fiery' when it catches foes on fire, dark feels more 'darky' when the foe has shadows swirling around their heads and unable to hit you.

While I don't take Cobra Strike on my MA scrapper either, that's more related to not having much to stack with it (really, only EC) and not because 'melee ATs are only concerned with damage'. Being able to hold or stun a foe can be an essential strategy in certain circumstances (those -ToHits and slow toggles can really slow you down) for *any* AT.

http://universitywriting.shu.ac.uk/p...ce/s_brack.htm

So stfu.

Yea i changed this sentence, hence the "editded" at the bottom of the post... it was correct before I just didn't change it, my mistake.... I am at work and not really spending alot of time proof reading my resposes tbh.

Ok, so your answer to me telling you that you are being selfish.. is that I am selfish not to want a change... sorry if I find your legitimate answer lame. Oh, and I didn't ignore it, I replied and you ignored it because like i said you haven't got a response that isn't paper thin.



I smell desperation... i'll fix that sentence for you, because here is what it actually means.

"The funny thing is.. I need to tell you everyone is laughing at you and no-one takes you serioulsy because I have no legitimate response or weight behind my argument. Maybe if I make it seem that everyone reading this is on my side I will look better"

So please.... drop the playground tactics.

Never heard of these people tbh... but there have been loads of changes in game that were very annoying.. Maybe this time i just found the t**t that was behind it before it happened.

I'm pretty sure the current MA set isn't an exploit... and it isn't "broken" so don't plop yourself into the saviour of the city category.

Actually no, it's not. You are wrong again... the reason you are selfish is because you want to effect other peoples toons to benefit yourself... People that have already spent hours on their character... Asking something not to be touched isn't selfish because it doesn't negate hours of your time etc etc... So get a fresh argument, something that you can explain.

So what?! there are loads and loads of PvE powers that are useless in PvP, you don't see me shouting about the animation times of db or the useless Aoe powers in Elec do you??

yeah, well stfu then.

This will benefit us, there are less of you so it doesn't matter about you.... if that doesn't scream selfish than i dunno what does.

Make up w/e numbers you like... AoE dmg is nerfed in PvP.. we already have

Diminishing Returns,
Heal Decay,
and Travel Suppression,

and all of that "balancing" was because pve'rs moaned about it too.
So to be honest, go wreck someone elses game.

I'm not saying make it better for pvp... i'm saying people have spent hours on their toons and it's not like its the only pve set.

Wrong! You are being more selfish because there are loads of PvE sets already, but you want to change the one that it used to PvP... it's not about the number of people that play it, it's about the choices left if it was (a) to change and (b) not to change.


There is nothing that you can do with a calculator that is going to convince me you are less selfish that when you started... so don't bother. I wouldn't beleive you anyway.

Thought we had been over the playground tactics thing... seriously stop looking behind you for backup and fight your own corner.

Try getting your facts straight rather than simply printing out incorrect information in an attempt to bolster your position. You may also want to try and move away from the "well that's selfish!" argument, especially since you're not really making any headway (your entire argument is based around the assertion that selfishness is placing the benefit of the many over the benefit the few, which is a joke), and it's rather obvious that you would refuse any change that improved PvE performance if it had even the slightest effect on PvP, regardless of the magnitude of the effect of each.

By the way, if you don't know who Arcanaville, BillzBubba, or any of the other reasonably big names on the forum are, I'm just going to have to facepalm. If you enter into any balance conversation ignorant of 99% of the balance talk that actually goes on, you don't deserve to even be paid attention to.

These are the forums we're talking about, not the servers. If you actually read this thread at all or spent any amount of time in this forum rather than simply jumping in randomly and looking like a fool, you'd have already realized who is who.

What if I was to suggest that every other scrapper set underperformed in PvP compared to MA... hmmm?

Suggest some academic changes to them and see how much you get flamed for it from the PvE community.