Solar flare kb vs kd

Imagine that, a tool used improperly can cause damage. I had no idea the scissors would cut my hand! They're meant for paper!

If you're in human form, you're not there to tank.

I didn't realize Solar Flare recharged fast enough to keep mobs flopping in place and never get up.

The mobs hit and direction they are flung is a function of where everything was the instant the power begins activating. Even if something moved during the short animation, it would still be affected as if it hadn't.

I know this is true because I've activated things like Combustion in the middle of a jump, landing yards from all the people that it hit when the three second animation finally ended.

If the player is mobile during a fight and not mindlessly following and button mashing, that player will find himself able to activate this power on the fringe of the mob, knocking them into walls or corners or wherever he damn well pleases.

Surviving is not tanking. A PB has no taunt aura and no taunt component in its attacks. Without taking provoke from the pool powers, there is no way a PB can hold aggro. Scrappers and blasters will both outdamage you, thus generate more threat and steal your aggro. Defenders will be landing powerful debuffs that up their threat generation. Controllers have debuffs, status effects, and heavy containment damage to skyrocket threat.

Without provoke, no PB in human form is a tank. Even with it, they are barely so.

Again, knock them into a wall or a corner. They may now be flopped repeatedly until defeated by simply using the mechanics of the game intelligently.

I'd like to point out that I never claimed there were no downsides. You, however, put forth downsides that only exist because of negligent, ignorant and incompetent players. It is those perceived downsides which I have refuted.

I think the point Dechs is trying to drive home is that if you're hitting Solar Flare in the center of a mob and having them fly in all directions you're doing it wrong. You don't have to be in the middle of a mob to be in melee range. Use Solar Flare from the edge of the mob, preferably on the edge opposite a wall or corner, or the edge nearest the squishies (thus knocking the mobs away from the squishies). Knockback - like every other effect in the game - takes practice to use correctly.

Just because you can survive a mob doesn't mean you can tank. Your attacks have no taunt effect, and unless you took - AND SLOTTED - one of the taunts in the presence pool, you're not holding aggro AT ALL. And if you did take the presence pool, you're a poor substitute for a tank, due to the crappiness of those taunts and the lack of a taunt in your attacks.

You're not taking the mob's ai into account. The reality of what you're saying is this:

IF Solar Flare had kd instead of kb, mobs would fall down, get back up and fire off a melee attack before being knocked down again. You're still going to take that damage.

SINCE Solar Flare has kb, those same mobs go flying through the air, land outside the radius of the attack, and then get up and fire off their ranged attacks - which are weaker. Now, you don't have to do anything besides work on the guy you missed, because those mobs' ai dictates that - if they're melee mobs - they switch to their melee attacks and close the distance to accomodate.

The end result of both is the same. You take one retaliatory strike in between flares. With kb you take the weaker ranged one.

There are always downsides, it's just that everyone knows them. Just because Dechs didn't point them out doesn't mean he didn't know they were there. Quite frankly the only relevant downside you pointed out was that it places the mobs out of melee range. That might complicate things, but if you use kb correctly the downsides can be minimized.

EDIT: GET OUT OF MY HEAD, DECHS!! got your post in ahead of mine.

While the hit check at the start determines which targets are hit the direction in which the target is knocked back is determined by their location when the effect is applied.

Combustion damages the target at the start of the animation, the majority is then spent standing there while the power effects trail from the hit targets to you. Solar Flare damages the target and applies the KB approximately 1.5 seconds into the animation period during which the mobs are free to move and you are rooted (or in midair after jumping).

If you want to test this I suggest finding a mob of hellion in atlas and trigger SF on one side while jumping over them to the other, see which way they fly.

While this timing is nice in that it means you can fire SF off in the middle of a mob while hopping out to get whole mob to knockback in the same direction, it does mean you have to get the timing right every time or you get the less desirable 'doing it wrong' scatter effect.

I'll conceed that while human PBs can absorb alphas and take damage as well as or better than some tank sets, they don't actively hold aggro. So they're about as much tanks as masterminds are.

That you can use SF without scattering a mob to the four winds is not in question; that in order to not do so you have to use the PBAoE as a wide cone is, imo, a downside; in much the same way that frozen aura having a 10' radius is a downside compared to footstomp having one of 15'; or crowd control would be even better as a PBAoE than a 180' cone.

Actually I'm saying that if Solar Flare was knockdown then the mobs would fall down, then get hit by luminous detonation and AoEs from other members of the team, those that survive get up, possibly do nothing due to an AoE control from a squishy that the mob couldn't retaliate against, if not they're still in range to knock down again as soon as the power recharges. By the time they finish getting up a second time they ought to be dead.

With knockback, even ignoring the scatter effect, roughly three quarters of the mob gets sent flying away from the remainder. Subsequent AoE damage, debuff or control powers will only hit one of those groups unless you wait for the KBed mobs to return or have a convenient wall close to the mob.

All the positive points Dechs listed were generic KB ones. Solar Flare as a melee PBAoE knockback has disadvantages that ranged AoE KB does not, or does and can easily mitigate.

Solar flare is (as far as I am aware) the only KB power in the game you must be standing on the floor to activate, and as such the only one you actually need scenery to contain, the others being easily handled in open areas by flying, a power given to PBs at level 1.

Since you need convenient scenery to constrain the knockback, the power has definite downsides in comparison to both similar powers with KD, and KB powers of other types.

A downside does not suddenly stop existing because you can mitigate it by using the power intelligently. You do not reduce the number of people using a power badly by not mentioning what the problems are.

Solar Flare is a full circle PBAoE damage power that you cannot use from a central location without scattering the targets. No matter how practiced you might be at using it from one side of a mob you are not able to use the full area of the attack so this is still a downside compared to the same attack with KD.

Yes those are true...I just like the benefits of KD more:
-Keep mobs in position, ready, willing, & able to receive next round of AoE's from self & team.
-Knock Down mobs and help to draw aggro away from softer targets(due to damage)
-Buys time for other teammates powers to recharge such as AoE's, heals, holds etc.
-Mitigates damage to a lessor degree than KB(fair trade imo)

Both play styles are valid and fun to use. Why not let us decide if it applies KD or KB? With enhancements you can slot for this. With a KB Enhancement in Footstomp for example you will generate enough force to change it to KB from KD. Isn't this a more appealing way to handle such a power? Let the individual player decide. The power is great as is so don't get me wrong here. Just think it could be improved on a little.

Just my 2 inf on those little bits.

First, I firmly believe that the devs balance the overall powers in sets with their secondary effects (-def, tohit debuff, -res, KB, KD, etc). If the devs wanted KD in the power, they would have put it in and balanced the rest of the power (dam/rech/end/acc/range) accordingly. They just don't put in some numbers for dam/end/etc., mix in a secondary effect, and call it a day.

And second, letting players decide would be chaos IMO. You would have people whining that players have powers slotted for KB when they should be slotted for KD because it is messing up their melee/AOEs/etc - we already see that now in game and on these boards. Introducing an option to allow for a switch to KD would be fuel to the fire in that debate. This way with no choice, you know what powers will do when you see them (for example, is that en/en blaster a KB blaster or KD blaster?). And it makes players learn about KB and how great it is. I could see new players just come into the game, get told to slot for KD, then freak out when some other player comes in an uses KB.

This is stupid. Only one of these is a benefit that KD has over KB, and it's a questionable one at that. I see it as a downside that I cannot reposition mobs with KD. The other three points are things that KB does better.

There are many problems with approaching things like this.

What about the guy who likes things doing knockback? You've now taken that away from him, and he has to slot for KB if he wants it, which takes away from his current 1ACC 3DAM 1END 1RECH slotting. Or even if you're frankenslotting, that's one less slot you can use for procs or maximum enhancement values. And forget about getting the sixth set bonus from melee PBAoE sets. The same is true for any power that does knockback right now, not just solar flare.

There are also players who like knockback and slot for knockback who would also incapable of doing what they do now. You would reduce the knockback after enhancement and they can't use the powers as they used to.

Don't forget that high level mobs resist knockback. Sometimes you need a lot of knockback just to do knockdown.

Dwarf Flare and Footstomp do KD only. I believe this is because they don't have a set of ranged attacks like the human PB does. If footstomp or dwarf flare caused knockback, you would have to run to your target. Potentially you could be immobilized or slowed and unable to keep hitting them. When in human form, you can use ranged attacks on the foes that get knocked back. This is part of the intelligent strategy I've been talking about. You have melee powers and ranged powers. 2/3s of your melee damage attacks knock them back. I'd imagine it was designed that way so you could make use of your ranged attacks until they get back to you.

With large spawns, you can hit the 10 target maximum just as easily from the edge of the spawn just as easily as from the middle. With small ones, it really doesn't matter whether you scatter them or not - there's not enough incoming damage to merit that kind of crowd control.

And if you're going to say it's a downside that its aoe component - if used as I've described - is only as effective as a cone, then I get to point out that it's a benefit that - because it's pbaoe - I don't have to have a target to set it off.

If, for example I want my nove to hit a spawn from the one side or another with its aoe for a little crowd control, I have to have a target selected. If I pre-select the target and then make my move, there's a good chance that target will move also, taking control of where my attack lands from me. If I wait until I'm in position to select a target, I have to either scan the spawn for an optimum target (thus wasting time when every second counts) or just hit tab and hope it's the one I want.

With Solar Flare I don't even have to be looking at the spawn to know where my attack will land. I am the attack, and this gives me greater control of the situation.

The point's been made before that the damage happens before the knockback. Even with knockdown, no one on your team is going to wait for the mobs to be on their collective backside before firing off their attacks and aoe holds. Regardless of whether you're doing kb or kd, those attacks and holds will hit. Even if the mobs are in the air and flying, they'll still be in range of all those attacks and holds when they hit, because most team members let their alpha attacks go at roughly the same time.

Now, I'll grant you that your luminous detonation would be a far more effective follow-up if the mobs were knocked down, but with the anemic damage of the human form blasts, I'll wager that the difference in damage between a kd and a kb scenario would be negligible.



And all the downsides you brought up were generic KB ones too, with the exception of:

-Throw foes away from you where they can lose aggro and go after squishy teammates.[/quote]

Which - ignoring the fact that you generated no taunt-based aggro to lose with a human form pb attack - is a valid point.

I assume by this you mean that flying forms of kb powers can be used from directly above to knock mobs into the ground, thus needing no verticle environment to knock them against, as you would with Solar Flare. A couple of points:

Just because a kb power can be used from the air doesn't mean it always is. We can't assume everyone who takes kb powers will take - and use - fly. PB's get fly as an inherent, but because the human form's heavy hitters are melee attacks, you'll see very few people toggling fly before hitting dawn strike or photon seekers.

Also, your statement implies that scenery is rare. With the exception of that same nature preserve map that so many missions take place on (and sometimes it's on fire for extra fun) and a couple croatoa maps, there's a wall or a building or something any which way you turn in the vast majority of missions. No power is used in a vaccum. Why wouldn't you use scenery to your advantage? Tanks and blasters corner pull with taunts and snipes, but no one disparages those powers because they require scenery.



And bad players can turn any power - kd, kb, face-melting or otherwise - into a liability. There are always going to be bad players who don't know how to properly utilize an attack and thus cause trouble.

As I said above, even in the center of a spawn you can only hit a maximum of ten mobs. In spawns of ten mobs and below, the minions will die in the alpha anyway, and so there's no need to worry about kb. In larger spawns, you'll have no problem at all hitting that maximum from the fringes of the spawn so long as you're in melee range when you do fire it off.

The other downsides you mentioned are the same downsides that are the same general downsides to kb that get talked about ad nauseum accross archetypes and powersets.

Keep bringing them up, though. It's discussions like these that help turn bad players into good players.

The relationship between targetless powers and targets seems to have some quirks, on my SS/Shield/Soul brute I notice queued attacks getting cancelled when my target dies regardless of whether the target is actually required for the power to activate. Not really relevant to the topic, but throwing it in here to see if anyone else has noticed and investigated a bit further.

Most people have more than one AoE. Held or stunned mobs that are spread out take longer to kill than the same ones standing in a group. Why would everyone on the team get all their debuffs and/or attacks off in the first 2 seconds of you reaching a new mob unless you are waiting for them to arrive before moving in? Regrouping between mobs might be more common among mainly hero players, I'll admit that I play with mostly villain players and tend to go at brute pace even when no-one has a fury bar.

I intended it to imply that scenery is not always conveniently close or usable. There are a fairly large number of maps with spawns in open areas, anything from cargo ships to city blocks will have spawns that you would have to move some distance to get them to a sizable wall. Being able to fly or at the least jump while using KB so those mobs are propelled downward is just sensible.

Then there are the cave maps where KBing mobs into walls often ends up with them outside the map. Resetting an ITF because one of the Sybils is being held hostage by a guard running around the wrong side of a solid rock isn't fun.

Or average players into good players in this case. It takes a bad player to turn an average attack into a liability. Turning knockback powers into a liability merely takes an average player without experience.

This I can explain. Queue up a power well out of range of a mob so you don't actually execute the power. Now press Tab. You'll notice the queued power is flushed from the queue because a new target has been selected.

To-may-toe, to-mah-toe. I call this a bad player.

I'm a good player on my tank or my warshade. I'm a terrible player on a brute or a scrapper.

Your experience differs from mine. I never see negative comments; sometimes I'm even thanked for my use of Solar Flare.

It helps to think of it like a knockback power that does damage, not as a run into the middle of the mob and smash power. If you're playing your Kheldian like a brute/scrapper/tank, you're doing it wrong.

I play my Kheldian like a umm... Kheldian. It is usually a tanker sending a tell and they say something like " You mind not using that power since it spread out the mob?" or "Ugh!! I hate KB!" or "No KB plz."

I assure you that the power is not spreading out the mob.

You are.

I usually stay to the out side of the mob and push them toward a wall to make them tighter group or toward the tanker holding aggro. I still used to get the same tells, but I am on freedom.

P.S. Why are you so mean?
First you tell me I am playing my character I have been playing for 5 years the wrong style.
Then you tell me I dont know how to use my powers.

Bad form, Dude

Incorrect. I stated that if you (being the generic 'you') play a kheldian the same way you (same generic 'you') play a scrapper, you're doing it wrong. I made no assumptions about your (no longer generic, this time I mean you, Mod Noc, because I haven't prefaced this statement with if) playstyle.

Incorrect again. I stated that the power is not the root cause of the mob being spread out, but it's (debatable improper) use is.

I'll tell you what's bad form. Bad form is coming into a discussion with a whiny suggestion and stating that you are too lazy to read through the rest of the discussion where your suggestion has already been discussed.

Now that does not sound Whiny. I was just stating what I prefer. I did not know I was not allowed to voice my opinion on a topic on a forum based on the AT I play.

You did nothing wrong and you have a right to post what you want as long as it has to do with the OP. Dechs Kaison, feels strong toward this topic and just lashed out at you since what you mentioned was said prior to you writing it. DK is in the wrong for basically calling you a bad player.