Solar flare kb vs kd

I have not called him a bad player. I stated that anyone playing a kheldian the same way they play a scrapper is doing it wrong. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. A kheldian is simply not a scrapper.

My first reply to Mod Noc was constructive criticism aimed at helping someone avoid a problem they are experiencing. I made no initial mention of his apparent laziness until he became obstinate and refused to accept that his strategy might be the source of his problems.

Can we please get back on topic and leave the insults out?

Back on topic: I do not mind the KB on the Solar Flare when I am soloing. It help make room between myself and the NPC I am fighting. In a team I mainly use single target attacks since I am an All human PB and I play like a Blapper. I do use it when a Controller is on a team and the group is immob and I know they wont fly away everywhere.

A kheldian is also not simply a kheldian, trying to play a warshade like a peacebringer and vice-versa will result in just as many attacks of 'wrong' as trying to play them like any other AT.


Doubtful.

It's very much like the dominator revamp a while back, many that knew how to use them and would put the effort in didn't see why they should be fundamentally changed to be easier for the average player to use. The discussion on that got so heated that the devs left the thread and presented the community with a fait accompli.

The majority of players don't like KB and don't want to have to learn to use their main damage powers as knockback control powers that do damage; this makes the few people that either actually like the effect - or just like the feeling of superiority they gain from being intelligent enough to 'do it right' - to be very vocal and defensive about the possibility of changing it to something more user friendly.

LOL! Hyperbole much? Prove that statement. Oh wait, you can't.

Bad form not bothering to read other's opinion's and provide any meaningful response, dude...

I guess you are right ma'am, I will read it when I get to a computer. My cell phone screen is to small. It is just a lot of text to read at this this time.

Apparently not since you went through Dechs' posts and said it was bad form. Yeah, right, dude.

"Majority" isn't hyperbole, it just means "more than half".

Loling and referring to that as hyperbole is fairly ridiculous in itself. If it wasn't true the downsides wouldn't be brought up so often by so many different people and get 'refuted' by the same few people each time. The forums aren't a microcosm of the general playbase though so look in game.

Since I've been playing I've heard more people in game complain about knockback than any other effect and seen no-one mention any good points about it outside of hurricane. People setting up teams will ask for more control, heals, -res, +def, +recov, melee damage, ranged damage, even stealth and recall; I have never heard anyone say "this team needs more knockback" but have heard someone say "have you got anything except a PB?".

"Everyone" would be wrong. "Vast majority" would be hyperbole. "Majority" is simple observation.

My "simple observations" shows nothing wrong with KB.

Still waiting on that proof.

I think they meant you have no proof that literally the majority of players think KB is bad. You have anecdotal evidence, but that is always viewed as flawed when generalized that way.

I play on Virtue, which I think is generally more accepting of "bad" things (like KB), though I have gotten tells before essentially asking me not to use a power that causes KB. I've given this a fair bit of thought, and here's my conclusions: on a team that is steam-rolling (generally speeding through content with virtually no resistance), adding KB will slow it down, and probably generate those kinds of tells. On a team that is struggling (deaths every other spawn kind of thing), adding KB will aid tremendously, as it offers significant mitigation. Generally speaking though, it's not KB powers that are bad, it's the team not knowing how to handle KB powers that's bad.

Tanker: KB knocks foes out of my taunt aura! KB is bad!!! Um, no, move around, use something OTHER than your taunt aura to keep aggro, we'll be fine...
Blaster: KB knocks foes out of my AoEs! KB is bad!!! Um, no, tell you what, I'll give you a count to 5 before I use my KB, that should give you time to get off at least two AoEs, and my KB should finish the spawn off, we'll be fine...
Those are the only two ATs I've ever had complain. Scrappers could care less, scrapper-lock ignores having to chase down bad guys (go. kill. skullz). And defenders generally LIKE the breather that KB provides. (wow, you can help heal while the bad guys go flying!) Controllers could care less, hard control will prevent the KB, and soft controls aren't as concerned with "locking down" spawns.



IME YMMV etc. etc.

Wow you are an angry lady. And yes since I posted that I moved on to my cell phone to read the threads. Palm Pre's allow you to look at website on the phone, but my screen is way smaller than a iphone. I wish you the best and hope you find something that makes you happy.

There are numerous threads on how power X would be better with KD than KB and just as many replies telling people how they can behave 'intelligently' to mitigate KB. There are none at all (that I am aware of) telling people to slot footstomp for knockback to improve mitigation or saying that you should slot 'stupefy: chance for KB' in stun auras to make them provide some use against lts and bosses.

Anecdotal evidence that is supported by a number of sources and only ever refuted with "prove it, hah!" starts being more acceptable as evidence.


Team on an energy blaster, play sensibly. At some point you will get asked not to use aoes by someone, probably a tank or blaster, sometimes a defender complaining about their anchor debuffs not affecting the whole mob now.

Swap to another set, sonic maybe; play the same way. See if you get asked not to use your AoEs because they're debuffing the enemies' resistance too much; it just doesn't happen.

Start using shockwave on a sonic/ and people ask why you even have the power.

Levels of proof; it's not enough to validate a scientific theory, but the level is sufficient to warrant a proper investigation, one that as players we can't pursue at a level sufficient for other players not to also dismiss as anecdotal.

On a team that is struggling KB *can* help tremendously, but the addition of other mitigation could have worked equally well without the downside of causing problems when the team doesn't need it.

Increasing someone's work load unnecessarily is bad. Throwing boulders onto a highway is no less bad an idea just because people can swerve around them or use other means of transport.

Usually blasters only complain if you don't leave that gap for them to fire in, if the gap isn't there then it is your fault. Of course if you leave that gap and they throw a fireball, grab aggro and die it is also your fault for not knocking everything over like you had on the previous spawn. There's no pleasing some people.

My experience is mostly redside. Brutes are the resident aggro magnets but it isn't their only job so you can't expect them to go out of their way to save your *** after you put it in trouble. Corruptors both do decent damage and have debuffs to place so like stuff to stay still long enough for them to drop tarpatch/sleet or hit an anchor and still shoot the mob with their AoEs. Dominators don't care, if they'd wanted it in one place they'd have used an immob - notable exceptions being icepatch and earthquake, where you're as likely to get abuse for using an aoe immob as KB. Good MMs can cope with pets chasing KBed mobs, bad ones are often too oblivious to even notice it. Stalkers and VEATs... see scrappers.

Ditto, as always.

Generally because Tanks and Brutes have Footstomp and are designed with the defense and resistance out of the box to deal with the aggro - and get more of it.

Note that a Peacebringer is not a tank. Different situation. So this comparison is badly flawed.
No, it isn't. There are plenty of people who believe, for instance, that our President is not a US citizen, born in Kenya or Indonesia. Belief does not create fact, nor does it make it more acceptable as evidence. Also - and I mentioned this in reply to a question about PC brands - people don't tend to spontaneously come out in praise of something. Think of how many "SB is bad," "KB is bad," "PUGs suck," etc. posts there are. Now think of how many posts people have made saying "Hey, this was an awesome experience!" People complain loud and long and let you know they don't like something. Rarely do people just say "Hey, that was good use of XYZ."

I do. I have several, and have played them (literally) for the past several years. I have never had this request made of me. Nor have I had it made to my Peacebringers, which also do a fair bit of knockback. This is over five years of playing these (started my first PB in 7/05.)

What you have here is an "assumption." This is, as you'll notice from basic things like spelling, different from a "fact." This assumption has not held true for me for said 5 years because I do, as you put it, play sensibly. Hell, I've had people *complement* me for using knockback thoughtfully.
Nice strawman. Utterly irrelevant and proving nothing.
More assumption.
I'll counter your anecdotal evidence with more anecdotal evidence:

I don't get these requests/demands to not use KB. Have someone else come on a team (Illusion controllers, Energy blasters, etc.) that *doesn't* pay attention? You'll see those requests.

Much like Stalkers getting a bad reputation for not being team players, the fault is not with the powerset or the effect. The fault is with players not paying attention/bad players.

And it can work just as well with a team that isn't struggling
More, frankly, useless commentary, for all the points brought up before.

So don't do it. As the point has been made repeatedly, use your OWN powers with some thought instead of just spamming them at whatever comes up with a targeting box. This goes for anything with KB, anything with debuffs, tanks, scrappers... IOW, everyone.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Not a valid analogy since there is proof available to the contrary of those beliefs, what we've got here is one set of people with experience supporting their belief that there is a problem and one set of people with experience supporting their belief that there isn't. All we can prove from it is that different people have different experiences.

I will accept that my experience probably involves fewer people than your's since I'm an EU player so it is possible that there is just less tolerance of it over here.

Not a strawman really; part of the process for establishing causation is to remove one component while maintaining the others and see if the effect is removed. If people complain about AoE attacks when they do KB in order to show that the KB is causing the complaints you have to test whether people complain about AoEs that don't cause it.

In my experience the first point held up in most cases so the second needed testing for completeness. If in your experience the first point doesn't then testing the second wouldn't achieve anything. Didn't really achieve anything from my perspective either, but you don't skip the control group just because you don't expect anything to happen.

Third point; reapply the initial condition, see if the effect recurrs. Shockwave is actually one of my favourite KB powers since with good positioning you can chain it and Howl together and keep pretty much anything bouncing off the floor with a hefty -res debuff. Far superior to Siren's Song in that regard, yet most sonics I come across didn't even consider taking it.

When considering this though I've concluded that my experiences do have a certain selection bias, it only took 1 person out of 7 to actually complain after all.

So, with those two point, I'll withdraw my "majority" conclusion as applying to the entire playerbase. It does follow from my experience that the majority of random selections of 7 people available for PUGs during late afternoons on Union server contain at least 1 person that complains about KB when it is present. But honestly from that level of representation I wouldn't feel happy concluding that most people thought the sky was up.

But stalkers *do* have this reputation. There is nothing wrong with the AT or the powers, but the reputation still exists. At no point have I said that KB in itself *is* a bad thing, I have said that it has a reputation for being a bad thing and that this reputation is fairly wide spread.

While further reflection has lead me to believe that the reputation may not be held by as many people as I had thought, it certainly does seem to crop up a lot for a minority belief.

Does that make "We should have the option to turn KB into KD if we don't like it" threads the equivalent of demanding the option to be taught creationism if you don't like the idea of evolution?

I should play it like a Blapper then? since that's how Human PB's play for the most part, 3 melee attacks, 1 nuke, handful of ranged attacks, 3 resistance toggles, Reconstruction and Dull Pain clones and a self rez.

Anyways, from personal experience alone, if Human Form Solar Flare was KD instead of KB it would be generally more accepted as a whole and if some people miss the KB so much, they do have KB/Dam IOs. Hell, I've seen people slot Shield Charge with KB...only good reason I would think they would do that was because one of the KB Sets offers 7.5% recharge.

Except it would. For a PBAoE like Solar Flare, a KB target's trajectory is determined by the target's position relative to the caster when the KB status is applied to the target, not at the start of the power. It's why you can jump out of a group of enemies while activating Solar Flare and send them all in the same direction instead of scattering them to the four corners, or why a mob can move to the side and completely change where it ends up.

Careful, don't confuse the initial hit roll with the application of a secondary effect or someone might think you have no idea what you’re talking about.

All I can say is this, if it did KD I would take it no questions asked. As KB? No thanks, add it to the list of auto skip powers. At least its better than Hand Clap and Lightning Clap. but that's not saying much.

Agreed. In teams, knockback sucks, period. Soloing it might have its usages, but in teams, no. I really can't stand when a Peacebringer joins my team in game. I play my Elec/Shield scrapper and I basically have to RACE the PB to the next spawn! If I get there first, I can normally almost kill most of the spawn, but if the PB gets there first, the mobs go flying EVERYWHERE and I have to try and pick them off with single target damage.

Hell, even when I play my Fire/Elec blaster or even my Kin/Sonic defender I loathe the PB and its massive knockback. I run up to use fireball with my blaster, but the PB got to them first and the mob is spread all over the damn place. I run up to use Fulcrum Shift with my Kin, but the PB got to them first and FS only hits two enemies.

Generally, HEATs bring nothing but frustration to teams. I typically skip picking them up when I form teams, and I wish I didn't have to, I hate doing it! In the early levels, they shine, but in the later levels, I would much rather have a basic AT in the team because they can do one of the things the PB or WS can do except they can do it much better. The HEATs need a lot of love to make them on par with the other ATs, and changing their KB to KD would be a GREAT start. I think the HEATs need to be more like the VEATs, since VEATs are usually a pleasure to have around.