I'ma gonna hafta take my Stamina-less DM/FA scrapper out of mothballs and give her a spin to see what all these changes are about. The extra goodyness of Consume intrigues me, she's got quite high recharge already so it'll be interesting to see how she fares end-wise now.
Probably still won't be able to complete the RWZ challenge with her, but I'll keep trying!
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Dang, I was too slow. That post you quoted was dumb, GP. It was a dumb statement made without thinking it through. Telling anyone to skip taking their mez protection because they enjoy getting knocked around the battlefield and becoming less efficient is no reason to ask them to become Completely useless in melee.
Be well, people of CoH.
If you like getting knocked back then why slot for any KB protection? I for one think it's dumb that FA and DA don't get any KB protection or resistance. These are two sets that rely on an active defense through there heals, if you're on the ground, you can't heal. Adding KB protection to these sets wouldn't make them like WP at all since they would still play completely differently.
On my SS/Fire Brute, I have 3 -KB IO's slotted. Since I fight a lot of Nemesis, anything less would allow the Fakes to knock me back every time they hit me with Staff Bolt, and if you've fought them before you would know they use it often. But yet hami's yellow mito's still knock me back despite those IO's. I would kill for a single enhancement slot, yet I must use 3 slots to fill up this silly KB hole.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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Yeah, Consume is pretty nice. The recharge is still longish, but it's mitigated by having increased recovery and end drain resistance for part of the recharge period.|
Originally Posted by Aliana Blue
I'ma gonna hafta take my Stamina-less DM/FA scrapper out of mothballs and give her a spin to see what all these changes are about. The extra goodyness of Consume intrigues me, she's got quite high recharge already so it'll be interesting to see how she fares end-wise now.
Probably still won't be able to complete the RWZ challenge with her, but I'll keep trying! |
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Dang, I was too slow. That post you quoted was dumb, GP. It was a dumb statement made without thinking it through. Telling anyone to skip taking their mez protection because they enjoy getting knocked around the battlefield and becoming less efficient is no reason to ask them to become Completely useless in melee.
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Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
Quote:
My point was: just because you don't see the need for more than one does not mean that ither people don't need 2 or more. Because with your logic I don't need any if I stand around AP looking for CCs, therefore no one should really need even one since I don't.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
What are you going on about? I agreed 1 KB protection IO was very useful. I am simply stating that there is currently almost no reason for more and even in the two places where it may be a problem to only have 1, there is a simple solution that does not impact your build.
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So just because you don't push your Scrapper doesn't mean others don't. So IMO and in the opinion of many others 1 is no way enough, even 2 is questionable.
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
Spinning it the other way around, I don't see any reason to waste time gathering specific salvage and going to base when I can just devote 2 additional slots to KB protection.
Besides, are we on the scrapper forum or the RP forum ? Last I've checked we do things like taking on x8 spawns of carnies, nemesis, and soloing AVs. Against that kind of stuff, falling flat on your back can simply kill you ; and even if it doesn't, you're doing 0 DPS while you're helplessly thrown around. Downtime of any kind isn't my idea of fun. |
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It is not 100% chance of knockback.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
The Energy Torrent thing is very strange. Sometimes it knocks me back and sometimes it doesn't. How do I know? Because my FA tanker and FA scrapper each have 4 pts of KB protection.
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| The STF AVs are cake to deal with only having 4 pts of KB protection on my tanker. |
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| It is more difficult on my scrapper, although its only a big impact vs. Recluse and once the blue tower is down, its not as much of an issue because he doesn't spam the PBAoE with KB and when he does use it, it often misses. How do I know this? Because my FA tanker and scrapper each have 4 pts of KB protection and are constantly in melee throughout a STF. |
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| I run Carnie and Nemesis and Council and DE missions all the time. 4 pts of KB protection is plenty to make KB an insignificant issue. |
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| I was under the impression that most Hami raids took 40ish minutes, although I have to concede that even if that is true, you may have to be in the Hive for awhile before the raid in order to preserve your spot. |
If you're cakewalking through any given situation, and you are therefore not in need of your click powers (particularly heals) pretty much as soon as they recharge, then yes, knock back/down isn't going to be a serious or frequent problem. If you are running on the ragged edge of survival, it's a serious problem by definition any time it happens. This is Spar... er, the Scrapper forum. A lot of us here consider playing the game at anything less than the ragged edge to be a slow death by boredom. That subset of us are always going to find knock effects to have a negative impact on our peak performance, and that's why we don't like it.
When we can just choose a different powerset and, by and large, not be any worse for wear and completely avoid that performance penalty, that says to me at least that the penalty is pretty unfair. Pretty clearly I don't think most of us want the rest of the powersets to start suffering from knockback, so that leaves asking for the knockback hole to be closed.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Duh on me. I knew that, but it did not surface in my brain. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
It is not 100% chance of knockback.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
If you are tanking the STF AVs on FA without teammate buffs, bravo. If you are tanking the STF AVs with teammate buffs, then the point is moot, because you could probably go AFK with taunt on and stand a good chance of surviving them. Being buffed heavily takes the pressure off to do just about anything with critical timing.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
If Recluse is constantly missing you with anything then you are operating under extremely high order defense buffs. Of course it doesn't mean much if you are knocked back every so often when hit when your enemies can't hit you consistently to begin with.
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As far as LR hitting, once the blue tower is down, he attacks much slower and normal defense buffs/modest inspires will reduce his hit rate significantly. However, I agree that it doesn't mean much if you are knocked back every so often on an STF.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
Out of curiosity, on what settings?
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My Kat/Fire/Wpns scrapper runs on +1 / x4 normally when solo. My build is frankenslotted, mostly still with the IOs I bought as I leveled (for example, Flashing Steel has 2 level 20 Cleaving Blows, 1 level 22 Cleaving Blow, 1 level 30 Obliteration, 1 level 38 Obliteration, and an Achilles Heel proc). I try to die at least once a mission (usually on a boss spawn, or those damn two boss spawns protecting hostages) and can often get in a few more RotP on larger maps. Getting KBd is an insignifcant (but not zero) contributor to my death count. DRMs are usually pretty bad for me and the boss puppies can get nasty if I don't stack DA fast enough. Nemesis are a non-issue, I don't get to RotP much against them, so I only grab a Nemesis mission for a change of pace or when teaming. Knives and Malta are pretty respectable enemies, I do so love getting revenge on the knives and throwing my Caltrops at them. Gunslinger bosses can be an issue, but it's the damage, not any KB. I will have to try to get some playtime in since the FA changes, my build already had both Burn and FE, so it should be a nice improvement for me.
I find that as I turn up my difficulty, I can start dying more than I like and I start dying long before I start getting KBd with any frequency that matters. Is it possible that if I built a more defensively oriented FA scrapper I could find a balance point where I mitigate a lot of damage and can easily survive +2 or 3 /x 6-8 spawns but only if I also have 12 pts of KB protection? Based on my tanker experience, I doubt it, but I'd love to see the comparisons on that theory build between 4 and 12 pts of protection.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
If you're cakewalking through any given situation, and you are therefore not in need of your click powers (particularly heals) pretty much as soon as they recharge, then yes, knock back/down isn't going to be a serious or frequent problem. If you are running on the ragged edge of survival, it's a serious problem by definition any time it happens. This is Spar... er, the Scrapper forum. A lot of us here consider playing the game at anything less than the ragged edge to be a slow death by boredom. That subset of us are always going to find knock effects to have a negative impact on our peak performance, and that's why we don't like it.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
When we can just choose a different powerset and, by and large, not be any worse for wear and completely avoid that performance penalty, that says to me at least that the penalty is pretty unfair. Pretty clearly I don't think most of us want the rest of the powersets to start suffering from knockback, so that leaves asking for the knockback hole to be closed.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
While I would agree that with 0 KB protection, it gets annoying, I find that with 4 pts it happens enough to feel interesting and spice it up, but not enough to be an annoyance.
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Don't get me wrong, on the one hand knocking someone back can be atmospheric and make fights feel epic (Dude, Colossus/Superman/Goku knocked that guy through a skyscraper!). On the other hand... the mechanics of CoX don't play into that. You don't have kb from a few epic attacks that can spice things up. You have it on a huge amount of sets and nearly every mob in the game can do it to you. The way CoX has KB set up, its an annoyance to be avoided, rather than used to make things feel epic.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
So I hit 28 a few days ago and played a little with Burn, and... Ironically, the change is barely noticeable, for me.
Without aggro capabilities like Gauntlet or an aura such as the one WP/SD/Inv get mobs tend to run for the hills as soon as one of them dies, esp. if there's DoT damage around. The new initial hit in Burn is very likely to kill at least a minion, so they flee like before as soon as I use it.
Probably not a surprise for anyone else, but after playing the aforementioned three secondary powersets more or less exclusively for a while (precisely because I dislike seeing a whole group scatter to the four winds as soon as I look at them), I wasn't expecting that, heh.
Seems like Brutes are the big winners with the FA changes, aren't they ? FE boosting base damage looks great with Fury, Burn shouldn't make things run thanks to their mini-Gauntlet, and of course they still enjoy the 90% fire resistance. I could see Fire/SS tankers being very powerful too between Rage stacking and Bruising.
Sort of going offtopic there. My point, if I had any, is I'm wondering why aggro capabilities don't seem to be considered into balance. It certainly makes a tremendous difference in the solo AoE potential of powersets, to the point that it's often preferable to forgo sets with added damage and pick something with an aggro aura ; i.e., you're probably going to perform better on a Spines/Inv or Spines/WP than a Spines/ELA, Spines/DA or even Spines/FA, which strikes me as wrong as you also enjoy better survivability.
Even if FA was numerically equal to Shield (which isn't desirable anyway as Shield is quite a bit too much still), I believe it'd still be way behind as an offensive set due to the lack of aggro capabilities. Granted, this is mostly solo, but even on a team with aggro management powers there's a distinct benefit to being able to keep your own aggro as a scrapper - you can jump in first, you can take on a second group, you can protect squishies while the tanker is already at target cap and far away, and so on.
Was wondering if a new IO set just for Fire would not fix the issuse with KB.
Not make the set purple either please. Not make the IO set to where you can cap the KB
This way the set is not changed, and if people like the KB they wont need the new IO.
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comes from morons
Didn't read the thread, but as I've mentioned shortly after fire/fire came to scrappers, it turned out to be my favorite character of all time - and I've been here since CoH beta.
NOW, I'm as squishy as ever, as I have no Tough, but it seems I am killing, er, arresting - things, even faster.
I would like to know how fire/fire stacks up against fire/sd now. If it isn't the highest damage scrapper in the game, then more changes are needed. Even if it isn't, I still find fire/fire the best character I have ever made, of any archetype I've ever made.
Mine has tentacles and I'm not respeccing out of it. Enemies run when low on life so it's still useful.
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I don't think you see the perspective of what I and others are saying.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I don't think closing the KB hole is going to bump FA up to performance levels that will make those with the above stated goals want to choose it. It has a lot of other drawbacks when trying to solo +2 / x8 maps of carnies or Malta or 3 boss spawns of level 54 Rikti.
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If you don't want to die solo against foes for whom KB is a real part of their fighting style, KB protection is critical.
Here's an example. I recently ran into a Carnie mission on and old MA/DA of mine who I respecced for the MA changes. She's still primarily slotted with SOs, and her only KB prot is Acro. I wasn't expecting to need Acro, and ran into some +3 Carnies. Nothing special - minions and LTs. I died, badly, because I forgot that the Strongmen use KB. They bounced me around and I couldn't heal.
Now, to part of your point, one KB IO (or turning Acro on) would have protected me from that. But the crux of what we're saying is that the binary nature of KB protection - either it's adequate or it's basically non-functional - means that you can either choose to, bluntly, die more often or close the hole. Builds with no meaningful hole don't have to make that build choice. They don't have to sacrifice either a power or any number of slots to avoiding those defeats.
When I build a high-performance build, I agonize about how I place pretty much every slot. There's always some stat I could squeeze just a bit more out of if I moved a slot or chose a different power. The knockdown hole for FA and DA block out slots or powers in ways that don't proactively increase performance, but rather proactively avoid performance degradation over baseline. That's just not appealing. I think that, in the realm of high-end builds, it's a defensible position that DA and FA don't buy their users enough unique or extra performance to compel a user to choose them despite this requirement to dedicate slots or powers to closing the hole. (Edit: Note that's purely a performance statement- not one about concept or playstyle.)
If you're playing with teammates and they're effectively closing the knockback hole for you, then that's fine. From at least a certain perspective, there a cost associated with that method of closing the hole - having teammates.
No one's saying the sets aren't playable or anything like that. We're saying the sets aren't as optimizable (not a word?) as their peers, and one of the reasons is that KB hole.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Well, I think the one to look at is Electric Armor, because that has a damage aura but still has kb protection, albeit a strange one (grounded, auto power, need to be on the ground.)
Damage auras are really, really wonderful - some years ago someone showed how they typically easily outdamage any other attack in a set play session. I think I typically put one acc, two end, and 3 dam in them.
So Electric armor is the oddball there, doing the same damage as death shroud. Ninjitsu is also different, as it has no damage aura yet has no kb protection.
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Quote:
At what difficulty? I agree that having zero KB protection against large groups of almost every enemy in the game will get you killed regularly. However, against those same large groups, IMO, 4 pts is enough to reduce KB to levels where deaths caused by KB are negligible. Please remember that we started down this line only because I feel it is unnecessary to slot more than 1 KB protection IO in FA for all current content except Hami raids and to a lesser extent ship raids. In context I was discussing teaming, because I was responding directly to the following comment:|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I don't think you see the perspective of what I and others are saying.
If you don't want to die solo against foes for whom KB is a real part of their fighting style, KB protection is critical. |
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
I suppose one slot for -kb might cut it for a Scrapper, but for a Brute or Tank with one of these sets, you end up sacrificing 4 slots to avoid most KB in the game... and then there are a few mobs that can STILL get you when you're tanking for your team. This, when every other melee set can just ignore it entirely and slot for whatever.
And those 4 slots do make a difference. I end up cutting slots from powers that I would like to slot more heavily to get that -kb protection. There's no logical game reason to have this difference, either. Why two don't have it when all the others do is rather odd to me. |
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
Now, to part of your point, one KB IO (or turning Acro on) would have protected me from that. But the crux of what we're saying is that the binary nature of KB protection - either it's adequate or it's basically non-functional - means that you can either choose to, bluntly, die more often or close the hole. Builds with no meaningful hole don't have to make that build choice. They don't have to sacrifice either a power or any number of slots to avoiding those defeats.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
When I build a high-performance build, I agonize about how I place pretty much every slot. There's always some stat I could squeeze just a bit more out of if I moved a slot or chose a different power. The knockdown hole for FA and DA block out slots or powers in ways that don't proactively increase performance, but rather proactively avoid performance degradation over baseline. That's just not appealing. I think that, in the realm of high-end builds, it's a defensible position that DA and FA don't buy their users enough unique or extra performance to compel a user to choose them despite this requirement to dedicate slots or powers to closing the hole. (Edit: Note that's purely a performance statement- not one about concept or playstyle.)
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Theory craft to follow: When I consider making a high-end FA scrapper build that could solo on the highest difficulty I could manage, I still do not believe I would go past 4 pts. The only way I could see to conceivably manage surviving those types of settings on a solo FA scrapper is with extreme defense slotting. Once I go there, so many KB attacks are just missing me outright, I still think 4 pts is going to be enough to render the deaths caused by KB to be negligible.
As I said previously, I'd love to see the comparisons on that theory build between 4 and 12 (or 16 even) pts of protection. I doubt I will ever make it, as I have my Kat/Inv for that type of thing. I do not recall reading about many /FA scrapper builds running around on +2 or +3 / x8.
I will not speak of high-end DA characters, my experience with them is too limited. I know they can survive tons more stuff than FA, so its possible (although I think unlikely) they may reach a spot, without high defense, where they could survive incoming damage against large groups, but KB above 4 pts is preventing the click heal or moving them so enemies are no longer in a disabling aura and causing death more than a negligible amount of time.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
If you're playing with teammates and they're effectively closing the knockback hole for you, then that's fine. From at least a certain perspective, there a cost associated with that method of closing the hole - having teammates.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
No one's saying the sets aren't playable or anything like that. We're saying the sets aren't as optimizable (not a word?) as their peers, and one of the reasons is that KB hole.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
And FA has less room to deal with those serious issues because of the kb hole. It's a debuff to the set that is a distraction and isn't warranted given how the set is designed/balanced with the game and other sets.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I believe the KB hole is an extremely minor issue for FA when discussing high end survivability builds. FA has significantly more serious issues in that realm of play than the KB hole.
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And if there are serious issues it needs to deal with to be survivable and dish out the damage (and I do agree with this), than having to deal with being KB'd is a concern: especially since part of FA's survivability is a click heal that you can use about every 20 seconds with slotting.
It's not really a minor issue, even if there are things that you can do about it, and even if you want to argue it's minor, we go back to the point I keep beating on. Nothing about FA or DA screams "overpowered" so much that having a KB hole is warranted. They have other pros and cons already, get rid of this random annoyance.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
Quote:
No, but frankly FA has as many of or more than the other limitations of other mitigation sets, plus the knockback hole. It has no fear protection, which used to be fairly typical. At least two newer sets have fear protection and no weakness to knockback. It lacks Psi protection, which at least DA provides, as does Ela, at least conditionally. Invuln has a Psi hole, but no knockback hole, and generally, I find the Psi hole more manageable (on Invul and FA) unless faced with truly extreme Psi damage, such as an AV or spawn of my full usual difficulty setting that does only Psi damage.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Builds with no meaningful drawbacks probably should not exist. That being said, I am not arguing this from a balance PoV. I have acknowledged several times that a player of FA has to do something about the KB hole. Fill it with an IO, a power, an empowerment buff, gameplay tactics, etc. It is a weakness and one you have to work around. FA is not unique in having weaknesses it must work around, although it probably has more stuff to work around than most, if not all, other armored sets.
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| At what difficulty? I agree that having zero KB protection against large groups of almost every enemy in the game will get you killed regularly. However, against those same large groups, IMO, 4 pts is enough to reduce KB to levels where deaths caused by KB are negligible. |
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| I believe the KB hole is an extremely minor issue for FA when discussing high end survivability builds. FA has significantly more serious issues in that realm of play than the KB hole. |
"But UberGuy, why not just avoid Nemesis?" Well, if asked that I would counter - why not just avoid FA, or maybe DA? Then I don't have to worry about that particular limitation. Sure, on other characters I might avoid Nemesis for other reasons. My Nightwidow doesn't like them much since stacked Vengeance makes short work of her softcapped defenses, but I'm willing to accept that since capped defenses are so damn awesome in so much of the rest of the game. What's FA giving me that's worth its weaknesses?
Edit: Council bosses - the human Archons and the Warwolves, also regularly do more than 4 points of KB with their ranged attacks, at least at +2 and higher. I know, because they flip my afore-mentioned flying buff/debuff/control characters, who all have 4 points of protection.
People often discuss things like mez and high-mag knockdown as though them being low frequency when averaged across all mobs means that they are OK. That's not how it ends up working in practice, because the game doesn't just sprinkle the sources of the weakness in a distributed way. You tend not to meet the problem mobs at all, or you meet a mission (or whole story arc, or whole series of arcs from a contact) full of them. I don't appreciate having to worry about things that work that way. Since I don't like to avoid powersets completely, that means I want to close their binary weaknesses as much as is reasonably achievable. The fact that I also like to be able to unconditionally attend things like Hamidon or ship raids helps further justify the slot or power expenditures needed to give me the KB protection levels I seek. But while doing that, I know that I could just avoid the issue entirely by playing something else.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I just can't agree with this. When I play a build that can survive +2 / x8 Nemesis, the KB is not a big problem. Sure, my Kat/Fire scrapper will die often solo in a +1 / x6 mission. KB is not why. My Fire/Ice tanker can hang around with 4 Fake Nems and a few Warhulks and a smattering of lts./ minions without issue. Hell, the KB is often useful, gets me out of those damn auto-hit toxic patches (although stacking HF makes those fairly non-problematic anyway).|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Again, it's completely binary. Against anything that won't provide more than 4 points of knockback, 4 points might as well be infinite protection, and the hole can be considered closed. As soon as it's more than four points, the hole is wide open again. Nemesis on anything above about +2/x5 is a no-no here, because you start getting bosses in every spawn, and every Fake is guaranteed to send you flying any time he rolls a knockdown with his staff. Let that happen while his buddies are surrounding you and that's a real bad day.
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After you get a simple 4 pts, KB is just not the issue people think it is. Especially when teaming.
I started this because I was simply countering the idea that you need 16 pts of KB protection to team tank. Why I keep arguing when the goal posts have moved to soloing +2 / x6 or higher (which most FA builds aren't going to be doing even vs. enemies with no KB) I am not sure. I guess I just want people to believe that the reason FA dies in those higher challenge spawns is because of its other weaknesses and 4 pts of KB protection is plenty.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
Are you not understanding what people are telling you here? FA dies in higher challenge situations because of their other weaknesses and because 4 points of KB protection is not enough. I think there have been already a few people that have stated knockback protection's very binary nature. Your Nemesis mission is a good enough example where having 4 points means having none. They will still knock you back. Having 4 points won't mean anything, it won't get you back on your feet faster, it won't let you use Healing Flames while you're sent flying through the air.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I guess I just want people to believe that the reason FA dies in those higher challenge spawns is because of its other weaknesses and 4 pts of KB protection is plenty.
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Hell, using IOs and Acrobatics even won't get you any Knockback Resistance. You take a look at something like Unyielding and it gives -10,000% Knockback Resistance. Any power, whether it be Ice Patch, Hurricane, Headsplitter, or anything that debuffs you and has a Knockback component is outright denied any magnitude stacking of KB with that kind of number.
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Quote:
If you're not being killed by Fakes, then I believe you. If you're being killed by Fakes, I do not. The Fakes are, barring stacking, I believe the only thing with more than four points of KB mag. (They start at 12, and do more if higher level than you.) If a Fake knocks me down in the middle of a spawn when I need to heal in, I very commonly die.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I just can't agree with this. When I play a build that can survive +2 / x8 Nemesis, the KB is not a big problem. Sure, my Kat/Fire scrapper will die often solo in a +1 / x6 mission. KB is not why.
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This is my experience on a MA/DM Scrapper, and DM, broadly, can muster a whole lot more survival than a FA can. But if you play either powerset efficiently (or really any powerset with a self heal) you let yourself get to where you have lost just about as many HP as your heal will recover. Since DA has such a massive heal, I usually just go for about 40-50% HP. (Waiting till I'm at zero HP to heal wouldn't work so well.) Now if you do that, and you get knocked on your can when you really needed to heal, you may have a problem. If you get knocked down again, you're probably dead.
I'm not imagining this. I've played it. I've experienced it. It's not a happy place, and I strove to fix it when I was able. Back in the day that meant I took Acrobatics on melees. Since I already had it, I kept it in the IO world and skipped using the IOs. Then it got reduced to 9 points, and I compromised and used Acro plus an IO or two. Nowdays, I'm actually looking at PvPO resist sets since they don't cost extra slot, though they do represent an opportunity cost for other sets I could put there.
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| My Fire/Ice tanker can hang around with 4 Fake Nems and a few Warhulks and a smattering of lts./ minions without issue. |
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| Why I keep arguing when the goal posts have moved to soloing +2 / x6 or higher (which most FA builds aren't going to be doing even vs. enemies with no KB) I am not sure. I guess I just want people to believe that the reason FA dies in those higher challenge spawns is because of its other weaknesses and 4 pts of KB protection is plenty. |
I haven't been trying to move the goalposts, but if they've moved, I think it's because they weren't somewhere useful to start with. Discussing how much KB protection one needs on a team is pretty hard to pin down. On a team, you could argue that no one "needs" IOs at all. Having them can sure as hell help, though, because they improve on what you can manage with no help from your team. If your team is there to help you and make your KB no problem then that's awesome. I live for those moments when my team couldn't help me and I pulled something off anyway. Being knocked around in that moment doesn't trip my hammer, and avoiding that on FA and DA (and maybe ElA) means investing in more than four points of KB protection. (I personally shoot for 12, not 16. And PvP is a radically different beast of course.)
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
And you can get the Winter's Gift slow resistance IO boosting you to 40% slow resist when you also take Temp. Protection.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Well, a few issues a go they added slow resist to temp protection (although its pretty small) and this issue they added end drain resists to Consume.
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Lisa.
So don't wait for heroes, do it yourself
You've got the power
winners are losers
who got up and gave it just one more try
***Dennis DeYoung
If I didn't have to worry about KB at all on my Fire/Fire Scrapper:
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Sacred Fire: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Aura
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
Code:
I would have a significantly faster recharging Build Up, more Accuracy, more Resist, and more Defense (global and +Fire/Cold). I agonize on every build down to the very last slot, the very last power pick, what to take, what the put where. Everything squeezes as much as it can out of the bloodstone as possible to get that last drop of power. These benefits listed are like a bucket of awesome, just because I had a few slots left over my intended targets and could rearrange accordingly.
| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1417;704;1408;HEX;| |78DA9D545B4F1341149EED76594BB7374BB914E88D4B2997420115F4C1A848A252A| |D407852C95A46A821A5D9AD89BE99184DBC3C69A20FEAABFFC1F8D314CB39F34D1B| |9FDDA4E79B99F3EDF9BE33B3D3EAF30D478897578511BD71ECFAFEFE4EDD735B2DE| |95955F7B0510FEFB8754F1EE4361B9EB48510E96E7ABF2A8FA52C6F36A4F702E3D1| |5E6A433E914DBF9BBCF6CC7313B79A47D293CD76B93B706A2727C7C46837A5EF63B| |225DD56A37918D199C3A336CD62DDD481F4FCA3462B71B3D5A897AF9F1C90AAEBB7| |4960986C95E8F78AFDA9A7131435828208DC076C2B08EE009E1254C432D30D45374| |5860645319955B09057B05850F0DAD6342A6BA06C1FCAF6A16C3FCA3A28BB4A7453| |D3CD2D83979CAA82E85D05F17B809A028BE8165C086B415518A4251B4B013BA558E| |7EE980A4E69715C5C20420804233464F052FFB2C9F0863261889BE1AF01219262F6| |9B828539555B834DBC88AE10B9ADDA8CEE29A58B948969F1D8925A9A5D01AC2A784| |B840424ACC4EF002F9DFF03385530F817D051302CE09CDE4AEACD4E7E5499814F80| |CF0A26BF28308897D20DA4B0D9456C76099B5DC2669BC41BD2368760731836E761F| |31D1146F4318CA0501A85D2283481429338B520D147B5BFD1B8AA3096000C28C8E0| |20D66CDE66743F8EEE33E83E83EEF3E83E8FEE27D0FD7B7A2BABCD6461260733399| |8C9C14C1E66D66D9EE0740A38B009C025CA4CA9AFB1634D417E1AF2D3909F867C11| |F245C8EF529CD1F566F05594F055FC880831A7B7710EC7328F6399C779AC9060190| |4AB0CC145082E42B002C10A042B104CD05B4B10144BD8B8B160EF72D29F886A66EB| |DF257CFAB560EFAE09032D6783BD6BDA09C5E9B220FDBFCF4FA75B2EB4DD4F71974| |38D82B1C7A3071C1EF2F4118F5C1E3DE650E769E797D3B51C5B635FEB1C2E73B8C2| |2145FEC40766DA7C0BC31C1C0E110E510E310E710E490E690EDF3974CE00CC31F19| |8| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
Current build for reference: http://tinyurl.com/24yzxfz
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
Quote:
With capped defense to smashing/lethal and near cap to melee, you should be fine with just 4 pts. of KB protection. You should consider switching to the new build, but keep the Karma KB in CJ instead of the PvP IO in there.
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Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
I would have a significantly faster recharging Build Up, more Accuracy, more Resist, and more Defense (global and +Fire/Cold). I agonize on every build down to the very last slot, the very last power pick, what to take, what the put where. Everything squeezes as much as it can out of the bloodstone as possible to get that last drop of power. These benefits listed are like a bucket of awesome, just because I had a few slots left over my intended targets and could rearrange accordingly.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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I do not believe that point exists regularly for FA with 4 pts of KB protection. Its likely any enemies that could threaten me like that will kill me regularly even without KB. My tanker is seriously threatened by +2 / x8 Nemesis, I have to work to live. Its not a cakewalk to survive, but the KB is not a big issue. I have to be aware of it, for sure, but its pretty easy to make sure I don't get KBd at a critical juncture. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
What that says is that your Tanker, and possibly Tankers in general, aren't significantly threatened by those foes at presumably +1. Again I'll repeat - this is about high end solo play. This is playing at levels where doing the wrong thing - or being prevented from doing something you planned to do when you planned to do it - probably means you die. You clearly aren't at that point with the four Fakes and friends.
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I continue to acknowledge that deaths resulting from KB is not zero, but compared to what else may kill me, it is insignificant. I continue to acknowledge it is possibly different for DA.
For clarification, when I run against enemies without knockback and get to a point where I am threatened and have to work to survive (remember I like RotP, so I play at a point where the enemies are dangerous enough to kill me), that is where I am comfortable playing. I like that edge (probably why blasters also appeal to me). When I switch to Carnies and Nemesis and Council, I don't turn the difficulty down but nor could I turn it up.
I said it earlier in this discussion:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I find that as I turn up my difficulty, I can start dying more than I like and I start dying long before I start getting KBd with any frequency that matters. Is it possible that if I built a more defensively oriented FA scrapper I could find a balance point where I mitigate a lot of damage and can easily survive +2 or 3 /x 6-8 spawns but only if I also have 12 pts of KB protection? Based on my tanker experience, I doubt it, but I'd love to see the comparisons on that theory build between 4 and 12 pts of protection.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I haven't been trying to move the goalposts, but if they've moved, I think it's because they weren't somewhere useful to start with. Discussing how much KB protection one needs on a team is pretty hard to pin down. On a team, you could argue that no one "needs" IOs at all. Having them can sure as hell help, though, because they improve on what you can manage with no help from your team. If your team is there to help you and make your KB no problem then that's awesome. I live for those moments when my team couldn't help me and I pulled something off anyway. Being knocked around in that moment doesn't trip my hammer, and avoiding that on FA and DA (and maybe ElA) means investing in more than four points of KB protection. (I personally shoot for 12, not 16. And PvP is a radically different beast of course.)
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I also mentioned the goalpost moving, because I want to acknowledge that I am talking more than I should be about stuff where I have little actual experience on my FA scrapper (although I think my tanker experience is applicable, since the KB hole is the same on both, and the only way I could test my scrapper is by increasing its survivability near to the levels where my tanker is at).
If I am going to give advice to someone who just wants to play the game, with pugs and friends, I am going to recommend 1 KB protection IO is plenty. The other 2 or 3 slots are likely better spent elsewhere for 95%+ of their gameplay and for those times when something bad happens on a team, they would be better of using inspires, IME.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Heh, I think we're on other ends of the pole when I'm talking with someone that LIKES being knocked back. No wonder I couldn't understand what you were arguing for... I couldn't picture someone as saying they liked being knocked back.
Don't get me wrong, on the one hand knocking someone back can be atmospheric and make fights feel epic (Dude, Colossus/Superman/Goku knocked that guy through a skyscraper!). On the other hand... the mechanics of CoX don't play into that. You don't have kb from a few epic attacks that can spice things up. You have it on a huge amount of sets and nearly every mob in the game can do it to you. The way CoX has KB set up, its an annoyance to be avoided, rather than used to make things feel epic.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory