You cannot use this power on yourself
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-11-17 24:26 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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I can not agree with you on this. My FF Defender is very, very solo capable and is great for teaming too. His personal Defense is above the softcap for positional attacks, and even higher for Engery and Negative damage attacks. On top of that he softcaps the Defense on others. It's a win-win situation in terms of soloing and teaming.|
Originally Posted by Wavicle
Defender buff/debuff sets are fairly easily divided into two nearly equal groups: sets that are fine for soloists and sets that are better for groups.
Teaming Defender Buff/Debuff sets: ...Force Fields Notice, the soloable sets are all primarily about debuffs, the teaming sets are all primarily about buffs. |
- B.
Crey Threat Assessment: Bayne
Virtueverse: Bayne
The Defenders of Paragon
Two things encourage teaming (beyond the pure social side):
1) The artificial mechanism which gives you more XP on a team. By artificial I mean the devs had to spend effort coding this to make it work, with the intent of rewarding team play
2) The natural synergy that develops on a team due largely to support sets. Ally-only buffs are a big part of this, since they allow the devs to give us powerful buffs without making a set overpowered, or resorting to other limitations like long recharges or crashes or whatever.
There should be sets that are poor solo-ers that shine on teams. We should have the choice to choose to make team-oriented characters or solo-oriented ones.
If you want to make a solo-er with a Force Field, make an Energy Aura Brute or Invulnerability/SR Scrapper or something, rather than picking a set intended for team support. (Or invest in IOs and force the game to do what you want, like I did on my FF/Sonic 
)
If you want to make a self-healer, go Regeneration. And so on.
I usually solve this problem by pairing teammate-only powers with power sets that give you your own pet to apply them to. Plant Control/Empathy, for example can be pretty nice. That Venus fly trap puts out a lot of hurt when he's buffed right.
For all other build strategies, just remember: people with awesome teammate only powers are the first ones who get contacted by teams who are LFM, and the most loved. Sure your solo game is ruined, but your online social life gets to take off.
so, here's my take. this game (like almost every other mmo ever made) was created with teaming in mind. but to the dev's credit they put quite a bit of work into making this game solo friendly. when the game started, teaming was where it was at, it was the accepted mmo routine, and just about everyone fell into the pattern right away. but as this game aged, and the community dwindled, the holdovers tend to be solo'ers and dedicated groupers (those that have a group that they play with regularly), changing the dynamic of the game. the devs have added a nice update to the game with GR, and the population will definitely change for a bit, but when the shininess wears off, it will basically be the same players who kept this game going for the last 3 or 4 years, alot of which solo. so i believe that the mechanics can be tweaked a bit to accommodate without altering game play too much. the continuation of this game depends on the long term customer, keep them happy, they keep paying and playing.
i don't think making every buff power a full effect self buff would be the answer, numerous number crunchers have already pointed out why, but i DO think a lower percentage self buff aspect to team buff powers would be WONDERFULLY helpful. there are a couple of sets i would LOVE to play, but as i solo most of the time, i haven't been able to play them to any length. Force Field, Sonic Resonance, to a lesser degree Empathy, thermal and yadda yadda yadda. now i would love to be able to play these more, but until there is more personal utility in them.....
so in short, i don't think a self buff aspect to the team buff powers would be bad, i agree to a lesser effect then the team buff, that would be fine, but SOMETHING for gods sake. Sonic Resonance is one of my favorite power sets conceptionally, and it has 2 or 3 solo powers in the whole set, that's just not "bang for your buck" when choosing power sets.
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"
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Thanks for the tip, I might try it over there. |
Originally Posted by Disappearing Girl
Justice has a pretty dedicated bunch of aussies in #australia and #antipodes that have something running regularily just about every night. They do a lot of taskforces and organised teams. Check the Oceania forum section.
Virtue/Freedom still has more population at that time (aussie peak times in early morning US times) but is more adhoc. |
All this talk about a Defender soloing, I can't help but think back to my Master Doctor / Master Carbineer on SWG. (I know they don't like us talking about other games, but SWG was totally changed into a suckfest by the "NGE", and isn't even the same game anymore).
My Doc /Carbineer was aways buffed out of his complete mind, and, if something came running up attacking, he had like 3 ranged knockdowns / posture change attacks, and could dizzy from range. My best friend was all like "Teras Kasi / Doc is the best", until he saw me in action. I had enemies flopping like fishies, and they couldn't get back up. Then, if they DID manage to reach me, they would have to beat the living daylights outta my armor to get to my 2600 to all stats and crack-infused regen. And if they did? Oh guess what? I'm a Master Doc *heal*. Plus, I was using Vasarian Brandy out the ying-yang. Like I said, buffed out of his GOURD!! Unstoppable.
And, if I couldn't find any teams going on, I could sit in front of starport and sell buffs, and make money lol. I totally miss that toon, and often wish I could re-make it on CoH somehow, but I just don't see it happening. On SWG, you could /target self, but not on CoH.
In a way, I do secretly wish the devs over here would try to look at all the things that SWG threw away, which made it the most funnest video game I EVER played. Still to this day. If they could somehow capture that on THIS game?!?!? Ahhh heh heh. OMG.
Being versatile was what it was all about. There were no "levels", just skills, and therefore Skill Mods, that you acquired by training in certain skills once you had enough XP. I wouldn't mind if they tried a new AT that wasn't level-based, like those invasion mobs that adjust to everybody (more or less) but I'm not sure it would work, since there aren't any stats for your character on this game. There's no "Stats" screen, where you can look at your Strength, Agility, Stamina, Constitution, Intelligence, and so forth. Your only stat seems to be your level lol. Everything else is buffs / debuffs. SO, that would be a whole mess trying to make it a skill based game without levels.
But, being more versatile, making camps out in the wilderness, surveying for materials, crafting stuff with a crafting tool, being able to use different armors and weapons, having your own house, a vehicle, getting battle fatigue and mind wounds rofl. It was more like you were at home, no matter where you went in the game, on any of the worlds. Those were some enchanted times, memories I'll always look back on with a smile. And yes, once you were high enough level, you could solo, depending on your build.
And the skills system was awesome. You weren't "stuck for life" with 'em, you could surrender skills, and totally do something else. Like, drop Teras Kasi Master completely, and then grind up into a Master Carbineer. You're pretty much stuck in this game with what you choose, and even with a respec, you can't re-pick your powersets.
I just don't see them making changes for "squishies" to be more solo-able. But at the same time, I can also kinda understand the reasoning of "Well, those scrappers and tankers are contributing to the team, AND can solo, so why not me?". You never know what they might try in the future. If enough players say they seriously want it looked into, and make some compelling arguments for doing so, it might just happen. I could see maybe doing something to make Controllers' and Defenders' inherents have some kind of effect when not teamed, to try to help out with the miserable damage output. That way, maybe they would be more like Scrappers or Tankers in that, even though they would be better off on a team, they ARE able to solo without having to use a calendar to time their missions. Since soloing seems to be getting more and more widespread, there might be a significant number of players who would want this.
Like Traegus said,
"i don't think making every buff power a full effect self buff would be the answer, numerous number crunchers have already pointed out why, but i DO think a lower percentage self buff aspect to team buff powers would be WONDERFULLY helpful."
Maybe that could be part of their modified Inherent; When not teamed, you can use your buffs on yourself, but they will not function as well. I mean, chances are, if you developed a super power, you would practice on yourself before trying it on somebody else. And then, when you ARE teamed, you are focused on your teammates more, which makes your buffs more effective on them (like where they are now), and LESS effective on yourself.
Also, that brings up the question of what would really happen in game? Would it make people solo more, OR... would people TEAM more, realizing that their squishies have been improved and aren't total cream-puffs any more?
God there's so many possibilities, this really gets my imagination going lol, sorry for going on so long.
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I already mentioned it, but this post brings it to the forefront again. |
Originally Posted by Skyster
"i don't think making every buff power a full effect self buff would be the answer, numerous number crunchers have already pointed out why, but i DO think a lower percentage self buff aspect to team buff powers would be WONDERFULLY helpful." Maybe that could be part of their modified Inherent; When not teamed, you can use your buffs on yourself, but they will not function as well. I mean, chances are, if you developed a super power, you would practice on yourself before trying it on somebody else. And then, when you ARE teamed, you are focused on your teammates more, which makes your buffs more effective on them (like where they are now), and LESS effective on yourself. |
It's not that you can't use the powers on yourself, it's that you can't target yourself at all. If you could target yourself, you could use those powers on yourself already.
I don't know for sure, but I don't think it is possible with the game engine to allow self-targeting only in certain situations. Either it allows self-targeting, or it doesn't. They would also have to code entirely separate versions of every ally buff power in the game to have one version with the full buff and another version with a lesser buff. That's a whole lot of work that would need to be done.
It would also introduce the possibility of attack powers developing bugs that let you attack yourself as well. Those could be a pain in the butt to track down and fix if it happened.
Also, it would make enemy targeting more difficult. A lot of us use a bind to target the closest enemy. What would happen if the game engine decided that YOU were the closest target? It would probably be a bug, but it would force you to tab through enemies until you got to the one smacking you in the face.
I have the distinct feeling it is set up the way it is because the devs realized the host of problems that would develop if they allowed self-targeting, and just decided not to allow it to avoid all those problems at once without having to do a lot of coding.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Quite stupid. Even if you could self target, all those support ATs would still solo slower and less efficiently compared to melee. Even with Empathy and Adrenaline Boost.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
(Cut a bunch of dumb examples and non-relevant technical issues.)
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They don't have the damage to back it up, but they can take a hit or two.
And you also include a whole lot of potential technical issues that have no point. Those concerns have no validity in discussion of whether or not it is a good idea to try.
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Not really. If my Empath could target himself, with just how he is slotted and IOed right now (meaning that I could improve on this if I could self buff), I would have;|
Originally Posted by Savos
Quite stupid. Even if you could self target, all those support ATs would still solo slower and less efficiently compared to melee. Even with Empathy and Adrenaline Boost.
They don't have the damage to back it up, but they can take a hit or two. And you also include a whole lot of potential technical issues that have no point. Those concerns have no validity in discussion of whether or not it is a good idea to try. |
46% defense S/L
50% defense E/N
35% defense F/C/Psi,
1365% endurance recovery (22.8 endurance per second)
1600% regeneration (6.72% health per second)
+80% Damage (while solo from Fort + Vigilence +Assault)
220% Global Recharge (making AB perma and RAs have a 30sec downtime, Hasten perma)
+38% ToHit (Fort plus Tactics)
And lets not forget Mag 13 protection to Stun, Hold, Sleep, Immob, Fear, Confuse due to Perma Clear Mind.
I would be like the combination of a Shield Tanker who regens faster than a Regen Scrapper but with fewer hitpoints and able to provide nearly the same benefits to my entire team.
Don't get me wrong, Empathy sucks for Soloing and I think that it needs a little help in that department, but being able to put Fortitude or Adrenaline boost on myself would be too powerful.
My proposed changes to empathy would make it solo better while still retaining its current team strength ;
Reduce both RA auras to 240-300 sec recharge, while cutting their effect by 40%-50%. Then add some status protection to one or the other RA. You could have protection to Hold, Immob, Confuse in Recovery Aura and protection to Stun, Fear and Sleep in Regen Aura.
This change alone would allow a heavily slotted Empathy to have perma RAs (at a lower strength) while giving them the status protection that would make all the difference in their solo prowess without "breaking" their Pacifist design (which would be the case with self-usable Fort or AB).
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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And the empath and bubble defenders would do utterly lousy damage. The kin, OTOH might actually get rather powerful, but would still probably lag a blaster in damage even if they did get to fulcrum shift all the time. |
Originally Posted by Katie V
An Empath able to self-buff could out-regen a Regen scrapper. A bubbler able to self-buff would be better protected than a Super Reflexes scrapper. A Kinetics able to self-buff would have perma-Hasten -- without the expensive IO investment.
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That's the thing people tend to forget, even at the damage cap, a defender's damage is still rather underwhelming.
Corrupters with the higher damage scalar and damage cap would be more of an issue IMO. Then again a kinetics corrupter already gets the way high damage from fulcrum shift, and we don't see those breaking the game.
Personally I don't see all that much downside in letting the buffing classes self buff. However, I have other options so I don't get worked up over it. I can just play a SoA which is a good damage class that does force multiplication on the side.
Too many alts to list.
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I guess this is how the devs must see it as well. Many players will tell you to play another combination or AT when this conversation comes up, but to me that is not the right way to look at it. What if you really like Empathy AND you want to solo halfway decent ?|
Originally Posted by docbuzzard
....Personally I don't see all that much downside in letting the buffing classes self buff. However, I have other options so I don't get worked up over it. I can just play a SoA which is a good damage class that does force multiplication on the side.
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No one with any sense of "parity" would expect Empathy (or any other Buffing set) to be improved to solo as well as Rad (or especially Dark), but some kind of adjustment could be made without improving their team strength so that they (team-buffers) could solo better.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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They did something to this effect with the defender damage buff which is maximum while solo and scales down with team size. Personally I think it's a bit lacking, and won't come close to make me solo a defender (I even find damage on the debuff sets to be unsatisfying). |
Originally Posted by Biospark
I guess this is how the devs must see it as well. Many players will tell you to play another combination or AT when this conversation comes up, but to me that is not the right way to look at it. What if you really like Empathy AND you want to solo halfway decent ?
No one with any sense of "parity" would expect Empathy (or any other Buffing set) to be improved to solo as well as Rad (or especially Dark), but some kind of adjustment could be made without improving their team strength so that they (team-buffers) could solo better. |
I've just given up on that kind of balance happening. It would be nice if it happened, but I don't see it as likely.
Too many alts to list.
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Use the advantage of a "team-based" set and a second build. Team build = less offense, more buffs. Solo build = more room for attacks and things like Leadership and/or Fighting.
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Originally Posted by Biospark
I guess this is how the devs must see it as well. Many players will tell you to play another combination or AT when this conversation comes up, but to me that is not the right way to look at it. What if you really like Empathy AND you want to solo halfway decent ?
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The Defender improvement to Vigilence was pretty nice. I actually gave the developers credit for improving the AT without effecting their team strength in the process. But because this change went across all powersets equally (well sorta, -res powers are not universal to all defenders, nor are -res procs universally available), this did not change anything from a "Parity" point of view. |
Originally Posted by docbuzzard
They did something to this effect with the defender damage buff which is maximum while solo and scales down with team size. Personally I think it's a bit lacking, and won't come close to make me solo a defender (I even find damage on the debuff sets to be unsatisfying).
I've just given up on that kind of balance happening. It would be nice if it happened, but I don't see it as likely. |
What I think this change was mainly designed to do was to close the gap between Corruptors and Defenders while solo, so that new players (especially) would not buy into the belief that Corruptors were better. In this respect the developers hit a "Home Run". Both Defenders and Corruptors seem very well balanced between team and solo benefits to the point that neither AT is "preferred" by players over the other.
Having said that though, more than 50% of my new alts have all been Corruptors
They are just that fun to play!
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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Absolutely agree Bill|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Use the advantage of a "team-based" set and a second build. Team build = less offense, more buffs. Solo build = more room for attacks and things like Leadership and/or Fighting.
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And on my main, he has two builds IOed (or nearly IOed). His solo build uses the Fighting pool, while his team build uses the Leadership pool. Here is the rub though; no amount of pool powers are going to grant debuffs or powers to improve my soloing to the level of a Rad, Dark or Storm. No pools are going to give me the Status protection of a FF, Sonic or Traps. There is only so much that pools can do for an Empath (for example).
My secondary powers are where 90% of my survival comes from. Being Emp/Elec, that means Tesla Cage and Short Circuit are my cornerstone powers. I start a fight (usually) by hitting a Lt/Boss with Tesla, then Short Circuit/Powersink, followed by re-applications of Tesla/Short Circuit. Without these two powers, I probably would be unable to solo at all, and certainly not above +0/x1 difficulty.
The ability to bring more of your powers to bear while solo is what makes sets like Radiation, Dark and Storm able to solo at higher levels of performance. That and their ability to increase their damage output through debuffs. In a way, I almost wish that they had decided that Corruptors would get all the Debuff Sets for thematic reasons and that Defenders would get all the Buffing sets for the same reason. Imagine the way these ATs would play under those circumstances.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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You can't solo a GM or AV. You won't die obviously unless you get one shot but there is no damage backup to actually kill things significantly faster. Sure you can AoE a lot more often but it's still a Defender AoE. Controllers could legitimately get ridiculous but then again they already have that capacity. Empathy for controllers would be ridiculous. Defenders (and to a lesser extent Corruptors) just don't have the damage to do much with all those self buffs. |
Originally Posted by Biospark
Not really. If my Empath could target himself, with just how he is slotted and IOed right now (meaning that I could improve on this if I could self buff), I would have;
46% defense S/L 50% defense E/N 35% defense F/C/Psi, 1365% endurance recovery (22.8 endurance per second) 1600% regeneration (6.72% health per second) +80% Damage (while solo from Fort + Vigilence +Assault) 220% Global Recharge (making AB perma and RAs have a 30sec downtime, Hasten perma) +38% ToHit (Fort plus Tactics) And lets not forget Mag 13 protection to Stun, Hold, Sleep, Immob, Fear, Confuse due to Perma Clear Mind. I would be like the combination of a Shield Tanker who regens faster than a Regen Scrapper but with fewer hitpoints and able to provide nearly the same benefits to my entire team. Don't get me wrong, Empathy sucks for Soloing and I think that it needs a little help in that department, but being able to put Fortitude or Adrenaline boost on myself would be too powerful. My proposed changes to empathy would make it solo better while still retaining its current team strength ; Reduce both RA auras to 240-300 sec recharge, while cutting their effect by 40%-50%. Then add some status protection to one or the other RA. You could have protection to Hold, Immob, Confuse in Recovery Aura and protection to Stun, Fear and Sleep in Regen Aura. This change alone would allow a heavily slotted Empathy to have perma RAs (at a lower strength) while giving them the status protection that would make all the difference in their solo prowess without "breaking" their Pacifist design (which would be the case with self-usable Fort or AB). |
The sets that already can solo AV/GM don't have anything really beneficial to self-buff with, they are all debuff focused. Providing some help to buff based characters wouldn't create absurd balance issues outside of empath controllers.
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It's not Fulcrum Shift that's the key (my Kin/Ice defender can double-stack that with SOs), it's the other powers. If my calculations are correct, I'd be able to use Blizzard (a nuke that does Blaster-level damage -- before Fulcrum Shift) every 83 seconds, Force of Nature (my APP godmode) would be up better than two minutes out of every four, and Transference (my means of alleviating godmode and nuke crashes) would be up every 7 seconds. Given a face-planted teammate to teleport around, Vengeance would be perma. For single-target damage, I could use an attack chain of Ice Bolt -> Ice Blast -> Bitter Ice Blast for an estimated 150 DPS (factoring in the cast times of Siphon Speed and Fulcrum Shift, but not Hasten).
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Originally Posted by docbuzzard
The kin, OTOH might actually get rather powerful, but would still probably lag a blaster in damage even if they did get to fulcrum shift all the time.
That's the thing people tend to forget, even at the damage cap, a defender's damage is still rather underwhelming. |
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Neither. Its because the game's original powersets were designed at a time when classical MMO design theory was in place, which was skewed heavily away from rewarding soloing and more towards rewarding teaming. A power that cannot be used on self but can strongly benefit an ally is in effect a teaming bonus.|
Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
I firmly believe that the reason why ally buffs cannot be used on yourself has absolutely nothing to do with balance. Rather, it's because of game mechanics.
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| It is impossible to target yourself. You cannot do it, you are not a clickable object in the game window, and clicking on your name in the team list has no effect. (Except to say that you cannot target yourself) Thus, no targettable power can be applied to yourself. |
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To that end, there are three types of buffs in the game: 1) Self buffs. These have no target and are fired the moment you click them. In the case of toggles, they effect you from the moment they are turned on. 2) Single target buffs. These must be targetted on an ally (if they were targetted on a foe, it would be debuff) and thus cannot effect you. Many powers are balanced this way because it can be more useful in some cases to make a single ally extremely powerful than to give all your allies a global buff. Also, some buffs such as heals and mez protection, are situational and more useful when used when an ally specifically needs it. 3) PBAoE buffs. These are centered on the caster, and effect all allies and the caster. Obviously, such powers are just as useful to a buffer when he is all by himself. "Good" buff sets tend to have a lot of these. In some cases, the effect on the caster may be different (less) than the effected allies, but if there are such powers, they are rare. I cannot think of any examples off the top of my head. I believe that due to the way the game engine works, an AoE power cannot effect only allies and not the caster, unless the caster is not in the radius of the AoE. So in fact, you really could only make a PBAoE power STRONGER for the caster than for everyone else. (It would apply a Self Buff in addition to the PBAoE) |
Interestingly, you can also have PBAoE powers that buff self but not allies, but still have to be PBAoEs. An example is Invincibility which only buffs one target (self) but must be a PBAoE so that it can hit *foes* and buff the player with each foe hit.
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| The idea that "buffers need to be weaker than their teammates" in order to be balanced seems incorrect to me, because no one is claiming that debuffers must ALSO be weaker than their teammates in order to be balance. So either buffs are more valuable than debuffs (which they may well be) or there should be an equivalent self buff to every ally only buff in a set. |
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I am only speaking for myself regarding game balance, but it doesn't seem likely that soloing AVs and GMs is where balance concerns fall. If anything, the ability to solo these types of in-game beasties represents an example of powersets that are TOO powerful to begin with. So even though I would like to see something done to help "buffing" powersets, I would not use AV/GM soloing as any kind of benchmark.|
Originally Posted by Savos
You can't solo a GM or AV. You won't die obviously unless you get one shot but there is no damage backup to actually kill things significantly faster. Sure you can AoE a lot more often but it's still a Defender AoE. Controllers could legitimately get ridiculous but then again they already have that capacity. Empathy for controllers would be ridiculous. Defenders (and to a lesser extent Corruptors) just don't have the damage to do much with all those self buffs.
The sets that already can solo AV/GM don't have anything really beneficial to self-buff with, they are all debuff focused. Providing some help to buff based characters wouldn't create absurd balance issues outside of empath controllers. |
The only other thing that I can take from your comments is the thought that perhaps some kind of debuff(s) could be incorporated into the lower-performance sets to assist with their solo-ing needs. The problem here is that you risk changing the "tenor" of the set into something other than its intended design.
In regards to Empathy, this would definitely negate Fortitude because of it being too "Offensive". Adrenaline Boost is Ok, but would be silly to allow this to self-buff considering all that it does and how well it combines with both RAs. Which leaves only Clear Mind. Granting Empathy Clear Mind while solo would not suddenly challenge sets like Radiation or Dark for solo prowess, but it would (possibly) allow a fully IOed Empath to hit +0/x8 difficulty because of the reduction in Mezz danger. And it makes more sense for Empathy to get a "Defensive" improvement rather than an "Offensive" one.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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Defender Ranged_Damage modifier is 36.147 at lv50. Blaster Ranged_Damage modifier is 62.562. A solo Empathy Defender that could self-buff with Fortitude would already be at +61.25% damage, effectively 58.287 compared to the Blaster. Still lower, but the gap is not so large. (Of course, the Blaster will be constantly getting a variable damage bonus from Defiance and can get damage spike buffs with Build Up/Aim.)|
Originally Posted by Savos
You won't die obviously unless you get one shot but there is no damage backup to actually kill things significantly faster. Sure you can AoE a lot more often but it's still a Defender AoE. Controllers could legitimately get ridiculous but then again they already have that capacity. Empathy for controllers would be ridiculous. Defenders (and to a lesser extent Corruptors) just don't have the damage to do much with all those self buffs.
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Controller's Ranged_Damage modifier is 30.586, and if self-buffed with Fortitude would be effectively 38.233 outside containment, or 76.465 with Containment. Corruptor's Range_Damage modifier is 41.708, and if self-buffed with Forge* would be effectively 58.391 normally, or 116.782 while Scourging.
Scrapper's Melee_Damage modifier is 62.562 which can occasionally become an effective 125.124 on a crit. Dual Blades and Claws can bring the base up to an effective 86.023 with perma Follow Up/Blinding Feint, while other sets can get damage spike buffs with Build Up. (Shield Defense can also add a variable amount with Against All Odds.)
It's true that Blasters and Scrappers start far ahead of the support archetypes in terms of damage. But if targeted buffs could target the caster, that gap can be drastically reduced; in some cases (depending on the Blaster/Scrapper, the situation, and Containment/Scourge) the gap can even be entirely closed. And that's just a damage comparison. While Scrappers can do fairly well at surviving, Blasters are not quite so adept at it. A self-buffing Empath would be. You can't do any damage if you're dead.
It's worth noting also in the case of self-buffing Empathy Defenders and Pain Domination Corruptors, Adrenalin Boost/Painbringer (with slotting) is enough to counteract the recovery debuff from a nuke, making the only drawback to the nuke its recharge time (which Adrenalin Boost helps with, too).
* I use Forge from Thermal as it is a closer parallel to Fortitude than World of Pain
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Wow ! Damn good point. Wouldn't Blasters be jealous of that !!|
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
...It's worth noting also in the case of self-buffing Empathy Defenders and Pain Domination Corruptors, Adrenalin Boost/Painbringer (with slotting) is enough to counteract the recovery debuff from a nuke, making the only drawback to the nuke its recharge time (which Adrenalin Boost helps with, too).
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So I retract my comment about AB being thematic for empathy but too powerful.
Its simply too powerful to allow a solo Empath to use.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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Add Recovery Aura, and not only do you have positive Recovery after nuking, but your Recovery is still capped. |
Originally Posted by Biospark
Wow ! Damn good point. Wouldn't Blasters be jealous of that !!
So I retract my comment about AB being thematic for empathy but too powerful. Its simply too powerful to allow a solo Empath to use. |
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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So, you say that technical issues are irrelevant? |
Originally Posted by Savos
Quite stupid. Even if you could self target, all those support ATs would still solo slower and less efficiently compared to melee. Even with Empathy and Adrenaline Boost.
They don't have the damage to back it up, but they can take a hit or two. And you also include a whole lot of potential technical issues that have no point. Those concerns have no validity in discussion of whether or not it is a good idea to try. |
The fact that it very well may be IMPOSSIBLE TO DO WITH THE GAME ENGINE is extremely relevant.
If it cannot be done by any means, what point is there in even trying? Unless you'd rather they try it anyway and end up wasting everyone's time.
I'm not a programmer, and I don't know much about the coding of this game. But, if you can't target yourself to do ANYTHING, don't you think that maybe, just MAYBE there's a reason for it? The reason is probably that if you COULD target yourself, it would break the entire combat system in bad ways, and they decided that not allowing self-targeting would be preferable to wading through all that coding trying to fix the latest thing that got broken this week because of it.
No, my technical reasons very much have a point. If they tried allowing it and it broke the entire combat system, would you be happy with not being able to play at all until they fixed it? I wouldn't.
Or are you convinced that you can't target yourself just as a means of screwing over support ATs?
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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What? You aren't a programmer, ok... If they choose to do it, they would fix any bugs they see quite quickly should the need arise. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So, you say that technical issues are irrelevant?
The fact that it very well may be IMPOSSIBLE TO DO WITH THE GAME ENGINE is extremely relevant. If it cannot be done by any means, what point is there in even trying? Unless you'd rather they try it anyway and end up wasting everyone's time. I'm not a programmer, and I don't know much about the coding of this game. But, if you can't target yourself to do ANYTHING, don't you think that maybe, just MAYBE there's a reason for it? The reason is probably that if you COULD target yourself, it would break the entire combat system in bad ways, and they decided that not allowing self-targeting would be preferable to wading through all that coding trying to fix the latest thing that got broken this week because of it. No, my technical reasons very much have a point. If they tried allowing it and it broke the entire combat system, would you be happy with not being able to play at all until they fixed it? I wouldn't. Or are you convinced that you can't target yourself just as a means of screwing over support ATs? |
The current mechanic is a design decision from the original programming of the game, not from any engine limitation. Such reasoning has no place in this discussion, especially since Arcanaville indicates that it is indeed possible.
I'm a games programmer, and I agree with Claws here.
When you change something in a game (or any other piece of complex software) you effectively "wobble the jelly" and all sorts of seemingly unrelated bugs can crop up. Once they're identified and understood they're usuallly quick to fix, but finding them and identifying them can take heaps of time.
Imagine what the full test suite would be like for CoX. Test every power for every archetype under a wide variety of conditions (teamed, solo, against AVs, fighting your own duplicates) etc and make sure nothing bad happens.
All this testing costs money.
Here's an example of such a bug:
Heroes were allowed to go Villain-side with GR.
This meant Kheldians could play Villain content.
Carnies are available to fight from level 30 on redside instead of 40 like blueside).
Khelidans spawn Quantums.
Quantum Carnies are set to minimum level 40.
The upshot is any Villain team in the low 30's who has or had had a Khelidan on board can be presented with a mission thats impossible to finish, because of a level 40 minion near the objective or in the corridor or whatever. Its quite devastating when it happens, and potentially very embarrasing and alienating for the Khled player involved.
To find this one, you need to take a Kheldian (a rare archetype) to the other side (the less popular one of the two) and fight one specific enemy group within a speciifc level range.
The fix is simple, change one entry on the spreadsheet (minimum level for Quantum Carnies) and everyone's happy. Finding it however, is a dog of a job, and its certainly not the first thing you'd think of if you're implementing side-switching.
So, you really think it would be easy and cheap to find all the potential problems that self targetting could introduce?
The way I understand it, you get more XP when teaming, right? And from my experience, just running papers / radios is better than AE. Cuzz you never know what someone is gonna put in an AE mish. I tried one the other day, was nothing but EB's everywhere. Waste of time, when I coulda been piling up defeats vs regular mobs.