Peacebringers and Warshades and Numbers, Oh MY!
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I did actually get around to pm'ing him - it's been about a week now. I think he might be a tad busy.|
Originally Posted by Zenyth
Smiling Joe, did you ever get hold of Black Scorpion? Any kind of response?
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But truth be told, I'm not really expecting a response in either case.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
Nice right up...
And i agree the fix for pb lies with light form and seekers and prob pulsar...
Light form Should be a more Strength of Will clone. Still have the resistance+ mez prot but shorter recharge.. And Recharge not enhanceable.
Seekers: keep same dmg but make recharge 60 sec enhanceable.
Pulsar Raise the mag to at least 3 extent the radius and raise the recharge 20 sec more.
And Lastly i always believe the build up should have been changed to Rage.. since most of the human form powers are Super Strength Clones.. Rage would match up nice plus it could easily carry into forms..
Also since the implementation of fitness carrying over into form, I definitely think the devs should make it possible for all pools to carry over except the travels. ie ss, sj, would be locked out.. but Hasten the leadership pool, tough weave, and all the pool attacks should work in forms...
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Iron Wind km/regen Iron Static elec/reg Psy Entity 50 psy/dev Iron-Assassin 50 nin/nin
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Thanks! I am definitely on board with a lower recharge for seekers; I think it should be the cornerstone of any changes to the archetype. With reference to rage in place of build up, since the cottage rule forbids the retrofit of this now, I'm thinking that the seekers could give our attacks extra energy damage when they explode amounting to a 15% damage buff per seeker (You might see that suggestion a few posts up). Enough like rage for you?|
Originally Posted by IronAlex
Nice right up...
And i agree the fix for pb lies with light form and seekers and prob pulsar... Light form Should be a more Strength of Will clone. Still have the resistance+ mez prot but shorter recharge.. And Recharge not enhanceable. Seekers: keep same dmg but make recharge 60 sec enhanceable. Pulsar Raise the mag to at least 3 extent the radius and raise the recharge 20 sec more. And Lastly i always believe the build up should have been changed to Rage.. since most of the human form powers are Super Strength Clones.. Rage would match up nice plus it could easily carry into forms.. Also since the implementation of fitness carrying over into form, I definitely think the devs should make it possible for all pools to carry over except the travels. ie ss, sj, would be locked out.. but Hasten the leadership pool, tough weave, and all the pool attacks should work in forms... |
EDIT - I plugged the tanker version of SoW into the spreadsheet, and I have to say you'd be mad to want SoW over Light Form. Since Light Form can be slotted for recharge, with SO's you can get the recharge down to 377 seconds. SoW cannot be slotted, so that leaves you stuck with a recharge time that's only 77 seconds shorter. And what do you get for this shorter recharge? Significantly smaller boosts to your resistance - so small that you'd be unable to cap your resistance even with the shields running! Light Form in its current incarnation might have an excessive recharge, but you can slot it enough to bring its recharge down to comparable levels and nearly cap your resistance without the shields. No way I'd get behind this as a straight port, and even if you left the resistance and brought the recharge down, making the recharge enhanceable would be such a small boost that it wouldn't be worth it.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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Since they serve roughly the same functions, does this really break the rule? They could just alter the name to something like Essence Build Up or whatever. Admittedly, I'm a huge fan of rage, and since it should carry over to the forms I really like that idea. That alone would almost be enough to get me to play a pb |
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
With reference to rage in place of build up, since the cottage rule forbids the retrofit of this now
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Just for fun, I decided to plug rage into the Peacebringer analysis. See the results by clicking this link.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
Since they serve roughly the same functions, does this really break the rule? They could just alter the name to something like Essence Build Up or whatever. Admittedly, I'm a huge fan of rage, and since it should carry over to the forms I really like that idea. That alone would almost be enough to get me to play a pb
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It was actually a bit harder than I thought it would be. It seems backwards, but first I had to weight the crash. This is because the 10 seconds of no damage occurs outside of "Essence Build Up's" up time. I ignored the end discount and assumed that you would not be crazy enough to keep attacking during the crash. So I ended up with a new column called "Crash Weighted Damage" which subtracted those ten seconds of nothing from the total damage.
THEN I weighted that result against the uptime of our new luminous Rage clone. The result brought Peacebringer human DPS up from around 112 dps to just under 134 dps. The other totals are all on the sheet on the other end of that link if anyone's interested.
I'd be on board for this, provided they also brought photon seekers' recharge down to make them perma out of the box (insert unique flag caveat here, of course).
It's not reflected in the spreadsheet, but that would bring human st dps up to 158 dps. What was the total single target human WS dps? Oh yeah. 189.
EDIT - I just went back and looked at my suggestion of adding a 30 second 15% damage buff per seeker per explosion (along with a lowering of the recharge) - the resulting single target human dps? 158 dps. Heh. Yeah, I'd be on board for either.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
I am wondering if a change to Photon seekers being like the northern lights that Lord winter has make the cut. Have only two of them, and only two at any time, Have an 8 minute recharge and a 4 minute of balls being out, enhancible? Lower damage then the fluffies, maybe 80% of their damage.
Smiling Joe ... have a look (if you can) at what would happen if PB Build Up were redone as a Power Siphon (Kinetic Melee) clone instead, and one that would work with ranged attacks and not just melee. Go ahead and ignore the damage debuff aspect and work instead only on the stacking damage buff side of the equation and see what comes out.
Photon Seekers are (currently) a Crashless Nuke power at the moment ... and a pretty crummy one at that. I wouldn't mind getting a (functional) clone of Assault Rifle's Full Auto in place of Photon Seekers, where you repeatedly bombard an AoE with little glowing balls of light that go kaboom. Heck, even redoing the power as a "rain" power would be a vast improvement on it at this stage.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Photon Rain!
Rain of Light!
Yeah, either of those would be cool, but I'd settle for smarter Seekers, or ones that didn't take so long to bring back up.
Be Well!
Fireheart
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Here's the thing: we could go rounds all day about changes to Build Up that could - and would - increase Peacebringer damage, but if you take away the pet damage Peacebringers hands-down outdamage Warshades.|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
Smiling Joe ... have a look (if you can) at what would happen if PB Build Up were redone as a Power Siphon (Kinetic Melee) clone instead, and one that would work with ranged attacks and not just melee. Go ahead and ignore the damage debuff aspect and work instead only on the stacking damage buff side of the equation and see what comes out.
Photon Seekers are (currently) a Crashless Nuke power at the moment ... and a pretty crummy one at that. I wouldn't mind getting a (functional) clone of Assault Rifle's Full Auto in place of Photon Seekers, where you repeatedly bombard an AoE with little glowing balls of light that go kaboom. Heck, even redoing the power as a "rain" power would be a vast improvement on it at this stage. |
That's right. I said it, and bolded it for emphasis. Even with the double mires on black dwarf, white dwarf is the loser in the damage department by only 3 dps. Human Peacebringers FAR AND AWAY outdamage human Warshades outside of the pets. Even the Bright Nova does more than the Dark Nova until large groups are accounted for in the mire. It's all right there in the spreadsheets linked in the first post. Build Up vs. Mire is not the problem. Photon Seekers vs. Dark Extraction IS.
So when seeking to bring some balance between the two archetypes, we'd be much better served, IMHO, to ask for Photon Seekers to be brought more in line with Dark Extraction, because otherwise you're just unbalancing Build Up to compensate for Dark Extraction.
However, it is kind of fun to play around with, so of course you know I'm going to look at it, just like I looked at rage. Assuming (quite generously, I might add) 5 targets stacked at 25% each, and taking into account a 20 second duration and a 45.29 second enhanced and hasted recharge, Human form Single Target dps comes to around 166.31. Bright Nova comes out to 182.72dps, and White Dwarf comes out to 125.69dps.
Now that's just fun with numbers; for Build Up to be a clone of Siphon Power would be impractical to the point of being a non-starter. The damage debuff would require every single power in the Peacebringer Primary to be re-coded to include a damage debuffing component that is set at zero percent until buffed by the casting of our Siphon Power clone. This, and the fact that Peacebringer attacks already have a secondary effect, pretty much kills this idea on the table.
Unless you'd like to disregard the damage debuff and go with a straight stackable damage buff, which would again require re-coding every single attack.
All to gain very little more than you could already have by buffing Photon Seekers.
I could be wrong, but I'm not too keen on this idea.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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Hhaha nice.. ok like the person said under you if we tried both.. the rage and the lowering of seekers then we would have a big change to pb..|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
Just for fun, I decided to plug rage into the Peacebringer analysis. See the results by clicking this link.
It was actually a bit harder than I thought it would be. It seems backwards, but first I had to weight the crash. This is because the 10 seconds of no damage occurs outside of "Essence Build Up's" up time. I ignored the end discount and assumed that you would not be crazy enough to keep attacking during the crash. So I ended up with a new column called "Crash Weighted Damage" which subtracted those ten seconds of nothing from the total damage. THEN I weighted that result against the uptime of our new luminous Rage clone. The result brought Peacebringer human DPS up from around 112 dps to just under 134 dps. The other totals are all on the sheet on the other end of that link if anyone's interested. I'd be on board for this, provided they also brought photon seekers' recharge down to make them perma out of the box (insert unique flag caveat here, of course). It's not reflected in the spreadsheet, but that would bring human st dps up to 158 dps. What was the total single target human WS dps? Oh yeah. 189. EDIT - I just went back and looked at my suggestion of adding a 30 second 15% damage buff per seeker per explosion (along with a lowering of the recharge) - the resulting single target human dps? 158 dps. Heh. Yeah, I'd be on board for either. |
also when i was talking about SoW vs unstop i was thinking the pvp version.. since we dont get much dmg resist out of it anyways in pvp .. im more looking at the crash+ recharge.. maybe they can just look at light form for pvp.. or make a new version of light form that incorporates the crash of SoW but the resistance and recharge of unstop.. idk
What do you think of pools except for travel working in forms? so that when you switch back and forth you dont have to toggling on stuff in middle of battle.. also alow the shields to come back on once you detoggle forms..
Lastly i think shades are alright where they are.. what i would like to see for shades though is mez prot per each person in mob in eclipse..
And a aoe heal in black dwarf like dark scrappers instead of the single heal.. god i hate that thing.
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You know, I have always felt the human shields were redundant with Lightform and Eclipse. To me, it would be so much better to just keep Lightform and Eclipse, but change the human form shields to a defense equivalent, making it actually useful to stack them. It would also relieve some of the suckage of no mez protection, as deflecting attacks means you are also less frequently mezzed. I don't think that would ever happen though. |
Originally Posted by IronAlex
also when i was talking about SoW vs unstop i was thinking the pvp version.. since we dont get much dmg resist out of it anyways in pvp .. im more looking at the crash+ recharge.. maybe they can just look at light form for pvp.. or make a new version of light form that incorporates the crash of SoW but the resistance and recharge of unstop.. idk |
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I actually suggested that very thing back just prior to I13 when we were all going rounds with Castle about human-form Mez protection. I'd LOVE to see the shields changed to defense.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
You know, I have always felt the human shields were redundant with Lightform and Eclipse. To me, it would be so much better to just keep Lightform and Eclipse, but change the human form shields to a defense equivalent, making it actually useful to stack them. It would also relieve some of the suckage of no mez protection, as deflecting attacks means you are also less frequently mezzed. I don't think that would ever happen though.
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Mostly for the reasons you list than for any mez relief.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
We should start a petition, but I think that's against the rules.
I think they could make that change, actually, without breaking the cottage rule. They would just need to tone down the resistance in each toggle shield by a good margin and replace it with some defense. So maybe 1/3 their current resistance values to make up for it?
And as long as I'm dreaming here, add resistance to end drain to Absorption/Incandescence. But now I'm off topic
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I would not say no to my shields becoming defense.
I would not say no to build up becoming more Ragey.
I would not say no to changes to Lightform (I really dislike how it locks us out of shapechanging).
Id not say no to alot of things as long as it meant we were looked at, acknowledged, and kept in the loop. I just want the class I play (Cause I really do enjoy it) to get some honest attention.
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I think there'd be no reason to leave a form once you were in it. If powers like Assault, Maneuvers, Stealth, Tactics, Invoke Panic, Tough, and Weave were available in form most people (myself included) would just build to max out one form and never, ever switch forms again.|
Originally Posted by IronAlex
What do you think of pools except for travel working in forms? so that when you switch back and forth you dont have to toggling on stuff in middle of battle.. also alow the shields to come back on once you detoggle forms..
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Which - on a shapeshifting archetype - sort of defeats the point, don't you think?
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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true. lol after you said invoke panic and stealth i was like ... hmm.. but if u really think about it would it really limit the other forms? cause then your just fighting for slots.. if you make dwarf strong, then human and or nova would be garbage.. and u will basically be playing a below average tank.. |
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
I think there'd be no reason to leave a form once you were in it. If powers like Assault, Maneuvers, Stealth, Tactics, Invoke Panic, Tough, and Weave were available in form most people (myself included) would just build to max out one form and never, ever switch forms again.
Which - on a shapeshifting archetype - sort of defeats the point, don't you think? |
also what they good do instead would leave all your toggles on when you shift but suppress the benefits and suppress the end usage.. so when you switch back you don't have to retoggle.. this would make it feel more shape shifty like morp.. rather than switching back to human.. and retoggling 3 shields/tough/assault/tactics/acro/ss/and sj
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lol i remember that.. dont remember what side i was on though...|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
I actually suggested that very thing back just prior to I13 when we were all going rounds with Castle about human-form Mez protection. I'd LOVE to see the shields changed to defense.
Mostly for the reasons you list than for any mez relief. |
But instead of making the shields defensive.. (cause im more biased towards resistance).. we make light form more like Moment of Glory .
MoG: def based+ resistance + less recharge so we can use it more+ shorter duration so we not locked out of forms. But the duration at 30sec and put the base recharge to 300 (enhanceable.)
WS on the other hand i always believe they should be Def base.. since they have a def based toggle in the set. and then leave eclipse resistance base.. so thats where ws would get their resistance stacking. Then give black dwarf a aoe heal.
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Iron Wind km/regen Iron Static elec/reg Psy Entity 50 psy/dev Iron-Assassin 50 nin/nin
Again: Doing the numbers, Light Form in its current state is more powerful/effective than Moment of Glory.
So clearly the answer is to reprogram Photon Seekers to instead be an emulation/variant of Extract Essence which doesn't require a corpse to summon.
Rig it so that it is "perma" out of the box (duration = recharge) without enhancement, and permit more than one to be summoned at a time. The summoned pets just shoot Gleaming Bolt (single target) and Gleaming Blast (single target) and Proton Scatter (cone) attacks, just like a Warshade's Fluffies, which have a Defense Debuff rather than a Slow Debuff effect and get white animations rather than purple/black.
Set the base recharge and duration for 240 seconds (ie. the same as Warshade Fluffies) and call it a day.
So instead of deploying self-destructing one-shot bombs ... you'd get White Fluffies that look an awful lot like Light Form (ie. reuse avatar for Photon Seekers).
S imple.
E asy.
E ffective.
Not being done ... 
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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Even if it didn't violate the cottage rule six ways from Sunday I wouldn't endorse such a change. As much as I loves me some fluffies, I would hate to see Photon Seekers turned into a brightly-colored copy of them. I like the fact that they are unique from Dark Extraction, and I like the fact that they have much different uses in practice. |
Originally Posted by Redlynne
So clearly the answer is to reprogram Photon Seekers to instead be an emulation/variant of Extract Essence which doesn't require a corpse to summon.
Rig it so that it is "perma" out of the box (duration = recharge) without enhancement, and permit more than one to be summoned at a time. The summoned pets just shoot Gleaming Bolt (single target) and Gleaming Blast (single target) and Proton Scatter (cone) attacks, just like a Warshade's Fluffies, which have a Defense Debuff rather than a Slow Debuff effect and get white animations rather than purple/black. Set the base recharge and duration for 240 seconds (ie. the same as Warshade Fluffies) and call it a day. So instead of deploying self-destructing one-shot bombs ... you'd get White Fluffies that look an awful lot like Light Form (ie. reuse avatar for Photon Seekers). S imple. E asy. E ffective. Not being done ... |
Nothing says their only use is emulating a small, crashless nuke, although I do like using them for that (hitting build up before photon seekers may not boost their damage, but it lets you get a built-up dawn strike off before any nearly dead victims of the seekers are knocked outside its radius).
No, you can also use them to keep flying melee'rs away from your nova while you blast, and since typically only one or two will peel off to go bang! in their face and knock them from the air, you've got one or two left for the next genius who decides to fly up.
They're absolutely phenomenal at protecting you while you back out of a fight and around the corner to recover from a light form crash.
Reduce their recharge so that they can be perma out of the box (and I'll throw in reducing their aggro range to about 15 feet) and you've got all that utility whenever you need it.
Give their self destruct power the fiery embrace treatment that adds energy damage to each of your attacks in the amount of 15% of those attacks' respective damage (as I believe Fiery Embrace does with fire damage) for the same duration as fiery embrace. If all three explode that's a 45% damage buff that lasts 30 seconds and can carry over into the forms. Combine that with strategic use of Build Up and you can either have a single ten seconds of 117% damage buff for a good massive burst, or you can alternate the two for a more persistent 45%~72% damage buff.
This brings Peacebringer damage much closer to a Warshades without equaling it (because like it or not Warshades SHOULD have more damage potential than Peacebringers, given the extra conditions that come with that damage. I just think Peacebringers pay too high of a price as it stands for the convenience of what they do) AND it gives Peacebringers strategic options for how and when that damage boost is applied.
The key problem I can see with that proposal is that Fiery Embrace is already a self-affecting power, so the boost that it gives is already coded to affect its primary target. Photon Seekers, because their self destruct power is targeted at enemies, may not be able to grant that buff in the same way to anyone but their enemies.
If that's the case, then I would suggest that a more generic aoe damage buff component be added to the power so that any allies in range of the power get the buff. The chance to give a fellow teammate or two a periodic 15-45% damage buff would be appealing to a team, no? Now, the radius of this buff might have to be small as a result, requiring Peacebringers and their allies to be almost in melee range to the photon seekers' explosions to get the buff, but I wouldn't have a problem with a little bit of required strategic positioning.
The result is what I'm after, and I don't think buffing a teammate's damage by a maximum of 45% is a game-breaking side effect, either, given that most players don't stand shoulder-to-shoulder in battle, and the radius of such a buff would have to be small.
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The blast radius of a Seeker Drone is only 10 ft anyway. Could just use that as the Buff Radius too.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
Ya know this might be me and I've been kind of skimming this thread but
In the last few weeks I've been playing my ws, the biggest problem I've had is that I cannot keep extracted essence alive. Picked up taunt, slotted res/def procs but doesn't seem to help so my question is would it be completely out of the realm of possibility for the devs(assuming they change pets if they get a look) change photon series's and extracted essence to a volt sentinel type of pet? It seems dumb to me that when your dps is that dependent on a pet, it has the ability to draw as much aggro as it does. Atleast something like a controller has the ability to heal or buff their pets and their dps isn't even nearly as dependent on their pets as Khalds are, assuming I'm reading this thread correctly. Maybe change them to share your human form buffs? Just a thought
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you could always use your 'heal other' clone....oh wait, wrong half of the AT.
from what i recall fluffies carry over the buffs you have when they spawn. so they get some hasten, eclipse etc. for some of their life.
Or for Bright Nova to approach being like an actual Blaster.
That's why they'll never allow it.
I know its not a technical limitation, after all I can use Call to Justice and several other temp powers while Im in my forms. I can understand why they want to limit some...things that have you bust out an item look wonky with nova and dwarf. Ive got a picture somewhere around here from waaaaaay back in like Issue 3 or 4 where I've got a nova hanging out in peregrine, and clenched in his alien squid insect mandibles is the old frankengun from some temp power I got for something. I don't remember exactly what, but it was hilarious enough that I took a screenshot.
So it just takes a little work, weed out powers that have you pulling rabbits out of your pants and let the clickies flow!