City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

i20 Questions

aarithon

By aarithon,
Posted on: 2011-04-20 10:43 in Kheldians

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
Yes, you can. But there's not as much benefit to doing so. The reason a MFing Warshade works the way it does (frequent form flopping) is that the forms buff each other. There's very little of that in a PB.
Soooo...I should go Bi-Form? Like Human-Dwarf?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Antares_NA View Post
Soooo...I should go Bi-Form? Like Human-Dwarf?
I didn't say that! Sorry to have given the wrong impression. Each form has its uses as a PB, but there's not the pressing need to keep changing forms all the time.

Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.

 

Posted

Well, my PB is currently Human-Dwarf.

I just want to be a good, capable Kheldian!

 

Posted

Human/Dwarf is a good build, if heavy on the melee. It allows you to build some moderate defenses and make a very capable off-tank if you get into IOs.

In fact, the best off-tank I've seen was a Human/Dwarf PB on a MoSTF run. He was tough when he needed to be, but dropped to human for some impressive single target damage output when the aggro was under control.

Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison View Post
This is total BS. We've done the numbers, PBs aren't far behind Warshades on SOs.
The numbers you did showed PBs doing roughly half the single target and 2/3s the AOE damage of warshades, with at best even survivability and at worst 1/20th the survivability.

How much farther behind do they have to get before some of you will admit it's a problem?!

Quote:
Played and built well they can still do incredible things.

My very first MoSTF had a PB and his contribution to the team was invaluable. MoSTF, at the time, was the hardest task in the game.
No, MOLRSF was

And I have the mostf badge on my PB too. Who with me at the controls does, yes, outperform a lot of people.

And my brute with me at the controls outperforms the PB and even more people. My widow, ditto. My defender, ditto. My MM, ditto. All of my alts, including ones with much less extensive and expensive IO builds: Ditto.

I haven't ever said that "your PB" is worse than "everyone else." I have always said that "your PB" is fighting an uphill performance battle against "your any other alt." Assuming you don't self-gimp your alts, they will do better in your hands in the same situations. You can contrive cases where the PB shines over some character that's not well-suited to it - I mean hey, PBs have more control than fire melee scrappers! But that leaves out the part where the fire melee scrapper is four spawns ahead of the PB and counting because they do triple the damage and don't need the control for anything in the first place.

Quote:
I have seen PBs on incarnate trials and they do well. They do not always win the consolation prize as your hyperbole states.
I did not say always as your straw man states, I said regularly - as in often.

Quote:
If you enjoy playing a PB, there is absolutely no reason not to play one.

They're not an optimal pick, but following that logic to the extreme means we'd all be the same optimized fire/rad and ill/cold controllers.
There's a difference between "optimal" and "extremely substandard." In fact that's kind of what the definition of the terms are and why we have them in our language. I'm not saying that PBs aren't optimal. I'm saying they aren't competitive, and if you're going to be honest and apply endgame standards to the AT, you can't deny that.

Which is why the argument always comes back to trying to convince people they don't have to be as good as everyone else, or to saying that if they like it, it's fine to suck, or occasionally that endgame standards are too high or aren't important. And to that last I say: Bull. Getting to 50's trivial and if you like the character as much as a lot of you certainly do, you are going to want to play and enjoy them in the endgame.

But when you suck you stop liking it really fast, especially now that the game has a system in place with 'participation diversification' in order to tell you how you suck. You don't need to get threads every time. Just reasonably often. And you'll be thinking the same thing my friend said the other day when after a trial treated him roughly and he got threads he said, declining to go again: "I'd rather stick my hand a in meatgrinder."

"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector View Post
The numbers you did showed PBs doing roughly half the single target and 2/3s the AOE damage of warshades, with at best even survivability and at worst 1/20th the survivability.

How much farther behind do they have to get before some of you will admit it's a problem?!
If you're going to quote the numbers from those spreadsheets I made, you might want to go back and look at the reasons for those numbers.

Peacebringers do half to 2/3's the damage of Warshades for one reason and one reason alone: Extracted Essences. Remove the level 32 pets from the equation and Peacebringers are pretty much dead even with Warshades, with a slight nod given to Peacebringers in human form and a slight nod given to Warshades in Dwarf Form.

Buff the Photon Seekers=buff the archetype.

Same goes with survivability. Warshades have ten times the survivability as Peacebringers due to one power: Eclipse. If Light Form were up as often as Eclipse, you'd see the combination of that and the self-contained heals propelling Peacebringers up to par and even past their darker halves' durability.

To the OP -

My advice is to roll with the tri-form, but switch forms from spawn to spawn instead of from attack to attack. If there are two spawns in close proximity, go dwarf. If there's a high ceiling in the room, try nova. If Light Form is charged and you need extra damage, pop hasten and light form and don't look back.

Hami-O's are your friend. Grab some range/damage IO's for around 100,000 apiece (last I checked) and slot two of each in nova attacks along with one accuracy (for an example)

One IO I would heavily invest in: Achilles' Heel chance for -res. Snatch them up every chance you get and don't stop until you've got one in every attack. That's right. Every attack. There are those who may consider this wasteful, given that it doesn't stack, but what you're doing is stacking the RNG in your favor.

And use binds and macros. For example:

/macro stomp "powexec_toggleoff white dwarf$$goto_tray 1$$powexec_name solar flare"

fits very nicely in your dwarf tray for the final aoe of an almost dead spawn. Many more like that in the link in my sig.

Good luck!

The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe View Post
If you're going to quote the numbers from those spreadsheets I made, you might want to go back and look at the reasons for those numbers.

Peacebringers do half to 2/3's the damage of Warshades for one reason and one reason alone: Extracted Essences. Remove the level 32 pets from the equation and Peacebringers are pretty much dead even with Warshades, with a slight nod given to Peacebringers in human form and a slight nod given to Warshades in Dwarf Form.

Buff the Photon Seekers=buff the archetype.

Same goes with survivability. Warshades have ten times the survivability as Peacebringers due to one power: Eclipse. If Light Form were up as often as Eclipse, you'd see the combination of that and the self-contained heals propelling Peacebringers up to par and even past their darker halves' durability.
Why exactly are the reasons relevant? I'm serious here. Enlighten me. The problem in this discussion isn't that people don't know how to fix PBs. There are numerous threads on that subject. The problems in this discussion is that people are 1 - denying PBs even have a problem, and 2 - denying that the problem is important enough to merit resolution, and 3 - giving new players bad advice that will almost invariably lead them into buyer's remorse over their PB a few weeks or months down the road, unless they abandon the character prior to hitting the endgame.

The fact that you can point to specific powers as 'why' doesn't change the facts of 'what.' Indeed if you want photon seekers and lightform buffed to match extracted essence and eclipse, the first hurdle is convincing the devs that buffs to PBs need to happen at all, which is only made harder by people posting in denial. And is also made harder by people continuing to play PBs, because the most effective way to get dev attention to something is generally to vote with your feet. I'm very cynical about this, but my motivation is really more to address point 3: I don't think the devs are going to read or care about the feedback in this forum. I do think we have something of a social obligation to tell people the truth about what they're getting into when they come here looking for advice.

Edit - fixed bolded word; error changed the entire meaning of phrase.

"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector View Post
Why exactly are the reasons relevant? I'm serious here. Enlighten me.
They're... relevant because they explain what Peacebringers need adjusted to get in line with Warshades?

Quote:
The problem in this discussion is that people don't know how to fix PBs. There are numerous threads on that subject.
People don't know how to fix them? How so? Pretty much every thread I have seen on the subject cite similar things: recharge on Photon Seekers for the damage they do, Pulsar only a guaranteed Mag 2 stun, Light Form issues, build up not lasting long enough, etc. Suggestions from people that know Peacebringers are often quite similar. The problem is more that NOTHING is done about the issues everyone acknowledges for the AT.

Quote:
The problems in this discussion is that people are 1 - denying PBs even have a problem, and 2 - denying that the problem is important enough to merit resolution, and 3 - giving new players bad advice that will almost invariably lead them into buyer's remorse over their PB a few weeks or months down the road, unless they abandon the character prior to hitting the endgame.
Exactly who is doing this? Did you miss MY BOLDED AND CAPS LOCKED STATEMENT THAT PEACEBRINGERS NEED IMPROVEMENTS TO GET IN LINE WITH WARSHADES AND OTHER ATS IN MY PREVIOUS POST? I see no one suggesting the things in number 1 or 2. Peacebringers need adjustment. However, the problem is your 3, where you suggest that Peacebringers cause buyers remorse. Again, Peacebringers are not so weak that they can't play decently in the game. You may not enjoy them, but that does not mean they are not viable

This whole post clearly misreads everything I and others have clarified on the subject. You can't seem to distinguish between "plays okay but needs some adjustments to be closer to other ATs" and "this AT has powers all over and is in serious need of improvement."

Quote:
The fact that you can point to specific powers as 'why' doesn't change the facts of 'what.' Indeed if you want photon seekers and lightform buffed to match extracted essence and eclipse, the first hurdle is convincing the devs that buffs to PBs need to happen at all, which is only made harder by people posting in denial. And is also made harder by people continuing to play PBs, because the most effective way to get dev attention to something is generally to vote with your feet. I'm very cynical about this, but my motivation is really more to address point 3: I don't think the devs are going to read or care about the feedback in this forum.
Okay, this doesn't make much sense. We can't control what the developers do, and I know BAB and Castle at least had some ideas for the AT that they couldn't follow through on because of time constraints. Nothing being done is an issue, but it's not necessarily because no one acknowledges the issue.

You can get get dev attention by posting about it, and that's about it. Even then, there are no guarantees. I and others posted until we were blue in the face about how Fiery Aura needed some tweaking still after I11, and nothing happened. Castle suddenly posted in a Shields thread in the Scrapper forums that mentioned the issue, and BAM! suddenly adjustments were made in time for GR. I don't know what triggered it for him, or even if it was that thread. It might have been on his to-do list and he finally had time for it, I dunno.

But not playing an AT that I like? Heck no. Devices needs help, but it doesn't mean I'm letting my Archery/Devices Blaster sit, same for my Peacebringer. I wish I could like the mechanics of Warshades, but I just can't, and I like Peacebringers. So I have my alpha to rare levels on my Peacebringer, and I'll work him into the next four whenever I can... darn grindy nature of the trials is the only thing holding me back there.

Oh, and last but not least:

Quote:
I do think we have something of a social obligation to tell people the truth about what they're getting into when they come here looking for advice.
I am telling it how it is, by the way. Peacebringers need some tweaks but are plenty fun to play. I'm calling you out for not calling it how it is, though.

*added* I do apologize for the caps and bold, and sounding a little cranky, but I do hate having to repeat myself... especially when I'm grading through a huge stack of papers.

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

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim View Post
They're... relevant because they explain what Peacebringers need adjusted to get in line with Warshades?

People don't know how to fix them? How so? Pretty much every thread I have seen on the subject cite similar things: recharge on Photon Seekers for the damage they do, Pulsar only a guaranteed Mag 2 stun, Light Form issues, build up not lasting long enough, etc. Suggestions from people that know Peacebringers are often quite similar. The problem is more that NOTHING is done about the issues everyone acknowledges for the AT.
I meant isn't. It was a typo/error. My bad, I post quickly without proofing sometimes.

Quote:
Exactly who is doing this? Did you miss MY BOLDED AND CAPS LOCKED STATEMENT THAT PEACEBRINGERS NEED IMPROVEMENTS TO GET IN LINE WITH WARSHADES AND OTHER ATS IN MY PREVIOUS POST? I see no one suggesting the things in number 1 or 2. Peacebringers need adjustment. However, the problem is your 3, where you suggest that Peacebringers cause buyers remorse. Again, Peacebringers are not so weak that they can't play decently in the game. You may not enjoy them, but that does not mean they are not viable

This whole post clearly misreads everything I and others have clarified on the subject. You can't seem to distinguish between "plays okay but needs some adjustments to be closer to other ATs" and "this AT has powers all over and is in serious need of improvement."
What I'm saying is that the truth is in fact: "this AT has powers all over and is in serious need of improvement" and not "plays okay but needs some adjustments to be closer to other ATs."

"Some adjustments" don't literally double your DPS and increase your survivability peak by 20-fold. That is major adjustment. If you have 100 dollars, and need 200 dollars to buy something, you aren't going to be able to afford it by getting 20 dollars. 20 dollars is 1/5th of what you need.

PBs need almost 100 dps to catch up to warshades. That's near-doubling their current DPS. A doubling of performance isn't a minor adjustment.

That's what I mean by the gap being bigger than people are admitting to. These are the numbers. Heck the highest DPS practical for many 'true offense' ATs, even with full incarnate builds and being so purpled that their shine is visible from orbit, is in the 300-400 range without using -regen powers and/or reactive DOT proccing pets.

That means PBs need almost 1/4 of the maximum dps that's practical to achieve at all, to be added to them, in order to meet up with warshades.

How big of a gap do the numbers have to show before it stops being minor adjustments and 'needs help but viable'? Seriously, give me a number? A threshold. At what point do you draw the line? What makes "needs to be doubled" not enough?

Those aren't rhetorical questions.

Quote:
Okay, this doesn't make much sense. We can't control what the developers do, and I know BAB and Castle at least had some ideas for the AT that they couldn't follow through on because of time constraints. Nothing being done is an issue, but it's not necessarily because no one acknowledges the issue.

You can get get dev attention by posting about it, and that's about it. Even then, there are no guarantees. I and others posted until we were blue in the face about how Fiery Aura needed some tweaking still after I11, and nothing happened. Castle suddenly posted in a Shields thread in the Scrapper forums that mentioned the issue, and BAM! suddenly adjustments were made in time for GR. I don't know what triggered it for him, or even if it was that thread. It might have been on his to-do list and he finally had time for it, I dunno.

But not playing an AT that I like? Heck no. Devices needs help, but it doesn't mean I'm letting my Archery/Devices Blaster sit, same for my Peacebringer. I wish I could like the mechanics of Warshades, but I just can't, and I like Peacebringers. So I have my alpha to rare levels on my Peacebringer, and I'll work him into the next four whenever I can... darn grindy nature of the trials is the only thing holding me back there.
It makes perfect sense to me. The devs decide a lot of things based on datamining. I doubt they read these forums, and if they do, they rarely listen to any posters on them unless that poster happens to be part of the openly double-secret forum cartel. Ask the pvpers how well the devs listened to them on the forums.

That leaves us with datamining showing a trend as the only way to impress on them that there is a problem. Voting with our feet is something they will eventually notice and potentially take seriously enough to act on.

Quote:
Oh, and last but not least:

I am telling it how it is, by the way. Peacebringers need some tweaks but are plenty fun to play. I'm calling you out for not calling it how it is, though.

*added* I do apologize for the caps and bold, and sounding a little cranky, but I do hate having to repeat myself... especially when I'm grading through a huge stack of papers.
I am calling it like it is. I've played a PB extensively. It's not competitive with any of my other builds.

For example, a PB can't reasonably do a scrapper RWZ challenge or solo a pylon and might if lucky be barely able to make a serious run at it if loaded with incarnate powers and purples. The truth is though you'd just be throwing that effort into the black hole that is how bad PBs suck to begin with, and end up with a character that is at best equal to an pre-incarnate anything else, and at worst, still not even up with an SO'd warshade.

These are measurable tests you can run for empirical evidence. They produce facts, not opinions.

And I understand about frustration. Trust me, I feel it from my end too. We disagree on the severity of the problem, it seems (that is what #2 was intended to address in the list of 3 problems. Not everything on the list applies to every post or every poster, as I would hope is clear).

"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector View Post
For example, a PB can't reasonably do a scrapper RWZ challenge or solo a pylon
Trick question ... should they be able to?

If that's the "benchmark minimum performance threshold" you're going to set, you first need to answer (and explain) why it's a reasonable one to expect. My reading of your post indicates that you have not explained why this benchmark expectation is in any way reasonable.



I play a Quad-form Peacebringer. My build is optimized towards regular/steady AoE Damage Over Time using quickly recharging powers. I don't use any of the long recharge "spike damage" powers at all in my build, preferring instead powers I can use multiple times per spawn group. With the exception of Dwarf powers, my build is also decidedly heavy on ranged AoE in Human/Light and Nova forms, giving me "lawnmower" applicability in teams.

Given the AoE heavy orientation of my build, I would consider it decidedly SUB-optimal for any sort of single target "scrapper" styled benchmarking challenge. It would therefore be unreasonable, in my estimation to hold up *my* build for my Peacebringer to any sort of "benchmarking test" designed for Scrappers involving pure single target damage per second throughput onto a single target.



"Universe, is infinite! I am finite. You are finite. This, this is wrong tool. Never use this."
- Zathraas

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Redlynne View Post
Trick question ... should they be able to?

If that's the "benchmark minimum performance threshold" you're going to set, you first need to answer (and explain) why it's a reasonable one to expect. My reading of your post indicates that you have not explained why this benchmark expectation is in any way reasonable.
This isn't a minimal threshold, it's a relative threshold.

Should or shouldn't they be able to doesn't matter: numerous other ATs do, regularly, and measure their individual performances by how fast and easily they do. That's what I mean when I say the PB isn't even in the same league as them.

Whether or not that's balanced or good for the game or whatever is moot. It's the reality of the game we have. People are doing it. Edit: And the devs, far from changing it, are making it worse by adding new endgame power tiers (incarnate powers) while raising the difficulty in the incarnate trials to over-compensate and maintain challenge. Builds that are 'mediocre' in normal content become 'deathtraps' in the endgame as a result.

I've said elsewhere that I didn't disagree that PBs can meet the 'dev-defined' minimum threshold of being able to solo on +0x1 difficulty. I merely set that minimum threshold is ludicrously low and should be dismissed because of the importance of the relative threshold.

You don't have to be single-target oriented to meet these benchmarks. But AOE characters are going to find their niches increasingly deprecated by the endgame, as judgement powers become more common and fights with hard targets that are impractical to AOE down have been becoming more common in the content all the way back since the introduction of the ITF and its boss and EB spam... actually, even before that, with the RWZ mothership raid's boss and EB spam. High defense-based or defense-enhanced survivability (to help avoid debuffing cascades), and taking down meaty targets quickly, are the two lynchpins of highly successful modern character.

I didn't make this up, the devs did when they started making the endgame enemies of choice +4 bosses, EBs, and AVs.

Double-edit: It should be clear to anyone who is doing endgame content by now that the "game not being made harder for IOs" doesn't really apply to said endgame.

"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector View Post
Why exactly are the reasons relevant? I'm serious here. Enlighten me. The problem in this discussion isn't that people don't know how to fix PBs. There are numerous threads on that subject. The problems in this discussion is that people are 1 - denying PBs even have a problem, and 2 - denying that the problem is important enough to merit resolution, and 3 - giving new players bad advice that will almost invariably lead them into buyer's remorse over their PB a few weeks or months down the road, unless they abandon the character prior to hitting the endgame.
Two powers need changing. Two. Changing one power will double your dps. Changing one other power will increase your survivability. What sounds more likely to you: convincing the devs that the entire archetype is crap and must be changed, or convincing the devs that two powers are seriously underperforming and need fixed?

I don't disagree that the archetype needs major help, but there's nothing wrong with being pragmatic, either. If changing two powers will change the archetype, then I'm all for focusing on those two powers. Hyperbole will not convince them. Reasoning by one or two players will not convince them. Know what else won't convince them? Putting on our walking shoes and discouraging other players from playing them.

Only datamining on their part will bring any kind of change, and you want to deprive them of that data by staging some sort of mass walkout on the archetype? That's wrong on two levels. First, even if you get everyone reading the forums to stop playing Peacebringers, you've got... only the people on the forums not playing Peacebringers. People playing the game who don't read the forums vastly outnumber us, as if you didn't already know that, and would still be providing that data.

Second, thousands upon thousands of blasters walked around at the debt cap for the first few years of this game, and it was that huge amount of blaster debt that convinced the developers to scrap Defiance 1.0 and come out with Defiance 2.0. People sure didn't avoid the archetype.

Same with stalkers. People might not have teamed with them, but they sure as hell didn't suffer in terms of population. The developers saw that the vast majority of them were in pvp and were solo in pve and decided to help them team.

If I had my way, I'd convince EVERYONE who could to play a Peacebringer to at least 38 not only to share in my joy of the archetype (languishing though it is) but also to provide the developers with enough data to hilight the problems with it. A walkout is counterproductive to that goal.

The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe View Post
A walkout is counterproductive to that goal.
I second that motion. All in favor?

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

 

Posted

Why is Flux Vector QQing in my thread? Stop hijacking my thread with your whining!

So, I went Human-Dwarf with my last freespec and regretted it after one mission. I kept thinking like my Warshade - in that I wanted to be Range or Melee depending on the environment, as Smiling Joe said.

Oh well. I'll focus on my WS for now - Lots more fun, actually. :P When I was playing CoH back in 2007 I felt more Peacebringer-y. Now I'm feeling more Warshade-y.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe View Post
Two powers need changing. Two. Changing one power will double your dps. Changing one other power will increase your survivability. What sounds more likely to you: convincing the devs that the entire archetype is crap and must be changed, or convincing the devs that two powers are seriously underperforming and need fixed?
Considering that the last time kheldians were looked at the same fixes were applied to both ATs despite said ATs being radically different and the fix not touching any individual powers at all within them, I have serious doubts that the devs are going to listen to player feedback at such a nuanced level.

If we could show that the powers were bugged or conclusively over-powered, they might fix them, but even bugs mainly are fixed quickly only if said bug was making them stronger than the should've been. (Think Shield Charge).

I'm basing this opinion on history. This is the track record.

Quote:
I don't disagree that the archetype needs major help, but there's nothing wrong with being pragmatic, either. If changing two powers will change the archetype, then I'm all for focusing on those two powers. Hyperbole will not convince them. Reasoning by one or two players will not convince them. Know what else won't convince them? Putting on our walking shoes and discouraging other players from playing them.

Only datamining on their part will bring any kind of change, and you want to deprive them of that data by staging some sort of mass walkout on the archetype? That's wrong on two levels. First, even if you get everyone reading the forums to stop playing Peacebringers, you've got... only the people on the forums not playing Peacebringers. People playing the game who don't read the forums vastly outnumber us, as if you didn't already know that, and would still be providing that data.

Second, thousands upon thousands of blasters walked around at the debt cap for the first few years of this game, and it was that huge amount of blaster debt that convinced the developers to scrap Defiance 1.0 and come out with Defiance 2.0. People sure didn't avoid the archetype.

Same with stalkers. People might not have teamed with them, but they sure as hell didn't suffer in terms of population. The developers saw that the vast majority of them were in pvp and were solo in pve and decided to help them team.
It's not hyperbole when you're stating the facts. Just because we "can" fix PBs in two moves, that doesn't mean that the gap isn't exactly as large as I'm describing. In fact, those two moves, are actually rather drastic moves - basically giving PBs a perma-tier9 defense and either breaking the cottage rule on photon seekers to make them "real pets," or turning them from a weak pseudonuke into something competitive with the most powerful AOEs in the entire game (ROA, Fullauto, Hail of Bullets).

And again, consider history. Blasters were ignored for years. Dominators, for years. Stalkers, for years. Kheldians, for years until i13, and now for over a year after. PVP? GDN? ED? This game's history is actually rife with devs fixing the wrong problems, applying every fix to a problem that only needed one, or fixing the problems too late. You have way more faith in them and the forums than I do. I almost envy you that.

In fact, in more recent history - with GR, the brute fury change and damage cap lowering were solutions looking for a problem. The difference between scrapper and brute performance, which for some reason people thought would cause scrappers to go extinct under side-switching, was the stated reason for the change. Yet that gap was like... 10-15% at best. Compared to the 100% gap between PBs and WSes, it was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It still got the attention because it was either Castle's pet project to nerf brutes, or because prominent scrapper-playing forum posters pushed it. In fact Castle started by leaving brute offense alone and lowering their resist cap to 85%, then changed it to the offense nerf later - the entire appearance of this episode was "they wanted to weaken brutes somehow and just threw nerfs at them until one stuck." What kind of faith am I supposed to be keeping in that? Especially because even with the reduction, my brutes are able to reliably maintain about 70 fury (in fact I can usually keep it over 80), meaning I still outdamage scrappers who aren't getting fulcrum shifted! But mainly I do that by playing in an sociopathic manner, denying the 'meatshield' potential of a brute and disregarding my teammates' wellbeing in order to maximize my own defensive fury generation by leapfrogging spawns and playing away from the team.

Hey, that sounds like the effect 'participation' has had on the playerbase as a whole! Experience, it lets you recognize the same mistakes being made again. The process and effect of this adjustment's introduction left such a bad taste in my mouth, it ended up being to straw that broke the camel's back and I quit posting after the GR beta and only came back now because of that 'participation diversification' ruining my, and my friends', enjoyment of the game (two of whom, notably, play peacebringers and are what brought me here). It's a solution in search of a problem that is making things worse than if they'd just left well enough alone, but it's being rammed into the game because it's clearly some dev's pet project or personal issue; no player I've ever known has asked for a system like this and even the players who support the concept admit that it's not working right and is causing more trouble than it's worth.

On the other hand, we could all go try and debt cap our khelds on the trials on purpose to get attention maybe too, like blasters but to be frank, given how the trials play and how hard it is to actually accrue a meaningful amount of debt, I'd rather follow my friend's advice and stick my hand in a meatgrinder than do that. In fact I think the effect of blasters and debt is partly why debt's been softened so much - another example of devs fixing the wrong problems.

And the trial difficulty is another example: I can sit here with a completely straight face and say that 85% damage resistance with no defense in front of it seems like insufficient survivability in the trials because of the type of debuffing applied by seers and ACUs, and the massive damage hits dealt by IDF commanders, war walkers, and mk-iv victorias, I'm not sure I'd even wanna play a warshade in them. The few I've teamed with in the trials were getting flattened pretty hard. I guess getting that first eclipse off is a doozey when almost every spawn has 3 things in it that can oneshot you, but if you let your team engage first they kill the crap out of it with judgements and don't leave you quite enough to buff to cap off of.

Quote:
If I had my way, I'd convince EVERYONE who could to play a Peacebringer to at least 38 not only to share in my joy of the archetype (languishing though it is) but also to provide the developers with enough data to hilight the problems with it. A walkout is counterproductive to that goal.
I've got a 50 pb with a build so purple it shines from orbit. The only data I think is going to have an impact on the developers is me not ever setting foot in the trials with her, so they can see people are opting out of the endgame with their kheldians. And yes, I think it will take months or years for any datamining to show anything. Which is why for those months and years I want to be playing a character who doesn't demonstrably and numerically suck, despite how pretty their powers are.

"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector View Post
I've got a 50 pb with a build so purple it shines from orbit. The only data I think is going to have an impact on the developers is me complaining about the archetype in every thread available. [
Fix'd it for ya.

 

Posted

Actually, I think my complaining is useless to the devs, for reasons I just enumerated at length. I am trying to convince certain posters in this thread to alter their approaches to the AT, but I am also fairly convinced this is useless, and probably once the devs say that the participation system for the incarnate trials is working as intended and shut down discussion on it, I'll be leaving the forums again except for some occasional build or systems research, because discussion here is ultimately futile. Increasingly, I would be surprised if I've even made anyone seriously think about their pre-existing decisions before reading my posts.

I did answer your questions in my first post in this thread. They're serious answers that would be helpful if you followed them, particularly in terms of build order and slotting. Just because I think the AT needs attention doesn't mean I don't know how to build characters, I've built quite a lot of characters in my soon-to-be 7-years with the game. Favor offense and self-healing in low and middle levels, favor offense and nonhealing mitigation at higher levels. Stay away from white dwarf, use play tactics (superspeed and a stealth IO are gold here) and breakfrees for mez protection instead and use pulsar to help mitigate for teams that need that kind of help, understanding that team mitigation is not really your role.

And while I admit your thread's been kinda been hijacked, you did get quite a bit of helpful answers (even if they don't all agree), and you've more or less said you've made up your mind (and given your evident hostility towards me, I probably just wasted my time providing you with a repeat and exposition of my previous advice). Are you still looking for help on anything? If not, why be worried about the tangental discussions if they aren't getting in the way of your receiving help and advice?

I think you've gotten some bad advice, but it's your choice on what you follow. I would have liked to convince some of the regular posters here not to keep giving the same advice as they've likely been giving for years even as the game has changed around them, but that's their choice too.

If you'd rather, though, I'll offer to continue this discussion with interested parties in PMs. You can request from a moderator that one of your own threads be locked for any or no reason if you are extremely concerned about ending the tangential discussions, unless the forum rules have changed since the last time I was active here.

Edit: This is sort of a pet peeve of mind, but the "fix't" posting thing annoys me, and I consider it trolling.

"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."

 

Posted

Interesting arguments. I find myself leaning in flux vector's direction. I too had a PB so purpled/accoladed that she 'shined from orbit'. Then, when the new scaling difficulties came out, she had trouble soloing at +3/+4 while all my other 50s could do +8 (some easier than others, but they all could do it). That's when 'relative efficienciency' became glaringly obvious.

Yeah, PBs are really supposed to be a team AT... I dunno, my Jack-of-all-Trades schtick sure doesn't feel special when Melee ATs can also do Ranged damage or when Blasters can softcap and Tank AVs. And again while teaming, there's nothing I do better than other ATs: a Tanker's Footstomp Damage is close to (or even exceeds) my Solar Flare (and doesn't KB to boot), my Ranged damage doesn't begin to compare to other ranged ATs. And put me on a team with a VEAT or Warshade and I get depressed seeing what other Epics can do.

My PB isn't touching the trials (and probably little else) until they see some AT love. Until then, my other 50s are making better use of all her purples.

 

Posted

On the big U-Stream marathon chat while global server access was being implimented, one of the animation artists was taking questions and myself and several others (I noticed Dechs in there) consistently asked about Kheldian color customization. I first asked about shortened animations for form shifting, but eventually gave up on that and figured we could at least take color customization as a consolation prize...

They wouldn't even respond to THAT, though. It's really surprising to me that Khelds get so neglected. It's not like the warshade and peacebringer community are asking to be made uber or superior in any way to other AT's, just on par. I enjoy playing my Khelds and I feel like they deserve to be on par with the rest of the builds in the game.

Heck, the Dev's wouldn't even have to come up with ideas or worry about the math.. The players have already done that for them. We want uninterrupted form shifts, a damage buff for Peacebringers, a status protection autopower (nothing huge, just something.. I took the total clarion and it's currently at t3. I don't like that I have to waste one of my incarnate power choices for something I should already have in the first place while everyone else is using theirs to become even more uber.)

And for the love of god, please let us change the color of our powers.. I would probably never even bother because I think they look great how they are but it would just be a sign that the Dev's realize that we still exist.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector View Post
1 - Human/nova. White Dwarf is a trap! Carry breakfrees for status protection and stay away from the rhinolobster. His damage output is terrible and his "real" survivability is poor. Don't be fooled by people telling you he can tank. Against modern, debuff-heavy content he cannot.
My tri-form was easily able to help tank a BAF going for the Keep Em Separated badge. There was no Tanker on my team, but there was a brute and a very capable scrapper (or two?). I was able to get aggro whenever I wanted (enough to get Sequestered), or whenever it was my turn (generally whenever I saw a 2nd warning for someone else pop up). With team bonuses I was at capped resistances, and only had to use my own heal a few times. I would not claim to be able to SOLO this content, but I make a far better tank than some poor blaster or dom that managed to out damage a taunt-handicapped scrapper.

As usual, YMMV

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe View Post
Two powers need changing. Two. Changing one power will double your dps. Changing one other power will increase your survivability. What sounds more likely to you: convincing the devs that the entire archetype is crap and must be changed, or convincing the devs that two powers are seriously underperforming and need fixed?
Love the whole breakdown you did about the differences between WS & PB. Good stuff. But I'll disagree with you on just these two powers being changed and that being somewhat acceptable. I'd like more synergy with my PB. A WS has Inky Aspect and Gravatic Emenation that compliments each other, Mires in different forms, Stygian Circle that acts as clean up, and a few others that work cohesively together.

To me, a PB feels choppy. Like their powers are at odds with each other and keep them from being effective. Fixing just Light Form and Proton Seekers will help, but they'll still feel clunky. I'd like a Build Up that works more like Fiery Embrace that flows into forms, Knowdowns instead of Knockbacks (where applicable like Solar Flare). They need to make a PB flow better into their Forms and attacks as opposed to being as jerky as they are now.

I love my PB, it's been my Main since I got him and he's Purpled out and Incarnated, but he feels painful to use as opposed to all the other ATs because of of lack of flow, where other AT with issued had holes. But it won't stop me from playing my PB because as I said, I like the concept way to much even if it's clunky so I can't just beat feet until the fix them.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir_Troller View Post
Love the whole breakdown you did about the differences between WS & PB. Good stuff. But I'll disagree with you on just these two powers being changed and that being somewhat acceptable. I'd like more synergy with my PB. A WS has Inky Aspect and Gravatic Emenation that compliments each other, Mires in different forms, Stygian Circle that acts as clean up, and a few others that work cohesively together.

To me, a PB feels choppy. Like their powers are at odds with each other and keep them from being effective. Fixing just Light Form and Proton Seekers will help, but they'll still feel clunky. I'd like a Build Up that works more like Fiery Embrace that flows into forms, Knowdowns instead of Knockbacks (where applicable like Solar Flare). They need to make a PB flow better into their Forms and attacks as opposed to being as jerky as they are now.

I love my PB, it's been my Main since I got him and he's Purpled out and Incarnated, but he feels painful to use as opposed to all the other ATs because of of lack of flow, where other AT with issued had holes. But it won't stop me from playing my PB because as I said, I like the concept way to much even if it's clunky so I can't just beat feet until the fix them.

I should clarify. Fixing photon seekers and light form will go a long way towards addressing the disparity in damage and survivability between warshades and peacebringers.

But you're quite right: It won't make peacebringers a well-designed archetype. Quite frankly I've given up on asking for more.

The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies