Need more help from trick arrow people:
One of the issues that people keep mentioning is that -almost every- arrow has to be used in every fight. From what I can see, the reason for this is because, aside from the two control powers, every single power in the set is an AoE click power. This means that in a fight against 16 enemies, you have seven powers that need to be used in order to use your full power. In a fight against AVs, the powers just aren't strong enough because they're balanced around hitting many targets. So my question is this...
How do people feel about acid arrow being turned into a single target power with disruption arrow being buffed to compensate? The numbers would look a little bit like this.
Acid Arrow: Single Target, 20s recharge, -20% resistance (does not stack from same caster), -25% defense, -100% regeneration.
Disruption Arrow: 17 max targets, 25 foot radius, -30% resistance (does not stack from same caster), trivial energy damage
(note that the "does not stack from same caster" in disruption arrow is actually irrelevant, since it's coming from a pseudopet. I included it for completion's sake since all -res powers have it)
This may seem like a nerf as your AoE -res is now only 30% instead of 40%, but because of acid arrow's current radius, and disruption arrow's target cap, this is actually about the same amount of -res unless you're fighting 3-5 enemies that are VERY close together. This has two effects that reduce a trick arrow's time laying down debuffs against large groups. Firstly, acid arrow has been specialized into a boss/AV slayer, so it is no longer necessary in group combat. Secondly, disruption arrow can set off oil slick. This makes oil slick arrow + disruption arrow a deadly 1-2 punch. In two powers, the trick arrower has laid down their oil slick, put out a lot of -res, and lit the oil slick. This is something that currently takes four powers to do.
Any thoughts on this? Possibly suggestions for other ways that powers can be specialized without losing total power?
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I continue to use Glue Arrow in late game play. WHEN to use Glue Arrow is a bit trickier to quantify, since it's a lot more situational than first glance would indicate. I usually only use it when there are 3+ mobs I want to "give a hard time to" in team play. When solo, I use it all the time, often as the first aggro drawing attack on a new mob group. I also use it, regardless of Oil Slick Arrow's use.|
Originally Posted by Diellan_
Question for the diehard trick arrow users out there: do you continue to use Glue Arrow in late game play? Do you use it all the time or only when Oil Slick Arrow is down?
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Originally Posted by Garent
One of the issues that people keep mentioning is that -almost every- arrow has to be used in every fight. From what I can see, the reason for this is because, aside from the two control powers, every single power in the set is an AoE click power.
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Glue Arrow: reduce recharge from 60 seconds (WHY?!?) down to 40 seconds
Ice Arrow: reduce recharge from 18 seconds to 12 seconds (ie. "almost" perma before slotting)
Disruption Arrow: reduce recharge from 60 seconds to 40 seconds
Oil Slick Arrow: reduce recharge from 180 seconds to 120 seconds
EMP Arrow: reduce recharge from 300 seconds to 200 seconds
This simple change (reduce the recharge of 5 powers by 1/3rd) would make Trick Arrow feel more responsive in game play, while at the same time making the AoE Debuffs feel like powers you CAN use them on every mob group (without being sorry for having used them afterwards).
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Originally Posted by Garent
How do people feel about acid arrow being turned into a single target power with disruption arrow being buffed to compensate?
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Rather than modifying the effects of the powers themselves, to compensate for a punishingly long recharge time ... I'd rather reduce the "recharge limitation" on Trick Arrow's Debuffing powers, allowing them to be used in a manner much more consistent with today's "steamroller" teaming pace/reality.
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This doesn't solve the problem of trick arrow spending all of its time using its debuffs while other sets only need to lay down a few powers before going into blasting. It only makes it easier for them to spend all their time using trick arrows.
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Originally Posted by Redlynne
The simplest, and easiest solution to this problem is to change the recharge time on the Click AoE Debuffs so that they're available for use more often.
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In a sense ... that's the nature of the beast. That's because other sets only have "a few" powers that deliver big debuffs ... while Trick Arrow has "many" powers that deliver moderate debuffs.|
Originally Posted by Garent
This doesn't solve the problem of trick arrow spending all of its time using its debuffs while other sets only need to lay down a few powers before going into blasting. It only makes it easier for them to spend all their time using trick arrows.
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The only way to make Trick Arrow stop "spending all of its time" using Debuffs is to make the animations for the powers (uniformly) faster. Entangling Arrow has a cast time of 1 second. Snap Shot in Archery also has a cast time of 1 second. I really see no compelling reason why *ANY* of the powers in either Trick Arrow, nor Archery for that matter, should take longer than 1 second to animate. Anything longer than 1 second on the animation is really just "Wow, this arrowhead looks SO COOL! I think I'll admire it a little longer before sending it 'To Whom It May Be Concerned!' Heh, heh. I am SO AWESOME!"
So if you really want to "speed up" Trick Arrow ... you've got two options.
1. Reduce the Recharge time on half the powers in the set.
2. Reduce the Animation time on nearly ALL the powers in the set to be quite uniformly 1 second long.
3. Do both ... (please!)
Do anything else, and you aren't "speeding up" Trick Arrow significantly ... you're just transforming it into being something it's (currently) not.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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I solo AVs on storm as well, and I often find myself thinking, "this would be so much easier with cold", and I suspect there are few that would disagree. As I said before, Storm can pull ahead of Cold in groups (barely), but against an AV there is no contest.|
Originally Posted by Diellan_
I've watched Garent solo AVs with his Storm Defender, back before it was ridiculously easy to cap your own defense with set bonuses.
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Sure tagging with hurricane can essential soft cap the team against those you hit, but Cold can provide 24% defense against all (most) enemies including those that you missed with hurricane. And given most folks have some defense to begin with these days, it's a whole lot more effective than just a base 24% defense would be.
It's also worth noting, that the Freezing Rain advantage you're talking about is only relevant on Defenders. Sleet is Controller Freezing Rain and since sleet doesn't vary across ATs, Controller Sleet and Freezing Rain are identical.
The damage advantage from LS and tornado is only relevant against groups, since against an AV the -regen from cold will more than compensate (especially solo, since there is no risk of losing ground due to gaps in the dps chain).
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I'm not saying the Defense isn't useful; I am saying that you have to factor in that it doesn't provide any solo mitigation.|
Originally Posted by Draggynn
Sure tagging with hurricane can essential soft cap the team against those you hit, but Cold can provide 24% defense against all (most) enemies including those that you missed with hurricane. And given most folks have some defense to begin with these days, it's a whole lot more effective than just a base 24% defense would be.
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| It's also worth noting, that the Freezing Rain advantage you're talking about is only relevant on Defenders. Sleet is Controller Freezing Rain and since sleet doesn't vary across ATs, Controller Sleet and Freezing Rain are identical. |
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| The damage advantage from LS and tornado is only relevant against groups, since against an AV the -regen from cold will more than compensate (especially solo, since there is no risk of losing ground due to gaps in the dps chain). |
It's certainly a lot more work keeping up all the debuffs and damage sources on Storm, and to truly leverage it to its fullest potential, you need some kind of Immob/-KB source (Electric Fence from the Electric Mastery is a good fallback, since it is a moderately good DPA power in its own right). Cold wins there, hands down.
As I said, I'm not trying to diminish Cold here. This isn't a zero-sum game and it is possible for multiple sets to be powerful without hurting each other. I personally feel Storm is stronger than Cold, but I am willing to admit that it is due to my playstyle and the playstyle of the people that I play with regularly in my SG.
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Huh???? Defenders already have Cold. And I'm telling you that the version of Sleet that everyone has is exaclty the same, and the numbers happen to be identical to Controller Freezing Rain. Is it a bug, that defenders didn't get a buffed version of Sleet? Perhaps, but I think it was intentional as most folks with experience with the two would agree, Cold already has a heavy advantage on Storm.|
Originally Posted by Diellan_
It's tough to say, because the pseudo-pet being summoned for Cold Domination on Controllers is called Pets_Sleet_Defender (as opposed to Pets_Sleet, which is being called by Corruptors). This is probably a mistake/bug, but it implies that when Cold gets ported to Defenders, they'll get the existing Controller version.
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You yourself in this very thread estimated that LS and Tornado, double-stacked, would provide the equivalent of -90% Regen. Benumb is -500%, which would be resisted to -75% against a level 50 AV (smaller at higher levels), and has a base uptime of only 25% (and the effects don't stack, so if you have the recharge to make it perma, it won't get any better than -75%). And applying -Res increases the amount that LS and Tornado can provide. It's certainly a lot more work keeping up all the debuffs and damage sources on Storm, and to truly leverage it to its fullest potential, you need some kind of Immob/-KB source (Electric Fence from the Electric Mastery is a good fallback, since it is a moderately good DPA power in its own right). Cold wins there, hands down. |
As I said initially, which one comes out ahead depends on the situation in which you put the defender, but the majority would agree that in general Cold comes out ahead. As someone with extensive experience with Storm and while less, not inconsiderable experience with Cold, you are not going to convince me that Storm is more powerful than Cold. It appears that I will be unable to do the same, in large part because I think we are using different metrics to judge. Solo against groups, I have conceded that a well played Storm defender can come out ahead. On a Team and against hard targets though, I think Cold comes out ahead. And in general, I consider a Defender's role to defend the team, so I tend to give more weight to team, than solo performance when I evaluate.
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Yeah, that was a brain fart. My point still stands, though: it's not the Defender numbers happen to be the same as Controller Freezing Rain; Defender Sleet summons Pets_Sleet_Defender, the same one that Controllers summon. Corruptors summon Pets_Sleet. But Pets_Sleet_Defender and Pets_Sleet are virtually identical. So either it was bugged and the Devs meant to give Controllers the Corruptor summon and to buff the Defender one, or they're satisfied with it as it is (in which case, that's an advantage towards Storm).|
Originally Posted by Draggynn
Huh???? Defenders already have Cold. And I'm telling you that the version of Sleet that everyone has is exaclty the same, and the numbers happen to be identical to Controller Freezing Rain. Is it a bug, that defenders didn't get a buffed version of Sleet? Perhaps, but I think it was intentional as most folks with experience with the two would agree, Cold already has a heavy advantage on Storm.
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Frankly, we've let this argument go a bit too far for this thread, I think. We're not really touching either of these sets: you'll notice it had only one item on our list, and that had to do with Thunderclap being terrible. Cold Domination, likewise, had a single line about Infrigidate. As far as Garent and I are concerned, both sets are basically fine (fine enough for the purposes of this experiment, anyway).
The only real issue is whether or not other sets deserve to be able to compete with them (see Trick Arrow's debuff potential compared to theirs).
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There was a change some time back to Corruptor Sleet to fix a bug related to their inherent iirc. Don't take my word for it though, I am getting old and memory is the first thing to go.
There are a few things in the original post that I thought would be more contentious than they are. I'll copy paste them here.
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The first one is essentially a 50% buff to the resistance that sonic resonance and thermal gives. I was certain that someone would have something to say about that. Ditto on the second one, as I don't think it's possible for there to be unanimous support of power order changes.
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Originally Posted by Garent
The defense shields are all scale 1.5, while the sonic shields are only scale 2.0, a ratio of 1.33:1, strange given that resist and defense operate at a 2:1 ratio for non-Incarnate Trial gameplay (where the ratio is 1.5:1). The singular shields need to have their magnitude raised to 3, and the aoe shield to mag 2.
Clarity comes far too late in the powerset. It should be swapped with Sonic Repulsion. |
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I agree that this has taken up too much of this thread, so I will explain why it is an issue that I have bothered continuing to argue. It has been my impression from your posts that view Cold as well balanced, and that other sets should be brought more into line with Cold in terms of available buffs and debuffs. This is a view point that I obviously oppose. I believe that Cold is overpowered and should not be considered a standard on which to judge sets. Is it really relevant whether Storm or Cold is more powerful, No. But I do believe that Cold should not be used as the measuring stick. Clearly we rapidly digressed too far from that topic, and progress down the road we travelled has become useless. So the answer to the above question for me is, "No". I don't think other sets should be brought into line with cold because I think it's spectrum of buffs and debuffs is unbalanced. I'm sorry that point was lost in our discussion. That said, certainly Trick Arrow deserves a buff.|
Originally Posted by Diellan_
Frankly, we've let this argument go a bit too far for this thread, I think. We're not really touching either of these sets: you'll notice it had only one item on our list, and that had to do with Thunderclap being terrible. Cold Domination, likewise, had a single line about Infrigidate. As far as Garent and I are concerned, both sets are basically fine (fine enough for the purposes of this experiment, anyway).
The only real issue is whether or not other sets deserve to be able to compete with them (see Trick Arrow's debuff potential compared to theirs). |
One final response here:
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| ah, that was a brain fart. My point still stands, though: it's not the Defender numbers happen to be the same as Controller Freezing Rain; Defender Sleet summons Pets_Sleet_Defender, the same one that Controllers summon. Corruptors summon Pets_Sleet. But Pets_Sleet_Defender and Pets_Sleet are virtually identical. So either it was bugged and the Devs meant to give Controllers the Corruptor summon and to buff the Defender one, or they're satisfied with it as it is (in which case, that's an advantage towards Storm). |
I apologize Garent for our rather lenghty digression from the original point.
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My goal hasn't really been to turn every set into something as powerful as Dark and Rad and Cold and Traps and so forth. I just want to narrow the gap a bit by bringing up the sets that need some assistance. I use things like Sleet, Tar Patch, and Enervating Field as reference points simply because I doubt, after all this time, that the Devs are going to dare to nerf those powers. This isn't something small like Energy Transfer was back in the day, where a single power was so far out of line that it ruined the balance of an entire archtype; they'd have to do some rather sweeping changes to a number of sets if they wanted to tone down the power of buff/debuff sets, and I doubt they'll ever do that.|
Originally Posted by Draggynn
I agree that this has taken up too much of this thread, so I will explain why it is an issue that I have bothered continuing to argue. It has been my impression from your posts that view Cold as well balanced, and that other sets should be brought more into line with Cold in terms of available buffs and debuffs. This is a view point that I obviously oppose. I believe that Cold is overpowered and should not be considered a standard on which to judge sets. Is it really relevant whether Storm or Cold is more powerful, No. But I do believe that Cold should not be used as the measuring stick. Clearly we rapidly digressed too far from that topic, and progress down the road we travelled has become useless. So the answer to the above question for me is, "No". I don't think other sets should be brought into line with cold because I think it's spectrum of buffs and debuffs is unbalanced. I'm sorry that point was lost in our discussion. That said, certainly Trick Arrow deserves a buff.
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Basically, what I'm saying is things like "these sets have single powers that are better than most of this powerset and have other great powers, too, so can't we buff some of these powers a bit".
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I didn't comment on this because I completely agree with the idea.|
Originally Posted by Garent
There are a few things in the original post that I thought would be more contentious than they are. I'll copy paste them here.
The first one is essentially a 50% buff to the resistance that sonic resonance and thermal gives. I was certain that someone would have something to say about that. Ditto on the second one, as I don't think it's possible for there to be unanimous support of power order changes. |
I have even suggested this in the past, and been met with several attempts to rationalize the existing numbers from the community.
Having played a Sonic/Energy side by side with a FF/Energy, I can tell you that they are completely different animals when played solo. FF/Energy is "hands-down" the better solo-er, while Sonic/Energy is probably more "team-useful" because of how it helps "speed-up" kill rates.
Just taking these two sets into consideration, I would say Sonic needs more "survival" on the solo front, and Forcefields needs some form of debuff that would help in a team environment.
Your suggestions would help the set a great deal.
Another thread that discussed Sonic had another great idea of making Sonic Siphon either a Cone or a Targeted AoE (5 targets max). This would help bring Sonic up a little in the solo area. In that same thread, I suggested that Sonic Siphon have an additional debuff added to it (like -damage) to bring it up to par with other single target debuffs like "infrigidate" or "siphon power".
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Dylan's just as much the OP as I am. He had me post the numbers because I have more street cred on the defender forums :P So no need to apologize.|
Originally Posted by Draggynn
I apologize Garent for our rather lenghty digression from the original point.
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Originally Posted by WarMage
I didn't comment on this because I completely agree with the idea.
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I think the next step for Dylan and me is to get more specificity into the list and integrate some of the suggestions into something final.
IMO part of the balance that should happen would be to split AV regen between a debuffable and non-debuffable portions. -Regen matters way too much during high level AV fights, and that, more than anything else, is what splits the sets down the middle.
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I wonder if this effect could be achieved equally well by putting a lower limit on regen debuffing that isn't zero? Although that would affect other entities than AVs, although usually other enemies are defeated so quickly that -regen debuffs have no place.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
IMO part of the balance that should happen would be to split AV regen between a debuffable and non-debuffable portions. -Regen matters way too much during high level AV fights, and that, more than anything else, is what splits the sets down the middle.
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Some of my suggestions for Forcefield/Sonic:
Link to suggestion
Quite similar to some of the suggestion for debuff protections, though I did suggest further debuffs be added.
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Interesting. I'd be a bit wary about adding that much -Defense debuff resistance; maybe just in Dispersion Bubble? You also didn't mention whether or not the resistance is enhanceable - by default it would be, so that global 50% is slottable up to 80%, which is significant.|
Originally Posted by Seldom
Some of my suggestions for Forcefield/Sonic:
Link to suggestion Quite similar to some of the suggestion for debuff protections, though I did suggest further debuffs be added. |
Otherwise, these are pretty similar to our ideas. I like that.
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Hm. Perhaps I should go back and re-edit. No, I was not thinking the resistance would be enhanceable.|
Originally Posted by Diellan_
Interesting. I'd be a bit wary about adding that much -Defense debuff resistance; maybe just in Dispersion Bubble? You also didn't mention whether or not the resistance is enhanceable - by default it would be, so that global 50% is slottable up to 80%, which is significant.
Otherwise, these are pretty similar to our ideas. I like that. |
It came up in the thread, but I would argue against centering defense debuffs protection in dispersion. The DDR suggestion is twofold- it makes the protection more reliable, and it gives an added value when stacked on other characters already sporting high defense.
I argued for it being in the single buffs because in such case it's available even outside the bubble huddle, making it more reliable, and the self-effecting defense gets only a fraction of the DDR protection, in line with forcefield's lower standard personal defense/higher ally protection approach.
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Point.|
Originally Posted by Seldom
Hm. Perhaps I should go back and re-edit. No, I was not thinking the resistance would be enhanceable.
It came up in the thread, but I would argue against centering defense debuffs protection in dispersion. The DDR suggestion is twofold- it makes the protection more reliable, and it gives an added value when stacked on other characters already sporting high defense. I argued for it being in the single buffs because in such case it's available even outside the bubble huddle, making it more reliable, and the self-effecting defense gets only a fraction of the DDR protection, in line with forcefield's lower standard personal defense/higher ally protection approach. |
Personally, I've always felt that Force Field should have Elusivity added, but I consider that too far out there since the Devs have chosen to keep Elusivity a PvP effect.
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My first post in the thread has been updated. I can't list everything that was changed, since I didn't keep track. Trick arrow has a lot of different/tweaked stuff, wording is improved in certain areas, the triage beacon suggestion was removed, some stuff for force field... That's the stuff I remember off the top of my head.
This is a potential final version. We plan to start bugging devs once discussion dies down.
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Well go back through your wording because I can't even get through this first paragraph without seeing something that isn't true. XD
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Originally Posted by Garent
Trick Arrow
Entangling Arrow has 1/5th the magnitude -Recharge and -Movement than TrapsÂ’ Web Grenade (scale 0.1 for the Arrow and scale 0.5 for the Grenade), even though the only other difference they have is rather small Endurance Cost difference (5.2 for the arrow, 7.8 for the grenade). Raise the endurance cost and debuff amounts to match. |
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Only if you're gonna pick nits. Technically, Entangling Arrow has a range of 80, animation time of 1 second, an accuracy of 1.2, and max runspeed -3.5; Web Grenade has a range of 70 feet, animation time of 1.37 seconds, an accuracy of 1, and no debuff to max runspeed. The jump height debuff, the -fly, and the knockback protection and resist are all stackable on the web grenade, but not so for Entangling Arrow. In PvP, Entangling Arrow's immobilization duration is 2 seconds, while Web Grenade is only 0.3 seconds (weird).|
Originally Posted by New Dawn
Well go back through your wording because I can't even get through this first paragraph without seeing something that isn't true. XD
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The things we pointed out - Entangling Arrow having a scale 0.1 slow/recharge debuff with a 5.2 endurance cost and Web Grenade having a scale 0.5 slow/recharge debuff with a 7.8 endurance cost - are completely correct.
If you see something incorrect, please be a bit more expository so that we know what it is we need to fix. This is supposed to be a communal effort.
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Updated again with more transparent methodology and goals.
Would still love feedback from people on stuff that hasn't been covered already.
In terms of Trick Arrow, we're thinking that the big problem with the set is that you have to basically fire all of the powers every fight. There are fewer situational powers and specialized powers; most sets have "powers for regular mobs" and "powers for AV fights" and so forth, but Trick Arrow combines all its good buffs into the AoE powers and the few ST powers are mostly gimicky.
Question for the diehard trick arrow users out there: do you continue to use Glue Arrow in late game play? Do you use it all the time or only when Oil Slick Arrow is down?
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