Step Child Woes

Let me say right off the bat that I would never, ever, refuse to put someone on a team because their powerset might be poorly played. I even take khelds on the rare occasions I lead a team, even though their KB is the least of the issues one can face with a poor player. It's a game, for heaven's sake, and to my mind, what's great about the CoX community, is how inclusive and friendly it is.

That said, I HAVE left teams (quietly, without finger-pointing or fussing) when I'm on a melee toon, and someone uses their KB powers where I am - even when they use them thoughtfully. Why? Because my melee toons are usually AoE types, and it's incredibly discouraging to spend the time gathering a nice, juicy cluster of foes to start decimating, only to find the foes are suddenly on the other side of the room. Repeatedly.

Ever shield charged into a clump of... nothing? Set a burn patch on... air? Crowd controlled a suddenly crowd-less area? You don't have to be a poor KB user for this to occur - you simply have to not be able to read my mind when I try to gather up a big cluster of foes, and (logically) think to yourself "what a juicy cluster of foes this is! Why don't I use my lovely AoE powers and helpfully shove them all into a corner?"

I am embarrassed to admit that I have, on occasion, been one of those less-than-helpful melee players who moves on to the next spawn before the current spawn is under control (unless it's a tank. Then I'm S.O.L.). I'm not proud of this. However, it's what I've done when I'm starting to feel homocidally inclined toward my fellow teammates. I don't like feeling this way. I want to like my teammates. Sometimes, in order for this to happen, I find I need to be where my teammates aren't.

KB is an awesome power for soloing, or playing on a small team. And one of the most fun teams I ever played on was an all-KB team - stuff was flying everywhere, and it was pure carnage! But on a large team, if there are any AoE melee players (and there probably will be several, single-target melee players being almost an endangered species), using any AoE KB powers is going to be viewed badly.

PS Yes, I also want to cry when I come across trollers who do an AoE immob as an opener. I play trollers probably more than any other AT, including KB queens: illusion and storm. I really am sympathetic to the plight of those with KB powers. I really loved the suggestion of a proc that allows a KB power to do KD instead. Instead of arguing which side of the issue has the smallest IQ or weenie, or other unnecessary comments, why don't we petition the devs to make such a proc?

My experiences tend to run exactly the opposite of Dechs' when it comes to KB. KB slows things down, sending opponents out of patches or anchor range - occasionally sending anchors flying away from everything else. Even the best players slow things down from time to time. I play a Warshade occasionally and, despite my best efforts, the KB works against the team on occasion.

KB does offer mitigation, which is great in a solo or KB-friendly context. In a herd-and-melt context, KB is a liability. It doesn't always go poorly, though. You might have that perfect corner herd to work with or a lot of room to hoverblast above the spawn, but less-than-perfect conditions yield less-than-perfect results. Mistakes get made. Things slow down. It can be frustrating for teams, especially teams that are used to greater efficiency.

I don't refuse KB builds on my PVE teams, but I understand when others do. I haven't run into that many outright terrible KB players, but those I have run into managed to leave their mark. You can usually tell them by their mindset. They tend to think in terms of the team adjusting to what player wants to do, rather than the player adjusting to what the team wants to do. If your build and/or playstyle doesn't fit the team, it's not the team's fault.

I'd like to know what you guys are running where you can get every spawn bunched up for aoe in an efficient manner. Enemies always stay where they are during the alpha and only about half of the enemies in a spawn that are set to prefer melee will attempt to do so at one time. Enemies that prefer range, which make up a substantial portion of virtually every high level group other than Cimerorans, will often ignore even taunt in their fervor to remain distant from you. The upshot is that a perfectly herded spawn is often only possible with a corner pull.

Why is that relevant? Well, corner pulling takes time. In many cases it isn't even possible and the closest analogous tactic available is pulling the spawn into a slow patch and grouping them up that way. The common feature of any pulling strategy, though, is that it is inherently slower than a strategy that kills the enemies where they stand without manipulating their AI.

How is that possible, though? Melee aoes are almost all melee ranged! Even foot stomp can't reach the edges of a standard x8 spawn when placed at its center! Oh, if only there were an archetype which specialized in aoes that were large enough to hit an entire spawn at once, possibly with the tradeoff of requiring intelligent positioning of cones. What a wonder that would be.

In my own experience, it makes very little difference what type of blaster is doing the blasting as long as they're willing and able to apply their attacks to the most targets that they can at that moment. This is an inherently adaptive tactic and can be applied to situations where crap is not conveniently stacked upon itself. One might even say it is a superior tactic as it works both in stacked-crap scenarios and the equally-if-not-more common scattered crap eventuality! If we suppose the existence of this mysterious player who can reposition herself as needed to maximize damage without waiting for crap to collate, exciting new realms of possibility arise.

What then to do with the meleers? Even those poor souls have a place of honor in this bright future of ours. You see, they can leap headlong into the fray and begin attempting to apply their own powers to as many targets as they can. This may require leaving the safe harbor of standing in one spot and entering the stormy seas of moving around while hitting things; the terror you feel is normal. Calm yourselves, friends, for in time it will pass and the wondrous warmth of not being stationary all the time will envelop you like the most joyous of aoe buffs.

So the scrappers, tanks and brutes should stay on the fringes and mop up, eh? LOL! Yes, let's post that now, and let them all know! I'm certain this will go over beautifully! *still chuckling*

Tell you what, if they can beat me to the spawn, then they get a say in what happens to the members thereof. Honestly I prefer it when it's a race, that's the fastest way to do TFs, but I'm pragmatic enough to be happy to settle for leading each fight. When you've got three or four team members who are ripping into spawns with judgements on top of what their purpled builds can do on their own, yes, meleers are marginalized. So's anyone.

In precisely the same way as this nullifies the positive impact of any particular teammate, it also means no one person has any hope of screwing things up. The closest anyone can get to that at this point would be if you had the build to solo Antimatter at keyes island but lacked the sense not to. Energy blasters? They're fine.

The exact reason posted by the OP is why I plan to make my next character a Energy Blaster. I have never played it because of the "dreaded" KB. I want to learn to perfect it so others can see what an awesome set it can be.

I will say something about us poor hated Nrg blasters. I informally keep track of blasters when I do the incarnate trials. What I keep seeing is, that while Blasters are not over represented in the trials, when they are there, I see more Nrg blasters than any other. I think it might be because while mediocre in many respecs, and a pain in others, those who have them, love them and play them after they make it to 50. My last Baf had 4 blasters, 3 Nrg/Nrg, 1 Fire/Fire.

I rarely see Psy (who does anywhere), never see archers, or Ice it seems. I see Pistols and Fire about equally, and the odd Electric (usually on some 50+ month vet). Not sure I have ever seen a Rad. Im sure they are there and my informal, low count observations could be way off reality, but it does seem, for all the hate directed at them at times, those who love them, play them a long time. I attribute it to the fact, that in the case of blasters, in the end, fun and looks may trump Utility and Pure performance.

Get in there and click buttons!

I say that as a melee player who doesn't worry about teaming with knockback characters anymore.

Now I just run in and kill things. If they're knockedback by some AOE, I run after it like rabid scrapper would!

that said, it's nice when they don't mess up the group, but if so, so be it!

Now get in there Energy Blasters and Assault Rifle Blasters and click away!

Not you Dual Pistol Blasters. You can turn off your knockback! *glares* That's right, I said it. Besides, I want you doing more damage!

Until the devs regularly inhibit our ability to trump mobs with numbers alone, a KB-heavy character is always going to run the risk of being less than helpful at times in high-end teaming. The escapee phase in the BAF is a step in the right direction, and I'd like to see that type of creative thinking applied more frequently to new content.

Re: getting the boot, I don' think KB is enough of a potential liability to warrant kicking someone, but I wouldn't begrudge a team leader the right to do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grae Knight The exact reason posted by the OP is why I plan to make my next character a Energy Blaster. I have never played it because of the "dreaded" KB. I want to learn to perfect it so others can see what an awesome set it can be.

Hey, just like that Peacebringer I took to 50 over four years ago! Guess how much playtime he gets these days!

To the OP, the person that rejected you due to your powerset is a tool. Knockback is a part of the game and we all need to deal with it. I've played scrappers, brutes, and tanks and know that it can be annoying when stuff you are beating on gets knocked away. I usually just switch targets to something closer when this happens. Probably why I am not a very good tank though.

On the subject of knockback I've said it once and I'll say it again.

People talk about getting the right angles, shooting from the top, putting them in a corner/against a wall. Yada Yada Yada... In my experience its a waste of DPS time. By the time you get this said perfect angle you could have been applying the damage and had the mob dead. Plus, on indoor maps shooting from above is rarely available as the ceiling is too low for cones. Finding a corner, sure if one is available. And walls well they still tend to bounce off of them and in every direction.

I wish they would change the AOE powers of Energy blast to KD they can keep KB on the single target attacks.

There are two powers on energy blast which bother me when used improperly: the cone and targeted AoE. One of my primary redside characters is an Elec/cold dominator that uses some great patch powers (Static Field, Sleet, Ice Storm) that go a long way towards killing or incapacitating mobs, but Electric control has no way of preventing knock back in the way that Earth, Plant, Ice, and Fire control do. Energy blasters, when done poorly, can wreck that Dominator's control and really slow things down.

The irritating thing is that those two AoE powers don't do much at all in terms of worthwhile damage.

I would prefer any blaster set other than Energy on my team, but my preference doesn't mean I will outright reject someone playing one.

In my experience, the number of Energy blasters who know how to minimize the detrimental aspects of knockback is far outweighed by those who just blast stuff everywhere with no thought for where it is going.

How can that be a bad thing you ask?

Try getting to the defeat all missions toward the end of a Synapse TF and having your idiot blaster knock a Clockwork inside a wall where no one can target or hit it and you'll know what I mean. We had to restart the TF 2 hours into it because of that guy's carelessness.

I know it is very possible to play an Energy blaster well and use the knockback to help the team, and any player I actually know is welcome to bring an energy blaster along on anything I do.

I'm just a little leery of people I don't know and have never teamed with before bringing an energy blaster.

Personally agree with the team leader, its his/her team not yours. Don't like not getting kicked make your own team/league. Me personally I hate players with strong KB attacks, because from what I've seen there are more poor players out there then good players.

Haha, Touche.