End of Cottage Rule? Please?

But they can't do as much damage as the blaster.

Having looked, yes, I can see Scrappers tending to out ST DPS a Blaster. But out damage? Blasters tend to have way more AOE.

Or are you comparing low end blaster to high end scrapper/brute?

Which one, that damage is to within 10% ? Go look at the pylon thread and do your own numbers. That AoE damage is wasted when you don't have enough targets for it to be meaningful ? That is practically tautological

Because this game revolves around Pylon soloing.

Not only that, a blaster has to sacrifice offense to attain the kind of survivability required to stand toe to toe with a pylon. Let my tank do nothing but taunt the pylon and I'm sure you'll see that 10% margin grow quite large. Yes, I'm aware that the scrapper can survive the pylon on his own. Nobody's meant to solo pylons in the first place. This kind of comparison shouldn't happen outside the SO environment.

Uhmm no because that thread gives you the numbers a scrapper can put out while being survivable, you can then simply do your calculations for a blaster for theoretical maxes.

I agree with the person who said the following.
My Apples to Apples comment earlier was attempting (and obviously failing) to indicate that you compare high damage blaster sets to high damage melee sets and mid tier blaster sets to mid-tier melee sets. Frankly, you could just do a full list and see where they all fall. Theoretically the top should be dominated by blaster combinations, but I do not think it would be. I think the very top would have some Fire Melee and DM, then maybe Fire/Elec blasters, etc. Some blaster sets would be in the top tier, but a lot of melee sets will be mixed in as well.

Fair enough, I'll get back to you when I've had the time.

Well said. Again, I'll get back to you.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Hover blasters always remind of this

Light in details, was on purpose. This thread is about cottage rules/guidelines, not Stalker issues. Being insulting was not on purpose, but after going back and reading my replies, I can see that. To be frank I consider your first post to be insulting, but less mean spirited than mine.

And you hit the crux of my problem with the cottage rules/guidelines. The Devs actually did fix the Stalker, and they went beyond the cottage rules/guidlelines to do so. They created the Bane.

Funny.

Now let's see what a hover-blasting Crab Spider looks like...

Its possible. You'd have to either be able to play blasters ten times better than I can after seven years of playing blasters, or play stalkers ten times worse than I can after being blindfolded, but its theoretically possible.

If you like blasters, but at the same time your gameplay experience can be heavily influenced by numerical analysis, I recommend NOT looking at the numbers. Do not compare blaster damage to scrapper/brute damage if it might influence your playing of the AT. Me, I don't care. Blasters are flat out my favorite AT (although defenders and scrappers come close). I liked them in I5, I9, I13, I18, and even still love them (I liked my blaster in I3, but by I4 I had hit the late 20s, and it was getting very bad for me). Even after they totally altered my beloved defiance in I11, I still find them amazingly fun.

But I can ignore facts and numbers.

I'd bet on my blaster over any of my stalkers for completing content.

Actually existing is an important prereq.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

Not quite sure what you mean by existing, but Stalkers should not have issues completing any content. They're fine solo, and I've tanked for small teams with my Nin Stalker.

My Blaster can undoubtedly clear mobs of minions faster than the Stalker, but that's as should be. The Stalker still is going to be able to deal with more damage being thrown at him, as should be as well.

To add my own two cents about the cottage rule, I honestly do not understand why people despise it so much. I can only think it's a misconception of how it works. It doesn't keep the developers from adjusting powers to work better, it gives design consistency and also reminds developers how drastic changes tend to tick off people you didn't even realize would be ticked off. People are annoyed about some of the EA changes, even though it's overall a buff to the set. Same thing happened when they suggested removing Ancillary powers that "no one takes." That one fell on its face.

Stop with the hate folks, it's an effective design philosophy.

Just want to say I agree with the above. This idea that blasters fall over if you breath too hard on them I always found silly. Having played EVERY stalker to at least 30 now, (yes I'm serious) I don't find them nearly as bad in teaming or solo as some hyperbole slingers claimed. I find some of the comments made about both ATs to be absolutely ridiculous.

Some of the statements in this thread even. Like the one alluding to stalkers not being able to complete content when compared to blasters. LMAO. NO.

I think Arcanaville summed that situation and the one with the cottage rule up fine.

So what? You gotta pick at me for not reading every post in the thread because I happened to agree with Arcanaville on one particular point without realizing it? Or pick at parts of my post that are irrelevant to the main point in order to distract people? Arcanaville said the same thing a few pages back... how, exactly, does that invalidate my repetition of it? I was and am fully aware that Arcanaville knew of the origins of the "cottage rule". There isn't really much about this game that Arcanaville doesn't know, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything. Even despite said post the argument seemed to be that it was good to have some sort of preventative design rule, though in Arcanaville's own words, the supposedly existing "cottage rule" is not actually a rule at all.

I don't think there needs to be any "rule" or "restriction" on completely changing certain powers. If people want to argue that it's better to compromise and attempt to appeal to everyone possible by adding extra effects to existing powers or keeping the old primary effects as secondary effects or whatever, then I guess we'll just agree to disagree. There are certainly cases where that works fine. But then there are cases that I don't think it would work at all. How do you keep a phase effect on Black Hole or Dimensional Shift while also making it a good power? Heck, how do you keep it as some form of mez without stepping on toes of the rest of the set? I am sure there could be some ideas put forward for the latter, and I'd like to see them, but I'd also be totally cool with changing these kinds of powers so that they aren't mezes at all. There will be a vocal minority that are opposed to it, but you don't always HAVE to appeal to vocal minorities.

Stalkers are not in my roster. Characters which do not exist cannot complete content.

I've never enjoyed a stalker well enough to get it to 50, is all. They aren't my thing; for melee I go with scrappers or brutes. Tankers feel like punishment, and stalkers feel (comparatively) frail.

... of course, my standards are a little skewed since I have my main rigged up for tanking, so most things seem frail in comparison. Which isn't fair, because it takes a lot of IOing at level 50 to meet that kind of survivability (except on a tanker, of course, which I don't enjoy due to the perceived punishment factor).

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

This is completely off-base. The example from changing the PPPs is totally different from changing something like Dimension Shift.

For mace mastery (your example), replacing an AoE blast with a personal Def power is a 180 degree change and yes, should not be done (obey the cottage rule) as some people are perfectly happy with the original power. But replacing Dim Shift (an AoE control) with New Power X (a different AoE control) would not and should not be barred based on some 'cottage rule' as the spirit of the power remains the same. The reason to use Dim Shift is to take several targets out of a fight for a limited amount of time. This same effect could be achieved using a newly designed power that people would actually take as it wouldn't have the problems associated with phasing targets. With the example of the mace mastery potential switch, the devs were replacing an AoE damage power (something doms had little access to with their secondaries) with a personal defense buff. That completely would have violated the original intent of the AoE dmg power... to provide more damage to multiple targets... and replaced that damage potential with a personal survival tool that 'phased' the dominator out of action (lowering DPS) while PFF was active.

Replacing Dim Shift with another AoE control would NOT violate any sort of cottage rule and your comparing such an idea with the PPP potential changes (and rightful outrage at the thought) is an apples to oranges situation. If you want to compare the two fairly, you'd have to say that the devs were looking to replace the mace aoe dmg with a new aoe dmg power that didn't have redraw. And the lack of redraw was enraging some who really liked the look of the mace as it was redrawn.

I don't agree that changing it from a mez would only be opposed by a vocal minority.

I COMPLETELY disagree that the devs should take up the rule that they can arbitrarily change any power into basically any other random power for any random reason. I truly hope I misunderstood you (and others) and that's NOT really what you're advocating. Cause that would be full of EPIC FAIL.

I think you and bill are saying the same thing. For the two powers he mentions, YES suggestions WERE actually made to change them from being AOE controls into something 180 degrees different. I and many others DON'T agree with that.

Okay, those are your two previous posts. You replied to how well Stalkers can complete content with your "existing" comment, which suggests that they can't even make it through missions, in that context.

Your playing or not playing an AT isn't all that helpful in that context, either, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to post that. I personally hate Masterminds, but I'm not going to announce that as pertinent information as to whether they can get things done in the game.

I would still say Stalkers need a little nudging to get them appropriately balanced with Brutes, Scrappers, and Tanks, though I would never go to the hyperbole some do with how much they suck. There aren't any flat out broken or unplayable ATs in the game. Some could use some small tweaks, as well as powersets, but I just have to roll my eyes whenever someone says an AT absolutely sucks or is unplayable.

He was trying to be funny. For what it's worth, I chuckled and I expected people to misunderstand (which made me smile a bit wider).

Which is why my reply was "you're doing it wrong." Followed by "l2play" when they kept insisting that their Blaster had more survivability. But someone out there believes it! Thus the mention of a single, uncorroborated claim in my post - while I don't feel that Stalkers are more likely to go splut quickly when compared to Blasters, people will say the dumbest things to try to prove a point in a discussion.

Or, to put it another way... I read it on the internet, it must be true!

And wow did people miss the point on the whole non-existent Stalker being unable to do anything compared to a Blaster that you can actually log on to.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.