Discussion: The Intrepid Informer: Power Set Proliferation

They'll be free to anyone who has access to the AT.

There are a lot of things wrong with this paragraph.

1) Overload is not worthless. It's like Elude from Super Reflexes, with the bonus of +Max HP. You can say it's unnecessary--once you have a crazy IOed build, it kind of is--but it's not worthless.

2) Not everyone can afford a crazy IOed build, and the extra helping of +Def/+Recovery is a huge help at times. And without IOs or Power Pool powers, Energy Aura currently tops out at around 30% Def to most except Psionic; with the Power Pool +Def powers but no IOs, you're only softcapped to Energy, close at 44.5% on Fire/Cold, at 41% on Smash/Lethal, and still pretty far away at 37.5% on Negative. Overload is the only way to reach the softcap on an SO-only build. (Note: Those are Brute/Scrapper numbers, not Stalker.)

3) Pre-existing sets cannot be balanced against Inventions--they have to be completely effective when slotted solely with SOs.

4) New players that will be joining in City of Heroes Freedom (which will launch at the same time as these proliferations) will NOT have access to IOs (unless they purchase that access with real money)--they'll have to make do completely with SOs. This makes all the above points bolded, underlined, italicized and in a double-sized font.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

But it's okay, because the Energy/Energy Blaster just killed 90% of what was there. The rest of the team can pick up those other two guys.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

I disagree with this.

Everyone can afford a crazy IO'ed build if they choose to go after it. Alignment Merits, Astral Merits, Emp Merits and Reward Merits, make going after what used to be OMG IMPOSSIBLE builds, very much possible.

If you mean not to concentrate on it, and jump between 100's of chaarcters due to altitis, that doesn't mean it's not possible, it just means you're not trying to IO out a character.

But it's quite easy for anyone who just works towards it.

No.

At least that's not how my (non-IOd out) Stalkers play. None of my friends do that either. We tend to stay until all enemies are down.

It took me over three years to fully slot my main character's build. And it's not because I'm crazy with the altitis--I only have 5 level 50s total--I just don't get to play as much as I'd like to, and when I DO get to play, I'd rather not be farming for recipe drops. Granted, Alignment Merits had JUST been introduced when I finally finished the build, and Astral and Empyrean Merits are brand new tools for the purchase of IOs as of less than two weeks ago... so it will probably go faster for any future characters I decide to kit out.

Maybe I should have added another point: building characters can be really difficult. I remember the first build on my main Kat/SR Scrapper... I took Focused Fighting from SR (and none of the other powers), every available attack from Katana, Flurry, Jump Kick, Hover and Fly, and got stuck at level 16 until around Issue 3 when I finally brute forced my way through uncappable debt to hit level 24 and did a Respec Trial. It's obviously easier once you get some experience, especially now that we have access to "real numbers" and tools like Mids', but it can be easy to make poor choices that sound cool when you're new to the game. And that's just talking about the powers themselves, without even getting into slotting; I know several people who just don't bother with IO sets at all because they're too confusing, and just use common IOs for all their powers.

And again, if you look down at point #4, new free players won't have access to ANY of the stuff you mentioned. No Alignment Merits or IOs at all unless they fork over cash for access to them, and no Empyrean or Astral Merits unless they're VIP subscribers.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Indeed. Being a Scrapper is about attacking indiscriminately until everything is down. Being a Stalker is about choosing your targets until the same has happened... with the option of making a hasty retreat if necessary.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Your numbers haven't taken into consideration the new Energy Drain.

If it's anything like Energy Absorption from Ice Armor, it will be perma on just SOs.

I'm not sure that means you can softcap on just SOs, but I think all things considered that a lot of the +DEF from overload is mostly wasted.

I'd like it even better if it were given the SoW/OWTS treatment.

Trick Arrows has not seen a buff since Issue 7 in 2006 unless you count the shortening of its animations or the fixing of Oil Slick Arrow as buffs.

The animation changes were certainly a buff, but not to the overall performance of the set when it comes to actually defending.

The OSA fix was a bug fix.

It is still the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the buff/debuff sets, only coming ahead of Poison, and that may not be for long given the Poison changes.

Is it a bad set? Not really, but it still performs with far less potency than almost every other set. Kind of like other sets that lagged behind the other options in their categories until they were buffed: War Mace, Ice Melee, Elec Armor, Fiery Aura... now, maybe Energy Aura and Poison will join them as redeemed sets after their buffs.

These sets didn't get much needed love because the people that enjoyed them sat around pretending everything was okay with them. I love TA more than any other player (probably, anyway), but I've played every other buff/debuff set and I can tell you, TA is the runt of the litter.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

Well, it does say "currently" in there.

I'm also not specifically arguing a change to Overload... just Scirion's reasons for it. He was stating that the power was "worthless" because of the rest of his situation; I was informing him that it was simply unnecessary to him, and that there were many good reasons that other players might need it to fall back on.

Personally, I'd obviously love +Res thrown into the power, but not if it meant the complete loss of +Def.

(Apologies to Scirion for the masculine pronouns if you're female.)

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

+1 to that. The only question I have about a hypothetical Stalker:Ice Melee is whether Frost or Ice Patch should be the power dropped to make room for the AS.

Probably both... you need to make room for Placate as well.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

I hope this sets the precedent we need to finally give dimshift the boot. Wouldn't hurt to slap a chunk of damage on wormhole aswell if they are going to finally do anything to Grav (fingers crossed). If I suck something through a wormhole and slam it into a wall... it should hurt!

Grav seems such a good thematic pairing with the new timeshift set, it would be dissappointing not to take advanatge of that to revamp it.

Actually, I hate the addition of the taunt aura to EA brutes. It completely destroys the stealth brute play-style.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my concerns (which I suspect will be alleviated when we see all the patch notes and find out that the mez protection has been moved somewhere like Power Shield), but having to toggle on/off mez protection while being stealthy is a fundamental change in character (micro)management. Is it a big change? No. But it's also one that wouldn't make much sense to me, were it implemented.

If you didn't do the math from my earlier post, I have about 2000 hours on my /EA brute. When I say that putting the taunt aura into the mez protection doesn't make much sense to me, that's both from a lay game-design perspective ("Why would that be done?") and the perspective of a long-term player of the set ("Why should I need to toggle on/off mez protection on a melee character that's never had to worry about being mezzed while stealthing missions before?").

Like I said, though, this would make so little sense to combine that I'm guessing the mez protection got moved to another toggle and we just haven't been told about it yet. The original posting did say something about summarizing, rather than providing the detailed patch notes.

Looks like MM's get the shaft again, odd considering they have the most sets that could be proliferated quickly. Sonic, Rad, Cold, Kinetics

Though I am still happy to see more sets proliferated, it would have been nice to see MM's get more then one considering how far behind the rest of the pack they are to begin with.

Nope only one power would need dropped. Because they would already be dropping Taunt for Placate.

Does this mean we will finally / eventually get MA for a Blaster secondary?

Interestingly only 3 of the powers are affected by the Controllers random chance for an increased magnitude.

And only 2 of the powers are affected by containment...

So, why does it need changing, when the set is underaffected by inherants on the AT it was designed for, but generally, overperforms in most situations.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

D'oh, forgot Ice Melee had Taunt!

In that case, Ice Patch, definitely. I'd be surprised if Frozen Aura were left as-is on a Stalker as well.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

I KNOW, RIGHT!?!

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

I was told that with Corruptors having it, that Dark Blast would more than likely not be ported over to blasters since they wanted to give each AT a difference in each other. But then again I posed this question back when 'Cryptic' still had hold on CoH.