Discussion: The Intrepid Informer: Power Set Proliferation

OK that's cool. But you have plenty of powersets, Blasters or otherwise, to do it with. Energy Blast gives lots of opportunity, and it's actually part of the theme of the set. The Dark Primary doesn't need it; the secondary effect of most Dark blasts is -ToHit. Now if you wanted to have it be a Stun, or a Fear, that would follow the Dark trend in other sets.

Indeed, your teammates should watch in awe as you do all your stuff damnit! I always say the only reason to dislike KB is melee ego-tripping; you and I are some of the few who are willing to admit it!

Indeed it does. I always forget that Granite has mez protection.

Actually, there are legitimate times to dislike wholesale KB. Like when you're relying on having enemies around you for your powers. Like if I'm running in on my /psi blaster, I'd be right annoyed if I set off Drain Psyche and only caught one enemy because of KB. Or with Soul Drain or Dark Regeneration.

However, these are not problematic with just a little bit of communication. "Hold off on the KB so I can pop off Drain Psyche" or "Don't knock everything away from me when my health dips, I need them there for my heal."

Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?

Energize != Energy Drain. If it did, I wouldn't have a problem with it. On SO's, Energize heals for roughly 587 every 62 seconds. On 5 out of a possible 10 targets, Energy Drain (also on SO's) heals for roughly 322 every 31 seconds. 10 targets puts you at 702 every 31 seconds. At the same time, Energize is costing you 10 endurance, while Energy Drain is refilling your endurance. See the difference? EA is unique in having a power that functions similarily to a weak version of Dark Regeneration and Dark Consumption combined into one power, on a fairly short recharge. That uniqueness has now been replaced by pasting in a power from another set, turning EA into "just another Defense set". And a relatively "meh" one, at that.

Also, in response to... Whoever it was talking about the defense numbers... This is all entirely from a Stalker standpoint, mind you:

Assuming you take Weave, CJ, and Stealth (which, with Conserve Power plus Energy Drain, I see no reason *not* to on a Stalker), on SO's, EA still gets to 40.4% S/L/F/C, 44.5% Energy, 34.5% NE, and 11.7% Psi. 40.4% + 45% from Overload = 85.4% Defense, 17.6% S/L Resistance (assuming you take and slot Tough), 0% F/C, 11.7 Energy/Toxic, and 8.8% NE (assuming you take and slot Energy Protection), with a hardcap of 1,606 HP. This is with combat suppression active. That 85% Defense is about 30% more than you need in *any* situation. On a somewhat unrelated note, pre-Overload, that's also only about 3% below the Defense I'm getting out of my Stone tank in Granite, fully IO'd, with Weave and Maneuvers. (Granted, I built mainly for Resistance, but my point still stands)

My proposed "fix" for EA (which doesn't *really* need one in my opinion, but that's a whole different discussion) would be:

Put Overload on a ~8 minute unenhanceable (I know, it's not a word, be quiet! ) recharge, with a ~4 minute duration. Make it add ~15% Defense (still putting you over the softcap on SO's), ~20-30% Resistance to all but Psi (since EA has no resistance to speak of), along with the existing (and largely un-needed) +Max HP. That, plus the conversion of Repulse to a Stun instead of KB would be a perfectly good "fix" for something that wasn't really broken in the first place.

Nope, I'd like that.

This is the reasonable player!

Loving KB and lots of it does NOT automatically mean ruining other peoples powers!

So fun for you is not actually accomplishing anything, playing with your friends because everybody else boots you for messing up their game, and running back from the hospital unless you run at -1.

What I was talking about is not being super efficient, it's simple good manners on teams and not messing up other peoples' game experience. I actually physically couldn't play a melee toon on a team with you. Why ? I use tab/follow a fair bit for targeting, and my target constantly flying across the screen causing jerky motion of my toon gives me a violent headache after a few minutes. A little I can cope with so ST KB is not an issue, but constant AoE KB = quit team for me and not for reasons of efficiency.

AoE KB has got so many other toons killed in my experience, that I avoid it unless it can be used safely/constructively. This means I VERY rarely use it. If you get the dark tank killed because you took a situation he had under control and punted all the mobs he was going to heal off out of range (similar situation with ice tanks and their endurance, toggle dropping because some idiot knocked everything out of EA is not fun), that can be a teamwipe, and all because you want to have your fun, how selfish.

Watching a claws/invul scrapper use their cone KB to knock a load of mobs out of invincibilty then get terminated when they all got up and shot him when much of his defence had fallen off was another funny.

So, what do you suggest they change Conserve Power to?

Remember, for this proliferation, they have to drop Conserve Power, because it's available in scrapper APPs.

Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?

Thats bullcrap and you know it. There are still several threads about it being sub-par compared to all the other sets. Its the one defender primary that can not single handedly defend an 8 man team because it has no real way outside of an insanely long recharge power to stop or mitigate damage. If it had a heal or a tohit buff that was worth a damn things might be different. Right now it just takes entirely too long to put all those debuffs it does get out when you compare it to the other powersets.

Not on a team it does, the way I see it if I am tanking and you knock something back I am tanking then you just bought it. I will not be taunting that back to me or chasing after it. All knockback does is put you in more danger on teams. Too few people know how to correctly use knockback powers without screwing stuff up.

I am making this my signature!

For a Controller it is fine by all means. Yes, it can over perform because the AT has a Buff Secondary...right?

Dominators have an Assault Secondary, I don't feel that the Illusion Control set for Controllers will work for a Dominator seeing as it has only 3 control powers that can be affected by either Domination or powerboost and the rest are summons.

Just because the set works on one AT doesnt mean that it has to be ported as is, if that were the case Controllers would get Dark Miasma right out of the box with no changes.

I want to believe that the devs are working on the complimentary Dark Control for Controllers and Dominators and working a Dark Assault set for Doms

Everyone is owed their own opinion

+1

I don't hate knock back, but I don't care for it much either. For example I Build Up - Aim and then click my Rain of Arrows and some dufus wanders up and uses some AOE knock back power, most of which do crap damage, on the group. 2 seconds later my lovely 1000+ points of damage rain drops on an empty area. Most of the time knockback results in mobs taking longer to take down due to the fact that every ones AOEs become less effective.


I still vote that all AOE's that KB should be changed to KD. Single target KB powers can be left as is, because if some one is using single target attacks on an enemy they probably plan on finishing that one off.

I know one way to do it.

Make the changes for Scrappers, leave it as is for Stalkers/Brutes.

I admit, I never thought EA was bad as is. That said, I like seeing the changes. Could compare Energize vs ED (as it is now) vs one target. Energize would win.

I agree. I have a NRG/NRG Blaster that I play often and back when I started playing him I was advised by MANY players that to be a respectful player that I should avoid the KB as much as possible. So thus I do try to avoid it, unless i'm running on my own, or I notice that a player being swarmed is about to end up making a hospital run, then I'll throw out one of my KB powers to relieve some of the pressure on them. I do like the KB when solo though, it helps keep the more 'melee' aggressive types off me enough to use my heavier hitting abilities that may take a little time to activate and throw out.

So while KB is in itself is fun, it's an epitome of the the phrase 'Like a Double edged sword'. To alot of players it is annoying, especially if it's a tank running a massive mob and trying to hold the aggro off the squishy players, where KB can disrupt that and end up getting the whole team wiped while the tanker attempts to get back the aggro; but also vital if the blaster is attempting to save the squishiest of squishies, the emp/* Defender from being squished.

Not when my survivability is proportional to how many mobs are in proximity. Knockback is really bad for invul and wp, which is why it needs to be knockdown or not used at all in a team setting.Too few players actually know how to use it correctly.

Make a better build

No seriously. On my /WP I've really never had this problem you talk about. 1 or 10, I'm surviving!

My Corrs who come equipped with AoEs hate KB as well.

KB is ego tripping.

KB is people having "fun" where they get to feel powerful blasting stuff across the room whether it makes sense to or not.

Blasting stuff across the room whether it makes sense to or not is the height of failure to consider your team.


KB is protection for enemies from concentrated AoE destruction.


Everything will be KBd before you finish typing that.


If my PBAoE or TAoE or LocTAoE or any number of other powers are up every 5-15s, and I need to tell you every time that I'm about to use it to keep you from making a gigantic, inefficient, ridiculous mess of it all - that has indeed ruined my powers for me.

Its ingrained in the community unfortunately. In almost two years of playing I've never seen the mythical team wipe due to KB, even when KB powers were being aggressively used. Go figure.

I don't believe in the mythical team wipes being some constant issue, its just a very messy mechanic that reduces the killing speed of high end teams/Tfs/leagues (the only kind I want to play on).

The problem is the assumption that it can be used intelligently, when a lot of players are simply just bad at it.


Here are two specific circumstances I can think of recently where the KB was so detrimental as to cause a team wipe.

1) Lowbie team, Virtue server.

We are fighting Rogue Paragon Swat Teams who are loaded out the gills with the much dreaded Glue Grenades.

These enemies fight at range, and can completely deny movement ability - we had no less than 3 players, including a Brute with Handclap, with KB powers who used them indiscriminately to KB the SWAT Enemies out of our striking range, as they simply blast away at us as the melee section of the team struggled in vain to close the distance with them.

No amount of asking to hold off on KB helped.


2) 16 person BAF, no ambush team, Freedom Server.

We are fighting the two AVs, and dealing with the Ambush teams as they arrive.

An MM has turned repulsion field on, and left it on...


The 9CUs are scattered indiscriminately around the field, its impossible to bring AoEs to bear on them. They continue to fire on us, as being pushed out of melee is irrelevant to them.

They gain their increasing +damage and +to hit bonuses, and completely wipe half the league.



Smart players would not have used their KB powers that way.

Smart players are rare.

*blink blink* You must be doing it wrong. TA is awesome.

All true, ego-tripping is not confined to meleers, sometimes I get bummed about KB on my rangers too, especially my Fire/Fire/Force blaster, they always seem to use KB right as I use Rain of Fire. If only they would just stand and admire my beauty and the devastation I will cause to our enemies. Damn those other players for wanting to use their powers too!

Sure, their attacks cause damage and add control, but MINE are so much more productive! How can they not understand? Why do they think they should be able to play too?