Knockback: A possible solution to make this team friendly.

Hello Everyone,
I am new to posting on the forum, but I have played Coh/CoV since Launch. Recently I was playing with a newer player and we were discussing the energy powerset. we went over the pros and cons of creating an Energy Blaster. First I covered the powers and how fun I thought the set was and how cool the effects of "Energy Torrent" and "Nova" were. After going on about how awesome the set was I felt compelled to give the new player a dislaimer. "Oh, and when you use your powers on a team they will all hate you for it"! It's true isn't it?
How many of us have been the EN blaster or on a team with one? the tanker herds his badguys...you swoop in and try to use a well placed energy torrent. Even nova(one of the coolest looking powers) has its detractors. If you dont kill them all or most you might get grief for the knockback. Truth be told most Tankers,Scrappers and Controllers hate knockback. Knockback can be great on a team of squishies if you want to put some distance between you and the enemy. knockback is great to solo with. How about on a standard team? Let's face it, it's not a good fit. I consider a standard team to have one of each archetypes. Sure you can be a good teammate and not use any of your powers, but really how fun is that. Do you really want someone telling you that its ok for you to stay. just dont use this, this, this, or this? Its not.

ok, so after that rant I offer a possible compromise/solution to this problem. Players need the ability to manipulate the magnitude of knockback. This means a slidebar to adjust knockback effects on our powers going from Max knockback to knockdown. maybe a global toggle to temporarily switch it. The point is we can make this work for team use and then let it fly for solo, or squishy teams. I would love to hear some feedback....Thanks!
KI

Just to warn you, on this particular topic, most of the feedback you're likely to receive is of the "high-pitched screech in the earphones" variety.

♪ ♫ 42 Change Knockback posts on the wall
42 Change Knockback posts ♪
Take one down
Pass it around
41 Change Knockback posts on the wall ♫ ♪

I knew I wasn't the first(or the 1000th) to suggest a change, Just needed to get that one off my chest. I owed it to my lonely EN blaster.


KI

Nope! I don't hate it at all, and don't think the knockback needs any change other than to possibly see an increased chance in the attacks.

I'd rather deal with a KBing blaster, than a tank that thinks they need to herd enemies.

Really. What's more comic book action? Knocking enemies about or herding them up?

That's right, knocking them about.

Lead teams

kick whiney tanks

Problem gone.

I generally focus on single targets with my Energy blaster on teams. I love it when I get blamed for all of the AoE KB despite the fact I'm only using single target attacks.

Threw this out in another KB thread - just hand out an inherent that slaps a -KB debuff on you. Turn it on and off as you please.

An open letter to NCsoft

I must have been lucky with teams I've been on, I don't really recall having problems with a team letting my energy/energy blaster tag along without rules. There shouldn't really be any problems if you use your powers based on what you see, if they are herding, use single power attacks, if you see someone in trouble thats surrounded, use an AoE attack to help clear them for a sec. Personally, I tend to use a 'blapper' strategy so I'm usually on my own target anyways.

I find it weird that Energy Blast tends to get the raw deal when there are plenty of other attacks/toggles that do Knockback or Repel.

Hurricane, Repel, Telekinesis, Force Bolt, Telekinetic Blast, Telekinetic Thrust, Torrent (not sure if anyone ever pickjs that from Darkj Blast / Scrapper Ancilliary anyway), that Haze thing from Rad Blast, Tornado.

Especially on Defenders, I always thought that the knockback component was higher because it's a Secondary effect, which Defenders tend to have higher numbers on.

I think it also depends on the team. Was doing a Sister Psyche run the other night and we had no tank (shock horror! how did we cope?! ) but we did have a Storm/ defender. Now I'm partial to Storm because it's awesome and I don't mind a lot of knockback especially if there's not much else mitigation for aggro/time critters spent on the floor going around. Others in the team were a bit wary.

For me though it was fun to have the mobs flying, especially with a Tornado being let loose. It kept the Freakshow flyers (including the ebil Super Stunners) in check. And we didn't have an awful lot of high damage AoE anyway. In short it was fun because it wasn't: Herd -> Mez -> AoE, rinse and repeat.

It may not have been 'ultra efficient gaming' but it felt a lot more like a superhero battle.

I find knockback useful when I use it. First it keeps enemies on their back. Second it usually lets me know when I'm on a bad team. Any teammate that complains about knockback is a bad teammate and player and should be avoided at all costs.

The only time I dislike KB is on my PBs Solar Flare. The Dwarf form does KD, so why can't my human form?! *sigh*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I play an Invul tanker a lot, and part of their defence is to have huge amounts of mobs round you.

I have no problem whatsoever with an energy blasting character doing his big nova blast as mostly it pretty much incapacitates / kills everything.

I don't like it when they use their energy torrent though, it knocks them flying and doesn't do much to harm them, which is irritating a bit... but... here's the trick, I have legs!!

I can pursue the enemies! This is genius, all I got to do is run back into the middle of them.

Um.. what was the problem again?



Seriously don't mind energy blasters at all!

As a guy with two tankers, a brute, and a stalker, I have no issues with knockback. If they're on their backs, they're not hurting me - or anyone else. Which is the whole point, last I checked.