What is the Kheldian surprise?

No, it's pointing out two things we don't know. My exact statement versus your rewording - and I didn't think my statement was anywhere near as aggressive as you put out above:

Meaning:

(A) Some ATs don't click with some people. They expect things the AT isn't designed around - say, tanking with a blaster. Hell, *I* admit some powersets and combos don't click with me. I can't stand Illusion, for instance. Or,

(b) We don't know your build. We don't know what you've put in it, what powers you've picked. There could be a fundamental flaw with your build and/or your tactics in using it. There's a *wide* range of IOs out there. You could have made less than ideal (or "odd" to me - and I don't mean ideal isn't "odd" to me, I play my own way) choices. I don't know.

Neither of these are attacks on you, they're plainly stated possibilities. So don't TAKE them as attacks on you. I'm blunt with what I say. If I wanted to insult you, I'd call you an idiot. I haven't done so.

And this is false. Standard levels - what I dictated above, which we've been *told* is what the game is balanced around (SOs, not IOs, not high end builds.) Are they underperforming there?

I've been playing PBs since Issue 4. When voids hit harder, we had content gaps, debt really meant something, etc. And I'm *perfectly* comfortable saying "No, they don't underperform at standard levels." They sit right where I expect them to sit - faster than pure support, not as tough as a dedicated melee AT, tougher than the dedicated ranged AT, with a few tricks thrown in.

If my PB were soloing at the same rate as my Controllers - and again, I'm not talking IO'd out Fire/Kin farmer or Ill/Storm - I'd be right there with you saying they underperform. If they were soloing at Defender speeds without something equal to the force multipliers Defenders bring, I'd be yelling for something to be done as well.

But they're not. They're faster, they're more survivable (or survivable in different ways) and bring a different mix of abilities to the table.

I don't tend to agree with saying "turn it up to x8" for a PB - that's not generally where a PB stands out. PBs and Warshades play with different sides of the difficulty slider - Warshades thrive on more bodies, PBs on fewer but tougher enemies. (Again, I'm talking at standard, not IO'd out levels. IOs can push things in all sorts of different directions.)

And if you're playing that multi-billion IO'd PB, how do you know that?

Honest question there. If that's the build you're used to, you're *not* in touch with what a standard Peacebringer does - and I'll say that using the new Light Form is *not* minor at all at those levels. It's able to be used more frequently, frankly, with the adjustments made for it. It changes the situations where it can be used - it's a lot like Domination in that respect, where pre-Dom2.0 people would hold off on using it until they were coming to a boss fight, so they could get the damage boost as well as the mag boost. Now? It pops constantly.

Not sure that's quite what you were aiming for - the variability is more the Warshade schtick. They get the "higher highs" because they're at more risk and/or reliant on outside variables (# of bodies) to get there. The PB, if anything, should be more steady. Yes, this means we're going to have lower (SO-based) potential - but we *know* we're going to have the same buff/effect/whatever each and every time we use it. My heal's *always* going to heal me for (making up a number) 360 HP at this level with this slotting, I'm *always* going to get this END discount with conserve power, Light Form is *always* going to give me the same buff.

The variability's more in build to build or player to player, in the form of what forms they've taken and the like.
And I disagree - and I really think you've been stuck in that IO mindset too long. (Not an attack, not an insult, it's just not where the rest of the game is.) From what I'm seeing, they *do* fill their requirements. Part of the issue is that - unlike tanks or blasters, for instance - people don't quite know where to *put* Peacebringers.

(Example, I got a PM from someone else in this thread asking me about my views on Knockback that I've put in there, how I can find it useful, etc. When I told them, their response was more of a "Huh. Yeah, different playstyle, I can't see myself doing anything but melee" (paraphrased.) ) And that may well be part of the variability you're trying to tell me about a little earlier - but I tend to think (from playing these for so long) that concentrating on just one or the other (melee vs ranged, and that's not taking control possibilities, etc. into the mix) short-changes the AT as a whole.

Does it mean I'm playing it "right" and you're playing it "wrong?" The only reason I'm going to say you're playing it at all "wrong" is that you don't seem to be enjoying it, and that's purely objective, not subjective. It's not running a tank without armor or mez protection and trying to be a blaster - that's subjectively wrong (and scary.) It's... a vibe, I guess, and I could well be misreading you. I just wonder if I play closer to the *devs* idea of how it should play (even past devs) and fewer of the regular posters do - much like how they've admitted being thrown by the power players have shown using IOs in ways and to levels they didn't expect.

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well if solar flare is changed to KD, wouldn't luminous detonation still accomplish what you're wanting here? an AoE KB used to get enemies off you? I mean the KD would give you enough time to either pick a perfect target to get the most KB out of LD, or give you enough time to jump out of the spawn and reposition yourself for proton scatter or nova DPSing.

No, it is where the rest of the game is. I can't remember the last time I saw a 30+ character's info block that didn't have a list of set bonuses too long for me to even try to parse. (Really, that needs to go, but that's another thread.)

I haven't tried the new changes yet but arguing that current PBs are in any way, shape or form competitive in this game is a complete joke. There is no room in this or any other MMO for a character type that does many things badly and nothing well.

You guys both have good points... yes pb underperformed compared to other AT's and yes fully iod out is not baseline of say a new player coming to play the AT for the first time...

but i agree with memphis its all in the playing style and what you like..

I play my pb like a ranged scrapper with shields/regen..

And i mostly pvp with my pb .. and these changes are a big deal in the pvp environment..

So really its all up to the end user... until

the devs fix the forms and or the inherent so it can be more easier for the new people and closer to other AT'S without noobing the AT up for the fanatics.

imho

Few things here. Glad you caught the numbers issue, as I was confused as heck by what you were saying. I KNEW there was no way that Human Form AOEs were as good as Nova like you were saying (though Solar Flare is competitive). Now, if Synapse does make nukes not crash anymore (like he said he was *debating* doing for them in the recent dev chat... that's not a guarantee, of course), that would be a nice boost for human form AOE damage. Might use that nuke a little more than when it sounds like fun.

I would agree that Nova needs some adjusting, probably an improvement to its ST damage so it is competitive with Human Form.

I also think Cosmic Balance needs some adjusting so it works more nicely with forms. Things like making Nova have a higher damage cap to work with it better, or making CB buff less so our other powers can function better while solo or on small teams (or when we move a little away from our teammates), etc., would all be helpful. I think CB is making things more difficult to balance than it should, even if I like how insanely you can be buffed on an 8 man team.

For the KB in Solar Flare, I know you can land another attack right after it goes off (AOE or otherwise), but that's it. I make use of this with all my Blasters (M80 followed by Full Auto is helpful on an AR Blaster to cut down on return fire while Full Auto is animating).

It's still less useful on a melee AT, because once the target is out of range, you can't land any more hits. That's why KB on a melee AT is a detriment. It really shouldn't be seen as a surprise that the devs are acknowledging this, either... they did as much when they made all those melee KB powers do KD back in I10. Still, I would say KB is kept in ranged powers because it is a help there. Nova form or Blasters don't really care if it gets KB'd, because they can follow up just fine.

What is surprising is that Arbiter Hawk is seeing that and a change to Pulsar as too much of a change on top of the changes we have now (this is an important distinction to make, probably... he just doesn't want to give us too many adjustments and then have to take some away, or so it sounds like). I disagree with that and am surprised by it, since those two requests aren't as changing for performance as an adjustment to Cosmic Balance or something like that.

Castle once said that the game is balanced around SOs, but that he still had to account for IO builds (which they do with recharge numbers, etc., for powerful attacks), which is a good design approach. Even though he is gone, the devs still seem to aim for that, I would say. And yes, +4/8 is not a balance line at all. I play ATs and powerset combos that people say they can face that kind of thing, but I don't play at that difficulty level. I know I can do it with my Fire/Fire Tank in RWZ, at least, but I didn't find it all that fun. It was a tough, tricky thing to do (though I could probably make him even tougher if I had more inf), and didn't find it all that fun.

And then I have characters that definitely could not do it. I'm fine at being at x2-x4 on most of my guys. That's where I'm comfortably between too easy and too hard, and where I have fun.

I do wish KB had another, similar setting (you KB or KD). Probably the best option we have right now is to make Solar Flare KD, and you can slot for the KB if you want. I know that still won't make some happy, but I think it's better than where we sit right now.

I agree.

Cue Bill's disagreement in 3, 2, 1 . . .

I think I would be fine with CB as it is if it weren't for the way that it works with Nova Form. Because Nova works by granting access to the four attacks AND a 45% damage boost, that means that Nova smashes its head on the damage ceiling 45% faster than the other two forms, and also means that Bright Nova (and Dark Nova) gets far less benefit from reaching the damage cap than the other forms. A damage-capped nova is only slightly more powerful than a damage-capped human.

Remove that 45% damage boost and translate that power directly to the nova attacks, and you've got a much more balanced picture between the forms, and can THEN adjust the overall damage with more predictable results.

But my point is that a Peacebringer really doesn't have many options outside of that second AoE. Hit Solar Flare/Luminous Detonation, and THEN what? I suppose if SF did knockdown you could hit Dawn Strike or Photon Seekers, but those are "spawn killers." They'd kill the spawn if they're the second attack just as easily as if they're the third attack. In fact, to use them as a third attack would just waste the excess damage potential. Proton Scatter is a cone, so you'd jump back out to use it anyway. In fact, I'd argue that the knockback in SF actually works to Proton Scatter's benefit.

I suppose Pulsar could be thrown in on a knocked-down spawn, but what's stopping me right now from hitting that first, THEN hitting Solar Flare and a second attack? Nova and Dwarf form each has one AOE, but the animation time (2.224 seconds arcanatime, or thereabouts)

My point is that PEACEBRINGERS aren't going to be that much more powerful if SF is changed to KD, because they don't have enough AoE attacks in human form to leverage the advantage, and switching to forms only yields two more at the cost of almost five seconds wasted just animating the shape shift.

Would it give us more tactical options? Sure. Would it overpower our damage capabilities? I'm not seeing how.

But - as I said - I don't really have a row to hoe in the argument, because I don't see how (outside of the annoyance factor) having kd in Solar Flare instead of kb would really benefit us all that much.

[/quote]

Actually, after reading what you said about keeping IO's in mind, I can kinda see what Arbiter Hawk was thinking. With IO builds you're going to have a PERMANENT 30-ish percent buff to damage across all forms, the catch being that you have to drop to human periodically to claim it. You're also going to have some sort of PERMANENT mez protection across all forms, and some pretty significant damage resistance across all forms. Again, you're going to have to drop to human form to claim it.

It's almost as if he was afraid we'd never feel the need to drop to human form, so he sort of tried to force the issue by tying those two powers to human form specifcially. (And also why we'll never likely see Inner Light clickable in forms)

Problem with that is that he really didn't give us any reason to switch to the forms in the first place. The shields toggle off when in form, so dropping to human form is going to mean lesser resistances if and until you get the toggles back up. Dwarf doesn't give any real damage resistance that can't be attained from taking all three shields with perma light form, and now that human form only gives slightly less mez protection than it did I won't even need to use Dwarf to break mez.

There's slightly more reason to go nova for AOE potential, but even that can be eclipsed by human form's newfound single target damage.

It's not that the forms are somehow less balanced than they were, it's just that there's so much more incentive given now to stay in human form that Nova and Dwarf have become inconvenient.

It benefits us in not having to chase enemies down because half of our abilities are designed for close range. Matter of fact, lets take a look at our primary...

Five Powers are "ranged" Gleaming bolt, glinting eye, gleaming blast, Luminous Detonation, and Proton Scatter. Five are "close", Radiant Strike, Incandescent Strike, Pulsar (PBAoE), Dawn Strike (Nother PBAoE), Solar Flare (Yet more PBAoE), and Photon Seekers (So dumb they might as well be PBAoE). Of all those powers three of the four PBAoE's knockback, all at a rate of 50% or greater, only two of the ranged ones do (Luminous Detonation at 50%, Gleaming Blast at 10%). So we're kinda directly being discouraged from using the PBAoE thanks to the knockback, but they're also some of our best powers...and includes one of our few mez tools. However, it also discourages the use of our OTHER mez tool (And strongest single target attack) in Incandescent strike since we're having to chase down all the guys we just sent flying all over the place because its melee.

Something to keep in mind though is that changing the knockback to knockdown isnt just a benefit to us, it benefits our GROUP (Something our inherent encourages us to you know...do) in that we aren't throwing enemies all willy nilly, making THEM chase down enemies to use THEIR attacks.

I dont buy the "It might be overpowered" line...I dont buy it at all...

Is the annoyance factor a valid arguement? Yes, yes it is. Half of our abilities are designed for up close combat, half aren't. Should one side suffer? No, but people who like knockback can get it back just by devoting one slot in the powers with it to a knockback enhancement. People who dont want knockback cant devote an enhancement slot to removing it. I wish we could make everyone happy, but unless we make doubles of every power, one with knockback, one with knockdown, somebody isnt gonna be happy...and I highly doubt we'll get mirrors of all the powers...

::shrug:: I don't mind spending the .5 seconds it takes to chase enemies down, or the .5 seconds it takes to position to knock them into a wall or something. I also don't mind punching them where they fall, should they be knocked down.

Punch'em here, punch'em there. Makes no difference to me, so I won't mind one way or the other.

But I also don't buy the kd=overpowered argument. On another set and archetype - like Electric Melee, for example - it makes more sense. Oh, wait. Electric Melee does knockdown, doesn't it? So all of those EM/Shield scraps and brutes aren't overpowered compared to other sets in their archetype?

Oh, wait. Shield Charge does knockdown too, doesn't it?

Huh.

I don't think that's so much "working as intended" as it is "working as required". It's the same reason that pseudopet-based powers like Transfusion fail if their target dies mid-animation. The pet or pseudopet isn't actually spawned until the end of the animation so if the target isn't there any more when that happens the game doesn't have a location to spawn the pet and the power fails. Fixing it would require either having the essence appear before the summoning animation (would look silly) or adding tech to remember the target's location even if the body vanishes (and it would still look a bit silly to have the essence pop up from nothing, especially if the target had rezzed).

I'm pretty sure that's fixed now.

I'd heard that as well - which is good news if your target is still alive. If your target's a corpse, however, will it still fail to summon an essence if it disappears mid-cast?

Scroll back.

... which, the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see - but I'm not even considering thinking about suggesting possibly someday maybe holding my breath for it.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Still fails on disappearing corpses. Sadly.

so then why couldn't they just make the pet summon as soon as the power is activated then still have you have go through the animation? i wanted to say that that is either the same thing or similar thing that they did with HoB but i wasn't 100%.

i'm also assuming that they can't just shorten the animation by alot.

exactly!

i'm squarely in that heavily IO'd crowd but not in that ridiculous range. the 'billions and billions of inf' build i'm talkin about has no purples, just kinetic combats, luck of the gamblers, obliterations and other high end IOs. it's not a rare usually unachievable situation like it is with someone who's got purples everywhere but instead the high-end standard.

baseline definitely not the right word in this scenario though so ya'll are right about that haha


seriously though, lessen or remove the crash from light form. the way it functions at the high end seems contrary(?) to it's intended design in the high-end aspect of permanent light form as in the situations where it would be useful (being the primary target in a fight, stuff like that) as that it has a tendency to crash in those combat situations (well, there's rarely downtime in this game outside of wipes anyhow) and leave you dead.

to be less dramatic, all-in-all i just don't think the current buffs bring peacebringers to the level to where people outside of fanatics will want to play them, or pay the 12? dollars to unlock and play them when freedom comes out. i'm sure that's a reason they're being buffed in the first place.

edit: their rep doesn't really help this scenario at all either.

not really sure how to buff them though. someone suggested a fix of replacing the knockback with knockdown and changing the -def to -res and i think that would be pretty cool since it lets you leave most of the powers and the inherent the same, while drastically increasing the damage output in a manner that removes one of the more common complaints about pb powers (-defense not really doing much against npcs). but i specifically play in a blapper style humanform only sooo yeah.

That change was hardly revolutionary. While they upped the recharge speed they dropped the amount of time you could be affected by the buff by 20 seconds, resulting in a rather significant nerf if you liked to switch between forms.

Edit: Not saying that PB's don't need to be buffed up a bit. Just looking at things now versus how they were in the past, it's funny to see how much of a mirror things are.

Yup... it doesn't add up a whole lot, does it? I don't really get it all that much.

Flux, every set cannot be in the top tier, and it wouldn't be a good thing if they were. Sets should be allowed to be different for flavor and to be interesting, and no matter what, there are going to be powersets that are seen as middle of the road or more powerful. Case in point, Energy is weaker than Fire in the Blast sets, but it also offers more mitigation and has a distinctly different playstyle. That's not a bad thing, or a good thing.

In fact, all your reasoning smacks of how people talk down about Dual Pistols for Blasters. The set does have the issue that all the damage types buy Fire and Standard aren't all that helpful for Blasters, but otherwise, it's middle of the road for damage. The numbers SHOW IT, but to hear people talk, you would think you were shooting spitwads at enemies. I have a Dual Pistols Blaster and had to point out how wrong that impression was many, many times.

Also, you're going to need to get your measuring stick adjusted if you think +4/x8 is a balancing point for the developers. Some players have that measuring stick for themselves and the sets they play, but that's the advantage of our game having a difficulty slider. They can play there if they want, but no one HAS to. And no powerset or AT needs to be able to, either.

You can certainly point to what other ATs can do and show that Peacebringers or Warshades have issues that the other ATs do not, but you're not going to get any traction if your balance point is that "Kheldians should totally be able to fight +4/x8 with no problems."

The game is designed with SOs in mind, while still accounting for the bonuses IOs offer. That's well short of +4/x8 (which is a level attainable through a build and player ability, which is good to remember as well).

Aganhim, that change to Warshade's Dwarf form was pretty helpful. A lot of players were pointing out that the longer mire in Dwarf Form made Dwarf for Warshades a lot weaker than Peacebringers. Technically, it was a nerf to Warshades overall damage potential, but it did make fighting in Dwarf more valid for them.

I didn't say every set should be top tier. All I've specifically advocated for Peacebringers is for them to be made mediocre. And I've even said outright that I think this set of changes probably accomplishes what I've wanted for PBs (yes, they really had that far to go, and yes, primarily res-based survivability has been deprecated because of the numerous buffs given to and secondary benefits derived from defense-based mitigation as opposed to resist-based mitigation for characters who haven't got debuff resistances).

But my response to Smiling_Joe was that if he wants PBs to have a truly balanced 'tri form' option, then I think we need new ideas beyond 'make nova do more damage' and 'make dwarf tougher' because 'doing damage' and 'being tough' are also the function of the vast majority of the human form's powers too. If the forms (especially nova form) are good enough to want to use under the current model, then the human form's not nearly as useful in comparison. Notably, if nova did that much more damage with the current changes on beta, why would you ever leave it except to reactivate clickbuffs like essence boost, hasten, and light form? I probably wouldn't even bother reactivating the buildup except when I had something else to click before I shifted back, in fact.

Heck as it stands where human and nova are doing 'comparable' damage, I can see a strong argument for being a nova-centric PB since you do serious damage at long range and with flight. Throw in essence boost and being res capped and having a degree of status protection, and you've got a serious mitigation advantage over most other ranged combatants (with the major exception of range-built VEATs).

You just won't do the damage that would put you up there with warshades or crab spiders. So you're not 'top tier' you're 'mediocre' - in the middle. Edit - and even with their damage advantages I'd put blasters mostly in the middle, in 'mediocre' too - they don't have the survivability, at least not without IO builds. They only go up to 'good' when you IO them into a softcapped, high damage ranged attacker.

What I'm saying is that a measuring stick has two ends, and a middile, and that a lot of posters seem to discount deny or disparage the existence of the top end and simply try to claim balance falls between the low end and the middle rather than putting the middle between low and high where it belongs.

In short, my measuring stick is fine. I'm just looking at the whole stick, not just the bottom half of it. And I think people who aren't are doing themselves, and the discussion, a disservice by not doing the same with theirs. Or by using sticks that are too small.

There's nothing wrong with an AT being mediocre. But there's also nothing wrong with it being mediocre on "SO's" and then having room to grow into being truly awesome with IOs, too. Instead of just being stuck with "mediocre, no matter what you do to your build." Sorta like the opposite of if you couldn't use IOs to softcap your blaster; he'd do damage, sure, but not survive well. Now the PB will survive well, but even with being IO'd out the PB's damage can't go up too much farther. Wanting IOs to improve a character isn't some kind of "crime against balance."

Point taken. While it was counter to my fire and forget playstyle, I can see how it would help round out dwarf. Here's hoping for the best for my PB brothers

If you are trying to convince the devs for buffs +4/x8 will get you no where in discussions with them. In their eyes the far fewer powersets and ATs that can do that the better.

EDIT: You're talking to people who think that buffing pulsar and turning one power's KB into KD will somehow overpower an AT.

I think you need to lower your expectations.

i keep purging that statement from my mind but yeah i got to remember that we're dealing with dudes who think peacebringers can output more damage than super strength on average

but really i still think they are very much considering high end play when designing powersets and power changes, or else inner light and light form wouldn't be designed as they are. to completely omit that level of play from our discussion would pretty clearly be harmful like flux said. it's not advocating +4x8 off SOs or whatever, but like flux said: after significant investment they should be able to operate on average at a level equal to powersets who have had the same investment on their character. whether that's +4x8 or +0x4 or whatever it's something that's clearly being considered by the devs.

honestly i've pretty much given up hope on peacebringers getting buffs that bring them up to a level where people who aren't in love with them for whatever reason want to actually play them.
and y'know. pay for them.

edit: to add something to the discussion beyond pissing matches, has anyone else had the bug with light form where if you try to activate it when it's recharging or already active it still runs it's animation? like if i have light form already up and then click the power again or use a bind or whatnot it'll still run the animation regardless of the state of the power.

it's really annoying since it makes setting lightform to a fire and forget bind like movement your dude will raise their hands up and shake their fists at the heavens

Give the forms a "ramp up" time, and benefit...Nova attacks buff the PB's damage with every attack, by adding fiery embrace-ish energy damage boosts, stacks X many times, lasts Y many seconds. Dwarf attacks increase the PB's defense, adding a small amount of defense or regen (just not resistance, we got too much of that already) with each attack, again stacks only X many times and lasts Y many seconds...

The thing that makes this all "work" is that those buffs will ALSO carry over into the other forms, but it takes time to "ramp up". It encourages taking the forms because they're useful for not only the "job they do", but also because they help the others. Need to be tanky but want some damage, spend some time in nova, build up that bonus energy charge, drop to dwarf, while it lasts your dwarf has a damage boost. Its a mechanic that would encourage form switching, keeping all the forms not only viable, but useful. Admittedly, this will fit MY playstyle best, and wont really "work" until we get the faster animation time on the form shifts. It is however in line with what we've seen out of the devs with new powersets recently. Its a gimmick, akin to the new combo stat on Street Justice, or disintegrate on beam rifle...or heck, just the combo stuff out of dual blades.

I still believe we need to change out some of our resists somewhere (From the inherent, shields to defense, etc). I still think Pulsar needs to be mag 3, and Solar Flare needs to be KD, but if they want to keep the forms valuable, this would be a good way to do it.