What is the Kheldian surprise?

Build Up was never the problem. Outside of the pets, Peacebringers out-damaged Warshades.

Like Light Form, I was pretty much satisfied with Build Up as it was. It wasn't benefiting the forms very much, but a reduction in the shifting animation - which is currently on Hawk's to-do list anyway - would have mitigated that problem.

The real problems Peacebringers had was the disharmonious mezzes among powers like Photon Seekers, Pulsar and Incandescent Strike, and the severe damage disparity between Photon Seekers and Extracted Essence.

There's also a major power gap in the 26-30 range between Warshades and Peacebringers that I haven't even begun to address. (Warshades gain mez mitigation in spades during those levels. Peacebringers should gain comparable levels of team support, but instead get a pale imitation of heal other.)

My main suggestion was to decrease the recharge of Photon Seekers to 120 seconds (and adding a flag that would make 3 the maximum summoned) and add a small pbaoe damage buff of 15% per seeker explosion that lasted 30 seconds. That by itself would have brought us twice as far towards closing the gap than the current changes. We still wouldn't have had as much damage potential as Warshades, but the mortality rate among extracted essences would have balanced it out IMO.

EDIT - To say nothing of the fact that anyone standing within 10-15 feet of the damage radius would have been buffed as well, so Peacebringers would actually be bringing something to other melee types.

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.

O.o

ooookay, then. Whatever that means.

You know, getting back to the power gap I referred to in the 26-30 range, one suggestion I always liked - but was almost universally hated by everyone else - was Lord Xenite's proposal that reform essence be made a pbaoe heal instead of just a self heal.

As it stands, Warshades can position and stun an entire spawn with the powers they gain between 26 and 30, and it only makes sense for Peacebringers to gain comparable levels of direct team support before 30.

There was such a vehement knee-jerk reaction to the notion (a false notion, btw) that it would turn us into pocket healzors that he eventually dropped it, and I've always thought that was a shame.

I've not participated in the Kheld forums, but I have always wanted this, too. That would be a strong pro-team addition to the type. Although I was thinking making the single target ally heal an AoE heal, but either change would be a great boon to teaming.

The argument (only seeing what you posted here) is fallacious (not that that has ever been reason to not make a particular argument) in that a PB is how you play him. Once upon a time, all Defenders were healers in most people's mind. Now folks seem to understand well that that is not the case. I doubt that would be much of a drawback to PB's.

Joe, I love ya, but I dont know how many times we can say this...it has to sink in...

Rage-ifying Build-up was not a suggestion to fix ALL our damage. It was a suggestion to make it more valuable in our forms. There simply will not be a single fix that fixes everything. Thats just not possible. The change to make build up, Inner Light IS good...its good because it makes it more useful for Nova and Dwarf. Its not ALL thats needed though. Please stop acting like the suggestion was ever intended to be a one stop fix for all things PB damage...please...

I still stand by pulsar and Incandescent strike need to be either stun or hold...not one of each. Pulsar should still be mag 3, but I want them to work together rather than against each other...ill suck it up if its mag 2 and chance of mag 1 as long as they both are the same mez type.

As for Photon Seekers, I'm still thinking something like Hell on Earth wouldn't be horrible here...either a self buff that pops off photon seekers ever couple seconds that would zip off, explode, and hey, maybe even keep the buffsplosion on them...It'd give us a little more consistent damage, another buff, for groups as well as ourselves. Sorta a blast button we dont have to hit.

Im not against it, but I would worry that they'd change/increase the animation time and probably lower the healing oomph out of it. Our reconstruction clone really does provide us a good chunk of our survivability. Id be leery of changes just because its one of the few powers ive got no complaints about.

The reason I was against it was not that I had the perception that it was the only change being requested. My problem with it was that (a)the rationale of giving the forms more utility from Build Up could - and should - have been addressed with a significant reduction in the shift animation, and (b)I suspected that one buff to our damage was all we were getting, and this wasn't enough.

And - like it or not - I was probably right about (b). Which means that what we have is what we're going to keep. And I will admit that it is at least an improvement. The numbers show that out plainly enough.

You might notice that I said I was against the change to build up. There's frankly nothing to be done about it now, and I see no reason now to resist it. Pragmatism dictates that I work within the confines of what's on beta now and try to suggest improvements from there.

The only reason I brought it up in the first place was that Grey Pilgrim asked.

NOT an unreasonable request, and - given that Arbiter Hawk is willing to at least look at it - one that I fully expect to see implemented in some form.

I actually liked your suggestion for Photon Seekers. I don't remember if I ran the numbers on it or not, but I suspect it would give better results than what we got. I would have mentioned it above, only I couldn't remember the details and didn't have time to search for the post.

If Glowing Touch was a group heal it would be the fourth self-heal-capable power a Peacebringer has. I, for one, am fine without anymore heals. I'd personally rather do more damage and have some better mez capability than be able to heal allies.

Not that I'd complain if they decided to do it... as long as it was in addition to the above .

I like this idea. Sort of a Photon Seeker auto-turret.

Although I was never in the camp that Peacebringers were a joke, you can't deny that they were lagging seriously behind. And in order to have a baseline by which to make suggestions some sort of comparison was necessary. So who would you have had us compare them to? Warshades are our nearest cousins, and frankly the only other archetype that faces similar difficulties and advantages. And TBH I don't really remember you having a whole lot to do with that whole dialogue, so I'm going to assume you were speaking in general terms with the whole "Double sux to you" statement. (although it is kinda cute)

Nope. Light form isn't too powerful. You'll never hear me say that. My problem with it is that it doesn't do enough for Dwarf form. Or anything at all, really. Which brings us to:

If it goes to live with no other changes, I'll have to live with it. But until then I'm going to push for psionic resistance added to the form. It doesn't need more attacks, and it doesn't need more damage. Psionic resistance alone would give me reason enough to take it. The autohit taunt was little more than a QOL thing as far as I'm concerned. One Accuracy in the slot provided with the power is more than enough in most instances.

You know what? You might not believe this but I was *this* close to suggesting that glowing touch would make a fine aoe heal a couple of posts up when I first talked about it, and got interrupted.

Yes. Glowing touch would make a wonderful candidate for an aoe heal in place of Restore Essence. But I suspect the recharge would have to be lengthened, and it obviously should NOT include the caster in that aoe. (and I'm not sure how doable that is, either)

Even if they do make Pulsar and IS more synergetic, we're never going to be able to mez as well as Warshades. Nor should we be able to.

But we're all the time asking for some sort of change that gives something back to the teams. We constantly complain about being seen as "leeches" and our inherent is "selfish."

So I'm constantly amazed by the resistance to some sort of support role for Peacebringers. Warshades can perma-stun an entire spawn to help teams out, and what can Peacebringers do? We already have some teammate healing ability, so why not improve on that?

You make a good point about Glowing Touch, but I see no reason to refuse an aoe component to an already existing self heal like Restore Essence even at the expense of any more changes.

Why? Because I highly doubt we get any more at all in the way of direct damage boosts, and I really think they've changed Photon Seekers as much as they intend. We might get Pulsar to work with Incandescent Strike, and we might get Solar Flare's kb changed to kd, but quite frankly those two changes - nice though they might be - wouldn't do as much to endear us to teams as increasing our direct team support capabilities.

I don't feel guilty asking for all of the above, but I don't see why team heals are being sold short so often.

Oh, I agree, we shouldn't be able to control as well as Warshades. But for a jack-of-all-trades AT, it'd be nice if we had something a little more reliable than Pulsar. I've always viewed the Warshade as more of a blastroller and the Peacebringer as more of a tankery offender. I'd be all for giving the PB more support capability, though I'd personally prefer some type of team buff over a PBAoE heal.

You're evil... I'd never shift out of it if White Dwarf had a jab-clone added to its repertoire...

Really? Cool. For a while I was spamming the heck out of the Kheldian forums, like an annoying spamming spambot from Spamland, saying that usually whenever I team with a Warshade my PB seems to be more survivable and doesn't feel outclassed when it comes to damage either to the point where I stopped because it was seriously cutting into my game time and the majority seemed adamant that it couldn't be true. Now, evidently, there are numbers that prove that PBs are more survivable against single targets when there are no bodies or minions around and they do more damage if you exclude a Warshade's pets from the equation. Who would have thunk it?

Mostly I was just joking about how nobody ever seems satisfied with Kheldians while I'm a little in awe of how much the Devs have improved them since I started playing one about 4 years ago.


Before with a standard non set IO build you'd get around 59% Resistance in Dwarf form and now with LF you can get it up to 85% Resistance most, if not all of the time. How is this doing nothing? This is huge in the way that the difference between non-capped Defence and capped Defense is huge.

Yeah! I'd love some Psionic Resistance to be provided by the Inherent.

I thought the issue was not being able to hold aggro when Blasters and other ATs can do so much damage, not that Antagonize was missing. I haven't gotten to test this much but it sounds like it should make White Dwarfs more Off Tankery at higher levels which was a real problem for me. And freeing up an extra slot for Kheldians is a big deal just by itself.

Thanks and I believe you. Perhaps it could be done by simply flagging the caster to not be able to recieve any heals for a short time. So you'd be healing the party at the expense of not being able to heal yourself for a bit.

Precisely why it doesn't need it.

(Although I'd love it too.)

Couldn't they just use the same mechanics for the new AoE SB, FF shields, etc. to make it a targetted AoE that doesn't affect caster? Or even PBAoE that doesn't affect caster?

We kheld drivers are more often than not all over the place in what we want. There have been times when making suggestions in the kheld forums was a pointless excercise because you'd be shushed by the majority, who were largely happy with the state of things, and there have been times - usually when developers are known to be making changes, like know - when you won't hear a good word about them.

And some people will never be happy. I know I'm probably seen as one of the malcontents right now, but you shouldn't mistake that for being "unhappy" with Peacebringers. I love my bright alien hybrids. That's why I push so hard.

But I also try and keep an open mind.

It does nothing for dwarf because you can get your resistance up to 85% just by slotting the power.

In other words, it's not that dwarf isn't positively affected by the current changes to Light Form - it's that Light Form as it is on test takes the only advantages that White Dwarf used to give and gives it to human and nova forms. You're now better off to NOT take dwarf at all and give all those slots to your human form attacks.

And quite frankly Inner Light might have been created with the forms in mind, but a permable 20% damage boost with 100% spikes isn't doing nova form any favors, either. Nova still has a *slight* edge in ranged damage, but it also puts Nova 20% closer to the damage cap, and remember Nova already gets its damage from a 45% damage boost, meaning that it will cap on teams much sooner than human form. The choice between human and human/nova has come too far to the human side IMHO.

To remedy that, I'd also like to see Nova's 45% damage boost taken away and given directly to the base damage of its individual attacks, but I'm willing to pick my battles, and so I keep ranting about dwarf.


Now don't misunderstand me. I'm talking about adding Psionic and Toxic to the list of damage types that White Dwarf resists, NOT cosmic balance. Flag Dwarf as giving resistance to all damage types with no exception and leave the resistance numbers as they are.

One Accuracy in the default slot makes Antagonize hit 99.99% of the time. The power's inherent accuracy is 1.5, for crying out loud! It didn't really need to be made autohit. The problem with not holding aggro isn't because of taunt, it's due to damage being such a large part of the taunt equation.

Tankers get around this with taunt auras and layered gauntlet strikes in addition to their damage, but White Dwarf doesn't have the attack chain to keep gauntlet up, doesn't do enough damage comparatively to make a dent in the aggro equation and doesn't have a taunt aura.

The problem with holding aggro never had anything at all to do with White Dwarf Antagonize missing.

But that doesn't mean that White Dwarf can't tank. Aggro stealing is going to happen, and I've seen it happen to tankers just as often as Peacebringers and - yes - Warshades.

And as far as the slots being freed up - I never devoted more than the initial slot to Antagonize, and so gain nothing slot-wise from it being autohit.

The change to autohit was a token change at best. Dwarfs could tank just as well before as they can now.

I see no reason why not. I'd love this change.

That's a lot of "if's."

Wouldn't that leave us where we are now with an Inherent that wastes a lot of +Resistance in Human and Dwarf once you get and slot Light Form? Why not kill two birds with one stone? Would they really just flat out give us more Resistance to Toxic and Psi without reducing the overall numbers? What I'd like to know is if the Inherent could be coded to give us +Psionic protection or something else we lack instead to Human and Dwarf form when we have LF active? Nova should be left alone though or given a boost against Toxic or something like that.

It's the usual reference to unfortunate Japanese anime adult movies, featuring tentacle creatures. There are certain aspects of Japanese culture that I like, but that one is definitely not a shining attribute.

Anyway, I think that change to our heal could be a helpful one, but I don't know if I would want it to be only like other PbAOE heals. They don't heal for much, even if they are helpful. Maybe a heal and a slight regen boost? But yes, anything that would make our support power better would be good... even making it so it heals as much as heal other would be good (for Controllers, not expecting Defender levels, even though that is all of 3% more).

Still would say Pulsar needs to be a guaranteed Mag 3 with that. The power is flat out weak and poor still, and even if it was improved as suggested, Warshades would be better than Peacebringers at mez, which is fine by me. I don't mind Warshades having more mezzing capability, I just want what we have to work, and as you said, for our other support powers to be decent.

As for Inner Light, Joe, it was just one of the improvements needed for our damage. I think the changes was needed, but we needed more to go with it.

Well, since even the current Light Form doesn't give resistance to psionic and toxic damage, I don't think it's too much to ask. White dwarf wouldn't be able to cap psionic and toxic resistance outside of cosmic balance, even with light form up.

You can cap to all forms of damage using cosmic balance and 5 support types on your team and in range, but there again that's also true for light form and they still made that change...

Are you referring to Microcosm's analysis of the new Light Form? Unless Joe has posted something, those are the only "new numbers" that are coming to mind.... It's irrelevant though because the conversations you're referring to happened before we knew about any of these changes.

As of right now on Live, Light Form cannot be made Perma. Whether it happens to be up at the same time that a Warshade has insufficient buff food is completely circumstantial and it would be pointless to try to calculate those odds. You got angry when people linked you to the PB vs. Warshade performance analysis, insisted that Peacebringers were more survivable even when you were provided with mathematical proof that this was not the case. You also showed a complete lack of understanding of how Warshades even functioned.

The whole thing started when you said this:

You went into a discussion under the impression that Warshades had lower survivability than Peacebringers, period, and kept that attitude no matter how many people told you it simply was not the case.

With these new changes, it's a different story- Your argument has now become true... Discounting Psi damage, Peacebringers will have steadier survivability (exempting the easy-as-anything crash you have to work around.) Although the point that Warshades are reliant on teammates to survive is way off.

Anyways if you don't remember the conversation I'm talking about, you can find it here.