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'That' is one of the Kheldian changes I am interested in. I look forward to shortened form swapping.
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Same thing for the shapeshifting animation. Arbiter Hawk says he would like it to be 1.5 seconds, but the current animation looks all wrong when shortened that much. So the change would have to wait on that.
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Smiling Joe, your one post is a bit too difficult to quote and respond to with all of the above as well, heh. Anyway, the previous paragraph is why I asked how you are getting your human form Peacebringer AOE numbers. Yes, Peacebringers technically have a lot of AOEs in human form, however, they ALL do KB, meaning you can at most stack two of them before the KB spreads them so far out that you're no longer hitting them all. It's not really sustainable, and also, I would never recommend taking the ranged AOE attacks to a Peacebringer player. Their damage is anemic and the KB doesn't mesh well with the far better melee attacks you have.
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For whatever reason I'm responding to things in random order today, but wanted to address this:
From the spreadsheet I linked to, Nova (with the inner light power accounted for and normalized) has the following powers/damage:
Bolt: 95
Blast: 157
Scatter: 155
Detonation: 141
Human form (also normalized for inner light) has the following ranged powers/damage:
GE: 107
Blast: 176
When I plugged in a moderately slotted Scatter and Detonation, they looked like this:
Proton Scatter: 146
Luminous Detonation: 122
Now maybe the nova does have a little bit of an edge, but I wouldn't call that anemic damage comparatively. Add in leadership toggles, two heals, melee powers and shields to stack with light form and there's really not much reason to worry about shifting into nova to do ranged damage.
And only one of those ranged attacks does knockback as well.
EDIT - and don't forget the aerial precision you're going to have from the new power added that only benefits human form. (which is ironic since nova's fly is inherent)
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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Just to note, Quantum Acceleration puts you in "only affecting self", you arent gonna be running it and blasting.
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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
EDIT - and don't forget the aerial precision you're going to have from the new power added that only benefits human form. (which is ironic since nova's fly is inherent)
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I'm still a fan of giving kheldian attacks, or rather, the ranged attacks only, the "dominator treatment" and increasing their damage, then adjusting their recharge times and end costs to match.
The kheldian human form melee attacks are, for the most part, actually pretty good. Solar flare and radiant strike could both use being changed into knockdown instead of knockback but in terms of damage/rech/end they're solid. Warshades only really have gravity well, unless you count essence drain... and essence drain does need a lot, IMO, it feels like it's an orphan power and needs to either be made into a real attack like siphon life was, or given a better healing effect.
The ranged attacks, though, don't hit hard enough to hold up their side of your attack chain.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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Oh yeah, that's right. Well, okay insert combat jumping for better air control. Either way.
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Originally Posted by Zenyth
Just to note, Quantum Acceleration puts you in "only affecting self", you arent gonna be running it and blasting.
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The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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Originally Posted by Flux_Vector
The ranged attacks, though, don't hit hard enough to hold up their side of your attack chain.
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And yet looking at the numbers (and my own personal experience, having taken them and used them quite liberally myself) they hit every bit as hard as nova attacks. IMHO the notion that the human form ranged attacks are anemic is left over from the days before Castle increased human form's ranged modifier.
In other words, the anemic quality of human form's ranged attacks is a myth in today's game - perpetuated by those of us who remember what they used to be and refuse to see them any other way, even in the face of numbers proving us wrong.
You are, of course, free to dispute the numbers. Maybe there's something there that I'm missing, but from a purely damage standpoint they're roughly equal to the nova attacks even after nova's inherent damage boost is taken into account.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
Smiling_Joe, I was looking at the human form attacks and attack chains in specific here, for reasons I'll get to later in my post but that basically boil down to "the forms design we have is terrible and today acts more to hobble peacebringers than to empower them."
Anyway, for human form attacks, using mids with 'arcanatime' enabled, unslotted and unbuffed we have the following:
Gleaming Bolt - DPA ~22.5
Glinting Eye - DPA ~24
Gleaming Blast - DPA ~39.5
Then we have:
Radiant Strike - DPA ~70
Incandescent Strike - DPA ~48.5
DPA, or Damage Per Animation, is the real, practical measure of how much offensive power a given ability has - it's not just how hard it hits, it's how quickly it delivers that damage and lets you use another attack again (ie, the reason why Snipes Are Bad).
When the melee attacks in your chain have two to three times the DPA of the ranged portion of your chain, I think it's safe to say that the ranged attacks are the ones who aren't keeping up their side of the effort. 
And since the melee attacks are fairly slow recharging - and there's only the two of them - you can't really ever hit a point where you're not using any ranged attacks in your human form chain. Truthfully even a high recharge chain like RS-IS-RS-eye-blast-eye is ... 50% ranged.
The blasts are already pretty fast, too - none is 2 seconds of animation. So they don't need their animations sped up. They just need to do more damage. And having been raised twice without fixing the damage problem I'd have to say the AT scalar's not the problem, the attack stats themselves are.
Drilling in to one specific issue, I think even if no other changes are made, glinting eye could stand to have its DPA buff to about 30 so it's not so close to gleaming bolt, considering how trivial it is to get bolt to under 0.7 seconds of recharge rate just from global bonuses and making it a 'proc spam' attack instead of enhancing it 'normally.'
Now looking at nova form, with its toggle buff on but no other buffs and slotting, we have nova bolt at ~34 DPA and nova blast at about 56 DPA. It's not a huge DPA advantage, especially because there's only two of them and you can't really make a chain, but it's a DPA advantage (ie, per your request, I have provided numbers to show that you are factually wrong there).
If you want to argue that nova isn't as damaging as human at range when you consider attack chains I'd say "possibly, but then the problem is nova not having a tier 3 blast attack at all, not that the attacks it has are weaker when they clearly aren't."
But I think the problem with nova form (and dwarf form) is the problem of "being forms." It's a fundamental design problem. It's probably not ever going to be fixed in a useful manner, and it may instead continue to be used as an excuse to keep the AT from performing well in a practical sense in order to justify "keeping the forms useful" - like Castle with dwarf.
As long as the forms have the design of separate powers from the human form that are linked to them while disabling human form power use, for peacebringers who have many human form powers that are basically direct competitors to the forms ones, there's just not that many places to go. If the human form competitor powers are even in the same ballpark as the shapeshift form linked ones, the humanform's broad power access overall is going to trump shapeshifting.
But if the human powers aren't competitive, they human form's lack of ability to buff and support the other two forms effectively locks the AT squarely into the lower tiers of play with no way to get out.
Unless radically changing how the forms work is on the table, Peacebringers will in my opinion be better off letting them become vestigial powers and be glad they finally get a high-functioning humanform out of it.
Would you rather have three crappy forms or one really good one?
Edit: Or maybe more accurately - would you rather have your human form 'fighting with' your nova and dwarf forms, or would you rather have it 'win'?
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
Great... forums ate my post. They really, really need to stop doing that. And I need to stop forgetting to copy what I type before pushing send. 
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Heh, I'm more just telling you all what Arbiter Hawk has said in posts and a couple of PMs to me. If I didn't have that info, I would be right along with others in asking for more animation changes to Light Form and our shapeshifting time if he hadn't told us that they want to adjust those, but it has to wait on Art and FX time. |
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
And to Grey Pilgrim for taking the impossible position of... well... arbiter (little "a").
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Now, if we don't hear anything about this for I22, I will certainly be asking questions. And I do hope some of our other suggestions get listened to (outside of those animation changes, I'm not sure how convinced Arbiter Hawk is about doing more changes or not... he's said wait and see to most ideas). I just want everyone to know where we sit.
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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
How so? Peacebringers would still be doing less damage and won't be any more survivable.
In fact, given that knockback provides a healthy amount of personal soft mitigation, they would be less survivable. Ask to change kb to kd because it annoys you, but arguing that it will magically fix our performance issues isn't going to hold water. |
Also, to respond to the above, Solar Flare would up a Peacebringer's damage and survivability. Pulsar and human form's best two attacks are all melee ranged, meaning Solar Flare scatters them away from your best follow up powers. If Solar Flare did KD, you could use your best AOE power, and follow it up with either some direct mitgation or your best damage. Arbiter Hawk has explicitly stated that he did not want to make Solar Flare KD at this time, because it might overpower Peacebringers after the other changes on Test. I do not deny that it would improve our performance, but I do disagree that it would overpower Peacebringers. It would bring them more up to level with Warshades and other ATs, as well as allowing their powers to work together more effectively.
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I'll grant you that the activation times of the human blasts could come down, but even as they are they're not so far below the nova blasts to merit taking nova. |
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector
Smiling_Joe, I was looking at the human form attacks and attack chains in specific here, for reasons I'll get to later in my post but that basically boil down to "the forms design we have is terrible and today acts more to hobble peacebringers than to empower them."
Anyway, for human form attacks, using mids with 'arcanatime' enabled, unslotted and unbuffed we have the following: Gleaming Bolt - DPA ~22.5 Glinting Eye - DPA ~24 Gleaming Blast - DPA ~39.5 Then we have: Radiant Strike - DPA ~70 Incandescent Strike - DPA ~48.5 DPA, or Damage Per Animation, is the real, practical measure of how much offensive power a given ability has - it's not just how hard it hits, it's how quickly it delivers that damage and lets you use another attack again (ie, the reason why Snipes Are Bad). When the melee attacks in your chain have two to three times the DPA of the ranged portion of your chain, I think it's safe to say that the ranged attacks are the ones who aren't keeping up their side of the effort. And since the melee attacks are fairly slow recharging - and there's only the two of them - you can't really ever hit a point where you're not using any ranged attacks in your human form chain. Truthfully even a high recharge chain like RS-IS-RS-eye-blast-eye is ... 50% ranged. The blasts are already pretty fast, too - none is 2 seconds of animation. So they don't need their animations sped up. They just need to do more damage. And having been raised twice without fixing the damage problem I'd have to say the AT scalar's not the problem, the attack stats themselves are. Drilling in to one specific issue, I think even if no other changes are made, glinting eye could stand to have its DPA buff to about 30 so it's not so close to gleaming bolt, considering how trivial it is to get bolt to under 0.7 seconds of recharge rate just from global bonuses and making it a 'proc spam' attack instead of enhancing it 'normally.' Now looking at nova form, with its toggle buff on but no other buffs and slotting, we have nova bolt at ~34 DPA and nova blast at about 56 DPA. It's not a huge DPA advantage, especially because there's only two of them and you can't really make a chain, but it's a DPA advantage (ie, per your request, I have provided numbers to show that you are factually wrong there). |
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| If you want to argue that nova isn't as damaging as human at range when you consider attack chains I'd say "possibly, but then the problem is nova not having a tier 3 blast attack at all, not that the attacks it has are weaker when they clearly aren't." |
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But I think the problem with nova form (and dwarf form) is the problem of "being forms." It's a fundamental design problem. It's probably not ever going to be fixed in a useful manner, and it may instead continue to be used as an excuse to keep the AT from performing well in a practical sense in order to justify "keeping the forms useful" - like Castle with dwarf. As long as the forms have the design of separate powers from the human form that are linked to them while disabling human form power use, for peacebringers who have many human form powers that are basically direct competitors to the forms ones, there's just not that many places to go. If the human form competitor powers are even in the same ballpark as the shapeshift form linked ones, the humanform's broad power access overall is going to trump shapeshifting. But if the human powers aren't competitive, they human form's lack of ability to buff and support the other two forms effectively locks the AT squarely into the lower tiers of play with no way to get out. Unless radically changing how the forms work is on the table, Peacebringers will in my opinion be better off letting them become vestigial powers and be glad they finally get a high-functioning humanform out of it. Would you rather have three crappy forms or one really good one? Edit: Or maybe more accurately - would you rather have your human form 'fighting with' your nova and dwarf forms, or would you rather have it 'win'? |
Have you considered that improving nova form would give the developers more leeway to improve the human form's ranged dpa numbers? The design might be flawed and clunky, but - like it or not - we're shapeshifters. We should have the option to play effectively in human form, but we should also have the option to benefit from having three forms. The current changes take that benefit away, and I refuse to accept the forms as some vestigial token. You've fought bitterly for years to promote the viability of human form, and now that you have that viability you seem to be saying that the other two forms should suffer the same fate.
You didn't want to settle for two-thirds of an archetype, and I'm not going to settle for one-third. We have three forms. They should ALL have benefits.
I'm not saying the current changes shouldn't go live - I'm saying that outside of the light form change they're not giving peacebringers enough overall benefit to merit what they're doing to the forms. I'm willing to play human form for now and be patient for other changes - but I'm drawing a line in the sushi: these changes need to be followed up with buffs to the forms.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
The human form melee damage is actually more subpar for PBs and WSs than you would think thanks to poor damage in human form ranged and AOE attacks. Stack up poor mezz protection for a melee centric character and you have a hugely underperforming set that if you play with the powers you *think* you would want to use, you are playing against weakness.
Essentially, because it's *technically* possible to run around with +140% damage all the time thanks to your team, the Devs build for that 'worst case scenario' instead of a more moderate 2.5 damage buff. Human-form ranged and AOE needs to be buffed at least a notch or two.
And I still can't believe that there is not +2 mag protection in there somewhere to match the VEATs. All it takes to make a Kheld a squishie in melee is to get hit by a single +1 mag stun, which is incredibly common.
Still here, even after all this time!
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I'm kinda agreeing here. I really -want- the forms to work, but nerfing human form to make the forms attractive isn't the answer. |
Originally Posted by Flux_Vector
But I think the problem with nova form (and dwarf form) is the problem of "being forms." It's a fundamental design problem. It's probably not ever going to be fixed in a useful manner, and it may instead continue to be used as an excuse to keep the AT from performing well in a practical sense in order to justify "keeping the forms useful" - like Castle with dwarf.
As long as the forms have the design of separate powers from the human form that are linked to them while disabling human form power use, for peacebringers who have many human form powers that are basically direct competitors to the forms ones, there's just not that many places to go. If the human form competitor powers are even in the same ballpark as the shapeshift form linked ones, the humanform's broad power access overall is going to trump shapeshifting. But if the human powers aren't competitive, they human form's lack of ability to buff and support the other two forms effectively locks the AT squarely into the lower tiers of play with no way to get out. Unless radically changing how the forms work is on the table, Peacebringers will in my opinion be better off letting them become vestigial powers and be glad they finally get a high-functioning humanform out of it. Would you rather have three crappy forms or one really good one? Edit: Or maybe more accurately - would you rather have your human form 'fighting with' your nova and dwarf forms, or would you rather have it 'win'? |
They should offer a benefit that justifies the amount of investment they need (investment including: enhancement slots, lack of utility powers, form change animation time). So, either decrease the amount of investment required (don't require so many enhancement slots by instead using Human form powers while in form, allow more utility powers to be used in forms, shorten animation time) or increase the benefit (Nova that does genuinely serious damage, Dwarf that is actually tougher than a scrapper).
Proposal!
Nova has access to Inner Light and human-form blasts (but causes more damage with them), plus inherent fly, an -extra- AoE blast and strong single target blast (the other Nova blasts are removed, thus saving slots). This will make Nova AoE blasty king, while requiring slotting for only two extra attacks.
Dwarf has access to human-form heals, shields (which are more effective) and melee attacks (but does slightly -less- damage with them), plus teleport, an -extra- short-duration defence boost click power (aka. [Shadow Meld], so it doesn't get wasted with Resistance capped chars) and an -extra- moderate-damage PBAoE melee attack, and a fast-recharging melee attack, both with taunt in it (the other Dwarf attack is removed, thus saving slots). This will make Dwarf a melee brawler with a complete attack chain that can hold agro and survive, while requiring slotting for only two extra attacks.
I'd put taunt as a power pick available as normal, and usable in Dwarf and Human form.
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Our inherent is also (ironically) causing far too much hassle when it comes to balancing. It's just -way- too variable. Solo, I'm severely underpowered. On a big team, I usually have +Resistance wasted, because it's far in excess of the hardcap, and i'm like, why did I bother with these shields anyway? +Damage is all I care about, because my attacks (especially ranged) are so weak.
OMG! How like, totally kewl are these characters?!1
I have a Peacebringer and Warshade. My peacebringer is by far my favorite character, always has been since I created it. Only reason I didn't play it from 2005 to 2010 was because he was stuck in some dumb shiny happy place.
Now both are fully Incarnatized (to the current limits).
I only play them full human form. And only on moderate to large teams.
The warshade is funny because you can do silly things like blow up corpses. But I always pick the peacebringer first because the amount of damage it does is absurd. No one has ever complained about the knockback because it's not like they have to chase after targets that are already defeated.
When I saw the changes on the patch notes I giggled a bit to myself, because my most overpowered character is now going to be even more insane. Especially with the extended build up and reduced recharge to photon seekers. Also, I remember when I read the solar flare description when I first created the character, I had pictured it coming from the hands. When I saw the recycled footstomp animation, I was disappointed. So this is a cool change, too. But I don't fly when I fight, so who cares about that new detail.
I'm a little disappointed in the change to Light Form that doesn't allow you to move freely during attack "animations". But that was always sort of like a bug (especially when incandecent strike landed after you were already far away). I can't really complain about that change.
So after reading this thread, I can only wonder one thing. What the hell is everyone else doing so wrong?
Does everyone just assume that Warshades have a permanent 2 or 3 pets out with out a hitch? Sure, in a perfect world. But how about when you're doing an incarnate trial and there's loads of AoE damage all over the place. And what about AV fights? the pets expire, then what, where are you getting the new ones from? And the lack of targets for eclipse, healing, mire... How do all your "formulas" take care of that?
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"Awesome... Awesome to the Max..."
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Which is what I think Flux was trying to say...the thing is think of how long it took us to get these changes, and more importantly how long it took us to get our last pass. They SHOULD buff the forms, they should keep all three forms buffed and at some level of parity with each other and the game at large in their respective roles. We just aren't likely to get the amount of dev time needed for that though, so if you had a choice...keeping all three forms in parity with each other but weak overall now, or getting one form up to snuff with the rest of the game...which would you go with?|
Originally Posted by Smiling Joe
I'm not saying the current changes shouldn't go live - I'm saying that outside of the light form change they're not giving peacebringers enough overall benefit to merit what they're doing to the forms. I'm willing to play human form for now and be patient for other changes - but I'm drawing a line in the sushi: these changes need to be followed up with buffs to the forms.
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Originally Posted by Borts
So after reading this thread, I can only wonder one thing. What the hell is everyone else doing so wrong?
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You laugh, but inside I die a little. *Weeps for Gravity Control*
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Originally Posted by Fire_Storm
Wait a minute....keld 's are getting looked at?
Holy CR"p....Batman, Khelds and energy aura.....did I miss the gravity thread? Yuk yuk... |
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
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Arachnos with similarly IOd builds are godmode. I don't see the problem.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Changing toggle shields from resist to defense would be a little overpowered, don't you think? Imagine a perma eclipsed human form warshade with softcapped s/l/e/n defense (and spots for lotg 7.5% recharge IO's in those shields on top of it.) It would be god mode.
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Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
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I said this on the closed boards and I'll repeat it here. The game is set up now so any AT can work in any type of content. This is to the point where people playing the same game can argue with equal force that Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes are all going to replace each other (when the real reason is that they all have different but equally valid tools to get the job done). There is no reason for Nova not to be roughly equivalent (rather than weaker) to a Blaster. Same for Dwarf with Tanks and Humans with Scrappers. Kheldians aren't going to replace those ATs if they were more in line with them, just offer a different experience and way of getting the job done.|
Originally Posted by Zenyth
Which is what I think Flux was trying to say...the thing is think of how long it took us to get these changes, and more importantly how long it took us to get our last pass. They SHOULD buff the forms, they should keep all three forms buffed and at some level of parity with each other and the game at large in their respective roles. We just aren't likely to get the amount of dev time needed for that though, so if you had a choice...keeping all three forms in parity with each other but weak overall now, or getting one form up to snuff with the rest of the game...which would you go with?
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Originally Posted by Borts
The warshade is funny because you can do silly things like blow up corpses. But I always pick the peacebringer first because the amount of damage it does is absurd. No one has ever complained about the knockback because it's not like they have to chase after targets that are already defeated.
When I saw the changes on the patch notes I giggled a bit to myself, because my most overpowered character is now going to be even more insane. Especially with the extended build up and reduced recharge to photon seekers. So after reading this thread, I can only wonder one thing. What the hell is everyone else doing so wrong? Does everyone just assume that Warshades have a permanent 2 or 3 pets out with out a hitch? Sure, in a perfect world. But how about when you're doing an incarnate trial and there's loads of AoE damage all over the place. And what about AV fights? the pets expire, then what, where are you getting the new ones from? And the lack of targets for eclipse, healing, mire... How do all your "formulas" take care of that? |
And people do complain about the KB from human form Khelds because their best attacks don't drop things that significantly. Even with Photon Seekers followed by Solar Flare, I still don't drop most minions in a mob (especially on a trial or anything above +1). It's more equivalent to what a Energy Blaster can do with their two AOEs, and those are up every mob they fight (and the Blaster can pick off the survivors quickly while they struggle to their feet. A Shield Tanker can clear a mob of minions with Shield Charge + Foot Stomp, and that's a combo possible far more often than PS + Solar Flare. And they're able to do it without sending mobs flying to the four winds.
Once again, Peacebringers are quite fun, and the changes on Test do a lot to helping them. I just don't want you to keep thinking you were overpowered in the first place. I always argued with people that said they were useless on Live, but I was never going to say they weren't in need of improvements, or that they were overpowered.
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turns out the surprise is that somehow some people want peacebringers to be nerfed.
also i just realized the resistance part of the inherent power is now gonna be practically useless since you're running capped resists most of the time if your dude has IOs and stuff. same with the mez resists i guess.
actually the inherent is more or less inconsequential/useless anyways outside of the damage buff, which is the only real significant one. except you'll never get a significant amount because what the hell are the chances of someone creating a specific team makeup for a peacebringer in a game where it's almost inconsequential after a certain degree of damage/debuff is reached regardless of the team numbers if you're the correct archetype (see: not peacebringers as they provide neither and will probably never provide either)
variability is supposedly one of those important traits for kheldians, where they can act as a tank, a blaster, a scrapper or whatever but the precursor to being variable is not sucking. if you have a ton of tools but they're all worn down, dull, useless or whatever it doesn't do you or anyone any good. even if they were mediocre or 'average', the format with the IOs creates characters who have insane output into the important regards of survival and damage to where the results are practically the same at reasonable levels (not +4x8, but even just +0x4) past a certain point for many archetypes. peacebringers are really obviously not one of these archetypes.
they're a joke and will continue to be a joke until they get a buff that doesn't leave them as ineffective as ever compared to literally every other archetype.
Yes! This is what i've been waiting for. I'd like to say thanks to all of the devs involved in "looking" at our precious Khelds. Now i have a reason to finish up my build on my PB. Perma light form here i come! 
I like that we can now use our flares mid-flight, but i'll miss feeling like a badass after using nova's KB to floor an enemy and then following up with a stomp to the face!
I just hope that these new animations don't mess with the usefulness of my double flare and flare*pulsar*flare binds... :\
Giving [White Dwarf] psi resists is one of the best reasons I have seen here to make it feel important with the changes to [Light Form], which I like alot even thou I'm still coming to terms with having that much mez protection in human. I have typed this so many times but guess I will again: Please dont take away all of my peacebringers KB. Yes [Solar Flare] should be changed to KD or even KU but the rest if fine. Also if we could just get the devs to come around on making [Incandescent Stike] and [Pulsar] both be stun and maby take the activation time of the latter down, it would help alot. Oh, and also maby use the new flight powers animation with the added form light blast to shorten form change times would be sweet.
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Very technically, what I've wanted mainly was for my peacebringer to be as statistically competent as any mediocre scrapper build combination (something that yeah, these changes may actually achieve once you count in cosmic balance +damage, if you have the right team for it - technically they achieve it for nova and human form both, even). I didn't care how it got there, though I always favored the human form because it seemed like the alien forms performed their designed roles as well as they were intended to ("not as good as a blaster; not as good as a tanker"), while the human form had things that could be improved on without hitting the "other AT caps" still.|
Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
So your answer is to just buff human form in a vacuum and ignore the other two forms altogether?
Have you considered that improving nova form would give the developers more leeway to improve the human form's ranged dpa numbers? The design might be flawed and clunky, but - like it or not - we're shapeshifters. We should have the option to play effectively in human form, but we should also have the option to benefit from having three forms. The current changes take that benefit away, and I refuse to accept the forms as some vestigial token. You've fought bitterly for years to promote the viability of human form, and now that you have that viability you seem to be saying that the other two forms should suffer the same fate. You didn't want to settle for two-thirds of an archetype, and I'm not going to settle for one-third. We have three forms. They should ALL have benefits. I'm not saying the current changes shouldn't go live - I'm saying that outside of the light form change they're not giving peacebringers enough overall benefit to merit what they're doing to the forms. I'm willing to play human form for now and be patient for other changes - but I'm drawing a line in the sushi: these changes need to be followed up with buffs to the forms. |
But in truth, my ideal answer is (and always has been, really) "put rethinking how the forms work from start to finish on the table." Consider solutions like making them 'buff toggles that change your costume but let you use the same (or mostly the same) powers as human' like granite armor, for example. Or making the forms clicks, like 'godmodes' - one for offense, one for defense - that have associated crashes or uptime limits.
I just don't realistically think the devs are going to take that kind of an approach. Especially not at this point in the game. And even if it would result in a cleaner, more balanced kheldian I bet the invested kheldian player community wouldn't go for it either (especially the "Don't Touch My Warshade" posters). Furthermore it's one that warshades don't entirely need except as a simplification that makes them more attractive to newer players. But is something that seems like the devs would want to apply to both ATs for consistency, whether they should or not balance-wise. That's all part of why I never make a big deal about advocating for that: even if it's a good idea, in fact even if it's the best idea, it's not a realistic idea and it's not gonna be a popular idea either. (Plus after the trolling I received at the hands of certain kheldian community members, I decided they were getting what they deserve to be languishing in orphaned ATs and I was gonna go have fun playing instead of posting. With my widow.).
For warshades the forms as we have them work fairly well, in part because warshades better suited to buffing their forms performance, in part because the lion's share of their DPS is form-neutral in extracted essence, and even in part because their human form isn't as invested in 'normal' attack and 'normal' defense powers as the peacebringer is, so there's less duplication between WS Human powers and WS forms powers than there is for PBs.
For PBs? The human form competes directly with the other two for function. This is something I've only recently started realizing, and these changes and the problems they cause (even though the changes are welcome ones) are what really made it obvious to me. And because of that the human form actually competes directly with the other two forms for build resources (like slots) and usage time in play.
Straight up buffing the forms would just put us back to square one where the human form was the poor cousin of the three, realistically, and then buffing human to catch up would put us back here where nova and dwarf would be the poor cousins instead. In the process, which would probably take more years, PBs would be brought up near or even past warshades and other ATs, especially if nova/dwarf ends up the ultimate winner and let you design a character you who can straightforwardly switch from a well-defended, high-damaged ranged offense form to a very survivable defense form while barely touching the human form. I'd be 110% behind form improvements that actually solve the problem. I just think straight buffing their DPS or survivability is like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Maybe I'm wrong and there's a specific numerical performance point for nova, dwarf and human all that is in balance with each other and other ATs, and that can be reached in this manner. And realistically, a decently-survivable, high-offense nova would 'kill' dwarf just as surely as human, too. So... I can't see that point, and I can't see how to reach it, by taking the forms as they are and just buffing them. If somebody else can come up with a convincing, realistic way of doing so I'll be behind it.
But I personally have come to believe that as long as the alien forms are competitive rather than complementary with human, it's gonna be one or the other. A new 'form' of thinking about the problem is the real way to solve it. Cutting the Gordion Knot, etc etc. I just have so much doubt it's gonna happen, the only reason I'm even saying it now is cause you asked if I wanted it this way with the human on top. The answer's no, but without fundamentally, radically changing the design of the forms as we have now means that for PBs it's like Thunderdome: three forms enter, one form leaves.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
As Flux has said, PBs are likely to be entering an arms race conflict if balancing continues as such. If the original mechanic is maintained and numbers keep getting tweaked, the X will become the best form and the other two will grow weak. Rebalancing happens and second verse same as the first. What needs to happen is that the forms need to be tuned, perhaps PB only, to allow PBs the flexibility that WSes receive.
One big idea comes to mind: Change Ammo. Allowing forms to work in a Change Ammo capacity creates a nice situation where forms augment the base human form, perhaps with a damage buff, proc, or group proc, while preventing any one form from being the best. Realistically, this also means less attacks as human form attacks would be allowable to be used if a Change Ammo mechanic is implemented, meaning that this is pretty much a pipe dream.
Likewise, it bears mentioning that any big form changes made to PB are almost certainly going to apply to WS whether they like it or not, potentially crippling the WS by extension. Utilizing the above example, a Change Ammo system would cause the WS to lose double Mire, mostly because there'd be no need for dwarf attacks.
Ultimately, this is the time to talk about how to make PB forms work with the PB instead of against: as Flux pointed out Warshade forms are part of a large trinity of power, constant changing being the core of their gameplay. PBs pick a form and stick to it, and are often penalized slightly for changing (loss of powers) or shoved so hard into a role, they've practically lost any reason to bother doing much but one or two things (dwarf). It's very possible that this could easily be balanced without needing to incorporate massive number changes, as this is almost certainly a mechanics problem and little more.
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Warshades can keep both their copies of Mire, if need be. Or just have one copy, but buff it.
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Originally Posted by Kenteko
One big idea comes to mind: Change Ammo. Allowing forms to work in a Change Ammo capacity creates a nice situation where forms augment the base human form, perhaps with a damage buff, proc, or group proc, while preventing any one form from being the best. Realistically, this also means less attacks as human form attacks would be allowable to be used if a Change Ammo mechanic is implemented, meaning that this is pretty much a pipe dream.
Likewise, it bears mentioning that any big form changes made to PB are almost certainly going to apply to WS whether they like it or not, potentially crippling the WS by extension. Utilizing the above example, a Change Ammo system would cause the WS to lose double Mire, mostly because there'd be no need for dwarf attacks. |
OMG! How like, totally kewl are these characters?!1
I think I figured out the surprise...
SURPRISE you still suck.. you just suck a little less..
I am convinced they have no intention of changing Solar Flare or Pulsar into useful powers individually or on teams. They have been dogmatically STUBBORN about Solar Flare for some stupid reason even though EVERY OTHER INCARNATION OF THE SAME POWER IN THE GAME does KNOCKDOWN....
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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Unless they can guarantee it will be a 100% buff to both NOVA and DWARF, I'm against any re-working of the forms to be complementary to human form. If I wanted to play someone who was mostly human . . . I wouldn't be playing EITHER Kheldian.|
Originally Posted by oreso
Warshades can keep both their copies of Mire, if need be. Or just have one copy, but buff it.
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The form shifting aspect is what attracted me to the AT in the first place.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Wait a minute....keld 's are getting looked at?
Holy CR"p....Batman, Khelds and energy aura.....did I miss the gravity thread? Yuk yuk...
Can't wait to check this out!