The PB Changes

Having one pet that periodically summons a photon seeker is something Smiling Joe has mentioned in the past, and I think that could work. I really don't think they would give you mastermind controls or a summons like Dark Extraction's though. One non-expiring Light version of Dark Extraction (that is basically the old Lightform animation) that can also summon the occasional photon seeker would do a heck of a lot toward closing that damage gap. It would be better than Dark Extraction in certain situations and worse in others, following the basic theme of the two AT's as they currently stand.

Personally speaking, I'm thoroughly enjoying the changes. It's really refreshing to come back to the game and find one of my favorite ATs can be as tough as the heartiest Tanker all the time with a little investment (My Perma Light Form build cost me about 55 million inf). Inner Light's also a nice addition. It's more viable for PBs than Build Up ever was.

That being said, I agree that there's more to be done, particularly for those who don't employ IOs. Without their benefits the AT can still be deficient in damage a good amount of the time.

While the added utility is a nice step towards parity for Peacebringers, the one thing that surprised me about these changes is the animation changes make me want to play my Peacebringer even less.

Maybe when they finally finish the shorter form swapping changes, I'll finally finish him to 50.

As a dedicated Human-only even prior to I21, of course I love what they've done for the human form. I agree, though, that as a shape-changing AT, the alternate forms have to bring something to the table that the Human cannot approach, because it is true that if Human can get close to what another form can do, there's really no reason to take the form outside of 'kewlness'.

Well I wanted to give myself a couple days of playing my Tri-form PB before I said anything regarding the changes and now that I have, I have a few observations to make.

Overall I am very happy. Granted I was in the camp that was fairly happy with PB's anyway before the change now it's only gotten better. As has been stated Inner Fire was indeed a Game changer as is Lightform.

Aside from Psionic heavy groups I can pretty much steamroll through just about anything, though I will say that a +4/+8 CoT mission is a PITA with all the Death Mages healing each other and everything else constantly.

However, I do see some problems and it mostly has to do with forms and the way these changes alter the PB gameplay flow. before it was a fairly steady marathon that was pretty safe, just not terribly fast. Now, it's a great big click fest akin to how the Warhsade plays just without the need for bodies on the floor. What this has meant for me specifically is that I am finding I spend more time in Human Form than I did previously.

To clarify before the changes my strategy for big groups usually went something like this - Summon Seekers, hit Build Up, shift to Nova and pull with an AE or two. When the mob starts running towards me the seekers blast most of them back giving me time to fire off a few more AE's. Then I switch to dwarf and proceed to stomp, switching down to human now and again to fire off more seekers, hit build up, or whatnot as things were flopping on their backs. It worked really well.

Now, I can still use nova for the pull but really no point in staying there once they get to me as the Ae's aren't going to be very efficient when you are surrounded. So I go to Human form and then it's such a fast pace that..... the animation time to change forms isn't really worth it anymore. I can still see using Dwarf form given the way I like to play. There are several things about dwarf that I would really like to keep such as an extra heal, the flare which is really awesome mitigation and decent damage, as well as the taunt. Nova, I just have a hard time seeing myself use it outside of that first contact.

This kind of makes me sad as I really enjoy the triform playstyle but the more I think about it the more making a Human Only form build makes sense. For that to be really viable though it seems to me that I would need either a Perma Lightform build, a softcapped S/L or maybe melee softcapped defense build or both. Not a cheap build by any stretch of the imagination unfortunatly.

Granted my Triform build probably has most of the IO's I'd be looking for in a perma Lightform build already but for a Softcapped build I'd have to do some serious reworking of slots. A Part of me really wants to keep my Triform build though and maybe work on a second Human only version as a secondary build.

So here I am, not really sure where to take my PB. I really think the changes were posotive ones but I am not sure I am happy with the effect those changes have had on the overall game play of the PB.