The PB Changes
I do think changing the Photon Seekers to something similar to Dark Extraction would help a great deal; however I would not like to see a clone of the power with a PB color change.
How about using the old Light Form animation and create only one pet and name it Protostar. This new pet will be your primary pet and will have its own range attacks and can be killed, healed and buffed. It will also summon Photon Seekers the same way Protector Bots from the mastermind set creates Seeker Drones. By doing it like this, I believe some players will still be happy to have their Photon Seeker and now they have a new pet to tag along during fights. I would like to be able to create more than one Protostar at a time so it should have the same recharge time and duration as the Dark Extraction; however if someone thinks that more than one will be overpowered then give us just one pet and the ability to control it like the new Lore Pets. By doing this I believe being able to cast one Protostar at a time will be enough. |
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Proton Sentry Peacebringer:lvl 50+++ - Human Build / Triform Build
Quasar Sentry Warshade:lvl 50+- Human Build / Triform Build
Red Katipo Arachnos Soldier:lvl 50+++ - Crab Build / Bane Build
Black Katipo Arachnos Widowlvl 50+++ - Fortunata Build / Night Widow Build
Proton Sentry Peacebringer:lvl 50+++ - Human Build / Triform Build
Quasar Sentry Warshade:lvl 50+- Human Build / Triform Build
Red Katipo Arachnos Soldier:lvl 50+++ - Crab Build / Bane Build
Black Katipo Arachnos Widowlvl 50+++ - Fortunata Build / Night Widow Build
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.
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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.
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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. |
I think as of right now, the biggest concern to me for Khelds is TOGGLE SUPPRESSION. Seriously. I have no reason whatsoever, performance wise, to take forms on my level 50 Peacebringer, when doing level appropriate content.. Besides as maybe set bonus mules.
However, I could think of a crapload of situations where I would love to shoot off those Nova AoE's, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna die while I turn my defense toggles back on.
Same thing for my Warshade, granted the darker side's forms are much more potentially useful up until you invest a certain amount into your build and they become "more trouble than they're worth" also.
I really, REALLY hope that the powers that be consider letting our toggles remain "on," but "inactive," while we are in forms. I'll pay the full endurance cost, even while they aren't affecting me when I'm Nova Blasting, if it's any consolation. I don't care! This is a buff that will make taking forms, from the perspective of any amount of investment, a no brainer....
Also, after the animation times are shortened. Then I will without a doubt take (and use regularly) the forms on both of my Khelds, and I will recommend that everyone does the same.
Please, Arbiter whoever is in charge of this, give us toggle suppression. I'm grovelling right now.
I think as of right now, the biggest concern to me for Khelds is TOGGLE SUPPRESSION. Seriously. I have no reason whatsoever, performance wise, to take forms on my level 50 Peacebringer, when doing level appropriate content.. Besides as maybe set bonus mules.
However, I could think of a crapload of situations where I would love to shoot off those Nova AoE's, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna die while I turn my defense toggles back on. |
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Seriously. I have no reason whatsoever, performance wise, to take forms on my level 50 Peacebringer, when doing level appropriate content.. Besides as maybe set bonus mules.
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Of course, human having the toughness of perma LF and AoEs of its own make it a viable replacement for both but if you wanna talk sheer effectiveness TriForm is, now more than ever, the way to go.
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On the contrary, I think the changes gave each of the forms a unique role. Prior to i21 you had Nova for AoE, Dwarf for tanking and human for...uh...self-buffing? Now each form excels in a particular area. Nova and Dwarf are still great at their respective specialties and human is the definitive ST choice.
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Now, the forms are even more worthless. Dwarf's specialty is.. What? Looking cool? Human Form can have capped resists and softcapped defense at all times, plus it can cap its' HP with essence boost. There is absolutely no logical reason whatsoever to take Dwarf.
Also, Human Form does not only comparable AoE Damage (probably better- Photon Seekers is a Human form power) but far better ST damage than Nova... That's on top of the extra survivability that Human Form can achieve...
Now, That would change with toggle suppression. Granted, dwarf would remain irrelevant because quite frankly it just sucks unless you're a Warshade and it gives you an extra Mire, plus PB's can already cap their HP in Human Form.
The only real reason to take Dwarf on a PB is for the Auto hit taunt and Kinetic Combat mules, but on my Human Form build I live without both because it's just not worth the wasted power choice: And that's exactly what White Dwarf is; A wasted power choice.
Now, Bright Nova would be AWESOME to work in to my build. I could drop both the Human form cone and the targeted AoE if I knew that I wouldn't have to spend an hour turning my defense toggles back on after each 20 minute long form shift animation to Nova-- but as of now, I'll take the slightly less powerful AoE Blasts if it means I won't have to risk dying time I shoot something.
On the contrary, I think the changes gave each of the forms a unique role. Prior to i21 you had Nova for AoE, Dwarf for tanking and human for...uh...self-buffing? Now each form excels in a particular area. Nova and Dwarf are still great at their respective specialties and human is the definitive ST choice.
Of course, human having the toughness of perma LF and AoEs of its own make it a viable replacement for both but if you wanna talk sheer effectiveness TriForm is, now more than ever, the way to go. |
There's still some reason to take Nova if you count unsupressed and non-endurance-using flight and slightly better aoe potential, but if you team even a little with support characters human form's damage potential goes up dramatically verses Nova, which will have its damage cap out 45% sooner than human form's.
Dwarf is laughable. If you can give me even ONE reason why I should take dwarf over human after the I-21 changes, please do. And no, auto-hit taunt doesn't count. With a 2.4 accuracy (if memory serves) I never missed with it in the first freaking place.
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Saying they excel in a particular area now more than ever without actually specifying the area of their excellence is the same as saying they excel "just because..."
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There's still some reason to take Nova if you count unsupressed and non-endurance-using flight and slightly better aoe potential, but if you team even a little with support characters human form's damage potential goes up dramatically verses Nova, which will have its damage cap out 45% sooner than human form's. |
In other games shapeshifters use their forms because they each do something that another flat can't. Kheldians, on the other hand, have several redundant powers. They allow anyone who plays a Kheld to decide whether they wanna put emphasis on the forms or not. (Un)fortunately, especially with the changes, human form can be perfectly viable without the forms.
Dwarf is laughable. If you can give me even ONE reason why I should take dwarf over human after the I-21 changes, please do. And no, auto-hit taunt doesn't count. With a 2.4 accuracy (if memory serves) I never missed with it in the first freaking place. |
Really, a lot of the argument comes down to perspective. In terms of what works for the Kheldian, yeah, human form is the best choice just about all the time. Do I think that's a good thing? No, I really don't. But when you're talking about the ability to change their focus as is required by a team the forms are still perfectly viable.
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Actually I did say. Nova for AoE, Dwarf for tanking and human for ST. It's true that the inherent does a lot to complicate things. Balancing the AT in general is harder because of Cosmic Balance. We have that conversation every time changing PBs comes up.
Check my post again. I said myself that human form having its own AoEs does a lot to trivialize Bright Nova. That's just a consequence of designing Khelds in a way that gives players a choice in how to build them. In other games shapeshifters use their forms because they each do something that another flat can't. Kheldians, on the other hand, have several redundant powers. They allow anyone who plays a Kheld to decide whether they wanna put emphasis on the forms or not. (Un)fortunately, especially with the changes, human form can be perfectly viable without the forms. Uh...because you wanna be able to tank for a team? You're right in saying that Dwarf is of little benefit to the Kheldian themselves. Human form is just better for damage and survivability. But when teaming (Assuming you do team) it has no means of holding aggro other than pure damage. Really, a lot of the argument comes down to perspective. In terms of what works for the Kheldian, yeah, human form is the best choice just about all the time. Do I think that's a good thing? No, I really don't. But when you're talking about the ability to change their focus as is required by a team the forms are still perfectly viable. |
Now, if Nova offered some sort of defense bonus to go with its flight (on par with Combat Flight at least) and if the 45% damage buff could be baked into the base damage of the powers, I'd find ALOT more reason to take nova.
And with Dwarf's pathetic damage output and kludgy attack chain, I can take Provoke and damage-tank to hold aggro almost as effectively as Dwarf. My white dwarf very rarely gets aggro rings in BAF trials and has had every archetype short of defenders pull aggro off.
That's not to say White Dwarf can't tank, but due to the duality of an aggro system that takes both taunt effects AND damage into account all you need is a couple of moderately good damage dealers on your teams to make the white dwarf's job twice as hard.
Killing faster in human form then becomes a MUCH more appealing option than the impotent roaring of a white dwarf.
White Dwarf needs something to help its tanking ability out, because better damage is always a better alternative to bad tanking.
EDIT: TL/DR Version: Nova is the AoE specialist, but isn't good enough at AoE. Dwarf is the Tanking specialist, but isn't good enough at Tanking. Not after the current changes.
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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.
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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'.
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I think as of right now, the biggest concern to me for Khelds is TOGGLE SUPPRESSION. Seriously. I have no reason whatsoever, performance wise, to take forms on my level 50 Peacebringer, when doing level appropriate content.. give us toggle suppression. I'm grovelling right now. |
...Dwarf is laughable. If you can give me even ONE reason why I should take dwarf over human after the I-21 changes, please do. And no, auto-hit taunt doesn't count. With a 2.4 accuracy (if memory serves) I never missed with it in the first freaking place.
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1. Because I like Dwarf, after all, it (as well as Nova) has as Socorro said, a certain..."kewlness" to it.
2. Because I don't have to chase any of the enemies on which I use Dwarf Flare.
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...the one thing that surprised me about these changes is the animation changes make me want to play my Peacebringer even less.
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Later folks.
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.
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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.
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