Ranged Knockback

I know the crash nukes are being looked into, but is there any chance of looking into ranged knockback and making it knockdown so its more team friendly? Sets like energy blast, the new dark set with its cone attack that always knocksback pretty much just drive melee insane.

No.

The attack does not drive melee users insane. The improper use of said power does.

I'll just give you a brief summary.


All of the people who love KB will come out and try to drown out your ideas.

All of the people who hate KB will come out and try to drown out their ideas.


This might continue for several hundred posts, with no resolution or ground given on either side.

In approximately 2-6 weeks time, another thread will appear just like this one.

For starters, it's not the range that bothers you about those particular powers, it's that they're AoE and affect multiple enemies. After all, it seems absurd to complain about having just one guy knocked back (and it never happens to AVs, so we're talking routine mobs) -- especially since the ranged attacker would typically keep attacking, and defeat, that one guy, in a few seconds.

Ranged knockback should be knockback. You launch a missile at a guy, it's going to push him back. Certain melee knockback (Power Thrust, Telekinetic Thrust) should as well. But certain other melee knockback (Foot Stomp, Head Splitter) should really be changed into knock up.

Remember that there are also powers whose sole purpose is to knock back, like Force Bolt, Power Push, Gale and Repulsion Field.

Personally, on my Dark/Ice Tanker, I hate when my targets get confused by some inconsiderate Plant or Mind contoller. But you won't see me complaining about it because it's just a type of mez that quite frankly isn't disruptive. Knockback falls under the same category.

If they do anything to address the knockback "problem," I hope it's optional, like adding -KB enhancements that would turn knockback into knockdown when slotted in a power. All I know is that my Energy/Energy blaster (the only blaster I enjoy soloing) would stop being fun if my knockback was taken away. =/

I've got it on good authority that the devs are about to remove meleers from the game because they interfere excessively with ranged knockback powers.

If the mob is too spread out, that won't work. AoEs don't have infinite size... and sometimes you need to push stuff around to make them all fit.


I used to have an Energy/Rad Corruptor, and I made quite good use of the KB effects in the energy attacks to keep the spawns focused around the anchor(s). It also had the happy side effect of making AoEs, PBAoEs (toggle or clickie) more effective. A lot of AoE attacks have a fairly small radius, so having the enemies packed tighter helps nicely. Only down side were the energy AoEs often screwing up my effectiveness (if they consistently knocked back, it wouldn't be an issue... it's that it knocks some, but not others!).

I've been wanting to reroll that character for quite a while... I regret deleting it (energy's damage was fairly crappy, though, which sucked for soloing).

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I still think Null the Gull is the best option.

"Change all my knockBACK powers to do knockDOWN instead (note this will not affect powers that have the primary function of knocking back, such as Force Bolt, Power Push, ect"

People that want to play Energy but hate the knockback win, people that play Energy and love the knockback aren't affected.

Really, it's sad that perhaps the most iconic blaster set gets ignored by the majority of the playerbase because of something as silly as knockback. This change would do wonders for opening up the ranged blast sets a bit instead of being Fire... and all those others.