Buff Trick Arrows 2.0! Now with more begging!

Any improvement is a good improvement. I approve!

While I like a lot of the suggestions that have been added since the original post, I think that any changes to trick arrow will be quick numerical improvements. Anything that is truly unique and creates a new mechanic will be used for new sets that can generate revenue.

This thread is pretty dense with ideas, too many for my simple mind to track on.

For my part, though I have fun with Archery / Trick Arrow on a Corruptor, I find TA to be frustratingly neutered in some ways compared to its peer sets, but it's mostly several anemic powers that cause this perception for me rather than the entire set.


Ice Arrow is just disappointing. What I would love to see is instead of a boring single target hold, if it instead put down a Ice blaster sized ice patch as a ranged drop. That would be awesome.

Poison Gas Arrow is ok, but if it worked similar to Trap's Poison Gas Trap, perhaps lessened effect but a ranged drop, that would be better.

Disruption Arrow leaves me thinking I'm missing something, because it currently seems like a more END expensive, less effective dupe of Acid Arrow. I mean, of course I use it, but I'm not excited about it and it just doesn't seem to be worth the END. If it also applied a decent -damage effect or something equivalent on the other hand....I'd pay the END and smile.

Flash Arrow should be cool, but it seems to have almost no effect. It needs to actually do something useful in addition to its -PER effect (especially given how common Stealth is these days), either something normal or something out of the ordinary like wiping / lowering aggro profile. I don't know, I leave it to more knowledgeable folk to fathom, but please make it do _something_ not lame.



Tangential to Trick Arrow, I wish there were an Archery Manipulation / Control set or something along those lines that would allow Blasters and / or Controllers to have a primary / secondary bow combination.

Hey Trickshooter,

I've been giving this some thought and I think that the problem is that any buff to defender TA/ needs to be pretty much neutral in respect to /TA for controllers.

I think buff requests should be simple, remain thematic with the existing dev vision of the set, while curing much of the set's ills.

For me the problem with the defender TA primary is that I eat the alpha and am dead before I can get all my debuffs down. Even with a tank going in first strong debuffs can put the negative attention back on you and solo all the attention is yours anyway.

Once the Alpha is over the problem after that is that even with maximum slow slotting in Glue Arrow the mobs can leave the area of effect and begin to close to melee long before Glue Arrow is recharged again.

With that in mind I would propose these 2 changes to TA and only these 2 to start:

1) Increase Flash Arrow's base endurance cost to 10 and add a base 27% enhanceable, non-stackable, and resistible to hit debuff, with a 7 second duration, to Flash Arrow. That's going to give you a 51ish% to hit debuff after slotting and will allow you to mitigate the Alpha, which is the one thing that TA doesn't allow you to do but all the other defender primaries do allow you to do.

It's a neutral buff for controller /TA since it will have a lower value and the controller can all ready do this more effectively by using an AoE control from their primary.

2) Add a mag 3 non-stackable immobilize with a 5 second duration to glue arrow, and have the glue patch pulse every 3 seconds with a 10% chance reapply a 5 second duration mag 3 non-stackable immobilize on all targets in it's area of effect.

This is mostly controller neutral since all control sets but Mind have an AoE immobilize that works for a much longer duration and can be multi-stacked and quickly refreshed.

Glue Arrow has a "real" effective range of 25 feet since it is a TAoE power instead of a Non-TAoE power. The target mob only has to go through 1/2 of the Area to be free and can easily leave the debuff area before the TA player's powers can recharge. This would be enough of an additional thematic slow down to keep the majority of the spawn in the patch until the debuffs expire.

I think that just those 2 things would make a huge difference to TA/ while doing almost nothing that can't all ready be done for controller /TA

I just posted a few times in a thread about Energy Melee being in the penalty box and it got me thinking...

How many more Melee sets will be fixed before Trick Arrow? Heck, the one change that TA recently received I view as a nerf. The -Damage debuff in Poison Gas Arrow is far less reliable than it used to be, having been tied to a fix that granted the skill a useless pulsing mag 2 sleep.

Everybody *STOP* for a minute ... and think about what it means that the Powers Team is "booked solid for a year" ...

Yeah ...

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I'm glad you got a response, Trickshooter, and glad the devs are planning on looking at the set. I'm just sad it's so far off.

there are sets that can single handedly keep a team alive, but controllers

ice slick can be made perma, combined with arctic air you can almost totally lock down a spawn

mass hypnosis makes them not only stop attacking you but attack each other

static field from electricity can put them all to sleep perma. An elec/psi or elec/elec can drain a whole spawn and keep them from acting - an elec/elec blaster can do it even

there are plenty of permable powers that can single handedly keep a team alive. Of course the foes can be immune to them, not be bunched up, the hero casting them can be mezzed and unable to renew them.

what is possible and what is practical can vary greatly

I personally wish that after firing Flash Arrow, the other arrows that don't cause damage would no longer cause aggro. No idea how to implement that technically, but it would help with it taking 5 arrows to match the output of other sets.

The alternative would be a fairly massive departure, but maybe work: have ALL of the arrows Tier 3 and higher be toggles, and when you click them you "load" your bow. Then when you fire either Flash (for placeables) or Entangling (for enemy-clicks). All of them fire together at once. Would require probably too much work to retool this way now, but it would have made the set very different.

If they need to create a "combo system" like what Street Justice is like for a support set, Trick Arrow should be it.

Each type of Arrow should add more effects on top of another or by firing certain type of arrows, you get a Finisher type of Arrow. That makes shooting trick arrows more fun.

While I concur that TA needs some love I don't believe the situation is as dire as the OP thinks.

1) There is no way the Devs will increase the values on Entangling Arrow by 50%. And why trade off the Acc bonus and actually raise the End cost? Once we've been given a bonus don't trade it away. The values on the debuffs are fine as they are. However I would raise the duration to 22s to match the Immob duration.

2) Flash Arrow is already good as you said.

3) I agree that Glue Arrow, a must-have for the set, needs upgraded. However a 2% chance at anything is meaningless and not worth the coding time. Also, the 60' range on the power makes it necessary to get closer to the enemy than I like. I would make the Hold chance 10% and increase the range to 80'

4) I agree with you on Ice Arrow. I would increase the debuffs to the 25% that you mentioned and I would also add a small DoT like the Hold in the Ice set.

5) Poison Gas arrow is pretty good as-is. As with Glue Arrow, I would raise the range to 80' but I would make the Sleep a field like Static Field is so enemies caught in it have a further chance to be affected if they wake up.

6) I agree that Acid Arrow needs a bigger radius. 8' is not reliable enough for a set that relies on debuffs. 15' would be much more appropriate however I would no increase the Recharge time.

7) Disruption Arrow costs too much End I agree. As a matter of fact your analysis of the power was spot on except for the part about more than 10 targets. I'm not one of those guys who asks the Tank to herd all the time so it's rare that I even see more than 10 mobs in a spawn. Increasing it to 16 seems excessive to me. Right on with the rest though, especially the - to hit

8) What is the radius of Oil Slick? Mids has it at 5' and I KNOW that's wrong.

9) I would remove the -Recovery part of EMP Arrow personally. Not all nukes have crashes and to be honest as good as the power is it certainly doesn't rate a crash IMHO

I would like

Flash arrow to have more to hit debuff.
Glue arrow to act more like oil and disruption arrows (no target required) and and slower movement speed on foes.
Emp arrow to have less endurance issues a little faster recharge.

Faster animations
Less endurance across the board

And a quiver backpack =D

Can we just have a "boxing glove" tip on the stun arrow... PLEASE!!! This is a slap in the face if we don't get it.











actually serious about the boxing glove thing... it will be cool... I would start and finish every fight with it.

I posted this in the defender thread as well. Any thoughts on the idea?

I tell you what would be amazing. Add a power called Empty Quiver that become available once you hit level 8 or so that essentially unloads all your target style debuffs at the same time. So say for example that Glue Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow and Flash Arrow were charged and you click Empty Quiver and it makes all 3 powers activate at the same time. The tech exists with DP select ammo to have more power icons appear with just one power choice. It would also give Trick Arrow something no other set has. This power would also alleviate complaints that Trick Arrow has to spend more time to accomplish what other sets do with less powers and give players more options.