I22 and No Kheldians: Too Worn to Care

Thing is, it was only the min-maxers that saw any real benefit from those changes AT ALL. Tri-formers and form specialists saw almost no benefit whatsoever.

And it isn't over-the-top to not have the heart to play an archetype that you've put as much work into promoting as a candidate for improvement after the developers heeded the last-minute bandwagon requests of an elite few and ignored everyone else.

Heaven knows Pilgrim poured his soul into it. Although I don't think it was him that said he wouldn't play his Peacebringer any more.

So yeah. Be nicer to him.

Ironically enough, the I-21 changes absolutely thrilled PVP Peacebringer players.

I have enough recovery in my build to sustain my ST chain. I have an ST heal in my chain also, and a Panacea proc in health. I also have decent defense to everything. I don't feel like I need to always cap my damage and res to do good ST damage. With one mire target, I have a ~25% damage buff, plus the inherent buffing my damage further most of the time on teams. If I feel the need to beef up my damage output (namely if I don't have any fluffies left for an AV fight) I click my handy inspcombine GIVE ME REDZ macro.

For reference:
(Be sure to turn accolades and incarnates on.)

I know Zwil or someone said that they planned on doing so during one of the little Stickam parties, but I didn't see it in the patch notes.

So we won't HAVE to be a ball of light when in lightform? Cool.

I don't find any of those things are necessary on teams. Which brings us to:
With no team mates, I follow the code passed down to us by the great MFing Warshade: FIND MORE BODIES.I have soloed a level 53 AV without Lore Pets, and I still haven't tried at 54. Grab a group when it's time to Mire, and then go back to bashing AV skull in. It's a wonderful thing.

Certainly on teams it would be rude to my companions if I kept intentionally drowning them in aggro that they can't handle, but I'm the MFing Human Form Warshade, and I can always find (and swiftly neutralize) more bodies on my own.

Very nice. Which one?

Bobcat.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=273460


Forgive the crappy quality of the screens.

Haha, well thank you. I have been slowly trying to configure an AE mission that lets me solo the whole Freedom Phalanx at the same time as level 50 heroes, but I can't figure out how to get them to spawn in the same spot, and Longbow make for horrible buff food.

I'm wearing my Shirt of Magic Resistance +1 today, I ain't afraid of no wizard.

I think you're exaggerating a bit.

No, but it is to immediately complain after not getting consecutive buffs.

I didn't say it was him that wouldn't play his kheldian--I was referring to the other poster, actually--but it is a bit of a stretch to start immediately complaining after the buff we just received. People like to forget to be happy with what they have, and always demand more.

I wasn't aware I was being mean. I'm simply taking, what is, in my opinion, the logical view on things. Also, I like being the devil's advocate.

SHHHHH THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSSED TO KNOW THAT. *Covers with bag*

Haha, a friend of many of us here and occassional poster, AIB, soloed a GM with Lore Pets, so the "with pets" bar is set pretty high.
I retired and stripped down my Perma LF Human Form Peacebringer pretty recently after dumping about 12 billion into him. Perma LF is great on paper but the end crash and KB drove me crazy. The only way I'd consider playing my PB again is if the cooldown on conserve power was reduced to match the cooldown on LF and the KB was changed to KD on the AOE powers.
Clarion is a wonderful thing.
If he's a human form Warshade, you can have both! See the build I posted.

I dunno... Grey Pilgrim is no joke. Did you see what he did yesterday!?

I suppose that depends on whether or not you think a roughly 30dps gain on an SO attack chain is gaining real benefit from the changes. (Given that SO'd warshades were roughly 115dps higher before the buffs)


Buffs that were promised, don't forget. Now some of them - like the changes to Pulsar and Solar Flare that we wanted - were conditional on further datamining. Shorter form-shifts and others weren't.

So while mitigating circumstances do happen, it's not exactly the same thing as crying "MOAR BUFFS" after having just gotten a round. The I-21 changes were always advertised as incremental, with the followup coming for I-22.


I've been complaining about the buff since before it went live. There's a difference between getting a buff that addresses your archetype's problems and getting the wrong buff that only helps a few.

We asked for specific buffs, and got something very different in return.


Bah. I wasn't accusing you of being mean, just hamming it up with THB.

I'd say the changes to light form and build up alone were worth it, to bring PB's up to standard. You don't need a perma LF build to benefit from the increased survivability of being able to shapeshift while LF'd.

Well, they did say something about working on it and finding the animation an issue. While I don't agree that they should be (indeed, I think that in lieu of an animation, it should just be instantaneous), these Dev's have made it clear in the past that looks are just as important as function (water blast, anyone?). I will keep up hope that they find a solution, but I won't turn my nose up at any buffs, either.

He's my claws/sr scrapper. Slightly different ride.

Ah, I have a level 40 Claws/Dark Brute that I neglect the heck out of. My SS/Fire makes him seem like an impostor Brute, hah.

Honestly, aside from form shift times being a bit long. I'd really like a fluent animation between nova and dwarf. Instead of:
*nrggg*nova form activated*
*poof*human form again?
*nrggg*Dwarf form activated

Like some sort of energy dissolve, where your body becomes invisible and seems to burst into luminous energy, then reforms to the body of a dwarf/nova.

Aside from that, I think Kheldians really good functioning ATs as is. I play my peacebringer as something, completely impractical and it works really well and is still fun to play.
*impractical = no perma hasten, no softcapped defenses, all forms, AND i actively use jump kick and spring attack in my attack chains* Yay quadform! (and no, not the light form kind)

I don't really mind NOT getting a buff this time around. The last buff gave me enough resolve to dust off my retired PB and make him fun again.

This time around, buffs that are needed elsewhere are drawing my attention and causing me to look into different aspects of the game I wouldn't have imagined using before. Like a stalker, or a grav controller.

Call me stupid by all means but I am at a loss as to why this is so, so, important. I went and looked at the PB and thought "okay" no real life and death circumstances and did the same with the WS.

How is it this troubles you so?

The I-21 changes benefited those of us with high-level Peacebringers and enough influence to give them high recharge builds far more than anyone else. They were considered potentially overpowering changes because a high recharge, high-level build could make Light Form and Inner Light perma, provided you could click them every time they're up. This means that - owing to the fact that you'll have to waste time shifting form to click the proper powers and maintain capped resistance and damage bonus - it has suddenly become detrimental to take the forms at all....

....IF you're going to take full advantage of the changes.

That's a big caveat. If you just like having the forms and enjoy being versatile you can still play the way you've always played without missing a beat. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, you've still gotten a fair buff in the higher levels.

But if you play like that you're still demonstrably underperforming. Not everyone cares about measurable performance.

Some of us do, and some of us suffer from the additional curse that we also care about the performance of the archetype as a whole. In other words, it's not enough that a few people with influence and high-level peacebringers can perform on par with other incarnates (who have all the versatility they need, tyvm). It's not enough that only warshades get phenomenal damage and and survivability while still having amazing synergy in their mezzing and control abilities.

There are those of us who want the archetype to be balanced within itself. We want Peacebringers to be on par with Warshades, and we don't think you should have to spend a fortune on a high end build and eschew the forms to do so.

Furthermore, we were told that the changes were a START, and that further datamining was needed before further buffs would be applied (like knockback being toned back in solar flare, pulsar and incandescent strike having the same mez type, etc.)

And in ANY case, we were told that when they had time they would shorten the form-shift animation for both warshades and peacebringers.

Well, they apparently had time to figure out how to give us Light Form's glowing ball of light animation back as an alternate animation, but no time could be found for something that could actually benefit us.

Now the cynical among us - mostly me - never expected Hawk to give us any more changes at all, and so are not upset that more of the promised changes haven't come. Others, however, put it on the line defending the changes that were made on the promise that they were just the beginning.

So I can totally understand Grey Pilgrim's disappointment, and my hat's off to him. He handled the I-21 changes with a lot more class than I did.

TL/DR version: If you're happy with kheldians now, it's likely that you were either happy with them before I-21 or you're one of the few who can take full advantages of them now and doesn't mind playing in human form.

Either way, you can rest assured that you will go on NOT being disappointed in your character's performance.

And my hat's off to you, too.

Even this isn't the case in my opinion. I had the inf. to take full advantage and more of the Peacebringer changes, AND I didn't mind playing a human form build... But guess what? It was still clunky and awkward. I had two very important melee powers in Radiant Strike and Solar Flare. Not only did all of my other attacks grief these powers... they even griefed themselves with massive knockback. Not to mention griefing the rest of the team, but I stripped him down and retired him before I got to bringing him on non-casual/with friends teams.

There was that other thing too. The constant HP crash that comes with Perma Light Form is totally manageable and I laugh at anyone who complains about it, but the endurance crash is a serious issue. Light Form was clearly redesigned to be perma-able, so it stands to reason that conserve power being the only endurance recovery tool available to mitigate the -end crash should have its duration and cooldown matched to that of Light Form.


The bottom line for me is that the synergy and flow of a Warshade is simply not available to Peacebringers, no matter how badly I wanted it to be. I spent billions of infamy and hours in Mids working on my Peacebringer, because I wanted to like him so badly... But every time I played him all I could think was "My Warshade could deal with this situation more efficiently and comfortably." It just became an exercise in futility for me.