Super Stunners

They're cheap. We all know it. We all think it. The instant, autohit, massively debuffing self-rez is a move on par with stacking vengeance, especially against archetypes who have to move in close for the kill, and for a melee masterminds, you might as well start resummoning now.

So, idea. Keep all that - but add a delay between the death and the rez. After a Super Stunner is defeated, float a "SUPER STUNNER PREPARES TO REVIVE" warning text to give everyone involved a few seconds {three? Five?} to get clear of the corpse. It would reward situational awareness and quick thinking, and would still discourage "attack attack attack" approaches with the massive debuffs they do right now.

An open letter to NCsoft

No, I don't think they're cheap, I don't "know" or "think" it. They're not that bad.

And IMHO, someone who keeps chasing them after the third/fourth/fifth/tenth one rezzes *after being intentionally knocked away with a sliver of health* deserves a debuff. I mean, the first time or two, it's understandable not to catch it, perhaps.

Besides, a fair number of sets have a way to knock them away already (yes, that knockback everyone hates) even without vet powers (Nemesis staff, or at least Blackwand at range.)

Worst comes to worst, if you're solo/duo, kite the sucker. If you have only one person in range, they rez with a sliver of health.

Seriously, it's barely a molehill.

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Yeah. I never quite "got" why an entire team would pile on one of them, beat them down, then get "offended" when it rezzed with maximum health and they lost a bunch of endurance.

Playing toons with knockback, I've had to actively remind teammates NOT to chase them while I blast them out of range and leave them to stay dead. Nobody in range = no rez.

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I must be doing something wrong. I walk up to them, smack them around, let them get back up, and beat them down again. Yeah, the debuff sucks, but it's easier to deal with than a lot of other debuffs that have been there since day 1.

If I'm solo, they have so little health that it's trivial to drop them again. If I'm on a team, they go down just as fast as any other Boss. It's not like they've got EB level HP or Resistance.

That said, I'd like it if there was a delay before they rezzed, just like every other Freak, so that there's an option for meleers who don't have Knockback. An emphatic NO to the additional screen spam, though.

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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike Nobody in range = no rez.

No rez = No second batch of XP. They can go on rezzing, IMO.

I... have no idea what you're talking about. You don't get knocked back before the debuff kicks in, they self-rez, with an autohit the moment their hit points hit zero. Also, fair number of sets have knockback, and a fair number of sets don't, and a fair number of the former don't pick a knockback power, and considering the aforementioned instant-rez mechanic means that death-and-debuff kicks in before the Stunner has cleared the distance {if the powers you have in mind even knock back that far}, I'm sorry, but your argument doesn't really stand. Don't even get me started on the chaos that comes with playing on large teams, too - or should every scrapper, stalker, brute, tanker or zombie, ninja, demon etc. mastermind keep an eye on the health of every stunner in the spawn?

An open letter to NCsoft

Preferably, yes, they should. You don't even strictly need a knock, just a ranged attack.

The Stunner drain-rez is considerably less problematic and considerably more avoidable than many other nasty NPC powers. If we're gonna fix "cheap" enemies, let's start with the I'm-phased-but-I-can-still-attack Carnies, or autohit-defense-debuff Tarantulas, or something. Super Stunners barely register on the scale.

I could live with it being changed to ToHit check. It can get irritating. So /signed here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Not a big deal.

There's a difference between enemies that fight by basically cheating (Carnies, Arachnos, Vanguard, Tsoo, etc) and enemies that actually put up a fight. Freakshow, for a long time, were in neither category - a literal joke of a faction that contained no serious threat to players, gave higher-than-normal experience, and self-rezzed so you could get XP for them a second time, but not all of them so that you weren't overwhelmed by a full spawn suddenly at full health again.

And they do have a humorous element. They're the world's craziest internet trolls turned into a street gang. But they're also hopped-up psychopaths with grenade launchers.
Super Stunners help push them across that threshold from "haha, freakshow" to "haha - oh crap". Super Stunners aren't "cheap" - there are multiple ways to mitigate or completely prevent the problems their rez causes, with straightforward tactics and readily-available resources. When you do this right, you prevent the threat. When you do it wrong, or fail to do it at all, you get drained a little and the Stunner gets more health back. This is still more tactics than you need for the rest of the Freakshow faction, and frankly I think the Freaks would be lessened as both a gameplay and story element if the Super Stunners stopped pretending to be threatening.

Going to have to go with the majority opinion and say that I don't find Stunners cheap.

Annoying? Well, yes, but if I stand in melee for it on purpose, then I asked for it.

Even on characters with absolutely no ranged attacks (which I only have one or two of) I can solve the problem by: A) Jousting them, as Bill said, or B) hanging back and letting the people of questionable intelligence finish off the Stunners on teams.

There are mobs I want looked at much before this, IMO. Looking at you, Illusionists.

The rez portion of Soul Transfer matches the rez portion of Rise of the Phoenix exactly in all the data points, including the rez happening with no delay whatsoever.

The difference is that Soul Transfer is an attack (entities affected: foe) that also grants you HP and end; whereas RotP is a self-buff (entities affected: caster) that summons a pet that attacks.

The game doesn't care whether you are defeated or not, if they wanted to they could make powers that you could attack with while dead. All defeated means to the game is that you're just placed in a "defeated" mode or something similar which revokes all access to all non-self-rez powers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

See. I pay attention to the Super Stunners. Their rez doesn't bother me most of the time because I move away, or knock them away when I see that they're about to be defeated. On the off chance I haven't, oh well, that's my own bloody fault. I know what they're abilities are.

I find their version of Static Field more annoying then the rez, but I try and stay out of that patch when I can.

They gave Freakshow a mob type that isn't a joke to fight?

Imagine that.

Really don't see the problem here. I can set my Soul Transfer on autofire, and hit everything in range with an autohit mag 30 stun the instant I drop....be glad they don't do that.

Losing a little bit of endurance isn't a big deal at all, and if your entire team is dumb enough to dogpile one and he rezzes with full health.....well you deserve to have to kill him again, IMO.

I know how frustrating a pet-hate mob can be, so I'm not bashing on Quinch in the slightest.

I do, however, feel there are far more cheaty mobs out there that should be looked at first.

Like PPD Ghosts, with their stupid level -ToHit and -Def Flashbang grenades, and PPD Equalisers with their 'It's a locational AoE, only it persist even when you leave it!' glue grenades.

Or 20s range CoT, where everything and it's demonic parent has -ToHit and Ruin mages pack +def for allies and -Def for you to boot.

Or Nemesis as a whole, where killing enough LTs means you are basically shooting yourself in the foot. Or certain Vanguard Bosses, who have the genius ability to halve your entire endurance bar, which can only be fixed by waiting it out or buying a VG specific anit-power? Which bloody genius thought THAT was fun? Or even a fair challenge?

Rularuu and DE have been covered, so what about KoA, with their 'spam it like it's going out of fashion' Caltrops? Or most mid-high range Tsoo, where EVERY. GOLLY. GOSH. DARN. MINION. Has Kinetics as a back up? Do you have any idea how NOT fun being at the movement minimum cap and with nearly grounded damage is? Sure, it's survivable...when I'm on my level 50 Invul Tank. Anything else? Oh, look, pretty floor.
Oh, and Malta, with their 'tier 9 crashing nuke' level of Stun grenades. Seriously, my Trick Arrow Defender has lockdown that's only marginally better than that, on her tier 9. What the hell?

So, yeah. Stunners are a minor, tiny niggle compared to some of the outright hax the NPCs have going on to this day...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I think the 'cheaty' nature of the super stunner rez is completely negated by the fact there's a way around it. Smart positioning and awareness is rewarded, and you don't have to bother with dealing with the stunners twice.

The powers I'd label 'cheating' are the malta stun grenades. The duration is so long you can literally be taken out for the duration of two fights if you don't have status protection or a break free. I still wonder if there's a decimal error on that duration.