Knockback to Knockdown!
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-30 18:20 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Hmm, I did not know the proc couldn't be slotted into Handclap, something else must have been affecting the guy's inability to do knock back with Handclap, controller most likely. Anyways, I still stand by my opinion that knock back is a nerf. Signature powers like Footstomp now do KD (assuming you're fighting even cons), how great of a power do you think it'd still be if they decided to change that, and make it KB? I'd expect a lot of people would be up in arms about it. They give us a way to remove said KB from certain powers, and suddenly, powers once considered meh, are now very viable options. With that in mind, common sense tells us that it's detrimental, more often than it is beneficial. |
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Sorry, that was the 2nd post in the thread. I've lost track of all these KD proc threads (an easy mistake).
Although, considering the first quote of my first post in this thread was in regard to a player saying nerfing KB to KD was better for the game and his proof was a Super Strength character slotting the conversion proc in Hand Clap and proceeded to do great things....yeah, I sort of did come to the thread to counter a statement that concluded KB's absolute contributions. No it's not misrepresenting anything. Unless there was some bug that let you slot the KB conversion proc in powers that don't do damage, the person used a made-up story as a means to deface a power. Perhaps *you* are misrepresenting what I'm posting. Actually, I'm pretty sure you did. |
Besides, if you want to achieve knock back using knockdown, simply knock them down, then take a step back. Ta-dah!
As a final food for thought, why make the proc unique? Why only allow us one per build?
- Im Not Talking Fast, You're Just Listening Slow.
- To Each His Own
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The point isn't to knockback just to knockback, it's called using knockback effectively, and as far as using knockback effectively, knockdown will produce the same defensive results, without hindering any offensive results.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Energy Blast is the kindergarden of knockback. If you'd have said FF/energy, that's somewhat different.
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Well, let's go to the replay tape and check that...|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
....yeah, I sort of did come to the thread to counter a statement that concluded KB's absolute contributions.
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Originally Posted by Rowdy
All this proc has managed to do, for me anyway, is prove just how detrimental knockback actually is.
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| Perhaps *you* are misrepresenting what I'm posting. Actually, I'm pretty sure you did. |
Well, I suspect at this point I may just have to learn to live with such an alleged stain upon my conscience.
In addition to the energy/energy blaster I mentioned, I've had a ill/storm, mind/storm, Ice/FF, Storm/Sonic, and 2 pbs at 50. I'm not going to trash something that I haven't had first hand experience with. I know knockback. Knockdown is still better.
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No, that is not the only advantage (and certain KB powers can be spammed anyways, so your entire statement doesnt even make a point). | KD's advantage is merely that it can be spammed, pure and simple. That doesn't broaden its capabilities, just its opportunity. |
The problem with knockback is it reduces kill speed, plain and simple. Knockdown does not reduce kill speed, and in many cases it increases kill speed by preventing the enemy from using defensive abilities/debuffs/dealing damage forcing you to heal or use defensive insps. Knockback can also prevent use of defensive abilities/debuffs/damage, but then youre left with enemies that are scattered preventing effective aoeing by you and/or teammates and/or simply being pushed out of range of melee teammates.
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KB is best when it's single target and reliable. I genuinely like KB in those instances. I have several characters who use such controls. |
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Saying one is always better is just a joke, IMO.
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However, in just about any other situation KD is better. Now that's not an absolute, I'm just saying that in MOST other cases KD is better.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
I know of 2 times when knockback is better
if you are ranged and fighting strong melees, especially slow strong melees. KB vs vahz is great. The lumber towards you, you knock them back, they stagger towards you again. They can vomit on you, but staying out of melee with them is great.
if you can knock things off of high places it makes for much greater CC than knockdown. If you don't want the CC then it is not helpful. Although it also damages them a lot (I don't know how falling damage factors into XP).
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The way you stated it before, and the many times I and others have replied to your rebuttals, made it sound like an absolute statement that there was no situation where KB is better. But if that's not what you're saying, that's fine by me. I'll just keep finding way to prove the naysayers otherwise.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
However, in just about any other situation KD is better. Now that's not an absolute, I'm just saying that in MOST other cases KD is better. |
Like last night, got on a radio team and was running a lvl 37 freak mission on my lvl 30 Arch/Dev blaster. I had recently just got trip mines and it's been forever since I played with them, needless to say I wasn't getting much milage out of them.
I'd basically set a mine out, back up, throw caltrops and just fire at foes while the team rushed in. If anything decided to come after me (not likely without rain of arrows), they'd eat a mine on the way. Despite that, every time it seemed things ran *around* my mines or ran past them so fast they triggered the explosion without getting the damage.
After getting rather frustrated, I just set down the mine just before the team rushed in, then ran past the spawn and just Exploding Arrowed the mob, sending some back to blow up in my mine. Some of the team didn't even know I was doing that until I pulled the strategy out on a lone Freak Tank after he rezzed. The ones that saw it complemented the shot although for that one, it was pure luck the KB procced on that single target.
Yeah, can't really do that with KD.
Ice slick? Sleet?
Why is bonfire so ultra awesome when powers exist already to do the exact same thing. Because you can keep it casting it over and over? Last I checked, my ice dom had no problems at all with perma ice slick effects.
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Hew in drag baby
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I think the big deal is that Ice Slick doesn't do any damage, and Sleet isn't *that* much. However, Bonfire does have a hefty damage component to it, that was balanced by the fact that the enemies weren't in the patch for very long before getting thrown clear. Now they're not, and it's a single power that is, essentially, Ice Slick and Burn combined. (maybe not quite that much damage, I don't know)|
Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch
Ice slick? Sleet?
Why is bonfire so ultra awesome when powers exist already to do the exact same thing. Because you can keep it casting it over and over? Last I checked, my ice dom had no problems at all with perma ice slick effects. |
Meanwhile, I love having Hand Clap on my Tank without the new proc. If I'm hip deep in enemies, I often can't move. If there's a squishy that's getting harassed by over flow and they're outside the normal range of taunt, I can fire Hand Clap off to clear a path. I can't do that if the enemies aren't moved out of the way.
The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.
Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?
A: You crash into another one.
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I can't tell you mechanically what the difference is.|
Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch
Ice slick? Sleet?
Why is bonfire so ultra awesome when powers exist already to do the exact same thing. Because you can keep it casting it over and over? Last I checked, my ice dom had no problems at all with perma ice slick effects. |
in effect, bonfire affects all foes in a large area and bounces them with no ability to do anything - they cannot fight back, they cannot try to leave the area.
I've played an ice controller - this is far better
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I hardly ever express this in absolutes. Because I don't believe that my experience is broad enough to make that claim. But as a heavy user of KB sets, I do feel strongly that PBAoE KB is the worst of the lot. I can dig cones, targeted AoE and as I said I actually like ST KB, but PBAoE KB can just curl up and die as far as I care.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
The way you stated it before, and the many times I and others have replied to your rebuttals, made it sound like an absolute statement that there was no situation where KB is better. But if that's not what you're saying, that's fine by me. I'll just keep finding way to prove the naysayers otherwise.
Like last night, got on a radio team and was running a lvl 37 freak mission on my lvl 30 Arch/Dev blaster. I had recently just got trip mines and it's been forever since I played with them, needless to say I wasn't getting much milage out of them. I'd basically set a mine out, back up, throw caltrops and just fire at foes while the team rushed in. If anything decided to come after me (not likely without rain of arrows), they'd eat a mine on the way. Despite that, every time it seemed things ran *around* my mines or ran past them so fast they triggered the explosion without getting the damage. After getting rather frustrated, I just set down the mine just before the team rushed in, then ran past the spawn and just Exploding Arrowed the mob, sending some back to blow up in my mine. Some of the team didn't even know I was doing that until I pulled the strategy out on a lone Freak Tank after he rezzed. The ones that saw it complemented the shot although for that one, it was pure luck the KB procced on that single target. Yeah, can't really do that with KD. |
You might detect a bit of bitterness towards PBAoE KB. Most of it comes from Solar Flare.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
I'm really looking forward to being able to actually use Solar Flare as a damage power when teaming with the Scrapper my PB runs with.
I really, really dislike the way they're implementing this change that has been badly needed for a long, long time. The rest of the thread has expressed all of the benefits this proc has for a bunch of powersets. The fact that you can only get it from farming a limited-time event in hopes for a random drop leaves a bunch of bad tastes in my mouth, and given the nature of Freedom, is not the sort of thing you want all those Fire Doms and PBs reading about when they check up on the game for the first time in months come August.
"Oh, you COULD have gotten an enhancement to greatly improve the playability of your AT, but sorry! You missed the window to play the loot lottery for it. Guess you're just going to have to try your luck on the market with this random, uncommon drop that was only available for a month, or wait until next year."
My one hope is the devs will see how much people want this proc and take it as a sign that we should get a real solution for turning KB into KD for players who want to do so, and my one fear is that they'll take this really bass ackwards band-aid fix as enough of a solution to ignore the issue for another seven years.
Quick Reply to anyone.
I can't slot this into MM bonfire. Did something change? Has anyone else got it to work?
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Hrmm...Maybe the proc is higher than your current level? Check the Info on the IO it's probably currently out of reach for you toon.
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Originally Posted by Pyrox Saberdon
Quick Reply to anyone.
I can't slot this into MM bonfire. Did something change? Has anyone else got it to work? |
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Double check the level. The enhancements are currently bugged and have a required minimum level based on the level of the character that got it. If you got it on another character and transferred it to your MM then it may be to high a level.|
Originally Posted by Pyrox Saberdon
Quick Reply to anyone.
I can't slot this into MM bonfire. Did something change? Has anyone else got it to work? |
Or the MM version of Bonfire may be bugged.
That was it. I'm to low level for it. Thanks guys.
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No Problem. It sucks I know : /.
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Originally Posted by Pyrox Saberdon
That was it. I'm to low level for it. Thanks guys.
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Well, I've been playing blasters and at times, when facing foes on an indoor map, things can get swarmy. If you don't have flight (or even if you do) I've been swarmed by foes to the point I couldn't move where I wanted. I guess that might not be an issue for purpled-out IO'ed to the gills characters, but for regular ones, a good PBAoE 'get out my face' could be the difference between life and death....so long as you're not mezzed that is.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
I hardly ever express this in absolutes. Because I don't believe that my experience is broad enough to make that claim. But as a heavy user of KB sets, I do feel strongly that PBAoE KB is the worst of the lot. I can dig cones, targeted AoE and as I said I actually like ST KB, but PBAoE KB can just curl up and die as far as I care.
You might detect a bit of bitterness towards PBAoE KB. Most of it comes from Solar Flare. |
The main PBAoE KB I've used is Repulse (before it was changed), Repulsion Field, Force Bubble and Hurricane (did have Repel on a kinetic character but didn't care for kinetics) which work quite well for that purpose.
But yeah, opinions vary as do battle tactics. I tend to play all kinds of characters, some whom could use a good Hurricane power.
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Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch
Ice slick? Sleet?
Why is bonfire so ultra awesome when powers exist already to do the exact same thing. Because you can keep it casting it over and over? Last I checked, my ice dom had no problems at all with perma ice slick effects. |
Ice Slick is a different ball game.
Ice Slick has a .08 chance 5 times per second to knockdown an enemy. This translates to a roughly 57% chance to knock the enemy down every 2 second interval compared to Bonfire's 100%. And Bonfire lasts 45 seconds to Ice Slicks 30, and Recharges in 60 to Ice Slick's 90.
How about 2 Ice Slicks on top of each other? That would be 1-(.92^20), or 81% chance.
3 Ice Slicks on top of each other? 1-(.92^30), or 91%.
4 Ice Slicks on top of each other? 1-(.92^40), or 96%. Well, at least with 4 Ice Slicks we're getting closer. If only it could be perma'd with a single Recharge IO and do damage it might 1/4th as good as Bonfire.
[NOTE: These numbers are somewhat fudged out of necessity and actually even more embaressing for Ice Slick than it may seem. The reason is that an enemy with a Ranged attack only needs one decision tick to get full benefit from the power. If they are able to begin the animation for the attack before falling, then the power still goes off even if they fall halfway through animating it. Animation time lost when the enemy is animating an attack is basically less "meaningful." They were going to be locked in an animation anyway; it doesn't matter whether it was falling or not. This is all somewhat complicated by the fact that during a fall the enemy also has temporary protection from falling again. Bonfire avoids this issue entirely because the pulse rate of the power closely matches the vulnerability point in the knockdown animation.]
You know what cracks me up? We had the devs telling us, from release to just after CoV, that "distance = defence". No ambiguity. And in one particular case where Statesman compared FF to Sonic (long since deleted 
), he made a forceful pitch that mitigation in any form is always beneficial.
But this is the same dev team that also gave players more powers that grant KB protection to mobs than grant KB protection to other players.
The devs' mixed reactions to KB seem to mirror those of the players.
FWIW, when Statesman did his comparison of FF to Sonic in I5 (post long since deleted), I spent a few hours taking his advice and tried to leverage Repulsion Field and Force Bubble to improve my FF/rad's performance. In general, I could reduce incoming DPS on my bubbler pretty well. All well and good. But, over the course of a mission, my bubbler would take MORE damage on the KB- / repel-heavy missions because I had reduced my outgoing damage by a larger amount than the incoming damage.
And one final thing ...
The last stand of the KB defenders has usually been "mob positioning tool." But ... you know what? No dev has ever, AFAIK, said that. The party line has always been about creating distance and using that distance to increase performance, a function that KB largely fails at during most team play and nearly all solo play. But immobs, slows, and low mag KB all succeed where KB fails.
I believe that this IO is a tacit admission that one of the game's original design decisions is inherently flawed.
And now I'm just waiting for the devs to do something, anything, that'd make me want to respec my bubbler into Repulsion Field, Force Bubble, and the cage.
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I took it as more of an acknowledgement that a lot of highly vocal players hate KB, so why not throw them a bone? A limited time offer in a team-forced event requiring farming, though, so it's a very small bone. A kneecap, perhaps.
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Originally Posted by BurningChick
I believe that this IO is a tacit admission that one of the game's original design decisions is inherently flawed.
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The devs haven't added a single repel (think Force Bubble) power since release. They haven't released a single toggled KB power since I6, and it was recently removed it from the game. In fact, I don't think they've released much in the way of widescale KB since I6 and 'bots. When we talk about KB, we are, over 90% of the time, talking about powers that have existed since beta with a nod to PBs.|
Originally Posted by GlassGoblin
I took it as more of an acknowledgement that a lot of highly vocal players hate KB, so why not throw them a bone? A limited time offer in a team-forced event requiring farming, though, so it's a very small bone. A kneecap, perhaps.
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The devs have never, AFAIK, increased a power's KB mag, but have reduced the magnitude of several powers over the years (most recently, Repulsion Bomb).
IME, it doesn't look like the devs are merely reacting to the players' dislike of KB (and repel); it looks like they aren't all that enamoured of it either.
Edit: an anecdote. A long-time player and frequent poster once came into a KB thread and spoke, glowingly, of one of his favourite powers in the game, Repulsion Bomb. He went on, at some length, about the joy he received in sending groups of mobs across a room, the kudos for saving squishies from evil melee damage, how we, really, just had to L2P. The problem? Repulsion Bomb had had its KB mag lowered into knockdown range some six months earlier. I suspect that many of the vocal proponents of KB are like this poster; they simply like taking contrarian stances.
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Or he had it slotted for KB.|
Originally Posted by BurningChick
Edit: an anecdote. A long-time player and frequent poster once came into a KB thread and spoke, glowingly, of one of his favourite powers in the game, Repulsion Bomb. He went on, at some length, about the joy he received in sending groups of mobs across a room, the kudos for saving squishies from evil melee damage, how we, really, just had to L2P. The problem? Repulsion Bomb had had its KB mag lowered into knockdown range some six months earlier. I suspect that many of the vocal proponents of KB are like this poster; they simply like taking contrarian stances.
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I think my problem with KB is that it's so easy to use it the "wrong" way. In the hands of a newer player it tends to cause more trouble than it solves. I can't tell you how often I've seen a Inv/SS tanker run in and handclap-scatter a mob, on every mob. Over and over. For an entire task force. I rarely even mention the problem in situations like this, hoping that he'll get tired of chasing the scattered enemies and realize that there's better ways to try and use that skill.
There are situations where both sides of the coin have their moment in the sun.
Solo vs. Teaming
Melee vs. Ranged
Keep Close vs. Keep Away (Runners vs. Chasers)
KB Mag vs. KB Mag (sans KD)
I actually kind of feel sorry for KU; that's child neglect, dangit!
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