Why is your Tier 5 better than my Tier 9?
By
AshleyHudson,
Posted on: 2012-07-08 11:59 in Dominators
No matter how you look at it Mind is lacking and the same goes for Ice and Gravity *looks around* <_< >_>.
You can nerf or normalize Seeds of Confusion that's fine but it doesn't solve the issue with Mind.
...Ya know...in a way I kinda wish that the devs would remove IO's from the game entirely. Not because I particularly dislike the system or because I haven't really discovered how to make complete and full use of it, or the fact that i'm not some kinda uber farmer/marketeer/what-have-you that has gobs and gobs of influence and can afford infinite influence builds on a dozen different toons and not bat an eyelash. But simply...just to shut these twits that cry "IO OR SUCKS!" the freakin hell up.
Honestly..by that logic....95%+ of my toons must be just absolutely horrible! I mean...they're all on pure SO builds! <GASP!> I SUCK! </em eyeroll>
Seriously.......get over yourselves.
/rantend
RaikenX is currently seeking new quotes to add to his signature.
Someone say something funny.
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Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe
::looks at RaikenX's signature::
Something funny. |
Wow. Nothing changes after eight years. While I have my own opinions about Mind vs. Plant, I think it's less relevant than the even bigger question: how the hell is a change to one power from one set going to affect your enjoyment of playing another? People act as if they were born as their chosen character and take some offense that someone else chose something that they don't have. You want Seeds so bad, roll a PLANT Dominator! But demanding changes to another set is not going to change how yours plays. Period.
I play a ton of characters including my very first "main" character which is Mind/Kin. From the very first issue I had to deal with people complaining about confuse stealing their precious XP. It was a hard-fought war but overtime people saw the value in it (although it was only one tiny power in a vast arsenal). Issues later I played Plant/Thorns mainly because it was so new. Same thing: people hated Seeds. Now it's come full circle and people want it nerfed. The thing is, my 50+3 Plant Dom is no more fun than my Mind Controller. Actually, I enjoy Mind a lot more but it's personal choice!
While you're playing your character in your PUG on some random server in some random time zone, there is a player who has maxed out some AT killing things at a fantastic rate probably repeating some mind-numbing farm and if you're having fun, you are none the wiser. A change to his toon is not going to alter your experience one bit. And you know what? If you think you're going to have more fun clicking Seeds and Roots all day, you have more character slots than you know what to do with... knock yourself out.
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Originally Posted by wudake
Wow. Nothing changes after eight years. While I have my own opinions about Mind vs. Plant, I think it's less relevant than the even bigger question: how the hell is a change to one power from one set going to affect your enjoyment of playing another? People act as if they were born as their chosen character and take some offense that someone else chose something that they don't have. You want Seeds so bad, roll a PLANT Dominator! But demanding changes to another set is not going to change how yours plays. Period.
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I don't know what makes you think a person can't have Plant characters and still think the powers should have different values.
This isn't a conspiracy by jealous players to take something away from other players. That characterization is what we have been arguing against from the start of the thread.
The idea that players who think a power should be nerfed are traitors is just foolish. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but IMO its a lot less harsh than calling other other players enemies of some broad cause.
Neither power is better than the other. I don't see Seeds being better than Mass Con or the other way around...they are both fruit from different trees in the same orchard.
They are too different to compare or contrast.
http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/n...stumes%202011/
The correct answer to the OP is that powersets are balanced, not powers. Any individual power may be better than any other individual power. Tier 9's are often not just not as good, they are bad and skipped on many powersets. Crashing nukes and defenses come to mind.
if Plant is better than Mind as a set, there is a problem
if a power in Plant is better than a power in Mind there is no problem
keep calm and carry on
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If the thread was ONLY about Seeds of Confusion being overpowered it would be a different story. This starts off as crying about how he or she feels the tier 9 of the toon they're playing isn't as good as the tier 5 of someone else's character. Wah. And what's foolish is isolating one power out of a set and comparing it to another one-for-one and saying that it's broken. You have to take the whole set into consideration and what the strength of the set actually is. If we want to do that: fine. But as it stands, the motivation behind this sounds petty. It's like how people whined about Burn was so oh-my-God overpowered. Not considering anything else about the Fiery Aura set. The only people affected? Those who played Fiery Aura; not the complainers who played other sets. (And for the record, I don't have a main FA tanker or brute). I was glad that they came around to show that players' ******** isn't always a legitimate claim. Here's hoping you get everything you want; the end of eight horrible years of playing Mind Control just toiling away never having any fun suddenly will come to an end when they change Seeds of Confusion.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I don't know what makes you think a person can't have Plant characters and still think the powers should have different values.
This isn't a conspiracy by jealous players to take something away from other players. That characterization is what we have been arguing against from the start of the thread. The idea that players who think a power should be nerfed are traitors is just foolish. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but IMO its a lot less harsh than calling other other players enemies of some broad cause. |
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Not everyone that feels changes are needed is a nerfherder, but many look that way based on the argument presented. The OP clearly drew his line in the sand, stepped over it and is being properly categorized for same.
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Originally Posted by wudake
If the thread was ONLY about Seeds of Confusion being overpowered it would be a different story. This starts off as crying about how he or she feels the tier 9 of the toon they're playing isn't as good as the tier 5 of someone else's character. Wah. And what's foolish is isolating one power out of a set and comparing it to another one-for-one and saying that it's broken. You have to take the whole set into consideration and what the strength of the set actually is. If we want to do that: fine. But as it stands, the motivation behind this sounds petty.
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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Thank God, someone making sense. Next let's cry about Rise of the Phoenix vs. Rise to the Challenge.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
The correct answer to the OP is that powersets are balanced, not powers. Any individual power may be better than any other individual power. Tier 9's are often not just not as good, they are bad and skipped on many powersets. Crashing nukes and defenses come to mind.
if Plant is better than Mind as a set, there is a problem if a power in Plant is better than a power in Mind there is no problem keep calm and carry on |
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There's a certain degree of cognitive dissonance in that statement. One cannot state that Seeds of Confusion is overpowered without drawing comparisons to other powers. For SoC to be overpowered, it has to have more relative power than other abilities. |
Originally Posted by wudake
If the thread was ONLY about Seeds of Confusion being overpowered it would be a different story. This starts off as crying about how he or she feels the tier 9 of the toon they're playing isn't as good as the tier 5 of someone else's character. Wah. And what's foolish is isolating one power out of a set and comparing it to another one-for-one and saying that it's broken.
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Additionally, while Rowdy makes the one to one comparison, the rest of the thread expands that comparison so that it is one-to-many. It is not just a comparison of SoC vs. MC; Tex and I have both pointed to how Seeds compares to the other AoE controls that fill the same role, and how seeds excels in recharge, duration, and accuracy among those similar powers.
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| And what's foolish is isolating one power out of a set and comparing it to another one-for-one and saying that it's broken. You have to take the whole set into consideration and what the strength of the set actually is. If we want to do that: fine. |
After such comparisons, there are two questions I pose. Why does Seeds of Confusion boast a superior mixture of accuracy, recharge, and duration compared to, not only Mass Confusion, but to most every spawn AoE controls? Secondly, why does Roots do superior damage at a reduced endurance cost than any other AoE immobilize?
I speculate that even if those two anomalous powers were brought in line with their peers Plant would not fall from above average performance, the gap would only be shortened.
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| But as it stands, the motivation behind this sounds petty. It's like how people whined about Burn was so oh-my-God overpowered. Not considering anything else about the Fiery Aura set. The only people affected? Those who played Fiery Aura; not the complainers who played other sets. (And for the record, I don't have a main FA tanker or brute). I was glad that they came around to show that players' ******** isn't always a legitimate claim. Here's hoping you get everything you want; the end of eight horrible years of playing Mind Control just toiling away never having any fun suddenly will come to an end when they change Seeds of Confusion. |
Have not read through the entire thread but I agree about Mass Confussion.
I have always wished Mass Confussion had the following changes:
- Renamed to Brainwash
- Up to 3 enemies will be "faction changed", they will become allies. The rest will be confused as normal.
- You wont be able to "faction change" any more enemies until some of your 3 allies die.
- Only Minions can be "Faction Changed", not bosses nor mission objectives.
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Oh my! I love it!
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Originally Posted by Starsman
Have not read through the entire thread but I agree about Mass Confussion.
I have always wished Mass Confussion had the following changes: Renamed to Brainwash
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If I had my way, Levitate would disappear entirely, and it would be a toggle power that gave you limited control over the enemy using the Mastermind panels.
If you wanted the enemy to stand somewhere, you would tell them to stand there.
If they're worried about the balance of it, it could require that the enemy currently be/remain confused to work.
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Vegans rule, that's why.
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Originally Posted by Rowdy
But, just curious as to why it's sooo good?
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But Vegans who eat fish is what I find perplexing |
Originally Posted by CyberGlitch
Vegans rule, that's why.
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Repeat Offenders forever !
Make all IO's available in Paragon Market! NCSoft, the chinese are making BIG money selling influence and other stuff in the game. Best way to stop them = make the paragon market a place to buy all IO's and perhaps other things as well.
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Vegans avoid all animal products. Vegetarians are more lax and make exceptions.
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Originally Posted by Commando
But Vegans who eat fish is what I find perplexing
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I am not here to defend plant control, I am sure it could use a slight nerf. Although, I don't think it would change practically anything for high level plant doms/controllers, it would just be an annoyance in early levels. However:
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The plant equivalent to Salt Crystals, Flash Freeze etc is Spore Burst, which, even though some people do take it, is very skippable just like Spirit Tree.
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Originally Posted by ketch
Others point at the skippable Spirit Tree while forgetting about Salt Crystals, Flash Freeze, Bonfire, or Dimension Shift.
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The most bizarre thing about SoC is that it is an AOE Confuse with the same exact duration as Mind, Dark, and Illusion's single target Confusion power. The number wasn't pulled out of the air, just out of a very inappropriate place.
Mass Confusion draws from that number as well, but has an infamous recharge of 240 seconds to SoC's 60 seconds.
I lied though. That's actually not the most bizarre thing about it. The most bizarre thing would be when you start comparing its base duration to the slotted durations of other powers:
The base duration of Seeds of Confusion is better than any other AoE hard control power I can find in the game slotted with 2 lvl 50 IOs.** The exception is Synaptic Overload, which it is merely better than in general.
Seeds is also slightly longer in duration than any single target Hold power in the game slotted with 2 SOs. Unslotted, it is almost identical to most 2-slotted Controller single target holds. You could literally not slot Confuse duration in Seeds at all and get the same duration as the supposed standard slotting for a Controller's hold. On a power like this, that's not just problematic, it's [fill in the blank with whatever synonym you like that means "overpowered" since so many do not like that word].
There are only a handful of powers in this game I'm content to call [term above], and Seeds is one of them. Whether they actually fix it or not isn't my call, but I know where I'd stand if I were looking at this set in a beta and they asked whether it was working as it should. And that's something I'll be forced to point out with every control set and possible buff to Controllers and Dominators, because not doing so, and allowing any other set to use Plant as a template, would IMO be tantamount to lying by omission. The power is just that far out of line.
[**On a technical note, after writing this, I found a few exceptions. EM Pulse and EM Arrow are two. They are merely as good as SoC when slotted with 1 Hold SO. However, each has a 300 second recharge.]
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And the other obvious ones would be Mass Confusion and Aura of Confusion. Oh look it's all the confuse powers, didn't we already hear in this exact thread that confuse powers generally have a longer duration? Oh yes we did.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
[**On a technical note, after writing this, I found a few exceptions. EM Pulse and EM Arrow are two. They are merely as good as SoC when slotted with 1 Hold SO. However, each has a 300 second recharge.]
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Even then Plant is not alone in having two skippable powers. Fire has Bonfire and Smoke. Ice has Flash Freeze (which suffers from having a damage component for some ungodly reason, delaying the sleep and interfering with Interface) and Shiver. Gravity has Dimension Shift and, for doms, Lift.|
Originally Posted by rina_
I am not here to defend plant control, I am sure it could use a slight nerf. Although, I don't think it would change practically anything for high level plant doms/controllers, it would just be an annoyance in early levels. However:
The plant equivalent to Salt Crystals, Flash Freeze etc is Spore Burst, which, even though some people do take it, is very skippable just like Spirit Tree. |
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Originally Posted by rina_
And the other obvious ones would be Mass Confusion and Aura of Confusion. Oh look it's all the confuse powers, didn't we already hear in this exact thread that confuse powers generally have a longer duration? Oh yes we did.
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Of course there are others that have two skippables, that doesn't change the fact that the comparison was utterly wrong.|
Originally Posted by ketch
Even then Plant is not alone in having two skippable powers. Fire has Bonfire and Smoke. Ice has Flash Freeze (which suffers from having a damage component for some ungodly reason, delaying the sleep and interfering with Interface) and Shiver. Gravity has Dimension Shift and, for doms, Lift.
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Originally Posted by ketch
Aura of Confusion still falls shy of Seeds of Confusion base duration with a single SO. A level 50 IO just pushes it beyond Seed's. And it shares the same recharge as Mass Confusion, 4 times that of Seeds. So every other confuse power is either single target, has 4 times the recharge, or is prone to catastrophic failure if it misses the first target.
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And just because a power is unique and doesn't have an exact equivalent doesn't mean it's overpowered. But let's say we bring seeds down to the level of the normal encounter to encounter stuns like Stalagmite. That would mean for an IOd out Dom, you're at 35s duration every 23s instead of 90s every 15s. Seems like a big difference, doesn't make that much of a difference in reality though. The only thing you can't do anymore is confusing a second encounter while you keep the first one confused. But let's be clear, if a change like that would be made, all other confuse powers would need to have their duration reduced to the same level, including the mind confuses. Just reducing the recharge time would make virtually no difference for plant.
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Originally Posted by rina_
He said that "The base duration of Seeds of Confusion is better than any other AoE hard control power I can find in the game slotted with 2 lvl 50 IOs." and that clearly is not true for Aura of Confusion.
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This is pretty much a non-point. Aura of Confusion is a Mass Confusion clone with a shorter duration and identical recharge. I already addressed Mass Confusion. I didn't call out Aura of Confusion by name, but it's only a barely relevant point. Anything that applies to Mass Confusion also applies to Aura of Confusion, except Aura of Confusion is an even more drastic example.
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| And just because a power is unique and doesn't have an exact equivalent doesn't mean it's overpowered. But let's say we bring seeds down to the level of the normal encounter to encounter stuns like Stalagmite. That would mean for an IOd out Dom, you're at 35s duration every 23s instead of 90s every 15s. Seems like a big difference, doesn't make that much of a difference in reality though. The only thing you can't do anymore is confusing a second encounter while you keep the first one confused. |
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| But let's be clear, if a change like that would be made, all other confuse powers would need to have their duration reduced to the same level, including the mind confuses. Just reducing the recharge time would make virtually no difference for plant. |
Many people would like us to think Seeds being a cone or being aggroable is a significant downside, but it's not. That's because the Confusion in Seeds of Confusion is incidental. The power may have a "Confusion" mezz flag, but its function is in the class of Stalagmites, Flashfire, and Wormhole. Other Confusion powers cannot mimic that function (high reliability, AoE capable, domination capable, and recharge fast enough to be used every spawn).
If the argument is that Seeds of Confusion needs longer duration because it's a Confuse and all Confuses get that duration, then what it really means is fast recharging, high reliability AoE confuses shouldn't be available. But since we're stuck with this one we might as well make it sensible.
There are "Confusion" powers in the game that are different enough from other Confusion powers to have their own balance values. Arctic Air is one. World of Confusion is one (that happens to be really poorly balanced and forces to evaluate rules for Confusion once again, in a different direction). Seeds of Confusion is more different from other Confusion powers than it is the same. Giving it the same values as those powers was IMO a mistake.
Whether they actually choose to fix it or not is not my decision. But I'm also not going to not talk about it because it upsets some people to hear anything that might in some way result in a nerf. As often as I actively campaign for buffs to sets and ATs based on similar evaluations, I consider it highly unethical to present numbers for sets that show comparisons without also volunteering the fact that Seeds of Confusion sits way outside the band of normal expectations.
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You've chosen to focus on the specific nature of the power as a control, to which I will concede drawing a parallel of Spirit Tree : Quicksand or Shiver and Spore Burst : Salt Crystals or Flash Freeze would have been a much better comparison. However, my point is that all of these powers are incidentals that do not make up the core control of set. The effectiveness of the sets, by and large, is not dependent on these. People citing skippable powers as a defense of another's strength are erring in two aspects: Plant is not alone in its skippable powers and when they are omitted it only speaks louder for the strength of the tools remaining when a powerset remains a top performer.|
Originally Posted by rina_
Of course there are others that have two skippables, that doesn't change the fact that the comparison was utterly wrong.
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| He said that "The base duration of Seeds of Confusion is better than any other AoE hard control power I can find in the game slotted with 2 lvl 50 IOs." and that clearly is not true for Aura of Confusion. |
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| Mass of Confusion also needs to be seen in its proper context within Mind Control, it is not the encounter to encounter control like seeds is, it is additional to two other controls that are available very frequently: Terrify (yes fear isn't as great as confuse, but this is Mind's encounter to encounter control) and Telekinesis. Mass of Confusion is a typical T9 like blaster nukes that is strong but not up that often, plant doesn't have an equivalent to it. |
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| And just because a power is unique and doesn't have an exact equivalent doesn't mean it's overpowered. But let's say we bring seeds down to the level of the normal encounter to encounter stuns like Stalagmite. That would mean for an IOd out Dom, you're at 35s duration every 23s instead of 90s every 15s. Seems like a big difference, doesn't make that much of a difference in reality though. The only thing you can't do anymore is confusing a second encounter while you keep the first one confused. |
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| But let's be clear, if a change like that would be made, all other confuse powers would need to have their duration reduced to the same level, including the mind confuses. Just reducing the recharge time would make virtually no difference for plant. |
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Many people would like us to think Seeds being a cone or being aggroable is a significant downside, but it's not. That's because the Confusion in Seeds of Confusion is incidental. The power may have a "Confusion" mezz flag, but its function is in the class of Stalagmites, Flashfire, and Wormhole. Other Confusion powers cannot mimic that function (high reliability, AoE capable, domination capable, and recharge fast enough to be used every spawn).
If the argument is that Seeds of Confusion needs longer duration because it's a Confuse and all Confuses get that duration, then what it really means is fast recharging, high reliability AoE confuses shouldn't be available. But since we're stuck with this one we might as well make it sensible. |
Earlier in the thread I talked a little about how, in an ideal world, if a nerf to Seeds ever did happen it would correspond with a general buff to the AoE Holds. I made a chart showing most of the major revisions I've suggested to make them easier to correlate. I did not include every single power available to every Control set as that makes the view more or less useless.
Values in Yellow boxes are the ones I suggest changes to, with the original value in parantheses.
Note that I didn't include Earth Control in the AoE Hold changed. That's because Earth Control got only half the nerf of the other holds during the changeover years ago. It could be debated, but IMO if Volcanic Gasses drops below 240s recharge, it should have to give up some of its currently very generous 60s duration.
The values listed are the Controller values since those are much easier to work with. Dominator values increase or decrease based on their modifiers.
PS I just noticed Ice Slick says 8% chance of knock 10 time per second. That should be 8%. There may be other small errors I didn't pick up on.
There is absolutely no way to avoid nerfs in a game. This is a truism. Some people think that if you just never lower any values, ever, no matter how outrageous they are, that you've avoided nerfs. But this is not true. What you did in that situation is nerf everything but the set that got the overlarge advantage. Power is entirely relative.
You lower value sometimes because NOT lowering them unstabilizes the rest of the game. You have to be careful to go gun ho, but the absolute paranoia this game has about them is the source of a wide number of its problems.
There are some players who believe no power should be lowered in value under any circumstances, ever. That's fine to me, except that nearly always these are the same players who complain about this set and that set not performing to expectations. Quite frankly, my opinion is that anyone who is against nerfs to the point of absolution has no room to request buffs to any power whatsoever.