I24: Switch Boxing or Kick with Tough
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-08-08 06:57 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Anyone who's thinking of doing this, I'd just like to recommend you install Doom I because it's easier and play on I'm Too Young To Die! Much easier to navigate because the screen isn't whited out.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Want easy, go install DOOM II and play in god mode.
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Yeah, it'd be awful if there was a power pool that gave a Defense-slottable power in the first tier like Fly, Leaping, Leadership, or Stealth do in the game.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
My problem is rearranging the set just so min/maxers can get a defense slot mule for another luck of the gambler set with no prereqs.
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| These are the same folk who successfully beat the devs about the head and shoulders until they gave everyone the Fitness pool because it wasn't fair that they had to make tough choices when choosing their powers while leveling up. |
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| Not every AT gets defense, actually most don't, live with it. |
Oh wait. All of their secondaries are having sustain effects added in the very issue we're discussing.
Plus every single APP/PPP for the non-melee, non-EAT ATs has some sort of defensive toggle in it.
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| Those ATs |
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| You aren't suppose to beat the game that way. |
But please do continue to be objectively wrong. It's my favorite kind of wrong for other people to be.
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I think PvP got it nerfed to complete worthlessness. It used to be good for ghosting through doors, but the Intangibility got whacked down to a short duration timer instead of being until you de-toggled it.| Heck, if they relaxed the restrictions like that, I might even take Phase Shift on a toon for the first time, and try to see if it has any usefulness at all. |
It'd be nice if it got a situational use where you could target an enemy NPC with Phase Shift and prevent THEM from using THEIR Phase Shift. Being able to lock down a Carnie mistress or Diabolique so they can't KEEP ON FLIPPING IN AND OUT OF PHASE ARGGHGHH would be at least useful, although still situational (how often do you fight Carnies or Diabolique? If you like fighting Carnies for the extra challenge it would be worth taking!)
Arcanaville, the 50% does seem high given that health was a second tier power and grants only 33% duration reduction to sleep. I realize 50% would really only make it 25% shorter based on how the mechanics go but it probably shouldn't work on all mez durations better than what a tier two was given, you know? Hehehe, something tells me you've likely given that thought already though. My suggestion of 5-10% apparently was too low based on other percents in this thread but it just seems on for a tier one power in my head. The run speed portion is interesting thematically, a fighter being faster/more mobile...I like that idea too.
If a sixth power (like the new paid pool will have) isn't doable, making Kick an inherent like brawl and adding a new passive to the pool in place of Kick would be cool as well. Kick would likely have to lose it's KB if that happened, but no power pick to get a kick attack on all my characters would be worth that for me. =)
Also I'd like to mention I'm not in favor of Tough being a tier one power choice...I just want a choice between the two current tier one attacks. Usually I take kick due to it not looking like brawl and no redraw issues with weapons. Well, and I like to kick better than punch. It'd be nice to have to put a little more thought into it personally, that and not feel like I'm wasting a power completely on some characters.
Liberty!
Black Dawn/Shattered Dawn
Chaos Legion
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Health also buffs regeneration by +40%. I don't think the two effects are directly comparable. You're implying here that a tier 1 power should not offer any more mez resistance than any other tier 2 power but that's not generally true.|
Originally Posted by jeanngray
Arcanaville, the 50% does seem high given that health was a second tier power and grants only 33% duration reduction to sleep. I realize 50% would really only make it 25% shorter based on how the mechanics go but it probably shouldn't work on all mez durations better than what a tier two was given, you know?
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Consider Weave, a tier 4 power, offers 48% resistance to immobilize. Combat Jumping, a tier 1 power, offers 8 points of actual protection against immobilize. CJ is vastly superior to Weave when it comes to immobilize even though its a tier 1 power. But that's because neither is a mez protection power specifically: both are defense powers offering additional mez protection, and that protection is bundled with different things. In particular the lower immobilize resistance of Weave is bundled with a lot more defense than CJ's immobilize protection.
In general, you want higher tier powers to have better value than lower tier powers, but that's taken as a whole, and not usually comparing individual effects separately.
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| Hehehe, something tells me you've likely given that thought already though. |
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Right so this is either bugged, the idea was scrapped, or it is not implemented yet. In Coffee Talk it was announced this change was coming where the 4th power in power pools would be available after 1 power pick.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
When I explicitly tested this on the beta servers, both Weave and Cross required two of the three earlier powers to be selected before they became available. If those three powers are boxing, kick, and tough, in any order, you'll be forced to take either boxing or kick to unlock weave. Which is exactly, precisely the situation we have now on live.
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We'll see. But even if that is true, its still a problem to avoid to have to decide which of the two attacks in Fighting will require a prerequisite if the order of the powers is shuffled. Assuming the devs want to change the prequisite metagame requirement in the first place. If they did you could simply eliminate the prerequisite of tough without altering order.
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Originally Posted by Ultimus
Right so this is either bugged, the idea was scrapped, or it is not implemented yet. In Coffee Talk it was announced this change was coming where the 4th power in power pools would be available after 1 power pick.
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Yes I did mean defense in the general term of damage mitigation and mez prevention, the opposite of offense which itself is a damage mitigator of sorts.| I'm assuming you mean 'defense' as in 'mitigation and mez protection,' not as in Defense ... |
Personally I gave up even looking at the fighting pool back in 2004 once I found out how weak boxing and kick was. Still I can see the logic in providing one offensive and one defensive skill as the initial choice.
However it bothers me at a fundamental level that players are starting to design their characters not on concept but by what powers they could take, slot but never use just to softcap their defense or make Hasten perm once again. Which I consider silly since once you add that much global recharge you've exceeded what perma-Hasten originally bought you so now you are Ultra-Hastened on all your (general you all) attacks and now the problem is endurance, hence the begging of giving everyone Stamina for "free".
And while it's annoying to get Mezzed in battle, you learn not to take on a room full of Tsoo ink men all at once soloing with an AT with no Mez defense. It's called adapting to your enemy by use of a strategy. Or team with people who can give you Mez resistance and can take Mezzers head-on, like the ATs that are designed for that purpose.
Does it annoy me when my character is seeing stars while their hit points are plummeting and there is nothing I can do, sure. But it doesn't happen often anymore and usually after switching for an character where it's not a problem to one that it is. I don't curse that the game is just too hard and beg the devs to make it easier to harden my "glass cannon" into a "tank-mage".
Still that doesn't change the OP's reason for suggesting this which is to take the defensive powers of the pool without taking an attack. And you, me and the 800lbs gorilla in the room know damn well the reason for that is just for IO set bonuses. The boards are all a twitter over Issue 24 adding damage resist bonus sets so players can build resistance godlings and the plotting and scheming is already in full swing looking at how to "break" the game by making all combat trivial.
At some point the devs are going to push back and make some new or existing critter group challenging to godling characters and we'll start seeing threads about how hard the game has gotten and how the new content is "broken" because they can't watch a movie while "playing" this game by following a teammate and have an attack on spam.
And when that happens it'll be players like me who don't have billions on every character to spend on ultimate tricked out slotting who will be facing mobs so overpowered relative to me that the game changes from enjoying content to spend an excessive amount of time designing my character simply to play. One of the big pluses for CoH is how difficult it is to build an unplayable character. I don't want to see that go away but I fear the arms race of building elite characters is going to bite the rest of us in the rump someday.
Hate to say it but Jack may have been onto something by not releasing the hard numbers on powers.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
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Actually, if all I cared about were IO bonuses, this thread wouldn't exist. Most characters can benefit an awful lot from a 4-slot Kinetic Combat mule (read: Boxing or Kick). This thread was started because I don't like feeling forced into taking powers that I will never, ever use to get to powers that I use 100% of the time: Tough and Weave; and no, not for IO set bonuses, though that is a perk, for the base functionality of the powers: making the character more durable.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Still that doesn't change the OP's reason for suggesting this which is to take the defensive powers of the pool without taking an attack. And you, me and the 800lbs gorilla in the room know damn well the reason for that is just for IO set bonuses.
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Please take your horrifically condescending, know-it-all attitude somewhere else, now. Thank you.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
Code:
I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
From a conceptual non min/max view point I am not sure why many ATs need to learn boxing/kicking before becoming tough and able to weave..I can jump up in the air and bring my staff down in an amazing cinematic arc before i learn to dodge attacks? Boxing by the way is a sad little poke compared to many attacks Most people have long before they dip into the fighting pool.
In fact again conceptually for some of my characters they do not hand to hand at all and tough/weave is a representation of power armor..You know like Iron Man.. pretty sure the only thing Tony Stark could box was a bottle of scotch :P
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I can't ascribe motivation in this case, but I can say I've been uncomfortable about the prereq in fighting being basically worthless for most offensive-oriented archetypes for a very long time.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Still that doesn't change the OP's reason for suggesting this which is to take the defensive powers of the pool without taking an attack. And you, me and the 800lbs gorilla in the room know damn well the reason for that is just for IO set bonuses. The boards are all a twitter over Issue 24 adding damage resist bonus sets so players can build resistance godlings and the plotting and scheming is already in full swing looking at how to "break" the game by making all combat trivial.
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But the same is true in the Medicine set. I have a tanker with a metric load of HPs, I want Aid Self because I frequently solo and I prefer to have a way to heal quickly without resorting to making myself vulnerable with Rest or wait a long time to naturally heal. This was when I was under 20 way back in 2004. Hoarfrost is good but takes too long to recharge and I prefer to have it available in combat. So I'm forced to take an ally only power and I came up with a way to logically explain why I have these other powers even though I rarely use them. I mean who asks a Tanker to heal them?
The point is a lot of pool powers are arranged so you are forced to take something you don't want to take something you do. Fact of life. You want to take Human Sexuality as your humanities elective, you're forced to take Psych 101 first. I don't see a difference.
I'm sorry I lumped you in with the min/maxers but I feel the game is starting to go their way. For me it's like going down to the rec department to play a pick up game of basketball and now to many players are taking it way too seriously to make it enjoyable for me anymore. I'm looking for a little exercise, not elbows to my head or getting in my face because of a bad pass or shot. It's suppose to be Happy Fun Time Games.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
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I get this part..Yes In a Real life setting you would indeed learn to Box and weave and that would make you tough (So they are still out of order but anyway!) But this is comic book world and it is possible to be tough with out knowing how to fight (Hulk) Or dodge attacks with out being tough Just like (at the risk of sounding loose) you can indeed learn about human sexuality with out taking Psych, trust me.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
The point is a lot of pool powers are arranged so you are forced to take something you don't want to take something you do. Fact of life. You want to take Human Sexuality as your humanities elective, you're forced to take Psych 101 first. I don't see a difference.
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Saying that, I do understand that tough and weave are good powers, and from what I understand Innate fitness is what allowed Blasters to get er.. better defense...BUT not all the new content is trivial.. really evrey time i make a Praetorian I wonder if I have lost my mind.. and Night ward is just...sheesh.. I will not play those arcs solo currently with anything but a brute/scrapper/tank. So It is clear the Devs are turning the new content up a notch.
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Further up I described my rationale here. When a player takes aid self, there's a very high probability they don't actually own any heals. There's a meta game situation here where the game decides Aid Self is valuable enough to require a prerequisite, but at least both prereqs are things the player is unlikely to have. Whether they *intend* to use them or not, if nothing else they are interesting extras.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
But the same is true in the Medicine set. I have a tanker with a metric load of HPs, I want Aid Self because I frequently solo and I prefer to have a way to heal quickly without resorting to making myself vulnerable with Rest or wait a long time to naturally heal. This was when I was under 20 way back in 2004. Hoarfrost is good but takes too long to recharge and I prefer to have it available in combat. So I'm forced to take an ally only power and I came up with a way to logically explain why I have these other powers even though I rarely use them. I mean who asks a Tanker to heal them?
The point is a lot of pool powers are arranged so you are forced to take something you don't want to take something you do. Fact of life. You want to take Human Sexuality as your humanities elective, you're forced to take Psych 101 first. I don't see a difference. I'm sorry I lumped you in with the min/maxers but I feel the game is starting to go their way. For me it's like going down to the rec department to play a pick up game of basketball and now to many players are taking it way too seriously to make it enjoyable for me anymore. I'm looking for a little exercise, not elbows to my head or getting in my face because of a bad pass or shot. It's suppose to be Happy Fun Time Games. |
That's vastly different than if the game were to say, if you want a power, it requires a prereq cost, you have to take two more copies of brawl. Obviously, that's a prereq cost that is not even trying to be an interesting meta-game choice. Boxing and Kick are not quite that bad, but they are dangerously close to that and far away from the Aid Self/Aid Other situation for damage dealers.
Every power choice doesn't have to be optimal, but they should at least be interesting. Redundant attacks aren't interesting in my opinion. I'm fine with maintaining prereqs, and I'm also fine with them being things res/def minmaxers will gain only limited benefit from. But they should try to offer some reasonably benefit to the non-min/maxers, and they at least should do something interesting, even if completely non-optimal, for the min/maxers that take it only as a gateway to tough/weave.
In fact, min/maxers don't really have a problem with the prereq: they've been taking tough/weave for years without blinking an eye. Its the non-min/maxers that build for concept for which the prereq imposes a much higher opportunity cost. Lowering that cost without eliminating it by adding utility to those prereqs adds almost nothing a min/maxer really needs while benefiting the non-min/maxers enough to make Fighting less of a chore to add to their builds. You just have to straddle an admittedly very fine line when it comes to adjusting the prereq value.
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I do agree with the premise of having a choice between an offensive and defensive power as your first choice. But the idea of cherry picking just the "defensive" powers bothers me.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I can't ascribe motivation in this case, but I can say I've been uncomfortable about the prereq in fighting being basically worthless for most offensive-oriented archetypes for a very long time.
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From my point of view excluding the 4 travel power pools and Concealment (because who doesn't want to be invisible, on purpose), the other sets were for granting powers to ATs that normally wouldn't have such abilities.
Leadership is about team buffing, like what some Defenders and Controllers could do. Presence is taunting foes and soft control, like Tankers, Scrappers and Controllers. Medicine to help heal your teammates when you don't have any healing powers via your main sets, again like Defenders and Controllers. Fighting was to give players something better than just Brawl, back when Brawl actually used endurance, and some damage resist or defense that Scrappers and Tankers had. And since we are talking about the old days, Fitness gave movement bonuses and HP/End regen ability that was only available at the time to regen Scrappers.
It was all about a way to dabble in types of powers that other ATs had in spades. It was also a way to flavor up your character so it's more unique. The Ancillary Power Pools even more so since they are more AT unique.
That's my take. Maybe it's based on something I read in the old CoH guide from Prima back from the old days.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
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That's always been my original impression, more or less: supplemental powers to supplement powerset combinations that were light on some things or wanted more of other things.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
From my point of view excluding the 4 travel power pools and Concealment (because who doesn't want to be invisible, on purpose), the other sets were for granting powers to ATs that normally wouldn't have such abilities.
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The problem with fighting is that it uses offense to prereq defense, and that first hurts things with no defense but tons of offense - blasters in particular - and then starts hurting everyone as the devs rebalanced the game to ensure everyone had reasonably high offense.
Power pool melee attacks were always iffy except as a conceptual thing, because this game makes a strong distinction between melee archetypes and ranged ones in what melee is allowed to have (defense) but like most games (and CO fell into this problem face-first) it doesn't make a strong enough distinction between melee and ranged attacks individually: a melee attack in CoH is a ranged attack whose range is permanently debuffed. There's no benefit for a ranged archetype with tons of ranged attacks to get a melee attack unless the melee attack is stellar in some way (i.e. Air Superiority) because there's no minimum usable range for ranged attacks.
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The other issue with the conceptual view of power pools is that in many ways they end up helping characters who already have lots.
Fighting gives more res/def to melee characters than it does ranged characters (except for Defenders) while Support ATs and VEATs get the best Leadership numbers.
Re: The "Medicine Pool as Justification for Useless Prerequisites" tangent:
Medicine
- Stimulant is changed to Injection, is no longer interruptable and can be used on both allies and foes. When used on an ally this has its normal effect. When used on a foe it debuffs their Recharge, Damage and To Hit.
- Field Medic added as Fifth Power, a click power that improves the effectiveness of your heals and decreases your resistance to healing (so that heals done to you are more effective). In addition if you own Field Medic Aid Other and Aid Self get a bonus:
- Aid Other is uninterruptible
- Aid Self gives an Endurance Over Time effect
Useless pool power prerequisites have been addressed in every pool except for Fighting in Issue 24.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
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I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
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To be fair that change was made specifically because both prereqs required a teammate in order to be used, so if you were solo you couldn't use them even if you wanted to. For the fighting pool you can use the prereqs while solo as much as you want, it's just that everyone except low level controllers has better options. Much better options.
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Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
Re: The "Medicine Pool as Justification for Useless Prerequisites" tangent:
Medicine
Useless pool power prerequisites have been addressed in every pool except for Fighting in Issue 24. |
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Of specific relevance here, damage mitigation stacks, attacks don't.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
The other issue with the conceptual view of power pools is that in many ways they end up helping characters who already have lots.
Fighting gives more res/def to melee characters than it does ranged characters (except for Defenders) while Support ATs and VEATs get the best Leadership numbers. |
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Leadership should of always given the same numbers to all the ATs. Whether that means some get buffed up numbers or not, that's how it should be.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
The other issue with the conceptual view of power pools is that in many ways they end up helping characters who already have lots.
Fighting gives more res/def to melee characters than it does ranged characters (except for Defenders) while Support ATs and VEATs get the best Leadership numbers. |
Fighting Pool Defense powers should have given better numbers to the squishies and weaker numbers to melee ATs.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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What's your rationale for both positions?
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Leadership should of always given the same numbers to all the ATs. Whether that means some get buffed up numbers or not, that's how it should be.
Fighting Pool Defense powers should have given better numbers to the squishies and weaker numbers to melee ATs. |
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Attacks sort of can. Maybe Boxing and/or Kick could get a Defiance/Follow Up type ability? Using a fighting attack amplifies the next attack you make or something?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Of specific relevance here, damage mitigation stacks, attacks don't.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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That would be a case of giving the attack a buff that stacks. Technically, Parry stacks because it has a defense buff, but I wouldn't call that a case of an attack stacking.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Attacks sort of can. Maybe Boxing and/or Kick could get a Defiance/Follow Up type ability? Using a fighting attack amplifies the next attack you make or something?
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Activation time is the critical offensive resource, but there's no real analog for damage mitigation. There's no real equivalent to "DPA" for damage mitigation. Once you've spent it all, the only way to improve is to get a better attack. Such superceding doesn't generally occur for defense.
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Even if it's something as simple as DDR.
You're basically giving a bonus for something they had to take anyways.
The synergy they were going for with the attacks could at least give people the idea of "Hmmm...maybe I'll use the attacks"
Sadly, it would just be an idea without decent damage to back them up though.