Kinetics, a re-balancing suggestion

Fulcrum Shift IS an insanely good power, but it isn't overpowered.

Barring a duration that exceeds 3 minutes, thinking that a 16 minute recharge on Fulcrum Shift is balanced is pretty delusional when you look at other powers in the game. I mean what the heck are you balancing against, Time Bomb and Barb Swipe only? Evidence would support no longer than 6 minutes for recharge, and generally in longer duration buffs.

False. Even if you're counting the stacking out of the box (30 sec duration, 20 sec recharge) a 40% +damage is still inferior in damage compared to a 30% resistance debuff unless both you and the people you team with don't bother with slotting damage in their attacks against almost all difficulty levels.

Let's say you have an attack that does 125 damage. You slot it for +100% damage, because I'm lazy and don't want to make the math harder than it has to be. That means you're doing 250 points of damage, or 200 damage to a +2 (80% effect due to purple patch).

Siphon Power (for Controllers/Corruptors, since you're using those numbers in your quotes) provides +20% damage per stack. It has a 1.93 second cast time, which works out to an arcanatime of 2.112 seconds, and costs 10.4 endurance.
1 Siphon Power (2.112 sec cast, 10.4 end): (125 * (1 base damage + 1 slotting + 0.2 siphon power)) * 1 resistance modifier = 275, *.8 for purple patch damage applied = 220.
2 Siphon Powers (4.224 sec cast, 20.8 end): (125 * (1 + 1 + .4)) * 1 = 300, *.8 = 240.

Tar Patch provides a 30% resistance debuff in a wide area. Counting the purple patch (against +2 it has .8 effectiveness) this multiplies the final damage after slotting by 1.24. It has a cast time of 3.1 seconds, which works out to an arcanatime of 3.3 seconds, and costs 7.8 endurance.
(125 * (1 + 1)) * 1.24 = 310, *.8 = 248.

You're spending more animation time and getting less benefit than Tar Patch by keeping Siphon Power stacked, and Tar Patch affects powers that don't take outside buffs (like, say, Judgement) which Siphon Power won't. They aren't equivalent powers.

Now, against +4s - which is the best case scenario for buffs, since there is a 0.48 effectiveness on damage/debuffs making Tar Patch only a 14.4% resistance debuff:
1 Siphon Power: 132
2 Siphon Power: 144
Tar Patch: 137.28

Note that a single Siphon Power still isn't equivalent to a single Tar Patch; you have to keep it stacked to do better, which means at least 14% of your time (2.112 sec / 15 sec) is spent just keeping the buff active. If you're the only one doing damage, then it's probably a net loss even at +4, just because Tar Patch's debuff duration is long enough that it's not likely to interrupt your attacking.

Aaaand, this. For reasons already covered.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

#1 Yes many de/buffs require a to hit but many staple powers such as Rad Infection, Envervating Field and Darkest Night don't and they all have significant debuffs. Lightning Storm even has higher accuracy and can be made perma

#2 You're assuming everyone has perma damage cap capable toons and last I read powers were not made with the exceptional high end builds in mind

#3 Those sets all have other forms of damage mitigation there by increasing their survivability. I can throw a tar patch on one mob, pull another with DN and stand in the middle of them and not flinch. Try using FS on a mob of even 5 NPCs solo.

#4 -End on NPC is a joke. You might stop them from attacking for a few seconds, but they don't need the same endurance you need to use their powers so unless you can stack -end I don't think it's quite as useful, but that's just an opinion. Transfusion is nice but unlike Twilight Grasp you need to be within 20' of the target, in many cases that could be dangerously close. Also the Sonic shields can be enhanced, the -Dam of a Kin can not. Sonic also gives a lot of -Res, -To Hit and -Def

I have to disagree here, I can take any of my Dark toons solo, aggro multiple mobs on a map of +3 or +4 set for 8 players, and not have a problem. I can even chat while I decide which manner in which to dispose of them in.

I'm pretty sure that it was simply reiterating my earlier point - Fulcrum Shift still, even if it misses, provides a +40% damage buff that can easily be permanent (ie, perma capable).

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

This is not a call for fixing anything, it is yet another attention gathering nerf herding call period. There is no benefit to nerf herding and it hurts the game.

In terms of shutting someone down, calling out nerf herding where applicable is not "trying to shut someone down from making a point". Saying it is, is nothing more than a bold faced lie.

You are better than that right?

This is pretty silly. No golf clap for you.

Calling something nerf-herding is a way for you to not engage in a dialogue. People most hurt by calls for nerfing a set or power are those who have spent a lot of time or energy exploiting a game balance issue. Look at all the replies in threads which essentially admit as much.

Game balance issues lead to problems in the game. I think the harm they do is worse.

1. They reduce the content of the game to a trivial exercise instead of a challenging story.
2. They make players on teams which are not running "uber" sets useless or pretty superfluous.
3. They create a situation in the game where the devs have to engage in a constant war of escalation in order to stay ahead of the balance issues. Put in IOs which allow a player to reach high levels of defense on a non-defensive toon so you have to add mobs which can easily bypass those increased levels of defense (think Incarnates). Add a special mob to a villain group which will counter their use as a farm because you (the devs) allowed such high levels of resistance that players can easily overcome the damage (think of Super Stunners).

I know some might think that I am spouting a bunch of crap, and that is their right. I only hope that those with the power to make changes in the game are the ones who look at it with more reasoned eyes.

p.s. I know that Incarnates were added to the game to provide an end-game which largely didn't exist in this game before Incarnates. It is a vast improvement over the previous end game encounter, the Hamidon raid. At least now the powers you chose matter in the result.

Ah I see I misunderstood, or misread rather

Do I think you're spewing crap? No. I think you're expressing an opinion albeit one that I don't happen to agree with.

Here's the thing I don't understand about the argument for "rebalancing" Kinetics, there are plenty of sets out there capable of soloing AVs and soloing TFs, none of them to my knowledge has ever been a Kin. Why not argue to nerf Domination? I mean a perma Dom will outshine a Kin anything anyday.

Also take into consideration that not everyone has these uber builds you speak of, and while here on the forums players swap high end build ideas, ways to make inf etc; a large majority of players aren't on the forums and many of them are casual (middle ground), not hardcore, and those are the ones the game needs to be balanced against.

Thanks


To be honest though I don't see the issue with kins/FS. If your team wants more damage bring a kin.

If your team wants defense, bring an FF or Cold, etc, etc....


Playing as a kin for 8+ years...we can definitely still die and although I will say if "you're a good kin" your team shouldn't have issues but I know that's not true.

I agree.

I'm actually hard pressed to find an example of a kin build that *couldn't* solo AVs and TFs, in today's game.

I thought maybe a kin/elec or kin/DP defender... But nope, not anymore, at level 50 your Lore pets annihilate everything, and below that, AV HP scaling is lenient enough you can get by.

I mean, you could cherrypick specific tasks that might pose trouble to a kin and not to specific other strong soloing builds; i.e. a mind dom can get through the LRSF with sleeps and/or confuses whereas any non-illusion kin would likely be out of luck in the finale. For soloing the vast majority of available TFs and AVs though, I'd pick a kin before I'd pick most melee builds, or a TA, sonic, FF, emp, storm, pain, or a blaster, or a non-mind, non-earth dom, or a non-bots, non-thugs MM, or a PB, or a WS... And when you tally it up, kin really ends up being a better pick than most builds.

Hmm, I don't think my main (kin/rad def) can take down an AV by himself. Then again I don't really care to try. Maybe with the i24 changes and insta-snipe I could have more DPS but...*shrugs*


I mainly have common IOs in him too...although he has a few -res procs in some powers and maybe 1 or 2 sets.


I mean, I guess any toon can take down an AV once they have Barrier, Lore pets and all the other incarnate powers + stocking up on inspirations.


I don't know what I'm getting to here....

Try to take on AVs on any character with that setup (I'm assuming you meant "no insps" as you mention stocking up on inspirations later) and the list comes up painfully short, though.

You've got Illusion controllers... You've got some masterminds... You've got perhaps a handful more of debuffers and controllers if they do things like spamming immobilizes from out of LoS (but I honestly doubt anyone uses this as a main and sustainable AV soloing tactic, it's just so long and can go wrong so easily, without any mitigation).

All of these characters defeat AVs through bending the usual rules rather than sheer power applicable to normal game situations. Where are those masterminds when speeding TFs? Yeah, yeah, this being the forums I'm sure we'll see ten people popping up to tell me their MM is all that and a bag of chips even in these situations, but let's face it, the more dynamic the fight the less attractive they become. It's not surprising the devs eventually had to give special treatment to MM pets during itrials, and despite that there are people out there who still feel MMs are underpowered there.

I mean, coming back to other characters, RI and DN, to pick two powers often mentioned for their impressive mitigation, give you a fat load of nothing against AVs, as they are heavily resisted (~85% by level 50). A 30% tohit debuff is nice, a 4% tohit debuff is... less impressive. Unless you've got 41% defense perhaps, but no Radiation or Dark defender is going to have that much defense from common IOs.

Kin actually often ends up with more mitigation than Radiation against AVs, as damage debuffing isn't resisted (unless the particular AV you're fighting has resistance), and your heal is stronger as well as having an actual offensive use, making using it less of a DPS loss.

By itself it won't do much, but when you stock up on inspirations... That is, spend ten seconds to buy 20 small lucks to your contact before heading into a mission with an AV, and consume 3 or 4 at a time... This significant healing + damage debuff starts to stack pretty well.

I mean, I could go on and on on that topic but likely I'm the only one entertained. In the end I think it's telling we can even debate the ability to solo the strongest stuff on a powerset that is able by itself to give unsuppressed movement, +50% recharge buff and double recovery for an entire league, as well as a significant amount of damage buffing (although I agree with those disputing the claim it's trivial to consistently keep a team at the damage cap).

No it is more like calling the king out for not wearing any clothes. Everyone can see it, it just takes one person to verbally point it out.

If this were the first nerf herding attempt regarding kinetics then I might not be as critical, but it is not and the arguments showing it is not OP have been made ad nausem.

In the end someone not calling it what it is "nerf herding", explains one of the stat/game related reasons that have been explained for the six years I have been here and things return to the next item to be attacked by the nerf herders only to have the process repeated.

This is at the same time that some calls for reasonable needed adjustments to sets is done and the difference is not hard to spot if you have watched it for six years.

I list Purples and Greens for 300k
the others for 100k

if I notice that the price is down low and want to bother I buy up the others for 30k, combine them and make a purple or green to list for 300k

my one level 50 has a billion influence but few set IO's and those are the cheap ones (a few million each)

but I don't like to give money to my alts, so they make theirs selling inner inspiration droppings

You're basically making the argument that no amount of damage buffing is a lot because -resistance will always be better.

No, that is almost completely opposite of what I've actually said:
I meant only what I said: looking at Fulcrum Shift in the absence of other damage buffs does not give a good picture of what it does. And what it actually does in practice, and more appropriately what Kinetics as a whole does, isn't out of line with other support sets, IMX.

Fulcrum Shift is good, but not so good that it passes up -res at zero stacks, as post #74 claimed.

Yeah I guess I could try to solo a lvl 50 AV at some point. I know just from being in teams when fighting AVs I'm usually using:

Siphon Speed
Siphon Power
Fulcrum Shift
Transfusion
Siphon Power
Transference


etc, etc....so with kin being so active in debuffing it's hard for me to actually attack

How is this a counter arguement? Like you said as long as u can do this. The /auctionhouse is tier 8 in paragon rewards. So the game should be balanced around that?

I haven't played my fire/kin or healer in a long time. Isn't kinetics heal the 2nd strongest aoe heal. Fulcrum shift was op back when there was just heroes, when everyone was in PI power leveling players.

I think reducing it's buff of damage or preventing it from working on the caster would balance it some.

I don't even think Illusion controllers are a good candidate there: I've been there and with just SOs or common IOs it takes too much endurance and too much perfect decoy timing. Its *possible* but you usually have to get very lucky.

There's probably some melee combos that can do it with common IOs though.

It isn't. That's why I stopped using it as an example once the thread became less silly than it was on the first page: