Adeon Hawkwood
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Quote:Devices definitely got a huge boost but I don't think it's the best secondary. It definitely becomes very good but not the best.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
But as far as I can see, Devices just became the best secondary. Good thing I have two of them!
The permanent fast-snipe does help counter it's weaknesses in terms of a lack of single target damage (which other sets get through melee attacks and Build Up). From a practical point of view I think it really shifts Devices into what it should have been from the start: the Stalker of Blaster secondaries. A Devices Blaster paired with an appropriate Primary has the ability to build up a very strong ranged single target damage capability (Assault Rifle and Beam Rifle in particular since they have set specific bonuses on their Snipes)
Now if the fast-cast ability applied to Trip Mine I'd agree that Devices is the best secondary
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Ok my thoughts on the snipe changes.
In many ways this seems like it will help Defenders more than non-Devices Blasters. A Defender with ED capped Tactics (or Farsight for Time) and a Kismet +ToHit IO should hit the 22% To Hit required for Fast-Cast Snipes without needing Aim/Build Up or Inspirations. A Corruptor can also do it by overslotting for to hit but it's a lot tighter. Devices it obviously the Blaster set with the most to gain since slotting up Targeting Drone and putting a Kismet in Field Operative (or CJ or Hover) will given them permanent fast-snipe.
For specific Blast sets:
Archery: I don't see a huge benefit here, Blazing Arrow has always meant that Archery has pretty good ST damage. Still it could be some benefit.
Assault Rifle: Heck Yeah! A 0.67s cast time on a 2.76 damage scale power in a set that is lacking in ST damage (other than Ignite which has setup time issues). AR/Dev Blasters are going to really love this one, especially when you factor in the damage buff they get for Having Sniper Rifle and Targeting Drone. The downside is that when not paired with Devices the lack of Aim means it'll have less uptime for it than other sets.
Beam Rifle: This is an interesting one. The automatic disintegration spread from Penetrating Ray makes doing Disintegrate -> Penetrating Ray -> Cutting Beam a very attractive combo. On the other hand Beam Rifle is already very high single target damage so is it really worth taking all five powers? And if not what do you drop? All of the single target powers now have a very nice secondary bonus either in the form of cast from mez, bonus damage, -regen, mezzing enemies or just disintegration spread it's hard to say which ones to take. Eh, I'll leave it to the number crunchers.
Dark Blast: Another set with a lot of ST damage already the big advantage here is probably that unlike most of the other hard hitters in the set Moonbeam is straight damage rather than a DoT.
Dual Pistols: No Snipe. Next!
Electrical Blast: Like AR this is a set that is lacks a third tier blast (which is sort of replaced by Voltaic Sentinel) so having a fast cast snipe will help a lot with fighting bosses. I can see a lot of benefit here.
Energy Blast: The long cast time on Power Burst makes Sniper Blast very attractive here.
Ice Blast: No Snipe. Next!
Fire Blast: Given the short cast time on Blaze and the general high damage of the set I don't think there's a huge upgrade here.
Psychic Blast: Like Assault Rifle this has a shorter than average cast time on the snipe and while it has four single target attacks I think a fast cast snipe will add quite a bit to it's arsenal.
Radiation Blast: Another case where the fast-cast snipe will be quicker than the standard T3 blast so I can see it being a good choice here.
Sonic Attack: No Snipe. Next! Oh wait, that's all folks! -
Quote:No it keeps that the regen and recovery are added on top of it. It looks like about 220% regen half of which is enhanceable.Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Does Cloaking Device lose it's +Stealth?
All of the powers being changed are keeping their old purpose they just get regen/recovery added to them. -
Quote:I don't think so, the devs seem to want us to take it seriouslyOriginally Posted by Kirsten
I think that may have been the point...
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Quote:Show me where I advocated that? Having a Taunt proc that boosts only the attack it's slotted in is in no way a replacement for Gauntlet. At the very least it means you need to spend a slot in each power on the proc which a Tanker could spend enhancing the power.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Just as soon as we see a proc that bumps the Tanker damage cap Adeon.
Giving every AT Gauntlet basically completely obviates tanks.
For MMs that Pet threat is a large part of the reason I'd like one. Most traditional Tankerminds function by drawing aggro onto themselves and then using BG mode to distribute the threat. Provoke helps with that but having the ability to add a mini-gauntlet to individual attacks would make it easier. Sure some Tankerminds function by drawing aggro onto pets and a Taunt proc would help them do that on teams (I've tried and even the boss pets have trouble drawing aggro on teams even if no one else has taunt).Quote:Originally Posted by Vanden
Masterminds don't have auto taunts, but their pets have the same base threat level (4, to be exact) as Tankers, which ensures that they get a lot of the aggro, and Kheldians, in the only state in which they can do any Tanking, get a free AoE Taunt attack.
As for Khelds. Yes they get a Taunt power in Dwarf form but frankly they could use some more aggro management. They don't have a Taunt aura and their Dwarf Form attacks lack the inherent Taunt of Tankers and Brute so a proc would help them there. -
Quote:Not really. Brutes and Tankers get taunt in their attacks. Other ATs that can "tank" (notably Scrappers, Masterminds and Kheldians) get access to Taunt powers but lack any options to add a Taunt component to their regular attacks.Originally Posted by Vanden
I don't really see the value in such an item. Anything that can really handle the extra aggro from automatic taunts (and some things that can't) already have access to such things.
I think a global "add a taunt to all attacks" would be a bit to good but the option for a Taunt proc in specific attacks would be a nice option for those ATs other than Tanks and Brutes who want a bit more Taunt. -
I'd also advocate a channel, my interest in a MLP-Themed character is minimal.
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Quote:Don't forget Assault Rifle. Mmmmm.... Ignite.Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Immobilizes are for the most part worthless in this game unless you are a fire controller/dominator. Its really annoying to stop them only to just have them pick you off from range.
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Cool, looking forward to it. Hopefully someone will do a writeup for those of us who can't listen in.
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Quote:Yeah that was kinda my point. If it was bizarro-goatee-universe I'd be fine with it. I find it's current incarnation problematic because it's to different to be as similar as it is.Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
It might make sense to you, but it's not TRUE. It was officially retconned to NOT be a mirror universe. Someone who is evil in one universe can still be evil in the other, they can turn out to be almost exactly they same (e.g. Malaise) or completely different.
Or to put it another way. It's to similar for me to take seriously and not similar enough for me to find amusing. For me at least it's in the Uncanny Valley of Dimensional Universes. -
I'm not a huge fan of a global taunt proc (even though it would be very useful for my MM) but I would definitely not mind seeing a taunt proc for single attacks.
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The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less.
... but he might be useful. -
Quote:I know and as I said earlier I understand why the devs do it that way (it makes for a better story) but that doesn't stop it bugging me. Everyone has things about the CoH lore that annoy them and things that don't. The death of Miss Liberty in Who Will Die spawned a huge rant thread about Women in Refrigerators but it didn't really bother me to the same degree whereas this bothers me but not other peopleOriginally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
This is due to the most powerful fundamental force in every universe:
Literary license..
Everyone has different opinions on different topics. Speaking for myself I LIKE Parallel Universes they are a lot of fun (heck my main's back-story is that he's a dimensional explorer). I just have me own opinions on what makes sense to me and what doesn't. Preatoria as bizarro-goatee-universe makes sense to me. Preatoria as bizzaro-goatee-universe-excpet-for-hamidon makes less sense. -
Quote:Sorry poor wording there. I probably should have said anyONE else. The point I'm trying to make is that despite Preatoria being wildly divergent in it's history every single NAMED character follows exactly the same basic story. They are born at the same time. They develop the same basic powers. They have the same basic events happen to them they just react differently (for example Doppleganger kills Justin's parents).Originally Posted by Premonitions
It just bugs me that the people in Preatoria are to similar given the differences in the history. How come none of the major characters were not born due to the fact that their parents where killed during the Hamidon Wars or the nuking of Los Angeles. We've got a timeline with major diversions from Primal Earth except that the major characters are still the same and that kind of bugs me. -
Quote:Not really, again it's still the same basic story with one critical difference. In the case of Recluse he was killed at the Well of Furies instead of drinking from it. As with most of the other major characters it's a single point that radically changes his life without affecting much else.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Stefan Richter and Gerhardt Eisenstadt would disagree with the notion that every individual followed the same path with minor variation.
Nemesis I don't think we can say much either way. Sure he didn't become a super villain but do we know why he became a super villain in the first place? In Preatoria maybe he just happened to miss a bus and therefore never sat next to an annoying old lady who annoyed him so much he decided to take over the world. This example is deliberately silly but again we can't say that his life doesn't follow the pattern of "exactly the same except for one minor difference".
I'll also add that in both cases the characters existed with approximately the same birthdate and timeline which does not appear to be true for Hamidon.
That's kind of my point. The only major difference is the Hamidon Wars which has two major issues. First we have no clue why the Hamidon wars were so different. Was Hamidon born 30 years earlier? Why him and no one else? Was he a different person? Again, why him and no one else?Quote:Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
You are missing the point. It's not a parallel Timeline, it's a diverging timeline. It apparently branched off round about 1914 and has been growing increasingly different ever since. Not minor variations, but great big stonking differences.
What?! Most of the Earth-as-we-know-it, billions upon billions of people, doesn't even exist in Praetoria, most of the Earth's population was killed in the Hamidon Wars. Not existing is pretty radically different. Recluse is dead. Ghost Widow is alive. Massive differences.
Secondly (and this is the big one) given that it's a heavily divergent timeline why are the only people affected people we know? Pretty much every significant hero has a Preatorian counterpart which doesn't make sense if we assume an actual divergent timeline.
In any case at this point I think we might as well agree to disagree. -
Quit the strike force. Find a Defender or Mastermind and replace one of your existing members. When you get back to Reischman make sure that they use their Power of Black Scorpion to stop his phasing (at least I think that's what you need to do).
EDIT The other option is more damage but temp powers don't work on a MO run so most of the options there are out. -
Quote:That's kinda what I was getting at. If it has a parallel timeline where each individual follows the same path with minor variation why does Hamidon have a different path?Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Putting my physics hat on, that statement has a lot of issues with it. But let me suggest one possible, if very speculative way around it. First of all, Praetoria does not seem to be an alternate timeline of our reality, but rather an alternate dimension with a parallel timeline. Its a completely different universe, in other words.
It it was a perfectly parallel timeline then I'd expect Hamidon to follow the same timing. But if it isn't a perfectly parallel timeline then I'd expect more people to have different timelines. I guess there are other heroes/villains who had a radically different path and/or don't exist but we don't see any proof of it.
In any case as I said earlier I can see why the devs do the very-flexible-parallel thing it just kind of bugs me.
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Quote:I'll be honest, this really pushes my suspension of disbelief. I can understand WHY they do it that way I just don't care for it.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I believe the devs have stated that Praetoria is not an Earth in which everything is exactly parallel except with goatees. Its possible Hamidon Pasalima was born earlier on this Earth, or Hamidon Pasalima's father ended up creating the Will of the Earth. Its definitely true that we cannot assume that Praetorian Hamidon is named after the same Hamidon Pasalima as Primal Earth's is, or that that individual even exists on Praetorian Earth.
The general problem is that as the timeline advances the differences should multiply until the two are completely different. Based on Tyrants Bio it seems that Preatoria starts to diverge at WW2 and is almost completely diverged by the end of the Korean War (which went Nuclear). The problem I have is that even with 60+ years of very different history the actual specific events tend to be almost the same. Most of the characters still exist and have almost exactly the same backstory except for one or two events explaining why they are now evil.
I guess my point is that Preatoria doesn't diverge enough in general for me to accept places where it does diverge. Given that every other major character has the same basic backstory why would Hamidon suddenly be born earlier?
Now the idea that it was his father I think I could accept. Presumably Primal-Hamidon-Senior was also working on similar research but never perfected it leaving it to his son to do so. Whereas in Preatoria the Cold war was a lot Hotter which in turn lead to a more pressurized military research environment allowing Preatorian-Hamidon-Senior to advance further and faster becoming Hamidon rather than leaving it to his son (who was presumably not even born or was absorbed into Hamidon as a child). -
Quote:Well it's called Hamidon because that was the name of the Scientist who mutated. So if it turned up before the scientist in question was even born why was it called Hamidon.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Why is it a "mystery" that Praetorian Hamidon shows up on Praetoria decades before Primal Hamidon Pasalima becomes Hamidon on Primal Earth? Is there a specific reason why you'd expect Praetorian Hamidon to appear either simultaneously with ours, or afterwards? It almost sounds like you are implying that no other dimension can invent something before ours does.
The question is probably better stated as what caused Hamidon's appearance to be delayed on Primal Earth relative to Praetorian Earth, and the logical answer is that Primal Earth did not have the nuclear war that Praetorian Earth did, which may have both hastened the development of and strengthened the Will of Earth on Praetorian Earth.
Now it's possible that it was an older scientist named Hamidon who just happened to do exactly the same thing. But in that case to quote Hermes Conrad: "That just raises more questions".
EDIT: Ok, I've been looking through the lore, do we have a specific Timeline for When Primal-Hamidon originally mutated? Tyrant's bio implies that Preatorian-Hamidon turned up within a few years of the end of the Korean War (so figure sometime between 1955 and 1960). Now the Lore seems to imply that the Devouring Earth first turned up in the aftermath of the Rikti War or approximately 45 years later. This would be pushing it for Primal-Hamidon and Preatorian-Hamidon to be the same person (not impossible but pushing it) but a reasonable explanation would be that Primal-Hamidon mutated earlier and was just being very quiet until after the Rikti war whereas Preatorian-Hamidon was more aggressive. -
I've recently been leveling up a new Blaster and I think one change that would be nice for Blasters as a general QoL feature at low levels is simply removing the recharge time on Rest. Compared to other ATs Blasters have the fewest for restoring hit points during/between fights (yes, not all other ATs have it in every powerset but most have some self healing as an option). This in turn leads to an annoying situation where you either have to burn inspirations (rather than saving for when you really need them), hang around for several minutes until you regen naturally or push on anyway (increasing the chance of death).
A lot of other games have very high out-of-combat regen and removing the recharge on Rest would serve the same basic purpose. -
Another way to do it is to type /leaveteam which will clear your currently active mission (and should reset it).
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Quote:It used to be factored in but that was changed sometime back to reduce the animation time for weapon sets when redraw isn't an issue.Originally Posted by Blast_Chamber
If I remember correctly, the weapon draw time is factored into the activation time. So theoretically the dps should be factored as normal based on the activation and recharge times.
Currently the game plays the "change stance" animation to show you drawing your weapon if necessary and then starts the attack animation. -
Quote:Numbers where quoted are from the wiki, hopefully they are correct.Originally Posted by Zul_Vakirol
Regen debuff is useless against AVs. Not only do they regenerate very slowly (it's just a very high hp pool), but they resist the crap out of debuffs like -Regen, effectively neutering it. A quick way to check an AVs debuff resistance is to either drag a Bane spider along for him/her to use their Surveillance power, or use the power analyzer Mk whatever temporary power, go to combat attributes and check what the AVs stats are.
A level 50 AV has 85% regen resistance so the 225% from Beam Rifle is 33.75% debuff. They have 28271.70 hitpoints and regenerate 5% every 15 seconds. So their average regen is 94.239 HP/sec.
Applying the 33.75% regen debuff increases their regen pulse from every 15 seconds to every 22.64 seconds. This decreases their effective regen to 62.43 HP/sec. So applying that regen debuff is effectively giving you an additional 31.81 DPS.
Now compare with sonic. Lats say that you can keep the sonic resistance debuff triple stacked on the AV (this is probably the max). That's a -39% resistance debuff. To get 31.81 DPS from that you would need to have a base damage of approximately 81.55 DPS (more if the AV resists energy.
Now you probably will have more than 81.55 DPS if you're going to have a hope of beating the AV in the first place. However keep in mind that requires you to maintain 3 stacks of -resistance on the AV at all times. If you can only maintain 2 stacks (due to spending time using defensive powers for example) then the DPS requirement jumps to 122.32 DPS which is a lot harder to maintain.
As Fulmens said the nice thing about -regen is that it's a static bonus. It provides effective DPS even when you aren't actually attacking.
EDIT: Just to add in the case of your Defender the regen is almost certainly doing more than the -res due to the fact that it's got about twice the -regen and half the damage. -
The other option I could see is make it so that Catalysts can be used on ATIOs in the enhancement tray. That way you can at least use them to upgrade ATIOs for a different AT and mail those to your other character.
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Quote:Originally Posted by firespray
I can accept that the hybrid 'toggles' are not supposed to be constant-use, but why make them a toggle then? Why not just make them a click power. Seems pointlessly complicated to me.Also from a tech point of view several of the abilities would not work if the power was a click power. Melee would not work at all as a click power since both the scaling defense/resists/protection and the taunt aura require a constantly pulsing power which means either an auto or a toggle. Similarly if the Support tree was changed into a click power then it would only apply it's bonus to people who were in range when it was cast rather than turning on an off at will. Assault and Control I don't know about, they seem like they should work as a click but I can't say for sure.Quote:Originally Posted by Tenjoy
Because this way you can cancel the power prematurely, thus having the power ready for its next use earlier. (And no, if it was a click, this wouldn't work even if you could cancel its effect.)
Technically I guess they could have made them work as a click by having the click power grant an additional auto-power but making them a cloggle was probably easier.