Bayani

*huggles Gill and Sayterra* let's all sing Kumbayah...

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I colored one of the sketches for Bayani. Keep in mind that I did *not* pencil the art.

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Thanks for the effort, Aaron. I could've given you a hi-rez copy to work with

Focused Accuracy does offer +perception and personally, I feel it's too much...as it sees through Hide.

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What our builds have shown is that villains can compete with a combination of a solid build, and teamwork regardless of what other villains in the zone do or fail to do.


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You missed my point entirely. Obviously any team that's organized SPECIFICALLY for zone PvP has a better chance at turning the tides of the zone. But that doesn't mean there's balance between the heroes and the villains, especially when a vast majority of the player base is at best, casual and won't be out there organized the way your VG group is. I'd argue to say that a hero group could do the same thing your VG did in a similar situation with less work than you put in, and be just as successful.

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Perhaps you should define what you're looking for in terms of balance. Balance is a very vague term. Sure heroes can put together zone teams. So can villains. That seems balanced to me. The top hero PvP SGs have put constant effort into their builds (ever since the Arena came out) - I would hardly call that "a lot easier."

I don't think you're really getting our point: organized villain PvP teams are very competitive with organized hero PvP teams, perhaps much more than you realize. The imbalances (and I'm sure there are some) are fairly minor.

The team synergy you get from 8 corruptors > any combination of defenders/trollers/blasters you care to name. With I7, mostly corruptors with a few doms is going to be brutal, I think. To be perfectly frank, I'm not sure the heroes can even match that without a much larger team (given equal player skill.) People who are use to thinking of corruptors as some kind of mix of gimped blaster and gimped defender are in for a rude awakening. There's a reason a defender's base damage is so low and they don't get fire or ice blast sets, you know. What corruptors are capable of is that reason.

The only major "imbalance" we see in RV right now is that there's a lot more heroes than villains. That's it. Numbers. The average hero in there isn't any more skilled, isn't any more organized and is not really any more well built than the average villain.

The villains (and even the heroes to some extent) seemed to have convinced themselves that zone control was something the villains couldn't realistically vie for on test; that they were relegated to sitting in the base to be tp ganked during the dimensional reversion cooldown period. Numbers can be overcome by skill and build. That's the main thing we wanted to demonstrate on Corruptor Orgy Night*.

We (meaning LotD, as well as the other top end VGs) already know that on "any given Sunday" we can take on the best heroes have to offer in an open zone and win. While we're taking them on, the uncoordinated villains can be taking and defending the turrets. It's not a slam dunk win, nor a foregone conclusion loss. It's what PvP should be.

Competitive.

*- If you want the story behind that, check out my chat logs from the other night.

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From what I've read in the thread, you're talking about *ONE* very specific instance where a villain group specifically tailored to PVP and heavily favoring one AT in a zone taking on a group of heroes with a variety of ATs that aren't organized. Obviously the more dedicated group, focused group with better communication is going to win. I see a small groups of players whos characters on the same VG and not nearly as PVP dedicated doing the same thing in Siren's call on the live servers.

But the vast majority of players out there that aren't powergamers like your SG or myself. Battles like those listed above are hardly fair representations of more balanced PvP. You're talking about one end of the spectrum of PvP: highly competitive vs. other highly competitive...but you're using an example that doesn't even fit that...highly competitive vs. casual. I'm assuming assuming that the devs are looking to strike a balance between heroes and villains powerset wise so that a) all ATs are relevant in PvP and have a role and b) things are more competitive for all players and just not the powergamers.

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What our builds have shown is that villains can compete with a combination of a solid build, and teamwork regardless of what other villains in the zone do or fail to do.


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You missed my point entirely. Obviously any team that's organized SPECIFICALLY for zone PvP has a better chance at turning the tides of the zone. But that doesn't mean there's balance between the heroes and the villains, especially when a vast majority of the player base is at best, casual and won't be out there organized the way your VG group is. I'd argue to say that a hero group could do the same thing your VG did in a similar situation with less work than you put in, and be just as successful.

Just an observance of what I've seen in the PvP zones of this game...It's pretty much casual play, mostly favoring whichever side brings in the most characters since the zone is unorganized most of the time. You will have 2-3 groups (on Virtue at least) organized well enough to pop in and take control of the zone, and repel or defeat larger numbers, but often times these are groups that have been playing together for months and use a voicechat program like Teamspeak.

I don't see highly structured SGs/VGs with focused PvP efforts becoming the norm though. As much as I love strategy and coordinating my PvP efforts with a group of my SG mates, the player base seems very casual at best and team coordination among this particular majority would be like herding cats. Not to take anything away from Villain successes in testing, but an organized PvP oriented SG/VG taking on casual players is like sending the New England Patriots into a pee-wee football game, and isn't a fair indication of balance.

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Because they are melee specialists and a blaster is not. All they do (with some few exceptions, ie spines) is melee. They should be the best at that. Blasters are the best damage AT in both melee, ranged, and AoE. If they choose to fight a tank in melee they should be at a disavantage since they are effectively ignoring their primary, ignoring your primary is not a reason that mine should be negated by silly toggle drops.

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Few melee-using blasters ever ignore the primaries. I certainly don't on my Fire/Energy. You're mistaken if a Blaster primary attack cycle compares to the secondary of a Scrapper. Take a look at Energy for instance. Power Bolt, Power Blast, Power Burst, Sniper Bolt doesn't quite stack up to the cycle you'll get with the Katana line.

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Its funny that you have no problem with toggle dropping rendering most melee AT's entire secondary/primary useless. And that it seems Blasters are supposed to be able to out-melee the melee AT's.

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Chances for multiple de-toggling is over-powered but instead of retoggling defenses, most of the good tankers and scrappers I've faced off against choose that time to actually attack the blaster and go for a quick knockout.

As for outmeleeing melee classes, I believe the problem is the conception of range vs. melee. Blasters don't have full range attack cycles in the same manner that Scrappers and Tankers have. The Blaster's heavier hitting powers are just outside of melee range. So I don't buy into the whole "out-meleeing" melee class argument. Blasters are a high damage class. Scrappers are supposedly a notch below that because they trade some damage for defense.

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I'm sorry, but if you're going to lower toggle dropping, then you better cut down scrapper and tanker damage too, considering the fact that scrappers can inflict some kind of status effect (knockdown, knockup, immobilize stun, fear), AND 2-3 most squishies all the while shrugging off mez effects long enough to finish their opponents.

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Wait, scrappers and tankers were already nerfed in issue 5 and 6, when the global defense reduction and the change to mez shields was introduced. You want them to be nerfed again?

On teams, you might find that you'll do a lot better against melee, unless you're teamed with incompetent controllers or defenders.

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I've entered quite a few team PvP matches and it's more of the same. Scrappers and Tankers will invariably go after squishy controllers and defenders and take them out the equation, dividing the team and leaving a blaster like me isolated. A simple attack chain and the blaster is often toast. Even if I do manage to cause some serious damage to a scrapper or a tanker, usually a self heal will change the tide and give them the advantage again.

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So having been there, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that you need toggle dropping to defeat a melee. I'ts a massive exaggeration. What you do need is a team.


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That argument doesn't hold water with me. It's not balanced when it's takes multiple characters to take down one scrapper/tanker when that said scrapper/tanker can dismantle the opposing team by squishing the blaster or defender.

I haven't been advocating canceling the nerf altogether. I believe that limiting Blasters to only one attack that has strong (75-100%) chance to detoggle 1 (and only 1) toggle would be a better solution.

As for your example, that's just dead wrong. It's not a 100% chance to drop 3 toggles. Either you're overexaggerating or you used a small sample size of 2-3 attempts. I've been playing a fire/energy blaster since the summer of 2004, and I've tested and played energy against my sg mates. Bonesmasher does not drop 3 toggles 100% of the time.

Considering the number of toggles Scrappers and Tankers can run with their defenses, 22% is pretty much pointless.

Taking a look at a SR scrapper who could be running Combat Jumping, Superspeed, FF, FS, Sprint, maybe Evasion...and he has a click based mezz defense, so good luck trying to hold or knock him down. 100% at least gives me a chance to take something that might be able to pierce his defense.

That means to actually take down a key toggle to break that defense...it's a

22% (toggle drop chance) x 14% (1 in 7 chance to drop Focused Fighting) = 3% to nail a toggle that will actually make a difference.

I'm sorry, but if you're going to lower toggle dropping, then you better cut down scrapper and tanker damage too, considering the fact that scrappers can inflict some kind of status effect (knockdown, knockup, immobilize stun, fear), AND 2-3 most squishies all the while shrugging off mez effects long enough to finish their opponents.

No, your corruptor has no toggle drops.

Let's make something clear regarding toggle drops...Stuns, Holds, Sleeps will drop ALL toggles, provided that the target has no status resistance. The reason why people believed that Total Focus (from a Dominator) drops all toggles is because it has two things going for it...a 100% chance to drop at least 1 toggle and a disorient. Let's say I hit a Tanker with a Total Focus. If that toggle I drop happens to be Unyielding...The Total Focus will also Stun the Tanker and drop all of his toggles because he has no status protection.

If an Ice blaster were to toss a Freeze Ray at a Regen scrapper, and follow up with an Energy Punch which drops the Regen's integration, all toggles would drop because the Hold is still stacked there.

I don't like the new numbers. Even with the increased ability to generation Domination faster, the Dominator also had toggle drops. Their offensive output is god awful. The Dominator's Total Focus barely reachs the respectable damage than a Blaster's Bonesmasher.

I could understand dropping Blaster's toggle drops to at most around the 50% mark and applicable on one attack, but Defenders and Dominators are now pretty worthless in those regards. Thorns doesn't get its 64% toggle drop until level 35 with Ripper, and that power's animation is a bit on the long (not to mention excessibly flamboyant) side.

Sorry, no dice here. Try again.

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Nevermind. This will certainly make me toss Brawl back into my attack cycle and think twice before wading into melee against a Scrapper or a Tank.

Bayani Screenshot

You'll find other comic book artists' take on Bayani in my album...the link is in the signature.

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Hehe, I'm right next to Bayani in the comic

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I've got awesome company on that page.

Yay!

My shtick has been pretty much...

"You have talent. I hate you. I also have cash in hand..."

Wow...who resurrected this post?

I actually have enough sketches now to warrant a "collection". The link is in my signature!

Oooh...I'm shaking in my Adidas.

I was in Siren's Call as my Blaster and I just entered the zone. I had targeted a hero in front of me and he mysteriously vanished from LoS and I saw him die according to my targeting box. I knew at that point, a stalker was teleporting people right out of the hospital so I hit an accuracy inspiration and toggled on Tactics, and sure enough, I spotted him on the rooftop across the way.

I knew he was coming after me next, so I timed things out and buffed Aim, Build Up, and Blazing Bolt. The Blazing Bolt nailed the Stalker just as he teleported me, and my Bonesmasher was queued up. So when I arrived, I disoriented him with the Bonesmasher and finished him off with Power Thrust that knocked him off the building ledge. That was a solid 4000 bounty.

eh, why not?

I agree with the Confuse sentiments above. I actually would say that Confuse should be listed as "must-have" and Total Domination for Mind controllers be removed. the soft control of Telekinesis and Terrify are more capable of making up for the lack of Total Domination. I myself have skipped Total Domination entirely on my build and have not regretted it.

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I did the first respec at 24, the second at 33. I got no respec option for the second time around however. Leery won't talk to me. However my partner did the first respec twice, failed it the first time, beat it the second time and got him to talk and give her a mission.

There must be another badge related to it.

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I compared badges with her. the only ones she has that I don't are Soul Binder (CoT mages) and Finder (Lost). (not including any gladiator badges or souveniers)


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The one you did at 33, did you go to the proper contaact? If you used the same contact as at 24, you just did the same respec mission which is why you didnt get another respec. However if you went to the contact that is up north then there is a bug. I also believe you need to be 34 for the 2nd respec, not 33.

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The first contact was the demon. The second contact was the succubus. I thought it was weird that she allowed me to tag along on the respec even though I was 33. But I'm positive it was different contacts. I looked over my friend's badges, and she only has one Thorn Robber badge.