BellaStrega

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A few things.

As others have said.. this makes a lot of sense. It always felt like defense insps only worked half the time.. but that was because they were only half as powerfull as we thought! Why has no one thought of this before. We have had TWO YEARS and no one thought of this? Amazing. Behold the power of blind faith in text descriptions of powers.

Posts like this always make me feel so horrible! In my 11 thousand + posts I haven't done anything productive. I'm not good at collecting info. I don't post anything insightfull, and I can't even argue various important points right. At best I am just a forum oddball, and all that does is get my unusualy high postcount pointed out to me.

Blah..



::Goes to try and do something usefull.::

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If only you had 18,000 posts.

Oh, you have been insightful, too. I think you've made some fairly good points about enhancements and whether something like that is a good idea for a game like this.

Just for the record: I never really seriously sought dev attention for the annoying hit streaks through stacked lucks. I took it as given that I really was having bad luck, although the number of bad luck streaks was a bit high. Lacking something like Infernal's portal (and I definitely didn't think of that), it's difficult to test Luck numbers.

Also, I was definitely annoyed at posters much less polite than Arcana who'd get extra-flamey and insist that it's morally wrong to say that something appears to be working funny without posting 10,000 hit tests signed in triplicate.

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I disagree.. these posters are saying "I'm a veteran and I know what I'm talking about, so if I say it's [insert statement] then it must be and the devs should heed my posts." These posters are also saying that anyone who disagrees with them is automatically wrong, since they are "more experienced" and "more knowledgable".

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So you were bored today, and decided to invent a thread to get annoyed at? And needing a place to post you picked this one?

Okay, that makes more sense than taking what you were trying to say literally.

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I don't understand why people who play ranged ATs think that characters that devote an entire powerset to defense shouldn't have that defense in PVP.

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Kali, I don't think this is what I was saying...

I know your opinion on TD - unnecessary kludge mechanics that is not needed anymore. So, do you think this is a good fix to the problem?

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So, it's okay to have powersets that can completely detoggle a melee character with combined toggle drops and mezzes?

And this doesn't count as not having that defense in PVP?

As far as I'm concerned, toggle-dropping should probably just go away entirely. Find some other way to balance PVP.

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One things for sure. If you start popping lucks after combat has begun... there's a damned good chance that you're going to get floored or hurt real bad. ALways seemed like the effect wasn't instantaneous.

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All of these instances, lucks were popped before a fight. Often, I'd pop lucks during the fight and the boss would start missing.

I usually don't wait until I get hit to pop lucks, though.

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This also explains the last battle I fought with my rad defender. I was 49 fighting a level 52 malta titan. With 4 lucks and RI running that thing was hitting me like crazy. The combination of debuff and lucks should have had him whistlin dixie. Instead I was getting hammered like a drunken fratboy. The only reason I won was Enverating field, temp invul and a couple large resistance inspires. THe lucks didn't even seem to be there.

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Also, the 65% or so debuff effectiveness.

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Although I cannot say she was the first to put it this way, it was Kali's multiple reports of lucks "not working until enough of them were used" that got me thinking that they might not have been broken, just weaker than advertised. Which caused me to run specific tests looking for the ramp up/ramp down behavior, which I was able to reproduce consistently in at least one instance.

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The best I could really come up with, when reporting these things, was "this is really weird behavior." The number of times I'd pop three lucks and have a boss chain multiple hits on me was higher than it felt like it should have been if I was flooring those bosses. Of all the reasons that this would happen, I would say that "these are about half as effective as the text says they are" was not on my list.

And it's true, I never set out to test it because I assumed the 25% number was accurate, and because it's a pain to test accuracy and defense inspirations due to the short duration. I also got annoyed with the people telling me I was imagining things and telling me to get 10,000 hit samples when the issue was with boss fights.

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Great work Arcanaville. We all felt Lucks were overpowered based on the in-game description numbers & expected some kind of nerf to them eventually. Of course even these numbers are likely still too high.

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I'm not sure they haven't been like this for quite awhile. The numbers are consistent with my experiences back through issue 3.

This also explains the weird behavior I got stacking insights against a Night Widow.

Thank you for posting this information. So many of my inspiration stacking experiences make sense now.

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I don't understand why melee AT think that their pve level of protection should carry over to pvp. It sure is not expected of any of my defenders.

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I don't understand why people who play ranged ATs think that characters that devote an entire powerset to defense shouldn't have that defense in PVP.

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Yeah, given that Regen has one toggle in the base powers, they're the easiest of all to detoggle.

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Yes, exactly.

If they're on the ball, you'll still have a hard time - they can hit instant healing and survive your beating long enough to get integration up and run away, but if they're not...they're dead.

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Nice, they've stripped the sole reason a scrapper might have been causious to attack a blaster, as the blaster might drop his toggles and burst dmg his buttocks to the hospital... to the point where the scrapper knows "hey cool a blaster, with a total of roughly 30% to drop one toggle every 8 seconds... while I usually only need about 6 to drop him..I like those odds"

/e Rant off

But seriously, one of the most common AT's atm in PvPland are scrappers & stalkers. Couple of controllers and corruptors, and a daring blaster or Brute here and there. Now with these changes, I fear the Masterminds, Dominators, Defenders and the rest of the AT's will be a tourist attraction whenever you see one in PvP land.

Careful guys, a scrapper.... we need at least 3 to take him down now (debuff-nerf ring a bell?)

Naaah... PvP has become City of Scrappers

Whooptidoo

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Sorry bud, your wrong. 90% of the scrappers you see in pvp are Regen scrappers. Toggle dropping dont mean jack to them. All they have to do is keep Intergration up, big whoop.

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I found regen to be the easiest to take out in PVP with my ice tanker.

Strange...

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So basically, 1 vs. 1 PVP as we know it between tanks, brutes, and scrappers is dead, because no one will ever be able to drop the toggles to kill any of the above?

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No, because - to be honest - this isn't necessary to win all 1v1 melee fights.

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Yep, well once the children that Drone teleport for 2 hours straight leave the zone it actually becomes fun..

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There's an easy way around this, of course: Stay away from the opposing base.

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I will say that a 100% toggle dropper had better have some serious sort of downside, or alternatively only given to a power set that barely has more damage than brawl, or its unlikely to be fair.

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Something along the lines of Storm's Thunderclap? Or Kin's Repel?


I hate to even open the door to something along these lines - but Defenders definitely need SOMETHING. Maybe a very high % toggle drop in each of their Primarys might not be out of the question??!??!?!?!?! Maybe. Pick a horrible current power and give it some love. Black Hole for Dark for instance.

The only problem with this is if you did it EVERYONE would start their justifaction threads why "X" AT needs a similar power.

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Please find some other way to make defenders more viable in PVP. Toggle-dropping is just a bad mechanic.

I don't count mezzing or endurance drain as toggle droppers. They drop toggles as a consequence of their effects, but it's not really the same thing to me.

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shouldn't blasters feel the same way about rooting affects

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The Rooted in all powers (except snipes) should be removed.

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Concern would be among the first to tell you that unrooting blaster attacks would be too powerful...and then he'd complain that unrooting was removed from WW.

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Damn straight. It ruined my MM. I have to wait for Bodyguard before I venture out into PvP again.

I do think that with rooting + suppression that without some mechanic for getting around melee defenses the defenses melee has in PvP are too high in conjunction with their offense in relation to squishy people.

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Well, travel power suppression is teh dumb. Sadly, it's unlikely to go away.

In Guild Wars, I was amused to find that there's an actual tutorial mission to show you how to handle kiting. In City of Heroes, the mechanics are changed to make kiting difficult.

I don't think it's necessary to get around melee defenses to balance PVP. I'd rather the devs find a solution that works without trivializing anyone.

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first off, yes dark maul is still my faveorite attk from the dark melee line, but build up insted of life tap? i knew we would lose something, but life tap is sooo stalker, isnt the assassin strike enough? we need build up too?

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What is life tap? Do you mean Siphon Life or Soul Drain?

Siphon Life is in the set, and Soul Drain would make the set horribly gimped damage-wise.

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I would like to see a bit of width on the cone, i can see it not have more range, altho any chi attack could have range melee or otherwise, but with the energy melee you just let them all suround you, it takes a bit of work to get the mobs lined up for dark maul but thats the price (+long animation) for the dmg it does, I too consider it a sig move that and the life tap.

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Lots of enemies spawn close enough together to use Shadow Maul on both of them at once from Hide, not that this is necessary past 6th level or so.

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shouldn't blasters feel the same way about rooting affects

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The Rooted in all powers (except snipes) should be removed.

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Concern would be among the first to tell you that unrooting blaster attacks would be too powerful...and then he'd complain that unrooting was removed from WW.

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Would making the toggle drop for some powers one hundred percent and others at seventy-five be too much?

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Yes. There shouldn't be a guaranteed chance of a toggle-drop anywhere in PVP.

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Take a blaster's melee strike, Total Focus. IF it dropped one toggle and only one, place it against a tanker or brute. You see the hit go off but depending on how many toggles are being run, you would have a one and *number of toggles* chance of hitting that sweet spot and mez the tanker/brute.

Being Total Focus is a high damage power, It shouldn't have a garenteed drop but it should be high.


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Blaster total focus doesn't drop toggles. Dominator total focus does.

I'd rather the devs just abandon the idea of toggle-dropping and look elsewhere for PVP balance. I'm increasingly dissatisfied with this partial measure.

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The biggest balance issue with the i4-i6 toggle drop values were the ease in which mezzes could be applied to Tankers.

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Actually, the biggest balance problem with toggle dropping to me was the fact that at the I6 percentage rates, many toggle droppers could drop toggles faster than anything with toggles could put them back up (given the activation times and recharge rates of toggles) which means in a practical sense, a toggle dropper could force anything with active toggles to fight without them irrespective of what they did.

If tanker defense toggles had quarter-second activation times, and zero recharge, high-speed high-probability toggle dropping powers *might* make sense. But if a blapper could drop in 1.5 seconds what the tanker took six to put back up, in effect the toggles don't exist as a defensive option at all.

That greatly oversimplifies the issue, but its the heart of my problem with toggle dropping implementation (i.e. assuming it was going to exist at all).

If toggle dropping is infrequent, then when it happens it either gives the dropper a short offensive advantage while the toggle(s) are brought back up (because you can't attack during that time) or a longer defensive advantage if the target chooses to forego bringing the toggle(s) back up and continues to fight. Whether that situation is "balanced" has a lot to do with how frequent that event occurs, relative to the advantage it conveys. It was too often in I6, because the "event" could be almost continuously chained together. Whether its balanced now has a lot to do with figuring out if the net advantage of the new toggle drop capability matches its new frequence of occurance.

The fact that detoggling created a vulnerability to mez was a relative side issue to me. If none of the detogglers had any mez at all, I think the I6 percentages would have still been too high, for the same reason listed above: it created an equilibrum state of basically being totally detoggled (in at least many cases).

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The mez was a side issue that got dragged to the front because someone was offended at the idea that they'd need help to attack a character where that character is strong.

I've also pointed out that the toggles drop too fast to be useful, but a few vocal posters tend to dismiss that for whatever reason.

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So which power does a blaster take and spend slots on to guarantee that nothing ever gets into melee range?

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Power Thrust, Web Grenade, Caltrops, Chillbain, Ring of Fire, Electric Fence, Ice Patch, Shiver. Of course, only Web Grenade and the two /ice powers are really that useful, thanks to the kludges in place to prevent them from being consistantly applied.

Correct me if I got the name of one wrong, Blaster powersets aren't my strong point.

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Melee defenses come with a power that protects from immobilizations and knockdowns. How do you propose using those effects without nerfing melee mez protection yet again?

Also, strangely, I never found those powers to be very good guarantees at keeping stuff at arm's length. They help, but a guarantee?

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if you're arguing against suppression in that post, then no it doesn't sound crazy. and if you're arguing against rooted animations, it doesn't sound entirely crazy, only a little because there's no real good proposal for that I've ever seen.

and i still fail to see why asking for mez toggles to protect against a single foe with only a few mez powers is crazy.

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It goes back to playing the same game that everyone else is playing. My blaster has to deal with rooting and suppression basicaly making range a joke and definately something that is lost on a regular basis when in combat. Tie that in with a Blaster being able to have a chance to get past a tankers mez protection.

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So which power does a blaster take and spend slots on to guarantee that nothing ever gets into melee range?

Yeah, I thought so.

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Bear in mind that supression (a fruity mechanic in it's own right, though I really know of nothing better for it), starts when the hold starts. This means that, if you can keep someone held for around that time (or more) with a single hold application, you can, in fact, hold them forever. Assuming the hold recharges in time.

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Well, now...that means it was a complete non-issue in that fight, and the one time I broke out was probably due to the dominator missing.

Thankfully, a passing empath took pity and clear-minded me. For some reason, the Dominator ran away after that...

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Where we have a problem is when I'm forced to play as if that shield doesn't exist because it is routinely being being affected by toggle drops. So if someone who can't stack enough stuns or holds want to mez me with those effects, they should get a teammate who can stack them. Notice how that says absolutely nothing about who should be that teammmate. While cute in that sleepy loud kid way, Front_Loaded's incorrect reply about adhering to a rigid game model was his creation, not mine. I don't care if it's 2 Ice/ blasters who hold me or if its a single controller, as long as it's done by overcoming the magnitude of the shield.

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Yeah, I think some people are taking "only a dominator or controller should be able to stack enough mez to break a melee's mez shield solo" to mean "you should always need a controller or dominator to stack enough mez, solo or teamed." I also think there's some weird conflation of "mez" with "defeat." IME, mezzing doesn't always mean defeat, and defeat does not always require mezzing.

And Uberguy, a dominator managed to keep me held for a very long time in Recluse's Victory the other day and then managed to lay a hold on my again within seconds of the first set of holds wearing off. I'm not sure how long suppression is supposed to be, but I'm not sure it kicked in.

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Heh, since no one else is paying attention..

Welcome back Pacur!!! Oddly, you're one of the few people who've gone away for a while and I noticed.

Just remember, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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I noticed, I'd just already seen Pacur in global chat the other day. He asked what was new and I said that Dark Armor couldn't stack anymore.

No doubt he saw through my flimsy lie, though.

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I forgot Hotfeet with /Fire blasters. I AM SO SORRY. (hey it does slow)

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And most melee characters are susceptible to slows.

I know SR and Ice resist slows. Does anyone else?