BellaStrega

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Then it is something Jack is planning then.

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I doubt it. The devs come up with some really good ideas, and some ideas I really hate, but aren't always dumb. Compared to things I've seen players come up with -

* Controllers need to do scrapper-level damage
* Scrapper primaries should be nine variations on brawl
* Give Defiance to scrappers

Stuff like that.

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i'm suprised no one has brought up the "there should be one melee class" idea again.

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That's a dumb idea anyway.

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I've tried several times to get help on my Controller on their boards without success. Regens take all the nerfs and still make a kick butt character.

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Not only that, but Controllers will actively mislead you by saying things like "Storm sucks" and "Don't take Confuse."

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I believe that he is one of the influx of posters disgruntled by I5 who are taking every posible chance to post extravagant complaints about I5 and personally I am not dignifying his rants with a response.

If he said something relevant to the thread or of any substance then I would consider responding, but until then I am trying to not feed the Troll.


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The only reason I replied was to provide accurate numbers in response to his obfuscation, so that a newcomer wouldn't be gulled by his filthy lies.

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From what I've see already nerfs continue to punish people that have toons that are near unkillable by making the powers much less useful.

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Umm that was the point of the nerfs, yes? Nobody should be "near unkillable" but for all the "near unkillables" out there there seems to be an equal number of "rendered useless" heroes running around. Defence sets in PVP are one. Everyone has a magic bullet of some sort that says "Sorry no defence for you! POW!". This resistance to debuffs and the resistance inspirations go in some direction to correct the pvp inbalance and I am glad to see them.

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Ironically, the sets that were hit the hardest were already the least unkillable.

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Ice needs help. SR needs help. I've been letting myself get sidetracked down an argument that doesn't have a point here, and in which I had my numbers wrong to begin with. I apologize for that. I certainly didn't need to be arguing with SR proponents, defense detractors and the pro-Ice crowd.

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Same here.

And I'm definitely an SR proponent. The set needs help. Defense in general suffers more now because it was hit harder than resists, meaning they're not ever going to be equal to resists in terms of mitigation. I don't think this is a viable place for defense-based sets to be in.

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Given that there's been at least one SR scrapper who posted demos of his perma-Elude SR soloing AVs, I do think that for the most part, the hit points don't matter. You simply need enough defense to insure that the hits don't come so close together that they hit you. This is known on the scrapper forum, but vehemently denied in any comparison of Ice and SR. And why? That's really what I want to know.

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Okay, perhaps this is the problem. You may be out of date on your information. Elude can no longer be made perma.

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I never said it could be - I said you could time your fights so you aren't fighting when it drops. Basically, if you find yourself in a bad position, you can immediately boost your defense pretty high, which boosts your survivability in most situations more than Hoarfrost can boost an Ice Tanker's. This is because flooring villain accuracy is more valuable than getting hit for reduced effect. When compared to Ice's relative inability to reliably floor most things they'll be fighting, especially.

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No.

It is unfair to compare Ice's performance under normal circumstances to SR's performance under Elude because Elude is only up half of the time, and it flatlines your Endurance when it ends.

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Yes, because you're completely incapable of keeping track of how long it's been up. And you can slot it to have a downtime of 71.45 seconds after 180 seconds up, which doesn't seem like 50/50 up/down.

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If you want to use Elude vs Ice's general performance, you have to account for the fact that an SR scrapper only fighting under Elude is gaining XP half as fast, because that character is not fighting half of the time--at best. You have to account for the fact that the SR's scrapper's endurance is zero for one minute out of four. You have to account for the fact that SR can do nothing under the effects of the Endurance crash except run away, and that slowly.

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So, the scrapper's increased damage + criticals don't improve the fighting speed? And the scrapper is somehow incapable of fighting for the minute or so that he has endurance regen with Elude down? The ice tanker and the SR scrapper deliver the same amount of damage over time and thus generate exactly the same amount of XP?

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Yes, an Ice tanker who fights one minute out of two is probably the equivalent of an SR scrapper with Elude up as often as possible, provided that he also turns off all of his toggles and stops using clicks for one minute out of four.

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Elude does not prevent you from using your toggles for a full minute.

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You have to read the post, and address the points. I'm sorry that you don't like that. Ice is in a bad way, and you don't need to exaggerate that point by suggesting it's even worse for its AT than SR is.

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Right, because any number of SR scrappers will leap out of the woodwork to lie about how badly off SR is, as if it weren't already in bad enough shape.

For the record, since you have your numbers completely wrong, Elude has 180 second duration, a 1000 second recharge, and debuffs your end recovery for 15 seconds - you can easily use a CAB to get endurance back early.

It's not 120 seconds, with at best a 240 second recharge and a 60-second debuff to your end recovery.

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Beyond that, it is extremely unfair to compare SR's performance with Elude to Ice's general performance. Elude is a two-minute click with a crash that flatlines your endurance for one minute afterward, and has, at best, a two-minute down time--okay, 109 seconds if it's six-slotted with +3 recharge and you have Hasten and Quickness. It's only up half the time, and for half of the time that it's up you can't regain endurance. An SR that used it all the time would only move through missions half as fast. Elude should be taken into account in balancing the two, but the indication we should take from it is that Hibernation should be fixed, not that SRs make equivalent tankers.

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"It's extremely unfair to compare Ice's performance with SR using Elude, because that shows that SR is as good as - and in some circumstances, better than - Ice."

That's all you had to say. Or you could say, "it's unfair to compare all nine of Ice's powers to all nine of SR's powers." That'd be an even more accurate distillation of your post above. The fact is that you can time your fights so that you're not at risk when Elude crashes and that you're fighting when it's up. That gives you significantly more defensive power when you're running it.

Given that there's been at least one SR scrapper who posted demos of his perma-Elude SR soloing AVs, I do think that for the most part, the hit points don't matter. You simply need enough defense to insure that the hits don't come so close together that they hit you. This is known on the scrapper forum, but vehemently denied in any comparison of Ice and SR. And why? That's really what I want to know.

By saying that Ice does as well as SR defensively (as in, all nine powers compared to all nine powers, not in terms of +Def, which SR actually does better), that's not the same as saying that SR is defensively equal to tankers. It's saying that ice is far too weak for a tanker secondary.

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You're complaining because 1 very uncommon and 2 fairly uncommon secondaries get the ability to resist your debuffs, whereas NO ONE ELSE can do so?

Gee, how many heroes in the SHW division are resistant to my lethal and/or smashing damage, which are my only forms of attack?

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Even more, he's complaining without knowing whether or not they actually can resist his debuff. One of his debuffs, out of like six different traits that he can debuff.

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Well, I wasn't justifying it as much as I was explaining it. I think you're downplaying things a bit--Hoarfrost is a huge increase in survivability--but barring Elude's temporary boost, Ice should probably equal, if not exceed SR here.

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Huge is an exaggeration. Ice does about as well as SR when you figure Elude into things.

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Mmm, granted, I haven't played both, but given that Hoarfrost doesn't have a crash and can be made perma, I would think that Ice does notably better than SR--which is as it should be. I really don't think they're even, but compared to each other, rather than the game as a whole, they seem fine.

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Ice Armor does about as well as SR. Ice Tankers have increased survivability because of increased hit points, but you could take Ice in its current form and make it a scrapper set without unbalancing the scrappers who take it.

It's true that Elude has a crash, but you never have to fight when Elude is down, either, and given that an SR could tank pretty much any AV in the game without an autohit power while running Elude... It doesn't matter hit points you have or don't have if you're not getting hit.

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Well, I wasn't justifying it as much as I was explaining it. I think you're downplaying things a bit--Hoarfrost is a huge increase in survivability--but barring Elude's temporary boost, Ice should probably equal, if not exceed SR here.

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Huge is an exaggeration. Ice does about as well as SR when you figure Elude into things.

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Yarrr, thar she blows! Tactics, matey. Goose and gander and whatnot.

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Oh young Master! Please school me in the art of tactically overcomming the complete inability to hit your opponent! Unless you were suggesting I pull another Respec out of the ole bung hole and spec in a new pool power to combat the Def DEbuff resist?

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Yarrr, what's the matter me hearty, run out of crap arguments so now you start to make personal comments? Arrr, what tactics are there for an SR or Ice whose armour is useless and they run out of purples 5 minutes into a match? Avast, if it sucks for them it sucks for you. Blow me down!

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Five Jolly Rogers for ye.

I don't care if FA gets dropped to TD levels, so long as the end cost gets dropped as well. I'd rather see how to-hit buffs interact with defense change than see the powers just nerfed outright, though.

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However, he hasn't said how this was actually going to work. Anything anyone says regarding the issue is pure speculation.

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Which is why I suggested that people go to the arena and test it.

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Uhm, maybe I'm playing a different Dark Miasma set than other people, but the resistance to defense debuffs doesn't look like it has any effect on Dark Miasma's accuracy, damage, and damage resistance debuffs.

Also, aren't defender debuffs supposed to be unresistable in PVP? Why not test it and find out rather than assuming that you're gimped (assuming you have actual defense debuffs to be gimped).

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You realize you just contradicted yourself in re debuff resistance? I think Res Ipsa Loquitur definitely applies to your 'rebuttal'.



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Could you explain how I contradicted myself?

Because all I said was that Dark Miasma isn't affected by the resistance to defense debuffs, and that you should test whether resistance to defense debuffs affects Radiation Emission or Trick Arrow (the sets that actually have defense debuffs).

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Reading skills are so needed these days. It seems to have eluded a few of my gentle readers that certain powers are more or less core to a powersets. The Dark and Rad anchor powers are generally considered to be core to their respective sets. Take them away and the other powers are somewhat small potatoes.

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They're not taken away. I seem to recall when I was researching my radiation defender builds (I've got a Rad/Dark, Rad/Rad, and Rad/Elec) that Radiation Infection, Enervating Field, and Lingering Radiation are the three cornerstones of debuffage. Getting all three and slotting them up, getting AM and slotting that up are key to having a good radiation defender. The two anchors debuff four different things - only one of which might be resisted, but only if the devs have abandoned the "defender debuffs cannot be resisted in PVP" rule established when the arena was introduced.

Dark Miasma's debuff is certainly central to Dark's ability to debuff - but it debuffs accuracy and damage. It doesn't debuff defense. The ability to resist defense debuffs has zero effect on Dark Miasma. I do not see the point of even mentioning it here, as it simply can't be affected by this change.

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Also, I have tested them out. Really. A lot, even. When you actually get your Dark/Dark to 50, let's talk.

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Oh, yeah, because sometime in the next six levels, my dark's gameplay is going to change drastically. Is it because I'll get Total Focus at 47? Or Temporary Invulnerability at 49? Is it because I'll have Power Buildup six-slotted at 46?

All of my primary and secondary powers have been chosen and slotted out to where they're going to be slotted out for the next six levels. Please tell me what aspect of gameplay will drastically change in those next six levels, 12 slots, and two power selections that I could not possibly have seen so far.

It couldn't be the missions, because I've done most of them sidekicked up with my SG. I've fought most of the Praetorians and even Babbage.

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Feel free to play him in the Arena on Test. Let me know what you find out. I'd love to hear of viable tactics for a D3 in PvP. Because without them, it's looking as though 3 new zones are going to be worthless to me.

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I'm still not understanding your objection to the defense debuff resistance and how it applies to Dark Miasma. I don't understand how the changes in I5 make it difficult to PVP with Dark Miasma. Your debuffs are unresistable, right? So what is the problem? Is this just agitating for change for defenders in a thread that's not really about defenders?

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Defender debuffs are suppose to not be resistable in the arena so are you going to stay with your word on this or now are they magically going to be resisted by these debuff resist bonuses? If they are going to be resisted I know a lot of players who are just going to stop playing the arena. You already have so few people playing in the arena that changes like this are just idiotic.

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What, the weakest tanker and scrapper sets become somewhat more survivable in the arena, and people will quit in outrage? Oh noes.

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The problem was that defense was bad yes but you missed the entire point. It is bad against accuracy bonus powers(aim/buildup/etc); it wasn't bad against defense debuff powers if you think it was then I'm very very afraid because obviously you don't play the same game all us costumers are playing.

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Actually, one of the problems that SR and Ice ran into consistently in PVE was that there are dozens of powers that debuff defense. What's with the vocal contingent of PVP players assuming this change has anything at all to do with PVP?

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Please let me understand because right now this is extremely bewildering. What the hell is your vision for defenders because right now and how things are changing every person should just delete their defenders.

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This is hyperbole.

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States...comparing the numbers btwn SR and Ice, it looks like the scrapper can totally out-perform the tank for resisting def debuffs. If they both have all relevant toggles on, the scrapper has a higher total resistance than the tank does!

And from Havoc's number crunching spreadsheets, it looks like SR was already superior to the Ice tank.

These changes sound great! Don't get me wrong. Between this, and dmg resistance insps, Ice tanks will be doing a LOT better than before. But I still think a tank should have a better base defense than a scrapper.

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Ice tanks do have better defenses, all told. Hoarfrost alone makes a huge difference in survivability. SR has greater resistance to defense debuffs in total because SR *only* has defense. If you look, you'll see that they added debuff resistance to all the defense powers of defensive sets. The reason that SR looks like it has better numbers is that it doesn't have the damage resistance or the slow debuff of Ice Armor.

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Ice only has resists to cold, fire, and toxic damage - which it has no defense against.

Hoarfrost doesn't make such a huge difference that Ice should have less resistance to defense debuffs.

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Oh, Bakka, I am so with you on this. Rads and Darks and even the new Trick Arrow defenders are yet more nerfed for PvP. I had given up totally in the Arena until a friend gave me some tips on how to stay mildly viable. This tears it. What is the point of our debuffs anywhere near PvP?

My holds have been nerfed, my anchor has been gimped and now my debuffs are crippled. And for what reason? Because the whiniest bunch of losers in the game (scrappers and tankers) didn't like being held, debuffed and gelded like the weaklings they actually are. So to 'even' the playing field all that has been left is raw damage and raw defense. Thank you ever so much.

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Uhm, maybe I'm playing a different Dark Miasma set than other people, but the resistance to defense debuffs doesn't look like it has any effect on Dark Miasma's accuracy, damage, and damage resistance debuffs.

Also, aren't defender debuffs supposed to be unresistable in PVP? Why not test it and find out rather than assuming that you're gimped (assuming you have actual defense debuffs to be gimped).

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My experience of the Arena can be summed as this. The meatshields uniformly fail to do their jobs. The defenders are universally the targets of every one else, because we are the most vulnerable. It is the job of the Tanker and to a lesser degree the scrapper to absorb damage, but this they almost never do.

But I'm not bitter. Not at all.

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If I were tanking for you, I'd forget to taunt too. What with being a whiny loser and all...

I still don't understand why it's okay to completely negate an entire primary or secondary with one anchored debuff (Radiation Infection), but it's not okay for an entire primary or secondary to resist one aspect of that anchored debuff, while you still have accuracy debuffs, damage debuffs, damage resistance debuffs, speed debuffs, and recharge debuffs to fall back on. It's almost like Radiation Emission has more to it than debuffing def.

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So preety much, Rad controllers can Abandon ye all hope of hitting SR in pvp...Like Freakin Ice tanks and SR need the help...Out of all the glaring flaws that need immediate attention in CoH, you concentrate on making SR and a few Tank builds harder to hit in PVP? What kind of Bilge Rats make these decisions? Yaaaarg!!!

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So, it's okay for Rad to completely negate an ice tanker's primary or an SR scrapper's secondary?

This is a great change, that's been a long time in coming. I love it.

I am concerned still that defense-based sets have their numbers set too low to really be equal to resist-based or def+resist-based sets.

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Thanks States. Issue 5 has not been the doomsday that many said it would be and for that I'm thankful.



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You have to be kidding. Paragon is now a ghost town. My friends list is permantly gray.

Sorry but my Tank still hates I5. The Devs had well over a year to make the tanks "work as intended" and these new changes just seem pulled out of their butts. A few inspirations are not going to cut it. Many of us still feel betrayed.

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A friend of mine, whose first 50 was a tanker, who loves playing tankers, has permanently retired her 50 - not because she's defensively weaker, but because she can't hold aggro well enough to protect a team.

Too much changed too fast with too little intention to listen to players testing the changes.

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This is true. It still doesnt mean that States isnt clueless. Look at his laughable explanation of how great defense is vs. resistance.

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More to the point, I don't think jabs at Statesman's competence are particularly convincing.

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Generally speaking, the following has been true:

* If Statesman says something in the pipeline, we do get it - or we get a reason why we didn't. The weight of examples is the former, and not the latter.


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Technically, this is true. Statesman did say (several times) that he felt Super Reflexes was underperforming, and that they would look into it, and that changes were coming. In fact, they did look at it, and they did change the set in I5.

The fact that they lowered SR defenses more than any other scrapper set is a tad surprising, but doesn't contradict the statement.

You know, most airlines consider a flight "departed" as soon as it backs away from the gate, even if it subsequently sits on the runway for an hour, for the purposes of "on-time departure" statistics.

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Well, I didn't say that they never make changes that make the game painful to play. I think I said they do make them, and then usually do something to correct it.

Issue 5 may see a change in that, though, given the response to Ice, SR, and FF concerns. Or maybe the devs just hate Defense.


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* If a change makes the game painful to play, it gets rolled back or altered so as to remove the pain. Boss boosts in I3, for example, and the purple patch.

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This is also true, but a qualifier has to be added: if it is painful to them. The boss change is a change that people considered painful, and it was rolled back. Travel suppression was considered painful to some, and it was left alone. INT+IH exclusivity was considered painful, and it was rolled back. The enhanced ("bug fix") crash for the blaster nukes is considered painful, and its being left alone. The devs are probably batting .500 on "pain" issues.

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The nukes are an example of Statesman's risk vs. reward. The travel powers did have -acc and that was changed to suppression.

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Also, not a change, but practiced brawler's root has been considered painful since the beginning of time: I've actually /bugged it just to express my feelings on that one.

The problem is that sometimes "pain" fits their vision. Vision trumps pain.

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Possibly, but in general, the devs have been willing to ease up on some things. Not everything, true.

You do refer to things that have been a certain way since launch, though, and I was talking about things that they changed since launch, and then eased up on.