Biospark
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Posts
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Quote:Played them yes. Read every story box that popped up for every contact.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
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What?
Have you even played the Praetorian arcs?
No not really. Sorry, I suck at following the cannons of most games.
I am a mindless action-hero junkie. Just point me at the bad guys and get outta ma way
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Quote:Who is to say what "intellegence" actually lurks behind both these factions, developing its own "identity". Perhaps their goals begin to take shape over time and become more apparent as "willfull" manipulation of the system rather than apparent "random and mindless" actions.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Those would both have problems becuase of how mindless they are when they're nor reprogrammed or set free - a non-reprogrammed Clockwork just goes about its normal tasks without thinking, and a Seer that hasn't been set free just floats around looking for "bad" thoughts without really knowing who she is, where she is, or what she's doing.
Any PEATs would need to be mentally aware and flexible enough to be able to be used by both sides, noy just the Resistance.
Examples:
The clockwork, blessed with natural (albeit technologically based) logic, adore order and conformity. Their higher-level control programs that organize and maintain all the myriad aspects of running Cole's utopia begin to question his (Cole's) ultimate purposes and "break-away" to form a new "race" of it own. Ever heard this story. cough:::cyclon:::cough
The seers, a subjegated human clone-race blessed with unnatural "empathy" for fellow humans are being drawn more and more into the web of suffering that Cole has created by his "unnatural" rule. They develope stronger willpower to resist all the controls put in place that make them normally docile. One can only imagine the fury of a freed soul when the "entire" truth of Cole's empire suddenly floods into their conscience.
In both these cases, the outward "mindless" actions that we currently witness from time to time are simply "symptoms" of a greater event to unfold.
P.S.: I am expecting the Praetorian epics to be different than what we have seen in the past. If we expect there to be two, then my expectation would be one that is inherently "villainous" and one that is more "heroic" in it's tendencies. Clockwork would fall into my "villainous" role, and Seers would tend toward the people and be Heroic. -
Quote:Perhaps you have not seen Arcana's major work on just this topic.Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
I don't think any of us have survival statistics on the varous secondaries available to scrappers, and even if we did, they'd be tainted by player skill somewhat. Having said that, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of knowledgeable scrapper players would not rank regen as the top secondary in terms of survivability (in fact I think most would consider it a bit squishy in pve play, outside of pairing it with parry or divine avalanche). I'm arguing that it should be tops in survivability, and without question. Why? Because again, it takes more effort than the other secondaries, and pretty much only offers surivivability, while the active nature of the set actually decreases offensive output where many other secondaries actively improve it.
Granted, the last I had seen, she had not added Willpower to the thread, but Regen is quite well covered.
Perhaps someone could link it for you. Then read it once for yourself.
Or, read it a few times like I had to do.
Here it is. Will save you a search.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...errerid=440406 -
Quote:And that is exactly the way I am hoping it goes down (and continues on into the future).Originally Posted by Rodion
If the Incarnate system works the way it did during the I18 beta, anyone can get the Alpha slot. The devs are unlikely to put a huge roadblock in the way. It may require doing an arc, or spending some merits, or making some investment in time. But they will almost certainly make sure everyone will be able to become Incarnate solo. The salvage required for crafting alpha slot powers dropped doing normal level 50 missions and required nothing special.
However, my guess is that they will have new and difficult content that will grant you the required salvage at an accelerated rate, the same way A-merits are a faster track to get rare stuff than reward merits, and doing TFs/SFs gives you reward merits faster than regular/Ouroboros arcs.
I have no problem with 24/7 gamers, or speed TF runners getting their characters "tricked out" weeks, months, maybe even years ahead of me. But don't make it a non-option of; join a "raiding" crew or live off lower level performance.
If there are those here that do not know how it works in other MMOs, it would be something like this; imagine your character only able to slot SOs, while all the Hard-core Raiders had not only IOs, but purples and soon the upcoming Incarnate powers/slots. And the ONLY way to get IO recipes and salvage was to run the STF/ITF etc,. And to top it all off, only ONE recipe would drop at the end of the task force and there were all kinds of complicated rules for who was allowed to claim it.
NO THANKS ! -
Yes, Ranged defense will help against many types of mezzes. There are others which are not "Ranged" but saying that you plan on hovering out of melee means that the list of mezzes not protected by Range defense just got smaller. That leaves non-positional ones to deal with only. But another question for you. Did you know that Dispersion Bubble gives you some mezz protection ? Its about the best mezz protection any squishie can get before epics without a teammate buffing your protection.
So Mind/FF ? Pretty darn good at dealing with mezzing critters. Not much better that is not a melee character or perma-dom. -
Quote:Exactly ! Well SaidOriginally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
After being away from WoW for over a year, I read a reviewer talking about his experience with a (at the time) end level raid, where he was being critiqued severely for not having the highest DPS gear on his character, as they did not think he would be able to contribute enough to the team. Such gear was earned through the raid, so I'm not quite sure how he was supposed to have it all coming in (and he had the best stuff he could have gotten elsewhere).
Such common attitudes in that game are why I have avoided it like the plague for years. It's not casual friendly at all, and while that story is not typical of all people playing WoW (it obviously wasn't typical for me), I saw it far too much. Blech. That's why I hate that attitude here if I ever see it crop up, and why I counteract it whenever I form my own teams.
I personally like the idea of Team-oriented (even Team-required) content. What I really, really, really hate is the Gear-treadmill, and as you pointed out, the fact that you have to "politic" your way into raid-centric groups to have better gear or simply live without.
COH should allow all rewards to be obtainable solo, but at the cost of speed. Teams and Team-centric SGs should get everything easier/faster, while casual or heaven-forbid, solo oriented players take longer to achieve the same level of performance.
This is why I love this game, and what will keep me here for a long time. As soon as the game becomes end-game, raid-centric advancement, I may not leave right away, but the writing will be on the wall at that point. -
I think Draggynn pretty much covered some of the better synergies, so I will just add onto them here with my own thoughts.
Conceptually, I think Ice, Electric and Sonic all work well. As mentioned Ice brings good damage and more soft controls, as does sonic. Electric,,, eh not so much, but it looks pretty.
However one of the combinations that I am just itching to try is Storm/Dark. Having so many alts I just have not gotten around to it. What it brings: AoE immobilize to pair up with Freezing Rain, Multiple additional AoEs which should really mow down spawns, more layers to your survival with -tohit in each power AND, last but not least a self heal in a blast (Life Drain). The synergies here are just oozing. <---hmm maybe not the best choice of words.
regards
-Bio- -
Clockworks and Seers would be my guess.
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Quote:Something that will help us give more specific advice is what level are you at currently ?Originally Posted by Malossi
Ok thx for support but i am in a difficult situation and i dont know what Ench set to put in my powers... Does anyone know what is the best sets for blaster?Thx again
Which powers have you already taken? What things do you like and dislike about your character that you could use help on? If you are specifically asking about IO sets, we would need to see where you currently are on your build to point out areas that can be improved.
Oh, and welcome to the game
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Quote:I was going to take only part of your response and discuss it, but I don't want to come off as disingenuos. So instead let me just bold the part of your reply that I disagree with. As for the rest, we probably just play our characters differently and focus their builds differently. As my RL brother says, you can "emphasize your strengths or overcome your weaknesses". I ALWAYS choose the later of the two. Thats just me.Originally Posted by Lolblaws
The shift tends to take place well before level 50. The toons that are capable of providing damage that can approach blaster levels tend to offensively mature in their early 30's. More pile on the bus in their 40's of course.
The shift is not only in damage, but also other half of the battle which is surviving well enough to do damage. Most AT's have a fairly linear progression of both their damage and their survivability as they gain new abilities even though mobs get tougher both in their own skills, the hp scale relative to pc damage, and our tendency to increase +cons as we reach certain progressive milestones. Basically, even though the game gets tougher, most AT's accumulate power at a great rate.
Blasters however, spike up rapidly in early levels due to gaining so many offensive powers so quickly. As a result they are one of the more potent early game AT's. Sadly though, they tend to peak very early as well. And as the game shifts and mobs get more and more difficult (for the reasons above) blaster mitigation falls off rapidly relative to them. The early spike is actually followed not by a linear increase in power, but by a decline as their damage gets weaker relative to mobs and their survivability plummets both to what they are used to experiencing against lesser difficulty mobs and relative to the other AT's.
IO's can certainly do a lot for the AT, but that isn't really central to this particular discussion.
It's not so much that blasters are a more difficult AT to play well because for many levels they aren't. It's that they peak very early and tend to actually get worse as the game goes on whereas everyone else gets stronger and stronger*
*for clarity blasters DO get stronger as well, but the rate of their power increase is lower than the game gains power, whereas most other AT's gain power faster than the game.
They are more difficult than other AT's in late game, that is fairly certain, which unfortunately is compounded by the fact that their role as 'offensive juggernaut' is very viable through much of the earlier game and they clearly ARE the offensive kings in pretty much every capacity during that period.
Analogy time: blasters are like a short geared car. They accelerate quicker as a result, but hit their top speed much earlier. Everyone else has taller gearing. This causes blasters to blow them away during the beginning of the race (ie earlier levels), but by the mid point of the race the other cars start catching up (30-40's), and toward the end of the race their higher top speed leaves the blaster car in the dust.
Perhaps if there were more corners in the race the shorter gearing would be more beneficial, but in terms of CoX the raceway is pretty much as straight as an airplane runway.
Anyway, on to my point.
My very first IOed toon was a Blaster. When I retired him, he was running with over 30% defense, nearly all of which came from IOs. If he did not have these bonuses, he MAYBE could have squeezed 10% defense out of pools. Maybe. There is a HUGE difference in survivability between 10% and 30%+. I realize that IOs may not be what powers are designed around, or that comparing SO-only Blasters to SO-only Scrappers could very well prove your point beyond a doubt. But you cannot discount them completely.
In 2004, when I first played CoH I tried Blasters and I really liked the idea of them, but they were waaaaay too breakable for me (back then). Nowadays, I still see them as "squishy", but if you really and truely care about your character, I think you will spend the time and effort to IO him out. And I would begin doing it as soon as influence permits.
My first high level blaster didn't start until his mid 30s on IOs, but within 10 levels and dozens of set bonuses, it was like a completely different character. He went from being a "flying glass cannon" to a "hi-tech jet fighter" that feared almost nothing ALL DUE to IOs.
Not saying your viewpoint is wrong, just that throwing IOs out of any AT discussion seems wrong to me.
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Quote:Amen.Originally Posted by Test_Rat
Gearscore is why I quit and will never return to WoW.
Although I left much earlier, I saw the writing on the wall before Burning Crusade launched. -
I am gonna agree with what others have said and say that it really depends on the character and the focus.
IF you do not have any innate healing/regen abilities, then Health will have a noticeable effect, especially at early levels.
IF your character does have healing or regen abilities, then Health quickly loses its overall effectivess by comparison to them.
IF you choose to focus your character for REGEN, then health becomes a good way to squeeze another chunk of regen into the build. How much does it help ? It all comes down to balancing your character's powers and slots for what you want most.
The short answer: I personally slot nearly all of my toons with 2 slots on Health and put the Miracle proc and the Numina Proc into them. Then call it a day. I have built alot of characters using three slots in health, but at this time, the only characters that I will probably stay with 3+ slots will be my Shield Tanker and my SR scrapper. BOTH of which are focusing IO sets to get as much regen as possible. And due to them being Positional defense focused, can each hit at or near 400% regen through Health/Procs/IOs. Thats damn decent regen if you ask me. And at no real opportunity cost to these characters.
Ok not so short afterall.
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Quote:I think that this pretty much sums up one side of the argument that has been running thru this thread.Originally Posted by Lolblaws
Yet here we are saying it is ok that other AT's are capable of infringing well into blaster damage territory. It isn't just scrappers either, they just happen to do it with a lot of their combos. Doms, trollers, corrs, mm's, brutes and who knows who else all have combos that can get uncomfortably close to the damage a blaster can produce. In some cases they may well be able to surpass them. In all cases they bring far more than just 'damage', which blasters are largely restricted to doing.
How I see this:
Scrappers DO have that extra mitigation at the outset and can improve on it, but their AoE capabilites come slowly and mature later. Even when they do mature, most powerset combinations are going to rely on single target damage to "mop-up" while their AoE attacks recharge. Additionally, most scrapper combinations have near "zero" control and range to capitalize on while they take down a spawn. Blasters are squishy as hell, especially early game. But their AoE abilities mature early and can generally be relied on every spawn with little effort to recharge them. Then, to top it all off, you can CHOOSE to limit your enemies ability to deal damage thru control powers and staying at range.
Just to remind myself that I am not crazy, after reading this thread I developed a concept character (who I just may keep) that derives his powers from the Sun. He is a Rad-Fire Blaster and he has access to multiple AoE powers prior to level 10. Not ONE, Not TWO, but FOUR AoEs by level 10. He can blow thru his blue bar and a spawn in an eye-blink. At level 10 my scrappers are sucking wind and trying to figure out how to survive when they accidentily aggro an extra spawn and taking at least 50% more time to down a spawn. My blaster (on a combination I have never played before) was looking for orange and red mobs while running around Galaxy between doors.
Obviously, at level 50 your builds will be matured and, hopefully, your character will do everything that you want and more. But the main argument of Scrappers stepping on the toes of the Blaster AT seems highly exaggerated to me. You play scrappers if you want an all-around Damage Dealer with decent Defense, or many other ATs (long list) if you want an all-around Defensive character with decent Damage. You play a Blaster when you want The Best Damage dealing in the Largest Area possible and dont care about defense, because speed is your defense.
Let's just call it for what it is. Blasters are hard to play well and may not appeal to everyone. -
Quote:Hehe,Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
....So you're saying a blaster slotted for ranged defense and equipped with Aid Self and Hover, can't come close to scrapper survivability? Not even when they can dictate that nothing be able to attack them except from the position they have defense to?
I have a Sonic/Devices hoverblaster that quite simply doesn't die. And I can keep pace with ANY scrapper on single target damage easily, especially when the fight takes more than a few seconds. And I don't have Build Up available to me.
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before anyone says that is a corner case, I will mention my highest level blaster.
Level 47 Energy/Devices hover-blaster with 38% ranged defense, caltrops, PFF and medicine pool.
He laughs at Cimeroans (well as long as he can keep them at range) and if he gets hurt (it happens), bubble-up + Aid Self + bubble off, continue destroying where he left off.
one of my favorite quotes is : "death is not an option" -
Quote:These are all very well thought out StratoNexus.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I am not sure I would use the word poorly. They are uniquely designed, although one could say that tankers and to a lesser extent defenders "suffer" similar issues. For example, you ask, "Does the ability of a controller to lock down enemies negate the survivability advantage a tank has over a scrapper and therefore indicate the two ATs should have more similar damage?" There are some who complain about that very thing. They say the tanker survivability edge is of nebulous benefit, especially throughout most of the game. The devs recently made some changes to address that very concern.
Will they adjust blasters again? I think stalkers are probably (hopefully?) going to get looked into first. What can they do for blasters? They have already once rejected the idea of buffing their mitigation. Their damage level is already very high. Adding more controls could work, but will make them more like dominators (and they are already pretty close as is). Buff/Debuff seems well out of concept. There was a point (long ago) when blasters had a DPE edge and adding that back was considered as one of the changes for I11, but ultimately abandoned (and with inherent Stamina, that does not truly seem like a boon anyway).
Here is a thing I think about. Blasters seem like a popular AT (for now; I have concerns about what dominators may do in the long run). People invite blasters/scrappers/dominators seemingly equally (although doms likely get less attention right now, but as people see more of them and see how well they do, I think it will increase the desire for doms). I rarely see people purposely choosing scrappers over blasters and I rarely see people choosing blasters over scrappers.
Just like with the tanker/brute/scrapper, I think the nebulous nature may be a good thing. If the extra mitigation tankers bring was clearly needed, that forces the game into the trinity role. If blasters were the clear winners in damage as you suggest, it could lead to people clearly wanting blasters for their higher damage and therefore clearly needing buff/debuff and aggro control to keep them standing. It is the fact that things are so close that may be what makes the game more interesting when it comes to team makeup, since so many options work.
Certainly something to think about.
My thoughts "naturally" steer over to things like pool powers, which back in the glory days both Blasters and Scrappers could abuse the heck out of. Especially Blasters (stacked smoke, Hasten gave defense, stacking every defense toggle you could get your "paws" on).
So fast forward to now, with all the defensive nerfs, I still get a little "eye twitch" when looking at pools for both Scrappers and Blasters (Especially Blasters) and see numbers for defense that are "horribly low", as opposed to "rather low" (most other ATs). Could it be that they hit Scrappers/Blasters so hard on pool defenses to make sure Blasters could not approach scrapper survivability and Scrappers likewise could not approach Tankers?
Who knows.
Long story short, If Blasters had any shortcomings (not saying that they do), I would consider pushing them more toward the control side of the spectrum. If, as you suspect, Dominators may edge blasters sideways on the player radar, it follows logically (to me) to push Blasters in that direction as well. Then they become two optional flavors in the players' perspective, much as Defender/Corruptors or Scrappers/Tankers/Brutes.
Did that make any sense ?
One should not post at 4AM
-Bio- -
I think the idea of more power pools is a great idea in general.
Having them based off origin is also very interesting, but I think the devs will be able to accomplish just as much, if not more customization with existing Epic/Patron/Ancillary pools.
For example, every Hero and Villain AT just doubled their power pool options as a result of "Going Rogue".
Yes, you may have to switch sides to get them, but this opens up alot more customization than you previously had.
In order to continue with this trend, they (Developers) only need to add new Ancillary/Patron choices to the existing choices. For example: Defenders (personal AT of choice) could use Ice Mastery, Munitions/Devices, and Fire Mastery (Assuming they ever proliferate Fire Blast). The simple act of adding those three pools would expand your choices considerably. And we have not even begun to discuss the idea of adding a 6th power to every pool. Imagine (3 Tier one, 2 Tier 2 and 1 Tier 3 power in each pool).
Choices....Choices....
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The regen - willpower debate is understandable, considering how much regen has changed from day one.
In my play experience though they both are great, but suffer differently.
With Willpower, you can see yourself in over your head, and know that there is nothing you can do about it but RUN.
With Regen, you feel like your doing fine until ... your NOT and your in the hospital.
If my vote counted, I think Regeneration needs to be top-of-the-heap on Regen. Whether you achieve this by giving regen debuff protection or lowering the recharge in Instant Healing doesnt really matter to me. It would just be nice if regen did not have to "rely" so heavily on one power(reconstruction) and +recharge. <---heh says the guy playing empathy as his main
IH as a toggle , heck yeah, but doubt the devs are gonna reverse that decision. -
Quote:What if certain Buffs, namely buffs which many folks typically complain about getting, could have the Accept/Decline option added to them. They would then function like resurection or the fortune-teller buff.Originally Posted by Diggis
As best as I can recall the Devs have said the system can't differenciate between a buff and a debuff so to allow you to remove Buffs they would have to allow you to remove debuffs. Which they won't obviously.
Lets make a List:
Speed Boost
???
hmm short list
Anyone have others that could be added? -
Quote:My big issues with Group Fly are:Originally Posted by DrMike2000
The problem with a Grant Flight power is that it doesn't provide the target with the means to turn off their own flight.
Unless you make the flight granted incompatible with Sprints.
Come to think of it, that might be better than the current aura implementation, although with a target-controlled off switch, the aura could also be made larger.
Yeah, my ideal implementation would be a single target Grant Flight - lasts 4 minutes and can be deactivated by the user via Sprint. Good thinking, plain guy
A) Its slower than regular fly : no team of reasonable level would ever need this as a means to travel
B) The ACC penalty seems to be there only to guarantee that you dont use it during combat. But how much real benefit would a whole team get from flying, especially team-members that don't really want the buff.
C) You have to stay near the user or risk losing flight status, which seems to be the core reason for the reduced speed. Allowing everyone to stick together.
*** In my thread on Power Pool revamps, I chose a 4min single target buff as the way to fix this power. Other ways to further improve the power would be giving an accept/decline option on casting so a player could choose not to accept the buff, and/or make the power function like a temporary power, so when you recieve the buff, you can toggle the power on and off for the duration of the buff.
And actually, for something as mundane as travel, the buff should probably last much longer than 4 minutes. Let's say 10-15min. Whatever time it would normally take to travel from one mission door to the next, then pad a few more minutes for lag, trips to the store, little Hero's room, etc... etc... -
Quote:Very Good Point !Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, consider the following: That's exactly how our powersets work - you can take any power from either powerset as long as you're high level enough to unlock it to begin with. No power has prerequisites like something in Diablo 2 would have. Pools are, in a way, more restrictive than powersets, and not many of their powers are all that impressively good.
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Quote:I am sure that I read your ideas on an Assault/Defense AT (Which is a great Idea by the way), but must have missed that form of status protection.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Back when I was suggesting an Assault/Defence AT, that's the status protection I designed for it... Pretty much. So I'm inherently for this. Allow this power to be used from out of a hold, but give it a low uptime and possibly make it immune to recharge. I'd take it, believe me.
Especially if all pool powers were opened without prerequisites.
Call me strange, but I kinda like the tier "access" structure to pool powers. I just want there to a be more flexible way to get into each pool, so that we dont get stuck with taking a power like "Boxing" on a Melee AT which has zero use for it when what we really want is Tough/Weave. Each pool should have 2 very different Tier 1 and Tier 2 options to create this flexibility. The ONLY reason I can see for removing the "Tier access" would be in the event that the Developer's were unwilling to address relative strengths of the majority of the Tier 3 powers(or lack thereof).
"Open" access based on level alone would be a "lazy" way out to me
Yeah I know that that comment could be taken as a "throwing down the gauntlet" to our friendly game developers, but only they can decide whether the power pools deserve a make-over or an easy fix.
Come On Devs ! lets see what you can do !
Give us more logical Tier 1 choices !
Turn those lumps of coal powers into shiney Diamonds !
Five.... Five Power... Five Power Pool Choicesssss .....(you know the tune)
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Quote:Huh... so THATs why there is nothing on the rack afterwards. I had not noticed that fact before. But then I am the "airhead" that just admitted doing 12 tips before selecting the morality mission.Originally Posted by Quinch
Semi-related sidenote - completing a morality mission wipes your tip inventory.
Well in that case, you should have all your remaining tips converted into a random Morality mission upon completion of your 10th tip mission. -
Quote:Yeah, I did try and add flavor by giving a Ranged +def to flight pool, Melee to Leaping and AoE to concealment. But only added "typed" to the flight pool. I honestly expected alot more issue with adding any amount of defense, such to the point that I almost exclusively suggested resists and resistance.Originally Posted by Leo_G
I must have gleamed over that point.
Kind of unfair to typed defense sets that this power adds melee defense and no typed defense. Pools should be equally beneficial to these types of things.
So a more fair-minded approach would look like this (to me)
Ranged, Fire, Cold, Toxic (Air Mastery)
Melee, Smash, Lethal (Elusive)
AoE, Psi, Energy, Neg (Keen Insight)
??? better -
Excellent feedback !
Lots of good things for the Devs to think about.
I really like the idea of protection against your movement style of choice, and actually Leo's idea of "escaping" from an effect is very cool.
So how about "Escape Artist" Click : Free yourself from any Hold/Immob effect which is mag 4 or less and makes you resistant to Hold/Immob/Slow as well as -speed/fly/jump for 30 seconds. Recharge would be 120 seconds (or more). -
Quote:Yeah this is too bad really.Originally Posted by Diggis
As best as I can recall the Devs have said the system can't differenciate between a buff and a debuff so to allow you to remove Buffs they would have to allow you to remove debuffs. Which they won't obviously.
Maybe COH2 will consider this.