ClawsandEffect

While that may be true, it doesn't excuse him threatening to make Aett "eat his words".

It also doesn't excuse his getting bent out of shape and declaring that, since respecs don't do what he thinks they should, they are useless.

Sketchy English or not, there is an attitude in those posts that is completely uncalled for.

I was guessing what he was saying. By the gist of the rest of the thread I think I had it right, but it's hard to tell for sure.

Umm, okay.

The respec not allowing you to pick completely different powersets on the same character is working exactly how it is supposed to.

I'm not entirely sure why you're so bent out of shape that respecs don't do something they were never meant to do in the first place. Respecs are intended to let you fix a mistake you made choosing powers or slotting them, or change things around when a power is changed.

If you are a Zombies/Dark mastermind, you will ALWAYS be a Zombies/Dark mastermind, there is no way in the game to change that unless you delete and reroll your character. You cannot change a Zombies/Dark mastermind into a Bots/Traps mastermind, and probably never will be able to.

You also seem to have no clue at all how the auction house actually works. People are not refusing to sell you anything, in fact they have no way of knowing that you are even bidding. If you bid 100,000 on something that routinely sells for 300,000,000, you are probably never going to get it, even if someone offers one for 100,000. That is because the highest bid always gets the item, regardless of how much it is for sale for. So, if someone offers an item for 100,000, and you bid 100,000, you will get it unless someone bids higher. If they are selling for 300,000,000 it is pretty much guaranteed that someone IS going to bid higher than you.

And the prices you're seeing aren't what people have them for sale for, they are what someone has ALREADY paid for them. You don't get to see what someone is selling stuff for, and if you're selling, you don't get to see what people are bidding.

This was probably a completely wasted post, since you seem more interested in complaining about it than actually getting help, but at least I tried.

Actually, it isn't a bad move at all.

Waiting an issue to do this shows the new players that started with GR that the devs do things to improve the game for them on a regular basis.

Had they done it at the same time GR was released, the new players would be unaware of the QoL changes the devs do for us, and might not be inclined to stick around if there is something they don't like about the game. If they see that the devs do stuff like this, they may just voice their complaint and stick with it, rather than assume it will never be addressed and leave for something else.

This.

For all we know, BaBs may have figured it out before he left and they've been quietly working on it ever since. Since it's so incredibly time-consuming, even if they are working on it, we may not see results for another year or more.

Edit: They would need to do 42 separate animations for each power that causes redraw. 7 combat stances X 3 body types = 21 X 2 movement modes (standing and flying) = 42 animations. And they would need to do that with every power in the game that causes redraw. So if they fix whatever the issue is with Shield Defense, it is still a LOT of work to do.

If they do decide to devote the resources to it, it is probably going to take a long time to do, as I doubt they will cease working on other things while doing it.

Some of the sets you have here don't make a great deal of sense to me.

I presume you took and slotted Heightened Senses?

If so, the positional defense bonuses you're getting from a lot of these sets are not stacking with Heightened Senses, because Heightened Senses is TYPED defense.

For a Willpower character (ANY Willpower character) I like the following sets: Kinetic Combat, Reactive Armor, Eradication.

I know for a fact that WP/WM can softcap to S/L/E/N defense, because I put together a build that did so. The build also had around 30% defense to F/C.

If your defense feels lower, that's probably because your positional defense bonuses and Heightened Senses are working against each other.

Okay, I like Combat Jumping/Super Jump myself, but Fly is fine.


You want to try and get Smashing/Lethal resistance capped at 90%, and get as much typed defense as possible. (That is, Smashing, Lethal, Energy, etc. rather than Melee, Ranged, AoE) If you can get S/L/E/N softcapped with one enemy in range of Invincibility, you'll be nearly impossible to kill in most situations.

After that try and get some recharge and regen bonuses.

Fighting pool isn't needed, but it makes a couple of the aforementioned goals a lot easier. Tough will help you get your Smashing/Lethal resistance capped, and Weave will give you almost 8% defense to everything when slotted up to the ED cap.

Your goal with defense is to get as many types to 45% or higher as you possibly can. My general rule is to take Fighting on every melee character as soon as I can possibly fit it in.

A well built Invuln tank shouldn't need Aid Self at all.

If I get a chance, I'll post a sample build for you to illustrate some of the things I'm talking about here. Hope this little bit helps some.

I know, that was kind of my point.

Edit: In asking, not the derail.

Is there proof of this, or are you just saying it is because you think it should?

Please link to an NCSoft employee confirming this rumor.

I believe you are correct. I don't think the heal bonus affects regen.

Ironically, it doesn't affect Healing Flames, Reconstruction, or the Ninjitsu heal, because they all grant resistance as well, which nullifies the heal bonus. It DOES affect Heal Other, Healing Aura, Radiant Aura, and so on though, as well as Dull Pain and all it's clones.

I happen to LIKE the HERO system, but I may be biased because my first couple experiences with it were with some REALLY good GMs.

They let you do just about anything you could dream up (within reason), but they kept a tight rein on how powerful they'd let your character become. And they simplified the combat system so you didn't have to roll 3,000 dice to determine the result of firing a pistol one time. You just rolled to hit, and they did the rest.

I agree that it would be a horrible way to design an MMO, because a computer lacks the flexibility a good GM needs to make the game fun while keeping it reasonably balanced. I haven't made any of my old Champions characters here, just because they would be impossible to recreate, and the names were taken anyway.

I repeat that citing the HERO system as something that is balanced in regards to superhero gaming is sheer folly. The GM balanced the game, the system itself was balanced about as well as you can balance a Chevy Silverado on a knitting needle.

If you were not, and never were, in danger of being defeated in any task your team is doing, you have sufficient defense.

Once you reach the point where that is true most of the time, you can feel free to devote some energy to building your offensive potential.

I have 2 tanks at the moment, that could not be any more different from each other.

A Dark/Ice tank, who is being designed to be indestructible, and even if he IS killed, he'll be right back up. Between Cloak of Fear, Oppressive Gloom and perma Ice Patch, anything in melee range of him will be hard pressed to do anything at all.

Then there's my Invuln/Dual Blades tank, who is being built for offense. I managed a build that gives him plenty of survivability, and can (hopefully) pump out enough DPS to solo an AV.

It really depends on what your goals are with any particular build. Sure, a tank is "supposed" to take agro for their team, but you don't HAVE to build for that. If ATs had such rigidly defined roles, you'd never see a defender solo a GM. (which has happened, and doubtlessly will keep happening)

Not really. It's only as broken as the GM allows it to be. You can make the craziest overpowered stuff you can imagine in it, but if the GM says "No, I'm not going to let you do that.", that's the end of it.

It's a good system in and of itself, but there's no way you could translate it to a computer game because a computer can't tell you that some off-the-wall overpowered thing you did isn't allowed. A computer sees that it is possible and allows it, because it has no capacity to make a judgment call on things like that.

The fact that a human is making the decisions of what is and isn't allowed is the balancing factor of the HERO system. Since it's impossible to translate the HERO system to a computer program, using it as an example of balance where a computer game is concerned is just asinine.

Erm, they DIDN'T say everything was fine without Stamina. If you read it again, you will see they were saying everything is fine WITH it and good slotting choices.

Basically, they were saying that if you have Stamina and still have problems, the problem is you and not the game. Which I agree with.

So you're saying that it is fair for either A) A Fire/Kin controller to use 45% less endurance, when no one who knows anything about the game would call them "low damage", or B) a Fulcrum Shifted Foot Stomp to cost 90 endurance (out of 100)?

The reason endurance costs are not calculated by damage dealt are because if you ignore damage buffs, some power combinations get extremely broken, namely those that can boost their own damage to high levels. But if you factor in damage buffs, scrappers, brutes, and blasters get horribly shafted. A brute could conceivably end up paying 675% endurance cost, meaning their end bottoms out after 2 attacks, and a scrapper or blaster would double their end cost every time they hit Build Up, and would be using 12.5% more end to begin with.

More to the point, since you admit that it would be a big task (huge undertaking is probably more accurate), why would you ask the devs to completely change something that is working acceptably in favor of something they would have to spend the next couple YEARS balancing? If you want the way endurance actually works to change, you will be accepting that we will get little or nothing content-wise for at least a year and a half. (time estimates here are pure guesswork, but I suspect they aren't too far off the mark)

Yeah, I'm a former Champions player too. Arcanaville already mentioned it, but the HERO system would be so insanely broken if put into a computer program it's not even funny. The balancing factor of the HERO system is the human GM. A human GM can decide what he will and won't allow on a character by character basis. A computer can only be told what is and isn't possible, and cannot make judgement calls when something is overpowered.

I'll give an example: I once created a character with Desolidification that could only be affected by objects made of wood. He also had fire powers that could affect normal space. See the problem there? I could easily destroy the only thing that could hurt me and be impervious to anything else. The GM of that campaign, quite logically, told me there was no way in hell he was letting me play that character. A computer cannot make a decision like that, if the program says it can be done, it has no choice but to allow it.

Using the HERO system as an example of something "balanced" is sheer folly. The system itself isn't even in the same area code as balanced, without a human GM to decide what can and can't be done, the potential for powergaming is limitless.

I already mentioned it, but if damage dealt became the metric by which endurance consumption was measured, powers like Fulcrum Shift and Fortitude would become griefing tools, because you could cause someone's endurance to bottom out against their will with something that is supposed to be a buff.

Currently, I have a Rad/Sonic defender that can solo AVs with relative ease. The only thing preventing him from soloing GMs is hist end use/recovery ratio. I can survive the fight, but I can't attack for long enough to actually kill it before my end bottoms out. My build isn't that great, and if I can almost do it, imagine how easy it would become for someone who actualy has a good build.

Blaster and Defender attacks use the same amount of endurance because they are the exact same power. It is the damage scale that determines how much damage it does. Say Ice Blast deals 100 damage at scale 1.0 (which is the baseline for ALL powers), the endurance it uses is calculated by that metric, and that metric alone. Now, a Defender will deal 55 damage with that power, because their damage scale is .55. A Blaster will deal 112.5 damage with the same power because their damage scale is 1.125. The end cost is teh same for both powers because they are the same power. Same deal with scrapper, stalker, tank, and brute powers. Any attack they all share will use the same amount of endurance across all 4 ATs, but the damage actually dealt may vary quite a bit. It is working exactly how it was meant to.

Seems like you think you're a lot more important than you really are. In reality, you probably had little or nothing to do with those changes. I can guarantee the devs did NOT say "Hey, Ultimo_ wants this done, we should get cracking on it". You weren't the first person to suggest any of those things, but in many cases you were the least reasonable.

In the case of Defender vs. Blaster endurance usage. On a team a defender's DPE actually improves, because they get an endurance discount on teams. When solo they get a 30% damage boost, which closes the gap considerably.

Endurance is used as a means to ensure that characters cannot become so powerful that the game would need to be made more difficult to compensate. Recharge and damage scales are the other means of doing that.

If you were to remove recharge, you would see Super Strength characters using nothing but Foot Stomp because there would be nothing preventing them from doing so. If everything had the same damage scale, tanks and defenders would become by far the most powerful characters in the game, making just about everything else obsolete. If a defender did the same damage as a blaster, what is the incentive to play a blaster? IF tanks, brutes, scrappers and stalkers all did exactly the same damage, why would anyone choose to play anything but the toughest of them (tanks)?

If no one ever had to worry about endurance, only the highest damaging powersets would ever be chosen. Claws deals less damage than other melee sets because it uses less endurance. If you remove endurance, you remove one of the advantages Claws has, and few people would play it. If you were to then remove recharge, even fewer people would play it because it's other advantage of lower recharge times would disappear. If you then normalized the damage of everything in the game, well, people would most likely stop playing scrappers and brutes altogether.

Endurance exists as a balancing point to keep the higher damaging sets from becoming too powerful. The harder a set hits, the more endurance it will consume. That is working exactly as it is intended to. You are given the option of lower endurance usage, which is balanced by lower damage output. Defenders use the same amount of endurance as blasters and corruptors and are compensated by more potent secondary effects than either one. A Sonic defender will reduce a targets resistance more than a blaster or corruptor will. You want them to use less endurance because they deal less damage? Remove that secondary effect advantage while you're at it.

You clearly see things differently than me. In MY opinion, a game in which everything is exactly the same except for cosmetic differences is a boring game. If everything were identical you might as well remove ATs completely and just let people make their tankmages.

You're also completely ignoring the fact that what you're asking for here would require the game to be redesigned from the ground up to compensate for the fact that endurance is no longer a balancing point between various powersets.

There's an even easier way to tell. Watch while the NPC is attacking. If the damage numbers are orange it's a pet. If they are gray it is an NPC ally.

Welcome back!


It sounds like you haven't played since before they instituted an agro cap. Back in the day, a tank could hold agro on an infinite number of critters, and AoEs could hit an infinite number of targets. That led to things like a tank and a Fire blaster herding up the enemies in entire zones and killing them all at once. Since that isn't really fair to anyone else trying to kill anything in that zone (among other reasons), the devs decided to put a cap on both agro and AoEs. The agro cap is now 17, and the AoE cap is 16.

So, if you have 50+ enemies in a room, the tank can only keep the attention of 17 of them at a time. If you watch while dead, you'll notice that the enemies above the agro cap are just kind of standing around not attacking or anything until one of the agroed enemies is defeated, at which point one of the non-agroed ones will start attacking. If you rez while the entire room is agroed, but the tank is at agro cap, suddenly there is another valid target for another 17 of them to attack: you.

It is working as intended, but I can imagine it would come as a bit of a shock if you were coming back unaware of the change. My suggestion would be to not try and herd whole rooms at once, since that can (and apparently has in this case) cause problems.