Frosticus
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Quote:My hope is that it actually goes the other way and the scrap/tank version is increased to match the brute/dom version.Originally Posted by Umbral
First, you can expect the 30 second uptime on the +dam(fire) to get fixed reasonably soon. The Dom and Brute versions were lasting longer than the Tanker version (and the Scrapper version), so it's reasonable to assume they'll be brought back in line.
I'd normally place the safe bet that a reduction was going to happen, but in this case Castle recently agreed he'd take a look at fire armor for scrappers. A large focus of that thread he was responding to was about the damage disparity between Shield and Fire. Now granted I showed and was later supported that SC was vastly overperforming and will probably see a sizable reduction I still hold hope that he will see fit to give a tiny bump to the offensive nature of fire rather than go with the boring approach of closing the survivability gap to within closer range of the other armors. -
Quote:Yes I did. And you can be sure I went through and compared a heck of a lot of toons before coming up with that assessment.Originally Posted by Seraphael
I though you did the math and found Fire Doms single target damage to surpass the best Blasters have to offer? Dominators uses higher damage scales on melee attacks than Blasters. I'm pretty freakin sure my AR/Dev Blaster cannot touch even the worst combo among Dominators.
You should also understand that a higher than perma hasten fire dom capable of running blaze>incin>blast is an outlier.
You should also understand that ideal situations don't pop up nearly as often as they do on paper. In practice when a huge portion of your damage is coming from uncontrollable pets your damage is often spread out and unfocused. That doesn't necessarily decrease your actual damage output, but it can and does make it a lot less effective in actual play.
I've mentioned it in other threads that there is only one assault set that can put out numbers to keep up with the big boys (scrappers/blasters) and that is /fiery and it requires decent recharge to get there. Certain synergies may allow it to outperform them in some situations, but then again there are situations that will elevate blasters and scrappers to their damage cap, which is higher than a doms. I'd say in actual gameplay hitting damage cap is more common than the unique situations where a /fiery dom will outshine a blaster. The other assault sets don't even come within snipe range of a high recharge /fiery. That may put up a flag that /fiery is too good, but it was that way before the revamp too and Castle actually gave /fiery a higher ceiling with his changes. So hopefully it is safe.
*Yes I saw your mention of ar/dev. I bet it does more damage than a mind/psi. In fact I know it does. But I certainly never said there wasn't overlap between the two AT's. And in this very thread discussing how Assault Rifle is underpowered, one in which I've given my suggestions on how to improve it, you are seriously going to cite AR as proof? -
Quote:Ya, I think it is 75% and Footstomp is 80%. In practice the 5% should be offset by the faster cast.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Except I don't think DT is a guaranteed knockdown, it's like an 80% chance or something.
That said, I'm not sure that scrapper blazing aura actually taunts, so the one's that do escape might be annoying compared to on my FA/ss where they don't go far before coming back to me. -
I think what Billz is saying (actually I know what he's saying) is:
If SS is 'balanced' for brutes and tanks it should be considered balanced for scrappers.
If SS is not considered balanced for scrappers then it is not in its current form actually balanced for brutes or tanks.
We have some evidence supporting this:
Dark Melee, Dual Blades and Elec Melee
We have some evidence contradicting this:
Fire Melee*
*It is worth noting that Fire Melee wouldn't have been unbalanced if directly ported using the tanker model, it just wouldn't have been 'fun' given the way brutes and scrappers are envisioned to play. Or at least not fun until very late level.
What's up in the air is all the remaining sets:
Stone Melee, EM, SS, Spines, Kat, BS, Claws, Ice Melee, Axe and Mace
I can safely say that:
Kat, BS, Claws, Ice Melee, Axe and Mace are all numerically safe to port around. However, ice similar to fire melee tank version won't be 'fun' as the devs see it. Kat and BS generate defense in numbers that the devs may not be comfortable giving brutes/tanks at this time, but from a damage veiwpoint they are fine. And claws may just not be seens as 'tanky' by the devs, which was addressed somewhat in the brute version as it feels heavier than the scrapper version.
Axe and Mace are fine to port, but share a lot in common with BS from damage numbers to animations, but I suspect they will be the next to come scrapper way. You'll notice though that any AT with axe/mace does not have BS.
Spines are kind of a mess.
SS, EM, SM are all flagged as having extreme attacks coupled with extreme mitigation (yes even EM when it comes to single targets). A set like SM is clearly going to dethrone Broadsword as the 'hard hitting' scrapper set while also providing significantly more mitigation. Suffice to say there is a bit more involved in some of these ports than just referencing the theoretical dps calculations (though they are of value). -
Quote:And this is different than the people saying Invuln in what way?Originally Posted by Fulmens
... At recharge cap, for less than half the time.
Oh ya, it doesn't crash your health too, just your end. -
The hold of poison trap is boosted too.
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First you'd need to figure out what the actual cast times are for the whip attacks because the listed times are NOT accurate.
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Strange, I was quite impressed by footstomp+burn on my FA/SS tank.
DT should work even a bit better as it casts faster so less of a chance of them fleeing burn/DT range before you can knock them all down. -
Quote:Dom BU is a 64% buff vs 100% buff for blastersOriginally Posted by Seraphael
Dominators have access to Fiery Embrace (or Build Up) as well as Soul Drain and Poisonous Ray from their epic pools, so I wouldn't exactly say they are inferior to Blasters when it comes to direct damage boosting powers.
Dom soul drain has a 4 min recharge
P-ray is pretty solid, matched well by surveillance though.
Additionally blasters have aim (which is as powerful as dom BU at 62.5 vs 64%). And defiance which on SO's can easily hit 30-40% damage buff.
No it isn't. Even counting pets it isn't.Quote:Dominators single target damage is in general better than that of Blasters, haha, no.Quote:while their AoE damage easily rivals or exceed half of the Blaster sets.
agreed, though worth being aware that their controls are all active mitigation which directly subtract from damage dealing.Quote:At the same time their defenses is several times as good as Blasters through heavy control which also support the entire team. Dominators benefit slightly better from pool powers. Dominators are vastly better soloists Depends on the team. Control is very often redundant as achieving "enough" mitigation to breeze through content is trivial for teams. At that point a blaster is contributing for more than a dominator.Quote:and bring more to their teams.
The changes made to dom snipes are likely a test bed for all the other AT's. Unfortunately it is going poorly because doms still don't take (outside of mules) or use snipes by and large. They are hugely counterproductive to their playstyle and rank about 50th of useful things to open a fight with.Quote:Dominators having superior snipes is just adding insult to injury. I've long suspected the developers of this game have a really strange and outdated view on AT balance. Despite their obvious shortcomings, Blasters remain quite popular, at least at low to medium levels. The living on the edge game style is certainly more exciting than any of the other much safer ATs! I believe this popularity is holding back fixes which the class by all means should get.
Blasters saw significant attention with defiance 2.0 despite being one of the most popular AT's in the game. The popularity of the AT has little bearing on the fixes it receives judging by the attention they received being one of the 'cool' kids and the attention stalkers and doms received being far less popular.
If anything, being popular gets dev attention sooner. Just look at how quickly they caved and gave each AT custom versions of Shield Charge due to player demand, when there have been requests for years to adjust other psuedo-pets so they adhere closer to AT modifiers. -
Quote:I'd guess it was to appease BS scrappers. GFS can do more with dot, but Headsplitter still hits harder in raw damage. If that wasn't why then who knows.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
GFS: Scrapper 2.24 versus Tank/Brute 2.44 with all three getting the 5*.2 DoT
Am I going to pretend that I know why Castle did this? Nope. But I'm certainly not going to take it on your word that the extra .2 base damage would have somehow caused some cataclysmic OP state for scrapper GFS.
I'm reasonably confident that they changed FM when making it for brutes because an unaltered tank version would have sucked for playing with the Fury mechanic until you unlooked incinerate at lvl 26. It was kind of a short sighted move as simply reording the set (which they did) and placing incinerate much earlier would have solved that issue. And did. Likely overcompensation. Remember this was the same time they were stating things like ice melee was too difficult to build fury with yet allowed stone melee and dark armor to go in as is, both of which wreak havoc on fury as much or more than ice melee ever could.Quote:The change of combustion to cremate could probably be explained away as simply as the alteration claws got going to brutes: They wanted the set to "feel" different which has absolutely nothing to do with balance.
Is FM really the best yall have?
Why did scrappers get the Brute version with cremate? why does defender ice blast use the blaster animations instead of the corr/dom ones?
ctrl c + ctrl v probably. -
Traps defender with power mastery FON.
Softcapped to every vector, res capped to all but psi. -
Quote:I don't think they include the interrupt period in the formula. So basically it is a 4.67 second attack, but only uses 1.67 to calculate defiance.Originally Posted by Umbral
I never noticed this until you pointed out. I'm not even quite sure why. They provide the same +dam as basic tier 1/2 attacks, if not less, even though they take 3-4 times as long to animate. As ST attacks, they're not supposed to be using the AoE Defiance formula, though, that's the only possible reason I can imagine why they would be providing so little. That's even less reason to use them.
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Honestly I know I've already said this but, NEW players should be encouraged to be playing on a team. Encouraged by existing players and by the game itself. On teams endurance issues are much less of a concern from lvl 1 all the way to 50. Run any sewers team from lvl 1 to 8, you won't see people needing to rest between every spawn. In fact you'll usually only rest a handful of times in that entire run. It only gets better from there if you team as well.
If NEW players are choosing to solo in an MMO right from the get go then imo they should be willing to accept that it will have certain disadvantages. Mainly, that you aren't on a team.
If we have an influx of new players choosing to solo rather than team I'd suggest that something is wrong with the game and it sure isn't endurance. -
Quote:Yes. There was great anger from one poster in particular. Nobody else really seemed to care. I was that poster lol.Originally Posted by Tal_N
Nevermind then, must have been changed over the last 2 years.
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FFgen is it's own entity, it will continue affecting your team and itself, but no longer you. Same goes for acid mortar, and seekers. Triage I'm not sure about, but probably the same. Poison trap should continue working.
You won't be able to summon any of them while phased though.
Mines I'm not sure about. I've heard different accounts and haven't tried myself. I could log in and grab temp phase to find out, but I'd rather not unless your questions remain unanswered by others. -
Quote:No problem. /earth assault wasn't available when I made my volcano based toon, but even if it was the choice between it and /fire is an easy one as far as I'm concerned.Originally Posted by crazyhorse2
Wow thanks for the great pros and cons frosticus. I decided to go with fire as I think it makes more sense from a concept perspective.
Now I'm thinking I could go fire/earth instead of earth/fire.
Fire/earth is also a good choice. It is a lot more endurance intensive than earth/fire though and will struggle to put out as much damage. It will have better st control with char and seismic smash, but won't have nearly the same aoe control.
I'm not an RP'er, but I greatly enjoyed dropping earthquake (the rumble just before the volcano erupts) and then jumping in and exploding with firebreath+combustion as the volcano erupts and then following it up with st blasts like the hot fire geysers shooting out.
Recolored quicksand to look like lava = awesome
Recolored volcanic gases to look like lava = awesomer
Earth hold/stun controls set to lava = awesomest
It's one of the few toons I've done that is really focused on thematics. The fact that it turned out really powerful too is a huge bonus for how I play the game. -
lotg are what 200 merits
Numi is 240?
That's a lot of random rolls.
I say do the rolls, you'll probably make as much, maybe more, maybe less, but at the very least you'll be supplying the market with 10 or so IO's (crafted or recipe) which is a good thing. -
Quote:Yep, I expect either partial crits like the stalker precedent on TF, or for the powers to actually receive lowered damage like GFS did. In the case of TF, SS, KO, ET it will likely come with a recharge/end cost recalculation as mentioned.Originally Posted by Starsman
A few notes: I still have to see an algoritmical study that properly accounts for recharge buffs/debuffs and misses. I guess that also turns every single one of them irrelevant.
That aside, SS's ability to get punch or kick is irrelevant. The only p ower in that set that entirely sucks is Punch, and taking the best ST pool power in the game does not make the sustained ST capabilities of SS that high.
There is another issue, though, and that is AoE damage. At that point, Rage actually becomes an issue as it's boosting all AoEs you may get from the armor set or the epic pools. That skews things significantly and is one of the reasons why SS is so favored by farmers.
Another issue that comes with Rage is it's burst damage, at least when it comes to bringing the set to scrappers. You may notice that no scrapper has been allowed to have a 20s recharge ST attack with 3.56 DS of damage. I doubt thats a coincidence. The most drastic damage scrappers have received up to this day is in Broad Sword and later a bit higher with Fiery Melee.
When the game launched worries were about one-shooting certain foes. That may still be part of it but these days it also may be invasion of Stalker territory. That AT is heavily crippled in AoE so it can do huge bursts of ST damage and giving scrapers attacks that may surpass that, (and on top of that crit randomly) may be considered unbalanced.
The way I see things, if SS and EM become scrapper sets they will indeed be tweaked. I can see KoB and Total Focus being lowered in recharge to not exceed Headsplitter's damage. This would mess up with both set's DPS though, so i can see the same port taking a bit of time to rebalance both set's Tier 1 attacks to be, at the very least, better than Air Superiority with a decent rotation.
I guess also part of the issue lies with Proliferation process as it stands, so far it seems that most sets are just being ported with few AT modifications. Sets that are in the way of intended AT design just get pushed back and back. Would love to see a revised policy on making more modifications to a powerset's port. -
Quote:Unfortunately you can only run the ITF once per session, so unless you are only playing around 30 mins (including team setup) then you'll be seeking another activity after. Or start rotating through your alts.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
If you're after maximum merits/time, then no, it doesn't matter how much content is available, everybody will still be doing speed ITF runs. Soloists have a room full of Nazis. Those are available to both sides.
If you hate doing the same thing over and over to the point that *gasp* you get tired of fighting a room full of Nazis, or if you have to rely on badgers to run TFs with you, then it is a problem.
It is nice if you have about 5 or so tasks that you can cycle through so you aren't running the exact same content daily. Yes the ITF will always be a staple - it is fast, high level, co-op, and even terrible teams can run it. Get rid of lag hill and it would be perfect.
LGTF is another one that fits nicely into the rotation, or at least will once again when the mito patch goes live.
Numi wasn't bad, but the hunt nerf sucks. Dr Kahn kinda sucks. STF is good, but can be tough with a random pug. Eden and KHTF don't reward anything anymore.
It would be nice if Posi could make it into the rotation, but the fact that it is very low level is already a major detractor for that purpose. Add in poor rewards and it remains a once per toon TF (for the TF commander accolade). At least for me. -
Quote:The 4.2 seconds of fullauto is enough time for an enemy to cross independence port and hit you in the face.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
One jump backwards is also good at keeping things out of melee, and it doesn't cost a ton of end to run.
Yeah, it was my first character. On the upside, Build Up + Full Auto every 25 seconds is sweet, and if I'd actually asked "what's good with AR?" I would have probably ended up AR/Dev like everybody else was back then, with no Aim, no Build Up, and no seeing my costume. -
Quote:Until they can consistently do it faster than a blaster people will probably complain.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
EDIT: I'm curious how long folks think it should take me to solo a def from 1-12.
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Quote:What you are asking for is a slight reduction is endurance consumption yes? And this would have to be across all levels to reduce the perceived notion that stamina is required?Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
Y
The solo-team thing is a very good point. Thank you!
However on the builds, I posit that endurance management is different than a tankermind needing presence. Again it's not just specific builds or characters with specific purposes. It is all builds across all ATs across nearly all powersets. That is a qualitative difference from "tankerminds".
Also, the build issue, I believe is a class issue. Not meaning AT, but as in class-warfare. Have's and Have-Not's. I believe (from observation I will grant you) that the skilled players have no trouble with it but the new players and the low-skill and the middle-skill have too much trouble with it. Too much defined as it is the clearest and most common limit on the fun-factor of this game.
Both teamed and solo. At least in a team the rest can keep going while one rests. But when I'm in a pug, and I see one guy stopping every second spawn, I know he's not having as much fun as the rest of us. Watching everyone else kick *** when you're gasping for breath makes you delete your character. Do it too many times and you delete the game.
At low skill levels, this is too easy and too common.
I do agree that it is not an issue at all for skilled builders. I do still believe it is a problem for the game community on the whole. As for your other claims, I do not support infinite endurance and never asked for it.
How slight?
Slight enough that if I choose to take stamina endurance ceases to be any sort of concern outside of t9 crashes? Cause even a 20% reduction in endurance costs across the board would pretty much achieve that for the majority of toons on SO's.
But lets pretend we arbitrarily pick a new paradigm for endurance consumption rate. What's to stop me from building a fire/sonic controller and then complaining that I still eat through too much endurance? That is a legitimate complaint isn't it?
The only way it would be fair is to continue reducing it until no one "frequently has to stop". If you do that for the most endurance consumptive combo's you have given infinite endurance to almost everyone else. All they would have to do is pick up stamina and their blue bar will cease to be a concern. Which right now is reserved for a select number of special combo's.
Conversely, what sort of assurance do we have that even with lower end costs people won't just start slotting for more recharge and skimp on endurance reduction slotting and wind up in practically the same situation? -
Quote:You have a toggle version of caltrops, but way better. Unfortunately it doesn't mesh with the cone/ranged nature of AR other than being decent at keeping things out of melee, but not all combo's can be high in synergy.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Sure, if you're /dev. My mitigation from my secondary is....well, look at my sig and tell me how much mitigation I have in that PoS secondary. Knockback, knockdown and Cryo Freeze Ray, that's about all I've got unless I want to deal with redraw with Ring of Fire.
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Good thing no one took me up on my offer to sell them the vid before it was officially released. They probably would have had severe post-purchase remorse after seeing it.
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Quote:You may have been away when Castle went through and curbstomped all the fun people were having.Originally Posted by Tal_N
Incorrect because you can put procs into some pets such as the KB one which adds a +rech bonus and it allows Phantasm to summon two decoys at the same time when it triggers. So if they can be influenced by +rech then they can be influenced by -rech.
All pets (assuming he didn't miss any)and pseudo-pets that benefited from recharge were set to ignore recharge modifications. Basically they were given the Strength of Will treatment.
It accomplished three things:
1. It supposedly corrected some AI issues that pets with multiple attacks would experience when their recharge was modified
2. It nerfed the hell out of powers like Lightning storm and Fire Imps that never had issues cycling attacks because they only have one attack.
3. It eliminated one of the unique advantages that some sets could provide such as cold protecting pets from recharge debuffs, Kins doing the same and making them attack faster, and the unique advantage that zombies originally had in being 100% immune to rech/speed debuffs