Fulmens
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:... I'm not sure I understand this. I think I disagree. When you see "average" or "Baseline" I see "minimum". You're measuring Force Fielders in the context of the team they can help most, it seems like.Originally Posted by Umbral
I would argue this a great deal, especially when you start factoring in the fact that FF only makes Blasters into gods because it can softcap them (which is pretty much the only substantial thing that FF brings to the table). It does almost nothing to increase group kill speed which I factor into the end value in the exact same way as I factor in survivability contribution.
I'm also saying that I'm using Blaster equivalents rather than simply straight up Blasters. I'm assuming that the individuals on the team have no preexisting defenses and that any damage provided to the team is multiplied based off of an assumption of Blaster damage.
For survivability, this means the almost the exact same thing as if I picked defenders, corruptors, controllers, or any other AT that maximally benefits from survivability buffs (the very same fact which is balanced out by the fact that the tougher ATs have higher base and peak survivability) which allows me to say with a degree of certainty that Blasters form the rough "average" for survivability buff contribution comparison: higher hp than the other low ATs with no preexisting defenses to inflate the value of said buffs (because a Scrapper with a modicum of defense can softcap with Cold buffs which would inflate the contribution of those very shields because of increased effect). Similarly, Blasters are the "average" of damage because they exist on the same damage level as Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes, Dominators, and EATs without bringing in the damage contribution mechanisms of Tankers, Corrupters, Defenders, Controllers, and Masterminds.
Blasters exist as an excellent baseline of performance for the various ATs: they have baseline survivability and functional damage right in the middle of the ATs and, because all that matters to buffs is your baseline survivability and functional damage (because that's what the buffs act upon) I can say with some reasonable assurance that Blasters work perfectly well as a "standard" ally to gauge the effects of buff/debuff sets upon.
Any team where there are individuals with significant personal Defense, or people providing significant team Defense, or significant enemy Acc Debuffs, is going to see Force Fields underperform dramatically. That's not EVERY team, but it's certainly a LOT of teams. -
It's a cheesy workaround but you can always take the posting fee refunded and multiply by 20.
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I'm up for a regular team to do a few tip missions a day or a few a week at a fixed time (ie. 7 AM eastern every day, or tuesday 3 PM.) I have some flexibility on when and where.
Who's still interested in this project? -
nooo, you're going to spoil the new kid for regular play!
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Quote:Sorry to be the Guy Who Won't Shut Up about the market: it's not a store, it's a swap meet. If you leave a bid up it will usually fill overnight or over a weekend. You may have to leave a bid up on a couple different items; the good news is, if they ALL fill you can usually make a profit on the ones you don't use.Originally Posted by RiggsMcClane
So I'm looking for Reactive Armor. lol There's none for sale. Even then you could hardly afford it. What other option do I have for enhancing Inv?
So just like you have to leave stuff up for sale if you want people to buy, you have to leave bids up to buy if you want people to sell. -
Quote:Stop having fun!Originally Posted by heffroncm
HAH! I don't even know where to BEGIN spending Inf. All the help I've asked for in the Scrapper and Defender forums has fallen on deaf ears. The best idea on spending Inf right now is "buy the Red sets."
You know, I just realized, I think I'm officially that guy that eryqs is always talking about. You know, the one that just plays the market, never the real game, and cackles madly over his money? I've amassed a giant pile of Inf for no purpose other than to have a pile of Inf. I have nothing, really, to spend it on. I'm pretty happy with the performance of my EM/WP scrapper with common IOs at 20.
Maybe I'll buy 2 million prestige for my new RP SG to get the base started. -
Mission teleporter came in one of the expansion sets.
Turning off XP, should you wish, is somewhere under Menu/Options. -
I wouldn't describe Storm as a "Beginner" set. There aren't a lot of sets that can accidentally grief your team, but Storm is one of them.
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I know you don't have to do the morality mission.I converted 50 merits and 20 million inf without having done a single mission on that character. I did have Going Rogue at the time, so can't comment on that.
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I don't think Ouro has many outliers left... there WERE superefficient arcs [mostly single missions- Negotiator, maybe?] and they got hammered down. Aren't Ouro arcs still balanced around "15 minutes per merit" or something?
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I'm personally betting that you'll get a spare 2 billion first. I've been wrong before, though.
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What is the reasoning behind not using Wents? Avoiding the 10% fee? Selling 50+'es? Fear of flooding the market?
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Let's take it from a game design point of view:
Nothing is ever balanced perfectly. I suspect they try to balance so the best stuff is no more than, roughly, twice as good as the average.
Let's pretend that someone finds an intensely repetitive, intensely boring thing that is ten times as good as the average.
People now have the choice between boring themselves TO DEATH or penalizing themselves by a factor of ten. Want examples? Issue 4, level 46, Wolf and Dreck maps. Stand around for 15 minutes while the tank actually plays, the Blaster nukes and dies, and gain way more XP than you could possibly have done by actually playing.
If the boring thing can only be done once per character per day, you have throttled this choice.
And a 10-minute katie or a 10-minute eden IS boring, if you do it enough times in a row.
The correct answer is "Fix the thing that's 10 times better", but in the mean time, you're forced to either do more than one thing, or to take extreme measures to bore the pants off yourself. -
Force Fields is the MOST support with the LEAST dps. If you get Maneuvers, and you keep the bubbles up on everyone all the time, you softcap everyone who can be bothered to stay within 25 feet of you. To translate that out of number-crunch mode: Take someone with very little defense. Take four small purples and go up to something that should kill you a lot and slap it a couple times. Watch it not kill you.
Force Fields does that for your whole team, except you.
You're at a real risk of getting bored if you play it, though, because it's a very low-impact set. -
Yup, Muphry's Law again. I was looking at Energy Armor the other day and mixed up Energy Drain and Energize.
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So many points to discuss ... "Fix Force Fields" thread, how I've missed you.
First the minors-
(DrMike)
Quote:Actually, you can do this at level 17, with three extra slots and L20 IO's.From level 22, you're pretty much guaranteed to transform all your teammates experience at an investment of about 1/8th of your playtime. Unless they're all Tankers.
(Turbo_Ski)
... actually Energize replaced Power Sink, I think. Has all the Power Sink functionality plus the undersized heal.Quote:They've completely removed and replaced powers in the past that were widely considered redundant or underperforming, as is the case with Energize replacing Conserve Power when the set already had Power Sink yet lacked a heal.
(Umbral)
Actually, they're not. You're going to overestimate the benefit of Force Fields a LOT with Blasters, because they've got the best synergy of anything except maybe kin and granite. You can add Sonic to ANY TEAM and get clear measurable significant benefits. You can only add Force Fields to ANY TEAM and get c m s benefits if you don't already have that. Or if you don't have two Icers, team-specced Crabs, team-specced Widows, etc. (much the same as with Kinetics- the second one is mostly wasted.)Quote:The most complicated part was simply deriving assumptions for team makeup (I generally assumed a teammates to be Blasters because they're the most "team neutral").
Force Fields + N blasters = N tankmages.
Now on to my opinions on "how to fix FF"- yeah, most of you know 'em already...
the Bible for force fields pretty much says, in my opinion, "None shall be better at Defense. Knockback. " It's a nonreactive set, it's going to be a nonreactive set forever, and if you don't like it... there's a dozen other things to try out there. I used FF as an example, in another thread, of niche play. I think that's pretty much it.
My fix would not change the nonreactive part, because that's what's unique about FF. Love it or [as everyone does] hate it, that's what Force Fields IS. My fix would, however, involve burning the Cottage Rule to the ground.
I'd pick either Force Bubble or Repulsion Field and replace it with the Sonic equivalent of Dispersion Bubble [can't remember the name right now, tomax is down for me] but with one severe caveat: you can run EITHER dispersion Bubble or resisto-dispersion bubble, but not both at once. That way if you run into the team that has another force fielder/ice corruptor/six guys with Maneuvers/whatever, you can switch to providing AOE resistance.
(Other people might want to pick the phasing power, I'm fine with that. Just don't touch my Force Bolt and nobody has to get 65% of hurt.) -
I think they'll get a Dark secondary about the time they get a Sonic secondary.
A Dark Blast set might edge out my Fire blasters for a while... -
I'd like to mention something: Kinetics is not the set that gives you "more survivability" than a Blaster in any significant sense. 25% off enemy damage and a big melee-range heal is OK, I guess, but compared to 30% off enemy damage and getting hit 1/5 or 1/10 as much? Not really the same thing.
Kinetics is outstanding at what it does, which is pour on the offense. Any defensive benefits that result are purely accidental. -
There has been more than one thread lately like this: "I want something that does more damage than everything else, and survives better than everything else, and I want it to peak before level 20."
... that's why we have "Balance."
Every tank I've ever played (Admittedly only 3-4), and every villain I've ever played, took about 20 levels to get their feet under them. Super Strength [esp. on a tank] is a PARTICULARLY slow starter. You get zero AOE powers from 1 to 31 on a brute, 1 to 37 on a tank. You start out with a couple of patty-cake melee attacks. When you finally get the big hitter you sort of forget about the low levels; I'm told mothers forget the pain of childbirth, too. -
Oh no! People you wouldn't want to team with won't invite you!
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So that's what is up with the Rain of Fire love. Huh.
My Blaster experience was always Fireball, Firebreath, shoot the lieutenants... RoF never entered into the equation because anything where I needed the extra AOE damage, I wasn't going to live to deliver it. -
... could you lurk in PVP zones near the other side's base?
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My theory is, if the rest of the team has died and you've managed to temporarily escape...
... umm...
ok, I got nothin'. -
When I checked a few weeks ago, freedom and virtue were around 1200 each and all the other servers were around 2-300 each.
recently freedom and virtue were around 1700 each and infinity was around 500 .