Happy_Thoughts

Now I'm perplexed.

I tested the Oil Slick again this morning, after removing the accuracy enhancement from Blazing Arrow.

Accuracy results: 47 out of 50 hit on the first attempt, the other three hit on the second attempt. That's right around the 95% cap, which I'm guessing is where it's set at.

Ignition results: 50 out of 50 Oil Slicks ignited. As far as I know, nothing changed server-side since yesterday when I tested. The things different in today's test from yesterday's test (on my end) were: No accuracy in Blazing Arrow (vs. 1 yesterday); today I had Speed Boost; and today I was grouped (with my wife's Ice/Kinetics controller, take a guess as to why!).

One minor factor is that, for these 50 Oil Slicks, there were no enemies on the slick. Yesterday, almost all of mine had enemies; however, even some of the ones that had no enemies yesterday failed to ignite. After these 50, I did 10 with enemies on them, and all 10 of them lit (though one did take two attempts to hit it). Admittedly, 10 is within the "streakiness" factor I encountered yesterday, so I'll likely run another set of 50 later today after the patch is done.

[ QUOTE ]
Testing was done using Blazing Arrow with two +3 accuracy SOs (if I had thought about it beforehand, I would have removed them; I may get in a subsequent test tomorrow with base accuracy).

[/ QUOTE ]
Minor correction: I was using the version of my character with only one +3 accuracy SO.

Working on the no-accuracy test currently.

[ QUOTE ]
While the ability to hit more consistently is nice, the fact of the matter is, out of 20 tries, I missed 3 times, but the slick lit only once. No, that wasn't a typo. ONE TIME.

[/ QUOTE ]
It was definitely streaky. The first 15 in my testing lit, while the last 17 did not.

Tomorrow I'm going to try running the test with different attacks, to see if the results are similar with single-target attacks that don't have dual damage types, and with area effects of single damage types.

Whatever the bug is, it needs to be fixed before I7 sees the live servers. If I'm going to jump through hoops to get this aspect of my power to work, there's no reason it shouldn't work each and every time.

From the 5/31/06 Training Room patch notes:

[ QUOTE ]
• The Oil Slick Target should be easier to hit now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I ran out and did some testing. Testing was done using Blazing Arrow with two +3 accuracy SOs (if I had thought about it beforehand, I would have removed them; I may get in a subsequent test tomorrow with base accuracy).

As far as the patch note goes, it is accurate. Out of 50 Oil Slicks, I only missed once (and hit it on the subsequent attempt). I still don't understand why there's a to-hit check on our own power, but it is much better than it is on live.

That said, there's the second part of the equation that has yet to be addressed. That being Oil Slicks that are hit and destroyed, but outright fail to ignite. Out of the 50 Oil Slicks (all of which were hit with Blazing Arrow and defeated), only 24 actually ignited. This isn't a typo or math error. The success rate of lighting my own Oil Slick was only 48%.

Is this a bug with Oil Slick? Is it just Blazing Arrow? Is this the intended success ratio? (if the answer to that last question is "yes" then please help me bury my TA Defender)

I'd be interested to see other players' results. I'd be even more interested to hear some developer feedback.

Ugh, this is what I get for posting in a hurry.

I forgot my manners.

Huge, HUGE thanks to Balanced, Luminara, Veazey, and _Darkblade for taking the time to run this test.

Operation: Same Mission, Different Defender results!

This is a really, really long post! Only read if you are genuinely interested in the results, or are a developer (heck, you can be both if you’d like!)

On Thursday night, a few of us got together to compare the performance of Trick Arrow with other defender primaries. We decided to run one mission several times with the same group, swapping out only the defender. No other defenders were present, nor were any controllers.

This was by no means a complete or definitive test. There were factors which could be seen as swaying the results, but we were looking to simulate the average pick-up group. Some of these factors included: One of our Peacebringers used an area effect stun each fight (thus reducing the defendering needs somewhat); self-heals saw a lot of use; we ran from group to group without worrying about who or what was a debuff anchor; we (unintentionally, I swear!) got split up a couple of times.

I would have loved to have a Radiation defender subbed in, but none was available. Ditto for Force Fields. We were going to run a Kinetics, but time constraints (mine) prevented this. We did run a Dark Miasma/, Storm/, and Trick Arrow/.

The tangible data we were looking at included damage taken, damage done, experience per minute, time taken to complete the mission, and number of deaths.

The Group:
Level 33 Dark Melee/Dark Armor Scrapper (Balanced) (Sidekicked up to level 36)
Level 36 Peacebringer (Luminara)
Level 37 Claws/Super Reflexes Scrapper (Veazey)
Level 35 Peacebringer (_Darkblade)
Level 37 Spines/Dark Armor Scrapper (Valorin)

I played the following defenders:
Level 38 Storm/Electric (Exemplared to level 35)
Level 44 Dark Miasma/Dark Blast (Exemplared to level 35)
Level 32 Trick Arrow/Archery (Sidekicked up to level 35)

The 38 and 44 did not use any powers obtained after level 32, and all slots obtained after level 31 were intentionally left empty. So they were not getting any extra powers or slots while exemplared than the 32 had access to.

We ran one of Veazey's Missions, which was full of level 38 Nemesis (+3 to each of my defenders). Veazey had several copies of his character on the training room server so that we could complete the mission and restart it each time we swapped defenders. Nobody levelled during testing, so levels were constant for the duration of the test.

HeroStats (Unstable) was used to gather data. _Darkblade had problems with HeroStats which were not realized until after the first run, so his data is not included in any of the results.

Experience per minute was taken from Valorin, since he was tied as the highest level character. We were already using Veazey’s mission, and I didn’t want Val to feel left out.

Regardless of which defender was present, the group’s approach was constant. Luminara would jump in and nearly die, and the rest of us followed doing our thing.

Here is the tangible data:

Run 1: Storm
Total team damage taken: 47,085.33
<ul type="square">[*]Balanced: 2,251.15; Luminara: 34,375.52; Veazey: 3,635.28; _Darkblade: not available; Valorin: 5,467.15; Goofy Parrot: 1,356.23[/list]Total team damage done: 106,299.29
<ul type="square">[*] Balanced: 16,269.99; Luminara: 14,702.84; Veazey: 24,448.67; _Darkblade: not available; Valorin: 49,556.19; Goofy Parrot: 1,321.60[/list]Experience per minute: 2,804
Time to complete mission: 23 minutes 3 seconds
Number of deaths: 1

Notes: I made it a point to use all of the tools in the Storm arsenal; all 9 Storm powers were in this build. Yes, I even used Tornado (though only in the final room). I still had plenty of time to toss in blasts, mostly in the form of Ball Lightning because that power just makes me giggle. This team took more damage than the other two, most of it taken by Luminara (she took more than double the damage in this team than in either of the others). Even with no self-heal, or anyone in the group to heal me, I only had to use Rest once in the mission, and used no inspirations of any sort. That mythical “scatter” that so many people are fond of complaining about didn’t seem to be much of a factor here, but perhaps my teammates can elaborate in a more unbiased fashion on that.

The one death we did have occurred when a team member charged a group when I was still coming up the stairs, before I could round the corner and have line of sight.

O2 Boost had only the default slot, with an endurance reducer in it; most of the defending I did was through debuffs.

This group finished the mission the fastest, but that is partly attributed to the fact that there was no Nictus Crystal in this mission, while both of the other missions spawned one.

Ironically, the Storm team took the most damage (even though the other teams had the Nictus Crystal and more deaths), yet went the smoothest of the three missions. I think part of that is that O2 Boost, while being a relatively weak heal, has no to-hit roll involved (enemies were +3 to me in my exemplared state). Another factor which I believe influenced this is that in most cases, enemies were being kept fairly close together with Hurricane, allowing area effect powers to do their thing more quickly and efficiently.

I believe most of the extra damage came from the alpha strikes, as illustrated by Luminara’s damage taken. Since I followed her in, mobs were not yet debuffed by Hurricane when they took their first shots at her.



Run 2: Dark Miasma
Total team damage taken: 43,167
<ul type="square">[*]Balanced: 6,296.85; Luminara: 15,370.56; Veazey: 5,589.35; _Darkblade: not available; Valorin: 9,565.33; Goofy Parrot: 6,344.91[/list]Total team damage done: 105,689.02
<ul type="square">[*]Balanced: 18,478.53; Luminara: 14,499.29; Veazey: 22,381.1; _Darkblade: not available; Valorin: 49,408.57; Goofy Parrot: 921.53[/list]Experience per minute: 2,438
Time to complete mission: 24 minutes 40 seconds
Number of deaths: 6

Notes: In comparison to the Storm results, this may look like a sad day for Dark defenders. The truth of it is that we were in full-bore pick-up group mode, and that is worth repeating. Darkest Night anchors rarely lived for long, and no attempt was made to save them for last. This was done so the comparisons would be valid.

Had we been coordinating, debuff pulling, etc., I’m confident that this team would have fared vastly better than the others. However, we were not trying to fabricate ideal conditions, but were going for the stereotypical pick-up group experience.

5 of the 6 deaths we had were due to an exploding Nictus Crystal. The ensuing hospital trip contributed to the mission completion time (we were about ¾ of the zone away from the hospital in Steel Canyon, and the crystal was on the final floor of the mission).

Most of the defending I did was in the form of debuffs. Twilight Grasp had a hard time hitting +3s, especially when the Vengeance storm hit. I didn’t see a single successful Twilight Grasp from the Dark Servant (though he did trail behind a lot and I could have missed it). I did mention we were fighting Nemesis, yes? I did not have a respec available on this character, but he did have every Dark Miasma power with the exception of Black Hole. Black Hole would have been handy for the gobs and gobs of baddies generated by the Nictus Crystal, but any other time it would have just made things more difficult for us.

With frequent use of Tar Patch, Twilight Grasp (hey, I was optimistic), Darkest Night (I reapplied as soon as I could whenever the anchor was killed), and Fearsome Stare—plus occasional use of Petrifying Gaze—I could still toss out Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall every fight. I favored Tentacles for the immobilization, but the main point is that I had time to use both my primary and secondary sets. My attacks were damage over time, and we had such heavy offense that having any of them last their full duration was a pipe dream, so getting to 900 damage (against +3s) meant plenty of castings.

During this mission, I used no inspirations and did not use Rest.

Alpha strike damage was way down on this team, which I attribute to the fact that I was casting Darkest Night as soon as I saw Luminara rushing in to each group. So, while the debuff didn’t usually stay around for long, it did have an impact on the alpha strikes.

I personally took significantly more damage in this mission than I did with my Storm defender, which is easily explained by the fact that Hurricane was always on, whereas Darkest Night was briefly on (earning me aggro) and then it wasn’t on.



Run 3: Trick Arrow
Total team damage taken: 43,975.69
<ul type="square">[*]Balanced: 8050.80; Luminara: 16,878.01; Veazey: 4,635.30; _Darkblade: not available; Valorin: 10,063.20; Goofy Parrot: 4,348.38[/list]Total team damage done: 106,118.66
<ul type="square">[*]Balanced: 19,995.63; Luminara: 14,690.30; Veazey: 19,685.88; _Darkblade: not available; Valorin: 51,039.63; Goofy Parrot: 707.22[/list]Experience per minute: 2,437
Time to complete mission: 23 minutes 50 seconds
Number of deaths: 7

Notes: Somehow, the numbers on this compare well to the Dark Miasma team. Admittedly, we weren’t playing in a toggle-friendly mode, but the fact of Luminara’s relatively low damage taken stat is something I can’t explain at the moment. Mobs were Flash Arrowed, but a 9.6% accuracy debuff doesn’t account for her taking less than half the damage she did with the Storm team. My best guess is that by this point, everyone was running in with her rather than behind her, as the damage seems to be spread out a bit more evenly among team members. Anyone who was on the team that can remember this detail?

The increased availability of Glue Arrow and Disruption Arrow was noticeable, as they were up nearly every fight.

The increased chance and duration of the sleep component in Poison Gas Arrow was nice. Even though this was an area-effect using group, there were times when some enemies would be out of the melee area attack range, and be slept when I applied Poison Gas Arrow. Sure, the sleep didn’t last for long against +3s, but the fact that I noticed it at all is a huge improvement over the live version.

I used two health inspirations (one small, one medium), and used Rest once during the mission.

I spent an inordinate amount of time applying debuffs. In each fight I would cast Flash Arrow, Glue Arrow (nearly every fight; it was occasionally not ready), Poison Gas Arrow, Acid Arrow, and Disruption Arrow (again, nearly every fight). I used Oil Slick when it was up as well. What was happening was that the fights were almost over by the time I got done applying all those debuff powers, even not counting Oil Slick. The result was that I rarely had the opportunity to toss in attacks, and the debuffs that I applied towards the end of the debuff chain were not in effect for most of the fight. The combination of so many powers needed to get the debuffs down, and the long animation times associated with each, made this a full-time job, and an inefficient one at that.

To illustrate how little time I had available for attacks, I did 200 points of damage less with attacks that do up-front damage (Blazing Arrow and Fistful of Arrows) than I did with damage over time attacks that didn’t get to run their full course (Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall).

One could argue that I could have chosen to not use some of my debuffs, but that wouldn’t have been a valid comparison. The Storm and Dark Miasma defenders constantly used all of their debuffs (and heals), yet had time to use attacks every fight without compromising the use of their primary powers.

I feel that the length of time required to apply (and reapply) Trick Arrow debuffs is an unnecessary hindrance. While the animations may “look cool,” they are pretty impractical if you want to play the set as a Defender rather than a Blaster.

We did run our defender comparison on the training room last night, and I'll be posting the results along with my impressions and analysis soon. I wanted to get it posted today, but I don't have as much time as I'd hoped to devote to it.

Expect it some time this weekend (while it's all still fresh in my mind!).

Drsus: [ QUOTE ]
I'd love to come, but i don't have any heroes in the mid 30's

[/ QUOTE ]
We should have just enough to sidekick/exemplar you if everyone shows up and my math is right (it being 5:30 a.m. and all). Feel free to bring anything except a controller or defender. Also, please make sure you have HeroStats Unstable running.

If you can make it, that will give us a full group of 8, which will be ideal!

Biostem: [ QUOTE ]
Please just let me know what AT you'd prefer.

[/ QUOTE ]
Anything except a controller or defender. If your signature list is your complete roster, that leaves only the scrapper and peacebringer. Either of those will work fine, or you can bring another of your choice if you have something else not listed.

I'm specifically not trying to build the perfect team here, so I'm not asking for specific archetypes. Whatever you have and feel like playing is what you should bring, there is a sidekick/exemplar spot reserved for you already.

As to the where/when, we're starting tonight (Thursday) at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. If everyone's security level is at least 30, we can do the first mission (or two if the first one is short) of the Manticore task force in Brickstown.

If we have any sidekicks who aren't 30 yet, we can just run a normal mission.

Also, I'd like to ask everyone who's bringing a character in the 30's to copy a few versions of that character over. The reason being that if we're going to run this mission several times, it's possible that by the third or fourth run at least one of us will level. If that happens, it skews the test (doubly so since you'll be sidekicking or exemplaring another character). This won't apply to exemplared characters or sidekicked characters (as long as they don't train up and get new powers or slots).

I'll be on before start time, using @Goofy Parrot as my global chat handle. Just send me a message when you get on for the invites.

Balanced: If you could bring your scrapper, that would be great.

Veazey: Either your scrapper or blaster would work. Currently it looks like we've got a four-level spread, so even if you bring the scrapper we might want to exemplar you down a few levels. Or we might not, depending on how the team shapes up!

Drusus: By all means, come see the results first-hand if you're available! We're aiming for a mid-30's group of mixed heroes.

Biostem: Any hero that's not a defender or controller will do. Mid-30's would be great, but not a strict requirement. Just let me know what you'd like to bring.


So far it looks like I have defender duty. Mine are a bit diverse in levels, but I think I have a way around that. My plan is to do respec versions on the training room (egad, I hope I have respecs available!), making sure to not put any enhancements in slots obtained from level 31 on (since my TA/ is 30). Obviously, powers higher than 30 won't be on the bar, either. For the TA run, I'll need to be SK'ed; when I exemplar the others, somebody one level lower than the TA's mentor will be my target so that the effective fighting level is the same (ideally this level will be 34, since that's what level my Kinetics is). Sorry if it sounds confusing!


The Tentative Roster so far:
Goofy Parrot: Defender duty (TA, Dark, Storm, Kinetics); SK/Exemp spot needed
Luminara: 36 Peacebringer
Balanced: 33 Scrapper
_Darkblade: 34 Peacebringer
Veazey: 39 blaster or 37 scrapper; Exemp spot possibly needed
Biostem: undetermined; SK/Exemp possibly needed

I may also have another volunteer, but not confirmed yet.

Just a reminder: Please have the unstable version of HeroStats installed and running; I really think that some of the information tracked (damage taken, etc.) would be meaningful to have.

Also, if everyone has TeamSpeak I'd prefer to use that over typing (old and lazy me); but if this isn't doable, I guess I'll let you primitives drag me back to the stone age and use the keyboard.

Whoops! Yes, this will be on the test server, that way we can evaluate the TA/ changes in a group situation.

My TA/ defender is idling at level 30

My available characters are: 36 Warshade, 34 Blaster, 35 Tanker, 27 Scrapper.

My defender pool is: 44 Dark, 38 Storm, 34 Kinetics, and 30 Trick Arrow. If our team was around level 30, I could use my TA and exemp down the Storm and Kinetics if push came to shove (though I'd rather not have those extra slots factored in).

Luminara, I think the 36 PB is probably a good target. If we can get more mid-30's folks, it'll give a decent indication of the post-SO, pre-Hami game.

Okay, this is for those interested in participating in Operation: Same Mission, Different Defender.

How does Thursday evening (5/18/06) at 7:00 p.m. Eastern sound?

Ideally I'd like to make sure we meet the following criteria:
<ul type="square">[*]The group mission should be at least in the high-20s or low-30s[*]Sidekicking/Exemplaring is fine for everyone except the TA/ Defender and his replacement(s); I don't want fewer powers for a SK or extra slots for an Exemplar skewing the results in any direction[*]If possible, I'd like the same player to run the TA/ defender and replacement(s); this may not be possible to do unless someone has multiple defenders (including TA/) at the same level[*]I'd like all players to be running HeroStats (unstable version for test), so that after each run of the mission we can record damage taken for each character[*]I'd certainly prefer to not have a controller for this test; any defendery overlap (or elimination of need for defendering due to controllering) is a factor I don't want present[*]At the very least, I'd like to have Radiation/, Storm/, and either Force Field/, Sonic/ or Kinetics/ as replacement defenders. The first two to compare debuff sets, and FF/ or Kin/ to compare to buff sets.[*]Anything else that would help make a clear comparison that I've not listed here[/list]The basic idea is going to be to have a team do a mission to almost completion; i.e., leave a blinkie unclicked. We'll do it once with a TA/ defender (and no other defenders or controllers); then again replacing the TA/ with other defender types. For each run we'll record time taken to complete the mission (except for the blinkie), number of deaths, amount of damage taken per character, and anything else we decide is relevant.

Whew.

[ QUOTE ]
Just a general inquiry: is TA, as it is shaping up w/ all these changes, going to be decent for MMs come i7? I ask, because many of the powers *sound* good, but all the hero planner programs I've checked with show the debuffs as too small and the recharges too long...

[/ QUOTE ]
I believe the general feeling is that TA is okay as a secondary for Controllers and Masterminds; as a Defender primary, however, it falls flat.

It's probably better for a Mastermind if for no other reason than while you're stuck in your long and frequent animations applying debuffs, your minions are still attacking for you.

I wouldn't advise taking the raw data in hero planners as gospel. A lot of it is based on incorrect or outdated information.

As far as the debuff values for Masterminds are concerned, the only one I've personally tested was Poison Gas Arrow. That comes in at a -damage of 15%, compared to the Defender version which is about 30%.

[ QUOTE ]
That's sort of what I meant. -Recharge is a 'Slow' which is the same vernacular used for -RunSpeed or -FlySpeed. All three will show in the enhancement tool tip as 'Slow' and if all three are present all three are displayed.

[/ QUOTE ]
_Castle_, the general agreement is that -recharge is not affected by enhancements. If that is the case, it shouldn't be showing up with a separate modifier (since it's not modified); if that isn't the case, I suspect at least the more observant players would have noticed by now.

[ QUOTE ]
Flash Arrow needs a Respectable ACC debuff (double it?)

[/ QUOTE ]
I maintain that tripling it isn't out of the question. Giving Trick Arrow better debuffs than other debuff sets, to offset the extra non-debuff options those sets get, is what "balance" is about.

[ QUOTE ]
entangling Arrow should Have the -recharge of web grenade or slightly better.

[/ QUOTE ]
Absolutely. The -recharge of Entangling Arrow was originally removed because "Set already has many recharge debuffs." At the time, "many" meant four. However, at the same time this change was made, the -recharge in Ice Arrow was reduced, and the -recharge in Poison Gas Arrow was removed entirely. We went from "many" -recharge powers to two, and one of those (Ice Arrow) became negligible.

That said, please, please let me reiterate my earlier sentiment that Trick Arrow as a Defender set needs a revamping, not just minor tweaks to invidivual powers for the reasons I outlined earlier in this thread.

[ QUOTE ]
Control suppression. I understand suppressing the same abilities, but why would being immune to hold make one immune to sleep or disorient?

Something as simple as a melee disorient side effect could negate a controllers contribution, much less a defenders with holds.

[/ QUOTE ]

From CuppaJo, 4/14/05
[ QUOTE ]
Set all Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immobilize and Fear to suppress each other in PvP. That is, if you affected by any of those control effects in PvP, you cannot be affected by any of those control effects for 15 seconds.

[/ QUOTE ]
Mezzes have always been troublesome to balance for PvP. Nobody likes being chain-held, while mezzers don't like their main specialty to be rendered irrelevant. This goes back much farther than CoH/CoV. I don't know if suppression is the best way of dealing with this, especially in a game where there are many counters to being mezzed, but it's what they came up with.

Back to TA though, since PvP doesn't interest me.

I wish I could have been there for the testing, but it was a bit later than this old fogey stays up on weekdays. If the next test is in my timeframe, I'd love to show up.

One of the things I'd absolutely love to do is run a mission with only one defender, a TA/; then run the same mission with the same people, but have the TA/ bring one of his/her other debuffing defenders (Storm/, Dark/, or Rad/) and run the mission again for comparison. Yeah, I know it's outside of the scope of this thread, but I'd like to do it anyway.

Thanks to those of you who did test and post. Keep the observations coming, we may yet see a second developer appearance and feedback!

[ QUOTE ]
WOOT!!! Indirect buff to glue arrow and we are now on even footing with controllers as to it's use.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure that's "woot" worthy. It's possible I'm the only one who thinks that a power in our primary should perform better than that power in someone else's secondary, I suppose. Presumably this change should affect Oil Slick Arrow and the new-and-slightly-undebuffed Entangling Arrow.

I question the bit about slow tables having been reversed with Defenders and Controllers, since we were told by _Castle_ that it was intentional for Controllers to slow better than Defenders. I mean, I agree that slow sounds more like a debuff and should fall into Defender domain, but contradictions like this confuse my little brain.

Still, a buff is a buff.

[ QUOTE ]
* Changed the timing on the Oil Slick Ignite effect to improve its chances of affecting the Oil Slick.

[/ QUOTE ]
Whatever was done, it did not work. Nor do I feel it's a justifiable method based on the description. There should be no chance at all for the ignition process—which is already dependent on a power external to Trick Arrow—to fail.

I tested 30 Oil Slicks and here are my light/fail to light results.
<ul type="square">[*]16 Oil Slicks ignited
— Of these, 4 required multiple attempts due to missing but eventually ignited[*]14 Oil Slicks failed to ignite
— Of these, 4 required multiple attempts due to missing and failed to ignite when eventually hit[*]Ignition percentage on successful hit: 53.33%[/list]There is also the matter of flat-out missing our own Oil Slick, which deserves some sort of response and repairing. I actually tested 31 Oil Slicks, but had to disqualify one because I could not hit the Oil Slick until the nanosecond before it expired, and couldn't tell if it would have lit or not.

My hit/miss ratio (and I'm including Oil Slick 31 here) is as follows. Using Blazing Arrow to light the Oil Slick, with an even-level SO accuracy enhancement in it.
<ul type="square">[*]31 hits (whether or not Oil Slick ignited)[*]10 misses[*]Successful hit percentage: 75.61%[/list]Is there a reason that we should ever miss our own power? The ignition process of Oil Slick is conceptually acceptable, but is simply not practical in use.

[ QUOTE ]
* Glue Arrow now has a -Fly component. For real this time.

[/ QUOTE ]
Glue Arrow does prevent flight now, thank you! It still cannot be used on a target that is flying (if the target is more than a few feet off of the ground); this is consistent with other dropped slow powers, and helps validate Entangling Arrow's existence.

From the 5/8/06 Training Room patch notes:

[ QUOTE ]
* Changed the timing on the Oil Slick Ignite effect to improve its chances of affecting the Oil Slick.
* Glue Arrow now has a -Fly component. For real this time.
* Fixed an issue where Entangling arrow could be escaped, despite its -Fly component by jumping/flying out of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You mean acid arrow, Which is quite a fine power.

It's not for dmg it's debuff. Debuffs are 15% RES, 25% def base.

[/ QUOTE ]
The resistance debuff for the Defender version has always been 20%.

I haven't had the patience to test the defense debuff, considering what spending hours testing Flash Arrow has gotten us.

[ QUOTE ]
Flash Arrow (and Smoke and Smoke Grenade and a couple Temp Powers) is setup to not alert the AI when it is used on them.

Now, that isn't as simple or cut and dried as it sounds. It is still an attack. As such, it causes suppression on all powers that have such -- including stealth and related powers. It sounds like what is happening is something like the following:

1) Player clicks attack button; animation begins; suppression begins.
2) Target "sees" the player, and the critter is "aggroed"
3) Animation finishes and all attributes are applied.

In that example, if the player were outside the critters normal perception range, they would not have aggoed, even though they attacked. If, however, you are within normal aggro range, and using Stealth powers to offset that, then as soon as the stealth suppresses, you've already got aggro.

Now, all of that said, it is possible what I've outlined above is NOT what is happening and there is a bug involved. In testing this over the next few days, pay close attention to how this works, and keep the above sequence in mind. If that does not match what you are seeing, let me know.

[/ QUOTE ]
_Castle_, one thing that is happening seems to be Flash Arrow suppressing itself. With no form of stealth on, I use Flash Arrow on a group. If I use it again on that same group before the previous version wears off, and I'm inside the normal aggro range, the group sees me as soon as I begin the second Flash Arrow animation. Aside from Flash Arrow, no aggro is generated on the enemies by myself or anyone else. This is on the training room.

That itself sounds like buggy behavior, and could theoretically be related to the overaggro problem.

[ QUOTE ]
On a side note, while I was PvPing tonight on Pinnacle, I noticed that someone using Superspeed can basically ignore Glue and Oil Slick's speed debuff. Against an opponent with status protection and Superspeed, TA's effectiveness drops significantly.

[/ QUOTE ]
In PvE, Superspeed doesn't help a bit against slow powers (nor does Siphon Speed for that matter, which is irrelevant to the conversation but a sore point of mine ). I don't PvP, so though I imagine it wouldn't help against slow powers there, it just might. But, is it possible that the person in your PvP fight had some form of slow resistance (Speed Boost, Quickness, etc.)?

[ QUOTE ]
I would feel odd about it bringing down fliers, though, under the circumstances, for the reasoning I stated.

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I agree; however, I don't believe the implementation of -fly is that elegant. There is no reason that Quicksand should somehow reach up and pull flyers into its muddy little hands, but it does. Glue gumming up jetpacks, fouling wingfeathers, etc. is a far more justifiable explanation of -fly than some powers which currently have a -fly component (not that that sort of thing counts in this game ).

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I understand the justificaton for Glue Arrow not affecting fly; it's an effect that spreads over the ground around the mob you target, so I wouldn't expect it to take down a flier (though I concede it might make sense to keep one grounded, but don't feel it's necessary).

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The NPC version of caltrops prevents fly and brings down fliers who get too close to it. The same with Quicksand. And Tar Patch. None of these are any more realistically justifiable to have -fly and -jump; yet Glue Arrow is the only one of the bunch to lack the component.

I don't mind justifications as long as they're applied unilaterally.

/unhijacks his own hijacking

Testing notes!

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Fixed some issues with Poison Gas Arrow (Mastermind, Defender and Controller). All versions will now choke the targets more often, will play the proper visual f/x and will affect the proper area.

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I ran a test with Poison Gas Arrow on the training room. I picked a group of three even-con Crey minions and tracked the results of 50 PGA uses on the group.

I used the Defender version for this testing.

Sleep affected none: 10
Sleep affected one enemy only: 21
Sleep affected two enemies: 12
Sleep affected all three enemies: 7

Out of 50 uses of PGA, there were 66 individual sleeps out of 150 possible. That's a success rate of 44% in this limited test.

The base sleep duration is 8 seconds according to my stopwatch and questionable reflexes.

I did notice one thing that may be either a bug or just coincidence. If the bad guys are in their attack animation when PGA lands, they don't seem to be affected by sleep. In most of the 10 attempts that didn't sleep any of the mobs, all three were in attack mode when PGA hit.

_Castle_, could you double-check that and see if the attack animation prevents a sleep from landing, or if I'm seeing a pattern that isn't really there?

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In general, the only 2 powers that combine effects as far as I can tell are the Def Debuff on both Acid and Oil arrows.

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The -defense of Acid Arrow is 25%, and the -defense on Oil Slick is reported to be at 2.5% (both numbers for Defender versions). In other words, adding a training origin defense debuff to Acid Arrow gives you as much -defense as using Oil Slick also. Of course, nobody uses Oil Slick for -defense anyway, we use it for -hit points.

There are other powers that stack effects.

Glue Arrow, Ice Arrow, and Oil Slick all have -speed. *

Glue Arrow and Ice Arrow both have -recharge. *

Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow both have -resist, for a total of 40% more damage to things you hit with both.

Ice Arrow can be used to help raise hold magnitude on anything EMP didn't hold, such as a boss.

* The version of Entangling Arrow on test has a "slow" listed in the short help; at this point I'm not sure if that means -speed, -recharge, or both (the long help does not clarify this either). Once the respecs are handed out tomorrow I'll be able to do some testing.