Jade_Dragon

I did say that the flaming was human nature too. I'm not excusing ANYONE'S behavior in this thread. Except maybe my own, but that's the only one I'm responsible for.

I honestly try not to let it bother me. I wasn't expecting any apology because that's what experience has told me to expect, not because I thought there was anything wrong with the OP. He made a mistake, and as far as I'm concerned that's enough for me.

I considered just retelling that final scene, with her bringing down the cataclysmic explosion on the last words of the Tanker's Credo; "First in battle, First to fall, Never fall." But I finally decided I had too much respect for the original author not to post it in full.

That story's just stuck with me since the first time I read it.

I have honestly found that honest, heartfelt apologies from those who have misunderstood something and discovered that they have made a mistake are VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, [counts... yeah, that's about right] VERY rare on the Internet. More commonly the poster will simply disappear without admitting any wrongdoing. I attribute it to human nature, and the anonymity of the medium.

At this point, continuing to beat the dead horse, or OP, as the case may be, is pointless. And it's actually just as much human nature to continue to do just that.

The most useful thing about Omega Manuever is the Taunt effect. That's what keeps foes clustered around the bomb until it goes off.

Omega Manuever does only about 1/3 of the base damage, but the secondary damage is the same. It's Energy instead of Fire (with the base damage Smashing instead of Lethal) and does stun instead of knockback. And it has a MUCH shorter cast time, with no interrupt. I don't see how Time Bomb couldn't get ANY of the features of Omega Manuever, from the ranged positioning, to the lack of interrupt, to the Taunt effect.

Confront does have -Range according to CoD. Although I'm guessing what you're saying is you would rather Confront be a -Range AoE (with no Taunt effect) than a single target Taunt.

Just to make sure I was clear, that was NOT a belief that I share. I was saying that it was SEEN that way, which is why it tended to be unpopular in the past. That doesn't mean it was right to be unpopular.

Honestly, I have an Invulnerability Tanker now that blows up at the slightest provocation. She's an android, and her body is just a shell, her "true self" is an AI. So I use the power Self Destruction, often just as Unstoppable is about to expire. Instead of having to struggle through an Unstoppable crash, I get to explode, use an Awaken, and get right back into the fight. Assuming anything's still standing.

Not exactly the same thing as Rise of the Phoenix, but you know, if she HAD Rise of the Phoenix, it would be even better than using an Awaken.

Not sure if the author here intended for the story to be cross posted to other forums, this was a "commissioned" bio for another player, but it's always been a memorable description of Rise of the Phoenix to me. link

Soul Transfer can be just as useful, it has a disorient, and draining your enemies souls out of them is just to get their aggro. Resurgence, not so much, although WP in general isn't quite as good at holding aggro anyway.

Those lesser numbers somewhat hide the way Invincibility scales to larger numbers of foes. In all honesty, I consider Invincibility to be 90% of Invulnerability's protection, possibily TOO much. (It makes skipping it a very painful option)

Rise to the Challenge and Energy Absorption in Ice Armor scale in the same way, but IMHO both are somewhat weaker. (Energy Absorption at least you can see it's numerically weaker, RttC is comparing regen to Defense, but I would say with Def's ability to get stronger as it nears the cap it wins out)

I know that in general rez powers are seen as bad for Tankers, since if you die in the first place, you've done a bad job of tanking.

OTOH, Fire Aura was designed from the onset to be less defensive than other sets, and thus dying is more likely. More importantly, the damage and stun, not present in a lot of other rez powers, allows you to regain some of your aggro, and buy you time to gain back the rest.

I'm not one to encourage flaming, and I've been uncomfortable about some of the responses in this thread, as I tend to be with most that have been like this. But IMHO the OP came here looking for a conspiracy, and addressed all opposition as proof of that consipiracy. I honestly don't find that position either mature or positive.

I feel I have avoided getting into the flaming myself, and twice attempted to explain the mechanics even after the OP insisted on ignoring the first attempt. If he truly is contrite over having made an honest mistake, even if he doesn't want to post here to admit to it, I am hopeful that one of my posts helped him change his mind.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that a great deal of what is going on currently in this thread is momentum. It's turned into doggy pics, and a discussion of mechanics in general by folks who enjoy discussing that sort of thing.

In all fairness, this is a direct result of the "three minions = one hero" design, which was intended to be the LEAST powerful a hero would be. Most other MMOs design around a one to one philosophy, with boss level monsters REQUIRING a whole team.

The design is actually a fun one, and obviously very popular. But it has led to time consuming techniqes like Sniper shots and phasing -- and even Assassin Strikes -- becoming less useful in gameplay. Even the tradeoff between offense and defense among Tankers and Defenders is argued due to this. Sure a Tanker is the equivalent of six minions, but it still takes him as long as the Scrapper taking on two groups of three.

And that was a very interesting side tangent, there.

S'alright.

I think Bad_Dog pretty clearly stated that the cause of his conclusion is that he had been playing, and percieved that he had been missing more often. He posted another thread, previously, and was informed by the forumites that accuracy had not been nerfed. He was given an explanation that at the time seemed to be acceptable.

After playing for a while more, though, he reached the conclusion that there was still something wrong, and went looking for a problem. By his own admission, he admitted that he started with the assumption that he was being intentionally misled, and the problem was being hidden. He looked over ParagonWiki and Mids, and THOUGHT he had found it. But it sounds to me like a self fulfilling prophesy, he went looking for a problem and didn't stop searching until he found it.

My note on all of this is that he said that he reached this conclusion because he was playing a new character. We all know about this issue, when you have been playing high level characters for a long time, and are used to strong SO slotting, returning to low level characters with the base to hit can be jarring. Even with the change to low level base to hit, to address specifically this problem, it can be annoying to "whiff" constantly in the 10-15 levels, when you are losing the level bonus, but haven't yet started slotting satisfactoraly with DOs. Even at 20, DOs can be frustrating if you find yourself having to choose between damage and accuracy.

So I don't think there's anything new here, the OP is just running into the same perception that accuracy has been nerfed that all players get when they start a new character after the release of a new issue. They think that since there is a new issue, and they are missing all the time, that accuracy MUST have been nerfed. It's a perception issue, because missing in a game is in and of itself innately frustrating. You notice all of the times that you miss, and it's human nature to think that that's happening more often than not missing.

Well, of COURSE the conspiracy between the devs and the rest of the playerbase. We've ALL known accuracy was nerfed for YEARS.

Oh, and by the way, the forum logged me out while I was trying to post this, which of course is further evidence of the conspiracy.

Seriously, if the devs had lowered base to hit from 75% to, say, 70% they MIGHT be able to get away with it on perception alone. It would be given away instantly the moment anyone opened a Combat Window, but if this was still back in the days when we had no Combat Attributes it MIGHT slip past us. For a while.

But reducing our to hit from 100% to 75%? For one thing, that would make performance prior to level 22 much, much easier. We would have a 100% chance to hit. Add the bonus they GAVE us to to hit prior to level 20, to cut down on the number of times lowbies missed, and that would be even HIGHER. Never mind not needing to slot Accuracy any more, you wouldn't need to slot accuracy EVER, not even prior to level 20. So we would go from essentially never missing at all (5% of the time) to missing at the rate we are now.

Even worse would be if the devs actually lowered to hit by 25% like he said from the current base of 75%. That's effectively the 50% chance to hit that we players currently have in PvP. That's certainly very noticable. Your chance to hit would not be 3/4 what it is right now, it would be 2/3. For a base attack against a target with no Defense you would be missing twice as often. That would NOT be a stealth nerf.

Technically speaking, players do not have Accuracy, attacks have Accuracy. (Also what Schizmatrix said)

The best way to explain it is probably to compare it to damage scale. Power Bolt, the first attack in Energy Blast, has a damage scale of 1.0. This is apparently the base against which all other attacks are measured. Power Burst, for instance, with a damage scale of 2.12, will presumably therefore do 2.12 times the damage of Power Burst.

An AT has a different damage modifier that effects their damage, though. Thus, a Blaster with Power Burst will do a lot more damage than a Defender with Power Burst. The Blaster will do 1.125 times the damage scale, while the Defender will do 0.65 times the damage scale. This value will then be applied to the damage tables with regard to the character's level, and the final damage will be calculated. (Plus, Enhancements and other buffs will be added in and have an effect)

Everyone has the same to hit chance, but the Accuracy of the attack is just the scale of that attack's ability to hit compared to the base, just as the damage scale is the scale of that attack's damage compared to the AT's base. And just like damage scale, it varies by attack, so some attacks can be more accurate than others.

Look, you obviously are refusing to accept the truth. The truth is the to hit chance of player characters in this game has ALWAYS been 75%. It has been that way since the release of the game. If the chance for a player to hit with a Jab was 100%, there would be no reason to slot for Accuracy. You would have a 95% chance to hit, only because there is a 5% chance to miss in all cases. Outside of that "cap" on to hit, however, every attack you made would automatically hit.

*Accuracy* is by definition a multiplicative modifier that makes a particular attack better or worse than the base. An attack with 100% Accuracy does not modify the chance to hit. An attack with 120% accuracy increases the chance to hit by 20%. An attack with 80% Accuracy has only 80% of the normal chance to hit. The reason why Accuracy is defined this way is because entities with different base chance to hit may use the same attack. While player characters have a 75% chance to hit, computer controlled characters have only a 50% chance to hit. Accuracy ensures that a more accurate attack will be, in the same ratio across all characters, more likely to hit the target.

As a side effect, slotting an attack for Accuracy increases its Accuracy, not the character's to hit. Thus if you slot an SO for +33% Accuracy, you get your chance to hit multiplied by 133%, not 33% added to your chance to hit. (That is, you get a 75%*1.333=100% chance to hit, not a 75%+33%=108% chance to hit) If have a +tohit bonus, however, say from Tactics, this will be added to your 75% chance to hit and then again increased by another 33%.

Your "pie" is a 75% chance to hit. You have 100% of a 75% chance to hit. Your "pie" has not been reduced from a 100% chance to hit, which it never has been, to a 75% chance to hit. It has been 75% since the day the game was released.