Kitsune9tails

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There are a few things not consistent with plaques and badges quoted below. Simple enough to fix one way or another. I like the story we have NOW, as opposed to what a plaque describes.

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Kelly Graham never thought she was destined for greatness. That changed one night when she was walking home from her job in the Crey secretarial pool. She came upon an innocent woman being dragged into an alley by some masked men. Kelly called out for help, to no avail. As her fear and anger grew, she launched herself toward the alley. After a blur of flying, energy blasting, and healing light... Galaxy Girl was born.

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Dauntless was Galaxy Girl's sidekick until he died in battle, defending his mentor with his last breath.

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This plaque commemorates the death of Galaxy Girl, who fell in battle with the Rikti. When it became obvious that the heroes would have to fall back, Galaxy Girl insisted that she be the last to retreat. Remaining on the front lines, she used her healing light to save the lives of many of her retreating comrades. Witnesses say that she used her last bit of strength to heal her friend Ms. Liberty, rather than to save herself.

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She doesn't have to be Empathy, Kinetics does have a 'healing light' that you can choose to use on others besides yourself. And that's assuming her healing isn't a Signature Power.

Also, I beleive that another differenceis that Longbow is obeys the nebulous laws of military engagement like a regular army, whereas Wyvern just gets the job done, no questions asked.

If Longbow harmed a bunch of civilians taking down a villain, they'd answer for it in court. If Wyvern did it, they wouldn't mention it to their employer, and their employer wouldn't ask.

Longbow would go out of their way to deliver a trussed and unconscious villain to the authorites. Wyvern might just show up with a DNA sample and a Cryptic, "Target Neutralized for the forseeable future. Money please."

I want to be able to emote when gifting my teammates with Inspirations; for instance,"Kitsune9tails gives you a kiss for luck (gives a Luck Inspiration)" or "Kitsune9tails gives you a slap across the face (break free)"

Any way to do that?

Also, what are good /binds or /macros for changing costumes while activating a flashy power?

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Criticals and Scourge are probably no better than Defiance at adding meaningful damage over the course of an evening of play. Criticals and Scourge are cooler looking and make the team go oooh-aaaah. Why is that? Because when they happen everyone sees the word Scourge or Critical (Domination too) and more numbers. When blasters get Defiance, the target should have the word Defiance fly above his head and the extra damage done should be a seperate number. As goofy as this sounds, I believe this would make Defiance more fun. If an inherent is not overly useful, at least it should be fun.

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I like this idea.

I also agree that the possibility that lag is a factor in Defiance damage or the Defiance bar should be investigated. Those people who can easily manipulate Defiance might have faster systems or something than the people whose testing shows it does not work.

Mirror - Barlowgirl
Kiss Me - Jewel
The Girl from Impanima - Laurindo Almei
I Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon
When I'm 64 - The Beatles
That Ain't Love - REO Speedwagon
Love and Marriage - Frank Sinatra
Love and Affection - Donna Lewis
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
We Are the Champions - Queen

Why not just give Ice Slick and the like full Pet status and make them (selectively) buffable?

Wait, wait, we can make this into a roleplaying post. Everyone can answer in character.

For instance, my hero China Doll would say that it is our spirits or souls that make us human or animal (or alive, for that matter), not our brains.

On the other hand, my villain Dame Fatale would sit seductively on your lap, embrace you and purr into your ear, "You mean, you know how to give rats humanlike intelligence? Who else have you told about this?"

My personal opinion is that it is not morally correct to perform cruel/destructive experiments on animals in the first place, so morally it is a moot point.

On the other hand, if it is a legal 'grey area', I'd say that once the rat demonstrated intelligence superior to that of a chimp (which are currently legally ok to experiment on) it's no longer legally an animal.

Currently I beleive that legally, beings born human who score lower than chimps on IQ tests are still illegal to experiment on. In fact, many become drummers in rock bands! (rimshot)

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I call upon the community to please discuss the ramifications of this proposal:

The most damage a player may take in a one-second period is 80% of their full hp.

Ergo:

If you have 1000 hp when full, and fall from the fly ceiling (or are assassin struck, or are 'ported atop a pile of trip mines), the most damage you can take is 800 hp. If you have 600/1000 hp left when you hit the ground, you are defeated.

Even if you are a level 2 fresh from the Tutorial with 200 hp, you can't be damaged for more than 160 hp in one second.

Hence, if at full you have 1000 hp and are hit for 1000 hp, the followup attack must land one second later to defeat you.

My thoughts:

This gives a Stalker a fairly good chance of pulling of an Assassination, but a one-second window is a real chance for a good player to react and possibly escape. Of course, this also applies to Blaster alphas and the like. Police Drones may need to be excepted from this rule, but this also solves the problem of being one-shotted by AVs, Giant Monsters, and the like.

Of course, players will drive healers crazy bugging them to keep their hp above 80%...

This rule would not apply to npcs of any kind. They can be one-shotted.

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This is a huge exploit. This would essentially allow for any AT to jump into a huge mob with no risk of taking all that aggro and having the mob kill them instantly. With a good EMP (or more) around in this scenario, it would be near impossible for anyone to die. Blasters would very easily be able to jump into mobs and use their nova with little or no risk of being defeated.

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It is true that this idea would make healing a bit more powerful. Of course the numbers can be tweaked and tested to make the balance right.

Perhaps 20% is too great a portion of hp to be left with. We could start with 5% and work from there. Still, I think one second to flee or heal is a 'cruel but fair' window. BUth that number is tweakable, too. We could start with .3 seconds and test/tweak from there.

The overall Idea is this:

1) It is still possible to one-shot a damaged foe.
2) There is a definite reliable 'react window' that is small enough to kill a flat-footed defender, yet large enough for a quick-reacting defender.
3) An attacker can still easily time a deadly 2-shot, but it takes timing and planning, rather than spamming attacks.

Any other comments or constructive suggestions?

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Having played a stalker in the beta PvP events (and up to 28 in beta), this change would kill the stalker AT for PvP (and it's not great in PvE). The stalker's other attacks and defences are so poor that if the AS doesn't one shot kill, the stalker will die. On the couple of occasions I failed to kill my target with the AS, I didn't get to land another attack. There is an appreciable gap between the assassin strike going in and the next attack being executed in which a decent player can run away and/or incapacitate the stalker.

Shosuro Tatami 28 ninj/ninj stalker beta (the real version 16 on protector)
and 70+ others including 3 50s

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Assuming that this is true, this means that the Dev's upcoming change to prevent "one-shotting" (however that is defined) is going to hurt Stalkers in PvP anyway.

Perhaps Stalkers will receive a boost to offense or defense (relative to PvP foes only) to balance the loss of being able to one-shot in PvP?

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I call upon the community to please discuss the ramifications of this proposal:

The most damage a player may take in a one-second period is 80% of their full hp.

Ergo:

If you have 1000 hp when full, and fall from the fly ceiling (or are assassin struck, or are 'ported atop a pile of trip mines), the most damage you can take is 800 hp. If you have 600/1000 hp left when you hit the ground, you are defeated.

Even if you are a level 2 fresh from the Tutorial with 200 hp, you can't be damaged for more than 160 hp in one second.

Hence, if at full you have 1000 hp and are hit for 1000 hp, the followup attack must land one second later to defeat you.

My thoughts:

This gives a Stalker a fairly good chance of pulling of an Assassination, but a one-second window is a real chance for a good player to react and possibly escape. Of course, this also applies to Blaster alphas and the like. Police Drones may need to be excepted from this rule, but this also solves the problem of being one-shotted by AVs, Giant Monsters, and the like.

Of course, players will drive healers crazy bugging them to keep their hp above 80%...

This rule would not apply to npcs of any kind. They can be one-shotted.

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This is a huge exploit. This would essentially allow for any AT to jump into a huge mob with no risk of taking all that aggro and having the mob kill them instantly. With a good EMP (or more) around in this scenario, it would be near impossible for anyone to die. Blasters would very easily be able to jump into mobs and use their nova with little or no risk of being defeated.

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It is true that this idea would make healing a bit more powerful. Of course the numbers can be tweaked and tested to make the balance right.

Perhaps 20% is too great a portion of hp to be left with. We could start with 5% and work from there. Still, I think one second to flee or heal is a 'cruel but fair' window. BUth that number is tweakable, too. We could start with .3 seconds and test/tweak from there.

The overall Idea is this:

1) It is still possible to one-shot a damaged foe.
2) There is a definite reliable 'react window' that is small enough to kill a flat-footed defender, yet large enough for a quick-reacting defender.
3) An attacker can still easily time a deadly 2-shot, but it takes timing and planning, rather than spamming attacks.

Any other comments or constructive suggestions?

I call upon the community to please discuss the ramifications of this proposal:

The most damage a player may take in a one-second period is 80% of their full hp.

Ergo:

If you have 1000 hp when full, and fall from the fly ceiling (or are assassin struck, or are 'ported atop a pile of trip mines), the most damage you can take is 800 hp. If you have 600/1000 hp left when you hit the ground, you are defeated.

Even if you are a level 2 fresh from the Tutorial with 200 hp, you can't be damaged for more than 160 hp in one second.

Hence, if at full you have 1000 hp and are hit for 1000 hp, the followup attack must land one second later to defeat you.

My thoughts:

This gives a Stalker a fairly good chance of pulling of an Assassination, but a one-second window is a real chance for a good player to react and possibly escape. Of course, this also applies to Blaster alphas and the like. Police Drones may need to be excepted from this rule, but this also solves the problem of being one-shotted by AVs, Giant Monsters, and the like.

Of course, players will drive healers crazy bugging them to keep their hp above 80%...

This rule would not apply to npcs of any kind. They can be one-shotted.

heh, better watch the tone of that post, there, Tom. Repeat after me:

"The game is properly challenging on Heroic. We don't need to be nerfed to make Heroic a challenge."

Sorry Devs, just had to do that

So has the new Dull Pain and similar powers 'fixed' Tankers somewhat? Is more hp better than Resist most forms of damage?

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In Skills, you might have unlocked a door or opened a safe or whatever....if I could guarantee that clicking on a computer could yield as cool a reward as an Enhancement, well, that'd be something.

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Skills don't necessarily have to be "click" based, and even if they are, there are many ways to introduce risk into such things.
* If you fail to unlock the door or crack the safe, an alarm is triggered.
* If you fail to correctly read the ancient text, you misfire a spell.
* If you fail to pacify the wild beast, it bites you in the butt.
* If you fail to correctly identify the poison, your antidote accelerates the damage

There really are many, many, many more examples of how skills could be successfully introduced into missions and even into open zones as random spawns.
* skills could lead to finding clues that unlock a special mission
* skills could be used to slowly costomize the fx/colors of one's powers
* skills should have a direct link to one's origin (i.e. computer skills should be easier for Tech/Science while Arcane should be easier for Magic/Natural)

Please, please ask us questions, Statesman. You will find so much creative energy here you'll have more material than you know what to do with.

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Great ideas. The thing is, many of these would require new missions or updating old missions. Nothing wrong with that, but changing/adding enough missions to justify a Skill system puts it a year away in the future at least.

That said, get cracking!

I don't think a year is too long to save for a base that has all the bells and whistles. The again, I am a casual gamer and don't think 2 years is too long to hit the level cap.

If you keep playing, you will eventually have enough to have an awesome base. If you don't keep playing, it's a moot point.

The problem is, the Tanker is tough to balance with the other ATs. The Devs vision works in a gameplay sense (mostly), but isn't the role people pick up Tankers for.

According to Comics, Tankers should survive the most damage and do the most damage. But then, what is the Scrappers's role if they do less damage and survive less?

If Tankers can handle aggro better than a Controller (and being able to constantly taunt groups of 5 guys is better than an area Hold you can fire off once per 3 minutes...the Controllers took a bullet for the Tankers), then Controllers have no role...especially since they are squishy and do less damage than Tankers without Containment.

Maybe Tankers should be able to protect their teammates better...like Defenders. But then, that diminishes the Defender's role, and Defenders already complain that Controllers can do their jobs.

It's tough to figure it out, and if it's taking the Devs a long time, I don't blame them.

Keep in mind that Tankers should be desirable for a team, but not any more necessary than any other AT. If you don't have a Tanker available, you should be able to recruit an extra Scrapper, just like you can use a Tanker to sub for a Controller, Scrapper, or even Defender (assuming you change your Tactics to match).

Some things, however are a given: most Tankers should be somewhat more survivable than they are.

I still suggest that Tankers be given a small suite of weak Defender-like powers that work as melee range PBAoE auras. I propose that they be given powers that scale up as they take on more teammates. Things like this will vastly increase the utility of Tankers without increasing their overall power back to ridiculous levels.

Tankers could be the Jacks of all Trades that can fill any role but the Blasters' in a group.

...just a thought.

Please don't accuse Statesman of a blatant lie and ask him to throw you a bone in the same post.

Because if minions were less risky to fight, they'd be worth less xp.

Good Answer.

Just a thought though, just to play Dev's Advocate for a moment.

Tanker checklist

Best Self-defense Caps? check
Best Aggro Tools? check
Most Hit Points? check
'Moderate' Damage? check

Okay, done, moving on...

Heh, just throwing that out there. I'm not saying Tankers don't need improvement. They DO. Just trying to throw some alternate perspective out there.

heh, villains should be able to mug (;threaten) civvies for like 1 inf each. That should about balance the piddly rewards that rescuing civvies in CoH gives.

Want more inf? Get Defeated! Want to avoid outlevelling content? Get Defeated! Time to crank the Difficulty back up to Invincible...

If I get IceNine to 32, will that help?

I applaud the Test. It will be interesting to see whether anything can be CLEARLY determined out of all the variables, from playstyles to hit 'rolls'.

If anything, I think it will help us all be more aware of how tough it is for the Devs to test and balance changes. Especially through the filters of their own biases, such as a presumed understanding of how things are 'supposed to be done' based on 'this is how they were designed'.

One thing not to overlook, though.

Even if we manage to 'prove' that the role of the Tanker is easily supplanted by other ATs...even if we manage to 'prove' that the Meat Shield role is not valuable in the current environment...

...what do we suggest they do about it?

In either case, "give us higher defenses" or "give us more damage" may not be a viable answer.

I just don't want the total result of all the testing effort to boil down to "Told ya!"

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But if a Tank is totally specialized toward the job of "meatshield", wiht one-slotted attacks, then I fully expect that the Tank should be able to hold and survive aggro from two full spawns for the 30-45 seconds it will take a poor team to defeat them all.

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This is more like it. This is information on player expectations that the Devs might be able to actually use. More of this, please.

Post builds that 'ought to work but don't'. Describe tactics and character concepts that are reasonable, but impossible as things currently are. USE NUMBERS, like "x% of a spawn" or "x number of mobs" or "x% damage mitigation".

I think we have an opportunity here to both see into the mind of a Dev and show him where we are as players.

Here's my question to the Devs:

In terms of pure time-to-die damage mitigation, is there a damage mitigation %, a pure number that Tankers should be able to expect from the various forms of damage? Or is it just a matter of 'feel' from testing builds?

I think everybody, including Statesman, agrees that a Tanker should be able to do better than his specific example.

What no one seems to be answering is,

How much of the spawn should he have been able to take?
With how much support?

I agree that to get to this point, some more info would be nice (Inspiration use, build, etc), but if we can extrapolate enough to say, "That's not good enough", we should also be able to say, "THIS, on the other hand, is what I would consider acceptable."

So: Your Invulnerable Tanker, at the specified level, tanking the specified enemies with the specified support. How good should you be able to do, and still NEED the team?

That's what I mean by using it as a benchmark. He was able to tank 33% of the enemies, dropping to 33% health. What should those numbers be? 50% and 50%? 75% and 75%?

Please don't misunderstand.

I'm not saying Tankers don't need improvement. I'm saying they DO need improvement. I just appreciate the fact that Mr. Emmert gave us a benchmark to work from, and that we should use this opportunity constructively to spell out what we want.

Should the aggro cap be 17 foes? yes/no
Should an average, non-min/maxed Tanker be able to tank at the aggro cap consistently? yes/no
Should a Tank be able to meat shield a third to half a 7-man spawn with support? What about without support? What about the roles of Defenders and Controllers in a group with a Tanker?

All I'm saying is we as Tankers should say something other than, "this is a lot less than we used to be able to do."

That last sentence reads kind of rough, but I mean it in a nice way.

I mean no disrespect to those who crunch the numbers. But I am saying that if I were not a board hound myself, I would not know that a supported Scrapper could occupy 17 enemies at once as well as a supported Tanker can.

...they can?

I think the new Tanker will play much the same role as the old Tankers...just with smaller numbers.

Players who do not come to the boards (and who do not remember the 'old days') will not kick Tankers out of their group for Tanking one-third to one-half of a spawn. They will see that as the Tankers' fair share.

Now that Controllers can no longer perma-lock one third of a spawn (and since a large spawn can't usually be disposed of before an AoE Hold wears off), the Tanker's new, smaller role is still desirable and viable.

On Live, I still hear players advising the Leaders of groups, "We need a Tanker" right after "We need a Healer".

The new Tanker catchphrase is "Keep me alive, and I'll keep (17 of) them off you" as opposed to "Stay back here and start Blasting when I say go."