McBoo

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Footsteps are cool. Sand and loose soil now actually sound like sand and loose soil (and a little like snow) and the sound of footsteps on metal is no longer borrowed from Ufo: Enemy Unknown.

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And the snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

Sorry couldn't resist, carry on....

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>.>

So far so good.....

I am partial to the war hammer so it's good to know about the big attacks and I can certainly imagine the ripping sound as more of a bone crunching. Thanks for the replies!

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You know what I don't understand?

Latin, not one word of it!

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You might be surprised how many words have the same spelling now as they originally did in Latin.

Here's a small sample that you might see in the game or on the forums.

bonus, cadaver, captor, character, doctor, drama, editor, error, exit, formula, forum, gladiator, horror, icon, item, mentor, minimum, moderator, nectar, nucleus, omen, platinum, recipe, serum, sinister, trivia, and victor.

[/ QUOTE ]McBoo can't speak english. It was actually just a fluke that when he slammed the keyboard that message came out.

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Me like funny clicking sound it make!

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(^_^)b

Είμα&#9 53; και πάλι στο κουτί ! Επίση ς, δεν γνωρί ζουν ελλην ικά.

Edit: that was supposed to be greek...oh well, just as unreadable


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You know what I don't understand?

Latin, not one word of it!

Why does my War Mace sound like it is slicing through objects rather than pummeling them? Also, what's with the sparks? I can sort of see them with sword blades and knives/claws but a big blunt piece of metal should just go THUD and then maybe you see a few flying teeth.

Just my 2 inf...

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I remember reading Castle saying, in effect, that the Reichsman fight was meant to be a "devices fight", or rather, a gimmick fight requiring choreography and coordination.

Which means, in effect, that apart from the costume and MA changes there is effectively no new content in i15. I got sick enough of failing and failing again against that sort of rubbish in other online games. Somebody is out of place. Someone does the wrong thing at the wrong time. The raid wipes: start over. There is much screaming and recrimination. Ventrilo or Teamspeak is required. The guild breaks up: this is "serious business". Lose 50 DKP!

This is a major reason why I no longer play those games. I seriously hope that this has been changed from the Test version.

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I don't know Heraclea, I think that something that requires more than simply running in and beating the tar out of the bad guy is kind of refreshing. Maybe this means that the game will start to move away from the tired old "Damage is king" model that we've seen for the last 5 years. I, for one, would be happy to see them add alternatives to grievous bodily harm for defeating our enemies.

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I tanked Reichsman for literally an hour on Test, but that was when I15 first went up. I assume there's been some big changes since then. I look forward to trying it out in a couple weeks when I'm back from vacation.

This is how new TFs usually go though:
Week 1 - "This is way too hard!"
Week 2 - "We did it in ten minutes!"
Week 3 - "I soloed it!"

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QFT!

They are very similar sets. As far as aggro management and damage mitigation are concerned, Battle Axe does knockdown/knockup and War Mace does stun. An important distinction that, IMO, gives the edge to Battle Axe.

Now I've played my Invy/Battle Axe tanker to lvl 49 and the damage is impressive but I'm only in the 20s with my WP/WM tanker so I can't give you a side by side game play comparison. If you look here it appears that War Mace edges out Battle Axe in the damage department but the difference isn't huge just looking at the numbers.

Bear in mind though that Battle Axe is pure Lethal damage and War Mace is pure Smashing damage both of which are highly resisted in the game. I believe that Lethal damage might the the most resisted damage type which would again give the edge to War Mace but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Ultimately I would have to agree with Sailboat on the concept question though.

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More info?

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Yes please......

So far my Invy/Stone has been my favorite. He is a good all around tanker that can easily switch from team tanker to solo damage dealer with ease. Just the right mix of toughness, power and SMASH! to make all 50 levels a hell of alot of fun!

Charge into the thick of battle and start crackin' skulls! I love to watch my health bar get down to a sliver and still come out on top.

Invy/Stone

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<pokes head in thread> Anything new....... </pulls head back out>

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Yeah Ace. Positron popped in to say that since the same damn topic has been coming up every week for three years that they're going to actually do something about it instead of ignoring it and wishing it goes away.

And then my alarm went off, I woke up, took a shower and had my coffee.


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When you always have the same poster throw the thread off topic and push to that same topic for three years ranting and raving without any evidence at all, I doubt they will listen.

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In J_B's defense, he does bring alot of evidence to the discussion, but it's just almost entirely anecdotal.

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How can evidence be anecdotal? Don't we call those ... opinions?

*ducks the sarcasm bat*

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So you're saying that, in your experience, evidence can't be anecdotal?

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Actually, that reminds me of a story.....

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No, it's actually easier to establish balance with set ATs and powersets because the combinations are in a much smaller number, which allows for much better control and testing compared to a more open system such as Champions.

While the Champions PnP system can be balanced, it generally relies on an instance-per-instance, character-per-character decision. Such decisions are best made by living people with half a shred of common sense, instead of an inflexible computer system.

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And in a PnP situation you are only having to balance the campaign against 6 to 8 different players rather than ~200,000 different players.

PnP games also tend to be ruled by general consensus. Unless the GM is very dictatorial, everyone involved agrees on what is and is not acceptable in their world. You can't do that in an MMO due to sheer numbers and the fact that a good portion of the people involved are only interested in their own game play experience.

Lastly, most PnP games that I have run into do not limit your leveling ability to the amount of damage that you can deliver like most of the MMOs out there. GMs can and will award experience for quick thinking, creativity and use of non-combat skills.

I've always thought that tankers should be the AoE experts of the melee archetypes. I have, in the past, suggested a splash or shared damage effect tied to Gauntlet for all ST tanker attacks. With input from others in the these forums that has evolved into applying the secondary effects for a ST tanker attack to all mobs effected by Gauntlet for that attack.

Both suggestions don't really change Gauntlet, they merely make it more visible.

I've been meaning to try Willpower/Stone Melee for a while now. I played through 50 levels of Invy/Stone and had a blast doing so.

On the subject of Energy Melee, I do find the recharges slower than before (I deleted my Invy/Em for WP/EM on my speedster a while back) but I haven't gotten around to slotting my attacks for recharge yet.

My build is a little off the beaten path as I'm going for a speedster rather than a tanker build so the higher end attack recharge rate doesn't mean much to me. I'll keep you posted and might even put together a guide when it's all said and done.

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...little more backup than "but comic book tankers..." which even the devs have noted is not a valid statement.

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I disagree with this. We're playing a game based on comic books, so it seems to me that the expectation that the game should behave like the comic books is paramount. That said, Game Balance MUST be retained.


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Can't be done. It really can't. Comic books themselves don't behave like each other, within the same series or between different series. Should we have people with the power level of Superman, or Batman? Of the Silver Surfer, or Kitty Pride? Of the Hulk, or Thunderbird? These characters have vastly different power levels, but are all in the comics. How do you get the game to behave like a Silver Surfer comic, and also like the Batman comic? You can't. You just can't.

So, what you aim for is trying to get as decently close as possible, within the framework of the game. This game, at inception, didn't have ATs. You could choose any two power sets you wanted. It was closer to the comics than the game is today, with a wider range of power levels in it. You could have Tank-Mages, and you could have complete gimps, with no offense except brawl. How do you balance a game with that wide of a power level difference? You also have people tending to choose the path of least resistance, often times choosing it over concept. As such, people tended to make more Tank-Mages, able to survive and dish out a ton of damage. It made the game ridiculously easy.

Because of that, the Devs made the AT system. The AT system does not exist in the comics. It just doesn't. You have characters that emulate certain ATs (or, more accurately, the ATs emulate those characters), but you never get exacts. Each character in the comics can usually do something that this game won't allow them to do. The Ancillary Pools try to fill in these gaps to some extent, but can't cover every case. Conversely, we have characters in the comics that would be woefully underbalanced if they came into this game (Storm would have Storm Summoning, but no blasts, for instance; the Invisible Woman would have almost no offense at all).


This game is an MMO inspired by comic books. It is NOT a comic book MMO. It has taken a specific power level, and used that as a baseline for it's characters to have. It then goes from there to work out how each AT will fit into that baseline level. When doing so, it will likely divert largely from the source material. Sure, the Devs can try to keep it as close as they can, but it's not going to be very close. To get closer, you need to not be an MMO, where balance issues don't need to be addressed, and you can just imitate a specific character and not worry about different power levels between your characters.

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QFT

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...little more backup than "but comic book tankers..." which even the devs have noted is not a valid statement.

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I disagree with this. We're playing a game based on comic books, so it seems to me that the expectation that the game should behave like the comic books is paramount. That said, Game Balance MUST be retained.

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Something like Critical Taunt adds a heavy hitting feel to tankers in my opinion, moving them closer to that comic book feel.

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I have suggested improving Tanker ST or boss killing abilities to improve their soloing and "feel". Your point?

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My point is that "feel" is up to the individual. I personally find that a power like Fault feels extremely powerful and yet I haven't done any damage whatsoever. Single target is not really a tanker's bailiwick.

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Why would I back a solution I don't find adequate?

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In the interest of compromise?



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I'm seeking a compromise solution; an offensive tweak that has no, or minimal impact on the people who enjoy Tankers as is.

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And yet you have advocated making tankers into single target, heavy hitting, boss killers in your search for a "compromise". You've also shot down ideas that include damage buffs that you don't personally feel are adequate.

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And Brutes and Tankers share two power sets. Althought they may not be matched primary to primary. This makes them even closer in roles.

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Actually, no. A brutes role is to deal damage, that is why their primary is damage and why their inherent increases their damage output. Therefore the role for which they were designed is offense not defense like a tanker.

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According to Castle changes to dominators have been in the works for quite a while with no mention of Controller/Dominator viability.


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According to this:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...age=0&vc=1

...you're wrong.


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I stand corrected on the Castle quote. This still doesn't represent a reason for making tankers like brutes. As I have stated before, if the advent of blue side brutes represents a threat to the tanker population than whatever is done to "improve" tankers can't simply be to make them more like, but not as powerful as, brutes.

The idea that two archetypes that share the same primary, like control, and will soon be working side by side should be balanced against one another makes perfect sense. The idea that an archetype with damage as their secondary should have that damage balanced against any archetype with damage as their primary does not make sense and doing so could lead to game balance issues.

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The problem with that line of argument is (1) that there are actually people who enjoy the role of being in the thick of things and taking hits for the team, (2) that tankers ARE a force multiplier, both defensively and offensively.


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And you seem to miss the point that Brutes act as the same force multiplier, take hits for the team, do so with minimal support BUT unlike Tankers and the end of the day get to go solo with excellent speed and damage.

Even if Brues were faceplanting each spawn, and they're not generally, they're still filling the role as aggro sponge, have been doing so for as long as CoV has been around, and unlike Tankers, they're not half-crippled offensively for the dubious privilege.

Given that Brutes and Tankers share the exact same roles, just in different proportions:

Damage/Aggro and Aggro/Damage.

...Tell me why is Controller/Dominator viability an issue worth making AT adjustments when those ATs only share a controlling aspects, while the rest of the AT is completely different, and Tankers vs Brute isn't an issue even though they share more power sets and their roles are more similar?

Brutes and Tankers are way more similar, and there's just as much popularity gap between Controllers and Doms as there is between Brutes, the most rolled AT on their side, and Tankers, the 2nd least rolled AT on their side.

With that in mind, Brutes have it over Tankers in the offense and soloing department. So if there were any changes to Tankers over viability concerns, the changes would be to solve the issues of offense and soloing.

You want a problem to warrant a change? There you go. You want to see how said change fixes said problem? Any offensive-minded inherent change would improve offense and soloing. Done.

You can commence with the backpedaling and blanket dismissal now. There's the goal post, you'd better move it quick.



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According to Castle changes to dominators have been in the works for quite a while with no mention of Controller/Dominator viability.

I'm continually confused why improving tankers appears to mean making them emulate existing archetypes rather than doing something to make them more unique in their own right. IMO, it's a very sad state of affairs if the best that tankers can aspire to is archetype envy.

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Conceptually, its not that rare when tough guy tanks go in blind rages and become much more vulnerable but devastating offensively (compared to their norm) something Rage sort of mimics for Super Strength. I'm not sure why the devs never gave Rage a persistent survivability debuff, though.

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We have that, it's called Fury.