Moonlighter

I love building high powered characters. That's a sub game for me, making someone as unkillable as possible and then raising the PvE stakes to see how much I can actually accomplish. My current work is an /Invuln scrapper and I have to say I am more impressed with the performance than I thought I would be. If I don't want to play the unkillable game I have numerous alts in the 20s and 30s.

Now, my problem is that my builds tend to be "finished" except for Zephyr knockback protections and Gambler +Recharge which are onerous at best to obtain. So I have 4 50s basically "finished" except those particular IOs. Even getting purple IO sets is at least more fun than grinding out another set of +Recharge IOs.

(To be fair I don't currently even try for the PvP +3% defense.)

Hello, as you can probably tell from my forum name I am Moonlighter. I have been around for a while playing a bunch of different scrappers. I tend to lurk most of the time, but sometimes I am drawn into a thread or two.

Ssshhh. Next you'll be asking why you magic origin SR scrapper is using a tricorder to heal with Aid Self. It's best not to think about these things.

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*/Regen is lower maintenance at low levels of play than any other secondary that I've seen. You just turn on Integration and pop Recon and Dull Pain on occasion. Instant Healing and MoG are reserved for times when those two powers are down. Not really much too it. It's only slightly more work than playing any other secondary.

At the top tier of play though, */regen starts falling behind. Because you're having to expend animation time to keep yourself alive, you're going to have some issues especially when using the powers in the middle of a fight when you've got attacks eating up that very same animation time. With heavily invested IO builds, */regen is a decent competitor but falls pretty far behind the softcap capable builds simply because of the design of the set and how it handles the additional benefits available to all players (re: regen gets less from both damage mitigation and damage recovery type powers because it doesn't have the damage mitigation in its primary to stack mitigation up with and it's got so much damage recovery that the comparative benefits of getting more are negligible).

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This pretty much summarizes my experience as well.

That said, Regen combined with Parry or Divine Avalanche is ridiculously good. This has a lot to do with the ease of stacking Ranged and AoE defense. Parry/DA fill the hole in defense, making /Regen scrapper using those sets really capable of incredible stuff.

If you are saying that the devs should take extra time to be more clear on technical specifics then I can't say that's a bad thing, but honestly I rarely have an issue understanding direct dev posts. Sometimes the patch notes are obscure, but that *is* coming from those same people who are hired to do that.

And yes, I really believe the only way to start changing the forum population at large is to start to demand more of them.

Edit: The forums for this game are actually far better than most game forums I read. I don't mean to imply otherwise. I just think that the mods should give people a break when the Nerd Rage meter (on a scale from 1-10) rises to 3 or higher.

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Communication is a powerful tool when used. Word selection is an actual art and a science. Given the polarization of responses the dev's elicit I think it would be asinine to suggest they couldn't use some help in that department.

Then again, I've made it clear that dev's shouldn't be posting, they should have community reps that specialize in doing that. There is a reason our CFO doesn't address the public. Speaking to the public is as much a skill as programming code or ensuring the financial viability of a company.

I don't feel right even bringing up such obvious things, but when you don't have the skills to address the public you end up with 748+369 pages of forum fallout, and a handful of outside sites picking up the story.

A specialized person making that address would have had us thanking them.

*Thankfully Sunstorm did actually explain the issue with dom's pvp damage, but then a bunch of people misunderstood the explanation and created more confusion. Clarity and communication, it's what's for dinner.

Silly conversation to even get involved with. Definitely a case of "old dog, new tricks".

Take care. I'm off to find a dom combo that I feel "buffed" on because my /fire isn't it.

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Actually I think it's the players who really need the "course" in communication. The last thing this world needs is more mouthpieces and useless "word selection."

What really needs to happen is that the devs need to post more often in their own voice and the players who overreact to those posts needs to be banned. A lot.

And maybe, just maybe if a bullet point from the test server release notes isn't 100% clear then people should, you know, go and test how it works.

Things that really should be banned:
~ If your response makes assumptions on what the devs are thinking instead of the changes they implemented you need a break.
~ If your response is more about the devs and less about the change you need a break.
~ If your response is driven by self righteous indignation you need a break.
~ If your response word smiths or twists the devs words when my 8 year old nephew understands exactly what they mean you need a break.
~ If you waste time actually fabricating a fictional exchange in the Paragon office then you *really* need a break.

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I think any archetype that has a forum presence of AV soloists, TF soloists, and pylon soloists should stop trying to get dev attention.


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You realize that in terms of sheer power with IOs that scrappers are middle of the pack, right? That there are several ATs that can not only solo AVs, but do so faster and laugh at scrappers?

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I 'burned' my free respecs once I knew I15 was pretty close to getting released. Now days, it seems we are granted free respecs with every issue release, regardless of if there were any major changes to powers or not. With the changes to Dominators in this issue, it was almost a certainty that we would be getting a free respec. For any CoH veteran, I don't think you can claim that you didn't know free respecs were coming on issue release, even if you didn't see the official announcement.

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There have been issues that did not grant a respec. Plus, I didn't want to spend my current respec now. I wasn't specifically testing that character at this time. Later when I am back to playing that character an iterative process for testing builds is both really fun and really useful.

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Because I like to explore and experiment with many different character possibilities before I settle on a final build.

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Have you considered using the test server? I know you specifically mentioned it in your post, but it's still the best place to use respecs and try out new things.

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I *do* use the test server to test out changes to the build that can be evaluated in a short amount of time. When a change messes with play style, however, it often takes me many hours of play to really get a feel for the nuances of that new play style and the effectiveness of it. Also, sometimes a new play style feels "off" to me not because it's bad, but because I am unused to it. All this means my changes often require lots of time to evaluate.

As examples of what I mean; something as simple as using Hurdle + Combat Jumping instead of Swift to run around missions required a lot of testing. I hated the hopping / head slamming of using Hurdle but I gave it a lot of play time to see if it was simply a matter of familiarity that would change over time. Obsidian Gloom versus Cloak of Fear requires a lot of play time. Burn + Caltrops versus Burn + Tentacles requires a lot of play time.

If I did this on the test server it would greater reduce my enjoyment of that time for the following reasons:
~ My friends don't play on the test server. This alone is *plenty* of reason to avoid it.
~ Global chat can't be used on the test server to talk to friend.
~ All rewards accumulated on the test server during this play time are useless.
~ My super group's base is not available on the test server.

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<Insert my sob story about being gone this weekend and getting called away last night and missing my respecs on characters before the patch. Also insert statements of aggravation.>

Why can't granted free respecs stack?

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Well, if you still had the free respec from before, why would you need the free one now?

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Because I like to explore and experiment with many different character possibilities before I settle on a final build. This type of power experimentation is what I like best about City of X. I'd prefer to try lots of different combinations myself rather than copy cookie cutter builds from the forums.

I also have more fun playing a build a lot before deciding on it, and it's simply more fun to do this on live. Test server has a limited player base and I essentially lose any rewards I gain while playing there. I prefer to actually test when on the test server, although I have used it to play with quick respecs to test specific powers to look for animations or effects.

The more respecs I can use, the more I can explore the nuances of power combinations and try power pools that generally don't get used as much. This is extremely fun for me.

It seems to me that all of the arguments presented here could be applied equally as well to free costume change tokens and those stack.

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<Insert my sob story about being gone this weekend and getting called away last night and missing my respecs on characters before the patch. Also insert statements of aggravation.>

Why can't granted free respecs stack?

[/ QUOTE ] If the free respecs are so important why do you hold onto them?

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Because I hadn't gotten around to respec'ing my 10th alt and got called away last night and wasted it? I had been primarily working on my main, my 4th, 6th, and 7th alt.

<Insert my sob story about being gone this weekend and getting called away last night and missing my respecs on characters before the patch. Also insert statements of aggravation.>

Why can't granted free respecs stack?

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<ul type="square">[*]All three of the newest powersets have been made available to scrappers, and are great for them. Edit: Forgot Pain Domination. So of the four newest powersets, scrappers have gotten access to three.[*]Weapon customization benefits the scrapper probably as much if not moreso than anyone else.[*]The last time a new zone introduced featured something that was actually difficult for scrappers was I10.[*]Scrappers who were already leading the pack in power benefit much more from the IO system being able to push themselves to pylon-soloing.[/list]None of this was released to buff the scrapper, but the scrapper has been part of all the major upgrades to the game and has not found itself sitting on the outside by comparison. Certainly not compared to the dominator (Cimerora [censored] over doms, no 'new' powersets since launch, IOs let them catch up to the middle of the road, for example). About the 'worst' thing I can hear said about scrappers is they don't have a lot of variety in their epics, which isn't really in my mind a massively pressing concern.

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I don't see anything above that is scrapper specific attention. The opinion that scrappers received more benefits from recent IO sets in particular I disagree with. I guess you meant scrappers had like every AT been affected by recent additions to the game.

(Edited to be more clear, less aggressive.)

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Scrappers have gotten a lot of attention lately, I think acting like they're somehow suffering is disingenuous.


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Um, how? Don't get me wrong; I am happy with where scrappers are in the game, but what attention have they specifically received lately? I don't see anything specifically scrapper in recent issues.

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Can I be the first to say that scrappers are the last AT to need a buff..? :P

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Last? No.

Certain combos of VEATs, Controllers, and Masterminds are all stronger IMO in PvE than Scrappers.
Brutes are arguably as good or some suggest better than scrappers. (Note that I am trying to avoid that particular discussion.)
Blasters are IMO as good, just different. The damage is just so good. A Flying blaster with capped ranged attack is fearsome.

I just don't have the practical end game experience with Corruptors to say for sure, but I suspect a flying /Kin with capped ranged defense would be capable of some special things.

All of these are capable of soloing AVs, doing the Rikti challenge, and scoring well on the Pylon test.

As much as I love Scrappers, they are somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as ATs go.

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I don't have an issue with Dark Armor's color or the saturation of it's effects; it's the fact that Cloak of Darkness turns the character completely invisible that drives me crazy. That doesn't strike me as something that color customization will fix.

It will be nice for all those Energy melee types to be able to modify those pink pom poms.

With large body types, any time you have a drawn weapon or shield or spines the model defaults to the "normal" frame animations for jumping and running.

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I am not asking for a set overhaul.

I think Cloak of Fear could use some tweaking. It seems a lot of people agree.

I think Dark Regen could use a slight dip in End cost. People seem to have mixed feeling about this one, with many people saying leave it alone.


As for the question of toggle management, I personally believe that the intention of the current Dark Armor set is that players turn on their toggles and go to town, much like the other defensive sets. The concept of exclusivity through end cost or other means has been exorcised from the set.

So here's my next question. Let's assume we look at each set as a total package; we assume that the people will run everything and we can base the effectiveness of the total package based on how all the defenses, attacks and utility it provides mesh together. That leads to a couple of questions:

~ When considering the entire secondary package including attacks, defenses and utility, do people think it is okay for one set to be "more powerful" with a corresponding increase in endurance use?

~ Do people think /DA running all toggles is more powerful or useful as a whole package than the other scrapper secondaries? Considering how hard it is to do a straight comparison because of the dramatic differences between sets, does DA *feel* more powerful than the other scrapper secondaries?

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Moonlighter, this thread is going all over the place. If you want to make any realistic attempt to get the devs attention regarding Dark Armor, focus only on CoF and OG. Anything else will be dismissed as over powered.


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I tend to agree, but if I only wanted the dev's opinions I would have PM'd Castle. I specifically wanted to hear the opinions of other scrappers. I don't value my own opinion so much that I would PM Castle on something that most other scrappers disagree with; I would re-evaluate my own playstyle and build preferences first.

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Dark Armor WAS NOT designed with the intention of running all of it's toggles. The original design was to run 1 resistance toggle (OS, DE, or MC) 1 Mez toggle, Death Shroud and Cloak of Darkness. That was it.


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I am fully aware of how it was designed and how it played at launch. Whether that vision is still relevant is somewhat in question though.

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It has been my contention, in numerous threads on this topic, that CoF and OG need reviewing. CoF was excessively nerfed to function in a game environment that no longer exists. OG and CoF have virtually no synergy, which IMHO makes no sense. The two powers should be altered (not necessarily buffed) to actually give players an incentive to run both toggles.


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I feel CoF is somewhat weak for its costs. That indeed was my first point.

As to the second, I personally believe that the endurance cost of Dark Regen is too high but there seems to be a lot of contention on that point. That's fine; in fact that's why I posted on the subject.

Here's a question: do people feel that the other scrapper secondaries are intended to run all their defensive toggles? If so, do you believe the intention is for DA to be operating with all it's toggles or do you believe the intention is to manage those toggles by clicking them on and off to conserve endurance?

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PROVE THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM


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In thread after thread of "OG or CoF" the advice is 90% "skip CoF." I find overwhelming common opinion to be a good indication something should be examined. It's not always correct, mind you, but it's a good place to start.

If the current design of scrapper sets that they should be able to run their toggles and click their mitigation clickies when those recharge and be somewhat endurance competitive with other secondaries then Dark Armor is way behind if you are using Cloak of Fear, or even if you aren't way behind.

If, on the other hand, Dark Armor unlike other secondaries is not supposed to be able to run it's toggles and click it's heal together, and endurance is supposed to be the gating factor preventing it from running everything then that's an interesting piece of data as well. If I thought in total that Dark Armor was more powerful in total than other secondaries I could see this total end cost but I don't.

Plus any time someone posts numbers that show that running all the Dark Armor mitigation powers someone says "Apples and Oranges" because the toggles do different things.

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Seriously, this should be the first thing on anyone's list, but it really isn't. You gave an opening paragraph that provides some vague, airy-fairy commentary on how you don't 'think' it's worth it. You did no numbers. You proved nothing. There was no attempt on your part to make a case that changes should be made, you merely moved on to producing changes. You move on to a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

If you just wanna talk about cool what-if scenarios for dark armour, okay, sure, knock yourself out, but don't think it's going to convince Castle.


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Well, before I compile the number people would have to understand and at least partially agree with opinions I have:

~ The secondaries should be able to run all their tools and have competitive endurance use.

~ With all its toggles running and hitting Dark Regen as it comes up Dark Armor isn't significantly better (with all things considered) than other secondaries. (Except /Fire).

~ Cloak of Fear is not generally used because it's actually statistics are bad. Most scrappers skip it for OG or just skip both.

If Dark Armor is considered the exception and the design is that it isn't supposed to be able to run all it's tools at the same time (a throw back to the Geko way of thinking) then that would be good to know.

If the general consensus is as above then it is pretty simple to compile numbers for all the toggles and for toggles + Dark Regen spam.

To reply to the various Dark Regen comments.

You have good points, Dark Regen can be powerful. It wasn't my intention for people to get hung up on the Reconstruction comparison. However, I feel that people aren't giving the need to target enemies for the heal to work as a disadvantage. It negates the usefulness in PvP, it prevents the heal from being used between battles, and it means the heal is pretty bad against single EBs and AVs.

As for the argument that it does damage; I can't really give that 12 points of damage any serious consideration as an advantage.

I see why the heal requires a lot of End, I just think 34 is too much.

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I don't even care. I'll be rolling some sort of Dual Pistols character on day one....running around with the 13 million other Dual Pistol nubs

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If I don't participate in some 8 man all Dual Pistol action in the first week I will be disappointed.

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Dark Armor is a great secondary if used correctly, but using it has a heavy price and I don't feel the mitigation in high stress situations is really that much better than other secondaries to warrant the cost. This is my attempt to get Castle to make some tweaks to the set:

~ Change the endurance cost of Dark Regeneration to something more reasonable. Charging over a third of a bar of Endurance for a self heal in a set that uses resists and heals for mitigation is harsh. I would like to see the base endurance cost reduced to 20.

As comparison, Reconstruction is only base 10 endurance. While it has a longer recharge and cannot benefit from healing from multiple foes, it has the benefit of not needed a hit check and it can be used between battles to recover health safely.

~ Now that Cloak of Fear can only affect minions with Fear, fix the stats on it. Not only is the cost too much for what it does, but the damage aura the set uses actually interferes with its mitigation. The endurance cost for this power should be the same as Weave which would bring it down to 0.33. The power should also be changed back to base accuracy of 75%.

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A couple things COF never had a 75% acc it had a 95% base and was nerfed to it's current levels back in I4-I5 due to pvp and the mag was reduced from 3 to 2 and yes it's endurance does need adjusted

I would love for dark regen to get some more endurance knocked off it was 50 until they gave the 12.5end reduction back in I4 to appease the masses that

In fact Dark Armor has never been adjusted much from it's original state the only buff it received since I2 was stacking armor. Everything else has been nerfed the funny thing happen on the way to the nerfs everyone else got hammered harder than DA so it came out better because everyone was brought down to their level.

Now on improvements I want a mag of 4 kb added and 50% kb resistance added to /DA personally

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Blessing of the Zephyr removed my desire for KB since I'd be stacking multiples anyway. I don't think at this point that Castle is going to turn around on the whole /Fire and /Dark knockback issue. But if that happened then great.

Dark Regen is ridiculously over priced for a 30 second recharge heal and needs to be brought down. 20 end is still twice what Recon pays.

CoF is hurting in PvE. Don't get me wrong, I don't want people perma-feared in PvP either. I have no problem keeping it's PvP stats lower.