Oedipus_Tex
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Ok but once you get to that point all I'm saying is you would have done better to replace one of them with a Blaster. And I don't know what you mean by "multiple trollers." I've seen plenty of teams with as many as four or five Controllers wipe. There's no accounting for skill level on a PUG, and not everyone is running steamrollers.Originally Posted by brophog02
If you have multiple trollers, you have plenty of holds to go around for a couple of bosses........plus everything is going to be dead before those bosses have a chance to do much. It is still a non-issue then. -
Quote:Depends highly on the situation. There are definitely groups of enemies that some Controllers have a hard time locking down. And plenty of times where the Ice Slick is indeed useful, since its knockdown blows past boss' natural mezz protection.
If the situation is in hand (and hard controls or no, if 2 30+ controllers can't lock down damn near everything w/a tank in tow, there's a lot more going on wrong than misuse of an AoE immob), why not spam the AoE immob? It adds to damage and sets up containment. Is that Ice Slick really keeping your tank alive? Seriously? That tank is that fragile?
So again it depends. But do I think we have to turn this around for a second; if your team's damage is so low that you have to rely on a Controller spamming AoE containment to kill things you've already started off on strange footing. Fire/Kin might put out damage high enough to justify that sort of tradeoff, but only once approaching the 40s. Maybe I'm not down with the times, but when Earth and Ice Controllers start caging things for the containment value instead of knocking them down it makes me wonder what it is they think they are bringing to the team. -
Well my Energy/Mental Blaster is lvl 32 now. I just got Nova, and it's sort of fun to send stuff flying.
This definitely isn't my favorite character. I knew about blowing things downward and into walls before I started, but opportunities for that seem limited inside actual missions, because of low ceilings and mob placement. The character does solo rather remarkably, though.
I don't know. I'm not the hugest fan of playing Blasters to begin with, tho I always like a good one on my team. The only characters I can compare this guy to are my Assault Rifle, Archery, Fire, and Radiation Blasters who all stalled around lvl 25. I think I am just more of a Controller player. But Energy Blast sure does have great graphics. -
I can vouch for Blizzard being absolutely disgustingly great on a teamed Defender. My Force Field/Ice uses it every time it's up. It's basically a way to say "yeah I didn't really feel like we needed to spend time on that group" every four or five mobs. And that's with a toggle-heavy power set with no real ways to boost damage. I can imagine how awesome it is on an Ice/Cold.
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Quote:Absolutely. The other thing is that powers are not necessarily over or underpowered in a testing state, but in the context of the game they are placed.
I know that often times Dev's don't look at every possible combination. They look at the ones they think will be the best and the worst, but they do miss things.
For example, if the typical mission in this game involved the "prevent 30 enemies from escaping" mechanic, Controllers would become much more powerful, even if no changes were made to their powers. If the typical mission involved AoE explosions, armored archetypes and Force Field Defenders would rise in power.
An example of this at work are the two cutting-edge-of-overpowered Controller combos, Fire/Kinetics and Illusion/Radiation. There is nothing about either of these combos that would be particularly outrageous if it didn't happen that killing massive numbers of weak enemies quickly was one of the best ways to earn money and equipment (recipes in this game), or if archvillians didn't just happen to be bags of HP with very high regeneration rates. One of the things that makes Going Rogue interesting is that all of the powersets will rise or fall depending on what the new typical challenge is, and its possible that the days of the Fire/Kin and Ill/Rad are numbered. No one can say until we see what the expansion has in store.
All of that said, I don't know what set of circumstances would make Trick Arrow a top set. I've posted my summation of the powers already, so I won't rehash that. Except for the tier 8 and 9 powers, everything else in the set seems like a copy of another set's powers, only weaker. And despite my ongoing debate with Knight, I still hold that the set is underpowered on everyone, including Controllers. -
Quote:Believing that the set is underpowered does not mean I am "accusing the devs of incompetence." I think your penchant for hyperbole isn't suited to your purposes.
Hardly, it means that thus far (including this post) you haven't offered a resaonble explanation and have essentially accused the devs of incompetence twice (the nerf in closed beta AND the subsequent lack of buff for 9 issues).
I don't agree with your assertion that Trick Arrow is nearly overpowered on Controllers. I haven't accused the game developers of anything whatsoever. I think City of Heroes has some of the best game developers of any game on the market. This does not mean that I think their judgement is perfect. I don't think THEY believe their judgment is perfect. Mine certainly isn't.
In fact I will tell you something. I used to BE a game developer for a different game. And in the course of that I wrote some powers that were overpowered, some that were underpowered, and some that were just right. There were even abilities that, as I was releasing them, I thought were over or underpowered for whatever reason, but went ahead because I wasn't the only person making those calls. There is a lot more... a WHOLE lot more that goes into the release of a power/spell/ability/whatever in a commercial game product than you might assume. Further, sometimes a power that seems okay on release turns out to be far worse or better than you initially pictured. -
Quote:So basically your argument is that the devs have never misjudged the capability of a powerset, ever. Which makes this comment...
I find it much more reasonable that the devs do know exactly what they are doing, nerfed it during closed beta for that reason, and haven't made any changes to it because either they aren't allowed to by the person in the company that makes the decisions in that regard, or the big picture hasn't changed enough to justify it.
...rather interesting.Quote:I'm hearing a lot of chaff from your direction however I have yet to hear anything of substance. -
Quote:No. It's because game developers are not omniscient and overestimated how powerful the set is. It's not like the game developers are idiots OR you are right. That's ridiculously overstated.
A) The devs are stupid.
B) The player base is stupid and will never notice.
C) The devs hate villians so they had to make sure that TA was lame enough to provide the proper amount of suckage for Masterminds and Corruptors.
D) The Devs like defenders being the least played basic Blue AT and want to make sure it stays that way so they had to drop the numbers to maintain the status quo.
E) TA with good numbers challenged the supremacy of Fire/Kin controllers so the numbers had to be dropped to make sure that Fire/Kin maintained it's rightful place.
F) Because TA is control heavy and when the controller AT modifier was applied to TA as a direct port the numbers were higher than allowed by Castle's formulas especially after the debuff numbers were taken into account.
G) TA was too good in pre-I13 PvP and had to be eviscerated before release so that stalkers and blasters wouldn't whine.
H) Some unfathomable reason that you in your infinite and unscrutable wisdom have thus far failed to enlighten us with. -
Quote:If you define "as high as it can go" as "significantly worse than some other secondary," maybe.
All that without taking into consideration any secondary effects of the powers. Nope, can't see it happening and that's why I think that TA hasn't gotten buffed. It's as high as it can go without either breaking controllers or without breaking the cottage rule and changing the powers.
Meanwhile, let's talk Bots/Traps and Bots/Dark before we call /Dark or /Traps Controllers overpowered. -
Quote:But only because Controllers don't yet have Traps.
TA is a fine secondary for Controllers.
The thing about TA is just about everyone considered it fine in the absence of something to compare it to. Controllers are just waiting their turn to whine about the set. Even for Controllers right now, it's among the weakest and least popular secondaries. No matter which AT we're talking about, nothing can change the fact that the opening four powers in TA are, quite frankly, the single worst four opening powers of any set. -
Storm also gets the craziest knockback power of all: Tornado. It not only throws things through the air, it chases them down and throws them again and again and again and again...
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For pure chaos, Storm/Energy Blast or Energy Blast/Storm is probably the wildest combo.
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Quote:As long as you remember that Seeds usually does not affect bosses on the first application but Ice Slick does. Not an issue if the bosses are mezzed in some other way, but if they aren't and you use Roots they will immediately stand up and start attacking again, because they are both immune to knockback and not immobilized (unless you score an Overpower). This is why you really have to think carefully before using an AoE immob on someone's knockdown patch.
4. Your powers may be interfering with theirs as well. If I just used seeds of confusion on a big group of enemies, I don't want them falling down, I want them killing each other, so if another troller on the team uses a knockdown power, I'll use roots to stop the KD so they can go back to beating on each other. -
AR/Mind Blaster is great too.
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Quote:Yeah but if that's happening you probably need to increase the difficulty too.
If nobody is in the risk of dying whether the mobs are flopping...
Why not?
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I think something like Storm Summoning/Dark Blast Defender or Corruptor would work particularly well for a magic type character.
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When I was new to the game I used to spam the Earth cages. I didn't know it prevented knockdown. I more or less cut it out when I figured that out.
But, yeah. A lot of times when this topic comes up on the boards someone will say something like "generally if that's happening it means there is already enough control on the team." Maybe they get different kinds of teams than me. I'm with you on your frustration here.
The only thing I can suggest is politely informing people that they should avoid caging inside knock zones if the team is taking damage or they can't handle the aggro. -
I think they are saying it would just be like an immoveable, single instance Illusion Army guy that does no direct damage but does have a Taunt aura so that enemies tend to attack it.
And I have to say I really, REALLY like the idea. -
2 Recharge ISOs in Ice Slick is standard. Slotting Range can help too if you can fit it but it's not necessary.
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I like it.
Here is the build I use at 50. Not perfect, but not too bad either IMO. You would probably want something a little different for leveling up.
This character is my "Task Force buster." He stealths, he teleports, he can grab glowies undetected, he can debuff the end boss. I've gotten more merits on him than any other Controller. He is also the only character I've been able to successfully protect a team against an army of +6 enemies with, mostly due to unlimited chances to reroll missed Confusions.
[EDIT: Just realized I lied about actually having the purple hold set in Total Dom. It's frankenslotted at the moment.]
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
12-26-09 Cold Reader Recharge APP Energy: Level 50 Natural Controller
Primary Power Set: Mind Control
Secondary Power Set: Cold Domination
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Primal Forces Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Levitate -- KinCrsh-Dmg/KB:50(A), KinCrsh-Acc/Dmg/KB:50(3), KinCrsh-Rechg/EndRdx:50(15), KinCrsh-Acc/KB:50(31), KinCrsh-Rchg/KB:50(48), KinCrsh-Dmg/EndRdx/KB:50(48)
Level 1: Infrigidate -- Achilles-ResDeb%:20(A), AnWeak-Acc/DefDeb:50(5), AnWeak-DefDeb:30(40)
Level 2: Dominate -- Lock-%Hold:50(A), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold:50(3), BasGaze-Acc/Hold:30(11), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg:30(13), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold:30(43), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold:30(46)
Level 4: Ice Shield -- LkGmblr-Def:50(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(5), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(17)
Level 6: Confuse -- CoPers-Conf:50(A), CoPers-Conf/Rchg:50(7), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg:50(7), CoPers-Conf%:50(13), CoPers-Acc/Rchg:50(15), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx:50(43)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(9), RechRdx-I:50(9)
Level 10: Glacial Shield -- LkGmblr-Def:50(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(11), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(17)
Level 12: Recall Friend -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A)
Level 14: Hurdle -- Jump-I:50(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I:50(A)
Level 18: Total Domination -- UbrkCons-Dam%:50(A), UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg:50(19), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg:50(19), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg:50(23), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold:50(25), Lock-%Hold:50(37)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%:50(A), P'Shift-EndMod:50(21), EndMod-I:50(21)
Level 22: Arctic Fog -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx:50(23), Aegis-ResDam:50(40)
Level 24: Mass Hypnosis -- FtnHyp-Sleep/EndRdx:50(A), FtnHyp-Sleep/Rchg:50(25), FtnHyp-Acc/Sleep/Rchg:50(29), FtnHyp-Acc/Rchg:50(33), FtnHyp-Plct%:50(40)
Level 26: Terrify -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(27), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(27), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(29), Posi-Dam%:50(31), Abys-Acc/Rchg:50(37)
Level 28: Benumb -- Acc-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(31), RechRdx-I:50(36), Acc-I:50(46)
Level 30: Super Speed -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 32: Mass Confusion -- Mlais-Acc/Rchg:50(A), Mlais-EndRdx/Conf:50(33), Mlais-Acc/EndRdx:50(33), Mlais-Conf/Rng:50(34), Mlais-Acc/Conf/Rchg:50(34), RechRdx-I:50(34)
Level 35: Sleet -- Achilles-ResDeb%:20(A), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg:50(36), UndDef-DefDeb/Rchg:50(36), ShldBrk-%Dam:20(37)
Level 38: Heat Loss -- Efficacy-EndMod:50(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg:50(39), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx:50(39), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg:50(39), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg:50(50), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc:50(50)
Level 41: Power Blast -- Dev'n-Hold%:50(A), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(42), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg:50(42), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(43)
Level 44: Energy Torrent -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(45), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(46)
Level 47: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(48)
Level 49: Temp Invulnerability -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx:50(A), Aegis-ResDam:30(50)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Clrty-Stlth:50(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment -
Quote:
I would also ditch either Arctic Air... I was with you until this part.Quote:...Your control wouldn't suffer at all, and your ability to mitigate damage by defeating bad guys before they can defeat you goes way up.
I know this is a longstanding debate with many different sides, but it's my position that Arctic Air is as or more crucial than Ice Slick. Both of them together is even better. There is that whole "but I'm a ranged character!" debate that can go here, but my reply to that is "...and also bad at protecting your team," for reasons I would rehash if my lunchbreak weren't over.
But everyone has their own opinion on the Arctic Air issue, so whatever goes. -
Thanks for the new info and the thank you. Assorted replies:
- IMO I think you are still putting too much emphasis on set bonuses and neglecting your actual powers. Ice Slick, IMO, is better than any set bonus you are going to get. It protects the entire team, where a defense bonus only protects you. This tradeoff might be somewhat acceptable on another archetype, but on one specifically tasked with adding safety to the team it's a major detriment.
- It's true that Shiver and Snowstorm stack on AVs. I didn't think of this because I don't solo AVs, and looking at your build I assume you don't either. If you are doing it on teams, cases where you need to slow the AV are fewer, because the tank keeps them more or less in position. The ones that run around can sometimes be immobed. Are there a whole lot of AVs that can't be immobilized? FYI Ice Slick, the power you skipped, has a bigger -Speed component than either of these two powers (but no -Recharge). I would still heavily consider skipping one or power or the other.
- Arctic Air loaded with the full purple set is pretty extreme. The extra defense and recharge you gain has to be balanced against the amount of endurance recovery and damage output you lose, and the Confusion duration is the same for either. You might be able to sneak by the endurance recovery issue because of Heat Loss, but it will hurt when that's down.
- Power Boost has no effect on Ice Slick. The power it rocks is Benumb. Personally I think the Ice APP is better for Ice/Cold than Primal because knockback can throw things away from your slicks and auras. The Mind APP is also a favorite for any Ice/ character, for the anti-mezz power that lets you abuse Arctic Air more freely.
- You can still fly around using a jet pack. Since you've said you'll be going afk anyway, how fast you get there won't matter. -
Mind/Storm/Earth comes to mind as a steady soloer who can sub in for teams when s/he feels like. It's not a farmer but you should be able to kill just about anything short of an Epic Boss you come across solo from level 1 to 50, and sub in for teams when you feel like it. The fun powers are about evenly dispersed across your career, with great opener single target attacks from Mind that make up for Storm's slow start, and a great AoE from Storm right when Mind really needs it at around level 16.
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I have this slotted in my Mind Controller's Mass Hypnosis power, but am wondering if that was a mistake.
1) What does Placate actually do? I know Stalkers can do it, but am not sure how it works.
2) Does it notify enemies? I fear I've screwed up the non-notify element of Mass Hyp by slotting this. -
Quote:What Containment essentially is is a justification for a low damage Archetype to score extra damage. There is no grand concept afoot here.
Look at it this way... Containment is essentially the ability to place our attacks for maximum effect when a target is not able to dodge properly due to being held or immobilized or whatever. It's probably hard to do that against someone who is bouncing around on the floor...
There are some very good arguments against Knockdown triggering Containment.
- It could be hard to implement
- It could be overpowered, because bosses tend to fall over easier than they are mezzed
- It could be irrelevant for some Control sets (IMO not a good argument though because some Control sets already benefit more from Containment than others)
But concept isn't one of them.
Again, just exploring, but a little surprised by the kneejerk reactions.