PleaseRecycle
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Posts
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Lisa, don't abandon your staff character if you like it. The campaign against staff fighting is in full swing but as I said previously it consists of about half a dozen people who really hate staff fighting trying to build up popular resentment for it so they can more easily lobby for buffs. Don't give up on a set that you paid for and that you enjoy just because of hearsay.
That aside, the complaints about staff come down to its hypothetical performance with top end purpled-out incarnate builds. If that's the main part of the game that you care about you could perhaps give staff's detractors more credence. I'm of the opinion that there's a lot more to the game than constant 50+3 trial grinding, and I'm also of the opinion that staff's performance even at that level is being mischaracterized. -
Quote:I'm not sure how you can reconcile this statement with your tendency to ignore the cost of taking all these others pools, building to the various recharge levels and so on. You can't look only at the benefits of your favored position while setting aside its drawbacks and expect that to be considered a serious analysis. I'll also point out that contrary to your earlier denial your stance has come down to arguing in favor of SS/FA/Mu against staff fighting alone. If you really don't have a SS/FA/Mu yet you might want to go roll one, you seemed enamored with it.Originally Posted by Combat
I think it is silly to talk about powersets as if they exist in a vacuum in isolation from the benefits of other powers. -
Quote:I would argue that you shouldn't even be using whirling hands against a single target because its DPA is atrocious. EM's best attacks are, unfortunately, energy punch and bone smasher, behind energy transfer. Forgoing total focus for the Protean fight not only keeps you from being siphoned, it barely affects your DPS. EBs are in the worst regen mod group besides minions so that really shouldn't be an issue compared to your own survival and preventing him from fully healing himself with his siphon.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I've gotten tagged with this after just barely Whirling Hands. ... Furthermore, what you're suggesting is a MASSIVE decrease in DPS, which in turn gives him time to regenerate using more conventional means, and it gives him time to work through my inspiration inventory. Because Protean is not exactly a trivial elite boss even without his Power Syphon.
This is going to shock you but we disagree on this. I love "gimmick fights" because if all you want is stationary AVs with hard hitting attacks you are well served by legacy content and even some new content. Don't think of Protean as a standard fight and half of your annoyance will evaporate. Think of that fight as a puzzle to be solved. In some sense it "devalues DPA" or whatever but it's very doable and the special rules are clearly articulated and easy to understand. If Arcanaville can beat Trapdoor with an unslotted emp/elec, a fight I would call pretty similar to Protean in most respects apart from its level, then the difficulty level is appropriate.Quote:City of Heroes is a game whose combat system is built around DPS and DPA calculations and its encounters are designed around those statistics. Throwing in gimmicks only serves to ban the optimal way of approaching a situation, and what you're arguing is how this should be a good thing. If your argument is that that's the point, that breaking up the regular tank-and-spank is the point, then I disagree, because all it does is annoy.
The reason I brought it up was as follows: since you only need to dodge away from Protean for the moment that his power fires, that's an excellent time to hit total focus while sailing away from him, causing his power to whiff, yours to hit, and by the time you're un-rooted it's a half-second trip back to melee range.Quote:Jousting is an unintended practice and the reason travel powers suppress in combat. It's also TERRIBLY inefficient from a DPS standpoint because you lose over half of your available uptime repositioning.
I get the frustration but really, it's one fight in the entire game. If nothing else, why not recruit a helper or two? Or just fill your tray with a couple purples and a ton of reds and burn him down before he gets a chance to attempt a second drain. There are lots of ways to not be annoyed by Protean and other "non-traditional" encounters, they just require going ever so slightly out of your way. Hardly a gargantuan onus.Quote:This one treats me nice, so I keep playing it. The last thing I want is more reasons to be pissed off at my connection and the game's combat mechanic quirks. -
It's interesting that many of the "no" answers have come with relatively elaborate explanations of how CoH isn't an action game and shouldn't be played like one. Could have fooled me, that's pretty much why I've been playing it since launch.
Protean's wind-up is actually a good example of a situation where the game really isn't as mean as some people think it is. You get five seconds to dodge. I know because I've run that mission on teams and had ample time to realize someone isn't moving and shoot off a "GET OUT OF THE WAYYYYYY" before his siphon connects, making the futility of my concern all the more heartbreaking. The thing is, you not only get the big red warning that says "dodge, you crazy maniac!" but also the general awareness that he's going to be dropping that power on you at regular intervals.
I can't think of any combat powers that you'd want to be using in melee range of a quite dangerous AV that take more than 3.3 seconds to animate. "But that's bad enough," you say, "because if your 3.3 second attack is queued a split second after the warning comes up you're probably stuck!" Live and learn. So he hit you with the drain once. Next time wait until Protean himself has just cast a power and start your long animation attack then: he definitely won't be able to get the entirety of the drain off before you can move again and since you're stuck watching your own animation you'll easily notice the warning. With practice (and combat jumping) you can even fire a parting melee attack in the same motion with which you're leaping out of his reach.
Root periods in this game are super generous. The AI is beholden to them but realistically players are not if they know how not to be. I personally haven't played any other game that skews that balance so heavily toward the player. -
Something tells me that when issue 24 hits beta the new system will be a huge nerf to most procs in most situations. The actual versus base recharge thing seems like a good way to get around the current PPM imbalance if you don't want there to be a floor to how ineffective procs can be. Wouldn't be a CoH issue beta without something to rile everyone up though.
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Of course, to be pedantic, I'd bet that somewhere in the EULA it explicitly says that paragon points have no cash value. Therefore 1000 points are worth the same as 100000 points, zero dollars. This is of course different from how much they cost you to obtain, but it's something worth keeping in mind if you need to factor such things into your budget.
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The lesson I took from performance shifter's PPM nerf was that they completely intend PPMs to be better than normal procs. Yes, it was nerfed, but it is still superior to a craftable PS proc for the only application anyone actually uses them for.
It would be difficult for them to nerf a proc like hecatomb's to the point where players wouldn't be capable of getting much more out of it than out of the craftable version. As I said elsewhere, they could reduce its PPM to 2 and it would still be far better than the craftable proc in any "long recharge" melee attack. They could reduce its PPM to 1 and it would still be substantially better than the standard proc in crushing uppercut and knockout blow.
The only way for them to keep it from being relatively overpowered in any case would be to make sure it sucks in every case. Since they're trying to make money off of the thing, I somehow don't see them doing that. -
Quote:I don't think people realize how good PPMs are. They'd have to nerf the hecatomb proc from 4.5 PPM down to 2 PPM for it to be worth switching it from precise strike to sky splitter in the staff chain of PS-SR-PS-SS, at which point it would still be better than the regular hecatomb proc slotted in precise strike. They could nerf the hecatomb proc down to one PPM and it would still be far better than a normal hecatomb proc in knockout blow.Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
I think that selling something that performs better than anything crafted in the game is something that is not good. I don't want to give the wrong impression of what I mean in the classic pay to win debate deal. It may not be but it bloody stinks to high heaven for them to sell them and they operate differently than the same named crafted counterpart in the game.
And when they nerf it like they did with the other one, there is a name for that too.
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Quote:Thing is, what kind of nerf would you expect? So far it seems that all they'll even consider is lowering the PPM value for a proc. In many cases they'd have to knock it down a great degree for it to not remain radically superior to normal procs. It's technically possible for them to bump all SBE procs down to, say, 1 PPM, but that just wouldn't make a lot of sense. What I would sooner expect to see is either a marginal reduction, say the 4.5s down to 3.5s, or the craziest scenario: ditch the PPM system and just treat them as regular procs. I think they should do that but I don't think they will do that.Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
The right to have your OP'ed SBE Proc nerfed when the devs wake up.....after they get your money of course.
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Quote:I think that might have been a reasonable expectation before the PS nerf. They could easily have tackled PPMs as a whole but seem fairly sure that the damage procs are WAI. The other thing is, at their "actual values" these pieces would be pretty damn expensive. At their sale values they're kind of not. 200 points for a generic purple? Sure. Converters work on SBEs just as well as they work on IOs*.Originally Posted by Rabid_M
We just expect them to be nerfed, that's all.
*Oh ho, no they do not, not on the purple ones. You might want to amend your spreadsheet, ZM. Fortunately the plain ol' hecatomb procs that these will replace are highly convertible. -
Nobody's excited about 4.5 PPM Hecatombs? Or were those added last week and I somehow didn't notice? Stack of procs: acquired!
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If inf is no object and you want to play a really aggressive controller, I'm talking beating the tanker to the AV alpha, dark/time is difficult to top. It's reminiscent of storm in terms of its power being accurately reflected by the visual maelstrom swirling around you but both sets involved are newer and thus shinier. Both of them also look a lot better using custom colors.
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Quote:That's an interesting claim seeing as the only way for a SS brute to have an aoe chain is to go either Mu or Leviathan and take every aoe on offer. Even then you'll be constantly shuffling around to take advantage of cones. If you mean a "close enough" gappy chain then the only option is Mu and you essentially have to focus on recharge and nothing else. Staff's aoe chain doesn't require anywhere near the same level of build focus, is trivially easy to fire at melee range without taking advantage of the cone dance due to the large arcs on its cones, and is also easily gapless.Originally Posted by Combat
The experience I had with SS is that it would probably just be "good" with Footstomp. However, when I add 2 more AoEs from patron sets, and combine them with Rage, I instantly get an AoE chain that Staff cannot compete with
Heh instead of waiting for a reply and returning with a rejoinder, though, you obviously are referring exclusively to SS/FA/Mu. That's one combination. SS/FA/Mu is pretty cool but you don't get to call it baseline performance for SS. It is the most cookie cutter of builds and it's lucky for you fans of SS that the devs don't judge performance based on specific set combinations. If they looked at SS/FA/Mu in the same way you're trying to use it to claim that staff is underperforming, all of the sets involved would be nerfed by next week. -
I doubt it would take them much effort at all to rename all of my characters to random obscenities but I wouldn't take very kindly to it.
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Quote:As though! If you don't have polarized shades, you won't be seeing rocks until you've smashed your paddle on 'em. You'd be silly to use nice ones though because your dog might flip the canoe.Originally Posted by WanderingAries
Let me guess, those are your 3D glasses too. :-p
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Okay, one thing I wonder about is why you use the pure damage pieces in any of the purple sets when you also use boosters. You don't even need boosters to get them to "good enough" damage levels, but just boosting one of the damage doubles will get any purple set to the ED cap last time I checked. This would allow you to slot another proc in storm kick, for example, which is great because it doesn't seem like they have any intention to nerf PPMs in general. I don't remember the sixth slot bonus in the new scrapper ATO set, is it essential?
I was thinking about suggesting saving slots on physical perfection but I don't know what else you'd do with them*. Looks like a cool build.
*I always add a slot to hurdle for max jumping speed. If you're already using SJ, that is of course totally moot... out of combat! -
Minnesota, dontcha know.
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I was referring to the damage buff that Combat was proposing to several staff powers.
Like I said, 75% regen and 50% recovery are respectively about even and slightly better than the bonuses from slotted health and stamina. That's a really big bonus when considered alongside form of the soul itself. If it were slottable that would compromise your ability to slot sky splitter as an attack and the values would also be lower. The fact that you don't keep level three perfection on permanently if you're using sky splitter as part of your chain is no impediment at all: that recovery bonus is permanent barring misses, and if sky splitter has level three perfection to cash in then it itself is guaranteed to be affected by the endurance discount, and it's the most costly part of the chain. It's win-win-win with form of the soul. -
You can't tell but it's freaking snowing. -
Sky splitter also does 20% more damage than you're giving it credit for 85% of the time. It fits into staff's concise top chain with much more reasonable recharge than it takes to get crushing uppercut usable with similar frequency. Most importantly to me, it gives totally unique defensive bonuses when it consumes perfection: CU is nice but let me know when it gives you permable slotted health and stamina on top of the bonus endurance discount you're getting just because of the set you're using. You say you love the deadly efficiency of tomaytoes, I say I prefer the broad staying power of tomahtoes.
Serpent's reach is a ranged attack masquerading as melee attack in terms of all of its stats. That's very significant not just for the combat utility of it but also because it allows you to slot apocalypse in a power you're actually going to use in your chain instead of in an APP mule. I know you know the value of that and I also don't believe that you seriously think that focus is an average attack. Being part of a set that lets you fire it off with a permanent 112.5% damage buff pushes its already-great DPA into the stratosphere, considering claws was once widely thought to be worse than you guys are now calling staff for single target damage.
Between those two powers, staff's top chain has considerable mitigation built in. Staff's aoe chain, GS-IS-GS-EotS, has even more mitigation than that as well as -res, immob and an amazing spot for a FotG proc. Most sets don't even have an aoe chain, but all of this stuff is in addition to the form bonuses. Again I state that there is no way on earth that staff gets to keep all of this in addition to increased damage. -
Staff is a terrible set. You can't solo with it and if you team with it all you're doing is leeching. I got kicked off of every team I joined with my staff brute and I couldn't understand why. Finally yesterday XxGokuxX clued me in after kicking me: staff sucks because it doesn't do any damage. It had been staring me in the face the entire time but it took the words of a sage for the last piece to fall into place. At once I leapt from my chair, somersaulted around the room and sat back down, my purpose truly clear for the first time: I had to reroll. But to what? Well, the one thing I'm sure about is that damage is strong. Another thing I learned one time is that fire hurts. I'm still trying to work out how to apply this information but I have a couple good leads.
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My first post in this thread alluded to what I suspect is the actual reason for this change: there is no tech to grant an accolade based on one badge or another badge. Accolades are all or nothing. If your goal is to remove Statesman from the late-game timeline but doing so would mean either leaving him in a prominent 45+ arc or granting a badge called Statesman's Pal for rescuing someone other than Statesman or developing an entire new system to account for the old arc granting one badge and the new arc granting another or changing the badge, which one looks the most economical to you?
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Note that I never said anything about animation times and do not accept that you are correct that the devs don't consider them.
Your endurance fix there has precisely the same issue as your suggestion of ageless. It works, but it's situational and there are tradeoffs. In this case the tradeoff happens to be the same: you sacrifice "survivability" inspirations for endurance inspirations. If you're willing to make that trade, boffo, enjoy your TW/DA. I'm sure it will wreck many faces. I'm glad that not every powerset is cut from the same cloth, the game would be much more homogeneous if that were the case.
Endurance completely aside, your proposal ignores many other things about staff fighting. Serpent's reach is the second best melee set ranged attack behind focus, and it beats all of the others by a huge margin. Sky splitter, like eye of the storm, does substantial bonus damage with noteworthy special effects as a part of the set's top chain. Precise strike is a solid if bland attack that by your own analysis is competitive with the likes of shin breaker, street justice's second best attack. Street justice, I remind you, has been put on a pedestal in this and other staff threads as "one of the good ones." Compared to staff, its bag of tricks looks like it came in a Cracker Jack box. What does it really have apart from the one big attack? That makes such a big difference to you? I don't see why. -
If that's what you're going to go with I'm even less impressed. For one thing, see SpyralPegacyon's post above. For another, there is an easier explanation available, which I shouldn't have to remind you is that their goal was to get players out of Statesman's shadow. This is more plausible for a wide variety of reasons, such as the fact that Positron does not govern the game by personal fiat and the fact that we actually have no reason to assume he runs his team with the attitude of a five year old. In most circumstances people wouldn't even suggest that as it is incredibly insulting, but welcome to the City of Heroes forums.
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Quote:I like those optional objectives. My speed TFing nature compels me to squash the required bosses and then bee-line to the portal, but I derive some odd satisfaction when I see that counter ticking down. Someone on my team is enjoying that little eccentricity of design and I in turn enjoy that.Originally Posted by Ogi
It'd be awesome if all those optional objectives (fuel lines, the first room of generators, saving that one ship) did something. I like task forces that cap out under 45 but Sutter at 20 is a lot more difficult than Mortimer at 20 as it doesn't seem to have been designed for the low end of its level range plus Sutter at 20 really screws with the timeline.
The AV fight at the end is refreshingly challenging, it's nice that a strong team can brute force it but a weaker team can strategically chip away at it. Mission two is the one that seems possibly too tough to me: I've never seen a failure against Riptide and Whatsherface, but I've seen more than one success where most of the team was perma-dead from the kamikazes and a couple meleers had to slowwwwwly whittle her health down while in no danger at all. Apart from that Sutter is definitely one of my favorite TFs, though, and it's a shame it gets relatively little attention just because you don't keep incarnate powers on it.