Redlynne

How so? Is it because they use animated FX? I don't think I've ever seen anyone make this assertion before, so I'd like to know the source of your reasoning.

So does the phrase, "I have a problem. YOU figure it out!"

And while a simple "No" may seem perfectly straightforward to you ... your reasoning for WHY becomes "multiple choice" for anyone who is Not You, since there's no way to *falsify* incorrect, alternative interpretations of your unspecified motives.

And as soon as I can get that in an Incarnate Slot, I'll forgive the Devs for giving to the Mindwashed.

Yes, Flash Arrow will debuff tohit by a piddly amount that even with slotting is pretty much worthless ... and it's the only power in the set that really does that. What that means is that although it does "a lot" of tohit debuff vs a highly resistant target (re: AVs and Heroes) ... it does next to nothing against a target with minimal to no debuffing resistance (ie. The Rest Of The Game). Sadly, this gets into a realm of "twice nothing is still nothing" when it comes to appreciable effect from Flash Arrow. The tohit debuff on Flash Arrow is almost an "accidental" side effect, rather than something to build for. Even when enhanced for tohit debuff, the gain from enhancement doesn't even make the threshold of being a "noticeable difference" in actual gameplay until you start stacking it with (lots!) of other Trick Arrow players who have done the same thing with Trick Arrow.

If the tohit debuff from Trick Arrow were implemented in a way more like the Achilles' Heel Proc ... where you could only have 1 of them active on a target at a time (ie. no tohit debuff stacking from multiple sources of Flash Arrow), and it would be cast by the target onto themselves (game mechanically speaking) ... THEN you would have "room" to make the tohit debuff from Flash Arrow something MEANINGFUL ... like say ... 20% tohit debuff.

City of Heroes Live Dev Chat 3.31.2011



I have my sources ...

I am not (adversely) affected by the Incarnate Graphics, nor did I ever have a problem with the (updated after the first pass) Sonic Bubbles ... but I can easily envision how the Barrier Graphics could be a medical condition trigger for people who are susceptible to rapidly flashing lights.
I am not personally acquainted with anyone who is medically susceptible to the Incarnate Graphics, but have no doubt that there are players who are medically affected by them.

I have a non-playing friend who is routinely subject to epileptic seizures (eyes roll back in the head, speaking in tongues, kind of seizures) and one of her major triggers is flashing lights. For this reason, strobe lights (of *any* variety) are verboten in her presence under penalty of MURDEROUS WRATH OF HUSBAND (he of the concrete head, who cannot die).
I personally don't have a problem with the *graphics* per se ... but I am desperate to never HEAR the sound of Barrier ever again. That sound effect on Barrier comes dangerously close to the "Fingernails On Chalkboard" sound to my ears. The sound is harsh, grating, and ... unwelcome at any time.
So far, the only thing that "helps" me deal with Incarnate Graphics at this time is ... BAF and Lambda Trials. My FPS crashes so hard that I start playing City of Slide Shows that there is simply no opportunity for the Incarnate Graphics to "spoil" my playing experience. There's also the fact that in League Play there are so *many* graphical effects being splashed across my screen that the Incarnate Graphics tend to just get lost in the "noise" of the visual clutter that I have basically no chance to "appreciate" them on their own merits.

For the longest time, I didn't even recognize the Pyro Judgement powers for what they were. All I knew was that for some reason the ground was suddenly dirty for no apparent cause. Void Judgement (which I picked) is even worse, because the only way you can tell (visually) that you've even used it (yourself) is to look at your powers tray ... even when you're standing around in RWZ waiting for the League to fill up and there aren't that many powers hogging all the graphics. Even the Grounding Ray Guns on the Khan TF have (much) better graphics than Void Judgement.

But Barrier ... Barrier is the worst offender, both for its graphics and its audio.

Barrier would have been soooo much better (methinks) as a *simple* bubble, using translucent colors, which would slowly fade in and out of transparency every 15 seconds. You wouldn't even need to use a "soap bubble" texture like Force Field uses ... you could go for a diffuse "misty" look as being the volume between two co-focii spheres, with the *thickness* of the bubble shrinking down as the Barrier Buff degrades over time. That way you start with a "thick" bubble upon casting which becomes thinner and thinner as time passes, and the bubble slowly fades in and out of visibility as a sort of "gentle" animation reminder that the bubble is present.

If I was the Art Director ... that's the sort of rebuild of Barrier that I'd be looking for.

That's Birdy the Mighty. She's an alien Superhero.

It's not "some new definition of wrong" here. It's the same definition it's always been, but which you haven't managed to realize yet. Thank YOU for playing.

That's not what I meant. What I meant for stacking of max debuffs was, how many powers do you have to combine onto a target in order to get that max debuff value for each individual type of debuff?

Trick Arrow has to combine 2 powers (Acid Arrow and Resonating) in order to apply its Max Resistance Debuff. How many powers (combined) does it take for the other powersets to reach their Max Resistance Debuff? How about for their Max Defense Debuff? Max Regeneration Debuff? Max Damage Debuff? ... and so on ...

What's really sad is looking at how many powers Trick Arrow needs to combine in order to reach Max Slow Debuff ... and then realizing that the specific powers in question would almost never be combined together for this explicit purpose.

Heck, at this point, we might as well turn the Ninja summon powers into Toggles that automatically summon pets when you don't have 3/2/1 alive, and which have an endurance cost that is paid when actually summoning (as opposed to an end/sec cost) like you see on the Kinetics power Repel. That way, you really do have an endless stream of Faceless Flunkies to throw at your enemies.

With respect to Trick Arrow ... it's really quite amazing just how mediocre the set is for a Mastermind when it comes to debuffing. What takes other powersets (I'm looking at YOU, Dark) a single power to achieve, Trick Arrow requires a combination of powers simply in order to break even with the same level of performance. This means that in a great many situations, Trick Arrow needs to do more animations than other debuffing powersets (making it SLOWER to ramp up to effectiveness) and in so doing, costs more endurance (from needing to use more than one power to stack for similar debuff results) to achieve a comparable effect.

Furthermore, with anything less than a Recharge Intensive Build, you're going to spend most of your time with various powers recharging and unavailable to you simply because of the minute long recharges on a lot of powers. Once you've "shot your wad" of debuffing powers at a group, there's often "nothing left to do" using Trick Arrow beyond spamming Entangling Arrow while waiting for your debuffs to recharge ... and even Entangling Arrow has a recharge time (unenhanced) which can lead to long pauses (ie. multiple seconds) between uses in which you've really got nothing else to do (with Trick Arrow).

Ice Arrow is pretty much "garbage" until you get it 6-slotted ... at which point its performance level is "passable" but nothing to get excited about. The animation is *unnecessarily long* (as are so many other Trick Arrow animations), as is the recharge, compounded with a pathetically short duration (which is almost useless, unenhanced).

Clearly you have neither a Tri-form Warshade, nor a Quad-form Peacebringer. Khelidans made the slot pressures on VEATs look like recreational sport.