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Posts
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I'm torn. I want to put the summer event proc in Bonfire. But I also want to put it in Rise of the Phoenix.
Decisions, decisions. -
Quote:Electrical Blast was indisputably one of the top 5 blaster primaries and defender secondariesWhere did you see that it was a Top 5 set, what led anyone to say that?
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at launch.
Currently, by my count, it's 8th out of 12, 9th out of 13 if you count Water Blast. YMMV. Still basically in the middle of the pack. But I'm sure there'll be a shakeup from recent and forthcoming changes. I'll keep an open mind about it. -
Buff/debuff sets range between "great for teaming" and "so good it's practically cheating." So you'll do fine with Empathy.
Just be aware that Empathy has a few quirks that can lead people into ineffective builds and playstyles:
1) Empathy gives the most specialized and situational powers at low levels, where the always useful powers are supposed to be. This results in silliness like "rocking the aura" (putting Healing Aura on autofire). Keep in mind that your mid- to high-level buffs are the set's greatest strengths, and heals are only situationally useful.
2) The description of Fortitude implies you can only buff one teammate. It's true you can buff one teammate per cast, but the duration greatly exceeds the recharge, so you can keep multiple teammates buffed by changing targets each time.
3) No Empathy powers target enemies. This means you have to be good at rapidly switching between targeting enemies and targeting teammates. By default, SHIFT+1 through SHIFT+8 target your teammates. Try setting up a key to work like TAB except for allies, for example using these keybinds:
/bind ` target_friend_next
/bind SHIFT+` target_friend_prev
/bind CONTROL+` target_friend_near
4) All Empathy powers are clicks. No passives or toggles. Some on very large recharge times. This means recharge buffs are key to effective Empathy play. Speed pool will do more for you than Medicine pool, Spiritual Alpha will do more for you than Vigor Alpha.
5) Defender Fortitude is better than controller Fortitude, but the remaining eight powers are either identical across both archetypes, or defenders have an insignificant advantage. Consider rolling an /Empathy controller unless there's a defender secondary you want, such as Water Blast, Sonic Attack, Dark Blast, Psychic Blast, all excellent support-ish blast sets. -
Oddly enough I just teamed with a Rad/Rad defender the other day who had all her powers colored yellow and "Lemonade" in her name. I think she'd appreciate being able to keep the yellow option.
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Alpha boosts nothing for Assault Hybrid powers.
Alpha boosts the toggled-on regen, defense, and resist portions of Melee Hybrid powers, but not the passive portions, or the taunts or mez protection. It's strange the parts differ like that. But there's no way of telling which of the parts are buggy, and which are WAI.
Haven't tested Control or Support yet, but when I do, they'll be up here: http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Hybrid -
Oy, got a patch error. 90 minute repair before I'll get onto beta.
But "the other wiki" has a page on the set.
http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Water_Blast -
As I expected, aggressive LFM spammers did not move from Help to LFG. Normal LFT/LFM traffic did move to LFG, but the aggressive LFM spammers simply doubled down on the spam, cross posting across both channels. This behavior results in flooding for anyone watching both channels. Even worse if they're also cross-posting to Broadcast, which they often do.
I propose the GMs restrict the channel access for aggressive cross posting LFM spammers. For example, ban them from /help. They will not self-limit the amount of disruption they cause, so external limits must be placed.
Why not just /ignore them?
Ignore lists are finite and temporary. On Virtue, the number of spammers intentionally doing this is large, and will eventually fall off the ignore list once it's filled.
So you want the GMs to ban everyone who LFTs in /help?
Sometimes players will get desperate and send a LFT message to help chat after trying in the LFG channel (even though it does them no good). They should not be restricted for an occasional lapse in judgement. Only players who habitually cross post LFM spam in both channels should be restricted.
But what if they're innocent?
In my experience, aggressive LFM spammers, without a single exception, were well aware of the disruption they were causing. And they didn't care. And they made those facts clear to me in hostile terms (Direct quote: "Deal with it."). Like RMT spammers, aggressive LFM spammers will cause any amount of channel disruption you allow them to, as long as it has any chance of getting them what they want.
So how will they get teams?
They should remain allowed to post in /lfg. Restrictions should only stop them from cross posting to every other channel. It's the flooding, not the content, that is disruptive, so reducing the volume, not muting, is the appropriate response. -
Quote:One of the three game-breaking, stand in the middle of the spawn and /em boombox, show me on the doll where the defender touched you, tohit debuffs in City of Heroes, along with Hurricane and freaking Blackstar. Not even Darkest Night, Fearsome Stare, or Delayed Time's Juncture are in the same league. AchillesX3 and LadyGreyX3 are not good enough bonuses to give that to-hit debuff potential up. Take a look at the Dampened Spirits or Dark Watcher's Despair set bonuses, I have a feeling you'll see something you like.Level 2: Radiation Infection -- Achilles-DefDeb:20(A), Achilles-DefDeb/Rchg:20(11), Achilles-ResDeb%:20(13), LdyGrey-Rchg/EndRdx:50(13), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg/EndRdx:50(15), LdyGrey-DefDeb/EndRdx:50(15)
Quote:Level 6: Accelerate Metabolism -- Efficacy-EndMod:50(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg:50(37), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx:50(37)
Quote:Level 18: Lingering Radiation -- TmpRdns-Acc/EndRdx:50(A), TmpRdns-Dmg/Slow:50(23), TmpRdns-Acc/Dmg/Slow:50(27) -
Quote:I have doubts whoever designed it is a City of Heroes player. It looks more in line with trinity based MMOs where crowd control isn't supposed to matter. I fully expect that if I surf over to ***pedia I'll find some shadow priest or warlock spell that has a chance to charm a target for 2 seconds, and the *** community thinks it's balanced.qft. I don't really understand how this power has remained this bad for this long while oppressive gloom ticks twice as frequently for about 6x the duration at the same magnitude in a 50% larger radius.
See also: Non-damage Interface procs. -
Quote:Somehow, I forgot to mention the other complication, that sustained DPS is partially a function of survivability. Thanks for the reminder.I do not think high burst damage + high sustained DPS is going to do it. There are blaster combinations out there that can already do that and they (likely) still underperform the other ATs.
If you want to eliminate the under-performance (and by default the near total reliance on allies) then blasters need some combination of armors, other self buffs, controls and/or debuffs. -
Only one way to make blasters, as a damage-only archetype, make sense in a game where every archetype is good at two things. Split the damage role into two distinct and equally important roles, and have both those roles applicable to blasters.
Melee damage versus ranged damage, as I believe most of us agree, isn't the way to do it. The distance at which you can deal damage still isn't that important, despite all the autohit location-based shenanigans the devs put into the game. Doing damage to something all up in its face, versus damage to something from a 2 seconds' jog distance, are easily interchangeable, and aren't distinct roles.
AoE damage versus single target damage is a bit more like it. The roles are distinct; having someone good at ST damage on the team doesn't eliminate the benefit to bringing an AoE damage dealer along. Still, it's hard to place a whole archetype on one side of that divide when damage sets vary so much. If we decide to buff blasters to make them really good at AoE damage, what happens to poor, poor psi blasters? Both roles won't necessarily be applicable to all blasters, so while the line can be drawn that way, doing so doesn't fully address the blaster issue.
So how should the team role be split? Based on the way game content is going, especially in the endgame, I believe the two team roles should be burst damage and sustained DPS. A strong burst damage AT should be able to take down a LT rank enemy in no time at all. And DPS should buzzsaw through bosses and big bads at a decent rate.
So what would it take for blasters to be at the top of the list for both burst damage and sustained DPS? What other ATs would we have to rival? Stalker seems the closest comparison. If we don't measure up to the stalker archetype's survivability, how much should we beat stalkers in burst and sustained damage to even things out? -
To pick up where Strato left off...
May I be so bold as to suggest that, from a maximizing cash shop income standpoint, designing a blaster or dominator secondary just for the sake of selling a blaster or dominator secondary is likely a losing proposition. Sorta-proliferations between the cash shop launch and now have been included with VIP; assuming the devs aren't stupid, this means the devs have good reason to believe sorta-proliferations aren't exclusive cash shop material.
On the other hand, had that string of new cash shop melee set after new cash shop melee set we just had, been designed to be more portable to other ATs, and included blaster and dominator secondaries in the purchase, perhaps they would've sold more of the melee sets for relatively little development time? I can't speak for everyone, but I know that if StJ had been bundled with a blaster and dominator secondary version, I would've bought it. But it wasn't. So I didn't. Too bad.
Something to think about, I hope, as the devs put the finishing touches on that shiny new psi blades set. Not sure I'm willing to part with 800 paragon points for yet another melee set for archetypes I don't like to play, but bundle a blaster and dom version, and the deal becomes much sweeter. -
Why buy Thunderstrikes from the store? They're easy enough to get in-game. And there's a, ahem, controversy going on right now about certain store-bought enhancements leading a number of players to boycott them.
Regenerative Tissue is a Proc120s. In Rise of the Phoenix it will only be active for the 2 minutes after using Rise of the Phoenix. If you're leaving it as a one-slot wonder, maybe a Mez/Dmg HO instead?
Agree with above poster on swapping Inferno out for Assault. Or Afterburner. Not because Inferno's an awful power (okay, maybe a little awful) but because Assault and Afterburner do better as one-slot wonders. One-slotted, Inferno is definitely awful. -
A tier 5 non-permable mez protection would disproportionately help blasters versus non-ranged ATs, it's true.
But before you get too excited, make sure there's not some other power in the set that counteracts this effect by, for example, giving brutes something really nice that's nearly useless to a blaster. (Those of you who've seen the set probably know which power I'm talking about.) -
Quote:Your build will be fine. My build will be fine. It's the player who rolls a claws scrapper instead of brute, or a blaster for sniping instead of dominator, or takes a tier 1 melee attack of any kind, or slots more recharge than he needs for an optimum attack chain, I'm worried about.Your proc chance is more than doubling (33% to 71% and 20% to 47%). How is this "harming" your build? You're getting a slightly smaller buff than you could if you made a different build choice, but it's still a significant buff.
Some players don't want to calculate sixty divided by base recharge time divided by one plus total recharge buffs and bonuses minus global recharge buffs and bonuses plus activation time divided by an AoE modifier of one plus three-quarters times three-twentieths the radius less eleven thousandths the radius times three hundred sixty minus the arc in degrees divided by thirty, for sake of a video game.
And for that, their build will be less fine. As the math gets tougher, more people will be unable or unwilling to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of procs, powers, and recharge slotting, thus falling into that dreaded "casual player" category they'd managed to avoid so far thanks to this game bucking the trend of another popular MMO and keeping procs simple. -
Withdrawing my idea on having separate fixed-rate and PPM procs. From late nights spring much silliness. A floor achieves the same effect with less complication to the player, and I'll throw my hat in behind that idea instead.
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That said, I still don't see the need to go after powers with shorter base recharges. Conventional wisdom before procs was you skip your tier 1 attack; shorter recharge means lower damage, and lower damage usually means lower DPA and lower benefit to enhancing recharge. Fixed rate procs gave a reason to maybe take Neutrino Bolt on a corruptor, or maybe roll a claws scrapper instead of a claws brute, since the procs offset the lower DPA often inherent to faster recharging powers.
PPM without a floor, or a floor that's too low, means conventional wisdom goes back to skipping your tier 1 attack in most primaries, and never rolling a claws scrapper since brutes get higher recharge, higher DPA versions of key claws attacks.
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On AoE modifiers for PPM, I kinda see what you're aiming for: about the same as the amount by which recharge time is increased on AoEs. In other words, you're trying to have a PPM modifier of 4 in Fire Ball cancel out the 4x increased recharge inherent to Fire Ball compared to its closest single target equivalent, Fire Blast.
I like the zen of that approach, except it oversimplifies just a little bit by not accounting for the effect of activation times. At a modest +150% recharge, Fire Blast is cycling every (1.2 cast + 4/2.5 recharge) 2.8 seconds, Fire Ball is cycling every (1 cast + 16/2.5 recharge) 7.4 seconds. This implies a PPM modifier less than 4 is needed to cancel out the increased PPM Fire Ball would otherwise enjoy from its longer cast cycle. (Apologies for not adjusting for Arcanatime.) -
Found out something interesting today. Apparently, brute claws spin has the same animation time as scrapper claws spin, but does more damage and has a longer recharge time, making the scrapper version considered the weaker of the two.
But that's where fixed rate procs came in, and what I really liked about them. Fast recharging attacks often come in lower on the DPA scale. Fixed rate procs helped give the fast, light hitters a little parity by boosting them disproportionately. I thought that was part of the intent. Now, PPM procs don't penalize the slow, big hitters at all, so won't this be another reason to be a claws brute rather than a claws scrapper? -
The situation with store bought procs is different from making changes to Beam Rifle. There is no alternative Beam Rifle set you can earn in-game with slightly different stats. So people aren't buying Beam Rifle from the market primarily because they like the slight differences in stats.
As for me, I understand the need for store bought procs equaling in-game procs, but I've come to realize that I like having a choice between procs. One fixed rate to compensate for fast recharging and wide AoE powers' low DPS, another PPM to compensate for slow recharging powers' situational usefulness. All very zen and balanced.
Has anyone explored the "all of the above" solution? That is, both a fixed rate and a PPM proc in-game, and the same fixed rate and PPM procs on the market? -
Sure, Dark/Shield could do it. Bring a stack of Envenomed Daggers. Oddly, Dark Melee has no -regen in it.
There are builds that can do it even better. As other posts have hinted, -regen is key. -
Having two cones in the set is, I'd say, another reason to be thinking about going with hover. Though I haven't rolled a staffer, I can tell you I've gotten good results on a hover claws scrapper.
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It's a concept thing for me. When I've got a concept fleshed out and it combines ranged attacks with buff/debuffy stuff, great, I'm very happy, because I have two archetypes to choose from.
From there, I look at which inherent is less bad for my concept. I think to myself, is my concept going to be overkilling stuff with random crits (often when I don't need them, but nice against AVs), or is my concept doing nice damage solo but inexplicably becomes weaker in a team? Those are the two inherent effects that matter; nobody builds around Vigilance's endurance discount for the same reason that nobody built around having Instant Healing as a "sometimes on" expenditure and nobody was going to build around Hybrid as a "sometimes on" expenditure.
Even with this analysis, surprisingly, I still roll defenders from time to time. I've got a Jekyll and Hyde concept that's perfect for that debuffed-while-teaming inherent. And a few of my concepts aren't aggressive enough concept to be doing crits.
But is that the direction the defender archetype should be going? Hydes that revert to Jekylls just by being around other powered individuals, and semi-pacifists aggressive enough to have a ranged damage set but not so aggressive as to be critting people in the face?
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Anyway, just for shiggles, here's how it went down in the alternate universe where I hit the Mega Millions jackpot and bought City of Heroes out. Vigilance is gone, poof, kaput, rolled into a small defender damage scale increase from 0.65 to 0.70, still lower than corruptors', and melee damage scale is brought up to match ranged. New defender inherent is called "Inspiration"; inspirations received by a defender as drops or rewards are converted to a character-bound team version of the same strength. You're welcome.
But here in the real world, I wonder why the devs didn't just make it a toggle. Call it Caution/Passion. Turn it off, get +endredux, turn it on, get +dmg. Least that way we'd get to pick our bonus rather than being at the whim of things beyond our control, like how big the team is and how suicidal the blaster is.
Which reminds me... is it possible to workaround Vigilance's debuff in league content by going solo within the league? -
I13 was awful, and I'm not talking just the PvP changes. I13 introduced many annoyances, but the one most relevant to PvP is that it removed all mobility between PvE and PvP.
PvE builds became garbage in PvP, even against PvE targets within PvP zones, even with multiple PvEers trying to take on a single PvPer. Likewise, most I13 compliant PvP builds became garbage in PvE. And almost nobody bothered with I13's dual build band-aid to bridge the widened gap. Meawhile, the promise of the I13 PvP changes never materialized: The number and variety of viable PvP builds at the top did not increase.
Case in point, running WWD7 with a guy I met in Recluse's Victory once. Nice guy, but as a blaster with nothing but single-target attacks I really wish he'd availed himself of that dual build feature. My claws scrapper felt like the real blaster on the team. On the flip side, in PvP, one of his blaster could probably solo five of my scrapper, because AoE attacks do nothing. Doesn't take a sociology degree to see why we mostly travel in different circles.
Is there some benefit to pretending I13 wasn't bad, that I'm missing? I mean, sure, it's more important to look to the future than to look to the past, but it's also important to learn from mistakes. -
Quote:For a second, I was freaking out that you were going to sink 13 out of your 24 power choices on 9 single target damage attacks, tough, weave, hover, and maneuvers. Leaving only 11 power choices left for other essential functions.5 Sets of Thunderstrike = 18.75 def ranged
4 Sets of Mako's bite = 15% def ranged
Weave, hover, maneuvers = 11.7% all
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45.5 % def ranged
But then I remembered, oh, right, blaster, ell oh ell. -
I was gonna argue for Psi/Ice, but I can't honestly say Psi/Dev is going to be any less bad.
Triple negatives, that's how I roll. /em cabbagepatch -
There is no such thing as a perfect experiment. Researchers don't even bother looking for a perfect experiment to support their conclusions. They look for the best experiment available.
As far as I can tell, as far as blaster performance testing that has a shot at yielding a statistically significant result goes (without peeking at any data mining behind the devs' dungeon master screen), this thread's the only game in town.
There are limitations on this test, but we've got some good ideas about what those limitations are -- chiefly, strong bias in favor of low levels where inter-archetype differences are artificially reduced, and the likelihood that testers who post on this board have more experience playing blasters than they do playing stalkers. So the test's results can still be meaningful within that state of informed awareness of the test's limitations.