StratoNexus
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Quote:No one is arguing against the numbers. People were simply countering the notion that armored toons also need the Fighting pool to perform well. Fighting allows them to perform even better, but it is not required to be effective.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Oh heaven forgive me, I actually mentioned numbers in a thread about performance. Even worse, I actually pointed out that making bad choices gives poor results. How oh how shall I atone for this sin.
Maybe I will make a petless mastermind they are just fine.
Maybe I should make a blaster that only takes the tier 1 and 2 primary and tier 1 secondary attacks. They are all that we need to be just fine.
Oh I know, I will make a melee toon that skips all but the tier 1 in their secondaries. It's only 30% mitigation it certainly isn't worth making that a requirement
Also, all your bizarre points run counter to the central argument. The primary and secondary powers should be more important than the pool powers and blasters (no AT) should not be required to take Pool power x or y or x and y in order to be functional. Skipping Fighting is not like skipping Unyielding and Temp Invuln. In order to make sense your three ideas should have been:
I'll make an Ill/Rad without Hasten, they are just fine.
Maybe I should make a blaster that skips Teleport and Combat Jumping, those aren't necessary.
Oh I know, I will make a melee toon that skips all pool powers except for Presence and Recall Friend.
Because those are much more comparable to skipping Fighting than your inane examples. -
Quote:Heh. I guess the extra debuff annoys the enemies. I slotted 2 taunt duration and am mindful of how I attack and taunt (I ended up slotting my Alpha with Nerve and only have 1 taunt IO in Rise now). That has always worked well for me. I may have to check out the proc for funs.Originally Posted by Shadey_NA
If you ever feel the need to "fix" the taunt aura on your Willpower tank, slot in a Deflated Ego: Chance for recovery debuff proc in it. You will be amazed at how well it helps.
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Quote:The primary factor for the effectiveness of taunt is duration. The reason Willpower has more difficulty is because the taunt duration on its aura is only 1.25 seconds; that compares to Death Shroud's 13.6 seconds or Invincibility's 17 seconds.Originally Posted by Lycantropus
Threat levels make a difference though. I've had no trouble maintaining aggro with my Dark/Dark Brute, for example, however my WP Tank has noticeably more difficulty with large mobs due to the lower threat level and maybe lack of a damage aura (not sure which reason is more prevalent in this regard).
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Quote:Teams of fire blasters and fire controllers (yay AoE immobs) do not steal much aggro from my Willpower tanker who has the crappy aura. I leveled that character up with a crazy fire blaster, a crazy Kin fender, and often had a melee Ice/Fire blaster who was level 50 and EXing join us.Originally Posted by CyberGlitch
I think its a matter of whether or not you are playing with other players that really know how to use their powers effectively. Teaming with a group of Fire blasters that are equally fully IO'd out and high recharge...which is the norm for good players anymore....and you'll see what I mean.
A tanker who loses much aggro to anything but another character with the taunt mechanic is doing it wrong. -
Quote:Operator error and it doesn't seem terribly common (of course I often play with very good players, but even in PUGs most tankers do OK at holding most aggro).Originally Posted by CyberGlitch
The job of a Tank is far more than just surviving...its supposed to be a meatshield to help the squishies survive. I peel aggro off of current Tanks (fully IO'd out Tanks no less) faster than anything.
The taunt mechanic provides a very powerful multiplier for threat generation and no AT uses that mechanic better than the tanker. If you haven't played a tanker, I recommend doing so, at least from level 20 to 35 and preferably on mid to large teams. (although from you reg date, I find it hard to believe you never played one, most people around that long have at least dabbled with tons of alts, though not all) -
Picked up the Staff/Invuln scrapper. Mostly teamed from level 26 to 31. Mega-disaster Posi part 1 to end a night. This will forever haunt my debt stats.
Ran Moonfire. Solid run, balanced team, I had a death or two when we split up, we split up a lot without death though. Dinged 27 at the end of the TF.
Picked up and slotted Innocuous Strikes (1 Acc, 2 Dam). Ran Sister Psyche. Hey look, endurance issues! Now I have a good number of attacks and even with Form of the Soul blue bar go down (it doesn't help that Freaks drain end). I guess I'll have to look into slotting some end reductions. Hit level 29 on the 2nd to last mission, yay Invincibility. This TF was set at +2, so we fought a good number of purple bosses, very smooth run.
Started the midnighter arc with a level 1 in tow, set to +1 / x4. Rikti are harder for an Invuln than other enemies. With my inspire drops greatly reduced and a lowbie who was little help, I had a lot of trouble. There were a few deaths and eventually the lowbie bailed. At that point it became somewhat easier. I was still challenged, but now I had enough resources to handle it. Hit level 30 and picked up Resist Elements.
At this point I decided to finally start crafting those common IOs. Part way through crafting I saw a Posi 1 being formed and that is the last of the lower TFs I needed. I joined. Some high level members on the team were not really adept at figuring out how to function EXd. Still, we were doing OK as a team. On the 2nd to last mission the leader DCd and the star passed to someone who was set to +4. Level 19 CoT. And it was 1:30 AM my time.
Reset. Everyone please log out and stay logged out for at least a minute. Apparently we couldn't figure how to accomplish this feat of engineering. We couldn't get the mission to reset. So let's try it anyway. Those same people who couldn't figure out how to handle EXing, were not better at it here. They kept charging spawns alone. But slowly and with lots of death we rescue the heroes, then team wipe on the 2nd wave of ambushers. It is 2 AM, so tired.
After 15 minutes of dealing with the ambush and dozens of inspires and one guy who was using team inspires for us (bless his craziness and skill) we finished the ambushes, but the next objective did not trigger. Started killing, after another 20 minutes and dozens of inspires and lots more death, finally we can beat Tarses. Move into City Hall; Bam! Giant ghost ambush right inside door. Team wipe. After 6 minutes cycling back and forth from Ouro and dozens more inspires we kill that ambush. By this time, there are people not really playing much.
Couldn't get Tarses, some people quit. TF is called. I have decided I am going to wait until everyone quits, reset and finish it on my own. I am in Steel crafting. Apparently Tarses gets killed by someone who has stealthed to the end and is all like, "hey, only these shadow bosses left, we can do it." There are 4 of us and 7 bosses. The bosses are inexplicably level 20. +5s. Before we are ready one of our people who still thinks they are level 50 charge. They die in 1.2 seconds. Drop inspires, 80%+ defense, in 2 seconds debuffed to 20%, 2 more seconds, one last team wipe. They all finally give up. I go back to crafting. Eventually they all log. I log out and wait 1 minute. Log-in, mish is reset, (my diff is set to 0 / x1), finish TF. 3 hours 9 minutes 46 seconds. Posi part 1.
And at some point, still during the nightmare, I dinged level 31.
After a good night's rest and some housework, I log into the Unyielding badge (yay for working off debt while logged out). I finish the little bit of crafting I had left. Fully level 30 common IOd. 4 of my 5 attacks have 1 end reduction. All five have 1 Acc, 3 Dam. No end reduction slotted in any of my toggles, just resist or defense as appropriate (Dull Pain has 3 recharge).
Ran a Citadel. Great team. Moshed the enemies. End use much, much better. I will have to get my explore and history badges, the Moonfire got me the defeat badges I needed so I can get the Atlas Medallion. Close to level 32, but didn't quite make it (I forgot to click my "give me patrol XP" button or else I'd be 32).
These stats are from before Citadel, Level 31, 1 bubble in.
Damage taken - 234,022
Debt - 112,160
Inf - 977,568
Mez - 154 -
Quote:I am going to be clear that I am biased right out of the gate because I have always believed Clarion Core sacrificed way too much just to be perma. Having played with my tier 4 Clarion since within 5 days of its release, my opinion has not changed. I love my mez protection, but I still believe I have given up far too much effectiveness for it.Originally Posted by Antigonus
A lot of people have stated that Acrobatics and/or IOs have had little to no effect on performance. That's most likely anecdotal with no real evidence to back it up, but I won't dismiss the possibility they may be right. What they don't seem to understand is that if people are taking and using the tools already provided but not seeing any significant improvement in performance, it could very well indicate that the problem isn't really mez like they thought. That's the point I'm trying to get across to people.
In my experience, on a blaster that is not built for high defense, but instead modest resists and high regen, the tier 4 Clarion is useful, but not a game changer. On my blasters built for high defense, I don't need Clarion and can instead take a better Destiny.
On my Rad defender and controller, I also have the perma-versions (tier 3), but I think I am going to go Radial if I ever tier 4 them. My kin defender and /EA brute did that and I find it is actually far nicer. -
Quote:I agree mez protection would not solve blaster problems and agree with Arcanaville's stance that it might prevent better, more encompassing solutions.Originally Posted by Antigonus
But it seems to me that if it was really as bad as some would have us believe, than why do people seem to work so hard to avoid taking the very best tools they have to alleviate the problem? That makes no sense. If mez was such a crippling issue, wouldn't people go out of their way to make it less so? What I see is that people recognize that there is a problem with Blasters, but they don't really understand what all that entails.
But I think the value you place on mez resistance is higher than the actual return. Also, the emphasis on high defense is likely better mitigation vs. mez in general than mez resistance (and to your point, helps cover other blaster weaknesses). Thus it makes much more sense to build for defense than mez resistance.
In general, my high defense builds are more survivable and suffer from mez less than my builds with Acro (although I must concede, while I have a few builds with Aid Self and do often use it proactively for the stun resist, I do not have any builds that also used IOs for mez resistance).Quote:Originally Posted by Antigonus
My question to you is this: In all your testing, how many Blasters did you use have Acrobatics and even just the simplest IOs that could be slotted to resist the most common mez?
My primarily range Fire/Fire/Force blaster didn't take Clarion for instance, since mez is not a big problem. My melee Fire/Fire/Flame with both offensive toggles and Acro did take Clarion because mez is frustrating. -
Quote:That can't be enough times.Originally Posted by Lycanus
I checked three times.
Tanker base is 1874 to hit the cap requires x1.88 in mods.
Brutes base is 1499.
1499*1.88=2827
I am pretty sure nothing that modifies HPs is different between a brute and tanker, so something in your calcs is in error (unless I am missing something). -
Quote:I'll give you that. I inferred that you wanted them changed based on the fact that you keep calling them a one-trick pony with a trick you don't even think is useful, but you do state you don't mind if people like and play tankers as is. My error.Originally Posted by Tyger42
I'm not.
Indeed. However you clearly stated the tank role was unimportant and that other roles outshone that role. I disagree.Quote:Originally Posted by Tyger42
A brute can do that just fine. Hell, a well-built scrapper can do it.
Quote:Originally Posted by Tyger42
The tank role is irrelevant except in only a couple spots where the devs designed the content specifically to force in a need for it. Other than that, the benefit they provide is easily outshone by other ATs abilities. Who needs a tank when your team can buff defense to the softcap, heal faster than anyone takes damage, lock down entire groups of mobs with holds, confuses, etc, and dish out enough DPS to mow down most sub-AV level mobs in seconds? -
Quote:I am on the side that says tankers are more survivable than brutes in meaningful ways.Originally Posted by Lycanus
Still not referring to the portion of the post which addresses the topic at hand, namely the survivability of a brute compared to a tanker.
My response to your post is this.
One, Willpower is likely the powerset that emphasizes tanker advantages most.
Two, are you sure those brute HPs are correct? It seems unlikely a tanker hits the cap while a brute with the same build remains at a measly 2000 HPs. -
Quote:I love Acrobatics. The Hold protection it gives is underrated on the forums. You, however, are making the error in the other direction and overstating the strength of Acro as well as overstating the strength of Mez resists, especially as leveling; while IOs can be used while leveling, it is hard to get meaningful stun resists before the 40s. Only 1 range set has stun resists (Maelstrom's Fury), 2 in PBAoEs, none in TAoEs or melee sets. True, one can also take Aid Self, which will reduce stun length appreciably, but 5 pool powers is also not necessarily coming early in the build. And of course one can take Tough to slot an Aegis and ImpSkin, but the levels of build sacrifice are very, very high. Too high.Originally Posted by Antigonus
Just look at the build suggestions on these forums. How many of them include Acrobatics? With a quick look I had to go 2 pages deep before I found somebody that took Acro in their initial build, and they were immediately told it was a waste and not to take it. I'm sorry, but the blame for mez issues cannot be laid entirely at the Devs feet. Players have the tools to help, they simply refuse to use them.
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Thanks for looking it over, I like your suggestions. Burnout is indeed likely to get the boot. I took it to try it out, but at the time I didn't realize the +rech on Chrono lasted much longer than all the other effects. With that +50% recharge basically perma and all the other +rech I chose, Burnout is a wasted pick. I'll likely keep it for now (I am only level 30) in order to play with it a bit in the 30s, but Assault does seem the better choice all around.
PBU and Farsight having about the same recharge is pretty important. Gaussian's is nice for the defense, but I also like every bonus the set gives (the damage buff is kind of wasted since I didn't get a bunch of other +dam, although switching to Assault will help). -
Quote:It doesn't make a lot of conceptual sense.Originally Posted by Agent White
Just an off the top of my head thought. What about adding resistances to when they're mezzed? Not mezz resistance, but actual damage resistance? Say like 20% per stack of a power? So, lots of mezz happy critters would actually just be making it tougher to kill the blaster and just 1 mezz using boss would find the blaster less squishy?
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Quote:Then you should stop mentioning brutes and scrappers at all as justification for your stance. Just be honest and say you want it because you want it, you think it would be more comic-like, and you don't care at all about game balance.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Just a heads up: If they did indeed lower Brute caps instead of fixing Tankers, I still wouldn't shut up about getting Tankers damage cap raised. The fact is, I think even Scrappers can get too much survivability for the damage they deal compared to Tankers.
Nerfing Brutes doesn't improve Tankers. At all. You just PO Brute players, and Tankers will be just as unpopular, overspecialized and kneecapped as before. Nobody walks away any happier. And I don't care what Castle said. Castle isn't here anymore. -
It would never work.
no.
/unsigned
It would throw forum balance out of whack.
This might work in a perfect world but with limited resources it will never be able to happen.
Why do you want to nerf the General Discussion forum? Maybe there could be some symbol that got attached to a suggestion thread in the General Discussion forum, like a lightbulb or something.
There are already so many forum sections to scroll through and try to keep up with. The community managers should design new forum sections to be passive, always feeding into my brain ideas, so I don't have worry about checking so many sections all the time. If that would be too strong, they could always just make those passive ideas trickle more slowly or be less interesting.
Why is this in the General Discussion section? It belongs in the Suggestion forum! -
Quote:The health bar tie-in with defiance has been gone since Issue 11. I think it is very unlikely we will see that return in any form.Originally Posted by LordDynamo_NA
Another idea I'll toss out there. I don't know if it's been suggested before. What if Defiance had a Status Resistance element added to it, so that the resistance increased, and the amount of time you spend mezzed dropped, as your Defiance goes up? Blasters with their Health at full would get little extra resistance, but those whose Health is very low would get almost 100% Resistance and spend very little time mezzed. That would also tie into the "defiance" aspect of the ability.
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/Fire brings a lot of AoE damage and can add to your ranged damage with Ring of Fire. /Fire doesn't bring a lot of survivability, although teams can make up for it (the larger spawn sizes can also make melee more dangerous when teaming). /Fire is great for blapping because it adores being in melee range (but keep in mind this is dangerous on a blaster without help). The knockback in Nrg/ can work against the melee nature of /Fire, although it can sometimes be used to help (it is more often a negative than a positive, IME, but not terribly unmanageable).
/Nrg provides great single target damage powers as well as solid single target control. It has some nice utility in Conserve Power and Power Boost (Boost Range is good too, but not as much if you want to be punching stuff anyway). /Nrg is the safer route.
Mental - Psychic Scream + Energy Torrent gives good range AoE output and good control. Subdual will not interfere with any knockback from your primary (which conversely means you have no way to prevent the knockback either, double-edged sword thing here). Mind Probe + Power Burst is a good combination to help take out Lts quickly. Knockback staggers the incoming damage, which helps the +regen from Drain Psyche work. Psychic Scream + Torrent + Explosive Blast is great damage and will put any survivors on their backs. -
Quote:That I agree with. Some of my blasters really want mez protection, on others, it just isn't vital. All of my blasters can take too much incoming damage even unmezzed without outside help (and I mean really outside, even inspires, destiny, lore, judgement, etc. aren't always enough).Originally Posted by Antigonus
If they feel that inherent mez protection is part of that, then so be it. I do not feel that inherent mez protection will be the panacea that many think it will be as mez is only one part of the problem
I wouldn't complain if they added mez protection to blasters, but I would be a little sad (then I'd get over it and enjoy the new feature, to be honest). -
Quote:Fury is lame (OK, sometimes I find it fun, but I still haven't even played my brute since the changes to /EA, just not my AT), AoE gauntlet on single target attacks is fun. Moving around inside of a spawn to direct them and control them is great. Focusing on spamming attacks because you are a damage character can also be great too. I love tankers and tanking is as fun for me as buffing and damaging (debuffing and controlling are a bit below those three for me).Originally Posted by Ein_Dose
I've done a bit of thinking about the idea of how to 'fix' Tankers. The trick is realizing that they aren't broken in the first place, just boringly good at their job. Nothing can hold aggro better than a Tanker, but it's just dull doing so. Compared to a Brute, who's not as good at tanking, but his killing power makes up for it and the end package is more fun.
I don't think x is fun, I prefer y. If you can't get y, I could see the complaints, but the game offers both x and y. Why change x to be y, when you can instead have both and different folks can enjoy their preference? -
Quote:It's the Vorpal Judgement (and the Clarion also affects the D numbers, so watch that too and PBU, of course).Originally Posted by SonicRemedy
Something strange is going on with your build, for some reason its showing base 30 to all defenses with nothing slotted or on?! Was this build using a modified db?
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Quote:Who are you to say where tankers are "supposed" to be?Originally Posted by Tyger42
And who the hell are you to say where Brutes are "supposed to be"?
I disagree. I think Leo's point is correct, but your counter that aggro control/alpha absorption is less valuable than control, support, or damage is, IME, not correct. In some cases it is more valuable, in others it may be less, but in general it is as valuable.Quote:Originally Posted by Tyger42
But any one of them is far more valuable than what a tank can do.
In high buff scenarios mob positioning is still very useful.Quote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
-If everybody's healing and protected by buffs so foes are a non-threat, how useful are holds and confuse powers in that same situation?
High control scenarios are often detrimental to kill speed, because high control, non-meatshield teams usually use lockdown to prevent alpha damage, mezzing spawns that are spread out. Mob positioning and alpha absorption is useful.Quote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
-If everything is locked down, just statues or beating on each other and pose no threat to your team, how useful will defense and heals and resistance buffs be or any defensive abilities?
This type of team loves a meatshield. Alpha abosrption and mob positioning to maximize those spawn melting AoEs.Quote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
-If mobs are dying so damned fast, what point is there to have controls or support at all? -
Quote:The problem with this attitude is the failure to understand that from the early 20s on scrappers and brutes are already very close to blaster levels of DPS and usually have some solid AoE. Yet they don't have to wait until 50 to not be squishy.Originally Posted by DrGemini
The problem with this attitude is the failure to understand why the Incarnates are a totally different game than everything else. The developers intend for the 50+ game to be a point at which you need to be allowed to have more defenses in order to have a chance. But, Clarion doesn't entirely fix the squishiness of Blasters by itself. You may be mez-free but the mobs can still hit you like a truck.
Look, I often say that I would not change blasters lightly because I think the game has room for a fragile AT. But the choice to keep them fragile and mezzable is not a balance one.
The majority of the real power D&D spellcasters wield is in the hands of dominators, controllers, defenders, corruptors, and master minds. Also, in CoH, almost every fighter/barbarian/ranger/monk/paladin has Supreme Cleave and Haste while the wizards are told they also have to be excellent users of Touch spells (but are denied Mage Armor, Shield, and Stoneskin (except maybe as 9th level spells)).Quote:Originally Posted by DrGemini
The mechanics of games like this tend to make the higher DPS and more powerful characters have a lower level of survivability. This is something that harkens all the way back to good old Dungeons and Dragons. If you've never played that game, I suggest you take a serious look at it and the mechanics behind it. You will notice that in D&D and all other games like it that the Wizards and Sorcerers of D&D may have lower health... but, those spell-casters wield some serious power. -
Quote:I am trying to figure out a blaster build with low defense that doesn't have to worry about mez, unless you are just talking about Clarion. Because my level 40 Fire/Dark blaster has low defense AND has to worry about mez (even though they do have Acro).Originally Posted by Antigonus
I'm not sure why this is a hard thing for people to accept. You can have high defense and very little mez resistance or you can have low defense and not worry about mez. The Devs have made it pretty clear they think having both would be unbalancing for the Blaster AT. The best way to get their attention and convince them that a change is necessary would be to demonstrate that having both would not unbalancing existing content.
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Quote:It staggers incoming damage generally, occasionally preventing attacks from some enemies altogether. It is a soft control and reasonably effective. I find it better than WoC, but that may just be because of the huge size. I wouldn't call it a mez anymore than I'd call KB a mez.Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
Does it really make them stop attacking? Or does it just make them run away and they can't attack while running away?
99 times out of 100, if I Ring of Fire someone who is running away due to Hot Feet they decide they may as well attack since they can't run.Quote:Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
If they are immobilized when hit with the afraid effect, does afraid do anything at all?
I'll often choose not to Ring someone because of that.