Trickshooter

I think it's safe to assume we won't have access to anything between Red and Yellow.

If I had room in my signature, I would add this quote to it.

They're actually significantly cheaper than other sets toggles. Possibly too much cheaper.

Most other Defender toggles cost 0.52 a second. These would cost 0.208. But that was based on the Arachnos version toggles, which might be too generous for the Defender AT.

It might be more realistic to make them cost between 0.39 and 0.52 a second. That would put them between the original Leadership toggles and standard Defender toggle costs.

This isn't really true. A character using Hyper-Intellect would first have to build up to 10 stacks of Intuition. If they can't use their debuffs because the team is moving too fast, then they're relying on long-recharge buffs and Acumen to build up Intuition. Also, with the way I've altered the set now, Evade post-22 would only be able to reach 24.5% Defense.

I don't feel that 12.5% Defense with a chance to get up to 17.5% (something that you'd only even be able to maintain for about 30 seconds in the pre-SO levels) is anymore overpowered than things such as Tar Patch's AoE -30% Resistance at level 1, Kinetics AoE +25% Damage at level 1 or it's scale 2.23 Heal at level 1, or Rad's AoE -31.25% ToHit and -31.25% Defense at level 1. Radiation Infection in particular is almost ridiculous by comparison to many other buff/debuff sets.

Mez protection is already available to several Defender sets, though.

Do you mean I made values for Defenders too high? Because I used the archetype modifiers to calculate them, so they are in line compared to Controller, Corruptor and Mastermind values.

Well, I have a lot of experience with TA and I can tell you that this set as designed is much more powerful than TA (at defending a team, anyway; nothing in this set can touch OSA's offense, though).

The set does lack -Regen, but I'm still among the support players that say Regen is overrated. :P If I were to add it anywhere, though, it would be to EM Burst, since that is intended to be similar to EM Pulse or EMP Arrow, but much more toned down in order to be used more often. Probably at around -150% to -200%.

Looking at the individual buff value of a single power and determining that it's too good compared to another power from another set is not a good practice. I would only even consider it if the individual effects of both powers was nearly identical (not the values, just what it caused or granted). Sets should be looked at as a whole.

Also worth keeping in mind, Force Fields is a set in need of review and according to Arbiter Hawk, is one of his top candidates to review when he gets the chance. Considering that, I'm not sure it's appropriate to use it in comparisons as even the devs acknowledge that it's a set that offers less overall compared to other sets. It would be more appropriate to compare this set to other sets that offered Defense with a combination of other effects, rather than Forcefields Defense + Distance effects.

Anyway, in this case, (for a Defender) Evade is a power that gives 15% enhanceable defense with a bonus unenhanceable 5% defense that players can't get the full benefit from until level 32, that as a toggle won't benefit from PB/PBU, in a set that has limited options for reducing incoming damage and no way to recover damage taken.

If we were to just look at the individual powers in a vacuum, then yes, Evade can provide more Defense (as can Traps/Force Field Generator and Time Manipulation/Farsight, by the way), but Dispersion Bubble also gets mez protection and mez resistance in a power that can be up all the time just by nature of being a toggle. Even if I were to include Commanding Shout in the comparison, it's nature as a click means it won't be anywhere near as reliable until SOs.

By the time SOs come in to play, Hyper-Intellect would be able to grant 26.4% Defense(All) and 23.4% Resist(Psionic). Even at it's strongest, it would only go up to 28.4% Defense(All).

Forcefields? 39% Defense(All) and 40% Resist(Toxic) from level 22 onwards.

Even Cold, a set that already is considered a better option than Forcefields, would grant more Defense; 31.2% Defense(Melee, Ranged, AoE, Lethal, Smashing, Energy, Negative) and 7.8% Defense(Cold, Fire, and Psionic), along with 70.2% Resist(Cold), 46.8% Resist(Fire), 31.2% Resist(Energy), and 20% Resist(Toxic). And that's all within a 40ft radius for Cold, compared to Forcefields 25ft radius.

There is the big difference that Evade's full defense value can effect the caster, while Forcefields and Cold are mostly limited to allies. Traps and Time both fully benefit from there +Defense powers, though. I would possibly consider splitting the difference and saying that maybe the bonuses (the ones tied to Intuition) from Evade, Advantage, and Precision only affect your allies. This would put it closer in line to the values that Traps and Time can get for themselves while still providing a higher buff for your allies with the bonus buffs.

Regarding the radius, 80ft might be a little big for a power that grants 15% Defense, but there is precedence for a Leadership-like toggle to have greater than 40ft radius. Leadership's toggles themselves are 60ft radius, as are those of the Arachnos Soldiers. Arachnos Widows' toggles are actually 80ft radius. At most, I would maybe reduce the radius to 60ft if 80ft seemed so extreme.

But overall, I would not consider the values of this set to be out of line. I try to put a lot of work in to the sets I suggest (which does in include a lot of research on City of Data) in order to make sure that I'm not making something too good for no reason.

Although, having said that I am thinking Commanding Shout and possibly Unnerve might be too good. *ponders*

Stacks of Intuition are not consumed; they act as multipliers for the bonus buff values listed in the toggles.

The toggles would check every time their activation period cycles (every 2 seconds) for how many stacks of Intuition you have on you at the time, and then grant a bonus buff value based on that amount.

Stacks of Intuition last either 30 or 60 seconds depending on the power used, and you can have up to 20 at one time. Again, they are not consumed, and last their full, respective durations. They only serve to define an integer value from 0 to 20 that is then used to multiply (and thus increase) the bonus buffs of the toggles.

So if you had built up 10 stacks of Intuition on a Defender, and had all 3 toggles on, they'd look like this (unslotted):

Evade - 15% Defense + (10 * 0.25% Defense) = 17.5% Defense
Advantage - 25% Damage + (10 * 0.3125 Damage) = 28.125% Damage
Precision - 6.25% ToHit + (10 * 0.25% ToHit) = 8.75% ToHit

And these values would fluctuate as you gained more Intuition, or the duration of other Intuition ends. The idea is that you benefit from using the other 6 powers in the set with bonus buffs to your 3 toggles.

The description for Insight explains that it will only reveal spawn points on indoor maps.

The way I intend for Intuition to work, this really isn't necessary since it affects all the toggles at once, anyway. Hopefully my above explanation makes that much clearer.

The radius of the toggles is 80 feet. Besides possibly running in to the thick of things to cast Acumen or Commanding Shout, you could easily spend most of any fight 70-80 feet away and still be quite effective at offering support.

I like the idea of changing the overall color of the target of the abilities, but I think players would get annoyed will full screen color filtering.

I think a combination of the altering the colors of either foes or allies (briefly for allies), some visual cues or sticky graphics for persistent effects like the toggles, possibly the formula graphics (or even the pose) from /e calculate, and the little symbols from Psychic Blast hit effects sets could create a base for interesting visuals.

Oops, it's meant to be Confuse, not Immobilize. I couldn't imagine a character saying something that would break an Immobilize.

As far as the recharge, I know it's annoying to be just out of reach of perma with 3 Recharge SOs, but at the same time Commanding Shout would cover most of the major mezzes, minus Immobs, and it's in the hands of ATs that can be pretty powerful when they don't have to worry about mezzing at all. In fact, I might be being too generous making it so easily perma.

I like that idea. The idea behind Acumen is that you're increasing your allies efficiency using their own abilities, so their powers being 'less exhausting' would make sense.

While it's more common for sets to have either one power or no powers that can't take sets, it's not unprecedented for a set to have more than that (Sonic has 4 powers that take no sets D: ). But I agree 3 might be too much. If anything, I'd consider maybe adding +20% MaxHP and +10% MaxEnd to Jumpstart to make it better than just popping an inspiration.

Thanks for the feedback!

True, it's situational, but it's thematic and skipping it would reduce the total amount of Intuition you can build.

So it's a quirky little power, but hopefully still tempting to take in order to maximize effectiveness.

Edit: And one power that's easy to skip unless you're going for a theme isn't always a bad thing.

Yes, it would be a buff/debuff set.

It could be less visually interesting than other sets, but that could be avoided with the right animations and GFX.

Analyze

Click ST Foe -Res, -Def, Reveal, Self +2 Intuition for 30s

You Analyze your foe to determine their defensive capabilities. By sharing this knowledge of the targets weaknesses with your team mates, you effectively reduce their defense and resistance to damage. Analyze grants you 2 stacks of Intuition for a short time.

Type - Click
Accuracy - 1
Range - 80ft
Recharge time - 30s
Endurance cost - 8.528 (10.66 MM)
Attack types - Psionic_Attack, Ranged_Attack
Effect area - Character
Radius - -
Arc - -
Max targets hit - -
Entities affected - Foe
Entities autohit - -
Target - Foe
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

Advantage

Toggle PBAoE Team +Dmg(All), +Special

Whether by study or deduction, you know your foe well, giving you and your team an Advantage against them. While this toggle is active, you and your teammates will do more Damage to foes. Additionally, each stack of Intuition will increase the damage buff of Advantage.

Type - Toggle
Accuracy - 0.0
Range - -
Recharge time - 15s
Endurance cost - 0.416 (0.52 MM)
Attack types - -
Effect area - Sphere
Radius - 80ft
Arc - -
Max targets hit - 255
Entities affected - Caster, Teammate
Entities autohit - Caster, Teammate
Target - Caster
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

Acumen

Click ST Ally +Rech, +ToHit, +Perc, +EnduranceDiscount, +Res(Slow, ToHit, Perc), Self +1 Intuition for 30s

You quickly train allies how to better utilize their own gifts. When you activate this power, your targeted ally and nearly allies will gain an increased Attack Rate, a greater chance To Hit, increased Perception, an Endurance Discount, and good resistance to Slows, ToHit Debuffs and Perception Debuffs. Acumen grants 1 stack of Intuition for a short while.

Type - Click
Accuracy - 1
Range - 50ft
Recharge time - 2s
Endurance cost - 7.8 (9.75 MM)
Attack types - -
Effect area - Sphere
Radius - 30ft
Arc - -
Max targets hit - 255
Entities affected - Friend
Entities autohit - Friend
Target - Friend
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

Unnerve

Click Targeted AoE Foe -Damage, -Recharge, Fear, Self +3 Intuition for 30s

You use your intellect to Unnerve a group of foes and reduce their combat effectiveness. All affected foes will suffer reduced damage and slower attack rates, while some weaker enemies may be too afraid to move. Unnerve grants 3 stacks of Intuition for a short while.

Type - Click
Accuracy - 1
Range - 70ft
Recharge time - 60s
Endurance cost - 15.6 (19.5 MM)
Attack types - Psionic_Attack, AOE_Attack
Effect area - Sphere
Radius - 25ft
Arc - -
Max targets hit - 16
Entities affected - Foe
Entities autohit - -
Target - Foe
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Always

Commanding Shout

Click PBAoE Team +Res(Hold, Sleep, Stun, Confuse, Fear, Psionic), Self +4 Intuition for 60s

You let out a Commanding Shout, providing your allies with the knowledge they need to overcome most attempts to control them or wrack their minds. When you activate this power, all allies in an area around you will be freed from Hold, Sleep, Disorient, Confuse, and Fear effects and left resistant to them for a good while. Additionally, it will grant them moderate resistance to Psionic attacks. Commanding Shout will also grant 4 stacks of Intuition for a short time.

Type - Click
Accuracy - 1
Range - -
Recharge time - 120s
Endurance cost - 15.6 (19.5 MM)
Attack types - -
Effect area - Sphere
Radius - 30ft
Arc - -
Max targets hit - 255
Entities affected - Caster, Friend
Entities autohit - Caster, Friend
Target - Caster
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

Precision

Toggle PBAoE Team +ToHit, +Range, +Special

You can guide your teammates to improve their Precision with any attack. While this toggle is active, you and your teammates will have a greater chance to hit your foes, as well as longer range. There is also a small chance Precision will allow an ally to strike a foe's weak spot, effectively greatly increasing their damage for a short time. Additionally, each stack of Intuition will increase the ToHit buff of Precision.

Type - Toggle
Accuracy - 1
Range - -
Recharge time - 15s
Endurance cost - 0.416 (0.52 MM)
Attack types - -
Effect area - Sphere
Radius - 80ft
Arc - -
Max targets hit - 255
Entities affected - Caster, Teammate
Entities autohit - Caster, Teammate
Target - Caster
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

Insight

Clear Fog of War & Reveal Spawn Locations, PBAoE Ally +Defense(All), Self +3 Intuition for 60s

Your incredible Insight affords you instinctive knowledge of the layout of most locations and you may deduce likely enemy gathering spots. Using this information, you can effectively grant your allies some minor defense and limited stealth. Using Insight will reveal full maps of most locations, as well as enemy spawn points within most instanced missions, and provide small defense and stealth bonuses. Insight will also grant 3 stacks of Intuition for a short time.

Type - Click
Accuracy - 1
Range - -
Recharge time - 120s
Endurance cost - 15.6 (19.5 MM)
Attack types - -
Effect area - Character
Radius - -
Arc - -
Max targets hit - 255
Entities affected - Caster, Friend
Entities autohit - Caster, Friend
Target - Caster
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

Jumpstart

Single Target Ally Level Difference +1, +MaxHP, +MaxEnd, Self +5 Intuition for 60s

You focus your incredible mental prowess on a single ally, studying their powers and abilities until you have a greater understanding of them, possibly more than they do themself. Using this knowledge, you Jumpstart a small amount of their ultimate potential, effectively increasing their security level for a long while, while also significantly increasing their maximum hitpoints and endurance. Jumpstart grants 5 stacks of Intuition for a short time. NOTE: Allies under the effect of Jumpstart cannot use an Ultimate Inspiration until Jumpstart's duration ends.

Type - Click
Accuracy - 1
Range - 80ft
Recharge time - 180s
Endurance cost - 10.4 (13 MM)
Attack types - -
Effect area - Character
Radius - -
Arc - -
Max targets hit - -
Entities affected - Friend
Entities autohit - Friend
Target - Friend
Target visibility - Line of Sight
Notify mobs - Never

I think I read that this can't actually be done. The Iron-Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America movies that tie in to the Avengers were all independent productions of Marvel Studios, which is why they could put them all together in one movie.

Other characters' movies, such as Spider-Man, the X-Men, Blade, the Punisher, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, and the Fantastic Four were co-productions and the rights to more movies involving those characters might belong to other production companies.

Specifically, I believe Sony Entertainment owns the rights to Spider-Man when it comes to movies (which is why they can do crazy things such as "reboot" the franchise only 5 years after the last movie).

Going completely off the names...

Sounds like Genetic Contamination will be swapped with Genetic Corruption on Stalkers. That one is easy enough. :B

Improved Mitosis sounds like a heal... DNA Siphon sounds like some sort of Foe Drain, Self +Heal, so my guess would be that Stalker's will lose DNA Siphon, and Improved Mitosis will just be a reskinned reconstruction, like Willpower got for Stalkers.

Evolving Armor sounds like a +Def or +Res for each foe nearby sort of thing (it evolves to be stronger when you need it to be? maybe?). So this would be my first guess for being replaced with Hide on Stalkers.

Then again, if the set has any passives, those might get tossed out for Hide, instead.

I dunno, we'll see. But I'm excited for this set and what it will look like.

Whether or not I, or any other player, "undervalues" the set doesn't change the fact that, numerically, it falls somewhere between mediocre and absolute weakest at every available debuff except -Speed.

Here are the facts, regardless of how much you enjoy the set:

1) Entangling Arrow, Ice Arrow, and Glue Arrow are intentionally weak at causing -Recharge because the set had "too much" originally. 7 years later, 5 out of 7 support sets added to the game cause more -Recharge with less powers, but TA's has never been revisited.

2) Flash Arrow, or any -perception power has very little value in a support set. And -Perception's uses are so few and far between that it's inappropriate as a level 1/2 power choice.

3) Glue Arrow is now completely outdone by a power in the Time set: Distortion Field. Distortion Field has over triple the debuff, a chance to hold, and even causes a single percent more -RunSpeed. The only price it pays is that the debuff isn't sticky, it doesn't cause -Fly, and costs twice the endurance. I would gladly lose Glue Arrow's broken -Fly, sticky debuff, and lower end cost if it meant I could actually have a significant effect on foes Recharge speeds.

4) Acid Arrow is now completely outdone by a power in the Traps set: Acid Mortar. Acid Mortar causes more -Defense, more -Resistance, does more damage, fires faster than Acid Arrow recharges, can be summoned more than once for stacking (easily done with just SOs), and can even draw some aggro (it even has some pretty decent resistances to stay alive longer).

5) Disruption Arrow costs way too much endurance (double that of Tar Patch), hits too few foes (only 10), and is intentionally the weakest AoE -Resistance because TA has two. Without excessive slotting, TA can use two powers to debuff 10 foes in an 8 foot radius by -40% Resistance. Dark? One power, debuffs 16 enemies in a 25 foot radius by -30% Resistance, and also slows. Storm? One power, debuffs 16 enemies in a 25 foot radius by -35% Resistance, and also lowers defense, does damage, causes knockdown,, slows, and debuffs Recharge speed.

6) All of that I said in #5? Only true on Defenders. Corruptors, Controllers and Masterminds will only get -30% Resistance. Dark and Storm values? Unchanged, they get to use the same pets as the Defender. So for Corruptors, Controllers and Masterminds, they need to use 2 powers to perform close to the level of other sets (and they still come out worse because of Disruption Arrow's target limit and Acid Arrow's radius).

These are not issues that will go away if I alter my playstyle. There is a level of unfairness when it comes to the Trick Arrows set caused by needless penalties and inconsistences. The set is only "okay" if you ignore them.

Edit: I just want to add that I don't want to come across as personally attacking anyone. I am just frustrated to hear that any dev could look at TA and dismiss things such as the list above, and then say that the only problem the set seems to have is being "undervalued" by players. And Arbiter Hawk's statement (if he was quoted correctly) doesn't fit with Synapse's comment that the set was in need of love. This is all just disappointing to see.

Why wouldn't the Devs increase the value of the debuffs by that much? All it would do is bring it up to the level of Web Grenade. As it stands, Entangling Arrow is 1/5th the debuff strength of Web Grenade, with a 20% accuracy bonus and 2.6 less endurance cost.

The Accuracy and Endurance Cost bonuses were given to make up for the much poorer debuff. If I'm asking for the stronger debuff back, then the bonus should be removed, as they're no longer needed.

That would be a 2% chance to Hold everytime Glue Arrow activates, which is every 1 second, similar to Distortion Field. But that already feels kind of low in Distortion Field. I would say between a 5% and 8% chance to activate every 1 second would be much more appropriate for a support set that should be the best at debuff/control.

It works that way now, already.

Of course I wouldn't want to increase the recharge either, but going by other AoE debuffs, 8 foot radius powers are 20s or less on recharge, while 25 foot radius powers are 60s or greater on recharge. If I'm asking to move the radius to somewhere between 8 foot and 25 foot (as well as asking to increase the debuff value), then it will more than likely come with an increase to recharge. Can't get something for nothing.

Well, it's less about how many enemies you would typically see (I usually fight more than 10, personally though), and more about parity between sets. As I said, only 3 AoE Defender Debuffs are limited to a 10 enemy limit. The other two are Fulcrum Shift and Heat Loss; Disruption Arrow is far from being in the their league.

Even Acid Arrow has a 16 target limit. How often will anyone be hitting 16 enemies with that?

Both the oil and the fire have 25 foot radii. The 5 foot radius is part of a power the Oil Slick has that summons the fire.

Thematically, it doesn't make sense for EMP Arrow to cause -Recovery. It has it because EMP Arrow is pretty much a smaller AoE, ranged version of EM Pulse from Radiation Emission, which also has the -Recovery. It's there to be fair, I suppose. If EMP Arrow lost the -Recovery, I'd expect Rad users to also want their -Recovery removed (which I have no problem with).

My point with this thread has never been that omg trick arrowz iz da wurst n needz buffz NAO! Trick Arrows is a fun set that can put out plenty of AoE damage in the later levels. Anytime I've ever asked for buffs to the set, I've always tried to make it clear that I think the set is pretty close to where it should be, but still needs minor buffs to make it perform better. (Although I would support a combo system function being added; if any support set made sense with onee, it'd be Trick Arrows).

My opinion has always been that it is the support set that is least capable at offering support. You add up it's debuff and control options and at it's best it really only performs at or below the level of the debuffs of other debuff-heavy sets, but every other debuff-heavy set also offers buffs, which TA has no way to compete with.

All I want is the 9 powers of TA to equal the performance of the 9 powers of any other support set. And right now, I don't think they do.