UberGuy

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I'm sorry, Statsman, but I'm not seeing how this isn't a nerf under most circumstances. At best, the improved ToHit calculation means its less of a nerf, but it is nonetheless an overall reduction in the effectiveness of slotted ToHit Debuffs, by your own numbers.

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It seems to me that this might warrant a small boost to base values.

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In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

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Why, Statesman? Why nerf us even more?


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Hm, I missed this.

Statesman, why is this neccessary?

Look at the numbers here. Do they need a rank-based resistance to this? This makes Defense much, much more effective than debuffing against the foes that conventional wisdom says it matters most for the team Defender (or whatever) to debuff.

The existance of that rank-based resistance makes no sense to me, and seems directly contrary to the very motivations for the "scaling" changes to begin with.

Honestly, I'm not sure the change for the +0/+1 foes is any cause for concern. At the levels where I'm fighting +0 and +1 minions and LTs most of the time, I'm not tossing end-consuming debuffs on them.

Also, with respect to respecs - what would people do with them? Respec out of their debuffs for a month, then put them back when I7 came along? I don't know, that seems sorta silly. I don't like the "gap nerf" at all, but my character isn't cripled by it. Even soloing.

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<Shakes magic dev ball harder>

Mind telling us what the change is?

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"Try again later"

OK, now I'm really confused. I did just that - had entered about 6 nines in for my toHit debuff, and I swear to you I got 5.00 all up and down the columns. I re-downloaded the sheet and now it's doing what we both expect. I wish I hadn't overwritten the original copy I had when I downloaded it. I want to know how I broke it like that.

Anyway, uh, carry on!

Yes, I'll concede that a very low level mob can be floored at 0.05.

However, you are still ignoring the inner [0.05,0.95] clamp that is described by Geko. This clamp means that a mob will never be floored below (0.05 * accuracy modifiers). We can never debuff their accuracy, only their toHit. Because an even level boss has an accuracy modifier of 1.3, their miniumum toHit will be 1.3 * 0.05. or 0.065. This is what the sheet does not show. It allows us to floor their final toHit at 0.05, even for an even or higher-level boss. This is incorrect.

Bearing in mind that it's April 1st, I'll respond...

It's an MS Excel Spreadsheet.

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Also, every enemy's base to-hit chance is 50% as of I7.
50% x .1 = 5%

Either way you look at it, it's correct.

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Quizzles, that's simply not correct.

Foes of rank above minion have a higher accuracy. Foes of level difference above +0 have higher accuracy. There is known to be in internal floor. You can floor the internal quantity at 5%. This is then multiplied by their accuracy and again checked for the floor. Thus you cannot ever floor a boss at 5%. You would floor a boss at 6.5%, which is 10% of their 65% base.

The closest I could come was this. I know we were specifically shown floors in two places. I think it was by geko, but I do not remember for sure and am having trouble finding it.

The formula I saw looked like:

MAX[0.05,ACC*MAX[0.05,BTH-DEF]]

The spreadsheet does not represent this as far as I can see.

EDIT: Lower, in the same thread Arcanaville pointed us to the Ask Geko thread. This is why I couldn't find it. It was in CuppaJo's name.

There seems to be a problem with the sheet's calculations. It was explicitly explained that the toHit calculations would cause foes to "floor" at 10% of their base chance toHit due to the internal second floor in the forumla. This does not seem to occur in the sheet - no matter the foes' base toHit, the sheet shows them flooring at 5% no matter their rank and level.

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ChrisMoses, once you choose your patron, you are (currently--hopefully this will change) locked into just that patron, and you are not allowed to respec into another patron's powersets.

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That is what I was told, but why would a Respec be rewarded at the same time? Doesn't it seem to be counter productive? Or at least a spit in the face?

"Yay! You've chosen Black Scorpion as your patron, as well as received a free respec!"

"Cool! Mace Blast go! ... This attack does as much damage as an unlostted brawl... I'll use my free respec to switch to something I would prefer."

"I'm sorry... that respec I just gave you does not work with the other reward you received... that I gave you at the same time."

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I have no doubt that they do this so you can actually take the Patron Powers, in case you already selected other powers at level 41, etc.

Mmm. Stalkers get a hold.

Evil.

I would also like to say common sense won out as the way to go with expectations on the PPP mechanics. This is exactly how I expected it to work. One pool per AT per Patron, with four powers in the pool, selectable as per any other 4-power pool.

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Are we allowed to complain yet?

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Now, all relevance to the problems of choice permanence aside...

*) I must say I'm tremendously disappointed by the absence of an equivalent to Power/Body Mastery.
*) IMO Ghost Widow for the win, both for utility and for concept. I can see now that most of my toons who take PPPs will go with her.
*) The other sets all look useful.
*) ZOMG I can't wait to get ranged attacks on my Stalker.
*) ZOMG I can't wait to get defenses on my Corruptors and Dominator.
*) I like the summoned ally 4th tier powers. On a Corrupter I know this will be especially powerful, as they can often protect and heal such allies. And sweet God almighty, my Corruptors would be able summon a Fortunata Mistress?!

Also, on the matter of offense = defense:

All you have to do to have this break down is face a foe whos defense trumps your offense. If you have no actual defense, this foe will win (including you fleeing as a "win").

I toss this into a lot of threads on this topic; my uber-simplistic combat model. You win a fight when:

YourDPS/FoeHP < FoeDPS/YourHP

The DPS parts are meant to be extremely broad. You can increase DPS with damage buffs, recharge buffs, for DR debuffs, etc. DPS can be reduced by opponent DR, DEF, being held, slowed, end drained, etc.

The formula is meant to model battles that are short compared to health regen times. When this is not true (/Regen, some AVs) this model breaks down. But it's a valid generalization for a vast segment of combat content.

As a counterpoint to the raw damage outlay of a Kin/Sonic Defender I have recently buillt an Ice/Dark Corruptor. So far it's one of my favorite squishies ever. Nice bursty offense with potent defenses. Defenses that keep me alive while I set up my buffs/debuffs in order to then maximize my offensive potential. Against foes like bosses and elite bosses, even kinetics would not allow me to kill foes so fast that they would not get shots in on me. When those shots are tremendously damaging to either my health or my DPS (mezzes, for example), I would vastly prefer "real" defense to greater offense. "More offense for the win" does have real play application, but I consider it more fragile than a more moderate mix of offense and defense. As most Blasters will attest.

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I'm sorry, but your outlook really bugs me as immensely selfish. "I get what you want, so tough for you." Nor do I think my own perspective is just the same selfishness from the other side. Your preference actively removes choice from my character process, while my preference removes a story-based restriction from yours. It may be a canon-based restriction you feel is appropriate, but I can't see your "loss" if you didn't get this as equivalent to my own. After all, you could always imagine this was the backstory for your power choices. I, on the other hand, am disallowed from imagining anything else.

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So basically you are looking for a feeling of freedom and choice to replace the lack of such you feel in your day to day life? Maybe if you weren't feeling so powerless and confined in real life then such in-game consequences wouldn't weigh so heavily on you? Well, that's my take on things anyway. I'm not saying it's this way with everyone here who doesn't like the situation, but I get a feeling it does apply to at least a few of them.

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Hahahahahah.

*inhale*

Hahaha.

Oh. My. God.

Dude, I'm sorry, but your idiocy is beyond compare. Please, do tell me about my sad, sad life and how I have no choices in it. Please! Explain my terrible life to me.

Give me an excuse to freaking OWN you.

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Green Lanterns get their rings from the vastly more powerful Guardians on Oa.

This is common knowledge throughout the cosmos.

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It is? Common Joe Smith on the streets of Coast City knows this? That was never my impression.

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The rings are not unique. Every Green Lantern except one gets his ring from the exact same place.

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Again, we as readers know this. Spacfaring people out in various parts of the universe where the Lantern Corps literally act as police know this.

On Earth, where Green Lantern is one of several hundred super-powered beings, I do not think most citizens know this. Some heroes and some villains know it. Everyone does not.

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On the other side of things, Sinestro gets his yellow power ring from the powerful Weaponeers of the Anti-Matter Universe of Qward.

This is also common knowledge.

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Wow, I really don't think most Earth people know this. I mean really I don't think that at all.

Now I'll grant, I consider Earth the GL's "setting". Most of the DC stories are Earth-centric. Going out into the wider galaxy where more people know about Kryptonians and other whatnot is, IMO, an excursion into unusual territory.

So basically I'm drawing a distinction in the full, cononical arcana of a setting (or myth) and the perceptions of common persons within it. One set of people is the supers themselves, and then there's the wider subset of the populace. Given their level of exposure to supers, my personal opinion is that even ordinary citizens of the RI would come to recognize patron powers for their association to the patron in question.

If there were 40 Green Lanterns on Earth as a matter of course, the same sort of thing would happen there. People would see the theme, probably assume an association, and possibly find out what it was. From then on all GLs would be known as agents of Oa. That isn't going to bother most GL's. Except maybe Guy Gardener...

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Seriously? I soloed the even-level EB version with my MA/SR not too long ago. Granted, the fight only lasted about 90 seconds, but he *never* hit me. I don't recall exactly, but if there was anything on top of my toggles, it was just some inspirations -- not Elude.

I must've gotten really, really lucky or something ::shrugs::

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There is a difference. Melee vs. Range. Chimera uses his sword in melee and his arrows at range. The sword seems to have normal accuracy, but the arrows appear to be basically auto-hit. Since you are a melee AT, it makes sense that he would not have been able to hit you much.

For my defender, it is a little bit different. I usually fight at range because I don't have the hitpoints or resistance to survive in melee against an elite boss.

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This is funny. I soloed him succesfully only after I got him to switch to his bow. He was royally owning my BS/Inv in melee, and I ran and convinced him to start shooting me with his bow, even when I returned to melee range. He does way less damage with the bow, and I was able to outpace him.

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If you are losing 25% of your health in about 2-3 seconds consistantly (40% heal, but with dull pain running, the heal is 25%, you are fighting guys you shouldn't be fighting, and nothing is going to save you. You'd be dead in about 10 seconds, and that's hardly enough to take out your enemies.

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So, you've never faced a +2 or +3 Freakshow, Warwolf, or Longbow boss? You've never faced an AV? You've never faced a Giant Monster?

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It has a 20 second base recharge, why would you want to put that many recharges in it? It already comes up faster than most self heals fully slotted, unslotted.

And still, with 1 recharge and hasten, it comes up about once every 10 seconds. Even without hasten, it still has a 15 second recharge. That's pretty darn good.

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Sure. But you can get two recharges in the other powers. Just assuming two recharges in Reconstruction gets it down to 36 seconds, and it's a 25% bigger heal (25% of your base HP as opposed to 20%, 25 = 125% of 20).

I pop Reconstruction on my DM/Regen and there is nothing but positive effect. I pop Aid Self on my BS/Invul and I stop fighting. I pop Reconstruction when my Regen is on fire and it works. I pop Aid Self when my Invul is on fire and it often does not. I pop Reconstruction while running and it works fine; I pop Aid Self while running and it fails.

I'm not trying to say Aid Self sucks somehow. I'm trying to point out that I don't believe for a second that it's massively out of balance with other self-heals. It heals for less, less reliably and for slightly more endurance, but more often. At most imbalanced I call it on par with the others, and in practice I call it harder to use correctly.

Healing Flames is really the outlier here. It does not compare favorably with the other self-heals. HF should compare favorably to Reconstruction or Dull Pain (clearly a change in the power on the latter idea).

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For all we know every patron could have one single sig power and then a huge list of others that every other patron has as well.

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Honestly dude, we do understand that. But it seems equally ludicrous to assume that the mechanic for them is radicaly different from that for hero EPPs. Especially since we were told that PPPs were CoV's equivalent to EPPs, I think that assumiong direct mechanical comparisons between them very reasonable.

To be specific, those comparisons would work out to:

***SUPPOSITION***
a) Each patron offers a Patron Pool for each of the five ATs.
b) Each Patron Pool offers four powers.
c) Each Patron Pool Power requires the same selection progression as EPPs.
***SUPPOSITION***

We have had a forum mod suggest that a) and b) were the case, but he wasn't sure.

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Also the differance between patrons could be purley cosmetic. IDK just brainstorming here.

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Honestly, I think that would be the basis for an entirely different line of complaint.

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Hmm. The Lady in the Lake is very important to the Excaliber and Arthurian mythos, so it's pretty valid, IMO.

Even if you knew the Lady of the Lake existed, if you saw King Arthur with Excalibur how would you know she gave him the sword?

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Because I'd been told and I'd heard that this mythical woman of great magical power gave it to him?

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OK, seriously. Lets compare two situations.

You live in late-Roman Britain and you see a guy in the woods, with a commanding aspect, mowing down attackers with a seemingly unstoppable sword. (For the sake of argument, since Arthur himself was a fairly epic personage, lets assume he's hard to recognize - no crown and muddied crest.)

You live in the Rogue Isles and you see a guy you've never seen before emit spectral sharks from his hands.

In the first case do you think "wow, that guy must have gotten that sword from the Lady off the Lake!" I don't think so. I think you associate the sword with the warrior, and maybe use that connection to realize that this is your king.

In the second case, I think anyone who knows anything about Sharkhead Isle is going to wonder if that has anything to do with Mako. More suggestively, eventually he's going to see someone else use that power.

Pehaps I'm mistaken, but I don't remember Arthur or his knights telling folks that the sword was issued by the Lady of the Lake. In contrast, I find it perfectly reasonable to imagine that eventually one of those Spirit Shark users will let on that it's a power obtained through Mako's patronage, forever marking anyone who hears about that as someone with that affiliation.

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Hmm. The Lady in the Lake is very important to the Excaliber and Arthurian mythos, so it's pretty valid, IMO.

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I'm not sure you grokked my point. The point was not that the Lady was irrelevant. The point is that the "power" of Excalibur was not associated primarily with the Lady in the popular gestalt. If you say "Excalibur is the sword of...?" to someone, how many people do you really think would reply "The Lady of the Lake!" Sure, some erudite respondants would, but I feel quite certain that most people would say "King Arthur".

The analogy is weak because:

a) Excalibur was unique, making it easy to associate its qualities with the wielder and not it's "source".
b) The true source of the sword was not known to many people.

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It might not be for you, but that's is personal preference.

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In light of the above, I very much fail to see how this is a matter of personal preference. I find it very much a matter of logic.

Heh. I'll assume that wasn't really directed at me.

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King Arthur had Excalibur on loan from the Lady of the Lake but that didn't make her the star of the show...?

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How many people associate the sword with the Lady? The thematic ideal of something like this has a life of its own, separate from the facts of the matter. The thematic ideal of Excalibur (a completely unique item as far as the legend tells us) has evolved such that it is associated with Arthur.

On the other hand, every Tom, Dick, and Destroyer associated with Captain Mako will have Spirit Sharks (unless the power sucks). The imagery of someone with that power will be "that's an associate of Mako's". This is reinforced not only by the fact that it will look like it's a "Mako power", but by the fact that anyone else who chooses the same affiliation will probably have that same power. By making a power with an association the common element, the characters with the power become less important to the imagery and the unifying element becomes Mako instead.

Compare this with hero EPPs. Anyone of a given AT might have a given EPP, and it might be readily recognized when used, but it has no clear association. It is easy to simply assume that the hero mastered/obtained/learened a new trick, lending credence to the notion of the hero as a self-contained entity. If anyone wants their backstory to be that they were "given" their EPPs or have them through a relationship with an Entity or a more mighty hero, they are free to do so. It's not required. PPP's require that relationship.

There was nothing about Excalibur that lent to an association with the Lady, and there was no other Excalibur floating around for people to compare and think "I wonder if those two swords are related."

Similarly, nearly every Stone Armor character probably gets Granite Armor, there is no common association to an external entity tied to that. Everyone knows Granite Armor when they see it. If Granite Armor was a power firmly associated with some patron character, everyone would immediately associate anyone using it with that (story) character.

Finally, the general populace did not meaningfully knew about the Lady and her issuance of Excalibur into Arthur's trust. Unlike this, everyone on the Rogue Isles knows about Recluse's lieutenants, and would likely immediately recognize any power that clearly suggests their influence. ("Spirit Sharks.")

So I think your analogy with Excalibur lacks strength.

I do agree. You'll notice I've stuck to the term "patronage". I am not so down on the "story devs" that I think they can't make it something other than a true master/lackey relationship.

Nonetheless, running around whipping off some power with a visual manifestation unique or characteristic of, say, Ghost Widow or Captain Mako still makes clear a distinct association with those persons/beings. ("Spirit Sharks" comes to mind.) To me it smacks of the idea that they "gave" me that power. I've disliked that aspect of the Patron Powers from the moment they were first revealed to us. For someone like me, finding out the plot tie-in additionally fixes the pool choice just abrades an already sore spot.

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You just have to consider your choice before you make it. Shocking concept, I know. Kudos to the design guys who came up with this, I'm dying to get my grubby little paws on it!

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Cool. You stick with the permanent choice when either they change either your PPPs or some other power that synergized well with your choice of PPP (thus driving that choice). I'll stick with keeping my choices reversible - just like heroes can, and just like both heroes and villains can for every other pool choice in the game.

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Like I said. Consider your choices carefully.

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I'm sorry, but your outlook really bugs me as immensely selfish. "I get what you want, so tough for you." Nor do I think my own perspective is just the same selfishness from the other side. Your preference actively removes choice from my character process, while my preference removes a story-based restriction from yours. It may be a canon-based restriction you feel is appropriate, but I can't see your "loss" if you didn't get this as equivalent to my own. After all, you could always imagine this was the backstory for your power choices. I, on the other hand, am disallowed from imagining anything else.