Umbral

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The logical extension of my idea for Soul Transfer, but I suppose also extensible to Claws' idea, is to make the other scrapper/brute/tanker/stalker tier9 powers castable when dead (with appropriate modifications to make that functionality make sense).

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What about those power sets that already have self-res powers that aren't tier 9s (re: Regen and Willpower). Will they get similar treatment to their res powers? If Revive was actually able to be used out of combat as a third heal, it might actually be worth taking (though would still suck compared to all of the other self rezzes out there).

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I think giving self-rezzes alternate behavior when alive has a certain appeal, and giving tier9 powers the ability to be used when dead has some appeal. I doing both simultaneously has the problem that the two powersets in question may benefit too much from getting two bites at that apple. If I was going to do both ideas, I would probably state that *if* the set has a self-rez (that is not a tier 9) then it will get an alternate still-alive behavior and its tier9 will be left alone. If the set doesn't have a self-rez, the tier9 will be set to be castable when dead. No one** should get both.


** Unless the devs add a Zombie secondary for scrappers, brutes, and stalkers in I16 (primary for tankers).

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Interestingly enough, that's probably how I'd do it to. I'm curious as to what the "appropriate" workaround for all of the various powers would be. Personally, I think that it would be best to set then as such: Rise of the Phoenix and Soul Transfer do stun and damage; Revive provides a heal; Resurgence acts as just like it normally does without the healing or endurance return and lower +rech value (making it kind of like Rage); Unstoppable, OwtS, and Elude all operate exactly the same only are capable of being used while dead and heal the user to 25% hp and 25% end.

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The only enhancement that resists debuffs is Winter's Gift.

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Thus the massive disparity

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It would be nice in the healing purple sets they add a recharge resistance debuff as a proc.

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Personally, I think they should have included debuff resistance as a baseline set bonus. The mez resistance is pretty meh, but being able to stack up some decent mez resistance would actually be useful.

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Hi all,
Just back to the game, don't want to hijack the thread but...Why no touch of fear? has there been some significant changes? I haven't played CoH in quite some time (like since issue 5)

Thanks

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It's a no damage, average animation time (1.32 sec), decent control with a nice debuff. The problem is that, if you're playing most Scrappers at the point that most Scrappers aim to play at (re: level 50, IO'd to the gills), it's not really all that great: it requires double stacking in order to maintain the effect and doesn't even stop all incoming damage. A long time ago (along with the GDN, iirc), the tohit debuff was also reduced so that now it's not even going to provide a nice big chunk of survivability on a target that isn't feared.

As I see it, it's a great and wonderful power for PvP (control and debuff) and a rather mediocre power for PvE (unless you're a DM/DA at which point you're an idiot for not taking it).

I'd like it if Scrapper APPs actually added something substantive to the AT like the APPs and PPPs do for every other AT out there.

Controllers and Defenders get some pretty hefty survivability, damage, and utility. Blasters get more damage and more survivability. Scrappers just get anemic ranged attacks, anemic and largely useless holds, and some ridiculously expensive and only marginally useful self buffs. Thanks to how the AT modifiers work, even if we did ever get some decent debuffs from the APPs, the numbers for them would be atrocious (re: Tanker Melt Armor). It's honestly an issue with how the APPs are implemented combined with the gross disparity between the various AT modifiers where things besides damage are concerned, which is even more minor when you consider how much force multiplication is available to the ATs that aren't supposed to be damage power houses. They add vast quantities of effectiveness to Blasters, Controllers, and Defenders. They do painfully little for Tankers and almost nothing for Scrappers.

My main is a DM/Regen and I love him for it. Absurd level of clickstastic fun and highly rewarding from a +recharge standpoint.

DM/SR, DM/SD, and DM/Inv all benefit significantly from sheer synergy though. DM's self heal and end recovery are incredible assets to those 3 sets that are notoriously hard on the blue bar (though not as hard on the blue bar as */DA).

Any of the combinations will be effective, especially if you get it to 50 and start IOing it out.

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Probably was going to end up doing something like that, thanks for the input, though.

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5 piece Doctored Wounds for Instant Healing, Reconstruction, and Dull Pain (Integration is a great spot for it too, but it's not requisite). 6 piece Touch of Death and Mako's 6 piece sets for your normal attacks (Crippling Axe Kick and Crane Kick). 5 piece Hecatomb in your most recharge intensive attack (Storm Kick). 6 piece Obliteration for any PbAoEs you take. Make sure to put the Steadfast 3% +def in Resilience and get as many LotG 7.5% +rech IOs as possible.

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Something that makes your character LOOK more appealing = fluff, and $ for it makes sense.

Something that changes the way your character PLAYS =/= fluff, and therefore should only ever be earnable within the game itself.

Why? To keep little rich kids from flaunting their 'abilities'.

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Fortune-Telling;

Mission Transporter;

Jet Packs (granted it's remarkable stupid to purchase).

I'm not sure whether the OPs idea is a good one or not, but we can already buy things with money that provide real in game advantages. Of course, this would be an order of magnitude more powerful, but I don't think it's so easy to dismiss at this.

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The difference is that the powers you listed that have a real effect upon the game aren't obtainable through PvE means. The mission transporter, and purchased Jump pack provide about as much real comparative benefit as an unslottable travel power: they're not going to make you harder to kill in a fight, but they'll let you get to your missions faster. The fortune teller buff is a bit overpowered for a booster pack power imo, but, then again, it's balanced a bit around the fact that it's a random buff and can't be used on yourself. None of them have a large effect upon actual play and game balance.

Being able to purchase the real PvE rewards via microtransaction completely tosses aside this basic condition. It forces players to begin looking at their builds in terms of real world cost and less in terms of time expenditure, especially since it would be possible for anyone that wanted to spend $100 to get a build that another player spent 100 hours actually earning (probably more).

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It is an excellent filler attack, has great DPA, and can be fitted with the Achille's Heel -res proc.

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Which is why it simply demonstrates to me how little the OP actually knows about the game.

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It would be Mutation. Technically it would be called induced mutation by radiation.

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Which isn't Mutation at all. It's Science.

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Almost all mutation could also be science.

"Induced mutations on the molecular level can be caused by:

Radiation
Ultraviolet radiation (nonionizing radiation). Two nucleotide bases in DNA – cytosine and thymine – are most vulnerable to radiation that can change their properties. UV light can induce adjacent thymine bases in a DNA strand to pair with each other, as a bulky dimer.
Ionizing radiation"

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Considering that the fundamental difference between the Mutation and Science origins is that Mutation is something that is innate and you were born with and Science is triggered by something happening to you after you were born, radiation triggered mutations would be Science origin.

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It would be Mutation. Technically it would be called induced mutation by radiation.

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Which isn't Mutation at all. It's Science.

Eh, the problem that I have is that he's looking at the player imposed rules of PvP from the completely wrong angle. He sees them as a social stricture designed solo to keep everything at the status quo when, in reality, they're a generally agreed upon mode of action in order to allow every to actually enjoy PvP using basic social punishment techniques to discourage the specific actions that Twixt used and abused in order to do his thing.

The agreed upon stricture isn't "high school" with the various cliques and so-on-and-so-forth. It's more like the Geneva Conventions and other various Rules of War through the ages. They exist to let it be known to the world that using certain tactics isn't considering to be "right" because the consequences of those actions are antagonistic to the outcome that the larger community wants to see. Sure, we could use nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in a war (hell, as the US, we've got more and better ones in all three categories than anyone else in the world!), but using them is going to be worse for the community (re: the world) than it would be to be victorious in other ways. The same applies to how Twixt repeatedly used tactics specifically outside of the agreed conventions of PvP (not to mention the fact that he was incredibly rude and seemed to revel in his outcast status, which always pisses off the community that outcast the person).

Lady-Jade's Power Suggestion Box. It's on the same page that you posted. I suggest you check it out.

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It doesn't need Slow Resistance because it has Instant Healing.

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Care to explain this? It makes no sense at all.

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My guess is that he meant Integration (and I would add Fast Healing). Regen is never helpless. Weaker yes, but I can't think of a single situation in the game where Regen gets all its protection taken away.

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I believe he meant to say "Recharge Resistance" instead of "Slow Resistance", with IH being a click and unaffected by recharge debuffs.

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That's just blatantly wrong. Because IH is a click, it's affected by -recharge. It's got a longer duration, so the -recharge isn't going to have an immediate effect upon survivability, but, as soon as you use any of the click powers, you're going to have severely diminished survivability because the power is going to be coming back in a longer period of time.

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So Slash and Gambler's Cut ARE better, offensively, than Parry/Diving Avalanche?

I shouldn't be concerned if I rely on them (Slash/GC) over (Parry/DA) from a strictly damage output point of view?

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Correct. Parry does less damage in the same period of time as Slash and Hack, giving it a lower DPA. Divine Avalanche deals the same damage as Gambler's Cut but takes more than 70% more animation time to do it, giving it much lower DPA.

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The study is a total epic failure. One must remain outside as an observer, not as a participant, in order to gain a neutral perspective on the community.

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This is why I have a horrible dislike for Anthropologists. They liken themselves to Psychologists and Sociologists insofar as using observation to determine relationships and effects yet believe that, in order to properly observe, one must actually join said system, completely ignoring the fact that their very presence alters the system.

The big problem I have with Twixt (or whatever his name is) is that, along with most Anthropologists analyzing internet culture, they're using anonymity to get away with things that would be completely inexcusable in any other medium. I've had repeated discussions with Anthropologists concerning the abuse of internet anonymity, and it always comes back to the Anthropologist insisting that, because they were anonymous, that they didn't do any harm to the system, no matter how injurious their behavior while anonymous actually was. Considering the lasting effects of Twixt (re: everyone that hates him and many of the people that hate PvP by extension), I think it would be far fetched for anyone to claim that he left the system in the same state that he entered it in, not to mention how he never actually informed anyone of his actual intent before or after subjecting them to his injurious behavior (injurious because it's specifically interfering with the player's enjoyment of the game). It's like going up to someone in a restaurant and playing the "I'm not touching you game" to see how long it will take them to leave and never mentioning it to anyone that you were doing it for pseudo-scientific purposes (and I do call Anthropology a pseudo-science; it's about as scientific as Literary Analysis).

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I'm not sure, but I think I just got schooled.

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If by "schooled" you mean "educated" then, yes, you did just get schooled.

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Arcanatime? Is that the Time Cube thing?

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Arcanatime is the method used to devise the real animation time that a power takes up because the server only checks your status so often. Arcanaville (after whom the method is named after) did extensive testing and figured that the interval in which the server actually checks your status and allows you to do things is roughly .132 seconds. Furthermore, because the server has to verify that an animation is completed before it can allow you to do anything else, it requires another interval to pass before you can activate anything else. Combining these 2 phenomena together allows you to determine the real time that the power takes up.

The formula is as follows: (roundUp(listedTime/.132)+1)*.132 = realTime (commonly referred to as the Arcanatime of the power)

Here's a functional example:

Gambler's Cut: listedTime = .67 seconds; .67/.132 = 5.07; roundUp(5.07) + 1 = 7; 7 * .132 = .924

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All I know is comparing (in-game) Slash/GC to Parry/DA is like thinking somethings wrong with my car's gas mileage . . . and then you're the mechanic telling me "No, nothing's wrong, you just aren't factoring in all the quantum influences."

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The problem is that the game numbers are actually rather misleading. Gambler's Cut appears much faster than it actually is. Parry/DA are using endurance and recharge numbers determined by the standard damage per end and damage per recharge formulas. Suffice it to say that DA and Parry are balanced, your observations don't stack up with actual practice, and the increase in animation time is more than enough to balance out the -def to +def switch.

Interestingly enough, you're almost certainly not getting the same MPG with your car as you think you are. If you went to your mechanic complaining that you're not going to get the MPG that is listed for your car, you'd probably get a similar explanation because the information that is obtained via the MPG tests don't fully account for many of the variables that actually come in to play. The same applies here. You're claiming because you looked at the numbers that Parry/DA are universally better than GC and Slash without actually looking at their functionality and implementation. They're not, because you're not actually accounting for any number of other factors.

Lavitae be wrong yo.

240% +recharge = .88 sec recharge. Animation with Arcanatime = 1.584 seconds. 1.584 + .88 = 2.464 secs between activation. 10 / 2.464 = 405% uptime. And that's just the attainable stack rate while solo. If you actually pull the +rech cap (400% +rech), you can get (10/(1.584 + (3/(1+4))) = 457.8% uptime.

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*shrug* I like to guarantee the debuff. If the proc fire before the other wears off, the timer reset (as it doesn't stack), and every attack will do more damage. It may not seem like much, but it does add up (True an AV will likely regen, but I figure every bit helps). Beyond that, an AoE have a chance to proc against multiple targets at once, and great in a team as everyone deal extra damage to proc'd targets(If he means the procs aren't great when soling an AV, he's right. if he means in general, I disagree).

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The issue with putting for the extra slots to guarantee greater uptime is that each additional proc attempt per 10 seconds adds proportionately less than the previous proc chance per 10 seconds when averaged over time.

As to using it as a team buff, if you really think that your team needs help killing those minions, especially if there is an AoE focused individual on the team, there's probably something wrong with your team, especially since there are many more -res effects that are larger and have better (re: 100%) uptime that the team is probably already packing, and the fact that minions don't really stay up long enough to get much of an effect from the debuff still stands. 99.99% of the time, you're better off just dropping a damage proc into the power or springing for the Gladiator's PbAoE -res proc which actually stacks with the AH proc.

I don't really see the point. Parry/DA are reasonably balanced where they are and the remaining powers are as well. The reason that they're balanced within their sets is because, though they have low recharges, they're not going to actually contribute largely to attack strings. The primary cost for them is that they take much longer than they should for the amount of damage they deal. Both of them are worse for attack strings than their comparative tier 1 and 2 powers.

Also, remember that Gambler's Cut is almost universally considered better than Sting of the Wasp where actual end game attack strings are concerned. It doesn't need to be made better to actually compete with Sting of the Wasp because it's already better.

Also, before you try to start asking for changes to be made, please learn about Arcanatime. Gambler's Cut doesn't actually animate in .67 seconds. It animates .924 seconds.

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It doesn't need Slow Resistance because it has Instant Healing.

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Care to explain this? It makes no sense at all.

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I really need to save my explanation of this, and I don't have time right now to go through all the mathematics again because I'm busy playing.

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um, okay...so...short post?

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The explanation that Werner uses to demonstrate the inferiority of the AH proc in AoEs is pretty simple: the benefit of the proc is a delayed effect that acts as bonus damage over the course of the next 10 seconds. If you're only attacking the target once every 10 seconds with an AoE that deals 100 damage enhanced, you're only getting 20 extra damage out of the proc (personally). You'd be better off with the proc in the instance (of course, the numbers are arbitrary). Secondly, the target also need to be alive for the duration for it to really be a point. If you kill the target within the duration of a single AH application (including the damage you've already dealt it), it's unlikely that the proc itself was any real threat because you've already taken 30-50% of its HP out before applying the debuff at all.

It all comes down to minions simply being too small to actually get a substantive effect from the AH proc, both in time saved and real DPS contributed. If you're putting it into the AoE purely to maintain the effect of the AH proc on the primary target while you deal tangential damage to those enemies around him, that's a completely different point, but it starts getting into the realm of severely diminished effect from the AH proc (because it doesn't stack). In general, depending on how much uptime you think is enough and how many slots you're willing to cough up, you want to get between 4 and 6 AH applications every 10 seconds, which, thanks to Kat's crazily fast animations, pretty much means that you only need it in GC in order to get into that sweet spot.

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If you want this suggestion to have any real weight, perhaps you can come up with alternate tier 9s for all the other secondaries. Then folks could comment on balance. Without a balance discussion, I don't see something like this ever happening.

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The logical extension of my idea for Soul Transfer, but I suppose also extensible to Claws' idea, is to make the other scrapper/brute/tanker/stalker tier9 powers castable when dead (with appropriate modifications to make that functionality make sense).

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What about those power sets that already have self-res powers that aren't tier 9s (re: Regen and Willpower). Will they get similar treatment to their res powers? If Revive was actually able to be used out of combat as a third heal, it might actually be worth taking (though would still suck compared to all of the other self rezzes out there).

It doesn't look too bad from a numbers standpoint but Kinetic Switch and Kinetic Strife just scream broken to me.

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Thats what Werner does, he walks into a thread and hits spineburst.

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If Werner is a Spines Scrapper in his forum personae, I must be the Dark Melee Scrapper. Either that or no one pays any attention to me even though I've pretty much been the one making most of the viable points that generally get obfuscated by the general rancor of forum posts.

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I'm not certain, but I know my /SR brute FEELS more survivable than my /SR scrapper.

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Brutes have a Tanker's level of Health. So yeah, your /SR brute is more survivable than the /SR scrapper.

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Scrappers have ~1338 base hp.
Brutes have ~1500 base hp.
Tankers have ~1875 base hp.

So yeah, Brutes have more, but nowhere near Tanker levels.

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Hunh. I always thought tanks and brutes had the same Hp. Learn something new everyday.

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Tankers and Brutes have all of the same hit point, resistance, and defense caps (the defense cap is pointless though because you only need 45% to attain max effect; 225% is more than a bit of overkill). Brutes have lower base hit points and self buff modifier (.75 compared to 1.0). When talking about peak and/or team performance, it's considered fair to count Brutes and Tankers as having roughly the same values (because team buffs are generally overkill on most Tankers anyway). Solo, Brutes are more akin to tougher than average Scrappers than Tankers.