macskull

I haven't noticed any WoW fanboyism from PA. Hell, when WoW came out they gave it their Game of the Year award and then retracted it when the game's launch turned into a giant ***********.

Considering who the OP is, he is correct in that Doms are the redside Blasters, because with the change to the way mezzes work in PvP that's essentially the case. In terms of PvE that's a different story, except in the Corruptor/Defender comparison - in both PvE and PvP, Corruptors are superior to Defenders in nearly every aspect.

So let's say they add a new rule to football (the American version) where all players have bats and can only hit the ball with the bats - no hands or feet other than the snap to start the play. You can't seriously believe the players that were in it for "the love of the game" would keep playing after a change as ridiculous as that. Those that liked CoX PvP didn't leave because the changes weren't in their favor, they left because it was no longer the game they enjoyed playing. Telling people to adapt to changes like the Energy Transfer animation change is one thing. Telling them to adapt to changes that essentially change the game they're playing is another thing entirely.

The idea that PvPers criticize the PvP game because the changes weren't made in their favor is ludicrous at best - PvPers criticize the changes because, quite frankly, they suck. The "new and improved" PvP is just a dumbed-down and slowed version of the old PvP with even more things broken and nothing really fixed. I'd love to see what would happen if they reverted back to the old system but kept the global resists in APP/PPP shields, unresistible travel suppression from being hit by melee attacks on melee ATs, and the -range on taunt powers - those are probably the only things I13 got right.

Even the devs have said they're not entirely happy with the way PvP is right now, and I can't blame them. They may see the PvP we have now and call it balanced, but when most of the older PvPers dislike the new system and there have been few to no new players drawn in by the changes, can it really be seen as a success? I don't think so.

Because WoW is the game that made the MMO industry what it is today? Because WoW continues to have a huge subscriber base?

The three best uses for IOs these days are +HP set bonuses (which accolades can partially help with), knockback protection, and damage procs, with KB protection being the most important of those if you're playing on a squishy.

Any competent player will not die from being TPd unless it's something ridiculous like being TP'd into a drone, a box or some other geometry, or mezzed after the "phase" period ends after being TP'd. Why? I don't suddenly let go of the keys when I get TP'd - if I'm not somehow stopped, I'll keep on moving in the direction I was going.

TP Foe didn't require skill, and still doesn't. Avoiding the consequences of being TP'd took some planning and a bit of execution but even that's irrelevant in most cases now.

Con and the other people who introduced me to PvP have been PvPing since before I even started playing this game and I'm sure they could tell you some funny stories about me before I really started to get involved in PvP.

Except you wouldn't take LF on a PvP Blaster.

Well with the change to the way mezzes work in PvP, Doms really have two blast sets.

Ask Statesman and Gecko. Given that neither of them are around anymore, and most of the people who were here 5-6 years ago when this game was being developed aren't either, I'm not sure anyone could comment on why there are both systems in place. I guess one potential reason is for parity with other mezzes (mez protection and mez resistance, not the same thing in this case either) - knockback is considered a status effect by the game engine.

Your definition of a tank is something that can go toe-to-toe with the toughest enemies in the game without any external help. Sorry, that's not how the game's balanced. Your goal is to keep aggro off your teammates - you're partially responsible for your own survivability and your teammates make up the rest by either buffing you or debuffing or killing the mobs. It doesn't matter whether you're KB'd or not, if you've used Taunt or have hit a target, they'll be aggroed on you for at least a few seconds, giving you time to get back up on your feet and keep aggro. Is it annoying? Sure. It is as big a deal as you make it out to be? Not in the least. Also, three Tanker primaries out of eight not having KB resistance isn't "over half."

You're saying "the solution to holes in powersets is to bring teammates." This is correct, so you should follow your own advice. If your lead tank is an Ice/, bring along a Sonic, Therm, or Emp. I've been on MoSTFs led by Ice Tankers, and I've been on MoSTFs with Tanks. It's not the build, it's the player and his/her teammates. Discrimination against powersets has more to do with the stupidity of the playerbase at large than any balance issue with those powersets.

You could do what PvPers have to do when they roll a melee character without in-set KB protection or resistance, or any squishy - build for KB protection or team with a Kin with Increase Density. There's a base empowerment buff that gives you 10 extra points of KB protection if that's not enough.

Or make players adapt to content that might be challenging, instead of dumbing it down even further. The game's already trivially easy and you're making this into much bigger of a problem than it actually is.

It doesn't need to be tested, because that's not how it works. Knockdown is an entirely different mechanic than repel, it's simply coincidental that some powers which protect against one also protect against the other.

The "fluctuating real numbers" is just an issue where set bonuses stack momentarily every so often (set bonuses are really just auto powers with a very short duration that constantly refresh). Based on the ham-handed solutions that have been put in place to try and "correct" issues like this in the past, I'd rather have this left alone since it's not a balance issue as far as the devs are concerned and it's a buff as far as players are concerned.

The debuff of the status effect you're seeing is the way buff and debuff stacking works for all aspects of your character, not just status effects. For example, if you have 40% recharge time bonus and get hit with a 60% recharge slow (and have no slow resistance), real numbers will display your recharge time value as -20%. Likewise if you have 15 points of knockback protection and get hit with a 20-point knockback power (and again, have no KB resistance), real numbers will display your knockback protection value as -5. The reason the numbers don't seem to add up right is due to the combination of set bonuses stacking for very brief intervals and lag between the server and client in reporting values. The best answer to give to an argument like this is simple: you know what base values you should have (whether through just knowing your build, or knowing the effects of buffs on you, or looking at it in Mids), so numbers that don't seem right are more likely than not an anomaly. To look at this another way, pick up the Power Analyzer temp power and use it on an NPC, then hit that NPC with a mez. If the NPC gets mezzed by your power you'll notice their protection against that mez has been debuffed into the negative in their combat attributes (basically, once the magnitude of mez on you exceeds your magnitude of protection, you get mezzed).

You keep bringing repel protection into the discussion, but it's irrelevant here because I am pretty sure I can count the number of NPCs with repel powers on one hand, and Recluse isn't one of them. Repel protection (and resistance) and knockback protection (and resistance) aren't related. The only things relevant in the discussion of knockback (which is what you're experiencing) are knockback protection and knockback resistance. Every set that has knockback protection in a toggle also has 10,000% knockback resistance - but that 10,000% alone won't stop a knockback power. If you had 0 points of protection but still had 10,000% resistance, you'd still get KB'd because even a tiny decimal greater than zero is still greater than zero.

Every armor set with in-set knockback protection also has knockback resistance, except for Fire, Dark, and Elec. Fire and Dark lack KB resistance because they also lack KB protection (supposedly as a tradeoff for their extra offensive power, but that's debatable). I'm really not sure why Elec doesn't have KB resistance as well as protection in Grounded, but honestly the almost 16 points of protection Grounded provides is enough to stop 95% of the knockback in the game provided you stay on the ground. If you keep getting KB'd against one particular NPC, especially Recluse, it's not that big a deal - you're Elec, so you're resisting the worst of his heavy hitters, and you have 7 teammates to help you out in case things go south.

Slotted up it's a 4-6 second terrorize, basically a free kill on a squishy if you can put out enough damage once they're feared.