macskull
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I'd skip Choking Cloud and EM Pulse, they're not really useful in normal play. Fire Breath is about a million times better than the melee version and I'd take it hands-down for a PvE build.Originally Posted by Black_Marrow
I haven't got much experience with Fire Blast or with Radiation Emission so I'll keep this brief. I was wondering about Choking Cloud, and is it neccesary if I'm not going to be in melee range much? Also, Fire Breath, is it better tha the tanker/scrapper version? Em Pulse seems to be nothing I can make use of considering all of the other Debuffs Radiation has and my tight build. Is it really worth it or can I live without it? -
Because CP covers just about everything and PP doesn't offer enough endurance recovery to really help offset running FA. Really, PP's a wasted power pick for all but the most endurance-hungry builds.
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Thanks for the wishes all, 21 today so you know what that means. >.>
Interestingly, this is my golden birthday, but what's more interesting about it is I'm the oldest child, and the first one to have a golden birthday, and the next in the family won't be for eight years - when my three siblings have theirs in the same year. And no, they're not triplets or twins.
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Quote:So kill them when they come out of Hibernate since they can't go back into it for 90 seconds? Y'know, the whole "learn to play" thing instead of the "whine about something and try to get it nerfed" thing?Originally Posted by Thunderspark
As for the Hibernate, this is more of a personal bugbear. I'm rather tired of seeing the same pattern emerge from fighting blasters and corruptors. They shoot, they take hits, they almost die and then.... yup. Hibernate. Instant HP/Endurance and then they beat a hasty retreat or finish off what's left of you when they break out. There is already a hibernate resistance, but it's timer is too forgiving in my opinion and needs a small extension. It's an incredibly overpowered skill since it's essentially a reset switch for combat which puts it at the top of my pet hates.
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Quote:I am sorry that my ability to kill lots of mobs quickly, load quickly, and click on glowies quickly is considered an exploit to you. Do you also consider skipping to the end on the last mission of the ITF, killing Romulus, and then clearing the rooftops to be an exploit, since it's significantly faster than doing it the "normal" way? Do you consider stealthing to a glowie (which is the only mission objective) an exploit because it's faster? If so, you have a lot more in common with our good friend The_Alt_oholic than you might like to admit. The only example of an "exploit" in a TF I can think of recently is the geometry exploit in the Eden trial, where you could teleport or fly through the second wall. When this was fixed in I12 it added maybe another minute or two to the total time and speed teams were still banging Edens out in under ten minutes.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
An exploit? You mean something like...
The problem here is, there were no exploits fixed in these changes. In the case of the KHTF it might have been an unintentional side effect of some behind-the-scenes AI changes, but I find it much more likely that it was an intentional change to make the TF take longer. Likewise, the change to the glowies in the Hess TF might just be due to the new maps that are being used, though I'm guessing something wasn't fixed when the TF was changed and now things are broken. If you're going to try and adjust a task force, you should inform people of the change so they can test the changes during beta when that testing is supposed to happen. -
A good blamer will find a way to blame someone anyways. >.>
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Quote:Interestingly when I13 dropped the PvPers were told "we are going to be devoting more resources toward maintaining and improving PvP, and we are not going to be ignoring it any longer." While most of the changes since then have been for the better (mostly tweaks and such) the system still sucks compared to what it was before I13. Now we've been told that the future of PvP is on hold for a while, which makes us wonder what "we're not going to be ignoring it" means.Originally Posted by Azrhiaz
I don't think I count i16 as new content. New shinies maybe, but new content? No.
They broke the pathing and then opted to let it be and shut raids down. I don't recall them ever trying to fix the bugs. As you said, it was more a matter of low priority than them even making more than a half-hearted attempt to look at it. -
Some attributes have different DR caps based on AT, is recharge one of them? I'm going to assume no, seeing as how recharge really isn't a "survivability" aspect like defense, resistance, and tohit are.
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Quote:People who complain about mez in the PvE game (not talking about you specifically, just a general statement) had a point under the pre-I13 mez rules where a mez would drop all your toggles. Toggle-heavy squishies or ATs that lacked mez protection but relied on toggles for survivability (see Khelds) got the short end of the stick, especially in a game where micro-mezzes (Crey and KoA are the most suspect groups here) in the form of sleeps or very short-duration holds caused the huge annoyance of having to retoggle everything.Originally Posted by Futurias
For a scrapper, a +2 or +3 boss is usually just 'doing normal' while against a blaster, that is probably death... all because he can't actually attack with most of his powers.
That's why I hate toggle suppression as currently implemented. You take your character who can't respond and suppress all of his good resistances and defenses. Even on a tank, that hurts.
For a squishy that has lower hitpoints and suddenly can't A) attack B) run away and C) is now taking an extreme extra amount of damage it's not a good design decision.
Toggle suppression should have just been changed so that you were held but your non-offensive toggles stayed up and your offensive toggles were suppressed.
Given the current PvE mez and toggle rules, people needn't complain about micro-mezzes anymore, and standard mezzes are just a small hurdle that's easily overcome with a Break Free or two. If you don't regularly carry them when you know you're going to be facing mezzing enemies, then you probably deserve whatever debt you end up getting. Inspiration management's not just a PvP skill. -
Quote:I'm almost 100% positive I've been dropped by Soul Storm when I was in midair, though I don't know anyone who has the power where I could reliably test that.Originally Posted by Silit
The KU on soul storm only works if the target is on the ground when it hits (Web grenading the target disrupts it altogether).
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List of powers still erroneously causing PvP travel suppression:
This list isn't necessarily complete, it's just what I thought to check at the time.
* Night Widow Teamwork -> Mind Link
* Fortunata Teamwork -> Mind Link
* Brute/Tanker/Scrapper -> Fiery Aura -> Fiery Embrace
* All click accolade powers except Elusive Mind (the only one that should be suppressing is the click immobilize)
Additionally:
* Fortunata Hypnosis: Chance for Placate proc in sleep powers (notably Will Domination) will proc 100% of the time against player targets if the target is not in the mez suppression period (i.e. if the power sleeps the player, they will be placated).
* Defender -> Psionic Mastery -> Telekinesis still does repel against player targets, while the in-set versions of this power do not, I assume this is not working as intended. In general, Telekinesis is now very powerful as an autohit toggle hold - generally a target will be dead before TK's hold wears off.
* Bitter Ice Blast does less damage in PvP than Ice Blast, and Blaze does only a few points more than Fire Blast. Given that these attacks have half the range of the tier 1 and 2 attacks, and are not able to be used while mezzed, consider increasing the damage of these powers to the point where they're actually worth using instead of just chaining the tier 1/2 indefinitely. In PvE these powers are balanced around longer recharge timers and their shorter range, but this is not the case in PvP.
* Soul Storm causes an unresisted knockdown when the animation is finished, assuming it holds the target. The ability to essentially negate knockback protection, no matter the amount, including in-set melee KB toggles/clicks, is unbalanced and needs to be fixed.
* Knockback in general needs to be revisited - someone using only SOs (for example, a Mind Controller or Dominator) can toss someone around and then mez them and their target will be dead before they can defend themselves. The only way to stop this KB on a squishy is to invest hundreds of millions of inf in IOs or to team with a Kin, which have become increasingly rare and in some cases nonexistent given the travel suppression changes. Perhaps adding KB protection in PvP only to all ally-granted mez protection powers (Clarity, CM, etc) would solve the problem without forcing people to rely on spending hundreds of millions of inf to stop a power that can be slotted with SOs.
And four PvP QoL requests:
* Can we PLEASE get a "no base resistances" option? The main kicker of running DR-off matches is the 40% base resists a squishy gets, which turns DR-off matches into a one-dimensional "KB then double AS" strategy. Adding an option to remove the base resistance would allow DR-off matches with a larger variety of teams and would allow Sonic and Therm shields to become useful again for more than just melee characters.
* An option to disable the sudden death feature would be welcome as well - it seems people can't agree on how best to implement this, if it should be implemented at all. The old "drop everyone to 1 HP" method gave the advantage to characters with self-heals or DoTs, and the new "slowly reduce max health" method gives the advantage to stealthed characters, who can just hide until they hit 1 HP and then get a free kill. Since the PvP community at large can't seem to agree on a solution, why not just have the option to turn sudden death off? There are no rules, unwritten or otherwise, that say a duel or team match has to end in sudden death, and in the case of some team matches, you might not even realize you're tied until sudden death kicks in. Ties are acceptable in the scope of arena PvP. Leaving the option mandatory in Swiss Draw matches is a good idea, but a more balanced solution needs to be found and implemented.
* Further increase the flight speed of observer cameras (if it's not already at the cap, it should be) and give them a form of Combat Jumping - the combination of fly and CJ allows for significantly better maneuverability to watch fast-paced combat than does fly on its own. Most PvPers will have the SS/SJ combination and the flying cameras just aren't fast enough to keep up with the action on larger maps.
* An in-match scoreboard for both the participants and the observers, to enable the participants to see the scores on-the-fly, as well as letting observers who are joining late know the score without having to rely on out-of-game methods (i.e. Vent/TS) to find out. -
Quote:What you're really asking for here is the Cathedral of Pain Trial, Items of Power, and base raids to come back - the Monument of Iron IoP grants mag 3 status protection to everyone in the supergroup so long as they're in SG mode.Originally Posted by Futurias
Yeah, I know. This comes up all the time. Just give those poor squishy Blasters, Defenders, (most) Controllers, Kheldians, Corruptors and Master Minds some slightly better, consistant protection.
Now there used to be some really valid points not to. After all, PvP with Mezz Protection was very broken.
But there is no more PvP Mezz Protection, just Mezz Resistance.
So what is the compelling reason to not allow it anymore? So that heroes and villains can be detoggled by minions? (No, they changed that so only offensive toggles really drop.)
So that bosses are a grave threat? I don't know about you guys, but my corruptor gets waxed pretty dang fast by bosses even when I can move. How is suppressing all my protections and not being able to flee more harsh than that?
Now, just to be fair, I'm not advocating that everyone gets tanker-level protection.
In fact, I'd just add two 'lower-tier' protection levels, built into the different ATs Primary or Secondary.
Low Tier: Defenders, Corruptors, Masterminds. +2 or +3 mezz protection at best. Something to make them feel that they are better than generic minions and lts. (This is where Soldiers of Arachnos generally are, IIRC. A little bit gets rid of a lot of frustration, IMO.)
Low-Mid Tier: Blasters and Kheldians. +4 or +5. For the most part, these ATs are actually a bit heavy melee so need just a bit more to survive in melee.
Mid Tier: Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers. Lives in melee, but is not the primary aggro-magnet, so needs more than those below them.
High Tier: Tankers, of course. (Dwarf Form Khelds should be about here, but probably would be in this new system.)
Let fun triumph over inertia!
(Yes, I'm pretty sure I'll get yelled at that there is no problem, please shut up, yadda yadda yadda. Every time I personally have a problem playing one of these 'no-mezz' characters, I'll be right back here visiting.) -
Quote:Apparently this post is "wrong," will someone explain please?Originally Posted by macskull
Amusingly, with the exception of the XP adjustments for groups that don't contain enemies of all ranks (and even sometimes in that case), the I16 MA changes have ended up harming the story writers more than the farmers. Why? Simple - the farmers are doing what they always do, and moving on to the next-best thing. Meanwhile, the story writers are stuck with a broken system and are essentially being punished for having custom characters in their arcs.
What's really going to happen is the nerfs will continue until no one except the "story purists" will be using MA missions for any purpose at all, and then all the writers who came to the forums complaining that no one was playing their arcs because they were running farms (hey, wake up, your arc is probably not that good anyways) will come to the forums complaining no one is playing their arcs because the rewards are crap. These changes are simply yet another example of how trying to curb farming ends up hurting the farmers less than everyone else. -
Quote:I doubt that Lift/Levitate will become obsolete unless there's a change to either KB in general or the power itself - most zone people don't understand the mechanics behind knockback, let alone how much KB protection they'd need to slot to stop it, and on top of that the cost in IOs you'd need to hit that number. Of course, people that do slot for KB protection usually slot enough to stop Lift/Levitate with a little leeway, so Power Push/Force Bolt are still very useful for those characters with access to them.Originally Posted by Frosticus
I have no idea if people are using FF or energy blast/assault to set up spikes though, or if levitate is all you ever see, or if once levitate becomes obsolete if people will upgrade to FB or powerpush.
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Quote:Incidentally, the rampant MA farming was actually good for the market at the time. Other than purples and some salvage, the price of most recipes went down. I like tickets because they're a deterministic reward rather than a random one (more or less, at least), but that's balanced by missing out on all the random drops I could be getting by running normal content - who knows, maybe those random drops would've contained rare salvage, or a purple, or another expensive pool A recipe.Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic
I think the ticket caps should be lowered.
I've unlocked all the "unlockables" a long time ago. I'd like to see more "unlockables".
For a system that wasn't supposed to replace normal game play by not awarding drops, the ticket system in the AE certainly does allow one to pick-and-choose the drops they get. It seems that tickets are actually a greater reward to some than the random drops in normal missions.
I'd really rather that the tickets only be usable for unlocking "unlockables" and other impacts on the AE system itself. Influence and xp should be a big enough reward for players that are looking for new content to explore.
The AE, after all, is about new content and not about content that can be milked for rewards.
Merits and Vanguard Merits have caused a different kind of farming. Merits were set-up with a system to discourage repetitive farming on the same day.
Raising the ticket caps will reward farmers and bring some farmers back to the AE. I don't expect to see the ticket cap increased. -
Test broke for me too, same error, same file. Was hoping to get on and do some bug checks (all having to do with PvP, and I was going to do it on test since it's the same version as live and all the characters I'd need to be testing on are already in PvP zones on test) but that'll have to wait I'm afraid.
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Quote:Amusingly, with the exception of the XP adjustments for groups that don't contain enemies of all ranks (and even sometimes in that case), the I16 MA changes have ended up harming the story writers more than the farmers. Why? Simple - the farmers are doing what they always do, and moving on to the next-best thing. Meanwhile, the story writers are stuck with a broken system and are essentially being punished for having custom characters in their arcs.Originally Posted by Lightfoot
Every single AE nerf that has come down the pipe has been in direct response to the rampant farming of AE, and more nerfs will continue to be handed down until it is no longer preferable to farm the AE over Dev controlled content.
What's really going to happen is the nerfs will continue until no one except the "story purists" will be using MA missions for any purpose at all, and then all the writers who came to the forums complaining that no one was playing their arcs because they were running farms (hey, wake up, your arc is probably not that good anyways) will come to the forums complaining no one is playing their arcs because the rewards are crap. These changes are simply yet another example of how trying to curb farming ends up hurting the farmers less than everyone else. -
Been doing my PLing in the MA because recipe drop rates are borked (and recipes, especially purples, are the only reason I'd do normal missions at this point). Got my Son/EM from 1-39.1 in around 15 hours according to an NPC - I'm sure it's probably an hour or two less given how AFK-prone I am when I'm solo. Running on +3x8, no bosses, using a group I put together myself out of standard NPCs.
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Dwarf's good for 3 things:
1. Self-heal
2. Taunt
3. Teleport
Basically you'll only want to be in Dwarf to fire off that second heal, to disrupt a damage spike via taunt, or get out of a sticky situation (assuming you can time it around travel suppression) via teleport. -
Quote:Oh yeah, I wasn't taking DR into consideration. Base resists + slotted epic shield will get you to about 40% after DR kicks in (plus or minus a few percent based on AT). Given how DR works I'd expect base resists + WoP to be somewhere in the lower 30s after DR.Originally Posted by Frosticus
So you guys play with DR off then if you are talking about capping at 75%.
I though the usual set up was
Travel Suppression: off
Heal Decay: off
DR: on -
Quote:If I'm not mistaken, that was an MA-only change.Originally Posted by Djeannie
Shame this went live too because if you get these mobs in the normal mission they're in they will give you grief.
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Quote:Free base resists + slotted WoP will get you to something around 55-57% resistance, which still leaves 20% to cover from other means. Mace would be a good choice for a /Pain but I think the reason many choose to go the Power Boost route is because in the zone environment, PB'd Share Pain is one of the only effective heals once heal decay's really started to kick in.Originally Posted by Frosticus
I'm curious why you guys all go with soul, aren't you at the DR res cap with free res+WoP?
Is it for powerboost? We did a bit of testing last night for pb+mezzing and it was only making a ~7 second stun last ~9 seconds, so it is getting DR'd pretty heavily (pb+slotted dom stun should be 12 sec). -
A good Rad is underrated. As was said in this thread over in the PvP section, Ice is really bad now and you'd be better off with just about any other primary.
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Quote:The proc options for Ice are nice and all but when you start factoring in the stacking -res from Sonic I'm not sure if Ice really competes anymore. Sure you can get some kills with it, it just takes a lot longer than other sets.Originally Posted by __Divine__
I honestly think ice would do better then sonic if you proc it out. Ice does not have crazy dmg, but with AM, Assualt, and some dmg bonuses you can get up to about 60% dmg buff. With ice fast animations times, it might be worth it. I know ed said he beat a psi blaster with his ice/rad, and he was just messing around and i doubt he has it proc out. I would have to test it..but i'm sure i could make it work if i really wanted to use ice. Its just going to cost you a small fortune to do it. Ill come up with a build to see.
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Quote:Being able to select exactly what recipe it should be is like being given a blank piece of money and saying "here, what size bill should this be?" It sounds nice in theory but it just doesn't work in practice.Originally Posted by FargonRob
If they were blind when they drop, and you can then choose what they are when you slot them, then the rare drops would be useful, since you would not have to worry about whcih one's dropped. You could then have a set, be it rare and hard, that would work for you without having to sell your life to the game.
Making them non-transferable would be the key.