Primantis

Awww come on, we can agree to disagree! XD But back on topic; as mentioned above if you slot the KB-->KD Io into Torrent it becomes a very nifty soft control power! Dark Blast also has the ability to stack a decent amount of to-hit debuffs on your foe, comes with a heal and a hold. It's always been more of a slowish DPS that relied on all its support and soft control abilities to make it useful. Probably why it took ages for the Devs to bring it to Blasters. As it's design runs pretty counter to the "in your face, everything must die now" playstyle of the Blaster.

I never thought it made much sense concept wise either.. You're telling me a Hero is gonna let some thugs mug a bank because they are from a low-tier gang? Or a Villain is going to not take advantage of an easy hit? Villains at least have the excuse of not wanting to waste time on "hits that are not worth that much money", but the Hero one is kind of pushing it imo. Unless Rikti are invading City Hall or something and they cant dedicate time saving Joe Bob from the Skulz.. But in my head-canon my Hero is running around looking for something to do. and hearing them say "These events are beneath my notice" seems kind of.. Snotty? Did Batman ever pass up a lil ole lady getting mugged, ignore her and shout "This event is beneath my notice!"?

That's the ultimate issue. It is possible for Brutes to reach tank-levels of tankiness. Even if it takes a buff from an outside source. However, no amount of IOs or buffs will let a Tank reach Brute-levels of damage. They just don't have the damage cap for that. Granted a fully built tank absorbing a FS is still going to be dishing out extreme amounts of damage!

Near sunset someone (I believe it was Arcanaville?) made an extensive and well-thought out post supporting just that. CoH is a case of terrible game design and failed decisions, that somehow magically "worked great" in the end. Resulting a game that defies expectations, sets new precedent and will never be replicated again due to this. A good example off the top of my head to support this thesis; People praise this game for the lack of the "holy trifecta". When in fact, the devs originally intended for there to be such a thing. They just messed up balancing so badly that the holy trio was not needed for the bulk of content. Scrappers could do well enough on their own that they didn't need a tank. Tanks could do enough damage that they didn't need a Scrapper. Lengthy, binary holds are a nightmarish idea balance wise, same with overwhelming and stack-able buffs/debuffs. But somehow it all just "works" I love this game to death, but its the dictionary definition of a "happy accident". Look at everything that Cryptic has developed since... Many of their game decisions seem to be made to make sure its "not CoH again", and the games suffer for it. It's pretty blatant that this game has no right to be as good as it is xD

Those people might have been confusing it with how CO calculated evasion, which was convoluted and hella confusing. (at least when I played it) You had your change to dodge (Dodge) then you had how much damage reduction dodging would achieve (Evasion) . I probably have the terms wrong though. So if you had 50% Dodge and 22% Evasion, You'd have a 50% chance to "Dodge" and dodging would reduce your damage by 22%.. It was really weird. That is not how it works here as the above posters have mentioned.

If you roll a corrupter, the way in which your primary snipe ability functions at a base level will be fundamentally changed by whether the support set you pick gives you +tohit or not. This isn't balanced because the devs simply never balanced the sets for it. That a /traps corrupter needs to pay a steep power/IO tax to reach the same damage levels as a /time corrupter because of this detail feels like nothing other than the unintended side effect of a change that the original devs only had half-finished before the game was shut down. Much like how a Fire/Kin Corruptor has to pay more to soft-cap defense than a Fire/Time or Fire/Traps Corruptor? Or perhaps how a Willpower Tank has an easier time patching up Psi defenses than an Invuln Tank. Sets have drawbacks and advantages, that's what makes them interesting. If we try to minimize this and water everything down we might as well just go the WoW route and give everyone everything and call it day. And the difference between 20-25% Defense and Soft Cap is way more profound than what Insta-Snipe offers. Even if the power itself changes much more drastically than pretty much any "min-maxed" power in the game, save for maybe Perma Dom. Another proposal would be to give everyone the current planned fast snipe (80 range, 15 second recharge), and if they hit the 22% to-hit treshold, switch that to the i24 fast snipe. So like this (Blaster/Cor/Def values) To-Hit < 22%: Snipe = 80~100 Yard range, 15 second recharge (instant firing) To-Hit >= 22%: Snipe = 150~ Yard range, 12 second recharge (also instant firing) That way everyone gets their fast snipe and people/sets who achieved 22% to-hit aren't slapped with a nerf.

You are pretty wrong about ice being bottom tier. Freeze ray is a 125 damage per animation/second attack and BiB is 133 DPA/S. Instant snipe for 1.33 cast powers (energy snipe/zapp/moonbeam/proton volley) are a 129 DPA attack and those respective sets don't have a follow up power that is anywhere near 100 DPA/S. In fact most other sets are closer to 60-65 DPA/S on their attacks. Sets with a 1.67 cast snipe (archery/Fire) are a bit weaker @ around 100 DPA/S with those attacks not including fire dots, but fire still has blaze at a beefy 132.6 DPA w/o Dots and as high as 170 with them. The only set that really comes out ahead is Psi as it has a 1 second fast cast snipe (which is being nerfed) as it was a 172.6 DPA/S attack and had a follow up with TK blast being 122.6 DPA/S. Realistically, for primaries ice came in third behind Fire and Psy but decently far ahead of Dark, Energy, Rad, Elec, Archery, etc when it came to perma snipe. Thank you for the clarification. Scratch that then, I must be confusing it with something else or remembered incorrectly. I still stand behind Point 1 though. Perhaps leave it as-is but lower the prerequisite To-hit buff to something more Blaster friendly? 10-15%

I did overlook that yes, good point!

Exactly, it's really going to mess up my ST rotation. I feel as though I'm being punished lol

I have mixed feelings about this. I like the idea on paper but a few things come to mind; 1) It feels like a slight nerf to those of us who already achieved Perma fast snipe. We already have fast snipe, but now our snipe not only loses *half* its range (which was useful for picking off runners or stragglers), but recharge was also increased by 3 seconds. The "Slow Snipe Bonus" may or may not make up for it depending on one's play style. (However the increased recharge should make it proc a bit more, so that might even out if you use damage procs) Having carefully planned to get Perma fast snipe, I feel like the carpet is being pulled out from under me. Not only does everyone get it now (Which I can live with), but I'm worse off for it as well from a power perspective. 2) DPS studies on Live Beta showed that the old fast snipe really messed up the "status quo" and sets without Snipe fell far behind in min/maxed single target damage. Ice notoriously fell from "top tier" to near the bottom. This is only going to serve to exacerbate that effect, and without any planning or IO investments. Are there plans to look at Ranged sets without Snipe and give them a few buffs to compensate? Thank you for your time and everything you guys have been doing for this great game! This was just my 2 cents.

While I am sure DFB made this more common; it is not the root cause of this. There are a good number of new players on HC and they don't all have TF level requirements memorized. Hell im sure even some old vets forgot over 7 years. Just a few cases in point (this was all before the DFB craze) We were forming a Citadel. The Leader was just spamming LFG (Lf1m for Citadel). He kept inviting a person, then they'd zone in. Only to find them under level 25. Happened 4 times in a row. I finally told him to "check their level before inviting and try adding the level requirements to the LFG chat". We all had a good chuckle about it though. Sure enough the next Hero was in his 30s and all was well. Same toon, a little later. Multiple ITF runs invited people who were either <35 or did not have the badge. Point being, TF requirements are common knowledge that's not as common as you'd think anymore. With all the fresh blood running round. And that's a great thing. Nothing wrong with newcomers! I have noticed more and more people are including the level range in their LFG ads now too. You also have people who predominantly play the opposite alignment. I am almost always Hero, therefore I have zero idea what the level requirements are for Villain TFs. I would have to ask the person forming the team first.

I was able to snag "Ground Control" for my earth controller. Hopefully some day I will meet up with a "Major Tom" (it is taken, I checked xD) That way I can message them "Ground Control to Major Tom... Ground Control, to Major Tom?!"

This would be hella useful. I tend to take screenshots of my power tray to help me remember where powers go. But boy that is a chore xD

Many toons get use out of Cardiac, especially high recharge builds with lot of toggles! It was an godsend to my Time/Radiation defender. You can either use it to boost your strengths or shore up your weaknesses. I don't think any Scrapper would say no to a +30% damage buff across the board. While other classes such as tankers, or defenders. Who might not have been able to squeeze in as much damage, as their priorities lied elsewhere; are bound to appreciate that nice juicy +45% damage.

The DFB nerf is foolish at best and highly counterproductive at worst. *snip't* It also sets a Dangerous precendent for other, long-running massively efficient XP/Inf farm TF's & trials like ITF. Especially since as far as i can find, this was a full-on stealth nerf to the Trial SPECIFICALLY to stop the "DFB to 20, -REDACTED- to 35. ITF 35-50" Loop a lot of us have been doing to power up alts. This is frankly my biggest concern at this point. The DFB nerf itself isn't that big of a deal to me. It is what it implies. I am fully expecting a nerf to Veteran level rewards at this point, and god knows what else. Timers on all PI portal missions too? They are catering to the whiners and nerf herders, that's what worries me. But I shall continue to play and enjoy the game the best I can.

WANT! It has to have a defense set too. "Stubborn Old Grump": You are resistant to change and new ideas" Mez protection toggle.

Buwahaha! I remember when Demon Summoning came out. So many posts were people moaning about players actually taking their attack powers (dat whip yo), or 'even worse' foregoing their summoning powers in order to focus on said attack powers. I think the same thing happened with Thugs and their pistol attacks. The funny part is Mastermind attacks aren't even that bad. Damage-wise they're only slightly worse than Defender attacks so while they won't ever be your main source of DPS you can do a decent damage with them if you slot them up a bit. I generally take at least two attacks on my MMs and some have had more. And some have some useful debuffs. Demon Summoning whip attacks have a decent amount of -res for example. 10% is nothing to scoff at. Especially in the AoE

When they could just let bygones be bygones and enjoy the game. But they seem intent on locking themselves up in that mental prison. Causing them to not be able to play or enjoy the game. The very same crime they accuse Leandro of. Oh the sweet irony.

Buwahaha! I remember when Demon Summoning came out. So many posts were people moaning about players actually taking their attack powers (dat whip yo), or 'even worse' foregoing their summoning powers in order to focus on said attack powers. I think the same thing happened with Thugs and their pistol attacks. I love this community; but we've never been short on the "Tell others how to play" aspect of things. Sadly, we still aren't. But our other strengths make up for it. Nor is this a rare thing in MMOs. In many games, if you don't follow the status quo you won't progress in post-game. "What do you mean you didn't take that talent? /kicked"

I'd like clarify that not only was this a planned change (as mentioned above) But they tweaked the damage to compensate. They do less damage now than they did before the change, and is recharge are still longer than the old "Crashless" nukes like Water Blasts' Geyser, Rain of Arrows etc. So those sets still maintain a slight edge for their T9s. (As they were designed around having that edge to begin with) The devs were finally getting around to fixing some old archaic power design choices (Crashing Powers, Snipes, giving psuedo-pets the proper AT modifiers, etc). And this was a good starting point. If memory serves they were going to look into the Godmod powers next, but never made it that far. (I could be sorely mistaken on that, and it might have been a presumption)

Not to mention, since you can outright buy a Merit for 1 million Inf, there is essentially a soft cap on any recipe prices. Purples should never go for more than 100 million, because you can buy them straight up for that much from the Merit Vendor. Likewise, LotG - Recharge should never go for more than 50 Million. Now these prices seem steep. But remember Purples were going for 200-400million on Live, and LotG was 70-100million.

It would be nice if they could exempt specific powers from the rule. Although that's probably not something they can do without breaking the game in horribly nightmarish ways. "Practiced Brawler" etc, maybe even "Clarion"

I am going to come off as a jackass but.. No you can't be "rightfully" bothered because that implies you have skin in the game or that they owe you something. Homecoming owes you (or any other player) nothing. They can do whatever they want. Like it or not, we are guests in their sandbox and they are in control. Frankly we shouldn't even be playing this game right now, but we are. Because a few people decided to put themselves on the line to provide it to the rest of us. It's like attending your neighbor's public barbecue and demanding that they stop serving their current choice of beef patties for your specific brand of grass-fed patties. At their expense of course, not yours. 6 Weeks ago we didn't even have a server, and people said they'd be happy with table scraps. Now look at us. Bickering over petty things like XP gain and incarnate rewards. Just enjoy the damned game and be happy we have it at all. Leave your entitlement at the login screen. This is not vanilla, nor was it every stated to be as such. If a person wants "vanilla" there are other servers out there for them. Now I am not saying we shouldn't voice our opinion or provide suggestions etc. Homecoming has decided to listen to feedback to an extent, and I do think that is wise. But we really need to check the entitlement and stop trying to dictate how others play the game.

Indeed, the "Fun Police" are never pleased. No matter which media, locale or subject matter.

Philosophy time! Do people run it because they want to? Or because its the only team content you can reliably run between 1-30 now XD