Puma
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Posts posted by Puma
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2 hours ago, Rudra said:
I oppose this request on the grounds that becoming an incarnate is a personal journey. You don't see characters ascending to godhood in literature and then turning around and sharing the resources they used to become gods with other random individuals. (Edit: Yes, the means by which they ascended is shared/known, but not anything else. And the means by which our characters can ascend is already shared/known.)
Isn't a key part of this game's lore that Incarnates do, in fact, share their power with other individuals?
This would make total sense. As you are becoming an incarnate, a well of your own power so to speak, you are able to help others achieve it by sharing your power with them. -
If the problem is "people just stay in Offensive stance all the time" then the solution is easy. Make the stances a click instead of toggle and put a timer on them.
But that's not REALLY the problem. The problem is, aside from Fire, there are too few armor sets that actually allow you to up your damage in any way, so people who choose Bio are usually doing it specifically -for- the ability to boost their damage as an aspect of their character.
Getting rid of that only pisses them off. So maybe the real solution is for the next few armor sets to also allow some way for brutes and tankers to have some "flair" when it comes to damage, and you might see people wanting to make those kinds of characters spread out more to other sets, and then Bio will look more balanced.
Make a Psi Armor set that lets you go "mental breakdown" for 2 minutes where you get a boost to damage as one of the powers. Make a Light Armor set that lets you enter "Supernova" mode where you spend some of your HP to do additional damage with each attack. Etc. Right now, if you want to make a Brute, tanker, or Sent that does any sort of real damage you have three choices, in this order: Bio, Fire, and then way lower: Shield. That's it. And since Shield and Fire have the most "thematically specific" animations of all three, I think a lot of people pick Bio and just make it work with their character by picking the subtle animation options. Then they spend most of their time in Offensive because that's really why they chose that set in the first place.
I would argue that's not a design flaw in Bio, but a lack of options in the other sets and game in general.
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16 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:
To be fair, I'm not so sure that you can appraise the value of a story arc on the metric of "seeing other people wanting to do it." I suspect that most people do story arcs solo, or duos at most. I know that I play story arcs almost entirely solo, and most others that I've known throughout the years do so as well. Teaming for story arcs just does not work well, IMO. It's a pain in the rear for people to synchronize story arcs, and if you don't synchronize story arcs only one person gets full rewards for running that story arc, and if people on the team are of multiple alignments teams break if someone goes to a SG base. On top of that, story arcs added from Issue 17 onwards are all almost entirely designed to be solo played.
I think there's a pretty "easy" fix for that, though. Give all story arc missions that TF lock out timer, so you can only get the full reward for completing it once every 24 hours, but everyone gets the full reward on the team when it's completed. That way you can avoid the fear of a team "farming" the final mission over and over to get big rewards, but still let everyone on a team get the full rewards without having to synch it. For certain missions you could prevent that (like unlock arcs, etc) but honestly...do you need to on a 20 year old game? If everyone wants to jump on to the final mission of an unlock arc and get the unlock, who really cares. Im 100% sure they've done the arc 10 times before on previous characters anyway. If it gets people teaming outside of TFs, then go for it.
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21 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:
Do you ever get the feeling that we are in a negotiation?
First attempt
Devs: We feel x is overpowered and we need to reduce it by 10%
Players: Outrageous! Inconceivable! Devs hate Players! *Ragequit*
Second attempt
Devs: We feel x is overpowered and we need to reduce it by 1000%
Players: Outrageous! Inconceivable! Devs hate Players! *Ragequit*
Devs: OK. Hold on. Don't be hasty. Based on player feedback we are reducing it to ONLY 10%.
Players: Oh. Well, that's OK then and totally reasonable.
I'm not casting aspersions. That's just smart negotiating.
UNLESS the Devs are just wrong, and the 10% reduction isn't actually warranted at all and we really ARE left with worse powersets. 😉
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18 hours ago, tatmia said:
Your first section is the exact reason why I don’t want your last section.
Different ideologies are good. Variety is good. There is a reason why I encourage people to try out all the servers.
When the game first came back, I didn’t care for the vision that the original Rebirth devs were heading, so I picked Homecoming.
Last year I realized that I was disagreeing more and more with the direction of Homecoming development, so I tried out other servers (while mainly playing on Homecoming).
This year I’m mainly playing on Rebirth. It’s good to have options. I wish more people realized that rather than just leaving the game entirely when they no longer agree with their servers development team
+1. This is why I'm playing on Cake New Dawn mostly now. It's a bit free for all with how much you can do, but nothing requiring you to make your toons OP or insta-level 50 if you don't want to, and it's better than always being bothered feeling like you're constantly being nerfed and/or punished because of someone else's vision. Having options to hop around depending on your mood is a good thing.
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On 5/21/2024 at 10:49 AM, Coyotedancer said:
It's gotten adjustments in the past... nothing like this, though.
Just looking at it, I'm not a fan of the powers changes. They really feel like they're in "solution in search of a problem"-territory. The set just doesn't need a tear down and rebuild.
You just described 95% of the approach to powers on this server.
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1 minute ago, Rudra said:
Maybe.
OK. That makes sense.
Do you see what WindDemon is showing about the chain lightning getting weaker with each jump, btw? Im going to assume the going between 210 and 206 deals with resistance differences (one type probably had a small energy damage resistance). Its first hit is 350, second is 275, and the rest go back and forth between the 206 and 210.
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3 minutes ago, Rudra said:
Blasters get crits. Not Scourge, actual crits. Scourge is a chance for additonal damage based on how low the target's health is. It has a chance to trigger based on the target's health. Blaster crits can trigger at any time. I don't play Defenders and I only have 1 Sentinel that I ahve not played in a very long time. So I don't know if they get any form of crits.
Blasters get crits?
Are you thinking of Scrappers? Blasters get a +dmg from each successive attack. They don't get crits.
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Just now, Rudra said:
What Storm Cell does, by itself, is -7% recharge, -14% movement speeds, and -7% ToHit to all enemies in its radius. The High Winds, Category 5 Lightning, and Lightning Aura (Split, Focused, and Spread) effects are triggered effects. The triggered High Winds effect adds -14% recharge, -28% movement speeds, and -9.8% ToHit.
Ok so the debuffs are even worse than I thought unless I'm spamming Storm Blast attacks.
So I don't get how it's not an inferior power UNLESS you are following it up with Storm Blast attacks. It basically looks like it just trades its damage in exchange for just being the weaker secondary effects of the Ice and Dark AoEs.
So to me, anyway, that makes it feel like, yes, you are sacrificing damage if you go to any other attack, at least compared to any other sets whose AoEs (which ALSO offer better versions of those debuffs) do that potential damage and debuffing entirely on their own.
I dunno. That's my experience. I'm glad you like the set, but I can't get it past the early 30s without hating it, and even on test when I went to full tricked out 50s found it lacking against AVs and other tough opponents compared to other sets. I refused to pair it with Storm because I knew storm could cover up a lot of the issues because storm is so incredibly and dealing out its own damage AND debuffing enemies on its own.
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20 minutes ago, Rudra said:
What @TheZag said was that based on your demands, (s)he could make that argument. Not that @TheZag was making that argument. The point is that Storm Cell's effects do not stop just because you stop using Storm Blast's attacks, you just aren't getting the added benefits those attacks trigger in Storm Cell. You are however, getting the benefits of the other powers you use instead. So you aren't missing a proc chance, you are just benefitting from something else.
Correct me if I'm wrong (it's entirely possible I am):
With no procs, Storm Cell only does just one thing: activates the windspeed psuedopet, which does the following:PvE Only
100% chance-70% maximum RunningSpeed (all affected targets) for 8s
PvP or PvE
100% chance-28% JumpHeight Strength (all affected targets) for 8s
-14% RechargeTime (all affected targets) for 8s
-28% RunningSpeed, FlyingSpeed, JumpingSpeed (all affected targets) for 8s
-9.8% ToHit (all affected targets) for 8s
So you get a set of debuffs similar to Ice Storm (only weaker) or Rain of Fire, but with a small -tohit thrown in in place of the damage (less -tohit than any of the dark blast attacks, for example).
To get it to do any damage you must follow it up with storm blast attacks. To get it to drop the Tempest Psuedopet for 2 seconds you need to use storm blast attacks, which will then add another 4.9 percent -tohit, for a total of 14.7% tohit if you're spamming Storm Cell attacks.
Is that correct?
If I drop Ice Storm I get
PvE Only
100% chance-350% maximum RunningSpeed (all affected targets)
-30% FlyingSpeed (all affected targets) for 0.5s
-40% JumpHeight Strength (all affected targets) for 0.5s
-10% RechargeTime (all affected targets) for 0.5s
-40% RunningSpeed, JumpingSpeed (all affected targets) for 0.5s
but also get quite a bit of damage over time no matter what I do next.
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1 minute ago, Rudra said:
Healing Aura does damage?!
No. Read the the thread please. Someone made a bad comparison that they should demand healing aura do damage otherwise it's costing them to use it. I explained why that comparison makes no sense.
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25 minutes ago, TheZag said:
But u want a change based on feels. Run the same mission 10 times and record your time. Then do it with as many other sets as you can and record those times. Come with data instead of feels to ask for a change. It feels fine to me so you need more than that to try to convince the devs. Playing it for 1000 hours isnt data either. Recording clear times, number of deaths, times needing inspirations to survive, and at several different difficulties with several runs each on the same mission is. Do that and i bet a dev would be very interested in what you have to say.
I posted detailed comparisons in this and other threads. It's not based on "feels." In THIS thread we've discussed end costs, damage totals, duration, etc.
We had one Dev in Beta who responded very well and was open to the concerns. We've had two chime in on this and another thread defensively and dismissively, which, frankly, tells me how much they appear to be interested in what is being said.-
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5 hours ago, TheZag said:
Sets arent balanced against other sets, they are balanced against itself. There are guidelines that are mostly followed but changes are often made because not every set uses the same abilities. That does mean one of the sets will be the highest dps and one of them will be the lowest. The data i have taken a look at places storm blast almost dead center of the dps chart. When you consider that most sets have different secondary effects, its becomes virtually impossible to say what set is the best. If you only consider raw dps then its very easy to point out a set as 'under performing'.
Storm blast does what it does. Middle of the road damage and above average mitigation of enemy attacks. Missing a chance for a proc because you used an ability from your secondary doesnt mean you missed a proc, it means you received whatever benefit that other power had. I could argue that healing aura should do damage to enemies because i could have used a blast instead and missed out on dps. Clearly that is ridiculous and so is saying every attack must be a storm blast attack when storm cell and cat5 are active.
Healing Aura's damage isn't linked to using other powers from that set. It heals just as it should regardless of what you follow it up with. That is the difference. for your comparison above, where you say "missing a chance for a proc because you used [another ability] doesn't mean you missed a proc, it means you received whatever benefit that other power had, to be accurate, Healing Aura would be balanced around Heals Over Time, but that healing over time would only happen if you continue using other healing powers. The minute you attack, it would stop. Which would mean that, yes, it means you've missed healing from a power you already cast.
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8 hours ago, Rudra said:
As opposed to say... having to get a whole power designed around boosting your accuracy and damage in order to boost your accuracy and damage? Like... Intensify?
Storm Cell is not an attack power. It is a debuff power that also happens to have the ability to do triggered attacks.
Edit:
Also:
"If you were listening at all, this whole issue revolved around storm blasts aoe primarily,"
The OP says nothing about Storm Blast's AoEs. It does address Storm Cell and Category 5, but nothing else. So the other complaints were introduced by others including you.
And if you want AoE damage:
Storm Blast's Chain Lighting:
-7.0% Endurance (all affected targets)
51.4256 points of Energy damage (all affected targets)
6.2562 points of Energy damage (all affected targets) every 0.6s for 2.2s (100% chance)
Storm Blast's Cloudburst:
14.2327 points of Cold damage (all affected targets) every 0.3s for 2.9s (100% chance)
Fire Blast's Fire Ball:
43.7931 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)
12.5123 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets)
9.3842 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 2.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s
Fire Blast's Fire Breath:
36.5985 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 2.1s (100% chance) after 1.0s
Looks comparable to me.
Fireball doesn't "chain" and thus doesn't have the weird chance to basically do little to nothing like Chain Lightning.
And cloudburst takes an entire second longer to do far less damage, according to your numbers above.
Meanwhile Fire also gets Rain of Fire, which does pretty solid damage. And sure, Storm Cell does more debuff...but if that's its purpose, even then High Winds is only triggered when you're following it up with more Storm Blast attacks.
You're literally proving his point.But this conversation clearly isn't going anywhere.
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9 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:
Right, but you also have to factor that against other sets, knowing that as borked as it is, chain lightning averaging about 60% damage of a regular ranged aoe, AND having that longer rech of 20s versus most's 16s, it's only doing about 50% on average of what a regular aoe would do. So looking at that, Storm cell is only adding about 35% of the damage that a normal aoe would do. Yes it does help mitigate which I love, but that's still really really poor for a power that you have to actually slot for damage and has base accuracy issues as well needing higher than average accuracy slotting. Again, all hence why all the attacks should be having a 100% proc rate. (and fixing chain too of course) being the main things that need fixed with the set.
Don't forget that other AoEs also have mitigation. Ice Storm does quite a bit of slow and distracts foes. Several cone attacks do knocback/knockdown, Psy Tornado does knock up, Sonic's cone does sleep, whirlpool does slow, etc. And none of those do any less if you follow them up with your secondary powers instead of your primary.
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21 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:
. If anything, IMO the fact it lasts a while means in any situation where you have more than 16 people (ITF fights for example) it will do WAY more output as you keep tossing targets at it.
To be fair, Blizzard (which you used as a comparison) is the same in this regard. While it's capped at 16 targets, as targets die, it keeps dishing out full damage as long as more are running into the field of affect.
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2 minutes ago, Rudra said:
The difference is I am defending powers as is. Intensify was made as Storm Blast's version of Aim and that is how it currently is. So what is the justification for changing it? And why shouldn't every other version of Aim, and also Build Up, not also get boosted for their durations? Unlike Storm Cell and Category 5 which are already designed to not work the same as other powers but to be different and introduce new possibilities to players, Intensify is obviously meant to maintain the call for Aim that seems so popular with some players.
Yeah! It's the "this cottage was built last week!" rule. 😕
One argument made for changing Intensify during beta was that Storm Cell's accuracy was tied to the player's, not at the time of casting, but all the way through. So once you lost the to-hit boost from Intensify, so did the lightning strikes in storm cell. At that time it had a base accuracy of 1.x so it meant end game stuff was going to get missed a LOT by Storm Cell. I believe that was upped to 1.4 or so for lightning, and the winds were made autohit? I can't recall right now and can't log in to find out.
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1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:
Assuming there are 16 targets, and lets assume each attack you toss out procs lightning, you can proc roughly once every 1.5s if we average out the cast times of storm powers.
16/5 = 3.2, so after 3 attacks (4.5s) you have hit all but 1 guy in the crowd, but by the time you do so the 1st batch of 5 targets are 0.5s away from being valid targets again. In practice, the varying cast times / latency / etc would likely make it so you do hit 5 targets every 1.5s or so.
30 / 1.5 = 20 total procs * 609.9745 = 12,199.49 damTotal = 20,582.8838 possible damage
So due to RNG, Cat 5 can be kinda hit or miss but combined with the other attacks you toss out during it, it can do tremendous bonus damage. Granted, it takes a good deal of time to deal said damage but it's there. If anything, IMO the fact it lasts a while means in any situation where you have more than 16 people (ITF fights for example) it will do WAY more output as you keep tossing targets at it.
First, thanks. Second,. again, you're assuming that the caster is doing nothing but spamming Storm Blast powers this entire time, which has been a huge part of my problem with the set, as explained here. I can think of no other set in the game that has made me feel like I can't use any of my other attacks or I'm missing out. Am I correct that you're also basing these numbers on it being three slotted for damage? I think we should be using non-enhanced numbers when we compare powers, personally.
As I said above though, Cat 5 is the least of my concerns with the set. I think Storm Cell is the real issue. Just for clarity's sake, none of the above affects and numbers of Cat 5 require Storm Cell to be active, do they?
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9 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:
Well there was that, and the total damage for cat 5 should be higher, esp of you include lightning
Can you show me how to quantify that? Since I'm going by what the character creator says, I don't know how you factor in "chance to do x" damage. Especially give the fact that a big part of my point is it's the "chance to cause lightning and high winds" that -locks you into focusing on your storm blast set- to the exclusion of your other sets. I mean, we can't just go with it's chance to proc over 30 seconds, because for that we have to assume you're ONLY using Storm Blast and never stopping to heal or buff others, or drop debuffs, or using secondary or patron or APP powers, etc. And then, of course, you also have the total damage likely lessened by the fact that during its 30 seconds dealing its damage your team is killing a bunch of the mob, too, but since they're dying, that's a lesser issue except for points of comparison.
I know you're a numbers guy so you may have a way in mind that makes sense, though.
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On 5/7/2023 at 6:57 PM, Rudra said:
No, it isn't. A pet in the game will move around and support the player character. I called Storm Cell a pet. Ice Storm does not move around and support the player character. It is spawned at a target location by the player and stays there. It is not a pet. See? No moving goal posts.
Voltaic Sentinel is a single target pet. It can only blast a single target at a time and it does nothing else. It also just sits hovering at your side until an enemy moves into its perception radius. Storm Cell affects an area. Even its single target lightning strike can damage multiple foes at once. And unlike Voltaic Sentinel which relies on an enemy moving into its perception radius? Storm Cell moves to whatever I just blasted. It doesn't wait for anything to come to me.
I've never used creeper vines. The only creeper vines I know of are from the Plant Control power set, so not relevant to this discussion. I am unaware of any creeper vines in a blast power set. Someone say something about moving goal posts?
I never said it relied on Storm Summoning to supplement it. I said that if I paired Storm Blast with Storm Summoning, then Storm Cell works very well with the Freezing Rain, Tornado, and Lightning Storm powers for my ability to layer storm effects and just ruin any spawn I may encounter's day. Something about misunderstanding something?
However, with Ice Storm et al., they do not strengthen your blast attacks. So on the one hand, you can have attacks that keep doing damage on their own. On the other, you can have attacks that are stronger or more effective than normal for a full minute. And, when you use that(those) empowered power(s) to attack, your AoE debuff that moves to or with your enemies (depending on what the enemies do, can't chase them if they go in different directions), it adds additional attacks to your own. On top of empowering your other attacks and debuffing mobs in the area. You know how cool it would be if my other debuff powers like Tar Patch moved to enemies I attacked at a distance and also attacked when I used an attack against foes in its radius?
This entire paragraph can be written off because of the first line in it. Because the whole point of the OP, especially as portrayed by you rather than the author, is specifically to homogenize the set to work like the other blast sets. Because the Category 5 power doesn't nuke mobs like even Blizzard. (Which wasn't even part of the OP, but brought in by you.) Because Storm Cell is not a self-sustaining damaging attack that you can just fire and forget.
Granted that most of Storm Cell's effects don't apply unless you are using other powers from the same set. I can see how that can be frustrating. However, what other power in the game converts a repel effect into a KD effect, increases the likelihood of you scoring a KD with another power, automatically adds a smashing damage over time effect to yet another power, adds a chance to stun to yet another power, applies an added END drain to a target affected by yet another power, and applies a -recharge, -ToHit, and -movement to yet another power, while still having the ability to inflict its own damage to an entire group of enemies with a single strike if they are close enough together, and itself apply a -recharge, -ToHit, and -movement effect to every mob in its 25 feet radius? Storm Cell does a lot and it is only a level 6 power.
https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Pseudopet
Storm Cell is a pseudo-pet. It's a non-targetable, invisible pet that creates an effect. Tornado from Storm, is ALSO a Psuedo-pet, by the way, even though, like Storm Cell, it moves from one target to the next. And just because you don't use a power like Carrion Creeper doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and like other psuedo-pets, is a point of comparison.
And while your last paragraph makes it sound the best it possibly can, you ignore (as you have this whole discussion from multiple people) the downfalls to it, as well as the other powers you mention being balanced around being used in Storm Cell and have some real weaknesses without it. And actually, it's GREAT that you bring up that's Creepers aren't a blast set. Neither are Tornado, Lightning Cloud, etc. That makes it even weirder that the blast set of storm has it's key power be a power that's default is NOT doing damage, but doing mild to low end debuffs. I looked and I can't find another blast power that does no damage on its own and only debuffs, much less one of the typically three aoes blast sets get. And before you jump, I'm not saying you need to "homogenize" the set, I'm saying that this design choice seems odd, and weakens the set overall when it doesn't have to. It costs more cast time than most AoEs other sets get, yet on its own, it doesn't do any damage and doesn't really do much debuffing without applying other blasts. Even then it doesn't suddenly become a top performer. It's a Psuedo pet that requires you to focus heavily on your other Storm Blast powers just to come up to par with other AoEs in blast sets. And it's worse because those other powers aren't very good without it, so it's not like you can just skip it in your build like you can other pseudo pets or AoEs.
I get it, you like the set. Cool. But the OPs issue with cast time is a real one, as are the other issues brought up here are, I think legitimate.
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3 hours ago, Rudra said:
That's odd. I don't recall Ice Storm or other Blaster blast set powers like it moving to targets you attack or to you when they are all down. I've dropped Storm Cell on my location multiple times, blasted a distant foe, and then Storm Cell went to my targets to affect them. Never seen Ice Storm or any other blast attack do that. So not really pets in my book. Just pseudo-pet effects.
And yet all your comments thus far have been about being able to drop the mobs before your teammates. Even your "racing for fun" comment revolves around being able to smash the mobs before anyone else. On a team. Where the players all share credit for everything.
No, I didn't. I never said I was relying on Storm Cell for real damage. I said it was a grab bag of fun. The point of the lightning comment is the your complaint about the long set up for Storm Cell, and 2 seconds is not a long set up, is because of the damage. So what else can I comment on that you would accept? That Storm Cell can immediately be doing damage should have been a salve to you, and that was the point of the comment. Especially since a single lightning strike can damage more than 1 foe. (I've seen three mobs close together all take damage from a single strike.)
My issue is the relentless homogenization of the sets. Every set has to be built the the same way and play the same way or it is wrong, or broken, or sub-par. Why can't a set just be fun rather than have to be able to nuke the mobs instantly?
I have no problems with problems in the set being fixed. Like Hailstones. Sometimes when it triggers its KD and the ice boulder slams onto a mob's head, despite that mob having no KB or KD protection, that mob keeps coming. That needs to be fixed. I have no problems with the set being improved. What I have a problem with is turning the set into just another same as all the others blast set. This one is fun in ways the others are not. The other sets are fun. I enjoy using most of them. They are fun in a different way though. And having something be different gives us variety.
See my previous responses.
They do that for every patch/targeted duration AoE. That is a problem with the mob flee mechanic, not the power.
Ok, 1st, "moving to you or the target" is shifting the goalposts, and since nothing anyone here has suggested would alter that, I'm not sure what your point is. And yes, Storm Cell is a pseudo pet just like the others mentioned. And as pointed out, Voltaic Sentinel does follow. And if you really need an EXACT 1-2 comparison, creeper vines does immediate damage, amps up more damage as it goes, AND follows, and in no ways requires you to keep attacking with plants to make it work its best. But again, this is sde tracking and shifting the goal posts to something no one is arguing.
And you misunderstood what I meant about Storm Cell and your point showing that it relied on Storm Summoning to supplement it. While you're right, you might get lucky and your first attack triggers a lighting strike, the next attack WONT trigger any more damage from it unless you're sticking with a Storm Blast attack. But with Ice Storm, etc. I can switch to a secondary attack and it's still doing its damage. That causes a "tax" on using your secondary powers where doing so means Storm Cell will NOT do its optimal damage. And if it DOESN'T trigger lightning on that first attack...well...that's even worse, no?
And also, if nothing anyone is proposing would "homogenize" the set or make it function just like the others, what are you arguing against? So far all that's been suggested is lowering the costs of these two unique powers and and improving their upfront or total damage possibilities to deal with their uniqueness. Is it just the fact that you disagree with the OP and I about how fun the set is currently? Ok. Fine. But nothing we're suggesting would take away that fun for you, would it? And yet we're saying it WOULD increase the fun and utility of the set for some people. Do you disagree with that? If not, then why argue about making the set better for those of us with problems with it if it wouldn't alter what -you- love about it much and wouldn't really move it from the center of the pack in the end, anyway?-
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7 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:
You may want to check your math on these.
Ah sorrry. I rearranged the order and forgot to change the damage section for Water. It's fixed now. Thanks!
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12 hours ago, Rudra said:
OR! And bear with me on this. you have 15 different power sets. 14 of them of them have 8 attacks and 1 buff. 1 of them has 6 attacks, 1 buff, 1 long duration area effect debuff pet that also happens to do damage every time an associated power is triggered that also strengthens the effects of the master's associated powers, and 1 moderate duration damage psuedo-pet that gets stronger on its own over time and also happens to trigger additonal attacks every time its master uses an associated power.
You are wrong on a few points here: Ice has TWO long duration debuff/Psuedo pets just like Storm Cell: Ice Storm and Blizzard, neither of which suffer from the requirement that you can only use Ice Blast powers if you want them to do damage, and Blizzard has BETTER debuffs than Cat 5. Water ALSO has a psuedopet that does damage and debuffs without locking you into only water powers for it to do its damage. Electric has a psuedopet that debuffs and does damage regardless of what other attacks you're using. And the rest of those sets' attacks aren't balanced around or designed to work differently if they are used without also using any of those psuedopets. With Storm Blast, they are and do.
12 hours ago, Rudra said:And then there is the other part of your comment. That you view being able to dispatch mobs as a race. A race that it looks to me you are adamant about winning. So your friends have a car that hits 60 in 10? Nice car. Well, guess what? My car may not get to 60 faster than 45, but it sure is carrying a lot of other bells and whistles that just makes it all kinds of fun to drive! I may not win any speed competitions, but I sure am going to enjoy the hell out of the ride! That is Storm Blast. It builds up slow and then hits hard. It has powers that would seem to be nukes but are best used against the really difficult targets so they can build to their full power, and it keeps you entertained the entire time.
Meanwhile in my actual post, I make it clear it ISN'T actually a race and it isn't about "winning."
13 hours ago, Puma said:Think of it this way. You and seven friends are going to race together. Not really for anything more than just fun.
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When you complain that you have no chance to not only win the race, but even keep up with your friends, so it doesn't feel fun, my response is "If you don't like your dirty bike, I mean, you still have the exact same skates and bicycle as everyone else."
Seriously, Rudra, it feels like you're reading to respond instead of listening to the points being made.
12 hours ago, Rudra said:And the best part is? When I use Storm Cell? Sure, most times it doesn't use lightning until a few attacks in, but other times? It opens with the lightning the moment I do anything. It's a grab bag of fun. Not meant to compete with the top tier sets, which the devs said when they released it. And probably declared when they released it for testing too, but I'm not a tester so I wouldn't know. It was announced that it was not meant to keep up with or out-perform the other blast sets. That it was meant to be fun. And yes, Storm Cell doesn't wind up as fast as other powers and doesn't keep its attacks going unless you do too, but I definitely find it fun. And if I have it paired with say Storm Summoning? Then I have Freezing Rain and Tornado and Lightning Storm to do the up front sustained damage while Storm Cell lets me play with throwing in additional storm effects at targets of my choosing on my terms to just have fun.
Whether you realize it or not, you just admitted the problem here. You admitted that you'd need to rely on Storm Blast for the real damage, which any OTHER secondary can also do. The issue is, the design of Storm Blast FORCES you to choose between having your Storm Blast powers be relatively weak by all comparisons because you also want to use an active secondary, or have them be on PAR with others but only because you have to constantly focus on them at the exclusion of secondaries outside of storm. Except, as pointed above, you're STILL left with a set that, in 90% of the situations, isn't adding much except looking pretty.
I'm glad you find it fun, but these issues make others like myself and the OP find it much less fun. Now, the question is, if they cut the cast time on Storm Cell and Cat 5, and made the few changes suggested here, would you NOT find it fun? Would the set performing slightly better but still being a mid-tier set ruin the fun for you? Why or why not?-
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14 hours ago, MHertz said:
So if Storm Blast suddenly did massive amounts of up-front nuke damage, what is it? It’s the same as everything else — just a competition to see whether you or your teammates can mash the button first.
That’s not a bad thing, but it does make the game and the power set much less interesting. Is there a particular reason why every powerset must be built in that way?
I don't think anyone is asking for it to be built exactly the same. Flavor is great. Even the CONCEPT of Storm Blast is cool, and as I've said several times, the animations are absolutely beautiful. But that cool concept was executed in a way that caused what I HOPE are unintentional problems that seriously harm the set.
1. As the OP pointed out, the proper functioning of the entire set being built around a power that requires location based targeting, takes 2 seconds to drop, costs 15 end, AND does almost nothing on its own. As the OP suggested, the cast/activation time should be MUCH lower. I would also make it target based instead of location based. That way it's much easier to set up each fight. Target your enemy, launch Storm Cell, and within 1 second you're good to go to start making it actually work and helping the team.
2. The direct linkage between the damage procs of Storm Cell (and Cat 5) and the individual attacks from Storm Blast is a problem. It really DOES place a "tax"
on using any of your other powersets that -no other powerset in this game- causes. This could easily be fixed by having your Storm Blast attacks give the storm cell a 5 second intensification boost that can trigger the effects randomly. So instead of me having to SPAM Storm Blast attacks to hope each attack can maybe proc, I can use storm blast attacks in a normal rotation while ensuring my Storm Cell and tier 9 Cat 5 aren't weakener because I chose to take a couple seconds to lay a tar patch or chose to use Sound Booster and Earsplitter on a boss or drop my epic Bonfire. This doesn't in any way change the flavor of Storm Blast, but it would make it more functional with more secondaries AND feel "smoother" to many players.
3. Cat 5 - admittedly, this is the least of the three concerns for me. I'm a huge fan of Blizzard so I'm used to Nukes that aren't "nukes", but even then, why does this take LONGER to animate than Blizzard? The fact is, the design of Cat 5 seems to purposefully make it weak as a tier 9, and ESPECIALLY weak when you're teaming with others in this game. Here is a comparison of several nukes side by side.
Power Activation Damage End Cost Duration for DMG Blizzard
2.03 417.08 27.72 20s (w -rech/run speed) Cat 5 2.5 316.98 27.72 30s (w -rech/run speed) Thunderous Blast 2.93 300 27.72 Instant (+Lingering -recovery) Geyser 3 539.96 27.73 Instant Atomic Blast 2.93 250.25 27.73 Instant (+Lingering Hold)
So at first glance it looks sort of middle of the pack, but in play? Well, the closest power to it is Blizzard which does more damage, casts faster, and deals all of that damage over a shorter duration. It actually has similar (slightly better?) debuffs. More traditional tier 9s like Thunderous Blast, Atomic Blast, and Psychic Wail do anywhere from 10-60 points less damage overall, and take .5 seconds longer to activate, but the damage dealt is instant and they include lingering affects like holds, stuns, etc. for mobs still alive. And since many many enemies die before the 30 seconds is over, the truth is, they probably do MORE damage than the "total damage" suggests compared to Cat 5. Geyser is a weird outlier, with much more damage that is instant but no real lingering secondary effects.So if you play this out, you and I are on a team. You have ANY of those powers above besides Cat 5 and Blizzard. I'm on Storm Blast. We get to a mob, and I drop down Storm Cell (2 seconds set up) and then Cat 5 (2.5 more seconds). My damage STARTS at second 4.5. But at Second 3 you've already nuked the mob and taken out a bunch, and likely left a lot of the stragglers stunned or held or debuffed. Then In Seconds 4-5 you launch an AoE knocking out the few stragglers left.
So we're down to maybe 2 bosses and a couple luits left at seconds 5+. My Cat 5 is just starting its damage, but not even close to "ramped up" yet, which it does over 30 seconds. I fire off Cloud Burst at a Luit, and it procs Hurricane AND Storm Cell to fire lightning, taking out the luit and striking the boss! But there's that pesky 5 second lock out, so before they can trigger again, you knock out the boss with another AoE and a couple attacks. If you used Blizzard instead, it might be closer, but you'd STILL have a 2-3 second head start of your nuke raining down damage while you're firing off other attacks before mine even get going, AND your nuke does MORE damage over shorter time than mine.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
With Cat 5, they need to do a couple of possible things if they really want to bring it up to par.
1- keep it with the "amp up" flavor, but then do the opposite of most tier 9s and front load the safety mitigation. Instead of Damage then mezz-debuff, start with a massive mezz/debuff. The Cat 5 starts with a loud thundercrack that terrorizes all foes for 4 seconds. This gives you a chance when solo to get the storm going before being overwhelmed by an alpha, and on a team helps set it up for others to safely start the fight.
2- Cut its cast time down to 1 second. The 3 second cast time on tier 9 nukes, I've always felt, makes sense because you're taking 3 seconds of vulnerability to fire off a devastating instant amount of damage. Since hurricane doesn't have that instant damage, the 30 second amp up can serve that same function. Set it in 1 second and then start using your other powers while it amps up, like a slower Blizzard.
This way you could stun mobs before some other person runs in with their instant nukes, and then fire off your non-storm cell boosted attacks and at least you felt like you played a part, plus your Cat 5 and, if you dropped it, Storm Cell, are amping up to help with the stragglers after.
Finally, I would remove the 5 second lock out. It makes no sense. The way this set is designed, it COULD shine in long fights with AVs on TFs, because as you fight you are kicking up the storm to hurt them deeply, but with a lock out that is seriously nerfed as well, so it doesn't really do much more than, say, having Voltaic Sentinel out.-
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New Powerset ldea - Armor Defense (hi-tech theme)
in Suggestions & Feedback
Posted · Edited by Puma
WHY DOES MY LIZARD HAVE TO CARRY AROUND A SHIELD WHEN HE'S SUPER SLICK?!?!?!
WHY DOES MY LZARD HAVE TO HOLD TWO PISTOLS WHEN HE COULD SHOOT DUAL PISTOLS FROM HIS FISTS?!?!
WHY DOES MY ROBOT HAVE TO COVER HIMSELF IN STONE WHEN HE'S WALKING ARMOR?!
I'm sorry but this is how your entire comment chain in this thread reads.