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Harangue

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Everything posted by Harangue

  1. This is a nice idea, but it fixes a problem that is largely ignored because IO's have proven to be better/cost effective. If I recall, the cost of one IO without owning the recipe/badge, will cost you about 3-4x the cost of the DO/SO, but you can upgrade it when you can without it breaking. This makes them not only cheaper to upgrade every 5 levels than manually upgrading DO/SO, it also means you can upgrade slower at a much lower cost without breaking. This means one of the following: 1) prices on SO/DO need to go down - this has the side-effect of lowering sale value (to vendors) and puts less inf into the economy 2) prices on IOs need to go up due to zero-maintenance 3) SO/DO need more than slightly better value scaling during a leveling process that GM's admit doesn't last long. Perhaps instead of breaking, they maintain a minimum value that can be balanced against IO values - something to justify the cost.
  2. I'd rather have the set balanced in a way that doesn't require you to dip outside of it. Much like the game is balanced assuming you don't use hasten or fighting pool, I would hope they would determine damage assuming not taking any res reduction from other sets and IOs into account. Besides, if that were the route to take, a far better solution is to make venom grenade a hand-grenade so you avoid the redraw problem entirely rather than get into nitty-gritty about how to deal with the crab pack issues. Cosmetically, I would like it gone, but functionally I could see it being much harder to deal with when it comes to redraw. I bet the VEATs were rushed out and not coded well. 1. Game balance is best done in the current form and issue; balancing against i23 numbers won't fix now. I'm not asking for ATO levels here. But the difference is notable enough that not doing so will still make it subpar. 2. I'm not arguing against the backpack problem that causes (b) and (c) and suggested a fix to address that. If Hunstman is the only other reason, then does that not infer there is a balance issue among the internal set choices? If the crit mechanic I suggested were implemented, it would affect huntsman build too. I even offered another solution with a new MM mechanic to better fit the themes. I think an AT with options should continue to have options rather than be Hunstman or bust. At that point, we may as well just make it 1 primary, 1 secondary and lock them in and just rename the AT to huntsman. Game balance is not easy. When you change one thing, you tend to throw others off balance. Tweaks to other AT's have slowly put this one behind and that tank adjustment is the most recent example (however necessary it was). This AT has options and will need all options addressed to make all players happy. To address only 1 style and force everyone who has this AT into that style defies the Epic AT design of significantly different play styles and options. Kheldians have many different builds and you see only 1 power that crosses over between the different forms; it really isn't that strong of a power either. I see no reason to stray from that design.
  3. I main SoA. Despite what it is now, the game is forgiving enough I can still play it regardless if I see anything I like below. >How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs? crab: -damage: low damage for a long cast time. Wolf has mostly the same powers with cast in half of the time. The damage is decent, but now matches what a tank does. Technically, it was better than a tank before the tanker damage buff. So now, it is essentially trade that aggro control for... a few ranged powers and crummy pets? large adjustment is needed. -survival: great. it is right up there with tanks and brutes. Serum provides a strong hp boost and a reasonable heal. I would personally prefer it have half duration and half the recharge so it can be used a little more than every 2 minutes. -other notes: I know there are pets here. Too bad they just can't handle higher difficulties and incarnate content. Their lack of control just makes them a distraction at best and one that doesn't last long. I feel the pets are out of place on a set that is largely built around tanky blapper play. bane: -damage: subpar for what you get. Damage is on par with a mace tank now post tank damage scaling buff. You are basically running Super Reflex for defense. I don't see a real reason to use it other than just the concept with a little resist debuff to try and pull a tiny bit ahead of the new tank. The hide/placate mechanic is a waste and it is the reason why stalkers saw a huge change on i25 on top of ATO's that make a huge change in play away from placate. With no assassin strike as well, it is a mechanic that people usually ignore. In short, SR/mace tank with built-in stealth. -survival: meh. Super Reflexes without the DDR. CDF will be a frequent problem because you are in melee range. No serum to help heal or bring hp out of stalker hp range. Might as well be a blapper without the damage. -other: it is practically required to take mace epic pool to round out the attack chain. Stalkers saw changes away from hide/placate requirement, bane set needs a change too. Hide/placate is not team friendly on an AT that has team support powers. wolf: -damage: not bad, not great. A little low for what I would expect, but not horribly out of line. The set needs 2 more attack powers at the end. A lack of a capstone is notable. I think the damage would be fine if they got their own secondary set instead of their secondary being common between the other 2 options. -survival: N/A, see the other 2. -other: feels more like temporary power set to get you to the other 2. it seems incomplete and the damage is too comparable to a defender with no trade-off for only really supporting leadership powers. It is only chosen because the crab set gets the same powers but different cast time and they are fine with the lower survival of bane armor. >What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another? My favorite is my crab tank, even if using medicine and taunt is far less than ideal. It brings the experience of a blapper with less damage and without the taste of concrete. Bane brings an interesting concept of part stalker, part support; the role could be better tuned to the role of melee dps with more support and less survival. Wolf could be made into a concept of a MM that has pets as the secondary power and attack as primary power. All unique hybrid experiences. >What would you like to see changed? Crab: 1. needs aggro management. A tank without any real taunt is a waste 2. if not (1), a damage bump is needed. Otherwise, I could play tank with better results. 3. make the cast speed comparable to wolf attacks. the top 2 attacks aren't enough to really justify double cast times and that speaks to balance problems. 4. The pets are underwhelming solo for late game. They're worthless on a team that isn't completely VEAT. They need better scaling and potentially some control. However, they don't really fit the theme of crab spider. It would make more sense to put all the pets into a MM-style secondary and put a different capstone for crab secondary. 5. Omega Maneuver just plain sucks. It needs a total re-work. I say give it to wolf spider as a capstone attack with a much shorter fuse, larger radius, and faster recharge time. Still require the gun out so you are forced into redraw if you really want to pick it up on other sets. Bane: 1. damage upgrade across the board. 2. if not (1), add a solid crit mechanic to get it away from the placate mechanic that still doesn't offer an assassin strike. Stalkers got away from that in i25. This gives an opportunity to go ranged crit using wolf, or melee crit with mace. Wolf: 1. Needs more attacks to complete the power set. A capstone using the omega maneuver bomb but shorter fuse and larger radius seems like a good use of game assets. 2. New secondary set for wolf that encompasses all the pets and improve them. This makes wolf spider option a MM that trades support for an offensive active role. The current wolf training would be renamed to something like Soldier training and keep it common across all types. >What do you love about them? I like the flexibility and team buff utility they provide while giving an interesting experience you can't get elsewhere. I like having a tanky blapperish character - I'm tired of chasing after knocked-back enemies. I like the mace theme for bane, just needs some adjusting for the AT. I used to play AR blaster back in i7 so I like the start of the wolf set but it feels too incomplete for me to really enjoy that 3rd aspect. Outside of the categories above: 1. Lose the level 24 respec. Forcing us to play wolf to 24, then respec entirely into the tree we wanted from the beginning is silly. When you do flashbacks, you aren't in wolf anymore if you specced out, which just makes it even more silly. Just let us choose from the beginning. 2. Allow costumes to have access to the AT costume parts AND common costume part. only the first slot has them and is locked into those assets while the rest don't have access at all but has all other options available. 3. The crab backpack I think should be detectable in build swapping. Why does my mace bane need to have a crab backpack because another build has it? 4. I disagree with the notion that redraw needs to be fixed. I think it is a soft encourage to use specific set themes but still allows the cross play if it is genuinely desired. Mace Bane's don't need venom grenade: they have surveillance and if they chose mace epic pool, they also get shatter armor for more res debuff. Adding non-redraw venom grenade and IO res debuffs would be giving bane's the option to -100% res debuff and that is just unbalanced. (math for you: Surveillance - 20% all, shatter armor - 20% all, venom grenade - 40% toxic 20% all else, Achilles heel IO - 20% all. That is 80% all res, 100% toxic res from one person. This doesn't factor in incarnate, other IOs, or weaken resolve in force of will pool. No wonder bane is the most popular choice.) My vision of where it should be: primary sets: Wolf - I think it is close to where it should be. potentially small dmg increase. needs capstone attacks. Should stay common pool. Crab - Overall damage needs a small adjustment and/or cast times need to change. Omega Maneuver must go. To make it stand out more over wolf, I suggest potentially add low-mag taunt to each attack Bane - damage upgrade if no crit mechanic added to secondary. Secondary sets: wolf+crab - needs some defense debuff resist. in a good spot, though the pets are out of place for the overall tanky theme. Serum might need to have half duration and half recharge if aggro becomes a thing. wolf+bane - needs some defense debuff resist. makes sense to put a crit mechanic in the bane secondary to balance against crab and the poor hide/placate mechanic. help make it scrappy. wolf+mm - new mm set to take all of the pets and make them controllable and pass incarnates to them. It preserves a mm style that is liked, but ends the crabbermind idea that is usually built around the crab pets and wolf primary. I think it easier to balance a new set for MM play than try to continue to shoehorn the very specific build into the crab set. This preserves these playstyles: wolf/bane - becomes a middle ground between sentinel and scrapper to trade some scrapper dmg for more team support bane/bane - more mdps scrappy for the squishiness, but not quite there due to team support crab/crab - make use of its strengths and enhances them a little wolf/crab - lets you be more sentinel without giving too much dmg thanks to survival wolf/mm - preserves the crabbermind play but balance is needed over the armor. it shouldn't be crab levels if you can control the pets and they get to be close to MM effectiveness.
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