Redlynne

Warshades CAN be stronger than Peacebringers CONDITIONALLY AT TIMES but that higher strength has dependencies that Peacebringers are not subject to. So even though Warshades have higher peaks of performance than Peacebringers do, they also have lower troughs of performance than Peacebringers do too. So it's a case of higher maximum AND lower minimum for Warshades than Peacebringers ... and as every min/maxer knows, the name of the game is stay in the maximum performance range while staying out of the minimum performance range. Sometimes you can do that as a Warshade ... and sometimes you can't.

When you're tweaking performance, you need (as a developer/game designer) be VERY sensitive to the maximum performance envelope AND the minimum performance envelope at the same time. You're much more likely to be successful with the delivery of "dev love" to a powerset by raising the minimums while holding the line on the maximums. That's one of the best ways to keep power creep in check. Increasing crit chances will raise the maximums while doing next to nothing for the minimums. That is power creep, plain and simple.

Expected this ... Got this ...

Yes, but as for being able to keep up with the drain ... /em significant look

Fair warning ... you will never have a blue bar ever again if you try that ...

This is making me wonder if Gun Drone was supposed to get the "Taunt Haunt" treatment given to the Darkness Control power Haunt ... where the Taunt is something granted to the $Target so as to make the Haunt(s) focus on THAT $Target (by Taunting the Haunts to attack them, rather than just anyone in range). If it had been done THAT way, so as to direct the firepower of the Gun Drone onto a Designated Victim™ .. that would make a lot more sense. But having the Gun Drone use a Taunt that makes every $Target nearby turn to destroy the Gun Drone ... that's just DERP.

Challenge him to slot all of his Knockback powers with Knockback sets for even MORE Knockback. Objective ... MAXIMUM Knockback ...! Then turn him loose on unsuspecting Hellions in Atlas Park.

Low level Clockworks (Atlas, Echo Galaxy, King's Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway, Faultline, etc.) are all vulnerable to Knockback. They basically have a -Resistance to Knockback. This means that powers that would otherwise just do knockdowns to other mobs do knockback to these low level Clockworks. Even moderate knockbacks (greater than mag 1) will tend to hurl Clockworks back further because knockback has an increased effect on Clockworks. It's rare to have an increased vulnerability to knockback (a -Resistance to Knockback, effectively) ... but it's not impossible. Low level Clockworks just happen to be a classic example of it. But that also means that the mathematical interaction that causes that kind of behavior to happen is founded/grounded in the way the game processes effects like Knockback, and Disruption Arrow may be having a curious interaction with that due to the pulse cycle of its effects and possible stacking(!) of the -Resistance debuffing from Sonic Disruption Arrow that results in a magnification of the Knockback done by the Oil Slick. Essentially, if the Oil Slick is placed inside of a Sonic Disruption Arrow effect, that magnifies/multiplies the Knockback from down to back strength due to how Oil Slick is affected/modified (as a Foe) by Sonic Disruption Arrow when Oil Slick get summoned/manifested. However, if you reverse the sequencing to put down Oil Slick Arrow first and then layer Sonic Disruption Arrow afterwards, the same magnification/multiplication of Knockback strength doesn't occur because the Oil Slick was there "first" and wasn't being debuffed in a way that increases Knockback from the time when it was summoned (if that makes any sense). In other words, an edge case created by the timing of the order of operations which is not symmetrical in outcomes of effects. Chicken ... meet egg.

LINK

That sounds correct.

Counter-proposal: Remove the PBAoE Taunt Add Placate effect to attacked $Target on delay after damage by Gun Drone is completed (if DoT lasts 2s, then apply Placate after 2.25s which is 0.25s after DoT completes) to all Gun Drone attacks. Mischief Managed™

Already implemented by Cryptic Studios prior to shutdown in 2012. The options already exist in the costume editor.

It's what happens when you try to nerf Regen (again...) and accidentally hit Devices instead. But seriously ... a Gun Drone that Taunts $Targets to attack it? self-de·feat·ing /ˈˌself dəˈfēdiNG/ adjective adjective: self-defeating (of an action or policy) unable, because of its inherent qualities, to achieve the end it is designed to bring about.

Have you ever considered piracy playing a Warshade ...?

Really? Any builds I've seen before?

That's ... pretty impressive, actually. Also really nice to see that the Super Reflexes "core" can be ported over to other secondaries reasonably well with understandable adjustments due to the unique interactions of Storm Kick with Super Reflexes. This is true. There is a LOT of Conventional Wisdom™ that isn't all that WISE about Super Reflexes. A lot of it is just a combination of uninformed and misinformed leading to thinking that is far too simplistic to be taken at face value. I would like to think that this particular combination is the REAL insight that I was able to discover and share with the community, so as to expand Realm Of The Possible. I just really dislike the Fighting pool, because the pool is basically "selfish" in that Tough and Weave only apply to yourself, not to your Team. Using Sorcery (Rune of Protection specifically) to get around the "need" for the Fighting pool for Tough as a mule for Resistance set enhancements was one of those one of those WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE?!?!?! moments when I stumbled across it. I just sat there staring at the build planner ... stunned ... for a couple of minutes as I tried to mentally process ALL of the implications, and kept coming up with additional knock on effects that propagated and reverberated throughout the build because of the cascading influences to how everything added up to a cohesive whole. And then once I found it, I knew with absolute certainty that keeping it to myself would be an error of the first order ... so I HAD TO post it, so as to get the word out and shift the boundaries of the possible and the (falsely) assumed. 😎 💝 💝 💝 I'd argue that a large part of why that happens is because of how all the set bonuses and Tanker ATO procs and scaling resistances start stacking up as your HP falls, since they will start combining to push you towards the Resistance hardcap while also staying at the Defensive softcap. That means that as your resistances scale upwards, the amount of incoming damage leaking through your defenses will fall, potentially down to below your regeneration rate ... and when your regeneration exceeds the damage you're taking over time, you can't be defeated by anything other than a big single hit spike in damage (which is unlikely to happen because of your defenses, but could still happen if you're unlucky, and if you Roll The Dice enough, you'll eventually be unlucky enough for that to happen). So it's "not absolute invulnerability" under every condition (but then again, what is?), but it is a rather successful method of reaching for a Protection In Depth scheme for survival that fills in the gaps of Super Reflexes so as to make the powerset a strong contender for remarkable survival in ways that can surprise the Player (as you found). You're welcome. 😎 Sometimes you just have to experience things for yourself before it all comes together for you and you Get It ... and when that happens, it's a wonderful thing. You're welcome.

I do this as a standard feature of all of my builds. Every build except my Kheldians puts the Stealth IO into Sprint (the Kheldians put it into Dwarf Step instead) ... and then put common Run IOs into Prestige Power Slide and the Prestige Sprint of preference (I like Power Surge for the multi-colored glow when moving look that doesn't trail behind you over all the other options). That way, I can pick the best "look" for different occasions.

Martial Arts set. That would be Street Justice. We call that Kinetic Melee. I will say that one of the more frustrating things about Martial Arts is the baked in inconsistency of the status effects that you can't do anything about. Thunder Kick ... 10% chance for a 7.152s mag 2 Stun Cobra Strike ... 75% chance for a 11.92s mag 3 Stun Crane Kick ... 60% chance for a mag 7.789 Knockback Crippling Axe Kick ... 100% chance for a 11.92s mag 2 Immobilize with a 50% chance for an additional 11.92s mag 1 Immobilize Dragon's Tail ... 75% chance for a mag 0.67 Knockback Eagle's Claw ... 100% chance for a 4.768s mag 3 Stun This makes the powerset's performance really inconsistent. REALLY REALLY INCONSISTENT. Every status effect is a "maybe" except for Crippling Axe Kick and Eagle's Claw. In this case, however, I would like to think that Crippling Axe Kick is pointing to a solution to this (legitimate!) complaint against Martial Arts, and it would be remarkably simple to implement. You basically take the above and do this with it: Thunder Kick ... 100% chance for a 7.152s mag 1 Stun with a 10% chance for an additional 7.152s mag 1 Stun Cobra Strike ... 100% chance for a 11.92s mag 2 Stun with a 75% chance for an additional 11.92s mag 1 Stun Crane Kick ... 100% chance for a 0.75 Knockback with a 60% chance for an additional mag 6.039 Knockback Crippling Axe Kick ... 100% chance for a 11.92s mag 2 Immobilize with a 50% chance for an additional 11.92s mag 1 Immobilize Dragon's Tail ... 100% chance for a mag 0.67 Knockup Eagle's Claw ... 100% chance for a 7.152s mag 2 Stun with a 100% chance for an additional 4.768s mag 1 Stun What these changes do is enforce a consistent "partial" effect of magnitude 1 or 2, so as to make the underlying attack "always meaningful" for stacking, but then applies a chance for the additional magnitude on a percent chance basis. This holds the maximum performance steady, while only raising the minimum performance of the powers. Crippling Axe Kick stays as is, Dragon's Tail changes slightly (improved chance and swapping KnockBACK for KnockUP so as to not hurl $Targets away from you with really high magnitudes), and Eagle's Claw gets an underlying bump in duration (vs Minions) that matches Thunder Kick for better in-set stacking potential, while keeping the single attack performance against higher order $Targets (Lieutenants and up) exactly the same (aside from the underlying duration buff for the mag 2 portion). Would this change "revolutionize" Martial Arts? Probably not as much as a lot of min/maxers might hope for ... but it would make Martial Arts a MUCH more consistent performer in which the name of the game for the powerset is (deliberately) STACKING the magnitudes of its various status effects in order to neutralize $Targets that you're fighting ... rather than making Martial Arts a victim of the "whims of RNGesus" (who is a fickle $DEUS that hates you). Raise the minimums to reduce variability while holding the line on the performance maximums. For reference, I would point out that originally Thunder Kick was a 100% chance for 7.152s mag 1 Stun (not 2 ... 1!) that was expressly designed to function as the "Stun stacker" for the powerset to make the other Stuns combo up into the mag 3-4 range consistently. At some point, and I forget when it happened, the Live Devs switched Thunder Kick over to its present RNGesus madness and rather severely damaged the mez potential of the entire powerset. It is that kind of misguided and flawed game design thinking that I would seek to overturn with a "blended" design of possibilities ... in which the Martial Arts powers yield a CONSISTENT baseline of mez performance (the 100% chances) combined with less than 100% chances for additional magnitude above that baseline. To put it mildly, it's that kind of "lateral thinking" that leads to more consistent minimum outcomes that the game could use more of (I'm looking at you, Kheldian powersets!)

Proliferate the swap of Crippling Axe Kick and Dragon's Tail to Brutes and Scrappers, not just Tankers. Proliferate the +10% Defense that Tankers get to Scrappers in lieu of an additional +5% bonus critical hit chance. This would make Storm Kick the "parry" power for Martial Arts, regardless of Archetype. Remove Crane Kick (redundant) and replace with Dragon's Tail (NEEDED!!!) for Stalkers. Speaking just for myself (of course), I'd rearrange power sequencing for Stalkers like so, to be more consistent with other Archetypes: 1 Thunder Kick 1 Storm Kick 2 Cobra Strike 6 Assassin's Blow 8 Focus Chi 12 Placate 18 Dragon's Tail 26 Crippling Axe Kick 32 Eagle's Claw And finally, the motions/movements used in Eagle's Claw are FINE ... but if it could be sped up so it isn't quite so ... leisurely ... in its execution of animation, that would be great. Same movements, just faster animating (all Archetypes). The animations. The sounds the powerset produces. The "clean" visual FX used by the powerset, that are not wildly obscuring like some other powersets. And I just LOVE this slotting for Thunder Kick ... it is just SO MUCH FUN! Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown Pounding Slugfest - Damage/Endurance Pounding Slugfest - Disorient Bonus Telling other teammates (legitimately!) ... "My sneakers are doing more damage than your sword!"

There are even backpacks with rockets that light up when in flight ...

Good art is never finished ... merely abandoned.

I played Ninja/TA Mastermind before Time Manipulation was created. I picked the combination because the personal attacks drew a bow and the secondary attacks would draw the same bow. The way the combination played was ... very cowardly ... by which I mean, REALLY cowardly. The only way to keep the Ninjas alive was to prevent them from drawing aggro. If the Ninjas didn't get attacked, they wouldn't take (as much) damage, which meant full time Tankerminding. The result felt more like babysitting unruly children who refused to stay clean, not jump into puddles (to splash themselves with mud), and so on. It was just hella frustrating to play. I even went so far as to use Flash Arrow and Teleport Foe in the early going as a way to not need to re-summon (and re-equip and re-upgrade) Ninjas who weren't (as badly) damaged, since neither the primary nor the secondary had any healing powers of any kind. I eventually had to take the Presence and Medicine pools, in addition to Leadership, to overcome their shortcomings ... and even then I couldn't reach "par for the course" and would just "putt for bogey" in every encounter. Absolutely, hands down, no questions asked, the absolute WORST combination I have ever played ... and I took that Mastermind on Mothership Raids, Hamidon Raids, ITF runs and even Incarnate Trials. I had all the pet powers and spent at least half the time playing as a Petless Mastermind in endgame content. With Ninja/TA your Ninjas can't even do the job of being a speed bump.

Ninja/Trick Arrow Mastermind 50+3 on Virtue Pre-folded origami rice paper pets that can't protect themselves combined with a secondary that does NOTHING to protect them from incoming damage. Pathetic both coming and going.

I can verify that this was reported by the Player after the Mortimer Kal Strike Force (when there was time to chat) and I recommended filing the ingame bug report and also here on the forums. I was playing my Controller, Ms Givings, during this Strike Force, and I was the team leader.