Epsilon Assassin
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Posts posted by Epsilon Assassin
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4 hours ago, M3z said:
Should try pvping on a MM in zones/arena first before making comments like this.
Why?
Care to point out what I'm missing here?
4 hours ago, M3z said:Apparently you do need experience especially if you're coming to these conclusions? Why is it that every single high level/competitive pvper has been saying the same thing for months about MMs in zone pvp and arena? Should I get the other players to chime in this thread? Or do you know more than the best MM players in the game? You tell me.
Probably because you didn't read my response, just read that I disagreed and jumped on the band-wagon. You can get those people to chime in, but you might be surprised at the responses from some, and to be honest, I don't really need to deal with another bout of RARE/VoRI/PvP ELITZ flaming me because I'm worthless zone trash outside their high-school level cool kids club. If you want to have a discussion based on reality, however, I'm game.
4 hours ago, M3z said:- MMs movement/survivability is limited by supremacy range/BG MEANING if you are ever threatened by a MM or its pets, just move away,there's no effective way for a MM to chase nullifying the class completely. This leads to situations where people kite or fly above and there is quite literally nothing you can do to combat this(if your pets are melee you are even more screwed). If they did more damage and were more threatening, they'd be able to fight back against these tactics rather than being completely helpless. The pets lack of movement is a HUGE weakness, and without slows MMs should be rewarded for correctly positioning themselves to set up offense. Again this is something you'd know if you played MM.
This has nothing to do with getting a damage buff. As for positioning correctly, there isn't much of it. I've watched you and others play this class and for the most part you just run around in BG mode spamming SSJ/KoB at people, then ceasing movement once you see an attack on your bar (Assuming you ever do, in the 6 months or so I've been scrimming, win or lose against the MM teams, we just ignored you because the alternative is attacking a 5k HP tank).
4 hours ago, M3z said:- PvP is dominated by proc damage, MM pets have extremely limited access to proc damage for numerous reasons. Even the few attacks that do have procs, you cannot micro your pets to do their proc'd out attacks so therefor even when you do proc pets it's unreliable. Proc damage accounts for upwards of 60% of a total attack chains damage on other ATs (in addition to the base damage). MM pets are still stuck in the past relying on base damage in 90% of cases competing with the proc damage. Therefore in order to compete with other ATs damage which have been supplemented by proc damage, MMs pets should have base damage increases (in pvp only).
MM pets don't contribute at all to damage. You got that right, but at the same time, you're still a nearly-full tank spec bringing to the table a slightly less potent, but still relevant, suite of buffs/debuffs and far more damage (Via the same procs you say MMs don't have access to), then a class as tanky as MM has any right having access to.
4 hours ago, M3z said:- I've dueled on MM, MMs die 1v1 to corrs/blasters/defender THROUGH bodyguard, on top of getting kited and the pets unable to do anything. This AT is just broken and unplayable in many cases.
I mean, you're not wrong. However, increasing the damage does little to nothing to solve any of these issues. I've dueled plenty of tanks that I kill all the time because they get kited and can't do anything. This isn't a problem with MMs, nor damage really. The issue is around how hard it is for any class related to melee or short range to apply damage in a no-TS meta. All increasing the damage does is further exaggerate the issue of tanky classes doing more damage then they should and still feeling utterly useless.
4 hours ago, M3z said:- MMs are unplayable in zones(unless you are just standing still in bg mode/barrier which if that's the case are you really actually playing? You will never kill anyone with this tactic), and unplayable in arena unless your pets are speedboosted (are other ATs literally unplayable unless speedboosted?) and even then they are not great
- Because MMs cannot slow or mez in any meaningful way, they are dysfunctional (like you said) unable to catch anyone, endlessly being kited, smart players have no problem picking apart even high level MM players
- Every other viable AT in the game right now has around 60% of their damage come from procs, MMs dont have access to damage procs IN A MEANINGFUL WAY they need damage buff to stay on par with what other ATs have access to
- If these buffs are pvp only that is fine with me, they need SOMETHING though
-I mean yes, they are. I could agree heavily with increasing MM pet speed. And yes, they are further after that still not great.
-Yep this is still true
-I have a caveat to put here. MM's have access to quite a bit of proc damage in their epics, and it is quite relevant to the pvp discussion. 5k ehp tankmage MMs also having the ability to drop 4-800 point damage for spikes is quite a thing and trying to brush it aside is.....well it's disingenuous to an extreme
-MM's definitely do. I whole-heartedly agree with the movement speed changes, my problem with it is the damage buff and thinking it will ever help MMs. The problem MM's suffer from is the same any melee class does, and simply "Increasing the damage" while neglecting to address their extreme survivability and inability to ever apply that damage is an exercise in complete futility.
TLDR;
The issues you're having, damage wise, have nothing to do with your actual damage and should be addressed as the seperate issue that they are, rather then simply as a carte blanche to ask for a 25% damage buff that will accomplish nothing until it's broken.
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53 minutes ago, barrier said:
I don't know, dude. A lot of the Mastermind PVP issues are not purely mechanical and are pretty qualitative in nature (Pet AI quirks - super subtle -, responses to near optimal spike patterns, tactics to deal with prolonged spikes, etc). Limited pet mobility is something that hasn't been a problem since i13 but is now. Back then in i12, limited mobility and blaster damage basically meant that you'd never see a MM in a kickball or a mixed hero/vill team because getting nuked in the face wasn't nice. Procs and Judgement have brought us way closer to i12 - but I like where damage is right now. I just don't like where MM's are right now.
Most issues aren't really super apparent in casual zone play (ex Judgement), but they are extremely easy to spot if you play a MM in 8v8.
This is exactly the time to try to address the mobility of MM pets in 8v8's. You didn't take time to respond to my 8v8 comp notes. Playing a MM without a kin in 8v8 is impossible. For context, people love to say masterminds are overpowered. Watch M3z's stream. There are two great instances of both us reacting the same way on our MM's. I pick his kin MM on my bots/nature before I pick any blaster, and he picks me on kin (a kin has literally no use outside of a MM team and other very specific comps that are rarely ever present in a kickball) on his poison MM.
The fact you literally have to intertwine two comp picks to make the MM's work (or play a kin mm) should be a huge red flag for developers re: game balance. Find me another AT that requires the same pairing?
I'm going to take this with a grain of salt. You advocated in the past for NOT fixing the dark hold's mez duration and makes me wary of what you see as a proper direction for the game. I am asking for an iterating fix that is 100% pet-related and therefore part of the subject to this thread.
I'm pretty sure you're referring to the VORI turtle responding to TBD's all-damage team. Turtling as perfectly legit tactic against a disorganized damage team.
But if anything, you're not lending much credence to "masterminds are fine" here.
I strongly disagree. Simply making the MM pets inherit travel powers from the MM would go a long way in solving most of the issues. MM damage output is intrinsically linked to pet travel speed (This is why I say that you need to play MM's in 8v8's to really understand how the pet AI works). MM survivability is intrinsically linked to pet travel speed (very obvious if you 8v8 on a MM).
Right now the balance issue is pretty glaring: When do you pick the non-kin MM in an 8v8 comp assuming all other ATs in the comp are blind picks: the answer is literally never. That's a red flag right there.
Yeah, I'll give that to you. I don't know everything about MM play, but this issue isn't an MM play specific, super high level obvious 9001 IQ quantum-physics duo-level integral-part-of-the-galaxy issue. It's a simple issue with damage applicability that I have issues with. I don't particularly want MMs to get M3z's "25% damage increase", because it wouldn't actually solve anything. As for super-casual-zone-play, I've played arena now for what, 6 months? It's more casual then I play zone, and to be honest, it's a lot, lot simpler.
Now, we've moved part of the obligatory you're-just-zone-trash part of the conversation;
I've never claimed MM's don't need buffs, changes or fixes. I've never claimed they are fine. In fact I claimed the exact opposite. MMs are overpowered. They're also dysfunctional. Both of those being true does not mean that they are, by default, good. All three of these points are distinctly different issues.
MMs are overpowered because they bring 5k ehp to a table, a suite of effective buff/debuff options and enough damage to contribute to relevant damage spikes. MMs are dysfunctional because their pets are inherently dumb. With those two things put together, they only show real effectiveness in coordinated team pvp based around them. I don't think making MMs more survivable is a good thing, because I inherently don't think that moving towards comps comprised of unkillable ATs is a good thing. I'm not really opposed to the idea of buffing MM movespeed, so much as I was opposed to his idea of "Buffing MM damage by 25%". I was also fairly against the fact that this thread is only being viewed by people who like MMs and want them to be viable regardless of whether or not it would be balanced or good for the game.
As for the turtle strat. Yeah, that involves a bit of my reluctance to see even more MMs crop up in regular play because in each of those games the result was a tie. Just entire matches of two teams sitting there staring at each other. If they engaged us, we won. If they sat in their corner with attacks queued at us, we lost. It wasn't exactly fun, and kill me for saying this, but if the projected future desired in this instance involves more ties by default, I don't think it's a good idea.
As for advocating for not fixing dark hold. I doubt that, I may have expressed regrets and annoyances on the fact that it's the only thing that allows controllers to display relevance through their passive in a damaging aspect, but saying I don't want any mez fixed is fairly ignorant of my overall views of the game. You will find very few people in CoH history who have advocated harder for CC nerfs or changes then I have. I have despised the CC system in this game for a long time and would never oppose or advocate for any change that would lengthen the amount of time people are forcibly disallowed from playing the game.
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30 minutes ago, barrier said:
Epsi, I love you dude, but you need to try playing a MM in 8v8 before going on these.
It isn't rocket science. This game is hilariously linear, extremely predictable and to put it bluntly. Simple. There is no reason I don't have the ability to understand everything there is to do, at most levels, about MM's simply because I haven't spent 150 hours playing them.
My initial point was that this isn't a good place to deal with "Buffing" MMs, rather it should be about focusing on improving the QoL and streamlining them into a platform that can then be improved later. Addressing specifically M3z's points of increasing their damage (You shouldn't). Or someone else's suggestion of buffing their survivability (Even though his suggestions technically didn't really do anything).
30 minutes ago, barrier said:Epsi, I love you dude, but you need to try playing a MM in 8v8 before going on these.
I am probs one of the 3 people in the game with the gall to show up to kickball on a mastermind. Being kin-less is an exercise in total frustration.
At the risk of airing dirty laundry: there have been a solid 5 times where I have basically refused to play MM on my team because a comp that doesn't have a kin. Even VORI have had to make due with running a kin MM because its the only one secondary that can function in a high movement environment without requiring that you sacrifice a corr or defender spot to a kin.
Movement in the PVP game is huge. It becomes exponentially more important as you go up the rungs in competitive PVP. You can run a crunchy brute, tank or scrapper without a kin and they get to take advantage of the WASD keys. Masterminds do not. What is the trade on that? All of those ATs still do a bunch of damage so.. You'll say the force multiplier effect of MM buffs? I say no. The kin requirement. Remember that. You are taking a full set of otherwise better buffs, be it a poison, nature or whatever, turning it into a kin and bringing crappier versions of them.
MM travel powers should be inheritable by pets just like alpha slot is.
To put it in simplistic terms. MM's and to an extent, those other melee archetypes represent taking the game in an increasingly bad direction. Sure, it could be considered within "Balance". The last time I had an interaction with VORI's MM team it boiled down to them moving around, and losing, or huddling into corners, and drawing. I don't particularly think that's good. The entire problem with Melee, which includes MMs as the same problems with melee apply, is wholly too intrinsic to simply be addressed in a thread about QoL changes in a PvE environment as the entire issue is entirely a PvP issue, and knowing how those threads go, it risks hijacking this entire thread.
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34 minutes ago, monos1 said:
In PvP, this would be similar to a power like Tough, where protection from everything is added. For instance, in PvP giving your henchmen Thermal Radiations Plasma Shield would provide resistance to everything, or Cold Dominations Glacial Shield would offer Elusivity and/or defense to all.
See. Here's the deal;
In PvP there is a high amount of sheer dissonance with how pvp actually works. As it stands, increasing the survivability of an MM effectively does absolutely nothing as the class has already hit a curve where anything that will kill them now, will kill them with almost any proposed change, and anything that can't now, still won't.
Masterminds, along with melee classes like Tanks, Brutes, Scrappers and even to an extent, Stalkers, suffer from the fact that their intended design simply does not function in PvP. What this has lead to is an increasingly obtuse balancing scenario where the above classes, in most of the PvP they are played in, are nigh into unkillable, but are still able to contribute noticeable, though not lethal, damage. This in and of itself, is highly overpowered. A Tanker or MM running around with well over 5k eHP, being able to deal half of a squishies life in an instant, simply does not comport within "Balance". However, because in this game the difference between half dead and dead, is oceanic, it results in the classes being nearly useless. Making the class useful, simply by increasing its damage in binary manner, would also make it unbearably broken.
You cannot simply "Buff" these classes in ways that will fix their inherent problems, without also nerfing them significantly.
* NPCs in RV are disgusting and should be addressed. They alone make Zone almost impossible for MMs to survive in, as the boss class npcs (Warden or TTs) can one shot an MM straight up with some of the AoE attacks at their disposal. This is, overall, an issue for all classes, but doubly so for MMs.
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10 hours ago, M3z said:
First off let me just address what @monos1 said, MMs are not overpowered or even close to being overpowered in any pvp format(in arena or zones).
MMs are actually fairly overpowered. They're also dysfunctional. They're two wildly different things that quite commonly occur at the same time. It's similar to the melee problem. Melee classes are basically unkillable, therefore buffing them to be able to kill things is impossible because it's overpowered. MMs are in a similar boat. Played well they're borderline unkillable, if not unkillable outright without egregious attention (IE they can quite easily tank 5 man spikes and remain healthier then tanks). On the same hand, their damage is actually far higher then it should ever be given the previous statement.
I would never, and don't ever, object to QoL things like buffing or changing AI mechanics (Knights/Bots IE), but buffing the damage of a class that already occupies a near unkillable status in one of the more common PvP game modes, and actively detracts from the game mode at that, should be done separately with a different set of debate, questions and issues raised.
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22 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:
Looking bad, go for it. I don't mind looking bad. (And you can look through my other posts (on other threads) and see that if I'm shown to be wrong I'll admit it). And frankly while I'd love the world to love me, if they don't it's their loss. I really don't much care how someone at odds with my PoV who I have never met/played with sees me, and I certainly won't be losing any sleep over it.
That's fine, I simply felt the duty to point out that you weren't really fooling anyone by making objectively false statements, then when called on them later, playing the sarcasm card. As long as that got across (Which it apparently did), then the statement achieved its intended goal.
22 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:You have yet to prove my opinion wrong, I'm not sure you can. You can assert that things I believe to be true are in fact untrue and if I present facts you can show them to be untrue. But to show me that my opinion is wrong you would have to change my opinion. And frankly insulting me and calling me out for things I haven't in fact done isn't going to do the job.
I have though. You base your opinions on an objectively false premise. No one is insulting you, but at the same time, you're making assertions contradicted by reality and then saying "I don't think they're wrong, so they're not wrong".
22 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:That said the only person around here that I can see flinging (potential) insults at groups is you:
And the only reason you see that, or think that, is because I disagreed with you. Which is fine, you're entitled to your opinion.
22 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:And I'd be quite happy if the changes also included a short cool down (like 5 mins) and/or a short interrupt. It's the ability to jump to a specific base with the passcode that I don't want removed.
When this gets fixed it will hopefully be an example of a dev listening to the community to affect a change that doesn't penalise those who aren't abusing something but prevents said abuse. Who actually reported the abuse and what play styles they enjoy should be immaterial.
And we can agree with that, and state it all, without randomly tossing mud on a community you aren't a part of, know next to nothing about and has nothing to do with this issue. I never took issue with this, just your objectively inaccurate portrayal of the PvP community as the cause of all your ills. It's objectively and demonstrably wrong, even if you don't agree with that statement.
Now, as this discourse has run it's course with you specifically saying you don't agree with the common reality that we all share, I'll bow out. We can't have meaningful and constructive conversation if you consider reality to be an opinion. Have a nice night.
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20 minutes ago, Profit said:
Please, if this were true then in PVP zones powers would function exactly the same as they do in PVE zones. But oh look, they don't! They even do different amounts of dmg/res/rechg! And OH LOOK there is a specific set of PVP IOs that grant two different types of bonuses depending on which zone they are in!!!!
Its not? This point doesn't actually make logical sense.
20 minutes ago, Profit said:Your statement is wildly inaccurate. For it to be accurate, things would have to function exactly the same in both sets of zones. Exactly.
And for each of the examples in question, it did at the time. There's also a very real reason why PvP was considered to have "Died" when they changed it.
20 minutes ago, Profit said:Honestly, the best thing that could ever happen to this game is to roll back to before PVP, but since that couldn't happen without pulling a lot of spaghetti, the absolute best thing that can happen is a segregation of changes based on zones. Complete segregation. Power causing issues in PVP zones, that change better never effect the PVE side of the game. Then everyone is happy. PVPers get to continue on doing what they want, PVE doesn't every have to worry about it messing with ACTUAL FUNDAMENTAL GAMEPLAY. Don't forget, this game didn't start with PVP, it was added much later, as such it should not effect what was here before it.
PvP was a feature that was officially added in I4 (Though many people tried/played it before that). It was a planned feature discussed in interviews with Positron before the game actually released.
While I certainly agree that, in a perfect world, PvE and PvP should be separate to best fulfill the best interests of both communities, I disagree with this underlying premise that leads people to villify and scorn the PvP community as "The reason all these bad things happened". They weren't, and the belief that it was is objectively and demonstrably false. It's also just not a valid point in this instance.
If this was "Just a PvP" issue, it would be simple. Make it against the rules, and attach a punishment. I am perhaps one of, if not the most prolific PvPer (I just PvP more then almost anyone else, I'm a zone rat), and I have only seen two people in dozens of hours a week of PvP that abuse it. PvP players are naturally vindictive, people would love to report and get people banned (What that says about the community aside), it would be very easy.
If this gets "Fixed" it would be a very classic example of issue recognized by PvP community, and nerfed because of PvE reasons. Which is how most of these misunderstandings happen.
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4 hours ago, QuiJon said:
Though I wont disagree that regen was originally performing way above the curve I also agree that it was hit particularly hard because of the type of set it was in an attempt to balance it for PVP. In PVP the numbers had to be much lower for the regen buffs because in many cases it was being balanced to fighting ONE other player. When in PVE the set faces multiple enemies at a time. And with no def and mostly non-existant resistances in the set it means that when translated to a PVE world where a scrapper set of a different choice like willpower can still stand in the middle of a mob of enemies and live, Regen has problems. Now you can debate if any scrapper set should be able to tank if you want, but the fact is many do, regen used to, and now it can not. And those changes cut deeper because of PVP balance.
Now for myself I can prob add to this list that on my energy blaster total focus used to be a mag 4 stun. This IMO was a balance to how long the animation was and how long it rooted you, and the idea that you were a blaster so this rooted you into a long animation in melee range of an enemy. They reduced it to a mag 3 stun because it was deemed to strong of a stun to have in pvp.
Regen was performing far above the curve for a vast majority of early CoH history. Remember, the curve back then was a lot lower then it was/is now. At no point in Regen's history was it actually nerfed solely because of a PvP reason. Yes, PvPers complained about Regen, more vocally then PvE'rs, but that's a side effect of powerful sets being far more obvious in a competitive setting then in a casual one like PvE.
That holds true for several, if not all of the Regen nerfs. If we nerfed Regen based solely on PvP, it would have been nerfed several more times due solely to the fact that it has been the best scrapper secondary for the vast majority of the games life, and continues to be until this day.
8 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:Where on earth do you get that idea from?
A post that I expected to be taken as a joke, and a minor rant about how little I like PvP and somehow that is me saying how I blame the PvP community?
I don't enjoy PvP in this game!
I'd rather it hadn't been added.
I have no expectation at this point of it being removed and kudos to the people who enjoy it.
I won't tell you not to, or that I think less of you for doing so. I just won't partake myself.
Not being a PvPer I have no idea if it's game breaking or not. But perhaps in future rather than exercising your forum PvP you ought to check what people have actually said.
You know posting stuff on the internet, then saying you were being sarcastic when proven wrong and passive aggressively insulting the person who took the time to prove you wrong and engage in the conversation simply makes you look bad, right?
If not, I would like for you to know that.
25 minutes ago, Profit said:And you know what the worst part is, posi and every original dev on the boards claimed, promised, and swore that nothing in PVE would ever be changed because of PVP. And they LIED.
PVPers need to own up to the changes they have caused to happen to the PVE game.
The problem is that you think that the PvP and PvE community are different. They aren't. PvPer's are naturally vocal, but it doesn't mean that their issues don't translate to PvE. ED was done for PvE and PvP reasons. So were most if not all of the regen nerfs. Travel suppression was done because both sides were complaining about it.
PvPer's play in a competitive environment, in that environment, it is far easier to identify problems with the game on a fundamental level. PvPer's are also usually very vocal about said issues. The changes made may have involved a lot of PvPers complaining about them, but at the same time, neither were any of those issues PvP exclusive.
At no point in COH's history was any major balance decision made on the premise of PvP alone. It may have been looked at *because of* a PvP based complaint, but there is always, and was always, a very real PvE reason why a change happened if it happened. People just don't like admitting that changes happened for good reason and it harmed their gameplay experience, and it's easier to blame a scapegoat (IE the PvP community), rather then reflecting and admitting or discovering that there was solid reasoning behind changes.
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4 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:
ED.
Global Defence Nerf.
Travel Powers Nerfed to prevent PvP abuse.
Repeated /Regen nerfs, as a level 50 scrapper when CoV launched I could solo EBs within two issues I had to take the Heal Self from the PP just to have enough healing.o much))
None of these were pvp exclusive issues. ED was implemented because there was absolutely no reason to slot certain enhancements, over others and to clamp down on semi-rampant damage inflation. Yes, it was good for the PvP community, but it was just as necessary and justified for PvE as PvP, if not so more.
I don't even remember travel powers being nerfed for "PvP abuse". The only thing that comes to mind is a 50 page forum thread with PvE'rs whining about how hard travel powers were to control and getting us the minor suppression effect PvE has with said travel powers.
Regen was far above the balance curve in PvE and PvP both for a very long period, and to this day, it remains one of the best pvp sets. That being said, if you had issues soloing EB's with a /regen toon at that point in time, you were building it badly. My Spines/Regen Scrapper at the time could solo AV's with relative ease as long as they didn't have major -recharge or -regen effects.
You're more then entitled to hate PvP, and oppose global nerfs based on solely pvp reasons. However that doesn't give you a blank check to, more or less, fabricate issues to pin on the PvP community. As it stands, the basepasscode is not an issue in PvP, it is a concern. Out of the dozens, if not hundreds of people that play RV for hundreds of hours per week, there are only two people who abuse it on anything considered a regular basis. However the fact that it exists, and can be abused, warrants attention from both PvE and PvP perspectives. We should be looking for ways to alleviate the concerns raised by all parties in a fair and impartial manner instead of trying to blame and shame people for having them.
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Man, I love this thing. Like it's great. Given, it's objectively abusable and obviously a concern. I wish they'd just revamp the Base TP to provide the same benefit in a less abusable outlet (IE Give it a like, 2 second interrupt. A 60 second CD. Make it not tied to No-Phase in PvP (It's a thing, and it's obnoxious)
Thankfully, as one of the most frequent RV players, there's only two people in the entire community that actively abuse it. To be honest, I think that the PvP community (At large) has avoided abusing it in 99.8% of cases.
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4 minutes ago, Zepp said:
TLDR slinging insults and making unfounded assertions is not actually a way to defend your position.The problem is that the position(s) havent moved. We've just been here for 10 pages trying to figure out if there's any logical reason to make a move that takes so much work. When one side just says the same thing over and over, it's not surprising that the other side gets frustrated and the discourse degrades.
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1 hour ago, Vanden said:
I'm really having a hard time seeing how it could be exploited. The most you could do is attack NPCs until you trigger enough misses that your next attack will be forced to hit, and then go for another player, but you can already do that. My suggestion only makes the streakbreaker more agressive at high tohit chances.
Also, you're probably going to have 95% chance to hit the NPCs in PvP zones, but it might be much less against a player with defense. If you attack an NPC with a 95% chance to hit it and miss, then go attack a player you have a 75% chance to hit, the streakbreaker won't kick in. If you do have a 95% chance to hit that player, you would've likely hit them anyway without any sort of streakbreaker priming.
As it stands, I already throw unslotted "Base" attacks at defense targets in zone. I know, for instance, that if I throw Psy Dart at an EA stalker, and the tohit chance comes back ~30-40%, he's in T9. If I throw it and the tohit is around 70%, it means that he's not in t9, barrier or shadow meld.
This change arbitrarily buffs, for no real reason (In an insignificant way), the chance that my spike combo (Which I throw after testing for t9/barrier) will do increased damage.
This is just an example off the top of my head. I don't know, concretely, if the change *can be* exploited to a degree that would be problematic, but I am sure that more exploitative minds then mine might break it further. I don't particularly think it matters either way *but* it bears being aware of.
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2 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:
The bigger question I think we should ask ourselves is: Are we clinging to hasten in it's current form because it's how it's always been, the Status Quo, or because it's -actually- fine the way it is because it's not really stronger than any pool powers?
People aren't clinging to hasten. It's simply a matter of people not understanding why so much work needs to be done for effectively zero reason outside the niche opinions of some people that they want it nerfed.
That isn't to say Hasten can't change, quite a few people (Myself included) wouldn't be too opposed to Hasten becoming an inherent (Like Fitness), the issue is you not only view it *like* fitness, but also want to nerf it after it gets the "Fitness" treatment. Hasten does not, actually, cause any real balance concerns so far as it relates to City of Heroes existing balancing scheme. It adds more power to a build, more so then any other power, but it's not necessary. You can clear all content without hasten, comfortably, and with SO's to boot (Which is the main part of how it differs from Fitness).
I've read several of these threads now. With hundreds of posts, dozens of pages. I have yet to see any of them pose a real, substantial and reasonable argument about why the developers should take their time to not only address Hasten, but further to nerf it. I may, or may not, be alone in this, but when someone suggests I undertake a fairly large amount of work (Rebalancing the entire game around the loss of Hasten), I usually want a good reason. You've yet to provide a good reason for nerfing Hasten, as have most of the people in favor of nerfing it.
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4 hours ago, Vanden said:
Are there actual, concrete pvp concerns? I was under the impression that, thanks to Elusivity, the 95% tohit cap was pretty, well, elusive, against defense-based builds.
I'm just fringe worried about potential abuse regarding controlled streakbreakers. Defense based sets are already fairly weak outside stalkers. No one builds accuracy much accuracy. Tossing a couple mule garbage aoes at someone to trigger streakbreaker for enhanced/guaranteed accuracy has the potential to be abused.
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Obligatory pvp concerns post
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5 minutes ago, Lost Ninja said:
If you have sufficient recharge to get it's cool down below 120s now, it will stack with itself on zone change (so In zone it's not finished the uptime in the next zone it finishes the cool down and fires off again). And the powers monitor will show you the doubling. So I expect it did stack with itself back in the "Good Old Days" but it may still have only stacked after zoning.
Nope. It used to stack regularly
13 minutes ago, Haijinx said:Think it was only visually, not buff values.
If it stacked you'd get a recharge feedback loop. Stacking would make it easier to stack ... moar recharge!!!!111
and this is why it no longer does
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10 minutes ago, nihilii said:
The "smart" way to nerf Hasten is to increase the opportunity cost we face in taking one pool just for that power.This is the correct way, though personally I find the idea of making it an auto that scales appropriately to our recharge an appealing change. It is true that making people manage clickie abilities around a single auto ability adds difficulty, but I find that, particularly in some cases (Like /EM on Blaster, or Hasten), that some clicks should be autos.
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15 minutes ago, Megajoule said:
It does break things. It breaks everything that was "too good" to be up all the time.
If (e.g.) Dominators were meant to have Domination up all the time, Cryptic would released them that way back in 2005.
From a technical standpoint, there's not much reason for any power in this game to have any cooldown at all; maybe 1s, simply to avoid spamming the server(s).
The devs chose to give powers cooldowns, many of them considerably longer than that, to balance the game and make it play a certain way, while providing tools to partially mitigate that limit, subject to diminishing returns.
And players have been chasing the "Perma______" "no cooldowns, no downtime, no waiting" dragon ever since. Because they don't want to play that game, and/or they know better.
And if they intended for things to not be perma, they would have fixed it in the length of time that they had. Instead specific problematic powers got addressed (IE Domination).
You're making an appeal to an authority that doesn't even really exist anymore, and that, to all appearances, disagree with you. We're back at square one. You have an opinion. I have one. You have no logical reasons. I have one that involves why involves why work for no reason.
So, Why make this change?
15 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:Incarnate Enemies are designed to have enough ToHit to punch through Softcapped defenses and require 56% to be softcapped to them rather than the typical 45.
So it's disingenuous to say that balance went out the window with IOs, since outside of SR using all toggles, autos, and their Tier 9 it's pretty much impossible for an SO-only character to hit 56% defense.
It isn't though, since multiple types of builds can reach that number with SO's only by using Incarnate abilities. Which is obvious since they are *incarnate* content.
Yes. You're right. This game is balanced around SO's. It always has been, and should always be, but that doesn't change the fact that the developers knew that it would be the bar, disregarded it and created IOs.
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3 minutes ago, Megajoule said:
To people saying, here and now, that this would break Perma________, I say good.
Perma_______ was never meant to be.
Ok, that's a valid point of view, but why is your opinion more important then mine, which would be that it doesn't break anything, so dont touch it. That's the biggest issue. Not that it can't be done, not that some people would like it dead, but rather why.
Is there a reason?
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4 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:
And yes. City of Heroes is a Balanced Game. Not entirely balance between powersets or balance between archetypes, but a rough balance between players and NPCs. That's where the whole "Challenge" aspect of gameplay comes in.
Not since IOs were implemented. Ever since IOs were implemented, the balance between characters and NPCs has grown to such a wide divide that it's impossible to consider. We've spent so much time with IOs that trying to say that because pre-11 exists makes the game a "Balanced" game is fairly disingenuous.
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20 hours ago, PaxArcana said:
When something has synergy with the rest of a character's powers that is so good, that it is treated by nearly the entire playerbase as required-or-else-you-are-gimped ... then either it is too good, or the rest of the game isn't good enough. Usually it is the former, and not the latter.
With regard to travel powers, first: they have no real synergy with anything except themselves. Second: they were adjusted and nerfed back on Live ("combat suppression"), specifically to eliminate what little synergy they had with combat powers.
As for Fitness, the devs carefully datamined for months, examining why players were taking Fitness. And the reason was, because everything else in the game was costing just that little bit too much Endurance to use; Stamina was seen by the players as needed, not because "or you're gimped", but because, "or you'll be using Rest all the time instead of actually playing, and that's no fun". Picking up Health and either Swift or Hurdle was just a matter of "well since I've got to unlock the pool anyway, why not?"
Yes. In a balanced game that is true. City of Heroes is not a balanced game. Therefore nerfing things for balance concerns is a little different. The question is whether or not Hasten is making the game actively worse due to its existence. If the answer is not objectively no, then it's irrelevant. The reason is that, while yes, optimally, Hasten should exist in your build, the games difficulty is tuned to which point that you can perform far far worse then optimally and complete all content.
Combat suppression wasn't a nerf exactly. People where whining about how hard it was to control travel powers in combat and that they didnt want to turn them off. Thus combat suppression was born.
Your right about Fitness, but the significant difference between Hasten and Fitness is that fluent combat without Fitness was almost impossible. With hasten, the only advantage is a term of power, which as I mentioned before, is nearly if not completely irrelevant in the balance scheme of City of Heroes.
21 hours ago, Rathulfr said:Any one pool or power that becomes a universal requirement for most builds, like the original Fitness pool, probably indicates that it should be "elevated" to Inherent status, like the original Fitness pool. By becoming a "must have" for a majority, it shows that there's a fundamental issue with game mechanics that needs to be addressed (such as it was with Stamina).
Such "must have" powers also become a form of penalty or tax, in some regards, because they force players into taking a power that might not really fit their character's concept or theme, simply to maintain viability or maximum efficiency. In many cases, Hasten is the only power picked from the Speed pool for many characters, which ties up one out of a maximum of four total power pools allowed. There are builds where I'd prefer to take something out of other pools, but cannot, because of Hasten.
That is only a single part of the argument he is making. He is simultaneously arguing that this should occur (I could agree), and also that Hasten be levy to a significant nerf. (I could see a nerf being made, but it's a significant change and significant reasoning made to why this is necessary would also be needed)
22 hours ago, Steampunkette said:Again, not nerfing it because it's good because I'm not suggesting a nerf. I'm suggesting it be removed from the game, -entirely- and that all characters, whether they took hasten or not, get a 20% global recharge buff.
And that is, effectively, a nerf.
22 hours ago, Steampunkette said:Fitness got the same treatment, in fact. It's no longer a power pool, and is instead a Global Grant at level 2, with everyone getting it. I'm suggesting the global setup because giving everyone a power as strong as hasten from level 1 onward seems a bit OP, so I averaged it's function over time.
But you failed to take into account that a big part of a large number of builds are about making Hasten perma. Therefore your suggestion is both a huge nerf to hasten, and a large nerf to a significant portion of the game as it exists now. Your logic for making this change has yet to be fully fleshed out. Actually the logic is closer to half baked then a fully reasonable argument.
It should be also noted that it's possible to adjust the hasten inherent power to scale from 20% to 20%+(a percentage of recharge scaling up to 50% based on the total recharge outside this power).
22 hours ago, Steampunkette said:So how about the power we replace Hasten with is an Autopower called "Quick". Always on, no Endurance cost, +15% Recharge Rate. Taking that power would be roughly equivalent to having Hasten 2-slotted for Recharge Rate. And while it might still be -super- popular at high end, it wouldn't be more powerful than slotting 2 LotG powers, and most people wouldn't 'need' it for their builds because they're already getting the +20% baseline increase.
You have yet to justify why this is needed. Sure. It's doable, but what does it do and why should it be done. Making Hasten an inherent is a plausible argument, and you're making a decent argument for it, but past that, you also significantly nerf it. I agree to the point that it would be nice to have it as a "Passive" power, but you havent justified the large nerf you're also shoveling on it.
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5 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:
Don't delete it.
Double it's recharge time, so it can't be perma'd. Watch it get respec'd out of most of those 50K characters double-quick.
So what's the reason behind nerfing Hasten besides arbitrarily nerfing it because it's good?
Travel powers are taken by almost everyone as well. Nerf them too. Oh and Fitness is basically required, so nerf that.
No one has given a real reason why Hasten is hurting the game. Yes it is one of the objectively best powers in the game. Yes it is objectively overpowered, but City of Heroes has *never been about balance. *
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17 hours ago, Dan Petro said:
Stuff like this confuses the heck out of me. PvP doesn't revolve around attack chains? Since when? Where? What?
Since literally forever. No one is going to let you sit there and beat on them like a target dummy. Just because Strangler is a good 5th+ attack doesn't hold a lot of weight when most pvp encounters are over before the third attack gets off, and the CDs for the chain are up on the next call.
Sure. My attack chain is something like Char, Snipe, Lancer, Disint, Single Shot repeat, but I never get past the third move in actual pvp unless I'm attacking a tank for some reason, or someone like Xtreme.
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17 hours ago, Dan Petro said:I guess in solo zone PvP or 1 v 1's when you just try to throw damage at a target. But anything team based in arena or zone PvP completely revolves around an attack chain where you lock, spike with a specific chain, then reset said chain.
Which is what I was talking about. It's also something you don't tend to find Strangler in most of the time. Most of the time it's Will Dom, Lance, TK/SSJ, Char/Disint, Snipe, Lancer. Sure, Strangler fits in over TK, but it doesn't actually do significantly more damage (Like 80 more damage during a spike, with another 100 over the next 4 seconds), and simply is not worth giving up your entire secondary for.
Take EM vs Plant.
EM: 60% Range. Build up every 5-8 spikes. Power Boost (If Relevant). Energize
Plant: 150-200 damage every 5-8 spikes (Toxins), 80 Damage in half of spikes(Strangler), Absorb.
Martial: CC Break, Psuedo-Phase/Escape, 40% Perma Damage Bonus, 12% Tohit Perma. 4-500 point heal, AbsorbTA: Web Arrow. Glue Arrow. Mez Resist. Gymnastics. Build up every 5-8 spikes.
17 hours ago, Dan Petro said:Like it or not, plant brings potential viability to sets who lack a good second or third ranged attack, specifically one with hitscan style damage (where as char is very slow projectile based damage.) It may not fit your individual needs, but for PvP as a whole it has a place as a top tier set for different kinds of offenses people might like to run.
I never denied that it did, I simply pointed out that Strangler alone does not create a competitive niche for a set that's getting nerfed that is already fairly weak among competitive secondaries. Strangler provides nothing that SSJ doesn't offer, and provides no utility. Now its damage is being cut by roughly half with nothing being given in compensation. It will not retain a top tier spot when it's "Top tier" position is already largely in debate before being nerfed.
The entire secondary revolves around burst damage. This nerf to its burst damage narrows the margin to a point where there is no point in picking it over another secondary. Plant's entire intended purpose is for Deleting people. This change nerfs that niche into non-existence because the ttk in most pvp as the other secondaries, thus has no reason to be run over other secondaries.
Martial, Plant, EM and TA can all 1 combo 1606 toons.
Only Plant can, sometimes, 1 combo 1850+110 Toons.
With test changes this is no longer true. Meaning the TTK on Martial, Plant, EM and TA are roughly the same in most pvp. This singular example is the only strength plant has compared to the rest of the sets. It's not the only advantage, as pointed out Strangler *is* an advantage, but it's not a niche. It's the same reason, as I stated before, we don't mention devices as a strong secondary even though it's undoubtedly the best dueling secondary. The niche is too narrow to be useful in pvp as a whole. My only purpose in this is to point out that this change, removes Plant as a competitive secondary.
To steal your words; Like it or not, that's what this change does. I simply want the developers to be entirely cognizant of the ramifications of their changes from one of the more prolific PvPers, and probably, /Plant blasters. That's all.
Enjoy your day
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42 minutes ago, Dan Petro said:
Plant still has an absorb shield + a top tier ranged attack. Given that no other blaster has something like strangler doing almost 200 damage from range in their secondary it still has a very defined niche as the "High damage" secondary. Martial with TP has elusiveness, TA has "everything great a PvP character wants" and EM has boost range.
Plant with these changes still maintains the kind of "bruiser" role, but is likely just brought closer in line with other secondaries keeping it from being such an outlier. Giving every blaster primary a ~200 base damage attack they can weave into their chain that can hit 90% Proc rate and can slot 5 procs opens up a massive amount of build variety for blasters and shouldn't be understated.
Yeah, strangler is one of two reasons to roll it, but it's far from being on par with Martial providing CC immunity windows, TP with half the animation of Phase, perma 40% damage bonus and an absorb. The general problem with strangler as an "Attack chain" is that PvP doesnt revolve around attack chains. EM has range advantage which is intrinsically a huge deal, particularly when most relevant PvP sets end without a snipe. TA has -jump, which is one of the most overpowered concepts ever given to blasters, in addition to competitive damage, recharge, mez resist and gymnastics.
PvP is usually your best timed 3 attacks (Char, snipe lancer for instance). Maybe 4 (Will Dom, Lance, TK, SSJ). After that the target phases, is dead or out of range. Strangler makes a niche fourth attack for some sets (Such as Psy), and as a timing attack in Ice as a third.
So, while Strangler does retain itself as a marked perk of the set, it does not give plant a "Niche" alone. With toxins being weakened to make little to no difference, it narrows that niche down to non-existence. It would be comparable to say that Devices is top tier because Gun Drone procs Confuse Interface regardless of Mez Suppression. I mean sure, but how -much- does that really matter? Is it really enough to create a -competitive- niche? I would say no.
Plant -is- currently an outlier. But so is TA. So is Martial. So is EM. Those outlying facets of the set are what makes them strong, and gives them reason to be run. Currently on test the only reason to run Plant is an almost meaningless 1-200 damage burst advantage (It is an advantage but it doesnt reach any meaningful benchmarks. You'll still need another cycle to kill someone, in which case its identical to the other secondaries) in 1 in 5-8 spikes, a good attack to add in every other spike if you somehow have time for a fifth attack and an absorb that's also present in Martial.
Objectively, Plant is already, in general, weaker then Martial and TA. I would consider it to be better, in general, then EM. However it's worth mentioning in the same breath. With this change, it will no longer be true. While the debate on whether or not it's healthy to have a blaster secondary that can 100-0 another blaster with absorb, or a sent, is healthy to have is an accurate point to make, so is the fact that this change does further narrow the number of competitive secondaries in an already fairly narrow field.
Focused Feedback: Pets & Henchmen Updates for December 6, 2019
in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback
Posted · Edited by Epsilon Assassin
Nothing to discuss because I never addressed it in the first place. I never had issues with buffing their movement speed. Initially I simply pointed out that the damage increase would accomplish nothing and that it should be discussed in another thread as the issue is symptomatic of something much larger then just MMs.
I never had an issue with the pet speed buff. I know it would give more damage then a "25% damage buff", but the difference is, and why I disagreed, is that one will actually *accomplish something*, while the other *wouldn't*.
The difference between BK and I commenting on something is that I have *actually* played MMs before. I just found them to be inherently useless and discarded them, like anyone in the competitive PvP scene would do. You can try decreasing the goal posts to "If you spent even 10 hours only on MMs playing in only the dankest of 8v8 PvP tourney scenes with the hottest gurls", and you'd get me, but you aren't making points here. You're just moving goal posts.
>Scoreboard is terrible
>Relevant because it proves my point
To be frank, I have never disagreed with the speed buff, and I do think it's better. I have entire issues with the damage buff and imagining that MMs need it. They don't. MMs don't need buffs at all. To be viable in competitive PvP they need systematic and fundamental problems addressed with the very core of how they work. Just like any melee-interactive class in the game does. They need changes, buffs and yes, even nerfs.
Ok. Math.
1.3k HP base HP
6 Pets
23% Resists.
1,300*1.23*4
Total projected ehp=6394
Pets don't take half the damage you do. They take a percentage. Each Pet takes a portion of the damage, while the MM will take double that of any individual "minion" in range, in BG mode. To simplify this, it means that with 6 minions in range, there will be 8 "Shares" of damage being received. 2 of those shares (1/4th) will be received by the MM, while the remaining 6 shares will be divided up evenly between pets as True (IE No Damage Resist/Defense reductions) involved. The Mastermind in full BG mode will be afforded 75% damage reduction to the extent that the life of the minions are capable of supporting it.