Steampunkette

October 27, 2020

2 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

MATH

Very nice mathing!

But! You didn't include durations in your calculations. Someone could have a Overpower Hold with a duration overlapping into the purple triangles phase, applied in the down triangles phase, and thus need only to trigger a second Overpower to lock the AV down.

Also if you have two controllers yadda yadda yadda.

Point is: It would be pretty effective, but not perfectly so.

October 26, 2020

13 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Hey there! First of all, thanks for your response, it's definitely appreciated.

The main goal of Overwhelming Overpower was to give Controllers a reason to use their primary, even against enemies with higher levels of protection: their binary nature does make it a little more difficult to wrangle with compared to debuffs/damage, which can be easily scaled (i.e. affect, but at a lower amount). Definitely glad to hear that the impact of that's appreciated!

The element of randomness in the proposal was my way of trying to help breach the gap between "permanently controlled" and "never controlled", with the intent of having the Controller land somewhere in the middle. Whether or not that was adequately achieved...well, that's another story. I believe @Mystic_Cross mentioned that the power variance here was perhaps a bit too large, and @MTeague mentioned its reliability might potentially be a concern for solo survivability.

That being said, I do think this randomness already occurs somewhat as things currently stand - I've had my fair share of "Overpower" occur on minions when it wasn't necessary: I figure that since stronger enemies tend to take longer to take down, the Controller'll have more chances to use their powers on them, so hopefully it'd balance out those 'wasted' Overwhelming Overpowers, you know?

Any thoughts on the +Chance to Overpower aspect of the initial proposal? Perhaps that might offset that likelihood that an Overwhelming Overpower might be 'wasted' - a result of it would mean that the likelihood of it occurring'll tend towards stronger targets...at least in theory.

Earnestly... I feel like it might be better to skip the idea of randomness to avoid permanent control. Purple Triangles exist, after all, on a 50/25 rotation.

Why not leave Overpower "As Is" for proc rates and such, with no sub-check for levels of overpower, but increase the variable value to +20 rather than double-value?

That way a single Overpower Proc could hold most targets pretty well, but a pair of procs back to back could cut through purple triangles like butter, without requiring massive amounts of additional work.

Functionally, Overpower would work the same way as it always has in normal content, except now you'd occasionally be able to meaningfully Overpower specific hard-targets.

And because of the PvE/PvP mechanics split, we can just not mess with Overpower in PvP mechanics, leaving it unchanged, there.

October 25, 2020

Night Widows and Bane Soldiers. Their buffs are amazing!

October 25, 2020

I definitely think it's an -interesting- way to go with it. It would make Controllers the ultimate go-to control characters for Giant Monster Hunts, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

It would, however, often result in completely irrelevant overpower. Most of your "+100 Overpower!!!" uses would happen on minions, lieutenants, and bosses which could make the RNG incredibly annoying to some players. And make most of the power increase invisible due to the low proc-chance on a boss.

I feel it would be a way to help offset the lack of "Oomf" that many Controllers feel when fighting particularly hard targets.

June 22, 2020

16 hours ago, Leogunner said:

So this thread is still a thing?

I'd argue that the concept of AT specialties being reflected in which set is a primary and which is a secondary is mostly a tertiary balancing point with regards to overall strength, i.e. the level at which one obtains a skill for that AT being delayed if its in the secondary. The strength or power of those skills, while a correlation can be had, does lean toward secondary powers being less effective at their primary purpose, the ultimate determining factor of a power's strength are the numbers, not whether it's a primary or secondary. Even for an AT like Defender who clearly has less damaging blast effects from their secondary often have much more powerful additional effects.

Since you've likely never archived the exact text exchange of your discussions with Castle and we have to go on your interpretation of his text, I'll happily criticize your interpretation since likely Castle may have had a different actual intent and conclusion.

Control as a secondary most certainly can work. A reverse Dominator most certainly cannot work. I say this because the sum of Dominator is a product of its powersets and inherent. Even as a primary, Dominator has weaker base control effects compared to Controllers. Dominator temporarily surpasses a Controller's potential because of their inherent and that likely wouldn't care about whether the powerset is a primary or a secondary. Even if weakened further and placed in the secondary, the control effects would be too strong with a Domination equivalent. Without the domination effect and swapped to the secondary (the set is already weakened), can and does function...you just have to hop on a Dominator and hold off using Domination and that is what it would be like having controls as a secondary. If anything, that'd be more a superfluous AT that has no purpose. It would either end up being a copy of Dom or a crappy knock-off of Dom.

An interesting angle to go at... but one which misses the point while reinforcing it, so... Kudos on stumbling into the right answer via the wrong path and then diving on the wrong answer, anyhow?

Yes. The "Numbers" matter more than when you get the powers themselves. After all, once you've gotten to 50 it doesn't matter how late you had to wait to get Mass Confusion, you have it and will have it forever.

However, the functions of Secondary Powersets in Archetypes are when you can choose your secondary powerset's different tiers and... you guessed it: Lower Numbers. That's the game's most basic design paradigm.

And no... I don't have a bad memory of what Castle said. Thanks for that ad hominem attack, Leo. Always lovely to get those. I played D&D with the guy for literal years. Shadowrun, Mutants and Masterminds. We talked about game design philosophies at length, particularly the ups and downs of City of Heroes and the various tabletop games we played, particularly the fixation game designers have on class-role assignments as core functions of character definition as opposed to freeform character building and it's pitfalls. But go off, I guess, on criticizing my "Interpretation" of a conversation that you've never read.

Control as a secondary "Can Work" if it's left at Controller Level Power. That is to say "Full Magnitudes". However, that is not the design paradigm of archetypes in City of Heroes, which reduce the magnitudes of secondary powersets. Like Scrappers and Brutes getting less defense numbers than Tankers from the same defensive powers.

Control Sets, as they stand now, cannot work as a secondary powerset within the design paradigm. And if we decide to ignore the design paradigm in order to provide full power and comprehensive control powersets as a secondary, while an archetype also gets full magnitude and comprehensive primary powersets, we'll have an OP as shit archetype.

If we reduce the magnitudes and durations (Like using the Dominator original values) the archetype will be underpowered.

June 21, 2020

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

Good info, there. It sounds like this turned into arguing with others, and I think you know I'm not interested in stirring up stuff with you are making you feel piled on.

But sadly, my very thorough post on this discussion was destroyed when I interrupted it to make my Father's Day call.

So here's a short version: my issue with your message is that it reads as absolutes. But they're not - they're guidelines. You calling out the exceptions for Dominators and Blasters actually illustrates where they were wrong and needed to break things. You can even see how their ideas on design matured over time.

I promise I had some really thought out examples here, but I am not doing that again on mobile.

I tried to stay away from specifics but I do have one I want to mention: about manipulation specifically and secondary control: remember that was in the context of the artillery class. Those constraints will not be universal.

I recognize that they're largely guidelines... but.

Most stuff in City of Heroes combat is proportional and relative. You deal Mag 2 damage against a target with 12 Mags of HP and 20% damage resistance so you're only actually dealing 1.6 Mags of damage. Still have 10.4 to go.

Control is -absolute-. The target has Mag 6 Hold Protection. You must apply at least 7 Mags of Hold to affect the target. Once the target is affected, that's it. They're affected.

Dude with 10.4 Mags of HP left is still in the fight, swinging. But Mag 6 Protection man is a nonfactor in the Time to Kill/Time to Die calculation.

If you create a new Support/Control archetype with Control Power equal to a Controller and Support Power equal to a Defender, you have just kneecapped Controllers, forever. Why play a Controller with 75% of the Buffing/Debuffing/Healing capacity of a Defender when you can just play this new class and be at full power on both?

And if you reduce the Support Power to be identical to a Controller, even though it's the archetype's primary powerset, you've just created a Controller that has to wait 'til 38 instead of 32 to get their Tier 9 Pet (Or Mass Confuse).

There just seem to be no good options for a ???/Control archetype.

1 minute ago, Tyrannical said:

Glad to see people are finally getting use out of their philosophy degrees these days.

Debate. Though I have 0 degrees in total.

But if you'd like to discuss some Existentialist theory I'm 100% game.

June 21, 2020

2 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

They're not control powersets, but they're literally some of the exact same powers and some of them are the best controls out of the bunch (from Mind Control). Maybe instead of being so rigid in your thoughts and analysis, being more open to new ideas that were never really tested, even if they're not necessarily "competitive" or "meta" may be interesting to some people and keep the game more fresh? Besides, a lot of the philosphies that Castle had were often debunked and found illogical later in the game's life and even to the HC devs.

You don't see it as a logical flaw, and you see it as a false equivalence, I come to think of Fortunatas very distinctly being thought of as controls as their secondary and their nature as that AT and how it was intended, much more so than PB/WS/Spiders. It's extremely distinct, and it has far more hard controls than any of the VEATs/HEATs. I'm pointing it out, because you seem to be totally against the idea of having controls as a secondary effect, when in reality, Fortunatas already use this effect to an extent, and it works marvelously for them. You may not see it as such, but I see their controls as the secondary function of a Fortunata. I guess we just don't see eye to eye on this topic, but I think it's still solid evidence that despite controls not being the primary purpose of an AT, they're still quite serviceable/functional hence why I brought it up.

This particular next section, is going to be about the terms you're throwing around with "Strawman" and "Ad Hominem." A Strawman argument takes another argument and greatly exaggerates the claim, in your argument you stated the following:

your own words define, specifically, Web Grenade (which is an immobilize) as "nearly useless" and you quite literally state how it is never going to stop an EB/AV that you end up fighting.

Me debunking how you find these "low-tier control powers useless" in your own words, is not a strawman argument. Why? I didn't exaggerate your words, or do anything of the sort, because by your OWN WORDS, you found them "nearly useless," especially against AV-level targets.

Onto the Ad Hominem portion, I called your point narrow-minded, NOT you. An Ad Hominem argument is when you attack someone to debunk their argument, specifically their character. I did not call you as an individual and a person narrow-minded, I called your point/argument narrow-minded, as I found it was and I will on record always say that it was, because I do not feel the same way that you do or see these "nearly useless" T1 powers as awful as you tried to make them out to be, especially against AV-level targets. I found your argument didn't take into account many battlefield scenarios. This was a counter-point against your argument rather than me attacking you as a person and character. There is a big difference. Also to add onto this point, I even said "no offense intended," in my post, therefore meaning, I wasn't intending to actually attack you or your character, rather I don't think you understand the implications of that ST immobilize, or how good it actually is, otherwise you wouldn't be stating that in your post or trying to be using that as an argument against it, especially against an AV.

I am actually arguing in good faith, though I disagree and I find that just because you don't see something as useful as another, and that person heavily disagrees with your logic, you shouldn't result to claiming they're utilizing "Ad Hominem" and "Strawman" arguments to attempt to debunk their claims.

-- Personally, I have no issue with you as a person, this argument rests with me disagreeing with your logic and points.

A Strawman is when you create an argument for your opposition which is not the argument the opposition provided in order to debunk or defeat -that- argument.

Web Grenade is given to Devices at level 1. Low Tier. You invented the idea that I meant "Immobilizes are less powerful than Holds" which is not the argument I made.

Hence, a Strawman.

As to the Ad Hominem, I will say that's a rather unique perspective on the term "Narrowminded" and accept your intent didn't follow.

To the actual discussion:

Blasters who take Energy Manipulation have some of the same melee attacks as Energy Assault Dominators -and- some of the same ranged powers if they take Energy Blast. This does not make Energy/Energy Blasters into Energy Assault Blasters. It means they share some similar powers.

But the Framework of those powers, and the other powers provided to the Archetype, result in wildly different playstyles. A Fortunata plays similarly to a "Ranged Dominator with Defense Powers", but does not have a Control Powerset in the same way that a Dominator does, which is to say "Exclusively" control based aside from pets and/or mind control damage throughput powers. The additional defensive powers the Fortunata has at their disposal creates a distinct difference in how the two play. The Fortunata, for example, may miss some of their control effects and still be largely survivable in an encounter. The Dominator will be at a much more significant disadvantage.

However, unless you intend to recommend a Primary Powerset which provides Attack and Defense Powers akin to what a Fortunata gains, this remains a False Equivalence. And still does not account for the issues mentioned of the power levels required for Control Powers to function due to the binary nature of control effects.

If an Archetype was designed with Control Powersets (Not powersets with some control powers in them) as a secondary powerset, it would either need to have the control powers weakened (To maintain the power dynamics between classes and the weighting difference between Primary and Secondary Powersets) or so heavily redesigned as to no longer -be- Control Powersets, but something like Manipulation.

To weaken them is not really an option due to the binaristic nature of control powers, the required magnitudes of controls to affect enemies, and the various issues players have with layered RNG resulting in ultimately largely nonfunctional powers.

June 21, 2020

On 6/20/2020 at 10:02 AM, Patti said:

Yeah but castle had a lot of design philosophy problems as I remember. Wasn't he adamantly against ANY form of knockback to knockdown? I think his opi in on the game design should be held under scrutiny, not lauded.

The man's a professional who has been designing games for 30 years. We might not -agree- with all his ideas, but that doesn't make them problems.

And KB to KD is a trainwreck. The single IO added sees people harassed for not using it, and endless threads using it as a wedge to try and open the door on more ways to kill knockback entirely. Including at least three users on these boards who are in favor of either completely removing KB as a mechanic or giving the Team Leader the ability to control all powers on a team to turn off KB.

15 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

But there's gaping flaws with this logic... the first one is assuming controls are not viable as long as they're not primaries, and last time I checked, Fortunatas who have a lovely vivacious blend of Dominate, Confuse, a Confuse aura, and an AoE Hold absolutely do have these "secondary controls" and they honestly still work. Now are they as good as it as say Dominators? No, but does it help them survive? Absolutely. Just because one has to stack the magnitudes two times does not make them "less effective" it just means they have to go through two cast cycles of the same power or blend it with another control power. Also, comparing controls, debuffs, and damage are all extremely different aspects of powers and have very unique properties (thus I think this argument is really weak, because you're not comparing apples to apples, you're not even comparing apples to oranges, hell we're not even comparing food to food.) Also, many control sets (plant and not on Dominator) are not going to be holding AVs without a lot of power boosting and spamming while triangles are up (along with having an extremely IO'd out build with tons of recharge).

Also your point about these "low-tier" control powers is extremely narrow-minded. Keeping an enemy in an immobilize ring is a huge amount of damage mitigation for ranged characters with squishier health because that means they cannot hit you with melee damage at all, and many "auras" that are extremely annoying to deal with (think Requiem's stun aura) are completely nullified by having this immobilize easily stack-able. Also, in many cases, if you look at the true DPA of these powers, many of them are actually better than your T1/T2 blast *by damage* and actually have better proc rates than those powers. No offense intended, but in all sincerity, that is what a lot of people who do not understand battlefield positioning do not understand, it's not always about having the enemy locked down unable to do anything as much as it is sometimes them just not running away from you. Don't have a Tank on a TinPex? Well that Blaster spamming Ring of Fire in its chain rotation takes care of that, and that goes for any AV that is running around like a chicken with its head cut off because there is no form of taunt on the team. Honestly, immobilizes are probably the best controls against an AV that a set can have, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

A Fortunata gains -some- control powers to supplement their damage abilities. Similarly, a Wolf Spider gets some control powers to supplement their damage abilities. So do PBs and Warshades.

But those are not Control Powersets. There is a distinct difference between a Control Powerset (Which typically contains minimal damage output outside of a Pet or Pets) and having a Powerset which contains some Control Powers. A Control Powerset would need to be "Weakened" to be made into a Secondary Powerset, otherwise a person would simply have two "Primary" powersets.

I also never said Control Powersets would be unviable as secondaries because control is somehow "Bad". I said that weakening a Control Powerset would render it largely useless due to the binary nature of control. In that a target is either controlled (and thus impaired) or uncontrolled (and thus not impaired) based on the number of magnitudes of control applied to them.

That's not a Logical Flaw, Zeraphia. That's a False Equivalence and a Strawman Argument.

I also wasn't "Comparing" Debuffs to Controls. I was using the differences between them to -define- them. In large part because these sorts of discussions about control powers almost invariably result in at least one person piping up "Well what if we added debuffs to controls so that even if you don't control an AV you're still helping out?" That's not control. That's debuff. There's a distinct difference.

That's not "Apples to Oranges", Zeraphia. That's a Strawman Argument.

As to "Low Tier" being "Narrow Minded" I literally meant low-tier in the sense of them being Tier 1 or Tier 2 powers. Ones you get at first or fourth level. Even if I held that very false belief, which I don't, most Manipulation sets get a hold, stun, or fear at a later point in their power progression. And certain sets (Like Ice) gain several. However, their magnitudes are low enough, or proccy enough, that they cannot reliably be used to control EBs and AVs, ensuring the Blaster relies on their Primary Powerset and the high melee damage output of their Manipulation Set's attacks before retreating. (Or blapping via Hasten and global IO buffs)

Instead of responding to that you've constructed a Strawman Argument and added an Ad Hominem attack to it.

I do not believe that you're reading my posts in good faith, here. With an intent to understand.

June 20, 2020

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

I prefer manipulation primary/summon secondary.

I imagine a setup where your pets contribute something to you. So slightly modified pets to give them more Support options. Imagine if every set gave you a pet early on that gives you a fitting mez protection buff. Instead of relying on toggles, you would need to manage your troops and keep them alive so they prop you up.

@Steampunkette I think you're drawing a correlation between secondary set and the strength it's "allowed" to have. First off, I don't think that correlation is very strongly followed (brute 90% resist cap, Dominator melee and ranged multipliers, blaster melee multipliers).

Second, I disagree that lowering durations (or increasing recharges!) Isn't viable. If your other set is pets, then minion HP is essentially another layer of control that you're spiking with occasional controls.

For these reasons and more, I absolutely think Manipulation can work as a primary and control as a secondary.

Covering as much new ground as possible with as few new ATs as possible, my votes would be:

* Melee/support with some sort of identity-based gimmick.

* Manipulation/Pets as a commander type. Manipulation is a bag of tricks almost as diverse as Support sets, creating strong opportunities to decide how you'll lead on the battlefield.

I am certain that you believe that, Replacement. But on the Live Forums I pushed for a "Reverse Dominator" back before I got into an understanding of Control and Defense powersets both being straight mitigation sets.

Castle (Floyd Grubb) expressed to me the reasoning behind keeping Control a primary powerset. That it could never truly work as a secondary. Originally, Blasters were meant to be Ranged/Control, but either it was significantly weak when the controls were tuned down or OP when the controls were tuned up. The Manipulation powerset sprang out of that desire.

It's also why you see no one else with Manipulation powersets. It's just -such- a niche powerset type built to key into an incredibly specific design philosophy.

As to Blaster melee multipliers: I literally just explained it. They have strong melee damage and limited melee attack power availability so they can handle bosses, EBs, and AVs with some high damage melee since their control powers will not function on them without significant stacking from allies.

For Brutes it has to do with them being able to function as gameplay Tanks since the Mastermind Tanking concept went largely underutilized by the playerbase through testing and was ultimately found to be largely flawed by the relatively low damage a Mastermind put out, himself, for aggro-draw and Bodyguard damage spread.

And Dominators? It has to do with the way they gained domination. It used to be Domination gave them a flat bonus to damage, but that got pulled and placed into their baseline damage as a balancing metric once people started routinely permadomming so that newer dominator players, or players who didn't focus on global recharge, wouldn't be completely left in the dust.

As to correlation: No. I'm talking about a flat understanding of gameplay mechanics. Because while Brutes have a 90% resistance cap, they're not going to achieve it outside of Tier 9 abilities, serious team-buffing, or a shitload of IOs.

6 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

Besides the duration of controls, I think you could also manipulate the AoE radius and the % chance to apply a control. I tried Poison live and the tiny AoEs really suck. For making a set less powerful, tiny AoE works well. And if an AoE power has something like 30% chance of Mag 1 hold, followed by 30% chance of Mag 1 hold, followed by 30% chance of Mag 1 hold, that would make it both powerful in larger groups as well as unreliable enough to not rival the control primaries. Toss in a bit of increased recharge and increased endurance (let me tell you, while "good" Traps is pretty painful too) and I think it would be decent.

I personally think Phantom Army is way overpowered. A "manipulation" set that reduces its power would be pretty cool and still pretty viable for its users, I think.

Overall, I think a "control" secondary is a fine idea, regardless what it's called, and something that the devs could certainly look into. I trust them to do the right thing when it comes to balance.

I wonder what kind of control secondaries people might like? I think a psi melee with mental manipulation might be cool. The secondary could be a mix of manipulation for defense and ways to baffle and confuse the enemy.

We don't have any wind control sets (we do have storm). Wind control might make sense as a "soft" control secondary. Water might make sense for a soft control too. Maybe another "devices" type secondary, just with more control powers and a little less toe bombing.

RNG layered upon RNG is a good way to make people hate playing an archetype, unfortunately.

June 20, 2020

Secondary Control cannot function.

Control is a form of absolute mitigation. When someone is controlled there's a binary on whether they're "Held" or not. Or stunned or whatever else. Debuffs to speed, HP, Regen, Etc aren't controls. They're debuffs.

Because Control is binary and NPCs have specific set threshholds you cannot reduce the Magnitudes of Control powers like you can with Debuffs. Which is why Corruptor Debuffs are less effective than Defender debuffs, but still -effective-. It's also why Tankers do less damage than Scrappers with the same powers. The magnitudes of damage are reduced. This can be done because their power effects are relative rather than absolute.

You could reduce the -duration- of the controls... But due to the core function of control being magnitude stacking for bosses and other powerful NPCs, doing so renders a Support/Control character largely defenseless against an EB/AV unless they're a Phantom Army control user.

Control sets as we have them, today, cannot function as a Secondary. This is why we have Manipulation sets.

Manipulation sets combine some low-tier control powers (Web Grenades and the like) with a few melee attacks. Why? 'Cause the Web Grenade is never going to stop an EB or AV that you wind up fighting. So those powers in the Manipulation set become nearly useless (barring control stacking from teammates). Blasters get -some- control with limited use on low end enemies (Minions, some Lieutenants) and additional high direct damage (with longer cooldowns, on average, making blappers reliant on hasten and recharge reduction) for when enemies get in their face.

In short: For Secondary Control to be effective enough to have any use outside of teaming with people who have controls, it would need to be as strong as Primary Control. A Support/Control character would have Support like a Defender and Control like a Controller. Two Primary Powersets, essentially.

Tangentially: This is why there is no Manipulation Primary archetype.

March 15, 2020

Your hit chance is calculated by the engine as:

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ))

Accuracy is a proportional bonus while ToHit is an absolute bonus. That is to say +40% ToHit increases your chance to hit by 40%, while +40% accuracy increases your chance to hit by 1.4 times your current chance to hit. So 10% chance to hit +40% ToHit is 50% chance to hit, 10% +40% Accuracy is 14% chance to hit.

Where would you put your modifier in this calculation? You can't modify the Clamp itself, because it's a fixed value that cannot be externally altered by buffs or debuffs. And putting it anywhere else in the calculation means a multiplicative change or an external fixed value being applied to attack or defense.

Without retooling how the game engine determines hits (Something hard-coded into it) you cannot implement this idea, or it's partner concept.

March 5, 2020

There are two reasons in place for the Superspeed limit being the essentially limit to speed in the game:

1) Computers in 2004 could only render objects in the distance so quickly before the rendering burden created massive lag, crashes, and in rare instances damage to hardware.

2) Servers in 2004 could only keep track of characters in X numbers of cycles per second, and if a character was not within X-Y milliseconds of where they should be they could get "Lost" which leads to rubberbanding as the server tries to correct the apparent error.

Today, both personal computers and the servers are vastly more sophisticated... but the engine was written for those 2004 computers (Truth be told it was written for 1998 computers to maximize the number of players capable of playing the game and thus paying a subscription fee!) so while it's certainly possible to increase the speed cap beyond what it is, now: It will probably cause some PROBLEMS.

Especially if you've got 40 super speedsters running a race through the zone for a million inf to the winner.

March 4, 2020

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Well that's the thing, Dominator / True CC powers apply safety immediately where sapping attacks do not + are attacks

I've played an elec/elec/elec blaster for years on live, I know all about both blapping and end drain.

I would open with SC + PS to drain mobs, but I essentially never noticed the effects from any other power but those two as Ball lightning, Static Discharge, Blaps, etc would just kill enemies outright without need of further drainage. That is not to say that sapping is not viable or powerful! But that all the power of it, in my experience, is really rooted in a few powers.

What we seem to be circling around here is that there are certain key powers are what really do the sapping, while others really... don't. Other sets apply slows, -Def, controls, etc that are all immediately useful. Attacks that apply -End, unless it is a lot of it, are more often not really notable for their secondary effect. Powers like conductive aura, Power Sink, etc are all notable because their main focus is to drain end and not their secondary effect. It just so happens that you kinda need all or nothing for this particular effect to matter which can be questionable, given to get to "all" you need particular synergies else you run into the situation where you may end up killing faster than draining and the effect never comes into play!

There are certain powers which create -fast- sapping. Or which work well to create a baseline for other powers to sap off of.

But you can't throw off Power Sink once and be done sapping a group. Nor can you do it with just Short Circuit. Those powers are platforms that allow the rest of the powers to rise up and make your enemies suck wind. Or you can combine them for a one-two shutdown.

And as an "Assaulter" Electro Dom, I -need- the -recovery in Electric Assault to keep my enemies bottomed out, 'cause just draining their end and calling it a day? Doesn't exactly cut the mustard.

Sapping's a package deal. You get the big powers and the little ones together to fully shut down groups on the regular. It's more frantic, for me, than just playing a Control-Focused character, even though the result (Absolute Damage Mitigation) is the same. 'Cause you've got to keep an eye on which enemies are about to start recovering endurance and make sure that they don't.

It's one of my favorite ways to play.

March 4, 2020

17 minutes ago, Rylas said:

I'm going to claim ignorance here. Does that still have the same ease of play as being able to toggle Group Fly on and off for a MM and his/her pets?

No... but so what?

I mean... what situations does having flying at no continuous cost do harm outside of, say, RP? A pack of flying wolves still moves to their target and bites them. The MM can still fly through any sewer door.

What situations exist where it needs to be "Toggled Off"?

March 4, 2020

@Rylas

If it were a click power with a 3 minute duration it would be a Buff.

Right Click the buff in your bar. Choose Cancel. No more flight.

March 4, 2020

You know, it's faster for a Dominator to just blast and melee any enemy they fight than it is to try and use controls and -then- kill them.

So they should just use their damaging powers instead of trying to use controls!

Am I doin' it right?

Sapping is a playstyle. Like Blapping or playing a character who isn't 100% focused on dishing out damage. Repeatedly showing that it would be faster to kill enemies (Specifically minions and LTs) doesn't really have much weight when you consider that.

You're also only throwing out attack powers. There's also stuff like Conductive Aura which deals no damage. Or Jolting Chain which deals little. Or Power Sink and Lightning Field. Things which sap as a primary component, but which are best paired with damage-focused powers that ALSO sap as a secondary for MAXIMUM END FUCKERY.

As previously noted, upthread: Static Field + Conductive Aura shuts down the LTs/Minions, Jolting Chain finishes off their endurance at about the same time the Boss's end bottoms out. Which lets you focus your attacks on the boss without worrying about the minions and LTs, then mop everyone up when they're utterly sapped.

Team up with an /Elec blaster to Power Sink and it goes even faster. Or an Elec/ Blaster to throw off Short Circuit.

I continue to think "Meh" to the "Sapping needs to go!" Mindset. If you wanna add more damage to powers to bring them more in line with other sets fine. But don't kill my playstyle just 'cause you prefer a more efficient one.

March 4, 2020

@ReplacementThe suggestion was to add an AoE Foe Hold to the Group Flight power.

That's not just cottage rule breaking. It's also supremely weird and borderline OP. Particularly for mez-stacking from a Control-based character.

I'd be kind of leery of the Whirlwind Flurry... Or the SS Whirlwind. I feel like Whirlwind is in -such- a niche that you can't change it out with anything or combine it with anything. It either needs to be left as is (Buffed perhaps) or removed and replaced.

March 4, 2020

Easy answer to Group Fly? Make it into a click. Costs of fairly decent amount, grants 3 minutes of full speed flight. Recharges in 2 minutes.

Maybe even give it a power grant with a separate action bar of a dive bomb attack. Give the dive bomb a 45 second recharge but otherwise make it burst of speed with minimal damage but a big knockdown effect.

March 4, 2020

5 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Following a few of the discussions in regards to the new origin power pools, there seems to be some demand to get standard travel powers in a state that makes them more viable compared to the new ones that are making their way into the game.

Most people seem to enjoy the idea of giving secondary functions to the existing travel powers, as well as merging two powers into one to create room for another, so based on this feedback I've thought up a few ways of making the current travel power pools more effective and rewarding.

TELEPORTATION

1 - Combine Teleport Foe and Recall Friend into a single power, much like how Injection and Enflame can target both allies and enemies with different effects.

2 - Give the powerset a 'Jaunt' like teleport that has a faster animation and no slow/hover effect when used.

SPEED

1 - Replace Whirlwind with a power that is almost identical to Burst of Speed from Martial Combat, allowing for short range damaging Teleport power with short range but multiple uses before recharge. The power would activate the 'Whirlwind effect upon teleporting.

2 - grant Super Speed a defense bonus.

LEAPING

1 - Merge Combat Jumping and Acrobatics into one power

2 - Add a new power that works like Jump Jet and Steam Jump that also grants a jump speed bonus.

FLIGHT

1 - Rework Group Fly so it has a chance to cause the 'Soul Storm' hold effect on nearby foes for a short duration.

I like your Teleport idea a ton...

Speed... nnn... Not so much. While Whirlwind is rarely taken, combining it with burst of speed neither makes sense nor feels balanced.

Leaping... kinda sorta almost cool with it. But both CJ and Acro are considered mandatory and chase powers, depending on AT. So it feels a bit too strong to combine them... unless we put them at Acrobatics' tier and put the double-jump at the lower level. Then I'd actually be pretty cool with it, since CJ would no longer be a Dip power. However this would make a lot of people very upset.

Flight: No. Just no. Flat out no.

March 3, 2020

People don't that corrosive is weak. people complain about corrosive because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the sets abilities. Specifically the rest of the freaking set is all heal over time and this is a weird attack debuff which makes you grow a flower for a hand and is out of step with the rest of the set.

You could make that argument about shock... But in either case I offer a resounding "Meh"

March 3, 2020

45 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

If you decide to update your spreadsheet with time-to-drain values for a Defender, could you also add a comparison of time-to-kill values from a blast set with good DPS?

What I don't like is the new set getting only -End for its offensive support mechanic and the focus of two of its powers (one of which you will be forced to take on anything but a Defender) in a game where -End does literally nothing in the majority of situations presented by its default gameplay loop. The argument that building your entire character around sapping Endurance and then playing by yourself so that you actually see it do something before your terrible DPS can catch up to your EDPS does not change that fact.

When TTK > TTDrain, Drain contributes nothing to you. Every set that has Drain as its main secondary effect pays a heavy price for it, they get few or no other secondary effects and bottom-of-the-barrel DPS. That's not a fair or balanced dichotomy.

When TTK > TTDrain drain does something for you. It's when TTK < TTD that drain does nothing.

That said: "This one power everyone but defenders is FORCED to take sucks!" is hardly a strong argument considering the number of sets where that's the case...

Lemme just load up the beta and get the real numbers per power. For Defenders, obviously, since I can't check it on other classes (yet!)

Tier 1) Shock: -20% End, -50% Recovery, -31% damage. The main goal of this power is CLEARLY the 31% Damage Debuff, with the End Drain and -Recovery being added bonuses. Potent added bonuses, if you intend to Sap, but hardly the main event.

Tier 2) Rejuvenating Circuit: Chain Heal, no sapping involved.

Tier 3) Galvanic Sentinel: I can't actually view the real numbers on Discharge, here...

Tier 4) Energizing Circuit: Grants Endurance to allies.

Tier 5) Faraday Cage: Resistance and End buffs along with protection to control. VERY NICE and stacks with Shock's Damage Debuff.

Tier 6) Empowering Circuit: Big damage buff chain. 40% is huge.

Tier 7) Defibrillate: Rez. Nothing spectacular.

Tier 😎 Insulating Circuit: Some Absorb in a Chain.

Tier 9) Amp Up: Big general buff

So... I'm... I fail to see what the problem is, here. Shock's the only power at all that does End Drain or -Recovery for the whole set (Which is fairly weird, for an electric set, really) but it's pretty much a nifty "Nod to Electric" on top of the big damage debuff.

Looking through the other tier 1 Defender Powers the only one that I found which was more directly debilitating as a debuff was Corrosive Enzymes for Nature Affinity: A power people complain about having to take even though it adds -25% Resistance on top of of the -31% damage.

Is it -REALLY- just this one singular power in the whole set people are complaining over? It's a single nod to sapping that pairs Electrical Affinity pretty well with Electric Blast, but is ultimately not that important of a power to the set, overall. It is your general "Skippable Tier 1" for most builds.

... Y'all are crazy. I am eager to play an Elec/Elec Defender or Elec/Elec Controller, now.

March 3, 2020

19 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Nope, but there's no reason not to fix a few glaring issues with the set. Thunderous Blast using the wrong damage formula, resulting in a longer recharge than the other nukes (fixed on sentinels), no T3 blast (fixed on sentinels with the Tesla Cage adjustment) and voltaic sentinel not being worth casting, let alone slotting.

Eventually they will aim to add in harder difficulty settings. It would be nice to have the underperforming sets brought up before that time.

Oh, sure. I can agree with that kind of modification.

But killing Sapping in order to add -Dam or -Res or some other thing is just wrong, to me.

Which is what this thread is -actually- about. The OP doesn't like the new set getting -end instead of something "More Useful"

March 3, 2020

15 hours ago, Player2 said:

Stuff like the snowstorm power you can get during the winter event. Except no one but the player sees that, right?

There's actually one of the holiday temporary powers that allows you to apply the snowfall affect to nearby allies, even when you use it inside Missions or Task Forces. So there is -some- precedent for that sort of RP Power.

Most of the other RP Powers could be handled through Skybox Editing, Auras, and Emotes.

March 2, 2020

22 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Not - rech. - damage is what it needs.

Not Recharge, Recovery. If I wanted Recharge I'd have had an H at the end as -Rech.

March 2, 2020

43 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

The problem is, sapping NPCs isn't the same thing as sapping PCs.

Because NPCs are allowed to fire off ANY attack they have available the second they get a single blip of endurance.

So we should add -rec to all -end effects?

Works for me! Problem solved!

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