Steampunkette
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Posts posted by Steampunkette
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22 hours ago, oldskool said:
The first part isn't true for all primaries. The second part is true for Sonic. All 3 cones behave this way, and it seems like a bug. Flamethrower in Assault Rifle does this too.
Furthermore, these powers also double dip on Defensive Opportunity making it better than it is on any other primary (not worth building around, imo). Sonic's cones also break some targeting rules like how Water Blast does.
On top of all that Screech does decent damage. The Sentinel version of Sonic blast is pretty good.Probably has a lot to do with:
"Blaaaargh"
"Raaaaagh"
"Hooooooooooow"
CoH Modder has a great Banshee scream mod! It makes it sound -much- cooler.
I'm looking at making a Sonic built around -Res procs in a few choice powers. So it'd be 5% Sentinel debuff, 9% Sonic debuff (per hit for like 6 seconds?), The -20% Proc debuff (I think it's 3 per minute per enhancement... could be wrong), and then a whopping 20% unresistable from Vulnerability very quickly.
That seems like a really good way to improve your team's damage and push a little past the Sentinel's damage cap issues...
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Random thought:
You get more opportunity per-shot from Cone Attacks. Sonic has 3 different cone abilities that all do decent damage as a Sentinel.
A Sonic Sentinel could easily fire off 2 cone attacks and go from 0 Opportunity to 100 opportunity in the cast time of those two abilities.
Plus the Sonic -Res stacks with the -Res from Opportunity -and- Vulnerability.
Why aren't Sonic Sentinels more popular?
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I went on a bit of an installing spree, not gonna lie. Nothing installed that interfered with anything else (I thought).
Just downloaded the "All (v1) mod and now CoH Modder is slapping me, repeatedly, with an application error of how it can't find mod '' in the server mod list in C:\Projects\CoH Modder\ CoH Modder\Main Form.cs:line 792
I don't have a Projects folder containing 2 CoH Modder sub-folders nested in themselves.
Please advise?
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Character: Water Blast/Bio Armor Sentinel level 29
Relevant Powers: Offensive Adaptation and Athletic Regulation
On characters that use both Offensive Adaptation and Athletic Regulation the speed bonus from Athletic Regulation is most likely meant to be doubled by the Offensive Adaptation effect.
However it is, instead, buffing all movement rate increasing powers by 100%.
Sprint provides 22.54mph increase from the enhanceable aspect and an additional 7.16mph from the unenhanceable portion.
Athletic Regulation is providing 10.58mph.
Swift is providing 13.98mph.
Athletic Run is providing 55.42mph.
It is not increasing Flying speed, Jumping speed, or Jumping Height at all.
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2 minutes ago, Solarverse said:
It would help if all that stuff that you wrote had anything to do with "boomers" yet you still blame them for it. You want a monster in your life, you found one and it makes you feel better to downgrade a whole generation and pin all of your woes to that generation instead of taking responsibility for your own life. Yet, all of these things you blame the boomers for, you do nothing yourself to fix them. So you can okay boomer all you like...and I will continue to "lol okay" as I go on living my life without blaming anyone else.
If you want to blame anyone for anything, start with the government. The Boomers were only trying to live by the laws of man, and they did everything in their power to change the laws that mattered most...like, I don't know...ending racism and ending Jim Crow Laws and protesting wars that we had no business being in and preaching peace and love. But hey, you go right on ahead and keep blaming boomers.
1) Your grasp of history seems... flawed at best. If you don't understand how economics have changed since the 40s and particularly since the 70s I don't think anyone can help you.
2) Your supposition that I'm doing "Nothing" to fix things is laughable at best since you know basically nothing about me.
3) The Boomers -are- the Government. Average age in Congress is about 60 with those holding the most power being in their 70s. Trump was born in '46 making him the quintessential Baby Boomer in Power.
And the big one:
4) Racism isn't Ended. Jim Crow Laws still have an impact on modern lives. And they may have protested Vietnam, but they were all about jumping into the Middle East.
As to the "Every Generation" thing... yeah. Because the next generation is almost invariably more progressive and understanding and aware.
Hawking spoke of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, but it applies to literally every aspect of society. All the progressiveness of the Boomers was great! But then it stopped. They reached the end of what they personally considered "Progressive" and the boundary to what they considered "Radical". "Interracial Marriage? COOL! Gay Marriage? Now hold on a second!" Same thing happened with Generation X. Same thing will happen with Millennials. And Gen Z. And every generation after them.
Because what we consider the edge of progressiveness and "Radical" will advance with the next generation who view what we see as being "Progressive" as "Normal". As baseline. And their ideals will move forward from -that- point. This is the source of the idea that "Everyone becomes Conservative, Eventually" comes from.
But that, again, comes down to understanding history and cause and effect so... y'know... Ok, Boomer.
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1 minute ago, Solarverse said:
lol, okay. I can't wait to show this to my mother. She is going to cry laughing. Thanks for this!
And that's why "Ok, Boomer" is so much -easier-.
See how it's worked out, here? I've tried to explain a bunch of stuff, and instead of understanding or an attempt at an equal exchange, I get this as a reaction.
Ergo: Ok, Boomer.
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14 minutes ago, Solarverse said:
I'm Gen X...
I just don't play victim and blame boomers for everything wrong in my life. I take responsibility for my own life.
I don't blame Boomers for "Everything" wrong.
Just the things that they, as a generation, have done. Like foster an overreliance on the idea of college as core to personal value leading to multiple subsequent generations carrying $1.6 trillion in debt that, in many cases, turns out to be useless to their economic advancement. My husband, for example, as pushed by his family to go to college and studied teaching and history... Now he's a Postal Worker.
That overreliance, of course, being fostered by watching their parents and grandparents performing grueling physical labor and coming home exhausted and often drunk and thinking "I want my kids to have a better life than that!" which is super noble, on it's face, but severely weighted our society away from infrastructural and lucrative essential work, like Garbage Men, Janitors, and other 'dirty' or 'menial' work that is required to keep our society functional and healthy. And yeah, our society needs teachers and historians, but not like it needs Plumbers or Electricians. One advances, one maintains, both are needed and only one was societally valued.
And, of course, the huge McMansion craze that they created which made housing less and less affordable over decades while they did their best to maximize profits with minimal raises and... yeah. Just so much shit.
I get it. You like to think of yourself as strong and special and self-reliant and whatever else. But we live in the course of history, and causes have effects. Ignoring that is self-blinding, and will ultimately lead to Boomerdom.
15 minutes ago, nihilii said:Values are open to debate. Anyone who believes in dogma is inherently religious. Whether said person worships magical sky people, or loudly claims there is no deity. Religious sentiment isn't necessarily tied to gods, any system of faith may qualify as a religion.
No. I'm afraid you're mistaking Philosophy for Religion.
Religion by -definition- requires a belief in the Supernatural as a basis for a Philosophical Ideal.
Religion is -a- Philosophy, but Philosophy is not a Religion.
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1 minute ago, Solarverse said:
If only you knew just how silly that sounds. 😁
Ok, Boomer.
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So... Few things:
"Ok, Boomer" is a bit more specific than "Baby Boomers ruined Everything". It's about how much time and effort Millennials, Gen Xers, and the Zoomers have spent trying to explain "Things aren't like they used to be" while the Boomer generation refuses to accept it.
As a teenager and a young adult I had Boomers telling me "Just go into the business and apply face to face. Ask to see the manager! That's how I got my job!" Sure. That's how you got your job 40 years ago when that kind of thing was the Norm. Now every company out there wants an online application because if you bring in your resume it goes in the garbage. Do you know how many times I've asked for an application in person and been told "You have to do it online?"
But I'd tell the Boomers that and get a lecture on how I wasn't "Trying" hard enough. "Ok, Boomer" became the "I'm not going to try and explain this to you because you're clearly not interested in hearing or understanding things that don't fit your out of date worldview."
It's not rank dismissal. It's frustration and it's defeat. It's "I'm not going to waste my time and energy on this anymore."
See also: "Why haven't you moved out?" "You should be saving for your future!" and "Why don't you have kids, yet?" which all often boil down to "I literally cannot afford those things because of the market forces your generation created."
Now, yeah... some of it is probably rank dismissal or 'typical' generational infighting. But the bulk of the issue is that life has changed more rapidly in the past 30 years than it has in nearly any other point in history and the generation currently holding the greatest amount of wealth and political power initiated those changes but have no clear understanding of what those changes -are- or the impact those changes have created. Yeah the invention of the Automobile and the Refrigerator and whatever changed things in the world... But the Internet and the massive socio-economic changes around it are massive beyond almost any period of history.
Ok, Boomer would not be a good badge for CoH. But it's a great badge for real life.
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10 hours ago, Blackfeather said:
Indeed, it'd be pretty effective - in fact, one of the things that's a bit of a concern is that...maybe it might be too effective?
To paraphrase that mathing of this proposal, the chance of getting at least one single +20 Overpower given ten attempts is 89%. At least two: 62%.
Given two Controllers, our scenario would give us an effective 20 attempts in that same 50 second window, of which only about 2 need to hit that Overpower mark. So our numbers would look like this:
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Likelihood of no Overpower occurring in those 20 attempts = (4/5) ^ 20 = 1.15%
- Likelihood of at least one Overpower occurring = 98.85%
- Likelihood of exactly one Overpower occurring in these 20 attempts: 6%
- Likelihood of at least two Overpowers occurring = likelihood of at least one Overpower occurring - chance of exactly one Overpower = 92.85%
I feel like having a 60% chance to lock down an AV during the Purple Triangle Window (But only if you're stacking controls -fast-) for a brief time ('Cause duration is still a thing and mez resist is separate from protection) is a good goal to try and aim for. It allows Controllers to actually do their absolute damage mitigation function.
That said, getting a group of controllers together to completely shit on every AV could get pretty boring.
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Likelihood of no Overpower occurring in those 20 attempts = (4/5) ^ 20 = 1.15%
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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.
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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.
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Night Widows and Bane Soldiers. Their buffs are amazing!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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"?
Collaborative Project: A Guide to Sentinel Sets
in Sentinel
Posted · Edited by Steampunkette
So far I've been playing Sonic/SR, yeah. I also have a build set up for it that I'll link, below. I did correct the 25%-20% thing but not before you replied!
Looking at all the debuffing levels of the different classes... Sonic are the -worst- at Debuffing. That 9.6% is much lower than Defender 20% or even Stalker/Brute/Blaster's 13%.
I sincerely wish they'd give Sentinels higher Buff/Debuff values, since it'd make them better at playing around with Pool Powers and powersets that have debuffing effects.
Anywho. Here's the build.
This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.4.7
https://github.com/Reborn-Team/MidsReborn
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Absynth: Level 50 Technology Sentinel
Primary Power Set: Sonic Attack
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Shriek
Level 1: Sprint
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Set Bonus Totals: