Sunsette

This would be a great change, hopefully with a map marker added. Could add a magic crafting table to the Midnighters Club in Night Ward, too.

I'll be honest, I've avoided this topic because I think for a team game, you need to focus on adding control to a disruptive effect -- that is, make it less disruptive -- before you give it more advantages. Adding the advantages first only makes the use/not use debate sharper and more divided. But you directly responded to me and cited this topic so I got the feeling you wanted more feedback here. So! If I were going to add a rider effect to Knockback, it wouldn't be damage; that's the sort of consideration that, imo, should be the result of making knockback a side-effect of high smashing damage earlier in building the system -- not a post-release game patch. While Energy Blast is a little mediocre in damage, that can have all sorts of bad unintended effects in other powersets, and even in EB -- any noticeable amount to make it satisfying would be too strong. What I would consider is a disorient effect equal to a fifth the magnitude of the knockback, for a number of seconds equal to double the magnitude of the Knockback. Tornado (Storm Summoning, All): KB 12.46/Mag 2 Disorient, 25 sec. Power Push (Energy Blast, Blaster): KB 13.29/Mag 2 Disorient, 27 sec. Energy Torrent (Energy Blast, Blaster): KB 4.99/Mag 1 Disorient, 10 sec. (60% chance) Nova (Energy Blast, Blaster): KB 16.62/Mag 3 Disorient, 33 sec. Two slotted for KB, these become: Tornado (Storm Summoning, All): KB 21.18/Mag 4 Disorient, 42 sec. Power Push (Energy Blast, Blaster): KB 22.47/Mag 4 Disorient, 45 sec. Energy Torrent (Energy Blast, Blaster): KB 8.49/Mag 2 Disorient, 17 sec. (60% chance) Nova (Energy Blast, Blaster): KB 28.25/Mag 5 Disorient, 56 sec. Numbers may need tweaking, and probably some sort of formulaic curve is better than a simple linear scale for turning KB Mag into Disorient Mag, but it would be a clear form of control this way.

I suspect it would actually be pretty difficult. There's no prior precedent for limiting the movement of an enhancement or swapping two enhancements. The hackiest way I could see doing it is treating it as a respec of only one power at a time, with its own enhancement tray, and no idea if that's even possible. If they can get to it, it'd be nice, but I'd not hold my breath.

Sort of. You can enable team inspirations at the P2W vendor which are great for pets, and also your own personal resistance matters for pet damage taken in bodyguard mode. In addition, you can feed specific pets infusions by dragging then to them. I can't say I really cherish any of those solutions, of course, and I'm staying clear of Dark Astoria on my MM. But I hope it's helpful.

Nothing to add but that I thought that was an excellent summary of the cultural moment around WoW, Obitus. Great job.

That is effectively how KB to KD IOs work. They're a good but not perfect solution, for various reasons discussed elsewhere.

I understand the reasoning, but sometimes a solution that makes everyone unhappy isn't evidence of a good compromise, just an inadequate one. Allowing team leaders control of other people's abilities entirely is unprecedented and will just build bad feelings very efficiently based on each person's preference.

I feel confident saying that this would also piss off KBers, and I'm speaking as a person that took an AoE immob to stop my own knockback 90% of the time.

It definitely helped a lot -- but we forget there have been many other major license MMOs that got a lot of consistent financial backing and dedicated fanbases in their own right, like the Matrix Online and the two Star Wars MMOs. None of them have ever compared to WoW and Final Fantasy is only starting to verge on it. No one plays your product without marketing at all, but marketing can only do so much.

Thanks, very good to know! So, once Superior/lvl-50-only, the ATO set bonuses act the same those of Very Rare IOs, rather than following the regular rule for Attuned IOs. Do they become boost-able from Enhancement Boosters like Very Rare IOs, as well? Or is the set bonus behavior the only deviation? The Superior ATOs cannot be boosted. If you look at their stats, you'll see they're 25% better than the base ATO, and are mutually exclusive with the base ATO that gives the same bonus; in a sense, they are just the base ATO boosted.

Resistance, too. I started carrying oranges for Talons.

Will point out that WoW's celebrity endorsements came during a period when WoW was already unparalleled in subscriber count. You can say advertising was responsible for keeping it running near its apex for a long time, but I think it's not an accurate summary of how they got there.

(Is anyone here getting semantic satiation out of the word 'Knockback'? Just me?) The Problem So there have been a lot of Knockback threads, and my personal pet peeve is that KB to KD IOs tend to be a bit of an IO tax on high, random knockback powers that people want to use constructively. I've previously suggested a powerset revision myself, but it occurred to me in the shower that there was an easier way of dealing with the problems. First, let's review the problems with Knockback. If you're not interested in reviewing my ennumerated list of current problems, you can skip down to 'The Proposal' below. A) Can scatter groups of mobs, weakening the effectiveness of AoE powers. B) Can move an individual mob, forcing melee who were on it to chase. C) When it occurs randomly, it's difficult to selectively use it. Knocked back mobs are resistant to further KB, so a random low magnitude knock can prevent an effective knock when you need it. Now, let's look at various solutions (current and commonly proposed) and their problems: D) Knockback to Knockdown IOs in Knockback Sets SOLVES: A, B PROBLEM: Effectively removes an IO that you may have wanted to use for something else. These can potentially be significant. STATUS: Good, but unfair to tax a whole powerset this way. People end up skipping these on single target powers usually for a reason. E) Shoot the mob from above or when they're already against a wall. SOLVES: A (sometimes), B (sometimes) PROBLEM: Myriad. Low ceilings, aerial enemies, forces flight as a power, time spent positioning is time spent not killing, foes aren't always next to walls, flying is a bad idea in some incarnate content. It adds up if you have to do it all the time. STATUS: Okay, but not reliable. F) Lining up shots on foes recovering from a knockdown SOLVES: A, B, C PROBLEM: You already need a reliable source of knockdown on the target or targets you're going to hit, constraining you to work after that power's cooldown. The second attack you're using has to animate fast enough to actually hit during the animation. STATUS: I've done it, usually not worth the effort. G) Use an AoE immobilize with KB protection or resistance. SOLVES: A, B (usually. I have knocked back enemies under AoE immobs that have both when I've used multiple high mag shots in short succession, but it happens very rarely, like not even a percent of the time). PROBLEM: Sentinels, Controllers, and Dominators can do this on their own, but not most Blasters, Corruptors, or Defenders. Not all AoE immobs (none in the Sentinel set) offer KB resistance without protection, effectively meaning you've used a power to negate all of your primary's auxiliary effect entirely. STATUS: This is my current primary tactic but believe it or not I do actually enjoy knocking things back! It's fun, I just want more control over it. H) (Proposed, only) Null the Gull Setting SOLVES: A, B PROBLEM: i) Can this even be done? Very hard to predict, not sure there's a precedent. Would need to be a global Knockback multiplier. ii) Doesn't allow for fine control over individual powers you may want to knock. I) (Proposed, only) Change existing sets to reduce randomness and focus on strategic skill of KB. SOLVES: A, B, C PROBLEM: i) Some people like the RNG Status Quo ii) It may be difficult in the coding The Proposal We have to find some way to enhance damaging knockback powers without unduly enhancing knockdown powers, which are overwhelmingly melee, or giving too many benefits to support powers. Knockback improvements can be pursued as either additional single Knockback Enhancements that are powerful, making them compatible with sets that are strong at the five-piece set bonus, or by making new sets that are worth slotting all the way. Currently, there are no sets in the Knockback category which are routinely recommended for five-slotting, and only one that is rarely recommended for six-slotting. In consideration of these points, there are three parts to this proposal: An alteration to Sudden Acceleration. New Knockback Enhancement sets. New damage sets that enhance knockback. 1. Sudden Acceleration I would like to swap the 5- and 6-piece set bonuses, so that global recharge is granted by the 5-piece and HP is granted by the 6-piece. What follows below is a statistical overview of the set as it currently is. Piece Set Bonus Knockback/Recharge 1pc: N/A Knockback/Damage/Recharge 2pc: 7.5% bonus move speeds Knockback/Damage/Endurance 3pc: 2.25% bonus endurance Knockback/Accuracy/Damage 4pc: 2.5% global damage buff Knockback/Accuracy 5pc: 2.25% hit point bonus Knockback to Knockdown 6pc: 7.5% global recharge speed A level 50 set grants the following bonuses: Category Base Bonus +5 Boost Accuracy 47.70% 59.62% Damage 63.60% 79.50%1 Endurance 21.20% 26.50% Recharge 47.70% 59.62% Knockback 111.54% 139.43%1 1 This is the raw value. The real number is slightly reduced by the effects of enhancement diversification. (Green zone) Note that this set does not cap anything, and even with an appropriate alpha slot enhancement, it only gets close to the cap on Damage -- staying in the 'yellow zone' on Mids. It is not a compelling set to take beyond one piece for any reason; while all of its set bonuses are good, you're locked into six slots to get the best option there, and your power will neither knock people far back, nor will it reach its highest potential in damage. As it stands, the 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-piece set bonuses just aren't worth interrupting a better set, even in the notoriously underwhelming Single-Target Ranged Attack set options. Furthermore, the +2.25% HP set bonus is already available in Devastation (3-piece Ranged Damage), Eradication (4-piece PBAoE Damage), Shield Wall (3-piece Defense), and Gladiator's Armor (5-piece Resistance), which are all more popular options for survival already, for various reasons. There is little compelling reason to believe that many were five-slotting Sudden Acceleration for the health bonus and would be upset to get a recharge bonus instead. While Sudden Acceleration is unlikely to become a top choice if the swap between the 5- and 6-piece bonuses is made, it becomes a reasonable one to make in situations where a power absolutely needs Knockback to Knockdown, can spare a few percent of damage, but can't spare global recharge bonuses. UPDATE: I would also like to suggest that Sudden Acceleration's IO receive a +accuracy/damage/endurance component; Schedule A, split IO. By being a four-way split it ensures that this set still doesn't receive full benefits of damage compared to a pure damage set, while acc and end are relatively negligible bonuses on high end builds. It also makes the IO more compelling at low level builds. 2. New Knockback Sets Escape Velocity - Very Rare (Level 50) Almost every control condition has a very rare set of its own, and it's time for Knockback to join their ranks! Escape Velocity is an improved combination of Force Feedback and Sudden Acceleration, the way most Very Rare sets are improved versions of a Rare set. As with all Very Rare sets, all pieces are unique. Piece Enhancement Bonus (+5 Boost) Set Bonus Knockback/RechargeU 59.6 (74.5) / 33.1 (41.4) 1pc: N/A Knockback/DamageU 59.6 (74.5) / 33.1 (41.4) 2pc: 4% Endurance Recovery1 Knockback/Damage/EnduranceU 47.7 (59.6) / 26.5 (33.1) / 26.5 (33.1) 3pc: 6% Resist (Fire/Cold), 10% Mez Resist1 Knockback/Accuracy/DamageU 47.7 (59.6) / 26.5 (33.1) / 26.5 (33.1) 4pc: 15% global accuracy bonus1 Knockback/AccuracyU 59.6 (74.5) / 33.1 (41.4) 5pc: 10% global recharge speed1 Knockback/Chance for Power UpU 95.5 (119.375) / 2.5 PPM 6pc: 4% global damage buff2 1 A common set bonus for Very Rares. 2 At least one other Very Rare doesn't give resistance for the sixth slot. Amenable to changing this to something else. U Designates a unique enhancement. Category Base Bonus +5 Boost Accuracy 59.62% 74.5% Damage 86.10%1 107.6%2 Endurance 26.50% 33.1% Recharge 33.1% 41.4% Knockback 369.7%2 462.1%2 3 1 This is the raw value. The real number is slightly reduced by the effects of enhancement diversification. (Green zone) 2 This is the raw value. The real number is heavily reduced by the effects of enhancement diversification. (Red zone) 3 For the curious: after ED this comes out to 210.3%. This is enough to turn a knockdown into Mag 2.1, or Nova into Mag 51.5. In comparison to Sudden Acceleration, Escape Velocity swaps some of the enhancement recharge for Damage, ensuring a full damage cap and allowing recharge to be entirely skipped if wanted. Endurance remains low, as is common in many Very Rare sets. Chance for Power Up works similarly to chance for Build-Up as in Decimation and Gaussian's except that it's Power-Up from Energy Assault -- a smaller damage boost, but a huge utility boost. The proc is given a Schedule D single (not split) enhancement in order to discourage its casual use in sets that prefer knockdown without also being used with Sudden Acceleration. Fusionette's Fury - Rare (Levels 30 to 50) Not all categories have a set named for an iconic character, but Knockback doesn't have one yet, so why not? Fusionette's Fury follows the same philosophy as above of making knockback sets more desirable by pairing them with beneficial other effects which you cannot escape. Fusionette's Fury is patterned after Force Feedback, allowing four regular enhancements to carry Knockback, in addition to the one on the proc effect, for reasons described under Escape Velocity. In fact, this set is the reason why the Very Rare set calculates Knockback on its Proc as a Single IO rather than a Dual IO -- at level 30, a Dual IO on Schedule D would not be enough to enhance Knockdown to Knockback. Chance for Disorient works as usual for Disorients, but with a higher trigger rate. If you need a lockdown effect you can just spam this set on your knockbacks and ensure that they never fail. Piece Enhancement Bonus (+5 Boost) Set Bonus Knockback/Damage 47.7 (59.6) / 26.5 (33.1) 1pc: N/A Knockback/Accuracy 47.7 (59.6) / 26.5 (33.1) 2pc: 1.35% endurance bonus Damage/Endurance 26.5 (33.1) / 26.5 (33.1) 3pc: 7.5% movement speed bonus Knockback/Accuracy/Damage 38.2 (47.7) / 21.2 (26.5) / 21.2 (26.5) 4pc: 2.5% global damage bonus Knockback/Endurance/Recharge 38.2 (47.7) / 21.2 (26.5) / 21.2 (26.5) 5pc: 6.25% global recharge speed Knockback/Chance for Disorient 76.4 (95.5) / 3.5 PPM 6pc: 9% movement speed bonus U Designates a unique enhancement. Category Base Bonus +5 Boost Accuracy 47.7% 59.6% Damage 74.31 92.9%2 Endurance 47.7% 59.6% Recharge 21.2% 26.5% Knockback 248.2%3 310.3%3 1 This is the raw value. The real number is slightly reduced by the effects of enhancement diversification. (Green zone) 2 This is the raw value. The real number is moderately reduced by the effects of enhancement diversification. (Yellow zone) 3 This is the raw value. The real number is heavily reduced by the effects of enhancement diversification. (Red zone) Compared to Sudden Acceleration, Fusionette's Fury has a bit more damage, getting close to the territory of a true damage set -- however, its set bonuses are markedly worse by most standards, having niche application outside of the good, but not exceptional, 5-piece bonus. Ballistic Dismissal - Uncommon (Levels 10 to 20) A set for when you really want people to get out of your face, Ballistic Dismissal pairs your knockback with a powerful repel. By coming online at level 10 as an uncommon, it's fairly accessible for ranged characters who need a panic button beginning at level 7. The proc is unique to prevent repel abuse. Piece Enhancement Bonus (+5 Boost) Set Bonus Knockback/Endurance 28.9 (36.1) / 16 (20) 1pc: N/A Knockback/Accuracy 28.9 (36.1) / 16 (20) 2pc: 3% movement speed bonus Knockback to Knockdown/RepelU Mag 8 Repel, ∞ PPM 3pc: 0.75% hit point bonus U Designates a unique enhancement. Again, went for something very different here. The unique turns unreliable knockback effects like Energy Torrent into reliable crowd pushers that can redirect part of the fight where you need it to go. 3. New Damage Sets that Enhance Knockback (?) New Enhancement Sets that include unique Knockback IOs. Why damage sets? Well, by targeting these specifically, we can exclude melee from getting benefits they really don't need. The question I'm not sure of is if these are still needed; these were part of my original proposal, but I feel the above two parts supersede these sets by addressing the situation in a more elegant way, and three sets is already a lot to add at once. Are any more sets still necessary? The relevant part from the original post is quoted below for posterity.

It may increase the cost of those trash ones a bit because suddenly they're competing with purples for frankenslotting (assuming the whole system works to +5) but it would lower the cost of the highly in demand ones; I need a few Proton Exposures (Cytoskeletons, but the character I need them for has a tech basis and the AH converts it for you) right now to do traditional SO boosting and the price competition is -fierce-. Price went up from the 20 millions when I started to the 40 millions now and I'm just glad the two on my main I snagged early, b/c damn.

Blizzard wasn't the first, no, but it was still a big point in their favor. Wolfenstein 3D vs. Doom, so to speak.

I mostly agree with prior responses, but there's a third element (my personal pet peeve, really) that needs to get brought up: The damn RNG slot machine design of some power sets. KB is a powerful toolbox when used well, but if your entire power set does it randomly, you either find some other way to mitigate the effect that greatly impacts your play choices and damage output, like KB to KD (which does nothing for you on a lot of hard mobs) or commit to a leap of faith that most of the time those RNG knocks won't be a problem. What's more, RNG knock is unhelpful even to the player using it solo. You can't knock someone again for most of their recovery animation; if you got a measly 1 mag KB on a 20% chance when you were queuing up your 15 mag monster next that animates too fast to cancel, well, sucks to be you. The problem isn't knockback. It's that it's uncontrolled. But the lack of control is partly baked into some powersets that could use a relook

Thanks justice, and (now) agreed, Shinobu. Now locking topic for posterity.

T B H I am surprised to find people who think vendoring the recipes is a good idea. I'm pretty lazy about making money but the return on investment for making all your yellows and oranges and converting them until something sells for a reasonable price (I aim for about 1.5 mil minimum; if it already sells for at least a million I don't bother converting) is usually pretty good. I would guess my average is about 500k to 1 mil profit per recipe, as opposed to... 1k or 5k for vendoring. Not everyone has the time or resources to sit around converting everything to something decent. And if I can only make 1k at the AH on a recipe vs 5-10k at the vendor, I'm choosing the vendor. EVERY. DANG. TIME. While I am surprised, I also understand and respect this. Not everyone is willing to put time and emotional labor forward at all times. I wanted to mention it in case anyone was unaware of the ROI. While I would love a buyback feature, I can't ask for one in good conscience because I think it's almost certainly going to be too complicated to add. I'll let people get any last responses they want in, then I will lock this thread and retract my suggestion.

T B H I am surprised to find people who think vendoring the recipes is a good idea. I'm pretty lazy about making money but the return on investment for making all your yellows and oranges and converting them until something sells for a reasonable price (I aim for about 1.5 mil minimum; if it already sells for at least a million I don't bother converting) is usually pretty good. I would guess my average is about 500k to 1 mil profit per recipe, as opposed to... 1k or 5k for vendoring.

Thanks for the suggestion! It is a good one, and in fact it's what I do most of the time, though sometimes i feel peculiar about it and vendor first. You can actually summon both the AH and Vault windows without going to their physical locations. /ah and a button on your salvage inventory, respectively.

Sentinel's Ward proc is at its best on a moderate speed recharge AoE, since it both boosts that AoE's recharge time reliably and the absorb stacks. This is unfortunate because Posi's is such a great set for low pricing and PBAOEs have such amazing procs while ST ranged attacks have pretty bad sets after Apocalypse. Opportunity Strikes... well, it exists?

That'd be my most preferred solution but I don't believe there's any code precedent for it so it might be prohibitively difficult to implement.

We have no buyback function so I always get low-key terrified when I hit a vendor. Maybe this will be the day my mouse has a stutter click at the wrong time...

They do not drop from content. Archetype Origin Inventions (generally referred to as 'ATOs') are purchaseable in their basic forms from Merit Vendors for 100 merits apiece; don't do this, it's basically the equivalent of paying 30,000,000 for each one. The cheapest way to get them initially is to purchase them on the Consignment House, where they run roughly 5 to 10 million apiece. You can also get them by getting lucky buying special salvage packs, and while these are generally cost-efficient in the long run (they can drop more than one!), they require more initial capital to get going; if you start with a low amount of money, you risk heavy losses after a bad pack (that drops zero). Any set that is purple/very rare/level 50-only works at all levels, no matter what level you exemp to.

Really? From what I recall the mobs in WoW all felt very samey. Now admittedly I only really played during WotLK where it was all skeletons all the time but even the old world zones seemed to have a relative small number of enemy types (murlocs, bandits and kobolds in various colors being the most common with a few varieties of animals). WoW has a high variety of enemy shapes and animations. Individual riggings I can recall: humanoids (about 12 different riggings and pose styles for about 40 races, ranging from elves to werewolves to undead, doubling for gender differences), boars, wolves, turtles, raptors (birds), raptors (dinosaurs), owls, big cats, crabs, wind serpents, snakes, honestly I will be here all day if I list animal riggings, Centaurs, Naga, Elementals, Golems, Mana Wyrms, Dragons, Drakes, Whelps, okay I give up. However, I would argue with the notion that the mobs necessarily -fight- very differently -- that is true in like, dungeons, where you have group content. Encounters tend to feel more samey at high level when you're solo -- there's nothing as complex as fighting the Carnival of Shadows, Arachnos, or Longbow solo in WoW, even though you get that complexity in group content all the time. So it depends on the content you're choosing to face. This is one reason why I got bored of WoW; I solo quite a lot and the fact that every single time I had to fight solo I was using the same four buttons in rapid succession made things fairly monotonous. At some point a few years back, they homogenized a lot of the classes to the extent where the weakest solo specs don't solo as bad as they used to, but the strongest don't solo nearly as well as they used to, and made a lot of the enemies for solo content fairly samey.