kenlon

If those changes went in, Hasten would become even more ubiquitous than it is now. +65% permanent +recharge and +defense and a place to slot another LotG without taking a pure mule power? I mean, I'd take it as better than nerfing hasten, since it doesn't upset the balance assumptions the game is built on much, but damn, that's powercreep in a can.

Like I said, balancing the actual enhancements would be simple. But having a damage proc in a toggle power removes the interactivity, which was the whole thing I was talking about. I like being able to get an extra effect out of my AoE, knowing that I'll get the absorb shield 90% of the time when I hit it after jumping into a pack of bad guys.

If they remove it, or nerf it, then it's going to impact every build that uses Hasten. Every single AT and powerset combo, and they would all have to be considered to ensure that the Law of Unintended Consequences doesn't hit some more than others. It's just not worth it to consider.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, merely expanding on what you posted to address the inevitable "I don't use Hasten and I'm fine, therefore Hasten doesn't do anything!" replies. I'll reiterate this until doomsday: Hasten, and things like it, are bad design. But it's not worth changing something that is as baked into the fundamental balance assumptions of CoX as Hasten is.

. . . for those who were using Hasten. The game is nowhere near hard enough to require Hasten, but it's undeniable that it makes a large difference in player power. When I respecced from my Inv/EM gimmick build that skipped the fighting pool (and thus didn't have slots for Hasten) to a more normal, permahasten build, there was an immediate jump in power, mostly driven by my much higher damage output. This was despite the fact that the attack powers were the same in both builds, and enhanced to similar percentages. Could I tank the exact same things on both builds? Yeah. Could I solo the exact same things? No. Because the non-hasten build didn't have the damage output to take down some targets that the Hasten build does with ease.

That doesn't actually address what I was asking - I wanted to know if you had any ideas for how to make a purely primary ATO into something that would feel active for a tanker. The mechanics of how to make a Primary IO set that would be relatively balanced appears straightforward. But losing the interactivity would suck. I suppose it could be possible to implement some sort of global proc that would be added to all attacks, but that would be a nightmare to code, with my understanding of the way CoX works internally.

Would you agree or disagree with me that, in a clean slate game, not CoX as it stands, a power like Hasten is badly designed?

Why does this forum not have a plain text mode for the editor? I can't, for example, copy and paste around quotes inside my replies because it's rich text only, and that's a colossal pain sometimes.

So a build that can defeat an enemy in 30 seconds isn't more powerful than one that can defeat an enemy in 90? This forum needs that psyduck emote, badly. Hasten is a massive force multiplier, surely you can see this?

You're being disingenuous here. That's like saying "increasing the recharge time on all powers by 42% would have zero impact" (if my back of the envelope math on what hasten does to recharge timers is correct). Of course it would have an impact. Would it make the game unplayable? No. Would it upset a lot of people who've been used to how things work with Hasten around? Yes. Would it mess up the balance of powersets that were created with the existence of Hasten in mind? Yes. Is it worth doing? Hell no But claiming it would do nothing is ridiculous.

You aren't reading my posts either, apparently. Seriously. If someone was designing this game right now and came up to me with the idea for Hasten, I would tell them it was terrible. Because it is. But we are not dealing with a new, blank-slate game, but with the game as it stands. Therefore, let me restate what I have put in one form or another in every post I've made in this thread, and do it loudly enough that it might get read: HASTEN SHOULD NOT BE NERFED OR REMOVED AS IT IS BAKED INTO THE BALANCE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE GAME. THIS DOES NOT PREVENT IT FROM BEING A BAD PIECE OF GAME DESIGN AND SHOULD BE CALLED OUT AS SUCH. I am, literally, on your side as to whether Hasten should be changed. *facepalm*

To be clear, I was saying that not having a proc in a Tanker ATO set when all other ATs get them would be ass, not that there was anything wrong with you for suggesting it. The proc gives you access to something you wouldn't have otherwise (either +res or +absorb) on a click power, with you having control over when it kicks in, depending on where you slot it. Having a purely passive ATO proc (or global bonus) sitting in an armor power would just remove one of the ways that the player has to actively manage their character. Putting in a Performance Shifter +end, or the Panacea/Numina's regen procs might have a big impact on a character's capabilities, but it doesn't add anything engaging to the moment by moment gameplay. If you can think of a way to get that with an ATO set sitting in a def/res power, then I'm all ears.

You will note I said "the equivalent of", yes? Hasten gets you more activations of a power in a single time period than you would get otherwise, at the cost of a single power pool pick. Recharge set bonuses making it straightforward to get permahasten only exacerbates the problem, from a design perspective. . . . you aren't even reading my posts, are you? Powers in CoH are balanced around three things: The effect/damage of the power, the end cost of the power, and the recharge time of the power. If one of these is too high or too low, you get an unbalanced power/powerset. (This is the issue with TW - it breaks the formulae that other melee powersets use, and is unsurprisingly, thus the hands-down top performer.) Hasten lets you grab the recharge time of all your powers, regardless of AT/powersets, and yank it down significantly. The fact that we can or can't steamroll content is utterly irrelevant. A build that does not include Hasten is objectively less powerful than one that does, all other things being equal. But, again, I don't think Hasten should be nerfed, because it's been a fundamental assumption of how the game was balanced and run for too long to be changed. But just because that is the case doesn't mean we should try to claim that it's not bad design.

Unless you make pool powers better than Primary/Secondary power choices, you're still going to see Hasten taken more often than the other pool powers, outside of travel. In which case you'll see Hasten taken alongside those pool picks! I firmly agree that other pool powers should be improved, but Hasten is really just that good. And there's nothing we can do about it at this point, without messing up game balance to a degree that isn't worth it. Hasten is taken because it provides the equivalent of breaking the action economy in other games. Changing other pool powers won't affect that.

I would have to disagree, and pretty vehemently. Having the ATOs in your attacks means you have control over when the procs go off - Tanker primaries do not all include powers that you hit on a regular basis. Unless you'd want Tankers to not have a proc in one of the ATO sets, which would be kinda asstastic. (Not to mention that Tankers don't need more defensive oomph - once you can live through everything, it doesn't matter how much more gets stacked on top, while damage output is always additive, so having more useful attack sets is good.)

Hasten is that great, though. It's a bad power from a design perspective, because it gives you something you can't get elsewhere (making everything you have recharge faster) and it's not something that is built into (and thus balanced against) individual sets, but it a universal thing. Of course it's going to be taken very heavily. Even with the dilution of it's uniqueness via IO set bonuses also providing recharge, it's still going to always be a better single power pick than anything else from pools can possibly be. I don't think it should be nerfed, since it's been part of the game so long that removing it would require monumental rebalancing to make players not hate it, but there's no way to defend Hasten as being good design.

This is the core of the problem with how non-perma Domination works as opposed to perma. If you have 123% recharge, you build your bar once and stay there forever. If you have 122% you have to rebuild the bar every time, despite having almost the same investment in global recharge as the perma build. This is not complicated, and the fact that people are defending the discontinuity as being somehow good baffles me. Doesn't address the actual problem, though. Unless building the meter gave you enough to hit perma, in which case it's pointless.

A man comes upon another man who is repeatedly hitting his thumb with a hammer. When asked why he’s beating his thumb to a pulp, the man with the hammer replies, “Because it feels so good when I stop!”

Hah. Copyright will continue to be extended every time Steamboat Willie comes close to being in the public domain until such time as Disney is prevented from buying congresspeople to keep their IP in copyright. "Intended" means two things, jack and shit.

I don't like Wormhole on my Grav/Psi Dom and will be respeccing out of it soon, but even so, I think this should be fixed. Add another yes vote to the pile.

As someone who mains an Inv tanker, it's not that we think it's redundant, it's just that anything that gets us more Psi def/res is welcome. Because nothing else can kill me.

I don't even know why you're discussing TW AoE like that's the important part of the set when it outdamages every other melee set in ST damage, and then adds in the AoE on top of it. TW badly needs a rebalance, and to be made less terrible to play at the same time. Speed up some animations, bring the damage/endurance use back in line with the standard formulas, etc. Not to nerf it into uselessness, but to make it not hands-down superior to every other option.

That is absolutely true. Which is why you will note, if you read my post, I didn't do that - he said that the issue at hand in this topic was that being able to perma Domination at all was bad, which no one in the thread before him was saying., so I restated what we had been talking about up until that point. *shrug* His idea is the original idea that Replacement posted in the OP of this thread, only with a bit heavier application of the nerf bat, in that the Dominator would not be able to start rebuilding the bar before Domination had worn off. This would absolutely address the issue I had, though I don't think going that far is required. Not to mention that the amount of pushback that current permadom players would unleash in response would be most festive indeed.

Dear sir: You may want to have a look over these beta patch notes, as well as the ones from 4/4.

Having a downtime on Domination isn't the issue. The issue is that if you have 123% global recharge you have no downtime at all. If you have 122% global recharge, you don't have "almost perma" Domination, like you would with other powers (Short a few percent on Dull Pain/Hasten/Practiced Brawler, etc? You'll eat a few seconds of downtime, then the power is back up.) Instead, you have to then build the domination bar back up from scratch, delaying you significantly longer. That discontinuity is the problem with the implementation of Domination. It behaves unlike all other long duration click buffs in the game.