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kikyoku

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Everything posted by kikyoku

  1. Ok I can't leave a thread slandering my favorite controller build. I have an elec/dark troller, and it is an absolutely wild time. Yes, as everyone says the dps is bad. Like, awful. But if you are worried about dps why are you playing a controller? My average fight on a team goes like this: drop static field, which immediately sleeps and starts draining all the mobs, jump in with conductive aura active and finish draining. Drop Tar patch to make all mobs squishy, and by now you team/pets are moving in and attacking. Spam Chain fences/tesla cage as needed to keep things grouped/subdued. Variety of buffs/heals from dark affinity keep myself and the team virtually indestructible, and alpha is completely shut off by the sleep. Of course I slot the crap out of end mod. Late game has some other things to supplement damage, like fold space and judgment (of course I picked ion with the end drain). People have mentioned that end drain is limited effectiveness, but few things resist it, and even if it doesn't shut them down completely, it does functionality behave like a massive -rech by reducing the attack rate of everything you fight. It's also incredible against anything that habitually uses end drain (you've never felt satisfaction until a mob of 20 freaks is standing around with 0 end and unable to attack). To sum up, yeah it has low damage and doesn't do great solo (survivability is A+ though, never had a tanktroller before), but it is amazing as support/damage mitigation, and makes every team breeze through. Also end drain is hilarious when you do it well. Also I love my electro monkeys.
  2. On the second one here, the object is correctly aligned with the roof, but the shadow is off. Idk if that's the same issue or not but I included it.
  3. Ok apparently these are things to report, I had been seeing misaligned HVAC equipment since live, I didn't think anything of it. I swear there were more, but I combed Faultline, Perez, and KR and I could only find a few. So either you guys have been fixing them or it's a rendering error. For reference I am on Everlasting, Plain Ultra mode graphics, 4x AA, 2560x1440, NVidia 4070ti, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 64 GB. Idk if it matters but I need to brag sometimes.
  4. Yeah I hadn't realized the opposition to prestige was so aggressive, I am at best vaguely in favor of enabling it so it seems like a one sided argument. I agree that new mechanics or changes to SG implementation would better serve the purposes of prestige, if people are so offended by its existence, that alone is reason enough to leave it gone. My only counter argument was that I think people are over reacting to the idea.
  5. I completely agree with the currency issue, but I also wish we had something to make SGs valuable mechanically. Prestige may not be the best option for that, but it is a very low effort one. Having many currencies is frustrating, but I think we're also facing an issue of devaluing them, since even the rarest things are not hard to come by, making everything more a question of time investment than effort. Prestige at least has social value, which inf does not, for better or worse. Prestige is a public measure of group involvement, like vet levels are for single characters (displayed publicly on info screen). I literally have an SG just for my alts with a fully functional base. I know that's me being antisocial, but if you have a code you can visit anybody anyway, they're basically just elaborate transit hubs. I think there should be a mechanical reason to join a group because the game is more fun in a group, but right now they are little more than chat channels. Prestige would at least give the group something to strive towards together, even if it's just arbitrary. Maybe especially then, since it would be easy to ignore.
  6. Personally, if a SG advertised some kind of quota for prestige I would just not join. I've played lots of STO and that sort of thing is rampant there and I hate it, but that's because the game is built around encouraging that behavior, in a way that CoX doesn't anymore, though was headed towards on live. My suggestion above wasn't that it could be a new activity that didn't exist, but that it's a new tool for doing something already done. I think just turning it on without any function would be a neutral action, without any real consequences. People who want to could collect and compete, people who don't won't. It is fundamentally a tool that can be used for good or ill, but I think the potential to help foster community is worth it, since without real money in the mix, there is very little risk associated.
  7. You could use prestige as an SG fund? Like half your inf goes to the group, and leaders can hand out rewards from it. No more money is being added to the game, but rich players can donate to support new players without effort. Either way, no reason to not turn it on. Weren't there badges for that anyway? I know some people would murder for more badge opportunities.
  8. OK but, how about a new category of IOs that can only be used on support abilities? Like specifically tag powers that don't buff the user. That would basically lock out tanks/dps builds from using them. I too have had issues on supports of difficult survivability, which is an inherent function of the class, I get it, but supports are already being marginalized in incarnate content, making them more mez resistant or damage resistant would help them get by. Forcing them to take pool powers and specific sets to survive splash damage dilutes their strengths considerably. They definitely don't need sets that just hands out free defense, but some anti - mez procs or bonuses to support functions instead of regen/recovery (which support ATs tend to have less issues with) would be nice.
  9. Real. The fact that it's only that popular on defenders means people pick it to be a 'healer', not because it's the most fun or interesting. I would love to see data on how many created vs level 50 there are, and total play time. Anecdotally, I definitely see emps around, but they are far from the overwhelming majority implied by that chart.
  10. I was thinking about this yesterday. Empathy has a much lower skill floor than other sets (in general). Healing is effectively a safety net, you can undo damage dealt when other defensive mechanisms fail. But that means that there is no backup after it if you don't handle it correctly. If you look at, say, thermal, you have +resist on top to reduce damage taken, then defensive debuffs and offensive buffs to speed the encounter up, and then if all else fails, you can heal to make up for weaknesses or mistakes. Empathy has no real backup plan, and requires the user to utilize the set consistently in order to really work. There's value to a set like that, because it provides a challenge to the player. I don't have the numbers for this, but there are two potential flaws of that plan. The player may give up before improving enough to feel competent, feeling like empathy is weak compared to other sets that they are competent with at the start. The skill ceiling may be low (again, I have no idea how to measure this), causing experienced players to be frustrated that they aren't reaping the benefits of their practice. I suspect both of these factors are in play in this discussion, which is why some people are saying it's more powerful than you think, and others saying it is weak in general.
  11. I agree with your sentiment here Leo. My issue with Fort/CM/AB is that only some players will benefit from them at a time. This is annoying in any support set, but empathy has three of them. The absorb idea is good because it allows you to protect someone when not actively healing them, though fortitude more or less accomplishes the same goal. Rather than bumping up the numbers in general, I think slowing down the effects is the better goal. Absorb Shields or repeating heals allow you to preempt damage instead of just reacting to it. If your team is working perfectly, only 1-2 people should be taking damage, and during that time empathy is kind of just sitting around. But if you know your blaster is about to get slapped, or an ambush is coming and your tank needs help with the alpha, absorb gives you the ability to heal them before they get hit, which not only improves their chances of surviving on its own, but gives you and the rest of the team time to react before people start dying. So replacing, say, absorb pain with something that grants a crispy single target absorb shield for an equivalent amount of hp doesn't actually change your potential healing output, but does help you keep things under control. I also think the same thing about healing aura, splitting it into two heal bursts for the same total hp prevents heal overflow and gives you a healing presence between casts, which also reduces the need for recharge.
  12. This is kind of an issue with homecoming and the p2w stuff encouraging end-game play. Most of the sets aren't balanced around this but don't come up in debate like empathy, which is evidence enough for me that it needs revision. In a healthy growing community there should be a constant stream of leveling characters. New players don't have the resources or experience to PL to 50 and do Incarnates. I kind of disagree, I don't want to change empathy's theme, just give it a face-lift. A lot of the functions of emp are redundant with each other, just bumping up recharge will make the set balance better in high level play, but doesn't really do anything to diversify playstyle. Once you have both RAs, you are just going to fire them both off, and then wait until they recharge, so why have them be separate? CM is easy to much of a hassle to manage. It has some value in early game that I don't want to understate, but it's pretty easy to drop later. I think absorb pain is terrible and basically a free slot to pick something else. Emp does have some really good things in it when you look at individual powers, but as a set it is very lackluster. It can do many things, but they don't really support each other.
  13. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but discussing empathy's ability to solo is kind of missing the point of the set. I get that that's a thing and survivability is important for support, but I wouldn't base decisions on a solo player. There are other ways to protect yourself, healing aura and RA are fine in that regard. Now if improvements to powers are designed to diversify the play style, like letting an emp hang out in melee next to the tank, that's another story.
  14. I kind of love this as an IO solution. Give healing abilities more utility at high level endgame without having to redo everything from the ground up. I maintain that empathy needs more pizazz at lower levels though. Empathy is great at healing but certainly isn't the only set for that. The fact is that Thermal heals are nearly as well and also provides res buffs and debuffs makes the benefits to empathy seem boring. Kin and rad both have some healing, but also do team wide buffs constantly. Empathy needs something unique that makes it pop, even on a team with all supports.
  15. There seems to be a weird idea in the IO discussion regarding specced out blasters. If someone is running around at end game with soft cap defense from IO and incarnate powers, any support is going to be diminished. What makes empathy stand out is that it focuses on restoring damage taken rather than preventing it. The reason this is underpowered at that level is because you can't normally heal above max hp, but you can always get higher defense and most aren't capped on resistance. I think regen/max hp boosts/absorb are all criminally under utilized and represent an opportunity for empathy. Because of hard caps, you WILL get hit, and you WILL take damage. If you get them high enough, incarnate heals and regen will make up the difference, but if you can do that without external support then every support set is useless.
  16. Wild question, if you are grav/dark, can things in your dimension shift affect things in your black hole? If they overlap do they cancel each other out? I would totally be a physicist in super hero world.
  17. I tend to be high mobility in combat so the added speed /control is totally worth it. It lets you in and out of combat much faster, and you can stay with the head of your group and go through mobs to assist someone who went ahead pretty effectively. And yes, lotg mule is good. Also more or less makes older mids builds continue to function.
  18. On the team interface you can see the buffs/debuffs applied to a person. At high levels, this becomes unwieldy and cluttered. Hiding auto powers helps, but lots of high level players have tons of toggles. I need to be able to see it as support so I can tell when my buffs wear off, but it's too messy and I have to search through a series of icons that take up half the screen. It would be nice to be able to hide all buffs that weren't applied by me, so I could quickly tell who needs refreshing, or who I put fort on last time because I can only have two and I can't remember names for more than 4 seconds. There might be situations where I need to see other people's buffs but in general the one filter would be enough. Alternatively, hiding all self applied buffs would be good.
  19. Love how wordy this thread is but I did skim. Sorry if anything is repeated. The original complaint is that healing and regen are ineffective at end game, and emp is too reactive. I would argue that that makes it more fun but OK. As OP said, we have more mechanics now than issue 0, so let's use them. Heals need to last longer. Absorb is a good suggestion, and AP sucks so I'm all for that. Needs to be big though. +MaxHp, put it on fortitude and /or ab. Who needs defense? Give heal other and healing aura booster heals. After a second or two, they get another heal effect, to catch any spill aggro, and keep them happy until next cast. Make CM affect the whole team. Hear me out: cut the duration to like 5 seconds, but it casts like bubbles. You can slam it on your whole team in a pinch to get them out of trouble, but it doesn't last and you have to keep at it to maintain it. Resurrect should be a better rez. Right now all it does is bring them to full health. Boring, it should go higher. Max HP boost, regen /recovery boosts, And a backup rez if they die again in under a minute. Maybe multi target? Those things are so in right now. Ooh, how about a healing aura goes off around the rez target, and they buff nearby allies. Like a heal pet that thinks it's people. You could even get the same effect from a living target, so you aren't secretly hoping someone dies so you can use it. RA is lovely, but make it an actual aura maybe? A toggle that boosts regen or recovery to everyone in it, based on how many people are in it. Just you solo? Barely worth. Whole team is melee? Amazing buffs. I'm on the fence on this, RA is crazy powerful as is. Range boost would be cool though.
  20. If a tornado passes by while you are in your basement, unaware, you had a boring night. If you are on the deck in a mild thunderstorm you had an exciting night. People prefer defense buffs because it makes them feel safe. Use FF and your team will clear a difficult fight and never know the danger. Use empathy and they will think they are on the verge of defeat. Empathy is the best support because it allows you to taste the challenge even in endgame. Just because you were at half HP more often does not mean you were any less safe, you just noticed it before you were pulled back to your comfort zone. People think empathy is bad because they get mad when their billion inf build goes to red hp, and then say the game is too easy when it doesn't. Your team says "good heals" because they get glowing green notifications every time you save them. They feel like gods because ra turned on and they tasted immortality for a moment. With thermal or pain they just sit in their bubbles never knowing the glory of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
  21. If you want pure Support, controller is better (skip the pets). That said: Thermal has a good balance of passive and active abilities, and can contribute in basically every situation. People complain about emp because they want you to spend more time attacking. Since you aren't attacking anyway, it's actually one of the best sets if you are focused on it 100%. You can keep the whole team on CM, and ~2 people on fortitude, which everyone loves. If you react fast enough, healing is more productive that def and res boosts since there are no holes in it. Kin is super active, and your whole team will be too tweaked out to complain about you not attacking. Plus, the damage boosts will more than make up for your lack of contribution to dps. It offers some res, but is pretty lacking defensively. You'll definitely want the medicine tree, especially the rez. Dark give you a wide variety of buffs/debuffs/healing, and even a pet that helps do support stuff. You'll want to focus recharge And accuracy in sets though. Elec is also a fun one, does almost everything, and requires constant input to buff itself up. Skip Sonic and FF, you will basically be afk. They are both soft control, so go controller if you want that.
  22. Force field does one thing well and that's defense. You can basically softcap the whole team. The rest is kb and repel which are soft control. If you want to do that it's fine, but you might as well just play a controller. (there is something to be said for slotting kb to kd and bowling the enemy spawns). Force bubble is extremely frustrating as it splits the mobs up in most cases, though in the right team comp you can use it to protect the squishies or herd. Other than that, FF is fairly passive. Take it if you want to focus on your secondary. That makes it more useful for other ATs, MMs in particular can just bubble up their pets and focus on that.
  23. I agree with the general sentiment that it confused people most of the time. I think it would be better if the things on the other side of the shift were untargetable and the boundary was more visibly defined. I tend to use it in two rare scenarios : I am stealthing and there is a glowie near a mob, I can use it to buy time. There are two mobs near each other, and I know my team is about to aggro the second one and get overwhelmed. The second one is tricky, because if you time it wrong, your tank is going to jump in to absorb alpha and get cut off from support.
  24. I love playing support (controllers /defenders) but I get bored of them often because they depend on teams so much. Both of my favorites here and on live were stalkers, katana/nin on live and psy/dark on Everlasting. The feeling of independence is amazing, I can stealth to the important parts, and take my time setting up the fight. Or I can go nuts and bulldoze through the mission. The methodical, single target fighting is like a rhythm game, and stalkers always surprise me with how durable they are. Plus, every good stalker is Too Cool For School. They have cool edgy names like Crisis Limit or mysterious ones like Day Dream. My inner edgelord teenager is alive and well.
  25. Wow right on the page huh thanks
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