Trick Arrow for Masterminds has only limited way to light up oil slick

[biostem]

3 hours ago, GM Sijin said:

On the topic: Yes MM's choices for igniting oil slick is limited, but not necessarily more than other ATs. Demon summoning, thugs (the arsonist) and robots all have access to fire/energy damage types. That's no different than energy blast, fire blast, etc. having access to them as well, while other sets do not. I'm not sure that this topic should be limited to Masterminds as a result. Either way, I encourage continued discussion about the power and its somewhat stringent damage type requirements. I, personally, have mixed feelings. I like the idea of power synergies, but when it comes to Trick Arrow I think it just needs a whole lotta love. Or at least a little bit of tweaking.

Why not just allow *any* damage type to ignite the oil slick, or change entangling net arrow to electrified net arrow?  I certainly agree that TA needs a lot of love, but either of those solutions should be (relatively) quick and easy to implement...

[GM Sijin]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Why not just allow *any* damage type to ignite the oil slick, or change entangling net arrow to electrified net arrow?  I certainly agree that TA needs a lot of love, but either of those solutions should be (relatively) quick and easy to implement...

Thematic reasons are all I can attribute to it requiring the damage types. If you're asking me, personally? I wouldn't have a problem changing it. I'd do it as part of a general overhaul of the set though, not an individual change.

[Leogunner]

16 hours ago, plainguy said:

 

Regarding the IO comment. 

Its just a basic fact with certain sets either primary or secondary you are somewhat limited in your options if your trying to obtain some goal game mechanics wise. 

So when you pick for example Beast Mastery / Trick Arrow there are only so much you can do. Meaning you can't defense cap. You can't  go for super recharge rate. Basically the funnel of choices is smaller compared to for example Robot Traps. I can get perma hasten and defense cap with Robot Traps. 

 

So that does have some play in creating a build. You just can't ignore it. You can't say I am pick Primary A and Secondary B and Power Pools 1,2,3,4 and getting perma hasten and defense cap.

It just isn't gonna happen.  But I want it to happen, still doesn't mean its gonna happen.  

 

I don't want fire, I don't want energy..  I want darkness.  Why am I being Pigeon holed to picking up Fire or energy and drop another power I might want to ignite Oil Slick ?

 

At the end of the day I had to do what I had to do, to make it work.  I picked up energy because it had a shield. But in doing so I had to rework not one or two powers. 

I had to rework 5 powers and make sure the numbers worked out. 

And you're just restating what I already replied in more words.  Requoting: "Perfect IO builds sometimes have to sacrifice power choices and slots to attain their desired performance and concept builds often suffer from low performance or lack of tools to fulfill their character's concept."  I don't think it's necessary or healthy to drag out that arguing point every time you want to make a change.  It just drags out other arguments like do or not balancing around IOs or min/max vs concept builds.  And I don't personally expect the game to conform to every crazy concept I can think up just because I want it either.

 

I can list off many characters where I had to compromise to get the concept across.  I mean, we aren't even talking about how you can't color TA's FX which one would think is more important when creating concepts but no, it's something else mitigatable through something very simple and then exaggerating their story to give the complaint more weight.

 

And that strikes at the root of why I'm even replying in a lot of these threads: Posters exaggerate and I just come in with my perspective but apparently I'm crapping on their posts.  Then those posters get a bug in their ass and start arguing.  

 

16 hours ago, plainguy said:

Again I hear what your saying..

 

In a nutshell without all the sugarcoating and pleasantries, you are  telling me Pick a power that will make it ignite stop complaining. Or accept the bug and it might not ignite from the taser and you might loose the window to ignite it as well. 

I didn't say any of the sort.  At best, I'm saying you're not alone.  And I don't mean in how they can't light oilslick in specific cases, I'm talking about in making compromises in their builds and/or concepts to get the desired outcome.  You haven't even hashed out what the concept is (which would be important since that is the root of your problem here).  I have far more fun making suggestions to character concepts than to suggested mechanical changes because it's interesting to hear how players rationalize powers (and you can do much more as a player in that regard).

 

As for using the taser, I still haven't encountered this myself except for when the power just expires after missing enough times with the origin powers.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying it doesn't happen every time since I was able to miss it multiple times and still light it.  Again, that's not saying "accept the bug", it's saying "hmm, this is my experience with that bug".

 

16 hours ago, plainguy said:

Further if you went on test and just created a toon to test it out and it happen. Its a bug..  Its broken.. Period... 

If you want to down play it and just say oh its no big deal stop your complaining it might happen every once and a while, just deal with it.   That's fine.  I can't stop you. 

But  I am still going to say its broken and needs to be fixed.  But again I'm back to my its free so stop complaining. 

 

End result its here.. Fix it if you want. Change it if you want.  

I did my work around and when you fix it or change it I will look to see if I want to respec back into the fix.  

And I'll just reiterate that I'm not telling you to accept it and stop complaining.  I'm telling you my experience with it on a controller and defender is different from yours on a mastermind.  At best, that might mean it's a different bug for the MM version.  

 

As for being free to complain, I also hold the freedom to criticize and hold my own opinions.  So just keep that in mind.

[Leogunner]

16 hours ago, GM Sijin said:

Either way, I encourage continued discussion about the power and its somewhat stringent damage type requirements. I, personally, have mixed feelings. I like the idea of power synergies, but when it comes to Trick Arrow I think it just needs a whole lotta love. Or at least a little bit of tweaking.

I also like the idea of power synergies as it tends to lean toward the concept of a real hero using gadgets and planning to fulfill a certain outcome.  This is emulated by the player and the powers they bring along.  I think there should be more synergies that could grant the set some of the power it needs to catch up to other sets (not all...I think the set could still seem some standard number tweeks as well) and they all don't have to be targeted at specific damage types.