Are Player Defenses too high

[ExeErdna]

From my time playing sometimes it DOES feel like you're a bit too strong. Like some +4/8 mobs are a complete joke compared to how they were when you was much weaker. Like Ruin Mages and Luminous Eidolons early game are the worse thing to run into. Late game people have issue with Malta and Carnies when personally the best mobs to fight late game are Longbow, Family and Vanguard since they can mess up a good team depending on the spawns and aggro management. Some mobs just don't have a fear factor like Longbow shreds your res and def. Get two Rad Warden spawns and nobody pays attention a squad might get wiped. To be real builds are supposed to be "broken" then teams that bounce off each other are unstoppable. Incarnate stuff DOES factor in it depends on what people have and if they use it. With my Spider Solder as a Huntsman I can deal with +3/8 solo with all the summons and the support hybrid and then use the rebirth destiny to fill the hole that I can't heal. I can handle +4 yet I'll rather have a faster TTK. The problem is like with most things once you get some cash, hamis, merits and tons of spare IO's, you're no long afraid. Until you get comfortable it's gonna be pretty bad and for some once they get comfortable they might get bored.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Badges are more a "do it once and get it over with" thing.  

 

I'm not sure what Rewards you would mean TBH.  Stuff you can't already get? There is no nodrop in this game.  And XP falls like water. 

 

By unpopular I was referring to the idea of making the main game harder, all the time.   Which if you ran the game without taking the player's opinions into consideration is what you would do.  The health of the actual game mechanics are poor.  Too many people spend too much time at the extremes for chance to hit, Defense, Resistance, DPS and so on.  

 

Basically I can run through entire Task Forces where I have a 95% chance to hit everything.  My ST DPS is 450+ probably.  Softcapped and Possessing Status Protection against everything I face.  I never need to stop to rest for Blue OR Green.   Before any Support at all.  Then throw in Everyone's leadership spam.  And my builds are hardly anything special.  A lot of people have better ones they post on here.      

 

 

Well, i dont see what it would hurt to run an elite mode option, if its easy to implement, where would the harm be, it would satisfy the extreme fringes of "we need harder content" and not anger the "lets leave things alone"

 

It would also make badgers happy, especially hardcore badgers that want hard to get badges that doesnt really exist anymore.

 

Did i forget to mention this would be an option?

 

It would literally make everyone happy, unless you are unpleasable.

[Naraka]

43 minutes ago, ExeErdna said:

From my time playing sometimes it DOES feel like you're a bit too strong. Like some +4/8 mobs are a complete joke compared to how they were when you was much weaker. Like Ruin Mages and Luminous Eidolons early game are the worse thing to run into. Late game people have issue with Malta and Carnies when personally the best mobs to fight late game are Longbow, Family and Vanguard since they can mess up a good team depending on the spawns and aggro management. Some mobs just don't have a fear factor like Longbow shreds your res and def. Get two Rad Warden spawns and nobody pays attention a squad might get wiped. To be real builds are supposed to be "broken" then teams that bounce off each other are unstoppable. 

Arachnos are no slouches either.  Incidentally, those groups (Arachnos, Longbow and Family) are quite common groups to face from start to finish on villain side...almost too common. 

[Haijinx]

7 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Well, i dont see what it would hurt to run an elite mode option, if its easy to implement, where would the harm be, it would satisfy the extreme fringes of "we need harder content" and not anger the "lets leave things alone"

 

Did i forget to mention this would be an option?

 

It would literally make everyone happy, unless you are unpleasable.

It won't really. 

 

If its an option 99% of the time no one will chose it.  Wasting resources on something that won't get used is pointless. 

 

No, it really won't.  

 

 

 

 

[Infinitum]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

It won't really. 

 

If its an option 99% of the time no one will chose it.  Wasting resources on something that won't get used is pointless. 

 

No, it really won't.  

 

 

 

 

But you are assuming that, you are basing your opinion on an assumption.

 

People might try it, love it and more people end up playing that than normal content.

 

There is no way to know unless its tried though.

 

All the complaining about things being too easy, then shooting down every productive solution to increase difficulty without mass decimation, is getting a bit old though.

[Infinitum]

16 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Arachnos are no slouches either.  Incidentally, those groups (Arachnos, Longbow and Family) are quite common groups to face from start to finish on villain side...almost too common. 

High level Family is the worst IMO  take forever to kill and can slip up on the best tank build if you get lazy.

[Haijinx]

5 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

All the complaining about things being too easy, then shooting down every productive solution to increase difficulty without mass decimation, is getting a bit old though.

A poor solution is worse than no solution. 

 

With a poor solution people will just expand on the current "But Task Force Challenge settings ..." Argument to include the poor solution.  And be even more likely to dismiss the concerns out of hand.   

 

[Infinitum]

9 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

A poor solution is worse than no solution. 

 

With a poor solution people will just expand on the current "But Task Force Challenge settings ..." Argument to include the poor solution.  And be even more likely to dismiss the concerns out of hand.   

 

That's entirely your opinion, you are entitled to it but I'm going to agree to disagree with ya on that one.

[ExeErdna]

4 hours ago, Naraka said:

Arachnos are no slouches either.  Incidentally, those groups (Arachnos, Longbow and Family) are quite common groups to face from start to finish on villain side...almost too common. 

True yet for me they kinda end up like Carnies I just Arachnos has BIG spawns with some of the most wild ass spawns it's why I like them and Longbow so much +8 anything is dangerous due to the sheer number and LB's have a habit of ambush triggers.

[ExeErdna]

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

High level Family is the worst IMO  take forever to kill and can slip up on the best tank build if you get lazy.

All the Grav/Kin Primas then the Heavys hitting you with -regen. Love that mob type it keeps you on your toes that you just can't run head long. You have to respect them

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

More importantly, bonuses that come from having a lot of enemies around at once can make the game harder without making it significantly harder for people playing at x1.

 

Right.  The smaller the team, the fewer lieutenants spawned (default behavior of the engine), so the people soloing the affected content at x1 would experience little or no difference from unaffected content.  Push it until, say, 3 buffing/debuffing lieutenants crop up in every spawn, and it becomes a different experience.  Max the scalar and you're looking at spawns with the potential to negate your soft-capped Defense, bottom out your Regen, reduce your damage output significantly (through a combination of +Defense spawn buffs and -ToHit, -Recharge and -Damage on you), etc.

 

Critters have always been comparatively restricted in what they could do.  Technically, they have access to every powerset, pool and *PP that we do, but they were deliberately under-utilized.  The original developers tried, a few times, to broaden critter challenge by giving them notable buffing/debuffing abilities, but they always approached it from the perspective of one buffer/debuffer with large buffs/debuffs.  Those attempts proved to be wildly unpopular or ultimately fruitless.  And they were trying to make different enemy groups feel unique by not replicating abilities between them (fearing a sense of homogeny between groups), so they limited interaction to the now standard "lock down or defeat this one critter (or one type) and you're on Easy Street" approach.  The Paragon team just didn't have the resources to revisit the critter design philosophy when the game was handed off to them, so they stayed with the "one 'dangerous' critter" approach.

 

Obviously, a handful of volunteer developers aren't going to have the resources to do this either, but imagine trying to solo a spawn at +4/x8 with several Radiation Emission lieutenants, rather than a spawn with the primary "threat" being one or two summoned Force Field Generators which you can and always do target and obliterate immediately, or one or two Sappers which are easily locked down and ignored while you AoE the entire spawn to ash.

 

AoE status effects would be the most effective approach to the new spawn paradigm, so to even the playing field, I'd go so far as to suggest giving critters status effect resistance.  That way, status effects would still be capable of tipping the balance in the players' favor, but not the all but guaranteed pwnage they currently are, nor relegated to useless (as they would be if critters had status effect protection).

[Sovera]

9 hours ago, Infinitum said:

it wouldnt be hard to add new sets that gave more diverse bonuses like damage and other features currently not as available. 

 

They just added new sets after all, it shouldnt be hard to give more options that would generate more of a reason to not build for defense or recharge rather than negating what we currently have - add to it to entice builds away from it.

Artillary has completely replaced all targetted AoE purples in all my builds. I lose half the recharge and accuracy but still get half the value, plus resistances to both important elements.

 

 

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Tailored buffs and debuffs for lieutenants, pseudo-pet powers without targeting mechanics, and there are plenty of unused powerset combinations to experiment with.  A bit of tweaking to some powers, too, so we could have some critters using things like Radiation Infection as a PBAoE instead of targeted AoE.  That would shake things up.

Nemesis are the reverse of this. Being the ones who trigger Vengeance I try to kill them last, and if solo I try to whittle their HP down before starting to kill them. I suppose it is part of that thing about us using a bit of care while playing instead of exploding in AoEs.

 

7 hours ago, Haijinx said:

 

Judging by how the options are used now.  Almost no one would chose them.  Therefore it would be a pointless waste of resources.  It would have to be mandatory to actually increase the game difficulty in any meaningful way.   Since this is so unpopular its basically Moot. 

I could get behind an elite mode rewarding twice the XP and merits. Bragging rights, sure, but also more interesting than just wadding through soft bodies. I've mentioned the killer AE missions called 801. There is not much repeatable content due to being just three missions, but even so I see them regularly advertised and their difficulty bragged about.

[Herotu]

In a game where an entire class is dedicated to utterly preventing enemies from doing anything harmful (we love you, controllers, but ye ... OPAF and then some), you're going to have this problem. If controllers did damage, they'd be unstoppable! Hello Dominators.

 

I wonder what it'd be like without all the CC? I think I'd look at CC then decide whether defenses are too high.

 

So for me the question is ... are Dominators OP or not? If not, then there's no problem.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Herotu

[Coyote]

13 hours ago, Infinitum said:

You didn't answer my question, if you can achieve your objection by not nerfing set bonuses such as defense, would you?

 

Or is that the only avenue for you?

Oh, wait, you were serious? I thought you were just taking a dig.

 

I have absolutely no special interest in nerfing, or in nerfing defenses specifically. I'm not trying to weaken defenses to drum up use for defense-buffing sets.

No, I want to nerf defense set bonuses because they are an outlying modifier that is far stronger than the other modifiers from IO sets, and the smoothest way to balance bonuses is to raise the weak ones while lowering the strong ones. If it happened that the design would have had Defense set bonuses as too low while Damage would be too high, I would argue the opposite.

 

And, in fact, I wouldn't be against raising the Defense values of Pool Powers by a bit, because we see that the +Damage from Assault is far higher than the +Defense from Maneuvers. It wouldn't be by as much as lowering the set bonuses on tuned builds that built for max D, but probably over the entire server including those players who don't use IO sets, you would probably end up seeing a slight overall increase in Defense. So... I'm not against Defense in general. It's the set bonuses that to my eyes look out of whack compared to how Defense values are treated in other powers.

[Coyote]

13 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

And has been pointed out multiple times in the thread is not needed to get what you want. Many folks have given many alternate, better suggestions.

 

No, they have not.

Other suggestions have been given for raising difficulty against tuned characters.

But that's not what I want. What I want is a better balance for set bonuses, so that building for Recharge and/or Defense is not so clearly better than building for +Special or +Damage.

Those who are offering other suggestions are doing fine, for what THEY are trying to solve, which is difficulty. I'm trying to solve a balance problem in IO sets, and that's not going to be solved by introducing more interesting mobs to the Freakshow, though that WOULD be cool.

 

Oh, and... I've pointed this out multiple times in the thread. Which is why I got snarky enough to say that people aren't reading what I'm writing, they're just kneejerking reactions with "don't touch my IO set values and nerf my character!" without bothering to see what I'm talking about.

[Coyote]

Some other things to get back to the main track:

 

1: Strength of mob debuffs. I think that having -30% from a single minion was reasonable when only a few mobs did that. If we're going to spread around a lot more debuffing effects (and buffing) into spawns, then it makes sense to lower each buff/debuff power, especially when used by minions.

 

2: One thing to realize about spawn sizes: say that you play at +2/x4. Not too high. Then you add 3 players to your party, all at the same level of difficulty. I think that with the spawn size calculations, you just maxed out the spawn, with 4 characters. Supposedly this is the right difficulty level for your team. Now, add 2 more characters. The spawn doesn't increase in strength, but the player team does. So, we need to realize that the spawn difficulty falls off a cliff after it's maxed, as you add characters to a team. For some characters, that cliff starts off at 1, because they max the spawn by themselves. But in general, most teams will max out the spawn size before they max out the team size. So, adding AoE buffs/debuffs to spawns so that they scale better at larger team sizes is probably the only way to handle difficulty for large teams.

 

3: Back to #1... I'm 100% with Luminara on this. Adding AoE buffs/debuffs (and maybe even single-target buffs and heals) to just about every larger spawn would be in every way a good thing. Even if it does end up "nerfing" strong characters much more than my meager little proposed nerf to IO set values 😛 ... because we have the imbalance from #2, that says that the only way for spawns to keep up with team size increases is to add buffing/debuffing to all factions.

 

I'm not actually sold that they will necessarily all need new models, though. They added Assailants and Strikers to Skulls, which made the faction a lot more dangerous at low levels without using any new models. They also added Meat Doctors to Vahzilok, which DID use new models, but I can think of ways to add reasonable buff/debuff mobs there without using new models. For example, a Plague Zombie that runs Venomous Gas (in the name of Nurgle, lol). Sky Raiders could get Leadership toggles added to any LTs without changing graphics, as they're all supposed to be just people in military clothes with some armor. Etc.

[Infinitum]

29 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Oh, and... I've pointed this out multiple times in the thread. Which is why I got snarky enough to say that people aren't reading what I'm writing, they're just kneejerking reactions with "don't touch my IO set values and nerf my character!" without bothering to see what I'm talking about.

You don't really understand this game though, that's what me and a few others have been trying to get you to understand.

 

The defense values allow blasters, Scrappers, stalkers, brutes, and some tanks to be stronger and do what they are supposed to do - while not completely eliminating risk because defense values still leave the door open for massive attacks to penetrate said defenses - especially without DDR so its really just a temporary security blanket that helps us in a lot of situations but its not this indomitable stat you keep alluding to.

 

Thats the reason resistance bonuses arent higher because those are in the long run stronger and more reliable than a defense stat.  You cant really look at defense bonuses compared to accuracy, to hit or others because its competing directly with resistance bonuses. Thats another reason you see resistance scaled vs heath in reactive defenses - thats one of the best IOs in the game your resistance gets stronger the lower your heath gets.

 

Resistance tanks like rad and Elec are pretty much 99% unkillable so nerfing defense bonuses wouldn't affect them at all, but it would destroy what a shield tank can currently do - and to a certain extent Ninjitsu and Invul.  On most resistance tanks I have i bypass defense bonuses unless they happen to be on a set in going for another stat on.

 

Nerfing defense would create a huge imbalance in melee classes that are currently pretty even across the board and all perform pretty darn good under most circumstances.  With the few holes each respective one has.

 

What would nerfing defense set bonuses do to CC types? Not a darn thing, I can literally hold the group, control them by knocking them on their butts, then wade in sapping all their endurance as my now 2 lightning storms 3 gremlins 3 energy fonts and repeated tornadoes rip them to shreds.  I dont need much defense to do that.  I have it, but man I don't need it. lol. If I had an option to slot IO bonuses for Mez that would perform like indomitable will I would be all over that so I could use another pool power other than psychic.

 

Nerfing set defense bonuses would affect melee and to a certain extent blasters way more than any other group.

 

I primarily play a majority of defense and hybrid resistance/defense based characters, and fully realize what it would do to my builds.

 

That may be selfish but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one - especially knowing what OP controllers can do without defense.

 

That's why there is no perceived defense set bonus imbalance - just because its higher than res set bonuses, becuase its not indestructible, and still has risk even if you are at the incarnate soft cap.  You cant just look at the number like you are doing and arbitrarily declare its too high without understanding it has to be high to even bother with it in the first place.

 

My point is you can add bonuses like they just did to create build diversity without nerfing defense - what would be wrong with that if you could legitimately have both.  There's only a set number of slots any way so you would have to choose which avenue to take.  Thats why adding set bonuses wouldn't lead to power creep.

 

Increasing pool powers as you suggested would increase creep though they should definately not be increased any.  At least With set bonuses you have to potentially sacrifice another stat to achieve a goal.

 

Just out of curiosity what AT do you play most?

Edited May 21, 2020 by Infinitum

[Coyote]

5 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

You don't really understand this game though, that's what me and a few others have been trying to get you to understand.

 

Don't you think that might possibly be an arrogant statement to make, that someone who has played only one MMO game understands it better than someone else who has played MMOs since UO came out? I'm not saying that I'm necessarily right, but being told that I don't understand this game is not so much offensive as amusing. I know there are posters here who understand it far better than I do, but ... to claim that I don't really understand it is amusing.

 

And then your examples come out and make me amused again. For one thing, I'm certain that my proposed changes... would still have a Shield Defense Tanker with soft-capped Defenses. And while they might have lower defenses and thus have to worry a bit more about stacked defense debuffs... I think that there are more situations where a Resistance based Tanker may have to worry more about being End-drained because the mobs hit far more often. Or ToHit debuffed. Basically, Resist-based sets SHOULD take less damage than Defense-based sets, because they suffer more mez and debuff effects.

 

Also, I play all ATs but mostly squishies. And when you say that the squishies don't need defenses because they can mez/debuff everyone, I have to say "go try the Night Ward and see how that goes". Yes, you CAN go through missions controlling everything, and defenses don't matter... when the missions don't have ambushes or other tricks. But missions where the mobs get the jump on you, or where you have to fight in multiple directions at once, make it very difficult to depend on control, because mobs get to shoot you before you control them. Having 70 seconds of Confuse rather than 50 is meaningless... either way, if you initiated the combat you can keep the spawn permanently confused, while if you didn't, it's Defense that has you survive the ambush's alpha strike so that you can then mez it. In easy content, control works well, but then so does everything else. In hard content, Defense is king.

[Infinitum]

43 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Don't you think that might possibly be an arrogant statement to make, that someone who has played only one MMO game understands it better than someone else who has played MMOs since UO came out? I'm not saying that I'm necessarily right, but being told that I don't understand this game is not so much offensive as amusing. I know there are posters here who understand it far better than I do, but ... to claim that I don't really understand it is amusing.

No I dont think its arrogant, I think its true.

 

As many has stated this isn't like any other MMO and you are I think somewhat misguided into thinking it should be, and that is where you don't understand how this game functions.

 

Just because you have played many other MMO and are a game designer does not immediately make you any less misguided with what you are proposing here and now.  Me and others have given you many reasons why it's a bad idea here, and now you are touting your expertise so as to invalidate what I just said.

43 minutes ago, Coyote said:

And then your examples come out and make me amused again. For one thing, I'm certain that my proposed changes... would still have a Shield Defense Tanker with soft-capped Defenses. And while they might have lower defenses and thus have to worry a bit more about stacked defense debuffs... I think that there are more situations where a Resistance based Tanker may have to worry more about being End-drained because the mobs hit far more often. Or ToHit debuffed. Basically, Resist-based sets SHOULD take less damage than Defense-based sets, because they suffer more mez and debuff effects.

This proves you absolutely do not at least understand how tankers function and what each is capable of, or how they mitigate incoming attacks.

 

As I just stated before, resistance tanks will not be affected by defense set bonus nerfs at all, and currently can stand toe to toe with anything im the game indefinitely - mez doesnt matter they have mez protection you said they take mez effect but lolz at mez it doesn't happen..  Ever.  Elec and Rad also have end drain protection, I can literally stand in front of a malta sapper with my Elec armor and they cant sap me, so yeah that counterpoint you made goes out the window also.  Defenses mitigation against these is that it needs these attacks to miss.  Resistance doesn't care that they hit - it doesnt do anything to them anyway.

 

Your proposed changes to defense bonuses on a shield tank for instance would lower their defenses enough to put them at the soft cap, but not the incarnate soft cap - meaning they can do most content unscathed but will get shreaded in any incarnate situation or even content in the shadow shard because their resistances while still high aren't capped like the resistance tanks, and the defenses are no longer high enough to mitigate in concert with the resistances.

 

I'm a die hard tanker, trust me rad is a top armor set for a reason, and so is shield.  What you are proposing would destroy shield as a top armor set.

43 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Also, I play all ATs but mostly squishies. And when you say that the squishies don't need defenses because they can mez/debuff everyone, I have to say "go try the Night Ward and see how that goes". Yes, you CAN go through missions controlling everything, and defenses don't matter...

i know.  I've done it 

 

43 minutes ago, Coyote said:

But missions where the mobs get the jump on you, or where you have to fight in multiple directions at once, make it very difficult to depend on control, because mobs get to shoot you before you control them. Having 70 seconds of Confuse rather than 50 is meaningless... either way, if you initiated the combat you can keep the spawn permanently confused, while if you didn't, it's Defense that has you survive the ambush's alpha strike so that you can then mez it. In easy content, control works well, but then so does everything else. In hard content

thats when your team pitches in hopefully, right?  Or at that point lower your difficulty level so it can be done.

 

43 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Defense is king.

on certain types yes, as it should be.

Its the way the game functions.

 

With mitigation you have four ways

Defense

Resistance

Attack

Controls

I always build to what the AT is sting at first -

Res tank resistances

Defense tank - defenses

Controllers - controls

Blasters - attacks

Scrappers - mixed bag - attacks defenses resistances.

 

Many avenues exist.  Your proposal removes one in essence.

 

My proposal adds more avenues.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Infinitum

[Darkir]

On 5/16/2020 at 10:28 AM, Infinitum said:

just incomplete honestly

You may wish to edit this. I enjoyed the implication of the small mistake though. ^_^

[Infinitum]

12 minutes ago, Darkir said:

You may wish to edit this. I enjoyed the implication of the small mistake though. ^_^

Haha what page is that?

[KelvinKole]

This thread is 12 pages long already? 

 

I thought more about this, and given my stance that IOs are the problem, I wonder if it's possible to create an SO only server. Just literally take out all io recipe drops and merit purchases. Leave all the content the same. Might this be easier to do than trying to create a new game mode or difficult setting? 

 

I suppose you'd lose a lot of the min/max mini game, but you'd have a harder game to play. Personally I wouldn't use SOs only on the existing servers because I'd feel useless relative to what everyone else is doing. But, if everyone on the server was also using SOs then the whole scale moves. 

[Luminara]

53 minutes ago, Coyote said:

+Damage

 

Will never be valued because it gives the impression of rapidly diminishing returns, due to the additive nature of the +Damage equation.  Half the ATs are halfway to their cap when they have their attacks slotted to ED limits, and every 1% increase beyond that visually presents less and less actual increase.  Some ATs don't even need +Damage set bonuses because they can approach, reach or surpass their caps with native tools (inherents, buffs within powersets, Incarnate abilities, red Skittles).

 

Increasing Defense by small percentage feels rewarding.  It has a measurable impact.  So does increasing Recharge, especially when even 1% knocks several seconds off of a long recharge timer.  Increasing Damage, after reaching SO quality enhancements, doesn't.  It feels disappointing, and the impact is effectively beneath notice for the majority of the fights in the game.  It doesn't actually matter if you dealt 73 points of damage or 90 points of damage to a critter with 24 hit points left, defeated is defeated.  Until the +Damage reaches that plateau of enabling you to defeat the critter with one fewer attack usage, or you're adding up the seconds you've saved while fighting that AV, you just don't notice it.

 

+Damage needs to bring more to the table to be worth pursuit.

 

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

I'm not actually sold that they will necessarily all need new models, though.

 

You could recycle some.  Perhaps even all.  Take critters from other enemy groups, fold them in as loaners, or dealers caught in a bust, or whatever explanation of their presence fits, as long as they stand out in some way.  Simply copying a critter in an enemy group, giving it buffs/debuffs and flagging it to pop in at set scalar values, though, would be a mistake.  If your challenging spawn has two visually identical critters in it, and one has buffs/debuffs while the other doesn't, it's no longer challenging, it's confusing and frustrating.

 

The original maps in Left 4 Dead are an excellent representation of this concept.  They were limited in size, but had multiple routes to the safe room.  The most direct path was emphasized by lighting the maps appropriately.  You knew that dark alley was either a dead end, a trap or a pointlessly circuitous route, because it wasn't lit.  You also knew that passing specific points on the direct path spawned ambushes, but those points were specifically highlighted, too, through effective lighting.

 

Also, some of the critter models might not have animations for powers you want to use.  You could still make them use those powers, but they wouldn't animate that usage.  It would be confusing and aggravating.  Simple visual cues make the difference between playable and unplayable in these situations.

[Darkir]

16 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Haha what page is that?

Page 1, second of your posts.

[Coyotedancer]

12 hours ago, Naraka said:

Arachnos are no slouches either.  Incidentally, those groups (Arachnos, Longbow and Family) are quite common groups to face from start to finish on villain side...almost too common. 

 

I'll say again... Rularuu. 

 

Go out to the Shard and run Hammond's missions solo at +4/x8. The missions themselves are nothing special, but in large numbers those Rularuu spawns will absolutely eat your lunch if you're not careful, even with a high-end build. That's especially true if you end up with more than one spawn at a time. (Which is likely given the ludicrous perception on the eyeballs and how close groups will be to each other on those cave maps-) 

 

High DEF? The Overseers just don't care. They're jerks that way. XD

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Coyotedancer