Weekly Discussion 66: Trick Arrow

[kiramon]

16 minutes ago, Jaguaratron said:

When it first came to test server teams stacked it which led to unbalanced metrics, same as if you stack any AT so NCsoft nerfed it hard and it became mediocre and more of a control set than what it should be as a buff/debuff set.

 

As mentioned by many, the recharge times are punitive and dont lend themselves to being of continuous use to a team, lets look at their "debuff" of disruption arrow as a secondary powerset, it gives a location based -res effect of -15% and a 25ft radius, not mobile so if fight moves you are stuck until it recharges which reasonably you can expect it done in 30s. Then you have sonic, which you can throw around whoever is in the thick of the fight, and do more -res (-22.5%) at a slightly smaller radius (15ft) as a toggle which is infinitely more useful to a team.

 

Just look at it

 

oil slick arrow, 3 min recharge

EMP arrow, which is crap, is on a FIVE minute CD, the blaster variant, though holds for less is on a 90 second recharge

 

and it goes on, you could cut the trick arrow recharges in half and it may still not be OP.

I don’t personally agree that at incarnate levels it’s a real issue, but prior to that it definitely feels like you don’t get to do anything every other mob.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, zenblack said:

The problem with that is that the dev who made Tac Arrow said he made a huge mistake and they are nerfing it. This was dismaying to me to find out because I thought Tac Arrow was a huge step in the right direction and was excited to see more of what this type of design would bring.  Though after hearing about the cottage rule lunacy I can certainly see the how making a well rounded secondary that really compliments any primary well something you absolutely cannot do for other sets due to the artificial constraints and poorly thought out rule.

Mostly it's the control aspects of Blaster Support sets that got too powerful and was said to get toned down. I wouldn't worry about Tac Arrow as a whole, it will be fine.

[WindDemon21]

On 9/2/2020 at 8:51 PM, GM Miss said:

Weekly discussion 66 - Week 8/30/20-9/05/20:

 

⚔️YOU VOTED: Let's talk about Trick Arrow! ⚔️ 

 

❓Things to think about:

>Here is a link to Trick Arrow: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Trick_Arrow

>How does it compare with other debuff/support sets?

>Where is it lacking?

>What do you love about it?

 

Let's Chat 😄

It's definitely lacking.

 

1: First and foremost, glue arrow needs to be made a location based power.

 

2: Flash Arrow should have it's -to hit increased. I would honestly say for how TA is for that to be 20% base on defender, 15% on secondaries.

 

3. Poison Gas Arrow should be reworked to work like traps poison trap, a hold instead of sleep, and reproccing, -regen, and -rech. Rech can be increased to 60 or 90s to compensate.

 

4. Acid arrow should have its radius increased to 15ft.

 

5. Disruption arrow should at least have a small -defense component so we can slot IOs into it.

 

6. Oil slick arrow: rech lowered to 90s.

 

7. Emp arrow should be ESD arrow, or at least a rech reduction and no -end/-recovery, or given the more-needed rework of PGA, rework this power to be a different power entirely. Could be the chaining "heal arrow" people seem to want or even better a group regen buff like the warburg nuke or a ranged triage beacon with mez protection or something, moved earlier, and Oil slick the new t9.

 

8. All TA powers should really have the same 1s animation.

 

9. Ice arrow, is fine

 

10, Entangle arrow should have a damage component, or at least swapped with flash arrow to be tier 1 so trollers and the like can skip it.

Edited September 4, 2020 by WindDemon21

[MrCuddles]

1. Entangling arrow converted to a small aoe
2. Oil slick detonates itself after 2 seconds (Give it a short blinking light animation to show there's a small explosive attached or something)

 

I think these two changes would improve trick arrow a lot

[Eldyem]

11 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

2: Flash Arrow should have it's -to hit increased. I would honestly say for how TA is for that to be 20% base on defender, 15% on secondaries.

 

8. All TA powers should really have the same 1s animation.

It's worth noting that Flash Arrow's -tohit is unresistable at the moment for some reason. It's not an issue I'd want fixed - it'd be incredibly bad if it were - but are you suggesting that the 5.25% on defenders be made 20% unresisted or for it to get a ~15% additional, resistable component? (I'm fine with an unresistable -20% myself but...)

 

Also I'm completely sold on the idea of making the animations all 1s. Trick Arrows is supposed to be a fast, reactive debuff set (even though "reactive debuff" is kind of an oxymoron). Make it fast.

 

Personal opinion is that Trick Arrows is trash because it's values are trash and it has no real (playstyle) identity. We know that players are generally willing to put up with a lot if a set does something cool and unique, but the cool and unique aspects of TA come way too late. Archery's identity is that it's the fast activating blast set - why not "port" that to Trick Arrows and fix the debuff values while we're at it?

[WindDemon21]

25 minutes ago, Eldyem said:

It's worth noting that Flash Arrow's -tohit is unresistable at the moment for some reason. It's not an issue I'd want fixed - it'd be incredibly bad if it were - but are you suggesting that the 5.25% on defenders be made 20% unresisted or for it to get a ~15% additional, resistable component? (I'm fine with an unresistable -20% myself but...)

I'm aware that it is unresistable, which IMO its completely dumb that any debuffs get resisted to begin with, making debuffs sets automatically worse than buff sets and making them WAYYYYTY worse against an AV.

 

If anything I would vouch for it just to make TA more unique and desired.

[Tath99]

Ice Arrow does not visually & thematically fit into the set -- when you can Ice Arrow an opponent and then have Oil Slick Arrow ignited - and the Ice Arrow is not changed by the heat.

 

The Ice Arrow in my opinion would be better served as being an 'electronic paralysis' hold.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Tath99

[Luminara]

There seems to be some confusion about what some of TA's powers do.

 

PGA isn't merely a Sleep.  It's a damage debuff and rapidly pulsing Sleep with a high chance of application.  Essentially, it takes all minions in a spawn out of the fight, and keeps them out of the fight even if they're attacked (it puts them back to Sleep), in addition to reducing the damage output of everything above minion level.  The only comparable powers are things like Choking Cloud or Steamy Mist, toggles with significant endurance costs and much slower pulse times.  If we were really attempting to balance PGA, we'd be suggesting that the pulse rate and Sleep chance be reduced to bring them in line with the existing similar powers.  As it currently exists, PGA is an excellent source of mitigation, and even after acquiring OSA and EMP Arrow, it's still one of the best arrows in the quiver for damage mitigation.  It doesn't need to be changed.  It definitely doesn't need to be buffed, beyond reducing the recharge time so it's usable more frequently.  And making any changes without significant improvements to other TA powers would be devastating to the set.

 

There is no crash associated with EMP Arrow.  None.  It applies a brief Recovery debuff.  It's not a crash.  You still have most of your endurance after using EMP Arrow, and nothing precludes you from continuing to use other powers while the debuff ticks down.

 

OSA's target is a critical element of the powerset as a whole.  It's more than an additional step between initial cast and ZOMG BIG DAMAGE NUMBARS, it provides a guaranteed focal point for the player to use for other powers, as well as for other players to use targeted powers.  With OilSlickTarget, one doesn't have to Tab through critters to find a "good spot" to use powers, one can simply select the best spot (center of the spawn) with OSA and use OilSlickTarget for all subsequent targeting.  Removing that would be removing a key strategic ability from the entire set.  Additionally, as complex as OSA is, as a power, the fewer dramatic changes, the better.  It took several Issues to work out all of the bugs, and there's a very good chance that new, even less palatable bugs would be introduced with any changes to the mechanics.  Reduce the recharge time, and leave it at that.

 

TA doesn't need another location-targeted power.  Most of the set was location-targeted in beta, and many of the powers were changed to critter-targeted in response to player feedback.  It's good with the two location-targeted powers.  Let's not take two steps back when we're discussing taking a step forward.

 

Neither Ice Arrow nor Entangling Arrow need to be reworked into damage-dealing powers.  TA is a Defender primary, Controller/Corruptor/Mastermind secondary.  The sets in those categories are, by and large, not designed for dealing damage, they're designed to buff, debuff and control.  There are damage-dealing powers in some of the sets, and TA already has one of the best with OSA, but none of them have single-target Immobilizes or Holds which also deal damage.  Again, Defender primary, Controller/Corruptor/Mastermind secondary.  Not a blast set.  Not a Blaster secondary.  Not for dealing damage.  Buff, debuff, control.  If you want damaging control powers, play a control primary or blaster secondary, that's what they're there for.

 

Flash Arrow's ToHit debuff being Unresisted excludes it from being doubled or tripled.  It's already competitive with every other set's ToHit debuff capability in AV fights because of that Unresisted flag.  Increasing it without removing the Unresisted flag would be imbalanced in the late game, and it would also be absolutely pointless unless TA is given a more usable source of -Regen than EMP Arrow.  A stackable ToHit debuff in another power would be more appropriate and useful, as it would allow a lower level player to stack ToHit debuffs and achieve appreciable damage mitigation (just like having decent Defense totals), while also ensuring that TA wasn't overpowered in AV/GM situations, or left with the even worse option of only bringing part of the toolkit to the fight and still being considered C-lister material because it couldn't debuff Regen sufficiently.

[zenblack]

31 minutes ago, Luminara said:

There is no crash associated with EMP Arrow.  None.  It applies a brief Recovery debuff.  It's not a crash.  You still have most of your endurance after using EMP Arrow, and nothing precludes you from continuing to use other powers while the debuff ticks down.

It's a -1000 recovery debuff for 15 seconds.

Edited September 4, 2020 by zenblack

[MTeague]

• Put Energy or Fire damage on Entangling arrow. Tactical Arrow already has this on their version. 
  • Admittedly yes, Tactical Arrow's version is a Blaster Secondary T1, not a Support T1, but still.  Do that, there's an in-set way to light Oil Slick Arrow. T
  • The damage can be as low as 1 hp, if you're afraid of this somehow being overpowered.  And don't let it take any other kinds of IO sets beyond what it already takes. Just nonzero and FWOOOM! we can light Oil Slicks in-set.
• Done.  Pour yourself a glass of whatever.

I would not refuse Glue Arrow or Entangling arrow having additional -ToHit or something to be Defense-By-Any-Other-Name, but I'm not convinced it's needed.

I would not refuse Flash Arrow having higher numbers, but again, I'm not convinced it's must-have. 

 

I do acknowledge that for Masterminds in particular, and even more so on Ninja Masterminds, having some kind of heals is *very* helpful.  It's not always easy keeping your cannon fodder expendable resources valued employees summonable bro's standing. The T1's are squishy on a good day.  However, /Cold Domination works right fine with ice shields and slows, but no heals.  So I think Trick Arrow can work just fine with -ToHit and Glue Arrow.  Maybe the To-Hit numbers need tweaking for this specific case, to make the effective defense contribution at a similar level. Then dip into Sorcery for Spirit Ward or Medicine for Heal Other as you see fit. 

Edited September 4, 2020 by MTeague

[tidge]

I have avoided Trick arrow, but as with similar secondary sets (Traps) I don't like single-target immobilizes as being the mandatory choice for a secondary set. Single-target immobilizes have such limited uses across the entire game that to me it always feels like a punishment when I have to take one.

 

The simplest, no-think option to satisfy me would be to simply swap the positions of Entangling Arrow and Flash Arrow.  However...

 

On 9/3/2020 at 2:01 AM, Bopper said:

I'd like to see Entangling Arrow be replaced with Weakening Arrow, making it an arrow version of Weaken Resolve. It would help with early levels as the -ToHit and -Defense will help offset the lack of accuracy and defense you have early on. And the -Resistance would become desired for late game (and early game as well, sure).

This would be a more useful option, even if it would feel different in play.

 

Alternatively, perhaps just replace the power with a damaging 'control-like' effect that can ignite the Oil Slick?

 

[Leogunner]

On 9/2/2020 at 8:57 PM, FoulVileTerror said:

Tactical Arrow did it better.

I'm going to go against the grain and say Tactical Arrow needs to be nerfed (among a few other AoE control powers in Blaster secondaries).

[Leogunner]

Also, if I were adding to the set, I'd put more "trick" into the set.

 

What does that mean?  Well what is Trick Arrow?  It's suppose to be Green Arrow/Hawkeye/Robin Hood/etc type cunning and skill.

 

Put more cunning and skill into the set.  They started out with it, making Oil Slick Arrow being combustible with fire/energy attacks but then gave up after that.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Leogunner

[FoulVileTerror]

I think it's actually a fairly common feeling that Tactical Arrow is powerful enough to merit some closer examination.  Whether that results in a "nerf" to Tactical (fairly likely) or a positive balance pass for everything else (less likely), I don't imagine many people would be terribly surprised.

Those buffs that Blaster Secondaries got from SCoRE really do make them outshine the Control Primaries.  That's definitely problematic.