Enhancement Diversification

[Pixie_Knight]

Enhancement Diversification proved that the 'optimal' slotting of "Six Damage Single Origin enhancements" was neither needed, nor actually optimal. Neither was six Hold Duration enhancements in a controller's holds. Other things could be viable too, and possibly even more optimal. And remember, you can still six slot for damage if you want to. Your damage wont be as high as it was in issue 1, true. But it'll still be higher then anyone who isn't six slotting for damage. So your 'optimal' slotting strategy is still viable. Enhancements after the 3rd one do still have an effect, it's just greatly diminished. But that's still a viable strategy. In fact, I may experiment with Madam Enigma with taking fewer attacks on one build, but six slotting defenses. You know, see how that works out.

 

If the idea of only putting 3 enhancements of one type in a single power offends you so much, the option to use more is still there. It's entirely your choice to not use that option. Just as it was my choice in issue 1 to not six slot Super Reflexes's powers for defense buff. Three def buff enhancements gave me more then enough defenses for most things, and if I needed more there were always luck enhancements. I didn't start six slotting defense until the Defense Reduction patch, due to fear that my previous slotting strategy would be unplayable. ED merely showed that 3 def buff enhancements per power was still just as effective as before.

[Chance Jackson]

Enhancement Diversification proved that the 'optimal' slotting of "Six Damage Single Origin enhancements" was neither needed,

ED didn't prove anything, everyone had the choice of slotting suboptimally, suboptimal slotting could be just fine depending on your individual performance requirements., ED just made it so everyone had to

nor actually optimal.

How is it not optimal to 1 acc, 5 damage Pre ED? The whole point of ED was to reduce Player Character effectiveness across the board.

 

Neither was six Hold Duration enhancements in a controller's holds. Other things could be viable too, and possibly even more optimal. And remember, you can still six slot for damage if you want to. Your damage wont be as high as it was in issue 1, true. But it'll still be higher then anyone who isn't six slotting for damage. So your 'optimal' slotting strategy is still viable. Enhancements after the 3rd one do still have an effect, it's just greatly diminished. But that's still a viable strategy. In fact, I may experiment with Madam Enigma with taking fewer attacks on one build, but six slotting defenses. You know, see how that works out.

 

If the idea of only putting 3 enhancements of one type in a single power offends you so much, the option to use more is still there.

Pre ED 3 slotting would get you 100% enhancement over base damage of a power. Pre ED 6 slotting for damage (something only devices blasters could get away with) would get you 200% enhancement over base damage of a power now a days it will only get you 110% enhancement a completely negligible "improvement" over 3 slots, that is a figure less than 3 SOs & 3 TOs combined pre ED! Pretending that 6 slotting an enhancement type post ED is much of a choice at all is pure sophistry.

[Vanden]

Even after ED they would've been too strong. Look at the numbers they went with for the invention system; even two-aspect +5 purple IOs don't get nearly as high as old HOs did.

they get pretty close and they are part of sets with very strong bonuses

They're also unique, you can't get 2 dozen of them and cap your damage even before buffs like you could with HOs.

[Pixie_Knight]

Neither was six Hold Duration enhancements in a controller's holds. Other things could be viable too, and possibly even more optimal. And remember, you can still six slot for damage if you want to. Your damage wont be as high as it was in issue 1, true. But it'll still be higher then anyone who isn't six slotting for damage. So your 'optimal' slotting strategy is still viable. Enhancements after the 3rd one do still have an effect, it's just greatly diminished. But that's still a viable strategy. In fact, I may experiment with Madam Enigma with taking fewer attacks on one build, but six slotting defenses. You know, see how that works out.

 

If the idea of only putting 3 enhancements of one type in a single power offends you so much, the option to use more is still there.

Pre ED 3 slotting would get you 100% enhancement over base damage of a power. Pre ED 6 slotting for damage (something only devices blasters could get away with) would get you 200% enhancement over base damage of a power now a days it will only get you 110% enhancement a completely negligible "improvement" over 3 slots, that is a figure less than 3 SOs & 3 TOs combined pre ED! Pretending that 6 slotting an enhancement type post ED is much of a choice at all is pure sophistry.

 

What is more optimal, an enemy being affected by a Hold longer when you can already double or triple stack the hold without any recharge redux slotting, or the enemy being defeated faster? Before ED everyone would have said "Slot hold duration". People also whined and complained about how low controller damage was. After ED people were willing to consider adding damage enhancements to their crowd control powers that accept them. Suddenly the crowd control powers didn't need to last as long because the enemies are defeated faster. Guess what, this was possible before ED, and would have been just as viable. But people ignored the option because slotting for hold/imobilize/stun duration was considered 'optimal'. Do you see the catch 22 here?

 

Tankers 'needed' to 6 slot their defenses to survive the masses of enemies trying to pound their heads in. But this came at the expense of slotting for damage in their attacks. So of course a solo tanker takes forever to defeat foes. After ED, fewer slots were being devoted to defenses, so more damage could be slotted. Suddenly tankers were able to defeat enemies in a reasonable amount of time, so they didn't need defenses that are at the hard cap just to survive normal spawn sizes.

 

Blasters 'needed' to 6 slot for damage to defeat enemies fast enough to not die. Then after ED, they started experimenting with other enhancement types too. Suddenly they're finding utility in abilities they ignored due to being "low damage", and not needing as much raw damage due to using tools that actively mitigate enemy damage.

 

Defenders suddenly had more slots after ED forced them to re-examine their slotting methods, and could devote slots to increasing the damage of their attacks. Oh look, enemies are going down faster. What's that you say? That's not damage mitigation? Wrong! Defeating an enemy is the ultimate form of damage mitigation since that enemy stops trying to deal damage entirely.

 

All of these were strategies which were perfectly viable before ED. But were ignored because the 'optimal' slotting had already been decided, and anything else was considered useless. So isn't it funny that enemy health and damage wasn't lowered, but players doing less damage or having less defenses wasn't as detrimental as it had been assumed by us players it would be?

 

My opinion based on experiences with people over the years whining about ED long after it became fact and we got to see the end result is... They are just butt hurt over losing the 'easy mode' that 6 slotting damage or defenses could be.

[marcussmythe]

ED took away a lot of power.  It particularly stung for me on the resistance side of powers, where previously an Invuln Tank could be amazingly tough with just their primary.  The loss of Perma-Hasten was painful.

 

ED gave a lot of flexibility.  Many powers that were once six slotted now only demand 2 or 3, or you might with your increased slots slot up other powers, or mix recharge into your attacks and just use the ones you liked.

 

While painful, ED was necessary if you want to extend the endgame - IOs and the like really needed the headroom on performance that ED forced.  ED also resulted in a lot more variability in builds.

 

While it was a nerf, and a painful one, its been good for the game, and I would not revert to ‘get 50, ++ SOs, and be done’ if I had the option.

 

That said, some things were lost, never to be regained.  My old Invuln/EM tank got hit in quick succession by the global defense nerf, the nerf to HOs, Enhancement Diversification, and a really petty bitch-slap to the only power that made the otherwise really crappy Energy Melee set worth taking - Energy Transfer.  While you can still build a character that did everything she did, you cant do it with Energy Melee, or Invuln, or on a Tank - Powerset inflation is very real.

[Chance Jackson]

Neither was six Hold Duration enhancements in a controller's holds. Other things could be viable too, and possibly even more optimal. And remember, you can still six slot for damage if you want to. Your damage wont be as high as it was in issue 1, true. But it'll still be higher then anyone who isn't six slotting for damage. So your 'optimal' slotting strategy is still viable. Enhancements after the 3rd one do still have an effect, it's just greatly diminished. But that's still a viable strategy. In fact, I may experiment with Madam Enigma with taking fewer attacks on one build, but six slotting defenses. You know, see how that works out.

 

If the idea of only putting 3 enhancements of one type in a single power offends you so much, the option to use more is still there.

Pre ED 3 slotting would get you 100% enhancement over base damage of a power. Pre ED 6 slotting for damage (something only devices blasters could get away with) would get you 200% enhancement over base damage of a power now a days it will only get you 110% enhancement a completely negligible "improvement" over 3 slots, that is a figure less than 3 SOs & 3 TOs combined pre ED! Pretending that 6 slotting an enhancement type post ED is much of a choice at all is pure sophistry.

 

What is more optimal, an enemy being affected by a Hold longer when you can already double or triple stack the hold without any recharge redux slotting, or the enemy being defeated faster? Before ED everyone would have said "Slot hold duration". People also whined and complained about how low controller damage was. After ED people were willing to consider adding damage enhancements to their crowd control powers that accept them. Suddenly the crowd control powers didn't need to last as long because the enemies are defeated faster. Guess what, this was possible before ED, and would have been just as viable. But people ignored the option because slotting for hold/imobilize/stun duration was considered 'optimal'. Do you see the catch 22 here?

 

Tankers 'needed' to 6 slot their defenses to survive the masses of enemies trying to pound their heads in. But this came at the expense of slotting for damage in their attacks. So of course a solo tanker takes forever to defeat foes. After ED, fewer slots were being devoted to defenses, so more damage could be slotted. Suddenly tankers were able to defeat enemies in a reasonable amount of time, so they didn't need defenses that are at the hard cap just to survive normal spawn sizes.

 

Blasters 'needed' to 6 slot for damage to defeat enemies fast enough to not die. Then after ED, they started experimenting with other enhancement types too. Suddenly they're finding utility in abilities they ignored due to being "low damage", and not needing as much raw damage due to using tools that actively mitigate enemy damage.

 

Defenders suddenly had more slots after ED forced them to re-examine their slotting methods, and could devote slots to increasing the damage of their attacks. Oh look, enemies are going down faster. What's that you say? That's not damage mitigation? Wrong! Defeating an enemy is the ultimate form of damage mitigation since that enemy stops trying to deal damage entirely.

 

All of these were strategies which were perfectly viable before ED. But were ignored because the 'optimal' slotting had already been decided, and anything else was considered useless. So isn't it funny that enemy health and damage wasn't lowered, but players doing less damage or having less defenses wasn't as detrimental as it had been assumed by us players it would be?

 

My opinion based on experiences with people over the years whining about ED long after it became fact and we got to see the end result is... They are just butt hurt over losing the 'easy mode' that 6 slotting damage or defenses could be.

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

[Sable Phoenix]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

[Chance Jackson]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

[Vanden]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

It's an easy strawman to claim that a change like ED is just governing how people play, but that's not what it was about. The levels of power players could reach needed to be addressed for the long-term health of the game, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to design challenging new content or further progression systems and keep them reasonably balanced.

[Sable Phoenix]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

 

Total strawman.  I have no desire to govern how anyone plays.  However, being able to build single characters that trivialize content designed for entire groups is something that is absolutely terrible for a game's long term health, and will ultimately kill it if nothing is done to address it (the fact it was even possible was just poor game design in the first place).  There's really no debate possible on that.

[Zolgar]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

 

In a living game, especially an MMORPG, they need to maintain some level of balance and ceiling for the power of players. Ideally they will also ensure a viability for players to play outside of one style.

 

The pre-ED days, it was basically "If you don't do it this way you're of no value to the team." and in some archetypes, there were also very clear cut "best" options that if you weren't playing, no one wanted to team with you.

 

It's not about governing how others play, it's about making sure the game stays viable.

... OK, so for Jack it was probably ALSO about governing how people play, but that's because he had his "vision" and crap... >.>

[THEDarkTyger]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

 

When that style of play is damaging to the overall health and longevity of a multiplayer game, you're damn right there's a desire to "govern" it. Because it doesn't just affect that individual, it affects everyone.

[justicebeliever]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

 

I can't understand why anyone would think there should be no rules in a game?

[Pixie_Knight]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

Yes, those tankers were 'gods of survivability'. I'd already pointed out how "round up every enemy on the map into one location then AoE them to death while the rest of the team just twiddles their thumbs" was detrimental to the game. Tankers were forming 8 man teams, then insisting the rest of the team enter the mission and do nothing just because the tanker wanted to have some fun against a mildly almost (but not quite) dangerous challenge.

 

Yes, scrappers were soloing AVs. And we continued to do so afterwords too. Well, not every scrapper. But then again not every scrapper could solo AVs to begin with.

 

Yes, defenders were soloing AVs. But those same defenders were still soloing AVs after the ED went live. And were doing so a bit faster due to having more damage.

 

And yet, you seem to forget some of the other changes that were made over the years. Because you see, soloing AVs and Giant Monsters? That wasn't intended. Those were suppose to be group content. It was suppose to take 8+ people to take down a giant monster, not just one. It was suppose to take 5-8 players to defeat an AV, not just one. And later patches tried to address that. Some doing so better then others. I remember when Giant Monsters and Archvillains became unkillable because someone put the decimal in the wrong place while buffing their regen. But other then problematic abilities/mechanics like taunt/aoe target caps, aggro caps,  Burn being nerfed, or it being too easy to hit the Defense and Resistance caps, the devs didn't make that many direct sweeping and drastic changes to powers. Well, not to weaken them anyway.

 

And later on they revamped each class in turn to re-balance and mostly buff them. This is where the AT inherent abilities came from, as well as some of the better changes to powers in general. Claws lost it's longer animations, thus improving it's DPS. Ironically Demon Summoning's demonlings have the original animation for Flurry. Granted, those inherent abilities were also to fall in line with the way City of Villains classes were balanced.

 

Basically, the things you and other 'anti-ED' fanatics claim were stolen... were the very things which were detrimental to the game as a whole. The people who howled and raged the loudest about the aggro cap and taunt cap (as well as changes to Burn) were also the ones who were doing the detrimental stuff that needed to be dealt with. The rest of us just got caught in the collateral damage, but we moved on after raging a bit and realizing "wait a second, this is actually better then before".

[rochrist]

Enhancement Diversification proved that the 'optimal' slotting of "Six Damage Single Origin enhancements" was neither needed,

ED didn't prove anything, everyone had the choice of slotting suboptimally, suboptimal slotting could be just fine depending on your individual performance requirements., ED just made it so everyone had to

nor actually optimal.

How is it not optimal to 1 acc, 5 damage Pre ED? The whole point of ED was to reduce Player Character effectiveness across the board.

 

Neither was six Hold Duration enhancements in a controller's holds. Other things could be viable too, and possibly even more optimal. And remember, you can still six slot for damage if you want to. Your damage wont be as high as it was in issue 1, true. But it'll still be higher then anyone who isn't six slotting for damage. So your 'optimal' slotting strategy is still viable. Enhancements after the 3rd one do still have an effect, it's just greatly diminished. But that's still a viable strategy. In fact, I may experiment with Madam Enigma with taking fewer attacks on one build, but six slotting defenses. You know, see how that works out.

 

If the idea of only putting 3 enhancements of one type in a single power offends you so much, the option to use more is still there.

Pre ED 3 slotting would get you 100% enhancement over base damage of a power. Pre ED 6 slotting for damage (something only devices blasters could get away with) would get you 200% enhancement over base damage of a power now a days it will only get you 110% enhancement a completely negligible "improvement" over 3 slots, that is a figure less than 3 SOs & 3 TOs combined pre ED! Pretending that 6 slotting an enhancement type post ED is much of a choice at all is pure sophistry.

 

The whole point of ED was to eliminate the incredibly boring cookie cutter builds. It opened up the game tremendously.

[Chance Jackson]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

 

In a living game, especially an MMORPG, they need to maintain some level of balance and ceiling for the power of players. Ideally they will also ensure a viability for players to play outside of one style.

 

The pre-ED days, it was basically "If you don't do it this way you're of no value to the team." and in some archetypes, there were also very clear cut "best" options that if you weren't playing, no one wanted to team with you.

 

It's not about governing how others play, it's about making sure the game stays viable.

... OK, so for Jack it was probably ALSO about governing how people play, but that's because he had his "vision" and crap... >.>

No one could see anyone else's slotting and I don't recall anyone pouring over the combat logs to know if someone wasn't pulling their weight through damage slotting

[Zolgar]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

I don't understand how anyone could look at that, and fail to realize how bad it would be to leave that situation unaddressed.

I can't understand the desire to govern how others play

 

In a living game, especially an MMORPG, they need to maintain some level of balance and ceiling for the power of players. Ideally they will also ensure a viability for players to play outside of one style.

 

The pre-ED days, it was basically "If you don't do it this way you're of no value to the team." and in some archetypes, there were also very clear cut "best" options that if you weren't playing, no one wanted to team with you.

 

It's not about governing how others play, it's about making sure the game stays viable.

... OK, so for Jack it was probably ALSO about governing how people play, but that's because he had his "vision" and crap... >.>

No one could see anyone else's slotting and I don't recall anyone pouring over the combat logs to know if someone wasn't pulling their weight through damage slotting

 

Naw, but you can easily see from just watching combat how effective their attacks are, how good their defenses are, how good their heals are. Ever teamed with someone completely unslotted? Unless you have some really good support on the team, you can tell.

[THEDarkTyger]

No one could see anyone else's slotting and I don't recall anyone pouring over the combat logs to know if someone wasn't pulling their weight through damage slotting

 

It didn't require "pouring over combat logs"...

[Chance Jackson]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

Yes, those tankers were 'gods of survivability'. I'd already pointed out how "round up every enemy on the map into one location then AoE them to death while the rest of the team just twiddles their thumbs" was detrimental to the game. Tankers were forming 8 man teams, then insisting the rest of the team enter the mission and do nothing just because the tanker wanted to have some fun against a mildly almost (but not quite) dangerous challenge.

 

Yes, scrappers were soloing AVs. And we continued to do so afterwords too. Well, not every scrapper. But then again not every scrapper could solo AVs to begin with.

With or without temp powers

 

Yes, defenders were soloing AVs. But those same defenders were still soloing AVs after the ED went live. And were doing so a bit faster due to having more damage.

With or without temp powers

 

And yet, you seem to forget some of the other changes that were made over the years. Because you see, soloing AVs and Giant Monsters? That wasn't intended. Those were suppose to be group content. It was suppose to take 8+ people to take down a giant monster, not just one. It was suppose to take 5-8 players to defeat an AV, not just one. And later patches tried to address that. Some doing so better then others. I remember when Giant Monsters and Archvillains became unkillable because someone put the decimal in the wrong place while buffing their regen. But other then problematic abilities/mechanics like taunt/aoe target caps, aggro caps,  Burn being nerfed, or it being too easy to hit the Defense and Resistance caps, the devs didn't make that many direct sweeping and drastic changes to powers. Well, not to weaken them anyway.

 

And later on they revamped each class in turn to re-balance and mostly buff them. This is where the AT inherent abilities came from, as well as some of the better changes to powers in general. Claws lost it's longer animations, thus improving it's DPS. Ironically Demon Summoning's demonlings have the original animation for Flurry. Granted, those inherent abilities were also to fall in line with the way City of Villains classes were balanced.

 

Basically, the things you and other 'anti-ED' fanatics claim were stolen... were the very things which were detrimental to the game as a whole. The people who howled and raged the loudest about the aggro cap and taunt cap (as well as changes to Burn) were also the ones who were doing the detrimental stuff that needed to be dealt with. The rest of us just got caught in the collateral damage, but we moved on after raging a bit and realizing "wait a second, this is actually better then before".

I'd have preferred that Cryptic move towards challenging teams of high level heroes with teams of archvillains rather than attempting to force the genie back into the bottle in service of aa pathetic vision where one hero is equal to 3 minions something that was blown past from the get go.

[Chance Jackson]

Enhancement Diversification proved that the 'optimal' slotting of "Six Damage Single Origin enhancements" was neither needed,

ED didn't prove anything, everyone had the choice of slotting suboptimally, suboptimal slotting could be just fine depending on your individual performance requirements., ED just made it so everyone had to

nor actually optimal.

How is it not optimal to 1 acc, 5 damage Pre ED? The whole point of ED was to reduce Player Character effectiveness across the board.

 

Neither was six Hold Duration enhancements in a controller's holds. Other things could be viable too, and possibly even more optimal. And remember, you can still six slot for damage if you want to. Your damage wont be as high as it was in issue 1, true. But it'll still be higher then anyone who isn't six slotting for damage. So your 'optimal' slotting strategy is still viable. Enhancements after the 3rd one do still have an effect, it's just greatly diminished. But that's still a viable strategy. In fact, I may experiment with Madam Enigma with taking fewer attacks on one build, but six slotting defenses. You know, see how that works out.

 

If the idea of only putting 3 enhancements of one type in a single power offends you so much, the option to use more is still there.

Pre ED 3 slotting would get you 100% enhancement over base damage of a power. Pre ED 6 slotting for damage (something only devices blasters could get away with) would get you 200% enhancement over base damage of a power now a days it will only get you 110% enhancement a completely negligible "improvement" over 3 slots, that is a figure less than 3 SOs & 3 TOs combined pre ED! Pretending that 6 slotting an enhancement type post ED is much of a choice at all is pure sophistry.

 

The whole point of ED was to eliminate the incredibly boring cookie cutter builds. It opened up the game tremendously.

Sophist nonsense, the point was to reduce effectiveness across the board & it succeeded there are people who support reducing the top end effectiveness of players which I disagree with but at least they're being intellectually honest about what ED was about & it's impact.

[THEDarkTyger]

6 slotted  tanks were gods of survivability who could herd whole maps, those defenses weren't required for run of the mill spawn of mobs, on a team with 5 slotted dmg dealers you can't get more optimal a slotting strategy for decimating huge hordes. herd tank slotting doesn't work well solo, that said solo focused attack tanks had been able to true solo AVs as in the real deal, no temp powers.

 

Likewise those controllers were locking down EBs, AVs, GMs with ease and the 5 slotted scrappers and blasters were killing those locked down enemies faster than all 3 of them can 3 slotted for dmg. Ill & fire Controllers with 5 slotted dmg pefs & the right secondary were true soloing AVs.

 

Scrappers were true soloing AVs, certain defenders could too

 

Yes, those tankers were 'gods of survivability'. I'd already pointed out how "round up every enemy on the map into one location then AoE them to death while the rest of the team just twiddles their thumbs" was detrimental to the game. Tankers were forming 8 man teams, then insisting the rest of the team enter the mission and do nothing just because the tanker wanted to have some fun against a mildly almost (but not quite) dangerous challenge.

 

Yes, scrappers were soloing AVs. And we continued to do so afterwords too. Well, not every scrapper. But then again not every scrapper could solo AVs to begin with.

With or without temp powers

Without.

 

 

Yes, defenders were soloing AVs. But those same defenders were still soloing AVs after the ED went live. And were doing so a bit faster due to having more damage.

With or without temp powers

Without.

 

And yet, you seem to forget some of the other changes that were made over the years. Because you see, soloing AVs and Giant Monsters? That wasn't intended. Those were suppose to be group content. It was suppose to take 8+ people to take down a giant monster, not just one. It was suppose to take 5-8 players to defeat an AV, not just one. And later patches tried to address that. Some doing so better then others. I remember when Giant Monsters and Archvillains became unkillable because someone put the decimal in the wrong place while buffing their regen. But other then problematic abilities/mechanics like taunt/aoe target caps, aggro caps,  Burn being nerfed, or it being too easy to hit the Defense and Resistance caps, the devs didn't make that many direct sweeping and drastic changes to powers. Well, not to weaken them anyway.

 

And later on they revamped each class in turn to re-balance and mostly buff them. This is where the AT inherent abilities came from, as well as some of the better changes to powers in general. Claws lost it's longer animations, thus improving it's DPS. Ironically Demon Summoning's demonlings have the original animation for Flurry. Granted, those inherent abilities were also to fall in line with the way City of Villains classes were balanced.

 

Basically, the things you and other 'anti-ED' fanatics claim were stolen... were the very things which were detrimental to the game as a whole. The people who howled and raged the loudest about the aggro cap and taunt cap (as well as changes to Burn) were also the ones who were doing the detrimental stuff that needed to be dealt with. The rest of us just got caught in the collateral damage, but we moved on after raging a bit and realizing "wait a second, this is actually better then before".

I'd have preferred that Cryptic move towards challenging teams of high level heroes with teams of archvillains rather than attempting to force the genie back into the bottle in service of aa pathetic vision where one hero is equal to 3 minions something that was blown past from the get go.

 

Power bloat does not fix game balance. Diablo 3 has been trying to balance around this philosophy: Always buff, never nerf. The game is an absolute s*** show these days because of it.

 

Honestly, though, it sounds like you're saying they should have balanced around the 6-slot pre-ED nonsense. Which would have made any other slotting style literally non viable. Trying to balance around the most broken builds only breaks every other build in the other direction.

[Pixie_Knight]

Power bloat does not fix game balance. Diablo 3 has been trying to balance around this philosophy: Always buff, never nerf. The game is an absolute s*** show these days because of it.

 

Honestly, though, it sounds like you're saying they should have balanced around the 6-slot pre-ED nonsense. Which would have made any other slotting style literally non viable. Trying to balance around the most broken builds only breaks every other build in the other direction.

 

Exactly! What I'm basically hearing from people in favor of repealing ED and the Defense Reduction (as well as every other game balance nerf that stopped their 'I solo 8 man content on the highest difficulty all at once' farming) is "We want our cake, and we want to eat it too." They want every nerf repealed, while retaining every buff and system which was introduced after the re-balancing. All while ignoring that those balance changes were to stop detrimental things such as the above mentioned 8 man content soloed all at once farming. The belief seems to be this would bring balance back to the game, when the patches they want repealed were implemented because of game breaking imbalance.

 

Do you know why back in issue 1 I wasn't slotting for maximum defense? It's because I stopped at 3 to 4 enhancement slots in any given defensive power by choice. I knew that if I six slotted everything I could floor the enemy's chance to hit me and become practically immortal. I stopped slotting additional defense buff enhancements when I found a point where the challenge felt right. I didn't want enemies to be missing me 95% of the time unless I used Luck inspirations or hit Elude. Not that I had Elude yet. I'd only just reached level 26, I think, when the Defense Reduction patch came out. I know I had hit level 32 with Madam Enigma when ED went live. And in my fear, I panicked. I used the free respec to completely change my build. Instead of having every attack so far and 3 slotted defenses (I  would have added the 4th slot for End Redux in the toggles in the 30's) I changed to having Swipe and Strike as my only attack powers, picked up the Fitness pool for Maneuvers, and Combat Jumping. I also six slotted everything I could that granted defense. To be honest, missions were an unfun chore. I was nearly untouchable, but seemingly it took forever to kill anything. Oh, I was still carving through enemies quickly, but it felt like it took forever. And being that untouchable wasn't really fun.

 

When ED hit, I used the free respec to drop back down to 3 defense enhancements in every defensive power. I also dropped Combat Jumping and the Leadership pool so I could have more attacks. Which also got slotted for 1 ACC and 3 attack. I expected my character to die pretty much instantly against even level enemies. To my surprise, that wasn't happening. I still dodged most attacks, but enough were able to connect that I was still facing a challenge. I was actually having fun with Madam Enigma again.

 

Before the sweeping changes to how Defense worked and Enhancement Diversification I tried making a tanker. I got my tanker to around level 16, and ended up deleting them because everything was too easy. I was following the "optimal" slotting strategy of 6 slotting the defenses before you even consider adding anything to attacks (and then only really enhancing a strong AOE if you had it, otherwise just one ACC in each attack). But I wasn't having any fun. Missions were too easy, and too boring. Nothing could remotely challenge me, not even the AV in a mission I'd joined. But at the same time, fights went on far too long because I could barely hurt the enemies. Same with when I tried playing a controller prior to ED being implimented. I was untouchable, but missions were long, boring, and tedious. And if I joined a team I'd either get yelled at for using my primary instead of only being a 'healer' (I'd made the mistake of making a /empathy controller) or they would yell at me for daring to try contributing to the mission, thus ruining the tanks "gather up every enemy into one spot so he can AoE them with the team standing at the entrance" farming. Never mind that you'd have no idea before joining and getting into a mission if the tanker would be that type of tanker. Most were, but not all of them.

 

Yes, for those of you who champion the cause of "remove Defense Reduction and Enhancement Diversification", the changes made to stop solo farming of 8 man team content is what actually kept me playing the game. I almost quit because those types of 'teams' were ruining the fun of the game. And between when DR went live and when ED went live, I was barely playing Madam Enigma due to her being too powerful to be fun. What kept me in the game was playing lowbie defenders that were powerful, but not "I trivialize all content" levels of powerful. I was only able to enjoy playing those defenders because tankers were no longer able to round up every enemy in a max level difficulty 8 man team mission then AoE them to death all by them self. Or in other words, the game about superheroes was able to keep me playing because teams of super heroes had to act like a team rather then a cheerleader squad.

[MunkiLord]

I was level 26 or 27 when Instant Healing was changed to a click power, they was kinda a bummer. But I didn't cry about for a decade. I made it to level 36, got bored, then made a new hero.

[Pixie_Knight]

I was level 26 or 27 when Instant Healing was changed to a click power, they was kinda a bummer. But I didn't cry about for a decade. I made it to level 36, got bored, then made a new hero.

 

And honestly, Instant Healing isn't even needed very often on a /regen scrapper. Between Health and the other toggles/passives (once slotted up) you don't even need to use the burst heal that much usually at later levels. The original One Who Cares was Dark Melee/Regen, and after level 32 I found myself using my two heals less and less often. And Instant Healing was mostly only needed for specific types of bosses or EB/AV fights. My normal regeneration rate was enough for most encounters. Sure Freakshow Tank bosses hit hard and I'd need burst healing, as did Warwolves and a few other enemy types. But more often then not I barely had to heal myself after a while.

[MrAxe]

No one could see anyone else's slotting and I don't recall anyone pouring over the combat logs to know if someone wasn't pulling their weight through damage slotting

 

It didn't require "pouring over combat logs"...

 

Exactly. I was asked about my slotting and got turned down for not meeting the criteria.