powers The Problem with Pool Powers

[Judasace]

Pools are one of the places where the develpers true intents for the game are obvious. If not for a combination of circumstances, the main one being their lack of skill making them unable to balance the game they wanted, we'd all be playing with gimped and mediocre "super" powers.

 

The game is fun in spite of the dev's intentions, not because of them. Again, look no further than the gimped mess pool powers are for evidence of that. This holds true for APPs too...only when villains came out did they finally think to add a +DEF shield to those pools, and even in the fighting pool Weave is gated with two powers rather than one.

 

Overall pools are just one of many godawful design choices made by the original coh team. But in the morass of their ineptitude and errors, a really fun game emerged. So I'm not an advocate of doing massive overhauls, because I think the charm of this game was created accidentally, and I think it would be easily to accidentally ruin it.

 

But if I were to advocate for something, it would be that the APP attacks used just under the best possible bases to work from - attacks should do near scrapper damage, controls should be at near controller levels, speed up flight to SJ levels, remove any of the power gates on the sets. Just make them a big pile of powers to pick from which are very good and add a lot to your character. As it is now, other than leadership, a travel power and tough/weave for those trying to stack survivability, they're  all shit powers that never even see a power tray.

[Coyote]

Pools are one of the places where the develpers true intents for the game are obvious. If not for a combination of circumstances, the main one being their lack of skill making them unable to balance the game they wanted, we'd all be playing with gimped and mediocre "super" powers.

 

The game is fun in spite of the dev's intentions, not because of them. Again, look no further than the gimped mess pool powers are for evidence of that. This holds true for APPs too...only when villains came out did they finally think to add a +DEF shield to those pools, and even in the fighting pool Weave is gated with two powers rather than one.

 

Overall pools are just one of many godawful design choices made by the original coh team. But in the morass of their ineptitude and errors, a really fun game emerged. So I'm not an advocate of doing massive overhauls, because I think the charm of this game was created accidentally, and I think it would be easily to accidentally ruin it.

 

But if I were to advocate for something, it would be that the APP attacks used just under the best possible bases to work from - attacks should do near scrapper damage, controls should be at near controller levels, speed up flight to SJ levels, remove any of the power gates on the sets. Just make them a big pile of powers to pick from which are very good and add a lot to your character. As it is now, other than leadership, a travel power and tough/weave for those trying to stack survivability, they're  all shit powers that never even see a power tray.

 

-1.

Controls that are just under Controller levels? That's better than Defender or Blaster controls.

Damage that's just under Scrapper levels? That's more damage than Defenders, albeit in melee.

 

They're used by lots of builds, and they see action. Some are a bit weak and some could use buffing, but this level would be just silly. They should not be better than your Primary/Secondary powers except for specific builds.

[Herotu]

I haven't taken it this go around but I remember Leaping's Spring Attack being really fun. Come crashing down into a group of enemies from above is a good feeling.

 

It's also a useful power on a stone tank/brute. It's teleport.. WITH DAMAGE! :)

 

Can confirm, Spring Attack is a fun AoE that does good knockdown. Great for tanks, it compliments Foot Stomp when it's on cooldown. The only thing I don't like about it is that often I end up miles away by accident because it's not PBAoE. :D

 

This should be the right set up for that:

 

/macroimage Jump_SpringAttack powexeclocation target Spring Attack

 

If I have that right, it will create a macro with the Spring Attack icon, that when clicked will activate on your current target.

 

It works if you change it to this:

/macroimage Jump_SpringAttack SpringAttack powexeclocation target Spring Attack

 

The button needs a name.

But also it doesn't get a timer on it or a small icon to indicate it's on cooldown.

[Zolgar]

 

 

It works if you change it to this:

/macroimage Jump_SpringAttack SpringAttack powexeclocation target Spring Attack

 

The button needs a name.

But also it doesn't get a timer on it or a small icon to indicate it's on cooldown.

 

Yeah, I forgot to put the button name in the macro, I knew it needed a name. >.>

 

Also, I always put the macro right next to the actual power so I can see that. Sometimes I'll also use a slightly different power image just to differentiate the macro from the original.

[Titomancer]

Sidenote about MMs and Fighting.  Its fun if you add Mako's patron pool to it for KO Blow.  Why he gives KO Blow I have no idea.  But I made a scrappermind a while back.  Not super effective, but not awful either since you are still carrying around a half dozen goons to do the heavy lifting while you look cool fighting.

[DoctorBorris]

Since mentioning it was an option on a different thread, I have been experimenting with Fighting on a Thugs/Dark mastermind to see how bad it really is.  So far I've taken it to level 20.

 

At level 20, unenhanced, here is how my powers have performed vs. Longbow minions in Architect Enertaiment's test mode:

 

Boxing: 4.42 end, 2.5 recharge, 1.07 cast, 12.33 dmg, 3.45 dps, 2.79 dpe.

Kick: 4.94 end, 3.0 recharge, 1.83 cast, 13.63 dmg, 2.82 dps, 2.76 dpe.

Cross Punch: 10.66 end, 8.0 recharge, 1.67 cast, 20.62 dmg, 2.13 dps, 1.93 dpe.

 

Pistols: 6.50 end, 3.0 recharge, 1.20 cast, 12.48 dmg, 2.96 dps, 1.92 dpe.

Dual Wield: 8.58 end, 6.0 recharge, 1.20 cast, 2*8.23 dmg, 2.29 dps 1.92 dpe.

Empty Clips: 18.98 end, 8.0 recharge, 1.83 cast, 3*3.28 dmg, 1.11 dps, 0.52 dpe.

 

Damage numbers were read from the combat log and not the tooltip since it appears Longbow minions have a tiny bit of smashing and lethal resistance.

 

But from how it appears, the fighting pool set is totally worth it for masterminds.  I replaced the three pistol attacks with all three fighting attacks (and used a second build to test the pistol attacks). So the 30% bonus damage is in effect. I also get a 35% stun chance with boxing, 40% knockdown chance with kick, and both a 20% stun and 40% knockdown with cross punch.  So what I lack in range I make up for in extra damage and control.

 

But do keep in mind a lot of a mastermind's dps output still comes from the minions.

 

I am tempted to also try this out with some brand of controller and see what happens.  The thing with most DPS building is that you boil down to attack chains instead of just using single attacks.  4 seconds between each basic control attack means there is more than enough time to fit a boxing and kick combo between each of your immobilize attacks, for a lot of extra damage while endurance lasts.  Also, controllers have an inherent Containment power that increases damage to controlled targets.  Fighting looks like it might be a good way to use this feature well.

 

 

Looking at these Numbers, I could see a strong argument for a Earth Controller, or other controller without a good damage chain to take these. It would be pretty thematic for a big earth wizard to be wading in and punching people. It might not be the perfect plan but Earth really has almost nothing low level to chain into a reasonable damage set right?

 

I was just thinking, Earth also has a couple good PBAOE powers you could mix with Radiation, and be throwing around AOE Mag 4 stuns while punching contained targets. Doesn't seem too shabby?

[Zinnar]

On 5/28/2019 at 10:10 AM, Konru said:

Im tempted to also try this out with some brand of controller and see what happens.  The thing with most DPS building is that you boil down to attack chains instead of just using single attacks.  4 seconds between each basic control attack means there is more than enough time to fit a boxing and kick combo between each of your immobilize attacks, for a lot of extra damage while endurance lasts.  Also, controllers have an inherent Containment power that increases damage to controlled targets.  Fighting looks like it might be a good way to use this feature well.

 

So, I actually did this and I found something really strange. It turns out that Boxing, Kick, and Air Superiority all get the bonus double damage to contained targets.

Cross Punch, however, doesn't. It gets extra, but not doubled, damage when used against contained targets.

I posted a thread about it in the Bug thread, and I actually found an even older thread about it as well. Neither thread got a response, but maybe this is the place to put it instead?

Also, I will say that even with Cross Punch being weird, if you can spare the power picks, Air Superiority, Boxing, and Cross Punch do a lot of work on Controllers.

One fun thing is that the disorient from Boxing (and I think Cross Punch also) activates containment for double damage, and chaining that with Air Superiority is a surprising amount of damage and single-target soft control.

[carroto]

I agree that for most AT/powerset combos there will be much better attacks available from a DPA perspective.  However that's not the only thing to consider.  I had a Rad Blast corruptor that used Air Superiority for soloing bosses.  I could fire the stun as I came in, hit it with AS, and hit the stun again before it stood up.  Sometimes the boss would get off a shot, but if I got it right they'd never have a chance to do a thing.  I couldn't keep the stun perma-stacked on the boss, but AS filled the gap so it was still unable to act.  I could keep it either stunned or knocked down for the entire fight barring unlucky misses.

 

That one pool power allowed me a completely different play style.  I wouldn't have been able to stand toe-to-toe with bosses like that without it.  It enabled the scrapperuptor style.  That attack chain did less damage than others I could have put together, but it allowed me to do it in greater safety.

 

It might be better to think of some of those powers as utility powers that also do some damage.  Not that I wouldn't like to see them brought up a bit.  It would be great if they weren't such clear losers from a damage perspective.  However I think the devs were always fighting FotM disease.  If AS did comparable damage to other attacks all you'd see on teams is mobs flipping in the air.

Edited July 24, 2019 by carroto

[Demon Shell]

I think Flurry and Jump Kick are the ones that really fall to the wayside. Especially considering that Speed has Hasten, easily the most picked Pool Power in the game, and Leaping has Combat Jumping, an excellent IO mule that's End cost is so low you can just leave it on for some added Defense/Immobilization Protection (plus the advantage in combat it provides for maneuverability).

 

Considering Jump Kick and Air Superiority have the same Damage per Activation (with Air Superiority's CC being guaranteed and Jump Kick's being a low chance), and Flurry barely dealing any more damage (with a similar low CC chance and a 3 second animation time), I believe Flurry and Jump Kick are in need of further evaluation. I know they had their recharge times reduced at some point, but it hasn't helped them much.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Demon Shell
Formatting

[Chance Jackson]

On 6/27/2019 at 7:05 PM, Judasace said:

The game is fun in spite of the dev's intentions, not because of them. Again, look no further than the gimped mess pool powers are for evidence of that. This holds true for APPs too...only when villains came out did they finally think to add a +DEF shield to those pools, and even in the fighting pool Weave is gated with two powers rather than one.

The ICE Apps for squichies are positional +def