Sorcery Pool Updates in Issue 27, Page 2

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Neiska said:

 

Thank you for the non-answer. I will be sure to pass that on to the 5 players in my SG who are shelving their squishies in light of this RoP change.

That’s a totally unnecessary shame. I’m sorry.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Neiska said:

 

Thank you for the non-answer. I will be sure to pass that on to the 5 players in my SG who are shelving their squishies in light of this RoP change.

What kind of answer were you expecting? We played squishies successfully for years before RoP existed. It is not now, and never was, necessary.

[siolfir]

6 minutes ago, arcane said:

20 minutes ago, Neiska said:

So what are the fragile builds supposed to do now, lacking RoP?

I’d recommend seeking out one if the countless squishy-focused players that have never needed RoP or Barrier to survive and asking nicely for tips.

Or, building on this, continue to use RoP and either deal with the longer downtime or use it reactively.

Or build for the usual defenses.

Or just play a melee AT, since the only compromise there is the target cap, and even that doesn't apply for Tankers.

Edited April 15, 2021 by siolfir
adding in original quote

[Neiska]

@Wavicle - First, i wasn't asking for myself. I don't even take RoP anymore, and I haven't in a year. But there has been discussions ingame that more or less is a  "now what?" among the DPS centered folks, and I haven't seen any "well there is X, Y, or Z" at all. Which was my entire point in my post, was "well, what options do they have now?" because there doesn't seem to be many alternatives. I don't play squishes though, so I am uncertian what to tell them.

[arcane]

8 minutes ago, Neiska said:

@Wavicle - First, i wasn't asking for myself. I don't even take RoP anymore, and I haven't in a year. But there has been discussions ingame that more or less is a  "now what?" among the DPS centered folks, and I haven't seen any "well there is X, Y, or Z" at all. Which was my entire point in my post, was "well, what options do they have now?" because there doesn't seem to be many alternatives. I don't play squishes though, so I am uncertian what to tell them.

The options are... you know... what most squishies out there are already doing. Again I am happy to elaborate to any of your friends if so desired.

 

I would guess something like over 80% of my dozens of squishies take Ageless and no RoP. Because the additional survivability is usually unnecessary, so it’s more optimal to pad your offenses.

 

I usually only take Barrier/Clarion/Rebirth when I have nearly nothing to gain from Ageless, and I take RoP if I also happened to want Mystic Flight. But that’s about it.

 

And for my next build that WILL take RoP, I’m glad I will get optimal performance for only 2 slots (2 generic res IO’s).

Edited April 15, 2021 by arcane

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Neiska said:

@Wavicle - First, i wasn't asking for myself. I don't even take RoP anymore, and I haven't in a year. But there has been discussions ingame that more or less is a  "now what?" among the DPS centered folks, and I haven't seen any "well there is X, Y, or Z" at all. Which was my entire point in my post, was "well, what options do they have now?" because there doesn't seem to be many alternatives. I don't play squishes though, so I am uncertian what to tell them.

they can use clarion or melee hybrid or break frees or amplifiers or have high defense or hold the enemy.

 

 Squishies do not need mez protection. 

[Wavicle]

Or they can use RoP reactively and get more mileage out of it than they did before with less investment.

[Neiska]

@Wavicle @arcane - much more helpful answers, thank you. Will pass those on. A few of them got pretty depressed at the rumors so just wanted something positive to pass on.

[arcane]

Just now, Neiska said:

@Wavicle @arcane - much more helpful answers, thank you. Will pass those on. A few of them got pretty depressed at the rumors so just wanted something positive to pass on.

I wouldn’t say I was any more helpful and am definitely forum PvPing at work over here... but yeah thx Wavy 🙂

[Neiska]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

I wouldn’t say I was any more helpful and am definitely forum PvPing at work over here... but yeah thx Wavy 🙂

Credit where credit is due dear. 

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, arcane said:

The only way it could be remotely acceptable for ally-only buffs to suddenly affect self would be to cut all their values down to about a quarter of the current ones when used on self. Otherwise, yes, absolutely overpowered by any meaningful definition of the word.

 

There are auto-hit debuffs, unresisted debuffs, toggle debuffs, vanilla debuffs with hit checks, all with massive values which stomp the ever-loving shit out of the limited values the support characters could gain from changing their ally-only buffs to PBAoE/self-allowed buffs.  Most of them have been there since release day.  The game hasn't imploded.

There are sufficient IO set bonus options for any archetype to self-buff every notable attribute, often multiple notable attributes simultaneously (Accuracy, Recharge and Defense, for example).  All of this has been possible since the day the Invention system went live.  The game hasn't imploded.

 

If we can use ludicrously powerful debuffs to mitigate damage, if we can permit soft-capping Defense or building to over 200% global +Recharge with IO set bonuses, and not see the game collapse in on itself, then denying support archetypes access to their own buffs, adamantly forcing buffers to adhere to a rule set which was only applicable in the earliest days of the game, isn't maintaining balance, it's enforcing discrimination.

 

[DreadShinobi]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Only those with crazy recharge. For most characters it’s a buff.

Actually the 33% uptime value is about the same as on live with an SO build and hasten. So unless youre talking about a buff for a character running around nekid, the RoP change is only a nerf/rebalancing around a character using IOs or characters that have internal recharge buffs like chrono shift, accelerate metabolism, quickness, etc. Even just 20% additional global recharge beyond hasten and SOs has better than 33% uptime on RoP currently pre patch.

[Wavicle]

Just now, DreadShinobi said:

Actually the 33% uptime value is about the same as on live with an SO build and hasten. So unless youre talking about a buff for a character running around nekid, the RoP change is only a nerf/rebalancing around a character using IOs or characters that have internal recharge buffs like chrono shift, accelerate metabolism, quickness, etc. Even just 20% additional global recharge beyond hasten and SOs has better than 33% uptime on RoP currently pre patch.

Except now it takes no investment at all. Leaving that out doesn’t make your case.

[DreadShinobi]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

Except now it takes no investment at all. Leaving that out doesn’t make your case.

"Unless youre running around naked" I didnt explicitly type that but it was not ignored. It takes 2 slots to get sufficient recharge slotting in RoP to meet 33% uptime

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, DreadShinobi said:

"Unless youre running around naked" I didnt explicitly type that but it was not ignored. It takes 2 slots to get sufficient recharge slotting in RoP to meet 33% uptime

People are complaining they don’t have enough slots in their build to spare to add to their travel powers to take advantage of the new caps. Two slots is an investment. I didn’t ignore anything you said.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Wavicle

[DreadShinobi]

42 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

If we can use ludicrously powerful debuffs to mitigate damage, if we can permit soft-capping Defense or building to over 200% global +Recharge with IO set bonuses, and not see the game collapse in on itself, then denying support archetypes access to their own buffs, adamantly forcing buffers to adhere to a rule set which was only applicable in the earliest days of the game, isn't maintaining balance, it's enforcing discrimination.

 

My mindset completely. Its an archetypal imbalance, and an MMO trinity ideology that CoH has never adhered to.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Neiska said:

"well, what options do they have now?"

Scorpion Shield, Fighting Pool, Maneuvers, Combat Jumping, Hover, Stealth, Invention Origin set bonuses. There are plenty of options, including pairing variants of this with Rune of Protection and/or Barrier.

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

There are auto-hit debuffs, unresisted debuffs, toggle debuffs, vanilla debuffs with hit checks, all with massive values which stomp the ever-loving shit out of the limited values the support characters could gain from changing their ally-only buffs to PBAoE/self-allowed buffs.  Most of them have been there since release day.  The game hasn't imploded.

There are sufficient IO set bonus options for any archetype to self-buff every notable attribute, often multiple notable attributes simultaneously (Accuracy, Recharge and Defense, for example).  All of this has been possible since the day the Invention system went live.  The game hasn't imploded.

 

If we can use ludicrously powerful debuffs to mitigate damage, if we can permit soft-capping Defense or building to over 200% global +Recharge with IO set bonuses, and not see the game collapse in on itself, then denying support archetypes access to their own buffs, adamantly forcing buffers to adhere to a rule set which was only applicable in the earliest days of the game, isn't maintaining balance, it's enforcing discrimination.

 

Paragraph 1: I was under the impression from many forum users that the “purple patch” more or less mitigated the entire gap between buffers and debuffers and that debuffs’ value tapered off pretty well outside of I guess mainly -res/-regen.

 

Paragraph 2: I’m sensing the setup of a “two wrongs make a right” argument. Did you perhaps consider that the immense power of IO’s/incarnates etc. that you mention here are another perfect reason we don’t need any more power creep?

 

Paragraph 3: Yep, confirmed. This is a “We already have power creep and therefore should never try to constrain further power creep. We already have imbalances so the concept of balance should be thrown out entirely.” Sounds thoroughly fallacious to me. This is your standard “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” Oh, and discrimination? Really? Do you expect that absurd comment to make us take the rest of your post more seriously or less?

[Cheli]

4 hours ago, arcane said:

You’re entitled to that opinion, sure. But I am confidant that my opinions are more in line with the current and past devs’ design visions, so I’m not too worried they’ll be strongly considering power-creep-heavy proposals.

"In line with design visions" =/= "overpowered"

 

Also "power-creep-heavy" using what as a baseline? The game at shutdown, or some imagined point where you think the "power creep" started? If you're talking about the framework of the game at shutdown, then why was TW nerfed? If some earlier point in time, who gets to arbitrarily decide what that point is, and why?

Edited April 15, 2021 by Cheli

[arcane]

8 minutes ago, Cheli said:

"In line with design visions" =/= "overpowered"

 

Also "power-creep-heavy" using what as a baseline? The game at shutdown, or some imagined point where you think the "power creep" started? If you're talking about the framework of the game at shutdown, then why was TW nerfed? If some earlier point in time, who gets to arbitrarily decide what that point is, and why?

Question 1: Power creep obviously began far before shutdown, BUT, you simply can’t put a genie back in the bottle when it’s as big as Incarnate powers or IO’s. The wailing and gnashing of teeth would be unparalleled. So yes, the most reasonable answer seems to be the state of the game at shutdown.

 

Question 2: TW was nerfed because it was overperforming by the numbers compared to every other melee set, and by a fair margin too. This was well documented by some folks here.

 

Question 3: All design decisions would of course be the devs’ right to decide, naturally.

[Mezmera]

16 minutes ago, arcane said:

Question 1: Power creep obviously began far before shutdown, BUT, you simply can’t put a genie back in the bottle when it’s as big as Incarnate powers or IO’s. The wailing and gnashing of teeth would be unparalleled. So yes, the most reasonable answer seems to be the state of the game at shutdown.

 

Question 2: TW was nerfed because it was overperforming by the numbers compared to every other melee set, and by a fair margin too. This was well documented by some folks here.

 

Question 3: All design decisions would of course be the devs’ right to decide, naturally.

 

1: Lots of changes since the game was last on live unless you're to suggest we just delete everything added since.  

 

2: And all the Fire Blast players overperforming?  Who makes up this set of what's allowed and not?

 

3: It was the devs design decision with Going Rogue to give us more content in all its forms, people were promised fleshed out endgame and others were promised more to do at low levels.  They implemented the new tutorial zone which is so populous here but trickled in the endgame content and those who were happy to support people having their new low level zones were left in the dirt when it came to more stuff to do with their powerful favorite characters.  What the devs decide doesn't mean it'll precipitate into great results.  

Edited April 15, 2021 by Mezmera

[UberGuy]

17 minutes ago, Cheli said:

If some earlier point in time, who gets to arbitrarily decide what that point is, and why?

 

All of what what @arcanesaid makes said makes sense to me, but with respect to this question, the answer is: our devs. At the end of the day, they decide, because they're running the server and updating the code and data. We hope they seek our input (and I believe they do) before making a change, but at the end of the day, they're set the boundaries on what "balanced" is in this environment and they make the final call on what to change or update, if anything.

 

That's just how it is. This isn't a democracy. Good luck finding a game that actually is. Even stuff you can download yourself for free and easily set up and modify has an admin, and at the end of the day, what the admin(s) say decides how things work.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Mezmera said:

 

1: Lots of changes since the game was last on live unless you're to suggest we just delete everything added since.  

 

2: And all the Fire Blast players overperforming?  Who makes up this set of what's allowed and not?

 

3: It was the devs design decision with Going Rogue to give us more content in all its forms, people were promised fleshed out endgame and others were promised more to do at low levels.  They implemented the new tutorial zone but trickled in the endgame content but those who were happy to support people having their new low level zones were left in the dirt when it game to more stuff to do with their powerful favorite characters.  What the devs decide doesn't mean it'll precipitate into great results.  

Sorry Mez, this is not a reasonable argument.

1: They didn't say anything like that. In fact, the opposite, they acknowledged that we CAN'T just walk everything back. But that isn't a reason to abandon the concept of balance, when the devs themselves have acknowledged that endgame balance is out of whack and is something they intend to address.

 

2: Fire (which has NO secondary effects, unless you want to count the scatter from Rain) is not comparable to TW which has KD, Stun, -Res, and +Def.

 

3: See 1. The current devs still intend to address endgame balance.

[Mezmera]

4 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Sorry Mez, this is not a reasonable argument.

1: They didn't say anything like that. In fact, the opposite, they acknowledged that we CAN'T just walk everything back. But that isn't a reason to abandon the concept of balance, when the devs themselves have acknowledged that endgame balance is out of whack and is something they intend to address.

 

2: Fire (which has NO secondary effects, unless you want to count the scatter from Rain) is not comparable to TW which has KD, Stun, -Res, and +Def.

 

3: See 1. The current devs still intend to address endgame balance.

 

1: I know not saying we walk things back, just pointing out the genie is well out of the bottle so we can't just hold our standards to what was last on live

 

2: Still fire blast is way over selected comparably to all blast sets so again who's rules we going by?

 

3: All I really want is more endgame and harder stuff to pit my characters up against.  It's more content for you, me and everyone else.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Mezmera

[Wavicle]

Just now, Mezmera said:

 

1: I know not saying we walk things back, just pointing the genie is well out of the bottle so we can't just hold our standards to what was last on live

 

2: Still fire blast is way over selected comparably to all blast sets so again who's rules we going by?

 

3: All I really want is more endgame and harder stuff to pit my characters up against.  

1: Obviously we're not sticking to what was on live, but as has been pointed out, the existence of power creep does not mean that adding more power creep is therefore fine.

 

2: Over selected does not necessarily mean overperforming. Fire Brutes are overrepresented also, but it's not because they're SO GOOD. It's because they've got a particular niche.

 

3: Me too. I expect it will come, but it's going to take time. The devs have said they want to get the "under the hood" stuff done so that they CAN implement more and harder endgame material. The tanker changes, the blaster changes of the previous patch, the MM changes of this patch, are all part of that.