Possible ways to help support classes

[Naraka]

15 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

There are more than enough tangible, directly comparable effects to provide accurate and reasonable comparison points.  Using Calvinball rules doesn't change that.

 

 

The debuffs I listed in those examples are autohit.  Every debuff I listed has a significantly longer duration than recharge time.  Two of them are flagged to set one half as irresistible.  Three have additional components which alleviate aggro issues.  All of them are superior in strength when compared to click buffs like FF/Cold/Sonic shields, some so much stronger that reducing them by half (+4 foes) still leaves them at a higher value than comparable click buffs.  And that was just a quick list.

 

It does if you actually know what powers do.

 

Let's cut this short.  You're going to disagree with everything I said, make up new rules, accuse me of saying something I didn't or not saying something that I did, then throw out another deflection.  You're too obvious, and I'm not going any deeper down your rabbit hole.

Well you're talking about Trick Arrow, which last time I played it before all these changes pushed through, still had to contend with the massive amount of clicking and targeting to maintain those effects.

 

Also, Hurricane is particularly restrictive in it's application mostly due to range.

 

It's disingenuous to look at specific powers target than the set as a whole. Not really trying to debunk or anything but the less comprehensive you make your argument, the easier it is to pick little counter points here and there and then you end up with a bunch of posts back and forth that eludes prayers actual intentions and no ground is ever made.

[PeregrineFalcon]

17 hours ago, Luminara said:

Flash Arrow: 18.75% -ToHit, autohit, 15s recharge, 60s duration

Weaken: 37.5% -Damage, autohit; 18.75% -ToHit, autohit, 16s recharge, 30s duration

Poison Gas Arrow: 50% -Damage, autohit, 45s recharge, 60s duration

Hurricane: 37.5% -ToHit, autohit, 8s recharge (if detoggled), 10s duration (per tick, 0.75s interval)

 

Deflection Shield/Insulation Shield/Ice Sheild/Glacial Shield/etc.: 15% +Def (not all)

Sonic Barrier/Sonic Haven: 20% +Res (not all)

 

The facts, not impressions or guesses or hearsay, based on this sampling of defender powers, don't support your assertion.

Agreed. And this, rather than your emotion laden walls of text, has convinced me that you're right and I was wrong.

 

The numbers you provided do support your assertion that at least some of the sets need some improvements.

[golstat2003]

On 4/21/2021 at 7:34 PM, Wavicle said:

I think I am in favor of more buffs to individual sets that need help, such as was done with Trick Arrow, rather than across the board buffs or changes to how powers have functioned for years.

In other words, Kinetics is fine as is, but Empathy could use a little something. Storm Summoning is fine as is, but Force Field could use some help. Radiation Emission is almost fine (remove the end crash from EMP), but Sonic Resonance could use a little help.

 

IF there is ANY set that didn't need buffs, it's kinetics. LOL Agreed.

[golstat2003]

9 hours ago, Naraka said:

Old school Stalker fan, I'm rather resentful how the messed with Stalker. It's cool that is basically a better Scrapper now (with less AoE), it ignores what stalkers were (most probably don't even know what demoralize is) and they defend their perspective by trying to say "the hit and run style was weak" ignoring that that wasn't even the AT's style to begin with.

 

I think the changes made improved stalkers. Prior to them I played one or two in pvp from time to time and called it a day.

[Wavicle]

Ally buffs no longer root you in place while casting, that's something. 🙂

[Andreah]

2 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

IF there is ANY set that didn't need buffs, it's kinetics. LOL Agreed.

I love kinetics as is, too. No buffs needed.

 

We have to be careful what we consider for buffs, some sets and combinations of sets are just fine.

[Alchemystic]

This "fix" seems more like a performance tweak for solo play.

 

And considering support classes are supposed to... support, well this very much defeats the point. Your 'personal protection' so to speak is the teammates you empower, who are better able to deal damage or hold aggro than you are. You can increase your own survivability by simply picking any of the resist/defense powers in your ancillary, or other power pools.

 

Playing a support who can defend himself just as much as his allies flies in the face of what a support is meant to be. If you want to play a class that can stand toe to toe with difficult mobs, and still provide a little support, then play Sentinel, Tanker or any of the Epic Archetypes. That, or come up with a build that focuses on maximising what protective powers are already available to you.

 

So I dont think support classes "need help", they do the job they were made for very much as intended, and their ancillary/pool powers, incarnate abilities and enhancement sets help do the rest.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Tyrannical

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Tyrannical said:

This "fix" seems more like a performance tweak for solo play.

 

And considering support classes are supposed to... support, well this very much defeats the point. Your 'personal protection' so to speak is the teammates you empower, who are better able to deal damage or hold aggro than you are. You can increase your own survivability by simply picking any of the resist/defense powers in your ancillary, or other power pools.

 

Playing a support who can defend himself just as much as his allies flies in the face of what a support is meant to be. If you want to play a class that can stand toe to toe with difficult mobs, and still provide a little support, then play Sentinel, Tanker or any of the Epic Archetypes. That, or come up with a build that focuses on maximising what protective powers are already available to you.

 

So I dont think support classes "need help", they do the job they were made for very much as intended, and their ancillary/pool powers, incarnate abilities and enhancement sets help do the rest.

 

 

Right.. I think the presumed need for a fix only actually exists if the answer to “should all powerset combos be able to solo any content at +4x8?” is yes. Perhaps we could try to solicit a very direct answer on this from the devs and get some resolution.

[Grindingsucks]

2 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

This "fix" seems more like a performance tweak for solo play.

 

And considering support classes are supposed to... support, well this very much defeats the point. Your 'personal protection' so to speak is the teammates you empower, who are better able to deal damage or hold aggro than you are. You can increase your own survivability by simply picking any of the resist/defense powers in your ancillary, or other power pools.

 

Playing a support who can defend himself just as much as his allies flies in the face of what a support is meant to be. If you want to play a class that can stand toe to toe with difficult mobs, and still provide a little support, then play Sentinel, Tanker or any of the Epic Archetypes. That, or come up with a build that focuses on maximising what protective powers are already available to you.

 

So I dont think support classes "need help", they do the job they were made for very much as intended, and their ancillary/pool powers, incarnate abilities and enhancement sets help do the rest.

 

 

 

So, the support characters "minions" are their protection.  I like your logic!  😁👍

 

That really has sort of always been my feeling on the topic, from a personal perspective.  Support classes either empower the team, debuff the enemy, or some combination of the two.  Then the other team members leverage this advantage to clean house, while the support character looks on, nods to themselves in satisfaction, and murmurs... "Well done, my children..."

 

[Grindingsucks]

@Luminara  Okay... I'm all for making analogies to illustrate a point, but you're really jumping the shark here, my friend.  🤷‍♂️

[Harpsong]

If only...

 

If only they gave medals at the Olympics for Mental Gymnastics.

[GM Kaiju]

The tangent has been removed; please stay out of political territory, per the code of conduct. 

[Leogunner]

Translation: The thread has now become less entertaining.

[MTeague]

7 hours ago, arcane said:

Right.. I think the presumed need for a fix only actually exists if the answer to “should all powerset combos be able to solo any content at +4x8?” is yes. Perhaps we could try to solicit a very direct answer on this from the devs and get some resolution.

I'd go further.  

 

"As a matter of design philosophy, should all powerset combos be able to solo any content at +4x8 with bosses?"  Y/N

"What about non-TF story arc content at +4x8 with bosses?" Y/N

"What about non-TF story arc content at +3x6 with bosses?"  Y/N

"What about non-TF story arc content at +2x4 with bosses?"  Y/N

"What about non-TF story arc content at +1x2 with bosses?"  Y/N

 

But frankly, I would never expect an answer. Ever. Lord knows I would refuse to supply one if I were the developer lol. 

• not all players are going to have equal skill
•  not all mission maps are created equal.  There's a biiig difference from final Perez Park mission in the Bonefire arc, and the Defend the Midnight Mansion mission in Night Ward.
• some players go nuts with set bonuses and IO's to acheive amazing things. Other players actually DO stick with just SO's or basic IO's. (Really! Some do!  I've seen it!)

 

issuing a public stance on who should be able to do what strikes me a great way to generate thread after thread of "BUT YOU SAID!!!!" arguments when someone isn't able to do it. So yea.  I would never, ever, answer those questions if I were the developers lol.

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by MTeague
editted for formatting

[arcane]

Well, that’s all true, which is a shame, because it leaves us open for such tremendously confusing debates, such as those with people sincerely believing “support” in the game doesn’t have the meaning of the English word “support” and that implying that it does is an act of high bigotry.

[Wavicle]

*Most* of my characters are slotted with a mixture of Generic IOs and Specials/Uniques (end, def, res, chance for bu, +tohit, kb protection, stealth, etc).

 

Only a couple of my 50s are slotted with Sets. Only ONE has a "complete" build (complete by my standards, nothing is +5).

 

 

I agree that many of the specific suggestions in my OP are either too much or unnecessary.

I also agree that there are some improvements (debuff toggle suppression when mezzed?) that could be made, and some specific sets (FF, Empathy, Sonic) that could use buffs.

[Leogunner]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

Well, that’s all true, which is a shame, because it leaves us open for such tremendously confusing debates, such as those with people sincerely believing “support” in the game doesn’t have the meaning of the English word “support” and that implying that it does is an act of high bigotry.

What does any of this have to do with what you just said?

 

Also the top-end is skewed and shouldn't be what is compared or balanced around.  The top-end being unbalanced is not really relevant unless you're talking about rebalancing the top-end first.

[arcane]

46 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

What does any of this have to do with what you just said?

 

Also the top-end is skewed and shouldn't be what is compared or balanced around.  The top-end being unbalanced is not really relevant unless you're talking about rebalancing the top-end first.

Perhaps you missed the deleted posts?The bizarre differing opinions on display about the meaning of support were pretty self-evident.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

What does any of this have to do with what you just said?

 

I replied to a post by highlighting the prejudicial attitude of telling support archetype players to find a big, strong non-support character to protect them rather than allowing them to use the same rules as other archetypes, and he/she, along with a dozen other people, deliberately misrepresented the analogy as an accusation of misogyny and inability on my part to distinguish between reality and video games, despite two separate sentences stating that it was only an example intended to emphasize that the attitude was similar, not that the poster was being misogynistic or that misogyny was being conducted in practice.  This lead to the discussion being side-tracked, then redirected by Kaiju.

 

Different day, same shit.  👍

[Alchemystic]

21 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

I replied to a post by highlighting the prejudicial attitude of telling support archetype players to find a big, strong non-support character to protect them

 

That's how support characters work in literally every video game ever.

[Night]

56 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

<incomprehensible>

You're the one who forced your confusing analogy of replacing 'support' with 'woman', but curiously only in the first instance of the word to spin a sentence in your own weird way and provoke people. Very inconsistent of you on top of everything.

 

Its utterly hypocritical that you can strawman somebody's argument the way you did, and then try and make it out like you're the one whose character is being attacked. And dont pretend that the GMs were here to defend you, your post was removed because you instigated this bizarre tasteless narrative

Edited April 24, 2021 by Night

[Harpsong]

[Davy]

30 minutes ago, Luminara said:

I replied to a post by highlighting the prejudicial attitude of telling support archetype players to find a big, strong non-support character to protect them rather than allowing them to use the same rules as other archetypes, and he/she, along with a dozen other people, deliberately misrepresented the analogy as an accusation of misogyny and inability on my part to distinguish between reality and video games, despite two separate sentences stating that it was only an example intended to emphasize that the attitude was similar, not that the poster was being misogynistic or that misogyny was being conducted in practice.  This lead to the discussion being side-tracked, then redirected by Kaiju.

 

Different day, same shit.  👍

 

[Wavicle]

24 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

 

That's how support characters work in literally every video game ever.

That's true, but in most of those games the tanks and dps needed the support in order to complete team content.

[Leogunner]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

That's true, but in most of those games the tanks and dps needed the support in order to complete team content.

Easy counter: this game was built to not need the trinity so any particular class isn't required.

 

....I said it was an easy counter, not a good one.