Big problems when playing a VIllain

hasukurobi

Ok let's level a bit. Firstly, Gravitar is pretty weak against the UNTIL Agents and can often get brought down to half life or worse just taking out the required 3. It is only her that has this issue.

Next walking across a Turret and having it kill you when you did not even realize it was there is pretty sad.

Lastly, there is a bit of an issue with being the Villain in this game where players that are well built or certain vehicles are pretty well invincible. I have characters who fit this bill and assuming you can find a group of Heroes to attack you may quickly find that you cannot kill any of them and that you are either going to get killed by them or just fail to get any Marks. At that point you may as well run away and go try to kill more UNTIL guys.

This also encourages the Villains to work together (which is bad) because it is the only way they stand a chance of killing these people while at the same time making most people flatter than paper if they dare getting anywhere near the Villain gang bang.

Villains could use a way to deal extra damage to vehicles and some method of breaking blocks. Grond and Gravitar should be able to send people flying and thus break blocks with one of their moves. Medusa would be better if she had some method of stunning enemies even through their block. These could be a bit infrequent but last long enough to exploit them for a kill.

sterga

I normally play as Gravitar and never take damage from the NPC villain token bags. You have range, use it. Walk backwards while waiting for Force cascade to come off cooldown. Assuming you didn't two shot the NPC.

No one is going to politely wait for their turn to 1v5. Villains don't work together, they play together because that's where the action is.

Grond and Medusa already have attacks that break blocks with CC. If villains get another block breaker, you're going to see a whole lot more vehicles.

chaelk

I usually use Medusa. I have no problems getting kills.
Make use of your ranged attacks and leap, casting as you go up. Grond- this works well with his number 3 aoe attack.
Vehicles usually get a nasty surprise.
The defenders- attack 3, attack 4, attack 2- dead.
groups of players- more attackers- more abilities, as sson as you fire one, start casting another, you an serial fire them.​​

chaosdrgnz43

The only advice I can give is that you should use your mobility often as possible. Jump around to avoid melee and use your ranged attack whenever. This works best if you spent all your energy and try building it back again.

Also, I really have no idea how energy works as a Villain. Grond seems to get it when he gets massive damage or kills. Not sure about the other two though.

wingedkagouti

chaosdrgnz43 said:

Also, I really have no idea how energy works as a Villain. Grond seems to get it when he gets massive damage or kills. Not sure about the other two though.

Medusa needs to control a target (usually accomplished with 3) to build up. Iirc you need to Hold 5 targets to unlock her final ability.

Gravitar needs to detonate the Gravity Wells her basic attack and 5 (the PBAoE) cause. You can do this with her 3 (the charged blue sphere. will detonate all Wells on the targets) & 4 (the instant detonation, will detonate a single Well) attacks. Each Well detonated grants 1 energy, but they only count as detonated if the target survives the attack that would detonate them.

hasukurobi

I forgot to add that it would be nice if the SV's got Marks for fighting Supers even if they did not manage to defeat them in the same way the Heroes do for the SV's.

hasukurobi

sterga said:

I normally play as Gravitar and never take damage from the NPC villain token bags. You have range, use it. Walk backwards while waiting for Force cascade to come off cooldown. Assuming you didn't two shot the NPC.

No one is going to politely wait for their turn to 1v5. Villains don't work together, they play together because that's where the action is.

Grond and Medusa already have attacks that break blocks with CC. If villains get another block breaker, you're going to see a whole lot more vehicles.

The UNTIL guys use range as well. Sometimes I can get them in two or four shots but sometimes not and they will hit me really hard before they go down. It CAN happen to the other SV's but it seems like it rarely does. Of course Grond can one shot them after the first one.

I have literally stood there between 2 Gronds, a Medusa, and 1 Gravitar and blocked the ENTIRE time. They would even focus on me from time to time to no avail. If you get your block knocked off by CC that is your own fault for not keeping your block up the entire time because they cannot force you to stop blocking.

kallethen

Which attacks from Grond and Medusa break blocks?​​

sterga

kallethen said:

Which attacks from Grond and Medusa break blocks?​​

They both have stuns that go through blocks. Grond's is one of his aoe's and I don't know which one is Medusa's.

pantagruel01

They both have stuns that linger -- if you block and release the block, you get stunned the moment you release. Neither one has a stun that penetrates blocks that I've ever seen.

sterga

Nope. Just re-watched some video where I was blocking multiple Grond aoes and one of them broke my block. Went in slow-mo just to make sure. In fact, it happened twice in a minute. Maybe it only happens when there are back-to-back attacks from two different Gronds, but it does happen. Grond's lingering effect is nothing. Not even a second on that.

ramthananax

Just saw a guy this morning playing Grond. He was a friendly Grond, though- nobody could attack him. He could attack the Onslaught targets just fine, though... and was able to use his own movement power. Seemed like it might be a wee bit broken.

championshewolf

sterga wrote: »

Nope. Just re-watched some video where I was blocking multiple Grond aoes and one of them broke my block. Went in slow-mo just to make sure. In fact, it happened twice in a minute. Maybe it only happens when there are back-to-back attacks from two different Gronds, but it does happen. Grond's lingering effect is nothing. Not even a second on that.

Sorry Sterga but I have never been held unless I let go of block. And considering you have a super tank character that I had to build up fury to use every last attack to kill you, I really don't think you can really complain much about it either.​​

sterga

Yes, I used my pro skills at walking behind you to avoid all of your ground slams. Don't need to be a super tank for that. You do know that Grond's ground attacks are skill shots, right? And they are super easy to avoid.

championshewolf

sterga wrote: »

Yes, I used my pro skills at walking behind you to avoid all of your ground slams. Don't need to be a super tank for that. You do know that Grond's ground attacks are skill shots, right? And they are super easy to avoid.

If by pro skills of walking behind means you stood right there eating every attack then yes, you might be right Sterga. And I am well aware, I just didn't have to do anything like that because you stood there. It still didn't change the fact I had to unleash everything to kill you, or are you really going to try and make believe that it was just you waking in circles, despite you stood there facing me.​​

sterga

No, I was just walking behind you to taking zero damage all of your ground slams. Except the one that insta-gibbed me. You know, did over 8.5k in damage to a "super tank" in a single hit. I didn't eat any attacks, I healed with my one healing power on a six second cooldown. You must have some horrific lag if you thought I was just standing there and not constantly walking behind you.

I did the same thing to another Grond later and he figured it out. He even tried to counter me by walking backwards to keep me in front of him. It would have worked, except that I just stood there instead. I couldn't attack him, but he wasn't going to hit me with his ground slams either.

The funny part is when a villain that would have killed me in a few more shots changes targets so I can heal back to full HP. Kind of like what you did. You're damn right I make villains work for their token. And I still get roflstomped when 2+ people gang up on me.

theravenforce

None of Medusa's stuns can bypass blocking mechanics.

Nor can Grond.

Medusa's ROOT on TK Spear will bypass blocking mechanics, but this can be cancelled instantly by fellow players or through waiting it out.

--

As for the UNTIL Defenders, you can turn them to paste as Medusa or Gravitar. Gravitar just needs to make better use of her range. She has zero reason to be close to them at all so she can spam Grav Bolt and then use Crushing Field when they are close to dying. Isn't too difficult.

pantagruel01

Grond has 3 stuns: power 3, power 4, and power 6 (at the end of a maintain). I have never been stunned through 3 or 4 when blocking that I know of; people mostly don't use power 6 so I don't have much evidence, but I doubt it. It's conceivable that there's some sort of stun stacking effect. However, my experience is that using Conviction to heal is a really great way to get stunned.

kamokami

This might be one of those issues where the check to see if a stun would be valid happens at the start of a charge as opposed to at the end on some of the villain powers. Having said that, I personally have mot been stunned through block by anyone yet.

wacky99

They should have a buff on the Villains where if they get too close to another one they suffer a drop in damage output (or take more incoming damage). Getting face planted by three or four Gronds at the same time is not the makings of an entertaining evening.

crypticbuxom

That would only guarantee that the villains can't kill players.​​

roughbearmattach

ramthananax said:

Just saw a guy this morning playing Grond. He was a friendly Grond, though- nobody could attack him. He could attack the Onslaught targets just fine, though... and was able to use his own movement power. Seemed like it might be a wee bit broken.

I was there for that, too. I wonder if it was a glitch related to using a device?

kaiserin

The only time I've been stunned through block is when numerous Medusa and Gronds hit me with one. Otherwise no, you will never be stunned through block. Villains have no way to deal with block.

xrazamax

People may feel like they are getting stunned through blocks because of either the root or because if you stop blocking while you have 10 stacks of mind break, you may become stunned.

wingedkagouti

wacky99 said:

They should have a buff on the Villains where if they get too close to another one they suffer a drop in damage output (or take more incoming damage). Getting face planted by three or four Gronds at the same time is not the makings of an entertaining evening.

My main can usually tank the damage output from a single OV without being a super tanky build (~9k HP, Invul, BCR + Conviction & 1 AD). I can usually tank 2 that haven't built up to their improved attacks if I'm not careless.

Debuffing OV damage output just because there's multiple of them in close proximity would make it so much harder for OVs to gain tokens that the only sensible thing would be to focus on the Onslaught Target Defenders and forget about heroes.

One thing that is an issue with OV damage, is that it doesn't scale down to not instantly murder anyone below level 15 that hasn't taken Con as either PSS or SSS. A level 6 that accidentially tags for Fighting OVs (via AoE) is going to get murdered in a single hit through Block by almost any attack.

hasukurobi

gradii said:

If villains can break block this only makes Onslaught even less possible to play with non tank characters. NO BLOCK BREAKING VILLAINS.

this is NOT the answer.

Right now the odds are stacked HEAVILY in the favor of the Heroes. As long as you are lvl 40ish and have a build that can handle Alert missions then you can handle a OV without any issue. If you can handle Rampages then OV's are a real funny joke.

Sure really low level folks get plastered but that is their choice. Though I do thing you should just be able to manually flag yourself as fighting to prevent any AoE from making some poor lowbie a target.

At the moment it can often REQUIRE multiple OV's teaming up to get the job done which is just a bit silly. Also just hop into a vehicle, especially a tank, and you are invincible.

As for the OV's supposedly being able to break block there is only one way this happens: If you get a touch of lag it can break your block (this happens easier when lots of folks are together slinging stuff all over) and if you were recently subjected to stuns then they will linger and leave you helpless for a moment.

hasukurobi

gradii said:

Just award tokens for damaging heroes, no need to destroy the fun for half the heroes in the game by making it impossible to survive for 10 seconds when there's more than just ONE OV.

I GET PLASTERED ON EVERY NON TANK CHARACTER WITHOUT A 100 FOOT ATTACK. this is NOT a low level only problem.

I AM totally in favor of that option as well.

spinnytop

gradii said:

Yeah try playing as a non tank melee character when theres more than one OV sometime. Unless the players playing said OVs either suck at it or arent trying at all, it will often be a painful and un fun experience.

I don't mind dying a few times while fighting the OVs but I DO mind it when dying seems to be all I get to do.

Yes, the game does have huge balance problems. OVs illustrate this very well, because they're actually well balanced. You can tell because they're way too strong against the weakest player builds, and way too weak against the strongest player builds. They illustrate the fact that with player power in its current state, it is impossible to successfully implement content that is well-balanced for all players.

In other words, the problem with OV stats cannot be solved by manipulating OV stats.