To the players saying Arc of Ruin makes Annihilate worthless: I didn't get a lot of chance to test it last night, but did you take into account that it's one of the strongest knocks in the game, and are you accounting for the falling damage that will factor into its power? When I get a chance I'll fiddle with it some more, and it probably does need a tweak, but I just want to make sure everything's accounted for.
Some of the skills, look decent, but im not sure what direction the set goes, it doesnt feel like it is adding a different playstyle, or utility that other melee sets.
disorient doesnt feel like it is really a strong part of the set, there is only a couple skills that make use of it/benefit from it. the debuff doesnt stack, just doesnt feel like a special part of the set.
looks like the best use for disorient is from cleave, using it to get both a defiant and an enrage stack, but for how hard it is to do, it only stacks up to once, and by the time you disorient and do 3 swings, most things have died, and since its only one stack, its useless if you choose defiance, and they got better ways for enrage if you went with unstoppable.
The most interesting combo I ve come up with is to use annihilate followed by vicous descent, but with a cool down that long, you can onlly do this rarely,
I guess the set does add more decent aoe dmg to the might framework, so that much is good, but it is true when you look at single target dmg it lags behind by a decent amount. Prollem with melee AoE is, in groups mobs spread and get knocked a lot, and the ranged guys are probably going to kill the henchmen way faster than you can position yourself, then when it comes to bosses and master villains, only usually a couple by then, and single target shines.
The ranged attack is a ranged attack, and thus will be uneffected by a good portion of ones dmg buffs, like agressor, unstoppable, the 20% str buff, and really weak in a brawler role
overall, doesnt seem to have much synergy with other jobs, that i can see so far anyhow
Id like to see more advantage to using the disorrient debuff with some of the skills, or maybe a different core mechanic with the set. As others have said, some more buffs, active offtenses/defenses or maybe mechanic differences, say an buff that alters aoe to single target for more dmg, or vice versa,
i dont see too much of a good way for energy return either, i guess thats why you superstat rec on AT eh? it has no native energy regen, except maybe for knock from unstoppable
1) Allow players to turn off mission mob spawn size scaling. There are players who like the PvE fights. This lets them have their fun without creating the annoyance for those players who have other goals.
2) Give players more incentive to actually want to fight mobs. This would be my choice as I used to enjoy street sweeping as a nice change of pace in that other super hero game. Boost the XP per kill so that it's within reason to level via nothing but street sweeping mobs. Provide more achievements and perks that are tied to mob kills. Things like that.
I'd like to propose additional solutions for increased mob size rewards.
3) Increase drop rate percentage with team scaling. Considering there are more players to go around, you can increase the percentage of drop rates and the rarity would be tied to the difficulty (So a full team running elite would have the best chance to obtain those oh-so-rare custome parts in Vibora Bay).
4) Increase the XP to account for the fact that the mission was more difficult to complete.
A fix to Enrage (and Focus) such that neither can buff damage more than an offensive passive
I knew this had to come up with this pass and i have to agree with this statement.
I'm no build guru but i have darkness and a force builds in avenger role and offensive passives that do roughly the same damage on test with defiance/enrage and different SS. As far as i can tell, there are many "offensive builds" that can be make a small sacrifice in damage in return for a relatively massive survivability boost.
Basically i was waiting for this patch to see if enrage got nerfed, and if it didn't, i would respec into defiance/enrage for live.(if you cant beatem joinem).
I understand KenpoJuJitsu3 has a lot invested in enrage but it seems (from my noobish perspective) to contribute a lot to making avenger role pointless. I would rather see Avenger role looked at first and enrage looked at after, but now is probably the best time to evaluate enrage. Ame please look at enrage builds V.S avenger builds
Earth Splitter: Tier 3 50ft ranged 3ft cylinder attack that knocks up or knocks to w/ advantage. There was no splitting the ground animation at rank 1, but rank 3 looks amazing. The damage seems 'meh' but it appears to be mostly meant as a crowd control ability.
<-- Is Intrigued!! Now I want work to be over already so I can go see!
It's not Enrage that makes Avenger nigh useless, I have non-enrage and non-focus builds that make most avenger builds I've seen look beyond stupid. Avenger has those issues without Enrage even being in the picture so that's a bit of a red herring. For a more accurate comparison look at Avenger vs. Brawler or even Avenger vs. Sentinel to see a huge disparity and see what the issues really are.
I agree with these points. I usually run in Guardian anyways but I -never- use Avenger stance. It's more minuses than plusses.
It's not Enrage that makes Avenger nigh useless, I have non-enrage and non-focus builds that make most avenger builds I've seen look beyond stupid. Avenger has those issues without Enrage even being in the picture so that's a bit of a red herring. For a more accurate comparison look at Avenger vs. Brawler or even Avenger vs. Sentinel to see a huge disparity and see what the issues really are.
I'd love to see why a power choice that is always on, requires no maintenance and works off of any more useful stat you choose (Presence I'm looking at you, CON and INT don't hide either) should do more than buffs that take specific stats of far less singular utility (STR? that's just laughable alone, and DEX...wait you need some EGO to keep you company and make you useable since you can't do it on your own) and take several powers to use and more if you plan to maintain them between battles so you have them at the start of the next confrontation.
I wholly agree that enrage is definitely not the problem here. While enrage/focus may be a LITTLE too strong... and that is a BIG MAYBE... the avenger role is solely to blame for all its own shortcomings. Every other role in the game, including guardian, is a better choice in my opinion than avenger. For the penalties assigned to the avenger role, the bonuses applied are severely short-changed. Being a glass cannon is all good... as long as the cannon part makes up for the glass part, which right now it does not. Don't blame enrage for avenger's shortfalls.
Whether it counts as a punishment depends on what you're wanting.
But imo, it'd be nice if it had some kind of tie to the existing difficulty slider. Or better, a separate 'team size' slider that goes from say -1 to +2. So you can run solo Elite instances at a 'team size' of 3 if you want, and Normal instances with 2 friends on a 'team size' of 2 total.
Fantastic ideas. If we really wanted to 'challenge' ourselves, we could set up a solo run to be as if we had 3 people in the group. Or if we had 3, we could set it up as if we had 5. Or, as said, if you were a duo, it could be set up as if you had just one person (the old way).
It's not Enrage that makes Avenger nigh useless, I have non-enrage and non-focus builds that make most avenger builds I've seen look beyond stupid. Avenger has those issues without Enrage even being in the picture so that's a bit of a red herring. For a more accurate comparison look at Avenger vs. Brawler or even Avenger vs. Sentinel to see a huge disparity and see what the issues really are.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again - Avenger is outright broken compared to its 'counterpart', Brawler. If while in Avenger, Ranged attacks caused say, slow, and disabled lunges, and it didn't have the HP penalty, it might be balanced against Brawler.
Seems ridiculous, no? That just shows how powerful Brawler is RIGHT NOW compared to Avenger.
A visual bug with Earth splitter (Bug Report 11569):
With R3 there is a nice ground animation. Unfortunately this animation always ends on your selected target, while the power continues to hit targets out to 50ft (as it should).
I wholly agree that enrage is definitely not the problem here. While enrage/focus may be a LITTLE too strong... and that is a BIG MAYBE... the avenger role is solely to blame for all its own shortcomings. Every other role in the game, including guardian, is a better choice in my opinion than avenger. For the penalties assigned to the avenger role, the bonuses applied are severely short-changed. Being a glass cannon is all good... as long as the cannon part makes up for the glass part, which right now it does not. Don't blame enrage for avenger's shortfalls.
This is very true. Avenger's only buffs two aspect of combat: damage and energy decay. The energy decay, though halved is barely tangible. When teaming, or doing instanced missions, pulls ranged from being close together (where this energy decay won't even be noticed as you just head from one group to the next) or far enough away that it doesn't much matter, you're back to Equilibrium anyways. In the open world, it's almost noticable because of the medium distance between enemies, but still, you run into the above examples much more often, even in the open world
The damage boost is barely noticable among all the other buffs you see. 20% additional damage on top of 60% from Super Stats and 80% from your Passive is only around a 12% actual difference. If you have a Toggle like Aspect of the Infernal, Offensive Buffs, crits and so forth, this becomes even less noticeable as you just add in more and more. Really, to make up for the lack of hp, lack of healing strength, reduced crowd control strength, decrease in crowd control resistance and absolutely no energy gain from blocking, this number needs to be either increased, or directly affect base damage before other buffs are added in.
In addition, the No Energy While blocking, although thematically fitting, is actually the most harmful penalty to this role. The problem is that, when you are in over your head, you are taught to block to reduce incoming damage so that you can heal up or better manipulate the situation to your advantage. When in Protector or Guardian, you gain some energy back while doing this, which you can use to power a heal, or unleash an attack to get enemies weakened, get them away, crowd control them, etc. Avenger doesn't have this option. While blocking, all they are doing is dying, just more slowly. Gaining nothing back means they cannot use their (reduced effectiveness) heals or (reduced effectiveness) crowd control, or even power their massive attacks.
Avenger is a glass cannon, that is understandable. However, as has been stated, the Glass part is over-accentuated, while the cannon part is barely nudged ahead. Do no blame Focus and Enrage for the weaknesses of this role. Perhaps they nee to be looked at in the future, but Avenger is the bigger culprit and fixing it first would give a better understanding of where these powers actually lie in terms of power, relative to ranged attacks.
I knew this had to come up with this pass and i have to agree with this statement.
I'm no build guru but i have darkness and a force builds in avenger role and offensive passives that do roughly the same damage on test with defiance/enrage and different SS. As far as i can tell, there are many "offensive builds" that can be make a small sacrifice in damage in return for a relatively massive survivability boost.
Basically i was waiting for this patch to see if enrage got nerfed, and if it didn't, i would respec into defiance/enrage for live.(if you cant beatem joinem).
I understand KenpoJuJitsu3 has a lot invested in enrage but it seems (from my noobish perspective) to contribute a lot to making avenger role pointless. I would rather see Avenger role looked at first and enrage looked at after, but now is probably the best time to evaluate enrage. Ame please look at enrage builds V.S avenger builds
I have to agree with kenpo, and honestly why are you even talking about avenger? focus is melee only from what i ve seen, and while one can use enrage for increased ranged dmg, most of the ways of actually increasing it past 1 stack require you to either tank, or get in close.
Do you just want ranged to do more dmg? you realize that meleers take more risk, take longer to get close to mobs, and their dmg skills are scaled around having enrage or focus working? In groups, most things die before i get there, and when i look at the dmg of the big ranged attacks, fireball, and force cascade, its right there, just below the dmg of a fully offensive melee guy who has to build up his buffs, stat for it, or actively maintain/increase it, up close. Just try to use enrage as a primary damage boost on your ranged charachters, and see how not worth the drama it really can be. but first you ll have to give up one of your superstats to strength, and you ll have to either get in close to build your stacks, risking aoe, or get hate and take dmg.
but prolly by that time you d either have spammed 100s of attacks with a endurance/recovery/int or done way more dmg with dexterity and ego.
now if you think focus is too hax, keep in mind you either need to get hit, charge things, or make them bleed, doing this constantly either lowers your dps or requires you to get hit.
Of course theres tempest which procs off crits, however, if you try to go a full dex/ego build, you would lose potency on focus which scales with strength and dex, if you go strength and dex, your crits which you do often wont be as hax.
Now the gain vs loss of an offensive passive, i dunno, getting 70% boost to dmg cant be ignored, makes you that much better with a good tank, specializing works that way, on my offensive charachters, your goal solo is to kill stuff so fast it cant kill you, giving yourself just enough survivability skills to last
Pretty much. The fact that we can put together a vastly superior "offensive" build (and I mean superior in damage, survivability and efficiency) running in support role should be enough of a red flag about Avenger role. Also, a missing point, is the fact that Enrage and Focus can be used in Avenger role which largely negates an enrage vs avenger argument since they aren't mutually exclusive. Running in Avenger role is like running with leg shackles on while every other role is in a car.
Yeah, its not very often that you are going to hear me pushing for anything to be made weaker. And Enrage/Focus are very strong, but not so strong that they are nerf-worthy. The problems with avenger can be boiled down to two main points:
lower health and lower defenses to safeguard that lower health
not enough energy/energy generation
Avenger role relies on the ability to defeat your enemies swiftly so that they cannot do significant harm to you. In order to do this, you cannot go into the battle spamming your energy builder to get up enough energy to strike, you have to go in with all guns blazing. This practically forces anyone who wants to be even mildly successful in avenger role to SS Recovery so that they have a large stockpile of energy at the beginning of the fight to use their big guns. Heaven help the avenger if they burn through their energy before taking out all their opponents because once the opponents start shooting back, its likely to end very quickly... and very badly. Blocking doesn't help a great deal because blocking modifies your defense rating which is already lowered and at the same time, returns no energy. So your small amount of health... even if you have SS'd Con is going to go quickly, though not as quickly as if you were not blocking but the entire time you are blocking, you are still starved for energy. Blocking really is not an option in avenger, especially soloing. Go big or go home... but the only way to generate new energy is by using your energy builder... which by definition is small damage even if you have ranked it up.
My suggestions to fix avenger would be:
ramp up energy returns from all sources including energy builders, energy return powers, and blocking
increase default equilibrium
remove either the lowered defenses or the lowered health or reduce the penalty for both
Fantastic ideas. If we really wanted to 'challenge' ourselves, we could set up a solo run to be as if we had 3 people in the group. Or if we had 3, we could set it up as if we had 5. Or, as said, if you were a duo, it could be set up as if you had just one person (the old way).
Only if the loot doesn't change.
Do it for the right reasons - Because you want the challenge, not because you're looking for phat lewtz. That'd soon separate the people who say they want the extra challenge because it's fun, and the greedy loot-suckers who just want the loot.
I know, I know, I'm spittin' at the wind here.
No one does anything these days just for the fun of doing it.
No one does anything these days just for the fun of doing it.
I do... which is why I am against the team scaling. I like teaming because it lets me do the things I can't do alone or lets me do the things I can do alone easier... or it used to. I don't really care about the loot and I enjoy a challenge... but the challenge should not came from teaming up, it should come from trying it solo.
Have you seen the unlocks yet? I have seen the base weapons, but not any additional that we can unlock yet.
That was actually going to be one of my questions today. There's actually a pretty good base selection, but I was wondering if there will be more that can be unlocked added to the game with this patch.
where does avenger take a defensive hit? you mean not being able to sub defensive passives? or do you mean the decreased status resistances.
I havent used it enough to see if its great, but it seems pretty decent, brawler gimps ranged dmg greatly and has the same block issues, more hp, however, they tend to take more dmg since they have to get close to mobs. I wouldnt mind a buff to it, but i dont see why its considered weak.
probable bug, Guards damage bonus does not scale with rank, it either stays at a flat 83, or the tool tip lies, retaliations tool tip seems accurate.
Doesnt make sense if this isnt a bug, just the visual effect shouldnt gimp the skill.
AVENGER
-Can use only Offensive Passives -Ranged Damage increased by 20% -Healing Powers and effects reduced by 20% * -Hold and Root Powers reduced by 20%* -Resistance to Hold and Root Powers reduced by 20% * -Energy decays at 50% normal rate -No Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation -Base health points are reduced by about 17% *
*Brawler, among other roles, doesn't have these issues
Yes, compared to Brawler, which looks like this:
-Can use only Offensive Passives -Melee Damage increased by 20% -Ranged Damage Decreased by 20%
-Healing Powers and effects are normal
-Hold and Root Powers are normal
-Resistance to Hold and Root Powers are normal -All single-target melee powers Snare target -No Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Base health points are normal
Notice the distinct lack of Red in Brawler compared to Avenger.
Yes, compared to Brawler, which looks like this:
-Can use only Offensive Passives -Melee Damage increased by 20% -Ranged Damage Decreased by 20%
-Healing Powers and effects are normal
-Hold and Root Powers are normal
-Resistance to Hold and Root Powers are normal -All single-target melee powers Snare target -No Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Base health points are normal
Notice the distinct lack of Red in Brawler compared to Avenger.
You forgot: -Has no spiffy icon to indicate you are in Brawler role >_>;;
i see, so you mean the reduction in healing effect/holds/roots and less hp, but ehhh,
a ranged fighter gets hit less, because A it isnt tanking and B it can shoot first.
You forgot in brawler, disadvantage energy decays more quickly to equilibrium.
So really, an avenger can go from fight to fight with high endurance, or use endurance boosting skills in preperation, like molecular assembly, and dark transfusion,
They get rooted more easily, and held, but that kind of makes sense for the long distance advantage. and access to more endurance at start of the fight (from skills)
they dont lose power for melee skills, unlike brawler to ranged, which i thought was 30% by the way
the biggest minus is the heal effect reduction, but for that suggests that they should probably use shields over heals, which makes sense since they shouldnt be taking dmg all the time, and since being at range, they can run out of range for natural regen to kick in and back into the fight a lot faster.
hmm really sounds like it works pretty decent to me. I have seen fights where ranged charachters can get full regen while attacking mobs, soo the heal debuf seems fine to me.
...I'd love to see why a power choice that is always on, requires no maintenance and works off of any more useful stat you choose (Presence I'm looking at you, CON and INT don't hide either) should do more than buffs that take specific stats of far less singular utility (STR? that's just laughable alone, and DEX...wait you need some EGO to keep you company and make you useable since you can't do it on your own) and take several powers to use and more if you plan to maintain them between battles so you have them at the start of the next confrontation.
You only get one passive slot, and your role in battle is largely determined by your passive. Therefore I think passives should always give the biggest buffs for whatever they're doing. Currently the largest defensive buffs are on the defensive passives and the largest support type buffs on the support passives... yet the largest damage buffs are tied to Enrage and Focus. Where does that leave offensive passives? Why should I give up my defensive passive or support passive for an offensive passive when I can have nearly 2x the damage buff of an offensive passive *and* keep my defensive or support passive?
Because of Focus DEX does not need much, if any EGO. Does it really matter if your crit severity is only ~50% when you're pushing over +150% damage due to Focus? Not only that, but the focus toggles also work as secondary energy unlocks yet allow other secondary energy unlock powers (which are mutually exclusive) to work with them. Is it balanced that melee players get so much from just statting DEX and picking a focus toggle?
Enrage mostly needs STR to function well. Some measure of CON and/or INT can make the Enrage buff last long enough such that only the Enrage power is necessary to keep a full 8 stacks running at all times. If your build cannot support the necessary CON and/or INT, Howl can be used to refresh Enrage stacks. Making the most of Enrage certainly requires more effort than Focus, but Enrage works with EVERYTHING. If nothing else, because it's a +dmg buff that doesn't care about damage type shouldn't the damage buff be lower?
In my ideal little world Enrage and Focus would give damage buffs around 30%-40%, roughly equivalent to another super stat. The extra damage that Enrage and Focus had before would be transferred to the offensive passives such that a player running Enrage/Focus + offensive passive wouldn't see any difference in damage output.
i see, so you mean the reduction in healing effect/holds/roots and less hp, but ehhh,
a ranged fighter gets hit less, because A it isnt tanking and B it can shoot first.
You forgot in brawler, disadvantage energy decays more quickly to equilibrium.
So really, an avenger can go from fight to fight with high endurance, or use endurance boosting skills in preperation, like molecular assembly, and dark transfusion,
They get rooted more easily, and held, but that kind of makes sense for the long distance advantage. and access to more endurance at start of the fight (from skills)
they dont lose power for melee skills, unlike brawler to ranged, which i thought was 30% by the way
Go read the part about how the 'energy decay' is a worthless perk. And MSA is absolutely awesome for melee users with Lunges and such, thanks to their very quick cooldown.
Also, big whoop if they don't lose out on melee damage in Avenger. Most people in Avenger are going to be using ranged attacks anyhow, and focusing on them entirely. So what?
Finally - melee users can get into combat nearly immediately with a Lunge power on no cooldown (3 seconds is trivial), get Focus without issue (all melee users are Dex based anyhow), and most of them have absurd defenses thanks to how LR/Dodge/IDF stacking works. And don't get me started on how well BCR+RR works in keeping them alive on top of all of that.
Melee is absurdly more powerful than ranged. They do more damage than ranged AND they can resist incoming damage easier in the process. Yeah, you can 'slow' them and try to knock them out of range, but a simple Lunge solves all those problems.
Also, getting Ego up as a tertiary stat is easy. I run a Dex/Con ranged damage build, and I not only have 25ish% to crit, but 50% crit sev. And I have a ton of End statted as well so power isn't an issue. But I can't hold a candle to any proper melee user.
In my ideal little world Enrage and Focus would give damage buffs around 30%-40%, roughly equivalent to another super stat. The extra damage that Enrage and Focus had before would be transferred to the offensive passives such that a player running Enrage/Focus + offensive passive wouldn't see any difference in damage output.
So... in the end, why don't they just axe any penalty to ranged damage from Brawler, make the bonus damage affect ALL damage, rename it Avenger, and call it a day?
Uhm... for all those saying enrage/focus are fine and why they should give more offensive bonus than a "mere" passive, may I point to the fact that you can only have one passive active at a time?
The problem with Enrage and Focus is that they can be used IN ADDITION to your passive. Which means you can easily get maximum defense and maximum offense at the same time (e.g. perma-enraged defiance tanks).
When you pick up an offensive passive, you're not simply "getting the easy way out" by picking "one single, always-on power" and using that for a "free" boost to your offense. You are also taking a COLOSSAL hit to your survivability.
The offensive equivalent would be a defensive toggle that, once used alongside a bunch of other powers and advantages, allows something like an electroformed PA spiker to quickly reach and perma-mantain 95% overall damage mitigation. Since hey... you're using several powers to do it so it should be better than an easy, always on, "mere" Defiance.
What you're seeing is largely due to the fact Enrage and Focus are additive damage buffs. Super stats and most other +dmg buffs pool together before calculating damage. Because of that, the more +dmg you stack the less effect each +18% has overall since it's a smaller and smaller percentage of the whole.
What you're seeing is largely due to the fact Enrage and Focus are additive damage buffs. Super stats and most other +dmg buffs pool together before calculating damage. Because of that, the more +dmg you stack the less effect each +18% has overall since it's a smaller and smaller percentage of the whole.
Yes, but the test conducted there are the actual physical numbers people see on the tooltip and in game when they smash something. The real world increase in bonus damage, as listed there, is about 45% for a full 8 stacks.
i see, so you mean the reduction in healing effect/holds/roots and less hp, but ehhh,
a ranged fighter gets hit less, because A it isnt tanking and B it can shoot first.
There's more to the game than teaming. Sure you can glaze over these when teaming, which is why I'm sure they were implimented in the first place. However when soloing, these hinderances become much, much bigger. The fact of how much your healing is cut down is the biggest factor, but with reduced HP, decreased crowd control resistance and very, very little increased damage, it makes soloing very painful, especially when fighting anything larger than a Master Villain.
You forgot in brawler, disadvantage energy decays more quickly to equilibrium.
So really, an avenger can go from fight to fight with high endurance, or use endurance boosting skills in preperation, like molecular assembly, and dark transfusion,
Yup, I forgot that, totally slipped my mind. However, read up a few posts where I explain how energy decay actually has no tangible benefit or detriment whatsoever in gameplay. This intangible benefit is not enough to justify healing loss, hp loss, crowd control loss, crowd control defense loss and overall survivability loss.
They get rooted more easily, and held, but that kind of makes sense for the long distance advantage. and access to more endurance at start of the fight (from skills)
they dont lose power for melee skills, unlike brawler to ranged, which i thought was 30% by the way
This point is very subjective. It feels like you're grasping for a justification here. Ranged characters don't get access to any more energy from the start of a fight, in fact, Ranged characters are often stuck taking Rec and End as their Super Stats because they don't get things like Focus and Rush, nor do they have access to energy gains, or cost reductions from their passives the way Brawler Passives do.
And no, it is 20% loss, which when you factor in all the other bonuses you get, is actually a very, very small detriment. My previous post explains that as well. All Roles work in 20% increments. Avenger's HP being the exception, because it was changed a few patches after Brawler was introduced as a hotfix.
the biggest minus is the heal effect reduction, but for that suggests that they should probably use shields over heals, which makes sense since they shouldnt be taking dmg all the time, and since being at range, they can run out of range for natural regen to kick in and back into the fight a lot faster.
So the answer is that Avenger isn't' broken because you can just take Shields that either have a long cooldown, or scale with a specific stat, further limiting your stat choices. I don't see how that is any kind of bearing on Avenger as a Role considering a Brawler, Protector, Guardian and Sentinel character can do the same thing - and to greater effect.
And you suggested running away. That may work in solo play, if you're using teleport, maybe, but by the time you've regenerated back to full while out of combat, so has your opposition (unless you're in an instance). If you're in a team-situation, running away isn't an option. Tough enemies see you through your teleport and will continue to chase you for a long, long ways. You end up more often than not just dying later, and far enough away that teammates can't help you. That's why any guide I've read for teaming says "Run toward the Tank or Healer when you have aggro."
hmm really sounds like it works pretty decent to me. I have seen fights where ranged charachters can get full regen while attacking mobs, soo the heal debuf seems fine to me.
It sounds alright, because you've come up with alot of hokey workarounds that can still be done by characters in any other role, and to greater effect. If anything, you've actually proved more why Avenger is weaker than other roles because you explain a number of different solutions to fix its problems that No Other Role Has To Do. You don't need to work in a bunch of extra powers advantage points and limit your stats to run in Protector. You don't need to use Force Fields in Brawler because your healing hasn't lost it's effectiveness. And you don't need anything to make up for the damage loss in Sentinel Role, because it has enough other benefits like Crowd Control and Energy Generation that it makes up enough that you don't miss the 20% damage you lose.
But that's the point. There are workaround for Avenger role, sure. But, the fact you have to use workarounds is what makes it an underperforming Role.
Melee is absurdly more powerful than ranged. They do more damage than ranged AND they can resist incoming damage easier in the process. Yeah, you can 'slow' them and try to knock them out of range, but a simple Lunge solves all those problems.
Soo, this got me thinking...
Would adding a "Lunge disabler" kind of advantage to some ranged powers be viable?
Or adding it as a permanent effect in Avenger in some limited form?
Since Brawler form has Snare, Avenger could have something like an opposite?
For instance, instead of outright blocking the use of lunges, their opponents couldn't use a lunge ouside a 20 feet range?
Melee would still have lunge available to shorten the distanc quickly within that range, but stun or other effects that many lunge attacks have when used at +20 feet range would be neutralized.
Stun/Hold/Root loops could be made a bit harder to pull off that way too.
(Although, if such a system isn't already possible with existing code, it might be quite a bit of work to implement it.)
Also, might be a good idea to make an Avenger Form pass thread in the suggestions subforum and start working on good ideas how to improve Avenger?
This thread got kinda derailed.
ramp up energy returns from all sources including energy builders, energy return powers, and blocking
increase default equilibrium
remove either the lowered defenses or the lowered health or reduce the penalty for both
It needs some sort of penalty, but yes the current ones don't seem to synergize well with what you are trying to do. I think it definitely needs greatly increased energy generation and recovery.
A possible minus could be increased melee damage taken, to keep you on your toes and not standing there blasting. Although, then you could just fly so....
Maybe on a range archetype I can see them using recovery. But they even gave strength and Constitution to the savage I don't see any difference between these two aruchetypes and the reasoning for a strength recovery. The blade has burst damage with its dexterity and strength super stats. I think unstoppable is more of a sustained damage and needs strength and Constitution and plus doesn't enrage stack with Constitution and strength. Just an opinion thank you
With an offensive set like this is rather be able to pull off a full powered attack on first strike.
Yes, but the test conducted there are the actual physical numbers people see on the tooltip and in game when they smash something. The real world increase in bonus damage, as listed there, is about 45% for a full 8 stacks.
Ok, lets compare apples to apples then shall we?
With electric form (+74% dmg) and INT/END super stats (31%/35%) Lightning Storm hits for 608 damage in Guardian. That same setup without electric form (simulating a defensive/support passive) deals 450 damage in Guardian.
608 / 450 = ~1.35 ... or about a 35% actual damage buff.
My assertion still stands. Enrage and Focus grant better damage buffs than offensive passives. I ask you again... is it balanced that the best damage buffs in game are not from offensive passives? Why should I give up so much survivability and/or team utility when I can get a better damage buff from a toggle or clicky power?
It needs some sort of penalty, but yes the current ones don't seem to synergize well with what you are trying to do. I think it definitely needs greatly increased energy generation and recovery.
A possible minus could be increased melee damage taken, to keep you on your toes and not standing there blasting. Although, then you could just fly so....
Avenger has enough problems, what really needs to be worked on is either eliminating some, or giving it more strengths. More detriments, even at the cost of most strengths will still leave it further behind.
You guys say you aware that you don't have much in the endgame department. Why not take advantage of these lair reviews and add some. I know you say your reviewing the the rewards for the lairs, heres what I recommend;
1. Defeating a boss on the Elite diffculty setting with a 5 man team guarantees a Serpent Lantern boss quality Blue item.
2. Defeating a boss on the Elite diffculty setting with a 5 man team gives the chance to drop a Purple rarity item that is better than the current blue loot drops from the Serpent Lantern bosses.
New equipment always gives people something to work towards and will give us a reason to run these lairs over and over again at lvl 40. This will help to hold us over until you can release newer end game content.
3. Just a thought, but maybe on top of the equipment, each boss has a chance to drop a device specific to them. Or maybe a costume piece or something. Again the more loot they have a chance to drop, the more we have a reason to run them.
Okay, so I tested Heavy Weapons damage, against several other frameworks: Might, Dual Blades, Bestial, and Ego Blades. They all out-shined it in terms of damage. Particularly I think that for a full charge the powers need to do more damage. I understand the KB/KU and what not adds to the damage, but for the big hitters when you want to use those powers will usually be resistant to them. Annihilate especially felt like it was under-performing on a full charge. The full charges need to be worth the payoff.
I think the set was meant to feel like a Freight Train. It might take a little bit to get rolling, but once it gets started, You don't want to be the way. As it stands though, It feels like an old Ford Pickup. It might not be the fastest, but it will get you where you need to be reliably..... Eventually.
Edit: The Devs did a fantastic job on the Aesthetics, those are perfect.
My appologies for not reporting my experiences with the new AT/powerset and re-worked lairs; however, I would like to know if ANY NEW CONTENT is in the works?
While I love more powers and sets to choose from (LTS/Gold or Silver), what I find lacking in the game is content and crafting. Crafting is in, and that seems a dead horse, so I won't beat that; however, people to expect content. I think another zone is in order, something like Canada (level 8 or so to 30+) just for variety. Add some higher level content to the desert (25-30+). Re-think Lemuria Crisis, heck re-think any "queued" crisis. Desert and Canada crisis work and are great, and while I see the awesomeness of Monster Island with a 5-man team, the reality is, most are solo'd. The last three times I've done it, I go in with one other who sits at the sub...
There also needs to be END GAME LAIRS. Several of them, at least. We've all heard the complaint: "the only thing to do in Champions when you hit 40 is roll a new toon..." - yes, but it would be nice to have some more end-game lairs. Of course, the reward system needs a good deal of re-work (not even going into Crafted Travel Powers).
I look at the Calendar section, but do not see anything beyond more powersets and costumes/items for the C-Store (which are fine, but...). Please let us know that *something* great, content-wise, is forthcoming. Maybe it was announced and I missed it, but I do not recall any new content forthcoming. Even "premium" lairs, purchasable by LTS/Gold members would sell well (provided they're not priced ridiculously, like the rez packs or trash... er gift boxes).
Comments
To the players saying Arc of Ruin makes Annihilate worthless: I didn't get a lot of chance to test it last night, but did you take into account that it's one of the strongest knocks in the game, and are you accounting for the falling damage that will factor into its power? When I get a chance I'll fiddle with it some more, and it probably does need a tweak, but I just want to make sure everything's accounted for.
disorient doesnt feel like it is really a strong part of the set, there is only a couple skills that make use of it/benefit from it. the debuff doesnt stack, just doesnt feel like a special part of the set.
looks like the best use for disorient is from cleave, using it to get both a defiant and an enrage stack, but for how hard it is to do, it only stacks up to once, and by the time you disorient and do 3 swings, most things have died, and since its only one stack, its useless if you choose defiance, and they got better ways for enrage if you went with unstoppable.
The most interesting combo I ve come up with is to use annihilate followed by vicous descent, but with a cool down that long, you can onlly do this rarely,
I guess the set does add more decent aoe dmg to the might framework, so that much is good, but it is true when you look at single target dmg it lags behind by a decent amount. Prollem with melee AoE is, in groups mobs spread and get knocked a lot, and the ranged guys are probably going to kill the henchmen way faster than you can position yourself, then when it comes to bosses and master villains, only usually a couple by then, and single target shines.
The ranged attack is a ranged attack, and thus will be uneffected by a good portion of ones dmg buffs, like agressor, unstoppable, the 20% str buff, and really weak in a brawler role
overall, doesnt seem to have much synergy with other jobs, that i can see so far anyhow
Id like to see more advantage to using the disorrient debuff with some of the skills, or maybe a different core mechanic with the set. As others have said, some more buffs, active offtenses/defenses or maybe mechanic differences, say an buff that alters aoe to single target for more dmg, or vice versa,
i dont see too much of a good way for energy return either, i guess thats why you superstat rec on AT eh? it has no native energy regen, except maybe for knock from unstoppable
I'd like to propose additional solutions for increased mob size rewards.
3) Increase drop rate percentage with team scaling. Considering there are more players to go around, you can increase the percentage of drop rates and the rarity would be tied to the difficulty (So a full team running elite would have the best chance to obtain those oh-so-rare custome parts in Vibora Bay).
4) Increase the XP to account for the fact that the mission was more difficult to complete.
I knew this had to come up with this pass and i have to agree with this statement.
I'm no build guru but i have darkness and a force builds in avenger role and offensive passives that do roughly the same damage on test with defiance/enrage and different SS. As far as i can tell, there are many "offensive builds" that can be make a small sacrifice in damage in return for a relatively massive survivability boost.
Basically i was waiting for this patch to see if enrage got nerfed, and if it didn't, i would respec into defiance/enrage for live.(if you cant beatem joinem).
I understand KenpoJuJitsu3 has a lot invested in enrage but it seems (from my noobish perspective) to contribute a lot to making avenger role pointless. I would rather see Avenger role looked at first and enrage looked at after, but now is probably the best time to evaluate enrage.
Ame please look at enrage builds V.S avenger builds
<-- Is Intrigued!! Now I want work to be over already so I can go see!
That power has that visceral "force cascade destroy everything" vibe:D
I agree with these points. I usually run in Guardian anyways but I -never- use Avenger stance. It's more minuses than plusses.
Er.. in contrast.. I'm all for it. Teaming = ez mode at the moment. I'm all for seeing the enemy respond to more attackers with more defenders.
I wholly agree that enrage is definitely not the problem here. While enrage/focus may be a LITTLE too strong... and that is a BIG MAYBE... the avenger role is solely to blame for all its own shortcomings. Every other role in the game, including guardian, is a better choice in my opinion than avenger. For the penalties assigned to the avenger role, the bonuses applied are severely short-changed. Being a glass cannon is all good... as long as the cannon part makes up for the glass part, which right now it does not. Don't blame enrage for avenger's shortfalls.
Fantastic ideas. If we really wanted to 'challenge' ourselves, we could set up a solo run to be as if we had 3 people in the group. Or if we had 3, we could set it up as if we had 5. Or, as said, if you were a duo, it could be set up as if you had just one person (the old way).
We've said it before, and we'll say it again - Avenger is outright broken compared to its 'counterpart', Brawler. If while in Avenger, Ranged attacks caused say, slow, and disabled lunges, and it didn't have the HP penalty, it might be balanced against Brawler.
Seems ridiculous, no? That just shows how powerful Brawler is RIGHT NOW compared to Avenger.
With R3 there is a nice ground animation. Unfortunately this animation always ends on your selected target, while the power continues to hit targets out to 50ft (as it should).
This is very true. Avenger's only buffs two aspect of combat: damage and energy decay. The energy decay, though halved is barely tangible. When teaming, or doing instanced missions, pulls ranged from being close together (where this energy decay won't even be noticed as you just head from one group to the next) or far enough away that it doesn't much matter, you're back to Equilibrium anyways. In the open world, it's almost noticable because of the medium distance between enemies, but still, you run into the above examples much more often, even in the open world
The damage boost is barely noticable among all the other buffs you see. 20% additional damage on top of 60% from Super Stats and 80% from your Passive is only around a 12% actual difference. If you have a Toggle like Aspect of the Infernal, Offensive Buffs, crits and so forth, this becomes even less noticeable as you just add in more and more. Really, to make up for the lack of hp, lack of healing strength, reduced crowd control strength, decrease in crowd control resistance and absolutely no energy gain from blocking, this number needs to be either increased, or directly affect base damage before other buffs are added in.
In addition, the No Energy While blocking, although thematically fitting, is actually the most harmful penalty to this role. The problem is that, when you are in over your head, you are taught to block to reduce incoming damage so that you can heal up or better manipulate the situation to your advantage. When in Protector or Guardian, you gain some energy back while doing this, which you can use to power a heal, or unleash an attack to get enemies weakened, get them away, crowd control them, etc. Avenger doesn't have this option. While blocking, all they are doing is dying, just more slowly. Gaining nothing back means they cannot use their (reduced effectiveness) heals or (reduced effectiveness) crowd control, or even power their massive attacks.
Avenger is a glass cannon, that is understandable. However, as has been stated, the Glass part is over-accentuated, while the cannon part is barely nudged ahead. Do no blame Focus and Enrage for the weaknesses of this role. Perhaps they nee to be looked at in the future, but Avenger is the bigger culprit and fixing it first would give a better understanding of where these powers actually lie in terms of power, relative to ranged attacks.
I have to agree with kenpo, and honestly why are you even talking about avenger? focus is melee only from what i ve seen, and while one can use enrage for increased ranged dmg, most of the ways of actually increasing it past 1 stack require you to either tank, or get in close.
Do you just want ranged to do more dmg? you realize that meleers take more risk, take longer to get close to mobs, and their dmg skills are scaled around having enrage or focus working? In groups, most things die before i get there, and when i look at the dmg of the big ranged attacks, fireball, and force cascade, its right there, just below the dmg of a fully offensive melee guy who has to build up his buffs, stat for it, or actively maintain/increase it, up close. Just try to use enrage as a primary damage boost on your ranged charachters, and see how not worth the drama it really can be. but first you ll have to give up one of your superstats to strength, and you ll have to either get in close to build your stacks, risking aoe, or get hate and take dmg.
but prolly by that time you d either have spammed 100s of attacks with a endurance/recovery/int or done way more dmg with dexterity and ego.
now if you think focus is too hax, keep in mind you either need to get hit, charge things, or make them bleed, doing this constantly either lowers your dps or requires you to get hit.
Of course theres tempest which procs off crits, however, if you try to go a full dex/ego build, you would lose potency on focus which scales with strength and dex, if you go strength and dex, your crits which you do often wont be as hax.
Now the gain vs loss of an offensive passive, i dunno, getting 70% boost to dmg cant be ignored, makes you that much better with a good tank, specializing works that way, on my offensive charachters, your goal solo is to kill stuff so fast it cant kill you, giving yourself just enough survivability skills to last
Yeah, its not very often that you are going to hear me pushing for anything to be made weaker. And Enrage/Focus are very strong, but not so strong that they are nerf-worthy. The problems with avenger can be boiled down to two main points:
Avenger role relies on the ability to defeat your enemies swiftly so that they cannot do significant harm to you. In order to do this, you cannot go into the battle spamming your energy builder to get up enough energy to strike, you have to go in with all guns blazing. This practically forces anyone who wants to be even mildly successful in avenger role to SS Recovery so that they have a large stockpile of energy at the beginning of the fight to use their big guns. Heaven help the avenger if they burn through their energy before taking out all their opponents because once the opponents start shooting back, its likely to end very quickly... and very badly. Blocking doesn't help a great deal because blocking modifies your defense rating which is already lowered and at the same time, returns no energy. So your small amount of health... even if you have SS'd Con is going to go quickly, though not as quickly as if you were not blocking but the entire time you are blocking, you are still starved for energy. Blocking really is not an option in avenger, especially soloing. Go big or go home... but the only way to generate new energy is by using your energy builder... which by definition is small damage even if you have ranked it up.
My suggestions to fix avenger would be:
Only if the loot doesn't change.
Do it for the right reasons - Because you want the challenge, not because you're looking for phat lewtz. That'd soon separate the people who say they want the extra challenge because it's fun, and the greedy loot-suckers who just want the loot.
I know, I know, I'm spittin' at the wind here.
No one does anything these days just for the fun of doing it.
They aren't changing that, they are just adjusting them for their appropriate levels.
I do... which is why I am against the team scaling. I like teaming because it lets me do the things I can't do alone or lets me do the things I can do alone easier... or it used to. I don't really care about the loot and I enjoy a challenge... but the challenge should not came from teaming up, it should come from trying it solo.
That was actually going to be one of my questions today. There's actually a pretty good base selection, but I was wondering if there will be more that can be unlocked added to the game with this patch.
Wahhooo!!!
Testing all evening for me, noone can stop me >: D
Thank you
I havent used it enough to see if its great, but it seems pretty decent, brawler gimps ranged dmg greatly and has the same block issues, more hp, however, they tend to take more dmg since they have to get close to mobs. I wouldnt mind a buff to it, but i dont see why its considered weak.
Seconded.
I'd also like to see the tutorial available on Test. I wanted to try out the Devastator AT from Ground Zero but can't do it.
probable bug, Guards damage bonus does not scale with rank, it either stays at a flat 83, or the tool tip lies, retaliations tool tip seems accurate.
Doesnt make sense if this isnt a bug, just the visual effect shouldnt gimp the skill.
Yes, compared to Brawler, which looks like this:
-Can use only Offensive Passives
-Melee Damage increased by 20%
-Ranged Damage Decreased by 20%
-Healing Powers and effects are normal
-Hold and Root Powers are normal
-Resistance to Hold and Root Powers are normal
-All single-target melee powers Snare target
-No Energy generated when Blocking
-Standard Threat generation
-Base health points are normal
Notice the distinct lack of Red in Brawler compared to Avenger.
You forgot:
-Has no spiffy icon to indicate you are in Brawler role >_>;;
a ranged fighter gets hit less, because A it isnt tanking and B it can shoot first.
You forgot in brawler, disadvantage energy decays more quickly to equilibrium.
So really, an avenger can go from fight to fight with high endurance, or use endurance boosting skills in preperation, like molecular assembly, and dark transfusion,
They get rooted more easily, and held, but that kind of makes sense for the long distance advantage. and access to more endurance at start of the fight (from skills)
they dont lose power for melee skills, unlike brawler to ranged, which i thought was 30% by the way
the biggest minus is the heal effect reduction, but for that suggests that they should probably use shields over heals, which makes sense since they shouldnt be taking dmg all the time, and since being at range, they can run out of range for natural regen to kick in and back into the fight a lot faster.
hmm really sounds like it works pretty decent to me. I have seen fights where ranged charachters can get full regen while attacking mobs, soo the heal debuf seems fine to me.
"Ragequit" would be an awesome name for a super group.
You only get one passive slot, and your role in battle is largely determined by your passive. Therefore I think passives should always give the biggest buffs for whatever they're doing. Currently the largest defensive buffs are on the defensive passives and the largest support type buffs on the support passives... yet the largest damage buffs are tied to Enrage and Focus. Where does that leave offensive passives? Why should I give up my defensive passive or support passive for an offensive passive when I can have nearly 2x the damage buff of an offensive passive *and* keep my defensive or support passive?
Because of Focus DEX does not need much, if any EGO. Does it really matter if your crit severity is only ~50% when you're pushing over +150% damage due to Focus? Not only that, but the focus toggles also work as secondary energy unlocks yet allow other secondary energy unlock powers (which are mutually exclusive) to work with them. Is it balanced that melee players get so much from just statting DEX and picking a focus toggle?
Enrage mostly needs STR to function well. Some measure of CON and/or INT can make the Enrage buff last long enough such that only the Enrage power is necessary to keep a full 8 stacks running at all times. If your build cannot support the necessary CON and/or INT, Howl can be used to refresh Enrage stacks. Making the most of Enrage certainly requires more effort than Focus, but Enrage works with EVERYTHING. If nothing else, because it's a +dmg buff that doesn't care about damage type shouldn't the damage buff be lower?
In my ideal little world Enrage and Focus would give damage buffs around 30%-40%, roughly equivalent to another super stat. The extra damage that Enrage and Focus had before would be transferred to the offensive passives such that a player running Enrage/Focus + offensive passive wouldn't see any difference in damage output.
http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=1815052&postcount=67
Go read the part about how the 'energy decay' is a worthless perk. And MSA is absolutely awesome for melee users with Lunges and such, thanks to their very quick cooldown.
Also, big whoop if they don't lose out on melee damage in Avenger. Most people in Avenger are going to be using ranged attacks anyhow, and focusing on them entirely. So what?
Finally - melee users can get into combat nearly immediately with a Lunge power on no cooldown (3 seconds is trivial), get Focus without issue (all melee users are Dex based anyhow), and most of them have absurd defenses thanks to how LR/Dodge/IDF stacking works. And don't get me started on how well BCR+RR works in keeping them alive on top of all of that.
Melee is absurdly more powerful than ranged. They do more damage than ranged AND they can resist incoming damage easier in the process. Yeah, you can 'slow' them and try to knock them out of range, but a simple Lunge solves all those problems.
Also, getting Ego up as a tertiary stat is easy. I run a Dex/Con ranged damage build, and I not only have 25ish% to crit, but 50% crit sev. And I have a ton of End statted as well so power isn't an issue. But I can't hold a candle to any proper melee user.
Er.. Enrage is providing about a 45% damage buff as indicated here. The tooltips, when it comes to stacking buffs, are widely misleading. I imagine Focus grants a greater buff though.. probably upwards of 60%.
The problem with Enrage and Focus is that they can be used IN ADDITION to your passive. Which means you can easily get maximum defense and maximum offense at the same time (e.g. perma-enraged defiance tanks).
When you pick up an offensive passive, you're not simply "getting the easy way out" by picking "one single, always-on power" and using that for a "free" boost to your offense. You are also taking a COLOSSAL hit to your survivability.
The offensive equivalent would be a defensive toggle that, once used alongside a bunch of other powers and advantages, allows something like an electroformed PA spiker to quickly reach and perma-mantain 95% overall damage mitigation. Since hey... you're using several powers to do it so it should be better than an easy, always on, "mere" Defiance.
Are we really sure we want something like that?
What you're seeing is largely due to the fact Enrage and Focus are additive damage buffs. Super stats and most other +dmg buffs pool together before calculating damage. Because of that, the more +dmg you stack the less effect each +18% has overall since it's a smaller and smaller percentage of the whole.
Yes, but the test conducted there are the actual physical numbers people see on the tooltip and in game when they smash something. The real world increase in bonus damage, as listed there, is about 45% for a full 8 stacks.
There's more to the game than teaming. Sure you can glaze over these when teaming, which is why I'm sure they were implimented in the first place. However when soloing, these hinderances become much, much bigger. The fact of how much your healing is cut down is the biggest factor, but with reduced HP, decreased crowd control resistance and very, very little increased damage, it makes soloing very painful, especially when fighting anything larger than a Master Villain.
Yup, I forgot that, totally slipped my mind. However, read up a few posts where I explain how energy decay actually has no tangible benefit or detriment whatsoever in gameplay. This intangible benefit is not enough to justify healing loss, hp loss, crowd control loss, crowd control defense loss and overall survivability loss.
This point is very subjective. It feels like you're grasping for a justification here. Ranged characters don't get access to any more energy from the start of a fight, in fact, Ranged characters are often stuck taking Rec and End as their Super Stats because they don't get things like Focus and Rush, nor do they have access to energy gains, or cost reductions from their passives the way Brawler Passives do.
And no, it is 20% loss, which when you factor in all the other bonuses you get, is actually a very, very small detriment. My previous post explains that as well. All Roles work in 20% increments. Avenger's HP being the exception, because it was changed a few patches after Brawler was introduced as a hotfix.
So the answer is that Avenger isn't' broken because you can just take Shields that either have a long cooldown, or scale with a specific stat, further limiting your stat choices. I don't see how that is any kind of bearing on Avenger as a Role considering a Brawler, Protector, Guardian and Sentinel character can do the same thing - and to greater effect.
And you suggested running away. That may work in solo play, if you're using teleport, maybe, but by the time you've regenerated back to full while out of combat, so has your opposition (unless you're in an instance). If you're in a team-situation, running away isn't an option. Tough enemies see you through your teleport and will continue to chase you for a long, long ways. You end up more often than not just dying later, and far enough away that teammates can't help you. That's why any guide I've read for teaming says "Run toward the Tank or Healer when you have aggro."
It sounds alright, because you've come up with alot of hokey workarounds that can still be done by characters in any other role, and to greater effect. If anything, you've actually proved more why Avenger is weaker than other roles because you explain a number of different solutions to fix its problems that No Other Role Has To Do. You don't need to work in a bunch of extra powers advantage points and limit your stats to run in Protector. You don't need to use Force Fields in Brawler because your healing hasn't lost it's effectiveness. And you don't need anything to make up for the damage loss in Sentinel Role, because it has enough other benefits like Crowd Control and Energy Generation that it makes up enough that you don't miss the 20% damage you lose.
But that's the point. There are workaround for Avenger role, sure. But, the fact you have to use workarounds is what makes it an underperforming Role.
Soo, this got me thinking...
Would adding a "Lunge disabler" kind of advantage to some ranged powers be viable?
Or adding it as a permanent effect in Avenger in some limited form?
Since Brawler form has Snare, Avenger could have something like an opposite?
For instance, instead of outright blocking the use of lunges, their opponents couldn't use a lunge ouside a 20 feet range?
Melee would still have lunge available to shorten the distanc quickly within that range, but stun or other effects that many lunge attacks have when used at +20 feet range would be neutralized.
Stun/Hold/Root loops could be made a bit harder to pull off that way too.
(Although, if such a system isn't already possible with existing code, it might be quite a bit of work to implement it.)
Also, might be a good idea to make an Avenger Form pass thread in the suggestions subforum and start working on good ideas how to improve Avenger?
This thread got kinda derailed.
It needs some sort of penalty, but yes the current ones don't seem to synergize well with what you are trying to do. I think it definitely needs greatly increased energy generation and recovery.
A possible minus could be increased melee damage taken, to keep you on your toes and not standing there blasting. Although, then you could just fly so....
With an offensive set like this is rather be able to pull off a full powered attack on first strike.
Ok, lets compare apples to apples then shall we?
With electric form (+74% dmg) and INT/END super stats (31%/35%) Lightning Storm hits for 608 damage in Guardian. That same setup without electric form (simulating a defensive/support passive) deals 450 damage in Guardian.
608 / 450 = ~1.35 ... or about a 35% actual damage buff.
My assertion still stands. Enrage and Focus grant better damage buffs than offensive passives. I ask you again... is it balanced that the best damage buffs in game are not from offensive passives? Why should I give up so much survivability and/or team utility when I can get a better damage buff from a toggle or clicky power?
Avenger has enough problems, what really needs to be worked on is either eliminating some, or giving it more strengths. More detriments, even at the cost of most strengths will still leave it further behind.
You guys say you aware that you don't have much in the endgame department. Why not take advantage of these lair reviews and add some. I know you say your reviewing the the rewards for the lairs, heres what I recommend;
1. Defeating a boss on the Elite diffculty setting with a 5 man team guarantees a Serpent Lantern boss quality Blue item.
2. Defeating a boss on the Elite diffculty setting with a 5 man team gives the chance to drop a Purple rarity item that is better than the current blue loot drops from the Serpent Lantern bosses.
New equipment always gives people something to work towards and will give us a reason to run these lairs over and over again at lvl 40. This will help to hold us over until you can release newer end game content.
3. Just a thought, but maybe on top of the equipment, each boss has a chance to drop a device specific to them. Or maybe a costume piece or something. Again the more loot they have a chance to drop, the more we have a reason to run them.
I think the set was meant to feel like a Freight Train. It might take a little bit to get rolling, but once it gets started, You don't want to be the way. As it stands though, It feels like an old Ford Pickup. It might not be the fastest, but it will get you where you need to be reliably..... Eventually.
Edit: The Devs did a fantastic job on the Aesthetics, those are perfect.
While I love more powers and sets to choose from (LTS/Gold or Silver), what I find lacking in the game is content and crafting. Crafting is in, and that seems a dead horse, so I won't beat that; however, people to expect content. I think another zone is in order, something like Canada (level 8 or so to 30+) just for variety. Add some higher level content to the desert (25-30+). Re-think Lemuria Crisis, heck re-think any "queued" crisis. Desert and Canada crisis work and are great, and while I see the awesomeness of Monster Island with a 5-man team, the reality is, most are solo'd. The last three times I've done it, I go in with one other who sits at the sub...
There also needs to be END GAME LAIRS. Several of them, at least. We've all heard the complaint: "the only thing to do in Champions when you hit 40 is roll a new toon..." - yes, but it would be nice to have some more end-game lairs. Of course, the reward system needs a good deal of re-work (not even going into Crafted Travel Powers).
I look at the Calendar section, but do not see anything beyond more powersets and costumes/items for the C-Store (which are fine, but...). Please let us know that *something* great, content-wise, is forthcoming. Maybe it was announced and I missed it, but I do not recall any new content forthcoming. Even "premium" lairs, purchasable by LTS/Gold members would sell well (provided they're not priced ridiculously, like the rez packs or trash... er gift boxes).
-r0y