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Still no fix for permanent active defense rotation?
eva1988
Posts: 183 Arc User
I do not think it should be possible to have an active defense on 100% of the time, but unfortunately it is possible.
When I bring this up of course i am talking about two active defense that are much much stronger than the others; that being Unbreakable, and masterful dodge; and when used together, make the person using them near unbeatable. I say "near", because perhaps if they go away from the keyboard, they might actually die.
By using specializations, gear,powers and the intelligence stat, it is easy to shorten the cooldown of an active defense to the point where you can rotate between two of them, and have them on at all times.
I think that this being possible spoils the game on many different levels, as it makes the user invulnerable. It removes any sense of challenge from the game in terms of PVE, overall making the game feel less rewarding for their accomplishments, and for those that they team with. In PVP it results in the game being completely one sided against those who don't use active defense rotation, or results in no one dying due multiple users of active defense rotation.
Overall it just feels like cheating is taking place for those on the receiving end of builds like this in PVP (infact i can't stress enough how much this is ruining the PVP section of the game right now) , or teamed up with them in PVE, not fun.
"But to do that surely they'd have to lose out in other areas of their build, and devote everything to reducing cooldowns?"
It has become so easy to reduce these cooldowns, that it can be done without really losing anything from your build, allowing people to devote the rest of their build to damage, healing, or more defense(not that they'd need it ofcourse as they are pretty much unkillable with just the active defense rotation alone).
I can think of a few solutions to this problem :
1. Greatly extend the cooldown between the use of active defense, and make it immune to cooldown reduction effects, for example, the intelligence stat.
2.Only allow one active defense to be selected(similar to energy unlocks).
3. Make active defense immune to all cooldown reducing effects from stats, gear, and specializations.
4. Greatly extend the cooldown of active defense powers
5. Combining any of the above in any way that they are compatible with each other.
6. Make masterful dodge, and unbreakable as weak as their counterparts, resurgence, and field surge.
7.Or some other method I haven't thought of that prevents this rotation
One other thing i'd like to add; I think it is extremely unprofessional the way this has been left for so long, I understand there are other things that have been left for a long time, but this one completely spoils the PVP part of the game; and has done ever since unbreakable was fixed to match its description.
The only time in my experience where it has been this bad, was when a similar problem came along where people would get five or so eruption devices, (a device that grants immunity to damage) and rotate them for indefinite damage immunity 100% of the time.
I also think it is unprofessional the way many bugs involved in PVP have been neglected; there are some people paying just to play the PVP part of this game, a part of the game that has had no real attention for years. There is still a bug in the UTC herogame that repeatedly removes people while they're playing, if they try and rejoin? it removes them again. It occurs very often. Another is the turrets in stronghold sometimes being immune to damage. UTC, stronghold, and king of the hill rarely ever pop, due to the amount of players required for it to start not being reduced with the population decrease (that, or the queues are bugged). These are bugs that have been here for years. Although off topic from my original post, i just thought it was important to mention these things as well, as i know there are a lot of people who would appreciate these bugs being fixed.
When I bring this up of course i am talking about two active defense that are much much stronger than the others; that being Unbreakable, and masterful dodge; and when used together, make the person using them near unbeatable. I say "near", because perhaps if they go away from the keyboard, they might actually die.
By using specializations, gear,powers and the intelligence stat, it is easy to shorten the cooldown of an active defense to the point where you can rotate between two of them, and have them on at all times.
I think that this being possible spoils the game on many different levels, as it makes the user invulnerable. It removes any sense of challenge from the game in terms of PVE, overall making the game feel less rewarding for their accomplishments, and for those that they team with. In PVP it results in the game being completely one sided against those who don't use active defense rotation, or results in no one dying due multiple users of active defense rotation.
Overall it just feels like cheating is taking place for those on the receiving end of builds like this in PVP (infact i can't stress enough how much this is ruining the PVP section of the game right now) , or teamed up with them in PVE, not fun.
"But to do that surely they'd have to lose out in other areas of their build, and devote everything to reducing cooldowns?"
It has become so easy to reduce these cooldowns, that it can be done without really losing anything from your build, allowing people to devote the rest of their build to damage, healing, or more defense(not that they'd need it ofcourse as they are pretty much unkillable with just the active defense rotation alone).
I can think of a few solutions to this problem :
1. Greatly extend the cooldown between the use of active defense, and make it immune to cooldown reduction effects, for example, the intelligence stat.
2.Only allow one active defense to be selected(similar to energy unlocks).
3. Make active defense immune to all cooldown reducing effects from stats, gear, and specializations.
4. Greatly extend the cooldown of active defense powers
5. Combining any of the above in any way that they are compatible with each other.
6. Make masterful dodge, and unbreakable as weak as their counterparts, resurgence, and field surge.
7.Or some other method I haven't thought of that prevents this rotation
One other thing i'd like to add; I think it is extremely unprofessional the way this has been left for so long, I understand there are other things that have been left for a long time, but this one completely spoils the PVP part of the game; and has done ever since unbreakable was fixed to match its description.
The only time in my experience where it has been this bad, was when a similar problem came along where people would get five or so eruption devices, (a device that grants immunity to damage) and rotate them for indefinite damage immunity 100% of the time.
I also think it is unprofessional the way many bugs involved in PVP have been neglected; there are some people paying just to play the PVP part of this game, a part of the game that has had no real attention for years. There is still a bug in the UTC herogame that repeatedly removes people while they're playing, if they try and rejoin? it removes them again. It occurs very often. Another is the turrets in stronghold sometimes being immune to damage. UTC, stronghold, and king of the hill rarely ever pop, due to the amount of players required for it to start not being reduced with the population decrease (that, or the queues are bugged). These are bugs that have been here for years. Although off topic from my original post, i just thought it was important to mention these things as well, as i know there are a lot of people who would appreciate these bugs being fixed.
Post edited by eva1988 on
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Comments
That's the only good suggestion in this post.
Because it actually solves stacking double ADs without breaking anything else.
All others would made ADs into rubbish and this game had enough powers nerfed too much with no reason.
And disconnecting more powers with cooldown reduction only serves in making cooldown reduction useless.
No, Unbreakable and MD does not need to be nerfed to the level with other ADs. The game already has too much rubbish powers not worth taking. Rather other ADs should be made better.
Crowd control overnerf should be a good lesson how to not "fix" things.
Each time when power is overnerfed it diminishes pool of desirable powers and, in the end, it makes going freeform less desirable.
active offense rotation is nowhere near as bad, atleast people actually die. Also, whatever problem pops up after fixing active defense, will never be as bad, or as broken as active defense rotation(unless they add something new); So it would only serve to improve things.
Masterful Dodge could use a nerf, as there's little to no reason to rank it up.
Fixing AD's first starts at toning down cooldown reduction as that's causing a great many problems with powers in general. On a character with base intelligence I have my AD/AO's down to 40 seconds. Normal cooldowns on these power is 90 seconds, that's stupid. Cooldown reduction should at best lower a CD on any power by 1/4.
From there the shared cooldown between AO's/AD's needs to be a set amount unaffected by CD reduction. The shared cooldown is supposed to be 30 seconds, however with CD reduction it's more like 10~14 seconds.
Players should be able to have multiple AD's as there could be times where the want to use one AD over the other.
I'd like a list of ways I'm allowed to be powerful, if we can manage that. I'm never sure if I'm drawing from the bad "working as intended" or the good one, and it would help avoid serious social faux pas like this one. I got it, from now on I'll only pvp on useless combos, that way it's entirely fair to everyone I fight.
Freeform is designed specifically to make stuff like this possible. If we're gonna ban active defense rotation we should also bock combos that allow 25k+ damage spikes, defense penetration that ignores most of a passive, heal removals like trauma because they're unfair, passive stripping powers like skarnes, interrupts, and a bunch of other things.
Or, we could just let people play how they want to and stop trying to nerf powers that we just got buffed to useful levels a little while ago. It's definitely an option.
RIP Caine
Active defenses are supposed to be the "oh shi-" button but it came to the point where people initiate combat with it and rotate it naturally even if they don't receive any damage. Stupid.
It allows for squishy builds to become nigh-invincible with little to no drawbacks.
Since everyone uses it, it's very hard to do without it, and therefore forces you to pick one less actual power, makes gameplay boring.
Since it's almost impossible to tear trough, duels consist of 75% useless tickling and 25% trying to burst the enemy down within the 5 seconds weakness window.
I get it.. It's hard to let go off of the OP stuff. But this is too good with too few pre requisites.. It makes bad builds look good, even.
If anything, this kind of extreme defenses (2 ADs) should be restricted to tank role (this isn't a trinity game, yeah..) or just do as suggested, and zap it out for everyone. Or.. (see below)
There IS severe imbalance amongst ADs.. right now when picking an AD, it's like : "So what do I want to have high defenses against ? EVERYTHING. Yay, masterful dodge does it. Do I need more ? Unbreakable". The two others are effectively out of question. I wish the two were more situational to begin with, with MD just protecting you, against big spikes and Unbreak protecting you against tons of small maintain and DoT damage, also removing the shared cooldown (it has no purpose anyway) and allowing them to stack.. That way I would be okay with having the two, because you'd be able to adapt to what the enemy's using and dish out reasonable damage if you have the corresponding abilities, while using both would still offer 15 seconds of full protection, but leaving you vulnerable for a considerable time. See ? Isn't that somewhat more intelligent than "press B to be invincible for 15 seconds", even if the application doesn't practically work ?
TLDR : Do something ! Double AD isn't fun or clever *-*
(°∇° ) #megalodon2015
This means, we can't get enough DPS and also not so tough then people think.
If we take any other Mastery, Activating AD can be easily interrupted and have to wait other recharge.
I think people making their build viable some other way with double AD.
You just need a Hospitality Eyepiece, Justice/Legion's of speed and 400+ Int, which is pretty much the basic Concentration build template.
I got perception secondary instead. Stealth is much threat for me. o3o
I technically agree with the specific examples you gave.
I disagree with the idea that anything has been nerfed in a very long time due to pvp, or that anything in the near (or heck, far) future will be nerfed due to pvp.
Actually I hear it was cause the guy who was gonna do it was moved to another project. No folly.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
@Chimerafreek
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The fact that something like self-rooting charged melee attacks even exists in the game and can be interrupted by movement - which gives raged far too much advantage over melee.
Honestly, melee charges should either disregard distance to the target if target was in range at the beginning of the charge.
Or they should give no self-root at all.
So as far as that goes, I think charged melee attacks do have a place, even if not in duels. Just gotta look at risk/effort vs reward which seems to be about right for Haymaker really.
As for AO/AD cycling, I would have to say yes it needs a nerf.
Remember that PvE content is balanced around player power, and the most recent high end content, F&I, is an example of what happens when content is balanced around a very narrow high end. We need to reduce the gap between high and low. That means bring up the low, take the high down a notch. Although I am more inclined to lift the low end more than nerf the top - 2 buffs to low end powers for 1 nerf.
So, yes, I agree that AD rotation should not be a thing. I also think that resurgence shouldn't even be an AD, but simply a click heal with a long cooldown. It's pretty much like Palliate, but scaling with con instead of pre and you can only use it on yourself. I don't even think it has any break free ability without the adv.
Because it needs to be said again.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
A lot of problems in game could be helped by looking at core issues rather than case by case basis. Most of these problems arose with On Alert as there seemed to be very little thought on the consequences. One example being allowing us to stat gear however we want (we were never meant to be able to single stat) and to much crazier numbers.
CD reduction and Cost Discount existed in the game in the early days. It functioned a little differently than it does now but was ultimately removed because it broke stuff. Seems we're repeating that.
Of course, a PvP only solution would be to just make crippling challenge disable active defenses.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Easy fix, CDR does not effect AOs & ADs except for the offensive & defensive expertise specs and Lock 'n Load's advantage, since that's already balanced out.
Adding diminishing returns to CDR might work as well.
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quick testing w/ Rimefire BARST (35 sec cd base)
& Nanobot SWARM (@ R3 = 24 sec cd reduction)
(CDR formula from jimhsua/Gift Horse)
W/ cd's @ 37.8951% (501 Int + 310 CDR):
Rimefire = 13 sec cd
NS = 45 sec cd
NS reduced RB by: ~9 seconds (13 -> 4)
24 * 0.378951 = 9.095
W/ cds @ 57.754% (399 Int + 46 CDR):
Rimefire = 20 sec cd
NS = 69 sec cd
NS reduced RB by: ~13.5 seconds (20 -> 6/7)
24 * 0.57754 = 13.86
W/ cds @ 71.552% (177 Int + 46 CDR):
Rimefire = 25 sec cd
NS = 86 sec cd
NS reduced RB by: ~17 seconds (25 -> 8)
24 * 0.71552 = 17.17
W/ cds @ 86.362% (105 Int + 0 CDR):
Rimefire = 30 sec cd
NS = 104 sec cd
NS reduced RB by: ~20.5 seconds (30 -> 10/9)
24 * 0.86362 = 20.73
May be old news to some, but not to me (esp since I dun use NS much as a pve'er :x )
I guess it makes sense they did that, though. A non-reduced NS could be too crazy w/ the already low cds one could have atm.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Arguably the real problem isn't active defense rotation, it's that the active defenses are horribly balanced vs one another. I think no-one would complain, notice, or care if you cycled Field Surge and Resurgence. A balanced version of active defenses might be something like:
- Field Surge: 10,000 point force field (counted before mitigation), lasts 12s
- Unbreakable: block 1,000 points per hit (counted after mitigation), expires after 5,000 damage (after mitigation), lasts 12s.
- Masterful Dodge: +100% dodge chance, +80% avoidance; expires after you dodge 15,000 points of damage (calculated pre-mitigation), lasts 12s
- Resurgence: 5,000 point healing.
This makes field surge and resurgence flat out better, and in most PvE won't visibly affect masterful dodge or unbreakable anyway -- not that many opponents do enough damage to cause them to expire (you wouldn't take unbreakable over field surge unless you have at least +100% damage resistance, and not that many opponents do 833 dps, or the 1250 dps required to blow down masterful dodge before it expires).5,000 point armor (counted after mitigation), lasts 12s
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Actually, the easiest way to do this is to make running on elite more challenging and more rewarding.
Besides, your whole premise that "it's easy to cycle two active defenses" is dependent on a very skewed definition of "easy". Sure, it's doable, if you build for that above everything else - but that doesn't make it easy; none of my characters can get closer than about a 42 second cooldown, and that's with int superstatted and favoring cooldown reduction over cost discount on gear.
Plus, even if some players will go off the beaten path and try out weaker builds/abilities, most players take the path of least resistance and gravitate to the powerful stuff; when nearly everyone does it, not only is the content over too fast, but it becomes tedious when seeing the same things put into play.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Except that both of those last 15 seconds, not 18. Which means 12 seconds without an active defense up.
Except that Unbreakable, in practical terms, lasts less than 15 seconds if you're actually attacking, because each attack reduces the amount it heals on hit, and - at least for me - at around 10 seconds in the shield just sortof collapses.
Which means you're looking at more like 19 seconds out of every 42 without an active defense actually doing anything for you.
Int secondary (424 with quarry up) and CD reduction in gear, my AD's are on a 30 second cooldown.
My AD's are on a 42 second cooldown on a character with base int.
Even so saying having around 50% uptime on AD's is okay is eyebrow raising.
Buffs = Yes
Nerfs = Yes
Overbuffing* = NO
Overnerfing* = NO
Baseline White Hit Power Balancing to Center = Yes
In order to reach the middle the low must rise up and the high must be brought down.
*This is a reference per item not whether you, personally, feel too many items have been adjusted either direction. Like, for example, Mini-Mines needed nerfed in 2009. They cut it's damage by 50% but accidently cut out one of it's two damage types(it was originally fire/crushing) therefore causing the power to lose 75% damage. When F2P hit the "solution" to this was to adjust the tooltips and not the power. This, IMO, is overnerfing. It doesn't matter if it's intentional or "Cryptic", only if it occurs since Cryptic's plan has always been to hit hard in order to return later if it doesn't pan out or boost lightly(there are exceptions) with the same return policy...except that Cryptic rarely, if ever, returns to those points. May Cryptic North do better at this. <crosses fingers>
P.S. Gradii: Theoretically, if everything was eyebeams and mini-mines then EVERYTHING would be a "good choice." It is only when those powers are compared to the overperforming powers that they lose their appeal. Think about it.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
If an FF still had the freedom make MD/Unbreakable have ~half uptime, I dun see a problem with that as long as it took a strong gearing/stat commitment that excluded other good options (not counting Protector Mastery, possibly also Nanobot swarm, but NS is another power slot ya have to take out..). Ofc, one quick way to nip it in the bud w/o nerfing CDR in general is to just fix the shared AD cd; that should probably still be done, but its not really complete to leave it at that.
AD/AOs, to my understanding of how they are baseline, are meant as typical burst mitigation or dps buttons on their own; making them have much higher uptime should imo still be feasible, but come at a considerably higher cost than it does now.
Ofc, that also entails making each AD or AO more even in terms of relative power.. which is far from the case now.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
I.E. when you have a little bit of int, or CRR, you get only teeny tiny amounts of cooldown reduction. If you have a lot of Int OR a lot of CRR, you only get a moderate amount of cooldown reduction. Only when you have tons of both do you get the amount of cooldown reduction required to get back to back ADs. To the degree that you can't have anything in anything else.
Diminishing Returns are what is actually promoting this "get a little bit of everything to get the most of everything" meta. Diminishing Returns are specifically meant to discourage specialization, which isn't particularly great in a system that is meant to allow people to feel special.
Also by "tons of" I mean you have Int as PSS, every mod slot has Int mods or CRR mods in it, AND you took Specializations that help to reduce cooldowns in some way...maybe even requires AoAC to get it all the way there. Full tilt, no compromise. perma-AD should be possible, but it should be one heck of a specialized build.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Which makes me wonder how some people manage it while maintaining 12k+ hit points and enough knock resist to not care if someone knocks them ._. but they do, and that's the issue.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Changing the way that you get perpetual so that it prevents those other cases would be the way to do that. Anything else either won't work, or just takes away perpetual all together... .which is yet another interesting game mechanic lost to the game forever. How many can we afford to lose?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Actually, though, the real problem is that those two ADs are overpowered -- perpetual AOs aren't really a problem (though the advantage on ego surge is maybe a bit much), and any other two ADs would be fine. Resurgence and Field Surge could probably stand to be improved, TBH.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Perpetual AOs make me giggle... on pretty much all my characters activating an AO increases my damage by like...5%. It's really sad.
MD and Unbreakable aren't overpowered, they do exactly what they're intended to do. Perpetual AD cycling is an interesting mechanic by virtue of the fact that you actually have to actively do something to keep it going. If we keep getting rid of these active mechanics, then all we're left with is a game where people just mindlessly spam a self heal and a damage power... a game where everyone is exactly the same... a game where the free form system is a joke, but nobody's laughing.
The problem with perpetual AD's isn't the perpetual part, and it isn't the AD part, it's all the other stuff you can still get while being able to perpetually cycle ADs. You shouldn't be able to have good knock resistance, a large hit point pool, good stun resistance, and strong heals at the same time as perpetual AD ability. The problem is that you can, and that doing so is unquestionably better than attempting to trade all those in to specialize more.
The game needs to be changed so that it rewards specialization, and makes "jack of all trades" characters actually be that. Currently a jack of all trades is actually a "master of all trades", and a specialist aint so special. Nerfing ADs or CDR won't change that, it'll actually just make specialists even less worth it, and pull everyone even harder towards "jack of all trades" builds.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Masterful Dodge grants no bonus avoidance at R1 (but still 100% dodge chance), gains avoidance bonus with ranks.
Unbreakable's loss of power as you attack is reduced with increased ranks (to nothing at R3)
Resurgence grants a strong heal-over-time (maybe 5/10/15% of total health per second - with no further scaling from anything), in addition to its normal effects.
Field Surge grants damage reduction (maybe 20/50/80% depending on rank) for its duration (this should make it strictly better than Unbreakable for dealing with occasional large hits)
Active defense durations increased by 33%, active defense shared lockout increased by 50%, active defense cooldown increased by 66%.
That way, making them not (practically) able to be used back to back isn't a strict nerf - you get lower total uptime, but an extra five seconds of near-immortality when you really need it.
And unranked MD is no longer the king of active defenses - you either need avoidance from some other source, or to actually spend ranks on it.
I don't think the problem is as bad as the OP suggests... but as long as we're not dealing with a strict nerf (aside from MD avoidance, which needs to go down), I wouldn't mind some re-tuning.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained