Incoming change to Storm Summoning/O2 Boost

[Llava]

Read this from CuppaJo.  This is sort of a big deal if you're into the minutae of balance.

02 boost cost the same END as Empathy/Heal Other. It heals for less, but it also offers protection from Sleep and Stun on par with Clear mind. In update 4, it will also protect you from End Drain and Recovery debuffs.

I don't know if they putting in other powers that protect from endurance drain.  If not, that makes Storm Summoning a REALLY REALLY GOOD set to have on your side.  A lot of people are assuming that Electricity users with Short Circuit will dominate.  This would be the only thing that protects against that.

Again, sort of a big deal if you know the details of the game's balance.  Bigger deal if you play a storm user.

[MaceVanHoffen]

If not, that makes Storm Summoning a REALLY REALLY GOOD set to have on your side.  A lot of people are assuming that Electricity users with Short Circuit will dominate.

Although I have no interest in PvP, I still think this is a great change.  In the 40+ game, there are tons of NPC villains that drain endurance.  Hopefully other defender primaries will get this same kind of protection added in.

[Strazos]

Funny, I thought Storm Summoning was already pretty cool...use to group alot with a Storm/Psionics user....together, we were unstoppable.

Then again, my DM/SR guy was pretty beastly on his own....makes me wanna resub...

[Llava]

Storm is good, but suffers from the "Jack of All Trades" syndrome.  Basically, it's not bad enough to be considered gimp, but because it doesn't really excel at anything most players blow it off.  A lot of people think it has poor healing (O2 Boost is plenty if you know what you're doing), and the lack of endurance regeneration options that Empathy, Radiation and Kinetics have makes it a pretty rare sight after a certain point.  This, though, would give it something unique that would make it a very good idea to have a storm summoner on your team.  Once players have that incentive, the other good qualities of storm will shine through and people will start to realize how handy storm defenders really are.

[eldaec]

The way that's written I suspect that end drain and slow resistence is going to be distributed amoung all the sets as a first stab at pvp balance. Which is a good move.

O2 boost is still impractical as a main heal for reasons of end use, being single target, and not healing for enough. That siad of course, as mentioned many times before, healing in CoH is not at all like healing in EQ, and full calibre heals are far from essential.

O2 is best used as a cure dizzy/mez power, or maybe for keeping mez resistence up on one critical person.

Now if o2 boost became aoe, or had some amount of end heal added, then it'd get really interesting.

[Shockeye]

What kind of effectiveness does O2 boost have with a controller casting it as opposed to a defender? And how will that effectiveness translate to the new things being added to O2 boost?

[eldaec]

What kind of effectiveness does O2 boost have with a controller casting it as opposed to a defender? And how will that effectiveness translate to the new things being added to O2 boost?

75% on the heal.

On the other effects it should be 88%, but remember, all powers that break status effects work by increasing your mag to obscene levels, 88% of obscene is still more than 100% of enough. (For those who just joined us, magnitude is the stat that needs to be overcome before a status effect takes hold, heroes start at mag 3, villian effects are usually mag 3, status portection powers vary from mag+1 to mag+15)

What is unclear is whether the slow protection is mag based or % effect based.

End drain protection would, I imagine, simply be a new resistence type.

The quote says protection. In CoH-speak protection usally means mag increases rather than reducing the effect, but whether that is intended to mean anything is anyones guess.

[Glazius]

What kind of effectiveness does O2 boost have with a controller casting it as opposed to a defender? And how will that effectiveness translate to the new things being added to O2 boost?

75% on the heal.

On the other effects it should be 88%, but remember, all powers that break status effects work by increasing your mag to obscene levels, 88% of obscene is still more than 100% of enough. (For those who just joined us, magnitude is the stat that needs to be overcome before a status effect takes hold, heroes start at mag 3, villian effects are usually mag 3, status portection powers vary from mag+1 to mag+15)

What is unclear is whether the slow protection is mag based or % effect based.

End drain protection would, I imagine, simply be a new resistence type.

The quote says protection. In CoH-speak protection usally means mag increases rather than reducing the effect, but whether that is intended to mean anything is anyones guess.

Heroes start at mag 1. Minions are mag 1, lieutenants mag 2, bosses mag 3. Most protection effects are at least +3, and they all increase with level now.

Most of the pure control powers are mag 3. Thunderclap, all the controller holds, most of the attacks that do little damage but add a status effect. Some controller powers have a percentage change to critical-magnitude 4, meaning they can affect a boss with one hit. Most of the incidental powers are mag 2, like Boxing or Barrage/Whirling Hands/Bone Smasher, meaning they're enough to affect a minion... or an unbuffed hero.

I'm going with end drain and recovery being actual resistance rather than a magnitude-style effect, though. End drain is just damage to your endurance points, and there are plenty of powers, Storm powers among them, that grant resistance to damage powers.

--GF

[kaid]

Storm I think could be TERRIBLY amusing in pvp. All I can say is tornado super speed and hurricane. If you have people to help do damage following after just run around playing pinball at high speeds while debuffing the hell out of the targets.

With super speed just keep diving in with hurricane up to knock people down and debuff the heck out of their range attacks so your own party can blast them down easily.

Storm is an odd powerset but it has a lot of potential to be very good and disruptive in PVP. Hell even gale is good fast cast cheep end and with enough accuracy you would be flinging those scrappers and tanks all over the place.


kaid

[Strazos]

Ya I thought Storm was a very amusing powerset.

Then again, I found a lot of things to be amusing in that game, like using my AE Power Siphon attack, then my AE Endurance Drain attack, and then using Dark Maul to obilterate groups 4 mobs at a time.

Ya, that'll teach people to call my costume choices "gay" - it was just a simple orange/black spandex outfit using the peak color pattern...I thought it was nice.


...That's it, I'm resubbing for a month or two when I go home tonight...Hopefully there are some people around who can group with a lvl 27 scrapper.

[schild]

I'll be resubbing as soon as Issue 4 hits. Daddy wants a new pair of shoes.

[Signe]

I'm still playing the free 14 days but I think I might resub, too iff only to help schild design proper females.  I'm also thinking of sending him pr0n, just so he knows which bits go where this time.   

(waits for schild to start shouting about how sexah his girlies were)

[Llava]

I'm not sure where you're getting the "slow resist" from.  Doesn't mention it anywhere in the quote.  Just resists to endurance drain and recovery debuffs, which are both attacks on endurance.

And the endurance cost of O2 is the same as Empathy/Heal Other, so I don't really see how endurance is the issue unless you mean that running a bunch of other storm powers makes it so (which would make sense, given that Empathy doesn't have toggles that I can think of, while storm has Snowstorm, Steamy Mist, Hurricane...).

Still, I've found that, if I play smart, my 25 storm defender can keep a group alive pretty dang well.  If they're dumbasses, of course, I can't prop them up like I could with empathy.  But with a reasonably intelligent group of people, thing turn out quite well.

[schild]

MA GIRLS WERE SEXAH

[Strazos]

Ok, I just reupped, and my main characters are on Freedom....is Anyone else there for me to play with?

[eldaec]

I'm not sure where you're getting the "slow resist" from.  Doesn't mention it anywhere in the quote.  Just resists to endurance drain and recovery debuffs, which are both attacks on endurance.

I take 'recovery' in this context to mean power recharge time, which isn't a slow either, but lazy people (like me) often use the terms interchangably because most slows also reduce recharge time.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone/thing that has an end recovery debuff?

[eldaec]

And the endurance cost of O2 is the same as Empathy/Heal Other, so I don't really see how endurance is the issue unless you mean that running a bunch of other storm powers makes it so (which would make sense, given that Empathy doesn't have toggles that I can think of, while storm has Snowstorm, Steamy Mist, Hurricane...).

It's an issue of end per heal point combined with the point you make about toggles, on my stalled-at-the-mid-twenties storm defender, I always find that if circumstances arise where I need to use O2 for healing (as opposed to breaking dizzy/sleep) then I immeaditely run out of end because it's has a fairly high cost per cast, and I'll need to start chain casting it to save anyone.

Heal Other is a considerably bigger heal, and so you don't need to chain cast it.

[Glazius]

I'm not sure where you're getting the "slow resist" from.  Doesn't mention it anywhere in the quote.  Just resists to endurance drain and recovery debuffs, which are both attacks on endurance.

I take 'recovery' in this context to mean power recharge time, which isn't a slow either, but lazy people (like me) often use the terms interchangably because most slows also reduce recharge time.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone/thing that has an end recovery debuff?

Malta Sappers. Carnie Ring Mistresses and Dark Ring Mistresses (mask of vitiation, ph33r). Anything that uses Power Sink, including Neuron. Anything that uses Short Circuit. Exploding lab equipment.

--GF

[eldaec]

Don't they all stop end regen for longer or shorter periods, rather than debuff it?

[Rodent]

Bah, this goes against everything I've worked for. Powersets with knockback must die a horrible horrible horrible extraordinary horrible death. This includes them nasty storm defenders who think they "help" me.

// Bitter tank

[Glazius]

Bah, this goes against everything I've worked for. Powersets with knockback must die a horrible horrible horrible extraordinary horrible death. This includes them nasty storm defenders who think they "help" me.

// Bitter tank

Funny story.

I went on a Sister Psyche task force which after the first few missions we dubbed "Task Force Knockback". There were a lot of tight spaces - offices, sewers - so basically the storm defender and energy blaster waited until I got aggro, circled around, and blew/torrented the Freakshow into a nice tight corner, often with an indestructible potted plant, which we collectively proceeded to turn into a killzone.

If you're confident enough in your tank to be able to do something like that, knockback is a beautiful thing.

--GF

[MaceVanHoffen]

Don't they all stop end regen for longer or shorter periods, rather than debuff it?

No, it's definitely not just a debuff.  It's a true drain on your endurance.

Sappers, for example, have two distinct endurance drain powers.  The melee version is a drain-over-time against your endurance, and it's steep enough that even a regen scrapper (like me) experiences an end drain.  The ranged version is a massive, AOE endurance drain that takes around half your endurance off with one shot.

Carnies and other epic level villains have similar powers, though the Sapper is the iconic example.

[eldaec]

Yes, that's the end drain, we were discussing mobs that debuff your rate of recovery.

Rather than those that stop it all together.

I know their are mobs/powers that drain end and mobs/powers that stop end recovery altogether, not sure if there are any that debuff endurance recovery rate.

[Llava]

Yes.  The Dark Ring Mistresses have a power called Mask of Vitiation (iirc) that both drains endurance and debuffs its recovery rate.

In CoH terminoloy, Recovery=endurance regeneration.  Regeneration=health regeneration.  Recharge=power regeneration.