Serene Calm & Combat Hacking

I've been looking at different builds weakness, strenghts, etc.  And I really think that Serene Calm is a bit overpowered.  Serene calm is in the Aikdo Master tree and for those who do not know gives the following buffs. Melee, Thrown, Viral, Ballistic Defense (37 pts) for all for 40 seconds.  IS Cost is 50 with a resuse timer of 180 seconds.  Now that's a ton of defense for an extended period of time. 

Now if we look down the hacker tree at the Artillerist tree you have Combat Hacking which gives the following buffs.  Ballistic, and Melee Defense (20 pts) for both; IS cost reduction (15%) for 32 seconds.  IS cost is 20, reuse timer of 298 seconds.  Now it is decent ballistic and Melee Defense, but no where close to the full boat that Serene Calm gives.  Now it doese give good IS cost reduction and doesn't cost as much IS, but for hackers who live and die via IS out of, and especially in Interlock it makes a difference. 

When you add Serene calm to the general free 47 pts of viral defense that you get from hyper deflect (When I say free it's because you can run that defense along with another of your choice, making the viral defense an easy pick for people to have along with their choice of the melee, ballistic, or thrown defense from the other awakened abilities)  You add the basic free hyper deflect 47 pts, plus what you pick up from awakened and what not, then add on another 37 pts for 40 seconds.... Well in my opinion it makes it unbalanced.  Heck I think just being able to run the hyper deflect plus another defense of your choice is unbalanced.  I say give us the choice of any two and be done with the bias against hackers. 

I seriously think that they need to do a few things here.  I don't like the idea of cutting back on abilities so I propose that you bump up combat hacking to include all defenses at 25-30 pts of defense and get the IS cost reduction down to 5-10% and increase the duration to 40 seconds, reduce the reuse timer from 298 seconds to 180 seconds, and increase the IS from 20 pts to 30 pts. 

I also don't think it'd be to bad of an idea to increase the duration of upgrade attacks, but somehow I don't think anyone would go for that.  I'm just saying there are times when I've had full, and I mean full Viral Accuracy... All viral clothing, with upgrade attacks running, and you just can't hit these guys running with that ability.  40 seconds of that much defense is a long long time, by the time it runs out my IS in or out of interlock is gone.  There needs to be a balance for this.

lol most people would complain it's underpowered because it doesn't stack. Coz it's useless....

Not most people, probably just you.  The IS cost renders it equally useless in a duel and in PvP.  The only time you could conceivably use it is against an opponent you know to have comparatively low IS, and in an isolated environment.  If another opponent follows-up, your low IS could even make reluctant escape impossible.

As for missing despite your full accuracy, Snipers miss opponents who are sat down, level 50 MA's can miss level 30's with specials.  This is the nature of CR2.  Due to the 'X'or 'random' factor, someone somewhere down the line will make the comment that hackers hit them all the time, even with Serene Calm running. 

I just can't see full defense beating full accuracy on every single occasion, I assume you've run some tests? 

The Leo wrote:

lol most people would complain it's underpowered because it doesn't stack. Coz it's useless....

Not most people, probably just you.  The IS cost renders it equally useless in a duel and in PvP.  The only time you could conceivably use it is against an opponent you know to have comparatively low IS, and in an isolated environment.  If another opponent follows-up, your low IS could even make reluctant escape impossible.

As for missing despite your full accuracy, Snipers miss opponents who are sat down, level 50 MA's can miss level 30's with specials.  This is the nature of CR2.  Due to the 'X'or 'random' factor, someone somewhere down the line will make the comment that hackers hit them all the time, even with Serene Calm running. 

I just can't see full defense beating full accuracy on every single occasion, I assume you've run some tests? 

serene calm is useless, it gives u less defense then your hyper def, and u should load upgrade attacks with your artillerist load

If it doesn't stack then it should... I can't think of another ability that takes of a basic awakened ability out there.  If they think it is overpowered and that is why they have it not stacking then they need to bump it down a bit and let it stack so it can be a useful ability to throw into a build.

- Desperate Speed
Deactivates Hyperspeed

- Enhanced Dodge
Deactivates Hyper-Block, Hyper-Dodge, Hyper-Sense

- Concealment
Deactivates Hyperspeed

- Serene Calm
Deactivates Hyper-Block, Hyper-Dodge, Hyper-Sense, Hyper-Deflect

- Iron Body
Deactivates Adrenaline Booster, Consistent Technique

broin wrote:

If it doesn't stack then it should... I can't think of another ability that takes of a basic awakened ability out there.  If they think it is overpowered and that is why they have it not stacking then they need to bump it down a bit and let it stack so it can be a useful ability to throw into a build.

- Desperate Speed - only one speed buff can be active at once
Deactivates Hyperspeed

- Enhanced Dodge - points are the same as those in the awakened tree
Deactivates Hyper-Block, Hyper-Dodge, Hyper-Sense

- Concealment - you have to stand still hyperspeed would just show the enemy where you are (besides it doesn't boost speed)
Deactivates Hyperspeed

- Serene Calm - here we got a problem because not only is the time duration much less than in enchanced dodge but the points are less and the IS cost is sky high ergo useless
Deactivates Hyper-Block, Hyper-Dodge, Hyper-Sense, Hyper-Deflect

- Iron Body - it has points in both adrenaline booster and consistent technique so...
Deactivates Adrenaline Booster, Consistent Technique

Sneak has that advantage over Concealment, then. Hyperspeed can remain active while you're in Sneak, thereby boosting your speed while you're out of sight. However, that's for a different thread. Personally, I don't feel it causes an imbalance. I could care less about moving faster while I'm using Escape and Evasion.

But all of those abilities do, in fact, take precedence in your buffer over the Awakened ones. In Broin's defense, although he didn't bring this up, Hackers get the short end of the stick in that you can load Hyper-Deflect always in conjunction with one other Hyper-Ability. You're always defending against Viral and one other type of damage. Similarly, the Resistance abilities cancel each other out with the exception of the Viral resistance ability, Empty Mind. I feel that when I am being gunned, kicked, knifed, and hacked I should be able to activate all of the resistance buffs for an increased chance of survival as opposed to only being able to reduce damage from viral and one other damage type at a time.

Played around with Combat Hacking last night, and I have to say, this would be a great ab for hackers in IL. It might actually help us survive longer than a couple of turns in IL.

And, it is one of the only abs that makes use of the Vitality influences.

But a 298 sec reuse timer? So I can only use this for one fight every five minutes? Talk about relegating something to absolute uselessness!

In my opinion, this is one of the few things that would help balance hackers for IL. Yes, most of the Hacker tree is meant for free-fire attacks, but there are a couple of builds that could be considered for 1v1 IL combat.

However, a five minute reuse timer makes Combat Hacking much lower in importance than, say, an extra hyper or a DOT attack. Unless the devs reduce the timer, this ab will likely stay moth-balled.

Can we get some feedback? lol, does anyone else even care at this point?

Zerotolerance wrote:

broin wrote:

If it doesn't stack then it should... I can't think of another ability that takes of a basic awakened ability out there.  If they think it is overpowered and that is why they have it not stacking then they need to bump it down a bit and let it stack so it can be a useful ability to throw into a build.

- Desperate Speed - only one speed buff can be active at once
Deactivates Hyperspeed

- Enhanced Dodge - points are the same as those in the awakened tree If self-buffed with hyperdodge, yes.  If someone else buffs you, points are different.
Deactivates Hyper-Block, Hyper-Dodge, Hyper-Sense

- Concealment - you have to stand still hyperspeed would just show the enemy where you are (besides it doesn't boost speed)
Deactivates Hyperspeed

- Serene Calm - here we got a problem because not only is the time duration much less than in enchanced dodge but the points are less and the IS cost is sky high ergo useless
Deactivates Hyper-Block, Hyper-Dodge, Hyper-Sense, Hyper-Deflect

- Iron Body - it has points in both adrenaline booster and consistent technique so...
Deactivates Adrenaline Booster, Consistent Technique - Wrong.  Iron body stacks with consistent technique.  It also stacks with adrenaline booster.  Adrenaline booster and consistent techique don't stack together.

I also tried using them in different orders.  Iron body first, then the awakened abilities and visa versa.  Both awakened stacks with Iron Body, just not with each other.