The Deal with Hybrids

[RusSki]

I say fair play for battling on with an underpowered character.
Gone are the days where every man, woman and child bitched about how over powered they were yet at the same time had their own apu hyb which they used for zonewhoring at mb.

Personally I really like the poison beam on my hyb. Although I've since gone down the road of lowering my ppu as spec'ing for haz was a bridge too far.

[onero S]

Right ok, Vegah, I know you're this great player and all and no one can beat you but this setup does work against quite a few people. No it's not equal to alot of tanks, spies and pes, but it's not useless. I've had a situation where I am attacked by a good tank and a poor spy. I took the spy down, and then made the tank run. None of us had ppu buffs. On other occasions that tank on his own has taken me down.

With some fights in NF, i've won around half the duels. There were some spies and some tanks that i had no chance again. My aiming isn't great and nor is the fact that i'm playing a hybrid but it works against some people, which makes it semi-viable. I'll never win a Fight Night with this guy, nor rule over Plaza 2 but that's not the point. The point is the fun of playing an APU who can take some damage. My Fire Apoc still hurts... alot. Maybe not as much as a full APU but its still pure fire damage doing 80 health off a hit on most un-ppu'd characters. That or my poison beam.

I'm just saying that he's not half bad. He's independent of damned ppus, and with a psi 3 buff and ppu shields, is still, YES, still, very viable at OP wars.

He's challenging, he's hard, but he's fun. He'll never be that great not in the games current balancing, but i'm still going to press on with him and you'll still see him at OP fights (while i'm still playing of course)

Hybrids definitely need a boost, but like melee, in my opinion, it doesn't need to be that big of one, or else everyone is going to jump on the bandwagon of the overpowered hybrid once more.

I'm glad you're having fun, but tbh the people you fight must suck. Have you ever been full pure apu? 80 dmg a hit on fire apoc (a 2 sec cast) is HORRIFIC dmg. Its just awful. And your resists are still worse than any other class but an apus.

If you're doing well then other players are either worse than you or have bad setups.

Both the numbers, my experiance, and the experiance of multaple clanmates backs this up.


And btw, VegaH and I were two of the origonal pioners of hybrids in 2.1, before everyone jumped on the bandwagon. I've tried so many specs it makes me shudder to think of the xp wasted. Hybrids are not just a little broken, they are downright useless against any semi comptent players.

Edit: And I'm sorry if I sound harsh, I don't mean to be.

Part of what I'm getting at is there HAS to be a solo advantadge for being a hybrid or its pointless. Hybrids should be the monk spec for unsupported play. A lone hybrid is very effective however they don't gain anything from ppu buffs and hence are at a disadvantadge in large fights.

Since obviously hybrids are worse than any other class in an opp fight, with a ppu, or solo, they are just plain broken.

[Glok]

With a ppu don't you put on PA, get a psi 3 and haz3? Just wondering, I haven't done a fraction of the investigating you have, but I did have a 2.1 hyb.. and yeah he sucked.

edit: hell if you're going with a ppu, why not get poked up with offence imps while you're at it?

[onero S]

With a ppu don't you put on PA, get a psi 3 and haz3? Just wondering, I haven't done a fraction of the investigating you have, but I did have a 2.1 hyb.. and yeah he sucked.

edit: hell if you're going with a ppu, why not get poked up with offence imps while you're at it?

You can put on pa and get a psi 3, but your dmg will still be very very subpar to the point of doing almost no net dmg vs shields and heals. Even with the added apu, you still miss out on a lot due to points spent in ppu and that still gives you an apu malus.

Very apu oriented hybrids would be ok in an op war (though only as ok as normal apus are which is still kinda shitty tbh) but then again, you're hardly even a hybrid at that point. Solo you would get like 2 or 3% more resists which, with apu, is laughable. You might as well save on the psi chips and just use a ppr/npcd, you'd get that same resist boost with less hassle and more dmg.


But yea, one of the many issues with hybrids is apus just are not very good anymore. So the whole idea of specing lots of apu and then supporting it with ppu is silly. Why not use a gun that does more dmg and have better resists and speed on an HC tank, PE, or Spy?

[Tickles]

I'm glad you're having fun, but tbh the people you fight must suck. Have you ever been full pure apu? 80 dmg a hit on fire apoc (a 2 sec cast) is HORRIFIC dmg. Its just awful. And your resists are still worse than any other class but an apus.

If you're doing well then other players are either worse than you or have bad setups.

Both the numbers, my experiance, and the experiance of multaple clanmates backs this up.


And btw, VegaH and I were two of the origonal pioners of hybrids in 2.1, before everyone jumped on the bandwagon. I've tried so many specs it makes me shudder to think of the xp wasted. Hybrids are not just a little broken, they are downright useless against any semi comptent players.

Edit: And I'm sorry if I sound harsh, I don't mean to be.

Part of what I'm getting at is there HAS to be a solo advantadge for being a hybrid or its pointless. Hybrids should be the monk spec for unsupported play. A lone hybrid is very effective however they don't gain anything from ppu buffs and hence are at a disadvantadge in large fights.

Since obviously hybrids are worse than any other class in an opp fight, with a ppu, or solo, they are just plain broken.

Everyone seems to think hybrids are completely screwed. I'm just saying that they're not completely... just mostly. I think you're trying to say they need a major boost right?

I just think that they don't need that big a boost. Removing the hybrid malus will do quite a lot. Lowering the requirements of the spells will be good as well. I just want to leave it at that. No other changes. If the requirements are lowered, I don't want them lowered by too much.

Yeh the people i've fought may not have been that great. They may not be the elite guys and they may not use the current (IMO overpowered) weapons like x-bow and AK, but a lot seem run of the mill Plaza 2 lovers.

Also you say that at OPs even with a ppu i'm useless? That's not true. I only have 45 PPU specc'd, which barely reduces my damage at all. With ppu shields i reach the energy resist cap of 75% and around 60% fire resist. Having an apu (or hybrid) around has been useful at OPs. I still do nice damage even when the enemy are PPU shielded.

Anyway i think we're just repeating ourselves. We both think hybrids need a boost. I'm just hoping our discussion is noticed by the devs.



P.s Nah its cool, i don't find it harsh. This is a discussion not an argument, I'm happy to hear it all

edit: @ onero: why be an apu? because i love it

[onero S]

Perhaps another idea, would be to change the way a "PPU" is defined.

Atm if you have apu points, you are considered an apu, your shields are considered forign cast and your resist cap is 75%.

What if PPU was made a sliding scale. If you have less than 50 ppu points you're an apu.

If you have between 50 and 75 points you're resist cap is 78% and your shields/heal are more effective.


If you have between 75 and 100 points you're resist cap is 81% and your shields/heal are more effective.

If you're between 100 and 125 you're resist cap is 83% and your shields/heal are more effective.

And if you have over 140 points you're resist cap is 85% and your shields/heal are more effective.

Full PPU of course would require less than 25 apu points or somthing like that.


The key to this idea is that with the apu/ppu malus. Even though its possible to use holy buffs with fire apoc, you're dmg would be very low, making up for you having the best resists (non PPUed) of any combat class.


More offensive hybrids would spec for lower tl shields, which would give them a useful boost and could get good dmg.

Edit: And sigh, I know what you mean, my main is still my apu, I love him even though its a bit hard these days.