Crimsanotic

Assault Rifle has never been popular (because it's bad and always has been). If your concern is losing a stun, why not just add that to Slug or Buckshot or whatever and then also get Aim. What's wrong with that?

Then why not add stun to Slug or something instead?

Why not just make it Concussive Rounds instead of Aim and just have it add stun to attacks if people apparently love Beanbag so much.

Any chance Moment of Glory gets toxic defense added (it already gives toxic resistance)?

No. Not like the hardmode difficulty theyre adding.

I've played this game since literally Issue 1. People were herding x8 maps since the dawn of time. Empathy was never needed back then. Before the aggro cap, Scrappers could herd the entire werewolf map and also solo it. Mechanics in power sets, like Street Justice, Staff Fighting, etc. are cool and good. What I mean are mechanics that make the enemies themselves more interesting. Also, I'm not saying team comp not mattering is a good thing.

I think there's a flaw this way of thinking. CoH isn't easy because characters can solo +4/x8 with little to no difficulty. CoH is easy because it's a math game. Do you mathematically take negligible damage from this enemy? Do you mathematically do more DPS than it can regenerate? If yes, you win. And that's the entire game. I personally don't care about the difficulty of trash mobs (underlings, minions, lieutenants, and bosses) because they're just that. Trash. Some of them do some interesting things, like the level 50 Awakened (which I'm not even sure how many people know exist). But for the most part, they don't really do anything fun. They stand around and you defeat them and that's it. But what I do think is fun is mowing through an army of goons. That's the entire reason why games like Dynasty Warriors are popular. And the old devs seemed to eventually lean into this. The giant groups of enemies in the ITF, endless waves in villain Reichsman, a majority of the LGTF, etc, etc. Unfortunately, Elite Bosses, Archvillains/Heroes, and Giant Monsters behave literally the exact same way. Pretty much even in Incarnate Trials. What is supposed to be the hardest content in the game is still the same math game as level 5 trash enemies. The most exciting "mechanic" they have is jump away from the boss when giant red letters tell you to. Every thing is a tank and spank and always has been. Other than very fringe scenarios, of which there aren't enough of, positioning doesn't matter. Team comp doesn't matter. There's not really any player skill so to speak because, again, everything is literally just a tank and spank. No mechanics, no telegraphs, nothing. Some of the later content in the game is a lot more exciting, like Sutter TF, but even that's "don't stand on these spots". Which, compared to 95% of the AVs in the game, is way cooler than DPS them down in 1 minute. Essentially, what I'm saying would add actual difficulty would be to make AVs/Heroes, GMs, and to some extent EBs, a lot more difficult and interesting. Though I doubt that will ever happen.

I can't imagine it has a minor effect if you enjoy soloing on +4/x8 on literally every character. No shot this doesn't make doing so significantly harder (and without spamming inspirations, potentially impossible on some characters) that could do it before, even if there was some difficulty with it. Alternatively, characters that innately have defense, like Energy Aura, were uneffected (and Energy Aura was also buffed so it's even better lmao).

It's literally the exact same mechanic WoW uses for Mythic+ keys and why the system is so hated and toxic. Doing a lower difficulty gates you out of a higher difficulty doesn't make any sense. Additionally, this is a private server. Why time gate anything? They aren't trying to keep player retention with monthly subs, are they?

So there's a limited amount of resources on something that's also time gated? So it's double time gated? So it's even worse?

That's not really how that works. Defense doesn't equate to diversity. Additionally, there's not as many Energy/Negative/Ranged or Fire/Cold/AoE defense set bonuses as there are Smashing/Lethal/Melee so it doesn't even really encourage people to try and build for one of those other two things more than they already are. I'm also not sure how this change allows them to have "more freedom" with enemies either.

I think the set falls into the "middle of the pack" not because each individual power is average, but because some of them are pretty good, while others are, well, not so good. Fault, and to a lesser extent, Hurl Boulder, aren't very good in their current state. Even though Fault does damage now, it's still arguably the worst power in the entire set. Tremor just feels underwhelming, even if the ability itself is average. Also, I think having a power or two that do stand out isn't particularly a bad thing. Seismic Smash's fast animation for it's damage, for example. It gives a reason to play one set over another that isn't purely for flavor or concept. Though I was kind of disappointed Stone Melee didn't get the new seismic gimmick of the blast set. Regardless, I do agree that balancing specifically towards the high end is not the play.

True. Though some of the ranged attacks in the epic pools are pretty good. But some of them are also terribad. So the range of the attacks having anything to do with their damage mostly seems arbitrary to me. For the record, I don't really have an issue with Hurl Boulder. Like I said, it's ok.

Also, I second Croax's opinions on Fault. I really wanted to like it, but the long recharge and mediocre damage leaves a lot to be desired. I don't find the line attack part of it to be too awkward to use, though I think it's the only power in this game that really works like that, so I wouldn't expect a lot of people to be used to it. I also think I'd prefer if Tremor did more damage but had a longer recharge time and cost more end. Like Mass Levitate or Fire Sword Circle. Especially since it's the final power on every AT except one.

What kind of sense does this make? Fast snipes for Scrappers/Stalkers. Impale in Spines, Focus in Claws. Brutes and Tanks get access to Gloom and Mu Lightning for fast, heavy hitting ranged damage. I don't think Hurl Boulder is terrible, but it's not amazing. It's just kind of ok. But saying it should be subpar simply because it's a ranged attack feels arbitrary for no real reason. Especially since, as a melee character, you'll be using it in melee range 99% of the time anyway.

I'm aware that there are powers that follow this. But from my experience they also tend to be pretty unpopular. I'd say about half the Shield characters I see don't take One With The Shield, for instance. A power that has a prerequisite of two powers gives it an opportunity cost. Abilities with an opportunity cost should be be pretty good. An ability that is basically a Break Free is not. The up/down time itself isn't too terrible, though definitely worse for basically anyone who has an even decent amount of +recharge. If it's going to keep the forced 1/3 uptime, I'd rather it last longer and have a longer cooldown to match.

That would be dismal considering the amount of defense Unleash Potential gives. RoP's resistance is already questionable on some ATs, and defense tends to just be better than resistance when comparing the two. That being said, echoing what others have said about RoP: 40 seconds is way too short of an uptime. Forced cooldown is a little strange. Overall an unnecessarily complicated change.

I am once again reporting that Fire Sword Circle on Stalkers doesn't give Assassin's Focus.

Bumping because it's still bugged.

Hasten is pretty much mandatory on 99% of builds. I agree with OP on pretty much all fronts, otherwise.

Fire Sword Circle on Stalkers does not give a stack of Assassin's Focus at all.

The +special from Adrenal Boost doesn't seem to be working at all. Also, +healing is curiously missing from the Detailed Info, even if it was working. Not sure if that's intended or not. Either way, the rest of the set seems okay. And Hasten + AB is a nice combo.

Earth Sibyls of the Talons of Vengeance have several earth blast powers, including a nuke.

Quite a few damage buffs are AoE and FF and Cold Dom's buffs are AoE and permanent so neither of those sets are picking or choosing who to buff. Fortitude is one of the only single target defense buffs I can think of. Increasing their damage cap -is- an offensive buff though, since that means a tank can spam yet more reds than they could before, or benefit from Fulcrum better, or literally any other damage buff. And in addition to treading on brute territory, buffing tanks offensively gives them overlap with even scrappers.

Their damage cap was also increased by a fairly significant amount.