MTeague

I vehemently dislike Combo systems, and have NEVER created a Dual Blades character for that reason. In particular, my objections are: sets become balanced around assumed use of the Combos That would mean I would have to take every power involved in a Combo to be most effective. Maybe I don't LIKE every power, or completely loathe the animations on a few of them. "Just don't take the powers" is fine, so long as balance of the set doesn't assume use of the combos. But we both know it will. I prefer making my own combos by experimenting for myself what powers can synergize with what, not having the game invent an arbitrary synergy because I mashed button X and then Y and then Z. I would not want a combo system proliferated willy nilly across powersets. Granted, I do not have veto power here. It may happen regardless. But I would loathe it greatly.

Rogue Isles are not US Territory. The HCWiki has quite a bit of material from original City of Villains sources. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Rogue_Isles Points of note: (bolding is mine) The main cluster of the group, home to Spider City, is at the 50 mile marker, outside US. jurisdiction. From there the smaller islands string toward the US coast. MTeague note: Nerva is at the far northwest of the Rogue Isles and clearly outside any such official jurisdiction When Statesman appeared in Paragon City, many of the villains there decided they needed a new home. The Rogue Isles was an obvious choice. Many already had connections there and the little nation’s “friendly” attitude made it a perfect choice. President Oakes was no fool. He knew that if he resisted these newcomers with their gangs and occasional superpowers things would not turn out well. But at the same time, he had bargaining chips – citizenship, diplomatic immunity, and other protections from American justice. And he had friends in the high places of America who were happy with the Rogue Isles just as they were. Deals were struck – in exchange for “playing nice” and taxes, the government turned a blind eye – and the Rogue Isles became a haven for the super-powered and evil.

I do agree with some of the thread's general frustration that many of Mind Control's powers are less useful to mass roaming murderblast teams. But honestly? ALL CONTROLLER POWERS are near-useless for mass roaming murderblast teams. If everything dies in 5 seconds or less, your immob's don't make you great for team play, either. Nor does your pet. Your proc-bomb stuns, maybe. There's a lot of things I would change about the game. and most would be hated. I do kind of question what the point even is for purple triangles anymore. All they seem to do now is make AV's even more annoying when soloing a controller, while not presenting any problems for blast-heavy teams anyway.

This needs to be said more often, in Boromir voice.

Ignite can still be decently useful on an AR / Martial blaster. Bosses can get shoved into a corner with Ki Push, and Ignited. A couple kicks to knock them down some, maybe a 2nd Ki Push. Admittedly, there's often better / safer ways to handle a boss for a blaster. But something about shoving them into a corner, setting them on fire, and keeping them there. I do of course, have the Winter chance for immob proc in it, though.

I'm all for pushing Arachnos out of Galaxy City and Faultline and anywhere else, SO LONG AS, we also round up Longbow and kick their white-and-red suited butts out of Mercy and Nerva. At LEAST move them to a base at the fringe of each zone, so anyone who wants to go hunting can still do so. But it's long past time they got squashed like a BUG from having giant bases setup without being smacked silly.

Personally,, never. If someone has things I consider sub-optimal, I assume it's for theme / character concept and it's entirely not my place to tell them that they're doing it wrong. (even if, maybe they are). That said, if they give me an opening ("Why am I so squishy!?", "Why am I running out of END so fast?", etc), I may chime in on a few suggestions. I try not to overdue it though. I can be overly verbose on a good day, and no one wants to read six paragraphs of tells to a random perhaps-rhetorical question.

Never had a problem with Psi Blast. I mean, I try to pick up one or two non-Psi damaging powers along the way, whether Air Superioity or Boxing / Crosspunch, or whatever, for sake of dealing with Robots. Because though most things have low Psi resistance, the ones that do, have a LOT of Psi Resistance. But the set has always had good range, a snipe, mix of single target and AE options, an Immob, even back when it was Defender-Only. The recharge debuffs are meaningless on trash that dies fast enough, but can stack nicely on some targets.

I think this is something that might be a good idea as the unique power for a new MM set. Same way Necromancy gets Soul Extraction, or how Thugs gets Gang War. A new MM set could get something like this. An across the board option for existing sets.... doesn't make sense to me. Thugs are .... well... thugs. Most of them can't exactly join forces into Captain Planet. Maybe most people don't care about whether it breaks theme or not. Or maybe more people are willing to simply handwave it in, and make it work for their headcanon, or simply don't care because Rule Of Cool. But I think it'd be cleaner to make it the new special of a new MM set.

That was what I tried to ask. There is what they have done for the Challenge Modes. However, I am not 100% certain I really see that as the answer to "what does it really mean to balance around IO's"? Now, as a practical matter, Challenge Modes may be the only thing that's likely to be implemented in foreseeable years. But philosophically, people are going to have different opinions of how, in an ideal world, you'd balance it out, whether it should involve tweaking some numbers or adding entirely new mechanics.

Ah. Those civilians. I admit, they barely exist to me. I blame the respawn rate. You can only save the same people from purse-snatchings about 320,948 times before you stop caring. Same with the ones being menaced by CoT on King's Row rooftops. Or the PI scientists being threatened by possessed ones. Or the people being harried by Lost. Or Tsoo. Or Devouring Earth. Or Family. Or.... you get the idea.

So, every escort mission in every game, ever?

There is enough existing content that is simple enough to do with only SO's, that I don't think it would be Beyond the Pale for the devs to experiment with a few story arcs that assumed you are kitted out with IO's and Incarnates, if they so choose. However, keep in mind, some people say "kitted out character" to mean "Blaster with softcapped defenses and massive +Recharge" Also, what does "designed for that character" mean? Does it mean,"the mobs have so much +To-Hit that you're not even close to capped defenses anymore and are dying left and right"? I suspect this would not be popular content. People avoid Rularuu for a reason, and it's not just because the shadow shard is big. Does it mean "the mobs have CC effects that entirely ignore Clarion and Mez you ANYWAY?", like a kind of "Reverse Purple Triangles", where for X seconds your mez control is worth something and for Y seconds it might as well not be there? Again, I suspect this would not be popular content. Does it mean the mobs are just big giant bullet sponges that take more hits? Um.... boring? Surely we can do better than just that for challenge? Does it mean so much incoming damage such that anyone trying to solo it, even your best kitted out Tank, is GOING TO DIE, unless they are accompanied by squads of support and controllers? What kind of enemies would you WANT to see in these situations? What would be fair and challenging? What would be just annoying / unfair / fliptables territory?

I still want the ability to grab them in a fireman's carry. Particularly for redside kidnappings! I mean, come on! Even if I'm forced to put them down before I can use any combat powers. However, I suspect the coding work for that would be .... "non-trivial". So yea, having them not get stuck on doorways, or running laps around the room to find you, would be nice.

My picks. Option #1: Willpower / Staff FIghting Tanker: You'll get a good AoE cone attack at level FOUR, far before most tanks have any AE. And that attack, Guarded Spin, is a Parry-like attack, giving you +Melee/Lethal defense. Quick Recovery for less End issues. Staff Mastery / Form of the Soul gives you Endurance Discounts, too. Plus, Spinny fighting is FUN. I'm somewhat hedging on Willpower though, because I don't know how well it's mix of mitgation methods gel how fast with only SO's. I've only ever used it tricked out with attuned IO's. Option #2: Fire Blast / Super Reflexes Sentinel: Skip your T1 blast, take your T2 blast. With only SO's, you're going to want every use of Opportunity to be a Defensive Opportunity for the endurance recovery. The heals don't suck either, but really the endurance recovery is what I'm going for here. You can hoverblast with mez protection. That alone can allow you to pull off some tricks melee can't always do. SR will take awhile to mature. It does need some slots devoted to it before your defenses will mature. But hey, it'll still beat the hell out of the days when you had to slot Training Enhancements and Dual-Origin Enhancements, and your defense simply wasn't good enough for the entire first half of the game. Most importantly, by covering Melee / Ranged / AoE positionals, you won't have to care much about Damage Types. Most tank sets have a big hole to at least Psi, and without IO's to patch that, that can become.... painful, in places like First Ward (Awakened, anyone?). There are a FEW damaging attacks that have no assigned position, but *very* few. The Sentinel version of SR gets an absorbtion shield to go with it, allowing for some soaking of hits you don't dodge. The Sentinel version of SR also gets some +Recovery in Enduring that melee version of SR does not yet. This plus Defensive Opportunities, I'm hoping would cure the End woes most other SO builds might face. That said, even for both above, I would avoid Defend the Midnight Mansion unless you have your heart set on soloing absolutely every mission. If you must do it solo with only SO's, at least go to Bloody Bay first. Earn yourself a Shivan Shard from the meteor collection. You'll need it.

See, I think both Heroes AND Villians should be able to accidentially kill people with AoE attacks. Including your own teammates. I'm also pretty sure that I should never be allowed to develop a game, because no one would ever play it and the game company would fold.

I"m with @Snarky. I rarely load up attack powers with procs. I'm more interested in set bonuses. For a few low-damage characters, (Earth / Poison controller), I will pick a few powers to proc-bomb with. But rarely more than 2 such powers. Melee characters I basically don't use damage proc's unless they happen to be the 5th or 6th piece of the set that I'm slotting. All of that said, Stamina is best place for Perf Shifter proc. You will, over time, get more endurance from that than you would from just another End Mod IO in the same slot. Make sure your attacks have a modest degree of Endurance Reduction in them. Most melee sets will have some Acc/Dmg/End, Dmg/End, etc pieces. Especially for attacks that you spam non-stop, you'd be surprised how much difference a few partial-end-reduction set pieces make. Another favorite of mine that I don't see used that much. There are a few sets that give % Endurance Discount to All Powers. Annihilation (Ranged AoE) 5-piece: 3% end discount to all powers Preventaitive Medicine (Healing) 5-piece: 3.75% end discount to all powers Reactive Defenses (Defense) 5-piece: 3.75% end discount to all powers Unbreakable Guard (Resist Damage) 2-piece: 2.5% end discount to all powers. Warp: (Teleportation): 3-piece: 3% end discount to all powers. Now, some of those are going to be easier to fit in than others. I don't often 3-slot a Teleportation power, let's say. But even using Unbreakable Guard in four of your resist damage powers will net you a 10% endurance discount to literally everything you do. And the 4-piece for Unbreakable Guard is some tasty Melee Defense, and you're going to want it's unique for the +Max HP's. Now, could be one reason people don't focus that as much is becuase they rarely exemplar down, and instead rely on Incarnate / Cardiac to solve their end problems. I try to make sure I can always perform well with the same build no matter if I'm doing a Posi run, or Night Ward, or doing lvl 50 story arcs.

Clearly, this would involve the Fargin principle, resulting in Fargin Iceholes. Or possibly the descendants of Elsa, causing a Royal Pain in the Ice.

** Hami Raid wipes ** "Paging Doctor Howling Twilight! Doctor Howling Twilight to surgery STAT!!"

I'd like any powerset for handheld firearms that does NOT have Gun-Fu animations. That said, i'm not holding my breath, and it's like priority #10,594, somewhere after "sort my socks", and "anything else I feel like today".

Well, if enough defense can buy a Blaster enough time, it can probably buy a /Regen enough time. Once cascade starts, yea, it goes quick, but if you rip down half your enemies by then, it still may be enough to win. You just might not be steamrolling the whole way.

Yea. My tanker soloing it at +2x4 had five Ravenwing Cabal on him. Honestly, I wasn't sure he was going to make it at a few points, until I realized I could simply move out of the area of thier big whammy attack. Then gradually the curve started to favor me, and I began to wear one down at a time. The whole crowd was on me the whole time. I never split them or pawned them off to the Midnighters. But, that was a tank, and I still had to ration my cooldowns, carefully watch my inspirations, etc. For a team.... I can definitly see it ripping up a crew of folks who aren't used to the Wards, or who tend to ignore incoming damage because all too often the game lets you get away with that. It doesn't take to much to mentally put a triangle onto the field, and each time they start charging up their big whammy, you move to the next tip of the triangle, fight them there, see them charging, move, fight them there, etc. Lord knows I dealt with vastly more annoying mechanics in WoW raids. I still don't feel the mission needs adjustments. I do think it's a big challenge, which it advertises itself to be, in the mission text that no one ever reads. I do think it's something that may take a small team a few tries until they begin to learn how to coordinate their defense powers, and avoid standing in bad.

I sort of want to say your Claws character should be rocking enough stacks of Follow-Up to hit anyway. But I also tend to dip into Leadership, and often run Tactics. Honestly enemies using Vengeance is usually more of a problem for me with them getting a big to-hit bonus. Even my /SR character may need to pop some purples when I cause piles of Nemesis to pop Veng all at once.

I don't think I've ever taken Hand Clap, ever. Pre-IO's or after. But I admit, I always did have a soft spot for Thunderclap, in Storm Summoning, even though there's almost always better powers to use, and even though anything close enough to me to be affected by Thunderclap was already going to have it's to-hit SAVAGED by Hurricane. That animation and sound effect... I get your point though. Bean Bag got a lot more use before my AR/Dev fully matured.

I can't buy into that, only because the T9's for the vast majority of powersets, pre-date the existence of IO's an Incarnates. Now, today in time? Yes, you can hit a point where the T9's are not always needed. But the design intent, I would argue, is that they were a form of "oh-crap" button, with very few exceptions (granite armor).