MTeague

I like the concept, the power names, and the stances. And I like that it's modestly flexible. About the only origin I can't justify off the top of my head is Technology. Character could be a magical hunter, or a primal spirit, or it could be just a very skilled outdoorsman, paired with either Archery or even Assault Rifle. or the product of an "Isle of Doctor Moreau" twisted experiment for science mutant senses cover pretty much anything you handwave I do wonder if it's.... too busy. Buffing too many things, debuffing too many things. That said, I also appreciate that you specfically did not list numerical %'s. Devs would need to tweak any such numbers anyway. I guess all in all, mark me down as cautious approval.

seriously consider using /Thermal, because Flying Zombies ON FIRE.

just thought that part deserved some extra highlighting lol. You might need 2 stacks of it up before you're like "sappers lulz bring it", but it's not hard to get enough recharge to get 2 stacks.

I suspect it's just RNG is R. But neither have I done a serious mathematical analysis.

The devil is firmly in the details. As a big picture idea it sounds good to me. But I'm not sure how you get a Tank/Brute to NEED help at higher difficulties without punishing the bejeesus out of the buff-centric support sets even more at middle-sy difficulties.

Plasticman / Mr Fantastic style stretchy / bouncyness.

I guess it depends what you call need. Debuff centric support doesn't need anyone else if they choose to solo..... within limits. My Storm/Sonic defender can pretty much trounce most story arcs solo at +2x4 with bosses. True, that's not +4x8. Do I care about that? No. +4x8 is purely "it would be nice if" for me, I don't even have that as an "I ought to be able to" for my Scrappers or Tanks or Brutes. And, I do slot my characters out the wazoo with sets. So there's that angle to. But "DPS don't need support" already says to me, "they're going wild with sets." At least in the case of blasters. But a Sonic Resonance Defender? I wouldn't want to try it solo. I mean I have seen screenshots of solo empath defenders doing weird-wild-stuff. At 50. Fully kitted out. With incarnates. I wouldn't want to solo an Empath through say, First Ward, from levels 20-29 when you still don't have most of your eventual slots, no superior enhancers, etc. But Archery/Trick Arrow, yea, I could see that being done no problemo. It's not so much the entire AT. But the Team-Buff-Centric subivisions thereof.

"fixed" as in "the cat got fixed", eh?

#4 is probably not going to happen. I can't find the thread, but I think they pretty much explicitly said you should need to rebuff your pets after you resummon them. Although.... You do have a bit of a twist on it by saying after every time you "exit combat". Maybe after the fights over, they'd see that as a "sure, fine"? #2+#3 I'm agnostic on. I haven't seen it be an issue for me personally, but I *do* use some of the faster moving pet types (Ninjas and Beasts) and their AI has seemed pretty good for getting into melee. I don't see any harm in it, certainly. #1 .... I get what you're saying.... I mean, I do claim any Team Inspirations I get from Superpacks on my MM's. I'm not sure the devs want to go there, but I could see an argument for it in that the pets basically ARE your damage powers, you popping a red and having it buff your pets is "kinda" like a blaster popping a red and then having stronger blasts.

I'd go further. "As a matter of design philosophy, should all powerset combos be able to solo any content at +4x8 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +4x8 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +3x6 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +2x4 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +1x2 with bosses?" Y/N But frankly, I would never expect an answer. Ever. Lord knows I would refuse to supply one if I were the developer lol. not all players are going to have equal skill not all mission maps are created equal. There's a biiig difference from final Perez Park mission in the Bonefire arc, and the Defend the Midnight Mansion mission in Night Ward. some players go nuts with set bonuses and IO's to acheive amazing things. Other players actually DO stick with just SO's or basic IO's. (Really! Some do! I've seen it!) issuing a public stance on who should be able to do what strikes me a great way to generate thread after thread of "BUT YOU SAID!!!!" arguments when someone isn't able to do it. So yea. I would never, ever, answer those questions if I were the developers lol.

I mean, obligatory MCU Civil War memes aside, superheroes are at least traditionally working together more often than they're at each others throats. Not saying doens't happen in comics, just that it's a lot more common for them to work either together against an enemy, or alone. Maybe that factors in on some level? But a huge huge part of it I think, is you're allllllmost never in direct competition with anyone else. For anything. Biggest source of MMO epeen wars / guild drama bar none: Disputes over who "should" get a particular piece of loot when it finally drops. Here, the game awards the loot directly, no ifs ands or buts. Doesn't matter if it's an enhancement, a recipe, a piece of salvage, etc. You get what you get, and no humans are controlling that decision making process. Also, here, loot is a LOT less rare. Yea, I know, you can go a week without getting a purple recipe. Maybe a month if you're super unlucky. Compare to WoW where the most coveted best-in-slot weapon or trinket might drop TWICE, grand total, over six months or more while your guild does that raidset. And only from 1 boss in that raidset you can only kill once a week. and there's 6-10 people in your guild directly competing against you. And you have the backstop of the AH treating enhancements/recipes as level-fungible. And you have the backstop of Enhancement Converters. And you have the backstop of being able to buy the really rare enhancements/recipes with Merits Second biggest source of epeen wars, (IMO) is extremely punishing raid mechanics causing raid wipes, and X percent of the people getting vocally unhappy at the 2-3 people who are fouling up, either due to inattention or bad connections, etc. This still probably comes down to loot, as in, "we wiped and didn't get any loot, and We Blame YOU." basically doesn't happen in CoH. Yea, sometimes you might wipe for like 20 minutes straight, in a REALLY rare ubertough battle. But not like "we've been trying this boss and wiping on him for 3 hours straight, 3 nights a week, for 2 months straight.". That can happen in WoW progression raiding. I've seen people dropped from a raiding roster and deguilded over it, and then lots of bad blood as some are "hey it's just business" and others are "he's my best friend WTF!!". there's almost no mechanics in wow gonna brutalize people that badly. Just nothing for people to get upset at each other FOR, or start to work against each other FOR. (and, to be clear, that's a Good Thing) Only competition I can think of is for rare world spawns that are killed before you can arrive. But even those, the giant monsters are still up often ENOUGH that it's not seen as Cask Of Amontillado style offenses if someone downs Caleb just before you arrive, etc. It's more "jerk, i was on my way" and then you get it a week or so later. [EDIT: lol, @HelBlaiz said it in about 6 paragraphs less than me. But yea. What he said.]

Sprint you can always turn off. Swift was the problematic one. A few folks screwed themselves on ALL rescue/kidnap missions that way. But yea, the removed several slotting options with that change. hasn't been a big deal to me, but I wouldn't be opposed to re-enabling some of it.

Think of the Granite Tanks!! 😄

Now I have to figure out how to work Teleportation into my Thugs/Traps MM. Love the idea, though.

Visually? Claws: are weapon extensions from your hands or perhaps wrists (Vanguard claws) can be selected to look like metallic blades, or some option have "energy claws" that are kind of lightsaber claws. have 2 attacks where you launch a force projectile (Focus / Shockwave). I get the feeling of a more graceful dodging warrior from Claws animations. that's just me. Savage: you're tearing into the enemy with your fingers, nails, and fists. grabbing and tearing at gobbets of flesh. doesn't have any blade looks that I've found, though you can wear Spiked Gloves for a costume option if you wish. one that looks particularly nasty, is if you use Assymetric Gloves, and use the LARGE hook option on each hand. Looks just "oh man that's brutal" on several attacks. OTOH, that only really works if your character is conceptually some kind of shapeshifter, and could switch to other costumes with regular hands if you need to turn doorknobs, or work computers, or take care of certain biological functions. does not launch projectiles away from you. But Savage does have a teleport attack where YOU are the projectile. gives me the impression of a warrior who would happily be soaked in the blood of his enemies.

I mean.... anyone who's worked in Customer Service can feel for the poor guy. I forget exactly which ring of Dante's Inferno was Tech Support or working a Service Desk, but It's GOT to be in there, somewhere.

For a long, long, time, I was not an organ donor. It just felt creepy. Who wants to know that, after you die, they're going to scoop out your eyeballs, harvest some lungs and kidneys, a liver, and generally go all Doc Vahzilok on your corpse? It was reading stories like this, over my 20's and 30's that finally got me to tick that checkbox when I renewed my license in my mid-40's. If it's not a theological non-starter for people.... keep stories like Rose's in mind, next time you get that "time to renew your license" email.

Grats!!

6 piece Gaussian *is* quite nice. But on a blaster specifically, it'd be hard not to slot proc for Build-Up into Aim. If you get Aim, of course. My AR/Martial Blaster just shrugs and presses on with just a 100% unslottable ReachForTheLimit, so she might grab tactics and 6 slot it.

Sure. Okay, let's say, for the sake of the argument, and presuppose that some differences ought to be baked in (on the theory that the debuff might be resisted?... though Poison debuffing resistance to debuffs is *mighty* strong....). Small FF Bubbles (not the big bubble) provide +15% defense to allies, and +10% to you. Or whatever scaling the devs felt appropriate to decide that a Buffing Defenders secondary set provided them a commessurate boost that a Debuffing Defenders secondary set provided them. But I do think there ought to be something.

I'm sold. I acknowledge I used to be among the "If you let a FF bubbler use his own bubbles, you have a Status Protected / Def Capped / Slightly Weaker Blaster, that's OP." But a) your arguments are pretty persuasive. and b) "status protected def capped slightly weaker blaster"... *thinks about it some more* *looks at Energy/SR Sentinel* "Huh". Plus the FF Bubblers status protection would not be nearly as strong / cover as many types as the sentinel's armor set. Soooo okay. I withdraw objections to buffers buffing themselves.

Seventeen kinds of NO for this. You can't legislate manners / politeness / common decency. That's really what the issue is here. There's a fundamental disagreement to exactly what the social compact is when you join a TF, or whether or not there's even a compact at all. I don't quit out of TF's for anything less than an emergency. Holdover from EverQuest / WoW days of "If I joined the raid, well the guildmaster scheduled it from 8-11, and I will be here at LEAST until 11, and won't start getting fussy until 11:30." But if for some reason, I really needed to go? Maybe because of a RL emergency? Maybe because I was getting really angry and decided I should walk away before I crossed some lines on what to say and what not? And the game refused to let me log outt? I'd just kill the process on my machine. Or if I'm REALLY ticked off, I'd outright deny electricity to my computer. Sure. Keep my character logged in if that makes you feel better. I still wouldn't be there.

My Ninja/Cold MM is basically Lo Pan from Big Trouble In Little China, but with an Ice Mage twist. I'd love to have a BLUE Oni, instead of a red one. Wouldn't even care if the powers the Oni uses stayed the same. That said, it's firmly in the "it would be nice if" bucket, not anything I consider a Dire Need. But how cool would it be to have some Thugs that looked like mobsters? Or ninjas that looked like Knives of Artemis? Or Beasts that looked like Werewolves/Werelions? Necromancy minions that were more like Apparitions / disembodied spirits for a Soulbinder take instead of a Zombie Lord take? It is probably a LARGE lift, because I don't think they want them being visually indistinguishable from existing enemy mobs. But is definitely a good sized crowd who would squeeeee for joy.

The only thing is Ok, I write an AE story that kills off the entire Freedom Phalanx, and Lord Recluse, and has Captain Mako and the Coralax rise to power. Note: I have no such arc. This is 100% theorectical. But for sake of argument, let's say I did. Such a story is never going to be on par with, and as "legit" as, a developer released story. We don't get to decide Who Will Die in the same way. We can only offer up stories for consideration and enjoyment of other players. But I love the idea of AE missions that are actually Story-Driven, to be available in AE (because why take them away?) and, available "in the wild", like regular contacts, if you chose to Add that group of missions to some kind of Preference List / Bookmark / Favorite. There would need to be some way for the mission writer to say "I intend this to start in the Founder's Falls" or "I intend this to start in Imperial City", or "I intend this to start in St Martial", but I would love it.

Some degree of raid / trial / TF fights to keep things interesting? Maybe. But there should be limits. I served eight years in a raiding guild in WoW. I hung up those gloves, and they're NOT coming back down. I will not do any content that requires me to watch a video to understand key mechanics of the upcoming fight, and requires me to install Deadly Boss Mods or something like that to do sound alerts, and have everyone in the same VOIP channel so a raidleader can bark out instructions to members of the team. Never again. Never.