MTeague

That's not all that far fetched. We never SEE complete rampant DE destruction on a planetary scale all humans turned into nachos and munched upon. We're TOLD about it, by NPC's who could be working off of inaccurate / incomplete information, who mght just be wrong. It could easily be spun to "there was, in fact, a giant multi-continent push. Approximately 2/3 of Praetorian Earth's population died. Not 100%, but 66% is still enough to scare the bejeeesus out of people, and if there's a dimensional portal over there to Primal Earth, I could still see a mass stampede of refugees saying "Nope, I don't care if maybe Hamidon stopped, NOT taking that kind of chance EVER again. I'm getting the HELL out of Dodge." That could leave varied pockets of humanity struggling to recover and reconnect civilization in other places around Prae Earth that we *could* do things with later.

Goldside is what taught me: I joined a team! Menu -> Options -> MIscellaneous -> NO XP. immediately on joining a team. Does mean I might lag behind some of the teams level, but even if I know I *could* go back and do some missions via Ouroborous, I vastly prefer doing them legitly at level content.

Yea. If someone is brand new to goldside, their first-ever (and probably second) goldside character is practically guaranteed to screw up and overlevel too much before they understand where the breakpoints are. Unfortuantely that does kind of require use of the "No Xp" option at points along the way.

+200% recovery for 30s is kind of a lot. I don't remember Hibernate's current cooldown / if that could be perma-able (flash of Hiberate the immediate detoggle to keep the +Recharge going) but the devs would want to factor in whether or not they'd want that to be possible. So much like @arcane. I like the idea. Not willing to commit to precise numbers. Very good brainstormy idea though.

I'd be perfectly fine with this idea. I'd like to see what other cities were like in Praetoria. Old Orlando? Tokyo? etc. An alternate 20-40 stretch that was maybe more Science/Tech focused and a bit less Magic themed than First/Night ward would be lovely.

I guess I care a little bit less about what "Current" timeline is for Primal Earth, because my main character started at issue 0 in live. Long before anyone knew about Praetorian Hamidon. Several others started in the Hollows era. Their own personal timeline starts a fair bit in the past. So who's to say my newer characters didn't start back then too? It all comes down to what you choose to suspend disbelief on, where you choose to mentally peg your character's story to "Okay they began HERE". Sure Twinshot may show up and inflict herself upon me (verbage quite intentional) as a forced contact at lvl 5, but nothing says I have to acknowledge her existence or allow her to in any way be part of my character's journey except via Ouroborous.... if then.

I don't want to tear up the existing Goldside Lore. But there are things that could be done to use the content more. We know from the Goldside 1-20 arcs that Primal Earth was already aware of Praetoria, and Longbow and Arachnos both sent people over. So I see no reason why a low lvl hero couldn't be recruited by Dark Watcher and sent to Praetoria for those same 1-20 arcs. Rather than have Undercover options for Calvin Scott or Provost Marchand, why not have Undercover options for Dark Watcher (Blue) or Arbiter Sands (Red)? Same missions, same vanilla objectives, just a sprinkling that shows you Dark Watcher and Arachnos pulling some strings along the way. a PEAT ... not sure about. I know I've heard people talk about a "Greenside" where you join the Devouring Earth, but .... nah, I can't really see that happening AND still have your character retain agency and choice as independant player. You'd pretty much be consumed if the DE get thier hooks in you. I would love 40-50 content geared to let a Praetorian stay goldside for the distance. It's still *possible* now, but it ain't easy, you really have to work for it.

How data is stored can always be changed. But there is that whole Jurassic Park "... you didn't stop to think if you should!" angle, too. I'm torn on the main idea. Part of me hates opening the floodgates wide to all possible combinations, because of how much garbage could be produced of just genuinely bad looking combos. OTOH, there's probably a large number of combinations that would look awesome, and with so many combinations it's probably unrealistic to expect too much to be curated in advance. Maybe just "let people get creative, and if it sometimes looks like fingerpaints, oh well" is really the best path forward.

I won't turn down more hairstyles in general. But I reallllllly want to be able to choose a variety of hairstyles for each hat / Helmet I want a Low Ponytail to go with my Fedora! Or a Saxon Helm with a crew cut! Or a baseball cap with Divine hair! Or... well you get the idea. I mean, OK, the giant exposed brain? Probably doesn't play nice with hats. Road Warrior style big spikey mohawk probably doesn't either. But Shirly, several more combinations are plausible.

I definitely attune PvP's to be able to slot them early. But, upon dinging 50, I could see the idea of mass-unslotting them during a lvl 50 respec to adjust power selections and reallocate slots-per-power.... and then auctioning the attuned PvP's, buying unattuned 50 PvP's with the proceeds, and then boosting them.

Support/Melee OR Melee/Support, is a thing that I would love to have on Homecoming. NOT. Repeat. NOT a straight port of what Thunderspy has. But something the HC devs spent time looking at, fiddling around with different Inherent ideas, and finding something that they believe strikes a playable if highly challenging balance. Do I expect to see that anytime soon? Oh hell no. Maybe not ever. I can dream, and that's likely all it will be. But there's a lot of people who would be interested to play around with that pairing of powersets. MM Henchmen Customization is a Siren Song in it's own right. But while the idea sounds quick and easy, getting it to work and play nice and have visible costume differences for the Pet Buffs powers, is not small task. And it wouldn't shock me if the porting of it into HC's code caused major headaches with Pet AI and took several iterations. I do get why the Cost/Benefit has not (yet) been something that HC has wanted to publicly commit to. Most of the rest of what Thunderspy has? I've very glad we DON'T have. Having every mob scale to lvl 50 and every mission scale to lvl 50? Good GOD NO. probably wouldn't really be done right, becuase it's probably not giving lvl 50 Hellions access to a wide variety of powers. When they can pop powers that make players scream in frustration? Minions spamming Flashfire and chain stunning anyone without status protection, and using Rise of the Phoenix to come back to life, etc, Maybe I'd be willing to talk turikey. But same old same old powers and more bullet spongy? No. That's not scaling them up, that's a joke. My ulterior motive / what I'd really hate: Probably be the death knell of me ever finding 1-44 (ie, NON-Incarnate) teams ever again. And incarnate teams, to me, are Boring. The game would very rapidly become a single player game with a chat window for me. Still. If at some point, the HC devs decide "All Incarnates All The Time" is really what they want, well, they win, I lose. Devs have the right to do anything they damn well please.

> cast Frotz on grue

I understand I'm in the distinct minority here. But if I joined a Synapse and NOBODY had Stealth or Team Teleport, I would actually Squeee for joy. I'm very much an anti-speed-runner, vastly preferring Kill Most / Kill All. And I actually enjoy travelling about the city oldschool style. "One man's trash...."

What's "thematic" all comes down to your character's backstory. You can go MA / Electric for a "The Last Dragon" themed scrapper who has found "The Glow", and can use his Elec T9 to even BECOME "The Glow" for periods of time. But for the "matched" sets.... Probably my Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel. My Darkity/Dark/Soul Corruptor a close second.

My Plant/Psi dom lived by Teleknetic Thrust for the low levels. Single Target Hold, then TK Thrust to make them fly the not-so-friendly-skies. Second Hold held the boss helpless before he could do much. (Minions and Lieuts got Seeds...). I know lots of people reallly Hate KB. But there's times a ragdoll power can buy you those precious seconds and save your hash.

I always considered Super Reflexes to be Psychic Armor. You sense the bullet coming before it's even been fired, and move. Or Energy Aura, if you want a "Force Field Armor" powered by your mind.

There's something to be said for giving it a couple of Basic IO's for Interrupt Reduction. Particularly if you plan to use it during combat and might not have sky-high-defense numbers. That said, I generally don't take Aid Self except on Super Reflex or similar characters. When I do take it, I generally use either 2-6 pieces of the Preventative Medicine set, OR, 6 pieces of the Numina's Convalescence set.

First Ward really tests how well you've kitted yourself out, and whether or not you can learn to run when you need to. Shepherds with all their massive Debuffery. Oh you're a defense build? Too bad we don't miss anymore. Awakened with Psilopalooza, some attacks which are also Auto-Hit. It can be done solo, and it's worth it at least one to really be able to read the missions and appreciate the storyline at liesure. But you do appreciate having support and controls at your back, or a Weebels Wobble But They Don't Fall Down tank in front of you.

Certain MM's will do much better in Praetoria. My Mercs/Rad is doing well there, because he's Always in Bodyguard Mode, they shoot him, damage is spread across him and pets, aura heal helps keep them all going, and Rad Debuffs can kittenize the majority of incoming pain well enough. A /Storm or a /TrickArrow MM might have a harder time avoiding being worn down. re the OP: of those choices I would probably do a Darkity/Dark/Dark Corruptor, or a Darkity/Dark/Dark Controller. Mostly because Dark Miasma I want several early powers, having it has my secondary won't waste any power picks I don't want. I have an Dark/Rad Dominator that... has been a struggle. Admittedly, I solo him in Praetoria on +1x3 and that is not always wise. Most missions he gets it done and it feels good. Then I get a mission with several waves of amushes that simply overwhelm me and I am incapable of firing off enough control fast enough, and I have to suck up my pride hubris and lower difficulty down to +1x2 to get past it. Or I have to walk in with an inspiration bar full of large inspirations, and that's hardly sporting.

Humans are *really* good at cognitive dissonence. Steering FIRMLY clear of any remotely current events, I'll just drop back to literature "I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day." "I can't believe that!" said Alice. "Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." as with much satire, there's a fair amount of truth behind it.

I mean, CORE game play? I'll always look at that as "doing Story Arcs". Because if we didn't have Story Arcs, if it was just random street sweeping and badging, I would never have stuck around. The combat is great, the costumes amazing, the feeling of being your character is fantastic. But it really does begin / end with the story for me. Take away the missions, I'd log off and do a lot more single player games, or even check out this wierd game I've heard of called Real Life. Real Life has incredibly good graphics and the best interface ever, but man, it's full of bugs and griefers and you can never get in touch with support staff. And seriously Real Life is long overdue for having a Save/Reload option...

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Staff_Fighting

My own view? Goldside is better than Redside is better than Blueside. But I do play all three, and I do enjoy all three. I do not care if I solo or team, but I do vastly prefer teams in the 1-44 range (no incarnates).

Even then watch your maps. Some hit harder than others.

I don't care what kind of numbers or performance you can produce by spamming Mind Probe and a Proc-Bomb-Dominate. I simply won't do it. My Fire/Fire/Fire sentinel, uses FIRE to kill things. My Ice/Dark/Dark sentinel, uses the chill of the netherworld to do it. I can still kill things just fine. As fast? Maybe not. Don't care. I do hear you though: That, I agree with wholeheartedly. I do think it's definitely time for procs in general to be reviewed verrrrry carefully, and asked if their current state of use is what they want in the game. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not but the devs realize just what kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth quick-and-dirty changes would make, so they're keeping everything 100% on the QT until they think they have something extremely polished and balanced. I don't know. I don't get to know. I'm not a dev. But there's times I really wonder at the proc-bombing frenzies and hyperfocus on max recharge to feed the proc-bombs, and wonder if that's really a desireable thing.