MTeague

I know, I know. I just this morning promised not to touch this thread again. I fail. My willpower is weak. 🙁 But really, this is kinda different. I get to AGREE with you! Not the whole post, just this one point. If you want changes are to be made at all for a stronger Constant-On defense power or Toggle defense power, of the strength that you want, then Epic Pools / Ancillary pools are the appropriate venue to pursue that. I will say that you already have TWO such options, today and now, https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Cold_Mastery#Frozen_Armor https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Mace_Mastery#Scorpion_Shield Admittedly, Scorpion Shield is a Patron Pool, not an epic pool. Which means you'd have to spend X time as a Rogue or Villain. And I definitely have a suite of "dedicated heroes" who will simply never go villain, but for whom, Ice is not really their metaphor either. Maybe something like an Energy Aura toggle https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Energy_Aura#Kinetic_Shield would be a nice option to provide +DEF without having to be surrounded in ice, and without having to do Black Scorption's bidding. By no means guaranteed they'd do that, but having something like that as an alternate Ancillary pool option would be nice. They'd never let you take this AND Body Armor... but a "Energy Mastery" blaster Ancillary pool, could be added without skewing overall game balance. EDIT: though I'm sure a Blaster Ancillary version of Kinetic Shield would not come with any Defense Debuff Resistance.

Technically they could still adjust as they see fit. But given that they are in talks with NCSoft, yes, lore changes would be one more thing to reconcile in the event of a final deal.

I have zero problems with the gmotd. All lives matter, regardless of your genetics or beliefs. But there's NOTHING wrong with calling extra attention to black lives given the events we've all seen unfold Too Many Times. In fact, I'd say one can reasonable conclude one MUST call out extra attention to black lives, given said events. However, if you feel excluded by this, if you feel attacked by this, just sit back, put on some Gordon Lightfoot on continuous loop, maybe some Paul Simon, whatever it takes for you to find your happy place. At the end of the day, this is Homecoming's home, and we are here present as thier guests. They'd like us to all be calm, and think a few times before we pop the clutch on our mouth before putting the brain / heart in gear. It's really not that big of an ask.

On one hand, One strike and you're out forever seems a bit much. On the other hand, well.... I do think that upwards of 98% of the people will use customization pretty responsibly and creatively. I'm also sure that somewhere, someone, will go sailing RIGHT over that line. Because someone ALWAYS does, sure as the sun rises in the east. They'll think they're funny, or they'll be drunk, or someone will do it to someone else's shared account as a joke. It will happen. Or they'll just really be some godawful piece of work type of person who really thinks it's okay. Now, stripperific costumes? I still would not personally go for a Pimp MM. I've had people convinced that I myself MUST be female (I'm not) just because my characters who are female happen to be dressed rather demurely. But i'd find it hard to believe a squad of scantily-clad minions would cross the line considering what else I've seen in LIVE on brutes and scrappers. But you KNOW people will go over other lines. All black minions with chains on them, with a name like "Slavedriver" for the MM, etc. Someone, SOMEWHERE, is gonna be that dumb / tasteless. So, ya. Maybe there's something to be said for "You know what? Let them be that dumb. And then let them feel the wrath of the BanHammer and be done with them."

Also, before the Assassin's Focus changes... when you could ONLY assassin's strike from Hide.... Stalkers were the bedraggled puppies sitting in the rain all alone that you invited to a team because you felt so bad for them. Now they're freakin CERBERUS.

Insert the cast of "Fiddler on the Roof" doing "Tradition!" 🙂

While the point has been made multiple times, it's also worth re-iterating... The crowd saying "It's too easy!", are not people I often see running First Ward and Night Ward while exemplared down to the 30's still at higher difficulty levels.

I want Stalker War Mace where the Assassin's Strike is a giant wind-up and you KLONK them over the head.

@Joshex, In four pages worth of posts, not a single poster has upvoted a single one of your posts on this thread. Not one. Not one other poster has supported the idea of Afterburner offtering you in-combat defense. Not one. As @Blackfeather pointed out, Invisibility was formally changed by the devs to drop ALL of it's defense when you attack. Whether your old version of mids shows it having defense is immaterial. You have been offered many ideas on how to make your blaster less squishy within the existing framework. So far as I can tell, you have disregarded all of them. if you want to keep arguing for an extra defense pool power that honestly would make characters even more overpowered than they already can be, you do that. I have sufficient faith that the devs know what they're doing, and will decide this idea is a bad one. I do not concede. I believe your idea is a bad one from every angle of game design. But since you do not seem to care what is posted or what arguments are raised, I will make no further replies to this thread for any reason.

Spines stalkers currenty have three AoE attacks. Spine Burst, Ripper, and Throw Spines. And that's evne AFTER giving up Quills for Assassin's strike.

I do not see any need to break any stalemate. I do not even recognize a stalemate since my position is "Working as Designed, Change Nothing". You have articulated your desire, several times, over the course of this thread. I find it extremely unlikely that the devs will agree with you. However, I am not a dev, and who knows. Stranger things have happened. If you are looking to get other posters to agree with you, I think it should be blindingly obvious by now that your stance is in the DISTINCT minority, and we're not talking about "well maybe" softly-held-opinions. You're trying to get people to agree to changing a fundamental principle of characters design that's been in place since issue 0. Quite simply, good luck with that. Blasters are meant to be squishy. Pool powers that provide defense, generally fall into 1 of 2 categories toggle powers that provide a very SMALL amount of defense (Manuevers, Combat Jumping, Hover, etc) click powers that provide a LARGE bonus to defense, but come with a LARGE cooldown and literally by design cannot be made permanent. (Rune of Protection, Unleash Potential, etc) There are a few other outliers. Vengeance provides a very large buff, but requires a human teammate's character to DIE. This is it's limiting factor. Afterburner provides a very large buff, but limits you to Only Affecting Self. This is it's limiting factor. I completely disagree with your vision for Afterburner. Many reasoned arguments have been presented in this thread and I agree with ALL of them that oppose your idea. Again, you can appeal to devs, and who knows, maybe, they'll agree with you instead of everyone else. I wouldn't bet on it though.

QFT. When the set bonuses line up, absolutely, purples are worth it. When they don't.... well.... you judgement call it. Sometimes on a melee power I'm much happier with Touch of Death than Hecatomb, but it depends what I want to stack.

When to start a new thread or do the "Rise from your grave!" on an old thread is definitely a judgement call. Esp in a suggestions forum. My personal cut off is 2 months, but that is admittedly quite arbitrary and I have NO expectations that there's a real consensus around when to let old threads rest in peace vs not.

REFLECTION, I love the idea of. I have no idea if the engine supports anything like that , though. EDIT: though I think for simplicity's sake, we'd probably need a "you can't reflect a reflect" rule to keep infinite chaining

Fair enough. I'll acknowledge, I don't have a better idea myself. I just do think it's likely to be a subtle effect that most players won't even notice, and FF will still be treated as "doesnt' do anything" by the same players who already don't notice it. But maybe I'm just not seeing the other half of the equation since I tend to exemplar a LOT and only rarely run incarnate content.

I'm willing to work with changes. But I have to ask, if only to throw the monkey wrench.... What is +Absorb going to really DO for force field? I agree, thematic. I agree, would not face the "but I don't need any more +Def" you see from max-kitted-out-players at lvl 50. HOWEVER... if said lvl 50 softcap players are not being hit in the first place.... are they even going to NOTICE an Absorb Shield? Are you just trading one defensive bubble they don't need for another defensive bubble that they don't need? I'm fine with "well the current model has too many issues we have to try something" but... I'm far from convinced this will make people say "I have a fever, and the only cure, is more force fields!"

Virtually anything that can be suggested is technically possible, given enough time. The devs will choose what to act on, and what not, based on what they think is the best use of their time, AND, based on what they think is the best direction of the game, AND, how long it takes the changes to happen is impacted in no small portion by thier own real life demands on thier time as well. For what it's worth, you've made your stance very clear, and IF the devs agree with you, you've clearly articulated what you want and what you don't want. I think what you're asking for is a gargantuan lift. Perhaps I'm wrong. I don't have the code, and I'd likely need weeks at a minimum (more likely months) to get up to speed with it even if I did. But I do think @Without_Pause is spot on with the issues for adding a +5 difficulty. And honestly, just cranking up the numbers on existing enemies to make them more "bullet spongy", to me, is a Boring As Hell way to increase difficulty. What I prefer is something like First Ward / Night Ward. Where enemies have access to many more powers, and many more effects to ruin my day, and where I need to actually be strategic in how I handle them, and careful not to grab too many at once. I personally would LOVE to see most mobs get First Ward / Night Ward treatment. So that you'd think twice and three times about charging into a big pile of Crey or Circle of Thorns or Council. But that, I also think, would be a gargantuan lift. Rewriting all the enemy mobs to have access to more powers, keeping a thematic feel, and still making it possible to beat them with good tactics would require tons of meetings, tons of discussions, tons of testing, etc. I want it to happen. But I don't expect it to happen. So when asking for things on that scale, I label them accordingly.

Brief Off-Topic: I would love to see "Kick" from the Fighting pool have an additional option for animation, to look like Thunder Kick. no boost to performance of Kick, but just look different. On Topic: absolutely love @Redlynne's suggestions. /signed if for whatever reason you did not want to do that, then it might make sense to look at where to squeak in some more AoE. I do not think it needs additional AoE with Redlynne's suggestions. A melee-control by stacking low-mag stuns would be great, but I can see that more AoE plus stacking stuns would be a bit much.

That's a fair point. I don't like what the wider industry has done with them. But Paragon Studios did maintain the subscription option the whole way through.

CoH is unlikely to forever vanish, given that the code is on the web, and a number of people have squirrelled away copies of it for safekeeping. Me personally, I can only allow myself to play here, and only because Homecoming is trying to become legit, in talks with NCSoft. If those talks fall through, I have a serious moral quandry to deal with. I am a programmer. I make bank because of copyright and intellectual property. I can justify playing here to myself because Homecoming has NOT received a cease and desist, and telling myself (and talking very very fast as I do....) that as long as the talks are ongoing, it's aboveboard enough. If they failed... by principle I'd have to stop playing. I don't know I'd be able to follow through on that. And I hope I never have to find out. I'm really really really hoping the talks either succeed or remain in limbo for at least a few more years. But it would be the right choice for me to make. Anything else really stretches any plausible "How can I earn a living as a programmer and still justify this?" too far.

I would say rather, if the people who are running this game have already made the decision to look at Titan Weapons and adjust it in a manner that they see fit... this evaluating has already been done by the available coders, and they have chosen a path closer to that laid out by @Twisted Toon than your own proposal. You have every right to feel disappointed, you have every right to ask that another path be taken. But at the end of the day, if the HC devs choose to nerf it, it's their call. Not mine, not yours, not @Twisted Toon's.

Exactly. This right there, is why I will never buy any game with microtransactions ever again. It's why I set aside City of Heroes in the last year it was up (and then KICKED myself severely for missing out on it's last year....) Microtransactions are never neutral, it always ends up driving the playstyle and game balance to hit your wallet instead of being fair play. I'll gladly play games with a one-and-done cost, or with a monthly subscription, or with a donation model. But never microtransactions.

Ultimately, it's your call. And me personally I would take any set that I think fit the character concept, regardless of performance concerns. However. If you are aiming for max performance... consider Psi. Link Minds should get you a nice 6% (or more!) defense to all to your entire team. That will mesh quite nicely with Energy Aura, making it much easier to softcap your defenses at high levels. Or just giving you some leeway for defense debuffs. I can't quite get Link Minds perma'd on my Plant/Psi/Psi Dominator, but it's very close. Even if you build less for recharge, and have say.... only 60% uptime with it... that's not bad.

I'd rather spend my money sugar-daddying my alts with IO's and particular uniques vs buying them temp status protection. Plus, and okay this is personal opinion only.... I just feel... cheesy / cheaty... using things like Defensive Ampliefier. Like, my squishies are to supposed to have to deal with things like holds / sleeps / etc from enemies. But generally speaking, I'm often illogical. Also, yes, I typically set my notoriety and would never consider adjusting it downward as I flashback, not unless I convinced it was Simply Not Possible to defeat via any other means. Lowering difficulty on missions, for me, is a Giant Hit to Ego / Pride. (again, I'm often illogical)

Unleash Potential is one of the 10 minute cooldown / lasts about a minute buffs. It's by no means meant to be up all the time. It's meant to be an "Oh-Sh**" button, or something you pop right before an AV. You may also want to check out Adrenal Booster in Experimentation pool. (Just be aware you can't have both)