FupDup

I wouldn't call Willpower "powerful" but it would at least be easy in the mechanical/brainpower sense.

The cool thing about the 3x T1 idea is that people who like to use powers like Flash Freeze get to keep it as if nothing ever happened. No disruption, no toys taken away. You didn't respond to my point about how Fighting doesn't really compete with anything, it's on an island all by itself (because other generic pools offer entirely different things, i.e. Teleportation Leadership etc.). Epic pools on a particular AT generally offer very similar things as one another, but some let you get to the cream filling a lot quicker without really giving up anything. We're not comparing an apple to an orange, we're comparing a fresh apple to a moldy apple. Imagine a near clone of the Fighting pool that let you pick Tough (or something very close to it) at T1 and Weave at T2. That's what the epic pool differences feel like.

Two things: 1. I do actually think that Boxing and Kick should be improved, and/or a 6th power should be added to the pool to serve as a more useful T1 pick. 2. Fighting as a generic pool doesn't directly compete against anything in the same way that epic pools do. There's no other generic pool that does the same things as Fighting, but without the Boxing/Kick requirement. Imagine if we had a "Fighting 2" or whatever that had the same exact toggle powers with the same values, but you could pick the res toggle immediately and the def toggle after as the T2 pick. That would kinda feel bad wouldn't it? That's the status quo with epic pools.

Admitting that those prereq powers are not wanted in the first place is an argument against the status quo, rather than one in favor of it. Outright deletion or replacement of those powers tends to not go well, based on previous beta forum wars like Beanbag. And the status quo kinda sucks because certain pools are shafted for no reason other than that they were designed in an older era and never got updated to the new design principles of patrons and HC's new pools. Giving everyone a third T1 choice would be the lowest drama approach that lets people keep their meme powers if they want them, with the only potential controversy being "le power creep" that comes up anytime something gets buffed.

The way I'd handle Energy Mastery is that I'd either swap the spots of Focused Accuracy and Laser Beam Eyes, or just straight up move LBE to level 35 so now you'd have 3 starter choices kind of like what happened with travel pools when those got adjusted. That, and I'd also replace Conserve Power with Superior Conditioning because ConPow has such incredibly low uptime that you can't rely on it so it just goes unused most of the time (SupCon always helps you in the background and can even be turned into a minor heal or mobility power with certain procs).

The thing is that the epic pools with more prereqs generally aren't "different," they just make you pay more to get a similar (or even weaker) end result. If they did actually offer greater strength to offset the higher investment required, then at least I could stomach it. Either equalize the investment cost or make the higher investment beget higher power, pick one. Having higher investment for equal or lesser power is extremely stupid.

This is definitely one of, if not the biggest, balancing issue among epic pools and it triggers me deeply that this didn't get addressed during the last balancing pass to them. Even if the individual powers are largely fine, the unlocking order can make a huge difference because it can be a big sacrifice to squeeze in an extra "filler" power. I would also apply this logic to the melee AT pools. Mu and Soul for example can pick up a strong ST attack at level 35 with no prerequisite and then pick up a strong AOE after that. All of the others should mirror this. Sentinels, for all of their many flaws, are at least very consistent in their epic pool structure so the powers can stand out on their own merits instead of being held back by dumb structuring problems.

The Wyvern are more of the "vigilante" kind of hero faction than Longbow, especially after the events of Who Will Die (Manticore was supposed to turn vigilante/edgy after that arc and he's the one who bankrolls Wyvern).

I didn't downvote him, but I'm guessing that the disagreement is because he presents the situation as if "fun" and "effective" are at odds with each other. In reality, things with good numbers/stats tend to be more fun than something designed similarly but with weaker stats. There comes a certain point when something's stats are so low that it cuts into the enjoyment or fun of using it. Such sets tend to fall off in popularity shortly after release because of this, which reduces the return on investment in terms of dev time/effort spent creating it and doesn't increase variety. There are a few things in the game that manage to be fun with low stats, like Dual Pistols, but that set isn't fun because of the low stats, it's fun despite the low stats. Giving it better stats would make it more funner. Not everything needs to be or can be Fire Blast, but I think that the minimum "power floor" ought to be raised up a fair bit.

That's been most of the new sets added by HC.

It has both a KB and repel component: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.fire_blast.blazing_blast&at=sentinel The good news is that the effect is so small in practice (the magnitude is high but the duration is very short) that it's very easy to control and you can basically ignore it.

I could maybe see it as a toggle that drains some endurance over time, but a totally free auto is very unlikely for something so powerful. Since it would now be perma out of the box, the end cost would likely need to be on the high end (maybe high enough to 2-slot it for end reduction like how it currently gets 2-slotted for recharge).

Bobcat after Neuron betrays her: Colorized

Another factor to consider is damage types. If you’ve got something like Psi or Lethal that is widely resisted, then Radial’s Energy damage can help you diversify your damage to deal with those resistant enemies better.

There's already two different day job jetpacks, so maybe the Urban Planner one could be the Zero-G (Super Jump) pack instead of the standard Raptor Pack?