FupDup

My thoughts on the tougher enemies thing is that it should be handled Diablo-style with enemies scaling based on the player count (with a max limit somewhere so leagues aren't boned). Some of the recent NPC revamps like Council end up making solo play much slower but have relatively small impact on team play, which kind of defeats the purpose given that team play is what creates those "enemies die too fast" situations in the first place.

The biggest issue I can think of is that giving every enemy NPC stamina would be an indirect nerf to sapping. A secondary issue might be health making giant monster and AV regen more annoying to burn through. So maybe not quite universal...escort NPCs and player pets would probably be fine.

Sniper Rifle: Blast set focused on ST damage with a range bonus over other sets, nuke is either ST or a piercing cone to make it a real outlier. The attacks would hit hard but slow like a ranged version of Battle Axe. Minigun: Basically a ranged version of Titan Weapons, it starts slow but "spins up" as you keep firing. Explosive Blast: A blast set of nothing but thrown grenades. Lots of different damage types and the unrivaled master of AOE (at the cost of sucking at ST). Shuriken Blast: A blast set of thrown projectiles, ideally with customization options so you could throw stuff like knives, cards, baseballs, etc. Tune it similar to claws where the powers are very quick. Mystic Affinity: A luck-based support set with buff and debuff powers that act like the Mystic Fortune P2W power (but allies don't get negative side effects with this one). Can create a clone of an enemy NPC to fight for you or polymorph an NPC into an inanimate object (hold effect). Knights: Tanky melee-based henchmen set that spawns a smaller number of more elite units as opposed to being "swarmy" like zombies. The MM would get sword attacks and maybe a shield too if there's space in the kit for it. Insect Swarm: Bug-based henchmen set. The basic minions could be giant ants. The LT's could be giant spiders that have lots of web/control powers. The final pet could be a giant tanky beetle that comes with a pheromone taunt aura. The MM's attacks would be toxic. Water Melee: All I know is it better have a power named Tidal Wave that sweeps forward and knocks down everything and does a bunch of damage. Psionic Aura: An offensive armor set that offers superior protection against psi damage and also stuff like fear and confuse. Proflierations: Energy Mastery for all ATs, especially if it's designed more like the Brute/Stalker version instead of the Tanker/Scrapper one that comes with Conserve Power (it's a stupid power, Superior Conditioning all the way). Shield Defense for Sentinels (this game's animation design is incredibly janky, and not in an endearing kind of way). Unused Content: Finish up the Gadgetry and Utility Belt origin pools already, substitute some of the powers/animations out if there's really such an issue with lacking art/fx. (Insert grumble grumble about how other servers did it already grumble grumble).

It has the same effects as the Gaussian build up proc. Its only issue is that it has a very low proc rate, especially if the power it's slotted in has been also slotted for recharge (recharge slotting reduces proc rates, global recharge does not).

Making Slice hit hard but slow would also fit with the concept of Crabs being more range-oriented than Banes, acting as a sort of "get away from me" button to punish enemies who think you're defenseless in melee.

So I just finished some radio team testing runs of the various revamps NPC groups. At first we were a team of 4: 2 Corrs, 1 Brute (me!), and 1 Scrapper. After a few runs the Scrapper left, and a few more after that the second Corr left leaving us with just a duo. Even with just a half team, the new Council were pretty easy other than the new bosses being a bit tanky. The Corruptors had a few close calls but my Brute's health bar barely moved. Solo, however, the bullet sponginess can get pretty boring quickly. Besides the bosses, having so many LT's that self-rez is annoying because those can be unintentionally killed by stuff like nukes, whereas bosses are more "deliberate" to kill due to their HP (and no that doesn't mean boost LT health). Freakshow are different because their self-rez is not consistent (excluding Super Stunners) and they're just way easier to take down in general. If the goal was to stop teams from steamrolling, it appears that it won't do a whole lot towards that goal. It just slows down solo play a lot. IMO the boss tankiness should be toned down a bit and we figure out some kind of team size difficulty scaling thing like Diablo games have, so that mob tweaks aimed at slowing down "steamroller" teams don't turn solo into a total slog.

Lore-wise it might make more sense for a trainer to be there than a civilian, and trainers let you customize your costumes too so that might make a viable substitute.

In regards to the "left out" thing, what I wish for is difficulty scaling like Diablo games: More players on the team = tougher/stronger enemies (and by players I don't mean the difficulty settings for +8 or whatever, I mean actual player count). Of course there'd have to be a limit somewhere so leagues don't get wrecked. These revamps have a strong effect on solo play but seem to usually be just a mild speedbump for a full team, which I think defeats the purpose. Solo play being "too fast" matters a lot less because nobody is feeling like they couldn't contribute (the NPCs aren't gonna complain). Teams are where this stuff matters so that's where the target should be.

I don't like the idea of adding ammo switching to other ranged sets because that would tread on the uniqueness/niche of DP, even if the effects are a little different. I do however think there is room to replace some of the existing powers with more exotic damage versions, like maybe Stunning Shot could become a Shocking Arrow with energy damage or an Ice Arrow with cold damage. The T1 could maybe become toxic and apply a -regen effect. Stuff like that.

If you wanna go with a Dark Archer kind of concept, that would give you a good excuse to dip into the Dark Mastery epic pool. Smite can help mitigate the lethal resistance issue that Archery can sometimes run into, and if you take Engulfing Darkness that would allow you to potentially drop Fistful of Arrows (because a 30 degree cone isn't easy to aim in melee range).

As an aside, slotting for that much regen is probably not optimal, especially in the Energy Mastery powers. If you want more green numbers you could slot the Power Transfer proc (not subject to regen caps and gives it in a chunk) in Stamina and/or Quick Recovery and/or the various Energy Mastery passives if you haven't already. Otherwise focus on other stats like max HP, global recharge, slow resistance, and general damage resistance.

Why vote for the lesser of two evils when you can have the real thing? Vote for Recluse!

The patch notes are missing some context. In closed beta, the recharge on all the Sentinel epic immobs were set to 20 seconds in order to "normalize" things with the penalties that the devs decided to give epic pool powers. There was some complaining by a few people (at 20s it took too long to stack the immob magnitude to lock down high rank enemies) that got it bumped down to 16 seconds at the cost of those other attributes. Some of that stuff was also to keep the powers in-line with other penalties that Sentinels have to deal with in their base kit (target caps, range). Basically the patch notes here are missing an in-between mini-patch from closed beta where these things got changed.

Dark Blast is pretty good on Sentinels. Dual Pistols is kinda okay, nothing great but okay. Archery is kinda poop. Energy Aura, Super Reflexes, and Invulnerability are some of the better armor sets available. Regeneration has some unique tweaks compared to other classes but I wouldn't put it in the top tier. Dark Armor is kinda middling on Sents because it trades the burst heal that melee classes get for regeneration and recovery.

I'd lean towards Invulnerability or Super Reflexes. Willpower is kinda meh on Sentinels (or on non-tanks really). The AT special feature is a click button that charges up over time that applies a debuff to a single enemy target. Make sure to either put the Vulnerability power in your power tray somewhere if you haven't already, or even make a macro for it.

The inherent Conditioning really ought to be buffed. At bare minimum I'd like it to be slottable so we could stick an extra Shifter proc or something in there.

They might have been using Team Teleport. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.teleportation.team_teleport&at=scrapper

I can't say what's under development, but I'm pretty sure that I can say what isn't under development. I haven't seen any word about Broadsword adjustments as of yet. Katana remains mostly better than Badsword for the time being, other than not being able to pair with Shield Defense.

It's 45 degrees. If we compare that to normal ranged blast cones (most are just 30), that seems fine. The problem is that when we compare it to other incarnate judgements, it starts to look a lot less fine. Vorpal Judgement is also a cone, and it's a whopping 120 degrees. The others aren't cones but their radiuses tend to be very large, with Ion in particular being truly stupid with how many targets it can touch. The simplest change would be to increase its cone width to match Vorpal. We could alternatively take a creative route and let it keep the cone angle weakness but give it an alternative tradeoff to make that weakness worthwhile, like increased damage or something. But I'd still prefer the cone angle because that keeps it in-line with other incarnate powers of the same type. Judgements are meant to clear an entire room, they're not precision tools.

The point of being rifle-based is that it allows natural-origin Controllers and Dominators to be a thing. Normal unpowered humans can't create cages of electricity or fire just by training real hard. They can, however, pick up a gun.

My post wasn't to argue whether it's a buff or not, but to reassure the other user that the Brute/Tanker version was not excluded from the changes. As for damage over time, maybe it might be similar for the most part but being auto-hit will be a nice counter to enemies who can give themselves or allies super high defenses that would cause you to miss most of the time. And the Brute/Tanker recharge nerf will be a slight proc rate buff.

I'd like the same for vigilantes blueside. As for whether it's possible, I'd assume that it would be given that the Galaxy City and Goldside tutorials let you pick an alignment. We could use something similar for the "grey" alignments, it's just a matter of finding a way to implement it that feels organic enough. IMO I'd like to add alternate choices to the Breakout and Outbreak tutorials for rogue/vigilante. Like for Breakout, add an alternate starting contact who lets you go do your own thing, maybe steal some crap or whatwever, instead of rescuing the Arachnos pilot dude. For Outbreak, a contact that sends you to murderize somebody responsible for the outbreak instead of protecting the people or rescuing the ambushed hero.

That actually appears to have been accounted for given the patch notes for LBE reference all 4 melee ATs: Epic > Laser Beam Eyes (Brute/Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker) - Power is now auto-hit, but damage inflicted is randomized based on the hit-roll Epic > Laser Beam Eyes (Brute/Tanker) - Recharge increased from 6s to 8s Epic > Laser Beam Eyes (Scrapper/Stalker) - Endurance Cost reduced from 8.07575 to 6.5 And there's also the bit where Body Mastery is getting renamed to Energy Mastery anyways.

On the topic of power customization, would it be possible for some of the ranged epic attacks like Charged Bolts, Gloom, etc. to have Mace and/or Crab backpack options?

My own take is that giving extra aethers might imbalance the economy with them a little bit. The official stated reason for their inclusion was to help transfer inf downward from more settled-in players to lower leveled ones, but putting too many of them into the system could drive their price down and thus not "trickle down" the inf like they're intended to. Standard reward merits could have a similar issue because converters and boosters are both very important parts of the economy. Emp merits, on the other hand, would have no real issue because the worst that can happen with those is that super insps might get a little cheaper. But those aren't very important in the grand economy. Extending the emp merit rewards out past vet level 99 would probably not hurt anything. I'm usually in the altisis camp myself (I tend to stop playing an alt shortly after reaching T4 incarnates) but I'd be okay with this. Heck, I don't even get close to vet level 99 as it is anyways but I don't feel like I'm being slighted for that. I'm honestly impressed at how someone can keep interest in a single alt for that long.