FupDup

The Tanker nerfs prove the point, actually. Previously (when Tanks got gigabuffed), Tanks got free cone arc buffs with no strings attached. In the earlier rounds of beta nerfs, they got to keep the larger arcs but got their damage nerfed to adhere to the formula. People were very understandably not happy about losing damage, so this caused the devs to then simply remove the arc buffs completely in order to avoid nerfing the damage (because they really really like the formula).

It's mostly the ones under 90* that really need to be wider, excluding the psuedo-ST powers like Cleave and Golden Dragonfly of course. 90 and above are fine. Part of the problem is that the damage formula considers arc as a part of the math, so raising the arc has to come with a penalty somewhere else (usually damage). I would suggest slowing down the recharge a bit instead of lowering damage, which can even turn out to be a net buff sometimes because recharge influences proc rates.

Usually, the more veteran players tend to load up their eligible attack powers with as many damage procs as they can, at least for the powers that have a decent proc rate. Powers with lower proc rates might be used as a source of global recharge/accuracy bonuses to help the proc'd powers work. Loading up pure sets in everything is still viable in the sense that the game's difficulty is low enough that you'll still be able to complete almost anything that way, but proc bombed builds are mathematically better because damage is the name of the game and non-damage stats like defense can be outsourced to teammates and/or insps. At the risk of going off topic, the issue is that most set bonuses don't actually raise your maximum ceiling for those stats, they just bring you closer to the same ceiling that everyone else has (in other words, raise the floor). Meanwhile, damage procs give you a way to surpass your standard damage ceiling. A Blaster built for softcapped defenses has the exact same upper limits for def, res, HP, etc. as a Blaster with 0% defenses, but the 0% Blaster has a higher damage ceiling that can't be replicated from inspirations or teammates. If I were to make the game again from scratch, I would add some kind of way for set bonuses to interact with your max caps, i.e. resistance bonuses might slightly increase your max res cap to a particular damage type, so that non-offensive investment couldn't be completely replaced by outside sources (which of course would entail rebalancing the default res caps, etc). ...But this is definitely way too much for a game as old and established as this one, I'm just ranting for academic purposes.

Set bonuses are typically inferior to procs, at least in powers where procs are applicable, so there's definitely room for improving what you get from sets without even touching the meta. One thing I'll note is that low recharge enhancement can actually be a good thing if the set has a proc in it, because of extremely bad game design that punishes your PPM for slotting recharge. I think that there should be more sets like Positron's Blast where you can 5-slot it while keeping the full PPM. Accuracy and endurance reduction, however, are definitely fair game for more cowbell (and other attributes like range and stuff, also like Positron's Blast). I'd definitely like to see the Cupid-style proc boosting mechanic proliferated to other sets, prioritizing underused sets of course (i.e. purples probably don't need it).

More like Shit of Heroes amirite?

I’m mostly just trying to pre-empt the power devs who think Sents having an armor secondary is so strong that they can’t allow Vulnerability to be stackable (yes this is their actual reason that I was told). I personally would have zero opposition to the proc applying the full effect but I’m not as squeamish about buffs as they are. And to be fair, Vulnerability does ignore purple patch and does more than just -res (but of course -res is the most important part of it). At this point my expectations are low enough that I’d surprised if Sents got any kind of buff.

The Chance for Vulnerability thing seems to be nearly universally agreed upon. The only detail I'd add is that maybe it wouldn't be full strength, like instead of the normal 15% debuff it might be 5% at orange tier and 7.5% at purple tier, or something like that. Sentinel's Ward is basically a clone of Gauntleted Fist, but inferior in every way. The PPM is much lower (2 PPM vs 3 PPM), AND the absorb is smaller too (GF is 15% of max HP, SW is about 15% of base HP). I see 3 potential choices for this one: A. Increase the PPM to be higher than GF, but keep the low value, which gives it better sustain than GF but lower alpha strike cushioning. B. The opposite of Option A, we keep the inferior PPM but raise the absorb % (and make it scale with HP!) so it's better against alphas but has low sustain. C. Just make it a straight clone of GF, which is kind of boring but gets the job done.

I count lack of end management as a part of “sustain” (both regen/heals and recovery). The psi hole isn’t as big as it used to be, nor is psi a super common damage type. The lack of heal/endurance tools meanwhile applies to all fights.

Invuln is a set more about preventing damage than bouncing back from it. Lack of sustain is meant to be its main weakness (unless you're using the Sentinel version that has sustain, in which case your weakness is being a Sentinel). Maybe the T9 could be remodeled to resemble the new Elec Armor T9 to serve the healing power role, because right now Unstoppable is pretty much a delayed suicide button.

There’s a wide gulf between having no skippables and having almost the entire set be skippable. A happy medium exists somewhere inside that gulf. And of course this is one of those cases where “skippable” is a euphemism for “total dogwater noob traps.”

It’s true that most sets don’t normally want or need all 9 powers, but SS is on the opposite rare extreme end where it’s not truly a power set so much as 3 powers wearing a trench coat.

Entirely new incarnate slots would pose balance problems, but new options within the existing slots would have fairly little chance of disruption. Stuff like a cold damage interface, Malta or Dev Earth lores, a damage boosting destiny, a toxic judgement, etc.

This is actually canon for Captain Marvel's eye beams, funnily enough.

I'm not a fan of the anti-synergy that the def crash has with def armor sets, nor do I like how the damage crash forces proc bombing to do anything at all during that time, but the whole set is balanced around it and a lot of people are attached to it as it is now. I think it would be safer to just work on other punch-based melee sets, like for example giving Street Justice some actual functional AOE, so that people could pick an alternate punchy-themed set while leaving the classic Super Strength as a legacy feature. Any attempt to change Rage on Brutes or Tanks would likely get Beanbagged (Scrapper/Stalker version would 100% never have Rage as it is now).

Rename the set to Beam Blast, problem solved.

Freeze Ray doesn't have a slow effect like the other Ice Blast powers do, which is why it can't slot for slows. It's a very strange inconsistency, likely due to the power dealing obnoxiously high DPA without even being a snipe attack. Still feels weird though. To partially hijack this topic, Sentinel Chilling Ray (Freeze Ray replacement) is the same way in terms of enhancements, but has a 63.8% DPA loss compared to Blaster Freeze Ray, so I think that one could be given the usual slow effect and slow enhancements to make it suck marginally less.

AOE vs ST would definitely need to be separate categories because of their separate applications.

Note that Radiation Blast is a very good substitute for Energy Blast because it doesn't need to pay the knockback tax and can be recolored to look about the same.

Presence could really use a toggle taunt aura as a 6th power choice, being a T2 option (only need 1 prereq first). So then people could do something like Provoke + Aura + Unrelenting for example.

Electric Blast is pretty straightforward, but Psi Armor can be annoying with needing to continuously refresh two different clickies to maintain the buffs and debuff resistance.

Provoke aside, it would make sense for Brutes to have the AOE -range too because they're lumped in with Tankers into the tank role (based on res/hp caps, -healing cap, armor set design, punchvoke & taunt auras...).

If I was to change Opportunity Strikes, what I would do is make it apply a mini-version of the Vulnerability debuff (like 1/3 - 1/2 of the strength) to whatever it hits, and allow that to stack with your built-in Vulnerability.

I know we don't like to bring up other servers here, but I'm pretty sure that one of the other servers did actually do a universal mezz set as a Halloween event reward? I'd like to see it here too but I know that the HC team can sometimes be contrarians in that they don't want to do something that somebody else already did, even if it was a good idea.

I want more toys to play with so I added my upvote. My nitpick is regarding some of the proposed set bonuses. Being able to enhance both resistance and healing with one set is something that will mostly be used with armored ATs, who tend to get very little benefit from the KB protection or range bonuses (but Sentinels would like the latter at least). I'd suggest swapping those out for other things. I'd also like the S/L defense bonus bumped up a bit, which I admit is purely for selfish reasons (Sents have a hard time building typed S/L defense so I'm trying to shoehorn that in here). I guess a second nitpick might be that this set doesn't really have a Halloween "feel" or flavor to it, contrasted to winter sets for example which have a very clear flavor to them. I think this could be perhaps given out as a reward for either the redside or blueside respec trials instead, which offer a little more wiggle room in terms of theme and also could use some more incentive to play.