FupDup

My first HC toon was a DP/Dark Corruptor, but I skipped a ton of the /Dark powers because I basically wanted to play like a semi-tanky ranged character instead of an off-support like Corrs are designed to be. It was still fun, but definitely not getting the most out of the AT. I know I'm going to cause a lot of cringes when I say this, but I legitimately would've been better off playing a Sentinel at that point because it would give me the playstyle I was looking for but without skipping half of my secondary.

Stalkers are around, they're just hidden.

My observation from playing on a 4-man beta team was that the newly revamped factions were only a little bit harder than before, mostly just a bit slower...but that's on teams. Doing it solo, however, was quite a bit slower than previously, especially the new Council being very bullet-spongey. I'm not a fan of pillow fight pacing. I feel like these two outcomes are kind of backwards. There are indeed a good number of complaints about stuff being too easy and enemies dying too fast for people to use their powers, but those complaints are almost always coming from the context of a steamroller team. If you're flying solo you're not going to be worried about whether or not enemies live long enough for you to do stuff. That's a team problem, it needs a team solution. My take is that most faction revamps should focus on making team play moderately or even significantly harder (depending on exactly what the starting point was) but having a relatively modest solo impact. As for how to do that, IDK if it's possible in this game's engine but I'd like something similar to Diablo games where enemies scale in power based on how many players are present. There would need to be a max limit somewhere so large leagues don't get totally hosed by this of course.

Lore wise, it might almost make sense to move that functionality to the actual trainers directly (besides the whole chat bubble thing that already exists). It makes sense that you might go to the person training you if you want a greater or lesser challenge.

Unfortunately, Sentinel's Psi Mastery does not have access to Harmonic Mind. And there's no cone attack, it does have Psychic Shockwave however. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=epic.sentinel_psionic_mastery&at=sentinel

I actually asked a dev about this on the closed beta discord a week ago. They said that they probably won't do it for DP because of how complex the powerset is with all of its redirects and such. Assault Rifle/Arsenal however probably would be much simpler. Also note that the game has no way to determine what sounds to use based on individual weapon variants. The way it would need to be handled is that the player would just select an alternate FX option that comes with a different sound effect. This would allow for weirdness like using beam sounds for traditional rifle models and vice-versa, but that shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Looks pretty good for the most part, aside from my obsession with set-slotting. One thing I see is that your self-rez maybe shouldn't have that KD proc slotted into it, because the power already has KB by default so this means they will stack their magnitude together and fling your enemies even further than default. Swap it out with one of the other pieces from Avalanche to keep the slow resist bonus. You could then move the Avalanche proc to replace Overwhelming Force in Psy Shockwave because it has a higher proc rate (assuming you want the soft control). Otherwise, I don't see anything else to complain about. EDIT: I guess one other possible concern might be the extremely low proc rate on the Decimation Build Up proc. I don't have maths, but it might potentially be better (or at least way more consistent) to replace the two pieces of Deci with 2 pieces of Gladiator's Javelin (including toxic proc). This would come at the cost of 1.5% en/neg resistance but that loss should be manageable.

In the final mission of Graham Easton's arc, when you're fighting the students of the final boss guy, Sun Xiong uses incorrect pronouns when referring to the player. My toon was male and did not have any huge or female costumes in alternate slots, but he still used female pronouns for me:

Regen is better on Brute than Scrappers, BUT Energy Melee is better on Scrappers than Brutes. So it's a toss-end depending on which you value more (offense or defense). A Regen Brute with support buffs can actually be super tanky so they have an endgame/hardmode niche, while Regen on Scrappers is mostly just for concept/theme. Scrappers are of course good in the endgame because damage is king, and hardmode has some serious DPS checks, but there are better choices than Regen for their armor set. So if you're set on Regen specifically, then Brute has a bit more of a clear niche carved out for it.

How many set pieces you try to frankenslot in there vs. pure procs is also another preference call, influenced by what exact kind of set bonuses you might be able to snag in there. I think most people lean toward only 1 or 2 acc/dam pieces and then fill in the rest with procs, but as I said I'm less knowledgeable on that subject since I tend to just cram in full or mostly full sets most of the time. Some of the more min-maxxed builds use Hami enhancements for acc/dam here instead of set pieces, which does give a slightly higher base value but you don't get the set bonuses. Some examples of partial set slotting could be 3-slotted Thunderstrike for energy/negative defenses, Devastation for some regen and max HP, or Gladiator's Javelin for recovery and max HP, and then the remaining slots filled in with procs. Also note that people tend to load procs into single target powers more often/more heavily than AOE powers because the latter typically don't proc as consistently, so AOE powers might be good set bonus holders for things like ATOs if you want to go the proc route.

On live I only played a bit during free trial periods and it was very early in the game's development (like before VEATs and a short time after). I've played way more HC on my first toon than on any of my live trial toons combined, and it felt like a whole new world with all of the shiny new stuff that got added after I stopped playing.

Short Circuit is your primary sapping tool. Electric Blast attacks have a chance to deal bonus damage against enemies who are low on endurance, so sapping is like a damage buff. SC is also a decent source of AOE damage while your nuke is recharging. So TL;DR: Yes it's worth it. If you're concerned about melee you could always just hop in, press SC, then hop back out and continue blasting.

Procs are generally a matter of personal taste, at least when your AT/powerset has high base damage like Sentinels usually do. Proc'ing will get you more damage and more damage type diversity (helps deal with enemies who resist your main damage type) but it might come at the cost of set bonuses, depending on exactly what gets replaced. DP in particular is known for having somewhat low single target damage, and having so many secondary effects does give it a wide variety of proc options, so many people do lean on procs to make up for the lowish base damage. Most veteran players do tend to lean on procs in general, especially for a set like DP, but I'm a bit of a weirdo who likes to cram in more bonuses most of the time. If you wish to go that route I won't be as knowledgeable, but just know a few things: 1. Proc rate is based on both the base recharge and the enhanced recharge of a power, meaning that quick powers like your T1 blast will tend to be poor for procing (good for set bonus holding). Hard hitting powers with slow recharge tend to be the best proc choices, like Executioner's Shot or Suppressive Fire in this case. 2. Slotting recharge enhancement directly in a power will reduce the proc rate, but global recharge from things like Hasten, LOTG, or set bonuses will not hurt you. Some powers have long enough base recharge that they can retain a high proc rate even when slotted with recharge directly. Sometimes the set bonuses gained can make this a worthwhile exchange, like 5-slotting Apocalypse for the 10% global recharge and other stuff it comes with. 3. Mids actually has a built-in proc chance calculator, but I think it only works properly for single-target powers? You can see the estimated proc chance by hovering over a power's damage chart in the lower left corner of the interface:

So here's my first stab at it. Current Build.mbd A summary of my changes and reasoning: -Swapped Agility for Cardiac because the resistance and endurance reduction will be more useful here -Added in Temperature Protection for some extra survival and slow protection, but had to drop Evasive Maneuvers for it -Dropped/swapped some defensive IO set bonuses (like Opportunity Strikes is now 5 slots instead of 6) because Fiery Aura has no native defense and no protection against defense debuffs -Swapped Dual Wield for Pistols because the latter has higher damage-per-animation -Swapped Eradication for Apocalypse like you planned to do later -Swapped power order around a bit to flow a bit better -Swapped slotting of Healing Flames and Cauterizing Blaze because the full set has a much greater impact in the former power because it has higher values -Added the Miracle and Numina procs to Health for more recovery -Added Kismet To-Hit to more consistently hit enemies -Boosted various IOs to +5 for more power -Enabled the passive health and endurance accolades -A bunch of other rearrangements that I don't remember

Yes. Alphas don't give you "free" goodies like IO set bonuses do, they're like a global enhancement. So for example, if you pick an alpha power with resistance enhancement, it only boosts your existing resistance-giving powers. If you don't have any res powers, it won't give you anything.

I think you forgot to post a link to the build. Anyways, I would recommend against the Agility alpha incarnate power here because it doesn't really do a whole ton for Fiery Aura. The endmod portion doesn't help much because Consume's recovery buff is fairly short in duration, and the defense portion doesn't help since Fire doesn't have any defense on its own (and no DDR). A lot of people would also say that the recharge from Agility would nerf your damage proc rate, but since the build doesn't appear to have many damage procs that part won't really hurt much in this case. I'd have to see the build in Mids to decide on the best replacement but my first instincts are either Musculature for more damage, Cardiac for resistance and endurance reduction, or Vigor for greater healing, endurance reduction, and accuracy.

Making Rage's buffs more powerful seems like it's missing the point. Rage is very strong while it's active, and can be double stacked to be uber stronk; The issue is the crash. Problem is that if we were to just straight up remove/reduce the crash with no other changes, that could easily result in a busted (OP) powerset. So that might need to be accompanied by reducing/nerfing something else, which would tick off a lot of the people who enjoy the set as it is. It feels like a damned if you do/don't kind of situation here. Something something cottage cheese, something something jranger. Thankfully, for those of us (like me) who don't like harsh crashes, there are other punchy-themed melee sets like Energy Melee and Street Justice to scratch that itch, minus the outdated design framework that Super Strength has.

For Fire Sword Circle, just straight up removing the sword from your hands but keeping the same animation otherwise would look fine honestly, like you're smashing your fist into the ground. For the ST sword attacks, that just means we need to find something 1.33s to replace most of them (Greater Fire Sword is 1.37 but close enough) and 2.33s to replace Greater Ice Sword. I don't know of any matches for this off the top of my head. Might need to get creative with animation sequencers but that's more dev work involved. EDIT: Looks like Shin Breaker from STJ is 1.33s, but it might feel weird considering it's a kick instead of a punch/smash. But at least no sword. Rib Cracker is another viable subsitute. Barrage from Energy Melee is a third candidate and probably the most fitting, ship it. Now just to find a replacement for Greater Ice Sword...it's really hard to find other melee powers near the 2.33s animation time range.

If you want to make a mecha-based character, IMO Invulnerability would more accurately represent that thick metal armor. Willpower is more of a standard human who has really tough discipline that refuses to give up kind of thing, like Batman or Punisher. But of course you can do w/e you like.

A straight damage buff would be considered "free" by the powers design team (Powerhouse, Bopper) because the animation time is not factored in to the formula. And in regard to the rules, you're preaching to the choir here. A few of us in the Gold Standard test group (including me) tried to persuade/argue with them about this but we didn't get much out of it. The powers team just really really loves their formulas and adhering to them at all costs.

It would have been very simple, yes, but as I said earlier our dev team really likes their damage formulas. They generally don't give more damage for free, so you'd have to sacrifice something else or multiple somethings in order to "balance" that out at which point the change might become a wash or even a net nerf. The sacred formula is why we cannot have nice things. 😔

I think adding a toggle button might be a little janky feeling so I'd prefer an IO set that includes a piece which makes every snipe act as a slow snipe, even while engaged. Mockup of the set: I wasn't too sure on which set bonuses to choose or how to divide up the enhancement values so that's up for debate.

Since there's an IO that makes you always do quicksnipes, I think there should also be an IO that makes it always do the slow snipe even while "engaged." Maybe something like this: Open to suggestions on set bonuses and how to divide up the enhancement values, just threw this together in a few minutes.

The reasoning was that the power was underperforming before, and a long animation time was the primary weakness it had. Furthermore, the power design formula that the devs are sticking to religiously does not consider animation time, which means they can use animation speedups to give "free" buffs. With any other buffs like damage, the devs will ALWAYS insist on penalizing some other aspect(s) of the power to compensate and make sure the formula always remains equal no matter what. In an ideal world we could give a wider variety of "free" buffs besides animations to underperforming powers without needing to play the counter-balance formula minigame, but that's not the world that HC is. I would love to have several slow-animating powers just hit like an absolute rocket powered freight train (in terms of damage) instead of just animating faster, but then we'd have to "balance" that out with nerfing some other element like recharge time.

I'd like a variant of the High-Tech Helmet without the left side attachment with the microphone and antenna. And heck, maybe an opposite variant that puts the attachment on both sides too.