FupDup

In theory at least, Willpower is supposed to be that because you're literally using the power of your mind to withstand damage. In practice not so much...

Shield Defense for Sentinels.

Shotgun Blast: A blast set that has a bit less range than others but scaling damage that maxes out at point blank. I'm not sure if the range/damage scaling thing is possible, and also it might be hard to fill out all of the 9 power slots. Yes, I know that IRL shotguns can shoot pretty far but this is meant to be a stereotypical videogame shotgun.

Arsenal Blast: For fans of arsenal-based boomer shooters like Doom or Serious Sam, every single attack in this set has you pull out a different weapon (not a unified frankenrifle like AR currently is). You'd get an SMG, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Rifle, Flamethrower, Railgun, Minigun, and Rocket Launcher. This is what AR should've been.

Submachine Gun: Basically taking the Huntsman powers from SOA's and making a full blast set out of it, with a few additions like Aim and Full Auto to fill it out. It would basically play like a revamped Assault Rifle that focuses on shooting bullets (with 1 or 2 grenades) instead of being a frankenrifle with like 12 different guns strapped together. Explosive Blast: Literally a blast set filled with a wide variety of different grenade types. The T9 would be a revamped LRM Rocket that isn't interruptible but only has normal range in exchange. Almost everything in this set would be AoE (except maybe 1 or 2 powers) so that would be kinda nuts. Sniper Rifle: Self-explanatory. In terms of feel it would have slow but meaty attacks like a long-range version of Battle Axe. Its special gimmick would just be having a higher base range than other blast sets. It would focus mostly on single-target, with its T9 being a monstrously powerful single-target attack instead of an AoE nuke like everyone else gets.

Adding additional tiers of incarnate powers would trivialize the level 45+ content even more than it already has been, and would likely require a rebalancing of hardmode content to account for them. So...probably not. I would however like to see additional incarnate powers within the existing tiers we already have, which would be a horizontal power expansion rather than vertical.

It reduces the number of times you need to die in order to get them, which does literally make it easier/quicker. So let's say that currently you accrue 10k debt when you die normally, this suggestion would let you get 20k debt per death. That does make it easier. I actually don't mind that because the redside accolades are already quite a bit harder/longer to earn than their blueside equivalents while providing identical benefit, but we can still be honest about it. If this had no effect, then there would be no point to even make the suggestion to begin with. So clearly it has to help at least somewhat, in order to justify this thread's existence.

The reason is because the HC team doesn't want to potentially get sued by the big comic companies, which did actually happen to the original devs back on live (but the devs won). The problem is that the "target audience" you need to convince of this argument isn't HC, it's those big companies that get overzealous about IP protection, because they are the ones who caused this rule to come into being. On the bright side, we can still do "homage" or parody characters as long as they're different enough from the source material. It can be an interesting creative exercise to try to walk that fine line between being based on an existing character but still having some plausible deniability. And I say this as somebody whose first toon on HC was a straight carbon copy of an existing character (Reaper from Overwatch, but I generic'd him after the rule announcement just to be safe).

That line of reasoning would make sense if PAPs couldn't be purchased off the auction house for inf... ...But they can, which means people with tons of inf can in fact just dump a bunch of cash into it if they don't feel like farming them the "organic" way.

It would benefit villains who need to pay off a lot of debt to get one of their main accolades, and also benefit badgers who want all of the debt badges a bit quicker. It's a pretty weird suggestion but it would be helpful in some circumstances. In the meantime, the workaround is to just purposefully either let mobs kill you (generic "you") and/or throw yourself at mobs that are above your paygrade repeatedly.

After a 2-month break I just started a Rad/Rad Sentinel that I reserved the name for a long time ago (had to get the reservation ahead of time since it's a pretty good name IMO). Only level 9 right now but I'm already liking Rad armor's extra blue bar sustainability compared to other sets in the early game.

Sometimes you gotta learn to let go of certain things in games like this. Being an ardent completionist is gonna burn you out hard and fast. It's one of those situations where the winning move is not to play (or in this case, not pursue every badge/costume/etc). It'll take a huge burden off your shoulders.

It's probably better to just buy Prisms off the market at that point. Or use a mixture of earning and buying. Thankfully, the type of content locked behind this wall are mostly just pre-configured costumes (no editing colors/pieces) and a few niche things like minimode. I'm not a fan of the system as it is now (i.e. some stuff is crazy expensive) but at least it's stuff that is very forgettable/ignorable for the most part. I don't feel like I'm losing out on anything by just ignoring the system entirely. It's probably quite a pain for completionists/collectors though. If there were stuff like costume pieces (that can be used in the editor), enhancements, power sets, etc. that required prisms to unlock...then it would be time to start flipping tables.

I'm strongly opposed to the OP's idea, but the alpha slot comparison is kinda silly. The ability to add more power slots doesn't just mean free SO's, it also means more set bonuses which are far more powerful than free SO's could ever hope to be. And that makes his suggestion even more problematic.

They did definitely have more incarnate abilities planned (like "Genesis" buff patches), but I don't think they had any plans for adding more standard power slots.

The only way I could see us getting more slots is some kind of exchange where you give up a power pick and get 2-3 slots instead. Or maybe go the other way and give up 2-3 slots for 1 extra power. Then it's not just a direct power increase, more of a sidegrade. I kind of like that there's a point when a character is "finished" and I don't have to worry about kitting them out any further. In addition to mega power creep this would also make it feel like an eternal grind because then your toon wouldn't be "complete" until every single power had 6 slots in it.

I'd go for lower endurance cost because it can drain you real quick when going from one side of a zone to the other. Yes it's technically faster than other travel powers but not by large enough of a margin to warrant needing to rest after using it. It's already balanced by being mechanically far more complex than the others and not giving you several LOTG mules like flight does.

Wouldn't they just be called AO's? The "T" in ATO comes from Archetype Origin. Hero/villain would be Alignment Origin...maybe ALO? Nevermind the potential balancing issues if they're as strong as ATO's and can be used in tandem with them...

Many of the Warshade's powers depend on a continuous supply of enemies to keep them operating at full power. They are much weaker than Peacebringers when fighting a single, strong target like an AV if there aren't any bodies around to power them up. However, the WS has a higher peak performance than the PB if they are able to keep feeding off bodies. WS's human form doesn't have any mezz protection but PB does. WS's built-in travel powers are oriented around teleportation, whereas PB is about flight. You can of course take different travel powers from pools if you want.

Since the classic villain and hero AT's are split apart from each other, it might involve PVP? But I don't know why the EATs or Sents would be missing... Maybe the alignment system? The ability to sort characters in the selection screen by alignment and/or AT? That image is like a Rorschach test with how many different ways there are to interpret it. It's gonna be funny seeing how far off most of our guesses were...

What I'm hoping for most are Malta and Knives of Artemis lores. And Dev Earth. And Freakshow.

It's a lot less of an issue for sets like AR because they have several non-knock powers available, so if you're in a situation where you don't want to yeet people then you can lean on the other powers (recharge permitting). The Sentinel variant of AR is a bit more permissive in that regard than squishy AT's. EB is a unique case where the entire set has KB, so I don't think any other set would warrant such a system. As for EB specifically, I'll admit that is a bit of a flaw in my idea. One fix could be to give most or all of the powers some baseline KD, so that if you slot any KB enhancements then it becomes KB. Otherwise I guess we could make the combo system build up very quickly and/or have 1 or 2 powers that always KB like Power Push so that it's there when you need it. The "build up" system could be granular like some water blast powers where even one charge of "force" would inflict at least a little KB on specific powers, but more charges gives a larger amount of it (kind of like Water Burst from Water Blast).

I just thought of another solution besides a toggle. How about an energy blast revamp that uses a combo system to inflict KB? This could either be like water blast where you have some powers that build up "force" or whatever and some powers that spend force to cause KB (no KB by default without "force" built up), or it could be a more rigid combo system like dual blades where you use the powers in a specific order to make them cause KB. Or something like that, pick your poison. In either case, people who don't want to send baddies flying could choose to just ignore the combo system. I'm also okay with Rudra's idea to just add a lot more IO sets with the KB/KD proc, but I still kind of feel like the power set itself should give some of this control inside the base kit rather than requiring external items to patch up. And it would be nice to be able to switch between KB'ing and not-KB'ing seamlessly in the middle of a fight without needing to visit a trainer.

Rudra's argument is that while there are currently some options, those two options (Overwhelming Force, Sudden Accel) are not covering the exact, specific bonuses that people want, which is why slotting them feels like a "tax." If there were some additional sets added that did cover those holes people are looking for, then that would likely eliminate most of the complaints because people would feel like those sets are making their build stronger rather than weaker. Especially if there was something as strong as Apoc or a winter set available that had a KB-KD proc in it. I'm fine with both your idea and Rudra's but I kinda like his idea a bit more since more sets would bring more theorycrafting fun. And I think we need more sets in general really, not just for KB/KD stuff.

Medium Robotic Claws option for monstrous feet. Small robot claws look like goofy goat feet. Large robot claws look like titanic clown shoes that are disproportionate compared to the rest of the body.