FupDup

In regards to this issue, I once had the idea that people should be able to create duplicate names, but the first one gets some kind of special designation and the others after that point are branded as #2, #6, whatever. One of the devs told me that would be pretty hard to code in terms of database stuff and it might run into issues with multiple players sharing the same name and you try to do a /tell or whatever with them. So that's out of the question unless we get a COH2 or something that finds a way around these issues. As somebody who admittedly is camping a bunch of names, I think that some kind of name release policy would be completely fair depending on the exact amount of time we consider a character to be "active" and characters gaining immunity at level 50. I think it's fair that if I'd want to keep some of my camped names that I'd have to put in a tiny bit of effort logging in to them periodically. As the saying goes, if you don't need to shit then get off the pot.

Just wanna point out that for Full Auto, Sents and Blasters both get 90 degree cone angles. They also amusingly share the same target cap (unlike the other nukes) and Sents at least get Aim (+Gaussian) to try to make up for the lost base damage. Plus the set has so much AOE in general that it didn't feel like an issue for my AR Sent. Rain of Arrows on the other hand...yeah that one is pretty sadface. That was me! And yeah, it's true that for the most part, Sent nukes are super close to each other (outside of DoTs and gimmicks that might add a little extra to some). The issue is just that some sets benefit from this normalization more than others. Sent nukes are pretty weird like this, being balanced against each other in a vacuum instead of being balanced against the other ATs from which these powers are inherited. It doesn't help that these powers probably aren't even perfectly balanced against each other on Blasters either, so normalizing them to one standard is gonna have funky outliers on both ends.

In regards to not having Assault sets, my opinion is that an assault/armor AT would be a pointless addition because Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers, and Stalkers can all pick some ranged powers from their epic pools to create a playstyle very similar to assault. Furthermore, Sentinels themselves can also pick up some melee attacks in their epic pools to also create an assault-like feel too. The current implementation allows you to get the best of both worlds to an extent because you get to have nukes (assault sets don't). And frankly, assault sets are pretty close to outright melee sets in terms of design/feel anyways (ranged offers a different playstyle even if the game's power design usually rewards melee). They make sense on Doms but I really just don't get the hype for putting them on other ATs. The most I'd like to see for Sents is adding an extra melee attack to each epic pool and/or adding more epic pools that have a higher quantity of melee attacks available (so you can choose to be assault if you want or choose not to). Like seriously, what actual merit or difference would an assault/armor AT offer over a Scrapper or such using their epic pool ranged attacks?

Another thing about lowbie goldside is that there aren't any EBs/AVs at all, whereas blueside a lot of lowbies get stuck on Veles or other similar early EB's.

Unfortunately this is not a bug, but a deliberate design choice. If we dig around on City of Data we can find this page: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=redirects.storm_blast.nukenado_pulse_sentinel&at=sentinel Note that mag 500 avoid effect it applies to all enemies. This is what causes the instant run away thing. This is also present on other "rain" powers like Rain of Fire, Blizzard, Caltrops, and so on. The live devs did this and the HC devs chose to continue it. There are ways to partially mitigate this like using one of the epic pool immobilize powers or slotting certain procs but the devs are unlikely to reconsider this mechanic.

Havoc Punch is a fine power. Since Electric Blast already has a PBAOE attack, you're gonna spend at least a little bit of time in melee anyways so picking up a melee ST attack is a reasonable investment. Tough is definitely mandatory for capping your S/L resists. Weave is strongly recommended because it gives you a place to slot things like LOTG, Shield Wall, and/or Reactive Defenses. For slotting I'd personally slot them up like normal damage powers. You could consider the hybrid sets like Synapse's Shock or Power Transfer but you give up some other stats for that. A better idea would be picking up an alpha incarnate ability with endmod in it, such as Musculature Radial (which gives damage and endmod both). Hasten is usually considered an auto-equip on most characters because of its disproportionate amount of recharge boost in a single power. Electric Armor's automatic recharge boost might slightly alleviate the need for this. You can live without Hasten but it's still very much recommended.

Given that Corrs and Fenders had Conserve Power replaced by Energize, could Tankers and Scrappers get similar treatment in their Energy Mastery pool?

The patch notes are very misleading on this change. The text for Loyalist is gold, not red like the notes imply. Resistance however is currently a medium blue like Hero, which I noted above.

I just played a quick level 1 mission in Praetoria and the new origin attacks do hit pretty hard, no complaints on that front. For the new character creation interface, I think that the text for RESISTANCE could be changed from medium blue like HERO to a lighter blue/cyan to match the faction's insignia color. The color for LOYALIST (yellow/gold) is perfect.

For the origin attacks, would it be possible to let them carry enhancement sets? They're never gonna be competitive at a high level because they're not supposed to be, but it could still have niche uses for muling set bonuses or slotting accuracy at low levels.

Most of Seismic's attacks give a self-buff that reduces the recharge of all other seismic powers by 1 second. Seismic Force (Aim replacement) reduces Meteor's recharge by 15 seconds. So it's gonna come down to chaining the abilities in an order such that you can squeeze the most out of those recharge reduction (I haven't used the set myself so I don't know the optimal ordering). So I think it might boil down to using basic attacks as filler until Meteor has about 15 seconds left to go, then pop Aim for Meteor to be instantly ready, then nuke away and repeat the cycle? Aim will of course probably be slotted with more recharge here than most blast sets in order to fully leverage this. Depending on how high your global/slotted recharge is, most Sentinel nukes can get their recharge to around 22-25ish seconds. Chopping 15 off that...good times. If you wanted to get truly stupid you could try to work in Burnout to that process.

I was referring to the health/resistance portion for scaling more so than damage.

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.