EmperorSteele

I read that in the voice of the guy who runs Hydrolic Press Channel on Youtube =P

As well-constructed as your other counterarguments were, I'm a little perplexed by this one. You clearly love Hasten as-is, so why would you be against other powers providing alternative +Recharge bonuses?

So with all the work going into travel powers and some pool sets, I thought it'd be fun to imagine what the devs might do next! I figured I'd look at the speed pool. Aside from a single outlier, it's... meh. Flurry is a low damage attack that takes too long to animate, Whirlwind is an annoying end hog, and Burnout... do many people take that? Superspeed is all right, and is getting some needed love with the upcoming issue. And then there's Hasten... It's no secret that Hasten is very powerful. A T1 pick that gives 70% recharge with a long cool down and an end crash. Lots of people take it, and often build around eliminating the cooldown and End crash. It needs to be looked at. I would get rid of Burnout, and give Speed a new T1 power: Vibrate Molecules. This is a defense toggle in the vein of Combat Jumping, except it also gives bonus defense when you're actively moving. Basically, your speed allows you to dodge and vibrate through some attacks. This would bump Hasten down to T3, thus forcing you to take another Speed power first. I think this is a small price to pay for what it arguably one of the best powers in the game. They could do other things if they were feeling evil. Lower the recharge bonus a little, add an endurance cost penalty to all powers while active, or heck, maybe just cut the recharge bonus in half but make it an auto power that requires no slotting. However, I think adding a defense toggle to the pool is a fair trade for having to pick a power first, so any other nerfs would be unnecessary. Though I guess then people would be all "why take any other pools?". Well, maybe don't give Speed a monopoly on recharge bonuses. Find other powers in other sets and spread the love! Have Evasive Maneuvers give +25%, have Infiltration give 20%, maybe have each power in the Presence Pool give +10% just for taking it and let it stack; I dunno!

*raises hand* I have a question! What's the Inf difference for an even-level foe vs a +4 one? Because I'm... not great at farming. Takes a solid 15+ minutes to clear a +4 space map compared to about 10 minutes for playing at even-con. And if the arc is 5 missions, then finishing up takes nealy a half hour longer at +4, and doesn't really seem worth the time. I'm not sure if fighting at +4 is worth it, considering levels don't affect drops, just inf gain. Any insights?

I thought SS actually gave a -Threat buff, not actual stealth? In other words, they see you, but don't bother attacking. But maybe I'm wrong =/

Yeah, no touchy the Mesmerize. In addition to "shutting down bosses", it's also good for maintaining a single-target attack chain! One thing that can be done to help MC without even touching the set itself: moar Procs! Like a sleep set proc that has a chance to hold or stun (which only applies after the sleep is broken!) to let us keep containment on fools. Or a chance for AoE sleep in a ST sleep power (or put into the AoE for added sleepies). Or a proc that "pulses" a sleep effect on a target so they have a chance of taking a nap after you hit them. But otherwise, this thread is full of good ideas 😃

... WHUT. Well, that explains why we all got screwed!

I have a total of around.... 2.5 billion, give or take? Most (1.5b) is on my main, with my 2nd richest character holding onto about 750m, iirc. I have a few e-mails with "starter cash" attachments of 25m each, and most of my other alts tend to hold onto a few million at a time... I'm in the process of dumping a lot into a new farmer/power leveler, but I haven't gone far enough in to make it bear fruit yet. In addition (I know the topic was "just inf", but since the discussion seems to have mutated to include other things), I too have several thousand reward merits spread across my characters and a base full of IOs and ATOs that can I use, convert, or liquidate as needed.

Iirc, in one of the comics, Honoree (Hero 1, the true wielder of Excalibur) tries to unsheath it, but two beefy-looking fairies (who are invisible to everyone else) hold it in place. So it seems to be a lot like Thor's Hammer, where there's some kind of cosmic power at play preventing it being used by just anyone. Except instead of just some arbitrary trait like worthiness, the fey themselves consciously decide who gets to use it. As an aside, I've said before that I'd kinda love an incarnate version of the LRSF where Ms. Liberty wakes up while you're fighting the Phalanx, and is able to draw Excalibur, gaining some level shifts and a few sword attacks, just to shake things up 😃

Probably it would be the ability to command an already-confused critter? It would be an extra click, but i do agree it's a great idea, just needs some ironing out 😃

So after re-reading the OP, i realized a small flaw with their idea. Subjugate seems to imply turning a minion into a MM pet basically. Sounds great on paper, except... what if the map is a defeat-all? Could we "Dismiss" the minion to auto-defeat them, or just relinquish control? Also, I think it should have a duration attached to it, to allow us to still slot Confusion set IOs. One of Mind's strengths in a post-IO world is the ability to slot two confusion sets to get all the amazing set bonuses from them, and I'd hate to lose that. Also, keeping it as a confusion-class power would allow us to still stack confuse mag on tougher foes, if need be. Mind is niche enough as it is, any changes should only add to the set without taking anything away.

I think the point is that most people play this game to feel SUPER, and we can't be that way if we can't destroy the hardest content possible as efficiently as others can, if at all. I don't think that's a good baseline for viable, but, i do admit it's disheartening to know that my favorite characters will never get a sub-4 minute pylon time or clear out a +4/x8 moon farm in less than 15 minutes when other builds do these things in half the time.

The "coming" storm? More like the "it came, it saw, it kicked our ass" storm. At least, that's how I personally view the shutdown of the live servers, with Homecoming (and others) being small pocket dimensions that have so far escaped the Battalion's notice. But for the official story, yeah, the AMAs are the place to look!

Thanks for the extra FPS, @GM Bot!

I'm curious about the builds, playstyles, and content/difficulty being played all those who are fighting this change so hard. A lot of people seem to be concerned about their offensive toggles. Which in many (but not all) cases, implies melee. But they're not on melee-based ATs (yes Blasters and Doms have melee abilities; this is balanced by them not having melee defenses). So, I'm not too against something that helps re-align these ATs a bit closer to their design intent of high risk/high reward. You wanna dive alone head-first into a group of 17 +4 Ritki? You're SUPPOSED to get wrecked. If you can survive, great, but it should take some effort, or at the very least, you should have to wait a minute or two before doing it again instead of steamrolling nonstop. And if you don't like your serotonin levels getting interrupted by waiting or being mezzed (which is all what this all ultimately boils down to), I'd suggest going outside to read a book instead.

WTH devs?! I was using the server instability as part of my character concept! Can we please have a lagging/rubberbanding emote to make up for this character-destroying "fix"?! /s ...actually, I kinda want an emote like that now >_<

So, just an FYI, the -1 setting won't work. All TFs spawn at a minimum of the leader's (your) level. But i've Dual-Boxed a few TFs: Dr. Q, Manti, ITF, MLTF... though it's a drag constantly going back and forth to have my buff bot click a door and set myself back to follow. The buffbot was always a FF/Psi defender, while my mains have been a Mind/Kin controller, Illu/Time controller, or in the case of MLTF, my Invuln/Rad tanker. Good fun, can play at my own pace, but again, it involves a bit of drudgery.

I'm just wondering what enemy groups y'all are fighting that you need 100% uptime on mez protection, and why you go through the hassle of alternating two powers every minute and a half instead of just hitting it reactively. That sounds like a chore! Seriously, if you're soloing +4/x8 radios, just pick Council missions, or use AE and find a farm where the bad guys don't use mez. If you're on a team, let a meleer take alpha instead of Leeroying in if you're so afraid of the consequences of taking alpha. It's not that hard to avoid mez. I'm just sayin', there's gotta be a better way than taking a pool you otherwise don't want, and abusing an ability to the point that the Devs notice and nerf it.

I mean, on one hand, that's a pretty neat idea... On the other hand, does Invuln need this, specifically the absorb clicky? I mean, it already has a click heal/+MaxHP power for when you're biting off more than you can chew. An absorb shield just seems superfluous. The +damage to Unstop does sound nice, and might get me to actually take the power, as well as add some parity with some of the other armor sets that are "so uber" because they increase your damage... but I feel like it's not something invuln needs. The other sets that add damage are usually giving up something in exchange (like Fire armor giving up... pretty much everything except fire resists for a bunch of extra damage), so this might make Invul a little OP. Though since the damage DOES come with a crash, that might help keep things interesting. I'm not AS against this as some other folks might be, but I'm also only lukewarm at best. 😃

One of the few things I liked about DCUO was their break-free system: you get CC'd, and then you have to spam space or shift to free yourself. Some controls were harder to break free from than others. I can see some people being against this sort of thing being implemented here, though. We have an aging playerbase, and the idea of spamming a button really quickly might not appeal to them. Also, no matter what kind of new mez protection system is put into place, ask yourself: would you want NPCs to have similar abilities? As someone who mains a few controllers I know my own answer would be "no".

Is the game actually using your graphics card? It should by default, but you should have the ability to change it back if it's not.

They definitely do. It's not a HUGE difference, though. All I know is that when I run one while farming, I get insps more often (when set to ignore everything except medium and large reds/oranges/purples), I get a few more recipes, and I usually run out of space in my salvage inventory before the end of the AE arc and have to stop to either trash some commons or auction off some rares. I mean, the number of packs you have to buy just to get one isn't worth it (that is, if you have to open 20 packs to get one, you will NOT make back 200Million inf from using it); it's just a fun bonus on top of everything else you've gotten.

Freemtastic Bifurocated Septendecimal

I misread this as "pizza" and was equal parts excited and confused. Then I re-read it and felt only disappointment =(

STAAAAHHP! XD