Silent Method

This would be awesome. Some characters make use of 100+ boosters, and using each one individually feels terrible, even when repeatedly canceling out of the upgrade window to make it as fast as possible.

Silent Method Avid Spec

Here is something to get you started, though it's more of an Arena team build. For zones or things like 1v1s, there are some other good tricks like the Fortunata Hypnosis Placate Proc in Will Domination. You'll need the latest update of Mids Reborn in order to open it. If you have questions about the reasoning, feel free to reach out. The general idea is to get good damage, accuracy, and proc damage in the attacks you'll use most often, like Will Domination, Psionic Lance, Strangler, and Spirit Shark Jaws... without going overboard on Recharge slotting for those attacks (since that lowers your proc rate).

Silent Method - @Silent Method Avid - @Avid Tempty - @Tempty

Edit: picked up by Renegades.

Alouu, this is awesome, and specifics are still welcome, especially for sliding scale changes (i.e. tweaking existing mechanics rather than removing them). I don't have a great way to integrate your suggestions into my post since they're anchored more to the game mechanics than specific sets, though I think your document speaks for itself and poses some great options -- some similar to and some different from what I pulled together. A few quick thoughts I had: I agree that changing knockback's DR curve accomplishes the goal of making it less extreme, but it will always be a "worst offender" mechanic, meaning everyone worries about Force Bolt and all the other powers get covered by it. And the solution is still "slot KB IOs" if Acrobatics is never made to be more beneficial than a KB IO by modifying the enhanceable portion of it, as I suggested in this thread. Not saying that's necessarily a better way, but just something to consider. Randomized melee detoggle is something you don't favor in part because of the randomness, but having meaningful defense on squishies is much the same. In the old days, the least fun part of playing a kin/psy defender was rolling the dice every time I tried to hit a blaster who had nothing but Fortitude and Maneuvers. That is the one attribute where I'll defend the current DR setup: I don't think squishies should be able to accumulate ridiculous amounts of defense. That could probably also just be accomplished with a PvP hard cap (and frankly, a good chunk of DR could be replaced, and made less confusing to newcomers, with a hard cap). The mez suggestion you make is interesting. I kind of liked the pre-i13 system on Live, but it'd be cool to explore other avenues like yours in practice. Ditto for some of the melee suggestions. I think the -range on Taunt needs to be looked at, though, if melee becomes more useful as a whole. We completely agree that resistance becoming meaningful again would both increase build diversity and reduce focus on the heavy damage meta. Also, on a more general note, to reiterate some of the discussion going on in the Discord: This list isn't intended to be an imminent set of suggestions to the developers. It's mainly for brainstorming, and can maybe -- eventually, if there's actual interest and capacity from the development crew -- be boiled down to a more concise set of suggestions someday. In the immediate future, some of these dynamics cannot be changed, while other broken / unfun mechanics or sets should be managed by culture and consensus, e.g. the Arena ban on Telekinesis.

Idea Section As a reminder, this thread is: aimed at pick-up 6v6+ Arena, though it could have beneficial effects on both the growing organized team 8v8 Arena scene and zone PvP. All ideas suggested here would be PvP-specific -- perhaps even Arena-specific, if that ever becomes an option development-wise. If you have suggestions to add, or even any corrections on something I've gotten wrong, feel free to post. Radiation Emission What's weak now? Nerfs to Enervating Field; generally outclassed by debuffing sets like Poison, though AM gives decent mez resistance which gives niche utility against teams that lead spikes with a mez Possible changes: Strengthen EF Increase tether range (and possibly cast range) on RI / EF Give Lingering Radiation a -Special or -Healing component (see below for notes on -Healing) Thermal Radiation What's weak now? DR / base resists render shields obsolete; Thaw also mostly obsolete. Outclassed as both a healer and debuffer in large team settings Possible changes: Broader changes to DR / base resists in order to make +res shields meaningful Give Forge a greater differentiation from Fortitude Buff Cauterize to occupy a middle ground between Heal Other and Absorb Pain Sonic Resonance What's weak now? DR / base resists render shields obsolete; Clarity also mostly obsolete. Outclassed as a debuffer Possible changes: Broader changes to DR / base resists in order to make +res shields meaningful Possibly incorporate buffable psionic resistance somewhere Buff Sonic Siphon and give it a faster / safer animation Be careful about incentivizing a cage set too much. If the rest of the set becomes more attractive, controller cages could be reduced to 2 second duration Force Field What's weak now? Defense buffs are often not useful (DR, but was also true pre-DR with massive amounts of ToHit) or fun (RNG-based spikes are not fun); too Force Bolt-centric Possible changes: Broader changes to DR Add special properties to bubble buffs, like the Res(Toxic) and Res(End Drain) that already exists, perhaps even to counter other mechanics in this suggestion list Broader changes to knockback (e.g. this thread) to give KB more strategic tradeoffs (or, alternatively, make it easier to eliminate if the community doesn't find knockback healthy) Kinetics What's weak now? Lack of movement suppression makes Speed Boost and IR less valuable; free Stamina on all builds makes both SB and Transference less valuable Possible changes: Reimplement PvE-style movement suppression; this reintroduces the value in kiting IR on multiple damage dealers Allow Inertial Reduction to essentially negate one application of Web Grenade (and similar) effects. This could require some tricky tuning of the -Jump Height numbers Give Siphon Speed more -Jump, as a way to shift away from endurance disruption and toward movement disruption. Ice and grav controllers already can do this, but at the expense of damage Give Transfusion -Healing (distinct from -Regen. See below) Remove free Stamina haha just kidding Cold Domination What's weak now? Outclassed by Poison; buffs are generally not that useful Possible changes: Potentially give Cold more of a niche as a damage debuffer by allowing Infrigidate to debuff more than just Fire damage (but max 1 application per target at a time) Add some unique properties to buffs (+Res to psi on Frostwork) and/or debuffs Add -Healing somewhere other than Benumb (not -Special; see notes below) Storm Summoning What's weak now? Same as it ever was: heavily map-dependent and reliant on a coordinated team. The set as a whole offers little outside of Hurricane and random Freezing Rain tags Possible changes: Might be reasonably well balanced in a team; I'd have to see a storm team in action Tweaks to make pets (e.g. Lightning Cloud) mobile and more reliable on larger maps Give it a clear, achievable focus outside of Hurricane. Is it endurance drain? Is it def/res debuffs? Should O2 Boost get another valuable buff effect? Controllers / Dominators What's weak now? PvP mez changes. Especially harmful for 1v1s and zones, but in team settings the niche has shifted from definite mez harassment to questionable pre-spike mezzes (if your team isn't already spamming other mezzes like web grenades) Possible changes: Revisit PvP mez changes, consider some form of reversion to the old stacking system with tweaks for balancing Melee What's weak now? Generally outclassed in damage, which makes them disruption bots (Taunt for -range, and web grenades); easily kited Possible changes: Revisit PvP mez changes (indirect buff, as melee classes have both innate protection and tend to dish out some mezzes) Reimplement PvE-style movement suppression Reimplement toggle dropping, an ability melee sets used to have in PvP. It wasn't perfect, but it's a step in the direction of giving them a niche Buff damage values or ranged potency (could have bad consequences for 1v1 or zones) Be wary of making the set too attractive without changes to Taunt (e.g. something that can hit hard from range and spam hefty -range debuffs could be overtuned) Be cognizant of Stalkers, which are in a better place than other Melee classes, when it comes to making sweeping Melee buffs General disruption What's weak now? Generally outclassed by just dealing damage Possible changes: Revisit PvP mez changes, consider some form of reversion to the old stacking system with tweaks for balancing Endurance drain is annoying when it happens, but hard to follow up on. Consider either making it harder to achieve (if it's considered unhealthy) or more effective when it works (e.g. bottoming out on endurance applies a hefty unresisted -recovery debuff for 5-10 seconds) Web grenade has exaggerated pros and cons. It inhibits mobility and has no direct counter, but it also interferes with spike mezzes and clues targets in to act more defensively Non-web movement disruption is difficult to achieve and generally not worth the time; not sure if there are any easy buffs to make without having unintended consequences What's strong? This thread is mainly aimed at improving viability of underperforming sets, rather than tuning overperformers. That's a whole other discussion, though certainly Weaken is near the top of the list, with its low cooldown and its ability to affect outgoing healing and mez resistance Related to that, I do have one suggestion for both Weaken and some of the other sets that I noted above: a separate -Healing effect that affects incoming healing only, while removing Weaken's effects on all healing. In other words, something to be used on a target that moderately reduces incoming heals, rather than something to permanently slap on the enemy Empaths. The devil is in the details with this one, though. To separate healing from the Power Boost / Inverse Power Boost (i.e. Weaken) effect would also limit the ability of empaths to crank up their healing with Power Boost, which may not be a desirable result. Weaken could be left at a fast cooldown but reworked into fewer specific debuffs rather than the all-encompassing -Special

Hey folks - for a couple weeks, I've been talking to a few people and getting some ideas together to brainstorm ways to reintroduce viability to some powersets and ATs that are currently outclassed by others. This thread is: Aimed at pick-up 6v6+ Arena, though it could have beneficial effects on both the growing organized team 8v8 Arena scene as well as zone PvP Intended for brainstorming ideas that could make off-meta classes and powersets more viable, and more generally to discuss whether that's something people want to have happen at all This thread is not: An attempt to make all of these playstyles equal or viable (that's impossible) A fully baked list of suggestions to make to the development staff; it's more of an early discussion starter An authoritative list of what is fun. If making a playstyle viable also ruins the fun of the game, then it shouldn't be viable (e.g. long duration cages) An exhaustive list. If anyone wants to contribute, please feel free. For my own part, I'll steer clear of addressing classes that are in my blind spot (e.g. I'm not a Mastermind expert) If you'd like some background and have an evening to spend reading a wall of text, read on. If not, skip down to the next post for some specific suggestions. What is the Spike Practice Meta? Back in the days when the official 8v8 Arena ladder teams had enough active players to run internal 6v6+ matches almost every night, teams ran spike practice as an almost daily way to train targeting and evasion alike. The spike team loaded up on more "primary damage" than usual -- hero side, this included both blasters and sets like rad/psy defenders that had few responsibilities other than on-target debuffing and damage. The other team, the target team, would cast buffs and call targets too, but they didn't actually attack anyone; the goal was to act normally while building evasion skills against a heavy offense. Because the spike team was so heavy on damage, it often lacked what were once considered essentials in 8v8 Arena play, e.g. kins, sonics, multiple empaths. This was fine for spike practice, but when it came time for 8v8 Arena play, no one ran teams with such heavy damage -- at least, not prior to i13 and the many changes that followed. They'd have been squishy without sonic or thermal buffs, slow without kinetics buffs, etc. Instead, speaking to hero-side, you'd see teams like this: ...usually with the 4-6 slots usually occupied by some combination of rad, sonic, kin, FF, or even more unusual sets in some cases. We can all agree we should never see the days of two long duration sonic cagers per team again, but it's worth considering what we do want to see in the metagame. What is the situation now? A wise man once said of i25, "Damage is king." Numerous PvP mode changes have rendered non-damage (which includes on-target debuffers like Poison), non-healing (which includes Emp and possibly Pain) functions largely -- though not entirely -- obsolete. In kickballs, I've experimented with a few sets oriented toward other purposes for the sake of proving out a suspicion: while buffs and disruption can do something in certain situations, you'd often be better off just dealing damage instead. Doing something other than primary damage or healing is mostly a source of frustration at the moment: Frustration of teammates who'd rather have another damage class or healer (though it's worth keeping in mind that casual kickballs are where people have some freedom to test unusual sets in an 8v8 environment) Frustration of opponents; getting disrupted just feels obnoxious and petty if disruption isn't justifiable as part of a winning strategy (there's a reason nobody enjoys playing against Grav/TA, even if they're likely to win against it) Frustration of players like me who miss the days when tasks were more varied than they are now (lock/fire or fort/AB/heal). Just kidding, theorycraft like this is enjoyable for me regardless of whether the meta changes, and if the consensus favors a blast and heal metagame, I'm happy to hop on the bandwagon. But at least I can say I tried! How will the ideas here change the meta? I have no idea offhand. One of the most noticeable features of i25 PvP is the sheer amount of damage. Both buff coverage (shields, Clear Mind/Clarity, Speed Boost/IR, etc.) and mild amounts of disruption used to be essential parts of the 8v8 metagame. If more time and team slots were devoted to those activities because those activities became more inherently valuable, then the metagame might shift away from absurd amounts of damage. Why is that potentially a good thing? For starters, it makes rogue blasting less appealing, and it demands better coordination on spikes in order to secure kills. Metagame changes may also open the game up a wider variety of strategies and powersets/ATs, which could alleviate the frustrations noted above. What if no one wants the meta to change? As I've said above, that's fine. Unlike on Live -- remember Castle's Corner, anyone? -- we have a voice with a chance of actually being heard. After brainstorming, we might reach the conclusion that 6 damage 2 emp is a fine metagame. And just to be clear, none of this is to say that no one can win on suboptimal builds or classes; I've had both a lot of fun and reasonable success messing around on a suboptimal kin/psy so far. The point is more that even if you can win on an off-meta buff or disruption class... you'd probably have had a much better chance of winning on either an in-meta damage dealer or a healer, instead of having a similar chance but going about it in a different way. Who are you? I'm @Silent Method. I played on Live from Issue 4 though Issue 12, leaving shortly before i13. I knew or knew of pretty much everyone who took part in the Hero side ladder up until the time I left the game, and I'm happy to get to know anyone I didn't meet back then. On the Test server, where my experience was almost entirely on Hero side, I was grateful that Old School Legends gave me a chance to play kin and blaster. Eventually I joined Justice for All League and played kin on a team that competed for, and for a few periods held, the top spot on the Hero 8v8 ladder during the height of its pre-i13 activity. Win or lose, those scrimmages and ladder matches remain some of the most fun I've ever had in gaming, and I'm happy to see even a handful of familiar faces from those times who are still here supporting the CoH community. On Live, I was originally from Pinnacle but spent most of my time on Infinity and Freedom. I regularly dueled on both an ice/rad controller and a spines/regen scrapper, and I won several large-scale 2v2 tournaments on both an ice/thermal corruptor and a fire/em blaster. I also badged. 🙃 I seriously doubt I'll play at that same level, between reflexes that I've noticed are slower and wife aggro that keeps me from farming and practicing as regularly as I'd like, but I still enjoy theorycrafting as much as ever. If you enjoy it as well, throw in some ideas.

To add a little more direction to this suggestion, here are some numbers I ran, assuming Pine's is accurate. Current strongest KB: roughly 51.21 (Force Bolt slotted with 6x Kinetic Crash), which comes from 18.69 unslotted, honorable mention to a few other powers around 45-46 when slotted. See notes below for alternate slottings that reach up to 57.91 KB. Current Acrobatics: 7 protection that cannot be enhanced + 2 protection that can. So 9 protection or 10.53 or 11.98 (0, 1, or 2 slotted with regular KB IOs respectively). Here is a new suggestion that tries to achieve the situation I described above, which only requires modifying Acrobatics in PvP, as well as other knockback powers (besides Force Bolt) if there is a desire to put those powers in the same league as Force Bolt. Again, this is only intended to keep the conversation going; people are free to disagree about the right numbers: New Acrobatics, PvP Only: 24 protection that cannot be enhanced + 6 protection that can. So 30 protection or 34.58 or 38.94 (0, 1, or 2 slotted with regular KB IOs respectively). This means the first KB IO in Acrobatics is worth 4.584, and the second is worth 4.354, which are a little more valuable than KB Protection IOs, but you obviously can only do a couple slots in Acro before diminishing returns kicks in. Assuming people 2-slot Acro, this means you'd need an extra 12.27 protection from other sources in order to be safe from a "regular" 6-slotted Kinetic Crash Force Bolt. Possible other changes: take other popular KB-oriented powers (Power Push, Power Thrust, Levitate, Lift, etc.), and in PvP Only, increase their base knockback to be closer to Force Bolt's 18.69. This would allow multiple powers to try to prey on unprepared builds, but they might have to sacrifice damage slotting / damage procs in order to do so. Even fancier: allow powers like Levitate and Lift to have 40+ base knockback (knockdown, technically), but unenhanceable, so that those powers have a good amount of innate KB and can still slot damage. If people feel that's too generous to Acrobatics, the 24 unenhanceable protection can be decreased pretty easily. Also, there's a little room for mind games in terms of people slotting Force Bolt differently. 4x Kinetic Crash + 2 KB IOs gets the magnitude to 53.35, or 6 KB IOs (!) gets the magnitude to 57.91, meaning people would need almost 19 protection from other sources beyond 2-slotted Acrobatics. Thankfully, I don't think that Incarnates or Power Boost affect knockback, so we don't have to worry about fringe cases from those.

So, realizing I'm coming super late to this, are there any issues with the following? Revert Acrobatics back to a meaningful amount of KB protection, say somewhere in the 30-40 range, with only a portion of it being enhanceable by KB IOs (similar to how a portion of it is now). Increase the KB protection given by any defensive sets (e.g. Integration from Regen) along those same lines, since those sets don't always take Acro. If you want to get really fancy, make the base amount of KB protection in those powers highest for Tankers, lowest for Sentinels, etc. Only make these changes for the PvP versions of these powers if there is concern about the impact on PvE. This whole discussion shouldn't be derailed by messing with the PvE metagame if people don't want that to change. Here's what this accomplishes for PvP: Prevents the need to mess with Prestige Sprint slotting (which is something that would inevitably affect PvE). Prevents the need for everybody to pointlessly spend a ton of influence IOing out their Prestige Sprints, but also allows greater build flexibility elsewhere which is kind of the point of the original suggestion. Most importantly: allows Acrobatics' new PvP magnitude to be tweaked directly for balance purposes, in order to make KB protection a strategic choice. This includes being able to tweak not only the total unslotted protection it offers, but also the portion that is enhanceable. Say for the sake of argument that the biggest KB threat is Force Bolt at Mag 50. Unslotted Acrobatics could be set to maybe 35 protection, with a portion of it enhanceable, so that it becomes a decision of whether to burn an extra slot or two on Acro's KB slotting (it should be slightly more valuable per slot than the 4 KB from the usual KB IOs), or whether to throw in a few standard KB protection IOs in the usual places, or whether to take the risk of being knocked back by a fully slotted Force Bolt. But you won't have to twist your build into knots just to fit in more than a half dozen KB protection IOs like you do now. "But giving that much protection to base Acrobatics will ruin the knockback I currently get on some unprepared players with my < 35 magnitude KB in Power Push / Levitate / etc." -- okay, so make some of the KB numbers more consistent across powers. Maybe Force Bolt should always have the highest value, but put some other common KB/KD powers in roughly the same league in order to make balancing PvP knockback easier. PvP knockback is one of those things where the balance is always going to be centered around the worst offender, like Force Bolt, so achieve some degree of balance around its numbers and consider putting other KB/KD powers closer to those same values -- again, only for the PvP versions of these powers.