Bartacus

The proposal for the other sets in question (such as Psy), not electric/sonic I think is a QoL change. There's no question it would be a slight buff as well, but I think for something like Psychic blast it is less about not having a single target attack chain (it has plenty of those) and more about being able to choose which of them you prefer. That seems like primarily a QoL change to me. For Electric/Sonic, it would certainly be primarily a buff.

Yeah, I really only used force field as an example of a powerset that has way too many powers that I feel are "skippable" and why that's a problem... I didn't really intend to talk about force fields shortcomings specifically as much as use it as an example of a set where you don't have to make very many meaninful choices when it comes to power selection. You may have a different opinion on that, but I think the principle still stands that if the game were perfectly balanced, each power in a powerset would be 'fighting' for a spot in your selection. I feel that this is probably the most important thing to consider. I will say that I don't understand what the problem is with Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, and Ball of Lightning from electricity. They all seem pretty standard for T1/T2/Targeted AoE blasting abilities from the standpoint of DPA, and therefore don't seem like the problem for Electrical Blast. Sentinel needs buffed, most agree. And Thunderous Blast is bugged if I remember correctly? The recharge isn't proper? I can't remember. I have been playing a storm/Elec defender lately and Thunderous blast seems fine to me. I think, to me, this comes back to attack chain overall. Most sets have 2 single target abilities AFTER their T1/T2 abilities. Most attack chains, given some recharge, probably only needs 3. This means for sonic and for electric, you must take both T1 and T2 (which tend to have similar DPA) to have a decent single target attack chain. I think that kind of sucks, and feels bad, which is why I called out Sonic and Electric to begin with. I did neglect to mention that Screech has a 12 second duration on the -Res debuff, and as such this would be a significant buff for Sonic in particular. I think on Defenders, though, many will still skip Screech despite that fact. Is the extra 4 seconds of -Res worth it when considering that it does negligible damage? Certainly not when solo. Maybe when you're in a team, but even then it is debatable. This said, I still believe that while it is a buff it would not exactly 'break' Sonic Blasting and make Screech too powerful. In the case of Sentinels, I could be wrong but I just assumed the -Res numbers were adjusted because of how durable they are not because of the Screech change. This to say, it's not a fair assumption that they changed the debuff numbers BECAUSE of the screech change (unless this was stated somewhere that I was unaware of). All in all, I still think that this would be a nice buff to some underperforming sets and a good QoL change for others to provide a more meaningful choice when considering whether or not to pick this power up. I have doubts that many people pick it up in Archery or Psychic Blast, but it sure would make sense that they had to choose between that power and something else instead of defaulting to not picking it up.

Force Field would have the same issue IF you could cast Deflection Shield and Insulation shield on yourself AND your whole team AND they were a single power slot. Time is much better. Being able to Soft Capt Defenses with PB + Farsight for your whole team including you is far better than just being able to do it for your teammates and still having a hole when solo. That's the issue. Time does what FF does except better, and has offensive abilities to be able to use.

Sirens Song does have low damage, but is unique in that it's an AoE Sleep ability in a blasting set that still deals damage. It's not bad, tbh, I agree.

Actually, let me explain why these powers are problematic to say the least. You say that I can either play on a sentinel or just skip the powers if I find them to be useless. The problem with this is that every power in every set, ideally, should be fighting for a power slot. They all should be good enough that they are worth taking. I think this is the ideal balance that this game would have, although it is difficult to achieve. I do not believe they are worth taking, and I will explain why below. But first, to clear one thing up, just because some people are content taking a power in this game does not make it good or very useful. Many people that play this game do not play to min/max. Many people are content enjoying even the shittiest of powers. I am one of those people, sometimes. I use Voltaic Sentinel for example. I am thankful for other people that do this, and that make thematic characters regardless of how good the powers are because its refreshing to see. But, just because some are willing to choose these abilities does not make them inherently good or very useful. An example of this is force field. This powerset woefully underperforms. I love force field because of the theme, and have a bubbler that I enjoy. Lots of people love force field. But it is not very useful in the game right now (relative to others support sets), especially at 50. There are far too many powers in force field that are not worth picking up. Detention Field, and Repulsion Bomb especially. You may find use for force bubble, the T9, but many skip that too. Some may take Force Bolt for the luls or for lower level cc... but largely, there are tons of skippable powers in the set because they are not worth casting compared to other abilities. This is because of the mechanics of the game and something I will hereafter call an attack chain (no condescension intended). If you are casting one ability, it means you are not casting another. When you cast Repulsion Bomb, you are (for 3 seconds) not casting another abililty AND your other, more useful abilities are recharging. I must reiterate, I know that some people take Repulsion Bomb. But, if you do, you are using 3 seconds of your attack chain for a very low DPA ability that provides CC that most teams would rather avoid (unless you slot a KB -> KD). This to say, if I'm casting that, I'm not casting any of my other abilities that either are much better DPA or have a more useful effect. This means that Repulsion Bomb is not a very useful ability, because there are other abilities that will do something similar or better, with more damage and less casting time. As a result, this power is very skippable and does not have a compelling case for one to bother using a slot on it. Why am I talking about Force Field? Because it illustrates the problem I am trying to address here. This is the very same problem, but I am trying only to address the specific low damage CC abilities in blasting sets instead of all of the abilities in the game that are not useful for the average attack chain. I believe that especially in Sonic and in Electric Blasting, they're reasonably bad because you have to choose between damage and CC where other sets do not have to make this choice. Freeze Ray is both. Lancer Shot is both. Abyssal Gaze is both. And there's no real reason for it. Moreover, the targets you'd want to use single target CC on are usually bosses and you will sacrifice a considerable amount of DPS to use these abilities in your attack chain. This means that you're making a choice over whether you want CC or damage, and when you're 50 the single target CC doesn't tend to matter as much because you're in much less danger. Moreover, in the case of Electric Blasting and Sonic Blasting, they lack multiple other single target damage abilities besides their T1 and T2 abilities. This forces you to take both T1 and T2 abilities for a single target attack chain (usually needs 3 abilities) where many other blasting sets only need to take one, since there are other, better options available. Fire Blasting has Blaze and Snipe in addition to their T1/T2. Water has Dehydrate and Water Jet. Even Dual Pistols has Executioner Shot and Piercing Rounds and its a set that has one of these low damage CC abilities (which is perhaps why I forgot it to begin with). Not every set needs to be a single target god, to be clear. But a QoL change and buff here I think is warranted and certainly smooths out the gameplay for Electric and Sonic. For the other sets in question that have abilities like this - they may not need it as much, but I welcome any change like this that makes you have to make a significant choice in which abilities to pick up rather than just neglecting these abilities entirely because they won't be used in almost any attack chain. The slight benefit to having them does not outweigh the cost unless you want them as a set mule. I'd rather people have to make the choice between multiple powers that are very useful than just neglect these powers entirely because there are obvious, better choices to pick up.

Would you rather I use the phrase "marginally useful"? Again, I am confident that each of these powers are the least taken powers in every set. I'm not very interested in arguing this point, as I feel confident that the average person would agree on this point even if you don't. I do not believe that these powers being the least useful in the sets by a large margin is a falsehood like you say. I think its the truth, and I do not think very many people would disagree with this even if you do. Sorry that you feel that way. Useless is hyperbole. Obviously there is a use in that it stuns at a mag 3 for shit damage. That use is not very good, and most people skip these powers as such, especially in a level 50 respec. Possibly useful when leveling up solo if you like to stun Lieutenants or something. I honestly forgot that dual pistols even had a stun ability in the same vein as these sets. But, that's certainly another good example of an ability that could use the same treatment. The point in all of this is... why? Why on earth do these abilities need to be gimped by doing basically 0 damage? I see no reason for it, and I don't see how it would imbalance a single set. It would be a substantial buff to something like sonic which struggles to have a good ST attack chain... but certainly not imbalanced.

It is clearer now. Genuinely, I don't see how these powers are useful seeing as how I virtually never see anyone take them. In my mind, they are objectively useless. I'd be very interested in seeing the breakdown of how often these powers are skipped, because I suspect they are skipped more than literally every other power in the sets they are in. So, this to say, I wasn't really trying to say that YOU SAID Screech is useless, but merely that Screech is in fact useless regardless of what you have asserted. I did take your comment to mean that you don't think Sonic should be buffed because of its effect, so, sorry about that. Aside from addressing you specifically, I think that Electric Blasting and Sonic Blasting should be at the top of the list for this improvement.

I'm not sure I understand. You assert that because Sonic Attack has -Res, that the power Screech should not be buffed (and therefore remain useless). I assert that -Res does not mean that Screech should be useless, as it currently is. This is not a strawman argument.

and this means that Screech should be useless?

I think Electric Blast needs some love in the damage department regardless of secondary effects. It got better with snipe changes! But, still needs a bit of help. That said, the secondary effect of -end needs to be equalized with other secondary effects. Like Steampunkette mentioned, these secondary effects are not normally very useful on minions anyway. It shouldn't be balanced around that. Honestly, I think the Sapper builds seem really valuable but they're only really valuable in extended fights (just like -Recharge). To me, this means that a great way to buff -End would be to reduce the resistance that AVs and GMs have to it and to -Recovery. Additionally, I think a cool buff to -End effects for other mobs could be that once a mob hits 0 endurance due to End Drain, it returns a small amount of endurance to the caster. Would this change be enough to make Electric Blasting on par with other sets? Probably not, because it still needs some love in the damage department. But, it would make the secondary effect more useful and open up some builds to focus less on endurance.

Sonic has no snipe, so if this is true it should receive the same treatment.

There are many blasting powers currently that are automatically skipped because they do almost no damage and only are used for mez. Freeze Ray actually used to be this way, if I recall, in that it didn't do very much damage and was only taken for the hold. Now, it does more damage than the T1/T2 powers. Additionally, in the Sentinel blasting sets, many of these powers were reworked to deal reasonable damage in addition to the mez effect. Sentinel is a completely different animal, to be sure. But, it seems like a good QoL change and buff to a lot of these blasting sets. Some examples of these powers: Archery - Stunning Shot Assault Rifle - Beanbag Electrical Blast - Tesla Cage Energy Blast - Power Push Psychic Blast - Scramble Thoughts Sonic Attack - Screech I understand that for many of these sets, this would be a straight up buff. But, we did it with Ice Blast and that was a set that already had a solid single target attack chain. Some of these sets struggle with that already and it would be a nice buff/help to them. Thoughts?

I've never played Electric Control, but I don't think Electric Blast is as bad as people remember it. The Snipe changes helped out the set immensely as far as having a good attack chain. I've been playing a Storm/Elec Defender lately and enjoying it a LOT.

Fire Armor / Fire Melee / Fire Blast / THERMAL RADIATION. Huge issue? Ice Armor / Ice Melee / Ice Blast / COLD DOMINATION It's not a huge issue.

ah okay. that makes sense. It sounds so cool to me but I didn't know that! This just feels purely subjective. I personally think it sounds more generic, not better. Two sets have the word affinity, that doesn't mean it's a convention. Otherwise instead of Thermal Radiation we'd have Fire Affinity. Instead of Cold Domination, we'd have Ice Affinity. I'd rather we take after the latter two examples than the ones that you gave, personally, because they sound way less generic.

can someone explain to me why this change was necessary? Is the word "Therapy" somehow offensive?

I like the changes! I still think that -End powers are fundamentally flawed in that they aren't that useful and it's really difficult to get any mileage out of them. This is true of other -End sets as well, not just this one. As others have suggested, I think adding some kind of bonus or benefit for these sets for when a target HITS 0 end would be really cool. This could be something like a -recovery debuff or that the caster regains some endurance. This would make those sets feel like their -end powers aren't completely useless.

Honestly, this is going to be a pretty useless thread because everything is purely subjective. I prefer the old name, Shock Therapy, though. I know that "Affinity" tacked on to the end of a set does keep with the current naming convention, but Shock Therapy sounded way cooler.

why is -end considered part of the power budget? -end is not generally a useful debuff, especially on harder targets since they have resistance to this. To me, -end is mainly thematic but should not be part of the overall budget of power in this set. I may feel differently when the new IOs go live and I can play with those on my electric blast defender, but I've never felt like the -end on his abilities were in any way useful.

New set looks really cool - I wish it had some kind of -regen. There are already plenty of support sets that do not offer -regen and it's pretty important for AVs/GMs.

Also confirming for shriek on sonic attack. I just played my sonic defender and the activation time is WAY longer than usual.

I must have missed this thread before, but I love all the suggestions in the poll and they are great examples of how to increase difficulty. I don't think that leveling is too easy. It's mainly endgame that's the issue when it comes to difficulty in that it's too easy. It's a tough balance because you don't want progression to grind to a halt after 50, but that progression has made a lot of the content really trivial. In 50 teams, I literally never die on any of my characters (defenders, corruptors included). It's hard to enjoy the content when all of it feels like just running through mobs and obliterating them before they can even respond.

I've already said I'm interested in trying an SO only character. The problem with this is that I either need to just never team with anyone ever (because nobody else will be doing this, and they will just steamroll content FOR me) or just exclusively play with a group of friends that are only using SOs (which is certainly an option, albeit difficult to get everyone on the same time schedule and means I can only play when everyone else can play). Like it has previously been stated, difficulty is something that can and should be critiqued in games. Saying I have to go out of my way to make the game more easy is the equivalent of saying that I'm making the game easy literally by playing it the way it was intended to be played (which is using the enhancements that are built into the game). Of course I can lock myself out of entire pieces of content to make it difficult. I could only play psionic clockwork missions to make sure I take some damage when I actually get hit, too. Just because there are options to make the game more difficult doesn't mean the game isn't overall extremely easy when playing it through all of the normal channels of gameplay. These include: Teaming with people literally ever, unless there's some kind of gentlemen's agreement to only use SOs Using IOs literally at all, even though years of design went into them I feel generally exhausted by even having this conversation because this community is very stubborn when it comes to change. I suspect the Devs of Homecoming feel like they have to really tip-toe around balance because, being that this is a private server, if they decide to change something that people don't like then there could be an exodus to another server that had COH just how they liked it. This server is supposed to be the 'future' of CoH. But, it's impossible for CoH to have a future without change. The general argument in this thread is this: I'm having fun the way it is, so don't change anything. But nobody is telling you to stop having fun. We're just saying the community will probably shrink over time if the game remains this easy. We're not saying 'doom and gloom' nobody will be playing. But, part of the joy of any MMO is seeing lots of people around. Not everyone is going to find it fun to steamroll through the same content for years and years - and that will make the game LESS fun for those of you that stick around. Because a giant world that feels* empty of people isn't the CoH as you remember it. *note it doesn't have to literally be empty of people to feel empty. If you go into atlas and only see 2 people there, even if 80 people are online on your server, in such a large world it will feel more empty than the current state of the game where hundreds are logged on at any point in time. And if we can't agree on this, then my further involvement in this thread is completely pointless.

Nobody said you shouldn't even try to solo. Are you even reading? I said if the game were more difficult, support classes would have more trouble soloing than scrappers and the like. And that's true. Were you around in issue 1 and 2? that would definitely have been the case then... Maybe I should be more clear. I'm not saying more difficulty means that these support classes CANT SOLO. Just that it would be more difficult, or time consuming. This is currently the case, but would be more noticeable with an increase in difficulty. And saying that "calling them support classes is Holy Trinity BS" is also false. It's literally in the game. See image below.

If you're talking about soloing, I agree that more difficulty means that support classes will suffer. But they are support classes - they're not really designed to be solo artists. That said, support classes would FLOURISH all the more in more difficult content on teams, because their buffs and debuffs are that much more useful to keeping the team alive and helping the team deal damage effectively.