Enamel_32

I like it. Speaking of procs, I could also see this potentially working as a proc in a new teleport IO set.

Agreed. I've been trying to describe one benefit of predictable damage, and I don't believe it involved making arguments that critical strikes were detrimental at any point. One thing being beneficial doesn't mean the other is a drawback. In fact, my "winning wars" bit was intended to be a nod to crits being stronger overall, while fury might win the occasional battle here and there. I wasn't aware of nerfs, were those before the official NCSoft agreement?

Of course, because that would be absurd! This is where our analogy breaks down. If you receive unexpected extra money, you can keep it. You cannot put unexpected critical hit damage in a bank for later, however. If a crit was total overkill, it's A. comical in a way video games do very well, and B. serves no purpose. Apologies if this detail wasn't clear enough. I don't need to. The game tells me exactly how much damage the attacks do after resistance and visually how much of the HP bar it took away. I don't find it difficult to build up an intuition once I've smashed through a group or two. Happy to hear you mother is paying less for internet, though. They're usually happy to keep quiet about stuff like that and keep charging the original amount. Why I pick brutes, though, is the optimization possibilities: having high damage and resistance caps (and a few other things including the fury mechanic) make for enjoyable problem solving, there's space for a build to "grow" in multiple directions. I don't find being between a tanker and scrapper a shameful thing (though I do feel tankers are a touch strong in their current state) and I can dial in exactly where between those two I want each brute of mine to reside.

I can't speak for Project, but I can kind of see a reason myself. In terms of being able to effectively plan ahead, a "Critical Paycheck" (fun concept/name by the way) is hard to work with. The extra money is inevitable, however the time scale is not. I need to know when it can be put to use, to get my old junker car repaired, schedule a vacation, etc. For a Brute, there is little uncertainty about how much damage their next attack will do, and that helps inform what the most appropriate next attack would be, or when they will need to switch to a different target. Critical strikes can do double damage on a last hit and contribute nothing just as easily they can transform a first hit into a one-shot. It's certainly nice and I wouldn't turn it down, but I can't maximize its output by playing a certain way like with fury. It's a "winning battles" vs. "winning wars" relationship, but that's my two cents.

I like the suggestion of Lucky Dodge, I think it may be of more use than the passive scaling resistance since it's a front-loaded effect. I can only imagine you'd get one source of resistances or the other, not both.

I think my ideal state for Regeneration vs. debuffs would be close to 0% resistance, and instead all the durations are greatly reduced, something above 80% duration reduction. Thematically it's all about feeling the pain and completely bouncing back, after all. As far as I'm aware, the game doesn't allow for that unfortunately. However, you could do this with status effects. I think fear resistance would be fine and dandy to add, potentially along with 1 or 2 other less-common status effects.

This had me thinking: if you were to observe a hypothetical "power armor" set of any type in the game, what would stand out? How would you describe the way it plays? I would expect some themes to emerge: Automation, dynamically reacting to the current situation An element of resource management (click powers, stacking buffs, endurance, etc.) Multiple modes, or player-initiated overrides to default behavior If you work backwards from that (or hey, pick your own) criteria, is there a name that works regardless if character origin? Maybe something like Automated Defense or Intelligent Armor?

^Agreed. "Power Armor" is a suggestion I had been considering making on and off for quite some time now, and the only conclusive part of the design I could come up with was "something mechanically distinct from regen/willpower/invulnerability/super reflexes/etc. but still fairly low-FX" because costumes are necessarily going to be cooler, more imaginative, and more appropriate for a given player than if the set overlaid geometry on the player like bio or stone armor. What you're left with is... fiddly to craft an identity around.

For leveling a regen brute, I've found that teaming can make a big difference, especially with access to res/def buffs as they effectively multiply regen's mitigation. If you're solo the opposite can hold true, depending on what debuffs are being thrown your way. Pretty early on I decided I wanted to make a challenge/gimmick build out of my fire/regen brute so I went all-in on resistance bonuses: I probably went a bit too far with the experiment, and I may end up swapping in more recharge... but it's definitely stable! Edit: this is without rune of protection active.

I think I've said this in another thread here, but my experience is that if you're not equipped to deal with them, it's slow and/or annoying. Not necessarily difficult, just low on the fun meter. If you are equipped to deal with them, the experience becomes much more... tactical? Whether that's having a fast-animating attack or raw DPS to beat them before the power activates, debuffs or control effects you can apply proactively, or psionic damage, it's got potential to be an interesting fight. They always have the same vulnerability to psionic damage. I think it would feel like less of a "progress wall" to some, and maybe even more lore-accurate, if these "recycled parts" paragon protectors each had different damage type weaknesses.

One of my favorite smaller updates is the option to show the remaining recharge time of a power, displayed over the power icon. So here I am, asking for more! What: My suggestion is to add another UI option to display whether a click power is currently active, like the status window and its icons (which depending on your settings may blink when they're nearly expired), but overlaid on the power itself in the power tray. Why: It's easy to lose track of active effects, especially at higher levels and on large teams/leagues where you might end up with several shifting rows of icons. It's still possible to check for the power I'm after, but hard to do quickly in the midst of other things. For some powers like Moment of Glory, that's important information to have in the heat of battle. Instead, I could look at the power sitting there in the tray - something I do all the time to see if it's ready to use - in a fixed position. Much easier, right? How: I think there are a lot of possible solutions, like adding a power highlight ring, changing the tint or opacity of the icon, or even putting that blue spinning indicator around it like with toggles. I'm sure the dev team can figure out some cool design variations of their own. As long as it conveys that a power is active I'm happy, and if it also conveys when it's close to ending, even better.

I'll start with one from 2012, my cheerful and stealthy bane spider.

I had no idea people were making money selling T2 and T3 inspirations. In this economy?

I apologize if I took your suggestion and ran with it in the wrong direction. For what it's worth, This is a really cool idea, and something I'd see as being duplex-worthy.

This is the hypothetical next version of a power set. Imagine if there was a new a version of Electric Blast with a "shocked" mechanic, for example. Some players might just want to play the version of the power set they remember from back in the day. I can't say I would personally indulge in them, but I enjoy the idea of a "time capsule" version of power sets. That's really it. This has been top of mind for me, as well. As a person who frowns at reviews other people's code professionally, I can agree that changes are the enemy of stability. When the engine itself, or a specific interaction is changed, yes, having multiple versions of a power set is extra effort. When you're introducing a change to a power set like a creative new proc mechanic, I would argue it's a benefit. The original powers aren't modified, instead the new version is a copy of its predecessor. You get a direct A/B testing benefit too. Ultimately this is a question of what will be changed vs. added to the game. If changing core mechanics is more common, I concede the suggestion doesn't make as much sense. But ehhh, this isn't a hill I'm willing to die on and I'm not even sure it's in line with the original poster's suggestion. If we don't like it, we don't like it!

I don't recall asking for one. I'm curious what you're referring to here, am I missing something? I'm specifically not asking for... I've been a player since the early days, and generally speaking things have only gotten stronger. Do I want to go back to Energy Aura before it had a heal? Not really. I'm also not asking to bring back anything pre-nerf, like That One Set. If HC went and totally overhauled a set, and it was super cool and made it more fun to play, but it required a full respec, I'd like to choose when to update to that version rather than having a busted character. And potentially someday for a retro experience, I could go back to that older build, if that makes sense.

How much time is spent maintaining Invulnerability for tankers, or Earth Control for controllers? I'd hope the answer is essentially nothing unless those powers are being re-balanced. I definitely get your point, but I would rather have a developer step in and provide this reasoning than us players. I wouldn't want a suggestion to be shot down because we're not familiar with how the engine works, you know?

Yeah, I think if anything this would need to be a whole power set switcheroo kind of thing. I've occasionally wondered about how feasible it would be to allow players to choose older versions of a power set, like having a "classic / pre-shutdown", "homecoming rebalanced" and even potentially "fully reimagined" or "launch day" versions (except for maybe That One Set). If you wanted, you could even put that option behind some new time travel or alternate dimension related unlock.

It sure would be nice if this discussion was constructive and about the suggestion.

I like the server tray icon for players affected by the buff, and I think that toggling/untoggling it could be made to interact with the existing Null the gull power, probably. That said, I think you could also add a pop-up power tray toggle for the person with group fly active, to suppress group flight for other players, effectively making it a pets-only version of the power.

I think this could be implemented with a similar check to Grounded from Electric Armor, so that the hover effect is suppressed if you teleport to a location on (or very near to) the ground.

Yes please. I also wouldn't say no to hover as a default stance.

Along those same lines, I'd love to see the Mu Mystic lightning aura(s) available.

Ooh, another regen thread! Here's my 2 cents: Changing a power from a click to a toggle would at the very least probably require a respec, which is going to be annoying. Don't get me wrong, I'd respec my brute and probably enjoy it a little more but I would have to do some thinking about the whole thing and I can't speak for other regen players. I've always wondered why the click powers have no passive benefits. Like sure, it's exhausting to go full Instant Healing, but if you've learned how to Instantly Heal, why is it an on/off switch? Also, @Troo, excellent write-up!

You are indeed correct. However I don't think it's unreasonable to find the middle ground between the OP and the old enhancement type. We can look at them both as being ways of increasing a power's area of effect, which is what a player would ultimately care about. Honestly, I think enhancing a power's area of effect directly might be the level of scaling that makes sense for a newly proposed enhancement type like this. If you increased the radius of Fire Ball by 50% for example, you get 337% more volume.