biostem

I couldn't find a specific colorblind feature, but what may help is you can change the window UI border color, which may permit a better separation between the health bar on top and the end bar just below it, (unless you're playing a brute, dominator, or sentinel, who have an additional resource bar). You can also choose to see character health bars above the actual character models themselves, which may be of some use.

Ice leans more into control abilities, having 2 hold powers and almost all powers slowing the target. I really like how it has 2 AoE powers that you can trigger at a location of your choice, and they'll damage and slow any enemies that pass through that area. Water blast is a much newer set, and incorporates a special mechanic called "tidal power", where most powers generate this "resource", and a few use it to gain additional effects. The set also has a self heal in one of the attacks, but since you're going with dark miasma, I don't know if that redundancy is needed. Personally, I prefer ice blast, but both are great sets. Consider giving the sets a look at in more detail here and here. Also, when creating your character, you can click the little 'i' symbol or "More Info" options to see further details about what each power does, and some of its stats.

Well, consider how gravity control is more "blastery" than other control sets, and this could be a more "controllery" blast set...

It's not supposed to specifically be about summoning ghosts, though. I chose "Ethereal" because of the old concept of "ether", a hypothetical material that kind of made up space. I want a degree of vagueness, so it could be spirits, hard light constructs, nanotech, whatever you want. I don't want to tie it too strongly to any particular origin. Maybe you *do* summon spirits, maybe you form these temporary entities from your own psyche. You coalesce blasts and temporary "things" from the ether that fight on your behalf...

@Rudra have you actually played the set? Try it out. It's a fun gimmick, but not ground-breaking, and if you further stripped away any -tohit or other such effects in lieu of the pet summoning, (not to mention that the pets this proposed set would summon wouldn't be the same as the specters), you'd realize that what a spreadsheet or data entry says does not necessarily translate to how the set or power plays out in-game...

Honestly, I really only use 3 basic binds/macros for my MMs: /bind lalt+lbutton "petcomall goto passive" - makes all my pets go exactly where I alt-click, whilst ignoring everything else. I use this for positioning them, to make sure they don't block doorways, and so on. /macro Atk "petcomall attack aggressive" - I treat this like any other attack power, so I just target the enemy I want dead, and hit the macro to give the command. /macro Flw "petcomall follow defensive" - Makes all my pets follow me, only attacking if they get attacked first, and enabling bodyguard mode.

I just miss the absurdity of everyday objects being made very small or much larger than we're used to seeing them, like the Thomas the Tank Engine toy in the first movie, or the ant being made dog-sized...

Because your premise is built upon faulty reasoning - what extra penalty do any of the other blast sets incur for having their special effects? The answer is "none". This all plays upon the second part of your statement, namely the "to balance this out" part - that's where my contention lies. No extra end cost to "balance this out" is warranted in this case. The specific damage numbers, temporary pet duration, and so forth, would be the variables taken into consideration...

Your logic doesn't follow - you don't see everyone using sonic blast for its -res, you don't see everyone using seismic blast for seismic shockwaves. You don't see everyone playing necro for the temporary pets, either. The temporary pets are a cool feature, and one I would like to see ported over to a new set, but they certainly aren't game breaking, nor are they uber effective - they're just different. Heck, bio armor is often touted as way better than other armor sets, yet it certainly hasn't supplanted them all. "Crabberminds" can summon tons of pets, and suffer none of the extra end costs of MMs. Also, Thugs don't get an extra penalty for having gangwar...

Right, and the MM blasts already had the extra end cost before that update, so obviously said extra end cost is not to take into account the ability to summon those temporary pets. Further, if this hypothetical blast set had no secondary effect besides the temporary pets or other effects based upon them, then there still would be no justification for the tradeoffs you proposed.

Not necessarily from an effectiveness vantage point, but I just cannot get into thorny assault on dominators - there are no primaries that prevent you from constantly having to pop your spines back out every time you want to use one of those abilities...

That doesn't hold true for every other blast set that MMs also gain access to, only for the MMs themselves, and such costs didn't go up when these new abilities were added.

Inspired by the changes made to the MM blast attacks in the Necromancy set, how about an entire blast set whose gimmick is that said blasts can summon temporary pets! I imagine that not every single attack power would summon pets, but most probably would. Some could, however, have some interaction or benefit based upon the number of temporary pets so-summoned - perhaps extra damage, KD, or so forth. To differentiate it a bit from the existing dark blast powers with the effect, how about repurposing the Peacebringer light attacks, and instead of the ghostly apparitions summoned by Necromancy, use the apparitions from Night Ward. I don't have a specific breakdown of the set in mind, besides wanting the temporary pet summons and using brighter animations. Your input is welcomed. Thanks!

A bunch of giant demons fall before our mighty hero, and the lone archer continues to plink at you with complete conviction that his dinky little bolt may do what all the claws and magic could not!

The separate sections would have to be coded off as metallic. Look at the elemental order pants, for an example - the waist band and leg stripes are metallic, the pants themselves are more like leather, and there's an additional stripe down the front of the legs that glows. You couldn't have the pattern be metallic and the rest matte or just leather-like, unless the pattern was hard-coded into the piece. I'm not against the suggestion, but it'd need a separate implementation for each pattern...

If you want a powerful duo, and want to avoid melee, here's an interesting combination to try: 1. A Soldier of Arachnos going the Crab Spider route. You get some great team buffs, powerful attacks, solid debuffs, and you also get a bunch of pets! 2. A sentinel of some variety, (I'm partial to dual pistols/radiation armor or assault rifle/invulnerability). Alternative to 2 above, a defender or corruptor could be very powerful with the "Crabbermind" to watch their back. Pick something like pain domination/sonic and you won't be disappointed - good buffs, debuffs, heals, and ranged damage to boot!

I think the Primalist was a proposed AT that never got fully fleshed out before the game shut-down...

Another approach that could be very interesting is to go straight support/melee, with the class' schtick being that the buffs also benefit the caster, (either in full or at a slightly reduced effectiveness). Then, you'd get your resistances and all the other stuff you'd basically need to survive whilst in melee...

I remember running around under the canopy of Perez Park, with only hover and sprint, desperately trying to find an opening so I could get away from all the CoT. I also recall many "normal person" builds that solely used combat jumping and hurdle, (when fitness still required using power picks).

I liked the first season. I really need to start the second. It's a real mind trip!

Another option would be to roll a mainly human form peacebringer, and use nova & dwarf very sparingly as your character chugging a polyjuice potion.

Gravity/Time controller.

Why not embrace the otherworldly nature of your "Space Genie" and go with radiation armor and fire melee. Leverage ground zero's dual healing/damaging effect, and the tons of extra recovery gamma boost and particle shielding grant you to power those extra toggles, not to mention all the PBAoEs you'd have...

Probably water. After that, maybe seismic. If you wanted to go for a different angle, making them a gravity controller, (which is already very blaster-like), could put an interesting twist on the concept...

Would it be exploitable, though, if you can reliably trigger them?