El Foya

Decided to go with Rahziel @Erebos Algiz

Haven't been able to pick who I wanna roll out with yet, but count on me being there. @Erebus Algiz

Great seeing SC so full, tnx for bringing the fun in! Hope there'll be more events like this in SC/WB/BB

Ahh I shoulda searched first, my only excuse is 3am brain mushyness. I'll go check it out after I type this. I can understand the "trap" reasoning, but I can't say I agree with it. Even being able to throw a lotg or kismet in the slot would be huge imo. I'm also totally ok with bumping that wet ice def up to 2-5% so it's less of a trap, but I didn't want to ask for raw buffs.

It's barely a buff, just a little QoL for the frosty bois. I could rant and rave about other stuff ice needs help on but this one seems very quick and easy, and would help a lot with slotting.

Definitely on board for the pvp accolades, removal of base tp, and the helicopters! I love and fully support alpha-only in zone and I'm glad there's less grind needed for entry, but without assault hybrid, judgment, and interface everyone will be doing less damage (no, I don't think the loss of destiny will offset this nearly enough). This is fine if you're on the side with more people, but it's gunna be rougher for underdogs/solos trying to pick a kill before getting focused. Zones, unlike arena, are very rarely 2 balanced teams duking it out and people almost never switch to even things out. It's also going to further widen the gap between ranged and melee toons. While the ranged player(s) can easily make up for the lost damage with more attacks, melee will have to close the distance however many more times for the same damage and no longer have judgment for clean-ups. Add to that, the loss of destiny (barrier in particular) is much more significant for melee toons' survivability. That said, a melee that doesn't want to die still has a much better chance of escaping a fight and some have potent T9s to lean on, so at least there's that. Raising damage in pvp across the board (x1.1ish) with a larger bump for melee (x1.2-1.25ish) is the best solution imo, but I don't expect something like that happening any time soon (or ever, really). Also, I prefer 1v1 anyway so as long as I can use hybrid and interface in arena this really doesn't effect me much. Still wanted to share my concerns. Tl;dr almost entirely like the changes but teams are gunna steamroll RV harder than ever and melee is worse off than before.

Got on today to mess around with my elec/elec blaster. I was worried that CC would drop dynamo, but now that I know it doesn't I love it (so much so that I want it for my /elec armor toons if I'm being honest). I'm glad that thunder clap is not the sustain anymore, and more glad that it's other changes got rolled back. Thunder strike is still kinda meh, but that's nothing new so whatever at least it's faster meh now. I'm also a fan of the power order changes, earlier access to build up is always welcome and low level blasters and damage auras have always mixed poorly imo. Also power sink at 26 is great for the short circuit>sink wombo combo at a much earlier level. My only minor but real gripe here is the fence buff being 60 instead of 80. I have read every comment before mine so I know I may be beating a dead horse here, but the shorter range on blaster single target imob powers feels more like a relic than anything else and I would be plenty happy to see subdual get its full 100 range to let it keep it's range advantage.

@macskull I'll give taunt another go, just remember being disappointed with it last time I tried using it. Forgot crits used to be unresisted, that might be a huge part of why my scrapper feels so underwhelming. Thanks!

I actually agree with you about nerfing blaster HP back down, raising it was a good choice. My suggestion was to lower the bonus resistance blasters get in pvp from 40 to 20 instead,

@macskull I just want to clarify, because you took the time to respond with a well written post. I'm for sure aware of the chaotic nature of zone pvp and the impossible task it would be to balance it perfectly, as well as how absurd it is to balance around 1v1 in ANY mmo. I also don't think blasters are as durable as tanks or even a well built scrapper. If you'll forgive me for using arbitrary numbers, I see it something like this. If blasters have 100 points in damage and 50 points in durability, tanks have 100 points in durability and 25 in damage and for a middle ground I'd put scrappers at about 65 in each. It's not that I think blasters are insanely tanky, just too tanky for the damage they put out. What I was trying to say in my OP was that I don't want to see corrs/doms/fenders/trollers getting survival buffs while melee gets left further behind when bringing blasters down a bit makes the whole field more even. Also that melee damage is often too low even in 1v1 melee "fiteclub" situations and many drag on for 10+mins or end in draws, which is only important because it shows that even in optimal conditions melee damage is lacking. Lastly, while gap closers like webnade and taunt do help, ranged classes tend to stack +range buffs and also have easy access to webnades so the effectiveness is diminished. Maybe I'm just too thirsty for the days when a headsplitter crit was a death sentence for a blaster, but I'd at least like a reason to play kickball on a punchy dude again besides "spam taunt".

There is an unfortunate amount of condescension in this post, but let's move past that. The video shows that tanks/brutes can fill a niche, but it also shows 2 teams full of ranged classes. Your video is, more than anything, evidence of the disparity between ranged and melee. I counted a total of 3 tanks, 1 brute, 1 stalker and one spicy mastermind from the timestamp till the end of the vid. Not even 1 scrapper. Every other character was ranged dps or support (which is ranged dps with heals). Tanks/brutes have a niche in 8v8 arena with their taunt and durability, that doesn't mean melee outside of stalkers shouldn't be able to threaten ranged classes with their damage at all. To use your phrasing: A blaster or corr aren't meant to be damage soaking machines. Between incarnates and sets, that's exactly what ranged has become tho, so to compensate melee needs more damage to compete. Tanks are described in the character creation page as a class that can take a lot of damage AND dish it out, so between that and the stat bars rating their melee damage as a 7/10 i think it's more than fair for people making one to assume it will have at least respectable damage output. This is CoX, not WoW. Roles are looser, tank type characters don't have to do abysmal damage and melee DPS sure as hell should be able to compete on even footing with their ranged counterparts. Melee is not fine because you, personally, are fine being regulated to taunt duty and nothing else in a game where there's very little emphasis on class roles. But hey, that's just an opinion! Edit: After rereading this I realized it's coming off more snarky than I intended. Some of the snark was totally intentional ofc, but I still feel the need to leave this edit note at the bottom because I'm too lazy to retype my post in a less snarky manner.

Bit late to the party. I seem to be the minority here, but the last thing I want is ranged classes getting more survivability. Blasters are so durable right now because most blasters got a double buff to survival between the larger hp pool and the secondaries having survival built in (I say most because some blaster secondaries got the shaft on survival. Looking at you elec manip!) Corrs, fenders and trollers have low hp to balance their ranged damage and heals/buffs/debuffs, and trollers and doms have stronger CC. Blasters are the outlier and need to be brought back down a bit. Melee is in an abysmal state. Tanks in particular are hurting with the loss of bruising, which increased the damage of procs. I haven't killed anything on my tank since the patch, feels bad. Melee damage in general is much too low in pvp outside of psiblade scrappers. Any fight between 2 half decently built melee toons will usually drag until someone calls a draw, which gets boring fast. It's almost impossible to pressure a kiting ranged class (not just blasters, the other ones too) because even if you catch them for a hit your best attack will maybe do 1/3 their hp and there's no way to stop them just running away if things do go south. As far as solutions go, I'm sticking with simple(ish) number changes because I only have a casual understanding of the code. First one on my list would be lowering the pvp resistance bonus of blasters from 40 to 20. This brings them down a bit without effecting pve, and makes taking tough from the fighting pool an attractive contender against leadership/phase. Next would be adding a damage buff to the pvp resist bonus power for melee classes and others that are struggling. This could work as a sort of nob for dialing in balance. A larger bonus for Tanks would help offset the loss of bruising and maybe open up some sets outside of super strength, since rage would be less potent due to dr on bonus damage. Brutes wouldn't get much out of more damage bonus because of fury, so maybe add a bit more resist on for them. I'd also love to see increased duration on all immobilize effects in pvp. Immobs are imo the perfect solution to keeping people in a fight without making them completely helpless like holds and stuns do. I also think it would strike a good balance with any changes to reduce how oppressive -jump and -fly effects (webnades) feel, which I agree with others is a thing that should happen. Don't wanna drone on too long so I'll leave it at this for now, good discussion in here lots of good reads! -El Foya/Erebus Algiz

El Foya checking in