arcane

You can’t claim that the most popular sets should receive the most attention and simultaneously claim to be seeking parity. The first claim would widen disparity.

Apples and oranges aside, you’re implying this should be a positive feedback loop (powerset A is most popular -> powerset A gets most buffs), and it’s absurd to think game balance has ever worked that way. Balance is achieved by negative feedback loops (powerset is unpopular -> powerset gets help). I really think this is self-evident. That being said, I think most of us can agree that popularity and efficacy are not necessarily all that well correlated, so popularity is just one variable.

There’s certainly some truth here minus the fact that I don’t nerf herd. Pretty hard to make a bad character in this game once you’ve invested influence and made a build that focuses on addressing shortcomings. You could certainly say we should talk about SO’s only, but all characters feel pretty shitty to me on SO’s, so I wouldn’t find that to be a very interesting point. None of that voids my experience though. If my masterminds can do well, logically so can yours.

SR has more resistance before you die. My SR is definitely one if my better tankers. Health bar moves more than Invuln, but still doesn’t die, and has way more slots to spare for offense/procs. I still need a Shield tank though (only have the Elec/Shield scrapper). These are my Tankers atm: Bio/Rad Dark/Spines Elec/SS Invuln/Claws Rad/Savage SR/BS Stone/Kin (Graniteless) All do pretty well. It’s hard to make a bad tanker nowadays. Graniteless would be worst on survivability if I had to pick one (has a lot of proc bomb attacks to make up for a generally bad secondary - pulls slots away from mitigation). Invuln, Dark, or SR best on survivability I guess. Rad and Bio best on damage. Maybe SR on damage too just because basically all your slots can go to offense.

If a single AoE is wiping out all your pets reliably on every cast, I would guess you’re not leveraging your secondary very well. To say nothing of Def/Res aura procs. I have masterminds too, and am therefore not buying for a moment that it is half as bad as you say. Because it runs directly contrary to real experience that a decent mastermind is durable AF.

That is one bizarre way to look at data... by this logic the most popular sets should always get buffs. Which is not very logical at all. Seriously, wtf.

They can now resummon over and over with basically no cooldown if needed.

I think you could add small buffs to the attacks, like how Swap Ammo does, but you couldn’t radically transform them. A Mastermind does not need to be able to be high functioning without pets. As for Masterminds being slower at killing mobs (ofc they are faster at single target), that is obviously necessary for them because they are far more durable than any other support AT. They are the Tankers of support AT’s.

Yep, easiest way to get psi res is to slot as many of those as you can. I know Angels has an Invuln tanker that caps psi res, which is pretty insane. If you slot 5 of these procs plus one Aegis plus your Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses, that’s 43% psi resistance right there before getting to any actual set bonuses.

I don’t disagree. I don’t have the data either way. But I don’t play my characters before level 50+1, so I just have very little to contribute on that side of things.

The more I think about everything Empathy can do, the more I’m certain it only needs minor tweaks. Probably slight tweaks to Aura recharge, Clear Mind, and addition of a couple of debuff resistances. Nothing more extreme than that. EDIT:... Another thought I had is: I was wondering what Empathy and Force Field had in common that put them first in line for buffs in so many players’ minds (IMO Force Field is first in line before Empathy). In the level 50 IO’s + Incarnates meta that is actually on players’ minds, the answer was that they have the lowest damage increasing potential of all support sets (-Res counting here too). And I deemed that important because, at those high levels, defenses are typically capped out much sooner than offenses. All this is to say, I suspect most of the griping about Empathy is about what it doesn’t do, overlooking what it does so well. Whether or not there is some small incremental change that can be made in this direction, I don’t know.

This pretty much 100%

The easiest rule would be simply to not buy anything you aren’t going to slot. That way no flipping is allowed.

Fire Control doesn’t rely on Bonfire to be viable. It was one of the most popular control sets long before KB->KD was a thing.

While perhaps true, also true that heals have way more of a role to play without IO’s, since all the Blasters aren’t Tankmages yet, and all. Defense set bonuses and Incarnates and so on put the nail in Empathy/Force Field coffins.

Yeah it would. But I’m not too bothered by it either way. As a damage patch it still is never quite overwhelming. And my Plant/Psy Dom clears Bloody Rainbow a good bit quicker than my Fire/Kin Troller nowadays. If it is overpowered, it’s perhaps not by much. Bigger fish to fry.

Immobilizes with -KB do not allow the foe to even be knocked down, neutralizing the mitigation tool entirely. Bonfire is not immediately comparable to Ice Slick or Earthquake because, even though they function similarly after you pop a KB->KD in Bonfire, Bonfire was designed with KB in mind - meaning it was not intended to always be doing all that damage. The damage was only originally occurring with the occasional tick of KB out of the patch, and now you get all of it. It is obvious that its damage numbers mean wildly different things depending on KB vs KD, which is why one could conclude it is broken with KD if using the damage numbers from the KB days. That said, I don’t find that it does *too much* damage even with KD, but would be interested to hear what the devs think of it.

No kidding. Now that I made one of those plant doms that can clear the meteor map in 4 minutes, I can safely say you are correct.

That’s not a punishment unless you can’t survive without optimized defense. Which is not the best optics for this kind of thread since it calls into question your experience. I’m not saying you are actually a bad player but please reconsider the implications of the bad argument that you just have to have your defense buffs.

We shouldn’t be assuming that players having specific powers already is a given because it’s factually untrue. HOWEVER, yes, most of us will have Hasten. Many will have Combat Jumping too but note there’s no reason that one has to be necessary on a melee with immobilize protection already included. I like the combat mobility so I’ll give it to ya. Hover instead of Combat Jumping? Lol. I would never think of the two as interchangeable. One gives you mobility, one kills your mobility. Anyway, that’s all moot because, again, you can’t make these assumptions because they are factually not universal.

I’m not saying anything beyond the fact that some people view the defense and LotG’s as far too critical to ever try anything else. I’m not saying that you’re a bad player if you insist on building that way every time. You’re only a bad player if you do so specifically because you don’t think you can survive without them. Best example by far of travel as an in combat asset is obviously the fact that Fly/Mystic Flight are the best melee defense powers in the game. After that the differences are far more incremental. Like quicker and easier kiting/dodging/escaping. Or like the fact that you can save a few seconds gathering mobs by jaunting between them rather than running between them. Every second you don’t spend in between fights is a boost to your character’s DPS and clear times.

They either do take them and use them already or the only reason they don’t is the squeeze to fit defense and LotG’s. Most people make do with SS/CJ for that latter reason alone. And you can stop mentioning PvP. You can Jaunt about in PvE too if you’re a good enough player to forego Fighting or Leadership once in awhile. The only reason travel powers are not used more as combat assets is because players are uncomfortable surviving without Weave and Maneuvers. That does not mean they are not assets in combat.

Travel powers are powerful assets in combat. No vote to decoupling those from the rest.

I’d be ok with testing something, but please note “weak on AoE” is actually not a bad thing balance-wise as long as the set is exceptional at single target. Which it is.

I’d be ok with them testing that (one more pool at cost of APP/PPP).