arcane

Pretty standard dynamic for an MMO to have some classes be more durable than others........

That impact would only be noticeable solo and it would be ridiculous to assert this game is balanced around solo play. FF defenders (who ironically have mez protection lol) would have to keep up with your melee characters at solo XP/min for that to be the case, and it is self-evident that that is not the case. Also the implication that your xp/min philosophy has anything to do with being a long term player is verifiably ludicrous.

They run out in your tray. They are infinitely purchasable.

This game is solo friendly yes but is so obviously balanced around team play that it is clear that team play ranks higher on the hierarchy of importance than solo play.

Wow did not know that at all. Thanks for the info.

Yeah I don’t really mind any period of lowered damage or recovery, but the -def is so counterintuitive for tankers and brutes I just haven’t been able to bring myself to play this set since live. There are a ton of dud T1 powers I just remove from my tray so in that sense I don’t see a problem BUT I will grant you perhaps that should not be acceptable on Tankers due to the inherent T1 -res mechanic.

Sure you CAN solo but as an MMO it will ALWAYS be naturally more team focused than not in terms of balance. This is of course consistent with your own observations that melee builds do better on average at solo content, clear times, etc. Because it’s ok for some roles to be more team oriented because that is the primary concern.

No, why would there be? Look at Arctic Fog and Shadow Fall for different looks but same/similar function.

Post edited. Not expressing opposition, just questioning the premise expressed in the first sentence.

I don’t understand how SS has an AoE problem at all. Raged Foot Stomp puts its AoE power firmly ahead of many other sets. That said I’m not opposed to an incremental buff of this type because you are really going to have to sweeten the deal to get me to play with the Rage crash.

Powergamers tend to settle on things they have calculated to be maximally optimal. In this game, they’ve pretty much decided that is limited to pool options with optimal +defense and +recharge utility. There is a vast gulf between “not maximally optimal” in that sense and “not potent, useful, or worthwhile”. You may only realize this when you actually bother to forego some of the powergamers’ choices once in awhile; some people will never see it because their brain simply throws an error when you tell them they don’t need soft capped defense and all 5 LotG bonuses to do exceptionally well. EDIT: saw your mention of Poison builds with RoP. I have 6 level 50 Poisons and I would be completely comfortable scrapping without Clarion, Melee, or RoP. So... not sure how that’s meant to be convincing.

How dare mobs actually fight back with similar tools we slaughter them with. The audacity.

This kind of trend happens in most games because powergamers tend to settle somewhere and stay there as far as power choice/build style. I wouldn’t automatically assume that says a lot about the quality of the other pool powers. Anywho, I think the people seeking to protest the nerf would do better if they would bring data instead of obvious hyperbole. RoP is “useless”? The change “wrecks builds”? Those statements are so self evidently false they work against your cause.

I’m not sure we should be treating things like Hasten as points of comparison for balance. I think the fact the devs have left that one alone has a little more to do with the mass mutiny that would result.

Fold Space is the only example here where a core function was removed from the set. Energize retained Conserve Power’s endurance discount function. Disruption Arrow retained Acid Arrow’s -res functionality. Moment of Glory retained it’s function as a high def + high res panic button. Not remembering Repulse off the top of my head. So yeah, one time total so far. EDIT: Disrupt/Repulse looks like it probably constitutes a second example yes.

Mez protection on squishies is more or less a non-issue to the seasoned player but apparently a major annoyance to some on the forum.

Make no mistake, I am invoking the rule as I interpret it because I think it’s a good rule, not as an appeal to authority.

Those powers all changed, but I don’t think a single one of them had a core functionality removed from the set entirely, which is the cottage rule in practice based on my interpretation. I don’t see how any HC changes have done that either really.

It wasn’t nerfed solely because of the level it was available at. You misread that. It was nerfed because it was overtuned for a pool power in terms of benefit vs uptime.

Examples?

For reference Sonic Cage used to be FotM in PvP pre-i13. Just a supplemental factoid. And no I’m not saying Sonic doesn’t need a facelift. Cover Sonic Attack with that too though would ya. And I hope Force Field goes without saying.

That would be in keeping with the cottage rule, yes. Or put a debuff aura around the foe or do something else cool entirely. They managed to make it appealing with Dimension Shift.

The cottage rule isn’t arbitrary. It exists because of the fact that there is not one power in this game that nobody likes. So I’m ok with continuing to apply it and think that philosophy has gone well so far.

The cottage rules means you can’t change the core functionality of a power, only tweak it or add to it. In cases where a primary effect has been deleted outright, it has been added elsewhere in the set - like Acid Arrow’s -res or Afterburner moving into Fly. TL;DR you can change a lot of things but you can’t get rid of sonic having a targeted foe intangibility power.

I just delete those kind of t1’s from my tray.