Rudra

The Praetorian characters that work to get to 50 that I know of make prodigious use of Night Ward, not AE farms. Would love your data on this. I went to City of Data and looked up the reward scale of the enemy groups you face in the standard Praetorian 1-20 zones, (Syndicate, Praetorian PD, Ghouls, Destroyers, Resistance) and all have a reward scale of 1, meaning they do not have boosted XP at all. I don't have data on it other than the fact my gold side characters level faster than my red or blue side characters over less missions.

MM pets can't keep up with an MM that isn't using any travel powers at all. (Though they can SJ to where the MM is. They just won't unless it is 'necessary'.)

Wouldn't that be the Underground iTrial? (I know it isn't a low level TF and the OP is specifically for a low level TF. However, the Devouring Earth in Praetoria are intentionally leaving Praetoria alone per Hamidon except for the Avatar and its converted/support forces placed in the deep Underground where the iTrial takes place.) Praetorian characters already get more xp per mob because of the increased difficulty of those mobs. Making something like DFB for gold side will probably catapult the level 1 character to or near level 20. Also, the reason why there are no TFs gold side is because the only major threat is Hamidon and Hamidon is leaving Praetoria alone until Tyrant fails his promise in the trials. The reason why there are no TFs for the different factions in Praetoria itself is because Tyrant and his Praetors very ruthlessly exterminated all threats dumb enough to make themselves a major target. Even the opposition you see in the streets are "carefully" maintained by the Praetors for different objectives. For instance, the Destroyers as maintained by Marauder and Dominatrix. The ghouls that keep getting released into the Underground to give the Resistance a constant threat they have to work around. The Clockwork that serve as Anti-Matter's and Neuron's eyes and ears while cleaning the city and Underground, and helping keep the ghouls and Resistance more or less contained. Even the Syndicate and Resistance are doing their level best to maintain a low enough profile that Tyrant and the Praetors don't squish them in oblivion. (Despite how some Resistance cells try to make themselves a more visible threat by blowing up hospitals and police stations. Which gets thwarted by the players. And even if the players weren't involved, the Top Dogs of Marauder would move to deal with any threat the Resistance attempts that are deemed beyond the rank and file Powers Division's ability because none of them want an angry Tyrant possibly permanently removing them for threatening his deal with Hamidon.) If Tyrant can't keep the peace per his deal with Hamidon, and anything that gets major enough to constitute a TF would get Hamidon's attention for the sheer scope of events involved, Hamidon is more than willing to simply erase Praetoria and everyone in it. (Remember, the Avatar is intentionally nearby to monitor what is happening in Praetoria. And there are DE just beyond the sonic fence to maintain a visible threat for Tyrant to rally people around him and also keep an eye on Tyrant/the people of Praetoria. Even the Seed is well positioned in First Ward to help maintain some surveillance.) So while Tyrant and the Praetors can't keep total peace in Praetoria, they were successful enough that the closest you get to TFs are the zone events.

I'm not understanding what variance you are talking about.

It may be possible, but given how the zone phasing already fails, it may also be problematic.

So let's try addressing a few of these trees. We can set aside the Conceal inspiration because I've already addressed it. Instead, I'm going to address the other inspirations. Recharge reduction inspirations: Recharge reduction has a limit of +400%, which is 1/5 the recharge time of any given power. So you can have a character running around spamming Inferno for instance every 29 seconds. Not using Hasten or counting the recharge reductions I have slotted into my powers, my characters average +62.5% recharge reduction as a global effect. Slotted enhancements are around +92-98%. Anyone taking Hasten gets another +70%. Using a 95% slotted recharge bonus, that's +227.5% recharge. So popping recharge inspirations makes it very easy to get that nuke down to an every 29 seconds use. I can't speak for the devs, but I'm not inclined to think they would be in favor of that. Range inspirations: Range has a limit of 500%. For a Blaster's regular attacks, that is a range of 400 feet. Their snipe would hit out to 750 feet. This would let a ranged character pick off any GM or other critter (short of maybe Hamidon or any fliers that can pursue them) from a point of absolute safety. So between the recharge reduction and range inspirations, I think adding those inspirations would be too powerful. Now, as far as your additions go? As @Uun said, those can already be crafted at any empowerment station, and the empowerment station buffs last for an hour and a half. While I am not opposed to those inspirations per se, adding them will reduce the likelihood of having sufficient inspirations on hand to merge into an inspiration you actually need, and for a maximum of 90 seconds depending on whether they use the standard 60 second duration for most inspirations or the variable duration of the mez protection inspirations. So I would say it is far better to just craft those at an empowerment station. I am not trying to imply or say you do not already know the things I am stating in this post, but I feel I need to present them as a reference for why I am approaching this the way that I am.

Does what have to be baked in?

I'm someone that abides by narrowminded nonsense! Here's the thing. Magic is not itself a power set, it is a source of power. What are you using that magic to do? What effects are you manifesting it as? Are you a pyromancer? There are fire sets for ranged, melee, and control. Or you a terramancer? There are the various earth sets. Are you a necromancer? Well, there is a preset MM power set. Are you a golem crafter? Steel is better than rock any day, there is the robotics power set. Are you a demonologist? Demon summoning for the win. How about a druid or a nature wizard? Beast summoning and the nature themed sets. Are you a mentalist binding others to your will? Go with Ninjas, Thugs, or Mercenaries. Are you an arcanist, enchanting objects? There are the various weapon sets. Are you a technomancer? There are the various weapon sets. Are you using magic to fortify your body? There is super strength and invulnerability. Are you using magic to acquire and use skills? There are martial arts and other fighting sets, again including weapons. Are you a generalist? Now you're getting into an area that takes careful consideration of what it means to be a generalist wizard. If you want a D&D style generalist wizard, I and others have already created builds that lets you play a generalist wizard. (Hint: Use a Dominator AT as your base and then dig heavy in the pool powers.) The biggest question to making a character that uses magic in this game is how you choose to present it. There are auras you can use to add a more magic appearance to the character. About the only things missing are staves, wands, and alternate animations. When you get to pool powers, the Sorcery pool gives additional options for a magic using character while giving other origin characters an option to grab obviously magic-themed powers. Edit: Whoops, I should have given examples from the OP. Magical set that focuses on heals, buffs, and debuffs? Any support set. A sorcery set that has magical bolts of energy: What kind of energy? (What is the magic being manifested into? What does that bolt look like?) Transfiguration? You're going to run into problems with the actual mechanics of that. Creating objects like (properly in gravity)? The Gravity set creates objects. So does the nature themed sets, devices and traps, almost all the control sets, and more. Edit again: Oh yeah, there are also already missions/arcs that have your character run out to get components for spells. Montague Castanella gives one such arc. So does the contact for the Red Widow arc. There are Croatoa missions that send you to gather spell components as well. And others, I don't want this list to get too long. (Including missions to protect others that are casting spells or to disrupt others casting spells.) Edit yet again: And if you want rock golems, clay golems, crystal golems, or other types, join the rest of us in asking for pet customizations. And if you want staff or wand animations for the various power sets, join the crowd asking for those too.

Thunderstrike didn't have its effects applied at or near the end of its animation. It was and still is near the middle of the animation. So it wasn't a perception thing, it was simply a slower power. The question with Thunderstrike was if it was fast enough or slow enough for what it did, and the devs agreed with those saying it was too slow. (Edit: Whether an attack is fast enough, strong enough, available enough, or does enough are four related but very different questions.)

The active sales for Conceal should be a false display. To the best of my knowledge, you can't buy it. Edit: I just checked it. There are open bids for it, but no sales. There is also no history for it no matter how many times I click Find. So those open bids are just never going to get filled because like the wiki says, it is obsolete. So you won't find it at any vendor and it doesn't drop from mobs.

A set can underperform without being slow. KM is not slow. And the fact you just changed how you were defining it as being slow shows you know it. We're done. I'm tired of derailing this thread.

Except it doesn't. The animation times are consistent with other sets. And you are locked into an attack's animation regardless of whether the damage is applied the instant the animation starts or the animation ends. Nothing is changing there. So the time before effects are applied in the animation does not affect your DPS/DPA. Because you still have to wait out the full animation for every attack you make regardless of what set it is.

I apologize for derailing your thread. I have no opinion on the OP. My sole reason for being on this thread is to point out that KM is not itself a slower set. That it just seems to be. (Edit: So basically, I'm just responding to @JayboH.)

Incorrect. DPA/DPS is not affected by when in the animation the damage is applied. Because you still have the full animation to get through before you can get to your next attack regardless of when that damage is applied. If I use an attack that does 100 damage and has an animation time of 1 second, then it doesn't matter if I do that 100 damage at the start, middle, or end of the animation. For that 1 second animation, I've done 100 damage.

Again, I wouldn't. Because it is mechanically balanced. You have the same animation times. You have the same ability to chain attacks. The only thing that is different is when the damage is applied in the animation. And if you want to change when the damage is applied in the animation, you have to re-do the animations so the damage would be able to be applied sooner while extending the character's recovery after the hit to maintain the animation length.

Let's set AVs and GMs aside right now. Say you have a team of 8. And for whatever reason, they all just blasted the same target, maybe it was a Sapper and the team wanted that Sapper gone. So I'm just going to use some numbers, not actual Sapper HP or character damage. Let's say that Sapper had 100 HP. Everyone on the team hits him for 30 damage each. They just inflicted 240 damage on that extremely low on HP Sapper. However, only the first 100 damage matters. Anything beyond that 100 HP is hitting a defeated foe. And even if all 8 attacks, including from the KM, hits at exactly the same time, only the first 4 attacks, which would probably be randomly assigned for hitting at the same time, would not be hitting an already defeated foe. That is the issue I have with the provided scenario. That even if the KM lands the hit at the exact same time as everyone else, half the team just blasted a defeated target in the order in which the game assigned their inflicted damage. Yes, KM applying its damage at or near the end gives a strong impression of it being slow. Yes, if a KM and someone else attack a target at the exact same time using powers with the exact same animation time, the KM will hit after the other character. Usually by around a half second or less if I remember correctly. (It's been a while since I compared the actual time before effect times.) So yes, the set feels slow to lots of players. I'm not arguing that. However, the set is just as fast for its attack animations as other sets. It launches its attacks as fast as other sets. It chains its attacks as fast and fluidly as other sets. So unless you are trying to all blast the same target at the same time for some reason, the slight delay in application time doesn't really come into play. You may notice when you hit an already defeated target more often, but in my experience, the rate of attacking/hitting an already defeated target is no worse than any other set I've played. (Though I haven't played Titan Weapons since Live, so it may be slower. However, it is really irrelevant to the conversation.)

They won't tell us because if they do, we'll be expecting it and it may not be implemented despite being their goal. Some things just don't work when you try to implement it, but when you put out that you are working on it, there is an expectation of it eventually reaching the players.

That's my entire point. Mechanically it's slow. No need to defend the set or be contrary to those who feel the set is slow, because it truly is. Balancing it by not having everyone blasting the same target? That's not balancing it at all. That's avoiding the subject and blindly defending a power set choice. So given the scenario you provided, where everyone blasts the exact same target at the exact same time, how would you balance the other character's powers to make up for the fact that they also blasted a defeated target?

So if everyone attacks the same target at the exact same time, KM will likely end up corpse-blasting due to your explanation of how the set works. Sounds like everyone's description of it being slow is mechanically correct due to the results of such scenarios. What would you do to balance the set? Edited 2 minutes ago by JayboH I would balance it by not having everyone blasting the same target unless it was something that needed it. Edit: Here is the problem I have with your proposed scenario. If you have your team all blast a single target that cannot weather such a barrage, then a variable number of team members, most likely a large number of said team members, just blasted a defeated target. Even if all their attacks were to hit at the same time.

Yeah, pretty much. If what City of Data says about the caltrops effect is true. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=mission_maker_pets.caltrops.caltrops&at=minion_pets Bear in mind that to get to the linked page, I started with the Malta.Knives of Artemis caltrops power and followed its provided links until it ended on that page.

Logically that doesn't make sense if what you said earlier was true. Strange. My guess is either because the team isn't coordinating attacks on the same target, thus reducing the likelihood of extra attacks being launched at say a minion, or they are coordinating against a robust target. All I can say for certain is that KM's animation times are comparable to most other melee sets, it applies its damage later in the animation than other sets which is why it feels slower to many players, though that difference in application time is not by much, and I have not personally witnessed either my own KM or others wasting a perceivable number of attacks on defeated targets any more than other members of the team.

Not per the threads complaining about other power sets corpse blasting on teams. From what I've seen/experienced from my KM character and others I've teamed with? KM doesn't wind up hitting defeated targets any more than anyone else.

Buy the large Escape or Liberate inspirations. They last the longest reducing the frequency at which you need to reuse them. Open your in game e-mail. Type your global name (including the @) as the recipient. Drag one of the inspirations into the item slot of the e-mail. Put in anything for the message body, like just the number 1. Hit send. The message will show up on your e-mail list with the attached inspiration. If you have the e-mail window open, you can claim an inspiration from the e-mails you sent yourself as long as you have an open inspiration slot on the character. Depending on your build, you may just want to pop like 4 Righteous Rage inspirations and an Escape before starting the fight, and then just refresh them from your inspiration tray or e-mail until the mezzer is defeated. Edit: Also, you can check here for set bonuses: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Set_Bonus_Comparison_Tables You won't find any protection other than KB, but you can get resistance to reduce the duration.

Yes and no. Regardless of when the damage is applied in the animation, you still have to wait out the animation before launching the next attack. So as far as attack rate goes, KM is not slower. Per attack, the damage is applied later in the animation than most other attacks, but you are still spending the same amount of time on each attack from its animation before the next attack as you are for most other melee sets. So yes, the damage is applied later in the animation giving most players the perception the set is slower, but as for animation times, recharge times, and the ability to chain attacks to take down targets, it is the same.