Rudra

I see Tankers more often than I see Brutes. And I see comments in chat to play a Tanker (instead of a Brute) when new players ask for help or when they ask if they should play a Tanker or a Brute, never advice for that player to play a Brute. I play Brutes because I prefer getting my attacks faster than my defenses, but that is me. So I just don't see what you are talking about. (Edit: And my brutes never have a full Fury bar. They stop gaining at 90% or so. And they routinely hover around 60% depending on map layout. And considering that Brutes have a lower base damage compared to Tankers specifically because of their Fury mechanic, and that Tankers can easily max out their resists whereas Brutes have to work at it, I am very opposed to your take on them.) I am intentionally avoiding the Rage discussion.

As often as Tankers have been buffed and Brutes have been nerfed since proliferation? Hell no. (Edit: Especially tying Brute Fury to their health. I hated Blaster's Defiance 1.0. I absolutely in no way want to see Brutes get a failed system in place of their Fury.) With the exception of Confront, Dark Consumption, and Soul Drain, every power in Dark Melee has a -ToHit component. Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Maul, Siphon Life, and Midnight Grasp all impose -5.63% ToHit on affected targets. Touch of Fear imposes -11.25% ToHit on affected targets. You can slot all 6 of those powers with ToHit Debuff or Accurate ToHit Debuff enhancements/sets to make those -ToHit effects even more effective. Dark Melee is fine with its -ToHit. There actually are missions that send players into those zones. Some are instanced missions so players just race to their mission and others are street sweeps so players avoid them. They do exist though.

The part that has anything at all to do with the comment you quoted and responded to. Fun fact. Anyone can become an incarnate. Just playing the game, not doing iTrials or WSTs, you still get enough threads and merits to fully T4 any character you play just by virtue of playing. You get incarnate xp to unlock your abilities regardless of what at level foes you fight once you get to 50, even if you exemplar down to do Flashback missions. You get threads from defeated enemies once you get to 50. You get merits from doing varying tasks. You get threads and merits from the vet level system. So even a character that a player runs with no effort to becoming an incarnate will have all the resources they need to be a fully T4'ed incarnate. So how is the incarnate system not designed so just anyone can become an incarnate?

The incarnate drops in other parts of the game, other than incarnate Trials, mishes and Task Forces, are awarded for completing things. Complete a story arc, complete a Task Force or trial. If your play style is just joining pick up teams and you are never around for completing contacts, you are correct, you will never receive incarnate drops. How does "I rarely if ever do TFs" translate to "I join PUGs and quit before anything ever gets turned in"?

Using your Tar Patch example, I can get Tar Patch to a 40.37 second recharge on a 45 second duration power with the only slotted recharge being an END/RECH/Slow enhancement. Just that one recharge in a triple bonus, so reduced effectiveness, enhancement, and I can still always have one out if needed. With that same enhancement as the only recharge enhancement in Snow Storm from Cold Domination, it is down to 6.35 seconds of recharge. With no recharge enhancements in Snow Storm from Storm Summoning, just an END reduction, it is 6.9 seconds because of globals. You can get their recharges down almost as low as you want. Especially with Tempered Readiness since it has the recharge reduction and a global recharge reduction. You can also mix sets to get layered resist bonuses, recovery bonuses, HP bonuses, and/or accuracy bonuses; and so get the benefit of multiple recharge reduction enhancements from sets. That said, if you want a Recharge Intensive Slow set, what specific enhancements should be in it? What set bonuses should it grant? (Edit: Also, something I find funny, is that I find I get better recharge times on my pets when I don't use the Recharge Intensive Pet sets.)

I'm all for this.

(Edit: Can't strike through emojis, so deleted instead.) Okay, as a history lesson, I remember when the Fitness pool was actually a power pool. And I did not take it very often. A carefully built character could get by just fine without it. And yes, I was not happy when they changed Fitness from a power pool to an inherent. In point of fact, while we still had the option to choose whether we wanted legacy fitness or inherent fitness? Guess what I chose. I chose legacy fitness instead of inherent and then just didn't use it. Then even that choice got taken away from us. (Edit: And yes, on pre-inherent Fitness characters, we could choose to still not have inherent Fitness at the time. And then all characters were auto-changed to inherent Fitness.) As for Hasten being too good to be without, not a single one of my characters has Hasten and they all do perfectly fine without it. That's at +0/x1. That's at +4/x8. That's playing solo, on a team, or on a league. You have four pool choices. If you are dead set on taking Hasten, that is your choice. And so uses one of your pool picks. And the part I find absolutely hilarious? "Hasten is too good to be without" followed by "having Hasten permanently gimps your character". So either it is too good to be without or it permanently gimps your character. You can't claim both. They are contrary. And if it permanently gimps your character, then why are you taking it? Edit: Okay, I see what you are saying. However, taking a -40% REC when a player can easily hit +200% or higher REC, is not a gimp. Also, if you are set on nerfing Hasten, then why are you taking it? "They aren't taking Weave or Maneuvers for the defense bonus"? Then what are they taking those defense powers for? If you want build diversity in your characters, then you build it into your characters.

Pretty simple actually. Activate Hover and use an ability with the casting animation.

The lightning is a triggered effect. If it was the main effect, then it would always be active when the power was used. Edit: Hells, two days ago, on my Storm Blast Corruptor, Storm Cell didn't trigger lightning even once in a couple of fights. So how can it be the main effect?

You're only looking at the lightning though. Storm Cell's base effect is -movement, -recharge, and -ToHit. The triggered High Winds/Wind Speed effect is likewise -movement, -recharge, and -ToHit. So out of three possibilities with Storm Cell, one of which is its main/base effect, you are arguing against being able to slot slow and accuracy debuff sets or generic/SO enhancements because they won't affect the triggered lightning ability?

The inherent powers are called that because every character gets them inherently. No need to choose Swift, Hurdle, Health, or Stamina because they are inherent to all characters, so they always have those powers available and active. And Hasten should never be an inherent power. It is a speed power. That so many take it does not change that. If the logic for Hasten going inherent is that so many take it, then there will also be a call for Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics, Tough, Weave, and Combat Jumping to be made inherent. If people want to stick with the Holy Quad, then that is their choice, not need. No to inherent Hasten.

Yes, please! Since those are the always active effects, it makes no sense to me that it can't.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SarcasmFailure Edit: Or perhaps this is more accurate in this case: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CannotConveySarcasm

Yes. The only fires I am aware of being subject to being put out (destroyed/defeated) by players are the Steel Canyon event fires and the fires in Mercy island.

Basically, what it boils down to is some players will get enough shards to craft their Alphas and others will not. And it seems to come down to what they do and where. My involvement in this conversation is based strictly on the flat claim that shards are 5x more useful than threads. Which in my experience, is a completely false statement. So I had wanted an explanation of how shards are supposedly so much more useful, and finding the responses to not be anything like what I personally have experienced, continued to argue. If you pursue shard collection, then you can wind up in the situation @Lazarillo and you describe. If you pursue thread/merit collection, then you wind up the total opposite. If you don't pursue either shard collecting or thread collecting, then you still wind up with way more threads than you do shards. So the need for compensation in boosting the reward of threads and merits is based solely upon the pursuit of shards and Notices. Edit: And this is from someone who still needs to do most of the iTrials to get their badges and start working on the WSTs. So I consider myself as a reference for someone who pursues neither shards nor threads. (I got all my merits from vet levels, the incarnate arcs, and from Hami rewards pursuing the Buddy badge.)

But 26 levels you don't have to do to finish your build. You could play an alt (or use those 26 levels to fund an alt, giving you more time you could be playing your main). I was probably fully T4'ed around vet level 30. And even if I wasn't, your comment that the 26 vet levels I haven't achieved yet are no longer necessary to T4 this character falls under the "Are you seriously making this comment?!" heading since this character has, as has already been stated, been fully T4'ed for a "very long time". Because I had the resources available to do so. Most of my characters I make no plans for making incarnate. They are still fully T4'ed incarnates. Your focus in this conversation seems rather skewed to me.

73. So I still have 26 vet levels worth of threads and merits to get through. And I've been done with T4'ing that character for a very long time. Edit: And since I don't farm or grind for components/threads, your grind comment doesn't apply. I played for fun, not to T4. (And to show all arcs/missions as being done in Ouroboros. So that part counts as grinding.)

Not in my experience. Take my main character for instance. This MM made no shard conversions. This MM is fully T4'ed out. This MM did not use shards to craft anything. I don't farm, but I run regular content. This MM has 135 incarnate shards and 1,361 incarnate threads. With only using threads. Your comparison that the drop rates are equal when compared to what they can individually buy is very biased.

Your comment ignores that shards are still rare drops, or at the very least uncommon compared to threads, and that unlike shards which only come from drops, threads come from drops, from Notice/Favor conversions, from shard conversions, as selectable mission rewards, and as veteran level rewards. (Edit: And that is on top of their higher drop rate.)

Shards were always meant to be a rare drop. It was meant to be a grind to build up our Alpha slot. Part of the relief that was felt when threads came into play, at least by me, was because we could craft incarnate components faster with threads than with shards. Had the devs kept the shard system for the incarnate slots other than Alpha, it would have taken a lot longer to build up an incarnate. At a 1:5 ratio, by the time a player had the 5 shards necessary to craft a common salvage, that player had enough threads to craft a common salvage and was already 5 threads in to the next salvage. So I doubly don't get @Lazarillo's 5x as valuable useful comment.

For the purposes of buying the incarnate salvage, shards only buy the salvage used to craft Alpha slot powers using the shard system. I just checked to make sure I wasn't remembering wrong. So shards are still worthless past Alpha. And even for Alpha, they are pretty worthless because you still need Notices and Favors of the Well to craft the T3 and T4.

This.

How? I don't ever use shards except to convert to threads. I never found shards worthwhile after the Live devs introduced the post-Alpha incarnate powers. I have never found enough shards to build anything. And I don't farm Heather's arc or anything else for threads.

The OP was about taking an existing mechanic that does not do damage to anything other than fires and applying it to a power that also does not do damage. (The only damage that Storm Cell does is a triggered ability. It itself does no damage.) Those other powers, except for Hand Clap, all do damage. They just don't do the correct damage to be able to affect the fires. (Though for the record, I believe all water powers should do damage to those fires. I just am very aware of how enormous a job that would be and believe it is not worth the effort.) (Edit: Also, I can accept those other powers having as good a claim to being able to affect those fires. Not a better claim. Water is water and a good rain storm is great at putting out small fires like those.) (Edit again: Yes, I know the entire building is on fire, a raging inferno. We put out small fires on the building until the building is destroyed or the fires are all out though.)

That's disappointing as hell, but fair. A body can still dream though....