Rudra

The only civilians you rescue in the Safeguards are the ones found in the vault side mission (which grants the Security Expert badge for completing 5 of those side missions) and the one in the kidnapping mission (which thankfully grants no badge for either heroes rescuing the kidnappee or villains kidnapping the person because those sides royally suck). (The PPD in the jail side mission aren't civilians and also already have their own badge for being rescued, so they don't count.) Civilians on the street in the Safeguards are no more directly threatened by the NPC villains than they are in the Mayhems. There are no instances of there being a civilian on the street with villains standing by them threatening them. (Though I very much agree that the murder 1,000 civilians in the Mayhem was a terrible badge to add and I absolutely hate that I have to specifically run around murdering civilians to complete my badges. Not even my pets will attack the civilians even on Aggressive. So you specifically have to be trying to kill them to get the badge.)

That depends entirely on the base design. For instance, my primary base on Everlasting has everything you need up front. You enter through base portal, leave the entrance room, and you are looking at the base teleporters ahead of you, have the merit vendor and crafting table at your left, and the storage areas are store fronts on either side of you. Everything is right there. And the rest of the base is still there if you want to sight see. There is a way to make a base that is effectively a small base for accessing everything you want to use for content playing while still retaining a large, scenic base for people to enjoy. (Edit: And the buff station and the Pillar of Ice and Fire are conveniently at the teleporters. As is the tip mission "vendor" where you can spend reward merits to get the mission you want.) (Edit again: And the tailor, trainer, and stores are in the entrance room. So again, everything is in a small, easily navigated space at the entrance.)

Appreciate this. The issue I have is I can't find this on City of Data and it does not list her fire sword attack which I watched her use. And it wasn't a Sorceress Serene combined ice and fire swords tandem blade attack, it was a large made of fire scimitar attack. (Edit: She also never used any fire projectiles.) Please provide link. Thanks. Edit again: Thanks for the link. Any idea why she didn't use Flares or Fire Blast which are listed but did use Fire Sword which is not listed? If this is the correct data, then I was wrong and I admit it. However, it does not match the powers she used against Sorceress Serene at the end of the arc.

Shake your head all you want. City of Data only lists Antipodal Strike twice. Once for TalonsofVengeance.Diviner and again for TalonsofVengeance.Sorceress Serene. And the wiki only lists it under Talons of Vengeance, where War Witch is not listed. As for not being there long enough? What, am I supposed to just sit there and watch as Sorceress Serene and Lamashtu go to town on my character and the assisting NPCs? If War Witch has it, I didn't see it, and I'm not just going to sit and watch a fight to see if she eventually does. Edit: I just realized you just showed me a picture of Sorceress Serene's Talons of Vengeance powers list. Which is not a War Witch powers list.

That's the whole point of the suggestion. Simply a means of getting more powers. Note that the OP does not say temp powers, though by the nature of how these powers would be gained, they would still need to be temp powers. That is why there is no work done on defining what any of the supposed TFs would be about. Not even an example TF for a pick a random character the author wants the powers of. Effort is put into naming powers that would be granted to the character for doing the TF(s), but not defining the TF(s) themselves. (The author put so much effort into the suggestion, that (s)he/they even listed non-existent characters as Signature Characters for us to learn more about and get powers from because (s)he/they used an AI chatbot to generate the initial suggestion. At least before (s)he/they went back and replaced the non-existent characters with Mirror Spirit, Manticore, and War Witch.) (Edit: At least as temp powers, they really wouldn't be unbalancing. Just give them the normal less effective than primary/secondary powers treatment and cap them at a low usage count that doesn't stack but can be refreshed after depletion.)

A funny thing happened. I just ran that arc to see War Witch use Serene's Dominator powers. And you know what happened? She didn't. She threw a series of ice blasts and she swung a fire sword. She swung that fire sword once. Every other attack she used? Was an ice blast from the Ice Blast Blaster primary power set.

Prove that War Witch has those powers. Because War Witch's data says she is a Magic origin Blaster with Ice Blast primary and Fire Manipulation secondary. And no Talons of Vengeance powers. (Edit: And those aren't Sorceress Serene's body's powers. Those are Sorceress Serene's powers. As opposed to War Witch's powers.) And City of Data shows she lacks any Talons of Vengeance powers. (See @Glacier Peak's provided link above.)

Prove. It. (Edit: And by the way? If you're going to correct me on the name, which you are right in that I got it wrong, you should probably make sure you don't also get the name wrong as part of you correcting me.)

That's why I made a point of quoting him/her/them too. To make sure (s)he/they can't just change their post and claim it was just misread, misunderstood, or was never the way it was.

Wrong. Prove it. Here is what is said about War Witch and Sorceress Serene's body: During the mission Stop Serene's Ritual This body once belonged to the Praetorian Clarissa Moore, known as Sorceress Serene, but now it holds the spirit of Primal Earth's Clarissa Moore, the heroine better known as War Witch. That's it. As for what is said on Sorceress Serene's page? This is it: Sorceress Serene's Primal Earth counterpart is War Witch. That's it. Nothing else. So show me where it says War Witch suddenly got Talons of Vengeance powers for taking Selene's body. Wiki links provided again: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/War_Witch https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Sorceress_Serene

Sure, except for the small problem that Sorceress Serene gained Talons of Vengeance powers, whereas War Witch did not. Like how @Glacier Peak said. (Edit: And just because War Witch successfully managed to acquire Sorceress Serene's body for herself does not mean she got Serene's powers. She still has her own powers.) Edit again: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/War_Witch https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Sorceress_Serene I'm not seeing anywhere on either of their pages where it says anything about "which means war witch soul inhabits the body of sorceress serene's body, which means she has her powers too." So I very much would like to know where that is coming from. Please provide a link to prove you aren't just adding that to make it up.

Yeah, I was trying to leave the example powers alone. Like what does War Witch have to do with "Autumnal Equinox" or "Harvest Blades"?

Sure. Let's do this part by part. To start, players never reach level 54. We max out at level 50+3. And our level 50+3 characters can test their "developed skills and abilities" by doing any incarnate content or Advanced Mode TF/SF. So the idea that something needs to be added to test our fully developed characters isn't something novel. We already can. That in and of itself is not reason enough to say "no", it just says that this justification is nonsense. Stating that granting characters added powers won't disrupt game balance is a load of bunk. Incarnate powers already disrupt game balance. Do any level 45+ non-incarnate mission and tell me that your incarnate powers don't render the enemies within completely harmless. Players already come in contact with "well-loved figures in the game's lore". We do this by doing their TFs/SFs or by encountering them in various missions where they turn up. So, again, not a reason to say no to the OP, but the justification is itself bunk. We already have high level TFs and SFs. We also have iTrials. And none of these "foster community engagement and competition". Especially not the competition part. As for "badge of honor"? That comes from the badges we get from doing said TFs, SFs, and iTrials. So again, a justification that shows a complete lack of awareness of the game the OP is being suggested for. And this statement is just pure generic nothing. So! There you go!

That is a much kinder comment than I was inclined to make....

That needs to be fixed, yes, but did you try re-logging the character?

Even that sometimes requires multiple attempts to have work. (Edit: They will exit with you, but they may not be under your control for the first try or two.)

The only complaints I have come across in game for the EBs are the frequency with which they appear. For instance, one of my friends is running around with me doing ToT'ing, just the 2 of us, and every 3rd or 4th door we don't get an EB. Which leaves her frustrated at the number of EBs we are fighting. (Edit: We're in Kallisti Wharf and I don't see anyone in the area. So it isn't others nearby triggering it.)

If they are on a different floor and they don't simply teleport to you, then they are most likely stuck on something. If they are stuck on something to the point where they cannot be recalled, then dismissing them is almost guaranteed to fail in aggravatingly interesting ways. Most notably, by removing the pet from your control without despawn, which will prevent you from summoning a replacement.

They don't make less mistakes. The rate at which MM pets run into the 4 issues I listed does not change when they move faster. They make up the ground faster. Speed Boosted pets are a good example. If you watch your speed boosted pets, you will see them snag on every little thing they can find on the map, but once they get past that snag, their speed gets them to you that much faster. Net result? They seem to be affected less, but they aren't. The reason why they run back is the same reason why NPCs we have to escort run back. They need to get to their last good pathing beacon to figure out their path forward. That doesn't change just because they move faster. And when they run into geometry issues, they stick to them just as long as they do when they aren't speed boosted. So, no, increasing their movement does not resolve the 4 issues. As an added thought, a problem that arises from increasing pets' speed also happens to show up well on speed boosted pets. When something triggers them to run, such as a damage patch or a fear effect, their speed moves them away from you that much faster, so they end up getting farther away from you. While their increased speed also means they get back to you at a faster rate, so they spend just as much time away from you, it also increases the number of spawns that aggro because of your pets. So increasing MM pet speeds only shows as an improvement if they get a massive boost to their speed, because as I said, my ninjas are faster than my ninja MM, and they still can't keep up, but it also comes at a cost of less pet control and more potential aggro. Sometimes, easy fixes aren't the way to go.

Except for the Necromancy set, where the pets seem to actually be slower, MM pets do have the speed to keep up with your MM character. Until you activate travel powers. A few things work against pets for keeping up with the MM. The first is that the pets will not start running to your MM until they are outside of the assigned area for them to be considered to be at your MM. (This area has to be sufficiently sized so that your pets are not all clustered against your character as if they are trying to run inside your character like NPCs do on CO.) So until you move far enough away that your pets realize you are leaving, they just wait. So they start off lagging behind. The 2nd thing that works against pets is the terrain. Like any other NPC in the game, any errors or changes in map geometry is something they will find and get stuck on until the game figures out how to navigate past it. The 3rd thing ties into the 2nd. The game's AI processing is... limited.... So just like you see with NPC escortees when navigating stairs, ramps, or any other area where the pathing beacons may be less than perfect, the game has to figure out how to get from the last pathing beacon to the next. And the game gets confused very easily. And the 4th thing is their combat level. Movement speed caps increase as you level up. So your T1 pets are slightly slower than your T2 pets which are slightly slower than your T3 pet. (In the case of my ninjas, since my run speed was not at cap, this meant my T2 and T3 pets were actually faster than my MM, but the first 3 things prevent them from keeping up. In the case of my T1s, they were slower, so they had everything against them for keeping up. [Edit: At even though my T2 and T3 pets are faster than my MM? They still can't keep up. See issues 1-3 above.]) Even using Speed Boost on your pets runs into the 4 problems. The difference with Speed Boost is that your pets speeds are now fast enough that by the time the game finishes sorting out terrain concerns, AI pathing concerns, and the delay before the pets start to move, they are able to overtake your MM. ... at least... most of the time....

Except it is for balance reasons. The more pets of a given tier your character has, the more powerful and effective that pet power is. As you are already aware, when you first get a MM pet power, it only has 1 pet of the henchman tier. (As opposed to pet tier.) That 1 pet increases your character's damage output considerably. Now when you get another pet of that tier, that greatly boosts your combat ability. To keep those pets from simply erasing your foes, they suffer a level penalty. Mathematically, the level penalty evens out what those pets can do because those pets are less likely to hit and do less damage when they do hit because of their lower levels. The pets themselves don't see a loss of damage or accuracy, but the level penalty itself is one. So a MM running all 3 pet powers will be more effective than a MM with a single pet power, and a MM with say only the T1 pet power will be more effective with all 3 of the pets it gives than if the power still only gave 1 pet, but that level penalty brings their combat effectiveness back down to a point where the MM isn't just devouring everything the map has. Now for incarnate content, which includes the Dark Astoria zone, incarnate enemies are much more powerful than regular enemies even at +0 (normal) difficulty. So MM pets suffering a level penalty in these situations was a handicap. The attempt at balance failed because it takes so much more to fight incarnate enemies. It was no longer a question of players choosing to play at higher difficulties and the pets not keeping up, now it was just regular difficulty content (for incarnate content) that the pets were struggling with. So for incarnate content, as long as your pets stay within Supremacy's radius, they get a level boost to get them all up to your character's full current incarnate level. As for MM's being the only ones that suffer the pet level penalty? While this is true for the pets gaining the level penalties as the MM levels up for the MM getting more of each pet, it is not true for pets in general. The difference is that Controller and Dominator pets start with their full array of pets, so if their pet power summons more than 1 pet, those pets start with their -1 level penalty. (The difference here being that Controller and Dominator pets do not suffer more than a -1 level shift even if the power summons 3 pets. I have not run my Dominators through any incarnate content yet, so I don't know if they get the MM's pet level increases or not.)

That's even worse than insider trading. That may work red side, but it sure won't blue side. And how would it affect gold side? (Does gold side even have a stock market, or have all the companies been effectively seized by the Praetors and only allowed such autonomy as is needed to function without the ability to publicly trade shares?)

Meh, I don't care if Divining Rod is made autohit or not. When I get the mission that requires it, just like any other single mission temp powers other than the Lost Curing Wand, I just ignore them and wipe out the opposition normally. Then when I report back, the contact is always happy with the temp powers' results. (Only the Lost's wand needs to be used, and it doesn't miss. At least in my experience.) And normally, I find my own attacks to be far more effective at dealing with the assigned targets than whatever temp power I was given, so using my own attacks instead gets me through the mission that much faster.

And +2% HP healed per second. You left that out. Again. Your comment compared Adrenal Boost to Unrelenting, stating that Adrenal Boost is superior to Unrelenting because Unrelenting's offense is weaker than Adrenal Boost. Except that Adrenal Boost's purpose is offense whereas Unrelenting's purpose is to heal or rez you, but also boosts your offense. And now you shift to Rune of Protection instead which is just damage resistance and mez protection, so no offense in it at all, and Unleash Will, which is just regeneration, recovery, and defense, so again, no offense at all. You are now comparing 4 different powers that only peripherally overlap for completely different purposes. For the sake of saying that Unrelenting is bad. It can't boost your defense. It can't boost your damage resistance. It can't boost your ToHit. And it doesn't even boost your damage or recharge as much as Adrenal Boost. So, obviously, it sucks, right? That's how it works? Except Adrenal Boost's purpose is to boost your offense, and that's it. So it does that well. Rune of Protection's purpose is to make you more unkillable through damage resistance and mez protection. So it does that well. Unleash Will is supposed to make you more unkillable by defense, regeneration, and recovery. So it does that well. Unrelenting is supposed make you more unkillable with a HoT and recovery buff, while also boosting your offense slightly with increased damage and recharge. Or rez you if you didn't use it before you died. 4 powers with very different approaches to helping your character. And only by looking at everything those powers do is any comparison valid. Is Adrenal Boost a superior offensive buff? Yes. Is Rune of Protection a superior armor buff? Yes. Is Unleashed Will a superior defense buff? Yes. Does that make Unrelenting bad? Not even close. Because it still heals you constantly for 30 seconds, boosts your recovery, boosts your damage, and boosts your recharge. It is not supposed to compete with Adrenal Booster, Rune of Protection, or Unleash Will. All 4 powers serve a different purpose. With only Rune of Protection and Unleash Will holding the same basic role, with a different approach to the matter. I don't care how flattering or unflattering you find the presentation for Unrelenting and the Presence pool at large. It is not a travel pool, so it gets no travel power. It is a supplemental pool. If the rest of you want to argue about buffing the set? I don't care. Like I said, go for it. Bash away. My comment is solely to point out that you are ignoring the core function of Unrelenting. For the apparent sake of dismissing the Presence pool as a set. You don't like the options to pacify, taunt, or fear enemies? That's fine. Not everyone plays the same. If you are going to argue that a set or power needs to be buffed or changed though? Then everything that power or set does is part of the discussion. Not just the part(s) you prefer. Thank you for declaring my builds are not good for needing to sometimes get an extra buff in my resilience when multiple spawns jump my brutes at once. Long cooldowns only seem to be a problem when it comes to power sets you want changed. You sure don't seem to have a problem with Adrenal Booster having the same long cooldown though. They both have a 600 second base recharge.

Check the Experimentation pool and look at how Adrenal Booster completely outclasses Unrelenting offensively. I love how you only look at part of the powers in question. Adrenal Booster grants +34.6% all damage, +34.6% ToHit, +34.6% recharge, and as affected by PowerBoostA and/or PowerBoostB tags, +34.6% defense, +34.6% movement, and +34.6% mez effects for 60 seconds. So this is a power that is focused on boosting your damage and secondary effects. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.experimentation.adrenal_booster&at=scrapper https://cod.uberguy.net/html/tags.html?tag=powerboosta&q=bears https://cod.uberguy.net/html/tags.html?tag=powerboostb&q=bears (So unless you use specific powers while Adrenal Booster is going, you only get the +34.6% all damage, +34.6% ToHit, and +34.6% recharge.) Unrelenting grants +2% health/second, +20% recharge, +20% recovery, and +25% all damage for 30 seconds, and if used when defeated instead, rezzes you with 50% health. This is a power that is supposed to rez you (because once upon a time it was only a self-rez), but can also be used instead to heal you (over time), bolster your recovery so you can use your powers more (if needed), and also boosts your damage and recharge. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pool.manipulation.unrelenting&at=scrapper Offense isn't all there is to a power. You want to bash a power set? Go ahead. At least be honest about how the powers in it work though.