Rudra

First off, what do you mean by damage bomb? Second, if you don't want incarnate powers in the content you do, then don't use them. Third, yes, there were players that were upset when TOs were taken out. I was one of them. And if you knew TOs were removed, which they weren't, then why did you cry that new players have to figure out the transition from TOs to DOs? (TOs are still available for those that want to use them. They just have to go find them. Pretty sure SG base vendors still sell them up to level 30.) Fourth, vendors will not sell IOs, even generic IOs, because they are part of the crafting system. If you want IOs of any kind? You either have to craft them or buy them from a player that already crafted them. Fifth, the drop rates for salvage and recipes is already very good. Any more and you would get a constant stream of them. And most importantly, as has already been stated in every one of my responses, you do not get to take things away from other players. You do not get to: You do not get to force other players to play the way you want, taking away game options because you think they are underpowered and you want the more powerful option to be the minimum mandatory enhancement requirement for all players no matter what those other players prefer for their game experience. Let alone force other players to play a more difficult game because you think they should. There are players that want to freely and easily mow down their opposition because they just want to blast through the game and not worry about anything. That is their prerogative, and you have no right to take that away from them. So again, play how you want, but do not try to force others to play the same way. It doesn't matter to me in the slightest how often you say "damage bomb" or complain that players can play the game safely or anything else. Because those players get to play how they want just as much as you get to play how you want and I get to play how I want.

You are missing the point. If you want to play with a challenge, then play with a challenge. If you want play pumped up, then play pumped up. Play however you want to play. The game lets you do that right now. Mobs too easy if you use set IOs? Then use generic IOs. Mobs still too easy? Then use SOs. Mobs still too easy? Then use the difficulty settings to make them more powerful and/or numerous. However you want to play, go right ahead. However, this does not give you the right to tell others that are also playing how they want that they have to play the way you want. There are players in the game that play with SOs to maintain the game's original difficulty. There are players in the game that play with SOs because they are convenient, dropping from enemies and requiring no crafting or AH interaction. There are players in the game that play with SOs for whatever reason they have for wanting to do so. And you are calling to take that away so that you can make the game more challenging by taking away the weaker enhancements and requiring everyone to use the stronger enhancements, and then have the game re-balanced around that. That is you imposing your preferred play on others. You are demanding taking away what others are using, and the challenges they are currently facing, in the name of increasing challenge which players can already do using the options you are asking to take away. Edit: Also, there isn't a single player that has to solve TOs to DOs to SOs. TOs don't drop. They are only available from vendors, and only specific vendors at that. You have to go out of your way to find TOs.

Let's simplify this: No. If you don't want to play with SOs post level 32? Great. Don't slot them. Just slot your IOs and be happy. However, because you don't want to use SOs post level 32 does not mean you get to take SOs away from players that do want to use them for any reason post level 32. It's that simple. You can play how you want, but you don't get to require others play the same way.

Pretty sure aggro caps were implemented long before MARTy.

No.

Since farm missions in AE and story missions in AE are still both player created missions in AE, what would you suggest to deal with the situation?

This is way too complicated and I am against anything short of an Untouchable/Only Affects Self effect preventing the character from dying if a hit would/should kill it when it hits. That is the point of powers like Phase Shift, pop that if it looks like your character is about to die from something (that isn't a DoT already affecting the character). If you want an absorb component? Okay, I can get behind that. You want a regeneration effect based on number of layers? Okay, I can support that too. You want a +recharge effect based on number of layers? Sure. But not a 'this character simply ignores as many killing attacks as the character has layers' effect. And how would the game even know if an enemy was doing 'an alpha hit' for that matter?

What do you mean by ouro billboards? Billboards in Ouroboros?

Was MARTy even turned off? To trigger MARTy, you would have to be doing something beyond any level of game play. You would have to be hacking the game to pull off what MARTy says it counters. So it wouldn't come into play for things like farming or even exploit... uhm... exploitation.... (Edit: And to @Krimson, it wouldn't trigger for one-shotting the entire Freedom Phalanx. It would trigger for one-shotting the entire Freedom Phalanx, Arachnos Patrons, and Praetorian Preators at the same time.)

Say you can stack 3 layers, since player stacks seem to be 3 or 5 depending on the set. The PC has all 3 stacks up and is hit by an attack that would have killed the character. Except the attack doesn't kill the character and the character is still safe from 2 more such killing blows until able to throw a 3rd layer up again. Maybe just 1 more killing blow because the killing blow was a weakness hit. Any other character with any other armor set would simply be dead with no further chances to simply ignore more killing blows. Even a character using an armor with a heal has to time that heal to be used when they need it so it is not recharging when they actually need it and they don't die because they waited too long. With your proposal, they don't have to worry about timing anything. As long as that player has layers of armor, that character can't be killed. And if the pitch were to be 5 layers like some sets get stacks of their set's buff, that is an even more unkillable character. So no, I don't think having stacks of 'it's just a flesh wound' is balanced. If you don't like the heal option, that's fine. I'm open to more ideas, I just think being unkillable for X number of hits without using something like Phase Shift is OP.

That seems too powerful. To have the ability to ignore X killing blows depending on current stacks of water would almost make you unkillable. I like the idea, stacking layers that can be peeled off, I just think this presentation is too powerful. What if water armor was a mix of defense (the water causing attacks to slip by/past or diffusing hits to useless if the hit was too weak), damage resist (focused on fire, smashing, lethal, and toxic), and light regeneration with its schtick being that you can layer one power for bonus HP that does not regenerate. So to replenish that pool of HP, you have to recast the power. This could potentially be done similar to the Maintenance Drone. Or to simplify it, it could simply be a Maintenance Drone effect that is on the character or a healing ball of water that follows the character around (and only heals the character), providing supplemental healing up to its total health. (Yeah, I know, this is a really weird take on the idea. Sorry, trying to find a way to make it different from the other armor sets though.) Edit: That could be both an interesting and simple take on water armor. Make it a defense set with focused resists and a heal pet, either 'worn' or following, that only heals the character and probably can take damage to make it less OP of a self heal, instead of the normal heal.

I remember ticket farms, but those weren't popular. And I don't remember anyone getting regular rewards from AE until after the patch after AE was released. Edit: Yeah, I misremembered. The tickets were in lieu of random drops. My mistake. Apologies. (Edit again: I still don't remember power leveling farms that far back, just ticket farms, which I don't remember being popular, but seeing as I forgot how AE originally worked, I probably forgot those too.)

That was the problem with AE when it was first added though. Because you couldn't earn any xp or inf', just tickets, and those tickets had a cap that was quickly reached depending on what you did for your story, no one was doing any of the AE content. So you had players making the best stories they could, but they couldn't beg, plead, or otherwise tempt others into doing their stories unless they were close friends who had an interest in it. And even then, it was a difficult at best to get even those friends to try what you made because they weren't getting any immediate rewards. It was after the Live devs allowed AE to award xp and inf' that AE arcs finally started getting attention, but it also pretty much immediately saw farms being made. And the farms garnered way more attention than the stories, because most players seem to prefer fast gains over storytelling. The easy fix would have been to do what you are saying, revert AE back to just tickets, but then AE would have been a dead idea from lack of interest. The problem with the OP isn't xp or inf' being gained from AE. The problem is that it will do nothing for what the author is complaining about.

Considering that farming AE is still vastly simpler and more reliable than cycling missions or repeating Ouroboros, as long as AE gives xp and inf', it will likely always be the preferred means of farming unless AE goes back to only giving tickets. And I'm against AE going back to just tickets as reward, because back when it did, you couldn't get players to even try any player made stories/arcs in AE. However, pumping up xp and/or inf' awards from AE isn't going to help matters any either.

Yeah, but the response I was responding to was for the pitched change to pets + armor. Going back to the original, I've already given my response. About the only thing I have left to say on it until new information arises is that the armor set should be limited to Scrapper, not Tanker or Sentinel. As a control + armor AT, it is plenty robust between its ability to lock down entire spawns on top of getting any armors.

I disagree. A Scrapper gets lower caps for their armors than a Brute or Tanker, but gets to hit harder and gets routine crits (even if the ATOs are necessary to get those routinely). A Brute has to work harder to build up their armors than Tankers, but gets a combat driven damage boost. A pet focused AT with an armor secondary, even if that armor set were to use Scrapper caps instead of the requested Tanker or Sentinel, is going to be more robust than a Mastermind. Many armor sets also include a self-heal, which balances out the MM's heal for those MM secondaries that include a heal. (Edit yet again: It won't keep the pets alive, but since the Commander can just soak the damage where a MM can't, then it doesn't matter because the Commander can just summon more pets.) The current pitch for Commander also seems to be all 6 pets with both their upgrades, so the Commander isn't losing out on number of henchmen or their capability. (Henchmen class pets are already weaker than pet class pets, so I doubt an even weaker class of pets would be made.) And with no support abilities for the Commander player to keep clicking to keep them and their pets in the fight, the Commander can focus more on their attacks. Even if those attacks are melee instead of ranged. So while the MM is splitting focus on what his/her/their/its henchmen are doing to limit aggro, spamming buffs or debuffs, re-summoning if needed, and maybe trying to squeeze in some attacks as well, the Commander can just attack, pop the occasional self-heal, not really worry if their pets run off to another spawn because the Commander can probably tank it or endure long enough to leave, and summon replacement pets for added damage if feels like it. That's not just a different play style. Edit: And how much of a partial sharing are we talking about? 10%? 50%? Somewhere else between those? Remember that henchmen also have their own native resists and defenses. So say a Commander gets to 75% damage resists. How much of that 75% is being shared with the pets on top of their own damage resists? Or your Commander gets to 50% positional defense. How much of that will be shared with the pets? Especially with defense-based pets like the ninjas. And after you add in Leadership? (Edit again: A Force Field MM has to renew their shields every 4 minutes. The Commander has to renew their defense boosts for their pets never if they can simply share their armor. Doesn't sound equitable to me.)

Then there would be very little point in playing a MM. Why bother making a MM where you have to keep using your support abilities to bolster and protect your pets if you can just make a Commander and let your pets enjoy the benefits of your armor set while still enjoying the full suite of MM pets and their upgrades? If the proposed AT were changed to an armor and MM pet set, then that is all it should be. Your character gets an armor set and your pets are left to their own devices for survival. No BG Mode, because the AT does not need it to survive like how MMs routinely do. No extending character armor effects to the pets. Just summoned pets, their upgrades, your 3 native attacks, and your armor powers. The whole point of me pointing out that pets will die without the MM's support abilities is to remind others of that. (Edit: Most of the complaints about MMs is having to re-summon pets as needed.) I'm fine with re-summoning as needed.

And why would the AT be given Bodyguard Mode when it has an armor set for its secondary? The point of BG is to keep the MM alive. The proposed AT can already do that with its armor.

Without the MM's support abilities, those pets are likely going to die horrible, gruesome deaths fairly repeatedly.

Make sure you find and wipe out the entire spawn of both Fortunatas at the back area after initially freeing him. As long as any mobs from either spawn survives, he will not move.

Probably a Brute rather than a Tanker. The levels line up with a Brute.

I see no reason to oppose the OP. So unless there is a dev reason why this cannot or should not happen, I say go for it. I won't use it, but neither will I have to. So if others want it and will use it, more power to you.

Armor/Support wouldn't be impossibly slow but safe, it would be impossible to do solo missions, but incredibly safe. The only attack you would be guaranteed to have is Brawl. Every other attack would have to be bought from START or gained from a power pool. I'm also uncertain about giving the BotD to the OP for Tanker/Controller because the OP says Tanker primary and Controller secondary. That is very specifically Armor/Support. Though I do grant that the OP's "final pet replaced with taunt" lends heavy credence to to the author simply being confused since as far as I can remember, only 3 Controller secondaries have pets as in mobs that will follow your character around or chase down enemies, and only 1 of them has it as the final power. However, the second part of the OP with Controller primary and Sentinel secondary, so Control/Armor, is at least viable. Even though you would still lose the Controller's Containment ability and its associated damage boost.

Sure.

It also gave background information like for the ghost ship.