carroto

I don't know about the intention either, but I finally got around to testing this. Slotted the full set into Blinding Powder then went to the RWZ to test. What a disappointment. The proc doesn't last long at all. I did occasionally see it affect a lieutenant, which was nice. Didn't get any bosses. Also got some minions that the main confuse missed. But it seemed like it just lasted long enough for them to get off a couple of attacks. I guess that would be fine, but the cone is rather small. So there's a chance (50%) that some of the minions (because many won't fit in the cone) in a group will be confused. Add in a couple more due to the proc I guess, and maybe I've redirected a tiny bit of the alpha. Hardly seemed worth it. If that power belonged to a squishy that would be one thing, but it's in an armor set. Blunting the attacks of a handful of minions isn't a great result for a power pick and that many slots. If I didn't slot the full set maybe I could mix and match to get some range in there and enlarge the cone, and turn it from a complete waste of a power to only mostly one. The only reason I'd see taking and slotting the power is for the set bonuses, but I'd probably keep it off my tray. Wasn't worth it to me. I took it out of my build. A part of me wants to be angry at the people in the past who sold that combo as some great and powerful toy. As for the proc in other powers, I guess if it works for others that's great. I haven't tried it elsewhere but it's hard to imagine it being much better. The one exception I can see is maybe toggle powers like Arctic Air or World of Confusion. It had such a short duration even when I tested it against even-con and below level foes. It must be even shorter against above-level foes.

I'm trying now to remember if I've ever seen it happen on a fast AS or only on slow. I've definitely seen it happen quite a few times on the slow AS from hide. I can't recall if I've seen it on a fast AS. This might be why it's not more commonly reported, since the standard advice these days seems to be to use a different attack to open from hide and only use fast AS.

I don't remember this from before shutdown but I've experienced it across different power sets on HC since I came back. So it's been happening for over a year. The other thing related to AS that I've seen but don't remember from before is mobs having time to see me, react, and get a hit in before AS applies damage. So even if I take out a minion in one shot they have ample time to attack. This one might be more variable across power sets. I remember it the most from Staff Fighting, but it seems like I've experienced it to some degree with others as well.

Given what's valued in the game these days, I'd say it would have to get -res and/or -regen. Anyone bringing those is considered to be contributing regardless of what else they do.

This is why I always use the Prestige Power Slide as my sprint. It's really hard not to notice when it's on. Plus it masks the Ninja Run animation while running.

If it were me I would probably do it that way so that the original derivation was preserved. Documenting it elsewhere could get lost. Trying to understand the intent from the simplified version would be much harder. This way is good for those of us who like to look under the hood as well. It also makes it easier to tweak one of the parameters individually. I doubt the extra math operations cost enough to matter, so I'd keep it simple for the implementer in the form we see.

I would take any change that allowed me to have a second cone that could actually hit a good number of enemies. Nightfall as it stands is just too narrow. I've taken to skipping it and proccing up Torrent. Not a great solution, but at least it has a wide enough cone. My preference would be to just widen Nightfall. Like others have said, it's a fun animation. Feels powerful. But really I'd take the first suggestion over what we have now. It doesn't matter how fun the animation for Nightfall is if the power is bad enough that I end up skipping it.

Not sure how that would work. My guess is that having stackable holds in the secondary would be seen as too much. I realize that Doms get stuns in /Energy, but they don't have any fast-recharging stuns in a primary they can stack on them. Then again they did get Seismic Smash, so maybe I'm wrong. This Blaster secondary is not calling to me, but a mix of this and Sonic Blast for Doms could be interesting. Probably still wouldn't be great though. Sonic Blast isn't great for any AT that doesn't have high debuff numbers, which I believe applies to Doms. So it would be a mix of a low-tier primary with a (by all appearances so far) middling secondary.

First I've heard of this. You mean that spheres have half reach vertically? More of an ellipse, then. Edit: Now that I think of it, this would fit if all these sorts of powers had the same shape as Dispersion Bubble. You can clearly see the difference in height there.

Okay but if I took Lightning Field at level 4 and am currently level 10, what power do I have after I27 goes live? In I26 I couldn't take Build Up until level 16, and Lightning Field doesn't exist anymore. So what power do I have now? Do I have Dynamo, the sustain, at level 10? Seems like Lightning Field would have to be replaced with Build Up, even though the enhancements would make no sense.

I believe that puts it in line with other Blaster secondary AoE mezz options. I wouldn't expect that to get reduced.

How can you tell that the power is even suppressing at all in the first place then? Is it because you have to be closer than the power's max range, close enough to be seen, before enemies will be affected, while they would have been affected from further away without stealth? Also did you by any chance test with Stealth + Stealth IO? I'm wondering if the suppression is just going off of the stealth power's effects and ignoring the total stealth value. If so then I'd expect the powers to notify mobs even if the character has effective invisibility from Stealth + Stealth IO. If that's how it works then this change will offer little real benefit to those using the combo. It will mean that Invisibility will be the only actually useful power to stealth by enemies with one of the damaging/debuffing sustains active.

I'm wondering exactly how it works when powers are re-ordered. What happens to existing characters? For example Blaster Electrical Manipulation powers are getting re-ordered. So what happens to existing characters when the issue gets released? If I had a power at a specific tier does it just get directly swapped for the new power at the same tier? So for example Lightning Field at tier 3 is being replaced with Build Up. So if I want Build Up after I27 goes live, should I take Lightning Field now? Just trying to work this out because I have an Elec/Elect Blaster currently at level 10 and I don't know what powers to pick as I'm leveling up. Since we don't seem to get freespecs on HC even when major power changes are made I'd like to avoid having to respec if possible. Not sure if I should avoid playing that Blaster or maybe don't train up until I27 drops. Problem is that could be quite a while, and it would be strange to play with such a limited power and slot selection for very long.

I don't see why it wouldn't. If so that's amazing because honestly if I had to choose between /Elec and /Martial as a Blaster secondary to be brought back into playability for me, I'd choose /Martial. I guess I'd have to take another look at /Fire and /Ice as well. Lots to consider. Of course we'll have to see if/when it arrives how it works. I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work, but we won't know until we test it out.

I had this same exact thought. I'd love to see a discussion based on first principles around why it should be shorter than other attacks. Something other than "Well it's always been that way." After all, that decision was made during the infamous part of Jack's reign in which he was trying to force people to play the "right way", which was different from what people actually enjoyed. In practice if I want to use all of my powers I'll tend to have to be at the shortest range of all of them. So one power having a shorter range means that's the max distance I can be from enemies. All my powers might as well have that same short range. Sure I could use my immobilize only on enemies that are trying to close on me, but even then it can be hard to judge the distance, and I'll often get that "out of range" sound. It's clunky and makes the power so much less useful that I'm tempted to just take it off the tray. It seems to me like the sort of decision that seems great in the design session, but doesn't work out so great in actual play. Unfortunately sometimes those things become ossified and take way too long (or never) to get reconsidered.

I have the same issue with this change. Being able to move around missions in stealth is a core component of my play style. Enemy-notifying auras completely break that. There are already quite a few Blaster secondaries that I can't play for this reason. Unfortunately I only found out about /Martial's aggro aura / sustain after I leveled to 20 and tried it out. That Blaster got parked permanently. Was really too bad because I liked /Martial otherwise. I just rolled up my first /Elec Blaster not that long ago. Then this patch comes out and apparently it's going to shut down another of my characters. As it stands there are fewer and fewer Blaster secondaries that are any good (for me of course). I guess I'll have to resign myself to using the same few secondaries over and over. Well at least my /Elec Blaster is only low level. I haven't invested much time. I feel for those players who have. In the past there was a possible workaround. Not a great one, but sufficient. I could take Invisibility and take advantage of the OAS in it to avoid notifying mobs. However the OAS was removed from Invisibility a while back despite protestations from players who used it in this way. So now there's not even a workaround. It would be great if we could get the enemy-affecting components of those auras to suppress while under the effect of some minimum threshold of stealth, like Stalkers do when in Hide. I'm not really expecting it though. More likely I'll just have to write off /Elec. I'm tempted to invoke the Cottage Rule, but that debate has apparently already been had up-thread. Whether or not this change technically violates that rule, I'd say it certainly does violate the more fundamental design principles that led to the rule. I remember the great care the original devs took to avoid making changes that would break player's characters or invalidate a play style, even if it was an extreme minority of players who engaged in it. Of course at times they did, but it was clear that they only did so when they felt it was essential and they'd explored every possible alternative. I remember that there were many changes that were proposed or made it to beta, and when the devs learned about how it was affecting players they went back and found another way. There's just no way they would have done some of the things we're seeing here. I hate to be so negative and just complain. I have a great deal of appreciation for the devs here volunteering their time. It shouldn't be surprising that they can't put the same level of effort into these changes as a team of people being paid full-time. I guess if I could make one request, it would be to be a little slower on the trigger with these changes. If a change will break people's characters and that change isn't absolutely essential for game balance in the short-term, maybe just leave it until a better solution can be found.

You can get quite a few contacts for "free" with the Find Contact tool. I always get these contacts without having to do a bank mission: Port Oakes: Mr. Bocor Cap Au Diable: Dr. Shelley Percey -> Marshal Brass, Golden Roller Sharkhead: Darrin Wade, who after a couple of missions introduces your choice of Petrovich, Lorenz Ansaldo, or Vince Dubrowski Nerva: Darla Mavis -> Psimon Omega -> Technician Naylor St. Martial: Vivacious Verandi -> Jezebel Jones Grandville: Westin Phipps, who after a few missions will introduce Terrence Dobbs, who will introduce Regent Korol

Not sure if this applies but in the character creator when I select a costume piece that has a pattern I can choose that matches, put that pattern at the top of the list rather than the bottom. So for example if for chest I select "Bodysuit Armored", there is also a "Bodysuit Armored" pattern for it I can choose, but it's all the way at the bottom of the list. Also maybe sort the lists in the character creator alphabetically? Add a button next to each option that will pop up a search so if I know what I'm looking for I don't have to scroll through looking for it. Probably a lot that could be done there but it would probably be a redo so I'll leave it there.

There are a number of issues with the numeric input fields used with the AH and elsewhere. I think they apply both to the pop-up when placing stacks on the AH (or in vault storage) and for setting prices in the AH. If I click-drag to select the number in the box (I usually go right-to-left), it tends to lose the selection after I release the mouse button, so I usually have to do it twice. I don't have this issue outside the game, so I presume this has something to do with the way it's coded here. I've also run into an issue where if I select the text there and start typing, sometimes I will not see anything. Seems like it's happening invisibly off to the left outside the visible area of the box. So it looks like the box is empty. Then I click in the box again to make sure it has focus and start typing, and suddenly what I typed before shows up and the new text is appended to the end, so I've come close to selling or bidding way too high a price before due to this issue. Also I'd love it if the pop-up for moving stacks of items to the AH would recognize if I moved all the items in a stack and the next one I drag, would default to all the items in that stack regardless of size. I work around this by starting large and working towards small. But sometimes I miss a stack and having to drag that tiny little slider to the right over and over is not ideal. Maybe a rethinking here would help. Maybe a checkbox for just "all", so it's easy to just move entire stacks to the market. Even if it reset after each session to avoid mistakes, if it could remember that checkbox setting within a session it would help tremendously. Also regarding that numeric stack pop-up, it starts with the input field blank for the first stack. If I click-drag the slider to the right, it doesn't work at first. I've found that I have to first click-release the slider, so that it puts a zero in the input field, and then click-drag to the right. If it could just accept a click-drag from the start that would be less clunky.

When using enhancement boosters / catalysts don't make me wait many seconds after applying one before the UI resets and I can do another. Better yet, maybe rethink this UI altogether, although just speeding up the current one would be a huge improvement. It seems like the original devs expected that using these would be a rare event and wanted to make applying them impactful. However it's not unusual for me to boost quite a few IOs after a respec, not to mention catalyzing an entire set of ATOs at once. It's one of the aspects of putting together a build I like the least.

...and for the love of all that is holy (or whatever you value), please have it retain the current setting when you place a new enhancement in it, rather than resetting every...damn...time.

I was going to mention this one. If I repeatedly click an item to take multiples, it usually takes just a few clicks before all the items in the list re-order themselves. Then once I scroll to find the item again, taking another causes the list to reset to original again, so I have to scroll back to continue taking them. I've found that if I click slowly enough this doesn't happen, so it makes it a bit tedious to take a stack of items, because I have to slooowly take them so the list doesn't jump around. Ideally I'd like to have a "take all" option, or a "take many" with a pop-up like when placing stacks on the AH.

Stalker Dark Melee doesn't get Soul Drain. So does that mean that Stalkers can get an improved (read: decent) version of ToF?

Like...the ground?

I hate to be one of "those" players, but I'm afraid I must. However I'll start off by saying that I recognize and appreciate the tremendous amount of work that clearly went into this set of changes. It's surprising that a volunteer team has managed to do so much. Thank you all for the care and passion that you have put into this project. However...I am rather disappointed on a personal level. Few of the additions and improvements will benefit me, but many of the reductions will. On balance this is a loss for me, so it's hard to get excited by it. I'd say the largest disappointment is the feeling that sets are being homogenized. I've seen that over and over since I've been here. Things that make sets unique are altered or removed. It's clear that some of the most popular and fun sets could never exist in the modern game if they were not grandfathered in. I am aware that there are some new gimmicks being added, and I enjoy some of them, but that's not the same thing. I'm happy for the players who are getting improvements or new toys they will enjoy. I don't think any of these changes will "ruin" any of my characters or cause me to shelve them. I'll need a few respecs and I'll adjust. I'm not seeing any reason to roll up new characters I wouldn't consider before either. Not that a new issue has to provide that, but it would have been nice. Thanks again for all the work that went into this. I'll try to make some time to test but it might be hard to motivate myself.