HelBlaiz

A cool mechanic for a grenade set would be a delayed effect. When used out of combat, the powers have a five second delay, no aggro, allowing you to lay on a few powers before everything happens at once. Would be difficult to code, I imagine, but would make it feel more tactical, like a gadget set should.

I do the 'from another dimension' thing a lot. Not everything I make fits neatly into the lore of CoH, a lot of fantasy inspired individuals and the like. I think the key is to sort of admit that your character doesn't fit in, and incorporate that friction. I have an Iron Golem with sentience who knows all sort of things about monsters and magic in a DnD setting, but had to learn about Paragon City and the Earth in general. He's still not all that great with technology. Not fitting in isn't the issue, it's the handwave of trying to twist the game's lore to fit. Claiming there's a well known family of catpeople in the world (which I've done in the past) might break suspension of disbelief for many, but if they were secret until recently, or aliens, or anything else that removes them from the canon timeline believably, then you're probably alright, since the world as others see it isn't really being disrupted. It's just a simple "Yes, and" instead of a "Forget Lore" sort of thing.

No, I definitely prefer a damage debuff on the affected target. That way it can be used to make an enemy less dangerous to help the tank, even if you can't peel them off to spread out the aggro. The defensive buffs on the melee support I'd keep in the inherent accompanied by buffs from the support set (with other only powers altered to grant SOMETHING to the caster on use).

I'm also not really a fan of Placate. An AoE placate sounds like an amazingly useful tool for someone like a blaster who draws lots of aggro due to high damage but can't survive it without lots of build investment. The way I imagine a melee support is primarily providing team utility (buffs/debuffs/control). I'd rather their aggro management were built into their bread and butter powers (mace stuns, axe kd, dark debuffs, and buffs altered to have a self effect). I definitely prefer the idea of a melee support being able to peel aggro off of others with a weaker mag taunt (so brutes/tankers/Khelds etc can over power it) while also making it easier for them to survive the aggro they just selflessly accepted. Tanks get a debuff on their taunt that makes enemies clump up (-range), melee supports get a debuff on their taunt that makes enemies easier to resist (-damage).

I'm more disappointed in the surprise factor of the influence change than anything. It felt kinda thrown in after all the exciting bit almost like fine print. If it were the first thing listed, it would be far less bothersome to me. That being said, I think it was the first thing listed in the general changes section, and the point of mentioned.ing exploits before fixing them makes it palatable. When I farm, I don't really care about efficiency or reaching a quota, so I doubt I'll really care in practice about the loss of profit.

I think the issue with difficulty being too low stems from IOs not being calculated into the difficulty curve. That being said, I don't think they should be. I haven't used any IO builds outside a fire farmer I copy and pasted, essentially. As an Invuln/TW tank, I can still be destroyed by Chimera (or whatever praetorian Manticore is called) and his lackeys if I'm not careful while running basic IOs. I'm fairly certain the leader had the levels adjusted upward and I was still leveling the toon at the time. I think I was level 35? I've also struggled to keep up with my IOd to the gills SG mates on the same character at fifty, again using basic IOs, no sets, against custom enemies in AE story arcs for rp events. Yes, the game can be too easy if you are slotting attuned sets as you level and stick to fighting easier spawns. It's a different story if you try leveling through first and night ward on just regular SO/IOs. If people are looking for a challenge to match their IO masterpiece with T4 incarnate powers, the game currently doesn't support that. I feel for them, I do, but if all they want is A challenge, use an SO build and fight some Malta/Arachnos instead of Council. Somewhere between -1x1 to +4x8 should provide a challenge then.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Tar Patch is a T3 power, and Sleet/Freezing Rain are T6? Sleet is T8 actually, isn't it? I'm not sure an early level power should be directly compared to a mid/late game power. Based on what I remember of the visuals, Tar Patch is also a larger area?

You could probably skip whirlpool with little issue, you already get a solid aoe with water burst and steam spray, and both of those are on short cooldowns in comparison.

Just had a thought for Amp Up, set the granted recharge to a decent, static (aha) number, and have the static expended instead reduce the power's cooldown. Make it recharge 5% faster per charge expended for a max of 25% off the base cooldown. So if it recharges in five minutes (can't check the real number atm) make a five stack cast reduce it to 3:45 minutes. And THEN apply recharge values, if possible.

I find your lack of meme recognition disturbing, MunkiLord.

To be fair, you have to have a pretty high IQ to succeed on a blapper...

Similar to the jousting trick, I've realized aim+bu with Blaze into Fire Sword is more than enough damage to instantly delete LTs. Rather than trying to wind up far, FAR away from my enemies, I use similar techniques to fire off Blaze mid air so it and Fire Sword hit damn near simultaneously. Gets rid of a pesky Tsoo sorcerer and puts me in range for Combustion, Cauterizing Aura, and all my other fun melee powers. Who needs distance?

@Dispari brings up some good points. The support powers mention arcing from you to your allies, and initially, I thought that meant they'd provide some benefit to the caster, or at least be castable solo. Some other comments early in the patch's history seemed to have the same expectation. The fact that only three of the powers are even castable solo was a bit of a disappointment. Converting a couple of the powers to work solo would also help with solo Static charging, which currently requires copious amounts of Shock spamming. At least one more Static builder for solo play would help out a lot. Discharge would feel a hell of a lot better if I had another power that never misses to build Static with to ensure a full stack cast in a timely manner.

I think the amount of End Drain in PvE might be overpriced. I love the effect, personally, but I feel it needs to be stronger to be worth its cost. Either have it drain more, or reevaluate how impactful it is in PvE and give back in other regards.

Finally back home and playing some more of my own Shock/Elec on the beta server, I definitely think some of the powers that require other players should be converted into at least a mediocre self-buff with awesome other-people-buffing effects should anyone be near enough to chain to. It would make generating Static stacks far easier solo. I'd say Rejuvenating Circuit and Empowering Circuit, since they're both early picks and offer some survivability and kill speed respectively. Empowering Circuit would also boost Endurance Modification to help amplify the Sapper aspect of Shock and Discharge.

There are enough criticisms about the name that righteous fury isn't really necessary. A name change seems pretty likely, but if it sticks, just imagine it was a villainous powerset similar to how villains didn't get Empathy originally. Instead they got a different, more aggressive variation called Pain Domination, to be extra eeeevil.

From the sounds of it, the only real comparison to Lightning Rod is the variable damage. LR does less damage the farther away the enemy is (If memory serves). New Dark Consumption does less damage the less endurance the caster has. I don't think a direct comparison is fitting.

Circuit Conduction, maybe? I'm not personally against the powerset name, but there does seem to be a fair amount of criticism of it. Gameplay wise, I haven't been able to play much of it yet. Only had a short bit of time between waking up and going to work. I can already tell the tier one doesn't recharge as quickly as I'd like, but that's what enhancements are for.

That all sounds like very valid advice @Outrider_01, but I don't think dropping the difficulty would do much to cancel out 3 to 6 stacks of 15%-20% defense (not quite sure the exact numbers on Nemesis Vengeance, so going off player values). Regardless, my point isn't to make Nemesis easier to fight. My point is to make it less frustrating by minimizing/removing a mechanic that provides punishing difficulty rather than engaging difficulty. Yes, you can tactically eliminate a spawn in the "correct" order to keep it from triggering. But you can't control the other one to seven players on your team. One person messing up and making a fight harder is one thing, one person messing up and potentially making it impossible feels like bullshit.

Not all characters have access to -Def powers. Not all characters with -def powers have auto hit -Def powers. If every group who fights Nemesis feels obligated to bring along a Rad defender, that's not engaging, that's a stat check. CoH might be a game of numbers, but that doesn't mean the only way to provide adversity is absurdly large numbers.

Whether or not it turns out to be fair would depend on the number values, those can be modified in testing until it feels right. The PREMISE of removing the Vengeance stacking for some more up front and immediate buffs is a solid one, so long as time is taken to make sure the numbers provide the proper feel for the fight.

I never thought I'd get so much resistance to the idea of making fights more dangerous AND less frustrating. But here we are, I suppose. I personally don't think what essentially amounts to giving an all but defeated mob godmode is very good game design, vengeance stacking and MoG alike. While tactics and coordination might eliminate it, you can only reliably do that solo or in e-sports style teamwork.

My issue IS the +Def portion. The issue with Nemesis fights isn't that they take 45 seconds to end, it's that the first three seconds are spent (on PUGs) nuking 95% of the spawn and the next 40 are spent trying to defeat the remaining portion hoping for RNGesus/Streak Breaker to intervene. Ideally, the fight would take the same 45 or so seconds, but instead of City of Whiffs causing it, it's the ebb and flow of Leadership buffs allowing the bulk of a spawn to survive the initial volley, get a Vengeance boost, and scrap it out. Instead of a sharp Spike down followed by a long, long, LONG time hovering JUST above 0% Spawn Health due to copious amounts of +Def, the line would dip from the initial alpha, then waver its way down in a more interesting and dangerous fight against more targets for longer. What sounds more interesting? Spending 90% of the fight missing one minion, or having an actual fight with most of a spawn for the same length of time?

With enough LTs, a spawn of Nemesis will essentially start with one stack of Vengeance worth of stats. If one LT dies, they're at two stacks worth, maybe a little less. That sounds less frustrating than four or six stacks of Vengeance on one minion, but still enough enough +def at the start to make things interesting.

My idea wasn't that ALL Nemesis unit s have leadership, but that the ITs have leadership toggles that buff their allies, making the fights tougher initially. Taking out one would eliminate one source of Leadership toggles, but also apply Vengeance, for a net increase in power, but wouldn't stack more than once. This essentially front loads some of their danger potential while alleviating the frustration of uberbuffed cannon fodder. With some number tweaking, it could make Nemesis more formidable AND less frustrating.