Nemu

Nothing changes, S/L/E/R still covers a lot, and if you understand how to make movement an advantage then you are golden. Even more so when you have other forms of mitigation at your disposal. The other school of thought is to cram all those 6 piece winters to buff up F/C def. That works too, but can be expensive, and also at the cost of other bonuses/procs. I also expect to see more pure range builds, That's the easy way out.

The typical cookie cutter build that gives blasters a good balance of offense and defense will include both the fighting and leadership pools. Defense is the easiest way to augment blaster survival. This link gives you an explanation of why defense is important. https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Defense_Effectiveness

Maybe Capt Powerhouse is a Pierrot Lunaire fan.

Second brainstorm, why more people don't just make their home there is beyond me. You don't want to grind to get maximum rewards - done, it even gives you all the accolades, imagine the grind to get all those! You don't want to worry about the economy - done , you are so rich, or nothing holds value, that your net worth would make even yomo jelly. You have a family and can't spend too much time in the game - 10 minutes gets you a fresh 50 IOed to the gills with T4 incarnates and you can even run AE farms for another 20 minutes after that. I have characters that's sitting idle there for over a year and a half now so it's not like the shard is constantly being wiped.

Since you are interested in learning the whys, you may find this useful in the future:

First this: Nova only does radial scatter if you are in the middle of a pack of mobs, if you are at the edge they will get knocked back in a single direction. If you use the technique of jousting in the video, you will land at the edge the pack and turn your radial scatter into a directional knockback, because the Nova checks the knockback vector at the time you finish casting your attack. Second power boost If you change anything about the build take power boost. The +special it offers can give you a temporary defense buffer against debuffs, enhance your mezzes, boost your to hit when combined with build up/aim to punch through Paragon protector MoG among other things... It's well worth the pick on any AT. Third general play philosophy: Keeping stuff at range is your friend except when stuff gets in your face. Your build banks on hover. What if you can't fly anymore? What if you got tagged with -fly and then landed in a caltrops patch? Stuff will get to you, "Get away from me" powers can only hold off so much. Mobility is paramount on a blaster, and there are enough factions out there that can ground you and slow you, so you need a backup plan to hover, because when fly fails you it will fail spectacularly if that's your only game plan, and you will feel the pain of being grounded, immobilized and/or slowed with no way out. If anything build a respectable amount of slow resist. The winter travel unique is an easy 20% and you can get another 30-45% just by 2 slotting certain superior winter IOs. You can also ditch Hasten and make room for combat jumping, as it provides complete immob protection so that's one less Mezz you need to worry about. and should you be grounded it is another means for you to move around quickly. To make up for hasten you can also cram your build full of force feedback procs. But wait that means I can't slot 6 pieces artillery!. That's right. This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.2.17 https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Magic Blaster Primary Power Set: Energy Blast Secondary Power Set: Energy Manipulation Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Flight Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Force Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Power Bolt -- SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg(A), SprDfnBrr-Dmg/Rchg(3), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), SprDfnBrr-Rchg/+Status Protect(7) Level 1: Power Thrust -- ExpStr-Dmg/KB(A), ExpStr-Acc/KB(7), ExpStr-Dam%(9), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg(9), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(11) Level 2: Energy Torrent -- SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg(A), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), HO:Centri(13), Artl-Acc/Rech/Rng(15), FrcFdb-Rechg%(15) Level 4: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 6: Power Burst -- SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg(A), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), SprWntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(19), SprWntBit-Rchg/SlowProc(19), FrcFdb-Rechg%(21) Level 8: Sniper Blast -- SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg(A), SprBlsWrt-Dmg/Rchg(21), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25), SprBlsWrt-Rchg/Dmg%(25) Level 10: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), Ksm-ToHit+(27) Level 12: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), GssSynFr--Build%(27) Level 14: Fly -- BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(A), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(29), WntGif-ResSlow(29) Level 16: Energize -- NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(A), NmnCnv-EndRdx/Rchg(31), NmnCnv-Heal/Rchg(31), NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(31), NmnCnv-Heal(33), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(33) Level 18: Hover -- BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(A), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(33) Level 20: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), Rct-Def(34), Rct-Def/EndRdx(34), Rct-ResDam%(34) Level 22: Kick -- Empty(A) Level 24: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx(36), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(36), RctArm-ResDam(36) Level 26: Explosive Blast -- SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx(A), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(37), Artl-Acc/Dam(37), Artl-Dam/End(37), Artl-Acc/Dam/Rech(39), FrcFdb-Rechg%(39) Level 28: Stun -- Stp-Acc/Rchg(A), Stp-EndRdx/Stun(39), Stp-Acc/EndRdx(40), Stp-Stun/Rng(40), Stp-Acc/Stun/Rchg(40), Stp-KB%(42) Level 30: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-Def/EndRdx(42), ShlWal-Def(42), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(43) Level 32: Nova -- OvrFrc-End/Rech(A), OvrFrc-Acc/Dmg(43), OvrFrc-Dmg/End/Rech(43), OvrFrc-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech(45), OvrFrc-Dam/KB(45), FrcFdb-Rechg%(45) Level 35: Evasive Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 38: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50) Level 41: Personal Force Field -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 44: Temp Invulnerability -- GldArm-End/Res(A), GldArm-RechRes(46), GldArm-RechEnd(46), GldArm-Res/Rech/End(46), GldArm-ResDam(48), GldArm-3defTpProc(48) Level 47: Force of Nature -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A), RctArm-ResDam/Rchg(48), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(50), RctArm-ResDam(50) Level 49: Tactics -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Defiance Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 1: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 1: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Prv-Absorb%(11) Level 1: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 1: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A) Level 49: Quick Form Level 14: Afterburner Level 50: Freedom Phalanx Reserve Level 50: Portal Jockey Level 50: Task Force Commander Level 50: Vanguard Medal Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon ------------ | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1485;677;1354;HEX;| |78DA65944B6F125114C7EF3033AD8552A448DF9442DF45296813E3236AB465614B5| |25B75679A099DD2491070A0B15DF9DEBB3031F1B9556B5DA971EDD7B046FD006D4D| |5CB9307866CEFF0AA637C08FFB3FE79E73E61C2ED9F5E9D69595CC39A1F82F148C4| |A65E93C7D564D5BCF1A792B279CD54CEF5EC84B0B46316F2E27678AA69DDF60E741| |695B5C2B974B76551AB346D12AAF158CAA552A8AD6F952A9909C338DB255CCFBDC4| |DA660E557AB01695836EDCAAA55F6B3CD319167FB4CD9CA2533253B67523C27CB46| |17953341EFE34E6D8A5B614D17421322AD098F027A989A0A6ACC269D795DFC5B354| |DDCF4081122E33AF3C006F8909DBD8F9827DC840A1F52DEB3D8FA119C225953455B| |B3EEEEDB1E785C9648569149A809E18A2709BAC29174FD154738F806DC64B6BF05B| |7988710F1943B131C6E7EA2B2F129B3E319F89CD9F5027C099DA6D982AE292D61C5| |157BFED036A289D3041F222B3ED4DAF39AD3FAE8A41F0FE2F17F61B16F1BECE5F03| |7C81A9043095CE2F0FD0BE0227899397005BCCA6CA10C41595B101906902148C610| |8C6A0885C776396D6C0FFCC5F4907358363D5CA32554923AE5F94EE71B3DF0603F7| |1941803E3CC33E4D52D5BDCFD81FB3FF4095479C2431A73A409C47C6CE7BEC8E1F6| |DEE24A476E3347EF8077C17BCCF1FB4C8DCA8CC8322378CCF10C3FD6F845E6C42CF| |32C79456599D1AF306E83DF9887BF833F4094F9992E511C99441C992AB41B46E394| |61FC02D2E0260518935D1DC3892D121372E28934E73832051E0353CCC949F028F31| |D2189886AF2378C511E421A43496328216A4D4A169C8A714D7D5AFD22D3CB99744C| |ABFF31D4E6F6DBE73569264971A51D6FFD08BCF61A2445C4B834EF0E7377BFFFCFF| |FA4C7DCE359EA710AA91A96E8A85FA5DA3C1D4CCB72AF356E8CC64DAE71535F73A1| |06F92F3B8CED5A| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| Tactics does far more for any build than assault. Having an answer against blind is much more useful than taunt or placate resist. And it offers additional to-hit which can be further boosted by power boost and fast snipe benefit from higher to-hit boosts. Speaking of hit chances, turn off the aim and build up buffs and look at your accuracy/to hit chance against +4s, they are not at 95%. 4 Force feedback procs should feed you a steady supply of +recharge, and stun is slotted to knock back foes to provide even more synergy with your game plan. If it were me though I'd rather use total focus, Why just stun when you can stun and take off a huge chunk of life in the process. I suspect it's because of the animation time, not that stun has it any better. Dealing with animation time rooting is only a problem for people that aren't mobile. If you know how to joust (and you should learn it on your melee ATs just for the battle maiden fight in Apex), getting rooted in the middle of a mob due to animation will NEVER be a problem.

I'm not pig-headed, I can see your point, but I also think the majority of teams you will get on even if this was implemented won't care. If in the case it becomes an issue - Give the toggle a 15 minute cooldown 😁 Realistically it can be a 24 hour cooldown because I think the majority people that want to toggle it on won't ever toggle it off. Then you can just make an excuse that your toggle is still on cooldown! Hey, fat finger happens! Problem solved. And if you don't dig the team, play a mission then excuse yourself. Separate topic: I saw the build you posted. I can teach you to be a better builder and a better blaster, if you are open to what I have to say.

Fire blast has a slight delay between activation and when you can use your next power, it always bugged me. Flares technically has higher DPA but there is something to be said about using Fire blast to finish off a foe with one shot rather than using 2 flares. In the end Flares just felt smoother but you can go with either. As much as I like Havoc punch, it has knockback and I didn't have slots to pay for the KB tax and get the bonuses I wanted to get. Knocking mobs back is not conducive to the playstyle, my survival depends on having mobs close to me so I can chain KD them. Charged brawl was the easy fallback.

I doubt you have played with him but I'm certain most here have posted knee jerk reactions to his comments the way people would swarm in on anyone that said healer back in the day. I have teamed with him. He doesn't treat people like shit - Misguided in some of his opinions yes, but far from a dickhead. His teams ran fine, and I've been on other teams where the leader had specific ways he wanted to run the team but hey, it's his team. There are occasions where the team didn't do what the team leader wanted and instead of kicking people, he just excused himself from the team like a mature person would. I'm totally ok with that. If I didn't agree with the leadership I can form my own team. Being afraid that you are going to get kicked off a team is just a sign that you are not willing to form your own teams. That's completely on you because you have the power to do so any time and you can also set the terms on how you want your team to play. From what I see in game, this game can use more people forming teams than people waiting to join them. I'm not ok with you just making a blanket assumption that this person is a dickhead and that if this change takes place then your experience with the game is going to be innundated with dickheads that will kick you off the team. Most people that play this game are decent people and it bothers me that you'd just attribute the worst onto them and use that as an example to shut down any compromise/suggestion.

I focused on the impact of those slots consumed by the kb-kd IO on a build that uses the toggle vs one that doesn't. Because you seemed to state that having that slot opened up for builds, in this context of toggle vs no toggle, is an advantage. With the toggle on - mobs bounce on a damage field unable to fight back Without the toggle but with the IO - mobs bounce on a damage field unable to fight back Take bonfire for example, a lot of builds leave it as a one slot wonder so the build uses the toggle will be able slot the power with a recharge IO or a FF proc. Is it an advantage? sure, is it a significant advantage? Jury's out but I'd say no, especially on high recharge builds. Most of the KB hate I see is directed to the offensive sets like energy blast/PB/WS/AR etc.... Tornado, bonfire and other persistent KB powers and work differently than nova and it's kin, and they can be treated differently for this suggestion. You already noted that it is a benefit to having those persistent KB powers knock down rather than knock back and I'm confident that the overwhelming majority of the playbase agrees with you, including me. I see far fewer Tornado users that fling mobs everywhere than I do blaster/WS/PBs that use KB badly. It's probably because people have adopted the "best practice" at this point to slot a KB-KD IO into tornado/bonfire, (or maybe people don't play as much support in such an offense oriented meta). If we just isolate this suggestion to something like energy blast, the only people that stand to lose are those that want to have some of their powers kb and others KD. Because they will be paying a true KB tax on the powers they wish to KD whereas the other two camps can ignore the tax altogether. But really, if all I want is to have Nova KD, then that is just ONE slot I'm sacrificing in the grand scheme of things. That's hardly crippling to a build. In addition, compared to the status quo today, nothing changes for these players. Conversely, those that like the KD but want just one of their powers KB? Well, consider that a price that you have to pay to turn that toggle on, you sacrifice one QoL feature for another. So instead of a global toggle why not split it by the powerset/pool? If I were an energy blaster with bonfire I can have two toggles, one for energy blast and one for fire mastery. I toggle on fire mastery to save myself an IO, and I leave energy blast alone so I can blast stuff into the bonfire. My power tray will look like that of a staff/bio scrapper but that's not really setting a precedence at this point. When you decouple persistent KB and click KB, I think the suggestion is better able to come to a middle ground. Right now it appears one is serving as a strawman for the other. I don't see why we can't just compromise.

There's a bit of emotion in that post. It's a QoL change for those that want KD instead of KB. It's not a QoL change for you, but again, you don't have to use it. As for tornado and bonfire, they don't need one additional free slot to be good. The former is already quite competent at AV/GM slaughtering, let's not make it look like one more slot is going to elevate the power to nerf tier. Bonfire is good enough with the default slot and the benefit one can get from slotting that with something other than a KB-KD proc (if they turned on the proposed toggle) is not going to be game breaking. The same can be said for any KB power really, if they become OP with that one slot then they are probably already OP in the first place. And let's just say you embrace KB and slot your powers that way without any KB-KD. That means you are saving potentially 1 slot which can be invested elsewhere to stack more bonuses/procs. With the toggle that's exactly what the opposite camp is doing. saving slots and investing it into other powers for set bonuses/procs. The only difference is that your powers knock back and theirs knock down. Are you telling me that the free advantage is then, in fact knock down? That somehow you too believe that Knockdown is better than Knockback? Is that what you are telling me? If there is indeed a free advantage, that also can be compensated for. Bio armor offensive adaptation carries a slight debuff to some attributes, yet people still stay in predominantly in that mode. So I'm pretty confident that those people that want to use the toggle will take the hit even if the kb-kd toggle carried a minor debuff.

Make windfall buffs drop as yellow craftable recipes, perhaps 25% chance to drop upon mission completion for non-radio, non-AE missions. Each buff lasts 30 minutes and can be stacked. Right now the only way to get windfall is through super packs if I have my facts right and it doesn't provide it's full benefit for AE content anyway. There's already respec recipes, so windfall as a recipe drop is probably not too difficult to implement, maybe. Also, I think it's time we looked at story arc completion rewards. These incentivize soloing. Let's share the wealth so that teammates get some of those rewards as well (maybe 25% to 50% of reward awarded) We can also tie guaranteed windfall drops to story arc completions - and share the spoils among teammates at the same rate I noted above.

I see what you are getting at. At the same time you can just choose the third option - leave the toggle off and slot everything as you do today. Nothing changes for you. Those that turn the toggle on will have to adopt different strategies for keeping stuff away. You can consider that the cost of the toggle, just like the "KB tax" is the cost of slotting the KD IO into powers currently.

I don't understand this vehement opposition to having the toggle option as the OP suggested. Those that want their KB can leave it off, slot KB sets into your powers to enhance your kb, go wild. Those that don't want KB can turn the KD toggle on Those that don't want KB in select powers can leave it off and slot the kb>kd converter into those powers like Explosive Blast or Nova. Absolutely nothing is being taken away from anyone. Everyone wins. This is no more than yet another QoL change, and we've had plenty of those implemented over the years, toggle suppression being the latest. What I see is a bunch of old guards set in their ways unable to entertain the idea with an open mind. I get it. I feel the same kind of gnawing dissatisfaction every time I see a pure ranged hover blaster build that skips all the melee attacks while having a melee heavy secondary. I think to myself "How dare you sully this AT with such a build, go back to playing sentinels or lol Melee ATs because you are obviously unfit to play blasters!" Perhaps that's the same kind of feeling some of the vocal opponents against this suggestion have. They've worked to make KB work for them and maybe they feel that the toggle cheapens their accomplishment? I can sympathize with that. But you know what? If others want to build and play that way it's fine, it's not my business and it doesn't take away my ability to build and play my characters the way I want. Everyone gets what they want.

Is it me or does the power preview not play sound at character creation? Am I missing something? I usually don't play with sound on so never noticed this until now.

That’s what “they” want you to think!

I'd be interested in understanding how this all works and how I can consistently pull off single pulls with this knowledge. I get the rank, distance, and damage done portion and how that impacts aggro, but I'd like to understand how adjacent enemy notifications work. I can definitely see this mechanic being expanded upon where certain factions have a larger notification radius and magnitude vs others. Make difficulty hard enough and you introduce yet another dynamic in how teams handle such encounters.

You are most likely not just Savage leaping and then hopping out. You are more likely to savage leap/rending flurry and get any other opportunistic melee attacks off before moving out. The cumulative cast time on these powers matter, as your pet will have started to move into the mob as you are getting your attacks off. And by the time you port out the pet may not be in the best position to maximize it's targets with any cones it's about to fire. I think the fear can be turned into either a PBAoE or a TAOE, since that's a power with moderate recharge that's more likely to be spammed mid combat. I'd prefer that the mass immob be a TAoE due to reasons I mentioned in my last post. The sleep and the stun can stay cones since they are more likely to be used as openers.

Reverberant doesn't allow dominator/controller ATO slotting, even though it takes all the respective Mez IOs. Is this by design? It would seem that if the design for this pet is to emulate our controls then we would get more bang for the buck by slotting it with ATOs which enhance all mez attributes rather than trying to frankenslot it for each mez type. The pet and cone heavy nature of the set mandates a ranged only play style if you want to position the pet to maximize its coverage. This puts a pretty tight restriction on how you want to optimally build any Symphony control character. I can certainly weave in and out of combat to use my various powers, but the fact that I can't really control when the pet fires it's powers, what it targets, or where it moves to makes a lot harder to play with that kind of fluidity. Unless I just ignore the pet altogether, but that's kind of the draw with this set isn't it?

Focusing on power names: Confounding chant could be changed to Jarring Tritone. Confounding aligns more with confusion by definition and this power stuns. Traditionally tritones were considered very dissonant and unpleasant. One could draw a correlation that it has a stunning effect back in the days when people heard it. Even today most emergency vehicle sirens use tritones to alert people. If I read impassioned serenade I'd think it's a buff or something. Entrancing Serenade should align more with the confuse and "getting stuff to fight for you" nature of the power. Chords of despair sounds so... negative, how about Captivating Encore? Captivating aligns a bit more with the idea that the power holds, chords of despair makes me think it's more fear related. On the powers themselves: I guess the density of cones in the set belies the thought that like sonic blast, the sounds is coming from one place like a person's mouth. A whole orchestral ensemble is bit larger. If you allow your interpretation to be a bit looser (like you are able to conjure sounds instead of blasting them out of your mouth), then it doesn't need to be so cone heavy. Especially the AoE immob. There are enough secondaries that are melee heavy and a cone immob means you need to reposition mid combat and that time spent repositioning + cast time + mobs chasing you since you moved means mobs are never rooted where you wanted them to be. I'm not a stickler for formulaic powerset design but this is one power that I'd prefer to stay as a targetted AoE across all control sets. Likewise if that looser interpretation sticks then where are some opportunities to use drop patches for some powers as well. A Symphony is performed on a set stage right?

This is all the reason I need to make a sonic assault character. I just need a 64 chevy impala costume so I can roll around paragon blasting let me ride.

Well played! Very diplomatic that this applied to the Mercy AE, since no one plays villain side 😆@Troo has to resort to paying people with panda peepshows to get people to create new alts redside. Troo story.

I've been preaching about having S/L/Range defense on squishies, with an emphasis on range defense, for a long time. A lot of people that post competent builds on blaster forums underestimate or totally ignore the value of movement, soft/hard controls, and using positioning to your advantage in their build analysis and breakdown (if they give one at all). These tools have a lot of value and apply to all builds, even melee centric ones. This change will not impact builds that invested in S/L/Range def and use the aforementioned tools all that much. I have builds that run softcap range def + high but not softcap S/L that do just fine even when mixing it up in melee range. The people that strictly rely on S/L def and consider standing in one spot and trading blows like tanks the way to play squishies will have a tougher time adjusting though. People that already eschew melee and build for range defense anyway won't be affected by this change and I can definitely see more people unwilling or unable to put a little more work into their playstyle (not judging, some playstyles can be pretty taxing) shifting to the pure range strategy. I'd like to think that the performance you get out of your builds 20% the build, 80% is directly proportional to the amount of effort you invest in playing it.

Increase Duration. Imagine longer lasting tornadoes, bonfires, rains, etc… For extra build spice design those sets with low recharge enhancement values. (Recharge set bonus at 5-6 slot is ok though.) ”do you want to recycle your powers quicker or make them last longer?”

It's good for 5% range defense and 10% global recharge (the whole contagious confusion set). That's all the reason I need to take it on builds where those are applicable. You won't get better bang for your buck on those set bonus numbers anywhere else except for the superior blasters wrath set.