Luminara

The buff effect is from Faraday Cage, and the caster is excluded from the buff in this version. No reason given.

Ignore them. They're crazy. I know they are because the voices said so. Play Archery/Energy/Ninja Tool Mastery with Cross Punch and Air Superiority. Pew pew and AAAAAAAAHHHHH all in one.

So you're saying that it only gives you the illusion of control?

I covered this in the feedback thread, but I'll say it again here for others who might be reading. OSA was deliberately balanced around being a debuff and soft control. The recharge time is three minutes faster than the nukes it was performing on par with in terms of damage when the power was created. A big part of that balance decision, not making OSA the T9 and setting the recharge time to six minutes, was due to TA not having an in-set ignition mechanism. The rules were bent for OSA. Adding an in-set means of lighting it would require a re-examination of the balance, and the end result would not be favorable. Additionally, OSA was never an under-performing part of TA, nor has it required any bug fixes since the server timing bug was located and squashed (years and years ago), so it wasn't on the list of things to adjust when the HC team started working on TA. It is what it is, and in light of the consideration given to it for being a debuff and soft control first, it's fine. There are multiple other options for igniting it beyond origin or temp powers. We still have access to *PPs with Energy/Fire damage, procs, the Sorcery pool, teammates or critter actions to defeat OSTarget and ignite the slick. You don't have to run into melee range to ignite it with an origin power, or hunt for temp powers and hoard charges.

Imagine all of the possible Boudicca/Booty jokes.

Played it for three or so years, until I moved. The basic game is easy enough to figure out in ten or fifteen minutes, understanding stats and gear and such. Some of the legendaries have nice graphics, and they're all simple enough to craft, just time consuming and heavy on materials. The meta changes frequently enough to keep it fresh. The player base isn't quite as friendly or open to sub-optimal builds as the people here, in my experience. Not a fan of open world special mobs, either, like the mushrooms who drop the invisible boots. A lot of nicer costume parts are locked behind the micro-transaction/gold exchange barrier, too (but no stat options. only skins for gear). Had to spend money to get a skirt on my thief, and grind to go barefoot. I liked it well enough, but I'm glad to be back in Co*. I do miss the fingers and toes, though.

The problem with that is, we don't know when or why the resistance was added. Legacy from when ToHit was the base for critter hit calculations, or a piece of the Purple Patch? Or something else that neither of us knows about? Was it added 17 years ago, or was it added when Benumb or Weaken were created? We need to know if it's linked with anything before changing it, because changing it might have unintended effects. The variety of interwoven mechanics which create the tapestry of the game is sizeable, and pulling threads without following them to their end tends to distort that tapestry. My instinct says leave it alone and find another debuff to replace the the ToHit debuff resistance debuff, to not yank that thread. Unless someone on the HC team has a tool which can trace it back to its source, when it was added, which other mechanics it interacts with, what else it might be doing, we don't know where removing those higher floors will lead.

If you read what I wrote, you'll note that my objection is only with the -res -ToHit. And since you agree that it needs to be addressed, I'm not missing anything. Let's get this fixed before the power goes live.

Cost isn't the obstacle. Verizon is. Limited data and deprioritization don't promote a good viewing experience. Might try to find a library with Wi-Fi and watch episodes on my 8" tablet.

You weren't being hit because the tank was tanking and support was buffing your Defense or debuffing the enemy ToHit, as well as your buffing your Resistance or debuffing the enemy Damage. Tanking isn't just being in a fight, either. Tanking is pulling aggro off of everyone else. You've got no tools for that. Tanks do. Tankers, specifically, have it built into their archetype. If they fart, it draws aggro. Tankers and brutes also have Taunt, which pulls aggro. Your archetype is designed to avoid or shed aggro, and you've got neither Gauntlet nor Taunt. Tanking and shedding aggro are mutually exclusive. Sorry, friend, but you're not a tank, you're just a damage dealer. If you want to find out what tanking really is, respec into Provoke from the Presence pool. Just don't try it on a team, because you'll go down harder and faster than a skydiver without a parachute, and you have a responsibility not to leave your teammates hanging like that if you advertise yourself as a tank.

8 of anything tends to be. But the set shouldn't be balanced around what 8 can do, which is what the problem has been historically. It was balanced around what 8 could do, and here we are now. Sorry, Bopper, but that's not going to mollify anyone this time. Either the -res -ToHit does something more worthwhile than a piddling 0.32-0.86% net value on the single critter class where it's going to have any impact worth the use, or it goes in the trash and something more useful comes in. Let's get it done right this time, so we don't have to wait another 15 years to address it. I don't want to have this conversation again while signing a Social Security check.

Both technically true. Amazons were, as near as archaeologists have been able to determine, Scythian, haven't existed as a distinct culture for over a thousand years, and weren't actually a group of exclusively women. They were daughters and sisters, wives and mothers. They had husbands, brothers and fathers. Scythian women fought like men and were reputed to be just as fierce. They frequently defended their lands when the men were away, and their reputation as warriors spread all over the continent. As with all cultures, theirs disappeared into the mists of history as they disseminated into other cultures. But myth and legend persist, and what we think of Amazons today has been directly fed and nourished by the myths and legends surrounding the Scythian women. For all intents and purposes, they were apparently the true Amazons, and if the recent digs are evidence, they lived up to their legend. They were buried with the same honors as male warriors. They were equal to men (which is what Antianeira means). And it's a noble, worthy legend, something women everywhere can look to for inspiration. If she's supposed to be a reference to Celtic history or mythology, I think Boudicca would've been a better choice. She was pretty damn amazing, too, but she doesn't get much publicity these days. Regardless, Maeve looks Amazonian (actually, she looks like Wonder Woman, the modern take on the Amazon legend, with red hair). In fact, she looks like all of my Amazonian characters in this game (but not with red hair). So she's an Amazon to me, in spirit if not in actuality (in the context of the show, not saying i'm confusing reality with television). Plus, KARL URBAN! KARL FREAKING URBAN! I have to find a way to watch this.

Accuracy/Endurance and 5 procs will let you shoot more.

Or, it's an Immob with a 66% effective Siphon. It's Entangling Arrow. It entangles. Entanglement does something to hinder movement (unless we're discussing quantum mechanics, of course). That it also reduces Resistance, in addition to it's primary effect and purpose, is not something that makes one wonder why they didn't just call it Siphon Arrow, because it serves its primary function accurately and well. I do understand what you're saying about why it would be more fitting to just replace the power with a Sonic Arrow, you're saying that thematically, it's the same thing, so why not skip the middleman and do away with the Immob if we're going to go down the crazy road. To you, it's just as appropriate because the nature of the power has completely changed. I just don't agree with that assessment. It hasn't become a -Res power that just happens to also immobilize a target, it's become an Immob that just happens to also reduce a target's Resistance. Howling Twilight. Take a look at the power description. What's the first thing it says, and that comes to mind when you read it? Rez. When you reach the end of the description, it says, "Oh, yeah, it also reduces Regen by 500%". Would you like to take a guess which function some players use it for? You got it, the -Regen. But it's still a rez, it's still used by a lot of players to bring teammates back into the action after they've been downed. And players use it as a rez, because that's what it was designed to do. The utility of the -Regen on AVs is a bonus. That's where Entangling is with this change. It doesn't stop being useful, or used, as an Immob, but it has an additional utility, a bonus. This isn't homogenization, it's addressing the needs of the set as a whole, while accepting that there are limitations in how to make it unique, and simultaneously handing TA players something they previously had to work harder to achieve, in a slightly more limited form. Adding -Res to Entangling isn't turning it into a poor copy of Sonic Siphon, it's distinguishing it from both Web Grenade and Sonic Siphon. Sonic Siphon is better for reducing resistance, which is appropriate because it's in the Sonic primary. Entangling Arrow has an additional debuff now, which is appropriate because TA is a debuffing set and Traps is more spread out, with +Regen, +Status Protection, and two very high damage powers. Furthermore, Traps actually fits your definition of a device-themed set, whereas TA is, in reality, a debuff set which happens to use a bow and arrows. Traps has a variety of devices, distinct graphically and mechanically, whereas TA has one bow and 9 graphically nearly identical arrows. Traps was also specifically created in response to player requests for a /Devices option for defenders. TA wasn't. TA wasn't designed as a /Devices set for defenders, it was designed using /Devices powers, among other things, and presented as a debuff/control hybrid set. Addressing the needs of the set as a whole meant improving some debuffs, de-emphasizing the control aspects (because they really weren't helping much) and shaving valuable seconds off of a TA player's work load. Many defender primaries have toggles which serve the same basic purpose or provide the same basic functionality as TA's powers. Those using toggles don't have to repeat the same animations every 10-20 seconds to "do their job", they toggle up and go about the business of kicking butt. This is one of the things that's kept TA down, the constant re-application of debuffs. So addressing the set's needs had to include cutting back on the re-application of debuffs, and that could only be accomplished by consolidating some of the effects. There are limitations on how any power can be made unique. We could not, for example, add a 36 damage component to Entangling Arrow. Defender primary T1s don't deal damage. That's a rule, because defenders are support first, damage second. The effect had to be a buff or debuff, and obviously an Immob which buffs isn't going to fly with anyone. That left debuffs. Yes, it's true that another debuff could've been allocated in place of the -Res, but -Dam is already somewhat common in defender primary T1 debuffs, and since Entangling Arrow's primary purpose is to Immobilize an enemy, thereby preventing that enemy from moving into melee range or out of attack range, -Dam would also be less relevant and worthwhile in the power because ranged attacks were designed to deal less damage than melee attacks (Cryptic's risk versus reward concept for CoH). -Recharge was already in the power, but it was small and making absolutely no difference, so that was removed (and Glue's -Recharge doubled, which increased TA's -Recharge to more than it was before, when Entangling still had -Recharge). We've got enough -ToHit in Flash Arrow with the changes, we can't use -Regen because the value, when added to a defender primary T1, would be too low to be noteworthy unless we went right back to spamming arrows (counter to everything we've done so far), -End and -Recovery aren't really a good fit for being tied up... there really was only one viable option, -Res. Now, it can be argued that swapping the -Dam from Ice would be fine. And yes, in theory, it would. However, we also have to remember that our defender primary T1 is optional for defenders, but mandatory for all of the other three archetypes. This would have left those three archetypes with a -Dam power which did little to aid their survivability, did nothing to improve their combat viability and forced them to wait even longer before they received their bonus 20% -Res. The fairest approach, then, is to put the -Res in Entangling, the -Dam in Ice. Additionally, by placing the -Dam in Ice, which comes before PGA (six levels sooner, in the case of masterminds, controllers and corruptors), Ice becomes a better tool for both solo and team play by allowing players to directly reduce boss damage output even when Ice wasn't Holding them. The -Dam in Ice is a critical addition, it's one of the things which will permit TA players to increase the difficulty, if they wish to, much sooner than they otherwise could. Rather than waiting until level 50, purple sets, ATOs and Incarnate powers, and only then cranking it up, we're being given the option to start pushing the envelope before we're in the teens. That's something nearly every other defender primary could do, and can do. Placing the extra -Dam in Ice is one of the things which brings TA closer to parity in terms of leveling speed and capability. Finally, that -Res isn't there simply because Entangling needed something. It did, but what was also needed was compensation for the TA players who worked their builds to the point of double-stacking Disruption, the only way a TA could achieve 60% -Res short of lucky proc rolls. That compensation had to go somewhere. It could have gone back to Acid as a single-target effect, with sufficient extra work, but that would've negated the work done to reduce spamming and give TA players more free time. Remember, Acid has the longest animation time in TA (shared with EMP). It would put us right back to where we started, TA players having too much of their time eaten by debuffing. That leaves us with only the option of placing it in Entangling. It's fair to all four archetypes to have it there, it's useful throughout the entire level range of the game, it provides some compensation for losing the ability to stack our -Res up to 60% as an AoE, it's a faster animation than Acid so it won't cut into players' attack time as much if they choose to use it, it doesn't added an unnecessary or wasteful debuff that would've been ignored (like more -Def, or -Recovery), and it brings the necessary added utility to the power to make it worthwhile for all of the archetypes. Once you really look at it, you can see that there wasn't any other viable decision that could've been made. It may not be the most palatable choice for you, but from a design perspective, it was this or nothing. I'll take this and send a thank you note to Nemesis. Yes, within sets. Within damage types. Themes do exist in those ways. Defender primaries each have their own themes as well. Dark is -ToHit, Rad is -Def, even Traps has a theme, that being the theme you've been using as justification for your verisimilitude, being based on mechanical devices. TA's theme is just "bow and arrows". And while a bow and arrows are "devices", in that they're creations of humans used to accomplish work, so is a staff, or a sword, or an axe, and we're not referring to those as device-based sets. Nor are TA's arrows specifically labeled as devices. Every TA power can be explained as magical just as easily as it can be explained as technological. Your "sonic resonator" in Disruption Arrow might be an iPod, but mine could be a rift to an alternate reality releasing the sound of mutant frogs chirping at a specific frequency, or a magical spell, or the mixing of two rare compounds releasing sonic pulses, or maybe my arrows are from a place where they natively emit a hum. What I meant was that you've looked at things which you've labeled as "devices" and created a theme for them, across sets, across archetypes, and disregarded that they aren't actually related in very many ways. You've created that wonderful verisimilitude for your characters, but it's not applicable outside of your characters. Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, /Devices, Traps and other similar sets, yes, thematically similar in that they are device-based sets, but within that thematic similarity, there are more differences than there are commonalities. You've lumped them all together in one heap, but they don't actually fit in the heap for anyone but you. You've conflated the idea of device-based with out of set thematic commonality and ignored things like origins, differences from one set to the next, discrepancies between the sets you view as sharing a theme (again, why doesn't anything in AR reduce Resistance?), and even the very nature of what a device is by not including every weapon-based set in the game. You're not even accounting for inconsistencies between nearly identical powers, like Poison Trap in Poison and Poison Trap in Traps (the exact same power, modified so one imposes -Regen, the other imposes -Recovery). Within your thematic definition, one of those powers is "wrong", but in fact, neither is because they weren't designed to be thematic between themselves, they were designed to be thematic in-set and differentiated from one another. What you've done is created a set of rules for yourself to abide by when considering various aspects of the game, and are imposing that verisimilitude on everyone by insisting that Entangling and Acid aren't obeying the rules. That's the problem I have with this. The rules you use to define things don't actually exist for anyone but you. Bile Spray has "acid" in its description, but it doesn't reduce Resistance, for instance. It should, by your rules. AR should have at least one attack which reduces Resistance, but it doesn't. My Grav/TA, Na'siehel, is magic origin. She turned her back on the Old Gods and was cursed with immortality, and left with the abilities they imbued her with because they expect her to finish the task they set forth for her. Her arrows are spells. Not devices. Does your verisimilitude override or pre-empt mine? Or does my verisimilitude take precedence, since she's my character? I'm not accusing you of anything, nor am I telling you, "You're wrong!", I'm just pointing out that what you see isn't reflected in the game, and it's not what everyone sees either. Self-evident to a point, but not set in stone. Things change. Many of the sets which were in the original game when it was released have changed in ways over the years, even before the shutdown. What the HC team is doing isn't unique, it's happened many times before. Tanker toggles used to be mutually exclusive. Players had to know what damage type an enemy would deal, whether or not to expect mez, etc. Regeneration, the scrapper secondary, has gone through so many changes that's it's become a running joke. Controllers used to be able to summon multiple pets. Buffs, nerfs, altered mechanics, powers changed granularly so they'd be less similar, it went on for 12 years, from the first update to the last. They even broke the cottage rule a few times, when they felt it was necessary. Nothing says an effect caused by acid has to reduce Resistance, or that Resistance can only be reduced according to a specific set of guidelines of which power types or tiers or whatever can apply them. Nothing says an Immob can't reduce Resistance, or that Immobs can only have specific effects (beyond, of course, immobilization). It is valuable, and that's why the decision was made to use it as an added effect. It's valuable enough that TA players double-stacked Disruption on top of Acid Arrow for 60%, and the HC team knew that. They knew they'd have to do something to fix the loss of that 20%, and decided to return it in a limited form, as a partial compensation, but also as a way to enhance the value of a commonly disliked power. Off the top of my head, not a fragmentation grenade, but there are numerous types of grenades in the game. Smoke Grenade, Sleep Grenade, a temp power grenade which blinds/reduces ToHit, etc. The point being, grenades don't always cause KB, despite the most common grenades doing so. They have a variety of effects. I'm trying to show you that there is no framework of the type you've described. Completely identical powers can have completely different effects, which makes them completely different powers. Acid not specifically debuffing Resistance is not new, neither is an Immobilization doing something other than -Speed and -Recharge. I'm long-winded. I love to write. I like to talk, because I can't talk to people very often in reality (social anxiety disorder). And I tend to take an example and push it to the extreme when I'm attempting to make a point. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's intentional and sometimes it's just me rambling on because I haven't found the right sentence to say what I'm trying to say. But at no point am I trying to twist your words around, I'm just trying to show you what I think you're missing and give you a wider perspective of the game which will explain why these changes aren't necessarily anti-thematic. We've been given origins, and carefully worded descriptions which leave room for us to interpret things in our own ways, and power color customization, and animation customization, and costume customization, and all of it opens up the doors to our imaginations, rather than confining us to specific definitions and descriptions and thematic consistencies. Maybe. Or maybe it's giving them something to think about. Yes and no. Improved performance was one of the goals, but so was reducing spam. Having two 20% -Res AoEs was one of those sources of spam, and it had to be addressed. Disruption Arrow has one purpose, only one. Reduce Resistance. So taking it out of that power isn't possible. The cottage rule is still in effect. That means the only solution was to put Acid's -Res into Disruption. That was the only way to reduce spam when using -Res in TA. And the only logical solution for adding the 20% that players would've wanted to stack with 2x Disruption was to put it into another power. Not an AoE, not Glue or PGA, because unrestricted AoE is bad AoE, so it had to be a single-target power, or a single-target effect. There are only three potential solutions there - Entangling, Ice, or reworking Acid to produce a single-target -Res in addition to the AoE effects. I've covered the reasons Entangling was the only real choice of those three, much farther above. It was, and as I see it from a mechanics perspective, still is the only viable solution to all of the problems created by consolidating the -Res into Disruption. It really can't work any other way. Tension was unavoidable, unless we all agree to sacrifice the 20% -Res entirely and leave Entangling as the useless waste of a selection that it is. The time lost reapplying Acid Arrow every 20s, the time lost trying to double-stack Disruption, the time lost trying to just come in dead last in the defender races was killing TA. Yes, it means we're faced with the choice of possibly spamming Entangling instead of Acid now, but Entangling is, at the very least, faster to animate, and the duration of the -Res was increased by 50%, making it less spammy. I'm on the other side of the fence. I want more differentiation. I don't want Traps-on-sticks. I don't want /Devices minus buffs and Trip Mine. I want TA to be its own set. I've loved TA and Archery since the moment I saw them in the Issue 5 beta, and I want TA to be its own entity, not a bunch of copies of blaster secondaries and defender primaries. I've always wanted that. The more it diverges from the roots, from the copies of powers, the better. I expressed that sentiment many times in the past. I remember wanting to punch Castle and BAB when they announced animation time changes for Archery and TA. I may have even lost my temper and shouted at them on the forums. The problem was, specifically on my Archery characters, I had a perfect attack chain set up, so every power in the sequence was recharged exactly when it needed to be. It was effective and enjoyable, and these nitwits are suddenly talking about screwing that up? Yeah, I wasn't taking it well. And, as I'd determined from the numbers, my attack chain was hosed. I had to start all over, redesign all of my Archery characters and find a new viable attack chain. I did. Turned out to be a better chain. And I loved Archery even more for it, because it was a little fresher, a little newer, a little faster. I apologized to Castle. He laughed. You still might hate the changes. You might decide that you're just going to have to give up on TA. Or you might grow comfortable with your new debuff rotation and find it more enjoyable. That does happen.

This is reading like someone put Watchmen, Push and Co* into a blender and hit frappe. I need a bigger straw...

Is that an Amazonian ass-kicker? And Karl Urban? Where's my swooning emote... I won't be able to watch it. Going to go read the episode synopses on Wikipedia and use my imagination.

I'm not the person for that job. I can post, but I can't log in to the game between 8 a.m. and 2 a.m. Verizon blah.

*hides a pineapple pizza in one of the event bases*

All of my TA builds have at least 7 TA powers, some 8 or 9. I still need to rejigger them for the changes, but I'm waiting for an update to Mids' because I'm too lazy to hunt down and change or add everything myself. I've only experimented a little with dual builds, but enough for me to be comfortable relegating both Ice and EMP to the secondary builds on all of my characters (soloing AVs or punching pylons isn't the kind of challenge i look for), for end game/TF team-only usage. I could probably justify putting Acid into the secondary builds as well, since I rarely need a Defense debuff, much less two of them. So this will actually free up 1-3 selections for me... Room for Combat Teleport! Woo!

It's the only version I've watched, and it still made me want to reach into the past and punch everyone involved. In the groin. With a lead weight. Studded. The plot in that was actually worse than the plot in JL. They wrote the end, then tried to write the rest of the movie from that point, working backwards, creating massive leaps of logic and plot holes that you could fly both Ego and Mogo through, side by side. I loved the WW intro. I loathed everything else. Frankly, if the director's cut of JL is in any way more like BvS... You could tell that Ezra Miller's dialog was Whedon's work, it was decent and the character was actually good, if underused. Ray Fisher did well, too, and there was definitely some Whedon there. So I fully expect those to be ripped out and replaced, and that's going to be the death knell. My soul, Warner! MY SOUL IS BLEEDING! STOP IT! Why can't they just use the animation team to do the writing and directing? They've done some fine work, and even their stinkers have been better than BvS or JL. Except that one with Brainiac. No, not the one voiced by John Noble, Matt Bomer and Stana Katic. The other one. The one we don't talk about. *twitch*

Eh. Get some sleep first. You'll be better off for it.

When it's done.

The last time we did that, Castle nerfed TA. 😞

Then Acid loses all of its function beyond that situational use, and we become reliant on PGA or Disruption being recharged, or enemies being in the PGA or Disruption field, to gain the benefit of the -Def. What purpose does Acid have with that change, if it's only really useful or necessary at the very end of the game when you're debuffing AVs? It's inappropriate as anything but a T9 without the -Def, and it's inappropriate as a T9 if all it does is debuff a few debuff resistances by 40%. Also, in some of my post beta builds, Glue will be mandatory. As I note in the previous paragraph, neither PGA nor Disruption is going to do anything unless enemies are inside the radius of their AoEs. OSA's recharge time is too high to be an every spawn tool, even with perma-Hasten and maximally slotted +Recharge in OSA. Glue's going to be one of the most vital tools in my arsenal, the one which allows all of my other tools to be used. My TA/Dark can handle spawns without Glue because she has Tenebrous Tentacles. My Grav/TA will be fine without it, too. But my Fire/TA? Oh, yeah, she's Gluing those mothertruckers to the floor so she can Rain and Breath them to hell and back. And my Beasts/TA is absolutely going to want some Slowing going on. I think Glue is going to be a key power for any build without an AoE Immob or another source of AoE Slow.

I don't have a problem with that. The game having specific and limited critters with resistance to debuffs, that's okay from my perspective. Outside of the AV class (has anyone tested anything on GMs?), I don't think there are many (not referring to specific enemies, like the EBs in the Rikti War Zone story arcs, but specific critters within enemy groups), they're not typically difficult to defeat, and there are enough tools in the kit now to deal with them even if they are harder. I see these debuff resistance debuffs as being situational, or something we can potentially build around to leverage, not a critical tool to ensure our survival or make combat bearable. I do think the problem with -ToHit resistance and ToHit floors and how these two interact make the debuff almost useless on anything but minions, and it being ultimately unnecessary on minions, needs to be addressed, but the rest of the debuffs to debuff resistance are okay where they are, even with the occasional enemy ignoring them.