Luminara

Snyder, the casting choices, the implied tone and direction of the story, the writing in the JL material thus far, et fucking cetera. *cough* Warner Brothers is hurting my soul.

My fault, I should have made it clear that I was asking for that reason, rather than because I take pleasure in the feel of cold, rotting flesh rubbing up against mine, heady with the scent of decay and formaldehyde. I mean, I don't. Like it. That. It. NOT that there's anything wrong with that. Just not my thing. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, ew. 😶

Could also be that Batman reboot with the Twilight kid.

My understanding of Necro/TA prior to the changes was that everything was hard mode, and your henchcorpses died if there was a stiff breeze. @Redlynne has expounded on the awfulness of Necro/TA, at length and quite descriptively, numerous times. I think this is the best indicator of what the changes have accomplished, and definitely a notable improvement. What problems did you feel you were still experiencing? Were there any moments, other than the two group aggro, that stood out for you? Was it a tedious slog, or a rapid pace, or something in between? Give us your thoughts on the experience.

Nature and Sonic T1. Dark and Poison T2, AoE. Four other sets with access to -Res by level 2 at the very latest (corruptors, controllers and masterminds), two of which are AoE, and all of which not only have stronger -Res than this version of Entangling, but also have other effects which are both more powerful and more desirable than a single-target Immob. The problem here is that you're conflating similarities between different sets with intentional common ground, while also ignoring differentiation between sets where it doesn't fit the concept of thematic identity. If you were correct, every tier would have identical effects across all of the thematically similar sets. They don't. TA and Traps both have a T1 Immob, but after that, they go off in separate directions, each having a distinct identity resulting from different powers, or different tiers of availability in superficially similar powers. Six of the available 13 sets have an AoE heal in the T1. Are they all "healer" sets? Is Kinetics a healing set? Is Radiation Emission? Absolutely not, they diversify in a variety of ways, even within those T1s. In fact, only one of those six has a focus on healing, because, despite being superficially similar to other sets, they're all distinct from one another. If bullets can reduce resistance, thematically, according to you, why doesn't Assault Rifle have -Res? I have a blade on my Staff/WP brute's staff, and blades thematically cause Lethal damage, but all of my attacks deal Smashing damage. If guns, grenades and arrows are an acceptable method of applying -Res, why don't all guns, grenades and arrows apply -Res? Where's the -Res in Archery, if this is the case? If some grenades cause knockback, be they fired from an over-under launcher on a rifle or from a bow, why don't all grenades cause knockback, if they're intended to share a common theme? You've created your own verisimilitude with this. That's awesome. I mean that, it's absolutely fantastic. That's exactly what we're supposed to be doing in Co*, it's exactly how the game was designed. But it's your verisimilitude. Yours. Not mine. Not @Wavicle's. Not @Trickshooter's. Not @Tater Todd's. Not anyone else's. It belongs to you, exclusively. No-one's verisimilitude is the same, we each have our own. We all use our imagination to tell our own stories and make everything fit. There is no picture on the top of the jigsaw puzzle box, there's just the puzzle pieces, and no right or wrong way to put them together. That's what makes our characters, our stories, so precious to us. That's what made the game so memorable, so deeply loved, that we're here again, eight years after shutdown, playing on servers operated and maintained by other people who loved it in the same way and for the same reasons, and love it so much that they give up their free time, time they could spend with their families and friends, time they could spend pursuing other hobbies, time they could spend unwinding from their real jobs, to keep working on it, fixing bugs, adding features, making new things for us to add to our stories and fit into our wildly varying verisimilitudes. It's up to you to make sense of what's in the game as it fits into your story, because it's your story. Your imagination is limitless, and this game gives you the freedom to roam as far and wide as you care to, to discover just how vast and complex that limitlessness really is. Run with it, and if you can't come up with a better explanation for the changes that don't fit within the verisimilitude you've created for yourself... go find Nemesis and beat the answers out of him. 😉 Legionette's staff doesn't cause Lethal damage, by the way, because she blunts the edge and point. She's just trying to prove that she's not weak or tremulous, not murder everyone she runs into. Verisimilitude, mine.

Ask five people to define "fun", you'll get eleven definitions. Ask this kitten to define "fun", I get my sock pulled off. *sigh*

People who don't play TA or Archery.

The single-target hold wasn't unique to TA. Dark had Petrifying Gaze before TA was even a concept. Ice Arrow was based on the same Hold that was used for Ice Blast's two holds, Ice Control's single-target Hold, Petrifying Gaze, etc. Just an entry copied and tweaked. The AoE was EMP, from Rad. He didn't even change the base stats, he just added an 80' range. Entangling was Web Grenade. Flash Arrow was Smoke Grenade from Devices. Which, technically, was also Smoke. Glue was Snow Storm, turned into a PBAoE on a pseudo-pet, and tweaked to increase the Slow. Disruption was from the unreleased, at that time, Sonic. Disruption Field on a stick. PGA was new. New new, not sort of new but similar to a power that inspired it, new new. Acid was new new, too. OSA was new, but Castle felt it was justified because Sleet, Ice Storm and Freezing Rain had some similar effects. He spent the most time on OSA, making and connecting the different pseudo-pets. Ice and Flash could, I suppose, be referred to as sort of controller-based, but since they were shared powers, not really. All of it really came from defender and blaster sets, and his intention was never to make a controller secondary, he just couldn't come up with enough ideas to flesh out the entire set, so he swiped what he needed. If NC had given the studio the resources they needed to hire enough staff, he would've gone back and made some revisions, but... *shrug*.

Only one? Share Pain. Taken directly from Empathy, changed to deal damage to the caster and buff the caster's damage, and put into the Pain Domination set. Is it still an Immobilize? Has the basic function of the power, immobilization of a single target, been changed to something it was not before? Does it teleport the caster into melee via use of quantum entangling instead of immobilizing a target? Does it summon dead sea turtles which were killed when they became entangled in a net, instead of immobilizing a target? Does it inflict a Hold by summoning a spider to entangle a target in webbing, instead of immobilizing a target? No. It's still a single-target Immobilize. It has an additional effect, reducing that target's Resistance to damage, but that doesn't change what the power is. I'm sorry, I wasn't implying that I, you or we players had stopped caring or asking, and I should have made that clearer. Whether or not we agree with the cottage rule, the simple fact is, this is the HC team's server group, not ours, and we're obligated to abide by their policies as long as we play here. And they want the cottage rule to remain in effect, according to what I read on the closed beta forums. That takes discussion of replacing or removing powers off of the table. Everywhere in Co*. Every archetype has modifiers which alter powers, specifically to ensure that some archetypes are better at some things, and other archetypes aren't as good at those things, but better at others. Every archetype also has certain expectations from a development standpoint, which leads developers to change specific powers to make them "more suitable" for different archetypes. Every critter uses modified versions of powers available to players. All of what you see as powers are just entries in tables. They're not hard-coded, they're lists and references. Cryptic and Paragon frequently took existing powers and tweaked them to make "new" powers, by doing little more than adding a new entry with references to specific power IDs, scales and effects. With some animations, which were recycled in many cases, and effects, which were comparatively simple to add to the animations, they've got "new" powers. Fire Breath = Frost Breath = Bile Spray. Blackstar = Nova = Dreadful Wail = Psychic Wail. Dark Obliteration = Explosive Blast = Explosive Arrow = M30 Grenade = etc. Same powers, modified for different archetypes by removing or reducing some effects, adding or increasing others, and changing the particle effects and animations. You just happen to be here and noticed when it was happening to a power you're looking at, but it's happened over and over again throughout the life of the game. It's not a new thing. It's a little less common than -Def, but more common than -ToHit. It's not limited to specific archetypes, or specific types of attacks, it's scattered all over the place. Damage being added to Entangling Arrow when TA was ported to blasters is exactly the same thing you're referring to with -Res being added for TA now. It's an effect which didn't exist before and which changed the usage of the power. By your explanation, that was wrong and should be reverted, as should all similar changes you mention. But if it's okay for blasters to have an effect which is pertinent to their role added to powers, then it should also be okay for defenders to have an effect which is pertinent to their role added to powers. Either it's all wrong, or it's all right. Without being exhaustive, you left out radiation, negative energy, fists, knees, sticks, space guns, swords, being really cold, and an insane amount of other ways. -Res is all over the place. Almost every archetype has access to it. There are even a few IOs which inflict -Res. -Res is not restricted to the chosen few, it's everywhere. What? TA is available to corruptors, controllers and masterminds as well, and the only powers which aren't directly available are defender pseudo-pet powers which have to be specially modified for the relevant archetype and substituted for the defender originals. OSA, for example, has at least two versions currently in existence, one specifically for defenders, and one for everyone else. The defender OSA has defender scales, the other one has controller scales. Entangling Arrow is not a pseudo-pet power, it doesn't require special modification before it's proliferated to the other archetypes because the game does it automatically by reading the entries on the tables and making the adjustments itself. All four archetypes have the same Entangling Arrow. The archetype scale modifiers alter the base stats for the power when other archetypes use it, but it's the same power. @KaizenSoze and @Monos King have already reported on using the set as non-defenders. Ask. Read the thread. You're basing your suggestion on the misperception of -Res being highly restricted. It isn't. In the entire game, soup to nuts, there are only two archetypes which don't have access to -Res in a single power. Peacebringers and Warshades. Every other archetype has access to -Res in primaries, secondaries or *PPs. This isn't a secret debuff or a secondary effect locked away behind triple power-up combo moves that only work if you're using a specific set, it's common. Look at the different sets for the archetypes. Look at the powers. You can see just how prolific it is with a few minutes of mousing over powers in Mids'. You have yet to explain why any effect is objectionable or acceptable beyond your own rationalization of how things should work. You've also made some mistaken assumptions about how things do work, such as only defenders having Entangling with -Res, and -Res being limited in availability, and that means your rationalization may need to be re-assessed. You mean why should Entangling be better than Web Grenade, the only other T1 power in defender primaries which is an Immobilize? Note that - THE ONLY OTHER ONE. Also of note - Traps was created one issue after TA, and followed the same general design principle, including stealing the same Immob from /Devices. But to directly answer your question, Entangling shouldn't be the golden child compared to Web Grenade. Web Grenade should have exactly the same treatment, a revision based on an assessment of the set as a whole and addition of an effect to make it better. Furthermore, blasters have Immobilizes because blasters were originally the squishiest archetype in the game. They were debt magnets. Immobilizes were one of the few options they had for keeping enemies at range, or giving themselves time to move out of melee and pop an inspiration or use Aid Self. Immobilizes made sense for blaster secondaries in the context of what blasters were and how much they needed even a little control. Even a zero damage Immobilize was useful and usable for blasters because it helped them stay alive for a few more seconds, long enough to defeat whatever was smashing their faces in. So you can't make that comparison of Entangling versus all other T1 Immobilizes because it's taking the entire discussion out of the context of what's relevant, nor does it work if you limit it to only T1 Immobs which you categorize as as device-themed. It doesn't matter if blaster secondary T1 Immobs are good or bad when we're looking at a defender primary T1. That's apples to boulders. Yeah, they're both roundish, but they're not the same. The only valid comparison you can make is to Web Grenade, and as I said, that should be buffed, too, as opposed to your express wish that Entangling be held back in order to maintain parity. You shouldn't have to make that choice on any archetype, because primary powers are always supposed to be better than secondary powers, which are always supposed to be better than pool powers. That you, that we, have had to rate a T1 pool power as a superior selection to one of our primary powers should be infuriating, not a pleasant relief. It's pissed me off for almost two decades. One of our core powers was so bad that any pool power was better. Junk Kick was better. Provoke was better than Entangling Arrow, for Christ's sake! At least that could hold some decent IOs. Entangling wasn't even good enough to be a mule. So for the worst power in our set to finally be better than pool powers, to finally be worth taking, to finally not be a frustration and disappointment when playing the other three archetypes, is not a bad thing, even if it means we have to revise our builds and plans. Do you really think scrappers take and use +Def (Melee, Lethal) attacks because they deal a lot of damage? They don't. The damage is crap compared to their other attacks, but the secondary effect, +Def (Melee, Lethal), is worth it, and the effect is definitely secondary to the primary purpose, dealing damage. Do you think people buy Throwing Knives from the P2W vendor because they really like the damage it deals? It's a source of -Regen, that's all that matters to them. Just like -Res, the game is littered with powers like these, powers with a secondary effect more valuable to players than the primary effect. Why should Entangling be sent to the back of the bus, when it's no different from any other power with a more appealing effect than its base effect? In your opinion, which you've developed based on the belief that -Res only occurs in certain sets or powers or animations which explain why it can occur, the belief that this is a change exclusive to defenders, the belief that there are multiple T1 Immobs to which Entangling can be accurately and fairly compared. All of these are incorrect, and if those are incorrect... In your opinion. I address that one paragraph above. Yes or no, is Entangling Arrow still an Immobilization? If the answer is yes, then the cottage rule is not being broken. Acid Arrow still debuffs. Yes or no. See above. No power is required to be identical to any other power, regardless of what the description says, the animation look like or what the power actually does. There's no rule, no design philosophy in place for that. None. Nothing, no developer, no GM, no unintentionally released memo, has ever said or inferred that any two powers have to be similar, much less identical. That is, in fact, the very opposite of everything in this game. Every development team went out of their way to make every power as unique and flavorful as they could, so players would have MORE choices, MORE differentiation, MORE ways to play the game. You have a narrow, almost singular view of how this is supposed to be, and please don't take this as hostility, but it's wrong. The fact that Entangling Arrow and the blaster version and Web Grenade and other powers happen to be similar is meaningless and irrelevant because they're not supposed to be clones of one another. That they happen to be functionally comparable isn't because they were intended to be, it's because Cryptic sold the game and walked away, Paragon never had the staff to revisit them, and no-one cared enough about them to do anything after the HC team picked up the reins, until now. Sorry, I truly am, but that's specious and erroneous. I'm not trying to sound mean or antagonistic, I'm really not, but you don't seem to grasp what made this game the wonder that it is. Hundreds of costume pieces, power color and animation customization, those are just extensions of the base ideology that drove the game in the first place, that being that every power was in some way unique, had its own identity, had purpose within the set or pool, and Entangling just failed to live up to that ideology. And advocating leaving it dangling because it's... thematically similar to a blaster power and another defender power? That's going the opposite direction, turning this game into another WoW clone, where everyone in a class is identical. No. Just... no. The resistance is because what's been done looks like it's working in the way it was intended to, giving us more time and freedom in how we use our powers. And we don't see a need to change things again, put everything on the back burner for another X months or Y years, because some people don't like which powers have which effects. It's not because we're afraid, it's because we just don't agree that something not making sense from someone's perspective is reason to send the whole thing back to the drawing board. Anything can be explained with a little imagination. Believe me, we've been coming up with explanations for head-scratchers in the game for as long as it's existed. When all else fails, we just refer to whatever doesn't make sense as a Nemesis plot. Entangling having -Res is a Nemesis plot. Send it to the live servers. Up to a point. The cottage rule states that a power won't be removed and replaced, or completely redesigned to do something entirely different. It has nothing to do with adding an effect to a power, as long as the power's base functionality remains unchanged. Yes or no, does Entangling Arrow Immobilize a single target? If the answer is yes, then the cottage rule has not been broken. Unlike the record I'm starting to sound like... And that's just an opinion. In my opinion, Acid debuffing things other than Resistance makes sense. I can explain it as a mild toxin, or a magical potion, or a mutagenic whatever, or a Nemesis plot, and not lose one wink of sleep. I can do the same for every power being changed, because the theoretical reason a power is doing whatever it does isn't in the game, it's in the player's mind. It always has and it always will be. We can have both. The powers can be improved as @Captain Powerhouse has done, and we can explain them however we like because we're the authors of our stories, not the developers. This is another misperception you've stated. It's not their job to explain why your mutant zombie from a science station orbiting Mars is using a magical bow and technological arrows, or how those arrows cause the effects they cause. That's on you. It's your character, it's your use of the powers, it's your story, it's your responsibility to create verisimilitude within your choices. You, not the developers. They make powers, you apply your logic to them to create verisimilitude. That's another of the core features of this game, we're not forced to accept that every time we apply -Res, it's because we used acid. My Acid Arrow might be lizard blood, or the compressed farts of frogs, or dollar store coffee, or a Nemesis plot. What yours is, that's up to you to decide and explain, because that's how it is in this game. That's one of the things that made it so memorable and beloved. That's why so many of us came back when we heard about it being available again. That's why we'll still be here until the servers are shut down again, and why we'll have copies of the server files so we can, if nothing else, continue to create our own verisimilitude on our laptops and desktops with our private Co* servers. The freedom of imagination and expression that Cryptic, Paragon and now HC gave us is something we love. Love it with us, rather than fighting to make the game obey arbitrary rules about verisimilitude. Live your story as you see fit and let the developers concentrate on continuing to enable that.

Kind of hard to miss anything with a 25' radius, though. I'm not aware of any critters which don't idle within a set distance from their central spawning point.

It's also single-target and relatively situational. The damage debuff might be useful on everything, but the other debuffs aren't necessarily as utilitarian, and realistically, instead of trying to pretend to be an AoE by firing Ice Arrow every time it's up, it'd be faster and more efficient to just attack and move on. So yeah, I think it's okay as is, too.

Necro is the real test.

Then we're looking at the resistance debuff for-ToHit only really being applicable to minions, which we can already manage quite well without it, and extremely situational cases (a boss with a ToHit buff, for example). If the debuff can't be applied meaningfully, in the situations where it's actually needed, it should be removed entirely and replaced with something more useful.

That's not what she said. Or implied.

It would be fine the way it is now, if the recharge time were reduced to 30s. Then players wouldn't have to pull to the Glue, they could take the Glue to the spawn.

Those stupid little pop-ups that were added for events in specific areas, like the prisoners breaking out in front of the Zig. That's obtrusive. They can't be minimized enough to remove from visual presence, they can't be closed, they can't even be permanently moved to an out of the way location because they change size with different events and work their way across the screen. I've only been playing again for a few months and I'm already at the point of deliberately avoiding any area with an event just so I don't have to stop and futz with that annoying window. I want it gone. G O N E gone. If I want it, I should be able to pull it up from one of the menu options littering the windows, and if I don't want it, I shouldn't have to deal with it.

The hit calculation used for critters used to be based on ToHit. The Purple Patch was probably where this comes from, since the goal of that change was to make not only +X foes harder, but also to make higher ranks of critters harder.

... @Captain Powerhouse, did you remove Glue's pseudo-pet and replace it with a redirect?

I'm saying that it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if this net arrow has -Res and that net arrow has Energy damage that one over there has neither. Powers don't have to be directly comparable simply because they have similar graphics or names. That train left the station in 2003. There are so many powers that have been copied, slightly modified and re-introduced as new powers that it would take me a week to find and list all of them. Electrified Net Arrow is a copy and modification of Entangling Arrow, which is a copy and modification of Web Grenade, which is a copy and modification of the base Immobilize power used for all blaster secondaries, controller/dominator primaries, etc. That's how powers have been designed and implemented in Co* since 2003. Entangling have -Res added as a secondary effect is just standard operating procedure for creating or reworking powers in Co*. Also, sets should have differentiation. That's also standard operating procedure in Co*. No-one wants the sets to be clones of one another with the only difference being the graphics. No-one wants powers to be clones of one another with the only difference being the graphics. Part of what makes this game worth playing, despite its age, is that there are so many different things in it to play with. Every set has an identity which isn't replicated by other sets. Every set does its own thing. For years and years, TA's identity, TA's thing, was just being copies of powers from other sets, plus OSA. It's finally being differentiated in ways that should've been done fifteen years ago. It's finally something more than bits and bobs thrown into a box and given a bow and arrow graphical effect. That's a very good thing. I'm not overlooking that, either. What I am trying to help you understand is that it won't be nearly as onerous as you imply, because the debuffs are stronger and the durations are longer. Entangling's -Res lasts 30s. Acid's only lasted 20s. That's ten extra seconds of doing anything but debuffing. Disruption's effects persist for 45s, it used to be 30s. That's 15 extra seconds, presuming you were re-applying Disruption at the end of its duration, plus the time you're not spending re-applying Acid's original -Res. PGA's -Dam lasts for 60s now. It used to be 20s. And the debuff value is doubled, with half of it being flagged irresistible. You not only don't have to spam it, you're actually getting something out of using it now. Flash Arrow's duration wasn't changed, but the debuff value was more than doubled, and even the irresistible half is higher than the entire debuff was previously. Better, without being more burdensome. Glue has more -Recharge than Glue + Entangling applied before, the duration is twice as long as it was before. More effective, less spamming necessary. Even Acid Arrow, despite having a different type of -Res in it now, lasts longer than the live version of Acid. 30s versus 20s. You have less work with the changed Acid. Yes, you have to spend the extra 1.188s applying Entangling once every 30s in addition to using Acid if you want the extra 20% -Res, but Acid's animation time is 1.98s, and you were having to re-apply that every 20s, rather than every 30s. Even with just these changes, putting the AoE -Res in Disruption, adding extra single-target -Res in Entangling and changing what resistances Acid debuffs, you're actually saving several seconds in a 30s window, because Acid has the longest animation in the set (shared with EMP Arrow). Additionally, not having to use it in conjunction with PGA in order to achieve the full 40% -Res we're currently capable of applying is a not-insignificant improvement, especially for solo play. No more of that DoT breaking the Sleep, which has always been a major QoL issue. All of the changes are moving TA toward less spamming, more focused debuffing. Every one of these powers requires you to use them 1/3 to 1/2 as frequently to maintain optimal efficiency, and together, the changes shave off huge chunks of time we used to have to spend re-applying powers with short durations. Let's take an AV fight and break down the time spent using TA now. Open with Flash, Glue, Acid, Disruption, PGA, OSA, EMP - 10.428s. At 20s, re-apply Acid and PGA - 3.3s. At 30s, re-apply Disruption and Glue - 2.64s. At 40s, re-apply Acid and PGA - 3.3s. At 45s, re-apply OSA - 1.32s. At 60s, restart the cycle (EMP Arrow isn't usable again at this point, will come back up in 25-30s) - 8.448s. That's 30s of your minute spent debuffing. New TA AV fight timing: open with Flash, Glue, Acid, Disruption, PGA, OSA, EMP, and Entangling - 11.616. At 30s, re-apply Acid and Entangling - 3.3s. At 45s, re-apply Disruption and OSA - 2.64s. At 60s, re-apply Flash, Glue, Acid, Entangling and PGA - 6.996s. In the same 60 second window, you're only spending ~24s debuffing. You're being required to spam TA powers for 6 fewer second, even with Entangling in your rotation. You could throw Ice Arrow into your rotation and still save 3-4s over the previous rotation. This TA is numerically less spammy than the other TA, even if you're using the Kitchen Sink Arrow. That is wrong. No sugar-coating, it's just wrong. TA was created two issues before corruptors or masterminds existed. It is and always has been, first and foremost, a defender primary. It was made and balanced for defenders. What controllers, corruptors and masterminds receive is a defender primary appropriately scaled by archetype modifiers, not the other way around. It was created from powers in Devices, Sonic (which was being worked on at the same time that TA was), Rad and Earth, plus a couple of new powers. But it has a theme. It's always had a theme. It may not be a theme that fits everyone's taste, but it's still thematic. For the record, that theme was copied in the very next Issue after TA was released. The copy had better powers across the board, and replacements for under-performing powers. It was named Traps. I disagree. The whole point of different sets having different powers with different effects is to provide different experiences when playing. That's the core idea behind this game. No two sets play exactly alike. The addition of -Res to Entangling doesn't create dissonance, it creates differentiation. Here's the problem with that - Entangling isn't going away. The original development team had what we refer to as "the cottage rule". You can look it up, but basically, it means powers aren't removed outright unless they're so drastically broken that they're unworkable and impossible to improve. Once something is in the game, it's in the game. @Captain Powerhouse is sticking to the cottage rule, so Entangling isn't going to be replaced by a different power. That means it has to have some value added to it, because it's pure, utter, unquestionably crap as it stands. Yes, it has some utility in the very early game, yes, it's useful for controllers to set up containment, but realistically, it's a bad fucking power that adds nothing worthwhile to the set. If I had my druthers, I'd rip it out and replace it with anything more useful. An arrow that fired cat poop and crashed the game would be more palatable, as far as I'm concerned. But it's in the set, we're stuck with it, and @Captain Powerhouse made an effort to give it some more utility and value by sticking an additional 20% -Res into it so TA players could have both a bonus to stack with Disruption and a reason not to despise the power with the entirety of their souls (yeah, i really hate it that much). So it doesn't really matter if you or I or anyone else thinks another power would be appropriate in place of Entangling. We have Entangling, we're always going to have Entangling. If the -Res is taken out of Entangling and crammed into another power, like back into Acid as a single-target effect on the primary target, it puts Entangling right back where it was before the change, a bad joke for every TA who can't skip it (everyone except defenders). It's at least moderately worthwhile this way, especially for the three archetypes who can't skip it, and that's miles ahead of where it stands on the servers now. I hear all of that and I'm completely on board. But I'm also approaching this from the perspective of someone who understands the mechanics, the limitations, the mindset of the original development teams, @Captain Powerhouse's thoughts and approach, and more. I don't have to exchange PMs with @Captain Powerhouse to understand why he did what he did, because I can look at the changes and it's obvious to me. I understand a lot of things, because dug into the mechanics with various characters, I tested and experimented, I spent years discussing these things with Castle, and I understand them better now than I did in the past (and if you know who i am, then you know i understood them pretty well back then). I know that there are things which absolutely will not change. I know there are things which can be wiggled a little. I know which powers can be tweaked and which ones can't, and the whys and wherefores of these things. I know what the balance goals are and how they're being met. And while there are ways I, or you, or anyone, would've approached this revamp differently, I know the end result is the same - TA is better across the board. Am I thrilled at the prospect of "having" to take Entangling on my TA defenders, at the thought of "having" to use it every time I want to fight an AV because I know that not doing so would be lazy? No, of course not. But it's still a better power than it was, and I still have the choice to take it, use it, skip it, whatever. And I'm also not just settling for whatever hand-outs might be offered. I'm expecting the absolute best that can be done, nothing less. I'm either going to be amazed, or I'm going to be beating down @Captain Powerhouse's front door and waving a chainsaw in his face.... and thus far, I've been amazed. TA has always been too spammy. It's also always been too weak. We can move toward being grossly over-powered with two or three powers and cut the spam entirely, or we can move toward having more utility spread among more powers, reduce the spam to a manageable level and still allow the player to feel effective. We're doing the latter, and I honestly feel that it's the better approach. All of the major issues with TA are being addressed, and even changes that have some people scratching their heads or outright disagreeing with, have a purpose and help move TA in the right direction. But there are some things that just aren't going to change. Every power has to have some purpose beyond existing to fill a tier slot. In order to make TA more effective and less spammy, some powers have to be improved, and others have to be repurposed. None of them can be outright changed, but they can be given new use and utility, and that's what's being done now. I'm really, truly not being dismissive of anyone's concerns or disagreements with what's being done. But I see things from a very different perspective than the average gamer, the average Co* player, or even the average power-gamer. I didn't need to be in the closed beta, and, in fact, was only in it for the last two weeks, in order to see exactly what's going on with TA and what every aspect of these changes entails. I know what's going on with these changes, even if I'm not expressing myself as clearly as I try, and I am making an effort to share that perspective with everyone, just as you're making an effort to share your perspective. By all means, complain about everything you don't like with the changes. But realize, some of them are necessary, and all of them make sense when you look at them as part of a whole, and some of the things you don't want to happen are going to happen simply because they have to if TA is to move out of the sub-basement closet and into the bigger world. This isn't a "last word", this is an invitation to discuss, to ask questions, to debate merits. That's what I've always been here for.

Are you saying that the -ToHit was only reduced by 0.24% when you used Flash Arrow, or that the resistance to -ToHit was only reduced by 0.24% when you used Acid? If it's the former, there's something horribly wrong. If it's the latter, then I have to agree with your assessment of the -res -ToHit debuff. A 0.24-0.33% increase to a -ToHit applied wouldn't make any difference. It needs improvement.

Rectum? Damn near killed 'em!

All of that is normal for OSA. The two procs you used were exclusive to the OSBurn pseudo-pet, so they couldn't activate until OSBurn was spawned. Try Defense Debuff procs if you want to see something happening before the slick is ignited. The -Def procs should check at cast, then once every ten seconds until the power expires (cast, 10s, 20s, 30s followed by immediate despawn, if it checks at 30s at all), including when the slick is burning.

No, he was an ordinary businessman. I think I remember that he did it to win a bet. Or because he lost a bet. Pretty sure it was the former, but it really has been a long time.

What I have in mind doesn't really fit with your suggestion. I'd go the other way entirely, changing the way status effects are applied, using debuffs instead of hard mez (Slows would stack or scale to become Immobilizes, -Recharge would stack or scale to become Hold, -ToHit would stack or scale to become Stuns, -Damage would stack or scale to become Sleeps, and so forth. these are just examples of possible ways it could be implemented) by critters and every archetype except controllers and dominators, effectively reducing status effects throughout the entire game. I'm looking at from the other side of the fence, from the critters side, not the archetype side, as a means of reducing the over-use of status effects by critters while still keeping them challenging and interesting, and giving players more opportunity to deal with status effects, rather than making half the archetypes nobles and the other half beggars. Really, it's never going to go anywhere. It would be a complete rework of every critter with mez, and a new mechanic (well, almost a mechanic) to create the change from debuff to mez, and removal and replacement of existing mez in power sets outside of controller and dominator primaries and secondaries. The HC team will never have the time or resources to do it, and I'm on a refurb laptop in an off-grid cabin, so I definitely don't have the resources to do it. So... I'm just not a fan of increasing the strength of status effects on any archetype, not even controllers, because it's just escalation. The more there is, the more there will be, and the more will be needed later. I'd rather see status effects diminished in prevalence and controller/dominator status effects be more meaningful. That is to say, instead of making a way to overcome the PToD, make the PToD less necessary. I think the control archetypes could be more unique this way, and have full usage of their powers, instead of being penalized for doing what they were created to do.

I didn't. My responses were considered, polite and in earnest. You dislike specific changes and want them changed again. I'm pointing out to you that even if you choose to use TA the way you outline after these changes, you're still ten times better off than you would be with the current version of TA on the servers, and that your preferred changes aren't necessary. Look, at no point is a beta feedback thread about proposing complete power redesigns. We're not here to rebuild the set according to our preferences. Yes, your feedback matters and it's important to post it, but asking for effects to be moved to different powers so you don't have to change your rotation isn't feedback. And that is what you're doing. You're insisting that using the powers as they exist in the beta will cost you more time, but they won't unless you choose to spend that time. You're ignoring that you have that choice. You're ignoring the duration changes. You're ignoring the debuff strengths. You're focusing entirely on "I have to use all of these powers to do this and it's going to cost me time", and not admitting that you don't have to use all of those powers and that it could save you time. You responded to my post in less than five minutes. That suggests that you didn't stop to digest what I said, you just decided I wasn't listening and you closed yourself off to anything further. I am listening. I am discussing. I'm emphasizing things that you aren't addressing or accounting for in your comments about the changes. Read them again, please, and spend more than five minutes so I can at least have some assurance that you're considering what I'm saying.