Luminara

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.

It was bad because it was written badly, and it had to be written badly because it was a sequel to an even more badly written film, and the bad writing couldn't be unwritten without a complete reboot (Flashpoint). It was bad because it portrayed Aquaman as a litter bug, thief and pig. It was bad because it continued the portrayal of Batman being near the end of his run as Batman. It was bad because the villain was poorly chosen, unimpressive and overly annoying. The fact that Whedon couldn't save it, despite rewrites and reshoots, is the most impressive thing about the movie. Sorry. Not attacking you, the movie just... rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

It did. As a matter of fact, I was going through @Redlynne's post history, looking for the content that I remembered being colorfully detailed explanations of how bad Necro/TA was. Turns out, it was Ninja/TA. Also noticed that she hasn't posted in months. Hope she's okay. Anyway, the two most difficult sets to play with TA have been tested and shown to be working pretty well. It doesn't seem to be at the "I have to play at +0/x0 because TA is bad" place where it was. It also doesn't seem to be abusive or exploitable when used by Defenders, so the high end isn't in the wrong place. I think that's about where it should be.

The "I'm going to vomit in your shoes at 5:45 a.m. so it's just cool enough to be horrifying, but still fresh and gooey" look around 1:31 made it. Also, that's the first time outside of a Zack Snyder or Michael Bay film that I've seen someone turn 5 seconds of video into 2+ minutes. I kept expecting fifty cars to explode.

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.