Chris24601

By that theory though, Scrappers ought to be locked out of the fighting pool because Street Justice has very similar moves and Tough and Weave like powers can be found in the armor sets. If you want to argue pure mechanics rather than the graphical effects, then Trick Arrow should already be banned from Controllers for double-stacking a single target immobilize and both single-target and AoE holds with every other control set. If the argument is that they need to look different, then change toxic glue arrow to "Electrified Net Volley" and and ESD arrow for "Ice Arrow Volley."

This one is brought to you by the discussion of poorly performing support sets and the realization that Trick/Tactical Arrow is ALMOST a control set already; Gimmick Arrow Control Electrified Net Arrow (t1): Single Target Immobilize + energy DoT. Stunning Shot (t2): Single Target Stun + knockdown + kinetic damage Ice Arrow (t3): Single Target Hold + cold DoT. Flash Arrow (t4): AoE -Perception Toxic Glue Arrow (t5): AoE Immobilize + toxic DoT Poison Gas Arrow (t6): AoE sleep. ESD Arrow (t7): AoE hold with special vs. robots. Oil Slick Arrow (t8): Knockdown patch you can set on fire with electrified net arrow. Sonic Disruption Arrow (t9): Location-based AoE -RES and repeating smashing damage. The only real issue with the design is how it doubles up some of Trick Arrow’s attacks; but then Trick Arrow already doubles up on a normal control set with its immobilize, hold, AoE hold and sleep so it’s mainly just that in this case the FX would match instead of one immobilize being a ring of fire and the other a net. It also opens up the prospect of pairing it with an actual buff set as well instead of Trick Arrow essentially replacing the buffs from the build like Gimmick Arrow/Time or Rad. The theme would be essentially be for say, a Silver Age Green Arrow type who disables his foes through entirely non-lethal gimmick arrows instead of Archery’s lethal, incendiary and explosive loads.

I did it the old fashioned way for the toon I started red-side to get to Rogue as soon as I hit 20. It was the concept’s natural alignment while in the Isles. I ended up having to run a LOT of Rogue tip missions (and Vanguard) later on as the main content gets significantly more villainous/less rogueish beginning in the mid-30s and especially into the 40s. Ultimately I had to take them blue-side just because I was grinding the same 10 or so tip missions again and again to avoid the stuff that felt truly malicious. Rogue is an interesting alignment; almost the flip-side of the Wardens. They want to achieve their selfish goals, but don’t want to hurt others, particularly bystanders, any more than is absolutely necessary to achieve them. The most interesting variation on this, one that CoH seems to draw upon for its version, was The Flash’s Rogues... who actually had a code against killing people during their crimes in exchange for the Flash going a LOT easier on them than he could have; often even letting them get away once their current plan was foiled. Given the raw destructive power at the hands of many metahumans, that sort of deal; basically turning it into a game of wits instead of one of carnage; seems like a reasonable “unwritten rule” that a world full of supers might come up with amongst themselves just for the sake of civilization (and the survival of anything worth stealing).

It was a very interesting design choice to group the most heroic sub-faction (the heroic ideal of resistance against tyranny without harming innocents) with the most monstrous* while the Loyalists mix “for the greater good” pragmatism with self-aggrandizing glory hounds. The easy writing choice would have been to put the glory hounds and the monsters on the Loyalists side (which would fit with the general post-apocalyptic maps used for Praetoria in the original Hero’s Hero arc) with the Wardens and “do measured bad things for the greater good” as the Resistance. Instead they gave both good and bad elements to both; to the point that my general preferred path to come out feeling moral is Warden right up to the final moral choice to blow the water treatment plant, then go Loyalist, run the Neutropolis Responsibility arc culminating in learning of the planned invasion and going Resistance along with the inspector you’re working with. * for me it wasn’t the neutron bomb; that was just so over the top it was hard to take seriously; it was the mission where you get a guy’s innocent family for leverage in getting info out the guy... then, after getting the info, the leader executes the guy and orders you to murder his innocent family for no reason other than they were the guy’s family (thankfully, you can choose to NOT follow those orders). The shear unnecessary nature of that; neither the guy killed by the leader, nor the family could have done anything to stop the plan; just struck home how big a load of $#%& the Crusader’s ideals are... what they really want is to just “watch the world burn.”

Perhaps, but I think that was actually a significant design mistake that may have doomed Red-side from the start. I often wonder how Red-side would have gone over if; instead of Latvia, complete with its own Doctor Doom analogue, the setting had been more like Gotham. Organized crime and corrupt cops/government officials everywhere while the uber-elite look down from the safey of their penthouse towers and pretend the city hasn’t gone to hell since the Waynes were murdered. The only thing even remotely holding things together is fear of The Bat, but even he and his many sidekicks/imitators can’t be everywhere at once. Basically, a completely overwhelmed corrupt city that your villain with a revolving door prison... a place your villain has chosen to come and try to make a name for themselves; to be the next Catwoman, Penguin, Mr. Freeze... or Joker. Your primary adversaries would be the cops, private security (including super-powered security) and enforcers for competing crime bosses. Your contacts would be snitches and informants with rumors (missions) of various crimes you might be interested in committing (and other informants who might know of other opportunities). Instead of origin-based contacts like Blue-side, they’d specialize in certain crimes; the burglary contact, the confidence scheme contact, the armed-robbery contact, the killer-for-hire contact, the city/world domination contact, etc.; so you could choose the level of villainy you’re comfortable with and, just as importantly, be the one deciding which schemes to pursue. Arachnos was created to provide a pseudo-order to the Red-side setting; a force too powerful for even a supervillain to challenge to explain why the entire isles haven’t been destroyed by all the supervillains. But it also highlighted, I think the rather one-dimensional vision of villainy the Jack had (and the idea that Blue vs. Red as teams in PvP would be a major part of the game going forward) which greatly hamstrung that setting. For contrast, compare the villainous content in 1-20 Praetoria where there’s a massive spectrum ranging from the mostly good guy Wardens to the sometimes have to do bad things for the greater good Responsibility Loyalists to the willing to fake attacks on civilians just to get fame and recognition by stopping them Power Loyalists to the burn it all down (with a Neutron Bomb!*) of the Crusader arcs. *Seriously... name me one Red-side arc that involves setting off a Neutron Bomb in a populated city to make a political statement or; - gassing a police station to murder everyone inside. - reprogramming the Clockwork to attack innocent civilians. - taking over the supply of illegal drugs to force the addicts to work for you. - kidnapping cops to feed to ghouls (then sending said ghouls into a police station with suicide vests). - re-wiring the brains of kidnapped and abused girls into psychic bombs. - kidnapping innocents to make someone talk then shooting all of them in the head. - murdering the city council to throw the government into chaos. - other plots from other faction missions including trying to blow up hospitals and other high traffic civilian areas. The Crusaders make 95+% of Redside look like punch-clock villains.

My suggestion is that Propel needs it’s range buffed to match the rest of the set and have an customization option that either causes the summoned object to despawn on impact (like it does with particle effects turned off) or, that is not possible, an energy pulse (the core of the Singularity pet would work) option that disappears on impact. In a tight space (ex. the blue caves) propel debris can quickly reach the level of not being able to see anything if you’re soloing content. I’d like an option to turn it off via power customization without also turning off all the things like swinging signs and gates in the process. Beyond that, one other significant buff I can think of for the set as a whole would be to take a cue from Kinetic Melee and make its damage type a mix of smashing and energy as this would help a LOT in dealing with many of the things smashing damage alone is weak to. Thanks to Propel, Lift and Impact, Gravity already has something of a reputation as the “damage-focused control set.” The mix of smashing and energy damage (so its not a complete joke to things like ghosts) would cement that as gravity’s particular shtick.

Note for the voting; your poll REQUIRES you to select one set that needs just minor tweaks to be counted. I don't particularly think any of them do; they're either good enough/amazing or nigh useless... so subtract one from pain domination's final results. The one I'll specifically bring attention to at this point is Trick Arrow, a set that is utterly obsoleted compared to the blaster's Tactical Arrow set which does most of the same things with damage and more personal survability too. Comparable powers are (Trick vs. Tactical); Net Arrow (t1) vs. Electrified Net Arrow (t1): The second is Net Arrow, but with t1 energy DoT (which massively helps with dealing damage to things archery is normally weak too). Flash Arrow (t2) vs. Flash Arrow (t5): the exact same power. Debuff scalars give a slight edge to defenders, but blasters tie controllers, corruptors and beat MMs. Glue Arrow (t3) vs. Toxic Glue Arrow (t2): Tactical's is Glue Arrow, but with toxic DoT* Ice Arrow (t4) vs. Ice Arrow (t3): The same, but with cold damage DoT. EMP Arrow (t9) vs. ESD Arrow (t8): About half the duration of EMP (9.54s vs. 22,35s) but less than a third of the recharge (90s vs. 300s). Trick Arrow's uniques are; Poison Gas Arrow (t5): AoE sleep. Acid Arrow (t6): Single Target -DEF and -RES. Disruption Arrow (t7): Location-based AoE -RES. Oil Slick Arrow (t8): Knockdown patch you can set on fire if you have another set that deals fire or energy damage. Tactical Arrow instead gets; Upshot (t4): Build-up with +recharge too. Eagle Eye (t6): +Acc, +Per, +Regen and +Rec. on a 0 endurance toggle. Agility (t7): Auto +Recharge and +Spd. Gymnastics (t9): Toggle +DEF, immobilize and knockdown protection, and 83% status resistance. Throw in a much higher damage scalar and defiance for both stacking damage and using electrified net arrow and toxic glue arrow even when mezzed and there's just no reason to go corruptor or defender if you want an archery themed character (whether your blast set is archery or not). The first that I think would help is to just add the tac arrow versions of the shared powers. This would also give the set its own internal source of fire/energy damage to ignite its oil slick (so also a slight buff to the Oil Slick power). The second thing I'd do is is take a cue from Trap's Poison Trap and give Poison Gas Arrow a -Regen effect to make it a better AV killer and make-up for the fact that the toxic damage now done by the glue arrow makes stacking the two an issue (whereas with lingering -Regen it would still be worth stacking both on the same target).

About the only T9 from an armor set I’ve used regularly is Willpower’s. I don’t run hyper-optimized builds so only my S/L resist is anything close to capped on my scrappers. The T9 therefore adds significantly to all my resists while it’s up and it’s “crash” is effectively non-existant and needs virtually no slotting since it’s unaffected by recharge (two 50+5 resist IOs basically caps it). As a result it’s an easy choice to pop just before you jump into a bigger fight to soak the alpha and other early damage and there’s no danger to you from the crash if the fight stretches past two minutes for some reason. I think it’s worth remembering that of the thousands actually playing, only a much smaller number actually reads/posts to the forums and/or devotes time to building high end def/res capped builds. For the many who don’t, the T9s are what give them enough mitigation to actually take the multitude of tougher EB/AVs who turn up in those level 35+ story arcs (newer content features lower level AVs more often, but the bulk are still found in the old i0/i1 “end game” arcs). That said, I would not be opposed to seeing a NEW power set or two try this concept out. One of the biggest disappointments in SWTOR while I was away was that they ultimately homogenized every class option down to essentially just cosmetic variations applied to the trinity roles. Here we have much greater variation and there’s no reason we couldn’t have some different approaches taken for the express purpose of getting a different experience when running through the content (ex. an early access T9 might make some of the Praetorian content more palatable for example).

Given that echoes and AU versions still use the old models, I will forever see the CoT redesign as a deliberate effort by a bunch of very old fogeys to try and look hip and relevant to the youth and doing about as well as you’d expect (“Thorns! Thorns and spikes EVERYWHERE!!! Mwuhahahaha!!!”). That said, their top, bottom, and non-spikey gloves and boots made a great base for my Archey/Tac Arrow build’s costume (sensible boots that blend with the rest of the costume are so hard to find for the ladies). There’s a good design in there; the CoT just way overdid the flare.

To be fair, it’s not that I don’t like the proc, it’s just that often the only good place to slot the set is in your AoE hold because you are seriously compromising what little damage output you personally have (and need if you intend to do any soloing at all) if you slot them into your single target immobilize or hold. Those sets would be viable in a lot more Controller powers if they, say, added a damage enhancement component to some/all of the IOs in the set and then rescaled the values based on the new number of enhanced elements (i.e. an acc/mez becomes acc/mez/damage with bonuses scaled normally for a triple enhancement IO).

Now that I'm established, my general rule for a smooth ride is to six slot two powers you can put the two ATO sets if its at all practical (its not for controllers because their ATOs don't boost damage, but most of the rest do) because slotting those two sets at level 10-11 for the set bonuses makes a HUGE difference to pre-SO performance (ex. +9% acc is like putting an extra +3 TO into all your attacks while slots are at a premium). This doesn't mean I'm actually dropping a ton of inf on them anymore either. I'm on my fourth scrapper, but only one of those I've been happy enough with to catalyze the ATOs at 50. The other two and the one I'm currently leveling have all used the same set of ATOs that I just unslotted and mailed to the new toon. Beyond those two though I tend to stick to relatively cheap and easy mainstays like Thunderstrike and Crushing Impact. At 3-5 million per full attuned set those actually save me money over SO's in the long run and are "good enough" in terms of set bonuses. If you're not trying to break any records, sets without any procs or gimmicks like those I think actually give you better overall benefit from their sixth slot worth of enhancement bonuses than a damage proc will get you in some of the the more expensive sets. I'm also someone who got my funds my just playing the story arcs and turning the merits into converters and dumping them on the market for 1 inf each so its not like I even blew more time on that that I used to re-buying my SOs every 5 levels in the olden days and WAY less than I did in the old IO days where IOs were in separate categories by level and attuned wasn't even a thing yet. Another trick I have is that, if you buy the double XP power from P2W right out of the Galaxy tutorial, then run the Freedom Atlas Park arcs (Matt Habashy, etc.) you can ding level 10 inside of 15 minutes with enough merits (I forget whether its 9 or 15 from the three quick arcs) to get yourself 2-3 million inf via converters and not have to worry about paying for slotting again until you reach SO levels.

They do, but he’s so busy dealing with Hellion arsonists in Steel Canyon that he never has time to do routine inspections. 🤣 It is also a little known fact* that the Circle of Thorns has spent the past century slowly replacing every architect in Paragon City with one of their members and their seemingly labrynthine designs are actually arcane waveguides that channel the ambient magic of the city’s ley lines into Oranbega for their rituals. * This fact is completely made up, but makes more sense than any other explanation I’ve heard for Paragon’s bizarre indoor architecture.

The Blaster stacking status protection proc is my top tier. I’d love it on some of my other ATs that lack mez protection. Not a proc and the global +crit for scrappers isn’t flashy, but seeing those big numbers and “critical” over targets is its own reward. I’m least impressed with the controller sets mainly because they’re a poor fit in the main powers that that also do damage and are the only means a solo reasonably has of defeating anything with any speed and many of the powers you’d consider slotting aren’t ones you’re naturally prone to six-slotting.

In the way olden days my first toon was a magic themed blaster (back around i3). Being magic themed, I just presumed I should be fighting magic enemies and proceeded to solo my way through all the Circle of Thorns arcs. In the process I learned every corner, nook and cranny of the Oranbega maps and never realized until much later that they were considered “hard.” Personally, they’re my favorite just because they’re so thematic and flavorful... and not even hard to navigate if you’re familiar with them.

I’d actually be okay with that. It does open up a line of thought though that might diminish the amount of work needed for brand new sets and be a solution to my problem with the controller ATOs... what if you had limited access to the ATOs of other classes as one of your two. For example; either of the two blaster ATO sets/procs would work far better for my grav/storm controller than the current controller ones. Obviously, not every set can work. Scrapper crit improvement only works if you have crits in the first place, but the blaster’s stacking mez protection proc would work for anyone (though not really needed on the melee classes with built-in mez protection). This is why I’d suggest specifically curated access. As a possible example, for the controller allow it to also choose the blaster ATO with the mez protection proc and say, the defender ATO with the minor heal (i.e. focusing a bit in the direction of their secondary instead of their primary). My main line of thinking here is it could avoid having to build new sets from scratch and the desire to make those unique from any already existing set when that’s not as needed. The downside is that some sets don’t share as well as others (i.e. just about anyone could use the two blaster sets, but anything that interacts with class mechanics (ex. placate or domination) won’t be shareable, leading some ATs to lose a small bit of their individuality while others keep theirs. Whether that’s a worthwhile trade for the savings in designing new sets I leave to people who know how to measure such things.

If that’s not possible, I wouldn’t mind seeing an immobilize or even hold put into the Force Field set; If they have the control to let allies shoot out if their bubbles, they should be able to make them one-way in the other direction (instead of using intangible). Throw in massive knockback protection on the target while you’re at it so people with a FF on the team don’t need to sweat knockback. I dunno if there’s an animation for pounding on cell door or similar, but have the held target use that animation while held would be quite funny. While I don’t like to ignore the Cottage Rule; in this case I am for stretching it to the absolute limit. Turn the force bolt and repulsion bomb into actual damage dealers (maybe with some “dazed” debuffs to recharge and damage reflecting the extra potence of the knockback), replace the intangible with a hold as outlined above, add stacking absorb to all the bubbles (“ablative force field”)

Not 0, but Gust from Storm Summoning is epic. So is Gravity’s Lift.

My best solo results have been with; A) Archery/Tac Arrow Blaster: Range + high to-hit lets you fire off sniper shots at near full strength every five seconds. Tac Arrow adds a number of damage types to the set, with electrified net arrow adding energy, which many things strong against lethal are weak to (ex. robots and ghosts) and which has a 1 second recharge time so you can immobilize ANYTHING. B) Street Justice/Willpower Scrapper with Mu Mastery. Air Superiority replaced Initial Strikes in my build for better control, all three leadership buffs rounded it out. It’s soloed every Task Force needed for the TFCommander badge while IN the level range for it (i.e. not exemplared down). C) Grav/Storm Controller: It takes a little time to mature, but once you have Hurricane it just gets easier and easier. I call it Chaostrolling because wormholing enemies onto your singularity with your hurricane pushing them all into a corner and a permanent tornado and thunderstorm blasting them... it abuses the game physics so badly it has literally pushed mobs through the geometry and into other sections (most recently from the upper level of a warehouse map through the corner and down into the hallway that looped around behind it). Solid debuffs like freezing rain and snow storm help a lot against AVs and between hurricane’s debuff, mist + hover you’re nearly softcapped before you even add set bonuses.

I’ll echo this. As a controller who mostly solos, slotting your single target immobilize and hold for damage is a must if you want to complete missions at anything but a glacial pace. Both also cycle fast enough that once they’ve got an IO set in them you can stack the hold 3-4 times on a single target without needing hold enhancements in it. And before anyone suggests I need to just team more so my damage won’t be an issue allow me to give you two words; Grav/Storm. In the current group meta I’d have to turn off my singularity, hurricane, tornado and lightning storm and not use Propel (since I refuse to give up my six-slotted Thunderstrike set bonuses by slotting the idiotic knockdown proc*) and everything melts before my controls matter anyway. I’m basically down to my ST hold, immobilize and the medicine pool. Just about every control set has at least two damaging controls. What I’d like to see is an ATO set worth slotting into those. If you wanted to make that set game-changing like some of the other ATOs; skip the proc entirely and give the set both damage AND control enhancement in the same set. For example; acc/dam/control acc/end/recharge dam/control/endurance dam/control/recharge acc/dam/control/endurance acc/dam/control/recharge As it stands, I’d have to six-slot grav distortion field and maybe wormhole if I actually wanted to use the current ATO sets, and I have so many more useful powers that need the slots instead. So whereas my scrappers and blasters and even defenders have to decide which of their many powers will best employ their ATO procs... the controller ATOs are utterly useless to me and I’ll be skipping them entirely. * sidebar: I don’t know how feasible it is, but I’d like to suggest a P2W utility power that converts all knockback to knockdown. Given the price of those knockdown procs everyone expects you to slot in everything, you could set it at 10 million inf and it’d be a bargain for those who insist on slotting those procs and a good inf sink to boot.

Alternatively, it’s a step down from “pick the precise door” but “pick zone” and the system assigns a random door that matches the map type in the zone (just as it does for virtually all the pre-Going Rogue arcs) would be a step in that direction. That said, I do see the argument that it should be divorced from AE even if it otherwise uses the mission architect mechanics to build it. AE is intended to be a holodeck so triggering the missions from there doesn’t make a lot of sense. Rather, I think the MA system should have an option of “publish to AE” or “publish to Zone Kiosk.” If they choose the latter, the mission is accessed by a kiosk (are the old PVP ranking ones still used for anything?) present in each zone which places the designated contact skin onto an otherwise invisible version of the AE contact dummy somewhere in the zone and each mission is tagged to a door in the assigned zone. This also means these missions need a distinctive hero/villain tag so they only turn up on kiosks of people who can accept those missions/access those zones (i.e. no sense in a mission series set on Mercy Island showing up for a hero). The key immersive point would be that you can only access the mission lists from the kiosks, not edit missions, so anyone going there is doing so as a hero/villain looking for hero/villain bulletins. Perhaps instead of the kiosks the system could be merged with the radio/newspaper and/or the tips windows while we’re at it in that it puts up a UI with both a random tip for your alignment and three radio missions and a section below for the searchable list of user generated content.

I am behind this proposal; which means I’m going to break it down to figure out what’s needed. First, we already have the framework in that they need to be an alternate path for the existing tips to fit the existing model. The trick is I think we actually need to create the opposite of what we’re thinking to make it work. Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve not really played any of the vigilante to villain missions. I hate playing complete monsters and even on live I weant rogue (if not hero) as early as possible. As a result I’m going to be talking about implementing rogue options into the Paragon City missions for them. The first and most important point that has be addressed in this regard is that, almost without fail, the rogue to hero missions in Paragon almost invariably involve the rogue TRYING to enact a roguish scheme, but unplanned events generally lead to you NOT getting your payday, but inadvertently doing something that makes you look like a hero (or at least getting out of the debacle without looking guilty) while doing so. Translation: until the morality mission your rogue is still trying to be a rogue, but the universe isn’t cooperating. You more stumble into heroism than choose it until the morality mission. Which presents a problem in terms of creating an alternate path for them; you basically have to edit the universe instead of altering your actual choice. Take “A compromising photograph” for example; Manticore blackmails you into helping Longbow with a mission. You, being a rogue, stretch the mission parameters so you can also rob the safe of the villain Longbow is raiding and you end up rescuing some heroes in the process and end up looking like a hero because the system you were supposed to bypass was boobytrapped and would have killed them with poison gas if you disabled it as ordered, but your sabotage so you could also rob the safe releases sleeping gas instead). There’s not really a good place to split that off while still being a rogue (i.e. looking to score a payday vs. evil for evil’s sake). Maybe trying to steal back the compromising evidence against you... from Manticore while you’re level 20 and with modern media storage making it near impossible to get every backup he’s certain to have. Yeah, trying to score a payday while doing a mission you don’t particularly want to is the roguish angle already. Likewise, leaving the unconscious heroes behind to be sold into slavery or worse... that’s pretty solidly villain rather than rogue so you gotta rescue them. Where I honestly think the reinforcement almost needs to come is NOT all the tip missions, but in an alternate for the Heroic Morality Mission at the end, but the problem there is that the alignment switch mission are also the hero reaffirming missions. Where’s the payday on trying to stop Longbow from taking out Doc Quantum, or convincing Blast Furnace to not be a villain or rescuing a rogue Bane Spider scheduled for execution. The main payday in all of those would be... don’t get involved. You’d almost have an easier time adding missions for the rogue in Paragon missions that work from an actively trying to be a hero perspective and re-labeling the current ones as the Rogue alignment tip missions and create the four rogue reconfirmation missions for having done ten of the current ones. Like, in the above case, leave the current option as the Rogue Alignment and add a heroic version where you decide to play the mission straight. You go to disable the security system, but catch that it’s trapped to kill everyone with poison gas if it’s tampered with so instead you have to help the heroes escape after the security system goes off. Longbow blames you for the screwup, but afterwards you get another note from Manticore telling you that he knows why you didn’t disable the system and so has destroyed the evidence (i.e. the public may not see you as a hero yet, but another hero recognized your intentions. Likewise, from looking at a few of the vigilante missions in the Rogue Isles on the wiki, it seems like most of them hinge on you making very dark choices but still with the motivation of stopping a greater threat. Take “A Trashcan Set On Vibrate” for an example; you’re trying to stop an Archon from powering himself up using the life essence of captured heroes who are now near death and discover the best way to shut the villain down is let those captured heroes die. Rescuing the heroes and fighting the still empowered villain is hero morality; the decision is the right call for vigilante as defined in city of heroes. So make that choice the vigilante one. For the villain one we need a more callous ends justify the means option. Instead of just shutting the archon down, you go in with the plan to take the empowerment process for yourself to help you more effectively take down “real villains” and instead killing the heroes to power down the archon, you use the process on yourself to put you on the level of the archon. This kills the two weaker subjects and the after mission blurb states that even though you saved the two others, they’re looking at you like you’re a monster. At that point you could just keeps the existing rogue/vigilante confirmation missions you have now; just allow them to drop no matter your location instead of only in the Isles for Rogues and Paragon for Vigilantes.

The problem is that if the choice is to be a sub-par tanker or sub-par blaster or sub-par sentinel; its a choice that shouldn't need to be made. Its anything BUT epic at the moment. The fundamental problem with the AT is that the mechanics of the game don't reward "Jack of All Trades" it rewards specializing and leaves those jacks as basically "masters of none." I have a scrapper right now who could deal out ranged damage as well as a nova (claws + ancillary fire) and tank probably as well a dwarf (willpower rise to the challenge + confront + spin/damage in general) while doing superior damage in melee and with mez protection... without even needing change forms to do it (i.e. if I have a runner while I'm in the middle of melee, I just throw a focus or a fire blast at it; I don't need to drop to human form and give up my resistance and mez protection just to get it). If it doesn't have to make a choice between those options why should a PB? ETA: If you want the slotting to determine the focus, then the options have to be good enough that if you choose dwarf you can tank like a tanker because you can't blast like a blaster or be a sentinel in human form as effectively... the lack of slots alone will keep it from being able to be all things at once.

In terms of slots, the only reasonable solutions I can devise that are fair to the other ATs are, A) instead of adding new powers in the forms, it modifies your existing powers... basically take the same process that let’s nova keep glinting eye and dwarf to keep the gleaming bolt and apply it across the board. The upside is fewer things to slot. The downside is if you don’t take one of the attacks the form uses, your form won’t have that attack either. B) The form attacks can’t be directly slotted, but pull their enhancement values from the slots in the main form. The downside there is dwarf needs many more categories of enhancements than Nova would (Nova six-slotted with a damage set would cover basically everything it does; dwarf needs damage, resistance and taunt at the minimum). C) The values for the form attacks scale automatically as if slotted with a generic attuned IO set (i.e. enhancement bonuses, but not set bonuses) while the forms themselves are modified by the usual to-hit buff, fly, resist and end mods enhancement slotting. To make up for the lack of control, some of the secondary effects that are rarely slotted for (ex. Defense debuffs from PB attacks) might also be enhanced. B+C) The attacks scale based on the enhancements sloted in the form power (as with B), but the other effects (ex. damage resist, taunt and teleport for dwarf, fly speed and to-hit buffs for nova) scale with character level as if slotted (as in C). The ideal for me needs a Standard Code Rant warning... the attacks are buffs per option C, but the bonus is conditional with the number of slots in the form (i.e. four slots in nova means their attacks are enhanced as if they had four slots in each).

As someone who mostly ends up soloing, I MUCH prefer knockBACK on my ranged attacks. To be blunt about it, knock up never knocks a mob INTO anything and that’s the difference between the mob getting up and shooting you again in 2 seconds or the ragdoll physics leaving them flailing and helpless for 5-10 seconds as it tries to dislodge itself from the geometry. Particularly in the squishy Nova form, knockBACK provides far superior mitigation to knockUP when you %#&$ up an pull more than planned. I do NOT get this obsession with converting ever last bit of knockback into knockup. Scattering can be useful mitigation and even in large groups it makes about half a second’s difference in the rate an 8-man team melts a spawn. It’s to the point I feel like the knockback to knockup proc is one of the single biggest banes to the game; that people are compromising their set bonuses just to kill things on radio missions half a second faster. Leave my Kheldian Knockback alone. I love it and knockback in general has kept all my squishier characters alive way better than knockup ever has. Down with the Knockup Hegemony!!! 😜 ETA: How much do I love knockback? I love it Grav/Storm much!!!

Okay, the issue is you’re using morality vs. ethics (and the term moral relativism) in a 180 degree opposite way from any I’ve ever heard used. Moral relativism isn’t “the relegation of ethical behavior as being determined by morality.” It is the declaration that all moralities are equal because they must be judged by the ethics of the culture in which they are found. Moral relativism says its wrong, for example, to condemn groups which employ female genital mutilation because such actions are seen as good by their culture (note that things like that, and it’s logically inconsistent premise that all forms of morality are equal... except that moral relativism is superior... is why moral relativism is a load of garbage). Likewise, in the US legal system, ethics refers entirely to following the proper laws and procedures, not whether a certain action is morally right or wrong. The Ethical decision in the US legal system is to follow the law (i.e. return the slaves) regardless of whether the outcome is morally right. Something just occurred to me... your reference to internal British politics around the time of the US Revolution leads me to ask... are you American? I ask because your definitions of ethics vs. morals seem entirely out of phase with how they are used in the United States and that perhaps this where our mutual confusion comes in. My studies in America either do not distinguish morals from ethics (i.e. they’re synonymns for the same concepts) or, if they do distinguish them, describe ethics as socially/state determined right and wrong while morality is individually judged right and wrong. Likewise, the definition of Moral Relativism I used above is the American understanding of the philosophy. However, if you’re not American then your definitions of ethics and morality might be a bit different just as chips, biscuits and football are different for Americans vs. British. Americans in general skew towards personal liberty over social consensus when it comes to judging right from wrong and thus, generally regard “morality” (i.e. personal judgement) as superior to ethics (i.e. social judgment). Likewise, while Superman has always adapted to the times, he’s fundamentally the creation of two Jewish immigrant boys living in pre-WW2 America’s industrialized North and started out fighting for the rights of the little guy against exploitation by the establishment. If anything, were Superman to have been created in the pre-Civil War era (but still created by immigrants in the industrial North c. 1858) he’d most likely have been an Abolitionist symbol against the evils of slavery and personally opposed to it (what you seem to regard as an ethical decision to oppose it, but what Americans would call a moral choice... again, language drift may be involved).