Chris24601

Update: A hearty thanks to Michiyo on the Discord who got me straightened out. For those who ever experience a similar issue, they said to delete the Shaders folder from %localappdata%\NCSoft\CoX\Shaders. Since the folder is hidden by default, use the Window button + R and copy/paste the location into it will get you there. Again, a big tip of the hat to Michiyo, a true hero (for me at least).

So, something weird happened with my Window 10 laptop and a bad mouse causing 81 instances of CoH opening (I base this on the number of error reports it generated in the 1 minute period before I had to just shut the thing down) and error messages saying the video card wasn't compatible and I had to actually shut down the machine because it was clogged to the point of not being able to do anything. Previously I ran CoH with no issues. Now everything else runs fine, but when I bring up Tequila and attempt to launch City of Heroes (64 or 32 bit) it just hangs on the blue "Loading" mini-screen. When I close it after a minute it just moves CoH.exe to the "Background Processes" eating up 14% processor power and 125 MB. Trying again and closing it dumps ANOTHER copy into the Background Processes. I remove those by ending process on them. I've tried deleting the whole City of Heroes directory and re-downloading it and that hasn't helped. Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.

Grab the “Reveal” power from P2W/T4V for 10k inf and tunnels will never be a problem again. Also, the Warden mission chains (unlike the Crusader ones) are entirely above ground (except the brief section of Dr. Arvin where you exit, talk to a homeless man and then take a short jog to another mission door). The only underground sections being mission doors where the maps are no worse than the Paragon Sewer maps.

Most of the "running through the tunnels" are instanced maps and you'll get plenty of those with the Responsibility Loyalists as well. If you wanna come through with your soul mostly intact I highly recommend start as Resistance (so you can suborn some of the Responsibility Loyalists missions where you have murder someone for the "greater good") and then run Responsibility Nova, Warden Nova, Warden Imperial, Responsibility Imperial, Warden Neutropolis (pick Loyalist at the end) and close with Responsibility Neutropolis (pick Resistance at the end). If you then go on to do First/Night Ward and the New Praetorian arcs you'll find a lot of the people you helped make a comeback so there's some nice continuity. Staying in Praetoria until Night Ward is done and then going to Paragon from from the Resistance leaves you with a pretty good feeling too regarding various characters who'd otherwise be left up in the air. Just my 0.02 inf.

Whatever happened to Praetorian Belladonna? Would losing Ghost Widow, but gaining Praetorian Belladonna (perhaps with a sleeker more GW-inspired costume) maybe taking over the forces allied by the now deceased Calvin Scott (the United something something) work as an alternative? * * * * As an alternative to just wiping Arachnos out completely, what if instead time travel shenanigans were used so that Recluse and each of the patrons became a separate Rogue Isles faction. So Recluse keeps the Bane/Wolf Spiders and basically becomes another AV vying with the 5th Column/Nemesis for world domination. Black Scorpion becomes his own faction of tech thieves with “Scorpions” in place of the Crab Spiders and Scorp-bots in place of the Arachnobots (sorta high end Gold Brickers). Mako becomes a Corallax AV along with Barracuda. Scirocco, Ice Mistral and the Mu Mystics are something like a darker version of the Midnight Squad or Legacy Chain (stealing mystic artifacts for use in a secret war against the Circle of Thorns) Ghost Widow and the Widows are merged into a general Knives of Artemis revamp with the idea that they’re not exclusively tied to Malta but freelancers. Frankly, given the mystical undertones of the Knives, having the elites develop psi powers as part of their training/conditioning would make sense; and the integrated blade/flechette weaponry of the widows would make sense for more elite Knives as well. Then you could even keep them as patrons, but then add patrons for Nemesis, the Carnies, Council, Crey, etc. as additional patron options.

So, tiny update on my "replace all the old ugly Paragon City buildings with ones from Praetoria" idea. I took some in game measurements of zone sizes using the maps and the handy thumbtack and then grabbing the footprints of various areas in Paragon City and overlaying them on Imperial City and there is EASILY enough buildings just in Imperial City to replace the entire core of Steel Canyon and everything on the central island of Talos (excepting the docks which don't need updating) and only duplicate a building if Imperial City did. Throw in the extra buildings in Nova, Neutropolis and the non-destroyed (just rundown looking) buildings from First Ward (which despite my previous comments would add some spice to Kings row if some were interspersed there) and I think there's enough there to do Kings Row, Steel Canyon, Talos Island, Founders Falls and Peregrine Island (Brickstown getting more rundown buildings from First Ward might even put it on the table too). An extreme stretch goal would be to update some of the really fake looking ruined skyscrapers in Boomtown, Eden and the RWZ to those from First Ward's core with their much more realistic look (including torn off sections where you can see the individual floors instead of it being clear its just a solid skyscraper shaped block with holes put in it as the old hazard zone ruined skyscrapers are). Sadly (or not... I've advocated for it getting the Galaxy City treatment for a while now) Skyway City would have to be skipped... perhaps blown up entirely (with the zone events moved to Steel Canyon) and a new tram station added to Faultline to keep it connected. A related upgrade I'd actually like to see because it would make the zone MUCH more distinctive, is to take the lava-crater map from the SSA and use it to replace the huge pit in the Hollows. Many of the missions got relocated in its revamp to be closer to the Atlas gate, but the few that would be in the lava could be relocated to the lava lake's perimeter. Having a lava lake (complete with the way it lit up the sky) would really push what a disaster area/crisis zone the Hollows are and why the War Walls are actually still a good idea in that they can keep such a disaster contained even though Atlas Park is basically next door to it.

And, to be frank, all that innovations dies the moment Windows 11 comes out and follows Apple's lead of dropping the ability to run archaic 32-bit clients on it. Then all those "rush the shinies" servers are stuck with a limited playerbase of people who maintain older operating systems because they were more interested in bling than in shoring up the system's foundations. It's not as obviously new bling, but in terms of importance to maintaining the game for years to come, the development of a 64-bit client for City of Heroes is Homecoming's greatest legacy (HC's 64-bit client is also currently the ONLY way to play on an Apple machine running the latest OS... new shinies on 32-bit client systems are worthless to them). Another important part of that 64-bit client is that Homecoming can run at maximum graphic settings even on mediocre systems because 64-bit processing is exponentially faster than 32-bit and the old client could only use the 32-bit limits; fewer threads, less RAM, etc. regardless of the power of the processor and graphics cards used. As a practical example, I'm running Homecoming (64-bit) on the same machine I used to play on Live (32-bit). On live I could only handle limited Ultra settings without slowing my frame rate to a crawl because of the limits of the 32-bit architecture in relation to my system specs. Homecoming runs smooth as butter at the maximum graphics settings on the exact same system. That's the power of taking the time to fix the underlying architecture instead of just focusing on bling. I may be imagining it, but I seem to recall another BTS project being actually untangling the spaghetti code into something much easier to work with and update. THAT too is something that will pay dividends for years down the line as with the code cleaned up and/or at least documented adding future updates, theoretically including actual new graphics and models, gets a LOT easier to do.

In line with the geography changes mentioned above, I’d like to see a graphical zone revamp to bring Steel, Talos, PI and either Bricks or FF up the the standards of Praetoria, revamped Atlas and Kallisti Wharf (King’s Row is supposed to be run down so it’s fine as is). It’s hard for me to think of Steel Canyon as the financial heart of Paragon City when the core of it is a bunch of virtually identical in height and design Brutalist-style skyscrapers that went out fashion in the late 70s/early 80s... particularly when compared to the varied skyline of Imperial City that demonstrates a variety of architectural styles from different eras (not to mention differing heights and footprints). The fact that a LOT of the buildings in Steel are just copy-pastes (and not even unique ones, the same skyscrapers show up on Talos, Bricks and PI... the brownstones are just endless repeats of the ones that also turn up in Kings Row and Bricks, etc.) just does NOT do the zone any favors and rob a LOT of blue-side of areas that feel distinct. If anything, Steel Canyon as it exists presently feels like it should be the heart of Cole’s efficient but soulless dystopia (where it was all built as directed by the Cole administration) while Imperial looks like the sort of thriving finacial district that grew up organically like you see in New York, Tokyo, Dubai, etc. So my radical proposal is this... starting with Steel Canyon, replace the old buildings with models from Praetoria. I stopped counting at a hundred distinct skyscrapers just in Imperial. Swap out the billboard/banner propaganda art and you’ve got a ton of models to choose from to actually give Steel Canyon some character. Then move on to Talos Island and do it again. Given the Dirge of Chaos arc establishes a radio station there, I’d take a not-so-reskinned TPN (Total Paragon News) campus and place it on the island. Snag the shorter residential buildings from Nova Praetoria and outdoor cafes from Imperial to replace those monolithic brownstones in Founder’s Falls and make it look more like an upscale residential/boutique shopping district. Pick a theme for Peregrine Island instead of the confused mess it is now... like super-science... and replace those same old buildings with the most modern/sci-fi looking Praetorian buildings so the Portal Corps campus fits right in. The difference between playing in revamped Atlas, in Praetoria and while flying around Kallisti Wharf compared to the rest of Paragon City is almost painful and, since so much of that beauty is either quickly outleveled (Atlas), has nothing going on there (Kallisti) or is skipped because of the greater difficulty (Praetoria), I’d like to see that beauty spread to where more players will actually see it.

To expand on my previous point about PvP being generally unpopular across ALL MMO's (i.e. fewer than 5% seem to willingly engage with it) is that part of this is that ANY level/gear-based game is generally horrible for PvP. When you look at the popular PvP platforms they consistently involve player-controlled avatars of roughly equal ability (some systems have options with strengths/weaknesses, i.e. fragile speedster/mighty glacier/jack of all stats) and, if there are power-ups they are things gained inside the PvP environment via the skill of the player. This is PvP as sport where your actual skill matters and that IS immensely popular as a genre. MMO PvP is who can get to max level and put together the best PvP-gear ... then going after people who are not so equipped as the tab-based RNG combat system does the work. There's no skill at all beyond your ability to grind content to get the best gear to let you dominate others. THAT'S why its never been popular in any traditional (i.e. level/gear-based progression with tab-targeting RNG combat) MMO.

1) They're NOT different. That's the point. The mistake you make is thinking we play ANY PvP based games. 2) The mistake you make here is presuming that PvP is popular in ANY MMO-based game when all evidence I've every seen is that its NOT popular on any of them; its just required by some of them. Ex. Back before the un-Snap when I was playing SWTOR, I remember the devs saying that less than 5% of the player population ever engaged in PvP regardless of all the tweaking they did. The largest WoW PvP population on any server per their stats had 1400 PvPers... the next largest 600. The largest server populations are in the 25,000 range... so again, about 5% of the total population. * * * * * Now, translate that to a population of a few thousand like here and you get 50-100 people who engage in PvP in CoH across all the servers. The PROBLEM with PvP isn't specific to CoH... its specific to PvP.

Another, more mechanics side overhaul I would like to see is a tweak to procs. Right now thanks to how Procs per Minute work you’re somewhat penalized for slotting the full set they’re part of into a power because that set will almost certainly include recharge reduction. The current “best” approach is to frankenslot a power with multiple procs, no recharge and then build for global recharge. Instead of killing the theory-crafter’s fun, my suggestion is this; make same set recharge bonuses NOT count against you for determining PPM. The net intent is that a single proc slotted ‘with the rest of its set’ (vs. just slotted for recharge by other means) should go off as often as it would via frankenslotting with no recharge slotted in the power itself. Standard code rant applies; but perhaps working it into the set bonuses somehow would be a means of accomplishing it (I have no idea if proc rate is something you can even tweak or if it would have to be a kludge like adding a 0.2 PPM proc to every IO with a recharge component which might cause more problems than it would solve).

Dang it... now I need to roll up a Willpower Tanker named "Old Habit" who's whole shtick is being hard to break.

Well, sea turtles are well and good, some returns can be more sensible with barely more effort than saying “sea turtles.” That said, the lady in question is NOT one of the ones I’d expect to see return... and in fact was probably killed off in the first place... due to a variation on the “One Steve Limit” rule. Put simply, if there’s a version of a Praetorian character on Primal Earth, then one or the other either did or was in the process of being either put on a bus or having a bridge dropped on them (or both) so that only one would be left going forward. As a prime example of that, look at the combo of the new KIng’s Row arcs (only partway completed) and the New Praetorians arcs. In the former, Back Alley Brawler, who’s mostly been relegated to auxiliary Atlas Park trainer ever since Galaxy City got blown up, was crippled (also worth noting, his powers are supposed to be entirely training and he was pushing 60 back in 2012). Meanwhile in the New Praetorians arc we see Marauder get redeemed and his actual super-serum powers (making his age irrelevant) restored. I’m pretty sure that, if not for The Snap, future issues would have seen BAB’s retire and Marauder more or less replace him. Given that she’s only a trainer and turns up only in a villain mission or two I also think Aurora Borealis might have been eventually phased out for the Praetorian version as well. Only versions that were extremely different from each other seem able to co-exist (ex. Pendragon and Hero-1/the Honoree). In a version going the other direction, Metronome (the Praetorian Clockwork King) took over Anti-matter’s satellite to assist the humans of Last Bastion on Praetorian Earth, meaning he isn’t around to replace Primal Russel. So in that respect, several post-Underground Trial arcs/missions happening to feature the Primal version in a more “neutral-ish” role probably means the death was deliberate move to remove a very similar doppelgänger and the villainous version being chosen because they’re the one easier to write future missions about.

I've got a couple character concepts that took several iterations to get right. First was a "solo-series" version of my Thugs/Traps MM. I started out trying to do Dual Pistols/Devices Blaster, but the perma-stealth sustain (which didn't display in the power preview or I'd never have taken it) killed it for me. I then tried Dual Pistols/Martial, but the Sustain came equipped with a taunt which made it no fun... so I re-rolled AGAIN with Tactical Arrow as the secondary and the plan to use only the non-arrow powers (upshot, eagle-eye, etc.)... and the fact that due to system limits on two weapons (so the two pistols) the bow was invisible and made it almost like I was throwing the specialized arrows out using some type of launcher. That kinda worked. Ultimately though I had to break out of the Blaster AT blinders I had on, which took me rebuilding another character entirely to finally get the definitive version... a Traps/Dual Pistols Defender. The other one I struggled with started as a Grav/Storm Controller just because I wanted to do a new take on my Live Chaostroller... but it didn't fit the character concept so I tried a Storm/??? Defender instead. I did a version that was Storm/Rad for a bit until the mitigation was getting me killed (did I mention this was in Praetoria?), so I then did some tests of Storm/Elec and Storm/Water before finally settling in to Storm/Dark... which with brightly colored Noir alternate animations is pretty much exactly what I wanted, especially once I got the AoE immobilize in. It was the jump from Controller to Defender on that character and that two of my real life friends started the game by rolling Blasters and a desire to support them that finally broke my other character's "blaster-lock" and got me to roll them as a Defender that actually did what I wanted the original to do. The only other one I really did a re-roll on was a Savage/Bio Scrapper that I wanted to use a lot of stealth on, getting re-rolled as a Savage/Bio Stalker that did everything the scrapper did, but with better integrated stealth in the concept.

I suspect its because they were added at the same time as Praetoria, which ended at level 20 with an alignment choice to go from Resistance/Loyalist to Hero/Villain. Having lower level alignment missions would be nice, but so would just allowing the previous tier(s) of missions to be played. The big problem is there's only eleven missions per level band with one (12 for 40+) for a given alignment. This wasn't quite as noticeable when you were limited to 5/day and advancement through 20-29 and 30-39 were quick enough that you weren't going to repeat too many and incarnate stuff required you doing entirely different content to advance it, but it gets VERY noticeable now that you can run an unlimited number per day and incarnate leveling is just doing any content. All that said, my radical overhaul would be to re-jigger the Praetorian content to create a smoother overall process for a Praetorian only playthrough. Step 1) Tweak the levels in Praetoria; right now its super-easy to outlevel Nova Praetoria and Neutropolis without even using an XP booster while Imperial City lags slightly. Changing the levels to 1-10 for Nova Praetoria, 10-15 for Imperial City and 15-25 (with the Rift to Primal Earth mission still opening as early as level 20 once you complete one of the four arc chains) would clean up a lot of that. Step 2) Move the exit points for the Praetorians into Paragon City/Rogue Isles to one of the Vanguard Annexes. Inside the Paragon City Annex would be Tina Macintyre (or a replacement) with JUST "The Praetorian War" arc re-leveled to 20-30, Maria Jenkins with all her missions re-leveled to 30-40 and Mistress Eva (First Ward starter contact). The Rogue Isles would have contacts with villain/rogue rewritten versions of Tina and Maria's arcs and Carter Mordesen (villain First Ward contact). Step 2A) Tweak a bit of the First/Night Ward dialogue to make it clear that events there are happening contemporaneously with the Tina and Maria arcs and add a closing mission/arc that takes you from the conclusion of Night Ward to the start of the arcs in Step 3 without having to have picked Hero or Villain first. Step 3) A new set of zones accessible from the Annex would be available starting at level 40. These would be mirrors of the Praetoria 1-20 zones with forces swapped out to the time of The Praetorian Invasion (ex. IDF and War Works on the streets instead of PPD). These would be War Neutropolis (40-45), War Imperial City (45-50) and War Nova Praetoria (50+). For content, each of the Incarnate Trials would be re-written into story arcs (one per trial) with mission doors in the respective zones (i.e. the Lambda Trial arc would be in War Neutropolis, the TPN Trial would be War Imperial). You would be diverted to Dark Astoria and its arc at the appropriate point. Step 4) Move both the Marchand/New Praetorian and Mr. G's arcs to Kallisti Wharf and make them level 50. The rationale here is that the zone matches the graphic quality of the Praetorian content a lot better than Brickstown/St. Martial do and with a story arc version of the Praetorian conflict available that can be soloed to experience it, it makes sense to move the arc to after the war arcs. The end result should be a reasonably seamless path from the Precinct 5 tutorial zone all the way to incarnate content while focused entirely on the Praetorian crisis (with Primal heroes and villains able to hep in at level 20, about the time that missions like Roy Cooling's arcs start setting up the big war with Praetoria... in that case upgrading the Mediporters to deal with the jamming the IDF intends to use that is mentioned in the later arcs in Praetoria) and its aftermath.

While I understand the general sentiment of others, pineapple does actually go really well with certain other toppings (and awfully with others). It’s ideal compliment is ham and/or grilled chicken with either a sweet plum tomato sauce or a Hawaiian barbecue sauce and stick with the basic mozzarella instead of adding sharper and more flavorful cheeses. The idea is to bring out the sweet and tangy of the pineapple and sauce with the non-greasy ham/chicken as a salty compliment. It is also better on a thinner dryer crust where the bread isn’t weighing down the meal with a lot of extra starch/carbs and doesn’t take so long to cook that the pineapples break down into formless mush. It’s horrible with pepperoni, Italian sausage, onions/peppers, spicy tomato sauces and sharper cheeses... which is where it’s bad rap as a pizza topping comes in. The sweet fights the heat and makes both less appetizing. Deep dish where the longer cooking time breaks the pineapple down doesn’t do it favors either. Basically, if your definition of a pizza requires thick crusts, pepperoni/spicy toppings and flavorful cheeses then YES, pineapple is bad. But if you’re a bit more flexible then it can actually be really yummy.

My favorite thing about the Wards is they give a Praetorian an extended stay before they have to leave for Primal Earth. And let me tell you, if you’re a Resistance who ultimately goes hero, doing the portal mission AFTER Night Ward and seeing both Katie (who remembers you again) with other freed Seers and Noble Savage standing there having nice send offs feels way better than how things get left in First/Night Wards. Similarly, if you make sure to use whatever means to hit max level for Night Ward before leaving you’re right in the level range to start the Praetorian Portal Corps missions, then do the New Praetorians arcs and wrap it up with the Last Bastion arc and you’ll have gone from 1 to 50 doing nothing but Praetorian-related content.

Better suggestion; make all the Arachnos costume parts into general use pieces so you can have as many or as few Arachnos costumes as you desire and non-Arachnos ATs who’s concept is being employed by Arachnos can incorporate Arachnos costume pieces too (heck, you can already put a crab backpack on). P.S. and I don’t know what tools are required, but could we get the widow leg color map adjusted so it lines up on the inner leg?

Characters have more than enough power picks and slots that building for “tank only” or “buff only” is a gimp build and actually holding your team back. If all you’re using is taunt you’re taunting maybe half what could be achieved if you were also using your attack powers. Likewise, the ultimate in damage mitigation for your allies is inflicting the “dead” status effect on a target and a good defender knows when popping off a blast is more useful than spamming a heal on a group that’s already topped off on health (particularly if that blast has a useful debuff attached to it... ex. /dark can nerf a target’s to-hit into the floor with a couple shots, particularly if the attack is slotted with some to-hit debuff instead of straight damage). This isn’t a “holy trinity” MMO. Defenders and Tankers don’t have attack secondaries for show; they’re intended to be used.

It’s an easy one to fail though because it’s timed and the setup is literally that Amanda Vines will pay you to not get involved. So take the mission and then run something else until the timer’s up and then go collect your reward from Marshal Grumpypants for doing nothing. I mean, seriously, you’re being PAID to do nothing. That is living the Rogue dream right there! As to Patrons, Plan A for me is to just skip them unless I desperately need one of the Pools. If all you’re after is the pools then do Black Scorpion. As mentioned, for the only arc you need to do for them you’re basically stealing from/taking down other bad guys. The later arcs get more heinous though. If you’re going to play through the entire Patron arc though, go Scirocco. He’s basically a well-intentioned extremist. Taking down Serafina isn’t exactly heroic, but she’s messing with people’s free wills and it’s not like you can actually kill her so it’s just “there” on the good-evil scale. Similarly, while the internal monologue implies you’re stopping Scirocco from using the Mallus Mundi because you wanna stay evil, the fact of the matter is that taking away people’s free will (even if that will is to choose villainy) is pretty horrific so I’d like to think it’s something even a hero would choose to do. His third arc is basically stopping the rise of an evil goddess so no moral qualms there and the last arc is the same for all the patrons putting Project Destiny to bed which means thwarting the long term schemes of one of the setting’s biggest villains and walking away free and clear from it.

Overall a pretty good list, The main changes I'd make to it are; - The two rogue arcs have been mentioned but I'd add them to the list for completeness sake (with the note they're expressly Rogue only). - Scratch Billie Heck from the list unless you like kidnapping mobsters' daughters and turning them over to their rivals to make "examples" of. - I'd add a note to drop Jezebel Jones before starting her "Johny's Squeeze" arc as that involves kidnapping and later murdering someone because they knew too much. Not very roguish there, but her other arc is pretty good. - Shadow Spider's arcs are beating up Agents Indigo and Crimson... not my cup of tea, but super-spies aren't exactly innocent bystanders either so your roguish mileage may vary. - I'd add Marshal Brass (15-19) with a note that you can choose to deliberately fail the final timed mission for his arc at which point its just a paid investigation arc which is right up a rogue's alley. - I'd also make a note that the Vanguard arcs (35+) can be played by anyone and rogues can certainly run with the idea they're being paid handsomely as a government contractor for their services (and frankly, what's a better way to say "I'm a Rogue" than working for the government at ludicrously inflated rates... you're effectively stealing from entire countries LEGALLY and the heroes can't touch you).

Tactical Arrow has totally ruined Trick Arrow for me. It’s got; - Net Arrow, but electrified (so it could actually ignite an oil slick) - Ice Arrow, but does cold damage - Flash Arrow - Glue Arrow, but deals toxic damage. - EMP Arrow, but no crash and better recharge. Sure, there’s no acid, disruption or oil slick arrows, but it gets a whole bunch of survival self-buffs, can slot much more interesting sets and the Blaster AT makes up for the lack of damage resistance (at least for soloing). The simplest fix to Trick Arrow to start would be to just normalize the set by using the Tactical Arrow variants of Net, Ice, Glue and EMP for it. This also gives the set a way to ignite the oil slick on its own (electronet energy damage). The next fix I’d suggest is to change disruption arrow from a stationary debuff zone to one you stick on a target that moves with it. This makes it a lot harder for a specific target to just run out of the patch (so you can keep it on an AV even as it runs around) and means that it will stick with the mass of a spawn you’ve aggro’d even if you started from a distance. Add a -Regen effect to the Poison Gas arrow that persists even if the Sleep is broken (the ONLY reason I’d even keep the sleep part is the cottage rule). I’d also increase the AoE of Acid Arrow. Even though the first change would allow you to ignite it anyway, I’d like to see a toggle option added to Oil Slick Arroe to allow it to just automatically ignite when the toggle is on, saving you an activation.

Might be doable just with alternate animations, but I’m not sure how well weapon sets play with those so it might need to be its own power set, but... Tactical Grenades: Literally just Tactical Arrow with grenade animations in place of the bow. The reason is simple and two-fold... First, you can only have two weapons as part of your costume. If you’re Dual Pistols, the bow is invisible (but the arrows are not) so all of the bow attacks look ridiculous. Using a grenade means there’s no third weapon. Second, grenades are more generic and don’t have redraw issues when combined with other blast sets. They thematically work better with Assault Rifle and Beam Rifle and are easier to fluff as other things (they can be magic flasks for a Magic origin character) for other sets and are easier to justify pulling from utility belts or similar as a supplement to your primary attacks vs. whipping out a bow. Finally, if we’re in for a penny, may as well go for the pound... if you can use a grenade animation for them... you could also do a forearm launcher animation too for those who want a more “power armor” look. So there’s my suggestion... Tac Arrow and Trick Arrow variants using grenades or arm launchers to better allow their use with a broader range of concepts.

Water Blast is FANTASTIC for going full bore while still feeling like you're being non-lethal and just trying to get them to "cool off" in situations like this. Yeah, high pressure water can actually do a LOT of damage in real life, but given that you're basically water-bending it feels like something you can really control the power level of and the fact that all of its knock attacks are all relatively low mag down or up (vs. back) it feels like you're self-regulating the flow so you're just doing enough to knock them down rather than hitting them with a blast of water solid enough to send them flying through the air.

Yeah, water jet has a 10 second cooldown on its 3 stacks Tidal Forces use. Double Use every 10 seconds is already quite OP... add a third with their aim power also giving three stacks it’d be over the top.