FDR's Think Tank

1.) Discord is notoriously unsecure and often the transitional point that social engineers will use to learn your real identity. You shouldn't be sharing your identity with people you meet online. A previous poster gave in depth links to this topic. 2.) Discord has been rumored to turn a blind eye to criminal enterprise and silence people who mention those issues or request Discord to take action. These events come and go, most of the focus is usually on the Discord communities in question, as opposed to Discord Corporate. 3.) It's not great using any external communications program with CoH. It reduces your ability to communicate effectively because you may have to switch screens. It also opens you up to being hacked, harassed, or scammed. When CoH was live, it was standard practice to ban anyone who promoted or used external communications programs on many online games. Obviously the industry has changed quite a bit since then.... but CoH still has a complex message/search system in game that largely obsoletes Discord. The only exception is the voice chat, which has many alternatives. That's back to why I was suggesting running a Roleplay Paragon Radio station. If you have people who are confident at speaking, they could be giving thematic background noise to CoH. Then that's going to be way more successful than trying to build a normal Discord community by dividing the existing CoH Community. There is a way forward... but you can already see how people who don't even know about Discord controversy are resistant to the very idea of using it. If your purpose is to organize events on Discord, that mindset totally derails that vision. You can argue that Discord is safe and welcoming... but CoH has a high bar for tolerance and chill attitude that very few game communities can replicate. It's hard to convince people and it looks like some people really don't want to be told to go to Discord to find teams. I think in a sense, the original poster doesn't understand how an Online PC game wouldn't have a Discord Community... so he is questioning why the players of City of Heroes are so resistant to FORMING a community on Discord. What he doesn't understand is that between forums and the very functional in game chat function, most City of Heroes players already feel like they are part of a vibrant community, even on a Zombie version of the game that hasn't even come to the attention of half of the player base that existed during CoH Live.

For Masterminds Demon Summoning would be funny for a really cartoonish take on the character. Mercenaries would make sense from the standpoint that he has infiltrated the Postal Service. Faceless Paramilitary Drones! Either Way, you can name the minions after Postal Bureaucrats. Fire seems like a good secondary set, from the video clip. Cash would be a decent aura effect, but don't rule out Tarot Card Aura, which would look like Lost Mail. Alternative costumes could have Flies/bugs Aura, since he has a plot to steal Garbage. You could make his powers gross green in this set up, where they can be colored.

If you want to promote a Discord Channel for City of Heroes, especially a VOICE channel, I suggest you pick a server and run a "Radio Station" for that server. Everlast has a lot of Roleplayers, so you might find volunteers there. Have D.J.'s discuss in game conspiracies, play good music for adventuring to, and use the text/chat part of discord to do requests so the DJs can do Warriors style callouts and let players know a team is forming. You're not going to get many people using it at first, but if you make it fun... and most importantly, make it something people can just run in the background without having to interact or talk... then you'll lower the natural suspicion Discord attracts as Unnecessary competition to the powerful in game search and communications platforms. I know there are Radio stations that do just dance music and stuff for clubs and chilling out... but you want a more active Radio. Paragon News/Talk during high traffic hours... during low traffic it's Music focused with DJ narration breaks to give weather or notify people of in game events. It would be neat to hear Supergroups have members show up to talk events to boast and talk about their team vision. I don't know how far you could go with it. But frankly, I don't even like Discord for the games that I use it for now. It's a hassle in my mind, and really shady to use. Even CoH Vets who aren't aware of controversy behind it will ask "why do I need to do this as well?" So... good luck on your endeavor, whatever you decide to do.

If I think of the "Word" Sentinel, it makes me imagine someone who is searching for what is hidden. If this class had a bonus to detecting stealthy units, it would be neat... but there aren't enough stealthy NPCs to Justify an entire Archetype... and this might really tick off Stalkers in PvP. Alternatively, when teamed up, the Sentinel could get bonuses for attacking enemies that landed a "Final" blow on a teammate, knocking them out. This wouldn't really translate to Solo Mode, so the Sentinel would need to have an Inherent that flexes based on if they are teamed up or not... Frankly, I would like a power that increases Tip drop rate (Or other drop rates.) If it was an inherent, I wouldn't mind that at all. Some people feel the Sentinel is balanced. Some people feel it isn't because less survivable classes can eventually make themselves survivable and the sentinel doesn't have the kill power to compete. I hear people mentioning target caps being an issue for the Sentinel. Another alternative is to not give a perception boost, but give a damage boost to attacking enemies that have left the hidden portion of their stealth powers. However... it's so situational.... The nice thing with a situational power on an otherwise "Balanced Jack of All Trades" that doesn't shine in most circumstances is that they have a chance to be super useful to a team... But Stalkers would certainly want some sort of highlighting system in PVP so visible Sentinels would really stand out to them. This way they could avoid them more consciously. Another thing to play with is that the Sentinel is survivable, but it doesn't want to get mobbed. You could tinker with kill bonus mechanics, but each kill boosts your aggro. Then the Sentinel either needs to lose the aggro or flee.

I still regularly see new returning players in the game who hadn't even heard that City of Heroes was playable again. The real issue is that people don't KNOW about the game. And I think the people who would benefit most from knowing about the game are people who like to chat and are looking for a live social platform. If Homecoming can secure the rights for the game or get the rights firmly in the public domain, the best way to market this game wouldn't be as a game. It would be as a virtual chatroom with an optional game. Then you would have plenty of people logging on and open to playing the game and learning. The biggest problem with this approach is that many people probably use cellphones to do chatting these days... but realistically, people without a P.C. weren't your target audience anyway. There are many Gamer themed communication programs too... if City of Heroes could be promoted as a place for gamers to virtually meet up, socialize, and hangout in low pressure situations with online friends, that could work too. They might need to find some ways to prevent spam in the global channels if there WAS a huge influx of users... particularly chatty ones. I just don't see people who want to play an MMO going for City of Heroes unless they have a special attachment to it... The thing is, this game has so much to offer even if that's not what a person is looking for. To promote use as a social platform you'd want more "actions/interactions" that players could use socially. It wouldn't hurt to consider making use of actions more fluid too.... perhaps a "Civilian mode" that swaps out power icon trays with Action trays. Adding more dances would be good too... having some sort of online Radio station players can tune into an listen to at the same time would be really nice too. If this approach worked, the devs could work on creating more Neutral social areas for players to gather... treating the city and mission areas as transit points between rooms. And of course.. the more costume customizations, the more you attract casual players. It might not be a bad idea to start locking new costume parts behind badges/accomplishments/goalposts if too many people only come to chat online.

Wouldn't that be a cool Offensive set for Sentinels? Instead of Ranged attacks, they would have lots of "jump kicks" and "teleport smashes". It allows them to attack from a distance, but forces them right into the thick of combat. I don't know if that would let them take Shield Defense, but Shield Offense would be pretty cool. If they could do both, maybe they could have Shields in both hands! Or maybe that's absurd. They could certainly have a Shield toss ability... maybe there could be some sort of defense buff mechanic like Titan weapons have, but for ranged attacks? Of course, if they are going to do throwing weapons, I am sure people would prefer Boomerangs/darts at this point.

Does anyone know what happened to Fear Factor and The Killing Crew? These two were originally planned for the game, but never saw the light of day... Were the models even done for the game, only to be repurposed into a different faction? Maybe the powersets? Or was it dropped when Cryptic sold the game? Was there any concept art or lore that might have been saved from the old days, or did it all get lost?

Every time I think about CoH PvP and the issues about why it is so complex to balance, I find myself thinking a few things: 1.) This game does Cooperative MMO incredibly well. 2.) PvP has always gotten worse in this game, they have no clear idea of how to make it fun. 3.) The game is built for PvE in an extreme way. 4.) PvP is a nonsensical game of Psychic Damage/Psychic Immunity, plus whatever the current Meta has become. 5.) The only way to have PvP work is for the game to be built from the ground up with it specifically in mind, letting Players and NPC's share the same system rather than building different systems for each. You can skip the rest of this... this is just my in depth thoughts on the topic. On the discussion of how to Balance PvP for a new game, I have many ideas... but for this one, I'm afraid nothing can make people happy. You just have to enjoy it as is. My best memories of the PvP in this game was always before they started to "Rebalance" it. Now the changes are so baked into the structure of the game, you would destroy the PvE balance if you made any of the changes necessary to fix this. I actually think that the original designers of City of Heroes were closer to what MMO PvP needs than anyone else. We are talking when City of Heroes before it got Tankers, Defenders, Scrappers, Controllers, and Blasters as the Archetypes. The ORIGINAL concept Archetypes: Mutant, Altered Human, Magical Powers, Cyberware, Superior Human, Gadgeteer, and Mystical Artifacts. These Archetypes didn't factor in PvE playstyle at all, which meant two things: The creators would have needed to give the player the flexibility to build their character to fill the team role the player envisioned for the character and the powers had to be balanced with each other, rather than with the gameplay environment. This obviously proved to be too much to pull off. There is more to it than just blazing a trail, after all... you have to have a clear vision of how to support those dreams. We all know the game was sold to a team who already had experience building MMO's the traditional way, with Levels, EXP punishment for death, and locked in player roles at character creation. While these elements can be balanced for PvP, I have never seen an MMO balance them in a way that doesn't require constant rebalancing. That's all fine and dandy when you have a subscription service and people are paying you to update the game constantly... there is plenty of room for what ultimately becomes Programming Malfeasance, no matter how unintentional. We need only look at the Peacebringer and Warshade situation for an example of what could and DID happen. Honestly, both should have gotten Power Proliferation and Archetype expansion. We could have gotten Malta Peacemakers with Tank Robot and Jet Flyer forms and Circle of Thorns Warlocks with their own demonic twisting's. I could even see Arachnos Soldiers and Widows becoming powerset choices in Soldier and Fatale Archetypes. I could easily see us getting Wyvern Fatales and Longbow Soldiers... However, that was all under the premise that NCSoft had kept the game going and was willing to let programmers make it happen. We were all shocked when they shut the game down, which, while not doing gangbusters, was still profitable for them. The reasoning that "They wanted people to play their other games" doesn't fly either, since we know that most of us never played another NCSoft game again. I know I personally wrote off multiple franchises NCSoft had planned because of it. We have to ask ourselves at some point "What was NCSoft afraid of about this game?" I think it's somewhere in the programmers constantly telling people in the forums that there would never be new powersets for the Peacebringer or Warshade because, initially "They have everything they need" and then when that line got stale "We don't have anyone who understands how they were programmed in the first place". It's fine and dandy to say that to your playerbase, but you can't use either of those on your investors. We are darn lucky to have people reverse engineering the game and making balance patches today... but I am more optimistic about Power Proliferation finally hitting Epic Archetypes than PvP being actually balanced in this game. And that's okay. It doesn't need to be balanced if it's fun. My favorite PvP game to this day was the throw away Multiplayer games Rare included with Conker's Bad Fur Day. They weren't balanced at all but they provided endless fun. What is PvP balance? For fun? Or for Competition?

I like the idea of using this to make a Sword Immortal... they would need to give us a Flying Sword Travel Power to round it all out. I could also see making a Cartoon themed character very loosely based on the few scenes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where Eddie Valentine fights using the Singing Sword. Of course, none of the Mastermind Powersets are set up for the Mastermind to specifically go into Melee... that is a choice the Mastermind makes by building into power pools to get enough Melee attacks. I am sure there are people who would love a Melee Mastermind Primary set... It would open up the road for people to build Paladin type characters too with the Mastermind's Support Secondary. If I am being frank, I would rather see a Luddite Themed Mastermind than Floating Swords, because Cultists are way more useful for Mastermind Characters. Perhaps this powerset would be better expressed in the Dominator Archetype? You would get less summons, but you also have a better chance that someone could actually MAKE this powerset.... albeit it would likely be split into two different halves. You'd have the Control/Summoning Half and the Secondary Assault set which would have room for Melee attacks. You could almost have a Titan Weapon Assault for the Dominator where they get a few Melee Strikes, and then a bunch of Sword Intent/Massive Sword Smash Ranged attacks. I would seriously consider reworking your idea for this, because it opens up way more flexibility in character design.

I used that Warrior plate dome helmet for a hard hat. I think I added a brim to it? It would be neat to see more civilian parts for use in game. Really, I think they should start making the new Costume Parts connected to hunting for exploration Badges. Too many people play this game from the endgame viewpoint... and the game needs to be made to have all sorts of things for new players to discover and be delighted by. I know some Emotes are connected to badges. If players want to short cut around it, they can give the P2W Vendors GPS Satellite Scans for 1 million influence. Vets can snag all the badges paying the price, rather than travelling to each exploration badge. I could see having a MM set with Minions wearing hard hats, in bright colored Speed suits. They would probably use tranq guns, but could have tool related Melee weapons. Really give us that Bond Villain feeling by having tier one minions that aren't quite Paramilitary and could possibly have no idea what they are really involved in. Their upgraded form might use explosives and get bags of it, like the Destroyers in Pretoria.

So what if Endurance issues don't exist at Level 50? Doesn't that answer the issue right there? The Defender needs a way they can raise or lower the endurance their powers consume... It would be similar to Bio-Armor, but an Archetype Power. Stamina Efficient- Is the Standard that you have now, it's not actually using less Stamina since that was stated to not be an issue in the game. This might be considered on, if nothing is selected. Support Boosted- This would increase the To Hit of Debuff Powers while increasing the Stamina Cost of those abilities. For Buffs and Heals it may be harder to justify increase expenditure. Damage Boosted- This would increase the To Hit and Damage of the Defenders offensive powers, while also increasing Stamina use for those powers. This way, the Defender can burn the candle at both ends if they feel they need to, depending on the situation. Of course, at this point, you're trying to solve an issue that arises for players informed about the traditionally orthodox way to build endgame characters. Is Vigilance even a concern at that point? Maybe it doesn't do the things other Archetypes inherent powers do, but that's because when Defenders are built up to the max, they are already doing what they should far better with the accumulation of their power picks. The other character classes have to focus on specific areas of battle... killing, not being killed, or controlling movement and placement of enemies. Is the Defender Inherent mostly supposed to help the Defender get through the lower levels of the game, perhaps?

What if you had more "Opportunity" types, but the larger the team the less opportunity types cycle based on team composition? Offensive Opportunity - Damage Dealers (As before, when the team lacks damage dealers) Defensive Opportunity - Tanks (As before, when the team lacks tanks) Control Opportunity- Crowd control/Support (Sentinel gets boosted support effects on their abilities when the team lacks support classes) If the Team is well rounded and has those bases covered, the Sentinel could unlock a different kind of Opportunity.... Interrogation Opportunity, which allows them to gain more points towards the related broker for the mission area they are currently in. This would result in more Mission generation... which allows a Sentinel to keep the team busy with fun missions. This way, you are only trying to balance the damage a Sentinel is dealing when it's on a small team or soloing. If it's on a big team, then the bonus it gets is completely untethered from the need to ensure the Sentinel feels useful.... The Sentinel has a different contribution to the team.

If we are getting The Angel Summoner, I hope they can also release a powerset for the BMX Bandit. ( Really, you could tweak this a bit and make it a "Cultist" Summoner type. It could have regular lethal/toxic damage, but with Upgrades, you get Energy/Psychic Damage. First off, you'd have the Acolyte Summoning for Tier One. Your ranged attacks would be dagger/shuriken/boomerang throws. Your Tier Two would be Bishops. Your Minion Upgrades would be Rituals... granting your faithful that special damage type. The "Angel" would be a top tier summon. As to whether it's actually from Heaven... or some alternate plane of existence, that's up to the player. It could just as easily be a High Elemental, a Dragon, or some sort of Reaver. You could even have a skin set with the Grim Reaper. Of course, this takes time for the Devs to make minion costume sets that are generic enough to satisfy the players imagination. I think Power Proliferation is going to be their focus on expansions, but it would be awesome to see more Mastermind Sets. It's too bad there isn't a way to streamline creating Mastermind Powersets, because it's the hardest to do... Not counting what they did with Warshades and Peacebringers... which would theoretically be great for power proliferation for shape shifters, exo suit specialists, or other Lore specific Toon types.

There should be more "Search and Rescue" type missions in the game. Whether you are rescuing drowning civilians, dealing with burning buildings, picking up helpless NPCs and running them out of a combat zone, or even getting cats down out of trees for little old ladies... the game has a lot of nooks and crannies it can fill in with mini games and team challenges. I love the firefighting/arson challenge in Steel Canyon... it's a shame there aren't more events like that. A good example of the gameplay to add might be Sim Copter. You have a bounty board with all sorts of missions. Some are hospital transport, some are crowd/riot dispersal... and while these things are certainly represented in CoHs in limited ways at very specific locations, I think there is a way to make solo mini games ramp up into team effort games where each team member has a different designated role. Villains, on the other hand, should be able to fight for gang territory and direct "non-combat" minions to commit crimes for profit. They are bad guys, duh.

Which word refers to all the "Duplicator" summons, what word describes the vanishing strikers best, and what word describes each level of clone best? Simulacrum does sound like the best entry level term for clones, but Duplicate you have used all over While "Perfect Copy" and "Minor Copies" aren't unique, especially next to each other. Once you figure out how you organize the words, I think this set will be clear and striking. If the "Vanishing Strikers" are all shadows, I think that would work fine. The Pets are the ones people want to look like your character. The question is, how close do they match your characters details and color scheme? In some ways, a duplicator Mastermind would be a good expression of a speedster.

Very cool. For clarity, does the "Improve Duplicates" only work on Duplicates as stated, or did you mean it works on all Doppleganger levels? If the word Duplicates refers to ALL the pets this Mastermind Summons, it might be prudent to change "Summon Duplicate" to something else. It would be different from other Mastermind sets if only one level of pet could actually receive upgrades... but there would need to be something to balance out the consequence of that. Also, it's not a bad idea to vary terms when appropriate and unify terminology when prudent. So... lets list out a list of non-copyrighted Xerox terms that can be swapped in, possibly! You used Simulacrum Duplicate Perfect Copy Minor Copies We can also use Clone Doppleganger Twin (Or Triplet/Etc) Replica Photocopy Mimic Dummy Pod People Mannequin Puppet Body Double Facsimile Effigy And for description, you have lots of words too. Here are just a few. Mirror Forgery Ditto Parallel For each of the "Duplicate Ambush" attacks, I recommend settling on a single term to describe the duplicates in this so it's clear when they are and when they aren't being boosted by specific powers. You could call "Flanking Strike" something like "Mirror Flank" or call "Ambushing Blow" something like "Parallel Ambush". There is definitely room to spice it up and really drive home the sense of many copies attacking. Obviously, some of these terms might be too specific or not generic enough for the set to use, but that's all in what you want to communicate. I also doubt my list is comprehensive, so if you think of a Clone term that really fits and has flair, then please use it! For example: "Sudden Mob" makes sense in the context if you know they are copy-clones... but if you just say that phrase, it could also refer to the "Thug" masterminds Mob summon. This is really more of a wave of Being John Malkovich clones than an unruly mob about to commit vandalism... there is a certain single-mindedness clones have that should be communicated! Another thing to consider with Duplicates- One of the key benefits would be hiding which entity is actually the prime/player character. While in PvP it would be distracting to figure it out at first, later, players would simply change U.I. settings so they can tell at a glance or by hovering over the character. As such, it might be prudent to include some sort of clone-swap ability somewhere in the set. Perhaps the higher upgrade for Simulacrums could swap places with the Player, if possible, on an alpha strike. I don't know what the cost or cool down for this would have to be to balance this... or if it's even worth getting into, but I thought I would mention it as an idea to help give this set character. Other than that... I am very excited by the concept! You thought a lot of the angles out from tier one to nine! P.S. It occurs to me that the Clone Ambush attacks are ranged from your characters perspective, but would ACTUALLY be melee. I don't know how that factors in for defense, considering some defenses are Melee/ranged specific. It might be good to talk about the intent.

Illusions are often products of Smoke and Mirrors... be it set up, science, or magic. Upgrades to illusions would be ways in which the illusions could be made more convincing or more shocking. As such, I have a few suggestions... 4. Enhance Illusion- Could be something focused on the Smoke involved in creating the Illusions... Visceral Smoke would be thicker and more mysterious, implying better survivability of Illusions upgraded. 8. Reinforce Illusions- A good focus here would be Mirrors, which are often central to a good illusion. Mirror Maze could be an AoE ability that specifically boosts the attack power of Illusions as stated. Or it could increase defense, making them more likely to dodge. It could vary by Pet type. 9. Perfect Illusions- The highest level of upgrade would likely involve three-dimensional emitters... perhaps this could be called Hardened Holographic Emitters. Illusions upgraded with this would have a qualitative upgrade to their damage. I don't know if this helps, but I tried to keep the powers vague for broad application, but slightly more descriptive as well, inside the Illusion theme.

You know what would be interesting? A sort of Zero-cost "Cantrip" sort of power pool. It would have various low/no endurance cost variants of your different basic powers. It would be the "Jack of All Trades" power pool. Or something. I think with the current Tier one powers, if endurance is the major consideration, you can slot it that way, instead of for damage. If you make it zero cost, you are just reducing the variety of build strategies people can employ to suit their personal tastes. My issue is that for the most part, players are majorly rewarded for slotting Damage and Accuracy. Making the power Zero cost just lets people have their cake and eat it too. I remember they talked about Enhancement Diversification for YEARS to the point where I had believed it was already implemented. Then they DID implement it and people were ticked off! THEN they made the IO enhancements and everything went out the window. However, there is something you have picked up on here that I think is somewhat critical to game theory... to make a game really deep, whether you are pitting players against each other or an automated environment, Resource Management isn't the ONLY set of skills you can challenge players with. In fact, if you are clever, you can make an incredibly deep system by giving players OPTIONS about which system to commit to. I don't think it would be impossible to design an attack set that taxes a players risk management abilities more than their resource management ones. However, balancing that with existing archetypes like the Brute might be daunting. Their inherent might make risky playstyle TOO rewarding. It's something to ponder. (I don't know if anyone here has ever played "Warmachine"... but they had a similar dual structure with "Hordes". The games were compatible and had the same sequencing... but the factions from one set focused on Resource Management based powers and the other set focused on Risk Management. In a purely ideal system, you would try to find a third management style so you could build in dual opposing pain wheels, which, with a computer game, doesn't slow down the action but leaves the tactics and strategy very deep. Maybe the third style could be a Bluff/Counter style with blowback for bad judgement...) Of course, for the purposes of making CoH more of a Superhero Simulator, I don't see any problem with making all tier one abilities have lower endurance, but you have to remember, you only said the tier one attacks. It might be terribly unbalancing to make such a sweeping benefit to attack abilities, but tell players with defense tier ones that they get nothing. Since the game is mostly PvE some people won't even notice it. And what I understand about PvP is that it's all bouncing around with alpha strikes, so it's likely this wouldn't affect it at all. It's hard to predict what else might come of it. I will admit, I am biased too... Trick Arrow Defenders have VERY little going for them right now... but when the team is wiped, they are one of the few classes that gets huge benefits in combat, what with reduced costs for all attacks. If my opponents and I are both low on endurance, my ability to economize and keep debuffing and attacking is where all my hope lies. Giving everyone another free attack for nothing isn't making me happy! Perhaps that's too deeply bitter, huh?

The Early Game should be for teaching players how to play the game. Endurance management is a skill people should probably learn in a game with a limited Endurance supply. While Vets can rocket past the early stages of the game, someone new to CoH or just new to MMOs might find those early days frustrating, but not insurmountable. This game is far from difficult, Unless you play a Trick Arrow Defender. Is Brawl Zero Endurance Cost? What about the Origin Ranged Bonus Attack Powers? I think they cost a little bit, right?

The Scrapper Confront obviously needs to be tuned up anyway for scrappers. It's pretty simple, I think: Make it so it's a targeted taunt power that also placates everyone else targeting the scrapper. It's obvious the Confront is supposed to be a "call-out" one on one challenge power anyway. In solo, it would only temporarily placate, since mobs would naturally retarget the only player character in range. However, in group battles, it would bale the scrapper out when he bit off more than he can chew, giving him the ability to increase his survivability by shrugging off responsibility... a very Scrapper thing to do. Of course, this alteration doesn't have to be made to all confronts. Depending on the element, their could be other benefits/alterations snuck in. Like a Confront that also has a chance for fear proc naturally might work for cold or dark. Some confronts could even do small AoE DoT in the more fire/toxic based sets.

Now this is something you can start to build an AT concept around. If you start to play with Placate having some sort of boost to buff/heals/debuffs then you can make this AT a class that thrives on picking up and dropping aggro. This also puts the class EXACTLY where you would want a character with Support/Melee abilities, rewarding them for being there. There is a lot of ways to play with non-stealth centered Placate in the proposed context and I would like to see a discussion around that possibility. Of course, at this point the name for the Archetype would be more like Jester or Prankster than Guardian... but that's fine since there are already so many Guardian suggestions. I am personally VERY much in favor of New Archetypes and feel we need a set of five including the Sentinel to represent the "Goldside" Archetypes, even though, technically, there is no Archetype segregation anymore. It just feels right. Also note, this drifts away from the typical Paladin suggestions in a really Superhero themed way. I think the real key is building synergy with this playstyle and the inherent. If the Bar builds up every time you drop aggro, then the AT also gets a benefit working on a team because their teammates can also provoke enemies off of them. Remember, fun to play isn't just about the individual experience... it's about how it meshes when working with others too. I see a lot of promise in this concept! Oh... I know! Call it the Juggler, since you Juggle Aggro!

I have noticed when I log back in at the Mercy Island Arachnos Branch office that, while on Mercy Island, all mission waypoints lead you back to the Branch Office. You can leave Mercy Island or log off and log back on... but if you start in the Branch office, while you are on Mercy Island, your map waypoint will display correctly on the minimap, but mislead you if you follow the highlighted waypoint on the player view. It probably rates pretty low on bugs since most Vets don't spend much time at the lower levels... while new players are unlikely to realize they can go into the unmarked Arachnos Branch office and log out for a badge/dayjob bonus... but if they did stumble into it, it would be a very frustrating bug to deal with. I looked around the recent bug reports and did a search, but I didn't find any other similar cases of log out locations sabotaging the functionality of the world view waypoint system. Then again, people may have reported it using different terminology or in relation to a different log out place. I haven't found any other logout spot yet that does this same thing, but I will mention it here if I come across it.

You have to build in a benefit for a support class to be in melee ranges so that the "Support" role makes sense there. Limited pain share with auras puts them right were you want them on the battlefield, without requiring them to harvest aggro from the other melee classes. If the team has no other melee classes, the class would basically defend/support other team members with the pain-share without drawing a huge amount of aggro. (Pain-share wouldn't knock you out, in case that wasn't clear.) Calling it a Tauntless Tank might have confused you... What I mean isn't a tank at all, since Tanks typically hold aggro. However, what I suggest is a damage sink class, which works primarily for the inverted reasons Defenders are highly limited in self buffing and self healing. If you take away those limits, Defenders themselves become too good, especially in solo, but paired with a melee focused class, you can probably pull it off without upsetting game balance and playability. In this way, the class DOES fill a tank role about as well or slightly LESS than a Scrapper. The way it gets there is different from usual, admittedly... but this is a great opportunity for people who, for example, want a sort of Green Lantern that does combat and bubbles... and this is where it would happen! Also consider, for Buff based classes, you might get double duty from your damage resist buffs on a pain-share from allies.... first on damage the ally receives after damage reduction.. then from the buff on yourself when pain share comes in. It creates a different balance for a lighter version of Defender Buffs that takes full advantage of the power. Let's rewind to what you suggested for inherent: Stalwart: Resist to Sleep, Stun, Hold... and a shield that recharges as they take damage. That, combined with your suggestion they have Placate, to reduce aggro, and more HP than a Defender.... means you feel they are gonna take hits, but need to avoid that. There are a couple of gaps here: First: Placate. The only class that currently has that is Stalker... and stalker gets dual, even TRIPLE time use out of the ability because they have always have a hide defensive power and they get backstab damage. You would only be getting the benefits of a Presence Placate out of the power, which makes it an very weak option. In order to consistently stay OUT of trouble, since the class is only slightly less squishy than a Defender, you either need to take Concealment (Which would be so good with your proposed version of the class it might be considered required, especially to take full advantage of Placates ability to return to stealth/invisibility) Or you would have to take Presence just to get another mini-placate to keep people off you. Of course, you could make the Secondary Power Placate recharge fast to make Presence Placate totally obsolete with this AT. You could ALSO make the Secondary Placate in this set give some sort of boost to the Shield bar.... but in the end, it still ends with Concealment becoming a required power I think. So... maybe consider making it a stealth class... if you really Frontline sneak support. It could really work, but you would need to sacrifice a support power to a Hide Toggle. Of course, if the Support set has an Aura Stealth, then it's all built in and functions very well! The problem is, of course, that Placate is an attack power and is much less useful without stealth. I don't know if it's possible to alter a single ability across a Secondary Set based on the Primary Power Set that is chosen. If it was, Placate could be swapped out or given a different bonus for non-stealth characters... other than getting left alone very temporarily. You don't need to placate at all if you simply reduce or remove aggro from the AT's Melee attacks.... but there needs to be a trade off there. ~That's why I like the pain-share.... it can put you right on the edge, but if you don't naturally draw aggro, then the AT's built in weakness is AoE Damage (and lone mobs noticing them) which makes the AT need to manage it's health, position, and defensive abilities for, but within what I would think is reasonable. Well, all that risk and the threat of a high accuracy alpha-strike from a PC Stalker... but lots of people are weak to that, naturally. Second: Inherent that is partially based on taking direct damage. Assuming the shield is a separate function from the sleep/stun/hold resists, You are telling me a sorta squishy class only gets access to it's Damage soak/resist AFTER it takes damage? Wouldn't it make more sense to tie it to your teammates, like the Defender? The melee/support would be harder to eliminate as the team is wiped, allowing him to survive long enough to revive/ send heals/ emergency buff/debuff? Otherwise it feels close to a brute... you are either being rewarded for calling down trouble you personally can't handle or you are sorta forced to misbehave to gain the defensive benefit which is pretty critical on the frontline. I suppose I am not really clear on how squishy the support/melee AT here is. Obviously, they aren't as squishy as a Defender and they cannot tank like a Tank or Brute.... but how do they compare to a Scrapper? A Stalker? A Sentinel? If it's below a Sentinel, that certainly makes sense from a power standpoint, but remember, in your version, it cannot self target most of it's support powers... just like a Defender. It definitely won't be able to tank... but I am curious if a small health boost is the best way to make it able to support on the Frontline. It technically couldn't tank if it was as strong as a stalker either... but how you get to that makes a big difference. You can balance it with HP to a certain point, but then people start taking Combat Jumping, Tough, Weave, and such to turn it into a beefcake... and it really shouldn't be out performing a Scrapper on damage soaking as you suggested it. ~This is also why I like Pain-share... it's a limited damage soak. It might turn off when the AT hit's the Yellow Zone of self hitpoints, the red Zone, or even the Flashing Red Zone... but once you are below your threshold its off, then you have to weigh the risks and consider a self heal or temporary withdrawal from frontlines. The class can do light frontline support, light damage soak, and moderate melee if you set it up as I suggest. Again, the closest analog to this is Mastermind, who can pain-share damage dealt to him with his pets. This has lead to Tankermind builds, but that's a real Aggro-holding Tank subbuild... not what I have suggested which is more a limited-context damage sponge. Third: Nobody is gonna turn down Resists to Sleep/Stun/Hold... but I have to point out- The Defender typically are able to raise the teams resistance to various effects such as these. They can't always buff themselves against these things, since many of their buff powers can ONLY target teammates. It seems a real wasted opportunity for build diversity to simply blanket give the entire AT blanket resistance to these three instead of having self target support and letting the players decide what abilities they want to slot for resistances against for themselves. Of course, there is one large gap here, and that is Debuff heavy sets. For a Debuff set, you can't share that power with yourself or do double duty for defending... however, for dealing damage and such, you are reaping the benefits of dealing extra damage... provided they don't Nerf-Nuke the Debuff heavy set like they did to Trick Arrow. (I suppose the Trick Arrow Proliferation would be some sort of Utility Belt/Elemental Chassis set with lots of different Debuff Auras...) I will say this: for a real hero style Firefighter... this AT would be the most promising powerset. You hit with Melee and support your team: rescue them. That sounds like fun. I just hope it can be balanced well. Also, point taken on Dark, since it IS the Pet Set... you pair that with Illusion control for the most summons possible, after all. If you had a pain-share though, Would you tertiary pain-share TO The pet for this AT though? Then you could TRIPLE stack damage soaking. Could be neat, since you still can't implement Mastermind pet controls on it.

On one hand, I love the idea of variety among power sets. The idea that some Duos only get one summon... and some can have two is pretty darn cool. However, since it is a matter of one vs. two it might be tricky. If balance became an issue, you might need to side step the issue. For an alternative to the Demon Summoning set, you could always use the "Girlfriend from Hell" the Hellions have to give the set a unique partner that isn't Ice Based. I can see a lot of people wanting to a Succubus build anyway! I think she has a green fire whip attack right now... I don't know if the whip can be colored differently. Also, not exactly a demon, you have those "Hordelings" the Circle of Thorns is always summoning, and sometimes seriously regretting... I don't know if it would be separate, or an alternate skin, but if there was a "Large" Hordeling, they would be an excellent Lovecraftian partner. As far as the Oni goes, I have heard some people request an alternate "Shogun" style of the summon... but you are correct, for someone trying to make a Ninja theme, this isn't quite appropriate. Maybe a bare-chested Yakuza style Ninja would be in order? Other than the tattoos, you could give him Ninja Blade powers. Another option might be to use the Tsoo Sorceror model, but with Melee attacks... sort of a "Big Trouble Little China" Vibe, but without the Electricity all over the place. The game has lots of Martial Artist mobs, maybe playing around with other models is in order. I know you have the nature set summoning a Dire Wolf, but is it possible to get a Big Lion, a Shadow Panther, An Elephant, or even an Ape partner in there? Some of these models exist, at the least! Maybe Elephant could be saved for a Persian Siege style set instead. I don't know, I am just riffing here. There are lots of themes one could do if the animal was able to be swapped in the set from a selection, like a costume change. I suppose attack animations might be tricky to translate. It's too bad the Kheldian's are such spaghetti code. If would have been awesome if you could recolor them and make another sub-species of their kind that works as a Duo, not being quite as Symbiotic as their original cousins. Red Kheldians, for instance! They could be "Strifeswimmers" or something with a vaguely chaotic tint. They would seek to seriously aggravate escalated situations without changing the course of history. On a related topic: It would be really neat to see a "Safari/Jungle Assault" set for this. It would contain Machete swipes, Elephant Gun Shooting, and other poaching/park ranger style abilities. For people who want a sort of Allan Quartermain or Gun Toting Jane Goodall type character.

If the game had tons of environmental hazards that knocking enemies into would deal extra damage, knockback wouldn't be so awful... but that's the sort of think that you had to have in the game in the first place. Technically, there are those Electro Zappers in DFB, for instance. It's hilarious to kill mobs with those, but DFB is too easy to require it. Maybe you could make something in AE with more lava pits, bubbling vats of chemicals, spiked walls, Hamidon Psy Damage Zones, and such for characters to use knockback in. Remember that episode of the 1960's Batman where they bring back the villain's girl to the Batcave and in a fit of hysterics, she falls into the unprotected open-top Nuclear Reactor he used to somehow "fuel" the Batmobile? That's the sort of thing you want knockback for, not launching your foes out harmlessly into the lake so they have to run up to you again. Isn't Knockback really more of a fun thing that a strategically useful thing at this point? I don't see many people who have knockback powers use it to herd mobs to the team tank. It's probably easier to let people change knockback into knockdown. I always thought knockdown was conceived as the weaker cousin of knockback, but practical realities of gameplay made Knockdown far more useful for most people.