Cementi

Yeah people get overly salty about nerfs. Sometimes it has to be done from a workload stand point. It's easier to dial one thing back than dial 10 things forward. Personally I kind of like not having an uncontrolable pet that does dumb things. Allows me to control things better.

Ill admit that the idea of making mastermind pet upgrades baked in instead of a power choice is interesting. Would certainly free up some space for the Dev's to get creative and put some more interesting options in those slots. I play MM's a fair amount so I feel campaigning for more sweeping changes than a buff to Poor Mercs feels like chasing a pet project lol so I have to admit I had not really thought about what could be done to the AT over all. I didn't touch on pool powers as it was 3 am and my brain forgot about them which was a good thing heh. Only characters I take Presence on is my MM's and it's for Provoke so I had not thought about it beyond it. You raise good points on the set though as the powers do seem kinda contradictory. Almost like they should have been two different sets heh.

I was looking more at what was weakest in each power category rather than the weakest sets over all. I was really aiming to avoid any pet project kind of bias. Everyone has their favorite AT's. People will always feel their AT got missed so it would be nice to see every class get something at the same time even if it was small to avoid that. I really don't think Assault Rifle needs help. While it is one of the more resisted damage types it still feels like it does some really good damage. I feel like it's an underrated set as it isn't flashy enough. Kinetic Melee is close but I still think Martial arts is worse. I see Kinetic Melee characters. I don't recall seeing a Martial Arts in recent memory. Masterminds have gotten some love. I liked MM's before despite their draw backs. Now with the pet cooldowns reduced I love them. I can't help but make more. I also know it has been stated that they are looking at more MM changes so I am looking forward to that. Hopefully making their attacks relevant either by upping the damage or making the attacks add something else. Sentinel's as an AT are in need of help. While there are some solid combos the majority of them are kinda meh. My Beam Rifle/SR is my go to when none of my group is on and I don't feel like pugs. I go solo a random TF with him. It just isn't all that fast as it's damage is pretty anemic. VEAT's do certainly need a no redraw option. They are in an ok place as stated I would just like a more impactful inherrent. Don't see alot of Mind Control out there. While I personally don't mind it every conversation I have had with someone seems to have a negative spin on it. It's solid but feels like it's missing something. That's why I put Ice Control below it. Assault sets overall are pretty decent. As stated I was looking for the weakest in each category in my opinion. Every regen I have seen is a debt collector. Sure you can put a billion or so influence in them to make them work but you shouldn't have to. Even with that I feel that if you put the same funds into virtually any other set you will get something just as if not more effective.

Ah the power of insomnia. When you start to think about rather inconsequential things like what sets do you think are the weakest in the game? Do they simply need a power to be tweaked to be improved or does the set need an entire rework? So here are my 3 am thoughts. I fully expect a lot of people to disagree but hey putting this down might download it from my brain and let me sleep. Who knows, maybe some of these ideas will work for people. One rule I would try to adhere to is rather than removing or completely changing the functionality of a power give the players the option to pick the old option or the new option. Making them mutually exclusive. First up Inherrents since they don't really fit into any particular category. Out of all of them I kind of feel the Soldier's and Widow's got the most shafted. My solution would be to make them have an aura buff field for their teammates that got stronger and had different effects depending on the type of archtypes on the team. Similar to how Kheldians get buffs for themselves except they make their teammates better. Ranged sets for me has to be Energy Blast. The sight of it seems to make Tank's and Brute's cringe. I wouldn't remove the Knockback as it's always been part of the set and there are people that like it. I would remove the randomness of it though. Especially on the aoe's. Energy Torrent could be useful if it consistantly pushed the whole group. Explosive Blast I would change to a knockdown as having mobs scatter in all directions is just plain bad. Blaster Manipulation sets honestly seem to have been reworked pretty extensively allready. I don't have enough experience with blasters after those reworks to offer an opinion. Those that I thought needed help back in the day certainly have gotten it. Control for me is a toss up between Ice and Mind. Of the two though I feel Ice lags behind more though some would argue the lack of a pet in Mind makes it worse. In the interest of selecting only one though I would go with Ice and I would make Shiver do some damage, maybe somewhere in the 20 to 30 base damage ballpark. Buff/Debuff sets it would have to be Force Field. Just seems redundant with everyone soft capping their own defenses. Certain situations make the extra buffer of defense nice, or when teaming with lower levels but that's it. I would add a power that could be selected instead of PFF. Maybe call it Conversion Field. When toggled on you would get a small defense buff and any attacks directed at you regardless of hit or miss would give a small stacking damage buff. Kind of a mini fury mechanic. For Detention FIeld I would put in the choice of something called Reflection Field. Fluff wise it would reflect damage the target attempts to do back upon themselves. Mechanic wise simply make it a strong damage debuff and resist debuff. Melee set's, as much as I would love Hand Clap to do damage Martial Arts is what needs the most help. Make Dragon's Tail come earlier in the set. The Defense buff on Storm Kick is nice, not sure why they didn't give it to the stalker version. I would also add a small -resist debuff to the set similar to how sonic works. Fluff wise with each strike you knock them off balance making it easier to land solid blows. Pet sets naturally of course it is Merc's. I know far more qualified people have gone over this (actually all of these heh). My take on Mercs would be to alter Serum. Make it slightly less potent but at the same time make it an aoe buff and drasticly reduce it's cooldown. I would also put in an alternative choice called Advanced Tactics that would significantly buff to hit, damage, resist and defence of all your pets while toggled on. The catch would be that the endurance cost would be far to high to maintain for any significant length of time and give the power a respectable cooldown so you could not just keep retoggling it. Maybe a 60 second cooldown. As a offensive toggle it would also drop when getting mezzed. Assault sets is a toss up for me between Energy and Icy. I would probably buff Icy Assault's damage a touch but that's all. Defensive sets would be Regen. I would give them the same treatment as the Sentinel set. In addition increase the effectiveness of Resilience by adding in a scaling resist affect like what Super Reflexes has. That's it. Naturally there are lots of skippable powers out there that could use something but the rest of their sets seem good enough to me that it isn't a big deal. These are the ones that stand out to me as stuff I simply wouldn't play except for very specific concepts. I hope to see some constructive responses when I wake up. I know it's a pretty broad topic but wanted the discussion to be under one place. I am under no illusions that any of these would happen. Simply my thoughts and frankly many are on powersets or archytpes that don't really interest me concept wise enough to run. They still seem to be the weakest links though and I was attempting to be objective instead of saying buff this set that I like. (Really would love Hand Clap to do damage though lol). Good night or good morning depending where you are. PS I know there are typos it's 3 am I see the red lines and am to lazy to go fix them because this seems to have worked and I can now go sleep.

Only replying to you due to the off topic nature of your post. It's not just pvp though IO's certainly did mostly remove any other role than spike damage from pvp. So yes I feel that the current state makes pvp a waste of time. It's possible it evolved beyond that but without changes I doubt it. *shrug* I enjoy varied roles in my pvp instead of just more damage. Not ashamed to say that nor admit that I won't touch pvp in it's current state. Imo no archtype that does not at least have a defensive powerset, either or primary or secondary, should be able to soft cap defenses. These are simply opinions. Not sure why you are getting so worked up over them. As before I am simply expressing my opinions and those who will be making or not making the changes can do as they will. The game is plenty fun as is......well except pvp. Having multitudes of IO sets that are worthless, many not even able to be sold for 5 influence let alone the salvage they are worth because they don't have defense bonuses should be all the evidence you need that the IO system is broken. I don't really think this is opinion. I do not expect perfection but in a even reasonably balanced loot system you would have at the very least niche applications for some of the other bonuses. CoX does not have that, other than procs and such it is basicly defense bonus or bust, well and some nods to recharge if you can get it. This to me indicates a poorly designed system that should be revamped. This is a factor outside of pvp as well. It just does not destroy the gameplay in the same way hence why I can enjoy the game just not the pvp in the game. I don't have nerfbat nightmares though so not really concerned about it either way. Flame on!!!

I actually was replying to each quote point. I prefer not to snip posts so the context is not lost. Though I do sometimes trim stuff down to a particular sentence or paragraph. I will admit that I was being lazy by not splitting it up or numbering each point. I also was likely over estimating some peoples intellect and assuming they would be able to figure out that I was responding to each point. That witty enough for you? Also I was not trying to insult anyone in my previous post. I hope this clears things up for you. Most likely won't.

Also before anyone accuses me of it as well I think Brutes are fine and should not be nerfed. I just feel Tanks need something more.

This was the full line. Their small difference in surviveabilty is easily mitigated. The first alpha is the only problem you have to contend with and that is easily mitigated with inspirations or teammate buffs as your actual surviveability caps are the same as a tankers. You chopped it off after inspirations to validate your opinion. If your going to quote someone at least have the courtesy of quoting the whole sentence. If a Brute does drop it usually ends up being during the alpha. If they can mitigate that, regardless of how they will outperform the tank as they will kill things much faster. Yes of course the team helps, the brute just helps accelerate over what a tank can do. There are lots of ways to soften an alpha strike. However in a prolonged fight where stuff is not dying fast enough resources become thing. Endurance wanes, your support classes too, maybe the heal they need to save you is on cooldown when you get spiked because they were forced to use it to save you last fight. 1. Damage being it's own form of mitigation is really not much of an exageration. Probably more noticeable on a solo situation or small or low damage team. So situationally it is noticeable I guess. If your baseline is fully IO'd max level toons you may not be noticing it as much I guess. 2. Nothing about my opinions of the Tank vs Brute comparisons have anything to do with "being the center piece". It's really simple both, played correctly can tank just fine. One cannot do the same amount of damage. 3. Again probably more noticeable in solo and small team or low damage applications but there are situations that stuff dying fast does indeed make it easier to survive a fight. So long as you can manage the initial alpha. 4. So what your saying is if the team is going along fine it does not matter if the tank is under performing? I honestly do not even know how to make a counter arguement to that. 5. Not really much of a point. I mean this is the basis for how combat works in this game. Really has nothing to do with how brutes out perform tanks.

Your still not getting it. I may not agree with proposed changes. Hell I am not even that worried if they don't change a thing. I am simply voicing my opinion. Those making the changes can weigh what opinions they value. In the end I will take or leave any changes they may or may not make. I won't get excited about it and nor should anyone else. If they change nothing then fine. However I doubt very much they will change nothing as they have already made changes. At some point though power creep will become a problem that cannot be ignored. At that point nerfs will happen....throwing a childish tantrum about it won't help things. Nor will getting mad at those that agree with the changes when they happen. In short anyone who throws a hissy fit about nerfs is not really worth listening to. Constructive critisim is of course worthwhile. Sometimes nerfs go to far. Freaking out however is useless. I won't bother responding to you again as I honestly think you are choosing to be offended and twisting what I say to fit your narrative. In discussions like that it is best for one to simply back away slowly and accept the other will never choose to understand what you are getting at. Disagreeing is fine. Intentionally misunderstanding is not. Have a nice day.

To those advocating raising end game difficulty rather than the occasional nerf......that will just bring in more elitest snobbery. There are allready people demanding people be level shifted for content that does not need it. Though truth be told I am ok with them advertising that kind of thing. Lets me know in advance that they are not the kind of players I want to play with.

FF is used so often as an example of what is wrong with IO's because it was made totally redundant. Cold Domination felt the pinch too but as it was a more modern set it has other tools to fall back on and as such remains a very good set though I personally am not a fan that is simply preference. One of my first 50's back on live was an Ice/FF controler. Great character before they changed how Ice Slick worked. Then it was an ok character and I was fine with the nerf as turning an entire mob of purples into a popcorn popper was a bit over the top. Then Io's hit and It wasn't long before people simply didn't want FF buffers on teams. I knew a few people who ran into that mentatlity. That probably is why it keeps getting mentioned as a casualty of IO's. FF needs a revamp and I am glad they are considering the absorb mechanic. Its one of the things I thought would be a good fit. I would personally also like to see the damage of the "attacks" raised to make them worthwile. A solid -regen debuff in the detention field could work too. High enough that it effectively causes stuff to take some damage. Allthough I did enjoy trolling stalkers by placing well timed detention fields on assassin strike targets heh. I only did that if I knew the player.

Interesting interpretation considering if you read my entire post I specifically recognized that my feelings are certainly in the minority and I accept that. However when balancing a game you have to accept that there are those that will lose their minds no matter what you do. Those people are irrelevant as they will never be happy and I am not concerned with making them happy. That is far different than saying I want what I want and don't care that you all don't want it. What I am saying is you cannot simply keep buffing the underperformers. You have to be realistic and accept that at times something has to be nerfed. It isn't the end of the world and the ones that act like it is are not worth listening to.

No simply stating that it destroyed pvp. Pvp had a great deal more depth before everyone became their very own tankmage.

1. No agro management. You might take the alpha but you are not drawing agro. The problem is you probably expect everyone to have fully io'd characters all at defense cap. This is an IO issue. It should not be possible for a non defense set character to get to defense caps with IO's but I gave up that debate back in live when people lost their shit at the idea. 2. Lol, no tank can out damage a brute in a team. The brute damage cap is so much higher that even the subpar brute sets will out damage the good tank sets. Also comparing the best of one to the worst of the other is not a fair comparison. 3. This comment really has no other point but to insult those that like tanks so hardly worth responding to other than saying I disagree they are basicly the same AT. If they were this thread likely would not exist. 4. BS end of story. Solo comparing the best tank damage combo vs the worst brute combo might put the Tank ahead but as I said in #2 that is not a fair comparison. 5. See #4.

This made me laugh. Not trying to be rude just honestly I let out a rueful chuckle when I read this. Damage output is it's own kind of damage mitigation. Brutes are vastly superior to tanks in every way. Their small difference in surviveabilty is easily mitigated. The first alpha is the only problem you have to contend with and that is easily mitigated with inspirations or teammate buffs as your actual surviveability caps are the same as a tankers. By the time those inspirations wear off your superior damage has allready reduced the mob and thus it's damage potential significantly. I loved playing tanks. However what drew me to red side when it came out was just how much better Brutes were. Then when cross faction stuff happened there really was no reason to ever play a tank after that. Tanks are terrible. I keep wanting to play one as I loved being the hard target but I can never stick with them and end up reverting to brutes. You can play the exact same powersets and often the Brute will be able to run into a mob and survive easier simply because it does not have to take the damage for as long. Tanks need a higher damage cap and some kind of mechanic that makes them stand out. Right now their inherrent is pretty meh......as brutes get half of it and it works just fine. Tanks need something more. Maybe a fury like mechanic that increases when your teammates are attacked and or damaged. Kind of a hybrid of fury and the defenders inherrent vigilance. Just being slightly better at agro management when agro management on a brute is easy does not cut it. Another option that I think is interesting but I think would be hard to code would be to make tanks more receptive to buffs and healing. Raise their caps and make it so any buff directed at a tank gets a buff. Ie if you throw a sonic shield at a tank that normally gives 20% resistance maybe now it gives 22%. Or you throw a 100 hit point heal at them and it heals for 110. Hit a tank with a fulcrum shift for 250% damage and they actually get a 275% buff. Tanks really are the team melee archtype. Something like this would reinforce this mentality without changing how the archtype is played. However to make that last suggestion work you need to also increase some of the Tankers caps. We will see. I hope that homecoming can fix this issue as I would much rather play a tank but till then I will likely keep playing brutes and the tanks I do try will probably stall in the 30's.