Galaxy Brain

On mobile, but iirc some of the secondaries have mez protect or resist...? Why hasn't this been made standard? :p

New cottage, different rules. I see no problem with replacing or changing bad powers. Also this. It's a good guideline, but honestly it's been *years* and there is a much different audience / no need to model the game to a subscriber base or publisher guidelines. None of which are why the Cottage Rule exists. Yeah that was a tangent, but tbh it has a small factor to play. Cool new sets would get the good stuff to attract players moreso than older sets. Cottage Rule is good in that it keeps designs in check, but at the same time it also keeps certain powers in an odd spot. I think it's fine to bend the cottage rule as long as the power being cottaged still fits the same theme / niche as before but in a different way. Or, if the power was just sort of atrocious. As PK mentions, adding in choices for like powers would be sick. Like Explosion vs Implosion, and so on.

New cottage, different rules. I see no problem with replacing or changing bad powers. Also this. It's a good guideline, but honestly it's been *years* and there is a much different audience / no need to model the game to a subscriber base or publisher guidelines.

Eh, it's like a timeshare and not so much a new cottage. The role of the power (cast on an ally to make them avoid damage) is still present, but with an extra layer that would give a reason to re apply the FF if the absorb runs out while the deflection remains. Given that FF lacks offensive utility of other support sets, I think it would be thematically appropriate to lean more into it being heavily defensive.

If we are throwing out the cottage rule, simply porting in gun drone / turret would be fun. If not, I'm strongly in favor of turning it into a single target, 3rd upgrade type of power to boost mercs up to a higher lvl at the cost of time / endurance.

What is absorb? I've never heard of this mechanic before, was it added after 2010? What does it do? I don't see a ParagonWiki article for it, though I see the name referenced in IOs. Absorb is like a shield of HP over your actual HP. It's a white bar that layers over your HP bar. The amount of Absorb on you must reach 0 before your HP will start depleting from an attack. It was added with the Magisterium Trial, I think? Or possibly with a proc. The first powerset to have it on Live was Nature Affinity, which was also the last powerset released. Correct, a multitude of power sets have this now and its thematically perfect for force field! Essentially it is temporary HP that attacks must eat through in order to actually hurt you, that also does not interact with Max Hp. A character at the HP cap can still have a bunch of +absorb put onto them (though it wont boost regen, etc). A FF power that gave a bit of this would be nice, perhaps on the two basic shields so you could re-apply if need be, since the theme is that enemies attack the shield and not the person.

No +absorb anywhere?

You still had to earn it though, just not 100 times.

Should be ... Where I'm heading with this is like, if it is seen that like 90% of the time that [Tornado] is picked, it has the proc installed it may be worth just converting the base power....?

Wonder if it's possible to datamine how often it is slotted and into what powers?

The Homecoming dev's have worked magic as far as I am concerned with bringing CoH back from the void and with tons of new stuff that's been fleshed out! That said, myself and others here in the forum have had tons of suggestions that could fill up like 3 new issues of fixes. What could be nice, even if a bit harsh, is any sort of idea on what our expectations should be in terms of what could be done realistically? Stuff like tweaking a number value is a given, but then changing a power to another power... porting animations... etc. Where is a reasonable line to draw given what the current dev team is?

Hey everyone, I rolled up a staff/dark scrapper to mitigate the end costs with the Soul Form and so far its great! My only question though is what, if any, powers may be skippable in each set?

So, it's been a while since homecoming has been live and the availability of the Knockback to Knockdown proc has changed the game for tons of powers and sets. This is more on the feedback side of this sub forum, but I feel this has been overwhelmingly beneficial for certain powers such as Storm's Tornado to make the power into something that is not only powerful, but actually works in tandem with the set as the Tornado will grind away and enemies and keep them in the "vortex" of other storm powers. What other major winners are there from the proc? Are there powers that do not benefit as much if at all, or worse yet actively get worse due to needing the slot?

Jc, but what sets are those? :) Also @Justucebeliever, that is super helpful. While about 1/3 of sets are "underperforming" based on that, it isnt really saying by how much aside from the number of mentions.

Further suggestions: 1) make the recovery debuffs consistently 7-8 sec across all powers like with other debuff side effects, no more 2-10 sec weirdness 2) on hit only, just have a 25% endurance return. This is 10% more on average, technically less per miss which we all do 3) end drain if done easily could be tricky, and thematically it would be a ton of fun to have st attacks have a chance to chain. Possibly the crappy drain stats could be warranted if they had the chance to jump to 1-2 targets where both get effected, and both have that 30% chance to recover endurance? Say we keep everything the same but add that. You can drain 2-3 targets for a bit of CC, as well as return more endurance than you spent if you hit 3 at once and all the chances align! 4) The sleep effect is weird but nice, and now I remember why it didn't come up much (sleep gets interrupted by you continuing to attack). Having a proper stun chance would be nice here or there like with Taser.

In your defense, the IO bit was based on just raw IO enhancement and not +Bonuses, much like slotting SOs for end mod. Also now that I am home I can run more accurate data (going off the in game numbers, AT does not seem to matter for the end values): Charged Bolts: Costs 5.20 end to use, 30% chance to return 2.60 end, avg cost ~4.42 = ~15% end reduc Drains 7% of the end bar of its target, applies 100% rec debuff for 2 sec. 4 sec rech and 1s activation time. Lightning Bolt: Costs 8.53 end to use, 30% chance to return 4.26 end, avg cost ~7.25 = ~15% end reduc Drains 10% of the end bar of its target, applies 100% rec debuff for 4 sec. 8 sec rech and 1.67s activation time. Looking at Charged Brawl, Havok Punch, etc, they all have similar values of around a 15% discount and the 7%/10% drain and short lived -recovery. The discount is a bit better, but only on certain powers in the elec sets. For the drain, powers like Short Circuit / Power Sink have a substantial end drain (35% base on SC) and it along with Tesla Cage also have lengthy -Rec at 10+ sec. Elec Control similarly has powers like Conductive Aura that can easily drain 20%+ a sec that just blow the attacks away for drain. Usually only two such powers is all it takes to drain effectively, and watching NPC blue bars tonight I see that many attacks cost 5 end or less, and their recovery is pretty quick to be stopped effectively by 2~4 sec debuffs. Without recovery, its gonna take like 10 such attacks to drain a target which by that point it should be dead or just about dead, making the side effect dubious if the next hit will just kill them anyways. Given the nature of end drain, keeping it to the "big drain" powers that are more unique to elec seems fitting. Branching to, well, chain/branching hits on the ST attacks is also thematic alongside the end discount/return for more noticable DPS effects.

Again, it's not that end drain is bad it's that it is clunky. The powers that drain end hard are really good because enemies without endurance cannot do anything, making it the ultimate soft control. However, unless you get them to 0 or keep them at 0 / a tiny sliver at most then they can still swing at you with essentially full effect. A slow or a tohit debuff will always be useful and can be stackable for immediate returns. Rech slow is comparable to end drain in the effect that it prevents additional attacks over time, but it still has an immediate effect that drain does not outside the full drain powers. As you said, on a boss the fight ends up with them being drained near the end of the encounter via normal moves which while nice, is a bit late in the fight where they are like 2 attacks away from going down and have been attacking you otherwise unimpeded until nearly the end. At that point, a set with a DoT side effect would have probably defeated the boss for the same net effect... What is different than slow and DoT, etc, is that there are powers that when used can absolutely floor endurance in a quick amount of time. Power Sink, Short Circuit, the sleep from Elec Control all come to mind where you can reliably sap quickly which changes the game. An IO set as Auroxis could go a long way too tho! If you slotted those and went from near the end -> halfway through a fight the boss is drained that would be a big difference, but that requires a bunch of slotting that would still be outclassed by certain elec powers that already exist. Idk, it is a weird issue. On the one hand it is a cool and useful effect when it works, but there exist several powers that do it well enough to the point of trivializing the standard attacks. Elec has had cool themes that are not fully fleshed out besides this, so going into that on some of the basic attacks while keeping sapping powers in there would be fun! (On the flipside, given the binary nature of elec attacks could just easily drain it may even be a little OP as each fight just becomes an easy win as the enemy cant ever fight back)

End manipulation needs to stay, I agree on that. It's a really fun form of crowd control but as you say yourself it is incredibly binary unless the way all NPC attacks and endurance usage is changed... which is a much greater ask. Nerfing the current super-drain powers (across all elec sets, not just blast) and then buffing it on the normal attacks would probably be a net *nerf* to end draining as well due to not being able to drain quickly via the handful of strong draining abilities that do it in 1-2 shots. The ST attacks really do not contribute aside from Tesla Cage as it provides -Rec, and as its already utilitarian it makes sense to keep that as a sapping power. The current suggestions would be more geared towards the powers that are more geared towards damage anyways to give them a flavorful secondary ability while still keeping the more sapp-y powers as is.

It seems like the more ST damage sets are just sorta underperforming?

Neat, but unless it drained max HP rather than just HP, youve just ensured that EM only gets used with WP, Bio, and maybe DA and Regen. True, itd have to be a % per hit / etc

This is good, though again the end drain side is where it gets tricky. If you can manage to drain consistently then it gets a bit tricky. I think the best solution may be to combine all these? For example, the basic ST attacks have chances to chain to a few targets for less damage. Tesla Cage could have a great endurance drain or return, zapp can have a solid stun chance, etc etc.

Link to original reddit thread: I wrote this on mobile so I wanted to share here, the reddit link has a lot more detail! In short, elec attacks have the secondary effect of end drain and a chance to return some endurance. In practice, the end drain is really not noticable vs NPCs outside of select powers that can drain from 100-0 reliably and then keep them there, where it becomes sort of OP. The endurance return when averaged out is also barely noticable in a world with auto stamina and iirc the effect when averaged is less than a training enhancement. In modern media, elec is usually associated with stunning enemies in an "electrocuted" effect where they get tased for lack of a better visual (we cant show skeletons on every model haha), as well as chaining from target to target. Giving elec attacks these abilities may be both more thematic and fun, as well as more worthwhile as an actual effect than the current endurance manipulation. The powers that focus on the end manipulation would of course keep their perks (such as short circuit, power sink, etc). Thoughts?

Itd be neat if EM's build up was a toggle that drained your HP per hit while active, giving it a hugh risk high reward tied to ETs theme

Possible? Sure! (Technically, it already exists as Ice! Its just hard water ;p ) Though this would take a ton of time and resources from a volunteer staff. Question though is what would a Water Armor do that other sets currently do not?

This one is kinda loaded since in everywhere but endgame they are monstrous