Galaxy Brain

That seems possible with a TAoE power that confuses everyone but the target, and gives the target a taunt aura lol

I want the Munitons control so bad....

It still doesn't make the power good. On Devices, you have stealth and the smoke nade to cover you placing the bomb, but even then you have instant trip mines and Blaster Attacks that are prop better. On /Traps, you do not have stealth outside the seeker drones covering you every so often which makes the long placement a bit questionable when you could be doing other stuff. Changing the Time Bomb to a placed bomb with the reticle using the "Web Nade" animation for much faster and safer placement, but then still needing to wait X seconds for it to go off would still allow for the current style of placing it at your feet, but overall make it much nicer to use.

I suppose... but does anyone actually do that? o.O

One example being Jolting Chain. It's supposed to be knockdown, but if you happen to fight Clockwork or enemies that con low enough it flind people everywhere.

Kind of a real niche ask, but currently powers that are inherently designed to Knock Down on occasion deal knockback depending on enemy level and/or type (such as clockwork). Applying the massive KB power decrease from the procs to these powers will keep them working as intended at all times.

Wonder if the dmg formula could be tweaked to give bonus damage based on animation time. Strictly boost damage, not lower existing damage for fast animation

How do you know that? Not trying to be confrontational or condescending, but do we actually know?

Isnt the duo like this?

So, if a set does not underperform and it has 1 throwaway power, should that power just be deleted from the game to make room for other picks?

That is a bit nebulous, but if I had to choose I would say that the goal is sort of both. Lets take Serum as an example as that one is agreed upon to be a bad power on top of having data for not being picked often to a remarkable degree. Other "MM Special Powers" are taken relatively often, especially compared to Serum which raises a question of what makes it stand out among it's peers, and the consensus seems to be that all other MM special powers have much more potency than Serum when compared head to head as well as within the sets. This would be a prime example of a power in a specific "role" in a set that is very much avoided and not performing to the degree that similar powers are. Another example is Confront. The Single Target Taunts are the least picked powers in the game by far according to the datamines. Are they "bad" or "broken"? No, they do what they are supposed to do well enough. However, the sheer volume of avoidance is telling that the power is in an odd "fit" for the playerbase at large / the AT it is on. This is where community opinion may be welcome.

I'm not sure if you are getting what I meant. When a power is literally picked less than like... 1% of the time by everyone who takes the set, that is the examination of it's effects. The vote then would essentially be to say "keep the general theme or redesign it?"

I think what I had tried to convey originally got lost. The basis for my question would be for the "Serums" and the "Time Bombs" , or even the "Confronts" of the world where they are more or less universally seen as a bad pick or are overwhelmingly skipped by everyone. Everyone in this case being a vast majority of players on HC actively not taking the specific powers that'd be voted on. With that in mind I had thought of the discussion behind such powers and how the "Cottage Rule" sort of prevents many things from being done, like if you were to just replace Serum entirely with some new power, or drastically alter it to be essentially unrecognizable aside from being a buff. This is where a vote would come in to at least gauge the playerbase's willingness to alter such a power drastically, or not.

It sounds like you would not like the playerbase to vote on exactly what changes, but what about "if it should be changed"?

Lets take a step back here. Of course everyone doesn't mean "Everyone". 100% unanimous decisions will never ever happen. But, lets say like there was a hypothetical vote on [Detention Field] that was something along the lines of "This power is on the table for a possible redesign. Would the players like to see it redesigned? Y / N". If the result of the vote was like 800 yes vs 200 no, that is the opinion of 1000 players where 80% said "yeah, change it" or at least "we'd be cool with changing it". That'd be a super majority and essentially "everyone".

May have misread on my end, thought you were saying it wouldnt be a cone given the "try it yourself" example 😛

I dont get the latter half of this, at least in terms of what it's trying to say. Are you saying that it's a good thing there are powers so bad that youd rather get pool powers every time, since those bad powers make it easy to pick something better?

Do it while also using healing flames 😉 Rule of cool applies here when it comes to the animations.

I feel like this would need a very, very offensive inherit ability or damage mod in order to work with just control powers, or a sort of "control assault" where sets acted more like Grav/ with some offense thrown in to work. Control/Def would be incredibly safe but slow given you can lock down enemies, and then anything not locked isnt too threatening. However, you need some offensive power to be able to solo.

@VileTerror, I think that is an issue in itself. Which henchoets do you skip powers on? Is t that kinda crappy to begin with? The only one iirc skipping is the assault bot skipping the 1st upgrade to ignore the flamethrower. I'd rather see that power addressed and then make the upgrades auto.

Isnt there something to be said that you recognize that it is unoptomized to grab it?

Which is why I personally lean on the backed up by data option. That at least empirically shows that these powers are actively not taken for a reason.

Brutes get punchvoke, Scrappers get the ability to run up and hit a guy hard enough to draw aggro usually. Stalker placate is skipped for much the same reason, in today's game a ST power is not that valuable when it doesnt have key effects.

@Captain Powerhouse has stated that is off the table iirc

Trying to remember, do ST taunts exists elsewhere but Scrapper sets?