Galaxy Brain

@Outrider_01, look at my melee thread for why TW is better, and how WM is better. Also, GFS sucks, FM has much better attacks in the same set than it's T9 for damage.

ITF enemies don't resist lethal, also Bio comes with tox damage and a -res aura... granted Tox is actually more resisted than lethal but rarely together lol. Katana and Claws are super good but are exceptions to the rule in terms of them being amazing powersets when used by Scrappers / Brutes. Otherwise, as mentioned above with the AR def... yeah

Is this in regards to my OP or another comment?

The more I think of it, the more I think that the Sentinel Inherit would have had a better home on Tankers, coupled with 90% of the new changes seen currently. 90% being the AoE changes, proc for taunt, and a damage scale of 0.9, not 0.95. Instead, have all their attacks deal a non-stacking (from same caster?) -5% res and -2.5% def like Sentinels, and then have Tanker Taunt specifically apply the "Mark" to the selected target only where they have the -20% from Bruising / etc. Sentinel's inherit would need to be changed, but that is on the table anyways.

Agreed, but at the same time you can just run a ton of easy PI radios and get roughly the same reward for 1/2 the effort. Mowing down tons of enemies gives you tons of dice rolls for loot which can more or less equal out to the merits / hr you could get from TF's when it comes to AH stuff (sell good recipes for cash to buy the ones you want ~~ get merits to buy what you want). This ends up with the "basic" team formations going after the easy stuff while you need truly dedicated groups to go after even the "normal" content. I also agree that I would rather not nerf things, but we can't just take that off the table entirely. When making harder content you then have to account for what the players can do... and if you're up against PB + Farsight, then it gets tricky if that becomes the standard you have to run with and everything else is left in the dust.

@Chris24601 I meant gaps as in like... comparing tw/bio to bs/nin in today's meta.

I'm probs blind, but where are they currently?

I would like two things... Well, 3 with the teleport dive kick version of Eagle ... or what if it did bonus damage if you jumped then used the power and became like an actual diving kick with an AoE? Anywho, the two things I would love to see is a mini containment / combo system as mentioned above as well as a change to Focus Chi. 1) I have a soft spot for MA as a ma/regen was my first ever scrapper. In my testing for the melee sets I used it the best I could with what limited AoE you are afforded, and being able to kung fu the tar out of the bosses with the impeccable ST chains. EC to DT is decent, but other sets have far better AoE. The ST damage is great, but other sets have much better ST chains and a handful of the MA powers have identical DPA / Damage. This makes the choice of which to use really based on the secondary effects, which while nice are kinda eh. What is cool is the secret karate technique found in Eagles Claw. There is a hidden, very short duration crit chance boost or damage boost depending on the AT when you use it that lasts just long enough to boost your next, immediate attack. Why not expand upon this concept for the other MA moves? Maybe the T1 gives you an end discount, Cobra Strike gives a large amount of +dmg only for the next attack, crane kick boosts recharge, or whatever. Just something to where you can think of the secondary effects on your enemy and on yourself when choosing moves to string together. 2) I had a for fun thread on this, but the Build Ups that are not called build up... bug me. Focus Chi is unique to MA only yet has the generic effect of being a build up clone. I'm not sure what to add to it, but literally anything that could make it more unique to MA would be cool. Make it also boost +special? Let's be imaginative!

I agree, but in the same token I feel that only adding ends up looping back into the problems that are fundamental in a game designed like this. If you keep on adding up and up you create bigger gaps.

That sounds really fun! But then I'm curious, why come in and shout down discussion about adding difficulty if you are a thrill seeker?

Id say the majority is happy that the game is even back, but that is a given. Nobody playing CoH in 2020 is pissed that CoH is back and they can play it lol. Being able to choose the content is great! But, I think a decent portion of us are also feeling a bit worn out that all people want to do is run council missions or AE farms, DFB, etc. Hell, even just running story arcs isn't done in favor of just doing Radios, and of those usually the get a glowie or defeat the boss radios specifically. Being able to pick and choose content is great but there is no risk vs reward most of the time, which leads to the easiest content being the go-to. Some people want to play the game just to play the game, which is great. All the power to them if they just wanna hop on and smoosh council forever. Some people also wanna run the Night Ward missions for the experience of the later content that has new mechanics and stories but have trouble finding anybody who wants to do that with them when they could just run radios for the same experience. Some people want to deck out their characters and throw them at something meaningful to really test themselves too instead of using their fully decked out incarnate to solo a team's radio mission. The beauty of CoH is that you really get to play how you want to, but there seems to be a downside to that where it sort of pays to take the easy route in terms of rewards / effort. As Chris says above, a Carnie boss is the exact same as a council boss when it comes to the rewards to take them down, so the incentive is to just mow down council since they are less hassle. From my point of view, that is what is harming people's choices when at large some of the more interesting encounters in the game are actively avoided because there are far easier alternatives to throw your OP characters at. When a majority of teams opt for that, then new players and vets alike can often miss out on trying cool content they otherwise could be playing because its not as effecient or face-rolly.

Edit: I responded to this in a not so nice tone due to some personal stuff I'm going through that made me snappy. I recognize that many players probably see no issue with difficulty, but there is a vocal population who do want something more to chew on that does not involve actively trying to gimp themselves with bad enhancements / etc. Seeing what could be provided in optional content for those who would enjoy it is a net positive IMO.

The bias I have is towards the pencil cones being weird design choices when Shatter exists. This thread is about one of those cones and I think they are poo 😛 As for the set as a whole, i have not played a NB stalker but I view Katana as a top tier melee set already despite being lethal damage.

I feel very strongly that this should be examined as the root of these issues. Like, this all kinda started with how a maxed out character can blitz council maps for the same amount of reward as a map full of carnies with 1/10 the effort no?

It's a bit of everything @Leogunner, dont assume my biases. I played that card based on my experience modding. It is far easier to edit existing assets than even making a new asset out of existing assets. Tweaking classically underperforming sets to have new shiny traits can be just as good as making a new set to a chunk of people who would otherwise never have bothered with it.

Gonna play the Dev Time card here. It's much easier to tweak an existing set than make a brand new one. I for one, would definitely play far more sets of they were better and I cant be the only one on that boat. If underperforming sets are boosted they can often feel like a whole new set.

KMs burst is an AoE that has 100% crit from hide already

I like the direction the "X boost while in debt" idea was going. More stuff like that would also be a cool balancing factor for legendaries. Examples: X boost only if you are at Y hp (full health, under half, etc) X boost only if you have debt, scaling on the amount of debt X boost only while moving X boost only while standing still X boost only while off or on the ground X boost only while certain types of powers are in play Etc

I think this would be great too, just mirror the topic here

Only issue I see with a nemesis system is making pushover nemesis designed to be wrecked by you.

That's fair I suppose

While the other enhancements are available for a sort of hard mode, and a TO run of the ITF would be hilarious, they are still sort of artificial difficulty in that you're just debuffing yourself and you have to go really out of your way to slot up like that...

Can you get lvl 50 TOs?

(Turn all the pencil cones into shatter clones plsthxbai)

ill/time controller with the hinted at Bug epic pool?