Galaxy Brain

That just isnt true anymore. In an IO world, even minor set bonuses will push other sets to be as tough as granite or just about as tough with no downsides.

Again, "most" content 😉

IO testing update: I was able to run the Top 4 and the Bottom 4 sets vs my personal runs. For comparison: S & A tier, as well as D, E, and F tier. I also ran Battle Axe as it was the most "average" set with only a +1.42 sec swing. Due to the nature of slotting up IO's on test (its tedious to say the least) I opted to hit the most average set + the top and bottom of the SO runs to see what happens. Sets in the B and C tier I feel are in a solid spot and most likely would not change too drastically with the IO spread given. Speaking of the Myshkin spread, with sets that could not 1:1 copy the slotting I opted for another set of Kinetic Combat + Crushing Impact like the Pulverize slotting for extra ST powers, and on a few I slotted up Javelin's Volley for Fire Breath / Spine Throw to get similar total set bonuses with the sets that had the odd Ranged AoE. Kinetic Melee used the Overwhelming Force set to also get rid of knockback. For all sets though, the recharge bonus stayed at the 66.3% outside of Hasten. The results had some surprises for sure. Namely, how Rad Melee did not see as big an improvement and how Fire and Martial Arts had massive leaps. Compared to my SO runs, KM, MA, and FM all had the most improvement while Rad was only marginally faster. For the former sets, the ability to pump out AoEs faster and with essentially immortality vs +0/x3 enemies made a huge difference. Martial Arts was a big surprise for how much work Eagle Claw -> Dragon Tail could pump out in a crowd with the carried Crit Bonus (which could translate to the damage bonus that Tanks and Brutes get). Kin and Dark still being the slowest is a bit of a surprise. I had higher hopes for KM if I could leverage faster recharge to get the Siphon more quickly into the AoEs, but the animations for them still kill it compared to say, Dragon's Tail or the "Whirling" AoEs. Titan Weapons being the top by itself by a gap again is also a bit of a 🤔 War Mace overtaking Spines is interesting. Though, at 5 runs each at the moment the 5ish second difference is something I see run to run within sets anyways. Rad Melee held this spot on SO's, but it seems this particular slotting does not benefit it as well. Added recharge lets you use Atom Smasher / Proton Sweep faster, but the former still has a very long animation and the other big hitters also have slower animations. Irradiated Ground doesn't care about recharge, and without a ton of procs in the powers it can't really scale up as well as say, spamming Crowd Control or Throw Spines faster. I could still do more sets or run 5 more runs for the current sets, though the results are much much closer per testing session than with SO's due to the slotting. Are there any sets I have not run that you all think would have a drastic change?

Something like that, even if it's just damage. Targeted enemy takes 100% of the ET damage and then up to X targets in an ~8ft radius take even like 10% of that

Itd be nice if there was a way to check if targets were stunned, and then have a secondary effect (more dakka) on stunned enemies per hit. That and maybe faster whirling hands / another way to do some AoE damage like Energy Transfer having splash or somethin.

You can have too much tohit. Past a certain point it really doesnt matter for the vast, vast majority of content. Complaining about added tohit is like complaining that SR can hit 60% def. For most content that is 15% wasted outside very niche scenarios.

Agreed. In most content, a single acc SO lets you hit about 95% of the time. A single SO plus any outside boosts is good for most all other content too.

@Captain Powerhouse, how feasible would it be to add Proc damage based on a portion of power damage to circumvent damage ceiling issues? If rage gave "+smashing damage proc = 80% of the power's damage" that would be essentially the same as a damage boost. But, this has the advantage of being outside the damage of the base power so you still get benefits as you get damage boosts.

It's really more of an issue for the minion pets. They usually provide a ton of damage and survival for the MM, but high lvl AoEs can wreck them very fast to the point of neutering MMs.

I dig it. It still gives a mobility restriction without feeling awful.

Masterminds have an issue where their summons essentially get deleted in higher end content the moment they spawn in, making a good chunk of their kit ineffective. To give the pets a fighting chance, would it be possible to grant a massive Absorb Shield to the pets when summoned that only lasts 10~20 sec? Goal: Provide pets with a one-time, limited buffer vs incoming damage upon summon to give them a fighting chance. Suggestion: When first summoned, pets gain an absorb shield equal to say, 300% their max HP that lasts for 10-20 seconds that allows them to tank a decent amount of damage while they get upgraded / buffed to stand a chance.

The main issue with traps is that the game is way too mobile for the powers in it. They rely on setting up a fort and having enemies constantly around you, but we go from mob to mob they dont keep coming to us. Adding more mobility to stuff like the triage beacon or throwing the bombs would be great.

Same with Founder's Falls

@Sir Myshkin has enlightened me to the power of multiple Force Feedback procs wherever you can slot them. On say, /Earth where you get a bunch of KD powers you can slot many FF's to ensure the +100% rech is up reliably often!

If it has a "super charge" power that can like gran an ally an electric themed build up thatd be sweet.

Also the prestige slide get rid of the smoke or allow customized effects

Would the control set get the control pets too? As for being OP, remember you lose the pet support that normal mms got

@Leogunner, that does apply directly as it further highlights the flaw in TA

Indeed, anything that can take knockback sets (including knockdown powers) can take the proc! Also, just curious but no eng/time variant? I'm running one currently and bring able to easily get a bunch of extra rech from the secondary helps a ton.

So, I have put some work into IOs but slotting up is tedious to say the least. I was able to redo a few builds on the suggested slotting and re-run the exact same +0/x3 tests while I had the time Only ran 4 sets so far and only 5 times each. The sets chosen were for the following reasons: Battle Axe: On my runs, BA was the closest set to the overall average, so I wanted to see how it performed on the @Sir Myshkin build. Looking at it now though, BA can slot Force Feedback in *every* attack which may make it perform even higher if we are maximizing. Nothing really notable about BA here though, it just sort of performed "Better". Titan Weapons: The best performer on SO's, I wanted to get it out of the way with IO's. Something notable is that the lack of Defensive Sweep made it a smidge slower to start momentum due to it being the fastest option out of your "slow" attacks, and being a cone guarantees you gain it. Titan Sweep is not much slower though, but times when Crushing Blow was the other choice is when misses became relevant. The biggest factor to speed here though was Build Momentum being on a very short timer. Being able to constantly have a damage boost + high momentum was wonderful. No real endurance issues either. Dark Melee: The worst performer on SO's. Shadow Maul on a 3 second timer and faster Soul Drain +BU proc helps a lot, but lining up Shadow Maul is just tricky at a base level as enemies move about. Loading up the Endurance Power or Soul Drain with procs may help here tho. TW, Rad, and Spines all outperformed Dark's average on SO's. Fire Melee: A dark horse for sure, Fire came back with a vengeance on IO's. With the defensive gap closed, you are allowed to actually attack freely with Fire and actually put in work. Fire Breath is a bad power, and Greater Fire Sword has an awkward animation which on top of waiting to see if you need to swing again while enemies show as on fire whether or not they are taking DoT damage made for some odd pauses. FSC is great on high recharge though, and getting enough recharge for Perma Hasten levels may boost performance way higher. Impressions so far are more that IO's just let you not worry about the secondary effects of your primary, or at least make them not matter nearly at all. If Fire can stand in the middle of a ton of enemies and just burn them up with 0 worries, then other sets which had defensive edges should prove interesting.

I dig the idea of inherit variants a lot! Like, each AT gets 3 flavors of their inherit to pick from instead of just the one they have now. For example: Fury: standard version we have now. Both attacking and being attacked give a balanced gain and loss of fury over time. Defiant Destruction: You build fury only from incoming enemy attacks. Fury can reach a higher total than standard and also grants health regen the more you have. The less HP you currently have, the faster fury builds. Aggravated Assault: You build fury only through attacking, and even get bonus bursts of fury through defeating enemies. Fury gained this way decays much more quickly, but also has a small recovery component attached. Has a smaller cap than standard fury.

You guys got hit by a confuse

Tbf, dealing bonus damage to a foe you controlled seems very dominator-y. Even if the controls themselves didn't do bonus damage, control -> assault is delightfully villainous for a gameplay loop. Though that is a can of worms when it comes to targets that cant be controlled unless you got domination... which is a seperate mess between the two ATs. To throw my hat in the ring, to be honest I think that Critical Hit should be an inherent that all ATs get, bot just scrappers. Scrappers, Stalkers, Controllers, and Corruptors all get this ability in a way anyways but with caveats: Scrappers have the vanilla version but you have either a 5% / 10% crit chance based on rank. Pretty straight forward. Stalkers have a 10% perma crit chance on top of +3% per team mate, +100% chance from hide or on AS with 3 stacks, and a x3 crit with hidden AS. A lot of room to work with here. Controllers have critical controls, and they have 100% crit on targets that are controlled. Corruptors get a scaling crit chance based on the target's HP (starting at 50%, lower is better). All these could probably be kept intact if there were say, a base 5% crit chance across all ATs. Any and all damaging powers have a 5% chance to crit, but the inherits could drastically change the chances: Corruptors are essentially the same. They just get +chance on top of the 5% as their target gets hurt. Controllers are the same except they have 100% crit chance on controlled targets, and maybe a much smaller chance increase with epic powers / etc. Stalkers... would pretty much be the same. All other ATs would enjoy the benefit of occasional damage spikes too. 1/20 hits being double damage is just nice to have. Scrappers though, would get hit by this. In this system, they would still enjoy +5% extra crit chance on tougher enemies, but that is not something to brag about exactly. We could do a couple things to make them stand out, but two things I think could be fun are: Make their crit damage uniquely hit harder than other ATs under some criteria. Like every X crits might be a super crit, or they just happen to deal 2.5x instead of 2x damage on crit. Or, maybe they have a bonus when they crit. The description of their inherit says they are very skilled in battle, which allows them to occasionally crit. How about we feed into that and say they get an extra bonus when they crit: a small endurance return / recovery boost, and a short lived +5% crit chance. This bonus when you score a crit could be called "Scrapper Lock" 😉 As for powers, like with Scrappers already we can adjust the crit rates and such depending on the set and powers in question. For some sets, like say Battle Axe or Archery where they may have balance issues, we can introduce Crit rate changes to their powers to grant an edge. Likewise, some powers may not be able to crit if they may be too good (like burn/patch powers). Pets may have a seperate base crit chance. Idk, seeing as crit chances are such a staple of RPGs in general I always found it odd that it's not a global thing in CoH and that only a few ATs get it in any form.

I do think that some of the underperforming MM sets could use some out of the box cottage-demolishing. Serum needs to be replaced (Gun Drone? 👀) and the medic should have different powers and no grenade to draw aggro. If Serum isn't outright replaced, making it either a "3rd" upgrade of sorts would be awesome. Some method to call in reinforcements would be thematic too.

I think COXG gave the commando the ability to summon 2 more soldiers as back up, something like that could be sweet.