Sakura Tenshi

in theory, if you want a real challenge for this game, you basically just need to 'unlock' hardmode by reaching the appropriate levels. Then you can run the ouroboros arcs with the enemies buffed and possible you yourself debuffed among other limiters. Have you tried that?

Sadly, nothing that I've heard. A bit late, but chipping in my own thoughts, if I had to improve gun drone meaningfully,* it'd probably look like: Gundrone keeps it's mez immunities, inability to be buffed, and +perception HP is reduced to Tier 3 MM pet levels (so around 937hp at level 50) Resistances are now 20% to all across the board (removing it's smashing and fire weakness though lowering it's psionic and lethal resistances) Gundrone speed increased to be capable of matching a player with fly and afterburn active Gun Drone's attack is now given two attacks. Suppression Fire (Targeted AoE, moderate damage, applies long duration -recharge, -tohit, -def, and 20% chance for mag 2 fear to affected enemies [overwhelming incoming fire]) and dual chain guns (Cone, moderate damage, -def, deals bonus damage to any enemies afflicted by sleep, fear, immobilize, stun, or hold) You now summon 2 gun drones The rough idea is to work with Power House's suggestion of giving devices a group control power via two gun drones spitting out two AoE attacks with some good mitigation debuffs and a chance for stacking fear effects and an cone attack that synergizes with this new control as well as devices' other control powers. Overall, the gun drone is less survivable, but in exchange becomes much much more aggressively oriented.

I don’t disagree with you but Genin USED to have archery when upgraded. This was removed later on and switched to staying with shiruken. I think it was because back on live Genin used to have more archery attacks and were functioning better as ranged pets and so they took an overall nerf. that said, Shiruken, masterful throw or the chaining throw, and fistful of shiruken would be cool. Top it all off with a toxic DoT and/or -regen debuff to represent poisoned blades and we’re golden.

Biggest issue with changing so many ST attacks into cones is that it's going to change IOset builds because while the damage calculations of narrow cones are treated as single targets, they are still recognized as AoE damage in terms of sets. I know this game isn't balanced around IOs, but IOs seem to be the core of what the live devs really meant with the Cottage Rule (do not take away the IO sets you can slot into something). Otherwise I don't disagree with buffing battle axe, just that it's not going to be possible making many single targets into small AoEs.

Actually, near as I can tell, when NPCs have a power that mirrors a player, it doesn't mean they actually have the powers of the powerset so much as possess a copy and pasted rendition of that power with numbers potentially adjusted. And changing it for NPCs is a lot of individual work. I'm not saying I don't approve but the changes will not just be changing values for players and it'll automatically apply to NPCs. AE is probably a great example of this as those are not actually the same powersets linked to the player character creator (see assault rifle, devices, or forcefield sets) and just rough copies of the files in a separate location in the data.

Rularuu, yes, but not DA stuff since I'm saying several of these mobs are not that difficult even on the base game SOs.

It's a valid path, albeit perhaps the hardest one, though one with the highest potential for reward. I think even the live devs vastly underestimated their players even before the launch of IOs, I feel like only three enemy groups lived up to being end-game difficulty: Malta, The Carnival, and Arachnos. You could argue Nemesis but Nemesis' entire difficulty circles around stacking vengeance. The Carnival, Malta, and Arachnos have multiple gimmicks which make you stop and figure out which you need to prioritize first, but all of them have some nasty tricks to deal with the players. And other level 50 enemy groups are Freakshow who's best power is their self-rez which ends up making them reward pinatas more than a threat, Nemesis was covered, Council and Circle possess diverse damage type but lack any special debuffs or what-have-you that make them a real threat, KoA was so bland as a three critter faction with the exact same attacks through all tiers that they had to get possessed by the Talons to be vaguely interesting, and then the Rikti were honestly a poor threat the moment one could get SOs and shut down anything with mezzes. And it kind of goes on like that.

A fire DoT for explosive arrow could be nice in general seeing as archery overall seems a bit lackluster.

That's the assassin's strike for Stalkers. So sadly only stalkers will end people rightly.

kind of off topic here, and since I already posted For Honor, I think if I could have magic programming and animation powers, I'd actually just make a new 'katana' inspired FFXIV's Samurai class (basically a special combo system that builds up an a power draw attack. And a sword beam attack) with some cues from Kensei and Orochi. Meanwhile I'd take what was katana, up some of it's damage, tweak some animations, and make it into 'longsword'. Also give it a few more Western style blades.

As love goes: I'd want Brute/Tank/Scrapper broadsword to get the "quick AS" sword thrust attack to replace one of the existing power animations. I want to be INCREDIBILIS!

Plus, Mot's given us a mystical incarnate threat, Praetoria is extra-dimensional/tech, so maybe the Battalion should just be good ol' Science and a proper alien invasion?

Honestly, having been playing Final Fantasy XIV a lot, I might not mind level cap increase... If this game was more like FFXIV, the problem is, it's not. In XIV, you do not pick and choose your abilities or build. Every single class is more linear than an late-2000's/early 2010's Call of Duty level because every class has a very very very specific slot to fill in a dungeon, trial, or raid. City of Heroes could take some cues from FFXIV, sure (like ground AoEs that are only dodgeable by physically moving out of the damn way, and even if you don't die from them, you take a stack that massively cuts down on your survivability) but in the end, City of isn't the kind of game that supports increased level caps, even less so without live, active development from a professional studio dev team and certainly not on the spaghetti bungled code this game runs on.

Yeah, it's moments like that that make me kind of glad the game shut down? Because if it hadn't, the story would have apparently just started to jump the damn shark multiple times like some gymnastics centerpoint obstacle.

I know you said: not suggestions, but damn if wouldn’t want these sets: Semi-Auto long ranged rifle (I want to be Simo Hathaway) Shotgunnery (One/two powers in assault rifle aren’t enough and there’s no shotgun customizations) mecha/robotic blast set (basically let players have the powers of robotics mastermind pets and Malta titans)

Complete side note, I think if I were made lead writer or something for a reboot of the City of storyline, I think how i'd handle Statesman is go the All-Might route: in the public's eye, he's still the same iconic hero as ever, but he's secretly slowly getting weaker and a life-time of throwing himself headlong into danger has begun to take it's toll. He lives on borrowed time and only hopes to find a worthy successor in heroes he guides as a recurring contact and generally do as much good as he can for all he can, and maybe realize a hero doesn't need powers, get in a cool last last fight with Recluse or some other major archvillain with the remaining slivers of Incarnate energy he has. Top off his contact stuff with him doing things like giving you temp powers or usually make sure you get backup of some kind to "bribe affection out of the players".

Personally, I thought this was the dumbest idea the live devs could have ever had. Going Rogue content time and time again hammered home that even if you could sympathize with Tyrant, he made even Reichsman look nice by comparison. Dude freaking dropped a nuke on the players (no big deal, honestly) and his own fleeing citizens after how long he spent ranting about how their safety was his priority to get a quick power boost by feeding off their souls. Not to mention all the leadership he surrounded himself with during his reign, and basically, Praetorians started the damn war because Primal Earth which Tyrant knew would have angered his Hamidon. As for me: I don't want Statesman to be brought back into present, but I would like to see him brought back into the Recluse SF because the Freedom Phalanx are literally down one from their old strength and Penelope Yin's NPC-only brand of psionic melee doesn't necessarily make up for it when she replaced sister psyche. So the FP have no tank or heavy hitter and decaying the challenge of the Recluse SF. Plus, it's made clear the Recluse SF is not necessarily present time stuff. Now if we were rebooting the whole storyline/lore of the game, yes, I'd like to see Statesman back, I'd like to see the launch heroes and so forth written by writers who have some God given common sense when they write characters. But that's a massively different story.

it's absolutely f-ing surreal to imagine Katana could be called a toptier set. Yeah, it's got fast animations and good recharge but holy hell, with how heavily resisted lethal it, it feels like I'd be better off spamming brawl sometimes. But then again my perceptions are painted from my experiences on live, I had paired it with /SR (which to my understanding is kind of a weak set to pair katana with) and I lacked resources or knowledge for a strong IO build. (though, you mentioned using SOs)

necro'ing this thread with another dumb thing I'd still want to see in this game: During the magisterium trial, anytime Tyrant using Hammer of Justice, it will be heralded with a cutscene caption of him shouting HERE COMES THE COLE TRAIN!!! Edit: I've seriously wanted to see this since live. along with the masterium trial completion badge being Sic Semper Tyrannus. I still can't believe the live devs passed that chance.

Longbow flier is a maybe? Raider Skiff probably not because pilot is exposed (and yet the Longbow flier is smaller... I suspect they have to be drone controlled.) That said, we actually don't: there's the rocket board, void skiff, and magic carpet which has us stand on a platform in a pose for that kind of stuff. And there's the shadow panther and coyote travel powers which are also form shifts.

Now, time to shove my own unasked for opinion on the future of incarnate powers: To be blunt off the bat, I know Black Scorpion had mentioned what ideas they had planned, but I honestly didn't care of them. That said, my own ideas are probably much worse if only because they'd be harder to implement mechanically, but the two big ones I have are... Genesis - If Hybrid was about your character branching out, Genesis should be an incarnate slot about focusing back in on the core of your AT (see? really difficult because I just proposed about a dozen at least with a need for eventual growth, even assuming some can be rolled together like stalker and scrapper). But to give an idea, scrapper core path would be about either increasing your chances to crit, while radial could be about upping the crit damage, but both also change the critical portion of their damage from a matching type to the powerset, to a special damage bypassing resistances. Something to that effect. Omega - This one I had a much clearer idea on, but also is probably even more elaborate: on it's own, Omega is 'useless', what the omega slot is supposed to be is an augment to previous Incarnate powers, giving you a closer glimpse of the power you felt in the Mender Ramiel memory, with a theme naming would be based on deities. So "Omega-Alpha" slots would be Jehovah (you know, 'the alpha and the omega') and the core path would allow you to reap to double the value of your current alpha slot, while the Radial path would allow you to 'link' up the benefits of another tier-3 or less Alpha enhancement have active effects alongside your existing one, regardless of your choice, the benefits of the Alpha slot now all but ignore ED diminishing returns. The Rama Slot would relate to Judgement (based on the myth of Rama's arrows being described as hitting like a nuclear bomb (eerily before atomic bombs were a known thing)) and the core path would boost the maximum target cap and AoE side of your existing alpha and allow it to no longer need line of sight letting you hit through walls, even enabling some of the benefits of the unchosen branch of your slotted Alpha tree (so core void now also debuffs damage), the radial path though changes your Judgement into a Meteor Shower, over ten seconds in a wide area dropping a series of ethereal meteors that floor lesser foes instantly for massive Smash/Fire/Energy damage and topped off with a single giant meteor crashing into the ground leaving even non-incarnate AVs feeling the pain. Basically, really grandious stuff like that, possibly have it be on a timed toggle like Hybrid.

To be honest, I’m more wondering if anyone’s looked into TVtrope pages. Probably put them under Fan Works with their own pages and probably wait for a few more powers and/or story arcs to come out. but the new electrical power set we’ll be getting will definitely expand the Lightning Can Do Anything.

What if instead of resin mining per-say, each time a tier-1 zombie drops, two or possibly more ‘lesser zombies’ spawn in their stead, giving you some breathing space to resummon the lesser zombies would basically work like gang war minions possessing only a single weak melee and ranged attack and they won’t take direct commands rather only keeping a proximity to you and attacking anything that attacks them or within a limited perception range and will expire on their own after an amount of time even if you do keep them alive (maybe two minutes?). But you could end up with a legitimate zombie horde roving with you.

Necroing this thread because I thought of another big thing: Tying the mission timer to objectives in missions. Not just to entry and completion, but to stuff like starting upon getting an AV to a certain level of health and ending clicking a certain glowing object but not be the final objective. Bonus point if we could even make it so the timer ending does not automatically fail the mission, but rather cause like an ambush or AV to spawn.

Probably my favorite incarnate power is Interface just because as someone who plays a lot of smash/lethal characters it adds a bit of elemental punch and play out having a sword of flames. though interface is honestly something I kind of wish was part of base game and/or separated between damage type and effects so you have more freedom to make a lightning sword or turn martial arts/street justice into Hamon. edit: I have more thoughts but just wanted to get this in before thread lock as this is my biggest thing.