Parabola

A well argued idea. I like the idea of diversifying builds but I suspect this would be a problem for the already fragile endgame difficulty (or the lack thereof). Currently high recharge often comes at the expense of defence or vice versa. Winters have defence but not recharge, purples are mainly the opposite. The same is true of many sets, it tends to be rare to get both defence and recharge. If we free up build pressure on recharge we will effectively make it easier to build for yet more defence and that's probably not a great thing.

Because chasing down runners is a major pita. And it's just odd that some of the scrapper secondarys get taunt auras and others don't. As mentioned upthread Cap P has stated he doesn't think any of them should have taunt auras, I think they all should. Either that or we do something about the ai but the auras seem the easier fix.

I don't beleive I'm having any misconceptions at all. The idea of adding aggro auras to all the scrapper secondarys prompted comments that it shouldn't happen 'because they aren't tanks'. I am saying that I think it's got nothing to do with tanking whatsoever, it's just a quality of life improvement to an archetype that I feel could do with a little boost. To be fair the op did mention which archetypes are listed in which categories but I don't think that is something that we should base anything much on.

Tanking is a player behaviour not an archetype or group of archetypes. It involves handling aggro but that's far from the whole of it. A tanker can run their aggro aura and not be tanking if they are not jumping in and taking the alpha or positioning mobs etc. The other day I 'tanked' a posi 2 on my latest blapper. I simply threw myself at the enemy relying on my ice manipulation powers and some good support from the rest of the team to keep me mostly alive. All we needed was somone to be the focus of healing and we sailed through. Anyway none of this has anything much to do with scrappers having aggro auras or not. It wouldn't make tankers or brutes obsolete or that would already have happened with the scrapper sets that do have aggro auras. It would just be a quality of life improvement to how the other scrapper secondarys play.

Well there's quite a lot to unpack in this discussion. I would very much question that scrappers do more damage than brutes across the board, it is very dependent on powersets and circumstances. I am certainly confident in saying that scrappers don't outdamage brutes to the same extent that brutes out tough scappers. Running at high fury is easy and the consistent damage that provides is generally easier to use than swingy random crits. Aggro management is also very much dependent on circumstances. If you are a solo scrapper (or brute, blaster or whatever) then you are getting all the aggro regardless of taunt auras. The only difference being that most scrappers have to chase runners and brutes do not. It's only when teamed that having a taunt aura could make a difference to how much aggro you get. If you are a scrapper on a team with no other melee then you are very likely to be the designated point man regardless of having a taunt aura or not, and you will be eating the alpha even if you might not be keeping all the aggro long term. Conversely if you a scrapper on a team with a tank or brute then even if you have a taunt aura it will be weaker than theirs and if things are working correctly you shouldn't be stripping aggro from them. So either way it shouldn't make a huge difference and I don't see the problem with all scrappers having the weak taunt auras that some sets already have. It is just a quality of life feature because chasing runners on melee only characters isn't fun (to me, others may differ). Rad, inv, willpower and shield scrappers are hardly hamstrung by having their taunt auras, far from it. They don't collapse under the weight of the aggro they generate and at the same time their presence has also not invalidated brutes in any way. Scrappers could take much more significant buffs than taunt auras before this was even a remote possibility.

Sorry I'm not following your reasoning here. In my opinion scrappers are struggling a little in their niche sandwiched between brutes and stalkers. Brutes are far tougher, generally easier to use and often don't do noticeably less damage. Stalkers have a whole different feel but are in a very good place due to their very strong ato's. It feels to me like scrappers are crowded out a little in this, taunt auras aren't the only consideration but they would help. And I think this is a shame. I agree with Cap P on much of what he says about game balance etc, but on this I'm not convinced. Chasing runners is simply not fun and many melee sets don't have any ranged options other than provoke which is an unpopular power for a good reason. Maybe they could add psi damage to provoke so we could use it to insult running enemies to death (not an entirely serious suggestion but it would be funny).

Higher hp, higher res cap, stronger taunt auras (mag 4 vs 3), and they can often output higher consistent damage?

I certainly think it's worth considering giving scrappers taunt auras on all the armour sets. They have to exist in an ecosystem with brutes and stalkers (and even the new more damaging tanks) and I find myself struggling to roll a concept as a scrapper these days. Only one armour set gives me a compelling reason to use scrapper and that's shield, with its pseudopet telenuke, +dam aura and of course taunt. Everything else just seems better as one of the other AT's and that's a bit sad. Chasing runners isn't the only consideration in this but it's certainly a factor.

I may have missed something ... Rosetta Stone?

This took a while to find: Description: Weapon drawn loop for the Carnival War Mace variants (descending three note loop with background shimmer) Folder: Weapons File: crystal2_loop

Well ... If we take a typical Dark Armour character of mine they run with the following toggles on full time (with arcanatime cast times): Dark Embrace 0.924s Death Shroud 3.696s Murky Cloud 1.32s Obsidian Shield 1.32s Cloak of Darkness 1.32s Tough 3.3s Weave 0.924s Combat Jumping 1.848s Adding up to 14.652s of casting to retoggle. This also excludes Oppressive Gloom (at another 1.32s) which I use for special occasions and any situation capable of dropping me to 0 health would tend to be that. Soul Transfer says it gives 15s of untouchable so just about enough time to retoggle if indeed it is 15s and I chain them all together seamlessly ... But it just seems clunky to me - standing around for all that time as a tax for using my tier 9 power (in addition to the debt). The stun part of the power wears off after 11.92s unenhanced so that's long gone by the time I'm armoured up too. I think all the self rez powers (but particularly Soul Transfer and Rise of the Phoenix) should be iconic powers in their sets. They have awesome flavour but the mechanics are such that people often don't take them. That is a shame in my book. The flavour text in these powers even talks about 'you revive yourself from the brink of death' rather than 'from death', I'm suggesting we actually create a 'brink of death' state where toggles suppress rather than drop and debt does not yet occur because death hasn't actually happened. Then if you are revived using a primary or secondary rez power you come up swinging and death only truly occurs if one of these powers is not available. Anyway, as I said before this is probably mechanically difficult to unpick so couldn't happen but it's an idea I've had kicking around at the back of my head for a while and this seemed an ideal opportunity to air it. 😀

I've been following this thread with interest and this is a point I'm genuinely curious about. I'm wondering what effect more detailed information about sale prices would have on a market that uses blind bidding. I'm struggling to game it out in my head, whether it would significantly affect buyer/seller behaviour or not... Knowing every sale price there has ever been for a lotg for example doesn't tell you anything about either the supply or the demand at the time of each sale. When setting your buy or sale price you would still have to base your descision on where the market seems to be right now, not where it was in the past. For a while back at the start of homecoming I tracked the prices of a selection of big ticket items to see if I could find opportunities. I quickly discovered it was largely a waste of effort and converting things and getting them sold was far more important than 'what's this thing really worth'.

Yeah I see what you're saying. I suppose I'm wondering if we could split defeat into two conditions, ko and death, where ko is what happens when you immediately go down and death is what happens if you don't have a primary or secondary power to get back up again. That way the self rez powers in particular become more appealing. They are so flavourful that it's a shame that people avoid taking them because 'why would I take a power that requires me to fail to use it'. I'm wondering if the 'fail' can be taken out of the equation. This is very pie in the sky thinking I totally admit though. These mechanics are doubtless deeply baked in and I've not really sat down and thought through the balance of it all.

I agree that game mechanics have a huge part to play in this. No competitive drop tables and all that sort of nonsense for example. For all that I am a proponent of reducing power creep and the importance of keeping AT roles distinct I'd hate to see rigid trinity play or any kind of 'powergamer required' mechanics. The massive strength of this game to me is that anyone should be able to team with anyone and have a good experience. The areas of the game I am most uncomfortable with challenge this; the strength of incarnate powers for example. I would say though that although the forum community remains for the most part as friendly, respectful and knowledgeable as it was on live I have noticed something of a change. It feels to me that the background of the intensely polarised world we live in has bled into the forums a little. The tone of discourse and disagreement in the outside world has become markedly more toxic over the years and I do see hints of that here and there on the forums. In a few of the debates I have been involved with I have looked at what some people have been saying (and not saying) and I can tell they see the world very differently to me. We may be discussing the mechanics of a computer game about superheroes but peoples broader beliefs tend to show through (doubtless mine do). One area in particular that this manifests itself is collectivism vs individualism. Given the toxicity of these issues in the real world and the havoc that is causing it is a testament to the strength of this community and it's love for this game that we keep them out as much as we do. We should always try to remember that we each see the world through our own lens and it looks different to other people who have lived different lives. Opinions are simply opinions no matter how strongly held, they aren't facts. We should also remember that behind every keyboard is a person and how we talk to each other really matters.

My issues with resurrection powers of both types (self and other) are more to do with the defeat mechanics themselves than the powers. My first issue is that defeat results in immediate toggle drop creating an annoying process of retoggling before you can get back in the fight when you or someone else activates a rez power. My second issue is that defeat is automatically treated as a failure state for master runs and debt and this leads to the self rez powers in particular being avoided. I'm wondering if the mechanics of defeat could be changed so that your toggles only suppress rather than drop completely, and possibly that rez by power (maybe primary and secondary rez powers only) removes the debt and wipes the defeat from the count for master runs etc. This would provide an incentive to take the primary and secondary rez powers and encourage their use. It would encourage a more aggressive playstyle when rez powers are available which is always fun. I tend to play like this anyway, particularly on a set with a self rez as debt is largely ignorable these days, but toggling up is still a pain. There would be an element of power creep about this and I certainly don't think the game needs that overall but it would I think improve these powers considerably.

I find it very hard to pick corruptor over defender or blaster these days in general. For this specific powerset combination? Defender every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

It took me a while to find. I knew I'd seen someone mention it here. I ran a spines/da scrapper back in the stone age on live and remember laughing like a drain when I first saw that write up. These days there are so many more end management options it must be possible to build a version that would actually function? For a given value of 'function' of course.

I prefer dark blast with storm for the utility of the immobilize. From a damage point of view storm/sonic is very good on paper but I'd worry about actually applying that damage when things start flying all over the place. Rad/sonic had a reputation on live for being just about the best defender for a long time. Rad has lost a little of it's sparkle over the years due to other really powerful debuff options (cold in particular) and because the pace of the game has changed (long animation toggle debuffs really hurt it now). It is still a really solid set though and does allow solo big game hunting if that appeals. The other set I love is thermal. It's a bit more understated, in that it doesn't do anything much that another set can't do better. But it can do a lot of things well and it brings variety to the table. It's hard to imagine the team or situation that wouldn't benefit from something thermal can do. It's heals don't require tohit checks so they are always reliable, it offers resist shields which are always well received, it has solid debuffs, forge is great and it has a rez. It really is a swiss army knife set.

As mentioned it's hard to make a really bad /sonic defender. I've played several at one time or another. I'll throw a particular mention out for dark/sonic. Dark miasma is simply an awesome set merging control with debuffing in a very satisfying way. It gets going early and can really ruin almost any enemies day. Positionally the sets work well together as they both use cones and only the nuke will force you to move from range.

Further to this the devs have stated that they want to encourage people to use the market in order to keep it healthy. They are therefore very unlikely to bring down merit prices to a level where the market would no longer be clearly the cheaper option. Their efforts to limit inflation seem to have been very successful though so it might be safe enough to reduce the gap between the market prices and the merit prices a little.

Toggle Man! I love the idea of running two damage auras and two control auras and then knocking everyone away from yourself with whirlwind 'because it's another toggle'!

I could get behind this. I've no particular burning desire to see a name release policy in action, but if we have to have one (and I understand the argument for one), then having it tied to account activity seems the way to go to me.

Totally on board for buffs to frozen fists and greater ice sword and a quicker firing ice patch. I'd leave the rest as they are personally. My only addition would be to request a minimal fx option for frozen fists as it really sticks out currently.

My take on this in general is that anything we can do to improve the huge amount of existing content is likely to be a more efficient use of limited resources than adding new content. However I'd hope that it didn't need to be a strictly one or the other choice. The topic here seems to be suggesting the addition of further difficulty options on top of the existing tools we have. I get that this is a popular idea and that player choice in all things is generally regarded as the ideal. I'm not convinced this gets to the heart of the current balance issues though. I feel the game would benefit more from some powercreep rollback instead but I'm well aware this isn't to everyone's taste!

I'm rolling the idea around in my head that all melee sets should have a fast and slow version split between scrappers/stalkers and tanks/brutes. Thematically it would certainly make sense and it might help differentiate the AT's a bit more?