Rylas

Oh, I took OG alright. That, Choking Cloud and of course RI make for some very safe melee range combat. 30% positional defense helps too. :D

Hmm, that's certainly tempting. And the proc would be an added bonus. My only issue is I'll have to find the slot from somewhere else, as I like the debuffs in RI flooring both def and to-hit in my foes. Perhaps I could just leave Lingering Radiation one slotted.

Please know I say this with seriousness, but also a healthy dose of friendly endearment as I know how much you love FF. /JRANGER I mean, do you HATE melee types?? Did they wrong you as a child? Why would you do this to another human being!? I bet you wanted to be a dentist when you were growing up, you sadist! As a predominantly melee player, I'm just not thrilled by anything KB. I know there's IOs for that, but you put the burden on the player to fix an undesirable situation. And many of things you'd like to keep the same just don't sound appealing at all. BUT... the idea for PFF being a alpha absorber isn't a terrible idea. I think you'd have to put a moderate recharge rate on there so it's not OP because then you could use it all the time. Maybe 20 to 30 secs? And making use of Repulsion Bomb is definitely good Tanker crowd control, so ok. But practically straight porting it doesn't look appealing, and you haven't taken into account a good taunt aura. Given all that, I'm redoing my suggestion. Your idea for Force Bubble was one I had for Oppressive field, but thought maybe it would be too much. But you convinced me maybe not. So Immob for minion level and Slow for anything above that or that resists immob.

You still need to have some kind of reference point. Considering the endless combination of IOs that are available, it's impossible to create a standard base-line of performance on them. It's like saying let's balance the game like everyone's got their own personal Pocket Kin. Or their own Empathy Buff Bot. Performance on SOs is the only way we can begin to discuss balance between powersets.

This...I know it's unpopular to say, but I agree...Ideally, no set should be able to solo at that level, and if they can, either the baddies need to be more difficult (better option) or the sets should have powers toned down... I know people are going to say, "why are you telling me how to play", but unfortunately, this is one area where your playstyle and mine overlap and can't be separated. If the game is too easy, it's not fun. If I can solo all the content at +4/x8 and still get that AV at the end...it's not fun. (I'm not quite there though). *If I can solo all the content at +4/x8 and still get that AV at the end without IOs then something might be overpowered. However, soloing that kind of content with enough IO investment just sounds like things are working as intended. Though, I think "ALL" content at +4/x8 is a bit hyperbole. I've yet to see someone do all content equally with ease.

My only hesitation here is to compare sets to what people can do with IOs. IOs aren't the balancing point for sets, and it would be impossible to create a standard around IOs. That said, you can still make good arguments for some tweaks to Stone Armor.

Energy Melee, as it no longer performs in any significant way. Just undoing its changes would be enough, seeing as other sets would still out-perform it in many ways. Being the "boss killer" was the only thing unique to the set, and now it can't really claim that title. War Mace and Battle Axe. Perhaps this is observation bias, but I never see these two sets out in the wild. Sure, they do good Disorient and KD respectively, but that doesn't seem to have the appeal it once did before. Perhaps giving them a minor -Res on top of what they do would help.

Made some tweaks to the original suggestion to provide a bit of niche to the set. The idea here is that on a tank, one could soft cap S/L/E/N/F/C with pool powers (Weave+CJ), and have 30% Resist to the same with 3 slotted Personal Forcefield and 10 foes in range of Refractive Aura. The idea behind Refractive Aura is that incoming damage is reflected back at those in range. And instead of repel-like mechanics (because Melee, duh), immobilizing one's foes with force fields makes more sense. As well as using force fields to keep you moving (slow resists). As a weakness, Toxic and Psi will mess your day up. If you want a heal, you'll have to dip into pool powers for that as well. This would make it the typed-damage equivalent (in some regards) to SR, with non-scaling resists instead, and a bit of crowd control added in for good measure. [edit] Forgot to mention, the resist to -Def should, at most, only total about 50-60%. There's a good amount of mitigation in the suggested set, so losing some defense should be manageable.

At least you're keeping your story straight... *eye roll*

You said you hadn't insulted me and asked I return the favor - heavily implying that I had been insulting. I never assigned anything to you, and you never directly asked me not to. For the rest of you talking points:

Ah, I tried my best to read the whole thread before commenting. I must have missed that. Apologies.

Let's break down your explanation. So, by your explanation, you are "rendering a vote of no change from not any change." At best it's an incredibly confusing double negative. If I wanted to insult you, which I don't, I'd say something to the effect of how trying to use overly complicated wording to be as vague as possible when trying to argue over semantics only makes you look pompous and idiotic. But I'm saying that, I only pointed out how confusing your word choice is. If you choose to be insulted by that, I can't stop you from doing so. But you could also choose different wording to convey the same intended message. Which no one is stopping you from doing either.

What is Null State suppose to even mean in this situation?? I mean, I agree that the logic presented by OP wasn't a good enough reason to change anything, but I can't make sense of the word salad your tossing out there to say you're being neutral.

For what it's worth, I find Harris questioning if he was in the wrong to be incredibly unlikely. His level of obsession also shows signs of corrosive narcissism. If anything, he would find ways to justify his actions even if he found killing Page unfortunate. You could argue that trying to turn him into a relatable character is the wrong way to portray a straight up villain (this isn't Praetoria, after all). You don't get to kill someone because of your ego and then get to be a victim, too. Regardless of gender, that just doesn't work. Rewriting the story from that angle could also provide some room for addressing some of your concerns. At least turning him into someone more despisable reinforces the wrongness of his actions.

I think we share the same view here, but just happen to slightly diverge on this particular example. I'm certainly not opposed to different. My line of work requires being creative and different. And hey, I bet an even better story could be written. I'm just a stickler for reason. Hell, I wouldn't doubt a better reason for changing this story could be crafted. And if OP presented it, I'd jump on board. For whatever that's worth.

Equally off-topic stuff of equally non-contributing value. You two are talking about a particularly disturbed individual and in neither direction does that individual help your respective points. Let's not go down that rabbit hole.

I would view this similar to the "fix the clamp" suggestion. The change ultimately wouldn't be all that impactful, no. But I prefer changes to be made for good reasoning, not just because how it's going to appeal to how someone feels about something. That's just a preference I hold for implementing change. And the reasoning provided by OP falls faulty. A whole new story line that replaces the current one, or just additional to the current one of topic? I'm all for more content creation, especially community driven since these devs have enough work already (I'm assuming). And I'm all for arcs that have better writing for female characters (and all characters, of course). And if the aim is to empower, that's fine. I just hope it avoids infantilizing the audience in the process of doing so. I think of Ripley in Alien when I think of good writing.

Just to be clear, its possible to oppose the change because you find the logic behind it insufficient or ill-reasoned. Yes?

I think changing something because people are offended by it, when I don't have a personal stake keeping it as is, seems appropriate to me. To quote Ricky Gervais, "just because you're offended by something, doesn't mean your right." Or as Stephen Fry commented about saying something is offensive, "it has no meaning, it has no purpose, and it has no reason to be respected as a phrase." Where do we draw the line on making sure content isn't offensive? I don't know what the answer to that question would be, but the story arc doesn't teach that anything Harris does is okay to do. If it had, I might be on board with changing something about it. But it explicitly treats it as a bad act and not a morally acceptable course of action.

I would agree that Lt. Page shouldn't be referred to as "Harris' GF." There was a comment about this being more about mocking Harris for his affection, and I could see that being the case. But unfortunately tone doesn't carry over in text format as well as we'd like. Referring to her by name just makes more sense and leads to less confusion. As for the rest of the suggestion, I can't jump on board. Mentally unstable people do terrible things to other people all the time. It's a tragically sad reality. Obsession isn't a gender specific issue. I'm sure at least some on this forum have seen the film Misery. I'm sure some of us remember the story of a particular astronaut driving cross-country in a diaper. I'm sure the person she was driving to found the situation as unsettling and frightening as anyone who's been stalked and harassed. I understand if "women in freezers" is a trope, but that doesn't by default mean a story using such a trope has fallen for misogynistic bias. If the roles were reversed, one wouldn't claim the arc was condoning man-hating. And to say that reversing the roles wouldn't be the same because it doesn't happen to men on the same level trivializes male victims of stalkers and abusive partners. Let's not do that.

I wouldn't mind if the animation was the same, but shorted down to 1 sec. Leaving oneself open to attacks while you charge up an attack that also hurts you, doesn't seem necessary at all.

M'mm, dat Pop Culture theme.

I hear where you're going. I guess I'm curious to what SO-only numbers would look like between sets on: Defence, -Def Res, and HP/S at their highest regen. This would help show what a "balanced" regen amount should be. I use quotations because that's a pretty subjective term.

If you're looking for a pure farm toon, then I'd suggest SS/Fire. Spines/Fire seems to be a new favorite around these parts, and I'm sure it's a fun one. But from what I keep hearing, SS/Fire is still hard to beat in farming terms. That said, being new to the game, I might recommend also leveling up a toon that just sounds fun to you while you level your farmer. Might as well learn how to play regular content and how you like to play with teams (if you care about those things, that is) while you build up a bank to make your ubertoon. Also... WELCOME TO COH!

Shhh, I know. Mine too...