Leo_G

Well, Super Reflexes as a concept is more than merely dodging attacks. It's been stated how they just tried to file through the comic trope powers and an aspect of having Super Reflexes that won't reflect 1:1 from comics is pulling an ally out of the way of a slice or shot or deflecting attacks from a hostage with your own body. In doing those, you might prevent grave injury to someone else but cause partial injury to yourself. Also also, it's partially to emphasize that a person with those reflexes and thin armor might get bloody and bruised, with an injured limping leg and blood cascading into their vision, surrounded in a herd the of unconscious bodies of their enemies who looks on at the approaching gun wielding hoard coming to finish them off but presses forward anyway. The guy isn't "resisting damage" so much as he's got little left to lose by going on.

I literally just told you how they would impact balance, performance and enjoyment. The changes that will be advocated for that brings up your "under performers" will be confined to the "winning pattern" of the over performers and if those over performers are ever brought down, they will further resemble each other. The ceiling of those over performing sets directly affects the direction of what the underperforming sets will do. For example: Electric Affinity had problems supporting whole leagues. So what? Why does 1 support guy need to be capable of keeping 18+ people fully buffed by himself? Because buff sets have a higher ceiling thanks to those premium buff sets like Time manipulation. My voice in the ocean of praise for how overly stacked Electric Affinity is now is pointless. Expect pefectly balanced sets like Empathy to get AoE buff versions of their ST buffs and under performing sets like FF to get loaded up with +Absorb. The overall meta pushes things UP which is unnecessary with how easy the encounters are. It's because they don't see sets that perform "fine" as fine but rather see them as gimped. And they see them as gimped because they don't compare to the ceiling and they don't compare to the ceiling because your feelings won't allow *logically ordered* adjustments to tow things closer to the line of balance.

And your reason to dictate this pace is feelings. At the very least, I'd like people to acknowledge their overly emotional reactions with rationality. Admit that you want it that way because you want it and prefer your feelings over the balance of the whole. Which kind of change happens first is irrelevant to me. My stated issue is how changes will make sets closer to being copies of each other because players that found the "winning pattern" now want to copy that pattern and put them on repeat.

The very reason you are asking this question specifically is the answer you are looking for. If you want powers that under perform to be brought up, why should you not accept a compromise to have over performing sets brought down? You site perception as your base (people's enthusiasm and all) but refuse to accept feelings also play a role in the enjoyment of varying aspects to include rp, meaningful progression, pvp, character creation and lore content. Basically, you're asking for feelings and then telling us feelings aren't a good answer because your feelings. My frustration isn't with the game being easy, but rather changes advocated for always aim to make the game easier. There's a difference. Fixing a quirky set that has some issues or not very good mechanics is good, pressuring for the changes to push performance into a specific direction to mostly benefit min/max hi output face roll pace is homogenization.

Just thinking about fire damage in general, it's seen as the most damaging of dangerous. In another thread, people were talking about oilslick arrow and methods to light it in archery. Linking some of those trains of thought, what if more effects of other sets were altered in a fashion to benefit fire (and cold) damage, moreso the powersets that focus on those types? Like certain explosive powers could set open a window where fire attacks can cause secondary explosions or some oil/chemical based debuffs have additional debuffs to fire or even add specific effects that are aimed to benifit or enhance fire based attacks (there's an effect in final fantasy called oil that increases damage from fire spells and skills, for example).

Because teaming becomes boring. Players overall don't want to face challenge as evident when some deaths occur, maybe a wipe, the reaction is usually the same: "I've got to go suddenly", "let me hop on my incarnate max IOs farm character", "lets invite more people". If the encounters are expected to be easy because that is what the meta allows, no one will put up with hardships. If progression is highly accelerated, normal progression is perceived as glacial.

So you strawman your assumed reason for adding resists to SR and how it breaks the concept of SR (it doesn't. it's also a unique mechanic to the set) and rebut that by tossing concept completely out of the window? Well, I have no rebuttal to that except to explain it in fewer words.

So far, I have 3 characters that I'm slowly maturing that have that build mentality (long cooldown abilities that have moderate to drastic changes in the character's performance). They're mostly Regen characters (elec/Regen and nb/Regen) but currently working with an elec/nin blaster who is also going to utilize a few long recharging self buffs. I think that's the rub: it's nice to have sustain good performance characters, but variety is a good thing...having the choice to have that variety... But lots of folks around here are dead set on removing those options... Or at least the decent options. The last tier pool powers are more like discount knock offs you can kinda pretend are worth locking yourself out of 2 other powers for. Imaging trying to put 3 of those pool buffs in a build... tl;dr version: just because you don't favor something doesn't mean no one favors it. Somebody will like it, cherish it and make it shine.

Now that's a novel idea. Great power having great responsibility and all... Actions having consequences? .... No no no, that's just crazy talk.

One thing I learned from reading people making suggestions and just in general really, is that tastes differ. What you might see as bland and restrictive is right down the alley of someone else. SR is the normal natural set that doesn't have a bunch of bells and whistles and some prefer it that way. Would I mind shifting the AoE def toggle up? No, level 20 is a good spot, after enemies start to get more dangerous AoE's, you kind of get a taste of it before you finally cap off your armors' full effect. Other sets that get their armor toggles sooner still aren't at their peak... It's usually when they get their click heals or their signature AoE buff/attack. Sets mature over time to their full strength but you don't appreciate the strength if you get it all at the start without effort. Sentinel getting something unique is fine. Let them have their unique sets. I'm sure that aspect will keep their popularity above the scraps and brutes...

Is this the plane true heroes vs rogues vs villains vs vigilantes war for justice, supremacy, vengeance and profit?

I'd say the game flourishes just fine without making everything optimized for min/maxing. If it weren't flourishing, we probably wouldn't be discussing this popular powerset. And I know I sound crazy every time I make an argument of "slippery slope power creep" but I know you all aren't blind. When will we start reigning in IO bonus def/rech and abundant AoE? Never? I thought so.

Why does everyone want to remove any possible inkling of inconvenience rather than just playing within the rules and adapting? That is, I wouldn't mind AoE defense to be shifted up a bit, but level 16? There isn't even that much AoE tossed around, and one can adapt. I've played plenty of SR scraps without absolutely needing max defense all the time. Also, no, not every set gets endurance management. Not every set should get endurance management. Endurance management is *utility* and if everyone has it, it's now just a standard feature. I actually think they should cull some of the endurance options in armors to keep such a feature as utility. And I agree with someone's previous post that it seems like everyone's trying to shoehorn +absorb into everything.

Glad to see fellow old fans of FFXI. It's a bygone era of games where the content was actually difficult. 2-hour abilities were a strange but exhilarating little gem of that game that could completely turn the tides of a fight. But even on a low level character, fights are too short for anything above a handful of inspirations is needed to turn the tide. I do wish the game revolved more around conserving your power for situations that you're in dire need (I tend to play like that instinctively because it's more interesting to vary your fights rather than putting everything on auto, more or less, and running through rotations and throwing out max power as fast as possible) but that isn't this game.

Funnily enough, there are likely far more "too good" setups that aren't exploiting procs that are more outlier as well. I see procs as more of a low-damage AT game. It's making more difference with them than, for example, a Stalker... Although some proc outliers exist there too (Savage Leap).

Reading the 1st page of replies, I'm curious if people view the way things were as a good thing or if the current changes are a better thing.

Where's my scaling resistance? I'll have to certainly vote "no" on this.

Another off-the-wall idea: What if procs themselves were really low damage BUT benefit from damage slotting (not buffs...but maybe set bonus +damage?)? My brain train was aiming for making fewer procs (1 or 2) more optimal so you could have a damage proc that produced more damage getting you a kind of sense of customizing your damage types. Instead of slotting 3+ procs with built to go off at optimal rates for maximized damage to just 1 proc that does the equivalent of 2 procs of damage. Powers that don't do damage (thus can't be slotted for damage) would likely benefit more from multiple procs instead but would present a diminished effect because they can't enhance the procs' damage. Although now that I think about it, such a point likely keeps the status quo the exact same but with different slotting strategies.

Also, can we separate debuff/control proc chances from damage proc chances (and buffs)? There are some effects that I'd like to use but the costs to slotting a -rech or knockback proc that rarely triggers feels a bit underwhelming.

I think this might be the more straight forward solution. I don't have a problem with an AoE debuff power with no damage being turned into a nuke if said nuke was only usable every 120sec or so instead of using global recharge + buffs to bring that nuke down to 50sec or less. Another solution, what if proc chance was slightly tied to matching sets? So slotting a proc and 1 other IO from the set doubles its proc chance, 2 triples it (max)? So there's the option of having 4-6 procs all with small chances or use 2 procs + 2 of their respective sets for more consistent activation thus limiting how much proc damage would occur?

Ah so then there is room to actually buff the numbers on Shinobi then. Or perhaps the Initiative chance. All in all, I'm an advocate for individuality and unique mechanics and while Targeting Drone sounds way better, I wouldn't want to change Shinobi into a semi-clone of Targeting Drone. Unsure about the nerfs needed (unless you're talking about something like Tactical Arrow or Plant Manipulation?), I thought most of them were pretty mild.

For my builds that have some defense but not capped, it can be a great tool to ignore mobs to get to an objective or if I want to assure a soft alpha strike, toggle on that baby, run in, let the mob's toss out their first attack and then turn it off. It's similar in a way to taking alphas on a FF character when repulsion bomb is on recharge.

I encountered this question before. Indomitable Will from APPs can't be cast while mezzed.

I'd frankly say 30sec recharge 90sec duration is more fair considering it shouldn't be hard to bring that down further. 15sec recharge is still bonkers with a 90sec duration. And it might have a more approachable window to penetrate rather than just being immune to mez. I guess when I look at powersets, I look at them from an angle of fighting against them too and the current numbers kind of feel unfair.

An Endurance Tax (as opposed to an Endurance Discount). I think the only problem is, after people pointed out, is that endurance costs of NPCs isn't relegated (and mobs sometimes have more than 100 END thus their tics of +recovery are larger than we might think). Some are very cheap so an endurance tax of 100% would take a 7 END power is now just 14 END. I think a possible work around is just having a static +END Cost effect. Like dropping a foe's END to 0 adds 20END to all their powers' costs for 8sec. A Mana-burn concept. I like it in other games and think it could have been a good option for Elec but might require a whole new type of set instead.