Naraka

Like I said, I think this would have been a good fit for non-inherent Fitness 2.0, amending these ideas to the fitness pool to make it more attractive. The concept of these additives is basically the same as Fitness, acting like a baseline boon to a particular aspect of the character. At the very least, this would be as fair since, if this were its own pool, inevitably the playerbase would view it as mandatory to have for squishies (even though its not) and thus a power pool tax. I'm still of the opinion, you can get by without Fitness, especially with IOs.

This was a hotly debated arguing point in times of yore. I wasn't around when it was actually being argued but I believe the devs (or *a* dev) was making that point that the game is mostly balanced toward +0/x1 or whatever but I think he lost that argument in the long run. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that people have argued it in the past and likely have created a strict binary on that perspective. I can't really say what or how difficulty should be distributed, whether it should be +1, x2, +0 or x4. I just know what it's *NOT* balanced around and that is the max. If I were forced to give a concrete answer, I'd probably say sets should be balanced depending on what they are designed to tackle. So a set like Dark Armor might be able to deal with lots of enemies (so x3 or x4) but pay for its efficacy by not being well built to handle foes too higher level (so +0) while sets like Super Reflexes might be able to mitigate tough hits from a strong target easily (+2) but not have many tools to deal with many attacks coming in at once (so x2). Probably a cop-out answer but would at least distract long enough for me to come up with a better answer while you have to pick apart each individual set's balance criteria lol

If giving the ATs with zero mez protection another means of getting +3 mag protection is making up the difference between the haves and have-nots, I'm sure welfare would have solved poverty by now, not exacerbated it. If we're actually going to make up that difference, you'd need to help the have-nots while also penalizing the haves because 3 mag protection isn't doing crap that can't already be done. Like giving a $600 check to everybody. Lol who's rent is that paying for? What about their utility bills and food? C'mon... [EDIT]And just to retort to any accusations of inequivalent comparisons or strawman arguments, I do think, +3 mag protection on a passive pool that takes up 3 power picks to be literal scraps here. It's not a grand solution or a novel concept. It's not like we don't have options for stuns and holds for 3 power picks already. I've been gone for a while as they implemented a lot of these changes. I'm curious if the new difficulty setting has changed any of the tactics and power-usage at the upper level. Maybe I'll start diving back into "end game" grouping if it does.

Yes. On the other questions, no. I don't see how people use SOs at all above lvl 25. But if you use only SOs, I guess we all have our odd traits. Like, I don't typically level past lvl 45 and will lock my characters at a lower level or only solo with anything above that. Teaming at lvl45+ is boring. Soloing prior to lvl 35 isn't usually possible at +4/x8 but I hear certain build can. But I'm a proponent of holes and vulnerabilities. If you're a tank and you can get affected by mez at +4/x8, that just means the system works. But are actually affected by mez? Or are you affected by +4/x8 spawns? There is a difference...

One can mess with this since MM attacks are kind of in a weird place being really expensive for their damage and recharge. Barring future changes, I think you could do nearly anything with those attacks and it probably can be balanced around, like making them non-ranged melee attacks but cheaper. Multiple element attacks kind of reminds me of the first MM preset suggestion I made, the Arcanist, which is kind of an Animus Arcanum flavored MM: Yeah, shilling my ideas again. Might as well, it took, like 45min to type and format that shit lol But i played around with the MM attacks in that by turning the 3 attacks into 6 but you are only going to have access to 3 at a time. It also played on the pet upgrade mechanic but that's not relevant to this discussion. There's also a more traditional example of an element's MM using existing powers here:

I'm glad someone else shares my sentiment. I'd say, for multi element sets, if you were going that route would likely have to be the set's gimmick, kind of like Dual Pistols. Otherwise, most sets try to stay within a particular conceptual range because you can already create mixed damage via primary, secondary, epic and pool sets. Only certain sets tend to mix multiple concepts like MM sets and sometimes Blaster secondaries. Overall, I think it'd be a neat set functionally but conceptually, kind of shallow and leaning on the concept of "nature" but not the execution of actually using or manipulating nature.

I figured, if I left breadcrumbs of an idea, maybe someone would follow. Giving other ATs unique attributes like Blaster gets but different, would be more interesting. I'm not even against the OP's idea, I'm mostly just criticizing the prospect as being boring and one-dimensional....not the concept, mind you. If anything, I feel a set of passive powers with these abilities could have been wrapped into an updated version of non-inherent Fitness since it's a similar concept. But the prospect of it is merely "What does my build need? X, Y and Z? Cool, put it in a set." No unique mechanic or function that doesn't already exist, just more stuff to stack. And people say "well it's only Mag 3..." but leave out that there are other additives like Acrobatics, RoP, etc to stack/alternate and it just ends up being why not just add this idea's various debuff resists to existing pool powers and/or add some mez protection to other new pools like Unleash Potential or Unrelenting? All in all, it's just another push to get more stuff to stack to ignore more in-game mechanics without introducing new ones. Boring!

Well, if you're a Blaster, you can be shooting.

Does the damage applied change? For controllers, they do have containment. I think Stalkers have higher crit on mezzed foes in PvP. Why not a pool that greatly increases resistance and Regen while mezzed instead?

So now your argument is the amount of protection is mostly useless in practical situations. Then why put it in?

Earlier, you were talking about mez not being binary by explaining the protection mechanic. The protection mechanic is a part of the binary nature of the mez system. It's not about "mez or not mez" but "effect or not affected". I'm saying mez should do *something* even if your protection is higher than the mag applied similarly that having protection *under* the mag applied doing something as a directive to make mez less of a light switch. And bar that, maybe look for unique ideas to provide a more fluid solution to certain ATs and situations than just "now you don't get affected" or "it's useless for any practical use". I think Blaster's unique ability to use certain attacks while mezzed is an exceptional example with a superb conceptual link.

I'll clarify then: Until your magnitude of protection is exceeded, you are invulnerable to the mez stacked on you *because* it takes no effect. In the game, mez below the protection had no tertiary effect besides a background counter. It doesn't partially suppress a buff, it doesn't lower your AT inherent, it doesn't lower the effectiveness of your enhancements or inspirations, it is literally just a tally for the specific mez effect.

Are you mezzed 100% of the time? Maybe I'm just not mentally syncing with this, but I tend to try and avoid being mezzed and if I get mezzed, I use RoP. If I tried to keep RoP up for max its duration, I'm certain a portion of that time would not actually be doing anything but acting like insurance... literally a waste of resources unless you screw up. Basically, how you view self rez powers. Still, RoP isn't supposed to be full coverage. It's just a pool. Heck, mez protection across all ATs shouldn't always be full coverage like it mostly is now.

Do two wrongs make a right?

Lol you kind of had to revert to the base point of clear times, which in and of itself is useless because solo times are not supposed to be standard. They never were, they shouldn't be and I wouldn't use clear times as a standard for extra-AT balance. Also, why would a Controller or Defender need to have a break free on every second? If you have a luck+debuffs, a mez might never connect.

Now someone's starting to peek outside the box. Why can't all mez protection have some sort of stipulation or function that one has to be weary about? Another idea: rather than protect you up to a threshold but then shut down, how about it aggressively protect you once you're mezzed? Like if you get held out slept, your "mez defense" kicks in and if another hold or stun, ect starts to stack, it takes no effect. So it's assisting the user from being chain mezzed but has no utility for a build that largely ignores mez.

Well we could be talking about the binary nature of mez, but...

I wouldn't "fight against" those changes if the suggested changes were unique and creative lol

If cashless nukes weren't implemented, the sets that already had crashless nukes (AR, Arch and DP) would have some edge for their inherent limitations which would help even the playing field. Also, there might be more emphasis on build that skip the nuke for a traditional dps AoE rotation. It wasn't a necessary change, it was a desired change. At the end of the day, people want their burst damage then later complained that enemies died too quickly and deemphasize other aspects of gameplay like buffs/debuffs and controls. Putting more mez protection for squishies starts to undermine the whole purpose of Sentinel existing.

Cool. Now let's go poll some players on how threatened they feel from mez on their characters and particularly how they handle those types of foes across multiple ATs. From my personal observations, mez tends to only start being a threat when you overload on enemies in a spawn which, obviously, is something you choose to do. Even in the circumstance of overloading spawns, certain tactics, powers and builds are employed to deemphasize these threats (I rarely, if ever, hear melee builds discussing the woes of getting mezzed through their protection or specialty build avoiding increased spawns because mez is too difficult to avoid). Even for squishy ATs, a well placed inspiration is often enough to get them through rough spots. My ultimate point tho, which should be even more obvious, is that mez stops being a threat when you have comprehensive protection from it. When you start passing out more and more protections (even more than current) you're going to make mez even less of a threat. Overall, I don't tend to criticize ideas because I hate them or even think they're bad. I usually do it because I think they're uncreative, this one being particularly binary in addressing mez and protection. No thinking outside the box or probing alternatives.

And that's how the slippery slope is greased. You say mez is still a threat. Okay, how? And not just to some Blaster or Defender without mez protection. Tell me when is mez a threat to a Willpower Stalker. Or a SR tanker. I'd like tangible examples.

What about the period of time where numbers were hidden? If I'm not mistaken, there didn't used to be numbers displayed that told you how much damage an attack did (just minor, high, extreme, etc) or how much defense/healing/etc a power provided.

Yeah, it's pretty unfair that most melee get to completely ignore mez and Tankers don't even know how mez works, they just know they never worry about it.

Invulnerability does have offensive buffs: +ToHit is an offense buff. Meaningful is going to be mostly subjective because it's likely going to end up needing to be +dmg, +rech or/and a damaging attack to be considered meaningful. From that perspective, I would argue saying it's wrong to underperform just to be different is going to net you the most hiccups because the mainline changes you're going to push for *WILL* be the same. You're going to end up morphing the sets into the same thing with only cosmetic differences and maybe the way you use the offensive power. Energy melee changes is actually a decent example of the results you're looking for that pretty much makes it a different colored flavor of most other melee sets. Dark melee was close too and eventually will share it's same fate.

Or just be bribed and play CoV every now and then. It's not like you're in a marriage till death do you part when you play any of the sides of CoX. If you can play a patron arc for some power pool choices, why can't you play a SF or help some lowbie team for a bit of exp or some merits?