Naraka

All AoE powers. I see what's going on here...

I did ask the same question once in another thread: Although there's not concrete evidence that nothing is broken, I also learned how the enhancements were affecting the pets/pet's powers as well. EDIT: I wonder how often people ask about this particular power.

You underestimate the fixation some players have on the dated skyboxes of the game.

I'm not really super bias about which side. I mainly see blueside as a vacation from Arachnos and Longbow missions, is all.

It might just be a bugged enhancement display.

Probably not the first time but there's a better chance the 2nd time.

That's why I was saying "obvious obviousness aside". The main reason I replied to your point, though, was I'm pretty sure there's someone else out there that either understands where I'm coming from or agrees but either aren't replying to this thread or don't read the forums. I'm basically just putting my opinion out there so it is covered among the discourse. That being said, I see no one objected to my point that swinging over to red doesn't require any sacrifice. So when any of you are possibly looking for something to do and you hear someone "advertising" on red, perhaps some due diligence is required every now and then to hop on a villain character (or just gull it) to help out so their efforts aren't all for naught.

Obvious obviousness aside, "advertising" can often have an overreaching and opposite effect. How many out there have met an obnoxious vegan? I still eat vegetables but nothing motivates me to relish in a bleeding steak more than some verbal pressure from an overly zealous grass muncher. And you might reply "you don't have to be anti-meat" or "no one said you're pushing for ONLY vegetables" to which I can hold up a mirror to the discussion at hand. I'm not a redside "vegan" in that I only play redside or I feel redside is better. No, I'm a *player* that can do BOTH but those other that do both are often drowned out by the rhetoric of anti-red as if going redside somehow excludes you from doing anything else. I find it very bizarre, especially the many excuses put forth why people won't touch villain content. As for the suggestion at hand: no, I don't think I'll do that. I'm content just soloing and getting my teams whereever I can find them. I'm not about to put even MORE effort when I'm already forced to do so much else just to squeeze a few extra drops of enjoyment out of this game. I'd much rather they add some more incentives so that I can gain just a little bit more for what I do do and if some extra capitalizing players want to get in on that, then at least some of us will have gained a benefit out here without being told to do backflips through flaming hoops.

You can still do that with a "themed" set. So long as it doesn't lock you into "science" or "technology", you can approximate different origins depending on what the effects actually accomplish.

Yes, WP gives a moderate amount of both def and res to psi. WP can be a decent stand-in for a lot of concepts, possibly even this one considering the set also protects against Fear which fits very much into the concept of a robot themed character. If we were devising a hypothetical "Robotic" defensive set, I could definitely see high def and res to psi and toxic as well as protection from Fear but rather than giving it a weakness to energy, make it weak to smashing but also very resistant to lethal. Also, maybe give it the quirk of having a hole/weakness to -END to simulate the tactic of attacking the bot's power supply. Also, anything flagged as EMP or having additional effects vs robots would also target you. I think the difficult part of making such a set is filling all 9 powers and it not feeling like a knock-off of existing sets. Not impossible, just you really have to home in on that concept.

You could be right but I'd wager it starts evening out when you factor in teams (you can probably join a couple TFs to make up any differences and then some). Arc efficiency? I'm assuming you mean not having to hop between zones constantly? Or maybe repeat/superfluous fluff missions are cut back on? The implemented changes to travel and teleports probably fills in some of that disparity. I will agree, blueside will throw more non-story/story-adjacent filler missions in between interesting story steps. It probably happens redside too but I just didn't notice? The Patron pools, while not always the best, I really do enjoy. The unique stack of powers opens up more concepts in a lot of cases, but that's really only one piece of content (well, 2 arcs) that you easily opt into when it comes available. Probably not enough, if you ask me.

Well this was an...interesting read. Taking the less tread upon point (because that's how I roll), and narrowing back to the OP's suggestion: No, I don't think that would overall increase the population of Redside and if it does, it probably wouldn't be by as much as you'd hope. But I think that's okay. So my reply to adding merits as a reward to most redside instances: sure. What's the worse that could happen? People would complain they're forced to play redside (does that sound familiar to any redside enthusiasts?)? Or that it's not fair (no idea why anyone would make that point)? At best, I could see them making the point that "it's not going to accomplish getting more people to redside" which I agree with. Now maybe this particular point people don't agree with (would be nice if people actually say if they support the notion) but read the below quote: So if that is true and Red/Gold is bonus/increased challenge content, wouldn't that merit a better reward? Even moreso since it's more likely you're soloing it or spent more time forming a group to face the content. Beyond the notion of "villains working for self-interest" working in character, you *might* see heroes that show their true colors turning red for a while to work up that wealth by gaming the system which is just as good as being a villain (because villains don't care if you're *truly* evil, that's mostly integrity which is a heroic trait). True heroes resist the temptations of greed so you should be in support of the suggestion if you want villains to be more villainous. For every use of the word "bribe" in this thread, that would be an agreement for adding this in. What do heroes have to lose? No one's going to swap sides for some merits bribe, right?

One might argue that it's not so much that Scrappers get a "lesser version of Taunt" but rather tanks get a "greater version of Confront" as part of differentiating the melee ATs is also who gets the "better" while the others remain "lesser". To extend the argument further, the blame for muddying the identity of Scrapper could also fall on buffs given to Stalkers. I'm sure you've heard me rant about buffs enough (or maybe not, I don't post that often) with some being aimed Stalkers' way. I don't dislike Stalkers, I just wish they would have made their identity uniquely Stalker rather than Scrapper.1.2 because now Scrappers could be seen as falling behind Stalkers. I'm sure Scraps still out DPS Stalkers in AoE and clear speeds but Stalkers likely have faster AV kills overall which is good...it's just they do it by becoming a better Scrapper. So to segway back to my point, runaway buffs strikes again. Just because they (and I don't mean the HC devs) decided to take the simplest route and flubbing up identity shouldn't be the free ride to extra buffs and utility. Complete tangent: I'd be all for improving Scrapper identity and altering certain powers like Confront and even Build Ups and their equivalents, but I'd also want rebalancing. For example (and I'm not saying it should/would happen), but if they put def caps/diminishing returns on all ATs besides tanks that simulate 40% def instead of 45% and added to Scrapper's confront a "negative crit" debuff on the target for any hits to themselves, that gives them a "squaring off" power for their targeted foe that surpasses their current mitigation FOR THAT TARGET (negative crit explained as the target doing half damage normally but if they get that 5% crit, they do a normal damage hit). While it is a huge hit to lower their overall ability to stack def to cap by such an amount, you'd actually likely end up with Scrappers being the better option for fighting off big hard targets but less effective at surviving many targets. Tangent off: I don't see your suggestion as more radical than mine (very possible and less meta-breaking), but at the same time, I see it as completely unnecessary. Same with the changes to Dark Melee. I know there were people really hating DM before the changes and I'm sure you're pleased with the outcome, but it's basically just another reflavored melee set now with few differing qualities and flubbed the main power I play the set for (Shadow Maul) and I don't like playing the set anymore. At some point, you have to see, pushing people out and telling them to just go play somewhere else is forcing disenfranchisement and apathy.

Telling you you're provoking a response is hardly attacking anyone. If you aren't stating posters in this thread are "gatekeeping" or assume people defending the set are "emotionally attached" to it, you probably didn't need to bring it up. It's fine, provoking responses isn't inherently bad. I do it all the time. But you seem to be defensive about it. If you're attempting to be respectful and non-confrontational, I was giving you advice. And I realize people assume it's an underperforming set. I'm aware of that and even advocate for giving the set unique utility. But I don't think it needs higher baseline performance because IOs already cover it. And with such a heightened control over the things you solo, it's not hard to manage with a non-IO'ed build....I've done it. But me soloing normal +2/x4 and above isn't an argument to keep a set underperforming. It's an argument to keep the game from being constantly thrust to higher and higher heights needlessly because it doesn't do quite as well as set x/y/z under m/n situations. It's unnecessary and purely fluff. I didn't expound on this before but I feel that different buffs have different potential factors. If I were to coin a term for the variable, I'd call it "boon potential". Boon potential being a variety of factors that take into account the abundance of, stacking potency, caps and usability of different effects. Things like defense buffs have good stacking potency and its easy of use help make it a stickler for nearly all avenues of mitigation....but it's over-abundance makes each point of defense have less "boon potential" along with it's capped effect of only flooring an enemy's chance to hit to 5% before levels. Resistance fairs quite a bit higher since its abundance is still spread among 8 difference damage types (defense has more but they do not stack). Boon potential of heals changes by level (being very useful in the early/mid-game, lessening toward the end-game) but there is always a use if you ever take damage and moreso if you, the player, have control over WHEN you receive that heal. Basically, a powerful heal at your finger tips has more potential than a heal at the control of a teammate. The main reason I even go over that train of thought is partially to do with the whole cost-benefit argument of using IOs to build up a character. To say it's not potentially worth it to roll out an IO'ed regen is ignoring how easy it is to achieve effective mitigation with them while exaggerating the sacrifice required. It's mostly a meta decision to roll a Regen or not. You will get an effective character either way and to assume you can't or to a lesser extent sounds like we need to rebalance IOs then. Yup, there it is. It was also an intentionally exaggerated provocative statement. Not specifically calling out people who want to "fix" armor Tier 9s, but if we did remove their crash or reduce their effects to increase their uptime or exchange the over-buff to instead fill in holes of their respective sets, then the sets that perform "better" than Regen now will be even MORE better.

Considering you were using your conclusions to state statistically the set needs a buff, walking back your argument to just an opinion is acceptable. If you don't want your points to be labeled as provocation, I'd be weary on using terms like "gatekeeping" or allude to nostalgia or reduce others' opinions and conclusions to merely being emotional. I'm glad you see my intentional point as ironic which was why I pointed to the overall game balance (teamed content and exaggerated min/max soloing) is out of whack. But sure, that set over there gets an statistical effective-HP advantage of y% more therefore...no. If you can provocatively dismiss someone's argument as being emotional, trying to balance by statistics and spreadsheets specifically could be seen as vain and dismissed just as readily if people still play and enjoy their Regen characters. Would it be interesting if Regen got a buff or some extra utility? Sure. Does it need it? No. No it doesn't. And this is coming from someone who posted a 6+ paragraph post near the top of THIS page about ways to add/improve the set. And I said tier 9s WITH crashes, not crashless. And I already don't play lvl 45+ because the game becomes a bore (I only have a select few that build up their incarnate powers because its within their character concept). I already do bring myself down to make the game more interesting but appreciate the advice. Now what suggestion are you going to make to make my game even easier?

This is not an objective argument. It's mostly provocation. You're mostly arguing from a meta-game high-end min/max perspective as I'd argue a SR Scrapper/Brute/Stalker without outside sources to cap your defense has fewer options to mitigate damage. In the higher echelons of content, where buffs and IOs exists, Regen is going to come out on top sans the DPS loss from clicking its powers. I'd also point out, you're pretty bias when it comes to power creep. How about I argue that melee armor needs a nerf because it's becoming more and more obvious that the curve has shot upwards out of control. Melees hardly even expect to go down (maybe once per door at most) while wading through the highest of threat content which is pretty ridiculous, moreso when it's constantly advocated that such ATs need even MORE. They want more power while spending less. They want every power to be top notch with multiple utility. They want more choices while having those choices be more flexible. Tier 9 armors with crashes?! Remove them. Replace them with MORE! It's hard to gatekeep when the gate is shattered on the ground in pieces lol

Your argument could be used to argue against your point as well. If a gap closer is so important to YOUR fiction, there's a pool (multiple, in fact) for that. I'd further profess that Scrappers don't need buffs to make them anymore reliant on Confront than they already are. Frankly, I hate having to argue against buff changes all the time but no one's going to ever suggest putting a purpose for such buffs by, you know, making the game more challenging to require all these new bells and whistles. You are perfectly capable without adding on more arbitrary effects onto an already popular and strong AT(s) purely because you don't like a purely utility effect. Or what effect do you already have that you'd be willing to lose to add it onto this new power? Nothing? I thought so...

Well, break frees aren't meant to be chugged, they're reactionary most of the time. You can use them when something gets through your tools to protect yourself. If you use them pre-emptively, just make sure you have enough left over. Why do we have mez protection at all? It's typically given to melee ATs as a fallback to needing to get close to their targets to engage. Not having comprehensive protection to all mez all the time isn't congruent with having NO mez protection. As for some armor sets having protections that others don't, you have to consider that those armor sets also have powers that can make them practically unkillable. Having some holes likely were the only means of defending against such odds. But I tell you what, how about we change the armor Tier 9s to add some Fear protection. How about that?

Theme is the game's structured building blocks that you utilize to create characters. Examples: Fire burns. Fire only does DoT. It has no other secondary effect. Stalkers are sneaky and not tanky. They inherently have less staying-power than other melee ATs. Weapons are physical. They do smashing or lethal damage. Bludgeoning often causes KB or stun. Slashing often causes -def and bleeding. Super Reflexes act and react faster. This is portrayed by +speed, +rech and a protection to Confuse but doesn't make you fearless or privy to fear tactics. RP is your particular thematic considerations. Some examples: That isn't fire my blaster is using, it's soul-flare, a spiritual energy that harms wicked foes. My Stalker is indominable and unkillable, he can be reduced to ash and pull his particles back together by sheer willpower. The only thing that can truly vanquish him is his own ability to disintegrate matter at a touch. My weapon is made of high tech energy. It splits things on an atomic level. My Scrapper sees the future and reacts by seeing ahead 8 seconds at a time. The theme of the Electric Armor set says you only are protected from KB while on the ground. Your melee storm god being able to fly and be immune to KB is something you can fulfill with IOs or power selection. Like I said before, armor sets tend to be limited in scope. They are meant to build up a character's ability to take punishment to such a degree they reach a benchmark in performance rather than fill a thematic niche. They always have to provide a certain level of sustain and/or mitigation and everything outside of that is theme. That is the ONLY way we can differentiate them (outside of costume FX) otherwise all of them would provide the same benefits at the same level in the same circumstances. As for the theme of grounded, I tend to feel it has to do with direction. Electricity can be pretty unpredictable but grounding it makes it more predictable which is why you have a better chance to protect yourself when you manage your ground. Not every character using Elec Armor is an electric manipulator/god. Some just expel it and have no control, others just suck it up or are just made of it. I believe it is a common trope in electric-type characters that, for the underdog to overcome the sheer power and speed of lightning, they'll devise a trap or direct the discharge in some way to gain an upperhand for a split second. I'm not really defending the argument of theme, though, I've been mainly just explaining it. I'm moreso defending the argument of structure. On the power creep front, this suggestion isn't really all that far from asking for Psi resist in Invul or trying to fill up the Neg Energy hole in Elec Armor purely because it adheres to a theme you don't agree with. Now if the benchmark for survivability was particularly negatively impacted (and moreso than Fire or DA's complete lack of KB protection), that could be a starting point but so is Trick Arrow not having a heal arrow or any other plethora of thematic structure built in the game for the player to work out themselves. If they removed the ground-limitation of Grounded, it wouldn't be any skin off my back. Like I said, we've already started the downward spiral. It's not that changing Elec Armor would speed up that spiral or that keeping things as is would stop the spiral. I'm just presenting the contrary point. Take that as you will.

Oh, let's talk about that!

I think it's perfectly within reason that a brave hero be brought down to his knees in fear if a strong enough influence or an influence isolated from that brave hero's strength (Superman is pretty damn strong and invulnerable but even he can be put in such a state in a variety of ways). If anything, a better example would be if your character isn't organic at all. How do you cause fear in a computer? I think the way this works, in theme, is Ninjas typically use deception and trickery. It's not that they are brave or fearless but rather trying to play with their minds or use illusions on them is less effective (you can't con a conman, so to speak). As for the Shield, I think yes, their theme is supposed to embody strength of character and bravery (a la Captain America). Not saying the theme has to be adhered to by all characters, just saying that might be why it exists on those sets. I don't agree with your premise, mainly because I don't like that melee's are practically immune to most mez completely. It really creates a have-and-have-not situation among the ATs. Maybe a +mag but a -duration as the level goes up. Abandoning the above suggestion and coming to a compromise: what about some kind of IO that reduces one of your mez protections to increase another? Like a "-1 Stun, +2 Fear" IO to make this a give-and-take addition that requires choice. The other would be improving the Presence pool to have one of its later powers provide some Fear resistance and maybe a low mag protection but you'd still be vulnerable to a lot of stacking fear.

It's not RP that is the reason that mez protection is in Grounded, that's theme. I think, overall, protection in Armors is often sprinkled in by theme. It's why some sets don't have confuse protection but other sets will put it in a power like Focused Fighting and not just shove it all in the "catch all" Practiced Brawler, for example. Because armor sets are pretty bland and limited in scope/function, often times theme is used to flavor them which is why Electric Armor caps Energy resist but not Negative Energy resist or that Invul has low Psi resist. I'm not arguing to keep the power as is (mainly because the power creep train has no brakes), moreso that requiring the players to work with/around the overall themes of the sets can have its ups and downs but downs are not grounds to advocate for more ups.

Not arguing against adding more customization options but Rad blast is a straight forward blast set? Nearly have the set are some kind of "orb" you're projecting. In fact, it was the reason I paired it with Force Field to get even more orb-slinging in there with Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb. I suppose PFF is also an honorable mention there to put yourself in a ball.

Both of those mez holes are easily circumvented without heavy investment. I personally wouldn't use RP as a reason to buff a set as RP is its own counter. Just because you're a melee storm god doesn't mean someone can't send you flying on your ass (i.e. see Mortal Kombat's Raiden).

I'd argue darkness isn't "focused". There's always a gradient. Darkness is only sharp like that in the presence of light otherwise, it's merely the absence of light. Feel-type, I'd say if you want "crisp", there are set for that. While I can understand your perspective, I feel variety in feel is more important than trying to adhere a specific AT to only a specific style. That was what was in place before proliferation but has since faded. While I'm not a big fan of Dark Blast in general, I do like Darkness Armor, Dark Miasma and Dark melee and Dark Blast is an extension of those themes.