Naraka

I don't believe it was claimed to be a panacea. Using other mitigation methods in conjunction would reduce the reliance of pure def to a point, which was moreso the point, and bring about more prominence and purpose of other effects like -ToHit or outside buffing factors and outside sources (this is the thing I want emphasis on) to shore up the gap. At best, your argument is people would use other forms of mitigation to break even or reach similar peaks of damage mitigation. I feel THAT is the actual goal since it's less gameable and more wide-spread than just putting the pedal to defense and letting the plebs use everything else to try to compare. As for vitriol for harder soft-caps: cry me a river. I'm sure you could bury those cries next to Force Field and other defense-oriented buff sets whose only other option is to feed into power creep to keep up...or heck, even -ToHit debuff support sets toward endgame. At what point do we actually want every set to participate without just working around IOs, softcapped def and -regen on AVs? It's fucking pathetic for a non-twitch strategic-like MMO, honestly...

I'm not denying the framework changes, moreso the "wrong" conclusion. I suppose an admission that the current defense mechanics being shaky in the sense of balance could be a compromising argument though. Or non-defense mitigation such as heals, regen, resistance, -rech, sleeps, disorient, confuse, holds and knockback are prioritized in said niche situations. If defense is already finnicky by nature, what other point is trying to be made here?

Making +ToHit mobs a threat seems like a good positive. Also, adding a mechanic for "aegis" (or over/to "fluid" capped) to buff sets would be another positive, so long as it was skewed to specific sets and not just outside buffs. Probably best saved for another thread, I suppose. I don't have a solution to everyone softcapping. My best solution so far is limiting its benefits. I was meaning in conjunction with giving them a higher mod for ranged (so like a 0.75 melee mod but a 0.95 to 1.0 ranged mod). Make it so that it seems Tankers should take ranged attacks (the few good ones they can, at least) but make it so that ranged attacks have longer casts and recharge to balance that benefit. That's fine. I'm not trying to appeal to everyone to agree. I'm more or less saying, anything perceived as "wrong" likely has some shred or form that is isolated to be outside of current represented perspective. I'm not a defense attorney, but if someone can argue down your claim of "wrong" to "unsubstantiated", that is a success in the argument of the defense. The only argument you seem to claim is it would be a nerf and most of the aspects trivialized in this game substantiates that a nerf might be needed.

Might be able to compensate the PBAoE nukes with a decreased rech instead. Overall, you might be improving those sets in the tangent here to make them more DPS oriented rather than burst oriented. With the Defender, the point being made was to alter their melee mod so the PBAoEs would be slightly advantageous although that could be seen as incentivizing "suicidal" Defenders.

Why are we "jumping in" exactly? Don't we have controls, nukes, extra-buffs (like resistance/regen) to soften the blow? Or tactics like thinning out, sniping/pulling and LoS to shore up the fact that "this AT isn't Tanker/Brute"?

Personally speaking, when people say somethings "wrong", it activates skepticism the more it's expressed to believe it's wrong. Basically the Streisand effect: for example, at worst, a global 40% "fluid" cap for everyone (exception for Tankers, Brutes at 45%, Warshade/Peacebringer and Widow at 42%) might facilitate defense-oriented buff sets to fill the gap created rather than being nearly render useless. This is just an example.

For the most part, I agree with your premise. The only issue I have with current Tanker, as I pointed out during the beta changes, is they shifted its meta toward DPS. With the damage buff (sacrificing the AoE and target caps, in some cases), they facilitate making brutish Tankers. If they decided to just reign back the damage mod to 0.75 or 0.7 but increase their AoE back to a square % across the board (even the 15ft PBAoEs), would Tankers still have some niche while keeping Brutes in the same realm of DPS-focused tank that differentiates both ATs?

I'm aware (for the most part) of the exceptions. I just didn't want to go through and list out the specifics like blast set nukes and such. Like I said, that could be a point of rebalance to make the ATs have more niche advantages without specifically just buffing the AT wholesale. In the case of the PBAoEs and nukes in ranged sets, if they decided to change them to use melee mods (I always assumed they did but I guess I was wrong there) Blasters wouldn't see much of a change but Defenders, I believe, would see a nerf. To give Defenders a boost, what if they made their melee mod 0.80 instead while making those particular blast sets with PBAoEs shift to that mod? You might see a shift in the meta to favor certain blast sets among blast sets that have PBAoE nukes (most of them) and shifting to maximize those powers (although I think Electric and Rad are the only blast sets that have a PBAoE attack and nuke). Sentinel could also be a point of rebalancing in the damage dept here. On the melee front, would people be opposed to shifting Stalker ranged mod to be equal to Scrapper melee mod?

Okay, so how it's set up now then. That some ATs were using melee modifiers for ranged attacks was kinda dumb in the first place. Heck, that some sets in the Primary or Secondary arbitrarily using the melee mod rather than the ranged mod (despite accepting ranged IOs) is the only exception that exist still. Frankly, I wouldn't be opposed to buffing the damage and rech of Focus/Impale/Shockwave/Throw Spines/Focused Burst/Repulsing Torrent/Serpent's Reach/Hurl/Hurl Boulder in exchange for making them ranged attacks. In certain circumstances, you could buff the ranged damage mod of one of the melee's to give that AT a niche advantage while using specific powers separate from their overall role tier. Like what if they reversed some of the damage buff on Tanker's melee mod back but boost their ranged instead? Overall nerf but could add to their niche (what does an actual rl tank even do?).

Wouldn't that disrupt the balance of ATs that use varying damage modifiers? Speaking mostly on Blasters, Dominators and Defenders. I suppose one could just shift everything to their "best" modifier but that seems wholly unnecessary for a push to simplify the game. If anything, the game is TOO simple. The whole complexity of the game hinges on having many variables to juggle on the player's part.

Low level AoE ghetto hold = find a corner or box, queue up your AoE immob and hop in and out of LoS. In low levels, this is easily a godsend when your team gets overwhelmed by too many foes. Later on, it could be a means of getting some breathing room for your other minimally slotted AoE controls to recharge.

Geeze, you guys either are the most literal people in existence or very sensitive. I didn't make up any terms. In the context of my point is just old people being sticks in the mud or people acting like old sticks in the mud (for a turn of phrase you SHOULD be familiar with). I'm not defending making copy-cat characters, per se, but rather highlighting that people DO find a different enjoyment in impersonating or reworking old established characters. To flippantly discard such things as uncreative or malice seems particularly detached. I still got no response for the examples I presented. I guess the only concern left is pure fear, which is a perfectly valid concern.

*on a MA/ or DM/ or Kin/ or BS/ or NB/ Stalker* What's the matter? I see no issue. *on a Beam Rifle, Psy or Energy Blast character* Eh, it's alright.

The other possibility is no legal legitimacy would ever be reached and this would fall under similar circumstances as other fan-driven projects to preserve failed or non-supported games that are becoming more prevalent as more games are having their support swept from under them and more consoles become defunct.

Yes.

Boomer hive-mind aside, it could just be some think it's funny and cool. I mean, why do people make copy characters on Soul Calibur?

Because I'm the contrarian that I am and because I have no reason to morally oppose either side since it hardly has an effect on me, I wonder if this is even really an issue anymore. Outside of the prospect of becoming the "legit server", would anyone actually take action against you for making rip-off characters? I see it all the time in the Soul Calibur character customizer that can make some pretty strikingly similar characters. VR Chat lets you straight up rip models from other games and play as them. In the time that CoX shut down, a lot has changed. If some determined group decided to make a server and put a bunch of costume pieces in to facilitate more copies, what could anyone even do to them that already hasn't been done?

Are you talking about Crey or the rando "heroes" running about "arresting" things?

Currently, the most complicated attack in City of Heroes is Brawl specifically because, to utilize the various stances some powers put you in, it will change the animation. So popping brawl with a Katana in your hand will give you a unique animation. Same with popping it with an Assault Rifle or a Shield. That being said, I feel the tier 1 (or tier 2 in the case of some powersets) is actually the auto-attack you're talking about.

Not going to nitpick about the durations as a balance pass would likely have to happen with regards to just how useful and defensive phase shifting while fighting might be. Overall, I feel 25sec of usage might still be too high but again, it'd have to be examined fully to decide just what would be the best balance. Having a "buff" pet sounds interesting. However, you didn't respond to the point @Leogunner mentioned about the missing Taunt ability. Every Tanker/Brute melee set has an AoE taunt with a -range debuff and the Scrapper version has a single target taunt. If I were recommending a fix to that, I'd just remove Seized Soul from the Tanker/Brute/Scrapper version and fit the taunt in its place. I think, in Psi Melee, Boggle is a mostly skipped power anyway but having the always up buff pet would likely be more preferred. For Stalkers, maybe tie some of the benefits that the buff pet has to Seized Soul so it at least gets some of the offensive benefits (improves the DoT) but not the defensive ones (extending Permeable durations) when you use it to confuse a target.

Funny, why is no one talking about buffing Battle Axe? Energy Melee just got a huge upgrade but it wasn't even that bad (just ST). Battle Axe is slow, rech and END hungry and is mostly sub-par DPS compared to equivalent sets (Broadsword and War Mace). I hope they do improve battle axe more subtly rather than changing whole powers and adding whole new mechanics. Overall, if they did add a new set based around battle axe's cast times but two handed, it needs a bad-A whirling AoE. I'd also recommend adding some chance of sleep in place of some of the Knockdown (keep KD/KU in some of the attacks). Sets like Electric Melee use it too so it's not unheard of. Also, the 6sec duration/lockout for minions sounds a bit frustrating. I guess it was so you're not chain stacking a bunch of AoE fear. A 4sec duration without a lockout on minions might be better but I guess that depends on the casttimes of this set. If it's only 4sec you might only get in 1 attack during that MFD period...I dunno. Seems a bit clunky.

Seems like Psi melee but with an actually powerful secondary mechanic. Considering the defensive nature of Permeable, I'd ditch the single target confuse for an attack or that "soul extraction" pet but you don't say what the pet actually does. Does it debuff enemies? Does it buff/heal the user? Does it attack or taunt? What might be good is making the Revenant soul pet like a Photon Seeker that kind of explodes on a target when it aggros, doing some moderate damage but somehow improving your own attacks by reducing the foe's resistance to negative energy or maybe enabling your attacks to do more DoT.

Maybe they could modify Rest so it doesn't stop you from moving but instead slows you down to default speed. Would be interesting if there were a "catch your breath" rest mode that slightly boosted your recovery while making you move slower and a "I'm taking a knee" rest mode that requires you to stop moving to recover both Health and Endurance.

It's because you're not paying attention. Assassin's Focus wasn't the only change made over the transformation of that particular AT. As outlined by @siolfir, the crit changes that scale with team was also one fix as well as an often forgotten effect, demoralize. I think, among most criticisms (or woes if you want to be dramatic), the more prominent is the perception. Stalkers always could scrap and with using their tools, would match Scrapper unless the fight stretched on too long where Scraps would surpass them. Now Stalker mostly surpasses Scrap in ST DPS. But it's not that it CAN do that, it's HOW it does that which is basically by being a better scrapper than Scrapper and discarding what was considered the Stalker's signature. Again, you really have to depart from personal preference to ever understand my point. But one symptom that tend to spark my suspicion is overall perception: barely anyone dislikes new Stalker; in fact, most love new Stalker and people tend to do that when it's something with huge power and no drawbacks. As for the point that the normal hidden AS and placate is still there, you can't just end there. What niche or team contribution does that provide? Stating that the novelty still exists is just a throwaway point. Most people don't even take Placate since they replace it with an enhancement (which is another point that affects this line of discussion).

I guess RIP anyone who found Stalker playable so that you could play it instead. Obviously that's an exaggeration but from what I could relate, that might be how some feel when they go out of their way to make some alterations to the game. ... That and the Stalker change is so drastic, it really does invalidate the old style (which you didn't address) since it's probably better DPS to use the hide crit on another attack or AoE while building focus. You see, you have to look past your own preference when philosophically examining arguments.