Naraka

And what's the duration of that stun? The deal is, with the power Stun (not the status), and only one additional slot, I can effectively neutralize an extra boss. It only costs a power pick and one slot and that boss can be juggled for the whole recharge of the power. BS can only have 5 additional slots and trying to fit in decent attack slotting with extra Mez slotting while requiring TF is the raw deal for just a normal build hinging on the Mez. I feel a late game tank would want to have more Mez since single target is their issue, not AoE they're usually half ignoring anything that's not a boss. Basically, you're picking Stun to juggle bosses which your going to get less of if you don't have it. Replacing it with conditional BS or fast ET is spreading your DPS to multiple hard targets. Now if having a hard Mez melee in dark armor is just something not balanced for, why not just say that?

I specifically built my tanker to mass stun which is why I use dark armor and why I'm rather disappointed they changed stun into something completely different from stun. Personally, I think they should remove the 100% stun from BS and just make the new power always stun the primary target. That way I can actually slot for the effect as I don't need to waste slots enhancing BS's conditional stun.

What is this "maximum" you speak of?

I'm not sure why you would tag me as I'm not a huge fan of Controllers... Not a fan of the power combination (control/support) but I do have a couple, the highest a 41 ice/TA. Personally, I think control needs a rework along with kill-time, AoE saturation and overall foe threat. A lot of things play into a lot of issues with other things and dominators are a whole other beast, perma-dom in particular. But putting the idea in a vacuum and only concerning bringing controller closer to dominators in control, random "crits" are probably not going to work as well, IMO. Control isn't DPS where you can stand to get lucky bursts that add up or getting overkill damage doesn't feel as disheartening as locking down a target that dies at the same time. If you want something more controlable, what about just giving controller is own version of domination that only powers up the next primary power (an over power button) that adds mag depending on who you target. Or to make it more simple, have your AoE controls behave differently on a controller where the actual target gets additional mag depending on the target (sans the AoE immob). I also had a thought about a "focus" button/mechanic where it'd take the next AoE control (like the AoE hold) and turn it into a single target power but all the potential control is applied to that 1 target (16 targets worth). Sounds like a lot but it still requires you to wait for that long cool down. The concept being a person turning an entire city block into an ice cube to hold one strong target.

Oh please... If you were even playing DM before they changed shadow maul you were probably in the camp that skipped the cone all together. If anything, they over buffed some of the powers and now need to spread the effect since DM was pretty much matching the speed of moderate sets with only 1 cone power. I'm in agreement with @TC that the trend seems to me aimed at making everything "well rounded". Homogenization is going to become a problem just like saturation of AoE will be a problem (or already is, depending on your opinion).

Overcomplicating it. Even with narrower cones like Jacob's Ladder, it's not necessary to fill the cone and if so desired, you can just outright skip the power (not sure to the cone size but more due to its activation time). The only time I'd advocate hopping to "make it easier" is for something like Shockwave to mitigate some of the KD but you start seeing a pattern when you look at more of the cones... The reason is probably to regulate AoE. Because if we just started swapping cones for PBAoEs, there would be a while other problem even if it solves "cones are hard". I didn't say multiple cones is absurd, I was making the point that it's not a standard. If anything, stacking cones is a minority feature you see for things like weapon melee set's and some blast sets like dark and AR.

While I can agree with some of this, the overall premise is absurd. You don't need 2+ cones to have it be worthwhile for a set's AoE. You talk about complicating set's with combos and then go on complicating the use of cones for some bizarre reason. Here's how you use a cone: You see multiple targets close together that you want to hit? Use the AoE. That's it. The entitlement chain multiple AoEs of a similar range is purely on you.

Just an idea, would be interesting for those that are interested in designing and modeling costume pieces, if they had a bit of sway if their piece(s) were locked behind some sort of achievement of their choice. Of course they could just make it available to everyone off the bat but some artists might want to put a bit of a story behind their art.

What about gaining currency to trade to an NPC that will allow you to change any purple/atio to a purple/atio of your choice?

Funny analogies aside (one of the few threads i enjoyed reading every post), I do feel the last issues that changed Stalkers really did blur the distinction between Scrappers and Stalkers. To some, it is good as it gives more people a reason to play Stalkers or to bring the AT into the spotlight (kind of antithetical to the concept tho) but only at the cost of Scrappers' niche. I'd still want Stalkers to compete, of course, but as a huge fan of the AT, even I concede that the mainstay of the AT is made obsolete after a certain point (talking about hide+AS). I still use it because I enjoy it and I accept that as my build matures it's less useful. Still think AT distinction could have been maintained. Not suggesting a change, just starting my opinion.

Maybe they can use some features from this forum to offer a somewhat discreet pop-up window linked to your account that is easily navigatable and won't minimize the game window. Then you wouldn't have to worry about limitations. Might even be able to put in screen capture or art.

Yup, as predicted...

To be fair, customer can and do screw over the industry too that them ruins the things for everyone else.

I know someone had mentioned the proposition before in this thread but I don't remember if anyone ever answered: What if all the rewards were just maximized? Basically, and green to barely grey mob in the game has the same exp/drops as +4 boss mobs? Is basically the other extreme of the mentality of wanting to push for a more difficult game by de-emphasizes difficulty itself. If you think about it, it'd mean that the current standard difficulty for maxed out characters would be another form of nerfing yourself, so to speak.

Purely depends on your perspective. +4/x8 is the standard difficulty level for maxed out characters NOW... But in the past it was more for specifically meta min/max builds as well as moderately good teams /teams with some buffing. All in all, I can perceive the perspective of most opinions here, it's just entertaining to see the mental gymnastics when you put forgot certain points that have to be logikt away.

You can use Spines or thorns to also be crystal projectiles since it had the customization option although there is a green mist that is not colorable that is the set's toxic damage. Shield defense has a gem shield option. Earth control has custom similar custom options for molten rock as well as crystal. Beam rifle has a crystal powered rifle option. There's also ice blast out ice melee. If you already have your eye on ice control, theirs also cold Domination as a support set. There's also just the various costume options. It can blend with a lot of power effects too. Invulnerability has some nice sparkle effects and makes some sense with its effects.

So? Do you play Mercs MM? Or MA Stalker? I don't think the game will end just because there's a set you don't like to play lol

All this talk about blasters and no talk about ninja training. It had nice utility but said utility is highly accessible to most others, namely the stealth. Beyond that, it's pretty mediocre. Please don't forget that set. The melee attacks are quite weak, the PBAoE is wonky (it either does too little damage or recharges too slow), the damage buff is just broken. I hear a lot of complaints about /dark's sustain requiring a target but it also does have a use to stack (the extra mez) while kuji-en toh really gets no benefit from using it more once it's recharged since none of its effects stack. There's a lot you can shift around to help the set. A recommendation from me: add some kind of mechanic to bring Shinobi's damage buff back after you attack. Like using a ninja training power brings up the +DMG for the next hit. So using kuji-en toh during a fight charges up the next hit. Using a katana skill also charges the next power.

Maybe I'm biased because I just like the concept character I made (a character that uses power orbs to attack and protect so FF/rad has quite a few balls to toss around) but I disagree. All in all, it might not be the most bursty set but Irradiate is a solid PBAoE, pretty fast activating, utility debuff, the snipe is unique with a nifty animation, I don't like the quick tier 1 or x-ray beam eyes but cosmic burst is solid too. The nuke synergies with Irradiate but the cone is rather a mess. The only real travesty is def debuffs along with a list of other utility effects don't get much traction thus are ignored. I'd personally want some adjustment made to +/-ToHit, +/-def to emphasize the penatrating nature of radiation which could go on to help other sets and ATs to fulfill a better game balance. But if damage needs to be added, why not the powers that underperform like the cone and tier 1/2 (and maybe neutron bomb). Irradiate and Cosmic Burst certainly don't need help.

I'm not disagreeing with the premise of the suggestion, but at the same time I'm rather in the camp that what you look like during combat is supposed to be en flux and you're not meant to have carte blanche control over that. Like if a foe hits you with a resistance debuff, you'll have an OOC floating orange shield with a downward animating arrow circling your character. Or if a player has a FF shield buff and apply it to you, their colored buff will appear around your character. These effects exist to que players of the various effects they currently have. That all being said, if a new option to disable effects is desired wouldn't affect me and I could see the positives of having said options.

I don't have too many rad blast characters but when I do play it, I don't want the - def values to change. Irradiate does some ridiculous amount of - def, I think it's like -27% on a Defender unenhanced. It can turn some of those annoying nemesis fights into just regular strolls through a warehouse. I think an equivalent set with high - def is Thorny assault/Plant manipulation which had Thorn Burst that also does a heap of - def. While both those sets also have toxic DoT, they also have some lengthy animations and lethal damage.

Didn't say anything about being correct or incorrect. People were posting ideas about lending utility to CC by giving mobs toggle powers that will otherwise disrupt standards tactics if not dropped and I am merely doing the same but specifically targeting to disrupt AoE. Another interesting caveat to this idea is that KB could be an effective tool against such mobs since you can literally just yeet the target that would eat up the AoE out of range so that the volley of AoEs can hit the rest. But I betcha a good few people don't even have a nice KB ability that would push a target far enough to put them out of range. It would be a nice tactic/utility role to those whom enjoy using KB strategically.

Again, it would hinge on if you're higher team number while solo. On normal, having a mob that counts as 5 targets while having 5 other targets still let's you nuke that spawn. It would only be a difference if there were 2 of 3 of said mob requiring a ST approach thus is likely more likely to occur on higher settings. But the overall point is to cause you to rethink your approach. Do you not see a means to change your tactics for that particular blaster?

Would depend if your running max team solo. On reg difficulty, that blaster would just snipe that target first.

Well the idea was more targeted at "take out that Lt first because it's going to absorb most of the AoEs". Again, it's more to mix things up rather than get the same result so long as you have enough team members spamming AoE powers.