Naraka

My only criticism is jumping on the bandwagon to make it a toggle while masking it as "reactive". Unless it was somewhat unique in being a "limited time toggle" similar to Gravity Control's Dimension Shift, it wouldn't be reactive at all, it would be set-and-forget. That is, you turn the toggle on and you forget about it...put it on a separate tray and then turn to the tray with powers you actually use. On the prospect of it being a limited toggle, you could possibly have it be the "alpha dampener" toggle that only really lasts 30sec before turning off automatically (with an appropriate cooldown) OR make it an infinite toggle but only the first 20 or so sec have the "get hit, pops a heal" and after the 20sec, it's more like a slow "get hit, after the 6th hit pops a heal" or something to incentivize turning the toggle off when you don't actually need it. Overall, I'm not against making IH a toggle, I'm against making everything braindead and samey.

So why can't we take your idea (taking damage will cause you to heal for every incoming source of damage)... But just leave it as a powerful click effect that has limited uptime?

All these suggestions are nice on paper, but I think ultimate, it's pointless. Primarily, it's because these changes are wholly passive and only noticable if you're pulling out a spreadsheet. Where Defender is now is fine. If you're going to add something to it, why not something more tangible and mechanical to make it *play* differently than other similar ATs? Look at other ATs who are differentiated from their sibling ATs by their inherent (Brutes and Tankers, Scrappers and Stalkers) and distill those types of inherents to the mechanical gameplay differences.

So what happens when the content is challenging your team to the point that it's not a cake walk? Since we're dramatizing everything, you're suggesting an inherent that incentivizes not pushing the bar and playing safe. It also means, when faced with such situations, your inherent isn't going to help you because it'll be too busy punishing you. To clarify, I'm not dogging on your suggestion, I'm pretty sure there are some that praise the idea but it's in no way particularly novel either. It's been suggested before.

Well that's a potential improvement to Revive if I've ever seen one.

So "regenerate" is in the definition of healing factor...but that doesn't preclude that the term "healing" is also used. Basically, the argument about Regen the set not being about regen because it's mostly healing despite both terms being in the definition/usage is dumb. I just say, don't be fooled by the name of the set/power. Those that want "Wolverine regen" are looking for Willpower. I consider the Regen set to be "cartoon regen", and as of the manga, Luffy of One Piece has officially joined the ranks of main-stream heroes that have cartoon regen.

Very true. @macskull said "the game as a whole is better" but that's obviously not true lol. If you take into consideration the actual whole of the game (and that's leveling experience, various parts like red, blue and gold, PvE and PvP, etc. Or maybe it was just poor words on his part but these factors aren't all just variables in an equation that equal a whole but they do act as parts of what make up this game. To put it in perspective, I play Guild Wars 2 which has PvE and PvP. The PvE includes open-world event bosses, fractals/dungeons, raids and world completion/exploration while PvP has World vs World, standard PvP, structured PvP. They left WvW to languish for years before adding anything new to it and just because they added raids and mounts didn't make the game "better as a whole", it was just good-to-decent PvE content. WvW was still an issue that needed help. The screwed up part is, there is nothing wrong with CoV and we're free to move back and forth as we wish. With the finite content that exists in the game, it's a no-brainer to just diversify activities but for whatever reason, that never happens all that often.

I agree. Play the set how you want. I don't use DP off recharge. In fact, I don't put *any* powers on auto-cast. My personal prescription on Dull Pain, leveling up and in regards to utilizing the power to its full potential is simple: Instead of using Reconstruction, use Dull Pain *first*. If you need healing and Dull Pain is already used, *then* use Reconstruction. Benefitting from the higher HP is mostly for staving off alpha strikes which you can do with other powers so for that, it's going to be case-by-case depending on your character. If you have no other tools to stop that alpha from taking you down before you can even heal, then sure, use DP before you jump in. The extra regen you'd get from perma-DP is primarily just helping to delay needing to use a click heal (Reconstruction).

Most sets are pretty standard "non-clicky messes". Mechanically, they all function the same with small little outliers like WP's higher regen in a crowd or Shield Defense's AoE attack...but fewer sets have clickiness as their mechanical difference (namely only Bio, Regen and Fiery Aura which have more than 2 clicks that aren't the tier 9 and even that's a bit different since Bio only has 2 but it also has exclusive toggles that you're *supposed* to swap between working as more management but no one actually does that). It's usually just 1 click and the rest are autos and toggles. I outline that to perhaps appeal to reasonableness in thinking that some players might want to have reactive defense as an option to choose and not only auto-defense. It's the same with people who like Dominators or Blasters: some just want to make things dead and others find it entertaining to defend yourself with controls first. Wolverine and Deadpool aren't regenerating either (at least not the examples you'd want to use). When their arm gets blown off and then they have it back several panels later, that's healing. To be regen, you tend to suffer the damage and then there are transitionary periods where the damage is lessened and then functionally repaired and then eventually completely healed...but no one has time for that in a video game unless the game is deliberately slower paced and has significant downtime. What you're looking for is Willpower. It does exactly what you want it to. Don't be fooled by the name. I'd prefer the other way around. Keep Regen reactive with clicks but make the user subsequently more resilient to various effects like debuffs or even mez effects if he's actively using those clicks. As for Magneto vs Wolverine: Wolverine has that metal skeleton...like a whole other layer of resistance...like an armor that isn't specifically about healing at all. The magnetism thing, though, is mostly just a story consideration. Wolverine doesn't seem particularly vulnerable to other mez effects like vines, mental mez or anything.

Tanker buffs were still pretty heavily scrutinized. There was a lot of complaints of losing the -res and some currently see the overall buffs being too far. I'll also admit that nothing really changed with Defenders or Corruptors. They are both, mostly, just sought after if a buffer is needed along with Controller. No one tends to have the ability to be picky with their support because they aren't common AND they are such a mixed bag (if you have a Dark Miasma, you probably want a buffer, not a Trick Arrow or if you have an Empath, you probably don't want more healing). The Stalker buffs didn't really help the identity crisis tho. They basically just replaced Scrappers. If you want a more durable Stalker with more AoE, play a Brute. The only thing Scrapper has is their ATO makes their inherent not be completely overshadowed (only matched). At least Stalker ATO makes the character play differently... Dominators have never been worse controllers. They have always been the superior controller partly because you only need momentary control over your "crits" to shut down everything AND Dominators have been perma-ing their crits even before side switching. I'm unsure what the effects of side-switching had besides nerfing Domination, tho...and maybe buffing Controller. My take away from this? It pushed a lot more power creep that we are now stuck with. I think just increasing Tanker AoEs a bit through their inherent would have been great...but they also added to their damage mod. Vigilance is on the radar to have changes now. Stalkers are seen as "fine" because they've been turned into copies of Scrappers. Doms hide their powerlevel and no one even talks about Masterminds lol

Are you talking about the Bayonetta stuff or the morality chart stuff? As far as walking away, I'm not even making the same argument as PeregrineFalcon or even arguing for or against the set itself. If anything, I'm playing devil's advocate (sort of ironic) since we're dealing with a piece of fiction which is tailor made to be manipulated by creative observers. Rather than question how something could be evil when it's suppose to embody the essence of good and righteousness, explore what even *IS* good or how our perspective of righteousness might just be flawed...or even that the subject of our perception (angels and holy figures) may have just been zealots drunk on worshipping beings of power without any moralistic foundation that was only later built upon. But the reason I mentioned the Laguna from Bayonetta is because the perception of protagonist and antagonist is flipped there but it doesn't hide behind moral ambiguity. Even then, the monstrous angels still make good antagonists and here, can fit a multitude of concepts besides being holy or angelic.

I find the scarier villains to be those that are Lawful Good. Because not only do they feel fully justified in the actions they take (the robbing banks, kidnapping and whatnot) but also it would mean that the ones who they are perpetrating these acts on are the actual evil ones. It's not robbing banks, it's striking at a corrupt capitalistic structure that supports only the rich and keeps the poor and powerless subjugated. It's not kidnapping people, it's taking them up in your custody for you to judge. And holy wars always have the blood of the innocent shed which is why they must happen so further innocence won't have to suffer. And who is going to judge such a character's acts as unjustified? The evil criminals that must be smote? The hypocritical heroes constantly scrutinize their own power and actions? The rogues or vigilantes whose fickle morality is just a leaf in the wind? If an Angles motif were to be implemented, they should aim for something just as monstrous as demons, kind of like the Laguna in Bayonetta.

That's probably why. You start putting in 1 villain group here and there as a set and suddenly, there's going to be demands for every enemy group becoming a MM pet set.

Currently dipping back into my Elec/Regen Stalker, I remember when Elec Melee was considered the peak standard for AoE. It's crazy how things have started to shift so that the amount of AoE effects for melee is seeing Elec melee as "standard". Id kind of pisses me off because the more saturation you have the less special it becomes and no one seems to understand this shift. Now there can't be "single-target focused" sets and jack-of-all-trade sets need to basically be Elec Melee (or whatever analogy for a particular type of set like Blasts or Control).

Sure. It's freedom of speech to make and express those value judgements (whatever that means) so long as it's in a civil manner and doesn't break the moderation rules. If I'm wrong on those assessments then say your piece. I'm not here to misattribute value judgements, I'm here to express my perspective on a subject.

I still say just roll the different opportunities together so it's not Offensive or Defensive, just Opportunity... ...if that's still weak, just tack on a little extra to make the AT unique.

Psi Melee aside here, I do not like the changes they made to Dark Melee (despise may be too strong a word) primarily because they keep pushing everything to be standardized in AoE effects and homogenizing the set usage. What they did to Touch of Fear and Shadow Maul is why I don't play Dark Melee anymore and luckily I wasn't all that acquainted with Energy Melee before they changed it too. All in all, this would be a whole other argument about power creep that I'm sure you probably don't want to get into, but back to Psi Melee: no, everything doesn't need to be AoE. Stop chasing metas. There's plenty of powers out there for that. It doesn't, tho. Insight will still be, mostly, unpredictable...it'll just be less unpredictable if you had Boggle status on multiple targets you hit with it. If we're trying to resolve that, you'd probably want to lean into builder-spender mechanics instead of putting in more AoEs to slot procs into. But that does outline a precedence here in that, with unpredictable insight, the set is good therefore it doesn't really need or rely on Insight to do its job...further still, the unique aspect of Stalker's Insight is that it actually is predictable (Boggle + AS is 100% insight) but that still doesn't change the point that you don't want to use that avenue. It just makes me believe that the main reason for your proposition is to get more AoE effects. Oy... You don't have to build around Boggle. You don't have to make any special considerations or tactics for it. You don't even have to use it. It's merely a tool (one that is *RARE* on a melee AT). The power could be sitting on your bar not being used for several whole missions and it'd can pay its rent plenty by just being able to use it that once to screw over the enemy or get you some free buffs because the power practically needs no slotting...just Accuracy. Like I said, I'm fine with a power-player meta-gamer not wanting to waste the picks or activation using it because they just snap their fingers and problems disappear. But not every build is like that and not everyone finds those types of builds fun. Yup, we practically play different games then. And I don't say that because of how you explained your position but rather the complete misunderstanding of any other typical playstyle seems to escape you. I'll just say, no, you don't need to reapply Boggle...only when you want to get Insight (or the effect of the confuse), would you need to do that. Since there is a lockout period on Insight, you're not pushing to get that and frankly, it's unnecessary. The insight chance is mostly just a bonus. You can also leverage the hold in Greater Psi Blade + the confuse in Boggle to neutralize more targets at once. You might be able to confuse AVs that are vulnerable to confuse, but you'd need to slot out Boggle and maybe have some other powers to stack with it. Whether or not Boggle gets changed is, obviously, not my call but I think you didn't make a compelling point to have it changed. But who am I to judge with all the other sets on the road to power creep AoE-meta saturation coming down like a firehose.

Killing them first is worrying about it lol

If Boggle was an AoE confuse, it'd be overpowered (it recharges super fast). If it's an AoE -rech, then it's useless because you already have AoE -rech in Psy Sweep *and* there wouldn't be anything to slot for since -rech isn't an enhancable effect. But I still don't understand this perspective. Sure, you can skip it if it's not your flavor but to replace a perfectly usable effect for something completely useless is just beyond me. Unless you have a super-elite build that practically ignores all outside influences like buffs, debuffs or controls, you are going to want to avoid certain strong effects like Mask of Vitiation (sp?) from Carnies or powerful -END debuffs from Sappers or auto-hit debuffs like Earthquake, Darkest Night and such from various foes or just cheating shit from Vanguard (wasn't it like -50 Max END?). If not debuffs, getting a free force field generator or Accelerate Metabolism or Fortitude while solo from a confused foe is a benefit that rewards a player that pays attention to what enemies do. It's fine if that isn't your thing or you don't care because your build is amazing without such effects, but to attempt to take away an option that reward a competent player for no reason is just crazy. Also, *might* be a case on Stalker? Uh, Boggle doesn't break Hide and stacks. You can confuse 1 boss and AS another. Waste of time? I'm sorry, I forgot we were on a finite time line as our lives tick away...by playing a game we can easily bypass every possible time limitation by just rolling the character on the beta server to attain whatever level, influence or build we desire instantly lol. Okay... Sounds like another Boggle thread is needed lol

Don't take too long, you won't have any END left to do much of anything.

Sure, that's your opinion. Oh, and opinions can, indeed, be wrong.

Just going to say it: Sentinels are more tanky than Scrappers. I think, through just raw numbers, they are close to equal but with Scrapper having better potential numbers but taking in the non-tangibles like range, being able to complete attack chains outside of AoE influences/hover blasting, the differences in their armor powers, ect.... Sentinels come out on top. Of course, they potentially do quite a bit less damage but, if you've played Scrapper to death and want a change of pace, Sentinel is basically just a Scrapper that uses the blasts instead of the melee. One might say just play Blaster about they too thrive in melee, more than just some of the AoEs being PBAoEs. There's a bit of a freedom in knowing, the moment a target is within your range of influence, you can go at full capacity instead of always looking to close in further and further.

I don't know what else to say about it except it was sort of a challenge/concept build that a.) Took any and all possible cone attacks that look like elemental breaths and b.) Since going with Fire Melee to get the fire breath, he didn't take or use any of the fire melee attacks except the breath and the sword attacks. Conceptually, he uses necromantic energy to swap out his body parts (the Bio powers are part of him changing his skin and bones too) and I just extended that energy into forming a sword of that energy. Having to build an attack chain with only Fire Sword + Breath of fire (and a little later, Fire Sword Circle) in the early levels was painful and didn't really smooth out until 39+ when I got more breath attacks and Greater Fire Sword to add to the chain.

I guess players don't like free -res from Sonic grenades from Longbow.

Wall of force from the force of will pool. That could conceptually be wind or sound although it does psi/smash damage.