Naraka

Arachnos are no slouches either. Incidentally, those groups (Arachnos, Longbow and Family) are quite common groups to face from start to finish on villain side...almost too common.

Are you quartering IO recharge bonuses and removing Hasten?

Any suggestion asking to make IH a high END toggle I will disagree with. I can tell the concern is solely on Scrapper/Brute because I do NOT need more endurance consumption on my Regen Stalkers who have no +recovery innate. And even if you say "Oh, well we'll give Stalker Regen +recovery in [insert power]", I'll just say good...now keep IH a click too so I can get a positive return on my recovery for a change rather than suffering a give and take to get to par lol But I'm in agreement with @MTeague. I like Regen as a click heavy set. No other set is like it with 4 self-buff clicks, 5 if you include Revive. My build for NB/Regen actually incorporates another in Unrelenting. I'm not seeing a huge reason to shift to more passiveness unless the goal is to make the set stronger.

On live, I had an Elec/Regen Stalker that I adored and RP'ed with and on HC, I rerolled him into an Elec/Bio Stalker. He was pretty good, but overall, the concept for my character is someone that gets a hole punched in them but make the damage disappear 1sec later. So I re-rerolled him back to Elec/Regen and transferred all the IOs and inf. It's a kind of finicky set up which is why I like it. I also have a NB/Regen Stalker. He's not so much finicky as he is a Scrapper with controllable crits. He even has taunt and was my first incarnate character on HC. I don't see an issue giving Regen some debuff resistance. Seems right down its ally.

Another funny aside: I keep reading talking points about how the live devs implemented IOs, how they encouraged +recharge, how they designed this or that...where is that when talking about armor tier 9s in the Suggestions forum? I also hear a lot of flack about all the other mistakes the live devs made or how so and so had horrible ideas. That seems to go out the window in this context though.

The post a proposition. Or ask people in the thread, what IO bonuses/sets would entice you to not build for defense or recharge?

"Better" is a subjective descriptor. The overall feasibility is the point of contention, a point that several posters (I want to say @Coyote is one) have already concede wouldn't be popular thus not as feasible. Popularity aside, a lot of healthy changes could be made if the entire system was balanced as a whole rather than added in pieces (later powersets/pools, IOs and incarnates). At best, we're discussing bandaids that won't ever occur.

Then you're ignoring the context of the question. PUGs can increase their difficulty *now* and not have to face these hypothetical mobs and are okay with that. There are some who want more challenge, but as has been elaborated on several times by other posters, some of those players don't want extra challenge. That was the whole point of the inquiry in the first place. If those players don't want that kind of challenge then what happens? "Then decrease your difficulty" is the likely response but this isn't a fine-tooth difficulty management system. Shifting from +3 to +2 on a team could shift the play of that team from moderately engaged to can't keep eyes open difficulty. That's why I questioned pushing this kind of difficulty scale into the current notoriety system with no consideration for what kind of challenge you're trying to implement. And in the context of the rest of the question, I'm of the opinion if you want to introduce a good challenge for most PUGs that know what they're doing, you'll likely need some rather hax abilities on these new mobs. Not just some rinky dink +def +ToHit buff to a spawn Link Minds, but rather a Lt that is nearly immune to CC, with some ability to phase through attacks and/or detonate minion levels for stacking debuff patches and an actually competent AoE confuse (not that timer based crap the pratorian seers use). Real crazy stuff. Even then, a good blaster or stalker can 1 shot such a mob and 2 shot another if more than 1 spawns and if 3 or more spawn, at least 2 are dead. Maybe I didn't clarify but that's my position on this type of idea which is why I was asking. Welp, there you have it @Infinitum. They indeed were rude.

Like I've read many times on the internet: you don't get to decide what offends who. In this case, you don't get to decide what is and isn't distasteful. I found it rude, you didn't. No ground made. It's what you do after that that determines intention. I decided not to dwell on if it's rude or not (expressing my opinion is enough). If someone wishes to disregard my perspective and continue to do actions I find rude despite me expressing said distaste, that's on them. Like I said, I didn't dwell on it and replied regardless. You diverting attention to said subject is more indicative of the circumstances than anything. Luminara doesn't need you and your pompoms cheering on their choice of response. Just continue leaving reaction emotes and spare us your cheerleading.

I almost want to say it's like a Schrodinger's cat scenario: You like shield and bio and all those good sets. Don't mess with them, just don't look at them... ...but what about Invuln? Compare it to Shield or Bio and see how far it's left behind...but then we have to actually look at those sets...I feel if you start crunching the numbers, you might find some discrepancies in their favor...or should we just look at Invuln and see there's nothing wrong with it and *not* look at those "other" sets? I wouldn't be against some nifty functionality and utility to the set. I remember reading a suggestion about the tier 9s, they suggested keeping the crash (I'm actually for having powers with consequences which is why I remember the suggestion) and having the tier 9 activate the temp bar and granting a few extra powers, like an AoE CC, a mini buff or attack and another click that prematurely ends the effect of the power to bypass the crash, like if the power lasts 180sec, you have the option to press that termination click for the first 100sec with no ill effect. The different crashing tier 9s can have different extra skills like a teleport attack for SR.

You're still here? I suppose I should be rechecking your posts to make sure you didn't go back and add to them after the fact. Your reply is noted and I did take @Luminara's advice to reread their posts to see if a better answer to my question was buried but didn't find it. If requesting a clarification is too much for @Luminara or their peanut gallery, then I will leave that line of discussion as unresolved.

I see. Well implementing them through the +level or x team member notoriety option either gets you disgruntled players who don't want to have to deal with +65% of a spawn being Master Illusionist-type mobs OR if they are only enough to challenge competent PUG, they will likely still be pushovers for twinked out characters, probably requiring a couple extra AoEs to wipe out. To reiterate, a lot of the issues with regards to balance aren't limited to just IOs or defense capacity of a build but also the speed at which foes can be dispatched. A conversation could be had on how to better strike a balance or circumvent these issue and I'm willing to have that conversation with someone besides you, apparently.

Rude response aside (seriously, not necessary), I did go back and check your posts to see what I might have skimmed over. This is the only thing close to relevant to the question you quoted: Trimmed from the rest of the post (not taking this out of context, bust focusing on this particular part of the post), it still doesn't answer the question. Are you implementing these mobs to challenge competent PUGs at +2 or twinked out builds beyond that? Regardless, it still is roadblocked by my other inquiries: in this era of customized gameplay where Khelds [EDIT]don't want the option to keep the hunters off their backs, do we really want to just put more challenging foes in without the option to opt out? I suppose if all these "extra" enemies added to each faction are categorized under a unique flag, you could link it to whatever setting is used for Khelds, but that probably does require some coding to make work. The rest of the questions I wasn't expecting you to be able to answer because it's likely the reason why factions aren't just amended with stronger foes.

Well that's more nerfing characters which is what the quoted suggestion is trying to get away from. Your suggestions could be another set of difficulty options ontop of what we have but then we're left with the incentive to use them. Going back to my first post in the thread, if I could have rolled in changes on a new opening server, I'd try to implement a sliding scale of rewards for playing at harder difficulty and less rewards the more built out you make your character. Along with more mobs and varied mobs and with maybe a roulette type system that randomizes what penalty you get for a reward bonus if you don't want to run with multiple penalties/reward multipliers.

"The Glow" from The Last Dragon movie?

You'd have to have some clear design intentions and direction to implement such a system within the current one like that. Even if you did add the example mobs to the spawn plate in such a way, how well do you feel it would work accomplishing your goal? If your goal is to just have more difficult mobs, who exactly are you challenging? The standard competent PUG with a balanced team? Or the more built up characters? Beyond making foes harder, how do you even accomplish that? Do you make them tougher to kill? I feel it's going to be extremely tough to make foes that would change things up enough with the current balance unless we're giving mobs outright hax powers and even then, a lot of players just find that approach aggravating (see Illusionist in CoS faction). Ultimately, you can't make a faction harder without giving them the time to survive long enough to pose a threat which is the other aspect of the game that has pushed balance to its limits.

It can help when faced with -ToHit or foes that buff their defense. It also can lighten the load of Acc slotting you need so you can slot attacks differently. Also, for Scrappers and Stalkers, +ToHit buffs the damage of snipes from patron power pools. I wouldn't be opposed to changes to Invulnerability to make it more unique but all the changes you suggest make it more like every other set. I remember reading someone suggesting to give Invulnerability a power that, if a foe in melee range attacks you but the attack gets deflected, having a chance to knock the foe off their feet, kind of like if you throw a punch at Superman and it just bouncing off his chest so bad you end up hurting yourself. That's a cool flavor power I'd like to see.

But I'm not ranting. I'm just saying what you're doing while you tell me you're not doing it. I mean...yeah, that is how your previous post ended until you edited it.

Well your statement isn't in disagreement here with mine. "not get hit" doesn't = "never get hit" or "get hit 5% of the time" when I say it's a feature. Any set with some amount of ToHit debuffing and/or defense is kind of getting the benefit of "not getting hit" as a feature of those powers. You say you're not referring to primaries which floor hit chance but you're quoting powers that lower it which is technically the same thing I'm talking about when I say it's a "feature". Players taking it to the extreme isn't off the table and the amount of effort necessary to push it to the absolute extreme is going to be the point of contention. So now you're admitting to gaslighting people? That seems pretty malevolent for someone who's motivated to help people. Or do you think you're helping me? Gaslighting is pretty rude, you know.

But you are trying to. You certainly did edit your post and add the quoted part I mentioned. I mean, you can't hide the fact you edit a post, you can only lie about what you edited.

No mention of Invuln's scaling ToHit buff? That's an offensive utility right there. With 5 foes around, you're getting 10% def and 10% ToHit which can certainly help END economy to cut down on misses. If anything, I feel this thread highlights some sets could use reassessing as they really shift the expectations of the norm. Bio probably needs some of its defensive utility tied to it's defensive mode and some of its utility like +recovery tied to its efficiency mode. I'm not saying cut all defense or recovery unless in that mode, but making it more of a shift than it currently is. Shield is likely the standard we're suppose to be putting sets to but I also feel it reaches too close to SR's niche so tying a bit of its defense into Phalanx Fighting while allies are nearby would help fix that (it still has HP max, resists, crash-lite tier 9 and damage over SR). I've never played Rad to any high level to get a feel for all of its powers but I feel Dark pays for its effectiveness enough. All in all, I think Invuln is a solid set that can be made *VEEERY* solid with some uniques and IOs unlike Dark which damn near demands certain IOs. Both (invuln and dark) still make out very well once you push their builds with IOs. But yeah...no, I don't agree with the suggested changes here.

I think the MM pet aura tax situation is rather 2 fold though. It's 2 fold partially because the powers in the MM primary that can slot those pet auras are limited (in some cases, only 3 powers can slot them and thus 18 slots). The other aspect is that there are so many. There are at least 5 different nearly required auras, 6 if you include the ATO and 8 if we're counting all of them, that can be slotted in those 18 slots. You also have to slot them for accuracy if you want them to hit, damage if you want them to defeat anything and whatever is left is what you can put secondary effects like holds, slows, healing and procs. Those 18 slots have to go a long way depending on the pet and most powers really don't have such a crunch to worry about in comparison. With regards to the KB IO for certain sets, for most non-tanking situations, you don't need more than 1 of those IOs and they are slottable in nearly your entire armor set or even pool powers you might pick up along the way. So if we're comparing both as a tax, obviously one is more severe than the other, which should be acknowledged. Frankly, I think it was a mistake. Not by negligence but of judgement to give non-Stalker Ninjutsu KB protection or at the very least not without giving the AT it originated on the same preferential treatment. If anything, that is more an example of how meta-gaming, min/maxing and power creep have affected the game moreso than lack of theme cohesion. Stepping away from the argument of theme, concept and other RP related arguments, I ask do you like IOs? Do you think IOs are a means of customizing builds and characters to your liking? Or should IOs be a supplementary thing that only minorly assists a build? From my perspective, I feel that IOs should have only given some slight customization of abilities but overall, they provide a significant boost to builds a couple magnitudes above what they should. If we were talking about rearing back IOs to a point where their addition to a build was more subtle and the only solid alternative to fix such KB holes was to Acrobatics, I could probably syncronize with your position. But no one wants to look at balancing such aspects of the game. But to be blunt, the sets the sets that lack the most have the most to gain from IOs. Bio doesn't benefit from KB IOs, for example. Sets like Fire, Dark and Ninjutsu that are more light on mitigation or have weaknesses like END or lack of resistance can gain far more from the system.

Wasn't that always the case though? I mean, besides the double XP on command, we still had PL runs through AE. I do use double XP sometimes when solo as it helps me pace my xp (if I'm going too fast through arcs on in some groups, I will disable the XP) but I was always under the perspective that XP was always rather bountiful.

You edited your post and added "I'm not pushing you to anything, I'm just waiting and watching you right now. " It didn't say that initially. Or are you going to try to lie now?

It's good to see other people in the chat that have a bit more perspective. Not meaning that others lack perspective, but in the grand scheme of things, this is merely a discussion that's asking some questions, not a operation order to be enacted once the order is issued and the mission brief taken place. scrolling back to @Luminara's points about being able to soft cap with certain builds, I feel that aspects of the game like a character with SR or a Dark Miasma or Dark Affinity, being able to 'not get hit' is a feature of that set/power combination and are wholly different from combinations that might be able to amass some def with pools/IO sets. Maybe the message I'm trying to convey is suffering some noise in transmission but I personally don't think being able to cap your def with IOs is a particular problem (it has a purpose for character concepts), it's just how much of the content can be done with such a build and/or incentives actually push players to attain this standard which creates a cycle that ultimately marginalizes content, mechanics and certain builds.