Naraka

It's all sunshine and lolipops to abolish the cottage rule to fix powers/powersets you don't like...until it comes after powers you like. Oh, you like Hasten? Yeah, it's problematic so we're changing it to a movement speed buff/slow resistance click. Chao.

I personally like the suggestion to give OG -def. I don't think it needs a +mag chance since a lot of melee sets get stunning attacks. I'd say that's more the nature of the set. One could consider the types of changes that could be made to ease your perceptions that DA is too reliant on Dark Regen...likely would require increases to defense or resists, toning down of Dark Regen's heal, shift it to +absorb or +regen, standardizing the END costs so that a +recovery tool can be added. But then what do you have? A resist set with a standard heal, standard +END/recovery and a bit of flavor in "skippable" mez auras or maybe even cutting out that for some other pro-meta effects. I criticize the meta not because I don't like it (it's inevitable one forms in every game), but rather it's pushing things to become meta. Most semblances of differentiation are targeted and ironed out to conform to the meta rather than the meta players just playing their meta builds and leaving the quirky non-meta stuff to those that enjoy it. I think the set would be more effective if its mitigation was shifted so Dark Regen wasn't such a massive heal but easier to use and more comprehensive protections so you don't suffer from yo-yo HP...but some people actually enjoy playing with this massive heal and overcoming certain build speedbumps or receiving boons from teammates that drastically alters their effectiveness.

I find it rather hilarious that you're trying to make yourself sound mature with all your intellectual half-speak trying to justify why you keep responding. You keep stating this or that is fact or that I'm emotional while you continue to attempt to denigrate my opinion that you yourself asked for. You try to guise your replies as "respectful" as an act to seem rational to everyone around you but frankly, if you wanted to be the "rational" "respectful" individual here, you probably should have quit responding way back when I told you to read my 2nd paragraph. You spout on about fallacies of logic and labels of correct and incorrect but don't understand how immature you're making yourself sound. I'm not claiming to be "respectful", I'll tell you to reread my damned post or go away. Pretending to act like you are being respectful while being patently disrespectful just goes to show how willing you'd be to stoop to two-faced doublespeak to put on a front to maintain an appearance. Practically this entire quote is nothing but you being disrespectful and then washing your hands of blame so that I seem like the irrational one. That's fine, I don't really care if I'm seen as the confrontational participant. I'd rather be frank than be fake. To converge back to your initial question of END reduction: you're viewing it as the default or status quo when in reality it's just one suggestion among others. Being against a suggestion because you'd rather something else and the request in question possibly hampering other solutions is a viable objection and "because it's fine" is more of an observation than an objection in the first place. You distilling my reply to a *SINGLE* objection is fine if it helps you somehow understand the post better but ultimately attempts to remove context thus being disingenuous. Why you want to do that is beyond me, but you keep trying to defend your right to take people out of context so have at it lol

Are tier 9s being presented in the overall set? I feel, comparatively, Elec's tier 9 is quite harsh but does get added damage/mez but you have to stand in the middle during the crash to get it. You could almost ignore that part if you're aiming to be careful with it as it's an HP and END drain. It does have ways of mitigating its crash though if you have a blue pill and Power Sink/Energize recharged but it's still dangerous. Dark Armor is more a set built without needing the tier 9 but if taken, is a handy back-up to add even more ontop of the set. It's a heal/END replenisher, mez and invuln for a period but you have to go down to use it. If used intentionally, it can be an effective tool especially if teamed. But it's pretty quirky. Overall, the set is made to function at full without the tier 9 but due to its quirks, can add more overall. So one has a crash that can kill but can be mitigated and the other has an anti-crash.

There are sets that have mez holes in one fashion or another. Electric Armor's KB protection requires you be on the ground, a plethora of armor sets don't get protection to Confuse or Repel, Fear is also a hole left in some sets...incidentally, some sets that have a hole to KB have some sort of "exotic" protection like Dark Armor having protection to Fear and Ninjutsu having protection to Fear and Confuse. Not saying that what the sets get justifies their lack of KB protection but I believe the underlying goal was to have trade offs and holes in the set are meant to be trade offs and and having a bigger hole is supposed to get some sort of compensation. I think the only odd one out would be Fiery Aura which gets the KB, Confuse hole with Immobilize protection being in a click...but it gets damage. So my next shift in logic is, how are the "compensations" a set gets weighted vs the holes? Is damage that high? Is Endurance Management powers a different kind of compensation or are they kind of just standard utility for armor sets? And would the lack of Endurance Management powers in a set be considered a "hole" in that circumstance?

Pot. Kettle. Some color or some such. Like I said before, I gave you my answer but you seem so persistent on eeking out a specific answer for your narrative, you'd have been better to just accept the answer or at the very least clarified what type of response you wanted rather than reject an honest response and merely repeat the question. I suppose if you didn't read it and then move the goalpost of your question, then yeah, the response is just an alternative. Underlying the "alternative" is angled a response to keep balance. As I say with a lot of replies regarding changes, my opinion is always to steer away from powercreep. If the effects of some of the powers are underperforming, fix them. Making them cheaper than they already are isn't fixing them (mainly talking about Cloak of Fear). Improving the accuracy and some secondary effect is fixing it but fixing it AND making it cheaper is making it unbalanced. Are you sure about that? You literally badgered me because you didn't like my answer or felt the need to defend your pride with a barrage of replies. If you want to post like that, I'm ready to fire back but don't lie to me, throwing out hollow canned responses like "I respect that."

Well you didn't even bother to quote the portion I just told you to go read which tells me you either didn't bother to read it or you're trying to weasel a specific type of response out of people by being disingenuous. I'm surprised you bothered to waste your time like that because you're not going to get me to waste mine.

Then read the second damned paragraph.

Glad you didn't bother reading the rest of the post.

Variety. Unlike some, I actually don't have that many characters as I don't powerlevel, I don't join teams merely to get exp so no radio mission repeats unless I'm aiming for the bank mission at the end, I turn exp off at times so I don't level up too fast doing TF/SF and I linger in "sweet spots" to finish out mission arcs. That out of the way, the variety I seek usually involves playing powersets I haven't tried before or only played minimally also coupled with pools/epics that I haven't tried much of or only took a select power from. Overall, I vary my power picks as often as possible given the limited amount of characters I usually roll and play. Skipping some powers in a set for one reason or another keeps open an opportunity to make another character that does take those powers. I don't really have that many SR characters primarily because the character I have that does take it has all the powers so running it again likely wouldn't change much...however, if there is a nominal difference between, say, a Scrapper SR character and a Sentinel SR character, that changes the replay opportunity a bit. But it's not only variety, it's also theme and personal RP where I create heroes with rouges galleries or villains with targets of interests/henchmen/associates. That being said, why I pick Dark Armor is purely dependent on the concept of the character that will develop from the power choices I've picked for him, specifically my Spines/DA/Weapons Stalker with teleport and presence. Since Stalker DA is somewhat different from other melee's, I have been looking for an avenue for a new melee and it's likely going to hinge on leveraging Oppressive Gloom (and skip Cloak of Fear and Cloak of Darkness) since that was a skipped power on my Stalker and feel very different from my Stalker.

Looking at making some builds with DA, it's a pretty fun set to work around with because of its varying effects. The main thing leaving me wanting is Cloak of Fear and Cloak of Darkness. With CoF, the only things to game it with to stack is either the presence pool which is mostly bad and slot hungry to make work or using some -ToHit powers to get nearly -20% ToHit if you're playing a Tanker or Brute. Having more fear powers or perhaps a feedback loop to enhance other fear powers could be the synergy that power needs (for every foe within the cloak that is actually feared (so synergyzing with teammates that use fear powers too), you get a boost to the duration of your fear powers for 8sec stackable up to 5 with the 5th stack giving you a 45% chance of +1mag to Cloak of Fear. Cloak of Darkness has some nice effects but it's just a bummer you need it for immobilize protection. I'd rather that be pushed into Obsidian Shield so that Cloak of Darkness becomes another optional toggle effect. Add to it -ToHit protection along with its +perception and you then have the option of turning it off when you don't need its effects or keeping it on if you have a build that utilizes the +def. Oppressive Gloom is a cool power that people often sign off because it only affects minions...but Tankers, Scrappers, Stalkers and Brutes have a plethora of powers that stun either very reliably on a single target or liberally in an AoE. This is a power that, if leveraged in your build craft, can feel like a cool payoff for its minor HP drain. I mean, MA can keep some hard targets stunned, EM is another option for lots of ST and AoE stuns, Kinetic Melee, the near entirety of War Mace, Stone Melee has some AoE stun. Despite what meta-builds tend to aim for, having a Stone Melee Tanker using OG and just Faulting stuff sounds quite entertaining. Then comes the endurance management. There are options. Outside of IOs, Tankers/Brutes can get Conserve Power. Those that like the Leadership pool can take Victory Rush. Some sets like Savage, Dark Melee and Staff can get you some bonus options. All of them can take Physical Perfection. Needing to take aspects of your build into consideration to aid or synergize positively is what makes building characters fun...but if you don't actually need anything and extra stuff is just a perk, it's perceived as less rewarding.

I usually only bother with set IOs until after level 30 so I can start getting attuned but even then, it's more a matter of crafting, converting, playing the market a little to earn everything as I go so some sets won't be filled out until well past lvl 38. But it's really what you make of it. The most draining effects on a build are likely the clicks anyway, not the armor toggles. Ice Armor has it's quirks too, primarily being light on healing and that bit of a Fire damage hole (practically no defense and a smidgen of resistance to fire...I say a smidgen because even with multiple saturated Energy Absorptions stacked, that will be what you don't cap on a SO build) which is a relatively common damage type. Its mostly name to fame utility is its slow resistance so no worrying about those psi attacks slowing the recharge of your heal... ...oh yeah, it seems Ice armor has a psi hole as well with no defense or resistance to it. There's also the tier 9 which I actually like (I take it on my Stalkers if they take Mako) but some see it as a hinderance. DA on the other hand has moderate to good resistances to everything, even psi and toxic. It's main hole is KB, weaker to energy, strong -recovery and -ToHit. I wouldn't mind the -ToHit hole being filled as the other aspects can be overcome either by smart play, build considerations or IOs. As for preferences to run, I'd rather run both. And I'd rather running both not feel the same.

Because the set can perform just fine with the costs it has. Someone else mentioned players pushing to have all sets perform and be built the same way. I ask, why should every set be made to require all the same build considerations? If running all the toggles burns through your endurance too much, why not seek out specific build options rather than homogenize all counteractions of each set? There are armor sets that have practically zero use for outside endurance assistance and even more sets that can be made to just ignore endurance consumption outside of END draining/-recovery situations. Pretty similarly, Dark Armor can nearly ignore outside healing assistance because it's heal is so strong and recharges decently fast. Since there are methods outside of IOs to assist in mitigating endurance, why not use them? And then you have the comments saying how niche the mez toggles are so why run them all at the same time? To bloat your endurance consumption so you have something to complain about? Which then feeds into my other reason: I'd rather be given a reason to run all/more toggles than to just have it made cheaper to do. I've read some pretty interesting ideas and arguments for buffing the mez toggles to provide extra utility to deepen the differences of the set vs checking off another set that, with IOs, completely circumvents another avenue of team assistance and build synergy.

Saying DA is an END hog and thus needs a reduction is like saying Regen is click intensive and so should get a +rech bonus. That isn't how this works. And the justification is Dark Regen. It always has been and you know it. I think the only reasonable request here I read was moving the immobilize protection out of Cloak of Darkness into Obsidian Shield. In and of itself, DA's toggles are no more expensive than other sets, it just has a couple of optional toggles you can use if you have the endurance and need for them. I might even see a good reason to add a -ToHit debuff to Dark Regen (or a -dmg debuff) for flavor. But the set's endurance hit comes mostly from Dark Regen which you can whittle down with slotting. The other is Death Shroud which is likely the culprit of requiring a lot of endurance and needing a lot of slots. For a Tanker, you can choose to forego using Death Shroud completely in favor of CoF or OG (or both). On a Brute or Scrapper, it might be the reverse and running Death Shroud but not CoF or OG. If we're talking about SO slotting, that is an important and viable option to consider, taking and/or running all the toggles at once or not. You can choose to ignore that option in favor of your personal opinion but I feel you're wrong in doing so. EDIT: Isn't Stone Armor a more needy set to be talking about here? Or maybe how we can get Energy Aura or Regen on a Tanker?

I wouldn't mind more varied set bonuses and uniques primarily because so few variations exist to stack and capitalize on. More +end discount globals would have been nice rather than all the +recovery uniques..or even just +END max. Exchanging the +fear set bonus to perhaps +fear protection (maybe shifted to the 4-6th slot) would be a better consolation than the +fear duration. Was trying to grab some +range bonuses for my Blaster to eek out a bit of distance from Speed of Sound/Jaunt but there aren't as many bonuses as you'd think. ATO has one, one of the new TAoE sets has it too...I want to say a couple of others but would be nice to get some +range from KB sets while leveling up to 50.

It's more a consensus of opinions. If a set of new ATOs/IOs were theoretically being constructed or a set of changes being considered for some offensive set like Assault Rifle or Martial Arts to add some utility, what effects do you think will be suggested the most?

One reason why Stalker has such a fitting set of ATOs is because the AT itself is rather uniform. Every set has Hide, Assassin's [Attack], Build Up and Placate. It's much easier to set up for them to have an effect that affects one of those powers. Would be great if Blaster's ATO was a "get +10 mez protection for 15sec when you use Aim and a chance to instantly recharge Aim if mezzed" but not every set gets Aim or an Aim equivalent. Scrapper's ATO is as bland as milk toast. It's only good because the AT itself is rather good. If it was just damage procs on every attack instead of +crit chance, it wouldn't really be that different. If I were changing the ATOs, I'd probably aim for the inherent too but that wouldn't always be beneficial overall to every build: Defender - Extending the END discount to solo and the +dmg to teams could be an option Tanker - +range special for 5sec after using Taunt (basically a flat increase the the Gauntlet effect for a short time) but an increase to the cooldown of Taunt Controller - a small chance for containment damage on top of their regular damage (that stacks with Containment damage) Dominator - chance for double mag mez in the power it's slotted in ...but some inherents are just too passive to actually have any meaningful effect and the powers spread are not uniform to be balanced to affect all sets evenly.

I call it the "meta-gaming singularity". It pushes balance to aim for specific meta-game favored effects, in both new sets and old, so that all sets eventually perform the same but with different visual effects. Of course, that conclusion is the extreme and likely something we won't ever get to but it's the overarching goals of such changes: +rech, +dmg, extra damage, -res and more targets. Also +def if you haven't reached the cap already. That is what will be requested for every set, every inherent and every IO set and why you won't hear requests for +range, +resistance to debuff/mez, +regen, +acc, -def, -ToHit, etc etc.

Regarding the assault side, the global recharge can be an added boon to proc builds so that you get the benefit of higher proc chance and faster recharging assault powers, so it has its benefits on assault side too. As for the double mag, it's more icing than it is cake as some sets get less benefit from from it but the high rech will still bring up those powers faster. I know, on my Grav/Energy dom, I don't really care about double mag stun on my Wormhole. The important part is the teleport and the knockdown. Everything is going to be dead before the stun matters most of the time and the set has so much KD and stun, doubling the mag really only matters if you're soloing to which then domination *IS* available if you actually need it because Singularity isn't doing its job.

This is definitely one reason I'm semi-against just granting support sets self-targeted buffs. It shifts balance in wonky ways and it's better to aim for individually targeted changes to assist instead. As quoted, Masterminds already have a lower scale on their buffs than other ATs and still obtain a large benefit since technically their buffs are usable solo already but only some buffs actually help (+rech buffs don't help pets, for example). There's also the aspect of support buffs vs armor sets in that the numerical values of each don't match and one potentially has access to both. Should a FF Defender have access to better than Scrapper SR defenses AND a resist toggle later on? I personally don't think so. While this is a comic book *inspired* game, it is not a comic book simulator. This is a game first and a power fantasy comic book character creator second and thus needs to take into account balance considerations and the support ATs are balanced around increasing the potency of a whole team (force multiplier). That being said, considerations on aiding individual sets I wouldn't be against...like if they added +absorb to the FF set, like a periodic +absorb to those within the range of Dispersion Bubble, they could make it cap out on allies at about +15%absorb while capping at 30% absorb for the defender to give it a bit of boosted protection. Or someone suggested before, a passive ability that just gives the user a small boost to defense/debuffs that's just always on (like 7%) that would be granted upon choosing one of the shields. That stacked with slotted dispersion bubble and maneuvers gets you around 28% def to all. In the circumstances where you could cast both ally shields on yourself, a FF defender is at 39% defense to all with only 3 powers (deflection/insulation shield and dispersion bubble). In context, a Tanker gets 40% defense to melee, ranged and AoE only with 2x as many powers and slots...and the defender can also grant that to allies.

I'd assume the thumb is the non-perma dominator and the hammer is the circumstances that make non-perma dominator seem like "utter trash" as some would describe it. But then I'd wager those that describe the AT as such are merely exaggerating to make a scene. While perma-dom is amazing and even better with some sets, it's not really the end-all shift some make it out to be. If anything, it's the high +rech required to get to perma-dom that makes the dominator amazing, not having domination on all the time. Makes me wonder if the best solution would be to just give the Dominator a 20%-75% recharge bonus depending on level and domination level that is suppressed while under the effects of Domination. It wouldn't benefit anyone but the "utter trash" anyway while also filling the gap for those near perma that desire it while those that choose a more staggered use of the button get better control opportunities but less potency while not using it but slightly suffer from less control opportunities but higher potency while under the effects of domination.

I'm wary to reply to this post primarily because I know it's an unpopular opinion... ...but when I read that, all I hear are excuses to mutilate the game, justify bypassing features/content and introducing power creep. "Oh, it's not our fault that we played the story arcs to death so just make it so we just powerlevel through and fill out incarnates and farm up a heap of purples with reckless abandon that compounds problem after problem." "Since we don't get steady content flow, you owe us insanely fast progression, min/max builds and patching all old powersets to fit our meta". No restraint. No perspective. No consideration. Like I said before, if the game was overall dialed back to make the incarnate system more of a means of shoring up builds, there probably wouldn't be as big an issue with incarnates. Or if the rest of the game wasn't being irrevocably pulled into the event horizon that is the meta-game builds, perhaps dealing with people pushing their builds to the limit wouldn't feel like pandering.

I don't expect anything. I literally just explained how I accept a loss so not win win.

Kind of presumptuous to assume we already aren't. I know that I often turn xp off at certain times to slow the leveling experience because I simply don't team in the 40s unless I'd rather just do whatever because it's just more of a slog to pre-qualify every teammember joining or introduce drama when people don't adhere to some restriction. Leveling up is the content and I'll slow myself before level 10 so I can get all the DFB temp powers, slow at level 18 on a Stalker until I earn enough rewards to slot my chance for BU rech proc, slow at level 28 so I earn the rewards for the pet auras I want on my MM build, slow at lvl 33 so I can change alignments to villain so that I'm doing the patron arcs by lvl 35 and all the SF/TFs in between. That all being said, I don't really consider it a win win. I'm accepting a loss so I don't have to deal with crap. If this were an actual win win scenario, maybe if people weren't so laser focused on the "end product" and played overall more casually instead of pushing the meta, then there'd be less focus on what is messed up about the balance. People would have their overpowered perma-everything characters solo'ing itrials and what not and I can enjoy teaming on normal story arcs without bloody drama brought about by people trying to one-up someone else or using a tactic they don't like.

I can see another set of A-holes being people who take armchair game designers tossing out ideas or criticism for a game they played a while back entirely too seriously and going around telling people to shut up. I'd hardly point to just one group and tell them they are the only A-holes around when another obvious group would be ones shouting "No, you!" but then there could also be the group that float around waiting to make snarky comments about obviously wrong statements so they can "flex" on someone as being another possible group of A-holes (clarification: I'd be in that last group).