Naraka

Then you throw it to an alt or save it for a rainy day in alt-land after reaching level 50.

Interesting concept. It was a slog to read but the examples helped make a clear picture of what you had intended. I'm not an advanced MM player so my input is limited but it would certainly be interesting if, at the least, the tier 1 pets had as much variety as Demon Summoning, for example. I'd like a genin who was all hand-to-hand with maybe the Burst of Speed as it's AoE power (so it can teleport) while another used claws and struck hard with Eviscerate as a ST attack and the 3rd being a tool user and throwing weapon specialist with Shuriken Throw, Masterful Throw and the like. For jonin, one with a katana and supplementary control like caltrops, blinding powder and choking powder while the other has staff attacks, diversion tricks like taunt and then making itself intangible for a couple seconds. As is, all pets in a tier share their same powers for most pets like Necro, Ninja and most Mercs. More variety in pets seems like something worth looking into if not more of you ride for diversified pet choice and upgrade options.

Enhancement conversion.

Nova no longer do? Do what? Crash? There were tier 9 nukes designed without a crash, removing the crash has just created a different issue with regards to balancing them. And the reason Rage has a crash in the first place is because the buff it provides is so good. And the buff Rage provides is so good is why the set is held in the gutter without that buff.

Technically, Stalker's criticals were obtainable on mezzed foes as well as from hide. But then we're also having to compare them directly to Scrappers who have more AoE and more HP. The build philosophies of having criticals only a portion of the time is exactly what exists now. The only difference between Scrapper inherent and Dominator inherent is that one gets an exponential buff from IO bonuses. Imagine if +dmg increased Scrapper crit chance by 5% per 50% damage buff or something.

Huh? You're saying it takes 5 min to build the domination bar? AFAIK, it takes maybe 1 spawn of attacks to get it high enough but with the cooldown being 200sec and the duration being 90, that gives you 110sec to build domination before it's recharged again. That being said, if the bar was expended upon activation of domination, there would be no build up necessary during that 110sec window and it's closer to being usable once it's recharged. I have no idea where you're getting 5 min from.

Haven't read all the replies yet but what I can muster from the OP and a few replies afterward is that you want to remove the binary of the AT with regards to build equality. While I can definitely get behind a thread discussing this, I'm also not in support of an anti-binary approach but I'm also not against some kind of change or consideration or at the very least discussion about this dichotomy of expectations and elitism vs the standard touchy-feely kumbaya "there is no wrong way to build" type of mentality. Personally speaking, I'm weird in that I enjoy contrast while others tend to despise it. If I were to make an real life analogy on Dominator builds and playstyles in general, it'd be like comparing it to being wealthy. Most people don't want to be poor! They don't want their family/kids to be poor either so they share their wealth and provide support for them all the time so they never have to experience the struggles of being poor and that, overall, is a positive approach. I'm the same in that I don't want to be poor either but I also understand the good aspects of being poor. I will support my family/kids so they won't ever have to reach such bottoms but I expect them to make their own way, support themselves, understand that to obtain wealth like mine, they need to work for it, understand what it feels like to need to work and earn their way so that they can value the wealth they obtain rather than take it for granted. On a team with my dominator, I sometimes sit on domination without using it at all. Am I being mezzed? Is the team getting flattened? Is my endurance low? If all those things are "no", then why would I need domination? That is to say, I will invariably suffer in circumstances where the team is always in dire need, I'm constantly getting mezzed and drained and don't have perma-dom but then what is the rest of the team doing? I'm indifferent about the suggested change (which is a good thing) as it means it doesn't really change anything except certain specific instances of Domination use. But then I also feel that Dominator isn't "useless" or "terrible" while not in domination...it's extremely bizarre seeing people say that when all domination does is increase your ability to mez things but has no effect on soft mez like KB/KD, aggro management or destroying the target. It makes me believe those that feel that way about Dominator outside of domination are taking for granted the benefits of the power and thus have the expectation of "carrying" a team instead of just participating in it.

Claws and Spines use the same stance, just give an option with the other stance or maybe a "translucent" variation of Spines that you just can't see with a separate color channel for the spines on the hands. Of course it wouldn't be "simple" but I'm sure it can be done without requiring making a whole mesh/rig for a different set of spines.

And removing the crash doesn't fix the other mediocre powers in the set similarly how nerfing Hasten doesn't fix "needing" it or making it inherent solves build woes.

What mechanics need to change and how they are change really depends on what the goals of the game are. As is, if the necessity of +rech and/or hasten or the balance of perma abilities is something that is to be addressed, you need to get to a consensus on what the balance goal would be and THEN spitball ideas. Many have said there is nothing wrong with hasten and that it's not a necessity to make a great build while others have expounded on contradictory arguments saying it is. Same thing with Rage: The popular opinion of the main problem with the power is both it's obscene duration and its stackability. That you can stack a large damage buff and then blast away with AoEs outside the set is the issue I'd argue is the most dire, which would be why a suggestion to "fix" the set might be to just have rage only apply extra damage to SS attacks alone (it can keep the +ToHit) so remove the +damage buff and give it a "adds smashing damage" to your SS attacks almost equivalent to the damage bonus which can be seen as a nerf for your out-of-set AoEs and a buff to your "when I get to damage cap from team buff or just damage buffs in general" performance since the added smashing damage could still be enhanceable. You could probably remove the crash entirely with that...but then you'd have to get people to agree to give up double Rage stacked Dark Obliteration/Ball Lightning/etc which would probably not be equivalent...but there's also a good amount of players that don't double stack Rage and use those AoEs.

Sounds like you just want procs. Why not just ask to have a proc added to 1 or 2 of the lower level ranged damage sets that have less than 5 IOs in the set? A set specifically for -res powers is dumb since you can't enhance -res. It'd be like adding a set for sleep powers that enhance immobilize duration.

It's always gotta be damage resist debuff... Probably because the meta demands it. Personally and conceptually, imparting a strong resistance debuff to mez effects seems more fitting, making it so mez effects linger far longer, even from a MA Scrapper or an EM Brute. But then, that's not what the meta demands (more mez) but I feel it fits as a good 1-2 punch to lockdown a drowsy foe and give sleep powers an effective tactic to mitigate pesky foes rather than spreading huge DPS bursts unevenly (imagine Electric Melee with huge -res to damage on their sleeps).

Firstly, you're severely overstating the necessity of Hasten. Just because a lot of powers can't be perma without hasten doesn't mean those powers NEED to be perma in the first place NOR does it mean those powers can't be made perma if they received buffs from outside sources. Secondly, this mentality is likely why Super Strength will forever be weighed down by Rage. The point is, you can't improve other aspects of the game when you hold onto old build philosophies in the face of incarnate and IO builds/buffs. Thirdly, asking for nerfs and getting nerfs implemented are 2 separate things. If I want to ask for nerfs and make a good enough argument that the devs take notice and decide it's a good choice to make, that obviously means a good argument was needed and thus YOU CUT IT THE HELL OUT telling me what to post on the forums. The forums are meant to be used for discussion, not to censor and drown out opinions you don't like.

I always thought of the melee sets as states with different rules and taxes and Super Strength's powers have to pay taxes for Rage and double-stack Rage kind of like Dark Melee having to pay a minor AoE tax for Soul Drain although they can bypass a lot of that tax by going and buying their AoE out of state. Titan Weapons is like Alaska or Texas in size and it doesn't have to pay taxes on it's income (DPS). I guess that makes SS like New Jersey?

It's a culmination of your various responses I've gotten or come across in my research of MM suggestions since, for the most part, I have avoided MMs in the past. Quite a few advise to post in other threads or reference your own thread. The thing is, I know those threads exist so I don't really need to be reminded and my response was to perhaps discuss a suggestion within its scope rather than railroad it into a different train of thoughts. You replied moreso with "there's a list of other suggestions that we want and..." which is kinda triggering when I just asked why not discuss the OP topic (the attacks) instead? As for keeping suggestions in a stickied thread, I'm not a proponent. I'm not an opponent either but that doesn't prelude the option of making separate topics. For example, I had an idea for a QoL suggestion for MMs (that "pet stow" toggle when out of combat) and didn't really get any feedback at all on it putting it in a compilation thread. Putting it in a compilation thread for cosmetics likely wouldn't get any traction either. I'm not salty about that, btw, it's just an example. If you actually wanted to get some focused feedback on a particular suggestion, aiming to post in a compilation thread might not get the desired discussion primarily because most people don't want to read a thread over 8 pages long full of random discussions about a particular subject. So my feedback on trying to get threads stickied I'm indifferent to. It's just as easy to search for threads too and so long as policies don't prohibit "necroposting", you can revive an old topic so long as it's not been locked for breaking some sort of rule. So yeah, I don't really care about stickied compilation suggestion threads. Like I said, that's more pushing for a pass on pet summoning while this is aimed at a pass for the attacks. I would hope that more than just an adjustment for endurance could be a topic for discussion with regards to the attacks although that is the starting point for this discussion here. Personally speaking, I find the MM primary powerset to be a weird amalgamation of powers that could have more synergy with each other. Since a lot of the discussion seemed to target meta-game building goals, it begins to take over the narrative with regards to any possible suggestions.

I'm not a veteran of the AT but I still have ideas from my limited experience as well as learning a bit of the drawbacks from reading the forums. I think if you make the upgrades passives or toggles, you might remove some of the possible upward balancing you could roll into them. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing depends on the perspective you're looking at the AT from. For example, if you feel the auras and ATOs are fine and you just want the AT smoother, making the upgrades passive like in those other servers seems like it wouldn't be hard but then if you think the slotting opportunities of IOs have issues with MMs (particularly the auras and how some pet primaries get preference in slotting while other pet primaries have to scrape by with mixed slotting for their auras) it might be unbalanced to roll those auras into passive abilities. Personally speaking, I think needing to upgrade your pets upon summon is a limiting scheme so that it requires opportunity costs to get yourself back up to full power. My preference would be to take those auras from IOs and roll some of them into Supremacy and some of them into one of the pet upgrades. If the 2 pet upgrades were made slottable in some way, I'd like to see them divided into offensive and defensive. The defensive pet upgrade would have some of the auras from IOs in them (remove the IO auras, of course) and have them be thematic and slottable (like Ninjas and Bots would get more defense, Demons more resist, etc)...this takes into account ideas presented about improving sets by adjusting the powers. Requiring IOs and taxing a slot on a pet to get the aura is a kludge we're trying to improve upon. For the other upgrade, the offensive one, you'd have opportunities to slot for secondary effects like +ToHit on your Thugs, -movement on your demons, holds/confuse on your ninjas, etc...ontop of being able to slot for them on the individual pet. On top of all that, some of the replacements for the IO auras might be procs for pets to include damage and debuffs. The ATO auras I'd like to remain as buff auras but to things like mez and debuffs. Comparing Shock Therapy to Pain Domination on my 2 MMs, I can tell you it's night and day having KB protection for my pets. I think that could be rolled into a mez/debuff resist aura on one. The other would be a level shift aura if the pets remain 20ft from the MM. If we set the pets up to only ever be -1 level, this level shift would make them equal level to the MM when in range. I think that's a decent compromise without pushing MMs further with default even level pets which would really shift balance by quite a bit, IMO.

And like I said, what defines "good"? A stalker can be made ranged too and be decent. Whether that's "good" enough will purely be subjective but where it's "meta" isn't in question here (newsflash: it won't). Like I mentioned, the example you made isn't very good on account that you can make a ranged Scrapper and it will function as to be expected...but on top of that, you don't have to isolate yourself to being a ranged scrapper, you can just be a scrapper who has a rotation of ranged attacks too and be even better. To round it back to MMs, the meta is dictating to skip all MM personal attacks. You say they are for flavor or so that you can participate but them not being meaningful but I'd argue that is a conclusion steeped in meta-game building and not in the concept of what the AT was or meant to be. Okay, guy. I've read your frikken threads. You don't have to keep bringing up your ideas in spite of other people's ideas lol Or do you want to have the title of Ambassador of Mastermind Suggestions or something? We get it lol but that is neither here nor there. I'll give you some of your own advice and maybe look up those threads of yours and post your ideas there. To bring them up in a topic that isn't about them is rather off topic. It's technically not off topic but it does railroad discussion away from the OP and toward your suggestion which is a pretty dick move. A suggestion to improve the AT through the personal attacks could have meaningful discussion if you actually kept to that topic (I even tried giving this idea and the idea of improving tier 1 pets a bridge but it was ignored). As a person that enjoys taking all or most of an ATs primary, I think the suggestion has room for discussion. If you disagree, you can discuss why but I really don't need to hear you repeat and shill your threads again and again lol

These aren't very good examples to argue from. The way I see it, this is an example of run-away-meta builds driving changes. Some of that is a good thing but it can be pushed to an extreme where meta build changes are at the expense of homogenization, destruction of team roles and authenticity of AT or powerset/pool concept. A simple perception check: the better you make a power, set or AT, the worse others may look by comparison. There is nothing inherently wrong or bad about Focus or Hurl as a concept or tool within their respective sets and you can certainly create a rotation of ranged attacks. It's your meta builds that will classify doing such as inferior and should be shunned even if it's for variety's sake or just as a tool. Something repeated in the thread is the tier 1 pets being useless at high levels as well, resummoning being an issue as well as the attacks costing too much. I wonder if you could roll those issues together to somehow solve each other. Maybe set up a mechanic where having the tier 1 pets around somehow improves the attacks and your attacks directly aiding the tier 1 pets to stay alive longer somehow.

Now you're just adding qualifiers. Frustration is frustration but the ultimate end isn't any different whether it's someone carrying the team, adding some seconds to an encounter or making you have to toss out one extra ranged or melee attack. All the extra qualifiers do is shift who feels what frustration but as your initial response points to, this is all just feelings and how you deal with them. It's no different from someone telling me "if you want a harder game, nerf yourself, don't team with certain builds, etc etc". If KB isn't in your spectrum of meta then it's on you to prune your teams/builds, not shift the game to accommodate you. And where do levels come into play? KB magnitude is higher if the target is lower level than you (also the damage). The last example is basically a level 10 Lt vs a lvl 100 Hulk. Ultimately these comparisons are rather irrelevant though since comicbook logic in power levels is convoluted and again, talking about KB, it is wholly dependent on the medium you're using it in. It's plenty "super" for this game despite not being the pre-rendered cutscene type of spectacle you're trying to make it to be. Whether you feel KD is just as super or not is just preference. Also, that last example, the guy was likely dead upon impact. The g forces that accelerated him that fast likely broke his neck. The KB didn't kill him, the foot did.

It's not aggressive, maybe competitive if the competition is defending your stance on the subject. I didn't tell you to learn to play, I argued that the situation you outline is merely a Tuesday in the week of teaming. A lot of things can concern some teams. Not having a melee meat shield can be a concern to some teams but you don't blame the squishiness of the non-melee ATs, you just deal with what you got which is the overall mantra of teaming. So is taking your kills or taking your alphas (Brute gripes). Frustration is a natural response but if you are on a team, at the end of the day it's just another tax you pay for more mayhem. You can get frustrated because things didn't go your way or you can take into account that other players are also doing their thing. I wouldn't advocate for spamming intangible but if I were on a team that had a FF or Sonic Resonance user that put the Tsoo Sorcerer in an intangible state or whatever other similar circumstance, that's just that player doing their thing and telling them to stop can cause the same type of frustration you feel when you can't do what you want. I'm not saying bend the knee or majority vs minority but rather trying to demonstrate that those feelings are a 2-way street. But comic book action is mobile. It's rare to keep a confrontation isolated to 12x12 tiles in a room. When Toad lashes Storm with his tongue and flings her away from her allies, that doesn't end the fight...but then most characters aim to have "knockback protection" so they can't be moved. The Hulk doesn't stand his ground while throwing punches, he grabs and drags and throws and jumps and stomps. Fights can span entire neighborhoods or cities. You have to take into consideration the medium the game is in. Would be fun if KB could literally fling you from north to south Steel Canyon and through buildings if they get in the way but at the end of the day, players don't want that. They want their AoEs saturated and the mob spawns to be neat and uniform. And what do most people want to do? DPS.

Nice try. If you are so close to a spawn that knocking a foe back into them aggros them, that 2nd spawn would have aggroed anyway. If you're knocking anchors into other spawns, that must mean you don't have immobilize. Anchors (and all mobs, frankly) can run into other spawns anyway. Also, have you ever heard of the slang "add" or "ambush"? If you don't have a set of actions for when a 2nd spawn is suddenly aggroed, I feel sorry for you. I can tell you what I do on every character in the situation where another spawn (or sets of spawns) gets aggroed on the team be that because someone Leroy Jenkins'ed, knocked an anchor into another spawn, an ambush, the mobs themselves run and get aggro, etc. If you can't handle that, I don't know what to tell you but I do know that I can tell you that KB isn't somehow put in the hotseat for all adds in the game and attributing your inability to coordinate a compromised team situation isn't even the end of the world so what else do you got? Also, I don't have full IO'ed out characters either. Getting adds on a team is what shakes things up. Trying to make up a narrative of teams struggling and wiping because KB is out of control is amusing. FYI, Shock Therapy doesn't have any foe chains, only ally chains. There is Amp Up but that is centered on teammate's attacks. That is more a subject of player mentality gravitating to a philosophy of "spam". If you can't spam it or mule it, it's useless to most meta-builds. But in general, a lot of powers in the game are meant to be used as tools and you don't wipe out all your tools every time regardless of situation. But this isn't just isolated to KB. A lot of tools have gone by the wayside because people just don't want to sit on their hands with regards to using powers. If it ain't perma, it ain't useful. How many times have people dissed intangible powers? You don't have to spam them but they have their uses. If you want to use other tools to get similar results, that's on you. Well I can think of plenty of media where KB isn't a finishing move. That being said, I still stand by this being an issue brought about by concerns over DPS. The funny thing is, there's nothing wrong with that. Being concerned with meta-builds and such is just a different way to play the game and has its own lines to walk and hoops to jump through not to mention it is more truthful than pretending KB is an issue of team survival or QoL that would assist new players or some such. The argument being made is "trade offs". You seem to believe that the trade off of having controllable KB is...having KD instead. If you need an example of how that is not a trade off, look at Bonfire slotted with KB>KD. Now that power is broken because it traded nothing for the KD except a slot which, in fact, turned that power from an area denial power to an AoE lockdown patch + damage. The example used with Dual Pistols was made because not only are you sacrificing a +dmg power (Aim) for the ability to toggle your KB but you also don't get the benefit of the other toggles. Also, it doesn't change the powers from KB to KD it just removes the KB so you get no mitigation from it. That is the trade off. Being able to control your KB is certainly powerful and useful...but we don't need it. Many powers were not balanced around just turning your KB into KD with no trade off and the game is certainly not balanced around being able to control those effects on the fly. That all being said, I do wish there were a means of slotting powers to make the KB more reliable. As @Galaxy Brain explained, it can be a hindrance if you're relying on that KB to keep you on your feet but it only working a % of the time. That would be the only change I'd agree to with regards to assisting KB.

Welp, time to make a dominator and not have perma-dom. I think it's been demonstrated pretty well there are plenty of set-ups that don't require domination up all the time. Carrying a team, while fun for a while, is practically the same as soloing so why not solo anyway? And frankly, who cares? If you've got a Blaster on the team with damage buffed to the gills tossing out spawn decimating AoEs while you're still dropping a mass CC, are you really carrying? Or merely contributing?

I would think Energizing Circuit (+END, +rech) also doesn't stack. Does it?

Appreciate the feedback. As long as the enhancements are actually working, I'm good. Was actually debating slotting for both heal and res but still undecided.

I'm aware of AoE effects and knocking every or nearly all foes out of a designated choke point can be disheartening, but most KB won't do that. With the exception of powers like Nova, you might knock a handful out of a specific point and regardless of the purpose of the AoE effects, those knocked back ARE controlled so that mostly leaves what actually is the most concern is. It's DPS. If you just so happened to drop down an AoE sleep patch and some someone knocks some of the foes out of it, does it matter that they are no longer asleep because of that? No it doesn't. Does it matter that they aren't getting some of their endurance drained? No, it doesn't. Does it matter that now the tank is missing 3-4% defense because those foes aren't in their aura? You can calculate the survival drop on paper but at the same time, those foes aren't doing anything for the time and if their survival was broken by that bit of defense then maybe that team needs MORE KB. So what else do you have? I'm willing to put my whole argument into the premise that, yes, this is all about DPS.