Naraka

But what about my villains?

Might be able to make a Spark Blade inspired set using a Katana and pistol. Throw in some teleportation for flash and concept.

Well, you're wrong...but it's your opinion so have at it.

You know what else could be considered "difficulty"? Powers that require consideration, planning or sacrifice to use. A lot of the situational powers have been changed to spam powers. You do that and the pool of spam overflows and all you have to do is overwhelm the content. So even +4/x8 AVs ends up being just a bag of HP and a DPS check. Granted, I've not had to go up against 16+ AVs myself but if it doesn't encourage some sort of tactics change it's likely going to be just as boring or monotonous as spamming AoEs to down normal spawns.

That is only a relevant option if doing so (adding incarnate content) locks incarnate abilities out of normal content in some way. Making more incarnate content doesn't actually help players that simply want to enjoy the non-incarnate content with less cheese and cookie cutter builds. But the point isn't to eliminate cheese or cookie cutter builds and team but rather not make such as prevalent as it currently is and the way to do that is still merely a topic to be discussed and elaborated on. That being said, you said a charge mechanic isn't needed for Judgement powers. Care to elaborate? Exactly why do you think it's not needed? And saying "Judgement nukes aren't all that important overall to a character's DPS" isn't really answering the question. Should a power like Judgement just be free chicken for extra damage? Should we just start giving out more damage? Or should we start putting conditions on them?

Is that not what the difficulty options are there for? That players feel +4/x8 solo is a build goal might be a generosity of the current set-up and not intentional. There's also the option of turning bosses off.

I'm a novice when it comes to MMs. Most of my MM builds are just for fun and aren't very optimized but I did have an idea for a concept that I'd like to bounce off you guys: MM Powerset Primary - Arcanist The arcanist is someone capable of animating or materializing energy and matter to then perform specific tasks. Either through use of magic or some other special means of science or technological activation, these objects act through the power of a central command that is the Mastermind themselves. [Aside ~ The concept I'd like to create is a MM that isn't using "pets", per say but all the power is emanating from you. You are a Doctor Strange manipulating magic or a Telekinetic controlling objects with your mind or a Green Lantern creating constructs with your power ring. Animation wise, I'd like to have 2 alternates, one where the user is holding a tome when using the powers and another of just concentrating with no props. No drawing of runes or flashy FX, just turning a page or concentrating and up floats the objects.] 1. Conjure Cold (ST cold/lethal, special): Summon a cloud of cold that projects a blast of ice at your foe. Depending on your level of concentration, your conjured cold will shoot either an Ice Blast or a Freeze Ray (lowered damage from the normal version). It's not actually a pet, just the animation for the attack. 2. Vorpal Swords (Summon pet): Animate 1-3 swords depending on your level to float up and attack foes. Vorpal Swords have a chance to benefit from your connection, occasionally giving them access to more attacks. Vorpal Swords use Broadsword, Katana and Dual Blade attacks as well as the special ability "Spear of Light" which is a ranged energy damage attack. 3. Conjure Fire (ST fire damage/DoT): Summon a cloud of fire that projects a heat flare at your foe. Depending on your level of concentration, your conjured fire will shoot either a Flares attack or a Fire Blast attack (lowered damage from the normal version). Again, it's not actually a pet, just the animation for the attack. 4. Focused Connection (Passive, special): The strength of your connection varies on the situation. But when your connection becomes focused, 2-5 of your animated constructs have a heightened connection, granting them additional attacks. This only affects your pets, not yourself. Think of it like a temporary pet upgrade that lasts for around 25sec that is randomly pushed out to your pets every 10sec. The disadvantage is this upgrade is temporary and random while the advantage is all your pets only ever require this 1 upgrade to be at max capability. 5. Conjure Storm (TAoE energy damage): Summon a lightning storm to expel a torrent of power at your foes. Depending on your level of concentration, your conjured storm will shoot a ranged Chain Induction attack or a Ball Lightning attack (smaller radius). This is not actually a pet, just the animation for the attack. 6. Animated Staff (Summon pet): Animate 1-2 staves that move and attack your foes. Animated Staves have a chance to benefit from your connection, occasionally giving them access to more attacks. Animated Staff uses Staff Fighting attacks and the Mastery of Form passive. 7. Open Gate (Toggle Location; Self: Cannot Act, Special): Use your remaining concentration to hold open a Gate. While holding the gate open, you cannot use other powers. The gate closes if it sustains enough damage or you turn the toggle off. It also automatically closes (toggle off) after 30sec. While activated, Gate will summon Demonlings that explode in fire, ice and hellfire upon expiration, will spew Hell on Earth, fire projectiles that Melt Armor and cast Forge on you or your constructs. Upon closing the gate, your connection is focused and your concentration is heightened. 8. Power Orb (Summon pet): You catalyze a focus that helps you concentrate and focus your connection with your construct. Not only does it occasionally boosts your personal concentration (affecting Conjure Cold, Conjure Fire and Conjure Storm) but boosts the chance of focusing your connection while being in its presence (boosts Focused Connection chances). Power orb uses attacks from Gravity Control (Lift and Propel) as well as temporarily summon other orbs at random for a short time (Ball of Light, Counter Spell and Dispel). 9. Concentration Loop (Passive, special): When one of your connected constructs gains a boost from your connection, there's a chance you will gain a boost to your concentration. When your concentration is boosted, your Focused Connection chance is boosted further. The intent is that when you stack this, Focused Connection and Power Orb's buff to concentration and focused connection, you'll have a near 100% uptime on this effect on all your pets. (You can imagine the icon having a passive boarder around it instead of the targeted AoE boarder). Clarification: Focused Connection = pet upgrade. Concentration = upgrade to your attacks. Tier 1 Pets: Vorpal Sword Vorpal Edge Vorpal Blades Basic Attacks Hack, Parry Gambler's Cut, Dragon's Roar Power Slice, Ablating Strike Upgraded Disembowel, Spear of Light Divine Avalanche, Flashing Steel Spear of Light Sweeping Strike Spear of Light, Weaken Combo Tier 2 Pets: Animated Spear Animated Glaive Basic Attacks Mastery of Form, Mercurial Blow, Serpent's Reach Mastery of Form, Mercurial Blow, Serpent's Reach Upgraded Innocuous Strikes, Sky Splitter, Guarded Spin, Build Up, Taunt Tier 3 Pet: Power Orb Basic Attacks Lift, Propel, Time Stop Upgraded Distortion Field, Energy Torrent, Conjure Ball of Light, Conjure Counter Spell, Conjure Dispel Misc Pets: Gate Demonlings Ball of Light Counter Spell Dispel Summon Demonlings, Hell on Earth, Melt Armor, Forge Claw Rake Cold Burst or Flame Burst or Hellfire Burst Burst of Light, Surge of Light Sonic Barrier, Scream, Howl Power Blast, Energy Drain, Siphon Power

But as was mentioned by @parabola, I think putting more of the attacks' damage into the different damage types would be a nice defined mechanic for this set.

Then you're attacking a strawman. I didn't say anything about needing heavily min/maxed optimized builds AND you don't even need such a build to make the content trivially easy in most cases. So you can either use a better term to describe your disagreement with my point or you can stop strawmaning and wasting your time. And by "gimped" I'm talking about some intentional flaw either left open or self-imposed limitation that ignores taking certain powers. Considering the quote from the original post of yours I quoted, I suppose the advice was also in jest. My argument was, part of the game is building up your character. It's the same as creating a costume, writing a bio and meshing with a team. Saying "don't use heavily optimized builds" commits both the flaw of telling a player not to play the game, essentially AND assumes you need a "heavily" optimized build for this to be a problem. I don't assume anything by your terms, I'm criticizing the premise of your position because regardless of what you actually said, I'm also taking into consideration what you actually meant as well as what can be assumed by others.

Having a build that isn't intentionally gimped or happens to use some IOs doesn't equal "heavily optimized" so you probably could stop using that. Any competent team of 4 that has cohesive power choices and synergetic collaborative tactics can make a lot of content trivially easy. Add another 4 team members on top of that and you get steamroll. Your repeated emojis seem like you don't understand that. Do you actually not understand a "standard" build can use IO procs, franken-slotted attacks and a few sets to iron out some endurance management or having a support oriented build utilizing a well rounded set of support can make the content quite easy? I thought this was common knowledge that people were steamrolling things before IOs. Did you want me to reply to this seriously? It would be embarrassing for you if I did so I thought I'd ask first.

I'm a novice when it comes to MMs. Most of my MM builds are just for fun and aren't very optimized but I did have an idea for a concept that I'd like to bounce off you guys: MM Powerset Primary - Arcanist The arcanist is a being capable of animating or materializing objects and then perform various actions. Either through use of magic or some other special means of activation, these objects act through the power of a central command that is the Mastermind. Aside ~ The concept I'd like to create is a MM that isn't using "pets", per say but all the power is emanating from you. You are a Dr. Strange manipulating magic or a Telekinetic controlling objects with your mind or a Green Lantern creating constructs with your power ring. Animation wise, I'd like to have 2 alternates, one where the user is holding a tome when using the powers and another of just concentrating with no props. No drawing of runes or flashy FX, just turning a page or concentrating and up floats the objects. 1. Conjure Cold (ST cold/lethal, special): Summon a cloud of cold that projects a blast of ice at your foe. Depending on the strength of your connection, your conjured cold will shoot either an Ice Blast or a Freeze Ray (lowered damage from the normal version). It's not actually a pet, just the animation for the attack. 2. Vorpal Swords (Summon pet): Animate 1-3 swords to reach out and attack foes. Vorpal Swords have a chance to benefit from your connection, occasionally giving them access to more attacks. Vorpal Swords use Broadsword attacks as well as the special connection ability "Spear of Light" which is a ranged energy damage attack. 3. Conjure Fire (ST fire damage/DoT): Summon a cloud of fire that projects a heat flare at your foe. Depending on the strength of your connection, your conjured fire will shoot either a Flares attack or a Fire Blast attack (lowered damage from the normal version). Again, it's not actually a pet, just the animation for the attack. 4. Focused Connection (Passive, special): The strength of your connection varies on the situation. But when your connection becomes focused, you grant 2-5 of your animated constructs hightened connection, granting them additional attacks. For Vorpal Swords, they get Slice and Spear of Light attacks. For Animated Staff, they get Sky Splitter, Eye of the Storm, Build Up and Splinters (a variation on Caltrops). For Power Orb, it gets Chrono Shift and Time Stop. This only affects your pets, not yourself. Think of it like a temporary pet upgrade that lasts for around 20sec that is randomly pushed out to your pets. 5. Conjure Storm (TAoE energy damage): Summon a lightning storm to expel a torrent of power at your foes. Depending on the strength of your connection, your conjured storm will shoot a ranged Chain Induction attack or a Ball Lightning attack (smaller radius). This is not actually a pet, just the animation for the attack. 6. Animated Staff (Summon pet): Animate 1-2 staves that move and attack your foes. Animated Staves have a chance to benefit from your connection, occasionally giving them access to more attacks. Animated Staff uses Staff Fighting attacks and the Mastery of Form passive. 7. Open Gate (Toggle; Self-Cannot Act): Use your remaining concentration to hold open a Gate. While holding the gate open, you cannot use other powers. The gate closes if it sustains enough damage or you turn the toggle off. It also automatically closes (toggle off) after 30sec. While activated, Gate will summon Demonlings that explode in fire, ice and hellfire upon expiration, will spew Hell on Earth, fire projectiles that Melt Armor and cast Forge on you or your constructs. Upon closing the gate, your connection is focused. 8. Power Orb (Summon pet): You catalyze a focus that helps you concentrate. Not only does it occasionally boosts your personal concentration (affecting Conjure Cold, Conjure Fire and Conjure Storm) but boosts the chance of focusing your connection while being in its presence (boosts Focused Connection chances). Power orb uses attacks from Gravity Control (Lift and Propel) as well as temporarily summon other orbs at random for a short time (Ball of Light, Counter Spell and Dispel). 9. Concentration Loop (Passive, special): When one of your connected constructs gains a boost from your connection, there's a chance you will gain a boost to your concentration. When your concentration is boosted, your Focused Connection is boosted further. The intent is that when you stack this, Focused Connection and Power Orb's buff, you'll have a near 100% uptime on this effect on all your pets. Clarification: Focused Connection = pet upgrade. Concentration = upgrade to your attacks.

I was moreso talking about discussion as it seemed a lot of people want to deflect or stunt discussion about difficulty and power balance. By no means are we meant to only discuss or seek solutions *after* we get new content.

Just make them use their own NPC versions of incarnate powers when other incarnate characters are in the party. Or more specifically, make the "incarnate hunter" EBs, have high invisibility that only fades after they attack with a 60ft scan radius every 15sec or so that sees who is using Alpha, Interface, Hybrid, Destiny and Lore slots. When they get a positive scan, they then use their version. Only when they take damage from a Judgement power do they activate their version against your team. So, if the team splits up with the incarnates going their separate ways while the other non/lowbie/new incarnate part of the team sticks together, the incarnate hunter will scan, either get nothing or just Alpha and basically use some weaker powers. If an incarnate team member approached one, the scan would activate whatever powers they use and they'd start activating them (starting with Destiny and then Lore). If that incarnate team member isn't fast enough, they will be up against a mob backed by Destiny...they could open up with their Judgement to wipe them out before that but will have to eat a high accuracy Judgement themselves.

You're bastardizing the joke if you /jranger and then follow up with an entire post explaining why you're saying no. About a quarter, if not a third, of the game is picking powers, customizing a build and slotting enhancements. To tell people not to use their preferred builds is like saying don't play a good chunk of the game. But when are we going to tackle the issue? Because some of us already cordon off a portion of the game, not overly optimizing their builds, play on smaller teams and avoid max level and STILL find the game feels like it's using kid gloves. There's also no incentive to debuff yourself (just shave off a chunk of your build slotting that is a portion of playing the game). Lastly, I don't see a difference with making a thread asking for a means of adding team or solo content (via more difficulty settings) vs asking to have this set or that "helped out". They're all suggestions on a forum meant to post suggestions.

I personally practice a bit of self-restraint when teaming if only because it might make encounters less boring. I'd like to explore aspects to entice players to self-restrain their spam but short of mind control, I don't see it as being a possibility. I'd love to buff sets and fill holes to make sets/powers cool or awesome to make them really special if you pick them, but as the saying goes about why we can't have nice things, this is why nerfs are something that is required. If you wish to want certain things improved that don't work as well as we wished, why wouldn't you accept to have certain aspects curbed so as to keep aspects of the game relevant?

I would say, it exacerbates a problem that exists and persists in varying aspects of the game, team play and customization. If we kept incarnates as we have them now but Thanos snapped all IOs, I think it wouldn't be all that bad. If we took some steps to curb some things, having them made up through incarnate powers would at the very least prioritize build goals as one progresses upward. But it gets to a point that some aspects of the game are wholly phased out (not by only incarnates, mind you...). For example, Judgement nukes are only 1 aspect of the overbloat of AoEs which is contained within the core issue regarding encounter difficulty. It marginalizes aspects of defensive support and crowd control and limits team roles.

I would be hesitant to assign majority and minority labels as it's obviously a controversial topic with nuanced arguments on both sides. What I can certainly state, as @Haijinx said above, is the difficulty of the content and acquisition of the goals has had a toll on the game's balance in various ways. I could list some of them but it's rather moot if the so called "majority" would rather tune it all out.

That's evidence that the quick snipes should be adjusted down (wouldn't be hard to just tie more damage into +ToHit). You can't just keep upwardly adjusting things. Have the sets you're describing as needing adjustment (exception with Assault Rifle but it also has a snipe) and fall below the snipe sets been shown to perform below standard? If so, what is the standard and why are those sets below it? Or why is no one asking these questions and just assuming everything needs more upward adjustments without some sort of reference point? I personally think the old version of the quick snipe was fine. It gave a defender/corruptor a means of advancing their personal damage with team assistance buffs and blasters, well they could lean on snipe but it required specific build considerations or just a team. It wasn't particularly advantageous or cumbersome but since it's now just been adjusted away to be as convenient as possible, it seems to have shifted perceptions to usher in more convenience and functionality. It really is a slippery slope that is willfully ignored and berated for illustrating.

Thinking about it, I wouldn't mind Instant Healing on a Scrapper being a toggle. It would probably end up being highly depowered from the past toggle version, but I'm sure some scrappers out there enjoy their high recharge builds with situational use of IH as a click. On a Stalker, I like it as a click. I don't really want its recharge lowered (I don't really find myself just sitting in groups of enemies taking attacks...unless they use NB and he actually uses Provoke) but rather a higher amount of the +regen to be enhance-able. I'd also like it to have a meta interaction with Dull Pain that, when you activate IH, it lowers the recharge (or just instantly recharges) DP so that powers helps in becoming another active heal and not just an Max HP cap tool. Normally, I'd say give Stalker Regen some +recovery too but I've already dealt with the issue of +recovery and it is indeed manageable just like any other set. In exchange for the recovery, just slightly better/more frequent clicks would be an equivalent exchange. If Tankers get Regen, give them the old Moment of Glory. And for Brute, maybe an alternate version of Quick Recovery that either boosts its fury gain in some way or something similar to Rad Armor that buffs Recovery normally but buffs Regen when HP is lower. There, all armor ATs have a unique version of Regeneration.

Or just dial back the quick-snipe a bit so it's not such a huge gap (if there is, indeed, a gap that leaves other sets behind). Since the new quick-snipe wasn't a project of the live devs but rather the HC team, it shouldn't be a problem to dial it back some.

What is this weird post-level cap raise, trans-definitional neo-intentional term of "hero" people are throwing out these days? To me, it's like some fake ad hominem (as if you don't agree then you're against people feeling like "heroes" and all connotation associated with that word!!!) that, when you actually consider the thought through, is more akin to advocating for using nukes against the equivalent of street thugs because they like the feeling of power. That is *VILLAINOUS*, and as someone who likes their villains, I would nuke the equivalent of a mall cop because fuck you. I would find it weird and inhumane for heroes to be pushing against a bill in congress that advocated for "heroes" to uphold the same ethics as law enforcement and the escalation of force on a situational basis (and taking into consideration their inherent unkillability into that determination).

If everything your super hero faces are toddlers armed with binkies, it hardly feels heroic at all. Villainous? Maybe. But I bet you're not the villain type.

Dual Pistols isn't a sniper's set. It's very flashy and showy, even Executioner's Shot has its flourishes in there. Mechanical-wise, I don't think every set should abide by the same formula. I think it's cool that Dual Pistols doesn't have a snipe and not having an aim means it likely has some other aspects that make the set unique (such as being able to turn KB on and off when I feel like it). I think it'd be pretty dope if there was a new blast set that had more than one snipe-like attack or a set that had only a few blasts but various clicks and toggles to modify those blasts. The only real reason to stick to a particular formula is merely familiarity. A set can have differing mechanics and advantages/disadvantages and still be balanced to perform nearly the same as other sets.

I like this option, just a combat aura where a tome or scroll opens and floats in front of you. Kind of like the grimoires in Black Clover. Another thought might be like a stance toggle where you play whatever animations for your attacks but goes back to a "holding book" stance when not executing an attack.

My arguments were solely about concept though. Not really talking about the mechanical effectiveness or uniqueness. I realize they are different but if I were making a comparison, that difference is likely not so drastic to push for a change just to fit it into the set. Again, the differences seem minute. You say you have "more time to react" but in reality, that's not true. You have exactly the same amount of time to react..in fact, you have a better chance to gauge what you need to do in the 1st scenario unless you have a giant indicator on screen telling you when the rest of the damage is incoming in the 2nd scenario. The same goes for allies that have support being able to react without putting a giant indicator in their face as well. Overall, it's not that much different. It'd be an interesting mechanic to add into the game, but unnecessary to change an existing power unless said power needed help. As has been explained already, +HPMax acts basically like resistance so it, in fact, does mitigate incoming damage. It just has additional effects compared to straight resistance like not caring about damage typing and improving regenerated HP/sec. It also synergizes with other sets that straight heal or increase regen. As for the imagination part, I've went over it. Over and over. +HPMax *does* make sense to dull your pain. +Absorb, of course you can imagine up some concept that forces it to fit, but that doesn't make +HPMax suddenly *not* fit for this power. And you didn't reply to my previous point. If replacing these +HPMax powers with +Absorb powers, wouldn't we then have fewer +HPMax powers than +Absorb especially considering the propensity to add +absorb to new powers/sets? Are we trying to just phase out +HPMax and leave it to IO set bonuses? Wouldn't that make sets all the more similar if we did that?