Nanolathe

Then your feet wouldn't be planted on the hoverboard, which was the proposal I was responding to. If you use the flying animation set you're defeating the premise of using ground animations as a "fix" for the problem. This applies to every attack that moves the feet around more than a shuffle. There are literally hundreds of animations that wouldn't work, especially in newer sets. Apologies if I wasn't clear, but I'm saying that just using the grounded animations for every power when on the hoverboard will not work, and using the flying animations as you suggest defeats the purpose of having a character that only has flight due to standing on a hoverboard. Unless the HC team has figured out how to insert new animations into the game (which last I looked, they have not), this is a request that simply can not be achieved without massively compromising the professional look of the animations.

And what if, say, a power has your feet move around a lot, and shifts the player model during the animation? Dual Pistol's T9, Hail of Bullets comes to mind for example.

The thing that really busts my noodle is how the Cloak of Fear interacts with Death Shroud. They're really bad bedfellows.

Mostly the reason I have for needing Opressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear to be looked at, is that they're two powers that are effectively competing with each other for the same goal, and doing it in the exact same way. They're both PBAoE toggles that give you poor soft control that needs to be combined with your primary or pool powers to be at all impactful. And very frequently your primary many not even have access to stun or fear effects... especially fear effects. That's why I'd like to keep Cloak of Fear, as it's the more unique effect of the two, but increase its functionality and power to a point where it actually does something to at least Lts, and have a secondary effect that debuffs bosses in an appreciable way too, but not provide the fear factor out of the box. IOs would probably solve that shortfall if slotted correctly. Oppressive Gloom is just... the same but worse power in my eyes. It does one thing interestingly different, it uses your health as a resource rather than your endurance, but the payoff for that investment is staggeringly bad. You have to micromanage the power the whole time because leaving it on by accident can be disastrous. Granted, it combos better with more primaries but for me, its not on theme. You're giving a portion of your life to the netherworld, and what do you get? A mag2 stun aura. How does the one, follow the other? It's a unique cost to pay, and you get an entirely skippable power effect from it. Blaagh 🙄 The problem is that if you make both of these powers mag3 (or mag 2 with a chance of 3) then you still have the "same" powers that are still stepping on each others toes. A stunned and feared foe is not really any different from a stunned one. Oppressive Gloom's potential effect outclasses Cloak of Fear's. Stun is better than fear in nearly any situation and plays better with your damage aura, and combos better with more primary sets... and still it is a skippable power! Fear is the more unique power effect, but is so poorly supported, and clashes with your damage aura to such a comical degree, that it too is entirely skippable. They're both terrible powers that would still compete against each other even if you made them both "good". And again, They do the same thing - PBAoE, 3rd-rate soft control. And they are both skippable powers! Dark Armour, that's boring. You're being boring Dark Armour. Stop being boring! Do. Something. Different! At least, that's the way I look at it. I'm almost certainly in the minority, and possibly wrong. And almost certainly asking "too much" for one or other of the powers to be fundamentally different to how it operates now. Cottage rule, etc, etc. I just see picking one of the powers as making the other redundant in normal play situations, and I'm of the opinion that powers within the same set should not make its other powers redundant. Am I missing something here? Why does any player want two soft control PBAoE powers within the same set? @ForeverLaxx, I apologise to you. This is not a judgement of you, your values, or your character. I do not wish to come across as someone that just wants to take away what you like. I see your perspective. I didn't mean to single out your preferred playstyle as what should be considered the "wrong" way to play. As stated above, Oppressive Gloom's effect is the more powerful of the two and has more synergies to exploit, so I can see why some people would be more attached to the power than Cloak of Fear's relatively weaker suite of synergistic selections. However, this is me looking at the failure of Dark Armour as a powerset from a design perspective, and the overlap of CoF and OG is part of that. I chose to try to salvage Cloak of Fear because it's the more interesting design space to explore, since fear effects are so completely underrepresented in game. I understand that you have an attachment to the power, being part of your character's niche. But I don't have any attachment to it. In fact, I actively avoid Oppressive Gloom and playing Dark Armour not because the set is weak (with IOs it really isn't), but precisely because the power selection dries up between 28 and 38. (actually from 20, since Cloak of Darkness can jog on too). Just buffing the powers that suck doesn't stop them competing with each other, nor stop me seeing it as uninspired design... as wasted design space. It's a special kind of powerset that manages to set a whole third of its 9 powers as easily skippable without any negative impact on performance... as long as you like Combat Jumping. Reminds me of Mastermind Primaries. 🙃

That would also need to take into account whether your character is Blue side, Red side or Gold side and then have allowances made for outleveling contacts or picking specific ones that either highlight or downplay the weaknesses and strengths. For such a big picture analysis you'd have to come to some agreement on what could be considered a standardised progression of content for each of Blue/Red/Gold. You can't realistically include all content that it is possible for a character, since you should then consider every possible way to earn XP as valid content for a character, including patrolling, AE and Radio missions. If we'd like to make suggestions as to a standard of what content should be included, I'd only comfortably be happy to propose story arc content accessible from Oroborus and any Task Forces available to your alignment. That would be your gauntlet. Everything else I'd consider as "side quests" that your character can skip by patrolling/grinding/farming/etc.

The only time I could really see it as anything more than a momentary inconvenience would be against enemies with very powerful and consistent knockback effects. Anything that can actually pin you in a corner, like a Tsoo Sorcerers' Hurricane or the giant water-spout-tornado-things in Operative Renault's Strikeforce. (Leviathan Badge) Those are the times when I actually notice that I don't have KB protection, and immediately cause me to spend whatever INF I have at the time grabbing a -4Mag IO enhancement, literally just to function as a melee AT. Funnily enough, whenever I play a melee/defence Archetype with comprehensive protections I really miss being punched hard enough to be knocked away occasionally... or even flipped on my butt. The dynamism of the fight is lost. The enemies feel so tame when the only thing they can do change the numbers on my health bar. It's why I can't stand playing the meathead ATs for more than a little while. Again, the only time I personally even notice that I'm missing KB protection for any of my characters is when the enemies have really obnoxious and constant Knockback/Repel chain or AoE. Coincidentally, I'm one of those "monsters" that will take a stun power, just to slot it with a Stupefy KB proc! I love Knockback! 😉

No argument against that scenario here. But if I might be permitted to wax philosophic for a moment; There was a reason you chose basic IOs (and other choose SOs) for set-to-set comparisons. Is saying that you "wouldn't want to tank with that basic IO build" indicative of a real problem with the set, especially when it performs admirably with IO set bonuses, as others have attested to? I argue yes, there is a problem with the powerset... but not really from a level of power perspective. I only argue that it doesn't follow through on the set's thematic and mechanical goals. The game is a broken mess when it comes to the power level of any individual, IMO, and putting that particular genie back in the bottle is almost certainly a fools errand... if it were to even be attempted in the first place. What exactly do we want Dark armour to do? Arguably the only thing that gives a power set any flavour these days is its weaknesses and its mechanics, as power customisation allows you to "proxy" most themes while playing a set that you enjoy the mechanics of, and know how to mitigate the weaknesses of (and/or exploit the strengths, whichever you prefer) A set should have an identity all its own. That's my argument. A mechanical difference that warrants its existence. Something independent of IO set bonuses and procs. The set should have something that makes you want to run with it, even at the SO / basic IO level.

Depends on if we're talking about scenic cottage houses in the alps or not. It's a fun thought, but I'm not sure that it fixes the underlying problems the set has. It's not unprecedented for a PBAoE to immobilise though. I think Mud Pots from Stone Armour has that effect?

He used lvl 50 IOs 😉

I am not certain of course. I don't have any insider knowledge on the code. But I don't think this is actually possible as presented, within the confines of the CoH engine. While an interesting idea, it may be technologically very difficult, if not actually impossible to hack into the system we have. Especially on log-out. There are a lot of odd engine quirks that are seemingly impossible to get working. Allegedly, "math" stored and manipulated by the character avatar on the fly, is one of them, which is why we can't have a reflect damage effects for example. I'm not someone learn-ed in the code, but Doppelgangers that you can "keep"... even between zones and mission doors is something I'm not sure is possible. The MM already re-summons new versions of the pets under their command each time you go through a loading zone, re-equiping them with their upgrades, but voiding all other buffs, like shields or similar. You may have seen the upgrade animations playing every time you go through a loading screen, and seen the pile of dead pets when a MM on your team zones ahead of you, and then seen them reapplying their pet's buffs when you enter the mission. I don't mean to rain on your parade, really... but this just might not be feasible.

I wouldn't call that a mechanic of the set, but a by-product of IO slotting. For clarity's sake, Opressive Gloom can slot Stun Sets. A 4.5ppm chance of... an amount of -tohit*, a 3.5ppm chance of Knockback, and 3.5ppm chance of immobilise (Mag2) on Opressive Gloom's Stun sets. The effects here are either very weak, actively detrimental to keeping the mob in your AOE, or very slightly increase your effective defences for a few moments. Again, I don't have exact numbers for [Absolute Amazement], but my experience with secondary effect procs is that they're very weak, and only last for 8 seconds, giving it at best about 50% uptime. Cloak of Fear can slot Fear, and both -Tohit and -Accurate Tohit sets. A 3.5ppm chance for Psi Damage, a 3.5ppm chance for Neg Energy Damage, a 3.5ppm chance to disorient (Mag2), a 3.5ppm chance for 25% recovery debuff (lol), a chance for recharge slow** (unconfirmed amount), and a 2ppm chance for 10 seconds of +tohit (20%). I don't know about you, but the damage procs and the stun proc are the only things that stand out here, and the damage procs actively stop the fear effect from working as you want it to. Although dead is the best debuff, it's still going against the intent of the power. Stacking stun with Oppressive Gloom is a nice upside, I will admit. Maybe [Dark Watcher's Despair] is worth it? but without the numbers I couldn't comment. But that is your lot. If you see a set-defining build within those limitations, then more power to you. But I'm not seeing it. Again, These are IO specific "advantages" for playing Dark Armour and are happy coincidences if you have the cash to spare. I wouldn't say these 8 procs elevate the set in any meaningful way, but your mileage may vary. * I don't know the strength of the -tohit debuff from [Absolute Amazement]. Can anyone illuminate? ** Likewise I don't know the effect strength for [Dark Watcher's Despair]. Any info?

It doesn't have anything really. It claims to have something (the Debuff/Buff focus) but that "thing" was never really implemented. That's the problem in my opinion. (See my previous post for more detailed info) Edit: I am specifically talking about mechanics. There are many other reasons to play DA, from a strong character theme or roleplay, to just trying something new. But mechanically... it's a dud.

What would I like to see? The set claims to be strong at debuffing enemies and buffing the player as a transference of power. This is only the case for 2 out of 9 of its powers; Dark Regeneration (Heals for Damage) and Soul Transfer, (Player Rez for Damage and Stun). Cloak of Fear has a -ACC debuff, but in no way empowers the player. 1. More of the sets powers should, in my opinion, "do what it says on the tin". Below I have made some suggestions for specific powers that are the most concerning from a mechanical and theamatic standpoint, but as an overall direction; Symmetrical effects! However you're debuffing an enemy should buff you in the exact same (or as similar as possible) axis. The set claims to be one of the only sets to offer strong Negative Energy resistances and Psionic Resistances but is weak to Energy. Unslotted, a Tanker has 30% res to Smashing, Lethal, Fire and Cold. 20% res to Energy and Toxic. 40% res to Neg. 50% res to Psi. The value of Psi and Neg resistances has skewed the set away from one of the most important resistances in the game; Energy. The set massively underperforms at a very common damage type mid-to-late game that is only patched by IOs. 2. This is not a bad thing and should stay as it is. Too many sets have no real weaknesses that the player has to think around, and if the IO system is to stay as it is, with set bonuses making up for the shortfalls in a set's capability then I see this as the standard that other sets should be put in line with. I do not want to see another set without any weaknesses. Keep the holes. However, I think that the current way the IO system massively skews towards late-game, rare sets to actually achieve this goal for Dark Armour is a problem. Leveling/grinding to a place that gives a DA player the ability to begin patching these holes in their defences takes too long. If the IO system is not going to be looked at in detail in the near future, with a view to a total overhaul, then please give us a few IO sets that are designed to help low-to-mid level players patch the holes in their Defences / Resistances (at the cost of not being as generalised as some other sets) The set does not have any Knockback mitigation; a very, very common effect - and claims to not have immobilisation mitigation either; this being false as it is part of Cloak of Darkness. 3. Regarding Knockback; this is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it stands out when compared to other defensive sets. It is lucky that there are several, currently affordable IO bonuses that plug this hole. However without the IO system the only other option for this would be Acrobatics from the Leaping pool. This power is pretty universally regarded as total trash and for some reason requires a 2-power investment in the Leaping pool to unlock! If the IO system were ever to be overhauled, or the price of the KB protection IOs were to skyrocket it would put DA in a very uncomfortable position. I suggest at least allowing Acrobatics to be selected without prerequisites. Reworking the Acrobatics power to actually be worthwhile outside of plugging Dark Armour's and Fiery Aura's lack of Knockack protection would also be a desireable change in my opinion. Cloak of Darkness providing your Immobilisation protection doesn't make sense. I'm guessing it was put there to make the power more "appealing" to melee damage ATs... by holding their status protection hostage. Fail. Move this protection somewhere else. CoD should provide you with stealth. If we were to go with a debuff-to-buff style of power as the initial description suggests then make this power also reduce perception for a nearby enemy too, allowing other melee ATs to get closer without being detected. Cloak of Fear and Death Shroud are two powers that are at complete odds with each other. One causes Fear for damage mitigation, while the other causes damage... largely, if not entirely negating the fear effect. 4. Remove Death Shroud's damage in favour of a weakening effect that doesn't break an enemy out of their Fear effect. Have Death Shroud buff the player too, based on the number of enemies within its effect. -Damage for +Damage, -ACC for +ACC, etc. I'm in favour of "symmetrical" effects. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear are two toggles that are severely overlapping in terms of the effective end-goal they wish to achieve. Both give minor control effects; the former stopping attacks but not movement, and the latter reducing movement and attacks if the player does not attack them first. 5. Combine the powers into one, or cut one of them out. My preference would be for keeping the Cloak of Fear, and buffing it to be more effective. Replace Oppressive Gloom with something more thematic or mechanically interesting. Using your own health as a cost for the power is an interesting idea. Having the effect be a Mag2 stun is neither interesting nor in my opinion, congruent. Make it give massive -Regen to enemies around you. Make it -MaxHP over time to enemies around you. Make it -Healing to enemies around you. Make it do all 3! The set is overly reliant on Toggles for its effects at 7 out of 9 powers, leading to difficulties with endurance management and general knowledge of exactly which power grants you what status protection. 6. If the set is to be so toggle heavy then the toggles either need to be worth it, or have endurance costs in line with their effects. I like that not ever set is a cookie-cutter duplication of the others. The set does not need to be the same as every other set by any means... but it needs to have equivalent strengths to counteract its inherent costs. Overall I will place theme as the highest ideal for a set to aim for. The mechanics should serve the set's theme. Please don't homogenise the sets into carbon copies of each other. Lastly; Thank you for your efforts Homecoming Developers. I hope to see great things as we all move forward with City of Heroes/Villains!

A hyper-focus on killin' is something I attribute more to Brutes or Stalkers than Scrappers... and it's not like they are mechanically incentivised to act that way either. Stalkers gain "focus" that gives them a guaranteed crit with Assassin Strike, so you want to stick to a target and attack quickly to build that up efficiently, and Brutes get fury which needs little explanation; number go up - smash! get better - make number go up fast for more betterer Smash! I just don't get that tunnel-vision state of mind on a Scrapper; there's no reason to, and other ATs fill the role better, both mechanically and thematically. (though perhaps not in a purely mathematical way)

I've never quite understood what the Scrapper "feel" is. Is it the irritation you feel when you crit an enemy you were already going to kill with an attack? Is it the frustration you feel when you don't crit a boss long after the dice roll streak becomes comical? Or is it that feeling of disappointment that you feel when you remember you don't have access to Super Strength or Energy Melee ... for some reason? 🙃 But seriously though, the Scrapper's inherent is oddly ... "Dicey". It feels very detached from player interaction or influence... like my character isn't really doing what I want them to do, when I want them to do it.

Masterminds that focus on buffing might get too much from this. They're already hard to get killed unless you're really not paying attention and have a respectable clear-time on missions already. Giving them a mostly full suite of defence and/or resistances could tip them over the edge into "unstoppable" territory. Anecdotally I can personally attest to being very, very difficult to kill already with /Cold and /Thermal MMs... and I'm fairly reckless when solo. (I'm most comfortable playing on +2 / x4 at present, for reference) But I don't have an intrinsic objection to the idea, just that it affects some ATs and some power combination a lot more than other, and as such needs some careful attention to balancing.

I suppose that's where we will differ on opinion, since I think having at least one weakness is integral to the Super Hero/Villain experience. Even Superman has a weakness that will re-contextualise a situation. Honestly, I wish more defence sets had thematic "holes" in their defences and resistances. Not insurmountable problems, but at least something that gives the meathead ATs pause from time to time... or even encourage teaming on occasion. Strong opinion incoming: I have great distaste for making any AT (let alone all of them) into unstoppable godlings. I just don't see the point, when the only way you lose is if the electricity for your house goes out. Yes, I know the game should probably remain solo-friendly... but there's definitely a line that CoH crossed a while back when it stopped being solo-friendly and became solo living-uninvited-on-your-couch, eating-the-food-from-your-fridge. It's not a great help while soloing I'll agree, but on teams it usually means that the mobs will refocus on someone else that's giving them hurt, and you're back in the action a lot faster than if you roll without any resistances. Then again, "breakies" aren't all that hard to come by and even the lowest level inspiration can unlock you from 99% of whatever a mob spawn can throw at you, so for most ATs it's just a momentary annoyance of dropping your offensive toggles and reducing your DPS. Hell, my Mastermind gets hit with alpha mez all the time... but it's not like the spawn can do enough to kill him before the Bots turn them into plasma-burn victims. Mobs need to learn that I don't do the DPS, nor is my effective HP pool something to sneeze at.

Ahhh... the meathead ATs feel it's redundant. Now it makes more sense. That's what I get for playing characters without a single cure-all toggle to make them invulnerable to Mez. (joke)

I've never seen a problem with it TBH. If I'm slotting for Psi resist then it's a welcome diversification from just Impervium Armour's global. Lets me "six" slot for Psi Resist rather than only five and get 20% Mez resist... 's a good deal. I think people forget/underrate the Mez resistance. Adding one single percent to the resist seems like quibbling over very small change, and taking away the 20% Mez for 6% Def feels like a downgrade, personally.

Also have this on my Thugs MM. He's a thug, just like his boys. He don't need no guns other than the ones attached to his torso!

Maybe? Is the power so unsalvageably bad that it has to be cottage'd? Is it impossible for it be made into a good power as it stands while keeping its basic functionality intact? Edit: I really like the animation. That at least needs to be salvaged!

Depends on if we want to cottage ... like ... over half of all the pool powers as they stand to make them good.

I thought the point of the synergy was to make the "not worth taking" powers more appealing?

Having no use for something, but still wanting the benefits of it by proxy, means that it has a use. It's just an albatross*. I might not want Kick from fighting because of it's Knockback, but I still take it for the buff to Cross Punch and Boxing, for example. Now, I don't think anyone taking Cross Punch and Boxing would actually care about Knockback, since they're obviously not trying to make the most optimal character anyway... but the example is still there. If Acrobatics is THAT poorly designed (or there are extra systems that have been haphazardly bolted on top that completely obsolete it), so characters without KB protection are still not interested in taking a power specifically designed to give you KB Protection... then we've got a bigger problem here. 🙃 *albatross (metaphor)

It's an oddity for my proposed synergies, yes. I blame LotG I guess you could replace Acrobatics for Super Jump and lose all the cool extras... but then Acrobatics is a total dud. Again, I blame LotG.