Draeth Darkstar

I LOVE the change for /Elec to have its sustain moved to Lightning Field. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. Force of Thunder was the worst choice of all the Blaster changes made by the original Devs. I protested it back in the day and I've always hated it. SO clunky. Thunder Clap was always very anti-synergistic with the rest of the set, so being forced into it has really sucked. Elec is all melee except for the T1 immob, having a huge PBAOE knockback has never made any sense at all. That said - now that changes to the set are being looked at, the other really big struggle for /Elec has always been that it's very weak on AoE. Is there any chance that we could see some improvement there? The change I'd really love would be, instead of turning Force of Thunder into a more controlly, long cooldown power, to turn it into a damaging PBAOE, change the knockback to a knockdown, and either ditch the stun or leave it as a (possibly lower?) chance for mag 2. That would help the set be more competitive with the other Blaster secondaries that have amazing AoE potential (especially Fire, which Elec is the most similar to), and it would remove a power from the lineup that has never felt good to use before. The other change I'd really like, if possible, would be to change Thunderstrike into a more traditional PBAOE that does full (reduced, of course) damage to all targets instead of a lot to one and a little to the rest. Elec isn't hurting for single target damage, and the power still seems very skippable to me. The animation looks WAY better like this, but it's still long enough that the DPA is too low for me to use on a single target, and it just doesn't do very much in AoE from my recollection. I've copied over my /Elec Blaster to mess around with the changes, though, so maybe it'll feel better than it looks. On a related note, I have no idea where to report this, but the forum's text parser doesn't seem to like character names with apostrophes:

I'm not familiar enough with TA to have a ton of first impressions before testing, other than that the changes look like some big steps in the right direction. The EMP arrow change seems... strange, though. It's very weird for an area-based support power to not affect the caster, especially a T9. On paper the buff doesn't look like it would be outrageous to give to the caster, either, can we get some insight there as to why?

Misunderstanding or willfully misconstruing my argument does not make it semantics, sorry. 1. Tar Patch is by any objective measure already weaker than Sleet/Freezing Rain on all affected Archetypes without the nerf. It being relatively less weak between Defenders and the other Supports does not make it inherently overperforming. 2. As a measure of powerset balance? Yes, absolutely. If perfect adherence to a set of ratios was all it took to balance powersets, Trick Arrows and Time wold be balanced. Are you really going to claim that's the case? I like that this is the argument you make for why Tar Patch should be nerfed. If that's not what you're doing, then what, exactly, are you arguing with me about? I haven't argued that Fade or Twilight's Grasp should be left as they are. This dogpile has been lovely, but unless anyone wants to actually address what I've suggested in a substantive way instead of dogpiling me about how wildly overpowered things I'm not even talking about are, I think I'm done with this conversation.

I never said it was irrelevant. I said it was less valued in the metagame. A single power being stronger than AT mods indicate it should be only makes the powerset it belongs to overperforming if both: That power dominates the total performance of the powerset, and AT mods are a strong indicator of actual-play game balance Neither of those things is true. The one Archetype where Dark measures up to a notable percentage of the population disproportionately values its one actual strength (control) because it's more useful for protecting pets than anything else any other support set provides, and even in that case, it's only a tiny bit more popular than Time. Every other support AT has its most popular support set leading by 50% over the runner up at minimum. Population-wise, Dark is unremarkable across the board on every AT but Masterminds and their population curve is far less steep than the others. I am not advocating for some radical change here. I am saying that an average set does not need 3-4 stacked nerfs in one patch. There is no measure by which Dark is currently disruptively strong and this much reduction is in its total power is disruptive. My sum total of suggestion is for somebody to change a 3 to a 4 in a power definition. If your proposal for fixing Trick Arrows can be done in the amount of time it takes to hit "delete 4 ctrl+s" then you have a valid complaint. Otherwise, this hyperbole is unhelpful.

It's still the strongest area heal, except maybe for the new one in ElA, I'm not sure on that. It is not the strongest individual heal and it's not even a little competitive for healing against sets with multiple heals now (Pain, Empathy, Thermal, Time).

That is fundamentally and demonstrably untrue across basically every MMORPG in history including this one. It's not a 1:1 factor, but power and popularity have an extremely strong correlation.

And as I already responded to Bopper, the 10% total DPS nerf on top of 25% healing nerf is a heavy hit for a set that is already only an average performer. Mastermind is the only AT on which Dark is the most popular support, and only barely for them. For Controllers it's a distant 3rd with bartely over 1/3 as many users as Kinetics, Corruptors it's 5th with about the same ratio to Kins, and Defenders its 7th with a whopping 1/7th as many users as Empathy. Your "it's not a big deal" response is pretty meaningless in the face of actual evidence, sorry. If you're so against a tiny, tiny buff to Defender Dark to mitigate some of the nerfs, give me an actual reason.

The metagame has shifted significantly since Dark was considered a high-tier support. Offensive support is way more valuable than defensive support these days, and Dark is getting its best sources of both nerfed when it is far from the top performer in any category as it is. That's a lot of power reduction for a set that's currently sitting in the middle of the pack with no compensation, regardless of the fact that it's the result of legacy bugfixes.

You're ignoring the other 3 nerfs to Dark Controllers and 2 to Corruptors and Masterminds. Having all personal and pet healing reduced by 25%, -Res reduced by 25%, and for Controllers with Fade and Power Boost, Defense reduced by 100%+ is a heavy set of nerfs.

The invisible katana thing affects Stalkers on live, too. Killed my Kat Stalker out the gate.

Still hoping for a NoFX customization for Leadership to go along with those new animations. The bug fix to Dark powers affecting the Demons Lore pets is also kind of a kick in the pants to one of the already worst Lore pets overall. Any chance we might see some love for them?

Same feedback as last build. While all the Dark Miasma changes are technically bug fixes, the end result is a pretty heavy set of nerfs to non-Defenders and the set wasn't too strong to start with (on Defenders or anything else). My suggestion remains to increase the Defender version of Tar Patch to -40% Res and leave the rest at -30%. This would be a small but appreciable buff for the Defender version of Dark that would put its -Res patch at the same level as the Defender's version of Freezing Rain, and leave the rest of the ATs at what they already have, and have had for many years. This would take a lot of the sting out of having both personal and pet healing reduced for the non-Defenders by at least letting them keep their offensive support the same. The accuracy buff to Twilight's Grasp is appreciated, it never made any sense to me why Kinetics's targeted heal had it but Dark's didn't. Also, the following change is missing from the Focused Feedback post and should be here: Powers The following powers now ignore outside buffs (they all provide enhanceable resistance and should've always ignored buffs) Controller > Darkness Affinity > Fade

The nerf to Twilight's Grasp is probably justified, it's a very strong heal, but this is a brutal hit to Tar Patch. I don't think it would be out of line to buff the Defender version and leave the others where they are now. It's not like Dark is over-performing on any AT and this is 4 big hits to the Controller version and 3 to the Mastermind and Corruptor versions in one patch when none of those ATs needed to be adjusted downwards on the overall.

I do not have either the time or the mental bandwidth right now to get into set specifics, but my suggestions for broad stroke, archetype wide changes are: Pet survivability in the endgame is abysmal. Even Defense softcapped, Resist hardcapped pets regularly get one-shot in +4 content. That just should not be happening. Remove the pet-only Incarnate shifts and up their base levels to the Mastermind's level Reduce damage pets take from AoE attacks (maybe only in Supremacy range?), at least the telegraphed ones that players are expected to dodge. Every modern MMO has pets taking 50-90% reduced damage from AoE attacks to compensate for dumb AI. Increase pet health. Add a damage mitigating component to Supremacy so that increasing pet survival has a tactical aspect that can be played into from the start instead of being solely build dependent. Standardize the inherit defenses and resistances of pets so that some sets aren't quite so crippled out the gate. Masterminds have a very awkward relationship with Inventions. They get much less benefit out of set bonuses than every other AT, while at the same time being desperately starved for slots in their Pet powers to cram all the essentials in. Make Pets inherit Set Bonuses. The most powerful set bonus, Recharge, wouldn't effect them even if they inherited it, but it would be nice for damage and defense to scale into endgame builds the way every other AT does. Make the Pet Upgrade Powers take Pet Sets and benefit from being enhanced so they have more breathing room to work with all the unique IOs instead of being forced to cram everything important into 3 powers. Make the Pet Aura IOs more powerful individually, then change the effect of some of them to something else so there's less urgency to stack them all.

Rather than retype all this, I'm just gonna repost my suggestion from Philotic Knight's thread: I love Force Fields conceptually, my main was a Force Fields Mastermind from the launch of CoV until sunset, but it's one of those sets where my honest feedback is, "Screw the cottage rule, this design needs to be taken back to the drawing board." My honest wishlist: Force Bolt: Gains a -Res, -Def debuff and slow. Deflection Shield: Moved to Tier 1 for Masterminds. Effect changed to +Def (All), +Resist(Defense debuffs, slow, recharge reduction) Insulation Shield: Effect changed to +Resist (All damage types, -recovery, endurance drain). Dispersion Bubble: Defense buff magnitude increased to Time/Farsight level. Repulsion Field: Removed entirely. This set has two powers that both serve to do the exact same concept of a PBAoE knockback field and neither one of them works worth a damn right now. New Power - Insulation Bubble: PBAoE +Absorb toggle, same size as Dispersion Bubble. Repulsion Bomb: Gains a -Res, -Def debuff and slow. Detention Field: Changed to Hold with extremely significant -Regen. Force Bubble: Size reduced to Dispersion Bubble radius, repel magnitude increased dramatically, endurance cost reduced dramatically. This would return Force Fields to being the premiere damage prevention support set, give it potent single-target debuff potential and adequate AoE debuff potential, without altering the conceptual purpose of the set or most of its powers. It would still have no heal, no res, no offensive or utility buffs, markedly worse debuffs than the offensive support sets, and its one really unique utility would still be largely hated for group content due to the scatter, but every power would at least be worth considering to use and it would have one thing that it was outright better at than every other support set to compensate for its weaknesses, which is how it should be. I'm also gonna add that it's disingenuous to blame power creep entirely for the state of Force Fields. It was never in the top tier of Support sets, but it had a niche that only it could fill for a little while, being substantial +Defense buffs. The set has been obsolete since Cold Domination and Traps were added in Issue 6, though, on any AT that had them. Yes, it's gotten more apparent since IOs, and then those sets got proliferated around, and Incarnates and Time were added, but it's been the case for almost the entire history of the game.

Okay, cool. So, no plans to change existing Power Boosts, at least currently?

This would be the kind of thing it'd be nice to have an announcement of go out real, real early if it's going to be retroactive, 'cause it's going to break a ton of peoples' builds.

I love Force Fields conceptually, my main was a Force Fields Mastermind from the launch of CoV until sunset, but it's one of those sets where my honest feedback is, "Screw the cottage rule, this design needs to be taken back to the drawing board." My honest wishlist: Force Bolt: Gains a -Res, -Def debuff and slow. Deflection Shield: Moved to Tier 1 for Masterminds. Effect changed to +Def (All), +Resist(Defense debuffs, slow, recharge reduction) Insulation Shield: Effect changed to +Resist (All damage types, -recovery, endurance drain). Dispersion Bubble: Defense buff magnitude increased to Time/Farsight level. Repulsion Field: Removed entirely. This set has two powers that both serve to do the exact same concept of a PBAoE knockback field and neither one of them works worth a damn right now. New Power - Insulation Bubble: PBAoE +Absorb toggle, same size as Dispersion Bubble. Repulsion Bomb: Gains a -Res, -Def debuff and slow. Detention Field: Changed to Hold with extremely significant -Regen. Force Bubble: Size reduced to Dispersion Bubble radius, repel magnitude increased dramatically, endurance cost reduced dramatically. This would return Force Fields to being the premiere damage prevention support set, give it potent single-target debuff potential and adequate AoE debuff potential, without altering the conceptual purpose of the set or most of its powers. It would still have no heal, no res, no offensive or utility buffs, markedly worse debuffs than the offensive support sets, and its one really unique utility would still be largely hated for group content due to the scatter, but every power would at least be worth considering to use and it would have one thing that it was outright better at than every other support set to compensate for its weaknesses, which is how it should be.

I gotta be honest, I never understood the zealous adherence to the Cottage Rule the live devs had or that the Homecoming devs have continued to uphold. I have never played any other game, digital or tabletop, nor worked on any software project in my 10 years of professional experience, where the designers were so staunchly committed to keeping abject failures. "Kill your darlings" is one of the first rules that every professional game designer I have ever spoken to has professed to me. Force Fields needs that mentality, not the cottage rule, and it's not the only set in that state (though it probably is the worst offender).

Just from eying the numbers, Ice/Electric seems like it could be pretty solid, with Freeze Ray, Bitter Ice Blast, Charged Brawl, and Shocking Grasp all having >100 DPA at level 50. It's been an age and a half since I picked up a Blaster, though, so I'm wondering if it's realistic to put together a build with the recharge to make that attack chain work and the defenses to actually make use of it safely. I'm guessing if I tried this, Mace Mastery would be the way to go for Scorpion Shield? I also worry that there won't be much AoE available to this combo, though. Curious if anyone's gotten good results from it?

No, they don't. Inspirations, Leadership (including VEAT leadership), and IIRC, Aim and Build Up do, but the huge majority of player buff powers do not use the generic Inspiration-style icon VFX. They're annoying, distracting, and ugly when on a toggle and they need to go away. They're the most 2004 looking part of this game and do not need to be a permanent adornment in triplicate on any character. That's also why I hate them on the Pet Auras so much. It's whatever when it's an Inspiration VFX that lasts a few seconds, but it's so annoying to have 6+ pets with 4 sets of purple shields and 3 sets of orange shields all the time.

But, also traditionally, any set that has an AoE heal has it first, and it's plenty impactful solo with Galvanic in the set.

While you guys are tweaking the Leadership visuals, a NoFX version of the toggles would be a godsend. I hate those little spinning icons. Tangentially related, taking the little spinning icons FX away from the Pet Aura IOs would also be amazing, especially since there's no way to get rid of them short of having a second build for aesthetics.

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You might want to re-read the OP. Time is a good set. It's not the best set, it's far from the worst set. It's fine as it is. Cold and Traps are much better offensively and worse defensively. The outlier is Force Fields, which is a pure concept set now.