Hardboiled Hero

I see.. so dominators feel like a weak controller to you because the duration of their controls lower. The obvious response though, is that control duration only matters for the amount of time that it's actually necessary. The dominator doesn't need the same duration because the dom kills stuff faster. This playstyle is why doms who wish to fight against groups should be in a team; a controller who wishes to fight against groups (or anything else) should also be in a team. I really think the dom is far more straightforward than people give it credit for. The dom is a crowd control AT but it isn't a controller. If you think about the type of villain the dom represents.. the type that likes to toy with their prey before killing them, it should be pretty clear that the dom isn't JUST meant to control.. the Assault powers actually represent as big a key to how the dom is meant to be played as the control powers do. To be fair, the controller has secondary powersets also, but in the current state of the game, the dom's secondaries are more consistently useful. Perhaps part of the reason some people consider doms to be weaker than 'trollers is because the dom doesn't really fit the hero mindset. (and everybody plays on the hero side these days) Even the dom's controls aren't representative of a desire to assist their team, but rather from the desire to hinder enemies before killing them. Yeah.. I certainly know that feeling.

This is the sentinel forum; we're all in the "sentinels are awesome" camp. One doesn't play sentinels without loving them. I have over 30 sentinels, all with their own unique concepts and personalities.. from a conceptual perspective, sentinels are probably the best AT (at least in my mind), but mechanically they're not so good. On paper they look like they should be a "ranged tank", but in practice they are purposefully designed to lack the survivability of tank classes. Sentinels reduced range wasn't done to make the AT do less damage, it was designed to make the sentinel suffer more damage. The sentinel completely lacks taunts, which would be another "tanking" tool that was specifically removed from sentinel defensive power sets. In addition, the sentinel's powers were made to have the weakest debuffs and controls possible.. did you know that a defender using ice blast slows targets more than a sentinel using ice blast does? It's as if the designers were specifically trying to make sentinels bad at tanking, peeling, and pulling.. you know, the things that it looked like sentinels should be good at. Honestly though, that's all fine, because the state of the game at this point renders all of those irrelevant anyway.. well.. some tanking, but you don't really need an off tank, which is what the sentinel would be. This means that the only thing that really matters for the sentinel is damage.. Obviously, since the sentinel lacks any other form of utility, it should be one of the big damage classes right? except no.. it's damage is no better than any other ranged class with a damaging powerset.

I mean.. you can't just Look at a person and know their "history", so for me it's kinda a RP thing. If you want to know Sheena of the Wild's backstory.. and why she carries around a goblin in her backpack.. well.. ask! I have at least simple stories for most of the characters I make. Some, Like Sheena and Laser Lass, I leave blank on purpose because the character's history is not meant to be well known to others.. Royal Princess Ketevan on the other hand is relatively high profile, so I wrote something for everybody to see. My heroic Arachnos soldier, Wargame, has a history that is knowable and I felt it necessary to write something to explain why he's working with the heroes (In part so that I don't forget). Then there's the issue that no one on a random team is going to read a long backstory unless the team is taking a 5 minute break or something. This means that you have to keep the backstory short and sweet.. even if the character's history isn't. Wargame doesn't have a simple history. It's easy enough to say he's working with heroes because he fell in love with a hero, but his journey is both more and less complicated then that. Even with a well detailed story in mind, it can be very difficult to figure out what parts of the story should be written. and of course, with over 45 characters at the moment, there are some that I made because I thought they'd be mechanically fun, and I just don't know what their background should be.

I'll never for the life of me understand how people can think something like this.. and you're not the only one.. I see people say it quite a bit. It just makes no sense at all. Controllers get extra magnitude on their controls, but dominators get a vastly increased chance to effect more difficult targets and a number of other abilities when you choose to actually activate domination. In general, is it better to have a smaller bonus that you get all the time, or a bigger bonus that you get whenever you need a bonus? because controllers get a small bonus all the time and dominators get the bonus they want when they want it. With perma-dom you simply get the bigger bonus all the time, but honestly you don't need it in order for the dom to be better. So the dominator is better crowd control than the controller is, but then you have secondary powers as well. The controller gets support powers and the dominator gets damaging powers. your probably thinking that the dominator loses out here, because there's really only one AT that doesn't get damaging powers (well.. I suppose one and a half considering masterminds.) The thing is, controllers are competing with 3 other AT's for the support role.. and that role is generally considered unnecessary in the later stages of the game as well. The only thing really "necessary" in the end-game is damage.. the one thing that controllers don't do. Meanwhile, Dominators can actually get pretty good damage if they use their melee attacks without getting killed too much. (easier said than done, but not impossible with a decent tank and careful play) So dominators have better functionality on their primary, and a more consistently useful secondary. So what exactly makes them weak? (I know it was said they feel weak, but I never even got that feeling, as dominators are usually actively doing something, and controllers aren't)

Well the Sentinel is in a weird spot.. I mean this literally. "Stay at range" for a Sentinel is still closer than a blaster, defender or corruptor want to be. But it can't really stick into melee like a scrapper either.. In this way, I'd suggest that the sentinel and dominator are actually both "mid range" classes, but where the Dom is really likely to be at mid range because they're bouncing from long to melee range, the Sentinel wants to keep the fight at mid range. (Yes, technically I suppose blasters may want to bounce from long to melee like doms do) I feel like this is @oldskool 's overly complicated way of saying "Regeneration is not optimized for sentinels". but again, "play it if you like it".. which I think is really the motto of the Sentinel, not only because of oldskool's ubiquitous nature on these forums, but also because we've all chosen to play an AT that isn't mechanically the best, simply because we have fun playing it. On regeneration specifically, it may not be the easiest set to get soft-caps on, but it has other qualities too.. perhaps you should think about why you want to play regen, and lean into that? and while this character might not be able solo all the content you want to solo, I bet there are some Bubblers out there who really just wish their defense boosts would be useful in high-end content. If you play what's fun for you, it might lead to others playing what's fun for them. As for other secondaries, I have a 50+ archery/invuln sentinel and I like her. Archery is pretty fluid paced and invuln is a good "set and forget" defensive, so they work nicely together. Invuln is also more resistance based than defense based, so it's still not the easiest to get defense caps on, but it isn't difficult and the mix of defense and resist is good. I'm leveling a character with energy aura now and she's alot of fun.. the ability to reduce endurance costs while getting a heal and +regen to me has shades of what I like about the regen powerset. (and yes, that EA stuff is all on one power, which I feel has a good cooldown.. perhaps even unreasonably short.) While I realize it's gotten kinda long, I suggest you take a look at the stickied thread for the powers you curious about. You can probably skip through most of it and find powerset names in bold.

I honestly believe the first step in "fixing sentinels" should simply be to (at least temporarily) get rid of ALL of the "QoL nerfs" and see what happens. Why do Sentinels have to have reduced target caps, yes.. but furthermore why do Sentinels have to have reduced range? You take an AT that SHOULD rightly be the best at pulling mobs, remove the power that's generally used for making those pulls, then reduce their range by an additional 30%? what sense does this make? Am I the only person who finds themselves face-pulling with sentinels because their range is so short? Am I the only one who has noticed that the corners that a puller would normally hide behind are not in range for a sentinel who wants to pull a mob? I know the maps are mostly "random", but to me it feels strongly like the algorithms used to "randomize" the maps weren't designed with characters with sentinel range in mind. Thus I think the range reduction has had consequences that weren't fully anticipated. Honestly, even the consequence that was anticipated seems kind of mean spirited to me. The Sentinel is meant to give up some damage in order to gain survivability.., but the Blaster not only has better damage, but also can soft-cap defenses AND has better tactical options available to keep themselves from getting attacked. (Their greater range allows them better positioning.) I'm not saying these changes should necessarily go live, but if I'm in the dev team I think this is where I'd start looking.

I honestly can't see how a person could play this game and believe that redside is underpopulated because people don't want to play the villain. Don't get me wrong, I think some people don't want to play villains. I think some other people really do want to play villains. I think still other people want to play whatever is appropriate to the concept of the character they're playing, and still other people just don't care about any of that hero/villain stuff and just want to run around chilling with some friends. But to say that "red is underpopulated because people don't want to play villains" takes about 5 minutes of actual play to disprove, as you'll find many people running around atlas park using characters that they say they would rather portray as villains. I see a guy named Killa Ton running around Atlas Park, and it doesn't make me think, "wow. That guy is really in the hero mindset". So clearly there are people who want to play villains, but aren't. The question then isn't one of trying to "incentivize people to play content that they personally find distasteful", rather, it's one of trying to counteract people feeling like they're being forced into content, when they would clearly prefer other content. We don't need to make heroes into villains, we need to stop making villains into heroes. Personally, I have more than 40 characters right now. Only one of them is a villain and one of them was made as a praetorian . I have a widow and a soldier, both of whom I took over to the hero side as soon as I possibly could. This is because I have a complete lack of faith in my ability to get teams on the villain side. Honestly, I'm usually surprised by the fact that I DO see people running around in the villain starter zone.. given that in a full day of playing I might see 4 or 5 messages in the LFG chat of people asking for villain groups, I really don't expect to see any villains playing over there.. and I think this begins to point out another problem too. The problem isn't just that the villain side is underpopulated, but also that we don't know before picking our character whether we'll be able to find a team for them at that point. I have literally spent hours in Atlas park watching the LFG channel, switching between characters only to find that a group has filled up while I was switching.. I often find myself thinking that it would be great if I could use LFG chat while I was thinking about what character I want to play, so if I see someone asking for a group that I have a character for, I could pick that character and let the person know I'm omw. It would be useful for heroes, but it might be far more useful for Villains and Praetorians.. I just don't know if it can be done technically.

I mean.. in the endgame you might as well just have a bunch of blasters running around. I'm of the opinion that Force Fields is one of the least valuable sets in the game. At the same time, I have a couple Bubblers that I enjoy playing and they can actually be well loved and fun for the whole team.. This is because they are at their best when other people are playing their "not fully optimized" characters. In other words, having a bubbler on the team encourages players to use the characters that they have more fun playing as well. Even though they are "useless" in end game content, many end-game groups will still include bubblers simply because they love seeing them in other content, and the community on Homecoming is usually pretty supportive. So I think the answer to the question really depends on what you mean when you say "is it worth taking". The character can be fun and helpful to those that enjoy playing characters that might otherwise struggle. Once people get their characters optimized, they won't really need bubble support, BUT they generally won't mind if you're playing a bubbler. My personal issue though is that, even if other people are willing to carry me through end-game, just as I was carrying them before, I simply feel bad playing a character that needs to be carried. This makes the Bubbler "unfun" for me.. to be fair to the powerset though, support powers in general simply aren't as valuable at end-game.

which is where the second problem with Bubbles comes up. Basically, it's unnecessary for most teams, and it's literally unusable for solo play. Now I could see a team might be specifically designed around having a Bubbler. I imagine the other characters could some extra dps if they know they don't need to cap the Defenses, but I think that's something that would have to be planned out in advance.

Forcefields is the worst set in the game. It's basically like your character is only playing the game with one powerset. Not only can you not use the powers on yourself, but your also buffing a stat that most people soft-cap anyway (You know, in case they have to play without a Bubbler in their team on occasion). They can be fun/good while leveling in a team, but other than that they're completely worthless. I suppose you combine that with something like Archery and you could get a laughably poor Defender or Corruptor.

Seems like alot of people talk about their "favorite" in terms about how strong it is. For me, Archery/Invulnerability has been the most fun. It's not necessarily the strongest, but it's a breeze to play, with Archery having a very fluid, non-hasted attack routine and Invulnerability being a "set and forget" defensive that rarely interrupts that attack routine. Furthermore, I get to run around with a character using a bow and wearing chainmail.. it's just fun.

As a sentinel player, allow me to enlighten you.. there are absolutely no objectively bad blaster combinations! Honestly O.P., I'm with you on not generally trusting "play what you want". Like you, I understand that "I don't care about winning and losing" doesn't mean "I can lose all the time and feel like I'm not contributing, but still have fun." being in that situation a few times.. sure, we can laugh it off, but being in that situation all the time is aggravating. I don't care about winning and losing, but I do care about being "locked out" of content and being a drag on my team/friends. In the case of Blasters in City of Heroes though, I feel that "play what you want" is actually the best advice. consider these facts: 1) Sentinels are far weaker than Blasters, in fact they're often considered the weakest AT, and Archery/Invulnerability Sentinels are considered weaker than most. 1) An Arc/Inv. Sentinel can do any content in the game. 2) An (optimized) Arc/Inv Sentinel can not compete with any (optimized) blaster combo for dps. 3) Like a blaster (and unlike defenders/corruptors), the Archery Sentinel only brings dps. 4) Under these conditions, "play what you want" is actually good advice for a blaster. In fact, "Play what you want" actually has power-level ramifications. ex: My "main" Is an Arc/Inv Sentinel. I have many other characters as well, but that is my most powerful character at the moment because, while it may take more time to optimize than my other characters, I enjoy playing it more, so I play it more often and take the time to improve it. I have a water/fire Sentinel, a fire/fire sentinel, an Archery/Ninjutsu Sentinel and an Archery/Martial Blaster (among many other characters), all of which should be more powerful than my Arc/Inv Sentinel, but I don't really find them to be fun, so I don't play them much and don't really care to put in the time that it takes to optimize them. Hence, My Arc/Inv Sentinel is the most optimized powerset for me. While Many MMO's require specific builds to play in end-game content, leading people like the O.P. and I to really only enjoy playing those builds, even if we'd rather play something else in the back of our mind, I find that in CoH it is more important to enjoy the character first. With that said, I don't fully expect anyone like the O.P. to actually accept this idea.. I've been to sooo many MMO's where people say "play what you like" and I end up constantly dying, being shut out of content, and being a drag on my team because "what I like" happens to be a "trash build" that other players just wouldn't be drawn to in the first place. There are certainly going to be Blaster builds that don't perform as well as other Blasters, but Blasters over-all are in a good place and even their "bad" Powersets can be used in end-game.

Even if I believed that statement, the racism that does exist in America today would probably not want to be linked to "Nazis". Just as there are many fascists other than Nazis, there are also many racists other than Nazis. This is kinda why I can't believe it matters if the 5th column are "Nazis". Evil is evil no matter what you call it.

Wow? Really? Didn't know anyone actually cared that much about whether the villains they're fighting are Nazi's, or just run of the mill, all purpose, fascists. Even the "proof" that you linked only mentioned the word "Nazi" once.. and it's not in regard to the modern beliefs of the 5th column. That article DOES say "formed in 1938 by the fascists Requiem, Vandal, and Nosferatu, The 5th column is an organization that has gone through a great deal of change." I mean.. that's literally the opening line. If it makes you feel any better, many of the missions against the 5th column are time/dimension travel missions, in which the fifth column is still apparently supporting Nazi or Nazi-esqu structures. To Paraphrase the quote from Wreck-it Ralph "Just because someone isn't a bad guy, doesn't mean their not bad-guys".

your logic is astounding, how could I possibly argue?

Just doing some quick searches.. Fifth column is described as "Fascist" and the organization was, at least involved with, if not born out of the German army in WW2. That said, I'm not sure that we're meant to see them as racist.. I feel like they're kind of modeled after HYDRA. If we follow that example, HYDRA was led by a Nazi (The Red Skull) in WW2, but was eventually taken over by Baron Von Strucker. Von Strucker worked with the Nazi's in order to achieve his own goals, but didn't really espouse Nazi values. The Organization was then taken over by the Original Madame Hydra (Viper), who had no relations to Nazis at all. Eventually she forms her own criminal/terrorist empire and rejoins Hydra as part of it's ruling "council".. at this point Hydra is some kind of association of criminal/terrorist organizations rather than being "Nazi". So I think we're meant to see 5th column as an organization that evolves like that, rather than seeing them as always being Nazi. Realistically though.. it was probably using a random model.

I'm the one who made the poll and I assure you I'm not disregarding them. I don't personally want to acknowledge the numbers too much in this thread, because talking about poll results while a poll is taking place can skew the results of the poll. There's already been several votes and replies (Thank you everyone!), so I'm not that worried about it now, I've mentioned the results in some other discussions I was having, but I don't want to dwell on them here in case anyone else still wants to vote. So I assure you I'm aware of the results and they've been helpful in other discussions, which was the intent. So "no", people aren't be "disregarded". Also please note that the last couple of posts have been about explaining my thought process when I posted the poll. Some people have seemed to think I wanted to "pull some down so others could feel better" (no.. I had thoughts to lift people back up as well). Some people complained the poll was supporting a "Blanket untargeted nerf".. No.. The poll in itself doesn't support anything.. I think the fact that one of the options mentioned a nerf but never specified what the nerf would be was taken out of context by some, so I felt the need to clarify that I was thinking about targeted nerfs along with targeted buffs in order to achieve a specific effect. Basically, I'm trying to answer questions about why the poll exists in the first place, why it is as it is etc.. I'm giving my thought process for asking the question, not making any new arguments.. everything that I mentioned in the last 3 posts or so is about what I was thinking, not about what I am thinking or what I think others should be thinking.. stuff like that should be beyond the scope of this discussion, at least for me. (as the "neutral interviewer")

Not pointless. It makes the poll one tool.. I've also asked similar questions in game, but I don't really feel I can get a good sample size in game and I only tend to ask people when I'm grouped with them, so they might know me too well before they answer.. in other words results there would be skewed as well. In social science you do what you can to keep results from being skewed, but you also have to realize that complete elimination of bias in any one study is impossible, which is why "good" results need to be based on several studies.

SR still has the thing where the res gets higher as their health drops.. one reason I decided to go ahead and make the SR tankers tp begin with.. it simply doesn't help enough at low levels. How could SR be a "late bloomer" though, when it's the late/end game in which SR loses much of the advantage they would have in tanking.. when defense becomes soft-capped by everyone and SR is still lacking the resistance that other armor sets have? True, the game isn't balanced around level 10's with training enhancements.. and doing so probably shouldn't be a very high priority. Honestly, I'm probably going to take weave anyway, largely because it's in the same powerset as tough. This brings in something else though.. and I don't really want to call it a "problem" it's more of a fact that I think contributes to some problems. That being that there's very little mechanical reason for most characters to take most pool powersets.. and I feel this is as things should be.. Pool powers should be taken to give the character more.. well.. character. The "problem" as I see it is that defense powers are the clear outliers here. Take a look at Medicine.. I could see people taking it if their character is meant to be a doctor who heals people through actual medicine rather than super-powers/magic.. It seems like it should be very useful (and I think it once was).. the people who buy it probably look for every opportunity to actually use it and they likely find some opportunities.. It's not an inherently "bad" powerset but do you think people really take medicine powers anywhere near as often as they take Hover, Combat Jumping, Weave, Tough, and even Maneuvers? I don't know the numbers, but I don't really get that impression as I've never seen anyone actually use any medicine powers. and how do you buff medicine in order to make it worthwhile if the basic issue is that no one really needs healing? Presence is another powerset that I'm concerned about. It actually has a survival power in it (Placate.. really some controls as well) and still I don't see many builds using this powerset. It also has a taunt.. At one point I thought this would be a super great powerset for my sentinels, because I could use taunt when I want to grab an enemy that's heading toward the "squishies" on my team and I could use Placate if I'm about to get overwhelmed, turns out it's not so great.. but that's okay because no one needs an off-tank anyway. so if I want to make my character to be "charismatic", Leadership is the obvious choice over presence.. because leadership does something valuable and presence doesn't. I would want to make suggestions to buff presence, but would any of that matter if no one needs me to taunt things off of them.. and for my part I have no particular need for placate? So basically with "Ninja run", I don't "need" any movement powers. I don't "need" Presence or medicine. I'm still kinda testing sorcery and experimentation.. (so far I think people notice the buff from experimentation, but not so much the sorcery buffs) the only powers that people "need" from the Pool are the +defense powers and tough. (and these are always in theme, because everyone pictures their characters as not dying when one little thing goes wrong.) So we need to have our pool powers be either equally impactful, or equally non-impactful so that people can make all of their choices for theme reasons.. we don't have that in pool powers right now.

admittedly I don't know much. I have an SR tanker that I made a few weeks back (actually I made 2), but I really don't feel good about playing them. The SR/Savage tanker is only level 12 right now. (the other has /MA, I still haven't really played). I tried actually tanking with her in DFB (I realize that one isn't a good test at all) and then I did some solo stuff.. she's okay there.. just kinda slow. The I tried to tank in Posi 1.. First mission, First Mob, she dropped in less than 5 seconds. The party wiped, we came back and tried again (after my team slipped me some def and res inspirations).. I died again, and so did a few others in the group. we all got up and rested, On the second mob I died again.. So I can say in all honesty there's no way I'm ever going to figure out what end game tanking is like when the leveling experience is so atrocious and the best I have to look forward to be is being "almost as good" as some other tanks for "some content". That's not what I envision as being "No Trinity". If it were just a matter of "trying a little harder" while leveling to get a character that's "genuinely good" at something in the end game.. But it's not. It's "dying on every pull" in order to eventually get to be "almost as good". More importantly, I let my team down. They figured they'd be okay with any team-mate.. they were wrong, because the game isn't actually designed that way, no matter how much we all want it to be.

I'm going to get into the debate a little more, because I feel like the thread has gone on enough now that A) we probably won't get too many more votes quickly and b) enough discussion has been had that people whoever does decide to vote still may already have their opinion swayed, if they were so inclined. I'm not having an argument.. I'm having a discussion (with the difference being that I'm wondering about a point, not trying to prove a point).. and I've already included "Crowd Control" and "Damage" as possible "defenses". So let's say "Batman" is a soft-capped stalker.. I guess we're assuming that "Superman" is a Invulnerability Tanker, who can probably get his defense soft-capped as well, and still end up being much tougher (having better health/resists) than Batman. Now on one hand you say that Batman having such high defenses doesn't effect anyone but Batman himself.. on the other hand you say that "Keeping him healthy (is) easier for healers/buffers if he's teamed with such people." So Batman's survivability does have an impact on his team. Note here though.. Keeping him healthy might be easier, but does that mean the game is easier? Or does it simply mean that healers and buffers (and also CCers and Debuffers) get to spend less time healing and buffing? and presumably people picked classes that have heals and buffs because they want to heal and buff. (But I'm also making an assumption there, perhaps we need another poll about what people actually want/expect from each AT.. or maybe there is one?) But I feel what you said here also raises another potential problem. Batman can't tank certain content, so Superman is still needed.. but not all tanks (ideally) are Superman. I would LOVE to make a Super Reflexes tank.. but such a tank has the same limitations as Batman (albeit a little more health) and therefore also can't tank that content. Now if everyone else's survival is so good that they don't need a tank in the first place, then maybe that really IS the answer.. but it doesn't exactly make the poor SR tank feel "god-like" does it? One of the things we all love about this game is that anybody can play whatever they want.. except it just isn't true. I want to play an SR Tanker and still feel "god-mode". The reason I asked the question is not because I want people to feel lessened, but instead I'm wondering if things might be so out of balance here that changes could made without people really noticing a powerlevel difference. If "Batman's" defenses are lowered (generally), but certain other changes are made to other AT's, with an eye to making them more supportive, Batman still doesn't die and other AT's/Powersets get to do what they're designed to do. In fact, Batman might even get to feel better because, while non-dps classes are spending time doing what they do, Batman gets to spend more time watching giant crit numbers pop up on his screen. (so the less dps focused characters can.. well.. focus less on dps, which allows the more focused dps characters to do more damage) Furthermore.. when I say his defenses might be lowered "generally", what I'm really thinking is doing something like, lower Batman's defenses most of the time.. but maybe buff his stealth defenses (either by changing the numbers or finding a way for Batman to spend more time stealthed or both.) The idea being that Batman would actually get better at quick "In and out" attacks on his own and, with the help of his team he wouldn't necessarily lose anything should he get stuck in combat a little too long. Similarly I want controller/dominators to survive the initial stages of a fight better on their own. Instead of having everyone with soft-capped defenses all the time, I picture people having better defenses (or survivability or whatever) under certain occasions, while perhaps being more reliant on a team to cover the rest of the time.. But even in "the rest of the time" I don't want any one type of team-mate to be necessary.. perhaps a Sentinel or scrapper might be able to off-tank, but a controller or dom could control the mobs or Buff/debuff classes could do what they do. In solo content, a controller/dom who can survive the initial stages of combat better on their own, would have more time to establish control.. therefore they might actually find soloing easier. A Stalker who has an easier time getting in and out of combat might also be able to get in, assassin strike, and get out easily enough that they too would feel better in solo content (Not that I've had any trouble soloing with stalkers so far) Exactly, and this is one reason why I'm hoping people can have this discussion without any fear of how what they say might impact the game. The Homecoming staff aren't few and they're volunteers. The absolute best we could hope for is that they'll find this poll to be fun and informative. I fully admit that change could be bad. The Homecoming team has no reason to think about the players.. either how big the player-base is or how happy we are. Ultimately they're doing all of this for them and we're just happy they chose to share it with us. So I hope this means we can all just talk honestly, without worry (but perhaps still some thought toward) what mistakes might be made or anything like that). This is one reason that I hope we can all try to appreciate each others' points of view. On to MasterMinds: I'm glad you were able to do that.. I was kind of wondering how good of a farmer a Master Mind could be. It may surprise you to know, though, as we speak there's a thread on the MM forums about whether MM's deserve to have their (non-pet) powers cost more endurance than everyone elses'. Apparently, someone who had some authority actually thought that MM's were over-powered and artificially increased their endurance costs. Honestly though, my concern wouldn't be "Is this overpowered".. my concern is more about "would it matter to me if I get teamed with a Brute, a scrapper, or a Mastermind?".. "When I'm deciding which of my 50 some-odd characters to play, do I skip over some character because I'll have more trouble soloing, or I might not get into a team?" stuff like that.. Or even "Why did I bother making this Thugs/PD Mastermind, knowing full well that PD is useless." Ideally, I don't want anyone to doubt whether they're "playing the right character". Back to Stalkers: There's a thread in the Stalker Froums (and I believe a similar scrapper thread) about "silly Stalker Tricks".. yes, some stalkers can solo some AV's.. but again it's not really about "Can stalkers do this" as much as it's about "Can every type of stalker do this?" Are AT's and powersets really as interchangeable as everyone says they are? I can understand the "everyone is immortal, so it doesn't matter what anyone else plays" argument.. but honestly, that bucket has holes in it. Not every character concept is immortal, so if I'm playing one of those "less immortal" concepts, suddenly I'm the one who has to be worried about who else is in my group. and this is only discussing the defense side of things.. do you have any idea how many people don't play "knockback" concepts because they're likely to get kicked out of teams? I've been writing this post too long already, so I'm just gonna stop here for now. Hopefully people can see that what I was thinking about isn't a total nerf, but is more of a restructuring.

As I mentioned, I consider cc/offense/defense/debuffs/buffs/whatever, to all be tied into "defenses". I can't ask about "survivability" though, because I'm not really asking about how often people die either. So I'm struggling with the terminology, and I sincerely apologize for confusion stemming from that. I guess what I'm trying to get at though, is this: DOES every AT actually have it's place, or are some AT's "stepping on the toes" of others? I get that people "want to feel like Superman".. You know who else "Wants to feel like Superman".. well.. a lot of people, to be honest.. but mostly I'm thinking about Batman. I'm mostly thinking about Batman because Batman actually does it. Now Superman is super-strong, has laser-eyes and cold-breath and can do tons of damage.. but his role in the JLA is mostly to draw attention.. He's a Tank. Very few people on the team are as durable as Superman.. Then you have Batman.. he's a normal dude.. very few people on the JLA are as feeble as Batman.. Batman still manages to solve a lot of problems for the JLA.. in fact he's often the one to accomplish missions while Supes is drawing all the aggro, so Bats undeniably has his place (He's the team's stalker). But then something crazy happens.. Batman decides that Superman "Is too powerful for his own good". so Batman creates the Multi-environment Armored Bat-suit.. suddenly Batman is a stalker with the survivability of the team's tank.. only no one actually focuses on Batman, so Batman becomes FAR more survivable than Superman. Of course the Blaster (Green Arrow) sees this and calls foul. There's no reason that another "normal human" should be every bit as survivable as Superman while Green Arrow shouldn't be.. so Green Arrow.. I dunno.. steals some secret ritual from the league of shadows in order to make himself un-killable or something.. now the blaster is every bit as survivable as batman, who is every bit as survivable as superman.. So uh.. What is Superman doing here again? What did people notice happen when tanks weren't able to aggro as many mobs.. did the game actually get harder? (I don't know, I hadn't come back long before the change) Did people die more? Did everyone start stacking more defenses to compensate.. or did people simply have to use the defenses that they had more? In other words, reducing aggro could have been a "nerf" to tanks.. but do any tanks now complain about "Not being gods" because of it? Or is it possible that certain other classes are just feeling "more like gods" because their defense powers, controls, and support actually make more of a difference now? But then something else I don't want to lose track of: We discuss teams a lot, but Solo matters too. In their solo stories most Super-heroes seem much better, largely because the stories are tailored to their strengths and weaknesses. As is, I feel like many characters in CoH, even those who may be great in teams, just don't have a lot of solo potential. Force Fields are obvious here, since their powers generally can't be used on themselves or prevent them from effecting others, but this isn't really a factor for a Bubbler, because many people are "immune" to bubble buffs anyway, Making a controller or dom more survivable in solo content by, say, giving them a way to increase their survivability through the first 5-10 seconds of a fight, could effect the group dynamics, however.

One of the fantastic things about CoX was that it already took into account how many players were going into a mission and what their level was.. at least as much as it could. This is part of the reason that I don't think changes would necessarily effect survivability/difficulty, because those are already alterable in the game.

Yes, which Is why I mentioned in the first post that I know the answer would be very nuanced.. to high in some cases, not enough in others, etc.

To me, this is actually very applicable to defense.. if a character never needs to rely on their defense stat because they either kill things so fast, or control things so well, or whatever.. those characters still have good defenses. Perhaps it's been a bit confusing, but when I was asking these questions I didn't mean to dwell on Defense stat, nor do I think that having a general change in defense means changing survivability or difficulty, should those changes involve both targeted and seriously thought out "buffs" and equally target and thought out "nerfs". I made this poll when I realized another discussion I was having I was afraid to make a suggestion because, my assumption was that many people are here for a sense of nostalgia and, even if they think something in the game is unbalanced, they may not want it changed. But I don't like to have my discussions be guided by nothing but assumptions and mysticism, so I figured I'd just ask people for their opinions. The results here aren't meant to cause anything to happen in game, but are only meant to inform discussions that people (including myself) might be having here on the forums. So that everyone knows, I've helped in the design of tabletop games before (technically I've made some games myself, but never sold those), but I know nothing about computer programming. I have no relationship to the Homecoming team, so I don't really know how they would feel about any changes, big or otherwise.. I only hope that if any of them decide to read this thread they'll just find the discussion to be pleasant and enlightening.. However they aren't the target audience.. forumites are the target audience. And once again, Thank you to everyone who's participating.