Zect

Both the storm pets are untargetable. You can always rely on the old stadbys of ageless and your alpha slot (cardiac or vigor, depending on how much you need acc) to resolve end issues. However, well-played stormies often still run short on end. There is simply no getting around the fact that its powers are extremely costly. If you want end, why is there no numina's unique in your build? There is a guide to maximizing recovery using the health/stamina procs and uniques on a very limited slot budget. Consult it here. This is your build with vengeance turned off: You have an absolutely pitiful amount of recharge, nonexistent survivability, no coherent mitigation strategy, and too many endurance-hungry powers. You need focused, informed build goals and more directed effort towards areas that will improve your build: recharge and preferably some form of defense (since you're not taking soul drain nor have any melee-centric pbaoe powers, ranged is the easiest to build for). A stormie is defined by freezing rain, lightning storm and tornado. It displays its full potential only with permahasten+ levels of rech (~175% or more global rech) allowing it to shit out nearly 3x lightning storms and 2x tornadoes nearly permanently while double-stacking freezing rains on foes. It is absolutely critical that you increase your amount of global rech rather than putzing around getting minute amounts of exotic resistances that will not ultimately increase your survival by much. It will not be easy to fit enflame into your build, since it is very costly on power choices. The easiest option, in terms of reaching recharge goals, is to drop teleportation for sorcery. In that case a possible build might drop SJ, Teleport Target and Assault to take 3x sorcery powers including enflame. However, this does cost you the ability to port singie around with teleport target. Another option might be to drop Leaping instead. However the loss of an lotg mule essentially costs you 7.5% rech and a substantial amount of defense - 60% of a steamy mist's worth. It is up to you to decide which you value more. Controller ST holds should be 6x damage procced where possible. Slotted like this, they are the highest-dpa attack most controllers have access to, even competitive with good attacks from dps AT's In your case, since you have the apoc set in another of your ST blasts, you can also consider 5x damage procs and 1x frankenslotting: neuronic shutdown, GW embrace, gladiator's net, unbreakable constraint, 2x gladiator's javelin (proc and A/D). Will of the controller can go in your aoe hold instead. It's not recommended to put the full set in Wormhole, because the damage proc cancels the ability of wormhole to not alert enemies. This should be 5x decimation for the recharge bonus (alternately, thunderstrikes for ranged defense is also a good choice, depending on how much rech and def you have). Note that the decimation proc is very underwhelming anyway. It's only a 1 PPM proc, and has a duration of only 5.25s. It is rarely worth slotting on its own, especially on low-damage scale AT's. You have many 3x and 4x purple and winter sets like this, seemingly only for the 6% F/C res bonus. You don't need to go out of your way to accrue 6% F/C res bonuses; you will naturally get 4-5 of them just from purple sets if you are making a recharge-centric build, as you absolutely should be. Furthermore, you already have a hilariously overcapped amount of cold res (88%, capped at 75%). Unless you are farming enemies that only deal cold damage for some reason, a focus on ranged def + S/L res provides more survivability against a wider spectrum of enemies. Why is there no LotG global here? The D/E is not necessary as this power does not use a significant amount of end. Dropping the D/E loses only 0.36% def to all while saving a slot. Controller aoe immobs are usually 1) proc-bombs or 2) grav anchor mules, rarely enfeebled operation mules if you need S/L def desperately. In this case, you don't need a proc-bomb as you should have decent aoe damage already with your storms, water spouts, and tornadoes. Adding just 1 slot and changing the slotting to 5x grav anchor would gain a huge amount of recharge and acc. An alternative middle ground is 5x posiblasts (all but D/rech), giving a good rech bonus, 1 damage proc and a good amount of damage enhancement; especially worth considering if you are already capped on 10% rech bonuses. Freezing rain needs a high amount of recharge to bring its recharge time as close to 15s as possible so you can double-stack it. I love how you have -res procs out the wazoo but somehow not double-stacked freezing rain. Double-stacking freezing rain on hard targets gives guaranteed extra -res. Forgoing rech bonuses and rech enhancements here, only to slot -res procs elsewhere, is paying pounds to pinch pennies. 5x bombardments is a better option to pick up a rech bonus while also gaining high recharge enhancement (and even a damage proc). You can still fit an achiles' proc in the 6th slot if you really want. This is funny because I've never seen someone go out of their way to avoid useful set bonuses before. Specifically, the 5% recharge from 4x DWD in this case. 4x DWD boosted to +5 (all except R/E and the proc) would gain a 5% rech bonus while offering superior -tohit and endredux enhancement. You may also consider skipping hurricane entirely, since modern builds can muster enough def that you are less dependent on the -tohit and -range from hurricane, and things die quickly enough in the current meta that you don't really have a lot of time to corral them. Hurricane is not a bad power, but there are successful stormies that skip it. You will likely not have enough end to run assault. Tactics is useful, however on your build, skipping it (or at least running it situationally - you may not be able to afford to loss of vengeance as an lotg mule) may be a net gain. You already have -def from freezing rain making the tohit from tactics less critical. Look at the base endurance costs of your powers. Tornado is 20 end. Waterspout is 26 (!!) end. Lightning storm is 31 end. You do not have the end to run 3 leadership toggles, hurricane, steamy mist, enflame, and still shit out freezing rains and lightning storms as a good stormie ought to be doing. Something from this list (likely multiple things) will have to go. If you are certain you want enflame no matter what, then the most obvious candidates are one or more leadership toggles and/or hurricane. Changing this to 5x absolute amazement would give a large rech and acc bonus while replacing one of your precious 6% FC res bonuses from elsewhere. You do not need the 8% mez enhancement bonus from Underwhelming Absence since unlike dominators (which are really balanced around domination), controller aoe mezzes generally have good base durations. As for the ST mezzes, just cast them again. The FF proc in a long-recharge power like wormhole is not bad, but does not make a huge difference. FF proc shines in a fast-recharging aoe power, say foot stomp, where it can be maintained with high uptime. In a long-recharge aoe power such as this, you may consider it a luxury. Why are these not boosted? To input boosted IO's in mids, right-click on the slot, select the IO, press + on the numpad to boost, then place as usual. These uniques are really designed for masterminds, for whom losing pets is costly (both the lost dps from the dead pet and having to resummon and re-upgrade the new one). Your lightning storm and tornado are untargetable, and if singie dies, just re-summon it. A much better slotting is 4x expedient reinforcement for a recharge bonus. This should be 5x ragnaroks for the recharge bonus. -res procs are luxuries, but you can still fit one in the 6th slot if you really want. Note that the water spout does knockback. Some people put a KB2KD in it for this reason, though as a controller you can also use your aoe immob to control the knockback. The performance shifter proc gives +end to the caster of the power. It will not give you end when the lightning storm fires, but when you summon it, so it is somewhat less effective than it seems. The KB2KD is a worthy choice in this power, but the rest of Overblown Farce is not. Consider thunderstrikes or apocs in here, mixing and matching pieces to max out rech enhancement. If you are going for defense as the GA +3% def suggests, why is there no steadfast +3% def anywhere in your build? (The latter even gives res enhancement while the former does not.) If you want def, pick a defense vector (ranged, S/L, all) and target (usually 32.5%, 40% or 45%) and build for that. Random uniques and miniscule bonuses, without coordinated effort, are not better than placebo. Tornado notably takes expedient reinforcement (despite not being a targetable pet). 4x expedients 1x frankenslotting (to max out rech) and optionally a KB2KD is an easy way of picking up some much-needed rech.

MA's biggest selling point is its +def all power. It also has good low-level aoe for a tanker, although it can no longer laugh as hard at Inv/SS tanks who used to wait till level 38 (lmao) before getting foot stomp. So the two approaches that come to mind would be to either pair it with 1) a high-damage armor set that needs survivability, or 2) a pure resist set that will benefit from having another layer of mitigation. Fiery aura ticks both boxes. Just take your SR concept and say you're moving so fast, you're on fire.

I find Posi 1 rarely worth doing with pugs. The chances of getting unintelligent players with no idea how to do the last mission is simply too high; most players lack situational awareness to avoid the unecessary mobs, pay attention to the location of the team, or notice when and where new spawns are engaged. They then have the temerity to accuse others of "rushing ahead". My friend, if you're still trying to fight a random ruin mage with your unslotted (of course) powers while the rest of us have already freed the 4 heroes and arrived at city hall, because you have neither eyes to see we've left nor a jetpack to follow, we're not rushing forwards; you're rushing backwards.

You're completely correct. Tanks have been repeatedly buffed to placate the dps-heavy meta, to the point that in many cases they now have a more optimal ratio of survivability : offense than brutes do. You're also completely correct that the right solution is to nerf tanker damage. Specifically, they should not have 0.95 melee damage scale (increased from 0.80). That is far too high and there is no world in which an armored AT with tanker defenses should have 95% of a blaster's base melee damage.

Of all the problematic suggestions in your list, this is by far the most awful one of all. This is going to disproportionately benefit powersets/AT's that can slot sets from many different categories, and harm powersets/AT's that can slot a much narrower variety of sets and/or have a limited number sets available in their categories. Your changes will result in a different meta, but not a more diverse one. Basically, your vision will force different sets to be present in a build, but you will have shrunk the overall size of the design space for making builds. You make the same mistake that a lot of players do: assuming that just because something is less common means it is problematic. While there are duds in the IO system, many of the 1st-generation sets in particular, in general it's not an issue that some sets are only worth slotting in very niche cases, nor is it a big problem that 90% of builds contain 5x lotg's (which is really an issue with power pool balance, not the lotg itself) and a miracle. Lotg's and purples provide low-hanging recharge bonus fruit. They are a strong counterbalance to turtle builds for armor sets that dump everything into def and res - basically an attempt to reward not completely minmaxing for survivability. The same can be said of the res uniques and +3 def uniques - they are basically an enticement away from dumping every single slot into +rech. Miracles, or more accurately the ability to not slot a miracle proc on some very high recovery builds, allows such builds to convert excess end into slots. These are all different levers that a skilled build designer can tweak tailor a build to specific goals; your suggestions will not only result in a smaller number of levers, but a narrower range over which they can be pushed. I encourage you to modify a mids' database with your proposed changes and see how they pan out in reality and how builds are potentially affected.

The basics (permahasten, 3x LS, soul drain) have been mentioned, so I'll just fill in the missing details and correct some misconceptions. Hurricane is no longer a set defining power. It was in the days of live, but with the levels of def, rech and damage power creep has given us on Homecoming, it is no longer as central to the build as it once was, even with a KB2KD. Corraling trash in a corner is cool where the terrain permits, but the trade off is that while you're maneuvering to use hurricane you are not blasting, resulting in DPS loss. And you don't usually want to repel the enemies, you want them tightly clustered where your rains and storms and soul drain shred them. It is still useful, but there are also successful stormies that do not take it. I consider it playstyle-dependent. The set-defining power is freezing rain. It's a knockdown patch, it debuffs res and def, and it can be doublestacked on AV's to really melt them. You can never go far wrong with a quickly recharging freezing rain. Whether to take soul drain, and which version of it to take, will define your build goals for you. If you take the one from dark mastery which costs 3 power slots, you don't have a lot of room to play with things like thunderclap. You need to skip almost everything that can be skipped to afford all the powers in that case. You also should consider melee def if you are taking soul drain, and especially if you solo - melee def will help a lot in getting a highly-saturated drain. Well-designed storm corrs can cap 45% to melee + ranged, or 40% to all 3 defenses (using a defense amp to softcap - but note that the amp does not work on anything above 2*), on top of high recharge. I don't post my builds since I consider it unsporting; but there is a nice water/cold build thread on this forum that you should be able to consult for ideas as to how to build; they are both sets with a defense aura and strive for similar levels of def/rech.

Define "good". What criterion do you use for gauging performance? What are the metrics for each? Determine those, then we can start talking about good and bad.

If they tell you it's bad, they do not have a deep understanding of the game.

The biggest con would be that further buffing teleport powers adds to power creep in the game, which is already one of the most serious issues the game faces. Teleport only recently received a buff by having TP friend and foe consolidated into one power, and an excellent new power added - fold space. It is currently very balanced. That said, your suggestion also contains two ill-informed assumptions that are worth taking a further look at: The low popularity of teleport powers is a problem that must be solved. On the contrary, it is beneficial for the game to offer situational powers, or powers that appeal to a minority of players with different playstyles. This increases the diversity of gameplay and hence, the fun and replay value of the game. Making teleport as popular as the other pools would inevitably entail some degree of homogenization, which is a loss for all involved. Combat teleport being a separate power from teleport is the main cause of this low popularity. The main reason why teleport is disfavored in the current meta is the lack of a +def power to help softcap and mule lotg's. That's why the default pool setup is speed, fighting, and any 2 of leaping/flight/leadership. Adding +def to any of Teleport's powers would in turn run into the two issues I have already mentioned, i.e. power creep and homogenization. All told, a terrible suggestion.

I love how in the middle of a post allegedly about being kind, you drop this hilariously hypocritical and self-serving double standard. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If it's OK for one person to be PL'ed, then it's also OK for every other person to be PL'ed. Anything else is discrimination, favoritism or elitism, depending on who's involved and how it's done.

Often, people conflate kindness with niceness or pleasantness. And while there may be overlap in the venn diagrams of these circles, they are far from identical. Personally, I have nothing against kindness, niceness, nor pleasantness. However, I do think people should communicate their needs more clearly. Don't ask people to be kind if you really just want them to be nice or pleasant (which is often a smaller ask anyway).

Personally, I'm delighted that winter packs are not discounted this year. The tears on the faces of people who were given no less than 3 years to profit off this event with no limitations whatsoever have been hilarious - truly, a wonderful Christmas gift from Homecoming. In fact, the only better change would've been if the devs had announced that winter packs are permanently discounted to 15 million... on Jan 1, 2021. Not only would new players benefit going forward, the speculators' dreams of making bank would evaporate! A missed opportunity, Homecoming team.

The first half of this statement is correct. However, note that this has not stopped characters with no ddr, like unarmored AT's, from building for defense, and with good reason. The defense absorbs alpha strikes, after which everything is dead, mezzed, or debuffed into the floor. It serves as a buffer that delays being defense floored. (if you have played a pure res set with no def, you'll know how much more a swarm of cims hurt after the first few seconds, once they have put your def into the negatives and have 95% chance to hit you.) It helps support toons softcap you - you need over 100% def to softcap vs HM nictus romulus, since he has tactics. So the second half of your statement is a hilarious misconception. It is like saying that a decoy flare on an aircraft is useless because it only kills one enemy missile. It did its job, my man. It (and the mobs) can R.I.P. I do think, though, that you should not pawn firstborns just to softcap. It is not worth it when a more well-rounded build with even resistances and high recharge performs better, defensively and offensively. Hence the entire point of my post - as elaborated above.

My recommendation is 1) to leave "slack" in the build that can be easily made up for through means other than set bonuses; 2) pursue high global rech, well-slotted aoe attacks, and powerful damage procs in addition to mitigations for both superior defensive and offensive power; and 3) build for a more balanced res spread (notably, minimizing or eliminating the energy hole - not easy, since EN is the hardest res type to build for, but possible. The choice of 2ndary is not especially significant, and nothing here is specific to SS. As I said, the same build design principles can broadly be applied regardless of melee powerset. I'm using dark/SS/soul as an example because it is the build I have on this device. And to turn your "lock the build to barrier" comment on its head, after I've clearly discussed two options from which you pick one, it's worth considering what other destiny you might take in its place, destinies being predominantly defensive anyway and barrier being an extremely strong one (imo, overpowered) in the current meta. I can get out my dark/dark, whenever I find it. But that won't convince you of anything if you don't want to be convinced. I encourage you to develop an open and flexible mind, and rather than being defensive and nitpicking, try to see the general principle being illustrated here, even if the specifics in the example differ slightly from the subject at hand. That principle being, when you chase 1 particular set bonus to an extreme, you typically lose some slot-efficiency for various reasons, such as running out of powers that can slot the most optimal sets of the types you want. Your build has about 6% more melee def and 6.5% more FC res. Mine has 12% more EN res and 45% more rech. (Oh, and darkest night.) Sometimes, you can actually get more out of a build overall, if you are willing to not rely entirely on set bonuses to cap def/res and divert those resources to pick up low-hanging recharge bonus fruit. I present the idea of deliberately undercapping slightly, and then utilizing the option of using either the amp or barrier core, whichever better suits your preferences. In fact, you may find that often, neither are needed because, as you may have noticed, they are only needed to cap E/F/C. (I do commend you for having non-negligible aoe output and a hecatomb, though. You clearly understand that damage has value on tankers.)

I feel like I'm pointing out the blindingly obvious here, but many people assume winning costume contests is about having a good costume, when it's not. It's about appealing to the judging panel's taste. If you care about winning, as opposed to having a good costume, then find out the judges' taste. Look at past contests they've judged, and try to discern a style or common thread amongst the winners. I seem to recall an SG on Everlasting that used to hold weekly costume contests and posted the results here. Most of the winners were classic full-body tights costumes, especially muscled tights on women. That should be an easy win for anyone who cares to do their research. On the other hand, if you care more about the validation of having someone else say your favorite costume is good, costume contests don't seem like the place to go. The chance of losing is much greater than that of winning, unless you specifically entered a contest whose judges share your sense of taste - see above. Random compliments from passersby would seem to deserve more weight than cc's in this regard - after all, when someone holds a costume contest, they are obligated to pick a winner even if nothing on display tickles their fancy (I suspect this is the reason behind some of the very unconventional winners - at least it was when I ran them). On the other hand, nobody is obligated to strike up a convo with a stranger.

I don't like any of the builds that have been posted in this thread. To me they all suffer from a number of common flaws: Low energy res: Energy damage is common. It is more important to cap energy than it is to cap F/C/toxic/psi res (unless specializing for specific groups, eg. fire farming). Low (<130% global) recharge: One of them does not even take hasten until the late 40's. Low recharge means lower dps and less frequent uses of key buffs. No perma-souldrain means poor offensive power, yoyoing tohit chance and dark regen missing when you need it most. Poor aoe: A lot only have shadow maul as the only strongly-enhanced, low-cooldown aoe. Many do not have an APP aoe. Here's an example of what is achievable with dark armor. This specific build is actually dark/SS/soul with cardiac alpha but the general building principles should apply to any 2ndary. These are stats with 1 stack of might of the tanker +res proc. The key concept is to leave defense 5% undercapped and res between 6.5-7.5% undercapped rather than push all the way to the cap due to diminishing returns on slot-efficiency the more you try to chase after a specific bonus. This missing def is made up with either a defense amp (which you should have in the thousands from opening super packs) or the weakest level of barrier core, both of which provide +5% res and def to all. The missing res is made up from the reactive defense scaling res (since as a res set we expect not to be at full HP all the time) plus a defense amp or barrier core. With either one of these active we have melee softcap, ranged/aoe 35%, all res hardcapped except toxic. The resulting build flexibility allows investment into APP attacks, aoe powers and global recharge, resulting in vastly superior defensive and offensive power with higher res and def, faster recharging heals and more quickly dying enemies. I'm feeding trash through a woodchipper of footstomp and dark oblit powered by doublestacked rage while nerfing the survivors with darkest night's synergistic -dmg -tohit. Why aren't you doing the same with perma-souldrain?

All good builds can active farm something. Softcapped defenses and resists work as well in AE as they do outside of it, and you don't need optimized builds to massacre farm mobs which are specifically designed to have zero difficulty. It's only AFK farming that needs optimizing, because you need to design something that works when you're not paying attention to it. The most interesting active farmer I played was definitely a fire/storm corr. Triple lightning storms shredding everything in sight will never get old.

As a card-carrying member of the Old Timer Minmax Mafia, and someone who enjoys procbombing builds in general, I will be extremely pleased if the PPM system is ever given a proper balance pass - along with many other broken aspects of the game, such as the interaction between power boost and certain +def powers. I wouldn't give up hope just yet, either; mere months ago, we saw the fixing of the infamous Burn procrate exploit, as well as a complete overhaul of defense typing, which overturned fundamental assumptions many IO builds depend on when softcapping. Minmaxers welcome these changes because they lead to greater build diversity, new build/slotting possibilities, and ultimately, even more replay value for the game. That said, like it or not, proccability is a major metric of a set's power ceiling. You may not enjoy utilizing the system, but it still needs to be mentioned in any discussion of a set's potential.

I think that before you embark on an analysis like this, you should first define what the purpose or purposes of a T9 is. Is it a recovery tool? Is it a wipe preventer? Is it meant to plug defensive weaknesses of the set? etc. Without first defining the purpose or purposes of a T9, asking for buffs is merely like a kid asking for candy - he will never say "enough" even though more is objectively bad for him. Personally, I think T9's should not be something that IO builds benefit from (including set muling possibilities, which should be removed where appropriate; muling is a powerful function that saves precious slots and/or offers access to sets not normally available; it should not be casually dismissed). IO builds are strong enough already, and further benefit to them simply worsens the pervasive power creep problem in the game. I think most old-style T9's from the Cryptic studios era, e.g. Unstoppable - should be designed to serve as a temporary power booster so that SO builds can, for a limited period, enjoy the same defenses as full-fledged IO/incarnate builds. This makes them attractive and very useful, without contributing to power creep. To this end they should: Ignore recharge enhancement (newer ones already do, but it should be applied to the ones that don't and their base recharge rebalanced around it) Be less than 60s duration, so that they cannot be cycled gaplessly with melee hybrid incarnate powers; Provide the same amount of defensive stats roughly available with an IO build Not provide different or unique benefits that an IO build would take advantage of So an example Tanker Unstoppable should be something like: ignores recharge enhancement, 300s recharge, 60s duration, +59% res to all including psi (which will bring an SO tanker to 90% res to all, with psi at ~82%). A good IO tanker isn't going to take this because IO builds on tankers already cap all resists. But it could still be useful for someone who is on SO's. One thing I think that can be safely removed from old T9's are the crashes. That is the part which you have correctly identified as belonging to an older era of CoX where design assumptions were different, namely, frequent resting between combat. I think they can be safely removed without worsening power creep; IO builds are still not going to take them, crash or no crash.

In order to sap effectively in CoX, you need to be able to wipe out enemies' blue bar ASAP, ideally much faster than you or the party can drain their red bar, otherwise you may as well just kill them; and keep their recovery severely debuffed, to delay their next end tick for as long as possible. Galvanic sentinel provides #2, but not #1; it is really there for solo fenders/corrs to bounce buffs and heals back on to themselves. In fact, nothing in elec affinity really provides #1; for this reason it is not a good sapping set, despite having elec in the name. Good sapping sets are sets such as kin (transference) or elec blast (short circuit, thunderous blast), backed up by things like power boost, charge up or clarion radial to massively boost end drain amounts to overcome high AV resistances. Right now, the only good sapping power in this so-called "sapping" build is power sink, which means your sapping power will be weak until fairly late, and venturing into melee to use it seems at odds with the focus on ranged defense. This build also has lackluster damage potential, due to a lack of damage procs and poor slot-efficiency. It is defensively very strong, but as far as doing things to affect the enemies goes, you'll have to lower your expectations.

Nobody knows, not even the person who coded it.

It's more of a selling point than ever. In the current meta where softcap is trivial and defense buffs ample, res/-res is very strong. If that is not a selling point, it's because of the overuse of -res/+res in support sets and the resultant homogenization of play experience - case in point, the recent addition of -res to FF, turning a balanced set into a significantly overpowered one. Neither pain nor therm give the caster mez protection, and while they do have a strong ST buff, they don't have an additional -res debuff that sonic has. However, your complaint about liquefy has merit. Not that the power is weak, but a 5 min base recharge is far too long, literally on the order of some armor set T9's. That kind of recharge is reserved for situational or last-resort powers that do not have a major influence on a powerset's core feel and contributes to the bland feel of sonic res. Liquefy should first be weakened by losing two or more of its effects; you really don't need a KD patch to also be an aoe hold and literally 3 different debuffs. Then, the recharge can be lowered to make the power more usable. I believe it should not be more than 145s base at most, same as most blast set nukes, or just barely within every-spawn uptime range for a permahasten build.

Export the full build (rather than just the datachunk) and I will take a look; I post intermittently from multiple devices some of which do not have the latest mids installed.

DP in competent hands is extremely powerful. It is one of the most proccable blast sets, with every power capable of slotting 5 or 6 non-unique damage procs (exception: Pistols takes 4 - for some reason it doesn't slot slow sets). Something like a DP/kin that caps damage on top of the procs and stacks massive -dmg from chem ammo and power siphon on enemies is a monster. If you do not design a procbombing build for it, then the dps is only average. Its "weakness" is really due to the current meta. It's a set without Aim, with a low base damage (but faster recharge) nuke, in a metagame that is largely about massive burst aoe damage. On blasters especially, if you do not pair it with a 2ndary that has a build up clone, you can't wipe screenfuls of mobs the way other blasters can, and that may lead to a misconception that the set is weak. The answer to this is to shake up the whole unfun mass-aoe meta.

The implication here seems to be that legacy sets are weak, while newer and/or paid sets are strong, but this could hardly be further from the truth. Fire blast is a legacy set. Invuln is a legacy set. Radiation emission is a legacy set. Dark miasma is a legacy set. Super strength is a legacy set. Storm summoning is a legacy set. Fire control is a legacy set. Dark armor, which you yourself claim has an edge over elec, is a legacy set for scrappers - so I guess the argument that a set needs buffs because it is a legacy set only gets cited when it works in favor of your argument, and swept under the rug when it does not. (These are all literally Issue 0 powersets.) All of the above have been pretty consistently strong throughout the IO era of CoH, too. Legacy != weak. In fact, very often, legacy = strong. No modern powerset would be designed with things such as perma-doublestacked Rage. Conversely, newer and/or paid sets are not necessarily good. Kinetic melee would be the big example; it underperforms by every metric that can be found and is quite possibly the only set of any category in the game that can justify asking for a buff. A somewhat older example is Dual Pistols (GR preorder exclusive set, later released for all players but added back to Paragon Market in i21). This set had low dps and torturously long animations for many issues. Repeated animation time buffs and finally the i24 PPM system rocketed it to becoming one of the strongest, especially on low damage scalar AT's. Yes, provided that number is 0. If elec receives defensive buffs (absorb or slow res), then its offense or other aspects of defense must be nerfed to maintain balance and avoid power creep. Any significant amount of absorb on a resist-hardcapped toon is massively powerful and would cause elec in its current state to become significantly overpowered. Elec has an edge in offensive power and build flexibility with its combination of damage aura, rech, infinite endurance + drain immunity, and higher base resists; these advantages have to be paid for somehow with weaknesses in other areas. Rad's procced-out powers come at the cost of build flexibility. Dark's soft controls and heals provide more variable performance depending on enemy debuff resists, mez protection and how well you roll on your tohit checks. The three sets are very well-balanced vs each other, once you take a holistic view of their strengths and weaknesses. Given your fixation on Energize's heal (which is not a quickly recharging click sustain a la integration or healing flames in any event, but rather a combo of endurance management power that also patches up chip damage), I think what we are seeing here is not a valid balance complaint, but merely a personal playstyle preference for armor sets with fast-recharging heals/absorbs. P.S. I love how you think dark's stealth allows one to "ignore" alphas but hardcapped resistance somehow does not. One wonders what, precisely, absorbs an alpha on the planet you live on.