Psi-bolt

Didn't most people survive by not playing sets and/or powers with KB? Personally, I tend to think that the KB to KD should just be a free power that you can buy at SMART that suppresses all your KB powers.

In the D&D campaign I am currently in, an Earth Elemental was hiding in a wall and got surprise on our Paladin with a smash. I'm all for Stalker Stone! I also think re: Tanker/Brute Ninjitsu that you would need to boot Blinding Powder. That could be a good place for a taunt aura though. If they wanted to be fancy you could do that silly thing they do no Naruto where they create Shadow Clones of themselves. It could be only a visual cue too, and just be a normal taunt aura otherwise.

Recognizing the issues with Rage discussed in your other thread, I still don't see why it would be a big deal to proliferate SS to Scrappers/Stalkers. Hand Clap obviously becomes Assassin's Blow/Smash/Knockout or whatever. I don't think you can just go with Build up, but it seems to me that a +DMG/+To-Hit toggle (so no crash) called something like "Focused Strength" with perhaps equal to-hit but much less damage buff (25-40%) could work.

That Stalkers don't have War Mace is really surprising since that's basically what Bane Spiders are. I do think thematically, Ninjutsu is a little silly for a Tanker/Brute. I'm all for silly, but the changes that would need to be made to that set for it to function as a Tanker would change the character of the set so much that it would be functionally no longer Ninjutsu.

Although it would devalue base portals a bit, I think just having an exit portal that goes everywhere a player has access to would work. Have that exit portal be off to the side somewhere. The entrance portal could stay the same.

Recently, I stopped using Mids, and just build the characters as I go. I also really pay attention to how they are doing in the content that I play the most (TFs). Outside of Tankers and Brutes who are soaking up damage, I've found that an excessive focus on min-maxing really makes a lot of characters less fun. Even focusing on damage can make a character less fun than they could be. It's a hard habit to break, but I think it's worth it because having dozens of soft-capped, max damage monsters is cool, but then you start to wonder why not just play one character; why keep building new characters if the concept always devolves into unkillable steamroller.

I think that's the key that I wasn't thinking about. I respecced into it, and added two procs and I like it a lot. I kept Aqua Bolt because I just like that animation more than Hydro. But liking the attack chain at present.

That's not what I'm asking for. I'm asking specifically for the TF to be shortened. I feel this way for the Shadow Shard TFs as well. As I have stated multiple times in the thread, I think TFs get the most engagement when they are 4-6 missions. A global accolade would greatly reduce the number of runs of Synapse. I want people to do Synapse. I just want Synapse to not have random filler. As for your comment about "good exp task forces," I guess I don't understand this. By what metric are we saying that Synapse is "good exp." The best exp TF for that level range is probably Positron 2. Two zones with most occurring in Faultline. Still have clockwork, but you have Lost, Vahz, and CoT as well. Shorter so you can crank up the difficulty without it taking two hours. Once you cross into level 20, Yin beats Synapse on exp per time spent by a lot given it occurs all in IP.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I think this is why both the reconstituted Positron TFs and Yin are so much better. Positron has always been about the three villain groups designs on the dam and that changes it up in both parts. With Yin, the break with the Council getting involved for...reasons is a nice interlude.

Question: why Dehydrate over Aqua Bolt? Or neither? Not a challenge, I'm thinking about my own Water/Marine build and I didn't really consider Dehydrate because of its cast time

I agree with you obviously on shortening the TF, but I wanted to comment on this. The great thing about this 21 year old game is that there is literally no end of stuff to do to level up. TFs, at least in my opinion, are opportunities to showcase major villains and their plots (Posi, Synapse, Manticore, LGTF), culminate stories (KHTF, ITF), and/or explore the lore (Moonfire). They give great exp since you're often on teams, but the teams running radio/paper missions are almost always available. Besides that Yin, is run much more often for exp than Synapse since most people don't sign up for that slog more than once per characters (outside of the WST).

I think having to do the whole Freedom Phalanx makes sense and the TFs are introductions to the members of the Freedom Phalanx, so I think it's fine to have to do them. I think it should be changed because all the old TFs should be changed. TFs should be no more than 6 missions or so. Citadel would absolutely be next on my list, if I were the devs. I mean the story of Synapse can be told in one sentence, "Stop the Clockwork King's plot to siphon power from Steel Canyon and defeat the King." Citadel can be described as "Stop Vandal's plot to use misuse Citadel's technology." Neither of those require 9-10 missions to accomplish. They were created in a time when there was a LOT less content. Basically none of the TFs that came later were built this way. See e.g. KHTF, the ITF, LGTF, etc.

This would be my preferred option too. Personally, I would just write a shorter snappier story ala the Yin TF that is 5 missions.

Who said anything about taking it away? You can still do the old Positron TF and the Sister Psyche TF in Ouro which functionally work exactly like doing a TF. Same with this. Streamline the TF, put the original in Ouro. The old one will still get done. I have personally run both the old Positron and Sister Psyche ones on multiple characters. But nearly every hero needs to do this TF for the accolade, so why not streamline it.

I think most Task Forces are best when they tell a tight story told in a reasonable (4-6) number of missions. The Freedom Phalanx TF series saw two of its TFs basically cut in half: Positron and Sister Psyche/Yin. This made both much more reasonable to jump in, play for an hour or less and then log off. I think we see that the shorter Task Forces get much more traction from players. Synapse and the Shadow Shard TFs are just extremely long slogs from a time where the devs thought a group of friends would treat them as a multi-session campaign. That's not how the game developed. As for comparing the other TFs, here are the number of missions in each of the Freedom Phalanx series: Positron Part 1 - 4 missions (No Defeat Alls) Positron Part 2 - 5 missions (No Defeat Alls) Yin - 4 missions (No Defeat Alls, but to be fair the pathing of the mission encourages kill most runs) Citadel - 9 missions (5 Defeat Alls) Manticore - 6 missions (2 Defeat Alls) Numina - 6 missions (1 Defeat All) The only one that is really comparable to Synapse is Citadel but you're dealing with higher level characters, a more reasonable villain group (Council) and the maps are shorter. Even then, I think that Citadel could lose 2-3 missions itself. That TF has you do a lot of running back and forth between IP and Talos.