Psi-bolt

Or Soldiers of Arachnos who get the added benefit of always available mez protection.

I think that this change requires a change in strategy. I confess that I found myself not liking it at first for a different reason than you posit here. In my case, I often would do 2-3 zones of explore badges at time. In leveling a character after this went live, I found myself having to do one zone then burn that patrol exp, rinse and repeat. I found that this actually wasn't so bad, but it does take a shift in thinking. I also recognize that not everyone keeps map mods on and can just grab the badges without looking for them so that might guide my thinking. To sum up, I think that this change isn't bad at all, but it's different. Like the change to require 10 badges for LRT. I didn't like that because it was a change, but in the main it wasn't a big deal. I think when people get used to how explore rewards work it will become second nature.

I don't know about you, but I've done that before knowingly because I hate respeccing level 50s so much that I have started a new character from scratch. Not one as invested as either of yours though. In fact, I'm in the middle of a new Night Widow to play the changes to the set.

Donated. Not sure if this is allowed under your license, but if there were a way to auto-donate, I would be down!

I've been listening to a podcast recently about the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany in the 1920-30s. The 5th Column are people who, with the hindsight of history, still ascribe to the views that led the world into chaos and led to tens of millions of deaths. I haven't played this contact, but if he's making you uncomfortable, then that's probably good writing.

For sets that had substantial changes like Force Field (for the better IMO), this would require a whole new set. Literally there would have to be a "Force Field" and "Legacy Force Field" set. Now if I could get the "Legacy Regeneration" set, I think this would be a go! 😁

This is a good idea. SWTOR did something similar by removing it's entry classes and allowing you to start in your final class right away. Was a good change there, would be good here. And 24 is a weird level for the switch anyway. With Soliders -> Banes and Widows -> Fortunatas, you are basically starting a new character as the playstyle changes drastically. I have a VEAT who literally has this as her backstory. A psychic who stole the Fortunata training telepathically and then escaped back to Paragon.

Fair enough, I just wanted to make it easy for truly new players to maintain the look if they want.

The new jetpack given to new players is very heroic looking with the red and blue color scheme (so those with more moral turpitude may not like it), but otherwise it looks nice. But I think the original jet pack makes a bit more sense because it's the cheap $5,000 version you can buy at the SMART vendor. If you're going to switch them out, could you change the price of the LKT to $5,000 so that players can just buy more copies of what they get for free. Yes, you can still buy the LKT but it's 10X the cost.

Widows are just straight up supers. Unlike the soldiers both branches have access to psionic powers. With respect to all VEATs, I often take Fly on all of them. Some I take the Sorcery variant. Usually this figures into their story. I have a number of mutants who have the ability to Fly but that’s their only mutant ability so they use guns and such for offense. I am running a night widow who is a sorceress (with the Sorcery pool) who joined the widows to learn more about how Ghost Widow got bound to Arachnos.

This is correct. The differences for a new player not trying to ultra min/max is minimal. Any of Tanker, Brute, Scrapper or Stalker will be fine. Sentinels are also a fun choice.

The problem with this is that if Rage is broken on Scrappers/Stalkers then it's broken for Tankers/Brutes. It's broken because SS allows Tankers and Brutes to circumvent the damage ratio they should have over Scrappers and Stalkers. Now all that said, I actually do think that Rage is broken, even with the crash, so I would like to see SS on Scrappers with BuildUp or some other damage buff. EDIT: Just realized this is a 3-4 year old post, lol.

I would agree with giving Control pets a single button that makes them attack your target. That wouldn't step on MM pets that much.

Yes, I know. I don't even expect that if/when an Arsenal Mastery is added for Controllers/Dominators that they would add a AoE immobilize since it breaks the normal pattern for their Ancillary pool. But the synergy with Arsenal Control would be great and hey never hurts to ask.

With all of these ATs having access to a rifle in their primary/secondary, it would be great if we could have an appropriate Ancillary pool. So my suggestions to follow. I have no pride in authorship, feel free to tell me why these are broken, won't work, are stupid, etc. I just hope they are added soon. Arsenal Mastery (Controller) Body Armor Burst M30 Grenade Targeting Drone Wide Area Web Grenade Arsenal Mastery (Dominators) Body Armor M30 Grenade LRM Rocket Personal Force Field Wide Area Web Grenade Arsenal Mastery (Defenders/Corrupters) Body Armor Buttstroke Power Up Targeting Drone Sleep Grenade Arsenal Mastery (Masterminds) Body Armor Tranquilizer Buttstroke Team Targeting Assist (Targeting Drone, but gives half of the buff to your pets too) Sleep Grenade

Oh, I agree. Just putting the seed out there since we need an Arsenal Mastery set to go along with these two at some point. I don't think Burst and M30 Grenade is out of line though with Fire Mastery having Fire Blast and Fireball as its T1 and T2 powers. Also agree, and I doubt that Controllers/Dominators would even be allowed to have AoE controls in their Ancillary pools, but for those sets that don't have an AoE Immobilize it would be a nice way to plug the whole at high level. And Fire Control, Plant Control, etc. have enough toys already! 😄 EDIT: And we are well and truly off-topic now and I expect these posts will be sent to the shadow realm soon, so I move it myself to Suggestions.

I played with the most recent patch a bit yesterday. And.... the set's fun. I'm going to play it, get it to 50. I still think that an immobilize would bring the set altogether, but it didn't stop me from having fun with the set. Can I suggest this (I know it's off-topic, but related to theming of the set): Arsenal Mastery (Controller) Body Armor Burst M30 Grenade Targeting Drone Wide Area Web Grenade Arsenal Mastery (Dominators) Body Armor M30 Grenade LRM Rocket Personal Force Field Wide Area Web Grenade

Please leave the Superior Invis clone alone. I really like that power's utility.

I don't disagree that more communication is worthwhile. That said, if someone expresses the sentiment you have in the underlined text, then honestly they are a pretty crappy tester. There are always going to be things about updates that we like or dislike. Sometimes those things won't make it live. That's OK. We're no worse off, it never made it live.

Excellent change. Meets the requirements that Cobalt Arachne announced without any of the long term deleterious effects. EDIT: I would agree though that encouraging new players in the idea that you NEED five different roles on the team is a bad idea, but I think the AT duplication badge immediately lessens the impact of that bad information. IMO, this provides new players a means to see for themselves that: Any team, even a team of all the same AT can work; There can be advantages to having diverse roles on the team. I don't think the Aether reward was necessary or desirable for this particular task. If there's a desire to provide additional rewards to players, then a simple, daily TF bonus for the first TF done by a character in a day would meet that just as well. It would push new players towards the content while not reinforcing the idea that there's a benefit to bringing 5 separate roles on a team.

There is a WHOLE lot I love in this update. I also kinda like Arsenal Control. I'm not the best Controller player so I've left that to the experts. I just wanted to comment on this point. When this set was introduced I was literally shocked that it didn't have Wide Area Web Grenade as the animations already exist for rifles and it would make sense with a set with multiple patch based controls. I haven't really given that feedback before since it's futile at this point. I do think you'll wind up having to go back and adjust this set later on.

I log him in occasionally, maybe once a month. I mean, I love the concept but the set just has problems that interfere with my play style. I mostly solo a few missions and log off.

You know, I both absolutely agree with you but I think you're missing the point. You're right, Arsenal Control will be problematic in the form its in if it goes live. BUT, I think the game is in a state where you have two options if you're a developer: Make the same set over and over again with different visual and audio effects; Make something different that either winds up better or worse than the majority of sets. You appear to be arguing that control sets need certain tools or they are likely not going to work as well as what we have now. I agree with that honestly. I think the developers probably agree with that to a certain extent. I think when they are trying to build a new set though they would just prefer to do something different rather than rehash the same set. I have played sets including Seismic Blast and wound up disappointed but ultimately still got them to 50 because I like the concept. It just doesn't wind up being my "main" Blaster. Ultimately, the developers goals are different than yours. I think you're right about where Arsenal Control will wind up, but I'm not sure that's not baked into the developers goals for creating the set. That's frustrating to be sure.

Praetoria can be somewhat unforgiving for truly new players. Additionally, you do move out quick at level 20 but until then you're pretty much trapped there while heroes and villains can go to Praetoria and to the other side of Primal (via Null). So all the early level team activities are pretty much locked out. As for the tutorial the stated reason is that Outbreak and Breakout are better as a tutorial for truly new players. I.e. they aren't as engaging but they do a better job of actually teaching you the basics. More thorough discussion can be found here:

Currently, I have memorized the location of all exploration badges in Atlas and Nova. Even if I start a villain, I turn into a rogue and go over to Atlas to get LRT. I don't like the change because Atlas (and Nova) are quite compact and easy to get LRT within minutes of starting the character. It will be even easier with the outstanding change to provide an initial jetpack. So like others have stated, I would prefer that they lower the number to 8 badges or don't make this change because it's substantially more convenient as it is.