Arbegla

Weren't you leaving? You, and many others like you, have a very set idea of what you see as overpowered, and therefore refuse to see anything else as overpowered. Yes, Defense and Recharge as typically used in high end builds. Because fights last literally seconds, so you want your powers up as much as possible, and you're not letting the mobs survive long enough to debuff you. But they aren't the only ways to make builds over powered. Its just a certain angle. And there are MASSIVE holes in that build, things just die too fast to have an impact. Rune of Protection is: 1) a power that was intentionally designed to be overpowered so it would sell for REAL money on the paragon market. 2) Available to everyone. Regardless of AT, powersets, anything. You can literally take the Sorcery Power Pool on anyone, to STACK with the things you're currently arguing about. You want Indom Will on a controller? You can also have RoP. You're a perma-dom? You can also have RoP. Its a HUGE force multiplier, with NO substantial crash. 3) a power that didn't get a large audience to test before being released to the public. You've tried to argue that 'It was tested before HC!' But it simply wasn't. Not at this scale. And at this current scale, it was deemed overpowered, because it really is. 4) a power that didn't encourage build diversity, as it boiled down to 'Are you having mez problems? Take RoP!' 'Are you a squishy? Take RoP!' 'Are you already defense softcapped, with max recharge, but want more surviveability? Take RoP!' It was a catch all power that was abused repeatedly, and allowed entire aspects of the game to be ignored for ATs that shouldn't have that immunity. And it is available at level 20. The fact that so many people are saying "Its garbage, I'm not going to take it anymore" literally shows you that it was a very niche power, with a very specific use case and now because the overall uptime of the power is being adjusted, (adjusted up for SOs and mid-range builds, adjusted down for high-end builds) the power itself is actually BETTER at base values, by a HUGE margin (over double the uptime) and it gives the resistance boost when used as a mez-breaker. I really don't understand all the hate for this change, when its very obvious RoP was not being used for build diversity, it WAS being used to circumvent Mez, and was a catch all to solve a problem that has many other solutions, most of which have been presented here already.

Thank you. I greatly appreciate it, and look forward to the seeing the explanation. 🙂

Supremacy is supposed to offset that, but it really doesn't.

Pretty sure this falls into the same category as Indom Will for Controllers. And also its an aspect of Dominators that has been around since the beginning of Dominators, not something that was thrown on a Paragon Market intentionally overpowered and never toned down until now.

The big thing is RoP is available to EVERYONE. and Indom Will is only available to Controllers, and only if they take Psi Mastery (and the other Epic Power Pools are powerful enough to make that an actual choice, not a must have.)

Oh I agree, but we're not paying for those things anymore. So they need to be rebalanced accordingly right?

I have actually heard, and seen, plenty of people leave because the game became too easy, because things weren't a challenge, because powers were simply too powerful. I know quite a few people who got 1 character to max level, got some IOs in them, and then bounced, because it just wasn't a challenge anymore. If you're talking about SCoRE, that was a subset of a subset of another subset. At most the servers that SCoRE ran topped out at what? 1,000 people? maybe 1,500? It wasn't exactly the scale of testing and vetting that you would need for some of those powers and powersets. It simply wasn't. Now that Homecoming has a MUCH larger player base, with numbers greater than 10,000 (didn't we break something like 15,000 concurrent accounts on or more already?) some powers are getting evaluated through a tighter lens, and being adjusted. Heck, the player base on live was between 50,000 and 100,000 players, and the Devs there still made adjustments to powers and powersets years after they were released, based solely on how the powers and powersets were evaluated at that time. (Regen, Energy Aura, Inherent Fitness, etc)

At the end of the day, the bulk of the 'Nerfs' have been to powers or powersets that weren't given the time of day to be properly tested and vetted on live. Crashless Nukes, Sorcery, Bio Armor, etc were all things that were NOT available during live. So I'm sorry that the current Devs have to go back and rebalance things that simply weren't balanced to begin with. This happens with any game, in any era, in any genre. For all intents and purposes, those powers and powersets were released to the 'wild' as Beta powers and powersets. Untested, Unvetted, and subject to change.

Multiple Mind Control powers have no positional tag, and Psi Defense is hard to come by (even when you softcap, most ATs can only get Ranged, or just Ranged/Melee/AoE, and don't have Psi also covered) Those also have mez (sleeps, holds, etc) so there's your hole in your defense. Go fight some Carnies with just Ranged softcapped, lemme know how well you do when you get chain held through your defense. Defense is limited by the combat equation. And cascading failure happens a lot. Literally every single enemy group has -defense. Higher ranking enemies have Accurary boosts, which makes their 'tohit' floor higher then 5%. Also, there are plenty of autohit attacks, which defense does nothing to stop. They aren't changing anything with the resistance aspect, they are actually making the resistance more useful, as it will benefit you when you use RoP while under Mez (it currently doesn't do that) so what exactly is the problem?

I literally said "And chaining other powers together", so I wasn't just counting RoP. How exactly does this make RoP useless? Other than preventing it from being used to chain together continual Mez Protection? They are already adding the resistance aspect when used while Mez'ed, they have already said they would be changing the other Origin Power Pool T5s, and the flip side of RoP not being affected by Recharge, is that is also won't be affected by -Recharge. That's exactly how One With the Shield and the Will Power T9 works. The recharge doesn't go up or down.

Inspirations have limits, but by all means, try to pop purples against a group of Peacebringer PPD, or a group of Romans, and let me know how well you do. But yes, you're right, Break Frees exist, so why the complaints over RoP? Its basically a Break Free/Orange combination. I'm saying absolute Immunity, because that was literally explained by the Dev during this post:

You're still ignoring the 5% tohit chance that softcapped defense leaves open vs the absolute immunity that Mez Protection provides.

I don't have access to the game (or City of Data 2.0) but the wiki doesn't show any DDR (Defense Debuff Resistance) being provided by Agility. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Agility_Radial_Paragon

A controller with softcapped Def is still vulnerable to -defense attacks, and cascading failures. They have zero DDR, and No way to get it. So, while its a durable build, its not pure immunity, and there is HUGE holes within the build that cause significant issues. While you are right that you can not perma RoP itself, you can perma the mez protection, but chaining RoP with Clarion, and/or the Melee Judgement will give you permanent Mez Protection, available to literally every single AT in the game. And that is what makes it really that simple.

Call me crazy, but I'm really beginning to think that out of the 5% of people who actually took Sorcery (for therefore RoP) 100% of them maxed out recharge to get near immunity to Mez Protection, via RoP and chaining other powers together. Completely negating an entire aspect of the game that they should have had to worry about. Which, was never the intention of how RoP should have been used. If your character doesn't have inherent Mez Protection, even from an Epic Power Pool, it shouldn't be able to get it via an Origin Power Pool that everyone can access. Squishies should have to worry about Mez. Its really that simple.

I mean, without the snark, there are TONS of passives that let you slot things that don't actually benefit them (Endurance Reduction, Recharge..) Its actually a perfectly Inclusive way to design powers for a game. Or do you want powers to very strictly follow ONLY the enhancements that benefit them? For example, slotting Acc in autohit powers, or Recharge in MM pet powers? Even from Double/Triple/Quad IOs.

I'll actually second this. If you do everything right as a MM, you're still burning 25% more endurance on your secondary, and you're still herding cats. And when you unleash those cats, they get stuck in long animation times, or get 1 shot by a random mobs blowing up (Lowbie MMs vs Embalmed Vahz is really fun, or the Paragon Protectors with Inferno...)

Nerf to Irradiated Ground confirmed.

I have a request for a deep dive, but its not a Dominator power.. It is however an AoE hold, so its kinda related? Poison Trap, from /Traps. What does it actually do, how long does the respective debuffs last for, and what are the chances for the irresistible vomit animation??

Now Frankenslot it with some Heal/End IOs, and see how nice it is. I really think Spirit Ward, as the toggle, can turn into a very nice 'I'm going to keep this pet/tank/squishy/hostage/NPC idiot' alive power. For Any AT 😄

Necro some more, but I'm a HUGE /traps Fan (I main a /Traps MM) and really the only different is defenders have better debuff numbers 😄 Having said that, so SOs only, I would go with a slotting like this with some explanation: Web Grenade: 1 ACC (maybe 1 End Reduct as well) -> The base recharge and immobilize duration is enough to lock down bosses, if you care, but with AR, you're just better off shooting them then trying to keep them in one spot. Its a little End heavy, so that's why I recommended the End Reduct, but its not really needed. As a defender you can skip this, and I definitely would recommend doing that. Caltrops: 3 Rech, 1 End Reduct -> Caltrops is actually perma right outta the box, with a 45 second duration, and a 45 second recharge. Its also autohit. And the 'fear' aspect of it is amazing. Having 3 Rech allows you to basically triple stack this, and create almost a trench of caltrops that mobs just won't want to cross in order to get to you. A good tactic is to drop Caltrops on your acid mortar, as it will deter mobs from wanting to attack it, and let your acid mortar do its thing. Triage Beacon: 2 Rech, 2 Heal -> Triage Beacon is a stationary +regen power, and with IOs it can be really nice, but on a team, you're really only going to use this once you get to a choke-point, or during Big Bad fights (EBs, AVs, etc) 2 Rech will keep it up often enough to use in those situations, and the extra +regen is like having a stationary Regeneration Aura (from Empathy) active. Acid Mortar: 3 Rech, 1 Acc, 2 Def Debuff -> This is your main form of damage multiplication for two reasons. 1) It stacks on itself if you get more then 1 out. 2) its an AoE. Slot this with 3 Rech, and you can pretty much have 2 out at any given time. This is great to drop in any group, even if you're steamroling, as the debuff lasts a long time, and the mortar itself is an AoE, so it can easily splash onto a whole group just as you drop it. It also makes a really good Ambush target, as mobs will go after the Acid Mortar's you've dropped before doing after your group. It does need to hit, but it only needs to hit once, as it reapplies the debuff every 6 seconds, (and it lasts for 20 seconds). And Like I said, multiple Acid Mortars stack their debuffs, so you can get some really nice -res going in Big Bad Fights. FFG -> 1 End Reduct, 3 Def Buff -> This lasts for 4 minutes, and recharges at base in about 10 seconds. You could drop the End reduct if you need slots in other things, as you're only going to be refreshing this every 4 minutes (and thus the overall endurance per second is VERY low already) Poison Trap: 3 Rech -> This is your EB/AV/GM killer. The hold aspect is just a bonus, so you don't really need to slot for it. Its an AoE, and has a 'vomit' animation that is triggered throughout the cloud that spawns from it, and its unresistible, mobs just spend like 3-4 seconds emptying their stomachs and can't do anything else. Its better than a hold. I personally use this as an opener after launching Seeker Drones to soak an alpha. This causes the Minions/Lts to be held/vomiting, and they have their -rech debuffed, which as the Seeker Drones soaked their opening volley, can really help you pick things off that can't actually fight back. It also has a really nice (like -1000%) regen debuff, which will floor any mobs regen with 1 application. Having this up as often as possible helps you take out big targets, have pseudo control over groups, and cause vomiting, which is just neat. Seeker Drones: 3 Rech 1 (or 2) tohit debuff -> These come in pairs, so slotting Acc isn't that important. They also stack their debuffs (because there are two of them) so against hard targets, you can floor somethings tohit, and stacking with your +def from FFG, you provide some decent protection for you and your team. A good use for these, as you place them (like you do the FFG) is to place them right in the the middle of a group you haven't yet aggroed. The mobs will target the Seeker Drones first, wasting their alpha strike, and then the Drones will explode, debuffing the whole group. As the mobs are busy targeting the Seeker Drones, you can run in and drop a Poison Trap or Acid Mortar, and either debuff the group further, or cause some holds to proc. As others have mentioned, Trip Mine, and Time Bomb aren't very useful, especially if you plan on grouping. Trip Mine does a lot of damage, but it can be interrupted. Time Bomb is a uninterruptible Trip Mine, with a wider radius, and a countdown timer on it (I think it explodes 10 seconds after you drop it, OR if its tripped) but in a group setting, its just not worth it to drop mines/bombs, and its better to just shoot things with your AR. I didn't slot much End Reduct, mainly because most of the traps are 'Fire and Forget' powers, and none of them are on a fast enough recharge to really have an impact on your end bar in the long haul. You could easily splash some End Reduct in any of them if you wanted, 1 SO is more than enough to help with endurance management if you need it. The rest of your build is really preference, but I hope this /Traps info is useful.

I mean, didn't Enflame not use procs very much at all before? So, this is more of a buff (even though its not a clone of the Rad Armor toggle..) the procs are at least working now.

I need to finish up and get my bot/traps to level 50 so I can check out my pylon DPS again. Its been a minute.

From a story angle, I wish the coming storm would've happened. Its been teased for well over 10 issues. From a 'What could it be that we'd actually care about?' angle, I'd like it be just a continual small effect thing. Maybe it builds up, maybe you have to run a TF to delay it, but its always there. We're stuck with it now, and we can decide if we care or not.

My mistake, I was thinking Weaken Resolve, but I called it Experimentation. You named it right. That's what I get for being on the forums at work.