Jarrakul

One thing I've been wanting for ages is an always-deployed version of the tech wings, or a version that deploys when you turn on jumping powers. Always-on is probably easier, and it's not like I plan to turn combat jumping off very often anyway, so that's probably the best way to handle it. Also, some kind of breechcloth-thing like what a lot of the Cimeroran female heroes wear (preferably for any gender). I'm sure it'd cause all kinds of clipping issues, but as an optional costume part, people can decide whether they can live with that on a case-by-case basic.

My main is Willpower, I have a Dark Armor toon, and I have a regular team. But I'm not teaming 100% of the time, when I do it's very often not with anyone who has a Fear protection power, and I have no interest in playing the same few powersets over and over. I also typically run with two break-frees on my melee characters. You go into a mission against the Apparitions, that isn't gonna be enough, and the Break Free drop rate is pretty low so good luck refilling without leaving the mission, which is just a pain. Again, I ask, if everyone is just supposed to chug Break Frees, why do we have personal mez protection at all? Or, to turn the question around, what's the merit of making some melee ATs chug Break Frees on some missions when soloing or in some groups?

I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make here. To my mind, there's a very obvious thematic connection between lightning, storm, wind, and flight, and it feels very strange to have this set in particular be the one that punishes you for flying. While I do understand the thematic argument in favor of the ground-only restriction (it's a nod to electrical grounding, though that makes more sense for the energy resist portion of the power than the knock/immob protection portion, which is the part you actually lose while airborne), I think there's a similarly-powerful thematic argument against it (lightning comes from the sky, so lightning characters should be able to do the same). Again, my point is not that we should all bow to one thematic argument over the other, but that the existence of thematic arguments in both directions undermines the thematic case in either direction. If you want to make a power-creep argument, that's entirely separate from my point. I don't know that I'd agree that it would be power creep, but honestly I don't really care on that point. (And to the folks pointing out that Thor goes flying when the Hulk hits him, of course he does, but he goes flying if he's on the ground too, and so does Captain America. The Hulk's knockback is pretty high-mag.)

So, I'm working under the current paradigm of, effectively, melee ATs having near-immunity to most mezzes by default. Because that is the current paradigm, and so exceptions stand out and feel weird. If you think such high levels of mez protection are a problem that needs to be fixed, I'm very happy to have that discussion. It think it's an interesting thought, and definitely not without merit. But it also very much sounds like the sort of thing that should be its own thread. An IO like "-1 Stun, +2 Fear" would be interesting, but I think it would only work well in a paradigm with lower mez protections. If I'm sitting at mag 12 Disorient protection, I can stand to lose a point or three and still expect to basically never get stunned in PvE.

I'm all for encouraging teaming, but this is more "pick one of a few specific sets or team with someone using a few specific sets", which is... at best a very awkward way to do that. If no personal defense sets had fear protection and more support sets gave it, that would work better to support this goal. As it stands, it's just a bit weird, where both the melee ATs and the support ATs just have to hope their teams have the right powersets for that particular synergy to be fruitful. As for other holes, I'll admit I haven't gone through every set and checked, but I'm not aware of any defensive set with a Hold or Disorient hole. The holes tend to be Immobilize, Knockback, Fear, and Confuse, and with the exception of Fear, you can build to correct all of those, albeit at some cost. Which feels pretty reasonable to me. I think adding a similar dynamic to Fear is a good option, but it does have the consequence of making more personal mez protection available to non-melee architypes, which the devs seem to want to avoid (please correct me if you disagree there, but that's what I took from the Rune of Protection discussion). The advantage of adding Fear protect to most/all melee sets is that no non-melee ATs would get it. Re: the specific suggestions, I share your general reaction that Tactics is already pretty good and probably doesn't need a buff, though this would be a relatively situational one so I don't think it'd be much of a buff. I am also fully suggesting that one of the powers in Presence could be replaced. I don't really care which, except that it's probably reasonable for it to be one of the first two. They're pretty bad, currently, and I doubt many players would miss either one (though, this being the internet, I'm sure we can find a counter-example). Fear protection IOs are an interesting option because, again as I understand the Rune of Protection discussion, the devs basically don't want non-melee architypes to get a lot of reliable personal mez protection. Adding a whole bevy of mez protection IOs would absolutely give those architypes that protection. Adding just Fear protection would definitely not, since Fear is dramatically less common than Hold or Disorient, or even Sleep. Those other protections would be objectively better, as you suggest, which is exactly why the devs aren't going to add them. I would argue that Fear is another animal in that regard, though if I were a dev I doubt this is the option I would pursue.

I mean, why have any mez protection in the game at all if the answer is just to chug Break Frees like nachos?

My point is less that RP is a reason to buff the set and more that RP is a bad reason to keep it as it is. If you think the set would be uniquely imbalanced with the ability to fly, well, fair enough. But "concept" doesn't really work to defend how a power works when it hurts as many concepts as it supports.

Fear is a surprisingly-nasty status effect when used on player characters. Your ability to take actions while feared is extremely limited, even while being attacked. It's not quite as bad as hold or disorient, but it's pretty close to disorient in practice. Plus it has the added problem of being a bit... RP-breaking, for a lot of characters. It's one thing to get stunned by a heavy hit or restrained by telekinetic force, but it's quite another for a supposedly-brave hero to cower in terror of their enemies. Now, enemies that inflict fear are relatively rare, but I can testify from running an elec-armor tanker that they're not that rare. Longbow and Apparitions sometimes manage to Fear me for most of the fight, which isn't the most fun gameplay experience I've ever had, let me tell you. And it's not just elec that has a problem. In fact, only four melee defense sets in the game provide fear protection: dark, shield, willpower, and ninjitsu. If it were just dark and willpower, I could kind of understand the choice thematically, but surely we don't think ninjas and people with shields are inherently braver than everyone else? Mechanically, it makes for a weird and situationally-very-severe hole on your mez protection that you can't really do much about. Tactics helps a bit by providing fear resistance, but it still doesn't provide true protection. If you agree with these complaints, I have four suggested solutions, one or two of which would likely be sufficient on their own: Add Fear protection to the mez protection abilities from most/all defensive sets. If only most, probably also implement one of the other suggestions. Add Fear protection to Tactics, in the same vein as its existing Confuse protection. Add a new pool power (possibly to the Presence pool, it could use some love) that provides Fear protection. Probably should do more than just that. Maybe a weak +resist all toggle with Fear protection and a low stamina cost as a fear/res counterpart to Combat Jumping? Add Fear protection IOs or set bonuses in the same vein as the current knock protection IOs and set bonuses.

Seems like there are two topics being discussed here. My elec tanker stays on the ground 99% of the time, and does use Combat Jumping (mostly for the very cheap +def), so I've had basically zero trouble with immobilization and only a little with knockback (it basically only happens when I jump over a mob to get to a priority target). But I can certainly see the point that, even as an auto power, Grounded should probably give reliable protection to the effects it protects against. To the argument about Grounded only working while on the ground... it's thematic, sure, but it's also thematically-restrictive. Want to make a melee storm god (hardly unlikely in the current cultural zeitgeist) who flies around on the wind and strikes like a bolt of thunder from the heavens? Too bad, one of your main mez protection powers basically doesn't work while flying.

This idea is completely ridiculous and also I love it.

For what it's worth, I run these arcs a lot, solo and with small teams. I think they're quite good, both mechanically and writing-wise. I don't generally find them too easy (the Banished Pantheon in particular are pretty nasty), but then I am usually running +4x8 either solo or on teams of 2-3. While I'm sympathetic to the OP's difficulty scaling concerns, especially with larger teams, I feel like a better solution might be to increase the notoriety setting caps, either for incarnate content specifically or just for everything. That would allow people to up the difficulty if they wanted to, but it wouldn't make the existing content any harder if people stuck to the settings they're already using.

I don't really mind that the buff pets die easily, because they're providing an actual bonus for free, albeit a pretty small one. However, I do like their models, and wish we could have invincible non-buffing versions for cosmetic purposes.

My two cents are that henchman customization would be great, but perhaps can be accomplished through recolors and a few different model options rather than full character-level customization, especially since some of the sets don't use standard "human" models anyway. That would allow MMs to apply some level of creative control over their pets' appearance, without opening the door to the worst possible abuses.

I doubt I'd use this, but I support it existing. A toggle to reduce the run speed cap would probably be simple to implement, unless there's something I'm missing.

Frankly, I would also love to see some non-fully-replacing versions of Granite Armor. From what others are saying in the thread, that may be easier said than done, but maybe no harder than additional replacement options.

Currently, the mecha-wing and jetpack costume parts have two states, open and closed (or just on and off for the jetpacks). As far as I can tell, these parts only open when a flight power is active, and they're closed at all other times. I have a character who in-concept uses a jetpack-based super jump (not unlike the jump pack P2W powers, but a bit more integral to the character's design and movement), so I'd really like to be able to have the wings open either all the time, or when I jump. To that end, especially if other people have any similar concepts, I'm proposing some potential new opening options for these costume pieces (and possibly for flapping wings as well, though they already flap on jump). It would probably be redundant to implement all of these, but any one would be very nice to see. An always-open version, like the one currently seen for Celestial Wings. An "open-wings" toggle power, perhaps available from the P2W vendor, which would open the wings while the power was toggles and have no other effect. An "open-wings-on-jump" setting, probably through Null The Gull, which would cause the wings to open when the character jumps. A "jump-powers-make-wings-open" setting, again probably through Null The Gull, which would cause the wings to open when a power such as Super Jump is toggled-on. Thanks for your consideration. If there is already a way to do any of the above, please let me know. I've looked and asked around and haven't found anything, but it's not impossible I've simply missed something.

I will say that if there was a crossbow set, or crossbow animations for Archery or even maybe Assault Rifle, I already know what character I'd use them for. So I support this idea, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement.

I agree with OP. There is a rapier in Dual Blades, so it would possibly be fairly easy to add the same rapier to Broadsword as well? Not sure, but that seems likely to be the easiest approach. At the moment, though, you could try and make do with the Chromium Cutlass and maybe the Targe for a shield? Or if you're more interested in the duelist concept than in the specific powersets, you could make the character Dual Blades, maybe with a rapier/dagger setup, and choose a different defensive set.

Gotcha. I didn't interpret "Fly speed reduced to match unslotted Fly" as affecting the speed cap (especially since unslotted Fly now has a higher cap), but I can see how that was the intended reading. Thanks for the clarification. And again, I want to emphasize that I think you've done great work with this patch, including on these specific powers. Changing them from "fast but a real pain" to "usable but not as fast as proper travel powers" makes a ton of sense. I was surprised by the cap reduction, and wondering if it was intentional since it wasn't how I read that sentence, but I don't want to come across as critical of the change because I think it works well.

I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying? This section certainly covers the fact that, say, Fly and Rocket Board together would use the higher speed cap from the two. But it doesn't say anything about the reduced speed cap for prestige flight powers, which is what I was saying I didn't see in the patch notes.

That's a very good point. Still surprised not to see the change in the patch notes.

Loving the patch changes so far, keep up the good work. I'm just wondering if it's intentional that the prestige flight powers are now subject to the 58.6mph flight speed cap? They're much more usable than before regardless, so please don't take this as a complaint if this is the new design intent. I was just surprised, since the lower cap seems to run counter to the idea that you can stack them with other fly speed increases, and I didn't see anything about this change in the patch notes.