Ston

I'd swap Dark and SR on this list. I'm pretty biased since I'm not a fan of a set with low energy res and no KB res. And with an expensive build it just feels really hard to get killed when using SR. I think the rest looks pretty spot-on though. I agree with leaving Shield and Invuln in A tier because of their endurance tax.

Completely agree. The same can be said about any opt-in player-generated content such as costume contests or pylon testing. I'd also imagine that, if this kind of open-world PVP were even possible, players would go out of their way to use some corner of the map and local chat as a dedicated 'dueling area' the same way we would in Siren's Call. I believe this is also done under Atlas in Recluse's Victory. I think player-generated content is by-far the best way to keep people engaged on these servers. PVP, IMO, is an obvious candidate for that.

I think that's a great idea. Even better would be if it would teleport you into an arena instance without having to deal with any of the arena ui window. Just you and them loading in a standard map.

It's just a suggestion to add an additional PVP element outside of PVP zones that could be fun for some players. I don't think every suggestion needs to be solving a problem. I mean there are plenty of problems with the current PVP meta that could deter some players from trying it.. but that's a different discussion.

For sure. I figured the biggest issue with this kind of system would be players griefing others by spamming invites. Some kind of 'Enable dueling' option in settings could probably solve a lot of that.

While I know this feature is very unpopular in some other MMO's, something about superheroes sparring with each other around Atlas Park just seems awesome. Maybe I just have troll tendencies, but there is something fun about getting confused during a BAF or by a Succubus and being able to attack teammates. I could be way wrong, but wouldn't you just be able to put two characters in a 'confused' state where they are flagged as enemies only for each other? I don't know how this would be affected by PVP rules, but I'd imagine powers would use PVE rules since it would be in a PVE setting. I'd also imagine this would be some kind of instance that either player could quit from at any time. I used to PVP a lot during live and one of my favorite things to do would be to sit in that corner of Siren's Call and watch or participate in 1v1 duels. I think this would also add a fun PVP element for players that don't want to use the Arena interface or make a meta-optimized build on Indomitable.

the t9

An absolute classic

Reddit is gonna be reddit. But yeah at first I thought you just had all gameplay sounds on 0% and would raise the volume when you got kills but after watching it again I can see how they're an extra layer of audio. Reminds me of some of the high quality Overwatch and CoD montages that get millions of views 👏🏼

Players with high-end incarnate builds and all passive accolades facing the AV's in TFC TF's.

Would also add that fiery aura isn't really a good comparison when it comes to scrappers and stalkers. Fiery Embrace is nice, but aside from that it isn't great on those AT's due to the lack of taunt aura. However, there are a handful of scrapper secondaries that do have a taunt aura so it makes clearing things very quick.. especially with bio and rad.

I made a thread about this awhile back in the brute forum and it turned into a pretty informative debate. I used that AE office map simulator to do some testing on brainstorm with dark melee + fiery aura. The builds were mostly identical with the exception of ATO's and a few other slots.. but high-end, purple'd builds regardless. The tanker was faster by a considerable amount. After that I dabbled in some other meta combos for awhile like rad/ss and shield/em. I'm 100% on team 'tankers got overtuned'. Their damage output is bananas now.

I think I made a mistake by titling this post 'Buff blasters' ... Probably should've been 'Buff some blast sets'. But if sonic, assault rifle, electric, radiation, and energy get improved, then it would be an overall buff for blasters anyway since there would be more diversity to 'viable' builds. So I'll stand by my OP lol. @arcane and @Rathulfr made good points about secondary effects. However I still think the the weaker blast sets would be much, much more enjoyable if they had that one extra hard hitting power to add to their ST chain. I'm not talking blaze damage, either. I'm talking sentinel damage, which should be saying something. Maybe it's just me but I've never relied on a ST stun when playing a ranged damage character.. I'd much rather the stun be reduced and the damage boosted. The only one I see often in builds is suppressive fire.. and that's because it could be turned into a proc bomb, and who knows how much longer that will be viable anyway. I also forgot to add freeze ray to my OP. It's actually the 3rd highest ST DPA, not TK Blast. I'd argue that Ice Blast also has one of the best secondary effects for any damage set in the game since it can cripple mobs with slows and easily hold bosses. Albeit it has no snipe... but I still think it shows some imbalance of blast sets.

I loved watching your pre-i13 pvp videos back in the day. Glad to see you're still making them! The sound editing in this is amazing. Awesome work.

More specifically, give some love to all blast sets that aren't fire or ice. IMO, there is an issue with the distribution of ST DPA among blast sets and it all stems from three powers: blaze (170 dpa or 132.6 dpa before DoT), bitter ice blast (133 dpa), and telekinetic blast (122 dpa). I wouldn't put TK Blast up there with blaze or BIB though as it will often be heavily resisted. The top ST DPA attacks for every other blast set are below 90. I think this warrants a leveling of the playing field and here are my suggestions to accomplish that: Give drastic damage buffs to mitigation powers. (The clobber treatment, perhaps?) This can be taken straight from Sentinels who, IMO, do it right. Here a few examples: Sonic Blast > Screech does a whopping 5.21 DPA on blasters. This is 80.31 on Sentinels. Assault Rifle > Beanbag. 13.9 DPA on blasters, 68.09 on Sentinels. Electric Blast > Tesla Cage. 4.32 DPA on blasters, 55.51 on Sentinels. Energy Blast > Power Push. 15.24 DPA on blasters, 78.76 on Sentinels. Psionic Blast > Scramble Thoughts. 5.21 DPA on blaster, 62.69 on Sentinels. Radiation Blast > Cosmic Burst currently does 64.07 DPA.. this is barely over a third of blaze... Make it competitive by adjusting damage or animation time. Dark Blast > Abyssal Gaze currently does 53.05 DPA. I think this should get a slight buff to at least match the Sentinel's 67.1 DPA. ** I think Beam Rifle and Water Blast are fine since they have extra mechanics that give more utility than other sets. I think it's pretty clear that blasters are the best AT for meta endgame content.. but most of this is due to just how good fire and ice are. I would love to see more competition from the other blast sets. Here is a note from an Issue 13 patch regarding War Mace that made me think there was justification for this post: "An ongoing project over the last several issues has been bringing War Mace up to performance par with other powersets. The last set of changes got us close, but still not to where we want to be. Here are the new changes: Clobber: Reduced Recharge Time to 16 seconds and altered damage scale and endurance costs to match using the standard formula. This now means it is a pretty hard hitting attack, with a damage scale of 2.29 and a base endurance cost of 15.18. Since this is now classified as a Damage power rather than a control power, the base duration of the Stun effect was reduced from scale 10 to scale 5"

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.