Catalyze

I tried this power set after doing a Live/Beta direct leveling comparison on MMs (which makes me sad to park them next to my Plant Controller). At level 1 -5 things fell over with Attune applied before or after any of the other 2 Required or It Don't Work Attacks. Next I ran the Shauna arc in Kings Row at 17. I tried it on a +1 X 2 setting. I gave up and deleted the toon. I spent my attack time applying DOTs and re applying DOTs.... While waiting for the DOTs to slowly defeat anything, you are getting wailed on with full damage. On a Scrapper, I don't want to play like a World of Warcraft Warlock. I want things to take damage fast.... in large chunks....and fall over. I want to be a Fury Warrior with blood lust not a Apply DOTs......Tab enemies to see who needs more DOTs..... Mezzing stops damage but this "gimmick" of : Step 1. Apply T1 Step 2. Apply T2 Step 3. Apply (toggle now or not depending on day) Attune Step 4. Ignore all the other enemies wailing on you because at level 17 your target isn't dead yet and the other 5 are mezzed (hopefully) or knocked down (hopefully it hit all of them) Step 5. Don't think about Axe....Frost...etc all the other Scrapper attacks that leave things defeated in faster times. Nope, just stand here toggling away with your DOTs in a powerset that I refer to as Road Rage Karen screaming at some perceived slight to you giving other enemy motorists a migraine. Character deleted at 17 and power set left for more talented players.

I bumped the 2 MM's up to level 27 today on Live and Beta. I ran the Who Will Die Part 2 arc in Talos on +1 X 2. This is what I found. 1. The Beta pets had health of 347 T1 vs 317 Live (with 2 levels difference). T2 pets were 463 Beta and 443 Live (with 1 level difference). And the T3 pets were both 579 (both even level). Hit was 68% / 85% T1, 77% / 85% T2, and 85% / 85% T3. Resists were 2% higher on Beta with 1 +3 SO in pet training. 2. Live seemed a touch better in the arc but I couldn't point out any difference in reality. Both ended the final +2 Elite Boss with 1 pet dead (different pet each time). A better player could probably have run it on +1 X 3 without a problem. 3. I really could not tell any difference between Live and Beta as far as performance in this arc. I felt like Live was a touch tougher.... but that is possibly because I dislike this MM change. Final Verdict: Beta demons sucked at level 16 yesterday.... really badly. Is it changed now? No clue, I am not going to rerun the arc with a new toon. I may copy my level 50 over to Beta and run the MJ arc to see how the Glorious Level 50 with Full Incarnates does in this patch designed around them. 4. Totally changing The Subject: Developers.... Please for the Love of All that is Good in the World ...... put in a Travel Base for us!!! Just make something simple and have an NPC standing next to each purple portal that says : The code for this base is BETA - 1234. Have it roll over every patch change. Long Range Transporter and Mission Transporter coupled with the Oro portal is sort of annoying. Every time some player is nice enough to make a Beta base and publish the code, it lasts until the next patch.

Since it seems to me that All these MM changes are to facilitate players with Full Incarnates doing activities at +5 and above, I decided to level identical MM's on Live and Beta. This is to see what actually happens versus "should be no change" or "they will improve over Live at lower levels". MM's don't play the same for me at lower levels. I just ran identical content with 2 identical builds and the same difficulty level on both. Beta MM's got really bad, really fast, and it wasn't close. 1. At level 2 a previous Mod/Dev was correct in both health pools being the same ... 105. Hit is the same at 97% although the contributions are not the same. Resists are the same. I ran Mathew Habashy's arc on +1 X 2 and it was fine with both. 2. At level 6 the health drops on Beta by 17% from Live 128 to Beta 107. Hit on Live is 96% and Beta 88% with Live being a level 5 pet and Beta being even level. Resists are the same on both. I ran Twinshots arc on +1 X 2 and it got done with a touch more healing on Beta but nothing really standing out. 3. At level 15 the health drops by the same 17% as above with 185 Live and 155 Beta. Hit is 80% Beta (still 58% Base) and 89% Live. Resists (including Ember Demons contributions) are up by 2% with a Resist SO in Beta pet training over Live. Ember Demon gets nothing from his ally shielding so he sits at the same resist level as Level 2 or 6. I ran the Shauna arc in Kings Row on +1 X 2. I should say, I attempted to run the arc on both Live and Beta. The Beta toon could not defeat Chernobog as a +1 Elite Boss. Not even close over the course of 4 tries. Live got it done on the first try, mostly. I fell over dead as Chernobog fell over dead and it completed. I deleted both toons and remade them. On Live it's just a matter of double boxing with one of my fire farmers. On Beta, it's even faster....lol. 4. At level 16, I tried the arc again on Live and Beta. I did this because I am playing Demons/Electric and Faraday Cage comes at 16 with the promise of across the board resistance buffing. Live got it done with all pets alive no inspirations used and frantic healing when it came off cooldown. Still at +1 X 2 difficulty. Beta with the exact same build took 4 tries with all pets dead on 3 of them. Chernobog would health chunk the T1 pets for half health a lot. The Ember Demon got his health chunked not as badly but was dead on the successful 4th attempt. Every failed attempt was with all pets dead. A 6 second cooldown on Rejuvenating Circuit was too long at +1 X 2 on Beta to keep them alive 3 times. So, what do I make of this? Leveling is worse with Beta changes. For the posters only caring about the End Game, carry on with your charts explaining why the End Game will shine at +3 and above with Full Incarnates. I will continue tomorrow with life at level 27 or so for the New Improved and Overly Compensated Mastermind on both Beta and Live and see what a new player will see in a month or so when all this falls over into Live.

So far, I am reading: 1. Mobs below a +2 level are worse to engage due to Damage Reduction, Hit Reduction, and Damage Taken Increase. 2. Mobs +3 and higher begin to equal what we currently have on Live as far as Pet Life and Pet Damage. 3. Incarnates really help alleviate these new "changes for equality in playstyle experience" that are on Beta. 4. Leveling, for the reasons above, is going to be much less pleasant due to pet deaths, lower pet damage, and less team contribution from pets...dead or alive. 40% of enhancement sets will add to pets stats, except that leveling we use SO's which won't do anything to help. Now around the mid 30's with IO use we should experience an additional 2% to 4% of some added stats placed on our pets. Thinking 40% of 4% damage, 40% of 16 additional health, and other such stats which won't do anything to help leveling. 5. The game is resembling other games like World of Warcraft where so much is "balanced" around the End Game. With +7 mobs it is like running Mythic Keystone Dungeons which is great fun for those wanting that harder end game challenge. Pets will be fine with full Incarnates, and full IO sets as long as you are running +3 and higher. Loving the thought of a Posi 1 on +3 (actually did one of those for 2 1/2 hours last year). I do see all the above driving folks back from the great changes made to MM's last buff patch. Remember all those players leveling them and then all the BAFs with them? That was glorious. This Patch will not produce any new wave of MM's like your revamp patch did. I sure hope my 7 MM's don't end up sitting with my 3 Plant Controllers.

Glad to check my MM builds and see nothing needs changing beyond swapping End Reduction for a level 50 crafted Heal enhancement or something similar in Training Pets. Definitely not taking any personal attacks to "build street cred" on thugs. Tired of Builder/Spender attacks. I have perma Gang War and am not interested in "Adds" from changing my builds around. As someone older than cordless phones, middle of the road MM player is perfect for me. Min/Max has sort of lost out compared to just mellow game play. Good Job Devs in leaving my builds alone for MM toons!! The 40% buff from my set bonuses does seem interesting since all my toons are "set bonus" toons and not proc based. Again, Good Job Devs in buffing my MM pets and leaving my builds alone!! I am saddened to see that the game gets "Shiny Things" instead of Revamped. Kinetic Melee ...... Archery with its terrible random waves of Rain of Arrows for a nuke..... and existing powers and sets languish. Forum posts, data sheets, and Beta play point out the below par problems. We keep getting the New I-Phone 23XL with Sparkle Case instead of making poor sets popular (looking at Axe ....Dark Armor with KB and End Recovery...things you Devs outdid yourselves on). Have a nice upcoming Holiday Season Developers and Players!

Thank you both for taking time to offer opinions on this situation. I do know that in the description for Power Boost, it does not list itself as boosting anything Resistance wise. Hedgefund, I did try to dig into old patch notes and I don't have the skill to find anything close to 5 years ago when Power Boost was "Patched" (developer's term for the nerf). I did find several Reddit threads discussing that action and it seems to have happened around 2020 or so. I find it humorous that I have never tried to Power Boost Fade in over 100 alts and 5 years of returning game play. Again, hats off to both of you for attempting to help me find game zen.

Beta Server on 9/15 : I created a character and boosted it to Level 50. It is a Pyrotechnic / Darkness Affinity / Energy Mastery Controller. With all enhancements slotted and defensive powers toggled on, Fade is showing 14.81% defense. Clicking Power Boost and immediately clicking Fade does Not change the defense amount as it should. The amount of increase should be 11.53% to total 26.34% and it never changes. I copied a controller from Excelsior onto Beta that has Time Manipulation as a secondary also with Power Boost. Farsight is showing 16.15% toggled on and 27.68% when Power Boost is activated and Farsight activated. It stays at 27.68% for the full duration of 120 seconds. Farsight and Fade are the same equivalent powers and should respond the same to Power Boost. I have used and come to depend on Beta for character creation on Live servers. Please advise me why the above is happening. Thank you.

1. This post is meant for Developers and not Any Forum Poster. 2. I have 3 Plant Controllers at level 53 on Live: 2 Plant/Dark and 1 Plant/Time 3. I tested a version of my Plant/Dark today on Beta and these are my thoughts/opinions. 4. My opinions/thoughts are based on play feelings with very few hard numbers. Numbers don't make me want to play CoH. World of Warcraft is a numbers game. CoH is a feelings game to me. I wanted to have a repeatable mission that I could adjust builds and difficulties without varying much else, so I ran the Oro flashback mission of Marauders Cell 1.16 . I chose this because Marauder has no exotic damage types, stands by himself, does hard melee damage of smashing/lethal, and is 50% resistant to Smashing damage. At low health he goes really resistant to damage. This is all from a P2W analyzer and notes on all AV's that I have accumulated over time on Beta. He is in a warehouse and not a cave/base so I can Hover or stand without problems. Run on Live: The time was 23 minutes to click the portal. I did this toon first since it would be the "bar" for performance. The mission was run on +2/4 . This was comfortable to me since it works to be 1 level higher than my Incarnate equipped Live controller. I used nothing except the Alpha of Agility. This controller is Ranged Defense capped at 49% with Fade. I used No inspirations or any other Incarnate. Marauder died with a lot of healing on my Flytrap. The pet took damage in chunks and I almost had Healing in a rotation. Most damage was probably from 4 procs in Carrion Creepers and 4 procs in Strangler. He isn't going to sleep/hold for any appreciable time so it's just debuff him, stay out of melee (except for end replacement), heal Flytrap and spam Strangler. Dark Pet (aka Fluffy) was toast midway thru the fight. Marauder fight was the same as I remember from doing the MJ mission for Portal Jockey a few years ago. It's a grind but Carrion Creepers just whittle away with the non resisted damage type procs (Cold, Psionic, etc) and the same with Stranger's procs. The rest of the mob packs were active with Creepers, Roots, and Vines. Vines is off cooldown for each movement down the halls since this controller doesn't dispatch mobs like a Scrapper. Oh, Spirit Tree was dropped in mob packs sometimes and not on Marauder. I actually forgot I had it in the build. Run 1 on Beta: The time was 26 minutes with roughly the same build but No Spirit Tree. Spore Burst took its place since so much of this powerset's adjustment seems to be based on it and Carrion Creepers. The playstyle was a lot different. What to use as an opener was not clear cut to me. Confuse a pack, sit around and watch your xp not happen. Confuse a pack and Strangle the misses while your xp disappears. Sleep a pack, Strangle the misses, drop Roots for some kind of damage AOE, drop Carrion Creepers for more damage....etc. This run was a learning experience and a mess. Marauder died slowly......really slowly........really....slowly. No Creeper procs, Roots won't help much, Vines does something over the course of 1 minute, and Flytrap is pathetic....BUT sturdy!!! 2 heals is all it took for the fight and I was impressed but not by the damage. It felt like a taunting target dummy would have made the fight the same. Run 2 on Beta: The time was 20 minutes with Damage Set in Vines replacing the AT set (mostly control improvements). No procs were placed in Carrion Creepers since the combat log rarely showed them doing anything in Run 1. Damage set in Creepers instead. Tactics changed. On Marauder, I just dumped Anything that cold do Any damage under him, on him, and in his car trunk. I dropped Roots, Vines, Creepers, Flytrap, Strangler, and debuffed him as usual. I didn't care, if it had a damage component, I threw it at him. I don't think Flytrap has a damage component.....seriously.....even 5 slotted with Recharge Intensive set (4 pieces) and a crafted level 50 Damage in slot 5, Flytrap is a Pansy in disguise. However, the mob packs on the way to the Portal were different. I was getting much more familiar with the New changes. Vines: Very nice now. Most packs got them and they work a treat. I can wander in and grab endurance off the mobs nicely. They seem to hit most everything. Spore Burst: See above...lol. Very nice now and all I had to do was Strangle the very few misses. I would take this power in every build now. Never had it before since Sleep is a TF joke in every team I have been on. Open with Spore Burst and do your slow "arresting" with Strangler or open with Vines and do the same thing. Having two nice "statue" contains allows one in your pocket in case you pull that second pack (which uncontrollable Fluffy is great at doing). Carrion Creepers: If I hadn't ever played with them as they are now on Live, I wouldn't harbor as much resentment at you Developers. They aren't the AFK farming power that a lot of posters (who may or may not ever have played the game with them) seem to opine that they are currently. They and Roots are why I play a Plant Controller. They make me smile when I play solo. In teams, they aren't very useful since I can Root every mob pack and watch the Axe scrappers go to work. For a solo Plant controller, they are a blessing since Flytrap on Live isn't very sturdy (looking at Stoney and dreaming) or invulnerable (looking at you Illusion and dreaming). On Beta, Creepers don't do much damage, it's mostly flop control on mobs but not like Ice Patch or the old Bonfire. I can see skipping Creepers as Beta has them and not really missing them except that on Elite bosses, you NEED every thing that can do damage because your pet sucks. TLDR: I don't like you Developers for ruining the best DPS power I had and leaving me with a Statue Controller....the same complaint that got EM Pulse nerfed into the ground back in Issue 4. City of Statues they called it on the forums in 2005. Flytrap: I don't think that I need to expound much on this one. Sturdy on Beta......Yes.......thank you!! Almost worthless on Beta..........Yes.....whatever. Flytrap is controllable now and that is so much nicer. No more random pack pulls.....etc. Damage is not even noticeable. I watched a boss's health bar as he was held...just Flytrap on him....and it was hard to see it move at all.....at only 1 level higher than me. End of Testing Thoughts: I wouldn't make a Plant controller as they are on Beta after playing one today. I would go with Earth (love the controls and pet), Illusion ( we all know why), Gravity (throwing a couch at a mob even makes my wife laugh as she watches over my shoulder) or Electrical (never played one but the changes seem interesting). I stood in the middle of a double X4 pack pull today and just looked at the statues and thought "How the hell long is going to take to Strangle each one since I do such low damage?"

The Beta server has never caused ANY change in my video card performance until this set of patch notes has come about. On Live servers my card uses about 10% - 30% resources depending on solo play up to Hamidon raids. On Beta it now uses 45% to 70% of resources anywhere while Live has NOT changed. Other games have not changed it's performance either.... just Beta.

This is a post for Developers. If I could post to them directly, I would. If I could post on a non reply forum, I would but that is not available to me. Game Patch changes should fall into 1 of 3 categories: A. Increasing Game Play Fun for players B. Quality of Life improvements for players C. Repairing game behavior causing player problems If Developers make changes/additions to the game that don’t meet any of the above, they should consider why they are being done: 1. The Developer wants the change and since they run the Circus, it will be done 2. The Developer feels pressure from aggressive/high count forum posters, it will be done 3. The Developer wants to put something into the game that is Shiny and will be noticed I played this game in 04 and 05. I came back to it about 2 ½ years ago and the changes were staggering. Other than the graphics, most of it had changed. I don’t know what was done on Live and what was done on Homecoming but the changes were Wonderful. Quality of Life is so improved that it is amazing. I didn’t experience the “over time” changes, just the Then and Now. I have read every line of the patch notes and see several proposed ideas rolled back or modified. This patch seems to be continuing the Uniformity in All Powers approach. Pool names unified (quality of life) and power types “templated” for uniformity (quality of life? My Circus?), new power sets (Game Play Fun), and damage increase procs canceled by combat (nonsense but it’s Your Circus). Developers have presented new powersets this round. Shiny new sets for the existing players and New Influx of players. A lot of effort for Gameplay Fun. A bit ago, Battle Axe was reworked from what it was into a fantastic powerset. The visuals are spot on and the play is very smooth (single target and aoe). A recent forum poll by Scrappers showed it to be the most preferred attack set. Well done lads! This round, I see mostly tweaks and templating to powers that exist. No Battle Axe magic. Instead of Shiny, why not rework the power sets that are sitting in the attic? The unpopular kid that eats lunch alone. Example: Kinetic Melee. The forums and Help Channel will debate this power set endlessly. It has a gimmick mechanic that you either don’t use (Stalkers are spared from even getting it) since it takes a long activation (and if it misses you could have used 2 – 3 other attacks instead) or you use and hope it a. hits and b. hits often enough to matter. Fix it like you did Battle Axe. Make it a show piece of your ingenuity. Shiny is harder and eats time. Existing Mending is easier and faster. Enough with the shiny new I Phone to add to power set bloat. Fix what you have and make it into Battle Axe type of magic. And to those already pounding replies, I have donated into every monthly finance event since coming back. I don’t intend to leave any time soon.

This post saved me a lot of time. I agree fully with what is reposted above. Newer players are coming from games where specific callouts are common. This won't do anything but continue their familiarity with reward based team compositions.

Just checked out Beta Test (Brainstorm) and the problems seem to have been fixed. Thanks to the IT folks who accomplished this.

Creating a new character on Beta Test tonight at 8pm EST. Logging in took about 3 minutes. Selecting Server took almost 5 minutes. Retrieving characters took 5 minutes. After creating my new character every map change took 2 minutes at least. Picked up the arc from MJ in Peregrine Island and headed to the Portal Corp to defeat Infernal. Clicking the portal to enter the mission map caused a disconnect. I spent the next 15 minutes getting my account logged back in, server selected, character selected and another "mapserver disconnect" as soon as I click the portal to enter Infernal's lair. Defeated mobs in the parking lot for 3 minutes just to see what would happen. They fell over. Didn't want to spend another 15 minutes trying to log in if I touched the portal again. Sleep Well Infernal, I can't get to you tonight. Just a side note: I made a new character on Monday night and ran the entire MJ arc with no problems. This is new for Tuesday.

Here is a build that has worked well for me. It almost soft caps Melee (and does with Agility Alpha) and has capped resists on most damage. It leaves the Toxic hole but has over 50% on Psionic and Negative. You will have double Rage a lot of the time, a long stun time on Rage crash with Handclap, 20 second End replenish, and only a 4 second delay on Energize. The Winter set is expensive and the other Purples aren't cheap. You get Fly as your travel power and you can activate Hover for precise flying control if needed. You also have 2 types of Invisibility; Stealth and Infiltration. Each will give you over 60 rating for nice sneaking and you can run them together for 85 rating. I took Infiltration as a mule but it also has really great movement speed and jumping while sneaking. Just shut off Stealth and haul yourself to the final boss/objective. I found it handy but your mileage may vary. Timing (Super Strength - Electric Armor).mbd

I am really confused with some IO enhancement power percentages listed in their descriptions. They do not match the equipped percentages. Example 1: Energy Manipulator - End Mod - Level Range 10-20 - maxes at 25.6% ...... BUT if you mouse over one in the AH it will say it is Attuned and provides 42.4% of endurance. I bought one to see why the discrepancy. In my inventory the Description says 42.4% endurance and when I equipped it on a Level 50 toon, it provides 25.6% as capping at level 20. Example 2: Kinetic Combat - Melee Accuracy/Damage -Description says 26.5% of each power as viewed by a level 50 toon. Equipped on that character it provides 22.9% of each attribute as if capping at the top of its 20-35 level range. Why are all these descriptions showing level 50 attributes and yet equipping them provides only the crafted range levels? Why aren't the descriptions matching their power level caps? If an enhancement caps at level 35 with 22.9% Accuracy when equipped, why does the mouseover description have a level 50 percentage of 26.5%.