AerialAssault

Here's an example: A Fire/Fire Blaster. For this quick build, I have taken the Meta-Choice powers; Hover, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, Tough & Weave. At Level 28, I already have the powers I'll be using the most (Fire Ball, Rain of Fire, Blaze, Aim & Build Up, and Cauterizing Aura. Everything else is dressing at this point). I suspect that this is the route that many would take, and the character is only a little over half-way through their power selections. With fully unlocked power pools it would be a trivial matter to pick up Hasten and take the dump powers of Sorcery for Rune of Protection, thereby rounding out the character's survivability with ease. I could even take Fly and still have room for seconds. Getting a full build, and full Incarnates for that matter, is no longer the tedious work it was on Live, so this type of character would be more common than you think. Some people might look at that and start doing grabby hands. Others, well, they won't. I think what we have to keep in mind is that this is very much still a game with rules and challenges. At least, that is what Homecoming aim to do, I think. Simply 'unlocking' the game would make it more of a sandbox, which doesn't fit in with that image. People have mentioned the Cake server, WeHaveCake, which is a lot more analogous to a sandbox than a real game, because that's what they aimed for and that's what they made. And honestly, it is fun, it's a lot of fun. But it's not the City of Heroes I enjoy playing seriously for any extended period of time. It may seem like a small thing, and it is. But small steps lead to big changes, and I'm not alone in being concerned that the next steps would lead to a breakdown of the challenges the game provides. It wasn't so long ago that the hot topic was giving Mez Protection to all ATs, so you'll have to forgive the defensiveness of some of us here.

It would be naïve to assume that there would not be a shift of power in some regard. A lot of 'high-end' builds are centred around a rotation of three or so powers (sometimes less) and taking the full allotment of power pools. What this means is that, in these builds, if there was no restriction on power pools, people would skip the rest of the powers in their primary/secondary to say, take Rune of Protection, thereby reducing the amount of influence needed to reach max performance and gaining a powerful mini-god-mode power in return. Personally, I very rarely find myself needing more than four power pools. I've never struggled to create a competitive end-game character with the tools provided, and still have everything I want that fits my character theme. People have been building GM soloing characters since the earliest days of Live, so I'm not sure why this has become a talking point now.

Provisionally, I would say no. My personal belief is that it would be a step on the road towards further power creep. People already feel that the game is too easy, to me, the response wouldn't be to make things easier, and I sincerely believe that it would make things easier. Nobody here has been lamenting that they can't fit another pool in when they've picked Presence, Medicine, Concealment and Teleportation. That being said, I would not be opposed to testing it out. That's what testing is for. If it turns out good then I wouldn't be upset about that. And even if it weren't to go ahead, I imagine there would be valuable lessons learned along the way.

When enemies are really inconsiderate and fight back when I'm trying to take all that xp off their hands.

I also suggested this a while back So yeah, absolutely this. I also like the idea of a text input box so we can customise our own. +1

Savage Melee also has a teleport attack as it's T9 power, Savage Leap.

I'm sorry that the Devs did not personally consult you on these matters.

As @Herotu points out, it makes the game world more alive. For contrast, let's take Popular Fantasy MMO. You encounter a Greedy Bandit, who says "Heh heh, I'm robbing you because I only care about myself and money!", who then .. fights to the death. Seems a bit strange that someone who is A) Mortal and B) Motivated only by greed would stoically fight until they are dead, when really, they should be trying to preserve their life. A lot of MMOs have de-fanged themselves in favour of enemies fighting to the death, regardless of context or circumstance. Same goes for damage auras. Many enemies will continue to stand in the very thing melting the flesh from their bones. In these conversations I always like to refer to The Monsters Know What They're Doing by Keith Annan. It's given me a lot of insight into the way enemies should behave, and while it applies primarily to roleplaying games I feel a lot of it could also apply to video games too. tl;dr mortal creatures are likely to flee when on low health, outmatched or outnumbered unless otherwise controlled or compelled, mindless creatures will fight until dead/destroyed unless specified otherwise, and immortal creatures are unlikely to flee but will do so if defeat would mean a serious set-back. Back on topic to Ignite, the Afraid effect only lasts 0.75 seconds according to City of Data. Not really long enough to make enemies run particularly far away, although the rapid amount of hits might trigger their 'flee' AI if they haven't got a hit in yet. With my own suggestion, adding a Slow element would mean that enemies caught in the fire would go only as far as necessary to not stand in it, although it wouldn't really matter since they'd be under it's full effects. If someone can't stand an enemy stumbling a measly 5 ft then I don't really have anything to say to that.

Some of the newer, post-GR missions do feature hostages, escorts and allies which will follow you through stealth, so it's definitely possible. Hell, if ambushes can see you through stealth, there's no reason the rescue target can't.

The point is, if an enemy were to remain within the Ignite patch for the full duration, it would deal significantly more damage than Burn. If you remove the Afraid element, then Ignite effectively becomes a mini-nuke, since the damage can't be avoided by the enemies stood within it. For reference, Ignite deals the second most damage in AR, behind Sniper Rifle and ahead of Full Auto (the actual nuke of the set). That high damage is mitigated by the fact that most enemies don't want to stand in it. But then we as players can mitigate that by forcing enemies to stand in one place, either through Holds or Immobilization (or a lot of Slow). My full suggestion is as follows: Leave the Afraid element in Ignite. Give it a weak and short-lived unenhanceable slow so that enemies which enter it are unlikely to run very far once they're out of it. Have Ignite deal half of it's damage upfront to enemies with the initial attack, which requires a hit check. The Ignite patch then places a DoT on those enemies and any other enemies that step into the Ignite patch dealing the other half of the damage, which is auto-hit. Non-stacking. Increase the radius of Ignite slightly, at least so that it encompasses the size of the actual visual fx. I feel this is the best of all worlds. People like myself, who can appreciate the comedy factor/immersion of enemies not wanting to stand inside a fire still get that, and people who want Ignite to deal it's full damage more reliably get that too. I guess the people who don't want the enemies to move at all won't be happy, but me and them disagree on that on such a fundamental level it's not worth going into in this thread.

Rather than think about what Ignite was, we should look at what it is today. Now, my information here comes from City of Data and Mids. I'm at work at the moment so I can't load up the game, so this data is probably somewhat inaccurate. According to Mids, Ignite, unbuffed and unenhanced will deal 50 ticks of 5.5 fire damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies caught in the fire, for a total of 278 damage over the ten seconds the fire patch lasts for. Now, while 278 damage isn't a lot for the duration Ignite lasts for, when you start enhancing the power it escalates quickly. If you were, for example, to slot five Ragnaroks and a Bombardment: Chance for Fire into it, that goes up to 603 total damage. Again, for over 10 seconds that's not really a great deal. But what you have to remember is that Ignite is an auto-hit power. Enemies in the fire will take the damage regardless of any defence they may have. It means, even under an accuracy debuff, Ignite will always hit it's target. At least, that is what I have observed on my own Assault Rifle characters. This ignores the fact that, when enhanced even a small amount, you can keep an Ignite patch up constantly, slightly compounded by it's long animation time. Of course, we rarely ever see this full damage because enemies are compelled to leave the fire patch, which isn't exactly large. In fact, I think the effective radius is actually smaller than the visual fx of the Ignite patch. Taking the above into account, if the Afraid effect were to be removed from Ignite, it's damage would have to be reduced accordingly. By how much? I don't know, I got a low C in maths.

Ignite has, as far as I'm aware, always made enemies run out of the fire. I haven't played it from its earliest days, but I have played it a lot since I started playing all those years ago While I tend to agree that long duration DoTs are of limited utility, Ignite and Full Auto tick over very quickly over its short duration. I've never struggled to wipe a mob of enemies with Full Auto.

I have never mentioned the radius of Ignite. Kindly don't put words in my mouth. Let me say it again: Burn does not have an Afraid effect because it is used by Melee ATs (Brute, Tanker, Scrapper). It would be counterintuitive for enemies to run out of the Burn patch, forcing these ATs to continually chase the enemies running away from them. Ignite, by contrast, is used by Ranged ATs, who (mostly) want enemies to stay away from them. You even say yourself that it's radius is small enough that it won't affect many enemies, so it's not like you're scattering whole swathes of enemies. I'm acutely aware of how Ignite functions. My namesake is an AR/Dev Blaster whom I played from the early days of Live, so I've come to see Ignite as an area denial tool, even if that area is quite small. My suggestion of making Ignite apply a DoT to any enemy that is hit by the patch gives the best of both worlds. Unless, of course, you hate that enemies run around at all, in which case we'll disagree on a fundamental level, and it's just not worth getting into that.

Here's my non-detailed take on the Stone Armor changes; Holy moly, Rooted not making you as slow as molasses makes the set a lot more fun to play. Two thumbs up from me. That said, Stone Armor is still an absolute endurance fiend if you're running the toggles. Even with 2 EndRedux in each, it goes from 100-0 very quick in combat. I'd consider looking into this once this round of changes has been finalised. edit: Ammendum to above, I was also running a few other toggles, but they also had EndRedux slotted into them. I'll have to go back and check the endurance economy on just the Stone Armor toggles.

Those inter-dimensional phone bills must be a killer.

I literally said why, because the characters that use Burn are melee ATs. It is completely counterintuitive for a melee character to make enemies run away from them. One thing about Ignite is that it actually does a lot of damage. Immobilized foes are completely at it's mercy. If Ignite were to not cause enemies to run out of it's small radius, it's damage would have to be reduced accordingly.

To explain, Hasten is a strong power. Again, no denying this. It's a power that any character, any build, any set could take and say "Yeah, that was a good pick." Even Claws/Willpower, which I mentioned earlier, doesn't need Hasten in any way, could take it and not be a waste of a power. Something with that level of power and utility needs a drawback, especially if any character can take it. That cost is a paltry one power pick, and using up one of their power pools (and then maybe two enhancement slots, really breaking the bank on this one). It's pretty easy to take that into account when building a character. By contrast, Stamina was not as powerful or impactful as Hasten. It worked out more like an arbitrary tax. I think if Hasten were a new power being introduced today, it would probably have a 1 Speed pool power prerequisite. When I say that it must be assumed that Hasten will be used, let me use an analogy; if you give someone the keys to a sports car, at some point, sooner or later, they will drive that car. So, if everyone has the Hasten power by default, we must assume that it is going to be used. Even an unslotted Hasten will provide a strong benefit to the character using it. And thus, we then need to take that into account in the future of the game, potentially requiring a lot of back-end fixing to ensure the game remains challenging. Again, it seems odd that you want the game to be more challenging (and there is nothing wrong with that, you'll find a lot of people here agree) but also want to have the Hasten power for free. So, to remain challenging the game would have to be worked up to account for Hasten. It sounds to me like two steps forward, two steps back.

If everyone has Hasten, then you have to assume that everyone will be running it, which means some powers may/will have to be rebalanced. You can say 'People don't have to use it', but you have to assume that they will with something as powerful as Hasten. You say yourself that people are upset that the game is too easy. Giving everyone easy access to Hasten would push the game further into the 'Too Easy' side. It seems counter-productive to make the game more challenging by .. giving everyone Hasten? To cut a long and drawn out story short, I don't buy 'But everyone takes it!' as a valid reason to make Hasten inherent. That's the way I feel, and personally, I haven't read a convincing argument otherwise. The most I could warrant is having it not take up a Pool Power selection.

Burn is an exception, not the rule. If I remember correctly, Burn used to make enemies run away, but this was massively counterintuitive for a melee class to make enemies run away from them. Similarly, enemies will try to run out of Caltrops rather than stand in them. It's probably one of the only 'smart' things for AI to do (not stand in auto-hit damage patches).

Let's talk about one of the other suggestions from the OP that surely won't start anything controversial... Buff Regen.

Fortunately, I started playing a few issues after the IO system came out. Back before then? Yeah, I can see why it would be popular. I picked it up on my characters because, back then, I hadn't realized the value of simply slotting Invention IO EndRedux into powers, which is what I do now rather than waste slots on Stamina. Invention IO's are my go-to these days, thinking back on all the inf wasted on SO/DO's makes my stomach curl. To keep this on topic, it's why I don't see Hasten as a must-have pick. Usually, two or three Invention IO Recharge enhancements do the trick for me. On my Mind/Traps Controller, Hasten is a massive pick to take because /Traps has a lot of long cooldown powers. On my AR/Dev Blaster? Not as necessary.

As @Outrider_01 said, Stamina and Hasten are not close to being comparable. It would be dishonest to say that they both have similar impact. Fitness was a trash power pool. Looking back on it now, I don't know why I ever bothered with it. If we're going to give players powers simply because they're 'popular', will that mean inherent Combat Jumping? Manoeuvres? Tough & Weave? By giving players these for free, you're reducing player agency in how they build their characters, which includes not taking something which might be considered 'meta'. A lot of people also complain that the game is too easy, giving all players Hasten is not productive for the balance of the game, and you can say 'well don't use it', but if you give something to players you have to assume that it will be used.

What if enemies hit by Ignite were hit with a burn DoT? The fire patch itself could inflict the burn on any enemies that wandered into it afterwards. The DoT would, of course, not stack and would last about as long as the fire patch does.

I think the thing to take in with Hasten is that it is a powerful choice. There is no denying this. For such a power, there needs to be a trade-off, and like most powers that trade-off is spending one of your limited power selections. I feel that this trade-off should remain. It could be it's own non-pool power that requires a power pick, but doesn't take up a Pool slot.