Stormwalker

Indeed. Though that's more of a problem for some AT's than others (Defender/Corruptor comes to mind immediately). Each restriction removed further reduces the collective weight of choices made.

Oh, that's certainly part of it, also, but I don't mind that part because those builds were always theoretically possible. You just had to be really rich. The power restriction changes, though, have made builds that were not possible on Live possible on Homecoming. As one example, you can make a character on HC without taking your Secondary T1. It wasn't always that way. That opens up a power slot, potentially. Little things like that add up to make it possible to make builds that were once impossible. And that's what I'm talking about when I talk about power creep. A little bit of it was fine. Fun, even. But too much of a good thing stops being good.

If a single relaxation of power restrictions happens in a vacuum, it doesn't seem like much. The thing is, there have already been many relaxations of power restrictions. And they add up. This is why characters on Homecoming are on the whole quite a lot stronger than they ever were on Live. Up to a certain point, that's OK. I personally felt like the restrictions were a little too tight on live, and I've enjoyed having them relaxed somewhat. The problem is, we're past that point already, in my opinion. Which means each additional relaxation of the restrictions is another step too far. And it really isn't needed, given how very much easier it is to put together any sort of build you might want compared to what it was like on Live.

To be honest, I'm pretty sure they've deliberately avoided this with Energy Blast because Energy Blast is so very similar to Cyclops' optic blast in terms of its "concussive blast" style. I'm entirely in favor of this idea, but the tricky part is that the animation times would have to be the same as the original animations, and it might be very difficult to do that without looking wonky.

Yeah, I have two characters who use this as their badge title. For Impulse Drive, it was practically mandatory (for obvious reasons). I also use it on Stardriver (who was born in space).

This idea seems to me like something that would be best placed on its own server. Because if you put, for example, a Blaster who has their nuke at level 5 in a team with a bunch of conventional characters? The blaster is going to completely and casually annihilate one spawn, and then the rest of the team will have to fight without them through the next two or three spawns before that nuke recharges, and... that doesn't really make for a very good team dynamic. And this is just one example of the many ways it could get really out of whack. Or, for an example of a way one such character could render a low-level team into demigods, imagine a Kin defender with Fulcrum Shift at level 5 in a team of normal characters.

I didn't respond to that point because it doesn't counter any part of my argument, so I didn't see any reason to respond to it. Though, actually, my two points about 1) the powers you think are undesirable are not necessarily undesirable to others and 2) the pools are the way they are for balance reasons pretty much constitutes my answer to that point anyway. The "not cool" thing about the 3x T1 idea is that it adds more power creep to a game that does not need more power creep. As I have already said multiple times. EDIT: Actually, I have an additional response to that. You view the Epic pools as "competing" and having the same function. I do not. I view the epic pools as power pools that offer additional power options to your character with a particular unifying theme. And as my example, since I'm best familiar with Scrappers, let's compare the Scrapper Epic pools. Dark Mastery gives you 4 attacks (including two cones), all with -ACC, or -ToHit on them, and a ranged Hold. 4 Damage + Debuff powers 1 Control power If you want to debuff enemy chance to hit to oblivion, this is your pool. Energy gives you an Endurance Discount click, a Regen/Recovery buff, a ToHit buff with -ToHit resistance, a really terrible ranged attack that nobody takes except for theme, and a cone with KD. 3 Self-Buff (1 Click, 1 Toggle, 1 Auto), 1 weak but thematic Damage power 1 Damage + Soft Control power. If you want to be Superman, or your build sucks endurance like a black hole, or you want to go Minimal FX For The Win, this is your pool Fire Mastery gives you a ranged Immobilize, a ranged Hold, a good ranged attack, a Res and Def debuff, and a Targeted AoE. 2 Damage powers 1 Debuff Two Controls (with minor Damage, because Fire). If you want Moar Damage, with some Control on the side, this is probably your pool Ice gives you a ranged attack, a snipe, two cone slows, and a Pet! 3 Damage powers 2 Debuffs If you like damage and slows, this one will work. Psionic gives you a ranged attack, a snipe, a damaging cone, a Recovery/End buff, and a pet. 3 Damage + Debuff powers 1 Straight Damage 1 Self-Buff If you like damage and slows but also have endurance problems, go with this instead Weapon gives you a ranged immobilize with -fly, an AoE damage and slow, a ranged attack, a ranged acc/toHit buff with -toHit resistance, and another ranged attack. 2 Debuffs (one with DoT) 2 Damage 1 Self-Buff This one, much like many powersets targeted at Natural characters, is a mixed bag. None of these pools give you the same set of abilities! They don't even give you the same kinds of abilities. They give you a choice of different ability sets, and you can pick the one you want. They're not identical, and they aren't meant to be identical! They are different by design.

First of all, Boxing or Kick is not a power I don't use because of its performance. I don't use it because it's not in theme for my character. No amount of "improvement" would change the fact that I'm taking a power I don't want for access to the pool. Nor would it change the fact that I don't see that as a problem, because the pool is that way for balance reasons. Which is, incidentally, the same reason I don't think the arrangement of the Epic/Patron pools is a problem. As I've already stated a number of times. Just because you think the order of powers in Epic or Patron pools requires you to take "undesirable" powers does not mean everyone who takes those pools thinks those powers are undesirable. For example, I believe it was you (do correct me if I'm wrong) who wanted to put the Ranged attacks in the first tier of all the melee AT's. That would then be requiring me on many scrappers with Energy Mastery to take an "undesired" power to get to my desired choice - the current T1, Conserve Power. In fact, the very reason I choose Energy Mastery on so many scrappers is because I don't want to have to take an out-of-theme ranged attack that I would never use! And the differences between the arrangement of the Epic pools allows me that choice which I would not have if they were homogenized! Similarly, with Blaster Ice Mastery, one of the most cited pools in this discussion, several people in this thread have indicated that they find Flash Freeze - one of the two options to gain entry to the pool - to be a desirable power. Just because you think the powers at the start of the pool are not good choices does not mean everyone agrees with you.

Every power is unwanted by someone. Every power that is required to enter a pool is unwanted by someone. I have Boxing or kick on a large majority of my characters and very few of them have ever used it. The few that have used it as a gap filler until they had enough recharge to make their proper attack chain work. Having to take a power you may not want is not unique to Epic and Patron pools, and it it is by design. In fact, this is not even unique to Pool powers. My Claws/SR scrapper has Strike only because she was required to take one of her first two Primary powers. She doesn't use it, ever, other than as a mule for two-piece Superior Blistering Cold, and she could have accomplished that with any number of other powers.

Honestly, I have never had a particularly high opinion of Longbow. More than that, Longbow has seriously tarnished my view of Ms. Liberty. In the RWZ arcs, we see a Longbow which is putting itself ahead of a legitimate military (Vanguard) charged by the world's governments with the task of protecting Earth from external threats such as the Rikti. Longbow has no authority and no jurisdiction, and they are not only meddling in Vanguard ops but conducting espionage against Vanguard and witholding crucial intelligence from Vanguard. That's not OK. It could in fact be called treasonous. And from Lt. Tendaji's dialogue in those missions, it looks like their orders to conduct these illegal activities come directly from Ms. Liberty. It gives me the distinct impression that Ms. Liberty is a loose cannon who either has no idea what she is doing (which is bad) or puts herself above legal authority granted by governments (which is worse). And then, in Praetorian content, we see them doing it again, and even some of their own agents questioning their orders. Aside from that, Longbow actions in redside story arcs and described by certain redside exploration badges strongly suggest that Longbow in the Rogue Isles regularly ignores it own regulations and engages in unethical experimentation and other decidedly unheroic actions like large-scale mind control. Honestly, sometimes Longbow acts more like a villain faction than a hero faction.

The fact that there's a single exception doesn't mean that they aren't generally better by tier. It just means there's a single exception for some reason. And do remember that when the Patron pools were originally created, they were not interchangeable with Epic pools, so they weren't intended to be directly compared. If anything, the change to Electricity Mastery later was likely a reaction to the fact that they became interchangeable, which created an imbalance where there hadn't previously been one. EDIT: Just to clarify, - yes, I am fully aware that there was not originally a Patron pool for blasters and that this only became available at the time that Patron pools and Epic pools became essentially interchangeable. However, the internal design rules that go into Patron pools vs. Epic pools do appear to have been somewhat different for reasons (see Wavicle's post below mine for more info in this regard), and this did initially apply to the creation of Patron pools for blasters. Also, you keep harping on making the first three powers all T1, which several of us have already stated that we oppose on the grounds that the game does not need more power creep than it already has.

Yeah, that's part of what I was getting at. And I don't want that to happen, either, because I like the powers as they are.

On Virtue on Live, Pocket D could turn into a wretched hive of PDA and ERP sometimes. Being as it was the roleplay server. Which, I should note, I have no problems with people ERP'ing, but it shouldn't be on the public channels, and that did tend to happen at times on Virtue. Don't think I ever saw any of that when I was on Justice. I don't know if Everlasting has the same problem, because I don't have time to RP anymore so I play on Torchbearer here.

Fair enough. For what it's worth, I do feel the same frustration as you when I work on my own Ice/Ice/Ice blaster's build. But I feel that having to work around that frustration and find a way to accomplish my goals within the game systems as they stand is part of the challenge of the game, and also I feel like we have a bit too much power creep already. So, while I don't agree with you, I do understand how you feel.

That's also a false equivalency. I already stated that I was in favor of *some* of the relaxation that was done to power pools between Live and Homecoming. But that I believe that relaxing it any further than it already has been is starting to remove too much decision-making from the character build process and would add additional power creep when we already have too much of that distorting the game balance. Being opposed to one change does not mean I'm opposed to every change. But I am opposed to this one.