Lazarillo

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll note I'm still damn bitter they pulled the Rage buff.

They are unenlightened. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Except, as previously noted, it is useful, and fulfills a function you can't get anywhere else in Scrapper sets, while also demanding no extra enhancements.

I voted "no, never", though I would give this a slight qualifier. No functionality within a powerset should ever be replaced. For example, let's look at Electric Manipulation for Blasters. Presently, it has Force of Thunder as its sustain, Disorienting and Knocking back enemies while granting Regeneration and Recovery to the user. If they wanted to make the sustain less offense-depending, they could, say, move the buff aspect of the ability, to Power Sink or Lightning Field, or move the status effect to Thunder Strike, just an example. Within the 9 powers of Electric Manipulation, you have not replaced any functionality, so that, IMO, is fair. But I don't think either effect should be removed entirely from those playing the set to buff the other effect.

Claws/ Scrappers are pretty nice if ya build 'em right. Stick a KB->KD enhancement in Shockwave, and the Critical Strikes proc in Follow-Up, and you've got all the slicey carnage you need to put down groups of enemies or tough targets.

That's more of a straight buff, so it's hard to complain per se, but it still feels less like something a Scrapper should be doing and more like what a Tanker wants.

Correct, I don't like it. My Scrappers are supposed to be trying to aggro the "loose" enemies. If anything, I could maybe see it working the opposite way: target an enemy to taunt it, target an ally to offload your aggro onto said ally, so that you can sort of pass the baton to more survivable teammates, but that may be too...grief-able. Taking aggro away from an an ally sounds like more of a Tanker thing.

That's part of the reason, I admit, I specified "as a character". Though really, the couple times he's spawned as an EB (and don't even get me started on TPN) just make him sillier. Like, the stronger he is mechanically, the more I go "why is this loser being treated like some epic foe?"

I feel like it's very underrated in that regard. Confront has all sorts of uses. On a team, it lets the Scrapper do what Scrapper do best and hold onto a potentially dangerous enemy while the team manages the riffraff. I was on a couple TFs earlier today, in fact, and found this very handy for keeping AVs off my team who were dealing with large ambushes that came with them. Solo, it's an excellent tool for pulling enemies apart. Handy when fighting Nemesis and trying to prevent oversaturation of Vengeance, or, say, in an Arachnos base where everything's right up in everything else's butts. Oh, and heck, I've helped with Mito-tanking on Hammy raids thanks to that, because even some Brutes skip their taunt (WHY!?). So yeah, super handy, and right out of the box, too. I have a quick, easy power pick that gives me a variety of benefits and doesn't even need any extra enhancement slots dedicated to it. Confront doesn't need anything but for more people to respect it.

Done pretty much every MM type except Zombies. Trying to understand the Lich makes me confused. Never have I ever: Taken Maelstrom seriously as a character.

Probably related to this one: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/14531-marauder-nova-fist/ The current test server patch mention fixing Marauder, you might wanna check and see if anything was done with Protean too.

I mean, it was also kind of awesome. But mostly terrifying.

When I go back and look at the part of the game Jack was involved in, that being the content in the first 6-7 Issues or so, IIRC, I honestly gotta say, I see some great world-building, some great story elements, just overall a great setting, replete with fascinating ideas and plot threads. ...stuffed into some really, really tedious mission design and leaning to, though not entirely all-in for, sort of that dreaded assumption that players who take a casual approach towards online interaction aren't welcome in an MMO. And the thing is, being as he lead the whole ship, I don't know precisely which parts of what he was most directly involved in. So honestly, while I'll snark a little about the guy when doing some of those old i0/i1 Task Forces, I honestly generally appreciate him, and hope he does well. I don't think CoH could've become what it did without him (even if, admittedly, I find it dubious that it could've become what it did with him, either). As for Doc Aeon as a writer, he was kind of hit and miss for me. Dean MacArthur was great, Praetoria was great, the Signature Story arcs...well, I still haven't tried Pandora's Box since HC come out, but Who Will Die was pretty awful. Heck, it was a big part of what started pushing me away from the game and over to SWTOR even before CoH's original cancellation (ironically, SWTOR starting to flounder in its storytelling in many of the same ways late-CoH did eventually pushed me away from that game, too). I think, possibly true to his namesake, he had a better gear for villainous stuff, perhaps. But while he did have some cool ideas, it definitely didn't feel like he always had a lot of respect for the setting, or the "continuity" that is the story progressing as one levels up.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. If I can't look good doing it, what's even the point?

Shouldn't they try to make no-redraw animations actually work before proliferating it?

The real beef is it was just a straight buff that was pulled because of people whining it wasn't OP enough. People who think Rage is just fine as is weren't going to lose out on anything, but those of us who think the damage crash ruins the fun lost out on finally having a chance to play and enjoy SS.

Is it, though? Really? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Demonlings get a quick blast, a strong blast, a ranged cone, and a brawl, exactly the same as Punks and Battle Drones get. So what is supposed to make them different?

Only the ones that permanently run around at max damage. And bear in mind the Fury changes. They're a net buff for Brutes overall.

Okay, so I'm not insane. I get some of that feedback, though I'm not sure it needed to be all Demons, just the t1 ones that tend to Arsonist themselves. Just kind of a bummer that I missed it because I had hopes for making a Demon MM specifically for this patch (well, not that I still can't, it just won't make a difference for keeping them well-behaved).

They need to fix the damage crash in Rage first.

Y'know, I just now noticed Demonlings weren't included in the "don't run into melee" update? Why is that?

Interesting. They're killing Bruising, though, so not sure if that still works the same way. I wonder if the duration on the EC buff would also apply on Scrappers' critical hit bonus, though. Could be kinda crazy if so. ...it'd make me happy, at least.

Hmmm, this raises a fair point (and yeah, I'm aware people didn't like the old Defiance, but I was pontificating on whether that was maybe due more to the nature of the AT and how, as noted, there were no tools for dealing with the incoming damage). Alternatively, though, maybe it could work based on overall damage taken and not HP levels per se? Something like Nega-Pendragon's "rage" mechanic in the Magisterium Trial? Or would that just be too much like Fury?

I mean, those are all nice things about MA in general, yes (and heck, since I hate what "No Redraw" customization does to weapon set animations, MA not having them in the first place totally matters!). But not really getting to the heart of the matter of Thunder Kick being just all-around weaker than 5 other attacks from the same set.

No, not current Defiance, but the "classic" form: health drops, damage goes up. Had the idea come while chatting with some TF-mates last night. Old school Blasters couldn't really make use of Defiance because they could really drop their health...incrementally, shall we say. Sentinels, however, are a horse of a different color. With their defensive sets, they might be able to ride that line a little easier, sacrificing some of their safety for additional damage (an "Offensive Opportunity", one might say?).