CaffieneNirvana

I could be wrong, but Power Siphon may have *originally* been supposed to add on the -DMG effect, but it was changed (by Homecoming? I think?) to be native to most Kinetic Melee powers (re: everything except Repulsing Torrent). The descriptions weren't changed to reflect this, hence the confusion. Q.E.D., now Power Siphon ONLY does the damage buff thing. However, the -DMG effect is basically 5% across the board. It does stack between different attacks, the only major difference is that some attacks' effects last a bit longer. If you'd like to see proof of this, buy a Power Analyzer from P2W, use it on an enemy, then attack them without using Power Siphon and keep an eye on their damage statistic. Unless that's been changed since I tested it a few weeks ago. Also, another thing I like about Power Siphon is that it can add up to being a bigger bonus than Build Up in four (Tanker, Brute) to three (Scrapper) stacks. Assuming you don't miss, it's not hard to get there in the first ten seconds or so, then you just need to keep it going. When I play Kinetic Melee in a team, I usually go for Lieutenant or Boss enemies first to this end. ...And sometimes solo too. I mean, it still does the trick for me for getting the nastiest-looking thing in a mob out of the way first. And if I still have it going once that's down, it's a good head start on the cleanup as well. What I'd LIKE to see as a buff to it is allowing Repulsing Torrent to contribute to it, since as far as I remember, it doesn't. Nor does it have/get -DMG debuff with or without Power Siphon.

...Now I'm mad I didn't know about that when I was conceptualizing this. I love knowing stuff like that. Thank you, Saiyajinzoningen! And thank you too, Itashu! I can't imagine putting together a powerset is easy, even with preexisting assets. Hence all the ranting; hopefully if one option isn't suitable or workable, another either is or sparks an idea for a different direction, compromise, or other idea altogether. Hopefully.

Honestly, one thing I love about Power Siphon is when I have Gaussian's on it. So when I pop it, I START with good damage as I build the stacks, and then once the proc wears off, I still HAVE that damage. It may or may not add up to the same in the end, or maybe a bit less, though, but it's certainly fun for those 20s it gets to throw down with. Having Concentrated Strike as a "gadget" attack (re: having an effect that procs when it crits), along with also being your tier 9, is a little problematic I'll admit. I don't think it would hurt if it could still do critical damage, especially since it's a single-target tier 9, especially since its critical rate is hard fixed at 20% last I knew. And maybe for Brutes or Tankers it could have the "hits one or two enemies behind the original target in a line" thing going on, since they don't get criticals. Or even make it a mini-targeted AoE with a maximum target limit of two to three, Iunno. It'd suit the Tanker/Brute repetoire a bit better that way, methinks. I get pretty good and consistent damage with Kinetic Melee aside from that though, especially on my Scrapper. And it's REALLY fun when paired with Bio Armor, especially on a Tanker; stacking up some of that -DMG% debuff lets you stay in Offensive Adaptation almost constantly. Maybe a *slight* buff to its overall damage wouldn't hurt though. Given the windup on some of the animations, it can feel odd when the end result is a bit weak.

I'm sorry that the rambling caused you difficulties; it's a habit, good bad or otherwise, of mine to "have fun, and try to make it fun to read" when I write things up, which professionally-wise probably leads to a hefty chunk of unnecessary "noise" as it were. But I greatly appreciate you taking the time nonetheless, and thank you for the welcome as well.

Before anything else, I want to open with a little disclaimer. Because frankly I'm a little scared to post this in the first place (especially as my first post, and I'm sorry for that), but at the same time, nothing ventured nothing gained. I'd just rather *not* gain stress; got a lot of that going around as-is. Note that I DON'T have regular home internet. So any and all replies from me are liable to be very delayed. Possibly even very VERY delayed; like I might be able to check back in a month or so, if you'd like to know a timeframe. I wish browsing pages in any given phone-based web browser DIDN'T eat my mobile data like the Hamidon devouring Praetorian Earth for some reason, but it is what it is, fraggravatingly. And I do apologise for any inconvenience that causes you, even if you just want a debate for the sake of a debate. (Heck, sometimes ESPECIALLY that, debates can spark some really cool new ideas.) I'll at least try to check back in once a week or so, since I really do want to try and make this work if it will. But if I can't, I apologise in advance. Being broke-broke suuuuuucks. However, I did choose a weekend I'm in a position to check back in on and off until Monday afternoon. So hopefully that takes off *some* of the obnoxious inconvenience, at least early on. Also, if you have the time to spare, I'd appreciate constructive feedback on what you think would or wouldn't work regarding this. If there's something I've fundamentally missed as to why this would UTTERLY not work and/or ruin the game as a whole, please explain it to me and anyone who might be reading. You're coming from somewhere with those feelings and insights, and we might not instantly or intuitively know where. Help me and dimnits like me to understand, please and thank you. Sometimes it's important to be wrong before you can learn how to be right. Helps you see where you might need to go from there, innit though? ======== So. Kinetic Blast. I feel like there could be room for a powerset like this for Blasters/Corruptors/Defenders/Sentinels. Maybe even a Kinetic Assault Dominator set if ya nasty, albeit way later on. But just saying the possible name isn't the same as painting the picture, so let's go number-by-number here until it's colored in for y'all. _____ 1. WHAT would Kinetic Blast be? --Kinetic Blast would be a ranged equivalent of Kinetic Melee, utilizing the animations thereof along with its particular brand of particle effects and repurposing them into a ranged damage set. ...Yeah, I know. "No duh", right? But it's important to have your project objective be a single sentence concept if you can. _____ 2. WHY would we want Kinetic Blast when we already have Energy/Radation Blast? Doesn't that already cover this particular theme? Especially with Energy Blast dealing the same types of damage? --Honestly, Energy and Rad Blasts work for a lot of concepts that could overlap with what Kinetic Blast might be considered, thematically. Problem is, some of the powers thereof, and especially some of the particle effects (especially the "confetti" look of Energy Blast or the "bubbly" look of Radiation Blast) sometimes just flat-out ruin the aesthetic some toons are going for. Also if I might slip in a mini-suggestion under the table, I'm not a big fan of [X-Ray Beam]'s "casting" alternate animation; though I think that could be fixed by aping the animation for something like ;casting instead, personally. Or even the ;point or ;attack gestures. Although I get if trying to turn it into a single beam like that wouldn't work for a number of reasons. And while this might just be drawing a bit of bias from other games (there's a pun in there and you won't get it, and I'm sorry for that), the fact that Energy is usually predominantly Energy damage, while Kinetic Melee is usually predominantly Smashing, does at least make them different enough to me. They would deal different amounts of damage to the same target in most cases. Besides, by that logic, what's the point in having Archery *and* Assault Rifle? Or Beam Rifle *and* Radiation Blast? Each pair do the same exact type of damage, and don't even have a sub-set of damage to differentiate them! Because they're thematically different and do other things beyond just damage, of course. And while it isn't everybody's thing, I usually enjoy making my toons based on concept over function; otherwise I'd have a LOT more Bio Armor or Kinetics characters, or a Robotics/Force Field Mastermind, for instance. For me, games are more fun as a canvas, City of Heroes just so happens to excel in offering a prodigious amount of functional AND thematic variation. And Kinetic Blast's potential flavors for a character's narrative design would be a lot of fun for me. _____ 3. ...You mean "ki" blasts or some weeaboo crap like that, don't you? --Pretty much, yes. But again, like I said, that's what some toons would like to have in terms of their aesthetics. Besides, we already have Kinetic Melee (and a few one-off powers like [Ki Push]), and it is so far into that aesthetical camp it isn't funny. And like I said, having a "simple" energy blasting set that borrows from Kinetic Melee's aesthetics might be nice. Besides, it need not only be that. The hand gesticulations could imply some kind of somatic magic. Or that, as per the name, you're literally gathering up kinetic energy via the motions of your hands before tossing out bolts of the stuff. Like I said, games as a canvas. You may even color it a specific way and theme it as it being some kind of ad-hoc "wind" blast, or threads of condensed heat that you're weaving together. And let's be fair here. It wouldn't be visually fatiguing to have in-game alongside Energy Blast and Radiation Blast. Even amongst those two, if we turned off particle effects, can we just take a moment to appreciate that we can see HOW the default animations for those are different for their later attacks? It's a really impressive thing about those two blast types, and Kinetic Blast would be even more distinct in that way for the whole tier listing. _____ 4. Okay, generously assuming the weeaboo thing didn't hard-close all negotiations, is there even a mechanical niche for this to fill? --Actually? There might very well be. For one thing, ideally it would lack most of Energy Blast's knockback. Yes, I know, [Repulsing Torrent] has Knockback, and [Quick Burst] can sometimes do knockback on weaker enemies. But since that's covered by Energy Blast, I'd rather drop it altogether for most attacks. Repulsing Torrent is the only exception, since it could be useful if the blaster wants a zoning attack tool, and like with the melee version it would NOT natively get the other thing I'm going to suggest for Kinetic Blast. So that alone, as a "KB-less alternative to Energy Blast", Kinetic Blast might be useful in itself. But damage and knock isn't the only thing in Kinetic Melee's wheelhouse. It also does Damage debuffs. Now if you're like me before I cracked open this whole can of worms, you might be thinking "okay, but wait, in-game it says that's only on [Quick Strike]. Any other power that isn't Repulsing Torrent only gets that effect from [Power Siphon] (assuming you have it), so sayeth the descriptions". So. About that... First of all, despite the fact that [Quick Burst] has -DMG in the power effects list, the description for it isn't any different from any other Kinetic Melee power with -DMG; it implies it only has this effect with Power Siphon up. And yet, it DOES have native -DMG. So too do all the other powers except Repulsing Torrent. And here's the real kicker: they stack with each other. I had a friend help me test this in Recluse's Victory AND in PvE using the [Power Analyzer], if you're curious. So this is first-hand knowledge (well, first-hand-by-proxy? does that still count as first-hand? ...first-and-a-half-hand, then), this isn't "BUT TEH WIKI SEYZ" or "I'm taking Mids' as immutable fact despite all of the other oopsiedaisies it has going on, lol". With the exception of Dual Pistols' [Chemical Ammunition] toggle, -DMG is a feature that no other blast powerset gets its entire set dedicated to. And luckily we have Chem bullets as a good baseline for what Kinetic Blast's damage debuffs might look like. Like Kinetic Melee, the Chem Ammo bullets' damage debuffs do in fact stack; that whole 'not from same actor' thing just means the same attack won't produce more than one stack from the same user. As for the value and duration of its base -DMG, if we look at the chem bullets, for Blasters and Sentinels this should probably range from 5.6% to 12% (with most powers getting 7%, and only one, two at the very most getting 12%). Note that I'm suggesting a maximum value that is 2% less than what Chem Ammo would be on [Hail of Bullets] since this is a constant effect, and not a situational buff. For Corruptors, values might range from 8% to 12%, whereas Defenders' values might look more like 10% to 18%. (Based on DP/ChemAm values, this could go as high as 25% for not![Burst], but there's a reason I'm suggesting pulling punches a bit here on the upper limits of the flat values.) Duration's a bit contentious. Pistols' -DMG is a matter of 5s across the board. Kinetic Melee usually opts for 4s save for the "big" attacks having longer durations thereupon (7s or so), *but* its damage debuff values have little to no variation for all six attacks that have them. Due to the dynamic values, and Kinetic's longer animations plus travel time, if it's not too greedy I would suggest a 6s duration per power, but if that's too much to ask 5s might still work. The reason I'm even chancing suggesting 6s is due to Kinetic Blast's animations intending to be a bit longer/slower than the comparatively zippy attacks Dual Pistols get. 5s could work, but like I said, animations + travel time might cause a slight issue that a 6s duration would do well to balance out, doubly so since it's meant to be this power's main side-hustle. (Especially considering 5% fixed miss chance that more often than not feels more like 10% on a good day and 25% on a not-so-good day.) For similar reasons as listed above, and just like the Melee set, [Repulsing Torrent] would NOT natively have -DMG due to it having a high chance of decent-magnitude knockback. It's your zoning tool, and you'd have one other targeted AoE for applying -DMG to a mob in your regular attack chain. Now, as a possibly-contemptuous suggestion. I would suggest that Kinetic Blast be slightly weaker in terms of overall base damage values than other blast sets. And that's because if possible I would like to use this to accommodate implementing a version of [Power Siphon] onto it. If you aren't familiar with how that power NORMALLY works, here's a brief overview: --Applies a flat +7.5% To-Hit buff. --Each time you land a Kinetic Melee attack, you gain stacking damage bonuses, up to a maximum of five stacks. 31.25% or so for Scrapper, 25% for Tanker. (I didn't have a Kinetic Brute to test it on. My shame is great. Mids' claims it's 25% per stack though, so let's run with that. And Stalker just gets [Build Up], as is more suited to their toolkit.) --120s recharge, 20s duration. Now, I am NOT suggesting that Kinetic Blast get stacking damage numbers like that, that would be utterly ridiculous ESPECIALLY on Blasters. So I would like to suggest this formula instead: --Applies a flat +20% To-Hit buff. --Applies a flat +33.3% Range boost (Sentinel only). --Each time you land a Kinetic Blast attack, you gain 7% stacking Damage bonuses, up to a maximum of 35% with five stacks. (If possible, since Blaster also often has [Build Up] and its own nonstop infinite +Damage procs under its belt, this is *just* the Blaster variation, and maybe all other ATs can have 10% stacking damage bonuses.) --Adds lesser, 10s-long damage debuff values to all Kinetic Blast attacks. These would range from 3%~6% (Blasters/Sentinels), 5%~8% (Corruptors), and 7%~10% (Defenders). "All attacks" includes [Repulsing Torrent], since it also worked to proc Power Siphon stacks on melee. It should be okay to give it a damage debuff ONLY when Power Siphon is active. ********5-11-2023 EDIT : Okay, pretty sure I'm flat-out wrong here, Repulsing does NOT normally contribute to Power Siphon. Kinda wish it did, both here and on Melee. But if it's preferable to NOT have it work that way, I understand. Why am I leaving that in when I could just edit it out with nobody the wiser? Because I'mma dimnit and you deserve to know that. --120s recharge, 20s duration. ...Now before you get too much angrier, I can explain. Since damage debuff is Kinetic Blast's gimmick, it makes sense to enhance it in some way using a variation on its [Aim] power, trading it off for NOT having a flat damage bonus to the character themselves, but rather having to earn it via aggression. The idea here is that normally, native damage debuffs on the attacks aren't liable to stack by much with each other for a single user. By adding in weaker, but longer-lasting values via the not!Aim, we give that period of enhancement an extra edge on that end. On most Archetypes, Power Siphon is Kinetic Melee's other main trick; it's an intrinsic part of how it plays, unless we're talking Stalkers since it was better to put precedent on the Stalker playstyle instead. So it could be interesting and would make sense to port it to Kinetic Blast in this fashion. All of this put together would give Kinetic Blast a disparate mechanical identity compared to other blast sets, even those that seem outwardly rather similar like Energy Blast and Radiation Blast. And don't try to tell me Blasters wouldn't enjoy a dedicated Damage debuff set, innit? _____ 5. Does it NEED to have a variant of [Power Siphon] instead of [Aim]? --Well, no. But if we drop this proposed version of Power Siphon for Aim, maybe make the base values of -DMG the same as they'd be for Dual Pistols with Chem bullets. So that means 5%~14% on Blaster and Sentinel, 8%~10% on Corruptors, and 10%~25% on Defenders. (MAYBE cap it at only 20% on Defender, for the aforementioned 'constant thing, not a situational toggle' bit mentioned above.) And ideally, increase the durations of each debuff to 7s or even 8s across the board so they have a chance to reliably stack. Oh, and ignore the above "make it slightly weaker than its contemporary powers" note up above, since that was suggested to try to enable Power Siphon to be a thing for the blast version too. _____ 6. What about a sniper power? Would it get that? --Actually I'd suggest "no". I'm rather strongly against the idea, in fact. If the devs were to actually give it one, I wouldn't be *mad* about it per se, but if it were me writing up blueprints for the entire powerset, I wouldn't give it a snipe on any Archetype, personally. I'm almost tempted to take it a step further and suggest Kinetic Blast has a slightly shorter range than the norm for blast sets. But I can't offer any particular reason for it beyond "it just kind of makes sense to me", as if it's sort of a foil to Psychic Blast. Although that would have more to do with how I'd usually conceptualize it for my characters (re: as a sort of "personal energy" and thereby it can't travel as far). _____ 7. How difficult might this be to put together with the resources already available in-game? --Well, the thing is most Kinetic Melee powers' animations would already work pretty well when it comes to repurposing them into blasts. In essence, the original powerset is almost like a Gunlance in Monster Hunter--despite the name, it's much less of a ranged weapon and much more of a short-ranged plume of damage. But nobody would likely bat an eye if it suddenly turned into a full-on ranged shot, because the potential's already there in the attack motions. That being said, some Kinetic Melee attacks ALREADY have range. [Repulsing Torrent] is a 40-ft. cone with a 45-degree arc. [Focused Burst] is a straight-up 40-ft. single-target projectile. And if anything [Burst], a PBAoE attack, would just need its 8-ft. radius extended a bit further out to fit in with a shift to a ranged archetype. Say about 15 ft., maybe 20 ft. if that would be acceptable. (Granted 25 ft. is basically the standard for PBAoE "nuke" blasts, and not![Burst] WOULD be our biggest source of raw -DMG. So if that wouldn't be unreasonable, hey. Although I do something a bit different with its altered form down below with the example tiers. Nothing crazy, at least.) The hardest part of this might be producing projectile effects for the animations that don't have them, since you might only get so far with tweaking the projectile effect from Focused Burst. In MOST cases, I feel like Kinetic Blast's particle effects could have this covered, but I also admit I have no freaking clue how much layering is going on, meaning how much of it might be separate enough to use individually and/or how much of it is one entire particle, so this may not be as easy as I might hope. (And since this is City of Heroes we're discussing...'not as easy as you'd hope' may as well be the arc words when it comes to adding new stuff.) If there's another power set one might be able to poach for an effect, oddly enough it might be the Dominator's Psionic Assault to some extent. It has some nice-looking flashes/orbs that might not look terribly out of place for Kinetic Blasts. But insofar as what the character does to launch the attack itself? The basic animations are basically perfect, redundancy intended. _____ 8. So what might a Kinetic Blast powerset look like? --Here's a very rough outline of what I'd personally envision it to look like on a Blaster and/or Sentinel. ********IF ALL OF THE ABOVE IS WAY WAAAAY TOO MUCH TL;DR, THIS MAY BE A DECENT CLIFFNOTES OVERVIEW FOR YOU******** Tier 1 - Quick Burst (Single-Target, Light Damage) --Design Intention : Quintessential quick, Endurance-cheap shot. Added tertiary effect to maybe save a Blaster's life, assuming it procs. --End Cost : 4.37 --Recharge : 3s --Cast Time : 0.83s --Range : 70 ft. (Blaster)/60 ft. (Sentinel) --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgt) -5.6% for 6s (+3% for 10s with Power Siphon), does not stack with self from same caster; 20% chance for 3.00 Magnitude Stun for 5.14s on target Notes : Uses the animation for [Quick Strike] Tier 2 - Kinetic Bolt (Single-Target, Moderate Damage) --Design Intention : Standard solid single-target tier 2. --End Cost : 6.03 --Recharge : 5s --Cast Time : 1.07s --Range : 70 ft. (Blaster)/60 ft. (Sentinel) --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgt) -7% for 6s (+3% for 10s with Power Siphon), does not stack with self from same caster Notes : Uses the animation for [Body Blow] Tier 3 - Repulsing Torrent (Cone, Moderate Damage) --Design Intention : Early videogame-shotgun-like babby's-first-AoE. With a side of zoning tool. And fries. --End Cost : 10.86 --Recharge : 12s --Cast Time : 2s --Range : 45 ft. (Blaster)/40 ft. (Sentinel) (Arc 45-degrees in either case) --Effect : 80% chance of Knockback Magnitude 6.23; Damage Debuff (Tgt) -5.6% for 10s with Power Siphon, does not stack with self from same caster Tier 4 - Smashing Burst (Single-Target, High Damage) --Design Intention : Normal-heavy single-target attack. (re: A balance between tier 2 and upper-tier single-target burst damage tier 6, both in damage and in availability.) --End Cost : 7.7 --Recharge : 7s --Cast Time : 1.2s --Range : 70 ft. (Blaster/60 ft. (Sentinel) --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgt) -7% for 6s (+3% for 10s with Power Siphon), does not stack with self from same caster Notes : Uses the animation for [Smashing Blow] Tier 5 - Power Siphon --Design Intention : "Let's get dangerous" burst-damage buff. Themed off of Kinetic Melee's variant of [Build Up], just adjusted to suit a blast set, plus or minus additional -DMG%. --End Cost : 5.2 --Recharge : 120s --Duration : 20s --Cast Time : 1.93s --Effect : +20% To-Hit buff; +33.3% Range buff (Sentinel only); Each attack adds a 7% Damage Buff stack (maximum 5 stacks); Most Kinetic Blast attacks (as specified in their Effect notes) receive additional longer-lasting, if lesser, Damage debuff values. Tier 6 - Charged Bolt (Single-Target, Superior Damage) --Design Intention : "Special attack" heavy. Single-target burst damage. --End Cost : 10.4 --Recharge : 10s --Cast Time : 2s --Range : 80 ft. (Blaster)/65 ft. (Sentinel) --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgt) -10% for 6s (+6% for 10s with Power Siphon), does not stack with self from same caster Notes : Uses the animation for [Focused Burst] ****Note that on Corruptor and Defender, this might be swapped with Tier 4. Also, if it needs more casting time, you could put a 0.67s delay or so in when the character winds up right before "throwing" the attack.**** Tier 7 - Sweeping Burst (PBAoE, Minor Damage) --Design Intention : "Gadget" Power. Mobbing-management tool. --End Cost : 10.14 --Recharge : 15s --Cast Time : 1.23s --Radius : 10 ft. --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgt) -10% for 6s (+5% for 10s with Power Siphon), does not stack with self; Magnitude 0.67 Knockback Notes : Uses the same animation as "Radiation Field" animation for [Irradiate] (just maybe a bit slower of a wind-up; otherwise, the cast time would be 1.07s) with the visual effects of [Burst]; I'll admit I kinda got a little creatively bankrupt here, and thought "hey, maybe an attack to aid in zoning might be useful"; if it doesn't seem useful by itself, consider its potential use as proc-bait, i.e. Fury of the Gladiator : Chance for -Res. Also, if it isn't a given, should be slottable with Knockback IOs in case someone WANTS this to be KB. Why? Because I designed it after the "Burst" mechanics from games like Guilty Gear. It COULD be upgraded to light damage, but I chose minor because I wanted to keep the Endurance cost and Recharge relatively low, so as to make it more available when/if the character might need it. Tier 8 - Blast Transfer (Targeted AoE, Moderate DMG) --Design Intention : "I'm a big kid now" AoE. Potent, accurate, and satisfying; neither as horrendously damaging as a tier 9 nuke nor as End-hungry or slow to recoup. It's how blasters say AHHYUU OHKEI--I mean "how's your day?" to big mobs. --End Cost : 15.18 --Recharge : 16s --Cast Time : 2.67s --Range : 70 ft. (Blaster)/60 ft. (Sentinel); 15 ft. Radius --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgts) -8% for 6s (+4% for 10s with Power Siphon), does not stack with self from same caster Notes : Uses the animation for [Burst], with the actual effects therein exploding from beneath the primary target. Also, you have no idea how tempting it was to name this "Power Geyser". Tier 9 - Unleash (PBAoE, Extreme Damage) --Design Intention : Quintessential nuke. A more sociable way for the gentleperson Blaster to break the bones--I mean ice with a mob. --End Cost : 18.51 --Recharge : 145s (90s on Sentinel) --Cast Time : 2.83s~3s (I'm not 100% sure due to the suggested animation; ideally 3s though) --Radius : 20 ft. (all) --Effect : Damage Debuff (Tgts) -12% for 6s (+6% with Power Siphon for 10s), does not stack with self from same caster Notes : Uses the "wind up" of [Concentrated Strike], but transitions into the same animations for ;ultimatepower (just minus the lightning, obviously). The special effects could combine that of [Burst] and a Psionic assault's explosive burst, perhaps. Or maybe poach effects off Kinetics like that of Fulcrum Shift's large shockwave-looking stuff, if that would work elsewise. Well. But that's just my idea. Hopefully this wasn't a waste of the last five or so minutes for you, assuming anyone read this from start to finish. And hell, if you did, thank you! If all you did was browse over the suggested tierings, also thank you! Even if you despise it, I really appreciate your patience and you taking the time to at least humor this by way of taking a glance at it. ...And sorry again that this is my first post on here, due to the whole tenuous internet thing. Yes it's really bugging me, I'm sorry.