macskull

Those people should probably see a doctor, the number of dogs inside a person should be zero.

All that is showing is that the -res is applying to the target, it doesn’t show the actual accuracy or hit rolls for the patch itself so it isn’t really useful for what we’re looking for here.

Turns out the Tanker version of this power also has the same limitations, except that one is a level 44 power pick so you’re even less likely to have the extra slots available to give it the attention it needs to perform well. If you’re looking at Mids for data, most of the Page 7 powers changes aren’t on there - Dominator Sleet used to have a 90 second recharge and now it’s 2 minutes along with other nerfs that Sleet as a whole got. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a case of “oops accidentally gave a critter power to players” since the pet the epic version of Tar Patch spawns is named “Tar_Epic” and it’s flagged to allow enhancements. This seems to be a conscious design decision.

I’m coming from this with the perspective of having to pay a slot tax for the accuracy that’s required. I don’t know if the summoned pet inherits accuracy buffs from the caster but I’d assume it doesn’t since many summoned pets don’t. Ideally I maximize the accuracy and recharge with as few slots as possible. Tar Patch is unique among area -res patches because it will continuously require hit checks for the most desirable part of the power to work. It takes slow sets but unfortunately only one slow set has both acc and rech in one power and that’s a 4-piece so you’re not getting much out of it. That pretty much leaves you with common 50+5 IOs or the acc/threat/rech D-Sync/Hami. Sure, the cost is going to be variable, and you might get lucky if you run enough Aeons or hard mode LGTFs, but at the end of the day no matter how you slice it you’re having to spend the time or inf or rely on luck just to get a power that still performs worse than the power it’s based on because of an arbitrary design decision.

Hi it’s me! I would have submitted this as a bug report but it is apparently Working As Intended so I am here to lay out a few things so that others may understand how ridiculous this power is. Dominators got access to Tar Patch with the new Dark Mastery pool in Page 7. Sounds cool, good new thematic match for some existing builds. Of course, since Tar Patch is an epic power, it must be strictly inferior to the in-set version for reasons that are still unclear. Generally this is accomplished by a recharge time penalty on the order of 2-3x the source power’s recharge. In-set Tar Patch has a 90 second recharge, so the epic version is set to 180 seconds. This change alone isn’t particularly egregious but it does already put epic Tar Patch at a disadvantage from a usability standpoint. If it was just this difference, I would probably have just shrugged and moved on. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Dark Mastery’s version of Tar Patch is not only slapped with a three minute recharge, but it has a few other key differences that aren’t immediately obvious but make it an objectively worse power even if it wasn’t already on an obnoxiously long cooldown: The power has a reduced radius of 15ft instead of 25ft (epic Sleet is the same way, 10ft instead of 20ft). The resistance debuff requires a hit check to work. This makes no sense since the rest of the power effects are autohit. On a power like Sleet the hit roll is annoying but not a problem because once a tick lands the target is debuffed for a further 30 seconds, but because of how Tar Patch works the power must make a successful hit roll every 0.5 seconds for 45 seconds. This already means the power is at best 95% as effective as the in-set version during its half-as-much uptime. That’s the best case scenario, which will only happen 0.0063% of the time (and no that’s not a typo). The power takes accuracy enhancements to account for point number two, but in order to actually maximize accuracy and recharge you’re forced to turn to multiple enhancements which cost 350-400 million each just to still get worse performance than the in-set version. Come on, we can do better than this.

The closest thing to a Mids analogue hasn't been updated since Issue 16. Unfortunately Mids is pretty much it.

I read these tags @Videra, don’t worry. Yeah, I understand that they’re called “alignment” powers because they’re locked to an alignment, but when I can switch alignments at will with 3 mouse clicks it doesn’t make much sense to make us wait a week to get a power and then have to stay as that alignment to keep it. Frenzy and Call to Justice are good but especially in the case of Frenzy it’s not worth being alignment locked to the side that has less content and fewer players. You can get either Frenzy or Call to Justice clones in PvP without being alignment locked, there’s not much reason the same shouldn’t be true in PvE.

Meh if I’m leading the team and I can’t fill for a piece of content I might log on an alt, or I might just run with 7. Multiboxing ain’t against the ToS (in this scenario) and it ain’t hurting anybody.

FWIW a Tanker is usually the play over a Scrapper on LGTF because the higher resist cap, better aggro management, and higher HP actually does end up mattering (for one 5-10 minute portion of the TF, anyways). Outside of hard mode, though, if we're talking "speedy meta" teams it's almost always just a bunch of Blasters with one or two Corruptors, melee need not apply.

Frozen Armor's +res can be enhanced, so the power has to be flagged that way.

This argument assumes that if a player isn't actively playing the game, they are no longer interested in the game or their characters. Sure, there are going to be people who play for a while and leave and never come back, but there are also going to be players who are away from the game for extended periods of time for other reasons, sometimes through no fault of their own. Who are we to decide whether the reason for their absence is enough that we should release their character names?

Ooh, I love these threads and I'm bored so here are just a few reasons the proposed name release policy is A Bad Thing. It doesn't actually address the stated issue of "name camping." Getting to level 6 and spending a few minutes once a year to maintain "activity" on a roster of characters takes very little effort. The players who are holding their breath and crossing their fingers and waiting for a name to get released will more likely than not end up disappointed when the name they want doesn't magically become available. By releasing names used by existing players we are telling those existing players that they do not matter. Any time-based inactivity rule is simply an arbitrary cutoff. Why does it have to be 365 days? Why not a month? Why not a day? A player who has left the game and later returns to find the name of their favorite character has been taken is likely to simply log off again and not return. Meanwhile, the player who snatched that name up could have simply found another name in the first place. The "players who don't want to give up their names are entitled" argument sucks. You want their name released so you can have it. How is that not where the entitlement lies? As always, I'll close with the disclosure that I am sitting on some fun, non-basic names, but just like back on live I am more than willing to consider releasing one to someone if they ask. Over the last 17 years someone has asked for one of my character names zero times.

The issue I see with something like this is that non-hold controls are pretty much an afterthought in higher-performing teams and this wouldn't really do anything to address the perception that Brutes are lacking in those situations. If controls as a whole got an overhaul, perhaps this might have merit.

Hi it’s me, an actual player who doesn’t at all care if someone enjoys playing a bad set or AT but who would also like the set or AT to not be bad so that I could enjoy it too.

Empathy is the most popular Defender primary but still manages to be the worst support set in the game, what point are you trying to make?