macskull

Recharge and mez resistance function differently than other enhanceable attributes - if I have a power that does 100 damage base and I enhance it with a damage SO that with an enhancement value of 33%, it enhances that power by (100x1.33=133). Recharge and mez resistance are functionally the opposite - 100% recharge doesn't make a power recharge instantly and 100% mez resistance doesn't make mez have no effect, those values simply cut the original value in half. Enhancement diversification isn't really a "soft cap" in that enhancement beyond that value is useless, but it does become subject to diminishing returns to the point where slotting any more than three identical SO's worth of an attribute into a power isn't usually worth the slots (although you do still get some value out of the slot). The only mechanic that really has a "soft cap" is defense since combat mechanics mean that for most cases anything above 45% defense is wasted.

To clarify on the defense softcap thing, reiterating a few things OP might have missed in their link: Since the base mob chance to hit is 50%, and the minimum chance to hit is never lower than 5%, any defense over 45% is functionally useless except in the case of enemy defense debuffs (somewhat common) or tohit buffs (far less common outside of incarnate content). That being said, higher-level and higher-rank mobs get an accuracy bonus, which isn't countered by defense so in reality unless you spend your time exclusively fighting even-con or lower minions you will never actually see that 5% minimum. Extra resistance past the hardcap isn't necessarily wasted, since it does work like defense past the cap in that it can provide a buffer for resistance debuffs.

what the fuck

His Channelgun attack has some pretty serious -end/-recovery and it'll catch you with your pants down if you're not expecting it. He's had that attack since the TF was added to the game, so maybe you've gotten lucky.

I'm not going to quote everything you said point-by-point because a lot of what you're saying is wrong: If you think you can build for meaningful psi resist while still hitting the other requirements for a PvP build you're woefully unfamiliar with building characters for PvP The current 8v8 AT limit isn't solely due to Blasters, it also stops people from running wacky things like teams full of Tanks/Brutes/Stalkers/Masterminds Scourge has never been unresisted outside of PvP I feel like your discussion about spikes/countdowns is coming from somewhere other than team arena matches which doesn't make sense because that's pretty much the only place those happen and none of the points you raised make sense anyways There are several different types of PvP in this game - 1v1, team arena matches, zone... 1v1s have always been rock/paper/scissors and the very nature of zone PvP makes it impossible to balance so that pretty much leaves team arena matches. Good balance should promote and revolve around teamwork because this is (and has always been) a team-oriented game, both in PvE and PvP Until options to disable travel suppression and heal decay in the arena were added (I think it was I15?) the only way to turn those off was to turn off diminishing returns which resulted in the situation I described It's time for a reality check here. I'll restate what I said earlier - most PvPers would probably prefer to go back to the old system but it's not going to happen here because it would be a huge chunk of developer time and resources for little overall benefit. Even when PvP was at its peak the PvP population made up a small fraction of the game's subscriber base and it's probably even smaller now. This game has never catered to PvPers and the casual-friendly nature of the game as a whole means most players just aren't interested in PvP in the first place. It makes no sense from a development standpoint to overhaul the PvP system when there is no guarantee of benefit and when most development efforts are focused around retaining the playerbase the game already has. That being said, the I25 code base is out there - if you're really interested in this being a thing and you have some coding knowledge and time on your hands, go wild. I'm out, enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Enhancements also scale down in effectiveness when you exemplar below level 32, as described in the PW article here (because the game doesn't track when you placed slots, just powers). Set bonuses will also not work more than 3 levels below the level of the IOs in question (i.e. level 50 IO set bonuses stop working below 47) unless they're attuned, PvP, or purple sets.

BACKGROUND Currently, the Combat chat tab contains the following channels by default: Combat warnings Damage inflicted Hit rolls General combat Damage received Error Healing received Healing delivered Additionally there are other, mostly pet-related channels that can be viewed as well, namely damage inflicted/received, healing delivered/received, hit rolls, and combat. PROBLEM The existing channels are fine most of the time but there are obvious issues given the lack of channels, specifically for endurance, and also for some procs, and it seems like the healing delivered channel is basically used as a "catch-all" for items that should be in the general combat channel. For example, for powers which drain enemy endurance show that end drain in the damage inflicted channel, making it more difficult to parse out. Powers which drain your own endurance (Hasten, T9 crashes, etc.) show up in the damage received channel. Likewise, powers which boost your endurance or that of your allies show up in the healing received and healing delivered channels. For example, the +end from Performance Shifter and Panacea show up in the healing channels, and the Theft of Essence +end proc works the same way. When I activate Build Up or a similar power, the combat text shows up in the healing received channel instead of the general combat channel. SOLUTION Add combat channels for endurance delivered and endurance received (and parallel pet-related channels) and ensure powers that aren't actually delivering heals or +regen have their combat messages placed in the general combat channel instead of the healing channels. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!

I don't think anyone here is pretending that the current system is better than the old system - it's different for sure, and the team diversity you see is smaller, but it's not a bad system. I'm not saying that powerset proliferation, etc. is a reason to not go back to the old system, but all the changes since I13 mean even pre-I13-style PvP wouldn't be quite the same as you remember it. As an example, look at what happened with I12 - Psi Blasters changed the meta heroside and Fortunatas completely broke the redside meta. Re: the AT limit, it didn't exist before I13 because a portion of your team was dedicated to buffers to ensure people didn't explode (Sonics, Therms) and could move around unsuppressed (Kins) and debuffers to cut through the 75% resistance everyone had (Rads heroside, mostly). Under the current system an AT limit exists because while the high damage output is still there there is no way to appreciably increase survivability to counter it since damage resistance and defense DR so harshly. (Almost) every single power was rebalanced for the I13 rules including new power definitions and effects. It's not as simple as flipping a switch to going back to the old system, you'd have to undo all the I13 changes and put the pre-I13 values back in. It would absolutely take some time, and that's where it becomes a question of "is the amount of developer time and resources it would take to do this worth the results" and I'm reasonably certain that the answer is no. This is why the PvP community is asking for smaller, more incremental changes, because those are less likely to get dismissed outright. Unresisted damage and debuffs (where they existed) were only ever a thing in PvP, outside of a few bugged powers that were corrected pretty rapidly. I'm starting to think at this point that you haven't seriously PvP'd in the post-I13 environment that you'd bring up TK like that. TK in pre-I13 PvP worked just like it did in PvE, but you could basically ignore it as long as you had a couple Breakfrees running or were teamed with a Kin. Post-I13 TK works completely differently - there's no repel and the hold (which there is no protection against) lasts until you take damage or TK detoggles. Mez spikes can be (and are) a thing under the current ruleset but it still requires coordination since the hold duration is only a few seconds tops. I'm not sure what game you were playing but the "3 2 1 spike" countdown has been a thing since long before I13. I'm very confused now. If you eliminate DR and free base resistances teams start running Sonics/Therms again which means everyone gets to the resistance cap anyways except there's no longer unresisted damage or debuffs (aside from AS crit damage) so the only way you will get kills against a competent team is mez or knockback spikes coupled with a pair of Stalkers. It's basically what happened in the I13-I15 timeframe and that was some of the worst PvP this game has ever had. It's like you're pretending team play doesn't exist. This is why I'm saying that you can't really pick and choose which parts of the old system to bring back - everything is tied together and if you only partially implement things you will get unpredictable results. I think most of the current PvP community would prefer to go back to the pre-I13 ruleset if it were an option (even though there'd be a steep learning curve for many of them). You seem to think it's as easy as adding a flashback map and small patch and boom we have pre-I13 PvP again, but I'm reasonably sure that if it were so simple it would've been done during the private server years. TL;DR: Most PvPers would probably prefer the pre-I13 system to the current one but even if it were magically changed overnight PvP now wouldn't be the same as it was then, and in reality it's not as simple as flipping a switch so it would require significant developer time and resources for little benefit to the game as a whole, so a wholesale reversion of the I13 changes is highly unlikely.

I think another important thing to remember is that considering all the changes that have gone into the game in the 11.5 years since I13 dropped, even under the old rules the game wouldn't be the same anymore - there's been powerset proliferation, new powersets, new mechanics, and new IO sets. My earlier point re: PvP zones - currently the game uses the zone you're in to determine how self-affecting powers work and the target of your powers to determine how ally- or enemy-affecting powers work. It's probably possible to get the game to ignore the "target is player" flag but you'd have to balance every single power against that otherwise you'd end up with weird cases like taunt being autohit and a base 75% chance to hit instead of 50%. Even if you do manage to get that work, some of the pre-I13 mechanics wouldn't exist anymore because the powers definitions associated with them were removed (things like unresisted Scourge, unresisted crits, 11% of Blaster damage being unresisted, Defender debuffs being unresisted, etc.). Those that played pre-I13 will remember how you got kills when everyone was at the resist cap - blueside you leaned on unresisted Defender debuffs and unresisted Blaster damage, and redside you leaned on unresisted AS crits and unresisted Scourge. Take away unresisted debuffs and damage and you're back to the current system with DR off, and I am probably not the only one who remembers the "knockback or TK into double/triple AS spikes" 8v8 meta that was probably the most un-fun PvP has ever been in this game.

I don't think it's possible given the way PvP values work since self-affecting powers use the type of zone you're in to determine their effects, and if you disable the "PvP" flag, well... you wouldn't be able to PvP.

Most of Elec Affinity's powers get some benefit out of PB - it boosts +/- end, heals, absorbs, and tohit. It's just a matter of whether it's worth it over anything other epic/patron pool you could take and unless you're set on Soul Mastery or Power Mastery I wouldn't go with those just for PB.

I don't think the poster you're replying to is one of those people.

Incarnate salvage/threads/shards are already character-bound and Empyrean merits are account-bound, and both of those limitations suck. What you are proposing is grind for grind's sake - this isn't 2004 and the game has no shareholders to appease. As long as HC is meeting its monthly donation goals in minutes I don't think we're in danger of people leaving in droves because they're bored. If anything, the easy availability of items compared to live keeps people more interested because they're able to better support their crippling altoholism.

/jranger

The Experienced Marksman icon appears in your own buff bar and the team buff bar when you're using the fast snipe proc.

I wouldn't mind if it acted like it did in the very early versions of the set where Amp Up added extra energy damage to the buffed ally's attacks, but I don't know if that's the way to go. Adding a regeneration or recovery bonus might be a good place to start if it needs anything (but I'm not convinced it does).

In task force mode calling the contact to pick up the next mission will boot anyone who's still in the mission precisely to prevent the scenario OP described. It doesn't do it outside of task force mode because you can always kick and reinvite the person if you're so inclined.

Patron arcs are easy - BS's takes 30 minutes tops. Autocomplete the defeat-all, bring along a different character to actually run the missions, or find a friend who is about to complete the last mission since all you actually need is the badge. More on-topic though: Damage per cast cycle isn't the be-all-end-all for farming. You also have to take into account cast time so while Spine Burst looks good on paper its activation time is 3 seconds which is a long time where you could be doing something else.

I also got my numbers from Mids (2.6.0.7). Regardless... if you're chasing specific set bonuses TAoE does pretty well with a hefty 3.13% F/C defense for 6-slotting Annihilation (plus the -res procs are huge for farming). If you're primarily AFKing of course none of this matters but in an active scenario more AoE is never a bad thing especially if they put out decent damage with respect to their cast times. On my Rad/Fire my chain is Atom Smasher -> Elec Fences -> Ball Lightning -> Burn -> repeat with no downtime and between that and my damage auras I have no problem taking anything down. On a Spines/Fire less recharge means you have to start using Spine Burst more often which has a pretty crappy cast time.

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from - Elec Fences is 1.58, Ball Lightning is 1.27, and Fireball is 1.38. So yes, Fireball is marginally better than Ball Lightning but Elec Fences is better than either and the combination of Elec Fences and Ball Lightning is far superior to Fireball plus with Mu Mastery it's two picks for two AoEs versus three picks for one AoE to get Fireball.

You're looking at the DPCC for Fire Blast. Fireball's is lower than Elec Fences.

The bounty rewards 100% need tweaking, especially considering Siren's Call is a ghost town even on Indomitable.

You can promote to the same rank as you, just not higher.

Mu is the go-to because you get two AoEs for two picks whereas Pyre requires three picks for one AoE. I've seen some builds that use it but honestly it's not optimal.