macskull

Travel suppression and heal decay no longer exist in zone PvP and are disabled by default in arena matches. Diminishing returns is still a thing, and most of the ingame combat attributes don't correctly reflect the effects of DR. Nothing with regards to diminishing returns has changed since live.

I agree that if every build were exactly identical player skill would be the only thing that would matter - but in a system like that there isn't a lot of skill required to master the game. Everything works exactly the same way and once you've figured it out, you've gotten as good as you're ever going to. MMO PvP (at least in a dueling situation) is inherently rock/paper/scissors but if the system allows for a wider range of player skill I can beat paper with rock, for example, instead of it being a foregone conclusion that paper always wins in that situation.

Perhaps I misspoke - it might not remove skill entirely, but it does lower the skill cap significantly and that's never a good idea. Issue 13 saw sweeping changes to the PvP system in an attempt to homogenize builds and make the skill cap lower and it nearly killed this game's PvP community. There's less diversity in builds and if anything the learning curve is now steeper than it used to be because many of your powers don't function anything like they do in PvE.

Nah, that's boring AF and completely removes player skill from the equation.

As much a cliche as "learn to play" is, in many cases like this it's an appropriate answer.

This is already possible and I think some of the servers out there allow it, but the server has to be taken down each time to update the character database, and there's no way to check whether the export file was modified (so you didn't grant yourself, say, every badge in existence and 2 billion inf).

I mean, that was pretty much the direction things started to head with the Issue 13 PvP changes. The competitive PvP scene in this game never really recovered from that, though we're lucky enough now where there are several active competitive teams that do unofficial matches most nights during the week.

Try the "sit at range and snipe people" in a coordinated PvP environment and let me know how that goes for you. If you're having luck with that strategy you might want to consider fighting against competent players. Hell, come out to Pocket D on Indomitable sometime. We do pick-up 8v8 matches every Wednesday and Saturday at 9 Eastern.

You can do pretty much anything on a personal server, yes.

So I suppose I'll sit here and make a more serious reply to the OP: It looks like you started a thread back in August about the lack of challenging content in this game and in one of those posts you said (and I'm quoting here) "I've never done anything in City of Heroes I actually got stuck on and had to think about." Looks like you've now found that thing you're getting stuck on and have to think about but instead of doing that you're coming to the forums and asking for a massive nerf. You wanted challenging content and you got it.

Is this a serious post? I can't imagine that this is a serious post. The movement speed is what makes this game's PvP better than just about any other MMO's. EDIT: I guess if you really wanted to you could disable travel powers in an arena match but good luck getting someone to fight you under those rules.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 1) there's a 100% chance the old database exists and 2) there's a 0% chance we'll ever get anything from it on Homecoming.

I support this suggestion. There's really no reason why incarnate components can't be sent to alts on the same account especially since you can send yourself empyrean merits.

I mean, I probably wouldn't be using awakens in a PvP zone because you rez with like 25% health, no endurance, and the 30-second PvP timer doesn't apply. I'm honestly surprised when someone does use them because they're basically a free kill at that point. Plus there's the chance for a PvP recipe drop with defeats so *shrug*.

Cool. I know you've got a lot on your plate but pretty pretty pretty pleeeeeeeeeeease fix phase while you're at it. I can provide more information other than what I've already mentioned if you need it. Also, sort of off-topic but I noticed a discussion on procs in the Tanker thread. Procs are in a weird spot right now with regards to PvP but I don't think the issue is with procs themselves so much as it is the current DR curves on resistance. Procs definitely raise damage output but at the same time being fixed values means it helps close the gap between lower-damage and higher-damage ATs and allows for more flexibility in team composition. Making proc damage scale by AT is a relative buff to Blasters (lord knows they don't need it, still don't know who thought it was a good idea to give them an 1847HP cap...) and a relative nerf to most other ATs.

Obviously I have no idea but I'd be really happy if phase got fixed and this went live with the bug fixes only. I realize that probably won't happen because they'd basically have to juggle two patches, but one can dream.

So you're saying you run around at the damage cap all the time regardless of the content you're running? Okay.

Nor do I. When the initial Tanker patch went live I immediately started looking at Tanker builds because Tankers were going to be obviously better at farming than Brutes. With the current iteration that's not the case. Almost all the math being thrown around here for saying "Tanks outdamage Brutes, Brutes are useless!" assumes that both ATs are at their respective target and damage caps and that's just not something you see in anything except fringe cases. The fact is that a Brute with even a modest amount of Fury is going to outdamage a Tanker most of the time, especially once the upcoming Fury changes are factored in.

My comparisons were with a Rad/Fire Brute and a Fire/Rad Tanker. The builds were identical save for an extra -res proc on the Tanker (Tanker ATO set gives +10% rech in one less slot than the Brute ATO set so that freed up a slot). In my testing I was able to complete a +4x8 asteroid in 3:30-4:00 depending on NPC spawn location, inspiration drops, and other similar variables, and those times were consistent regardless of whether I was on the Tanker or the Brute. At target saturation the Tanker might have a slight edge but it's not significant enough for me to level and IO a new character when I've got a Brute that can do it just fine. I think if Tankers still had a 600% damage cap like in the initial implementation of these changes it would've been a different story. I haven't checked the numbers with any other powerset combinations (i.e. Spines, Elec, Savage) because Rad is the best of the bunch and that's what I'd be using anyways. All this is kind of moot anyways, since a Blaster is a better option than either a Tanker or a Brute.

Are you talking in a farm situation here, or in normal content? In a farm situation the difference between a Tanker and Brute is negligible even at target saturation. In regular content you're not going to be at target saturation during most situations anyways. All the higher target cap is doing is helping the Tanker maintain aggro better.

All my testing given identical builds has shown that there is very little difference and switching to the Tanker didn't really speed me up.

?????

I do, but capped HP should be a build goal on a squishy no matter what type of PvP you're trying to do.

You should be shooting for HP cap (1606). Getting to within 20-30 of that is okay if you're having issues getting your build down but generally capped HP is going to make you more survivable.

The launch version of the game was very different than the post-invention-system game, and the game isn't balanced around IOs anyways.