Trickshooter

Hey! For the most part, I completely agree: Empathy is a set in need of attention. I would never call it bad; Empathy is a perfectly functional set that is still good at what it does, it has just been left behind by the meta. I agree that Heal Aura is mostly okay and similar to other PBAoE heals. Personally though, I think Heal Other, along with Soothe and Cauterize, could stand an additional small effect. Yes, they heal more than ST Heals with effects like Alkaloid and O2 Boost, but those heals other effects can be significant (especially O2 Boost). I would consider adding a small EndDiscount buff to the target for Heal Other and Soothe. Haven't really thought about Cauterize, though. With Share Pain, the Pain user is taking on that... pain and is using it to fuel their anger, which boosts their Damage. Perfectly thematic. For Absorb Pain, I try and remember that Empathy is supposed to be like Emotion Control, and if they're taking away someone's pain, what is that doing for the Empathy user? I'm not sure +Resistance is totally the best fit. I feel like taking on someone else's pain would maybe be... inspiring? To me that fits more with the idea of Mez Protection for the Empathy user. Or maybe the effect could change depending on the Archetype that was targeted? I agree that, over time, Resurrect has become the worst Rez in the game. I would also like to see it grant buffs to the target, with no penalty to them. However, I think it would be thematic for the Empathy user to get penalties instead. Of course, not as significant as other penalties and definitely not for as long. I'm personally of the opinion that it's BONKERS that Poison and Rad Defenders can debuff their teammates base ToHit chance in half for 45 seconds! In my Spreadsheet of Support Suggestions™ I was considering a scale 3 damage buff and scale 2 tohit buff to your target for 60 seconds, and half those values as debuffs to the Empathy user for 15 seconds. Clear Mind: Same thought, add Psi Resistance. For Fortitude, I also think it could become an AoE. Again, in my spreadsheet of suggestions, I was considering suggesting it be a Targeted AoE (so requiring an ally) with a 30 ft radius, the effects still do not affect the caster, increasing the recharge to 240 seconds, and then reducing the buff values to: Def: Scale 1.5 -> Scale 1.0 Dmg: Scale 2.5 -> Scale 1.6 ToHit: Scale 1.5 -> Scale 1.0 For the auras, I also think combining them would be best; I even have it named Revitalizing Aura, as well lol And then Adrenalin Boost is great and perfectly fine.

It's possible to have enhancements that do this (in fact, there is already an enhancement color for Radius in the game files), but the radius of AoE powers is typically part of the balancing of a power, so it would be a can of worms to introduce this as an enhancement. We'd probably have to have a global nerf to the radius of all AoEs to account for the ability to enhance them if this were done. Also possible, but complicated. The Control Hybrid powers that add Mag are an example of how it could work, but there are limitations. Namely that extra Mag that is added would likely not be boosted by enhancements that improve duration. Also, probably some balance issues with AoE control powers suddenly being able to always affect bosses. We actually can do that, just not for ALL debuffs. Both Defense Debuff and ToHit Debuff enhancements already increase the debuff value. I think what you're asking for are Damage Debuff and Damage Resistance Debuff enhancements, but unfortunately those are never going to happen for complicated reasons. It's not an issue of balance, but an issue with how the game was designed. This isn't impossible, but again kind of complicated and TONS of manual work. It's possible to make an individual effect's duration vary with an expression that could be affected by an enhancement. However, it would have to be manually added to every individual effect in a power, and then to every power players have access to. And similar to possible Radius Enhancements, we'd probably get a global nerf to duration for all powers to account for the ability to enhance them. This is both easy and not so easy to accomplish. Easy in the sense that it's already possible to create an IO that adds an AoE effect to a power. But not so easy in the sense that it would not work like how you want, I'm assuming. It would not be able to turn Shout, for example, in to an AoE that does it's full damage and secondary effects to all enemies in an AoE; it would have to be a totally separate effect that would not benefit from damage enhancements in the power, may not even do the same damage type or have any secondary effects, would likely have to be a proc for balance reasons and you would definitely not be able to slot more than one.

I don't feel Traps is suffering due to needing to toe-bomb a few of the powers. They're pretty potent already and there's good synergy built in to the set to allow you to still be active. The only power I've ever had an issue with (besides Time Bomb, and good riddance) is Triage Beacon. If I could make one suggestion, it would be either: A) Let Triage Beacon follow you around like FFG OR B) Change the +Regen to a pulsing AoE Heal every 4 seconds. +Regen tends to be more useful than just straight Healing, but not on a stationary power. There are very few encounters in the game where a stationary +150% Regen for 90 seconds is super useful. If Triage Beacon has to stay a +Regen power, then it either needs to follow you around or the duration of the actual buff needs to be increased to like 30 seconds so that you can leave it behind and still have some kind of benefit from it. If it has to stay stationary, it would be much more useful as upfront Healing. The game moves too fast for stationary +Regen.

In the meantime, for "wood armor" and "wood attacks" I recommend trying Bio Armor and Spines. They make a good plant melee character look with the right colors.

Sappers can drain 140 endurance (more if they're higher level than you) from 80 ft away, if you have any Endurance left after they zap you, then you're resisting some of the endurance drain.

Again, Recovery Resistance is not the same as Endurance Drain Resistance. Murky Cloud gives Recovery AND Endurance Drain Resistance, but only the Recovery Resistance is visible in Combat Attributes; there is no way to monitor Endurance Drain Resistance currently. Inexhaustible only gives Endurance Drain Resistance, so it won't show up in your Combat Attributes.

To be clear, Recovery Resistance isn't the same as EndDrain Resistance. Inexhaustible does give EndDrain resist, there just isn't a monitorable attribute.

I solo almost exclusively, and nearly always with Defenders, and have like 12 level 50s at this point (and only like 3 of them even have an IO build), and I've almost never encountered any standard content I couldn't do on my own. The main exceptions are missions with a few frustrating EBs. I genuinely don't understand the complaint that things are becoming too hard? The enemy revamps just feel like attempts to bring factions that are showing their age up to the difficulty levels of the newer Praetorian factions.

It's not a debuff toggle, it's a buff toggle! It doesn't affect enemies except for the chance for Cold damage. And there is precedence for toggles not causing aggro when you can put them on allies: Disruption Field. This is done to avoid griefing, because if your ally approaches a group of enemies and the first thing that alerts them is your toggle, aggro will be generated on you, the caster, not your ally.

Because then you couldn't put Shifting Tides on it! Also it's kinda funny, but not haha funny, that the power was originally called Wellspring, changed to Barrier Reef because players requested it, and then immediately everyone is like "Why is this called Barrier Reef? How is a reef following me around?" Edit: Overall, I think you really need to play the set more, because everything really comes together well and you can very easily have Team +Defense(All), +Resist(All), +Absorb, +Recovery, lots of +Damage, some +ToHit and +Recharge, and a Heal, along with plenty of Foe -Damage from Tide Pool and Soothing Wave, that using Whitecap does not feel dangerous at all. Also, yes the -HP in Brine is flat, which is less good for EBs, AVs and Monsters, but it is better for bosses and below. For example, lots of people like to compare it to Degenerative, because it's a percentage that caps out at -1000 MaxHP, but that really only happens on enemies with lots of HP. On a level 50 boss, Degenerative's -3.5% MaxHP comes out to about -90 HP, whereas a Corruptor's Brine, slotted with Heal, is about -464 MaxHP at 50, which is about -18% MaxHP. ALSO Also, while Shifting Tides is going, you can receive stacks of a Rising Tide buff that will reduce the recharge of Brine by 15, 30 and 45 seconds depending on how many stacks you have when you activate Brine, so you can use it faster and stack the -MaxHP (the -Res doesn't stack, tho).

I started reading this thread and was about to say this before I got to your post, that there was a gas station in the slums section of Neutropolis, I remembered it from the Bobcat mission that takes you there.

This thread not only reminded me of the player note feature, but also how much I missed the warm embrace of the Defender forums when teammates are rude to you. I should visit this section more often.

Regardless of whether you consider Energy Mastery and Force Mastery the same or not, it's easy to see they're intended to be related to each other at least. Blaster's don't have a version of Energy Mastery that looks like everyone else's because: A) Probably 2-4 powers in every version of Energy Mastery is based on a power already available to Blasters, though that's mostly obvious. But ALSO B) At the time most of the original Epics were made, there wasn't really anything Energy-ish in the other archetypes to pull from to make a set that was really Energy-based. I mean, Blasters didn't even get Electrical Mastery (now renamed Electricity Mastery) until Issue 5 because there weren't any Electric sets besides Elec Blast/Manip to pull from either. Controller and Defender's Elec Mastery was 75% just Elec Manip from Blasters. If you're looking for a new Epic for Blasters that's more Energy and less Force, you could do like... Kinetic Mastery, that has like Kinetic Shield and Overload from Energy Aura, or maybe Siphon Power and Siphon Speed from Kinetics. And maybe something awful and hilarious like Repel or Disrupt lol

Not really a fan of randomly gendered henchman, just cause they can be named and I'm sure there are people out there who don't want their henchman randomly changing back and forth. And just FYI, this is to no one in particular at all, but that sentence is not an invitation for someone to make a weird trans joke, so just keep that to yourself. I'd prefer we just have the ability to decide for each henchman individually if we want them a guy or a girl, though I'm not sure we'll ever get that as an option. I think ultimately the internet can never just be normal about some things and there are people who can and will be gross about it, and so it's just too big a can of worms for the devs to want to tackle.

It works in Acid Arrow since the TA revamp, so I assume it shouldn't produce any issues.

This set started with me trying to conceptualize an Earth-based support set. In fact, before I came up with the name, theme and powers, that's all I had in my spreadsheet; a tab labeled "Earth-based support set" because I wasn't sure where to even start. Inspiration came from thinking about the DE Quartz and CoT Crystals and so I went with a crystal theme to avoid just another brown icon/brown texture earth set. I would expect it to have customization for stone, magma and crystal versions like other Earth sets, however. Just for parity. And I doubt the icons would stay purple, as they don't match any other Earth set, but they're pretty at least! I think most of it is straightforward, except the tier 9, Shatter, so I've tried to provide some information for how it works at the bottom of the post (if you're willing to read that far). All numbers below are for Defenders. Thank you! Crystallization You can grow and shape minerals in to magnificent crystal structures. Summon resonating crystals that buff allies or trap and pelt foes with crystal shards, then shatter all of them in a destructive blast. Like other Earth powers, Crystallization can reduce a target's Defense. Some powers can only work on the ground. Crystal Shielding You encrust your allies in various crystals that reduce Smashing and Lethal damage and refract Energy and Negative Energy attacks away. Click AoE Ally +Res(Smash, Lethal) +Def(Energy, Negative) +20% Res(Smashing) +20% Res(Lethal) +15% Def(Energy) +15% Def(Negative) Recharge: 2s Duration: 240s Endurance: 7.8 Animation: 1.17s (Ice Shield) Volatile Fragment Hurl a volatile crystal fragment at a targeted foe that explodes with such force that they will be knocked down and have reduced Resistances and Defense. Click ST Foe Knockdown, -Res(All), -Defense 0.67 Knockback -20% Resistance -12.5% Defense Grant Power Crystallized for 30s Recharge: 16s Duration: 30s Endurance: 8.528 Animation: 1.2s (Fire Blast) Crystalline Shards Fire a burst of crystal shards in a cone in front of you, pelting enemies with lethal damage over time, and reducing their Defense, Movement and Recharge Speeds. Click Cone Foe Minor DoT(Lethal), -Defense, -Speed, -Recharge 3.615 Damage(Lethal) every 2.0s -12.5% Defense -25% Recharge -25% Speed Grant Power Crystallized for 20s Recharge: 30s Duration: 20s Endurance: 10.4 Animation: 2.0s (Dart Burst) Crystal of Strength Summon a glowing red crystal that resonates power to you and your allies! Crystal of Strength will improve Damage and ToHit chance for all nearby. Crystal of Strength can only be placed on the ground. Click Location (Summon Crystallization_Ruby) Ally +Damage(All), +ToHit +30% Damage(All) every 1s +12.5% ToHit every 1s Recharge: 90s Duration: 60s Endurance: 13 Animation: 1.87s (Steamy Mist) Diamond Dust Surround yourself with a swirling cloud of sparkling crystal particles that reduce nearby foes' defense and chance to hit, as well as reducing their ability to use Stealth powers. Toggle PBAoE Foe -Defense, -ToHit, -Stealth -12.5% Defense -12.5% ToHit -1000 feet StealthRadius Recharge: 10s Duration: N/A Endurance: 0.52/s Animation: 1.07s (Irradiate) Crystal of Vigor Summon a glowing green crystal that resonates power to you and your allies! Crystal of Vigor will improve Regeneration and provide some Damage Absorption for all nearby. Crystal of Vigor can only be placed on the ground. Click Location (Summon Crystallization_Emerald) Ally +Regen, +Absorb +150% Regeneration every 1s +5% Absorb every 1s Recharge: 90s Duration: 60s Endurance: 13 Animation: 1.87s (Steamy Mist) Onyx Grasp Trap a single foe in black crystal that holds them in place. This crystal will absorb their strength, reducing their damage and increasing the endurance cost of their powers. Click ST Foe Hold (Mag3), -Damage, -EnduranceDiscount 11.92s Hold (Mag 3) -20% Damage(All) -29.8% EnduranceDiscount Grant Power Crystallized for 20s Recharge: 18s Duration: 20s Endurance: 8.528 Animation: 1.93s (Siphon Power) Crystal of Stamina Summon a glowing blue crystal that resonates power to you and your allies! Crystal of Stamina will improve Recovery and protect those nearby from Endurance Drain and Recovery debuffs. Crystal of Stamina can only be placed on the ground. Click Location (Summon Crystallization_Sapphire) Ally +Recovery, +Res(End, Rec) +100% Recovery every 1s +43.25% Res(Endurance) every 1s +43.25% Res(Recovery) every 1s Recharge: 90s Duration: 60s Endurance: 13 Animation: 1.87s (Steamy Mist) Shatter Shatter all your nearby crystals! Your Crystals of Strength, Vigor and Stamina will release a final wave of their buffs that extend the duration on nearby allies. Nearby foes will instead be knocked down, take energy and lethal damage, and suffer opposing debuffs for each crystal type. Foes under the effects of Onyx Grasp, Shards or Volatile Fragment when you activate Shatter will suffer additional lethal damage over time. Click PBAoE Shatter Crystals, Special 0.67 Knockback 7.23 Damage(Lethal) every 1s for 4.5s if targets owns Crystallized 1.0 points of Grant Boosted Power to Crystallization_Ruby Shatter_Ruby_Debuff Apply "Silent Kill" to Self (after 0.5s delay) 18.07 Damage(Lethal) 18.07 Damage(Energy) -30% Damage(All) for 60s -12.5% ToHit for 60s Apply "Grant Power" to Crystallization_Ruby Shatter_Ruby_Buff 30% Damage(All) for 60s 12.5% ToHit for 60s 1.0 points of Grant Boosted Power to Crystallization_Emerald Shatter_Emerald_Debuff Apply "Silent Kill" to Self (after 0.5s delay) 18.07 Damage(Lethal) 18.07 Damage(Energy) -150% Regeneration for 60s Apply "Grant Power" to Crystallization_Emerald Shatter_Emerald_Buff 150% Regeneration for 60s 15% Absorb for 60s 1.0 points of Grant Boosted Power to Crystallization_Sapphire Shatter_Sapphire_Debuff Apply "Silent Kill" to Self (after 0.5s delay) 18.07 Damage(Lethal) 18.07 Damage(Energy) -100% Recovery for 60s -43.25% Res(Endurance) for 60s -43.25% Res(Recovery) for 60s Apply "Grant Power" to Crystallization_Sapphire Shatter_Sapphire_Buff 100% Recovery for 60s 43.25% Res(Endurance) for 60s 43.25% Res(Recovery) for 60s Recharge: 300s Duration: 60s Endurance: 26 Animation: 3.0s (Overgrowth) Notes for Shatter: 1. The power will be greyed out if you have no crystals out. You don't want to accidentally use a 300s recharge power when it will only do a little bit of damage without the crystals. 2. When Shatter is activated, the crystals are given versions of their buffs to radiate that last for 60s (rather than ticking every 1s). These buffs will inherit the slotting in the crystal powers, so it will be the same amount as the buffs lost when the crystals are destroyed. I expect some people will only ever want to summon the 3 crystals and then immediately shatter them for 60s of mobile versions of the buffs, and I'm fine with that. It costs 65 endurance to do so, and I feel that's a fine penalty to use them that way, if you really want. 3. When Shatter is activated, the crystals each do scale 1 damage (half lethal, half energy) in an AoE around them to enemies. Shatter will be enhanceable for damage and that will increase the damage they do. The crystals also radiate debuffs that do the opposite effect of the buffs, but not necessarily the same value, as -ToHit is the only really enhanceable debuff among them.

I'm not sure making Walk slottable is going to have the effect you want, as all its effects are negatives. Even if you could slot it with Run enhancements, they would only make you slower.

Huh, I guess I assumed it was already an option. I don't see why not, if it's possible.

Not a fan of reusing the Controller pets, but that can be solved with some creative costume creator magic coming up with fancier "elemental" models. Besides that, I'd be on board for an Elemental Summoning MM.

I don't think you're ever gonna see something like you're requesting OP. If you want the benefit of a specific type of set or proc, you will have to make a power choice that can slot it. That's just the cost of some procs and IO bonuses. As for not having any place to slot Gaussian's proc, almost every melee attack set has a Build Up power it could go in; you also have access to Tactics from the Leadership pool, and all the melee ATs have access to at least one version of Focused Accuracy in their epics.

I don't have too much of an issue with it being tech-themed, as every character has two powersets, and your origin could just be related to your attack powerset. My only concern is putting so much of the set's resistance in exclusive toggles. That's kind of something we abandoned in Issue 1 or 2 here. I think perhaps you should redistribute some of those resistances in to the rest of the set's powers and then have the exclusive toggles instead increase those resistances for the different types in your other powers. So at any one time, you always have some resistances to most of the damage types, but then you swap the toggles to increase specific resistances to be higher when you need them. So the set would be somewhere between Bio and Invulnerability.

That's a whole other issue I didn't want to have to get in to lol These 3 powers should be doing the same amount of damage (before Fire's bonus damage). But Whirlpool is the only one doing the correct damage; Ice Storm and Rain of Fire are not. Why is that? Whirlpool is designed as if the base damage is Scale 2.1, multiplied by the Blaster Ranged damage modifier of 1.125. Multiply Ice Storm's damage by 1.125 and you will get a damage number almost exactly the amount of damage done by Whirlpool. This is because Whirlpool was made after Issue 11, when Blaster's Ranged damage modifier was increased from 1.0 to 1.125. None of the blast set pseudopets (except maybe Blizzard) created before Issue 11 were updated to reflect that increase in their ranged damage modifier; they were left as is. The result is that they don't really do as much damage as they should, and unfortunately, when Issue 24 corrected the Corruptor and Defender pseudopets to reflect their own damage modifiers, they were reduced with the assumption that the Blaster versions were already doing the correct damage. So Whirlpool does 131.46 damage, and we divide that by the Blaster ranged damage modifier to get: 131.46/1.125 = ~116.85, the "base damage" (i.e. the damage with a modifier of 1.0) of the power. Notice how close that is to Ice Storm's damage. We multiply that times 0.65, the Defender ranged damage modifier: ~116.85*0.65 = ~75.95. the damage the Defender version of Whirlpool should do, and it's pretty close to what is listed by CoD (75.9). So now let's look at Ice Storm: 116.78/1.125 = ~103.8, the "base damage". Multiply by the Defender modifier: ~103.8*0.65 = 67.47 for Defenders, very close to the CoD number (67.57). Ultimately, the modifiers all line up because Issue 24 reduced the Corruptor and Defender versions to make things look correct, but as a result, all versions of Ice Storm and Rain of Fire do less damage then they should.

No, thank you. I do not want a world where body shape and size becomes part of the meta.

The formulas are the guidelines, but things typically are manually set, and many powers don't strictly follow the formulas at all. Using the formulas (and assuming some of Rain of Fire's damage is considered a bonus), both Ice Storm and Rain of Fire should cost about 10.92 endurance, but other things might be considered in those costs that aren't accounted for in any formula, such as their range and the debuffs they also contain. Either way, Rain of Fire does cost significantly more than very similar powers and it's probably just a very old oversight.

I don't get this on my Beam Rifle Defender using the Bright theme. What AT are you playing?