Trickshooter

No. The cottage rule has never been "no power can change," it's "no power can do one thing one day, and not do it anymore the next day". I voted no because I'm against removing powers someone loves because someone else doesn't. Don't remove; improve.

I voted, "No, never," but only because there wasn't really a better option for my opinion. I'm fine with any power being made better in whatever way is deemed best, as long as its original use isn't lost in the process. For example, most people don't like Serum. It's basic functionality is as an omni-buff for pets and I would be against completely removing it and replacing it with, say, an AoE mez or another pet. An example option for Serum that I wouldn't be against would be like: Lowering the buff values enough to warrant dropping the crash and shortening the recharge, and then adding a passive effect for just owning the power (like Fortify Pack) that applies a much smaller portion of some of the buff values at all times to pets in range. The power keeps its basic functionality (the omni-buff), but its use is improved, there's more incentive to take it, and it improves the performance of its powerset as a whole.

No effect is really exempt from aggro; the actual power it's in is what determines if enemies will aggro or not. Since procs are set up as their own 'power', they have their own flag for this and nearly all of them are flagged to notify enemies, which means slotting them in powers that don't typically aggro (like Smoke) will generate aggro if the proc activates.

Not even a typo on their part; it's really like that in the game files!

Not sure how difficult it would be to actually implement, but I will say that I doubt alternate animations would really inspire more people to use Trick Arrow. I don't think there are many people that love the functionality of Trick Arrow but have a problem with it using a bow and arrow. Honestly, I'd say a good percentage of the people that played it only did so because it was one of the only bow and arrow sets.

Yep, and it had been there for years.

Yes, leftovers from a time when Katana was mostly just Broadsword, but with a Katana in your hand.

It could definitely cause some confusion. Player translucency in the game is currently associated with stealth and the one instance in the game that breaks this rule, Fade from Darkness Affinity, tends to mislead teammates frequently.

I think just because not everyone who would do it would necessarily know what they were doing. Let's say you're walking to town and there's a fork in the road. And let's say that most people, you included, know that both roads lead to town, but one of them requires you to tightrope walk across a gorge. Occasionally, you're gonna get people who know this already but want do it anyway, just for the challenge. But you'll also end up with people who don't know this, taking this road and wondering why the *%$# this *%$#ing town is so *%$#ing hard to get to. 😡

I'm pretty sure there was a problem getting some of them to stop proc'ing on the Tanker using them.

I just want to be clear that I'm not against the idea of making AVs less resistant to movement slows. I think it would be really helpful, because sometimes AVs go crazy and run around, making it difficult to fight them and making it harder to outpace their health regeneration. I'm just not sure I agree with the specific reasoning that lots of -Movement is practically an Immob, and they're already susceptible to Immobs, so they should also be susceptible to -Movement. AV protection is missing Immobs and Sleeps for a specific function, which is allowing Controllers to get Containment on them. Movement slows don't really have any functionality like that. Basically, I guess I agree with what you want, but not why you want it. 😅

The Sleep hole is because Mind and Illusion don't have Immobilizes.

I like it.

It really depends. At some point, debuffs stopped being self-stacking unless the "source" was a pseudopet, like Sleet, Freezing Rain, Disruption Arrow, etc. Probably 95% of the exceptions to that "rule" are the legacy sets that launched with the game.

It doesn't sound unreasonable, but I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning that since AVs are already susceptible to Immobilize, they should be susceptible to -Movement. It would make more sense if there was some in-universe explanation for AVs' lack of Immob protection, but there isn't. It only exists for Controllers to get Containment.

I would not be a fan of a change like this. I like these cones the way they are, and I'm not a fan of the cones that can activate without a target. My main gripe with them is that you have no idea if the targets you want to affect are within range before you activate one of them. I prefer being able to select a target in the back of a group so I know I'm affecting everything between them and me.

Based on similar pets, it's likely that it doesn't really do "8 ticks of damage". Precedent established by similar powers would say each pet has an auto power that continuously rolls a to-hit check to do damage if someone is in range and can make up to 8 ticks over the lifetime of the pet, which is 5 seconds per pet, if someone is standing in one of them for the full lifetime. But it's possible server timing could make it do less ticks than that, as well. And if your target is continuously moving and getting out of range of the pet before it can make its first to-hit check, it may not have a chance to do any damage at all. But this is all conjecture until I can verify some stuff at home.

I'm not at home to check everything, but I think you may be misunderstanding how it works a bit. Enflame summons 6 separate pseudopets, each 3 seconds after the other at the current location of the initial target. This is to give the illusion of it being a "trail" of flames. Each pseudopet does 8 ticks of damage to enemies standing in it. If no one is standing in the flames, they won't make any tohit checks, and so won't do any damage. As for the fluctuating tohit and damage, I can't really say right now. I'll try and remember to research it later.

Farsight with Power Boost is definitely very powerful, and if we were all to agree that something should be done about it, I agree that flagging it to ignore outside buffs like Power Boost is the simplest way to fix that. Second best option would be to make Power Boost's buff values follow enhancement scheduling, so Schedule B effects (like Defense) would be 60% of Schedule A effects, though you might upset way more people that way. But... I'm not sure I agree that something needs to be done about it. Easily 80-90% of powersets in any given category (melee, ranged, support, control, etc.) perform well enough on their own, and even better with IOs, to get through the most difficult content we can face. And at this point, even more difficult content is unlikely. There's also the fact that, more than most other MMOs, a lot of CoX alt creation is concept driven. Those two things together make it really unlikely that Time being a powerful set will ever upset The Balance™ enough to drive sets like Force Field extinct. There will always be people who love those sets and play them. That's not to say a set like Force Field couldn't use some love, because it can. And that's probably where, besides adding new content, we should focus our efforts: bringing the underperformers up. Now, you could say, "well, if all sets can work and people will play what they love, why worry about the underperformers either?" And that's a good point. The difference is just that, if you're going to do anything, there would potentially be a lot less anger from buffing the underperformers than nerfing the overperformers, honestly. I'm not saying Force Field or Trick Arrow or Poison need to be as powerful as Time or Rad or Dark can be, but we can at least work to shrink the performance delta between the "lower tier" sets and the "middle-to-top tier" sets.

I think you may be right that you're trying to play it too much like a Controller, and not focusing on your damage dealing capability from your secondary. Dominator's melee damage modifier is second only to Scrappers, and their ranged damage modifier is third highest, behind Blasters and Soldiers/Widows. But that is kind of what makes my answer to the OP also Dominators. Not because of their damage or being frustrated with Domination, but because they have two powersets that kind of need investment and active usage to be successful. It makes it difficult to know which one to focus on, especially while leveling up. Similarly, my second answer would be Kheldians just because, wow, so many options and without knowing what you want to focus on, it's just overwhelming.

Autohit powers have no effect on the streak breaker. Pets, of any kind, each have their own streak breaker record, tracked independently of their owner. I see from your log that you activated Web Grenade, and there is no report of it either missing or hitting. Is it possible the hits are just not showing up in the combat log? I don't know why that would happen, because I'm pretty sure hits and misses are the same channel, but Web Envelope is an AoE and it can miss twice as long as there was one successful hit in between the misses. Do you remember if some enemies were affected by it?

Kora Fruit was downgraded with the last patch before the launch of Issue 7: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Patch_Notes/2006-04-11#City_Zones Inspiration storage was added with Issue 7: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Patch_Notes/2006-06-06#Bases

Yes! If only I could find the original sounds it had right before it went live. I can't even remember what they sounded like anymore, but I remember liking it and then the sounds changed to the racecar sounds with no explanation and was pushed live not long after.

I think many people know that Power Boost won't affect powers with enhanceable Damage Resistance, but I feel like much less people know why. I just tried my best to explain the relationship that causes this quirk, since it's not exactly intuitive.

For years during the original run of City of Heroes, and even now, this question, or similar ones, has been asked. Many of us know to explain that [Insert Power] is immune to the effects of [Insert effect] because Damage buffs and Damage resistance don't get along (or maybe get along TOO well). For most people, the response to that is, "What?" Because seriously, what? How does that make sense? Well, I'm going to explain it for you. First, we need to review some game terminology: Attributes Attributes are basically the power effects in game. Most powers are basically a series of Attributes with assigned values. They include, but are not limited to: Heal Endurance (not like your endurance bar, but rather EndGain and EndDrain effects) ToHit Base Defense AoE Defense Melee Defense Ranged Defense Smashing Defense Lethal Defense Fire Defense Cold Defense Energy Defense Negative Energy Defense Psionic Defense Toxic Defense (yes, and there might be a separate post on this) Lethal Damage Smashing Damage Fire Damage Cold Damage Energy Damage Negative Energy Damage Psionic Damage Toxic Damage Hold Duration Immob Duration Sleep Duration Stun Duration Terrorize Duration Confuse Duration Run Speed Fly Speed Etc. Worth noting here is the inclusion of Defense, but not Damage Resistance. We'll come back to this soon, but we have another term to learn first. Strength Strength increases or decreases the values of Attributes. The simplest example of Strength in effect are Enhancements, but there are plenty of Strength effects in the game, including Power Boost, some Set Bonuses and some power effects, like Nature Affinity's Bloom.* This is why when trying to calculate how something will perform once fully slotted and with all applicable sources of Strength (again, like Power Boost, set bonuses, etc.), you add them all together first. They are the same effect. For example, if you had a power that had a 100 Heal effect and 3-slotted it with SOs, the Heal would be increased to roughly 100 * 1.976, or a 197.6 Heal. If you then also applied a +25% Str(Heal) to yourself, maybe from set bonuses, that Heal would be increased to 100 * 2.226, or a 222.6 Heal. And here is where part of the strangeness between Damage buffs and Damage resistance begins. Because for most of the effects in the game we might consider buffs or debuffs, such as +/-ToHit or +/-Defense, the Attributes themselves are the effect, and Strength increases or decreases their values to make them stronger or weaker. But when it comes to +/-Damage, there is no Attribute; the different damage types are each their own Attribute and the corresponding Strength for each type is what buffs or debuffs their base values. So the "Lethal Damage" Attribute is just Lethal damage and to increase or decrease it, you would use Str(Lethal Damage), and likewise for all the different damage types. A level 50 Damage SO is +33% Strength to the 8 damage types. A Blaster’s Build Up is +100% Strength to the 8 damage types. And a Defender’s Siphon Power is -25% Strength to the 8 damage types. On its own, this is no issue. It's just slightly different application from other effects we’d consider “buffs”. But going back to the lack of Damage Resistance Attributes, and thus the lack of Damage Resistance Strength, how then does Damage Resistance work? How is it buffed or debuffed? Well that brings us to our next term. Resistance Resistance is probably the simplest to understand. Resistance decreases or increases how much an attribute can affect an entity. For the most part, these effects are fairly straightforward.** For example, a positive Resistance to Sleep duration will reduce the length of a Sleep effect, and a negative one will increase the length of a Sleep effect. A positive Resistance to ToHit will predictably reduce the value of a ToHit debuff, but also a ToHit buff. This is why many buff effects like this are flagged to ignore Resistance (see on City of Data as Unresistable). But probably the most common throughout the game is Resistance to the Damage types. And the game tends to display these to us similarly to how they're actually set up: Res(Lethal), Res(Smashing), etc. A positive Resistance to a damage type will reduce the damage we take from that type, and a negative one will increase the damage. Now that you know these three terms and how they apply to the game, you might be starting to see the relationship between damage, damage buffs, and damage resistance. But here is the real kicker when it comes to Strength and Resistance: One can affect the other. 😮 I'd like to picture that this is a GASP moment, but I guess I haven't fully explained what that means. So let's look at an example of this in game. We'll use Scrapper/Super Reflexes/Focused Senses first: This power grants a base +13.875% Ranged Defense. A single level 50 Defense SO Enhancement acts as a +20% Strength to all the Defense types, including Ranged Defense, increasing the base value to 13.875 x 1.2, or +16.65% Ranged Defense. However, at level 50 this power also grants an enhanceable +13.84% Res(Base Defense), which we would understand as Defense Debuff Resistance, and that SO includes +20% Str(Base Defense). Since we know that Strength can affect Resistance, this increases the value to 13.84 x 1.2, or about 16.61% Res(Base Defense). Okay, sure. That makes sense, right? Well, let's look at Tanker/Invulnerability/Temp Invulnerability now: This power grants a base +30% Res(Smashing Damage) and +30% Res(Lethal Damage). A single level 50 Damage Resist SO Enhancements acts as a... wait. What does a Damage Resist Enhancement grant if there is no Strength for Damage Resistance? Funny you should ask. In the same way the Res(Base Defense) of Focused Senses is increased by Str(Base Defense), the way to increase Res(Smashing Damage) is with... Str(Smashing Damage). But... didn’t we just learn that’s a damage buff? Yep. So then a Damage Resist Enhancement must grant Strength to the 8 damage types to work? Yep. And does a Damage Enhancement also grant Strength to the 8 damage types? Yep. So Damage Resist and Damage Enhancements are the same effect? Yep. So back to our example using Temp Invulnerability, a single level 50 Damage Resist SO Enhancement acts as a +20% Strength to all damage types, including Smashing Damage and Lethal Damage, increasing their base values to 30 x 1.2, or +36% Res(Smashing Damage) and Res(Lethal Damage). Okay, so big deal, Damage Resist Enhancements and Damage Enhancements are the same thing. That doesn’t change much, right? Well, not much for Enhancements, no. But Enhancements are only one source of Strength in the game. What if our Tanker in the above example was given Fortitude by a Defender teammate? A Defender’s Fortitude includes a +31.25% Strength to all the Damage types. Does this mean our Tanker’s Resistance will also be increased by an additional 31.25%? Nope! But why? Didn’t we just learn that that is how it should work? Well yes, but steps have been taken to prevent that effect from happening! The reason the Defender’s damage buff won’t increase the Resistances of Temp Invulnerability is a little flag on Temp Invulnerability telling it to ignore Strength from outside sources (i.e. any source other than slotted Enhancements). You can see this on City of Data as Not affected by outside buffs/debuffs. This prevents damage buffs such as those from Fortitude, Fulcrum Shift, Build Up or just chewing a bunch of red inspirations from drastically increasing Damage Resistance effects. This is one of two methods power developers have to prevent this situation.*** The other is to allow outside Strength from outside sources, but any Damage Resistance effects in the power are individually flagged to ignore Strength. You can see this on City of Data as Ignores Enhancements & Buffs. So how does this relate to the question in the header: Why doesn’t Power Boost work on Cold Shields? Well, the original developers chose to allow the Cold Shields to slot Enhancements for the Damage Resistance they grant. This meant that the first method had to be used and both Shields had to be flagged to ignore Strength from outside sources (or Not affected by outside buffs/debuffs) such as Power Boost. Otherwise, damage buffs would also increase the Damage Resistance. What makes that different from the Force Field Shields? Deflection Shield also grants Damage Resistance. The difference is that Deflection Shield’s Damage Resistance can’t benefit from Enhancements. The power doesn’t accept Damage Resistance Enhancements, and even if it could, the effect is flagged Ignores Enhancements & Buffs. This allows Deflection Shield to benefit from outside sources of Strength, such as Power Boost. *Notably, Dominator's Domination is not a Strength effect; it's functionally like flipping a switch that activates longer, stronger mez values already built in to the Dominator's powers that only activate as long as that switch is flipped. **Resistance is very different from what we might call "Protection". Protection is a separate term used to describe whether an effect with a Magnitude, such as many Mez effects, will be able to affect an entity at all. It is not a true effect like Resistance, but rather a preemptive application of negative Magnitude to someone that a power with a positive Magnitude value must overcome before mez duration is considered at all. ***Now this is basically how it’s supposed to be done, but it’s not automatic. These have to be manually done, so there are some powers that are double prevented, such as Link Minds, not being affected by Power Boost, but also being unenhanceable. But then there are also powers that have neither, such as Fade, which has enhanceable Damage Resistance that gets unintentionally increased by Damage buffs.