OverkillEngine

Or just gave them sensible limiters similar to powers, like activation %, then max number of targets affected, then a static Internal CoolDown utterly independent of the power they are slotted in. Would have prevented a lot of the need for faffing about trying to adjust AoE powers to be less proc friendly. And with a static ICD, it doesn't matter how fast or often you spam powers, or how many mobs you hit, it's not going to fire again until off ICD. At most what an AoE power would be good for is ensuring the proc fires [once] after its cooldown is done.

This. If the friggen set is balanced around the intent of always having it up anyways, then just turn it into a toggle and be done with it. Then at least you'd only have to fiddle with recasting it if you got detoggled. And there is still SCADS of attention tax left in the set that will keep it forever safe from being a "lazy" set.

Alternate-exclusive toggle version of Hasten pls. Asking for a friend.

Or at least something that doesn't require taking virtually the entire set to make use of, and the set underperforms horridly if you don't. Being too constricted in build options gets obnoxious in a game whose primary advantage/draw is the level of player agency it offers.

Nobody told me it was group photo time 😒 I am in this picture and did not consent! But seriously I am happy to have an option to the mechanical fiddlyness.

There is also the -25% endurance (slf) crash too, but that's still way easier to mitigate than the "Popeye with no spinach" damage debuff. I did notice in my test with UM that I went from needing to pay a little attention to my blue bar with Rage to being able to just go full throttle all the time since the endurance management I already had was well in surplus of my needs. So I am sure someone more optimization minded than myself can recoup some of that need/budget for endurance management and spend it on damage or mitigation instead, using set bonuses if nothing else.

And as far as use cases, partial uptime powers can also be problematic design; if your mob spawns have enough variance and difficulty spikes to make them useful, it means they are getting into the realm of becoming required takes that reduce build diversity. But without that, they risk becoming "win harder" powers instead. Threading the needle on that is going to be difficult. The former basically recreates the issue with mezz protection toggles; I remember when not every armor set offered comprehensive protection to most mezz effects. But the content punishes not having that to the point that it became required for certain AT's to function, so it ended up getting added. And as such now we have a situation where virtually no one that has any clue of how to play skips the mezz protection toggles.

Well crap, guess I need to dust off that alt a bit more often lol. It's been a bit since I played them. Yeah that's why I floated the idea of making it into an alternate "spender" of Insight to get that as bonus. The tradeoff being you have spent the Insight you could have used on GPB instead. Makes it an on demand sidegrade for the set instead of a straight upgrade.

Or the inverse, all swords. Really need this treatment across all the energy/elemental melee sets. Edit: Had a chance to copy a mid-level Psi/Will Brute over to test and I can largely concur with this: The set flows MUCH better now, though I am going to dissent and bit and say I'd like Psi Blade Sweep to better match the flavor text and be a very wide wide, if shallow cone. Right now it has the Shadow Maul issue where you may as well regard it as a single target attack with *maybe* a chance of hitting extra targets unless you pack the enemies especially deep and their anti clumping code doesn't screw you. Maybe that could be a function of Insight boosting it? Then you have to choose between holding Insight for dot, spending Insight for better AoE, or spending Insight for better single target burst. The highlight rings were appreciated as a mechanical aid that did not distract me from anything that I was already needing to pay attention to; way better than looking for INSIGHT clear up in the corner of my screen, or having to pick out the boggle sfx in a seat of sfx.

To add on: Another reason to do the generic IO's starting at 22 is you no longer have to mess with updating those until you want to update them; saves a lot of time and inf in the long run, though a full set of generic IO's at 22 can easily run 2.5-4+ million inf or so depending on materials prices and the specific enhancements. Just something to keep in mind if you ever make an alt. And puts them in net inf gain just from drops from that point onward if you want to run 2x XP buffs all the way to 50. Selling a piece of rare salvage here and there will easily cover the cost of any slots that open up along the way. Granted, not really necessary depending on how you are leveling that character. If they are door sitting, they don't really need enhancements until you are ready to play them.

Tried out the changes on a lvl 50 barely IO'd Ice melee/Fiery Armor Brute. (mainly just a mag 4 KB protection bonus and a few other misc other bonuses). Piddlefarted around in a lvl 50 Praetorian mission chain at various multipliers. The changes to Burn allowed me to get enough -KB to drop Acrobatics, which was nice because it is flipping expensive to run. The changes to Consume allowed me to attack more aggressively as it was easier to get endurance on demand. Though I think I'd rather have scaling +res instead of scaling +max HP, as that would keep you alive better until the next cycle of Healing flames and to be honest, the set overall is squish AF outside of cherrypicked content if you aren't running either Fighting Pool or are not an IO'd out nepo fire farm baby. The goatse-tier Psi hole wasn't helping when facing Praetorian content either. The set shouldn't feel so abjectly dependent on outside pools and enhancements to function.

Yup, once I read that particular aspect to UM, it led to me deciding to drop certain pool attacks that I used to sub in for the lower tier SS powerset attacks.

Just had a chance to copy my Elec/SS Brute to Brainstorm for some testing; respecced into the new Unleashed Might and dropped some pool powers that I no longer needed. Loving not having to plan around a crash or getting nailed with -recharge debuffs that mess up the timing. Made certain aspects of character building and play much less irritating even if performance peaks are no longer as "optimal". Turning Hurl into a railgun/narrow cone resulted in me being willing to use it a bit more often even though the animation time is butts. Anything over 2 seconds is an eternity in current gameplay and should result in a significant outcome of some sort like a host of angels descending to serve me perfectly done steak and BJ's. Some hyperbole may apply. Main pain point I found in the new Hand Clap is that when in "cone mode", its targeting is still treated as if it were a PBAOE. I really wish it were at that point treated like a traditional cone where it requires a target and autofaces you at the target before executing. If that is at all possible.

I take a break and of course ya'll come out with some absolutely beautiful beta patch notes. Any chance we can in the future get All Swords and No Swords options across both Fiery and Ice Melee? I'm so close. I'll even take alternate exclusive powers if the animations can't be balanced 1:1. Otherwise I'm going to need a Blue Balls costume option to be added. Edit: I love that the game is being actively developed, helps keep it interesting far better than treating it like a Museum/Sacred Shrine where any changes are automatically blasphemy.

Did we just have another patch past build 6?