Burnt Umber

Unfortunately, I can't make it out for this week, but I think I should be able to do the LRSF next week with one of my redsiders.

Goodness, I suppose I'm a bit past due for introducing myself but that's me/my in-game handle. I've had crazy fun on these thematic team-ups and hope I can join in when possible. (And Commenticia is Illusion/Forcefield, though they can be a bit hard to see with how I've colored them.)

I (Hostia Usta) had a bunch of chaotic fun doing this once things came together. And it was really nice push to get characters out of cold storage to play again.

No, the game should not be balanced around Inventions. Standard TO/DO/SO enhancements should remain the norm. To me, the problem with the OP is that "balancing" around inventions is a more nebulous/difficult than it seems at a glance. Primarily, what should be balanced around and how should it be done? The aspects being enhanced? The ability to "franken-slot" allows players to enhance a power beyond the amount that standard SOs (and even HOs) can achieve. The Devs could assume that players no longer have to weigh enhancing a power's endurance or recharge against enhancing a power's primary aspects (i.e. it's damage/accuracy/control/buff/debuff/etc.) because some combo of enhancements gets each aspect close to the ED limit; the Devs could, therefore, make global change to endurance usage or recharge by shifting endurance costs or recharge times toward the higher end, respectively. Similarly, they could make a global change to the powers' damage/control/buff/debuff values to better reflect that players can more readily spam them. These changes would be very unpopular (to say the least). Effectively, it would be a sort of "Global Defense Nerf 2.0." Set bonuses? Bonuses for +Recharge, +Defense, +Accuracy, and +Damage are all desirable. As a prior post suggested, the Devs could assume everyone has softcapped defenses, high global recharge, and operates near a character's damage cap; the Devs could, therefore, make enemies have higher hit point totals, a higher inherent to-hit, and deal heavy slow debuffs. I don't think that would be very popular because it is effectively a global nerf to anyone who has built for or relied on these set bonuses. In fact, one only has to look back to the reaction on Live regarding incarnate mobs that debuff defense/have a higher inherent to-hit (people were not happy). Furthermore, I think targeting specific bonuses penalizes even those who do not use them: for example, a character without softcapped defenses would be all the more "squishy" because mobs would be hitting all the more often, or characters without high global recharges would feel painfully sluggish because they do not have the assumed global recharge. Effectively, it would create a "right" and a "wrong" way to build characters, thereby forcing greater homogeneity in a game that has previously allowed all kinds of builds/playstyles to thrive. Possible procs slotted? A debuff or control can change into into a damage power (if not an outright "nuke") with damage procs; damage powers can also supercharge their damage potential either through damage procs or -Res procs; and inherent powers like health or stamina can be effectively doubled in value by slotting +Regen or +Recovery procs. I'm not really sure what the Devs can do to balance around this except for further changing how procs work - either though how frequently they fire or how potent procs are when they fire. In any case, I imagine that changes to procs would not be warmly welcomed, especially given how much in-game money gets thrown at some of the more popular ones.. However, what troubles me most is that, despite the mantra of "the game is not balanced around IOs," a number game design decisions do in fact take inventions into consideration. The game does get balanced around IOs, even if only tacitly so. For example, the recharge on some armor sets' Tier 9 (particularly, Willpower's Strength of Will and Shield's One with the Shield), Widows'/Fortunatas' Mind Link, Vengeance (both the Widow/Fortunata version and the Pool Power version), and the Tier 5 power in the Origin Power Pools have long recharges or are unaffected by buffs/enhancements. I can't believe that making a power have a 10 minute recharge is not without the tacit assumption that a power will have that recharge halved by enhancements and then halved again by global recharge; when controllers' AoE holds were made to have long recharges back in Issue 5, the recharge was set as 5 minutes as a "very long" time. A 10-minute recharge would have been nearly unthinkable at that time, but it is plausible now because someone can basically say, "Oh that is really less than 5 minutes once you consider enhancements (and global recharge)." Indeed, the recent changes to Rune of Protection basically amount to a nod to how IOs are tacitly being considered when balancing. Similarly, when Widows/Fortunatas were given Mind Link, Castle more or less said, "You can't slot Recharge Enhancements into the power directly, but IOs with a recharge aspect lower the recharge and global +Recharge lowers it too." Although I am not particularly troubled how this balancing operates on its face - it probably allows for a better power over all - I am troubled by the fact that it suggests that Devs don't trust the playerbase enough to be forthright with respect to their reasoning. This impacts my desire to give feedback (I don't really know the metrics being used to evaluate something) and my attachment to my characters (I can't be invested in a character that might drastically change how it plays). For all of these reasons, I'm firmly against opening the can of worms that is "balancing around IOs."

Well, I wasn't saying the problem is unique. However, for a power that is more useful on characters with little to no mitigation options, RoP stands in contradistinction to either MoG or Shadow Meld, which are only available to characters with preexisting mitigation.

After having tried the re-vamped power pool, I feel as if the changes are a mixed bag - some good, some less good. Mystic Flight: I'm fine with the changes here; they aren't revolutionary. They keep this flight option comparable to normal Fly, and the teleport part continues to be nice to have, especially with the now lower end. cost, but it doesn't really add to the power meaningfully. Arcane Bolt: The lowered animation time as well as the potential for increased damage really helps make this previously lackluster power feel useful. I use this on my controller to have some form of an attack chain, and these changes allow me to use it regularly rather than as a filler attack. That said, I wish [Arcane Power] didn't power up off of every power; it happening just after I exit a mission when I toggle mystic flight or PFF feels like a waste. Spirit Ward: Making this a toggle makes it great for pre-combat or mid-combat buffing to keep an important teammate, pet, or escort alive. So, that's good. But, the high endurance cost and limited duration makes me wary of using it as regularly on a team as I had previously. If the endurance cost were dropped to 0.33 from the 0.52, I think it would be great. Rune of Protection: The most recent changes to this power a a bit of a problem for me. Although I read a number of folks having problems with the reduced duration initially (i.e., the 90 to 60 change), it didn't bother me on a power that I treated more-or-less as a crashless Tier 9 Armor. The recent changes, however, are more concerning. I feel as though 40 seconds is a bit too low for its duration; to me, that's about enough to protect against the initial volley but not much more in more challenging/risky fights (I believe many enemy debuffs last 30 to 60 seconds, for instance). The lowered recharge is very nice, but locking out recharge enhancements effectively makes slotting sets in to the power wasteful because a third of the enhancing (recharge reduction) is going to waste. To me, this makes the power either a mule for global defense ios or one-slot-wonder filler powers like vengeance (i.e., nice to have by happenstance rather than worth building for). While I don't think the changes completely ruined the power, I'm certainly debating its place in the few builds that have it. I wish the power were reverted to the changes in Build 2, with the recharge on the power cut down from 10 minutes to 7 and a half minutes (i.e., base recharge for hasten). Enflame: This power is also a bit of a problem to me. The changes don't make it less fickle to use or more impactful. On my controller, the beta version does 8 ticks of 5.10 damage (about 40 damage overall) in an AoE patch. However, the high fear effect (MAG 50) and small radius effectively makes it a single target attack (or a deterrent for melee enemies when cast on my suicidal pet). Making it a mandatory 60 second high-endurance toggle doesn't really encourage me to use the power more frequently with its new 10 second cool down. To me, the problem with this power is its low damage or its fear effect. Addressing these would make these changes to the power more appreciable.

I went back and checked, and looks like Mind Control is in fact only psionic, not positional. Pardon my prior comment, I was mistaken.

Toxic damage has a weird history. Originally, damage from chemical or biological sources (e.g., Vahz zombie vomit or DE swarms' stings) was just "untyped" or "fire" damage (because the chemical/acid "burned" you). Then it became a type of damage, replacing the untyped damage or the "fire" damage. In the process, it never was given a particular defense like psychic - just a resistance. All the while, there was "defense" against it in the form of positional defense (ranged, melee, AoE) or true* Defense (all) powers. In fact, if you go on to Homecoming now and open the defense group of the combat attributes, there is no "Toxic Damage Defense." Up to this point, my understanding is that there was a limitation where Toxic Damage could not be added. Thus, my question really is whether Toxic is now getting its own elemental defense type (which is not in the Patch Notes) or if it is a bug or something else all together. *By "true" I mean powers that add the defense value to your base defense as opposed to some powers labelled "Defense (all) that just add the defense value to every type of defense. As a quick aside/correction, "positional defense" is a type of defense, just not an elemental one; and Mind Control powers have a elemental (Psi) and positional type (Range/AoE).

One thing I noticed but do not see in the patch notes: there is a "Toxic Defense" now in the defense group of combat attributes, and it benefits are from defense(all). Does that mean that "Toxic Defense" now exists? Or is this a bug in the UI? Or is this a future change that is being displayed early?

A different flight-related bug I've found: the new version of afterburner loses any power customization upon zoning. I've tried it a few times, and found that it reverts to "original" after zoning, rather than staying with the colors I set through the tailor.

There's a bunch of things to respond to in this thread, but I'll be brief. I would much prefer if Development time were spent on adding new content to what already exists. For example, there have been mentions elsewhere of opening up the Shadow Shard as a co-op zone. I'd be totally down for that; I'd also be up for it being opened up to villains with intersecting/competing storylines. Although I realize this is a tall order for development, I think new content - like the newest arcs - added to old content helps keep the in-game world feel alive, and when added to forgotten/dead zone, helps revitalize otherwise underused parts of the game. Moreover, I'm firmly against adding in "hard modes" for two reasons: 1. I think it would be wasted development on content that players in general would avoid. I don't really see players seeking out already existing hard mode groups. Malta is historically and generally reviled. And the Praetorian or new Incarnate-level DA mobs seem to be avoided for the most part. Yes there are the occasional "DA teams" that pop up in LFG, but mostly it seems like people gravitate to missions against Council or maybe Circle of Thorns in PI radios at +4/x8. 2. Although "optional" in theory, too many players would have teams try to run at the highest difficulty, thereby making it mandatory. Teams seem to arbitrarily set the difficulty as high as possible regardless of team make up or ability just for the sake of maximizing XP and drops (or as a point of pride). For example, I was on a +4/x8 Market Crash where everyone except the leader was low 40s opposed to their 50, and we just could not beat the Prototype and had to disband after a long slog of a trial that left me with a bad impression of the trial for a while. And in fact, I remember being on a team where the leader had the difficulty maxed out, lowered it for a mission because we kept dying, bumped it back up to max the next mission, and finally rage-quit because the team really couldn't handle it. Although anecdotal, my experiences make me wary of a "hard mode" for fear that it would make the game I enjoy playing into a brutal experience except for a specific/limited number of people. To me, I think players asking for a "hard mode" intersects with players asking for a limit on incarnate powers. They both seem to be reactions to the fact that the base game lets a person make a godling character but gives very little to do with that character besides trivializing legacy content. I find that fun at times, but I recognize that for some, playing the game can become a boring series of pressing "I Win" buttons. However, I think new content addresses that problem better than just allowing teams to run at brutally higher levels or having enemy groups become impossible except for optimized players/teams.

At level 50, the Zombies have 42.07% resistance to smashing damage; 42.07% resistance to cold damage; 42.07% resistance to negative energy damage; 42.07% resistance to psionic damage; and 42.07% resistance to toxic damage. I think the values/types of resistances are fine here. However, at level 50, the Grave Knights have the same values but lose the smashing resistance. And the Lich has it even worse: with lower resistance (26.14%) to negative energy damage; marginally better resistance (44.44%) to cold and toxic damage; and no resistance to psionic damage. While I don't exactly agree with your proposal because I think the zombie minions at least do fit the "zombie archetype." But, I do think the Grave Knights ought to have both smashing and lethal resistance at the same 42.07% value as the zombies to capture the idea that they're wearing armor. The Lich ought to have substantial resistances (~50-60%) to cold, negative energy, toxic, and psionic as well as minor resistances (~20-25%) to energy and fire damage to capture the idea that it was once a powerful necromancer but still a "squishy wizard." I really wouldn't want to have more minion level zombies at the cost to their effectiveness that balancing would require. I would totally be down for them to have some sort of on-death power such as you suggest or similar to balance for their likely demise for being in melee range. I've seen this problem too on my Necromancer, but I wouldn't want the Grave Knights to lose both of their ranged attacks, which can be very necessary/useful. If they lost one or the other, that'd be fine for me. If that happened though, I'd want them to get Parry as a replacement - which would also help their survival in melee range. Honestly, I think the Lich needs a bit of an overhaul. Although I appreciate the added AoE damage and control of its Torrent, it doesn't make up for the fact that it doesn't get its key control powers until the level 32 upgrade. So, I'd drop Torrent; move Tenebrous Tentacles to its place; move Fearsome Stare to the place of Tentacles; and add Dark Pit to the 32 upgrade. This would really add to its control abilities, and make the upgrades more progressive. Also, if it wouldn't be totally unbalancing, I'd give it Twilight's Grasp somewhere to make him more of a Dark/Dark Defender-lite. To me, the real problem with soul extraction is that its summon scales with which pet it's used on so it's sort of wasted on the Zombies (having the least HP and damage) even though they're the most likely to be the fodder for the power. Instead, I hold out on using it until one of the Knights or even the Lich drops. As a result it becomes more of an emergency power than a regular use one. While such powers may have their place, I would prefer if the summon were the same regardless of which pet it was used on, so I didn't feel penalized for using it on a Zombie or waiting for everything to go sideways to use it.

I think these would really interesting changes to ice control that might get me to finally try it out; I'd really be interested in the the post-sleep taunting pets in Flash Freeze, which would be fairly unique to the game outside maybe Dark Control's Shades. However, it occurs to me that some of these changes, particularly those to Flash Freeze, might be a bit too complicated to implement. Instead here are two changes that I think might address the concerns in the OP, while not being too radical*: 1. Add a Mag 3 Sleep to Shiver so it operates similar to Sonic Blast's Siren Song. 2. Change Flash Freeze from a Mag 3 Sleep into a Mag 3 Stun. Also add a debuff such as -Res/-Def. The first makes shiver into an alpha-strike power and moves the sleep from Level 18 to Level 8, which is inline with other control sets. The second gives the set a second AoE "hard" control outside of Glacier, and an added debuff makes the power more significant for a Level 18 power. *Admittedly, the second change might be a violation of the cottage rule, so it might be very radical actually.

Yes, this is what I was asking - what changed about the implementation and what is considered "working properly." The latter particularly so, since there was some discussion in the Feedback thread as to whether the AoE aspect of the power was working properly in its ability to target/hit multiple foes.

Could this be clarified please? I'm not really sure what I should be testing for.

I think my experience from testing the power makes me lean closer to you suggestion of #1. I can't provide any data myself, but I think the small radius causes the extra area to get wasted; since critters can attack in melee from 7 ft. out and surround the player on all sides when attacking, the area of the 6 ft. radius circle is likely to fail to encompass more than a few attackers.

I may be in the minority here: I really didn't like the proposed change to Dark Consumption as a mini-nuke the last time DM was being looked at, and I don't want it changed into an AoE attack to have in rotation. I like Dark Consumption as is - a low damage/low endurance power I can use to refill my endurance when I need to. I assume you mean the version of Touch of Fear on Test rather than my idea? Otherwise that seems a bit harsh. Admittedly, I was cribbing from an in-game power to make my suggestion, but my goal was not to make up a new power wholesale as much as to use an existing power as a mostly balanced foundation.

As a minor interjection, it occurs to me that people might like if the new Touch of Fear were to operate like Engulfing Darkness does on Dark Assault for Dominators. For reference, on a Dominator, Engulfing Darkness is PbAoE that does scale 1.23616 damage in a 15 ft. sphere around the player; it casts in 2.00 seconds, recharges in 18 seconds, and costs 16.848 endurance. I would be happy if ToF were renamed to something like "Embrace of Fear," and having the same fear effect as the new ToF, but affecting all targets in a PbAoE that did scale 1.00 damage in a 10 ft. sphere around the player; it could cast in 1.97 seconds (i.e., the same new cast animation), recharge in 30 - 40 seconds, and cost 16.848 endurance.

I agree with you. And, if I may, I draw a distinction between player guides/advice, like those you linked to, and the actual Developer articles/advice like the old "Dev Diaries" where a design philosophy or powerset strategy might be explained. I don't mind if a player suggests filler attack or whatever (e.g., taking boxing/kick to get access to the fighting power pool's defensive powers) because that is not a mandate and I may freely disregard it should I so choose. In contrast, I do mind if an actual Developers were suggesting as such (e.g., that my AoE damage should be coming from epic/patron power pools) because then I must adopt/adapt that design decision into my build. I'm fine with changes being made to powers, sets, and even archetypes. In fact, I'm thrilled that DM may have a real AoE ability, but I think ToF, as it is now on Test, feels very anemic for that purpose. And I wonder why it is that way as well as if there is room for improvement.

Having played with these Dark Melee changes on the Test Server, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I normally skip Touch of fear on my build, so making it into a damage power renews my interest in taking it. However, on the other hand, Touch of Fear as it is on the Test Server doesn't function very well in my opinion, hitting too few critters and taking too long to deliver out the full damage to them. As it stands, the small radius of the power makes hitting more than a few (3-ish maybe?) of the critters surrounding me difficult, if not impossible;. The Damage over Time aspect makes the unhelpful in clearing the spawn (I feel as though I have to fall back on my single target attack chain to achieve this). And, the lack of the mez/debuff affecting all of the hit targets limits the power's utility. I would be much happier with the power if it were either to have a larger radius or to be a PbAoE, thereby enabling the power to be reasonably able to affect the target cap's worth of critters. I would also prefer that the power and some upfront damage attached - similar to the changes that were made to Midnight's Grasp back on Live. And while I wish that the mez/debuff affected all of the hit targets, I can live with foregoing this for balance concerns. Yet, if the point of the changes is (as other posters have suggested) to create some sort of stop-gap AoE damage power, then that is an unprecedented and unique design decision for this game. (I cannot think of any power being designed to be useful on during the leveling up process and to be respec'ed out of later on.*) But more importantly, I think that would be an unwise direction to go: it creates a tax on Dark Melee players for leveling up by making them have to respec at whatever level the new Touch of Fear loses its efficacy, or else forgo the power altogether. And, to me, that seems to run counter to the goal of making Dark Melee a more even set through this rework.

I follow you on the reasoning, but I remain a bit skeptical that players, on the whole, are willing to slowly pick-off individual critters with little risk to themselves. For instance, I think the changes to make instant-snipes suggest that players generally weren't taking/using a power that allowed them to do exactly that. At the same time, I have to concede that unorthodox/irregular playstyles is something the player base thrives on and players will certainly try to cheese scenarios given the chance. So, you are probably right that there would be a glut of tele-sniping characters were Teleport Target to be less aggro-inducing. I actually would love to see such a change: maybe not scattering the critters to the four winds so much as sending them away from the spawn point similar to how a critter will run when sufficiently demoralized but wander back (albeit sometimes very slowly). In contrast to the old fear powers (or at least what I remember of them), I would hope that searching behavior wouldn't be a status effect overwriting the normal AI behavior for the duration, causing them to flee to the farthest parts of a map/zone.

To elaborate on my prior feedback a bit, I was already familiar with how the live version of Teleport Foe works, and was already similarly dissatisfied with it. But I was hoping that since the power on Test is labelled as "not notifying nearby enemies" in the power info description, the new Teleport Target power(s) would end up operating similar to Smoke/Confuse/etc. That hope was dashed upon testing. Ideally, teleporting an critter would cause other nearby critters to become alerted to the existence of an enemy and to go searching for the player; that is probably impossible within the confines of the AI in this game. I'm just not a fan of the critters having the extrasensory ability to zero in on the player after the power's use. I've never been a huge fan of the teleport pool as it was on live. I have Recall Friend on a few of my characters yet I don't think I use it outside of the rare circumstance such as dragging a fallen ally out of a death patch or the like. I've tried and respec'ed out of Teleport Foe, finding it too clunky and unhelpful to use. (Why delay myself to use this power when I have probably better powers to use on a troublesome critter?) And I've scarcely taken Teleport as my travel power because of its twitchy nature. So, all in all, I do happily welcome most of these changes. They are revitalizing a very limited and dated power pool. However, I also want to note that given the current changes being made, Warshades are uniquely disadvantaged by the changes. They have to sacrifice a power pick to get the better entry level teleport power after being given a lesser power for free. Admittedly, this might be little different than other archetypes who have to sacrifice a power pick - alongside a power pool option - to get the Teleport pool powers. Nevertheless, if Warshades were supposed to get the key powers in Teleport as inherent powers then I think Warshades are being penalized by getting the niche Teleport Target power but having to pick Combat Teleport. This is unlike Peacebringers who get Hover and Flight for free.

I've been playing with the changes to teleport with my Warshade's equivalents, and for the most part, I really like the changes. My impressions are as follows: Inherent / Umbral Aura > Shadow Recall Frankly, I'm not really a fan of this power. I don't think the "Teleport Foe" part of the power works very well because it alerts nearby enemies when used on a individual (even outside line of sight) and because the interrupt time prevents it from being useful during combat to grab runners or enemies staying at range. And so, I will probably treat this power exclusively as "Recall Friend" for the foreseeable future. On my characters who will have the pool power version of this, I may in fact respec out of it entirely since those characters mostly took it as a stop-gap for Assemble the Team during its cooldown or as a niche power to complement a rez/Vengeance. Umbral Blast > Starless Step I really enjoy this/"Combat Teleport." Although I kind of wish that this power gave +Def rather than +ToHit, I think I can live with it as it is now, especially if it works a place to put the Gaussian's Build-up Proc. On my Warshade, it gives a quick follow-up to Grav. Emanation to get him into melee range for his PBAoE powers. On my other characters, it works wonders a way for my stalkers or controllers to jump into melee range before using their openers, and I'm debating swapping out normal Teleport for this on my Stone Armor tank to lessen the pain of Rooted/Granite. That said, I have something of a problem with this power specific to Warshades. I wish that this power were the inherent rather than Shadow Recall. Such a change would bring it inline with Peacebringers getting a hover equivalent as an inherent, and given my above gripe with Shadow Recall, doesn't force me to have a less desirable power. Umbral Aura > Shadow Slip This power is absolutely phenomenal. It let's me gather up a host of nearby foes for my Warshade to fuel his Mire-Eclipse-Quasar combo. My only wish would be for it to have a slightly shorter cooldown, but it's so good as is, that I'd rather not sacrifice anything to get that reduced recharge. I wish I could fit this power into more of my other melee builds but I don't see many ways to make the power sacrifices to get there, which I think does a good job of indirectly balancing this power - it's great for those who can squeeze it into their builds but that takes enough effort that I don't think were going to suddenly have teams competing to use/chaining "Fold Space."

Sorry about any ambiguity. You can't use mighty if you are in mid-air. You have to be on the ground. The only way to activate mighty while hover is toggled on is to hover at ground level and having your character touching the ground.

True, "fun" is subjective. I guess a better way to phrase it might be "these builds aren't a chore for me to play or failing basic gameplay." I've tried some builds in the past that were more annoying than it was worth, like when I tried a regen scrapper back in its hay-day in Issue 2/3 or my experimenting with Khelds on Homecoming. I've also seen some ways to play that just cause me to scratch my head, like so-called "pure" empathy defenders or petless MM. I realize some people might think of those builds as "fun," so one's mileage may certainly vary. I feel like one of the amazing synergies of Necro/Traps is that you can get your pets to pull enemies into traps so you don't have to be nearly as meticulous. And even then, while teaming, I'll definitely lean toward toe-bombing with selective traps that recharge quick enough. At the same time, all of my traps can be great when the team hits a speed bump or just an AV that needs to be turned to jelly.