CoeruleumBlue

I mean I wouldn't want Clear Mind to be a PBAoE, I would want it to stay single-target, just let you use it on yourself. Like I said above I don't want all the sets to become exactly the same, I just don't find it as attractive to play the support sets where you can't use every buff or heal on yourself when there are ones you can.

Basically this. Also, what about all the alts who are literally supposed to be the same character? What if I make a crab spider and bane spider just to have the backpack on one and not on the other? What about PvP builds who are unlikely to ever do all the TFs but would get accolade badges for that that make them stronger? What about when they release some kind of new power set or change old ones and that makes me want to play a different character, which ties into the alts one, but you can't blame someone in that case since it isn't the same as when they made the character? And yes, I do think making the badges account-wide would incentivize people to play all of the content once and then replay their favorite content and WTFs/WSFs. Importantly, I also think it would incentivize people to play more AE missions. Part of the reason I joined this game to begin with is I wanted to make and play custom missions, but it seems like no one is doing that because people are too busy chasing accolade badges and such. I mentioned the Maximum Power Principle and people said badges aren't a great incentive to play if people aren't chasing them on all their characters. Exactly. I think if the badges were more rewarding people would chase them more instead of just giving up. The Maximum Power Principle means people are mostly just ignoring the badges because they think there are better rewards elsewhere, but if people thought the badges were better rewards, they'd go get them more. Personally, there is plenty of content I love replaying but there's some I think is super tedious like Citadel Task Force and I don't want to replay that to get the Task Force Master badge on different characters. Manticore on the other hand is pretty fun, Posi 2 is fun, Lord Recluse is awesome, ITF is OK but that's the one I end up doing at least once on each character anyway, it just gets boring having to play all of the content repeatedly when you already know it and I think that's why a lot of people don't even play it to begin with, because they have a lot of alts and they know they never will so they give up. More importantly: I also think it runs against the design of the game to just go collect the badges on your one badge character. Lots of content literally requires different classes and powersets to play, but if you switch characters you don't get the badge. That's probably a lot of why the game has been made way easier over the years with letting people pick Incarnate powers to do things their class wouldn't normally be able to do and the like, specifically because of badge hunting. So I suggest making badge hunting not so important to the game. I want to play more custom missions. And also, regarding a post above where someone said he'll only log onto his cold theme characters during the winter for example: maybe not everyone tries to use every theme in the game to make characters with. Maybe someone has for example 50 or 100 vampire characters with different powersets and classes because they just really like vampires and they want all the vampire badges. What then? The game should be nice to them too, not punish them for being really obsessed with vampires, since it's fine if they're obsessed with vampires. And even worse if some of them are just supposed to be the same person but different builds.

My scrappers who die at level 1 can't use a bunch of enhancements. All the good ones are locked to at least level 17. Wait, we have another thread about that.

My scrappers all suck by themselves because they keep dying and my defenders are great by themselves because they don't. There's a joke I've heard, "controllers and defenders get pets starting at level 1, they're called scrappers."

Why would that make any sense at all whatsoever? If the enemy is weakened by a raygun or a psychic scream or getting hit by a boulder or whatever they are objectively weakened. The powers that don't work on yourself were mostly just based on Empathy and the idea that you have to have an empathic link. What next, do you want Controller, Defender, and Corruptor powers to not do damage, or get rid of the -rech and -tohit since that gives you extra protection too? This is the stupidest idea I have ever heard. I want powers to represent real things happening, not totally video-game-ified mechanics like "if you're a support class your powers can't help yourself at all" even though they were always designed to help yourself, even some of the powers in Empathy.

This isn't the problem though. The problem is some sets work great on yourself and others don't. Time and Rad are actually sets that work great on yourself and no one is asking for an individual heal at all on them because of that. People are just asking for the powers that can't be used on yourself to also be able to be used on yourself. The auras work on yourself and for that reason they are better for using solo than the individual heal powers, notice no one is actually asking for the reverse. I think it would be OK for sets to only have an individual heal if you can use it on yourself. Controllers are already OP, people just don't take sets like Empathy, Thermal, or Electric except for really specific content because you can't use many of the powers on yourself and controllers aren't good main healers. I pretty much only play Pain Domination, Electric, and Storm Summoning on defenders now and even then I'm annoyed the buffs don't apply to yourself unlike the buffs from literally Time and Rad which do and which can be perma-ed fairly easily.

There are entire support sets where every power in them can affect yourself. I've just been preferentially using those except for a few specific builds that I heard are how the game used to work where you really need healing on content without incarnates and I picked Pain Domination for most of those. This is part of why I think we need badges to be account-wide, because those builds are probably never going to run all the content in the game, but even with that, just making it so things like Clear Mind, Enforced Morale, O2 Boost, or Spirit Ward from Sorcery can work on yourself would make them much more useful in my opinion. Because of what you said, it's basically just better to take debuffs than buffs except for the sets where all the buffs also work on yourself, which also often have debuffs. The only sets that don't have debuffs are also ones where all the buffs don't work on yourself which tends to make those not favored.

Yeah making brutes more control-oriented than tankers would probably be the clearest way to differentiate. That's probably also a lot of why I wanted to use Dark Melee on brutes even though someone said only use it on tankers once. The other part is everything in the set has to have you attack for it to work, some of the other melee sets legitimately have passive effects, and none of them are blocks. Someone said there should've been an archetype with control set primaries and armor secondaries, but just switching to basically melee controls and doing that on brutes probably works. That would also give some use to the random control powers that are already in some melee sets that don't involve procs or gimmicks such as the Boggle in Psi Melee.

No. Haters gonna hate. Excuse me while I find extra knockback procs and add more to powers that don't have it.

There's always new content and you can make more content in AE. I think no one plays all that content specifically because they don't want to redo it on all their 200 alts, especially when people barely do it. I barely can do all the content on my one main. I don't think people want to play every single story in the game over and over on all of their characters, especially when, and I think I probably should have included this in my OP, the game is not designed that way. The game is designed for people to have different characters who do different roles and take them to different content. Making it so you only get the badges on your one character works against the way the game is designed. I want to see the story, not have people just give up. Plus, there are always weekly trials and TFs. People will always run the weekly ones repeatedly. There are even badges for running the weekly ones repeatedly but how can I do that when I haven't even done all the main ones on my main character, I have alts, and there are also fun AE missions to play? In thermodynamics and some of its applications, there's something called the Maximum Power Principle. A complex system such as an organism or an economic agent doesn't do what maximizes their total energy, they maximize their total power. I believe the Maximum Power Principle is actually just making people ignore almost all the of the content in favor of farming. There isn't too much content, but there's too much content compared to the perceived rewards. You could play all the task forces or strike forces on each of your alts to get 5% health and 5% endurance on each of them, or you could just play each of the task forces or strike forces on your best build for that particular one and just play weeklies when they come up some other times which have good value as well. So I do actually think this game is just suffering because of not following the Maximum Power Principle just makes people farm all day and not do anything else, even though there's no reason farming should be against the rules since it's basically the same as DFBs or ITFs. Declaring farming against the rules doesn't encourage people to play through all of the content either because people just perceive it's inefficient to do so. Even if there are dedicated hero players and dedicated villain players who don't want to play through all of the content for the other side, they can still already earn all the accolade powers anyway, so that part is fine. I think people want to play through the whole story, I just think they are disincentivized to because of low perceived rewards, and due to the fact no one else is playing through it, so no one wants to sit down and play through it all alone.

I would like to be able to swim in water. Does the engine let them change water? The engine probably just forces people from a walk animation to a swim animation on water. That's annoying. I hope someone can change that. Even though I've considered trying to apply to do dev stuff, I don't think I could recode all of water.

I'm under the impression brutes are mostly just better against the big boss, and tankers are better against the mobs, but since brutes can still fight the mobs, I always go with them. I also don't think they're all supposed to be Hulk. Tankers are more supposed to be like Statesman which is like a Superman kind of character, and most of my brutes and tankers are things like psi melee/shield defense, dark melee/stone armor, or radiation melee/bio armor that are not really found on any of the main comics characters, I mean if I just wanted to play someone else's character I'd go play the Marvel or DC game, but even Statesman isn't exactly like Superman any more than Homelander from the Boys is (the fact Statesman's name reminds me of Homelander is not very helpful sometimes, especially since he's also a stand-in for the guy who seems to be based on Elon Musk in Champions.) But yeah I do think I have a way to easily differentiate brutes and tankers, use brutes if you like tanking big bosses more and tankers if you like tanking mobs more. That still definitely keeps it as a brutes fans vs. tankers fans war as it probably always will be, but I do think they're already easy to differentiate, and they don't have to be based on preexisting characters like the Hulk or Superman either.

Hello, I think basically every badge you get other than the badges for reaching levels, veteran levels, and incarnates should be account-wide. I think this would encourage people to play the story content instead of just farming all the time. It's probably actually good farming is allowed on Homecoming and most private servers because there's basically no difference between fire farming or farming ToT and official content like DFBs anyway, and the ridiculous amount of farming and people not knowing the content is simply due to there not being much incentive to play it. I believe that if most badges were account-wide, this would encourage people to play the story content to get them, and it would also discourage things like people spending all month farming Trick-or-Treat for the prismatic aethers and badges (which you get from the badges.) Once you got the Halloween badges, you would have them for all your characters, so just replaying those events would be the same as anything else you could replay, and if they make a new set during the middle of spring you want to use on a vampire character you still have Vampiric Heritage for that character. You should probably also be able to pick any version of the badge you want once you earn it, the hero one, villain, or Praetorian, once you get a hero, villain, or Praetorian character to level 20. Praetorians should have two level 20 badges, one for Resistance and one for Loyalists, and once you get the Resistance one you should be able to treat Resistance alignment like Rogue/Vigilante and take Resistance characters out of Praetoria or change their alignment, same for Loyalists. If someone only likes Resistance or Loyalist they can just make those and still play the main game instead of running tutorials or fire farms over and over again, same as if someone only likes Heroes or Villains, but you still have to do it once per alignment. I have legitimately seen someone start in Praetoria on a character that wasn't supposed to be Praetorian just to get a title, which is not the same as a badge, but now she can't ever change her title if she switches alignment. You should really be able to switch to Praetorian both because that's canonically what Maelstrom did and also just for the titles and badges if you want them because it's literally just a cosmetic, you can literally name a hero Mr. Badguy and put him in an Arachnos suit and name a villain Mr. Goodguy and put him in a blue and gold tights and cape outfit, who cares. Likewise, I also recommend a change to patron badges. You should have to do the specific patron unlock to get a powerset but that should be account-wide too. I can barely ever get patron unlocks and I've never actually been in a single one that's played all the way through, and people seem to never want to do Ghost Widow's, I'm guessing because it probably involves a lot of psionic damage and most builds don't want to deal with that. With this rework I think people would play through all of them, including Ghost Widow, and no one would have to sit around waiting for an outleveled patron unlock and also not get to actually see the story. I'd also let villains do the Law Enforcer day job or give them their own version. That way Loyalists in Praetoria can also have a version (but it can probably display differently than the villain version.) Every other day job can be totally alignment locked or not necessarily have an equivalent since you can just switch anyway, except for Praetorians who want to stay in Praetoria, or if you want to become Praetorian, but see above. Those are just my ideas, thanks for your consideration!

Making Black Hole into another mez seems good to me, considering Time Manipulation, Traps, and some other sets are full of mezzes. I would consider turning some of the phase shift powers into Placates or something to be honest. I always imagine that someone would take Black Hole and Phase Shift and go tank all the enemies, but then I think that would be stupid, because their team could do nothing and they would probably take forever to kill them. So I recommend just making it a Placate or something to be honest, or a perception debuff, maybe also add a Fear if they're in the Dark Dimension or whatever. Holds are well and good, but it needs to be something that makes people feel like they just got yeeted to the Ghost Realm or something, not just another hold in my opinion, not even a hold with a repel.

Geothermal Spring was supposed to be a renamed and re-graphiced Triage Beacon from Traps basically, definitely not a renamed Spirit Tree, since I like the idea of having a ground-targeted heal on the earth support set. Traps - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki Maybe the one you said could be named Rough Ground can be Sandstorm and that can be similar to Caltrops and also be what the support pet can get? Yeah, I guess the basic template for how I'd personally want an earth support set to work is just take Traps and replace all the things that are actually traps rather than just devices with things similar to Storm Summoning, change all the minor damage to smashing or fire instead of lethal or toxic, change the elemental resistances from Storm Summoning to smashing/lethal/energy/psionics. Like I just see Earth Control and go like, I would like a secondary set that shields you with rocks instead of trapping them in rocks and has a couple of armors, some minor damage on debuffs, and a support pet. I'm sure I was horrible at designing it other than vibe-wise, and the fact I designed that ticked off people who I'm sure actually just want the earth support set to be a straight up armor toggle set with literally nothing to press in the whole set except the toggles (though even that would probably be a minor improvement over mud healing conceptually from my personal subjective point of view.) But yeah taking ideas like Shoal Rush from Marine Affinity is probably a good idea because Earth/Marine is nice both mechanically and conceptually in my opinion. Earth/Rad feels like I'm just going to drop it in an MSR and get up and make coffee and do something else for 20 minutes even if that's an exaggeration, Earth/Time is a fun idea because of geological time but just feels like too many of the exact same holds, slows, and debuffs, Earth/Dark also feels like a fun idea but basically the same problem as Earth/Rad, Earth/Marine is probably my subjective favorite out of all the ones I've actually made with Earth Control since this doesn't seem super passive and the strengths and weaknesses of water are close enough to earth, but in practice it basically just seems like a set for buffing and healing the pet with a couple of nice debuffs, which will only be used for the pet and possibly your teammates. Poison might be fun but thematically weird. Trick Arrow makes me go like what the heck since there isn't a single heal in there, that is basically the opposite of Earth Control and giving yourself a tuned down second control set instead of a tuned up second support set in my opinion.

That doesn't help at all, because you can't even say which should go with which, and those have the same effect. If you want to avoid damage on taunts, which I understand, I would just make the brute taunt -regen or -defense. Making one have a -ToHit and the other have -Damage makes them do even more the same thing, but now people with defense armor will pick one, people with resistance armor will pick the other, and people with regen armor will feel ripped off. I think my idea doesn't mess up anyone's builds or the idea at all, even though there might be other reasons not to implement it.

I was trying to go for a debuff pet and those self-freezing things don't seem very useful since they turn off all your powers. It's not like it gets that and a taunt, it just wouldn't be able to do anything sometimes, though maybe that makes it a terrible pet in practice since after all it doesn't have a taunt and that's also a potential reason it shouldn't use that. I am just trying to go through the existing powers and use those instead of making up new powers just for pets to have them. I said I can't test these out to see how they work when they're used because I'm not a dev. I just want it to seem cool and look cool, I can't test it. It probably would be a lot better for it to just have an AoE heal and an AoE defense buff though, yeah. Maybe make it look like a circle of floating rocks if it's targeted around the pet instead of targeted around the ground. We have some animations for that already that could be repurposed luckily. Anything targeted around the ground from the pet would probably turn into yet another reworking of Faraday Cage. Well yeah it's not supposed to be exactly the same power twice, just similar enough it's basically the same. I guess I just gave up on renaming the powers that are basically the same, especially since I'm not a dev and I can't test out all the effects different actual numerical values would have. I guess if I picked specific numerical values I could just go to a Google list of geological features and pick some cool ones based on what seems the most appropriate, but I can't do that since I can't test these and I don't have tables of all the values either. The Meteor Shower power at least can be totally different from anything in Seismic Blast even if it wasn't based on Meteor to begin with, I just lacked names for falling rocks. The new one can be ground-targeted or a sustain and maybe just do teeny tiny amounts of damage which would make it basically an earth version of what Storm Summoning has.

Meteorite is a new power I made up, it's not the same as Meteor, read the description. Lots of sets basically let you pick the same power, it just doesn't have the same name. Anticlinal Trap: You can cause the ground to spew asphalt in an Anticlinal Trap at a targeted location. Any foes that pass through the Anticlinal Trap will become snared, their movement will be dramatically Slowed, and their Defense reduced. Foes trapped in the Anticlinal Trap cannot jump or Fly. Cave-In: Cause the ground to collapse beneath a specific location, reducing the defense and chance to hit of a group of enemies and knocking them down. Meteor Shower: You call down a Meteor Shower from outer space. This causes shards of rock to fall down from the sky, dealing smashing damage and lowering their defense. Affected foes will become heavy, limiting their ability to jump and fly for a short time. The force of the eruptions can knockback enemies. See? I have renamed all the powers and slightly changed Meteor Shower to have multiple meteors instead of one, it's different now! If Stone Sentry can't use Salt Crystals they can use Stone Prison (Blaster version.) I just like the tentacles that Dark Servants make with their immobilize so I wanted the Stone Sentry to make crystals to match it since it looks cool. There's not one in Stone Melee either though, sadly. I'd also rename Blessing of the Earth to Mineralization. There are a lot of geology terms you haven't used yet. I understand things like Enchant Undead on masterminds even if you make a science-based undead summoner because there aren't a bunch of agreed-upon technical terms for undead, but this isn't WoW, let's go through the science terms before we use those, since people with magic characters tend to like those too. I still think Earth Control is full of things that should've been on a secondary set to begin with and you're not mad at me in good faith, you're mad at me because you're afraid they'll change Earth Control because I said that, and you're also mad that I suggested there should be an earth support set with a bunch of rock barriers you make on the ground instead of replacing the old Forcefields as the passive set because you like just toggling on your powers and not having to actually do anything, and that's the reason Earth Control is so popular to begin with. I think that's a shame because I'm loving every single other earth set in the game but then I get to Earth Control and it's just toggle stuff on basically and I main controllers so that's so boring to me. I thought it was hilarious putting Eochai in a giant stone at level 2 during the Halloween event so that's a shame, I don't want something that funny to be associated with basically just toggling it on and leaving when every other earth set actually involves doing things like throwing people around. That fact alone makes me wish I could just have Gravity/Earth or something instead of having to use Earth Control but there isn't even an earth secondary if I wanted more earth pets for someone with it as the primary. Meh. It really is basically just a secondary set with a pet and you're all over here like "sshh" to try to get me to not point that out but whatever. They can leave it that way as long as we get a version that actually is a secondary set, but if they do that you'll be mad I ruined your chance to make it just group armor, the only thing possibly more passive than the primary, when I think the primary would actually be playable if it had a secondary that worked thematically and involved actually clicking things.

Yes, I've made three earth controllers and I just didn't like that it seems super passive to the point it might as well be a secondary, even though I like the graphics. Like there's basically no damage, there's no confuse, there's no repel, no teleports, no perception. Stun is what goes on like melee powers where you hit someone really hard that aren't as good as control powers, slow mostly goes on secondary sets, knockdown also mostly goes on melee powers and secondary sets, sleep has different set bonuses and procs than holds but is otherwise basically the same as holds, and the pet also basically just runs around doing things for you and is the last power in the whole set, and you only get one. There isn't even an Earth Affinity to give you a mini-pet like if you did Dark/Dark or Elec/Elec. Support sets like Time Affinity and Traps are already full of holds, immobilizes, and stuns, and even Darkness Affinity has a couple. Earth Affinity basically just seems like what happens if you take a secondary set and scale it up and that's fine, but it also leaves me wanting the secondary set that correlates to it, both to make an Earth/Earth like a Dark/Dark and get more pets, and to have things to do. What secondary am I supposed to even put with it? They all basically do the same things at this point but I can't just get that out of the way thematically and make an Earth/Earth. And yes there's that on Dark Servant. I tried to design the mini pet anyway. I'll rename it since apparently it's too confusing with the Animate Earth pet. Stone Sentry: Salt Crystals (Blaster Earth Manipulation power) Fracture (Blaster Earth Manipulation power) Mud Bath (Blaster Earth Manipulation power) Geode (Stone Armor power) There's my mini pet for my Earth Affinity set like the Dark Servant, Tornado, Seeker Drones, and Voltaic Sentinel pets. I'll rename it to Stone Sentry instead of Stone Golem just to make sure no one gets confused with the Animate Earth pet that is apparently just called Golem and that's too similar (I renamed all mine and since the power is called Animate Earth I didn't think that was similar, but yeah it sounds too similar.)

I read that user's post and they seem really annoying. I don't want to be that annoying just because I really want an earth support set that has a bunch of ground-targeted powers like Traps or Storm Summoning and not a mud spa set or a totally-passive support armor set like the old Forcefields. Like yes, I can't finish this because I'm not a dev, but I hope the devs like my basic idea of having a mostly ground-targeted support set with a couple of armor options, not too many, and a mini-pet, even if they want to totally overhaul all my individual ideas.

As I already stated, the Meteorite I wrote is a different power from Meteor and it's based on Upthrust but not a strong. Stone Golem is a mini pet like Dark Servant, it's not the same as Animate Stone. I didn't design the actual pet like I didn't design the numbers for anything, but what on Earth is wrong with having a mini pet in a support set? I don't want it to just be the same as Stone Armor, I want it to have at least as much ground-targeted stuff as Storm Summoning or Traps. I don't want a totally passive set. Earth Control is already nearly a totally-passive set and that's why it was so easy for me to just copy stuff like Quicksand to Earth Affinity. There's not much of a difference between that and the Tar Patch in Darkness Control. There's only about as much stuff in common at this point as if you did an Arsenal/Traps controller. I don't need my set to be copied exactly since I can't test it and work out all the details since I'm not a dev, but just like, I want a set where you target the ground and put up stones, not a boring passive set. We already had that with Forcefields and that had to be changed into basically a blast support set and then we added Traps to be a different less boring version of Forcefields. I want basically a hybrid between Traps and Storm Summoning but I took a lot of elements from Darkness Affinity/Dark Miasma since that's already similar to Storm Summoning and I took the Faraday Cage from Electrical Affinity and changed it to +DEF (it should probably also have "You can only use this power while on the ground.") What's wrong with thinking a ground-targeted stone support set would be way cooler than the mud spa set that's usually put forth for an earth support set, or "you get a bunch of toggles like Earth Armor and that's it" (which is basically the old Forcefields that was cancelled?) If it's not balanced, it should be balanced, I just put forth one closer to a mix between Traps and Storm Summoning because that's what I want in an earth support set, a lot of ground-targeted crystal walls and a mini-pet with not so much emphasis on healing, not a mud spa set and not "earth armor, but for your team" which is just too passive.

Storm Summoning has three blasts, I guess that's not basically a blast set, but I don't get the problem with having basically just a KB and debuff attack that also does some damage. Someone else mistakenly said it was the Meteor from Seismic Blast. No, it's a modified version of the Upthrust from Seismic Blast but I wanted something that threw a rock down from the sky, knocked people down, and debuffed them and figured it should do damage too, since a few support sets have that, but I didn't use Force Fields as a basis for designing it even though maybe I should've since that does +DEF too. Yes, a lot of these are similar to Earth Control because my feeling with Earth Control is geez, this feels like a secondary support set, not a primary control set, despite getting a bigger pet. This barely does any damage other than the pet and sets like Time Manipulation, Traps, and Radiation Emission have a ton of holds too. I wish this were just a secondary set and it had a toned down pet and a heal and stuff instead. It's almost absurd to me that we have Earth Control and don't have Earth Affinity because of that, when Earth Affinity would work way better. The Stone Golem is supposed to just be a secondary pet that a lot of support sets get, also like the Voltaic Sentinel from Electrical Affinity, which is what I based the Stone Barrier on. So this is basically based on four sets which all have pets. I don't know how to design the support pet though. It just says it's a pet and its name to make it clear it's not Animate Earth but a tinier version, not exactly what the pet is like, I figure someone who has used pets more could design it, though maybe I'll make myself design it. And no, I didn't want this to get two Animate Earths because I mostly just wanted this to have an earth set to go with other themes. I tend to think the controls in Earth Control are kind of underwhelming too since it's almost all holds and immobilizes. Like can't I just have an earth support set to go with the Plant Control set or Mind Control and have a psychic crystal or even Ice Control and be a comet, or Fire Control and be a volcano? The whole idea of the earth set seems like it should've been a support set before they even tried making a control set out of it, just fill it up with mostly ground-targeted stuff, one or two blast-y things so you can hit things with a rock, and a mini-pet like what quite a few support sets get. Of course it would need a lot of editing, I'm not a dev who's getting paid to make this, I just wanted to throw out what I like, and "no pets or blasts" is not helpful when this basically has parts from four support sets that have pets and three that have blasts. Maybe only make the blast part of some kind of support function (even though it does crowd control and debuffing) instead of just throwing a blast in there even though Storm Summoning and Forcefields just have blasts, but like, throwing a rock from the sky that isn't as big as what the actual blast sets get should be in there in my opinion just for the fun factor, so let's make it work and be balanced, not take it out entirely, especially since almost everything else in this set is expectedly super passive and you need something to click and that something to click should involve a rock falling down on people from the sky somehow in my humbly correct opinion.

It's not supposed to be a full on pet like Animate Stone, it's supposed to be an earth version of Dark Servant, Seeker Drones (the real Traps pet,) or Tornado, that's why it's named Stone Golem instead of Animate Stone, so people can decide what kinds of powers it should have. Dark Servant, Seeker Drones, and Tornado all have attacks. Meanwhile, all of Storm Summoning is basically blasts starting with Gale: Storm Summoning - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki Howling Twilight is the Darkness Affinity/Dark Miasma Blast: Darkness Affinity - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki Dark Miasma - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki Caltrops and Web Grenade are Traps blasts: Traps - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

No, it's mostly based on Storm Summoning, Traps, and Darkness Affinity and literally all three of those have both pets and blasts.

I mean I think people should have to play the Praetorian content before they leave but they only have to do that once, so just give everyone an account-wide Resistance badge that lets Resistance members sneak out once they get it, and a Loyalist badge that lets Loyalists sneak out once they get it. Then you should also be able to turn your non-Praetorian characters Praetorian if you'd like, since after all, that's canonically what Maelstrom was. I tend to think all badges should be account-wide anyway, but I think at least making some account-wide Praetorian badges would help make Praetoria work even if not all badges will be account-wide, after all, we already have quite a few account-wide badges such as the Architect Entertainment ones.