Maiven

Been thinking about this a bit the last couple of days. I don't know if this is quite where this should be said, and I didn't see if anyone else has suggested anything along these lines, but: For Time Bomb, reworking it to function something like the Omega Maneuver from Crab Spiders could be very good. Have the summoned object put out a taunt pulse to draw in mobs in an area, giving the power a form of soft control even before it ever does damage. Possibly include a long duration debuff to -Range both to help draw them into the 'bombs' area and as a potent combat buff for ranged combatants like blasters against the surviving mobs that can no longer reach them at long ranges. Rather than a lengthly countdown, let the 'timer' be a factor of how long it takes attracted mobs to kill the object, and let the explosion occur on death, issuing whatever other effects it needs to issue. (For bonus points: could a pet mob be engineered to use the doppleganger mob type/effect and a bit of translucency VFX to rework this into an explosive Holo-drone of the user or a random teammate or somesuch?) For trip mine...I'm less fond of changing this much, since what it does is already a bit unique and an occasionally entertaining counter to ambush waves. But if it needs more control functionality, you could make it a sticky bomb that attaches itself to it's target, affecting them with, say, a fear aura that affects themselves and any other nearby mobs exposed to the impending blast. Possibly a mild confuse/taunt pulse as affected mobs in-fight to escape or kill the trapped enemy before they go off? Imagining it kind of working like the gnome toss debuff from redcaps. The tripmine expends itself and applies a complex debuff to it's victim that does a couple different things before expiring, or like the Mastermind effect of being able to bomb from their pets, but expanded to allow them to glue dangerous implements to enemies. Again, all leaning in on lightweight area soft control (emphasizing things like 'chance for mag 1/mag 2' effects for disrupting trash/chafe without directly doing as much to harder targets) which should be consonant with both Blasters and Support AT functionality, without necessarily removing all damage throughput from either toolkit. Obviously, there are limits to how much utility should belong to any given power. But these are both late-set tools everywhere they exist, and have the limitation of having to be placed at the user's location, requiring the user to either enter melee to ensure that they are proximate to targets, which exposes them to more danger as ranged ATs, or to place them beforehand and try to lure enemies in on the pull and hope they don't get wasted tripping single targets. Anyway! Just some thoughts on other ways they might be reworked to make them less awkward and more functional while still being essentially what they are.