Jacke

Very sympathetic with this. I'm currently in the middle of redoing a project just because I didn't keep a good set of change notes the first time. Which is one of the many reasons to test. To make sure the patch notes match the actual changes.

Here I'm with @Vanden. i26p5 has ToB with accuracy 1.5, which is very rare. i27p1 still has it at 1.2, which is quite good. But as @Troo points out, it should be in the patch notes. And Dark Mastery should have a 35ft stealth power on a toggle. A Dark/Dark Blaster should have 35ft stealth in either the primary or secondary, same as all the other Dark/Dark toons (except Dark/Dark Dominators, but that's a harder change and out-of-scope for i27p1). Death Shroud could have that 35ft stealth added. And like the new Dynamo, when under stealth, the damage from the aura can be suppressed.

No, it doesn't warrant being called "Gymnastics". But if you're wanting next time to rip up the floor to get it right, don't think it's a good idea to fix the baseboards quite yet.

The name isn't quite right, calling it Gymnastics. Could ask for the name to be changed ("Archer's Determination" say). That might be able to be included. BUT if you want in a later change the power to include jumping etc., especially if also justifying changing power stacking, then you may want to leave the name at Gymnastics, as ill suited as that is now.

@Jimmy, @Number Six, help me out here. For various reasons, including serious reasons--Issue 27 Page 1 is now on RC and will soon release. Blaster Secondaries Revamp is going into i27p1 as considering the work done to get it here, just to kick it to i27p2 would be wrong. Tactical Arrow changes in i27p1 won't be further revised, limited, or not included for similar reasons. Anything wrong with the Tactical Arrow changes--like the damn ranges--or the rest of i27p1, can be tolerated. Further changes to Tactical Arrow--or better yet, a pass over many power ranges--are better addressed in the future aiming at i27p2. I don't like a number of those choices, particularly #3, but I understand why they are the way they are. You can look at a number of my posts in this topic. I don't like the ranges in Tactical Arrow. I want a number of other things too, some of them even more than fixing Tactical Arrow. But I also realise there are times when it's best to find a different way, a better way to achieve the goals you desire. Don't like the way Tactical Arrow ended up? After i27p1 is released, test it thoroughly, make notes. Post about it as a start to respectful pushback. Get connected into the process for i27p2. Work to include a revision to Tactical Arrow there. Convince others they should consider it and include it. It's what I'm planning to do to include what I'd like to see in i27p2.

Everyone's tired. Issue 27 Page 1 is a lot of good work. With some things some of us think aren't the best choices and other issues unaddressed. The points of disagreement may cause some people to shelve some toons. But none of those points are big enough to completely break the game. To continue the arguments now is just holding up the whole lot of good that's in i27p1. Which is same as for every Issue of City that's been released before. It's been an intense beta testing stretch (many months for the devs). Now i27p1 is moving to Release Candidate. Focus is on catching bugs and typos, ie. what the changes are supposed to be is what's implement on the Beta Shards, no matter what is felt about the changes. This City, maintenance and updates, is brought to us by a lot of people who've done a lot of good work--in their spare time, their leisure hours, instead of relaxing and having fun. They want to have their leisure time back, including playing City. Instead of working in the computing sewers and having to arguing with all and sundre about how the plumbing should be. There'll be another day to see how those changes play out once released. To think about them and what can be done differently. To make careful considered suggestions for change when everyone is much more rested.

Once more, with feeling! (This is rather complex which is why we're still talking about it.) Acid Arrow has: tiny DoT, good -Def, and the -Special which increases the magnitude of some debuffs (in short, a lot besides -Res) (can't increase -Res because Res is its own debuff resistance and allowing a -Special to apply would lead to madness). Problem is: tiny DoT rarely helps and can makes things worse, like PGA and other powers' Sleep when they are wanted, so be aware; such -Def is rarely needed; often debuffs are small so it really doesn't help that much to increase them (e.g. Smoke Grenade); in large number of cases both the -Special and the debuffs are highly resisted (EBs, AVs, GMs), so need to be increasing very good debuffs; some mobs have a high floor for their debuff resistances (Lt, Bosses, EBs, AVs) which is how the -Special works, by reducing them; for the -Special to actually work, either needs a lower debuff floor with a lot of room above it (Underlings, Minions); or a high debuff resistance floor with even more room about it (some EBs, most AVs, GMs) Underlings and Minions have such low health and aren't very hard targets, so there's rarely a lot of difference in the time to defeat them. So where Acid Arrow does do effective work is: where -Def is needed, like running 1st and 2nd Tier MM Pets, who depending on the level, can be down another 2 and 1 levels from that of the MM; boosting strong debuffs against targets who have room to take the -Special, EBs, AVs, and GMs (but be sure your tactics are effectively delivering those strong debuffs); where the DoT doesn't hurt (breaking desired Sleep) or even helps (interrupts irritant mobs). Acid Arrow can improve things, but only some things significantly at some times.

You're overwriting an immensely useful default bind. CTRL+1 through CTRL+0 activates the powers/macros in Tray 3 Slots 1 to 10, just as ALT+1 to ALT+0 activates the powers/macros in Tray 2 Slots 1 to 10. I use them quite a bit in my standard tray stack.

Just spent the last several hours skim through this topic. Glad to see the devs reacted to respectful pushback and strove to improve the Travel Updates. I've used popmenus a lot and will likely give /customwindow a try. BTW, if you want your /customwindow's to persist over City client runs, here's what you do (from https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Paragon_Chat 😞 I too will be sad to see the end of the Pocket D teleport power, which I've had since adding in the Good-vs-Evil Edition to my existing combo of the Collector's DVD Edition of City of Heroes and the release edition of City of Villains (it was a long time ago https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Disc_Releases ). I did find it fun to teleport into the Tiki Club. @Jimmy is right about it causing the Tiki Band to run away. Sometimes I came in the back door as they were all running out right past me. 🙂 And thus was the newer faster way to grind Debt badges created. 😄

Not necessarily. It's why we've been bashing and talking so many numbers. Take my AR/Dev Blaster. Doesn't have Smoke Grenade at the moment. But if he did.... Smoke Grenade when it hits a mob in its AoE has 4.90% -ToHit. If the mob has no ToHit debuff defense, was affected by Acid Arrow, and got hit by the smoke, it would be 6.86% -ToHit. My toon is currently at 35.79% Ranged Defense and with more final slotting will be closer to the softcap. Even those small amount of -ToHit could cut out near 40% to 50% of incoming ranged damage. And will help other Defenses. If I get my Ranged Defense to the softcap, Smoke Grenade will no longer help against Ranged Attacks. But if I go up against Cimerorans and they put some -Def on me, that Smoke would help cut down the first -7.5% Def on the AR/Dev. But this is all a competition of attrition between HP, Regen, Healing, and incoming Damage gated by Accuracy, ToHit, Def, -ToHit, -Def. And if I depend too much on just having better attrition that the enemy, I could still get ground down so much my toon is defeated. Instead, I can improve my tactics. How I clear maps and handle tough mobs. And that can be worth a lot more than 5 to 7% -ToHit. The smallness of that -ToHit is why I don't have Smoke Grenade at the moment. I'd like to fit in Smoke Grenade. But I'd have to axe a power to make it fit. And for now, I don't want to do that.

I remember those times! Radiation has a boss killer, Cosmic Burst. (2 hits with its Stun has bosses stunned.) For years it had 40ft range. Sometime, can't remember when, it was doubled to 80ft. No real massive improvement, but it was more convenient to use. Of course, I currently don't have Cosmic Burst, but it's just because other Radiation Blast powers are better and there's other ways of dealing with bosses. And mob Stun protection is now all too common. And here's a table of the Blaster Primary T1 and T2 and Secondary T1. Didn't fill in all the extras, just the basics.

Mover(s) I can't lock down and gets too far from the Disruption Arrow ? 'Course DA is on a 17s recharge, but still the tactical situation will come up.... Too bad can't switch to stick Disruption Arrow into the target (but I don't think the game can admit a power both location and enemy targeted). Then I'm back to my favourite Radiation Emission and an enemy anchored -Res PBAoE. 🙂 Which of course means the enemy mob will then run off and tell all his friends....

I prefer Tactical Arrow's Flash Arrow at level 16 and Eagle Eye at 20. Devices gets Smoke Grenade at 16 and Field Operative at 20 and it's fine before then. Also the -ToHit are so weak from Blaster secondaries that if I don't need the -Perception, I often skip them as builds are tight and there's usually another power that gives something with more utility than the loss from not having Flash Arrow / Smoke Grenade.

I still think Acid Arrow should have some -Res to give it some utility outside of AV/GM fights. Maybe single-target -Res...but that's heading back to using only on a hard single target. Tricky (LOL!), but I think that could be done, either ST or AoE -Res Acid Arrow, and still find a sweet spot. 'Course I've come 'round again to having Trick Arrow manage 3 -Res powers. One ST, one AoE, one either ST or AoE. Other debuffs.... Blast set Archery.... Now that's a lot of arrows downrange. 🙂

And both Trick Arrow toons can use their Acid Arrows to buff both of their EMP Arrows whenever they're used.....

A long time ago, I did protection spreadsheets where I could plug in the numbers to see how well various combinations of Def and Res (numbers from Mids with a bit of checking) worked to mitigate damage rates and spikes. Interesting things I learned there. Now I kind of just wing it (again using Mids numbers and checking a bit). 🙂 And those spreadsheets aren't as complex as the one you made.

@Bopper, are two TA with their own EMP Arrows and Acid Arrows (do the Acid Arrows each buff both EMP Arrows...?), are their individual debuffs straight additive? Of course, that's only for 45s out of...5 minute recharge, say 95% Recharge slotted, totally number-out-of-a-hat 105% global recharge, for 200% recharge, so 100s recharge, tiny cast times, so about under 45% uptime of the debuff. Which is why this is hard to get the numbers right. Even if the two TA toons debuffs are additive, likely the better tactics is to alternate their debuffs and debuff buffs to get near 90% uptime on 61% Regen debuff. But that sort of coordination is hard....

So at +3 with PP being 65%, that's Final = 500% x 0.65 x (1 + 0.40 x 0.65) x (1.00 - 0.85) = 500% x 0.65 x (1 + 0.26) x 0.15 = 500% x 0.65 x 1.26 x 0.15 = 61.425% regen debuff EDIT: And @Bopper's really rolling out the numbers.... 🙂

Purple Patch info in the Wiki https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Purple_Patch says being +3 means the debuffs will be reduced to 65% of the even-con value. I believe those factors multiply together, so with 85% debuff resistance, that's ( 1 - 0.85 ) x ( 0.65 ) x 500% = 0.15 x 0.65 x 500% = 48.75% So about half of the regen is removed. I think 2 Trick Arrows might additive (on shaky ground, I know some are additive, some are multiplied), so that would be removing 97.5% of the regen. Not sure if this is right, but adding in Acid Arrow with -40% debuff on regen debuff resistance (say that 3 times fast!) ups that 48.75% to 68.25%. And I don't have a good set of info on enemy Limits (https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Limits mostly covers PCs), but I think the minimum for regen is zero. And getting say Reichsman to 31.75% or better 2.5% of his regen helps a lot (Radiation Emission's Lingering Radiation is 500% base). WRONG! @csr has it right. Working.... 'Course Reichsman's still a big ol' bag of hitpoints that still has to be emptied even at low regen....

@Bopper, I understand the problem and agree with you. So many settings and effects only have a small range that isn't meh or overkill. And then there's adding new things in. But after reading this.... ...all I thought of is enabling all content to allow a full league, then get 47 Trick Arrow toons and a Brute with Brawl (like the famous Brawling Humiliator back pre-2012) and have them slowly work through the game's entire content. Need that many Trick Arrow toons more because of attrition due to laughter (and likely boredom too). 🙂 But that example illustrates the problem. Tune the -Max HP too low and progress would stop on the first mission where a Brute's Brawl wasn't sufficient (Brawling Humiliator was a street sweeper only). Then as the -Max HP increase in magnitude, mission clearance is faster. Until the Brute can one-shot Reichsman on the final Dr Kahn mission. 🙂 Seriously, I may disagree with some of the change choices, but I do know how hard it is to find choices that will work both functionally and for the player base. Some of my comments are pushback desiring and supporting something different. Others are figuring out the true implications of how things are currently.

Interesting idea, -Max HP in Acid Arrow. That might be very useful. EDIT: And @Luminara says maybe, but likely limited effect, Purple Patched, and unlikely to make Acid Arrow any better for soloing. But considering the -Max End in Disruption Arrow. That's very situational. Talked about sapping enemies on the last page. You have to floor both their End and Rec. Because NPCs have lots of End and Rec compared to their End use. If they have even a sliver of blue bar, they're attacking you NAH. With my Kinetics/Elec Defender, I hit them with Short Circuit to floor Rec and get about half their End, then Transference to get the rest of their End and give some to my toon. Will -Max End help...? Maybe not. Short Circuit and Transference powers are stated in percentage. -Max End won't help percentage effects. If I'm wrong and it does help those powers, it could make Transference completely drain enemy. But that's not good enough unless Short Circuit zeros their Recovery. And the -Max End from Disruption doesn't seem to be strong enough to make Short Circuit both floor Rec and drain all End all by itself. So my Defender still has to use Short Circuit and Transference both at least once. Thanks for that detailed analysis, @Luminara. Gives me a much better feel for the power. And in light of @Monos King's insight into how the powers interact with a MM and their pets.... ...I seem to have stumbled upon a reasonable position for single builds for a TA/Archery Defender and a Ninjas/TA Mastermind. The Defender almost ignores Acid Arrow now and would be hard pressed to include it earlier than level 49. While the Mastermind has it at level 24 and slotted it more. I view PGA primarily for its -Dam. I think of the Sleep from PGA as a bonus that requires my team to stick to single-target. Even soloing, that may not be that often. I was aware that Damage Resistance is its own resistance to debuff and because of that, that buffing -Res would be fraught with peril. Decided to just wonder. Thanks for detailing the complexity.

On my AR/Dev, I use Web Grenade--oh yeah, it's now Toxic Web Grenade--to hold an enemy still while I roast him with Assault Rifle's true nuke, Ignite. That's a teeny patch of fire that really, really hurts. Immobilizes have a lot of utility in a lot of situations, including keeping the target in a patch dropped by the player or a teammate. Even stopping one of a group of targets can help in the battle to defeat them all, especially if the Blaster can kite. And if ENA is slotted for not just mez but damage, it is as least as good as the Primary T1 for DPA. And if there's no other way to break a mez, then it's only the Primary T1, T2, and Secondary T1 to form an attack chain. Having all 3 powers with 80ft range means they can all be used in attacking any target in range while mezzed.

What would be the mechanism for justifying this? Normally I like to keep my distance from an acid-soaked enemy. Does horrors to the spandex and Super Tailors are bloody expensive. But seriously, what is the imagined mechanism for having a debuffed enemy as source of healing? That's similar to what happens to defeated Praetorian Ghouls: they generate a healing aura pulse so of like Kinetics Transfusion to other enemies. I think a lot of us are thinking "I really wish Acid Arrow still had -Res." Because more -Res is always welcome, which everyone on the team can use all the time, because it buffs damage even beyond the AT damage enhancement limit. Even with 3 powers having it (new EA, reverted Acid Arrow, Disruption Arrow), a lot of use would try to take all 3. And if needed, would likely drop Disruption Arrow just to limit the set to only 3 location based powers. But 3 -Res powers in a set has only been seen in Sonic powersets. It would likely be too strong unless the powers' -Res values added together were about the same as the current new TA: -20% from EA, -40% from DA. So now it would be needing 3 attacks to apply the -60% instead of 2. And Entangling Arrow's -20% Res, from level 1, is full of utility and will be throughout the TA toon's adventures. Now, if Acid Arrow's -Special included boosting other -Res attacks....

I've barely played Masterminds, a long time ago and not that many levels of Thugs/Dark and Robots/Traps. You have much more experience to draw upon and I respect your words. Of course, with the Genin and Jounin recharges just over 30s, I could go for...Blood for the Blood God!!! Skulls for the Skull Throne!!! Milk for the Khorne Flakes!!! 'Course, that's supposed to be the enemies' Blood, Skulls, and Milk.... And I won't hit those recharges until the build is IOed out. And then there's having enough Recovery and tactical handling to take that level of attrition.... I'll stay with Acid Arrow at level 24 for now. Just wish the choice wasn't so knife-edge.

Good analysis in your post, @csr. I believe you're right about the Annihilation proc being -12.5% Res, which is what Mids says. Just checked the recipe and the IO, but only says it's 3PPM, no debuff value given. For my planned Ninjas/TA Mastermind (hey, I'm an AR/Dev veteran, unloved toons are me specialty 🙂), I have more slots to play with and more flexibility in what level to take Acid Arrow. It was going to be at level 24 and eventually with 4 Bombardment, one the Fire damage proc, and the Achilles -Res proc. I think I'll switch one of the Bombardments to the Annihilation proc. 5 slots with 3 procs. I'm using a -Def -Special arrow with a minimal DoT hoping for enough -Rec and fire damage from procs to make taking the power worth it. The Ninjas have enough Accuracy and ToHit (build has Maneuvers, Assault, and at 48 Tactics). And I've already got unprocced -Res in Entangling Arrow and Disruption Arrow. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the build would be better dropping Acid Arrow and moving Tactics down to level 24 and add another power (I've already got Stealth and Grant Invisibility, could go for Phase Shift, or Vengeance). Or adding in Aid Other (build has only 3 Pools so far so I can add Medicine). I can just resummon Ninjas, but would the Oni be better served by my toon having Aid Other? Hmmm.