Solvernia

Frostwork is not a buff you put on someone in the middle of a fight, otherwise it would have a +heal component.

Okay! it was a pleasure having this discussion with you.

If you play a Mastermind without buffs/debuffs, your pets are going to die constantly and you're going to spend all of your time and end re-summoning and upgrading them instead of actually using your blasts. If you want to be a Mastermind that has attacks, then take the several attacks that Masterminds already have. They might not be particularly powerful, but they're fun.

I'm ignoring this point because it's not an important or relevant point. If you're playing Stone or Invulnerability, then you get very little benefit from defense or resist shields. Frostwork at least puts you at the max HP cap; the only thing that def/resist shields do to someone who has capped def/resist is provide a buffer against debuffs. Which do not exist for max HP. It doesn't, and that's when you cast Frostwork on someone else in the team.

All tanks can and should be capable of healing themselves. If you don't have that ability, you're objectively not as good as a tank who does. If you're playing one of the tank sets that doesn't have a self-heal, then stock up on green insps, take Aid Self, or even the Med Pack power from the P2W vendor.

Why are you tanking if you can't heal yourself?

Max HP flat-out reduces the damage you take, from all sources, unconditionally. Let me give you an example. Tank 1 has 2000 HP. Tank 2 is identical to tank 1, but has a +50% max HP buff, giving him 3000 HP. An attack that hits Tank 2 for 1000 HP will take 50% of his total HP, whereas an attack that hits Tank 2 for 1000 HP will only take 33% of his total HP. Suffice to say, Tank 2 will be able to take 50% more damage on average than Tank 1 does. And at 100% max HP, they'd be able to take twice the damage that Tank 1 does (equivalent to a 50% resist vs all.) And that's on top of what resists/def they already have, which are capped more easily than max HP is. Max HP is also never debuffed by enemies, ever, making it a more stable buff than resist. What's the point of giving a tank a +res shield or a +def shield when they already have softcapped defenses and hardcapped or near-hardcapped resists? What's the point of healing a tank that can heal themselves? These are all situations that regularly happen. But no tank regularly sits at the max HP cap (though Regen, Invul and Crab SoAs come close with Dull Pain.) Max HP is the best stat in the game to buff in the overwhelming majority of circumstances. in b4 goalposts

The first one is just Dominator, and yes, in most cases, Doms are better at blasting than most blasters are. The second one is just Soldier of Arachnos. If you want to be a Mastermind with blasts, then take the Mastermind's blasts.

Do you have a source on this? Because I'm pretty sure that Absorb HP still benefit from resistance. I don't, because there's very little documentation on Absorption -- it was a very very 'recent' addition. I'm going from what I observe on my /rad scrapper and /bio brute, which might not be 100% accurate, but it does seem to me that their absorb fades much faster than an equivalent amount of HP would. Regardless, max HP buffs are still the best buffs in the game. Why are you tanking if you can't heal yourself?

Hold on a second. Max HP is the single best defensive buff in the game. Consider that the person you are buffing with Frostwork is likely your tank, who more often than not has softcapped defenses and lots of resist. Not all tanks have +max HP, however, and Max HP is direct damage reduction from all sources, period. So giving someone max HP will make them a lot more survivable than giving them more def/resist that they don't need. Absorb shields are worse than max HP because they don't benefit from resist buffs like max HP buffs do. They're just temporary HP without actually being HP. I would much rather have 1000 more HP than 1000 more absorb, or even 2000 more absorb. You're basically proposing to nerf Frostwork, and a set that is already uncommonly played does not need any more nerfs.

It will if everyone does it, and common salvage is used in every IO recipe. Do you plan on only making one character with one build that you never change? What farm are you running where you get more than 172 pieces of salvage a run? No, seriously, it sounds insanely lucrative. I'd love to give it a shot.

So what you want to be is a Blaster/Scrapper that does less damage and has pets that keel over in the slightest breeze because they're not getting any buffs/heals and you have no debuffs/CC to keep the enemy from doing so. Honestly, I think the AT you're looking for is Soldier of Arachnos.

Yes.

It'd look like a Fire/Ice/Elec blaster, or any permutation thereof.

If you want more jumping power in Combat Jumping, slot it with Jump enhancements. Combat Jumping has other effects than just giving you mobility -- the extra defense, immobilize protection, negligible endurance cost, lack of travel speed suppression, and lack of terrible animations makes it objectively superior to using Ninja Run in the middle of combat. As an aside, the fastest I've ever gotten Ninja Run + Sprint to was 68mph, and this is with a SoA that has additional runspeed.SS caps at 92mph. It's a non-trivial difference, especially when combined with Super Jump (you can run SS+SJ or SS+CJ at the same time, but not NR+CJ or NR+SS or NR+SJ.) No change necessary.

This is a debate that has existed since City of Heroes existed, and the answer has always been don't be a healer. When everyone is already mostly invincible and has self-heals out the ass for if they do get hurt, healing becomes the weakest form of support you can offer. There's a reason every buff/debuff powerset except Thermal/Pain/Empathy has either one or zero dedicated healing powers. There's a reason that a defender's secondary powerset is ranged attacks, and it's not always for dealing damage. Defender secondaries give powerful debuffs. Use them. They will keep your team going better than running Healing Aura on auto. Have you heard of anyone rolling a 'pure tanker' that just sits there and lets his toggles run without attacking? If you really want to be a 'pure healer', there's nothing stopping you. But you're going to be objectively, factually worse than literally any other kind of support that exists in the game. As a side note, I've had empaths spamming single-target heals on me even after I told them that I have self-heals and will never take any damage from anything, ever, so healing me is unnecessary. So they just sat there and did absolutely nothing instead. Good times.

Vanity pets are vanity pets because they don't have a mechanics function. In fact, I'm pretty sure they run away when combat starts.

Sorcery is already a powerset, Blackwand and Nemesis Staff are already powers, and Staff Mastery is already a powerset.

There are a lot of new options for head costume parts (hairstyles, eyepieces, etc) that don't exist for Wolf Spiders or Widows. Not even because there's 'clipping issues'; they just don't exist. Would be nice to have them.

Might as well roll all three into a single 'Weaponry' powerset in that case. If you let people take war mace/battle axe weapon models for Broadsword, then absolutely nobody will use War Mace or Battle Axe, even less than they're already never used. Broadsword/Axe/Mace were separate powersets in a time when there was no choice in weapon models, so it would be fair to merge them all into a single one. Don't worry about the secondary effects -- like I said, almost nobody uses Battle Axe or War Mace because Broadsword is literally identical to them except with a better secondary effect.

IIRC, the power description specifically states "sniper" in its effects, the same as Sniper Rifle, so even if the power's damage is Targeted AoE rather than single target, it should inherit all the Snipe characteristics and changes. Not a snipe. So it shouldn't get a fast snipe option. However, like I said -- cutting the interrupt and cast times in half, to 3 seconds (which is reasonable for a nuke power) would make it a fantastic 'opening nuke'. Body Armor should also probably get some energy resistance, like how NPCs with high tech armor (malta, arachnos, etc) get S/L/E. I don't mind that the resist is a little low, given that it's an autopower and not a toggle. But if people really want it buffed, then maybe rename it something like 'Power Armor', make it a toggle, and give it some Energy resist.

Cybertech jacket and Tech Knight do this, too. Just color them first with the link option in the meantime.

But disabling common/uncommon drops doesn't mean you get more rare drops, it just deletes them out of existence. Which is a bad thing for salvage, since everyone uses salvage. You really want Luck Charms to be 500k a pop again?

Redside has been lowpop since redside came out. Nothing wrong with that. Quality over quantity.

The only complaint I have about Piercing Rounds is the animation time. Treat it as a single-target attack that sometimes hits the guy behind it, like Head Splitter or Shatter, and you'll be fine. The best part about it being technically a cone is that you can slot Annihilation in it for extra -res. DP is definitely not an underperforming powerset. Even on defenders/corruptors, chemical ammo is a very powerful debuff.