Maelwys

It grants a scaling 0%-10% resistance. But it also grants a flat constant 3% resistance. It will therefore end up providing between 3%-13% resistance depending on your current HP. (Note the "13/100" instead of "10/100" in its CoDv2 entry)

FWIW Endurance Drains and Recovery debuffs (mainly sappers) routinely annoyed my original i6 /Regen Scrapper at higher levels. Sure; since then MoG has become useful... but the +20% Recovery debuff resistance from Quick Recovery plus another +20% Recovery debuff resistance and 20% Endurance debuff resistance from Ailment Resistance allows a Regen to be much less likely to "bottom out" via Endurance drains. I make the achievable Regeneration debuff resistance right now +20% from Fast Healing, +20% from Ailment Resistance and another up-to-45% from Reactive Regeneration. That's 95%; AKA 5% short of the cap. If you run Ageless Radial then yes; you can drop FH and still hit >96%; but personally I'd probably sooner drop Second Wind or Reconstruction.

I think this point is worth highlighting. Most of us here are capable of critical thinking and considering the other person's point of view; or at least (occasionally) reading and processing what another person wrote. On PUG teams there is no such prerequisite. I did rather a lot of PUG Master-of-Statesman;s Task Forces back in the day. Untamed Knockback and Repel affecting the Lord Recluse buff pillar repair crews (reviving previously destroyed pillars) was a royal PITA and caused several total failures. To be fair, that's still by far a footnote in my CoX gameplay experience though. Most of the time I just get a little annoyed by having to spend more effort chasing down mobs in order to melee attack them (whilst I can just manually follow them or trigger a Combat Teleport; doing so can mess up my careful cone positioning so can be a slight PITA) or by having AoEs and patch powers affect less targets (which admittedly can frustrate me a bit more depending on how long those powers take to recharge. Fine, they're your problem now Captain Pinball - I'll run three mobs ahead...)

Instant Healing.

IIRC it's that way intentionally because of issues "resetting" the pet's AI - whatever attack they might be in the middle of inflicting or recieving needs to complete fully and the henchmen reach a state where they're not attacking anyone... THEN they can build their aggro list up again based on the new orders. In practice I'll still need to tap Follow-Passive occasionally to get them to heel, but it's not anywhere near as bad as on live (whenever you could switch from Attack-Aggressive to Defensive-Goto... and at least half of the stupid feral kittens would either outright ignore you or start doing cricket runs between the goto point and the enemy they were previously engaged with!)

It's rather obvious: "Stop scattering mobs". Position themselves better, Pick their targets more carefully, Slot KB>KD IOs, Wait for (or themselves use) an AoE Immobilize. Heck... even something as simple as jumping can often drastically cut down on scatter distance. Again, I very much realise that KB can be used "for good" - to clump mobs rather than disperse them. However AoEs with a less-than-100% percentage chance to cause KB inevitably cause random scatter unless the caster is flying directly overhead or using KB>KD. To flip it around: I don't think it's reasonable to expect multiple teammates to adjust their playstyle to suit a "bad" knockbacker. Single Target Ranged damage dealers might not overly care... but anyone with melee attacks, AoEs and "patch" effects can be negatively impacted by mob scatter. On many toons it can feel eerily similar to having to tolerate a disruptive co-worker who keeps sabotaging the group project.

If/when I'm on a melee toon and someone repeatedly punts half a dozen mobs out of my PBAoEs, you better believe that someone has just claimed ownership of those mobs. So I'll happily just leave them to it and go tackle the next pack... 🙂

For me it's a question of disruption. Combine a knockback user and a knockback hater together on a team and only one of those parties is disrupting the other and spoiling their fun. (And yet when the person being disrupted asks the disruptor to stop - which yes, would potentially disrupt their enjoyment - they're apparently the the bad guy because they were polite about it and asked first?) I get that knockback is a part of the game. But lots of knockback effects have become knockdown over the years because it's simply not mechanically effective to throw logs away from the woodchipper. There are still many KB powers left in specific powersets but the Devs gave us non-unique KB->KD IOs to let the players of those sets choose. So personally I'd just like there to be less opportunity cost for someone who wants to make that same choice across multiple powers. If Person A's playstyle is overly disruptive to Person B, then there's a problem. It's on the Team Leader to listen to the whinging complaints and ultimately call the shot... but I've personally observed a great many instances over the years where multiple team members have become so annoyed by the actions of one person that most of the members just drop (and often immediately reform, without the offender or the leader). I think I mentioned "Intangibility/Cage" powers earlier, and they're by far the worst offenders I can remember. But Speed Boost (slotted for run speed) and Team Fly/Team Teleport before Null the Gull was a thing are in there too... so it's definitely not just down to bad usage of AoE knockbacks and Fold Space. (And if someone's determined to troll then spamming an AoE Immobilize isn't likely to stop them...)

It is, however, still annoying. If someone is playing a game and gets annoyed by something in that game, then their enjoyment is negatively impacted. Different people have different thresholds obviously... and I personally will typically put up with a lot of frustration before I get to boiling point (those old "Nintendo Hard" console games were good for something!!) but I can definitely sympathise with the melee user who sees red after getting their targets taken away from them the upteenth time.

i) You can convert 50 Empyrean merits to/from 1 Transcendent merit at the merit vendors. It makes it substantially easier to transfer large quantities of them between your alts via email. ii) As others have mentioned, convert any unused salvage into threads then use threads to buy Super inspirations from Luna in Ouroboros. The Rez and Ultimate insps she gives out tend to sell well on the AH - you can usually get at least 500k-1m inf per 10 threads (double that if you're prepared to wait for new bids rather than use "sell now" pricing!)

Nope. KnockBACK and KnockUP are two different things. It's just that most effects in the game that grant resistance or protection for them grant it for both instead of just one. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=controller_control.fire_control.fire_cages&at=controller https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=scrapper_defense.regeneration.integration&at=scrapper https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=pool.leaping.leap&at=defender https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=corruptor_buff.kinetics.increase_density&at=corruptor That said, KnockUP can often be a little bit annoying for melee users too (e.g. Soaring Dragon tending to momentarily knock things out of range of my Scrapper's other Katana attacks, which slightly disrupts the flow of their attack chain and reduces their real-world DPS a bit compared to what it should be on paper) but it's much less problematic than knockback. And IMO by far the worst offender is "AoE knockback with a less-than-100% chance to kick in" because that inevitably always causes mob scatter unless the source is flying directly overhead or the targets have substantial Knockback resistance.

To be fair, it didn't "arise" as much as... "Bounce Back" 🏀 💥 🥁

I don't often Necro (even on a MM!) but a recent thread about people enjoying/not enjoying knockback got me thinking about the viability of the "Big Red Ball" idea; or at least the potential effort involved in implementing it on Homecoming. AFAIK no new code would need to be created; aside from creating a new character model for the ball itself they could just reuse existing tech. Within First Ward, there is a mob called the Seed of Hamidon. Whenever you approach it, you get granted a Temporary Power (Buoyant Membrane - effectively "Group Fly"). In fact there are a few other instances where merely being in the vicinity of something grants you a temporary power (like the First Ward/Night Ward "Shunts"). And Temporary powers don't have to be "clicky" abilities; or even toggles. They can be completely passive "autos" that in turn grant other powers and set bonuses. So... (i) Make a new Big Red spherical critter. (ii) Give that critter Mag 100 immobilize; immunity to all damage and -10000% resistance to Knockback and Repel; plus a passive large-radius PBAoE ability that only affects players (and their pets if you like). This passive ability grants any target affected by it a Temporary passive auto power; which in turn adds a 100% chance for Knockback (or repel) to all their attacks - exactly the same way as Interface Incarnate ability status effects and the the Stupefy: Chance for Knockback IO currently functions. However this Knockback effect will only kick in if the target of an attack is the Big Red Ball (using the same mob-specific targeting code as other powers like Thug Enforcer Maneuvers ).

OK. Can we have a Big Red Ball yet? ⚽ 🦶 ❔ ❔ ❔ (https://forumarchive.cityofheroes.dev/topic/114967 for anyone that doesn't get the reference...)

I've always liked the Vanguard Katana as a Lightsaber; despite the fact they've since added "proper laser swords". Unfortunately I think the only way you can get access to it on a non-melee AT is via the Ninja Training Blaster secondary or the Weapon Mastery Sentinel Epic pool.

...and just like in the movie, it's imaginary food! 😹 AFAIK there are definitely some build combos and some situations where Stalkers will be sitting on a higher average ST damage than Scrappers. Team size boosting crit rate and specific powersets (like Energy Melee and Staff Melee) really benefitting from Assassin's Strike; for example. An "average" Stalker versus an "average" Scrapper however is tougher to call. So I'm going with "it depends (tm)" Can we get back to Brutes now? Poor guy's currently face down in a trifle.

I did wonder if an effect that reverses radial knockback might be viable... so that instead of being hurled away from the central point of an AoE mobs would instead get pulled towards it. The revamped Battleaxe PBAoE has something similar (Axe Cyclone - essentially "knockback plus inverted repel") even if it was recently nerfed. There's probably a Spaceballs meme in there somewhere...

Pretty much. The main difference is that there'll be a (small!) chance for procs to kick in twice in a row without running up against the typical pseudopet 10s lockout window. Binomial Distribution suggests a 30.92% likelihood of a 3.5PPM proc kicking in "at least once" over 11.264 seconds... but a 2.85% chance of it kicking in twice. And in the (admittedly unlikely!) event that happens; an Achilles Heel Proc will refresh its own duration and a damage proc will just deal damage again. It's one of those very minor differences that most people will never notice or care about but my OCD demands that I highlight with a "well, technically..." 😛

/Rad Dominator? It's not traditionally seen as a high-end set, but an Arsenal/Rad can be hilarious. Big melee blapps that proc well; regular self-heal, nigh-unkillable tankpet. There are a few threads extolling the virtues of Domi /Rad out there - found this with a cursory look. A Radiation Blast/Atomic Manipulation Blaster (essentially "Rad/Rad rebranded") is another option... Force Mastery for Force Bomb + FF Proc shenanigans? 😂

FWIW, I distinctly recall multiple occasions where our SG/Coalition teams refused to let certain characters join because they were simply too annoying for the rest of the (admittedly mostly melee) squad to deal with. And that was despite everyone being very fond of the player behind said character. A certain Energy Blaster springs to mind... 🙊 These days? Admittedly I don't see that sort of bias vocalized anywhere near as often; but then I don't get the chance to actually play anywhere near as often as I used to. I will say though that I've never ever seen a player get denied access to a team or kicked for spamming KnockDOWN powers. The weirdest related kick I've seen was for a KnockUP power - a Waterspout user who was apparently intentionally trolling on a MLTF. 🤷‍♂️

Bad Players are bad. Bad Players plus knockback powers consistently result in ongoing annoyance to other players (who may or may not also be Bad). AFAIK it's the only power secondary effect that can be actively harmful. The only other abilities I've ever seen generate more annoyance than a badly utilized AoE Knockback ability is a badly utilized "Phase Shift" power like Sonic Cage... and at least then the bad (very bad! no cookies for you!) player is leveraging that ability's primary effect! The first toon I played that had substantial Knockback was a Peacebringer; back in issue 7 or so. In those days we didn't have any KB>KD IOs and you had to learn "good positioning" - flying above things so that they ragdoll into the floor instead of away from the tank; rotating around the combat encounter using unsuppressed movement to knock things inwards instead of outwards, etc. etc. I'm keenly aware that it's certainly possible to use KB-laden abilities without setting the rest of the team's heads on fire with sheer rage. And I appreciate the addition of individual KB>KD IOs... but I still get annoyed by the notion that players can't just choose to globally convert their own KB into KD without paying an "enhancement tax" in every power. As @Ukase mentions; many builds unfortunately just don't have that much slotting leeway. Meh.