Sniktch

*eyebrow* You'd trade Hasten for Aid Self?

Ok - WHAT can you give other pools that would be 'worth' a 70% global recharge buff that wouldn't blow the doors off the game, especially considering we've got multiple people here threatening to leave over any change at all to that buff? Seriously think about it from that angle - if you can't give any other pool something equal, not even better, without blowing holes in difficulty curves that are already wobbly, then maybe something is wrong.

From the 2014 AMA: Q) OK, *one* last not-really-Lore question then I’m done. You step through a time warp back to ‘04. Axe the Fitness pool or keep it? How about Hasten? (@Interface) A) Sean McCann (Dr. Aeon) - C) Buff the heck out of Pummel. (also, I’m not a powers designer) A) Matt Miller (Positron) Axe the fitness pool. Hasten has a hilarious history. In Alpha it was way too good. If I recall correctly, there was no crash. When we added some drawbacks to it, the players went ballistic. I still remember one player claiming that it was “completely worthless now”. I would always, always, keep that player’s comment in mind whenever we would downgrade other abusive powers and players would complain. A small part of me would always think “maybe it’s not enough?” A) John Hegner (Protean) - Fitness seemed to remind me of making a Palladium character. How everyone seemed to be a gymnast/boxer/track&field star/professional lawn dart champion, etc, because the bonuses were just too good to pass up. I always felt like choosing your tertiary power pool should have been like D&D feats. The unique spice to make your Fire Tank stand out from the Fire Tank next to him. Instead, some pools were almost universally ignored, while others, like Fitness, were pretty much required. A) Tim Sweeney (Black Scorp) Barring any other changes, making them more like feats or utility powers from D&D 4e would have been a nice move. Several powersets suffered because thematically correct powers were in the 9, though failed to fulfill a clear mission. Section bolded, italicized, underlined for emphasis.

Dark/Rad probably could take aggro from that given enough time - 2 CC auras, damage aura, toggle that spawns damage/debuff patches in pairs, and taunt on top. Of course, running all the toggles leaves you about .2 EPS to actually attack with...

"I don't want to belong to any club that will have me as a member", eh? 😄

One last thought regarding this: Even Borderlands 2, a game that was by design philosophy about going so far over the top that the crew of the ISS lost sight of you a week ago, had nerfs. Beehawk, Rough Rider/Redeem the Soul/Release The Beast, I could go digging for more but I shouldn't have to. None of those 'broke the game' precisely - but all of them made certain things way better than intended, and thus limited what the devs could do for further things. It also had buffs for a fair number of underperforming things. You can't just buff forever, nerf never - nor the inverse. Both halves are needed to keep a multiplayer game healthy. And I note very few folks in the "touch nothing!" camp dared give a straight, unequivocal answer to Powerhouse's question - evasions, equivocations, diversions, answering questions not asked, but not just saying "I'd nerf the massive outlier" despite it being exactly what any sane design philosophy would call for.

Incorrect. Costume slot missions are unique across the board - switch sides, and the three on the other side will be available. You can't actually menu-select the eleventh or further, thus can't edit them and can't change to them without using text commands, but you can gain them.

All the "Knockback to Knockdown" effect does is cap the innate KB MAG of the power at .67; it does nothing to outside sources of KB. Outside sources like Overwhelming Force: Damage/Chance to Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown. If you use it in a KB or KD power and both the base power effect AND the Chance to Knockdown fire at once, you've applied a 1.34 MAG Knock effect to the vic, and they go flying. This is why Sudden Acceleration doesn't do it; it doesn't add the extra chance for .67 MAG Knock. Theoretically, this could be fixed by making the KB-KD portion of the GrantPower cap innate Knock at .32 instead, but I'm unsure what that'd do to the power's function, as .67 is the lowest MAG KB I'm aware of in the whole game. Avalanche's proc is just a straight chance for MAG .67 Knock - in the Dragon's Tail example, you've once again procced 2 .67 MAG Knocks at once, only this time, it's cause the base power's MAG is already that, rather than restricted down to it. If you want no chance to Knockback, then Avalanche and Overwhelming Force are both best used in powers that don't have Knock as a base attribute.

Titan doesn't have it due to the way it works - if you're out of Momentum, it calls one animation, if you're in, it calls another, both of which function more like pseudopets than actual attacks. Staff, I'm not sure of - it may be a similar reason, or it may just be a lack of a proper 'intermediate' animation to key off of.

Theoretically sound, and if run on common 25 IOs, should give a good SO baseline for whatever level it's run at. As another aside note, Titan is not actually the only melee set that's 'off-formula' across the board. Claws is as well - but you'll notice not many people think of Claws as too good. For one, rather than buff the damage across the board, they set damage based on tier, then gave a rech/end discount. For another, Claws has limited AoE - Spin and Shockwave, Eviscerate is a Golden Dragonfly/Headsplitter/Shadow Maul-esque 'cone in name only - and only has Build-Up in Stalker applications, which is obviously outside the convo as Titan isn't available to Stalkers. For a third, Claws doesn't get the plethora of secondary effects - its only notables are Slash (-Def), Focus (Knockdown, range), and Shockwave (Knockback, range). Follow-Up for Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes is almost purely a 'power tax' on getting any form of Build-Up, as its damage is barely (1-3 damage) better than Swipe at a much higher END/Recharge cost. Claws is still a good set, mind - primarily because by setting damage at comparable levels, then discounting the resulting END/Recharge, the devs kept visible performance in line with others. This also points something out - percentage reductions in ENd and Recharge values are self-limiting due to the way the game is designed, so even a large END discount can have a much smaller impact than it seems it should, and Recharge redux is the same. Damage is the opposite. While yes, every 100% damage increase is a smaller 'piece' of your previous damage, it's still adding the base power on again - and when the base power has been 'bumped' in damage rather than reduced in END/Rech, that effect is magnified, because rather than having less base to reduce by %, it's got more base to multiply.

As an addendum: To those declaring "just buff everyone else!", an anecdote. Warframe. Was a founder, played constantly up through the "open world" update where due to some iffy optimization the new area - which was hard-walked into further game progression - was literally unplayable from a mechanical perspective for me. Haven't played it since, for a variety of reasons. When it went live, the devs definitely had a 'balance through buffing' mindset, and this lasted a good long while, until they ran into three hard walls they couldn't just buff the players past without actually breaking the game. The first of these was the interaction of Rhino's Iron Skin ability in its launch form with the Energy Siphon Aura mod and the cost-reducing mod; at launch, Iron Skin made a Rhino flat-out INVINCIBLE for a fixed duration, at a one-time energy cost per use. At that point, it was balanced - because there was a limited supply of energy innate, energy drops only came out of breakables which did not respawn, and the cost was high enough that to use it at all actually required the Rhino to use a mod that buffed their max energy or one that lowered the energy costs of all abilities. Powerful, but had a hard limit per map of how long it could be used. Then they made the Aura mods, including Energy Siphon. Energy Siphon gave every player on the team energy-over-time. Wanna take a guess where this is going? Yup - combine the cost-reducer at max with four players running maxed Energy Siphons and a maxed Iron Skin, and Rhinos had effectively permanent invincibility. A similar thing happened with Trinity and her Link ability. Rhino was far and away my main frame in that game - despite having every single one available at that point, most of them in Prime, my most-played at the end was Rhino at over 50% of my time, and at this early point, it was probably over 90%. I was still one of, possibly the first, to hit the forums and say "this is way too much". I'm sure your response is "but you coulda just not used it!!1!" - technically true. Being able to choose not to use a broken mechanic does not make it not a broken mechanic. Rhino was at that point the drop from the Venus boss - the third frame you could theoretically build. If every new player walked in, cleared Mercury and Mars, then got Rhino, found this confluence, how quickly would it become the normal? Human psychology is messy, ugly, and quite often counter-logical - the Blizzard rep who got fired for telling players "you don't want what you think you want" wasn't being an asshole, he was making the mistake of telling an actual, unhappy truth. There was much raging and flaming and vitriol thrown, a lot of it so very reminiscent of what's being posted in this thread - do more data, don't take my shiny, it's just a game, me being god doesn't make others worthless, blah blah blah but but but. In the end, Rhino got reworked, several times, and the first was Iron Skin got nerfed. It had to; if the devs had just buffed everyone else to that level, the game would have died post-haste. Same thing happened to Trinity. I wasn't happy with some of the iterations, and when I disagreed, I said so - but I accepted that something had to give, even if I didn't like the end result. Because I was not the only person playing the game, and what was good for me was not necessarily good for other players, or the game as a whole. I could go over the other hard-walls they hit, or digress into how the psychological impacts of such things being untouched for too long can be seen in the history of the character Ghor in the game Armello, but if what's here isn't enough, then nothing will be. The math is crystal-clear - Titan Weapons, out of Momentum, does 10-44% damage too much per attack and pays nothing for greater-than-melee range, multiple secondary effects, and the speed-up of Momentum. It can spend anywhere from 80 to 90% of its playtime in Momentum. Something has to give. At this point, you can accept that, and help shape the rebalance - or dig in your heels, venomize, circular-argue, and end up with Energy Melee mark 2. I'd prefer the former, but it's not my choice.

Because this digression was basically a roundabout way of gently saying to Megajoule "You know that axing Rage entirely and just melting the stats into the other Super Strength powers isn't gonna fly for a lot of reasons" without actually saying it.

Because dumping Rage and rebalancing Super Strength to account for the loss would necessitate its base numbers already being damage-buffed to a risky degree, so even adding a Build-Up would probably be beyond the pale.

Megajoule, there's one big problem - what do you replace it with? Remember, art/animation is a non-starter - whatever goes there has to copypasta some other power's animations.

Dimension Shift isn't a proper comparison point, @Steampunkette - because unlike every other Intangible, allies can walk into the area of the power, at which point they're able to affect the vics, and NOT be affected by anything outside the power. It's also the only toggle Intangible, and thus can be shut off at will, and does not suffer from this issue. This would involve breaking the cottage rule for the click powers - but I think it's a valid ask, because I've seen how snarly folks get when the last enemy in the group is just hovering there completely safe from all harm.

Power customization was an ask at launch and not available till issue 16 - 5 years. People were asking for 'reverse knockback' for most of the game's life, and it's still not a thing - though dark-years tinkering may have made it possible. I don't think I'm out-of-line in my estimate.

I believe you can break purple triangles without stacking anyway - it's mag 70, IIRC - so, maybe a corner case like soloing GMs. Have to get more data.

Do the effects of Domination stack - or does it just extend the buff? If the CC boosts and mez protection do stack, then permaDom needs downtuned - or to no longer be a thing.

Hasten has a crash, two in fact - -END and -Recovery, and stacking does not negate either of these. Hasten doesn't need a further crash because the power cannot self-stack for any appreciable time, UNLIKE Rage. PermaDom is an outlier that the live devs never fixed but should have, and again does not self-stack, Rage has a crash because 2 minutes of Build-up at launch was way too strong not to have one - it was just -END then. Various permutations and forumite mobs got things changed, always with the yell of "Give us X and we'll take any downside!" followed by the new downside drawing howls for blood. If Rage is going to be 'get, set, forget', then it SHOULD be a toggle - my main issue with trying to change Rage to no-self-stack-but-still-click is that it's sophistry to claim you're not breaking the cottage rule in doing so. If you're gonna do it, then damn it, DO it, openly and honestly, and own the choice - and the fallout. At the very least, we can stop having the weekly Rage rage threads. Personally, I think the proposed is the best compromise we're gonna get between current and toggle - if folks WANT to double-or-more-stack, they can - their call, their choice. And their responsibility to deal with the consequences of that choice. Same for if they want to just sleepwalk-auto it. If they want to pay a smidge more attention, then they can avoid the crash entirely - just can't get double-Build-up at all times, either. Of course, it's still gonna spawn a million wrathful whines from folks who just can't NOT touch the stove even after getting burned a dozen times, but at this point in my life, I have exactly zero fucks left to give for the physical and emotional well-being of that portion of the populace. Is it the best solution? Hell no. But it's likely the best solution we're gonna get, so I can live with it.

Blastit: There are quite a few nasty, nasty codebombs preventing secondary first-power choice; Cap posted some of them earlier in the thread. There's a verify check in the character database that would explode, for one. Technically possible, but you're looking at man-YEARS of work, not man-hours.

On that particular subject, I have to point out: Titan actually got buffed either just before or shortly after its release. During its beta run, Build Momentum only had a 5-second uptime and did not overwrite current Momentum - it acted entirely like what you got off scoring a hit, and the damage/ToHit buff was also just as brief. This got changed because people kvetched about it being 'different' than every other build-up. I think this was a fairly bad mistake, and possibly a big component of why Titan is over-the-top right now. It either permits 15-ish seconds of continuous sped-up attacks via slow-hit, pop Build as the standard falls off, keep murdering, or 10 seconds of lead-off time. Both of these turbocharge the set - and while it's not gonna be common, if you CAN hit the Recharge cap, Build Momentum's recharge is 18 seconds. Even if not, you're still looking at an uptime cycle of 10/35 via SOs, and the 35 is best thought of as 5 'attack cycles' consisting of 1 slow and 4 fast. And the fast is REALLY fast - the posted numbers for Momentum attack times looks like Claws without Eviscerate. Overall, the set needs most of its freebies taken away OR its very large baseline damage buffs to be scaled back universally OR its Momentum time messed with, whether via returning Build Momentum to 5 seconds or via Steampunkette's suggested tweak. Note those are OR, not AND - any one of those could put it strong but not completely fucking broken. All of them would be an EM-grade clusterbomb.

I think it would be an appropriate moment to once again say: Don't bother arguing with Wally, it's a waste of your time; he's not interested in the subject, just 'winning'. Or in older parlance: don't feed the troll.

@Captain Powerhouse - a compromise suggestion. Keep the AoE size increase, the END buff, and the changes to Taunt. Keep parity between melee and ranged scalars and the tweaks to APPs - but keep the tank melee damage scalar at AT MOST .8. And give tank debuff and Leadership buff scalars the difference, possibly a bit more. Tank debuffs benefit from the AoE buff as well, making the two most common applied effects - -Def and -Tohit - hit more things, and hurt them harder; Leadership and things like Grant Cover protect the team better from incidentals and let them take advantage of the distracted enemies. It doesn't 'force' Leadership usage - and the wider-and-stronger effecting debuffs won't hit controller/Defender levels - but the AoE increase will up tanks' overall damage while not making them out-brute brutes. Yes, you can make a Tankfender with Dark and Leadership under this idea - but it's a wibbly outlier at best, with its own limitations, most notably Dark's lack of baseline AoE. And I'm sure there are other corner cases, but it's better than over-pushing Tanks into best survivability AND best AoE killy. *addendum* As a side note: Brute main - first 50 on Live, starting at the first anniversary was a Brute long after Villains launched; altitis was a chronic disease 😛 Still a brute main. And I have to honestly say...if you have to move things this far and hard to bring tanks to relative parity with brutes....you're honestly looking at changing the wrong AT. I love my Brutes...but having actually had a not-fully-slotted /Fire brute 'tank' a red-con ambush while I was AFK out in Potter's Field - and not die, with my associate on a level 6!!! mastermind - says their survivability is too high. I love having those caps. But 80-85% Brute caps would be better for the health of the game.

Hurl got an indirect damage boost for tankers at least because it now uses the melee scalar. That's always been its biggest problem - both Brutes and Tanks have abysmal ranged damage scalars. Its actual base damage is not as bad as so many make it out to be, it's just foot-shot by a 50% scalar on Live. *edit* Misthunked - the ranged scalars on both ATs got bumped, not Hurl got switched. Still, a big buff for it already.

Something else to note about the posted formula vs. actual numbers - they don't even begin to factor in secondary effects, or the fact that every TW attack has more range than other melee attacks. The reason KO Blow does slightly less damage than Seismic Smash is because Seismic Smash is a 7-foot range and KO Blow is 13. Titan Weapons gets 10+ foot range on everything for free. It also gets all its secondary effects for free. It also gets Momentum's faster animations for free. As a comparison point, Fire Melee gets ONE secondary effect for free - the DoTs. Energy Melee gets its stun effects for free. No other set gets so many baseline advantages just handed to it, PLUS a giant damage buff on-top. As for those trying to argue with certain people of shall we say staunch viewpoint: Don't bother with Wally, he's not worth your time.