Sniktch

The devs actually made 'no challenges outside PvP areas' a thing for a reason - means no trolls spamming people with onscreen pop-ups "BigSwinginEPEEN has challenged you to a duel'. I am perfectly fine with PvP remaining exactly in the places it's in already.

You can taunt. You can handclap. You can Judgement. Procs still work. Not unplayable, just can't keep spamming damage aside Incarnate - requires you to pay attention to your status and adjust what you're doing. Most folks just don't want to do that.

To give an example of "it should be easy!" - there's an option now to show recharge remaining on powers. This was never available in Live; Homecoming team coded it in. This took a lot of time to get to work right and blew up the beta server at least once. City of Heroes is not coded in modern object languages. It's coded in straight basic C. The code is not clean, efficient, and sometimes not even remotely logical. The best description I can give is it's a game of Jenga that's been played for 15 years in the remnants of an exploded string factory - except half the strings are high-tension tripwires that trigger briefcase nukes. Have fun just GETTING to the tower, much less moving a piece.

The D tailor - in the Tiki Lounge, on the top floor facing the door for those unaware of her location - is in fact a full-service tailor, yes.

EVERYTHING comes up short to Titan Weapons - it should not be any sort of balance marker EVER, unless it's "if it gets as far off-the-charts as Titan Weapons did, it's nerf time", past tense used intentionally. Super Strength doesn't manage 90% uptime on a Tier 3 attack doing more DPA than most Tier 9s - does that mean it's 'too weak', or does that mean the sets that CAN hit that mark are maybe possibly might be a little too good? On Live, the answer was always the second, and for good reasons. Now, as to the actual non-"I WAAAAAAAANT!" proposal on the table: Jab: No issues here - it is below the line per the base balance formula, could use something, this is simple and doesn't go cottage. Punch: More damage might work - my view is take it in a different direction. Punch is, right now, VERY comparable to the best Pool attack in the game, Air Superiority - 1 END less cost, chance of KD instead of 100% KU, no -Fly, can slot ATIOS. Instead of throwing more damage at Punch, make it a functional sidegrade - its KD becomes 100%, making the gap between the two much narrower; ATIO capable and 1 END cheaper vs. always brings down fliers. This makes it a much more valuable early-survivability tool, and a reliable soft-control vs. hard targets later, without just throwing more DPA at everything. If a player wants, they can even double-up for twice the knockdown lockdown, at a DPS cost. Rage itself: I see the idea behind what you're proposing, Switch - but the reason Rage has a hard damage crash is because the original design idea was 120 up, 10 down. Due to various ways players bent the frameworks, it morphed to "want double stack or more ALL THE TIME!" despite the devs still wanting it limited. They had the option of making it a toggle every time they rebalanced it, and they did that almost as often as they juggled Regen - without ever taking that final step. Partly because the flames from the MOAR DEEEERPS crowd would have been visible from orbit, partly because they still wanted it 'mostly up, a little down, notable crash but manageable.' The whole idea behind making the crash undodgable by stacking was to enforce this - one stack, you get a HUGE, long-term buff with a brief, mitigatable downside, able to be made permanent at a slight cost in build space. More than one? Things start to get dicey as the uptime self-regulates via those 10-second crashes, until you reach the functional outer limit of quad-stack Rage - yes, you CAN try to 5-stack, but between activation times, mis-timed attacks near the recharge of Rage, slows, all the niggly little bits that pop up in a combat, you'll never have any meaningful uptime of 5, plus losing 25% of your max END every 24 seconds will quickly drain you dry. In essence, the power is working exactly as designed and intended - aside from the fact that -Def hits multiple mitigation sets disproportionately. Fix that, Rage becomes fine. Your idea of letting players punch-through the crash is interesting, but contrary to the base idea, and -Rech, just like -Def, hits a few sets a LOT harder than it hits others. And I think we can all agree poor Regen's been beaten enough times :P So, splitting it between Def and Resist is perfectly acceptable - but trading off the -Damage would require something else to reinforce the "crash is crash" paradigm, thus my proposed -Recovery....actually... -8% DEF(all), 10 seconds, unresistable - as Arcanaville noted, making it resistable just means Shield gets hit worse than all others, so not really an option. -8% Resist(all), 10 seconds, unresistable. -100% END Discount, 10 seconds, unresistable - your powers cost double. -100% Recovery, 10 seconds, unresistable - if you have enough +Rec, you won't be entirely floored, and a pocket Kin can bring you back to baseline roughly, but still gonna be felt with double cost-per-power. If this isn't enough to 'cover costs' of the power, it can be adjusted up. The -Discount replaces the traditional -END crash, and the -Rec replaces the traditional -Damage crash. You can punch through it if you can pay the bills, so to speak, but in general you'll be better served switching to taunt and letting your aura hold aggro.

Howabout this - Go ahead and shitcan the -Defense portion. But replace it with 10 seconds of floored Recovery. Hits all mitigations equally - even Quick Recovery isn't gonna help if you've got -10000% Rec. Fits thematically; on top of an 'adrenaline crash' - the end-of-effect -25% MaxEnd - you're sucking wind trying to stabilize for a few seconds. Doesn't prevent you from Taunting - that's a 0 END power. Can be partially mitigated by Inspirations - blues. Can be done fairly easily, as multiple powers already contain a similar if longer-duration -Rec crash; copy-paste. Keeps Rage properly 'costed' for its massive benefit.

Actually, States's lightning is most comparable to a Judgement Incarnate ability, as it's Lightning of Zeus, not Thunderous Blast.

Powers should never be balanced around whether or not they're good in Incarnate content, seeing as 99% of the game happens before that. Anything from 3 to 6 powers in many support sets are hardpasses for soloists - all those "cannot use on yourself" powers make several entire sets a hardpass for some. Those players who prefer to solo are dealing with a lot more restricted power choices than those who don't. Let's not reduce the utility of those sets they can play in the name of squeezing a little more DPS out in full team endgame content. There's an entire AT that has in all but two primaries three powers most consider hard-passes - a non-beast, non-demons Mastermind who takes any of their attacks is often considered to be "doing it WRONG!!!!!", whether team or solo.

It depends on the TF/SF in question; often, they just change the name/text but it's the same badge. And yes, this does mean Accolades can be gotten on one side, then flip to the other and you 'get' the equivalent without prereqs - the most obvious example is Atlas Medallion is fairly easy to get, whereas the villain equivalent is not.

Yes - stop being Vigilante, lose Fear Incarnate (or Countdown to Fear Incarnate, if you haven't been 7 days a Vigilante yet), whether by completing a different alignment Morality or using Null. You also lose all current Tips and progress points towards any Alignment when you complete a Morality mission of any type; this does NOT cost you the Alignment power if you are 'confirming' your Alignment - completing a Hero Morality as Hero already, for example.

10 Alignment missions of one type enables Morality missions of that type. 10 Hero Alignment missions = can get Hero Morality. So do the Hero Morality you've likely gotten dropped to you by now, then do 10 Vigilante Alignment missions, which will enable a Vigilante Morality. As a note, there is a badge for holding an Alignment for 7 days and thus getting the Alignment power; 1 badge per Alignment.

For myself, not at all, in the slightest, ever.

1. Gloom assumes I want Soul Mastery. 2. Gloom assumes my character is high-enough level to have taken it, and not Mal/Exemped below 29. 3. Tied into 2, not every tank/brute is Incarnate with a Judgement at all times. 4. Even having and sometimes using Hurl and Handclap, I've found no issues punching things to death OR holding aggro. is my build "supermaxoptimalsauce"? Nope. Doesn't need to be; I'm not playing CoX eSports Edition nor getting paid to juice my performance. If I can main-tank for a TF/SF team without wipes, then the set is working as intended. Am i opposed to a tweak-balance pass? No, but as noted, be careful what you wish for; it isn't just Rage that'd get it in the neck if the rest of the set got balanced. Footstomp is also a huge outlier, and making the set Spines mk2 would result in it getting the bat. As to big rock only hurting one thing being goofy: you tossing that bone to Stone Melee too? Hurl Boulder is the exact same power with a different animation; if Hurl goes AoE, so does Hurl Boulder by straight logic. There are a LOT of animations that look goofy; this is an OLD game. Eagle's Claw has the hover-slide-flip kick or baseball-pitch punch choice, both of which look titanically stupid. The Matrix-jump smashes are also goofy. Popeye Punch. Shadow Maul. A fair number of Assassin Strike anims - actually had an EM Stalker on Live I rolled as a pure joke; Fist Of Fiber, because that animation is painfully constipated. Do I even need to mention Dual Pistols? HORRIBLY goofy animations throughout. Cool, but as implausible as a large rock only hitting one guy.

Not Total Focus, Claws Focus. Another ranged power in a melee set, but not considered garbage because it's faster-animating. Also, neither Hurl nor Hand Clap have been a 'hard pass' for me - then again, for me, DPA isn't the only metric of a power.

Hand Clap is a Disorient already - has been since launch. One of the reasons I've never really understood why 'everyone' thought it was garbage - it's not a constant spam, it's a 'breathing space' tool that takes every nearby boss out of the fight for a few seconds, and every nearby non-boss out for upwards of 15. Yeah, it blows up herding; that's why you don't use it when you're herding, you use it when things are sliding out of control. Hurl does exactly as much damage as Haymaker - which is actually more damage than Focus, by the way. Yes, Focus is also exactly half the animation time - but Focus is half the range, not in a set that has Rage, and is in a set that explicitly threw out the power balance formula during its final rework on Live. Part of the reason both of them do such 'low' damage for their tiers is because melee ATs use a different scalar for ranged attacks than they do for melee attacks; this is also why Stalker snipes do less damage than a Blaster snipe, even accounting for the Ancillary factor. Another part of why their damage is 'low' is their KB/KD is a 100% proc, as is Hurl's -Fly. I do agree that in many ways Rage and Footstomp are the 'glue' holding the set together, but making everything an AoE is not the way to fix things, especially since it'd be an across-the-board reduction in damage per power to do so, per the actual mathematic balance formula. Peek at the Munitions Mastery thread - it's directly referenced and quoted there, mostly to point out that LRM, by the formula, has either twice the recharge or half the damage it should. Toggle-Rage was suggested many, many, MANY times on the Live boards - in fact, it was a 'time for the weekly X thread' joke. Positron and Castle both laid out the reasons it wasn't one; namely, it'd either be an absolutely CRUSHING amount of EPS - as I recall, they both actually pointed to Focused Accuracy and said "worse than THAT" more than once - or about a quarter as powerful. The crash was a downside to prevent 'just auto it', and the fix to evading the crash was intended to make it a risk/reward choice for the player - go big, crash big, or play conservative and not have to deal with it - but also not be cranking out 320%-buffed Footstomps every four seconds. Which right there should show WHY the power currently needs a crash to not be straight off the charts broken. Honestly, half the problem is with people thinking 'if I'm not quad-stacking it I'm DOING IT WRONG!!!!', rather than with the actual power design; I get the desire to run the machine at max all the time, I do. I just don't agree that it should be the baseline - for ANYTHING. Should Rage be a toggle? Only if you're OK with paying Telekinesis levels of EPS or it being 5% ToHit/20% damage buff. Should Rage have a -mitigation component to its crash? Yes, unless you're OK with it being far less powerful during uptime or far more harsh on the END portion of the crash. Should that -mitigation component be JUST -Def? Uh, no? As many note, it does unfairly penalize pure-DEF sets. But I've already once suggested splitting it between Def and Resist - which would spread the penalty across ALL sets, since even damage-agnostic Regen would feel it - and the reaction was as if I proposed we all go out and get a nice order of Kentucky Fried Baby, mixed with "just remove it entirely!" Should SS get an overall pass-through, tweak, polish, look-see, whatever? Sure, dev time permitting - just be careful what you wish for, since you might just get it.

A note on mechanics: The reason that "any align, any team" isn't a thing is because of two factors: Contacts/Tips and PvP zones. Contacts will not deal with you if you aren't one of the 'correct' two alignments, Tip contacts included; this is why Rogues/Vigilantes can only access their main-side content from Oro, not both sides. Three of the four PvP zones need to know what 'effective' alignment you are when you enter them, so as to mark you hostile to players and mobs of the other 'effective' alignment. Fairly large mechanical stumbling blocks to clear.

The Sentinel version of Ninjitsu is what got proliferated to Scrappers, instead of the Stalker version. There is precedent - hell, I'd like to see ALL the Sentinel defensive sets part-ported to their equivalents in melee ATs via the "choose one or the other, but not both" code. Of course, AT-defining things would have to stay - Hide for Stalkers, taunt aura for tanks - but beyond that, let us pick if we want Caltrops or an End self-heal on a Stalker, for example.

It did, and asshats would teleport newbies high in the sky so they would fall to the deaths. Reasons exist. They'd have to be new enough to turn off the TP warning, or agree to the TP. And finding people willing enough to go convince someone to turn it off for a some griefing cuts down on the pool of culprits by imposin some effort on them. Then you have logs to use as evidence tehy deliberately griefed someone, if it warrants action or the person is a chronic problem. And if it's something that happens occasionally, people will learn from the experience. Unfortunately this will mainly come down to philosophical debate about people whether safety from all forms of bad things happening to people are worth forcing everyone to wear crash helmets all of the time. I fall on the side of learning not to take random teleports from strangers and then banning those that do this over and over. As for the other response about that these things shouldn'r be something we're worrying about. Well, that's just like, your opinion man. It should at least be an option for people to turn these things on for themselves. I'd like the immersion, others wouldn't. TP jerkery was the reason A: fall damage became nonlethal, to prevent straight-up jackass kills via TP, and B: when people instead started dropping folks into mobs so they'd be insta-killed after being dropped to 1 HP, they put in the accept prompt. So your "immersion" was ALREADY done, and it was enough of a problem to require being pulled out in two different ways.

They aren't, in fact, at least not redside. I already looked for them. The bolded, Italicized, underlined line is the important one - STF, A Hero's Hero, and Sister Psyche are BLUESIDE ARCS AND TFS. If you are redside, you could only access them by being a Rogue and having a bluesider start them via Ouro. The LRSF, I'm not sure if that changed when States died; if it did, then I'm reasonably certain the original is in Ouro just like the STF, Hero's Hero, Calvin Scott, Sister Psyche, etc. are. Okay, do you really think I looked in the Villain side Ouroboros for Hero side arcs? You think I'm that stupid? I looked for the old LRSF. And it's not there. I was able to check the blueside Ouroboros for the old STF, and it, too, is not there. And of course the LRSF changed when Statesman died, that's 90% of the reason I made this thread. He's simply gone from the final mission, with no replacement. It makes the final mission significantly easier, not to mention less epic, to not have Statesman there throwing around lightning bolts. And it also ruins the meta-narrative around the two TFs; before Statesman died it was two archrivals, fighting to stop the other. A classic comic book story. Now it's just Recluse trying to pull off another evil plan. First, I don't think you're stupid, per se - but I do think there are a million and one reasons people can miss things, misread things, not think of the obvious, et cetera. I err on the side of "humanity, self and present company included, does stupid things all the time, so first rule is DOUBLE-CHECK THE BASICS". This is why Philotic Knight so often has to post the "I feel sheepish" gif; we may be SMART, but we can still DO stupid stuff. Second, that's puzzling - Psyche's TF IS in Ouro, as is the Statesman version of Hero's Hero. Since Psyche and Statesman died in sequential parts of the SSAs, why ISN'T the STF/RSF old versions in there with Psyche? They should have been done all at the same time, one release after States's death; given we were approaching SSA 2 Part 2 when the axe fell, moving stuff to Ouro must be more complicated than it looks. If possible with current dev-time and resources, then yes, get them in Ouro. Third, if I remember correctly, States's spot was intended to be filled by a player's character - basically, the devs were going to 'ascend' someone to the Phalanx, whether by popular vote or by some other choice system. I agree with your assessment of the overall difficulty difference not having States there would inherently make - but I'm not sure that's entirely a bad thing, given the disparity between the LRSF and the STF end-fights already. However, working from the base assumption it IS a bad thing, we could in fact ask the devs to slot in someone to States's place. There's a sad wealth of notables who haven't and won't be joining us here due to the bony old bastard taking their hand...so let one of them stand in his place. Or if possible, ALL of them via a randomizer for the last Phalanx slot. Yeah, but they threw all that "level = time" stuff out with that storyline. Penny Yin's taskforce is also level 20, but she's only giving out a taskforce because Sister Psyche is already dead. Statesman and Sister Psyche are considered dead the second you enter Atlas Park or the Rogue Isles. So if Statesman is dead and removed from the game when you're level 1, and Sister Psyche is dead and removed from the game when you're level 1, why is Wade still standing around when you're level 50? See my post upthread - I agree Wade should have been given the same treatment, but since he's not 'beaten' until the 7th SSA and we only had one release - SSA 2 part 1 - between 7 and axe, the Paragon Studios folks might not have had time to write a new character to fit Wade's place. Homecoming would have to fill that gap; while I think the immersive touch would be nice, right now I'd rather their efforts be spent on stability and balance. If they can do it in 'spare time', great; if not, backburner it is.

I don't think there'd be an aversion to treating Darrin Wade the same as States/Psyche, but that may be outside Homecoming's immediate scope; they'd need to write a new character to fit the arc he gives, which needs to remain in the game as it's got a badge connected to it. They'd also need to change the badge text, as it references Wade - or create a new one a la Penny.

They aren't, in fact, at least not redside. I already looked for them. The story has moved forward, but these TFs take place before that happened. There are numerous arcs with a disclaimer that they take place after the events of issue 23, there's no reason we can't have two with a disclaimer that says they happened before something. The bolded, Italicized, underlined line is the important one - STF, A Hero's Hero, and Sister Psyche are BLUESIDE ARCS AND TFS. If you are redside, you could only access them by being a Rogue and having a bluesider start them via Ouro. The LRSF, I'm not sure if that changed when States died; if it did, then I'm reasonably certain the original is in Ouro just like the STF, Hero's Hero, Calvin Scott, Sister Psyche, etc. are.

There are just as many corner cases the other way - if you get downed, you have no mez protection until PB recharges. -Recharge affects you more than others. As others have noted, your attack chain has to be tailored out around stopping to power-pose every x seconds. And the other thing is, the 'better' mez resist only happens if you stack it - which most people are not going to care to do. At base, they're standard mez protection, no better or worse than any toggle mez protection. And if you get mezzed, your toggles supress either way, so you're just as dead.

They don't want to 'waste' powers on doing exactly what they're asking for - not 'perfectly optimal'. I haven't taken Unrelenting - I could but I haven't, because I haven't needed to. I can mitigate the crash a bunch of other ways, whether it's by having a purple or two or by...oh, I dunno....PAYING ATTENTION to my powers, and being perfectly willing to wait 15 seconds every now and then.

The Void Skiff, Magic Carpet, and Hoverboard detoggle you because their animations do not play well with others - Ninja and Beast Run took the devs MONTHS of time to get working well enough to allow toggles to remain, and they still screw up most attack power animations, especially weapons.

I clipped that part because the post would have been insane long otherwise. That's what the ellipsis means, there was more to this, but I wanted to include the part I felt this most needed for context. That being said, I have no problem answering it. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of your rage, and a serious hit to your ability to damage, is more than enough for balance. And of course, the more sex you have, the more endurance you will lose, Now it's my turn. I noticed you ignored the part where I discussed SS is supposed to have perma-rage. That's the way it was intended. The second completely broken without it, and yet you can't normally in high-level content, where it is needed most. And the defense part of the crash was still bypassable in live. So why do you think it's necessary to cripple a tank's ability to tank in high-level content just to make this set perform on par with other sets that do not have those serious drawbacks? And if you are going say using Inspirations it somehow a solution, open to puke feel it would be okay to balance other power steps around inspirations? In order: 1/4 to 1/3 of your Rage? Excuse me? Rage has a 120-second duration. It has a 10-second crash. That is 1/12. If you're referring to Endurance in that portion, it's 25%. No more, no less. And that 25% is ONE TENTH the END the power would cost across its duration if paid as a toggle. No, 10 seconds of doing no damage is NOT enough to balance out that much END cost being waved off. I didn't ignore the part about perma-rage - you can still have it. You just have to pay attention and be prepared to mitigate the crash. Is a pure Def debuff fair to some sets? NO. Thus why I said split it between Def and Resist - it hits all sets roughly equally at that point, whether DEF focused, RES focused, or layered. The set is not 'completely broken' without it - it's just not as good as it could be. The Defense crash was bypassable at one point in the game. By the time Incarnates were live it had been fixed. It MAY have been broken again by I24 things, or possibly earlier, but it WAS fixed. "cripple a tank's ability in high-end content" - not my intent, by any means. Already noted more than once - AS IT SITS, the Def debuff is not the best way to do it. What would you rather have? 10 seconds of 0 Recovery? Howabout we go back to 10 seconds of Only Affecting Self - LITERAL zero damage, without Taunt auras or Taunt itself being able to hold aggro? THOSE would cripple a tank - I know for sure the OAS would because I've experienced it. IT HAS TO HAVE A DRAWBACK. 10 SECONDS OF MINIMAL DAMAGE IS NOT ENOUGH TO COVER 270 END WORTH OF BUFF. Pick a drawback you can live with, and make the case. "insps are not a solution" - I didn't need them every two minutes - only when I got stupid, inattentive, didn't have DEF-buffing teammates, or some jerk couldn't wait 15 seconds for Rage to crash, the crash to end, and me to re-fire it before engaging the next mob. Which was and is a lot less common for me than, apparently, it is for you. I didn't carry just purples, I didn't stack them, I used what dropped, and almost always had at least one available to make use of IF I needed it. It's no different than keeping a yellow or two around for dealing with hordes of Spectrals and Madness Mages or the equivalent, or a 'rez kit' if you don't have a self-rez power, or a few greens if you're a defense set lacking a self-heal to take care of chip damage, or a blue or two for dealing with missed Sappers. Insps aren't a solution to build around, but they're good cover for when you screw up.