tidge

As noted... it is pretty much the extra toggles, plus whatever else a player is running: Sprint, Athletic Run, Tough, Weave, Combat Jumping, etc.... and if Hasten is added to the mix, Endurance will become a real nightmare. As for guessing at original reasoning... I suspect that one of the original ideas about Dark Armor was that the enemy-affecting toggles were felt to require an extra 'cost'. The Live Devs had some peculiar hang-ups (and micro-focus) and seemed to never revisit certain early choices.

Hard NO. So... the suggestion stems from a player-based hack to flood a zone with giant monsters, which is already a merit-fest with rewards that far outpace the effort (aside from the league teams actually completing the TF I suppose). This is an ask for a very specific problem for a subset of players during a very peculiar effort. The code for the extra summons is already a little dicey, with respect to them being level-less (or not)... in particular, the wandering Croatoan additionals don't always spawn without levels but still need to be cleared to reset the spawn chance.

I will occasionally take the Medicine pool on MMs, but only while leveling up (T1 & T2 only) and if I am challenging myself (higher level enemies, larger spawns, such as in Hazard Zones). Otherwise, it isn't worth healing henchmen. (EDIT: It isn't IMO worth making extra effort to heal henchmen... just keep them alive and defeat enemies pdq)

I've never thought of the MM henchmen as being 'too frail'... there is some variety among primaries, and the different choices of MM secondaries should be driving the MM's strategy for approaching content. The biggest issues IMO: While leveling up, MMs need to learn how to leverage their henchmen (and their own secondary) With all three Tiers available, there is a level shift for the henchmen that has to be addressed. The global pieces for henchmen buffs (e.g. Pet Damage and MM sets) help with these... but they aren't necessary for MM success IMO.

For me it's probably Carnie Illusionists. I tend to get frustrated more by critters that run away (Warwolves, et al.) or become otherwise unhittable.

Specific to Range enhancements: For characters that will be making attacks almost exclusively from range (e.g. something like Archery/Trick Arrow) I prefer to boost the range of individual powers to try to get all of the attacks in roughly the same ballpark. The global Range boosts are fine, but I dislike that they increase the range differences between attacks as much as they increase the ranges of individual attacks. MMV.

I agree that avoiding all the melee/armor proliferation helped to define ATs. The biggest 'but balance!' issues stem IMO from consideration of performance at level 50... and HC's (good, IMO) change to give all ATs complete Primary *and* Secondary choices by level 30 hasn't helped discriminate between the melee ATs in lower-level content either.

I was concerned about changing slotting of my Rad Armor characters, but after playing with them on Live I didn't feel the need to make any changes. Ground Zero's target cap being scaled back is not something I see as a 'nerf' but more of a correction, Radiation Therapy is where I thought I would make big changes (to focus more on the self-heal, possibly saving some slots) but ultimately my builds have been smooth enough I didn't see any obvious place to make a change... that is, I'd go from one set of marginal improvements from area to another.

For Lord Recluse, you are going to want a fast recharging Dull Pain. The Energy Resist is not nothing, but my experience is that Dull Pain and Destiny Healing goes much further for Invuln tanking of LR. The MLTF is one of the few areas of the game where my Invulnerability Tanker ends up using Hasten (for Dull Pain).

I feel obligated to toss in: I think Conditioning is one of the worst Inherent abilities. Maybe it would make more of difference if we didn't already have the Fitness pool on every character, On paper it looks good "who doesn't want more Recovery or Regeneration?" but in practice those boosts don't mean much for those ATs. I'd much rather it was simply a +5% MaxEnd rather than be just another contributor to an already asymptotic boost. My Widows are the only characters I feel like I have to rely on Incarnate Alpha abilities to keep going at high-level content... without Hasten being used... and it isn't as if I'm ignorant of how to address Endurance issues.

There are the logs, which is IMO key to understanding. It is typically necessary to set up to monitor specific things in specific windows (like 'Pet Damage' for instance). Just looking for floating numbers during testing also helps. There isn't IMO much reason for a player to assume they have near-perfect knowledge of the game... for example, I'm not sure that in-game there is any explanation of damage types/resistances, debuffs/buffs, or how Defense works ... let alone defense types. From memory there is a brief explanation of levels and ToHits in the Outbreak tutorial, I cannot recall if Destroyed Galaxy City does as well. Red Side tutorial always seems to be more about just running around the map. I think there is sometimes a base assumption that is basically "%procs are the magic way to do more damage" which ignores all sorts of things such as: Accuracy and ToHit (of the power, pet, hechman, pseudopet), especially for +4 difficulty settings Which effect is actually being used, and how often (i.e. some power sets can be slotted but may not be leveraged all that often) If the %proc is enemy-affecting or character-affecting If something different happens on-cast versus 'in-combat' ...even before we get into how often a %proc might actually fire.

Is this when we share that there is a city/islands map in addition to a zone map?

Solution: Wait 95 seconds before your next cast of judgement.

Those of us who've been around long enough know what will get a thread locked without also being worthy of warning points... I'm not saying there is or isn't a backroom deal in place.

Most of my Controllers still need to lean into a single-target START attack, for pretty much all levels, just to be able to finish off minions.

Widows *are* slightly hard to play at low levels, especially without slotting. I recall soloing the Hollows arcs and they were pretty gruesome. Redside Widows were similar, but I guess I didn't notice as much drag, but I was enjoying Lore and arcs more there so I didn't feel as held back. Perhaps the enemy damage resistance was more favorable to my damage typing at those levels. A couple of simple notes: The toggles aren't providing much benefit at low levels, but they still cost Endurance (as does Sprint). My recollection is that low-level Widows take several attacks to be able to clear even a typical x1 spawn. Eventually the scales of enhancements begin to help, and with respectable slotting in attacks this becomes less noticeable.

I agree with Senator @macskull ... there are no problem with %damage procs. If %procs are seen as a problem it would actually be that it is possible to achieve absurd levels of Global Recharge (which is just fine by me BTW). %damage is a pleasing option for some builds to leverage to make it so that they don't have to wheez through content when they lack damage powers. If someone makes the choice to use %procs, via franken-slotting, they are sacrificing set bonuses.

From another era...

Even simpler: a data point is a discrete bit of knowledge; information is the relationship between multiple data points.

IIRC, the "+" signals the rest of the macro/bind to start on press, complete on release. I'm glad it worked for you.

The game is set up with a reward structure, and the reward structure *is* part of the game. I don't have to imagine that. I can relate to people wanting insta-50s and full-kit builds... and while that is possible, it is not how the game was initally built... even if it is practically achievable, but a player has to engage with the game (not MIDS) some way besides just typing "I want". I don't care if it is via farming, constant raids, play-through-to-50, or marketeering. Each of those is actually engaging with the game. The lack of imagination being demonstrated IMO that hypothetical players are so superior to the game we actually have that the game has to make it easier for them to get what they want. People who want builds & characters without engaging have Brainstorm. Nothing is holding anybody back except stubbornness about not wanting to engage in the game that everyone else is playing. What is it @battlewraith actually wants from the game?

@Maelwys I love ya pal, but you have got to let this one go: It is simply too easy to reduce your argument to "Nerf those other Melee ATOs" or "Gotta give Brutes something to hang with Scrappers/Stalkers in terms of DPS." A wall of text with a bajillion points of nuance doesn't change the overlapping Venn diagrams for the above simplifications and your argument. Furthermore, when you start arguing about IOs (specifically procs), it isn't as if you are offering a comprehensive review of all procs and what powers they can be slotted in, let alone all other ATOs.... things that not every player uses, so this argument you want to make can't apply across the game or player base. You are pointing to a tree, when what the rest of us are wondering why you can't see the forest.

The suggestion to use Brainstorm was for people that don't want to play very much but want only level 50+ characters with whatever they want for zero effort or cost.... especially for case when the imagination is providing an unending roster of level 50+ builds, all of which must be insta-50s with full-kits. AFAIK, Brainstorm hasn't had a wipe in quite some time. I have difficulty imagining wanting to invest significant play time in a character and also seeing the game as a 'grind' to the point of actually being unwilling to level up. I must be an inferior player because I use the leveling experience to test out powers and slots, get costumes right, work on macros.

Who wants to play with such people?