tidge

I usually have 60 minutes before work, sometimes I can stretch that to 90 minutes. After work, it depends on my household chores and evening activities. I can usually sneak in about 2 more hours before daily exhaustion sets in. This makes it hard to coordinate with on-line pals. On weekends, I usually try to stretch the morning session further, and then come back for some more time if I've done what I RL wanted to do for the day.

I think it is impossible to say, although there have been changes targeted specifically at 'farming'. I'm more inclined to believe that there were a few devs and dev-adjacent folks that were probably surprised that Tankers matched (and in some content, *1) exceeded the performance of Brutes... and of course the Brute champions have been very vocal about this. The scale-back of the way the Gauntlet radius buff interacts with PPM makes complete sense, but everything else feels like "putting Tankers in their place (according to somebody's vision)". The Controller AT changes and Tanker changes really ought to have been in different "pages" IMO. I don't think anyone cares if Tanker/Scrapper/Brute times-to-complete (for full builds) are within a minute of each other... unless there is some abstract argument about someone else needs to be 'best' (per that metric). I like Controllers a LOT, but solo leveling can be a real slog at times, in way that isn't (currently, pre-p2) for the melee classes (or Blasters). (*1) I can't even imagine which content the devs are focused on for their swings at (re-)balance. Not everyone rushes to 50, not everyone farms, not everyone does 45+ content, not everyone uses IOs, not everyone plays the new HC content. If it were up to me, I'd focus on bringing the low-performers (in terms of mission time completion) up, rather than knocking ATs down. Specifically over-tuned powers deserve taps from the Nerf bat (ehem, Seeds of Confusion) when they get in the way of balance considerations for new sets.

From the multiple threads started in the suggestion forum, and the level of your engagement within those threads... I get the sense that you are passionate about the Teleportation pool. My blunt opinion about Fold Space is that it doesn't dominate entire team engagements, because it has a base 120 second recharge. If a character has invested three power picks to get Fold Space, and invests another power pick to get Hasten and/or invests slots into Fold Space for Accuracy and Recharge... those sorts of characters are IMO "throwing good after bad" just to get Fold Space to reach levels of (what I consider to be) "base utility". Good for them! This is a perfectly fine choice; I don't see that choice as unbalanced, it just isn't a choice I ever make.(*1) I don't even consider Fold Space to be "the go-to power for spread out mobs"(*2)... for a 3rd pick pool power I'd go Wall of Force from the Force of Will pool every time. The pros of Teleportation are Combat Teleport (which as I noted, makes Fold Space practically irrelevant for a melee character) and the greater range of Fold Space. The pros of Force of Will are a great travel power in Mighty Leap, and the other pre-req pick is either a useful debuff or a ST ranged attack (I usually skip Project Will, but not always) and a Cone attack that allows for lots of different flavor (and includes a Knockdown!)... plus Force of Will's capstone power Unleash Potential is preeety goood. (*1) At some point, the player using Fold Space as often as possible simply ends up leaving spawns "spread out" either because of failed ToHit checks, +4 Bosses, whatever. For solo, they may not care, but on teams the eyes will roll, depending on what sort of powers the rest of the team has. (*2) As noted... I just use Combat Teleport to BAMF to those "spread out enemies".

My feelings (about the availability of HO/DS/Titans) are in the exact opposite direction, but I can appreciate the above sentiment. My personal desire is that HO/DS/Titan pieces would be available for purchase via merits (perhaps at a cost of something in the 150 merit range) simply so that for the "really useful, highly desired" pieces that folks want in their builds they wouldn't be restricted to membership in either the churches of RNGesus or AH.

Quoting the above, as it neatly summarizes the explanation of my own feels about Fold Space. Without summarizing: I see Fold Space as a niche use power that (for 100% of my characters that dip into the Teleportation pool) isn't required if I take Combat Teleport. I'm glad that the Teleportation pool got a rework. I'm happy that some players like Fold Space. I don't feel like arguing strategies for using it (or not). IMO the opportunity cost (in terms of power picks, slot investment, and likely having to use Teleport as my travel power) makes it too costly for my taste. I don't think Fold Space needs to be scaled back.

The Teleportation pool is in a really good place right now... of the original 4 travel pools, it has IMO received the best rework and would be at the bottom of the list for changes. Having written that, the one "under-the-hood" change I think might make sense (but would require serious rework) would be: *If* an enemy critter has TP resistance that prevents them from being yoinked, those critters get a short reduction in TP resistance so that a second yoink could grab them... sort of like how controls can be stacked. Personally, I wouldn't expect such a change... but I don't expect any changes to the way Teleport powers affect critters except possibly to the placement rules for groups.

In practice: The differences between Scrapper/Stalker/Brute/Tanker are pretty much limited by which power sets are primaries versus secondaries, at which levels certain powers can be taken, and the subtle differences between "caps" on certain under-the-hood values (e.g. MaxHP, Resistance, +Damage, etc.) modulated by if/when the primary/secondary can boost such things. when many players rush to level 50, and since HC lowered the levels at which secondary powers can be chosen... these things reduce the obvious differences between certain ATs. Never forget that the game's rewards are 99.9% tied to defeating enemies, so there should be NO cause for concern if a whole bunch of similar ATs have nearly identical "clear times" by whatever metrics once they have access to all of their primary/secondary powers. When we see full-kit builds using Epics, Incarnates, and IOs finishing identical content within a minute of each other... this is NOT something to get ego-bruised if a personal feeling that "X should be faster than Y" isn't born out by that result. The 0.1% not strictly tied to defeats is the rando Prismatic reward tied to mission completion. The Tanker radius buffs from a while back don't limit %procs like every other AT gets limited, so THAT should be addressed. Everything else past that... IMO it looks like there is a strong desire to push Tanker completion times into a lower tier (possibly Controllers, or non-exploit Kheldians)

Not on Beta: I took a level appropriate Tanker through Tina MacIntyre recently.... nothing fancy just +0x4... the Clockwork spawns (with multiple Repair Bots) are going to be even more of a PITA (for Tankers), as I usually relied on AoE to soften up things while I concentrate on the Repair Bots.

Almost all of the past six-years-of-changes aimed at farming were focused on the economy. There have been other changes not focused on the economy that have affected the then-current farming meta, but as @Maelwys points out: it doesn't take a Tanker or Brute to farm.

I don't think the (what people call) disparity is due to procs; I think the whatever the disparity is... is due to Global Recharge. I'm not ignorant of the artificial inflation of %proc chances for (current, HC) Tankers that really ought to be addressed. With Blasters having crashless nukes and beaucoup recharge, I don't know why there is such intense focus of Scrapper/Tanker/Brute when those three have repeatedly been shown (currently, on the HC shards) to all be pretty close in performance. Scrappers without their Critical hits ATO wouldn't be outputting more damage than Brutes (in terms of clear times) as near as I can tell. Right now we've got a whole lotta ATs that are fun to play and can reap similar rewards in roughly similar amounts of time. I can't wrap my head around trying to knock one of four (or five, or six) ATs out of that rewards-per-unit-time group. The game is IMO far past the point where we need to have role-specific team construction to earn rewards (in similar amounts of time/effort).

I gotta write: Suggesting Trapdoor (and Pylons) as a means of balancing power sets and ATs seems like it is really muddying the waters when it comes to relative performance. Even the vaunted Ston analysis showed fractions of a minute in differences between three different melee ATs (at level 50).

I'm looking forward to Echo: Dark Astoria becoming a PvP zone.

It would be too much of a change to the perception and mechanics of Brutes, but this would be my suggestion: if Brutes debuffed enemies in PBAoE as they built Fury instead of self-buffing damage, that would be a somewhat unique mechanic that would allow the Brutes to "hit harder" and have a place on teams. Obviously this wouldn't appeal to anyone who thinks one-dimensionally along the lines of "Hulk get angrier and hits harder", but in terms of game mechanics it would be an alternative to "melee DPS".

Seems like Defender/Corruptor %damage in AoE might be a future target for this "clever" mechanic.

This is my head-canon: Dark Armor lack KB protection (as a feature) because of the ways that Dark Armor relies on nearby enemies to survive. The KB 'hole' was (in my mind) intended to add a blunt vulnerability... if the character is being knocked down/around they can't use their self-heal.

I'm a lil bit confused... mostly because I can't reconcile these concepts: Not getting past level 40+ Wanting to have a ton of characters at 22-25 Wanting most of the characters to have +3 enhancements (or better!) ... without having established a source of inf. I can imagine "pick any two, but not all three", it's just that the way the problem is constrained it is no surprise to me that there is some frustration. I can see why someone who isn't inclined to use the market would avoid it... yet... there has got to be a favorite character that is just itching to go through level 40-50 content... and once that character starts 45+ content... enough Inf will roll in to either kit that character or kit out the alts.... *IF* those alts even need to be kitted.

The reference to Black Country and Lenny Henry reminds me of the time when I was listening to an American news radio program (I think it was some NPR show) and Lenny Henry was introduced as "African-American British comedy icon Lenny Henry".

I feel like I lost perspective on what is actually desired to be addressed by the proposed Tanker changes. I mean, I am aware of "Ston data" but those results were, for lack of a better word, niche... and ultimately if there was a marginal over-performance of Tanker DPS, it was due to the PPM system. [setting aside personal feels and perceptions about how the game is possibly imbalanced by having three different melee ATs complete the same content in near-identical times] If there are a handful of over-performing powers in a few sets: address those. As we are seeing, the attempt to apply some scale-back to the entire AT isn't being discriminant. If it was the bonus AoE range gauntlet/whatever interplay with %procs... the modified ranges should have affected this (if the PPM formula accounts for them). Is this just 'too obvious'? The ties to the self-buffs/critter debuffs seem really odd to me... again, this feels like there are a small number of powers that were driving the concern. No disagreement... I'd like to know what the devs think the performance should be. Are non-proc Tankers over-performing by 33%? by 66%? It's not like the Tankers are going to start surviving 33% more content.

I'm not so sure.

The Auction House probably has common IOs, crafted, available for far less than the cost of buying the recipe and crafting it yourself. I'd just put some bids in on level 30s. Common IOs don't expire, 30s will be better than trying to stick with SOs. SOs are and old, mostly out-dated concept that only has relevance for low-level characters without access to Influense, Merits or already crafted recipes. There are useful crafting badges for level 25s, 30s, 45s, and 50s, so there are often A LOT of those on the market. Some advice for 'stubborn' players who think old school(*1): If you are REALLY starved for Influence at level 41: Run Ouroboros content at lower levels without using the XP boosters... sell your drops. If you run content in the level range 20-30 you should get useful common recipe drops as well. (*1) This is not meant as an insult. The Homecoming setup with the Market and the Merit conversions makes it really easy and inexpensive to kit out characters... but it is not "page 1" thinking. If the game was the same as the early days of Live, we'd all be (re)living what @Ultimo is living.

Spring-boarding from this comment: Writing only for myself: when I initially realized that I could get 'perma-Hasten' from IO set bonuses (Purples, LotG, etc.) I pretty much realized I could skip Hasten altogether and just get significant Global recharge from the set bonuses. In my case, I never was doing "farming" so when the choice of attack IO sets comes down to Purples v. Winters it was pretty much a no-brainer for me(*1), I'll always use a purple set first, and then maybe use 2-pieces from Winters' (for Slow Resistance) in an off-beat attack... and sometimes if a character has hella many attacks one of those will get a Winter set after I've used ATO and Very Rares. (*1) Because of typical Recover/Accuracy/Global Recharge bonuses from the Very Rare/Purples instead of Res/Def from Winters.

Those prices are pretty small potatoes; I'm guessing this is for things like common/uncommon salvage or common IO recipes below a certain level. I predict that eventually you'll either be listing those things for 1 inf or simply selling them at vendors.

I see what you did there. The reduction in self-buffs isn't 100% overlapped with the changes to cones or the overcap reductions... but it does seem (to this guy, *points to self*) that there is probably one-too-many ideas being thrown into the pot of tanker-scale-back. It isn't as if the self-buffs somehow are negating the effects of the overcap or cone changes, are they?

I'm not testing in Beta. I've got one Scrapper that has Cloak of Fear for theme, and a Tanker that has it as an extra enemy-affecting aura effect for teams. I've tended to delay the choice of Cloak of Fear until later levels... for all the reasons everyone knows and a few reasons that most people can figure out after playing with it. I generally have it 2-slotted, one 53 HO Accurracy/Mezz and one boosted 50+5 Acc/Endurance Reduction. I don't think I'm going to start recommending this power based on the proposed i28p2 changes, even if it is an improvement Each of my Dark Armor characters ends up with+14 KB (passive) protection from set bonuses that scale down below level 10 (PVP sets, etc.), and I see no reason to (early-build) swap into a toggle that relies on enemies in PBAoE to get a little bit of KB protection from each enemy. This effect will be appreciated when facing the FREEM-tossing Council, because I'm typically facing at least 6 of those guys. The only thing in my current builds that looks like a "compromise" to achieve the +14 KB is using a Karma where otherwise I might use a LotG global recharge... so I suppose that other players that want to make different choices (using three pieces of Gladiator's Armor and Fury of the Gladiator in Dark armor is a sort of no-brainer for me) might make use of the toggle. The big change I'm facing is "how to fit in Soul Transfer"?