tidge

Blue Side: Laura Lockhart immediately comes to mind.

It used to bother me that the MM ATO had to go into the henchmen, and I've lived with this for so long that my next statement may be without much perspective: There aren't really that many better options for henchmen than the MM ATO, certainly not when compared to which sets can be slotted into the MM attacks. I'd still want Accuracy, Damage and Endurance Reduction in henchmen., and the bonus structure of the MM ATO sets is pretty good: +40% global recharge for three 2-slots, and one 4-slot investment. IMO the "slot crunch" comes from the global aura pieces like Recharge Intensive Pet and Pet Damage sets, not really from the MM ATO pieces.

May I add to this? I find it really doesn't help discussions of "balance" in City of Heroes because no one agrees on what content makes sense to try to look for "balance". I appreciate that players can do testing on some specific things, but it isn't as if the Pylon testers (for example) are using level 24 characters to do their testing.

In a vacuum, I agree that the ATO2 proc duration seems way too short to be meaningful... yet considering the inherent Defiance, and that Blasters typically get sustains (IIRC, with no detoggle if mezzed) that other ATs would kill for, not to mention the favorable changes to the primary T9s, I wouldn't make any improvements to Blaster ATOs. IMO ATO2 only seems like a poor performer because of everything else that Blaster's have got going for themselves.

On Robotics, I pretty much only Frankenslot the Henchmen. 1) Henchmen need most of the global pieces (FF might mitigate the need for one of them) 2) The MM ATO work well in three sets of 2 and one set of 4 3) MMs benefit more from set bonuses than having attacks with some extra %damage (MMs must slot attacks for Endurance Reduction, otherwise they burn out) Not every agrees with my takes of course. IMO The only procs (see above for my comment on globals) worth slotting in the robotic henchmen are the Soulbound Allegiance %BuildUp and Explosive Strike %smashing in the T1. Some folks prefer the %Buildup in the T3, but I find having it in the T1 better distributes the damage done by the henchmen....intellectually I know the T1 need more ToHit than the T3 because of level shifts. The T2 can take a LotG Def/+Recharge but you shouldn't need to put that on a T2 with FF... you probably will want pieces containing Endurance Reduction in the T2 and T3. Flight is a good pool for Robots. Don't waste time with Presence or Medicine. I usually take Fighting, Concealment, and Mace because I need powers to mule global pieces.

My responses will be 1-AT-at-a-time, because I think it is less important to compare inherents and ATO across ATs, because otherwise everything trends towards "waah, look what ___ gets!" Having played a large number of VEATs... the inherent is pretty bad considering that the Fitness pool is inherent to every AT, and that every AT can get +MaxEnd and +MaxHP accolades. Once 'diminishing returns' for Regeneration and Recovery start kicking in from set bonuses, it is typically the case that Conditioning is doing almost nothing for my builds. My immediate guess (because, no numbers were crunched) for VEATs is that Conditioning should give +MaxEnd instead of +Recovery, simply to avoid "hitting the Recovery wall" with the side effect of improving actual recovery without having to explicitly slot for recovery (in something like Stamina). Regeneration bonuses are pretty easy to come by, so it wouldn't hurt my feels if the Regeneration part of Conditioning was changed to something else like extra Scaling Damage Resistance, +MaxHP, whatever.

Cupid's Crush has IMO an interesting place (in market, in game). Because of how they were introduced, there ought to be approximately 1 bajillion of them in player hands. Also as noted, the OF set can now be rolled into it. The laughing reaction is the best choice to describe how I feel when I see the market doing something that players should know better. As for utility: I used to use Overwhelming Force as an easy drop-in for "Universal Damage" for characters as they level up... similar to how I'd use (catalyzed) PVP sets or Winter sets so that characters had enhancements that scaled up and provided some set bonuses even at low levels. Cupid's Crush IMO offers more useful set bonuses at low/mid levels so it often gets used while leveling, but I rarely use it in final builds... typically there is a Very Rare, PVP, or (Superior) Winter/ATO set I prefer. There are a small number of powers that I think are a good fit for the CC set, but only if the build can slot all 6 pieces in the power. I know there are some folks who lurv the %proc, but it isn't really my cuppa.

I can't speak to the current iteration of Regeneration, but I do have some thoughts on skippable powers. I definitely agree that HC-era primary/secondary sets have fewer "obvious skippable" powers than on Live... I like when this is because each power is actively good, I'm less impressed when some powers have gaps that must be filled by other powers. My thoughts on 'skippable' will springboard from this post... On melee characters: I often delay (and sometimes skip) Armor powers in order to be able to pick ASAP level 14 pool powers that require two previous picks from the same pool. This is almost always a flavor choice, and it can run up against my personal desire to have something like an attack chain for very low-level content (without relying on S.T.A.R.T. attacks). I generally don't do this with Scrappers, but I have a couple of thematic Scrappers that rely on power pools. FWIW, I dislike taking Epic/Patron attacks to round out attack chains because of the level requirements. For my characters that pretty much only play at level 50 this doesn't bother me, but for lower-level play I find losing key attacks to be a large annoyance. I agree with the sentiment expressed by @Troo that while leveling, certain power sets have almost no skippable powers. As noted by many others in this thread, set bonuses on a full-kit build can often do what certain power picks otherwise provide. Obviously for playing only with a level 50 build a delayed power pick really won't matter.

Part of my assessment is based on my Controllers moving to engage with enemies in front of me, so as a practical consideration Singularity simply wasn't ending up doing that much KB/Repel control for me. As always, test with your play style.

It does work, but in my experience it does relatively very little. YMMV.

One reaction, one question. The reaction is this: Whenever I see "radiation" mentioned as a key to defeating Giant Monsters, I reflexively roll my eyes because that feels like an "early days of Live" ingredient for a GM-fighting recipe that we haven't needed to follow for decades. even so: Rad Armor is Awesome! This isn't me saying Radiation whatever can't be leveraged against GMs... just that there probably are better debuffs and utility than classic Radiation sets. My question: Are any Brutes reliably sololing (named) Giant Monsters these days without Incarnate Lores? I used to occasionally see solo Brutes going toe-to-toe with some (lower-level) zone GMs and defeat them... and I certainly see plenty of Brutes/Tanks who can stand up to Giant Monsters indefinitely... but I stopped bothering with solo melee against GMs even before the several rounds of Monster updates (increased HP, Resistances, attacks, and now ToHit) because I found it to be tedious (for me, tedium sets in at ~4 minutes). These days I rarely see anyone fighting GMs without Lores, even on teams.

I have a couple of Blasters that use Infiltration as their only travel power. Blasters are the only AT where a couple of primary/secondary combos aligned such that no other travel power worked as well for the build and concept... because I was going to leverage the Concealment pool anyway and I was going to run out of pool choices.

I can't know of any instances of silent raging(*1) from teammates about KB, but the only time I remember anyone on a team publicly griping about a KB power was when I was on my Storm/Storm Defender... for much of the session I'd been using KB (mostly with some skill, I want to say I was doing as much grouping of enemies with Gale as anyone else on the team was doing with whatever other powers)... but the gripe came after a near-total wipe and after I had turned on Hurricane to establish an area of control to allow for rezzes. Sure enough, the first teammate who rezzed wanted me to immediately turn off Hurricane... which was IMO a real 'read the room' moment. (*1) Personally? I don't rage against the scatter caused by something like Meteor, but I roll my eyes. Other players using their KB powers doesn't hurt me.

You asked for it in the OP... did I misunderstand the request?

I'm not going to rehash arguments about how I don't see solo pylon or trapdoor runs as offering a large amount of insight about utility of certain build choices for most of the game. When I'm playing the game, I'm stopping to chat, do some inventory management, whatever... and AFAIK none of the Ston tests include anything like social interaction. There is more to Quality of Life than trying to have fastest solo times... literally no one know how a solo times compares unless someone comes to brag or goes looking to complain about performance.. which is certainly valid, but not for sub-60 second times IMO. What am I doing with an extra slot? Could be almost anything! Tanks and Brutes can benefit a lot from a second %Heal. Low-DPS characters can use an Explosive Strike instead of %+Recharge. Most characters can benefit from Slow Resists. For level 50 characters, that is pretty much my attitude with respect to DPS. When you can add non-changeling Kheldians, VEATS and Controllers to that list, let me know... otherwise complaining about mere percentages in different times and trying to make grand pronouncements about how any of those ATs are under-/over-performing is IMO silly.

I pretty much never take Triage Beacon. There are a small number of circumstances when I think it can be useful, but the calculus comes down to the cost (as a power pick, plus slots, plus not picking a different power) outweighs the benefit (faction of 'viable content' is small, teammates rarely need what it brings). As noted in the thread: it really needs a lot of slots to be useful, and even then you've got a stationary item. I *like* the health sets, but it takes a LOT of self-sacrifice to put the Panacea %proc in a power other than Health (or another auto-power, or in a power I will always be able to cast on demand). The two main circumstances when I think Triage Beacon shines are: Low-level content where players haven't really become self-sufficient or otherwise tend to get in over their heads. Higher-level content where there will be relatively long, stationary fights (so... maybe +N with several MM Henchmen/pets) I think "low-level" is key, because better players will be leveraging inspirations when they get in over their heads, even if they have sub-optimal slotting of powers (and lack set bonuses). Extra rows of inspirations go a long way in low-level content.

I have no desire for such transfers to be trivial, but given how "easy" Homecoming is otherwise (compared to Live) I suspect that this is simply one area of the game where the Dev team isn't interested in making the game any easier. Disclosure: I'm mentally biased against the Incarnate system from the days of Live. I realize that there are players who don't feel like their characters have reached full potential without Incarnates, but I can't see it as anything(*1) but a tacked-on system to the core game. This isn't me writing that the Incarnate content is inferior/boring/pointless... the most negative feels I have about 50+ is that (from my PoV) it reinforces attitudes that the game requires level 50 characters and builds to be played. (*1) There was a short time on Live when I had a more positive opinion of the Incarnate system, focused entirely on: "Wow, I can fix this build problem with the Alpha slot!", or "Wow, now I can have powers that other ATs have!" I haven't come to see these previous reactions of mine as invalid, but I do think they were simplistic.

You aren't even trying without the S.T.A.R.T. temp powers of Plasmatic Taser and Hand Grenade.

The pet window can be made to reappear via opening a TEAM window and clicking the bubble for PETS Even if you cannot control them via the window, the pet window is useful for all sorts of things, such as seeing what buffs/debuffs are applied to your pets.

FWIW, I find the Synapse TF one of the easiest to solo with a sub-50 character... although some ATs will benefit from a summons like a Shivan. As for the content, I agree that it is a hot mess. I'll suggest some of the following: 1) Reduce the number of "defeat alls" These really don't contribute to the story-telling IMO. I'd keep the first "Station is over-run!", and then leverage some combination of defeat named bosses and glowies to allow for some speed. In particular, I think the Clockwork King should have one mission where he has created a number of named bosses that mirror Chess pieces, basically showing off that he's a geek at heart. 2) Replace all the open-world (Steel Canyon) stuff with an instanced map of Steel Canyon. This can include requiring specific defeats, and "search"... and can spawn Bertha in mission. 3) Bring in Blue Steel as an NPC It isn't real obvious what the link is between Blue Steel and Clockwork King, so I kinda would like a mission in the TF that shows the animosity between them

As noted by others, Wormhole is a great power. as it both positions enemies and Stuns them. I typically 5-slot for Stun and put a KB->KD piece in it. Absolute Amazement is my choice at level 50, with each piece boosted. Singularity is not a power that does 'tricks' particularly well... I've tried a LOT of different combinations of sets, extra control, %procs. KB->KD is practically unobservable(*1). I have two suggestions, depending on # of slots available: 4x Expedient Reinforcement (skip the global) 6x Cupid's Crush I've been opting for Cupid's Crush in Controller Pets: I prefer its set bonuses (and the fact that the bonuses scale across more content than the level 35 set). (*1) The current version of Singularity simply doesn't reliably do much with KB->KD in my experience. It is far less useful than putting such a piece in a patch. I'd say this is because its AoE effects %proc like toggles, and its single-target attacks don't need it.

I find %+Recharge to be unreliable, so there are only limited circumstances when I include it: I have a Dominator that has exceeded perma-dom without Hasten, and it is in the zone where an unfortunate combination of a Slow and an animation might delay domination A character has relatively few attacks, such that a little bit of +Recharge gets something else ready I can see how it can shave some time off certain content, but generally I've found that any slot dedicated to that piece is better suited for something else (or somewhere else) that serves the character across a wider range of content (via set bonus, or even something like a Defense mule, slow resist, whatever).

I'd craft a bind that on button press Locals that I'm using Fold Space (at my $loc) and on release triggers it. Temmates can target the [loc] (or me) with a single click. Of course, I know how to bind, so I'd just use Combat Teleport and never bother with Fold Space.

By all accounts, Scrappers without the "overpowered" ATO would underperform Brutes.

I haven't found any version of Controller that I couldn't solo with. I typically don't turn up difficulty past 'eve level', but even without Incarnates as I approach 50 I can usually handle +0x8 with little problem. At low levels, it is important to pick up prestige attacks from S.T.A.R.T. also... the temp attacks (particularly Plasmatic Taser and Hand Grenade) I am almost always using one of the prestige attacks through the entire career of any Controller because my 'attack chain' will otherwise have a gap. By mid levels+ (16+) it can really help to have at least one reliable power pool attack. I also try to leverage %damage from procs, where possible. Procs are pretty much the only reason I can get Controllers to complete typical missions within an order of magnitude of other ATs.