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I was initially excited about Glittering Column, but after playing the rest of the Pyro powers and watching some other Pyros try to make use of Glittering Column, I'm unconvinced that it is more effective than just using the other powers in the primary and (whatever) secondary.

Disclosure: I had gotten as much fun out of Plant Control as I wanted long before the i28p2 changes, so I only did a little bit of revisiting of that set with the i28p2 changes, My take, w.r.t Carrion Creepers, was that the part of the power that made replication/extra-spawning of the creepers work was essentially responsible for the incredibly reliable %proc chances (upon each extra-spawn). I do believe that some on the dev team have a little more sensitivity to %damage from procs than I do, so while they aren't wholesale nerfing %procs, they have been tweaking powers and effects that have been extraordinarily good at getting more damage from %procs. There are some pseudopets that are still pretty good (and not really lopsided, IMO), some that are mediocre, and some that can take %procs but won't ever trigger the procs they can take. I feel that Carrion Creepers was in the 'lopsided' category and now it is closer to the piss-poor end of the 'mediocre' category. If a player experiments with different types of (pseudopet) powers and consults City of Data to see the power coding, it is possible for the player to get a sense of what effects can trigger %procs, if they need accuracy, areas of affect, etc. In the specific case of Carrion Creepers it looks like the change to tamp down %damage is also responsible for (my) general feeling that I'm just not getting as many Creepers as I used to get. Certainly the damage is far less, and given that more damage led to more Creepers, it isn't easy for me to say if any one change is producing more of an effect than another. I'm not anywhere close to being as worked up as some others about the changes to Plant Control, but among the changes that were made I feel like final effect of the sum total of changes to Carrion Creepers was the most brutal. For me... it was a power that I felt offered a lot of options when it came to slotting, now it just feels like another power to drop a 5-or-6-piece set in (I'd probably got with 6xCupid's Crush) for set bonuses.

Slot 1 (or 2) Acc/Range, and take your pick of %procs from Knockback sets (the attack does Knockdown) and/or Ranged AoE damage sets. You can have the power at 14, as a melee character. 6x Preventive Medicine, or 6x Reactive Defenses, or franken-slot with a smaller number of Defense pieces e.g. 3xShield Wall) and a Health/Recharge for only 4 slots... leaving 2 slots for some defense global (like LotG, etc.) Again... If I am playing a melee character, I can typically make use of Unleash Potential via one of those three ways.

From a dusty corner of my memory, I want to say that long ago one of the primary reasons 'performance time' measures focused on Scrappers over Stalkers was that the optimization of the Stalker ATOs (to yield increased DPS) was both narrower (in terms of choices) and more difficult than leveraging the Scrapper ATOs. I believe it was Brutes (with Fury) and Scrappers (leveraging ATOs) simply have more design space (in attack chains) to work with. And FWIW, this doesn't mean I think the Scrapper Superior ATOs are over-powered.

I don't like any of these suggestions, specifically because I personally find Force of Will to be one of the best constructed pools, and it rivals Sorcery as the top travel set IMO. The travel power is top tier; both in speed and utility The single-target debuff requires no extra slotting, but also well tolerates extra slotting for extra (%debuffs/%damage) The single-target ranged attack is a typical no-pre-req pool attack. For me I usually only choose this if I want to slot a ranged-damage set or the AT has a specific gap in a chain that could use a ST ranged attack (some Controllers, for example... but also a few melee characters) The ranged cone is ballers. Unleash Potential is also ballers, especially considering it well-uses both Defense and Health sets.

The base 2 minutes demands some recharge, and the ToHit mechanics demand some Accuracy. Even on high recharge builds, for most mission content my experimentation with Fold Space has led me to believe that there is always a better use of both slots and power picks... because it requires 2 additional power picks from Teleport pool, and Combat Teleport does everything, and more(*1), that I want on the characters that would use Fold Space. It is (to me) a little like a sunk cost fallacy.. I was making very specific build choices to get Fold Space to work (or to optimize it) and I found that the builds (and clear times) improved when I redirected teh slots and power choices elsewhere in each build. I understand the appeal of the power, but it's never going to work on those +4 bosses, and RNG will cause you to miss some fraction of the ones you could otherwise effect. (*1) such as being able to BAMF directly to a teammate.

Step away from the totality of your perception of Plant Control. OTHER control sets were getting their AoE lockdowns at much later levels (typically 18, note that Plant also got an AoE hold at level 18) than Seeds of Confusion's AoE at level 8. If one set has a top tier AoE Control at level 8, future control sets will have to have something similar or otherwise they have to be radically different in mechanics(*1) or otherwise any new control set ends up being inferior out of the gate. Having nearly similar powers, with the objectively better one available 18 levels sooner, completely limits the design space for future sets. My agruement isn't that "boo hoo, Mass Confusion *sucks*", it's that Seeds was literally put at the wrong tier for what it did. (*1) so, something like Symphony's mechanics... and I think there is a case to be made that a set like Symphony is somewhat mediocre. I digress, but I've played both Symphony and Arsenal and I've found them to be middle of the road... no other control set allowed players to dominate something like a Synapse TF as Plant Control, because of Seeds of Confusion.

Combat Teleport is base 100' and the range of the teleport can be enhanced.

I'd like to add: By level 50, the player ought to have some experience with how to play this character with other characters.

It's been a while since I played my Storm/Storm, but my recollection of Freezing Rain is that it is one of those powers that reliably %procs on enemies in the radius on cast, but when it ticks it has the usual poor %proc chances. If the %proc chances were really bad on cast (MMV on what that means to individuals) I probably wouldn't have left all those pieces in my build. It is possible that the lack of Accuracy slotting in the power was hurting your chances. In my experience: %-Res is IMO a generally a worse choice than %damage, especially solo. Setting aside "damage resistance resists resistance debuffs" a player needs to be applying damage from other sources during the period of time the debuff is in play. This is best with teams, or with henchmen... it works for pets/pseudopets too, but henchmen are designed to do damage (and there are typically more of them) than with pets. There is also a subtle issue that a critter can only have one debuff applied per %-Res proc from whatever source, but they can take as many %damage applications as get applied...durations of the debuff get extended for (let's say) Achilles' Heel but magnitude of that debuff is not increased.... there is a lot there that I'm glossing over... I'm glad that you did test it, as there are some builds and circumstances where such a debuff can be noticeable... but my experience has been that they are (at best) a wash except for single targets with a LOT of HP.

I dislike the conversations that are so intensely focused on some version of "Knockback is ruining the game for me, and for players who think like me". I don't mind knockback, and I think how it shows up in the game makes the game feel more like a comic book universe. I have no empathy for players who feel that their peak efficiency is being destroyed because OMG they found themselves teamed with someone who does KB/repel/Fold Space/AoE Immob/fishcakes. Having written the above... there are limited circumstances involving KB that I think the game is obligated to address instead of players... and it is when critters end up being 'off map' because of KB. This is very rare, but it does happen... and it can happen even when KB is "converted" to KD. I don't expect the game to actually be modified to prevent (or mitigate) this, but it is the ONLY example of Knockback is actually preventing completion of missions/arc/whatever. 99.9% of all other complaints basically boil down to "other people ruining my game". I will add that there are a small handful of specific content when poorly controlled KB can make the content a LOT harder than it needs to be... but this is true of a lot of playstyles that have nothing to do with KB and everything to do with player awareness. For example, the conclusion of Positron 2 can require a lot more effort if certain critters get knocked back into other critters (especially in the final fight)... and since this is a low-level TF in which higher-level characters will not have access to most of their powers (and likely not have all set bonuses either), I can see why some players get even more frustrated... but again... it's not like the game is so hard that something like an Energy Blast attack is physically hurting players.

Mass Confusion is a level 26 T9 power; Seeds of Confusion is a level 8 T5 power. In no world where balance is respected should these two powers have been comparable.

I think in the last six years I've seen more PUG requests that (non-Grav, non-Kheldian) players stop using Fold Space than I've seen requests to neuter Knockback (from Energy Blast, Ki Push, blah, blah, fishcakes).... and I haven't seen many of those. It often feels like there is a triad of powers that can set off certain players: 1) Fold Space 2) AoE Immobilizes/Holds 3) AoE knockback ...and let's not forget Group Fly, because who has time to stop at Null the Gull on the way to the START vendor for 2XP/Pocket D exploration Badges/Alignment change? Some players get RABID about anything and everything that disrupts their mental model of peak efficiency/fun/team composition. Specific to knockback... surely players have already recognized that the critter AI already has enemies self-scattering, let alone that pretty much every mission in the game has enemy spawns in different rooms (that players have to move to).

Reading this post makes me feel like I walked into the punchline "....it's called 'The Aristocrats'!!" without any build up.

I'll add some clarifying comments of my own, w.r.t to Incarnates and MMs. 99% of the time when I write "without incarnates" I am referring specifically to "no Lore pets". I don't go around unslotting Musculature or Interface, and I don't avoid using Destiny Judgement or Hybrid... but for many characters Lore pets are the only way for a character to solo a GM, whereas a well built MM can solo GMs without Lore pets. There are a few further things I'll add about my own experiences, especially in the current (i28p2) era. Since the launch of HC, there have been four major (maybe 3 major, 1 minor) updates to GMs that have impacted the ability of solo MMs to take them down. 1) There was a pass to increase some resistances for several GMs. I didn't find this to be a big effect, but it did slow down defeat times. 2) There were several passes to increase the MaxHP of GMs. One of these came with a round of resistance increases, one came later. In my experience: Those two changes pretty much made it so that against most (non-MM) solo ATs, many of the GM fights would last longer than 5 minutes with Lores... but a well-built MM doesn't need Lores, so the only thing working against the MMs from those changes was the amount of Health being regenerated by a GM. Fights take longer, but they really weren't harder. The two other changes I consider was one big and one small: 3) The base accuracy of GMs was increased. <-This is the big change, and the one that IMO should have been done first. I think it should have been done first because it was obvious to me that the reason GMs were such a pushover for teams (never mind solo) was that the 'defense cap' turned the offense of a GM into the near-equivalent of a con-grey enemy. It taking six years for this to be figured out I think offers some perspective on how the dev team is highly reluctant to approach the ToHit/Defense mechanics of the game when it comes to certain challenges for players. This is a complicated discussion, but in the case of GMs I feel like changes (1) and (2) were the lazy changes to simply add grind without challenge. The HC devs made one other change that was intended to bring more 'challenge' (and mostly succeeded, but it is the one ultimately I consider to be minor): 4) Some GMs got some new attacks. I consider this to be a 'minor' change because pretty much each of the new attacks isn't doing much more than targeting a player that is standing in melee range beating on the GM. This had a big effect on some MMs, especially ones where all-of-a-sudden all the henchmen and pets were eliminated by a single attack. For the most part, I think the new GM attacks are clever. It didn't take long for me to figure out a couple of different ways to deal with most of them, but that was about the level of 'puzzle' I appreciate in a game like CoX. Ultimately, I think the Giant Monsters are currently in a pretty good place in terms of challenge, as many 2-character combinations of AT can take down most of them, provided the 2-player team has both damage and survivability *and* both players use brains. A solo MM can be constructed to do both damage and survivability, plus bring necessary debuffs to overcome the grind aspect (mitigating the need for MOAR DAMAGE+++). I often see far less well-constructed MMs multi-boxing against GMs because none of the individual MMs can solo the GMs... and the second and third MMs can pretty much be put on auto (at least against the GMs that don't have 'clever', new attacks.

Re: Marine Affinity I agree, it's more that melee-based henchmen tend to need a little more TLC than ranged henchmen, so the area-based Marine Affinity powers help those MM primaries that had to deal with critter scatter and hecnhmen scrambling in ways that Robotics doesn't typically have to worry about.

I only put 2x Vigilant Assault in Storm Cell. Since you asked about %procs, I'll attach a snapshot of my build to show where I landed. This Defender ended up feeling more like a Controller. I'll repeat something I wrote a long time ago about this... I ended up mistakenly starting a Brickstown radio mission with the spawn size turned way up (I had probably come from leading a TF) in the low 30s... and while the mission completion time was slow, it wasn't much of a problem. EDIT: I don't sweat the KB, except in Tornado and Lightning Storm. Pretty much every other power falls into the category of 'learn how to leverage it' usage. From a distance, I'm cannot recall why I went with the personal level of KB protection I did (per the screen shot)... I think it was probably something of a "You going to try to KB me?" approach. The +10 KB SG base buff puts the character out of FREEM territory.

I kinda love the Presence pool... both for Invoke Panic and Unrelenting. The latter is a power I've 6-slotted with Defense, or Heals, or franken-slotted with both. Global recharge benefits Unrelenting. For melee characters, I really like Combat Teleport. I'm not a fan of Fold Space, but IMO if a player wants to build towards that... Combat Teleport should be the first pick from the pool. I shake my head when I see melee characters (Tankers, Brutes usually) relying on Fold Space but I almost never see them using Combat Teleport... it feels to me like they are leaving a LOT on the table by not using Combat Teleport to get to enemies... or rescue allies... it has a much faster recharge time and doesn't require a ToHit check. Of course, the player literally has to be reading the room, which is probably where the deficit lies. As mentioned above, have a targeting bind (I'd have Sappers, Cairns, Sorcerers, Surgeons all on the same bind) and then add a targeting macro to BAMF to your target and wallop.

I haven't played a /Marine mastermind, but I did play a Plant/Marine Controller that I felt really over-performed (this was pre-i28p2). Marine secondary strikes me as being excellent for MM primaries that rely on henchmen melee attacks. Robots are mostly ranged, so they should still be able to leverage all the stuff Marine brings, I just think that as a secondary it is a bigger performance improvement for certain types of henchmen over others. Put another way: to me, the Marine secondary looks like a secondary that was designed specifically for Masterminds, as it ticks all the boxes for what most MMs would ask for. The only thing about it that looks like it could be problematic is solo against things that have a good chance to hit the henchmen/player. Robots get the Maintenance Drone and can be positioned at range, which I mention to disclose my (conflicting) thoughts on which powers to skip and/or how to slot the ones I take. Finally: I definitely feel that Marine Affinity is a better choice of secondary for team play. I think you could speed run through Incarnate content on a League keeping the henchmen on Green (to avoid OHKOs) and spam the Marine powers to success.

For me: #1 is +Recharge. I almost always have some long-recharge power that I'd prefer to be available ASAP... plus it smooths out active chains. #2 is +Accuracy, because I prefer to blame all my misses on RNG After this... it is pretty much +MaxEnd, +Recovery, -EnduranceCost. with Slow Resistance in the mix. For Tankers I'll chase +MaxHP, Recovery (but only to a point, since +Health works better) and KB protection. EDIT: I almost never want +Range from set bonuses. If I am playing ranged characters, the global +Range typically increases the difference in ranges between my various attacks to the point of annoyances... and if I am playing a character with ONLY short range attacks, I get better results by actually slotting for Range.

A million years ago in the Live era, with a different video card, I had a system that would often choke in Port Oakes in the way described. I attributed that problem as being caused by the way the Port Oakes map was constructed... there were a LOT of assets being drawn that were not intended to be visible/useful to the players... things like buildings being extended way below "ground level", etc.

That is "working as intended". Personally: I've been so accustomed to providing KB protection in Dark Armor from set bonuses that I'd not take nuCloak of Fear specifically for KB protection... for flavor yes, but not to close that hole. IMO there are a couple of 3xPVP (+3 KB) set bonuses that are natural fits for Dark Armor and it is a pretty low investment to get two more (+4 KB) pieces, all from things that can be slotted at level 10. Don't get me wrong: it is an improved power over what it was, but it still suffers from a rather low (0.8) base accuracy and is 'one more toggle'. MMV if you want the in-melee debuffs.

There is quite a bit to digest here... I'll lead by writing that the game probably doesn't need as heavy a hand as implemented with respect to critter-affecting controls for most of the game's content. Specifically, for sub-40 content these things bother me: 1) I dislike how hard it is to 'stack' controls in solo play... if they can be stacked at all. Adaptive recharge goes a long way to addressing this, but I am still hella bothered by the critters that effectively ignore low-tier powers like immobilization or slow movement. For example: Minions of Igneous and War Wolves. It kinda sucks to be a low-DPS character and also have certain enemies running all over the map that you can't control. 2) Aside from a single +2 Mag hold %proc, there has been no player option to try to improve the chance for +Magnitude (setting aside purple set %Contageous Confusion) I get it: devs have always feared the effect of control in PVP. It also isn't lost on me that the favorite child Blasters, alone among ATs, got the ability to use powers while controlled. I lost track of how many changes have been made to critter AI as well as Fear, Stun, and now Sleep effects.

"Who Will Die?" (especially blue side) after the first arc completely bothers me for the lack of PC agency.... and I'm not crazy about the timers in that first arc which more-or-less force a 'yeah, you are done here' mentality in the first two missions. The cut scenes bother the helloutame for the "Am I watching someone else's story?" factor.

I am of multiple minds when it comes to legacy set changes. Over-performing powers need to be brought back to earth... For example: Seeds of Confusion was an outlier that curb-stomped similar higher-tier powers in other control sets and because it was so good, and available so early, no new control set would look half-as-good. I'm less sold on the change to Carrion Creepers... that change felt a little petty... minimally I think the Adaptive recharge overhauls should have been allowed to play out before that change was made. Other over-performing powers (such as the 3.2 base accuracy in Radiation) fall into the 'what where they thinking?' category that made such things due for a re-visit. On another hand: It seems pretty clear that there are some legacy sets where the devs just aren't interested and have almost zero intellectual investment in revisiting. Particularly legacy power pools that still have the ridiculous 4/4/14/14/14 splits at which levels powers can be taken (and which ones require 2 pre-requisite choices)... namely Medicine and Presence. I won't go into all my specific gripes about how those pools actually work for those of us who choose to invest in them, but I have many. I'm also not a fan of how the four toggles work for the Flight pool... but that set invites Group Fly discussions which I'm sure the devs would prefer to avoid. All I'll write here is that I don't think there is another pool that has four toggles, five with Afterburner, and certainly no other set that effectively requires all of them to be toggled on to get the most from. Why the Teleport pool got a rework but Flight did not is a mystery to me. It feels to me like there are a couple of "easy wins" to be had in some of those pools... so when I look at the recent changes to Dark Armor: I think the recent changes were positive... but basically unnecessary for players willing to take advice and leverage some set bonuses and smart slotting of powers. I can see a LOT of effort went into those changes for what basically was a shrug emoji. Meanwhile... there are still Armor T9s that are objectively worse than using Inspirations let alone the use of Incarnate powers. Another "easy win" IMO would be a re-imagining of the VEAT inherent (Conditioning)... which I feel has had limited value since the Fitness pool became inherent. The extra Regeneration and Recovery isn't nothing, but it is close. Just give the VEATS +MaxEnd please!