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My thoughts keep coming back to: The Council, and before them Crey, were pretty unimaginative enemies that rarely provided a challenge. Neither the Council nor Crey used even a fraction of the sort of powers/game effects that they should have had access to given the game's Lore. Neither the Council nor Crey is particularly out of line with other groups that spawn in the level range 40+ Neither the Council nor Crey are clones of any other groups that spawn Every time an enemy shows up using tricks that players have been using to defeat critters, there is going to be some who feel twinges of "but that's not fair!"... but it doesn't mean it isn't fair. If anything those formerly mediocre groups now play like they ought to, given the Lore. If anyone wasn't here for the Fire attacks having a -Def component added to them, and you feel like seeing how arguments about how somebody doesn't listen to me play out I recommend spending some time with the search bar. Spoilers: The game didn't end in a fiery cataclysm.

Well.... there are Blaster secondaries which don't contain melee attacks... and it isn't like the Epic/Patron pools are brimming with melee attacks.

Also Deep Space 9, IIRC.

I think what I'm reading is that ever since the nerf to Tankers, that Dark/Dark Brutes are now the premium Herders, but only if they run Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear.

^ This is my primary balance issue (with the Medicine pool, not the Sorcery pool)... even without considering the %proc, as a practical matter the %absorb is better than a heal (interruptable or not).

Regular FREEM! was a surprise, but it is not insurmountable problem. Less than 10 points of KB protection isn't going to cut it, and frankly as rare as 12+ KB used to be, sure I can imagine the surprise felt by other players. Have more than 10 points of KB protection but less than 20 points? I suggest crafting a SG temp power for 90 minutes of +10 points of KB protection. I also don't usually have "softcap" defenses... although I do on my main MM... but I don't think that FREEM! is an autohit. My point here is that this issue could seem worse because of the larger spawn sizes and the slightly more resistant enemies sticking around longer. Even Eochai learned a thing or two from players about how to slot Bonfire!

A failure of comprehension on my part: I don't understand the first comment in this thread about Jack E. TBH: I don't remember there being a personal option to increase "team size" in the original game at launch, except of course by teaming up. If the comment was about "times change"... I suppose I agree. If the comment was to make a point about how HC is forcing (or not requiring?) players to team up... particularly in in "High Level Council Missions"... I suppose I disagree. If the comment was some form of side-eye about how Homecoming's management deserves scorn by invoking a commonly used bête noir, I shrug in disbelief.

The Circle has always been debuffing, even if that one simple trick may be newly added to some enemies. I'm <shocked pikachu> that this is a surprise, given the range of content across which CoT appear and the relatively easy ways to tell that a character is being debuffed.

I say Blapper, because so much of the DPS potential from a Water/NRG is in the secondary Melee attacks: Energy Punch (melee, or pick Power Thrust) Power Thrust (melee, or pick Energy Punch) Build Up (More +Damage than Tidal Forces, I'd take both but only one of them early) Bone Smasher (melee) Energize (the sustain) Stun (melee) Power Boost (click self boost, don't overlook that a significant fraction of 'extra effects' are the stuns in the NRG melee attacks) Boost Range (click self boost, I suspect this was the power that made NRG look appealing to "range only") Total Focus (melee) I've played a variety of Blasters as Blappers, and also as Ranged-only. I have a few Ranged-only that went very light into the secondary. My cautious advice comes from a place of my recognition Water Blast is a great Ranged set (although I think Water Jet is still inferior!), but IMO relying only on the primary for ranged damage (with this combo) has issues: A huge amount of potential DPS is being left on the table The options for slotting different types of enhancement sets is going to be quite limited without taking secondary attacks... and if you take and slot them, they should be used! The control (stuns) from the NRG secondary are all melee, as opposed to other secondaries that offer ranged controls The NRG secondary doesn't offer any thing like a PBAoE should the player get surrounded by more than a couple enemy critters This is not me trying to yuck in anyone's yum: I can imagine a circumstance where a player wants to play a Blaster, and also wants to find a secondary where they can skip most of the secondary powers (I've done it!), maybe to focus more on the primary, maybe to slip in a LOT of power pool powers, or whatever. When I made the choice to make a Blaster that avoided (as much as possible) the melee attacks in a secondary, I found that a nearly identical version of the character played as a Sentinel performed 'better' than the Blaster variant. The AoE was worse, but the Sentinel doesn't care what the enemies try to do to him and he can stand his ground.

The post below was not directed at me, and I promise I'll try to steer my reply towards "high level (?) enemy revamps" (from thread title, I was assuming level 45+ content, but I don't know if that is really what the thread is entirely discussing) I don't know what the benchmark is for the average player, but for this (points to self) player: 1. For so much of the content, the "solutions" (i.e. how to complete the task) are both pretty well understood (by a LOT of people). Many of the "solutions" are common to most of the content, e.g. "button mashing" or "MOAR DAMAGE". 2. I am self-convinced of my ability (within CoX) to see that there are multiple different ways to approach content, such that I don't get agitated when I see someone doing something different. To use a classic bit of forum flame-bait: We never go long without someone starting a new thread about how some PUG has done something wrong on a Positron 1, Penny Yin, whatever trials. There are well-tested tactics, but there are different ways to approach those. The page 7 revamps of enemy groups have (obviously, points to existence of multiple instances of this thread) made at least one player feel like their comfortable "solution" to playing content that includes the Council (*1, I want to circle back to this group specifically) is no longer "solving the problem" in a satisfactory way? We can still button mash against the Council and it is IMO still a completely valid approach. This hasn't really changed. (*1) Calling out the Council specifically, along with no other suggestion than "roll them back" has biased me to think that a significant fraction of that feel is not driven by concerns about game balance. From my PoV, the only annoying elements of nuCouncil are (a) FREEM! breaking up my rhythm, (b) more enemies with better resists *sigh* (c) surprise at the Nictus-infused enemies doing Nictus tricks (as they always should have, IMO). As many have written... these are speed bumps, not brick walls. The recent updates to Circle of Thorns ought to be more problematic (ehem, Tar Patch), I believe they are likely not seen as problematic because the old MOAR DAMAGE solution still works fine against the nuCoT. When Crey got its round of updates (MOAR Taunts, Confuses, debuffs) it was a surprise, it made them harder to face, and nobody is calling for them to be "rolled back!" TL;DR. Perhaps I am dismissing concerns about nuCouncil because I believe I have "dug deeper" into the complex problem of nuCouncil and have found that whatever that problem is turns out to be incredibly shallow.

It's a bad (but typical) RNG. I do a fair share of solo Giant Monster hunting in the off-hours... and while I haven't exactly kept stats I can offer some fuzzy numbers since teh salvage went live: I've accumulated well over 1.2K Monstrous Aether ... This is hard to know for sure, as I've had to convert many because of the inventory cap, and while I am relatively certain that character wasn't holding any prismatics at the start, it has 130+ accumulated plus 900+ Monstrous) and 64 recipes from the GMs I've defeated. It isn't possible to say exactly how many Aethers cam from which GM, but if we average it to 2 per defeat, that would be 600+ monsters and 60+ recipes.

As I wrote in one of the merged threads, the most challenging element of the nuCouncil was when I was soloing the (IIRC) level 35-40 Warshade arc, and after grinding through the penultimate mission I got to one of the con+1 Archons who hulked(TM)-out and simply pwned me... I had no other enemies left to do most of the Warshade tricks! I did have to rely on inspirations and a Shivan to defeat it, yet at no point did I think the game was ruined by suddenly giving me a challenge in the middle of an ongoing story arc.

It is really easy to get the hero defeats, the Dakota Berg (Brickstown) part of Who Will Die? can have oodles of "named" heroes that count towards Hero defeats.... if you want to quickly unlock the Lord of the Mayhem missions (and don't mind side-switching). It is slightly more annoying to collect appropriate villain defeats without teaming up for some specific content (assuming that the team doesn't skip past the named villains who would count). At least by level 50 it is easy to re-run the PI Safeguard mission to get two villains from each instance. Back to the topic of the Council: By the time the game was sunset, per the Lore it made zero sense that the Council were so weak in content 35+. Per the lore of the game, they should have had common access to the sort of powers and abilities they just got on page 7. From my PoV it was an aberration that they were so pitiful and commonly available for players 45+. Of the original critter groups who "scale up" across multiple level ranges, they were obviously inferior.

I appreciate trying to add a meta-layer of personal enjoyment/challenge, but tying a reward (badge, whatever) to "never being defeated" has so many potential negatives from my PoV: A trivial (or nearly trivial) ability to get the badge through "sitting" (in AE or elsewhere) SO much potential for griefing and/or hard feelings (HAHA welcome to the PI league's team led by a level 6! or OOPS, didn't realize you'd all con at -10) Debt badges actually serve a purpose (red-side accolades)

Hero Safeguard's do allow you to face off against Lord Recluse as he robs a bank!

The radios/newspapers are the way to get Safeguard/Mayhem missions (modulo specific badge unlocks), and the Tip missions are a nice change of pace. They are not gutter content.

As with several other powers and/or slotting choices, I encourage testing "no brainer" choices... in the case of Auto powers... with unslotting some of those Health pieces to see if it makes a noticeable difference in performance.

I don't consider the IDF to be particularly tough; the most problematic thing about them is that so many of them don't move into melee combat. The IDF isn't a common enemy faction in radio missions, and IIRC they only appear as secondary spawns in level 40+ tip missions. At the end of Live, I would probably put Rularuu at or near the top as one of the most annoying groups to face at +4x8. EDIT: Upon reflection, I suppose the new Council remind me a little bit of the Animus Arcana, which can be quite annoying. I think it is possible for players to play the game without ever encountering those however. I liked that the Black Knights would regularly use Taunts, something that was added (or improved) for Crey.

I suppose it is worth noting that the attribute Enhancement values of a "triple" HO (at 50, or combined up) may still be better than a dual-attribute piece from another piece at level 50 (or boosted to +5). I agree that Fold Space probably ought to get Accuracy before Endurance Reduction.

I don't think the original post deserves a thumbs-down for the feels, but I disagree with everything in the OP. The Council was the preferred punching bag because they had mediocre controls, generally sub-standard resistances, and aside from from a couple of types that prefer to stand in place there was nothing about the AI behavior that made them especially annoying to face... they wouldn't teleport, phase, etc. The revamp has given the Council more than what most other factions have, but what they got is 100% in line with what I would expect 35+ level enemies to have... especially given the sort of Lore elements they are supposed to have access to. The only time I was annoyed (but ultimately pleasantly surprised) by the new Council was on soloing a Warshade. There was a final arc boss that became what I felt might have been a little too powerful for a solo Kheldian, but ultimately I treated it like a strategic challenge and dealt with it. I've noticed no real changes on PUGs with Moonfire or Hess. If players are looking for level 50 punching bags from radio/newspaper missions, there are still a couple of other factions that haven't been improved and can be pretty easy to mow down. Yes you might have to face *gasp* Malta Sappers or *double gasp* Illusionists, but my experience is that those groups fall quickly to certain damage types.

I have my tanker's Chain Induction 5-slotted with Hecatomb, plus a PVP %proc. IIRC Chain Induction creates a pet that 'lingers', so %procs shouldn't be a complete waste. Even though many of my builds utilize %damage, I consider it important to maximize a characters performance by leveraging set bonuses. Chain Induction straddles a somewhat arbitrary line for me because it's inherent recharge should be fine for a Very Rare %proc (4.5 PPM) but it is getting enough Recharge from the set slotting that the %proc chances for the 3.5 PPM pieces start to fall off. Since the PVP %damage pieces do inherently more damage than other (non-Very Rare) %damage, that is how I landed on my slotting choice. In the case of my build choices for that character, the sixth slot in Chain Induction happens to be the one that I would first move if I thought it would be better used elsewhere,

If a power cannot be slotted with a "common" IO of a particular attribute, than the portion of any Hami-O (or D-Sync) that would normally enhance that attribute is wasted in that power. In contrast: Most(*1) powers that can accept types of enhancement sets and the enhancement set contains a piece with enhances an attribute that could otherwise not be slotted with a common IO, will be enhanced. A commonly misunderstood slotting suggestion is that putting Hami-O Membranes (+Defense / +ToHit / Recharge) in a power like Mind Link will improve the Recharge times, it will not. The ToHit and Defense buffs will be enhanced. However slotting Adjusted Targeting's (a ToHit buff set) Recharge piece will enhance the recharge. (*1) Some powers, such as Rune of Protection, have been coded to ignore Recharge, so even though it can be slotted with Recharge pieces from Resistance sets, those won't improve recharge times.