dukedukes

If the designer wants a certain outcome and need to give resists to mobs for that outcome then so be it. It's not necessarily a perfect design but it doesn't have to be. You may be missing that the weaker mobs are not immune to repel, so you can group all the weaker mobs indefinitely which may allow your team to take out the stronger mobs easier. Granted I did this with Repulsion Field and not Hurricane, so Hurricane might not be able to do it. I tried this my first time on BAF with my repel character, me (troller) and a scrapper managed to hold things down for one particular spawn. Nothing super impressive, but the repel power made things easier for us. The other player I was with was having a blast apparently, they complimented me on the strat. Skill issue probably, I think it's good some powers are harder to use effectively. Maybe they just wanted a huge amount of -tohit though.

Thank you for giving me hope in this forum, you brought up great points. You're treating balance as nebulous here, really it's two different approaches: solo viability as a result of power creep (everyone does good damage and is tanky) vs AT identity (you excel at a specific thing). I only point this out because it's an unfair dismissal, the issue is created by the former approach while people are arguing for the latter, while both are 'balance'. A more balanced game toward improved AT identity and viability would arguably be a more interesting game in isolation, at least for people who like overcoming challenges. In reality though it's more complicated. The position it's too late to change anything doesn't stand the test of time given things do change. A common dismissal of balance changes brings up the most extreme example someone can think of to point to the balance change as being 'pointless'. You're kind of doing this here by bringing us back to the early days of balance and potential decision making. The topic is not asking for 2004 COH, they're asking for smaller changes that push things in a direction they view as fostering better gameplay. They're not asking for a complete overhaul. What I'm seeing the HC devs do in their approach is increase challenge with new content. Enemy revamps, new enemy types and mechanics. If enemies are more dangerous the AT roles become relevant again. We're going to see more changes in this direction and I think that's awesome, it's the best approach. You're right, nerfs aggravate people, and balance changes in this direction should be treated very carefully. Let's not forget though the hypothetical world where nerfs don't happen does not exist. We recall tankers were nerfed last patch? So nerfs happen. Devs have several tools to try to improve the gameplay and nerfs are one of those tools. Sometimes you can solve an issue with other tools but every now and then a nerf is what makes the most sense, unfortunately for some. You can disagree on the root issue of a nerf but arguing against nerfs as a tool is a lost cause.

A basic example: no barrier means you take more damage, which means you could die. You do no damage while dead. What follows is strategy to not die, like using a mez power, etc. This would bring more value to all roles and functions in the game as the OP said.

Grav is difficult to master for a few reasons, proper use of Wormhole is a big one. The general goal of Wormhole is to place a second pack of mobs on to the main pack of mobs your team is fighting. Why this is difficult: Assuming you're 50 with level shift fighting +4 (therefore +3 mobs) you can't Wormhole bosses. This means any Wormhole you do cannot pull the entire pack where you want them, so you split the pack into 2 groups. Your team wipes out the original pack plus the ones you Wormhole'd over, then they have to perform janitor duty to clean up the mobs you failed to TP. From my observation people do not like dealing with this, often just choosing to ignore the mobs. This situation is frequent and it heavily limits how useful Wormhole can be. To add insult to injury mobs that resist the TP do not resist the knockdown effect, slowing the pull down even more. If you're fighting +2 mobs or less Wormhole gets a lot more opportunities to be used. The goal I have with Wormhole is moving the entire pack of mobs. If I'm fighting +3 this means sometimes I simply won't use the power. My decision to use the power is mostly whether I believe I can successfully pull all the straggler mobs to the main pack before everything in the main pack dies. If your team has very high damage Wormhole is almost always bad to use. There's some exceptions, like if two packs are almost right next to each other and you don't expect a blaster to try to solo the 2nd pack then you can Wormhole them over. The bosses won't be terribly far behind. The strats I use to pull the straggler mobs are a few things: Slot a proc in Wormhole so the mobs aggro on to you. If you miss a mob or they resist the TP they will aggro on to you and run over when they can. Sometimes the proc isn't enough because some mobs were too far away, in these cases I'll hit them with a power so they aggro to me, then run them over to the main pack This is more advanced but I'll sometimes use Provoke and position myself so the taunted straggler mobs run straight into the main pack. If you don't do this the stragglers may attack at range for longer than the main pack will be alive If the stragglers are not bosses you can do a late Fold Space (<16 mobs remaining) to pull them in but it's a bit of a waste Kill stragglers yourself if they're minions/LT's and few in number I'll talk about Singularity now. This is your strongest power if used correctly, if you don't use it correctly you're like a bird without wings. The goal with Singularity is to tighten up a pack of mobs, sing has a 45ft trawl aura (most effective around <25ft, the pull gets stronger the closer the mob is), so the goal with proper use of sing is to place sing in the middle of a pack of mobs. You can do this with Teleport Target or the pet goto command. I can't stand the goto move AI so I almost always TP but kin could use goto commands reasonably well because speed boost makes sing really fast, so moving it around is less annoying than other secondaries. You also want to TP the pet ASAP because if other people start hitting the mobs they'll start flopping around from knock-up effects and the sing trawl aura does nothing if mobs are flopping. You want to jump into fights fast or even initiate pulls which means you need to be careful of your defenses. I know you didn't ask about this power but I know for a fact a majority of people do not understand how to use sing like this yet it's the strongest mechanic grav has, so I had to bring it up. A good grav is basically a play-maker, similar to tanks. They control what your team is fighting. Since you're not actually a tank you need to get a really good read on how your teams tanks are engaging fights, and what your other teammates will likely do when situations present themselves. If you Wormhole a pack away from a blaster nuke that wouldn't be good for example. This is why grav is so difficult to master, you need a strong understanding of what your team is likely to do, and what you need to do changes depending on your teammates, like if the team has good damage or not or you have teammates that like to split. As a kin you make your team do a lot of damage so you lessen the potential for good Wormhole opportunities. If you don't understand the nuance with playing a grav you can be more a hindrance than an asset to your team. You don't have to be the best, and people generally expect a bit of chaos with a grav on the team I think, it's fine to make mistakes so you learn from it and improve. I wrote a guide about grav/ff in this controller sub-forum if you want more grav information. It repeats a lot of what I just wrote but there's more I didn't mention. Both Wormhole and Singularity need KB->KD conversion.

Being rich is having an active and engaged global friend list, a tight knit supergroup that can support you on the darker days, and lots of influence... I'd say 1 bil, that's at least enough for 3 more alts.

Containment as an isolated mechanic is amazing, it's scrapper crit on roids. It falls flat because there's a better, maybe accidentally, alternative (procs). A single proc may do more damage than your power enhanced, it's kind of a clown show if you think about it as damage values on your powers become irrelevant for damage. I wonder how the devs feel about balancing sets with procs in consideration, personally I wouldn't be happy about it.

I agree, it seems haphazard that some categories get a ton of procs while others get very little. There is an argument for things like def debuff or slow receiving a needed boost from procs, if you look at blaster sets the sets with these secondary effects are generally weaker than say, fire, which gets very little procs, so it serves as a slight balancing mechanism. This is a bit of a narrow view though. For sure, there's still some good decision making even if you mostly fill everything up with procs. I wouldn't say it's very interesting but it's decent. Yes I don't think these AT's should ever be meta for these things unless their primary purpose becomes very useful for some content. I'm not a fan of these AT's leaning on procs in order to feel impactful. If they were ever hurt by proc changes their sets damage output should seriously be revisited in response. Controllers specifically have Containment which procs do not interact with at all yet you still see controllers lean on procs over a double damage mechanic... this smells very off to me. The magnitude procs are superior to other slotting options gets ridiculous fast for some powers. This is my biggest gripe, I want to make difficult decisions building a character. Ideally sets, procs, and special enhancements all offer something you want. With the meta mostly being damage output procs are too easy of a choice to make. The meta isn't the fault of procs necessarily, they're just the obvious solution to the meta, it's more a problem of power creep which is a bigger issue.

I've heard the devs want to change procs in some way, so I assume the community consensus is procs create some problems we could use some solutions for. I would like to present some problems I personally observe about damage procs and hear any you have, as well as discuss whether the problems are valid. I'd prefer to avoid discussing solutions, I'm more interested in what the community thinks are problematic about procs. I'll state that I do like damage procs existing but I recognize they are overused and create issues. Here's my list of observed problems and a basic justification: No diminishing returns Add a proc and you just get more damage linearly. Two damage enhancements receive DR/ED adjustments but six damage procs do not Can make a power meant to do a small amount of damage do a lot of damage This makes power sets do good damage by coincidence and is difficult to balance Benefit heavily from global recharge as it's ignored by the proc rate formula I know it used to use global recharge and was changed, but this is still a problem to me. The recharge downside is simply bypassed by global recharge. Problems related to power slot competition: Many set bonuses are weak while others are very strong Set bonuses could use more opportunities to be competitive with procs There is not much use in enhancing mez and other enhancement categories like range These are enhanced here and there, but I'd like to see it be more impactful to compete with procs "Meta" builds don't care about any enhancements other than damage as they're built like glass cannons This means barely any slot competition and lots of procs. This is a bigger issue than procs alone but it would be nice if meta builds had more competition for slotting. Barrier I think is a big reason for this.

If I see someone run ahead and solo a pack with confuse when the purpose of the team is to get xp it's not exactly a welcome sight. If confuse is used while the team is fighting the pack it's not a big deal at all, the non-linear xp falloff is forgiving enough.

Combat TP changed the game for me. Move to an enemy, a good pbaoe/cone location, a quick escape, map navigation here and there. Lots of creative uses. Grav control is my favourite set and has some game changers. Wormhole was mentioned but Singularity is the big one. Repel powers paired with Singularity is some next level stuff. I get comments nearly every time I play gravs so I think this resonates with people. It's a hard set to be great with though. Hasten, which is news to no one. It can enable a lot of things like perma-powers or better attack rotations. Taunt is amazing if used well. Good for grouping mobs as they will run closer to you, the distant enemies aren't hitting your squishy teammates as a bonus.

While the poison thread is bumped I will mention grav/poison/mace has become my favourite poison character (i have a 50 fire/poison corr and 41 def as well), but very much a late bloomer as set bonuses allow you to survive nearly any alpha. Jump into a pack while TP'ing singularity where you'll land, lay poison trap. You don't necessarily bring much damage directly though a ton indirectly. With sing grouping the mobs tight you get max value on your debuffs, holds, and damage as well as for your entire team. Easily one of my top characters.

Controllers mitigate danger, sort of like a tank but on a bigger scale. Treat every mission like you would a fire farm and I think you'll find a use for mez. Power creep has damaged standard pack to pack gameplay, we need something like 50 to 100 mobs for a challenge, with some caveats. Lower level gameplay sees many opportunities for mez use as well since most on the team lack the games biggest power creep mechanics. Don't invite any 50's and see how well you do.

Let's focus on results, if you want to amend something to the "Concerning this forum..." sticky we should come up with a strong piece of guidance that can help prevent the issues we see. The points you listed aren't quite strong enough to my eye because they get into grey areas: 1. Dev time mentions. This is a grey area issue because sometimes the community has enough expertise to identify an orange as an orange. If you want the entire game to be destructible it's just impossible due to the effort required. This can help the conversation go in a new direction that may actually be possible. There are absolutely cases where people overuse this argument, but how would you phrase guidance to discern between these two cases? Here's what I came up with: 2. We are not voting. Based on the way the sticky is written devs actually value activity for suggestions, which could include vote posts, they mention not responding to a post will implicitly devalue the suggestion as it receives less activity. You should argue against the specific content of the sticky if you feel strongly about this, or an amendment for not allowing the "i dislike this" posts. 3. Shooting down ideas is just not a thing. I feel like positive intent covers this. If you identify a conflict and tell OP the issue it shouldn't be interpreted as "shooting down", you just present a problem with or without a potential solution and see if OP can work their idea around it. You shouldn't have to bend over backward looking for solutions for someone elses idea just to bring up a problem. It's possible to raise criticism with positive intent. This is the kind of friction a sub-forum like this is necessarily going to have. Reading through the sticky I think it does a good job of setting the stage. I don't agree with the GM's interpretation of topic activity being important but it's a small gripe from me.

My visibility suggestion and GooglyMoogly's idea address the potential ideas we could be missing out on, that's all. It's not perfect. I don't know how you could foster more constructive conversation without an increase in moderation and more rules. Yes but it's unclear if using the existing hide option reaches the desired effect. If it does then we should have this in a sticky to increase awareness.

I agree, I think you would see people make topics mirroring the topics we can't respond to. My original suggestion for this was a mod only visibility setting for topics (like the hide option). Something is better than nothing though, so I'd be fine with the GM's idea.