megaericzero

What Overkill said - there's the underling rank; it just gets used sparingly. I could see incorporating additional underling versions of minions into special encounters on top of whatever's already regularly there to make them feel more horde-like.

Definitely yes to more factions for the lore pets, please. It's a great way to cope pretend substitute being a mastermind or high-ranking member/affiliate of an in-game faction.

Eyy, I remember Prima guides! I had the one that said "updated for Issue 1: Through the Looking Glass." The Tsoo takes up a good chunk of the enemies section... and the whole book. .__.

As does Gather Shadows, which snarky mentioned.

It's just my perception but Fighting is a tier (haha) above what Medicine and Presence get - it's the one I see get threads made more often, and with more people who don't hang out in S&I going out of their way to post about it, with a lot more unanimous clamoring for replacement/removal of both powers or the entry cost, yet with big, sweeping changes that go in a million different directions. Compared to that, I see less threads about Medicine or Presence and usually just number tweaks - remove interrupt time (Medicine), increase potency, increase range, increase area of effect, increase accuracy/autohit (Pacify/Provoke), or shuffle some of the power tiers around. There will always be calls for more power even if they got all of that. The issue is that melee attacks in pools, bar Air Superiority, are all pretty dead on arrival but any other pool has an alternative utility power to pick - Combat Jumping, Hasten, and Hover - while Boxing and Kick are redundant flavors of lousy. Don't get me wrong - the power tax should stay and I'll gladly pay it for Tough and Weave but, personally, Boxing and Kick are the only powers I will take yet actively remove from my tray. I'll put in a stray Pacify or Weaken Resolve during combat, or keep Grant Invisibility or Injection for teaming. Fighting Synergy is either terrible lip service or terrible sunk cost fallacy (or both) packaged as a buff. -- That said, I don't feel strongly about it overall. As I mentioned, I'll gladly take the power tax if it means Tough and Weave, and throw Boxing or Kick into the trash. I do agree, though, with people that feel Boxing and Kick - specifically Boxing and Kick - are pure tax while other pools at least let you pick a neat little cantrip in their prereqs if not something you actually want.

Just throwing out a random idea: maybe taking inspiration from Pokemon's Technician ability, which boosts the damage of attacks under a certain threshold? For instance, replacing Kick with an auto power that buffs the damage of melee attacks in the "minor" to "moderate" range. This would technically achieve what you're suggesting and also have some of that sweet accidental synergy with Parry/Divine Avalanche. Claws would become insane, though, so probably not; Bill Z Bubba would become [even more] unstoppable.

This is going to be wildly off-topic but... Personally, I prefer synergies that happen by chance rather than by design (or, at least, seem to be). I hold the Oil Slick Arrow + Howling Twilight mass rez back when Hami was being redesigned as the pinnacle example of pure genius in this regard. (Feel free to respond "but muh immersion!") Or in other videogames/TCGs where a card buffs some vague trait and a random card from a different box set has that trait for thematic reasons so gets the buff. Or how cast iron is compatible with induction cooking even though the former is "old world" and the latter is "cutting edge." Even just picking thematically-unmatched power sets to compliment each other, like having double damage auras via Spines or double consume with Dark Melee. -- Anyway, back on topic: Even without travel pools, the others' prereqs feel actually good out-of-the-box. Leadership: defense buff aura or damage buff aura that benefit the caster Medicine: ally heal or clear mind (which I didn't even realize was also made into a potential enemy debuff?) Presence: raise threat or lower threat - even if you just want Unrelenting, throwing out a random Pacify still has concrete utility compared to throwing out a random Boxing or Kick Concealment (before being considered a travel pool with the change to Infiltration): worse invis but can attack or give someone else stealth

It's not a radical assumption. The escaped prisoners hanging around in Brickstown only have a rock and pipe/knife/brawl as attacks. Not even a handgun until lieutenant rank, let alone any superhuman abilities - natural or otherwise. 😛

I would push back on the assertion about Air Superiority, specifically. It is a guaranteed knockdown attempt* on a baseline 4 second cooldown. In the low levels, when you're playing +0/x1 - where mobs are usually only 2 or 3 foes - it is effectively a permanent "sit the [heck] down" power on one of the enemies. * I say "guaranteed attempt" because it's 100% chance to occur but can still be resisted by mobs, as opposed to other powers that have a chance not to do their CC effect Granted, it's in a set whose main draw (Fly) no longer has a prerequisite cost and whose alternative prereq was already great (Hover). On the whole, I agree Boxing/Kick could do to feel like a better pick while remaining a prereq for Tough (and, by extension, Weave) without having to dip into the synergy. Don't count my boy Air Superiority out, though.

If I had to guess, Grandville wasn't done yet since it was a big marquee addition for Issue 7 (the issue after COV's release). Paragonwiki lists that Issue 1: Through the Looking Glass (which added Peregrine Island and the Rikti Crash Site) raised the hero level cap from 40 to 50 as well.

Ranged damage was lacking before origin pools but those have since added them. Presence's fear, placate, and (technically) taunt are forms of control. Air Superiority is also an incredible constant knockdown, especially good for low-level characters. EDIT: 3. double-up on your strengths - eg: Taunts on a tank, melee attacks on a scrapper, etc.

Weren't veteran levels already a reward for continuing to play the characters? Back on live, 50 was it. Veteran Levels come with both bragging rights and rewards up to 100 - badges, costume tokens, respec tokens, empyrians, and threads.

It would definitely be nice if Fake Nemeses PFF wasn't flagged as untouchable, even if it was replaced with MOG-level protection, at least on the non-EB/AV version.

Your contacts in KR should offer to introduce you to contacts in Skyway and Steel once you're in level range. Sometimes you'll have to check the wiki to know who is where.

With existing tools, I believe the game would have to put you into TF/flashback mode, which would lock you out of interacting with contacts/missions.

FWIW you can do it with your base by shoving the small tech teleport pad (singularity I think it's named) partway into the police box and attaching a teleport beacon to a different room. It even makes it look like the time vortex is leaking out of the doors. Plus there's a pulsing light in the FX tab you can stick on the top. (Reposting image from a different thread. I may similarly be posting from work so can't crop the image right now... 👀)

The OP suggestion of gating the rewards behind beating the mobs works best for encouraging (forcing) the behavior of cleaning up the spawns instead of ditching them. Capping their level or tethering them to their "summoner" does nothing to prevent them from bailing from the mobs or zoning to break the chain if the glowies still pay out immediately.

To expand on what Rudra said, Natural origin also states your abilities can be natural to your species. Peacebringers used to be origin-locked to Natural. Depends on how you see power set names. There's ambiguity that could've been intentional by the original dev team. For instance, does Fire Manipulation mean "I am manipulating fire" or "I am using fire to manipulate my foes"? Both fit what you're doing. The current dev team doesn't seem as keen on the wordplay, such as with Sonic Manipulation which we can infer isn't "I am manipulating Sonic" because, y'know, grammar.

So a Controller/Dominator? 😛 Well, depending on the set.

Reorder or not, perhaps also a color change to go with the severity? Login and desktop keep their respective orange and red colors; character select changed to a yellow hue instead.

It's been a very, very long time since I've seen the Warburg nuke animation(s). (I only really solo.) Do they drop a visible missile or something? If so, I can't speak for Alchemystic's idea about the suggestion. I'd assumed the thread premise was just generic blast from above like the Seismic Blast tier 9.

I'm guessing Warburg nukes have a "type on your wrist" animation and that's what's contentious about the animation? If so, it would seem assumable that we'd change the character's animation but keep the "death from above" particle effect that is the heart of Alch's suggestion.

I'm also curious how you'd differentiate a spear set from Staff Fighting, @temnix. Personally, I think a set like that would focus on a solid stance and simpler, more impactful moves that leverage the bladed end of the weapon. Thematically, sort of a midway between staff and Titan Weapons. Here's what that might look like.

While Alchemystic likens it to having a permanent Warburg nuke, I believe they're suggesting a regular judgment power with slightly different damage/debuff types for the cosmetic benefit of having a "nuke from orbit" animation, not a replacement/duplicate of the actual Warburg temporary powers. In which case, no, it wouldn't.

Unfortunately, this is what it looks like if you hack a second set of horns into a costume file where the beards go. Looks like the options do determine the attachment point. I'm not against the suggestion but it will take more work than just listing the same options in each others' slots.