Alchemystic

The Animate Stone model has a crystal FX theme like the other stone powers, one that looks pretty cool too.

And now heroes can't access Striga Isle the normal way because the situation has escalated... much like Galaxy City, Dark Astoria, Rikti War Zone and Siren's Call. And like I said before, the new Striga would have contacts, they would be villain ones that have new arcs on offer that would finally include more Council/5th Column alliances for villains to explore, and the inclusion of the UPA in more than just one storyline. Besides, you're acting like Paragon Studios didn't change an absolute HEAP of missions as part of advancing the narrative; the death of Statesman/Sister Psyche, the destruction of Galaxy City, even the old Rikti Crash Site had a lot of its old content shuffled around elsewhere or removed entirely. That's how games move forward, if you wanna get hung up over something as trivial as a mission entrance being moved, then I don't think you're gonna get much out of these kinda discussions.

Like I said, the missions would still take place in Striga, their doorway points would simply change. there are whole hero mission arcs that take place in places like the Rogue Isles or Praetoria (and now even Galaxy City) , but that doesn't mean your mission contacts are situated over there, does it? And making Striga an Echo takes away a big fat nothing. The badges are the same, the mobs are the same, the day job locations are the same, the only thing that's different? there's no contacts there.... they just get moved.

I know this was something of a controversial suggestion a while back, but... I had this idea to turn Striga Isle into a villain zone (and put the contacts/missions that were present there over in Talos, or over in Boomtown to increase the narrative drive over there too). This achieves two objectives that the original development team were looking into: - Revamping hazard zones with new purpose - The expansion of villain content/narrative It also reduces workload compared to creating an entire new zone: - Striga Isle would simply be renamed to 'Echo: Striga Isle' accessible only from ouroboros, no other changes required. - The new version of Striga Isle would be a direct copy of the old one, which is as simple as creating another instance of the same map (RWZ1, RWZ2, so on) - There would be no need for implementing new mob spawns, but mobs could be tweaked to contain more War Walkers and UPA troops. - Contacts would have to be moved, but considering that already happened with Galaxy and Dark Astoria, it isn't new, nor is it impossible. Considering that Striga Isle isn't actually part of Paragon City, and the story behind it being an operational base for The Council (and later the coalition with the UPA), it has potential to be reworked into a new villain zone. I imagine that a few arcs could be created in order for villains to explore the story behind the Council, 5th Column and UPA, and perhaps how the council is introducing praetorian technology and manpower to their ranks. If an Echo version of Striga Isle were to be created, there wouldn't really be anything lost hero-side either. Missions that take place in Striga still make sense, since it portrays heroes being deployed to the area to handle villain activity, but it would mean that any mission with doors in Striga would have to be moved to a boat, helicopter or submarine in Talos or Independence port (the previous access points). As for any 'Defeat All' missions that occur in Striga, they would likely be moved to another zone like Boomtown. It's a wacky idea that would mean people would have to adapt to a change, but change is good, especially when it concerns both hazard zones AND improving villain content.

I'd imagine even with Granite being a click-power people would still find a way to make it perma.

This is exactly the graphical mess that I imagine the devs wanted to avoid... yikes.

I think if you guys were looking for something a lot more natural for a control set, Trickery is one of the less tech-intensive sets I came up with. Trickery You are capable of employing tricks and traps in order to control your foes, subduing and misdirecting them with ease. - Immobilizing Dart: Taken from Ninja Training, this power works nicely as the immobilize power. - Choking Powder: Taken from Ninja Training, this power works nicely as the hold power. - Poison Caltrops: A modified version of Caltrops, this power has a chance to immobilize any enemy entering its patch. - Blinding Powder: Taken from Ninja Training, this power is a nice combination of debuff and confuse. - Smoke Flash: Taken from Ninja Training, however this ability grants stealth afterwards that lasts until your first hostile action just like 'Placate'. - Pyrotechnics: A modified version of the 'Firebomb' ability above, which instead deals low damage and stuns enemies, with an added FX similar to the 'Fireworks' aura. - Blast Shuriken: A modified version of Exploding Shuriken, which deals low smashing damage, but has a high chance to knockback and lower defense. - Choking Trap: A modified version of Poison Trap, which instead only has a chance to hold. The animation is the 'choke' hold instead of the 'vomit' hold. - Enenra: Pets are hard, but I think if there is a chance of creating a similar entity to 'Haunts' or 'Unseelies', though instead using the Toxic Vapor and Smoke auras as its main body. It would have access to the 'Char', 'Smoke' and 'Cinders' powers from Fire Control, as well as the Demonling/Hellfire Gargoyle version of 'Corruption'.

I think this plays wuite nicely with the 'two options' model for Granite Armor. Practiced Brawler works exactly as it does on any other archetype, which should be the case for (old) Granite Armor. Master Brawler is a different power choice, but when picked it gives additional functionality to the other powers in the set, much like how Fighting and Medicine does. With that in mind, I propose that if we do opt for the route where we keep Granite Armor, but offer a second choice for a T9, it should perhaps work as so; Ore Armor: Click: Self +Absorb, +DEF (melee, ranged, AoE) When you activate this power, you encase yourself in an armor made out of metallic ores and minerals, granting you increased defense and significant damage absorption. In addition, when selecting this power you gain additional secondary effects to some of your other Stone Armor powers. Rock Armor grants resistance to Knockback, Repel and Immobilize. Brimstone Armor grants defense to fire and cold damage, and resistance to hold. Crystal Armor grants resistance to energy and negative damage, and resistance to endurance drain. Minerals grants you resistance to disorient, sleep, fear, taunt and placate. When you select this power, you cannot also choose Granite Armor. (this power would by default have the visuals of Animate Stone and its three different FX themes)

I think the issue is that people are forced to use T9 powers regardless, so if that's the case, changing Granite Armor so its has less penalty than the other T9 powers is a good move.

I'm aware that the numbers are quite high, but I believe that's to compensate for the fact that the power disables so many other sources of defense/resistance. If Granite Armor was remade into a click power that didn't disable anything, those numbers would be changed so it lines up with other T9 powers, and measured accordingly when used with your other toggles. side note: having the powerset rely on a teammate with Kinetics to alleviate the debuffs is just poor game design, and reinforces the fact this powerset needs to be changed. Removing the slow and -damage aspect of Granite Armor would be a nice change , and I believe there were talks about the same treatment to Rooted.

I understand a change like this is likely to be unfavorable amongst some players, and I would like to preface it with a statement: This is just some theorycrafting over a development decision that has become a little outmoded, and what we can do to address that. Okay, so to keep it short, Granite Armor kinda sucks. Not because it has poor defense values, but because it invalidates a lot of the power picks you made along the way. I for one would love to play a Stone Armor character where I didn't have powers that were once useful being rendered into slot mules with no active role in my gameplay. Granite Armor feels disjointed from the rest of the powerset, and this may be down to the visual element of the powerset. The appearance of Granite armor is that of a huge devouring earth mob, which as you could probably tell, looks rather different to the stone textures from other powers. Having huge chunks of rock from the other powers in Stone Armor tend to look rather strange when placed on the Granite Armor model, which is likely why the original developers thought to make it disable those powers. So how do we address this? simple- we change the Granite Armor model. What to you might ask? Well I'm sure many people wouldn't like to part with the idea of turning into a giant stone monstrosity, which is why I propose using the three different models of Stone Golem available in the Animate Stone power of Earth Control (Standard/Lava/Crystal) and then scaling the model to be 2x or maybe 3x bigger to recreate the colossal nature of Granite Armor. Now we have a model that works well with the rest of the Stone Armor powers, so the restrictions to what powers can be active at the same time can be lifted... however! having all these powers at the same time now means that your defense/resistance values will go through the roof, so there has to be some sort of compromise in order to level things out: It would perhaps have to work as a click power like other T9 powers, with similar values and recharge time. Of course, this would mean the ability to go around with Granite Armor active indefinitely would be lost, but the overall value of the powersets other powers would increase. Hopefully with a Granite Armor model that compliments the rest of the powerset, and a few tweaks and changes to its functionality, the entire powerset can behave more in-line with the rest of the armor/aura powersets that it has been struggling to compete with. However, given that these changes can change the very dynamic of the powerset, I propose that the old and new Granite Armor abilities become separate powers if possible (much like Practiced Brawler/Master Brawler in the Sentinel version of Super-Reflexes) and restrict the player to picking which version they would rather have. I have heard that the Homecoming team said that they are trying to avoid this kind of mechanic in future powersets, but I think that this situation it would serve well as an 'old vs new' choice available to players. EDIT: Here is the proposed 'option 2' for the multiple choice T9 based off Practiced/Master Brawler. Ore Armor: Click: Self +Absorb, +DEF (melee, ranged, AoE)When you activate this power, you encase yourself in an armor made out of metallic ores and minerals, granting you increased defense and significant damage absorption. In addition, when selecting this power you gain additional secondary effects to some of your other Stone Armor powers. Rock Armor grants resistance to Knockback, Repel and Immobilize. Brimstone Armor grants defense to fire and cold damage, and resistance to hold. Crystal Armor grants resistance to energy and negative damage, and resistance to endurance drain. Minerals grants you resistance to disorient, sleep, fear, taunt and placate. When you select this power, you cannot also choose Granite Armor. (this power would by default have the visuals of Animate Stone and its three different FX themes)

first shock therapy, now crystal healing. Are we gonna see acupuncture next?

How arrogant.

Welcome to games with multiple playstyles, people will argue that their way of having fun is better than your way of having fun, that's just how it is.

Dunno which forum you're looking at.

Rebirth is that way ---->

@MunkiLord @Greycat I'm not saying that if you don't have purple IOs you're a casual, but if you admit you're only playing causally you won't really need them.

@MTeague Play casual games win casual prizes

If you're a casual gamer then why does having a build that requires purples even concern you? You can easily play the game on SOs if you aren't really going to invest in the bulk of the challenging content. If you wanted to play that kinda stuff then that's where you need to work on a build to engage it, just like in any other game. Sounds to me like you just want all of the rewards of playing the game... without actually playing the game.

The reason there are so few powers that grant resistance to recovery debuffs or endurance drain is because there are so few enemies that inflict recovery debuffs or endurance drain.

Unfortunately we're bound to the scope the spaghetti code allows for, so 'tedious' is as good as a challenge as we're gonna get.

I'm not against the idea of the unkillable/taunt functionality being kept in, I think its quite core to the power and sets it apart from a being a standard pet. The Phantoms were always intended to draw and manage aggro, but the damage output is what makes them problematic for Dominators, but everything else about the power is fine.

1) I never said that Dominator's Phantom Army should or shouldn't have taunt at any point 2) You're assuming that the context of 'early concept' strictly refers to hard development and not just potential ideas as I implied. 3) You're stating that an opinion a developer may have means that they're automatically making an argument and taking a side. If you don't want people to call you out on twisting or manipulating words, maybe stop twisting and manipulating words.

It was less of an argument and more of an early concept he offered up as context, you might want to mention that next time.

Sadly Illusion Control was identified as a problem powerset during the mass proliferation way back. Even powersets like Kinetics and Radiation Emission were problematic on Masterminds until they tweaked a few things. I imagine it will be the same for Illusion Dominators, something about it is going to have to change in order to maintain the standards of game health Homecoming operates on, and both developers and players agree that Phantom Army is the main reason its yet to be ported. Unlike other servers, ensuring the game retains a mostly balanced environment is one of the development priorities for Homecoming. Its why many of the radical changes and additions seen on other servers have yet to make their way here, because they're implemented without the same rigorous standards of testing and balancing as seen here.