Xaeon

Cysts and Void Seekers were cut as random encounters long, long before shutdown.

Meltdown was probably meant to be a testbed for a newer design philosophy for "click to godmode" T9s. A decent but not massively overkill click buff that while you can't make permanent recharge quickly enough to be available in a solid portion of the fights you get into with a very soft crash; almost unnoticeable actually since it expends endurance in a set that has plenty to spare. And IMHO Meltdown is a much better designed power than most of its counterparts. Cutting down the magnitude of the buffs the T9s give in exchange for having softer or negligible crashes would make them far more usable and easily placed into builds rather than basically a long form means of committing suicide. You almost never need a buff as extreme as Unstoppable or Power surge, especially not at high levels where you should be at or approaching caps in the most important areas. Those big meaty numbers end up being unnecessary overkill so you're essentially penalising yourself with a giant crash for negligible gain. While Tankers might not really need meltdown as they can reach their resistance caps for most things with radiation armour with some doing, it's a good option for brutes or if you're a bit antsy about having to sacrifice other set bonuses or procs you'd rather have in your build. Meanwhile I can't really remember the last time I've ever sat down and said "I wish I had unstoppable right now." Being basically worthless for a whole minute or more, or worse; worthless and on the verge of defeat from anything that so much as looks at you funny, is not fun gameplay, it's basically a time out where you have to stop playing. That's not good and there's a reason why modern game designers tend to avoid this sort of ability in games these days. Sure invuln tankers are probably still going to pass over unstoppable or power surge if you cut their numbers and made the crash much more pleasant/removed entirely (and honestly probably would pass them over even if they were at full power and had no crash since by level 50+3 they really don't need to spend a whole power slot on a temporary resistance buff), but it'd be more of an option for scrappers and brutes. It'd also fit into the later era powerset design philosophy of "ideally you should be taking every power in your primary and secondary" as Paragon Studios tried to do away with "skippable" powers in primary and secondary sets and instead worked to try and make every power in a set useful and good. Being generally speaking, less than fond of the idea of it being considered optimal to disregard a big chunk of what should be the character defining powersets of a toon in favour of pools. Using meltdown as a basis we can probably figure out the preferable new buff range for reworked T9s.

Important thing to note, Power Siphon is kind of weird compared to most other build up type powers in that you don't get the boost all at once but instead have to build up the +damage through acquiring stacks of power siphon while it's up to a maximum of five stacks. But if you're going for a KM brute this is nothing new to you and is basically Fury 2: 200% Mad. For maximum memes you could go for Shield Defense as well for against all odds to provide you with even further +damage reliant on how much fighting you're doing to take Furylocking to a parodic extreme.

KM is a solidly middle of the road and generally okay melee set. It's not as bad as Energy Melee, it's not as good as Titan Weapons. It's just alright. Try it out if you like. The ranged attacks its got aren't going to amaze you any time soon but they're better than say; Hurl. Try it if it interests you.

I'll be making a second psionic themed protection set cannibalising awakened powers that seem clearly intended to have been the basis of a protective set in the future.

Control Arrows: You utilise an array of specialist arrows designed to manipulate the battlefield, spread controlled chaos, and lock down large numbers of enemies at once. Design Intent: The vast majority of control sets do not really mesh well with non-alien natural character concepts, so this was created to try and alleviate that. Control Arrows draw a fair deal of inspiration from Tactical Arrow, and while Petless, it is hurtier than most other control sets. T1: Electrified Net Arrow (As Tactical Arrow) T2: Ice Arrow (As Tactical Arrow) T3: Concussive Arrow (Ranged, High Smashing Damage about 0.75 that of Propel's, Knockdown) T4: Hallucenogenic Arrow (Ranged, moderate Toxic DoT, Confusion) T5: Fear Gas Arrow (Targeted AoE, Minor Toxic DoT that does not awaken foes, foe fear) T6: Wide Net Electric Arrow (Targeted AoE, similar damage to Electrified Net Arrow but also hits about as many enemies as fireball) T7: Seismic Arrow (Targeted patch AoE, basically a reskin of Earthquake) T8: Cryogenic Arrow (AoE version of Ice Arrow, deals cold DoT) T9: Hallucenogen Dispersion Arrow (Targeted AoE, pulses Confusion and minor toxic Dot periodically until disappearing after 30 seconds) Riot Gun: You make use of a specialist fire arm that is well suited to disabling your enemies and rarely lets them stay on their feet. Design Intent: Well suited for police type characters, Riot Gun is basically a big ol' multi-tool shotgun that will make your enemies learn to find you the most obnoxious son of a bitch in the North Atlantic. T1: Taser Slug (Higher damaging than electrified net arrow, slower recharging) T2: Beanbag (As per Assault Rifle) T3: Slug (As per assault rifle) T4: Buckshot (As per Assault Rifle) T5: Beanbag Auto (Ranged, Cone, afflicts all enemies hit with a Beanbag) T6: Knock-Out Gas Grenade (AoE, minor toxic DoT, foe sleep) T7: Airburst Grenade (Targeted AoE, minor smash/lethal damage, knockdown, disorient) T8: 12 Gauge (As per critter power) T9: Taser-Auto (Ranged, Cone, afflicts all enemies hit with it with a taser slug) Support Gun: You utilise a gun whose various modules are designed to provide aid and support to your allies through diminishing your enemies' ability to fight and offering some aid to friendlies. Design Intent: This is kind of meant to be a jack of all trades support set that's split between debuffs, controls, and some ally support. T1: Web Grenade T2: Dart Shot (Toxic, Foe -Recharge, -Speed) T3: Flash Bang Grenade (Similar to Flash Arrow) T4: Glue Grenade (As per enemy power) T5: Multi-Dart Shot (Toxic Foe -Recharge, -Speed) T6: Smoke Grenade (As per Enemy Power) T7: Sonic Grenade (As per enemy power) T8: Incendiery Grenade (as per enemy power) T9: EM Grenade (Targeted AoE, Foe Hold, -End, -Regen, Special vs. Robots, Minor Energy Damage) Rifle Assault: You make use of a rifle as both a firearm and a club and spear in equal measure, assailing your enemies whether up close or from afar. Design Intent: This is meant to be a no frills assault set for natural themed dominators or people who wanna use a gun but also want to hit people with it. T1: Single Shot (As per Soldier of Arachnos) T2: Pummel (As per Soldier of Arachnos) T3: Burst (As per Soldier of Arachnos) T4: Bayonet (As per Soldier of Arachnos) T5: Heavy Burst (As per Soldier of Arachnos) T6: Heavy Swing (Melee Cone, Moderate DMG(Smash), Knockdown) T7: Bayonet Impalement (Melee, Extreme Lethal Damage, High Lethal DoT, Chance to Hold) T8: Sniper Rifle (As per Assault rifle) T9: Full Auto (As per Assault Rifle) Tactical Gun: You make use of your gun as both a tool of control and as a weapon in close quarters combat and display considerable marksmanship. Design Intent: Why let archers have all the fun? T1: Taser Slug T2: Pummel T3: Bayonet T4: Marksmanship (Self +Damage, +To Hit, +Recharge) T5: Knock-Out Gas Grenade T6: Heavy Swing T7: Conditioning (+Regeneration, +Max Endurance, +Max Recovery, +Max Health) T8: 12 Gauge T9: Bayonet Impalement (Melee, Extreme Lethal Damage, High Lethal DoT, Chance to Hold)

Mkay so how do you plan on coding all this and expanding the servers to fit not just one shard; but at least three for each timeline? (A PvP, a PvE, and a Role Playing server) Without breaking the bank and stretching the dev team's manpower? Unofficial volunteers can do a lot; as has been seen in many modding communities where huge volunteer teams basically tear a game apart and build something much more expansive than the original developers ever imagined the game could be while taking them in directions said devs never figured the engine could be used for; but right now we don't have Hearts of Iron IV: The New Order or Red Alert 2: Almost Perfect Yuri's Revenge: Mental Omega sized volunteer teams (the former mod has a dev team literally ten times larger than the actual base game's professional team). And if we ever did get teams with that much manpower I'd rather they focus on building on a single timeline.

Blasters. The intention was: MM = Tank Brute = Scrapper Stalker = Blaster Corr = Def Dom = Controller At least as far as their primary role within a team goes. Also, the only brutes I have that take taunt are Stoners, or if the concept calls for it. Or if at level 50 I have a spare power pick but no spare slots. >.> The devs only revealed that they initially invisioned MMs as tanks during the conceptual phase of CoV when they introduced the body guard mode for masterminds before later abandoning the concept in favour of giving brutes more aggro management and stripping out aggro management from the alpha concept of masterminds as something that MMs almost never willingly did for the team. Now days, masterminds are durable if built right but unless you take provocation (which very few people do because it's garbage) your mastermind is incapable of truly being a tank. And even with that, if a brute or tanker so much as sneezes on the enemy mobs they pull the attentions of the enemy mobs away from the mastermind and their pets. This is further solidified by Brutes sharing Ancillary pools with Tankers and Scrappers sharing ancillary pools with Stalkers; further solidifying the idea that they are equivalent. Let's not repeat a tired meme based around a concept abandoned before CoV even reached beta.

Wot necessarily; there is the path Warframe took which has no lootboxes nor pay to win.

I want Nemesis invasions yo.

Make destroyed galaxy city a new incarnate zone with another incarnate story line about fighting evil space jell-o. :U

Hey it's enough inf to buy half of a purple on live, maybe even a whole one!

Which psi-melee? I made three. :P

Superman is a Invuln/SS tanker who builds a lot for psionic resistance, takes flight as his travel power pool, energy mastery for his ancillary, and cryonic judgement as his judgement. Easy enough. Wonder Woman can either be an StJ/Invulnerability scrapper or a Broadsword/Shield scrapper (or perhaps a tanker, she is incredibly tough) depending on the time period. She uses either mighty judgement or ionic judgement depending on the era. Batman is kind of tricky but I'd go for Street Justice/Willpower scrapper/stalker (or alternatively; A Street Justice/Ninjitsu Scrapper/Stalker) with the never released utility belt origin pool (obviously) and weapon mastery as his ancillary pool. On the Marvel side of things: Iron man is...very difficult because he does a million different things. You could argue for dozens of different AT and powerset combos and its made even worse by his exact powerset changing as he upgrades his armours or when he pulls out his specialist armours. The traditional answer is an Energy Blast Sentinel with your choice of resilience powers who also takes a lot of melee pool powers but I've seen many argue for a human form PB as well. The Hulkbuster is just straight up an Invuln/SS tanker though. Thor is comparatively very easy: an invulnerability/war mace tanker (or perhaps brute; little known fact but Thor can fly into berserker rages that increase his strength massively) who takes Mu mastery, flight as his travel pool (though one could argue for sorcery instead as he can do stuff like teleport, shoot energy blasts, and cast protective spells with his hammer) and uses ionic judgement. You might argue for electric armour instead of invulnerability but Thor was the first "Marvel's superman" so I feel that invulnerability works better. Stormbreaker Thor probably uses Titan Weapons due to the size of the weapon and how he usually swings it two handed. Captain America is a Street Justice/Shield Defense Scrapper, maybe a Tanker; but in either case he's someone who dips very heavily into the leadership pool and takes free running from utility belt. If you do not take every leadership power with a captain america homage you are hereby declared to be doing it wrong. Other popular characters: Spider-Man is to me; a martial arts/super reflexes tanker that makes use of utility belt and some mace mastery powers for the controls. Why tanker and not scrapper? Spider-Man's super reflexes are a step above most other fast people because he not only moves and reacts faster, he has an early warning system that lets him start reacting before you even start moving. Not only that but he's very, very good at taunting people. Dude probably six slots taunt. Flash: Flash is kind of difficult because CoX has self admittedly never really represented how speedsters fight very well, though to be fair video games as a whole have long struggled with superspeed in 3D movement environments. The stereotypical answer is kinetic melee/super reflexes scrapper yet Kinetic Melee doesn't really feel fast enough and its tai chi style movements don't really fit how flash actually fights. I'd roll him into the "not really possible to represent adequetely in CoX" category. But I'm open to ideas. Hulk: I'm going to be controversial and say that Hulk is actually a Super Strength/Willpower Brute, not an Invulnerability Brute. Hulk's durability in terms of how hard he is to hurt is actually rather middling in Marvel. Thor is far harder to cut or bruise than he is; nevermind someone like Juggernaut. What keeps Hulk going is that his healing factor is ridiculous. Willpower's "if it doesn't kill you in one go it's not killing you ever" even fits with how to beat the Hulk. The way to beat the Hulk without "cheating" is traditionally to floor him with Alpha Strikes that K.O him before he gets angry enough to become strong enough to win the fight. He's also probably someone who builds for multi-stack rage but has the ability to ignore the crash. He also obviously takes super jump and mighty jugement, probably fighting too. Green Lantern: Not gonna lie, this one's kind of tricky. The traditional answer is energy/energy blaster or human form PB but we all know that's not really the most satisfying way to represent the versatility of the Green Lanterns. Other alternatives include force field/energy defenders (or the reverse for corruptors), but it'll never quite feel as versatile as the Green Lantern should be. Doctor Strange/Fate: Doctor Strange and Fate like most comic book wizards simply do too many things at once and are too powerful (it is not a joke to say that Doctor Strange and Fate are more powerful than the rest of the Avengers/Justice League combined and its not even close) to be adequetely contained in the AT system and probably would have needed the planned future "multiple incarnates per slot" endgame thing they were going to do once we got past the Omega slot to get even close to how versatile they are. Thanos: Endgame Thanos is probably best represented as an invulnerability/titan weapons tanker. He's stupid durable, his sword hits harder than any other weapon we've seen in the MCU besides maybe Stormbreaker and he can get it going fast once he gets going. You can slot pool powers to taste as well. Aquaman: Staff Fighting and honestly your choice of secondaries, probably a scrapper or maybe a brute. While he does have hydrokinetic powers, he primarily dusts it up in melee when he actually fights. I'd go for invulnerability or willpower myself but I can see arguments for others. Captain marvel: Human Form Peacebringer. Like look in a dictionary for "human form peacebringer" and it will literally just be a picture of Carol Danvers. Shazam: I'd say Invuln/SS tanker with Mu mastery and Ionic judgement myself but I can hear arguments for him being an Elec/Elec Tanker with Mu Mastery and Ionic Judgement; but electricity is a rather secondary component of his powerset. Black Panther: Savage Melee/Invulnerability Brute. As his claws are on his fingers and he fights in a very fluid and mobile way I think savage melee fits better than claws does any day. Invulnerability is rather obvious as thanks to the force absorbtion capabilities of Vibranium it's very hard to make T'Challa so much as flinch from most attacks. One could make an argument for radiation but its a bit too visually busy for my tastes. His vibranium armour's ability to release its stored energy in a pulse can be represented by any judgement of your choosing. Black Canary: Literally just a Sonic Blast/Martial Combat Blaster. Hawkeye/Green Arrow: Trick Arrow/Archery Defender? Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor? Archery/Tactical Arrow blaster? Archery/Martial Combat Blaster? Archery/Ninja Training Blaster? Whatever man the two have done a wide variety of things throughout the years, pick whichever fits you. Though I'd say that an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster who dips heavily into the fighting pool and took utility belt is probably the best fit for their "standard" fighting style. The Lizard: I'd probably go for a Savage Melee/Bio Armour Brute for Connors, Connors heals dummy quick, fights like an absolute savage, is one of the most resilient spider-man villains even without his healing factor, and is generally much stronger than Spider-Man is. Ares (DC but also kind of applies to marvel): Ares is probably a brute and is also probably whichever weapon combo you want to pair with invulnerability. He's the god of war and an instant expert with any weapon you put in his hands; go nuts. I'd probably also take fighting, sorcery, and vorpal judgement with him too. Doctor Doom: Hoo boy, Doom is shall we say, someone who you could argue to have literally every power set and AT in the game all at once through his combination of magic and technology. He's in the same boat of being too versatile for CoX's AT system to handle as Doctor Strange and Fate. Bane: I'd probably go for either super strength or street justice for everyone's favourite evil luchadore and then your choice of willpower, regeneration, or invulnerability and then make him a brute. However Bane is a very cunning man and an able leader of mercenaries, so he likely has leadership and I think free running + sprint about covers his movement capabilities. He definitely also takes fighting for tough and weave. Note that just how "super" bane is depends on the era and writer. Sometimes he's simply comic book peak human for someone of his size and physique (which is to say, very definitely super-human) other times he can bench press and throw a semi-truck.

>Levelling up costumes. AAaaaaAAAaaAAAAAAAAAAHHHhhhHHHHHHHH

Psi-Blade: You generate blades of psionic force with your mind, carving through your enemies and proving deadly to large numbers of foes who must be wary of your vicious sweeps. Design Intent: The awakened have enough psychic themed melee powers unique to themselves that could; when combined with psionic melee; create a distinct set themed entirely around the creation of psychic weaponry. This is mostly meant for cool factor and aesthetic than anything else. I'm still not sure on a special mechanic, this is more made out of my love for psions. T1: Psionic Cut (Melee, Minor DMG (Psionic/Lethal), Minor DoT (Lethal), -Rech(Foe) T2: Psi-Blade (Melee, Moderate DMG(Psionic/Lethal), Foe -Rech) T3: Psionic Slash (Melee (Cone), Moderate DMG (Psionic), Minor DoT (Lethal), -Regen(Foe), -DMG(Foe, All)) T4: Concentration T5: Psi-Blade Sweep (Melee (Cone), High DMG(Psionic/Lethal), Foe Disorient, -Rech; ) T6: Taunt T7: Whirling Slash (PBAoE, Moderate DMG(Psionic, Lethal), -Rech; ) T8: Greater Psi-Blade (Melee, Superior DMG(Psionic/Lethal), Foe -Rech, Hold;) T9: Psychic Zweihander (Melee (Long Cone), High DMG (Psionic/Lethal), Minor DoT (Psionic/Lethal), -Speed (Foe, All), Chance for Disorient (Foe)) ( makes a VERY LOOOONG psi blade that you slice across the cone) Scrappers/Stalkers replace Psionic Cut with psionic thrust which deals more damage but recharges more slowly. Stalkers replace psi-blade sweep with Assassin's strike. Telekinetic Melee: You meld melee combat with your telekinetic might to create a deadly fighting style that can strike foes from afar or crush them to pulp up close, all while refusing to let them stay on their feet. Design Intent: This one is instead based more on mental manipulation/psionic assault and the "telekinetic fist" animations used in psionic melee, compared to Psi-Blade it's more suited to soft controls. Still thinking on a special mechanic. T1: Mental Strike (Melee, Light DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe -Rech) T2: Telekinetic Thrust (Melee, Minor DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe Knockback T3: Telekinetic Blow (Melee, High DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe Knock Up,) T4: Concentration T5: Telekinetic Lift (Ranged, Moderate DMG (Psionic/Smashing), Knockup(Foe), creates a Telekinetic Fist SFX that slams the poor sod up) T6: Taunt T7: Remote Fist (Ranged AoE, Moderate DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe Knockback, creates a Telekinetic Fist SFX that flies at the target from across the room to punch them and everyone near them in the face) T8: Telekinetic barrage (Melee, Cone, Superior DMG(Psionic/Smash), Foe Knock Down; uses shadow maul animation with a rapid barrage of mental strike/telekinetic blow fist SFXes) T9: Mass levitate (PBAoE, High DMG(Smash), Foe Knock Up) Mental Melee: You make use of your telepathy in close quarters to viciously assail the minds of your foes, peeling away at their sanity and mental defenses with injuries both real and imagined. Design Intent: This rounds out the psionic damage themed melee sets with a set mostly built around telepathic themed attacks. Also incorporates the illusory damage mechanic due to the "your mind makes it real" nature of the attacks. All attacks have lower than normal "real" damage scalars but have bonus illusory damage that puts them at above average damage if you can put the enemy down fast enough. Boggle also works more effectively against enemies who are currently tagged with illusory damage, having a higher magnitude as their minds struggle with what is real or not. T1: Psionic Break (Melee, Minor DMG (Psionic), DoT (Lethal), -Regen) T2: Mind Probe (Melee, Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe -Recharge) T3: Psychic Roar (Melee, Minor DMG (Psionic), Terror) T4: Concentration T5: Frazzle (Melee (Cone), Moderate Dam(Lethal), Foe -DEF) T6: Taunt T7: Boggle T8: Psychic Scream (Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Psionic), Foe -Recharge) T9: Psychic Shockwave (PBAoE, High DMG(Psionic), Foe Disorient, -Recharge) Single Handed Spear: You make use of a spear, lance, or similar stabbing implement to strike your foes from afar with quick if low damaging attacks that cost little in the way of endurance. Design intent: The spear is the single most common melee weapon in human history; outstripping swords, maces, hammers, axes, and every other kind of pole arm combined. And yet it's so unrepresented in CoX that Valkyrie who gets her powers from a spear doesn't even really use it in battle. Staff Fighting is there yes, but it's not used at all the way you'd use a spear, and it's held in a two handed fashion. Also, there are to my knowledge, no melee sets that are focused on having reach (melee typed attacks with range). T1: Stab (Melee, reach, Minor Damage (Lethal), Minor DoT (lethal), foe -speed) T2: Thrust (Melee, reach, Moderate Damage (lethal), Minor DoT (lethal) foe -speed) T3: Swipe (Melee, Cone, reach, Moderate damage (lethal/smashing) chance for foe knockdown) T4: Build-Up T5: Forest of Spears (Melee, Cone, reach, moderate damage (lethal), minor DoT (lethal), self +def) T6: Taunt T7: Hurl Javelin (Range, High damage (lethal), moderate DoT (lethal), foe -speed, foe -def) T8: Impaling Stab (Melee, Reach, Superior Damage (lethal), Superior DoT (lethal), chance for hold, foe -def) T9: Overwhelming Thrust (Melee, Reach, Cone Extreme Damage (lethal/smashing), extreme DoT (lethal), high knockback) Water Armour: You control the power of liquids to guard you against incoming attacks, providing you with substantial absorbtion, regeneration, and a decent amount of defense and resistance; with excellent protection against fire damage in particular. You must be wary of energy attacks however, due to the conductivity of water. Design Intent: I was largely inspired by seeing in the AMAs that the devs planned a water armour set to come some time soon (perhaps I26 or so) and went "wow that sounds like it'd be goofy as hell. I love it" I then thought about how water would actually go about protecting you from injuries and thought "absorbtion seems like it'd be a big deal as you draw up water from the surrounding area to soak up big blows that scatter some of your water shield away; requiring you to build up more of it." Water is also often associated with life, hence the Regeneration component. The energy hole is there because; as anyone who's played Pokemon knows, Water types are hard countered by Electric types. :P The powers are designed to be rather deliberately tricky to build as you have to choose whether you want more of one thing or the other in them. T1: Water Bubble (Toggle for pulses of +absorbtion and a regeneration bonus and the following resistances at tanker scaling: Smashing: 15, Lethal: 10, Fire: 20, Cold: 15, Energy 7.5, Negative 10, Toxic 15, Psionic 12.5) T2: Condensation (Click for a +absorbtion and moderate self heal proc) T3: Waters of Life (Gamma boost styled +recovery and +regeneration passive) T4: Watery Shields (Mez protections, +Typed defense with the following values at tanker scaling: Smashing: 10, Lethal: 5. Fire: 15. Cold: 10. Energy: 5. Negative: 7.5. Psionic: 10.) T5: Dessicating Aura (Toggle for Aura that afflicts enemies with a recovery and regeneration penalty and gives you pulses of +absorb for every enemy in range every ten or so seconds.) T6: Water Tanker (Passive for +Maximum Hitpoints and +Maximum endurance) T7: Aquatic Might (Passive that gives typed defense and resistances at the following values: Smashing: 5, Lethal 2.5, Fire: 10, Cold 5, Energy 2.5, Negative 2.5, Toxic 5, Psionic 5 resistance. Defenses: Smashing: 2.5, Lethal 2. Fire: 5. Cold: 2.5, Energy 1.5, Negative 2, Psionic 2.5) T8: Surf's Up (Targeted PBAoE, About 80% of the damage dealt by shield charge, but enemies have a chance of being held as they're left choking and drowning; does Cold/Smashing damage.) T9: Rainfall (Self resurrection that gives you substantially increased regeneration and recovery for thirty seconds and gives enemies -to hit penalties.)

Bruh professional games with large cash flows often go for a few months without major patches.

Just redesign all the T9s to be scaled to about where meltdown is. Less overkill buffs in exchange for far less serious/outright ignorable in the case of Meltdown crashes.

Brutes are the "mario" of melee ATs. They can do either DPS or tanking pretty well without being top class at either. They harken back to an earlier phase of MMO class design (along with Corruptors and Dominators) when the trinity was Support, Tank, Control with everyone also supposed to being able to do DPS (which was phased out in later MMOs for Healing, Tank, DPS later because many devs found buffing/debuffing and crowd control too hard for them to balance and wanted classes to be more laser focused) as opposed to the more interdependent blueside ATs. This is why Brutes are generally preferred over tankers for soloing as tankers can feel slow at clearing out mission maps while Brutes are basically always running with at 100% extra damage since you can get to 50% fury by just existing (something I dislike. Fury at once is too easy to get and lose, and yet doesn't really feel as impactful as it should be. It's a mechanic that's supposed to be "the madder Hulk gets, the stronger he gets!" and yet practically you're basically always running at 50-75% so it's just a taken for granted 100-150% extra damage which is...boring) and if things are getting really interesting you can push up to 150 or even 200% extra damage. In team games, Tankers are of course better than Scrappers and Brutes at aggro management (when was the last time you saw a scrapper with Confront as anything but a set mule?) and when buffs aren't in play; at survivability. And while tanker damage is worst in class for melee ATs, it's still not bad damage at all. Melee powers tend to have superior stats to ranged powers as compensation for not being able to fight at a safe distance, and Tankers still get 0.8 melee damage scaling, which is superior damage scaling to defenders, corruptors, and controllers (though corruptors and controllers have bonus damage mechanics) and a Tank should be perfectly able to defeat things. Of course at lategame and when buffs are involved that see people having way more stats capped than they'd ever be able to do themselves and when Scrappers and Brutes are running auras that let them pull aggro by just being around; that's more when Tankers start feeling less special.

I'm pretty sure its a case of SCORE changing the way the power worked but forgetting to change the description text.

Nobody picks defensive T9s that aren't meltdown (which is essentially crashless), parasitic aura (which isn't a "press 9 to godmode and then die"), granite armour (which is a toggle), rise of the phoenix (a self res), or soul transfer (a self res) outside of PVP or bad meme builds. Unstoppable style protective T9s are generally terrible; Paragon Studios itself noticed how almost nobody was picking T9s with massive crashes like Elude or Unstoppable and decided that in the future; new protective sets would come with much less punishing crashes in exchange for not quite as extreme buffs that nobody ever really needed in the IO set bonus era anyway. :U As for being able to ignore the defense crash being a bug, it was initially an unintended function of the code that as long as you had another instance of a clicky running you avoided any crash associated with it; and they did indeed patch out avoiding the damage crash; but they intentionally left the ability to ignore the defensive crash in the code despite being able to remove it at any time as per the word of Castle. They did the testing and ran the feedback with the community and found no reason to remove the "bug" and instead incorporated it as a feature. The removal of the feature was an unintended consequence of SCORE cleaning up some of Paragon Studios' messy code that was causing glitches with other click buff powers; not an intentionally directed nerf of a set that's mostly just solidly adequete outside of AE farming.

That is absurd Are you implying that a Lightning Rod, Shield Charge, Spring attack wombo combo is not the stealthiest means to assassinate someone known to man?

It works fine for what it is but Energy Aura is just flat "the cooler Ice Armour".

When rage ends, you lose 20% off of your defense, which is terrible because that absolutely pushes you below the softcap of 45% and increases the amount of times you get hit massively. You might be used to only being hit once every 20 attacks, but after rage ends you're now being hit once every four attacks which is a massive spike in the damage you take. Resistance instead relies on reducing the amount of harm attacks that land deal (while regeneration recovers lost health and absorbtion basically gives you more health), and if you're at the 90% Brute/Tanker resistance cap to the incoming damage type you don't really care about losing defence because you weren't relying on it to protect you anyway and the extra hits barely damage you anyway. Shield however, is first and foremost a positional defense set with some resistance and a boost to your maximum hitpoints. Losing that defence cripples your survivability and while it's not quite as screwed as say; Super Reflexes; it's still painful and can very frequently result in eating the floor.

If we're playing that game, the faux-medieval european fantasy genre is dying in video games. People hate Bethesda so much and have largely grown wise to how stagnant Bethesda is as a developer that they've turned TES VI into a scornful meme and TES VI is expected to finally break the trend of each TES game outselling the last by leaps and bounds, World of Warcraft has been withering for years and is down to only 1.6 million subscribers, dark souls is a concluded trilogy, CDPR is moving onto other things after the Witcher, and nobody is expecting good things out of Bioware for Dragon Age IV after so many disappointments in a row. The genre's not quite dead yet, but it's on life support and while Japanese fantasy series like the Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, and Final Fantasy are doing okay; the sword and sorcery RPG seems to have seen the sun set on it forever. What is popular? Stuff with guns, people love shooty shooty bang bang settings with dakka galore. Post-apocalyptia, scifi, technothrillers, space fantasy, modern fantasy etc; medieval fantasy is almost quaint and passe and the genre as a whole is often scornfully mocked as dated and goofy compared to the kinds of settings used in shooters. Even in the RPG genre; aesthetics that allowo for the usage of guns are increasingly crowding out swords and sorcery. CDPR is moving onto Cyberpunk, Bethesda's heavy into fallout and is moving into space with Starfield, Obsidian is going for the space western and so on so forth. I expect swords and sorcery fantasy to largely disappear from the triple A space in the 2020s and most future RPGs to move onto shooter rather than melee focused gameplay to follow the zeitgeist.