ForeverLaxx

Honestly, as boring as the Warriors are on the surface, they fill an important role in the world. There are street gangs at every level, and obviously there has to be a hierarchy to them or they all just end up like the Skulls and Hellions: constantly battling each other for turf instead of getting actual "work" done. While the Skulls and Hellions fight for petty turf in the zones most populated by heroes, and the Family is content peddling drugs to make weaker groups/gangs dependent on them, the Warriors deal in illegal artifact trading which has them come into contact with extremely powerful objects on a daily basis. Unlike the Family, which use their own drug to boost themselves (albeit in the more pure form), Warriors have a level of honor and integrity to them that other street gangs don't. They value natural physical performance before anything else and prefer to keep things up close and personal when fighting Supers. The fact that they're the higher-level gang enemy shows just how powerful training your body to the extreme can be, especially since the actual "super powered" gangs (Skulls/Hellions) wallow under the heel of newbie heroes. Now, why more of the higher ranked Warriors don't then "augment" themselves with the artifacts they steal more often always confused me. I get their desire to be the best relying only on their own strength, but that can be converted into a proving ritual of sorts. Once you're as strong as you're likely to get, and prove yourself in some manner, you're bequeathed an artifact to cement your place.

I'd say it's an issue a Blaster can even get close to an "unkillable" state considering their design, but there are caveats to that level of personal defense; mostly that it's Defense without any DDR to go along with it and is prone to cascade failure. You also have to sort of bend your build in circles to get to that point and you're essentially forced to pick up Scorpion Shield and other +Defense powers/Tough for set muling which restricts build options pretty severely. While Scrappers/Brutes/Tanks/Stalkers (to a lesser degree) don't have to do this as they have an entire powerset for personal defense and deal good damage baseline. Set bonuses for +Damage are very weak, but that applies to the Blaster as well and it's pretty simple to have enough bonus accuracy via set bonuses and enough damage through slotting sets/procs that it's pretty clear melee ATs don't have to give up nearly as much build diversity to do with IOs what a Blaster must do in order to compete. That said, this is mostly only relevant when solo. Blasters still do more damage despite all that. When teaming, having allies around shores up the potential pitfalls of stacking a bunch of S/L/E or Ranged Defense with zero DDR so it's not all cut and dry.

When slotting for recovery, keep this in mind: Panacea Proc > Performance Shifter Proc = Miracle Unique > 50 Standard IO > Numina Unique = Standard SO Also, it's important to know that the Shifter Proc and Panacea Proc are, obviously, procs that grant you endurance and don't work like a +recovery boost. Yes, you can think of them over time as bonus recovery, and that hierarchy above is made with that in mind, but because of their "infusion of endurance" nature, you can use them to recover endurance even in situations where you've been hit with -recovery or other end drains, such as against Sappers. It may just be enough to keep your toggles active, but it's better than being stuck at 0 with no armors. If you're trying to be frugal with slots and aren't looking at set bonuses yet, it's a good idea to 2-slot Health and 1-slot Stamina. Use both slots in Health for the Panacea Proc and Miracle Unique, and use the base slot in Stamina for the Performance Shifter Proc. This gives you more effective recovery than a traditional 3-slot Stamina and even saves you a slot. If you want another slot, the Numina Unique is technically a smidge better than a Standard SO (or 25-30 Standard IO) but not enough to worry about. You can instead use another slot in Stamina for a Standard IO that's at least SO-level in strength, or put in the End Mod set piece from Performance Shifter for a "free" movement speed set bonus. One minor wrinkle that adjusts where the Standard IO/SO ends up is the power in question. The guideline is in reference to Stamina as everyone gets that power, but if you have other auto/toggle recovery like the Blaster sustain powers, Quick Recovery, or Physical Perfection, the value of a Standard IO/SO can go up or down depending on the base bonus of the power. Stamina and Quick Recovery are close enough in strength that the general rule more or less holds out. Physical Perfection, however, is very weak in comparison and it's never worth slotting End Mod into it if you haven't put a Numina Unique somewhere first. The Blaster sustain powers, if they're still set to 50% additional recovery, are strong enough to cause a Standard IO/SO to outperform even the Performance Shifter Proc.

There's that trademark deflection I've come to expect. That's not what's happening here and you know it. You're just convinced that things would have remained "as they were on Beta" for the rest of the game's life based solely on your own desire and extremely limited information. Once again, deflecting the issue. Know this: it doesn't matter what you, I, Galaxy Brain, or Synapse thinks -- the current devs feel there's an issue and the current devs have expressed interest in re-visiting procs at some future date. This fact is all that matters. I don't have to like it, you don't have to like it, even Synapse doesn't have to like it. When the time comes and the current devs put changes into the system that you don't like, maybe then you can walk around with your carved stone, declaring that it be Synapse's Will things remain as they are. I don't suspect you'll get very far, but that's the time to play prophet. Amongst us rabble, you're just grasping at a set of different straws than the rest of us. And with that, I've ended my debate with you on this topic. What you pass for "witty quips" I only see as blind arrogance and perceived authority on a subject you know nothing more about than the rest of us. I don't entertain those types for long and I've reached my limit at this juncture.

That's because Damage Resistance already resists -Resist debuffs. They don't need extra on top of that.

Eventually, your Tier 1 pets will be -2 to your level and your Tier 2 pets will be -1. This will impact their chance to hit things, even stuff that is +0 to you. It's generally a good idea to budget your slots in the Tier 1 and 2 pets for at least two accuracy to offset this. Tactics will also be a huge help in offsetting this drawback.

I'm "implying" that we have zero idea if any adjustments would have been made had the system gone live as it was on Beta, and we have zero idea if it would have worked out "as originally planned" after seeing it unfold over many months to a year. Your tendency to speak with a perceived authority when you're guessing as much as the rest of us is irksome and tiring. My point is that we have no idea if the original devs would have ended up satisfied with the system by the end of it all because they're not around anymore to have a say. What we do have, though, are new devs who have expressed an interest in revisiting procs and adjusting them. Worrying about what "Synapse would have wanted" is a waste of time, especially since none of us know the man and he can't tell us what he'd do, if anything at all.

Unless you're procing things out, the damage potential is less. Brutes have Fury, and Sentinel Opportunity doesn't even come close to comparing to that. I'd imagine with procs, considering proper sets and build planning, their damage will be closer. Though that can be said of essentially any "proc monster" build and may not be relevant to the discussion. For target caps, Sentinels are lower relative to a Blaster but they'll be comparable to a Brute's target caps because of that. They seem to follow the general rule for cones and sphere's regarding max targets. That is, except Sonic Blast and Water Blast. Unless something changed when I wasn't looking, Sonic and Water Sentinels have Blaster target caps for all AoEs except the T9 power, which is reduced as expected. For AT Modifiers to damage, it seems Brutes are 0.75 melee and ranged while Sentinels are 0.95 to melee and ranged. Of course, melee ATs use their melee modifiers even for ranged damage, but a Brute has the same scalar for both anyway. This is relative to the baseline Blaster Melee of 1.00, meaning that a Blaster hitting with a melee power of 50 damage would deal 37.5 on a Brute and 47.5 damage on the Sentinel if it's the same power. Granted, Sentinels don't have melee powers without pool attacks (unlikely to use) or the APP/PPP choices (which often come with long recharge values that scale their damage upwards in accordance with the formula) but it's just a relative base to look at anyway. If you wanted to compare Blaster ranged to Sentinel ranged to get a better idea, remember that Blaster ranged is 1.125 scalar and Sentinels are still 0.95 so a ranged attack from a Blaster that deals 225 damage will only deal 190 on the Sentinel while hitting less targets most of the time. But again, Brutes get Fury which ramps up their damage quickly so looking at both of the ATs on scalars alone is misleading.

There's a very basic crafting Tutorial that has you running around the university with a tiny mission part-way through to recover Salvage. It really just introduces you to the concept of crafting, what the tables used look like, and lets you choose a basic IO (up to level 25) to craft for free (it gives you the materials to make it). There are no contacts that tell you this exists, though; you have to either go to a University and talk to the right person randomly out of curiosity for the building, or already know it's there by having prior knowledge or someone telling you about it. I usually do it on every character once I hit 22 for that free 25 IO after I do a respec when I start slotting 25 IOs. But yes, there's a tutorial. Of sorts.

I'm well aware of the notion that what ends up on a public Beta server is likely the "end result" and only needs eyes/bodies to run it through trials to find any outlying errors or bugs with the system but you're speaking with a lot mights and maybes based entirely around the only aspect we were aware of as a player and not the entire picture. I know that when I'm working on a painting and putting in the details in the background, when I walk away from it to let it dry, I'm not intending that state to be the final product. If I never come back to that painting, that doesn't mean it's complete -- it means I never had the chance to get around to finishing it. The fact of the matter is, we don't know what, if any, changes would have been done to the system had it had more time in beta because the game got canned before we could really get our hands on it. We don't know what further changes could have been done to the system had it made it to live servers and we don't know how the devs would have viewed the situation. It's pointless to talk about this nebulous "the old devs had a vision" when that vision was incomplete and they aren't here to touch it up. We have new devs, with their own vision, and they feel procs are an issue they want to address at some point. What that means for us is anyone's guess but pretending everything is honkydory because Synapse "had a plan" when Synapse is no longer around to see it through is a waste of time. The HC devs have made adjustments I like and adjustments I don't like. Who's to say if the "real devs" would have done the same.

This seems kinda backwards and antithetical to what a MM is. If that's your concept, then fine (I can't say much as I have a Petless MM myself), but the Robots are both your primary source of damage and defense. They take hits for you, can attack even while you're incapacitated, and in Bodyguard Mode (when applicable) can become much more resilient. Making sure they stay alive as long as possible does, in fact, benefit you.

As I said before, if you want to balance around IOs, which IOs are you talking about? Basic IOs that are boosted 50+5 for slot economy? The guy who just used as many +Damage set bonuses he could find? The guy going all out on +Def/Recharge? What about the guy that focused on +Regen to make what defenses/resistances he could muster last longer? Then there's the case of the bonuses that PvP players care about, like +HP, Knockback resistance, and +Range -- do you balance the mobs in PvP zones around those trends? IO Sets allow so much variance within its own system that trying to warp the game around them is a fool's errand. The game's numbers and challenge are all based on the SO (or Basic IO equivalent) of a power's performance, with Inspirations shoring up any kind of deficiency in a single mission. If thing's get "too hard" for a player under those conditions, they're encouraged to ask for assistance rather than to gut their entire build and "just build this awesome endgame IO build and solo it instead." Even Incarnate-level content is designed around having level shifts and Incarnate powers, not necessarily having a perfectly min/max'd build to go along with it. As far as player challenge is concerned, leave it alone. There are already ways to increase personal challenge if you so desire in order to leverage those builds you like building. All I'd want would be an adjustment of traditionally-viewed "tougher factions" to have their exp reward increased to justify fighting them for non-story/RP reasons; but the actual baseline balance of SOs/Basic IOs needs to be left alone. I do not want a CoH where now I must plan a build to leverage whatever it is the developers think I should.

The only character I would ever PL would be a PvP character because that character is being built for a specific purpose and level and nothing else. All my other characters get leveled the normal way and as I'm a solo-er who takes his sweet time at said leveling none of my characters have cracked level 40. I build characters around a particular concept and look, so for me, the character is "done" once it leaves the character creator. Leveling them up is just a means to better realize the overall theme, so rushing to "the end" is just pointless for me.

Well that explains how I lost my resume text file I always keep on my desktop. For those wondering, there's no way to recover from this. I tried everything. Moving files into a folder, including folders on the desktop, seems to "protect" them for now.

I said pretty much the same thing the last time he tried to claim "fallacy". I have a suspicion that what he actually means to say is that desiring a greater reward for a greater challenge isn't the "real reason" behind some underlying desire to be challenged in-game. I think there's just some fundamental disconnect here between debates on whether enemies provide an appropriate reward for the challenge they present (which I don't think they do, but won't hash that out again), and debates between people trying to change character performance in order to bring more challenge. Some people seem to think the two debates are linked, but they really aren't.

What I find interesting is that Rooted originally existed in time where Unyielding was Unyielding Stance and didn't let you move at all, making Rooted the "I want to be able to walk around with my mez protection" power. That didn't last very long though but some reason the original devs thought Rooted slowing you down had to stay in order to "fit the flavor" or whatever. I don't think flavor should get in the way of fun when it comes to key powers, especially after Power Customization was a thing. I color my DA Tank's armors into a sandy color for an "earth armor" concept and while the set itself still has its strengths as a Negative/Psy Resist set, the graphics completely sell the "I cover myself in gravel/sand" look. Rooted is a relic of the past, much like the set itself.

And I don't care if those players want to do that. I'm not out to stop farming. I don't care about farming or people who farm. This isn't about "ending" Council Farms -- this is about rewarding players who choose to fight more difficult factions. You can build a perfect "Carnie-counter" character and I bet dollars to donuts that character would still find fighting Council to be easier than Carnies by virtue of how the defense and resist sets/bonuses work. You're not going to change my mind because you're trying to use things I don't see as a problem as a counter-point, which is why I said we just agree to disagree and move on.

No it wouldn't. Nothing about the current reward structure would change for them if they chose to stay with breaking Council faces. That is a reward structure they're currently satisfied with. The only way this mentality has any merit is if you base your fun and success entirely upon what others can accomplish, and that's not very healthy is it? My advocacy for this change is based upon characters who aren't rocking sets bonuses. Balancing for set bonuses is a fool's errand, so I don't even consider it part of the equation. For a character without mez resist or appreciable defense/resistance, any faction with a hard mez is a threat, and that includes Council. The damage surrounding that hard mez from the Council is overall less threatening than the damage surrounding the hard mez of the Carnies, thereby making Carnies more dangerous which in turn suggests they should be worth more to take down due to added risk. But they aren't worth more. You're in more danger, and you're beating them slower, but each foe is worth the same as a Council member. When my squishies fight the Council, all I look for are Marksmen because their -recharge is annoying -- nothing else they have matters to me. When they fight Carnies? I have to stop every spawn to make sure I nuke whoever has the mez first while trying to blow up the illusionist before they shift and hope I don't have to fight too long with a Mask debuff. With Malta, I better have a breakfree for those Gunslingers or ice that Sapper or I may as well not even bother. My DA Tanker doesn't care about the damage or mez that a Carnie can output, most of the time, but he still really hates their debilitating debuffs, endurance drain on death, -recharge slowing down his kill speed, and total frustration fighting Illusionists that keep phasing a queued attack. You know what doesn't do all of that? Council. Just because DA is better suited to Carnies than Invuln doesn't mean they're easier than Council for that DA character. My ElecArmor characters don't really care about Sappers but they still need to keep the Titans from combining with powers that recharge once every 30 seconds due to all the -recharge floating around. Lingering around in one group waiting for powers to recharge reduces kill speed, and when the foes aren't even worth the EXP to be sitting around, I'm better off even on the ElecArmor character to go fight Council since his smash/lethal/energy resist values are more than adequate for the task and they're easier to kill to boot. To reiterate, my characters Do Not Use Set Bonuses. Currently, anyway. This is a balance in EXP reward proposal for the player who isn't rocking demigod status. We're just going to have to agree to disagree because it's clear to me at this juncture you're looking from a "I'm built for this" perspective while I'm from a "yeah, it hurts less but it's still worse than anything else I could be doing" one. For the standard SO/Basic IO player, it's pretty clear what factions are more of an issue to fight regardless of in-set tools.

Being able to "share a space" with your allies in PvP makes you harder to target since they can't effectively click on you. This means they have to rely on tab-target or building a bunch of custom targeting macros to go after the person they want. On the flip side, being able to pass through your enemy REALLY matters in PvP games where facing is important. That's not a factor in CoH, but in games like WoW it could mean you never get an attack off because they keep walking through you to stand at your back, causing your attacks to fail due to facing the wrong way.

And I disagree. Certain builds are always going to have an "easier time" against certain enemy factions that are considered a pain, but remember that these factions are still considered a pain by the playerbase for a reason. Your example regarding Trick Arrow and Council applies to the Carnies just as much, if not more so. Sure, they aren't "immune" to slows but they do slam around -recharge, hard mez, soft mez, illusions, powerful debuffs, intangibility, endurance drain, etc. Compared to the Council, who really only annoy you with Marksman -recharge or have a single type of enemy that gets in your face despite immobs/slows, Carnies are a much more extensive and varied threat when compared to the Council. Malta can be even worse. High duration holds from Gunslingers, slows/-recharge and endurance drain galore, robotic units that can combine into even tougher units if you don't defeat them fast enough and those machines come with dangerous levels of area mez and damage... clearly a more dangerous threat to more people than your basic Super Soldier using an M19 that might transform into a Warwolf if you're unlucky. Nemesis are relatively nonthreatening in my opinion, as long as you watch for the Snipers. If you "mess up" and they pop Vengeance because you downed the wrong guy too soon, it's a waiting game more than anything else. Just like Fake Nems, it's a "tax" on being indiscriminate. That doesn't make them harder to fight, though. It just makes you fight them longer. Kind of like a Paragon Protector popping MoG, you're not really in real danger of losing, but standing around is boring so people don't bother. I'm not even going to touch on the Rularuu. My point isn't "moot" just because you disagree with it and can find specific character cases that play directly into one enemy faction's comparatively minor strength. Bear in mind that I'm completely ignoring IO set bonuses here. The "baseline" character, even if a comparatively easy enemy faction has one or two problem enemy types, will have more overall issues with the "harder" enemy faction despite having tools better suited to fighting the harder faction that others. Looking at this from an IO Set Bonus angle, I feel, is wrong as that lets you craft the "perfect counter" to something to minimize their threat as much as possible. It's why fire farms exist and PI Council radios are in vogue. Because, even when you craft a build designed to fight Carnies or Malta better than anyone else, they're still going to be more difficult to fight and have no tangible reward increase to justify such a narrow focus when you can mow down Council or Sky Raiders worth the same per kill in less than half the time. With characters running standard SO-level slotting, by and large, Council will be easier to handle than Carnies or Malta. Again, they're considered a pain for a reason, and one character having 35% Psi Res isn't going to make much headway against Illusionists and Carnie bosses tossing around Mask/Darkest Night debuffs while phasing in and out of existence, especially when that same character has 30+ resistance to smash/lethal and only has to worry about some minor -tohit debuff from Vampyri from time to time. If you take "full damage" from everything and have no way to fight off mez, it gets even more in the "I'd rather just fight Council" feeling's favor. To me, any way you slice it, under standard SO/basic IO slotting, AT and Powerset differences become mostly irrelevant to what is easier or harder to fight. This is why I think the harder factions should be worth more.

It's things like this for why I suggested in my initial post on this topic that Bases need some kind of tutorial, even if it's just a manual to read through. Most of what you can do is unintuitive and explained nowhere inside the game, and many of the "secrets" aren't even widely known by the playerbase either.

My point was that your counterpoint was meaningless. The "existing reward structure" for Council Caves, for instance, isn't going anywhere. I never said "lower Council and raise Carnies", I just said "raise Carnies" because they're more of a pain to fight and nearly every time (I use nearly because some people just don't like fighting them for other reasons) people decline to fight Carnies is because of the relative difficulty not being compensated by an increased reward. In short, fighting Carnies just isn't worth the time if the reward doesn't match the challenge. So make it match the challenge. People might actually stick around for Carnie missions for once. Other reward sources don't have to be reduced and I never said they should. You can keep playing whatever fantasy you prefer and sometimes you'll get more rewards for it than what you're getting now, but you'll never get less than what you're getting now. How anyone can fight against something like that I have no idea. It's like you all believe that increasing rewards for content that's already more difficult will just make everyone do the harder content and leave you all alone in your Council Cave or something. For what it's worth, I play this game almost entirely solo and don't care what I'm fighting. The "reward" for me is just seeing my character do things and realizing my concept in motion. I'm not asking for the game to be harder because I don't think it needs to be harder; I'm just saying that for people who want to fight hard things, they already can but choose not to because it's not worth the time to them. Increased exp would push things into the "might be worth the time" direction. We already get more rewards for a higher difficulty or people wouldn't run +4/x8. How is that a fallacy when it's already true? How is an increase in exp gains for Carnies due to their relative increase in difficulty over Council not in line with how the reward structure currently works with team modifiers? Are you aware that the Freakshow give more exp per kill than usual because sometimes they stand back up and that's why they were the old farming target back when we could dumpster dive? "More rewards for higher difficulty" is how the system already works. The only place it doesn't work is across enemy factions where one faction is intrinsically more difficult to deal with than another and I think those groups having higher exp values to offset the added time and trouble it takes to deal with them seems fair to me. People seem to say they want challenge, but they ignore the challenge that already exists because it's not worth their time. So make it worth their time. There's nothing sinister, or difficult, about that.

Those options already exist. Notice I said nothing about making them harder, just making them more rewarding to fight to compensate for their innate difficulty. So? We're already in that situation. I don't see a problem if someone wants to build a full "psy defense/resist" build to tackle Carnie Farms if such a thing would even exist in the first place. My proposal of increasing rewards for difficult mobs is not meant, and was not intended to, "create variety" regarding farm locale. I have nothing against people that farm; the point was to offer reward incentive for playing harder content that's already harder than what people are comfortable running on +4/x8. It seems people who clamor for harder content aren't content with the hard content we already have because the rewards aren't commensurate with the added risk. So increase the rewards.

Honestly, if the primary concern is "more challenge for more reward", then we have an obvious solution that doesn't hurt anything going on today and only incentivizes/rewards players for stepping outside of the Council Cave every now and then. All that needs to happen is to evaluate the various enemy groups and adjust their rewards according to their difficulty relative to other enemy groups in that level. If that's too much of a blanket change, then adjust individual mobs within a faction that are more difficult than a more "standard" foe is to fight. Eidolons and Cadavers for the Vahz, sweeping increase in rewards for Carnie or Malta, etc. You get the option to fight the tougher enemy groups we already have while being rewarded more for it, without punishing people who just want to "punch Nazis", as it were. Would the xp/min fighting harder foes match the Council Cave runs? Maybe, maybe not, but the point of challenge is to be challenged, not put stuff on farm -- at least this would somewhat compensate for that challenge to at least bring up the question.

The old, now "discontinued" edition of Mids (version 2.something) never had a problem updating from the folder on my Desktop but I've considered this to be a potential culprit. Normally I wouldn't move it from the default location but it wants to put it into AppData for some reason and that annoyed me.