Bossk_Hogg

One thing I don't see brought up enough is how certain sets (beam, psychic, radiation, sonic and water) have mag 3 stuns/holds on a really short cooldown, and ice and dark have pretty massive to-hit debuffs as well. Some powersets certainly need to be re-evaluated (AR/archery/dual pistols/energy) and I really want Ice to get its second hold back. A few more powers need to be re-evaluated in terms of their DPSA, particularly energy blast which basically has 3 clones from a damage standpoint. Atumbral Beam and and Psionic Strike also kinda suck. But these are issues w individual powers, not the AT as a whole. Overall, sentinels arent in a bad spot. Raising their damage a bit and making opportunity better is really about all they need.

You drain the same amount as a blaster though. Dark offers more safety, and more damage. Plus, on a busy set, you want high damage per second of animation, which electric blast fails hard at.

Or you could just take ice, deal more damage, and have two holds to lock down the boss. Ice also has more proc opportunities, in addition to dealing more damage. Electric Blast needs its damage upped, period. It's t9 nuke deals less damage than it should and has a longer recharge than it should. Compare it to either the PBAE or ranged nukes and it's clearly operating on the wrong damage scalar. Tesla Cage should also deal meaningful damage, like it does on the Sentinel. And volt sentinel needs to not be pure garbage. In addition, end drain should get the benefits of AT scaling. Right now a defender drains the same amount as a blaster.

Screw lore. Seriously, who cares other than a bunch of forum busybodies intent on cramming a story down other players throats? I say let people come up with whatever backstory they want for the character. The Crab AT should be thought of as a collection of powers and gadgets. If they reskinned the backpack to be weapon systems popping out Warmachine style, the popularity of the AT would likely skyrocket. The forced story is one of the reasons why the EAT and VEAT are lower in popularity. Opening the design space to more concepts hurts no one. Also, it seems the devs lied about how hard it was to get the costumes working. Go into icon with the -n filter. Other than the buttcape, you can mix and match widow parts with many other options. Despite them repeatedly telling us this was impossible, it was actually already in the game. Like asymetrical costume parts, it was something the original devs could have done, but couldnt be bothered with implementing, even when shown how to do it.

This would be part of my enhanced "epic difficulty" slider. Sorry, should have clarified.

Sounds reasonable. I'd also replace all bosses with elites, and all named final mission bosses with AV's.

But stuff really needs to live a little longer to make debuffs/buffs/control more worthwhile at upper levels. Partially rolling back the effects of the purple patch would help with the "slog" as well, and give support AT's more chance to shine. Right now many run TF's at +0, which makes anything but AE damage, buffs and maaaaybe an alpha soaker more or less pointless. The reason they do this is because there's no real extra rewards for harder settings, and the purple patch makes it needlessly take longer. If stuff lived longer, we could actually use more than a handful of powers. Make it an optional setting with corresponding reward increase and I think people will jump on board.

Look to the newer sets (atomic, plant, tactical arrow and temporal) have excellent AE holds/stuns and a ranged hold/stun. This is in addition to a sustain power that basically removes any endurance issues and provides healing/survivability over time. The "blaps" tend to be some of the higher "damage per second of animation" attacks as well. My water/atomic spends a lot of time in melee to benefit from Beta Decay and is usually rocking about a 250% global recharge as a result.

Yeah, it's more that COH steamrolls a bit too easy for pretty much anything not AE damage or buffs to "matter" late game. My best suggestion is to have more difficulty slider options (going up to +8) and partially rolling back the effects of the purple patch on debuffs/controls. As it stands, buffs aren't resisted, so the purple patch disproportionately impacts some sets/AT's more than others. Then up drop rates and influence on higher level foes to encourage people to tackle harder content/settings, or possibly have certain enhancements that only drop in and function for higher level content. Like pvp enhancements but for with the extra bonus for "raid/54+" content.

Story checks out! My big floofy Maine Coon mix does the same thing (but takes up a lot more real estate lol). He loves to try and "help" by slapping at the screen. Try the bat aura for added fun.

Man, you REALLY are invested in making sure a character you aren't even playing is forced into a particular backstory and appearance. At minimum, if you don't have any crab backpack attacks, you should't have to wear the backpack.

No, it's those powers have insanely bad DPA. I also agree that the recharge needs to go up, which will raise damage. No one who knows what they are doing is spamming these cruddy attacks, and boxing slotted has like a 1 second recharge. Even using them as filler attacks you're better off with a 6-8 second recharge and deal respectable damage in the animation time.

Why not let it deal the same damage as the PBAE nukes and put it on a 145 second timer? The only reason Overcharge/Geyser deal less than the PBAE's is because they recharge faster. They recharge in 85% of the time and deal 87% of the damage. End drain isnt nearly as good as a hold, stun or massive accuracy debuff, which the other ones have, and there isnt a modifier in the formula for range anyways. T Blast really does just have a "screw you" tax. it's time to stop accepting it.

But they fall in line with the melee nukes, given that they recharge faster. T Blast is the outlier and should be fixed. Sentinel Electric Blast already fixed this as well. The T9's all use the ranged modifier as well. There isnt a damage penalty for being ranged. It wouldnt surprise me if the OG devs slapped one on there randomly, because they sucked at power math.

So electric blasters should just suck it up that their nuke recharges almost 50% longer for 16% more damage? And has a crappier secondary effect? And 75% of the range of the other ranged nukes. And costs 50% more endurance? And has a glacial cast time? Electric Blast seems to pay a 20%+ "Cuz @$#% you, that's why!" tax.

Looks like Thunderous should still deal more based on the formulas. Can you double check vs Geyser and Overcharge?

Yeah, my guy stole his gear... err, I mean it fell off the back of a truck. The forced story is one of the reasons the EAT and VEATS are low in popularity, so I see no reason to double down on it. You should easily be able to have an invisible backpack, given there are invisible weapon options in icon. A lot of what the original devs said about Arachnos costume parts was flat out wrongs, such as that it was impossible to mix and match them with standard costume pieces.

This could also apply to the epic pool summons. Summon Adept might be more popular heroside if you could bring on "Lightning Lad" instead of a generic Arachnos grunt. All the powers those summons use already have standard animations, so there shouldnt be an issue with that either.

Already in the game, they just need to remove the n (dev only) restriction. Go under "none" with the chosen weapon in Icon. You can also see how animations for any set play out while holding whatever object. This would also solve people's hatred of the crab backpack.

Geyser and Overcharge are both ranged and on a 125 second recharge, compared to Elec's 170. They also have a secondary effect that is actually useful in most situations (stun). Elec also deals it's damage in tics, allowing retaliation, unlike the other sets which just kill stuff instantly. Thunderous Blast also has a longer cast time than any other, save Full Auto.

Wall of Force is likely going to find itself as a FF proc mule.

IO's have been in the game longer than they haven't. I think testing w some basic ass set like crushing impact and whatnot is more realistic of play. Testing w SO's has about as much value in testing with DO's. I also cant imagine the people still using SO's only at this point really care about THAt balance or read the forums much. They sure as hell arent running pylons.

I don't see how that is remotely possible, given how AV's resist end drain 60-87%% and have huge endurance pools. What you likely saw was the jolting animation while it was idle. Regardless the set isn/t balanced. Other sets offer more damage and more safety. My suggestion is to have all elec attacks give a stacking 6% endurance reduction and recharge buff. At 5 stacks, the next short circuit is instant case, and with power boosted end drain. Voltaic Sentinel needs to also not be garbage. Bare minimum is giving it faster fly speed and ideally a second attack.

Yes please. Along with most of the other "n" flagged parts. Some of the faces aren't ready for release, but other servers have already unlocked these assets. I want my mix-n-match Widow parts!

Good to know! Thanks for testing. I was going off incorrect info that mobs dont have toggles like normal players.