Bossk_Hogg

So no new assault sets? Because most could just be two blaster sets. Not that doms can take two blaster sets heh.

That's a neat suggestion! The numbers might have to be a bit low because WOW that set does everything you could want for a buff set! Mixing resist and defense is a cool concept, and helps prevent it from being lower value depending on team comp/IO's the way that force fields currently is. I'd have to re-roll the Slyph for it.

That isnt even the cottage rule. The "rule" was to keep whole sets from drifting, not individual powers. Plus they previously DID remove KB from a bunch of melee powers and turned it into KD instead. Except they forgot to do it for Solar Flare for PB's (pleaseohplease). One thing to consider is changing the sets a power can take. I like the idea of hurl having splash damage, but they should probably allow it to slot both ranged single target and targeted AE sets, so people don't have to redo their build if they want to keep the ranged set in there. Same if Haymaker became a small cone.

I would give all elec attacks/controls a 6% stacking recovery and recharge buff (max 5 stacks). When you hit 5 stacks, the next elec power drains vastly more endurance and consumes all stacks. This lets the secondary actually help on fights where you don't drain mobs to 0 endurance, and helps sets actually fully drain endurance without other options (like power sink, transfusion, etc). Buff Tesla Cage's damage like they did for Sentinels and give Voltaic Sentry a faster move speed and a second attack and Elec blast is now brought up to par.

That doesnt really fix it though. It's bad because it's a single target immob, not because it deals no damage. Even if they added damage, it would be less than the blaster version, just further [pushing Trick Arrow as "crappy tac arrow". And you have to target the slick, wasting animation time and endurance. Putting the damage in Disruption Arrow avoids all that, and actually lets disruption arrow take sets. If you really want to be depressed, check out the difference between the EMP Arrow and ESD Arrow. Trick Arrow's is on a 300 second cooldown and shuts off your *own* recovery. Tac Arrow's is on a 90 second cooldown and doesn't debuff you.

Flash Arrow is only "popular" in that you don't really have much better options, so it's the best of a bad lot. Most anyone who can skip Entangling Arrow does. Among corrupters, who are forced into Entangling Arrow, Flash only has a 67% pick rate, the second lowest selection rate of any of the T2's. It's a weak power by any metric. Outside of like 2-3 fights in the entire game, who the hell solo pulls? Putting the fire damage in entangling arrow is a bad call, as that requires you to target the oil slick arrow. Putting it in disruption arrow at least lets you fire it off and light automatically thanks to the AE nature.

Yeah, when you run the numbers vs radiation (itself not even that big of a heavy anymore thanks to power creep), the only thing TA really can claim it does better is "have oil slick arrow". No buffs, no heals, long recharge, and overall weaker debuffs. It burns endurance like crazy and spends a ton of animation time to accomplish rather little. If it wasn't bow related, it would be played even less. But some people defend it's poor performance cuz archers gonna arch.

IO's are why we're even having the tank/brute conundrum. Defense granted vastly outstrips damage and resistance. Ignoring this just leads the game even further to rewarding damage above all. Sentinels are also in a bad spot, where they are relatively pointless with defense capped blasters running around. Also, if you cant scrape together some influence for basic sets like thunderstrike or crushing impact, I don't know what to say. You don't need to spend anywhere near a billion to see a huge performance boost.

IO's have been in the game longer than they haven't, and the power levels they offer some AT's and sets varies greatly. It's time to acknowledge them in balance discussions. Given how vastly more available they are on Homecoming, balancing around SO's makes as much sense as balancing around DO's.

Water also has excellent slotting opportunities for the Fore Feedback 100% recharge proc in Water Burst and Geyser, allowing you to focus on other areas to layer Bio's defenses.

Also reduce the cast time. 4 seconds is brutal.

TA is in a weird spot in that it's currently kind of"crappy Radiation". It's a debuff set that isn't terribly good at debuffing until the mid 20's. Most of it's powers only do one thing, and they can't really be enhanced to do the stuff you might want more of (or aren't worth it). The recharge on its powers is such that you can't reliably use the tricks each spawn without major slotting or global recharge. a TA defender, throwing out Flash Arrow, Disruption Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow and Acid Arrow debuffs To-Hit debuff 6.25% Damage debuff 31.25% Defense debuff 25% Damage Resistance debuff 40% A radiation Defender, with just Enervating Field and Radiation Emission debuffs the following To-Hit debuff 31.25% Damage debuff 25% Defense debuff 31.25% Damage Resistance debuff 30% TA does have more Damage and Damage Resistance debuffs, but only marginally in the case of damage debuff. Rad has a huge advantage in to-hit, which helps teams stay alive in the formative levels, and a slight advantage in defense debuffing. TA also requires 4 powers to do what Rad does in 2, and those powers aren't automatically available in the next spawn. More egregiously, it has no -regen, considered key for AV fights, and no -special. It does have Oil Slick arrow (3 minute timer), which, while VERY badass, isn't enough to overcome the set's general shortcomings. TA originally had two advantages over Rad, in that Rad's toggles would drop if they got mezzed or the target died. With toggle effects now lingering on the corpse, TA has lost one of those. I think it is time to lower the recharge of many powers, and look at other ways to boost the set. The problem is finding ways to buff it to benefit it more as a support set, as hard control increases the value for controllers, and damage is the wrong way to focus. And while the idea of having a bunch of combos with the powers sounds intriguing, the set has always been fire and forget, so adding a bunch of interactive complexity like Bio armor seems like it may change the set too much for existing players. Entangling Arrow becomes "Marking Arrow". Recharges goes up to 15 seconds and now also gives a team wide damage/to hit buff (10% to-hit, 20% damage) in addition to the immobilize. I know some debuff purists will bristle, but honestly limiting the set to debuffs only puts it into too small a niche, as there are only so much debuffs to go around. It's also an ability to help teaming in early levels Flash Arrow should go up to 10% to-hit debuff, and add in a -range component. Glue Arrow drops to 45 second recharge to match Tac Arrow's, and the -recharge rises to 40% from 20%. Ice Arrow creates a smallish (8' radius maybe?) ice patch around the target. This will also help with early mitigation, and on bosses that the hold doesn't affect. The above changes should shore up the support the set provides in early level, as well as increase the value of slotting to-hit debuff in Flash and create a new opportunity for To-Hit buff slotting in Marking Arrow. For later levels, I suggest the following: Poison Gas Arrow - add a -Special component, something few other sets have. Acid Arrow - add the much needed -regen (400%) Disruption Arrow - Add a -HP component, enhanceable with Healing IO's. Currently I think only the Degenerative incarnate ability provides this, so it is also something unique for TA. Also a small energy damage to allow for in-set lighting of oil slick and proc goodness. EMP - remove the -recovery debuff the hold places on you. I assume the blaster AE holds will be nerfed at some point as hinted at, otherwise the recharge time needs to drop.

Sorry, hard no on giving out Nature's capstone ability (and before corrupters/masterminds/controllers get it even!). I could get behind summoning a DE type stationary pet that buffs acc/damage though. Tornado should be 3 minutes, same as water spout. One of the support abilities should also be dropped for an attack, as that is a lot of support for a Dom epic set.

Slippery slope. Also wrong, given that KB players wouldn't be wanted on those teams to begin with in the current setup. What was the point you were making? That peacebringers and energy blast users might get more groups? Also, the "pro knockback" crowd has as many bad actors, who are only in it for their own enjoyment. God forbid they hold off a second with nova until after the inferno lands to completely wipe out the spawn rather than lead with it and scatter everything half dead. Or not open with Solar Flare to hose anyone else's attempts to debuff or use their AE's. Any suggestion to act as a team player is met with bristling hostility. The Null the Gull option lets people play their own way and is the best compromise between two opposing camps.

Do you actually HAVE the power or are you just kneejerk defending it? Because I cannot fathom how anyone who took it and uses it would find it remotely OK, particularly compared to the other set's level 18 pet powers that act as slot mules, something bots really needs to be better able slot the KB to KD enhancer/procs.

See "Some Random User" for what I was referring to. I'm really confused what guides they found that recommend Repair lol.

Nice to see the Gimp Power Brigade are out in force defending a single target, robot only heal with a 2 minute cooldown. Oh COH players, never give up the good fight to keep garbage powers and sets down and near useless.

Well, that's what testing is for. But there's been a lot of hot air around how it simply can't be done, and it seems that isn't necessarily true.

I think having mind's sleeps reapply similar to electric control, having confuse count for containment, and lowering mass confuse's recharge to 180 seconds would go a long way.

It's worth noting that COXG is testing pet changes and not only removed brawl from ranged minions but also changed pet costumes. Other pet powers and merc rebalance changes were made to. So it seems like it could be done, and easily enough if homecoming and coxg worked together. Link to reddit post below.

Recharge only matters after they complete a full attack cycle. To-hit helps from the first attack. Things don't live long enough on many teams for the -recharge to have any effect. I would add an insight mechanic to psi blast. The other problem is the horrendous animation times and projectile speed hurt the set almost as much as psi resist. I think someone with sprint could outrun mental blast.

I personally think Knockback should be knockdown for melee powers. They went through them once and changed it for tank/scrappers on most powers. Unfortunately a few slipped through. Thunderstrike (which is crap for other reasons), Solar Flare, and maybe a couple others I'm missing. Beyond that, make a null the gull setting and let people pick their own level. If knockback is a bonus, then it shouldn't have a tax to turn off. If people want some kb and some kd, they can use slots for granularity, I do think the "small chance of kb" powers in energy blast should have some kind of mechanic to make them more consistent, as random knockback is poor mitigation given how many sets have actual holds. However that is an energy blast issue specifically.

I find that a much bigger design issue personally. Buffing them to be viable would also piss less people off, and would encourage build diversity. Also removing the limitation on the new origin pools would make for more variety, as they look pretty good.

I fail to see how a single optional power pick is a bottleneck. Is Build Up a bottleneck? Mez protection for tanks?

That it's "TOO" powerful, which is your personal opinion. It might be the MOST powerful, for some builds, but that is quite different than TOO powerful. Particularly given that the other pools are indeed trash. Boxing and Kick not being worthy of slots is a separate issue. Nerfing hasten doesnt make them good attacks. Moreover, if a bunch of forum groupthink declare it mandatory, that isn't an argument either. It's not mandatory, and in many of said builds, it isnt even necessarily DOING that much for them given the large amounts of global recharge flying around. I see similar claims that Tough and Weave are NEEDED, and chuckle. Your fallacy is thinking that something popular and powerful needs to be changed because simply its popular and powerful. I would imagine a similar number of end game characters slot LOTG recharge, the 3% global defense IO's, Miracle and Numina uniques, etc.