Bossk_Hogg

I think the issue with that, is that it makes Sleep feel too much like Fear. I wouldn't be against it, but I think others would have something to say about it, heh. Who the hell are the sleep white knights?

Maybe we are all talking at cross purposes. If I'm playing an ice/ice blaster, I don't care if my melee numbers are below par for a scrapper. I'm a blaster. The only thing I need ice sword (or fists) to do is finish off an almost dead baddie that has somehow managed to still be alive and then slipped on my ice patch. Typically, though, in normal game play over (say) level 15-20, no baddie gets that close to me. I fly, I kite, I am nictus! Oh, wait, I'm not nictus, but I'm also not standing in one spot hoping to draw some baddie into melee range. Ideally, I will go months without ever allowing a baddie that close to me. But when it does happen (and it does), I can deal with it because anyone who gets that close to me is going to be nearly dead, unable to recharge or hit. A quick slash with my ice sword, and he is finished. But I run a blaster not a blapper, so ymmv. Why don't you hit them with your fast recharging blasts that deal equal or greater damage? You can easily form a complete attack chain without them on any set. As such, they're pointless options that only exist if you want to lower your DPS and increase your risk. Mechanically, they are bad and should be fixed.

Screech and Tesla Cage should all get the Sentinel treatment across archtype. Sentinels should also get higher damage on their epic pools (and overall design adjustments). Shout needs some kind of role or a much faster animation. Right now it's a DPS loss to actually use it vs spamming your t1 and t2's, to say nothing of the waste of power pick and slots. Sonic Blast was tested in teams overflowing with sonic blasters/defenders/corrupters, so that much -res being thrown around skewed it's numbers greatly. It's the same reason why trick Arrow is weak and why someone thought it was a good idea to put Liquefy on a 5 MINUTE timer. When you run around with a bunch of force multipliers, anything looks good.

The problem with the melee attacks in Ice Manipulation (and some other blaster sets) is they're pointless. Ice Blast deals 102 damage on an 8 second recharge. Frozen Fists deals 91 damage on an 8 second recharge. It isnt needed to fill an attack chain, so why are you in melee to deal less damage? Energy Melee gets this mostly right. Bone Smasher has a 14 second recharge, but deals 144 damage. Blaps need to have a longer recharge and hit harder to make the risk of entering melee worthwhile. Particularly given the changes to snipes, the blaps need to be re-examined to make them useful. Dealing the equivalent of a tier 2 blast in melee range is poor design. At minimum, the following powers need changes to recharge and damage to give them a niche. Ice - Frozen Fists, Ice Sword Martial Assault - Storm Kick Mental - Mind Probe Ninja Training -Sting of the Wasp, Golden Dragonfly Others might need tweaks, but these are so redundant and low damage as to be waste of power choices.

Just quoting this bit to add that I think that Sleeps need to be fundamentally reworked because as it is now, sleep is one of the most useless types of mez in this game. Sure, it has use solo, but so little of this game is played solo that most sets with sleeps regard those powers as skippable. The only sleep power I have ever used that actually felt worthwhile was Static Field because of how it pulses and reapplies the sleep after an enemy is woken up from it. In my opinion, this highlights a huge problem with the way other sleeps work mechanically. This kind of falls out of the scope of this thread, of course, but I would not say no to some improvements to Ice Manipulation. I do agree with the idea that the set probably just needs some numbers tweaked or some individual powers buffed rather than a complete overhaul. I always thought some sort of randomness to sleep might help it a bit. Instead of a 100% chance to wake the target, make it around 25%. Enough to make it worth it to put them to sleep, but also risky enough to prevent it from being a "hard" mez. Also prevents it from being to similar to how Fear functions. (Since Feared targets retaliate but then go back to being Feared) Even in the real world. If a person is put under for medical reasons, they don't instantly wake up as soon as the doctor pokes them with the scalpel. I would like to think super abilities are at least as potent as the drugs they use to put us under in the OR or even the dentist chair. That is an interesting solution that I would definitely be interested in. Another one that a friend of mine came up with was adding an increased crit chance mechanic to sleeps so that waking a sleeping enemy up with an attack will net you extra crit damage. The idea is that sleeping would make the enemy extra vulnerable, which conceptually makes sense to me. I'd be OK if they got the fear treatment, where waking them would let them attack then they would fall asleep again. Sleeps are all but useless in modern COH.

Mostly because traps is terrible. It has one great power (ff generator), a couple of decent powers (acid mortar, poison gas trap) and a bunch of mediocre to garbage powers. Weak mitigation, clunky mechanics that are at odds with how teams play, and stupidly long cooldowns. You're better off just being an AR/Devices blaster. Hopefully traps gets some trickle down love from the devices changes currently on test.

It seems more of their powers should have a chance to apply Disintegrate, rather than hinging everything on the Disintegrate power itself. Tidal Forces and Momentum give you flexibility in your rotations. Beam rifle does not, suffering from the same locked order that Dual Blades does. This feels like a set that was tested with a bunch of Beam Rifle characters together on the same team, spreading each other's disintegrates more frequently than what would happen in a regular team.

Does Blaster Frozen aura really not do damage? Why? Sleeps are basically garbage. Ice Sword and Frozen Fists should get increased recharge and damage. You don't want to hang out in melee range chaining moderate damage attacks that deal the same damage as your blasts. Get in, hit hard, and get out. Right now they are somewhat pointless, particularly as your attack chain fills.

Why? Mercs are the weakest set. There isnt a downside to Hell on Earth, Gang War or Soul Extraction, and all of those allow for more slotting of pet globals. The sets without those are at a disadvantage compared to the sets with temp pets due to IO options. Repair Bot needs a complete overhaul as well.

Still a near pointless parlor trick unless you add some kind of effect to it. Small AE knockback. you know, the thing that teams love! Torrent, Shockwave, etc do that and damage on a fast recharge anyways. Putting an interaction similar to how Delayed and Accelerated works in Time to force field effects would go a long way to making the set actually engaging and useful again in a post-IO world. You guys need to start thinking big on changes.

Will the trip mine/devices changes be ported to Trap too? That set really needs some attention. It's a support set barely on par w a blaster secondary, and doesn't play well with how high functioning teams work. Similarly, Trick Arrow has a number of powers that are simply inferior versions of Tactical Arrow (glue arrow, ice arrow, EMP, and the always useless entangling arrow).

They could add absorb and it would still be a weak set. Try playing another set, like Dark, Rad, or even Thermal to get a feel for how far FF would need to be buffed to reach baseline. It essentially needs a rebuild from the ground up. My suggestion is to have personal force field act as a "stance" power. One stance keeps all the powers a select few FF fanatics are so protective of. The other makes them something more useful in a post-IO game on a decent team. So in one stance, Detention Field is still the same cage on live. In the other it clumps up mobs and puts a decent debuff on them. In base stance, repel and force bubble are the (IMO) redundant powers that both knock stuff back. In the stance, force bubble instead gives to-hit and adds a smashing damage proc on allies attacks. Another example - remove the KB from force bolt and up the accuracy. Code it to where with a single KB enhancer it reaches the same level of knockback and accuracy it currently does on live with one accuracy. Have it apply some kind of effect (Encased) that improves other powers. For example, have Repulsion Bomb apply a resistance penalty to something affected by Encased, as you shatter their armor with force.

Important correction, the AOE portion of TS only does about 12.7% of the main hit worth of damage (just tested this ingame). Where as havoc does 83% of TS's dmg (at over twice the animation speed). The AOE damage of TS is practically inconsequential (slightly above the aoe immob damage), and you need to put a kb/kd or cage otherwise its more detrimental than anything else. Originally when i was planning the build i thought it looked great for dmg, and could put a recharge proc on it... It may be ok for melee ATs that dont have much to do, but throwing a hold, confuse or jolting chain from the primary seem a better use of my animation time than a TS. They most likely based the animation time on damage as if it did the full amount to all targets, rather than the weak splash damage. Apparently this is why Energy Transfer sucks ass now, in that they coded it with the damage done to you as part of the total damage done, and upped the animation time to match. Regardless, Thunderstrike sucks in general.

Shockwave is quite good now. Slot that sucker with a KB to KD IO and you can keep enemies perma knocked down.

My mind controller used all his powers too. That doesn't stop mind control from being weak.

Watching you take almost 4 minutes to slooowly solo an elite boss isn't exactly disproving his point. If the set had meaningful boosts (and electric blast) you would have finished that fight in less time, and safer. A /ff controller would have done that faster, and contribute more damage and safety to the team. Sure, their numbers are a smidge lower on the shields, but since IO's are even more available on Homecoming, it's time to stop pretending like they arent a factor contributing to FF's increasing irrelevance. FF needs some love. Elec blast needs some love, at minimum giving Tesla Cage the Sentinel treatment. Defenders as a whole could use a bit of love. Outside of sonic, the secondary doesnt really quite measure up to the damage boost of imps/pets. I used to love defenders, had a 50 of each shade. Now I just cant bring myself to bother unless I'm using sonic as a secondary.

I'd really like if the personal attacks got a 15% base damage boost and endurance reduction per other personal attack you took, similar to how the fighting pool works. Also would be nice if they added more synergy to the attacks, similar to the pack mechanic in Beasts. The demon whip is already in a good spot, as -resistance is always valuable, and -tohit in the necromancy blasts is solid, but the attacks in bots, thugs and ninjas could use some love, as their secondary effects are essentially nonexistent.

I'd like to see a boost the the personal attacks. The demon whip is decent, as it has the always useful resistance debuff, and the beast one builds pack mechanics, but otherwise they're pretty bad to the point where you're advised to skip them. I don't think a primary set should have 3 powers that are heavily skippable. I would like to see them get a 20% damage boost/end cut for each one you take, similar to how the fighting pool works. I dont think 40% more damage for taking all 3 would break the bank, and would go a long way to making them a meaningful choice and the mastermind feel more active. Similarly, it would be good to add a mechanic for mercs, bots, thugs and ninjas similar to pack mentality. Bots, thugs and ninjas have weak to no secondary effects on their blasts, while mercs is considered the worst all around and could definitely use a bigger boost. Demons already have a great secondary effect on the whip, as does necromancy, so they probably dont need the same treatment.

First off, I stated I enjoy the way the game is, I didn't make this thread cynically to get my own way. I just want to experience CoH before the massive building of heroes update. I have no butt with anyone else using the AE, I use it myself to play creative missions others create, the game is fun. All I want is to read and take what people think about the days without AE, I have no power to remove AE, its not under threat, I am just a user who came from a completely different timeline. I didn't say AE was the blight of the game, I wouldn't refer to other players/bases being the correct or incorrect way of playing, all I was suggesting is there a possibility, where there is a feature that would allow players to OPT-out (themselves, not others, themselves) prohibiting the use for AE & trading for a specific character. And if they could it would mean a lot to me. A server with a disabled-AE, I am dismantled by what another person wrote, I didn't consider the possibility it would be popular enough to sustain itself. Thank you, OEM61. but again do I dare say, 99.9999>% chance it will not happen and I am not counting on it, but NOT mentioning is a complete 100% never, because if I didn't suggest it at all, how would others know players like I exist. I don't find comments like, JUST ignore it to be useful. I think it contributes nothing, at least mention you're not interest in non-AE gameplay, and you prefer AE for all. At least that is helpful, my intention is not to forum-police you, not at all. I'd just prefer something that adds to the conversation, like the rest. I thought it was obvious... Running a server takes money. You can already avoid AE by not playing AE. Setting up and coding server without AE is a waste of money and time for something you can simply do yourself instantly for free. Same with other nonsense like permadeath servers and the other random stuff people always ask for in these games.

We dont need to fragment the playerbase on a bunch of bespoke servers. This is a waste of money and time IMO. If you don't want to do AE stuff... don't do it. There are teams constantly forming in the LFG channel.

Torrent is actually a really good power now, with the Overwhelming Force Knockback to Knockdown enhancer. One accuracy and the proc and you're good to go.

Frostwork is objectively not a garbage power and I'm not sure what gives you that idea. I was expressing my loathing of the cottage rule in general. It's a poor argument for not making a power useful. Some things basically have no place in "modern" CoH. Any set with a cage power basically has one less pick as far as I'm concerned. I took frostwork on my cold back in the day, but it does need some improvement.

Trick Arrow was always a bit subpar, and it's mind-boggling that buffs were made to tactical arrow and not ported over to Trick Arrow. So many of trick arrow's powers are just straight up inferior now. The same thing is happening with Devices and Traps. Entangling Arrow has always been hot garbage, as is Web Grenade, but at least the blaster versions deal damage. Since giving them damage would still keep them worse versions of a blaster secondary, I would add a defense debuff to the defender versions and make them 8' radius AE's. A single target immbolize is crap. Glue Arrow has a 45 second recharge for Tac Arrow and a 60 second recharge for Trick Arrow. WHY? Ice Arrow - 12 second recharge for Tac Arrow, 18 second recharge on Trick Arrow. WHY? The Tac Arrow version also deals minor damage. And the real kick in the junk... EMP Arrow has a 300 second recharge for tactical arrow. ESD arrow has a 90 second recharge for Tac Arrow. WHY? Why are so many primary powers worse than a blaster secondary? Blasters have received huge survivability and utility boosts, and defenders and corrupters give up substantial damage. Buff TA and Traps! At minimum, give them the trickle down benefits afforded to Tactical Arrow and Devices.

Medium control is meaningless when hard control and kills are so easily available. The KB to KD enhancer made most of them irrelevant when blaster bonfires are keeping stuff perma flopping. You might be the only person I've seen defend Detention Field. Burn that cottage down.

BS. There's THREE powers that buff ally defense. Out of NINE. Would you say you "primarily sleep" because you spend a third of your life sleeping? The real problem is it has no force multiplier and is pretty one dimensional. With people easily softcapping, and teams loathing knockback for good reason, it needs a boost. Absorb would be nice, as would ignoring the cottage rule due to repulsion field and force bubble being pretty redundant (and detention field being ass). No one on a good team really cares about the other stuff. Same thing with Traps, another set with 4-5 decent powers.