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One thing overlooked in the AoE -Res power comparisons is the level at which the power can be chosen. While CoH has never had a strict hierarchy of later powers being better than earlier ones, there is a relatively modest tendency (compared to other MMOs) for that to be true.

I ran a level 30 DP/Nin Blaster through Smoke and Mirrors. She uses Ninja Blade and Navy Colts. The only Katana attacks were Sting of the Wasp and Lotus Drops. The sword always appeared for both of those. On Live it will generally only render with "No Redraw" if I draw it before entering combat by queuing SotW while out of range.

I have an Incarnate Stalker with the CotS proc in Genetic Contamination. I've ported her and am waiting for the game to patch to test. Quick calculations have the chance to proc top 50% at 3 targets, 75% at 7 targets and 85% at 10 targets. The +Regen equivalent on my toon given her +HP (37.4%) should be about +160% with 5 targets. It only works in combat of course, but that's still pretty strong. [Edit:] After testing, it's a bit disappointing compared to the calculations. I ran BP missions in DA at +4x8 and found the proc rate was about 1/3rd that of the Panacea due to BP refusing to close range unless herded and things running away from me regularly even if I did herd them. I didn't move as fast between groups as I sometimes let Hide recycle and waited for Vorpal and Savage Leap 2 or 3 times. Additionally, Minions die fast around this toon. Also, my high Def and Absorb made healing less valuable. Still, it's at least twice as good as it was before (that is, as the stackable 5% heal on Live).

Change that "possibly" to "definitely". Ironically the soon-to-be-identical Power Transfer special is OP. Context is everything, and EndMod Sets >>>> Sleep Sets.

It depends upon where you put the window whether it is better to have the time limited pets on the top or bottom (I put the window at the bottom of my screen so it would be better for me if they were listed first). It would be nice if the code would list permanent pets either before or after time limited ones though.

Actual feedback... I tried the MM Dark changes on a level 31 Ninja/Dark build I transferred over. No Dark Servant and running on mostly L25 Common IOs. I started the Chaos Unbound arc from Vivacious Verandi. I ran one mission at base difficulty then bumped to +1x3. Family, Freaks and Devoured Earth at the beginning of the arc. I didn't run into any new problems due to the changes. My Twilight's Grasp was slotted with 2 Heals and was doing about 60% of the Genin's health, 40% of the Jounin's and mine. So it didn't seem to make much difference. Missing or getting mezzed remained the primary issue with healing, not the strength of the heal. I lost one Genin and one Jounin in all that time and the latter may have been saved by a stronger heal, but probably not. Logs suggest about a 5% drop in DPS due to the Tar Patch change (Ninja DPS is always disappointing to me, so this just exacerbated it a bit). Next I switched to another transferred toon. This one a L38 Dark/Dark Controller running a few sets, partial sets and special IOs with Common IOs for the rest. I ran Gordon Stacy's Revenant Hero Project arc at 0x1 with bosses. The damage output of this toon isn't great, so I didn't up the difficulty. She rarely needed her heal, nor the Dark Servant's. The logs say about a 6% DPS loss to the Tar Patch - right about what you'd expect with 100% up time, which with her DPS vs recharge is pretty much what I expect. The DS had no heal slotting and was healing for about 15% of my health. TG was doing about 35% of my health (close to 40% of my Umbral Beast's) at 95.6% enhancement. With all the control and -ToHit I'd have to push the difficulty way beyond what her DPS makes playable to get her in trouble enough to worry about the heal decrease. So... she's not a very useful test toon and I cut the session short.

So turning, say, Superior Conditioning (to pick a power from another APP) into giving the equivalent Regen of base Health isn't changing its functionality? The whole idea of procs is to change the power's functionality to a degree. The question is to what degree is that acceptable. In that particular case, which is more valuable, the base +5% END of SC, or the roughly 50% Regen equivalent of the proc you've put in it? In the case of AoE Sleeps the transformation is due as much to the AoE Sleep itself being lousy as it is to the CotS IO being OP in long recharge AoEs. My concern here is that this non-Unique IO at 3 PPM will be roughly twice as good as Regenerative Tissue's Unique IO. That the CotS is considered OP in AoEs is a separate issue. They apparently buffed the CotS because of the 1 proc/cast limit, then buffed this to match the CotS without seeming to give consideration to the unfortunate fact that the CotS can only go in what are generally bad powers, while this can go in a power that everyone gets free of charge as well as a number of powers that people take regularly because +END and +Rec are so valuable (while Sleep is not). Entropic Chaos' proc also goes in high value powers, but those are powers where the extra slot has higher opportunity costs.

Self-buffs use different modifiers than those that affect others.

But having a non-Unique IO that gives the equivalent of 50% Regen or so isn't? [Edit:] Entropic takes up a valuable slot in a single target attack, Call of the Sandman requires that you take a bad power (except for Mesmerize and Static Field). By comparison, everybody gets Stamina.

Call of the Sandman isn't Unique on Live either.

There is no reason +Rec can't use the Ranged EndDrn mod, -Regen the Ranged Heal mod, nor +Rech the Ranged Slow mod. It's always bugged me that Masterminds (and Corruptors and Controllers) get the same value as Defenders for these.

So... do you mean to imply that the pseudo-pet pass is complete and these were the only powers affected? Or is it still on-going? Also, tangentially, is there any plan to make key buffs/debuffs such as +Recharge, +Recovery and -Regeneration vary by AT?

Well, that does lower the Regen equivalent of the PT proc. No higher than 50% (assuming the +20% HP for Accolades) Regen equivalent then. Still, that's twice a Regenerative Tissue special. Or equal to 4 or 5 Regen set bonuses.

That's how I treat it. Initially... I had some builds where I thought I'd make do with a cheaper alternative, but after you realize how easy it is to make 12-15M INF that thought goes out the window and every toon ends up with a Panacea even if they have only 1 slot in Health.

Electrical Affinity seems to have a hard time remembering power customization. I made a Controller and as I tweaked my costume to look better with the power customization I chose, each time I came back to power customization EA had reset to Heroic. [Edit:] On Masterminds and Corruptors Power Customization of EA would reset to Villainous each time I backed up to change a costume part. On Defenders and Controllers it reset to Heroic.

It is. It's also a PvP set. Though I was just picking numbers to make the ST effect of the new proc weaker (45% Regen equiv instead of 60%) and the AoE stronger (50% stronger if you get at least one proc on cast, though the chance to proc on each target would be half as much). I'm afraid the truth is that IOs need some tweaking, with some clearly too strong - like the Panacea. Do you have a single character that doesn't have (or won't have) the Panacea slotted?

I know they don't. I was responding to Bopper's comment that if support powers on Defenders and Controllers do the same thing then it's a bug. I agreed with that sentiment. +Recharge and +Recovery are key buffs, they really shouldn't be the same for Masterminds, Controllers, Corruptors and Defenders.

Re the Power Transfer Unique: It's an IO that's equivalent to 60% Regen. At 3 PPM I think this IO is over-powered in passive powers. And at 1 proc/cast I think it is under-powered in AoEs. I just don't like this compromise. Maybe 1.5 PPM and 7.5% Health?

I tend to agree with this, which is why these two fixes by themselves stand out to me. My first thought was "where is the Speed Boost fix?" My second was "should Defender SB get buffed, or everyone else get nerfed?" I think the balance issue is much broader than those two Dark powers and should be handled more systematically.

I'm not quite sure why Twilight's Grasp and Tar Patch got special treatment here. It seems to me that such adjustments should be part of a general support set balance pass. There are lots of powers that don't vary the way they should between support ATs, and not all of them are pseudo-pet powers. Speed Boost, for example. This just seems out of left field.

OK... I took a minute to read your post on the PPM mechanics. I didn't know about the linear adjustment to AF for PPM mechanics (I'd been using ParagonWiki's page). So Mass Hypnosis would be 4.75 * 0.75 + 0.25 = 3.8125 and the proc chance I had above 29% instead of 23%. So the Call of the Sandman proc will be 50% better for ST and roughly 2 to 4 times worse for AoE. I can't help feeling the top non-Purple Sleep set is now pretty darn weak. Which is insult to injury given how little value AoE Sleep has in the current game environment.

And the power most likely to have a Heal proc in it (Mass Hypnosis) has a 25' radius. By my calculation with 5-slotted CotS you'll have about 50% slotted recharge (47.7% in my builds), giving a cycle time of 33s or so with the activation and a 4.75 AF [Edit: This should be 3.8125]. So the proc chance would actually be about 23% [Edit: should be 29%], not 90%. To achieve 90% the PPM would have to be 8, not 2. So it's not firing 10 or 11 times (I'm assuming it isn't always hitting 16 targets), but about 3. Which matches my experience. [Edit: I believe the AF for a 15' sphere is 3.25.]

Wait... doesn't the chance to proc get divided by the Area Factor? [Edit:] Looking over my builds in Mids' the change results in exactly one CotS being left in my 140+ character builds. Paired with an Entropic Chaos in Mesmerize for a Mind/TA Controller build.

Assist works, it just doesn't work well solo as the Galvinic Sentinel won't hold aggro over you if you're attacking. So you'll soon have the foes targeting you, and assist with ally-targeting powers doesn't work if they're targeting you, since you're not an ally. You can however assist the GS and use it to choose targets for your attacks, as opposed to using assist for your buffs. This will be sub-optimal, since the pet AI is poor at choosing targets, but it works better than having to re-target all the time. A combination of this and attacking normally with a bind to switch back to the pet for assist-through-pet seems to work best solo.

My only feedback from my most recent testing is just a re-iteration of what others have said: I don't like having to switch to targeting the pet while fighting. If only you could assist through foes when they are targeting you instead of a teammate...