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That's a good way to test, but it moves you from adjacent to the target instead of at the target. I'm not sure a 0' attack would hit if you are adjacent to the target.

True. I should have said "anyone who has taken a serious look at the formulas" instead of "all of us". Everybody who has looked at them ought to know that Activation Time being left out is a major issue. And most people should realize that target caps not being included is also a significant oversight. Finally, the linear rather than quadratic relationship of the Area Modifier with Radius is also iffy.

Good, I didn't bother to test all the sustains systematically in this build as it didn't look as if any had been changed. There were still three that appear to be broken: Darkness Manipulation / Touch of the Beyond: The Fear Protection isn't working. Martial Combat / Reaction Time: The Absorb tick rate doesn't match the description. And the +Recovery doesn't appear to be working. Temporal Manipulation / Temporal Mending: All components save the Absorb frequently cease to work when you zone (and upon initial log in) and occasionally for no apparent reason.

I think all of us - including Captain Powerhouse - know that the damage formulas are seriously flawed. But changing that is a massive and highly controversial undertaking. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. And without such a reworking I think you are just going to have to accept that suggesting a major deviation from the formula is almost certainly going to fall on deaf ears with the devs. I suspect Burst of Speed is on a 90 second cooldown right now because the well-established Shield Charge is too. BoS does similar damage to Scrapper SC, but with twice the Activation Time (both of those from using it 3 times in succession), no KD, and much better TP speed and range. It's balanced fairly well with SC. Oh, and it's available at level 10 instead of 26 (Tanker) or 35 (Brute, Scrapper, Stalker),

No, it mezzes Lts as long as the combined Mag is > 2. So on one cast that's the duration of the Mag 1 portion of the effect, since that will stack on top of the longer Mag 2 portion. I assume it's split to make it harder for Blasters to Hold Bosses and Elite Bosses with just their Secondary powers. The non-stacking portion just doesn't stack with itself from the same caster (I haven't tested the "same caster" part - but I think that's how the mechanic works in general). So if you can cast the power twice in the duration of the Mag 1 portion it will overlap briefly for Mag 2 + 1 + 1 = Mag 4 and mez a boss. To perma-mez a Boss with one of the Secondary ST mezzes you'll likely need to slot that power with Mez+Rech instead of as an attack. Or you'll need a second mez to stack with it. Mez Scale with an Archetype Multiplier determines the duration of the effect.

I think Burst of Speed is a 15' radius; but it is hard to tell. I base that on it appearing to be more than 10' and the next standard size being 15'. Increasing Dragon's Tail's radius to 14' or 15' would reduce its Damage by about 30% (or up it's Recharge to around 17s) to keep it balanced with regard to the standard formula. Plus, it's just not going to happen, as the power isn't in need of a buff of any kind. Rebalancing BoS to an attack with a utility side effect rather than a power that balances the two is probably not going to happen either. That 200' teleport with no line of sight required is a pretty serious "side effect". I can tp from by the SG portal in the RWZ Vanguard base to the targeting dummies. BoS as a 6s Recharge 15' AoE with a basic side effect (no tp, no 3 times) would have Damage less than half of what it does now. (Edit: I haven't tested BoS's tp, but Combat Teleport works for out-of-los tps through assist. I expect BoS will as well. That's a major power effect.) Personally, I'd like to see its recharge improved a bit, since it's the signature power of the set, but the numbers you are suggesting are just way out of line. A 60s Recharge I could see; anything less than that and some part of it would likely be nerfed for balance. At the extremely short Recharge you're suggesting it would basically end up doing no damage at all and becoming a longer range Combat Teleport.

At a 12-15s recharge (unless you lose the 3 times before cooldown part) it would be doing much more damage (more than 2.5 times) than Dragon's Tail with roughly the same Recharge and extra utility (I think it even has a larger radius).

It can be used 3 times before the cooldown starts.

I ran this on the same Necro/Elect MM (switched to Rogue) as I used for the hero arc. Now at level 30 (31 for the final mission). The only added power was Assault. The arc was rather rough on this guy, as I had trouble controlling the pets. It's been a while since I played Zombies, and I had some old binds that weren't leashing them well. But even when I had things fixed, the Zombies took off and I lost bodyguard a LOT. The bees in the Kraken sewer were one culprit. The Immature Paragon Protector clones' gas clouds in the Hopkins mission were even worse. Naturally, in the hero arc, these very same zombies were quite happy to bathe in the fires. But one dead Mini PP and 5 out of 6 of my pets were out of the fight for several seconds. I died twice, partly due to poor play on an unfamiliar MM with old binds, and partly due to critters that just aren't friendly to melee pet MMs. Both times were in the Kraken room in Mission 3. I probably would have been fine had I cleaned up my binds before that and been more cautious. On the final mission I forgot to take Bile to his arms locker and he got stuck in the elevators exiting the lower level. He just kept entering the 'vators and coming right back out on the bottom level. I exited the mission and came back and he was at the top of the elevators. I had to repeat that at the bottom of the 'vators. After that I was able to lead him back to the locker and then out. Really, the only complaint I have is that it would be nice if Bile followed more closely. When he's a non-combat pet, he seems to be easy to lose.

I tried this again with a L28 Hero DM/SR Scrapper running on common IOs. I sped through the missions on base level to test the Virus Cocktail. I was very careful to follow the heroic path and ended up perma-debuffed again. And I was defeated by the fires. This time I died immediately after defeating Pathogen. I beat him with a Siphon Life and before the 2s rooting of that attack could finish I was dead. I was near full health at the time. The HP debuff is much weaker on a Scrapper than an MM, btw. My MM lost about 30% of his health (154.2 of 525.7), this Scrapper lost about 15% of hers (126.2 from 876.2). So that fire damage was somewhere in the vicinity of 700 HP in less than 2 seconds. I did finally realize the Medical Research helped offset the debuffs, but it's just not enough. Increasing its duration might help. Once again, fighting Cortex with no END to speak of was a nightmare. He managed to defeat me simply because I had to convert every insp into blue. My Touch of Fear DoT finished him too. But I had no insps to make a rez and had to leg it from the Hospital. With the debuff as it is this arc is hard to play on anything less than a fully set-slotted toon.

I had the same problem on a newly started arc. I couldn't get rid of the virus. The doc at the Pathogen mission never would talk to me. Playing on a L27-29 Necro/Elect Hero MM I died twice in the Pathogen mission. That mission is extremely unfriendly to MMs. I used a Medium+Small Orange and a small green (all I had) and still couldn't even run through the bottleneck room alive. It didn't help that there were about a dozen untargetable Vahz in the room as obstacles. After I came back a bunch of backlogged ambushes (apparently) swarmed me under with their explosions. Mission 3 was slow going on the MM too, but I managed that without dying. And surprisingly also made it through the finale without a defeat, despite twice having to flee from the Giant Mini Space Cortices. With the virus I simply didn't have the END to keep fighting at that point (I didn't buy any insps between missions). I think everything except the fires and the buggy virus are in a good place now. Those fires are just ridiculous on a squishy with your HP debuffed. On my MM at 29 he had 371.5 HP after the -154.2 debuff. Once my pets burned themselves to death standing in fires I died almost instantly.

Given that he's missing based on ToHit rolls, he'd really be testing to see if the RNG is biased in some way related to BU, Hide and AS. The likelihood of that is pretty slim. Also, that's actually a pretty low number of trials for binomial testing. You usually want to be able to use the normal approximation for your statistical tests on binomial distributions. Computers have made that less of an issue since it's easier to calculate the exact numbers, but it's still pretty much the standard. For a binomial distribution the normal approximation is typically only used when np(1-p) >= 10 or n >= 10/p/(1-p). Here that's about 200 trials. Still, if he goes out and misses 10 times in 20 tries, that would indicate making a 200+ trial test may be worth the effort.

I played my level 28 TW/WP Scrapper from live a bit. She's running on pure Common IOs atm, not even a Stealth IO. The play seems quite a bit smoother. The damage output is definitely less, but that was intended. The only thing I really don't like is that Build Momentum's +Dam buff now seems too low.

I believe they do. I tried testing it, but it's quite hard to tell. You can certainly hover out of melee range and still affect the target, but not by much. The problem is that they start running about if you're out of melee range and run out of range of the debuff. It worked OK, but not great.

Doesn't vertical distance still count double on "spheres" such as Disruption Aura?

I just tested this on three toons; my original /Martial test toon, a newly created /Martial Blaster and a toon copied from Indomitable. I got the same results as Keleko on all of them. I tried zoning, toggling on-and-off, removing stealth from the equation, turning off all other toggles, and even removing enhancements. The listed Reaction Time +Rec was never added to the total. (I updated my previous test post to reflect this - serves me right for only looking at the buff itself to see if it was suppressing.)

Not really. Mids Reborn implements Fiery Embrace correctly, so the numbers are right for Brute and Stalker EM, but wrong for Tankers for a different reason (because some AT damage numbers are off in general in MR, including Tankers).

Too be more specific, in the Detailed Info for Barrage on Brutes, Scrappers and Tankers it is incorrectly including the Fiery Embrace damage. Stalkers don't get Fiery Embrace, so the numbers are right for them.

I think the arc is excellent. Lots of great dialog. It seems more straight-forward than the hero-side one. Which is both a plus and a minus. The hero arc is definitely more challenging than usual. The villain arc is on par with many of the EB heavy arcs you run into red-side.

The IO will remain in the new power until you respec, use an Unslotter or simply stomp it. Only those portions of the IO that could enhance the power will work. So, for example, a KB->KD IO in Dynamo will do nothing. (I think Dynamo can use Acc, Dam, Rech, Heal and EndMod.)

In Dr. Vahzilok's dialog in the Zigg (on the page starting "Doctor Vahzilok is obviously agitated", 2nd white paragraph) he says "You've taken my genius plans [...]". "Genius" is actually a noun, though it's sometimes used in informal speed as an adjective as it is here. Still I think "ingenious" would probably be better. Anyway, it just seemed off to me in the middle of Dr. V's wordy rant.

After the 1st mission from Buzzsaw she says (in the last sentence of the first paragraph)... "'ll see what what I can find out. Feel free to wander about while I conduct my research!"

On my Rogue the level 35-39 Range is called "Criminal" rather than "Captain". After accepting her first mission Doc Buzzsaw says "No, my young friends are better served as a distraction, but they won't know that." This means it would be in the interest of her "young friends" to serve as a distraction. Which I doubt is the intent. Perhaps "No, my young friends would better serve [...]" would be a better phrasing. The second paragraph here starts "He and his cadre [...]", but the only direct reference to Cortex is in the mission title, it might be better to avoid using a pronoun and refer to him directly here. "Cortex and his cadre [...]" also has a better sound to it to my ear.

I've seen this with SS, CJ and SJ as well. It happens when you zone with the power on. The status bar icons are also not removed if you activate a power that automatically deactivates them (only after zoning), such as switching on CJ after zoning with SJ active.

I just finished this arc on an L28 DP/Nin Blaster with a fairly expensive build for that level. I ran at base settings. She died twice. Once to the fires bottleneck, which killed her before I realized she was even in trouble and once fighting Cortex's respawn when I simply ran out of insps and Smoke Flash failed to hit in time. The combination of the -HP debuff and those fires is a real issue. Having to beat Cortex and all those spawns is just hard. I should have used the elevator to go up and clear spawns to get more insps, but I was too slow to run for it. As for the content itself. I think it's excellent, though I have to say I really dislike Agent Watkins. He's very prickly, taking offense at things that seem pretty minor. I also disliked the "direct order" bs. I decided to run through the arc again with a level 50+3 "speed" toon. In this case a Sav/Bio Stalker. I ran at 0x2yn (because I forgot to reset it for the first 2 missions) and 0x1yn (that's Boss on, AVs off) as I was going for speed. It was a cake walk. With some rubbernecking (I took a few different options in the dialog) and bosses on it took about 42 minutes. This is definitely a Stalker friendly arc, where you can skip much of the hard stuff. Taking out Pathogen was a little slower than I expected. Though waiting out the ambushes before he reappeared actually took more time. The fires aren't a problem on a tougher toon. Though the blinky actually spawned in the bottleneck room, so I had to deal with the flames and spawns I'd bypassed to get it.