Replacement

I was thinking some that were ported from Brute/Tanker still have Taunt instead of Confront, but now I think that was just an old Pine's omission. As for the Confront swap, there are 3 ways to do it, in my estimation. They get progressively more work to implement, break the cottage rule more and more, but also get awesomer: 1) Brief move speed bonus on Confront 2) Replace all Scrapper confronts with the same gap-closing power 3) Give each set its own thematic and varied gap-close. Obviously much cooler, but so much less realistic of a use of HC Dev time. EDIT: about the Beta server: I would love if the Devs would throw some intentionally over-the-top experimental things on the beta servers just to intentionally desensitize us from overreacting. It's always good data to see what happens if, say, you change the minimum level of epics to 4 just to see what people do with it. What I'm saying is: I fully support putting wild things on Beta, give them the [experimental] tag, and see what happens.

Is this (bolded) supposed to be Lucky or Evasion? Dodge would just be more melee defense. Personally, I'd go for Lucky (auto). That'd give us Melee Toggle, Ranged Toggle, AoE passive. But then, I really just want to burn SR to the ground and rebuild it to look more like Shield Defense. I second giving Scrapper version some +defense like the big guys get. I'd also love to see Burst of Speed added to the kit somehow. I had mentioned before the idea of having 3 separate powers in the pool all grant Burst of Speed charges, meaning you would need all 3 to have the same behavior that Blasters gain (3 charges before cooldown).

Funny you should mention this... It was brought up in a Suggestions & Feedback thread, people were interested enough that we spun it out to its own thread where... everyone poo-poo'd on the whole idea. Where were y'all then?

Given the implied fiction, I think that would actually be really cool. Seconded, if possible without too much work.

Is this a decent thread to post other interesting/simple approaches to adding difficulty? Or is this reserved for and directed entirely at Incarnate level difficulties? I'll ask for forgiveness instead of permission, I suppose! I'd like to see enemies spawn with Inspiration buffs. example progression: Starting at level 20, all bosses gain a random small Inspiration effect when aggro'd Starting at level 30, so do lieutenants. Starting at level 35, bosses instead trigger a small Team inspiration effect. Starting at level 40, lieutenants upgrade to medium inspirations. Starting at level 45, bosses gain a 2nd small inspiration effect (total: one small for self, one team buff) These would last the normal durations for small inspirations, though perhaps the Break Free effect should be normalized to be the same as the others. I think for ease of implementation, I would omit Respites and Second Winds, and Awakens would end up just giving players free XP.

This is only slightly tongue-in-cheek. The core notions of building an entire Blast set based on (Gravity Control's) Propel assets is ... serious enough. And feels like a glaring omission. Set type: Blast. For all the blasting ATs, duh. The fiction: You summon/create/procure stuff and launch it at your foes. Hard. The central premise is that each power looks up potential junk from a table of objects, which are themselves mostly just diced up versions of the Propel table. Most powers first run a /random to determine an appropriate table to roll on, then roll objects on that table. This will probably make more sense when you read the powers descriptions. Gimmick: Premium. Whenever you use a TK Blast power, you gain a number of Premiums equal to the % of Defiance the power provides (For this reason, I'd make the Blaster version first, then just remove the Defiance amounts when copying to the other ATs). Each stack of Premium does nothing by itself (is instead used by the powers themselves) and wears off over time. If possible, I'd like to see stacks disappear from movement, so that you could have players just running all over the environment to represent scavenging stuff. Alternatively, gives a scaling chance to instead launch a t1 power effect instead of the power you actually used. Meaning the more Premiums you have, the more likely you are to fire a weak "dud." If going this route, obviously, the T1 itself has no chance to dud out, but does continue to build Premiums for your other TK blasts. Premiums are obviously meant to refer to Insurance Premiums because I think it's funny, but it could refer to how much you've used up your premium positioning if you're simply procuring things from the environment in your fiction, or whatever other headcanon you develop. T1 - Launch (ST) - You launch a small object. It deals either Smashing or Lethal damage. T2 - Lob (ST) - You launch a decently chunky item, such as an office chair or CRT TV. It deals Smashing and Lethal damage along with a proc of additional smashing, lethal, or energy (electric shock from appliances) damage. T3 - Flak (Cone) - You shotgun out several small items from the T1 list in a cone, dealing moderate Smashing and Lethal damage, with a chance for additional Smashing or Lethal damage. T4 - White Elephant (targeted AOE) - You launch a volatile object at your target, dealing minor Smashing damage to them and causing an explosion at their location. From transformers to propane tanks, the explosion deals fire, energy, or toxic damage. T5 - Dig Deep (Self) - Build Up clone. Purchasing this power gives Premiums a benefit: As Premiums rise and corporate entities begin to cut you off from access of everyday objects, you have dug too deep like the Dwarves before you. All your powers gain a chance (%=number of Premium stacks) to instead summon something unfit for the streets of Paragon City. All the weird stuff from the Arcane/magic sets of bases, or of Circle of Thorns maps, basically. Stuff like sacrificial tables, The Necronomicon, Banished Pantheon zombie corpses, etc. The random damage components of all your powers have a chance to instead come out as Negative Energy, Cold, or Psychic. T6 - Launch Novelty (ST) - You launch a small item that is cherished, expensive, or otherwise unique and meaningful to someone. It deals minor damage and causes either a disorient from head trauma (are there any trophies in the game?), a Hold effect (syringes, capsules, Enrich, etc), or a Fear effect (from Dig Deep objects). Because the status effect is random, it's probably best to not allow Enhancements for any of them, but to compensate with stronger base effects. T7 - Sky strike (Snipe) - A large object appears in the sky and drops on your target, dealing Smashing and Lethal damage and procs an additional amount of Smashing or Lethal damage. T8 - Hazardous material (narrow cone) - You emit a stream of hazardous material in a narrow cone, dealing Extreme Fire, Energy, or Toxic DoT. T9 - Vandals Are Causing Mayhem! (Location AoE, special) - You create a car at location, which taunts nearby enemies. You can also attack your car. After a time limit (or when its health drops to zero), it explodes, dealing extreme Smashing, Lethal, and Fire damage. If Dig Deep triggers, this power instead summons a large and terrifying artifact, which deals psychic damage when detonated. --- You will notice there aren't a lot of secondary effects included here, outside the obvious Mez power. I would consider giving all of these powers a low-to-moderate chance for a very short duration (like 2 seconds) Disorient effect. Maybe something like 2 separate 40% chances at Mag 2 Disorients, which works out to a 16% chance of mezzing a lieutenant. Alternatively, Propel sets a strong precedent for Knockdown/Knockback. I just felt like we have enough Blasts that do that already. Inspiration: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dakota_Berg Seriously, read this Contact's bio. I love it.

I get it, you both prefer method A. I'm just acknowledging method B has merit. Even if that merit is "we don't feel like making spreadsheets to calculate the impact right now because we're busy."

I feel like Donnie in the background, saying "I am the Walrus?" over and over again. The problem isn't in having Toxic Dart good enough to replace a t1/2 power (and thus better than some) -- the problem is it being the only pool attack that performs that well, which leads to things like people taking the pool just for an optimized build, origin and theme be damned. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way to go about fixing the disparity it's either a) you make it awesome now and super-serious-pinky-promise to fix the other pools soon, as in like a half a year or b) you tweak it to be as suck as the rest of the pool attacks for now and let them all be meh until you find the time to do a full pass as a batch.

This is why I was saying, I get making it in-line with the other crappy pool attacks for now if they intend to make a pass down the road and generally increase most of their recharge and damage scales. I think we all agree that it's an asinine relic of a bygone era to have to make the player choose multiple pointless picks just to diversify themselves. But starting with just 1 pool attack (like the dart of topic) without also doing a pass on flurry, jump kick, etc, is just asking for intervening months of everyone choosing just that one attack in every build.

I don't know, I think it's super clever. The fear with letting, say, a force field defender bubble themselves has always been that they're too strong on self. This bounceback is a mechanism to enforce what they already wanted (prioritizing targets for big buffs while still being friendly to the rest of your team) and guarantees you can never give yourself the best version of a buff. All wrapped up in a really tidy package. I get not liking pets, but I think it works for this set and brings so many different aspects together.

If the set stays as-is, I'm reasonably sure I'm going to end up trying to build a Fighting Pool solo Corruptor once this goes live. I think this set will be a really interesting benchmark for if a solo-capable Support set feels good or like just too much. (yes, I understand some other sets already do this, but they tend to have things like long-casting debuff toggles and such that make pre-IO play very difficult)

Remember: this game holds Boxing and Hasten as equivalent. Take a look at just about any optimized build and tell me how much sense that makes... ... But I understand not making waves until you're ready to do a full "Pool attack" revision wave.

Full cottage breaker: some wall powers that break line of sight/effect. But then, "Field Control" is one of those odd thematic gaps and I'd love to see become a control set down the road.

In our first build, we had Discharge - aoe debuff. And the whole set was just too damn clicky. The sentinel was put in to cast Discharge for you. In that first build with big G, powers couldn't chain back to the caster (to go along with all the other Support pools that can't self-buff). So the pet doesn't just exist to provide you bounce-back. It should be debuffing spawns and taking some shots. Also: yes, all the Circuit powers have logic to prioritize the entity type they were cast on: if cast on players, will only bounce to pets when it runs out of players. If cast on pets, will only bounce to players if it runs out of players.

I've been meaning to post something to this effect for a while. First round effort (suggested testing ground: all versions of Salt Crystals): simply adding a delayed echo. E.g. if the power currently reads "mag 3 sleep for 20 seconds", it would gain a 2nd line in the detailed info that says "mag 3 sleep for 18 seconds after a 2 second delay." (flagged not to stack with self) This is just to to make it a little more durable. I don't think reapplying sleep over and over and over for the full duration is realistic -- at this point, I think the headache of assessing what that would do to the power level of players all around is... probably not worth it. But 1-2 reapplications at the start to give your party a chance to react and reorganize themselves would be quite nice. I think this is cool. We already have some precedent in this with Fear effects providing -ToHit for this same reason. One thing that would be really interesting is a Recovery debuff (or similar, such as negative Endurance discount), to help synergize with the number of incidental Sleeps that seem to pop up in some Electric attacks.

I meant to mention that. Even with the stealth, I'd like to see SS have just enough of a speed edge to claim it's fastest. That's still ignoring the teleport...

Circuits We have a power that gives just a heal and another that gives just an absorb. The use cases of these are pretty similar. Energizing Circuit - I like that the +Recharge is actually really really short - very thematic. I was expecting this to be more like a speed boost, probably because some patch notes mentioned the idea, but the play methodology is very different, here. Empowering Circuit - Ah, this is the real party buff. I really like that we have 4 Circuit powers, so that it stays very clearly part of the set's identity instead of "just a few gimmick powers." But I am feeling like I wouldn't mind seeing Insulating and Rejuvenating combined into a +absorb and +hot/regen power, which could make way for an offensive Circuit power (unlikely but what I'd love to see: still target and chain allies, but each ally gains a Duration version of Lightning Field - health and stamina DoT).

Yes, I know. Nothing matters and this is just a timeout thread but... Circuitry. That's it. Just one word, like Traps, et al.

Playing around with Speed of Sound/Jaunt today. Protip: if you only jaunt about every 4 seconds or so, you never go on cooldown. The "that doesn't add up" part of my brain is telling me this is slower, overall, than bamfing 3x times and then waiting the 10 seconds, but it's a good option for people who want to develop a nice flow, mix up their parkour some. Speaking of mixing it up, I'm actually enjoying pairing this with Combat Jumping. A lot of speed and mobility all just coming together with the combo. Comparing to Super Speed: I get we have a precedent established of letting these Origin pools be just as good as old powers +1... but I feel like we could shave 5-10% off the speed of Speed of Sound. Close enough to Super Speed to not functionally matter, but still letting Super Speed have the throne of being the fastest game in town. I'd really rather see the team make a decision like this now and then consider nerfs/buffs later on down the road instead of carrying on Paragon Studio's will and then revisiting in a year when all 5 sets are out. (Neither here nor there, but I'd really like to see Force of Will's leaping power slightly reduced, the takeoff buff improved by the same amount, and then let Takeoff benefits apply even while Leaping isn't running, so you get some combat jumping-esque combat mobility along with a requirement to stay active to keep your overland speed comparable)

I feel like I've seen this with powers before, so not sure if bug (or if it is, it's probably not an EA bug)

I would say "Mind Control, ruining everything again!" but I'm not terribly attached to the idea anyway.

I like the idea of removing the pet from the MM version in favor of a version of Discharge. Maybe the Controller version too. I like the idea (at this moment, at least) of some differences between the ATs. As was also mentioned... It's probably too late for it, but an offensive chain power could be pretty nice too.

Do you happen to remember off the top of your head what the directly-taken powers do, here? Desert Wind looks like cone KB, Ash Fall is... a ground-targeted slow? Dust Devils - no clue.

Oh look, it's been a day and he's still following the normal pattern of emotional knee-jerking! Seriously. This is the standard process that ruins other video games: a squad of people showing up and screaming about how the sky is falling, all your like-minded overreactors come through and Like each other's posts, and you never acknowledge how development actually works: we fix things that are broken, and we balance things the correct way instead of letting poor decision points continue to exist. You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, for example, that if a Corruptor's Twilight Grasp is just as good as a Defender's, anyone who is playing as Defender is making the objectively wrong choice. And finally, you and @Septipheran and @Doomrider sure are conveniently ignoring that this is part of a concerted effort to get rid of pseudopets and make the game itself better. For you! EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt "a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer."

Sure, but that doesn't rob this process of value. Case and point: I'm a bit surprised to see so many people putting Empathy in the "minor tweaks" column. I expected it to at least come close to Force Fields in the major overhaul category. So if I went and made threads saying "we all know Empathy is a one-trick pony that fades into the background when you have more than 2 allies," I would be projecting a consensus that isn't there. (And don't anyone dare use this example against me - the point isn't that I would do this, but that people do every day). Even subjective opinion graduates from anecdote to data once you have enough of it.