Replacement

Not everyone reads long descriptions and monitors stats, or even has a frame of reference for what a good stat looks like. So yes, letting people put in several pure defense enhancements is a noob trap. You have led the player to believe they have a small defense bonus, and that they have an opportunity to bump it up to a moderate one. When they find this to be untrue, they now have to not only fix their enhancements, but probably also need to respec their slotting. So to the OP topic, I am opposed to allowing defense enhancements for wet ice unless it also gets at least a marginal bump to it's defense numbers. It tricks newer players.

That's fair, but note how I intentionally separated my two thoughts. 1% defense is doing so little that it should be reassessed. Was that bit the razor's edge of balance? My sense is, based on my reading in this thread, they left it in so the power could technically do what they originally said it did. It's lip service to their own mandate, and I'm sure it made a lot of sense to them at the time. Tiny pointless defense bonus is pointless. Either remove it or buff it, instead of having it sit here mocking us. Moving further into subjectivity, I play a lot looser when it comes to ye olde cottages (adds to survival, does not remove enhancement options. I see no problem), and the idea of adding Absorbs to ice sets has been bandied about elsewhere. I also am biased against mule powers. But yeah, I'd be all for tuning it to CJ numbers instead. Btw: mids tells me it's only 1% defense for Tankers too.

This is known as "burden of knowledge" and is part of a larger conversation about false game depth (tl;dr: complexity does not equal depth of play. Just noob traps). I have a better solution: totally remove the silly 1% defense, compensate elsewhere. The 1% is the silliest attempt to uphold the cottage rule ever. Personally, I'd go for a self-renewing Absorb shield on Wet Ice.

One more thing, @Captain Powerhouse: Thank you for all your hard work!

Bummed and relieved about this. I'll need some time in a dark room to contemplate further. While we're looking towards the next patch, just how hard is it to adjust AT scales? I would love to see the damage dropped to .9, with a buff to secondary effects and party scales. This is an extension of what I've said throughout this entire thread: if we trust a little extra damage doesn't turn them into a dps job, then we also have to trust that slightly higher utility in their Leadership or carrier debuffs won't up and make them a Support.

I was probably editing while you asked that, but to be clear, the statement that CP wants damage to be primary. That's hyperbole. I want to also note: I've seen your posts around here. You're smart and I like what you have to say, so this is entirely me trying to keep this fair, not attack you.

That's unfair. His opinion was tempered, moderate. You're being hyperbolic. He didn't say damage should be primary. You put those words in his mouth.

This is still honestly the biggest thing I'd like to see (along with at least a small damage bump. I wouldn't mind something between Live and current Pineapple if it got us more power budget for stuff like this). It has always bothered me that there are four Archetypes comprised of melee and armor pools, and all 4 of them are tied at the bottom of the heap for leadership benefits. If this happens to buff Grant Cover and some other secondary effects? I'm super OK with that. If Tanker Epics with debuffs are actually better than the Brute versions, I would feel justified in those choices instead of feeling like "I'm only grabbing this because I know my Brute counterparts won't."

Yeah I think I'm going to double down on this idea of having a separate buff gifted to caster when they use these powers. It could even be a single buff that's simply thematically appropriate. Example: no matter which cold domination party buff you use, you also grant yourself a (non-stacking) generic ice shield. This would let us really decide what a fair amount of self protection looks like and just go straight for that.

Ah nice, you've made the OP's point quite succinctly, here! -- I do get concerned about the size of Defender numbers, though. I wonder if it would be ridiculous to set these powers to have a pseudopet copy your buffs back at you. This would mean it would ignore player scales and result in a much weaker version than you're giving your party, but still very significant and end-efficient.

Yeah but aggro cap isn't the same as target cap. Where I think Beau is going with this is, if the aggro cap were higher, then tankers' higher target caps would be pretty noticable just as a means of holding hate.

ZING!

Nuance is awesome: -I like having a defined role -I like also getting to deal damage. These are not mutually exclusive principles. Everyone loves to spit Trinity like a curse, and then some folks note how many modern games go the other direction and make everyone so self-sufficient that grouping is stupid. To me, the truth of CoH lives in the middle: This is a game great because it allows you to have roles, but allows you to break those roles and define new ones. Tankers getting some QOL damage does not make them self-sufficient tankmages. It does not make them Brutes, The Sequel. It does not spontaneously create or destroy a trinity.

Group testing will def be important. But it'll probably be easiest to coordinate in the beta channel of the Discord. Important PSA: Reminder to veteran tankers: the under-the-hood mechanisms of Gauntlet have been replaced. Testing would be appreciated. I more or less main tanks in every MMO except CoH. Precisely because I never developed this "feel" and now I'm a little too ashamed to stand in the spotlight next to The Greats. So if you're a career tank, this is probably a good way to apply that decade of intuition: see if how you expect AI to behave doesn't match up. If it feels like you're holding hate easier or harder, etc.

Bland, uninspiring subjective feedback: I've rebuilt my invuln/staff tanker on Pineapple (on pizza) and I've been playing at assorted level ranges: 10, 16, and 30 so far. My goal is just to gather subjective feedback on how the set feels. It's silly to talk about how it performs at 50 when alting is the end game. 10 - nothing to write home about. 16, no enhancements at all - endurance didn't constantly tank. It should be noted this level was chosen because it's about when I start to hate this game (starting at around 16 and carrying through until I pony up and get some IOs). The fact that I wasn't constantly detoggling before groups went down says a lot. In fact, It may say too much. Even brutes at this level hate their blue bars and complete lack of accuracy. 30, basic IOs - Not fully kitted out. I didn't even bother slotting Endurance, and I was still doing ok on blue. It's just enough that you notice it if you're watching for it, like I was. It's really hard to disentangle how much is end recovery being based on a higher base, and how much was enemies dying faster (and thus with less stamina expended) due to damage increases. Cone: I tried to get a feel for the increased cone size, but I really didn't notice a change on Guarded Spin. It's always been a super forgiving cone (probably just because of its awesome range), so it's hard to say. Sadly, I didn't even think about the fact that Eye of the Storm probably hits everyone in sight now, so I didn't think to test it. Thoughts on what I didn't test: - I really should have tested at 20-22, no enhancements. crazy how many of my characters stall out there. - Pretty sure most IO +max stamina set bonuses are % increases. It's meager, but I think this means Tankers will get more out of those than other ATs?

I was thinking something similar. Would it be terrible to go the way of Translocation and give Rage the standard effect that also grants you a 2nd power to "stack" but with a crash at the end? This Mystic Flight/Translocation solution is apparently my go-to response to every conundrum, btw.

+25% damage taken would matter. +100% would remove an entire role. I agree with this line of thought:

Only tangentially-related, but I think it's interesting that when people talk about nerfing Brute damage resist caps, everyone assumes 80%. Honestly, I'd rather see them lowered to 87.5% resist cap -- that's close enough to 90 to not matter in most respects, but to technically be 25% increased incoming damage. And then, as Captain Powerhouse noted - we will need to talk about Kheldian tanks, but only when we're happy with Tankers.

I am of two minds on these changes... I guess I'll say it like this: While I agree that "becoming Brute" is not the solution, I do believe at least some damage increase is necessary. I really want folks to keep in mind while they critique: damage is not binary. There is a large difference between "you made them a dps" and "you made them less miserable for low man groups." Of course, it's now up to us to determine where we landed on this scale.

Yeah well, we have a beta server now. Folks that are hesitant: I hear you. But this is a perfect thing to send to a beta server, see how much of a storm is kicked up, then if it dies down, then we can see how it feels. If it was successfully implemented... It would be a huge step towards a melee/support AT, as well.

My Psi Blast Sentinel is now my "I wonder how far I can go on the Fighting Pool attacks" character so... Yeah. That one.

I'm for giving it a shot.

We may soon have have the tools to turn just about anyone who cares into a content creator. How do you weigh the desire to cut loose and try wildly new things with the philosophy of keeping the game recognizable? How do you weigh letting your community help you with content vs not being saddled with ideas that "seemed cool at the time?" Start by taking submissions for content. This is everything. New power sets, new costume parts, new task forces, new IOs. Anything and everything. So then, with the help of polls and the sensibility of the Homecoming staff, we turn the Beta server into 2-3 month long "league" servers where everyone starts fresh with new rules in play. This may seem familiar to folks who have played games such as Path of Exile. Create some meta-incentives such as forum badges or special titles to draw in even folks who aren't necessarily testing the new/changed contents. Ideally, at the end of the league, people would be able to export out their characters and (pie in the sky) get a publicly available download for that version of Homecoming in case folks want to continue that "ruleset" on a private server. And then Homecoming integrates the parts they like back to the standard game. What this achieves: Tons of testing that people are encouraged to participate in. Friendly competitive badge hunting and leveling frenzies. Opportunities for SCORE to deploy even shaky changes and see real-world data on how it works with zero player expectation that those changes will make their way to the live servers. The flip-side of the above: well-received and effective changes can be merged into the main branch. An outlet for folks who would like to get their hands dirty making their own mark on the code, but don't really have the means to run a private server or even convince folks to come experience it. I want to emphasize, I think this would best be achieved with a guiding and non-democratic hand (that is to say, the Homecoming staff). Collecting changes that would go well together, or otherwise incentivize players towards certain things they want to test. Example: "Aeon League" * All short Dev Choice AE missions are available as newspaper missions. * Hacker Power Pool is available (selected player submission) * Energy Melee buffs (Captain Powerhouse wip) The idea is there would be some things that are just straight up "let's test this" and some things that would play into the "theme" of the league. Something like "new archetype: the necromancer" wouldn't really belong in this league. Um. That's my thought. Done.

Something of a PSA, I guess. I've been doing this for the past month or so and haven't seen anyone mention it. But Inner Will can be ctrl-clicked to turn it into an auto-break free every minute or so. Beware it will also trigger when your end drops under half, so it's not advisable if you have a lot of endurance problems. Cheers Feel free to throw out your thoughts.

Dominator > Martial Assault > Trick Shot's bounce range is radically reduced. Patch notes say: Trick Shot is now a proper chain attack, hits up to 10 targets. Hoping this isn't part of making it "proper." I don't have good run-time capturing tools, but here are some pictures I took and hopefully you'll just believe my findings. BETA: targeted left-most enemy. Did not bounce (Peregrin Island for tiled floor reference) BETA: picture taken just after using Trick shot on yellow-pantalooned Attendant (did not bounce to Red McClaw-hands). If you see a hit reaction on her, that's her reacting to my Conductive Aura. (Still Peregrine) LIVE server: picture taken before using Trick Shot, which DID bounce. Steel Canyon for floor tile reference: Floor tiles are smaller in the Steel Canyon picture, so that may be misleading, but the distance between these two Outcasts is huge. The two Attendants pictured above were likely both within melee cone ranges.