Illuminant

The key is to construct your build in such a way that you don't use toggles. My tri-form Kheldian builds all have 32.5% s/l defense with no toggles, so regardless of my form I can softcap with a small purple. Warshades are who really suffer from the lack of toggle suppression due to inky aspect/orbiting death.

Against my better judgement I'd like to point out to @Redlynne something interesting I noticed in the beta patch notes: Could it be that this will address the technical limitations you were alluding to in regards to knock-to mechanics? I guess time will tell. 🙂

Redlynne, there is nothing wrong with us discussing ideas for improvements on the forums. If the HC team doesn't have time to get to this, don't think it's a priority, etc.... That is fine. We can still have a productive discussion as a community about changes we'd like to see. I'm sure that if they needed your assistance moderating they would make you a GM. All you've done is come in here, be disruptive, and self-righteously white-knight on behalf of a group of people that everyone in this thread likes and supports. What the team thinks of the suggestions here, whether they're feasible, is up to their discretion. Speaking for myself, I'm happy to play here and appreciate their efforts, whether they make any of this happen or not. I don't understand why you seem to take it as a personal affront that people discuss ideas that they think would be helpful to the game. If you don't plan to productively engage in a discussion, it might be a good rule of thumb to simply not post. I'm sure it took you a while to farm your way to over 2,000 posts and that's fine, but the rest of us wouldn't mind a break from you now and again.

Tanking for the pets is definitely a fun aspect of playing the class, but When you have 3 or 4 of them up, they're out-damaging you to a ridiculous extent. You're almost better off in a lot of cases not even running into melee to buff up, and just trying to pull enemies into fluffy AOE's when solo. Of course if we can get them to not follow you into melee that would be alleviated, but it doesn't change the fact that around 70% of your damage probably comes from those things under optimal conditions. (This is hyperbole but what I'm getting at is the damage from warshade vs. damage from fluffies ratio feels waaay off.) It just feels a bit inconsistent and slightly unreasonable to me that Peacebringers get access to complete status protection in all forms but don't have any offensive toggles (unlike Wrshades who are potentially much more likely to get inconvenienced by mez than PB's are if they use Inky Aspect or OD.) It seems like an unnecessary disparity that needs to be corrected. I don't think building around acquiring status protection is something warshade players should have to be handcuffed by. We're handcuffed by enough already, from a 'things-to-build-for' perspective.

Micro, you're not wrong about this and I applaud you. Of course, I also have notes. 😁 I'd rather see Warshade status protection either in an auto-power of some sort or baked into Eclipse, not in a toggle. Peacebringers have access to Light Form which grants status protection in all forms. Under your proposal, Nova for Warhsades still wouldn't have any status protection. Something else we need is an accurate resist IO (or preferably IO set.) As far as I am aware, Eclipse is the only accurate resist power in the game. We used to be able to use Nucleo's back when they enhanced damage resistance before the snap, but that got nerfed back then. So we were left with nothing. I think if a new round of ATO's is made, Warshades should get an accurate resist set. As far as fluffies go, I think it's viable to consider buffing them, but it might also make sense to lower their damage and increase warshade's damage modifiers so the AT is less reliant on pets for damage output. Either that, or make them more durable as you mentioned. I would also like at least one to be able to zone with you.

Oh wow, I've accidentally started the nerf Titan Weapons thread. This was bound to happen eventually. Carry on.

Dark Miasma wasn't even the most OP support set in the game before these nerfs. Nothing about it was game breaking in any way. You've targeted me since I posted here, relentlessly responded to everything I said and misrepresented my position multiple times. And you wonder why no one wants to engage with you. You don't need every other post to be yours, can you please just chill out a bit? It's fine that you don't agree with my opinion or Doom's, you've let that be known. Please give it a rest already.

Yes, let's take a game that started development in 1998 and fix "bugs" that persisted for the entire time that it was commercially available. That sounds like a more productive use of dev time than nerfing the set that is so OP, someone soloed an Incarnate Trial with it. Makes sense.

Your understanding is wrong. In order for anything to be good, you have to build it properly of course. That's how all MMO's work. You can't run around WoW with no gear on and expect to perform well either. You obviously don't have an inkling of understanding of how OP Titan Weapons is. If you did, you wouldn't be making the comments you are. I don't think continuing to engage with you is going to be productive so I'm going to stop right here. I came here to post my feedback, not argue with forum crusaders.

In this case, my buddy's main just took a drudging. First the Fade nerfs, now this... He's completely dejected. Meanwhile, Titan Weapons continues to exist. It's a head scratcher to say the least. (Edited by GM Tahquitz: This discussion was part of General Feedback, but is not a part of Page 5 at all. It's been split off of the feedback threads to keep going here.)

I understand that this is probably a logical change to make if you're looking at people's characters as a collection of data rather than as things that they've worked hard on and gotten invested in. Just because something isn't working as intended, after a certain amount of years- I'd say 10 is probably fair- people kinda tend to get used to how things are. I pretty much feel the same way about this as I felt about the Rage nerfs from before HC... Just because you can logically justify doing something, doesn't mean you necessarily should do it. A lot of people are more concerned with their characters being fun than the numbers being arranged properly.

I enjoy learning about the game and coming up with ways to succeed at things that I probably shouldn't be able to succeed at. It is a super hero game after all, and I'm an optimist. 😉 You might want to be a little careful with your assumptions, though. I'm able to enjoy this game in a variety of ways. I collect badges, I read the stories, I make cool costumes. I have fun. Again, I'm not asking that the game be balanced around high-end performing players. I'm asking that new powersets at least be useful to everyone. Would you enjoy Shock Therapy less if it had a nice -30% res debuff and a 500% regen debuff? It just feels, to me, like a bit of a 'head-in-the-sand' moment on the part of the team. Like you alluded to, we live in a world with TW/Bio Scrappers. How is anyone under the impression that any of us need healers, once we've figured out what we're doing?

I guess it depends on what you like to do, right? My SG is on the smaller side, but we like to do pretty wacky stuff like trio Incarnate trials. As we move on to more and more challenging tasks, it's becoming more apparent that the combinations we'll have to use are presenting fewer options. Obviously, I'm not saying that I expect the game to be balanced around this kind of thing. I was just saying that adding a pure support set at this stage in the game is pretty whoopdy-doo. No one needs heals anymore, we need higher difficulty settings. 😆

Oh man, I knew the wonky discussion was coming- I could feel it! 😄 Time is a great level-up set, and it's definitely a strong SO-based set due to all the +def and +recharge it gives. However, when it comes to end game, everyone should have sufficient survivability and recharge built into their builds already. Not that a little icing on top is ever a bad thing, but what becomes more valuable is -regen and -res. Unfortunately, those are two areas where Time lags behind pretty severely. Absolutely fantastic set for new players and for leveling up, but it gets outclassed in the end. As for Dark, again definitely a solid set. One of my SG mates mains a Dark Miasma Troller and power boosted fade is a beautiful thing. That being said, the -regen cannot even be made perma, not to mention how prohibitive the endurance cost is. Again a very solid set that gets outclassed in the end. We digress! 😉

I'm not sure how constructive it'll be to continue posting, but I feel like I should at least clarify my position. I'm not trying to stir up any sort of anti-HC or anti-dev sentiment in the least. In fact, I love playing here and dedicated the first paragraph of the OP to discussing just that. I think it's pretty unfortunate that this post has drawn out the level of negativity that it has. It seems like people are taking this as something it was not intended to be, and getting surprisingly defensive as a result. My position is essentially that it would most likely be in the best interests of everyone not to nerf sets people enjoy playing. A lot of the thrill of COH is in nostalgia, and I'm concerned about turning the game into something that we wouldn't recognize. I also made the case that with the abundance of under-performing support sets that we have in place already, roleplayers and theme players have a bunch of options to choose from. For those of us who like to play the game a little more seriously (not saying that one approach is better than the other) I simply made the point that it's a bit of a wasted effort from our perspective to develop something like a pure support set. It sucks to feel like Rad and Cold are the only viable options, but that is presently the case most of the time. I'm sure it'll be fun to level up, but at level 50, myself and everyone I play with build self-sufficient characters. We are not, as they say, "lf healz." I just hate to see development time go to waste on non-debuffing support sets because frankly, in the current meta they are worthless for serious play. I would understand it more if the game was lacking sets that provided this kind of functionality, but that's not the case at all. Overall though, the sentiment I want to communicate is that I love what HC has done for us, and I actually agree with the majority of their decisions. Having talked to a lot of people who play this game seriously, there is a definite consensus among a population that doesn't necessarily tend to engage in the forums about these sorts of issues. There are valid concerns about the direction that development is taking and I don't think it's necessarily fair to crucify anyone who dares suggest that things could be done a little differently.

I feel like there has been an excessive amount of building up and knocking down straw men here, which is unfortunate. Please don't attribute positions to me that I didn't take, it's not really fair. I never demanded anything. I started a thread to point out that it might be in the best interests of the community to a.) buff up, don't nerf down and b.) develop new sets that will be viable past level 50 for endgame players (rather than continuing to make new sets that are not going to perform to an adequate level. ) I didn't start this thread to 'make a ruckus,' I started it to give some players an opportunity to express a concern that I know is a pretty common one. I also want to address another mix up I keep seeing- Viability is not the same thing as popularity. This could easily become a rabbit hole-like situation that I'd like to avoid. Just because Empathy is popular at level 50, doesn't mean it's powerful at level 50. Obviously, the game has a decent amount of RP'ers and people who aren't concerned about performance as much as theme. That's perfectly fine, and again, I'm not advocating that we remove Empathy or Sonic Resonance. I'm simply saying that it would be nice if new support sets being developed had the propensity to be powerful options, so I don't have to keep rolling /Cold or /Rad every time I want to play top tier support.

I don't think anyone disagrees with this point, and if this is the message that's fine. What I'm more confused by is the stated goal of this being a fan-run, community supported server. If that's what this is, then community feedback should be #1. If this is their world and we're lucky to be living in it, just tell us that. Don't act like we have a say and then set us up for bombardment if we try to share our opinions.

This is just a little bit disingenuous, and it could be that you're only speaking on your own behalf. If so, that's fine and feel free to ignore me. But I know that myself and others in my SG donate every time the window goes up and if we don't, it's because we missed the window. The servers are funded by the players, ie: us. If it's free for you, great. But it is not free.

What you're asking for is for the way the game works to be fundamentally changed. So basically, you've taken the exact opposite stance as me. We're probably not going to get anywhere (at least constructively) so I'll just agree to disagree. 🙂

Sif, what I was alluding to is that there is already an abundance of "RP" and "Concept" support sets, while there are only a couple that are viable for high-end gameplay. I'm not at all suggesting that we remove Sonic Resonance for instance, just that those of us who value performance should maybe have more than a couple of viable endgame options. I'm seeing that people don't seem to like the voting idea, so maybe it could still have a place for contentious things like, "Should we touch Super Strength, one of the most popular sets in the game?" In general though, it would probably be in everyone's best interests to simply follow the cottage rule. Buff under performing things up, don't nerf the sets that people actually enjoy. This is an old game, so we probably shouldn't be looking at it through the lens of typical MMO development. This MMO is already developed, and has been for some time. I'm all for adding new things, particularly ones that have a place in the current meta. But nerfing stuff that people like seems like a good way to alienate a portion of the playerbase. I don't want to see the community dwindle.

I want to start this post by saying how incredibly appreciative I am of the Homecoming team for their amazing efforts here. I've been here since the day Torchbearer went up, and I've played just about every day since. It's an absolute pleasure to be able to play the game again, particularly with such a large portion of the community intact. I guess the reason that I wanted to start this thread is to get a little clarity on the development philosophy. One of the biggest draws to City of Heroes for a lot of players is the sense of nostalgia. Many of us couldn't wait to get back on our Super Strength guys and go to town, and boy did we ever. I think it's very noble that the Homecoming team has stated clearly that the plan is for this to be a non-profit, community run server. I think that's an absolutely fantastic approach to follow, and one that I've happily donated to support multiple times. The issue that I'm seeing here is that some of the development efforts don't always seem to be aligned with that goal, and I'd like to share some examples of what exactly I mean by that. I'm willing to bet that if a community poll were taken on whether we'd like the bug (which persisted throughout the majority of the retail game) with Super Strength's rage crash being ignored when double-stacked, the vast majority of the community would've voted for it to be left alone. Similarly, I'm struggling to understand why another pure support set is being developed. We are already very limited in our options of viable end game support sets- It's pretty much Cold Domination or Radiation 90% of the time. Without a meaningful combination of -regen and -res, any new support set is ultimately going to be meaningless to the majority of endgame players. I would hate to see efforts of the development team go to waste, as I'm sure we would all love to have some viable new powersets to min/max and be able to enjoy past level 50. I think something that might be helpful is to move to a voting system of, "Hey guys, this is a community server. You're running the show. Do you want us to alter Super Strength? Do you want a new pure support set?" I know that we are given ample opportunity to provide feedback to changes on beta, but I think there's a real possibility that many of us don't engage in those conversations because we're not interested in what is being presented. I think there's a real possibility that many of us simply want to play City of Heroes. We don't want to have to worry about shelving alts because they got hit with the nerf hammer. I think this is a good opportunity to start a community dialogue about how you'd like to see development approached as members of the community, and I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts.

Nice work Micro. I assume this was using a shifting chain including d mire and g well? Also, how gimpy is this thing? 😂

Once your incarnates and accolades are all done, you can start playing the game! Test your build capabilities, optimize your attack chain, solo TF's, collect badges. The world is now your oyster. Have fun! 😎

I figured I should drop by to compliment the uncanny ability of Spider to keep my badge count updated without me even knowing. 😄 I'm sure that it takes quite a bit of work to keep this as up-to-date as you do.

Does Abe win all the trophies yet? Hilarious stuff.