Zumberge

Nah, people just do the choking animation. If you're trying to turn missions into a vomitorium you're gonna want Traps.

You absolute madlad. In all seriousness, though? Regen sounds like a plan, but also recharge and global endurance discount. Ideally you get enough recharge through IO slotting and bonuses so you can use Whirling Smash twice in the span of a single Build Momentum; can't get hit if nobody's standing. Also, please tell me you didn't take Weave.

I contemplated doing a quick and dirty rundown of the bigger changes to primaries in their porting from Blaster to Sentinel aside from "less range" and "you get this earlier/later" but didn't think there'd be a use for it. Unless there is, and I should. (This interest in compiling and presenting information wasn't there when I had to write term papers, I can tell you that for free.)

Sliding in here, don't mind me. Yes. This is absolutely the kind of thing that would get hit with the nerf bat if the game didn't suddenly stop existing for a couple years. The drawback is meant to be a reduction in resistance and defense, but it's actually fairly manageable since it's a numerical reduction and not a percentage-based one, so it's effectively less of a penalty once you factor in SOs, then IOs, then set bonuses. Okay, here goes: You activate Ablative Carapace and get a regen boost for 30 seconds. You also get a buffer of temporary hit points - it's not like Dull Pain, where your maximum hit points increase; it's a bonus, represented by the health bar gaining a grayish-green part, stacked on top of your current health, that can exceed your maximum health value. Those temporary hit points are taken off first if you're dealt damage, and remain for the duration of the power even if you're healed to full. It's basically armor points. Bio's good, but it's also bad because it has typed defenses so maximizing stuff is a little tough. Depending on your primary and what sets it can take, your options are going to change, but if you're gonna metagame it then probably start with S/L resist and then energy defense.

Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

The thing about Stalkers is that they lose something in exchange for Hide. Regeneration loses Quick Recovery, which is kind of a big deal since the endurance recovery passive is one of the few selling points of the set in this day and age and aside from that Regen is... not really in a good position at this point. Shield on the other hand loses Phalanx Fighting, which normally grants you more defense depending on how many teammates are nearby. If you're PvPing the loss absolutely isn't an issue, and even in PvE it's not a problem since Stalkers are usually hitting priority targets in mobs and not in the middle of the cuddle puddle with the tank. Also, I'm not sure if the PvP meta changed a lot in the past... twelve years or so, but Active Defense gives you protection to fear and confuse, which few mez protection powers have, let alone both of them, and I do recall fear being useful in PvP because of that selfsame lack of protection. It's just a very solid defensive set, even if it feels kind of silly on a Stalker. Do note, though, that the +dmg from Against all Odds is only active if you're not hidden, and that due to the way Shield Charge was put together (it's actually quite clever how they did it), it doesn't break hide. That last one isn't a problem at all, mind.

You're not wrong about Entangling Aura, since it's effectively the same as Rad's Choking Cloud and you'll find a rare person who runs it and uses it to great effect. But about Rebirth: Generally, if a support set has a rez, you take the rez, even if it's single-target because accidents happen and you can just put a recharge enhancement in it and call it a day. That it can do anything aside from picking people up off the ground is a bonus. ...and Lifegiving Spores is something that I was wondering about, too. From all reports it's more of a scratch damage kind of heal and endurance recovery that you can use to keep people topped off in long fights, and people who use it seem to like it. Plus you can use it to kind of direct where you want people to stand. It's kind of like a Triage Beacon or Spirit Tree except you can pack it up and take it with you. (Plus it's also, y'know, not garbage.)

I didn't even need to click it to grok your meaning. Stranger in a strange land reference ? The same.

Yeah, Dark Armor was (and is) infamous for blotting out your character with a combination of multiple armor effects and stealth, and thankfully that can be turned off. Can't say much for Rad Melee first-hand, but Electric Armor has a pretty good suite of powers in it: A self-heal, endurance recovery, +recharge, endurance drain resist (i.e. Carnies and Sappers basically do nothing to you), and you're gonna cap energy resist without really trying. Toxic and negative energy are gonna be problems, though, and while you have -slow resist you don't have -recharge resist, and your immobilize and knockback protection require you to be on the ground for them to work, so superjumping through an area with snipers is gonna result in you getting knocked on your ass. Smashing and lethal resists are kind of on par with other "elemental" resist sets - that is to say, hovering around 40% or so - so I'd recommend picking up Tough, which you can easily do these days. For what it's worth, though, Rad Melee seems like the kind of set that works with basically anything, insofar as it doesn't depend heavily on having a lot of recharge or recovery.

Pets do get bonuses, but not directly; it's a factor of their powers. For example, let's say you're a Thugs MM and you have Enforcers. Enforcers have Maneuvers (PBAoE +Defense), and they can be slotted with Defense Buff IOs. This makes their Maneuvers' defense bonus stronger, but without Maneuvers they themselves do not gain any defense. Enforcers also have inherent resistance to lethal damage, but they can't use Resistance Buff IOs to boost this resistance because it's baked into the Enforcer template. You can only slot for a defense/resist buff if it's a power that the pets can use, whether as a clicky or as a toggle aura. So that's things like Protector Bots' force fields, Demons' ember shield, whatever the lions from Beasts have, and so on. If you look at the power descriptions in-game for the pet-summoning and buffing powers you can see what powers your pets get, and their values. You might have to do a little bit of external math beyond that to figure out how good the bubbles or auras are with any given enhancement.

Having a temporary power tray appear is a distinct and attention-catching way to let the player know that they have acquired a power or ability that is important to the TF/SF/trial, and perhaps vital, as well as drawing attention to it if the information was otherwise lost (e.g. in the chaos of battle). Previous iterations of the game put it in pre-existing trays which, depending on your archetype or power choices, could result in anything from noticing it late to (if all the room was taken) not seeing it at all, forcing you to go through a list of temporary powers. (Lest us forget, these powers were things that players rarely, if ever, used and kept them as trophies. This was a recurring issue on Lambda Trials, with people having to fish around in their stuff for acid and grenades so the raid leader could keep everyone honest. Probably on others, too.) The idea was that nobody would request that they be disabled because their presence was temporary, the change constituted a fraction of the time of the user's UI experience, and provided immediate information about important temporary powers. Your dislike is noted and understandable, but do understand that the change was made with a specific purpose in mind, that being ease of understanding and use.

Not quite. How it works is that the Nova form can use Glinting/Ebon Eye, and the Dwarf form can use Gleaming/Shadow Bolt. Both these powers are inherited from your human form, slotting and all. This was done so attack chains with the two forms worked a little bit better. Shapeshifting is still absolutely a thing.

My name is Violet, and I was born into a world you may not understand. The world... of 2005! So during the course of my time in City of Heroes I collected a bunch of bios from people that struck my fancy, for good or for bad, and resolved to crop and upload them someplace at a future time. This was back in 2005, mind you, and I'm only getting around to doing it now. Better late than never. The strangest part is that according to the resolution of the screenshots I played the game in 1024 x 768. What is this, a city for ANTS? When I went to get this guy's global name my computer crashed. He's good. This is the canon explanation for Baumton, the Homecoming devs said so, don't bother asking them. Yes, I realize this character concept and backstory is a dime a dozen these days, but it was fairly uncommon back in 2005, okay? He's done good work. Very mild jacket weather. It's nice. I can't believe Ultima Volta predicted the current state of the Pride movement nearly a decade and a half ago. The weirdest part is that he's legitimately more interesting than at least half the canon heroes in the game. The sensational spelling of the name is a big part, but the bio abruptly ending is really what makes it. This is how we got new recipes before Food Network existed.

You can't tell right now but I'm pointing to my "Malta Was Right" t-shirt.

Lightning Rod aside, Rad Melee's damage is a little bit higher than Elec's, and while they're both smashing/energy, Rad's is more leaning towards the energy side of it. They both have AoE elements to them, but while Rad's potential is higher, it's also less consistent: When you hit enemies they have a chance to gain the Contaminated effect, and when you hit a Contaminated enemy it creates a small AoE of energy damage. It's there, but if you're expecting something like Thunder Strike where you bop one guy and all his friends get hit too 100% of the time, not so much. It's more... single-target with benefits. You know how Elec Armor was resist-based with average S/L/F/C, good Psi, great En, bad Neg and a huge Toxic hole? Rad is average S/L/F, bad Psi, a huge Cold hole, good En and (get this) Toxic. Yeah, you actually have a good amount of toxic resist. Also, you lose the PBAoE damage aura for a +recovery/+regen inherent; your PBAoE endurance leech comes earlier and gives up some of its endurance gain for health gain and a -regen debuff on the enemies it hits; your +recharge is now based on nearby enemies since it's a taunt aura that also gives -To-Hit and -Defense; your heal is a damage-absorbing barrier instead; you have a PBAoE clicky that damages nearby enemies and heals nearby teammates at the same time; and your tier 9 has way milder resist boosts but also a damage boost and the crash doesn't tank your health and endurance. I really hope you remember a lot about Elec Armor since this is all predicated on on it, but the word people use to talk about Rad Armor is "overtuned," so take that as you will. Spines/Fire is similar in the sense that you have below-average defenses (for a Brute) and a button to push to heal you and another button to bring you back to life. Spines/Dark is not at all similar because Regen gives you a lot of endurance and Dark has seven toggles, but some point between that positively amazing post on the Live boards about how awful Dark Armor is and this point in time it's been buffed so you're fairly well-off in terms of survivability. Spines/Bio is not like Regen either because it's a set like Willpower with layered resists, defenses, and regeneration (it's the other "overtuned" set). The general consensus seems to be that Regen isn't what it used to be, and that on a Brute you're probably better off with any of those three: Fire if you want to kill things faster, Dark if you want to be a decently durable spooky boi (provided you use IO sets to deal with the whole "endurance" and "lots of energy damage in the endgame" problems), and Bio if you want to be a micromanagement-heavy perpetual motion machine.

Generally, Diamagnetic (-To-Hit, -Regen), Reactive (-Res, fire DoT), and Degenerative (-Max HP, toxic DoT) seem the most useful, though the latter one doesn't seem that way to me since at max stacks it's only 14% of EB health and below and 4000 HP for AVs, which doesn't seem like a huge difference but it's probably a math thing. It's no Toxic proc in Warframe, I can tell you that for free. The rest seem very specialized (Preemptive - endurance drain and energy DoT, good for Elec anything to give enemies THE BIG SUCC) or just not that good (Spectral - immobilize and energy DoT? Really?) but I could see something like Cognitive (confuse and psionic DoT) interacting in interesting ways with PBAoE damage toggles or persistent damage AoEs.

Movies? No. Books? Yes. Tastefully titled and discreetly packaged.

Don't worry, there's a few people in the audience who remember. When you mentioned D&D and linked Chick.com, I didn't even need to click it to grok your meaning. That's a deep cut, and it's good. If the demon thing doesn't pan out you could make a character that acts like a dungeon master for the rest of their party, narrating the action and acting as if they're leading the campaign for the team that the other seven players are on. Depending on how the other players react you could end up with an absolutely absurd level of metafiction.

Ohhh, you made me do the Big Thonk with this one. So if I'm reading this correctly - and proposing a plausible scenario as an example - a lone Controller or Dominator should not be able to go up to an eight-player spawn and render them harmless permanently; that is to say, make them either unable to attack period, or unable to attack the Controller/Dominator or other players, from that point on into the indeterminate future. For example, a Plant Controller should not be able to throw down Seeds, then whittle groups down with Roots and Carrion Creepers as they re-apply Seeds as necessary, because in essence it's zero risk with all reward, something that not only other archetypes aren't capable of, but other power sets in the same AT can't do. I hadn't thought about it that way, but upon reflection this was the reason AoE holds had their recharge increased in the early days. Viewed from this perspective, Mind Control doesn't have a bad AoE confuse, it has two AoE hard lockdowns.

I can't believe Back Alley Brawler is entry level trash.

Yeah, the Pines thing threw me off too. But no, Tankers never had it. Ran the numbers and if it were on a Tanker you'd have about 18% resistance to everything thanks to a fully-slotted Resilience. Compare this to other resistance-based Tanker primaries, who can get at least double that for two or three damage types off of one toggle. Regen is a set whose primary weakness is burst damage, but there's been requests to proliferate it to an AT whose job involves taking burst damage. On an entirely unrelated note, a video came up in my recommendations on YouTube about how savvy game designers take measures to protect players from themselves.

The original post was made with the idea that a single power should be looked into by the numbers people and dealt with accordingly, though the thread of the thread's been lost along the way, veering into concepts for an over-engineered rework. Mind is fine, but a little bump wouldn't hurt. After seeing Elec's AoE confuse in action I can confirm that it takes a little while to propagate and it isn't a sure-fire confuse-all-the-enemies-in-the-spawn power; I'd need to get my hands on it to say more. Meanwhile, I have very high opinion of Our Lord and Savior Plant Control, which you can probably guess, but I'm gonna say something that you very rarely hear people say about their pet ATs or power sets: You're right, it could be nerfed. You could increase the recharge and decrease the duration by a third in each direction (25-ish second confuse on an 80 second cooldown), and it would still be really, really good. (Also, come on guys. "Thrall?" The proper term is "mindslave.")

I'm gonna use the numbers in Pine's for this, so bear with me. So let's say that on Live you had Punch Man, a Willpower/SS Tanker, and you really liked him so you put a lot of money into his build. Five of the six Hecatomb IOs go into Knockout Blow, and you're uppercutting people for about 320 damage. That's nice. When Rage is active, that's now up to 446. That's even nicer! Now let's say that there's an alternate dimension where Scrappers got Super Strength and you made Punch Man a SS/Willpower Scrapper instead. The damage scale for Tanker melee attacks is 0.8, while Scrappers is 1.125 - in essence, Scrappers deal a factor of 1.4 times more damage than Tankers with the same attack. Adjusting for this damage scale, Knockout Blow now deals 450 damage. With Rage active, that number jumps to 630 damage. On an Archetype that can crit for double that. (Also, the 178 damage Foot Stomp is now 250 damage, with crits.) Now this is a lot of damage, but you might be saying, "sure, but Rage has that huge drawback of the crash." This is true; -20% defense to everything is a pretty nasty debuff, and if you have any enemy aggro they're going to be hitting you pretty badly. After all, Tankers and Brutes have in-built taunt mechanics that basically cause enemies to attack them over other teammates. Punchvoke and Pokevoke, they call them. But Scrappers don't. I'm not going to say that you're going to shed aggro like a ninja. But I will say that if you were a Super Strength Scrapper on a team, your sudden departure from the battlefield would have far fewer consequences in terms of enemies following you or messing up the grouping than would a Tanker or Brute. A melee DPS that needs to duck away for the fighting for ten seconds is an acceptable retreat; a tank that needs to needs to do the same is... not. tl;dr, Scrappers with Super Strength could put out stupid huge numbers and mitigate Rage's current drawbacks in a way that Tankers and Brutes could only dream about.

So I've been playing with the idea of creating a Darkness Control/Icy Assault Dominator, and before you point out that those two sets have very little synergy, I know, but it fits the concept. In any case, Pine's has been helpful in that it answers a few of my questions, but it raises a couple more about the performance and slotting of either and both as a whole. I'm familiar with Controllers, and I'm familiar with Ice Blast, but that said: [*]Darkness Control seems like one of those sets where everything is good, barring the single-target immobilize. However, what's the verdict on Possess? I'm not a fan of single-target confuses in control sets, but still recognize that they're useful, at least up to a certain point where the rest of the kit can be used with more regularity and teams as a whole start coming into their own respective powers. Does that point come so soon that it's not worth getting just to respec out of it a short time later? A short leveling time, that is, double XP boosts being what they are and all. [*]Icy Assault is very heavy on single-target attacks; I used Ice Blast, so I saw that coming. But for a Dominator, would skipping Ice Sword Circle be a good idea? Argument for skipping being a long recharge and high cost with damage that maybe doesn't make it worth it and the other attacks in the set cycle relatively fast, but argument against it being that AoE damage is AoE damage. [*]Same question as above, but with Frost Breath, another AoE but ranged this time. I guess the better question would be, "can you skip Ice's AoEs?" Experience would say "yes," but it never hurts to ask. [*]Is Chilling Embrace worth taking, even just to put an endurance reduction IO in it, or would the control powers make it redundant? Wouldn't having it active just draw more aggro to me? [*]Power Boost increases the duration of mezzes and secondary effects, but not the magnitude, right? Is it worth taking with some control sets but not others, and is Darkness Control one of them? That is to say, should I take it here? For reference, the skunkworks build I cobbled together took everything but Shadowy Binds in Darkness and Ice Sword Circle in Icy, dipped heavy into Ice Mastery, and only Umbra Beast had six slots, which... isn't gonna play well with a lot of IO sets. Speaking of which: What's the consensus on Ice Mastery? I actually kind of like Hibernate from when I had an Ice Tanker (it's a tier 9 you actually use!), and Sleet and Ice Storm seem good on paper, but that's a bunch more slots.