AgentForest

That screenshot is from the up-to-date stats on the Tanker Taunt ability on Homecoming.

Even a trained unit needs communication. That's just plain wrong, lol. A combat medic can't know where to be to heal others if nobody is communicating a need for assistance. Singling out a target enemy that you locked down doesn't happen if you can't communicate. These are basic things most military folks understand well. Your bullets may still hurt just as much as always, but your coordination (anything affecting your teammates) would suffer. Hence the effect Foe(-Special).

Taunt has a 75% range decrease. This will cause them to move in far closer before firing, but since it doesn't hit ALL targets (it has a cap) some will shoot before running closer as is their normal AI. Hurricane is 60%. This will affect your ability to heal allies, cast taunt on the handful of enemies near your backline, ability to shoot ranged moves, etc. The accuracy debuff may be a large portion of it, but it does impact your range, and that's actually a problem if range is something your character relies on. Being unable to cast Cauterize Wounds because the Tsoo Sorcerer teleported up next to you and the tank is outside of your range is a thing that comes up at times.

Now you're just nitpicking. There are a lot of powers that in order to meet a particular goal, do things that don't mechanically sound like what you'd expect but create the same effect. Slowed Response causes enemies to suffer defense and resistance debuffs. How is it making their skin less hard just because they've been slowed down? Because they wanted it to imply that you're making it harder for them to properly block moves, making it easier to hit weak points. The best solution to that was a resistance debuff. Even if it has nothing to do with slowing down time. Likewise, if enemies weren't allowed to talk, it would limit their ability to coordinate their efforts, hence a weakening of their buffs, heals, debuffs, and control. If I can't talk, leadership buffs, casting spells, shouting commands to inspire allies, knowing whose wounds need treated and applying my efforts in a timely fashion to those who need it would all suffer. And it at least gives Mind Control something few other sets have.

No, range actually does reduce the range of powers. Did you never notice this when inside an enemy's Hurricane??? Like, I thought everyone knew that.

Funny how you keep bringing this up, but refuse to acknowledge how Gravity Control has literally the same move but better. This was the crux of my argument, and you refuse to address it. If you want to buff Levitate like Lift was, I'd argue it isn't just an inherently weaker power, but as it stands, it's largely useless. Especially on a power set that has so few hard control moves to activate Containment reliably. Levitate is Lift but worse, in a set with less ability to take advantage of what little it actually does offer.

Eh, not really the same thing. Knockback has uses that Knockdown doesn't, and those uses can be leveraged to your team's advantage. Yes, you can use them to troll your own party, but that can get you kicked off a team if you're doing it on purpose. Deliberately knocking enemies away from the tank toward the squishies is usually pretty obvious griefing behavior, and isn't the intended use of the feature. A person properly using knockback is a godsend. Good players both notice and appreciate it. The problems people have with Confusion are baked into the condition itself, even when used optimally. People dislike the condition because no matter how good you are at using it, you still cause those around you to have to give something up. We can argue until the heat death of the universe over whether the benefits outweigh the costs, but there ARE inherent costs, no matter how you justify it. And that just isn't going to sit well with all players. You're going to be spitting on someone else's fun no matter what, as Confuse currently stands. Unless there's a single enemy standing there alone, something is being sacrificed. That just inherently is going to create animosity in the community and tension within a party. Tensions that just don't need to exist. This is why I'm not demanding that the current implementation grant full XP. I'm merely suggesting an alternative mechanic that doesn't require lost XP in order for its gameplay balance to function properly. Because if we could manage that, you'd never have to hear this argument again, while still getting your power fantasy. There are solutions that could make both sides happy. Refusing to consider these solutions, or even let them have a fair discussion, is as toxic as the people who would kick you from their team for confusing their enemies and costing them XP. I'm only asking that we end this fight once and for all so that ALL players in the community can be having fun simultaneously. Your solution is to maintain this endless argument and the tensions it causes on teams, and my solution is to just make the argument a thing of the past.

So you suggest Taunt and Confront have their -Range effect retracted too? There are so few powers with -Range effects, and I saw a good opportunity to expand that list. Even if you leave it out, reduction to cooldowns, buffs, debuffs, heals, and control effects is huge. If you don't think it is, I'm not really sure how experienced you are with this game's mechanics. Power Build Up is massive when used before activating your party buffs or large scale enemy debuffs. Weaken from the Poisons set is used to debuff these stats on enemies, not just damage reduction. It ruins the effectiveness of literally anyone you shoot with it. To the point where any shields a Ruin Mage is applying to allies are at 93% reduced effectiveness. Most other buff effects are halved. It's just objectively false to say that's negligible or useless. So much of what enemies do is so much more than damage. Often the hardest enemy groups to fight aren't hard because they have high damage, but because of the secondary effects of their abilities. Tsoo Sorcerers are a great example of this. Most of what they do is -ToHit, healing, and control effects. They have almost no damage, but are the primary threat in most fights against a bunch of Tsoo mobs, to the point where players make a point of specifically taking them down first. CoT Ruin Mages have tons of buffs and debuffs that make fights a nightmare too, and require players focusing them down. Having a player in the party who can nullify a large portion of these issues while the threat is eliminated is impressive.

By that logic, Homecoming should never update or fix anything ever. That's unreasonable, and a tad selfish. The game doesn't exist just for one player to pull sunken cost fallacies that stagnate the game's design philosophy two decades in the past. Besides, even after a power set redesign, your character isn't deleted. A respec is usually needed even if it didn't impact your build much. That lets you collect any of the enhancements and sets you had that aren't really necessary anymore, and sell them for ones that would work in the redesign. You haven't "lost" that money. You just have to reinvest it. This is a normal part of dealing with game updates. I main Masterminds these days, and the changes to how their attack abilities impact the pets (granting Ninjas crit, etc.) made me have to respec half a dozen characters. I didn't complain, or demand the changes get reverted. I just adapted to the new changes, and my characters were far better for it in the long-run.

Many immobilize moves can deactivate flight. Web Grenade, Earth Control's Stone Prison, etc. There's no reason a -Fly couldn't be applied to Halt, as it's specifically a mental command that someone stop their movement. Deactivation of movement effects like Fly wouldn't be unreasonable. As for the time spent not attacking, there are other aspects of the power set that could compensate for that. I'm asking to improve many of the powers, not just replace Levitate in a bubble all by itself. I'm talking about giving the entire power set a once-over like many of the defensive sets got when moved to Sentinels. Or how Electric Blast got a redesign to give it better identity among blast sets.

I also didn't ask their damage to be coded as yours. I suggested for there to be damage that procs from that enemy's location that counts as yours (doable). Mobs also do not function like pets. Pets grant players full XP as though you dealt the damage. Mastermind, Controller, even Blaster pets follow this rule. This is the main problem with Confusion as it's currently implemented. People WANT the power fantasy that those controlled enemies are their pets, but you can't MECHANICALLY give them that power fantasy because it would break the game. If confused enemies granted full XP, you'd just have bots running AE teams spamming confusion moves to auto-clear maps while everyone else soaks up the XP. That's just bad design. But at the same time, it's how everyone tries to defend the powers. "Mind Control doesn't get a T9 pet because confused enemies ARE their pets." No, they aren't, and you just admitted they aren't, because the damage isn't considered yours. Even the people defending the current implementation of Confuse can't seem to pick how they want it to work other than "unchanged because change scares me." Either Mind Controllers need a real pet, or there should be a way to help mitigate the inconsistency between the power fantasy and the reward given. I address a lot of that in my other points. I could honestly build a solid Mind Control powerset without a single "Confuse" condition and have it still meet the power fantasy without breaking the game or making players feel like they're giving up something for doing their job right. The chart for XP gain compared to % of team damage dealt is merely showing how the current implementation of Confusion is a band-aid fix to limit losses for doing one's job, not to make doing one's job feel rewarding. Just less detrimental. It's outdated and flawed game design to make a player feel like they deserve less of a reward for doing their job properly, and if at all possible, you should make every power in every set feel rewarding to use without breaking game balance. Like, that's the goal. Diminishing the losses isn't a real solution. As someone who mained Controllers for most of the game's existence, Mind Control was always the one that felt the least rewarding in every way. At any time, another player could just make you feel useless to the party by waking up sleepers and complaining that the party would have gotten more XP if you weren't there. Regardless of how the math actually reduces a portion of those losses, it's still just not a good design philosophy. There's still that animosity within the community around the condition. That alone provides ample ground for a redesign consideration.

Oh, absolutely. That would break the game. As the Confuse condition stands right now, you could never have it grant full XP. It would need a redesign before even considering granting XP. That's why my suggestion is more about a redesign of the condition itself so that it still meets the same power fantasy goals while not causing division among players who see it as impacting their rewards.

No other power set has 2 sleep moves (except for the new Arsenal Control set in beta), and they're also some of your lower cooldown moves. For most control sets, your lower cooldown control moves are immobilizes, which are both shorter cooldowns and more persistent effects allowing for better synergy with Containment and less chance of teammates ending your conditions early. Sleep as a condition is fine, as it's a great control effect for solo play, but falls off hard on teams. One of the better suggestions people have been discussing to fix this is to give every sleep move some sort of lingering effect that makes them still provide value after enemies wake up. This would also be a way to help distinguish all sleep moves from one another. My examples being how Cold Snap has a Foe(-Speed, -Rech) effect. Mass Hypnosis doesn't, making it just inherently worse as a power. And for Mind Control to have TWO powers relying on this condition, it impacts them more than other control sets.

As for moves that control enemies completely, the best solution for that, as shown by a lot of balanced TTRPGs, is just... template summoning. If I use a move to dominate an enemy, I should summon an AI pet of that faction. Attempt a T9 Mind Control power on a Circle of Thorns enemy, and I should summon a Death Mage under my control that functions like any other Controller T9 pet. Other effects of mind control could be more specific. Halt as a single-target immobilize with psychic damage over time, replacing the useless Levitate power in Mind Control would be a great start. Also, most control sets have some sort of niche passive effect, with Ice Control slowing enemies, Electric Control draining endurance, etc. So you could just give Mind Control moves a chance to placate the enemy for a brief time. Hypnosis and Mass Hypnosis having the ability to deflect enemy attention from the caster would be cool. There could be a move called "Command Silence" that stops enemies in a large radius around you from communicating with each other, lowering their range, and the power of buffs, debuffs, heals, and control effects. Being able to summon a stationary pet that deliberately tries to taunt enemies, sort of like how the Spectral Terror acts like a fear turret. There's a lot that could be explored outside of the current implementations of Mind Control powers.

My suggestion on another thread: This may be a bit controversial, but I hate the implementation of Confuse in CoH. I was one of the bug reporters responsible for a major fix in the original game's implementation (confusing a support enemy used to not make them cast support moves on your allies, like Tsoo Sorcerers who would keep healing other Tsoo when confused). Luckily, they did address that issue. I like the idea that it makes area moves hit both friend and foe alike. However, it costs players experience points for doing their job. That's just not an ideal feedback gameplay should provide players. The problem is that if you just made all damage dealt by confused enemies count as player damage, the moves would be overpowered. Mass Confusion could clear entire rooms by itself with no player input or skill required. You could script a bot to just cast confusion moves from max range while farming AE missions and nobody wants that kind of automated grinding. I feel like the best solution would be to reduce a Confused target's damage and healing by about half, then cause every power they activate to immediately be duplicated on a nearby target of the opposite faction. Heal an ally, and an equivalent heal happens to an enemy. Damage an enemy, and equivalent damage happens to an ally (counting as the confuse caster's damage). It might be challenging to implement, but it would honestly help Confusion remain useful while eliminating many players' aversion to using it. As it stands now, you trade experience for safety. Some players will deliberately target confused enemies just to limit the amount of lost XP, and some only use confuse powers as panic moves to avoid a team wipe. Both are problems for the current implementation. People have made the point before that it's not a huge loss, as this chart shows, and while that's true, it still causes tensions in the community that don't really need to be there.

My biggest concerns with Mind Control: Setting up Containment: Because so many of the powers cause Fear and Confusion, things that don't proc Containment damage, and the rest of the powers focusing on Sleep, which only procs Containment damage once, this set pretty much only works well on Dominators. For Controllers, this means you're basically playing a slightly weaker Defender who gave up their mediocre ranged attacks for control options. Sleep Reliance: This plays into point #1, but is still an issue all its own. Sleep is a very good soft control, but falls flat in teams, and team combat is what this game is built around. A soloing Dominator may not care much, but dropping an AoE Sleep only to have the blaster immediately wake them all up, or the tank's damage aura snap them out of it, doesn't really feel good. The best solution I can think of for this is to give some sort of benefit to every sleep power when the enemy is awakened by force. Like, for Cold Snap, add a Foe(-Speed, -Rech) effect to the ability, then when an enemy is broken out of it, apply another stack of the debuff. Possibly even add some damage when sleep is broken (or move the initial damage of a sleep move to when a foe is awakened and increase that damage a bit to compensate for the delay). I could see the sleep power for Mind Control having a placate effect for the caster when broken as that sleep move's special niche. Superior versions of powers in other sets: Mind Control -> Levitate is objectively worse than Gravity Control -> Lift. Lift deals the same base damage, but increases that damage if the enemy is affected by the single-target hold, creating some synergy within the powerset, encouraging players to combo their moves better, and rewarding them for doing so. The single-target Confuse in Electric Control chains to other enemies. The location AoE sleep move for Electric Control keeps reapplying, slows movement and recharge, has a shorter cooldown, AND burns through enemy endurance. Almost every other fear effect lowers enemy ToHit chance. Other Control sets get a T9 pet. It honestly wouldn't bother me if Mind Control's T9 just gave you an AI pet with the kit of some enemy from the targeted faction. Target a Circle of Thorns enemy and summon a Death Mage under your control. Loss of Experience Points: This may be a bit controversial, but I hate the implementation of Confuse in CoH. I was one of the bug reporters responsible for a major fix in the original game's implementation (confusing a support enemy used to not make them cast support moves on your allies, like Tsoo Sorcerers who would keep healing other Tsoo when confused). Luckily, they did address that issue. I like the idea that it makes area moves hit both friend and foe alike. However, it costs players experience points for doing their job. That's just not an ideal feedback gameplay should provide players. The problem is that if you just made all damage dealt by confused enemies count as player damage, the moves would be overpowered. Mass Confusion could clear entire rooms by itself with no player input or skill required. You could script a bot to just cast confusion moves from max range while farming AE missions and nobody wants that kind of automated grinding. I feel like the best solution would be to reduce a Confused target's damage and healing by about half, then cause every power they activate to immediately be duplicated on a nearby target of the opposite faction. Heal an ally, and an equivalent heal happens to an enemy. Damage an enemy, and equivalent damage happens to an ally (counting as the confuse caster's damage). It might be challenging to implement, but it would honestly help Confusion remain useful while eliminating many players' aversion to using it. As it stands now, you trade experience for safety. Some players will deliberately target confused enemies just to limit the amount of lost XP, and some only use confuse powers as panic moves to avoid a team wipe. Both are problems for a set built so heavily around Confusion powers. [Edit: I know the chart exists and people have made the point before that it's not a huge loss, and while that's true, it still causes tensions in the community that don't really need to be there.] Old Design Lacking Identity: The set is a bit dated. Newer sets have more niche specialties and a signature flare to them that older sets lack. Many of these older sets got some redesigns, like Electric Blast, Forcefields, and the Sentinel armor sets. Mind Control honestly needs a once over. Mind Control could let you summon a stationary pet that draws enemy attention with taunts, sort of like how the Spectral Terror is essentially a stationary fear turret. Halt could be a T1 single-target immobilize dealing psychic damage replacing the otherwise useless Levitate power. Your single-target control powers could all have a small chance of applying Placate to the target. You could have a Command Silence aura that when toggled on lowers enemy damage and recharge, while also weakening any secondary effects like heals, buffs, debuffs, and control effects, as you basically stop enemies from communicating with each other in a large radius around you. Mind Control as a concept is so much more broad than CoH ever included, mainly because it was a power set made in the early 2000s. The capabilities of this game engine have improved since then, and the design philosophy of more modern power sets just leaves Mind Control in the dust.

Those are synonyms. 🙂 For something to serve the same functional purpose or effect as something else is for them to be functionally or effectively the same. Not literally the same, but providing the same function or effect.

I do like the Glyph idea, but my main worry is locking down your survivability with location drops. Champions Online had some similar tank mechanics for magic users, and it often severely limited your movement. Placing sigils, magic circles on the ground, and other things that didn't move with your character was fun, but it made you one of the worse tanks out there. Enemies could more easily kite you, and if you followed, you gave up a lot of your durability. The magic powers in that game worked great for supportive and blasty characters, but made tanking really awkward. Fun, but not exactly useful unless you're holding your ground against incoming waves.

That's something I thought about, but then I remember that Tankers and Brutes get access to stealth moves of their own in Dark Armor and Energy Aura. These serve almost no purpose aside from flavor and a mild defense buff (most of it gone because your role constantly breaks stealth). I never understood these being in the game at all. But Invisibility is a pretty common defensive measure used by magic users. So I figured I could use that as a jumping off point for making one of those Tanker/Brute stealth powers actually useful. Grant the stealth to the rest of the team as well, and make the defense you get from it no longer suppress in combat so it's worth taking as a front-liner. But your team, before a fight, doesn't aggro as easily, buying you time to actually close the distance and start combat. It would still provide a similar use as Grant Cover, but with stealth built in for when you aren't in combat yet. Like if Steamy Mist was in an armor set. It's more important, as a front-liner, for your teammates around you to be stealthed than for you to be. Perhaps make the stealth aura smaller for a Sentinel as they aren't supposed to be super supportive. But yeah, lowering threat levels of allies in the effect could also be a neat mechanic for the aura. Something that could really help if you go to protect the back line as a Scrapper or Stalker.

No, that's not what "functionally" means. That's what "literally" means. Functionally means that it could be substituted with the alternative, hidden behind the code of the game, and nobody would notice a difference. It functions as though it's a damage debuff. It's not a literal -Damage effect. It's a FUNCTIONAL -Damage effect.

As much fun as I had with the old Defiance 1.0, I could never go back to it. I'm a support main. I HATED getting yelled at for healing someone because I "ruined" his damage output. It actively discouraged me from doing my job, and made Blasters reckless in the pursuit of their job. And don't think this is me complaining about a class I have no experience with. I am a support MAIN, yes, but I have over 125 characters, many of them blasters. I had so much fun riding the Defiance 1.0 high. But it was toxic game design that was rightfully fixed. Defiance 2.0 is far better, but I still feel like it's just Budget Brute Fury. Same idea, gained faster, drops off faster. The basic moves ignoring cc is a nice touch, but I feel like Blasters need something else to really distinguish their playstyle. I had an idea for a new Archetype with a passive that, the more I think about it, just makes more sense for the existing Blaster AT. My proposition: Defiance 3.0: Primary abilities generate Defiance (bar where the Fury bar sits) based on the cooldown and activation time of the move. Quicker moves grant less than slow moves (which is already sorta how the current Defiance damage buffs are calculated, so it wouldn't be hard to scale this). Secondary Set powers consume Defiance based on their cooldown and activation time. Each secondary set power has a boosted version with increases to damage, debuffs, buffs, and crowd control (not sure if it would be duration or magnitude, that's up for debate and testing). Essentially, slow, strong attacks will generate the most Defiance, with weaker, faster moves generating far less. This resource is then used to empower your other moves. Are you a Blapper? Aim and Snipe to get a huge amount of Defiance, then blow it all on some super strong melee attacks. Do you have mostly utility in your secondary set, like Devices? Your ranged attacks boost the buffs provided by Targeting Drone, Field Operative, the debuff of Smoke Grenade, the damage of Trip Mine and Gun Drone, etc. But those stronger moves will require more of the Defiance bar to pull off in their empowered forms. Blast out a Dreadful Wail to fill your bar so you can call out a stronger Gun Drone. Could you imagine the shenanigans of Energy Manipulation buffs being stronger because you used them with a full Defiance meter? Aim + Snipe, then get a stronger Build Up and using the last of your defiance on a Total Focus. This could bring back some of the fun while being its own unique thing.

Ever since Vigilance was implemented, I've felt more and more compelled to play Corruptors. I don't mind playing them, but Defenders need SOMETHING else to really make them feel like the support specialist of the game. The current mechanic just doesn't reward being the ultimate team support.

No, functionally. As in, your damage is X normally, but the moment you team, your damage is X - Y, with Y being the Vigilance value. You could literally rewrite the mechanic to be that your base damage scaling is higher to match the current Vigilance solo buff, then apply a damage debuff to the Defender for each ally that joins their team until their damage is at the current Defender damage scaling, and it would be functionally identical to the current mechanic.

Except that functionally it's a damage drop. The default, when I log into the game, is that my character will be alone. You don't load in already on a team. Your character's stat sheet, without buffs or debuffs from others, will show a Defender at a significant damage boost over a Corruptor when alone. The moment you team, this shifts, as the Defender begins losing that "buff". It's sorta like if when a Defender woke up in the morning, they had a nice big breakfast waiting for them. A veritable banquet of their favorite things. The Corruptor wakes up to a moderately sized but pleasant breakfast. But if the Defender invites anyone over to eat with them, the chef just starts taking food off their plate until they have a ton less than everyone else. Meanwhile the Corruptor's breakfast is untouched while they eat with friends. That would really encourage the Defender to eat alone.

I know Peacebringers sorta cover this, but with a very specific lore reason and mechanics. We got Warshades despite having a Dark Armor set, so I don't see the issue with another defensive power set. Light Aura (Tanker Primary, Scrapper/Stalker/Brute/Sentinel Secondary) Baseline Mechanic: Similar to how Dark Armor focuses on hindering those around you, I figured that's how a light-themed set would work as well, but almost in the opposite direction. Instead of cursing nearby enemies with damage, draining their life, or sacrificing your own HP for stuns, you blind those around you with an intense glare and reveal hidden foes with your illuminating presence. Radiant Shield: Toggle Defense (Smashing, Lethal), Resist (Negative). Pretty standard basic armor toggle. Blinding Presence: Auto +Defense (all but Psionics). Warm Glow: Toggle Resist (Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative). Again, nothing too crazy here. Purifying Aura: Toggle Protection (Mez), Resist (Toxic, Mez). I imagine this armor set would focus more on resisting perception debuffs, Disorient, Immobilize, Hold, Sleep, Confuse, Slow, and Teleport, but I don't see knockback making a lot of sense. Unless people complain, I'm leaving it out. It needs some kind of hole in its protections. Intense Glow: Toggle PBAoE Foe (-ToHit, -Perception, -Stealth). This is your area taunt toggle. You debuff enemy vision and subtract some value from their stealth modifiers. This is part of what makes the set unique. Inspiring Flare: Click Self (+Regen, +Recovery) Resist (Psionic). This move is your basic panic button. Use it when low to help top yourself off, though the heal is not instant. You have to be a little proactive with it. This is also where your psionic protection comes from. Obscuring Glint: Toggle Self (Absorb over time, +Perception). This toggle is similar to casting a move like Spirit Ward on yourself, as it's a stacking absorb shield (not huge) that buys you time for your regeneration effects to work. Essentially, enemies struggle to land hits because of the intensity of your light, causing some to glance off. Oppressive Glare: Toggle Foe (Fear, -ToHit). Basically Cloak of Fear, but they are wincing from the bright light. I toyed with the idea of it being a sleep effect instead, but let's face it, in a team environment that won't last more than half a second anyway. Stun seemed too strong without a drawback like Dark Armor's use of your own HP as the resource to maintain the toggle. At least there's precedent for fear being the "enemies don't attack as much as normal" control effect. It's like sleep that reapplies after they attack. So if you hit an enemy, they might make a wild swing in your direction, but otherwise they struggle to see you through the intense glow when up close to you. Banish Shadows: Click Self (+Regen, +Recovery) Resist (all but Psionic), Foe (-ToHit, -Stealth, -Perception). This is your defensive steroid and ultimate panic move. You cause a huge flare of light that blinds and reveals nearby foes, while granting the user regeneration, recovery, and damage resistance to most damage. Your general gameplay won't differ too wildly from other tank sets, except that you have moves that specifically ruin enemy vision and debuff enemy stealth. Enemies that like to obscure your team's vision (Night Widows, anyone?) will struggle to do so, while enemies may have trouble seeing anyone beyond a certain point unless attacked by them. While your resistances are pretty decent across the board, you get a small amount of defense to almost everything, with a larger portion of that reserved for physical attacks, as enemies struggle to land their attacks. Should those attacks hit, they'll hit fairly hard, but you have Obscuring Glint to turn them into glancing blows. The closer enemies get to you, the more you assault their eyes with blinding light, causing attacks to miss. Your Tier 9 takes this to 11, relying on a larger area to hit debuff in place of a defense buff like many T9s have.