AgentForest

Not entirely true. When the game launched, there was no framework for Absorb as a mechanic to even exist. Essentially, absorption was free temporary HP, and that's what most +HP moves do (unless they are auto powers). Most MMOs have barrier mechanics that have to be broken before hurting someone's HP. It's a pretty normal thing these days. So it's only natural they tried adding it as a new mechanic. Having done so, they often threw regeneration effects in with it on purpose, seemingly to make it a functional replacement that more thematically encompasses what +HP was always meant to do. They gave it the regen effect in most cases as a way to make up for how increasing one's HP increases regen indirectly. So the devs clearly did have some intention of it being "the new +HP." But the game was shut down very shortly after adding this effect to the game, so there was never any time to rework some of the ideas into the older powers. They could have made Dull Pain into an Absorb +Regen power. Though I'm sure any passives that increase HP would be left alone, as passive Absorb is a weird mechanic to make work. Plus, such a change to Dull Pain would likely also reduce the cooldown, as the absorption powers are usually more frequent, like Reconstruction. This could end up being a net buff if done properly.

And just for the record, I wasn't entirely sold on the AT name, but I wanted to give it something I hadn't seen already in the forum suggestions. I hadn't seen any proposals that really matched my concept for a melee support, so I didn't want to copy another poster's AT name just for consistency, or it could look like I was trying to steal the thunder from other people. Champion, Guardian, and Protector all could work just fine. I just worried that something like Champion might be too vague (and as you mentioned, issues with Champions Online), and Guardian/Protector almost sound too tanky or too dedicated to only supporting. I was going for more of a hybrid class, much like how the Corruptor is both ranged damage and support. I also didn't want anything TOO villainous or heroic, and went with something that's largely devoid of a real "side". A Justicar is essentially someone who passes judgment on behalf of a leader. They serve, but are also absolute authorities in the name of whoever gave them their position. Essentially, lawful alignment, but not really linked to good or evil alignment. And since they do their job on behalf of their king or whoever they answer to, in that person's place, it made me think of a more front-line role for someone who both protects those who have been wronged, but also passes sentencing on the perpetrators. Supporting plus damage. It also helps that there's a sub-class of Cleric in the MMO "Rift" called the Justicar, who heals by dealing melee damage (they can also tank by changing stances and losing most of their ally healing in exchange for self-healing, but that's beside the point, lol). It was the closest thing I could think of to the type of class design I was shooting for. The only other class I've seen similar to it was the "Warrior Priest" and "Disciple of Khaine" classes from the long-dead MMO Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, but those are way too lore specific to use for naming this class, lol.

An example secondary set: Pain Aura Sadistic Presence: (passive) Your attacks now cause a small AoE heal around you based on the damage of the attack. It's not a large area or heal amount, but you can be healed by this too. All first powers in the secondary sets of this AT are a passive that grants some unique effect for your attacks, as well as a passive boost to AoE defense since you have to be near tanks to help them and don't really have significant armor of your own. For Pain Aura, this move would help replace the fact that you don't get Nullify Pain as a big AoE heal. Soothing Touch: (melee, single-target) Heal an ally. If your Judgment bar is over 35, then 35 points are consumed to also apply a heal-over-time effect to this power. Suppress Pain: (toggle, PBAoE) Increases regeneration in an area around you. Mostly unchanged from the Mastermind version. Shared Agony: (melee, single-target) Heal a single ally for a large amount, but at the cost of some of your own HP. Unlike Absorb Pain/Share Pain, you can still be healed after this, but for only slightly reduced amounts (% decrease would need to be tested, but not for as long as the no-healing debuff on the other versions). You gain bonus damage after using this move as well. If your Judgment bar is over 35, then an Absorb shield is also applied to the target, and your damage boost is slightly larger. Conduit of Pain: (ally Rez) Largely unchanged. Revive an ally, but also increase your own damage output, to-hit, recharge rate, and recovery rate for a minute, but after it wears off, your damage, recharge rate, and hit chance are reduced. If your resource bar is over 50, you spend 50 points to eliminate the "crash" afterwards. Aggressive Motivation: (melee, single-target) Cure an ally's status conditions, and grant them strong protection and resistance to those effects. Largely unchanged from "Enforced Morale" except that it's melee, and you can expend 20 Judgment to also grant you the same effects when applying it to a teammate. Casting this move on a teammate gives you a short burst of speed and slow resistance for 5 seconds, just to allow you to apply it quickly to those who may need it. Realm of Pain: (Location AoE, toggle) You place an area on the ground at your feet that grants allies inside bonus Resist (all, placate), Damage, and To-Hit. Essentially, the same buffs as "World of Pain", but applied in a localized area at your feet. You can turn it off, and it will recharge really fast (like Lifegiving Spores for Nature Affinity). The buffs won't be as strong as the clickable version "World of Pain", but in the hands of a good Justicar, you could have it up most of the time. Anguishing Cry: (PBAoE) Largely unchanged. You destroy enemy Resistance and Defense in an area around you. Fitting enough move for the front lines already. Painbringer: (melee, single-target) Largely unchanged from the standard version of the power, except applied in melee range. However, you can expend 75 Judgment to also apply the effect to yourself as well as the target.

Personally, I think the issue with this is that there is a pet people are preferring not to upgrade because something about the upgrades isn't good for its role. That's more a balance oversight that needs fixed with the pet itself rather than an issue with upgrading pets. I don't know of any pets I personally would ever choose not to upgrade, but if there's one people are turning down, they need to be fixed so that the upgrade is a true benefit to the pet.

Some support is tactical, and some is reactive. That scaling effect is to reward them for helping when needed instead of JUST dealing damage. I didn't spell out the exact changes I would give the power sets in this post yet (busy with work lately), but an example would be to put Absorption effects into the forcefield set. I feel that with their more single-target, melee approach to supporting, they will need assistance in this department to keep up with Defenders and even Corruptors/Controllers. Otherwise why bring one to a team instead of a Defender if they just sat there attacking instead of healing? Why bring them instead of a Scrapper if they just spent their whole time running from teammate to teammate instead of attacking? It's to create a flow of gameplay that we don't really have much of yet, short of the Corruptor's Scourge mechanic, which encourages weaving between the two roles. Support at first, attacking when you can, then focus on damage as the enemies' HP gets lower. This would be like a smaller version of that. Built up your resource bar a bit? Spend it on some barriers and go back to fighting. Maybe not as strong as the ones Dominators can get, but I feel like, being a support, the Build Up power they have shouldn't JUST help their damage. That wouldn't really match a support role as much, especially one that is already impeded by melee effects. This would be more of a reactive effect, while the expendable supporting resource bar would be either reactive or preventative. If you only have one dash left at the moment, and your tank needs you, this Power Boost move could really make you save the day. Remember, this set generally won't have much in the realm of durability, short of some basic protection against AoEs built in somewhere, so it will need an edge over ranged supports. The total potential healing and buffing of this class would be stronger than a Defender, but with a more limited scope (fewer AoE heals, more focused supporting on a particular area of the fight at a time). As for Justicar, I needed a name for someone passing judgment. This isn't just a support. They fight on the front lines. They both help people and punish people. Vigilante is already taken as an alignment, and Zealot is a little too religious in theme.

That's more an issue that could be solved with number tweaks though. Find out what X% damage boost is worth not having Y% defense/resistance. The stronger a defensive power, the better the damage it would provide. Maybe make it so that grabbing one specific power in the first place gives you 35% damage passively, and only loses 25% if turned on. So even if it's on, you're still hitting harder, but you can choose to drop powers that provide resistances you don't really need right now. Fighting lots of Warriors? Drop your Energy/NegEnergy/Fire/Cold protection to hit them harder. I think with play-testing, a good balance could be found for the different builds.

I was just wondering how hard it would be to add new customization options in the drop-down box for Trick Arrow powers. For example, if you could toss grenades for the animation instead of firing a bow. Not much more to my post than that though, lol. Just thought Trick Arrows might see more use if it was possible to fit it into more character concepts while maintaining the same effects and timings as current versions of the powers.

JUSTICAR Passive: Scales of Justice - The Justicar has a meter (where Fury/Domination is) that fills as they deal damage. This resource is expended when using support moves, increasing the effect of those moves. Primary: Melee Damage - The Justicar is a front-line support. Damage is comparable to a Scrapper, but without a crit chance. Essentially, they can deal damage in order to fuel "critical support" moves instead. The basic melee DPS sets would apply here. Martial Arts, Dual Blades, Ice Melee, etc. Instead of having Taunt or Challenge, the move shared by Justicar melee sets would instead be a "Dash" move. This move holds 3 charges that restock instead of a standard cooldown timer. Upon casting Dash, your next melee attack OR support move that targets another character will make you instantly dash into melee range of that target to apply the effect. This mobility is to help with the lack of inherent durability, as well as to make them useful as supports despite their melee nature. These could have different effects based on the set if someone really wanted to put in the work, like teleporting, or walking through a portal, or just leaping over really fast, but the goal should be the same: to close the gap when you are immediately needed. All "Build Up" powers would instead be "Power Boost" style, allowing you to also boost your supporting effects, but boosting damage less than the Scrapper versions. Secondary: Melee Support - Rather than getting durability for themselves, the Justicar gets melee-centric reimaginings of support power sets. For example, the Radioactive Aura set would have a toggle like Radiation Infection that lowers enemy Def and ToHit, and is centered around the Justicar itself as a PBAoE toggle aura. These sets CAN provide durability in some cases, when it's fitting, but that's not really your goal. It's about helping the team. Ideally, I'd like each to have some mechanic to make its offensive powers a little different. For example, Dark Presence heals by dealing damage. Runic Seals can build up stacks of seals by attacking a target, like combo points, and upon reaching 3 seals on one target, the enemy takes bonus damage and the lowest health teammate in range is healed. Temporal Aura can add a weak -Speed, -Regen, -Recharge effect to all attacks. Pain Aura can increase the damage of its attacks after healing, letting you weave between healing and damage a little more effectively than other Justicar sets. The Chi set will let you drain stats from enemies on-hit, then add stats to allies based on the number of stacks you've drained from enemies the next time you heal or buff them, to have an almost Kinetics feel. Commanding Presence let's your attacks "denounce" a target, causing allies who attack them to heal. Bestial Presence lets your attacks mark targets as "prey" for allies to gain bonus damage against. Example Melee Support Sets: Field Medic: Pain killers, bandaging, adrenaline injections, etc. Chi: Stun and debuff enemies while healing and buffing allies with pressure points Barrier Projection: Forcefields and knockback effects. More durable than other sets here, but with no healing of its own. Shield Bearer: Block incoming attacks on allies with defense buffs and stun enemies with shield bashes and throws. More durable than other sets here, but no healing. Commanding Presence: Shouts, war cries, leadership buffs, and team utility. Can "Denounce" an enemy, causing allies who attack them to heal. Bestial Presence: Pack/Herd buffs to increase team damage and durability depending on the situation. Allies attacking your marked prey deal more damage. Fortune: Luck for your allies and misfortune for enemies. Super Reflex style buffs to nearby allies, while also lowering enemy ToHit or making enemies trip when near you. Pain Aura: Melee version of Pain Domination. Damage is boosted after helping friends. Radioactive Aura: Melee version of Radiation Emissions set, with some more melee-focused moves instead of ranged and cone. Dark Presence: A mix of Dark Armor debuff powers (like Cloak of Fear) but with melee versions of Dark Miasma mechanics. Instead of Twilight Grasp, you gain a passive that just makes you heal nearby allies based on your damage dealt. Instead of summoning a Dark Servant, you can summon 3 small Shadespawn that use Dark Melee attacks and heal nearby teammates as they deal damage. Temporal Aura: Melee support set with time manipulation style powers. The heal is a single-target heal-over-time effect with a decent duration. Potions: Tossing vials at your feet that create area buffs/debuffs, using a vanishing potion to stealth an ally and grant them bonus damage upon ending the stealth effect, giving healing potions to allies, etc. Runic Seals: You place runic sigils on the ground, allies, and enemies, causing various useful effects. Gadget Deployment: Place turrets, beacons, and resupply stations across the battlefield, like a combination of Traps, Trick Arrow, and Device powers.

One of the passive ideas I had for Sentinels would be a "Divert Power" mechanic built into the durability moves. Every defensive toggle power gives you, say, 25% bonus damage passively, but turning the power on lowers your damage by the same amount. Defensive clickable moves like Reconstruction passively give you maybe 10% damage, but when activated drop it by the same amount for the duration of its effects (not stacking, just replacing the old debuff if recast before the debuffed damage wears off). Defensive passive moves aren't affected. Essentially, the goal would be that your damage is pretty much the same as it is now, but if you choose to turn off a move that helps you stay alive, you divert that power to your attacks, becoming stronger. The downside being that using all of your defensive moves at once lowers your damage output a bit. This would help make some strategy to their gameplay, and give them decisions they can make based on the situation. Busting out your emergency survival skills would help keep you alive, but at the cost of damage output. However, a character with tons of toggles could turn them all off for immense damage output, then put them back on when enemies start attacking them. Obviously such a passive would mean some tweaks around the edges on power sets, like how Invulnerability has a +Def +ToHit toggle, and that's both offensive and defensive. That move could be changed to provide the +ToHit as a passive once you purchase the power, rather than as part of the toggle, just so you can turn it off for more damage and still maintain the +ToHit effect. I feel like this fulfills a similar goal to the "Defiance" mechanic from the old days, in that there's a risk-reward feel to it, without having to get your health low. The risk comes in deciding which powers you "can do without right now" to maximize damage potential.

I have a few ideas. 1. Customizable Mastermind minions. If possible, fully adjustable like AE NPCs, but if that's not really feasible, at least a drop-down list of options like we have for weapons in the costume editor. 2. More powerset proliferation, regardless of whether it's "ideal" or not. Regeneration on Tankers, Illusion Control on Dominators, Shield Defense on Sentinels, etc. 3. More Blaster and Dominator secondary sets. These tend to combine aspects of other power sets, and there are several missing. For example, a Blaster with a "Combat Knives" secondary who can throw a poisoned dagger to immobilize, use dual-blade style combos, and a stealth toggle. Dominators could use a Medieval Assault set that uses a sword and bow. 4. When a weapon is set for "no redraw", it should still play the character animation for the attack. This is more a bug report than anything else, lol. If my "Ninja Training" Blaster doesn't have his katana out yet, and I tell him to use an attack with it, he just stands still like a fool, the weapon appears, and the damage/sounds happen, but he doesn't actually swing the sword. 5. More Mastermind Primary sets. I know this is a huge amount of work, but it's definitely the AT with the least options. Private Security, Medieval Soldiers, Elementals, etc. 6. New ATs. Example: The Coordinator - A pet class that only has one pet, from level 1 as their secondary set, but gains moves to make it better at its particular job and giving you tools to synergize with it. The primary set could be the Assault sets Dominators get as secondaries. So you summon one good pet, and you fight while it tanks, or it supports you while you fight on the front line, or you both just do tons of damage. Pet options could be drawn from existing types of pets, like soldiers, knights, stone golems, etc. Another possible AT would be a highly mobile, high damage melee support. Not a lot of durability, except maybe to AoE damage, but you dash around the fight helping teammates and hurting foes.

That's... selfish, honestly. I get that you put a lot of work into getting the stats you needed for the previous implementation of instasnipe. However, that investment still paid off, because you are still way better than everyone else who didn't. Your opening snipe may be slower, but it's way stronger. Your in-combat fast snipe is now way better than everyone else's. You are still a god among insects. But now people who are leveling up don't have to feel useless until post-50. That's not exactly fun, and is not a good way to draw new players to the server. I've played it with the old mechanic requiring a ToHit check for quick snipe, and I've played on the beta server to try the new version, and the new version not only feels better and more fun, but I was genuinely stronger. This was a buff. Wanting other people to suffer just because you had to suffer is selfish and short-sighted. Any developer's goal should be to remove as much suffering from the game as possible. They obviously wanted to make sure the people who used the old build still get to be the best snipers in the game, but they wanted other builds to be possible and enjoyable. Any player should want more players to join and stick with the game, and if the mechanics are so sluggish and awkwardly implemented that only someone who spends a week of end-game grinding gets to enjoy them, then we won't have very good player gain and retention. Builds will all be standardized and boring instead of diverse. This is ultimately a good change.

I'm curious what this means for the differentiation between Stealth and Invisibility. It seems Invis was brought to a cost on-par with Stealth, with greater stealth values, and yet it's usable in combat. Do the two powers stack now, or is one just inherently better than the other? It sounds like both are meant for use during the same kinds of situations, but Invisibility just sounds like the stronger version.