Epsilon Assassin

Nothing to discuss because I never addressed it in the first place. I never had issues with buffing their movement speed. Initially I simply pointed out that the damage increase would accomplish nothing and that it should be discussed in another thread as the issue is symptomatic of something much larger then just MMs. I never had an issue with the pet speed buff. I know it would give more damage then a "25% damage buff", but the difference is, and why I disagreed, is that one will actually *accomplish something*, while the other *wouldn't*. The difference between BK and I commenting on something is that I have *actually* played MMs before. I just found them to be inherently useless and discarded them, like anyone in the competitive PvP scene would do. You can try decreasing the goal posts to "If you spent even 10 hours only on MMs playing in only the dankest of 8v8 PvP tourney scenes with the hottest gurls", and you'd get me, but you aren't making points here. You're just moving goal posts. >Scoreboard is terrible >Relevant because it proves my point To be frank, I have never disagreed with the speed buff, and I do think it's better. I have entire issues with the damage buff and imagining that MMs need it. They don't. MMs don't need buffs at all. To be viable in competitive PvP they need systematic and fundamental problems addressed with the very core of how they work. Just like any melee-interactive class in the game does. They need changes, buffs and yes, even nerfs. Ok. Math. 1.3k HP base HP 6 Pets 23% Resists. 1,300*1.23*4 Total projected ehp=6394 Pets don't take half the damage you do. They take a percentage. Each Pet takes a portion of the damage, while the MM will take double that of any individual "minion" in range, in BG mode. To simplify this, it means that with 6 minions in range, there will be 8 "Shares" of damage being received. 2 of those shares (1/4th) will be received by the MM, while the remaining 6 shares will be divided up evenly between pets as True (IE No Damage Resist/Defense reductions) involved. The Mastermind in full BG mode will be afforded 75% damage reduction to the extent that the life of the minions are capable of supporting it.

Why? Care to point out what I'm missing here? Probably because you didn't read my response, just read that I disagreed and jumped on the band-wagon. You can get those people to chime in, but you might be surprised at the responses from some, and to be honest, I don't really need to deal with another bout of RARE/VoRI/PvP ELITZ flaming me because I'm worthless zone trash outside their high-school level cool kids club. If you want to have a discussion based on reality, however, I'm game. This has nothing to do with getting a damage buff. As for positioning correctly, there isn't much of it. I've watched you and others play this class and for the most part you just run around in BG mode spamming SSJ/KoB at people, then ceasing movement once you see an attack on your bar (Assuming you ever do, in the 6 months or so I've been scrimming, win or lose against the MM teams, we just ignored you because the alternative is attacking a 5k HP tank). MM pets don't contribute at all to damage. You got that right, but at the same time, you're still a nearly-full tank spec bringing to the table a slightly less potent, but still relevant, suite of buffs/debuffs and far more damage (Via the same procs you say MMs don't have access to), then a class as tanky as MM has any right having access to. I mean, you're not wrong. However, increasing the damage does little to nothing to solve any of these issues. I've dueled plenty of tanks that I kill all the time because they get kited and can't do anything. This isn't a problem with MMs, nor damage really. The issue is around how hard it is for any class related to melee or short range to apply damage in a no-TS meta. All increasing the damage does is further exaggerate the issue of tanky classes doing more damage then they should and still feeling utterly useless. -I mean yes, they are. I could agree heavily with increasing MM pet speed. And yes, they are further after that still not great. -Yep this is still true -I have a caveat to put here. MM's have access to quite a bit of proc damage in their epics, and it is quite relevant to the pvp discussion. 5k ehp tankmage MMs also having the ability to drop 4-800 point damage for spikes is quite a thing and trying to brush it aside is.....well it's disingenuous to an extreme -MM's definitely do. I whole-heartedly agree with the movement speed changes, my problem with it is the damage buff and thinking it will ever help MMs. The problem MM's suffer from is the same any melee class does, and simply "Increasing the damage" while neglecting to address their extreme survivability and inability to ever apply that damage is an exercise in complete futility. TLDR; The issues you're having, damage wise, have nothing to do with your actual damage and should be addressed as the seperate issue that they are, rather then simply as a carte blanche to ask for a 25% damage buff that will accomplish nothing until it's broken.

Yeah, I'll give that to you. I don't know everything about MM play, but this issue isn't an MM play specific, super high level obvious 9001 IQ quantum-physics duo-level integral-part-of-the-galaxy issue. It's a simple issue with damage applicability that I have issues with. I don't particularly want MMs to get M3z's "25% damage increase", because it wouldn't actually solve anything. As for super-casual-zone-play, I've played arena now for what, 6 months? It's more casual then I play zone, and to be honest, it's a lot, lot simpler. Now, we've moved part of the obligatory you're-just-zone-trash part of the conversation; I've never claimed MM's don't need buffs, changes or fixes. I've never claimed they are fine. In fact I claimed the exact opposite. MMs are overpowered. They're also dysfunctional. Both of those being true does not mean that they are, by default, good. All three of these points are distinctly different issues. MMs are overpowered because they bring 5k ehp to a table, a suite of effective buff/debuff options and enough damage to contribute to relevant damage spikes. MMs are dysfunctional because their pets are inherently dumb. With those two things put together, they only show real effectiveness in coordinated team pvp based around them. I don't think making MMs more survivable is a good thing, because I inherently don't think that moving towards comps comprised of unkillable ATs is a good thing. I'm not really opposed to the idea of buffing MM movespeed, so much as I was opposed to his idea of "Buffing MM damage by 25%". I was also fairly against the fact that this thread is only being viewed by people who like MMs and want them to be viable regardless of whether or not it would be balanced or good for the game. As for the turtle strat. Yeah, that involves a bit of my reluctance to see even more MMs crop up in regular play because in each of those games the result was a tie. Just entire matches of two teams sitting there staring at each other. If they engaged us, we won. If they sat in their corner with attacks queued at us, we lost. It wasn't exactly fun, and kill me for saying this, but if the projected future desired in this instance involves more ties by default, I don't think it's a good idea. As for advocating for not fixing dark hold. I doubt that, I may have expressed regrets and annoyances on the fact that it's the only thing that allows controllers to display relevance through their passive in a damaging aspect, but saying I don't want any mez fixed is fairly ignorant of my overall views of the game. You will find very few people in CoH history who have advocated harder for CC nerfs or changes then I have. I have despised the CC system in this game for a long time and would never oppose or advocate for any change that would lengthen the amount of time people are forcibly disallowed from playing the game.

It isn't rocket science. This game is hilariously linear, extremely predictable and to put it bluntly. Simple. There is no reason I don't have the ability to understand everything there is to do, at most levels, about MM's simply because I haven't spent 150 hours playing them. My initial point was that this isn't a good place to deal with "Buffing" MMs, rather it should be about focusing on improving the QoL and streamlining them into a platform that can then be improved later. Addressing specifically M3z's points of increasing their damage (You shouldn't). Or someone else's suggestion of buffing their survivability (Even though his suggestions technically didn't really do anything). To put it in simplistic terms. MM's and to an extent, those other melee archetypes represent taking the game in an increasingly bad direction. Sure, it could be considered within "Balance". The last time I had an interaction with VORI's MM team it boiled down to them moving around, and losing, or huddling into corners, and drawing. I don't particularly think that's good. The entire problem with Melee, which includes MMs as the same problems with melee apply, is wholly too intrinsic to simply be addressed in a thread about QoL changes in a PvE environment as the entire issue is entirely a PvP issue, and knowing how those threads go, it risks hijacking this entire thread.

See. Here's the deal; In PvP there is a high amount of sheer dissonance with how pvp actually works. As it stands, increasing the survivability of an MM effectively does absolutely nothing as the class has already hit a curve where anything that will kill them now, will kill them with almost any proposed change, and anything that can't now, still won't. Masterminds, along with melee classes like Tanks, Brutes, Scrappers and even to an extent, Stalkers, suffer from the fact that their intended design simply does not function in PvP. What this has lead to is an increasingly obtuse balancing scenario where the above classes, in most of the PvP they are played in, are nigh into unkillable, but are still able to contribute noticeable, though not lethal, damage. This in and of itself, is highly overpowered. A Tanker or MM running around with well over 5k eHP, being able to deal half of a squishies life in an instant, simply does not comport within "Balance". However, because in this game the difference between half dead and dead, is oceanic, it results in the classes being nearly useless. Making the class useful, simply by increasing its damage in binary manner, would also make it unbearably broken. You cannot simply "Buff" these classes in ways that will fix their inherent problems, without also nerfing them significantly. * NPCs in RV are disgusting and should be addressed. They alone make Zone almost impossible for MMs to survive in, as the boss class npcs (Warden or TTs) can one shot an MM straight up with some of the AoE attacks at their disposal. This is, overall, an issue for all classes, but doubly so for MMs.

MMs are actually fairly overpowered. They're also dysfunctional. They're two wildly different things that quite commonly occur at the same time. It's similar to the melee problem. Melee classes are basically unkillable, therefore buffing them to be able to kill things is impossible because it's overpowered. MMs are in a similar boat. Played well they're borderline unkillable, if not unkillable outright without egregious attention (IE they can quite easily tank 5 man spikes and remain healthier then tanks). On the same hand, their damage is actually far higher then it should ever be given the previous statement. I would never, and don't ever, object to QoL things like buffing or changing AI mechanics (Knights/Bots IE), but buffing the damage of a class that already occupies a near unkillable status in one of the more common PvP game modes, and actively detracts from the game mode at that, should be done separately with a different set of debate, questions and issues raised.

That's fine, I simply felt the duty to point out that you weren't really fooling anyone by making objectively false statements, then when called on them later, playing the sarcasm card. As long as that got across (Which it apparently did), then the statement achieved its intended goal. I have though. You base your opinions on an objectively false premise. No one is insulting you, but at the same time, you're making assertions contradicted by reality and then saying "I don't think they're wrong, so they're not wrong". And the only reason you see that, or think that, is because I disagreed with you. Which is fine, you're entitled to your opinion. And we can agree with that, and state it all, without randomly tossing mud on a community you aren't a part of, know next to nothing about and has nothing to do with this issue. I never took issue with this, just your objectively inaccurate portrayal of the PvP community as the cause of all your ills. It's objectively and demonstrably wrong, even if you don't agree with that statement. Now, as this discourse has run it's course with you specifically saying you don't agree with the common reality that we all share, I'll bow out. We can't have meaningful and constructive conversation if you consider reality to be an opinion. Have a nice night.

Its not? This point doesn't actually make logical sense. And for each of the examples in question, it did at the time. There's also a very real reason why PvP was considered to have "Died" when they changed it. PvP was a feature that was officially added in I4 (Though many people tried/played it before that). It was a planned feature discussed in interviews with Positron before the game actually released. While I certainly agree that, in a perfect world, PvE and PvP should be separate to best fulfill the best interests of both communities, I disagree with this underlying premise that leads people to villify and scorn the PvP community as "The reason all these bad things happened". They weren't, and the belief that it was is objectively and demonstrably false. It's also just not a valid point in this instance. If this was "Just a PvP" issue, it would be simple. Make it against the rules, and attach a punishment. I am perhaps one of, if not the most prolific PvPer (I just PvP more then almost anyone else, I'm a zone rat), and I have only seen two people in dozens of hours a week of PvP that abuse it. PvP players are naturally vindictive, people would love to report and get people banned (What that says about the community aside), it would be very easy. If this gets "Fixed" it would be a very classic example of issue recognized by PvP community, and nerfed because of PvE reasons. Which is how most of these misunderstandings happen.

Regen was performing far above the curve for a vast majority of early CoH history. Remember, the curve back then was a lot lower then it was/is now. At no point in Regen's history was it actually nerfed solely because of a PvP reason. Yes, PvPers complained about Regen, more vocally then PvE'rs, but that's a side effect of powerful sets being far more obvious in a competitive setting then in a casual one like PvE. That holds true for several, if not all of the Regen nerfs. If we nerfed Regen based solely on PvP, it would have been nerfed several more times due solely to the fact that it has been the best scrapper secondary for the vast majority of the games life, and continues to be until this day. You know posting stuff on the internet, then saying you were being sarcastic when proven wrong and passive aggressively insulting the person who took the time to prove you wrong and engage in the conversation simply makes you look bad, right? If not, I would like for you to know that. The problem is that you think that the PvP and PvE community are different. They aren't. PvPer's are naturally vocal, but it doesn't mean that their issues don't translate to PvE. ED was done for PvE and PvP reasons. So were most if not all of the regen nerfs. Travel suppression was done because both sides were complaining about it. PvPer's play in a competitive environment, in that environment, it is far easier to identify problems with the game on a fundamental level. PvPer's are also usually very vocal about said issues. The changes made may have involved a lot of PvPers complaining about them, but at the same time, neither were any of those issues PvP exclusive. At no point in COH's history was any major balance decision made on the premise of PvP alone. It may have been looked at *because of* a PvP based complaint, but there is always, and was always, a very real PvE reason why a change happened if it happened. People just don't like admitting that changes happened for good reason and it harmed their gameplay experience, and it's easier to blame a scapegoat (IE the PvP community), rather then reflecting and admitting or discovering that there was solid reasoning behind changes.

None of these were pvp exclusive issues. ED was implemented because there was absolutely no reason to slot certain enhancements, over others and to clamp down on semi-rampant damage inflation. Yes, it was good for the PvP community, but it was just as necessary and justified for PvE as PvP, if not so more. I don't even remember travel powers being nerfed for "PvP abuse". The only thing that comes to mind is a 50 page forum thread with PvE'rs whining about how hard travel powers were to control and getting us the minor suppression effect PvE has with said travel powers. Regen was far above the balance curve in PvE and PvP both for a very long period, and to this day, it remains one of the best pvp sets. That being said, if you had issues soloing EB's with a /regen toon at that point in time, you were building it badly. My Spines/Regen Scrapper at the time could solo AV's with relative ease as long as they didn't have major -recharge or -regen effects. You're more then entitled to hate PvP, and oppose global nerfs based on solely pvp reasons. However that doesn't give you a blank check to, more or less, fabricate issues to pin on the PvP community. As it stands, the basepasscode is not an issue in PvP, it is a concern. Out of the dozens, if not hundreds of people that play RV for hundreds of hours per week, there are only two people who abuse it on anything considered a regular basis. However the fact that it exists, and can be abused, warrants attention from both PvE and PvP perspectives. We should be looking for ways to alleviate the concerns raised by all parties in a fair and impartial manner instead of trying to blame and shame people for having them.

Man, I love this thing. Like it's great. Given, it's objectively abusable and obviously a concern. I wish they'd just revamp the Base TP to provide the same benefit in a less abusable outlet (IE Give it a like, 2 second interrupt. A 60 second CD. Make it not tied to No-Phase in PvP (It's a thing, and it's obnoxious) Thankfully, as one of the most frequent RV players, there's only two people in the entire community that actively abuse it. To be honest, I think that the PvP community (At large) has avoided abusing it in 99.8% of cases.

The problem is that the position(s) havent moved. We've just been here for 10 pages trying to figure out if there's any logical reason to make a move that takes so much work. When one side just says the same thing over and over, it's not surprising that the other side gets frustrated and the discourse degrades.

As it stands, I already throw unslotted "Base" attacks at defense targets in zone. I know, for instance, that if I throw Psy Dart at an EA stalker, and the tohit chance comes back ~30-40%, he's in T9. If I throw it and the tohit is around 70%, it means that he's not in t9, barrier or shadow meld. This change arbitrarily buffs, for no real reason (In an insignificant way), the chance that my spike combo (Which I throw after testing for t9/barrier) will do increased damage. This is just an example off the top of my head. I don't know, concretely, if the change *can be* exploited to a degree that would be problematic, but I am sure that more exploitative minds then mine might break it further. I don't particularly think it matters either way *but* it bears being aware of.

People aren't clinging to hasten. It's simply a matter of people not understanding why so much work needs to be done for effectively zero reason outside the niche opinions of some people that they want it nerfed. That isn't to say Hasten can't change, quite a few people (Myself included) wouldn't be too opposed to Hasten becoming an inherent (Like Fitness), the issue is you not only view it *like* fitness, but also want to nerf it after it gets the "Fitness" treatment. Hasten does not, actually, cause any real balance concerns so far as it relates to City of Heroes existing balancing scheme. It adds more power to a build, more so then any other power, but it's not necessary. You can clear all content without hasten, comfortably, and with SO's to boot (Which is the main part of how it differs from Fitness). I've read several of these threads now. With hundreds of posts, dozens of pages. I have yet to see any of them pose a real, substantial and reasonable argument about why the developers should take their time to not only address Hasten, but further to nerf it. I may, or may not, be alone in this, but when someone suggests I undertake a fairly large amount of work (Rebalancing the entire game around the loss of Hasten), I usually want a good reason. You've yet to provide a good reason for nerfing Hasten, as have most of the people in favor of nerfing it.

I'm just fringe worried about potential abuse regarding controlled streakbreakers. Defense based sets are already fairly weak outside stalkers. No one builds accuracy much accuracy. Tossing a couple mule garbage aoes at someone to trigger streakbreaker for enhanced/guaranteed accuracy has the potential to be abused.

Obligatory pvp concerns post

Nope. It used to stack regularly and this is why it no longer does

This is the correct way, though personally I find the idea of making it an auto that scales appropriately to our recharge an appealing change. It is true that making people manage clickie abilities around a single auto ability adds difficulty, but I find that, particularly in some cases (Like /EM on Blaster, or Hasten), that some clicks should be autos.

And if they intended for things to not be perma, they would have fixed it in the length of time that they had. Instead specific problematic powers got addressed (IE Domination). You're making an appeal to an authority that doesn't even really exist anymore, and that, to all appearances, disagree with you. We're back at square one. You have an opinion. I have one. You have no logical reasons. I have one that involves why involves why work for no reason. So, Why make this change? It isn't though, since multiple types of builds can reach that number with SO's only by using Incarnate abilities. Which is obvious since they are *incarnate* content. Yes. You're right. This game is balanced around SO's. It always has been, and should always be, but that doesn't change the fact that the developers knew that it would be the bar, disregarded it and created IOs.

Ok, that's a valid point of view, but why is your opinion more important then mine, which would be that it doesn't break anything, so dont touch it. That's the biggest issue. Not that it can't be done, not that some people would like it dead, but rather why. Is there a reason?

Not since IOs were implemented. Ever since IOs were implemented, the balance between characters and NPCs has grown to such a wide divide that it's impossible to consider. We've spent so much time with IOs that trying to say that because pre-11 exists makes the game a "Balanced" game is fairly disingenuous.

Yes. In a balanced game that is true. City of Heroes is not a balanced game. Therefore nerfing things for balance concerns is a little different. The question is whether or not Hasten is making the game actively worse due to its existence. If the answer is not objectively no, then it's irrelevant. The reason is that, while yes, optimally, Hasten should exist in your build, the games difficulty is tuned to which point that you can perform far far worse then optimally and complete all content. Combat suppression wasn't a nerf exactly. People where whining about how hard it was to control travel powers in combat and that they didnt want to turn them off. Thus combat suppression was born. Your right about Fitness, but the significant difference between Hasten and Fitness is that fluent combat without Fitness was almost impossible. With hasten, the only advantage is a term of power, which as I mentioned before, is nearly if not completely irrelevant in the balance scheme of City of Heroes. That is only a single part of the argument he is making. He is simultaneously arguing that this should occur (I could agree), and also that Hasten be levy to a significant nerf. (I could see a nerf being made, but it's a significant change and significant reasoning made to why this is necessary would also be needed) And that is, effectively, a nerf. But you failed to take into account that a big part of a large number of builds are about making Hasten perma. Therefore your suggestion is both a huge nerf to hasten, and a large nerf to a significant portion of the game as it exists now. Your logic for making this change has yet to be fully fleshed out. Actually the logic is closer to half baked then a fully reasonable argument. It should be also noted that it's possible to adjust the hasten inherent power to scale from 20% to 20%+(a percentage of recharge scaling up to 50% based on the total recharge outside this power). You have yet to justify why this is needed. Sure. It's doable, but what does it do and why should it be done. Making Hasten an inherent is a plausible argument, and you're making a decent argument for it, but past that, you also significantly nerf it. I agree to the point that it would be nice to have it as a "Passive" power, but you havent justified the large nerf you're also shoveling on it.

So what's the reason behind nerfing Hasten besides arbitrarily nerfing it because it's good? Travel powers are taken by almost everyone as well. Nerf them too. Oh and Fitness is basically required, so nerf that. No one has given a real reason why Hasten is hurting the game. Yes it is one of the objectively best powers in the game. Yes it is objectively overpowered, but City of Heroes has *never been about balance. *

Since literally forever. No one is going to let you sit there and beat on them like a target dummy. Just because Strangler is a good 5th+ attack doesn't hold a lot of weight when most pvp encounters are over before the third attack gets off, and the CDs for the chain are up on the next call. Sure. My attack chain is something like Char, Snipe, Lancer, Disint, Single Shot repeat, but I never get past the third move in actual pvp unless I'm attacking a tank for some reason, or someone like Xtreme. 0 Which is what I was talking about. It's also something you don't tend to find Strangler in most of the time. Most of the time it's Will Dom, Lance, TK/SSJ, Char/Disint, Snipe, Lancer. Sure, Strangler fits in over TK, but it doesn't actually do significantly more damage (Like 80 more damage during a spike, with another 100 over the next 4 seconds), and simply is not worth giving up your entire secondary for. Take EM vs Plant. EM: 60% Range. Build up every 5-8 spikes. Power Boost (If Relevant). Energize Plant: 150-200 damage every 5-8 spikes (Toxins), 80 Damage in half of spikes(Strangler), Absorb. Martial: CC Break, Psuedo-Phase/Escape, 40% Perma Damage Bonus, 12% Tohit Perma. 4-500 point heal, Absorb TA: Web Arrow. Glue Arrow. Mez Resist. Gymnastics. Build up every 5-8 spikes. I never denied that it did, I simply pointed out that Strangler alone does not create a competitive niche for a set that's getting nerfed that is already fairly weak among competitive secondaries. Strangler provides nothing that SSJ doesn't offer, and provides no utility. Now its damage is being cut by roughly half with nothing being given in compensation. It will not retain a top tier spot when it's "Top tier" position is already largely in debate before being nerfed. The entire secondary revolves around burst damage. This nerf to its burst damage narrows the margin to a point where there is no point in picking it over another secondary. Plant's entire intended purpose is for Deleting people. This change nerfs that niche into non-existence because the ttk in most pvp as the other secondaries, thus has no reason to be run over other secondaries. Martial, Plant, EM and TA can all 1 combo 1606 toons. Only Plant can, sometimes, 1 combo 1850+110 Toons. With test changes this is no longer true. Meaning the TTK on Martial, Plant, EM and TA are roughly the same in most pvp. This singular example is the only strength plant has compared to the rest of the sets. It's not the only advantage, as pointed out Strangler *is* an advantage, but it's not a niche. It's the same reason, as I stated before, we don't mention devices as a strong secondary even though it's undoubtedly the best dueling secondary. The niche is too narrow to be useful in pvp as a whole. My only purpose in this is to point out that this change, removes Plant as a competitive secondary. To steal your words; Like it or not, that's what this change does. I simply want the developers to be entirely cognizant of the ramifications of their changes from one of the more prolific PvPers, and probably, /Plant blasters. That's all. Enjoy your day

Yeah, strangler is one of two reasons to roll it, but it's far from being on par with Martial providing CC immunity windows, TP with half the animation of Phase, perma 40% damage bonus and an absorb. The general problem with strangler as an "Attack chain" is that PvP doesnt revolve around attack chains. EM has range advantage which is intrinsically a huge deal, particularly when most relevant PvP sets end without a snipe. TA has -jump, which is one of the most overpowered concepts ever given to blasters, in addition to competitive damage, recharge, mez resist and gymnastics. PvP is usually your best timed 3 attacks (Char, snipe lancer for instance). Maybe 4 (Will Dom, Lance, TK, SSJ). After that the target phases, is dead or out of range. Strangler makes a niche fourth attack for some sets (Such as Psy), and as a timing attack in Ice as a third. So, while Strangler does retain itself as a marked perk of the set, it does not give plant a "Niche" alone. With toxins being weakened to make little to no difference, it narrows that niche down to non-existence. It would be comparable to say that Devices is top tier because Gun Drone procs Confuse Interface regardless of Mez Suppression. I mean sure, but how -much- does that really matter? Is it really enough to create a -competitive- niche? I would say no. Plant -is- currently an outlier. But so is TA. So is Martial. So is EM. Those outlying facets of the set are what makes them strong, and gives them reason to be run. Currently on test the only reason to run Plant is an almost meaningless 1-200 damage burst advantage (It is an advantage but it doesnt reach any meaningful benchmarks. You'll still need another cycle to kill someone, in which case its identical to the other secondaries) in 1 in 5-8 spikes, a good attack to add in every other spike if you somehow have time for a fifth attack and an absorb that's also present in Martial. Objectively, Plant is already, in general, weaker then Martial and TA. I would consider it to be better, in general, then EM. However it's worth mentioning in the same breath. With this change, it will no longer be true. While the debate on whether or not it's healthy to have a blaster secondary that can 100-0 another blaster with absorb, or a sent, is healthy to have is an accurate point to make, so is the fact that this change does further narrow the number of competitive secondaries in an already fairly narrow field.