Dispari

All I have to say about this twirling rotational repel idea is,

I would say an inward pull to gather up enemies like Axe does would be great. But just moving enemies around for no reason would only annoy melees.

One of my friends has some backpack + wings costumes they can't edit anymore since that option got removed when the backpacks got changed, I think. I would also love to be able to use the backpacks on non-crabs too, even if the Arachnos branding got removed. I have a spider-themed power armor character who would use the backpack if she could.

It sounds like sticking to a rigid "concept" for the set has been holding it back this whole time. Things like slowly ramping up or the direction things are moved being "out of theme" keep the set from being able to perform as well as it could. This is a video game first and foremost; the set should be good and fun to play ahead of it being "realistic." As people pointed out it's also not realistic for axes to vacuum people toward the wielder, for fire to form a physical sword that can stab people, or for an archer to be able to shoot 40 arrows into the air in one go, but those things are fun. Nobody's here for a scientifically accurate depiction of a storm cloud. One of the major limiting factors of the set since day one has been that it's highly reliant on enemies staying in the patches you create, which is why people want them up more often and for it to be more reliable to keep enemies in them. But all suggestions to address that are shot down so as to make feedback feel pointless, usually with the response of "we have a vision and that's not it." At least we finally got a reduction to the recharge time of Storm Cell.

I don't think they will ever reduce the prices or add more reasonable sources of obtaining prismatics. Even when the system was announced they were very firm on that. Their stated design goal for the system is to make sure it's inaccessible by as many people as possible since the special auras are a tax on server resources. I will say making them account-wide would make it slightly more tolerable. You'd still have to buy them but it's not like you can log in the same account more than once and tax the servers any more than you already could. Some of us have several dozen characters, and alts of the same character, that make the system completely unapproachable (well, more than it already is by its nature).

Unfortunately no, I just have a "screen to gif" program and that already gives me a lot of trouble just making 30 second clips. If my primary point was not clear, I apologize, that's probably my fault, but I'll try to reiterate. Category 5 is a tier 9 power that can't perform its primary function without a lot of help. It takes a very long time to kill things on its own. Obviously though, nobody just casts the tier 9 power and stands there. And Cat 5 is designed to make your other powers do more damage instead. The thing is, all sets already work that way. If you follow Inferno with Fireball, you contribute extra damage equivalent to the damage Fireball deals. The key difference is that Inferno already contributed its maximum possible potential, there's no setup or upkeep required, and you probably don't need to follow it up with Fireball because everything is already dead. You can say Cat 5 is not a nuke, maybe it's instead a unique "setup" move that allows you to do damage approaching a nuke with your other powers. Or basically, a nuke with extra steps. But that comes with a lot of caveats. For instance, if you get mezzed, the power doesn't really do anything on its own. If you get debuffed, or lose your endurance, the power didn't do much. If enemies aren't cooperating and don't stay in the effect, or get taunted or knocked out of it, it's not doing anything. And the entire time enemies are alive they're doing damage to you and your allies (or mezzing you, in which case, see above). And most importantly and most critically, even if everything goes perfectly, you don't get interrupted, enemies stay in Storm Cell and Category Five long enough to matter, you don't mind the extra incoming damage, and you're using your other powers to their maximum, it still takes longer for everything to die than with other sets. It's possible your testing shows it takes about the same time as other sets, but even then, I don't consider that an improvement. All other tier 9 powers just kill the enemies without any hassle, no fiddly bits, with no opportunity for being mezzed and now Atomic Blast does no damage. Even in an ideal situation where Storm is clearing spawns about as fast as other blast sets, it has more opportunities for failure, and from my testing minions and lieutenants stay alive longer on average (especially considering average alive time for most nukes is "zero seconds"), even if bosses might end up going down around the same time overall. And what exactly does it get for all of those downsides? What are the pros that are worth dealing with all of the cons? The idea of a set that ramps up and delivers its nuke damage in a different way is neat in theory, but execution?

From all the testing I did it still takes about +50% to twice as long for Storm to clear groups as something like Ice (which isn't even an ideal damage set but is a close comparison because it has patch powers). Needing other powers to make Cat 5 do anything is interesting, but it's not enough to make the set perform well. Ice just kills the minions without you needing to do anything special, so you can just focus down the bosses and everything else will be dead by then. If you play exactly the same way with Storm, it takes longer for everything to die. If you use the AoEs to finish off the minions, all you're doing is playing catchup because Ice already killed them. Ramping up is a neat concept. Basically all combo sets "ramp up" but then they have a payoff of some sort with a finisher. What does Storm get for the extra work required? What's the payoff? A little bit more damage for fights that last more than 30 seconds, which almost never happens? I'm not even convinced it does more damage "in the long run" since you can't do more damage to things that already died. As-is, the set does less damage while requiring more effort and has no payoff.

Agreed with that. Of course there was SOME pushback, no change is going to be universally liked, but it seems clear that people would rather have Aim than Beanbag. But as multiple people have pointed out you could also just have both.

I wanna compare t9s real quick. I'm doing Radiation vs Storm here. The slotting for the powers is with level 40 basic IOs, 1x ACC, 3x DMG, 1x RECH, so +38.6% ACC/RECH and +97.4% DMG. I'm not sure how you're meant to slot Storm Cell so I put 3x DMG in it (+97.4%). Also these were all done with level 40 blasters, with custom units with no resistances or HP bonuses. Anyway, this is Category Five: Category 5 by itself takes about 30 seconds to kill an even-con minion. This is... Aggressively Not Good. Not only does it take about 5 seconds to ramp up but even when it does the damage is very low. We could of course combine it with Storm Cell, but it's not like that changes much so here it is: It still takes about the same amount of time, maybe a second less. Now I want to compare this to Radiation. ...Yeah. Anyway, I'm sure what you're saying is "It's different, it's a patch power." We can compare it to Ice Blast's Blizzard too. Blizzard by itself takes less than 10 seconds to kill minions with the same slotting. So it's at least 3x as powerful. And realistically if you're counting Storm Cell's contributions then Blizzard should get Ice Storm too. And... YES you could say "The procs though! You have to use the other powers." I would just ask why. ALL sets will kill enemies faster if you use the other powers. I could be using Radiation's Irradiate or Neutron Bomb to kill minions faster, except I don't need to because they're already dead. So what exactly does Category Five bring to the table? It's a bad nuke. And if it's not a nuke, then what is it? A bad targeted AoE? It's not like it has a shorter recharge than Blizzard to compensate. The set already has lighter AoE than other sets because it lacks a targeted AoE (only having a chain power which is less reliable), making it weak in that regard. You can say it's "not a minmax set" or "not a speedrunning set" but I want to know what it IS because it doesn't seem like it's actually good at anything. At best it takes a very long time to ramp up to the point where it does something that other sets can just do with a single click. What does it get for that extra effort? What does it do that other sets can't do and would be jealous of? Because I can't think of anything. Are people fine with it just being a weak set because "not every set needs to be top tier?" That's true, but I don't think it means we should make bad sets on purpose. As others have said, it feels like the "theme" of the set is holding it back. The slow ramping up doesn't work. Even if it does, I'm not getting any benefit for the added effort. I'm sure it's too late to change it, but I think people should at least be aware of where the set falls behind. EDIT: Oh yeah. I also forgot to mention that because everything in the set takes so long to set up and ramp up, you get basically no benefit from the damage portion of the Aim equivalent. Category Five wastes a full five seconds of the duration doing basically no damage.

I still think Sentinel's Slug -> Disorienting Shot is a good compromise, considering that gives people a stun power AND Aim. Unless a single target knockback from Slug is that important to the set. It looked like removing Aim was not a popular change considering all the posts and thumbs down.

Of the current options I think Photosynthesis is the best candidate to be placed alongside Mycelium as a basic aura selection that any player could use, since it's an incredibly unique character customization option that can't be obtained in any other way, and is even in the same theme as the mushrooms. I personally know at least 5 plant characters on my server who would love to be able to use it. I was thinking it might not be doable since it uses two colors unlike other auras, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for Mycelium. Other than that I don't have any feedback that hasn't already been said.

Not sure that's true. The set doesn't have a targeted AoE like basically all other sets; the chain power is nice but less reliable (and some sets have all that and more). And the nuke takes a while to ramp up. The set's AoE lacks in general and Storm Cell only brings it up to par at best.

To me it feels like the follow mechanic is more of a bandaid that being able to cast it yourself every 10 seconds (or so) would negate the need for. If you could position it freely like Faraday Cage then it wouldn't NEED to move around. And moving around would actually be counterproductive since it's just AI and has a tendency to do things you don't want it to do. With something like Creepers I can see the purpose of the recharge time and movement. It's more of a damage power than anything and is a perk, not a necessity. For Storm Cell a lot of the set revolves around it and requires it. And it seems to me that being able to put it exactly where you want it at any given time would even solve some common complaints, like the repel being annoying when enemies aren't in the Storm Cell.

Fair enough.

It's not JUST about making the ability permanent, it's about being able to relocate it where you need it to be.

Does the new system actually accomplish this goal, or should we expect more changes to the redraw system down the road if this is the goal? This sounds more like you're advocating for the original system where you draw a weapon every single time, considering the new one still causes weapons to appear in your hand in the vast majority of cases.

Faraday Cage as the main point of comparison for a kit-vital power also has a recharge of 10 seconds with a duration of 4 minutes, so I don't see any reason why Storm Cell couldn't have a shorter recharge so it can be positioned exactly where it's needed at any given time.

I would personally prefer Aim stay if it's between that and Beanbag. Of course what the Sentinel version does is drop Slug for Disorienting Shot, which stuns and does good damage. So you could have both.

I think the power could use more range in general. It's 60 feet for blasters/defenders/corruptors which already makes it hard to place before combat starts. It doesn't aggro on its own, but slinking up close enough to put it somewhere beneficial often put me in range to aggro, to the point I thought it was changed to be a power that aggros for a bit of testing and was going to give feedback on that. And then it's even worse on sentinels at 40 feet. Yeah, I know patch powers like Rain of Fire are usually 60 feet, but this isn't an attack, it's a setup power that the set revolves around. It's a uniquely different type of power and needs special consideration. On that note I would also say giving it an extremely short recharge so you can position it exactly as needed as often as needed is a better idea than having it slowly move around, which to me feels counterproductive to having it set up where it can be most useful to the user. Because as-is it kinda just does whatever it wants and might stop short of actually covering a group of enemies. And... I still think it's too vague where the boundaries of the power are so it's hard to tell who's in it and who's not (IE who might be repelled and who wouldn't).

The benefit my Fort will get out of this is pretty big. Powers like Aim, Mind Link, Psychic Scream, Psionic Tornado, and Psychic Wail all put your claws away. So attacking while doing any good AoEs would cause redraw. Buffing allies would cause redraw. And because enemies have a tendency to flee when hit with -recharge, I would usually cycle Dominate into chains against bosses to make them sit still. Which would also cause redraw. Since my Fortunata is my main I'll be getting a lot out of this change.

Yeah my main is a Fortunata who redraws constantly because of the mix of claw and psychic powers, and it will be a huge boon for her, so I'm happy about this new system overall. It just feels like the extra hangon of one forced draw is completely unnecessary when we had a good alternative already.

Nope, the new system forces at least one draw at the start of combat regardless of circumstances. Katana was even changed away from the version you're describing to this new one. This also removes the "no redraw" option from all sets.

Oh yeah the Water Blast changes are spectacular. Some combo sets really struggle, I wouldn't say Water is one of them, but this makes it even better than it already was as a pretty nice all around set. And fixes a bug the set had.

You can set it up to do both with one function. "powexecname power name$$powexeclocation target power name" It will cast on the target if you have one, and become a reticle if you don't. I've been using these for every set that has ground target powers and it saves me a lot of headache.

Agreed with all that. This new system is... acceptable, but I'd rather it just worked like katana works on live and I don't see a good reason why it shouldn't.