Dispari

Maybe so, but being able to run content with a tank and 7 corruptors is kinda what makes City cool. I've done all Scrapper TFs and all MM TFs. Do we need to encourage people to float closer to a "correct" team makeup? Even if the vast majority of people ignore it and decide they don't need Prismatics, it's going to come up and insert some amount of chaos into teams forming TFs. It also kinda breaks down when you can just bring 2 EATs and somehow that counts as a diverse team, but 8 completely different archetypes (Tanker, Stalker, Peacebringer, Soldier, Blaster, Mastermind, Sentinel, Corruptor) might not.

To be fair, Absorb stacks as far as I'm aware, and Spirit Ward doesn't give that much. The designs are also different. Frostwork would be a good emergency "HP stopper" whereas Spirit Ward tics small amounts of it over time, to shave a little off incoming damage here and there. I'm tentatively in favor of the power being changed to Absorb, but it definitely has its pros and cons, and I think it could be slightly better. For me, being able to track it as actually doing something is a big bonus though. Though I will admit losing it as a unique bonus that no other set has is a downside. Though maybe it's rare for a reason. Absorb is a very good effect and basically every set that has it is super strong. MaxHP is harder to quantify if it's doing something or not.

Just thinking about hypothetically if normal ATs fit two categories while VEATs fit three, you could make a pretty decent spread. The problem ATs end up being Scrapper, Stalker, and Sentinel because their secondary isn't exactly tanking and it doesn't really fit anywhere else. Dominator actually does control, melee, and ranged so is problematic to fit in just two slots. Mastermind you could make a case for being under tank, since I wouldn't say it necessarily fits as melee or ranged damage. Or maybe it fits every category since MM sets can be just about anything. You also come across the problem of control really only having two ATs that definitely fit. You could make a case for Warshades or Fortunatas or heck even the right dark Scrapper, but it's really just not a role that a lot of characters are designed to fit in. You can force some other ATs in there, but it becomes obvious you're doing it to fill out the role and not because they truly undeniably belong there. When I form teams for a TF I look for a tank of some sort, some support (all VEATs and Corrs definitely count; hell Doms are even half a support IMO), and the rest doesn't matter. I don't try to break down melee or ranged damage as if they're significantly different things. And control basically is support so I don't go out of my way to look for that separately either. Just not sure this system is going to make sense without shoving a few square pegs in round holes. And then if we do get it all baked down to diversity for all the roles... congrats, we reinvented the holy trinity.

Definitely a bit messy to have every AT only fill one role, when some are specifically designed to straddle the line between two. Like, most redside ATs are designed as a hybrid, instead of the holy trinity versions bluesiders get out of blaster, defender, and tank. Net result is you shoehorn ATs into roles that only halfway make sense (or not at all, in some cases). Because you need to somewhat balance out what roles each AT fits into. Which... just results in making stuff up and being inaccurate and arbitrary. Not sure it's a great system TBH.

What do you mean? I don't see any problems with Arse Assault.

Let people make their own power choices! It's not like drawing a different weapon really changes the strength of the power. We already changed the redraw system and have established that redraw doesn't really change anything in the long run. So it's definitely not for a balance reason that it can't fire a Frag Grenade. All you're really doing is messing with people's visual aesthetic and theme. Don't do that.

Even if I did agree that the power was OP (it's not), endurance cost is a poor way to balance something. Because some builds will just get to use the OP thing without any problems, and be OP. The change just brought it to a reasonable level. Anyway, resistance to -ToHit is a pretty narrow edge case, not to discount it entirely; it's handy against Circle sometimes. But basically Tactics does more for the same cost, and benefits your whole team. The only time I could see going Targeting Drone over Tactics is not wanting to take the Leadership pool and another power before it, or you just want a little floaty boi over your head.

Frag Grenade does seem like an oversight.

I've always thought Circle were balanced upside down, with powerful units with a lot of variety at the low level, and then on the high end they basically do nothing. I like having the new variety of units, and not seeing critters like succubi just dying out and no longer existing. OG game had a weird habit of putting tons of effort into new/unique creatures and then just not utilizing them at all.

Unlockable costume parts ARE evil. Nobody needs to be made to do content they don't want to do. I have over 80 characters and it doesn't matter how quick/easy it is to kill 50 Snakes, that's just a waste of my time no matter how you slice it. HC put a lot of effort into making all costumes and emotes free and available for everyone, and now we're reversing course on adding pointless grind? No. Absolutely not. And as was said above, this just opens the door for more later. 50 Snakes "isn't that much" right now, but how's it look like when there are 30 different things to unlock from all over the place? With as much forethought as this one had since, as people pointed out, it's basically locked redside. Another problem I'd like to point out, there's no way to track or learn about this unlock in the game. There's no progress bar, no sign telling you you can earn it. So most people won't even know it exists or how to get it. So it doesn't even exist as an incentive for people to go earn. You won't know it's there unless you read patch notes or a friend tells you. Which is a pretty good reason not to do it at all.

Fair enough. Either way the net result is it was reduced from an INCREDIBLY high cost to equivalent to Leadership powers.

Actually I had to test this because those numbers are off, unless they're calculating it as... end per half second? It says it's reduced from 0.39 to 0.195, but it's actually been reduced TO 0.39 FROM 0.78, which is what it is on live. 0.78 is ABSURDLY expensive for a toggle, more than twice what even penalized extra cost of armor toggles like Tough (0.33) and is now just as expensive as something like Tactics. Honestly it's been ridiculously expensive since it got nerfed from 20% ToHit to 5% (with 20% ACC), as ToHit is significantly more useful and accuracy is easy to get. Even then, at 0.39 it's strictly worse than Tactics, which gives more ToHit and buffs your team. So I'd still say it's actually not very good. But at least it's not laughably expensive anymore.

Yeah but slotting it makes it around 7.75% or so depending on ED 😄

Having a Widow as my main and having done a bunch of testing of the Bane changes, I'll say all the stuff here is very very good. The new powers for NW and Fort are nice to have. While I don't think the Fortunata one is a must-have, I can see some people using the power if they want to be slightly more mez-focused. Pain Tolerance however is a huge buff. It scales up to +30% maxHP (something Widows struggle with) and around 7% RES (all but psi). It drastically increases the durability of Night Widows and gives them a viable existence alongside Forts, which are usually considered strictly better. The alternate animation option for Bane/Crab is a great QoL change and keeps most of the power animations snappy. If I might suggest anything else, I would say offer an option for Build Up to also have a gun (or no weapon) option, for Huntsmen builds. I believe it's the only power that still forces drawing a mace after these changes (...except the mace attacks, ofc). The animation changes for Bane attacks are VERY good. The AT went from being very sluggish to feeling powerful. Nearly all of these powers were 2 seconds or longer, and now they're much faster. Some of the long animations for Crab and Widow were also brought down. Overall these are all great changes and I have no complaints.

Just a small conversation here, but about Cold Domination's Frostwork changing: On live it currently does +maxHP. AFAIK outside of Rebirth Destiny it's the only power in the game that grants other people a +maxHP buff. That makes it pretty unique, but is it good? MaxHP is a bit odd. It does "heal" the amount it adds, and so in a way it's like absorb. It does make you more durable but in a way that's hard to quantify. It's also a bit invisible, since there's no indicator unless you're tracking HP. There is also a limitation in some edge cases, where some characters will be near their maxHP cap, and adding more will actually be wasted. This is easier to accomplish on some ATs/sets than others, but it is possible to be HP capped already. Testing on live, my Cold Controller gets +930 maxHP out of her buff. Remaking that character on beta, I get +930 absorb. So the value is the same. Technically speaking I think absorb, while a very powerful effect, is worse than maxHP. Absorb disappears as it gets used up, and maxHP actually increases values you get from regeneration. But... due to the limits with HP capping and the much more usable visibility aspect of absorb, I think this change is probably for the better overall. People can more easily see that absorb is there and that it's doing something, and absorb is and has always been good. If I had any suggestion it might be to increase the value it gives by a bit? Just to make up for the fact that it's strictly less powerful than maxHP and might be a slight nerf to the power otherwise? Wild Bastion on a Controller slotted the same way gives 511 absorb; that power can easily hit all 8 players and all their pets, whereas Frostwork can likely only be upkept on 4 targets. Just a thought.

From playing this set a bunch, my observations on it are as follows: #1: The set relies on no less than 3 area-targeted patches, but has no way to keep enemies IN those patches. What it needs most is an AoE immobilize like (almost) every other set has, to keep enemies pinned in location. Otherwise, if enemies move, many of your powers are no longer contributing. #2: The AoE Sleep is a terrible contribution to the set. Sleep is just not good, at all, even in the case where it tics periodically to put people back to sleep. It also makes the level one choice between a sleep and another sleep, so for people who do not care for sleeps at all, they have no choices to make here. It also conflicts with the confuse in the set, and obvious pairings like Arsenal Assault leave DoT patches so even ticcing sleep is not likely to contribute. And I have noticed, powers like Liquid Nitrogen are flagged not to tic on sleeping targets, which is clever, but it means they contribute less as a result. Even its secondary effects could be accomplished by another power (like an AoE immobilize). The set already does KD, confuse, stun, and hold. The sleep is not a good addition, and it fights the entire rest of the set, making it perform worse. I would say drop it for the AoE immobilize, but if something else has to go, possibly the Cloaking Device as it isn't contributing much in the way of support for the team (though, I like the equivalent power in Illusion and would welcome its inclusion anyway). At the absolute minimum, I would move this down so you can take Cryo Freeze Ray at level 1 and skip all sleep powers. #3: The Gun Drone is boring and unfun. It's literally just a copy of a power Blasters can get, so it's nothing novel or interesting. If it was some other kind of robot, or had different powers like missiles, or you got two of them (with pushable hitboxes like gremlins/imps get), it would be at least somewhat unique. This isn't to be entirely negative. I like the idea of a weapon-based control set, and adds more character customization options. It (mostly) pairs well with Arsenal Assault, and should be good at dealing with multiple mobs given all its options. The mez powers the set offers are generally good, especially the smoke grenade. The set does a combination of useful effects from -ToHit to -recharge, and even -DMG. It could definitely be improved though.

All the new emotes are cool and I like the updated smart phone. I will probably start using some of these new food emotes in RP. As an aside, while we're messing with emotes and fixing sits, could we possibly get gendered sit emotes proliferated? Girls get majorly shafted on sit options, using the same emote SIX TIMES across their options. (Okay to be fair one leg on the stool emote is slightly farther back). As a result girls basically have 2 sit emotes where guys have 7. LedgeSits are okay though. Below are SitChair emotes 1, 2, and 3. For male and female. Bench 2, 3, and 4 (1 is the same between genders). For male and female. Stool. For male and female. I'm thinking they could be ported and swapped as sitchair4, 5, 6. And bench5, 6, 7. And stool2, respectively.

Regarding the roles here, I do have a question/comment. Why is Widow listed as Control but Soldier as Support? Control: Fortunata has control powers yes, but Night Widow has none. If you're a Night Widow, you're not contributing any control whatsoever and your role is completely inaccurate. In fact, Banes and Crabs have more mez powers than Night Widows do, because they at least have access to an immobilize. Support: If Banes count as support, why don't Widows? Widow numbers for DEF and ToHit are higher across the board, they grant psi RES, and they get access to VEAT Vengeance (which stacks with normal Vengeance). Realistically both VEATs should be melee/range/support, because that's what they are, objectively. I realize it was probably varied so they fall into different categories, but this feels forced and inaccurate. The game even agrees; when you go to make a new character, both Widows and Soldiers are listed under Support, and neither are listed under Control.

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.