Leogunner

Further considerations, this can have other avenues when taking into account buffs and debuffs. It was mentioned that Force Field shield or the bubble could grant a bonus on engaging more foes while other defense buffs won't like fade. On the other hand, having certain debuffs like smoke slightly lower perception but also how many foes you engage safely would suddenly make those foes more dangerous. Or making it so each foes affected count as fewer enemies (a blinded foe only counts as half a foe). I think the funny thing is, when talking about difficulty, the main suggestion you hear is "buff the mobs! Just buff em!" and this suggestion does exactly that... It just gives the player a tactical path to circumvent it. I feel that's more interesting as it gives your team something more to consider when engaging and doling out buffs/debuffs.

I think either system (the current or the proposed) count as pseudo randomness. It just shifts the scales more when dealing with more foes. It's all the same, really. So why change it? Because it's been stated that more challenge is desired and this is another suggestion in the pool of challenge modes /content rolled around. And it's not quite like adding bufffs to the enemy. The point of the proposal is to either deincentivize or introduce a counter efficiently curve for aggroing to many foes. But if the aggro is split but all foes have +ToHit and damage, you merely created a new cap (like the incarnate cap) or if they all had leadership toggles, you just make the split aggro situation much harsher instead of easier to handle i. e. Using teamwork and tactics to alleviate one person from being overwhelmed.

I was arguing your prospect for immersion doesn't make sense. It's like saying if I can't predict how everything will go, it breaks my immersion when in reality, not many things are predictable in combat. Well, technically they are but we don't have dynamic combat that allows for split second reaction to attacks to capitalize on prediction.

People are rolling Bio Armor, that's why.

For all your past talk about expressing pride in overcoming difficult challenges, you copped out of this discussion pretty cowardly. Not saying you don't like challenge but at least entertain a hypothetical to present some argument besides feelings. To me, I can see this suggestion having some merit if choosing to take on more foes came at a cost of a certain level of potency. As is, there is no give and take therefore more is better. Always. There's no variety in tactics. I'd go on but I'm on my phone. I think if handled right, people would be angry about it but you could still accomplish solo at x8 just not as quickly, safely or high level. That all being said, a lot of the blow back you'd get isn't because the game would suddenly be tougher. Lots of players are more ego driven and not being able to do something they once could is the crux, even if team dynamics, tactics and more challenge is the positive the change brings.

I'd argue the opposite. When you cap those stats and get a certain level of survivability, the fight is a spreadsheet of how long you can survive and how fast the mobs drop. Dynamic is unpredictability. Guess what else is unpredictable.

I actually think Regen should get resistance to most debuffs. It should just be "the regulator" set. Debuffing it's defense should be able to be resisted so you just have base. Defense or -Recover or -Movement aren't just numbers, they are effects that affect you physically, be it tearing holes in your armor, rewiring your synapses, cutting your Achilles' tendon, etc. These are things you should be able to recover from and resist if your body is constantly regenerating.

My Kat/Regen is very durable even without Divine Avalanche. He occasionally does bite it when biting off more than he can chew and I don't get the chance to react, but when he hits Dull Pain + Instant Healing, he's hard to keep hurt...and all that was before he started putting sets in. Now? He has about 28%def to ranged and AoE, like 8% to melee, and around the 30% resistance to most damage types with like 45% resistance to smashing and leathal. The build isn't meant to maximize, but it is meant to enhance performance while adhering to concept. He's pretty fun to play, tbh and I regret rerolling my Elec/Regen stalker into Elec/Bio. It doesn't fit the concept either.

Like I mentioned to you before, it's not all about how the AT fits between the other ATs. While the Vindicator isn't a pure support focused AT, it does add an aspect of support that isn't available to the other support ATs. Think about it this way, if you gave all Corruptors a means of giving moderate stackable resistance to -ToHit, Endurance Drain, -Recover, -Recharge, -Movement, -Defense and -Regen to their party, do you think that would put them closer to their Defender counterparts in the realm of support? The Corruptor might not be able to bubble their team for as high a value as Defender, but then you're stacking other valuable debuff resistances on top of your numbers. That all being said, the idea is merely a prototype. It's just how I envision it being its best. If you see some of the idea that you like, you can always just refit it to your liking (swapping the primary and secondary). It's all just brainstorming. I did put a lot of thought into the inherent and I feel reactive +absorb is better than passive +absorb. The aspect of giving you more +absorb if used to break free of mez feels like a cool interactive aspect to make the gameplay unique from other support/attack ATs like Corruptor and Defender. Also, the theme was kind of hit-or-miss. I thought about things to make the inherent reactive and relying on having attacks directed at you or your team to build isn't done by another and it'd kind of be like one of those lawyers looking to sue for whatever reason they can find. It has both a concept for good (a defense attorney trying to protect innocent do-gooders) and bad (cherry pick evidence to put those instigators behind bars).

That would be fun. I'd probably make a Zatanna character who makes clones of herself and throws birds and swarms of bees at you. Teleporting in your face sounds like something she could do.

Agreed. Phantom Army is the "crown jewel" of the set, one might say. I've never played Illusion but doesn't part of PA's damage heal back over time? Why not play with the ratio of damage-to-heal back so that you have to kind of act fast as a Dom to capitalize on their damage (you know, by killing faster)? Thinking about it, maybe the set shouldn't have good control (I think it already doesn't) to focus on offense but it exchanges the strong hard control for aggro management. I could see a strong ST damage set might couple well with Illusion but I'm just guessing.

Objectively, changing 2 powers (and maybe a couple more) across 2 powersets would not have as drastic an effect on gameplay, meta-builds and even PvP as changing, like, 10+ powers just to equal out 2 outlier powers like Farsight/Fade. And such a change would occur over 4 ATs! Considering the various iterations of changes going to Tanker and multiply that. So to me, it seems like this consideration is rooted in not wanting to disappoint or anger players with a nerf. The paradigm has always been that force multiplying ATs aren't as sturdy, it's the price they pay. Are we throwing that paradigm away or is this all merely a thought experiment? I'm still on the boat of letting both powers be affected by Power Boost. I just think their duration needs to be shortened by half at least. And if we're talking paradigm shifts, reassessing the duration of all buffs to require more maintenance might be a way to balance their power levels as you noted the casting time being the tax.

So then in your GM example, you weren't using Power Boost (or Power Build Up, as the case may be)?

That is a damned hyperbole and you know it. Besides, you don't have to compare Farsight to Chrono shift. Time Manipulation gets both. As for your other statement, I'd say you have to prove it. I know defense debuffs are pretty common but how long do they last and under what conditions are you looking at to try and recover from them? So you get cascaded down to under the soft cap for defense...can you not hold those targets for longer than the duration of that debuff? Can you not use Heal over Time to patch the damage? And can you not use slows to decrease the frequency of those debuffs coming in? Then stack that with the control of your primary and frankly, I don't see how you could think your argument has a leg to stand on. Can SR or Ninjutsu do any of that? Ninjutsu can heal to patch the damage but what about the other stuff?

Apparently you don't understand. Even getting near either of those sets with just those 2 powers is the problem. You still have the rest of the TM set! Furthermore, SR and Ninjutsu are ARMOR sets on ARMORED ATs meant to be sturdy. Support ATs are meant to keep themselves standing with buffed teammates, debuffs and/or controls, not armor. And while you can mention IOs setting up these ATs to be armored juggernaughts, that is deflecting the argument to IOs...a bunch of "what about"-ism that I can see through but you seem adamant on adopting as your primary argument.

I once imagined a system (particularly for Incarnates) where there is a kind of faction or knowledge spread amongst the various groups we face that seek and target powerful metas that roam the City/Isles. They're armed with various tools, magics and sciences meant to neutralize someone's power. So you might accept a mission, run it and complete it but upon completion, there'd be a chance this group of individuals would use said tools, magics and/or science to lock some of your abilities (in the case of incarnates, the incarnate abilities minus maybe the alpha slot. in the case of IOs, your set bonuses). The next mission would have the suppression rune, paralyzing antidote, cypher code, etc that would unlock your abilities somewhere randomly on the map. It could also just happen on the new map, walking into the door and triggering a trap that gets your powers locked. You could just complete the map normally without those powers/bonuses or roam the map, fight the spawn and click the glowie that has the thing that unlocks your powers again. For incarnate powers, you can specifically target the different powers so clicking that glowie might only unlock your Interface incarnate powers. I could even see a TF where you're about to go after the big-bad and suddenly seals/steals the whole team's powers and then the rest of the TF missions are unlocking individual team members' abilities and the team has to lean on the members with unlocked powers more until the team is back to 100%, disable his power sealing/stealing method and then take the guy down. But if people didn't like the Kheld hunting random spawns, this would be 10x worse.

I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding. The reason it's fine for those two example sets (Force Field and Empathy) is because the click buffs you're combining with Power Boost do not affect the user. And Empathy player can't cast Fortitude on themselves. The argument being made is likely that these click powers (Fade and Farsight) affect the user and when combined with Power Boost, give near equivalent mitigation as an armor powerset sans the mez protection. The problem is, cherry picking isn't required here as he's speaking on a specific power interaction and has provided specific reactions and your defense seems to be merely to deflect the reasoning presented to you and pretend like someone is crazy and talking gibberish. Why not just state that you disagree that having that power combination which would be available to the user often enough to be substantial up-time is fine and you see nothing wrong with it? There's no reason to pretend that the 20ish% defense of SR isn't similar to the 20ish% defense of Farsight. You bring up defense debuff resist which is spread across multiple SR powers but at that point, all you have to do is start noting the various HoTs and debuff effects in TM. If that's too complicated of a comparison, use Ninjutsu which has debuffs and control effects in exchange for less defense and debuff resist. I can understand your position but your reasoning is whack. Again, it's like using the whole "everybody else is doing it!" excuse and then gaslighting other people, like the words coming from our keyboards are some bizarro alien non-sense. I'm surprise you've kept this going for so long. Lol he's only telling them to fix a bug and to nip an incongruity in the bud before people whine that Fade is useless and it's unfair that TM keeps Farsight. Not that the predicted whining actually matters but you know people will complain because nerf.

Did I make you paranoid or something? The quoted is likely directed at the individual who brought up this subject (the OP) and those that agree with him. Also, if the +ToHit portion suffers because it can't be boosted by Power Boost, you could appeal to give a slight increase in the base value.

Then why are you here? lol

There are ways to soft cap with just 1 power. Elude/Retsu, Overload, etc. ...of course, those powers can't be perma and they also have crashes.

Well I'm glad you clarified that you meant "within the support sets" but I still don't think your factors run counter to the OP's suggestion but then perhaps you're not trying to counter the OP since you're ambivalent. I severely doubt there's any danger of that trend. The devs might tweek some powers that are bugged but I've seen very few (I can't even remember any off the top of my head) nerfs coming down the pipeline. I think there's a change to Brutes coming but it's more a give-and-take to have regular fury generation...I'm sure they're there but just can't think of any. Anyway, most people have their eyes on buffs. Buffs to underperforming powersets, underperforming IO sets, out of whack pools, etc. Things like Energy Melee and such. Well I'm a realist. It'd be nice to just give everyone a $1000 dollar raise and we can just print more money and do it...but there are consequences. Just buffing sets and overlooking outlier overperformers just isn't realistic if some kind of structure is to be maintained. You need to do both, not in equal measure but just what is needed. EDIT: I just remembered a nerf. Rage having consequences for double stacking it? I think you don't get a crash if you don't stack it. You can still stack it but you get a crash...I dunno, I don't play Super Strength.

Off topic but I remember someone in one of the KB threads replying to someone who was pro-KB (I'm actually pro-KB, fyi) and saying similarly "there's no wrong way to play the game". Someone replied to that with: "Sounds like something a wrong player would say" or some such.

Two people? And his interpretation was I was blaming him for some wrong or injustice because I made a generalization about "you people" while you interpreted something completely different but rationalized your interpretation. If +def was the least useful support effect, why does everyone want it in their build? I think you mean the most abundant. Which actually goes handily with the OP's argument, don't you think? I'd assume it's a general enough statement when put side-by-side the argument that "+def is the least useful support effect". If that buff is so abundant for such a statement, what are you arguing against me about? And obviously, "everyone" isn't literal, that's why I put it in the statement to begin with, because people are using absolute statements as arguments but it goes both ways when putting the same argument down. And I'll say it again: That is not an argument. Well, technically it is, but it's one that is deflecting to some outside issue that doesn't pertain this this. And then you go on to deflect about labels just like @Infinitum is deflecting going on about phrases with baggage he doesn't like. Both infinitesimal points if you're trying to make an actual argument that sum up at best to "Leo said something a way I didn't like". Lol I'm glad you like the game. I enjoy it as well. However, this is the forum *talking* about the game. They are two different realms of interaction that can be kept separate. Just because I make arguments with regards to power creep or share opinions that are critical of the game doesn't mean I'm some grump who complains while playing the game or something. I support the OP's post because they made a sound argument, not because I'm crotchety and like to complain at people in game (on the forums is a different story).

It was directed at the argument opposing the OP. It's not a reasonable argument which was what I was trying to demonstrate. Do you feel, just because "everyone" runs around with IOs and 30% or above defense, that Farsight should remain the same? It's a false equivalency (or something...maybe false correlation?)...basically, I'm saying having IOs and high defense isn't an argument here. Especially considering how often people will throw around the statement that "things are balanced around SOs, not IOs" which is why I said you can't go north and south at the same time. If people aren't min/maxing all the time, then how are we using the argument that everyone runs around with capped defense to argue against the OP? I'll stop you there and say you're thinking of a movie quote because I never said that. I appreciate you explaining how you read my post. When I play the game, I just play. What the numbers are or the effectiveness of the team isn't as important as what is actually in front of you. It's a computer screen. A game. The forums is another matter. It's where you read and understand people (no matter how jerky they are) and where you share ideas. I don't let people ruin my fun because if I am not enjoying the game, I just turn it off. But that's different from making arguments or sharing suggestions on the forums. If I don't like an idea, I'll say so and likely suggest a compromise. If someone makes a nonsense argument, I'm drawn (sometimes) to make a statement on it. If few share my opinion on something, I'm compelled to put my 2 cents in. And try not to assume someone expresses things poorly without actually discussing it. You obviously misconstrued or escalated a statement. Maybe you just poorly read the post?

See, you're flinging insults now. All I said is you guys min/max which ruins the fun. Do you not min/max? You said you did. You're calling me cowardly. What proof do you have that I'm hiding behind intent? I said what I said because I felt like saying it at the time. If you want to censor me, just report the post. And like I said before, not every *you* is you even if I quoted your post. Had I stated something that was opposite of your post but said "you people", would you really assume I'm focusing the statement on you? At the very least, you could have asked for clarification. Even though you didn't ask, I'll clarify that quote for you: "As for ruining the fun, you people have already done that. I mean, okay, we have the capacity to softcap practically every character and give them ridiculous recharge and good to broken damage but should we do it? And if we don't do it every time, do we just point to those exploiting the system and say "everybody's doing it!"? You can't go north and south at the same time." When read fully, the accusation is pointed at the OP min/max levels vs the difficulty of the game. I say "you people" with regards to those that actually make it their goal to min/max practically all their builds but also garner the same mentality in new players and even old players who want to participate in certain content. It's not directed at people who have a couple min/maxed characters (because I have some too), but at the mentality that min/maxing is the game. Because a min/maxed character can practically solo the game. It makes it unfun for the other 7 guys not contributing much. If you really want to go on a tirade about saying "you people" just because I accuse you of ruining the fun, then have at it. I think you're just trying to bait me into accusing you directly because that's probably breaking some forum guideline. That you'd even have the wherewithal to complain about a benign accusation as that is comical. For frick's sake, stay on topic lol