Akisan

Did I miss a patch note? I know I haven't played a Dark Melee in a while, but Shadow Maul's had this tiny, 40 degree arc since the beginning, and with its *long* animation, I don't bother hitting single targets with it.

It's pretty easy to hit 2 or 3 (or more) enemies with Jacob's Ladder or Shadow Maul - just target the mob in the middle, and take a step left or right before activating those attacks (so the targeted mob behind another mob). You don't have to be literally toe-to-toe to hit in melee (that 7' range is to the edge of their hitbox, not the center). Usually though, I treat narrower melee cones (like Jacob's Ladder & Shadow Maul) as Dual Target attacks (I use it when I can line up 2 enemies), with anyone else caught in it as bonus damage. And yes, there is a Ranged cone that is in that "extra targets are bonus damage" category - Piercing Rounds (Dual Pistol's snipe). It's got a 2 degree arc, with a 3 target cap, to simulate "shooting through" your target. As an aside, my record is 6 enemies caught in Jacob's ladder - but one wasn't counted since the target cap was 5 at the time (Cap's 10 now, I don't think I'll be reaching that one). And yes, it was *loud*, since it stacks that zzzPOP noise for each enemy.

Agreed, PUG'ing shouldn't be forced, and +1x8 isn't OP for a well built character. The trouble is, the game's balanced around low end characters - someone using just SOs, no P2W, and no incarnates. While this means that just about any character can solo at +0x1, it does mean that when you stack 6-8 high-end, trigger-happy incarnates there isn't much challenge left... My take on it is this - back on Live, when Incarnates were fairly uncommon (subscription only, plus the time to run the iTrials), and IO'd out builds cost hundreds of billions of inf (so, also quite rare), this imbalance wasn't as noticeable. The occasional incarnate joining a team usually made the team's run much easier, and if, by some miracle, you got 3 or more, you'd chew through almost anything with ease. Now though, since *everyone* can easily T4 their incarnate powers, and fully-kitted, "dream build" IOs are readily (and pretty cheaply) available, 50+ teams tend to have 3+ incarnates all the time. There's really not much to burning through missions any more, and some of us would like the option to preserve that difficulty while we team (because this is an MMO, not a solo game). I tried a few, while CoH was gone: Warframe & Destiny looked like they could be good, but I never got into them (doesn't help that I really dislike shooters). DDO was fun for a while, but power creep got involved in a serious way, and the specialized builds I liked to play stopped being relevant (that and the Spell Resistance on the Epic critters is... not enjoyable). Tera was enjoyable to play, but while leveling I got the distinct feeling that builds in that game are very cut and dry. Didn't stick with it long enough to find out if that holds true at the level cap. I also keep drifting back into Mabinogi occasionally, but that's somewhere between an MMO and a Fantasy-Life kinda world. And if you're into ARPGs, I'd recommend Path of Exile. It's got a lot of mechanics though, so you'll have to do quite a lot of tinkering & researching to make your own builds. (There are quite a few good builds online though) And yeah, I do swap between CoH and other games, but there's something about how CoH flows that keeps me coming back to it.

In @Vanden's suggestion, they don't get a free pass either - it's keyed to the x<whatever> of the mission, not the number of players in the instance. It does give ST-heavy, assassin-style builds like mine a (mostly) free pass though.

Archery/Ice/Fire blaster here. Yes please to this! One of the reasons I don't team much above 45 is that Blazing Arrow pretty much only hits living targets if I initiate combat with it, and even then, not a guarantee. (Another reason is that I have 2 Holds in my build, and control powers are much less valuable if spawns instantly vanish). An alternate option here, which has also been asked for - Disable non-Alpha Incarnate powers in non-Incarnate content. At the very least, multiply cooldowns by 10x. People getting extra "panic buttons" for regular content is one thing, but everyone having a nuke up every 90s is very bad for game balance. Ditto for having access to effectively infinite endurance & recharge (IOs + Ageless Destiny) - these undermine the point of having light, inexpensive, fast-recharging powers in our powersets. One of my thoughts for increased optional difficulty was "Swarm Mode". The entire teams' +L difficulty is averaged, and the xS difficulty is summed (allowing for up to +4x64 missions), with enemies combined per usual spawn rules so no spawn is bigger than 48 enemies. (And yes, at team sizes above x8, multiple special enemies are allowed to spawn, so a +2x29 Malta spawn could have up to 4 Sappers). As an aside, since we're already discussing indirectly buffing my build, can we also remove a lot of the Lethal resistance from certain groups? Like 45+ Crey? I swear, it feels like every single enemy in that faction has 50% lethal resistance...

That, or if it was removed from the WST rotation. I get that the WST is there to incentivize people to run specific trials and tasks (especially those that are underplayed), but it's always felt like a trap: running this WST gets you an impressively bad 14 merits, especially since it then locks you out of the double reward for the other available WSTs that week.

Lex Luthor is a wannabe compared to Nemesis. That, and I'm pretty sure that suit's been updated within the past decade - it's still "steam powered", sure, but that steam could be from magic or a mini fusion reactor by now, so... Anyways, back to the new AT: Would the support/armor & support/melee powersets be better off with individual powers for both (that is, one armor power applies a strong AoE buff/debuff, and another has strong resistances), or better paired - a single power has a moderate AoE buff, with moderate resistances? Both of these styles could work, though combining effects will make it hard to skip powers, as well as making the build extremely strapped for enhancement slots. When I proposed an (alternate) inherent earlier, I'd missed that you'd already proposed "Divine Blessing" as an inherent, and it's built by attacking. I'd adjust its mechanics to instantly consume the blessing bar, instead of having it deplete when the blessing wears off. This avoids one of the problems that Dominators have now - there's a huge difference between a permadom and someone who's only 5s off, because the non-perma dom has to rebuild their bar. I'd probably also weaken the effect of the blessing (so there's not such a night and day difference between modes), and make it easier to build up (with shorter cooldown & effect length), as well as remove the out-of-combat decay. As a personal preference though, I would avoid duplicating other AT's inherents, if possible. They're part of the AT's identity, and it's awkward to copy that.

Gonna have to agree with @Rudra here - having a Melee/Support AT would be neat, but the name is off-genre. It'd be like introducing an Alchemist in Star Trek, or a High Technopriest in Camelot - a character with those abilities may fit the story, but they would seriously disrupt the tone of the work without being renamed and maybe slightly reworked. (I'd probably rename/rework them to Nanosurgeon and <Wizard or Oracle>, respectively) A few possible names for the AT: Paragon Sapper/Saboteur (if AT is primarily based around debuffs) Scion And a name & possible mechanic for the Inherent - Rally. You deal more damage the more allies are around you, and your buffs/debuffs become stronger as more enemies are around you.

Not sure how to read this part. If the request is for costume pieces to grant powers? Then no. The game is not based on equipment and I would rather it stayed that way. If however you are asking for options for visuals of "temp power" travels such as Beast Run, Athletic Run, and Ninja Run? That would be fine. Pretty sure the request is that the temporary travel powers can be adjusted at the Tailor/Facemaker. I'm totally fine with that, because it keeps the alternative (make a bunch of different-looking, functionally identical travel powers) from being introduced. Besides freeing up a power pick, there's sets that can be slotted in those (and other utility benefits, like free Stealth from Super Speed). I'd be ok with being able to select a permanent version of the temporary movement powers, provided it was also unenhancable. After all, those powers are available at level 1 (the jetpack for free even, if you're willing to chill in the Shadow Shard for a few days). This permanent version would likely be easier to make editable at the tailor, as I'm betting making temp powers customizable would open a whole new can of worms. As an aside - I always felt that being forced into Super Speed was designed to be one of the costs of Hasten - since Hasten is so powerful, and Super Speed isn't given any vertical movement, and so is the hardest travel power to get around the city with. It's one of the reasons I don't take Hasten, unless I have a free pool after taking the travel power I want. (alternately, one could see Hasten as the benefit for taking Super Speed as a travel power)

Looks about where I'd put it (both versions). It'd be nice to have more people's thoughts on this though, both to help round it out, and to show the devs that there's more than maybe 5-10 people interested in this as a possible new AT.

Those work! I might be tempted to add a minor (or better!) debuff to *all* of the ranged attacks in the secondary, to make it so Strikers wouldn't lose momentum by choosing to use their ranged attacks vs. their strong debuffs. 2nd option's inherent: Melee attacks grant +(2-5)% to debuff strength for 15s (capped at 5, still). Again, attempting to encourage mixing up ranged and melee attacks. It could also be possible to grant Strikers a flat 4 pts of mez protection in their inherent - enough to stop single CC attacks, but any stacked CCs stops them. (This could be the extent of their anti-mez power as well, though I would perhaps turn that power into a mini-sustain to make up for the weakened protection). Either way, they'd be a pseudo-squishy AT, and, like blasters, able to fight through some mez effects. I'd still leave the HP at Moderate (at least to start, anyways) - a well played defender can melt through higher difficulties, and they have Moderate damage/Low-Moderate HP & no mez protection (they are Ranged though, which is a huge boost to survivability).

If it is necessary for [Armor] to remain in the secondary, yes, that load-out looks about where I would put Strikers at. I may change that +2% accuracy to a 2% defense debuff (benefits your team more, but you less), but that's a minor balance point. I would still highly prefer to decouple armor from the secondary, or at least attempt to when play testing this AT, if for no other reason than to give it a more distinct identity (A 5th Melee/Armor AT could very easily fall into the Stalker/Scrapper/Brute/Tank continuum). And, as a side thought - this occurred to me at work today: we could potentially work strong debuffs into this instead. People have been asking for a melee support for a while, and Strikers could have a set-themed debuff attached to all of their (ranged?) attacks, allowing them to soften up their opponents at range, then wade in to mop up with very strong melee attacks. Their ranged damage output would have to fall off dramatically to accommodate that change, but it's doable.

I'll agree, baked-in armor would improve survivability vs. debuffs/minor controls. I was trying to remove that tie, partly because the separation would distinguish Strikers from the other 4 melee ATs (all of which are Melee/Armor or Armor/Melee), and partly to allow for more character customization - so you could run ranged blades + Fire Armor (instead of ranged blades forcing SR). To that end, I would even consider [Ranged/Control], i.e. [Assault], over [Ranged/Armor], leading to an AT that looks more like a melee-centric Dominator. I do like the utility powers mixed into the primary/secondary sets, those could add some very interesting distinctions & synergies if done right. (though, if this is going to be a squishier AT, I'd either drop the mez protection or move it to the Ancillary pool) I'd much rather Feedback Loop on your listed inherents - as listed, it gives an incentive to mix up your attacks between Ranged and Melee, and, especially with my note above, the other option would very much feel like a watered-down Domination bar. (I might leave the name of the inherent at Onslaught though - a Strikers' onslaught of attacks leaves their opponents off balance, weakening their ability to effectively attack or defend themselves) Base HP: Moderate (Scrapper HP). Somewhat more durable than a (supposedly ranged-focused) Blaster would be, but less survivable than Scrappers given the weaker (or missing) armor. If the secondary shifts to [Ranged/Control], then I'd probably set HP equal to Blasters. I'm leaning more towards a very high damage, low survivability build (inverse blaster, very high risk/reward), though such an AT would require a degree of game knowledge that would make it a poor choice for a beginner. So, I'd leave the melee & ranged damage scalings as-is, but consider lowering the armor multiplier (especially with that inherent).

Not a fan of that inherent - and I miss Defiance 1.0 somedays. It's got the same incentive to play overly aggressively to get a boost, then stay in a bad situation. Only, it's not nearly as powerful as Defiance 1.0 was. (And yes, I have asked to not be healed, just so I wouldn't lose my massive damage bonus). A better inherent may be: Onslaught: Each (ranged only?) attack you make grants 3% def/all and 1 pt. of status protection (all) for [10-15] seconds. (A defensive version of Defiance, allowing Strikers to stay in Melee range) I'd also bump both damage scales up slightly (110-120% melee, 90-95% blaster damage), or enable Crits. Without inherent armor, and a strong melee focus, a weak damage multiplier would put Strikers as a slightly more damaging Scrapper, but without any meaningful way to engage more dangerous foes without inspecting the floor (even Blappers at least have their Sustain to help keep them upright, if they don't soften the group up first at range). Even as it is, they're not set up to fight for any long period of time - 2 full sets of attacks, and no bonus recovery means lots of blues or downtime between fights. One of the changes I made when porting a Scrapper set to a Striker was the removal of Confront. As a (somewhat squishy) damage dealer, you'd be looking to avoid getting aggro, not take it off of another character. I also strongly debated removing *all* AoE from the Striker's power listing, but decided that would make them decidedly uncompetitive vs. the other damaging archetypes. And, with minor Mez protection in the inherent, the T5 primary can go back to being Build Up. (Or Aim, this is a damaging AT). [Ranged/Armor/(Manipulation)] feels like it'll too easily fall into the "jack of all trades" problem - which a Striker isn't. They're there to jump in, kill arrest everybody as fast as they can, and keep the survivors witnesses from escaping. [Ranged/Manipulation] does just that - keeps the really dangerous foes at bay, cuts down runners, and can even keep the stronger runners from escaping in the first place (I've totally immobilized bosses, just so they couldn't run off while I took out the rest of a spawn). Removing [Armor] from the mix allows more tools for that playstyle, but does require that the inherent convey some passive defenses until you get to the Ancillary Pools. (As a side note, I left the T9 as it was in the Blaster secondaries. This is another all-in, damaging AT, and panic buttons don't really fit that theme). I listed the Ancillary Pools as [Armor]. By the time you get to mid-30s, the increase to enemy HP & powersets is pretty noticeable, and a Melee class will need *some* defenses to stay alive. That, and the Ancillary sets are designed to fill in the holes in an AT's kit - in this case, raw survivability. I could also see [Armor/Control] or [Control] being possible here - there's no need for defenses if you can render your opponents helpless. (It's how my blaster survives - double bosses are a lot less scary if they're permanently Held)

@biostem pretty much summed up all of my comments, though I would add: This is pretty much already in effect (though not necessarily for this specific reason) - there's a "tax" built-in to the AE system (hence why enemies don't drop full inf/exp in there). Adding a flat door fee unfairly penalizes players for playing on lower difficulties. If you wanted to slow down inf gain further, the penalty rate could be adjusted, but it's more or less fine where it's at now.

I think they're angling more towards [Melee] primary and [Manipulation/Ranged] secondary. I'd even go as far as to say [Armor] ancillary/patron pools. As I see it, a Striker is a largely unarmored, heavy-hitting melee combatant - with a few light controls to keep the worst enemies off of them, and a few ranged attacks to take down runners or chip away at targets too dangerous to close with. (plus, depending on how one tweaked the secondary, a double-build-up could be really fun to have) Example sets: (Fire/Ice Striker) Fiery Melee: 1 Scorch 2 Fire Sword 3 Cremate 4 Build-up 5 Breath of Fire 6 Flashfire (Short range combat teleport, similar to Shield Charge. Leaves a small burn patch at arrival and departure locations) <Different sets get different move techniques> 7 Fire Sword Circle 8 Incinerate 9 Greater Fire Sword Ice Manipulation: 1 Chilblain 2 Ice Bolt 3 Ice Blast 4 Chilling Embrace (the power that was replaced by the Blaster sustain) 5 Build Up 6 Ice Patch 7 Frost Breath 8 Freeze Ray 9 Frozen Aura

Changing bows out between shots doesn't seem quite right for Archery - though it would be nice if we could change the colors on our fletching.

With that pairing, I'd probably name the AT as "Striker" or "Harrier", depending on if the desired playstyle is a few ranged attacks before moving in for a melee kill, vs. nimbly shifting in and out of melee, keeping something's attention. And based on that - themes: Striker: Strike hard, strike fast, get out. High Damage, +movement and -threat. I'd add attacks with short(er) animation times, longer cooldowns, more endurance cost, but more damage. Harrier: Keep a foe off guard, either to line up a finishing blow, or to allow your allies to easily finish the job. Moderate-Low Damage, +movement and maybe +threat. Melee & ranged attacks, possibly with debuffs attached. Lighter armor (worse than Scrappers), with light, single-target CC/aggro tools. (example power - a melee strike that lowers enemy range and taunts them. Ideally, one would hit them and then jump away, forcing them to chase.) Both variants could receive mobility tools to help them get in and out of melee range. Edit - The Striker's ranged attacks would boost melee damage, and vis-versa (or could carry a resist debuff)

Crey could be currently reverse-engineering and upgrading a piece of tech that we've only seen the IDF field so far - the combat drones that IDF leutenants & bosses summon to assist them. I don't see Paragon Protectors using these drones, but adding status effects to other crey bosses seems appropriate.

A lot to unpack here: First, well, Origin & Invention Enhancements... don't really roll of the tongue. I'd probably name them Singles and Sets, and along with that Singles don't just have to provide stuff like +Damage, but could be like the LotG +rech or Steadfast's +Def. They just don't have any other enhancements that they're in a "set" with (and could even be unique!). This... already sort of happens. When you Exemplar, all of your enhancements' primary values take a % hit in effectiveness, based on how far you've Exemplared (no matter what type of enhancement, SO, IO, HO, etc). It's set up this way so you're not too much more powerful than the characters you're teaming with, who have fewer enhancement slots (and usually less powerful enhancements to put in those slots). You can, however, completely lose set bonuses - at more than 3 levels below the IO's value, it no longer counts for set bonuses. Attuned IOs are special, in that they act in the way you describe (and keep their set bonus all the way down to 3 levels below the set's minimum level). Having enhancements simply scale their level to match your current level would be a decent buff to Exemplared characters. This is... an interesting combined nerf and buff. Assuming similar values, this would globally reduce IO's numerical effectiveness (dual and triple- IOs grant more than half or one/third values, e.g. Posi's Acc/Dam grants +26.5% to both, instead of +21.2%), but would significantly raise SO's effectiveness at the high end (adjusted from +33% to +42.4% at level 50). As for the other proposed IO changes (4-7): Opening Sets to expanded ranges is neat - but some sets would likely also need to be extended to 50 as well (like Steadfast, which tops at 30). This, along with normalizing set bonuses, would require a rebalance. Some sets top out early, or aren't available early, because their set bonuses are more powerful than other sets in the same category (several of the melee damage sets not only top out at 40, but are only 4-sets. They do provide bonuses that level 50 sets don't provide though). Also, normalizing set bonuses removes some of the consideration for *which* sets players go for - for sets that provide Aoe and Ranged defense, do they go for the one with more Aoe, or more Ranged defense. Superior versions of all the sets (and the non-superior versions of the current superiors) are definitely a fun thought - but we'd have to be very careful with this set-up, especially paired with (7), all IOs are Unique. With all IOs unique anyways, then players *should* purple out their entire build (and would likely be *much* more powerful after doing so). And speaking of (7) - it looks good on paper, but would go a long way to killing build diversity. There's only so many sets in the game, so a scrapper with 5 six-socketed melee attacks would be either frankenslotting or using 5 of the 8 available six-sets (and most builds would probably be using the same 5, or at least 4 of them). This, and normalizing the enhancements' set bonuses, would likely make the 5-limit for set bonuses (if kept) entirely unavoidable for most types of bonus (and entirely unreachable for others). 5x (normalized) ranged defense isn't getting anyone near the cap that wasn't there already. Typically, you need several of each grade of ranged defense to build meaningful defenses on a squishy. I'd compromise here: normal IOs aren't unique (unless they already were), but Superior IOs are - you can have 4 Hecatombs in a build, but only 1 may be superior. Players would have to chose between stacking specific types of set bonus, or having better enhancement values (but much more restricted stacking of bonuses).

Probably a bug (but could be WAI): If you have an attack queued when Ranged Shot activates, the queued attack will start before Ranged Shot finishes animating - so you don't lose the extra ambush time if you've already prepped to either finish off your target, or attack a different one. As an added bonus, if you queued Snap Shot, it feels like you're pulling off the 2-arrow draw. If you queued up anything else, though, the animation sort of "snaps" between releasing Ranged Shot, returning to combat stance, and then releasing the second attack. (It's kind of jarring, honestly, and why I think this may be a bug. Hopefully tightening/fixing the animation will fix that feeling) Also, I don't think Ranged Shot was "better" than the other snipes in the past, as far as animation time is concerned. IIRC, it had the same Interruptible time, but then held the stance for an extra second or so before releasing (and wasn't interruptible during that extended hold). So, same wind-up before damage proc, but "shorter" animation because the interruptible stance lingered into the actual animation. These days though, it feels like that extra aiming time was removed (probably about the time the interruptible window on snipes were heavily reduced), and a waiting time was added at the end of the animation to put it back to the full time value.

I'd be happy if Numina (and other contacts) would stop making us hunt Council in a bunch of zones. Many of the areas where Council used to have large presences are now contested with 5th Column. In places like Steel Canyon, it's really hard to complete hunt missions for Council (and there's a lot of those, btw). As far as removing defeat-alls & just number of missions in general, some of that is for pacing. Citadel has a lot of consecutive defeat-alls to drive home that the Council are cranking out new bases way faster than they should be. Posi has a bunch of hybrid-enemy missions all over the place to show the sheer amount of villain in-fighting happening. Numina has the crazy hunt mission chain because it was the capstone TF - level 40 heroes at the (then) XP cap got a nice, nostalgic trip through all the city zones. Yes, some of that *could* be cleaned up, but at the same time, that'll definitely come out of the reward merit value of any affected TF. If the reason for these changes is to remove the slog to get accolades on new toons, perhaps it would be better to review how these accolades are gated. After all, I've noticed that certain accolades are significantly easier to get blue-side vs. red-side, which may not be WAI. (A good example would be Atlas Medallion vs. Marshal. Atlas medallion is easy to acquire, and can be obtained in the 20s, Marshal requires the player to run LRSF, which is 45+. They have the same boost, 5% endurance, and grant each other when you swap alignments).

As I recall, the wolf conversion is part of the Galaxy soldier program - they're what results from a failed fusing with the Nictus that inhabit the regular Galaxy soldiers. They'd still be pretty well conditioned by that point anyways, and it seems unlikely that the Council would waste that many resources to deliberately train & convert a "poor" candidate for the Galaxy program.

That delay was easy enough to work around though - open with Ranged Shot, Blazing Arrow, then start RoA centered on you. By the time RoA went off, you'd be just starting to get swarmed, so it hit nearly everything (gotta love using yourself as bait, btw). And honestly, I'd almost prefer that set-up to how things work now - anything that survives the RoA scatters because of the AI cowardice bug.

Improving the set is fine with me. Removing and replacing powers though? That's not fine with me. The set can be improved, even using ideas from this thread, without removing powers from the set. I'd be okay with Blazing Arrow being improved/replaced. It used to be like having a second, uninterruptible snipe in the set (it did almost as much damage as Ranged Shot, with almost as much windup), but with Fast Snipes involved, it's fallen pretty far behind for DPA. I'll also admit that the windup on it means I almost can't use it mid-fight if there are other DPS toons on the team - more often than not, the target's defeated before it goes off. Ammo swap almost seems like it'd put the set too close to DP, but would be in-theme. After all, they do make a *bunch* of arrowheads depending on what you're hunting, and envenomed arrows have been around for a long time. Of course, you could dip *any* of said arrowheads in that venom, so envenom would probably be a separate selector based on what kind of venom you're using ([slow/hold]/sleep/DoT/-regen, for paralytic/sophomoric/acidic/necrotic venoms).