Steampunkette

They don't have an Assault, Ranged, or Melee primary or secondary. Neither does MM. Every other archetype does. Well... I guess not the Epics like PB/AS. But everyone else. Ranged: Blaster, Sentinel, Corruptor, Defender. Melee: Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker, Brute. Assault: Dominator. 9 of the 11 current "Base ATs" would get access to this Whip Powerset. (And MMs would still have Demon Summoning)

There's always a way where there's a Whip! But yeah. Make it a Ranged Set. Or an Assault Set. Make it all three, honestly, to make it available to literally every archetype except Mastermind and Controller. I'd be 100% down for that.

Sort of. Have you used the Corruption power on Masterminds? It sends out a little fire-ball from the tip of the whip. Just add that to Lash. And then have Crack Whip fire off a bunch of individually targeted little fire-balls like the Peacebringer's Cone.

Totally fair. It would also 100% work as a Blast or Assault set, depending on the amount of range added to the four attacks. And you wouldn't even have to change the other powers. You -would- need to swap out the Provoke/Placate/Taunt for another power which modifies at least two of the four attacks... could make it turn Corruption or Lash into Superior Damage?

Yeah, yeah... We keep coming back to it. Sue me! But this time I have a really interesting mechanical idea, Instead of trying to cram in Fire Blast powers or Psychic Sword Pets or something similar, how about we play with Mechanic Generation? So. Obviously there are only 4 Whip Powers. 3 attacks and 1 Summon/Buff. Taunt/Placate/Provoke and Build Up each take up a slot, giving us 6 powers for a Melee Set. So what if we used 7, 8, and 9 for new mechanics? Tier 1: Corruption. Just take off the Ranged Component and give it the same range as Lash. Moderate Damage Tier 2: Lash. Pretty much as is. High end of Moderate Damage. Tier 3: Crack Whip. The set needs some kind of AoE at a decently low level. High end of Moderate Damage Tier 4: Build Up. No big deal. Tier 5: Thundercrack. Autopower. Generates 1 stack of Thundercrack every 6 Seconds. Maximum of 3. Using Corruption, Lash, or Crack Whip consumes 1 stack of Thundercrack to deal additional Minor Energy Damage and apply a 15% Damres Debuff. Tier 6: Taunt/Provoke/Placate. Pretty standard, really, all things considered. Tier 7: Strangle. Apply the Hell on Earth Animation, Moderate Targeted AoE damage with a short duration high magnitude Hold (Same duration as the Animation), give it the same range as Lash. High Damage (Primary Target) Moderate Damage AoE. Tier 8: Razorwhip: Toggle. While active, all Whip Melee attacks deal a Minor Lethal Damage DoT. Tier 9: Whip Mastery. Clickable power which generates 1 stack of "Whip Mastery". Consuming Whip Mastery causes Strangle to deal additional High Fire Damage and increase it's area by 10ft or Crack Whip to increase it's cone from 30 degrees to 90 degrees and deal additional High Fire Damage. (Recharge Rate: Long. 20-30 seconds) So you walk into a fight with 3 stacks of Thundercrack and have to choose whether to spend all the charges on Crack Whip (To deal that added damage to multiple targets) or burn one target with Corruption and/or Lash. And then during the fight you're either aware of whether you've got a Thundercrack coming so you can alter your positioning or you don't really care and you "waste" charges on low-health enemies. Whip Mastery gives the player a choice between "t9 Attacks" by allowing them to either use a cone or a targeted AoE based on which one might be more valuable at the time. And a Cone with Thundercrack and Whip Mastery deals more damage, but it only hits 5 targets instead of 10 and targeting is a little harder. With less active attacks, the Whip Melee character is more vulnerable to -Recharge Effects than other characters, but through Razorwhip gets a slightly higher base damage by direct power comparison. (Razorwhip's End Cost should be comparatively high. 0.52/sec seems appropriate to me. Maybe 0.36 if 0.52 tests too costly) You wind up with a melee set that has a longer reach, a handful of attacks, and a lot of cooldown management. It becomes far more vulnerable to -Recharge effects from enemies and other players, but it's slotting requirements are -significantly- curtailed... which in turn reduces it's slotting options. For Stalkers, put Assassin's Strangle at Tier 4 and Build Up to Tier 5, then put Thundercrack at Tier 6 and Placate at Tier 7. Assassin's Strangle: Same animation as Strangle but with an Extreme DoT during the hold duration/animation when used from Hidden and no AoE whatsoever. Have Whip Mastery grant Assassin's Strangle it's AoE Damage Component.

Snagged Absynth. Awesome name for a Sonic Hero

So far I've been playing Sonic/SR, yeah. I also have a build set up for it that I'll link, below. I did correct the 25%-20% thing but not before you replied! Looking at all the debuffing levels of the different classes... Sonic are the -worst- at Debuffing. That 9.6% is much lower than Defender 20% or even Stalker/Brute/Blaster's 13%. I sincerely wish they'd give Sentinels higher Buff/Debuff values, since it'd make them better at playing around with Pool Powers and powersets that have debuffing effects. Anywho. Here's the build.

CoH Modder has a great Banshee scream mod! It makes it sound -much- cooler. I'm looking at making a Sonic built around -Res procs in a few choice powers. So it'd be 5% Sentinel debuff, 9% Sonic debuff (per hit for like 6 seconds?), The -20% Proc debuff (I think it's 3 per minute per enhancement... could be wrong), and then a whopping 20% unresistable from Vulnerability very quickly. That seems like a really good way to improve your team's damage and push a little past the Sentinel's damage cap issues...

Random thought: You get more opportunity per-shot from Cone Attacks. Sonic has 3 different cone abilities that all do decent damage as a Sentinel. A Sonic Sentinel could easily fire off 2 cone attacks and go from 0 Opportunity to 100 opportunity in the cast time of those two abilities. Plus the Sonic -Res stacks with the -Res from Opportunity -and- Vulnerability. Why aren't Sonic Sentinels more popular?

I went on a bit of an installing spree, not gonna lie. Nothing installed that interfered with anything else (I thought). Just downloaded the "All (v1) mod and now CoH Modder is slapping me, repeatedly, with an application error of how it can't find mod '' in the server mod list in C:\Projects\CoH Modder\ CoH Modder\Main Form.cs:line 792 I don't have a Projects folder containing 2 CoH Modder sub-folders nested in themselves. Please advise?

Character: Water Blast/Bio Armor Sentinel level 29 Relevant Powers: Offensive Adaptation and Athletic Regulation On characters that use both Offensive Adaptation and Athletic Regulation the speed bonus from Athletic Regulation is most likely meant to be doubled by the Offensive Adaptation effect. However it is, instead, buffing all movement rate increasing powers by 100%. Sprint provides 22.54mph increase from the enhanceable aspect and an additional 7.16mph from the unenhanceable portion. Athletic Regulation is providing 10.58mph. Swift is providing 13.98mph. Athletic Run is providing 55.42mph. It is not increasing Flying speed, Jumping speed, or Jumping Height at all.

1) Your grasp of history seems... flawed at best. If you don't understand how economics have changed since the 40s and particularly since the 70s I don't think anyone can help you. 2) Your supposition that I'm doing "Nothing" to fix things is laughable at best since you know basically nothing about me. 3) The Boomers -are- the Government. Average age in Congress is about 60 with those holding the most power being in their 70s. Trump was born in '46 making him the quintessential Baby Boomer in Power. And the big one: 4) Racism isn't Ended. Jim Crow Laws still have an impact on modern lives. And they may have protested Vietnam, but they were all about jumping into the Middle East. As to the "Every Generation" thing... yeah. Because the next generation is almost invariably more progressive and understanding and aware. Hawking spoke of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, but it applies to literally every aspect of society. All the progressiveness of the Boomers was great! But then it stopped. They reached the end of what they personally considered "Progressive" and the boundary to what they considered "Radical". "Interracial Marriage? COOL! Gay Marriage? Now hold on a second!" Same thing happened with Generation X. Same thing will happen with Millennials. And Gen Z. And every generation after them. Because what we consider the edge of progressiveness and "Radical" will advance with the next generation who view what we see as being "Progressive" as "Normal". As baseline. And their ideals will move forward from -that- point. This is the source of the idea that "Everyone becomes Conservative, Eventually" comes from. But that, again, comes down to understanding history and cause and effect so... y'know... Ok, Boomer.

And that's why "Ok, Boomer" is so much -easier-. See how it's worked out, here? I've tried to explain a bunch of stuff, and instead of understanding or an attempt at an equal exchange, I get this as a reaction. Ergo: Ok, Boomer.

I don't blame Boomers for "Everything" wrong. Just the things that they, as a generation, have done. Like foster an overreliance on the idea of college as core to personal value leading to multiple subsequent generations carrying $1.6 trillion in debt that, in many cases, turns out to be useless to their economic advancement. My husband, for example, as pushed by his family to go to college and studied teaching and history... Now he's a Postal Worker. That overreliance, of course, being fostered by watching their parents and grandparents performing grueling physical labor and coming home exhausted and often drunk and thinking "I want my kids to have a better life than that!" which is super noble, on it's face, but severely weighted our society away from infrastructural and lucrative essential work, like Garbage Men, Janitors, and other 'dirty' or 'menial' work that is required to keep our society functional and healthy. And yeah, our society needs teachers and historians, but not like it needs Plumbers or Electricians. One advances, one maintains, both are needed and only one was societally valued. And, of course, the huge McMansion craze that they created which made housing less and less affordable over decades while they did their best to maximize profits with minimal raises and... yeah. Just so much shit. I get it. You like to think of yourself as strong and special and self-reliant and whatever else. But we live in the course of history, and causes have effects. Ignoring that is self-blinding, and will ultimately lead to Boomerdom. No. I'm afraid you're mistaking Philosophy for Religion. Religion by -definition- requires a belief in the Supernatural as a basis for a Philosophical Ideal. Religion is -a- Philosophy, but Philosophy is not a Religion.

Ok, Boomer.

So... Few things: "Ok, Boomer" is a bit more specific than "Baby Boomers ruined Everything". It's about how much time and effort Millennials, Gen Xers, and the Zoomers have spent trying to explain "Things aren't like they used to be" while the Boomer generation refuses to accept it. As a teenager and a young adult I had Boomers telling me "Just go into the business and apply face to face. Ask to see the manager! That's how I got my job!" Sure. That's how you got your job 40 years ago when that kind of thing was the Norm. Now every company out there wants an online application because if you bring in your resume it goes in the garbage. Do you know how many times I've asked for an application in person and been told "You have to do it online?" But I'd tell the Boomers that and get a lecture on how I wasn't "Trying" hard enough. "Ok, Boomer" became the "I'm not going to try and explain this to you because you're clearly not interested in hearing or understanding things that don't fit your out of date worldview." It's not rank dismissal. It's frustration and it's defeat. It's "I'm not going to waste my time and energy on this anymore." See also: "Why haven't you moved out?" "You should be saving for your future!" and "Why don't you have kids, yet?" which all often boil down to "I literally cannot afford those things because of the market forces your generation created." Now, yeah... some of it is probably rank dismissal or 'typical' generational infighting. But the bulk of the issue is that life has changed more rapidly in the past 30 years than it has in nearly any other point in history and the generation currently holding the greatest amount of wealth and political power initiated those changes but have no clear understanding of what those changes -are- or the impact those changes have created. Yeah the invention of the Automobile and the Refrigerator and whatever changed things in the world... But the Internet and the massive socio-economic changes around it are massive beyond almost any period of history. Ok, Boomer would not be a good badge for CoH. But it's a great badge for real life.

I feel like having a 60% chance to lock down an AV during the Purple Triangle Window (But only if you're stacking controls -fast-) for a brief time ('Cause duration is still a thing and mez resist is separate from protection) is a good goal to try and aim for. It allows Controllers to actually do their absolute damage mitigation function. That said, getting a group of controllers together to completely shit on every AV could get pretty boring.

Very nice mathing! But! You didn't include durations in your calculations. Someone could have a Overpower Hold with a duration overlapping into the purple triangles phase, applied in the down triangles phase, and thus need only to trigger a second Overpower to lock the AV down. Also if you have two controllers yadda yadda yadda. Point is: It would be pretty effective, but not perfectly so.

Earnestly... I feel like it might be better to skip the idea of randomness to avoid permanent control. Purple Triangles exist, after all, on a 50/25 rotation. Why not leave Overpower "As Is" for proc rates and such, with no sub-check for levels of overpower, but increase the variable value to +20 rather than double-value? That way a single Overpower Proc could hold most targets pretty well, but a pair of procs back to back could cut through purple triangles like butter, without requiring massive amounts of additional work. Functionally, Overpower would work the same way as it always has in normal content, except now you'd occasionally be able to meaningfully Overpower specific hard-targets. And because of the PvE/PvP mechanics split, we can just not mess with Overpower in PvP mechanics, leaving it unchanged, there.

Night Widows and Bane Soldiers. Their buffs are amazing!

I definitely think it's an -interesting- way to go with it. It would make Controllers the ultimate go-to control characters for Giant Monster Hunts, which isn't exactly a bad thing. It would, however, often result in completely irrelevant overpower. Most of your "+100 Overpower!!!" uses would happen on minions, lieutenants, and bosses which could make the RNG incredibly annoying to some players. And make most of the power increase invisible due to the low proc-chance on a boss. I feel it would be a way to help offset the lack of "Oomf" that many Controllers feel when fighting particularly hard targets.

An interesting angle to go at... but one which misses the point while reinforcing it, so... Kudos on stumbling into the right answer via the wrong path and then diving on the wrong answer, anyhow? Yes. The "Numbers" matter more than when you get the powers themselves. After all, once you've gotten to 50 it doesn't matter how late you had to wait to get Mass Confusion, you have it and will have it forever. However, the functions of Secondary Powersets in Archetypes are when you can choose your secondary powerset's different tiers and... you guessed it: Lower Numbers. That's the game's most basic design paradigm. And no... I don't have a bad memory of what Castle said. Thanks for that ad hominem attack, Leo. Always lovely to get those. I played D&D with the guy for literal years. Shadowrun, Mutants and Masterminds. We talked about game design philosophies at length, particularly the ups and downs of City of Heroes and the various tabletop games we played, particularly the fixation game designers have on class-role assignments as core functions of character definition as opposed to freeform character building and it's pitfalls. But go off, I guess, on criticizing my "Interpretation" of a conversation that you've never read. Control as a secondary "Can Work" if it's left at Controller Level Power. That is to say "Full Magnitudes". However, that is not the design paradigm of archetypes in City of Heroes, which reduce the magnitudes of secondary powersets. Like Scrappers and Brutes getting less defense numbers than Tankers from the same defensive powers. Control Sets, as they stand now, cannot work as a secondary powerset within the design paradigm. And if we decide to ignore the design paradigm in order to provide full power and comprehensive control powersets as a secondary, while an archetype also gets full magnitude and comprehensive primary powersets, we'll have an OP as shit archetype. If we reduce the magnitudes and durations (Like using the Dominator original values) the archetype will be underpowered.

I recognize that they're largely guidelines... but. Most stuff in City of Heroes combat is proportional and relative. You deal Mag 2 damage against a target with 12 Mags of HP and 20% damage resistance so you're only actually dealing 1.6 Mags of damage. Still have 10.4 to go. Control is -absolute-. The target has Mag 6 Hold Protection. You must apply at least 7 Mags of Hold to affect the target. Once the target is affected, that's it. They're affected. Dude with 10.4 Mags of HP left is still in the fight, swinging. But Mag 6 Protection man is a nonfactor in the Time to Kill/Time to Die calculation. If you create a new Support/Control archetype with Control Power equal to a Controller and Support Power equal to a Defender, you have just kneecapped Controllers, forever. Why play a Controller with 75% of the Buffing/Debuffing/Healing capacity of a Defender when you can just play this new class and be at full power on both? And if you reduce the Support Power to be identical to a Controller, even though it's the archetype's primary powerset, you've just created a Controller that has to wait 'til 38 instead of 32 to get their Tier 9 Pet (Or Mass Confuse). There just seem to be no good options for a ???/Control archetype. Debate. Though I have 0 degrees in total. But if you'd like to discuss some Existentialist theory I'm 100% game.

A Strawman is when you create an argument for your opposition which is not the argument the opposition provided in order to debunk or defeat -that- argument. Web Grenade is given to Devices at level 1. Low Tier. You invented the idea that I meant "Immobilizes are less powerful than Holds" which is not the argument I made. Hence, a Strawman. As to the Ad Hominem, I will say that's a rather unique perspective on the term "Narrowminded" and accept your intent didn't follow. To the actual discussion: Blasters who take Energy Manipulation have some of the same melee attacks as Energy Assault Dominators -and- some of the same ranged powers if they take Energy Blast. This does not make Energy/Energy Blasters into Energy Assault Blasters. It means they share some similar powers. But the Framework of those powers, and the other powers provided to the Archetype, result in wildly different playstyles. A Fortunata plays similarly to a "Ranged Dominator with Defense Powers", but does not have a Control Powerset in the same way that a Dominator does, which is to say "Exclusively" control based aside from pets and/or mind control damage throughput powers. The additional defensive powers the Fortunata has at their disposal creates a distinct difference in how the two play. The Fortunata, for example, may miss some of their control effects and still be largely survivable in an encounter. The Dominator will be at a much more significant disadvantage. However, unless you intend to recommend a Primary Powerset which provides Attack and Defense Powers akin to what a Fortunata gains, this remains a False Equivalence. And still does not account for the issues mentioned of the power levels required for Control Powers to function due to the binary nature of control effects. If an Archetype was designed with Control Powersets (Not powersets with some control powers in them) as a secondary powerset, it would either need to have the control powers weakened (To maintain the power dynamics between classes and the weighting difference between Primary and Secondary Powersets) or so heavily redesigned as to no longer -be- Control Powersets, but something like Manipulation. To weaken them is not really an option due to the binaristic nature of control powers, the required magnitudes of controls to affect enemies, and the various issues players have with layered RNG resulting in ultimately largely nonfunctional powers.

The man's a professional who has been designing games for 30 years. We might not -agree- with all his ideas, but that doesn't make them problems. And KB to KD is a trainwreck. The single IO added sees people harassed for not using it, and endless threads using it as a wedge to try and open the door on more ways to kill knockback entirely. Including at least three users on these boards who are in favor of either completely removing KB as a mechanic or giving the Team Leader the ability to control all powers on a team to turn off KB. A Fortunata gains -some- control powers to supplement their damage abilities. Similarly, a Wolf Spider gets some control powers to supplement their damage abilities. So do PBs and Warshades. But those are not Control Powersets. There is a distinct difference between a Control Powerset (Which typically contains minimal damage output outside of a Pet or Pets) and having a Powerset which contains some Control Powers. A Control Powerset would need to be "Weakened" to be made into a Secondary Powerset, otherwise a person would simply have two "Primary" powersets. I also never said Control Powersets would be unviable as secondaries because control is somehow "Bad". I said that weakening a Control Powerset would render it largely useless due to the binary nature of control. In that a target is either controlled (and thus impaired) or uncontrolled (and thus not impaired) based on the number of magnitudes of control applied to them. That's not a Logical Flaw, Zeraphia. That's a False Equivalence and a Strawman Argument. I also wasn't "Comparing" Debuffs to Controls. I was using the differences between them to -define- them. In large part because these sorts of discussions about control powers almost invariably result in at least one person piping up "Well what if we added debuffs to controls so that even if you don't control an AV you're still helping out?" That's not control. That's debuff. There's a distinct difference. That's not "Apples to Oranges", Zeraphia. That's a Strawman Argument. As to "Low Tier" being "Narrow Minded" I literally meant low-tier in the sense of them being Tier 1 or Tier 2 powers. Ones you get at first or fourth level. Even if I held that very false belief, which I don't, most Manipulation sets get a hold, stun, or fear at a later point in their power progression. And certain sets (Like Ice) gain several. However, their magnitudes are low enough, or proccy enough, that they cannot reliably be used to control EBs and AVs, ensuring the Blaster relies on their Primary Powerset and the high melee damage output of their Manipulation Set's attacks before retreating. (Or blapping via Hasten and global IO buffs) Instead of responding to that you've constructed a Strawman Argument and added an Ad Hominem attack to it. I do not believe that you're reading my posts in good faith, here. With an intent to understand.