Steampunkette

Generally speaking I don't mix themes, myself. But for that character who has extremely limited sapping options? No. I wouldn't skip the controls and then try to play a Sapper. 'Cause it doesn't work. You need the -recovery to actually sap as a playstyle and Electric Control largely lacks it... But I could do it as a Mind/Elec Dominator with minimal controls outside of Confuse. It would just take longer to break the enemy's blue bar. Sapping is a playstyle that only works if you have enough sapping to make it -work-. Like an Elec/Elec Scrapper or Brute. Or a Controller with Electric/Storm or Electric/Kin at high end. Though, honestly, an Electric/Whatever Blaster or Electric/Whatever Scrapper or Brute can also sap pretty great because the -recovery is built in. -Recovery is generally in attack powers, while -Endurance is in both attack -and- control -and- debuff sets. But it's a lot stronger in Control and Debuff sets because it's a debuff. But having some -recovery and -endurance is -still- a strong secondary ability. It just comes to full power later in the fight. Yeah, -Res or -Def would be more helpful for the alpha. But after 10-20 seconds of fighting your enemies are sucking wind while you're still standing there with endurance to spare. After that point they -can't- attack you, any longer, which skyrockets your survivability rather than your murdering speed.

No object in the game counts as a "Wall". It's just a physical object you can't move through. In that regard a Streetlamp is a "Wall" in the same way an office map's walls are "Walls". So is a Car, fire hydrant, or another player. The game doesn't have any understanding of those things as "Wall" So we'd need a new type of "Ground" to be described to the game's engine. This ground would be a Mesh of some sort that could be place in duodimensional squares with a set in game length (Say 5ft squares)... That's where the trouble comes in. Every single map in the game would need a Dev to edit it to add in this new "WallGround" object hundreds or thousands of times to create a wall you can run on with the appropriate power. And any "Wall-like Object" in that map would need to be divisible by the size of the squares being added. Say, for example, a building with an arch on it that is five feet wide at either end, but only two feet wide in the middle. Putting the little 5ft square on that object would have an overhang of 3 feet where the player "Runs on Air". Ugly, but not a dealbreaker. The big problem is that this would SKYROCKET the object count in every single zone in the game. You ever wonder why Granville was so laggy in Spider City? It's because there's thousands of objects, there. Most of them halfway embedded in other objects to hide the ugly ends of them. For Grandville? You'd need to add -millions- of these little "Wallground" objects in order for the game to allow you to run along the side of the spider webs. In any case... it's simply too huge a task to add to a game. This is the sort of power which needs to be present from the start for it to really work.

Electric's secondary is already strong enough. As an Electric/Electric Dominator I don't even -bother- taking control-centric powers, often. Outside of Jolting Chain and Static Field I don't need them. I throw on Conductive Aura, have my Gremlins follow me and me Voltaic Sentinel into combat, and sap enemies dry in seconds. Who needs a Hold when the enemy stands there, gormlessly, unable to do anything? Endurance drain is Percentage Based rather than Static Values. Lightning bolt saps 10% of the enemy's endurance in a shot. Doesn't matter whether the enemy's max end is 50 or 200, 10% is gone in a flash. Meanwhile Static Field is ticking away another 21% over 4 seconds while Conductive Aura is doing 14%/tick. And Havoc Punch and Thunderstrike ensure they won't be recovering any endurance. So do Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt and Static Discharge for AoE. (Ball Lightning, too, in Mu Mastery). And that's not even -slotting- for End Mod. Do that and/or use the Agility Incarnate and it's even more disgusting. Generally speaking I drop my Static Field on a group, temporarily shutting down the LTs and Minions, then focus my melee and ranged on the Boss(es), though Jolting chain runs through the other targets, too. By the time Static Field has ended, all the LTs and Minions have no endurance thanks to Conductive Aura and with a Static Discharge or a Ball Lightning they can't -get- endurance and by that point the Boss(es) have no end, either. So I mop up the mob and move on. Does it work great on a big team of steamrollers? No. But not every powerset needs to make steamrolling easier or faster. Some stuff is just flatly better in small groups or solo play. Electric is one of those things. I can't -wait- to make an Electric/Shock Controller once Page 5 goes live! I'm going to sap so hard it's not even funny!

Nuke the minions with AoE. Lieutenants quickly follow. Bosses and EB are all that's left standing after 8-12 seconds. Bosses die over the next 20. EB falls apart shortly thereafter. You're not increasing the difficulty. You're just making it take longer. Increasing the difficulty means bringing the TTK and TTD clocks into closer precision, making it a tough fight to win while hanging on the ragged edge of victory to avoid tumbling into defeat. "Add an EB" won't accomplish that any more than adding another 2,000 HP to Dr. Vahzilok will make him a tougher fight. It just takes longer to kill him.

Ultimately any increase to the game's difficulty is going to result in one of a few scenarios: 1) Game is made harder through increased numbers, rewards are greater, people seek the most effective method of destroying content, 6 months later we need a new difficulty curve. 2) Game is made harder through increased numbers. People spend inf on Inspirations, gain greater rewards, 6 months later complain that every fight relies on inspirations and doesn't grant better rewards. Or just learn the new more effective methods and complain about the difficulty curve. 3) Game is made harder through new enemy abilities. Players learn to recognize which enemies have those abilities, spike them into the floor in the alpha strike, and the game is exactly 0% harder than before it just takes an extra 1.5 seconds to choose target priority. 4) Game is made harder through more complex and effective AI and the reduction or elimination of Taunt mechanics: People complain about the difficulty curve being a brick wall as the defenders and controllers are alpha striked into oblivion in every fight and the rest of the team is slowly whittled down. There are no good options, here.

I'm 90% sure Hajinx has got it right... but enhancements don't really shift it up that much even if they're -not- included in the maximum damage buff. Brutes have a lower baseline damage but a greater buff ability up to a maximum of 200% through Fury. They get to maintain higher constant damage all things being equal. Stalkers, on the other hand, are all about spikes that level out, over time. Whether they've got enhancements giving them 30% or 90% damage buff, the baseline difference between 0.75 and 1.0 is going to be a big determining factor. It's only once the Brute gets more total damage buff (whether fury, set bonuses, enhancement bonuses, or Fortitude) than the stalker that their damage pulls ahead... and then critspiking and assassin's strike bring things back toward (if not entirely into) parity. Brutes aren't inherently overpowered compared to Stalkers or Scrappers. But they can -feel- overpowered because they stand there taking all the hits while dishing out high damage. Their team role 'Feels' like they're a Tank rather than a DPS, and compared to Tankers they bring the ruckus.

Brute Max Damage: +700% Brute Base Damage: .75 Stalker Max Damage: +500% Stalker Base Damage: 1 So. Hand a Stalker and a Brute an attack that deals 100 damage. Stalker deals 100, Brute deals 75. Give them both a 200% damage buff. Brute is now up to 150 while the Stalker is throwing 200. At max values that is 650 damage for the Brute and 600 damage for the Stalker. The "Big Difference" is that the Brute has Fury. So they can build up a maximum of 200% extra damage without using build up or other damage buffing mechanics. But let's face it, it's pretty hard to maintain more than 70% or so. So they can generally maintain 225 points of damage from that 100 damage attack that the Stalker is also throwing... But the more buffs on the team the closer to equal they get. Only the Stalker also gets Crits. And guaranteed crits from Stealth. And Assassin Strike to frontload their overall DPS pretty hard. And now they've got Assassin's Opportunity to make it even -more- powerful. And also Placates for an extra crit on top. Fact is, Stalkers and Brutes are at similar overall performance. The Brute edges them out on baseline survivability (outside IOs, obviously) but the Brute also has to constantly take shots to the face to maintain that damage bonus. And yeah the Brute has more AoE than the Stalker does (presuming identical power set selections) but the ST damage tends to be -way- bigger and on more important targets (Bosses) The issue is with Steamroll Teams. And the issue, there, is not "Broots 2 gud" it's "Set IOs interact with different builds in wild ways resulting in a 0 risk combat scenario that allows the team to continue roflstomping their way through endless enemies" I'm not suggesting we Nerf IOs or kill set bonuses or anything. They're a core part of the game, at this point, and have been a part of it longer than it ever lacked them. I'm saying that if you want a more difficult teaming situation where different roles get to shine: Put together an SG of people who have the same desire (There's a fairly high number of them, based on Forum posting) and run without IOs. Or with only basic IOs. Then the game will have it's challenge back. At least until you start slotting Incarnate Powers.

Your character's Powerset and Archetype are locked in at character creation as a single "Entity" as far as the game is concerned. The name you picked for the character is the filename for that entity. But powersets and AT? They dictate the contents of the file. You've created Superman.SSINVBRUTExe in the Everlasting Character Folder. You cannot change the file type to Superman.TWINVBRUTExe without completely redefining what the file types mean and programming a whole system that allows for file translation between types. In this case it would be tantamount to rewriting how characters function in the Character Server from the ground up.

Here's how I enjoy my costume when playing Stealth Characters: I don't use Stealth unless I'm sneaking up on someone. Seriously, I play Stalkers and I love them to death 'cause I'll stealth in, kick some ass, and then go into Stealth when it's time to move on to the next group. Did my partner AFK? Are we slow-rolling because RP? Cool beans. Stealth is turned off and I'm chillin'. Oh. Time to roll? *Insert Stealth Noise here*

"Make farming faster and more efficient without consideration to literally any other aspect of the game" No thanks. It's good enough, already. I'd rather not further trivialize the game's difficulty across the board just so Johnny Firebrute can clear his farming map a little faster.

Just for shits n' giggles, I put together a quickie Brute Build for anyone that wants to be able to completely ignore S/L damage. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1476&c=681&a=1362&f=HEX&dc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itan Weapons/Invuln. Constant 50% Defense to S/L (Defensive Sweep to pop it up to 70% Smashing) capped at 45%, and a further 100% (capped at 90%) S/L Damage Resistance. It's not a blistering TW Speedbuild, but it'll just wade through enemies indefinitely.

I'm an old timer, too... I just know that the whippersnappers and the nostalgia boys won't -listen- to people who were there back then. So I have to put it in baseline math to show them just how easy it was... Especially for 90/45s! Taking 1% of incoming damage is just obscene, and well within the reach of any Invuln Tanker.

A solo player playing at the maximum spawn size rounding up multiple spawns would see an increase in deaths. But "Dying Faster" is not difficulty, in my books. It's just taking more damage... There's no tactical changes, no structural changes to the encounters, no thinking... Just more damage output. It's as much "More difficult" as giving the NPCs doubled hit points. It takes longer to kill them all, but that's all you're really getting out of it: A Change in Speed. The underlying gameplay issues that create a low ceiling for gameplay difficulty remain.

So, hey. Since you impugned me, directly, about my understanding of Probability: Let's talk about probabilities! Currently the aggro cap (And resulting maximum spawn size) is 16. With a 45% Defense and a group of 16 enemies we can find the likelihood of a single volley of fire landing a hit by using Cumulative Binomial Probability. Essentially Cumulative Binomial Probability is P(X </= x). (The Forum Software doesn't recognize less than or equal to as a sign) .05 chance of 100 damage per person 16 instances of dice rolls Cumulative Probability: .81 And based on our 100 damage base that's 81 damage in a given "Volley" of attacks. Doubling the value of instances doubles the outcome, so 81 goes to 162, on average. A Tanker's HP at 50: 1874.1 (Assuming no HP Bonuses from Sets, Accolades, or Powers) A Tanker's per-second Regen at 50: 7hp/second (Assuming no Regen Bonuses from Sets or Powers, -or- HP Bonuses from Sets, Accolades, or Powers) Assuming a 1.4 second cast time on attacks striking the tanker, let's assume 162 damage lands every 1.4 seconds. To go from full health to no health the tanker needs to stand there for 16.2 seconds... which gives regen time. In that time the Tanker has recovered 113.3 HP, requiring an additional 1.4 seconds to bring us out to the total of 17.6 seconds. Assuming there's no damage reduction involved (which there would be) and none of the enemies are killed in that time (which there would be) and no control effects (which there would be) or healing (which there would be). It would take that tanker almost 20 seconds of their entire team (And themselves) going AFK and just letting their character die for it to happen against 32 opponents. Now let's apply even a MODICUM of expected gameplay to be involved: Damage reduction 45% nearly doubles their lifespan. That's a couple of Oranges, or a Sonic Defender, or just having some decent Damage Reduction from your powerset and your set bonuses. 89.1 damage incoming gives 29.4 seconds of regen time and that requires another 3 attacks for 4.2 additional seconds. 33.6 seconds of just standing there, gormlessly, while the enemy attacks. But drop a couple 10 target AoEs and a few 5 target strikes (Or a couple big blaster attacks) and the enemy group drops in size -significantly-. Reducing that average damage per volley from 89 down to the 50s and then the 30s or 10s. Got literally any kind of HP Buff, Regen, or Healing? How about any Control Effects? Even knockback disrupts the 1.4 second cast time per volley. Increasing the total number of incoming attacks certainly does increase the speed at which you take damage. No one is debating that. But once you're in the 40% Defense, 40% Resistance range? The increase is pitiably low. Particularly if you've got -any- kind of support or damage-dealing capabilities and ESPECIALLY if you've got some kind of hard-control power which shuts down the flow of incoming damage instantaneously for an extended period during which the enemy is dispatched. DISCLAIMER: Now obviously there are a few variables unaccounted for, here. For example I didn't go through Paragon Wiki to "Create" a whole spawn of Council Soldiers using their canonical attack times and damage values per ability including bosses. But the intent was to get the gist of the function of cumulative binomial probability out there, not actively describe an entirely accurate attack chain cataloged by each second of combat. The point is that if you're actively playing the game at that level, increasing the aggro cap doesn't actually increase the game's difficulty by a significant degree. At least not until you're grabbing 5-8 spawns of enemies at a time... But decent support and builds render even -that- issue moot, since it's possible to max out both Defense -and- Resistance to specific attacks on multiple character builds and gain healing in the process which would simply become the "Farmer's Build" or "Farmer's Team" for the extreme version.

Honestly... the more I think about it, removing Aggro caps -reduces- difficulty. Because the Tank can tank everything. What do you need a second tank for? If the blaster accidentally tags a second group the Tank can aggro them both instead of having the rest of the team try to deal with the second group while the tank holds off the first. Or the third spawn. Or the fifth. Right now the only thing keeping that from happening is the aggro cap, which makes room for multiple tanky types on the same team. 'Cause you can use more than one (unless you're fighting a single enemy like an AV) Right now you have to actually do things with some level of finesse to avoid the tank being fully aggroed and the rest of the team drawing adds or ambushes resulting in wipes... without aggro caps? The tank just tanks them all. It's not increased difficulty. It's lower. Yeah, the tank will take marginally more damage than if they were only tanking a single group, But the Support only has to heal that tank. The Control only needs to worry about the enemies -around- that tank. It's... Easier. The only thing increasing the aggro cap would do is making rounding up enemies for the slaughter faster, and safer.

Soft cap is no longer considered the "high end" of builds. Specifically because people hunt enemies that they are soft capped against. That's why Council farming at most level ranges is so popular. and while increasing the total number of enemies attacking the player will increase the total amount of damage throughput the baseline level of damage from a given enemy will be so low compared to survivability rates as to be inconsequential. Because regeneration exists as a mechanic, respites exist as a mechanic, and damage resistance exists as a mechanic. Outside of super reflexes almost any set which grants defense also grants resistances. A modifier which comes in after defense causing a double dip of damage reduction. Someone with 50% damage resistance and 45% defense takes 5% of incoming damage. Pop an orange or two and the damage is even lower. City of Heroes combat is based on more than probabilities, primarily because it uses blank magnitudes and magnitude modifiers as a core functionality creating certainties. As to how it works: aggro caps are based on NPC AI. It ain't just programming it's programming intelligence. Waving it off like it's nothing is ridiculous. Aggro would have to be restructured in order to set it on a per character basis.

a) Doesn't work that way. b) It wouldn't increase the difficulty at all. Once you hit 45% defense the amount of incoming damage is comically low. 1/10th normal (Same as 90% damage reduction). Removing the aggro cap would mean very little with that huge a constraint on damage throughput. Particularly once you add in Incarnate Level Shifts resulting in Level-Differences to damage output. It would just result in the old "Herd 'em Up" style gameplay where everyone who isn't the tank has to sit by the door twiddling their thumbs for 20 minutes while he rounds up every enemy on the map and brings them to the entrance for mass slaughter.

You know what's even -better- than going group to group? Two tanky-type characters rounding up separate squads of potential murder victims while the support frantically tries to keep them both standing pre-IOs. I freaking -love- the chaotic enjoyment of that. Especially with DPS bouncing between the two groups trying to whittle them down!

Every one of those characters you described would be better described as a "Blaster" than a "Sniper". Especially since the majority of them (Jonah, Dredd, Rocket, Bastion, Cable, arguably Bluebird and Deadpool) don't bother with Stealth 9 times out of 10 and prefer just shooting whoever they're after. MAYBE a "Sentinel" for Dredd and War Machine. The rest all get into melee and punch people. Or stab them. Deadpool could even arguably be called a stalker or a scrapper with the "Guns" Power Pool. I just don't think there's enough narrative support for this archetype. And gameplay differences would be minimal, as well, compared to a Blaster who already gets multiple control powers in their secondary.

Turns out my cell phone just hates me. Took it out instantly with my laptop once I got home.

More lukewarm than anything... I kind of hate myself for making that joke.

For some reason I cannot get rid of this quote... I still stand by the Operative as a very well-designed class overall. I would love to see it implemented.

.... I feel sheepish. Yeah. What Siolfir said. That said, a defense/resistance bonus in melee as an inherent seems a bit -too- strong in my opinion. I get that it could be "A little bit", but this is an AT concept that would thrive in melee, and since damage bonuses have a cap, they'd no longer gain the ranged benefit of their inherent if hanging out with a Kinetics character. So you'd just become another melee character with bonuses to def/res as an inherent and be blasting people at point blank range once you got into the higher levels/had buffers hanging around.

It would require extra lines for each and every power in every Primary. Like a Scrapper having "Additional Fire Damage" coded into every single primary attack just in case they grab the fire build up.

That's an interesting idea... allow me to make a counter suggestion: A pair of passive auras for 2 parts of a 4-part inherent. One pulses to 90ft, one pulses to 20ft. The one which pulses to 90ft grants one stack of "Meleetastic!" per enemy hit. The second inherent at 20ft pulses and removes one stack of "Meleetastic!" and grants one stack of "Shoot 'em!" per enemy hit. Both Meleetastic! and Shoot 'em! have a maximum of 5 stacks. Each melee attack in the Assault Primary gets tagged with a new inherent effect that each stack of "Meleetastic!" grants a bit of extra damage per stack (Let's say 10% per, scaling with enhancements). Each ranged attack in the Assault Primary gets tagged with the new inherent effect that each stack of "Shoot 'em!" grants a bit of extra damage per stack (Let's say 8% per, scaling with enhancements). Having the "Short Range" aura remove 1 stack of Meleetastic means it'll strip away characters in the short range aura who are also tagged by the "Long Range" aura.