Steampunkette

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.

I am certain that you believe that, Replacement. But on the Live Forums I pushed for a "Reverse Dominator" back before I got into an understanding of Control and Defense powersets both being straight mitigation sets. Castle (Floyd Grubb) expressed to me the reasoning behind keeping Control a primary powerset. That it could never truly work as a secondary. Originally, Blasters were meant to be Ranged/Control, but either it was significantly weak when the controls were tuned down or OP when the controls were tuned up. The Manipulation powerset sprang out of that desire. It's also why you see no one else with Manipulation powersets. It's just -such- a niche powerset type built to key into an incredibly specific design philosophy. As to Blaster melee multipliers: I literally just explained it. They have strong melee damage and limited melee attack power availability so they can handle bosses, EBs, and AVs with some high damage melee since their control powers will not function on them without significant stacking from allies. For Brutes it has to do with them being able to function as gameplay Tanks since the Mastermind Tanking concept went largely underutilized by the playerbase through testing and was ultimately found to be largely flawed by the relatively low damage a Mastermind put out, himself, for aggro-draw and Bodyguard damage spread. And Dominators? It has to do with the way they gained domination. It used to be Domination gave them a flat bonus to damage, but that got pulled and placed into their baseline damage as a balancing metric once people started routinely permadomming so that newer dominator players, or players who didn't focus on global recharge, wouldn't be completely left in the dust. As to correlation: No. I'm talking about a flat understanding of gameplay mechanics. Because while Brutes have a 90% resistance cap, they're not going to achieve it outside of Tier 9 abilities, serious team-buffing, or a shitload of IOs. RNG layered upon RNG is a good way to make people hate playing an archetype, unfortunately.

Secondary Control cannot function. Control is a form of absolute mitigation. When someone is controlled there's a binary on whether they're "Held" or not. Or stunned or whatever else. Debuffs to speed, HP, Regen, Etc aren't controls. They're debuffs. Because Control is binary and NPCs have specific set threshholds you cannot reduce the Magnitudes of Control powers like you can with Debuffs. Which is why Corruptor Debuffs are less effective than Defender debuffs, but still -effective-. It's also why Tankers do less damage than Scrappers with the same powers. The magnitudes of damage are reduced. This can be done because their power effects are relative rather than absolute. You could reduce the -duration- of the controls... But due to the core function of control being magnitude stacking for bosses and other powerful NPCs, doing so renders a Support/Control character largely defenseless against an EB/AV unless they're a Phantom Army control user. Control sets as we have them, today, cannot function as a Secondary. This is why we have Manipulation sets. Manipulation sets combine some low-tier control powers (Web Grenades and the like) with a few melee attacks. Why? 'Cause the Web Grenade is never going to stop an EB or AV that you wind up fighting. So those powers in the Manipulation set become nearly useless (barring control stacking from teammates). Blasters get -some- control with limited use on low end enemies (Minions, some Lieutenants) and additional high direct damage (with longer cooldowns, on average, making blappers reliant on hasten and recharge reduction) for when enemies get in their face. In short: For Secondary Control to be effective enough to have any use outside of teaming with people who have controls, it would need to be as strong as Primary Control. A Support/Control character would have Support like a Defender and Control like a Controller. Two Primary Powersets, essentially. Tangentially: This is why there is no Manipulation Primary archetype.

Your hit chance is calculated by the engine as: HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods )) Accuracy is a proportional bonus while ToHit is an absolute bonus. That is to say +40% ToHit increases your chance to hit by 40%, while +40% accuracy increases your chance to hit by 1.4 times your current chance to hit. So 10% chance to hit +40% ToHit is 50% chance to hit, 10% +40% Accuracy is 14% chance to hit. Where would you put your modifier in this calculation? You can't modify the Clamp itself, because it's a fixed value that cannot be externally altered by buffs or debuffs. And putting it anywhere else in the calculation means a multiplicative change or an external fixed value being applied to attack or defense. Without retooling how the game engine determines hits (Something hard-coded into it) you cannot implement this idea, or it's partner concept.

There are two reasons in place for the Superspeed limit being the essentially limit to speed in the game: 1) Computers in 2004 could only render objects in the distance so quickly before the rendering burden created massive lag, crashes, and in rare instances damage to hardware. 2) Servers in 2004 could only keep track of characters in X numbers of cycles per second, and if a character was not within X-Y milliseconds of where they should be they could get "Lost" which leads to rubberbanding as the server tries to correct the apparent error. Today, both personal computers and the servers are vastly more sophisticated... but the engine was written for those 2004 computers (Truth be told it was written for 1998 computers to maximize the number of players capable of playing the game and thus paying a subscription fee!) so while it's certainly possible to increase the speed cap beyond what it is, now: It will probably cause some PROBLEMS. Especially if you've got 40 super speedsters running a race through the zone for a million inf to the winner.

There are certain powers which create -fast- sapping. Or which work well to create a baseline for other powers to sap off of. But you can't throw off Power Sink once and be done sapping a group. Nor can you do it with just Short Circuit. Those powers are platforms that allow the rest of the powers to rise up and make your enemies suck wind. Or you can combine them for a one-two shutdown. And as an "Assaulter" Electro Dom, I -need- the -recovery in Electric Assault to keep my enemies bottomed out, 'cause just draining their end and calling it a day? Doesn't exactly cut the mustard. Sapping's a package deal. You get the big powers and the little ones together to fully shut down groups on the regular. It's more frantic, for me, than just playing a Control-Focused character, even though the result (Absolute Damage Mitigation) is the same. 'Cause you've got to keep an eye on which enemies are about to start recovering endurance and make sure that they don't. It's one of my favorite ways to play.

No... but so what? I mean... what situations does having flying at no continuous cost do harm outside of, say, RP? A pack of flying wolves still moves to their target and bites them. The MM can still fly through any sewer door. What situations exist where it needs to be "Toggled Off"?

@Rylas If it were a click power with a 3 minute duration it would be a Buff. Right Click the buff in your bar. Choose Cancel. No more flight.

You know, it's faster for a Dominator to just blast and melee any enemy they fight than it is to try and use controls and -then- kill them. So they should just use their damaging powers instead of trying to use controls! Am I doin' it right? Sapping is a playstyle. Like Blapping or playing a character who isn't 100% focused on dishing out damage. Repeatedly showing that it would be faster to kill enemies (Specifically minions and LTs) doesn't really have much weight when you consider that. You're also only throwing out attack powers. There's also stuff like Conductive Aura which deals no damage. Or Jolting Chain which deals little. Or Power Sink and Lightning Field. Things which sap as a primary component, but which are best paired with damage-focused powers that ALSO sap as a secondary for MAXIMUM END FUCKERY. As previously noted, upthread: Static Field + Conductive Aura shuts down the LTs/Minions, Jolting Chain finishes off their endurance at about the same time the Boss's end bottoms out. Which lets you focus your attacks on the boss without worrying about the minions and LTs, then mop everyone up when they're utterly sapped. Team up with an /Elec blaster to Power Sink and it goes even faster. Or an Elec/ Blaster to throw off Short Circuit. I continue to think "Meh" to the "Sapping needs to go!" Mindset. If you wanna add more damage to powers to bring them more in line with other sets fine. But don't kill my playstyle just 'cause you prefer a more efficient one.

@ReplacementThe suggestion was to add an AoE Foe Hold to the Group Flight power. That's not just cottage rule breaking. It's also supremely weird and borderline OP. Particularly for mez-stacking from a Control-based character. I'd be kind of leery of the Whirlwind Flurry... Or the SS Whirlwind. I feel like Whirlwind is in -such- a niche that you can't change it out with anything or combine it with anything. It either needs to be left as is (Buffed perhaps) or removed and replaced.

Easy answer to Group Fly? Make it into a click. Costs of fairly decent amount, grants 3 minutes of full speed flight. Recharges in 2 minutes. Maybe even give it a power grant with a separate action bar of a dive bomb attack. Give the dive bomb a 45 second recharge but otherwise make it burst of speed with minimal damage but a big knockdown effect.

I like your Teleport idea a ton... Speed... nnn... Not so much. While Whirlwind is rarely taken, combining it with burst of speed neither makes sense nor feels balanced. Leaping... kinda sorta almost cool with it. But both CJ and Acro are considered mandatory and chase powers, depending on AT. So it feels a bit too strong to combine them... unless we put them at Acrobatics' tier and put the double-jump at the lower level. Then I'd actually be pretty cool with it, since CJ would no longer be a Dip power. However this would make a lot of people very upset. Flight: No. Just no. Flat out no.

People don't that corrosive is weak. people complain about corrosive because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the sets abilities. Specifically the rest of the freaking set is all heal over time and this is a weird attack debuff which makes you grow a flower for a hand and is out of step with the rest of the set. You could make that argument about shock... But in either case I offer a resounding "Meh"

When TTK > TTDrain drain does something for you. It's when TTK < TTD that drain does nothing. That said: "This one power everyone but defenders is FORCED to take sucks!" is hardly a strong argument considering the number of sets where that's the case... Lemme just load up the beta and get the real numbers per power. For Defenders, obviously, since I can't check it on other classes (yet!) Tier 1) Shock: -20% End, -50% Recovery, -31% damage. The main goal of this power is CLEARLY the 31% Damage Debuff, with the End Drain and -Recovery being added bonuses. Potent added bonuses, if you intend to Sap, but hardly the main event. Tier 2) Rejuvenating Circuit: Chain Heal, no sapping involved. Tier 3) Galvanic Sentinel: I can't actually view the real numbers on Discharge, here... Tier 4) Energizing Circuit: Grants Endurance to allies. Tier 5) Faraday Cage: Resistance and End buffs along with protection to control. VERY NICE and stacks with Shock's Damage Debuff. Tier 6) Empowering Circuit: Big damage buff chain. 40% is huge. Tier 7) Defibrillate: Rez. Nothing spectacular. Tier 😎 Insulating Circuit: Some Absorb in a Chain. Tier 9) Amp Up: Big general buff So... I'm... I fail to see what the problem is, here. Shock's the only power at all that does End Drain or -Recovery for the whole set (Which is fairly weird, for an electric set, really) but it's pretty much a nifty "Nod to Electric" on top of the big damage debuff. Looking through the other tier 1 Defender Powers the only one that I found which was more directly debilitating as a debuff was Corrosive Enzymes for Nature Affinity: A power people complain about having to take even though it adds -25% Resistance on top of of the -31% damage. Is it -REALLY- just this one singular power in the whole set people are complaining over? It's a single nod to sapping that pairs Electrical Affinity pretty well with Electric Blast, but is ultimately not that important of a power to the set, overall. It is your general "Skippable Tier 1" for most builds. ... Y'all are crazy. I am eager to play an Elec/Elec Defender or Elec/Elec Controller, now.

Oh, sure. I can agree with that kind of modification. But killing Sapping in order to add -Dam or -Res or some other thing is just wrong, to me. Which is what this thread is -actually- about. The OP doesn't like the new set getting -end instead of something "More Useful"

There's actually one of the holiday temporary powers that allows you to apply the snowfall affect to nearby allies, even when you use it inside Missions or Task Forces. So there is -some- precedent for that sort of RP Power. Most of the other RP Powers could be handled through Skybox Editing, Auras, and Emotes.

Not Recharge, Recovery. If I wanted Recharge I'd have had an H at the end as -Rech.

So we should add -rec to all -end effects? Works for me! Problem solved!

Allow me to point out a few things: 1) Damage isn't an enhanceable secondary effect that locks down enemies to keep them from attacking and stacks from multiple sources to do so. 2) Any powerset is going to wipe out minions regardless of their secondary benefits within the first volley or two, rendering -Dam or -Rech or -Acc or whatever completely irrelevant really early in their 10 second duration or whatever. 3) Sapping is a playstyle, like Blapping. It's not "More Efficient" than just doing more damage, that's not the point of sapping. The point is shutting enemies down because it's fun. And the final point: 4) Having -Dam or -Acc or -Def or even -Res on an enemy "Doesn't Matter" unless it's a boss or something 'cause it'll die before that stuff -really- makes a difference by the logic you've put forward, here. So why bother to change it? Except MAYBE you could argue -Res 'cause it's just "Moar Damage" on the second shot, but if they were going to die on the second shot, anyway, it's just wasted spillover. You're still going to 1-2 shot all the minions and kill the LTs with the next shot, and AVs will resist the heck out of it even when you try to stack it, so it only "matters" on bosses (and not much) and EBs. Not every playstyle is "100% cutting edge break out the spreadsheets, boys, we're going in!" effective. And they shouldn't be.

An Electric Blaster with 3 SOs in Thunderous Blast can instantly zero out an entire spawn's Endurance in a singe slot. Bosses, Lieutenants, Minions, everyone. Or she can use Short Circuit to take out 70% in one shot. With Agility, that takes 2 Endmod Slots for Short Circuit. Ball Lightning? 15% slotted. And like most sets: It stacks with teammates. Get two Electric Characters on a team and everyone on the enemy team races to 0. I once did a trio, Elec Dom, Scrapper, and Blaster. Safest ever. There's not a single other secondary effect you can say that about. Not -one-. This is the only secondary you can: A) Reliably Slot For B) Stacks with Teammates C) Leaves the enemy Defenseless in Seconds "Lolol I can stack fire's DoT and slot for MOAR DAMAGE!" Sure. But the DoT isn't gonna render the enemy defenseless by aiming at their blue bar on a PERCENTAGE BASIS, ignoring the enemy's relative pool of End. Elec is fine the way it is.

Surge Protection is good... But I'm really coming around on Galvanic Response.