Steampunkette

Cool. We can probably make a Badge for that and have the badge create an account-wide unlock. No sweat. Cannot be done. Diminishing Returns are a function of Enhancements, not character stats. Either everyone gets diminishing returns or no one does. The Secondary Inherent is not plausible. Inherents are tied to the archetype, not a powerset choice. Do make it "Tied to the Powerset" they'd need to make a new copy of every single powerset and cause the first 2 powers in that powerset to give mutually exclusive autopowers mimicing the inherent of a different archetype. (And for Controllers, Scrappers, and Stalkers that means hard-coding the 'crit chance' into every power in the powerset) And you could not do Fury or Domination. Both of those inherents are actually something like 5-6 different "Powers" working in conjunction behind the scenes. Cannot be done. You could create an archetype which functionally has access to any powersets in it's primary or secondary, and even cause some of them to be mutually exclusive (No Bio Armor/Shield Defense Incarnates, for example). But HP, Inherents, Threat Mods, Damage Caps, Damage Scalars, and everything else are functions of Archetypes, not powersets. To even attempt it you'd need to rewrite how the game understands character templates, inherents, and powersets. At that point you'd just be making a new game. Cannot be done. Respecs don't work that way. To make them work that way would require an amount of work similar to rewriting how the game understands character templates. It's too late to /jranger 'cause I spent all this time writing why it wouldn't work... but I still feel pretty /jranger in my heart of hearts!

Or nix the Sci-Fi specific angle and use the Beam Rifle Blasts out of the tip of whatever sword gets set up for the powers. Choose the Sci-Fi swords for laser-awesome or go with, like, the Fantasy Swords and wield a magic blade that shoots energy beams.

Those were typically guns on the end of a broad-headed boar-hunting spear. You did NOT want to get into Sword/Dagger range with a boar! You used Spears and Horses to keep your sensitive fleshy bits away from the goring tusks. And, again, it was "Stab, then pull the cord to fire the gun"

Yup yup! A Single barrel along the blade was the typical "Gunblade" method. Though, generally, it was more common on Daggers than swords. Mainly because the flex in a given blade could cause problems in trajectory. The intention of the weapon was not to have a ranged weapon while holding a melee weapon, after all. No, thanks to the short barrel and relatively high inaccuracy of your average lead ball, the intent was to stab someone with the blade and then pull the trigger.

What about keeping the pistols at the angles they are (The gunblades you refer to) and giving the set Claw Melee attacks? The punchy style attacks would work well enough as "Katar Punches" That said... I'd vastly prefer to see the "Gun and Sword" powerset given it's own unique powers with unique animations that keep both weapons out. Compete with it's own "Draw" animations, but also a Fencing style. Things like a Lunge attack for a melee ST or Cone where you stab through several people in a big dramatic forward motion with increased range over typical melee attacks. Or a Stab and Shot power where you stab them AND shoot them in the same animation, point blank type stuff. I just think it'd be more interesting.

Change the weapon to the Vanguard Laser Katana and it's still a Katana. Change the name from "The Lotus Drops" to "Jumpy Spin Strike" and it's still very clearly the same stylized motion. There's also the issue of a Two handed Rifle and a Two handed Sword. Pistol/Sword works in a dynamic combat 'cause you can dual-wield them, one-handed each. But for the Katana, even with no redraw, you're conceptually dropping or slinging the big bulky laser gun to pull out the two-handed sword, then sheathing the two-handed sword to pull out the big bulky laser gun. It just seems too cumbersome, visually, even if we can avoid the mechanical lag. I'd much rather see a Sword/Pistol or even a Laser-Pistol/Sword set, I think. Even with the massive animation barrier.

Sure...? Could even do a "Jumpshot" where your character charges up a big burst attack and then aims it at their feet, leaps into the air, and fires downward to make the blast corruscate across the ground to zap nearby enemies. There's lots of options. I'm just saying there are better options than trying to thematically shoehorn in a katana.

Sword and Pistol would be great for a ton of concepts... but would require an entire suite of animations. That said... I really dislike the "Beam Rifle + Katana" style. It doesn't make any sense because there's no conceptual link between Sci-Fi Laser Rifle and Feudal Japanese Sword. I really feel like Bayonet attacks make a lot more sense. Possibly with a "Charged up" FX around the barrel of the weapon like it's 'about' to fire off an attack but it's just a ball of energy you're stabbing into people.

Disagree: We need MOAR. Change it to add MOAR. MOAR HALLOWEEN Like... Maybe set up alternative turn-ins for Costume Salvage. Or add some new "Person in a Halloween Costume" NPCs to the Trick or Treating. It'd be awesome if we hit a door to ToT and a kid came out the door as an ally and was under attack by the monsters and we had to save the kid! Or, like, spawns of randomly wandering children in costumes just patrolling around Kallisti Wharf. Is there any way to make a TINY DOPPLEGANGER? I'd -love- to do a Halloween Tip Mission where you rescue a kid dressed up like your character from bullies or supervillains using them as bait to lure you into a deathtrap? Could call the kid "Biggest Fan"

You can't keep the 3 attacks in the secondary in part because they're part of the thematic assault sets. E.G. Beast Mastery's Swarm, Ravens, and Eagle are all part of the Savage Assault set. If you do Assault/Pets they'll have to go. So... Bodyguard Mode with a full compliment of pets is about equivalent to having 75% Damage Resistance to all types at all times. Assuming you maintain the aggro. Rather than putting Armors into the secondary, might I suggest Support and/or Controls? Or perhaps the Mez Protection, Taunt, and Build Up? Regardless of what is chosen, this character's damage modifiers for Melee and Range would have to be pretty darned low. The NPCs summoned by the Pet Sets have their own internal values that don't change based on any Scalar tied to the Player Character.

I prefer the night. Though, honestly, if we could slow down the Day/Night Cycle so each day and night lasts longer that would also be great. As it stands, 1 hour has 2 in-game day/night cycles in it. You get 15 minutes of day, 15 minutes of night, 15 minutes of day, 15 minutes of night. Gimme a couple hours of each, instead, year-round. Though we'd have to change how certain spawns (Mostly ghosts and Crotoa) are handled. Halloween should still be all-night 'cause it's about being spoopy. But the Day/Night Cycle should get a retooling!

That's less 'QoL' and more 'Rebalance for a specific thing' Hostages are just NPCs. They're character models like the people who surround them tied to an AI like the people who surround them. MAYBE there could be a sound tied to the "Cower" emote, but then every cowering PC and NPC would make the exact same noise ad nauseum. The accuracy or whatever's fine, but the accolade wouldn't take more than a couple hours of actual play to complete and then there's nothing, really? Seems like a bit of effort (Putting in all the tags and calls, art for the badge, updating the tables, and creating the granted power) for not much result... There's always going to be a specific contingent of players who scream bloody murder if there's anything to lure 'Innocent' players into PvP zones so they can get ganked. These players as silly ninnies. No way to make it function. Cast Time is baked into the power, itself. Any time you see a power change animation time (Like Fast Snipes and Assassin's Strikes, or Momentum) what you're actually seeing is the engine call a different power from the standard one and setting it of in it's place. We'd need a different power call for -every- power at -every- possible level of reduction for that kind of thing to work. Targeting is baked into the power. You'd have the same problem as the "Cast Time Reduction" setup. That's beside the balancing points, of course. There's no function in the game engine for Thorns. It would require at -least-: 1) A Monitor checking how much damage you've taken every 0.1 seconds (At -most-). 2) A Monitor determining the source of each point of damage taken every 0.1 seconds (At -most-). 3) A Calculation to determine resulting values (1% of X = Y) 4) A power-call with the appropriate damage value that could be indexed and would need to cover every possible damage value. 5) NPC AI deep enough to target based on Damage Source. 6) A Pseudopet to cast the power-call on the appropriate damage source. Debatable. Clipping and animation issues are the big reasons, but hey if the new Devs are willing to make the Geosets I'm down for it! This isn't QoL but a balance concern. This is another balance concern. Cannot be done. The engine doesn't track how long you hold down a key. It can't, really. There's also the fact that the game is built around recharge times as a balance point and this would kind of circumvent that by increasing damage within the same recharge times. I think the "Not QoL" suggestions should all get their own threads to discuss them. They're much larger concerns than fit in a list of quibbles.

Absolute Mitigation/Passive Mitigation It would be slow-going and basically unkillable.

Only on the first costume slot. All other costume slots work like normal, save the final costume slot. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Costumes#Soldiers_of_Arachnos It's not just a matter of spaghetti, it's a matter of attachment points. The 'Back Spider' thing for Widows and Soldiers that looks like an ant wrapping it's legs around you? It goes into a custom spine slot that isn't normally accessible. Even the "Back" details like the Cybernetic Spine costume piece don't actually use the same attachment point. I think it's -technically- considered a form of Jacket because it'd designed to deform with breathing instead of remaining rigid. Suffice it to say: The Live Devs originally intended to make the Arachnos Costume Bits available to VEATs in -all- costume slots. But when they found out it was't feasible in a Money/Time/Result sense to try and force it to work, they settled for the single costume slot setup.

Not exactly... The odds of getting 10% in 1 roll is one in 10, but the rolls are each independent, rather than linked. So while the odds of getting 1 on a d10 rolled 10 times -seem- like 10% x 10 = 1, but it's actually closer to 66%. https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/odds Just fill out the first and second spaces with 1 and 9 respectively. You can also hit "Advanced" to see more possibilities. Each roll is independent but we're looking at total chances of missing in a row. A streak, essentially, which at 10 rolls comes out to 34%. While each roll has a 10% chance to hit, it doesn't work out to a 1 in 10 being 100% chance of getting a 1. Once you get to about 3 checks in a row the odds start looking more 40/60 of rolling a streak-breaker. And since you're essentially dealing with 10 checks that's anywhere from 1 in a row to 10 in a row. You'll still get at least one almost every time, no doubt. But often enough you'll get 3. And here and there you'll throw a Whirling Hands and win the lotto to get 5. The only thing this encourages you to do is start a fight with a Whirling Hands, see how many stacks you get, use Barrage and EP to build up a couple stacks, and then use Build Up when you've got 5 stacks for the bigger hits or to toss ET or TF for the added AoE to clear mobs faster. But if you'd feel more comfortable with a 15-20% chance I wouldn't say "No"

WH has a target cap of 10, and it's not -that- hard to saturate. Especially for Tankers in the coming update... 10% over 10 attempts you've got high odds of getting at least 3 stacks in a given cast. Though I did mean to add Bone Smasher to the roster of Residual Energy builders. That said: No reason not to start the fight with the big hitters. They'll recharge at some point while you're building stacks or after you've got stacks built. As far as Momentum... That would require having a separate power built for every "Fast" attack in the powerset. That's how Momentum works, by doubling the amount of behind the scenes effort. You can't change a power's attack speed or animation on the fly, it's got to be baked into the individual power.

I think an exploding arrow aimed at the ground would work just fine, sure. Or a group of them Rain of Arrows style that places a mess of Trip Mine equivalents down, each one with a knock-up effect. How about instead of "Fistful of Anchoring Arrows" we do "Pinning Shots" with the character Pinning the enemies to the ground with Arrows? Still the same animation, but less "It's a ball and chain arrow!" I think the Dampening Field Arrow could work if it functioned -primarily- as a Sleep with a Debuff tied to it. But how about instead of Neural Amplifier Arrow we just do a straight up -attack- power? This powerset lacks a pet, so having a couple of DPS powers makes sense.

You're suggesting as a way to offset the self-harm of Energy Transfer? .... seems like a reasonable way to go. At least potentially.

You could do it, I'm fairly certain... But it would be a bad idea. For starters it would have minimal effects on certain content and -massive- effects on other content (Since most basic NPCs don't have much regen or time to regen in, but AVs regen 100hp/second) It would also affect some builds significantly more than others. Regen Scrappers/Stalkers/Brutes would be far more affected by a -Regen effect than, say, an Invuln user. And stopping people from Self-Healing would also impact those groups more than others, as well as Bio Armor characters and Ninjitsu stalkers/scrappers/blasters/sentinels.

Okay, so... EM can't be the mondo ST damage dealer that it used to be. There's simply no way to make that a reasonable choice without completely screwing over PvP balance thanks to it's tendency towards one-on-one combat and Spike-Centric damage shutting people down as quickly as possible. Giving it KB on top of it's Stuns as a way to offset the DPS loss is also not really much of an option. Giving it AoE attacks requires a bit of a stretch of the Cottage Rule and results in a fair amount of pushback, particularly with the new AoE Increase that Tankers will be getting. So how about we give the set a Gimmick? This way, we keep them largely focused on ST attacks, but allow them to throw out more AoE once in a while, or to temporarily heighten their ST attacks. Fighting AVs this would have very little impact, since the AoE increase from Total Focus or Energy Transfer wouldn't have secondary targets to hit, typically, while the Build Up buff would only increase the build up damage by a single target struck by the Knockdown Effect. The effect in PvP would be similar, but Stun's benefits would be more useful, though only once (Thanks to the PvP control resistance rules) and only if the Energy Melee character had 5 stacks before firing off the big mag stun.

Yeah... I think the biggest benefit of the MSR LFG Queue is that you can do it from Crotoa or Kallisti or some other zone where there's a higher cap with less people doing content in the zone and everyone can get together to hit the button to go in, instead of juggling RWZ1 and 2.

Arrow control is a fine idea, but one with a straight buff and a straight debuff with a chance to sleep seems a little... awkward. Trick Arrow as it stands is a fairly controlly Support set, so I really feel as though it should be pretty much solid control for stacking purposes. Especially since a Strategic Arrow/Empathy Controller would get 2 AoE Regen and 2 AoE Recovery buffs, essentially providing endless endurance and big regen. I also think some of the individual powers, like Gravity Inversion Arrow, are a bit on the weird side, even for a comic book superhero game.

Looks great to me! /Signed

Turn off your XP. Or just buy the accuracy booster. Or some Inspirations.

I like the concept of your sets, but I feel like you're putting too much power into the tier 1 defensive power. I get that defenses are built as sieves and you're supposed to get a variety of powers to cover the various damage types, but I still feel like sticking them with S/L/(Set Type) for resistances and typed defenses or Ranged/AoE for Positional defenses is the better path to go. It gives them some durability towards the most common damage types, plus one special type (or some common vectors) but doesn't quite give them enough to make them melee-happy characters. At least 'til the EPPs. I've gotta say, though, I LOVE that you're setting up different placate structures. PBAoE, TAoE, and Cones are the kind of variety placates deserve! Particularly with an AT that uses ranged attacks rather than exclusively melee ones.