Steampunkette

Time for Blasters to get into EVEN MOAR repel hijinx! Gravity Pulse: Use the Quick Strike from Kinetic Melee animation for a minor damage single target ranged attack with a chance to knockdown. Smash/Nrg Lift: Straight from Gravity Control. Smash Gravity Wave: Repulsing Torrent from Kinetic Melee with Knockup instead of Knockback. Smash/Nrg Propel: Straight from Gravity Control, increase the damage to High. Smash Power Build Up: For more Knock/Repel fun and the usual ToHit/Dam buff of a Build Up. Gravity Well: Body Blow from Kinetic Melee animation. Ground Targeted -Repel pet. Just slowly pulls enemies in the area toward the center and reduces their movement rate with a minor DoT. Smash/Nrg Implosion: Burst from Kinetic Melee animation, the AoE graphics appear on the target. All enemies in the area take moderate damage and get a massive -Repel and knockdown effect to yank them to the center of the effect. High Smash/Nrg. Reverse Gravity: PBAoE Knockup with Lift's Animations. High Smash/Nrg. Graviton Bomb: Targeted extreme damage attack using the Concentrated Strike from Kinetic Melee animation. Affected targets are hit with a massive knockup and a -Repel toward the center like a massively more powerful version of Implosion. Smash/Nrg. A fairly survivable and AoE heavy Blaster Set which launches enemies up into the air a ton, and occasionally flings them haphazardly around the battlefield by yanking them around horizontally.

You can use the fly pose animations through the normal "/e flypose#" text entry. You can also choose to customize Hover's animation in a drop-down to make it the normal Fly animation... and then use the Flypose Emotes anyway. This is all information that can be found in the Beta Forum.

Your Defender could also slot "Aggravation" and play tank for my Sentinel if you wanted to. Sooo... this is -clearly- a Nemesis Plot.

I want a new Targeted AoE Damage IO Set with a Unique IO for it's 6th slot. We can call the set "Thrill Seeker". That Unique IO will pop a 250% Taunt off on every target hit by the Attack that it is slotted into. Not enough to steal aggro off a character built to taunt, but enough to protect a squishy friend, maybe. I also want a new Ranged Damage IO Set with a Unique IO for it's 6th Slot. We can call it "Aggravation". That Unique IO will pop a 250% Taunt off on any target hit by the Attack that it is slotted into. Not enough to steal aggro off a character built to taunt, but enough to protect a squishy friend, maybe. It'd be great to have a Melee Damage IO Set with a Unique IO for it's 6th Slot. We can call it "Nuisance". That Unique IO will pop a 250% Taunt off on any target hit by the Attack that it is slotted into. Not enough to steal aggro off a character built to taunt, but enough to protect a squishy friend, maybe. You get the idea. And yeah. It wouldn't strip aggro off a Brute or Tanker, or a Scrapper who is actively using their powerset's taunt. It's not -meant- to. But on a team where the Sentinel is the only character running around with a Taunt-Effect automatically going off, the Sentinel would be drawing in more aggro than the Defender. Or the Scrapper. Or the Arachnos Widow. Similarly, the Arachnos Widow or the Dominator who has their positionals Softcapped and decent quantities of Resistance might wanna play "Tank" for their team of Squishies and slot a few. Or maybe they're on a Smosh team at +4x8 rushing around in smaller groups to clear maps faster and while the Brutes are rushing groups on their own the (Insert Archetype Here) wants to play Tank for the Support/Control character they're map-clearing with. Using this IO they could. Especially useful for duos and other "Small Team Formats" for when you don't want/have an actual tanky character in the small-team. Does that make more sense?

I was thinking vice versa, myself! Push at start, then pull with the pop-up tray option.

Sav/Shield/SJ. TRIPLE TELENUKES. Toss in your Judgement annnnd... Open with Savage Leap, hit a hard target with Assassin's Strike and then Hemmorhage to spend stacks. Shield Charge. Build stacks to use Rending Flurry for the larger AoE. SJ Telenuke on runners as a way to do quick chase and finish off the spawn. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Taunt Aura is nice and all? But enemies who are taunted -still- run, sometimes. It just has to do with their particular AI. You can make it less of a big thing by using lots of scripted spawns (Bosses, Patrols, Etc) that allow you to directly alter the escape AI conditions.

So... there are some issues, here. City of Heroes registers damage by the power individually within the power table. It does the lookup, fires off the values, and goes from there. But there is no "Convert" button for the engine to play with. Currently there are only a handful of powers which change based on circumstances. And those powers generally do so in one of two ways: Flagging Power Values and Flagging Lookup. Flagging Lookup works for things like Titan Weapons. When the lookup protocol is triggered it looks up the power based on a flag for Momentum. If momentum is flagged it looks up the "Fast" version of the power, and if momentum is not flagged it looks up the "Normal" version of the power. This requires you to have two separate powers within the system for each power with a flagged lookup version. You essentially "Need" this function for anything that changes cast times or other values that aren't explicitly related to the power's damage/control values. Flagging Power Values works for things like Assassin's Strike, Dual Pistols, and Street Justice. Rather than having a separate table of power variations, the power itself contains a series of flagging conditions. It's also why every Scrapper Attack Power has a "Fiery Embrace" value tacked onto it, even if you don't use Fire Armor. In this version, the lookup takes the values off of the individual power to find out how much (More) damage to deal and which types based on whether Cryo Ammo or Fiery Embrace are active. This is also how Overpower, Domination, and Bio Armor function. For this Incarnate Genesis to work, you would have to put flags into every power, flag every lookup with more powers, or create the damage conversion function. The Power Value method would involve going over every attack power in the game to add 36 new "If X then Y" functions to each and every one of them to cover your 36 options. The Lookup method would involve making 36 copies of every attack power in the game, each with it's own "Genesis Damage" values tied to them to cover your 36 options. The last option would be a big undertaking and involve forcing the engine to use a new logic routine. HUGE investment for this one. But you're right that it wouldn't significantly impact overall balance!

I've got Aim and Build Up both 5-slotted with Gaussians for recharge, mostly, and the proc is in Aim for a 17% Chance. I dropped Tactics for Maneuvers so I could add an LotG recharge in. If I aim+bu and Gaussian's procs I wind up with 418% damage, which is very nice and makes my Psychic Wail hit for 1300/target. More if I have some Defiance stacks up.

To make my weird decision, here, a bit more translucent: I'm trying to build a Blaster that is -just- a Blaster at level 50. She'll be working with a team of "Lower Tier" characters, narratively speaking, and we're hoping to at least somewhat retain our team roles as we go forward, rather than everyone becoming perfect tank-mages that all solo +4/x8 content. I'm trying to find a slotting strategy that just makes me "More Pew Pew".

It's not that I actively -avoided- Defense set bonuses, @parabola ... It's that I avoided Defense Powers. In addition to most of my primary/secondary I grabbed Hasten, Hover, Fly, Assault, and Tactics (For when I need a little +ToHit or Perception). And my Epic Pool was Force Mastery. For 6-slotted Repulsion Field (I love being 50 and yeeting level 1 NPCs into the stratosphere like 'Team Rocket's Blasting Off Agaaaaaain!") grabbed Repulsion Bomb, Temp Invuln, and Force of Nature just 'cause I dunno what else to grab at high end when I'm not targeting Defensiveness. I actually don't have my final power selected. Suppose I could grab Maneuvers and slot LotG in it. Dropped Tactics, Repulsion Bomb, Temp invuln, and FoN to grab the Fighting Pool to drop a KB protection into Tough, a LotG in Weave and Maneuvers... Then grabbed Vengeance as my final power for another LotG. @nebberyeah... I get that. Not sure how you could get to 73.5%. I'm bucking up against a wall at around 50% with Assault active...

I think when the Devs state that it makes Repel more useful I think they mean as a Devkit Function. As in something they can apply to -new- powersets. Like Wind Control, for example. Or some sort of Gravity Melee that allows you to yank people into melee with you by making a massively strong -Repel or +Draw effect (how ever it gets phrased). That said... It -would- be a pretty cool increase in functionality for powers like Black Hole or Telekinesis. I think it'd be amazing to have a TK Popup Tray for Mind Controllers to choose whether to draw TK enemies closer or push them away by activating a secondary toggle which makes the power's function swap!

So I had this wild idea to put together a Psi/Mental Blaster and focus all of her slotting efforts into constant increased damage values and faster recharge times. With Assault on (Very important to note that, I think) she winds up with a constant +50% damage and the ability to gain another 261% damage with Build Up and Aim. She's got Permahasten so she'll have permanent Drain Psyche stacks and Psychic Wail every 34 seconds. I know a lot of people swear by making their characters super survivable for soloing/farming/wild 8-man incarnate teams racing through radio mishies, and a lot of others swear by Procs because a /Kin can max out your damage buff limit for extended periods of time. But is going for a constant big boost like that and a ton of recharge viable for normal content and TFs or would I be better off aiming for Softcap Ranged/Melee?

We get that it's an April Fool's Joke... It's still actually a kinda cool suggestion, though. I feel like you'd have to either make the defense values fairly low (Since it's practically just SR but better) -or- swap them from Vectored to Typed... which could be pretty unique. Specifically, what would you think about giving them strong Lethal, Fire, and Energy defenses and modest Smashing/Cold/Negative? Toss some Psi Defense onto the Clicky Mez Protection and let it stack with itself if their recharge is high enough... You'd finally have a decent Defense Set where slotting for specific damage types would be interesting. It would also leave the Plot Armor character most vulnerable to Circle of Thorns and Skulls which would be nifty, considering the number of characters with Plot Armor who get kidnapped by those two groups...

Sentinels are cool. You know what would be cooler? Slotting a Taunt Proc IO (250% maybe?) into Fireball or Rain of Fire as a way to sort of make your Sentinel into an Off-tank. I know the Presence Power Pool Taunt exists, but if a Tanker can put enough Proc IOs into Handclap to make it go from a PBAoE Stun to one of their highest DPA attack powers... I think we could get a few Taunt-IO Uniques. It would also allow Widows, Soldiers, PBs, Warshades, Dominators, and Masterminds all pick up the mantle of "Off Tank" if they feel like they've got the slotting and survivability.

If I am 3/4 of the way through the Freaklympics arc, then gain the 1 level that puts me out of it's level range, I'm SoL on the Reward Merits. If I go through Oro, I have to go back and do all the missions leading up to where I was over, again. And while doing it I'm in "Task Force Mode" so I can't bring friends along unless they're present when I start the arc through Oro. It's a good and solid system, but setting your level on the fly would be more immediately useful going forward and keep people from missing out on rewards for effort put forward.

@Hallucinogen created "The New Outcasts on the Block" at Arc ID 19731. Level 1-54 Outcasts rising up under new leadership with Frostfire turning Hero. @Shocktacular created "Legacies Unchained (aka The Corrupted Chain) at Arc ID 21164. Level 1-54 Legacy Chain former members working together toward apocalyptic ends. @Narcotic created "The Police Radio" at Arc ID 12492. Level 1-54 alternate radio missions with more variety than the Peregrine Island offerings. @Echo's Echo created Radio Missions, too, at Arc IDs 38283 and 38284 which focus on the Destroyers (From Praetoria) as well as a new gang "The Scorpions" in a Radio Mish style format. There's lots of little things like that available.

The issue is that they literally do not have enough powers and power variety, currently, to scale to 50 without being more laughably pushovers than the Council at 50. Adding more powers and variety to the SG group would be fine, of course. But that's the reason they haven't just been set to spawn at any level without a thorough redesign of the villaingroup. That said, people make entire AE Villaingroups of upgraded street level enemies. Thanks to @Echo13 I personally have access to most of the game's low-tier supervillain groups as AE villains using player-powersets, so I can write short AE Arcs for level 50 skulls and stuff. Gonna be doing a lot of that in short order.

I unironically love this suggestion.

Suppression was added for a set of reasons. 1) The aforementioned jousting. It's still possible to "Joust" in PvE, notably by jumping in a given direction, firing a power while in the air, and landing some distance away from your opponent before the rooting of the attack animation ends. But it's far less ridiculous than it -was-. 2) To make it harder to pass through Hazard Zones without interacting with mobs. Not "Impossible", obviously, as Fly and Teleport show, and as any speedster worth their salt can zip around most NPC groups without getting caught. But if you got tagged suppression would kick in and you'd have to fight. Remember, this was back before a bunch of "Mission Teleporter" type powers existed and you used to see dozens of players moving through the Hollows to go fight Atta because Hollows Teams were the "fast-leveling" meta. 3) In PREPARATION for larger scale PvP than the Arena. With CoV on the horizon, the Devs knew they'd be adding PvP Zones for hero and villain joint use. They also knew how incredibly unsatisfying it would be to be trying to fight someone and then have them zip off your screen... -especially- if you also met the criteria for the fourth reason. 4) Player Computer Disparity. City of Heroes had it's bar for entry as -low- as possible, to try and get as many potential players as possible (Which why it wasn't as pretty as other games released around the same time for solo players or small groups of people playing together). Travel Powers could result in such players winding up rubber banding or otherwise dealing with huge gouts of lag in combats as their slow computer tried to keep up with everything happening and the player's location plus the particle effects. Travel Suppressions reduced the distance a character could travel, which reduced the rubberbanding issues. Number 4 on the list is arguably the most important reason to apply travel suppression, back then. But if it were openly acknowledged it would likely result in bullying of people without access to more powerful computers and flame wars about how people shouldn't play if they can't afford X, Y, or Z computer upgrades.

Slightly different angle: What about creating multiple "Teams" of different levels of heroes? You could have the 35s/38s as your group's "Top Tier" Heroes. But then also have some 22s/25s as a lower-end band of heroes who focus on Protecting the City rather than Global Scale threats. Your Batman or The Question type characters who occasionally get pulled into the World-Event RP type stuff. Could take it a step forward and also have a Teens Team where everyone is under level 20 and focused on street-crime. That way your World-Class team can sometimes drop down to deal with Gangland Threats and pull their punches while still looking like absolute badasses, to help reinforce the illusion of being particularly powerful (But not Cosmic Level) heroes. ... also the AE Exists, so you could make level 20ish content that the 30s and the Teens both join up on so it feels like everyone is stepping up to handle a particularly dangerous, but not massive scale, threat as a single group. You could even use the in-game SG Ranks to set up multiple in-character teams like that, and actively graduate characters to higher level content... or depower characters (Reroll) and have them drop to the lower level teams. A Single SG Coalition, basically, like the JLA. A bunch of heroes banding together to combine resources and information, but still largely working on things of their particular scale and interest.

I have now, finally, completed both arcs. Holy heck they were amazing. Seriously, a level of quality equal to or greater than the late-game Paragon Studios offerings. I beg you of this: Make the Freakloks and upgraded Vahzilok available for use in the AE, add them to the Newspaper/Radio missions, and let us enjoy the new hotness outside of those arcs. Let us take what you created and make more content with it, because they're freaking COOL.

Improving the enemy's AI -flatly- means more scripting of AI. Handing a robot designed to swing a hammer an axe to change the job it can do does not change it's AI. It's still just mechanically swinging the heavy end toward the target so long as XY and Z parameters are met. This isn't Smarter AI it's just a new tool. As to the Girlfriends from Hell and Chi Masters and stuff: You're not talking about adding some more damaging/summoning powers. You're talking about giving them access to strategy-changing abilities. When you face a Chi Master or two in a pack of the Olympic Whirling Hands Team you're not making a significant tactical restructuring in place of a couple of Ancestor Spirits. It's still just incoming damage from a Lieutenant. Have that Chi-Master teleport the party's support character into the middle of that Whirling Hands Team to get stunlocked to death and you're actually forcing a tactical change. And that tactical change is: Spike the Teleporter first, then clean up the rest. At best you're basically adding a Sapper to a spawn. Not in direct function (Fuck Sappers, obviously) but in targeting priority. And creating a new group based on these powers and tactical changes means pretty much the same thing, unless most if not all of the members of the group can use the new tactic to change how things play out. But that still means players have to specifically seek out missions with -that- villaingroup to get the marginally more interesting but not significantly more difficult fight. Also the Splats thing is another "More interesting not more difficult" thing, though I didn't really express that, before. Because -all- of this still relies on the same base-game system where powers have to hit to have an effect and players who are softcapped or teleport resistant or whatever else can just ignore the new special interesting mechanics you're putting out and smack things around. Seriously. Paragon has fires and if you're 90% Fire Resistant or 45% softcapped you can stand in it and not a single Empath will shout over Ventrilo "-50 DKP For standing in the fire!" 'cause it misses.

None of what you've described requires "Smarter AI". It's just making new NPCs. Access to more player-style powers? I'm down. I like the taunts and the force-taunts the ghouls do. Teleport Foe would be interesting... especially with Fold Space on the board. But then you're just creating new NPCs and most likely NPC groups. If you drop some Teleporters and Taunt-Forcers into the Council as it stands, players will just prioritize -that- target and nothing else will change. You'd also have to mess around with the narratives of those groups to add them in. So making new groups is more immediately engaging for them . But that doesn't really "Increase Difficulty". That just creates another group that you avoid, like Invulns avoiding the Carnies and most everyone avoiding the Circle of Thorns for most of their leveling career. I'm absolutely down for more NPC groups. 100% down for more interesting NPC powerset options. I'm even down for revamping the extant villaingroups to make them more interesting, too... But at the end of the day? A Judgement Fireball and a Blaster Tier 9 don't care who the Blaster is targeting as long as there's other enemies nearby, 'cause those things are addressed "To whomever it may concern". To actually increase the difficulty in the light of the sheer huge numbers players are able to access pretty much requires increasing the numbers the NPCs are working with. Otherwise all the Teleport Foe powers will just miss 'cause Softcap, y'know?

"Mechanics" is super nebulous as a term... and would include increasing enemy levels above player levels to bring the purple patch back into play for 50s. As to "Adjusting the Purple Patch"... no. The idea is to use it to create higher difficulty. Adjusting it to make it easier would be counterproductive. The idea is that if people want to play a -8 relative to the content for bragging rights they'd be able to. But there'd be no Bridgers in this scenario, 'cause super-sidekicking already exists. When it comes to "Smarter AI" there are 3 big problems: 1) Developing smarter AI requires a huge investment of knowledge and effort. 2) The Paragon Studios Devs -created- better AI and the result was massive frustration as the NPCs spread out to avoid AoE, ducked behind walls for LoS fighting, etc. 3) AI is irrelevant once Immobilizes and taunts start flying 'cause then the mob is stuck and unable to attack anyone but the tank, negating any effort creating AI improvements. And one little one: 4) Smarter AI generally means a change in tactics gets you right back to where you started. The new AI scatters under AoE? Hit 'em with an AoE Control first to stop that, then kill as normal. Now by "Mechanics" what are you referring to? If you're talking about increasing numbers the Purple Patch is just a way to do that with relatively lower dev time investment, since it means updating a series of spreadsheets and call tables with NPC levels going up to 60. If you're talking about WoW "Floor Circles of Doom" you're more likely to get pushback from the various players of the game who dislike WoW style Dungeon/Raid Mechanics which are largely a sort of meta-mechanic.

It does not matter how great your build is with soft capping and damage resistance at 90%. Once an enemy is six levels higher than you, or further, it's damages multiplied both by its increased level and by the level difference between you and it. Further its accuracy is magnified while yours is significantly hampered. To get an idea of how this would work in play get yourself to level 40 on some brute, scrapper, or tanker. Use whatever means are required to maximize your defensive abilities. Perhaps by four purple inspirations and several orange ones. Then pop enough of them to get yourself to 45% defense and 90% damage resistance, 85% if you are a scrapper. Then rush into a group of level 50 enemies while you are level 40. You will die. You might be able to take out a few of the minions before you die. Normally your base to hit chance on an equal level enemy is 75%. Against enemies who are 10 levels above your level your base chance to hit is around 5%. If you manage to leverage 300% accuracy out of your build you'll wind up with a 15% chance to hit your target. Similarly they will have a significantly higher chance of hitting you even through your soft cap defenses. Because the requirements for a soft cap against a target much higher level than you are significantly higher thanks to the inherent to hit buffs that they receive based on their increased level relative to you. The reason that I say it might make farming marginally more effective is that if you get a good team together with enough buffs you might be able to clear a map in around the same time you've normally would at no more than plus six to your actual level. The drop rates would likely be higher but the kill time would be much longer under most circumstances. https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Purple_Patch Just linking the purple patch here for everyone's edification and to remind them that this purple patch is separate from NPC rank. So an arch villain who is much higher level than you is additional magnitudes more difficult.