Vanden

I think it was, in fact, reduced a long time ago. They reduced the -Recharge and added a -Damage effect, since Ice Armor Tankers had to take big alpha strikes and the -Recharge alone wasn't doing anything to help with that.

Because buffs expire, and the Defender has to reapply them. The Defender might be defeated, or not in the same part of the map as the other player. Thus, both players have to stick together and protect each other, and team synergy is thus encouraged.

Why's everyone always asking for so many swords all the time, don't people know swords are dangerous

They're already in Ouroboros, the arcs just can't be outleveled, so you have to wait until 50 to run them in flashback.

Considering they release issue 8, with a revamped Faultline with new story arcs, the veteran reward system, and a host of new costume options during that period, I think it's safe to say that the team was obviously not in maintenance mode.

It stinks, but they'll buff it some day.

Well, if we've reached the point where people are simply saying, "I'm right and you're wrong," I think we've derailed this thread enough.

You're forgetting about possibly the most common theme of all: the character that can't fly. The character that has no nanotechnology or secret magic rituals or bizarre radioactive goo. A power that lets you fly with no visible means of support absolutely does not fit that theme, but jetpacks are still there to give those characters the conveniences offered by flight.

Attack chains need filler and use it regularly. A Stone Melee character can't just cycle Seismic Smash and Gloom forever, they have to fill the time with something. If you just arbitrarily buff the recharge time on those powers, suddenly those attack chains need less recharge or fewer attacks, which means more room to build for defense. This definitely matters to overall balance.

If you take a power like Stone Mallet and give it a 4s recharge without changing the damage, it would have over twice the DPS of Seismic Smash. That's absolutely going to cause ripples in the high-level performance, and this was just the first set I checked. I don't think you've really thought this through.

It's pretty meaningful at low levels.

Was doing the mission Rescue the Subdued Heroes, a 40+ Hero alignment mission from the tip Doc Quantum's Moral Quandary. The mission-critical rescue objective to save Sky Dragon spawned in this room: That's less than halfway through the map, but that objective is supposed to appear in one of the last rooms of the map. The map was Sewers_45_Layout_02_02. The same mission map, after being revealed fully:

Didn't you start this conversation because you were dissatisfied with how the standard damage formula doesn't take cast time into account, and the devs are effectively eyeballing it? Why are you now advocating for a system where everything is eyeballed instead?

I'm just saying, it's fair to point out that a power that does more damage than Punch while recharging faster is already performing above the grade. I'm not saying it makes Flurry a good power.

They still follow the standard damage formula.

Doesn't Number Six's arc take place after Tyrant nukes the Magisterium and Praetoria itself has fallen? Doesn't seem like something a Praetorian character should be able to do until they've finally left Praetoria behind.

TVTropes lets you create notes that can be clicked on to show otherwise hidden text. For example, the note about SNL Digital Shorts on their page for Andy Samberg. I want to be able to do that here. We do have the spoiler field, but that interrupts sentences and paragraphs and dominates the post, so it's not really good for inserting little asides into our posts.

With its 60s recharge and 30s duration, Boost Range is clearly meant to be perma'd, if that's what you want in your build. But with such a short duration, you have to cast it extremely frequently. Energy Manipulation already has to be casting Energize constantly to get its sustain effect (which I've also suggested we do something about), so to also have to deal with incessant Boost Range casts on top of that is really annoying. If we just quadruple the recharge and duration, putting it at 120s duration and 240s recharge, it becomes much less annoying to maintain the buff, while keeping the uptime and slot cost the same as it is now.

There's no way to claim a 120-second buff attached to a 10-second debuff is overall a penalty. That's completely absurd. Only if you focus exclusively on the name and ignore the rest of the power.

Rage is not a short duration buff. It lasts 120 seconds and is clearly meant to be perma'd. All of those characters are supercharged with power at all times, because they have super strength.

That sounds like exactly what you're saying. Rage isn't thematic for Super Strength, so take it away from every single Super Strength character in the game. Regardless, it's a weak argument. The only part that can be argued to not fit is the name. What Rage actually does is perfectly thematic; the theme of the set is that your character is superhumanly strong, and a long-lasting, easily permable damage buff is exactly how that would be portrayed with CoH's mechanics. Even the visuals work for it: Super Strength attacks make your limbs glow when you swing them for attacks, and Rage makes your whole body glow, like it's taking that aesthetic to the next level. If it had a different name this argument couldn't even exist.

Are you really gonna claim it's not thematically appropriate for any player character using the Super Strength power set?

If you use Power Burst while in a swimming animation, the power will not play its signature sound on cast. Note that it's not just when you're in the water; you have to actually be in one of the swimming animations when Power Burst activates to see the bug. Experienced on the Blaster version of Energy Blast.

I don't think you and I are using "theme-neutral" to mean the same thing. Flying with no visible means of propulsion is not a thing humans can do; if you see someone do it, you have to assume it's some power or fictional super-technology they have. That's a theme right there. Jetpacks, though, anyone can wear a jetpack. Even Superman or Captain Marvel, who can fly under their own power, there's no reason they couldn't strap on a jetpack and use it to fly instead if the urge struck them.

This kind of thinking is how we end up with powers like armor t9s, with their crashes that kill you and their 1000-second recharges.