Vanden

What was it Scary Sai said? That reads to me like an attempt to shout me down, followed by declaring himself the winner. All fair points, but I feel that losing the opportunity for a Fast ET or extra targets on PC by spending focus on a guaranteed stun was a fair opportunity cost for those benefits you describe.

Why are you pushing back so hard on this? Seriously, I want to know. What is it about the proposal that Barrage or Bone Smasher, when used with focus, go from mag 3 scale 8 stun to mag 3 scale 10 stun, that compels you to respond with typical dick-swinging "1v1 me, bro" forum attitude? If you truly think it's a non-issue you can just say so and move on, there's no call for this level of hostility to the proposal.

You couldn't possibly prove me wrong, since my point is that the guaranteed boss stun of the set has been nerfed, and that is indisputable. Your contention that it doesn't matter is entirely subjective.

*60% of the time, not considering Elite Bosses or enemies with stun protection.

The only numbers I've seen you post are pylon times.

It's not up to you what other players will find valuable in a set. And you think it's impossible there's a player out there who could be irritated that the set is losing a guaranteed stun for damage they think it didn't need?

Did you test this? It sounds like turning on Ninja Run should just replace the movement buffs in Shinobi-Iri without detoggling the power.

You can say that players won't need the stun all day, but it doesn't change the fact that the changes are taking the guaranteed stun out of the set and away from players. The framework is already in place to allow the set and players who want it to keep the effect, so there's no reason not to put it in there.

I tested it, it's definitely mag 3 with focus now, since it can stun lieutenants. And it's definitely higher than scale 6. I timed the duration at level 21 on a lieutenant; scale 6 stun should be 6, times the Brute modifier for stun (0.8), times the bonus for level (1.2 at 21) = 5.76s, but it's stunning lieutenants for around 8 seconds. (No enhancements were used)

Not to keep hammering on this topic, but couldn't the same argument be made for splitting Energize into a toggle and click like I suggested earlier? As the power is now, it's almost impossible to actually use the heal component of Energize to heal yourself because you need to click the power whenever it's up to get the sustain effect.

From testing this, Barrage's stun goes from mag 2 to mag 3 when used with focus, but I wasn't able to determine the scale. It's definitely less than scale 10, though. Since the guaranteed stun property of this focus spender is meant to replace Stun (the power) being removed from the set, it should be a mag 3 scale 10 stun when used with Focus, to match Stun's old numbers. Now, I don't like the spender being moved from Bone Smasher to Barrage. It means Barrage is no longer a skippable power for a lot of us. Most of the objections to Bone Smasher being the spender were that it couldn't be used as filler when Focus was up and you didn't want to spend it on Bone Smasher. But if all we're after is filler, Barrage is just a better filler power than Bone Smasher, with its shorter recharge and longer activation. [Bug Report] Total Focus is only playing its hit FX on a hit about half the time.

If it's the mission I'm thinking of, there are several ambush waves of Paragon Protectors, but only towards the end do they run out of working PPs and start throwing the defective ones at you.

I don't have an */electric Blaster, but I do have an */Energy Blaster and an Electric/* Scrapper, so I know two things: 1. I hate click sustains, and would much rather have it as a toggle I don't have to think about 2. A 30s Recharge AoE knockdown with an unreliable stun feels more useful to me than a 90s recharge AoE stun with an unreliable knockdown (even if the former needs a slot dedicated to KB-to-KD). With that in mind, I think the best thing for Electricity Manipulation is to have the sustain in Dynamo, and revert Force of Thunder to Lightning Clap like it was in i23.

3* extra power choices

I have to guess that it's because ranged stuff is in the Blaster primaries. The vast majority of powers in the Blaster secondaries are either melee-range stuff or self-buffs. A few debuff powers, the immobilizes, two single-target fears, and Psychic Scream were the only ranged powers in the secondaries until Captain Powerhouse starting making more of them, and even then the only major course change he made was the ranged holds that are getting nerfed.

I just chalk that one up to a writer not realizing the implications of what they were writing, like Dominatrix's old relationship to Tyrant.

"Splash damage" doesn't really have an actual meaning in in terms of CoH mechanics. It's only great on Stalkers.

If you could just teleport inside those citadels how would Faathim stay safe from the endless onslaught of the other Rularuu?

That's fine for powers that are actually attacks, but not for powers where the utility or control of the knockback is the actual point, like Gale or Power Thrust.

I'm in full agreement here. Other than the animation/FX issues I outlined on the very first page, I don't think anything needs to change in this set before it goes live.

I don't know about that. It really seems like it was originally conceived as a Controller primary and then half-heartedly converted to a Defender primary. It's got a single-target hold, AoE hold, single-target immobilize, knockdown patch, even Flash Arrow is just a clone of Smoke from Fire Control rather than an actual ToHit debuff power. That's more than half the set being powers you'd find in a Controller primary.

The EM changes are nice, but unless Energize gets the split toggle/click treatment I outlined in the third post in this thread, I don't think they're gonna make me do a Sicko Laugh

...Unless you use Flash Arrow to reduce their perception first, which we've covered before. That sounds even more Tactical to me.

Okay, what Captain Powerhouse actually said on this topic was, "When we say we want to give more incentives to get into melee range, we mean that we want the melee powers that blasters get to be more useful." Since Tactical Arrow does not have any melee attacks, that comment was obviously not meant to reflect on the changes to Tactical Arrow.

That really seems unlikely to happen, since ET has half the recharge of TF. With a high-recharge build it will recharge most of the way during just TF's animation.