Rathulfr

The "Delete Hasten" thread is not good example of this. The OP was not trolling in any way, shape, or form. The OP pointed out a problem they thought was important to them, and they suggested a constructive (albeit flawed) solution. That is not "trolling", by any definition. And this is precisely my problem with this thread: you're trying to impose your own definition of "nerf-herding" and "trolling" too broadly, to apply to any suggestion that you happen to dislike, and then assert that any opposition to such a definition should be preemptively censored. That is a thing that should not be.

Why stop at 20? The point of my suggestion is eliminate the need for Hasten entirely in some builds, at all levels. Eliminating the need for Hasten for the first 20 levels would be nice, but that just postpones taking it. But I do like the idea of adding a new unique proc IO for a minor global recharge boost that could be slotted into either Swift or Jump. That could be a way to do it without giving it away for free. It might also be done in such a way that makes it subject to The Rule of Fives, so that it involves some trade off with other IO sets that include recharge bonuses. Good thinking, Zepp!

I'm not falling for it. 😁

I'm not sure I understand why this would be the case. Converters can convert IOs in or out of set, or within a given class or type. HOs don't come in sets, but they do have a type. I suspect that they might could all be considered one "set" by the Converter logic, and all conversions would be within that set. Obviously, that's just speculation on my part. And there are probably higher priority tasks that might make anything more complicated more trouble than it's worth. It's just an idea someone might tack on to a list for the future.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this? I'm talking about converting an unslotted HO with Converter salvage, like we do with unslotted IOs. I'm not talking about attuning or boosting a slotted HO. Does that help?

IMO, Sentinels are for soloing (or duoing). Their damage isn't great (the other DPS ATs outperform them pretty handily), but their durability is considerable. You can take hits and rarely get mezzed. When you're solo, you're not necessarily trying to kill everything as fast or as big as possible. When you're solo, do you really care if it takes you 5 seconds or 7.5 seconds to kill a mob? Not really, if you can stand toe to toe with them and not get mezzed that whole time. Pure DPS classes survive by killing quickly: Sentinels survive by not being killed as quickly. So Sentinels really shine solo and at lower levels, where they can tackle the content with confidence. Where they start to fade is end-game, when everyone else finally has the levels, powers, and builds to survive as well, without giving up on damage output. A level 50 Sentinel (believe me, I've played quite a few) simply cannot keep up with the damage output of a level 50 Blaster, Scrapper, or Brute. It's at that point, at 50+3 T4, that I took a long hard look at my Sentinels and decided that I'd rather play an equivalent Blaster. Don't get me wrong: I love my Sentinels, I really do. But at the end of the day, and at max level with a full build of IO sets, my Blaster does way more damage and is almost as durable (under most conditions -- there are notable exceptions). So if you want a character for soloing, especially lower-level content, then I recommend the Sentinel. But if you want a character for end-game, you might try something else, instead.

I'm pretty sure the OP is referring to the "Delete Hasten" thread, which -- while poorly titled and half-baked -- wasn't actually intended to be a straight-up "nerf". The OP of that thread thought they were offering a legitimate improvement to the game (albeit of admittedly limited utility), that did turn out (after much discussion) to be an actual nerf. Should the post have been shut down immediately when this net-nerf was pointed out? Or should we, as a community, have the opportunity to discuss and/or refine such suggestions before crying "NERF!" and stifling further comments? To paraphrase an old adage, "one man's nerf is another man's treasure". That may not always be the case, as indeed it seems was the case with any suggestion that a change to a sacred cow like Hasten might be worth considering. But that doesn't mean we should pre-emptively shutdown any further such discussions, no matter how sacred or unpopular the topic might be. Ask not for whom the censorship bell tolls, because soon enough, it will toll for thee.

No, the simplest way (as I've pointed out), is to tack on a smidge more recharge to an existing power (such as Swift, which is thematically appropriate) that's not in the Speed pool. Adding an auto power to the Speed pool just makes the problem worse, not better. Everyone would simply take both that and Hasten from Speed, making Speed all the more entrenched in builds where it doesn't belong. I'm trying to get rid of both Hasten and the Speed pool, so I can take something else (such as Combat Jumping or Stealth). (edit) I just thought of another wacky idea that isn't quite as "free" as adding +recharge to Swift. What if we added +5% recharge to Combat Jumping, Hover, Maneuvers, Stealth, and Weave? That wouldn't help as much as a global 20% across the board to everyone, but it would sure help me. LOL 😋

At the risk of drawing the ire of this particular angry mob, I'm actually responsible for inspiring this madness. I suggested that we simply tack on an additional +10% to 20% recharge to Swift in the Fitness inherent pool, so that I could drop Hasten from some of my builds (to take Combat Jumping or Stealth, instead, honestly). But @Steampunkette (and others) thought this was giving away too much for nothing, until it was pointed out how popular Hasten was. This changed @Steampunkette's mind enough to inspire this thread, albeit with a radically different approach (delete Hasten) that didn't "give away" 10-20% more recharge at no cost. This not wanting to give in to "power creep" is the hill upon which @Steampunkette is dying. Rather than just saying, "meh, I think giving everyone 10-20% more recharge is too much", they charged into "let's re-think Hasten and recharge entirely for everyone", and won't let it go. This whole pointless exercise for 23 (!) pages (so far) was born from resistance to giving everyone a little more free candy. As I pointed out in this and other threads, "power creep" -- in and of itself -- is a terrible justification for saying "no" in an MMO whose entire history has been about "power creep". From Issue 1 to the present, "power creep" has been the driving force of all changes -- both good and bad -- in City of Heroes. And giving everyone 10-20% more recharge, while not ideal, is probably the easiest thing to do without upsetting too many other apple carts. If that's too much, fine, just say "/jranger" and drive on. Most of my builds already have around +100% recharge without Hasten, by using IO set bonuses and 5 LotG +Recharge procs. Some of my builds also include Hasten, which adds another 70%. But about 50% of that is useless to me, because of diminishing returns. However, having an additional 10-20% would be quite useful to me, allowing me to drop Hasten altogether in those builds. I'd gladly sacrifice 50% (useless) recharge for another few percent defense, or status protection, or a utility power. Again, full disclosure: I just want more free candy. I'm not claiming to offer any great improvement to overall "game balance" or the future of game play. Take that for what it's worth (which is probably less than a fart in a whirlwind).

Combat Jumping is often the pool power I would pick if I could drop Hasten. *sob!* 😫

One person's "nerf herd" is another's "improvement". There's no way to determine which is the appropriate descriptor unless/until we are free to discuss it. How about, "no more suppressing dissenting opinions"? Would that be a "nerf herd" or an "improvement"? YMMV /jranger

I would prefer to simply add 10% to 20% +recharge to the Swift inherent power, and leave Hasten alone, where it is now, as it is now, in the Speed pool. Yes, doing so would give everyone a nice recharge buff across the board, which is power creep. But it's not a big power creep, and not one that makes re-balancing everything else absolutely necessary. And it's enough of a buff for some builds to be able to drop Hasten altogether, allowing for a little more flexibility in those builds.

Someone on Reddit asked a question that hadn't occurred to me before: "Can HO enhancements be converted to other HO enhancements?" The short answer is "No." My follow up question for here is: "Can we make it so?" Would it be possible to change the code/logic behind conversions to treat HOs as just another type of in-set conversion? That might be a nice QoL feature. I submit this for your consideration/discussion. Thanks in advance!

Did you guys miss the part about GIANT FRICKIN' ROBOTS?!

That's not the way I remember it: quite the opposite, in fact. Jack was a big fan of the Champions PNP RPG, which had freeform character creation with trade offs, rather than strict roles/classes. There used to be development videos where Jack specifically discussed this. It was during alpha testing (well before WoW) that players complained about character creation being confusing. You have to remember that at the time, Everquest was the 900 pound gorilla, not WoW. And it was EQ that popularized "The Holy Trinity" of tank/heals/DPS. EQ also had CC and buff/debuff classes. Cryptic stole these ideas from EQ, to become the "archetype" (AT) model that gave us the original play-style roles packaged as primary and secondary power sets.

I tried out the Guardian on the Rebirth test server, and I wasn't impressed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Maybe if it gets more development it'll be better in the future. But I don't think Homecoming is missing anything by skipping it. Maybe we'll come up with something similar soon enough?

How would we accomplish that without disrupting the existing power sets? We already know how well any idea that involves modifying Hasten in any way makes people lose their sh*t completely. I can imagine the same being true if we suggested modifying any other pools (not even mentioning primaries/secondaries), aside from simply tacking on +Recharge to one of them. So if we're going to tack on +Recharge anywhere without upsetting anyone else's apple cart, it seems to me that Swift is the most likely candidate. The only other option would be to touch every other power individually to reduce their base recharge rates, which I think would be even more chaotic/unpredictable, and require a massive rebalancing effort. The fact that so many builds include Hasten indicates that players feel like their builds need more recharge. The fact that suggesting any change to Hasten was received as the equivalent of slaughtering a sacred cow indicates that far too many players depend on it for far too much. It seems that particular genie is out of the lamp for good, so there's no way anyone (myself included) wants to consider anything less than 70% base recharge (slottable/enhanceable to perma-Hasten, with boosters). All that said, I don't see any path that costs either too much or nothing at all. Which leads us back to "what problem are we trying to solve?" The problem is that I have builds that have Hasten but don't really need 70% more recharge (diminishing returns), and lack other benefits that I would prefer to have but cannot take because Hasten takes the power pick and 2 or 3 slots. If I could get just 10-20% more recharge, I could drop Hasten entirely on those builds. Yeah, that's just me whining that I want more candy. I never claimed to be altruistic. In my very first post, I made it clear that I'm crazy and selfish. I was just hoping that a few more people would agree to whine with me. (And I certainly didn't expect anyone to burn down the forums over Hasten.)

Yes this is the nut of the problem with Opportunity, which is why I suggested that it be changed to combine its effects into a single combination that can be triggered by either the T1 or T2.

Opportunity's resistance debuff is already flagged as unresistable.

So it looks like everyone is still pissed of about @Steampunkette's thread. Does this mean that nobody wants to buff Swift with a smidge of +recharge? It still seems to me to be a good, simple, and easy idea. Especially if we just leave Hasten alone (apparently).

I wasn't looking for controversy, just clarification. Thanks!

Great, thank you, I was just making sure I understood you correctly.

So was that a yes or no answer to my first question?

Are player donations to Homecoming expenses being used to subsidize Victory or Resurgence? If so, can you tell us why? And also if so, can you clearly spell that out as separate line items on the monthly reports, for the sake of transparency? Thanks.

It depends on what you really want. Sentinels are survivable, but not much else. They're great for new players learning the game, or for soloing. But if this isn't your first rodeo, and you want more nuance in your game play, I'd recommend the Defender, instead. (* Note: I don't play Defenders. I have played over a dozen different Sentinel builds. So this isn't a case of pro-Defender bias.)