ScarySai

No, bad idea. Leave the dwarf port alone, but give the forms the option of using starless step, if it has been taken.

That's not even that impressive by itself. Most attacks that crit can reach that level of power. The raw beatdowns you can achieve with an attack chain as energy are a wonderful thing.

I imagine they don't want to step on gravity's toes too much. Still, a slow or chance for knockdown would be nice. Either way, I like the power quite a lot on my shade.

I disagreed with that logic then, and I still disagree with it now. Outside of inserting a new mechanic to the power that's absolutely unique to CT, giving the power +defense is just a change for consistency, not any different than why Hover and CJ have it. It's simple, if people want it for their own merits, they'll take it while having access to the same buff the other two have. Recharge boost or defense, I like both for my build purposes, though I'm a bit disappointed that the more unique ideas were not settled on. Fact of the matter is that defense would be far more valuable than tohit in most situations. I don't see a situation where I spam ct three times before an attack, or weave it before every attack to make use of it. I can see weaving it to maintain recharge or defense, but not tohit. EDIT: Touching hasten would be a non-starter, don't even go there.

Why stop at dwarves? Let them use it in nova, as well. Instead of leaping out and flying away to reposition, I can port away and start blasting instantly, with much easier repositions to help leverage my cones better.

I'm in agreement. I love the mobility offered by CT, but the tohit is actually worthless. I doubt it would even help much in situations where cascading -tohit debuffing is occurring. I don't really know why tohit was chosen for this, nobody is going to say, spam CT before every snipe, or every attack. That's a net DPS loss. Defense and defense set slotting to keep it like the other combat-travel powers would be perfect. Should just do that if we're not going to introduce a unique mechanic of some sort.

Starless Step and LoS When using the new and improved Powexec_location command for Starless Step, attempting to go through obstacles does not work, and has you smashing yourself into a wall/obstacle like you would on live servers right now. Shadow step works properly with this command, porting through objects and directly to my target. Shadow Step does not grant untouchable status. Assuming this is a bug, but testing for several hours and trying to leverage it, I have yet to get a single instance of being untouchable. I've even gotten myself killed in the name of science for it.

Spoke too soon, they stack now, which is nice - though the combo lost the +jump stacking that I really liked. Minor in the face of freakin' oil slick arrow, though. I'm curious why time bomb wasn't touched at all, being one of the worst secondary powers even after the devices pass.

I just logged in to verify, good god I hope that's not a bug. EDIT: Spoke too soon, it lost the +jump, which was the part I really liked.

Focus on build up would be just dandy for me, honestly. I intend to mainly play the stalker version, so while a minor gripe, having to TF before every PC does at times feel a bit 'meh'. It's a fairly minor complaint, though.

I'd like more sources of generating focus, maybe. Kinda like how energy assault can generate it as they beat on stunned targets. That's really my only complaint about it, I pretty much have to use TF before every ET and the occasional power crash, randomly getting the chance to smash a boss's face mid-rotation would be fun, but overall that's really the only complaint I can levy against it. Well, that and I'd really like a different animation for power crash, and the pompoms in general.

Did some running around on a DB/EA stalker to get a feel for how long it should take to gather every badge in a given zone on average. Timer starts when I enter the zone, SS/CJ are all that are used, no ninja run, no jump packs. SS itself has no speed boosts slotted. PI: 2:52 (Poor starting spot.) Talos: 3:57 (Had to go around a few things due to lack of jump height.) IP: 4:05 (Shave off about 30s with more jump height.) Terra Volta: 4:29 (With jump pack or flight this easily could have taken only two minutes) Atlas: 2:19 (jump height handicap again.) KR: 3:16 I could do the rest of the zones, but the fact PI, Talos and IP took only that long with the handicaps in place should be enough of an indication. It's really not that much work to get a zone unlocked for your LRTP, I see this being overstated a lot and it's just not true. Unless you're taking every single alt to the shadow shard on the regular, I don't see this as an issue.

You might have lost the 'freedom' to waste a power pick on stun, but other than that - no, this is an outright buff no matter how you spin it.

I can't say I notice the range reduction on Tac's immob that much, with the range boosts from snipe in mind. I don't really agree with the changes to blaster mezzes overall, but at least my one character I really made use of it on, my water/atomic/fire, can still lock down bosses without issues. AVs might be a bit harder now. While I'll miss the raw mobility from Tac arrow's Gymnastics + CJ, it's hard to argue against the set being way stronger now with the inclusion of oil slick arrow. Glue arrow is still awesome, EMP arrow was always just a filler AOE with procs for me, Ice arrow was neat for exempting but I rarely used it except for pure meme value.

I'd probably put the proc in ET, if I were to make a scrapper version. Whirling seems like an odd choice to me.

Times like this I really wish we could post video. Any of my characters with super speed/SoS/afterburner will be able to get a good chunk of them in a pretty short amount of time. Tedious for multiple characters? Maybe, but it won't take nearly as long as you're suggesting here.

Frost is closer to fire breath than spinning strike, really. They operate a bit differently than most melee cone abilities do, which is not a bad thing. Changing that would be arbitrary at best. Spinning strike and ToF are a relatively new breed of melee attack, you can cite TS, which is fair in a way - though I bet if it weren't for some level of respecting older builds, that would sooner be changed to fall in line than the other way around. No.

Same reason fireball doesn't use ranged sets, I imagine.

No, it really doesn't have anything to do with it. It's a melee attack that uses melee modifiers, and is classified as an AoE that is centered around your target. If you want it to benefit from +range, I can't say I'd be opposed to that, but to imply it's wrong based on your opinion of how things should be is just out of line. Again, melee/range is wholly irrelevant. You still get the set bonus, and the only thing you're missing out on is range, which is often low budgeted in these sets to begin with. I'm not opposed to letting it benefit from +range, but you vastly overstate whatever 'problem' might exist here.

Or, stay with me here. It's an aoe, centered around your target. Range/melee has nothing to do with it, you're both reaching for this one.

It's modeled after spinning strike and is effectively a melee fireball. It makes total sense. 1: I kick you so hard that your skull explodes and hits your buddies in the face, or I kick with such force that it gives blowback to people near my target, or I'm using magical kick superpowers. Use your imagination, sheesh. 2: This isn't going to wreak any havoc at all with MA builds. EC>Storm>Axe>Storm is going to likely become the new top chain, you even get a fury proc out of it. MA could very well become top tier after this.

+1 for the neck chain thing, though. >.>

If anything, I'd say the fact CT's buff has to be actively maintained makes a case for giving it a stronger/better buff than the other two. The more I play with it, the more underwhelmed I am by the tohit buffs. I'm very much for giving this thing defense.

I have a few ideas on how KM could be improved, but this isn't the thread for that.

ToF could do with a shorter activation time. Shadow Maul clearly took a target cap hit to make up for the new AoE addition, but the new AoE just feels sluggish and unresponsive, something that isn't very good for an otherwise responsive set. As for the crey pistol, I'd be for just turning that thing into a hand cannon if it's keeping that recharge.