ScarySai

Enjoying the changes, shadow maul is certainly usable now. I do think comparing consumption to "Lightning Rod" is a bad example, though.

Might have to revive my old Dark/shield from the Paragon era, now.

For sure, I just like to look at things from a 'max potential' sort of viewpoint. Rad will absolutely not have problems with a good build.

I was already considering remaking my dark/shield, this is honestly going to make it god-tier. I won't complain. Also, new sets are looking amazing for some of my builds.

Yeah, it should kinda work off enemies the same way Victory Rush does.

Whatever they did broke soulbound on some pets. Third imp for fire control, and spiderlings are definitely broken now. It would only proc for the player on power activation, that I know of. As for why it existed for so long, some bugs really were not a concern for Paragon, especially the final few years where the idea was to make everyone powerful. Some things that are bugs can be considered 'happy accidents', and this game is full of them.

Regarding Soulbound Allegiance: Some bugs should be left alone, there was really nothing wrong with Soulbound proccing for the player on activation of a pet power. Kindly fix the damage caused by this change, imps, phantom army and such are kinda hit hard by such an important proc failing to fire off.

He cited something like "devices has too much damage and not enough mitigation.", which isn't really true, but hey. Trip mine and caltrops are great and I love them, but the 'damage' isn't touching a lot of other secondaries, unless you're talking stacked trip mines, which by the time you can lay ten down, the average /fire blaster has already killed two packs. Time bomb's good on paper, but nobody takes it because it's CD is absurd in the post-nuke-overhaul era. I don't think gun drone was intentionally 'nerfed', just that giving it taunt was a SEVERELY misguided decision. I'm all for having the drone buffed, despite CP's strange objection to the idea, but for the short term, I'd like to just see the taunt go away.

Why is a 'proper' trick arrow overhaul somehow mutually exclusive with an EMP arrow buff?

Not really, you exaggerated the problem in such a way that it sounded like you didn't know how to use the command properly. The command has flaws, but you went above and beyond to exaggerate the issue.

1: It only 'locks' them if you don't change orders after giving them a destination. 2: The melee pets do not need goto to work properly, at all. That's total nonsense. Sounds like a micromanaging failure to me, go-to functions as a 'go to and stay here' command now. I've had zero issues with the bruiser or demons.

Can't speak for Ninja or Necro, but the changes absolutely do not cause the bolded sets to "suffer."

Are Kheldians mentioned at all in Praetoria? Perhaps they never showed up here, the Hamidon ate them, or Cole super-annihilated them. Considering how the Rikti's Battalion was vastly different than ours is according to the AMA, perhaps events with the Kheldians transpired differently, and they just never showed up on Praetorian-earth.

The sets were made with a small scale private server in mind, I bet. Regard for the standard formula was ignored for this experiment. That being said, they switch up the norm for blasters, and CoH has plenty of imbalances not really worth nerfing. I don't mind them. I prefer buffing up underperformers over nerfing outliers, so I think Trick Arrow should get a significant pass to make it a force to be reckoned with.

I'd like some of these, but doubt it could be implemented without causing a cascade of problems under the hood, especially with such a small team handling it. That, and the blatant murder probably wouldn't fly with the heroes. >_>

I'm in agreement, trick arrow needs a balance pass and a hefty amount of buffs. Those who think TA needs to be nerfed so people can pretend that Trick isn't one of the worst sets in the game are completely off base, though.

I know what you said earlier, I disagree with it. Quoting yourself isn't a convincing argument. 7/9 powers in the set are control-based in some form, I don't want to hear it's "Not a control set." The entire gimmick is debuff+control. There's not a single 'buff' in the entire set. Furthermore, even if it wasn't a control-themed powerset (which it is), EMP arrow is a control power, and should be good at it's job when it's both 1: The capstone, and 2: Not that good at the job it's supposed to do for the recharge tax it has.

You mean the main things that make the dedicated debuff/control powerset's version of the power worse than the blaster variant? Trick arrow is one of the worst powersets in the game, buffing EMP arrow in that way wouldn't magically make the set god tier on it's own. It would, however, make the EMP arrow (Trick arrow's capstone, by the way.) much more appealing/useful.

That would be, IMO, narrow sighted and extremely stupid.

Honestly, a few changes to recharge, hold potency and endurance to match ESD, but with some added potency in EMP would be better than just copying ESD. Trick arrow is probably in the running as one of the worst power sets in the entire game, if not THE worst. It could use some big buffs, and giving them a roided out EMP would work wonders.

Update: I've settled on beam/ta after some testing. Quite happy with the build.

Why not just buff EMP to be better than the blaster version? Realistically, as a debuff/control set, it shouldn't have to beg for a blaster ability.

Dp/martial won't break dps records, but clears +4x8 well enough while being pretty fun and thematic. Water/atomic with procced holds and bonfire is like a roided out controller, lots of damage, lots of CC. Fire/mental is my strongest character overall, probably. It kills GMs, AVs and missions without too much stress. Beam/TA is my most recent character, and I have to say: The hype for the combo earlier in this thread is fully justified. If you want pure range, go with this.

Agreed. Isn't having time bomb in the powerset enough of a dead weight?

After some heavy testing, I'm pretty confident that TA is the best secondary to go for if you want pure range.