Sunsette

How is it not repeatedly when Power Push on Sentinels (and Doms, but they can mitigate this) is rotational? Power Push on blasters/corrs/defenders is not and consequently, as awkward as energy blast can get on those, they're still not nearly as bad. Honestly, you might be trying to be open minded here, but I actually get along much better with most of the people who are hard disagreeing? I'm not sure what you think being close-minded looks like. I have more common ground with people who play the same powersets and have different views than this interaction has been. And frankly I only have to convince people who play the powerset, and... so far that's going pretty well for me, we mostly agree on things even if not the precise form of solution. I've actually already acknowledged team mitigation repeatedly in the form of immobs (half of which remove all of the KB mitigation entirely and yet are still often preferable) and tanking, so please don't tell me I'm disregarding those; this is just an issue that extends both to team and solo play.

Naraka, whether or not you're trying to, you're being consistently belittling in your responses. I'm taking the time to explain my points; I'd appreciate it if you didn't simply assert the opposite is true or that a point is moot or fabricated. If you're in a situation where you actually need consistent mitigation or damage, yeah, wasting 2 seconds repeatedly is not an effective use of mitigation or damage, since that's also the time period that you've taken the single enemy out. That's barely a net positive if you have teammates still up and can be a hard net negative if you're solo. Power Push being part of the Sentinel's main rotation means that it's poor mitigation and poor damage without the IO; the entire point of my response is to show that the design is poor and doesn't function intuitively without the KB to KD IO, which fits the general understanding of a build tax in game design. This goes double for the Nova response. Taking Fold Space just to mitigate the usage of Nova is three powers and doesn't fit into most builds very well imx on Blaster, Sentinel, or Defender. Neat idea, didn't love the execution. I'd hardly propose making it easier to fit into most builds, either; it's an extremely powerful option, but one you have to basically orient your entire build around. My best concept for it so far is Energy + a blapping secondary with lower investment, since combat teleport allows for relatively quick repositioning in response to the different requirements for Nova and Torrent. It's not a good general use answer since most blast ATs have higher investment secondaries that cannot also replace functions of the primary. Telling me to play another powerset when I want modernized fixes to the one I actually play and you apparently do not is something that I do not understand.

AFAIK* nothing currently creates negative stealth at all. If such does exist it'd probably be used as part of a mission effect or an unusual enemy attack. * meaning, "a quick look on the wiki" mostly.

I don't think a global switch is a good solution, as I think I've said multiple times. At this point I've simply opened up to it being 'good enough'. But virtually any steps the HC devs take in the direction of addressing KB and powerset design with their general level of quality is something I will be happy with, I think.

I want *consistency* and I want *choice*. Explosive Blast and Energy Torrent are slot machines that fail at consistent mitigation. Power Push on Sentinels is pushing an enemy out of your own short reach, forcing you to do movement or use Aim for a range boost, both of which are times you're not doing anything else, yet it's designed to be rotational. Nova does great mitigation and good damage at significant personal risk to a blaster who isn't majorly IOed out or coordinating with a tank; with a tank, if you don't either finish them or have some way to keep the scatter, the tank is going to be more upset with you than pleased short of a very well-timed wipe prevention, which I think I've seen like... once. And yet, it's again designed to be used every pack on the Sent. Energy Blast currently offers bad, unreliable, occasionally powerful mitigation and unexceptional damage. A KB to KD IO changes it to 'below average damage with consistent but weak mitigation'. The natural thing to reach for in response is damage, but it's not the only thing that could be done to fix the set.

Yeah, okay, play an Energy Blast Sentinel to your 40s without the IO and tell me "this feels fun and intuitive" I mean if you do and you genuinely feel that way, then more power to you, and I notice you have very different opinions. But I don't think that's likely. Going to further point out that the professional developers of the game certainly seem more likely to agree with me than you on this since every powerset designed after Energy Blast behaves at most like Energy Blast does with that IO, even the second set designed entirely around knocks, *and* gets additional benefits or damage on top of that. So you're spending an IO to get a weaker version of your own powerset. This is not comparable to how Storm Summoning or Bonfire change.

Damage would be better than nothing, and help solve the leveling issue -- but without other changes that basically just means the platonic max level slotting choice for NRG becomes six slot Sudden Acceleration. If that was paired with SA getting its fifth and six set piece bonuses swapped I think that would be good, and I might add that to my Knockback IO topic. But I still don't feel great about a poorly designed powerset needing a specific IO to work. We don't have that many new players, so I suppose it's a minor issue. You can declare points moot, but that doesn't make them so; it is not taking an IO to get an advantage, it's taking an IO to make a core power behave in ways that are intuitive for teaming or even for soloing in the case of Sentinels, multiplied over most of your damage powers.

...once. you can use it once. It's not as reliable as Sudden Acceleration (though that's a minor issue) because it has its own independent kd chance and two kds that fire at the same time have a multiplication effect. Damage capping within six slots isn't really the trick at max level it's doing that while grabbing good set bonuses and procs. Blast sets typically are optimally taken to five slot bonuses. While other blast sets that are better in other respects can five slot and spend the last on a useful proc, Energy Blast has to risk the slot machine on Torrent and Blast or get KB to KD just to get consistent performance. Nova in particular is absolutely unusable outside of PvP, KB neutering immobs, or very niche situations without KB to KD IO. Before max level, that's still a major speed bump on the full development of a power. Everyone else gets their special toy procs later, NRG wants to do it ASAP. Compared to Archery and Assault Rifle, which also have ExBlast clones Energy Blast wants to play in your face to use Nova as it currently exists, while these two have T9s at range. This makes the terrible Explosive Blast your other go-to AoE and also even worse if it does KB because at PB range it is a mini Nova scatter. As a result I will generally spend spend Overwhelming Force on Blast and proc it heavily since it's a very bad power otherwise, weigh skipping Torrent based on the build, and 5 slot the Very Rare in Nova with Sudden Acceleration just to get a slightly worse version of the DP T9. This gets even messier with Sentinels who are expected to use Mag 16 power push rotationally but have 60 ft. range

Firefly aura for buffs?

I appreciate the backup but I would rather not have the topic derailed into like a page of this. I've said my final piece, I imagine Night wants to say something else, let that be the end of it.

I'm not *literally* repeating myself now that I've made you both actually read the thread and an FAQ system. You can disagree all you want. Just don't be a jerk next time? Either way I'm done with this.

If it was a multi page topic I could understand where you were coming from but you responded with the same thing that the first two people responded with and I answered on post four. You added nothing except being a jerk about it. If you notice I didn't get snippy with them! Because you're right, my topic WAS small. So small, in fact, that reading the first four posts would still be shorter than reading my first post with the new FAQ system I bet. Their responses were wholly valid. Yours, combined with the hard attitude, was not.

While I am all for help to Energy Blast sets, imx, I have neither been kicked from groups on HC nor seen groups kick people for being EB. Even when they weren't using their KB well. At most some disgruntled whispering about the guy knocking mobs everywhere even after asked to stop. I'm sure it does happen, but I don't feel it happens as much as it did on live.

This would actually be the best option, I think, but I don't know if it's feasible to change that across the whole game. It probably would require manually checking each NPC to be certain they don't break anything since we lack the original tools used to create CoX and are reverse-engineering them off of the code.

Been a while so bump.

Don't get me %&~%ing started on Force Feedback. The only thing that keeps Force Feedback from being straight absurd is that it doesn't play well with pseudopets and toggles, but my best Force Feedback users are natural knockdown powers, which are just about everywhere on damage sets that weren't at launch. You know what set has a hard time actually slipping Force Feedback into enough powers to have high uptime on it? Yeah it's the same one I've been complaining about. SURPRISE. (I am sure a bunch of people are going to rush to tell me that they can totally do it and you know what? So can I! But it takes way more effort and thinking on the original KB damage set to use the one actually fun KB IO in the game than on a bunch of incidentals that will never even look twice at a knockback set io otherwise.)

I'm glad that there is finally some discussion of individual powersets coming into play. I keep mentioning Energy Blast and other people have chosen to focus on, of all things, Bonfire. The powers that have become absurdly good because of KB to KD were not powers being selected for their damage. They are already happy to spend the tax because the utility was the point. Bonfire could do zero damage and it would still be one of the most powerful abilities in the game, using it as the benchmark is not great. Giving this ability to Bonfire etc free would be a buff for those powers, sure, but it also wouldn't significantly increase their already imbalanced state. The big issue is damage-focused powers that carry knockback, which is primarily a blast set issue and especially an Energy Blast issue. What we need are adjustments to actual powers and KB IO sets (like linked in my sig, again) that are intended for use with damage powers. But if a global switch is all we're getting, and I would rather it not be but if it were, it's going to be a far more beneficial change to Blast damage sets than a meaningful change to the already broken control powers that use it.

I would recommend you use the pro gamer power of reading the topic next time. 😉 @GraspingVileTerror Yeah, however this is coded might take a little bit of work but since there was already discussion of fixing the "most stealth powers don't stack", this could be addressed at the same time with a conditional suppression statement for not a lot of extra work.

I mean, either I'm hallucinating or I exemplar really well. Not as well as someone who built specifically for it at a specific level range, maybe, but really well nevertheless. In the very specific case of LotG +rech it's very rarely a good trade to make, but it isn't exactly condeming your mid-30s build to irrelevance.

I ... don't think that would be a well-received idea. I like the event planning! Call it, IDK, Monthly Megalomania

I noticed that when I used a different computer I had different zone fog altogether, and when I idled out after beelines through the Cascade Archipelago, the lines had gotten blocky

I'd love to see more thoughtful mechanics, and excited for what Cobalt Arachne has promised. I think part of the problem with Gold-side is that it's a bit *too* advanced when it comes to encounter composition and dynamics; if you compare it to newer content in Blue side (and Red side, the little of that I've done) that came after it, that stuff is not quite as hard, though it keeps the varied mechanics and mission types with talkative NPCs and story presentation that isn't all tucked in a menu two clicks deep. Praetoria isn't the hardest thing ever, but it was definitely designed to be beaten by people who already basically know how the game works, while otherwise using more modern design principles that appeal to people outside of CoX's hardcore-since-2004 install base. There are a number of enemy abilities that I hate/relish for the challenge on a fresh character but that I would consider way overtuned for the level and as content meant to get people into the game. Without fail, every friend I've tried to get into the game that has left after starting on Red or Blue side leaves b/c they hate the gameplay and writing; n Gold because it's too hard. If they stick around, conversely, they like how easy Red/Blue are or the challenge of Gold.

I level most of my characters through Praetoria, 1-35. When I don't feel like doing it, I do power leveling usually. I play the game largely to realize concepts -- most of the content in the game isn't designed in a way that's immersive or interesting. 90% of blue side missions feel like two paragraphs of text then one of four maps where I have to kill 70 to 100% of the map. There's little to no thinking involved. When there's any of that, I actually play the game -- though gold side is starting to run thin for me. So yeah, I like content basically from Going Rogue on and dislike most of the stuff before that. Just to answer the "why do people like to PL" questions.

It's functionally +25% slots when exemping (and at cap, but more of it is wasted on things that are overcapped usually). The question is really 'do you need your globals and set bonuses while exemping or do you need more of the things they're already good at'. That can be easily be worth as much as two or three LotGs at the teens to early 20s, which is below the level they even work, and comes with the benefit of more of things like accuracy and endurance redux, which are also more valuable at those low levels. The chief reason to prefer attuning over boosting is if you rely on key set bonuses that cannot really be made up by +25% more slots; this is most notable for things that add defense, since they're often worth more than a fully enhanced power of their own. Recharge, damage, and most of the others? Not so much. IDK, I think it's kind of an overblown thing in general unless you're specifically aiming for a particular low-level challenge. I prefer boosting over attuning builds when I have the money because not only does it give me a smidge more performance here and there at high levels where I am dealing with the wackiest stuff, it has a more natural power curve instead of having multiple hard breakpoints in performance.

Ayup. A friend only recently convinced me to play red-side and I'm only tolerating it because she's doing all the missions. I just smash things while double XP is on and tune out the evil stuff for as long as I can. That said, having scheduled events to do red-side does sound like a really good plan to have targeted increases in community.