MechaMarshmallow

I won't belabour the point in Incinerator, but ~71dpa is extremely low for a single target power at tier 8 of a blast set. Blaze is 170, bitter ice blast is 133 with hefty debuffs attached. Even disregarding the top dog damage sets, water jet is 85dpa with the benefit of getting to use it twice - and it just got buffed. Even Sonic has Screech at 95, with a hold and debuff attached. I could go on but I won't. I've complained about boring ST damage nature of Incinerator, but please understand: It is, on its own merits, a bad power.

I have an AR blaster too, and I fully agree that Ignite could use a buff. However, I simply don't see the logic in replacing an aoe power with a single target one that has lower dpa. I fully agree with everyone who says that Ignite is currently bad, but AR is already way too vanilla feeling for another simple single target blast to feel good at T8. At the very least replace it with something fun. For example: What if in addition to the base damage, Incinerator made the target become the centre of a damage aura that would harm surrounding enemies for 50% of the damage dealt to the main target over the duration of the DoT. That'd be more fun than a single target blast, it retains AoE functionality, and would still be usable in a ST attack chain for people who want it for that purpose. Also setting a guy on fire so he burns everyone around him is a neat and easily understood mechanic. I'd be upset to see Ignite go, but not incensed. What I really hope we can avoid is making its replacement dull and uninspired.

I'm saddened by the removal of ignite. I don't think anyone really likes Ignite as it is now, but being able to place a persistent fire patch was fun - not to mention that it was aoe and with an immobilization effect you could reliably get the full 139dpa value. In that context, Incinerator feels like a direct downgrade - a nerf in exchange for a quality of life improvement. Instead of changing this unique power to another mediocre single target blast in a set full of mediocre single target blasts, couldn't Ignite just be changed to say, spawn the fire under the selected target (to remove the target location clunkiness) and have the mob fear effect removed so you don't need to immobilize? Maybe the damage numbers would need to be tweaked if that makes it too strong, but c'mon. This is Assault Rifle. Even with these buffs it's not holding a candle to fire or ice blast.

This is why it's often powerset dependent. Because yes, defenders can leverage larger numbers to output bigger (de)buffs, bit sometimes a larger number is not actually very useful. For example, Kinetics is the classic Corruptor set not just because it enhances your own damage to a higher cap, but also because damage is capped in the first place. Once you hit that cap, you can't go higher. If a Corruptor can bring you to that cap, there is literally no benefit gained from going defender. A few other mechanics follow this pattern, either in a clear sense of it capping (more defense buffing/accuracy debuffing is useless once the enemy only has a 5% chance of hitting you) or for more difficult to clearly math out reasons (At a certain point, more endurance recovery is pointless because no one is running out).

I, as I'm sure a lot of players do, run combat jumping on most of my characters as a cheap source of defense and immobilization protection. However, it is really frustrating that it's constantly toggled off when I activate ninja run or a number of other similar jump-affecting powers. I'm not sure whether this was implemented due to technical limitations or as a specific decision. If the former, that's too bad. But it's very irritating to have to toggle CJ back on every time I'm done using ninja run, super jump or similar powers. I can't really see any gameplay reason that allowing it to be stacked would cause a problem. It's just a small thing, but it feels like a simple QoL improvement that a lot of players would enjoy if possible!

I'm about to go to bed so I can't test this right now, but I want to call attention to Rending Flurry in Savage Melee real quick. Currently Rending Flurry has an 8 ft radius and a 15 ft radius when empowered by blood frenzy. These changes would make that a 16 ft radius and 15 ft when empowered. I don't know of a convenient way to see the details of the blood frenzy version of the power in-game, but please remember to change the blood frenzy version to 10 ft like foot stomp or something, so it's doubled and doesn't end up smaller than the basic version!

I'm confused by this - Katana's current T2, gambler's cut, is stronger than the T1 - and recharges faster to boot.

I like these changes, by and large. I especially like the T1/2 swap - being forced to take powers that were often invalidated completely by the 30s and better replaced by the second power in the set was always a bad feeling. I'll have to play around with the AoE changes to really get a feel for how I like them. Buffing tanker damage seems fine, but bringing them closer to brutes rather than doing something different with them feels like a missed opportunity. I do appreciate that a lot of players of CoX see damage output as the highest priority on teams after player skill because it allows for faster completion of content, so I understand that improving tanker damage may be an obligatory part of bringing them more in line with other bulky ATs for a lot of players. My own playing around with ideas of how to buff tanks led me to the thought of their bruising being replaced with a proc that would radiate buffs and supportive effects to teammates as the tanker attacked, inspiring them to fight harder as they lead the charge into battle in a passive thematic with characters like Superman who the tanker is designed after. It could effectively increase team damage without putting the tanker themselves into a more damaging brute-like role. I'd love to see tankers be buffed in a less brute-like direction, but failing that I think these proposed changes are also compelling.

The damage per animation time is slightly higher on the T2, and the T2 recharges faster as well, so I believe the T2 would be the preferable option for tankers to be obliged to take.

You now get quick form all the time, and if you are at the old +tohit requirement you will do the old 2.76 scale damage. It just lets you use weaker quicksnipes at lower levels of +tohit.

I don't have hard numbers but I also wouldn't be surprised or alarmed. Summer is out in full force and the game has been back for a couple of months now. It's only natural that players who were chomping at the bit to get back in after 7+ years would be feeling a little less like they needed to be perpetually playing after the game had been available again long enough to get their fill. I doubt we're losing as many players as people are just logging on at a more reasonable and normal schedule for their gaming.

When using the 'bright hand cast' animation for the power 'Scream' in sonic attack, the power effect emanates from the left hand, but the cast animation uses both hands in a manner that suggests the power should be emanating from a more central position between the hands.

I've not had the chance to play with all the different snipes on the test server as well as the live server yet, but I do think that it feels a lot cooler and more powerful for quick snipes to come out quickly and then have a longer 'recoil' than to have a moderate pre-load and then moderate recoil afterwards. It's more punchy and feels more like you're using a snipe in combat, which is why you have to spend the rest of the animation recovering. Naturally the exact point at which the blast comes out will need to depend on the animation in the particular set in question, but I do think erring on the side of having it come out early is a more powerful feeling animation without actually impacting gameplay.

I actually have to say I am not a fan of reducing the recharge back to 12 seconds. The 15-second recharge meant there was more room for more complex Blaster attack rotations; with a 12-second recharge, many sets can skip their second attack power once they are fully slotted (for example: Flares, Blaze, Flares, Blazing Bolt; repeat). If a 15-second recharge feels too weak, I would recommend instead increasing the power of the second (moderate) attack in each Blaster powerset, or otherwise encouraging its use. Telephone Broadly speaking, I don't think that making blasters pick and enhance another power to have a full single target attack chain would be anything but detrimental to their effectiveness. When compared to melee sets, blast sets tend to come with active and complex pairings. Corrupters and Defenders tend to take a lot of powers and need to be on the ball with their support sets, while blasters often dart in and out of melee range with their manipulation powers. Combined with their squishiness and vulnerability to being mezzed, the general playstyle of a ranged character tends to have a lot more plates to keep spinning than melee sets, which may have more complex attack rotations and positioning requirements but a lot less to focus on beyond that. As such, I don't think bringing the complexity of ranged rotations into parity with that of melee ones would be the right choice taken in context of how the different ATs play as a complete package. Sentinels obviously create a bit of a wrinkle in this distinction, but I'm not very knowledgeable about that AT. Edit: I wrote this while running a TF so I got a little distracted by the relative complexity issue. I think that's a much smaller problem than the potential for how requiring another power pick would thin out ranged damage dealers enhancement slots to get back to the same level of damage they had before needing the additional power in the rotation. I don't know exactly how much of an impact this would be, but it would definitely be a nerf if an additional power did end up being needed to fill out the rotation.

I actually really like this suggestion. It would be a buff, but blast sets already needed help with their single target DPS. Having the tohit buff give a (hopefully) scaling increase that caps out at 22% will keep tohit as a relevant stat, and the cap being 22% means that people already built to quicksnipe won't need to change their build at all to take maximum advantage of it. Snipe damage scaling off of tohit is also a lot more intuitive thematically than tohit suddenly speeding up the animation time to one second. I say 'hopefully' scaling because it will make 22% tohit feel far less obligatory than it currently does. Quick snipes turning on like a switch at the magic number 22% has never sat well with me, as it feels very arbitrary, and I'd be very excited to see people able to build to, say, +19% to hit and get about 90% of the benefit if that's the most convenient number for them.