Scarlet Shocker

Fair point. I remember reading the comics - and I think there Positron tells someone to "grab yourself an enhancement on the way out!" To me that implies they are a physical thing - but exactly what they are is ephemeral at the same time, so yeah... But we also know that Mender Silos and his crew of ne'er do-wells, with a very very dodgy past, are less than straight with us poor saps who they are recruiting for a battle at the end of time. (Something I cannot decide is more influenced by Michael Moorcock or Douglas Adams.) It would be relatively easy to say "they're lying to you" and turn that into a thing - they say it's the Well, Posi couldn't disprove that, but then it turns out to be something else entirely (Or perhaps it is a kind of well but not how they described.) Now we definitely know where your dodgy threads come from! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Jesting aside I think the whole concept of Enhancements is one of the game's strengths. It's not tied to gear, and it allows extreme flexibility - especially with ED* which kind of forces it. But that made the playing experience so much better than immediately going after the next bit of +X gear you need to "complete" your build. Aside from your deliberate typo which puts a very different slant on everything in game - I kind of agree. I spent my first decade not looking under the hood to see how the game worked, just to keep the freshness and enjoyment going for as long as possible - and that worked, by and large. But in any world, you would always have someone curious enough to keep behind the curtain and wonder what that strange bald man is doing wiggling those controls. Conclusion: I think there's more that can be done with the story, and make it interesting as well as exciting - but it would take some skill and craft to do so and probably conflicts terribly with all the plans that the Devs currently have. And even if it didn't, I doubt they'd tell us 😀 *I know, heresy, right? 🤪

Ducking gifs sounds ... wrong I lolled!

Squirrel Girl defeated Dr Doom without any weird hokey pokey. Never forget that! That is one of my bugbears with the end game content. To me, it seemed that when Matt Miller became Lead Dev the whole end-game story became a Positron wank-fest and that sucked. Bigly. The warning signs were there on the ITF of course. I deleted the spoiler here in case it got revealed but that sounds bloody awful and would almost certainly killed the game. I have never heard or read this but if true, I'm almost glad that the game got cancelled when it did and I've never imagined myself saying that.

Those of you who pay any attention to how I feel about Incarnates know how much I hate the sloppy writing and story. I don't hate the principle of getting more power, becoming stronger or generally improving what my character does as a hero (or villain) but how poorly that story was bolted on to the game as a "that'll give them end game, screw making it make sense." It was poorly conceived, and poorly executed and gave us dross like TPN where a civilian can throw a rock at a super-powerful entity and nail them because handwave. It delves shallowly into ancient Greek mythos and comes up wanting. In my opinion, it fails at almost every single turn... and yet despite it's best (worst) efforts, the actual power progression isn't bad. The Incarnate power trees and abilities are mostly ok (except Lore which is horrific.) It does give your character power and it does actually feel like you've earned something. BUT... if you read the story, the Well of the Furies acknowledges power and gifts itself to those who show it. But you'll never be as powerful as the signature characters, and they don't show any evidence of the Well blessing them. So what is it doing? I don't trust the "Well of the Furies" for so many many reasons - not the least of which is that nobody is able to tell us what it is. Which in itself is stupid considering that in Paragon, the Rogue Isles and Praetoria we have access to amazing technicians, scientists, magicians and sensei who could guide and help us mere player characters in checking out what it is. Frankly the whole story stopped me reading the game lore because it's so badly broken at this point. Why is it that this mysterious power will gift itself to you but you still can't beat up your trainer? Your trainer should, logically be the one to receive the benefits of WotF. Even low level signature characters such as Bobcat need an army of Incarnate imbued folk to slap her down - and the Hamidon has them all beat so why doesn't the Well gve Hami its power then taking over the whole game world? Odysseus seems to get a slice of it, and even Positron gets more than his fair share but you can rip that from under his nose and steal the Flames of Prometheus. It seems so fractured that the Well can do whatever it likes and holds to no game logic or semblance of reason. Is it too late to scrub it from the game and come up with something that makes sense in terms of game lore and human logic?

"Hell is other people" Jean-Paul Sartre

I've seen your wardrobe. I think most of your threads need reporting! 🤣

You must have a minimum of... 5 pool slots I believe and a maximum of 20. I fiddled around wtih Mids last night and actually taking 20 pool powers is very difficult. I don't even think it's permissible. @Andreah makes a good point about the number of combos but for most EPs there are 10 options. (MM get 9 for some reason. Devs hate MMs)

Thinking aloud here: We need to establish the definitive rules here: What is the minimum number of pool powers and/or sets we MUST pick... I think I'm right in believing we don't have to pick an EP (EPicatron) if we don't wish. That way we can at least get a baseline for the non V/EAT ATs

I almost hate you (no I truly do not! 😃 ) but you are saved by the fact that I was only interested in powers. If you add slotting to the mix that would mean that almost every power taken could be multiplied by 6. It would be a large number.

I think Zem is closest here. I may not be right but I guess one thing I haven't factored in is the rules about the number of pool powers - and indeed the variance of them - and the Patrons

I was trying to discover what are the maximum number of power variants in the game, across all ATs and powers: In other words, what is the maximum possible PCs you could build, at level 50 where no two characters had exactly the same power sets. Every PC would be different even if by a magnitude of just one turns out to be pretty bloody difficult!

He's off elsewhere making other great achievements. In fact you might say he's being an Owling Success! /em rimshot

you have 10 pools with five powers each. So that's a potential choice of 50. Granted once a pool is chosen you are limited to that (now you've got me thinking about multiple builds) but you have a potential 50 powers to choose from across the board. I am not so good at maths that I can calculate how to account for powers that are predicated on previous selections. But yes there's an anomaly there. I've not counted the individual powers in the primary secondary pools so my final tally won't add up. You have embarrassed me @Snarky /me runs off to find holy water, silver bullets, garlic and crosses

I hadn't considered illegal combos - I just took the available data from HC Wiki and that (I presume) doesn't permit illegal combos. Source: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Archetypes I went through each AT, counted up available combos etc I am aware there are possibly glaring errors and I won't be offended if anyone finds and corrects. VEATs still need work. I believe EATs (PB/WS) are pretty close now.

My first reaction to this was akin to Foxtrot Oscar but that is yet another order of magnitude. I would like to do it but I think Lore would likely make me cry 🤣 To be serious, it would be worth doing.

You have a very interesting notion of what constituted "bog standard" my friend. I've known much more technical forums laid out better than here. The fact that City of Heroes itself is a sub-forum of home strikes me as a bit weird and the sub-forums aren't well labelled. You and I are not the people who need the guidance. We've been here a long long time and we a) know our way around already and b) know it's ok to ask the question if we can't find something. BUT... and this is the most important thing - if we want newcomers to feel welcome here, navigating the place is very important. Any new community can be intimidating, and game forums especially so, given how some treat newbies. To create a deliberate obstacle with clunky layouts and sub-par descriptors isn't a good look and could easily put people off. You may disagree, which is your right to do so and I wouldn't be offended or surprised but as somebody who's spent most of my working life in sales and marketing I'm very aware of how the smallest obstacle can sour a deal in the early stages and that's not good for the game or the community. We're a little off track here, compared to my original question but I still don't see the necessity for two guides forums. Especially when one is empty! If a veteran has to ask why its there you can bet it's gonna confuse someone unfamiliar with the place and who uses guides the most?

just updated the original spreadsheet. So there are about 18,000 more combos now

I just sketched a build in Mids for a PB and it seems they get all the pool powers but no A/PPP I checked the HC Wiki and it is ambiguous in that it fails to mention Pool powers; Even so, that's blowing my original spead sheet wide open lol

I would argue there are far too many sub forums that overcomplicate this place. It's a nightmare to navigate. If it were simplified and many forums consolidated, it would likely be much simpler for people to know where to post. Doubly so if the forum descriptions were improved and enhanced.

Ok well quite clearly it doesn't make anything easier to find. Guides has absolutely no description. It literally just says "Guides" Fort Trident has a pretty week description and also has a sub forum "Guides" that has sweet FA in it. It is blank, empty, void, filled with nothingness, so clearly about as much use as a rubber duck in the Sahara desert. I could possibly get my head around a discrete section to discuss TFs/SFs, Trials and ITrials but the descriptor is feeble and I don't think it really adds much to the overall forum experience frankly.

realistically I'd guestimate that about 60% of pool powers are very rarely used and people tend to stick with what they know. But even so, that leaves several million combos available. So three questions: 1) My memory may be playing tricks on me but I seem to recall that Warshades could access pool powers - and I think HC Wiki says that's untrue. Do they also access A/PPPs? If so that is an order of magnitude increase. 2) Dear Devs, can we have more character slots please? 3) Pool Powers - Given that three of the Pool sets are exclusive - get one, you lose access to the other two sets, I may be miscalculating here and that would be a reduction in the final total. Anyone confirm that?

I haven't read every response but has anyone explained ED to the OP? Six slotting Stamina isn't going to do him any favours at all and could well be one part of why he's strugging with his End

Ok then This is not fully correct... but it might be close I'm hazy on Pools and A/PPPs for V/EATS so that's where it's most likely to fall over It's a start - and I welcome corrections from those with better knowledge and mathmatical skillologies than I 7.5 million power combos ain't so shabby though, is it? Archetype Primary Powers Secondary Powers Ancillary/Patron Pool Powers Total Blaster 15 15 50 60 675,000 Brute 22 13 50 60 858,000 Controller 12 17 50 60 612,000 Corruptor 15 17 50 60 765,000 Defender 17 15 50 60 765,000 Dominator 12 13 50 60 468,000 Mastermind 7 17 50 60 357,000 Scrapper 21 14 50 60 882,000 Sentinel 15 13 50 60 585,000 Stalker 18 14 50 60 756,000 Tanker 11 22 50 60 726,000 Peacebringer 14 13 50 9,100 Warshade 14 13 50 9,100 Arachnos Soldier 8 8 20 1,280 10 4 40 10 4 40 Arachnos Widow 8 7 20 1,120 6 7 42 10 6 60 Total 7469782

A question I've often wondered about vaguely but how many different power combos are available to a given player? Obviously there's all the various ATs, and they have a range of available powers so that gives a significant number of itself. But then there are pool powers, APP/Patron Powers to add to that mix too. I am not including Temp/Powers bought from Vendors at this stage because I have no clue how many of those there are - especially pet/vanity pet powers, but I'm thinking that given all possible legitimate power combos, there must be a couple of hundred thousand options to everyone (but not sure how many of the pool powers are regularly used so there's a high degree of theory in this. I do remember Matt Miller once saying there were "literally billions of costume power choices" - but I think the actual number of powers are also impressive too.