@Ghost

This has been my hangup for a long time, too. Plus, there's so much overlap - stun and hold both functionally remove all threat for the full duration, and confuse is an even better version. Fear and slows I think wind up being the most 'balanced' CC from a designer's perspective since they still let the enemies interact and remain threatening. To the thread topic, something like a modified GW2-style break bar might be interesting. On strong enemies, GW2 has a separate 'health bar' that only decreases when disabling effects are applied, and when it hits 0, the enemy is stunned and takes more damage for a period of time. It adds an interesting layer to combat and gives value to all CC effects. A CoH version might only be on Hard Mode enemies, and reduce the enemy's mez protection when it's broken to make them susceptible to regular levels of CC.

Are you like me? Do you like Super Strength but think Rage is kinda lame? Don't you wish there was a StJ to SS's MA? A set with visceral, heavy hits, good sound effects, and something that could convey impact? Me too! So I imagined one instead of doing actual work, one evening. The set largely aims to be similar to Super Strength, albeit without Rage's insanity. Instead, it has powers that hit hard and fast, and a proc mechanic to make its special Build Up recharge faster with successive hits to supplement its weaker AOE. I included references to other powers in an attempt to get an eye for balance, but it might be over/undercooked in that regard. But anyway, I always wanted to do one of these so here's... Titan's Might Collateral Damage (passive effect): You strike with such might that your single-target powers impact around the target in a small radius, having a chance to apply a secondary effect. By taking the power Battle Shout, you can change the secondary effect as well as add an additional portion of each power’s damage in the same radius. Your attacks that already strike in an area will not strike in an additional radius, but will still apply these bonus effects and damage. [8ft radius against 6 targets, expanded to 12ft and 9 targets on a Tanker.] Gut Hit: You aim for the gut in an attempt to debilitate your opponent, dealing minor smashing damage. 20% chance to reduce Battle Shout’s recharge by 5s. [Damage stats from Thunder Kick. Animation from Smite.] Smash: You don’t pull any punches, and pummel your foe for moderate smashing damage. 40% chance to reduce Battle Shout’s recharge by 5s. [Damage stats from Punch. Animation from Punch’s alternate, possibly others to fit.] Facebreaker: You use inertia to carry your might forward into a solid attack, dealing high damage. 60% chance to reduce Battle Shout’s recharge by 5s. On a Stalker, this is replaced by Assassin's Strike. [Damage stats from Cobra Strike. Animation from Cross Punch/Crane Kick.] Battle Shout/Build Up: Taking this power grants access to 3 variations; using one incurs the recharge of all variations, and enhancements are copied to all variations. Battle Shout has a longer recharge than similar powers, but each of Titan’s Might’s attacks has a chance to lower its recharge by 10s. Stalkers instead receive Build Up. [Damage procs calculated as 33% of the Fiery Embrace formula for primary powers only. Procs benefit from crits and Fury. Shouts also have halved Build Up buff values, and a 180s recharge.] Raging Shout: Collateral Damage’s secondary effect becomes a chance for knockdown. Increases damage and chance to hit for 10s, and for 10s your attacks will inflict an additional portion of their damage as an immolating damage fire proc that is also applied via Collateral Damage. [Ongoing: 25% chance for knockdown. Active: increase damage, ToHit, proc mode for 10s.] Intimidating Shout: Collateral Damage’s secondary effect becomes a chance for fear. Increases damage and chance to hit for 10s, and for 10s your attacks will inflict an additional portion of their damage as an emotional damage psionic proc that is also applied via Collateral Damage. [Ongoing: 20% chance for 5s mag2 fear. Active: increase damage, ToHit, proc mode for 10s.] Concussive Shout: Collateral Damage’s secondary effect becomes a chance for stun and slow. Increases damage and chance to hit for 10s, and for 10s your attacks will inflict an additional portion of their damage as an internal bleeding lethal DoT that is also applied via Collateral Damage. [Ongoing: 10% chance for 5s mag2 stun, 50% chance for nonstacking -70% movespeed and -40% recharge slow. Active: increase damage, ToHit, proc mode for 10s.] Build Up: Collateral Damage becomes a chance for knockdown and a low chance for single-target damage to strike in a radius around the target. Increases damage and chance to hit for 10s. [Ongoing: 20% chance for knockdown, 10% chance for damage proc. Active: increase damage, ToHit.] Taunt/Confront/Placate. Same as they ever were. Sonic Boom: You’re able to clap your hands together with enough force that it creates a conal wave of destruction, damaging your foes. This power’s secondary effects will land twice as often with Collateral Damage. You do not need a target to activate this power. 40% chance to reduce Battle Shout’s recharge by 5s. [Scale 1.15 damage. 25ft range, 90 degree cone, 14s recharge. Animation from Hand Clap.] Implanting Strike: With the sheer force you pack into every blow, you can hit something so hard that it partially embeds into the ground, dealing high smashing damage. This will immobilize the target for a short time, in addition to the effects of Collateral Damage. [Damage stats from Crippling Axe Kick. Animation from Punch/Haymaker.] Big Shot: You put all your weight behind a mighty attack, aiming directly for the opponent’s face to do extreme smashing damage. This power has a chance to deal knock-up in addition to the effects of Collateral Damage; if Raging Shout’s secondary effects are in use, it’s guaranteed to do a knock-up effect instead of knock down. 80% chance to reduce Battle Shout’s recharge by 5s. [Damage stats from Devastating Blow (minus Contaminated.) Animation from Crushing Uppercut and a trimmed Devastating Blow.] Earthshaker: You leap into action, impacting the ground at your targeted location with incredible force and inflicting massive damage in an area. This power’s secondary effects will land twice as often with Collateral Damage. 60% chance to reduce Battle Shout’s recharge by 5s. [Damage stats from Lightning Rod. Animation from Spring Attack.]

iirc this suggestion came up a lot back on retail servers and the explanation given was that there wasn't an easy way to signal when rain shouldn't be on screen. Building interiors are usually below the map and could be outside of whatever volume applies a camera-effect, but stuff like overpasses, parking garages, tram interiors, etc. would likely have to be all made exceptions by hand. Even then, having the effect go away under a bridge and suddenly reappear when you move out isn't a great solution.

The regular non-combat trail aura is working as intended, but no amount of attacking or being attacked gets the in-combat version to work. Can confirm it doesn't work on any body type.

I waffled on making a post about this, but since it's brought up and outlined a bit more clearly-- this is absolutely the sort of thing that should be pinned and precede the feedback threads. There's a lot of space that gets eaten by pie-in-the-sky suggestions for late game revisions, and it's never clearly stated what sort of feedback the devs are actually after. It's been implied major changes won't happen (unless they do, like Aim) and I think having clears labels with an emphasis on in-game testing would put people in the right direction. It often feels like there's a lack of direction aside from "no, we don't want this type of feedback" like with what happened during the Aim/Beanbag changes where it was suddenly a closed book. In fact, iirc @Cobalt Arachne proposed a discussion a while back over changing the name of those threads to more clearly emphasize what's being asked of testers.

Combat Teleport ignores range buffs and enhancements -- description says so, too. Fold Space can't take range enhancements; it's a PBAoE, so it hits in a 100ft radius around you and dumps the targets right in front of you. A Tanker's passive is the only thing that will boost it (+50% to 150ft.) Teleport Target is actually two powers; on an enemy, it has a 200ft range and acts like an attack, on a friend, it has a 10,000ft range and doesn't require accuracy. Range enhancements boost both of those, and you might even need them for the friendly teleport on particularly big zones. Wormhole will boost the power's range as usual. It has an 80ft range to its target, and then a 20ft radius around the target for who it grabs. Range enhancements will boost the range, not the radius. I'm not 100% sure if range enhancements will boost the distance where you can drop targets or not, someone who's played Grav could probably answer that.

Odd little bug I ran into just now. I finished a DFB run on Everlasting on a newer Dominator, and logged out. On my character select screen, this is the last character on the 1st page. I deleted a character on my 2nd page, in the 4th place from the bottom. I clicked on the deleted character's space to start working on a costume for a new character. Eventually, I saved it and backed out, only to go back to the 1st page where... my Dominator was gone. The space simply said "Create Character" and acted like there was nothing there, and the character wasn't present on any page through manual scrolling or the search -- clicking on the seemingly vanished Dominator's space prompted me to make a new character. Going back to character select and back onto Everlasting had the Dominator back in place, though it is a bit alarming to have characters disappear and be inaccessible (if only for a little bit.) Also not sure of the root cause, trying to recreate it didn't have the same effect.

Most weapon sets were balanced around redraw by having a higher accuracy multiplier, though there's a few exceptions like Claws having faster recharge and lower end costs than normal instead -- but afaik Spines/Thorns doesn't have any particular added benefit, just its secondary effects. Redraw doesn't play into cast times, and cast times weren't balanced into determining damage in a standardized way at all, so a lot of them were just done to make a cool animation without any thought to DPS. If you look through patch notes, you'll usually notice when a set is updated and rebalanced, cast times tend to be the one area that gets cut down a lot since it's free real estate for balancing, as it were, Longer cast times do benefit proc rates on enhancements through the PPM system, though. Right now on beta, there's an update to cut down on redraw. You'll draw each 'weapon' once after about 20-30s of non-combat, but after that it skips the animation. Even when you do redraw, the animations clip at the end of the first cast to make up for the lost time. It's pretty slick!

Please have mercy upon my hands before they crumple into dust. I currently have 200 storage spots in the auction house. I can move 10 enhancement converters at a time. To go from inventory to storage takes a drag and a click x200. To post each listing is two clicks x200. A slash command I can macro, larger stack sizes, a "post all at last price" button, any or all of the above.

RoA has a 65s base recharge, although it's been bugged for an eternity and does 1 less tick of damage than advertised because of the pseudopet duration. As intended it deals 225.2 base damage on a blaster at level 50, though in reality it's 150.13. Full Auto does 178.6 (on live, though there should be no change.) It's possible RoA is designed around the bug or there were other concerns vis-a-vis the rest of Archery vs AR, though even with the bugged damage RoA hits 6 extra targets which winds up placing it solidly ahead in total damage.

The Follow Up one imo seemed like a really strong contender for a reasonable fix, I wish that one had gotten more traction.

For how you want the power to work and keep up with you without totally detracting from gameplay (recasting a location toggle takes time) on a ranged set (an aura forces it to melee), I think the current pseudopet implementation is honestly the best bet and don't think it needs a radical change -- just that it has pain points. The speed and targeting priority are pretty high on that list, but imo you could give the set a much better flow with a faster cast time/lower end cost on Storm Cell to make reapplying it where necessary less of a loss. Cast times allegedly don't factor into damage formulas anyway.

The new Storm Cell visuals are much more helpful! Very appreciated. It also makes good fodder for a point I had a hard time illustrating before re:AI, pathing, duration and speed. Trying to get the thing to switch targets often feels a struggle and this was the best way I could clearly show off the type of stuff I noticed in missions before and after the patch. 25s from the time an attack lands on a new target to fully move, and you can see it sort of struggling and idling in the hallway before it fully commits to the new target I've been attacking. It's very similar to typical mission behavior where a minion might get left behind, and it seems to anchor on top of that and refuses to move. Even then, it moves fairly slowly. I did a similar test, summoning Storm Cell at the back of the Vanguard base and flying full speed to the target dummy and attacking. Similarly, it took around 25s or so for it to fully catch up with me even without it being in combat first. Moving between spawns/combats and traveling with it seems to be the whole purpose of the 60s pseudopet nature, but it doesn't feel good at doing that. I can't claim to understand how CoH's AI behavior works or if upping its move speed would help at all, but I think it contributes to a lot of pain points with having to redrop it just to fight the pathing.

tbh a lot of the duration/recharge chat seems misguided in the sense that more aggressive pathing would resolve the issue almost entirely. In a world where Storm Cell's where you want it for the full 60s duration, that's incredibly efficient. AI's a fickle thing and I won't pretend otherwise, but imo ramping the move speed would be good for those instances where it seems to linger behind. Its overall behavior is something I want to look at closer once the visibility tweaks go in.

By my own stopwatch on Brainstorm, I ran the same chain and got 64.72 twice (I forgot to turn the timestamps on the first time, oops) and did the same -- I timed it by pressing it just as I hit the first stunning shot, and stopped after the circle disappeared off SotW. The animation clipping was very noticeable where it did redraw: the first Stunning Shot into Cross Punch, and then SotW into Stunning Shot. But afterwards the chain proceeded like it would with no redraw options on live. edit: I remembered I had OBS installed, so I tried one more time with a recording for anyone who wants to meticulously time it. Stopwatched claimed 64.22 this go. https://streamable.com/3dukvz

Speaking of the repel, the repel->kd behavior should probably be noted in the power's help text like it is with Repulsion Field.

Why are the heart sunglasses only on female characters?

Messed around with it on a /martial Blaster, /storm Corruptor, and /bio Sent to try and get a feel overall. Presentation wise it's very impressive, effects and especially sound design is great. It seems like Storm Cell doesn't take custom colors? I'm not sure if it has to do with the pseudo pet, but I set the colors to all purple on the Sentinel and noticed pretty frequently that it had the default white/grey rain color. Performance-wise it felt very middle of the road. I put up a 7m Trapdoor time with the Sent (compared to a 5m50s with Water/Bio post Sentinel revamp) and the real killer was (obviously) the ST damage that was lacking for bosses. I'll say the AOE feels very good when you get it going, but going full mayhem mode with the Corruptor exacerbated a lot of the "set up" time for the set. Trying to reposition Storm Cell and C5 onto spawns to open strong and get the full synergy with the rest of the set feels very sluggish for an opener with two 2s+ casts back to back. Best as I can, Storm Cell has a pseudopet like Carrion Creepers that keeps trying to follow you, but in a similar way it feels unreliable and visually there's just so much going on that it's almost impossible to discern if the effect is keeping up with me or not. End costs were also consistently an issue, even on Bio Armor (+2 perf shifters, Panacea, and Numina's) and on the Blaster build where I didn't dip out of the set much. I guess it's to be expected with pretty rapidfire AOE. Overall, pretty cool. I'm sure most of the weaknesses are intentional, and despite the shortcomings I still had a lot of fun just messing around with it.

I've had long spans of playing where I'd just log in to do a Hami or two a day and log back out. Usually took less than 20 minutes. On Everlasting they go back to back so you get 80 reward merits, and then either 40 reward merits or 4 emps. Since they were exactly equivalent, I took the 4 emps every time for flexibility; I could cash them out for the same 40 reward merits, or keep banking them for alts. Thankfully I read the patch notes and cashed out something like 300+ emps beforehand. Don't know why they didn't change veteran levels to grant a new currency that doesn't convert to reward merits since that was the problem and not emps or AE itself, but c'est la vie.

I'll pay 2000 aether particles for a bat that hits mini mode characters with a mag100 kb.

I've been pretty vocal about communication and that whole process, so, I mean...

Very much so. One of the things I've wanted for a while is a direct Mids import feature. The beta server has an almost-but-not-really option where you can import the enhancements used and they're in your tray in the correct order, but leveling up manually 1 to 50 for testing is even more annoying than respecs if you're trying to get something precise.

Depending on the mission, you can actually just click on any door within a pretty small radius and zone in. It actually applies to some zone entrances, too! I saw this when I was trick or treating in Imperial City. Clicked one door? Monsters. Clicked another? Run inside, zone into Underground Imperial. The ultimate trick.

It was a very similar story for the GW2 Discord as well. People who knew particular classes inside and out were brought in, ignored, and the lead balance dev ensured his pet projects were top of the line, simple to play, and fun. And he spent quite a bit of time mocking players and predicting salt. Fun fella! The dev team here is far more responsive on average, no doubt, especially with rapid changes on this recent page. Though I have to wonder if it's just the difference in magnitude of voices and infrastructure between a humble lil project and a massive ongoing title with millions of players.

Some further testing with Water/Bio via some random +4x8 Devouring Earth missions: I got my butt beat, repeatedly. Damage, though, never felt like it was really lacking. I had some more time to get used to the Vulnerability clickie and it's still not gelling with me in particular, even though I was using it much more readily than before. Trapdoor times improved slightly from a ~6m5s to a ~5m50s, but I think that's more up to variance than it is to me making better use of the clickie. The opportunity cost here of tabbing through a group to find a boss to apply vulnerability to makes things feel frenetic. Trapdoor runs highlighted this in a way that I think simulates the typical group experience, where to make your best time you're firing off AOEs trying to maximize efficiency. I'm better served doing the same for DPS than I am playing 'find the boss in this mess,' and the instant nature of it makes it almost feel like something you could macro into powers... but can't. I think the rate of acquisition for vulnerability is smooth and frequent, but the ways for spending it feel limiting. Some potential suggestions for the current implementation: Make vulnerability a toggle. Each attack then spends meter (20/target, as opposed to the current 50/target). This allows AOE usage to apply widely at the cost of your entire meter, allowing more team-and-speed friendly 'dump and forget' styles. A toggle is less frenetic than utilizing a clickie repeatedly, and could auto-off when the meter reaches 0. Split the debuff. Rather than -15% to various attributes in a single application, I'd propose something like the recent Sonic Attacks changes. A non-stacking -10% that only refreshes duration, and a -2.5% that stacks with multiple applications even from other Sentinels. An attack would then apply an immediate -12.5% for 20 meter, and back to the original -15% for 40 meter. Only a slight increase, but it also allows wider application of -12.5% to 5 targets for 100 meter if the player chooses. I think this would enhance team-play, especially with multiple Sentinels, but keep Sentstacking from being too dominant. And a side note, since I think I saw questions about both earlier: the Vulnerability reticle isn't controlled by any colors in the primary set, and there's no option in the tailor specifically for it. Also, applying Vulnerability doesn't alert targets.