KaizenSoze

Someone reminded me. I always forget about defense amplifiers from the P2W. That might provide all the toughing you need.

Instead of posting separating posts in the aggro changes and AE. If you are a afk farmer, I would copy over to Brainstorm and test. There are three factors in play that might require players to toughen up their afk farmers: To get full experience mobs farm mobs might need added attacks or defense. I don't consider this the biggest issue as folks will figure out a way to make the weakest 100% exp mob quickly All Custom Enemy ranged attacks have a minimum range of 80ft. Hard to make 100% exp mobs without ranged fire attacks. Folks might find a way. Aggro behavioral change which means many more mobs attacking The result is that you might need to add a little more fire defense and/or get the HP accolades to give yourself more of a buffer. Again as always. TEST!

I have been doing fine with Scorpion Shield softcapped energy defense is still very helpful. There are quite a few sets that provide 3.75% ranged defense, but you need to slot all six pieces. There are few tricks like slotting two pieces of Blessing of Zephyr in travels powers. Also, Thunder Strike is another set that will give you some ranged defense without a full set. A full set will give you even more. Folks will figure it out.

I have a elec/ice blaster. Outside of wolves and EB/AVs things generally are not resisting Shiver. ITF mobs are very weak to slows for instance.

I know, but Mayhem!!!!! And you have to get Mayhem badges.

That's what Mayhem Missions are for.

Yes, I am finding the pet ironically the weak point of the set. As for the cones, combat teleport is your friend. Example Symphony/Savage goes like this: Fire control cones Fire damage cones Savage leap or combat tp if you're using a different secondary Use this macro to back out of the spawn /bind lshift+s powexec_location back:35 combat teleport Repeat

I have been toying around with Fold Space on my Night Widow. Yes, it's very good, not perfect, at densely packing mobs together for Eviscerate and Spin. It makes Eviscerate worth taking. Plus, as noted by others, fold space helps with runners. Combat teleport is also nice for getting right next to a key mob in a crowded spawn.

Or specific missions like, https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Doppelgangers

As always I suggest that farmers use the copy character feature to test out the aggro changes. Folks might have to buff up their afk builds a bit, but that's it I think. But do test, so it's not a surprise.

What are your fire resist and defense values?

I look forward to more experienced tankers testing this out. My experience has been that this change will have more impact than the attack type changes. Outside of Lord Recluse, now his toxic attacks check only toxic/positional. Note, this is one of the reasons some armor sets received some toxic defense. On the right map I can get 30+ mobs shooting at me, but the mobs pulled away from their spawn points will give up pretty quickly and head back to their spawn point if they are not aggro'ed regularly. Soloers will get a nice stress test when they charge into densely packed rooms.

It might effect afk farming. I tested my active fire farm on beta, took more damage than usual, but nothing overwhelming. I suggested the in aggro change thread that people test afk farming. I personally only active farm.

I copied my max out fire farmer to the beta server. 90% fire resists, 45.8% fire defense, spines/fire/mu I do not afk farm generally. I have an intense 5 map meteor farm that can be completed in around 20 minutes. But I tried out the meteor map, I can see how the extra aggro could cause more afk farmer deaths. I am NOT saying afk meteor farming is dead, but due to the extra ranged attacks and with now a minimal range of 80. Farmers on small maps will be taking constant damage from more sources. Something that folks might want to test.

A year ago I would have not understood why this change was made. Now... Putting aside the extreme example I posted above. I run a lot of PUGs, yes I like pain, for reasons I don't not understand. There has been a noticeable uptick in pretty un-knowledgeable players showing up on my TFs. Especially, the 30+ ones. They don't know how to get to different zones. They don't know how to play as a group or they are just tailing along behind. If this was just happening in Posi 1-2, that's understandable. Even up to Yin levels. But it's happening in Market Crashes, ITFs, iTrials... Mostly, I am talking about the removal the AE from AP and Mercy. You'll still be able to PL newbies to 50 in a different zone, but at least you had to show them how to get to that zone.

If this causes there to be a lot more PI radios or other repeatable content teams in different zones. I consider that a good thing. At least, the player would have had to figure out how to get to PI! I had a Apex-Tin mage player who admitted he had been PLed to 50 with Alpha open. They didn't even know how to get to RWZ. I had to go into AP and show him the correct door on the Vanguard building. I don't think he had ever been out of AP.

Thank you for the info. I personally didn't test Malta, so I wanted to give dom the benefit of the doubt.

It's possible they were tagged incorrectly and have been fixed. City of data is showing the new values I believe. As for the melee attacks, they were probably smash/neg/melee before and are now just neg/melee. They don't even check smash def at all.

Also, Cimerora also has repeated missions now. And Dark Astoria has had them since live:

Yes, you're correct multiple Council vamp attacks do -tohit. Gloom, Life drain, and several melee attacks. All of which are probably hitting more often. Side note, since you have a electric blaster. I find it useful to really lean into the end drain. Check out Clarion Radial, it buffs end drain nicely.

It's all good. Let's talk specifics. Council: Council Vamps use Dominate which only check Psionic defense. It's always been that way. You're right though, you are probably get hit more with -toHit negative energy attacks. I have always been obsessive about accuracy, so I probably didn't notice any issue. Arachnos: I have touched on that. Malta: Yes, I total see how those bosses got nastier! Gunslinger powers link. I see that Explosive TIp, Incendiary Round, and Liquid Nitrogen Round are using non s/l defense. Calling @Cobalt Arachne One of the Malta bosses, who was no walkover before, might have gotten too nice a buff from this change.

Somebody cannot take a joke. I have repeatedly mentioned Toxic Tarantula as an issue. Fortunata Mistresses are always an issue. I looked over their attacks, I don't even think their attacks even got changed. What specific attacks do you think are the difference? By the way blaster, Elec/Ice, I used the most is soft capped only in Energy and almost range. 48% Energy 43% Ranged 34% s/l.

You'll be fine with your existing builds. Already in this thread folks have tested their existing s/l soft capped builds w/o any changes and reporting that things are fine. Maybe a bit harder, nothing major. It is a sub-subset of attacks that got modified. Usually, at worst a few mobs in a spawn will have any of the modified attacks. And it will only usually be one attack. Ice thorn caster's ice sword for example. Honestly, at this point I think the aggro changes will have a way bigger impact than these changes. One exception would be Lord Recluse in MLTF. He is quite a bit nastier, because of his toxic attacks. Nasty enough that the devs made adjustments. Please, if you find a mob group that is ripping your existing builds apart. Then post the details here. Unless you can find an entire spawn of level 54 Ice Thorn casters and try melee them with a s/l capped blaster. It's not turning out to be a huge change.

Adds calendar alert to grab that name in 472 days. Let's see that's October 28, 2023.

It's a possibility, I hope folks will start crafting and converting more on their regular characters. If you're playing regularly, you get quite a few uncommons that can be converted into more interesting pieces.