Wravis
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Posts posted by Wravis
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3 hours ago, JayboH said:
Sonic migraine effects have been in the game for over 3 years now. You would have had to make a Sonic Assault Dominator to experience it.
Yes. A set that has ranged attacks, because that's how sound works.
There's nothing wrong with the migraine effect. It makes sense for any sound based attack set. What I'm saying is that it isn't a good thematic differentiating feature. It's just a hold with a fancy name.
Splash damage or more range would be more interesting and more thematic. -
5 hours ago, Alchemystic said:
It depends! Sound is all about vibrations, it seems pretty valid to me to have it so your character is vibrating at a sonic frequency and using that to augment their attacks, that to me feels more like the "sonic melee" angle here.
But, as stated in the post above, this is a comic book universe, everything is relative. I'm primarily looking at this from a mechanics standpoint, I wouldn't get too lost in the minutiae of how the powerset is presented thematically until we can figure out how it should be structured first.
If the set is about manipulating vibrations or whatever, the descriptions should reflect that. As it stands, it's all about making loud noises and generating sound waves, aside from Attune and Assassin's Whisper.
Sound waves travel. If it's loud enough to hurt something nearby, it's loud enough to hurt something a little further away. Or the guy standing next to the target you're shouting at.
If they want to make a set like this, don't just make it a lazy reskin of existing melee sets. Make something cool and thematically appropriate. Splash damage, or increased range. Throwing on a dot and calling it migraine is silly.-
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19 hours ago, Alchemystic said:
Sonic Melee strangely doesn't feel like a melee set, even though everything is close range something feels... off.
Not only do some of the animations not really give the impression you're in melee, but the powers themelves seem like a really odd fit, so I'll break them down a little more in detail;Attune: Probably one of the biggest offenders of this powerset by far, it's a DoT toggle power that affects one enemy, and has a hold component as early as T1? This does not feel like a melee power, it's clumsy, awkward, and impractical. I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel here.
Sonic Thrust: This definitely has a melee component but the purpose of Sonic Thrust in Sonic Manipulation was to fulfil a similar purpose to Ki Push and Power Thrust; an alternative way to keep an enemy at bay like most other T1 Manipulation powers. Definitely not a good fit when you want to keep enemies in melee.Strident Echo: Nothing really wrong with this power, it's pretty simple and does it's job. Arguably this should be the T1/T2 power instead of the oddities we have above.
Sonic Clap: Not the worst power, but this is starting to feel more like a close range control powerset instead melee. Maybe if the other powers in this set weren't as egregious it would be a good fit, but right now it's way too much mez and not enough sustainable damage.
Sound Booster: Nothing wrong here either, seems like an okay fitShriek: Not uncommon to have a close range blast attack in powersets like these, but I'm curious why Shriek and not Shout? Shout matches up against other powers of this type much better.
Deafening Wave: Pretty okay power really, no real issues here
Earsplitter: Also a good power, definitely suitable for T9.So with that in mind, here's what I'd maybe do to really round this set out and eliminate some of those pain points;
T1: New Single Target Melee Power: Perhaps we can rework Attune and Sonic Thrust into one power. A single target melee power that deals a lengthy DoT effect that increases if they suffer Migraine. We could reuse the animation/FX of Sonic Thrust and just call it "Vibrate" or something.
T2 - Strident Echo: Moved this power to T2, as space for it opened up.
T3: New Cone Melee Power: With Attune and Sonic Thrust consolidated, it opens up room for a new power. I feel for this we need a damaging cone melee power capable of inflicting Migraines, since that's something it currently lacks. Maybe using the 'Flurry' animation and calling it "Tempo Strikes" or "Rhythmic Blows"
T7: Shout: Substituted Shriek for Shout, as it has closer range and greater damage, making it more consistent with powers like Hurl, Focus and Focused Burst (also should include 'Bellow' alt animation).That's because it's not how sound works. Sound doesn't only travel a short distance and then stop. If it's loud enough to hurt at close range, it's loud enough to hurt at a short distance.
It doesn't make sense as a melee set. -
Close ranged sound. These sounds are SO loud, but only in melee range.
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40 minutes ago, Dispari said:
Listen, I love myself a good spreadsheet. I have hundreds of them and my wife teases me for it. But City of Heroes it not a spreadsheet. It's an MMO. Leave things alone unless there's a good reason to change them. Wiggling numbers around for busywork is asinine. And undermines the game we all know and love every time you change things for no reason.
This. Especially when there are areas of the game that could use a lot more attention.
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19 hours ago, Krimson said:
However, if music isn't an issue, then clubs can be a decent way to meet people. Just don't be surprised when they RP a dating sim.
And don't be surprised if you get ignored or a even a rude reception if you show up playing a guy.🙃
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On 10/7/2025 at 12:50 PM, Dispari said:
I'm not sure how it does that. It actually does the opposite. All it does is encourage the Brute to keep moving, whether they're ready to or not. Which could mean abandoning the rest of the team. If they get no Fury from being attacked then it doesn't even matter if they're tanking or not. If anything the way it currently works is far more lenient for sub-optimal play. This new version only benefits teams that are already powerful.
In my experience that's how brutes are played regardless.
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2 hours ago, imzadi said:
Sure but youre suggesting locking those ATs to one side which for many people is a deal breaker, most people including myself would much rather play with their friends on their preferred side on a different AT than be forced to play red except co op content.
Ah ha. I missed the part of the post that spawned this little discussion where he suggested full segregation of the ATs again.
No wonder the discussion made no sense to me. 😛 My bad-
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On 10/5/2025 at 5:57 AM, Wavicle said:
let me clarify: the people who play those ATs but only on the Hero side would switch ATs rather than migrate.
Ummm... It takes zero effort to switch alignments.
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On 10/2/2025 at 6:24 PM, drbuzzard said:
Except he's talking about a stalker that doesn't get power siphon.
You are still applying the dmg debuff with each hit because that's thematically how kinetic melee works. Even if mechanically you only have build up.
"Kinetic Melee features a mix of fast light attacks and slow heavy attacks, including some with range. All attacks in this set reduce the damage strength of enemies who are hit."
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6 hours ago, Crasical said:
I'm not sure it works, and it does sort of induce a visual issue where I'm asking myself 'my character is just waving their arms around and hasn't actually hit anything yet, why are the enemies taking damage?' I don't hate it, but I don't really get why, either; and I imagine that some people will be way more annoyed by the animation/damage disconnect than I am.
Your character is waving their arms around absorbing energy out of your enemies. That's why KM has the -dmg debuff, and why Power Siphon says "draining the strength of your enemies".
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12 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:
Definitely need to test this personally, but looking it over, I feel skeptical these things will help. 15s for power siphon while it’s damage buff was lowered so heavily per stack (and keeping the same stack cap) on top of the cast time reductions being minimal just seems less like pushing Kin melee to functional and more just pushing it to have its head above water.
I was thinking this too. I am hoping this is just a first pass.
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On 9/23/2025 at 5:38 AM, Maelwys said:
The problem is that Tankers and Brutes (and sometimes even Scrappers!) can already keep solid aggro on the maximum limit of 17 targets.
Adding hard Crowd Control effects to Tanker attacks might let them partially bypass that issue to "lock down" additional mobs... but each time they poke at a new mob with any offensive ability their Punchvoke will trigger and the new mob will get taunted... which will cause a previously-taunted Taunted enemy to ignore the Tanker and (if they're not CCed) go after a squishy teammate. So the CC effects would need to be pretty lengthy to do any good; and I'm not sure giving Tankers long-duration mez effects would work without stepping onthe toes of Controllers/Dominators/Fortunas.
I honestly think raising the aggro cap on Tankers so that they can reliably grab the attention of a few additional enemies (roughly 2 groups worth) is the best way to go here. Let Tankers deal less damage than Brutes but make the team "safer" (via larger aggro caps and/or absorbing a portion of the damage inflicted upon their teammates). IMO the current state where Tankers are more personally survivable than Brutes and have more instances of AoE Taunting baked into their powers simply isn't enough of a distinction given that both ATs can already Taunt an aggro cap's worth of enemies and survive incoming damage "well enough".I wouldn't go with a CC effect either.
And I'm not sure about absorbing damage from teammates. That seems like it wouldn't mesh well with certain sets that don't have built in health recovery, like Reflexes.
I think some sort of debuff (-acc, -dmg) would make more sense. Or a buff to nearby allies (+def, +res) to make them safer when near the tank. -
Do these changes mean that in the future you'll listen to tester feedback? Because every concern you're addressing now was brought up repeatedly during the initial testing for Storm Blast. But they were dismissed because the people wanted Storm Blast to "feel different" and "be unique" at the expense of actually playing well.
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9 minutes ago, Maelwys said:
But honestly? Anything that gives Brutes and Tanks a slightly different desirable niche on a team would be appreciated at this point. IMO we really need to get away from this "ping pong" situation where after every other patch one of those ATs suddenly becomes "the Tanking AT that can deal the most damage" and the other one instantly becomes undesirable.
That's the problem with having two ATs that do the exact same thing and were made to fill the exact same role. Brutes were meant to tank. That was their job in CoV, so they were never mechanically distinct from Tankers. Whereas an AT like Corruptors started out as the ranged DPS of CoV, so they were designed to be meaningfully distinct from Defenders.
Giving tankers some kind of passive team buff. Leadership style, or Grant Cover style, or even debuffs on enemies. Something that makes the team safer, at the expense of the damage a brute would bring.
That's a way to make them distinct rather than trying to thread the needle of just the right amount of damage vs survivability vs aggro management.-
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2 minutes ago, Player-1 said:
This was a mistake on my part and I have corrected the original post. I blame my focus on the non-tank archetypes 😉
Gauntlet will splash only on Single Target attacks, though in testing there is some overlap where the ST and AoE can trigger that I will need to examine. However it doesn't seem to mess with target caps or total aggro so it may just be a display/order of operations under the hood and does not impact taunting ability.
The overall point remains where thanks to ST splash and target caps, 1:1 a Tanker will be more efficient on taking aggro than a Brute.
The 50 was a mistake on my part when examining the Gauntlet proc, and I corrected my original statement.
When it comes to overall aggro caps, this argument could be made in reverse where having >16 as the cap is superfluous if there are rarely more than 16 targets to even aggro. In context of Tanker vs Brute, the duration will mean that a Tanker should pull aggro over the Brute if they are attacking the same group of enemies, focusing fire on the Tanker. This is specific to balancing the roles of a Tanker vs Brute, where a Tanker would naturally take more heat, leaving a Brute on the same team free to focus more on damage.
The balance relates to how Aggro functions. If an enemy is aggroed to Tanker A, it is stuck to Tanker A until somebody piles enough threat to swap to them instead, such as Tanker B actively taunting and attacking 1 target from the group Tanker A is fighting.
If 1 Tanker can hold all the aggro, then another Tanker will not be able to "Tank", nor would a Brute or other player with taunting. Compared to Defenders stacking buffs and debuffs, or Controllers stacking Control, aggro is a bit more binary and not as collaborative. This could be limiting to where some teams may not want more than 1 Tanker.
@Maelwys brings up a point about how this is already something that can happen with Tankers and Brutes, but is something we also do not want to reinforce by making multiples even more "redundant".
I guess my point is... Is a Tanker being better at taunting than a Brute really enough of a benefit to merit bringing/playing a Tanker when a Brute gets the job done well enough, while also bringing more damage?
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23 minutes ago, Player-1 said:
1 v 1, a Tanker also using Taunt and Taunt Auras has a stronger Taunt than a comparable Brute, and with Gauntlet has a huge edge in target saturation.
Gauntlet's Taunt is Mag 4 and lasts ~15s, hitting up to 5 targets in an AoE off of the target the Tanker hit. The Tanker's Taunt auras do not splash per target hit, but also apply that Mag 4 ~15s Taunt per target. The Taunt power Tankers can use hits 5 targets in a 15ft AoE with a 41s duration, Mag 4.
Brute's "Punchvoke" is not a splash, only effecting the targets hit per swing. Their Taunt effect is Mag 4, but lasts 13.6s, making a Tanker Taunt have higher priority if they strike the same target. This is the same in their Taunt Aura powers, meaning a Tanker standing next to a Brute vs the same target will Taunt over the Brute with just the aura. The Brute's Taunt power is the same as a Tanker's however, with the main difference being that a Brute applies -75% range, while a Tanker applies -100% range which encourages enemies to come 25% closer to attack.
With Gauntlet's splash per target, simply attacking with AoEs can make a huge difference. Take Pendulum from Battle Axe for example. On a Brute, you can hit up to 5 targets, and taunt 5 targets. On a Tanker, you can hit up to 10 targets with Overcap, and in theory aggro up to 50 thanks to 10x procs of 5-target splashes.
How many situations are there in this game where, after people hit their nukes, or hit a couple AOE powers, or use their judgements, that there are 16+ enemies still standing? A tanker holding aggro on a fresh pull for 1-3 seconds better than a brute can means next to nothing. Once the minions and lieutenants are taken out, there aren't 16 (let alone 50 you say is possible. What content are testing on?) enemies to hold aggro on.
This game is more than just 4 star difficulty TFs and Incarnate Trials.
When the thing that sets an AT apart is entirely overkill, at the expense of contributing meaningfully in other ways... Why would anyone take "aggroes best, but can't compete on damage" option over the "aggroes great, AND can do damage" option?19 minutes ago, Player-1 said:When it comes to being a traditional "aggro magnet tank", a Tanker should have a Brute beat for that specific role. With multiple Tankers on a team, having a higher aggro cap would mean whichever Tanker aggros first would just "take" the job of the other Tankers, thay cap ensures there is enough to spread around. These differences also let a Brute shine where its damage can be a key component for a player.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you're trying to make with this part here. Sorry if I am. Not trying to misconstrue your words.
Claiming balance around having multiple of the same AT seems a little ridiculous to me. Balance around one. "Defenders are good because if you have two defenders you might have a better spread of debuffs and buffs" doesn't make sense. Neither does "Tankers are better because if you have multiple Tankers there's more aggro spread around".-
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33 minutes ago, Player-1 said:
A higher aggro cap will make multiple Tankers redundant. Tankers already proc Gauntlet as an AOE off of all targets they hit.
A Tanker using a 16 target AOE (with Overcap) has 16 different splashes of 5-target Gauntlet flying around to gain aggro. A Brute meanwhile has punch-voke, but only effects the target hit and not as a splash from their targets. With less duration than the Tanker's Gauntlet, and with less target cap, the Tanker should win out in grabbing Aggro.
Until you factor in taunt. And taunt auras.
Then the difference is (even more) negligible. And not enough to make a Tanker better than a Brute. -
16 hours ago, Maelwys said:
Can we please get a "Design Intent" blurb here?
These changes definitely buff Brutes... but after i28p2 Brutes already overtook Tankers as the #1 desirable melee AT on teams for "holding aggro and dealing damage".
IMO the "roles" of Brutes and Tankers (or at least their mechanical benefit to teammates!) really need a bit of work/clarification. Last page Tankers were apparently deemed the "AoE Specialists" of Melee ATs'... but whilst they can indeed hit more targets; a Brute on Live is already currently able to inflict more damage with the same attack to 10 foes than a Tanker to 16; even with comparatively low levels of Fury (see numbers on Axe Cyclone here - at Fury levels of 60+ the Brute wins!).
Anyway...
(i) The Defense/Resistance scalar increases are welcome. Defense Powersets on Brutes can reach the softcap easier than on Scrappers; and Resistance Powersets can almost be slotted the same way on Brutes as Scrappers and hit their respective hardcaps. Good Stuff. This incidentally means that min-maxed Brutes end up with considerably more wiggle room in their builds to increase their raw damage and global recharge.Seems like the intent is to bury Tankers again. Do more damage. Hold aggro just as well. Hit your defensive/resistance caps just as easily. All baked in WITHOUT the added benefit of procs being easier to work into builds.
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Not a single pillar around the perimeter of Echo Plaza is centered on their platforms.
And there are two pillars on either side that are just sunken inside the wall for no reason.
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They could go the traditional Homecoming Team route and make all the other TFs longer and worse to match, rather than making the bad thing better.
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They couldn't pick a different color for Help Me? I support making changes to accommodate disability, but don't inconvenience a large portion of the community with a half-baked change just to do it.
I get not caring about the few people with gold titles. Not a lot of them out there.
But the tags block afk messages now, which plenty of RPers use to denote character traits. And they don't show at all on people with gold titles.
There's a better solution.-
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6 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:
The change to role titles was a short term solution to a problem. It created unfortunate changes to other players experience at the expense of addressing said problem. Based on discussions I had before this change went live, I don't see it being reverted. But if the change was as impactful to the player experience as others have pointed out, perhaps that will be incentive enough for the developer who made this change to make more of an effort to compromise instead of making one player's experience less fun than another player.
What problem did having colored names cause?
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Having a gold title makes it so that I am not visibly flagged as a roleplayer any more. This is very inconvenient. At least on Everlasting, plenty of players used pink names to show when they are in character and looking for RP. Now there's no way to show that, for those of us fortunate enough to have earned a special title.
The change to how flagging yourself as Roleplaying/Helper/Help Me was pointless and unhelpful. Revert the change. Or at least make it so that if you have a gold title, you still show your flag as well.-
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DRAFT: Complete Patch Notes for Issue 28, Page 3
in [Experimental] Patch Notes
Posted
Wild that all the stuff that has been tested for weeks is on hold but the surprise new melee set that has had little testing is being pushed through.