Mezmera

I'm pretty familiar with that power. I'm not sure how confused I am yet, I may need another application before I notice the effect. Hopefully valid critiques aren't being brushed aside as "confusion", typically confusion is born out of secrecy. If these other servers had 5 shards and a test server it'd amount to lets say $1500. You're telling me redundancies and other QoL features would rack up to be 3-4x the cost of running the thing? Look I think you all deserve to get monies for your work, or at least a ham sandwich. I'd actually advocate for bumping up the donation amount and officially classify Stars and a few other hard workers on this thing as an actual dev team. I get there's responsibility that would come with that acknowledgement but so be it there's already some more expectation on this project than the others. As an outsider learning about what had went on prior to HC it's pretty upsetting but honestly it's water under the bridge. Going forward is where I'm more apt to hold for more accountability. Hence why I don't like the idea of secret servers where I hear already top tier Fire powers are getting buffs and no one but the old guard has a say. I'm hoping the new blood can get mixed in a bit with the old gatekeepers to get more creative discussions. Again:

Well. There's other servers that have already many more powersets and fresh new toys to play with. What seems like a lot more innovation. I can only surmise this was already implemented when everybody in the Sekrit broke off. Take for instance the Origin pools. All of them are already coded and working on all the other offshoot servers, why then is it taking years for them to be implemented here? Seems like a carrot on a stick to me. Some of those servers seem to make the player so OP it's not even fun and then some seem very grindy. This one seems to have a decent balance and quite the large player base, albeit dwindling. I prefer some of the things they do on this server namely the dom revamp that's new all around. These other servers run their donations for a few hundred bucks which is the cost of hosting the servers and that is it. They have quite a bit more stuff implemented although they have their problems which'd easily be ironed out with dropping a few OP improvements that were added. So you're telling me 5k+ for less stuff implemented in the game is better than the cost of a few hundred bucks and if they had 5 running servers it'd still be way cheaper. So that leaves one to ask where's the beef? Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the intention of the donation model and capping it to their needs but when comparing apples to apples you gotta ask how come one has way more stuff at far lower the maintenance fees. I'm also okay with that donation amount going to actually clarifying that they have people designated as developers to push the game forward. Like I said this is my favorite iteration and want to see it succeed, what I don't want to see is more of what took place for those secretive 7 years.

The old Energy Transfer was fantabulous although I will concede that the old 1 second animation didn't feel as intimidating as the damage that followed it. To pick up on Zork's suggestion, If there'd be a way to configure a new epic animation that strikes fear in the hearts of heroes that may be slower than what it was originally but sped up from what it is now that'd be one nice step forward. The damage feels ho-hum for the animation time wasted on what's supposed to be the most fearsome ST attack in the game. I'd say a good approach would be to pick up on what happened with the Dom's Energy Assault but fine tune the mechanic to give an absurdly good ST attack. Default I'd speed up TF to the dom speed then an Energy Release mechanic would be cool but instead of the big boon for doms it being Whirling Hands I'd make it so that Energy Transfer benefits the greatest from the mechanic. Let Energy Melee claim king of ST that it was.

I'm pretty much on board with what's being said here. I do get that it's a volunteer project but they do rake in quite the donation amount compared to the other servers that are just up and running with no real develop team supposedly in place to be adding on to this game. There's obviously an appetite for the game to be back in an official capacity based on how fast and furious the donations come in. In summation I think there's either comparatively a mismanagement in the funds from donations or there's a lack of foresight that people might actually want new stuff to be added on to with such a large pool of resources donated every month and to have info updated to them other than telling them the specs of their server costs and miscellaneous expenses. For the first few months if you need to keep things close to the vest fine but somewhere in the next 3-6 months you should enlighten and trust your player base. It's a very off putting feeling seeing how there is testing and it's been going on for months on a secret "Elite" server with the same shades of how this game stayed so secret for 7 years. I think I've spent more time on the forums than I have actually in game for the past month so I stand with Mr. Toast.

Like I said I'm watching my status bar like a hawk for that icon to go away so that I can build the mechanic again. I'd notice something was amiss specifically with losing the mechanic from building it with TF again just after the one prior disappeared from my status bar. It doesn't happen to me even 10% of the time playing this way or I'd have noticed it was this specific.

There's a misunderstanding here. It happens at times when I've just started fighting on a new mission. Sometimes it happens this way as well but it hardly does this when that icon goes away, I'm watching that status like a hawk so I can get another juicy Whirling Hands out there. All in all it's still a rare occurrence however it happens to get in a tizzy about.

Yes I take Weaken Resolve and slot just the Achilles -res proc in it since that'll fire theoretically 90% of the time so you're getting -27% resist on target. Then I take Mighty Leap for my travel and then the very nice defense boost in Unleash Potential. You'll have a nice debuff useful for AV fights, a travel and a great defense power.

I'm saying that I load up a TF to get my Energy Release activated. Then the very next thing I go to do is to position myself better for the Whirling Hands by moving ever so slightly. Before I have the chance to do anything other than take a few steps and before TF has even begun to recharge I will lose the orange rings. It's a bug that does happen ever so often.

Powerboost does increase the potency of anything that provides defense. So yes it does increase CJ and Hover. Keep in mind though is that the boost only stays active on toggle defenses while Powerboost is active. But something like Unleash Potential where you can increase it's defense through Powerboost the boost to the defense stays active for the whole minute that Unleash is active just so long as you used Powerboost first and in conjunction with Unleash Potential.

I'm saying there's no rhyme or reason why all of a sudden you might lose that Energy Mechanic. I've loaded up an Energy Release by using a TF and watching my tray with the powers and their orange rings I'll move slightly and for no reason at all those rings disappear. I haven't fired any of the release powers nor has anything else had the chance to even recharge yet because I've only used TF (which hadn't recharged again) and lose it almost instantly after building it that way. There seems to be some leakage in the Energy Release mechanic. The mechanic when it does last it lasts past the time that those icons disappear from your status bar. I know this because I'm chasing to use the mode some times and keep track that I can build another with a TF right after releasing the one I've currently built.

First I'll say again the enemy doesn't need to be stunned to activate the mechanic, it seems far too complex of coding for a power to read what status an enemy is in than just giving a percent chance upon activating each internal power. I know this as my Mind dom has no stuns and before I had Total Focus my blasts would eventually trigger the effect. Not many controls have a stun in them so I don't think the dev team would want to lock people out from consistently making the most out of this mechanic over something so arbitrary as the target needs to be stunned in order to activate, why not held or slept or feared then? However you activate the mechanic the icon for that power does show up on your status bar for exactly 10 seconds indicating that you are locked out from activating the mechanic again until that power icon disappears from your bar. Sometimes I do have my Energy Release effect still active after that icon may have disappeared from my bar so the effect likely does last for 15 seconds before it goes away. The janky bit hasn't anything to do with recharging of your powers. My TF recharges quite nice and yet that's not what seems to lose its hold on the Energy Release. I've lost the mechanic on times by just getting it with TF then moving and all of a sudden it disappears even before my TF recharged again. There's no rhyme or reason why you lose this mechanic out of the blue sometimes things just suck. Yeah like you said it is an annoyance to just lose the mechanic for no reason at times but mostly you're having too much fun with it to let the negativity bother you when playing this.

Well maybe Bone Smasher is a magic unicorn then. Any power set with a combo mechanic has their combo builder powers and combo release powers. Lots of coding I'd think it would take to have one of those powers feed off of itself. I'll leave you to your Bone Smasher then, I'll take the 100% chance.

The powers are either a release or a builder. Bone Smasher can't release AND also build up the mechanic.

I spec'd out of Bone Smasher long ago but as I recall to give you the cool new Energy Release mechanic to unload in the early levels they gave BS the ability to release. I think the intent was to give you one at the early levels, the mid levels with Whirling Hands and then late with Power Burst. When I did have it the power had an orange ring around it like WH and Burst signifying you have the mechanic available to use through those powers. From the description it looks like it does something special debuffing the target of some of their effects for a short while when you use up the Energy Release mechanic.

Yeah I only have Snipe as my other non-release attack in my chain which I tend to follow up with after a TF so I don't ever see those other icons but yeah makes sense it locks you out for 10s just like Savage does when you expend the blood stacks and it leaves the icon on your bar for 10s. When I first leveled my Energy dom back with the revamp the t1 and a few of the other regular blasts I had before I'd get TF would occasionally kick in the Energy Release mechanic and I have no stuns in my primary on Mind control. Aside from TF the only way to build Energy Release would be through blasts with no stuns. Bone Smasher is a release power so you can only release for more damage on that you don't build it with that one. BS, WH and Burst are the release powers, all the other attacks have a 20% chance to build the mechanic with TF being 100%. Again, stuns have no sway on it.

Yeah the 100% damage increase isn't a straight doubling of damage. It's more like what you're getting at is that your damage on all of your attacks are being increased by about 30-45% more damage to the affected targets as opposed to the loss of resistance IS increasing your damage by that 19.5%. Plus there's all that extra damage you're contributing just from this one attack to eliminating that mob. Mobs tend not to last too long nowadays anyways with all the OP toons running around. With nuking blasters on your team Soul Drain will contribute good damage in place of the -res debuff in eliminating that mob then it powers you on through to the next mobs where now you're hitting the next ones for 30-45% more damage when you'd be doing 19.5%. Yes it's not powering the whole team with that debuff but mobs aren't built that strong that it's all that necessary even with a halfway decent team. The only real moments where -resist, -regen and -hp debuffs come into play are in those AV fights and those tend to be solo targets and Weaken Resolve is just as effective.

Oh no I understand you're saying the aoe debuff is a nice power. It does nothing beyond debuff enemies and the most significant thing is the -19.5% resistance debuff. There's no damage you do with it. Soul Drain hits 10 level 54 targets for 190 points of damage then because it has a longer recharge it has a great chance to fire any procs in it which I specifically slot the purple pbaoe one. Then if you have the double hit Hybrid you have a good chance to proc even more damage. There's also the side effects it gives you. 100% damage and 35% tohitt boosted on all of your attacks for 30 seconds that follows you around wherever you go is quite the bit better than a -19.5% resistance debuff in a specific location where your target might have already fled from. Then there's all that extra damage it pumps out. Yeah sleet doesn't get the time of day with me when I look at Soul Drain.

Energy Assault Power Boost is now Power Up. (90s recharge, +34% damage, +75% str to other effects for 10 seconds.) Total Focus: Cast time shortened from 3.30 to 2.50 seconds. Power Burst: Cast time shortened from 2.00 to 1.67 seconds. New special mechanic. Most single target attacks have a 20% chance of granting Energy Focus mode. Hitting a foe with Total Focus will always grant Energy Focus mode. While in this mode, Whirling Hands will inflict a large amount of bonus damage. Power Burst will do some bonus damage. The mode will be removed if a power with bonus is used.

Don't know where you get that an easy to identify internal mechanic would be dependent on an external status that your powers would have to identify to flag the mechanic to build. Identifying a target is stunned and then basing a percent chance on Energy Release being built sounds overly complex than just giving each of your non-release attacks a percent chance to build it on their own with TF being 100%. Stuns have no say in building the mechanic. Honestly I'd rather have the Soul patron and everything that comes in it compared to what Ice can get you since the best thing in that pool is attainable in a power you can get at level 4 which is just as effective for those AV fights. Even with no slotting but for the achilles Weaken Resolve recharges in enough time that it's easy to maintain that resistance debuff.

If you hadn't noticed on your status bar the Total Focus icon appears once you use TF to build the Energy Release. It signifies you built it that way and it locks you out from building Energy Release with TF for 10s until it disappears from your bar. That's the great thing about the Energy Release it powers your AoE damage greatly but can also power your ST damage when you need that versatility. With Energy Release affecting Burst for say single target AV fights it sets the damage quite above Blaze. I'm not saying that it doesn't even out over the time of the fight nor that Blaze isn't a great attack but Burst to me is better overall both in burst outputs and sustained fights. Fire doesn't have that third attack that can match everything TF nets you nor does it have the AoE potential. Sleet isn't a bad power per se but you can go with the Soul Mastery pool and also have a Weaken Resolve which'll net you -7% resist then add an achilles that'll fire 90% of the time for -20% resist. So you're getting -27% resist on the target then you can chew away with your damage chain.

I mean it's not like I don't have a fire blaster and can't already see the numbers to see how they perform first hand. My Energy dom's Power Burst hits as hard as a blaster's Blaze using their buffs and all. Then there's the Energy Release mechanic that works on Power Burst to put it over the top. Energy Release nets you 2/3 more damage to Power Burst and doubles the damage output on Whirling Hands. There's just one slightly slower animation in Energy comparably and it makes up for that with an extreme amount of damage and powers the rest of your attacks. I'm not sure where you're getting your theories but there's no Fire dom that's outdamaging my Energy dom. I'd set aside being a Fire homer and give Energy a true play because you seem unknowing about how it performs. Soul Drain's buff nets you those numbers no matter if the baddies are the same level as you or 4 levels above. It also does 190ish damage to a group of +4 baddies not to mention the purple damage proc fires very often. Sleet's percentages lower drastically from level 50 to 54 targets. Sleet is a waste on random mobs since they get chewed up quick anyways so you're really only wanting it for AV fights. You can take Weaken Resolve slot an Achille's Heel and debuff the target for the same effect.

Since they share the snipe and its about as good as they get for ST damage lets use that as the bar. Both snipes act the same and do the same extreme damage. Then there's Power Burst which hits much harder than Blaze for just .33 more animation. Finally there's Total Focus that has been sped up from its original form and still hits for an extreme amount of damage which by the way sets you up for the Energy Release mechanic. Energy has 3 sequential extreme damaging attacks, Fire has one and one superior damage attack. On top of that Fire has nothing to compare with an Energy Released Whirling Hands. The damage and versatility of attacks in the Energy arsenal is far better than anything you can get out of Fire. Fire doesn't necessarily automatically lock you into the Fire APP but you're shorting your overall damage missing out on Fiery Embraced Fire Balls. Then yes you can go with the Ice APP but that debuff scales lower the higher the enemy is to you. Whereas something like Soul Drain that gets you 100% damage and 35% tohitt for 30 seconds every minute and also by the way does real nice aoe damage on activation. Like I was saying the side effects of Power Build Up has more benefit than you realize over just a straight damage boost. Energy's attacks already come with an inherently more damaging boost or with the new mechanic. It can make better use of the side effect boost that can cap your defenses and lock down enemies much longer leading to much better sustained damage over time along with their already insane burst damage. There's nothing slow about Energy and with the benefits you can get from this set you can snuggle up nice and close to enemies and not worry an ounce about having to flee for your life. Fire had it's day, now's the time of Energy.

Yeah the Fortunata has Mind Link, she has pretty nice psi damage and tends to range for a bit then runs into melee. It's a nice additional source of bonus damage that you can just fire and forget every 4 minutes. You're correct in some of your assessment that the Patron pets are pretty squishy but there are ways to mitigate that through things like Barrier and some other team buffs. Outside of maybe getting one shot by Mynx or something it's more in your control how well these pets survive.

The Mu pet doesn't rush into anything. He sits back and blasts and pocket heals you. The Fortunata has great damage. Both are fantastic pets. Aside from say a fire farm they have tons of upside. What would be awesome is if you had some way to control the battlefield so that these pets can do their work without fret...

To add on to this Laser Beam Eyes in any adaptation when you see a super flash those red eyes it's the "Oh shiz get outta the way" power. It should do so much damage that you get to see targets actually get cut in half. On top of that I'd also like it to have the dual function that it can act as a heal where you can target teammates and cauterize their wounds. Just for fun.