Kaika

I would say when its been this long standing, its a feature. At a certain point, the distinction no longer matters, people have had enough time to know the set and the powers for that reason. Regardless of if it is actually a bug, the players view it as a feature and have for some time, on top of that it hardly makes the set over powered (it still underperforms if anything). My suggestion would be to embrace it as a feature and balance it accordingly. Even if the set was reworked and burst's 100% crit removed but rebalanced, I guarantee you players would be unhappy with losing the 100% crit chance, even if the overall power was better. It's just cool.

Please stop Standardizing things simply for the sake of standardizing them, ESPECIALY when it nerfs a set and ESPECIALY when it isn't a particularly well preforming set. The 100% crit on burst is honestly pretty cool and very satisfying, its one of the few draws to what would otherwise be one of the worst AoEs available to stalker. I know people who picked up the set for that very reason. This is one of those cases where I would make it a "Feature" and simply place info in the powers description about it. I still agree Kin melee overall needs a look, but removing a feature of the set that was one of the few draws to it is not the way to do it, especially when you aren't reworking the set at the same time. Even with a rework I would still prefer burst to retain its 100% crit from hide (balanced around this of course), as people generally consider it currently to be a feature of the set, its usually one of the first things mentioned about Kinetic melee when the topic comes up on the stalker forums.

/signed as many times as possible I have several stalkers that are effectively immortal and this would be amazing for them, same with my VEATs, Sentinels, and even blasters. Nothing like attacking a group of enemies and having them decide to go on a marathon of the mission map, this would make these characters MUCH less annoying to play. This is one of my biggest issue with playing things not a scrapper, brute or tank. I would probably just make a single universal damage set, like overwhelming force.

Just checked on the beta server, this bug still exist though, the lock is no longer a problem, the long animation still plays but you can act out of it properly.

So sentinel rain of arrows has a much shorter cast time then the blaster variant (2 sec vs 4 sec) however if you use the power without the bow already drawn it will use the blaster 4 second animation instead, with the full animation lock. This seems to effect both "No Redraw" and normal versions

If I recall, Travel suppression was added to stop players from "Jousting" enemies, basically just always being out of range. CoH is a much faster paced game these days then when it was added, and while jousting can be a useful tactic in some situations, assuming its still strong enough to limit travel power globally to stop it, is extremely silly. It really needs to go.

Honestly I wouldn't mind seeing travel suppression as a whole tossed out, never understood why it's still around. Hell its already removed from PvP.

Good do that too then, it's off topic but that's a slippery slope I would gladly slide down, Granite Armor really needs it. I'm glad to know that the visual effects of stealth and Invis don't bug you. In that case, Don't use the Min FX OPTION. Since for a lot of us it does bug us and we would like the OPTION to not have to deal with it.

I don't think quoting flavor text written in 2004ish before the game was even released and power customization was even on the radar is a really good argument. Alot of powers go against their flavor text, especially after you take power customization into consideration, For example Flash from illusion "Generates a brilliant flash of light around you that blinds nearby foes." But you can make the power Dark and very dull if you like. Not really a Brilliant flash of light in that case. Heck Dark Armor already lets you turn off the fade and the power states that "A shroud of Netherworld darkness envelops you, making you difficult to spot at a distance. You can be seen only at close range," If you turn off effects this is very much not the case and other players can see you at any distance. Flavor text is just that, Flavor. CoH has always been about letting the player define how their character works. That's why we have things like power customization in the first place.

This as well 100%, there are load of concepts for stealth or invisibility that can have your character not being see through. Maybe you have a character whos gimmick is they are supernaturally uninteresting so people just ignore them. Or say you are a psychic and you remove yourself from your enemies vision mentally. You could have a character who really makes use of the 10 costume slot and disguises as whatever they are fighting. Not every character that uses stealth, hide or invisibility needs to be literally invisible.

I find the fact that people are arguing against the idea of being able to see your costume somewhat clearly most of the time on characters that rely on stealth or invisibility odd, as IMO its along the same vein as the Granite armor which people are pretty united about wanting more options for. At the end of the day the current status of "Stealth" is really information only important to the player playing the character so I don't see why giving the option for the player to forgo this info to see their costume clearly (one of the core features of the game) without turning it off entirely would be met with opposition. However, that in mind I do somewhat understand that having you character fully visible while "invisible" would kinda odd. My suggestion would be to make is so "stealth" powers can have the fade removed entirely (AKA no transparency) as you can already get stealth in several flavors like this (Super speed, DA with no Fade option). While invisibility powers can be changed to "Light fade" or something like that, closer to what powers like steamy mist do or what suppressed hide looks like (changed the suppressed state to fully visible) that way they still retain a indication that this player is fully invisible. Personally though I'm for more player options as someone who is currently maining a stalker its annoying not being able to see my costume in full most of the time, without stopping to turn off Hide which is a core component of how the character works. Its also the reason I haven't made a a /Energy Brute/Scrap since I don't like that idea of constantly being a silhouette most of the time.

I was able to get to towers on my StJ/Bio stalker Aeon caught me off guard and was a bit of a pain but once I figured him out (bubble gives him a huge buff offensive wise, take out the dark pet) he went down without much issue. Unfortunately I had nothing to deal with the repair men in time as they spawn faster then my AoEs cooldown (and this is on a perma haste character) and without respecing I don't have access to anything on the ground based to stop them.

Welp its working now, no idea what was going on, I didn't change anything and I tested right before I logged off last night. When I logged on today I was able to get AVs when soloing.

This issue only seems to effect my Scrapper "Aikao" I can get AVs while solo with no issue on all of my other character Now matter what I do with the difficulty settings I am unable to get AVs to spawn while solo on her. I have tried: -Changing the team size, from 1x-8x - Setting it to EB, entering the missions, resetting and setting it back to AV (I checked it was a EB both times) - Multiple missions (Maria Jenkins Infernal mission and a AE mission with Romulus that I normaly use for testing builds) - Logging in and out multiple times. I reset after each change With 1 other person teamed with me I am able to spawn a AV but when solo its always a EB.

Personally, I have to agree with OP, we need a way to hide it, at least. I play huntsman, and I really wanna use the crab for the better pets and toggles but I have no plans to actually use the crab back pack at all (I just use my gun). It limits my build since I don't want a ugly back pack ruining all my costumes, no other AT suffers from this issue. Even if its a work around like a invisible back pack but its technically still there, I will take it. As others have stated though this really should be in the suggestions forums.

I definitely wouldn't compare it at all to fury, they work very differently, with fury directly boosting damage by alot. Other sets have stack mechanics like this too, like Street justice and Staff, I just feel like the payoff for spending the stacks vs the reward for keeping them needs to be tweaked a bit, it doesn't quite feel right atm, maybe since its all in DoTs which are hard for the player to track. Either way in my book it's a fine set as is if a little odd.

Your team is part of your raid, so yes, even if you aren't in a raid it will teleport them to you.

I main a Savage/Bio brute, and honestly I don't know what people are getting at calling it "Meh". I'm able to dish out enough damage on my brute to take out AVs and GMs solo with relative ease. I wouldn't be surprised if Bio is doing a bit of the heavy lifting there but it seem fine on the damage front. It's particularly pretty good on the AoE front, with Savage leap covering a huge area and dealing good damage even in melee range. On the topic of Blood Frenzy, I do feel like its rather poorly designed, hemorrhage doesn't seem to be strong enough to warrant the loss of the stacks in many cases, rending flurry is fairly nice with its extended radius (its like nova sized) though I don't really feel the damage increase, but it still feels like more of a punishment for wanting to use these powers rather then a reward for building up Frenzy. However functionally I feel it's on the stronger side to be honest, maybe it could use some added secondary effects but I'm sure as hell not complaining on my brute. And yeah from what I hear its a monster on stalker.

Nice guide really hope people start seeing the stalker for the damage powerhouse it is these days. To fill in on Ice, since I recently Kitted out a 50 Ice/Sheild stalk Ice is a very strong stalker set, it comes with alot of control which can be very useful for a stalker, in the form of -recharge on every attack, a very high damage single target hold, a AoE sleep, and a persistent AoE KD. On top of this it has some of the best AoE available to stalkers in the form of Frozen Aura and Frost. Frozen Aura in particular has a very large 10 Meter radius, and as mentioned before comes with a chance to sleep on all your victims, I particularly like to open with this out of hide on large groups. It also doesn't skimp on single target damage getting Freezing touch, which pulls double duty as a hold and a very strong heavy hitter. The cherry on top is that ice is one of the rarer elements for enemies to resist at max level, meaning you will rarely find enemies strong against you. Ice melee is usually considered on the weaker side for most AT, but I believe its one of the most power stalker sets atm. It's biggest downside is that it does tend to be a bit of a end hog.

Yep Katana is left handed. I recall this getting requested a few times back on live and the response from the old devs is that they would basically have to completely remake all the animations, just mirrored. Basically too much work for what would amount to a minor feature.

Honestly I miss it too, it defiantly was a thing, still kinda is with jousting just harder. The devs at the time were trying to make the game actually have challenge and resemble what they had "Envisioned" the game to be like at launch. Which was much slower and more challenging, if my issue 0 guide book is to be believed. In all honesty the game was crazy broken back then, not saying the changes were good, but I can see why they made alot of them. The travel power change though I'm willing to blame at least a bit on PvP as it effected that alot more.

I think someone already mentioned it but I just wanna make it clear PvP runs on an entirely different system from PvE these days, a system that does not effect PvE balance any more. Its has been like that since I13 you can read about the differences here https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Player_vs_Player, there are quite alot of them. Many powers already work vastly differently in PvP then they do in PvE, namely power which grant alot of small heals over a short time grant regen instead so it doesn't mess up healing DR. At this point whether or not changes way back in I6 were made because of pvp is kinda irrelevant as they have been how the game has worked for the majority of its lifetime. These days changes can be made to PvP with no effect on PvE

/Signed Axe really needs something, it suffers from, "Early weapon set syndrome" where it was basically just a reskin of all the other early melee weapon sets with some minor differences in secondary effect. This was so so players could use a different weapon before you could change the look of your weapon. These days it's generic and honestly just bad, easily one of the worst melee sets in the game, I don't even thing I've seen a player running it since I've came to homecoming. Making it into a sort of "Titan weapons light" would both fit the ascetics and make it a much more unique set.

As a Savage/Bio main I agree with alot of this. The exhaust mechanic in particular feels odd, it feels less like I'm getting rewarded for using my resources but more like I'm getting punished for spending them. It doesn't feel that bad with rending flurry, since the increased size of the AoE is very noticeable, but hemorrhage feels bad even when I try to incorporate it into my rotation. I feel like the Idea behind Blood thirst is more to get rid of exhausted as it does do that, which would make the power possibly worth the long animation if it felt better to use those powers. During single target fights for me, it sits unused. Shred is just meh, it's ok when leveling but the set has two good AoEs so this sub par one is extremely skip-able. I'm sort of ok with this as the set gets by perfectly fine without it but it doesn't feel out of place with it, it's just not super useful. Savage leap is a bit buggy, If I use it while jumping and momentum carries me out of range, it will still get used but will deal no damage. I cant complain otherwise though because when it works this power is awesome I feel the main problems are A) Hemorrhage isn't very good and doesn't feel that good to use, making the big single target hit not fun to use is a no no in my book. B) Blood Frenzy is tied to recharge which is easily one of the most chased stats in the game, which means the pay off for spending it has to be very high. Rending flurry sort of delivers on this in some situations but Hemorrhage falls flat. This creates a set that still feels very much in development. However I can't complain too much as it certainly isn't a bad set atm by any stretch. I can currently solo GMs with it and there are definitely worse choices. It just feels like you are fighting against the mechanics of the set to get it to work correctly, rather then using the mechanics to preform better. The fact that I'm going out of my way to not spend my resources just feel kinda wrong.

You got me I haven't, but bold assumption to make a in a day and age when its publicly available. Either way pvp runs on a entirely different system then pve, It's well known, and you can read about it here https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Player_vs_Player I don't really need to look at the code because several power already have entirely different effects in pvp. Many powers that normally do short burst of small healing apply regen instead so it does not ramp up the healing DR making it so you can't heal when needed. This was a problem during the I13 beta and the solution they came to was to switch it to regen, this change had no effect on PvE. Powers already have vastly differing damage number in pvp compared to in pve usually based of their animation times. This was basicaly the entire point of the PvP changes in I13, it was so that they didn't have to dance around PvE when trying to balance pvp and its been adjusted several times since with no effect on pve.