Kaika

I absolutely dislike end management, I feel it's archaic is extremely annoying, and just ends up being something you have to deal with rather then something enjoyable. Most modern MMOs no longer have this kinda all or nothing resource management unless its core to the classes play-style. However CoH was made with endurance in mind, You can't just remove it without throwing any semblance of balance out the window. I find the stronger offensive sets tend to be a big end hogs because better powers tend to use more endurance faster. End is a nuisance that you still have to deal with but in dealing with it you sacrifice resources that could go to other things, whether that be activation time, slots, powers, or mental capacity. Without it the game would be missing something at it's core that would likely boil over the balance, which is already tipped heavily in the players favor. I think end is in a very good spot at moment, if you never want to deal with it there are myriad ways to basically negate endurance as a concept, at just about every point in the game if you're resourceful, but you have to spend time/money/focus on that, that could go elsewhere which is a nice tradeoff. Long story short end isn't going anywhere because its a core part of the game, like it or not. Removing it as a obstacle would further empower players more then they already are as they would no longer need to spend time/resources manage it.

Rolled a Staff/psi stalker, Psi armor is kinda a monster when built right, though staff might also be doing some heavy lifting on my end, But hey, High res, High Regen, and a good Bases for building up defenses, not even to mention the absolute monster of a power that Aura of madness is (which hits like a truck of proced out). She can solo 4x8 of most groups quickly and with relative ease, when taking incarnates into account. All and all its a good set, the only thing I have a problem with is Devour being a cone for some unfathomable reason.

I can kinda understand this on scrapper they want you to use it when approaching the group. I still disagree but at least I can understand the use intention here. On stalker the cone makes ZERO sense, as you basically always start combat from stealth, in melee. The ideal time to use devour would be when approaching from a distance but as a stalker, that's literally just giving up your opening AS/Crit, which you would basically never want to do. So as is now, you need to jump in, do your out of stealth opening stuff, then awkwardly reposition to hit the cone to get the most of of a single use so you can get back to damage. Sometimes you get lucky and enemies are just played out in a way that allows this but often you can't. It's a shame because I love everything else about this set on stalker it's a power house and really fun to play, except this single thing that is extremely annoying. Since closed/open beta practically every other single peice of feedback was "this should be PBAoE" and they still went with this and I cannot fathom why. I regret not testing it more on stalker because it feels like it was not.

You know the funny thing is, in the early days of CoH synapse was known as the "fast" TF. I do agree though it's long overdue for a proper revamp, 45 mins to a hour and a half of end draining enemies at low levels, where every mission is practically the same thing gets old.

Just gona copy paste my other post here Honestly I wouldn't want this, Hardcore in this game is very easy if you just don't go out of your way to take risk. If you just take it slow, play something like a tank or keep the difficulty low you can breeze through it making a server where that's mechanically enforce kinda pointless. Everyone I know who takes up this challenge often has to tack on a ton of other rules or there is never stakes. On top of that, this game is EXTREMELY RNG heavy, death can often happen when the numbers just don't go your way there are obviously ways to mitigate this, but it's a big part of this game, sometimes you do everything right and die to the enemy getting good rolls. That's not even to go into the difficulty in setting this up as a server structure, alot of the code would need to likely be custom written into code the OG devs referred to as "spaghetti code" to implement what is already a niche challenge mode that is already played, and likely would still require personal rules to make interesting. I'm not trying to say there isn't some kinda potential here, but this is a volunteer dev team that already has alot on their plate, I just don't see this happening. Especially for something that can already be done with a little honor. I think adding a tracker for player deaths to the city information terminal though could be a nice idea that likely wouldn't be too difficult, that way you could at least have proof, but otherwise I think it would be a waste of development time and effort.

Honestly I wouldn't want this, Hardcore in this game is very easy if you just don't go out of your way to take risk. If you just take it slow, play something like a tank or keep the difficulty low you can breeze through it making a server where that's mechanically enforce kinda pointless. Everyone I know who takes up this challenge often has to tack on a ton of other rules or there is never stakes. On top of that, this game is EXTREMELY RNG heavy, death can often happen when the numbers just don't go your way there are obviously ways to mitigate this, but it's a big part of this game, sometimes you do everything right and die to the enemy getting good rolls. That's not even to go into the difficulty in setting this up as a server structure, alot of the code would need to likely be custom written into code the OG devs referred to as "spaghetti code" to implement what is already a niche challenge mode that is already played, and likely would still require personal rules to make interesting. I'm not trying to say there isn't some kinda potential here, but this is a volunteer dev team that already has alot on their plate, I just don't see this happening. Especially for something that can already be done with a little honor. I think adding a tracker for player deaths to the city information terminal though could be a nice idea that likely wouldn't be too difficult, that way you could at least have proof, but otherwise I think it would be a waste of development time and effort.

You know trolls used to actually try back in the day.

LGTBQ people existing isn't political. If you have issue with that, you can go elsewhere.

Ah yes lets completely revamp and change a entire half of the game that's a bit underpopulated to add a activity that is already so insanely unpopular that the existing 4 zones for it are basically always empty and like 90% of the player base has a violent reaction to even existing in the game. This will only take a insane amount of development time to the point of likely being realistically impossible even if it WAS a good idea. Like you know pvp works on a ENTIRELY different set of rules right? For it to exist the entire zone would need to use pvp stats, which would make everyone in a zone villian side significantly weaker this isn't something you only have function for player interactions, it's a zone setting. As far as I'm aware there also isn't a system in place for 1 way pvp interactions like you want and I wouldn't be surprised if it was impossible to do, or likely such a massive undertaking it might as well be. All for a system that already exist in 4 empty zones. I honestly hope you're a troll.

Um welcome to CoH? Most maps have been in use since 2004. This is normal.

While I don't disagree that CoH has less of a emphasis on player skills I don't agree that it's not a major factor. As someone who used to run 801s all the time, execution played a very heavy role with success or failure. It wasn't just "we lost so we need to take a look at our build/team comp" often failure was due to bad positioning, approaching a fight in the wrong way , damage not being focused right, or not reacting quickly enough to something. Yes RNG is a major factor, but it can be reacted too and mitigated with good knowledge and quick thinking, I don't think there was any time we lost a run and went "well the numbers just didn't work out" generally it was something we felt at fault for. Just because the RNG is there does not mean it's the only thing at play, this is not a turn based game. CoH has PLENTY of places for mastery of execution, they just aren't as emphasized and often overlooked by the broader player base. Just because you don't have the ability to actively dodge or block does not mean execution can't assist in play. Movement for example is a often undervalued and very in depth piece of this game, especially on melee ATs that want to position properly to get the most out of their AoE. Due to actions locking your character, the quicker and more efficient your movement the more actions you can take with greater effect, the person who spends two seconds repositioning for a cone attack deals less damage then the person who spends 1/2 second. You're also kinda sweeping the "attack chain optimization" portion here under the rug, since optimizing that is actually rather complicated, and often has to be done on the fly with how variable this games fights are. Even if you know exactly what power to prioritize, and in what order these things can change within the same fight with, enemy variety and weakness, enemy positioning, ally position, target prioritization, your positioning, ect. ect. As someone who runs with 4* speedrunners on occasion, and tries to optimize my gameplay as much as I can, I can tell your the difference between a player who is well practiced with the mechanics of the game and a player who is simply getting carried by their build is alot greater then most realize. I honestly agree with the overall sentiment of your argument and I think it's something that alot of people don't realize, that at it's core CoH is very much a numbers game, and a fairly easy one at that and while don't think this was your intent, to claim that mastery in execution does not exist here is frankly a little insulting to those who attempt to master it.

Please tell me this mysterious change is upping the proc rate of this power, it was in a good spot.

Yall are getting really off topic talking about kheldians in a patch that does not mention them. The exploit is around and allowed because it's oddly balanced in terms of whats possible with other ATs and the alternative is that kheldians are the worst AT is the game by a mile. A kheldian rework is probably on the horizon at some point but I don't need to be a dev to tell you it's out of the scope of this patch and I don't see any timeframe where the changeling glitch gets patched unless kelds get a full rework, which is likely a pretty massive undertaking. Otherwise though, looking forward to this patch coming out, specially now that tanks get to keep their cones.

Um what? That's not how it works at all, have you even tested this? That would be TERRIBLE design, especially considering the size of the cone. The recharge caps at 10 targets, which is also the target cap, there is no hard limit to the number of stacks you can have. It's intended to punish you less for hitting less enemies, not to punish you more for hitting too many, that would be awful. Edit: whoops it does cap at 11, really should be in the description of the power if the buff is capped, however it does not change my point, as there would be no reason to hit less targets with it, since you would still want to refresh the buff on all the stacks

I said it before and I'll say it again, no stalker/Scrapper would ever want a cone over a PBAoE, please give them Consume Psyche instead of Devour Psyche. I don't care if it technically covers a larger area, it requires you to reposition which cuts into DPS on the more DPS focused AT who are going to be in the thick of it anyways. If it remains like this, it's another set I probably wont bother with as it's central to the whole set(lack of taunt means it's already dead to me on scrapper but it could be fun on stalker). Honestly It's just a bizarre choice

Having already tested it, I can confirm it's still very worth it to proc bomb if that's your thing, it hits for very respectable damage with 4 procs and no recharge. It's just no longer a pocket nuke that heals/recovers end. Rad kinda needed a nerf and honestly this feels rather well directed. I do agree though ground zero could use a slight reduction in it's activation time here, but I feel the set isn't exactly hurting for AoE presence.

ALL of my builds use LoTG, it's simply one of the best enhancements in the game, really should have been unique like the unbreakable guard Max HP proc, but it was one of the first IOs so hind sight is 20/20. Unfortunately it's too ingrained to change at this point as it would practically require most high end builds respec, or if they grandfathered it in, suddenly you can't respec the character without losing it so it's here to stay. Honestly as someone who plays every toon with perma haste, I actually wouldn't be all too sad to see it go, it would make reaching that harder for sure, but it would not inflate the value of +Def powers more then they already are with+def as strong as it is. In the grand scheme of things though, it's not that big deal, Def as a stat is insanely strong on practically all builds and even without multiple LoTG def has some very good sets and procs. This is just how a complex gearing system usually works, the best stuff gets used the most, if something is universally useful everyone will use it. Not every build has 5 of them though, not every build will have enough powers to fit 5 of them and there are other procs that can be more useful but are single use like sheild wall, reactive defenses or Kismet For the record it's not even just LoTG btw, quite a few procs are practically universal in builds: Performance shifter +end Panacea end/HP Steadfast protection and gladiators armor 3% def In just about any high end build these are practically a guarantee just due to the usefulness they offer for only one slot,. You don't HAVE to use these btw, you can make a perfectly functional and even good build without utilizing any of these enhancements, it's just it's alot easier to do with them.

Pretty sure, the devs already mentioned they intend to buff kin melee at some point, unfortunately this is a entirely volunteer dev team and these things take time and they want to do it right the first time to not cause more work down the line. Melee is fine btw, good even, they tend to have some of the best raw single target damage in the game that's realistic and good sustained AoE, you just need to learn to move. This isn't even bringing taunt into the equation which tanks/brute/scrapper get alot of or them having the best damage mitigation. Oh and yes, blast sets CAN farm better then melee, it's however ALOT harder and usually you bring a tank or brute anyways as taunt stops enemies from running, and while you can, you don't normally do that solo. Honestly if a blaster couldn't out DPS a brute that would be a way bigger issue thats kinda the point of blaster. Oh and as someone who both plays a changeling PB and plays with alot of changeling PBs, they aren't that busted beyond what you can do with say a scrapper, they are also REALLY damn hard to set up and play properly. Seriously I've seen some wild takes in this game but "Melee is underpowered and needs buffs" is one the of the wildest.

Hah I appear to be mistaken, though I know you can do the same with Time, either way getting def up to the point of practical immortality isn't all that hard so I still stand by my points.

Honestly I was kinda just getting my thoughts out on the subject but I figured it would add to the conversation. More to the point though It's why I agree with the statement that Stalker/Scrapper tend to have the best ST damage realistically, at least from my bias viewpoint simply because as pure damage dealers I feel they have the least amount of caveats twords accessing that damage, and tend to not rely on support powers that would give others the same DPS boost. While I don't want to belabor this point they are simply alot easier to reach those damage values as well, specialty for the kinda person to ask "whats the best DPS" in the general forums, not to throw any shade at the OP of course. Either way though, this is one of those things where I feel everyone will have a different opinion of where the line of judgment is drawn, but a interesting topic none the less. And yeah SAME, I completely get why people specialize but if my character feels weak in any situation it's usually back to mids for me.

Yeah Division 2 is around where I would consider it, temps just feels bit cheap in the grand scheme and I general don't include things like lore pets due to inconsistency, cooldown. Not to say it's not already very valuable but I find lores/temp pets cause -res to get overvalued. Not to discount the effort that goes into these, they are certainly a useful resource but most of the builds used are tailor made for just pylon testing, optimizing everything for shear single target damage with little to no AoE, sustainability, or utility and often aren't realistic in many ways like having crabs pets actually all attack the same target and survive or abuse things like assault incarnate transferring to MM pets if summoned after activating. While I think pylon testing is still a useful benchmark at a certain point it's only really checking how quickly you can burst it down rather then some level of overall performance. It's still obviously worth noting and something to account for I just often don't think it's realistic specially outside of coordinated situations. It feels more like a "whats possible" rather then a "What will work the best". On that note though I don't have a better benchmark to replace it with and I'm not even gonna try to argue my opinion is right because it's very up to interpretation, just kinda how CoH is. Either way just my two cents

Invun is a solid stalker secondary, not meta, but not far from it, I play it on my main and she can solo basically everything at 4x8 fairly quickly, only having to really try with some of the harder groups. Dull pain is very powerful, but high recharge so you are somewhat vulnerable to getting whittled down if you don't have any other tools for sustaining yourself, but its not nearly as bad as shield or SR on that front. Build wise it's pretty flexible and slots out pretty well, you can end with most res maxed and most def types at 40-45% without having to go too hard. It can have end issues though, but thats just stalker in general and it is possible to get it under control without having to slot hard into it, this lets you be fairly flexible with your Destiny slot, as just about every pick has it's niche if you want to go through the effort of getting all them.

In the origin of power arch, if you are a mutant, Yin specifically states that she IS NOT a mutant, and has no specific powers, she's a extremely powerful psychics by nature, just like some people are naturally talented athletes. She isn't alone either the PPD has a full division of psychic police and widows are natural origin as well, it even used to be forced on the VEAT. So a there is a ton of room for a natural origin psychic to play with the big leagues. At the end of the day, it's whatever you want, CoH has always be extremely open to any interpretation of power source and power level. There are plenty of examples of characters with really goofy lore at even the high end (Shout outs to my boy Bad Penny in the Miss Liberty TF) the game is a creative sand box and it's crafted to allow just about anything.

While I do think empathy is currently one of the worst support sets atm. That's not the worst place to be given how absurdly strong support sets are. At high end it still has some incredibly powerful buffs, mainly in fortitude and adrenaline boost. Fortitude is pretty damn powerful being a combo To-hit/Def/Damage buff, all of these things can have alot of value in the right situation, and generally one of them is always going to be useful, with enough recharge this can be maintained on the whole team at once, though with decent effort. AB is IMO the strongest single target support buff in the entire game, 50% recharge is massive anywhere, endurance basically gets removes as a mechanic, and it gives IH to anyone practically making them immortal (especially when paired with fort) and you can maintain this on two target with high recharge. This is to say nothing of the RAs which basically give infinite end and regen to the team. I find there are 3 major issue with Empathy. 1: Healing simply is not needed in large quantity, making much of the set redundant, many set are capable of filling the role of healer with a single power and powers for self sustain are a dime a dozen. Why have 4 (arguably 5) abilities that all do the same thing in slightly different ways when 1 or 2 get the job done just fine. It doesn't help that powers like regeneration aura if used well practically invalidate 3 of your other powers while active. To add to this preventing damage in the game is currently much easier and far more effective, a single cold can negate the need for healing in the first place with 3 buttons (Powerboost + ice shield + Glacial shield)(Whoops apparently that does not work) and brings far more to the table then Emp does offensively. 2: Empathy is far too active. Everything empathy does needs to be maintained constantly, even if you are not healing all 4 of your buffs need to be constantly cycled in order to have a real supportive impact, nothing is passive or really long lasting in this set, and the abilities that are need to be constantly cycled onto other teammates in order to do your job. Keeping fort on 7 people takes quite a bit of time, and you constantly want to be maintaining this , AB and the RAs are a bit easier but just add to this, and then if you DO need to be healing thats more time spent on pure defense, NOTHING in this set is passive. Remember CoH is a game where taking a action takes time, time you could be spending doing other actions, such as attacking enemies. Time spent healing other could be spent doing other things had the damage simply been prevented in the first place. Even if we some how reworked the game to make healing far more valuable somehow, this would likely still hold empathy back, trying to play empathy optimally takes far more effort for generally less reward then other support sets, it's the reason why buff sets had their buffs changed to apply in AoE. 3: It's simply outclassed by several more popular options that do what it does but better. As I said before support sets tend to be very powerful these days, one skilled defender can practically turn off damage in about 5 seconds, outside of combat that they only need to worry about every 4 minutes. That's before bringing IOs or incarnates into the mix, which can allow a team of blasters to reach immortality levels of sustainability without any support. Support these days tends to be defined more by the offensive benefits they bring to the team, while survivabilty is important, it's not difficult to achieve effective immortality before supports even get involved, and practically effortless the moment they do. It's hard to justify taking Emp over something like kin when kin can max out damage buffs perma with a single press of a button, can maintain a recharge boost on the whole party, maintain mez protection much easier, and in practical terms is just as good of a healer, if not better. On top of that, sets like nature do healing better and still has far more of a impact when healing is not needed. That said, I don't think empathy as a whole is terrible, the set still can hold its own as a support and bring alot to the table, especially if its the only support. None of these issues are deal breakers, they simply hold the set back. Fort, AB, and the RAs basically pay the price of admission on all but the most sweaty of teams, and while a abundance of healing is redundant in the very rare situations where it is needed it makes for nice insurance. I feel when people can identify a imbalance easily, they tend to blow it wildly out of proportion. I would still rather have it over a set like, traps for example which, while powerful, suffers from long activation times and cooldowns, and only really can perform it's best in more drawn out fights, which tend to be rare (though TBF I don't have a ton of experience playing/playing with traps but I feel there's a reason for that ). Do I think it needs a rework: DEAR GOD YES Do I think it has a place in the current game: Yes of course it can carry it's weight just fine and only loses in a value comparison to other sets, that to be honest, I feel are quite a bit over-tuned. Seriously support in the game is insanely powerful and I think most people don't notice because it isn't required. TLDR: It's kinda just not meta, too specialized for something not highly valued and outclassed by other options on what it does do, but it can get the job done just fine and even has its own valuable benefits, there are just better options for most situations.