Kaika

Odd this seemed like the change that was more well liked, but I'll withhold judgement until I see the next build, I'm more curious about ignite/incinerator as if the current changes went through I would be dropping this power as I have no need for another single target attack on my AR/Nin. Through my testing, incinerator did not seem worth it over my current attacks. While the DPA seems ok, the damage still isn't anything to go crazy over and takes too long to take full effect. Good for Corr/defs or blaster more reliant on their primary sure, but for my toon with access to good single target attacks in nin this change is a straight downgrade that removes a high damage but situational tool from my kit. My plan was to replace it with aim (Likely making it a net positive over all) if the changes went through but now I'm curious to see what will be done.

I have to agree, nerfing 50s that are IOed out for the sake of 1-50 on SO, is not the way to go. I agree that sets should be fully functional on SO but to do this at the cost of angering everyone who uses the set with IOs is foolish to be frank. They are effectively nerfing the most dedicated players for the sake of players that may not even stick with the toon, and lower the end potential of that set. To me it seems like a great way to please no one, you tick off the dedicated players, and the players the changes are made for are likely indifferent to the changes. Anyone playing strictly on SOs likely does not care much about a sets performance as they are already not optimizing, and those leveling will be disappointed to find the set has lower potential then it use to when trying to build it out.

I've noticed two pretty annoying bugs while playing Ar/nin blaster that seem unique to this set. First whenever I visit the tailor my sheathed weapon is defaulted back to hidden and the original legacy rifle, this requires me to change my rifle back to holstered, the correct model, and the correct color as that's also defaulted, ever time I want to adjust my costume. I also spoken to several other players and if my costume has a holstered weapon, they cannot see it when drawn, my character is in the pose for holding but the gun is invisible. This only happens on costumes when the weapon is holstered, I tested with it hidden and it shows up just fine. This may effect holstered Rifles in general as a Merc MM seemed to have the same issue.

No Fx option for all stealth powers, particularly hide on stalker, or at the very least no/less fade

Month 1 player here, I remember when I was new my first toon, was Kat/Regen, back when Katana shared Broadswords animation. I deleted it at level 6 because I was getting mad at how long my HP took to regen... I only had fast healing. The first toon I really mained back then was Ill/kin due to finding confused absolutely hilarious (it still is), I actually got kicked from a few teams back then since confuse "made us lose XP". I still remember the wonder of exploring all the high level zones with invis and discovering monster island in PI and was just absolutely mesmerized. But yeah, I can attest to what everyone said about Fire tanks back then, PLing these days has NOTHING on how crazy you could make things back then. Haste was just ALWAYS perma, have a +res shield? Well that res was capped. Takes Stamina? 6 slot that baby and forget end exist. Was really a different game back then. My first 50 was a Kat/invun around issue 4, and I used to get alot of flack and just curiosity for NOT playing regen at the time.

Yeah it really comes down to there not really being a market for that sort of thing here. Influ was rarely necessary and farming was easy and incredibly optional, even way back in the day people would regularly hand out millions of influ to new players. Inventions made it so there might have been a small market for it but considering the games population and much tighter nitt community, my guess was they rarely got any bites. On top of that I recall the dev's being pretty on the ball with stopping it (or at least appearing to be). All and all it just wasn't worth the time and resources for the gold farmers.

Yeah honestly Ice is one of the best generalist sets for stalker IMO, it keeps all the strengths the other ATs get but does not have to trade it's single target damage for it. Regen is probably not doing you any favors but as Without Pause said, the control is definitely gonna make it work better, at the very least better then it would otherwise. I think it would work better with another secondary but, hey if you want to make regen work on a stalker that's likely your best bet

Thanks, I was actually gonna mention this but I forgot to, and that was basically the point I wanted to make. I currently can't think of and reason this power should be ground targeted, even if you summon it next to a guy it is just as likely to shoot at someone on the other side of the room. For some powers like shield charge, I can see why it remains ground targeted even though alot of people use a macro, but for this power I can't fathom why you wouldn't want to macro it.

So finally got a chance to respec my Ele/Dev(50 IOed, out the teeth, and full incarnate) and tried out the changes for myself, overall it seems like great changes. Shock mechanic: I particularly like the shocked mechanic, regardless of how effective it actually is my little scrapper brain LOVES seeing Big words pop up and more numbers happen. As I am running a blaster, more damage is always good in my book and getting rewarded for draining a enemies end Bar even if I don't get it the whole way reminds me this set actually has a secondary effect. 10/10 Short Circuit changes: I like the idea behind this short circuit change, it really gives me a way to reliably drain someone quickly outside of my nuke. I feel like it needs... something small though to make it feel good. Either a little more damage or a bit faster animation. Either way it's already a full on upgrade over what we had before. 8/10 Tesla Cage Changes: I gotta mimic what I have heard alot of other players say about this power feels underwhelming. It's like it's trying to do too many things and does none of them all that well. First things first, the chain mechanic is VERY awkward to use and does not really feel good. Since the initial target takes little damage it's very hard to control where the damage goes. I can try to aim it at a enemy to specifically control the spread but that's still a crap shoot. The jump distance also felt too small, I would throw it at enemies near a group and if it jumped to any enemy slightly outside of the group it stops. Also this takes way too long to build up, maybe it's because I'm not using this with /ele (another problem I have with the changes) but I often found even by the end of a fight I would not be full on static and alot of it would quickly run out before the next group, making this move hard to get out even when I was trying too. Honestly if you are gonna make be build up to this I should feel like I'm really getting something out of this, something I want to do, a slow hold and some damage I can't direct isn't it. I feel like this needs to go back to the drawing board, I'm not even sure why it's focused on AoE the set is fair good at AoE already and could really use a good single target blast and this would be a great contender for a Freeze Ray treatment (maybe not as crazy). I really don't know what this power is supposed to be. My point is if this went to live like this I would 100% be skipping this power. 3/10 Voltaic Sentinel Changes: I like the idea of making it a toggle, but I have to echo everyone else, just make it last through holds. I don't even say this because I hate having to cast it again, but it's so easy to forget if it's on or not, since unlike most other powers that detoggle on hold, it has no visual effect on you, sure the pet is visible but when I'm constantly lobbing electricity everywhere it's REALLY easy to not notice when this thing has been turned off. As is right now it just doesn't feel worth the hassle against control heavy enemies. Even if we don't get it to not detoggle PLEASE stop making me ground target it, it should work like gun drone and just summon infront of you, I just don't see any realistic reason I would want to place it in a specific spot, specially now since it's a toggle. 5/10 Charge up: Not much to say about it, I quite like the idea of the "Aim" power enhancing the secondary effect of my powers, makes it feel a bit more impactful, I think the small damage and to-hit trade off is very worth it here. 10/10 Overall I really like the changes, I feel like Tesla Cage could really use some more time in the oven, but if this hit live tomorrow I wouldn't be mad. I still feel like it should not directly interact with other sets like /Electical manip now even more so then before and the static generation felt way to slow with moderate use of my secondary. But those two things aside I do like the changes.

It's more the principal that I disagree with rather then how powerful it may or may not be. Honestly from the notes tesla cage looks..... unwieldly and underwhelming but I'll withhold judgement till I get my hands on it, even if it's not great now, I doubt it will stay that way if it's supposed to be one of the signature powers in the set. I feel like what I'm more concerned about is it giving the same resources as Electrical Affinity rather then Tesla Cage. It gives direct and unique benefits to your support capabilities from attacking that you wont get with a different blast set.

I haven't had a chance to test out the changes (I'll probably make a follow up post when I do, they look fine), I want to comment on this specific change since it has been living rent free in my head since I read it. To Be blunt: I think this is a terrible Idea. Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic when I say this but I feel it goes directly against the core idea of CoH character builder. It discourages diversity by attaching direct mechanical advantages to playing a specific combo. Giving bonuses tied directly to unique mechanics makes me feel like I'm not getting the full Electric blast experience if I don't pair it with a thematically appropriate set (same for Ele Affinity and Manipulation). I'm fine with these set synergizing well with each other, they all contain end drain which Ele blast benefits from, but adding specific interactions like this that I miss out on because I play Ele/Dev is something I really do not like and feel like has no place in this game. I'm aware this was done a bit by the original devs with AR/Dev and I thought it was a awful idea then (was also kind of a laughable bonus). At the end of the day I just don't want to feel like I'm missing out on the full potential of my primary/secondary because I decided to go with a different combo. IMO any kind of of unique mechanic like this should be self contained or effect ANY secondary choice.

Dual Blade is actually one of the better stalker primaries when built correctly. Ablating strikes and Sweeping strikes are very high DPA attacks, along with Assassin's Blades filling out the single target rotation. With enough recharge you can solely stick to these attacks offering some pretty high DPS . On top of this it gets access to a def debuff and a melee AoE in the single target rotation which lets you slot in both -res procs (Achille's heel and Fury of the gladiator ) for even more damage. It also get two decent AoEs which, while a bit unwieldly , gives you solid AoE presence. Ninja blade on the other hand I would not recommend as much. The low Damage per attack does not play as nicely with the stalker formula, as you planed crits aren't as good. On top of that, while flashing steel is a OK AoE it's a rather small one and all you get. Ninja blade isn't bad but it loses out in its transition to stalker, losing its main AoE (the lotus drops) and one of its better attacks (Gambler's cut). If you want to play a "Ninja" character I would recommend Katana/Ninja scrapper over stalker as I feel the set just works out much better on the other melees.

Fair, though I am still under the impression that would be the response, but you are correct that just leads us into circular arguments. Regardless, I feel like this change should not make it through, and this is a discussion we should be having when Kinetic melee gets revamped.

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.