Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Build 1)

[DeepSky]

In the interest of build diversity, please don't nerf Rune of Protection like this. People streeetch to get it and often give up their other travel power pools and presumably defense boosts. Some take it as a mezz breaker but a lot of builds alternate it with something else giving resists or try to keep it up as much as possible with high recharge. Like, Rune of Protection is slotted out with set bonuses in some builds!

Is standardization with the other 60 second buffs really the issue? Is it really an actual problem? I'd agree with others - if anything, 90 seconds is what they should be at instead of 60.

Honestly I've used Adrenal Booster and it feels like a big waste at the up time its at, not even a third of the time. I'm in that pool mostly for the flavor of 'run + teleport too' and then 'why not' Corrosive Vial filled out and when and if I'm not lazy on the build I'm just gonna drop the whole thing because it isn't worth the picks.

[Goody]

Just now, macskull said:

I think the primary reason they're not used more is because they're buried 3 picks deep in pools that are otherwise pretty lackluster, and the opportunity cost of having to lose one of Speed/Leaping/Leadership/Fighting isn't worth those picks.

that's fair, losing a power slot to a place holder does suck a little.  IDk if i ever use the ally buff or -res powers i take.  

 

I do like the travel powers though, I didn't realize how often jaunt would be good on a blaster and Takeoff has been a fun survival button for some builds.    

[Neogumbercules]

I've been campaigning for some QoL buffs to AR for a long time so it's great to see some here. I want to offer up the following suggestion for Flamethrower that goes directly in line with the idea behind the rooting, Ignite, and FA changes:

 

Reduce the cast time of flamethrower significantly and make 75% of the damage be dealt up front with the remaining balance of damage dealt as a faster DoT over a few seconds. 

 

With the other changes included this would shore up ARs greatest weakness which is slow ass Dots that don't flow with the 2021 state of the game. 

 

Here's my radical AR suggestion... 

 

Remove ignite, put Full Auto in that power spot, and make the T9 a copy of the Assault Bot's incendiary missiles. This will give AR that much needed huge nuke type power AND it would be a suitable and highly useful replacement for the otherwise very situational Ignite. 

[Goody]

1 minute ago, Neogumbercules said:

I've been campaigning for some QoL buffs to AR for a long time so it's great to see some here. I want to offer up the following suggestion for Flamethrower that goes directly in line with the idea behind the rooting, Ignite, and FA changes:

 

Reduce the cast time of flamethrower significantly and make 75% of the damage be dealt up front with the remaining balance of damage dealt as a faster DoT over a few seconds. 

 

With the other changes included this would shore up ARs greatest weakness which is slow ass Dots that don't flow with the 2021 state of the game. 

 

Here's my radical AR suggestion... 

 

Remove ignite, put Full Auto in that power spot, and make the T9 a copy of the Assault Bot's incendiary missiles. This will give AR that much needed huge nuke type power AND it would be a suitable and highly useful replacement for the otherwise very situational Ignite. 

I'd be happy if ignite just lost the mag 50 Fear with a slight dmg reduction or duration increase, let it live as a burning oil slick/bonfire type type, plenty of use for that extra DoT in TFs.

[Neogumbercules]

9 minutes ago, Goody said:

I'd be happy if ignite just lost the mag 50 Fear with a slight dmg reduction or duration increase, let it live as a burning oil slick/bonfire type type, plenty of use for that extra DoT in TFs.

That would be great too. Right now it's just kind of tough to keep an enemy in it and hardly worth the effort VS throwing out another AOE. 

[DreadShinobi]

I think the ideology behind the decision on Rune of Protection really needs to be looked at. Are we going for 'pool powers should be strictly poor/underwhelming power choices'? Do we really need to feel shoehorned into speed/leaping/fighting/leadership more than we already are? I think the bigger issue with RoP being brought down to 60s is more that the other similar powers, that require significant investment in power picks, such as Unrelenting, Unleash Potential, and Adrenal Booster, would all feel more worthwhile on a 90s duration. As others have said, I believe this is the opposite direction that pool power balance should be headed. 

 

[ExeErdna]

21 minutes ago, macskull said:

I think the primary reason they're not used more is because they're buried 3 picks deep in pools that are otherwise pretty lackluster, and the opportunity cost of having to lose one of Speed/Leaping/Leadership/Fighting isn't worth those picks.

That's the whole logic behind Sorcery, it has the most consistent set of powers. Having RoP as a pocket Clarion early is legit a life saver, the whole set is the dream for controllers.

You can get "deal" with getting Tough and not Weave at times. You can skip not going all the way to Victory Rush, especially if your own end is extremely stabilized. Then Vengeance is niche but when it goes off it is nice. I don't want to skip Combat Jumping at all in pretty much any build. Finally I can skip Speed but it has some very fun gimmicks with Burnout.

Between these and the Epic/Patron pools it's hard to make something unique when what's safe just works so much better.
 

[ExeErdna]

10 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

I think the ideology behind the decision on Rune of Protection really needs to be looked at. Are we going for 'pool powers should be strictly poor/underwhelming power choices'? Do we really need to feel shoehorned into speed/leaping/fighting/leadership more than we already are? I think the bigger issue with RoP being brought down to 60s is more that the other similar powers, that require significant investment in power picks, such as Unrelenting, Unleash Potential, and Adrenal Booster, would all feel more worthwhile on a 90s duration. As others have said, I believe this is the opposite direction that pool power balance should be headed. 

 

 

I've tried them all RoP is the great one, Unrelenting is the worse one and UP and AB are pretty much the same. Instead of nerfing RoP the others need to brought up because their pools are interesting. Since there's still 2 more of these types of powers choices to be finished we honestly shouldn't be nerfing until we see something really broken and RoP requires you to give up something for it to work.

[Goat]

First off, thank you to the Homecoming team for putting so much work into this game! I love the majority of the changes here, on paper. I'm going to focus in on the Ninjitsu changes right now, though, since that's what I've done testing on so far.

 

First off, stealth crits! The new changes seem to be working properly, with powers having a higher chance to crit after being out of combat for eight seconds. Eight seconds feels MUCH better than twenty, making it an aspect of the set that's relevant far more frequently. Hooray! The 30% crit chance on AoE attacks feels much worse than on Live, but overall I'd still say it's a big improvement.

Second off, saying Shinobi-Iri's buff has been "moved to Kuji-In Rin" seems disingenuous, since (as others have noted) the values are completely different. At level 50, unenhanced, Shinobi Iri on Live provides +66.00% jump speed, +270.00% jump height, and +60.00% run speed. At level 50, unenhanced, Kuji-In Rin on the Test server provides +35.00% to jump speed, jump height, and run speed. That's roughly half the value for jump and run speeds, and a TREMENDOUS reduction to jump height.

 

My first thought was that the movement buffs from Kuji-In Rin might stack with multiple applications, but the power seems to be ignoring global recharge boosts on Test, which was not listed in the patch notes. Kuji-In Rin has a base recharge of 3m20s on both Live and Test. Given identical characters with 185% global recharge (including Hasten): On Test, Kuji-In Rin's recharge with 53% slotted recharge (one level 50+5 generic IO) is 2 minutes and 10 seconds, versus around 59 seconds on Live. With that much recharge, the set's mez protection still isn't perma on the Test server. Activating Hasten doesn't impact the recharge of Kuji-In Rin on Test, which suggests global recharge is the component getting ignored. I hope this is a bug, because if it's intentional then it's an enormous unlisted nerf to the set.

 

As it stands, the reduction to movement speed baffles me. I get why it was moved from the toggle, but not why it was gutted so heavily. It's a fun and thematic part of the set, and enables someone to make a Fast Character without going into Super Speed. If the concern was that Ninjitsu + Ninja Run/Beast Run/Athletic Run let characters achieve Super Speed and Super Jump speed levels, that's certainly no longer a factor! Since Travel powers now directly increase movement speed caps, there's now a distinct advantage to taking travel powers anyway. If Ninjitsu's speed values were left unchanged, it would still be eclipsed by actual Travel powers given the buffs they're getting (other than Infiltration, which seems like a poor reason to gut Ninjitsu all on its own).

 

My question, then, is what problem is this trying to solve? Is the speed reduction intentional? If so, why? Going Fast certainly wasn't something that made Ninjitsu overpowered. It seems like nerfing a huge part of what makes Ninjitsu fun and unique as a set, to no tangible benefit that I can see. I am genuinely curious about the rationale behind it, since this is the second time a speed reduction like this has shown up for Ninjitsu in the patch notes.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Goat

[CaptainLupis]

13 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

Would it be possible to make the same change for Robots? They have a Full Laser Auto version that takes a whopping 6s. And also a Flamethrower version that also takes a whopping 6s.

I was just about to ask the same thing. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be done at the same time but it's not been implemented on test at the moment.

[Turric]

16 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Please do not make upgrades automatic. Upgrading resummons in combat is part of the mastermind experience and should not be changed. 

 

I absolutely disagree with this. I do not find masterminds a fun class anymore and this has been one of my biggest gripes. The "never let your pets die" was a bad philosophy IMO. I also hate having to pick a location when summoning them, but that is the problem with most pets in the game. It's an annoying mechanic.

[Sovera]

43 minutes ago, Turric said:

 

I absolutely disagree with this. I do not find masterminds a fun class anymore and this has been one of my biggest gripes. The "never let your pets die" was a bad philosophy IMO. I also hate having to pick a location when summoning them, but that is the problem with most pets in the game. It's an annoying mechanic.

 

You can solve that last problem with a keybind that summons them at your feet.

 

/bind lshift+1 powexec_location forward:3 little bots
/bind lshift+2 powexec_location forward:3 heal bots
/bind lshift+3 powexec_location forward:3 big bot

Change to the actual names of the pets and whatever keybind you'd like to use than left shift + number.

 

7 hours ago, macskull said:

I think the primary reason they're not used more is because they're buried 3 picks deep in pools that are otherwise pretty lackluster, and the opportunity cost of having to lose one of Speed/Leaping/Leadership/Fighting isn't worth those picks.

 

If someone happened to read my posts during the Tanker patch they would know I advocated for some sort of reverse KB PbAoE replacing Taunt. For all purposes Fold Space. So, people might think I would be all over Fold Space since it is very much what I'd like?

 

No. Never picked it. Have no intentions of picking it up. Having to use the clunky Teleport who is useless for anything but crossing zones is a hard no and then I need to pick two useless powers. Hard no. For those who like Combat Teleport and Teleport kudos to you though, I watch your use of Fold Space with -deep- envy. Trust me.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Sovera

[LQT]

12 hours ago, siolfir said:

Smashing Blow in Kinetic Melee deals damage after the animation completes also, so maybe it was supposed to represent bullet travel time after firing?

Quite a few powers land their damage at the wrong time depending on a few things. Moonbeam used at point blank range will hit [and even kill] something before the actual effect even exists for example.
 

20 hours ago, damienray said:

Just chiming in on Fast Snipe distance change. Would like to see a little more than 80 on Fast.

 

Likewise. Would also like the reason it was normalised in the first place given how it's function and description for years as a longer range attack.

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by LQT

[Mezmera]

10 hours ago, Goody said:

that's fair, losing a power slot to a place holder does suck a little.  IDk if i ever use the ally buff or -res powers i take.  

 

I do like the travel powers though, I didn't realize how often jaunt would be good on a blaster and Takeoff has been a fun survival button for some builds.    

 

I almost always take the pools Mac listed except for Leaping.  The Force of Will pool is far too good to pass on.  It has the same travel I like in Mighty Leap then the -res power is a fantastic force multiplier and Unleash Potential gives me far more than anything I get from Combat Jumping. 

 

I drop an achilles proc into that debuff and use it against AV's which it'll go off 90% of the time since it's all I have in there, that'll net you around 28% -resistance on target and I believe somewhere around 17% for an AV +4 to you.  It is noticeable when I use it, the team churns down those AV's much stronger.  

[Kanil]

oh, is also the thread where i ask for full auto to hit 16 enemies and have a cone that isn't 20 degrees (lmao)

 

because that's what i'd like to ask as well for a change to that point - playin a bit with the set the flow is like, better but overall it's just... still full auto?

the power doesn't feel that different ultimately. it's strange because you know, a 4s->2s change in animation time is a giant DPA increase and a pretty huge change but the overall kinda weak and uh, "narrow" feeling of the power is maintained. no idea if that's on purpose or not but yeah. just using it in small spaces sucks total ass still for those reasons - the poor damage, the poor area of effect that makes it awkward to use on anything that isn't specifically like 30+ yards away... there's a lot goin' on with the power that just makes it ultimately feel bad.

 

the occam's razor application of 'hey this nuke should be friendly to use like every other nuke' doesn't seem too far out - it's not like AR is really full of these outstanding wild powers or anything.

[Carnifax]

10 hours ago, DeepSky said:

In the interest of build diversity, please don't nerf Rune of Protection like this. People streeetch to get it and often give up their other travel power pools and presumably defense boosts. Some take it as a mezz breaker but a lot of builds alternate it with something else giving resists or try to keep it up as much as possible with high recharge. Like, Rune of Protection is slotted out with set bonuses in some builds!

This is pretty much where I'm coming from here. 

 

If you check the Corruptor forums I've my current Fire/Nature build in there. I've stretched to fit RoP there because it suits my concept and char. Darkir has an alternative build in there, fairly different which suits his playstyle (his is more offensive, mine is more defensive). Both are valid builds and neither is particularly OP or anything. This change will severely disrupt mine, to the point that there's little point bothering with RoP or Sorcery and I'll probably respec to something a bit more vanilla and as effective but less interesting. That's a bit sad to me really.

[Replacement]

22 hours ago, The Godchild said:

Afterthought: Oh god....I'm even more against this change now that I realize you can also slot res sets in there....you know, the set type with some of the best defensive procs out there. Mez clicky going from IO end redux/rech only slotting, to taking 2 sets...1 of which has alot of options to slot procs with....? Yeahno, please....do NOT push this change through, its gonna cause nightmares for Ninjitsu users if it does x.x

 

Additional Afterthought: ...with all the stacking travel changes, why is this change even on the table? Seriously. Nothing is changing fundamentally about Nin getting the +run/jump speed still, why are things being changed to make 1 cool power totally boring and a core-survival power over-complicated? 

 

 

🤔  Wait so...

You're mad there's something to do with this power outside of basic crafted Recharge reductions?

 

That's... over-complicated?

 

19 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

It appears something broke with the Combat Attributes window. I had lost 2/3rds of the stats I was monitoring and to clear it up I had to turn them all off and back on.

 

Absorb added to tracking.  I'm guessing this broke some sort of internal index and destroys all tracked stats with a number greater than X, where X = whatever value Absorb is given.

 

7 hours ago, Goat said:

My first thought was that the movement buffs from Kuji-In Rin might stack with multiple applications, but the power seems to be ignoring global recharge boosts on Test, which was not listed in the patch notes. Kuji-In Rin has a base recharge of 3m20s on both Live and Test. Given identical characters with 185% global recharge (including Hasten): On Test, Kuji-In Rin's recharge with 53% slotted recharge (one level 50+5 generic IO) is 2 minutes and 10 seconds, versus around 59 seconds on Live. With that much recharge, the set's mez protection still isn't perma on the Test server. Activating Hasten doesn't impact the recharge of Kuji-In Rin on Test, which suggests global recharge is the component getting ignored. I hope this is a bug, because if it's intentional then it's an enormous unlisted nerf to the set.

 

Can you confirm if this is listed time?  Can you turn on cooldown indicators and activate and see what the actual recharge is?  I'm playing with SR at the moment and seeing it visually ignore my global recharge reductions, but the actual power is adhering and I'd like confirmation on if I'm crazy.

[ScarySai]

I'm personally a fan of more options than less.

 

The reality of the situation is that most pools are mediocre and have a gem or two in them.

 

Fighting/leadership/speed all offer something tangible and powerful to a character who invests into them.

 

In the case of fighting, you take one useless melee attack for two universally good toggles. In the case of speed, you get hasten right off the bat. CJ and flying offer mobility control with a defensive toggle. None of the leadership powers are dead picks.

 

Do these pools need to be nerfed for not being total trash? I don't think so, I think more pools should feel as useful as these. The rune change takes a mediocre pool set and just kinda stomps on it for no real discernable reason.

Edited March 14, 2021 by ScarySai

[Replacement]

On 3/13/2021 at 8:29 AM, GM Arcanum said:

 Sorcery > Rune of Protection

• Duration reduced from 90s to 60s to match the other Origin pool tier 5 powers

It's pretty frustrating to me that everyone is focused on this...

 

On 3/13/2021 at 8:29 AM, GM Arcanum said:

This power now grants damage resistance even if you use it whilst mezzed (previously only the mez resistance component would be granted)

...And not this.

 

Here's where my thought process is currently.  I am willing to change my mind on all of these, but bring the builds that prove me wrong please.

1. If you do not care about the "reactive" resistance, you are probably chaining this with other powers and a lot of global recharge reduction.  Compare the relative nerf to a build like this to the potentially huge gains to the other 49 levels worth of builds, as well as SO/basic crafted IO players.
    
2. 80% of origins in this game are not magic.  If you feel certain builds "need" Rune of Protection to function, then defending this status quo is logically equivalent to stating "it is ok to force players to justify why they learned Sorcery, instead of catering to the creativity of the character they intended."  Sometimes, things like this have to happen, but this feels over the line.  If a character or AT needs RoP to function at an "acceptable" level, I would rather pull the band-aid off and figure out what we can do to help that character in broader terms.
    
3. If you say "2 trash picks justify it being 90s" - you are equivalently giving up on buffing those powers.  I want a better arcane bolt and enflame; not all the power budget sunk into a niche t3 pick.  "Then wait until those buffs are here to roll out this nerf" is absolutely understandable, but I would hope that would change your feelings.  My concern is folks claiming this argument, but if they woke up tomorrow to great buffs to the other Sorcery powers their build doesn't rely on, they would just pivot to a new reason to hate the duration nerf.  I'm trying not to be cynical and say this is the case, but if it were, see how that would make this argument quite disingenuous?
    

From a personal and biased standpoint, I think "I'm stunned so I won't get my resistance" is bad for gameplay, namely punishing casuals and people who actually level their characters manually.  I'm willing to lose 30s to pay for the upgrade.

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Replacement

[Doomrider]

All the RoP change has done is made an otherwise niche, but useful power pick less desirable, putting it on par duration wise with the other less desirable origin t5's . This, despite the fact that the rest of the sorcery pool is nothing but wasted power picks at worst, io mules at best. 

 

The uptime for RoP on live is currently reasonable (far from perma) and comes with heavy opportunity cost through those 2 pre-requisite throwaway powers.

Those who used it for mez protection, will now just use defense amplifiers instead. Which is sad to think a temp power will be elevated to more useful than an actual power pick.

 

It would have been nice to see  the sub t5 powers in these sets improved to a somewhat useful state instead of smacking down the one decent t5 and calling it balance. 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Doomrider

[BrandX]

34 minutes ago, Replacement said:

It's pretty frustrating to me that everyone is focused on this...

 

...And not this.

 

Here's where my thought process is currently.  I am willing to change my mind on all of these, but bring the builds that prove me wrong please.

1. If you do not care about the "reactive" resistance, you are probably chaining this with other powers and a lot of global recharge reduction.  Compare the relative nerf to a build like this to the potentially huge gains to the other 49 levels worth of builds, as well as SO/basic crafted IO players.
    
2. 80% of origins in this game are not magic.  If you feel certain builds "need" Rune of Protection to function, then defending this status quo is logically equivalent to stating "it is ok to force players to justify why they learned Sorcery, instead of catering to the creativity of the character they intended."  Sometimes, things like this have to happen, but this feels over the line.  If a character or AT needs RoP to function at an "acceptable" level, I would rather pull the band-aid off and figure out what we can do to help that character in broader terms.
    
3. If you say "2 trash picks justify it being 90s" - you are equivalently giving up on buffing those powers.  I want a better arcane bolt and enflame; not all the power budget sunk into a niche t3 pick.  "Then wait until those buffs are here to roll out this nerf" is absolutely understandable, but I would hope that would change your feelings.  My concern is folks claiming this argument, but if they woke up tomorrow to great buffs to the other Sorcery powers their build doesn't rely on, they would just pivot to a new reason to hate the duration nerf.  See how that would make this argument seem a bit disingenuous?
    

From a personal and biased standpoint, I think "I'm stunned so I won't get my resistance" is bad for gameplay, namely punishing casuals and people who actually level their characters manually.  I'm willing to lose 30s to pay for the upgrade.

 

 

I still feel Arcane Bolt should be the equivalent in damage per activation to a Tier 1 or 2 attack.  Now, obviously not all tier 1s and 2s are equal, so find the nice middle ground.  Make it so people can go "I can replace this attack with this one!"

 

It's one of the reasons I love the Snipes.  I can put it in an attack string and not feel weaker for wanting to use the animation of it 🙂

[ScarySai]

I'll try to keep this brief so as to not flood the next 20 pages with debate, as what often happens on these boards. Just this post and a reply to the reply. 

 

52 minutes ago, Replacement said:

If you do not care about the "reactive" resistance, you are probably chaining this with other powers and a lot of global recharge reduction.  Compare the relative nerf to a build like this to the potentially huge gains to the other 49 levels worth of builds, as well as SO/basic crafted IO players.

Could you give an example of this 'chaining? This point of yours never made much sense to me. What powers am I chaining? My toggles? A t9? What's wrong with me doing that as part of my build? How is this an improvement to basic IO users in any way?

 

The break free change isn't ignored, it's just not important relative to the duration hit. You could prevent getting mezzed before activating it.

 

52 minutes ago, Replacement said:

80% of origins in this game are not magic. 

I'm a former virtue and a current everlasting player. I'm quite familiar with the thematic argument, and while it could have merits elsewhere, it doesn't really justify the change.

 

Most of my roster aren't speedsters, they take hasten anyway. My brute's no leader unless you consider unholy shrieking to be inspiring, still take leadership on it. My mastermind couldn't dodge a wrench or a ball, still takes weave.

 

Thematics are important, but it's not a problem unique to rune by any stretch. Imagination will have to suffice for now.

52 minutes ago, Replacement said:

 I want a better arcane bolt and enflame; not all the power budget sunk into a niche t3 pick.

I think everyone wants that. Nobody likes the fact that most power pools are absolute ass except a handful, but actively slapping down things that break the tired mold is pointless and damaging to the game.

 

Would buffing bolt and enflame make the nerf easier to swallow? Maybe, I have some reservations just due to how weird the sorcery set is, but the thing is that Rune was taken, rune was liked, but it broke some imaginary rule and was slapped down.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by ScarySai

[Carnifax]

 

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

It's pretty frustrating to me that everyone is focused on this...

 

...And not this.

 

Here's where my thought process is currently.  I am willing to change my mind on all of these, but bring the builds that prove me wrong please.

1. If you do not care about the "reactive" resistance, you are probably chaining this with other powers and a lot of global recharge reduction.  Compare the relative nerf to a build like this to the potentially huge gains to the other 49 levels worth of builds, as well as SO/basic crafted IO players.
    
2. 80% of origins in this game are not magic.  If you feel certain builds "need" Rune of Protection to function, then defending this status quo is logically equivalent to stating "it is ok to force players to justify why they learned Sorcery, instead of catering to the creativity of the character they intended."  Sometimes, things like this have to happen, but this feels over the line.  If a character or AT needs RoP to function at an "acceptable" level, I would rather pull the band-aid off and figure out what we can do to help that character in broader terms.
    
3. If you say "2 trash picks justify it being 90s" - you are equivalently giving up on buffing those powers.  I want a better arcane bolt and enflame; not all the power budget sunk into a niche t3 pick.  "Then wait until those buffs are here to roll out this nerf" is absolutely understandable, but I would hope that would change your feelings.  My concern is folks claiming this argument, but if they woke up tomorrow to great buffs to the other Sorcery powers their build doesn't rely on, they would just pivot to a new reason to hate the duration nerf.  I'm trying not to be cynical and say this is the case, but if it were, see how that would make this argument quite disingenuous?
    

From a personal and biased standpoint, I think "I'm stunned so I won't get my resistance" is bad for gameplay, namely punishing casuals and people who actually level their characters manually.  I'm willing to lose 30s to pay for the upgrade.

 

 

Actually I don't believe the Recharge change and the fix to mez are related at all. The "what happens when mezzed" is a bug fix, there's currently nothing in the description to say "If you're mezzed you won't get the Resist". So saying one is dependant on the other isn't really true. One is a bug fix. The other just seems to be a change to make things line up (which is something that's been done before, for example with Tier 1 Blaster secondaries. Personally I don't like that way of balance through homogeneity, sets are balanced, not powers).

 

Really what it looks like to me is that the Powers person looked at it, said "Oh, this is supposed to be basically a reactive Inspiration and it has a bug. I'll fix that and normalise it with the other Tier 5s" assuming everyone just uses it like an Inspiration. My Fire/Nature doesn't, he uses it to stop 3 of the toggles he uses to live from dropping from mezzes, which is why I have 5 slots dedicated to it. 

 

As for using not changing it as an excuse not to fix Enflame and Bolt (I quite like the travel power and Ward) that's not true, like I said earlier in this thread I think it's sad that these 3 new Pools got developed just so everyone can mostly ignore them. This change just exasperates that trend by making Sorcery poopier too. I mean it's not like 100s of people were running around abusing RoP was it (again I've seen very few posted builds which bother with any of Sorcery, Experimentation or Force of Will. As a developer if I write something new and no-one uses it that's a sign it wasn't done right for whatever reason and needs tweaking).

 

I even proposed quick fixes for Enflame and Vial earlier. Bolt and Dart could be buffed too of course (reduce the animation on Bolt and increase the damage of Dart for example, maybe by 25% apiece). 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Carnifax

[TheSpiritFox]

7 hours ago, Turric said:

 

I absolutely disagree with this. I do not find masterminds a fun class anymore and this has been one of my biggest gripes. The "never let your pets die" was a bad philosophy IMO. I also hate having to pick a location when summoning them, but that is the problem with most pets in the game. It's an annoying mechanic.

 

This just means your personal preferences stray from the intended class design. Never let your pets die was a good philosophy, its integral to the design of MMs, making your pets more important and require more watching than like just a controller pet. You don't find MMs a fun class, but that doesn't mean they aren't a fun class, it means that your preference is to play something other than an MM. Changing this would be like saying you don't like fury cause brutes have to build it up and its better to be a scrapper damage wise so you want brutes to work like scrappers. 

 

Buffing your pets is directly intended to create opportunity cost. Keep your pets alive or lower your damage, lose a pet you decide between immediately rebuffing it or casting support/damage powers or whatever else during combat. You are SUPPOSED to try to keep your pets alive, the entire class is based around it you're a goddamn pet class with support powers to support your pets. The fact that you do not like that design does not mean there's something at all wrong with masterminds, it means that they aren't the AT for you. 

[Tigraine]

2 hours ago, Replacement said:

1. 80% of origins in this game are not magic.  If you feel certain builds "need" Rune of Protection to function, then defending this status quo is logically equivalent to stating "it is ok to force players to justify why they learned Sorcery, instead of catering to the creativity of the character they intended."  Sometimes, things like this have to happen, but this feels over the line.  If a character or AT needs RoP to function at an "acceptable" level, I would rather pull the band-aid off and figure out what we can do to help that character in broader terms.

 

 

I think Hasten, Tough/Weave, and Maneuvers/Tactics are all far more guilty of this.  RoP is hardly a "every build must have, regardless of theme" power; it's just important to the builds that do rely on it.  Until the other more popular "needed" pool powers get addressed, there's really no foundation for this argument for RoP.