A note on Rune of Protection changes

[Arbegla]

8 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

My personally opinion on the matter was that it was perfect how it was. On most builds it had about 50% uptime give or take a few percentage points. That is with about perma hasten level recharge, which I feel is more realistic for most builds than being at recharge cap constantly.  It was up often enough to be worth the pick and had a duration long enough to not be annoying to click all the time.

 

The big thing, is with the Melee Judgement, (or Clarion) you can basically chain those together, and have permanent Mez Protection on a squishy. What made RoP so powerful was mostly the fact that it chained with other things to completely make you immune to Mez, something Squishies shouldn't be able to do solo.

[Mezmera]

43 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I personally feel the duration for those is just too short to be worth the pick. That may work if they are mainly used reactively as a break free. But if it is being used proactively or used for longer term mez protection I think the current nerf is better. 
 

My personally opinion on the matter was that it was perfect how it was. On most builds it had about 50% uptime give or take a few percentage points. That is with about perma hasten level recharge, which I feel is more realistic for most builds than being at recharge cap constantly.  It was up often enough to be worth the pick and had a duration long enough to not be annoying to click all the time.

I concede that 60 seconds is a long enough buff to help out, but I still disagree with the uptime nerf. I feel that 50% uptime at perma hasten levels of recharge is perfect. I understand that others, including the devs, do not agree with that stance. So I understand that it will not be changing back.  That said, I wouldn’t want it further reduced in duration. Others may feel differently. 

 

I have Unleash Potential on my main dom with all her bells and whistles I've got it down to a 154s recharge while I can still maintain a good multi-layered build for other attributes.  It is a strong power and increasing the duration would push it to OP but as it is currently at 60s duration 10 minute recharge seems about right for me to consider Force of Will a valid option.  The caveat though is that Force of Will also has in it the best all around travel in leaping and a great ST debuff for AV fights.  That pool as a whole has 3 powers I use regularly so I have no problem sacrificing Combat Jump.  

 

I think some players need to get off their tanks and experience the game in different ways and experiment with power selections so they get to experience the difference and cost effectiveness of the different powers available.  

Edited March 31, 2021 by Mezmera
Correction thanks @america's_angel

[BRADICAL]

12 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

Once we know what the Devs are considering to be the balanced difficulty, we can have a better idea of what is considered overpowered. Without that knowledge, we just don't know, as some people can handle +4/8x and solo AVs/GMs, and others can't. There is a HUGE gap between power levels, and until we know where the balance is located, we can't really say something is or isn't balanced.

We do know all of this information, because it's given to us in the form of archetype caps and the current amount of power you can squeeze out of the IO system, when it's used optimally. But everything has a cap, whether it's a soft functional one like defense, or hard ones like resistance or HP.

The powers that exist to complement that system, like RoP and even Hasten, influence what holes you can plug in any given build to approach those caps. When it comes to making high-end builds, then, the balance lies not in the ability to solo +4/x8 content (this is an expectation), but in how easy it is to do so with the tools offered by your archetype, power sets and pool choices.

RoP was never overpowered on the lower end. The base recharge is way too long, and squishy archetypes would never be able to leverage any amount of resistance with their 75% cap and low max HP. Combined with a build optimized towards defense, high resistance, and recharge, it becomes a functional part of the survival kit that is still fundamentally worse than that of a tanker, brute, scrapper, VEAT, etc.

Which is a point that once again bears repeating: the main use of RoP has been to bring parity to the archetypes that struggle for realistic defensive options, and nerfing it does nothing at all to address that much wider imbalance in the game. It just serves to make it even less optimal to solo on those squishy archetypes than it already was, while leaving the rest unscathed.

[Saikochoro]

1 minute ago, Arbegla said:

 

The big thing, is with the Melee Judgement, (or Clarion) you can basically chain those together, and have permanent Mez Protection on a squishy. What made RoP so powerful was mostly the fact that it chained with other things to completely make you immune to Mez, something Squishies shouldn't be able to do solo.

I don’t particularly want to go down a rabbit hole on this particular argument. I understand that the devs said they don’t want to things to bypass entire game mechanics. But IOs, incarnate powers, and p2w powers already do this to a much greater degree than rune of protection. Many powers have synergy such that 1+1=3. That’s part of the fun of the game. 
 

However, I have to really scratch my head at the argument that things shouldn’t bypass game mechanics when amplifiers exist. If I wanted to I could just skip clarion, melee hybrid, and RoP and just go full damage and buy amplifiers. I understand the magnitude of protection isn’t as high, but it’s still there.
 

If anything I think we should encourage using power picks 1st, enhancements 2nd, incarnates 3rd, inspirations 4th, and p2w powers last. Not saying we should get rid of them, but the target on RoP just seems odd given the fact that amplifiers, IOs, and incarnates exist.

 

Plus I don’t really like that the whole resistance use of the power is being dismissed or ignored by a lot of people. 
 

Anyway, the devs have made their decision. I will adapt accordingly. 

[Saikochoro]

9 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

 

I have Unleash Potential on my main dom with all her bells and whistles I've got it down to a 154s recharge while I can still maintain a good multi-layered build for other attributes.  It is a strong power and increasing the duration would push it to OP but as it is currently at 60s duration 6 minute recharge seems about right for me to consider Force of Will a valid option.  The caveat though is that Force of Will also has in it the best all around travel in leaping and a great ST debuff for AV fights.  That pool as a whole has 3 powers I use regularly so I have no problem sacrificing Combat Jump. 
 

I think some players need to get off their tanks and experience the game in different ways and experiment with power selections so they get to experience the difference and cost effectiveness of the different powers available.  

I’m glad that unleash potential works for you and that you feel it is a valuable pick. 
 

I am not sure what you are insinuating with the bolded part of your comment. Are you saying that you feel I am coming purely from a tank perspective and that I don’t experiment with builds or power picks?

[Arbegla]

11 minutes ago, BRADICAL said:

It just serves to make it even less optimal to solo on those squishy archetypes than it already was, while leaving the rest unscathed.

This really depends on what difficulty you play at. I don't have any issues at all on my squishies, even without mez protection. Mez has been around much longer than ways to get around it.

 

Blasters didn't always have Defiance that allowed them to still attack while Mezzed, Controllers didn't always have and Epic power pool that can grant Mez protection, there are more powersets that can grant Mez protections than before. And RoP was literally one of the LAST things to be added to CoH before the shutdown. It didn't really get a chance to be play tested or balanced around.

[Mezmera]

2 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I’m glad that unleash potential works for you and that you feel it is a valuable pick. 
 

I am not sure what you are insinuating with the bolded part of your comment. Are you saying that you feel I am coming purely from a tank perspective and that I don’t experiment with builds or power picks?

 

No I'm with you on all fronts I was more agreeing with you and suggesting that it feels like people with little insight on these Origin pools arguing the point about mez and ignoring the resistance attributes seem like the type where they wouldn't take them to begin with i.e. tanks/scrappers

Edited March 31, 2021 by Mezmera

[America's Angel]

4 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Unleash Potential[...]is a strong power and increasing the duration would push it to OP but as it is currently at 60s duration 6 minute recharge seems about right for me to consider Force of Will a valid option. 

  

Unleashed Potential has a 10min recharge. Same as nerfed Rune.

[Saikochoro]

Just now, Mezmera said:

 

No I'm with you on all fronts I was more agreeing with you and suggesting that it feels like people with little insight on these Origin pools seem like the type where they wouldn't take them to begin with i.e. tanks/scrappers

Gotcha. Glad I didn’t lash out then haha. Not that I should have even if you were trying to call me out. 
 

I actually have found that I enjoy using RoP on my regen melees than on my blasters for instance. Thus my focus on the power in that instance is on the resistance uptime. I actually found that out through experimenting with the pool powers and trying to break from the standard leaping/fighting/speed/leadership meta. 

[Apparition]

1 minute ago, Arbegla said:

This really depends on what difficulty you play at. I don't have any issues at all on my squishies, even without mez protection. Mez has been around much longer than ways to get around it.

 

Blasters didn't always have Defiance that allowed them to still attack while Mezzed, Controllers didn't always have and Epic power pool that can grant Mez protection, there are more powersets that can grant Mez protections than before. And RoP was literally one of the LAST things to be added to CoH before the shutdown. It didn't really get a chance to be play tested or balanced around.

I think part of the problem is that some people assume that all ATs should be able to solo at +4x8, when that is just not realistic.  Some ATs are much more team oriented than others.  If you want to solo with ease, there are other ATs for that.

 

Rune of Protection never made it to live CoH, it was in the Issue 24 beta.

[BRADICAL]

9 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

What made RoP so powerful was mostly the fact that it chained with other things to completely make you immune to Mez, something Squishies shouldn't be able to do solo.

This is the game design flaw that baffles me. If we can make builds that allow the vast majority of archetypes to ignore other game mechanics and completely invalidate the functionality of entire powersets, why is there any upset over a handful of archetypes having realistic options available to them to achieve the same level of protection?

On the high end, the buffs and debuffs from any of my Time/X defenders are completely redundant. It's a solo-friendly support set, offering very little to any other well built character who isn't lacking in defense, recharge, or healing. The other support sets are several varying degrees of worse off. The inherent squishiness seems to be designed around the philosophy that the character's powers are somehow more valuable than that of a tanker, but in practice, this isn't true at all. For controllers even less so, because the entire point of controlling things is to prevent damage that the tanker is virtually immune to in the first place.

But the tanker can also heal itself, cap its defenses, ignore the blue bar and build towards having enough recharge and damage bonuses that the majority of support powers have very little if any effect on them that matters.

Most other archetypes with armor sets can achieve this level of soloability, while simultaneously devaluing the inherent design philosophies of the archetypes struggling to emulate their performance. On the lower end, this all works out fine, but on the higher end, removing viable options to build towards parity only serves to widen an already insurmountable gap.

[Mezmera]

Just now, America's Angel said:

  

Unleashed Potential has a 10min recharge. Same as nerfed Rune.

 

Er oh yeah well it's just right where it's at.  Haven't really paid attention to the base recharge to those in quite a while.

 

50% max uptime shouldn't be any deal breaker with those Origin powers.  More than that maybe sure but Sorcery as a whole has little to offer outside of RoP so it was fine with being top heavy.  Nerfing RoP without any desirable first 2 power selections in the pool is a complete turnoff.  

[Arbegla]

6 minutes ago, BRADICAL said:

This is the game design flaw that baffles me. If we can make builds that allow the vast majority of archetypes to ignore other game mechanics and completely invalidate the functionality of entire powersets, why is there any upset over a handful of archetypes having realistic options available to them to achieve the same level of protection?

On the high end, the buffs and debuffs from any of my Time/X defenders are completely redundant. It's a solo-friendly support set, offering very little to any other well built character who isn't lacking in defense, recharge, or healing. The other support sets are several varying degrees of worse off. The inherent squishiness seems to be designed around the philosophy that the character's powers are somehow more valuable than that of a tanker, but in practice, this isn't true at all. For controllers even less so, because the entire point of controlling things is to prevent damage that the tanker is virtually immune to in the first place.

But the tanker can also heal itself, cap its defenses, ignore the blue bar and build towards having enough recharge and damage bonuses that the majority of support powers have very little if any effect on them that matters.

Most other archetypes with armor sets can achieve this level of soloability, while simultaneously devaluing the inherent design philosophies of the archetypes struggling to emulate their performance. On the lower end, this all works out fine, but on the higher end, removing viable options to build towards parity only serves to widen an already insurmountable gap.

 

And that is where we need to figure out what balance means. A High end Tanker build still has room to benefit from buffs, like +damage, +rech, and +regen/Absorb. The caps on those aren't possible to hit solo. You can get 'good enough' with Perma hasten, and softcapped defense, but you're not hard capped by any means.

 

I think the only attribute that is possible to actually self cap, is Hitpoints. Everything else has limits far exceeding what you can do with the IO system. Yes, you can get good enough, and yes, layered mitigation is better than just maxing out one or two stats, but a high end IO build isn't invalidating other buffs sets. They still benefit from the buffs.

Mez protection is one of the few things that the IO system doesn't address AT ALL. (aside from the Blaster ATO, but that's a proc, and not really guaranteed) It only grants Mez Resistance, which lowers the duration you are mezzed, but the IO system intentionally has a Mez Protection hole within in.

 

I Understand where you are coming from, but if the game is balanced around 0/1x on SOs (which used to be the metric..) then what you can do with IOs doesn't matter at all. Its a moot point because that isn't where things are balanced.

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

I fully support the RoP changes, and I really don't understand the argument against it.

 

If you don't have toggle or click status protection:

 

You're paying an animation time cost to protect yourself by pre-emptively mezzing the mezzers, opening your fights with a low-to-no damage mez; you're forced to use that mez on multiple foes, which ramps up the animation time cost significantly; and you're always at risk of missing, leaving yourself open to mez and unable to retaliate.

 

OR

 

You're paying an animation time cost to protect yourself by ToHit debuffing the mezzers, opening your fights with a click or toggle which deals no damage.  These are unlikely to miss and more likely to be AoE/PBAoE, but still leave the player open to lucky hits which inflict mez, and in the case of offensive debuff toggles shut down.

 

OR

 

You're keeping your inspiration tray, e-mail and/or AH inventory full of Break Frees, which means you have no spare slots for heal/damage/defense/endurance inspirations, and are still subject to a hard limit, depending on when you run out of Break Frees.

 

OR

 

You're sacrificing powers in your build to acquire as much Defense as possible, through pool powers and/or IO set bonuses, in hopes of preventing status effects.

 

OR

 

You're dipping into Sorcery/Melee Core/Clarion.

 

The arguments are that there's a massive discrepancy in how much time some archetypes have to spend preventing themselves from being mezzed, in comparison to how little time other archetypes have to spend performing the same basic function; that archetypes with status protection toggles and clicks have no 5% chance for their protection to fail and leave them helpless; that the archetypes most capable of taking the hits while mezzed are also the ones least likely to be mezzed, whereas the archetypes least capable of taking the hits while mezzed are the most likely to be mezzed; that reducing the duration of RoP will lead players to pursue the other options more, thus lessening diversity; that carrying around 20 Break Frees means not carrying around an assortment of other inspirations, thereby decreasing progression speed.

 

More basically, the argument is that there's a serious balance problem in how status effects affect different archetypes, and some players feel that this problem needs to be addressed, rather than one of the partial solutions nerfed.

[BRADICAL]

5 minutes ago, Apparition said:

I think part of the problem is that some people assume that all ATs should be able to solo at +4x8, when that is just not realistic.  Some ATs are much more team oriented than others.  If you want to solo with ease, there are other ATs for that.

All ATs can solo at +4/x8, with hugely variable ease in building for that and quality of life in actually playing it. The IO system is designed to allow your character to function without other team members, and it actually serves to further and further invalidate the usefulness of the support ATs. It was never about it being easy for them to solo, but it is at least possible to do so, even if it is sub-optimal at best.
 

3 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

And that is where we need to figure out what balance means. A High end Tanker build still has room to benefit from buffs, like +damage, +rech, and +regen/Absorb. The caps on those aren't possible to hit solo. You can get 'good enough' with Perma hasten, and softcapped defense, but you're not hard capped by any means.

 

I think the only attribute that is possible to actually self cap, is Hitpoints. Everything else has limits far exceeding what you can do with the IO system. Yes, you can get good enough, and yes, layered mitigation is better than just maxing out one or two stats, but a high end IO build isn't invalidating other buffs sets. They still benefit from the buffs.

Mez protection is one of the few things that the IO system doesn't address AT ALL. (aside from the Blaster ATO, but that's a proc, and not really guaranteed) It only grants Mez Resistance, which lowers the duration you are mezzed, but the IO system intentionally has a Mez Protection hole within in.

 

I Understand where you are coming from, but if the game is balanced around 0/1x on SOs (which used to be the metric..) then what you can do with IOs doesn't matter at all. Its a moot point because that isn't where things are balanced.

Not to derail from the RoP discussion, but a high-end tanker build has very little room to benefit from buffs. My Dark/Dark tanker is sitting very comfortably on both the defense softcap, 90% res to all, and with permanent Soul Drain has only a little wiggle room for additional damage bonuses. Recharge buffs are virtually meaningless here, because once you have an established attack rotation and your buffs are permanent, it isn't doing anything for you. This situation can be emulated using several other builds, because the value of things like +def, +tohit, +dmg, and +rech fall off dramatically once you have enough of it. Any debuff that isn't -res works the same way.

Most, if not all characters, build to have enough defense, accuracy, and recharge that outside buffs are rarely as impactful as they would be on SOs. That is the standard by which the IO system plainly functions.

And RoP does very little to interfere with any of this, except to allow those characters who on the high end have already stacked recharge, defense, and sustain to benefit from the fourth pillar of good build practice in a way that is at least semi-permanent. My Dark/Dark tanker has absolutely zero use for this. An SR/X tanker on the other hand can definitely benefit, but doesn't really need to. A Time/X defender relies on it.

Does using RoP make the Time/X defender overpowered by comparison? Far from it, in my experience.

[Greycat]

22 hours ago, BRADICAL said:

Making viable builds for squishy archetypes already feels like paying your taxes: you have to compensate for an incredible number of holes in your survivability in exchange for, in my opinion, nowhere near a proportionate amount of power.

<snip>

Getting mezzed in this game is the absolute worst. Half the archetypes in the game never have to worry about it. The other half has to jump through hoops to make sure they get enough of it, to no real advantage over the archetypes that get it naturally. Plenty of things in this game are broken, but the current state of RoP in my opinion was doing more to fix a problem and exacerbate it.

 

I'm just shaking my head reading this. What, exactly, is a "non viable" build? Were all the builds (hundreds) I had on live where Sorcery didn't exist "not viable?" I don't think I have ROP on a single build - still consider them perfectly viable. They do their jobs, they can solo and team, and they're enjoyable.

 

As far as the second bit...

 

"Half the ATs in the game never have to worry about it." Well, they do but it's rarely stacked that high. And they have that protection because there's next to nothing they could do if they get mezzed before they reach melee range. The squishies tend to have control and range - chances to take out and/or debuff (and/or buff the rest of the team) before the enemy's given a *chance* to mez them.  That's their mez protection. When this is brought up (not directed specifically at bradical) it seems to always be made to sound like the poor squishies (that are out of breakfrees, aren't permadom and don't have whatever power) don't get to do anything but stand there mezzed from the time they enter a mission door, and that's just not - and never has been - true.

[Arbegla]

19 minutes ago, BRADICAL said:

All ATs can solo at +4/x8, with hugely variable ease in building for that and quality of life in actually playing it. The IO system is designed to allow your character to function without other team members, and it actually serves to further and further invalidate the usefulness of the support ATs. It was never about it being easy for them to solo, but it is at least possible to do so, even if it is sub-optimal at best.
 

Not to derail from the RoP discussion, but a high-end tanker build has very little room to benefit from buffs. My Dark/Dark tanker is sitting very comfortably on both the defense softcap, 90% res to all, and with permanent Soul Drain has only a little wiggle room for additional damage bonuses. Recharge buffs are virtually meaningless here, because once you have an established attack rotation and your buffs are permanent, it isn't doing anything for you. This situation can be emulated using several other builds, because the value of things like +def, +tohit, +dmg, and +rech fall off dramatically once you have enough of it. Any debuff that isn't -res works the same way.

Most, if not all characters, build to have enough defense, accuracy, and recharge that outside buffs are rarely as impactful as they would be on SOs. That is the standard by which the IO system plainly functions.

And RoP does very little to interfere with any of this, except to allow those characters who on the high end have already stacked recharge, defense, and sustain to benefit from the fourth pillar of good build practice in a way that is at least semi-permanent. My Dark/Dark tanker has absolutely zero use for this. An SR/X tanker on the other hand can definitely benefit, but doesn't really need to. A Time/X defender relies on it.

Does using RoP make the Time/X defender overpowered by comparison? Far from it, in my experience.

 

Oh I understand the having enough mitigation that more doesn't feel like it'll benefit you, but the benefit is still there none-the-less. For example, your Dark/Dark tanker has no DDR, so you can cascade, especially fighting things like Malta, which do have -defense, -rech. But that is a mid to high end IO build. If the game isn't balanced around mid-high end IO builds, using them as an example of what you can do is pointless, because simply put, you're already unbalanced.

 

what RoP does let you do, on live, is at Single Origin levels of power, ignore Mez protection (and take at least 1/3 less damage with the 30% resistance it offers) roughly 40% of the time. With JUST SOs.

 

That is why it is important to know where the Devs draw the line. If the line is at Single Origins, then RoP is insanely overpowered, especially with no real crash on it. If the line is at 'low-mid' level IOs builds, RoP is still pretty powerful, because it lets you ignore Mez, and take FAR less damage.

 

on a mid-high level IO build, its probably fine, because the bulk of your mitigation is via set bonuses, and therefore RoP is just covering a small hole you can't get from IOs.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Arbegla

[Troo]

2 hours ago, America&#x27;s Angel said:

15s duration w/ 2.5 min recharge

30s duration w/5 min recharge

45s duration w/7.5 min recharge

  

15s durations can be impacted by activation times.

30s duration w/ 5min recharge can be a good spot for taking alphas and reactive purposes, but is a bit busy (this would be my choice)

45s duration avail up to 1/2 time.. this is just looking for a comparable power to string together.

 

just my opinions.

 

[arcane]

2 hours ago, BRADICAL said:

I think we all understand that CoH is fundamentally flawed.

All of your posts seem to contain messages like this that treat opinions like settled facts. It doesn’t work very well for me. 

[Doomrider]

There is an awful lot of pearl clutching happening over one persons posts and opinions. Opinions which everyone is of course allowed to have and express but perhaps we should say our piece on the Thread topic at hand and move on, lest this thread just get locked like so many before it.

[Mezmera]

18 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

what RoP does let you do, on live, is at Single Origin levels of power, ignore Mez protection (and take at least 1/3 less damage with the 30% resistance it offers) roughly 40% of the time. With JUST SOs.

 

With just SO's you're not running RoP at 40% of the time.  Lets say you factor in being able to get to 95% recharge internally on this then you have hasten it'll likely be recharging around the 4 minute mark probably more.  That's 25% of the time at best you get use out of this power with the proposed change and 35% currently.  Hardly OP I'd say.  

Edited March 31, 2021 by Mezmera

[America's Angel]

3 minutes ago, Troo said:

  

15s durations can be impacted by activation times.

30s duration w/ 5min recharge can be a good spot for taking alphas and reactive purposes, but is a bit busy (this would be my choice)

45s duration avail up to 1/2 time.. this is just looking for a comparable power to string together.

 

just my opinions.

 

 

30s @ 5 min recharge would be my preference, too. I find boss fights / spawns where I need an "oh sh!t" escape rarely last longer than 30s. 

 

Plus, in a perma hasten build you'd only have 50s downtime. 

 

(For comparison's sake. 60s duration Rune on test with a perma hasten build has a 100s downtime.)

 

All options would have a ~33% uptime under perma hasten. But 30s duration w/5min recharge would allow for greater use of Rune reactively.

[Wavicle]

30% uptime is just fine on RoP which I think is achievable on beta with Hasten and some IOs or Incarnate powers. If you NEED it more than that then you should be using Clarion instead.

[Mezmera]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

30% uptime is just fine on RoP which I think is achievable on beta with Hasten and some IOs or Incarnate powers. If you NEED it more than that then you should be using Clarion instead.

 

That's pretty terrible to sacrifice 3 powers to get one power which leaves you wanting 70% of the time.  I'll pass on Sorcery and get the tried and true powers that'll cap my defenses thus avoiding mez 90% of the time thank you though.  

[BRADICAL]

55 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I'm just shaking my head reading this.

By non-viable, what I mean to say is that without RoP, any one of my Time/X defenders is going to have it much harder soloing even something simple like a fire farm set to +4/x8. Against mez-heavy enemies, it would be that much worse, and the alternative solutions to this problem are limited and unsatisfying, thus I consider it non-viable. With RoP nerfed, it will just be more annoying to achieve the same level of performance—performance that was already below par compared to what other ATs could achieve for less. That's the crux of my argument, really. Every other character leveraging it for similar reasons will have a drop in performance too, but not always as severely due to the defender's better scaling with the +res part.

All I can say about control and range is that in practice, they rarely offer any real benefit and it always feels uncomfortable having to trust any portion of your survivability to something like a hit check, or gaps in control durations, or the very limited radius on most debuff powers especially when accounting for things like multiple spawns. You could argue that those feelings are anecdotal, but the real-world performance of an AT that can dive into a spawn versus one that has to exercise caution for whatever reason is already pretty clear: RoP has a 2 second activation time.

 

45 minutes ago, arcane said:

All of your posts seem to contain messages like this that treat opinions like settled facts. It doesn’t work very well for me. 

Just to clarify, my opinion is very heavily weighted towards the high end of building, where you assume the IO system is being used to its fullest potential to get the most out of any given AT and powerset combination. I don't mean to sound condescending about it, and I'm not resorting to personal attacks against anyone here. When I say that CoH is fundamentally flawed, I mean very specifically that it is imbalanced in a way that the game actively encourages because of the enormous amount of power you can glean from set bonuses and incarnate powers. It's a topic that has been discussed to death and won't really add much to this discussion, but it's an objective fact that CoH allows you to create unstoppable murder machines in spite of what's written on the tin. Many, many characters are capable of soloing challenges meant for entire teams.

And the higher up you go, the worse those flaws start to look, because it shows how deeply imbalanced each individual AT is when compared to the capabilities of the others, and what features have actual meaningful value in the end. This RoP discussion just makes it all the more obvious.

Edited March 31, 2021 by BRADICAL