Just delete Rage at this point.

[CoeruleumBlue]

8 hours ago, srmalloy said:

So your premise is that a character's offense powerset should be their defensive powerset? What about someone being able to "lift heavy thnigs" (sic) inherently implies being any harder to hurt? 

 

Lots of offensive powersets have defensive buffs in them, like Titan Weapons, Staff Fighting, Katana/Ninja Sword, Broadsword, and Martial Arts. Having hard muscles generally makes you tougher and more agile. If the game wants Super Strength to be about rage they might as well just rename it Raging Strength, but since I personally don't see why other sets such as Titan Weapons, Battle Axe, Mace, Stone Melee, and maybe even some of the energy sets shouldn't have a Rage option too, I'd rather just make a choice between Rage and Build Up or a similar power in different sets, the same way Dark Armor has an option between Dark Regeneration and Cloak of Sustenance. Then people can choose if they like the rage or not. What about the idea of Super Strength implies someone being clumsy and thoughtless and wearing themselves out, and what about the idea of various other weapons and powers that someone really strong might have implies that they definitely wouldn't do that? 

[Captain Citadel]

12 minutes ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

Lots of offensive powersets have defensive buffs in them, like Titan Weapons, Staff Fighting, Katana/Ninja Sword, Broadsword, and Martial Arts. Having hard muscles generally makes you tougher and more agile. If the game wants Super Strength to be about rage they might as well just rename it Raging Strength, but since I personally don't see why other sets such as Titan Weapons, Battle Axe, Mace, Stone Melee, and maybe even some of the energy sets shouldn't have a Rage option too, I'd rather just make a choice between Rage and Build Up or a similar power in different sets, the same way Dark Armor has an option between Dark Regeneration and Cloak of Sustenance. Then people can choose if they like the rage or not. What about the idea of Super Strength implies someone being clumsy and thoughtless and wearing themselves out, and what about the idea of various other weapons and powers that someone really strong might have implies that they definitely wouldn't do that? 

While I understand where you're coming from, I'm not sure Super Strength would be right for this particular gimmick. I agree with you that if it were to have anything, more defense/resistance would make a lot more sense than less defense/resistance, which it effectively has because of Rage and the crash. However this really only makes sense for characters like Superman, and anybody taking Super Strength to play that particular concept is almost certainly going to pair it with Invulnerability. And with IO sets and Incarnates, Invulnerability can be built with some frighteningly powerful resistance and defense, particularly for a mostly resistance-oriented powerset. If we added any +Res buff effects to Super Strength, Invuln/SS would just become even more powerful, and we'd probably see people running around with fully overcapped resistances and way over soft-capped typed/positional defenses. Effectively perma-Unstoppable but without any crash, lol.

But let's look at some of the other classic Super Strength characters for whom enhanced durability wouldn't make sense. Spider-Man would use Super Reflexes as his armor powerset. Captain America is obviously Shield Defense. And sure, technically they've both got some Willpower and Regeneration in there too, but one thing they're not going to do is bounce bullets off their chests, right?

I think the key thing about the damage powersets you mentioned is that they all use weapons to attack with, so it makes sense that those weapons could be used to parry or block incoming attacks. It gives the melee sets with weapons a unique gimmick, and Martial Arts only shares in that gimmick because it evokes the concept of a disciplined warrior who uses their entire body as a weapon, and as such has honed their skills to increase both their offensive and defensive capabilities.

If we were going to give Super Strength a gimmick, I would add -Res debuffs. I was surprised to learn Sonic Melee doesn't already have that gimmick, despite the fact that the Sonic ranged sets do have it. This would still work really well for a set like Super Strength, because a common theme with this type of ability in media is how overwhelmingly powerful and destructive it is. Guns get twisted into pretzels, blades get bent and broken. Heavy steel doors designed to withstand anything start getting dented and fall over. Supposedly impenetrable armor plating starts to buckle and crack like an egg. It's almost the defining trait of Super Strength: breaking the unbreakable.

Obviously damage numbers would have to be tuned accordingly, I'm not trying to make Super Strength the most powerful melee set or anything. I just think it's a cool concept for the powerset that should definitely be considered as part of a larger rework. Even if it's conditional to something like Unleashed Might, rather than being baked into the entire set automatically.

[golstat2003]

17 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Obviously damage numbers would have to be tuned accordingly, I'm not trying to make Super Strength the most powerful melee set or anything. I just think it's a cool concept for the powerset that should definitely be considered as part of a larger rework. Even if it's conditional to something like Unleashed Might, rather than being baked into the entire set automatically.

 

I would suggest buffing the set up to not be sub-par without any gimmicks then add any necessary gimmick they want AFTER that.

 

They can release UM eventually and just get rid of Rage.

Edited 17 hours ago by golstat2003

[Ultimo]

I've posted before (for MANY years, actually) about what I would love to see happen with Super Strength.  At present, the set performs adequately, but it SHOULD perform better, considering its popularity in the genre.  My main complaints are as follows:

 

1. It doesn't "feel" strong.  Strength involves MOVING things that can't be moved by normal strength.  We can't do that very much with this game engine, so my thinking is to increase the set's knockback considerably.  Of course, this is counterproductive for many defensive sets, so something would need to be done to make this a desirable effect.  I'd also move Hurl, so it appears earlier in the set, both because it's the only ranged power, and because it's the only power in the set that suggests actual STRENGTH.  Another possibility is giving more powers an AOE effect, since hitting multiple enemies "feels" more powerful than hitting one.

Another suggestion that's been made in the past is, have Super Strength attacks do greatly more damage to inanimate objects, like doors, rocks, robots and the like.  Superman would never hit a living enemy with all his strength, but wouldn't hold back when pulling a door down.

 

2. It relies too much on one or two powers.  KO Blow and Rage are unskippable, but many other powers are overshadowed by powers in other sets.  For example, why would I take Punch when Air Superiority does the same damage and guarantees a knockdown?  I'd like to see the power set revamped to spread damage around the set a bit, or trade in some of the powers hitting things for powers that have different effects, such as a power that grabs and throws an enemy (essentially, minimal actual damage, but HUGE knockback).  More Area Effects would be useful for this too.

 

3. It is very endurance heavy.  I could say this about a lot of sets, but especially in the case of Tankers, the endurance costs are often prohibitive.  If Rage were to be retained, perhaps they could make the endurance costs WITHOUT Rage active negligible.  That would simulate the character holding back, which should use less endurance.

 

I've made other threads on this topic, I can post links if anyone is interested.

[Captain Citadel]

40 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

1. It doesn't "feel" strong.  Strength involves MOVING things that can't be moved by normal strength.  We can't do that very much with this game engine, so my thinking is to increase the set's knockback considerably.  Of course, this is counterproductive for many defensive sets, so something would need to be done to make this a desirable effect.  I'd also move Hurl, so it appears earlier in the set, both because it's the only ranged power, and because it's the only power in the set that suggests actual STRENGTH.  Another possibility is giving more powers an AOE effect, since hitting multiple enemies "feels" more powerful than hitting one.

Another suggestion that's been made in the past is, have Super Strength attacks do greatly more damage to inanimate objects, like doors, rocks, robots and the like.  Superman would never hit a living enemy with all his strength, but wouldn't hold back when pulling a door down.

Giving it more AoE would mean lowering its single-target damage, and then that will end up not feeling strong when fighting bosses. Also, with the way Knockback works, you want the magnitude to be low enough to knock down, not back. Knocked down enemies are attacking less often. Knocked back enemies are just a headache because they're now out of your reach, and if you're in a group then you're spreading enemies out, annoying your allies too.
 

42 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

2. It relies too much on one or two powers.  KO Blow and Rage are unskippable, but many other powers are overshadowed by powers in other sets.  For example, why would I take Punch when Air Superiority does the same damage and guarantees a knockdown?  I'd like to see the power set revamped to spread damage around the set a bit, or trade in some of the powers hitting things for powers that have different effects, such as a power that grabs and throws an enemy (essentially, minimal actual damage, but HUGE knockback).  More Area Effects would be useful for this too.

This was already (mostly) fixed by Unleashed Might, because it directly increased the damage of other powers in the set instead of applying a massive buff to overall damage and thus further increasing the gap between things like Punch and Air Superiority.

Grabbing and throwing an enemy may be too sophisticated for this engine to handle. But even if it could be done, it's already been established that knockback is generally not helpful, it just looks cool. You'll feel "more powerful" for a second, and then notice you're now dealing less damage because you have to catch up to your target to keep hitting them. This is something that's generally more fun to play around with in single-player action games, where knocking an enemy back will often send them flying off a cliff and instantly dying because they've been removed from the field. This is not something that happens in CoH.

 

47 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

3. It is very endurance heavy.  I could say this about a lot of sets, but especially in the case of Tankers, the endurance costs are often prohibitive.  If Rage were to be retained, perhaps they could make the endurance costs WITHOUT Rage active negligible.  That would simulate the character holding back, which should use less endurance.

The whole point of this exercise is to delete Rage because of the design problems it brings to the set. Reduced endurance costs are not going to make it that appealing to play without Rage, because any endurance you save is only going to be spent on more attacks, since your damage is now pitifully low.

[Jacke]

18 hours ago, OverkillEngine said:

Rage would at least be easier to balance without making the rest of the SS set sucking butt in its absence if it were treated and tweaked to be a mid-point choice between Build Up and Unleashed Might.

Or in other words:

• Build up - highest magnitude buff, least duration, moderate recharge (stacking not really possible)
• Rage - moderate magnitude buff, moderate duration, long recharge (basically makes multi-stacking improbable if not outright impossible)
• Unleashed Might - lowest magnitude buff, permanent duration while toggled

At that point there would also be no need for a crash which introduces a whole extra layer of balance fuckery to complicate things. And makes them easier to proliferate to other sets - a set with slow animating but high damaging attacks might want Rage or UM instead of Build up to maximize the number of attacks within the buff window. Characters without access to mezz protection toggles are likely to prefer Build Up or Rage to Unleashed Might. Like Blasters or certain Kheldian builds or (shudder) non-perma Dominators.

 

I completely agree.

 

I had an Inv/SS Tanker.  To better understand Super Strength, I talked it over with another Repeat Offender.  Who said Super Strength was balanced around having Rage, had tried to run Super Strength without Rage, felt it sub-par, and had gone back to using Rage.  And was really looking forward to Unleashed Might and the other Super Strength changes, as was I.

 

I decided to reroll the Inv/SS Tanker as a SS/Shield Brute.  I know how to work around the Rage crash.  I just didn't want to do that at all.  Worrying about one more thing when driving a Toon.  So I took a build that could work best without Rage.

 

The Powers of Super Strength need rebalancing, because they are weak because Rage is strong.  And a Power like Unleashed Might is needed too, as an alternative to Rage.

 

Something will have to be done about Rage.  But Unleashed Might is desperately needed too, even before the other changes to Super Strength.

 

 

[Ultimo]

1 hour ago, Captain Citadel said:

Giving it more AoE would mean lowering its single-target damage, and then that will end up not feeling strong when fighting bosses. Also, with the way Knockback works, you want the magnitude to be low enough to knock down, not back. Knocked down enemies are attacking less often. Knocked back enemies are just a headache because they're now out of your reach, and if you're in a group then you're spreading enemies out, annoying your allies too.
 

This was already (mostly) fixed by Unleashed Might, because it directly increased the damage of other powers in the set instead of applying a massive buff to overall damage and thus further increasing the gap between things like Punch and Air Superiority.

Grabbing and throwing an enemy may be too sophisticated for this engine to handle. But even if it could be done, it's already been established that knockback is generally not helpful, it just looks cool. You'll feel "more powerful" for a second, and then notice you're now dealing less damage because you have to catch up to your target to keep hitting them. This is something that's generally more fun to play around with in single-player action games, where knocking an enemy back will often send them flying off a cliff and instantly dying because they've been removed from the field. This is not something that happens in CoH.

 

The whole point of this exercise is to delete Rage because of the design problems it brings to the set. Reduced endurance costs are not going to make it that appealing to play without Rage, because any endurance you save is only going to be spent on more attacks, since your damage is now pitifully low.

I understand what you're saying.  I'm just adding my thoughts to the discussion, they may not be exactly on topic, my apologies.

 

In essence, my interest is in making Super Strength FEEL super strong.  I agree that Rage can be counterproductive where that is concerned, and I'm not sure what this Unleashed Might thing is... I'll have to do some searching around to find out what it's about.  MOVING things is kind of definitive of Strength, so knockback strikes me as the most obvious way to represent that.  It's in keeping with the source material, too.  I understand that knocking enemies back can be problematic, which is why I suggested altering the way knockback works.  My main suggestion has always been to have it do damage, depending on how far the enemy is actually knocked.  Leave the power alone, and the knock and relevant damage would be minimal.  Add Knockback Enhancements, and you'll knock them farther, which will do more damage.

 

I had thought about having this effect increased when Rage was active, since so many discussions boiled down to NEVER EVER REMOVING RAGE!!!111!!!11!eleventy!!  I had thought about making Rage a toggle, which would increase the endurance and knock effects (and therefore the damage), representing the character not holding back anymore.

 

To represent throwing an enemy, they could put in a low damage "swat" power, where the character backhands the enemy for minimal damage and sends them flying, kind of like Force Bolt, or similar powers.  They would only take damage from the knock effect.

 

I think there are places they could add some aoe, already in the set.  Hurl, for example, should be a small AOE at the target's location (a big rock covers some area, and sends debris flying around).  Hand Clap would also do some damage if knockback was altered to do some damage, so no changes would be needed there.  I think I'd make Haymaker a small aoe, perhaps a cone.  The "Hulk SMASH" animation fits that effect, too.

 

Anyhow, to complete my point, I think Rage CAN stay but should be reworked.  If it were removed, adding a bit of damage to the powers in general, and then adding a bit more through knock damage... might be enough for me.

[Captain Citadel]

32 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

In essence, my interest is in making Super Strength FEEL super strong.  I agree that Rage can be counterproductive where that is concerned, and I'm not sure what this Unleashed Might thing is... I'll have to do some searching around to find out what it's about.  MOVING things is kind of definitive of Strength, so knockback strikes me as the most obvious way to represent that.  It's in keeping with the source material, too.  I understand that knocking enemies back can be problematic, which is why I suggested altering the way knockback works.  My main suggestion has always been to have it do damage, depending on how far the enemy is actually knocked.  Leave the power alone, and the knock and relevant damage would be minimal.  Add Knockback Enhancements, and you'll knock them farther, which will do more damage.

Pretty sure I was in one of your other threads where someone else explained why “knock damage” isn’t a thing and would have to be created from scratch, which is either impossible or prohibitively difficult.

 

Unleashed Might is not currently available for testing, but it was in the last Open Beta patch before being reverted. It’s a very simple but elegant solution to the Rage problem. It was a mutually exclusive power choice with Rage, and functioned in much the same way, using the same enhancement categories so as not to disrupt existing builds. It was a toggle power that had no crash, and boosted damage scalars on Super Strength powers specifically. It also conditionally permitted Hand Clap to accept damage enhancements while toggled on, modifying Hand Clap from a PBAoE radial stun/knockdown to a very large forward cone attack instead.

 

In short, Unleashed Might was the solution, not changing Rage, or fundamentally redesigning the entire knockback mechanic for the benefit of a single powerset. I get why you want Super Strength to move things, but other people more knowledgeable than either of us have already explained to you why it’s not possible.

[CoeruleumBlue]

3 hours ago, Captain Citadel said:

While I understand where you're coming from, I'm not sure Super Strength would be right for this particular gimmick. I agree with you that if it were to have anything, more defense/resistance would make a lot more sense than less defense/resistance, which it effectively has because of Rage and the crash. However this really only makes sense for characters like Superman, and anybody taking Super Strength to play that particular concept is almost certainly going to pair it with Invulnerability. And with IO sets and Incarnates, Invulnerability can be built with some frighteningly powerful resistance and defense, particularly for a mostly resistance-oriented powerset. If we added any +Res buff effects to Super Strength, Invuln/SS would just become even more powerful, and we'd probably see people running around with fully overcapped resistances and way over soft-capped typed/positional defenses. Effectively perma-Unstoppable but without any crash, lol.

But let's look at some of the other classic Super Strength characters for whom enhanced durability wouldn't make sense. Spider-Man would use Super Reflexes as his armor powerset. Captain America is obviously Shield Defense. And sure, technically they've both got some Willpower and Regeneration in there too, but one thing they're not going to do is bounce bullets off their chests, right?

I think the key thing about the damage powersets you mentioned is that they all use weapons to attack with, so it makes sense that those weapons could be used to parry or block incoming attacks. It gives the melee sets with weapons a unique gimmick, and Martial Arts only shares in that gimmick because it evokes the concept of a disciplined warrior who uses their entire body as a weapon, and as such has honed their skills to increase both their offensive and defensive capabilities.

If we were going to give Super Strength a gimmick, I would add -Res debuffs. I was surprised to learn Sonic Melee doesn't already have that gimmick, despite the fact that the Sonic ranged sets do have it. This would still work really well for a set like Super Strength, because a common theme with this type of ability in media is how overwhelmingly powerful and destructive it is. Guns get twisted into pretzels, blades get bent and broken. Heavy steel doors designed to withstand anything start getting dented and fall over. Supposedly impenetrable armor plating starts to buckle and crack like an egg. It's almost the defining trait of Super Strength: breaking the unbreakable.

Obviously damage numbers would have to be tuned accordingly, I'm not trying to make Super Strength the most powerful melee set or anything. I just think it's a cool concept for the powerset that should definitely be considered as part of a larger rework. Even if it's conditional to something like Unleashed Might, rather than being baked into the entire set automatically.

 

I mean I still think a +DEF or just +RES buff somewhere would probably be nice in one or two attacks that you don't have to take, basically like Titan Weapons. Honestly, I kind of just would like Super Strength to work a lot like Titan Weapons without the weapon. Besides Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, the Thing, and any kind of flying or non-flying brick type character can probably parry attacks coming at them with their Super Strength as well, but you'd be better off representing that with Martial Arts, except Martial Arts has a bunch of ki stuff and doesn't have any options to throw rocks at people or anything like that. Right now you might as well just take Titan Weapons and pick a street sign or something you picked up off the street and make that your weapon, kind of like the car club Jurassik runs around with, and that would probably be the best option mechanically for a super strength character who doesn't hulk out and doesn't use energy, except you literally couldn't have Captain America use that. Everything about how Super Strength is designed is basically just "we want a powerset specifically to be Hulk, but we also don't want to be sued."

 

This seems doubly silly, because the Rage mechanic is literally just one power and lots of characters who don't use raw strength but also use weapons, energy, claws like Savage Melee, etc. could hypothetically want the Rage mechanic. Super Strength basically just isn't named Raging Strength because otherwise it would just be "it's totally not Hulk guys," even though other than the Rage power it could fit a lot of Super Strength characters, except not characters like Thor who use a weapon, or characters who are using some kind of energy or other power with their Super Strength. Honestly, I think I'd rename Super Strength something like Brute Force or Raw Strength or Sheer Strength since there are a lot of concepts that involve super strength, but I'd still make it so you can pick to have something else besides the Rage, and I'd proliferate Rage into other sets as a mutually-exclusive option, where raging would make thematic sense but they aren't brute force, with the other powerup, like how Dark Regeneration and Obscure Sustenance are mutually-exclusive for Dark Armor. 

 

Here is my character Titanosaur playing some of the beginning missions in Praetoria which is a Sonic Melee/Energy Armor character that's clearly supposed to be super strong and tough, and it isn't directly copying any particular character. It's basically a monster that is strong because it is reinforced with an energy field and it clanks around everywhere and makes shockwaves. But yeah if I wanted to do this with Super Strength and not have shockwaves I should still be able to use Energy Armor and be viable since that's also a defense-based set. My one Super Strength character right now is Bio Armor which is at least mostly a regeneration-based set but it's regeneration plus defense, as opposed to Radiation which is regeneration plus resistance, so Super Strength/Bio Armor is not a good combo mechanically either which shows that Super Strength really only works for making Hulk knockoffs and that's super specific in addition to getting them possibly sued. It really shouldn't get them possibly sued since the Hulk is basically Mr. Hyde, except Mr. Hyde would be more like Savage Melee with Rage instead of Blood Thirst, which just shows why I think Rage should be proliferated as an alternate option for any power set that isn't strictly based on finesse and agility. 

 

 

[CoeruleumBlue]

9 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Pretty sure I was in one of your other threads where someone else explained why “knock damage” isn’t a thing and would have to be created from scratch, which is either impossible or prohibitively difficult.

 

Unleashed Might is not currently available for testing, but it was in the last Open Beta patch before being reverted. It’s a very simple but elegant solution to the Rage problem. It was a mutually exclusive power choice with Rage, and functioned in much the same way, using the same enhancement categories so as not to disrupt existing builds. It was a toggle power that had no crash, and boosted damage scalars on Super Strength powers specifically. It also conditionally permitted Hand Clap to accept damage enhancements while toggled on, modifying Hand Clap from a PBAoE radial stun/knockdown to a very large forward cone attack instead.

 

In short, Unleashed Might was the solution, not changing Rage, or fundamentally redesigning the entire knockback mechanic for the benefit of a single powerset. I get why you want Super Strength to move things, but other people more knowledgeable than either of us have already explained to you why it’s not possible.

 

While I agree with most of this, I do think it's possible for Super Strength to do a little more moving of things. There's a Propel power in Gravity Control that can throw things around. I've already wanted this proliferated into a power pool with more cosmetic options like a Propel with a tornado, geyser, lava/crystal/slate stones, nuclear blast, flock of birds, school of fish, bugs, etc. particle effects instead of the particle effects around Propel, probably to replace the psionic powers in Force of Will and then move the psionic powers in Force of Will into a different set that can also have psionic melee powers. I want more sets in general to move things and I think it could be done within the engine of the game. Super Strength just already has Hurl but Hurl only hurls boulders, so they should just add a pick up and carry effect. And at the risk of people saying I'm That Person™ Champions Online has the effect, and it also uses basically just Propel as the basis of it. You can pick up items like cars, hit people with them, and also throw them in melee if your strength stat is high enough.

 

Since this engine doesn't have strength stats, I just wanted a reworking of Force of Will to have all of those abilities plus a proliferated and reskinnable Propel so any character that should have a lot of force can use that and also take a Rage-like power and a jump power, and just move the psionic powers somewhere else, preferably somewhere that also has like a mini Mind Probe and Psionic Shockwave type power and/or something like the Clairsentience pool that was proposed in another thread and which I have advocated (but I wanted the Clairsentience pool to have the mini telepathy melee type powers to go with the astral projection power in it and the sense link power I proposed to add to it.) 

 

But regardless, yeah, I think there should and could be options to pick up items besides boulders for Super Strength. Other than that, yeah, I don't even see why Super Strength should totally be about throwing things around since just punching/kicking/palming/stomping with the strength is a thing too and I don't want the set to entirely just be throwing things at people. That's too much like Titan Weapons anyway ironically, though that's basically why I think Titan Weapons basically does what Super Strength should. We already have the Fighting Pool, and lots of tanky characters already take it just for extra resistances, so ironically now if you want to be a flying or non-flying brick you should probably just take Titan Weapons and Fighting Pool, and use Fighting Pool when you want to punch or kick someone, and Titan Weapons when you want to pick up a car/rock/whatever. It has a +DEF buff, it has -RES and also -DEF, it has basically everything thematically from Super Strength except unarmed fighting, except part of the point of Super Strength is to run around picking stuff up anyway. 

 

I love melee powersets in this game, but the way they are divided conceptually right now is a mess, and I think I would largely blame the fact the Super Strength one is attempting to be not-Hulk even though that's not even the most popular strong character in comics or pulps, science fiction, fantasy, etc. in general. 

[CoeruleumBlue]

 

Here is my bug M7.ible* using Stone Melee without hammers, albeit in super early missions. How is Super Strength even good for anything besides copying the Hulk and pretending not to? Spider-Man would probably use Martial Arts since Spider-Man doesn't throw anything at anyone, hand clap, etc. Superman and Wonder Woman stoic type characters don't clap their hands and scream and rage but do throw things, so I would say Stone Melee or even Titan Weapons and use the ones where you pick up a street sign or a block of concrete or whatever and use that as your weapon. Super Strength is absolutely terrible as a generic "strength" set in general. Everyone knows the Thing is basically the Hulk without the raging and... the Thing is nearly universally built with Stone Melee without hammers, but Stone Melee without hammers works for characters who aren't made of stone or earth elementals in any way too, they just use stone to fight, because they are strong and pick it up.

 

Super Strength is basically a weird combination of Stone Melee and Sonic Melee even though Sonic Melee didn't used to exist, that randomly has Rage from D&D 5e, and literally only works to copy the Hulk but pretend you're not copying the Hulk because copyright problems. There are other characters who have a "going berserk" mode but they use things like Savage Melee, Battle Axe, Mace Melee, or Radiation Melee, but the Rage power isn't available as an alternative to Build Up etc. in general, it's literally just randomly in a set called "Super Strength" that doesn't represent the idea of super strength well at all. I do think yes, you should be able to make a character that's very closely based on Hulk without getting sued or the game getting sued because there is a such thing as "hysterical strength" and that's basically where Hulk gets his powers that don't involve being green or other really fantastical things. However, why couldn't you have claws, Rage, and a hand clap?

 

So yeah I say just totally rewrite Force of Will to include Hurl, Propel, Unbounded Leap, Clap, and Unleashed Might for all the characters who like doing rage stuff and just move the psionic powers into some kind of psionic-specific set, then all my characters who want to rage will be taken care of and all the characters who don't want to rage can just use normal power sets without Super Strength being co-opted into that. I would probably make Super Strength function like Titan Weapons honestly but then there's the question why we even have a strength punch set when characters who just have super strength pick up stuff all the time. Super Strength, Titan Weapons, and Stone Melee could probably basically be one set and lose nothing since I'm sitting here wondering why Stone Melee doesn't get any -DEF even though every other stone set does like the guy who was wondering why Sonic Melee doesn't get -RES, meanwhile Titan Weapons gets both -DEF and -RES.

 

War Mace and Battle Axe could probably also be the same as just Heavy Weapons or something since I'm wondering why War Mace doesn't get -DEF even though things like Seismic Blast and Earth Control universally include -DEF, while Battle Axe has terrible variety in skin options, and the Fire and Ice Mace option looks like a hammer and not anything like a mace and also won't give you any -DEF. Battle Axe is basically just War Mace but better mechanically but there are worse skin options and you can't match it with Arachnos maces, I say just get rid of War Mace and Battle Axe, make Heavy Weapons, use the mechanics from Battle Axe but mix Smash and Lethal damage (which should be the case for those spiky maces and a lot of the skins anyway,) and have the two animation options the same way as most blast and control sets seem to have for you to choose between where they differ. Heck, I even think the Fire and Ice Sword should have axe mechanics since Broadsword has that light "swoosh" sound and can't knock anyone over until later levels, thought at least Broadsword has -DEF, a +DEF parry for you, and some crowd control at later levels, and even Katana has that and you can make your "Katana" or "Ninja Sword" a giant chainsaw, and then knock people over with it, for some reason. Also proliferate Heavy Weapons to Stalkers, everyone wants an Arachnos mace Stalker option too. Melee in this game still seems like such a mess overall.  

 

 

*Mandible was taken but it's not letting me do M&ible even though that's super Alfred Bester-esque and cool, so M7.ible shall be M&ible because it's the character over 7, just let us use Alfred Bester style character names already...

Edited 9 hours ago by CoeruleumBlue

[Captain Citadel]

So...you want to completely redesign the Force of Will power pool now, and rip out Hand Clap and Hurl? I don't see what this has to do with the topic of removing Rage from Super Strength or otherwise fixing the Rage problem.

I'm very much against the idea that Super Strength was only ever designed to embody a Hulk fantasy. We have to remember that many of the powersets we have now did not exist when Super Strength was created, as it was a launch-era set. We didn't have things like Street Justice back then. Or Titan Weapons, for that matter. If you didn't want to use a melee weapon or some kind of elemental melee attack, your only options were Martial Arts or Super Strength. And we didn't have power customization back then either, so I'm pretty sure the only thing you could do with Martial Arts was kick people. Super Strength had to cover a lot of bases in terms of concepts and fantasy.

[PoptartsNinja]

Current Super Strength does cover one base really well:

Its values suck, so they can give it to mid-tier enemy groups without those groups being too strong.

 

But it's really kinda telling that the classic mobs with Super Strength get phased out in the mid 30s for mobs with War Mace, which was perceived (incorrectly) as the worst melee set at launch and that the set didn't reappear in the endgame (Statesman and Tyrant notwithstanding, not to mention Black Scorpion who barely counts). IIRC Statesman and Tyrant didn't even have Zeus's lightning back when they were introduced, they had to give them a second energy-damage version of Footstomp to make them somewhat dangerous.

 

Did you know Black Scorpion is the only one of the OG Super Strength AVs who had/has Rage?

 

It's +20% ToHit / +15% damage for 30 seconds on a 60 second recharge.

[Captain Citadel]

56 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Current Super Strength does cover one base really well:

Its values suck, so they can give it to mid-tier enemy groups without those groups being too strong.

 

But it's really kinda telling that the classic mobs with Super Strength get phased out in the mid 30s for mobs with War Mace, which was perceived (incorrectly) as the worst melee set at launch and that the set didn't reappear in the endgame (Statesman and Tyrant notwithstanding, not to mention Black Scorpion who barely counts). IIRC Statesman and Tyrant didn't even have Zeus's lightning back when they were introduced, they had to give them a second energy-damage version of Footstomp to make them somewhat dangerous.

 

Did you know Black Scorpion is the only one of the OG Super Strength AVs who had/has Rage?

 

It's +20% ToHit / +15% damage for 30 seconds on a 60 second recharge.

Don't Council and 5th Column werewolves have Super Strength? I know it doesn't appear as often because we don't have missions with Trolls at endgame, but it's not completely absent beyond those few AVs.

[ShardWarrior]

7 hours ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

Superman and Wonder Woman stoic type characters don't clap their hands and scream and rage

 

Hand claps are not something unique to Superman, but he is capable of them and has used them before on many occasions.

 

 

Wonder Woman has been know to let out a battle shout or two here and there as well.  😉

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Don't Council and 5th Column werewolves have Super Strength? I know it doesn't appear as often because we don't have missions with Trolls at endgame, but it's not completely absent beyond those few AVs.

Claw Swipe and Hurl. So only Hurl is from Super Strength. Claw Swipe is unique to them, since it is before Savage Melee and is not from Claws. However, the Family has the Capo Strongarm (lieutenant) from level 40-54, the Family Triggerman (lieutenant) from level 35-54, and the Prima Consigliere (boss) from level 29-54; and they use Super Strength. (I was only looking at mobs that got to level 50. They have more that fill the level gaps.) (Edit: Not to mention the Ancestor Spirits from the Tsoo levels 15-57 that all use Super Strength. I don't intend to look through everything, so I'll leave it at yes, you are correct, Super Strength does get used even in the endgame.)

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Rudra

[PoptartsNinja]

Now.

I was talking back at launch when Family topped out around level 35. Forgot about the Tsoo, though, Ancestor spirits did persist up to level 40. I also remember them being the lowest target priority of everything in the faction (back then it was definitely a game of "dogpile the Sorcerer").

Edited 1 hour ago by PoptartsNinja

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Now.

I was talking back at launch when Family topped out around level 35. Forgot about the Tsoo, though, Ancestor spirits did persist up to level 40. I also remember them being the lowest target priority of everything in the faction (back then it was definitely a game of "dogpile the Sorcerer").

Priorities for me and everyone else I played with that fought Tsoo:

 

1) Sorcerer (Gotta stop those heals or the fight just doesn't end)

2) Ancestor Spirits

3) The bosses

4) The minions

 

Edit: Expanded priorities after the group was expanded?

1) Sorcerers (Still gotta stop those heals)

2) Ancestor Spirits

3) Bosses

4) Any kineticists

5) Any other lieutenants (Chi Masters)

6) Minions

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Rudra

[Captain Citadel]

17 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

Hand claps are not something unique to Superman, but he is capable of them and has used them before on many occasions.

 

 

Wonder Woman has been know to let out a battle shout or two here and there as well.  😉

Thank you for this. I knew I had seen Superman use Hand Clap before but couldn't remember where. Rage is really the only "Hulk-like" part of Super Strength's design. And even then, only because of Rage having a crash. Bruce Banner hardly has a monopoly on Super Strength characters who get stronger or hold back less when they get angry, it's just that those characters don't tend to become powerless after they cut loose, like he does.

And that's the problem with Rage. It's basically required to get any damage out of Super Strength, and then punishes you for using it. This is why Unleashed Might was the best solution, at least before a larger rework can be undertaken. I get that Rage has to have a crash to balance out how powerful it is, but the powerset as a whole suffers immensely for being forced to take and use Rage.

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

but the powerset as a whole suffers immensely for being forced to take and use Rage.

You aren't forced to take and use Rage. I don't. The only reason I have Rage on my SS characters is because I had an empty power slot and figured it couldn't hurt to have in case of emergency.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Rudra
Edited to add mised "hurt".

[Captain Citadel]

Just now, Rudra said:

You aren't forced to take and use Rage. I don't. The only reason I have Rage on my SS characters is because I had an empty power slot and figured it couldn't to have in case of emergency.

Okay, if we're going to get pedantic about it, nobody is forced to take any power except their T1, I guess. But you know what I meant.

Super Strength suffers for having a unique type of damage buff power that is so heavily weighted as to have the majority of the powerset's damage potential tied up in it. If you don't take Build Up/Aim in the sets that have them, you're still able to get consistently good damage from those sets, because the floor is much higher. To the best of my knowledge, you can't get perma-uptime on those powers, and you certainly can't stack them. But because Rage is designed differently and can be perma'd and stacked, you need to take it and use it as much as possible if you want to have any hope of dishing out comparably high damage.

[Rudra]

4 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

But because Rage is designed differently and can be perma'd and stacked, you need to take it and use it as much as possible if you want to have any hope of dishing out comparably high damage.

That is still strictly personal opinion. Because I don't use Rage on my SS characters and they do just fine.

 

Edit: Look, I am trying to stay out of the Rage debate, but it is these hardline absolutes that get me involved.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Rudra

[Captain Citadel]

48 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That is still strictly personal opinion. Because I don't use Rage on my SS characters and they do just fine.

 

Edit: Look, I am trying to stay out of the Rage debate, but it is these hardline absolutes that get me involved.

 

It’s not my “personal opinion” that you have to use Rage and double-stack it to bring Super Strength’s damage up to the same levels as other melee damage powersets. Other people have already done the math on this, the disparity is substantial.

 

Given that Super Strength is only available on Tankers and Brutes, of course you can “do just fine” without Rage. My Tanker can only be killed by damage that doesn’t conform to standard gameplay rules, like Hamidon, or Battle Maiden’s blue patches of doom. He can stay in the fight until the sun goes out.
 

But he can’t clear any missions if I’m asleep at the keyboard because it’s taken me ages to clear a roomful of bad guys, while an almost-identical build (by which I mean without proc-bombs) using a different attack powerset has already finished it and moved on.