Bosstone

Probably above average, but I'm not one of those people who IOs out scrappers to solo the ITF or anything. But I do pay attention to the game and the warnings it throws at me. When I first went after Trapdoor on my Brute, I figured out his strategy during the fight and beat him down without breaking a sweat. First time in that mission, first time in that room, seemed like a piece of cake even so. This was before I discovered that apparently half the people on the forums consider him nigh impossible.

I just don't see that he's as much trouble as people want to think. I suppose if your vocabulary doesn't include the word 'bifurcate' you'll be pretty confused, I admit, but other than that? Don't see it.

Edit: If attention to IOs is an indication of the level of the player, most of the time I'm pretty happy with SOs and common IOs, or else picking up whole sets without really thinking about the details. It's only been recently that I've started using Mids aggressively to frankenslot characters or softcap them.

Pretty easily. I intend to do it on my Cold/Ice Defender with SOs.

Aaand we're done.

Actually, the reason it only works with AR is that AR doesn't have Aim, which every other Blaster primary has. So AR/Dev gets double-shorted.

Then you understand that feedback without evidence is purely anecdotal and must be treated as such.

Arguably the Asian-influenced concepts could be, especially if you accept Johnny's limitation of Western superheroes. Still, magical girls, sentai, and tokusatsu are pretty much Japan's version of superheroes, so I don't see why they shouldn't count.

I've encountered them before, but typically only in online RPG circles where openly hermaphroditic characters were common. It's completely nonstandard and very very twee, especially when being used as presumably "polite" gender-neutral terminology. It's also wrong, given that the usage I've seen it in is specifically to refer to characters known to be neither male nor female, but not to characters whose gender is an unknown. That's always been "they."

Now please, please let's all pretend I don't possess this knowledge.

My personal interpretation of "the superhero genre" IS an anything-goes metaverse. The origin stories for established DC and Marvel superheroes are already so varied and incredible that anything we can think up pales in comparison. This is a genre that includes Superman, Martian Manhunter, Spiderman, the X-Men, Thor, Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew, the Watchmen, Camelot 3000, The Punisher, etc. etc. etc.

There is NO character you can make that isn't superhero genre-worthy. Even Bart the Blaster. Bart gains superpowers and fights crime. Huzzah.

Nurrr. That's the part I was missing when I was trying to figure it out myself. .42 x 20 is 8.4, and I forgot that was just a rounded number.

Where you're going off the rails is that since there is no decision to be made without good data, you're saying we should just do it your way. In fact, the least risky response is to do nothing different from what is currently being done.

Yeah, it seems to be weaker in all categories than Foot Stomp. But it's still a similar power, and smacking it at the end of a Power Siphon ramp-up gets great effect.

Who said anything about outperform? If I do, it's because I'm using Fire, which is disgustingly strong on its own. But you're not really getting that just because something needs work, that doesn't necessarily mean it's completely and unusably broken.

Devices fills a space the other Blaster secondaries don't. Could it fill that space better with improvements? Absolutely. Should I reroll and pick a new set? Hell no. The other secondaries can't do what I'd like them to do. Even if Devices only does that 50%, the others do it 0%.

Yes. We are all hellbent on denying that it needs work. [/deadpan]

Exactly. It could use improvement, but it's not nonfunctional. I think my '92 pickup analogy holds pretty well.

"Boss, I deserve a raise."
"No, I don't think you do."
"Prove it!"

Yeah, that'll go over well.

And "any claim to business sense" is that we need data to make a good decision. Until you have that, there is no decision to be made.

The implication is that I'm too busy using my primary to give half a damn what's in my secondary. The only reason I'm even bothering with Caltrops is to add its proc effects to the mix.

I can't remember it either. I'm too busy laying down Caltrops, Rain of Fire, and Fireball to bother with TM.

Yes.

The status quo is the status quo for a reason; in the past, that was decided that's what works. If the status quo isn't working, then a proposal to change it should be able to present good evidence for the change without breaking a sweat. If you can't give me a compelling reason to change, why should I? Just 'cuz?