Jabbrwock

In theory, I think that's great. In practice, not so much, because a game based on comic book concepts has to think which character types will be most attractive to players ignorant of game mechanics but inspired to play the game by its association with comic books. And Tankers are one of those high-appeal archetypes, because they are the best hero-side approximation of the traditional comic book brick. The brick is about as subtle as a runaway train. The tanker, however, requires a surprising amount of finesse to get a character who plays well.

I think most folks have reasonable expectations that Controllers and Defenders will be tricky to play, and similarly reasonable expectations that Scrappers will be pretty straightforward. It's Tankers and Blasters where players who are not familiar with the game mechanics, but only with the comics that inspired the game, are most likely to be led into picking a character who is much harder to play than they expected. Whether this is enough of an issue to warrant actually changing anything, though, is a case I'm not willing to make.

Gravity is fairly easy to fix, IMHO, with only minor Cottage Rule interference.

Switching Wormhole with Dimension Shift would make the set a lot friendlier at lower levels, for example. Power order is covered by the Cottage Rule, but I judge it a fairly minor violation compared to a complete power revamp.

Shortening the animation on Propel would be enormously helpful without violating the Cottage Rule at all. Making it a narrow cone would be even nicer, but could/would require a Cottage Rule violation by changing the sets for which it qualified.

Making Lift into an AoE knockup power centered on the target would be nice, and as long as the target still took damage, would not violate the Cottage Rule. However, Lift being placed so early in the set would never be considered a candidate for any kind of AoE control, thus, if it got this change, it would also need an order shift, and thus require a Cottage Rule waiver.

Changing Dimension Shift to be something more generally useful, while having the most severe implications as to how the set plays for people who like it now, could ironically be done without a technical violation of the Cottage Rule at all. Dimension Shift is an AoE foe intangibility power. As long as its altered form includes some form of AoE foe intangibility effect, however minor, it could be finessed as not violating the Cottage Rule - at least, not the letter. The spirit, however, would be rather seriously mauled by transforming Dimension Shift in this manner.

Basically, the literal interpretation of the Cottage Rule stands squarely athwart the most obvious buffs Gravity Control could receive *WITHOUT* making the set unrecognizable to people who like it now. To fix the set (assuming it is broken now, an argument for another time) without technically violating the Cottage Rule would require a great deal of rules lawyering, to such an extent that it would be far less harmful to just come out and say "forget it, we're ignoring the Cottage Rule for this set of changes."

That's how I see it, anyway.

Nah, my assertion was that Invuln needs IO's to do what everybody else needs IO's to do as well, and that is both WAD and WAI. I tend to get wordy when I'm posting, I guess I just like the sound of my keyboard clicking.

Where in my statement that Invuln is fine and doesn't need to be buffed do you find sufficient disagreement with your own sentiment that Invuln is excellent and doesn't need to be buffed to warrant a suggestion that I'm smoking something?

There are very few sets that actually suffer for having a snipe, and some people really like them. For some reason. I don't have to like them myself to see other people liking them as a good enough reason to keep them. It's a different issue if a set, thanks to power order or trying to do too many things, or whatever reason, actually suffers from having a snipe, but I can't think of any blast sets that are bad, but would be fine if you replaced the snipe with something else. If it's not broken, don't fix it. If it is broken, make sure that what you're planning to change will actually fix it, then fix it. Only on Dominators are the snipes truly anywhere near broken, because only on Dominators is their utility so tiny and their presence in sets when something of greater utility could be present instead so damaging.

IMHO.

while a minor issue to me (since my /Elec Brute is already level 40), I agree that this would be a large enough improvement in the set to warrant discarding the power order portion of the Cottage Rule.
If there's a single set that has been left in a state of underperformance by a misguided application of the Cottage Rule over any consideration of fixing what's broken, it's Gravity IMHO.
I don't think Kheldians are bad enough to warrant that much of a rework, but I do think that at least Peacebringers need work, and in a form that would require discarding the Cottage Rule. Warshades at least have some powers that combine well to let them take advantage of tri-form dancing.
I have to think this is nostalgia speaking. I enjoyed the days of perma-Elude on my Katana/SR Scrapper, but those days are gone, not just for my Scrapper, but for everybody. Bringing perma-Elude back would be completely broken in the game as it stands today, as would restoring Invulnerability to its pre-GDN pre-ED numbers. That's not the game anybody else gets to play today without IO slotting, and it's not a game Invuln should get to play without IO slotting either. And with IO slotting, Invuln is rugged enough to stand up with any other set.

What we're seeing here is one reason why the Cottage Rule exists at all. It's there so that the few who are happy don't have their game destroyed by the many who want change, but can play another set to get something they like anyway. Think about it - you're a Gravity Controller who loves his set. You get lots of use from Dimension Shift phasing an AV out of the way so you can clear out his assistants before engaging him mano a mano. Somebody, who could have just played an Earth or Ice or Fire Controller, lobbies the devs to instead change Gravity Control. Yeah, he's happy now. Your life sucks, though, because there is no place else for Gravity Controllers to go if Gravity Control gets "fixed".

Don't get me wrong, the Cottage Rule is way overused IMHO. Gravity Control *DOES* need help, and the structure of the powers means that they either have to be switched in order or completely reinvented, either of which breaks the Cottage Rule. But order switching really shouldn't - yeah, for the span between 18 and 26, switching Dimension Shift and Wormhole would dramatically change the set, but at 50, it's a non-issue. Putting Lift at a later level and changing it to an AoE knockup field could solve the same problem, but again, order change = bad, so no go. That's where the Cottage Rule fails.

Hmm, interesting idea. So you'd disassociate the weapon skin for Dual Blades from the combo system, and the set would be called something like "Melee Weapon - Combo" and could be chosen with any melee weapon in the game. And likewise, you'd strip the weapon skins for swords from the general purpose Katana and Broadsword power selection (no need for them to be different sets if you're not associating them with specific skins) and let people take those moves with an Axe or a War Mace if that's what they wanted. I like the idea. Even beyond the inherent Cottage Rule issues (which are actually pretty minor, since a Dual Blade skinned character using the combo melee weapon power set would be exactly like a current Dual Blade character), the manpower required to actually animate all the new moves would be enormous. But I like the idea.

The mission text that tells us we should bring friends hasn't been updated in most cases since elite bosses didn't even exist and we were guaranteed archvillains in those missions. Elite Bosses are a border case - harder than any other solo content, easier than any other team content (well, excect the abomination that is simultaneous click missions, which should be removed from the game with extreme prejudice). Most characters built with any attention at all to soloability will be able to solo most elite bosses, if they use inspirations. In situations where you can't, it's either an EB who is inherently unfriendly to your character (ie, heavy psi damage vs. Invuln) or a character who is either by power set selection or simple build choices bad at soloing.

Getting pasted by archvillains and giant monsters when you try to fight them without inspirations, IO set bonuses, or help from other players is both WAD and WAI. I don't see your argument getting much (any) traction until and unless you can show that Invuln is having difficulties facing content that is theoretically supposed to be soloable, and that those difficulties are greater than those of other sets.

I wouldn't say no to a small buff to Invuln's non-S/L resistances, I'm just not seeing an argument here that supports it. At least not in any sense that will have any credibility to the devs.

Yeah, 20% base elemental and energy resists is awfully low, even enhanceable. For some reason, I thought Unyielding was granting 20% resistances to non-S/L/Psi damage types, which would make Invulnerability reasonably rugged against all but Psi. That's where I'd put the improvement if I were gonna change things.

That said, Invuln is still a really excellent set. The combination of a solid defense base to build set bonuses from and decent resistances, and even a good max HP buff all make the set worth playing if you want a really tanky tank, warts and all.

Hey, he's a paying customer. One path to ruining a pay to play MMO is to go berserk with micro transactions so you have to pay the monthly fee and then shell out more to get the perks that make game play fun. That business model works for free MMO's, but it's dangerous for a pay to play MMO. I don't think Ninja Run is stepping across the line personally, but it's definately closer than any of the other boosters.

Fiery Aura also has excellent toxic resistance, thanks to the fact that Healing Flames stacks with itself. Even without slotting HF for resistance at all, you can get up to 45% toxic resistance with SO's. That's more than any other Brute secondary I can think of. If you expect to face lots of toxic damage, it's very nice. I'd say that needs to be included as a pro, or included as the caveat in the cons as another area where the resistances are well above average, along with Fire.

What kept him was the fact that the other boosters were pure luxury items, that offered pretty much only aesthetic benefit. Ninja Run is an awesome quality of life improvement at low levels. No longer worry about outlasting your temp power jetpacks, no longer tied to the relatively glacial pace and weak vertical movement of Sprint, the lower levels are far more bearable.

I don't care, if I start to get jealous, I can buy the booster pack. If it becomes the standard for super boosters to offer quality of life improvements at this level over what you get for your monthly fee, though, I might start to care. At that point, it's not just giving cool stuff to booster buyers, it's holding back cool stuff from existing paying customers to try and squeeze mroe money out of them. But this is the first strike in my book, I'm not gonna get all upset about it. If the ratio stays at 1 serious upgrade out of 4 boosters, and regular subscribers keep on getting cool stuff as well, I'll stay happy. And if it doesn't, well, I still have a WoW account I can reactivate with a guild full of folks I'll be happy to play with, and it would be far from the first time I unsubbed from CoX because the devs annoyed me badly.

Haven't we already had this conversation in this very thread?

Oh, yeah, we have. Great.

Get over yourself. It's a big game, and there's room for power gamers and casuals alike. And while we're at it, can we stop with the straw man ad-hominem attacks suggesting that the other side is somehow morally inferior for enjoying the game enough to spend time thinking about it? Seriously, if I wanted a debate on that level I'd read a political blog or listen to talk radio. Oddly, I hold higher hopes for actual honest discussion instead of snide remarks about the other side from a discussion of a videogame.

Not arguing your core point, but dropping from 95% to 90% hit rate isn't anywhere near cutting your damage in half.

I do agree that purples are worth it. What else are you going to do with your pretend money?

Another issue is the bizarre imbalance of defense inspirations vs. resistance inspirations, which makes it easy to soft cap a moderate defense build, and borderline impossible to soft cap a moderate resistance build. Also the fact that most AT's cap at 75% resistance, which is comparable to about 37.5% defense, while all AT's cap at 45% defense.

But really, when discussing Tankers, your core point is right - the superior of defense as a concept is an illusion created by the abundance of defense based pool powers and set bonuses. Defense and resistance both improve exponentially as they approach their respective caps, which for Tankers provide equivalent mitigation - but there's a lot more defense flying around to help you reach that point.

On the other hand, there's enough defense flying around for a resistance based character to get a substantial layer of defense - even soft capped defense to 1 or 2 positions, if he pleases, on top of his resistance. Such a character will be *VASTLY* tougher than a defense based character, because there's just not enough resistance out there for a defense based character to get any meaningful additional mitigation out of it.

Hmm. Well, I think I'll still give Ice Control a spin. I've got a hankering to play Ice/Fire. We'll see how it works out.

I just see this as a completely arbitrary balance point. I could elaborate, but really, that's the whole point - you're arguing for a limitation without establishing any need for a limitation. It will rarely be important - as I mentioned, the most obvious case to me is a Rad/Rad Defender whose team needs healing even with his buffs and debuffs in place. But rarely important still trumps never necessary, and I have seen no serious evidence in all of this that this kind of limitation will improve the game or the Defender Archetype in any way.

I notice you didn't mention Ice Control at all. It seems to get forgotten a lot - or is it just a set whose problems outweigh its virtues?

Yes. And by default it lasts 60 seconds on a 40 second cooldown. Which means when slotted for max healing (ie, healing and recharge), it gives 20 toxic resistance for 60 seconds every 20 seconds, aka 60 toxic resistance. I don't know of any other tanker primary that can stack its toxic resistance that high without using long, unsustainable cooldowns.

Note: yes, I'm aware that it's something like 19 seconds of 60 toxic resistance followed by 1 second of 40 toxic resistance. It's still a ton.

The rest of Traps being awesome does not bring Time Bomb up to the level of even being terrible.

Just goes to show that a set can be awesome even if it has a sub-terrible power in it.

Or possibly typo, and he meant Time Bomb, which actually *IS* an awful power for nearly every situation.