MajorDecoy

I actually didn't make that argument, you'll find. I made one argument with regards to Vanguard.

For the roman armour, I'd make the argument that your Roman soldier shouldn't have that particular set of armour because it's been given to you in celebration of your defeat of Imperious. Until you've defeated him, you shouldn't have it.

Now, I have no reason why you shouldn't have a different set of Roman armour.

That said, I really don't care if the armour is unlocked globally.

What time portal isn't, given the chance?

Not necessarily heroes and villains, but they did need to prove their mettle somehow.

As to the "minimum requirements to be Vanguard," What's the lowest level they spawn at?

You can create a new character (skip the tutorial) and it gets bumped to 50. Then just go to Recluse's Victory and get one of the exploration badges and you can get to Oroboros to do the first mission. You don't need enhancements for the first mission, but you definitely need them for other parts of the arc, so it's a good thing that you're also given 30 million influence or infamy.

But how can you be a Vanguard Soldier if you don't meet the minimum requirements of being a Vanguard Soldier? They don't have the budget they need to give a full set of armour and a weapon to everyone who comes up to them and says "I'd like to be a Vanguard soldier."

Your character concept would make more sense as a person in training to become a Vanguard Soldier. Something along the lines of "Susan has had enough of the damn Rikti raids, so with her assault rifle, she's going to defend the integrity of the dimensional boundaries." When her "training" is complete, she'll have a full uniform and she'll have earned the Rail Rifle she so deserves.

However, that back story still works if it's a global unlock that you first get access to at level 35.

My count was 65 (Because if Stalker Spines is counted as the "same set" as Scrapper Spines, then I don't see why I should count Ninja Blade as a different set than Katana.), but that's also saying that since Dominator secondaries are combining powers from melee sets and blast sets, and Blaster secondaries are combining powers from melee sets and control sets, we won't be counting most Dominator or Blaster secondaries as unique sets.

Your estimate of 180 is a bit too low. I'd suggest a more reasonable estimate would be in the range of 230 new powers.

And I'm aware that balancing would be a non-trivial issue. To take Invulnerability as an example, it might be easy enough to decide "Well, for a mutually exclusive power, we can offer the player a choice to take Dull Pain or a passive +25% health." Mutually exclusive powers are relatively easy to balance. They just need to offer similar bonuses but in different ways.

However, while mutually exclusive powers do increase build diversity, they leave the problem of "There's no powers I want to take at this level."

So it would be desirable to have powers that go with everything else.

In invulnerability, the two new powers that aren't mutually exclusive to other powers should be at least as desirable as Resist Physical Damage, Resist Elements, and Resist Energy. Maybe one has +5% Resist Smashing, Fire, Energy, and Toxic, the other has +5% Resist Lethal, Cold, Negative Energy, and Psionic. Each of those provides mixed +20% different resists, like the other passives, so they're comparable. But does it increase an Invulnerability Tanker's survival rate beyond the target range if she takes all the powers available in the primary?

You're arguing as if people are not cognizant of the amount of work entailed, and you're simply wrong.

We're just arguing that it's worth the effort. That right now I can take all the powers from my primary and my secondary. I don't have to weigh the options and decide if I want to sacrifice offensive powers to improve my defense. I've even got room for the fighting pool.

One of the previous "benefits" of Fiery Aura was that you really only needed to take three powers from it, your resistances are two powers, and then you have a heal. Everything else was just extra damage. It really left a lot of room in a build to take other powers you might need. Now I wonder how many people will end up taking all the powers in Fiery Aura just because there really isn't anything else to take.

Right. If they cut the game down to three powers, say Fireball on a 3 second recharge, Knock-out blow on a 4 second recharge, and an auto version of moment of glory, there would be no problems.

I like the idea of adding more powers to the primary and secondary sets, even if some of the powers are mutually exclusive. Maybe add "Muscle Density" to Super Strength that's a passive +10% to damage but you can't take Rage and Muscle Density in the same build.

I like getting fitness for free, but it does reduce build diversity, and adding more powers to the primary and secondary would increase it.

Yes, the taunt power is in the melee set, but there's all sorts of changes to the animations because you have a shield in one hand.

Use taunt without your shield, see what the animation is.

Well, with more recharge than I've got you can double stack Knock-out blow's hold.

Okay, I've got an Inv/SS tank. I regularly fight two Death Mages at a time without using my toggles. I don't use Rage and since I use Fire Mastery, I don't have focused accuracy.

I stack Knock-out blow and the hold from fire mastery to drop any toggles the Death Mages might be using.

Granted, the death mages are only level 50 because I fight them in PI, but I'm not using any of my defensive toggles and I don't use inspirations. The debuffs can be annoying, but they aren't debilitating in most cases.

I like to think that Ask A Stupid Question is still around, that it just migrated to a lot of different threads in the Suggestions forums.

This change would cause everyone to waste a good deal of endurance because we'd be activating attacks with enemies not in range. Unless you're going to have the power animate and then not cost any endurance when it discovers you're not in range.

Currently line of sight and within power range are checked simultaneously. The game would need multiple checks.

It would have to go

Activate Power
Check line of sight
Animate power
Check line of sight
Damage

Either way, I don't think it's a change that really needs to be made.

I'm tempted to edit an earlier post just to make you wrong.

I thought it was fun the way he prefaced each paragraph with "I don't know about others".
A general disclaimer at the beginning would have sufficed.

But I agree, while there's the promise of interesting play options with a more freestyle build, it would be very difficult to balance. It is not at all an easy change.

Anyway, don't use Superman as an example as a character you want to be. The number of powers he has...

Super Strength
Flight
Super Jump
Super Speed
Ice Breath
Heat Vision
Invulnerability
Super Hearing
Super Vision
Super Friction
Super Ventriloquism (Yes, really)
Super Knitting
Time Travel (Not just the movie)