Rigel_Kent

I just put Vengeance on auto.

People think I'm joking when I say that.

I've played on buff/debuff heavy teams with stacked Leadership. I've played on buff/debuff heavy teams without stacked Leadership. Both steamroll at similar speeds.

Hm, I just had an idea. Switching the self-damage on Absorb Pain from "ranged" to "melee" might do it, since defender and controller melee damage is the same. It makes thematic sense, since you're not dealing damage to yourself from far away. And it might only take 5 minutes of work.

Not in my experience, it doesn't.

Just as -tohit and +defense work differently (and thanks for reminding me of that), -resistance and +damage work differently. First, Assault is a toggle, and toggles make defenders nuke-shy. Nuke-shy defenders don't slow teams down as badly as defenders who refuse to use all nine blasts, but it is a consideration. Second, Assault has to be retoggled; that's seconds you could've spent blasting survivors. Third, while -resistance is almost always a help, +damage is easily and often hardcapped at level 38 and above. The level controllers get Fulcrum Shift just happens to be the same level defenders get their nukes, it's a coincidence but an important one!

That's why I say it's fine to leave the +damage buffing to controllers when teaming and above level 38. Yeah, Assault gives your team a bonus on paper, but in practice, you're giving up too many other things to make use of it (nukes, animation time) and not always getting any benefit (low +damage hardcap).

(Same advice applies double for corruptors, who really shouldn't be nuke-shy, and of course doesn't apply to Archery and Assault Rifle types, who are awesome with Leadership.)

A single storm or dark miasmist on a team is game breaking.

Re: Dark Miasma and Leadership

Maneuvers: Same answer as with Storm. Defender Dark Miasma soft-floors enemy to-hit without any outside help whatsoever. Against even level opponents you don't even need to slot to-hit enhancements to floor enemies.

Assault: Same answer as with Storm. Nice to have soloing and exemplaring below 38, but gets less handy the moment a controller busts out Fulcrum Shift, or the moment your nuke recharges.

Tactics: Same answer as with Storm. Good for people who want to use less slots for accuracy, not so good for ATs with nukes and retoggling issues.

Vengeance: Always great, but being forced to take Maneuvers or Tactics is rough love. Not so big a sacrifice, since Dark/Rad has more skippable powers than Storm/Dark. You can always use Maneuvers or Tactics as an IO holder.

Which is completely fair, but only if you accept the assumption that buff/debuff ability is a fair 1-to-1 trade for damage dealing ability. But that's a tough assumption to justify, since buffs and debuffs in this game are easy for any AT to softcap (+def/-tohit, -def/+tohit, mez protection), or easy for any AT to hardcap (Fulcrum Shift, slows, heals), or aren't stronger in a defender's hands (recharge/recovery/regeneration buffs/debuffs, endurance drains in PvE). That leaves very few buff or debuff types that fully benefit from the extra defender power, +resist, -resist, and -damage being the only three I can think of.

Another thing I'd toss in there is that defenders have better mez durations than corruptors and masterminds. That'd be more significant if non-controller mezzes weren't so heavily penalized, but it does help a little.

My theory on to-hit checks and interruptibility is this: you only need one or the other to provide uncertainty/randomness. Having both interruptibility and a to-hit check is overdoing it. Conclusion: Sniper blasts should be autohit--provided they're not interrupted, of course. This substantially increases the number of situations where a sniper power would be desirable. Just remember to tweak the sniper IO sets to no longer have accuracy anymore. (This logic applies to all interruptible powers on all ATs.)

Since we're on the topic of unnecessary randomness, did you know that nuke damage is highly random? There's a 75% chance of an extra "crit" hit, and a 50% chance of another extra hit. Instead, I'd rather see a little bit of the old Desperation mechanic. A blaster below 50% health will get all the ticks against all the targets, etc. (Defenders and corruptors too.)

Forge!

Siphon Power!

Summoning limits are so typical of MMORPGs, not so much in theme with comic books. Comic books are bigger, faster, more. This game should reflect that, and summoning limits don't cut it. And for a non-targetable pet that can't tank for you, there's no real game balance need for summoning limits. So if a blaster specializes in Voltaic Sentinel to have four out at once, more power to him. Pun not intended. (Defenders and corruptor VS too, along with other non-targetable pets, like Spectral Terror.)

The blaster and tanker versions both stunk. Castle's excuse for leaving the blaster version with no damage would have made sense if the blaster version got improved mez instead. It didn't, thus it seems like Castle just wanted to buff Ice Melee, not really Frozen Aura itself.

The power's so bad, there's almost no way not to improve it. If it must be a 20 second recharge single target mez--how does such a power even exist in a fast paced one-versus-many game like this?--it should at least be brought into parity with Screech. Nice debuff attached, longer (not shorter) duration since fear is worse (not better) than stun, and maybe a little bit of damage.

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Additions:

* Mental Blast's debuff duration needs to be boosted to match its lengthened recharge time. Or, along with Psionic Dart, returned to its faster-firing original version, of course.
* Will Domination. Nuff said.
* Electric Blast's low-probability super-short-duration recovery debuffs are pointless. Tesla Cage, Short Circuit, and Thunderous Blast excepted, of course. The rest should be improved to slightly longer duration debuffs in line with Ice Blast and Sonic Attack, even if it means the debuffs need to be reduced from 100%. Endmod enhancements can bring them up again, whereas currently enhancing a debuff that's already 100% base isn't much use. (Defenders and corruptors and elec melee'ers too.)
* Web Grenade's slows need to stack, otherwise enemies get a huge burst of recharge and movement speed every time you reuse it. (Same for all weirdly non-stacking slows, like Infrigidate.)
* Combustion, Lightning Field, Consume, and Hot Feet have large radiuses for PBAoEs, at least as large as Fire Ball. Their target caps should be 16 accordingly; there's no reason they should hit fewer targets just because you have to be a little closer.
* Blaster melee and PBAoE attacks and toggles should reduce their threat level. Getting into melee with that "glass cannon" that's been plinking you from a distance should become a lot less desirable to the AI if the "glass cannon" suddenly busts out a Total Focus. Getting in the scrapper's face instead doesn't sound like such a bad idea now does it? (Same for all "squishy" AT melee attacks.)

Any chance this option will be combined with the "no xp" option, so that a player can use a single setting to choose either xp or boosted inf? A player either wants to gain XP or doesn't, regardless of whether he's currently exemplaring or not.

Removing bridging also removes a nagging disincentive to finish leveling from 4X to 50. Also a good thing.

Offline global tells, including architect feedback, are saved in a similar manner as emails. Will a similar filter control be available for offline gtells?