Steampunkette

I'd really prefer to avoid the "One Color Per Blast" theme, myself. Even if it does make sense from the spectrum view.

It's not really a rainbow without all the colors, y'know? And with power Customization used by most of the male players picking the set up for fear of being infected with "Teh Gay" it'll make less sense, visually.

Again, I'm leaning towards the Illusion damage idea, myself. Since it would increase the sets damage dramatically, for a short duration per enemy, with a healing effect to follow. Minions and Lieutenants would die faster under the aim of the Rainbow wielder, but anything higher than that would have the option to heal the damage.

-Rachel-

Because we've already got so many that it'd be harder to get what you need on random drops than it already is.

However making PURCHASEABLE recharge enhancers would be fine by me. Go ahead and do purchaseable speed and range inspirations, too, and I'll be a gleeful happy girl.

-Rachel-

Sam's got a NEAT Suggestion!

I'd still like to work with the last one I came up with, however...

The biggest downside to capping maximum endurance is finding the middle ground. 50 points of end might be a bit low, all things considered... But I think anything higher than 65 could be too high, to be blunt. Why? End increasing Accolades and set mods.

You can get 10 extra endurance just from the accolades without an incredible fuss. In point of fact a hero can get both badges at level 1, if he caps his XP and has a friend help him farm/mish/TP to the various explorers and plaques.

So having a slightly elevated baseline of 65 turn into 75 with the potential to get higher with heavy IO slotting... I think that could work fairly well? Even with IOs in play the Stone Armor user still has endurance issues. If you ask me End issues are a far better countermeasure to overpowered armor than a speed penalty is. Especially since, even with end reduction, buffs, and +MAX End you're going to have end issues. Though it suddenly shines a bright light on Transference, though, doesn't it?

-Rachel-

It would require the Devs to maintain two separate and distinct world server farms. This is a gigantic cost for very little gain, since most Returning players would want to see the new content after a short while, which would only be found on the Present Issue servers.

It's not a horrible idea, but it's far more work and cost than it could possibly be worth, I'm afraid.

-Rachel-

Well let's look at the Toggle-Toggle idea, then. With the duplicated resistances/defense numbers.

I think the whole set should be buffed. Bar none. It's got so little defense or resistance to everything (compared to other sets) without any sort of overlap. It's endurance heavy (by virtue of a pile of toggles) and can get incredibly unwieldy to play (Rooted)

Do you think granting partial resistance and defense bonuses to ALL the toggles that currently have one or the other would be out of the question? What about increasing the Smashing/Lethal in Stone Skin? By partial I mean putting in 7.5% Defense into Brimstone and 11.25% Resistance into Rock Armor and Minerals. (Tanker Values, commensurately lower for non-tankers)

To give the armor a penalty we could give it the 90% movement rate cap debuff and un-TPable (which would just cause frustration) Or we could do something a little different.. How about a penalty to Maximum Endurance instead? That would effect recovery rates, maximum endurance expenditure, and make it really tough to use the set long-term without slowing your attacks to a crawl or popping a ton of blues. Even with end-recovery at maximum, 8% of 50 is only 4 end/second, which even the lowest cost attacks in the game eat up instantly.

-Rachel-

Well how about this alternative:

Change Granite Armor so that it applies bonuses only to the types of defenses the lower level toggles grant.

Rock Armor grants Defense to Smashing/Lethal, so have Granite stack with Rock armor and grant Smashing Lethal defense which, when combined with Rock Armor, offers Granite Armor's normal Smashing/Lethal defense levels. But not Resistance to Smashing and Lethal.

Brimstone Armor provides Resistance to Fire/Cold. So have Granite grant Fire and Cold Resistance so that, when toggled on with Brimstone, you get the same mitigation as you would resistance-wise from Granite Armor. But no Fire/Cold defense.

Same Thing for Crystal Armor. Defense to Energy/Negative energy, but no resistance to it.

That would weaken the Tier 9's defensive capabilities a bit, and superficially increase it's endurance cost, since players would need to use multiple toggles to get full mitigation, and if they didn't have a specific toggle, Brimstone for example, they'd have issues with enemies using that damage type, since Granite wouldn't provide that mitigation.

I think it would go to -All- the Mortimers, since the GMail design has been laid out. Assuming you get to have multiple names that are identical, tied to your account both tells and mail would be easy-peasy to handle since it'd just default to a global handle basis. Mind you the mail would still SAY "Mortimer Blake" rather than "@NightErrant" And the tells would go straight to the currently online Morty, assuming it wasn't cross-faction with the setting turned off (Hero to Villain)

-Rachel-

Actually, Umbral, you started out offensive. Against anyone who had a differing opinion of you. Just making that point known.

What I think Stone armor needs is a complete rework. I honestly do. I like the idea of shifting the "Infinite Sustainability" out of Granite armor by simply making granite "Another Toggle" in the set, lowering it's numbers until, slotted with SOs, it only achieves it's current level of mitigation while simultaneously applied with all other armors and toggles in the set. Why would this be such a horrible concept? You're attempting to turn a toggle into an end per second click power (with the forced detoggle). There's another suggestion floating around to force a recovery penalty so that eventually you have to detoggle it or turn it off. Wouldn't having stacking end costs do roughly the same thing, barring tons of +recovery from IO sets and teammates, which no set metrics are supposed to take into account since the metrics are all based on SOs?

The powerset up to granite basically trains you to toggle specific toggles for specific fights. Fighting a ton of fire-foes? Better have Magma on. No psi in town? Forget Minerals. As it currently stands you get to Granite, turn it on and leave it on, most of the time. Wouldn't it better fit the set's methodology to toggle Granite AND Magma, while fighting fire based enemies? It turns Granite into a "Baseline" power that you toss on with pretty much every other armor you utilize, in keeping with the set's overall design, rather than trumping and bypassing all other toggles.

In the end I'd prefer to see Granite armor remain a toggle, unique and interesting, rather than becoming just another Unstoppable or Elude. And no matter how sound the numbers are on your designs to have it shut off automatically or suck end like a starving vampire in a blood bank if it isn't the toggle that people have come to know and love, you're just going to piss off a big portion of the playerbase. Even if you buff the rest of the set to make up for the downtime of that power, you'll strip away part of what makes the set unique compared to the others: A Tier Nine Toggle.

-Rachel-

Risk:Reward:TIME

A Stone/Stone tanker might be able to go through an entire mission of +2/x8 enemies. But he's not going to earn rewards as fast as the Fire/Fire tanker or, frankly, any other build. Time is a big part of the Risk and Reward ratio. And while a Stone/Stone tanker might have awesome defenses the damage and movement penalties will certainly slow down his rewards per minute ratio. Sure there's less risk, but there's also less reward. Not per enemy, but per hour.

-Rachel-

At this point I think the problem tiers are six eight and nine.

For Eight I really like the idea of draining an opponent's vibrance and color using the Desaturation value that, currently, only comes into play during Oroboros missions, and even then only at the beginning or end of the mission.

So how about we make "Color Drain" into a targeted AoE or Cone AoE which applies a +recharge to the player and slows the targets with the chance to stun? Effectively siphoning off their vibrance to enhance your own. The more enemies in the AoE, the more the +recharge.

Prism Fall does seem to come out of the blue in a set that uses Rainbows. So how about we replace it with a ground target AoE Moderate Damage and Blind effect? Prismatic Flash could be a rainbow colored ball of light exploding in the area.

Now for the Tier 9 issue I think we need to move away from teleporting effects, as cool as I like to think they are. Instead let's go for a mini-nuke rather than a full nuke. Ground target AoE "Ultima" effect. Those of you who've played the various Final Fantasy games have seen the expanding sphere effect caused by the "Ultima" spell. How about applying that to the animation of this power with a play of rainbow colors on it.

As an added bonus of the mininuke (doing damage near to Rain of Arrows as opposed to Nova) how about having -all- the color effects apply? Or have a greater than normal chance to apply on the Tier nine?

As another interesting option, how about making -all- the attacks in the set dish out "Illusion" damage? Split the powers between energy and lethal, and apply a delay before a partial heal (like Spectral Wounds). This would replace the "Color Effect" and instead increase the overall damage of the set, making it very useful against minions and lieutenants, but less useful against Bosses, EBs, AVs, Monsters, and GMs (who generally live long enough to get the "Healing" component).

-Rachel-

Actually... I seem to remember something like this hinted at by Positron a while back. I'll go hunt up a link...

But as with the OP it would be account based name-locking, not a naming free for all.

-Rachel-

If they were to do this I think it'd be VASTLY easier to teleport to a list of unlocked locations... Perhaps use a drop down list of badge locations indexed by zone?

-Rachel-

That's exactly how it works, Bill.

5% chance of Fire DoT
5% Chance of Cold based Slow
5% Chance of Toxic -Regen
5% Chance of Dark -Acc
5% Chance of Energy Knockback/Knockdown
5% Chance of Electric -Recovery
5% Chance of Radiation -Def
5% Chance of Psi -Recharge
5% Chance of Sonic -Dam Res

Statistically speaking that means the set has only a 40% chance to have -any- secondary effect. However we've all had those wonderful anecdotal instances where multiple 5% chances lined up, whether it's a critical hit when you have a 5% chance of hitting your target or rolling 20 on a d20 fice or six times in a row. Statistical anomalies like these would definitely make up for the random nature of the secondary effect, I'd wager.

And, actually, the Nuke would be no safer than Sonic, Fire, Energy, Dark, or Rad's nuke. You still run into the middle of a group of enemies who, unless taunted or controlled in some fashion, will smack you with their en-masse alpha strike in the few moments before you put the targeting recticle down. And yes, it's a Point Blank drop for the pet with the teleport to location, not a randomized teleport.

Just need to re-envision several new powers with linking mechanisms... Though I've thought of one for the ranged Follow Up! Rainbow-Based laser Sighting! XD

-Rachel-

They did put it in their game! However it's a different engine, so it was able to work fairly well (all things considered)

The CoH Engine wouldn't support it on a Technical Level.

It's like comparing the original Doom engine to the Half Life engine. They're totally different.

-Rachel-

You're very welcome! Sorry if I seemed snippy or short. Just really didn't seem to need more than that. >.>

-Rachel-

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=178436

-Rachel-

Just reskin the Nemesis Horse a few times and there you go!

-Rachel-

Archery? Groundbreaking and Unique...? Sonic Blast? Pain Domination? Katana?

How about Willpower..? Or Earth Assault?

Most of these sets have powers in them already in the game, somewhere else. Or barring that they have pretty "Standard" powers. Pain Dom is a re-skin and slight revamp of Empathy, Earth Assault is a mashup of Stone Melee with some ranged attacks Katana is a direct reskinning of Broadsword just like Maces and Axes are almost identical. Willpower has some damage resistance, a little defense, some +HP, and regen. All of which can be found in other sets.

The rest of your argument, however, is sound. There really is no reason for these other powers to have unique or semi-unique mechanics. And I say "Unique" in the sense of "Unique to a Blast Set".

So from -that- perspective I suppose I should return to the drawing board with Rainbow blast... or at the least a few of it's powers. Anyone have any suggestions?

-Rachel-