Umbral

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While the PPPs are balanced for their ATs and serviceable, it doesn't make sense that after side switching, the villains, who are now heroes, are going to go back to the Arachnos patrons and be like, "Hey, teach me more cool powers with which I can use against you in the very near future."

Ancillary pools make a bit more sense, since in theory they are just newly learned powers, I could get a heroe in the isles learning additional powers. The patron pools, not so much.

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I'm actually kind of curious how they'll handle this issue. My money is on the devs simply removing the patron arc completion requirement from the PPPs, at which point they're simply using tricks they've learned from watching other villains and any patron pets they get are simply beaten into being good guys or have switched sides as well and decided to follow this villain.

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going into semantics a bit myself, i never said I broke 300...i said I pushed it.

now, I have a constant 25.5 damage buff, and 102.5% rech with hasten, and a 28sec downtime with it, but lets not focus on that, because the fight should be over in most cases before hasten goes away.

my chain is Charged brawl-> Charged Bolt-> Lightning Bolt-> Charged Brawl.

If I cast Voltaic sentinel before the battle (and after hasten goes off) I end up with this:

243.1 + (141.6 x 1.055) + (232.3 x 1.121) + (243.1 x 1.231) + (141.6 x 1.286) + (232.3 x 1.352) + (243.1 x 1.462) + (141.6 x 1.517) + (232.3 x (1.583 - .055)) + ((243.1 x 1.638)/1.205) = 2703.95(1.205)= 3258.26 / 12.8 = 254.55 + 33.18 = 287.73

that is whithin the Sparky buff, and at teh end Sparky's DPS is simply added, as it is not truly a part of my attack chain, but an additional source.

Afte rthe sparky buff is gone, it averages out, possibly losing 2-3 dps. as shown on the ranged damage chain here, after the sparky buff is gone, the chain continues for a minute until i need to resummon sparky, which will provide a large defiance buff of itself, and only result in a small loss of DPS, followed by a gain due to the buff (coupled with existing defiance boosts from previous attacks, which will still be active during the cast, and affec the possible next 1-2 attacks, coupled witha sparky attack)

EDIT: Jad, is your next toon an Elec3? or just a blaster?

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You've got a pretty big problem with your math. You're using Defiance as an end multiplier to all of your attacks rather than an additive value to your existing +dam numbers. If you were doing it right, you would actually be doing a substantially smaller quantity of damage (which, if you actually paid attention in game, you'd probably realize because the numbers you experienced wouldn't be the numbers you calculated).

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That theory doesn't work so well for all the other pets.

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It doesn't work well for the VEATs either, but do you really think that they're going to completely change the name of the AT to account for those who change sides because they're no longer in Arachnos?

Honestly, I doubt there will be any change to the PPP/APP system. The pools are, in and of themselves, balanced around the ATs they belong too. Creating entirely new PPP/APPs to account for villains that switch sides would be an exercise in redundancy since there are already perfectly serviceable and presumably balanced PPPs to work with. The only problems that really exist are, potentially, the pets, though, it's not entirely out of the question that you brought along or found an individual of the kind that changed sides to work with you.

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I use Open Office myself. I like Excel better, but I'm cheap.

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Same here.

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Somehow I think sets based around resisting toxic damage are somewhat gamebreaking, which I'm guessing is why we don't have a set of that type in the game (correct me if I'm wrong). All other damage types are relatively easy to defend/resist against via the right invention set bonuses. Toxic, however, can only be resisted when completing entire purple sets. Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe the devs want to keep toxic as a damage type that can bypass most players' resistances (like acid) and thusly keeping the game challenging.

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Most of the in-set self heal powers also have a +res(tox) component. Healing Flames, Reconstruction, Hoarfrost, and Earth's Embrace all grant toxic resist. Invincibility gets toxic resist from Unyielding and Resist Elements. Energy Aura gets some from Energy Protection. Electric Armor gets a substantial quantity from Power Surge. Shield gets some from True Grit and One with the Shield. Dark Armor gets some from Dark Embrace. Willpower gets some from Strength of Will. Every self-survival set except for Super Reflexes gets some manner of Toxic resist at some point (and even */SR gets some from its scaling resists). The big point is that toxic resistance isn't particularly common but toxic damage isn't particularly common either. Very few enemies actually deal toxic damage (some Vahz, some Arachnos, Hydra; are there any others?) and only Hydra have it as a significant portion of their damage.

Des, no powers grant mez protection in PvP (except for a few that still grant KB protection). It's all resistance. That's one of the big changes that occurred with the I13 PvP changes. The interesting thing about this is that you can't be perma held. Diminishing returns sets in on mez effects rather quickly making holds after the first that lands virtually unnoticeable.

Obsidian Shield is still fully viable just like all of the other mez toggles for Scrappers. Also, remember that, like all of the other mez toggles for Scrappers, it also gives a very impressive suite of debuff resistances in PvP.

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Well i guess I'm not the only ignorant one...

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Those sites aren't ignorant. You're just the only one reading in that it has to be in a single second period. When they're refering to axes dealing 56.3 DPS, they're not talking about the axe attacking and dealing 56.3 damage every second. They're talking about an axe that deals 129.5 damage in one attack every 2.3 seconds. It's damage per second in the same way that we measure population density in people per square mile. You don't have exactly 2,000 people every square mile. You have 20,000 living in 10 square miles, which averages out to 2,000 people every square mile. You're reading all of that wrong.

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Show me an attack, or a whole CHAIN of attacks, which can be COMPLETED WITHIN A SECOND (that does over 300 damage, to boot), and I'll shush up about it =)

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Interestingly enough, I can easily find something that fits the bill for this. Slot either Energy Punch or Charged Brawl with 5 piece Hecatomb (all but Hecaam) and the Mako's Bite proc. That's 89.92% +dam from slotting and and extra 14.4 and 35.3 damage from procs. Factor in 40% +dam from Defiance and you'll end up with 129.92% +dam total. With a base damage of 109, you'll end up with 250.61 damage. Add in the procs and you'll get 300.31 damage with a single attack (re: not within the confines of an attack string, which means you don't have to include the +1 clock interval to account for starting the next attack) with an animation time of .924 seconds. That's just over 300 damage under 1 second. Now, even if you don't want to read everything else I've written to demonstrate you're ignorance of terms and their appropriateness, you can "shush up about it".

Are there any recharge slots in the powers or are you going 2 acc, 3 dam, 1 endredux? It would be easier if you simply said what you were slotting in all of the slots rather than just saying what you did with one of them.

No matter which slotting method you go with, you're not going to get a seamless attack chain with so little +recharge. That's one of the primary pitfalls of the low levels. You're just going to have to work around the waiting periods and learn to use with a priority list: Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Crippling Axe Kick, then Thunder Kick.

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I'm just going to argue semantics: the S in "DPS" stands for "second" as far as i'm aware.

Show me an attack, or a whole CHAIN of attacks, which can be COMPLETED WITHIN A SECOND (that does over 300 damage, to boot), and I'll shush up about it =)

In the meantime, make up another term to adequately describe what's being talked about.

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It's Damage per Second, not Damage in a Second. No matter how you try to semantically argue that you're right, you're wrong. The entire point of the term is that it is an averaged value across an extended time frame using a smaller unit to display the average contribution over a longer period of time. If you've got a problem with how DPS is used, then you've also got a problem with how recovery and regeneration operate as well since, they don't actually operate within a second as would be suggested by their read outs (end/sec and hp/sec, respectively). Base Regeneration is actually a single tick of healing for 5% of max health once every 12 seconds. That's not hp/sec, but that's how we see it. Endurance works the exact same way but with more, smaller ticks that are still percentage based.

It's the same reason why pressure is often measured in lbs/ft^2 or rain is measured in inches over an area rather than in a more discrete and specific measurement. I have yet to see any game that uses the term DPS (or any *PS) as a tool for measurement that specifically measures for a single second rather than the average contribution over the number of seconds that took place.

If you want to argue semantics, at least try to make your argument founded on something more solid than weak supposition and ignorance.

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In terms of the retributive damage--I half envisioned it spawning a pet when struck (which the game does keep track of). It's not reflected damage so much as a damaging pet that spawns when struck. If the game engine doesn't keep track of that, it does keep track of whether an enemy attempts to attack with melee powers, and so I could theoretically see acid blood as viable, even though it's likely highly unfeasible.

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I'm not entirely sure it's possible for reactive systems such as you're envisioning to actually occur, elsewise I'm pretty sure that we'd actually have seen them already. The big problem I see is that, even if you did envision it summoning a pet (that either does an AoE or randomly targeted single target attack), I don't believe that the game is capable of spawning a pet in the manner you envision. Toggles aren't activated modes. They're auto-recast short duration, non-stacking effects. The few powers that are activated modes don't have static benefits for those modes. Instead, they are simply flags that certain powers check for when activating and determining their own effects. It's not possible for a power to react to another power. There isn't a mechanic set up for it in game. All that's possible is for a power to set up a flag that will activate a predetermined effect within a later power, though the effect will use the attributes of the latter power to determine effectiveness (+dam, +acc, level, etc).

The closest you will probably get is making the power itself a damage aura that deals more damage the lower the user's health is. This would probably be accomplished by having it check certain levels of hp (if HP < 100%, 8 toxic damage; if HP < 80%, 4 toxic damage; if HP < 60%, 4 toxic damage; etc) to deal additional ticks of damage the lower the total hp is.

I'd probably redesign the power to be a bit like Oppressive Gloom except that it deals damage rather than stunning the target. Have it cost almost nothing (.125 end/sec), deal a small amount of buff & enhancement ignorant damage (~3 hp/sec), and every 2 seconds deal damage depending on how low your health is. Of course, the primary problem of this would be that it encourages playing at lower levels of health (re: Blaster Defiance problem), but it is a bit thematic simply because you should be bleeding more, and therefore getting more blood on your nearby enemies, when you are at low health. Of course, considering that it's for a tougher AT that is going to have a native heal (Dull Pain clone or not, it's still a heal), this might not be as big of an issue. I'd be curious to see where Castle would put the damage for it, considering how self inflicted damage seems to completely throw off balance equations (re: Energy Transfer and Oppressive Gloom are way better than their recharge and endurance costs would make them seem and the self inflicted damage on those is nearly unnoticeable).

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The choke and vomit would be a very powerful tool--I was originally picturing it as a clicky, but some comments made by others inferred that it wouldn't be useful enough in clicky format, so I should start with something a bit overpowered and then use the forum suggestions to try to bring it down to a more reasonable level.

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Too bad that thought process tends to get you lynched around here, especially considering the "inordinately expensive toggle for inordinately powerful buff" design concept got hurled out the window with the repeated Instant Healing nerfs. Endurance costs are remarkably easy to work around (especially since end redux acts upon them more powerfully than for other powers) meaning that it would be a toggle that is left on at all times, making the user virtually unkillable because everything is choking/vomiting, allowing the player to attack unmolested (which would be horribly broken) or the cost would be so high that no one takes it because it's too expensive because it's so powerful.

You're better off just starting it off as a rather weak power. My suggestion would be to model it off of Moment of Glory, which actually serves largely the same purpose as the effect you want (emergency power that makes you unkillable for a short period of time). MoG accomplishes this by having stupidly high defense and resistances for a short period. Yours would accomplish this by generating a largely unresistable mez effect upon all targets close by. Have the effect last 10 seconds with a 200 sec recharge (MoG gets slightly better uptime because it takes so long to animate and has the psy hole).

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The set's weakness is the lack of melee defense coupled with overall low damage resistance (fire/cold/energy etc resistance all come from passive powers).

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The problem with this is that you're not making it particularly weak. You're actually making it remarkably strong because 1. Dull Pain actually has a remarkably potent mitigation value (SO mitigation is roughly 25% over time) and 2. you're mixing you're mitigation mechanics. The set is getting a long recharge, but still very substantial self heal, a diverse suite of resistances, a very powerful survival tool with no negative side effect as a tier 9, and defense. Specializing in a specific mode of survivability is actually quite weak. That's why */SR was quite weak before it got the scaling resistance to prop it up and still is if you don't have a self heal to prop it up a bit. It's also why */Willpower, which doesn't have particularly impressive mitigation in any particular area, is so friggin' hard to kill. Diverse mitigation methods actually act upon each other to such a degree that it becomes much harder to kill over a larger number of situations.

Well, first things first, Acid Blood isn't actually possible within the confines of the game engine. We've been specifically told this by either BABs or Castle (can't remember which), but they've specifically told us that retributive damage isn't possible within the confines of what the game can do. There also isn't damage debuff resistance or resistance debuff resistance thanks to how the powers themselves are coded. Damage and resistance debuffs are resisted by your own resistance to those damage types. 50% +res(fire) will not only allow you to resist 50% of incoming fire damage, but also allow you to resist 50% of incoming -res(fire) and 50% of incoming -dam(fire). That's how the game works it.

Secondly, you're giving the set mez resistance but not protection. Is that on purpose or do you just not realize the difference between the two? Mez resistance reduces the duration of effects and mez protection prevents the effect from happening. Also, you're missing any kind of stun protection or resistance. Is this purposeful?

As to the attacks, I really can't see anything wrong with them, but that's because you haven't really included any numbers to go along with them. It could be balanced but it could be horribly imbalanced depending on how the numbers are assigned, especially considering you're wanting the set to run around with -res (which, as we see from Sonic Blast's example, means that you'll have to pay for it with lower base damage). Keep in mind that DPA is much more important than outright damage. I would be very nervous about giving a melee set the Choke and Vomit capabilities of Poison Trap. Nothing can resist it (as it's a forced animation rather than an actual effect), which means that it's going to be pretty powerful. You'd be better served by instead aiming for a specific mez effect like Sleep, Hold, or Stun instead.

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continues to function when you are mezzed

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Acrobatics doesn't shut off whenever you are mezzed either, just so you know.

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Most attacks take well OVER a second to cast and animate. Therefore, if you wanted a power that did 300 damage per second, you'd have to have a power that does like 600 damage.

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I just helped a Blaster on the Scrapper forums (weird, right?) and, with the slotting I recommended for him, Blaze was pushing 364.4 DPA (including Arcanatime) without any Defiance +dam incorporated. Bone Smasher and Energy Punch (which actually have the same numbers as Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch except that they deal stun instead of sleep) managed 234.5 and 188.8 DPA, respectively, similarly. The really interesting thing was that the build it was in was not a damage build. It was a survivability build. If outside mitigation could be counted on and the budget was unlimited, I'm easily sure that I could easily pull over 300 DPS with a Blaster attack chain simply because there are so many attacks that Blasters have available that have DPA that blows everyone else's out of the water.

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0%.

Every bit of defense helps, so Weave by itself will help without any other defense. As a DM, your attacks also do tohit debuffs, so in fact you've got more "defense" than you'd believe against the foe(s) you're hitting, through tohit debuffs.

That being said, an effective difference isn't always obvious. With nothing but unslotted CJ (which is half as much as Weave), I've seen deflected messages pop up about once every two missions on average. The general consensus on the topic is usually that you need about 20-25% total defense for it to make a noticeable difference.

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It's actually a bit more complicated than this. The reason that many people among the number crunchers don't advocate taking +def unless you're taking a lot of +def if you're playing */regen is that what kills */regen is less often damage over a long time and more often damage within a very small window of time. Small amounts of defense do remarkably little to reduce the amount of damage taken within a small window of time (over time it will, but regen does quite well over time) because their effect upon the chance to hit is so minor.

However, if you actually stack up to having a significant amount of defense, you'll be much more survivable because, while small amounts of defense don't largely effect survivability within a small time frame, large amounts of defense do. This would allow you to refrain from using Reconstruction, which is generally used pretty soon after it recharges in high damage situations, for times when you are actually hit and need to heal up quickly before having your passive defenses take over again.

The short answer is that, for sets like */regen that are weak to large amounts of damage within a short period of time (this includes defense based sets interestingly enough), having only a small amount of defense does very little. Having lots of defense (20%+ is generally a good point to work with) will actually contribute noticeably to your survivability.

First off, a bit of build critique. The arch/nrg build would actually benefit from some better late game slotting. You're slotting of Surveillance does pretty much nothing for you, considering that the -def is rather pointless, it's already pretty accurate, and the set bonus you're getting is actually above cap. You'd be better off just putting in 2 recharge IOs.

The attack chain depends on whether you're looking for an all ranged attack chain (which is likely because you're packing softcapped ranged def) or an "anything goes" attack chain.

Your arch/nrg build is actually really lightly slotted on recharge for the attacks, which means that you can't run the Blazing>Snap>Aimed>Snap attack string (which is pretty much it for Arch) for single target DPS. To run that, you need 137%, +recharge in it and you've only got 118% in it. If you really wanted to you could always switch out the slotting in Blazing Arrow out for 5 set Apocalypse (all but Apocam), drop the extra slot into Maneuvers for the LotGef, and switch out Steadfast Protection: KB prot for the Gladiator's 3% +def IO. You'd have 45.3% +def(ranged), better damage from Blazing Arrow, and actually have the recharge to run the full ranged ST attack string seamlessly.

If you're aiming for anything goes (at which point you'd want to switch the slotting in Bone Smasher for the slotting in Energy Punch because Energy Punch is actually better DPA, or just give Energy Punch and Bone Smasher the same slotting), you're better off just ignoring any semblance of an attack string and simply going with a priority list: Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Blazing Arrow, Snap Shot, then Aimed Shot. You'll lose a bit, but it's much simpler than the attack string I started making for you which included numerous waiting periods because you just don't have much recharge to actually make a decent, tolerable attack string.

Moving on to the fire/nrg build, I'll start off with the build critiques. First off, Energy Punch is better than Bone Smasher. It's got better DPA and recharges faster. If you're going to skip one of the two, skip Bone Smasher. Secondly, remember that you can run Hover and Combat Jumping simultaneously. If you do so, your build manages 47.1 +def(ranged), which would allow you to get rid of Blazing Bolt, replace it with Bone Smasher (for a better anything goes attack string), drop a couple slots from Health (End/Rech and Heal/End/Rech) to put another slot into CJ or Hover for an LotG +rech and a 6th slot into Bone Smasher. Needless to say, Bone Smasher would be getting 6 piece Mako's Bite. Of course, you could always drop the Steadfast Protection: KB Prot from Charge Armor for the Gladiator's 3% +def IO, replace Blaze's slotting with 5 piece Apocalypse (all but Apocam), and drop the remaining slot into Hover or CJ (whichever one you didn't put it into in the first place) for the LotGef IO. Build optimization is fun because it's a really complicated system!

As to attack strings, Fire Blast suffers from the rare problem of having attacks that are too fast for their recharges, which means that, you're going to have gaps when you use a purely ranged attack string unless you start dropping in AoEs, which will eat your end efficiency like nobody's business. Blaze>Flares>Fire Ball>Flares>Fire Blast>Blaze>Flares>Fire Blast>Flares>wait is probably going to be the best you get for all ranged. For melee, if you switch out Blazing Bolt and Bone Smasher for Bone Smasher and Energy Punch like I suggested, you would be best using Blaze>Flares>EP>Flares>BS>Blaze> Flares>EP>Flares>wait.

As to how to calculate DPS (for attack strings), it's a bit more complicated for Blasters than it is for Scrappers because Blasters, in order to get the most accurate numbers possible, have to calculate Defiance, which is a bit complicated. The simple way is to simply figure out which attacks in the attack string benefit from each quantity of Defiance for each attack. Total that up and add it to the +dam from slotting and other values. Add one to that number and multiply it by the base damage of the power. Add in any proc damage values after calculating +dam benefits (procs don't benefit from +dam). Once you've calculated how much damage each individual increment of the attack string is going to deal (spread sheets make this much easier), total it up and then divide it by the total amount of time that the attack string takes up. That's your DPS (sometimes multiplied by .95 to account for miss chance). Of course, when you start bringing in even more variables like Surveillance, Aim, and Build Up (which eats up animation time taken by attacks but makes all of your attacks deal more damage), it gets a bit more complicated, but it's generally alright to simply ignore the animation time taken up from the attack string and simply calculate the average contribution over time (duration/(animation time + recharge time) * base contribution) and add that value to wherever it's appropriate (+dam should be added with all of the other +dam values, -res should be done as a final multiplier after totaling all other -res values).

Edit: 4000th post is an awesomely complex wall of text! Go me!

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It's scaled down to AV level in the TF.

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It's actually a "Monster" which is actually stronger than an AV. AV is balanced around a 6 person team whereas Monster is balanced around an 8 man team. Because of this, Jurassik from the Numina TF is actually slightly harder than if he were an AV. The Crystal Titan and a number of other ginormous enemies that spawn in late game missions are Monster rank rather than AV.

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I'll reply, "Well, I don't want it to take forever, and I'd love to beat my best time of 1:24, but it'll go as fast as the team can."

I usually get them onto my teams anyways, even when they want to go for speed.

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My general method is telling them to kill as we go, not skip any mobs, and take out the ambushes. Of course, even when I tell the group this, there is always the one person that doesn't care what the rest of the group wants and runs around trying to speed the TF and virtually guarantees that he's going to be lying around after biting it, waiting for the group to catch up, because s/he wanted to Speed the TF no matter what the group wants.

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Know why people ran Eden before merits? (And after issue 1, when we got to 50 instead of 40...)

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Do you mean "before recipes rewards" there? Before merits but after recipe rewards were introduced people ran it like crazy because it was the fastest recipe reward in the game by a substantial margin.

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A cool, unique map and it's just *fun,* especially with hordes of crystal warriors attacking you. And it's *still* the reason some run it.

Oh, no, nobody wants to run it in 15 minutes? That's not a bad thing, to me. Eden's far from worthless if you're looking for, oh, *fun.* I know, crazy thing to expect from a game, huh.

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Bill, did you not see the point where I said that everyone wanting to run speed ITFs was a problem? I love running all kinds of TFs and Trials, not just the time-to-reward efficient ones. I was one of the people that ran the Eden trial numerous times back in the day before recipe rewards were added for the exact reasons you give. I ran the Shadow Shard TFs back then too because they were fun, even after I'd already gotten the souvenirs (before the badges were introduced). I wasn't espousing Speed running or lamenting the loss of KHTF and Speeden runs. I was pointing out that "Fast Katies" and "Speedens" aren't really done by people any more, they've been replaced by "Speed ITFs".

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No more "Fast Katies" or "Speedens", please. If I should be so blessed as to get 10 /tells asking me to join S/TF teams every night, I'd like them to be different ones, not the same one or two over and over and over and over and... *twitch*

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You won't really find many people running Speedens or KHTFs nowadays. The merit system made the Eden trial worthless except for the badge if you're not going to run it in 15 minutes, and, even then, you're still going to have a hard time finding a team because most people don't think that it's actually worth what little time it takes. The same applies for the KHTF, to a lesser degree.

The problem I have is that most people want to run Speed ITFs nowadays. I'd normally have no problem with this except that 90% of the teams I've been on are in no way actually set up to run the ITF in the appropriate speed manner. I've got no problem actually running a speed ITF if the team is actually built around that specifically (re: 2 kins, 4 shield toons, 2 melee, teams knows how to split into 2 groups effectively), but, if it's a bunch of random people that have been picked up that think it's the new KHTF and run it with about as much knowledge of the game, then it pretty much shaves five minutes off of the time for a normal run, with more deaths and fewer drops, which isn't really worth it imo.

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Yes we all know this. This is because fire has ZERO mitigation, outside of killing fast. And its the way it will most likely stay, and should for good reason.

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The reasons I think it won't stay like that is because, if you actually check out how Castle balanced Fire Melee, he didn't give it any attacks that are outrageously better than their counterparts in other sets. What he did was make Fire a top contender at both single target and AoE damage, something that no other set really does because those sets always give up either one or the other for the mitigation capability. As it stands, Fire is absolutely better at ST damage (largely because of Blaze) and a top contender at AoE damage (only AR can really compete exclusively within set).

The "no mitigation, better damage" argument only extends so far, especially when it's a single mitigation power that's being given up and the secondary effect that is supposed to be the reason why the attacks have better DPA is taken out. Losing a power that most people skip from their primary anyway (and isn't even all that major because there are still a some attainable through secondary power sets) isn't an excuse for the set to rule the school at all forms of damage output.

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Um... 20 seconds? its recharge is 12 seconds dude. Youre thinking of BFR.

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Yeah, my bad. Misread the CoD table. >.< It's still legitimate to point out that BIB has a higher base recharge than the others to account for its higher DPA, especially considering that every other tier 3 blast (except Shout with it's recharge of 11 seconds, which is arguably the worst tier 3 blast out there) has a recharge of 10 seconds.

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This, in my humble opinion, was the major issue with Jack Emmert.

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The man didn't know what game balance was (and still doesn't from what I've seen of CO). That was the main problem. I don't think people really had a problem with his vision of the game world (which I think was actually quite interesting). People had a problem with his vision of how the game should be played (re: 1 hero, 3 minions) and how he tried to force this vision on the players.

Personally, I blame this on the fact that his only real game design credits were for White Wolf games, where balance generally takes several back seats to story and campaign world (which is why so many powers were so wonderfully borkedly over/underpowered back in the day). I'm honestly much more enthused that our current devs seem to be greater fans of more balance based PnP games than more story oriented ones. You can easily have a great story within a heavily balanced game, but it's hard to have a really fun game when every challenge is meaningless because the game is so unbalanced (unless you're there for the roleplaying rather than the gaming).

Personally, I've always found it to be the most skippable of the 5 Hecatomb IOs. The entire set is already packing enough +dam that any contribution from it is going to be eaten by ED.

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The recharge cap is 400%.

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+400%. +.

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Yeah, can't believe I forgot to include that. >.<

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Depends on the buff/debuf. Autonomous buffs and debuffs, perhaps, but toggle buffs and debuffs have to track where they're coming from so that they can turn off if the originator turns off the power for any reason (e.g, Radiation Infection vs. Lingering Radiation -- RI has to be able to turn off when the caster stops paying End for the toggle, but LR is a click power and continues once cast until its duration expires).

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I'm pretty sure you've got that wrong. The toggles are recast by the originator whenever the endurance is deducted, not removed whenever the caster stops. This is why toggle powers have fast activation times and short durations. The originator is simply recasting the effect either at the target or centered on the target every activation period. The game don't actually notice any difference between a toggle power hitting you and a click power hitting you. It just knows that you got hit by a power and that it has this duration.